dan williams

Not "bagging out" the Chinese. No emotional attachment whatsoever. Simple economics. The cost of labor is cheaper and there is little incentive for the government in China to enforce patent, worker protection, environmental laws. China is pragmatic. If they can kill the competition to be the only supplier they will. Basic supply/demand/resource equation. THe idea that China is a huge market for anything is true to the extent that there are a lot of people. The projected demand for any company outside of China getting a huge benefit from that market long term is oblivious to the aggressive nature of Chinese industrial development. The Chinese government will gladly accept foreign industry while dangling the carrot of domestic market knowing in the long term the domestic capacity to manufacture goods will grow to the point that China will become self sufficient and not only not need foreign companies but will be able to actively displace them in their home market. For years I've been predicting that one probable outcome from the growing use of debt to finance our toy obsession was that China and the other debt holders like Dubai and Saudi Arabia would end up having to forgive a large portion of debt from countries like the US. Simply to keep the US government from going bankrupt. So am I bagging on the Chinese. No, I'm impressed with how fast the "communist" government has learned to play the capitalist game and the aggressiveness they are showing to win at all cost, in time. The end game is most impressive. I'm more frustrated with the local governments in the US and Europe that open the flood gates to imported goods while not acting to protect their local manufacturing capacity.They are truly selling out their own people. Only now is the full impact starting to be felt. So yes you will be able to buy an inexpensive trials bike of "acceptable" quality from a Chinese manufacturer... or you could buy food but you won't be able to afford both because when somebody can do your job for 20% of what you get paid now you are worth 20% of what you get paid now. Like it or not, labor (you) are a commodity.

1 week? Ouch. I'd have a serious talk with whoever you bought it from.

So how about a Chinese built Scorpa? One of my fears with the bailout of the US auto industry is that much of their production will end up overseas in China and India. I can easily see this happen with the trials industry. Welcome to Wal*mart... The trials section? Over there between the electronics and boys departments.

No matter what it sounds like you're in for a case split. Either something is bent like a shift fork or broken and floating around in the case like a gear tooth. Locking up the wheel while shifting often means something jammed in the gears or the shifting mechanism is trying to engage two speeds at the same time. Happened to me on a Hyundai. Very exciting at speed I assure you. The only way to know for sure is to split the cases. It can't be ignored because even if it frees up there is an extremely high risk of blowing the transmission apart, literally.

A one month word of mouth? Remember the old saying about a contract not being worth the paper it's printed on? In this case you don't even get the paper. It sounds like BVM isn't actually selling the bike, just lending their name to the employee who's selling it. If that voice in the back of your head says, "Wait a minute, this doesn't seem quite right." then maybe you should listen to it. I agree the idea of getting BVM to give a longer warranty is important and get it in writing. Buying from a dealer means paying more then you would from a private sale and if they can't stand behind the product you might as well not bother going though a dealer. If they won't extend the warranty then they have no confidence in the bike meaning either they don't trust their own work or the rebuild was done by somebody else (i.e. the kid in the parts department) under the name of BVM. Take a good look at the prevailing price of used '08s and decide if the price of this one is worth the extra risk but I don't get any of the warm fuzzies I would want from a "dealer" bike the way you're describing this deal.

A friend had a custom spring wound by Cannon Racecraft in Oklahoma for the rear of his 2005. He told them what bike and rider weight and is quite happy with the result. The website is here. http://cannonracecraft.com/catalog/default.php

For $500 it sounds like a good deal. Wider between the feet is not necessarily bad. Both Beta and GasGas have made the newer bikes wider at the pegs to improve stability. The only weakness for the

Trainspotting, still one of my favorite movies. Brilliant, funny and terrifying all at the same time. "For a vegetarian rents you're a ****ing EVIL shot!"

Doesn't take much. If the engine is unloaded then it's free to really wind up with just a little more air in the mix. If you had the choke on that would also help supply fuel. An engine can run quite happily on a very lean mixture once its going. Since you were not at operating temperature and it was going at high revs you probably wouldn't have noticed if it was in pre-ignition or detonation anyway. As for the kill switch they are not as hardy as you would hope. At full rev there is quite a lot of current coming out of those ignition coils and any resistance in the kill switch circuit, which works perfectly at lower revs, might be enough to impair the function of the kill switch circuit at full blat. That's why clean connections and nice fat wires to hard ground points is essential for a kill circuit.

