Ali C

The Sony is growing on me, turns out my computer media player was at fault for the audio and once in the editor it sounds great, my phone connects to the camera too which is good, gives me a touch screen if I really need one but the actual manual button controls aren't as bad as I thought. I'm looking to see if I can find a small 3" hdmi screen to attach to my sony but I can't find any that small I'd like a screen with no lag ideally.

Not angry but feeling frustrated. Vlogging cameras again. I'm not wanting to sacrifice convenience for the sake of better picture quality which is why I've used my Gopro for so long but I am always on the hunt for something similar but with better quality. I saw Sony came out with the X3000r action camera and it had a few great selling points such as optical image stabilisation (rather than digital on the Hero5), mic input and better lens/image quality. It's arrived today and it seems very good but it's not perfect. My Rode mics don't work very well with it for starters and it's extremely fiddly to setup. Gopro are just so simple and the touch screen makes it so quick to swap settings and view footage. The Sony has a seperate screen connected with bluetooth which has it's advantages (can set up my camera, ride off and get ready to do a line and have the screen on my wrist and only start recording when I need to) but it has a slight lag and it powers down after a few moments to save batteries, it also takes forever to connect to the camera, if something was happening quickly that needed recording I'd miss an awful lot just waiting for the screen to connect,although if you ignore the screen the time from powering on to recording is a lot faster than a gopro, you just won't be able to frame the shot as well. Why can't companies just make cameras that just work? Touch screens are just so handy, why in this day and age would you go backwards? If this Sony camera had a gopro screen it'd be ideal.

awesome

There's definitely a difference in strength, I did see the occasional broken older Saint calipers but now it seems every one of the newer models breaks. I had the older model for 4 years and Danny had used it for a year before that....I doubt a new one would hold up one month with Danny's riding.

The thing about modern shimano is that the calipers just aren't as strong as they used to be, I'd be worried about them snapping on bigger moves. That's why I like Magura, the calipers are some of the strongest I've seen and it gives me loads of confidence. Any pad knocking can be fixed with a bit of tape or patience until the pistons make a groove to sit in.

Ok I'll bite. Mr DK, trials covers a range of cycling, it is super light weight comp riding all the way through to trackstanding at lights on the commute to work. This video sits in the middle in my opinion, sure he's not on a trials bike as some might see it but the beauty of trials is you don't need specific equipment.....just some bikes are more suited than others at specific trials tasks. This video shows some great trials action, his ability to ride across the rocks, do gaps, roll downs, hop ups etc are all trials moves (and nice ones too), the skills needed to ride through the river sections as he does (fast and fluid in the least fluid situation) is incredible and couldn't be ridden like than on a rigid bike. The actual quality of the edit and camera work is great too. So yeah, this video is on a MTB but it's just as valid to discuss on a trials forum as any comp/tgs/street video posted here. Open your eyes.

I thought you were joking then I saw no punchline. I'm completely the opposite, I think that's the best he's done, loved the track and the riding was so so good! Brilliant video!!

get some handy things like Sugru and Thermo plastic (remoldable plastic in hot water), they can make/fix so many things, brilliant stuff! You'll still have loads left over for other stuff too

Depends on the object and how you want to hook but for the sake of this argument lets just say it's a standard flat runup and flat wall and the technique is a bunnyhop.......not using the brakes is best in my opinion but it's not vital. If you are on a longer bike that's harder to hop then you'll probably be pedalling into the hook and using brakes may be easier. Basically with a bunnyhop your momentum is faster and if you get the timing right (wheel only just over the corner of the wall) and your weight correct (as far over the front as possible) the bike naturally wants to roll up the wall a bit which changes the forwards momentum into vertical and gets you on top of the wall. Using brakes with this technique essentially tries to stop the vital momentum and makes getting the height needed harder. Of course this is different with a longer style bike or on narrower walls but for flat to flat I think no brakes is best. One of the biggest mistakes I see when people try hooks is that they jump too high, they end up hitting the wall with downwards momentum which is super hard to recover from.

classic van insurance woes. Everyone seems to pay ~£300 for insurance around my age, so it was lovely to get a quote for £5000 for my bog standard van, fortunately that then reduced to £1300 (still far too much) and now the cheapest I can get with third party is £746 It seems hitting the deer last year isn't good for quotes, same with my occupation.....it's high risk apparently (people might throw eggs at me they said ). I've been pretty lucky that I've basically borrowed a van for the last year and had me put on their policy, so I've had a years free insurance which is awesome, going back to insurance reality sucks though. Anyone know any decent companies to go for if you've had a write off recently?

other than the brutal bitch crank 180s that was pretty cool, I do like how 26" bikes look

nah, he did it goofy!

yeah, he's quite good at the bikes!

