Mark W

Thought I'd actually participate in this thread properly Sport mode. Eco mode. It's a Radon Swoop 170. Running it with the flip-chip in 'Tour' setting (the highest/steepest of the three settings), but with a -2° angleset to give it the same head angle as the 'Park' setting (the lowest/slackest setting). Gives it a bit of the best of both worlds really. Had thought about dropping down to either the mid or low setting to see what that's like, although to be fair even with 165s I'm somewhat prone to pedal/crank strikes, so I'm not sure I'd want to drop another 5mm of BB height! It's set up to be pretty bombproof, so running Assegai/DHR II both in DoubleDown, with Rimpact inserts. Lightweight Unite Co bashguard too just in case. There's a neat little Granite tubeless repair kit in the bars, got a tube/CO2/tyre levers setup strapped to the top tube, and there are some spare zipties hidden away on there too. It means I only really need to carry the awesome little Topeak multi-tool I bought a while back on me and I'm able to solve most things trail side if I need to. Living that bag free life... It's the same setup I had for Ard Rock and it was nice being able to just focus on riding rather than worrying about breaking stuff. It'd be interesting to try it out with some lighter tyres to see how it rides, but the DD casings are so compliant that I think although the reduced weight would make the bike probably feel a little more agile, the damped/stable feel it has would be reduced quite a bit, especially for the kind of trails around here. The hand guards are certainly pretty marmite, but I've had them on there for well over a year now and almost every ride something happens that makes me glad I've got them on! The way riding spots are dotted around down here means that on most rides there'll be sections getting from one place to another that aren't necessarily maintained, so from spring onwards they can get pretty overgrown. The guards mean that I'm no longer picking thorns and stuff out of my hands after every ride. They've also saved my hands from some tree strikes, as well as protected my brake levers a good few times in some crashes. There are some decent scratches and gouges in them, and essentially those would have either been on my hands or on my levers so they've done the job. They're pretty good at keeping water/rain off too! I've even converted some of the local riders into either getting them or considering getting them. I had them off the other day to sort my brakes out, and it was so weird seeing 'open' bars again...

Forgot to say, but nicely done for the results Ads! Good base to build on for next year. I've been trying to get out slightly earlier for rides recently to try and sneak them in before it gets dark, but we need lights in the trees from about 6pm now so the lights are going back on charge. Not reeeeally looking forward to it, but we'll see how it goes... Last winter I barely did any night rides as I just couldn't bring my self to do them, whereas the year before that I was pretty keen and kept riding with a fairly 'normal' schedule. Hopefully this year it'll be more of the latter than the former.

I think it's probably due to the geo of it, but weirdly my Meta felt way worse for jumping than my Swoop! That said, part of that may be because I learned to jump on my Inspired, so going to just front suspension felt weirdly imbalanced. Once I got to full sus it felt a lot more balanced again, and a lot less weird than it used to. Pumping through berms and on little trail bumps is definitely something the Swoop sucks at more than the Meta. There's a woods 5mins from my house that's my go-to quick lap, and a bit of it is a really fun series of little ruts and catch berms through an undulating woods. On the HT you can really pump through it super hard and pick up a lot of speed, whereas the Swoop always feels like I need to get on the pedals to generate more. You can get some speed out of pumping on it but there's that bit too much suspension to go through. It's kind of fair enough though really as that bike is designed for rougher, chunkier stuff, and when you get to that kind of trail it's really composed and confidence inspiring! Speaking of grip, one of the nicest changes to full sus was how nice it is for climbing! I thought that the lack of efficiency would really harm it, but the extra grip from the rear suspension makes life so much easier on climbs. It's amazing what you can just sit down and spin through vs. what I had to deal with on my HT. That's fully open too, I pretty much never use the climb switch and if I do touch it it's usually only to go into the middle compression setting rather than full climb mode. Also found just how much more grip there was recently by trying some slightly lower pressures. I'd been struggling a bit to get my bars to feel the right height when I was riding, and ultimately tracked it down to my rear suspension being out of balance with the front, so essentially I would sit lower into the forks and have it feel like my bars were too low. When I balanced it out I ended up at slightly lower pressures than before (and also ended up taking a volume spacer out of the fork) and the difference in cornering grip was pretty remarkable.

Totally. Seem to remember seeing a piece yesterday where Toto said that if Red Bull just get a fine then Mercedes will go over the cost cap too, because why not, really? They want to spend more than the cost cap allows and have the finances to do so, so if it's essentially paying €145m for your F1 program (so you stay on the right side of the material/major breach line) and €10m or so for a fine, that's still probably below what their total spends used to be pre-cost cap.

