neonsurge

Hi Steve. A Beamish or TY250 should be fine to get started on. You still see lots of them at club trials and at that level they're still competitive bikes with the right person on board. You only need to register your bike if you're going to ride it on the road. Some trials involve road work between sections and that's usually why you'll see registered bikes. If you're only ever going to ride "closed course" events or practise on private land, there's no need for lights, horn, MOT etc. etc. The ACU has a list of clubs in your area.

Colour me surprised. Just goes to illustrate the unique nature of the Scott I guess. One day I'll enter. One day.

Yes, but as Nickerlias said, Knight is a very, very good trials rider (British champ expert level), rides a lot of trials in the Isle of Man and trains on a trials bike as well. In addition to being world champ, he's also the undisputed king of "extreme" enduros (events such as Hell's Gate and the now sadly defunct Gilles Lalay Classic are similar to the Scott in many ways with the exception of the observation aspect). I don't think he'll win but I'd be very surprised if he doesn't set standard time.

ALL of the 2006 bikes are pretty much the same as last years apart from colours and graphics. And altered porting. And ignition timing. And suspension spring rates and valving. And weight distribution. And steering/frame geometry. And.... Trials bikes evolve. The last revolution in trials was the 4RT (and to a lesser extent, Sherco 3.2) and they were the first "big news" for quite some time. This approach is sensible - develop a new model and spend the next several years refining it. If there was no noticable improvement year on year, why bother buying a new bike? FWIW, I agree with you on the '06 Beta's headlight but to say that it's the "same old Beta with a few new stickers" is just daft. The same goes for all the '06 models - you might not be able to see the improvements but that doesn't mean they're not there.

Not sure how you're doing it but the Beta's carb is the easiest and quickest to remove and refit of any bike I've owned. To remove, loosen the two jubilee clips, pop the carb out of the boots, disconnect the fuel line and unscrew the top to remove the slide/needle (turn the carb, not the top) - it's off in less than a minute. Reinstalling is slightly trickier although it gets easier when you've done it a few times and a light coat of WD40 on the inside of the rubbers helps a lot. Reinstall the slide/needle, reconnect the fuel line then (this is the trickiest bit) get the airbox rubber on. Once done, push the carb back and inwards and it'll pop back onto the manifold boot. Tighten clips and the job's done! Once you've done it a few times it's possible to get the carb off, clean out, even rejet or adjust the needle height if so desired and get it back on in 5 minutes - I've done it myself between laps at a trial.

I was at my local dealers last week just after they'd been delivered and saw 'em coming out of their crates. The new silver/red/matt black colour scheme looks even nicer "in the flesh" than it does in photos. There were at least three at our centre trial on Sunday but I didn't get chance to have a go The first one I looked at had a Keihin carb and I thought that Beta had finally decided to ditch those damn Mikunis until I realised it was a 125

sparkplugs.co.uk is an awesome resource for spark plug information including detailed explainations of the part numbers and side-by-side comparisons of the different manufacturers (eg, this Champion plug is equivalent to this NGK plug etc. etc.) Web shop too!

I had the same problem. When I removed the pump cover it was full of calcium deposits (or limescale or something - we live in a hard water area and the previous owner obviously didn't put distilled water in there). It took me ages to carefully scrape all the crap out of the cover and around the shaft seal and clean everything up. Fortunately there was no actual corrosion but the impeller itself was in pretty poor shape so to be on the safe side I replaced everything - impeller, shaft, seal, bearing, drive cog (and case gasket). Total cost was around

My old 270 used to do this very badly, especially under hard acceleration when the engine was hot. I tried all of the usual things (higher octane fuel, checked the timing etc.) to no avail. As soon as I went one size up on the pilot jet the problem disappeared completely. Might be a good place to start since jets are cheap and easy to change!

Never thought of the woodruff key. I was going to suggest swapping the CDI with a known good one but the key makes perfect sense considering the symptoms. Agree that it's unlikely to be the stator since as has already been mentioned, the "classic" Beta stator failure symptoms are fine one second, completely dead the next. I have a flywheel puller if you need to borrow one...

Beta silencers are rebuildable/repackable... or is yours damaged beyond repair? I've never had to junk a silencer yet (the one on my old GasGas was covered in aluminium patches and rivets). Unless it's totally trashed you should be able to do something.

Once again, thanks for everyone's suggestions (except Charlie who has once again managed to place the seeds of doubt in my mind - thanks mate ) Only joking, I'm definitely not losing coolant anywhere Beta120690, trialsmonkey.co.uk isn't my site but I did knock it together on behalf of Brad Davison (who posts on here as lastplacebrad). As you can tell there's some work still to do, most notably the online purchasing but I know that the tools are going to be Silverline and I have a CD here full of images and pricing to get on there at some point. Drop Brad an email or PM if you're looking for cheap tools 'cos I know he can get just about anything at a very good price. Alternatively, collar one of us the next time you're up at the camp.

Thanks for all the suggestions. It doesn't smell like coolant (which is a good thing, right ) although I guess it could be oil the front/mid pipe. I'll also try mixing my fuel a bit more carefully - the Ipone stuff I've been using comes with a mixing chamber in the bottle and I've been using that 'cos I'm lazy. I'll try being a bit more careful and see how it goes.

Well, both me and the bike actually but it's the bike I'm asking about here. My Rev3 ('03 250) seems excessively smoky - even when hot and on idle it's puffing out blue smoke. I run my fuel at 80:1 using semi-synthetic and I've cleaned the carb, repacked the silencer, replaced the air filter etc. etc. - all the usual stuff and the bike runs perfectly apart from this. It's certainly not a chronic problem and I've seen bikes that are far worse but it's a bit of a worry nonetheless. Any ideas? Might a change of oil brand work (I'm using Ipone semi)?

