dan

One thing you have to remember is that (at least in my area) the Gassers are by far the most prevelant bikes, so it's understandable that you'll see a higher quantity of problems. Also, people don't tend to shout about it so much when their bikes run perfectly. In my family we've got a mix of bikes (2 Betas, 1 Gas Gas and 1 Scorpa) and the only bike that's had repeated and unexpected problems has been the 250 Beta. The Gas Gas has probably been the most reliable of the lot (although that's got a lot to do with the amount of crash damage I've inflicted on my Scorpa). In fact, I'm currently looking at switching from Scorpa to Gas Gas, and that's coming from a previously anti-Gasser position. All models of bikes have their issues, and all will probably warrant some tweaking to get them how you want them, but I think realistically anything less than 3 years old will be fairly comparable in the chances of having something go wrong. It all comes down to what you feel most comfortable riding.

I don't understand why you need to allow for that. Isn't that one of the things that differentiates the better riders from the not so good riders: being able to pick slightly crazy lines that offer them more chance of a clean? To me being able to pick interesting and slightly different lines is both a fun and exciting part of trials. If there's a really easy line that you don't want riders to take then set the gates in such a way that they're not able to take said line, or mark it off with tape.

It never stopped being a cd... I suspect what you mean is an audio cd of the type that you buy pre-recorded. In which case, no, it doesn't. An audio cd normally uses the Red Book file format to store the sound - this takes up a lot more disk space than mp3 files but is of course of vastly superior quality. When you burn mp3s to a cd without converting them they are simply burned as mp3 files, in exactly the same format as they are stored on your hdd, or would be on a floppy disk - so a normal cd player will not be able to play these files unless it has mp3 support built in. If you do have a cd player that will play mp3s this means you can store a lot more music on a cd than can be found on an audio cd (roughly 5-10x more) as long as you don't mind the accompanying loss of quality.

What silly rulings all round. If there's a certain bit of section a C of C doesn't want riders to go through they should tape it off or put a gate in such a way that they can't use the alternative line. Coming up with creative lines that other riders and/or the C of C hadn't spotted is one of the skills that should be a part of trials (and certainly one of the things that can make my rides all the more fun). All this 'imaginary lines' stuff seems ridiculous to me, it's just another finicky rule that isn't needed and makes everyones life more difficult and their ride significantly less fun.

It won't be the same format as r2w's, but one of the best gallery systems available is Gallery. Plus it's open source (so free to you) and fairly simple to set up (as long as you have PHP support on your host). I've used in several places and havent come across a better solution yet.

Wasn't the Denali touted as being almost as powerful as a 125 of it's day? That's probably somewhat of an exaggeration; but I think if a serious trials factory put their development muscle behind a new model, and combined with some of the advances being made with electric motors, we could see a bike being a serious contender with combustion engines quite quickly (comparatively to the life of combustion engines that is). A well developed electric engine may even be more suited to trials than combustion as they're capable of picking up power far faster than any comparable combustion engine can. I do think it would change the face of trials, but probably only further in the direction it's already going: with the lighter weight and faster power delivery I think we'd see the gap between motorbike and pushbike trials narrow even further. The sort of power delivery seen from an electric motor would probably encourage the sort of sections people are asking for here as well, with faster acceleration and lower top end things would conceivably have to get tighter and a bit smaller. I agree we definitely need the time limit, I just want to see it raised. I've seen a few world round sections where every rider has had to paddle through a section just to have a hope of getting through in the time; those are extreme examples but it should show where my problem lies with this. Just an extra 30 seconds for each section would make a massive difference and mean the riders would be much less likely to feel rushed. I just don't think worrying about getting through a section quickly enough should be an issue in trials.

