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Once upon a time a very good athletics coach (wrote the manual) told me to see how fast you can get without really training... in your case , and especially bearing in mind the 2026 uncertainty I'd hold off spending money and just see how another year of racing goes in terms of progression
Once upon a time a very good athletics coach (wrote the manual) told me to see how fast you can get without really training... in your case , and especially bearing in mind the 2026 uncertainty I'd hold off spending money and just see how another year of racing goes in terms of progression
We're not buying anything just yet.. Progression has been high though and it's as much sizing and age of bike as it is to make him progress. I don't believe there's a bike in the world that will make a rider 5s quicker (assuming they're on a great bike already which he is) but the current Session has had a life, it's been and done everything time and time again, so they get a little tired, worn, used. There's also new technology coming out year after year, like the Zerode gearbox bike for example or the new Pivot or the new Sender which are all using 'different' things that will make the bike quicker. Even possibly things like the larger stiffer Boxxers compared to his current 35mm Boxxers.
He'll either get there or not and the bike won't make a huge difference to whether he does... Although that depends whether we consider P2 in National Juniors is already 'there' or not. But he's a chunk off the fastest DHers for sure and that does need a level of progression i completely agree.
If we can get a bike that helps though, there's no reason not to. (apart from a huge layout in cash)
Don't expect anything to come in before Nov though.
Sounds like Atherton clearly have no issue shifting bikes given the long wait list. The carbon ones are lovely.
Sounds like Atherton clearly have no issue shifting bikes given the long wait list. The carbon ones are lovely.
It really is a lovely thing. But more importantly it's an EASY thing to work on it seems, no blind bearings, no weird spacers, brackets, links, no weird routing. Just simple stuff out together.
Which is arguably more important for what we need than how it looks.
The fact he was only 1.4s off his Session on it bodes well too.
I don't know if it actually takes 16 weeks to make, I doubt it, so yeah I assume it's backlog which is great for them
The only downside being that they ain't coming down on price anytime soon.
Hopefully this works as my phone couldn't view it correctly
Quick question (and this is not a criticism), but is the camera supposed to be angled down like that? It’s been a long time since I’ve used one so fashions may have changed.
Quick question (and this is not a criticism), but is the camera supposed to be angled down like that? It’s been a long time since I’ve used one so fashions may have changed.
Camera is on chest mount as he doesn't like it on head/helmet. I don't think it's supposed to be quite so low no 🙂 But i can only work with the videos he's taken lol. It does show nicely the speed tucks and how he moves/changes body position i thought, but isn't necessarily the best of showing the trail at times 🙂
If you look at the shadows you can see he rides some parts with bike soft/bent arms to absorb the bumps, which probably affects it too. I'll have a look at the other clips and see if any are better angles.
Interesting that the S200 was a fair chunk slower - any thoughts on that?
Also would you be better off just going for a new next size up Session frame and swapping the bits over?
Got to be the most economic and straight forward plan?
All that deliberation and faffing around with tyres when his wheels are barely on the ground anyway ! 😂
He can ride, that’s for sure.
I saw you there on Saturday & had planned to come over & tell you how much I enjoy these updates but didn't manage to coincide with you not being busy by the van. Glad you had a productive day.
Interesting that the S200 was a fair chunk slower - any thoughts on that?
Also would you be better off just going for a new next size up Session frame and swapping the bits over?
Got to be the most economic and straight forward plan?
I can't seem to work out the multiquote thing, but thanks guys... he's absolutely flying at the moment for sure.. which is kinda funny as off the bike he's the most grounded and sensible and even emotionless person you could find lol. So to be a complete and utter nutter on a bike is hysterical to me. I can't actually fathom how any of that riding is even possible myself, we had a funny one a couple of weeks back from his race run at Rhyd-Y-Felin. There's an Instagram called "sped up sausages" who call-out people who have sped up their footage and posted it. He got called out by them for his race video. I can assure anyone, none of his clips are sped up lol... How, i have no clue...
Not a lot in terms of why the S200 was slower, he didn't like the narrower bars on there, but they were only 20mm or so narrower when measured. The S200 was better at whipping and 'steeze' (not my word) but a little less able to fly over the ground... but don't forget, this is a 3+ mins track so even 3s was only a tiny %age.
