Depending on the conditions a few PSI extra can really stuff you up. It started out as a cold day so I put 5 psi (generally do this to make up for my weight) in the rear, but we soon came up to some wet rocks and the ambient had gone up a few degrees and tyre had been in the sun. So I'm sure that 5 psi was more likely 6-7 psi, I'm also a fairly heavy rider using a 7N standard rear spring, so I guess I would rely fairly heavily on some tyre flex to make up for my my of travel
I guess what I was after in asking the initial question was if people checked their pressures throughout the day and adjusted it back to their target. In asking that I was trying to understanding if the warm pressure is the target or if the cold was the target. So If my target is 4 psi in the rear and I put 4 psi in and ride around for 10 minutes and return with 5 psi, should I lower this back to 4 psi?
scottj that sounds like the kind of strategy I will take on-board. I've been setting pressures right after unloading the bike and then riding the rest of the event with those pressures. So this would atleast give me a better idea of what the tyres are doing throughout the event.
I'm 99% sure I'm way too heavy for my current Beta 125. I'm 100 kg (15.7 stone) and trying to loose weight ASAP as I know this cannot be good for my riding the bike. From what I've heard most of the bikes are made for around the average weight of professional riders. Which is about ~50-80kg, I've read many posts on here where people have had good success upgrading to heavy duty suspension to handle the weight, but I'd rather just lower my weight than mess with the bike.
I always meassure them cold and expect it will go up a bit. But that just depends on what measurement you are aiming at/or talking about with friends.
Let's say your aiming for the typical 4 rear, 6 front. Would you be putting in 3 psi expecting it to rise to the target of 4 psi, or would you be setting a cold temp of 4 psi and knowing it will rise to 5 psi?
It's a hot measurement.
So would you ride around first, come back and then check pressures?
I read a lot about tyre pressures for trials being in the range of 3-5 psi for the rear and 5-6 for the front. Obviously this depends wildly on terrain, rider weight, skill. But my question today is when do you actually check these pressures? I know that if I was to put 4 psi in my rear in the shade, after a quick ride in the sun this becomes 5 psi. Am I looking at setting the pressure to say a pressure and then just expecting that it will go up? Or am I suppose to ride it around then come back and adjust tyre pressures to the correct values? I guess in essence I'm asking is the tyre pressure a cold or hot measurement? If a rider says he/she runs 4 psi in the rear, are they really running 5 psi warm?
On my 125cc Beta EVO I was wondering how often should I be adjusting the idle air screw? At certain events above 1000-2000+ feet of elevation the bikes idle rpm drops low (850-900 from the normal 1050 rpm) and it starts to feel a bit like a slouch at 1/4 throttle. Generally these location because of their elevation are also much colder than the sea-level where I live and test ride the bike. I can sometimes bring up the idle rpm to rectify the issue but sometimes it doesn't really help, more turns of the idle screw doesn't bring up the idle. The bike runs perfectly fine at sea level events I'm just wondering if I should be playing with the idle air screw?
Can't you setup a few obstacles in your driveway for a few minutes?
Our front yard isn't very large and our neighbors kick up a stink when there is any non-essential noise. Normally the only riding I do out the front is when I'm testing the bike after a wash and that's maybe 2-5 minutes at most. To give you an idea of where I live this map shows the typical front/back yards of houses in my area https://goo.gl/maps/oGExl which are very close in proximity so noise is a problem. Our state is also very strict on using motorcycles in park land and reserves. All of the free space around these houses are either private property or crownland, all of which attract penalties that make it not worth the risk of getting caught.
Thanks slicktop, I really want to keep the bike as a 125. My son is 15 so can't ride anything bigger in competitions - unless I have been incorrectly informed.
Been riding trials for 6 months, currently 1 day of riding a week. The only thing limiting me getting on the bike more often is just the effort/cost it takes to get to a trials spot in my area. Otherwise I would be on the bike every other day! I just bought myself a trials pushbike to fill in that gap. Having free access to private property would be a dream and even better if I could just jump on the bike and ride around the yard. Sometime I just want to work on a certain technique for a few minutes but don't really want to spend 1 hour trucking out to a trials spot.
