woody

Totally unrealistic in a club trial and it will never happen. There is no-one from any of the groups of riders and organisers that I know and ride with that would even want it, let alone try and implement it. And imagine the health and safety issues these days of having to prove that you're providing fully sanitised whistles for officials to blow on at each event. More paperwork than organising the event itself... I prefer a crossbow - in the section for more than 30 seconds and you get one through the ribs, that would keep them moving. And the queuing riders get the crossbow, no need for more officials...

Two points in your post First - 'leave the future alone'. Whilst I much prefer no-stop I wouldn't want to 'impose' that rule on anyone who didn't want it. However, under current stop and hop rules, new riders are hardly flowing in to club level trials at the moment are they? So no-stop surely isn't going to worsen this, should the majority of clubs choose to adopt it? (they have the choice, as has been pointed out many, many, and many times...) 'impress their mates with some trick riding' - This is the one aspect of trick riding I truly hated when it first appeared back in twinshock days. Trials was never a poser spport and was never about impressing your mates with the look what I can do stuff. But it is what it quickly became. Every trial, some riders couldn't wait to get the bike unloaded and then hop and bounce their way around the car park in a demo of 'look how clever I am'. In sections, where one or two hops would suffice to get round a turn, we were treated to 20 or 30 as riders hopped round, then back to where they atarted, then back again. It went on and on and on. Utterly tedious. A typical club trial, the usual mix of a few (single figures) experts with many more clubmen, novices, over 40. The stream of riders flows quite nicely through sections until you get caught up behind a couple of expert riders who take forever to get through a section - balancing, hopping, rebalancing, revving, dropping the clutch in an explosion of revs, only to get stuck on the next obstacle. Then there's the usual rocking to and fro until they eventually get the bike free. They are now on 3 (5 in old money and time to p*** off out of the section) Now line up for the next obstacle, repeating previously mentioned balancing hopping revving. Attempt to move back wheeel once - works. Second attempt fails and foot goes down. Bike now stationary with foot down whilst rider hops the back wheel several times sideways to line up. Launches at next obstacle, gets stuck on roots, rocks bike back and forth to get free (has now incurred a 5 at leat 3 times but still on a 3) Next obstacle - repeat all of the previous maneuoveres one more time, apart from on this occassion the bike is rolled backwards at least 2' in the process of lining up. Eventually, rider finally exits section for a score of 3. Total joke, bears no resemblance to the true ethos or spirit of motorcycle trials whatsoever and utterly painful to be stuck in a queue whilst it goes on. And all of it could have been achieved no-stop with 3 well placed dabs... which is exactly what a competent older rider who can't trick ride did. I know which ride was appreciated more by the riders waiting in the queue - for the more 'graceful' ride as well as the fraction of the time taken. As well as considering whether no-stop will discourage people from taking part, what about the contrast? I know some riders who won't go to certain events because of the time taken sitting in queues waiting for the aforemntioned scenario to play out.

I was just having a quick nose through the SSDT site out of interest, to see if there was a rider list out yet for the Pre65. Whilst poking around I came across the eligibility regs and saw this Frame Pre

Leave it as it comes from the factory as it will work very well with those settings and will be perfect for you.

JR was on the JCM in 85/86. He was on the Bultaco in 83 and possibly/probably 84.

Yes - chalk and cheese I have Magicals springs in my Bultaco and they give a more modern fork action. They are stronger but don't act like a pogo stick as they are progressive. Big improvement but still have to do something about the crap standard damping. I never tried WES springs years ago but we have just bought and tried some recently in several bikes and the outcome was they were far too soft. Not sure if they are NOS or newly made but they aren't like the WES springs in my mate's 240 Fantic which were bought just a few years ago but which we think may have been NOS lying on a dealer's shelf. We tried the new WES springs in an Aprilia t/s, BSA, SWM and Fantic 300 - too soft in all of them. Pre-loading was not going to solve this as it would just compress and coil bind the springs. Magicals are much better in my opinion - based on my Bultaco ride. The fork caps look nice but obviously aren't necessary. But they do look nice.... The Magical springs are shorter than standard (at least they are on the Bulto) so internal spacers are also needed to bridge the gap between spring and fork cap.

Where are you getting your fuel from?? That equates to about

priceless I feel the need to look that up again - so funny.