The Session would of course be the easy option, we can buy a whole bike for less than an A200 frame lol. But for some reason this doesn't seem to be an option in his head, he'd rather keep his R2 version than even do a hire/test day at BPW on an R3.. "Just no point, it's the same" seems to be his answer.. Sometimes i can work out his brain, sometimes not so much.
@simwit, pity you never mate he'd have been made up to hear that 🙂 (as would I) and i'll always find time to chat bikes.
It's an incredibly interesting time and day after day i get more and more confused as to what he's going to do, but until something happens, i have to be very cryptic on here. We go from one option to another, from one bike to another and one plan to another. All of them having massive plusses and massive minuses.
New super UDH mech hanger from Burgtec for the Session today. We've been diagnosing an issue where the indexing on the top jockey wheel isn't quite right, so i scooted to Rotec who says "yeah that hanger ain't straight" and now that we've put a Burgtec on i can kinda see it yeah. It wasn't huge, but enough i think.
The Crank Brothers Mallet DH are due a rebuild and service so they're off the bike for that and i'll fit a new set for the weekend.
I'm excited about this weekend, he's got the day with RSR Bikeworks getting the new Rimpact TMD setup and suspension tweaked accordingly. I'm really curious as to what him and Rich find in terms of setup, differences and hopefully a bit of speed as well.
Apologies for the quality as it was sent via Whatsapp, but a comparison run of all 3 bikes.
And here it is... Ready to be installed and then suspension setup using Data Acquisition this weekend. I would call it Telemetry but i'm sure someone would tell me it's not as that has to be read on the fly otherwise it's not telemetry 🙂
The data is taken after each run when back at the bottom and analysed and then changes made 😀
Hopefully this works as my phone couldn't view it correctly
I'm with Rockhopper on this.,... You must save a fortune in tyres 🙂
Hopefully this works as my phone couldn't view it correctly
I'm with Rockhopper on this.,... You must save a fortune in tyres 🙂
Lol if that were only the case. The word 'save' isn't in my vocabulary.
This week was
1. Halo rim + spokes
2. 2x Burgtec UDH
3. Rimpact TMD
4. Suspension setup
5. MRP replacement lower guide
But we have a lot of fun together 😄
Nice! I spotted a lot of those TMD top caps on the WC feed over the weekend.
Is that TMD a fixed weight, weight, with just options for spring rate? Or do you spec the weight weight vs rider weight.
Weight is 1 weight only (as far as I know)
Spring rate does the adjustment
Curious what you make of this as it seems these things are normally used on rigid systems and structures, not dynamic already damped systems. It sounds like it could work against the suspension, if the frequency of the weight movement isn’t aligned with the HSR in the fork, which appears to be the case as the TMD has no damping. Yes, I’m an engineer. Yes, my head is now scrambled visualising this on a fork.
Curious what you make of this as it seems these things are normally used on rigid systems and structures, not dynamic already damped systems. It sounds like it could work against the suspension, if the frequency of the weight movement isn’t aligned with the HSR in the fork, which appears to be the case as the TMD has no damping. Yes, I’m an engineer. Yes, my head is now scrambled visualising this on a fork.
Honestly no clue. He's with RSR Bikeworks on Sunday to get the electronics on it. It's a massive thing nowadays in DH racing and obviously it is all the rage with things like Flight Attendant and Fox Live Valve Neo, but a huge chunk of the team are using Motion Instruments or BYB for setting suspension, along with the engineers and riders. Hence we're getting his done Sunday.
I'm curious to see if he notices when it's in, out, with weight, without weight etc, as well as the overall settings and the difference in speed from morning to afternoon.
It's all witchcraft and magic to me, but my job is just the basic spanners not the clever stuff.
TMD | Rimpact - basic explanation
Rimpact's Tuned Mass Damper: Are TMDs Really Making Your Bike Faster? - YouTube - long explanation/sales pitch
Like many of these tech developments, if they're really good then presumably everyone will use them and then nobody will have an advantage.
