mr neutron

Man, I hope you're not too old, Gary (top ghia)...... If you are, I'm probably ready to sell my bike & take up knitting or some such..... I didn't start riding trials until after I got too beat up from riding mx, enduros, & hare scrambles, at age 55 or 56. I'll be 58 in a month, and plan on riding for many more years. I don't know how many "stones" I am, but I'm defintely overweight, underskilled, and dumber than most of the vegatation I ride over. I still manage to have more than my fair share of fun, which is all I hope for any more. My days of competing to win are long gone; I just want to continue to have fun riding with my good Trials friends. BTW, how much in kilograms or American pounds is a stone? I weigh 225 lbs., and am only 5'10" tall. Shaped kinda like a refrigerator with a head on it, basically...... Jimmie

I actually did a little "research" on this very subject when I rode mx, back in my early 20s. I had just progressed to the "Expert", or "Pro" class, at the Local level. My first few races had me repeating mistakes I hadn't made since my Novice days, having arm pump, & etc.. On the advice of a friend, I once drank 1 bottle of beer before a moto, and rode that race really, really well, and pretty much mistake free. I was relaxed and loose, and that was what was missing in my riding. Once I learned how to do that without the alcohol, my results improved even more. It does work, but I'm not certain I can recommend it for everyone, hee hee.... Now, i'm not saying everyone should go down a quart of beer (or whatever) before a Trials comp. But the advice to "clear the mind", relax & have fun should really be listened to and acted on. The ability to perform without concious effort was a huge help when I shot in practical pistol & speed steel competitions as well. So much of this mental thing is tranferable to all sorts of facets of our lives...... Jimmie

You've just described the TuBliss system, which works very good! I used them on my moto & offroad KTMs. You can run a knobby at low (or no pressure at all, actually....) pressures, and they work really great in mud races. Dylan, are you thinking Bib Mousse? You can drill some holes in those to get them to simulate lower pressures....... Jimmie

Hi, Jon! Hope you guys aren't freezing too much back there, and further hope the earthquake didn't affect you. I also wish OSU would've won the football game against the Sooners, but we can't have everything, huh? Thanks for the advice, Sir! It does indeed amaze me how little these bikes need for suspension work compared to mx/ off road/enduros & such. I've been told by my friends out here to "back away from the wrenches, and just learn to ride the thing first!". Which is also very good advice..... Yes, I do enjoy working on my bike, I confess. But I do enjoy riding even more...... Our temps have been in the teens & twenties, so my rides here on my property have been brief; only 20-30 minutes, or until I no longer have feeling in my fingers..... One thing I just remembered is that I do now have a rebound adjuster again. I managed a "fix" of that while I've had them apart. I've not had one for over a year, and keep forgetting that I have that option again. I don't have "clicks" like I do on my compression side adjuster, but count the number of turns/half turns out from the bottom. Jimmie

Michael, Thank you so much, both for your response just now, and for the one I linked to above. Thank You! Once I pulled my head outta my a$$, it all became pretty clear. Guess I typed & posted first, and then took the time to think..... I normally do use synthetic fluid; Red Line in this case. I actually prefer to run the really light fluid viscosities, in the winter and summer. The lighter fluids all seem to have the higher centistoke ratings, and in my old KTM, they just seemed to stay more consistent & last longer. But the shim stacks in these 'Zokes seem to be meant more for the heavier fluids, like 7.5 wt. or more. If a (Heavy ) person wants to run the thinner fluids, it would seem making a stiffer shim stack would be in order? My rebound stack has (2) 20mm dia. shims X .11mm thick, and a 13mm dia. X .16 thick backer. To use the thinnner fluids, would a slightly bigger diameter backer shim, say, around 16mm, help in that respect? Maybe I should buy another treadmill instead...... Jimmie

Amen! to this, and especially the part about bending your legs! I once posted a video on the Trials forum at Thumpertalk, and those guys there almost unanimously said that I wasn't bending my knees enough. Not bending your knees enough "cheats" you on compression when you put your front wheel into an obstacle, and makes for a much weaker unloading/unweighting. I accidentally deleted my video of me doing it totally wrong. I could probably go make another if it were daylight, because I feel I really dont' do it much better after a year+ of practice. But, if you could post a vid of yourself, taken by someone off to the side, it would probably help these better riders here diagnose it for ya, Charlie. Also, I had problems at first going too fast. I would hit my log many, many times, and thinking if I hit it faster I'd "Get It!". That just didn't work for me. Be patient, and slow down. Plus, by slowing down, you can "break down" & refine each little aspect of the whole technique, and possibly along with video, you can figure out what needs to change. Or, get a ridin' buddy to watch you & help out..... Here's a short vid with nowhere near enough knee bend, but somehow I got over it w/o crashing....: Also, I defintely understand about the knee thing. One of mine has been replaced, and the other will need to be someday. Football, basketball, jogging, & mx were hard on me when I was younger..... Jimmie

