78.57 square metres of what?

We're doing a little trials muck around/demo at the Woodford Folk
Festival at the end of the year and I've been thinking about what to
use. So far I've come up with lots of sandwich boards, a launch ramp,
planks of varying skinniness, and different boxes to hop on and gap
between. The thing is it needs to be easily transportable. Are there
any other common trials things that I've missed that will be
appropriate? I was also thinking of a metal ladded of sorts (made for
the purpose of trials) that is solid and not too heavy. That way you
could hop either between or on top of the round (and small) metal
rungs.

Any suggestions?

Andrew


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I've thought of a few little combinations of things that gnereally
wouldn't be too hard to transport. I'll attach a diagram of the basic
layout I was thinking of.

My only real concern now is those big boxes. What can we make them out
of? They need to be light yet as solid and stable as possible and
preferably at least partially collapsable. Am I just dreaming here or
does such a think exist?

Thanks,
Andrew


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andrew_carter How did you come to the shorter folded up position?

By pulling the hinge pins out on two opposite corners. You then have
two sets of folded pairs of sides. (in the diagram note the black vs
hollow hinge pivots)

I think I'd have trouble trusting the strength of the middle of the
top part of that box. Any ideas for supporting it when it's being
jumped around on?

Good point, particularly if for larger boxes (say greater than 2? feet
on a side) and/or if the user is going to be doing high hops while on
top. The top could be cross brace, or one could use thicker plywood or
multiple layers of plywood, or internal 'X' cross braces could be used.
Internal 'X' braces could be made collapsable by slotting each of two
pieces in the center so they fit together standing on edge in an X (like
water bed supports are (or were)).

Have you got some sort of performance coming up soon?
Nope. Just for fun. Might use them at the Austin JuggleFest come
February.


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It might make it a bit more difficult, but looking at the first picture
the boxes don't really need to be boxes. You only really need a top.

How about making a table instead, a flat piece of wood with X
reinforcement for the top. Then four legs.

You could make the four legs splay out slightly away from the corners of
the square top, which would give you stability and have crosses of
strong wire making an X between each pair of legs to stop them being
pulled out too much. If they're bolted on to the top then you could
fully dismantle it down to the top piece plus legs & wires.

Joe


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Sofa,
Those are meant to be bits of wood, not strings. That way, they would
hopefully make it more stable by opposing the 'push' not the 'pull'. I
don't know if that makes any sense but it seems like it would be
stronger...unless you had heaps of strings.

Duaner,
That makes sense. I just didn't realise you could pull the pins out of
hinges. X bracing seems like the way to go. Do you think the actual
braces would have to be resting on the upright walls of the box? That
might actually help to keep things stable as well as solid. You could
cut grooves in the bracing where it sits on the upright parts so it
wouldn't slide around when gapping onto and from it.

Joe,
That sounds like a really good idea. Just to make sure, would it look
something like in this diagram? Do the wires connect at the top to the
horizontal board or to tops of the supporting legs? How would you
fasten the wire?

Thanks,
Andrew


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I thought of something last night...why not use a mini trampoline in
trials demos? It'd be great fun! I drew a diagram of a minitramp. next
to a 2m high platform.

Andrew


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...and here it is (sorry).


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andrew_carter wrote:
*We're doing a little trials muck around/demo at the Woodford Folk
Festival at the end of the year and I've been thinking about what to
use. So far I've come up with lots of sandwich boards, a launch ramp,
planks of varying skinniness, and different boxes to hop on and gap
between. The thing is it needs to be easily transportable. Are there
any other common trials things that I've missed that will be
appropriate? I was also thinking of a metal ladded of sorts (made for
the purpose of trials) that is solid and not too heavy. That way you
could hop either between or on top of the round (and small) metal
rungs.

Any suggestions?

Andrew *



Those are pretty cool diagrams. Maybe a couple of suggestions might be
helpful:

Re sandwich boards:

Sandwich boards are great- you could do a complete demo with nothing
else I think. 5/8" or ideally 3/4" thick plywood is best for making
them.

Sandwich boards look a more attractive and are stronger if you put the
2x4s on the inside rather than the outside, and then attach the hinge to
the 2x4's. This also seems to be a bit more durable for moves like
pedal grabs onto the end of a sandwich boards.

It's really, really important that sandwich boards be significantly
wider than they are tall, and be hinged quite wide open, or they can be
pretty lethal for tipping over. I'd say half again as wide as they
are tall, at least, and maybe at least 35 degrees open.

For the highest ones (ie higher than say 3 feet) it's best if the top
edge of the board is narrower than the bottom, making a more stable
pyramid shape.

It's good idea to hollow out the middle part of the edge that touches
the ground, because this makes them much more stable on grass.

Rails:

You should be able to make rails that nest in the groove on sandwich
boards, either round poles or square rails. This is convenient and
easily transportable, and can be quite stable. This is a great place to
put round rails if you want them.

Vertical poles:

At the last UNICON we made a platform for a vertical pole by making a
pyramid-shaped box, with a wide 30"x30" bottom and a flat 10"x10" top.
In the top we cut an 8" diameter hole and stuck an 8" wide round wooden
pole down inside. The pole was secured at the bottom by two boards that
attached to either side of the inside of the pyramid box.

One other major factor is that the pole has to extend sufficiently far
above the highest support that the supports will not interfere with the
bottom of the tire when doing pedal grabs.

Drop transitions:

It's really nice to have a strong, curved transition for drops, shaped
like the kicker that trials bikers would use to get onto something.
This really saves impact force on your cranks. In the Norco demos I
usually drop off an 8' high trailer onto a 2' transition, and it's less
force on the body than droping 3' to flat ground.

Other comments:

Smooth surfaces on boxes and ladders are usually much better than any
kind of ladder bridge setup, because the crowd can't tell why a rough
surface is harder, and it just makes things look more awkward.

Parallel beams set up between two 4'x4'x24" boxes work well for lots of
different tricks. Make the top of the beams flush with the boxes so
that there is no little bump to trip you up when gliding or wheel
walking along the beam.

It's better to make lots of independent, mobile structures than to think
in terms of making longer lines that can only be set up in a couple of
different ways.

If you don't want the complexity of collapsible boxes, make boxes that
can nest inside each other to save space.

Kris.


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duaner wrote:
*Box Portability, idea 2: use hinges on vertical box corners, and make
the top removable. Note: To collapse completely as shown in the
diagrams, at least one pair of diagonally opposite hinges must be
offset vertically (otherwise they will get in each others way while
collapsed). The top of the box is not in the diagrams, only the
sides.

top = top view of setup box

right=box collapsed (flatter and longer)

bottom=box collaped (shorter but less flat). One pair of opposite
hinges have the pins removed to collapse in two pieces like this *


In the old Norco Trials Team setup, we had one larger box that could be
dismantled. Basically we made it like all the other boxes, that is
with plywood and 2x2's along the edge of each plywood such that they
could be put together. However, instead of screwing the plywood
together we used bolts and T-nuts (nuts that can be hammered into a
hole, to form a tapped hole you can screw bolts into). This was simple
and worked well. We also put a door in the side of it so that we could
store our stuff inside during demos.


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Wow, what a great brain dump! Thanks Kris.


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