TMD | Rimpact - basic explanation
Rimpact's Tuned Mass Damper: Are TMDs Really Making Your Bike Faster? - YouTube - long explanation/sales pitch
Like many of these tech developments, if they're really good then presumably everyone will use them and then nobody will have an advantage.
To an extent yeah, but they're quite short supply at the moment and even once you do get them, they're not just a fit it and run it (so i believe) it's quite an effect on suspension settings to get the best out of them. Racers are notoriously bad at getting tech on their bikes as we know, people like what they like and run what they know.
That's interesting... i hadn't really thought about the impact on suspension settings and didn't listen too closely to the podcast.
Well it's half a KG pretty much stuffed into the headtube for a start. I know chatting with Rich at RSR roughly how much of a change that is likely to equate to, but he's got a bucket load of data from the Scott team and testing/setting up this year already, so i think i could guesstimate a few bits.
However even though TFTuned set up our shock with new valving/tuning, we've not had the Vivid setup at all since buying it, so i'm massively curious as to how this weekend goes in terms of setup for the end as well. It's going to be very interesting to see for me anyway. But i do like bike nerd type stuff and even though it's mystical, it's very interesting to see if the riders can notice changes etc. We've also got a mate getting his bike setup at the same time, so the boy will have someone to ride with as well.
Just picked up a few points dipping into that podcast…one thing struck me is that he says that on suspension hits, the force travels up the fork leg and some is absorbed by the mass, which absorbs it in the springs, so it doesn’t transmit to the headtube/rider. What he doesn’t say is what then happens to the energy as energy stored in that spring. Well, energy cannot be lost, only converted, so it must be then transferred back into the bike when the spring recoils so I can see instances of this upsetting stability. It would be like having a massive heavy jelly mounted to your stem cap. But he does concede it is not “tuned”, which I suspect WC racers have a bit more time and facility to do. This is just a random weight on a spring. Very curious about this on a moving bicycle.
Let us know how you get on with the MD, but I suppose there are other changing variables by the sounds of it, so bracketing might be tricky.
Well the plan is to perform 2 runs on what we have now. That'll be the start of the day for sure, then we'll move onto 2 runs with the TMD installed, then start configuring it fully. Obviously all the runs will have data (as the bike is off currently getting the electronics fitted) so in terms of bracketing, yeah it should kinda work OK.
THere's a pile of riders using TMDs now in the paddock at world and juniors national level, although different ones are being used by some. However all of them are raving about the performance, more so than i think a placebo effect could ever show.
The interesting one for me is fatigue, although the boy doesn't massively suffer from this, at FW for example it's pretty damn intense and lap after lap of 5 mins of crazy can take it's toll.
That brings on another slightly interesting one as he's just got another sponsor this week thanks to Katy of a new personal trainer, although it seems i get shouted at if i post things about sponsors lol, so i'll not go much more into it in depth. But he's got a 2 hour session with him next week and then straight to FoD for coaching and riding. But that'll also be quite interesting as to what a proper coach in strength and MTB fitness can bring to the game.
IMO - I think a fitness and conditioning coach will make the biggest difference to him. Great move for him.
Is it Ade?
IMO - I think a fitness and conditioning coach will make the biggest difference to him. Great move for him.
Yeah 100% agree. It's taken a while but that's on the boy as he doesn't like being pushed into doing or going somewhere, like most kids I guess. But he's now got his own weights/gym here in garage and is using it lots. So a decent plans and structure can only help him
Just checked in on this thread, been a little while.
Good to see the hard work starting to pay off !
As to Atherton bikes. I’ve seen quite a few 2nd hand for sale recently. If their sizing is so unique (not that convinced it is) then could make a 2nd hand bike harder to shift ?
As to physical strength and conditioning. It’s always surprised me how unprofessional DH mountain biking is when it comes to fitness.
It will definitely improve his performance, but I’m yet to see a young lad who doesn’t feel better for having a ‘ripped’ physique. My lad plays football and aged 15 they are in the gym 3 times per week doing strength & conditioning. The coach is absolutely clear that’s not ever pushing big heavy weights. Also it will help massively with injury prevention/ rehab
I couldn’t believe one of Bernard Kerrs more recent vids where he said he had been working with a physical coach for the last 4 months and had never been so fit / strong. 🤷♂️
I'd be curious as to where they're for sale please. I only view Pinkbike and eBay and song ever see any.
