Sponge

I know quite a handful of riders in China, some of whom are ranked highly in comps that have the exact spline shape as your Echo SL hub and have had no problems even with their powerful and demanding riding styles. The lockring is supposed to be doing just holding it on and I'm sure it does a damn good job at it too. Many have probably pointed it out already, but, since you're pedalling forwards and all the pressure is forwards on a freewheeling bike, the cog isn't going to move anywhere since it's jammed up against the splines. IF however, it was for a fixie where back pedal pressure does fully exist then you may have good reason to want to replace the hub. I'd have thought that to create 'shark teeth' splines, the factory'd have to make a few tweaks to their existing tooling or process to get it like that. Considering that it's been seen on a few SL hubs here and there from differing batches... I wouldn't say it's a manufacturing error like say: a Rockman frame without a dropout welded on. Echo do from time to time make unannounced modifications or changes to their products, but it's all mostly aesthetic and not crippling to the design itself.

Deng personally believed the design to be a flop and regarded it as weaker compared to a traditional headtube/gusset arrangement, and that it didn't sell well. He wasn't too keen on a lot of weight being focused right at the front either. Me personally I liked the design 'cos it's different and totally unique even though at the release time a lot of people slated it for being an XTP copy. Similar concept, but totally different shape... 2005/2006 were good years for frames!

Pretty sweet , those Fun Bolts look like an incredibly tight squeeze! Is the wheel just way too far out in the dropouts even with any combination of 18:16, 18:15, 18:14?

Instead of shelling out for a whole new BB, those Echo external BBs' bearings can be replaced. If you're already prone to mashing up the bearings inside on the larger Echo external BBs then almost any internal ISIS BB'll likely fall apart from your riding too. Trialtech Sport Lite ISIS BB and Echo TR ISIS BB are great, but if you can find a replacement set of bearings from a good bearing manufacturer like SKF, then that'd likely be the cheapest solution and long lasting too, kinda like how someone else(can't remember as I type, sorry!) suggested earlier! I do remember CLS or someone along those lines, maybe Biff, had a bunch of replacement bearings to just press fit into those big Echo sleeves, so replacements are obtainable so long as you can identify a code on the bearing shield.

Sorry to bump an old topic, but wondering if anyone ended up having any luck getting through to them? I'd quite like to buy up one or two bits of excess old stock.

It's 5-bolt, but more or less what you're thinking? ... But it costs £52

It was bought second hand on here off Jonny_B, seems he didn't tell me a lot of the little queries on this brake. Ah well, too late. He does seem to have done up the reservoir bolts extremely tight as industrial strength superglue didn't seem to work with a T10 torx key either. Mmm, decent hacksaw sounds a good investment, shame my last actual good one was left in the rain to rust to death by a kid a few doors down...

I meant hard as in: the material is hard, so the hacksaw I'm using kinda just jaggedly glides across it and gets pinged off without cutting into it. Having deepish teeth isn't really helping get an initial cut into it either without just pinging the blade off whenever any decent pressure is applied. Anything softer like alu would be a piece of cake to slice into straight. Maybe a better hacksaw'll do but the bolt is situated in an awkward position too where half of it is almost masked by the reservoir cap rise. I'll try epoxy resin'ing a torx key in there as a first go. Sadly, I don't have vices, nice drills, mills, garage CNC machines like most British households do! Thanks for some of the suggestions so far though !

Try-All Stiky (normal, not the Shift).

The bolts are domeheaded and very very small, but also very hard so it's hard to cut a line in them with a hacksaw. The file either side method could work but because of the way they mount on the Hope reservoir cap, it's not really a viable option without trashing the cap. I've borrowed a pic from Tartybikes to clarify exactly what I mean: The two little bolts either side of the Hope logo. I'm considering getting either industrial strength epoxy resin or a pro-grabit screw remover.

I just went out to buy a set of torx keys to remove the reservoir cap from my bro's Hope Mono Trial. It was originally bought second hand so the little T10 torx bolts were already a little worse for the wear. No luck getting the 2 bolts out with the T10 torx key I got, so I'm wondering what solutions there are? Last resort I might try the superglue method, but not even sure if that's strong enough to get the little bolts out? Seems the previous owner hamfistedly tightened them in... argh I'm pretty sure at least a small handful of people must've done this at some point, so if you could share some solutions that'd be great! Thanks

Just under a month ago I sent my hub to be built, came the day after the build date with a pretty impressive quality. I just emailed them beforehand asking if it's okay to send my own hub, and then once it's confirmed then the rest is simple. Just make sure to re-confirm it all in the comments box of your order! On a side-question, how slow is Christmas post this year for you guys? Averagely, say a first-class recorded package ordered online that should come the next day?

They're nice and simple, though I still couldn't justify the price tags Koxx charge on their frames, that's just me I guess. Clothing, cars, and other accessories I'd be more comfortable with buying from a world famous brand though... Ahh, the 2010 Skys looked brilliant! Still, it's interesting to view the constant progression of trials geometry and design trends! Gone are the days of CNC'd behemoths and high BB frames with less choice of compatible steering parts to make it feel 'right'! Ahh 2006..

That's pretty cool on the mod. I wonder why not just do away with the bashplate altogether like they did on the White Sky? Though I can see a few Chinese brands borrowing this bash idea in the near future!

Does it slacken your headangle too noticably? I'm curious about longer forks in general mm..

Looks awesome! I wish I had a GU headset in green! are those 4-bolt mounts I spy on that Echo Team CNC fork? If so, were they custm welded on?

Seeing as the rears are all sold out, does anyone know if there's word of a production batch coming along soonish?

Respect

Meow...! Should've said 'if only welds on most real Deng frames could be that consistently clean'. From some of the Deng frames I've had and sold on the welds have been really clean, but others I've seen in the flesh hanging up in Chinese bike shops have also had pretty crooked welds, some like the ones on the pictures and some worse. Guess it depends a lot on which batches and if they were welded on a Monday/Friday or on a 'good day'. EDIT: Those are pics of other peoples' 2009 Pythons. //// Those freewheels and bashrings look great! Are you planning on 'anodizing' the necessary parts once everything's been completed?

Nope, I didn't mispell it either. Check Conti's 2011 updates for details on other tyres too.

Wow, that's nice! I'm building my brother the exact same up. Is yours the long or the short?

A reliable source tells me there's not going to be a 20" Zoo! frame anymore, so don't hold yo' breath for the time being! Interesting to see that the blue GUs and 24" Adamant/Czar are still available same as before. Ahhh, cool. I thought it might be something along those lines... though I was under the impression that Spanish shell wasn't that much bigger than Euro shell so a wondercup-esque job might be too thin? Guess I was wrong! Are there Mid-->Euro wondercups by the way? I agree about the integrated heads. Super simple and clean. We see a portion of trials frames with internal headtubes with the hidden cups but it'd be great to see someone take the leap forward and see how well aluminium holds up to going integrated. Considering how basher-esque a lot of BMXers are, I've never ever once heard of problems with the headtube/headset area. Yup, FSA Impacts are great!

I got my brother a set of 26" SLs for him to start out on, but I have always wondered why the curved SLs are that much 'weaker' than their Urban counterparts? Same steerer, same cutouts, but are the legs just much much thinner in material than the Urbans for them to become so weak?