Talking about not improving... I actually have improved as I focused on more technical things rather than fitness (which I don't have anymore). One of the things I focused on is my sidehop that is rather rudimentary, which makes it easy to improve... 

Here's a video where I focused on the little kick and jump afterwards:

And here's a clip where, at the end, you can already see the fruits of it. I also find it easier to do moves on the rear wheel:

I haven't had time to go out and ride lately as I got a new job. There's no real improvement in this video but I thought I'd still share it.

Yesterday was the day of doing things I hadn't been able to do before.

1. Gap from one turtle to the other (1st video)

2. Gap onto the clam -> gap onto the platform -> gap to the other clam (2nd video).

And then I did some gapping practice. I still can't jump very far but my technique seems to be improving. Some guy on a forum told me to try to jump high instead of trying to jump far. I'll do that next time.

Trialsession!

Today I went out to see whether I have improved since June, which I knew beforehand anyways. I still was wondering how much I've actually improved in just 4 months. Here's a video of myself doing stuff I managed to do already but which feels easier now. I think you can see that in the video.

Short workout on two wheels rather than one. Everyday it feels better and also cooler. In the beginning I only did what looked cool (e.g. backwheel hops, pedal ups etc.). Now I'm starting to practice the basic stuff and to my surprise it's cool too. :)

Air King without air. So 1.4bars and sharp stones are too much for the Conti Air King tyre but I think that any other tyre would've pinched through as well. Thank god it's only a snakebite and not the tyre that tore apart.

Had another go on the pallets. Unfortunately, I hit my rotor on a crappy Side Hop attempt. It's now bent a little and scrapes where it didn't before. 

I have been practicing a lot lately, concentrating on basic stuff that I refused to do a year ago when I started with trials. So I spent almost 2 weeks improving my balance and doing moves on two wheels; these moves that don't look as cool as the ones you do on the rear. 

Anyways, as I was trying to do some Pedal Ups (my favorite move), I realized that with all this basic training, I had to go down a pallet on my maximum height. I suppose it'll return as soon as I start practicing it again but I have come to realize that I don't really need it that often. Since we've founded a trials club in my city and have a playground with all kinds of obstacles, I realized that the Pedal Up is my smallest concern. 

What hinders me to do better/bigger stuff is me being afraid of hurting myself. I have a couple of moves that I know by heart already but as soon as I add some height, I get afraid and don't do them correctly.

This post doesn't have anything to do with trials but it's something that has been bugging me for quite a while now.

As a bike messenger (have been doing this for 8 years now) I come around a lot and see many pedestrians with smart phones at the ready. As soon as they hear the whistle sound of WhatsApp and the like they draw their phone faster than Billy the Kid and begin swiping away, not paying any attention to their surroundings. I cannot count how many times I've almost hit a pedestrian crossing the street mesmerized by his new Facebook entries and whatnot. The worst thing about it is that mothers push their baby strollers into the traffic without looking. Why the fu** do they do that?

The other day I went to a playground with my daughter and saw a mother with, as you might have guessed already, her smart phone in her hand. Her son was calling out to her: "Mommy, look what I can do!" Unfortunately, mommy was so drawn into the internet that she never even lifted her head and just said, "thats great" in a monotone voice as she kept swiping away... 

Am I that old that the immanent generation conflict has me in its hands already? I can't stand this development. Needless to say that I don't own a smart phone.

Quite frankly I'm too lazy to write many things. In short, I still missed the Bunny Hop in the beginning after many attempts. I tried Up To Fronts on an obstacle that was way too low. I just couldn't finish the gap (around 2m). I'm still satisfied with my progress. I went away from only practicing Pedal Ups. :D

I finally overcame my fear to do a jump onto the front wheel and will now be practicing hard to get my amateurish Up To Fronts better. The actual jump isn't very hard do perform as it's almost a Pedal Up but landing on the front wheel and then leaning forward to tilt the bike is.

As you can see in the video, I still have to work on the "leaning over the bars" part a lot.

Also, as I have been practicing on my Pedal Ups, I can now get up to 75cm w/o a problem.

Pedal Up Slomotion 3

Two days ago I practiced my Pedal Ups again as I had been kinda stuck at one height and couldn't go higher anymore. I played around with the technique and I think I have managed to get better. What I focused on was to not lift the front wheel with my weak foot that high anymore so that my strong foot has more leverage when performing the actual kick. The wall I'm getting onto in this video is between 75 and 80cm high. With a Front Wheel Tap this isn't hard anymore but without the tap it's still some height...

