bikerpet

Here's what I've ended up doing. * replaced scrivets with cable ties slipped through a short length of PVC tube. The tube prevents rubbing around the holes. * cut off most of the "hook" on the guard. I cut all the side hooks off and left just 4mm or so in the middle. I also cut between the back and side sections of the rib to give the remaining hook more flexibility - this was probably not a good idea as it now un-hooks too easily. * plastic bolt in the front. I'm pretty happy with this. It has popped off a few times when I've crashed but otherwise nice and secure. If I was to do it again I'd trim the side hooks right back, leave the centre section about 4mm and the whole rib intact. I'd also put a good bevel on the lip of the airbox and the hook so it's easier to snap the two together after popping the cable ties - currently it's a bit awkward snapping it back in place without removing the front screw. I'll do that on this one when I get to it. I'd like to have an easier in-field replaceable solution than the front bolt (I've broken it twice) but haven't figured out what that might be. Still, with both cable ties in the back it stays on well enough to continue riding if needed.

I run stock 10:40 and don't have any problem with it at all. If I want to go slower I slip the clutch, which has many other advantages too. Going to something lower like 9:40 or 10:42 will increase torque at the rear wheel, making it harder to maintain traction when it's tenuous and when you accelerate. Slipping the clutch considerably increases available traction, but does require development of that skill. There is a massive gain in traction to be had by using a higher gear and slipping the clutch rather than using a lower gear. The TRS is definitely pretty snappy on the throttle, but I believe that stuffing around with different heads, reeds, slow throttles, blah, blah, is a poor substitute for learning how to use the clutch. However ... just using a thicker base gasket (or doubling up) is a very quick & cheap way to soften a 2-stroke. Personally I'd far prefer slightly too high gearing than slightly too low. That said, my preferred riding would be significantly more challenging in 3rd gear! I mostly only use 3rd for big hills or when on my way to 4th & 5th. Horses for courses.

Probably like oil discussions, but.... I've used them on a few bikes (still do). My main reason is to provide some scratch protection from crashes - it's not going to stop a gouge from a big off onto a sharp rock, but I know from experience that they do provide a certain level of protection. I believe they significantly reduce the amount of dust that gets into and past the wiper, based on observation riding in exactly the same location over some years with and without. I make my own up out of old wetsuits bought for peanuts at thrift shops using a domestic sewing machine. I make them so they are quite conical so the bottom end is loose around the stanchion but tight on the lower, with the idea that it reduces or nearly prevents rubbing and allows a bit better drying. I've seen some commercial ones that are quite snug on the stanchion - I suspect that could cause abrasion. No velcro in mine as that's a complication that I also expect could cause abrasion on the forks. I remove and clean them when I change fork oil every 50 hours. They are usually very clean inside, just some slight dusty/oily marks on the creases. I don't have any issue with them staying wet, but I ride in Australia, although in an area with moderately damp winters.

The magnet kill switches are generally super reliable & long lasting. You'll quickly get used to thumbing the button off. I like the magnet lanyards, unlike many. I couldn't count the number of times I've dropped or leapt off the bike & the lanyard just kills it. Significantly reduces the risk of blowing a motor from jamming the throttle open in a crash. As someone else said, ditch the elastic and replace it with cord or webbing (eg. off an i.d. lanyard). The elastic will eventually flick the button into your face, which hurts! Or injures. Finally, point the switch base forward toward the clutch lever. Significantly reduces the chance of accidentally knocking the button off. It'll still come off just fine when you want it to.

Yep, same nett result, but getting into the top of the carby is much harder on many bikes than getting into the twist grip!

You'd probably have been able to make and fit a stop like I made in less time than you've spent posting here! Just try it. Seriously, it took me under 15 minutes to dismantle the throttle, measure, cut some plastic, heat it, trim & re-assemble. Cost absolutely nothing. You could use some sturdy cardboard to try it for 10 minutes or so. It's dead simple, no precision required at all.