And lots of people keep missing THE point which is that it is ONLY the BTC that has gone to no stop CLUBS have a choice of which rules they choose for a trial.

This is what we have already. The no-stop rule is for the BTC. For every other trial that a club runs it can choose whichever rule set it likes, nothing is forced on them. The only exceptions are the current national series that also run under no-stop and which have done for some time. The no-stop BTC ruling is intended to bolster entries in the championship class at BTC - it has no bearing on what is going on at club entry level and will have no direct impact on potential newcomers to the sport.

With the engine it's difficult to say as it's in that timeframe when things were changing. You may have the issues mentioned previously with the clutch and gearbox but it's difficult to give a definitive answer. The top end, as in cylinder, head and piston will swap The rest of the components will also swap without problem, wheels, forks, yokes, exhaust are all the same.

Picture 2

Sounds like you haven't lined up the ratchet mechanism correctly when you put it back together. There are marks on the ratchet and selector drum spline to line up with the gearbox in neutral. If they aren't the selector won't travel far enough to select the upper gears. Below are a couple of pictures to illustrate, they're from the 330 I think but the principle/arrangement is the same. The star shaped wheel that holds the selctor in it's selected position also needs to be fitted correctly. It's only a 10 minute job - being stuck with 2nd as your highest gear will be a real pain even in a closed circuit trial.

1) Yes, on CD, you should be able to find it online, ebay or JK Hirst or Trail and Trials UK 2) No, completely different engine/bike 3) Look the same but different internals, different tune, gears, reed although maybe share the same conrod assembly and piston. 4) Quite a few, depends which you mean 5) JK Hirst, Trail and Trials UK, In Motion, used parts from ebay.

Wasn't Tony Scarlett riding a 330cc at some point? A hybrid of the 250 / 350 parts bin? 250 stroke, 350 bore? Seem to remember him having the bigger capacity for BTC and world rounds. 330cc would be nice. I sometimes think too much is made of airbox size. My KT had the smallest airbox I think I've seen on a trials bike, there is virtually no space between the filter and the box and the inlet was tiny. But that bike would rev like hell and never ran out of air. Same for my old model 92 325 Sherpa. A crude and tiny airbox with a dismal filter arrangement. But again, revs like hell, loads of power and never runs out of air.

This is total crap. For a start, how many people do you think have the time to spend endless hours practising the skills it takes to ride at our BTC level. 95% of the trials riding community have jobs, families, no free time and nowhere to practise. Practising hopping around the back yard for 10 minutes every night on flat concrete does not prepare you for being perched 8' high in the air on the points of two rocks, nothing between the bike, a requirement to move the wheels within parameters of millimetres and the ability to launch it to a similar landing platform a coule of bike legths away. There is nowhere to dab and if you do you'll fall. The sections are ridiculously hard and beyond the reach of 99.5% of the youngsters it is aimed at. The riders you are talking about don't ride BTC and never will so your point of dragging trials back to the dark ages is not valid. It isn't a championship for ZEALOTS. The Zealots, as you refer to them, are totally unaffected by what happens with the BTC. There is nothing wrong with you having an opinion but when you have no first hand experience of a situation then you have no facts to base your comments on - hence you're missing the point. The no-stop rule is for BTC, not UK wide ruling, clubs have the choice, stop or no stop. The fact of the moment is the BTC only has 3 or 4 riders who can properly tackle the sections, then another 4 or 5 who have the ability required to attempt them but they'll never improve. They are still very talented and skilfull riders, just missing that last bit. They have two supporting classes which are intended as stepping stones so the total entry at an event is 50. My view is that if the riders and event organisers were happy to continue with this format and course plotters were happy seeing only 6 - 8 riders on the main championship course then let it continue as it was. Younger riders could see what level they had to reach to ride the full BTC course and could decide whether to remain in the support classes or have a go at it. The problem, is that top get that good takes continuous practise and support from others. Gone are the days you could go out practising on your own. So if you have to work for a living and aren't a fully supported rider when you reach school leaving age, you have little chance. If you and Camberman think having the ability to hop around a bit is a sufficient skill set to work with as preparation for a BTC event, you really have no idea what those riders face. You need natural ability to balance and bags of it. Balance is something you have or don't, you can't learn it.