Yeah the EVO is tempting but the finances aren't there just yet. I bought the '08 with a loan out of my retirement fund though which is working out great. I pay myself back with interest and by far it has been the best investment I made all year. Everything else in the investment fund has just gone right in the dumper. Plop!

OCD, heh heh yeah probably. Common among engineers to some degree. We like puzzles and will tune out everything around us to focus on the why of a problem. Yanking the Keihin out to clean it is really no big whoop now. About a 20 minute job but the difference is night and day. There are two reasons I brought it up though. One was the '95 Techno I had with the Dellorto that couldn't be tuned because jets weren't available. I thought it was an animal too until I put a Mikuni on that I could get jets for and it turned into a pussy cat that still could roar. The other is the times the Keihin on my '08 was dirty and the experiance of just hating the way the bike ran. The 270 can be a handful but it's usually a very well behaved novice bike when it's running right. I'd hate for someone to spend all kinds of time and money to fix a problem that can be fixed for free. Like nippering a hole in the vent tubes on the Mikuni to stop the fuel leaks. Simple and free.

Two bits of advice, one short, one long and rambling. Go down one tooth on the counter shaft sprocket. Mellows the bike considerably. I think a sprocket from a techno will fit but talk to your local dealer. Another thing to check is the carb. The Keihin has very small exit holes for the pilot jet circuit. These can easily be blocked by a speck of dirt or even a bubble of water too small to see without a microscope. I know this because I take my Keihin into work to clean under the microscope every month or so during the riding season. What happens is the pilot circuit gets blocked and the bike runs weak off the bottom. Most riders will just turn the idle screw up. The problem is the bike isn't coming off the bottom cleanly so when you roll the throttle on the bike hesitates until you get to the throttle setting where the needle jet starts to dominate and all of a sudden the bike will become interested in making power and rather abruptly. Most riders will think that since the bike is making plenty of power that it is running properly. Unfortunately when a bike is running this way it's very difficult to ride slowly with control so you start hitting everything a bit harder and can never seem to get your timing right. To test this try riding up a steep hill just off idle in fourth. I can do it on my '08 when it's running right but the bike just won't pull when the pilot circuit is blocked. The need for frequent cleaning is my only beef with the Keihin. Take the carb off and make sure the airbox and manifolds are properly sealing. White litium grease helps the sealing along with some quality hose clamps. Disassemble the carb and remember cleanliness IS godliness with this carb. Lay all the internals down on a nice clean paper towel. Don't run anything through the jets but compressed air. I know some will tell you to use a copper wire or some other such poking device. Don't! In a pinch the cans of compressed air you can get for cleaning camera lenses will work. You can spray the holes with carb cleaner if the beast is really dirty but do it outside away from any source of ignition (wearing safety glasses is a good idea since you never know what hole the spray will come out of). If you're really gung-ho about it you can remove the center pillar of the carb body with a torx "security" bit. I think it's a T-20 but I'm not sure sitting here at the computer. Just as long as the last thing you do is the blast of air in all the holes. The reason I say that is you really want to make sure there isn't a water bubble in the pilot exit holes. Seriously the holes are so tiny a bubble of water won't evaporate for weeks because the bubble is so small the surface tension of the water keeps it in place. OK maybe a third bit of info. On the older Rev3s the 270 had an extra flywheel weight on the pimary drive side making the power build slower and making it easier to get over obstacles with engine momentum. In '07 Beta started putting the weight on the 250. This means that the '07-'08 Rev3s rev up quicker which can make them a handful if you're used to the older bikes. Personally after having an '00, '02', 05 and '08 I can say now that I'm used to the "less flywheel" engine, I'm loving it. I was a little scared of it at first. It always seemed to be on the verge of getting away from me. After a full season though I can say it never has.

I seem to remember one called an Alpha at the same time frame as the Alfer which caused considerable confusion.

Welcome. Any well maintained machine of the past decade is an excellent starter bike. We all have our favorites and the opinions and brand loyalty usually come pouring out in a torrent of good natured ribbing. The one thing I'd suggest is making sure there's healthy dealer support for whatever bike you get. There's no substitute for a good supply of parts. Don't stress about the Tony Bou videos. We can all do that in our dreams but... The simple truth is trials is all about the little personal victorys. Getting over the rock you've never made it over, cleaning that nasty section on the last loop, beating your buddy that you know is a better rider just once. That's what makes it worth doing. It's all about feeling like a ten year old again. If only for a little while.

