alan bechard

John, it is back to something I said a long time ago, and had been said by many before me and you have done it with this post. Trials like most clubs I am aware of, have a problem with Somebody, everybody, anybody and Nobody. How does it go? Everybody knows something needs to be done and certainly anybody could do it, and most everybody seems to think that Somebody should do it but often times in the end poor old nobody does it. Trials needs the exposure, what it takes is ANYBODY sitting down and doing the writing. but SOMEBODY has to do it. Lane was a prolific writer, with some great ideas, and some that were really out there. The problem was he would hang an accusation or something negative out there as "Fact" and then when called on it, act like it did not happen, or in the case that finally banned him, just ignore it. I still chuckle when I think about Doug and his description of me (and Ridge before me) trying to get Trials riders on the same page. "Individualists of the World UNITE!" It rings a little truer then I would care to admit. Still though, even though I sit to the side and watch, the answer too me is that many are very hungry for Trials information, and this website is a GREAT tool to obtain it from. EVERYBODY, who has an interest, just needs to pop down a couple of quick words and "get the converstaion started" Stuff that, nobody will read what I write, I don't write so well, I don't have time, I am not the club representative or whatever excuse folks have. You just have to sit down and do it like so many other things in life. The proof of the interest too me is to watch the counters at the bottom of the pages, and see how many folks watch vs how many type. The other proof that will come after you type a bit, is folks will walk up too you in the middle of a trials and say,,, "hey, I am watching that thread about the XXXXXX and you need to think about XXXXXX" and it will be someone you had no idea was watching. I think though as the economic belt tightening of the country progresses, Trials and other side interests will unfortunately be some of the first things to go. Heck, I was speaking with a buddy of Mine Saturday and he was saying the Antique Tractor shows he attends are suffering, and one of those "local" events, has triple the attendance of a National trials.

Great Job Chris and Ty!

I did not follow earlier that you were looking for the $, I was trying to answer the question I quoted, What is the NATC, and my abbreviated answer would be a group put together to hold the national series. (they fairly recently added the TDN part) They are not, as I and maybe some others assumed, out to promote trials, unify the rules, be the administrative body for all things trials, or to make it financially viable. These are my abbreviated conclusions based on many discussions with Natc presidents and representatives. As to where the money goes. You have a prime opportunity to view that in detail that most folks do not. I believe through Pat's status you have a seat at the table, (or maybe more correctly said, Pat does, but I feel it amounts to the same outcome) My past experiences with the NATC, the money was well spent and accounted for, and every dime went directly back into the sport. I think the NATC does what it's mission statement says it will do excellently. I just think it's mission statement should be re-defined, but as I have no dog in the hunt, my thoughts are moot. As a sidebar, I believe the USMTA was created to adress some of the very topics of promotion and commericialism (for lack of a better term, that I believe is what you would like adressed)

Hi Norm, Al Bechard. If you do a search back through the USA pages here (and some was probably in TA as well) you can see many of the same questions I asked and the responses given. Short version is really summed up here though. http://www.natctrials.org/about.htm My short and summarized version is that the NATC is a group of volunteer riders putting together a national calender. My other observation is while they will say "we want your input", they only want it in the format they want it in, and only through the folks that they want to hear from. Still a bit bitter about being told that I could not even attend the meeting at my own expense to observe. Just not how I believe an organisation that is supposed to represent me, oh, and recieves money from me, should act. That said, there are several avenues open to you to attend the meeting, and you are probably in a pretty unique position to be able to positively influence the structure, outlook and direction of the NATC. Good luck.

I have all but dropped out at this point. Just doing all we can do at the moment between house's and business and a lot of it is the kids interests are wandering quite a bit. Not even sure we will make the YN this year, the kids are looking at Germany this summer and that may be about it for the Bechard family vacation budget.