Man, what a GREAT Rider that man is!!! I'd be concerned about the ventilation aspect too. I just read an interview with Pat Smage about how he would practice inside his barn in the winter time when he was younger. He said that he spent a little time being sick from breathing the exhaust fumes. I know when I rode mx indoors at one nearby place, I would sometimes come home slightly sick from breathing that junk all night long...... It ain't fun..... Jimmie

I have an area on my little 2.5 acres that's slowly getting made into my practice area. I cleared some more area this weekend. Someday, I hope to import some rocks....... For now, at the level I ride at, I'm still having trouble cleaning some parts of my little practice "section". Any advice will gladly be tried & used! The riding part of this vid was filmed today. We've had a lot of rain, and even more wind. Lost power several times, & etc. I'm guessing more clearing for my practice area will have to wait for slightly better weather..... Jimmie

Hmmm. I ride/hunt off my mtn. bike for deer, in an area with lots of little "goat head" stickers. We all run tubes in our tires, and all of us run Slime inside the tubes. The Slime has been a huge deal for us; It works very well. I've seen some videos for some stuff called Stan's Tire Sealant that seems to be geared more for a tubeless appllication. Geez, their youtube vids show them repeatedly running over beds of nails, poking the sidewalls & tread areas of their tires with sharp, pointy objects, many, many times. All you see are iittle "dots" of sealant where the object got pulled out. Not really sure why this wouldn't work in a tube application? The stuff is kind of expensive, however, last time I checked for it at the local bicycle shop..... Jimmie

My 2010 has magnetic plugs for the drain plug, and the filler plug. Could your magnet have possibly came out of a drain or fill plug? Just look at both plugs to see if a magnet might be missing. I'm not sure how big a 2p coin is, but if it's bigger than what the drain plugs have, I'd bet Lineaway nailed it. Like he said, that's very common for folks to do that, and having chipped my bike's kickstarter & idler gears, it's practically a necessity with Gassers.... Jimmie

Thanks, Zippy!! I actually llike reading your posts better! They're usually much funnier! I have to replace an o-ring in that pesky rebound cartridge. It's probably sealing well enough, but the burrs inside cartriddge did chew up the o-ring somewhat during removal. The next time I have the forks apart, I'd like to get Mrs. Neutron to take some pics of all the parts I tried to describe above. She's a way better photographer, with a way better camera. I tried taking some pics with my primitive digital point-and-shoot, and the pics kinda sucked like a bucket of ticks..... Anyway, photos would probably make more sense than my verbal descriptions. Hope y'all had a Great Thanksgiving! I'm pretty sure my bike needs new. stiffer springs after eating like an idiot yesterday! Jimmie

Is that a Sooners t-shirt you're wearing? Jimmie

Hey, All!!! Thought I'd try to do a quick update on the status of my fork oil change odyssey. I tend to be wordy, & I apologize for that, but I'll attempt to be concise here..... First of all, I've discovered I have a recessive Stupidity Gene that seems to kick in everytime I attempt to pull any maintenance (or ride) on this bike. I did indeed misread & misunderstand Michael Martin's post, as well as others in that thread I linked to above. Sorry to all for my confusion. His post pretty well nailed it, and further reading of other posts in that thread helped a lot...... The compression side went well, other than the forks not exactly coming apart like the video showed, and like other conventional forks I've taken apart in recent history. Getting the rebound cartridge apart was a little more difficult on my bike. I think I bought a rebound cartridge that was possibly built on a Monday morning, or something.... Is Marzocchi's quality sometimes sorta "questionable"? (I work as a machinst making aviation parts, and we work hard not to let parts out of our areas like I saw inside this cartridge....) There were numerous gall marks at the bottom of the cartridge, where the circlip and lower aluminum plug go. Then, there was a half round gouge or ridge up inside the tube about 4 inches or so from the bottom. These things combined to make it very hard to get the 2 aluminum "plugs" (spring in between these) out that seal the lower end of the unit, which again had me baffled. I took the cartridge to work and ran a hone through the inside a few quick strokes, and that smoothed that out a bunch. I deburred the 4 holes near the bottom; they had some nasty burrs leftover from drilling that cut into the o-rings. The damper rod itself had a couple of dents or dings in it; I hit those with 600 grit sandpaper. Anyway, it all went back together well, and seemed to have bled well. I did manage to "fix" my stuck & broken rebound adjuster. It actually seems to make a noticeable difference during use..... I've got a couple of short rides on it now, have made a few adjustments, and so far, it seems to be working well. No leaks to report, also. (That SuperGlue fix worked well, Jon! ) Jon, Lineaway, or anyone that knows a bit about these forks: That second aluminum plug/piston/whatever it's called, that has the o-ring around it and the plastic hydraulic-type seal around it. NOT the one the allen head bolt/copper washer threads into from the bottom of the forks, but the one that does most of the "sealing" of the cartridge...... It has a screw through the center of it. I didn't mess with that, but is it possibly a screw for bleeding the cartridge? Anyway, Thanks, and very much, Jon & Lineaway, for your help! And Michael Martin, if you ever read this, Thank You also! So much for a short post, huh? Jimmie