Worth noting that Fabio is also Austrian national DH champ too Trials is just half of what he does.

I've spent far too much time trying to upload photos to the Gopro Awards page. Every time I click submit it makes me sign in....fine, not a problem. The issue is that once I do sign in, instead of taking me to the "upload" page, it takes me to my "personal info" settings and the only way off that page is to click a button on the left which just takes me to Gopro.com.......on that page there is no sign of the Awards feature and not even a search can find it. I try the Awards page again hoping it's remembered my login details but nope, it just repeats the whole thing over again. So frustrating

The show was OK, I'm not interested in cars in the slightest but it was cool to see those three super cars. The celebrity thing was weird, not a fan of the American either. I hope they can go back to doing good challenges...buying a car for cheap etc, I really like stuff like that.

Either were awful choices, the way I see it is that Trump has said a lot of things that just plain aren't going to happen (building a wall etc), I find it hard to believe he will be the brains behind the campaign.......I think he's got a whole team and they decided exactly what he should do and say to be shocking and get attention but once things settle in, they'll hopefully calm down and actually be more rational, Trump was just the front man. Never in a million years did I think Trump could ever be a consideration, I still hate the guy and I think America is pretty f**ked up for those two being the final choices! Sanders seemed like a nice guy.

loved it!

on bladed spokes I'd hold them straight but it's not as important with plain or double butted ones. I just find flexing the wheel at the end usually fixes it (if you get a new wheel you can hear "pinging" noises on the first ride, this is the spokes twisting back into position) Stressing the wheel is basically putting the dents/impressions into the rim and hub.....if you ever see an old hub you'll see the spokes have dug in quite a bit. You need to do this when building the wheel otherwise the dents will happen when riding and the spokes will come lose. Most people will flext wheel wheel in their arms or on the floor, this can work on light weight wheels but for trials use with stiffer wheels and bigger overall forces during riding I find they need a more extreme stress, I usually put the wheel on the floor and physically stand on each pair of spokes twice, that usually stops any lose spoke issues.

Personally I get the wheel tru with medium spoke tension (looser spokes won't have as much effect and you'll have to do it all again once they tighten up anyway) and get the dish right at the same time (with Adam's one arm, flip the wheel technique), then when it's tru to a fairly good standard I then check the up and down (egg) truness (if the wheel isn't straight this can be a pain in the arse which is why I get it tru first). Then I stress the spokes and tighten to pretty much the finished tension, then I check the tension meter, mainly to check they're all even tension rather than the actual tightness and then stress again to make sure the spokes aren't twisted....check the truness again and that's a job done.

more for the mountainbikers out there but I made this:

I think they type of bike has a lot to do with these kinds of imbalances/injuries. He rides quite an extreme bike (it sure felt it when I rode it) with a very high bb and very low bars (tilted forwards). That bike puts you in a very compromised position for your back and as a result, legs and even arms and shoulders. My opinion is that if you did want to try trials (which I do recommend) then perhaps a more relaxed/less extreme bike would be best, something more bmx or mountain bike style would see your body in a more upright neutral position and take a lot of stress off the back and knees. I'm probably gonna regret saying this but I've never had any issues with my knees or back but I have always ridden bikes with fairly tame geometry (I hate the feel of modern comp bikes and I'm sure my body would suffer if I rode them for long). Get yourself a streety style trials bike or even a modified small mtb frame and give trials a go, it IS hard but it IS rewarding and excellent for building muscle in the upper back and arms.

wheelie to wheelswap! ohlala

Had my first ride on my Orange Four up Ben Lomond with Ross McArthur yesterday. It was quite the break in for the bike (and me....it was my first ever Munro climb), it was mostly pushing on the way up as it was so rocky, I was getting a little nervous that I needed a bigger bike for the way down....it was pretty steep! Other than quite a bit of arm pump from going directly into a steep rocky downhill with non bedded in brakes and cold arms I enjoyed it so much! I'm amazed how well the bike rode, I've never felt grip like it and once the brakes bedded in I just felt in total control! Anyway, here's a pic Ross took....Scotland is so beautiful!