Maybe Stupid Question: Mixing Trials + Mtb Use?

[tome]

My very old knackered mtb has just failed, and I've always prefered the low-speed difficult stuff rather than speeding along so was looking at trials.

However, friends are more into general (but not particularly hard) mtb stuff.

a) How bad would a stock trials bike be if I ended up going out with mates on normal mtbs? Is this completely stupid?

If bad, are there compromise bikes amongst MTBs which I can do trials-type stuff on?

c) What's the best way to try one, if I don't know anybody into it?

Ta,

Tom

[Fish-Finger-er]

My very old knackered mtb has just failed, and I've always prefered the low-speed difficult stuff rather than speeding along so was looking at trials.

However, friends are more into general (but not particularly hard) mtb stuff.

a) How bad would a stock trials bike be if I ended up going out with mates on normal mtbs? Is this completely stupid?

If bad, are there compromise bikes amongst MTBs which I can do trials-type stuff on?

c) What's the best way to try one, if I don't know anybody into it?

Ta,

Tom

erm, doing pure trials, on a say a long low silver bike, then taking it for an xc session, would be madness(i did once ride coed y brenin for 26 mile on a monty urban with 22-15 gearing,no seat an flat bars).

however if you look at the bikes people like shaun denny,ryan leech and the like use, 22t inner ring, 23t-11 rear sprocket. front sus. a bike like that would more than suffice for pedal hops,side hop ups, drop offs etc, just dont be expecting 48 inch vertical taps on it, however it would have a 1:1 ratio for climbing, yet still have a 2:1 ratio(same as most ss xc set ups) so could still hammer along.

to be honest its not the gearing thats the problem, its the lack of sus, and seat thatll make xc hell. when i made the mistake of riding xc on the trials bike, only time i was noticably slower than anyone else was on the flat fireroads. downhill i had gravity getting me going along at a good speed, on the technical down hill sections i just hopped round the lot, so was a lot faster than a lot of people, and due to me gearing, or lack of it, on the climbs i had no choice but to keep it in that gear and pedal, so still achieved a reasonable climbing speed.and had a lighter bike.

but as i say if u wanna mix it up, get either a ryan leech signature frame or the like, or jst a street(street as in dirt/street, not urban trials) frame thatll take forks. wont be ideal, but then 3 years ago, we wer all riding small hard dirt frames, azonics, dmr's.kona scraps, they wer all we had to ride trials on back before koxx,echo etc.