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Tuesday, July 22, 2008


Grinding my Trial Bike Rear Rim

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 have lost count... but I was never consistent. One time, it would be perfect, and the next, I would be struggling.

But yesterday, upon the above realisation, I was able to rear wheel hop with some consistency. My goal now is to achieve hop-less rear wheel stand and then to pedal kick. Damn bloody scary if you ask me.

I misjudged my braking one time and I fell backward and whack my head on the floor. Luckily, I was wearing my helmet... :-P

So today, I was really looking forward to getting home so that I can start practicing. After changing and getting ready, I realised that my bike had a rear wheel puncture. Then I thought that since I have to remove the rear wheel, why not I grind the rim to try to achieve super duper sticky braking?


And so, I took my wheel apart from the rim. Then I remove the inner tube lining I used to cover the holes in the rim.


I remember Hor Fun showing and explaining to me in Singapore how to grind the rim using a saw. I managed to find two saws from my hardware box.



The grinding was a lot of hard work. At first, I tried the small saw, being ever so gentle. Within moments, the tediousness got to me and I took the bigger saw and went at it with a vengeance! The sawing was really tiring work... LOL.



In the end, after more than 3 hours, I managed to finish grinding. I was dying to try out the grinded rim and see how good the braking would be.

When I finally fixed everything back, I realised that it was just after 10:45pm. Man... the braking would seriously annoy my neighbors. Reluctantly, I decided to postpone testing out the braking to tomorrow.

So now my plan is to get home early tomorrow! LOL..