Trying to Justify a 41lb non-eMTB, and How to Win Your Local DH League - The Pinkbike Podcast

This feels long, this intro feels really long. Yeah. Our first ever vodcast straight from our hovels. Welcome. Kaz, I hope you've got some incendiary literature popped up on that bookcase. Yeah, welcome to the first ever vodcast. And we'll be going, this is how we'll be doing them from now on. So you can watch it on the Pinkbike homepage, on YouTube, whatever the hell you want. You're working out, we're all adults here. But let's just get into it and carry on as business as normal. Kaz, as we go into this video world, can you explain to people why if we're wearing a branded t-shirt one episode, it's not a big deal? Because that's one of the main worries that I have about going to vodcast. It's true. People should realize that most of, pretty much all of us here, our entire wardrobe consists of free t-shirts that we've gotten from various places over the years in the bike industry. So if I happen to wear a specialized t-shirt, it doesn't mean I'm endorsing specialized. But I'm going to try not to. We're all going to try not to. And I've also recently started just buying like black, unbranded clothing. You can endorse Arizona if you want. You can endorse Phoenix. Oh, look at that. Look at that. There we go. Yeah. So we're going to try it. But now that the video is on, it's something we have to consider. So yeah, that's just a little behind the scenes. All of us only have t-shirts from the bike industry. But you know what? It's not even the, and maybe this is going off on a tangent early on. It's not even the viewers that I'm worried about. It's the people in the bike industry seeing this and writing to Brian being like. Why didn't you wear my t-shirt? Yeah. Why didn't you wear my free t-shirt? Yeah. So now we have this. And yeah, I did find some nice black t-shirts recently that I'm excited about. So no look. Oh, nice. Yeah. Oh, gotcha. Steve Jobs soon. So Kaz, today I saw actually went up your review on the new Trek Top Fuel. Yes. I'm going to do something with technology. I'm going to share this screen and we're going to go into it. Wow. Smell it. Oh my God. Oh, there he is. That's me. So Kaz, talk us through this Trek Top Fuel. The 9.9 XX AXS. Are they kidding me? Yeah. That's what the heck of a name. Yeah. Scroll down more so we can see the picture of it. There you go. Wow. Pretty. Yeah. I mean, it's a lot like the last version that you, I think you tested the last version at the Fuel Test in Pemberton. So basically you just, it's not even really slacker. It just has 130 millimeter fork now. They improved a couple little things. Chainstays are a bit longer, a little taller. Head tube length. Still got knock block. No more knock block. So there's that. No way. Yeah. You can do bar spins now. And then the flip chip on there, it allows for more adjustments. So it has, you can adjust the shock progression as well as the high and low geometry settings. And you can also make it, if you want it, you can go 130, 140. You wouldn't be able to do that on a knock block. This is a knock block freezer. Filing that little air chair rod now. Yeah, that's sick. I'm fancy. Yeah, man. Yeah. It's a good bike. Does it, is it still a down country bike, would you say? Has that term died? Does it need to die? I think it needs to die. And I kind of get into that in the review. Basically saying this is just a short travel trail bike. And that is one of the things we've over the last few weeks, having all these other field test articles come out. People are not confused, but they really do want to kind of debate the nuances of what different, uh, what different category terms mean, you know, like what exactly is a trail bike? What is a blah, blah, blah. But this bike, I would just call this a short travel trail bike, like 120 mil rear 130 front. It's for doing trails up and down. It's not trying to be an Enduro bike. I've only ridden it in its stock setting, but had a day on it and it definitely felt like a pointy bike, but it seems like you can turn it into something pretty capable. Yeah. I mean, I'd say it's pretty capable, like a 65, five head angle with a one 30 fork is pretty good. Like that's yeah. I think it's 120, 120 mils of travel. So yeah, you're not going to like go hucking huge things, but I think for lots of people around the world, like this is a really good bike for sure. Yeah. And so, you know, with the old bike, it felt like it was very, yeah, very damped, very pointy. It was a bike that I remember saying from that field test that if there was going to be one bike, we would. Race across country rates on, I would choose that over the element, for instance, another standout of that sort of 2021, 22 group that has it lost a bit of that character. Would you say? Yeah, maybe a little bit like you could put a one 20 fork on it again, like, and then it would be kind of back to the way it used to be. But now it's definitely edging more into the, even