grahamjayzee

I used to jump up and down on a spade, but now use a 4 foot piece of 3x3 and a doorstep! Put the wheel agains the wall below the doorstep resting on a couple of strips of wood to protect the disc/sprocket and rest a small block of wood agains the rim on the tyre. Wedge the 4foot piece under the doorstep and on top of the small block and push down. As long as the doorstep is sturdy enough, the bead will pop off in seconds! A lot cheaper and just as effective as a bead breaker! I have since bolted a bit chunk of hardwood against the inside garage wall to take the place of the doorstep so I don't end up levering the doorstep off!

Thank gawd for that; I thought for a minute Nick had beat me!

Well spotted IKB; I feel better already!

'Tis true. I have to be a man and stand up and say Nick took the honour! On the easy route he lost 19 marks to come 8th; I lost 54 on the red route to come 6th, but there were more riders in Nick's class and he rode the last 2 laps for just one mark; a performance only matched by the class winner. I will of course, be magnanimous in defeat. Excuse me why I go and cry like a girl!

Indeed. Nick did well, I didn't! Although we were on different routes, Nick's was a better performance. It's now well past banter and I shall resort to cheating...

Bad luck Addict, but you're asking us lot? I think any dentistry advice from a bunch of trials bods is likely to be of limited use. Particularly if it involves welding and angle grinders! Hope you get yourself sorted though mate.

Sorry mcim, didn't see your reply before I added mine!

Lots of response Nick; not promising!

Sounds to me like it's running lean at full throttle. Have you tried cleaning the carb? Also worth checking the tank vent. Try it with the fuel cap off...

I asked a rider what gear I should ride a section in on my first trial and he said "Donkey Jacket and Wellies"... Sound advice, I thought...

Quite normal FP, unless you put the socks down the back. Mind you, helps you beat the queues at sections...

Will do mate. Have a great Christmas, I'll report back once Nick's humiliated me...

Thanks for the vote of confidence Addict. If there's one thing I can do, it's ****! Are we opening a book on this then?

You going to ride it then John? Yay! Post-christmas party!

Customs are not really my thing, but that is about the coolest thing I've seen for ages!

Thanks Wherry. The best man will not win; I will! Merry Christmas All Graham

Wise advice! I think the whole thing will come back to me reasonably quickly, to be honest. I had kind of forgotten what to expect in the sections and they all looked a bit 'big' to me. So whilst I wasn't nervous before the trial, the sight of a 30' climb with a near virtical exit over some roots had me clenching. It took me the 1st lap to relax a bit after that. Next time will be a lot easier...

The proof of the pudding will be, as they say, in the eating. Enjoy your meal once you've removed all the mud and leaves from your mouth... <For those of you that may be alarmed by this exchange, myself and Nicks_TR34 have been ,ercilessly taking the mick out of each other for the best part of 20 years!>

Good for you hoggle! I'm 43 now and from the outside I look like a classic mid-life crisis as I have taken up trials again, ride a road bike and do a fair few trackdays. But I've ALWAYS had road bikes and have been riding trackdays for 10 years. I prefer to think that I am not born again, just never quite fully formed! Addict, I got to the trial 1 1/2 hours early with a view to getting relaxed. However, we couldn't get onto the land before the starttime so I spent all this time in the cafe. Great preparation, methinks... I've got time. Next trial will be a bit better, the one after that maybe better again. Before long I'll be back to my natural talent level of mid-table plodder!

Thanks HRC1, I've stumbled across this recently. It's even harder to find information that with the ACU though! We've got the Dabber's club around Cambridge way and as you said, there is a very strong AMCA presence darn sarf. We'll have a go and I'm willing to bet that the trials are much the same as for ACU ones! The thing is, for noobs it looks like the ACU can learn from the AMCA. It's EASY to get along and get involved. For regular hardened sea salts the ACU procedures are no real problem, but for noobs they do look like avoidable hurdles.

That's a good point. Trials is rather unique in that it is continuous. All the more reason for having the option to provide a licence that starts before January!

My old Zero had 'reverse spokes' where the nipple was in the hub and the rim had a flange around the inside edge for the spoke end. There were no spoke holes to leak and if you broke a spoke you could replace it on the bike without tyre removal. Why did this change back to conventional spoking? I though it was a great idea!

I know what to do, I just can't do it! A lot of it was simply confidence and nerves. I was as stiff as a board for the 1st lap and couldn't relax on the bike. I knew I could clean the sections, but just, er, didn't! I managed decent rides in all bar one section where I took a couple of 5s just to make sure I actually finished before the observers went home. I kept it comfortably below 100 for a 10 section 4 lap trial, so that's OK. As Nicks_TR34 put it, I set the bar comfortably low... The big point is, I enjoyed it. Also, years back I slowly improved until I was in with a shout of novice wins. I'm kind of back to the start now, and I quite like that. It's like there's no pressure and I can just go back to being a bit duff and having a good laugh.

I remebered why I used to do it though, I had a great day. I can't remember my pint being this heavy though...

OK, since joining this forum a few months ago, I have contributed to other people's threads, and may even have ventured opinion. Worse, I may have offered advice. Today, I rode the Cambridge Matchless trial, and what a fine event it was. However it has now become abundantly clear that I suck. Seriously, first section was a gentle turn over a root and I made a gentle turn over the bars. The first lap took me over an hour and I lost count of my score. It was easier to count back from a maximum! I had a great day, but I apologise to anyone who has taken any notice of anything I have written and urge you to not do so in the future. It is clear I don't know what I'm talking about! Graham