alan bechard

Well, one of the specific incidents that came up, Me riding, Dan Brown standing there with Ron Milam and Brian Robison as the observer. Go down into my turn and pull a nose wheelie and land with my rear wheel in (past) the "gate" of another class. (I did not realize that there was a gate there)

I am not normally one for things like this, but for whatever reason, this one hit's home for me. Could some of you guys scattered around the world, take a little time, and a little postage money and send this girl a post card? Thanks. http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=84916

http://www.rctek.com/pdf/fuel_to_oil_ratio_chart.pdf Thought it was neat the way it showed both systems and fit the page etc.

Sounds like it, hope that sorts it out for you. Maybe you could read your old and new stuff while you have it side by side and we could start to develop a troubleshooting baseline on that?

He rides in Grosshabersdorf. Do you mean Kilometers instead of miles?

Will do, actually you and my Brother in Law have swapped e-mails when he was looking for a trailer. You had recently sold yours.

My wifes family live's near Bad Windsheim, should be east of you a touch is why I asked. We spend a fair amount of time there.... Well, at least my kids do My brother in law rides trials as well over there, little place near Ansbach. Not sure if it was Grosshuebach or Grosshabersdorf.... Do you ride much?

http://www.poliniusa.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=461

I know you said you did it, but I would go back through the basics, new plug, checking connections, clean fuel, clean filters, tank vent clear, good grounds etc. first. (maybe again) I have heard of one that had a bad electrical part in it and I do not remember which it was. The troubleshooting consisted of swapping the parts until they determined which was bad. The flywheel pulls with a little puller that looks like a plate if I remember right. I think I got mine from PoliniUSA, It is a pretty universal one that all the 50's used if I remember right and my buddy that races 50's has it at the Youth Nationals right now for a week or so. I may go to Lorretta's and see him, and I will look at it while there to refresh my memory. But my basic memory was flat plate kind of like a small harmonic balancer puller. As to compression, I never ran a test on one. You should be able to feel if it is "normal" or not and it sounds like this is something that just changed greatly so I would suspect the compression fault to be something constant (broken ring say) rather then a gradual loss of compression. If I was hunting, I would bet plug (I would put in another new different one to test) or the plug lead. Little cap on plug or something along those lines. You can also get some more help here http://www.poliniusa.com/forum/ Some of the stuff there may not be relevant, but most will. The guys in Florida that were / are the US importers for Polini were also always more then helpful. I do not know if it has sold or what but what I am seeing are guys in CA, so I am not sure. Let us know what you find. I will alert Chitlen Charlie to this thread, he had the one with the electric problem and get him to chime in.

Should be fine depending on the level of competition that you want to be at. Most of it just revolves around practice. www.rypusa.com has manuals and tons of tech info for your bike, it is worth taking the time and looking through to familiarize yourself a bit with the bike.

Slow is black tube, fast is white tube, really fast is aluminum...... Might also look at your timing, slowing down your gearing. 9 X 44 is slow stock, I run my family on 9 X 50. Lots of practice will get you better in control as well. There are some other engine things to do, but just guessing from your post, I would say these items will help you to get it more liveable without any great expense. Probably the cheapest you can do is spend time on the bike gaining throttle control. Oh, so Andy, does that make you a Fairy? Wonder if that translates?

Is it bent so bad that you cannot use it? If it is useable as is, it is usually best to leave it alone. If it is not, then you can sometimes bend them back in shape and get away with it. If you do it cold, you stand a high likelyhood of cracking or breaking the aluminum. If it were mine, I would apply heat too it with a propane torch at the area I want it to bend at. Allow the heat to thoroughly soak the part, be patient, the propane torch will heat it up just enough to allow it to start giving, and as long as reasonable care is excercised you will not have a meltdown. Gently hold pressure on the part with pliers, mole grips, or whatever you guys call them and you will feel it start to give as it comes up to temperature. I am assuming that you are taking off the shifter and mounting it in a sturdy vice. Also of note, if you want the little spring to continue working, you will need too drill out the rivet and remove the spring, reinstall with a bolt or pin upon completion. I would then buy a new one, and have a spare available as you have lost strength in this one at this point. You could either put on your new one and keep the straightened lever as a spare or vice versa.

