popty bing

Well, I've used them in anger today.... well and truly threw the bike away and the yokes smacked the frame protector big time! In fact within 5 minutes of starting riding with new grips and new rim stickers on. Had to happen..... There was a large impact mark on the conduit, and a corresponding mark in the paint on the down tube when I removed the conduit. I hate to think how big a dent there would have been without them. I know they are not a perfect solution for what is really poor design, but better than nothing, and definitely better than relying on the factory version...

I've noticed on my 2015 Factory that the yolks on the forks have marked the frame downtubes in a crash situation as the standard bumpstops are rubbish! I have made the following homebrew bumpstops: from some 20mm plastic conduit that I cut into 50mm long pieces then sliced lengthways, and then applied some mastic and clipped them onto the frame. Must admit I stole this idea from someone at Penrith today! Hope this is of some use to others.

I'll have a look at setting the float height on the carb. I have already decided to try to remember to turn the fuel tap off, it's just remembering to do so.....

I've just picked up my first Sherco - A 2015 Factory 300ST. Love the bike so far but have a question.... This bike has the Keihin carb on it. I'm familiar with this carb from having on the Beta EVO, so I know that it will dribble fuel at the slightest excuse....but, Has anyone else had issues with fuel leakage whilst being transported? I saw a puddle of fuel on the trailer deck and traced it to the bottom vent pipe on the side of the carb. I had left the fuel tap in the ON position and every time the bike was bumped, a few drips of petrol would exit the vent pipe. Never ever saw this on the Beta. Any ideas? Float height? or just live with it and turn the tap off when not in use???

I pick my Factory 300 up on Friday!! My first ever new bike! Having a bike with this much bling on it must mean I'm going to win everything.... (if only ). But looking forward to it after having Beta's for the last 10 years.

A 2 stroke trials bike has no power band! It is all torque, right from tick over. I've always had 2 strokes but have ridden an occasional 4 stroke. For me, the 2 stroke is a lot easier to ride, is lighter and requires minimal maintenance on the engine side. Get your oil mix right and use good fuel (and oil). Get a test ride on as many different bikes as you can, and as stated above get the newest you can afford. It will be a totally different kind of ride, as most riders I've seen that come from a MX or Enduro background use speed, and lots of it to get through a section.

Perce, you could be right about the S3 format. On looking at the entry list for the Lomax, there were 54 riders that were riding for no championship points - i.e. just for 'fun'. But saying that, the Lomax has been run for 65 odd years, so there will be a lot of riders wanting to just 'have a go' (I was one of them!) I assume that other S3 rounds are similar? The other S3 event in mid Wales the day before may account for some of the no-shows, I have not checked. I don't believe that there were anywhere near 120 riders signed up for it..... I also think you are correct in that people would be standing around for up to 2 hours on an open ballot system. It would not be beneficial for anyone. So in that case we are back round to the original question - What can be done? We tried our best by publishing information showing that we had scrubbed the streams in as best we could but it seemed to make matters worse, there were more no-shows this year than last year by a fair margin.

In the last 2 years that I have been involved with the Lomax, we ( Llangollen club) started 8 weeks before the event scouting out sections, clearing fallen trees and planning sections. In every case where a stream was used, we took great care to walk each one, turning over as many stones as we could (slimy side down!), wire brushing particularly slimy sections and have teams of riders from the organising clubs to go up and down them in the 2 weeks before the event to ensure that the streams were in as best a condition as possible so that the early riders were not at too much of a disadvantage. This is, as you may expect very time consuming! However, we felt that it needed doing to give the early riders at least a chance of finishing the section. For this years Lomax, we even put a blog onto the website telling anyone interested that we were doing this to discourage early numbers from pulling out as they were not there just to clean the slippy streams! We also took care to set sections that would favour early numbers. But even with all that work and information published, we still had 35 no-shows out of 118 entered riders! It was disappointing to say the least about this high number, especially as we had to turn late entries away in the 2 weeks before the event. I feel that if you enter an event and then decide not to come as you have a poor number (or whatever), then it would be common courtesy to at least let the organisers know promptly in order to give others the chance to ride! Maybe having your number drawn out of a hat at the start of the event would prevent this, or being reported to the governing body (if they decided to take punitive action), but at the end of the day, all those riders that failed to turn up did pay their entry fee so the club was not out of pocket. It would have just been nice to be able to give other riders the chance to take a number that had become open.

Hi! I rode a 2003 Rev3 270 for 7 years and was very happy with it. 14 months ago I swapped over to a 2011 EVO250. The Rev rode wonderfully, and it would just pull from very small throttle openings. The rear suspension was really good (took the p**s compared to the 280TXT I had before!), I only changed bikes as I wanted something more modern. On the Rev I had to change the water pump casing due to corrosion, and did a top end rebuild with crank bearings and seals, mainly because I felt sorry for it! I tried several bikes when I was looking - 2012 GasGas 125s, 2013 GasGas 300, 2010 4RT and the Evo. I chose the Evo as I felt right at home on it straight away. The Evo was an eye opener! The 250 engine has way more power then the 270, and pulls almost as well low down. The front end was the biggest change, it is so much lighter then the Rev, and you feel that it constantly wants to lift the front wheel , but after a couple of rides, you soon adapt your riding position. So far on the Evo I've had to replace the front brake master cylinder due to physical damage, and stripped the carb down a couple of times due to dribbling fuel. The 250cc engine on the Evo is spot on for anything I can ride, and would recommend one to anyone.

I'm called Nick, am 45 and have been riding trials since 2003 on a Rev 3, with 4 years off until last year when some friends decided to start riding as it was cheaper than entering in 4WD winch challenge comps. Bought an 250 Evo and loving it again. Trade is Automation engineer in the milking industry, where the latest project is the control system hardware on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR5ZynOBUsI

I had exactly the same issue after I rebuilt my Rev-3 rear caliper. Tried and tried to bleed it, syringe, back bleed, etc..... to still have a totally pants brake!!! In the end I stripped the caliper completely to pieces and pushed all the pistons out and removed the seals. Next, I got a clean tub, filled it with brake fluid and re-assembled the caliper in the brake fluid to make sure that there was no air in the caliper. This was then connected to the rest of the brake system, re-bled and hey presto!, a working rear brake. One other thing to look at - when you put the pistons back in, make sure that the square section seals do not 'pick up'. This will cause you issues!

When you fall asleep in the garage thinking about what needs doing next to the bike When your wife suggests that for the family day out I take the bike and drop them off at the ice cream farm while I go play just up the road... When you know that it is hissing down with rain so you go riding just to practice in the most slippy mud known to man.

I initially fitted mine on the throttle side! Then rapidly moved to the clutch side..... at least now I dont have to find neutral whenever I take a hand off to scratch an itch, etc. It is much easier on the clutch side, far fewer accidental engine stops as well when you forget you have the lanyard around your wrist. Its amazing how times you take your hand off the bars to do something, and its always the throttle hand. My lanyard switch is the Apico type. The first one would not switch, but it was swapped out straight away by the shop. Since then, no problems! (Apart from remembering you have the lanyard around your wrist in the first place) but you soon get used to it. Plus, the elastic bit does unclip from the magnet so you can leave the bike with the magnet still in place quite easily.

I've used six six one pads for downhilling and can highly reccomend them. However, they can and do move around if you have the individual pads, so I ended up using a complete zip up vest from six six one and it was much better as you had elbow, shoulder, chest and back protection all in one. I spent just shy of £100 on the body armour..... Look on the chain reaction website as they have a decent selection of makes. Not many mountain bike shops will stock them, unless you can find a shop that sells DH or all mountain oriented bikes.