Probably none - don't think they had anything near the mods of the 250

I'm not qualified to put any sort of argument forward on this subject as I know nothing about fibreglassing, anything I say is based on observation on something I've seen or believing what someone has told me - or had me over on.... I've been told that there is ethanol resistant resin but I obviously don't know it as a fact myself. I know Paul has had some chunks of fibreglass sitting in fuel for some time and they are so far unaffected.

Probably but I honestly don't know. You can see obvious differences in dimesnions and you look at one part and think 'that will affect that part as well', but when you measure them one is the same on both frames, the other is different and you just think, that can't be... As I said, how they did it was clever and not obvious. Attached are pics of a standard bike and Majesty fopm same side and my old Majesty from the other. See what you can make of them. The front pipe on the first Majesty is standard TY Miller pipe which is why it sits too high on the Majesty in case anyone is wondering. Look at things like height of front engine mounts to wheel spindle height, swingarm pivot to wheel spindle height etc.

Take a look at factory bikes from the 50s onwards - none were the same as customer bikes sold over the counter and that applies to Montesa Ossa and Bultacos too. The concept is nothing new.

It's no use proposing changes to bikes, minimum weight, thinner rims, less suspension travel etc. The cost would inevitably be borne by the customer anyway but what do you do about existing bikes? Trials used to be the most basic, easily understandable sport you could wish for - what happened...?? The day they relented and allowed trick riding was the begining of the end. A harder compound tyre is the only cheap and effective way of reducing grip and as a consequence reducing the bike's capability.

I wonder if those 'twats' at Rugby will renew your licence next year.... If you're going to criticise decisions and /or people, there is a constructive way to do it rather than being downright offensive. To be honest, you don't deserve an entry in trials run by 'over 40s, clowns and twats'. Wonder what sort of welcome you get at the next of their events you turn up to. Take a look at the 'old bloke or women' taking your entry or punching your card (or face) at the next trial and think about how much effort they have put in over the years so riders can enjoy their sport. There are few coming through to replace them and it has nothing to do with this BTC decision. The no-stop decision is for BTC only - that means 90% of us are unaffected by it so I have no idea what people are getting wound up over. You say it will stop lots of younger riders continuing in the sport - where are they now? The BTC is hardly turning entries away is it. Where are these riders now who should be clammering at the door to ride BTC and who you say will lose interest. Surely, the rules have been what they want for years, so what's wrong, where are they? This decline began a good few years ago, nothing to do with the recession, no-stop or cost of fuel. We're talking BTC here, not newcomers into trials. The decline is because the sections are too hard and not enough riders have the ability to move up to that class. That's it in a nutshell. Costs these days are obviously a factor in anything, but no way are they the catalyst for what's happened. If you really think that 'over 40s' and suchlike are responsible for killing the sport then it is you who have the inability to see the wider picture.

No-one who has crioticised the ACU decision has yet put forward a proposal (as far as I'm aware) for how they think the declining entries at BTC level should or could be addressed. Whereas I have no interest in it, I can see that it has been in decline in terms of numbers of entries for some years. Personally I'm not sure it mattered if riders are happy with the format and organising clubs are happy to put all that effort in to run events for that few people. However, something has obviously happened to cause this decision and I have no idea what. This decision seems to have wound up a lot of people and in reality, I'm guessing that few are actually affected in any way. Those that are will be the riders, the clubs and officials that organise the events and the spectators that go to watch. Whether the no-stop rule is the right way to go I have no idea, but for those criticising, what would you do to revive a dying championship class. If you have better ideas it would be interesting to hear them.

There is ethanol resistant resin, so if new tanks are made using this, they should be fine. I know Shedworks use this type of resin and he has had one of his fibreglass tanks on his Honda for 2 or 3 years now with no problems. Obviously I'm no authority on this but it is what I've been told and seen. Interesting about Texaco High Octane. I wonder how they can keep ethanol out of the fuel when the government regulations state all pump fuel must contain it up to a maximum of 5%. Maybe they put a minimal amount in which is as good as ethanol free.

The bore of the 325cc engine is 83mm, stroke is the same as the 250cc which is 60mm. Check the engine number stamped on the right side crankcase, the first 3 numbers tell you which type it is, if it is the correct type it will start 159, same as the frame, the remaining numbers may match the frame but not necessarily as they sometimes differed when new.