Thanks again, Jon! Okay, well, it's good to know that things are fairly "typical" then; that's a relief for me. I do indeed have an electric heat gun I used when I planned on separating the two halves of my fork. That thng comes in really handy, for a variety of things. Before it cooled off a little here, I put some old suspension fluid I had in the barn in that compression side fork. Everything seemed to work fine while bench checking it. The adjuster made a noticeable difference, motion seemed nice & "restricted" when compressing, & etc.. Thanks for all your help, Jon & Lineaway! Hopefully, will get the other side done in the next day or so. I have to patch up some minor rock dings in the upper legs first, though. Is that typically done with nail polish & 600 grit sandpaper? After I think about it, really, the only way to do a decent job of an oil change IS to disassemble the forks like this, in order to flush out the old fluid with solvent. And the oil in my forks was somewhat more like a chocolate milk shake than suspension fluid, hee hee..... Oh, yeah. I was wrong about the diagram in my User Manual (page 30, 2010 TXT-PRO). It DOES NOT show the damper rod extended, like I said above. My mistake there. Sorry about that. Again, thanks for your help! Jimmie

Jon, Thank you for replying, and for the pics of the tools you came up with! That's a really great idea for the bleed tool you came up with..... It would work out much better than my piece of copper wire that I use to pull the rod up....... Now, for the inevitable questions: Is it "normal" that my seal and the bushing for the lower tube stayed inside their counterbore in that lower tube? They didn't come out with the upper tube, as the video showed for the '07 & earlier forks. My upper tube simply pulled right out with only it's bushing; no "slide hammer" action needed to get the forks apart like was necessary on other forks I've worked on. Kinda like the old damper rod forks, ya know? Theoretically then, all that holds the upper & lower legs together would be the cartridge, essentially, by the allen bolt on the bottom by the axle, and the upper cartridge rod that screws into the fork cap? Added in EDIT: I can pull my upper tube out of the lower one with the seal, washer, clip. & even the dust seal intact. I read about this seal & bushing staying in the lower fork leg in another post/thread as well, so this isn't the only time this has come up. It doesn't seem right....... The compression-side cartridge is full of holes along its side, like most others I've seen are. This has also been another source of confusion for me, when combined with this post in that thread I linked to in my original post: Michael Martin, from 6/9/11: Remove cartridge from fork, disassemble cartridge, fill with fork fluid, reassemble cartridge, then put cartridge back in fork tube, then with fork and damping rod completely depressed set oil level 160mm from top of fork tube. Cycle damping rod to make sure no air is in cartridge and check oil level again. Pull up damping rod and insert spring and preload spacer, screw on fork cap. I must not be understanding his intent. This would seem impossible to do, as fluid would leak out everywhere...... What worked best for me, in an "experiment" was to bolt the cartridge into the lower fork leg from the bottom (by the allen bolt/copper washer). Then, I filled the fork leg up with oil, and pumped/cycled the cartridge damper/"hydraulic" rod up & down a couple of inches, until the action smoothed out. Then, I slid the upper leg into the lower, and cycled both that upper leg & the cartridge/damper rod up & down separately & together. From there, a person would fill the thing up to the 160mm level, reassemble, and etc...... Is this "sound" logic? How do most of y'all do this? Is it necessary to pull the forks apart like this everytime you simply want to change oil? Also, my owners manual shows my 160mm oil level dimension, with the fork tube compressed, and the damper rod "out". It also mentions to "Measure without the pier and the hydraulic rod extended", What's a "pier"?? The spring??? Jimmie

Thank you, Lineaway!!! That helps a bunch! I hope New Mexico never runs out of rocks or places for you to ride! I do have one question though.... "Did I read Step #3" of what???? Jimmie

