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The new Alias 20.1 colour is here - go get yourself one Filmed in three rides, so if it feels a bit rushed that will be why. That said, really rather like this one Thanks to Alias, Trialtech, TartyBikes and Industry!

An astounding difference can be made to how your bike rides just by changing the handlebar angle. For me (1.7m tall) on an Alias (585mm reach - your Echo will be somewhere near 600mm) with a 165mm stem I set the rise roughly perpendicular to the floor. Before spending any money, change your bar angle. On a longer bike like you have you might even want to roll them as far back as having the rise running in the same direction as the headtube. I did that on my Marino. It won't feel like a BMX, but it'll make a big difference and cost no money. I don't have it with me so I'd need a bit of notice, but I have my one remaining home-made frame that is almost the same geometry as the Alias. The next time I go down to my parents' place I could pick it up and you can have it for however much it costs to post to the Netherlands. The only issue is that it has no brake mounts. If you want/need brakes and know someone who could weld them on for you then you're welcome to it. It's just made from mild steel so there's no issues with heat-treatment or anything like that. You'd also need to buy an integrated headset, but they're quite cheap as they're pretty much standard in the BMX world. If you rode BMX you might already even have one, I guess. I'd say stick with the 150mm stem and tilt the bars back. If you're spending money, get TT high risers and do the same thing with them. (I also have an old and battered set of these that look awful but are structurally fine that you'd be perfectly welcome to, but given the size of them it would probably cost almost as much for to post them as it would to get a new set If you want the frame I can chuck the bars in the box too.) Don't listen to Daviesdt about bunnyhops and BB heights The Alias is +65 and is a bunnyhop-machine. If your frame is +60 then there will be no issue at all with that. You're right that I pedalled everything back then. This was mostly because I hadn't learned how to bunnyhop at that time But yeah, it won't be as streety as an Alias, though you can get it closer than it is now.

Ross. Ali made no slight on Jack; in fact he said several things on the contrary and explicitly stated his comments didn't concern him as a person or rider. I don't feel you need to leap to Jack's defense on it, and this isn't me leaping to Ali's - I'm just trying to keep our painfully fragmented society as close to civility as possible. He was commenting on the video, how he felt it wasn't really a fair portrayal of Jack, and how it clearly wasn't made for the majority of other riders as the primary market. Nothing more. Please.

So would pretty much any mod if you put a higher seat-tube and saddle on the frame, and a 20" rim/tyre on the rear.

This is probably going to sound like I'm being a dick, but I honestly mean it in a good way. If you read it and think I'm insulting you, it's just because I'm not eloquent enough to put words to my thoughts adequately. Almost all of your previous videos have had cool aspects, but I largely found the riding to feel quite 'forced' - like you were sort of doing things because other people do or precisely because they don't in order to provoke a reaction/response - and that feeling prevented me from fully getting behind them. This time, as a video it didn't really click for me, but the riding felt really authentic, and like you're actually just doing your own thing that comes naturally to you. I really, really appreciate that. (Not to mention its being utterly bonkers.) Personal favourites would be the skid into the pole and nose hops down the steps, and the up-to-rear-to-front-down-to-rear on the concrete barrier. (Though there's a bunch of others I'm really, really into too.)

I'll be sure to wear the yellow ones as often as possible, just for you

Yes.

4bolt mounts put an added stress raiser and I hook really bloody roughly The bolts look bad but perform perfectly, so I don't feel obliged to get rid of them!

I don't know, but I'd say it's highly unlikely.

Alias Bikes have taken delivery of a new batch of frames in a new colour, and Trialtech Components and TartyBikes teamed up with them and sorted me out with this sweet little number. Same geo and features as the previous one, just a new colour, and I love it!

50-50 really. Depended on the wall. It's not really all that different - I think it would only be a problem now with really long bunnyhops over gaps. going up stuff doesn't take much speed.

I used to really love 18:13 with short cranks, but then people stopped making 158s. Obviously get the speed benefit with 18:12, but it still doesn't feel quite as nice as I remember the old setup feeling (very possibly rose-tinted glasses). Control AND power were better with the 13 on the rear, but I haven't had it for years and years so it's hard to say. Wouldn't want to try it on 165s - think that would be TOO light.

