neonsurge

I HATE big, steep hillclimbs. No idea why, it's one of the (many) things that I've totally failed to get to grips with on a trials bike. I always find myself in the wrong gear and either running out of revs or looping it Maybe I should start a new topic in "riders helping riders"

I'm waiting for Halo 3 before considering buying an XBox 360. Until then my *ahem* modified XBox does everything I need (streaming music and video etc.) I really hope Bungie don't screw up H3 or pander to the demands of the MLG crowd... Mind you, Gears Of War looks mighty impressive but that's another shooter of course. How about Oblivion on the 360? I have the PC version and it's awesome.

Not sure about the US, but UK bikes come with a heavy flywheel weight installed and if you want your 250 to have a bit more snap, just remove the weight. Personally I think that the weight adds low-end chuggability and makes it much easier to find grip in wet and muddy conditions so I've left mine on although lots of people remove them. Might be worth bearing in mind if you do go for a 250 and find yourself wanting the engine to spin up a bit quicker for really big steps or hillclimbs? I'm pretty sure The Atom rides a 250 too, although obviously his bike has all the TTT mods and extras!

I used to be vehmently anti-football but in recent years I've kinda started to appreciate the skill involved at the top levels of the sport and now I actually quite enjoy international matches (although league games still bore me to tears and I have absolutely no interest in playing myself.) I think the thing that still turns me off the game is the blatant cheating that seems to go on all the time and the fact that players and managers whine and stamp their feet like spoiled little children whenever something doesn't go their way. Football-loving friends of mine assert that tactics such as deliberate diving etc. are all part of the modern game but (rightly or wrongly) I just don't see it like that. And now the sport pages of the papers are full of sharp-suited blokes called Brian or surnames that end in "ich" bleating loudly about how the referee was an idiot and how he was favouring the other team and how they're going to appeal that second half penalty and take legal advice, waaah waaah i'm telling my mum on you etc. etc. WTF is all that about? What happened to the referee's decision being final? Isn't that what assistant referees are for? If ALL the referees agree, it must be some vast conspiracy theory, right? Legal advice?? It's a bloody sport!!! Get a grip people! The only people who benefit from this kind of crap are the bloodsucking lawyers (with apologies to any bloodsucking lawyers reading this... in fact "nice work if you can get it, eh lads?" and "lend me a tenner" )* Oops. Turned into a bit of a rant. Like I said, I do appreciate football but HONESTLY.... Back on subject: How about Schumacher's drive in Brazil for a high point? And his following retirement for a low? And before someone says "how can you call football boring when you watch F1?" it's a case of horses for courses and was kinda the point I was trying to make. * On review, I know this kind of thing happens in world trials but I think to a much lesser extent. Some rider goes off on one, chucks a strop, has a go at the observer, the CoC gets involved, sets things straight and the rider moves on. I've never heard of an observing decision being officially taken outside the confines of the event (to the FIM appeals court for example), although now I've said that no doubt I'll be proven wrong.

I'm not sure about the 250 struggling on hillclimbs... I'm a fat git and the last thing I need on my 06 250 is more power (although I'll concede that much of that is to do with the fact that I'm not actually a very good trials rider...) I did used to own a 270 and it wasn't just the fact that it was more powerful than the 250, it was the way that the power was delivered. The 270 seemed to be more abrupt in its delivery which meant that on occasion, those additional 20ccs of grunt made themselves frighteningly apparent at just the wrong moment if your throttle control wasn't absolutely perfect. I've heard it said several times that the 250 is more than enough for clubmen through to intermediate level riders and the 270 is really only for experts and those who just like to hoon around and scare themselves silly. I'd agree with that

Your favorite bike sucks.

As I understand it (and I prepare to stand corrected), a CV carb uses vacuum pressure to move the slide via a side-valve operated by the throttle cable as opposed to the slide being directly connected to and actuated by the cable. I always assumed that a CV carb required a return cable due to the increased possibility of the throttle sticking open but the 4T doesn't seem to have one (although it does have a trick-looking throttle body... maybe there's something in there that does the same/similar job).

I asked a similar question a couple of weeks ago. The good news is that I'm no longer Billy-No-Dunlop (thanks Michael!)

The FP article only talks about WB riding GasGas enduro bikes. It is to be assumed that he'll also be riding the BTC on a Gasser too?

No new bike for me this year but I'm seeing an awful lot of new Shercos round here, especially in the youth classes. Fair few '07 Betas too but this has always been "Beta country" for some reason.

