Rover. Could the 5 not be sucking 10% out of every pedal stroke compared to the Giant without you noticing?

There’s a long draggy fire road climd at Dalby (actually there are several, but one is a very steady climb), I was pooling up at 4 mph on the Garmin one time and half way up stopped just long enough to raise the saddle by an inch.
Instantly I was doing 5 mph, it felt the same and my heart rate in change. And the Garmin also gives the gradient and hat didn’t change.
If I really was putting in no more effort, then getting the saddle height right was worth 20%.

Efficiency of the bike suspension design and angles and perhaps more importantly the optimum ergonomic size and set up of the bike for the rider.
Obvious innit?

Every bike I have owned went faster when I sold it……..fact

I’m not sure how many days you’ve conducted your evil experiments over, but could it be something as simple as differences in temperature which could affect both your performance and the ground conditions~ humidity may also have similar effects.

That said, you mention that the majority of segments were climbs, where the added fork travel and differing suspension characteristics would have a marked effect.

Tyres…

A 28lb bike with small block 8s is going to be much quicker than a 24lb bike with super tacky minions… Like wise, a reasonably burly All Mountain bike with DH tyres is going to be quicker than a DH bike with XC tyres (on a DH course).

Extreme and silly examples but I find tyres the single most transformational thing on a bike. I wouldn’t read anything into times without running like for like tyres.

People take the piss out of MBR for using control tyres in their BOTY tests but I always thought it gave the tests a bit of credibility tbh!

But these rides were all done using the same wheels, tyres etc. I just swapped one set of wheels between the two bikes for dozens of rides over the course of a year, then looked at the best time for each bike over each segment.

Well, the giant system as told by the mahs is supposed to be a more efficient system, but 10%? I’d be surprised.
I’d go with fit and how you ride the bike, it appears you have a maestro shaped pedeling style!

Given the bulk of riders top 10 in races like Megavalanche are on single pivots they must be hella fast then. Imagine how fast they’d go with Maestro!

Is the mega mostly an uphill race? No? Then re-read the OP…

A one-sample t-test on the percentage difference give p<0.01, which for the non-stats-geeks (i.e. you normal folk) means that we can be 99% confident that the difference is real and not just a fluke. The average difference in speed is around 10% (varying from 5% to 18% for the 8 segments I’ve analysed so far).

I like you!

Fair play for doing a t-test mate, the magazines should be doing this in their tests!

Have we rules out contaminated beef?

Commencal – SP
trek – SP
Cannondale – SP
Yeti – definately not a single pivot
Kona – SP (unless it was a magic link?)

I LOL’d my balls off.

D0NK – Member
Commencal – SP
trek – SP
Cannondale – SP
Yeti – definately not a single pivot
Kona – SP (unless it was a magic link?)
don’t most of those have a single pivot between the frame and the back wheel but a multitude thereof elsewhere? Might not be 4bar, vpp or DW but still (the possibility of being) a fair bit more sophisticated than the orange single single pivot?

Pretty much what I was thinking but when Thisisnotaspoon said ‘Ohhhhhh dear’ I couldn’t really be bothered to reply as I had just brought up pics of each rider at the 2012 mega and found no simple single pivot bikes under each of the riders (bar a few of them)

They were pretty much all riding multi pivot bikes apart from a few that I couldn’t find pics of during the race.

Out of interest, what psi were you running on the trance?

They don’t really work any differently to an Orange though, bar slightly altered leverage ratio’s. At the end of the day you can tune for differing leverage ratios with an air shock by altering the air can volume/boost valve volume and the bottom out resistance.

Multipivots put less stress on the shock (I think) and allow designers to tune the leverage ratio a bit more but other than that there’s no performance difference – the wheel arc is still exactly the same – they will still chatter over square edged bumps a bit more than a Specialized Four Bar setup with some rearward travel designed in. Theoretically anyway.

Thanks bwaarp. Next week ANOVA 🙂

So, what have you boiled things down to,Roverpig?

Do the same test, but swap the wheels, bars and saddle each time. That way, you’re left with suspension kinematics and the frame geometry as the only other variables.

The fit of a bike makes a significant difference that can be largely subconscious, for example, you won’t notice yourself riding knock-kneed to allow your ankles to clear a suspension linkage, or whether you’re holding back on the sprints because there isn’t enough length in the frame to allow good breathing.

As for suspension, each system has a compromise. I’ve never owned a single pivot, but I have a Quad Link bike with some odd pedalling feedback. My other bikes have been Horst Linkage setups, but they feel very different and appear to have different axle paths.

Actually, what I’ve “boiled things down to” is that it’s damn nigh impossible to construct a test of two bikes that is remotely scientific, which isn’t much return for months of work I’ll admit 😳

I’d also conclude (and this is no big surprise) that a bike is the sum of its parts. I haven’t done a test between a Trance and a Five at all. At best I’ve compared a stock Trance with a particular iteration of the Five, running a particular fork. Change the fork (or the size, or any number of other factors) and I dare say the results would be different.