To be fair, I really enjoyed riding my hardtail but full sus does open up more trails to be fun in some ways. There's a hill down here which is a local favourite that I hated on my Meta, but is really fun on the Swoop. It's in a fairly old forest and has been ridden in a lot so there are a lot of awkward root clusters to deal with. On the Meta, it felt like it was impossible to not get hung up on a lot of them and just bleed speed. With the Swoop I can carry more speed over it which in turn means that there are some gaps to try and hit, and just a lot more fun to be had really. There are some tech trails which are kind of rough that you can pick a smoother line through that are workable on a hardtail, but ultimately there are some that are just going to be harsh no matter what. I'm definitely glad I had a couple of years on a HT to get used to picking lines properly and working out how to ride steep stuff without just relying on a bike to get me through it, but full sus really opens up some doors! It is a hindrance in some ways, but I think that's more to do with the suspension on my bike rather than anything else - the Swoop is 170mm front and rear, so on the flatter/smoother stuff here I'm fairly over-biked. I've got a decent amount of air and all the tokens in the shock to try and firm it up a bit so it isn't as wallow-y, but it's still not going to be as sprightly as a shorter travel bike. It'd be fun to try out a 140 or 150mm-ish bike and see what the difference is like, but that's one for another day...

It is in a sense, but then I guess if accountancy stuff was cut and dried then there wouldn't be all these tax evasion schemes and a lot of accountants getting paid good money, haha. It seems that Red Bull managed to blur the lines enough that the FIA were querying 6 things. It's also interesting that the FIA aren't actually investigating them, despite Red Bull's methodology clearing being flawed. On that note, read a report yesterday that Adrian Newey - "Adrian Newey, Chief Technical Officer, Red Bull Racing" Adrian Newey - didn't have his salary included in their budget cap as he was a 'Consultant' not an 'Employee'. The top 3 earners in a team (outside the drivers) have their salaries exempt, so effectively by saying he's a 'consultant' means they can bump another high paid engineer into there as, according to Red Bull, Newey shouldn't be included in it anyway. Also worth noting that when Red Bull were head-hunting all Mercedes' team and project leaders, they were offering double and in some cases triple the salary Mercedes were paying them...

Yeah, presumably. Docking constructor points for 2021 would be meaningless unless it's a huge amount to actually affect their position in the championship. That probably won't be a precedent they want to set. They're not going to do driver points because it's Max, and they didn't shut their dicks in a drawer repeatedly after Abu Dhabi defending their shit decision making only to have to give the title to Lewis in the end. I imagine that doing anything to either championship probably gets really murky really quickly too in terms of clawing back prize money and all the peripheral stuff like that. I suppose they could restrict testing/wind tunnel time, but again, if they've broken the cap in 2021 and most likely will have done in 2022 if they're following their same theoretically flawed accounting model, they've already got what they needed to get with the regs theoretically being stable for a while. It's just ironic that the FIA actually have the opportunity to show decisive, strong leadership and they're going to totally f**k it off.

I think that's primarily due to the angle that's being shot from, and consequently how the camera's auto exposure settings will read it. From the lower shot on the car, with a lot of spray it'll appear to be a really bright image to the camera (a lot of the frame will appear to it as being really bright white), so it'll lower the exposure to try and get it back to what it considers a more neutral exposure. Unfortunately that makes it look super dark. From that guy's point, there's a lot more that the camera sensor can use as references to try and set the exposure, so it looks more normal.

"Er, I mean, we'll need to pay for some f**king incredible sandwiches."

I see they're going for the "We treat our staff so well we overspent, oops" PR angle on this one. It'll be interesting to see if the FIA ever release the full details of which 'grey areas' they've had to thrash out with RB, and what the theoretical overspend was in total before the whittled it down. Assuming RB have still used that same mindset for spending this year, I wonder how spartan their setup is going to be for the next few races to try and claw back some of what they will have been happily overspending this year.

Especially not when if you overspend in 2021 on development of your 2022 car, any additional performance you get from that extra spend is then baked in for the next 3-4 years of these regs. You can't 'unlearn' whatever you found out from that R&D, so unless they impose some kind of points sanctions it seems like it's not really going to be much deterrent either way. They clearly won't do points sanctions, so I'm guessing it'll be at best a slap on the wrist in the form of a fine they can easily afford to pay, or some kind of suspended sentence thing. Red Bull's shifting position has been interesting though. Horner originally was of the position that "We haven't breached the cost cap" which then eventually became "As far as I am aware I don't think we have breached it." Marko went from "It's all defamation" to "It is an ongoing process, ongoing discussions where certain points are clarified. We are not very worried at the moment." That is a direct quote. I can't find the article now but it sounds like Red Bull had a different interpretation to 6 points of the regs, and that if you take their POV they're 'only' €150k-ish over, but if you take the FIA view they're €10m over. See previous post about vague/badly worded FIA rules... Finally found part of the thing from Marko I was looking for: "Various accountants from the FIA are with our accountants and then a discussion arises about positions, who works where. We have different companies: RB Advanced Technologies, RB Technology, RB Powertrains, & you have to separate them very clearly... There are points in the budget that do not belong in it, as already mentioned people are listed who work in the other companies [which I mentioned earlier]." Kind of suggests to me that RB may have found a loophole/loopholes of sorts that mean they can get people in their other, "non-F1" companies to do things for them that they believe shouldn't be classified as part of the cost cap for their official F1 team?

