Daan

Can't comment on the Avid, but Magura with BBB pads (the blue organic ones) is absolutely silent, pads seems to fit slightly tighter than stock. Lewis is a blatant Trickstuff copy, not for the ethically conscious.

Just saw this new Mantra Drive hub announced by Halo, might be interesting? Single speed hg body, boost or 142 through axle, or 135 bolt on, 150 poe, 5 pawls, and best of all, purple: https://www.corebike.co.uk/new-halo-renthal-teravail-ht-product-releases-ison-corebike-2025/

Using a cheap Giro Radix without mips for trials. Nicely finished, no styrofoam on the bottom like the super cheap helmets. I like it much better than my expensive Troy Lee Designs A2, with mips, that I use for MTB. The TLD squeeks/rattles a bit, sits too low on my forehead, is heavier, and feels and looks bulky.

If it has slower engagement than a Pro 4, the pawls must not be engaging properly, and it's defective. Or your memory is off Hex has 102 engagement points, Pro 4 SS only 88. I have them here side by side and the difference is noticeable if you look for it (in practice, not so much).

Don't know, perhaps the same factory as Inspired? They're just a bit too clone-y for my taste, exact same integrated bash ring too for example. Plus you can actually order them on AliExpress. Never seen one fail, but other than the bash ring, never seen one in real life either.

Inspired indeed, one too many bunny ups, and maybe a bad weld. Still, held up for three years. But I'd even get an Alibabba Extention before that abomination of a Clean.

Case in point 🤪 Anything can break, but better have something that at least looks good while breaking it.

I'd say this video makes a compelling argument that 40 is the new 30. Wish I could make it look that easy dude.

€ 145 at trialmarkt.de. Looks alright, 9 pawls, offset so 3 engage on a 42 tooth ring, so 126 engagement points. Too bad there's no 135 mm bolt on option it seems, only 12x142? Let us know how you get on with it!

Yeah, it looks a bit off with those seat stays below the top tube. Also, what's going on with the mismatched wheels for the production shots haha.

I actually joined a yoga class for half a year or so, which helped tremendously. One of those more power yoga oriented ones, as I'm not into the spiritual stuff. Yoga with Adriene on Youtube is a good source if you want to do it by yourself. She has some good hip/lower back routines. For the more hip specific mobility stuff, this guy has a nice routine. I especially like the first move (as an extra, I also twist my upper body along with the hips/knees), as well as the thing he does at 8:45. In addition, I'm also trying the pancake stretch (look it up on Youtube). Doing these moves every day. The older I get, the more I need it To add to that: I also do a lot of single leg stuff in my (weight training) workouts, like pistol squats. They help with keeping all the muscles around the hips in shape too.

Only suffered this as a result of way too much road biking, as in, doing rides 4 times a week at max effort, six years or so ago. Eventually caught up to me after a very long solo ride where I wanted to keep a certain average speed. Result: inflamed piriformis on the right side (which is also my stronger side, ride right foot forward in trials). Went to a cycling specific physio for this, and what helped me most was doing a specific stretch on my desk every 20 minutes (!), this one. Set a recurring alarm on my phone for this, and kept at it for weeks. Combined with taking it easy riding wise (but not sitting still), it still took a few months to disappear 100%. Besides the direct overload from the road biking, the underlying issue was just sitting on my ass too much (work behind a computer) and being very stiff in the hips. Aside from that one stretch that targets the piriformis directly, I found doing yoga moves and hip mobility excercises a few times per week really help with the stiffness there. For trials especially, the less stiff I am in my hips, the more relaxed I can ride, and the more bouncy I feel on the bike. Now I'm getting a bit older (40), I very much notice the difference, off the bike too, so I find that's really worth investing in. Hope this is of any use!

Couple of sets of those levers (and full brakes) on the German bikemarkt (mtb-news.de). But I seem to recall you're from east Asia somewhere?

Have a look at the Shimano M4100 lever, it's also got a very long lever blade. No servo wave, and slightly smaller MC diameter than Magura, so should give a similar feel with perhaps slightly more power. Only thing is it needs even more room than the Magura lever to set up for one finger braking. I personally couldn't use them with an Inspired Arcade bar (these have quite a short grip section) because of this, couldn't move them far enough inboard. Ymmv with other bars, yours looks like it might just work.

