The Round 3 of the Singapore 2009 National BikeTrial Championship was held in
Bukit Batok Town Park on Oct 4th. I was there to capture the event on photos and videos.
For this round, a couple of things stand out and affected the overall competition; the format and the sections layout.…
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Added by Jack on October 9, 2009 at 10:00am —
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This was original posted in
my other blog on 29th June 09.
Last Saturday I decided to reward myself by getting a new pair of 661 shin guards from TTDI's KSH Bike shop. My old shin guards (which I have repaired many times over) have saved me from much agony and I felt that aside from the helmet, they were the most important equipment for learning biketrial... :-)…
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Added by Jack on July 6, 2009 at 10:30pm —
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This was original posted in
my other blog in March 09.
First off, why did I participate in a BikeTrial competition? Firstly, I want to see what it feels like to ride a section other than the ones I setup myself... LOL. Secondly, I can learn so much from so many riders by just watching them ride a section, and then trying myself. Thirdly and most importantly, it is just so much fun!!!! Here is…
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Added by Jack on June 19, 2009 at 12:00am —
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In my
previous blog post I have been talking about setting up a semi permanent BikeTrial training ground using wooden pallets or any other suitable materials. I have been trying to convey this idea to various friends and riders. Unfortunately, most of them do not feel the same way... LOL. But some of the responses were very supportive... :-)
The most common responses I received were that they prefer "natural"…
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Added by Jack on June 18, 2009 at 10:26pm —
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I have been trying to learn the "side hop" for the longest time. Ever since
Oct 23 last year, I have been trying and trying and trying... to learn this elusive skill.
During that time, I basically did what I called the "chicken" side hop... LOL. Basically, I just pulled the handlebar up and backward to pivot back, and then hopped onto the wooden pallet. It looked nothing like the Ryan Leech's Side Hop video.…
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Added by Jack on April 15, 2009 at 12:30am —
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Last Saturday, we spent some time riding at Shah Alam Taman Tasik (Lake Garden). Since 6:00am that morning, Wyatt (aka "The Insomniac") had been riding around his house in Sungai Long, practicing track-stand and hopping. Later he joined Syarul (aka "The Race Boy") in Shah Alam.
I joined them later at about 1:30pm. By then, I could see that Wyatt was extremely…
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Added by Jack on April 13, 2009 at 9:30pm —
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For the longest time, I have been repetitively watching a lot of competition videos from BikeTrials.com and one of my favourites was the Bar-H Bash Competition, where they rode man-made sections. That gave me the idea and the yearning to want to set up a mock section similar to that at home.
And so I began collecting wooden pallets, starting with those, which I took…
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Added by Jack on March 30, 2009 at 11:00pm —
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When
Sean and I first bought our Echo Pure trial bikes back in Mar 2008, the stems on the bikes were only temporary ones on loan to us, as ours had not arrived yet.
A couple of months later, the new stems arrived in Singapore but we could not picked them up. When Syarul was in Singapore last December…
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Added by Jack on March 24, 2009 at 10:30pm —
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Yesterday... I practiced, trained and practiced.
Sorry video is only available at the other blog... :-)
MORE HERE.
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Added by Jack on March 21, 2009 at 8:30am —
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I have been having major blister problems on the palms of my hands whenever I ride. I have sweaty palms and wearing gloves does not help.
Normally, after about 20 minutes of riding, my gloves would be soaked with sweat and the skin on my palms would be soft and wrinkled. That's when the hardened skin of the blisters would get soft and the new blister which had formed underneath the old one would get irritated. The constant chafing made it worse and the irritation gets pretty unbearable.
I "goo…
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Added by Jack on March 20, 2009 at 12:00am —
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After 14 months of learning and training the basic skills of BikeTrials, I have decided to test myself on a home-made section.
The design of the section had to be within my current skill level. I remembered a friend from Singapore telling me that, you only need to master 3 basic BikeTrial skills to be able to compete. And they are track-stand, hopping and pivoting.
