dan williams

Well there is no "real" answer other than personal preference but if you're new then you don't know what your personal preference is. So a few basic guidelines could be said. The bars set perpendicular to the ground is the usual starting point. On old bikes and I mean 70s, 80's you could get away with the bars back as far as lined up with the forks but it wasn't a great position. Modern bikes with the stop and go techniques and the emphasis on being "centered" work much better with the bars slightly forward of perpendicular to the ground. A common misconception is that the bars back further will help move your weight back on climbs. What actually happens is as your arms are positioned back you stand up straighter causing your butt to move up so you don't gain any net rearward weight bias but you do cramp the ability to move on the bike and fatigue your arms faster. Likewise too far forward stretches your arms out dropping your torso and causing your butt to stick out rearward. Neither position helps with the fundamental prinicipal of staying centered and being able to move on the bike to compensate for the terrain. The fundamental difference in handling that bar position affects is the "speed" of the steering. Bars forward makes the steering more sensitive to input and putting the bars far forward of the vertical can make the bike's handling quite twitchy especially on the loop. Moving the bars back will slow the steering down and if too far back make the bike seem like it doesn't want to turn without great effort. Bars forward helps with drop-offs. I know that sounds counter intuitive but it really does. As a newby my suggestion is to start with the bars vertical and ride for a while incrementally inching them forward every few rides until the handling seems a bit on the twitchy side. That's probably the best place for you as you will get used to the handling after a while and after 6 months won't be able to ride with the bars back anymore. In any case you'll have found the narrow adjustment range that suits you. Another note while we're on controls is the lever position. Enduro and MX guys will often set their levers pointing down like they do on their non-trials bikes. On a trials bike the levers are usually set to near parallel the ground. Yes it will be uncomfortable to start but in a month you won't even notice. You will notice you can get to the clutch and front brake on downhills much easier without the danger of rolling your wrists over the bars. You can adjust to almost any bar/lever position in time but some are better then others and you'll be amazed how small a change can be felt on a trials bike so make small changes while looking for your best setup. Check out what the other local riders do if you can remembering the experts will usually have the most aggressive setups and the senior guys will have the most "comfortable". If you really can't get the bars to a good place for you there are other bends but it can be expensive swapping bars to fine tune. One other consideration, think of the whole bike as a steering system. Too much preload in the front suspension relative to the rear will tend to push the front end out increasing the rake and slowing down the steering. The opposite is true as too much preload on the rear will decrease rake and speed up the steering. Optimum is to have both suspensions working in unison. A good test is to bounce on the pegs and watch the suspension to make sure both have approximately the same compression (spring rate & preload) and they react at the same time (damping). This is very important to the handling of the bike as a mismatched suspension will not only bounce you around but will dynamically be changing the steering of the bike as you roll over obstacles especially for a novice. Now having obsessed over this stuff for many years I'm a better mechanic than rider. Don't make the same mistake. Turn a few wrenches then go ride. Time on the bike will overcome almost any adjustment.

Several issues, if the cops stopped them for an offense then the penalty should stick. Since they apparently weren't cited and the cops came to hassle the event organizers it would appear somebody was just putting the screws to the event and I'd have to waive the time penalty for those riders. It's a tricky situation as the cops may have stopped them for being faster on the road as top riders tend to be or just the first three that that came to where the cops were. In either case if they were not breaking the law then it was a situation out of the rider's control (and up to the club to have cleared up with the local police before the event to be blunt) and the penalty should be waived similar to a reride. It sounds like it occurred at the end of the day nullifying the argument that the riders should have finished because all the others did. Smart riders will take the extra time and will usually finish close to the end time as a strategy. In that case the argument is moot.

Congratulations on recovering the trophy. It's not much of a cup though is it?

"One of the other threads covers "necessary" clutch mods" One of the hopes in doing the clutch mod description was that Beta says "Aha!" and gets on the plate manufacturer to clean up their act. Maybe it finally happened. I find it just as tedious and annoying to do the mod as everyone else. Can't talk you into opening your clutch cover to confirm it's fixed though I guess Congrats on the new machine.