May not be totally kosher but I use a pair of channel lock pliers. Works fine. Just to be clear we're talking about turning the spring preload right?

Yeah Donnie's still the smoothest thing I've ever seen on a bike. When the RTL Hondas came out and Donnie got one it was poetry in motion. I saw him a few months ago when he came out to spectate and watch us duffers flail about. The man is definately a class act.

My first bike was a basket case Bultaco Matador that my ex-brother in law brought back from the air force in four boxes. So my parents didn't have an issue with him giving it to me as they never thought it would run again. The next two bikes were Alpinas in the same shape. The Alpinas planted the seed and then reading Dirtbike Magazine, (remember when they covered everything and not just motoX and Enduro?) fanned the flames. The clincher was a trials demo at a motorcycle show in Boston where I saw Ron Commo Jr. face plant going over a van. I said I gotta try this. So I sold the Maico and bought a Can-Am CMT-310 and headed up to my first event in Vermont run by Ron Commo of course. It was so slippery most of us beginners had trouble getting out of the parking lot and only did one of two loops with lots of entertaining crashes for the checkers. Ron knows talent because there was one young kid he personally took around on a second beginner loop while the rest of us duffers licked our wounds back in the pits. The kid that did both beginner loops? Geoff Aaron

Just as a matter of course it's good to loosen all the bolts in the front end from time to time to make sure nothing is torqued in such a way that it is applying side pressure to the forks. Wear on the friction coating is to be expected. Rub anything long enough and it will start to show signs of wear. Er, sounds a bit dirty that. One thing you might want to check is that the wear is even all around the tube. One of the theories for the fork seal issues on early 90s trials bikes was the thinner/lighter fork tubes were flexing more and causing uneven wear around the seals. It is unlikely you have flex in the front end of an '06 that would cause uneven wear but a slightly tweaked front end could show up as uneven wear.

Yeah I forgot about ultrasonic cleaners. Unfortunately you're still left with the problem of clearing the moisture out of the passages that must be done with air on the Keihin.

I don't think it's a good idea. Steam won't damage the metal but the high temp on the plastic bits might be a bad idea. Wouldn't want to think of how the floats might react to hot steam. Best thing to do is get a can of compressed air, the proper screw drivers including the "security" torx driver for removing the center pillar and doing the full disassemble and clean. One thing I've noticed with the Keihin is it's tendency to get a water bubble in the pilot circuit exit holes. The holes are so small the surface tension of the water keeps it from evaporating so a little water is even more of a problem then dirt. Sorry but there's no substitute for doing it the right way.

Check this, http://www.newenglandtrials.org/classified...&clearoff=1 Hope the link works. I think this guy bought the replacement and found someone to rebuild his old shock so never used this.

Just as a general rule of thumb if you're going to strip the carb down to clean the jets run compressed air through the carb body as well. Goo doesn't just get stuck in the jets. Also when you say you cleaned them hopefully it was with compressed air and not running a wire through them. That always freaks me out when I read that on here. Also be careful with assembly. The girlfriend had carb issues with her TTR125 that I didn't want to deal with because she was getting a bit whiny about me breaking it so she took it to a dealer. Still didn't run right so I had no choice. Dealer cleaned the jets then reassembled the carb wrong.

There should be a little play side to side as the connecting rod big end has to be self centering to some extent. If you can feel no clear play (clunk) when the rod is pulled and pushed (stop giggling you adolescents) it

They also have a picture they say is Adam Raga's girlfriend endorsing the Xispa. If that really is Adam's girlfriend that's pretty irresponsible to put on the web. Even if it's not it's still a slimey thing to do. Granted that girl could sell me a bag of doorknobs and I'd be happy but that's not the point.

Yup it's normal. For those of us with a winter it's part of the spring time ritual, getting over the sore back and wrists. As suggested you might want to look at your bar position. Although it seems counter intuitive, having the bars too far back causes your weight to be too far forward and adds stress to your wrists because you stand too tall your, er... lower ballast region, moves too far forward and you have to try to control body position with your arms with little leverage rather then just being naturally balanced. In a proper position on the bike you won't need any pressure on your hands to be balanced at rest. Having the bars too far back is a common error for new trials riders. If you have the bars too far forward the bike will be extremely quick steering especially on the loop. Too far forward also tends to strain the back as you try to compensate by hanging your butt to the rear leaving the arms under constant stress. Usual bar position is straight up to slightly forward.