I terms of sizing they can make anything, but most are generic with sizing being 10mm increments on reach and certain step ups in chainstay as the sizing grows. Ideally we want a size 8, 480mm reach. The demo bike was 470mm which was great, but I think the extra 10mm would suit him.
We're still having a lot of bike/team debates, I have my thoughts and he has his, somewhere in the middle is a common ground. But what this is, is still a slight mystery. But for now we'll just keep on riding and racing.
The boy is toned and defined but he's not massive, his body fat is very very low so every sinew can be seen. It's interesting when you look around paddocks as there's no defined size or shape that's the best, a Bruni is built and stacked, Jackson is tiny and slight, but I bet still strong. Then everyone else is again different. But there's little doubt that being stronger and fitter will massively help him.
Thank you, the work is fun, mostly. It's a massive amount of back end work too, like 4 trips to Fort William, trips to Italy, France, Spain, the driving, energy and fatigue can be draining, especially night after night in fields in the cold. But the rewards are high for him and us as parents. Even today though, he's got a day off, but I'm still riding today before we head to FoD in the morning, so I've still got the spark in me to ride and bikes in general.
House goes on the market in a few months and we'll be moving to FoD for his next chapter, we're all looking forward to it.
Exciting times mate.
It's taken a while but that's on the boy as he doesn't like being pushed into doing or going somewhere, like most kids I guess.
This is so true. I've got mtb specific gym plans and a spare hardtail and my lad won't have a bar of it. We looked at his results from his last enduro race and I pointed out exactly where we could make some improvements without too much effort but he's not at all interested.
And I remember being the same with football training when I was a kid, so I don't push it.
As always with testing it's a bit of a slow process, a try this, try that, lets do this, lets do that, go again, again, up again....
But that's the nature of the beast and the steps needed to dial things in. The morning started with a baseline to see where our settings were, apparently they were not the best LOL, add to that his tyre was a Kryptotal Re (rear) on the front, which i'd obviously fitted in a hurry at Fort William, but it seemed to work OK there 🙂
After the baselines, they went to work on the getting the suspension dialled with the standard bike first. While they were doing that i went out and hit the long red loop with the new sections in there too and had a blast on my Fuel.
The afternoon brought in the TMD testing, but also a bit of a hugey for the boy who lost it, possibly due to mistakes but possibly due to slightly too much rebound on the back. It's all about rider feedback at this stage, along with what the data says of course, but a combination of rider/data to get the end result. As we've used Rich before, the boy knows what to expect and knows that just riding the bike isn't the answer, it's riding and thinking.
The only downside with the TMD testing was that the boy was getting a bit tired by the time we got to TMD runs, but was still putting down the pace hard, he's flying at the moment. I wasn't around for this testing as i just leave them to it, i'm not at their levels so i was fixing a puncture for a mates son along with grabbing a beer and talking shit with the blokes 🙂
But the reports for the TMD are that
1. He can notice it
2. The bike feels a chunk more stable.
3. He likes it
4. The weight doesn't adversely affect the ride.
All in all, very positive. I'll wait for the data sheets from Rich along with all the information that comes too, but i'm happy that both him and the boy are happy with the bike... (yeah yeah, despite it being too small lol)
The 'too small' bike thing is getting plans slowly put into place, but he's got an afternoon with Katy this week where there's hopefully a few questions and answers that'll come up and then the odds are a new bike will be ordered soon. Unless the question i think were being answered, are not..then, i have no clue 😀
A load of mates of both him and me were at the Forest today, which made the day even better, i did some lapping with one of the parents, who as i know is a fair chunk quicker than me both up and down, but i think i made a reasonable fist of things and did OK, i hit a few features faster than i've ever done before and that cheered me up a lot 🙂 But most importantly it showed that our upcoming house move is deffo the right plan..It'll be nice to finish the day at 4.45 and be home before 5 😀
Into the garage nice and handy this morning...
Needed a surprising amount of jobs doing, it was one of those days where when you start, you find something else, then something else, then you're balls deep in bits, wheels, tyres and stuff.
first was sorting tyres. One of the fronts had a Kryptotal rear, so was swapped for a front. However when i then went to put that rear onto the rear i found a decent dink in the rear rim.... Which sadly meant the rear isn't holding air.
