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BB height: the higher the bb is: the easier it is to stay on the rear wheel or to move on the rear wheel, the easier it is to spin, the harder is it to stay balance on two wheels or once you are in manual (less stability) Chainstay length: the shorter the chainstay, the easier you can go in manual or lift the front wheel, the easier you can move the bike on the rear wheel the less time you have to lift the rear wheel, e.g. when climbing a step, you have slightly less time to execute your extension wheelbase: the longer the more stable the bike feel on two wheels the more time you have to lift the rear wheel (see chainstay) the harder it is to put weight on the front the harder it is to move on the rear wheel or spin the most place you have to execute an extension it can ease tap or rolling onto high obstacle   Regarding the other factors, it is difficult to explain clearly. I think it is important to understand that: every change in the geometry is a compromise mostly a single change impacts the whole system (and thus feeling) it is all about weight distribution and lever effect stabilty or maniabily: you cannot have both at the same time amplitude and reaction time shall also be considered stiffness impacts also the overall bike feel   Consider weight distribution and lever effect and you will better understand how each factor affects the feeling of the bike. Let's take some examples: if you rise the bottom bracket, your center of gravity is now slightly higher compared to the rotation axle that are the wheel axles. It means, your body has an higher lever effect when you move it backwards for example. So a front wheel lift is easier ... sort of because there is another important point to consider: by raising the bottom bracket, you basically load more the front with your mass (you have more weight on your arms).  This makes the front wheel lifting for the first centimers/inches more difficult ... To compensate that, you can raise your bar. It will be easier to lift the front wheel, but more difficult to load it, i.e. front moves will become more difficult. And because you increase the distance between bottom of the front wheel and your arms, you have less place to low down you front wheel before jumping, which is also a drawback ... if you put your bar further away on an horizontal axle (i.e. same height) : you have now more place to execute an extension, so the amount of work you deliver is higher. But also you need to move more to load you front wheel, which is maybe more exhausting. You can put more weight on the front wheel if you are able too. On the otherside, it makes raising the front wheel more difficult, cause your center of gravity is slightly more forwards and your arms are more stretched if you use a wider bar: the bike is more stable, it lower your chest, you load more the front wheel. But amplitude of movement of you upper body decreases (the arm being futher apart) and because your body if further from the axle of rotation, it is harder to spin. Hope it helps!  

I use a magura louise lever with mt4 caliper combo for several weeks now and it feels OK to me. Better that with the original mt4 lever. The louise lever have some drawbacks too, e.g. they are not as strong as other maybe, but I am happy with them currently.  

Looking for a trials geometry explained guide. Have tried the search function but couldn't find anything. Does such a thing exist? I'm keen to understand what things like BB rise, chainstay length, wheelbase, stem length, stem rise, bar rise, bar pitch and other factors have on the feel of a bike.  I was also wondering if there's any sources of collated information for frames which include detailed geometry measurements. TIA

Very good points. Although Finnish population is very unevenly spread compared to UK I'd say. In the south it's actually pretty tight and outside of that there's just forest and moose, to put it simply. I don't know a single trials rider that has been living outside the southern Finland zone, ever. The nature in the northern half especially is not very welcoming to trials. Mostly just wild forest, and the mosquitoes and horseflies are from another world there and it's already a trouble in the south. It would be plain impossible to stay still and focus on sidehops in the northern rural areas. The south, especially coastal area is full of phenomenal rocks and cliff so it's definitely ideal and one can find those very close to the city centers. In fact, some of the best spots have been in Helsinki area in the urban nature. Sadly those are often full of broken bottles and crowded with the kind of people you don't want to deal with, especially when trying to do such silly sport that nobody knows here. But yeah it's still definitely mostly a cultural thing. As everyone can imagine Finns are much much more introverted than British. A major part of us don't exactly need friends for sports although group rides are often preferred too. Then there are also people who can't do a single thing without a friend. Trials is a fun one here. When the UK got that 2000's boom, we had just a couple of dedicated riders here. In fact, one guy was pioneering the sport already in the 90's and was doing absolutely impossible things with those old high top tube mountainbikes. Those clips can be still found on Youtube somewhere.. In that time (during the British trials boom, when I was a kid but very much into bikes) I didn't know about the sport, now I can only wish I knew. Still when I started around 2017 all the guys from Helsinki area had basically quit, so I got nobody here to even think about riding with (only one non-biker friend who just liked to watch me progressing on rear wheel hops). In fact only couple of years ago I accidentally bumped to one of the older guys when he was finishing his solo training in my local spot (super rare sight). Ended up chatting about possible winter indoors spots near Helsinki region and he told that they used to have one with a couple of local guys just few years ago. But in the end since everyone seemed to prefer training alone (for more serious comp training I guess), they just ended up having their own riding schedules so they could effectively avoid each other... 😂 Sounds like a joke but this is definitely super Finnish, there are certain types of folks who have a brain wiring like that, myself included. It's difficult to 100% focus on scary and mentally/physically demanding sport if you have to be socially active at the same time, using big part of the mental energy for that with people you don't completely know. We tend to have deeper friendships instead of just "mates" so that's part of the issue. The youngsters might be different nowadays but compared to UK they're still very "shy", although that's not exactly the right word. Street riding in the city centers would obviously mean one has to be fairly outgoing, easy to focus despite of being bombed with "where's your saddle" kind of things (or at least lot of weird looks). For many of us this is too much to find it comfortable. For me personally, having to suddenly explain my sport to a random dude with a fatbike, might completely knock out my focus for the next 30 minutes after getting rid of that situation. Often that is enough to ruin the ride when the dude appears at the best possible time and it gets dark very early in the autumn days, so I try to avoid such situations. Especially if it's a spot that requires +1h driving. Natural riding is awesome for that.

I don't have a video from today, but here's one from last week. Was working on a few new moves and the weather was perfect for riding! Looking forward to getting out again soon.