feetupsbetter

Oh and by the way it’s harder & more physically demanding than it looks, but please persevere as it’s great fun and you’ll make lots of new mates and enjoy lots of banter. Don’t be too serious, you really will need to be able to laugh at yourself when you make a complete hash of a section where some clever bugger makes it look like a main road 🤣.

And also I believe Scarborough has their own land at Harwood Dale & run plenty of events. Welcome along to the world of joy & pain 🤣.

Another way to reduce the height of the bike without rotating the bars down is to use a ratchet strap under the fork leg/axle and up over the yoke to compress the forks down just while you’re travelling. That should give you space to move the bike in the pic over to the right a bit more and a bit more upright, and obviously second bike mirror image, possibly in back wheel first. Try to find a mate or friendly rider with a bike at a trial or practice area to have a go as a test. Good luck.

Not sure what you’re after but there’s plenty on the sherco specific forums. If you don’t get anything here, go and have a word with tony at B&B over in Barnsley. good luck

I suspect that the manufacturers (both of the original bike/pipe and the aftermarket pipe) could give you some performance improvement data for a titanium header, very technical in terms of heat transfer, scavenging, gas flow rates etc as above, but mostly significantly in a weight saving. There is an optimum running temperature for maximum performance so running cooler wouldn’t make sense, but running at a more consistent temperature would. So really you want the fan on more regularly with reduced variation in temperature in between switch on & switch off, therefore need more accurate thermostat & switching. However, in reality all these minor changes will be for very small gains and I don’t believe most riders would notice unless they’re already towards the limit of performance of the bike. I suspect the biggest thing you’ll notice for definite is how much lighter your wallet is 😂, but as a result you may convince yourself that the new pipe is an improvement. Oh, and if you want to save the few grams weight, make sure you go for a pee before you start riding, empty your pockets of all the nonessential items, and leave your car keys back at the van ! How many riders buy fancy, expensive, lightweight, aftermarket parts to save a few grams here and there, than add an additional half litre fuel tank (that’s half a kilo !) to save calling back at the paddock area to refuel mid trial ? But hey if you’ve loads of cash swishing around and need something to spend it on, go ahead, fill you boots as they say. Happy riding all.

On the whole I’d agree with the first three replies there in that the bulto is a bit of animal to start trials on. However, I’d temper that by adding that it depends on what you’re expecting to achieve in the short term and how determined you are to get the hang of it. It’s great to know you got the bug while spectating at the talmag, but that’s a bit of a prestige event and a lot of the riders there are top talents, very experienced, & riding highly tuned & modified bikes, and they they really do make difficult look easy. Or at least easier than it really is ! Your bike should be eligible for most UK twinshock events, but also the twinshock class at your local club event. You can ride the beginner/white/easy course until you get the hang of it and move up to the next course when you’re ready for the extra challenge. At most club events if you started by entering the easiest course and found it too easy, you can speak to the organisers/observers and they’ll let you ride the next level for subsequent laps anyway. Remember, it’s a very friendly sport and if you get there early you can have a look round the sections & see which course/level you fancy a go at, and you’ll get plenty of help & advice as you go. Get out on your bike (even on the drive) & practice riding as slow as possible, full lock turns, very careful throttle control etc. You can lay a length of timber or a ladder down & try cris-crossing etc at very low speed to build up your skills. It’s not all about a big handful of gas to propel you up bankings etc, there’s a lot more finesse to learn. Hopefully you’ll get hooked & not disheartened, but if you start out & find out the bully is making it hard work, you can always go to a ‘modern’ bike to make the skills learning experience a bit more gentle. Good luck and I hope you really do get the bug.

You’ve probably just got air in the system & it needs bleeding. Trials bike brakes, (particularly rears) are notorious for being a pain to bleed properly. Make sure you have free play at the lever so to be sure that the master cylinder piston is returning fully after each lever stroke. Some folks say it’s a good idea to hang the whole assembly upside down (calliper at the top) overnight in a warm place to encourage any air to rise up so you can then bleed it to release it, others say they always reverse bleed using a large syringe of fluid onto the bleed nipple & forcing fluid backwards through the line to expel the air. Whichever way, it seems sometimes it’s straightforward and other times it takes loads of attempts. Frustrating but just keep trying. Agree with lineaway though, if I’d got a problem & was stripping the system down, I’d use a rebuild kit at reassembly just to be sure as much as possible is definitely serviceable. Plus, whatever you may have used in cleaning might have an effect on the seal material which could shorten their life anyway. Good luck.

