Up next in 10
Suspension set-up sessions with Chris Porter
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Despite being pretty au fait with his bike set up; after racing the European DH Champs in Champery, George Thompson aka Making Up The Numbers headed to Dyfi Bike Park with Mr Mojo Rising & Geometron founder Chris Porter for 2 days of bike set up to see if they could get George going even faster.
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George said "I've been working with Chris on bike setup for the best part of a decade now. Initially, it was chopping down the shock on my old V10 to increase the wheelbase and stop me going over the bars on a bike which, despite being one of the largest DH bikes at the time, was still far too small. That progressed into riding and racing Geometrons and here we are now at Dyfi Bike Park trying to shave a few seconds off my time down Race Track. He's far more knowledgeable than I will ever be so I approach every session with an open mind and Chris is well renowned for thinking outside of the box; I have no idea if we'll be changing tyre compounds, shock settings or bar roll or all 3 but whatever it is I have confidence he'll get the best out of me."
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This is a pretty lengthy video that's equally as nerdy. If you come from the 'set & forget' school of riding it's probably not for you but if you like to tinker, dive straight in!
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0:00
hello and welcome to a very wet and
0:05
windy doesn't seem to be windy here but it is windy um Duffy Bip Park for a
0:12
special episode of the vlog i come straight from well not straight from Champ had a weekend at home but the bike
0:20
is has come straight from Champ um which was dry and dusty and steep and now
0:27
we're here at Duffy which is very different to that um but we're here for
0:32
something very special um I'm going to be riding today with Chris Porter Mr
0:38
mojo Suspension Mr geometron uh first ever guest with Joe Breeden on
0:46
the podcast and we're here kind of prepping for another episode of the podcast something that's hopefully going to happen um probably at the end of the
0:53
season and hopefully with Dak Norton as well on the future of bike design and
0:59
development and suspension and all those things that they will talk about at
1:04
length probably far beyond my knowledge um but we're here today just to do some prep um for that anybody who know me
1:11
knows that I ride a geometry um it's the uh it's changed the way I well changed
1:19
how successful I've been really one of the key things about it just having a bike that fits and they're here today to
1:27
do some bike setup to try some things to work with Chris to see if I'm going as
1:33
fast as I can um hopefully be an interesting process um he has many
1:38
different ideas about things and yeah I'm willing to try anything so let's go well let's see how we go
1:45
mr porter is here how we doing sir not too bad with the Fian race bike oh look
1:52
at that is it a Fian snow leopard it's a It's a snow leopard snow leopard
1:57
apparently so it's not a cow a cow with yellow bits yeah yeah uh cool
2:04
she's a be mate she's come straight from Champereé and we were just discussing
2:10
the the setup the tweaks that I did for Champereé so this this fork I would never ever have this fork as stiff as
2:17
that and so couple of things that George did for shampere he's lifted the bar to
2:23
high heaven because obviously um the uh
2:29
the average angle of champ is quite steep um and the average angle
2:35
of what George has been running in the rest of the UK tracks a bit flatter so
2:40
when you tip the bike down like this something has to come back up or you end
2:45
up stretching down to the handlebars like this so another thing George did
2:52
was go right i'm probably a bit heavier than
2:57
George and that is stiff and fast high bar stiff fast for recovery up
3:06
and on the rear nice and slow and those are all really good sensible things to
3:14
do faced with shamperey as a older gentleman and how do we think
3:20
it's going to fare here at Duffy today uh I think you might find it super uncomfortable but we'll we'll go and try
3:26
it you might find you've hit upon the uh the sweet spot yeah exactly yeah you might be golden brother let's go and
3:32
give it a go
4:00
two big takeaways from that are don't ride in the rain don't ride in the in
4:06