I dun think I have mastered those 3 skills, probably intermediate level... or less... LOL. The full list of basic BikeTrial skills…
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Added by Jack on February 8, 2009 at 11:27am —
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Earlier this week I received a text message from Syarul to go riding trials on Christmas day. I had to turn him down as I was not mobile due to a bad car accident a few weeks ago that put my pick-up in the workshop.
My last biketrial outing was to the
Shah Alam Xtreme park and since then, I had only been riding in and around my house. I missed a happening…
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Added by Jack on December 26, 2008 at 12:30pm —
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What a great day this turned out to be! I think I have made tremendous progress with my biketrial skills. Three days ago, I tried to pedal-kick down a stack of 4 wooden pallets and landed disastrously! It was my first try at this height and I remembered it was quite scary and rightfully so!
Basically, when I landed, the rear wheel right brake pad slipped out. That caused the rear wheel to shoot forward from under me. I fell over backward and landed on my ass as I hit the rear of my head on the…
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Added by Jack on October 23, 2008 at 11:30pm —
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I have been trying very hard to learn the elusive "pedal kick" for a while now. My balancing on the rear wheel hop is not exactly very consistent, which makes learning the "pedal kick" doubly hard.
My arm and back muscles are constantly being pushed to their limits, with hardly enough time for them to recuperate.
Today, those muscles felt well enough for me to start practicing and I went at it with a vengeance.
C…
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Added by Jack on September 23, 2008 at 12:00am —
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The past weeks while I was teaching my kids how to ride the bicycle, I was also riding my 20" trial bike with them. A boy about 10 or 11 years old was cycling past and saw me riding the Monty. He could not help it but noticed that the trial bike was without a seat.
So he stopped and asked me what bike the Monty was and how one would ride a seat-less bike. I tried explaining in my best Malay that it was called a trial bike and that we could ride it in many ways.
I did not know whether if he und…
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Added by Jack on September 15, 2008 at 9:00pm —
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Last Sunday on 7th September, I went down to Singapore with a friend to watch the 2008 Singapore BikeTrial Competition - Round 3. I met my friend in Melaka around 1:00am and we left for Singapore at around 2:00 am in morning and arrived at about 6:00 am.
…
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Added by Jack on September 14, 2008 at 12:29pm —
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Yup... went down to Singapore over the weekend and got me a second hand 20" trial bike! This time around, I bought a Monty 221. The bike is way less than perfect, with welds on previous cracks, one next to the bottom bracket and the other on the rear brake bracket... LOL. Well, the important thing is that I can ride it!
I have been practising on an Echo 26" these past months and have been improving. But progress is slow... LOL. Even my track-stand is less than satisfactory. So I figured that if…
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Added by Jack on August 26, 2008 at 1:00pm —
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Yesterday, while practicing, I broke the star nut in the Echo Pure headset. After that, the ball bearings at the fork became slightly loose and a tad wobbly. I panicked for a moment as I did not know what had happened... LOL. I removed the star nut and tightened the stem to the fork so that I could continue practicing.
Rising to the Challeng…
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Added by Jack on July 30, 2008 at 10:00pm —
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Yesterday, I realised that there were three things I was doing wrong when I rear wheel hopped. Firstly, I realised that both my wheels were not straight before I take off to the rear wheel.
Secondly, once I got on to the rear wheel, my body needed to be further back over the rear wheel to maintain good posture and balance.
And lastly, my rear wheel brake needed to be super duper sticky to enable me to rear hop for a long duration. I have long since broke my own personal best of 14 hops, and ha…
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Added by Jack on July 23, 2008 at 12:01am —
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First off, I am a newbie in BikeTrial. Secondly, I welcome all who want to venture out into this brave new world of BikeTrials.
It is not easy. It is a lot of hard work. Once you have mastered the basics, I swear to you on all things good and great in this world that you will not regret one bit of it... LOL. To top it off, I am more than 45 years old and I only started BikeTrial August last year. I only managed to get a trial bike in March this year.
I am living proof that you can teach an old…
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Added by Jack on July 7, 2008 at 7:30pm —
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