I don't really understand why people want to 'dumb down' trials? To me the main problem with FIM regulations at the moment is that the time limits are too tight. I understand that an extra 30 seconds for each rider in each section could cause problems with the trial running on too long, but I think it impinges upon the nature of the sport to have riders rushing to get through a section. If you want to compete in a sport where the point is to get through difficult terrain as quickly as possible then go and ride enduros! What I'd like to see done with the rules is for time limits to be increased to a point where no reasonable attempt at a section will involve in a rider getting close to running out of time (so it's just there to stop people taking the p***) and pretty much all other rules except one mark per dab up to a maximum of 3 and 5 for falling off / leaving the section taken out of the equation. If a rider has the skill to move side to side and place the bike exactly where they want it, without stepping outside of the 'taking the p***' time limit, then I see no reason why that shouldn't be allowed. Trials is about bike control, and if you have the control to do something like that in a section then it should be encouraged. To my mind hopping and flipping the bike around is a great thing to watch. The skill involved in a rider getting him/herself inch perfect on the edge of some silly step is incredible, whether it's done in world level competition or by local experts. All the non-riders I've exposed to such things tend to be equally impressed and wowed by the beauty of it when a rider gets it all right. Although the interest of non-riders is something I think we need to question as well; I'm just not sure why people seem to want to grow the sport? We already have a severe lack of places to ride, and this is only going to get worse if we start getting greater influxes of people into the sport. Not only that, but a drastic increase in the trials community would threaten to shatter the very nature of the 'community' that exists around trials riders. Sure, I can see there are a lot of advantages to more people coming into the sport and as such more money being able to be thrown around, but frankly I like it just the way it is. I think this may all be a little academic however. For me the biggest change looming over the trials world is the impending fuel shortages; it's fairly clear that in the not to distant future fuel will almost certainly not be available for leisure activities. At that point the sport is going have to change, and drastically, if it has any chance of surviving at all. I guess the obvious place to look is a more modern and more advanced version of the electric trials bike made by Denali almost a decade ago.

Heh. That picture's actually a few years old, I look considerably different now! Although my hair is longer these days... at least it isn't black anymore. Not really a kid either (at 22)... although I suppose such terms are completely relative; so if you're an old bugger you're quite entitled to call me a kid

Thanks for all the advice guys. I finally got around to doing this a few days ago, and it really was as easy as everyone said. I seem to still have a bit of knocking in that area, so I think I might have to tighten it all up a little more - easy enough now I know how

My SY250's headstock (I think that's the right name? I mean the pivot between my forks and the frame) is apparantly in need of tightening and servicing.From what I was told this should be a pretty simple procedure, but it requires you to know what you're doing to do it right. I had been waiting to take someone up on their offer of help, but after several weeks we still haven't managed to sort out a good time to do it. So... I was hoping someone here might be able to help! A explanation of what I might need to know in order to do this without prior experience, or just a list of pitfalls to watch out for, would be great. Are there any sites like Sheldon Brown for motor bikes? Thanks!

Although it's not looking particularly special at the moment, this is my '03 SY250 (with '04 tank). For those so inclined, there are more angles available over in it's gallery.

I was going to list the Climber here as a fierce bike. I had a 280 climber for a while 'back in the day' (when I was about 14 or 15) and it really was an animal. The engine revved up like a 'crosser. It was even more scary considering my previous bike had been an ancient SWM Gori... hardly a savage bike! I don't really remember much about the bike besides it's viciousness (and it's suitability for playing with my motocross riding friends), largely I think because I moved to a JTR 250 pretty damn quickly

Haha I think I was standing right behind you when you where taking that group picture. It felt like we (being me and my dad) where about the only 2 people present at the awards ceremony who weren't press or rider affiliated! Bit of a wierd experience for a world championship crowning ceremony. A bit more on topic though: I've been amazed at how well James has been doing at World Championship level. It's quite easy to see why he was dominating the Juniors so much. I'm looking forward to seeing how far he goes next year.

We managed to get to Francochamps as well, was a good trial, although the sections didn't impress me as much as those at Hawkestone park. They seemed a little too man-made and not that well balanced (often seeming either too easy or too hard). They certainly didn't allow the riders as much chance for greatness as Hawkestone Park did - but then, maybe we were all just spoilt with that trial! Perhaps someone could clear up a bit of confusion for me: at the end of the trial the scoreboards by the podium put Dougie on 55, so in third place. But come the awards he was given second and his marks had dropped to 48. I'm sure there was an explanation given, but not speaking any French made it pretty difficult to work it out!