You could try Bumpy Ltd at birstall if you want to have a practice session. It’s a charity with a big off road riding area. If you want to ride some actual trials together, then I can highly recommend you go along to a Huddersfield Falcons event. They run a few different series, club championships, dead easy, evening series etc. but they include classes for everyone including the kids. Very nice bunch and very keen to get bums on seats, so set out sections that won’t frighten off the beginners. There are also clubs based around Bradford, west Leeds etc, but I can’t vouch for the standard of events. Get along to watch some & say hello to as many people as you can to get a feel for which would suit you best. Good Luck.

Well I’m pretty gobsmacked that a couple of days after your post you’ve not been swamped with strong opinions in all directions 🤔. So, here goes with a few basic observations of mine to give you some outline of the ‘old’ modern bikes. You’re obviously familiar with bikes in general looking at your bike list, so the usual applies to find what looks like a well maintained & not abused one. With regard to each brand, well they’re all going to be good enough for you to ‘dick about on’ and do some easy trials, you really won’t need anything other than a 250 although loads of people say a beta evo 200 is the perfect beginner bike. 2010 is a fairly good start point year wise, Gas Gas & Beta both brought out new chassis in 09 with pretty much same engines as previous models, and current bikes are still tweaked versions of the same with a few changes each year (some worth it & some probably not so). GG just carried on with the ‘txt pro’ name while beta called their new one the ‘evo’ after using ‘rev’ as model name for years. They both did various capacities and ‘racing’ or ‘replica’ versions with higher spec parts or state of tune etc. Worth noting that betas are odd in the sense that they all have left side kickstart if that’s any problem to you, but they also produced a four stroke in 250 or 300cc in virtually the same chassis, which seem well regarded. Sherco are a bit different in that they brought out a model around 2011 or 12 I think which had a rear mounted fuel tank. It looked like it had silencers both sides until you looked more closely, but it necessitated a pump to lift fuel up to the carb, and I understand this system was a troublesome feature for many owners, and sherco reverted back to the more conventional setup after just a couple of years. Montesa of course have been producing trials bikes under Honda for years, firstly the 315r two stroke before the introduction of the 4rt four stroke. Both have legendary Honda build quality, a few say the 4rt is on the heavy side but I think you might be used to that ! Then there is scorpa, I think a lower volume manufacturer but still decent bikes. You might just come across a modern Ossa with very radical backwards facing barrel & fuel injection, but although these seemed pretty good at the time, they fell by the wayside & I believe some spares might be a bit tricky. Same goes for jotagas (JG), and there’s also TRS which are great bikes but much newer than you’re probably looking at. I think a big factor for bikes that age is spares availability, GG beta & sherco seem to be well supported but some bits are hard to find or expensive (particularly plastics) so find what your local dealer supports best. There’s plenty of breakers though, and the aftermarket companies all do general items like levers, gaskets etc. They can all be tweaked for performance with fast or slow throttle tubes, varying base gaskets, etc etc. It’s down to personal preference obviously on the basic 2 Stroke/4 stroke debate, some find 4t hard to get along with. Best is to see if you can cadge a ride on a few different bikes to get a feel for how they are. I’m sure they’ll all ride a lot easier than an old panther though 😂. I had a few GG up to 2005, and currently an 09 evo, both have good points & bad but on the whole I wouldn’t say one is better than the other in build quality, (many will say otherwise) but I can only speak as I find. Hope that helps you a bit & doesn’t cause too much backlash among those with more specialised brand knowledge or experience. I’m sure I’ll have missed something relevant but hopefully others can fill you in with more information.

Oh, and there must be a frame number somewhere as mine, along with many others (I’m sure I’ve seen pics of them in the SSDT), was road registered.

Hi Graeme, nice to see the pic of your project. I have a couple of old instamatic pics of me riding mine somewhere which I will try to dig out & put up here, they’re taken from a distance if I remember so might not be much use but who knows ? The forks & front hub on yours look as I remember, the tank was the same ( I remember respraying it) but beyond that I can’t be sure if it’s the same frame. Mine definitely had a single trials type seat, and I think the same Preston petty mudguards, so maybe they were standard fitment ? They were definitely the aftermarket choice in the day. What I do remember is the twin downtube frame and my exhaust went straight up between the tubes & over the ‘porcupine’ head of the puch motor, then into a silencer which was a very ‘square’ box above the carb/under the seat. I seem to remember there being a photo of that model in ‘Mick Andrew’s book of trials’ which I had at the time (wish I still had, don’t know where that went? ), maybe another reader might be able to check ?. Good luck with it.