the in the water ride off to the side and the second takeaway is that when you
4:13
let go and you're riding at a comfortable trail pace let's call it the trail speed
4:20
um you know every speed has its trail if
4:25
you were racing you'd probably work a little harder but you're in a nice
4:30
comfortable place on the easy bits your trail speed was slower than mine and
4:37
that's because of that rear tire so that tells us a lot cuz those
4:44
comfortable bits are the fastest bits of the track aren't they
4:49
so we need So if if I was your crew manager and we're looking to
4:57
go faster this weekend and the conditions are like that then do you
5:03
know what I'd be putting on the rear for you uh the orange one not the purple one
5:08
semi slip semi in there yeah cuz it's not slippy no the back does just
5:15
follow the There's BMS everywhere there's only a couple of roots and they're on the bits where you
5:21
can let it go and find the catch literally okay
5:28
that's what I do i haven't got a semisake no I've got a different compound got Mary in a different compound so that's what we do next but
5:35
do you know what let's just ride Yeah and let's try a couple of real simple
5:41
things first to get a feel because we already know that what you did for
5:47
shamperey isn't going to work on this track so let's just change those things first and
5:53
then we'll go looking for speed because tomorrow it might be dry
6:02
yeah so try and stay out of the stream if you can yeah um and when we're on the
6:10
the really flat bit don't pedal just get into a tuck and let's see if that see if
6:17
that brings you more speed along the next section all right happy with that yeah yeah yeah ready yeah ready when you
6:24
are to the bottom
7:17
well I feel like I had loads more grip in the turns yeah a lot more grip in the turns
7:23
so what we've done um camera clean
7:30
clean there yeah so we've gone back to pre shamperey settings on the suspension
7:37
pretty much we only went halfway on the compression on the back didn't we but kept the high bars but rolled them
7:44
forward to try and put a bit more weight over the front and uh we sped the rebound up at the
7:51
rear to sit that up as well to also mean that it rides generally higher and
7:58
that generally higher rear end will generally load the front more as well a
8:05
lot more grip on that one yeah but that's only momentary because then it sinks into the travel so that dampening
8:10
is only momentary um but it recovers that bit higher so
8:45
Feels
9:02
good through there yeah you're keeping speed well
9:20
the downside of the faster uh faster suspension is on those kind of
9:26
jumps there those little ones that kick you so
9:33
yeah let's uh So you're doing that
9:43
yes that is the downside but that's why you've got clips and you're tall enough
9:49
to do that yeah it's just more being aware in it that those are probably going to kick
9:56
kick the back end up a little bit cuz they're so short that the front is
10:01
coming down before the back's even gone up yeah
10:07
it's uh yeah they are short and kicky and you
10:15
have to treat with massive respect because that's the way to go with bars isn't it
10:22
so you think we can go further forward than It's always It's always possible
10:27
whether it's a good idea or not we'll find out that's the point of testing isn't it is to find out find the limit
10:34
so we moved it forward you liked it more especially on this track which is
10:40
flatter than the last one you were riding which makes sense um so
10:48
why not try a little more if it if it's too far
10:55
then you have an answer better than it might be honestly I think you'll
11:01
probably enjoy it even more grip on the front end well we'll see we'll see
11:06
you're a big bloke on a big bike um but it's not the biggest bike you own so
11:12
maybe you do need even more room a bit more space if that becomes good but we
11:19
started to lose confidence in the steeper stuff on the brakes we might have to put more pressure in the in that
11:26
yeah or a small softer spring on that to to bring you down
11:31
let's go wow um
11:38
I was sucking in that off wasn't I which we haven't got we haven't got a sock yet have we no but
11:46
what I normally do is I'll jam
11:54
jam the 6 mil Allen key with my 17 mil sp
12:14
so has that gone back towards where I was at Champereé or has it gone back to where I was before we went cuz we had
12:20
It's going back to Champ but but now because as you've moved forward you've
12:26
