Tuesday 29 March 2011

The Sun shines .

Hurrah!!

With the bike Mot’d and insured (£64 for the year), I walked to the village Post Office and took up the offer of a FREE road tax disc.

Up with the sparrows on Sunday morning, remembering to put the clock forward as well! I headed off to Lincolnshire and the ‘Poachers Bag’ first round of the 2011 Classic Dirtbike, PJ1 Northern British Bike Championship. 

122 easy miles later and I arrived at possibly one of the most attractive starts of any trial, a cracking big arable farmyard (no smells!)  A HUGE barn and a butty van serving everything from a cup of tea to full English…  Shame it’s Lent then…

The Poachers is a super trial, well laid out by a club that does plenty of pre 65 trials in the area. Sections are mostly on or adjacent to arable farmland involving plenty of trees tight turns, short sharp climbs chuck some stream sections in and add sunshine, and a great day was had by all.

The FB ran perfectly… Late Saturday night as I was cleaning/ repairing my modern trials bike I thought over the chain coming off issue and having earlier consulted Guru Brayshaw earlier in the week I took about giving the chain and its route a good course of looking at. Certainly, the chain line was straight, with me on and off the bike and the wheel/ hub/ sprocket were rock solid. As Adrian had suggested, something was making it come off and the only other moving part was the tensioner which I had already modified a week or so ago.

Riding the bike the chain occasionally and by that I mean once every hour or so rattleted the leading front edge of the chain guard so as that was the only thing I had not changed / modified I whipped it off and moved the mounting holes about 15mm lower thus in effect lifting the chain guard I also moved it forward approx 15mm and reshaped the lowered edge as under extreme the tensiioner could come into contact with it. The beauty of this was that I removed some metal thus making it lighter!

The good news was that during the 37 sections and 19 miles the chain did not come off once or even rattle… Therefore, fingers crossed and that might be the chain issue resolved.

I also repositioned the handlebars as when measured they were slightly off centre.  I also took the opportunity of having the Beta out at the same time to do some comparison of the various measurements etc.

Both bikes were remarkably similar, the foot pegs are the same distance from the front spindle and the FB’s are only 5mm higher than the Beta. The betas wheelbase is about 20mm longer. The handlebars are almost exactly the same except the FB’s are about 20mm higher.

Being cautious I also swapped out the new petrol filter for another of the same make/ model (they are only 99p after all), I stripped and cleaned the carb and bolted it all back up nice and tight I’ll add a cautionary tale here during the trial one cub rider had his bike literally burst into flames, hand fulls of Lincolnshire dirt soon had it out but the fuel cap the fuel line and the engine cases bore the evidence for all to see. The cause? A split in the fuel line seemed the most likely in the event cutting out the piece of pipe soon had his bike back running again. So check your fuel pipes! Again, fuel line is cheap enough so buy fresh and change before it goes hard would seem sound advice.

The only issue with the bike during the trial was the revs raise ‘slightly’ on full left lock so I will have to sort that out in the coming week. The Hebo auxiliary tank worked a treat fill both tanks connect up the breather of the main tank to the hebo unit and away you go. Fuel is taken from the hebo tank by the vacuum created in the main tank so the Hebo empties first, easy. Thanks here to Neil Anderton from who I ’borrowed a pint of fuel at halfway, as insurance more than anything. After the trial, I had about two litres left, so all in I had used about 3 litres for the trial. As the hebo tank is only held on with re useable tie wraps it will come off between road trials.

Leaving the bad news till last. I apologise for those looking for the POV video that was promised .. technical hitches of a pooter kind felled me in my tracks. The New Contour 1080p HD is sat on the desk and will download to the pc however the pc is refusing to co operate, something to do with a security programme incorrectly dowmloaded previously so.. a big gulp... and a new business lap top arriving shortly will be press ganged into trials action!

No trial next weekend as I am celebrating Mothering Sunday!

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