dan williams

What's interesting is when spring comes but it isn't mud season yet so the snow is mostly gone but the underlying ground is frozen from the day time melt/night time freeze cycle. There's moderate traction until you spin and find the dirt is partially ice so the transfer function is, good traction, good traction, NOTHING. Makes for some good throttle practice on off cambers as there is no recovery. Instant stop and wheel slide and you better hope there is traction where you put a foot down. Heh, my state shuts down at midnight. Travel ban on non-essential travel and a state of emergency. We're supposed to get 2-3ft snow and have 50-70MPH gusts. Your basic nor'easter. Ayuh!

Welcome to the funny farm.

Iconic that's s what I remember from when an importer sent me a master pricing sheet once by accident. It was an eye opener.

Good mnemonic.

Absolute sense. You have discovered a fundamental truth grasshopper.

Uh balancing the front on something will help you get the feel but you really have to try it on a hill. Slippery is the best centering practice. Riding on a sheet of ice really lets you know when you're not spot on.

Aw crap

OK one more analysis bit. The two shots where you're entering and in the streambed, note how you're steering by dropping your shoulder. You can see your center of gravity is inside the contact patch of both wheels so if you lose momentum instant dab to the inside. Remember steer with pressure on the bars and pegs and try to stay centered. Bend that outside knee and elbow while straightening the inside knee and elbow..

The smile is priceless! The most common problem I find with new riders on an uphill is leaning too far forward. This is a case where centering front to back is not always what it seams. What a beginner will usually do is big blast of throttle and weight over the bars to keep the front end down. Bad idea. Weight too far forward unweights the rear wheel when it needs it most. Go out on a non-slippery day and try two modifications to your technique. 1. Squat down on the bike. Stay low to lower the center of gravity. The reason a bike will lift up the front end on a hill is the center of gravity is moved back closer to the rear wheel contact patch and moved up relative to the rear wheel contact patch thus acting as a lever. Just like a wheelie on flat ground, it's hard to get the wheel off the ground but as it comes up it requires less acceleration until you hit the balance point where no acceleration is needed. By squatting down on the bike you are keeping the additional mass of your body lower in front of the rear wheel reducing the pivot effect of acceleration. It takes some practice but you will get it quickly enough. 2. Try to keep your rear over the back wheel. Yeah it sounds counter to point 1. They actually work together as the rear wheel needs weight to spread the contact patch to increase traction. Watch the riders who just crawl up the hill you have trouble with. They will use a lot less throttle and their butts will be on the rear fender. Think pressure. When you get to a slippery hill to practice get the feel of weighting and unweighting the rear wheel. Do this by pulling up on the bars. Yeah I know it sounds stupid but it works. When you are pulling up on the bars you unconsciously lean back into the proper position to weight the back wheel. Try it a few times and you will get the feel of making and breaking traction with the rear wheel. Once you have that control you can choose where to accelerate and where to coast. Again watch some videos of the top guys and watch them work body position on a climb and listen to where they apply throttle. Also watch your tire pressure. In sloppy conditions 2.5 PSI is perfectly acceptable with a tubeless. Remember when you are fighting for traction a larger contact patch is your best friend and the contact patch at 2.5 PSI is going to be twice what it is at 5 PSI and I'm pretty sure that if my 220lbs doesn't cause a lot of flats at 2.5 PSI you aren't going to have a problem. The only other thing I can add is transition smoothly. A quick weight transfer on an incline had better be planned for an obstacle because any energy put into the suspension will affect traction to a much greater extent on an incline. EDIT to add, One other critical bit for a beginner. Don't dab with your weight. I see the one picture where you are too far forward but you are also dabbing with your entire weight on the leg. Result will be instant spin out of the back wheel. When you are on the hill practicing weighting the back wheel try intentionally dabbing but keep it light. When you dab on a hill you MUST keep weight on the back wheel or you lose all momentum. Practice dab as a balance correction not a side stand. Only as much of a touch as you need to get back on line and then back on the peg where that weight does the most good.

Yes but it is a symbiosis.

Yes that is the new model and its failure becomes self fulfilling. I think if you called many of these "dealers" you'd find they were once much more involved but have now pretty much given up only keeping the dealer moniker to get a discount on bikes.

'92-'93 Montesa 311 I think but I'm no Montesa expert.

At first you'll be timid. Then you'll get used to it. Then you'll scare yourself a few times. Then you'll realize you depend on it.

Forgot about that. Good point.