Hey bud, Check with your local insurance agents and see if anyone is willing to write a policy to cover it. My experience has been that the AMA is about the only way to go on that and get coverage. Is there an Enduro or similar club that you guys could partner under without having to form an entire additional club, basicly you could form a "chapter" under someone already in existence, and then pull your AMA insurance under them? I would check with the AMA and see what groups they have listed as active in your area, then go too them. Check with your state, TN has some laws about holding harmless for recreational use, but there are some "catches" in there, and if you are holding an event that you are collecting money for, it changes the complexion of the deal. Under those laws, we held some fun events, no money, no trophies etc. just guys getting together to ride. That was how we held our "potluck" trials where I marked the loop, and each group set up a section. and yes, we just did a small med and large section (nov, int, adv) as we just did not care about trophies etc. it just made it fun. You can find the landowner through the courthouse. It is a matter of public record, but sometimes you have to go down there and look at the Platt's to see. Speak with a good realtor and they should be able to help with that process. Many places are also putting GIS info on line. For my area it is done by the local university. I can go online and see our properties, and the surrounding area's who owns, what they pay, etc. etc. I would not do an event without speaking with the landowner and his consent and support. Even on the events we have, there was a corner of the property contested (and the landowner we deal with won) but we just elected to not have anything in the contested area, it is just not worth the hassle in my opinion. I would not hold an event, and collect any monies for the event without some form of insurance. I did put out a donation jar, at some of my fun events to help pay the porta pottie costs, and as usual with trials riders the donations were plentifull. I like the standing joke that you can set a $20 bill at the sign in table of a trials, come back at the end of the day and there will be more money there because folks think it is a collection for a good cause. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

If I was trying to be proactive and change things, I would probably change the shift fork centering spring as well.

Ruht Rohhh Wraggy............ Yeah, stuck swingarm bolt can be a bugger to get out. Not sure of your shop situation, age, experience or folks nearby to help. To get it out, what I did on my BIL shop (well, actually a Pig stall) with no tools was to go find a chunk of aluminum rod or a brass drift. Get your BIL (that would be me in this case) to go buy you an Air compressor and a 1/2" impact gun out of sympathy and cussing too many times trying to clean a carb without an air compressor. Go out and spray weasel p*** of your particular flavor on the bolt every night for a week, soak down everything (Weasel p*** is whatever penetrating oil you happen to believe in) Now, Hopefully, when you spin the allen head with the impact the bolt spins. So, start spinning the bolt while your BIL or some other fool you recruited to help you attempts to put the drift on the other head and whack the living crap out of it with a very large preferrably dead blow hammer. I believe it is a prerequisite that the bike fall off the milk crate twice, the dog learns new swear words, the wife comes out and asks what is going on, and there probably needs to be a touch of blood involved although I believe a very large blood blister may be a suitable substitute. Anyway, in the FWIW column, if you can get that bolt out, it will possibly be the hardest part of this job. Either that or run the bike down the street to the guy that works on cars in his garage all the time and point at the bolt and say,,, "that effing thing is stuck, give you a beer if you can get it out, and you are a girly man if you can't" It will either be out, or he will hit you in the head with a hammer...

I just don't know at this point. Christina has a 5 week college program, then coming back from that and going to Germany for a month or so, and Dean is probably going with her this year to Germany. This year we are also running multiple crews in the landscaping / lawncare business, and am supposed to be building my shop, couple that with my regular job has gotten really (really) flaky about Vacation time and some other stuff and it is just leaving too much up in the air at the moment for me to be positive about anything. I would hope to be, for the camraderie and the freinds if nothing else, I think I would have to go take a class from Mr. Charlie to remember how to ride the bike at this point. We flipped two houses last year while working full time and running the lawncare landscape business and it was a touch more then I could manage. I am hoping this year to be a little better, but just don't know.

Young Ben McIntosh used that kit ONCE, and forgot the Gorrilla Tape. I think Doug was a little more specific the next time when he told him to "spray it down with WD-40"

Hey guys, I am hanging my head in shame here I won't be there at cabin 5 this year......................... Work commitments, and the side business and a wife in Germany coming back that weekend and I have become OBE (Overcome by Events for those not familiar with Milspeak) My apologies, and in some ways I feel a bit bad for whoever get's cabin 5 for when Copey is beating on their door at 0200 and there are folks showing up for breakfast Hopefully they will be up to the task

look very closely at the alignment of your caliper too your disc. I bet one is not straight too the other. Insure your disc floats. (read as Wiggles if you don't understand what I mean by floats) Carefull apply brake anti squeal (yes, there is such a thing, it is not a muffler wrench) which will be available at any high quality auto parts store (or some low quality places as well) to the pads where they contact the pucks. NOT grease, it may be also called disc brake quiet. http://www.napaonline.com/MasterPages/NOLM...isc+Brake+Quiet I like the heavier bodied stuff as shown, not the thinner spray on stuff. I have not tried the stuff you spray on the discs I tend to believe it would be temporary at best, and as old school as I am, I try very hard not to get ANYTHING on my discs. Good luck.