though like the tires and wheels that come on are a little bit heavier. So I'd say it's not quite the bike I would grab for a cross country race. Yeah. Maybe like a big, long epic. Like if it was like a marathon, like 50 miles, a hundred mile race kind of thing, we're just going forever on, you know, wide range of trails, but for just a straight up cross country race, it's a little bit too heavy and not quite pointy enough for that, but they're not really positioning as that. It's just the name that people remember. You know, your top fuel, you think of like the crazy one with the seat mass and those super steep, super light bikes, but it's not that bike anymore. So I think if people just kind of realize that, oh, the bike has changed, you forget the name, forget the model name. And then this is just the, you know, a bike that's for right on trails. It's a really good, good bike at that. Didn't some of their XC racers use it in a couple of rounds this year? A couple of rounds. Yeah. Like I'm not saying, and some of them had them, they just replaced the, um, the down tube storage little box with a, basically like a blanking plate to save some weight. And they used a one 24. But even then, like that bike is still going to be heavier than some than a flex day, but you know, it'd be heavier than the app or Bay or anything like that. So that's. I feel like eventually we'll probably just see them release a dedicated cross country bike that looks like all the other cross country bikes out there. Yeah. Um, something that came up in field test actually was I referred to the Troy as a single pivot lock, which I consider it to be, but actually it's a split pivot. Do you think split pivot has credence? Or do you think it is? Cause I think it's kind of like, I mean, it's the same again with this. Yeah. It would change some factors as far as like break influence on the bike. But, um, yeah, I mean, I think split pivot, I don't know, split pivot, but like single pivot, when people hear that, I think they think that, and it's not the case. So I think it's almost like very much like on unadulterated single pivot, like a star. Yeah. So this bike, and this bike has tracks ABP system, which is very similar to the split pivot, where it's a, you know, um, uh, pivot around the rear axle, but yeah, it works great. Um, yeah, like it's, it feels really good under bigger impacts and under breaking and all that. So yeah, I'm a, I'm a fan of this bike. Like, you know, I kind of addressed that it came with brakes that are underpowered and there's some other things that are changed and this was a really fancy version, which is the one I would recommend. I think you can save $3,000 by going to the cable actuated version. Like if you go for seven grand, which is seven grand, still a lot of money, but you can get the XTR version with the same high suspension. And so that's one of the like weird carbon cockpit and stuff. Yeah. I think it's got everything. It just doesn't have the, um, doesn't have the wireless dropper post and the wireless drive train and stuff. So it's like such a huge price range. Yeah. $3,000 and just, well, yeah. Would this, would this have been your show and tell this week or did I beat you to it? Um, I could, let's go ahead and show and tell maybe we'll start. If you guys do your, do your show and tell us, I could maybe think of something else I've been testing. Oh yeah. I have a, I have a different show and tell, but you can come back to me. Dario, what would, what have you got in the, in the fire this week? I'm kind of quiet right now. I have things that I can't talk about that I have show and tell, but I mean, you did your show and tell of your staff ride. Oh yeah. I could do that. Uh, I had my staff ride up for my frameworks, enduro bike on the site a couple of days ago and just walked through all the little bits and bobs that I'm running right now. Uh, that bike is great. I don't care that it weighs too much. It makes me happy. Would you be happier if it was like, it does weigh a lot. What was that? If it was like, say it was 35 pounds, would you be happier? Everything else is the same, but somehow it was like, you know, if I'd also be happier if I. Had other mystical properties. It's 41 pounds. Yeah. What the **** have you done? Holy smokes. And I like, I don't, I'm, I'm into it, but Jesus. Focus. Where is it? I'm not adding superfluous weight anywhere. Like it's got like the only thing I could do to change the weight and not affect the performance immediately would be carbon cranks and carbon bars. So where is the weight then? Well, the frame is really heavy just because it's like super thick tubing that they use for the prototype. But it definitely weighs a lot. I will say, cause like Niko's production. Enduro bike, the one that he had, like he built up himself, which looks pretty similar to this. I think weighs like 36 pounds. So there's some meat in there somewhere. I don't know if the tube, these are solid tubes. It's there's