Ah yes Xispa. Do you remember a near bankrupt company called Apple? Xispa went down because the few people who bought them reported them to be rather substandard. It won't be an instant change. First small suppliers will manufacture in China. Foot pegs, handle bars, bolts then it will move up the food chain to brake assemblies and pistons and then major components like forks and shocks and at some point the overseas factories will be making the jump to full production and since you will already have been using the stuff they manufacture only with a different sticker the difference in quality will be pretty minor. Besides, if that's all you can get your options are going to be pretty limited. I'm not saying I want this to happen. I love my beautiful hand crafted Beta with all its hand crafted Italian warts. But the day is coming when to survive these manufacturers are going to have to look for a cheaper option or the cheaper option will happen without them. Think about it. This is a discussion of the largest trials bike manufacturer being insolvent and what pops up? A post about how we're paying too much for our bikes. Seriously? Some basic financial acumen about importers and dealers. There is a business model most of the electronics component manufacturers use now based heavily on distributers. Why is this significant? Because the distributers buy inventory and for a markup have it on hand for customers. This is a virtual warehouse and production buffer for the manufacturer. Consider this, a manufacturer has to negotiate a deal with a company for brake lines. If they can't buy enough brake lines for the production run they have to pay a cost penalty because they get any economy of scale. If they buy enough to cover required parts for ten years on that model bike they will probably get a price break but they have to pay the money up front for that additional stock, they have to pay to store it and ship it and at the end of each year pay taxes on any unused because it is an asset. This is where the importers and dealers are critical to the survival of a factory. Importers and dealers will typically try to keep an inventory of parts around knowing they will have the same overhead concerns as the factory but it is spread around to a much larger degree. This allows the factory to have more price leverage with suppliers. Eliminate the importers and dealers and you lose any price advantage from "cutting out the middleman" as the manufacturers now have to pay higher prices for each part which eventually gets passed back to you. And you now have to wait for somebody in Spain to send it to you. And returning it if it's defective? Have fun with that. More dealers is better for all involved. There is one more aspect to the more dealers equation that has nothing to do with financials but much to do with the future of the sport. You may have noticed that clubs seem to spring up around small local dealers. This grows the sport by growing what's called SAM (Serviceable Available Market). Dealers are a critical point of contact for many new riders. The more local dealers the easier it is to get local knowledge. Where to ride, who else has a bike, can this be fixed. I think that the death of local dealers is one of the main reasons the sport is contracting.

OK there is a lot to discuss here. The reason the guys in the SSDT will throw the choke on for a sustained run is two fold. The additional fuel will help cool the engine but also provide extra oil as the ratios run by most riders won't support such wide open sustained operation. Think of it this way, at typical trials speed residual oil pools in the bottom of the crankcase lovingly coating your bearings. When you do a short blast of high RPM that oil gets splashed up into the fuel/air charge to give a little bit more of the good stuff to your cylinder walls. That's why after a good long hill climb most bikes are smoking like chimneys. Even the guys running 100:1. Extra oil has been dumped through the engine into the exhaust where it smokes as it is burned off. Now take that hill climb and do it for fifteen minutes and you will eventually run out of "extra" oil. Add to that the high temperatures that result from pushing an engine hard and you can easily scuff a piston with a hot spot in the cylinder and lack of oil. Engines are designed to operate within a heat envelope and if you push it outside that envelope odd and sometimes expensive things can happen. As for your problem it may be something entirely different. Heat does funny things to electrics and it's possible you heated them to the point where they could run but couldn't provide the energy needed to fire a cold mixture. Betas are famous for this as a sign of imminent stator failure. Runs OK cold, dead when hot. It's also possible you have insufficient fuel system venting where the engine sucks fuel out of the tank before it can suck enough air in to replace it. I think this unlikely as that usually resolves itself within minutes of stopping unless you have a damaged fuel cap vent. Partial seizure which is what the other guys are concerned about usually scores the piston and often pushes the aluminum from the piston into the ring grooves sticking the rings and lowering the compression. Usually a bike will run lousy after such an event or at least not at its best. If there is poor airflow you can boil fuel in the carb if it gets too hot. Rare but possible. Same for boiling fuel in the tank and fuel system. Check fuel line routing, nothing near the pipe without a heat shield. The key piece of information we're missing is, does it run good after it finally starts? Does it run good now?

I used to ride most of the winter, shoveling out sections. Must be getting old. Snowing here just north of Boston but there's not been much this year and the ground was bare before today. No like where my in-laws live south of Buffalo where they got 8' in three days followed by 60F temps and rain. I should add that snow isn't bad. Ice as Heather pointed out is really tricky on uneven surfaces. It's the ice under snow that is really evil. Mega cold is just miserable. Hands hurt, feet hurt, nose hairs hurt and the bikes will only start with a little propane torch TLC (tender loving care) to the cylinder. Oh I should also add that not just the rocks but everything is hard as a rock but at least you're bundled up enough that it doesn't hurt too much. Oh yeah, ski pants will keep you warm but will melt on the exhaust header. Deep snow is a lot like riding deep sand except worse.

I think you would find that importers are making a fair bit less than that. Add to that the overhead of holding parts inventory and dealing with government regulations on importing motor vehicles, liability insurance, property insurance, theft insurance... Why would ANYBODY be involved with trials? Why? Because they love the sport which is why it's such a slap in the face to be lambasted for profiteering off the sport.

