turbofurball

I guess the main question is, do you look to the future or the past? What happens when old engines die? Do you just keep breaking old bikes until there's nothing left? What happens when the NIMBYs get all petrol engines outlawed off road? Do people stick in electric motors, or just have trials bikes as museum pieces? (and yes, I realise that looking to the future of a pastime which re-creates the past is a bit contradictory, lol)

Hum, guess I'll stick with the mish-mash, lol

Does anyone know if a place that sells TXT Pro decal sets with the original protective squishy gell coating on them? My little '04 125 boasts a mish-mash of plastic from different years and models, and the only decal sets I can find appear to just be regular stickers

Possibly controversial, but this looks fantastic to me: Linky link I'd love to see a video of it in action

I started (recently) on a cheap and cheerful 125 Gasgas, it's been a joy to ride (there have been a couple of times when I would have got into trouble on a bigger bike) ... it'll have to go soon as I've bought a '70s TY175, which has exactly the same amount of power on paper but will allow me to enter twinshock competitions. I'm tallish and not remotely light, the lack of power hasn't held me back at all considering my skill level

This was posted a little while ago, it's an electric conversion by an Austrian company ... unfortunately it's pretty expensive (like, expensive enough that an Electric Motion would be a far more sane proposition)

Just curious - what problem does that fix?

I was planning on taking a known good one out of a dead car at work, this weeks been a little busy so I've not even looked at the TY yet this week! Anyway, these are great responses - if the valve isn't the issue then I'll get a 'trial' this time, and a 'heavy duty' as a spare sometime after that ... if I get particularly anal about it I might even weigh them, lol

Good point, I'll do that first!

That's a fair point, I just wanted to check before I bought something ... while money isn't *that* tight, it's tight enough that I'm prioritising having a bike that works properly over a stash of spares that I might not need

Well, at the moment I don't have a lot of money to spend, so before I stock up on spares I want to make sure the bike is as sorted as I can get it; since I need to pop the front tyre off I thought a fresh tube would be good too as the existing one is an unknown and has a slow puncture (it goes down over about 3 days) ... but I want to spend what money I do have carefully!

I went and looked at Splat Shop and they list a 'trial' Michelin at just over £10, and a 'heavy duty' Michelin at something like £16 Perhaps I'm over-thinking this!

Cool, is there a big difference between the regular and heavy duty Michelins too?

Is there any difference between the cheapy front inner tubes and the Michelin ones?

I love to ride pushbikes and motorbikes off road; I don't like going fast, and going slow without some reason gets boring very quickly, so trials it is! (yes, I play at doing light trials-y riding on my mountain bike too) There is more to it than that, but that's the long and short of why I do it

This is the kind of riding I enjoy, I guess I'm older at heart that I thought, lol

After reading up on this very subject I got some Forma Boulders. Super protective and comfy so far

Have a look at some of Junior Kickstart on youtube, although I have to say having a smaller trial in the style of the Scott sounds really appealing to me, lol

Hmm, I guess about 20% of the purchase price is quite a lot

Is the Lipo conversion a lot of money compared to the purchase price of an Oset?

Because Freerides aren't available cheap seconds hand just yet (although yes, they would be ideal)

To ride, he had a Beta 125 a couple of years back. His Dad will try again with a TY175, and if he still doesn't like it he'll give up on trying to persuade him!

What about going the other way and trials-ising a common light trail bike? (Like a WR250F or something)

Well, a friend's son is a MX fiend at 15 years of age and he does find trials "boring" ... like his Dad says, if they did rules like Junior Kickstart where there was a timer he'd be there like a shot!

If you're a new rider you really want a 250 or smaller, the bigger ones can easily get away from you when trials-ing If you're patient and willing to travel a bit then a reasonably priced beginner bike can be found, there's a couple of Facebook groups for buying and selling as well as ebay. Unfortunately, trials bikes are a bit of a personal choice, so until you've ridden one it's hard to get context for others ... I'll be selling my Gasgas cheaply soon (the 2002-on ones are probably the best beginner modern as you can get all the parts cheaply), it got me started and helped me decide what I want to go with in the future! (and also taught me the basics of trial bike maintenance, which is a little different from road bikes)