Actually, yes. I recently upgraded to BT Total (the full monty package) and although my trusty old Linksys router works fine, they offered me a free BT Homehub as part of deal. Free is good so I ordered it and when it arrived I thought I'd plug 'er in and see how it performed. Some observations: 1. Despite what all the ads suggest, it doesn't come with the digital hub phone (well mine didn't anyway) and the phone is

The engine in the Sherco 3.2 looks remarkably similar to the Sherco enduro bikes' engine but they have EFI. Seeing as they already had the fuel injection technology, I wonder why they went for a carb on the trials bike? If I had the dosh available to buy a new bike right now (which I don't), I think I'd like to HEAR the 4T Beta "in the wild" before slapping down a wad of Melvins for one. Part of what I love about trials is the fact that you can sit in a queue at a section and have a conversation with the person next to you, even with your helmet on. And while the 4RT might be a fantastic bike (I wouldn't know, I've never ridden one), those bloody things are killing the art of gentlemanly section chat as the riders sit there blipping the throttle... BLAAAAAT!!! BLAAAAT!! Dunno about the SY250F or 3.2 'cos I've never come across one so far but the 4RT just annoys me, noise-wise. Yep, it's trivial and petty but hey, that's me...

OK, forgive my ignorace but are there any implications with removing the reed block spacer? I ask not because my bike is running badly in any way (totally standard '06 250 which runs perfectly and doesn't leak fuel... I must be one of the lucky ones) but the carb is difficult to remove and an absolute bitch to reinstall and anything that makes the job easier would be most welcome. What is it with these weird Beta inconsistencies? Carb operation issues aside, I've owned '02, '03 and '04 Rev-3s previously and I could whip the carb out, clean it and reinstall in a couple of minutes on them but it's a major hassle on the '06. Stiffer boot rubber? I dunno...

The nerd in me thinks that this is actually a good thing. Maybe Beta's total lack of fanfare and fuss means that all their attention and energy has gone into building a competitive, reliable bike that will sell based on reviews and reputation rather than flashy and expensive marketing. The theory that the actual product quality is inversely proportional to the amount of money spent on advertising. Quality sells itself etc. This is hopelessly unrealistic and total rubbish in terms of sales volumes in today's global marketplace (and the current state of the UK trials market in particular) of course, but I still like the Italian attitude of "if you build it, they will come".

This is a nifty little plug-in for Firefox that allows you to download embedded video from YouTube, Google Video etc. directly to your PC in FLV (Flash), AVI (Windows Video) or MP4 (iPod) format. I seem to remember a "how do I?" type question along these lines was asked a while ago and after fiddling with several of those screen-scraper type utilities and manually patching URLs from the page source I came across this one which makes the whole job a lot easier (2 mouse clicks!)

Is that a manual decompresser lever above the clutch on the 'bars? Auto decompression would've been nice...

I was thinking the same thing. Looks super-slim compared to the other "new generation" thumpers. In fact, it looks just like a 2-stroke at first glance.

What I mean is, many non-factory bikes have them as well. For example, looking at the BVM test day photos on r2wtrials.com, all of the Betas seem to have the Dunlop stickers, not just Steve Saunders' bike. There are a LOT of Betas in this part of the country and most of them seem to have them too. I'd always assumed that they left JLI like that but if new Betas come with X11s fitted, why would that be the case? The obvious answer is to ask an owner I guess. I'll do that and stop blathering. Thank you for your indulgence.

A very small thing but it's bugged me for ages: I see a lot of Rev3s with "Dunlop" stickers between the upper and lower fork clamps. Most 06 bikes and all 07s (that I've seen) have them. My own 06 (bought new) doesn't and came with Michelin tyres. Does the Dunlop sticker mean something? Just wonderin'

Used to go to the Stoneleigh show every year but skipped last year after '04 was wall-to-wall tattoos, nose rings and "totally radical duuuuuude" (sorry Barry ) Seriously, apart from the new trials bikes and Steve Colley's demo there wasn't really much to see from a trials perspective and I think I'd seen everything worth seeing in about the same time it takes for a motocrosser's new riding gear to go out of fashion (about 10 minutes). Even the freebies were pretty thin on the ground Still, guess it's nice to have a dedicated off-road bike show at all so I'd be interested to hear what this year's is like and I might book the Friday off next year...

The solution to level 4 is (partially) embedded in the main image. If you copy and paste the image into Photoshop and fiddle with the gamma values, you should be able to see the text. There's probably an easier way of doing it but that's what I did. For level 5 you have to extract the image metadata. That's when I got annoyed and gave up. Seriously, life's too short Fun if you're the sort of person who does the Times crossword in 5 minutes though (not me!)

Level 6 before I got annoyed with the ultra-cryptic-ness of it all.

As far as I remember, not a huge amount: Tweaked suspension, different head porting and ignition changes. Oh, and they seem to have finally sorted the stator problems with the '06 models (although not all earlier bikes are affected). Plus the 06 plastics are much nicer but you could always chuck a set on an 05.

Those are trials helmets - I have one myself. Are they approved for enduro use? I've no idea if you're allowed to use trials helmets for speed events... anyone?

At the risk of diverting this forum from it's apparent new purpose as a casual chat board for the r2w crew and their associated liggers I'm actually going to attempt to answer the question. I've found caustic soda dissolved in warm water is very effective for cleaning out exahusts but be warned: Caustic soda is very nasty stuff, especially if you get it on your skin and when mixed with wam water it tends to "boil" quite vigorously - heavy gloves and goggles are recommended and don't do it in an enclosed space! Viewer discretion is advised.