[AgrAde]

Chest-on-seat is an outdated way of riding. It makes sense on short bikes with steep head angles to get your weight back so you don't go over the bars, and a way to get your weight lower without lowering your seat, but it's a compromised and restrictive way of riding. It works okay but not perfectly on old bikes, and it just doesn't work at all on new long/slack bikes. You need weight on the front wheel to make the bike corner, and you can't have your ass behind the seat if you want your weight forward.

You've really got to be doing something wrong to go over the bars on a modern bike. You can keep yourself in a central position with a powerful stance, being able to use strong inputs from both your arms and legs, in any terrain. And you can manage your weight distribution and grip more easily without having the terrain affect your weight distribution as much.

I'm surprised you don't value being able to get the seat out of the way, being a trials rider and all.

I don't think you'll like a 29" rear wheel very much. Up front they're good though. Get a 27.5 or a mullet bike.

 

[AgrAde]

My point is, on a modern bike you can't just move your hips behind and below your seat while it's at full height. Your weight will be too far back. It barely works on old steep bikes but it does keep your weight from pitching over the front. On modern bikes you'll just have no front end grip and no "shredding" will happen.

29" rear is good, it's fast, but if you like lifting the front wheel off the ground regularly then the higher axle means it needs more grunt. The higher the axle, the more you need to pull the bars up rather than back, and you just need to pull with more momentum. Hence why BMX bikes need a gentle tug compared to mountain bikes, no matter how short the chainstays are.

Mullet/MX is just 27 rear 29 front.

Enduro is a series of timed downhill sections that are linked with untimed sections, but there are cutoffs. To be good at the sport you need a good balance of endurance and high intensity fitness. It's a fun day out though, so it has a good vibe and a lot of people don't enter purely for competition's sake. you should enter one, I think that despite your shit talk on fat fucks, you'd get your shit pushed in.

Trail bikes and enduro bikes are heavier than they used to be. People have gotten faster, so everything needs to be stronger to compensate. Weight means less than most people think. My fastest time up a gravel climb near my house is on an 11kg rigid bike, 22m30s or so. about 20 seconds behind is my time on a 15kg enduro bike with 160mm of travel when I was less fit. Just had a good day I guess. All geared up with my bike i'm roughly 100kg, so a kilo is only 1% of my weight, and the weight is only a part of the resistance when climbing. I'm a huge proportion faster on my road bike on tarmac up the same gradient compared to my mountain bike on gravel or a trail, purely from friction i guess, so i reckon a kg is worth about 0.5-0.75% of my climbing pace.

In return I get a frame that doesn't snap yearly and feel like a noodle, a rear tire that doesn't flat every ride, a shock that doesn't overheat every descent, a fork that doesn't flex and unbalance me in every corner, cranks that don't bend on every big hit, the ability to drop the seat and ride a bike like it is supposed to be ridden, brakes that don't fade, the ability to run tire pressures that let me have good amounts of grip and smoothness, a drivetrain that doesn't drop chains while having good range, wide rims that mean I don't rip tires off in corners yet don't dent immediately... having a heavy bike is great.

 

[AgrAde]

Enter an EWS qualifier race and post your results then. Looking forward to seeing where you place

 

[AgrAde]

Some Enduros are in bike parks, others are in beautiful locations. The variation in location and terrain is a big draw to the sport compared to DH or XC.

It doesn't make sense to complain about the weight on enduro bikes as an example of "modern mtbs". They're supposed to be as close to downhill bikes while still going uphill, with appropriate longevity. If you want light, buy a lightweight trail bike or XC bike. Some of the bikes aimed at that market today are fucking cool, are lighter/better/more durable than their older counterparts, and that part of the market isn't going anywhere.

 

[AgrAde]

The riding in the wet thing has just as much to do with soil type as anything else. In my area we're lucky that we don't get a lot of rain because our soil wouldn't cope with just the rain, let alone people riding when it's wet. It's this horrible powdery loess that dissolves like an alka-seltzer. Had a bunch of people come over from Whistler to set up a bike park here, and they promised that the park would be open 365 days a year, it was supposed to be this big selling point and being from Whistler where the bike trails are under snow for half the year they were really excited about it. They were told it was a bad idea by every single local, but they were stubborn. Probably did over $100,000 of damage to their trail surfaces on the first day of rain and they had to deal with all of the angry tourists who had to drag their bikes with completely locked up wheels to the bottom of the trails.

Learned their lesson pretty quickly.

Drive inland to the foothills though and everything is amazing in the wet.

 

[AgrAde]

Bruh no granny on the cranks??

Nice work finishing it. Even if you were out the arse, got it done, get fit and do it next year. See how many skinsuits you can beat.

Pretty sure that the enduro athletes have that strong upper body you're hoping to perv at though.