nothing. They're not actually olive. Yeah. I mean, you are running a really heavy tire too, but yeah. So it's got a multi-tool in the bottom. It's a tungsten multi-tool. I mean, like I like, I, you know, for me, my trail bikes, like enduro bikes, maybe 38 pounds. And that's, I would say it's quite poorly, but I don't know where it's gone. I don't, I don't have answers, but I, all I, all I'm saying is it rides well. Like I went on a nice long ride on it yesterday. It didn't feel like it was weighing me down. Wow. At least you have a titanium bottle cage. No, that's a steel one. Don't worry. I didn't agree to that. Dario, are you running the electronic shock with no battery? That's correct. That's the move, man. I like the tune in that shock. I would be happy if it were not electronic just because I don't, I'm obviously not using that element of it, but you get, you know, you run with your brung. Yeah. I mean, you could just get that. You could just get a DHX two with that tune. Right. And then you're the same thing. I just, yeah. It would just be a DHX with that tune, but I, I have this shock. So yeah. Yeah. It's doing the job. Nice. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I mean that I think people misconstrue me having a bike that I like as me telling them what they should run and it's not, you know, build your bike, however you want, make it 22 pounds and ride like shit. I don't care. I like this bike and it's never failed. Like I have beat the crap out of this bike for the past year. It has never left me stranded because I'm only ever making the decision for like what, what rides well and what lasts with the occasional deviation into some test parts. But like it is reliable. You have, Dario, you have a gift for making bike looks, bikes look awful. And I'm just going to share the screen again. Cause I, I think when it comes to sartorial elegance and matters of like fashion and et cetera, I bow down to you in every regard. Like I like, I like the way you dress. I like all your, your, your kind of accessorizing in your bikes, but some, where is it? What's wrong with this bike? It's just performance dog. It works. Performance dog. Jesus. Are there some, this, this, I'm actually, I'm so into pointing at his finger as well as the mouse with one hand, I'm mousing it with the other hand. I'm just pointing. It flattened my cockpit in a weird way. Like I shot that photo from too far away, I think. Okay. Well, yesterday we were riding with someone that used to work at Kona and they were saying that they had spent a long time and they worked hard to make bikes, not look like this bike. Like he said, you don't know the blood, sweat and tears that went into, into moving the industry away from that aesthetic. And I'm not like, I didn't choose this bike because of its aesthetics. I chose it because I liked the way it rides. So the stinky sticker that you put on there doesn't enhance it. Well, it's an homage to what it looks like, you know? Yeah, that's good. I like, yeah. Wow. That's honestly, it's a vibe. I mean, yeah, it goes well. It does go well. We've ridden it, I suppose. Yeah, I've ridden that bike. In my defense, I think for the untrained eye, it looks so rough that it has a lower, uh, scalability. Yeah, you can leave that unlocked and someone's just like, oh, there's just a homeless guy hanging out. He'll probably come back and there'll be two, you know? Yeah. Okay. Well, you know what, Dario? Good for you. I mean, obviously this is a very desirable bike and it's very cool, et cetera, et cetera. There's just something about the angles which seem to be fighting against each other. Well, an 81 degree seat tube angle, I think cannot look good. It's just too, it's right in the middle of the bike and it really just throws the balance off. Here's a question. What looks better, a bike with an 81 degree seat tube angle and a flat saddle or a bike with a 78 degree seat tube angle and the saddle pointing at the bottom bracket? Probably the former. I think that this looks better than one of my bikes with like the fucked up nose down saddle, but you know, again, it performs very well. What are you going to do? I know we spoke about it before, but me and you have argued about the saddle thing so much. For the record, your bike, whatever's comfortable for you is what's good. I love the fact that someone in the comments was like, Dario's logic is like the same logic as wearing high heels to go uphill. I thought it was so good. I mean, like I wouldn't, it's like, but if the heel would have to be like pointed backwards to then compensate for the angle of the hill, you know, there's more thought than just high heels. To be fair, when you go skiing. Yeah, I was going to say. Yeah, hill uppers. Like you have like a heel stack. Yeah. Okay. Have you done any skiing yet this year, Kaz? I haven't, no. Probably this next weekend. Hopefully if it doesn't rain too much, but yeah. You coming up Whistler? No, it costs $5,000 to go there. It does cost $5,000. I'm just going to go hiking for free. Dude, I suck at skiing. I thought I was a god. Then found out every time I ski with someone, because I'm just a beginner, right? So my ceiling of what thinking good skiing is, is incredibly low. And then I ski with someone that is actually good. I'm like, oh my God. It is crazy. I'm so scared. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it happens. Right. My show and tell is something a bit different. This is what I've been messing around with all weekend. Where is it? That looks like a video game. And still have not had all of the, so I'm trying to get my internet working. I still basically don't have all the adapters to make it work properly. Sweet. Oh yeah. The Anso suspension. Whoa, look at that thing. I've got a vacuum bleeder in my house and I've just been taking apart so many shocks and just pulling out rebound shims. And I can't put them back together because I haven't got the right thing yet. But I am so excited. Eventually you can reassemble them. Eventually I'll have a bike that works. But yeah. So this is what I've got. How much do they charge for that vacuum bleeder? If I can find it. It's actually, it's not too bad. I think. Yeah, maybe it's just like a bleep machine. Bleep machine. So I've just got the, yeah. And yeah, honestly. I'm so excited. It looks like a nitrous tank. I feel like you could do other, like you could go to raves and stuff for this thing. Do you want to start? I'm going to go snorkeling. It's a jet pack. You can like power yourself. Yeah. But honestly, I'm really excited. For me at least, maybe because of the familiarity I have with it. You know, you see some people have amazing setup and they hand bleed stuff really fast, but it uses up so much oil. And to me, it's like the messy time consuming part. The actual taking shocks apart and swapping out shims doesn't take very long at all. So now that I've got this, I'm free. I'm so excited. That is sweet. I hate hand bleeding shocks. Yeah. Have you, did you try the BYB kit, Dario? Has your life changed? No. Yes and no. I would like to, sorry, I should formulate my thoughts better. I want to spend more time with the data and like understand a bit better the raw outputs versus their algorithm that kind of spits out some recommendations. Just because it seems like you run into walls with their recommendation very quickly in terms of the parameters built into stock suspension. Explain for the listener what exactly we're talking about when you talk about the suggestions. I borrowed the BYB telemetry kit from Henry and mounted it to a bike of mine. And you run through multiple laps of ideally the same track, kind of honing in on settings. And with each run, you can ask the system to give you recommendations on what to change to maximize its intended goal, which to me seems like grip. It seems like the BYB system is maximizing grip above all else. And it is very good at that. It's nice, isn't it? It's really good at making grip. But then you start to trade off some of the other things in service of it. No, that's untrue. It's only good. But you'll rail a flat corner. And I now understand why you can shralp so well. It is weird. I don't know what with the setup maximizes that, but you can shralp any corner you want with the full rebound, no compression, lighter spring. It's because you've got grip. It's easier to lose grip when you have it. When you're searching for it, you can't then just give it away for a second and bring it back, I think. I can see that, yeah. But I liked elements of what it was giving me. The chassis instability that I ended up with was not something I would run all the time. Do you find the chassis was more unstable with it? Well, with the settings? With what BYB was pushing me towards, yes. It was especially just getting front-rear balance to feel even. That was a hard thing to achieve without just relying on body position. But I can see if you're using it for downhill, you're on one course, you know the holes, you know where you're going to be transferring weight and breaking and all that. I could see it being a really successful line of thought. But I tend more towards find a happy setup that tends to work for a wide range, where I can throw it into a hole not knowing what's going to happen, and it kind of helps me out a bit. I will say, I was surprised at how close my stock setup was to what it wanted. It was just like... Rebound quicker, eh? Rebound quicker and slightly softer fork was really the end result, at least for stock suspension. Yeah, I think maybe I've sort of, you know, I like the way I discuss things, because for me, it's not trying to present something as untrue, but the way I talk about stuff, especially conversationally, is, oh man, I have five psi in the fork and I give a hell. My fork isn't actually that soft, but often I talk about having a really soft, fast setup. It is really fast, but it's not. Your fork settings and mine are almost the same, pressure-wise. Yeah, I