chewy

Mettise has the measure of it.....The FFM have just about milked trials dry in France I heard the other day that there are just 1300 trials riders licenced for 2016. i registered a trials bike here had a uk reg but needed a COC also. You will find administration in france mind booggling,frustrating and you will need to find reserves of patience and humility to get through it. When we are in france we ride three times a week ...amical.

probably the wrong comment to make ..however if a bike was a bit quick off the mark we used to simply retard the ignition timing a few degrees...ok may run hotter but you guys generally only ride around short courses and queu for sections. I am seriosly considering a 250 racing for next purchase but they do need a good throttle hand....after 46 years of competion I should be able to cope but!!!!!

thanks Glen thats where i ended up.......just a note re lip seals...the OEM seal is 52.25 Od (a standard engineers supply lip seal is 52.15) the seals are specified as 40 x 52 x 10 double lip seal) they get craftier as time ghoes by!! so I tightenedthe spring...te he.. PS although I love the jotagas it will soon be time to change.....can the 250 gasser be detuned a bit ...want smoother bottom end like the JTG.....different head insert?...flywheel weights...?????

so there i was this afternoon with an hour to spare so decided to change fork seal (long overdue) 40mm Marzocchi alloy stanchion (JTG 2013) ..simple job then realised only had 10weight fork oil or ATF...went with 10 weight but way too thick...has anybody tried ATF?

Been sold on the dream (the marketing video) ..skimmed through this forum do we yet know the nitty gritty? or do we have to walk into the showroom? Purchase price Warranty period test ride One assumes the shows are for importers ...dealers to make a pitch for distribution patch rights (lord knows why in this day and and age ..any serious problems will allways bounce back to manufacturer anyway) so perhaps we have to wait for answers until these costs are sorted out.

Just a random idea ..perhaps the FIM should insist all bikes are standard production models...generally the WTC is a show which has no relevance to average bike buyers unless we,re all as daft as they hope we are. Sales are 10% of what they were 20 years ago. Sections are simply a series of mega obstacles. As I understand it the fIM is trying to make WTC more relevant to it,s market, the main problem with that is that the manufacturers appear to regard results in WTC as thier only marketing tool. It seems to be a question of is it the dog wagging the tail or the tail wagging the dog...meanwhile the circus continues.

I reckon if somebody came up with basic "old" style bike...new they would sell as many if not more than modern bikes.....which have got so finicky based on design improvements for modern trials. This is not an argument to step back in time but manufacturers who are selling 10% of volume they sold 20 years ago must be wondering what they need to do.

Having got off a Beta.. I ground a bit off the steering stops.. (2013 model).not all but a little makes a big diffetrence. Agree regards oil level....regards 300 or 250....the 250 is nice to ride...loads of feel and bottom end with more top end than joe average is ever going to use properly. If anybody has improved carburation with the dellorto I would like to know.....I find.it is tricky to get sweet tickover and have smooth pickup with no pinking ...have tried dropping the needle which made for smoother pickup but it was actually harder to ride for me..I was also concerned regards motor getting hotter.....with higher ambient temps here and interzones of up to 20 miles at a time I thought it best to have a slightly rich ( and I mean slightly) runnimg motor which won,t blow its top off. Like I said before this bike has "given" me back 10 years so I love it.

word has here in France that he keeps breaking the bikes and not having a spare motor in Australia seems a bit unreal.....as I recall Loris had said there was a spare motor but it didn,t have the right performance characteristics..... that seemed to be fudged over.. a paid rider must never criticise a standard motor..if this version of events is true ... i.e. he keeps breaking them and standard isn,t good enough for him what conclusion would you reach as an employer?.

Been running a 250 for a year now..riding minimum 16 hours a week, fall off a lot on rocks here in S.France so its a bit scuffed but mechanically only maintainance has been lube and filters..and it runs as sweet as a nut.had rear master cylinder rubber disentigrate last week....In all that time I have come to love my Jotagas and will buy another (2015) as it suits me. Handlebar position (turns and stays in better with bars forward) radically affect steering and my golfers elbow but I am getting on a bit. If I had my workshop facilies here I would have made a top yoke to carry the bars further fwd. and then been able to pull the bars back so as not to stress my arms so much and retain the leverage ratio. Only washed the bike twice in a year as it,s only dust here; after 40 years of 2 hours riding around a closed 10 section 4lap UK trial and then 2 hours cleaning the bike it is clear to me that as the UK climate is (shall we say) unique and some problems with trials bikes are unique to UK. Travel broadens ones perspective so they say, it must be difficult to make a bike to suit all riders in all conditions.

