duane

Hi, "Which is 3 complete crank revolutions a second. I'm not sure that's possible even on rollers..." You can't ever have raced as a 3rd category senior in a criterion involving juniors and resticted gearing ( I was c**p at them, hence my long ago expired 3rd category license. 180 RPM is very possible, try it next time you are in a gym with a 'lifecycle' machine that shows your RPM. With regards to the speeds possible on the flat, I have read of record attempts slipstreaming race cars with aerodynamic devices designed to create a great big hole in the air for the rider to sit in, there was an attempt on the M1 motorway when it was first built, from memory they didnt get the record for two reasons, firstly the car couldnt go fast enough with all the aerodynamic devices and secondly even the very shallow curves of a motorway were a bit alarming on a bicycle at close to 90 MPH, to get that speed on the bike the gearing is so high that the bike has to be towed upto speed at the start. Heres a link that might shed some credibility on those of us claiming a mere 62 MPH, http://www.canosoarus.com/08LSRbicycle/LSR%20Bike01.htm Interesting to see that someone managed 60 on the flat at the turn of the century too. Enjoy, Duane.

Its a long time since I have been that fast on a bike, but your right the bike does start to get very light, don't know if its to do with the limited suspension and contact patch of a bicycle tyres or if its areodynamic lift. Whichever it is its never going to be a problem for me and my base.

Hi, I used to have no trouble hitting 52mph on my road bike down long steep welsh hillsides. If there were two of us taking turns to slipstream with one of us in front already doing 52, you could sprint out of the slipstream and get up towards 62 for a short while. Most road racing bikes have a high gear that is rated over 120 inches, that means the equivalent of a fixed wheel 10ft high. With each pedal turn you cover 31.4 feet or around 10 meters so to hit 100kmh which is more or less 62 mph you need to be pedal 10,000 times an hour which is a very manageable 166 times a minute. I say its manageable, you need to be very strong to push all that air out of the way and you won't manage it for much more than a minute, but track sprinters would get well above 166RPM with a smaller geared fixed wheel bike to hit around 48 mph on the flat, watch it sometime, its where track standing came from, stationary to 48mph on a fixed wheel bike, the guys that do it are built like tanks. The track standing comes from trying to get the other guy to move first so that you can sit in his slipstream before sprinting out from behind and taking the race at the line. Now that I have a trials bike I dream of someday hitting 16 miles and hour, Duane.

Hi I have been doing some more thinking about this and two points stand out, one has already been made which is that trials needs to flow more to appeal to a TV audience. You might remember the free running film that channel 4 showed a few years ago after all the interest in free running that an advert created. The whole appeal of the advert and the film was that the whole thing flowed visually and with the music, it also encorporated recognisable land marks which helps to keep people interested. The other point which occured to me is that its extreme sport channel and most others do not generate thier own content instead they comission content from production companies or a production company comes to them and pitches concepts which they want the channel to invest in. You would be better off targetting production companies, next time you see a show on extreme sports channel, check out the credits to see who the production company is. I was in Ireland recently and I saw a show about 'Autotests', this is a very minority interest sport where people in modified mini's race one at a time around cones in empty car parks. Whoever the production company is they clearly have the ability to film outside and the ability to successfully pitch a minority interest show to a major national TV Network, these are the type of guys you need to target with a well produced sample DVD. Regards Duane.