Speed up the bedding in with an electric drill, like so: How to bed an echo sl freewheel in (youtube.com)

You can take the Echo freewheel apart pretty easily to inspect it. Just be sure to catch all the balls that will fall out, so best do it inside a cardboard box. Clean everything with something like WD 40, and reassemble. The ball bearings are a pain to all get into place, combined with the little springs, all just pretty terrible. Use grease (thin grease, otherwise you might run into engagement troubles) to sort of stick them to the bearing race, and be very patient. It's doable, took me a while though, and some proper swearing too haha. There's also a video on YouTube about this, guy is using pieces of string, but I did it slightly differently without.

Frame is post mount? Then getting one of those in line adapters might be strongest. IS to PM I've had good luck with Magura. Broke the Hex in two, not the adapter 😁

Dunno, but I do have some excellent tips and tricks for essay writing.

I can comment on the T4 V4s, would not recommended them for trials. Power and modulation is good, but lever feel a bit mushy, and they had issues with fluid not being able to flow back quick enough too, so the lever would pump up if you pumped it in quick succession. More annoyingly they started leaking pretty quickly past the calliper piston seals. Were repaired by Hope twice, to no avail, after which I eventually got a refund. Back on Shigura's, which are trouble free, if a touch grabby.

No springs on the pads, the calliper pistons are magnetic. The top of the disc rubbing on the calliper itself sounds very trialsy, as in quality control, what's that? I'd just add a thin washer beneath both calliper tabs. Calliper pistons don't retract too far on the Hope brakes, so they're pretty sensitive to disc wobble. If you can push the pistons/pads in a bit more and they stay there, they shouldn't be overfilled. If they don't stay out, just remove the lever top cap and again push the pistons back. Before you do all that though, clean them up a bit first. Clearance to disc is dictated by the piston seals (bite point adjuster has nothing to do with it, as it only moves the position of the lever piston relative to the timing port), but it all must be clean to function optimally. If you then squeeze the lever a few times (with the disc between the pads obviously), the pistons will set themselves to their natural position.

Dude, you're getting things mixed up. You have a crank (the thing with the big axle and arms where you attach the chainring and pedals to) and a bottom bracket (the cups with bearings that go into the frame). Shimano cranks use a 24 mm axle, DUB a 28.99 mm one, so the bottom brackets are different. So just replace the Shimano bottom bracket on your bike with the DUB bottom bracket that came with the crank (at least the one in your link came with a bottom bracket) and you're good to go.

Perhaps be (even more) picky with the bleed? I find it unnoticeable on my bike when the bleed is perfect (and I'm pretty anal-retentive myself about these things). With Hope T3V4, MT5s, Shigura, Hayes, no issues at all, at least not lever feel related To get the last bits of air out, I sometimes hang my brakes vertically overnight with the lever clamped down. Hit it with a screwdriver handle once in awhile to dislodge bubbles so they can all move towards the lever, next day slowly release the lever, do a fluid top up and all good.

Healthy dose of stackers for a one off custom frame... 😆

Cheers guys, appreciated. Do fear I need something loooong, running 175 mm / 35 deg now, and something with a removable faceplate too, as I've glued on my grips with rubber cement 😁 Perhaps one of those Clean Pro stems, 164 mm and 28 degrees might work, effectively 8 mm longer, 22 mm lower. If that 28 mm of steerer tube I have sticking out is long enough of course, so I've asked them to confirm. For now I'll keep the beer canned Jitsie on.

Well damn, that's all pretty crap haha. I also heard back from Jitsie: and yes, as feared, they went ahead and did some measuring, and all their stems are dimensioned wrongly. They will be contacting their supplier. Pretty stupid that a customer needs to discover this, a recall should be in order I reckon (unless they only sold one stem haha). Major suckage. They wanted to offer me a voucher, I've asked for my money back, since I only bought it last month. We'll see, at least I could get a tyre then for their voucher haha. So, who still makes a stem that accepts a fork cut at a roughly 35 degree angle? Rear part of my fork only extends from the headset by 29 mm or so, which basically rules everything out I've seen so far Anyone has an old stem lying around? Echo or something like that?