Judging oil ratio based on smoke seems a very arbitrary criteria. The base oil can make a big difference to the amount of smoke and obviously 'smokeless' oils are going to have totally different visible smoke threshold to regular oils. Of course the acid test is whether the engine sustains damage - if not all's well. I did once read an article where they measured power output with differing oil ratios. They went to great lengths to isolate the oil quantity as the measured variable - accurately calibrated jets to maintain consistent fuel/air ratio, etc. I forget what ratio gave max power, but it was at what I would consider an insanely high amount of oil. So lubrication is a significant factor to how freely the engine spins. Yes, I know, who'd have thought? I don't really consider this "engine damage" - a decent clean and it came up good as new, or at least good as a 130 hour engine. Excessive maintenance - yes, damage - no. I really suspect now that the problem probably spiraled from a build-up causing the rings to get sticky which allowed more build up on the bore, more blow-by, so more sticky rings etc. What caused the initial stickiness is anyone's guess - could be too much oil before I got it, or the Putoline I was using, or not enough time by either the previous owner or me at high power (previous owner only rode shows on it). I'm not overly convinced that going from 100:1 to 93:1 is a significant factor, but certainly not ruling it out as contributory. Take your pick. I'll be adjusting all 3 variables in future.

It depends which manuals you read, or not. Sherco & Beta above. All my quotes for the various manufacturers were directly from manuals on the manufacturer website, perhaps different year model to the ones you looked at. They were examples, not intended as inviolate gospel. Manufacturers change oil suppliers, I'd guess due to changing financial incentives as much as anything. They also choose a supplier for their entire range, not discipline specific, so it's always quite possible they have to recommend a less than ideal product because that's the best in the suppliers range. But I doubt any of them are going to recommend an oil that they believe is likely to cause serial consumer problems - that's financially not viable. I would have to question if the UK Sherco importer has or had a relationship with Rock or Ipone - I wouldn't have a problem if they did, but it would cause me to wonder if the oil was chosen purely on it being "the best". I don't doubt that Motul 800 isn't the best oil for trials, I seem to recall looking at it several years ago and noting that it had quite high flash point which tends to suggest it needs a higher temp to burn clean (it's not a direct reflection, but a loose indication). My point was that it's sold as fully synthetic, like all the others. Putoline made it quite clear why they have a trials-labelled oil but also suggest using a different oil, and it mirrors what I just said - financial imperatives often influence what's available and recommended. I certainly accept that, hence why I'm not wedded to a particular brand of oil or believe it's strictly essential to stick exactly to manufacturer recommendations under all circumstances. I do take away from this that my assessment of what is a good hard ride is obviously not appropriate. I'll re-calibrate my mind. Rhetorical question - I wonder how the manufacturers determine 100:1 is the magic ratio of fuel:oil for all trials riders under all conditions, rather than, say, 90:1, 95:1 or 105:1? My take-away remains that I'll move to a full-synthetic oil at 100:1. Which one will be determined largely by price, availability and more frequent monitoring of the bore and piston.

You're over thinking it. It's not about combustion temps being "wrong", just the simple fact that if you light more and bigger fires it gets hotter. ie if you rev the bike hard under high load the combustion chamber is going to get hot. Pretty simple. As Putoline said in their reply, if you run an engine hard you might need more oil. The manual figure is a guideline that should be sufficient for typical intended use, no more, no less. Adding oil also makes the effective mixture leaner (more oil, therefore less fuel per unit volume), so if A/F ratio is the be-all and end-all then adding oil should increase combustion temps and so improve oil burn. Generally not so. I've been running around 7% extra oil - I doubt that's the single biggest contributing factor here, just one of several. I used to manufacture nano-light aircraft (sub 70kg). Those engines get hammered on climbs, wide open for prolonged periods against a prop that was designed to keep the engine almost exactly at peak power, but dawdle around once up and using thermals or ridge lift. My most popular engine used to sit at 10,300 rpm for as long as you wanted to climb - sometimes 15 minutes+. 50:1 edit: I racked the memory banks and remembered it was 32:1 full synthetic was very marginal to keep them safe on climbs, but you had to give them regular revs once up and just dawdling along or they would oil up in fairly short order. Yes, there's a reduction in O2 at altitude, but I can assure you the same effect could be seen even if you were ridge soaring at 100ft amsl.