Is there any type of engine oil that people recommend above the others for an SY250? I've just got myself a second hand one that has been filled with bog standard engine oil - it's running a little hot and the gears seem a little clunky (I'm not certain the oil is the cause, but it needs doing anyway), so I'm hoping to give it an oil change asap.

I am now among the ranks of Scorpa riders! I bought a pretty clean 03 SY250 on Tuesday and I couldn't be more happy with it. It feels very smooth straight off the bat and is really very confidence inspiring. I have a few minor niggles with the bike, but I think they're mostly down to personal set up (the gearing is almost a little too low) and the lack of knowledge on the part of the previous owner (putting normal engine oil in the bike for instance). Thanks for all the info

I thought it was really bad. The commentating was really not good, they got the section numbers very badly (and very inconsistently) wrong! The shooting seemed to only show a small part of each section, often showing a huge close up of the bike before panning to follow it as it went up the section - this made it really hard to get any kind of perspective on the scale or difficulty of the section; the "high-lights" at the end seemed to all cut off just before showing you anything exciting! A few clips were worth watching, but overall I was pretty dissapointed with the whole thing. Especially the coverage Graham Jarvis got - it seemed the only clips they showed of him were when he was falling off or struggling, not really very enjoyable viewing!

Thanks for all the replies people! I think I'm pretty set on the SY now, just need to get myself a test ride to be absolutely sure. After reading all the old posts in here I'm particularly enamoured with the idea that the SY is easily tuneable - although I'm unlikely to want anything too savage for quite a while it's nice to know I can make it ride that way should I want

If you've got

I've seen a few things about this bike before. It's pretty crazy! In case it's not obvious, it's intended to be ridden in a very similar way to a street/park BMX. One of the trickest things about it (which must have taken one hell of a lot of designing) is the gyro unit. If you're not familiar with BMX, this allows you to spin the bars through 360 degrees (or more) without any of your controls being compromised. Fairly simple on a BMX that only has 2 brake cables to worry about, not so simple when you start having to track hydraulic brake/clutch hoses through one! Scrap that, I've just worked it out. Cable clutch and throttle cable in a normal-ish (albeit double cable) BMX gyro and front brake host down through the fork steerer. I can't quite imagine where you could ride something like this! I would have though trying to do BMX-esque stuff on the street would just be lethal (it's one thing having 30lb of BMX hurtling off down the road when you crash, it's quite another having 150lb odd of motorbike hurtling away) and also likely to get you arrested very quickly. I think the weight of something like this would total a normal skatepark if you took it in there, although I suppose it might be ok in some concrete parks. Still, I've heard there are several videos of some crazy Japanese kids riding these as if they were BMXs. I've yet to track any of them down though. edit some very interesting information on the 'Air Tricker' over here. From other sources, the engine is apparantly based on an YZ250F (the original Tricker used an xt225).

I'm currently looking to buy my first trials bike in about 6 years (excepting bike trials that is). At the moment I'm really tempted by the SY250, but I'd quite like to read a few more opinions on them before I commit myself! Because I can't seem to find any, can anyone point me at any dependable reviews of the SY250? I know that a lot about choosing the right bike is personal preference, but hopefully a good review should provide me enough information to help me make up my own mind Any opinions on this bike as compared to the current crop of triallers would be appreciated as well. As I understand it, the SY250 is considered quite a nice clubmans bike and having a Yamaha engine should be pretty solidly reliable (anything which means more time riding and less time fixing is good by me).

This is actually my first ever post on here, despite having been vaguely reading for about a year now. Anyway, on topic, I'm currently hoping to get back into Trials after a hiatus of a good 6 years or so. Currently I live in Cornwall, so finding practice areas is no problem at all. However, in a couple of months I hope to be moving back to Bristol, fairly near the centre, and I'm not sure how easy it's going to be to find places to ride around there. By the time I get there I should be driving, so travelling with the bike shouldn't be too much of a problem. But I don't want to get a nice new bike only to find in a few months I have nowhere to ride it. So... can anyone tell me what sort of luck I'm going to have finding places to ride within about an hours drive of Bristol?