I would advise caution at using ANY cleaning agent besides the fluid intended for those parts. Elbow grease will not react badly with any of the seals. As the gentleman above said, many silicone sprays are fine, but do you really know which one is not? Some seals used in brake systems do not play well with some chemicals, so use other chemicals and sprays with the knowledge that things can go wrong, and at the least, try it on the old seals and check for immediate reactions.

That small o-ring is what seals the two halves together. Take it apart, clean exceptionally well with scotchbrite or some form of scrubby pad that will not scratch, use brake fluid as a cleaning lubricant, lube o-rings and seals with clean brake fluid and re-assemble. Bleed and you should be good to go.

At least the stuff I have been around Jon, it just boiled down too, it was worth the risk. At the upper level stuff I have been at (Not on the level that you have) but have done World Karting and top MX stuff here in the 80's it just boiled down too if it did not get welded, they would miss the race, and the cost of electronics was far less then the cost of the race. I think the errant voltage is an anomoly that often comes from poor welding practice, ie, guy grounds the frame, welds on engine, wonders why he looses bearings, more often then not. On trials bikes though, especially ones with hard to get electronics, I would remove them from the chassis as I can usually do that (or get someone else too) in the time I get my weld prep done.

Hey Zip, if you can, when welding, you want to remove any sensitive electronics completely away. You are just minimizing risk by doing so. If it is sitting on the bench, and you are welding on the frame, it will not be effected. Often you hear the folks say "disconnect the ground cable" that will "break the electrical circuit" when welding and protect the electronics. For those folks, I use this example (Usually have this discussion when welding cars and tractors) Ok, take your gee wiz computerized thingamajiggy, and bolt one end to a peice of steel, now bolt the other end to another peice of steel. Put ground on one side, and weld on the other, did the electric current pass through the part? The problem with welding, and particularly zapping of electronics is NOT the electricity going where you think it will, it is finding out it was finding some other path of least resistance that you had no idea was there. All that said, standard practice is to disconnect that cable (More for me to keep from juicing the battery) grind and clean my ground site, very near and with nothing but clean metal between it and my weld site, no bearing's no electronics no nuttin. Be very carefull with High Freq (non scratch start tig) as HF can make electricity do and jump through some weird things that it normally would not do. And I usually weigh out the hassle of removing stuff, vs, the availablity of replacements, vs the time crush I am in. While I have watched Gazillion dollar race cars and bikes pulled into the welding area, beat into place, and welded while they were still running and not have a lick of problems, and head right back out onto the track. Sitting at home, in my shop I would pull the boxes off my Sherco to weld up the frame. Hope that made some sense. Crud, just read what John said, and yes, what he said

I would suggest going to the RYP site, then pulling up the manual section on the sherco's Then I would read through, then start with a good wash of the bike and if it were mine, I would probably change all the fluids out and go through and do the greasing routine. (dog bones, swingarm and headstock) I would pull the flywheel cover and peer around a bit, I would look at my air filter, and it's connecting boots with a critical eye. I would peer around in the bottom of the carb, and write down my jet #s somewhere, I would pull off any vent tubes on my carb, I would make sure my crank vent went up then down and was not blocked with gunk. I would go ahead and pop a new plug in it, and probably pull the tank in the washing stage and peer at the wiring harness a bit and make sure everything was laying there nicely. I would gingerly look at the petcock and see what set up it had on it, and insure it looked secure. I would eyeball my wheels close, and put a wrench on sprocket bolts and disc bolts. I would check all my spokes for tension, and would look if someone has a tube stuck in the back tire. In the course of changing my front fork oil (and I would pull the forks and rinse them in this process) I would look over the front brace and spacers etc making sure everything was copeasetic (hey Mark!) Either that, or I would just get on and ride the dog p*** out of the thing and fix what broke. Have fun, great bike, Think I still have one or two in the trailer I have not seen in a LONG time.

