Mark W

"When the wheel is built, the Pi Rope spokes have around 7-8mm of 'preload,' which means they can be compressed up to 8mm while holding the same tension." MTB hype generators are off the charts these days, unless they're just subscribing to that "Alternative Facts" way of looking at things.

It is stronger but not by a huge amount really. The rim design would probably play more of a role than that difference in spokes, as would the wheel build. I think part of the 'problem' people have with rims not lasting is shonky wheel builds. You see people riding some bikes that are set up like dogshit - if someone can't be bothered to grease parts when they're fitting them it kinda suggests they might not give the most care and attention to a wheelbuild and make sure it's all lubed up, pre-stressed properly, etc.

People who should have bought double wall/36h stuff buying single wall/32h stuff because they wanted to save weight, and swaying the market towards single wall/32h stuff, pretty much. Through working at TartyBikes I've seen countless people buy the parts they wanted rather than the parts they needed. If companies see that a certain type of product sells, they're going to make more of that and less of the stuff that doesn't. If you're just replacing the rim on your back wheel throw this on there and never have to buy another rim again

Fair enough. Can always give them a buzz if you're just after a couple, I know they've done random amounts of spokes before for people if they just need a few.

I'm not, no. I have a copy of their spoke calculator here on my laptop though so worked it out on that. Worked out at 174.7mm assuming I've got the right hub details posted in there. If you're ordering from them, just say in the Notes what hub and rim combo it is (the TR rim has only ever had one ERD AFAIK). You can reply to your Order Confirmation e-mail with those photos to help point them in the right direction too.

From the photos that's 3x both sides. Looks like you'd need 175mm spokes.

Cheers for the link Glad you're feeling that you're making progress again. Hope you're doing better with life stuff in general too, sounded like you'd had a bit of hassle/stress going on from your last few video posts.

Forgot to mention that 360 gap too, looked like it must have felt pretty wild! Mainly commenting again to say that that song is now lodged in my head Who was it?

Agreed, that was sizeable! Got away with the chain snap too, could have been nasty. Fair play for the very last crash too, exploding out of shot like that was comedy.

Shorter or higher stem for sure. As Karl says, the bars are quite a lot different in terms of feel and how they affect your riding because of the sweeps:

Alrighty, there's a fair bit to answer with that! The Fourplay, Skye and Arcade should be tough enough for pretty much anything you can throw at them. They're not really an apples-to-apples comparison, but essentially the Fourplay/Skye are pretty bulletproof so even though they aren't steel they're still stiff and strong. In all honesty, unless you're doing some big moves or you're a total basher any of them should be fine. The Fourplays and Skyes feel stiffer due to them being alloy and a bit chunkier in terms of tubing size, whereas the Arcade has a slightly different feel due to the nature of steel. They're not mega flexy though, it's just a subtle difference in feel. BB heights on trials bikes are measured differently - they're measured from an imaginary line between the centre of your hub axles up to the centre of the BB axle. Just like with BMX there's no 'right' geometry, it's largely personal preference. To me the Fourplays/Skyes feel a bit too compact for my liking, but I can see why some people would like how they feel (and they clearly aren't holding people back). Most street trials frames have broadly similar geometry and will be a good compromise between trialsy moves and more BMXy/streety moves. CS have been getting shorter to tuck the back wheel under you more so you get more 'pop' for bunnyhops and also more stability on the rear wheel. BB heights fluctuate a bit depending on what the style of riding will be like. The only real differences are things like HA - the Arcade is a bit steeper to give it more of a BMX kind of feel. The higher BB (to the Fourplay/Skye) and steeper head angle make it a bit more twitchy, again similar to how BMXs now are going for shorter CS and super steep HA. TT lengths aren't really used as the difference in triangle shape is so varied on trials bikes that it's fairly useless. That's why the reach measurement is used (measured from centre of the BB to centre top of the HT) as although it's not perfect it gives a reasonable comparison from frame to frame. Similarly, ST angle isn't really measured either as that will generally be tweaked to give optimal tyre clearance and so on. With BMX the ST angle is more important as that will give you more of a read on what the TT length will really feel like, but that's taken care of with the reach measurement on trials frames for the most part.

