RSTY

I bought my first trials bike about a week ago. I’ve been into cross country (XC) riding for a good while, but after having a short blast on a trials bike recently, I decided that I should spend some time on another discipline to vary my riding a little.

A good friend of mine, Spode, found a bike for sale on a trials forum. It was listed as being a custom build based on a Revell frame and in good working order with the exception of a contaminated front brake. I bought it, although upon closer inspection it needed a little more work than was advertised.

Here are a few pics as taken by the previous owner in his back garden…

The frame has horizontal drop-outs and the drive side tug was broken. The previous owner attempted to fix this, but the result was that under stress from the cranks the hub would slip forwards. When this happened, the chain tensioner would move causing the chain to lose all tension and slip very, very badly. It was basically not fit to be ridden hard. The chain ring was also fairly worn and the crank set had a locked out freewheel which was causing a horrendous amount of lag when combined with the freewheel on the hub at the back.

I took the bike down to Spode’s over the weekend where we:

• Replaced the crank set with a set of really nice Middleburn RS7 Pros.
• Fitted a new chain ring with a better ratio - it’s now at 18:20 (front teeth : rear teeth) rather than 14:20.
• Replaced the bottom bracket with a Shimano Un72.
• Fitted new bars (Zoo), grips (Specialized) and a lovely new stem (Try all).
• Replaced the chain with a KMC K710 and fitted a 74Kingz lightweight tensioner.
• Fitted a Hope Mono Trial front brake caliper and threw away the old Hayes HFX-9.
• Cleaned up the contaminated rotor with some boiling water and a scouring pad (more on that later).
• Pimped it with tartybikes and thinkbikes stickers.

The bottom bracket had been installed with no grease so the insides of the frame were filled with rust and other gunk. We sorted that out running a tap through the threads and giving it a good clean with a rag and some magic spray.

It also turns out that my forks have a strangely dimensioned disc mount, we’re still not exactly sure what they are. When we fitted the new Hope caliper and rotor, we noticed that the rotor (180mm) was only just being bitten by the pads. My forks actually require what appears to be a 193mm rotor, so for now my 190mm Hayes rotor will have to do. It too doesn’t quite get bitten properly by the pads, but it’s very close. I’ll fit a correct rotor when I have time, for now it’s not a problem.

The rear brake that came on the bike is absolutely stunning. It’s a Hope M4… which is an XC brake. This means that it’s really progressive, which isn’t great for trials riding. I’m not the heaviest rider though, so I should be fine on it for the time being. It does lock and it locks hard, but you really have to grab a handful of lever to get there.

Eventually I will fit a matching Hope Mono onto the rear and move the M4 to my XC frame.