"Guys...I'm not going to do stupid s**t and spend a bunch of money" Oh yeah you are. Something I heartily endorse. Especially if you've got a bunch of Ti goodies lying around. Sorry to seem a cumudgeon but when it's unknown whether you're an experianced guy or some young'un planning on spending his tuition money "making a factory bike" I react on the side of caution. By all means have at it but do post the results.

I agree check your clutch pull against other Betas to make sure nothing is wrong. See my clutch post pinned at the top of the forum. It explains much about why Beta used heavier clutch springs then necessary for a properly operating clutch. I have done the plate dressing discussed in the article for '09 and '10 Evos for the top rider in New England. He likes the smoother clutch engagement but is running all six springs. Make sure your clutch perch (sp?) is far into the bar. Hmmm bad explaination. Experianced riders position the perch as far in on the bar as it will go. That increases the leverage of your finger. If the perch is sitting next to the grip it's out too far. It depends on what level you ride. For an expert who needs the clutch to grab hard and fast it's best to leave all six springs in. I find it rare that an expert has an issue with a heavy clutch as they practice often enough to have a "kung fu" grip and don't even notice. For the rest of us mostly senior riders with day jobs dropping a couple of springs or using 6 lighter springs makes the day much more enjoyable. Well actually the end of the day when we can still pull the clutch in. I've been running 4 springs on my '05 and '08 Betas for several years and only have started to get a slight slip in 6th at full throttle on the loop. I'm also no lightweight being now down to 205 lbs. Since I'm at full throttle so rarely it really isn't an issue compared to the forearm fatigue I used to get at the end of the day. With the clutch plates dressed the gear oil has a much greater effect on the clutch. But to get back to your original question, didn't think I'd answer it did you? When I remove the springs I take the associated hardware out. There's no point in leaving in something that can get loose and damage the internals if it; 1. no longer serves a purpose 2. isn't held in place by spring pressure. I remove springs opposite each other. Optimum would be to use six lighter springs though. (edit) Duh I see you already looked at the pinned subject. My apologies for not paying attention.

The popcorn idea won't work. All that happens is there is moisture inside the kernal that expands the corn when it is suddenly released as steam when the kernal is heated. The actual pressure against the tank would only be as much as you could get pushing a popped kernal against the tank. Might as well try to bend it out with styrofoam peanuts. You would create some tiny amount of air pressure from the steam expansion but not much. If you had a form of the outside of the tank and could seal it then suction form the outside with positive pressure on the inside would work best. Of course if the dent is just cosmetic and doesn't significantly affect safety or fuel capacity just ride it. You're only going to dent it again anyway.

Heh heh "no advertising". I'm sure you're all going to run out now and sign up for an NETA membership.

Reminds me of an article in, I think it was Dirt Rider, years ago where the author was going over a list of all the mods he made to his bike to lighten it. At the end of the list he stated that at the end of all this work he was surprised to find he had invented the DNF. The most important "factory" component on one of Dougie's or any world rider's bikes is the spare parts on the minder's bike. Might just be cheaper to spring for a newer bike.

As someone who runs a website I understand the frustration on both sides but.... I once tried to pass my site on to someone else and found it plastered with I hate AOL graphics and wonderful features such as "My collection of hats". Apparently he only owned two hats and he even spelled one of them wrong. Needless to say I regained control of the site ASAP. When your site is representing an organization it's important to, at least try, to appear as professional as possible. http://www.newenglandtrials.org/

If you'd like me to take a look at it I'd love to take it into work and throw the carb body under the microscope. The curiosity is killing me.

At least he didn't say he thought he was walking up behind Christy.

Took me quite a while to figure out the only way to get the damn float bowl back on was to hold the carb upside down so the floats were out of the way.

OK this is a longshot but it all sounds vaguely familiar. Last year I worked on a bike that was a whole pack of woe. Never really got it completely sorted as I think the stator packed it in but before it finally quit the bike ran sporadically and in much the same way you describe. I swapped carbs and did the multiple rebuild thing. What I finally found was the rod on the choke plunger was bent (don't ask me how). In any case the bike would start hard and run poorly at low throttle settings and bog but clear up at higher throttle settings even though it still wasn't quite right. The bent rod was causing the choke to stay partially on. So I guess the practical upshot is make sure your choke is closing all the way. Next time you are in debug mode stick your finger on top of the choke and push down to see if it helps.

