monkeyseemonkeydo

And I thought my A1 was long...

Brake will still work perfectly fine as it is. Try lubing but just put it back on the bike and ride!!

Very true. I've put a French TDR on the road in the UK which meant I had to get it MSVA'd and believe me they're seriously thorough!! As an example, just for the mirrors they must have a minimum size of the radius on the edge of the mirrors, the mirror itself must be a specified size and even the mirror spacing from the bike centreline is prescribed... and they have about 3 pages of little things they must check. I'm not saying it couldn't be done but it'd be a hell of a lot of work and you'd be much better off buying a road legal DT125 or something... RE the car vs bike... I also have both and have to agree that if you're only going to have one it really has to be the car, especially as a trials rider for lugging your bike about in. Motorbikes are stupid amounts of fun but very impractal. Dave

Regarding the gearing- those ratios all work out at virtually the same so the only difference between them is the physical size. Basically BMXers have taken to running as small gearing as possible to keep things out of the way and also reduce weight (BMXers are even more anal about weight than trials riders are these days!). 25/9 used to be the fashion but I've heard of hubs now available with 8 teeth and less so it's still coming down... Dave

Pretty sure that's the idea behind them!! It should grip in one direction (to stop you slipping back) and allow a bit of movement when you want to go forwards. Bear in mind that you need to unweight the bike for it to slide as the 'claws' will dig in pretty well, especially on wood. Dave

Tracked down that mod I mentioned on vtcz.ch... pretty rough and ready but you can see the logic behind it. here

Yeah but for the same price as the marta lever blade you could replace the entire lever with a Shimano complete lever! It seems to be the way some American guys have gone to produce a fantastic brake rather than an excellent one!! Dave EDIT: Found something online about the mod I mentioned... here

Just stole this from the Newbie forum... That's exactly what mine did way back when. Admittedly he smacked the lever on a bollard causing it to fail but you can see that the 'arm' things in the right hand side of the picture are bent together from the flexing. My bet is it was cracked before he hit the bollard... I want to stress that the brake is very powerful and silly light and a quick modification should stop this from happening but just keep an eye on the levers. dave

Sorry to say it but I really wouldn't be surprised if the lever was cracked there before you hit the bollard... you can see from the position of the 'arm' bits in the right hand side of the picture that they've been flexing and bent in towards each other. I ran a Marta back in 2001 and the same thing happened to mine then and they still haven't fixed the stupid design- it simply isn't strong enough for trials use IMO. I read on OTN that guys in the US often replace the levers with Shimano units which could be a plan... Dave

I got my 221Pr a few weeks back and before even riding it upgraded the freewheel to an ENO and the brakes to Hopes. The Marta's are plenty strong enough power wise but the lever design won't cut it for trials. I used to run Marta's when they first came out back in 2001 or so and the lever blade cracked at the pivot. Unfortunately they're still using the same design today! The blades are able to flex and eventually crack due to fatigue under trials use. There used to be a modification on a spanish site to remove the flex (a little c shaped bit of ally basically) but I've also read on OTN that a shimano lever is a good substitute... Hope that kinda answers the questions...

Nope, that's just a plain ol' sidehop. Dave

It was on like BBC Breakfast here, possibly on BBC South or something... Talking about cycling in Exeter. Was on BBC Breakfast here but not sure if it was region specific (I'm in Dorset). Dave

Twas Andrei Burton.

Can I advise every person who reads this to click 'ignore user' regarding Pete? I have no idea if I've ever met him but the guys clearly a complete tw@t who should be banned from ever posting, even in NMC. I used to think it was amusing seeing the sh1t he posted but now it just annoys me and it's just screwing up the forum for the newbie's who actually want useful advice. Back on topic the Profile hubs are a few mm too wide to run in a Monty frame and if run without any mods are likely to put too much stress through the frame resulting in premature cracking around the chainstays. Stick to a Monty hub and you can guarantee it'll work and is designed to fit the frame. Dave

1.25 Fiesta 1.2 Corsa (kinda crashed that a bit) 1.0 Nissan Micra (nice engine for a 1l) 1.6 Astra estate 2.0 Subaru Impreza Sport estate (no turbo ) 1971 Austin minivan (1275 and an awesome beast until it got taken out by a VW golf ) Mercedes ML320 auto Mercedes Sprinter van, LWB Vauxhall combo van Mini One (really like the interior and handling of new minis...) Aston Martin DB7 Vantage, 6.0 V12 mwahahaha- fantastic car 2003 Nissan almera... meh. Bikes: Yamaha TDR125 2 stroke some random 125 4 stroke thing I did my CBT on Suzuki GS500 I did my direct access on Kawasaki ER-6N. Think that's the lot... I'm sure I've forgotten something

That's absolutely insane. Also crazy is this... Why would someone pay money for a free email account address?!

DOn't think I can do anything tomorrow but I'm thinking of popping into Soton today for a blast... Might be able to do something a bit more local tomorrow for a bit though. You ever been to Barton on Sea Brian? Dave

Fackinell he's one ugly mofo!! Pretty sure I don't make any faces when I ride... more a look of concentration than anything I guess. Ok so I just had a look through my pics and found one that just about counts... Just about to come out of the end of a section at the Hook Woods national where my arms were seriously pumped and pretty sure I was doing this anaerobically from my expression! Off topic now... Teezr, just out of interest, is Alesund in Norway twinned with Peterhead in the North of Scotland? I've always wondered where it was!! Dave

started when I was 16 I think... now 24!

Daniel... don't think carbon forks would be a good idea for you... especially touring one's! I've got Brians mobile number though if you need to get in touch though. Dave

One thing I don't understand though... I can understand the Iraqi people being a bit disgruntled over the 'Coalition' invading their country and so on BUT how come all these suicide bombings we see on the news in Iraq are in fact one lot of Muslim nutters blowing up hundreds of Iraqi people from a different arm of the Muslim 'faith'? You'd think they'd be aiming their attacks at the Coalition forces rather than continuing Saddams work doing their best to exterminate a religeous group which they have some stupid grudge against. No? On the religeon front I'm with Rich_87 here... I can see that religeon is basically an excuse for humans to be sh1t to each other but it seems to me that particularly Catholic vs. Protestant crap in the past and now Islam vs. the world today is an excellent reason to despise religeon of ALL kinds. Religeon = narrow minded retards who have been taught from a young age to be scared of free thought and making up their own opinions on the world, thrown in with a good dose of buggery in the case of chistianity and a few bombs in the case of Muslims. Kind of off topic but another thing is the fact that Muslims don't seem to be able to help making matters worse... remember all those riots after those cartoons in Denmark? How about that stupid teacher recently who tried to teach a class of 5 year olds (in a Church of England school!) effectively wearing a balaclava!! Question... did she wear it to her interview? Oh, she didn't? Lol Ah well, just my two p...

Good to see what the (possible) sections are like at Worlds level- all I ever see are the ridiculously difficult elite guys getting up stuff that simply shouldn't be possible! Is that the Junior route you're riding? Which is the same as the Senior route...right? Good job Dave

I was just checking the News section expecting to see something... soon?...

Yeah Joe Seddon was who I meant. I didn't see him for most of the day but assumed he'd be riding well as usual. Ah well, maybe a 2nd place for me then? Looks like I may be sticking with 20" for a while!! Anyone want an Adamant 26"?!! Dave

Lol. Ah well, it was good for me!! Expect Joe was on single figures too...