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I think the Beta 125 comes with a 428 chain

Last time I spoke to Vince at V-Mar he was happy to post stuff to the UK with no price penalty, just buy it from his on line shop, arrives in a tough cardboard envelope in 5-7 days. You take the risk with customs charges & VAT (unusual but not impossible up to

Excellent advice, 'cept if someone takes exception to what you've done you'll be disqualified from the trial and referred to your local ACU board. They should then suspend/ban you from riding and circulate your name & penalty to all clubs in your centre. Best thing to do is forget it and practice more

If you actually read the book of rules that the ACU sends its members every year, you will realise that the one real control in the sport is the tyres. The block size shape and spacing is defined in the trials regulations. Almost all of the other requirements applied to the equipment you use pertain to safety - guarding etc. It is perfectly possible to fit different tyres to give better grip in certain conditions, but it breaks the rules and is effectively cheating. I believe that certain enduro events require the use of trials tyres rather than the more aggressive enduro / motocross tyres to reduce land damage.

Seems like you need move to the North East. I'm putting off loading next year onto the TC Calendar - we have 73 open to centre trials in the next 12 months. : It'd be 75 but we're also hosting the inter-centre team trial.

Yeah, mate of mine bought a Mitani one, it was great, engine was much sharper off the bottom, I beat him every week 'till he realised and took it off again. Do you really need more power?

Why is the red frame asking for disaster? it's just paint, like the black frames, easier to mark but much cheaper to produce than a proper Cu/Ni/Cr triple plated frame - Oh I forgot, what with the price of Copper & Nickel , they don't put that on much anymore. Anyway I liked the red frame on my Garelli 323. The pic posted by HRC1 gives some more detail, big big piston so a very short stroke (hence the high rpm rumour) or a big capacity to overcome the power deficit, 2 separate cams like a 1960's Matchless, and the spark plug apparently in the tunnel between valves and cylinder, maybe they've got the CR up after all running the piston up into the head diesel style and the tunnel is the combustion chamber.

You can see well enough in the photo showing the complete right hand side of the engine. They've tried to smooth out the inlet path flow by making it quite 'updraught' The air still has to make a sharp 90

The other rumour was fuel injection, with the exhaust running almost all the way around the engine it's hard to see the inlet. Been plenty of racing sidevalves in the past, cars and bikes, especially over the pond but they're not ideally suited to producing a lot of power for a long time or at high rpm either. They tend to be very compact torquey motors. This'll be interesting, nearly as interesting as a red frame and new plastics.

Crikey, that exhaust goes everywhere

There were 2 in the NE centre, owned by brothers. One blew its head gasket, I'm told more than once, and allegedly had higher tensile head to barrel studs/bolts fitted to alleviate the problem. The other became a bad starter with suspicion pointing the same way, it was sold. Neither seem to appear in the centre now. Couple of Scorpa 4Ts being ridden, seem as reliable as the Montesa. There were several Sherco 4T's also, haven't seen one for months though. Starting problems seem to have silenced them for now. I think I know where there's an unused 2005 bike if you're that keen on them (and if you can start it).

Mind, the hot oil running back over your left boot gave it a good waterproofing

As above, the year of the bike makes a difference as Montesa have improved things. All years - fit a VMar type chain guard on the front sprocket, this stops a jumped chain from bunching up then smashing the timing cover (Windlestone how did you forget that???) Best

Glen, the trouble is Gary is right. Owning a piece of land does not mean you can use it just whenever you want, the beardies & tree huggers would put a stop to that even if the neighbours didn't. Dalton Woods (I think?) near Croft springs to mind. However, in principle, I agree with you entirely, the more land owned by clubs, the more potential places to host organised trials. Unsupervised practice is a whole different kettle of fish. There used to be a council sign at Castleside saying no motorcycles. Not too sure what happened to it.... So I assumed the council were the owners. On reflection this may not be the case. I'm certain though that if they do own it, they will not allow the riding of motorcycles there.

Whilst I'd agree that Castleside quarry offers many challenges and appears a great place to practice, If you wish to remain legal, the only place I'm aware of that is open to the public is Warden Law where you pay a fee for the day. It irks me that whilst the council maintains many little used but large sporting facilities at the ratepayer's expense (count the empty football pitches) It will not allow disused quarries that have come into its possession for organised trials or trials practice. I guess the logistics of control, insurance, and protecting the dog walking public are insurmountable, but it seems a terrible shame.

I use "HEAVY DUTY PLANT & MACHINERY PRESSURE WASHER DETERGENT" from www.spaldings.co.uk. It's expensive to buy as it comes in 25 litre drums but it lasts. I dilute 250cc into 5 litres of water in a pump-up garden sprayer. Pressure wash the heavy mud off the bike, a quick spray over with the diluted fluid, leave for a couple of minutes and pressure wash off. I bought a drum in January 2006 and I've used about a quarter of it, that's probably 90 washes, plus it does the alloys on the cars most weeks too.

They're rare because they had a tendency to lunch the geartrain from the kickstart (mine took the crankcase with it) and genuine parts quickly became unobtainable. I loved mine and I still have it in boxes. I tell myself that one day I'll re-build the motor and use it again.

