neonsurge

After observing the other weekend I chucked by boots (Diadora Stone 2s) into the back of the car and forgot about them. I remembered where they were yesterday and found that they'd shrunk to the point where they're extremely difficult to get on and very uncomfortable when they are on. They were wet when I took them off and they've obviously been super-dried by the sun. Are they knackered and heading for FleaBay or can I resurrect them somehow?

Practise day instructors now confirmed as Michael Brown and Ian Austermuhle (and maybe more...)

Back when I had a 4-stroke enduro bike I used to frequent ThumperTalk (a very good, friendly site and I notice that they've now got a trials form too). TT is kind of the opposite of TC in terms of membership - it's predominantly US-oriented with a few Brits and Europeans and a while ago the noise issue was debated at very great length over there. The discussion was pretty much the same as we've had on here apart from one specific exclusion kept popping up: Harley-Davidsons. Something along the lines of "Yeah, of course all bikes need to be quiter blah blah.... except Harleys" at which point almost everyone went "Oh yes, except Harleys of course!" Now I understand that a Harley is an American icon and all that and I guess lots of people in the UK might think about the original Bonneville or Gold Star in the same way (and I'm NOT having a pop at America here - it's just the most memorable example that I could come up with) but people need to understand that the general public doesn't make a distinction between a leather-clad forty-something on a hog and a guy on a trials bike. They're all perceived to be noisy dirty motorcycles and therefore an easy target for the environmental lobbyists because popular support for the closure of riding areas is practically guaranteed.

If you get the loopback failure message consistently (and even after doing a "hard" reset using the micro-button on the rear of the router) it means that your connection is OK as far as your local exchange but is fubar'd thereafter. Combined with the failure of the default gateway ping it's a pretty strong indication that there's something wrong with the line, not your router (or PC).

It was a mistake for Honda to refer to them as "restrictors" in the first place. That just encourages the "I'm a real man, I can handle it, I don't need no steenkin' restrictors" mentality and suddenly trials are full of ear-splitting 4RTs. If they'd called them "power plates" none of this would have happened As has been discussed many times on here, the 2-stroke vs. 4-stroke "loudness" debate is a red herring. It's all about frequency and even if a 4RT measures slightly lower than, say, a Beta 270 in terms of dB at 5 meters (or whatever the regulation distance is), it's the 4RT that'll be heard half a mile away. Low frequencies penetrate solid objects and travel further. Ye cannae change the laws of physics.

OS X is just BSD with bits of NeXTStep bolted on isn't it? Pfffft, I remember booting Unix on an old HP system from 8" floppies. And once it was usable (20 minutes or so later), all you had was a basic shell, vi (which would only respond to VT220 escape sequences to move the cursor) and a crappy C compiler. You kids get off my lawn!!!

I'm 99% sure that the engine in the Beta 50 is made by KTM (same as used in their 50cc 'crossers). If you're still having problems after trying the suggestions here, try asking for advice on KTMTalk.

Contrary to information published in TMX, the Hull Auto trial on 6th July WILL include youth classes, just no conducted D course.

I managed to break off one of the lower rad mounts on my bike and repaired it using a big self-tapper and a generous amount of JB Weld. That was about 8 months ago and it's still holding strong - no leaks at all.

What he said. Seriously. The 270 is A LOT more lively* than the 250 so if you can blag a go on someone else's bike and compare it'll be a pretty good indicator. * By "lively" I mean "scary" (for me, anyway). The 270 is great fun but a liability in sections unless you have lots of ability/talent or large gonads. I have neither. I ride a 250

Ron didn't tell him to stop, so he didn't stop. Another example of the bizarre (un)reality bubble that surrounds the McLaren team. I think Hamilton is a decent driver but he needs to be in a team that allows him to think for himself before he'll ever become great. Williams are due for one of their cyclical resurgences - Button and Hamilton in competitive Williams cars would be great. I would've liked to see a Piquet/Salazar-type moment too!

Early... Suzuki TS125 Kawasaki KD100 Yamaha DT175MX Long break from bikes, then.. Suzuki DR-Z400 (x2) Then trials... '98 GasGas TXT280 '02 Beta Rev-3 270 '03 Beta Rev-3 250 '04 Beta Rev-3 200 Now... '06 Beta Rev-3 250 '00 KTM Duke II

Yes! The full name of the sport is "Observed Trials", not just "Trials". There's an equal importance on both the observation and the riding. One cannot exist without the other and this discussion is practically ignoring 50% of the issue. Both TSR22a and 22b rules can be difficult to observe, especially at expert level and above since there's no clear definition of what constitutes a stop. Has a stop occured when the bike is stationary for more than a couple of seconds? One second? A tenth of a second? How can you tell? If the rider is facing directly away from the observer's position it's very difficult to tell whether the bike's moving forward or not. I suspect that's how the current FIM rules came about: Don't worry about stopping, just watch for roll-backs. Easy (comparitively speaking). Since I pretty much quit riding, I've started to take observing semi-seriously and have been thinking about this and the role of the observer in general for a while. Personally, I think it's time that observing got more organised and I've got some ideas how that might be achieved.