Good call Sounds like you've thought it out pretty well and know what you're getting into which is the main thing. One other thing I'd suggest is maybe looking at something like the Inspired Arcade too. It's a little more BMX-orientated than the Fourplay/Skye, so could be worth checking out too. I rode a 'proper' trials bike and a BMX, and found the Arcade bridged the gap really well for me.

We didn't really get to ride and film much when Ben was a 45min drive away. Now he's a 9hr drive I don't see those chances increasing, but you never know Want to get up to Aberdeen at some point to wallow in all that oil mon£y... I can't remember when it happened exactly but the team got trimmed down a bit and I think Ben was a part of that. It was a while ago now, maybe 2012 or something? Hopefully we can get Dominik Raab on the go and we'll have completed the set.

Everyone's second favourite Ali C impersonator is on the TartyBikes team, so we put together a little video before he headed back up to Aberdeen. Here it is... Scope out Ben's team page here.

That near bench flip was quite something... looked like a fun ride though

Dunkirk is a fun place to ride, and you can get the ferry straight there. Rotterdam is really good too, and that's just up the coast from there (from memory, less than 2.5hrs). You can boot across from Rotterdam to Cologne which has some good spots too, and is again only around a 3hr drive or so. There's that amazing looking 'biggest in the world' pump track place in Switzerland somewhere, from memory. Might be worth a Google. Think it was made by Velo Solutions. There's also Stride Indoor Park in Strasbourg which has jump lines, possibly a pump track but also a newly opened trials area too.

Hadn't quite realised how hard Magnussen f**ked Gasly. Apparently he couldn't see in his mirrors because they were vibrating so much so didn't know Gasly was there, although before the second squeeze on the onboard from Magnussen you can clearly see him looking in the mirrors. https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/headlines/2018/4/video-f1-gasly-magnussen-dangerous-azerbaijan.html

The biggest thing about RoGro putting it in the wall wasn't him blaming Ericcson like a bitch, or him shortening the last stint of the race, it was absolutely f**king my GP Predictor - I had him down for most overtakes after an inspired pre-qualifying choice, and then he put it in the f**king wall. Goes without saying that the Red Bulls didn't exactly help things on that front either... Good race to watch though, quite interesting throughout. Some proper dicing going on, with most driving well most of the time. Amazing job by Alonso to actually get that car back to the pits! Didn't think he was going to be able to turn it left into the box when he biffed the pit wall on the way in.

Yeah, definitely local - FP2 is on now and the F1 site says "17:00".

Pretty sure they're local - it says FP1 was 1pm-2:30pm, but I watched it earlier on today.

I haven't had a chance to compare them to Shimano pads as they weren't around then, but on my Magura and Hope brakes they made a huge difference. Compared to the standard Hope pads, it's like you've bolted on a bigger rotor.

For what it's worth I was in a similar position - only rode mod and didn't really get on with stocks (still don't...), but 24" bikes felt fine to me. They're not really much like a 'proper' trials bike so you don't get that same barge-y feel you tend to get on stocks at all.

Comp rider preferences can generally be put down to whatever the latest trend is, so I wouldn't really read too much into it. The back brake is the key brake though and they're still using disc for that so that should be fairly indicative of their performance. The feel of a disc brake is a little different to a rim brake, but with most modern disc brakes now (especially the Hopes and Maguras) they have a lot of bite to go along with the hold you'd expect from a disc brake. There are also upgrade pads available for them both which help out too. The brakes on your 29er will be fairly balls because they'll presumably be relatively small rotors (for the wheel size), and depending on the brake will probably have pads a little more aimed at durability and longevity than outright performance. The main thing is just the larger wheel size though.

You don't necessarily need to go all the way for a Skye Team - a Fourplay would be pretty similar in terms of fit and ride but would save a reasonable amount of cash. For what you're looking to do a 24" bike sounds like it should do the trick though