10 Year Gap

[Luke Dunstan]

Hi all.

been away for about 10 years, got married, had a kid and the usual 30s stuff. hope all of you are doing okay. 
 
I bought an echo to get back into it, but struggling to find Echo Urban forks. In fact looking on the normal go-to trials store here in the UK it looks like there isn’t half as much choice as there used to be. 
 

can anyone fill me in on what the current landscape is?  what’s been going on in the last decade? 
 

Edit: so Tarty has new owners. Echo/Zoo is dead and Onza moved on from trials. 😢😢😢

Edited Wednesday at 10:01 PM by Luke Dunstan

[craigjames]

90% of riders are on an Inspired, Crewkerz or Clean bike. Building up your own bike seems to have disappeared, seems people buy full bikes these days. Also if you aren't doing everything to front wheel, are you even riding trials?

[The Ugly American]

It appears to be ruff all over holmes. I'm in the US and had to split an order between Tarty and trials-bikes.com out of spain. Over here we only have Web Cyclery and the trials superstore, the Canadian site I used to parous closed down. And our trials forum looks more like 4chan than a community. At least where you're at people have bikes stashed in their garage. I found a few ancient trials bikes on eBay, I'm talking early to late 80's. I'm hoping I win the bid on a planet x I found. But if I do I'll immediately have to hit up Tarty or WebCyclery for parts. If you want a 24" inspired people who bought those and never used to ride cross-country mountain bikes fitted for trials at the skate park are buying those thinking that's what makes Danny Macaskill a good rider and then selling them at a discount. And Santacruz an American company makes a bike just for Danny, but doesn't sell the damn things. Or at least that's what I've run into. I would love to have bought the more reasonably priced Alias 24.1 but apparently that didn't last long enough to find one. I think I found a French webstore that had a few of those left, but I already put a bid in on the other so I have to wait. Either way the downside of living in a country with states the size of three European countries combined is having to wait a lot. Adulting is fun ain't it. Welcome back. Enjoy the privileges of proximity my guy. You are blessed.

[aener]

13 minutes ago, craigjames said:

90% of riders are on an Inspired, Crewkerz or Clean bike. Building up your own bike seems to have disappeared, seems people buy full bikes these days. Also if you aren't doing everything to front wheel, are you even riding trials?

That's the most disappointingly accurate summary of trials I've seen in a while

[Ross McArthur]

The other 10% are retro hoarders.

[The Ugly American]

18 hours ago, Ross McArthur said:

The other 10% are retro hoarders.

The thought of how many wonderful trials frames and forks have made it into a scrap pile gives me night terrors. I wish I'd horded all of mine as well. That's what I get for not being afraid of the kung flu. They just look so lonely when they're not being ridden. Do you think some of these trials companies could get a subsidy since they technically died of Covid? 😆

[Swoofty]

On 7/4/2024 at 1:41 AM, craigjames said:

90% of riders are on an Inspired, Crewkerz or Clean bike.

I ride 2 Czars, an Ozonys and, well ok, 1 crewkerz.

And i always build 'em from the frame up.

Alias was a really good alternative to the other brands. They are missed.

[craigjames]

13 hours ago, Swoofty said:

I ride 2 Czars, an Ozonys and, well ok, 1 crewkerz.

And i always build 'em from the frame up.

Alias was a really good alternative to the other brands. They are missed.

So you're of the 10% exception to what i said. 

I mean i'm looking for a new 20" frame, unless I want a Clean or a Jitsie there isn't much other choice right now. Hopefully that changes and some new options come out soon.