Hi Graeme, as a teenager I had a dalesman with the puch engine which I think was a 1969 or 1970 model. It was road regd D?? 70 H if I remember rightly (id be interested to know if still exists if anyone has any information). As far as I know the forks on that model we’re called ‘MP’ made by a company called Metal Profile which I think was based in West or North Yorkshire. They were very much puny things & not really up to the job in my humble opinion, mine forever had oil leaks. I also have some vague memory of REH components on some of those 60’s ‘kit’ bikes, but is that forks or hubs? Hopefully someone else will come along with some more accurate & helpful info for you, but it just jogged a memory that made me want to reply. Cheers.

Funny that isn’t it, someone trying to sell you a 7k fourstoke montesa rubbishing every other bike. Agree with tshock250, it’s all crap. There’s plenty of trials bikes never have a set of rings in their lifetime, many probably go for decades without the engine ever being opened. The old bulto’s & goris you mention won’t have unless they’ve changed hands & been rebuilt as a precautionary process after a long time standing. Some really hard used bikes at top level use will have had a lot of maintenance but most won’t have needed it. It sounds like you have the funds to buy what you fancy, and the ability/knowledge to repair or rebuild anything as required, so do just that - buy what you fancy, if it don’t work out then swap it later. 2k will buy you a fairly modern bike, just try to find one that’s been looked after, as opposed to the first that comes along or the nearest one to home. Go have a look at that local trial, and talk to as many people as you can to get some background. You might even find a bike that suits right there. Oh, and don’t be afraid of trying competitions, it’s all very friendly & above all fun. We’ve all been over the bars, on our a*** in the river etc at some time so you won’t be doing anything everyone else hasn’t done. Riding in competitions is the best way to learn if you ask me, pushes your limits a bit, and plenty of offers of advice & help along the way. Welcome along, enjoy !

In terms of package size, if you can get someone to take the wheels out, bars off & maybe rear mudguard, then it makes a pretty compact box. That would then be fairly easy to find a space for in a container. I guess you’d need some kind of freight forwarder or similar to deal with the paperwork & customs side of things. Probably cheaper if you can get it ‘sent’ from here rather than arrange ‘collection’ from over there. A friend or family member this end would be handy !

I have to say I never saw the point of folding levers (at the price premium), just slacken the clamps as totty79 says, and 9 times out of ten they survive being dropped. However when I bought my evo it had them fitted and I now think they’re fab. Only negative is that sometimes when you want to lean your bike against a tree, the lever folds back making it necessary to fiddle around to get a perfect parking spot ! If you really struggle to get standard types to be a snug fit in the bar clamp, are you getting the ones with plastic ‘top hat’ bushes ? If so you can easily make plastic/nylon washers to take up the slack.

Agree entirely with chrisCH, if it’s too hard go home or just ride around & practice a bit. I used to ride with Huddersfield falcons when I lived up there, & they run a separate dead easy series, so along with the easy routes on their club championship series they definitely have something for everyone. Many of their venues are around holmfirth so not too far away from you hopefully. Just go for it 😀😀. You can always go & have look at an event first before you commit to loading up the bike & going for the full day out.

Was the impeller replaced in an attempt to fix an already overheating situation ? First thing, are you sure it’s overheating? They do spit any excess water out once warm, cold level should be near the bottom of the header tank & not right up to the cap. Second, are you sure the fan is pulling air through the rad (from front to back as it would be if you were motoring along)? It won’t be the first time the fans been to be found running the wrong way & trying to push air through the rad other way - not nearly efficient enough. Third, although you say the stat is working, is it opening at the correct temperature & opening fully? Find the right trigger temp from dealers, then put in a pan of water with a thermometer & check when it opens. Finally, have you checked/flushed the rad ? There may be some cores blocked reducing its efficiency, I’m sure there’ll be many methods already on here for how to clear any blockages. Beyond that I’m afraid it’s down to more experienced mechanical wizards, but I’m sure some more tips will follow.

Well done Hughie. You do realise though that you have no excuses anymore 🤣. (Unless you want to join that team that has a problem with every bike!) All down to you now, get stuck in but above all let yourself enjoy it. I know we need to be in it to be as good as we can be, but don’t beat yourself up on a bad day. Keep an eye out for the riders at your level as you start competing, then compare results each trial. It’s great 😊. oh and make sure you chat to as many people as possible while signing on, queuing, walking sections etc, you’ll soon find lots of friendly assistance coming your way.

