New trials bike !
Earlier in the year, I sold my Scorpa Trials and Scorpa T-ride and replaced them with the KTM 250 EXC, on the basis this would be a do-everything bike. However, having gained a reasonable amount of experience with the KTM I have come to realise that the only thing I am reasonably competent at is low speed balance and control. These are important skills when negotiating difficult terrain on a very tall heavy bike. Once the speed gets up the KTM comes into its own and loves to go fast, providing an amazingly comfortable and controlled ride. But at low speed it is very easy to dump it on the floor – something I have done a few times. Trying to hone my low speed skills further on the KTM by riding around and over obstacles in the garden is just too difficult – what I really need for this type of training is a trials bike!
After some research (as usual) I found a Montesa 4RT 250 4T – the same bike as ridden by Toni BOU (well I think his might be a bit special, but has the same name). Went to see it and it all looked good except that it wouldn’t start. The seller was very annoyed because “it always starts first time”. After an hour or so of checking the usual things and failing to get any life I left him to it. However, I did contact him later and make an offer as the rest of the bike looked good and surely it can’t be that hard to fix?
We agreed a deal and I bought the non-running bike. After some checks I traced the problem to the high pressure fuel pump – it is a fuel injected bike – which was completely dead. the genuine Honda replacement was very expensive but I managed to find an equivalent off another Honda model. Now running fine.
Stripped the rest of the bike for cleaning and checking and all still OK, but when attempting to ride it, the clutch was dragging making it very hard to control and impossible to select neutral. Changed gearbox oil and removed 2 of the 6 clutch springs to no avail so ordered a new clutch pack. Once I had fitted that it ran perfectly.
My brother Chris came to visit recently and was rather taken with the 4RT (he only has road bikes) and spent quite a bit of time riding around the garden, doing figure of 8s etc. But then he tried to move up to some log hopping and it all went wrong…