Mark W

Some serious riding in this, good to see a proper riding video from him!

They had an issue with a frame where someone had cut their post down super short, and there was a concern that that may have led to it breaking where it did. As long as you don't go nuts with it you'll probably be fine

John put a clip out of him doing one which inspired Jack to do one, so I guess it's second (or third?) hand "making new stuff"? I know what you mean though Having been lucky enough to ride with John he's pretty reserved/chilled out. I'm sure he was jazzed about landing those moves but don't think he's one for going too nuts about it in that way. Part of it may also have been that they were trying to squeeze a lot of stuff into the two days they filmed for (spoiler alert, it wasn't a one day effort), and I imagine with some of those tech combos they probably took a good few goes to get, so it might have been him knowing he still had to go and film X and Y to get the video done. Equally, for all we know he may have gone wild just after the camera was turned off - seems fairly common judging from the B-roll on a lot of BMX videos...

Speaking as someone running 203's who doesn't really need to be running 203's... I was on 180mm rotors for a while, and they worked reasonably well (Ben Travis is still on 180s and does some big lines, so they certainly do the job) but there's just something you get from running larger rotors. I don't think it's necessarily just a confidence thing, but the feel of it is quite a bit different. How aggressive the bite is is very noticeable, and if you're riding some more tech stuff (awkward angles/edges) then that surplus of power becomes more apparent too. I noticed the increase in power much more than I ever noticed the difference in weight, and brakes are one of the parts of my bike I'm happy to sacrifice a bit of weight on to improve performance. What I'm getting at is that a 160 will probably 'work', but I doubt it'll really feel that great or be overly confidence inspiring. For the sake of a fairly marginal amount per rotor and a negligible difference in clearance you're not really getting much else out of the bargain. A well set up brake, even with 200mm rotors, will still feel stiff - I think the reduction in power you'd get from a relatively small rotor like a 160 would be more obvious than any marginal change in rotor stiffness. You might get a bit less rotor clang if you land a spin hard I suppose. The biggest problem will be compatibility though. A lot of frames now come with brake mounts in a +20mm/180mm Post Mount position, so even if you wanted to run a 160mm rotor you couldn't. Some still come with a regular IS/160mm Post Mount setup but even with that you wouldn't be able to run a 140mm, although they're probably doing you a favour there

Yes and no... Some of the Red Bull skate team have had some 'proper' skate videos that weren't gimmicky, and were just straight up skate edits, similar to the Rich Forne videos done for Monster. Just seems to be that a lot of the riding side of Red Bull's videos need to have some kind of 'narrative' shoe-horned into them. I suspect part of it might be that the production side is probably a lot different between the two. From the random stuff I've read/heard about Red Bull productions, there's a lot more corporate kind of stuff involved, needs to be story-boarded, usually has to be producers/people like that involved who work with Red Bull, etc. As a result I imagine you have to have more of a choreographed kind of video. Kind of seems with Monster's support for video projects it's looser in some ways, although I believe they were the ones who said that everyone in the Make It Happen video had to wear helmets. Pretty low bar for entry though to be fair... For people who prefer just riding and not-so-great music, someone's done a riding only cut: Does go to show that a lot of the riding is pretty serious, but as ever you have to persevere through the 'story' to get to it. It didn't feel quite like this video was as well structured as some of Fabio's older videos, with just random "ready to be taken out and used as a viral social clip" sections put in there, but it does mean it'll appeal to more people I guess. Would be cool to see a straight up riding video from him one day though, similar to Danny's Cascadia/Epecuen videos.

A few weeks ago I headed down to Bike Trial Academy UK, and spent a few hours being blown away by Charlie Rolls. Here's a video from that afternoon. The Crewkerz Jealousy Ultimate 20" that Charlie rides is now available from TartyBikes

The only thing to be aware of really is that the Zoot frames aren't known for being the strongest out there, so it'd probably be worth holding out for a really good condition one if you go for that as your option. If you're looking second hand, the Element was superseded by the Flow, so search for Flow or Flow Plus bikes too In terms of height, you should be fine. I'm around your height and have ridden 24s for the past 9-10 years or so and haven't needed anything over a 90mm stem in conjunction with some higher rise bars. I even use a shorter stem now and it's still all good.

I had a similar issue with a driver bearing shitting the bed and managed to pry it out using a flat head screw-driver and just working my way around opposing sides. It was ball ache but it gradually worked. Can appreciate that that bearing is a little deeper in the body though so might be trickier.

Fixed that for you.

Only time to really keep an eye on things from my experience is with your wrists. Lever angles and lever reach that's not quite right for your body can lead to a fair bit of pain, so take an allen key tool out with you and don't be afraid to try and experiment with different bar and lever angles to see what works for you.

Possibly a Because Simple: https://www.pinkbike.com/photo/6057876/ EDIT: A Because Simple. Wheelbase: 1000mm Chainstay Length: 362mm BB Rise: +65mm Head Angle: 71.5 degrees Centre of BB shell to top centre of head tube: 595mm BB will be a 68mm shell, head tube just needs a standard headset, 116mm drop out spacing, so fairly standard in terms of getting replacement bits if you need to. Only slight problem is it's hard to get hold of that style of bashplate these days as people switched to the newer style mount orientation. The stem on that bike looks relatively low and short, but if your son isn't super tall (i.e. sub 5ft or so) then that shouldn't be a problem. If he's taller than that it may be worth investing in a 150mm trials stem for it at some point as it'll make the bike ride a bit better.