Unfortunately, I have to go back to rim brake on the rear as my zee caliper cracked on the last attempt.

Personal best.... Took me half an hour to force myself to jump down there. It actually seems higher up there than it actually is.

Tabea Trialsession 17.08.14

Since there's nothing noteworthy to share of myself I've got a short clip of two local riders I ride with from time to time. As you can see they have been in the business for quite a while...

Have been riding only a couple of times w/o any further achievements but I finally have build up my dream bike. I don't know what I'd change if I had more money....

Unfortunately, this happened to my freewheel and after having replaced the broken pawl, it took only one ride to break yet another one. I won't be using this freewheel anymore and have ordered a new Echo TR already.

Again, I'm very happy with today's workout. Since I'm having trouble with the "Going Down" part of trials, I once again dedicated some time to gaps. I'm still afraid of dropping heights higher than 60cm even though I've already managed to do 80cm at one point. I guess I will have to do drops for a very long time before I'm comfortable with them.

Yesterday, I had some time to read through the "Static Hop" section of Trashzen.com and found out that I've been doing it wrong the entire time. The main point is to get your shoulders beyond the handlebars and push up really hard. This is what I did today and it felt way better. I came out at 64cm which is my personal best so far. I'm confident that I'll be doing higher heights very soon.

The rock section is still a pain in the ***. I could actually do pedal kicks up to the fifth rock but as there's only a tiny space to land on w/o the rear wheel losing traction, I tried to do it differently with only a little more success.

Yesterday, I realized that my rear brake hasn't bedded in enough so today I spent 1/2 hour going down and up a steep slope. It's pretty difficult not to skid as the rear wheel blocks instantly if you pull the brake lever a little too much.

After finishing this I went to this staircase and finally managed to get up there w/o doing any correction hops.

Well, the brake's working. My rear tyre not. :D

Almost final build. Just gonna change the front brake lever to an SLX and the front rotor too.

Today I went out to test the new frame. Even though it differs only slightly in its geometry from the old one, it takes a while getting used to and as I didn't have much time to ride that bad boy, todays video is only showing things I've already done (in a less "proficient" manner).

As I wrote earlier this week I happened to find out that the Front Wheel Tap is a pretty easy technique compared to other things I learned over the months. Here's the video (and a slomo) of yesterdays practice. The wall is 72cm high. Now I can get up there with a normal Pedal Up as well but with a Front Wheel Tap it's so much easier. Just have to get the distance right.

This weekend I went riding again and managed to do some things I hadn't been able to do before. For example, as I was trying to pedal up a wall I accidentally hit it with my front wheel only to find out that this technique isn't as hard to do as I had thought.

Tried some static hops today. Even though I'm getting higher every day I still need too much time to find the right position to jump.

Yesterday I went out with some guys who really know how to trial. :)

Nothing new today actually except that I've tried a up to front w/o any success. I guess I should start with lower obstacles and actually lifting my front wheel. As it is now, it's only a rolling onto the obstacle with lifting of the rear wheel in the end. :D

While the static hop gets easier by the day my BWHs are still a little unstable but I'm working on it.

As of today I can pedal up onto 72cm more or less constantly.

A couple days ago my chain snapped and I fell down rather hard doing a drop from a tree stump about 50cm high. As this happened with a half link in my chain I am rather reluctant to keep using them. Unfortunately, the 74Kingz tensioner doesn't fit so I had to build myself a spoke tensioner that works perfectly.

Last practice I did some pedal ups and as I have a bad habit of jumping onto the obstacle with both feet whenever I seem to fail the attempt, I hurt myself with the pedal pins. Actually, it didn't really hurt but annoyed me the entire day.



As you can see in the vid, my gaps are getting better and better. The gap onto the tree stump feels kinda simple now and judging from the video, I could jump way further, putting more force into my jumps.

Three days ago my chain snapped on me as I was dropping down a tree stump. Now I'm not very confident anymore when it comes to using a half link in my chain. This is why I bough a 74kings chain tensioner from a Trials Forum member. Unfortunately, Royal Mail takes pretty long to ship things from the UK to Germany. I'll won't be able to ride until it arrives as I'm not going to use a half link!!!

I was very lucky when it happened and very thankful that it happened later on that day as I was dropping from higher heights and onto concrete before. The chain snapped on me dropping onto grass...

Today's session started out with a blooper as it had been raining all night and the stones were slippery. From that on I only did standard moves like a pedal kick onto a 40cm curb, a sidehop onto the same obstacle and so on.