"Rule 'mistake' that let Verstappen clinch F1 title will be fixed" - didn't think that that would also be a headline about the 2022 season, but here we are. There's not really the same asterisk against the 2022 title as there is the 2021, and he was always going to win it at some point soon, but it is ironic that he happened to win it when he did through them f**king up writing/implementing rules yet again.

f**k

Would agree with that, but otherwise it'll come down to the specific fork and what options you have with it. If you can add volume spacers, you'll probably want to add the max amount. Rebound you'll probably want open/fast, and compression closed/firm. In terms of pressure, going higher would be better. There's no real hard and fast rule though, it's different for 'actual' riding where you'd need suspension to work well. For trials you're pretty much trying to get it to not work well or as intended, so just try it out and see how it feels. It's easy enough to play with rebound and compression on the fly, so it would be worth finding a simple spot and just repeating the same move with rebound fully open, rebound fully closed, compression fully open, compression fully closed, etc. to see how it affects how your bike rides, and what feels better to you.

Our machine has a 28min quick cycle which is pretty much all that's ever used. Your flatmate sounds like a piece.

Good to see it up and running finally Spending some time bedding in the front disc/pads should improve performance. Just pour some cold, clean water over the caliper and rotor, and ride around on flat ground pulsing the brake on and off. At first you'll have no bite at all, but it will gradually come through. Once it's started drying out, pour a little more water over it and repeat the process. If you do this a few times you'll feel the brake start to develop more and more bite. You can give the rotor a wipe down with some clean paper towel if you like. Until they're fully bedded in (the braking surface of the rotor should have a mirror finish once it's bedded in fully) you won't get the full power of the brake, so it's worth spending a bit of time doing. Enjoy the arm pump

They just take a lot more body movement than you think, in my experience. I learned them on a BMX which I think probably helped, but in all honesty once you get the feel for them I think they translate to different wheel sizes fairly readily. In many ways they felt easier to do on tech stuff on my Fourplay and Arcade, and the handful of sketchy manual 360s I got I could only do on my 24". For me they're about harnessing the power of the loop out! You need the front wheel somewhat high to make the spin easier, so you're more towards the 'loop out' end of balancing. If you get the pop right they snap around really nicely. People who only ever do them by bitch cranking are really missing out on how good they feel as a move to do, and also the way they tend to look better by doing them without a crank. The biggest mistake I see people make with them is carving too much before popping them as you basically lose the momentum for the spin. Try getting your hips around as much as you can and lead the bike around that way, rather than just trying to simply steer into the spin. If you want to see some nice manual 180s on a 26", get following Joacim Lundgren on Instagram! He does some really nice manual 360s too.

You'll need to check the number of spokes in your current back wheel to see whether it's going to be easier to buy a new wheel or a new hub. Some Monty bikes used 36h rear wheels - if yours has a 36h wheel then getting just a replacement hub will be difficult as not many brands use that drilling any more. If it's 32h, and if you're using a rim brake and don't plan on using a disc brake in future, the Trialtech Race Sealed rear hub would be a good shout: https://www.tartybikes.co.uk/116mm_fixed_hubs/trialtech_race_sealed_rear_hub/c62p11422.html Good quality, sealed bearing, not too heavy, should fit that frame fine. You'll also need new spokes and it would probably be worth getting a new sprocket at the same time to be on the safe side.

Agreed - that line was sweet. Was really into the line at 1:45-ish that ended with the quick manny 180. Always liked that move, doesn't get used enough in the street trials world!

That is one way of doing it, haha. Out of interest, have you tried a 3x/3x or 3x/2x pattern up front? Only reason I ask is I found that on a 24" especially it felt so much stiffer. I had a 3x/radial front wheel on my Echo 24", and the difference in feel when I was carving into spins (more so things like bunnyhop 180s and 360s) and things like that was night and day when I went to 3x/3x. That said, I am super fussy as far as feel/setup goes...

There are specific bearing retaining compounds you can buy for this kind of 'problem', but as you rightly point out the best solution is to not go down that route in the first place! Things like Loctite Stud & Bearing Fit and other generic retaining compounds are a good shout though if any of you happen to wind up with a radially laced wheel that has issues.

Yeah, that's the thing really - in South Wales in particular e-bikes outnumber regular bikes. All of my old local groups are now almost exclusively e-bike apart from me and about two others, and basically it sucks going on a ride as the only regular rider because you know you're f**king their ride up. Everyone's cool about it and don't really mind (plus I'd say I can ride a reasonable pace up the climbs), but I know that I'm drastically reducing the amount of descents they could be doing.