I'll state up front that I don't know the Y2K model Rev3 with the USD-ers but from you description the screw you're turning is the compression damping adjuster (sometimes called the "clicker" funnily enough ) This controls how quickly the forks compress and put simply, the "softness" (or "hardness") of the suspension. Usually it's a case of turn clockwise to increase the damping action, anti-clockwise to decrease. I might be off the mark here ('cos like I said, I don't know the USD forks) but the other adjuster is usually the spring precompression adjuster and controls the ride height. Obviously, fork oil weight (and quality) has a big influence on the range of compression and damping adjustment available. There's no "correct" suspension setup as such, it's more a case of whatever works for you but "as soft as possible without bottoming" is a good starting point, as is making sure that both end of the bike compress and respond in sync (ie, you don't have the front harder than the rear or vice versa - this can make for some very interesting handling characteristics!) All of this is IMHO of course, and for a more authoritative opinion there's a very good article on trials suspension tuning on GasGas USA's site.

Noticed you'd had no replies... here goes: Rev-3 gearbox takes 550ml of oil. I'd recommend PJ1 Clutch Tuner Ultralight but any good quality semi/fully synthetic gearbox oil will be OK. You can check the oil level by looking in the sight glass on the left side of the engine (near the water pump). The apeture should be completely covered. If you can see the oil level, it'll need topping up (or draining and refilling using the correct amount preferably). I believe that the manual says that as long as the oil level is at least half way up the sight glass it'll be OK but assuming that there's no leaks and it's been correctly filled the last time there's no reason why this should be the case. The adjuster at the top of the left fork leg changes precompression or ride height (turn clockwise to raise, anticlockwise to lower) and the right is damping or suspension "softness" (clockwise to make harder, anticlockwise to soften). There are equivalent adjustments at the rear (spring adjuster nut and damping screw).

Sounds odd. Beta clutches are usually very good - certainly the best of any bike I've ridden and apart from an annoying reluctance to engage from cold that I'm currently wrestling with on my '03 250, I've had no clutch problems on any of my Betas. I'm pretty sure (although I'm prepared to be corrected on this) that a smaller master cylinder might actually make the problem worse. Lots of 4RT owners seem to be using the larger master cylinder from the Cota because they found the standard one to be too "grabby". Can't really comment on plates, springs etc. although I'll recommend that you give PJ1 Clutch Tuner gearbox oil a try as it certainly helped improve the clutch feel on my old GasGas and I've used it in all my bikes ever since. It's quite thin though and needs replacing often to give best performance. Have you tried replacing the fluid and/or bleeding the clutch actuator?

Full parts lists for all Rev3 (and some earlier) models including exploded diagrams are available somewhere on the 'net - I've just trawled my bookmarks but can't for the life of me remember which site I got them from. Someone else might be able to point you in the right direction but if not, drop me a PM and I can email them to you. I have the files for 2002, 2003 and 2004 Rev3 250/270s.

Actually, the section I observed in the morning (section 8) was lovely - down by the river with the sun filtering down through the trees and the forest stretching up and away into the distance on the opposite bank. Most tranquil. I was having a wonderful time reading the paper and poking an anthill with sticks until those bloody noisy bikes showed up and disturbed my communing with nature. It was kinda difficult to regain a killer attitude for the afternoon trial after that. My excuse and I'm sticking to it! Well done Curly - you beat me despite section 4 I was so surprised that I got up onto the rocks each lap that I had to put a foot down to catch my breath!

I'm 16st (ish) and had a Beta 200 for a while which had no problem pulling me around typical clubman-type sections. If you're used to bigger bikes you'll find that the 200 really improves your technique - the relative lack of power means that appropriate rider input is very important since you can't just rely on sheer grunt to get you out of trouble - you actually have to ride it! And the 200cc Beta engine is soooo smoooooooooth... The only reason I got rid of mine was I spend more than half of my time riding socially and to be honest, the 200 just wasn't fun for me in that context. If I could afford it, I'd have a 200 for competition and "serious" practice and a 250 for messing around on. As it is I compromised with a 250 (my old 270 had the opposite problem - too fierce and brutal) and I'm pretty happy bobbing around the midfield clubman B results and deluding myself that I'm anything other than inept while bouncing off daft big steps with my mates on a Saturday afternoon.

Wow, see I had a bit of a shocker in the afternoon. I blame my lack of concentration on the morning observing what turned out to be one of the most difficult sections for clubman A and the experts - I was all concentrated out! Mind you, I dispute my 10 on section 5 Thanks to the SDMC organisers for a great day's trialling!

I did for a while but although it was a very good competition bike the lack of raw grunt meant that it was no fun for just messing around on. In the end I decided that a compromise was probably the best solution and bought a 250. Sounds like the sticky clutch is nothing to worry about and I've just been lucky with my previous Betas. Thanks for all the suggestions.

You guys need to take it to PM or email or something Anyway, should be a good weekend. Looking forward to it!

I too would love to see Dougie back on a Beta and while I agree that he's got at least a couple of years left at the top there's no doubt that he's on the home straight career-wise and an 8th (9th, 10th?!?) title(s) with Beta would be the perfect bookend. Having said that, Beta aren't exactly short of up and coming talent at the moment: Bou (obviously), Dabill (definitely) and Brown (almost certainly given time) are all there, not forgetting Micheal Philipson and a couple of others, although maybe a mentor for these guys might be a good move...

Since I've missed a couple of the club champ rounds and aren't the quickest at getting round a lap, I think I'll observe in the morning and ride in the afternoon. See y'all there!