think it's totally right. I mean, it's interesting. I would love to spend some time with you on it, because I think that I think it was a blessing in that when I was using the system, the algorithm that spits out was basically more compression, less compression, more rebound, less rebound, or more spring, less spring, and it'll tell you kind of where you are in the stroke. But now it basically is broken down to high and low speed, and I think that's kind of, in a way, more of a head ****, because for me, I'd basically get my compression speeds about right, and then I would just tune the outlier, whereas, you know, and that would kind of really be it. Like, and that's with certain forks being able to, especially in the high speed, because what I've kind of coupled on is that I actually like high speed rebound damping. I don't like low speed rebound damping. I want it to be as fast as possible at the initial part of the stroke. And I think sometimes it's having, being armed with loads of information, and an algorithm, algorithm, sorry, is kind of more overwhelming than just being able to spot one number on a graph and go, oh, let's get that out of the way, you know, let's dial that back in. Yeah, when I spent a day just testing with Enrico, who's the guy that sort of really came up with this system, he just goes off the numbers, and he says, like, this is the band of acceptability we want it in. And he really thinks that suspension should be, and I've spoken to some other World Cup techs that say the same, that, you know, axles should be equal. You know, which is really kind of interesting thought the way that a bike, you know, bikes don't use the track. One is a multiplied, you know, a big lever on a short stroke, and one's on a one-to-one ratio. So it's kind of, I find that quite, I don't necessarily agree with that. I think the speed should be the same, but I think the sag should be, the dynamic sag should be slightly different. Yeah, well, even speeds, like looking at the raw data on my outputs, maxed rebound per their recommendation, I was at like two-thirds rear axle speed to front. You know, the front was always moving a bit faster than the rear. Yeah, which makes sense, like you're hitting the impact, like you're hitting bumps front first with the front, obviously, and like the way your weight is and stuff, it'd be, so like if you're trying to get exactly the same, that'd be pretty strange with your, the way the balance would be. I would also think it depends a lot on like, I mean, not a lot, but it depends some on the linkage that the bike is using, like the amount of, let's just say, mechanical involvement between the axle and the shock probably plays some role in that output speed if you're maximizing it just as a spring, like damping aside. But I don't know, it'll be cool to play with more. I'm definitely curious. Maybe you could achieve your parallel axle speeds with that crazy seat height pivot parallel wheel travel bike that we had on the site this weekend. Let's get that up. What is, that's a bit rich for me, Vicka. I mean, there's a lot going on there. It's not necessarily the goal that I'd... This is the one you're talking about, right? Oh yeah, that one has the one. That's all the rebound speed. That guy, yeah. Telepathy. It looks, it's a lot. So the idea with this is that your rear wheel axle path is identical or close to your front wheels. So it'll mimic the fork travel vis-a-vis head angle that your bike... It's like the structure bikes, like if you put a linkage fork in the front, that's kind of what they're trying to do. Right. Have you ever had your hips, where my cursor is, get stuck between a rear wheel and a seat? Yeah, but only in like an involves crash. Oh my goodness. There's a lot going on. His bike probably weighs about the same as yours, Dario. Maybe, but these are going to go production. He's going to start selling them next year. Oh, good for him. Wow. I would really like to ride one. Yeah, check it out. What's his name? I've... Mr. Telepathy, let it be known. Yeah. I'm curious. I think, and this is only my two cents. I think in most instances, rear axle paths are not as... They make sense on paper. I don't think they work in the real world. Because what happens, at least for me, is when you brake, you feel that you can actually kind of leave the wheel and your body can leave it behind. And I don't like that feeling on the entrance to corners. I think there's some people that have got it really good. But it's kind of like, I think that there is a point where it stops being rearward and it starts being vertical and forward. And then so there's like no hang up. It's like, not always the case, it just hangs up later. I've seen that like years ago. I think Canfield, one of their Jedi downhill bikes had super rearward axle path. And some of them, yeah, just can kind of feel strange because the bike is just growing on you. I think it's nice to have a little bit of rearward, depending on the bike's