So it's confirmed Bottas is at Mercedes, Ocon is at Renault and Haas are assessing Hulkenberg and Grosjean to partner Magnussen. Bearing in mind how dogshit Grosjean has been, personality clash between Hulk/Magnussen aside, they'd have to be f**ked in the head to stick with him.

Are they snapping when you're riding? If so, that kind of hints at an issue elsewhere. Basically, tugs are effectively just a setup aid. Once your axle bolts are done up, they should be taking the load, not the tug. If the tug is breaking that means that it's having to take some of the load when you're riding, meaning the axle bolts aren't doing their job effectively. Not sure which rear hub you're using, but taking the axle bolts/nuts off and cleaning them thoroughly, giving them a decent application of grease, cleaning up the faces of the dropout and then reinstalling them should help. Properly greased axle bolts make a huge difference to how well your wheel will stay in place. Because they're a relatively small diameter, if they're fairly dry or the threads are gunked up they can bind fairly easily and feel tight when in reality they've got a lot more to give.

It's not really the answer you'll want to hear, but unfortunately trials is just really hard. Most of the skills you're looking to learn are all about body positioning and movement, and the only way you can learn them is by going out and spending the time learning how your bike feels and reacts, finding out what slight shifts in body position do, refining your brake control, etc. You can research all the steps you need to take to do it, but you still have to put the time in to learn those movements. You will get some leaps in improvement - especially with things like back hops where you might be able to do 3 or 4 one day, then suddenly it'll click and you'll be able to do 10 or 15 the next - but for the most part it is a bit more of a slow grind as you improve your technique. You just have to take the little victories when they come, such as adding an extra back hop, improving how long you can trackstand for, adding a few more degrees to a pivot, etc.

Yeah, saw some rumours flying around about Ocon -> Renault, and Hulkenberg -> Haas. We'll see... 'Silly season' in full effect.

It seems like you've been able to find your weakness with riding, and addressing those weaknesses is the way to improve Working on things you know you're better at will help too, but in terms of opening up more options for yourself in future, taking the time to do the things that feel hardest now is a good bet. There are a few moves that I glossed over when I was learning and I can really see how they've impacted on what I can and can't ride now, and if I had the chance I'd have spent more time on them years ago rather than having to go back to basics now. If that weakness for you is working on doing things slower/more controlled, then that's what to focus on. You can still do the other things too, but if you become aware of yourself avoiding the trickier stuff that's when you need to more consciously try and give it a go. In terms of fear, I've found that that comes and goes. Sometimes I'll be fine with flinging myself up/over/down stuff, but other times I'll feel a lot more timid. You'll find some ways to push through it, but just be aware they won't always work (again, from personal experience...). If you can do one thing on each ride that you're a bit scared of then that's a good way to build up more of an inoculation to it and also progress, but that doesn't need to be a firm goal for a ride. Just see how you feel. Just as a side note, I'm not sure which style of riding you're doing, but if you're doing any streetier stuff that involves balance moves like manuals, learning to do them slower is definitely the way to go. When anyone learns manuals there's the temptation to use something to gauge the distance you're doing (e.g. trying to do a car parking space, then trying to do two, and on), but the joint temptation with that is to put a few extra cranks in to help get the speed up to cover that distance more easily. Taking the time to learn them slow really helps get your balance skills better developed, and will help out in the long run.

I think realistically either would probably be fine, but if you're on Facebook or Instagram it might be worth firing a message over to the Academy about it. You might get more scope to play on different bits of the place on the Sunday as there won't be a full competition on then, but equally if you wanted to have a pop at a trials comp to see what they're like Saturday would be the one. The Academy rounds are low pressure/stress ones, so would be a good one to try if you wanted to dip a toe.

28-29th September, Bike Trial Academy UK, CB23 2UP. Saturday features Round 5 of the Academy competition series, mini comps, games, a cake party and more. Sunday features a retro trials comp, riding, more fun competitions, riding, a trials car boot sale and more riding. Tickets and more info are available now: bit.ly/btauk-tickets

As Joe said, there's air in there. If pulling the lever doesn't immediately move the pistons in the calipers, that's due to air in the system.

Also, bangers galore. High fives for how tight the editing is on the Chad Kerley/stairs/song #2 part too.

Dave Krone's got such a nice/interesting style. Tech, nibbles, style, pop, bueno. Kind of like a less squeaky clean Dan Foley.

Snazzy setup Have you tried sorting the stripped hub out with Hope? They're usually pretty good with that kind of thing. It's cool that you feel you're riding better on it too. Just goes to show that weight doesn't really matter too much (for most people at least), and that a bike that's well setup can 'ride light' even if it's actually a bit of a porker.

Haha, maybe they didn't then. Hadn't realised they were that long! From memory my Zip was 1040mm-ish. I guess the reach will have been similar, but the back wheel will have been a little friendlier with the BB area.

Nice work dudes

Not sure how active he is on here now, but @CalopS puts in some insane mileage. Worth a follow on Strava...