I also went to my favorite wall which is around 62cm high and tried to get as close as possible to it before initiating the pedal up sequence. It is getting easier every day. 

The last wall I tried to "climb" is 80cm high. As of now I can pedal up to 70cm so I thought that 80cm wouldn't be too hard to get onto. I was wrong but It felt good and I think I'll need some two weeks or so and I'll be getting up there with "ease".

Unfortunately, I haven't had time to go out and ride these past two months as I had my final exams and went to the library everyday.

Last week I finished my studies and was very anxious to ride my bike. As you can see in the picture, I changed the setup of my bike a "little, and since I didn't want to cut the steerer of that expensive fork in that stupid angle my 150x30° stem has, went for a 150x35° stem.

The first ride was alright but I realized, that the stem angle just doesn't do the trick so I DID cut the steerer and am happy now. It feels so much more stable doing BWHs and this helps to do other stuff. :)

I tried that gap again and finally managed to land on that tree stump. I also got up a wall I couldn't get up the last time I rode. It's not even the height (65cm) but the little space I have for the run-up. I can get up 70cm by now if I have the space I want.

The last thing I am very happy about is that I finally overcame my fear of dropping down heights higher than 50cm. So far I was able to get up heights I was afraid of going down... not anymore. :)

Milestone.

As stated somewhere else the plan is the following.

Pedal Up to the red line (2). Static Hop onto the rear wheel (3). Drop to (4). Not very easy and it'll take at least till the end of summer I think.

Today I've tried a Pedal Up with only half a crank turn giving me the opportunity to be closer to the wall than with a full turn. It isn't very easy to do as I'm accustomed to more distance but in trials you never have that much space. 

The Static Hop worked better than the last time but only because I was told that I should do a little pedal kick before jumping upwards. 

The Side Hop is getting easier every day. I can't jump very high yet but it's only a question of time and practice I suppose. What I found surprisingly easy is a jump out of an BWH onto a curb. Easier than a Side Hop but with more height not manageable as you can't lower your front wheel enough for a preload.

Also tried to turn around clockwise on the rear wheel which didn't really work as you can see in the video.

I tried some up to fronts which wouldn't work obviously so I just rode onto the obstacle.

Finally some time to practice a little. In the vid you can see a Pedal Up (as usual) onto a 62cm curb, a gap that I wasn't able to do and my very first try of a static hop. The last one onto the stairwell is 1h later.

Yesterday night. Pedal Kick up to 65cm. Yeah!

Went out with my wife and kids to the playground. Unfortunately, my son wouldn't want to let go of me so that real training wasn't possible. My wife managed to take two pictures though.

Pretty windy today! I would've done more but my son decided to only sleep for 30mins. Well... better than nothing.

After what felt like eternity I went out biking today and even though I only had around 1h of daylight, I managed to do some new things. I don't know whether I've mentioned it but I think a Sidehop is easier to do than a Pedal Up. Only thing that hindered me to do it better or even higher was that I couldn't stand still on the rear wheel. The last time I tried the new stem setup it wasn't like this and I wondered why.

Well, half an hour into practice I had the pleasure to ride some other guys bikes and after that I thought that my brake levers were too far up. I put them down a little only to realize at home that it wasn't my levers being too low, but my handlebar slipping. I put it back where I had it earlier but not until having put some dynamics carbon paste onto them. I hope it'll hold this way.

In the video (quality sucks!) you can see me doing a Sidehop onto a bench that is probably around 40cm high. Pedaling up onto it isn't very easy for me as it is too narrow. The other downside to it is, that I don't know how to get back down. :D Happened earlier as well. Pedaling up onto a wall only to realize that I'm afraid of dropping down from such height.

Still don't have any time for riding as an exam is coming up. I managed to change the setup of my bike though. I laced an Echo TR rear wheel and put an Echo TR front free wheel on the cranks. Since the Echo Urban bash wouldn't work here, I got a Try All A-Symmetric which I still had to file down 1mm to make it fit. One would think that parts of the same manufacturer would fit together w/o "customizing" it. I also got another stem. This one is 150x30° and feels even better than the 5° higher one.

The self made saint work super well with the Tr!ckstuff pads I got. The resin wouldn't provide enough hold for my liking.

The black residue you can see on the rear rim is still some color since it takes a very harsh first grind to take it all off it the first time. I just put a light grind on that bad boy.