I thought my hills would be enough - the exhaust is often smoking after a good climb, but I do tend to take it pretty easy most of the time and tend to back off if I see the exhaust start to smoke - I'm nervous of melting exhaust guards having done that on a couple of bikes now. I was quite impressed that Putoline took the time to respond too. They definitely get a gold star from me for being responsive and not dismissive. I'm reasonably happy that a change of oil and a bit more right wrist action should solve this problem in future - once I've gone back in and cleaned the piston & rings up fully.

Yeah, I get that. I opted to go just slightly over 100:1 (93:1) because I regularly climb fairly steep hills several KM long climbing several hundred vertical feet (up to 1,000 vert feet). I figured it was safer to run slightly more oil than the 100:1 to allow for that non-typical trials use. Obviously I'm too gentle on the climbs (I often muck about doing trialsy things on the way up) to clean up the oil.

GG recommend GRO Performance 2t. Fully synthetic. Beta & Sherco recommend Motul 800. Fully synthetic. TRS show Nils Duo Synt S. Fully synthetic. Putoline technical support manager advises fully synthetic. I'm going to take the hint.

Being someone who believes in going to the source wherever possible, I emailed Putoline about this and today heard back from them. I asked if he had a preference for MX7 or MX9 in this case: The TT Trial Pro is labelled "synthetic", but I guess that really interprets as "semi-synthetic" rather than "fully synthetic". I'd assumed it was synthetic as in "fully". So I guess I'll try the MX9. I get a good price on Penrite (Australian brand) from my local distributor who I try to support wherever I can, he also sells Putoline so it might come down to Putoline vs Penrite price. I'm sure there's differences in the full synthetic 2T oil offerings, but I'm also pretty sure that I couldn't pick the difference based on the marketing guff. Anyone want some discount TT Trial Pro? 😄

Looks like it, but not. 100% confident that hasn't happened. That sounds logical to me. Under that scenario the Putoline may not be a cause. It could be that given the quantity of oil in the exhaust when I got it, the rings stuck quite early due to excessive oil, then the Putoline goo was a consequence not a cause. Or the Putoline could be crappy. Or I just might need to go for a solid blast from time to time to keep things clean. That seems a bit odd - my riding spots are several km apart on hilly forestry road so it gets a reasonable run most days. But I just tootle along usually, maybe more speed required.

Thanks Paul. I was going to give you a call. Fan's working fine. The skirt looked OK. Quite a bit of brown muck between the rings though. I'll order the gasket kit from you & then pull the cylinder off so I can clean piston & rings properly.

I can't answer your question, but I used to remove the airbox cover screw and tape the cover semi-permanently to the guard, then use cable ties or nylon bolts at the rear fasteners so the guard could pop off without breaking. Effectively I converted my 2017 & 2020 Evo guards into ones similar to your 2010. I found it no problem to just lift the guard and change the filter and far preferred not breaking an expense guard in crashes. Going to a new style guard might not necessarily be an upgrade as much as a downgrade in my view.

I reckon they all put something so they smell other than burning oil - they've all got distinctive smells, just that Putoline try to market theirs. In Australia so our fuel is different to yours, but 95 octane bowser petrol. What nearly everyone here uses. Some people use 98 octane, but weirdly that often doesn't run as well as the standard 95. Exhaust packing seems pretty good - I had it out just a few weeks ago when I belted the exhaust cap off.