And the real trick is when it is the backside of someone else's markers, that you do not realize are even there. If you look at the WR markers, they have a dot or circle of color on the back side, and they are on those little metal wickets so that they are visible from both sides. So far at our rounds, we still are using tree's etc to staple the markers too. Nothing like riding through a gate backwards, that you did not realize. (This is probably wandering too much from the base topic) That gate section type marking seems to be where things are going, us Trialmasters will need to adapt and insure that we do not mark things that contribute to this problem.

Yep, I spent some extra time wiping / cleaning everything up after I got the rim band settled in how I wanted. I checked last night and it is still holding air fine. That was nice. (changing leaf springs on Christina's Ranger was not so nice ) May have to do that one again. I am hoping that the dollop of grease on the heads of the spoke nipples minimizes the water intrusion. Only time will tell.

My definition of a gate is two clear markers, usually arrows pointing at each other inside the ribbons. Maybe that is something that needs worded out more, but normally when it is just one marker, it is referred to as a "split". There can be disagreements when using the outer ribbon as a side of a "gate" with no defined marker as to where exactly the "line" is. (and yes, that happened to me as Trialmaster at my last event) Edit add, re-reading your post, I think the relevant part of the Imaginary line is this line from the rules. 2D "If a rider passes, in either direction, between the gates of another class it will be consider as a failure." There can be some discussion there as to what "passing through a gate" means, but it was described at our meeting to treat these gates as though they are like a yellow ribbon inside the section, dividing where the riders are to go. To clarify my imaginary line statement. Picture if you will that a gate is between two trees for a class you are not riding. This "gate" because it is not for your class would be treated like a ribbon, ie, you could not go through there. Technically, if I drove my front wheel through between those "gate markers" I would be out of bounds and incur a 5. For those that have been around a bit, it used to be referred to as a "straight line or line of intent rule when we did not ribbon off the entire section, there was an imaginary straight line between the marks that you were not supposed to cross. However, that ended up with more heated discussions then it was worth, so folks slowly went over to ribboning anything in question, the ribbon acts as a clear visual indication as to if you are in or out of bounds. (much like the comments between myself and dabnabit) It is also one of the reasons that you had split ribbons in the middle of a section, to clearly and visibly define where you could and could not go. With the "gates" and not being able to ride between other classes "gates" there is again an "imaginary" (as in not tangible, something you can touch) line between those two markers that you are not supposed to cross. Anytime you are dealing with a "line" that cannot be clearly seen, it can lead to a differece of opinion between a rider and the observor. Hope that makes it clearer and not muddy it up more. As to it being spread across several forums, it is unfortunate, but it is the best way to get the widest view I think. Fortunately the Euro folks are leaving this one alone for us Americans that have to deal with it to hash out, and the discussion here seems to be the dominant discussion of all the boards. I am glad for one that it is up for discussion and getting as much dispersion as possible.

For me, it is very relavant that it spells out that you cannot pass through another classes gates. Different clubs and people have different views on this. With these rules and a defined "gate" it can ease some problems that we have experienced in the past, although it does create some new ones. You can use a gate of a different class to keep a class from going in a certain area, or doing something you don't want them too. We have seen in the STRA, where marking out 6 different "lines" with two markers to form a "gate" can lead to a proliferation of markers in a section. As we adjust to the system, and the Trialsmasters get used to it, things should improve. The only other problem I have with this though is that it makes for "imaginary" (or not plainly visible) lines that are not supposed to be crossed in a section. I personally do not like that as I see it leading to disagreements with the observors (kind of like the backing up thing) and anything of that nature I do not like. I personally like anything that eliminates "calls" being made by the observor.

