cai

All aluminium frames will brake eventually..

I've got a brand new rear one just sitting in the shed, guess I could sell it seeing as I ride 26" now..

I tested out fitting BB7's to the back of my Effect today. 160mm and 185mm didn't fit because the arm of the BB7 hits the seat stay. Edit: I don't have a rear 203mm mount to try out but I imagine that wouldn't fit either

I wear shorts every time I ride, I find them much less restricting than jeans/trousers. I also wear shin pads as this gives me the same sort of confidence and re-assurance that a helmet gives. Edit: It's Iwan Osborne (Ozzy on trials-forum) and Andrew McCabe (drew_welsh_rider on trials-forum) that are wearing the leggings in the video so you'd have to ask them why they where them

Cheers man, it was a little tricky to get them to look right on the cambered edge. I know, It was annoying riding past amazing places thinking "I could ride that if it was dry", "I could have fun on that if it wasn't so slippery", "We could film a longer video if my camera was waterproof!"

After a 2 hour drive to Cardiff for a ride earlier this week the heavens decided to open and it rained all day My grips were sliding about (so I took them off at one point), Ozzy/Iwan's front Magura lost all it's fluid, Theo turned up for the ride with smooth rims in the rain, and McCabe's bike was working okay (dam him!). To add to that anything metal, wooden or marble was like ice to ride on - anyway we made the most of it and had a laugh. Here's a short video from the ride: (watch it in HD)

I think your wrong, adding 3mm snail cams to each side of a 135mm hub means you'd need a dropout 141mm wide to accommodate everything nicely. Any 135mm hubs that are designed to be run with snail cams are effectively 129mm hubs with a 3mm snail cam placed either side. I'd rather try every other option possible before I resorted to forcing the rear end of my frame apart - resulting in a lot of un-needed stress to your frame..

Bought a new camera (Kodak PlaySport Zx3) for less than 50 quid so I've posted up a small video from today testing the camera out at 720p / 60fps..

I'd put a longer bolt in where the snail cam bolt should go, and coil a spoke around it. Spoke tensioner Like this (sort of):

Trust me it works, I've used this method before. For example: if you place a 5mm spacer between the hub and frame on the drive-side, both drive-side and non-drive-side chain stays & seat stays flex outwards by 2.5mm (your comment is based on you thinking the non-drive-side would stay put, and that only the drive-side would flex out by 5mm - this is wrong). Anyway as I said truing the wheel is a much better method of sorting out the problem.

Close up's from my 24"..

I swear by spoke tensioners, there's just so many advantages to them! No mech hangers to breakDoesn't cost anything if you've got some old spokes lying aboutWeighs f**k allGives great tension if you coil it around a bolt/axle properlyIf you land on it, you can bend it back in to place so easily Don't use one though if your not getting enough chain wrap around your sprocket, your chain will skip.

Brakeless video added. Decided to take the brakes off of my Ashton Effect this week, I haven't got around to doing brakeless pedal kicks or spins yet but I've got the streety stuff nailed

Some thing that helped me gain height/distance in a lot of areas of trials biking was to stop focusing on how hard I was 'kicking the pedal' and instead concentrate on actually jumping. I find that the movement of my body if far more important than how much force I put through the drive-train

True the wheel across For example: if the crank is hitting the slave cylinder on the 'drive side', but the crank is not hitting the slave cylinder on the 'non drive side' then true the wheel over to the 'non drive side' - this will enable you to push the slave cylinder further in (and clear your crank arm). Edit: Alternatively you could try a spacer between the hub and frame (on which ever side is necessary), the 'seat stays' will now be further away from the rim so you will have to set your slave cylinders further in. I can this method being less effective though..

Sounds like a challenge Cheers buddy! Got the frame around Easter last year, all of the parts were just transferred over from my Heatsink 24UK.. We should have a brakeless ride in Carmathen sometime Me on the Ashton, you on the Planet-X. Keen?

Will do, she's going to be flicky Cheers man. I've hidden my brakes away in a box - and they're not going back on for a while!

After having a good read through 'CleanZine' and watching all the video's I've decided to do this: If I die riding brakeless I've told my family to blame you Mark

I wish they made 24" black chili compound tyres..

I did read your comments, I also read 7 pages of other peoples comments (there's been some quite entertaining arguments in here!)and may have got people mixed up. Fair enough if you weren't referring to him, just a lot of people were so I backed him up a little.

Pretty good site that helped me choose when I was starting out. The information is a little dated, but it's still solid advice

160mm cranks are pretty much perfect on 20" trials bikes. Either ( A ) you two have different gear ratios, or ( B ) you may have a stiff bottom bracket. A ) The most popular gear ratio for a 20" is 18 tooth on the front (standard freewheel size) with a 12 tooth sprocket on the rear hub. Some people use a 13 tooth sprocket on the rear hub instead, this will give you a lighter/easier gear. B ) But perhaps its your bottom bracket that's causing things to feel heavy? Check that the bearings are okay if this is the case

Technically you're quoting him

You don't even know the guy.. Ozzy hardly has a 'distaste' for street riders, he rides with me almost every day and my 2 bikes are an Echo Pure '04 and an Ashton Effect. As mentioned below: I thought this topic was to help Matt to make an informed decision on which bike is better for him, not to argue about different types of trials biking. At the end of the day its all trials biking, I'm glad the 'sport' has become so popular that we actually have different variations of trials. In my eyes all the different 'scenes' (comp / natural / TGS / street / brakeless / 20" / 24" / 26") are all pretty cool versions of biking

I bought that brand new off of Ebay but never got to ride it because my back wheel was too wide for the vee-mounts, so I sold it to McCabe. Good to see its got a new home