Front-wheel to sidehop line was mint ^.^

Chai was coming up for a competition on the Sunday and asked about a Leeds ride on the Saturday.In the end he came up after work on the Friday, rode a couple of hours that night, and then on Saturday afternoon too.We decided making a video would be fun and to ensure we got enough footage self-imposed the rule of one clip each per spot (hence some of them being a bit weak ).

I guess you know how it feels now then, huh?

That was quick work! I like the ground-shot-section-separators

That park looks tremendously quirky fun. Where is it? Riding's stepped up somewhat since we last rode - manual control for days!

Probably a 70:30 split in favour of the viewer. It helped me a bit, but it's largely because the camera isn't so good in low light. Considering a posher lens with a wider aperture, but they're expensive and the light was £2

With uni last year and a few post-uni issues, riding really took a back seat in my life. A month and a day ago (according to file properties of the first clip) I finally got back into a decent place and started getting back into riding. I got the bug pretty savagely and started filming. I lost an awful lot of power during that time off, and I think you can tell from the footage that my subconscious tried to cover it up by constantly hitting full-tech-mode. I'm acutely conscious of the lack of magnitude throughout, and because I'm insecure about it I'd like to point out that whilst some of the wimpy-looking things are exactly that, there's a fair bit of oppo, switch and switch-oppo stuff in there. Also, 85% of the clips were filmed on solo-rides because apparently no-one rides anymore. I don't want the above to come over as false-modesty. I'm logically aware some of the clips in this are up there with where I was before, but I just don't FEEL it. Also - if you helped me out with uni stuff, there's one clip you'll recognise. I was just a few seconds shy of a full video and had a burning urge to make it right now - I still very much appreciate your help, and it isn't meant as a slight on you at all.

All day long...

Where abouts and what type of riding? There's quite a lot to go at for both rocks and street, but not a huge number of people to ride with. Leeds, Bradford and Huddersfield are the go-tos, with Sheffield, Hull, Manchester and Doncaster all pretty close. Then there's smaller places like Wakefield and Keighley dotted around. For rocks there's Shipley Glen, Harden Moor, Addingham Moorside and Flappets quarry. Lee Mill Quarry is really good - just up in the hills in Bacup, and just off to the south there's a huge amount of riding in the Hathersage hills. I've been starved of riding company for a long time, so if you're up for a ride sometime I'll snatch your hand off at the offer I'll PM you my number.

I sadly understand what you're saying about feeling the actually-non-existent-pressure to outdo yourself, and I appreciate this may be you being candid but the sentence I've quoted just really upsets me. I really don't like that, even the people that try to give off the impression, or have a reputation for being innately progressive and good can only do it because they want notoriety. It's a tricky parallel to draw but plenty of people refer to videos they really like as "art". I'm not entirely sure on the point but it takes enough of a semantic root in me that I'd roll with it. Where are all the Van Gogh's that basically didn't show anyone a picture during ten years of practice and only really appreciated posthumously? And bought paints and canvases instead of food when the money was almost out. Obviously, with today's standards of living that extent isn't really necessary, and I'm not for one second you shouldn't strive to better yourself/your abilities, and the more people that CAN see it the better so don't pointedly not broadcast your efforts, but I find it most distressing that almost no-one does it in the avant garde sense and that now the market is flooded with... mercenaries. (Note that this isn't specifically directed at you - your sentence just summed up what seems to be 90-95% of peoples' approach so succinctly that I was kind of taken aback by it.) Sorry - I think I'm going to regret posting that, but I'm going to click Submit anyway as it's a point that's been floating in my mind for a long while. Edit: With regards to the vlog thing... I tend to not enjoy them as they're mostly filled with stuff I'm not that interested in. 20 minutes per episode seems to be the going length, but I feel that the majority of them could happily be condensed to 5 and be more enjoyable to watch as a result. ...But then I appreciate I'm not the type of person they're aimed at.

I'd be very curious as to where you got that statistic from Whether more are sold or not, I used to ride with varying groups of people on Saturdays and Sundays, and often mid-week, and felt hard-done-by if there was less than four other riders on any given ride. Now I consider it a treat when I get to ride with ONE other person once every three or four weeks.

I think it's high time people remembered Ben Travis has been really f**king good for a really f**king long time. Edit: Holy crap. This prompted me going on an old-video-binge. I really, really miss trials being about having fun on bikes, and there being other people around to do it with. And by all accounts it was already in decline by the time I started, so I never experienced it at its peak! It's really sad.

Never seen a mod stem? Bit less extension out the top of the headset, granted, but way more leverage overall.