intentions, the rearward and then it ends up going forward can be nice. But yeah, if it just keeps getting longer and longer, you just, you can kind of feel lost. I think that's one thing that, one reason the Druid was so good. And I think we're seeing this with other brands sometimes is that on the shorter platform, on the shorter travel platform, it's not like there's less to go wrong, but it means there's not so much, you know what I mean? The packaging is easier. Less dynamic. There's going to be less weirdness happening. Yeah. So like the Dreadnought could feel a little strange. I haven't ridden the most current version, but the one before I struggled a little bit with because that chain stays were already long and then just kept getting longer. So if you're in kind of like a medium speed, tighter trail, it could just feel like the bike was just, there's so much bike to deal with, which could be, you know, certain tracks would be fun, but if you're everyday riding, you're just like, this is an actual boat. So that Kona I had at the start, not Kona, sorry, Nollie I had at the start of the year. If you actually look at the axle path, it's like, let's get it up. Basically I'm trying to do, I feel like I'm my own secretary right now. I'm trying to do too much and my little brain can't handle it. I'm typing, I'm talking, but I found, and you kind of see it where, when you look at the bike, but you can imagine, you know, the way that the links work in gear is that it can really only go, it's very forward almost axle path, vertical to forward. And it was so consistent. And to be fair, like it did have issues with hanging up in the stroke, but actually for quite a big bike, it felt just compact. And the more you loaded up the bike, the sort of more, you know, when you're going really fast in a straight line, you want to just let off the brakes, you know, to 29 or 100 centimeter travel, it can handle it. But in the short stuff where you wanted to lose some of that sort of, some of that gangliness. Yeah. It felt a lot more compact. And I think this is, I think this system, although not completely the same, is the most comparable in terms of feeling to that specialized demo. I remember you saying that. Yeah. Peaked my interest. I think that the axle path on this, well, there's something to do with the brake when you're really hard on the brakes. It can hang up in a very unfavorable way. And you do a lot of wheels. I mean, you can actually see here, this is a brand new downhill tire. I put a massive plug in it because the first one I just, and the rim was battered by the end of it. And so you do really go through the bike a lot. But yeah, in terms of like the neutral feet, really comfy, amazing small bump. And you can really, like lots of grip in certain situations. And yeah, that's what immediately when I read the demo, I was like, I've had this feeling before. Where is it from? And I was trying to like work out. And yeah, it was, I would say it's this, which it isn't dissimilar, basically both of a four bar driving a shock externally to those four bars. So I don't know. Yeah. Hey, my two cents anyway. Um, Kaz, what would be your show and tell now? We're finally there after only 28 minutes of waffle. Yeah. Yeah. I have a couple of things I could just do. We'll do a really simple one because I have it right here. It's just a helmet. Look, I can't even see it. It's a Mavic helmet. It says DMACC. You've done this again. No, did I do it again? I'm just, my brain. Oh no. Yeah. Delete this. Mr. Editor, delete this. I got a different one. Is that another helmet to your other side? I have like so many helmets in for testing now. I even have ones that are like embargoed helmets that I can't talk about. Yeah. Sorry. We can delete this or I can just. Well, no, we're going to leave it in. Yeah. I have the new Vorsprung Telum shock. Yeah. Cool. Which is cool. And I have, how many rides? Maybe like four rides in so far. So it's still pretty early, but it's cool. Like there's the way that they do it is, it's pretty neat. You give them all your information as you'd expect for like a high-end suspension component. Like you give them your information and they send it tuned for your bike and for your riding style. And it's kind of interesting. I have like a little back and forth with the, yeah, back and forth with a guy that'd be like building the shock. He's like, Hey, like you wrote this down. Do you think you might be this? Cause you, you kind of rate yourself for your like aggressiveness level, your, your riding level and stuff. So we kind of a little back and forth and they sent it out. And then the idea is that you just get it, put it on your bike and ride. Like you shouldn't, or ideally they don't want you to have to touch any dials right away. So it's kind of just designed so you can just ride it. And I would say they've got a pretty good, like the base tune that comes on it, or the base setup for mine. Were you a reliable narrator though? Because I