The plastic Dominos have been around more than two decades. Never heard of this problem, but the again never heard of someone using a torque wrench on one.
Manual shows a torque of 3Nm for them, as I have nfi what I'm doing I just followed the manual. Lesson learnt.
I had a similar issue on downhills so I pulled it all apart and found that the floats in the carb where tweaked (one higher than the other). After getting them to the same height and making sure they aligned parallel with the bottom casting of the carb (as the newer Beta manuals show) it *seemed* to fix the issue, I do still get a little bit of lowering of idle down the steep stuff. Another issue I've been told to check next time is the overflow tube which can get bent and cause the floats to hang up on it. I noticed that the way the float bowl goes together really lends itself to bending that overflow tube which could easily cause the floats to jam at the top of their stroke. Maybe giving the bike a good kick is what is releasing the floats?
Always have 1 finger on the clutch and most of the time 1 finger on the brake. I sometimes take my finger off the front brake when there is no possibility of it helping, If I'm doing a hill climb or about to jump up onto something the front brake isn't going to help in some cases so I take it off. By the time you need the brake in those situations you can quickly move your finger back onto the lever. To be honest I'm just copying what I see the pro riders doing.
No, cant say i have, though i am always conscious about over tightening. They are pretty cheap though. I remember the old amal throttle bodies made in alloy (the dominos are basically a plastic copy) and they were brilliant, you could really tighten them.
The bodies really are cheap, I couldn't even get it to 3Nm before it shredded the lower clamp, now I'm doing it without the torque wrench and just using an Allen key with the short end of the Allen key between my thumb and index finger as this reduces how hard I can crank it down. It would just be nice if you could order the lower clamp without having to buy the whole damn thing as this is what fails first.
This may seem daft but I am about to have a gravel drive layed and don't really want be be washing my bike off on the drive as the gravel will end up full of mud and dirt.
How about on the road/street? I've had to stop washing my bike on the driveway as the dirt and debris are starting to clog up the drain in our driveway. I always clean my bike by hand using both a Enjo glove and a heavy duty tyre cleaning brush (plastic bristle) and that works a treat. It takes a bit longer but forces you to really look the bike over for any issue.
When installing my throttle back on the other day I noticed that the bolt just kept tightening with very little force. After a few more turns I noticed that the lower bar clamp was actually separating from the upper portion of the clamp. After taking it all apart and inspecting it looks like the bolt has pulled the nut through the plastic and I've ruined the lower portion of the clamp. You cannot buy only the lower portion of the clamp so I've had to use my spare, just wondering if anyone has ran across the same issue?
It's a HUGE difference! Mine was very inconsistent.... Sometimes fine, other times not. I was killing it when I shouldn't. Now it's always the same. I love it! Do it, you'll wonder why you didn't do it sooner.
That's awesome! Did you also find any change in the progressiveness or weight of the clutch after doing this mod? Was it smoother? I think I'm going to buy a new set of plates and perform the mod on them as the ones I've got now are a tad old. I'll also need to order a new clutch cover as the screws have eaten into the cover as there are no washers on them Thanks for the fast reply too
Otherwise they are pretty well fault free but look out for stripped threads where fasteners go into alloy. Bottom end power is fairly soft but builds rapidly at higher revs.
This ^
I've got a 125 EVO and the stripping of threads has been a pain in the a*** but nothing that cannot be fixed. The power for me as beginner is bang on and the 125 really makes you work for it. I've also had a 5 minute go on a Sherco 250 and a Gasgas TXT 300, really good strong power and allows you to really focus on clutch work rather than trying to keep the engine in a sweet spot. Too much power for me at the moment though!
Jeff are you sharetime1? If so your videos are awesome, especially those of bristow in slow motion analyzing the technique, I found those super helpful! I found you through actually searching "trials slo mo"
Having free access to private property would be a dream and even better if I could just jump on the bike and ride around the yard. Sometime I just want to work on a certain technique for a few minutes but don't really want to spend 1 hour trucking out to a trials spot. 
Getting Back Into Trials, But Where Are The Riders?
in Introduce Yourself
Posted · Edited by jml
More clubs need to move themselves on to Facebook and away from static HTML pages which rarely get updated.