Try venhill cables or HEL performance, they might be able to help as they make many hydraulic lines for bikes and might have the specs ready to make one up. If they don’t know the spec or you can’t identify/measure the existing fittings or specify the thread types etc, then look up your local hydraulic hose suppliers and present the old one to them. Most will be able to make one up while you wait. If not, have you tried the breakers just to get you going?

I have to agree with Chris CH, tshock250, & nhuskys. Concentrate your efforts on your riding and if the chance to have a go on another bike comes up then take it, maybe even be cheeky & ask a few others for a test ride ! While you’re improving keep an eye out for other bikes but don’t get consumed by it. You could end up buying that ‘holy grail’ evo 200, only to be disappointed when it doesn’t meet your expectations. How many golfers do you know that always want new clubs ? Or the phrase a poor workman always blames his tools ? I’ve never had a budget for fancy bikes, (09 evo currently) and am only a clubman plodder, but you can’t beat the satisfaction of getting the results through to find you’ve beaten the guy who turned up with the latest up-to-datest bike with matching gear & a new van 😂. Just go ride & enjoy.

I don’t think I’d take that reasoning for a full engine rebuild at face value, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. There must have been some cause for concern to spend that money on a bike to then sell it, so I’d dig deeper for a more sensible answer as to why. If there was some sort of failure/wear/noise there could be many causes. Bike could have been submerged & drawn water in & then left to stand, a component (bearing/shaft) at the extremes of acceptable manufacturing tolerance may have failed, run without oil etc etc. I would be trying to find a more plausible explanation as it sounds to me like a cover story to hide the real truth which is probably something the seller knows won’t sound too attractive. Could just be they’ve done something stupid they don’t want to admit to which necessitated the work. ‘Bought it used & don’t know the history’ rings alarm bells to me. It’d have to be cheap, for the seller to buy it in the first place, and to sell on if that’s all they can tell you. I’d definitely want to see a receipt for the work AND checkout the person/business that carried it out. As trapezeartist says, judge it on merit, if they’ve trialled it to death (which I agree is unlikely for that model), then it will be evident in every other component. Good luck with your quest !

Glad you found what you were looking for, proves they are out there. Welcome on board, & enjoy 😊

By ‘new purchase’ do you mean brand new ? If so I’m sure any potential supplying dealer would be happy to let you have a play on a selection of their used bikes (assuming they have a suitable site) or they may even run a try out/test day. They could also give you some advice & help in making the selection, so make a day of it. Welcome to the wonderful world of trials, but be warned - it’s harder than it looks ! So many ex racers & crossers think it’s a step down like semi retirement 🙄. Forget your mx skills, apart from knowing what the controls are it’s a different game altogether. Enjoy, it’s great 😊

You can ask the seller to show you the receipt from when they bought it, but other than that you just have to trust them. Honest sellers won’t mind you asking probing questions or getting in touch with previous owners, or maybe even showing you bank transaction records etc to prove they’re the legal owner with the right to sell it. Always helps if you can find a bike from or via someone you trust in your local club.

Hughie, I have to agree with the intotrials, it’s basically you not the bike (sorry to be blunt) but please don’t be disheartened, you’re still a real newbie at this so stick with it. There are many riders from other motorcycling disciplines who come into trials thinking it’s easy, (hey it’s only standing up riding slowly yeah ? 😂🤣, but as you’re finding out, it isn’t. I’ve been at it on & off for many years, still only plodding but very much enjoying ! There is so much technique to learn/master and you need some tips & guidance from others to get you on the right path to start with so that you too can enjoy. That video in a previous post was an excellent example to demonstrate that a wheelie in a trials section is so much different from a ‘big handful’ on a road bike. Another good thing to practice at home if you’ve got space is lay a ladder/pole or similar on the ground (anchored somehow so it can’t slide sideways) & then cris-cross over it at the lowest speed you can, from a position as near to parallel as possible. A figure of eight if it’s long enough, so over three times in one ‘lap’. So keep revs minimum, (setting throttle so it idles is good tip to start with) so bike will just crawl without throttle input from your right hand, then use one finger clutch to control speed. You’ll soon get the hang of body position & movement required to lift the front that little bit while steering where you want to go and controlling speed. And you’ll realise you have some muscles in places you didn’t know about ! Take on as much advice as you can, you’ve obviously done a couple of trials so know what it’s about, but persevere, it’ll be worth it. As others have said, it’s called trials for a reason. One other point I don’t think anyone else has mentioned is handlebar position, have you tried rolling them forwards a bit to put more weight over the front ? This might help your natural stance on the bike to be better balanced front/rear. Hope you stick with it, what you learn in trials will sure help in other riding. Enjoy.