dan williams

Did you or a previous owner replace the wheel bearings? This sounds like what happens when bearings are replaced with the center spacer (tube that fits between the inner races of the bearings) left out. If the spacer is left out you can tighten up the axle and everything seems fine but the side loading on the bearings causes a quick and usually catastrophic failure and the whole hub assembly can be destroyed.

Normally about 70% of the stopping power of your brakes is from the front brake. On a downhill it goes up considerably. If you look at the top riders on steep down hills their rear wheels are just barely touching the ground and acting more as a stabilizer than any kind of control. You have to use the front brake. One of the things that greatly affects comfort on drop-offs and down hills is bar position. It seems counter intuitive but having your bars too far back makes it more difficult to get positioned for a downhill. Check your bars to make sure that they are at least vertical when the bike is on level ground. You'll see a lot of guys with their bars even more forward but that may make the steering too twitchy for you as a beginner. The key to the up hills as with most things in trials is centering. The Bernie Schriber book is still one of the best references on this basic concept. You probably find that you lose a lot of points in slow turns, always to the inside. This is a common problem for trials riders and is due to not bending the knees and arms to provide a stable platform. Let me 'splain. As Bernie describes it you should be standing on the bike the same as if you were standing on the ground. As a demonstration find a slope and stand perpendicular to the fall line, i.e. with one foot higher up the hill than the other. You may be on a hill but you are still balanced. It’s how you are balanced that is important. If you look down you’ll see your uphill knee is bent. You don’t think about it you just do it naturally. That is exactly how you should feel on the bike. You stay centered and the bike moves beneath you. Here is where most new riders get into trouble. They don’t bend their knees to compensate for the raising and lowering of the pegs as the bike is leaned. Instead they keep their legs locked and spin their torso to compensate. This works OK on an enduro bike at speed but it doesn’t work well at all on a trials bike. Try it standing on the hill and you’ll feel the difference. Have a friend try to push you off balance in both modes and you’ll see that bending the knees is a much stronger position than compensating by twisting your body. So the point of that exercise is this, keep your body upright in turns and let the foot peg and bar end come up to you by bending the outside knee and elbow. Now apply the same rules for uphill and downhill. Let the bike come up to you on the uphill. Don’t anticipate and lean forward because that will just unweight the rear wheel and cause it to spin. Maintain pressure into the pegs and if you feel the rear wheel spinning pull back on the bars. This is another important point from the Schreiber book, don’t think weight, think pressure. When you start thinking about weighting a peg or bar or wheel you’ll displace your center and lose the strength of being centered on the bike. Instead think of applying pressure to do what you want to do. Use back pressure on the bars to load the rear wheel for traction, forward pressure on the bars to load the front wheel for braking. Use pressure on one peg and bar end to initiate a turn or hold an off-camber. Use opposite pressure to stop a turn and return the bike to a neutral position. Try to always be balanced. Bernie said you can learn the basics in 5 minutes in a driveway but spend a lifetime perfecting them. On the down hills let the bike fall away from you. Don’t lean forward but do maintain pressure on the bars. You'll find that you will crouch into the correct position naturally. This helps weight the front wheel more which helps braking. One finger on the brake. If you need more have them serviced. The rear brake is more dangerous and must be treated with great respect on a down hill unless you’re really keen to watch the back wheel pass your front wheel on the way down. I’ve done it. It didn’t end well. Find a nice little hill and practice using just the front brake, using just the rear brake and a mix of both. You can throw in some turns and get used to the transition from up hill to down hill to up hill while maintaining your centering. Believe me the first time you do it properly you will go. “Whoa!” Then you’ll spend a few hours trying to repeat it, and then a lifetime trying to perfect it. One more note on up hills, when you have to dab maintain pressure on the foot still on the peg. Most new riders dab and plunk their whole weight on the dabbing foot. Instant rear wheel spin when you do that. On your practice hill practice dabbing on the way up keeping the back wheel loaded. It has to be a reaction so practice helps the muscle memory. A final tip is to watch slow motion video of some of the older non-trick riding sections. Watch body position and you'll see how the top guys stay centered. You can watch modern stuff too but you have to look around the dynamic trick moves to see how they all start and end the tricks from a centered position.

I figured as much. Nobody in the motherland would cancel a trials for mud.