Hey, All!!! I've got a 2010 280 Pro TxT with the 40mm aluminum Marzocchi forks I'm working on. Wasn't too sure the videos at Gas Gas USA were "relevant" for these forks, so that's why I'm posting here...... I started out doing (what I thought was...) a simple oil change of the forks. I took the fork legs out, after loosening the caps. Removed the caps, springs, & spacers, and then turned each fork leg upside down in an oil drain pan, and let them sit that way over night. The oil looked thick & yuckky. Not much yuccky oil came out, but so far so good? Next day, I thought while these forks were this far apart, I'd see If I could get my previously stuck rebound adjuster to turn. I managed to, and actually unscrewed it out. I turned that Rebound side fork leg upside down over the drain pan, pumped it & the cartridge a few times, and got oil to come out of the cartridge rod. I didn't do this to the Compression side, because the adjuster worked. Put oil in, set the level to 160mm, re-assembled the bike, and went for a test ride. I now have no rebound, and seemingly no compression either. The adjuster on the compression side turns, but it now has essentially no effect at all. The bike tops out harshly, and bottoms out much easier now than it used to. I've done some reading here, and in this thread, member Michael Martin states that the cartridge needs to be removed to filled after an oil change. http://www.trialscen...nge#entry272977 I'm willing to try this, but wondering "why?". How do these forks come apart? I'm betting most likely that I'll need to pull the dust seal and a circlip to remove the top leg from the bottom half, and pull the allen head bolt out of the bottom leg to remove the cartridge? Will the oil seal & bushing come out with the upper fork leg, like on other bikes I've worked on? I guess, in a nutshell, I'm asking how these forks come apart, and what to watch for on re-assembly...... It's funny, I've worked on, rebuilt, shimmed, and bled my old KTM WP 50mm Extreme forks & twin piston PDS shocks for myself & a friend, and did routine stuff on my '06 YZ450's forks & shock. But to have my butt kicked by these forks is kinda frustrating. One nice thing about the bikes/suspensions mentioned above is that there's a lot of info out there about those forks. Thanks for any help/advice/warnings you all may have! Jimmie

Thanks, Guys. Granted, when they work, they do a fine job, but I've still came up with a couple of reasons "not-to-like" the Marzocchi forks right now.... I have a broken rebound adjuster on these forks. It broke the very first time I tried to turn it, after having the bike for only a day or two. I'm told I need to buy the entire cartridge to fix this deal. Now, with the cartridge needing removed/filled/primed, it makes me leery of even putting a wrench on the goofy thing....... What brand of forks does your Monty have, out of curiosity? And they have the same sorta deal? Amazing.... Jimmie

In a load of "chalk"??? Hmmm. One of my favorite fishing writers, Roderick Haig-Brown, a Brit, used to write about fishing in "chalk streams"..... Never understood that either.... At any rate, I hope you can find traction & do well tomorrrow, Andrew! On my bike, I fixed a flat on the front wheel today, and greased my steering head bearings. Those tasks went really well. Then, in a fit of stupidity I suppose, I pushed my luck & tried changing the fork oil. I now have no damping whatsoever. Forks bottom out & top out easily, and behave as if there is no hydraulic restriction at all. Did some reading here, and determined I probably need to pull the cartridge & fill it. Sometimes I can't believe how I can take a simple thing I've done easily enough on other bikes, and totally screw it up..... Jimmie

What engine & fuel mileage, Copemech? Diesel? Jimmie

I thought Nigel meant he wanted to know where you looked good falling down, Jon....... sorry; couln't resist..... Jimmie

I like the low comp insert & flywheel weight on my 2010 280 Pro. The head made starting only slightly easier, but the two mods combined well to really smooth out & slow down throttle response. Plus, that head insert allowed my bike to run on non-ethanol pump premium; no more having to buy race gas! Guys, I think I'd get along with the slow throttle if I'd never have broken my right wrist. I have really limited flexibility in that wrist, and with the "slow throttles", can't get full throttle when it's needed. Which, if I'm honest, is very seldom at a Trial or while practicing..... Revving the bike to clear out the engine is probably the only time my bike sees full throttle..... Jimmie

Man, Dylan, You have Dedication! Sore elbow, a "Tough Crowd" of spectators when ya ride..... Kudos to ya. Buddy! Hey, are you able to lay out some sorta section in that area? That rocky slope looks great for practicing turns on, floater turn practice, stopping then wheelying over a rock, & etc........ JImmie

Well, it's either one of those, or a setup something like what the "Michelin Man" wears...... Craig, Thanks for the offer, Mah Man! I wouldn't mind seeing one in real life, if you happen to throw it in the truck..... But I kinda figured it's a bit much for Trials. I do like the idea of something like has been shown. Like Westygas270, I broke a collarbone & ribs, punctured a lung, and got a concussion from overjumping a double jump 8-10 yrs, ago. I'd probably feel better with something like we're all discussing here, albeit less bulky than what I showed. Everything helps, but in my case, I'm not sure there's anything out there to protect from "stupid", ya know???? BTW, Westygas270, were you riding an event when this happened, or were you out practicing? Jimmie

Do you have to worry about anything trying to eat you while you ride there Dylan? Jimmie