dan williams

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.

Try it out. I have one on my 300 simply because I hate the full wrist bend required by the slow throttle. Once you get used to the quick throttle you really depend on it being there. If you're not having any issues with the bike getting away from you now and you feel a bit compromised with your wrist all twisted it may be a good mod. The bike will still be a somewhat soft state of tune but you'll have an easier time using all it's got.

Tommi Ahvala said in an interview he didn't work out in a gym. Just rode his bike. I think Toni is that rare combination of talent, desire and sheer physical ability. Jordi was the same way and I love that Toni is as easy going and accommodating as Jordi was. As for the Bluetooth, I have it in my Subaru. Doesn't make me a better driver though.

According to the S3 catalog http://www.s3parts.com/product_trial.html pg23 they only offer a high compression head for the 125 and low and high compression heads for the 250 and 300. I agree with the above though that the 200 is a lovely soft bike and you just need a little more time to get used to it.

If you whiskey throttle and get it back under control it's a 125. If you whiskey throttle and end up wobbling into the trees before you fall over it's a 200. If you whiskey throttle and it flips and breaks the rear fender it's a 250. If you whiskey throttle and wake up in the hospital it's a 270. Sorry, can't pass up a good set up.

Yeah you need to be a bit more specific. is the fork solid from the top of the travel, sticking in the middle, stuck at the bottom?

Truly the promised land.

Yeah. I find that the same tool I use for the OEM (piece of PVC pipe) doesn't properly fit the SKF seals. They are wider at the seal lips so I had to hog out the seal driver with a Dremel tool. I still think they're gonna pop out once the bike gets ridden. Not a great option until the wiper is redesigned in my opinion.

Go for carbon fiber reeds. Makes the bike grunt up hills and smooths the power out quite nicely. Of course proper jetting is essential as well.

Great Mr English. Welcome to the sport and let the missus know that there is now a whole international forum that adores her!

I think you mean the wiper on top of the tube. I just put a set in a friends Rev4 and I noticed the lip that goes into the fork leg is far shorter on the SKF green wipers than on the old OEM seals. I'm pretty sure his will pop out too.

Rick your sense of humor is greatly appreciated. Your Thor pants are fine. I also have a set that I'll usually use. I love the Gaerne boots because they have a world better feel than any others I've tried but like everything you're going to have a hard time finding stuff in your size. (NOTE TO SELF: Do not p*** off Rick) I think your best bet is to look at the British websites advertised on this site. I've had good luck ordering from all that I have ordered so far and they carry a far greater assortment of trials goodies than anyone in the US. Ryan will have to special order for you but he is also very good to deal with but it may be you won't find real trials gear in your size. The trials helmets seem to run pretty true to size but fit differently depending on shell shape. Unfortunately it's kind of a crap shoot since no one has a stock of different helmets over here. Gaernes seem to run true to size but other trials boots I've owned have been variable usually on the tight side of things.

I can't bear to look. Did I scare him yet?

Allreet another member of TFGIS (Team Fat Guy In Spandex). Welcome to the team. If we can't dazzle them we can blind them. Or at least make them wish they were blind. Either one works for me. I will warn you though if you get the true trials pants they run small. Like two sizes smaller than you think. Those skinny little euro stick figures are probably wearing a large. But they are sooooo comfortable with absolutely NO padding. Oh yeah, there will be no question as to your, er, "qualifications" if you get my drift. I find a set of the spandex bicycle shorts under riding pants works well since there is no padding on the fender and we all sit down at some point.

Allow me to drop the fundamental learning on you. Stay centered. You will find that almost all of your dabs (foot touches) will be on the inside. There is a reason for this. New riders, and this is a constant battle for the rest of us, don't bend their knees. Try this sometime. Stand on a hill sideways, perpendicular to the fall line with your feet slightly apart facing forward (if you extend your arms one should point uphill, the other downhill). No problem right? You're nice and stable. Now look down at your knees. The uphill leg is bent, the downhill leg is straight. This is the proper technique for standing on a hill or turning a trials bike. When you lean a bike one peg and handlebar come up the other side goes down. Now if you are a trail, enduro or street rider you are used to leaning in a turn. This is done when standing usually by keeping both legs straight and dropping a shoulder into the turn which moves the center of gravity to the inside of the line between the contact patches of the tires. At typical trail speed, no problem. At trials speed, inside dab. So here's the problem, you lean the bike and one peg comes up. You keep your legs straight because that's what you're used to and to balance you twist your spine to rotate your butt to the outside. Your body is now torqued and twisted dropping your inside shoulder. You have lost the ability to pressure the foot pegs to steer the bike so the slightest obstacle that changes the speed of the bike causes you to drop a foot. You can illustrate this easily back standing on the hill. Get into the proper comfortable knees bent stance and have a friend push you this way and that. Pretty stable. Now try straightening the bent uphill leg and notice how you have to twist to stay balanced. Now have your buddy apply the same force and note how easily you can be knocked out of your stance. The great thing about this is it can be practiced in a driveway or yard. Do figure eights trying to keep your shoulders level and using peg and bar pressure to steer the bike. Get used to keeping your knees out from the tank and the feeling of the bike moving as you stay centered over the line between the tire contact patches. At first it'll feel odd then it'll click and you'll feel balanced. Practice enough and it'll become second nature and when you dab you'll know exactly why. Watch the really good riders turn and you will see how they stay centered and steer with their feet. This is why they can stop at any point in a turn.

Welcome to the sport. It's not easy at the moment because you're fighting the bike. Don't worry, it'll come but right now every reaction you have is tuned to a different style of riding You are having to unlearn the conditioned responses of another type of riding so you are using 2-3 times the energy you'll need when you have reprogrammed your muscle memory to the trials bike. That is why it looks so much easier even for the old guys. Of course once you get the hang of it there are more difficult things to try so the battle goes on. What you will find amazing is how the reactions developed in trials translates to other styles of riding. You're going to find that a lot of what you accepted as being the proper way to ride a bike isn't.

Polishing the sides of the tabs that ride in the slots on the basket is essential to make the clutch progressive. Another thing that can happen is the tabs wear grooves in the slots that prevent the tabs from sliding smoothly. Some have reported luck with filing the sides of the grooves smooth again though I'm a little nervous about that myself.

Actually Billy I was thinking the upside was you weren't pulling little pieces of aluminum out of your header pipe.

Heh heh Sherco guys get cranky during the holidays. ?

...and he keeps that a****** under his kilt! Sorry, can't resist a proper setup.

I also go down one tooth on the countershaft sprocket for the beta but that's dropping it to a 10. That was more of an adjustment to make second the preferred gear for plonking.