Titanium has around twice the density of Aluminium, so to make one just the same weight it'd only be around 2mm thick. Biggest problem with the ones on the 4RT is they seem to be made of very soft aluminium. Others, including Mitani seem to be made of dural - a much tougher alloy

Hairspray is water soluble so if you've a hole somewhere in a grip it'll eventually get in there and dissolve it. Different grips have different characteristics on the bars, some are very tight and you can just blow them on with compressed air and they'll hang on for ever. I use pro-grip 737's and they are not a tight fit on the bars (they are a very soft rubber) Hair spray is too quick to dissolve though Windlestone has several cans now sadly redundant The 'best' way is double sided tape on the bars, a quick coat of petrol, then the grips slide on and are set hard by next morning. This is how golf pro's mount grips on clubs. The cheap way is a coat of aerosol paint on the bars and inside the grips then nudge 'em on. Just watch for drips on your trainers whilst you do this.

Yes, it does go off, and it smells different too. Though 4 weeks is pushing it, I fill my jerrycan up with 18-19 litres for the 4RT and this lasts 6-7 trials/weeks Loads of problems with road bikes only taxed for 6 months then SORNED for 6 months, You can get 'preservative' to put in it, and I've heard that filling the tank / can to the brim then sealing tight can obvert the problem. But, having spent 2 hours trying to start the Honda lawnmower in March (it's always a first pull starter), I drained it off, including the float bowl drain valve, put in a little fresh juice, 1

Mayonnaise An emulsion of oil and water Oil and water don't mix? They do if you whisk or beat them together repeatedly, like with a train of gears, especially with modern high detergent oils. Your gearbox has had a drink of water, possibly by lying the bike down in a stream whilst the engine is hot, the chillling causes water to be sucked up the (submerged) breather into the box, or the water pump is leaking coolant into the gearbox, either way it doesn't take much to make mayonnaise. There may be a hole under the waterpump in the side casing that should be kept clear, this allows a leaking pump to vent water into the atmosphere / onto your boot. Clean this out with a paper clip or similar. Not sure if 2000 bikes had this feature or were the precursor to it. It would have been better if you'd flushed the box out with paraffin or diesel, but if you're still typing everything must be ok. Use a good quality oil in there, change it after 2 trials, keep an eye on the coolant level (difficult I know, and easy to overfill) and keep your fingers crossed, you might never have the problem again.

Welcome to the North East Centre IMHO You are moving to a great location for trials. Every ACU event in this centre has its regs published on this site. We have more than 70 trials per year in the centre including 1 national. Almost every event publishes their results on this site within 2 days, many on the same day. Currently there is a photo feature on this site for around 50% of Sunday trials. The centre is very compact, I can get to any event in the centre within an hour, one end to another is no more than 2 hours Every event in the centre is 'open to centre' so don't worry about clubs, just join the club holding the first event you go to, I'm trials sec for South Shields & DMC, the closest trial we have to South Shields is 35 miles away so the name means nothing, annual membership is

It's hard to help this sort of post when we don't know where in the world you are. You could start with an official Sherco Importer in your country. The Spokes fitted to the Sherco as standard don't have a particularly high quality plating so they tend to corrode, this is a noticeable problem in the UK, bikes here are often carried across the back of cars and in the winter they get thoroughly salt water rinsed, you may well find that in your locality there is a wheel builder who can provide you with good quality galvanised or triple plated spokes & nipples. If you are fitting new spokes to the rear wheel and want to keep tubeless tyres on it you will almost certainly need a new rim band to get a good seal, put the new band in a bucket of very hot water before you fit it, if you can get away with it put the whole wheel in a bath of hot water too. This makes it easier to fit the band and get it properly seated without resorting to silicone etc. Wayne Thais site used to document the fitting of the band very well. When I removed the original tyre from my 05 Sherco, the band was out of its groove in 3 separate places. From new! Hence the slow puncture.

Wash them in petrol, or buy some brake cleaner spray and use that, or buy the Mitani plates, they're really good and if you take them out and flog em on the bay when you sell the bike you'll recoup some of the cost of having a clutch that works properly. Rear shocker, standard settings: Spring free length: 133mm Spring length under pre-load: 126.5mm Adjuster setting: 10 clicks from "full hard" Source: 05 owners manual

You can always change the pads by dropping the front wheel and leaving the caliper attached to the fork leg. If you've rounded out the original socket head bolts (allen) then buy a cheapish set of 1/4" hex screwdriver tips from Machine mart or Maplin or Screwfix, but not from your local market. In the set you'll find some Torx bits , these resemble a 6 pointed spline and you'll find one a little bit bigger than the hole you've rounded out in the bolts. Hammer the torx bit into the (soft) head of the bolt, put a 1/4" spanner or socket onto the end of it and unwind the bolt. It would be better if you removed the front wheel, and got a mate to hold a heavy bit of metal (eg. a club hammer head) hard against the caliper on the inside to absorb the shock. You dont want to bash the torx bit in so hard you break off a fork lug.