I think it more likely you'll be buying China or India manufactured trials bikes soon. A major problem with trials is that it is a sport for enthusiasts run by enthusiasts. We're very near sighted about the wider world in general. We want the best for the least cost and for low volume business like trials that is a recipe for financial disaster unless costs can be cut to an impossible level for European manufacturing. GasGas has done a lot of brilliant R&D while still trying to sell a low volume product at as low a margin as possible. It's an unsustainable business model which will force price rises or cost reductions by off-shoring. Once that starts Beta and Sherco will have to follow or die. This is much more than one company teetering.

Yeah Iconic, glucose is your friend. Until it isn't. Hope you can get it sorted.

Hi Five, Sorry couldn't resist. OK, have you just hit a plateau or do you feel you are losing ground? If you suddenly feel you are losing ground it might be time for a check up. Last year I went from riding my usual mediocre to absolute crap. Found out I had/have Lyme disease and had some muscle weakness. Really noticed it on a climb when I couldn't hold on all the way to the top without ending up on fingertips. Not good. At first I thought I just needed to slow the Beta down. Then a knee swelled up and the orthopedic Dr. suggested testing for Lyme. Good call Dr. Boyle. So I've been back at the gym busting my cookies for the last three months hoping next season is better. OK so that's the basic caveat. Make sure you are OK. Not knowing your level this will seem all over the place. If you've just plateau'd, and it happens to everybody find a knowledgeable riding buddy. Somebody who knows how a technique works and can explain it. This isn't true of every expert by the way and some of us duffers know a lot about techniques we no longer have the cojones to do. Video yourself riding some of your least favorite obstacles and listen to your engine and pay particular attention to your body position. Analyze what you do. Are you centered? Are you using too much throttle or not getting off the throttle so you are burying the rear wheel into obstacles? (the most common cause of failed double blips and zaps). Are you properly weighting and unweighting? Bernie Schriber said in his book, "Practice what you don't like, practice what you don't do well." We all have a favorite rock or log that we're comfortable with and have ridden over a thousand times. Leave it alone for a couple of months. The reason you can ride is so easily is you have absolute confidence you can ride it. Confidence is vital to seeing yourself ride something and you need to believe to make it happen. Go find something that makes you uncomfortable and ride it until it you have beaten it. Don't stop at the first clean either. You are trying to reprogram your brain, not clean the obstacle so you must ride it until you are relaxed all though the ride. When you are bored then you can move on. Really concentrate on basics. Centering gets us all. If you're dabbing almost exclusively on the inside of turns your centering is wrong. Steer with pressure, not weight. Most inside dabs are the result of legs too straight causing the hips to turn offsetting the derriere. Remember to bend that outside knee and elbow to allow the outside foot peg and bar to come up and straighten the inside leg and elbow to keep pressure on the peg and bar. Look where you want to be. We all suffer from target focus, looking at the rock or log and not past it where we will be in short order. This does two things; One, it allows the body to react naturally to the obstacle since it doesn't have to fight the brain which will try to calculate every possible way to fail and thereby gum up the works. Two, it tells the brain we are already through the obstacle so don't start acting all surprised and seize up when we get to the turn on the other side. The other factor is you will go where you look. You can't help it so fool it by looking where you want to go. Keep practicing. It beats being at the office and Arizona's got some amazing rocks. If you haven't joined a club look for one. It helps to have others to ride with because they can see what you can't and will goad you to do what you're not really keen on doing. Let me know if any of this makes sense. We're all in this together. Dan EDIT: I see Steve got to this while I was typing so apologies for redundant content.

Not mine Bubba, not mine.

"This auction is for a mixed 6 pack of Fuel Fragrance. There will be 6 four ounce bottles of Fuel Fragrance by Manhattan Oil. You choose any combination of the following fragrances. Raspberry, Banana, Vanilla, Bubble Gum, Root Beer, Fruit Punch, Pina Colada, Watermelon, Cotton Candy, Apple, Blueberry, Tangerine, Cherry, Grape, Strawberry or Reefer Madness." There are already a few riders around here who smell like "Reefer Madness" even without their bike.

One thing I've always wanted to try was the candle scents you can pick up in a craft shop. I figure it must be a combustible hydrocarbon so it should mix with fuel. Wouldn't it be nice to pull up to a section and smell something pleasant. Then again the cost of a cylinder and piston make the experiment risky. And no I don't hang around craft shops but when the wife drags me through one I do what I do in any store and start thinking, "How can I use that in trials."

Remember Heather it's going to take a while for you to get used to a change in gearing. Unlike proper jetting when a bike isn't running right a change in gearing is going to take time to re-sync your conditioned reflexes to. I also second the carbon fiber reeds as they make the bike pull better lower into the rev range.