Up next in 10
We chat with Connor Fearon from the Kona Gravity Team about his brand new, yet-to-be-released carbon fibre Operator downhill race bike that he's piloting at the 2018 Fort William World Cup.
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hello everyone this is will from
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singletrack magazine and we're currently
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here in Fort William for second round of
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the 2018 World Cup I'm joined here by
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Connor Fearon how's it going very well
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thank you how are you yeah good thanks
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and Connor is here with a beautiful
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carbon-fiber Kona operator this is
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brand-new so we could have a bit of a
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chat to him about this bike some of the
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features on here so kind of how long
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have you been on this bike first though
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when did you get on this thing we've got
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a prototype frame like at the start of
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this year I'm so been riding it pretty
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much since then this one is brand-new
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from like four days ago so pretty fresh
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and excited to ride it some more
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it looks very shiny and scratch-free
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yeah and this is currently a brand new
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unreleased bike is that right yeah yeah
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yeah so this is like I think this is
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pretty much what the production one will
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be it's a bit different to the prototype
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when we had like for the last few months
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but yeah I think this is pretty much
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what their consumer will buy eventually
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gotcha and obviously we can tell it's a
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beautiful big hulking sort of
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carbon-fiber frame but tell us about
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some of the details we we have a bike
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behind here as well which we're going to
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chat about in a moment but what's
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different to this compared to the
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previous operator you're racing on yeah
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well I guess for most it's carbon fibre
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so the weights down a bit and then I was
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lucky enough to pretty much work with
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Kona to build whatever we wanted and I
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was a big fan of the old bike then
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sometimes we just wanted a bit more
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adjustability at the races because
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obviously there's like a big difference
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racing Fort William and Leo gang or
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Switzerland so one buy I thought like is
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not gonna be good for every single track
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that we race on so we've being able to
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add some adjustability to it with the
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chainstay length of the top tube length
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bottom bracket height so pretty much we
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can tailor to all the tracks now which
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is really good so we've got a two
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position for the rear wheel down the
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bottom there yeah yeah so last year we
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were lucky enough to make a different
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chain stay for the old bike where it
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wasn't adjustable and we were used both
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of them like equal amount of time so two
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positions was fine and so that's we've
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pretty much made for this bike as well
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gotcha and as far as geometry goes from
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what I can tell we've got a two position
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pivot bolt there in the rear of the
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rocker so that kind of steepens a head
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angle or slackens a head angle and lifts
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up the bébé or drops the BB yeah yeah
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exactly that's also there we can swap
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the wheels out for 29 or 27 and a half
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so here we've got both bikes set up
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pretty much the same so yeah but you can
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use that to slack and lower the bottom
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bracket on the same size but it was a
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few desire as well I guess we should
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rewind a little bit to that bit there so
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this is technically the first 29
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downhill bike from Kona is that right
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yep yep yeah that's correct right and
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how you feeling how you finding the 29er
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how you enjoying it or not enjoying it
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what's good what's bad yeah I like
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riding it like four World Cups I think
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it's good if I wasn't racing World Cups
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I'd probably ride 27 and a half all the
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time just I think it's more fun and you
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kind of sit on the 29er and you just
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steer it and it just goes like really
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fast in a straight line so we build it
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up for Fort William and it's it's going
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to be sick here I think that think later
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on the year when we have some more turns
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in the tracks like lebreton
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I'm gonna run the other bike where the
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tracks are a bit shorter and tighter
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right so you can tell here we've got
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both bikes set up so they're actually
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the same frame we've got this one set up
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as 29er the one at the back there set up
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as a 27.5 so tomorrow you'll ride both
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bikes it's pretty unlikely I think
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there's just not enough time the World
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Cups to ride on both bikes are just
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gonna go in between I know and just
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commit and whatever in it enough to know
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that it's gonna be sick here so I'm just
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gonna get on it and good plan plan of
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attack you've just come back from the
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track walk what do you think of the the
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Fort William racecourse for this year
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yeah I actually really liked Fort
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William why it's fast and there is a lot
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of turns up there so this year it looks
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it's pretty much the same same route as
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normal just some of the holes are filled
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in at the top and the big mud bog
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section is fill bit of rocks now which
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like I thought that is gonna be really
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cool on the 29 he just you don't even
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need to look at lines you just ride
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wherever you want and just monster
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trucks so that's gonna be fun and then
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yeah pretty much the same old and
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usually like by the third round you're
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up to speed here just because everyone
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knows a track track so much so I'm
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really excited for tomorrow actually
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fantastic and any changes you might make
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to the bike given that the weather is
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looking a little bit ropey this weekend
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yeah I'm not sure like obviously this
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tires
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change your suspension a bit but here
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like it's actually almost better in the
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wet it's just the wind that makes a big
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difference like because it's so dry like
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once I get some wet use actually grips
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up really well and so it doesn't really
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change it's just the wind that like the
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top session can change by like 10 KS now
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if it's windy or not windy so that's a
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big factor yeah the rain is actually
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pretty cool as long as it's not raining
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really bad you can't see anything
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and hopefully the thunderstorms stay
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away yeah so ideally not no now the last
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question I got for you Connor
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if you could sum up fort william in
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three different words three words how
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would you sum up fort william world cup
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fast now ii spectators excellent
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excellent
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that describes it very very well we're
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we're on day one of Fort William world
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cup here we've got three more days of
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action you'll be on this bike tomorrow
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so best of luck for the weekend Connor
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thank you very much Cheers no worries
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and thank you for taking us through the
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brand-new carbon
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Kona operator which you'll be seeing
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more of soon I'm sure
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all right enjoy the weekend thank you
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Cheers do root
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