Ahhhhh so now the other shoe is what does Pat do now that there's an opening at GasGas?

It'll be interesting to see how this works if they continue the "local dealer only" support at the nationals model.

I just got an EMAIL to the effect that Cody will be on Beta for 2011. Anybody got confirmation?

Sooooo has changing the name in Europe dramtically increased the number of riders? Can it be credited with increasing the number at all? Silly waste of time. If you want to increase the size of the sport make it fun, make it accessable. Cater to the bottom classes on a local level as that's the growth engine. More novice riders now equates to more top classes later. For every Tiger Woods there are millions of duffers that actually make golf work. If they didn't have courses cater to the duffers then golf would dry up. All this silliness about "growing the sport" by trying to make it fashionable to a mass audience at the higher levels of the sport is a poor use of resources. You may draw a few more people in but they won't stay if they're not having fun and they won't bring in their friends which is the only model of sustainable growth.

Pinned to the top of the forum. Yeah it's a pain but what can you do?

That is basically what I heard. The '09 had tremendous failure rates for frame and some early swingarm. I have not heard of problems with the '10. The '10 frame has additional gussets and I believe the heat treating for the swing arm was improved. On the early Rev3s there was an issue where the swing arms were snapping at the junction of the cast piece at the front of the swingarm and the extrusions that make up the arms. Something to do with improper heat treating to relieve the stress caused by welding two dissimilar pieces together. What I also heard is that the Evo frame is not made by Verlicci as the Rev3 frame was so it seems Beta ran into the usual teething problems with the '09 Evo. Just in general keep an eye on any area where different pieces are welded together. One thing to note with an aluminum frame is cracks may appear in the anodized oxide on the surface. Though these can look disturbing they will not propagate through to the underlying metal. Of course that leads to the question of how can you tell a real crack early in its development and it's difficult without some very expensive equipment.

Sorry to tell you this Sparky but yes, you have to do the mod again. Exact same clutch plates as your old Rev3.

Usually when the stator is crap it's the trigger coils that have gone out so it's unlikely to run better as the fuel is running out. This may be a stupid question (I'm full of them) but have you checked the jet sizes? The more screwy the problem often the more basic the answer. Maybe somebody at the factory grabbed a carb for an enduro bike by accident. Monday bike? Even if it says it's the correct size it is possible to have misdrilled jets. Worth replacing as an experiment. If you got an oddball pilot or needle jet or even incorrect needle you could be chasing your tail for months. It certainly sounds like a fuel issue and I'm impressed with your diagnostic work so far. See if American Beta will front you a set of jets. Just as an afterthought, was the little O-ring gasket thingy that isolates the jet cicuits in place at the base of the jet tower?

Beta seems to be able to deal with internal issues quite well as illustrated by the frame breakage issues of the '09 EVOs which haven't shown up on the 2010s as far as I know. The external manufactured parts are a different story as is shown by the ignition and the clutch plates. My guess is Beta has little choice in situations where they have a bunch of components on the shelf and not enough pull with the manufacturer to force them to take material back and fix it so if 5% fail in the field they're willing to eat the cost in replacement for new bikes and reputation. In the long run I fear that is a flawed strategy with the trials world being so small and well connected.

Heh heh it always seems to be a GasGas rider whining about how Beta fails on quality. There's a name for that particular psychological dynamic..... Oh I remember, "projection" Shouldn't you be off rebuilding your gearbox or something?

OK a couple of thoughts, sometimes an intermittant electrical fault like a bad kill switch or leaky high voltage lead can seem like a carb issue. I've seen it several times and it's always a surprise. The Keihin has a tiny exit hole for the pilot circuit bleed air. This causes the carb to be very sensitive to getting water stuck in the circuit and unless you make a concerted effort to blow it out with high pressure air it won't come out. The specific hole that gets blocked is the TINY drill hole on the bottom of the venturi chamber just behind where the flat slide touches down in the groove at the bottom of the chamber. To really blow out the pilot circuit you need "security" torx driver to remove the central tower from the underside of the carb and have at the orifaces with a high pressure air line.