RSTY

The weekend has arrived, and so it is time to upload the pictures I promised earlier in Part 1 of Starting Out In Trials Riding.

Firstly, just some nice overall shots and then we’ll get into the detail of things.

Quite a nice looking bike, eh?

Let’s run through the parts we replaced/fixed in Part 1.

Tugs, chain-ring and chain.

When I first had the bike, the drive side Revell tug was broken. We replaced the tugs with a set from TartyBikes. There are different types of tugs available - we went for the stronger, generic set rather than some branded, less strong branded versions. These actually have better tugs too - they latch over the rear of the frame rather than press up against it. £6 well spent.

Rear Brake

Moving onto the Hope M4 brake I have on the rear. Although this isn’t strictly a Trials brake, it’s still a complete beauty. Eventually it’ll be making its way onto my XC bike to be replaced with a Hope Trials Mono.

The Bars and Stem

The bars and stem that came on the bike wern’t really suited to it. The stem was too short which made the front wheel very flicky, and being riser bars they just felt… wrong. Here’s what we fitted - Zoo bars, a try-all stem and Specialized lock-on grips (which are awesome, by the way. I’m going to put some on my XC bike when I have time).

Rear Hub and Chain Tensioner

There’s a little more play in the hub than I’d hoped, but it’s fine in the medium term. You can see the 74Kings lightweight tensioner too.

Front Brake

Here’s the front Hope Mono Trials caliper that we fitted to replace the original Hayes HFX-9. The original was fitted with a strange bracket and the pads were probably contaminated going by the horrendous noise the whole assembly was making. We de-contaminated the rotor with some alcohol pads and fitted this lovely new caliper.

And there you have it! One fixed, lovely looking, awesomely performing trials bike.

One last overall shot:

Stay tuned for Part 2, where I’ll begin to document my progress into Trials riding.