 

[AgrAde]

The fast boys all had matching these bicycles

View attachment 42360

 

[AgrAde]

Eh, I wouldn't buy a Yeti if it was the price of a Merida. Too many people I know have broken them or had other problems that came from poor engineering of their linkages. Too cool to use pivots like a normal brand. the lifetime warranty isn't worth much if they come back and say you've been misusing your frame when the thing snaps for no obvious reason mid-corner. I swore off owning a Yeti when I helped a friend redesign the eccentric cam for his SB66, which from a design point of view is a fucking mess. Their new frames are no different and that switch infinity thing is a nightmare. Two different sponsored riders have described their SB150 to me as "a flexy piece of shit" or similar. I reckon the guys on the enduro factory team, Reed Boggs etc get custom layups. But that's just speculation.

Suspension:

If the rebound is set too fast then the bike will feel a little bouncy and uncontrolled when doing a jump or exiting a berm, will spit the handlebars back at you a bit too abruptly after a hit takes it into its deep travel, and will feel like you're not getting as much grip from the front tire as you should be over bumps, with the grip feeling slightly unpredictable.

If the rebound is set too slow then the fork will feel comfortable when it takes a single hit, but uncomfortable over repeated hits because it won't have time to extend enough between each hit. So the fork will stay low in its travel where the spring is really stiff, and it will feel like you don't have much suspension at all. The fork will be more predictable, but will feel like its sucking the energy out of your inputs - say if you pump a roller, it won't feel like you gain as much speed from it, and the bike won't spring out of corners with any pep.

 

[AgrAde]

TDA goalz

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/interview-17-year-old-bikepacks-250km-a-day-to-race-the-ews.html

One of the local boys. Such a rad dude, gonna be at such a disadvantage coming in to each race with that level of fatigue though. He shreds, big sponsorships incoming I reckon. He hooked me up with the bling af Fox 38 on my trail bike when he moved to sram.

 

[AgrAde]

Such a talent. Last time i mentioned him on this forum I was told that what he does is inane and that true skill is only found in hopping around on a trials bike

 

[AgrAde]

The S-Works Levo is already $26,700 here in New Zealand. Can almost buy a brand new electric car for that much.

 

[AgrAde]

Fuck i remember buying a Honda City with ~100k miles on it for $300 and it was the best car I ever had. Gave it to my girlfriend. Wish I still had it.

 

[AgrAde]

It's fuckin nuts here at the moment. To fill my van from empty it's 100L of diesel... Just under $300.

Hoping to buy a BYD Dolphin (lol) when they're released in NZ, but currently the little runabout is doing okay at 35mpg.

 

[AgrAde]

Still in the same old place. Working for a chillaf company, we distribute ski gear and bbqs and party speakers. Almost finished my van proj so i can finally bum around in luxury and take significant time off work to bike/climb/ski/hike. wrecking my knee might have put a spanner in that sort of thing, but just seeing where it goes for the moment and getting fat in the meantime, no rush.

How about you man?

mountain biking thread is the new off topic bullshit thread.

 

[AgrAde]

Yeah maybe, we'll see how I'm feeling at the beginning of summer. Looking at the mullet levo.

 

[AgrAde]

Oh that's pretty cool, what a combo! Great to hear about the vanlyf project too, sounds dreamy as.

It is a good combo isn't it? Smith Optics, K2, Line, Ride, Full Tilt, G3, BCA, Traeger, Soundboks. Shame I don't fit Smith helmets or glasses haha. The rep was horrified when I went and bought a POC Kortal and some Julbo sunnies.

All I've got left to do on the van is some of the electrics (solar panels, batteries, associated trickery) and then finish up the shower pan. But she's pretty comfy already, all custom built so I can fit fit all my shit in there, not have to fold the bed up, have a big couch etc. Prebuilt vans suck, no storage, shit beds, shit couches, shit insulation.

I'm doing good, am mostly just a [bike]dad these days. Two kids under 4, showing both of them the world via two wheels is the majority of my riding... they love it!

Sick! Congrats man. One of my mates rides around with both his kids on the bike but he's got them both on the back of one of those Surly cargo bikes with the super long rear end haha. looks hilarious with all three of them on there.

Can't remember when I last posted life/non-trials update, but I worked for 9 great years at the Aus office of a rather large Japan-based bicycle component manufacturer. Moved upstate and now working at the distro of brands like Norco/Merida/BMC/FSA/MET/Endura/Fizik/Assos/many more.

Good timing, Norcos don't tend to snap in half near as much as they used to.

*Trials-related: did compete in '22 Trials National Champs for the first time in 5 years... green and gold in Masters! Rode a few bikes in the years since, but ended up back on the rig in my avatar haha - Atomz Quark 2. Bit heavy, low bb by today's standards, but solid and still feels so familiar!

It still looks modern to me Nice work on the result. I'm not really surprised though!

 

[AgrAde]

WHERE IS YOUR DROPPER POST?

UNACCEPTABLE

 

[AgrAde]

I rode my appalling bicycle today.