I see what you guys are saying about the ribbon on the ground, but I would also say that if you have the ribbon up a bit, it sure avoids some marginal calls of, I was on, no you were over, no I was on. Now I am thinking of Tennis......... Where is McEnroe? I think like Dan say's the rules have to be written pretty broad, then parts modified to fit the locality. Say time limits, STRA just does not use the time limit in the section portion of the national rules. But for these rules, they need to be there. (just read that they are in the NATC supplemental rules and FIM rules.) I just realized reading this, and looking at the part about timekeeping, Does this mean there will be AMA rules and NATC supplemental rules seperate from each other? I bet they have always been there, just have never looked at the AMA ones assuming that they were the NATC ones.

I was thinking we had a 36" rule, but I can garuntee that those trees in section 4 of day 3 at the YN were not that far apart. However, depending on how you read it, the gate could be that wide, and still have another tree stuck between the gate which would make the available area to pass through, much smaller. Sound like a Lawyer talking now. But really folks, that is the kind of stuff that needs to be looked at, and thought out, and role played around a bit, to make sure that it is answered prior to it coming up. What did you guys think of the class descriptions and naming convention?

No discussion's? No additions? Anybody print and read this yet? Here is your chance to put in a positive change, wording or whatever on a document that is going up to the AMA. Now is the time to make it happen, not after it has gone forward and nobody bothered to comment.

Not sure what you guys have available, but "tuff boxes" are available all over here, I assumed they would be there as well? http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/sto..._ite=Performics Might be because we are a military town but Wal-mart generally has pallets of them in various sizes.

Had to do one yesterday and grabbed a tube of Permatex tune up grease, dielectric silicone type stuff. http://www.permatex.com/products/automotiv...Up_Grease_1.htm Cleaned the rim up real well, and smashed a dollop of grease into each spoke nipple real well to hopefully prevent future corrosion and water intrusion. Lubed the rim band up with it and it has to be the easiest I have ever slid one in. Man, that stuff makes rubber slick. Not sure how it will hold up over the test of time, but for now it is all holding and seems to be working well. Just another option, and it sure made installation the fastest I have ever done it.

http://www.trialscentral.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=9611 Go here to pick up where we are at.

Sorry to hear that The neoprene fork boots make those a lot nicer to be around.

Not sure if this should be a seperate topic or just tied in under here. If you could have any trainer in the world for Trials (someone living) come out and teach at the American Youth Camp, who would it be? Current world champ? Past World Champ? Trainer of a world Champ? What would be your "standard" to grade on? or What would be the most important attributes that you would look for?

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the last day of the American trials youth training camp last week. I had time for once, and the others around had time as well, as we were not directly competing in events ourselves to discuss some things, and as would be expected, one of the topics was the level of skill and improvement and the riding of the Young American riders there. Many folks keep hammering away that to improve a riders level, we need to go to Europe to do this. I do not see this to be a fact. What I believe needs to happen is that our aspiring riders need the opportunity to ride with better riders in a group, not in a competition, because honestly, how much do you ride with the other riders in the competition? But in a "pushing each other" type atmosphere. They also need to have riders of higher calibre, or at least teachers of higher calibre to point out what they need to do. It really became clear watching that Saturday as the young men where lining up on a log in the campground and working to get on top of it. Spotter up top, and the young men taking turns seeing who can make it up. That group dynamic, of pushing each other, and seeing what was working for the other guy, really hit home to me that we need to do all that we can to foster that if possible. The American training camp that TTC / RYP USA put on is the right step, and I believe it will continue to improve. I see the next step as bringing in a really high level rider to push the level up even further. If you look at the logistics and effectiveness of getting 20 American kids and machines to Europe to train, it is simply overwhelming and not likely to happen. However, the logistics of getting a world class star, to the US, to complement the top US rider instructors that are there is pretty do able. I would suggest that maybe some of you folks that are railing so much about how you want to see another US champ, put some true effort into helping the US kids that are likely to be that person, achieve that goal.