Only comment regarding set up is that these guys in the film are all very good and train on this type of section daily (however it is always possible to make mistakes).....they are also young ,fit and have massive quads...leg suspension is a forgotten tool for most of us. The old estimate of how well a bike/rider performs id 80% rider /20% bike springs (no pun) to mind.

Nobody is mentioning thier own weight for some strange reason?. Me 5ft 11" 85 Kg= obese official

Run Forest RUN

done that too...took one of those magnets supplied with toytown speedo kit and keep it inside my helmet ( steel stud for strap)......strangely enough since I did this I havn't forgotten

Is there a clue in the name and the location....re albert ...coming to Ssdt did him a lot of goodimho

I understand no sales pitch in car park this year either.

Just another of those irritating little things we come to expect from trials bikes? For me the most off putting thing regards beta is the dreadful idea of designed to break expensive plastics. Generally a good bike though and of course here in theU K a very good level of service from the importer.

Being old enough to remember the arguments about the compulsory use of helmets I was sceptical about these things but bought two for us.......after 18 months of using them I have to say they get my vote, loads less damage to crashing bikes as well as bodies what I can't understand is why all manufacturers aren't fitting as standard equipment and of course why they are so expensive......got to get a bit of rhetoric into my posts!

You might find him at or ob bath classic trials.....an AMCA club with a website

The f I m video is an eye opener and even to the most experienced trials fan rider or observer must be regarded as definitive. ....why else would they and the riders go to the trouble of making the film. I have to conclude that as an observer I am not likely to to be as discerning in the moment it takes to decide if it was as stop or not. And to be consistent for x number of riders over y number of laps ! Z number of days etc etc .spiffing good film on a difficult topic thoough.

Not so much as wash your bike Tomnch..but a simple thing like 270 radiator covers cleaned out 5 times a week makes a lot of mess..naturally if you've got nothing serious to do like changing a tyre 20 minutes waiting turns into a lot of fiddling/ cleaning /keeping busy...it just makes sense to try to keep it all in one place. Hey Ralph nice to see you still kicking..see lots of Sandra's stuff elsewhere...life looks very good for you. We, like you are getting into the groove of changing the air filters and putting them to bed ....easy plan.

Please try to be mindfull of the officials in the garage (parc Ferme) they leave hotel at 0630 and get back at 2130;.( thats is up to 15 hours a day) not easy if you're young and fit let alone getting on a bit!.. clearing up muck and mud from the whole area is an unnecesary inconvenience...ie just do it (if you have to) in the alloted area.

Thanks for the advice Eddie, I.ve been trying to achieve this over the last 47 years of competitive riding.. maybe I'll get the hang of it one day. Ps rode a 3 day trial with the real Eddie last year ..he aint half as much fun as his brother.

Great job .( it really is nice to see trials folk "fettling " as in the old days nearly).as Cope says ...hinge the mudguard.. I did it using a piece of fabricated ally.... see my FB page (chris Wrigley), My next move was to either get Ian at Trickbits to use a thermo plastic to make a rivet on hinge part incorporating back of the airbox and mudguard as shown in my repair. Just can't understand the obstinate refusal of Beta to sort this out in this way like most other bikes available today. They probably get less than 20% of the retail price of a new mudguard and cant see the point. As I.m still trying to convince myself to change to Jotagas (spend an unneccessary extra £1000.00) I.ve held off doing this..was planning to cut brand new guard from brand new bike and make the repair before I break it.. what a crazy sport eh?

Just in case anybody misses out on the SSDT this is a good event Notre nouveau site est en ligne : www.motoclub12.com et les bulletins d'inscription seront disponibles à partir du 18 janvier :-) http://motoclub12.com/ Nice video to watch even if you cant make it.