Trials has an odd (and unsustainable) business model. In most manufacturer/importer distributer/dealer relationships the distributers/dealers serve an essential function not usually known by the customer. That of buffer/storage. For most manufacturers/importers it would be financially impossible to stock all the parts necessary to serve demand. By each dealer keeping a small stock of parts that are paid for up front the manufacturers can maintain a larger footprint than they would be able to if they had to pay themselves for all the spare parts necessary to support a market. That's the way it works in the semiconductor business. The distributers place large orders from manufacturers and by marking up the parts the distributers can handle the smaller orders at a profit and the manufacturers can service the large accounts directly. In trials every novice rider has the phone number of the importer on speed dial and will bypass the local dealer to save a few bob and there'll be hell to pay if they don't get it at the same price as the dealer. This Walmart effect is a relatively recent phenomenon made possible by the internet. It has in many ways damaged the sport as most dealers who were barely scratching enough money out of trials now find it impossible to afford being a dealer. The main problem with this is most trials riders are very close to their dealers. They see them at events, they ride with them and as a courtesy they buy from them. Unfortunately when the local dealer has to undercut the importer price or the price of a more aggressive dealer they go broke and quit no matter how much they love the sport. That means the loss of the major recruiters for the sport, the small dealer.

You need to get the Top Gear lads out there with the Snowbine. Actually it looks a bit odd to me to see bare ground since the guys I ride with are usually shoveling out sections this time of year to practice. It's actually better with snow as bare ground just freezes and makes for variable traction. Good on Stratford-Upon-Avon Club for giving it a go and then having the smarts to know when it was dangerous enough to pull the plug. Always a difficult decision.

In general trials boots have, Tread pattern on soles Shorter calf sections No metal toe plate More flexible sole

I find a pair of BIG channel lock pliers and lots of swearing helps with the Rev3s.

Heartbroken, My friend Sonny and I have always jokingly referred to each other as Jordi and Diego. I call Sonny Jordi for his superb throttle control and he calls me Diego for my too liberal use of the loud grip. At one world round Sonny was on the other side of the section trying to get my attention and yelling Diego, diego, DIEGO!!! He didn't realize Diego Bosis was standing in front of me looking across the section to see who the madman was yelling at him. I remember watching Diego on the wall in Tweed Ontario smoking the tire on his Aprilia at the top. I think only he and Jordi made it up. I was fortunate to get to hang around at the '89 TdN in Belgium with the US team. After the event the Wickers found a little restaurant and made a group deal with the owner to feed the team. As we're all sitting there waiting to eat the Italian team wandered in and sat down with us. That had to be one of the greatest dinners ever. Through the TdN the Italian fans were honking air horns every time a rider went into a section. As we're sitting there in the restaurant suddenly the sound of an air horn blasts from just outside the restaurant. All the color drained out of the faces of the Italian riders. Renato Chiaberto held up one finger, "Uno momento" and left the table. A second later he reappears, produces the air horn and blows a prolonged blast at Ron Commo's head, puts the air horn down on the table and resumes eating without another word. I thought Diego, Donato and Davide were going to blow a gasket they laughed so hard. I'll never get used to finding out my heros are mortal. RIP Diego, next time I ride I'll hit something way too hard in your honor.

Welcome to the wonderful world of high compression. Although there can be other causes Betas are known to have the knock from using pump gas. A lot of us have just given in and run race gas. That gives you the crisp throttle response Senior B riders like me demand (and can't use). You can try raising the needle a notch or two to see if it helps but it will soften the power a bit. There really is no substitute for the good go juice.

