Forums

I think the majority of it is down to location. Good natural riding spots are fairly few and far between on this small island. Down here in the Southwest there are quite a few and you'll find that the local riders quite enjoy riding the variety of coastal, Dartmoor and Cornish natural spots. The same can be said for the other end of the country in Yorkshire/Derbyshire etc. There is also quite a lot in Wales. But a lot of these locations are reasonably far from the larger cities and concentrations of riders, where street riding dominates. 

i came from shigura (deore levers + old MT4 calipers) things that I did not like: 1. short lever blade 2. lever return is slow Then revived my old MT4 levers, felt so much better due to more leverage.  Then few months later, modern MT2 master cylinder with MT7 lever blades..... Felt happier than ever. I was also thinking about some of the Chinese/Taiwan made brakes like Lewis, iiiPRO, Tanke, ZTTO and so on..... few had already tested and have positive results too.

Had Trickstuff power pads (the orange backing) in my Formula brakes and found them really good. Put the same sort of pads on the MT5 lately and yes, even still not bedded in those are really powerful right out of the box. Can't recommend enough. Feels quite similar to Jitsie pads if I remember right. About the Formula Cura discussed earlier.. Another one for warranty and I've been waiting it for like 4 months now. Small leak in the master cylinder, would have been easy and cheap to fix myself but I don't bother really.. Trying Hope next time if I ever switch from Magura to something else. Stay away from Formula, had only problems with those especially in cold weather.

Yeah those are the legends of trials hub but after having like million engagement points on a Hydra, hard to go back to something like that. Even if the Hydra skips, it's so minor it's not going to throw your balance off like those with less engagement.

I see people (typically from UK) that only ride street but never proper natural stuff, or just barely. Does it feel awkward and scary to you or just not interested? Or there just isn't much natural to ride? For a contrast, I've ridden pretty much 99% natural since I started (Finland, so much nice forest and rocks), being in the nature mostly alone is part of the charm for me. And I found everything man made with sharp edges just so damn scary to approach. It's like the margin of error feels so much smaller than with round rocks and the typical pine forest environment. It's funny because one could think that the random angles of rocks and all the unpredictable stuff would be difficult and awkward, but for me I actually don't find those that scary, just challenging. More scary I'd imagine launching a gap to front from a sharp edge of pallet, to another sharp edge of pallet. Or concrete.. And yet many people start learning the moves with those kind of obstacles in their backyard or something. Likely just a matter of getting used to. But soon reaching my mid 30s and trying to avoid crashes as much as possible, doesn't help at all. Even just a slight bad movement might end up causing a spasm in my neck or back. There's a small trials park on the parking lot side of my new riding spot so that will hopefully help a bit with time, but I never really enjoy riding those things. I've started to get some weird balance issues after 30's and just feel like getting high up on something narrow, slippery and sharp is a major risk, especially if exhausted and tired. Pallets and concrete blocks just roll so much easier than natural stuff, need to be much more precise with bike control.