think we struggle with this in mountain biking sometimes. And I think that's why the guy had, he kind of like asked me, cause I think, I think I rated my, I don't even know. Like he thought I might be a little bit more aggressive than I was saying, or like, I might want a different sag, but we had just like a, it was a nice, just like easy conversation. But isn't that interesting though? Because I think it's, what's that curve? I know it's not the Hans Gruber cause that's the guy that was in. I don't know, it's the Dunning-Kruger. The Dunning-Kruger, not the Hatchbike. Which one was put on top of the Nakatomi Plaza? It's interesting because when you get a bit more experienced, I think you actually then tip over and you rate your skills. We used to get it with guiding. You'd ask people to rate themselves and then always the people that put themselves in the highest level were actually mid-pack and the people that put themselves mid-pack. Yeah, so I got a little bit of like that from them. It wasn't a big deal. But yeah, I think, I mean, I can't remember how I rated myself. One of the cool things about this shock too, that's maybe besides the typical consumer's experience with it, but is the rapid revalve thing they're incorporating. So you can retune the shock as if you were changing the shim stack via an external adjustment that required a special tool, but you don't have to pull the shock apart. So you don't need your fancy vacuum bleeder, Henry. I need to dig more into seeing how it's doing it. Like it does seem like it's probably just preloading something, but I need to look at some more, get them to send me some pictures of what's happening inside there. Because yeah, basically you kind of unlock this. I don't know if you have the picture on there, but either you undo one little spot. I mean, it kind of like lets you turn a dial that can increase or decrease the settings. You can kind of re, you can go back into their little settings calculator and reconfigure it. So say something changed. Yeah, but say something changed. Like if you wanted to, you know, if you gained a bunch of weight or you're going to ride more aggressive or are coming off an injury, you want it to be a little less aggressive. Or swapping bikes, right? Like you could retune it to a different kinematic. Yeah, but as long as it has the same dimensions. But yeah, so far it seems really cool. It's really quiet, which I like. I don't like shocks that feel like, you know, sound like they're sucking a milkshake through a straw. So super quiet. I kind of like that. Makes me feel like I'm in a rally car. Yeah, I know it's supposed to be, but I've never had a rally car. Like I don't know, I can dream. Yeah, yeah. Well, Mike, you're getting one step closer. Yeah, yeah. That could be another show and tell a different time. Um, is the name like, is it to tell them? No, it's a, I, cause I misspelled it when I first wrote this shock up around sea otter time. I put two L's on accident because I thought it was like, tell them it's good or whatever. But no, it's the, tell them it was like some Roman sword. Oh my God. Steer or something. Yeah. Just don't go mountain biking naming conventions. Don't go into antiquity. Don't do it. Yeah. It's always too much. I thought it was like, because Wolfsbunker kind of that sort of disruptive force in terms of that no bullshit, which I quite admire. Me too. I thought it was like, tell them to do it properly. Like it works for that. That could be how it is. Yeah. That was what I, I went back and told Steve, I was like, I thought it was this because maybe it should be this, but yeah, I respect the name, you know, whatever Spears or something, but yeah, first impressions are it's, it's working great. I'm excited to kind of like force a retune on it just to see what the other option would be like, how, how that goes. It's interesting too. If you do to retune it, you have to pass a little quiz on their website. It's kind of like a, like a training module. You have to take it so that you can unlock the instructions. I do like that. I mean, it's smart. It feels like Vosprung got big enough HR department who need to justify their jobs. We can also put HR on the quiz here. Yeah. But I mean, you know, at the end of the day, it's a coil shock, pretty simple, really. Yeah. Manufactured in Kamloops, I think is where a bunch of it's made. So yeah, really neat little story. It's cool to see them expanding what they make. Amazing. Yeah. I'll have a review in the next, in the future. Good on them. I'm pretty sure that's one full loop of show and tells. Yeah. I'm going to remember not to do that helmet next time. I got it. Helmet reviews. Yeah, I know. I think, you know how we don't review stems because it's just nuts. Yeah. I think, I don't think you should review helmets and hit me up. I think it's more just like a features check. Fit and features, you can't be like, it works. It's so subjective. Yeah. It's really how it holds sunglasses. That's all I'm