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I think it'll fix up fine, but wanted to take it to the LBS next week first as this was a bit of a test rim, so he can send feedback to them.
So a new rear wheel went in instead and i was checking the pads.
Yeah they're TOAST
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So that's a new set of pads and a full bleed along with a 'piston massage' done on the back end.
He was saying yesterday about having jumpy gears, but as we only had a new mech hanger (Burgtec) last week i thought it's more likely to be the indexing, as the cable end was frayed, a new gear inner went in and that's all done.
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As is common on DH bikes the triples creak where a bit of dust gets in between the uppers and clamps, so the forks were stripped, cleaned and put back together with a bit of grease on the bolts, you can hear it when you release one of the clamp bolts that it 'creaks' so needs a clean...
After that it was a new Saddle installed and that's it, all good. Apart from a bit of a lack of wheels at the moment, which we'll get sorted this week, we're all good and ready for racing this weekend.
Lots of changes both front and rear with 10psi more in the front and 15psi more the rear Vivid.
5 clicks different in the Vivid rebound.
Quite different on the front end in terms of both rebound and LSC too.
I expect it'll ride pretty differently so may get him to do a few uplifts on DH this week if he's got energy.
Considering he's pretty picky about the bike, how did he feel about making such big changes?
Do you run inserts? Due to size of the hits and rocky locations there seems to be a lot of dented rims you have which must cost a fortune in replacing and wheel builds which perhaps an insert could help mitigate (if not I assume this is down to ride feel?).
That's a tricky one and we won't really know for another days riding or more. He said the bike feels more stable and planted, but he did have a massive off at 12ish, but whether that was suspension (they'd just changed some settings) or the fact he just crashed, that's open to debate.
Obviously this was only at FoD and on Ski Run, a track he knows well, but is only 1min for him, so it's hard to equate what effect it had in terms of time as even if it's 1s different per minute, that's still pretty hard to track and spot, the tiniest mistake is 1s of course, slightly off-line, 1s....
So he's back out on Wed to test again without the pressure of having to concentrate on what the bike is doing underneath him and just able to ride and enjoy it. We're then off racing this weekend with Pearce which is a full day on Sat and a decent day on Sun to get used to things.
So all in all, he's happy the bike felt better afterwards, but how much of that was TMD and how much was the suspension wizardry, we'll have to see.
From listening to RSR it seems the boy was feeling the things he was supposed to feel, the data was echoing his reports/findings on the runs "oh that felt too firm and a bit sketchy" was mirrored in the data after the run. Then changes made, then he was feeling happier on the next one... etc.
Do you run inserts? Due to size of the hits and rocky locations there seems to be a lot of dented rims you have which must cost a fortune in replacing and wheel builds which perhaps an insert could help mitigate (if not I assume this is down to ride feel?).
We do not....there's a few reasons behind that.
1. Rider feel, we've tried inserts and he's not keen on the feeling
2. Continental tyre techs told us that inserts should not be used, this is due to the tyre being created for a certain amount of air/pressure to work best, when you add a solid object in there instead, that changes how the tyre works, reacts and feels. The thoughts being, if you're killing them, we're doing our job wrong.
It seems the dent was there on Thurs, so it's open to debate if it happened at Dyfi the weekend before or a massive case he had on Tues evening when out with me. Ideally though i completely agree it'd massively help my bank if it wasn't happening. But at FW for example there were wheel after wheels broken, some running Alu, some carbon, some inserts, some without, some Michelin, Maxxis, etc etc. It seems to me Conti are doing better than most.. But as his speed and arguably size/weight has increased, well yes we're getting more than we'd like. My bank account would sure like a few less, we've got 4 rears and currently i've only got 1 fit for riding lol. By tomorrow Rotec will have 2 more built again for the weekend for us.
I don't really have the answer in truth, i don't think he/we do terribly for wheels compared to some, but yeah.... Mmmmm
Do people use electronic gears in downhill, or does the potential breakage costs vs slightly better shifting (maybe) and no cable issues make it not worthwhile?