trapezeartist

Take off the guard and clean it properly. You'll feel so much better, especially because you will have cleaned off so much more crud that you didn't know was there. And if the guard comes off with a ping and won't go back, it needs adjusting to fit. Once you've done it you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that everything is right again. The curve in the guard tends to get flattened out due to hitting things. My first attempt at reshaping was done by interposing the guard between a trolley jack and the bottom of my car, using blocks of wood to apply the load in the right place. Failure: I just jacked up the car. This might work if you have a heavy van, or better still a lorry, and a big enough jack. Not many of us are blessed with a hydraulic press in our workshop so my solution was to find someone who would let me use theirs. Then it was trial and error: bend it a little, offer it up to the bike, repeat until the screws slip in easily.

Your first post exactly matches my situation. Hard tyres on concrete (mine's even worse: laminate) and a dead engine are all making it more difficult and when you start you want to make it easy. I still can't do it with any consistency in the garage but I find I'm just about OK out in the real world. I try to make sure that every time I stop the bike, I hold balance for a bit before getting off.

Definitely not too late! I was 65 when I started and now I'm ....ahem, older. I started on a modern, switched to a twin shock and then went back to modern. I bought the twin shock because I was doing trials mostly run by classic clubs. Then I realised that there was not much point in making life more difficult for myself and to ride twin shock (or pre-65) you need to have an enthusiasm for that type bike. I didn't have that passion.

You're definitely not alone! I did get another email from the ACU (Sport 80) saying I had nothing more to do, so as far as I know I am now a fully-fledged ACU-licenced trials rider. Woo-hoo!

The map indicator light has stopped working on my '21 ePure Race. It became erratic a little while ago but then recovered. Now it's completely dead. I've cleaned the connector contacts and smeared with dielectric grease, but no joy. Has anyone else had the problem? How did you fix it?

Most people praise the traction of the EMS, me included. The only issue I have is that it can spin up sharply if I get it hung up on a slippery root or something. In that situation I think the issue is that the wheel can easily spin up to 40mph whereas a petrol bike in first or second gear wouldn't go above 10mph. That leaves a lot of momentum to be disposed of before the tyre can grip again. I think a speed limiter on green map would be a big help.

I put one on mine when I had the 4T a few years ago. Definitely an improvement (for me).

I think I may have finally sorted it. My problem was the lack of ability to renew a club membership and therefore nothing else worked. Finally I found a club where I could join and pay online (through the ACU) so I did that. Then I managed to renew my licence, or at least they took money off me. I'm still showing as "Lapsed" but hopefully it will solve itself in a day or two. What a shambles!

I don't know. The FRB is just on or off, so you need a switch rather than a potentiometer.

Before you attempt to start it, take out the plug and turn it over multiple times. Either kick it over, or roll it along in gear. Just in case it locks again. (It seems a little implausible that it would lock once, then free itself and never have a problem again.)

Definitely not too late. I went 44 years without even throwing a leg over a bike, before starting out about age 65.

Mr Admin Do you think it's time to add Mecatecno to the Bike Specific Forums. Production should have started (I don't know if it has) and a little birdie told me they will be available in the UK from Spring 2023. Surely they are more relevant than Xispa, which is something I have never seen.

Everyone seems to have their favourite brand. The only ones I've ever had are Gaerne, and I love them for being waterproof. I just wish they came up a bit higher. When I stand astride the bike the footrests come above my boots, and I have the scars to prove it.

“Pos 3 on the clutch”?

How is this going? To be honest I had forgotten about your app. However I was thinking about the problem myself and started working on an app of my own. When it’s ready it will work on Android and Apple, phone and tablet. First I have to finish off a few details, then do some real world testing, then get some feedback from observers and clubs and tweak it according to their comments.

I don’t there is such a thing as “all weather”. Depending on temperature I wear a trials shirt, t-shirt + trials shirt or t-shirt + trials shirt + fleece. If it’s likely to rain I add an impermeable light boil-in-the-bag jacket, but in truth I just don’t ride if the weather is too wet and unpleasant.

Absolutely true. Nearly every other form of motor sport is dominated by tyres, and almost invariably the way to go better is to spend more on tyres. When I came to trials a few years ago it was clear that it was going to be a cheap sport. In my head I budgeted for a rear tyre every year and a front tyre every two years. I've just bought the third rear in five years and I've never yet bought a front.

Shows how carefully I read the regs! Anyway, that clearly settles my question. Thanks.

It's been a while since I had my Beta 4T. I can't remember now why I had to remove the carb several times, but it was a PITA although it did get easier with practice (and I was getting too much practice!). Once I got it sorted though, there was little reason to remove it again. I wouldn't see it as a deal-breaker.

It's worth bearing in mind that bearings and seals are a "commodity". Whatever the application and bike manufacturer, if the OE bits are cheap Chinese junk (see the pun?), you can always go to a bearing specialist and buy SKF or some other reputable product.

So here's a naive question that has been niggling away in my head for a while. Why are trials tyres the way they are? Is there a rule somewhere that bans MX or enduro tyres? Or has years of experience led to conventional trials tyres being the best for the job? I occasionally watch an X-Trial video and wonder why no-one has tried a slick tyre.

Will Paul Nash be the importer for the new Dragonfly? They need a good importer if they hope to make an impression on the market.

Putoline Nanotech in my case. I used it on my Beta to get the best clutch behaviour I could and just carried it over. It’s probably unnecessary as I don’t use the clutch on the EM so it only has to lubricate the primary gear and a couple of bearings.

The throttle changed from Madura to Domino part way through ‘22 model year.

The frame changed from white to black. I don't know of any other changes, but there might well be. 2020 was the first year of the ePure so it's natural that they should iron out a few early bugs. There was a Lite and a Sport. I think they were identical except that one had steel forks and the other aluminium. There is no hour-meter or charge counter. I keep that info in a spreadsheet.