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mark sidey

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  1. I like the "older gentleman" style of one-piece trials attire. More commonly known as overalls. Available in a wide range of colours and with exciting logos depending on which engineering/marine/plumbing firm you happen to work for or worked for. Stout (S) leg for the more simian figure, Long (L) for the skinny aliens. No end of pockets to put cards/clippers/photos of old girlfriends in. Covering a multitude of sins!
  2. I made a similar thing to ridgrunr but used a 100mm long piece of 4mm thick aluminium which I bent to the same shape as the underside of the guard. I fixed 50mm of this to the part of the guard right up against the piece that hooks under the frame with 5 x 4mm rivets and some gorilla glue (epoxy is good too). Then drilled and tapped 6mm, 6 holes in the rear 50mm of the aluminium and the mudguard, right through and then drilled out the holes in the plastic to 6mm. Then I cut the guard right across at the midpoint of the aluminium fixed so solidly to the forward part, and I use 3 x 6mm nylon screws in 3 of the tapped holes. There are 3 spare holes so that when you break the screws out in the middle of nowhere you just reach in your pocket and get some more out and use the spare 3 holes without needing to get the bits of broken nylon out of the first 3 holes. I tried 5mm nylon screws, they broke too easily. I tried cable ties but the mudguard wobbled around. The nylon screws fix it securely so it doesn't move. 4mm aluminium is probably too thick, I just happened to have some. I'll use 3mm next time because I've run out of 4mm! I've done this on 3 Evo's and a Rev3 now. I must have saved myself a thousand dollars in guards. Drill all the holes before you take the hacksaw to the guard, that way you'll get perfect alignment. You can peel the stickers back, put the rivets in and just push the sticker back on over the top to make the job even neater.
  3. Maggar you are not the messiah. YOU'RE A VERY NAUGHTY BOY!!! There are people from overseas reading this who would not understand the Brutish sense of "humour". I liked it though. Eee lad, oi 'ad mi'sen a reet good larf. See if our friend from Belgium can decipher that! Seriously folks: what of the FIM's stated aim, of revitalising the sport? Did it need it? Really? For most of us trials is cheap and won't land us in hospital, which would threaten our income and ability to support our wives and children. It's also a barrel of fun. For most it won't make much difference if we're allowed stop or not because we can't do the "tricks" (advanced technique). We shouldn't be arguing WTC anyway, most of us don't have the skills to qualify to have an opinion. Where it gets us though, is when our national association thinks it has to change local rules to "fit in" with the way WTC is run. They don't have to you know! Now you have something to argue. I don't care what Raga and Bou have to ride. I want the right to make my mind up, along with the blokes in my neck of the woods. WTC rules were changed over the years to accomodate better machines and better techniques. And to make the sport more spectacular, which it now is. And it's created an expectation, especially in young people, that what we do is, at top level, an extreme sport and thereby sexy. So: let's revitalise the sport by going back to the crusty rules of 25 years ago, thereby killing it for young people. Yeah right. Fricken' brilliant Mr Michaud. If we want to grow the sport we have to attract young'uns. Don't argue with me about this, your argument won't wash any more than those smelly old dungarees, Maggar! Right here is why I think Nostop is a failure. We had a young'un here in NZ recently who might have gone to the top. He beat Pol Tarres by a nose in Australia. OK, Pol had an off day. But now our guy's off doing enduro. What's the problem? Maybe he lacks motivation, maybe the thought of having to beat the top 5 is scary. It is actually, like climbing a wall of glass. But the main thing? Money. It costs to travel from NZ, but the main problem is staying in Europe. You can't work if you are training hard enough to win anything. The fees our old mate FIM charge are, shall we say, a wee bit higher than entering the NZ championships. And of course you have to pay it 14 times. Travel to Japan or America, to Australia and back to Europe in one year as well? Support a minder too? Get outta here! Where's the sponsorship and the prize money? To revitalise WTC would mean to make it easy for guys, maybe down to the 10th place in the Juniors, to stay in the game. Guys with talent, not necessarily rich Daddies. No, I don't know where the money would come from. Maybe we could get Bill Gates into trials. Fiddling with the rules won't cut it though, especially when those changes make the trial less sexy. Here I am, arguing WTC and I can't even do a proper splat. Pathetic. You know what though: you can run a local trial that is both stop and nonstop using the self-same sections. You just have to divide the results accordingly and get the riders to wear different coloured numberplates or bibs, if it is observed. It would be interesting to see how the riders chose. Probably you would be forced to set multi-grade sections like we do in NZ because riders of similar ability will want easier sections if they have to ride nonstop. We actually set 5 grades in the same section, for those who care. I talk too much and it's late. Hasta la vista amigos.