I went to start my '21 TRS RR 300 (120 hours engine time) today and found it was jammed. Weird, as it was running fine yesterday right up until I stopped it and put it away. I'd just checked the coolant the day before and it was still correct level so I was comfortable it hadn't cooked from lack of water. I also knew 100% that I had oil in the fuel - 140ml to 13L as I've used all along. I had heard a slight and intermittent rattle for about the first minute while it warmed up, but couldn't identify where it came from. I tried the screwdriver to the ear trick over parts of the engine and it didn't sound like it was coming from anything I listened to. I pulled off the clutch side and could find nothing wrong there. The clutch basket rotated freely on the tiny bit of play in the primary gears, so it wasn't the clutch or starter gears, and the gearbox moved fine when I pulled the clutch so it wasn't that. Took off the magneto cover and there was absolutely zero movement on the flywheel. So I figured it was crank or piston. Pulled off the head and there was a lot of glaze/varnish - not sure the correct term for burnt on oil? Hmmm. I decided to put a socket on the crankshaft and see if some judicious force would move it. It broke free reasonably easily so I moved it to bottom of stroke. Looking at the circumferential lines I'm thinking maybe the varnish hardened up when the bike cooled and stuck the rings to the barrel? I got in there with a plastic scraper and cleaned a fair bit up, then more with a Scotchbrite and some contact cleaner. It came up virtually good as new, not a scratch in sight and nice OEM hone marks. Hooray. Also cleaned the carbon out of the head and piston top. Nice and shiny again. Put it all back together and it started and ran as well as ever. Phew. It had the same rattle for a couple of seconds after it started, but then gone. I'm tending to think it sounds more like something external than internal, but that wouldn't go away as the engine warmed up. Odd. I'll do more investigation when I hear it next, if I do. I'm a little nervous about that. I'll probably pull the barrel off and give the piston and rings a clean once I've ordered a gasket & O-rings - I've got a trial tomorrow so wanted it back together. So I'm wondering a couple of things: I've been using Putoline Trial, which I've previously done hundreds of hours on in Beta's with no issues. But now I'm wondering if Putoline is known for gumming up the works? Is this a "thing"? That rings stick to the build up in the cylinder when it cools. Or should I be looking deeper for a more significant cause? I wish I'd taken a photo before reassembling, it looked vastly better than this! Thanks for any enlightening comments.

I believe you can fit 10 / 61 gearing. Should help everything except top speed, & who cares about that, just enjoy the scenery a bit more.

I can't comment on the E-Pure directly but I've got decent experience with e-trials with clutch, various weight flywheels and tickover. If you're set on not using clutch then I'd say go for it, take off the weights. It should make throttle response snappier. The trade off is that you'll also have less drive inertia to carry up banks and steps so you often have to maintain a trailing throttle to complete the climbs, that demands some fairly sensitive throttle control. On e-bikes any throttle application has the disadvantage that if the wheel slips, even a little, then it tends to instantly spin up. Tickover is totally pointless if you're not using clutch, in fact I think it is a disadvantage. However ... if you use the clutch at all then it's a game changer. It is way, way harder to coordinate going from zero revs to "enough" revs for effective slow speed creeping. Most e-bikes have a slightly slower response spinning up from zero rpm - it's tiny, but combined with the added delay of adding throttle to get it started it is really noticeable and frustrating. If you're using clutch for any accelerating maneuvers then tickover and a heavy flywheel are absolutely mandatory. My observation of the EM is that it has far too high a gear and too little flywheel inertia for really effective launch off clutch. I'm not talking huge splats, even relatively modest ride-up and zaps are let down by the lack of effect. As Konrad said, it's like riding an ICE bike in 3rd (or more like 4th really) gear all the time. Try measuring what gear gives you 60kmh top speed on your ICE bike then try riding sections in that gear. Electric bikes get away with it because they don't stall and they've buckets of torque at low RPM, but it doesn't make it equivalent to using a lower gear. Stuck throttle is stuck throttle whatever the engine. It's always likely to end badly.

Beta 500mm tip - tip x 350 +/- to top of peg TRS 480mm tip - tip x 350 +/- to top of peg My guess is GasGas are a whisker narrower again, but I recently sold my GG.