It's the MTB world Dave, they won't be working that out any time soon Just on to the next marketing hype and hope for the best. Do agree though, if I ever decided to get an eeb then lightweight would be the way that I'd go, but I don't anticipate that happening for a long time. It has been interesting seeing the different classes of e-bike splinter some of the local riding groups here. Initially it was just 'regular' vs. 'eebs' making some rides awkward in terms of pacing, or whether people would turn up at all. I recently joined one of the weekly local rides run by another group and everyone but me was on an e-bike (apart from one other dude on a regular bike, but he only turned up because they'd promised they'd tow him up the hills). However, there was about a 50:50 split of full fat to lightweight, and there was a lot of range anxiety on the go! All the full fat guys were wanting to bomb everything in Turbo while the SL guys were trying to eek it out on Eco or Trail. It meant that at the top of the climbs that full fat guys were raring to go as they'd been waiting, while the SL guys would turn up a bit more out of breath and want to stop for a bit but the full fat guys would head off almost immediately. The ride route ended up changing part way through as the relative battery levels meant some people were concerned about getting home. Having chatted to some of the SL guys they were a bit disappointed that their super expensive SL bikes were essentially 'worse' than the cheap full fat bikes some of the other guys were riding, and that in a way they may as well just be on a regular bike again. I think they may have forgotten what riding up those hills on a regular bike was really like, but it did seem like their situation kind wasn't really that different from how it used to be when it would just be a 50:50 regular to e-bike split on our rides.

Having owned a Mk2.5 and a Mk1, I would say to not bother with the Mk2 or Mk2.5s. They have more creature comforts and feel more civilised, but they feel like they have no character compared to the Mk1, and just feel less 'fun'. That may be because I had the 1.6 Mk2.5 which is seemingly the slowest engine they did, with my Mk1 1.6 feeling a lot more peppy. Ads had tinkered with that engine a decent amount so it's not exactly a fair comparison, but AFAIK even the basic engine was still more powerful than the 2.5. There's just something about the cabin in the Mk1 that's a lot more charming, and ultimately you can't beat pop-up headlights. Every time I got into my Mk1 it felt special somehow, whereas with the Mk2.5 it was just... 'meh'. It was still a fun car, and it was a hell of a lot more fun than the Passat that replaced it, but it isn't a Mk1 ultimately. You make a lot of compromises when you decide to get an MX-5,s o you might as well go the whole way and get the fun one. A cheaper upgrade to get a Mk1 sounding nicer is to change to a cone-style air filter. I did that on mine and it made a noticeable difference to the engine note when you're further up the rev range, and was sub £30 for the whole kit so not exactly pricey! On the rust front, that is the biggest issue to watch out for. I'm super glad I sold mine when I did - it failed it's next MOT on rust-related issues, then failed the one after that on even more rust-related issues. They did a different setup for the subframe on the 2.5 compared to the 1, and basically made it so it had the opportunity to hold water between the two 'skins' of the subframe. As you can imagine, this doesn't end well. Other notes were that the glass rear screen on the Mk2.5 was nice, but it meant that raising and lowering the roof was harder. The stitching started shitting the bed around the edge of it because as the hood material starts getting more brittle with age it doesn't handle the movement as well, especially if you've got enough tension in the roof to stop it leaking... At least on the Mk1 with the plastic rear window it just flops down. As long as you make sure that it's folded down neatly you shouldn't get any creases or f**kery. Keeping the drain holes clear is super important. Getting one of those super long bendy little brushes is a good shout as you will need one in your toolbox. Going bottom up when you clean them is a lot easier than top down, but just be aware you're going to get a wet arm when you shift the blockages in them. Lastly, if you lower or stance an MX-5 you ideally need to get in the sea. They ride really nicely as standard, and if you ever want to drive it fast the extra feel you get from it will make it a lot easier to get near the limit (or just know where the limits of grip are if you want to get slide-y). It'll make it a lot nicer to use as a daily too. There's someone locally who's stanced their MX-5 and it seems like a criminal waste of a fun car, they can barely get it around town. If you're into it then fair enough I guess, but there are plenty of other cars out there that are pretty shit to drive to begin with that you may as well start with rather than getting one of the best handling little cars around and turning it into a bag of dick.

For most trials hubs, I'd avoid going radial up front. Because they're built for lightness, quite often you'll find the hub shell is relatively thin. When you lace it radially on the lighter hubs you effectively stretch the bearing seats out through the spoke tension and mean the bearings get loose in the shell. With 2 or 3x, the force isn't pulling the hub shell straight out so you don't have that problem. It's worth taking the fractional extra weight of the longer spokes for the bearing security.