I have an '05 which is down for main bearings at the moment. Too much sitting in storage after I got the '08. The shock mounts are called Heim joints over here. Wikipedia has a bit on the history. Wear will depend on use and conditions but just picking up the rear end and seeing if there's play will tell you more than any of us can. Yes the Mikuni piddles fuel. Take it off and set the float level, change pilot jet to a 27.5 if not done already and then reassemble and nipper a hole in the two vent tubes halfway up the carb body. Problem fixed. Do the clutch fix pinned at top of forum. The '05 has aluminum cases which were a lot less prone to corrosion but again you might want to pull off the case just to check. Use a good premixed coolant like Silkolene Pro-cool or Engine Ice and never fill with tap water. Every Beta with an aluminum frame I've owned has developed a front end clunk as the steering head bearings have seated. Usually tighening the triple clamp nut above the bearings eliminates it for the life of the bike. Do this carefully though as the aluminum threads can be stripped. Make sure the electrical system has a good solid frame ground. I usually hard ground to the frame at the ignition coil mounts. Betas can be a bit daft with their wiring. The stock kill switches are awful. If the original owner hasn't replaced his yet tell me how he lived this long. Everybody panics about "white oil". The truth is the case is not sealed and even if you don't go through puddles condensation will get into the gearbox and emulsify the oil. You will never get all the water out. Change the oil once in a while and don't worry about it. I highly recommend the full length fork guards. Welcome to the family.

They cut the headstock off it to prevent it from being used again. I've seen the pile of them at the former US importer. ...and that is going to be one tasty Beta you got there. Well done.

Thanks Liviob, good bit of info.

There were actually quite a few '09s that had the frames replaced under warranty. You might want to check with American Beta as to the policy on the older bikes. The EVO frames are made by Beta and not Verlicchi who made the Zero and Rev3 aluminum frames so it took about 6 months for them to get it right. Same as the original '00 Zero frame. If you have a newer frame, which I believe they beefed up the gusseting in the head area, then no problem.

70 PSI is really low. That's gotta be far below operational pressure. I get a usual reading of 140 on my Betas when they're healthy. Could be blockage of the exhaust, broken baffle or such. Broken reed or something stuck in the intake as mentioned before. The mention of ether makes me nervous. In a four stroke where the oil doesn't work up to the crown it's no big deal. On a two stroke it can cause momentary dry spots in the cylinder/piston interface as it cleans off the residual oil. I'd limit the ether application to last resort. As for ring sticking it sometimes is carbon buildup in the grooves rather than piston scrapes.

Uh thanks. I damn near pooped twinkies whan I figured out how mine was wired. Bad bad bad design. I did notice a few years ago Beta was looking for an electrical engineer. Boy was I tempted.

My 08 was wired screwy. I fixed it before it caused problems. You may want to do the same once a new stator is obtained. Look here http://www.newenglandtrials.org/Beta_wiring.pdf

The beauty of trials, two buddys can play on a small rock all day and have a blast doing it. As you get better you will ride bigger and scarier stuff but it isn't any different. It's just play time. You get on the bike and suddenly you're 10 years old again.

Oooo must be secret!

I thought AJP had shut it's doors.

I don't think they come with Helicoils. Considering what a bear it is to get the plate to line up again I'm surprised any have threads at all. Can you use longer bolts and nut them?

I think the fact that everyone who's done the clutch mod has been really happy with the result confirms my theory. I'm glad you're putting in the effort to understand the finer points of oil but the mechanicals of the clutch plates as shipped from the factory make the oil argument moot as they simply can't work the way they are designed to work. A clutch designed to provide a controlled friction characteristic fiber to steel is just not going to behave with a significant glue to steel contact area. The same can be said of the tabs which are sliding bearings. Glue and rough surface finish are just not a good bearing.

Yeah the Beta is an old design that just wasn't prepped very well coming out of the factory. The GasGas is a whole different animal and I'm pretty sure the Beta fix is not applicable.

Thank you for posting this. It's quite moving to see so many of my heroes just out having a good time riding.

Well then enjoy your Xispa. Seriously the importers have a tiny profit margin if any at all. As for the factories, producing such complicated machines in such small numbers with the complicated regulations for motor vehicles and dealing with suppliers, some of whom are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy themselves (think AJP and remember the Marzocchi scare) and you really have to wonder why anybody makes or sells trials bikes in the first place.

This is a game changer. It addresses every stick we've been beat with to take away access except erosion and for trials erosion is nowhere near the issue it is for other forms of the sport. This is simply the best opportunity to differentiate trials in the mind of the general public away from the eco-nazi stereotyping that has lumped us in with every highway wheelying idiot and neighborhood midnight motocrosser that has been a curse on us since the Sierra Club and their ilk decided we were public enemy #1. Instead of worrying over no clutch lever we should be shouting from the rooftops. But I fear, like most opportunities for this sport, this too will be squandered in debates about