Another option for real beginners is to just wind the idle up and disconnect the throttle cable completely. They learn to use the clutch to control power right from the start, so when they get a throttle in their hand it's already automatic to pull the clutch when they want to "stop the world, I want to get off". A throttle stop helps at step 2 and could avoid the posting of a lot of YouTube videos, thereby contributing to reducing global greenhouse emissions. 😁

Perhaps the deafening silence is indicative of Scorpa ownership levels? That of itself would make me consider the brand very carefully - more common bikes are usually easier to get parts, easier to get advice and may possibly get the inevitable bugs worked out earlier simply due to statistical likelihood of the issues recurring often enough for the factory to find it worth fixing. I know here in my part of Australia they are rare as hen's teeth. A side note - I rode a '22 Vertigo for the first time yesterday. Such a different feel to the TRS. Reminded me more of my old GasGas, except new and a real tractor engine down low. Far more "planted" front end. I reckon I'd likely drop less points on this than on my TRS to be honest, but I wouldn't swap simply because the TRS feels so very much more "playful" (both I and the Vertigo owner said exactly the same thing). TRS feels lighter, hops feel far easier, spins up quicker ... just all around more lively. Last year I spent around 94% of my time playing and 6% riding events - it's a no-brainer to me to ride the bike that gives me the most enjoyment for that 94%. Cut off most of the hook that clips to the airbox so it can unclip fairly easily, use cable ties or soft plastic pins in the rear mounts and replace the front bolt with a nylon one (sometimes I even put a small saw cut under the head to ensure it snaps). Then the whole guard just pops off without damage when you loop out. Keep a couple of spare cable ties poked into the bar pad or somewhere.

First be sure the lever is setup well. I'd adjust the lever out as far as you can comfortably reach, then ensure there is a couple of mm of totally free play before the pin starts to push the piston to ensure the fluid can return properly. If there's still the same drag I'd be trying some different oils. If Sherco call for Dexron 6 as cascao says, then try that - the factories know their bikes. I have found Putoline N-tech Trans GP pretty good, but I'm sure Gro and all the other common trials oils are good too. Putoline GP10 has a low viscoisty index, so it's viscosity will vary a lot between hot and cold - ignore cold drag and make sure the bike is well warmed up before checking the drag. Your "swarf" comment is concerning. If it's superfine powder / smooth paste then it's fine, probably just wear from the clutch plates. If it's actually swarf that feels gritty or worse then there's a problem that needs fixing ASAP. 75W gearbox oil is completely different from 75W engine oil. Why on earth they'd use the same rating numbers for a different rating system is beyond me! Setup to confuse people. GP10 75W oil has 100C viscosity of 5.5. Typical ATF Dexron 3 is around 7 - 7.5. So the GP10 is actually considerably lower viscosity than the ATF DIII.

I can't comment from experience, but I've heard Sherco, Scorpa and TRS are the three snappiest motors. That can be good and bad. I love my TRS response, but it does make really smooth throttle control in slippery conditions a bit harder and it stalls a little easier than my previous Betas, I suspect mostly due to the Beta flywheel being heavier. Good clutch control solves both. The advantage, from my perspective, is that the throttle timing window is a bit bigger. The TRS build is, as everyone says, excellent. Very few annoyances at all. Little details like the built in frame guards, easy access to the linkage bolts, tidy oil drain etc. This is worth a lot in my book. I once had a 13 Sherco that was the exact opposite, nothing seemed to be well detailed, the quality control was nigh on non-existent and I was constantly annoyed by little (and big) things that weren't right. When it was running right it was nice enough I suppose, but that felt like the outlier. TRS handling is really good I think, although it does seem to reward good technique and somewhat punish poor. My riding stepped up a notch as a result. It rewards a rearward weight bias and punishes you if you move forward over the front. Some people talk about the TRS pushing the front more in turns, I find that tendency a little if I am too forward, but move back again and it just floats over and through anything. I have the RR and the suspension is fantastic, it just does what it should without any fuss and again, I feel it really rewards good input. I feel like the TRS is slightly louder than some bikes - some people love the sound, I'd prefer silent. Compared to the Beta the TRS has slightly more vibration - not a big deal, but it is noticeable. Not quite a straight answer to your questions, but maybe it helps in some way.