Keith, I did it, sent out invitations to the entire MSHS data base. (over 2000 flyers mailed out, thanks to an angel sponsor) I think we ended up with three riders. (and untold calls asking me when the Quad races started) I think it needs to be done, and it should be where the growth comes from, but it is a harder sell then it appears on the surface. It is documented here somewhere on TC, I will go look and verify my numbers a bit, it has been a while. Paul, do you carry on Trials bikes on the floor? I know we did here (mid south motoplex) and too the best of my knowledge none ever sold off the floor. (and I believe financing was available for them) While you certainly know more about the retail end then I, it is a big step (as you know) from "lots of interest" (matter of fact a Sherco was one of the first things you saw when walking into MSM for a while and it generated huge "interest") to someone handing over money for a bike. Please folks, don't take what I am saying as negative, I really feel that is where it needs to go, that said, I will also say that we have tried various aspects along the way (as have many others) and there is some part of the equation still being missed that somehow, maybe through discussions like this, someone needs to hit on. Oh, and hey up Copey,,,,,,,,,,,, I found a new spring near the property, might have to trade a little spring water for some cactus juice at the WR. Interesting discussion by the way Let me also add, that when I was actively demo'ing and trying to sell bikes, one of the most common questions and stumbling points was "who works on them". As Paul I think it was mentioned, outside the Core riders, who expect to wrench on things themselves, the average consumer wants to hand this $6000 + toy to someone with the name over the door matching what was on the side of the tank and say "fix it" Not sure how you get past that obstacle.

I am here, had a version or two, and maybe a hybrid or three Short version is that a "sherco 80" is actually several different bikes depending on the year and what they were doing. My experience was (and my reccomendation would still be) that go ahead and buy the appropriate bike, then resell it and buy the next bike in the line as appropriate. That said, those that know me know my kids rode bikes with lots of various pieces and upgraded and changed bits and that I made and fabricated some, and I also had considerable and much appreciated support from RYP. As too the "more power" I personally have always felt the Sherco's had plenty of power, and it was not something we ever worked to improve. I always used my Jonny Anderson training with my kids and said "much this!!!!" and made the throttle motion with my hand (I think that was about all Jonny ever stressed too me ) Even when I felt the need to demo something on the later 80's (true 80cc bikes) I would slide my svelte self (quit laughing those that know me) onto whoevers 80 was there and could do the level of section those riders were riding. All that said, I am pretty sure that RYP did weight all the flywheels of the bikes coming into the US (not positive, but I believe it too be true, a call to Ryan will get a 100% accurate answer) and I believe Dean and Ryan did some testing with various weights etc on his bike. If I remember correctly (I have slept since then) it was more a smoothing and making it more difficult to stall then to give it more power. Good luck.

No, I use silent sport or the moose packing (which I think is actually silent sport) I also used stainless wool, and plain steel wool up front. Probably the two things I question each time are Is that packed enough? Did I wad it up too much after I was stuffing it under the cover? For me, the pain is too make sure the packing is not trying to sneak out the edges of the cover, if you weld (tig) across a piece of packing you will notice, and probably end up grinding and rewelding that bubble. I have said it in the other threads, and will say it here as well. These are practical for me to do as a welding exercise. I have all the equipment sitting quietely in the basement, and welding is almost as much a hobby for me as the bikes are. That said, if I did not have all the stuff sitting there, there would be no way I would consider rebuilding one to be cost effective.

I am here if I can help.

There was someone on either here, or the STRA boards, offering a vulcanized type tire repair for trials tires a couple years back. If I remember right they were in the Southeast, it was something I wanted to try, but dog turds always worked well on mine. A 4 plug cut would probably be pretty rough at best. I would try a patch, or if I could find one one of those "burn on" patches on in and out, put it on your bike

It is a practice reccomended by several folks that I know and trust, and they have had great success with it over the years. Myself, and my experiences with grease are that you do not mix it with anything, few of us are knowledgable enough in the base stock, and thickener complex's used in the various grease brands, and Antisieze brands to know if they will be compatible or not. In other words, when you start mixing grease types, you have a potential for the thickeners not too play well together and end up with clay, goo, or any other descriptive term you care to use. I would reccomend a high quality grease, coupled with regular maintenance. Al Bechard

Actually Cope it was the Bechard Lass, but it was not scientific enough to really draw conclusions from. (jetting etc, not adjusted for the different fuels etc. repeatability) Then again, I bet not many science fair exhibits included Sherco's running on a Dyno

Not sure if you guys have seen this or not, or if it covers what you are looking for, but here are some directions to MAVTV which I am thinking is what you are referencing. http://www.usmotorcycletrials.com/