He's a kid going "look at meeeeeeeeee!", that's all. You should've seen the mess my 10 year old son made when I left my PC logged into TC a while ago. Fortunately I noticed what he'd been up to and deleted all (except one) of his daft posts before anyone replied. Ben, wind your neck in lad, think before you post and you'll be fine.

The regs for the annual SDMC Youth 2-Day are now available on the SDMC web site here. Entry form here. Lots of IRC goodies and other stuff up for grabs!

The access road into Low North Park is narrow and involves a sharp turn over a bridge to get to the gate. It's not a problem for even the largest vans but I suspect the big factory trucks might struggle. Dave C has done some fantastic work on the commercial stuff and we're working on a number of other initiatives including renewal of the facilities (a new office was installed last year and a new toilet block has just been built) and an ongoing process of land management and section building among several other things. The club web site is also in the process of being re-built from the ground up to provide a more proactive results service and be a more comprehensive source of practical information about trials in general and SDMC events in particular (once I get my finger out). Big things have already happened and more are on the way

Halo 2. Bioshock.

OK, I'll take a stab at this one... Apart from leaky carb problems (which are easily fixed), the stator is THE thing on Betas (the stator is part of the ignition system and sites behind the flywheel on the right hand side of the engine - the thick wire that comes out of the casing and runs up the inside of the frame is connected to the stator). There's usually no warning of a stator failing, the bike just stops and that's it. IMHO the problem is caused by a combination of poor quality stators fitted to some bikes combined with the killswitch being earthed to the upper triple clamp and/or excessive moisture behind the flywheel cover. Other people have different theories but the reality is that there's no way of telling whether a bike is likely to be affected. My old '03 is, as far as I know, still going strong on the original stator whereas my 06 failed. The cure (whether remedial or preventative) is to either have the stator rewound or replace it with an '07 or later part (which aren't affected), remove the original killswitch and replace it with a Yamaha-style 2-wire one earthed to the frame and drill a small hole or cut a notch in the flywheel cover to allow moisture to escape. Apart from that, just check the things you'd look at on any bike: Are the wheel, headstock or shock bearings worn? If so it's not necessarily a problem because chassis bearings are easy to replace but could get you a few quid knocked off the price Is the engine excessively noisy? It can be hard to tell on a trials bike since the clutch tends to rattle, especially on older bikes, so it might be worth consulting someone who knows what piston slap and worn main bearings sound like. Is it very smoky? Do the brakes work properly?

Without going into too much detail, Microsoft do seem to have dropped the ball with Vista. They made the mistake of giving their customers what they were asking for. Remember that episode of The Simpsons where Homer designs a "car for the people"? Same thing. The bottom line is that it's bloated, slow and extremely memory-hungry and unless you have a reasonably fast machine with at least 2Gb of RAM and a meaty graphics card you're going to be spending a lot of time swearing. You can spend several fun-packed hours disabling all the stuff that no-one really needs in order to persuade your applications to run at an acceptable speed but really, life's too short. Like AA says, see if you can snag a copy of XP: I think Microsoft have extended the availability period so it shouldn't be too much of a problem. If you're feeling brave, the latest version of Ubuntu (Hardy Heron) is actually very usable as a desktop OS (but trialscentral.com looks like crap in Firefox 3 Beta 1 which is installed with Ubuntu by default - looks like you've got some font substitution issues in the default TC stylesheet fellas ) Office 2007 is actually very good with some really cool new features such a the MSOXML file format and save as PDF but it's got a steep learning curve from previous versions due to the completely redesigned user interface. Open Office is OK but there are still some binary-level compatibility issues with MS Office and obviously no .NET integration (which blows it for me) but it's fine for most things.

Sounds like a variation on the same problem to me. Not sure if that makes it a different problem Anyway, I'd check that the plunger valve isn't sticking. This will obviously cause fuel to flow into the bowl regardless of how the float height is set. I once had a valve stick open and only realised when I ran out of fuel 2 sections into the first lap (didn't notice because it was p***ing with rain). Apart from that, strip and clean - could be a blockage somewhere else.

There's a game somewhere amongst all those ads? Couldn't find it.

I concur completely with Dan Williams' assessment. The standard beta switchgear is total crap (and that's being charitable) and the wiring is.... well, Italian. My brand new 06 Rev3 died one lap into its very first trial. After a lot of sweating and swearing I discovered that the kill switch had broken and was stuck "on". Managed to repair it only to have the bike die again the next time out. Yep, failed stator. When the new stator arrived (and total credit to JLI for their "no questions asked" service) I took the opportunity to also remove the standard lighting loom and install a Yamaha-style kill button grounded to frame. The bike hasn't missed a beat since despite being crashed repeatedly, dunked in the river and generally abused by an overweight and totally inept rider. So the cure for virtually all Beta electrical woes seems to be: (a) Chuck the standard switchgear in the bin; ( NEVER ground through the headstock.

From the scores it look like the sections were spot-on. You da man, Pune.

Definitely pink. With flourescent green highlights. Or how about one of those green/purple sparkle flips so beloved of Nova drivers everywhere? And neons.

Simply adjusting the float height worked for me. Still, I think JLI recommend the drilling mod for the SSDT.