trapezeartist

The project continues to move forward very slowly. I made up a little jump loom and fitted it in the Y-piece in place of the FRB. It seems to work but I used a potentiometer with about 3/4 turn from max to min and it is super-sensitive so not useable as it stands. I've got to look again to find a multi-turn pot that is solderable and will package nicely.

I haven't contacted Talon but followed the link from ChrisCH to motorcycleraceparts.

I did calculate all the permutations, though I've lost them now. Going up one tooth on the front would also give suitable gearing but space is tight. I think it would fit but it would require the chain to be threaded on to the sprocket rather than just looped on sideways (and turning the sprocket by hand is extremely hard). I'm hoping a custom-made sprocket will be the way to go, which I think will cost about £30-£40 more than an off-the-shelf.

I bought the first one from Splat Shop. They have been very helpful in trying to find me another, but no success.

I had a really good feel for my old (2021) bike with a 51T sprocket on it. Foolishly I left it on when I changed the bike, thinking it would be easy enough to get another one for my new (2023) bike. It's not. I can't find one anywhere. Does anyone one have one to sell, or know where I could get one? 51T preferred but I would go with 50T or 52T too.

He looks like Toni Bou. But if it was he'd just leap the bike up a tree and wait.

When you say "clutch doesn't engage", I assume you mean it doesn't disengage. Assuming it worked before you changed the clutch fluid, the only possibility is air in the system. Although motorcycle hydraulics seem to be notoriously difficult to bleed, the clutch really shouldn't be too bad as there is a continuous gradient up from the slave cylinder to the master cylinder. Filling from the bleed nipple end should be the easiest as you will be pushing the air uphill. I've never done the clutch but when I did the front brake I finished with lots of tapping of the brake line near the master cylinder and watching for tiny bubbles coming out into the reservoir. With that and a bit of pumping I got there in the end. The only other possibility I see for your problem is that you have a big chunk of air trapped in the slave cylinder. Try lying the bike towards its left side.

Whenever possible, park your car or van right in front of the garage door. I have a couple of big blocks of wood fixed to the ground so I just touch them with the back wheels and the car is an inch from the door. And just in case the scum try to drag the car out of the way I park it in gear so that both front and rear wheels are "braked". I think multiple layers of security are better than just one super-high security device.

I had a brief ride with a cable tie holding the PRB lever in a bit. As near as I could get to the right spot appeared to provide some "engine braking" but it also put a dead zone into the throttle movement. One click more on the cable tie and there was about 90 degrees of throttle movement before anything happened. All this was done on a sloping field. I didn't venture into anything resembling a section. However the result was sufficiently encouraging to persuade me to go the next step with a potentiometer wired in. The parts have come so I'll be doing that over the next few days and then I'll go out for a little ride and decide whether I can live with dead zone.

I tried a quick-and-dirty experiment today to validate the theory. With the bike on a stand, I gradually applied more PRB while blipping the throttle. The first little bit did nothing (of course) but then I found a little spot where the throttle still worked but the motor slowed quickly on closed throttle. A little more movement and the throttle was disabled. So that little bit in the middle is what I need to use. I considered simply putting a cable tie on the PRB lever and while it worked in the garage, it's not a robust solution for riding. So I've jumped in and ordered a 10k potentiometer (I don't think it's a multi-turn, but hopefully that won't matter) and a JST connector so that I can wire it into the PRB/FRB Y-piece. Both items are pre-wired so I only have to identify the correct wires and solder the ends together. It will be a few weeks before it's done because the JST connector has to come direct from China.

Thanks Konrad. I'm getting the idea now. I'm just struggling to find the right thing on Ebay now. Some are described as single-turn and others are multi-turn (presumably that's what I want) and most don't say. Also I need to find one with reasonably chunky terminals that will tolerate my somewhat clumsy soldering skills.

I am very comfortable with stop-allowed trials. At a higher level they do need a time limit, though that's probably not necessary at club level. A few years back I observed at an Experts trial and the observers were specifically told to strictly enforce no-stop. The observers weren't happy at having to dish out 5s for what were very good rides, and obviously the riders weren't happy. Some were obviously trying to hold it in to avoid being seen as abusive to observers. Now that really opens up a new can of worms. Personally I struggle to understand the fun of dropping over 100 marks every day, but the riders in that situation know what they've signed up for so I suppose they are happy with it. The SSDT is now almost unique in providing a single route for everyone. Whether that makes it an 'out-of-touch dinosaur' or a 'unique challenge' is a matter of personal opinion. Certainly an attempt to provide two routes would add massively to the complexity of the organisation and would require some regular sections to be replaced where there isn't two viable routes.

I've watched a lot of SSDT video and virtually every rider is making momentary stops. Giving them all a 5 would ruin the event because there would be no difference in score between a good performance and a total failure. I think nearly all riders, observers and spectators understand the difference between those marginal stops and a failure that should be marked a 5.

So somewhere between 0.6V and 1.1V is the sweet spot for engine braking. It seems like a very small window. Can it be controlled that accurately?

I don't understand how that works. As I read it, the potentiometer replaces the PRB and plugs into the PRB/FRB connector on the main loom. So it's the equivalent of pulling on a little bit of PRB all the time. But whenever the PRB is applied, the throttle is disabled. That was why I was trying wire something through the micro-switch in the throttle.