utahpete

10-time US trials champion Pat Smage giving his all in Europe. Good reminder of just how good the boys from the "continent" are. Nice to hear how humble he is, but wow, what a brave young man he is to even show up! Great job Pat. https://youtu.be/fDOtelRNhUc

We in the US have very little to celebrate these days, but Pat Smage always brings a smile to my face. Making Fat Bikes cool. See BMX bicycle training for 2018 Trials Season for further evidence of the beneficial results from getting off your moto trials bike once in awhile!

Have any of you had a chance to see Pat's latest video on a bicycle?

Need a little help, one of the "pins" for the power valve came loose and worked its way into the cylinder — no catastrophic damage ... just a long push out! I've pulled everything apart and have the engine sitting on a table with the head off. No visible damage to the piston or the cylinder walls. Rings look fine when examining from that exhaust port. The "pin" is a lost cause. I do have a spare bike that I can scavenge a replacement off of, but I'd like to seal off the power valve ports and not worry about this in the future. Any ideas, or advice?

Here's Pat playing around with Toni and a few others on e-bikes in Spain.

I practice on a trials bicycle and unicycle too. I am 57 years-old, and learning new skills on the bicycle really helps with my motorcycle skills, albeit at a very-slow pace! Here's a recent video of one of the best trials riders in the USA using all three forms to stay sharp during the winter.

Thanks for the info. I believe that you are most-likely right and the shock has been modified. I'll see if Kelsey is up for the challenge of bringing it back to stock. He was pretty disappointed that he could not see more results from adjustment. Might be something TRS wants to warn people about when they buy discounted bikes at these premier events. Only takes a few p****d-off customers to cause a lot to trouble these days. Jim Snell at TRS Motorcycles USA may want to chime in on this topic.

Kelsey bought this bike at the TrialGP in Arizona weekend before last. It was Luca Petrella's minder's bike. But the rear shock had been swapped to Luca's bike for the competition. I was riding with Kelsey when he was trying to figure out the pre-load and the rebound. Pre-load was almost all-the-way to the max when we started, so we backed that off, and after several tries of turning the rebound screw to full-stop in both directions, we could not really detect any difference in rebound rate. Can anyone share their own experience with this shock as to whether there is a very-noticible difference in rebound from full-stop to full-stop? I'm wondering whether the shock is defective.

I recently took the highest score for all classes at an event in Wyoming. Three out of four of our group were in that "embarrassing" score scene. The fourth, well, he's really good ... and a bit-of-dick about it. But he puts up with the rest of us and tries to drag us along on our learning curve. The other 50-plus (age, not points) rider and I, that scored so high, suffered greatly from taking wrong turns. We rode "intermediate" and did find the technical aspects challenging enough, but what crushed both of us was our lack of ability to remember the sections. It was only the second competition either of us had entered, and although we practice like heck on obstacles, it's obvious we need to practice way more on training our minds to remember complicated routes. It was a two-day event, but the two of us could only ride the first day, so when one of the registrars saw us the morning of the second-day and asked if we were entering that day, after our answer responded that it was probably for the best, because we had already gotten plenty of points for both days. We laughed as hard as everyone else, and left with the knowledge that we had stood out from the crowd at least! Have fun, and don't be discouraged.

Here's a link to a place in Italy that still as lot's of parts for Fantics: http://www.bosisiomotori.it/home/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&page=shop.browse&category_id=122&Itemid=222&vmcchk=1&Itemid=222 You'll have to navigate to Sections, but they have expanded parts lists and seem to still have a pretty good supply of section parts available. I'd repeat my earlier post that Mike at tryalsshop.com has sources to get much of what you need. He is in the USA though, so between his fairly-relaxed view of business (which I share whole-heartedly), and the shipping time to Australia, you may be in for quite a wait. But he did send me a brand new carb to air box rubber, and many other, hard-to-find Fantic parts. Good luck, and enjoy!

Looks like a lot of fun. My group of buddies (four of us) went to the Limestone Mountain event in Wyoming a couple of weeks ago. With all of us trespassers from neighboring states crashing the party, we had 54 riders enter for the Saturday event. Not sure on the count for Sunday, I had to hoof it back to Utah to milk cows and what-not on Sunday. Once I find someone crazy enough to buy this place from us, I hope to wander into northern New Mexico ... I have some very fond memories of the Chama Valley and some fairly-blurred memories of some 1980's experiences in Taos.

My dad was really into flat track in the 70's. He dragged me to both the mile at Springfield, IL and the 1/2 mile at Joliet, as well as the weekly quarters at Granite City. But my favorite sound memories were from the mile at Springfield. I believe the chest thumping sound led to my future love of listening to music really-loud while laying on my back on our 1930's Brunswick slate pool table! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PgRuK1gGgQ

I just bought one from Mike at the Tryals Shop (www.tryalsshop.com) in upper New York state, USA a month or two ago. Small and light enough, shipping would probably be affordable.

Glenn, I just welded the left-top tab that the head bolts to. So even the molly frames suffered from engine mount cracking. The first two-years seemed to have some problems around the top, rear-shock mount, foot-peg/skid-plate mount areas as well as the head-stock. On another note, do you remember where the two leads coming from the computer connected to? I've got a working computer, but I don't have any idea how to wire it. On another note, went riding with a nice group today on the same ground with all the flowers, and our youngest member (the most ambitious and risk-taking) ended up like this more than once.

Nice practice session with my buddy Tod on his family's 360 acres bordering the national forest. It's a nice, diverse section of ground with a lot of challenging rocks, stream-beds, down-fall trees, steep hill-sides and some really nice, but rock-infested fields of flowers. Any one remember where the two leads from the Section's computer run to?