come off the back so you're unweighting the back as if you
12:32
were riding down a steeper track right okay so Right
13:36
heat heat
14:04
heat
14:25
heat
14:35
what
14:59
722 for 500
15:07
you were going even better there weren't you i was
15:13
I was like I was coming down going I don't think it's as good i don't think it's as good but then there were other
15:18
bits where I was like the grip there is amazing uh what I
15:24
noticed straight away was you were taking all straight lines
15:30
because you had confidence and I had to really work hard to
15:38
try and catch you back after the steep bit and cuz you got away and I was
15:46
definitely going quicker than last time you looked super comfortable felt
15:52
comfortable yeah so we haven't reached the limit yet have we
15:59
do you not do we get to a point though where you need a longer stem rather than a I got 50 mil stem are you comfortable
16:05
on it yeah that's fine uh
16:11
that's what that's what it's about isn't it so just done a full run and um we were
16:21
going to put a spacer under the stem get the front end up even higher cuz I
16:27
was rolled the bars forward and feeling more comfortable but we've actually we
16:33
didn't have the right bolts so we've gone with a different stem which has got a 10 mil rise in it and is 50 mil long
16:38
rather than 41.5 hope 41.5 so it's come slightly forward
16:44
but because there's more rise it will have come slightly back as well so it'll be like a halfway house on the stem
16:50
length um but definitely more coming up so it's
16:55
done 10 of that 10 of this but because we've done that
17:02
that angle roll the bars we've done full 10 here yeah and compared to where you
17:08
thought we'd be before we started riding well that's the thing you know what what we've had in mind of the things that we
17:14
test knowing you knowing the track and me being told by one of the lads at work
17:20
you know racetrack or it's the traverse mate that's where you're going to lose all your time so the things that we
17:27
thought we were going to do just melted once we
17:34
had contact with the reality of the situation once tires got on dirt it became obvious a few things became
17:41
obvious due to what you'd done with your shamperey setup
17:47
we reversed the shamperey setup and that
17:53
was such a good move with the bars and with the suspension and the rider space
17:58
and and the balance of the bike we thought we ain't finished yet let's
18:03
let's go further in that direction so now we ended up with bars that look
18:08
comedy rolled forward you know like literally they look complicated yeah yeah but the grip the grip and hand
18:17
angle is still really good you know it's still really good um and you're enjoying
18:22
riding it so until we get too far let's let's do it and and you're you
18:29
know looking a lot more comfortable straight away you're doing the things that you've been backing off from doing
18:34
yeah the last couple of runs down you've just sailed over them and your average
18:40
speed across that traverse has just become like I reckon that's solid now
18:46
that's not an that's not that's not a oneoff that's in there solidly that
18:51
speed across the traverse so now we can build on that looking for extra rolling
18:57
speed so for all all the tea in China I thought that by now I'd be back on the 40 mil rise bars I didn't think we'd be
19:04
sticking with those It's working it's working let's go and do another one yeah just one other thing
19:10
before we go so quite interestingly I have got a 60 mil
19:16
rise bar and a 10 mil r stem and before
19:22
we put this 10 mil rise stem on our buy We're not really level there are we our bar bites were pretty much the same yeah
19:30
so I've gone up now so if you're you're there yeah and so
19:36
it's about 10 mil difference no a bit more than that like now 20 or 30 but at the same time you know it's not
19:43
ridiculous for someone who's that much taller than me right
19:56
going on 20 seconds heat heat
20:53
i thought the bottom out Ah
21:14
heat
21:33
oh my god
21:51
come on
22:14
yeah
22:28
heat
22:47
heat
22:55
heat
23:02
what
23:18
are you doing
23:26
oh
23:48
heat heat
23:59
[Music]
24:09
heat heat
24:35
heat up here
24:54
heat heat
25:25
you would try it then would you yeah that was fast i think Yeah I think it's about
25:33
moved 10 seconds faster than we've run before yeah you were hauling so having a bit of
25:40
damping meant I could keep you in sight which meant that I had to work hard to
