grahamjayzee

Hi All, I've just returned to trials after 12 years away and brought a couple of shiney newbies with me. I think we need to look at the steps newbies have to go through and ask if there's a better way. The three of us have recently acquired bikes around November time. 2 of us are Cambs area, one is Gosport on the south coast. I had ridden many trials in the early-mid 90s and so had a fair clue as to what to do. My newbies were relying on me. In particular, Nicks_TR34 not only had no real clue what to do, but had no 'feel' for what was going on in his area. What we decided to do is to join Cambridge Matchless for 2009 and also Thames MCC. The cambs duo will do most of the Cambs MCC trials and a handful of Thames ones and vica versa for Nick. The problem is, it has taken a huge amount of time to arrive at this information and even now we are still jumping through hoops to get to ride. As I see it, the ACU needs to consider the needs of newbies a little more. You see, there is a chicken and egg situation here whereby you need to have an ACU registration before riding a trial, but cannot get one until you have joined a club. We don't have a lot of time to visit the areas to get a feel for the clubs and couldn't find a central point of information on future events so we could find if nearby clubs ran Closed to Club trials. As a result, we can't easily join the ACU for the remainder of 2008 because we don't have a club card (I do, but me mates don't) and realistically don't have time to get the form to the club secretary to sign AND get back to the ACU! Now, Thames will allow us to ride if we pay the ACU membership on the day (

All the various makes and models feel different in different ways. I've always loved the way that Betas ride because they just seem to fit with my style. We are lucky to be blessed with this variety! I wouldn't consider any of the various trait differences between your Mont and a GG as any sort of problem at this stage in your trials journey; what some people consider a problem may be your advantage. To my style, given what you've said about these 2 bikes; I'd take your Montesa every time! Reliable bottom end power easily trumps zip and zing at the top for me; on the novice route full throttle is the last resort; 'plonk' finds grip; 'zip' flings it at the people behind you! Graham

Agreed; you can't knock the chap's perseverance! I can only assume he has some successes along the way and this is just a nice montage of his amusing failures. He certainly looks like he can ride a bit. I'd love to live where he lives. As you can tell, I don't know who this chap is!!

Welcome! Probably. Most modern bikes are easy to ride and manageable. A CBR600 on knobblies is a different kettle of pollack...

Welcome! Moving up to modern machinery? Sideways I think! Good luck, see you on the sections. Graham

I've always managed to seat a bead with a double barrel footpump and tyre soap as long as the rim is nice and clean. However, I have just bought a compressor. There is a bargain to be had at Screwfix at the moment that I'm siure is a mistake, so fill yer boots lads! http://www.screwfix.com/search.do;jsession...fh_search=95294 I got mine yesterday and it really is a 2HP compressor and it really did come with all the tools, and they really did charge me less than 60squid...

Erm, not just for travelling, I gather... Thanks Tilertrialler, the AMCA stuff is useful. I know what you are saying about joining any club, but a list would have told me if any clubs have a particularly cool series that is Closed to Club. Cambridge MCC has a great summer eveing series that is club only, it may be that there is a similar thing darn that way. I think, though, I'll just join one selected by poking a pin in me laptop screen!

It must have been this post that spurred some development! It's about time I guess!

Thanks Jordi, Only problem with that is that we were holding off joining a club until we knew what their dates were so we could see what we wanted to do! It's a bit 'chicken and egg', isn't it? What we were hoping for is a nice list like the one that CM MCC publish so we could put the 2 side by side and decide which is the best club for us both to join, and then which trials to enter. South Estern is OK, as you pointed out, the combine has a nice list. However, that's a centre that neither of us live in! Graham

Here's a thing. I ride in the South Midlands centre and occasionally in the East Midlands, primarily to ride the Peterborough trials. Happy with all this and have no problem getting a calendar of events; my club (Cambridge Matchless) has an excellent website with a list of all the South Midlands events and the east midlands centre of the ACU has a similar website. Here's the tricky bit. I have persuaded a mate to take up the sport and he lives in Gosport darn sarf. He doesn't have any experience so is hardly likley to know the clubs and leading lights in his area. This is unlikely to help much anyway as we'd like to ride trials towards the north of the southern centre so we both don't travel for ages. I don't really know the area either. I've now spent ages trying to find a list of Southern Centre dates, but can't seem to uncover one. Whilst I was looking, I found a club affiliated to the AMCA that looks geographically suitable. I checked the AMCA website to find a similar lack of information. The TMX website events listings appear very incomplete too, so I can't rely on that either! Even this fine forum does not seem to have a complete calendar! I'm starting to think that it might be a secret! Does anyone know where there is a list of: a) Southern Centre dates AMCA dates? Thanks so much Graham

