FORT WILLIAM WORLD CUP TESTING TECH AND GEAR CHECK | Finn Iles

I'm at Fort William. We just made it yesterday. I'm a bit jet-lagged, you know, but it's been pretty good trip so far I'm having fun seeing Loic again, and I already got kicked at FIFA really bad, but it's still a good Confidence going to the testing and full to the niner and it's gonna be exciting So stay tuned and watch the vlogs. Episode number five is coming in. Wow, that was really good It was the wrong episode, but it's pretty cool. Hey guys We're here in Fort William right now doing a little bit of pre-world Cup testing In this vlog I'm going to show you what we do when we're Testing and the procedures we use as well as all the gear that I use when I'm riding So a lot of you guys have been asking me on Instagram and on YouTube About like the gear that I use when I'm riding So right now I'm just gonna give you a basic rundown of all the gear that I use when I'm riding And we're gonna go from the bottom to the top. So we're gonna start with my shoes. So the shoes that I ride in These are the specialized 2fo cleats You can see on the bottom that I run Crankbrothers cleats and I use the mallet DH pedals With my cleats I normally put them in the front holes and then slam them all the way to the back So that I get more of a middle feel and that gives me the best feeling Moving up for my shoes. We will go to my knee pads. These are the Fox launch pros knee pads d3o with the Added slide plate if you hit your knee and then they like hit the ground these will allow it to slide and that way you won't Be like jamming anything and you get more safer that way and then These are my pants flex their pants. I run a 32. These are the new ones they're kind of like a hatch like a Old-school throwback with the old-school Fox logo here and the zebra. We've got a little butt patch It's sort of like an inside joke from the team It's like do you want a coffee and it's a thing that Kevin says when anybody does anything stupid It's like a two buck FA like oh you want a coffee And moving on from there, this is my chest protector This is called the race frame I've had this one for a little while. It's got the d3o back and then the hard front. So it's got you cover on both ends And then going from there These are the elbow pads I run. They're the enduro pro model Their slip on they have an elastic band at the top like this and they got a little bit of grip in there So they never slide down. I run mediums I just like these because it gives me a little bit more protection if I fall like it's got a little bit of a slide And more abrasions and stuff so I don't like rip my elbow up if I fall over And like a corner or something like that and it's just nice to give me a little bit more confidence And then I run the flex air jersey in a medium. It's a little bit tighter, but it's a bit more aerodynamic I mean, it doesn't make that much of a difference but every 100th of a second counts in our sport right now. This one's also the new one for Fort William It's like a throwback jersey with the old Fox logo Yeah, it's got the little bit of a stretchier sleeve It's like a different fabric and then the mesh middle for breathability. And yeah, this is the new jerseys pretty awesome. I Like this kid a lot zebra pants and a white jersey and then going up from there to my hands These are the flex air slip-on gloves. I don't run these all the time, but lately I've been really into them So I've been wearing them like them. I like the feel on the palm. I wear a large XL glove what double XL glove you know what they say about big hands big gloves. Don't put that part in that's definitely going in So from there, we're gonna move up to the head. The first thing that I'll go over is the Fox view goggles Right now I got the clear lenses on it's a bit. I don't know not sunny outside So this just gives me the best vision and then I have the new RPC rampage pro carbon This is new to this year with the Red Bull paint job Name on the back painted by paint house customs pretty awesome got the new Fluid inside technology really safe and then I run an XL helmet with large tee pads I got a big-ass head a lot of hair. You know what they say about big heads The thick skull big brains big brains not yeah that one So that's a basic rundown of all the protective gear that I use from day to day every single time I go ride downhill. This is the stuff that I use and I hope that you guys out there also use an armor Stay safe, baby I'm telling you man, if you move to Victoria for winter, I'll take care of ya So we're gonna get out in some runs today go to a few laps of the track Do a few laps on the data bike and just see comparing like 29 or 27.5 and just see what's faster and then whatever we figure out we're gonna apply to the weekend coming up and apply to the World Cup Okay, so here With the data bike for Finn we've been testing today on the on the World Cup track in Paulian So I'm gonna explain you a little bit how the bike works and how we're getting information through that little thing so so basically we have like a data logger over there and after we have few sensor on the bike which Measure different things. So we we have right there like the shocks travel we have there the forks travel Here and on the back is like speed sensor So we kind of know what speed and when he's getting this speed from every part in the track So here is the speed sensor so you have one in the front one in the back Right there you have GPS Here it's like a trigger so anytime we want to do like split or information point Finn just have to press on that and give me a cross on all my On my computer and I can notice where it is So it could be like something good or something wrong if the bike react good or not we can have that information through that point and you we use them so that for split time, so which is interesting and And yeah, that's basically what we get so through this we can pretty much know exactly how the bike react on a track So that doesn't mean the computer told us How to set up the bike but the computer told us that the bike is actually working like this. So it's really important to compare that information with Finn's feeling and after that we just compare timing we compare different setup and Also through that I can exactly know where are we on the balance of the bike, which is really important So can you know if it's diving too much or too much on the back? So we're gonna go for a few more runs and let you know so we've just sort of finished up the third run and Kevin and I are starting to get into like the testing group figuring out what Suspension setup whether the bikes being dynamic or whether it's sticking to the ground too much in certain sections of the track When Kevin uploads it onto his computer it tells him and tells me like a certain section that I could be faster if the bike was working well, or if it was working terribly and we'll go in and look at that and see how the bikes working through the graphs that Kevin has and then we'll adjust the suspension to make it more dynamic or Less dynamic so that I could get more grip or if I'm able to sort of bounce through a section and carry more speed So yeah, we just record that little Clip so pretty much. It's like the timing and the travel of the suspension. So through that I kind of know exactly At this point we've been using that much travel and we can know how to react like compression and rebound the fork So yeah to me I want to try something different I want to make the back end reacting differently So I got a change few set up through what I saw on the data and let's see if it's good or not So we just finished up five runs today. I was gonna do a few more but I Came down after my last one and just fell asleep on the floor of the pit right beside my helmet there Kevin Is dismantling my rear end Now he's taking apart the The swing arm the rear end of my bike to swap it out for a larger longer swing arm and That way we can run a 29er in the front and a 29er in the back And we're gonna test out a few things on that Fort William is sort of the ideal track for the 29er We're gonna try and compare between the 29er and the 29er and 27.5 Just to see what kind of times we come out with and what kind of feeling I get from the bike If I feel better on the 29er I might race the 29er and if I feel better on the 29 in the front 650 in the back I will probably end up racing that because that's what I've been comfortable with all year and what we've been testing with but we'll see what this weekend brings and We'll know by Monday So we tried a few things this week But we're deciding to stick with the 29er front with 27.5 in the back Because it's what we know and we know the limits of the bike and we're gonna stick with that and that's what I have the most confidence on