Why not do something more constructive like make a decent demo video with flowing lines that will appeal to joe public and a sound track without any offensive lyrics. Send in a DVD copy with an attractive cover, combine that with an invitation to a trials event (with the organisers permission) and you might get somewhere, particularly if you actually put in some hardwork and get some high level (sponsored) riders to agree to do interviews and one or two how to's. None of this stuff costs much other than time and it might work. Put yourself in the place of someone working for a TV Channel, you get a couple of dozen ranting emails and your already busy enough OR you get a nicley presented DVD you can pop in your laptop while you have a coffee, the music is good and there are some people doing interesting things on bikes, whats this an invitation to an event, exclusive rights to film from the promoter, offers of interviews with ? well ive never heard of these guys but i recognise some of the sponsors, so they must be professionals and reasonably presentable in front of a camera. Our TV Guys next problem is that he needs to pitch this to his manager in order to get a budget and some resources to film something, so would he take two dozen ranting emails or the nice DVD with funky music and presentable riders doing interesting stuff on bikes. If the last bit works, the next problem is he has a budget now needs something to film, again two dozen ranting emails doesnt help anyone, whereas if you have agreement from an event organiser, and riders for interviews and 'How to's' everything starts to fall into place. Cut a long story short, every one in the working world is already busy doing thier job, if you want to get attention you have to help them do thier job, 'Why isnt XXXX sport on tv' isnt going to help anyone, whereas a nice DVD they can play for management makes a far better case. If its good they will show thier colleagues and make a bit of a buzz in the office, no one ever did that with an email beginning with 'Why isnt...' Good luck Duane.

Hi, You are best off looking for a second hand bike, as people have already said you can get a second hand bike with upgraded parts for the sort of money you are talking about. If you don't like it you can sell it on for more or less what you paid. Regarding the Apollo, it will be a cheap low grade steel frame that will probably never break, but it will be heavy and the wheels will be very low quality with poor braking surfaces and fairly soft rims which will buckle often, all the other parts will be very cheap and fail very quickly. The worst part of all is probably the suspension fork, 150 GBP gets a good fork, what you will get on a bike that costs that much is steel spring suspension with no damping basically the fork is there to look good and doesn't provide any benefit at all while weighing and flexing more than a rigid fork. Just to repeat get a second hand bike and be grateful that the guy in halfords talked some sense instead of letting you walk out with the apollo like he is paid to do. I have a base ta 26, its about 400 GBP new, should be a lot of used ones about for the sort of money you have. Duane.

Thanks for the replies, I would have got the MTB cables which won't work with my Base 26, so that has saved me some trouble, especially as I live in Dubai. Thanks Duane.

Hi, I see that many people recommend the Nokon cables with a V-Brake setup, my first question is, is there any differentce between the MTB and the BMX versions, and which is most suited to trials ? And the next question, can I use a brake booster with Avid Ultimate V-Brakes, from the pictures I have seen it doesn't look as it you can ? Thanks Duane.

I am off to install them, Thanks Duane.

Hi, I have some V Brake pads with an offset mounting stud, I assume there is a good reason why the mounting is off center, so my question is should I install the pads with the longer end point along or opposite to the direction of wheel rotation ? Along opposite [] [] ====== ====== >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> wheel rotation Thanks Duane.

I am going to give in an have a go at grinding today, I have searched and read all of the grinding related posts, but before I go and ruin my rims, can I just clarify that what I am aiming to do is 'scuff' the rim evenly all around ? As I don't already have a grinder and will need to buy discs, what speed and discs give the best results ? Thanks for any help Duane.

Hi All, The bike I have is a normal FS MTB, while I realise that any decent trials bike has a trials specific head angle, I am interested to know how different this is, if at all from my mountain bike. Looking at the handlebars and stem as a lever acting around the front wheel axle, it would seem to me that a stem that positions the bars forward of the front axle would make the bike very tippy, whereas with the bars way behind the front axle its going to be extremely hard to lift the back wheel in an endo. This is regardless of the head angle which primarily effects steering response. I realise there are a million other factors like BB height, wheelbase etc, but ultimatley when you put the front brake on and rock forward, the further foward your bars are in relation to the front axle the more you will be pushing over, rather than through the front axle and the easier the back will lift. Its possible that I am completely wrong, so if anyone has a plumb line and a tape measure handy, go drop the plumb line from the center of your bars and measure the distance in front of or behind the center of the front wheel axle, then let me know how easy moves requiring a back wheel lift are, we might learn something, Regards Duane.