It’s not the bike variables but the rider variables

It’s all about sleep, you will be faster if you had a decent nights sleep before the respective test ride

And on that note I would like to thank the OP as I will at work 5 minutes earlier tomorozzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzz

I think you’re spot on rp, ride testing bikes isn’t scientific. If it was more bike designers would be more lab based and it wouldn’t matter if you rode much.
I find speed is affected mostly by my form or tiredness on a day, more than the bike unless there’s a massive difference in type. Bike pros and cons often balance out over longer rides.What makes a bike work well for me is good ergonomics and a ride that suits both my riding style or needs and terrain. All pretty subjective stuff.

Is it likely to be the rear shock? If one locks out and reduces pedal losses better than the other you will be loosing a lot of uphill pedal energy into the shock? All other things being equal, I would look at this? Try riding uphill with the shock wide open (extreme example) and then locked out with pro-pedal or equivalent. Noticeably different in terms of energy efficiency. Just a thought.

Maybe you like your Giant more so ride it faster (subconcious thing).

After that, the size would get my vote.

Having said that the best DH race times I’ve ever had were on a Giant Glory.

(rather than numbers looking at other local riders that used to be ranked similar and how we compared on the day, I did significantly better against them on Maestro)

Roverpig: I saw no specific mention in your OP of tyres so wanted to check…

Thanks folks (and no problem Gary).

I have now found a climb where the Five beats the Trance. It’s not a fair fight as the rides were six months apart, but it does reinforce the importance of the rider. The Trance is a bit faster (probably not 10%, but a bit), but the current me on a Five can still beat the me from six months ago on the Trance.

chilled76: No, I definitely like the Five more. If the stats had shown an advantage for the Five I’d probably have dismissed it as observer bias. But when the Trance comes out top I have to consider whether the difference might actually be real.

wavejumper: It could be the rear shock. I tend to use propedal to climb on both and, in theory, the RP23 on the Five should be better than the RP2 on the Trance. But the RP2 is new and I’ve had it serviced recently. The RP23 is old, bought from ebay and I have no idea if or when it was last serviced. It seems to be working OK, but I guess it could be stealing a few watts without me noticing.

At the end of the day though, none of this pseudo-scientific testing really matters. I can’t think of a test that would really be scientifically valid (at least not one that I’d have the patience to do), so I’m left with subjective assessments of the two bikes, which are precisely that; subjective. It’s all good fun though 🙂

I agree about the Giant Maestro that combined with the geometry of my Giant Anthem X made really fast on the road and on local XC bridleways.

I tend to keep an eye on top speed on some local road descents and I can’t beat the Anthem’s top speed on my hardtail no matter how hard I try. Average speeds over local XC loops were about 2-3km/h faster on the Anthem than the hardtail or my current FS.

I had a Fox RPL shock on the Anthem and actually found that locking the shock out made the bike slower than using the propedal setting.

I asked a similar thing a year ago…

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/what-makes-such-a-difference-mbr-content

Is the mega mostly an uphill race? No? Then re-read the OP…

Well no, but it’s about as good a measurement of having a play in the woods as I can see. As per the OPs:

I’ve loaded a load of rides into Strava and defined a number of segments (mostly, but not all, climbs).

It’s generally won by fairly swift trail bikes, not DH rigs, Trance/Five would fit in perfectly well. What do you suggest I compare with, pro level XC? 2011 had 2x Fives in the top 10.

Well, the giant system as told by the mahs is supposed to be a more efficient system

Woah, slow down, you’re blinding me with science.

To put it another way, a good chunk of the bikes in the top 10 are 4 bars. Yes, they’re multi pivot, but they act absolutely nothing like Maestro/VPP. Their claim to fame is remaining active regardless of what’s going on, not anti bob.

Much like single pivots, they rely on having loads of platform damping on the shock, much like the Specialized Brain shocks.

4 bar full sus mountain bikes have been around now for a good 20 years? Back from the days when half the backs coming out had unified rear triangles.

It’s down to new bike syndrome.

If you get a new bike that you like you ride it faster.

Weight, terrain etc don’t matter and you’re not a machine so you can’t ride them both with the same effort.

The key is to accept that one bike is faster, cos then it always will be, and when you want to destroy your mates you just tell them that you’re riding it. You will believe you are faster therefore you will be and equallythey will know you’re faster so you’ll appear even faster.

The above is all proven – I only have to mention I’m riding my Van Nic Tuareg and riding mates sigh and let me through so as to not hold me up.

Don’t for goodness sakes question it, otherwise you’ll ride the same on both.

Just skimmed the previous posts so apologies if it’s already been mentioned but my two-penneth : the more time you spend on a bike the quicker you’ll be. It’s all about being at one with your beastie…