Since I haven't had time to practice anything (even though I went out with my bike 2 times 1/2 hours since the last time), I send my old bike to someone from a forum. He's doing pretty well and I thought I might share it here. He is now where I was in September '13 and he's got some shin guards right from the start, which is a good thing as you might remember from my "Bloody Sunday" post. (Klick here)

Since the 165x35° stem felt kinda awkward, I mounted a 150x35° one and now it's time for business. It feels very good now and the wether is getting better as well...

So I went out today to do some procrastinating as I got an exam next week and should've been studying for it. Well yesterday I mounted an 165x35° stem and it feels so much better on the rear wheel. The only downside is that pedal ups and those kind of moves feel a little awkward. I guess I will either have to get used to the different setup, or get yet another stem. It's too soon to make any predictions as I haven't got any time to really practice and make up my mind. 

I also took a picture of the new setup/bike. Feels so much better than the green one I had before and is lighter as well, even though still very heavy compared to other bikes I know from the forums.

As I looked into my backpack I was missing the camera only to find out at home, that it was in a pocket where I usually don't put it so even though the camera was at hand, there's no video of todays riding.

After what felt like a year of no riding (it has actually been only a month) I went out again. As my wife was away I had to take my son with me. As I hoped, he fell asleep and I could do some sport. Not as much as I would've liked to but better than nothing. I found this nice little spot near my house and did what you can see in the video. The new bike feels very very good even though I will opt for a longer and steeper stem.

Again. Haven't had time to ride... I fitted the Saint 810 lever to my Zee caliper and put it on my bike though. :D

Since I didn't feel all too well on the Marino, I bought a trials frame and transferred almost all parts to this one. It feels much better than the old one and has a real trials geometry. Here's what I did today. It's also the first time that I've tried sidehops.

Today went pretty well. I finally got up that friggin' wall and back down. Unfortunately, I went down on my arse as well as I forgot to pull the rear break. Now that I got that wall done, I will concentrate on all the other fun things that trials has to offer.

Yesterday I set up the Racing Line lever but haven't had time to test it yet and since there's nothing new to report I would like to mention the online shop I got my parts from. It's www.trialmarkt.de.

Now there are many shops on the internet but I have never experienced such a good customer service. As I got into trials I bought a new HS33R there and after one week or so I realized, that there was air in the system or it might have been leaking. I don't know... Anyways, I wrote an email to Jan (the owner) and after having sent in my brake, I got a new one right away. By that time I had already ordered the Tensile Tocco lever, which, put together with my HS11 slaves, was supposed to be my brake from then on. The Magura I was going to sell.

Now as I wrote some posts earlier, the Tocco lever wasn't functioning either and as I got the new one from Tensile, I asked Jan if I could swap it for a Racing Line one (with the additional cost paid of course). He agreed right away.

Yesterday I asked him if I could send in my new Magura (for which I hadn't found a buyer) and get my money back or rather invest it in some other parts. Again he agreed.... 

Emails were answered right away as well as my annoying questions (as a beginner). Now that's good customer service! Thumbs up.

Since I didn't like the Tocco:

Today went pretty well. I did, as expected, Pedal Ups and felt that there was a little improvement. After around 300 tries I managed to do what you can see in the video but was too tired to improve on my technique. Only in the end did I realize, that I wasn't jumping enough and that, once my rear wheel was on the wall, I should lean forward do get a proper pedal kick done. After a "little" warmup next practice it should hopefully work better. I really want to get this over with as I can't think of anything else...

Some days ago I wrote about the faulty Tensile Tocco lever. Well, I contacted Tensile and they send me a new one to be able to have a look at mine. I wrote an e-mail on Sunday and got a response on Sunday. Wow!

As I got the new lever I decided to send it back though* and put a little more money on a Racing Line one. I just hope it's worth the extra cash.

Today's riding was a little frustrating as I still couldn't manage to get up the wall AND do some BWHs there. I don't know what happened but I kinda lost my technique and am struggling to perform a clean Pedal Up. The good thing was that I only hit my rock ring a couple of times rather than the 100 times last practice.

The beginning of the video shows that even without doing anything else than Pedal Ups I perform better at BWHs which is rather surprising.

Another thing I have to mention is that I am not very happy with my bike. It feels too unbalanced, slow and heavy. Now you could say that it's not the bike but the rider, and that may very well be but I'm thinking of getting a new frame with a more trialish geometry. Either a 24'' or a 26''. The latter being the preferred option.

*Not to Tensile but to the dealer I got it from.