Spritepost 18

Following a request, here are some pictues of the footrests and mountings taken from each side of the bike.

Eventpost 8 - Branshaw Quarry, Keighley Yorkshire Classic

This Sunday I rode at a round of the Yorkshire Clasic Pre Unit Championship at Branshaw Quarry, Keighley.

As expected the trial was pretty easy as it was a pre unit championship trial but was a good day out at a good rocky venue and was a good opportunity to continue to get used to the 2 stroke bike.

The bike performed well, though still feels a little fluffy off the bottom, I think it may be just carburation as it feels a little rich so will be doing some experimenting with needle heights and jetting over the next few weeks to see if it can run a bit crisper.

This was not really an issue in the trial though as I finished equal 1st on clean, losing out on the oldest rider rule in the tie breaker.

Results
Unit Class
1. M Clarke 0
2. C Winstanley 0
3. S Holt 0
4. Dave Dawson 0
5. D Brookes 1
6. M Driffield 1
7. J Maxfield 2

Pre Unit
1. D Emmott 4
2. J Feather 9
3. C Pawson 42

Twins
1. G Emmott 0
2. G Marshall 1
3. D Harrison 3

Photo courtesy of the Yorkshire Classic web site

Spritepost 17

Here are some more pictures of the finished..... well, you can never say finished can you.... bike!

Spritepost 16

The work on the bike has been done with some new, nice touches added.

The exhaust has been re done in stainless steel. A new Carb inlet manifold made. some internal mods to the clutch and a new seat along with modified rear mudguard mount to lift the rear mudguard.

Pictures of the mods added

Spritepost 15

Now I have ridden 2 trials on the Sprite as shakedown tests, the list of things that need to be done has been compiled and I have left the bike with my Dad along with my wish list of tasks as follows;

• The carb manifold needs sleeving down to 26mm as it has quite a large bore and reducing the size should provide a better fuel/air mix to give a better bottom end power
• The carb sits at quite an angle of lean forwards, this needs adapting to move it more upright
• The clutch is not as light as I would like, so some work needs to be done to address this - it could be as simple as removing 3 of the clutch springs without affecting the perfomance of the clutch
• The rear of the primary chain case is leaking at the seal so this will need some silicone to seal the leak
• Now we know that the exhaust is working ok, the 1st one can be used as a pattern and a final one can be made from stainless steel and welded up to replace the 1st attempt.
• The bike seems to run just as quietly without the rear silencer, so it will be removed and a bracket made to secure the back of the pipe to a fixing point somewhere around the top shock mount.
• The seat needs cutting down to make it a little narrower, shorter and thinner with harder foam
• Finally, from a cosmetic point, the rear frame loop needs re-bending to lift the rear mudguard higher and provide more clearance at the rear wheel

I will post more photos of the finished article when complete.

Eventpost 7 - Red Marley

Easter Sunday saw the annual Red Marley Trial run on the surrounding grounds of the Red Marley Hill Climb planned for Easter Monday. A fairly large entry of almost 150 riders saw 2 laps of 20 sections taking in varying types of sections from loose loamy soil and streams in the lower wood, and tight sections on the loose hardpacked soil in the woods at the top of the hill climb.

I gave the Sprite its second outing and although I am getting used to the characteristics of the 2 stroke engine compared to the Cub, I think I was actually trying too hard and lost too many loose marks by drifting off line on the loose earth. Certainly 5 or 6 marks too many were lost in this way but it gave me a good opportunity to really test the bike and understand what needs to be done to set it up better to match my style of riding.

Overall I really enjoyd the trial and even though I ended up in 4th place, I think both the young guys in 1st and 2nd place had fantastic rides to drop only 2 and 3 marks respectively and even on best form I doubt whether I would have got close enough to trouble either of their scores.

Results

Unit up to 250cc

1 James Newstead 2

2 Nathan Jones 3

3 Alan Wright 10

4 Dave Dawson 11

5 Simon Anderson 13

Photos from the event

Eventpost 6 - Mitton BMCA

My first ride on the Sprite went as well as I could have expected. I rode the final round of the BMCA championship at Mitton near Penkridge.

On the positive side, the bike handles fantastically and the engine runs as sweet as a nut. The teething troubles are not too bad, the clutch needs a bit of work as it seems to be vibrating itself out of adjustment and I had some problems with the front brake binding on.

The brake problem caused 4 of the 6 marks lost today as I had only dropped 2 marks by the end of the 3rd lap yet 4 marks slipped away on the last lap when the brake kept sticking on.

Even with the problems I still managed to finish 2nd in my class and 4th in the trial so overall it was very encouraging and for a shakedown ride it was very promising.

Todays Results

2 Stroke
1. Mick Parkes 1
2. Dave Dawson 6
3. Steve Neale 11
4. Nathan Jones 19
5. Bob Greenhough 21

Unit 4 Stroke
1. Dave Jones 5
2. Alan Borton 12
3. Gary Hawkins 17
4. Brian Dale 20
5. Alan Halford 28

Pre Unit 4 Stroke
1. Pete Reed 4
2. Jim Pickering 8

Photos from todays event - note the new riding gear (perhaps i'll ride in red all the time on the 2 stroke so I will remember which bike I was on in future photos???)