dan williams

I've never had an easy time starting GasGas. The 2013 EVO 300 I have is easy to start but as stated you can't pussyfoot it or it can kick back. About three months ago I put an S3 low compression head in and it got easier to kick. Also mellowed the savage hit on top to something a little more user friendly.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed "the ballet of motorcycling" perfomed on the Zero was often "The nutcracker" Still I loved my '91

As I've said before the best way to get rid of a stupid rule is to enforce it. Exactly as written. Partial enforcement is like having no rules or worse different rules for different riders.

Odd my 2013 is a hex.

As far as looking for cracks it's easy to mistake cracks in the anodizing surface treatment for cracks in the aluminum. A fact shown to me by Ron Commo Sr. when I asked him about what looked like fractures on a Techno frame. He grabbed a piece of steel wool and ground down that section of frame to bare aluminum. Pointed to the now unblemished bare metal and said, "See, no problem" Not one to waste time that man.

I remember the Top Team bikes were black framed. Maybe that is the seller's definition of "factory". You should be able to get frame numbers off the headstock which should give year infomation. I know in the US the importer had to cut the head off of any 09 that had the frame replaced to make sure the old frame couldn't be reused. I think that effectively retired the original VIN.

I love the in-oven shot.

Hmmm late to this party but.... I put an S3 low compression head on my 300 Beta to make it less of an animal. Much cheaper option then a full cylinderectomy. It's a good mod. Keeps the grunt while removing the brutal hit on top. Well reducing it at least.

I seem to remember there was a stretch where GasGas was having a problem with Marzocci. Political or financial I don't remember but there was an issue that caused a shortage that slowed production. Perhaps you got an oddball proto bike. I also don't remember ever seeing the logo on the top of the slider on a Beta.

Here's hoping. Cheaper is better.

Any results yet?

... as lineaway says this could be a stator starting to go but try the cheap stuff first.

Hopefully just a need for a couple mm cut off the spark plug wire and a new plug cap. It sounds like it's not the plug but the removal and replace of the cap that is repairing the bad contact in the wire/cap junction. Try removing the plug cap and nipping off the end of the wire and screwing the old plug cap back on. Note: I don't remember if the stock cap unscrews. If not pardon my ignorance.

Hmmm. Learn something new every day.

Yeah not a typical trials thing to do. Usual idle adjust is; Are you stalling in sections? Turn idle up. Does the vibration when you're sitting in line waiting to ride a section tickle your gentleman bits? Turn idle down. Two stroke dirt bikes are notoriously unpredictable with inductive pickups. One other thing I've noticed on the beta flywheel is two trigger magnets 180 degrees apart. Whether this causes the ignition to fire twice or just serves to ping the microcontroller in the CDI with a timing signal to set advance I don't know.

Yeah well thankfully you're the exception.

Oooh this pic is priceless. It shows the primary side flywheel weight, the shifter mechanism and the kick starter system.

Of course that begs the question, why are trials transmissions so clunky. The Beta is chock full of needle bearings and precision machining. Why does it shift like a bag of spanners?

Great. Sometimes you just gotta take it apart and give it some attention.

Could be the pucks sticking in the caliper too. "Trappings", Yeah!

On mine it looked mangled so it was obvious. Your mileage may vary. One other thing is to make sure the piston returns all the way as it's easy to adjust the lever so the piston never returns past the reservoir port. If it never opens the port the brake hydraulics become a closed system and any heat buildup that expands the fluid causes the brake to come on and say on.

If it took a hard hit the spring in the master cylinder can be damaged.

If it's a Mikuni it's a simple fix. Nipper a small hole in the two vent tubes about halfway up the carb body. The long tubes act like a siphon if fuel bounces up into the tubes.

There is no purpose to "sag" It is merely how much the springs compress under the static weight of rider and bike. It has become a somewhat misunderstood measure of preload on the suspension springs. A general rule of thumb that becomes less useful with riders of different weight or springs that have sacked over time or been changed for accessory springs of a different rate. I was planning on going into this in depth at some point with pictures and diagrams but I'll try and cover a pocket version here. On a typical suspension application the springs and the weight of the bike/rider form a low frequency filter. As the wheels move rapidly to follow the terrain the frame reacts slower. The idea being that the quicker wheel movements are averaged out providing a smoother ride. At the same time the wheel weight and springs form a second resonant filter based on wheel weight and spring weight. This determines how fast the wheels react to changes in the terrain to stay in contact with the ground. The two systems are somewhat counter to each other as a lower spring rate/heavier chassis gives a smoother ride but a higher spring rate/lighter wheel maintains better contact with the ground. This is where "unsprung weight" becomes critical. Unsprung weight is essentially the wheel and any suspension components that are directly connected to the wheel on the bottom side of the shock. The lighter the wheel the lower the necessary spring rate to keep the inertia of the wheel from making it lose contact with the ground. Trials bikes are usually set up with very soft suspension so the first thing Clydesdales like myself notice is how easy it is to bottom out the suspension. The cheap answer is to crank up the preload. It's not the best solution. Preload is not spring weight. If I have an unloaded spring that takes 50kg to compress a centimeter it takes 100kg to compress it 2 centimeters, 150kg 3 centimeters. If I have the same spring preloaded 1 centimeter and I put 50kg on it won't compress. If I put 100kg on it will compress 1 centimeter, 150kg 2 centimeters. I've effectively lost the first centimeter of travel. What that means in practical terms is if I ride over a series of little stutter bumps that never put more than 50kg of load on the spring it might as well be a solid metal spacer. If you've ever driven a 1 ton truck with nothing in it around a bumpy corner you know the feeling well as all it does is skip across the road. Assuming you are not built like Fujigas a heavier spring with less preload is better for two reasons. The first is less preload means the spring will actually react over smaller bumps. The second is peculiar to trials and specifically any maneuver that stores energy in the suspension to be released with the wheel leaving the ground, splatters, zaps, hops... With the spring preloaded you have to put in much more energy to get the suspension to move but you don't get it all back. If I jump on the above mentioned preloaded spring with 150kg of force that first 50kg gets transferred directly to the ground and only 100kg of energy is available to be recovered from the spring. OK it's more complicated than that as energy is stored in the tire but that's the general concept. So sag is not an absolute measurement. More critical is balance between the front and rear suspension, how well your wheels are tracking on bumpy terrain, your personal riding style. Big hits and trick riding vs. slow turns and bumpy sections. If you can find any video of Jordi Tarres and Eddy Lejuene you will get an example of how different two world champions suspensions can be. Jordi's bikes were always sprung very high with minimal damping where Eddy's bikes were soft as a sneaker full of oatmeal. If you're bottoming out a lot a little preload goes a long way with a rising rate suspension but be careful as it's very easy to dial in too much. Best approach is small adjustment, ride, small adjustment, ride. You will eventually find a setting that works for you.

His description sounds like the clutch stick with the seller starting the bike first time with rear brake on as we all learned to do. Clasico, It's an easy, though tedious, fix.