25:45
catch you which meant that I'm like in panting i'm the same I pushed so and
25:52
what's really interesting at the very fastest bits of the track
25:58
Yeah i'm catching you right and I think that's just rolling speed on the tire
26:04
right okay um the other place I'm catching you
26:09
uh is so I'm just trying to think so where we
26:16
stopped a couple of times and you go down you're in the tight turns in the woods yeah until
26:23
uh until your nemesis the corner and
26:29
there's a couple more after that isn't there but that section this seems to be
26:35
turning better than that now you had a good line on your
26:41
nemesis corner this time slowed right down and but I did I got I got high yeah
26:48
it was great yeah so I need to look some GoPro back and see where where I went because I didn't intentionally do
26:55
something yeah so my view of that if I
27:00
wanted to improve rolling speed anymore is I would be going to a harder rear
27:06
tire the only thing about that is you then be on this compound
27:13
which is kicking over all the roots so as long as you're set
27:18
it won't matter but if you're still making your mind up Yeah it was a It was
27:24
dicey on the Yeah yeah dicey but because I was picking straight lines
27:30
going "This is dicey." It's kind of catching you maybe you have too much
27:36
grip for those sections maybe put a bit more air in um are you feeling I tell you
27:44
what I did notice that wrong cuz I remember saying it on the GoPro bottom the front out right okay like it was a
27:51
big I mean Yeah you've done it yeah it was a bang you know it was right at the top as well
28:00
last run of the day and all we've done for this one is move the bars a bit
28:06
further forward yeah so nice nice steady steady push push on if you want to pedal
28:11
but you know it's about feeling what the bike's doing
28:44
come on
28:58
heat
29:06
oh
29:25
heat heat
29:48
heat
30:15
5 oh is that 512
30:25
so a bit squir squ squ squ squ squ squ squ squ squ squ squ squ squ squ squ squ squ squ squ squ squirly on I saw what was that did the front go as you were
30:32
going into that so where was that remind me I can't remember now I thought to ask
30:37
you there's a kicker in it got books on one of them tiredness I think there
30:44
it's not it's set up you reckon so
30:50
That's at the point where we'd move it back but we can double check it tomorrow
30:56
now day one done day two we survived Storm Lillian last
31:04
night bit of a wild night in the vans oh yeah up at 4:30 struggling with the pop
31:13
things's already in progress so
31:18
we didn't have a volume spacer for the forks cuz I bottomed the forks out on a run yesterday so so I just uh thought uh
31:26
we haven't got any volume spacers so put some oil in positive chamber like we used to do with the old um air springs
31:34
but completely forgot you can't do that with a negative positive volume system
31:42
and I've just blown a bit of extra oil into negative so I've just got to get it back out so um
31:49
normal service will be resumed in a few minutes
32:01
this is where you slow down from here no just this yeah I know so
32:10
have a try a couple of different lines
32:29
you ever actually looked at this i used to always go straight i always go
32:35
straight yeah it's It's a hell of a sump pout isn't it
32:41
yeah do you think it would be better just letting yourself run wide and then
32:47
coming back across cuz you've got a bit of something to land on here and it's not when you come
32:55
down here you've got a really big gank here before you take off
33:02
and it might be I've never even seen that line but yeah
33:08
if you come around cuz you've got something to land on there haven't you you'd have to You saying going around
33:14
there or no just just just this line yeah
33:37
that's still a sump out isn't it that line it is but I pulled up off it and
33:42
and it was smoother i didn't pull up off it i bottled it so
33:50
I'm going to try this slowly and see if I can get across
34:19
i don't think it worked anything no it was so slow to get across
34:26
bike still feeling good yeah bike feels great yeah I'll do a couple of clicks at high speed because we're on a straight
34:32
line and see if it gets gets you a bit more straight line
34:39
confidence so what how will that make it fail uh that that should make it sit up
34:45
momentarily so it'll still turn momentarily higher on the impacts which
34:53