  4. Today our New Zealand Trial Convenor (Jim Henderson) sent out a letter from Vito Ippolito, FIM President, which defends the decision to go nonstop. Here is what I wrote to the NZ trial community: Jim said: "No doubt this letter (from the FIM President) will not appeal to all, if any." Sorry everyone, but I feel moved to comment. Senor Ippolito has appealed to my bull**** detector Jim. If the rule changes were that fabulous the President wouldn't have to say anything. Just bow and smile as we clap and throw money and flowers. That he should weigh in at this stage makes FIM seem more than a little insecure. I'm not in awe of his position, and not impressed by his arguments. Take the opening sentence: "Just a few months ago, the FIM took a courageous and ambitious decision to make major changes to the rules of Trial which, as you know, is in a very precarious situation." Let's strip this pompous rubbish of it's emotional content, which will give us: "On (insert the date) the FIM made changes to the rules of the World Outdoor Trial Championship." Courageous and ambitious? The decision for all we know, may have been stupid or on the advice of people with some other agenda. And as for "As you know" well that's just pure humbug! He doesn't know what we know, and Trial is not in a precarious situation. Not here, anyway. His letter is a polemic; an opinion piece designed to persuade and not to inform. I could rip the rest of it to shreds with the greatest of ease and there'd be bless all left. "As you know, his arguments are in a very precarious situation." !!! But then again, how many of you would still be reading by the end of such a display of savagery? At this end of the season one might expect FIM to be in possession of some real data about how many more entries were obtained and how many more spectators were attracted, how much more money was made. Not a single fact do we have from Senor Ippolito. If FIM are so convinced, so "courageous and ambitious" how come the X-Trial hasn't also been made non-stop? All this talk of coherence and unity simply highlight FIM nervousness about the division that they have created between them and the people they supposedly serve. Quite enough already ... Sidey (Mark Sidebotham, Ixion MCC, Wellington NZ).
  5. Hi Ralph Sidey here. I scraped the goo out from between the plates on my '12 300 Factory and it made little difference. Dunno why everyone is using files, a hacksaw blade worked fine for me. They cut well. But after I fitted the astonishing Sidey "red pipe" expansion chamber the clutch was easy to slip in 5th and 6th gear. I found that out at the Kaikoura 6 day trial, which everyone should have gone to because it was an ABSOLUTE RIPPER! Actually anyone who wants more power from an Evo 300 is a maniac, but I know how to get quite a bit now. When will we see you at a trial again? Jokerr: There's no international incident. Scotland is, after all, the host of the second best 6-day trial in the world! Gotta put you straight though: most Kiwis eat Weetbix for breakfast. Not Weet a Bix, but the real antipodean answer to porridge; Weetbix! I think Ralph must have had about 8 to do his clutch in 2 1/2 though.
  6. Mate! Yeah, let me have them please.
  7. I have a 2012 300 factory, am onto my third guard. The original smashed at the back, so I wired it up, then it smashed right across the middle of the airbox. Actually I smashed it. It was me. We should stop talking about how they smash. It's us, we are smashing them! The black one I got second was OK for a while, but then I broke it about 150mm back from the rear bolts. It looked naff too, especially with that wire that I "fixed" it with! So I bought a new guard and sliced it straight across, 50mm back from the hooked-under bit that clips onto the airbox. Using a hacksaw. Then I epoxied and rivetted a piece of 4mm thick aluminium, 100mm long and bent to the shape of the underside of the guard, which is around 180mm across, to the stub left on the bike. First I took off the sticker though, and used emery cloth and brakleen to get both sides nice and clean. So the epoxy would stick. I used 4mm SS rivets, 3 each side in a triangular pattern to spread the loads out and hopefully avoid too much stress raising. If you do this mod, keep the rivets away from the very edge. Then I drilled some holes in the piece of guard left over, and cable-tied it to the 50mm piece of aluminium sticking out. You can stuff spare ties into the carbon-look covers where they meet the tank, up by the filler cap. This works well, so long as I use enough ties to keep the rear bit from flopping too much. And it is not such an eyesore. Looks a lot better than a smashed one! The graphic is fairly busy, so the cable ties don't show up too badly, especially if you trim them off nicely. You can glue the bits of sticker you peeled off back onto the underside of the aluminium. If I'd thought I would have cut the sticker at 100mm and peeled it off as one piece, which would look even better. If I were to do it again I'd make the aluminium a bit longer, say 120mm, to get a bit more support. Easier to stop the back bit flopping around. Maybe a big hole in the middle of the rear bit "for lightness". 50mm is enough for the forward bit, it is way strong. And I would use some of those nifty plastic screws instead of cable ties. As a matter of fact, as soon as I get hold of some this will happen. I'm out of town at the moment, but if anyone wants to see photos say so and I'll throw some on early next week. Cheers ... Sidey of Ixion Motorcycle Club of Wellington, NZ.
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