Hi All, I have searched the forum trying to figure out how a longer or shorter stem is going to affect my bike, while there are plenty of stem related posts, I haven't found any that refer to whether the stem over hangs the front wheel or not, which is surely the most relevant factor to how flickable the back of the bike will be ? My Scott Aspen MTB has a negative overhang of 145mm, that is the center of the handle bars is 145mm behind the center of the front axle which probably explains why its so hard to get the back wheel up. As the bike is a cross country FS bike this is ideal, you want the back wheel to stay stuck down for power when climbing and safety when decending. However thats not what I am using the bike for. Now to get the stem where I think it should be, more or less directly over the center of the front axle I would need a stem of 245mm, which is plain wrong. Is my thinking all wrong, what sort of over/under hangs do you have on a purpose designed trials bike ? Duane.

Hi, A question for the two guys that started on XC frames, what modifications did you make and which had the greatest effect ? Duane.

Hi, As the topic title includes the word 'Dubai' and no reference to suspension or rigid forks I don't see any harm in a few Dubai questions. At the risk of getting the thread moved heres a quick overview of Dubai and why I am here- I moved here 6 months ago transferring my job from London to Dubai, because its tax free over here your take home pay nearly doubles. The seasons are the same as the UK, we are both in the northern hemisphere, however being much closer to the equator and having only a shallow sea Dubai rarely gets colder that 19 degrees and even in December 29 degrees is common enough. In the summer it gets as hot as 50 degrees with upto 80% humidity which makes the air just about unbreathable. So in the summer when you see cheap holidays advertised for some of the stunning 5 star plus hotels in Dubai, remember the heat and humidity and go stay in a B&B in West Wales instead. If you ever get a chance to come between October and May, make sure you do, its getting better every week, the latest addition is a shopping mall with a 400 meter real snow ski slope sticking out the side - http://www.skidubai.ae/gallery1_eng.htm?mid=1&sidehop=4 During the winter Dubia is great with three or four events on every weekend, as an example, in December in one weekend we had the X-Games, The World Off Shore Power Boat Championship and the A1 Grand Prix, its a hell of a lot going on for a place not much bigger than Croydon. Why is an old git like me trying to ride trials ? well about 2 years ago I saw some riders in Tenby west wales doing tricks on funny looking mountain bikes, then a few months later I saw more of the same in southend and got to thinking I wouldn't mind having a go at that, so here I am, Finally yes its dusty, about once a month we have a sand storm, you first notice the sky turning black in the distance, next out of nowhere the wind starts to rage, this is when you run into the nearest shop because next comes a wall of dust thick enough turn midday to darkness, visibility can be as low as ten feet. I am off to have a go at unlearning my old cross country bunny hop and learning the proper way to do it, Duane.

Hi, 'Guys as old as late twenties just starting out', Im soon to be 33, mind you I had a magnesium injection moulded kirk revolution MTB famously made from a cubic meter of sea water at a time when people thought that was a good idea. You only had to look at it to snap the frame, theres a very short article and a picture of the road version on this page http://www.centennial.hydro.com/cgi-bin/ww...rget_inter.html Dubai gets very dusty whenever the wind gets up, over time the dust tends to polish most surfaces so there is a complete lack of grip, even with a track stand the front wheel can start to creep away. Back to my Suspension question, I know that a rigid fork is obviously better suited to trials than front suspension, but are suspension forks a complete disaster or can most people master most moves with them ? Regards Duane.

Hi, I am attempting to learn to ride trials, but I am probably too old, too heavy and too far away from any other riders. There is certainly no potential for natural riding here in Dubai, so I am stuck with concrete which is bloody dangerous with my lack of skill. On the upside I got a genuine thumbs up and round of applause from some guys that had never seen a bike pivot off a 4 inch curb before, I may just be the greatest trials rider in Dubai right now. Thats unless there is someone here that can bunny hop higher than a coke can. My bike is a completely stock Scott Aspen, basically your bog standard MTB with front suspension, I would be interested to hear from anyone that has started out on an MTB are suspension forks a huge hindrance or just a convenient excuse for lack of ability, its a real hassle to order forks from the UK so any advice would be much appreciated, Regards Duane.