Hi All, Just to let you know, I decided to fit a pair of Vee Rubber tyres to my 2001 Rev3. reason being principaly cost. As I had to replace both tyres and I had spent a fair bit getting the bike ready to ride, I had run out of budget. Had I just needed a rear, I would almost certainly put an X11 on. As it was, I got a pair of Vees for the price of a Michelin rear. I finally got to ride the bike on Sunday at the Earl Shilton trials ground. It was quite muddy, and I was enjoying my forst ride for around 12 years, but I certainly found plenty of grip. True that new tyres are almost always grippy and the reall test will be a month or so down the line, but at a replacement rate of nearly 2 for one, michelins need to provide grip for twice as long to be cost effective! So, so far so impressed. The tyres gripped well in slimey mud, over rocks and tree roots. Cambers were secure and the front braking grip was fine. I'll keep you posted as time goes by. Graham

Nick, you need more ankle flexibility than supertechs will allow. Same goes for MX boots that are attractive as they are a lot cheaper than trials boots. Old, low tech road boots will be adequate until you get a taste for it. The gear is comfortable, but not essential, but I'd recommend some trozzers. Any trozzers really as your pipe cleaner legs will offend... I bought Raw Sports and they are pretty good. Paid about

Don't run it on 40:1 unless you have a pocket full of spark plugs! With good quality synthetic oil 70:1 will be fine. Guys, you should raise these issues with your vendor and leave appropriate feedback or some other poor sap is going to cop more of his junk in the future. That's exactly what the feedback system is there for...

In your dreams, scrap bike boy! Thanks wasntme, that's good advice. Don't tell Nick that I'm admitting this, but I recomended a TR to Nick. I loved them back when I had a Zero. They just rode so well. Once Nick gets his sorted, it will be all anyone needs to post a decent score.

Nick, ALL your bikes are nails!

You're just trying to make me feel better!

I guess I'd better come clean and explain why I need to know... <Ahem> I rebuilt the forks on Sunday. Spent a lot of time on it and removed all the old oil from the fork tubes and dampers. Replaced the seals and measured the bushes etc. A jolly thorough job. I had to leave it for a few hours and returned to it after dark, working on the patio with a girt big halogen lamp, as I often do. I carefully measured out the correct quantity for the right leg, safe in the knowledge that I had no residual oil. I then set about carefully puring the oil in past the damper rod. Now, here comes Dim Moment #1: DM1: I still had oil left in the jug and the fork leg was pretty full! I'm fully aware that the air gap should be measured compressed and that there has to be one, so I scratched me head a bit. Whilst doing so, DM2 occured. I'll move on to that, but DM1 wasn't discoved until after DM2, but basically I had carefully measured out the fork oil using the wrong units on me jug and put nearly twice the amount in. Still, that was soon to be rectified... DM2: The bike was supported on a block of wood on 2 axle stands, again, as I have done many times before. The patio at JZ towers is of a suitably 'rustic' flavour and as such, not a totally flat surface. This contributed to DM2. For no apparent reason and without warning, the bike fell off the axle stands onto the forks. This obviously compressed both forks. There was now no longer too much oil in the right hand leg... ...There was, however, too much oil on me, the patio, the house wall, the rest of the bike... It's amazing how far less than half a litre of 5-weight fork oil will go. At this point, I found a cat to kick and effed and geoffed for a while. I could no longer face stripping, drying the forks and replacing the oil, particularly as by now I would only have enough oil to top up what was there rather than empty and start again. At this point I attempted to show my wisdom by suggesting it to be more accurate to set the oil height rather than the volume... What a per-lonker...

Well, you could do that, but that would be easy. Slapshot, obviously I was setting an initiative test for the new bloke. Obviously. That's what I was doing. I'll get me coat....

Hi Loomesy and welcome! Did you buy it off Ebay? If so, my mate bought the TR34 the same guy had and he REALLY knows how to neglect a bike! His was truly unrideable, but he's making some headway. You need to look up John Lampkin at Beta UK. A quick goog should find him. He'll sort you out for the spares, and most are available. As for why yours won't run, I don't know what the guy was running them on but I think it was a mixture of Domestos and toilet duck. You're going to need to strip and clean the carb. That sorted Nick's out. If you have spark and compression, it can only be fuel! His also had the clutch mis-assembled so it dragged very badly. I would also suggest you strip and grease all the suspension bearings Nick's bike has around 3" of play in the rear suspension. This is caused by poor maintenance causing the bush to dry out and eventually wear the block oval. That's going to be tough to sort out, so try and get on top of this if you can. Other than that, there's the usual to check; wheel bearings, steering head, spoke tightness, brake pistons and seals etc! Good Luck Graham

Thanks PHB. I guess I should have looked there first! Graham

Copemech, Let me know when you sell a bike next; it's bound to be peachy and not the usual rattley, slack, shakey, loose and grubby tat! Graham

Thanks Jim, that's exactly the info I was looking for! Graham

Thanks Jim, that's the sort of thing I'm looking for! I'll try 120mm and see how it feels. Graham

Hi All, Just serviced the forks on my recently acquired 2001 Rev3. Does anyone know what the height of the oil should be in both legs with the forks fully extended? On my race bikes, this is far more accurate than measuring volume; you use a syringe (or the top of a squirty bottle thing) and push a disc of cardboard along the tube so the distance between the tube and the end of the disc is the same as the air gap (height of oil) and then simply extract fluid until no more will come. It's dead accurate and mitigates for any oil remaining in the fork or dampers. Does anyone know what the gaps should be? Thanks Graham