should mean the front wheel shouldn't do this on the fast stuff okay straight it
34:59
should be a little bit more stable and this is an ideal place to test it
35:05
here cuz it's fast and straight all right
35:23
say again nearly cleared it i know and I didn't try that hard then
35:31
maybe cuz you were relaxed
35:39
so it felt better it felt better yeah i was just a bit nervous on it just to see how it felt yeah that felt great
35:46
excellent well let's try let's try that on the top section yeah try that on the
35:52
top section then we'll go back up and we'll do a run without shake all right yeah so warm up lap two clicks of high
35:59
speed compression halfway down what we're trying to do is at when when the rider weight settles so
36:07
in the BMS it'll come down to a fixed point which is the point where you know the spring supports the rider but for
36:16
momentary impacts like bump edges we can hold the rider up front or rear with a
36:23
bit more high-speed compression dampening so we can momentarily make the bike ride higher for a straight line to
36:30
keep that stability but we can allow it to settle because it's handling really
36:36
nicely in the BMS yeah perfect in the BMS yeah so we don't want to spoil that so we're just going to try a bit of high
36:42
speed and so far on the fast stuff it seemed to work quite well for George so let's try it at the top steady as she
36:49
goes brother
36:55
right are we all right starting on 35 go
37:27
heat
37:54
heat
39:08
it stopped the recording i heard it beep that's all right it's fine tell me about
39:14
that again it was it was quite fast going downhill there cuz I've been being I've been get
39:21
grabbed in your toe so I know what speed you're doing cuz I'm being pulled in
39:26
your toe and this time I couldn't quite get into your toe on the fast bit and so
39:34
I just really committed to that fast leftand turn went in wide cut in close let it drift and I just got
39:41
close enough to get your slipstream before those two hunts but then with the slingshot of your
39:47
slipstream I couldn't turn up into the jump so I was like straight down the fire road so we started that
39:53
run at 35 and we finished it i don't know how to get this back now it was at 5:42
40:02
3542 so that makes a 4 is that 510 57 I
40:08
think and what was yesterday 510 yeah something like that oh that was saying 507
40:15
went a little bit faster there and uh got booked on the small table
40:23
yeah felt good in the BMS so that answers our question it was
40:29
settling into the BM so you've still got your handling but it's holding you up a
40:34
tiny bit so tipping you forward so you're getting that bucking sensation
40:39
so if it's faster but it's now too high momentarily on the straight we'll lower
40:47
the spring and we'll we'll split the difference between the BMS
40:53
and um BMS and the uh straight the obstacle
40:59
so is that going back to where we were yesterday Mo no no no no no i'll just I'll just wind a little bit of that uh
41:05
preload because we've got a negative spring we can go backwards and forwards a little
41:10
bit cool the uh trying something a bit different this
41:16
time chainless run see how we go on that 1 minute 20 section across the top let's
41:23
do it
41:59
hell
42:07
oh
42:31
yeah obviously the start was a little bit slow yeah but when it started to
42:36
pick up the speed was really good and it was really lively over
42:42
Super Lively over the jumps wasn't it yeah felt amazing yeah uh until the GoPro turned itself off you nearly
42:49
cleared the jumps without pedaling for them you were the same distance normal
42:55
yeah yeah yeah that whole section but I don't think he pedal do I pedal for them normal no it felt great felt great be
43:04
interested to see obviously I'm going to struggle getting up this big one coming up of course let's see how we walk up
43:09
that's going to add a second or two it won't be for race runs will it
43:15
it feels amazing just some of the bits you just flowing it's like So what you can do is put a
43:22
neutral on so because you've got some cheap cassettes you can grind the 11 to off so
43:30
that the chain will go in both directions
43:50
went to pedal but no pedal so
43:58
Oh
44:12
line up
44:30
it's not better than I've done
44:53
oh what a failing night yeah it feels amazing that's why I made the neutral gear
45:01
okay so bike's feeling amazing and just going to wrap things up we're going to do a couple of runs down a couple of uh
45:09
different trails see how it feels on those
