Trials Australia Forums

In the Greg Harding fashion, here is a bike I have just set up for a local youngster to ride. We met Timothy through Scouts and he has persistently asked about our local trials every time I saw him and lives a stones throw from one of our Trials venues between Gladstone and Calliope.
The bike will live at Tim's place for a while so he can practice after school, and he is keen to ride in our next event which is in a few weeks time.
Most of the bike came via Hagsta a few years ago when he had run out of room in his shed. Prior to Hagsta, the bike had been ridden up in Townsville and at some stage had been owned or worked on by Noel Pearce up there. It was quite an interesting setup when I first saw it because of some unusual mods:
The forks were 1978 DT125/175
The front wheel was off a Yamaha dirt bike - (maybe IT125) with a lightened and over length brake arm and modified cable end holder to suit (amazing brakes)
The front guard was standard but decrepit TY175 guard but because of the DT forks had nylon extenders to get it high enough.
The steering stops on the frame had been cut back and rewelded allowing an extreme steering lock - the tank had been adjusted (by hammer by the looks) to provide clearance for the fork tubes at the extra steering angle
The motor is a combination of DT175E (barrell), DT175F (bottom end), AG175H(carby) and IT125/175 or YZ125 clutch cover. The different clutch cover required a new brake pedal stop to be made and this was part of the footpeg mount - quite a neat job actually.
The seat was a home made fibreglass base job.
It had a DT flywheel cover, but no flywheel or ignition.
The frame has had multiple weld repairs all over the place and has a huge 6mm plate gusset above the LH footpeg.
The rear loop was bent horizontal.
It has a super-quick action twistgrip!
I fitted a TY175 flywheel and ignition and trimmed the insides of the DT cover till it fitted over the TY flywheel. The jetting was all over the place.
I added to the steering stops so a standard tank would fit
The DT forks were quite short travel compared with TY175 and had a poor action so I fitted the forks off my normal TY175 (it has TY250 forks), and found a TY front brake backing plate so the wheel fitted the TY forks. TY cable.
I can't remember what bars were on it but I fitted nice high rise alloy bars from somewhere.
I fitted some nice tyres today.
The blue rear guard is a hand-me-down from my Alpina and the front a hand-me-down from another TY at home. The plastic side cover came from ????
Today I got stuck into the jetting and got it running very nicely. The carby ended up with standard AG175H (26mm OEM Yamaha-Mikuni) settings except for reshaping the needle to be the same as a standard TY250B needle.
I can't remember any more details for now and it is time to take the bike to Tim's place.

Hi Everyone,

David, I think it`s great that you are helping younger potential trials riders, simply using your description, Timothy has the most important ingredient (KEENNESS)! By the sounds of things, he may not be the only one to benefit from your spare bike. Plus I find it a good feeling to get a bike back to ride stage and rewarding to solve the inherent problems. You may have highlighted one of my shortcomings though, as I have chosen to post photo`s of the bikes as they have come to me and not in the ready to ride state! Obviously all of my loan bikes have guards both ends, any freeplay removed from sloppy bearings etc. Function being very important, secondhand soft tyres and low gearing and excess weight removed. Another thing, I may not have talked about is modified footpegs more like modern bikes with more surface area and tip to tip of 470 to 475mm. This little modification has improved all of my bikes giving more feedback from moving your weight and TY175`s have ridiculously small pegs and narrow tip to tip dimensions! Our local bike wreckers have been raided several times of footpegs, Honda being my first choice, as they are easy to cut the wrapper off!

All in all, nice job David and I get the feeling it has been a while since your trailer has visited the Paint Doctor????

Ah! the trailer. I knew someone would say something about that.
Built and painted in my shed in 1998 then towed by my Patrol over thousands of KM of gravel roads does have an effect on paint finish. I have a small tow car now that doesn't throw many stones so am considering paying my kids to paint it - they are quite young and inexperienced and it couldn't really look much worse so why not?
I did order a very nice new (enclosed) trailer in September 2009 from a reknowned bike trailer manufacturer in Sydney but it now seems my substantial deposit has disappeared along with the proprietors of that business. The NSW police tell me that there are quite a few people in the same boat as me on this and are investigating.
I'm a bit shy still of handing over money up front to another manufacturer so may persist with the open trailer for a while. This open trailer is actually a very useful device for comparing the geometry and dimensions of various trials bikes because the front chocks for the outer channels are aligned and it is easy to get it level in both planes.
I might have a "before" photo of that bike. I'll have a look tonight.

I know there are more before photos somewhere but for now all I could find of interest is one showing the front brake detail with the DT125/175 forks and another showing how different the forks are to the TY forks inside

By courtesy of Lindsay Haig, here are some "before" photos of the TY175 featured in the post above.

Thanks Greg and Donna for the ride and lunch last sunday really enjoyed myself What a great place you have to ride
Thanks again Ross

Couldn't agree more Brownie - the back paddock is great fun - my young fella thoroughly enjoyed himself and now wants to buy a bike.

BTW - Happy Birthday Greg

We (Andrew and Nell Hunter) had a visit from Greg (left) Col Klaus (middle right) and Brownie (right) last Sunday at my place in Megan (near Dorrigo) we had some fun and managed not to break anything. Ross Brown had the perfect solution for my Montesa woes ... his spare TY250 - thanks Ross.

Thank you Andrew and Nell for inviting me, had a great time
Ross

Hi Everyone,

Recently, we had a TY day at my place with Donna riding last years TY challenge 175JC, Steve on a TY250D, Liam on a TY80A and me on my 'A' model that I will be riding this year at the TY challenge. Below is a ploto of Liam on the clubman balance beam and judging by his technique, it won't be long before he is moving up to a bigger bike!

Andrew and Nell, thanks again for a great day riding on the plateau. Before we went, I was looking for inspiration to have some more practice time on the 'A' model, so we watched Naturally Free again! Dave Pinkerton riding on open sections, gullies, rolling hills and generally having a good time riding with his mate Craig Brown on a Bultaco! And the very next ride, there I was, among others, riding the 'A' model with Brownie riding his Bultaco around 35 years after the movie was released!