45:49
wa oh
46:13
a so much fun thank you Chris top two days yeah amazing that was
46:20
brilliant so tell us a little bit just to wrap up about how what we've done
46:25
these last two days would be different to if somebody was doing a bike setup with telemetry uh
46:33
well if you're doing a bike setup with telemetry you'll have certain data inputs into the
46:40
telemetry system you know it's going to be suspension travel and speed and it's
46:48
It's going to have a wheel speed sensor you could have extra sensors you know
46:53
brake pressure sensors all of these things um so you're collecting data from a very
47:00
very small set but what you're not connect not what what you're not collecting is the data
47:08
between the rider and the bike because there's no data on the rers's knee
47:15
position hip position shoulder position elbow position head position head angle
47:22
back angle it doesn't have any data on the rider
47:27
so it's only a it's a part of the picture
47:33
but you'll be trying to solve a problem that might simply be a rider position
47:39
problem with the other tools so you'll end up changing all the things that you've got
47:45
parameters for on this on the data logging system to solve a problem that
47:51
wouldn't have existed if the rider was in the right place and loading the bike in the correct manner and
47:58
you know the idea that there's a magic compression
48:04
speed versus rebound speed is well we've done that today we've used
48:13
the compression to temporarily hold you up on high speed and we've used the rebound against that to hold it down
48:21
when it rose too high in certain sections and if I if I then put that
48:27
into the data logger that's useful but we had to find it out first trying to
48:34
impose a balance on something we got you balanced first and then we jiggled about
48:43
with the bike so that we could keep the steering good the data logger doesn't care about the
48:48
steering i asked about the steering and we we the steering that feels incredible
48:54
yeah and so we we we focused on what we wanted to focus
49:00
on instead of what the data suggested that we do so yeah I think you know data
49:07
logging has its place but you know I' I'd be saying to you now you really
49:13
you've really enjoyed riding the bike for the last few oh yeah it's coming together now write the settings down
49:20
don't bother writing them down at the start because you start Well as soon as you write it down it becomes fixed in
49:26
your mind you know as soon as you capture that data and say you know I I
49:32
like the rebound at this speed versus the compression at this speed i like it to ride at this height and I like you
49:37
know it you might not if you put yourself in a more comfortable position
49:43
on the bike which is what that's essentially what we've worked on
49:49
in the last two days our ideas coming in
49:54
were really complex and many faceted we had lots of parts ready to bolt on and
50:02
try but after contact tires on the ground it became really clear that it
50:10
was a riding position thing that we needed to solve and let's face it you're a very tall bloke riding a bicycle that
50:19
a person of this height you know the wheels the person of this height would be riding a bicycle that would be just
50:25
this different sizewise so it's quite you know it was quite interesting
50:32
that what we thought we'd do all these clever things we ended up just working on so bringing the seat stay mutators
50:39
the chain stay mutators all those little bits and and the bike handled
50:44
lovely you know the handling of a bicycle is to a certain extent the seat stay mutters the chain stay mutators
50:51
bottom bracket height head angle all of these things
50:56
but it's nothing if you're not in the right place if you're hanging off the back or scared
51:02
to commit or or so far off the front that you can't you you you've got no
51:09
bandwidth to move backwards and forwards you can't drive the bike backwards and forwards then you you you're in no
51:17
position to make use of the handling so once we sorted the rider space
51:23
the handling is good it's perfect can't wait to do the Can't wait to do the rest of the season boom
51:30
hope you've enjoyed this uh special episode of the vlog and big thank you to Chris for the last two days it's been
51:35
awesome it It has actually it's been really good fun good fun backing down the same track it's like being a race
51:42
but without pressure boom