telling people. Like, if you look at my helmet reviews, that's the part. That's all I care about. Dude. And you're there just like, oh man, trying to like wax lyrical. They're not. I try not to like, you're not going to read 6,000 words in a helmet for me. They're pretty good point. Yeah. Especially like, I don't know those three quarter helmets, which I don't think are necessarily awful as a general thing. I think three quarter season now. It's just keeps my ears warm. It is three quarter season. I've still never tried one of those. You should try one when it's cool. Oh, Dario, you would look at my treasure. Oh, I'd get good on your bike too. I might have a spare one I could find for you. All right. They do have, they often rank in the Gimli factor. How much you look like a Dwarven soldier going into battle. Yeah. Would you tell him? Well, I think the piss pot is in right now. So maybe that's the future. No, I can't come back. I don't like that at all. Braga has been wearing a piss pot exclusively. That's fine for him, but I don't know. I know, but he's going to be the, like, you know, there's going to be like 5,000 kids who start wearing piss pots because he's wearing one. Maybe. I don't know. I can't believe that people in skiing don't always wear helmets. It's crazy, right? What are you talking about? The snow is so soft, Henry, and trees aren't there. Honestly? No, it blows my mind. It's like, especially early season, you're just skiing along on like, you know, when they open up new chairs and stuff. Rocks covered in dust. And yeah, and you just see like this black, like speck flash past beneath your skis and you're like, I could have died. Like that could have been me done pretty much, you know? Wild. But hey, sailor V, whatever, you know, whatever they want. Recommend helmets for all sports, basically. Yeah. Um, we're going to answer some questions. We've got two. And also with our questions, they don't just have to be, um, the consumer stuff. It doesn't have to be, should I sell my enduro bike to buy a trail bike? And it's whatever, whatever. It can also be like, there's this, um, dynamic at our riding group that I don't know how to tackle. It can be anything you want. I'm trying to think of another example. More weird ephemera questions. Yeah. Relationship advice, like relationship. Finance. We're here for, we'll give you bad answers, but we're here to help you out. Yeah. We can do the car talk. We'll do like, you know, you've got a weird sound coming out of your, but basically you can bring the, the free, like the free range vibe that we have in these discussions to the questions. It doesn't have to be, you know, because a lot of the time I think people had to put this. It's difficult because we often are asked and we talked about, you know, you referenced it there because of the top few it's what think what the, you know, so many things is based on opinion anyway. So if someone says, what's the great trail bike, and then we say, and then the next thing is, but I don't agree with that's what a trail bike is. And it's like, well, what are we doing here? But Hey, onto this week's questions, hand selected, curated by myself. So let's see what's up. Oh, Hey guys. Cool. I can make up that five to 7%. Yeah. No, I think, yeah. If you think that five, just the confidence alone that you might. Adopt by having a mechanic and what you perceive to be the best bike. And I think it would go the other way. I think the pressure getting your head. Yeah. You haven't got spent all his money. I've got this, I would just recommend spending 5% or 7% more time in the gym. And that will probably, I thought you're going to say spend five or 7% of your income. Exactly. Yearly income, we're going to start recommending bikes, like engagement rings. You're like one, it's three months salary or whatever the thing is. Yeah. I think so. I think honestly, just, um, close your compression, open up your rebound. Honestly, I just, because I've done testing with. Like pro like EWS top ranked riders and over their factory setups. We've got about 2% faster. No, we've got about one and a half seconds per don't know. Yeah. It's one and a half second per minute. You have like, or yeah. Okay. Just like a morning's testing with me opening compression. So opening rebound and closing compression, and this is like factory supported. You know, podium level riders. And if they can get just, just open up your rebound and just go faster. I would also recommend the gym and a coach, like a little skills coach should be good. I'm going to say practical. You can play with whatever rebound settings. I just don't believe your rebound is holding you back 7%, but having a new bike will be. Yeah. We don't know what he's already from Fox. Like try to help me with, or like answer my questions with suspension things. I don't think that was making me a better rider. I like then went out and like learned how to corner better. And that was a more significant gain than the, the percentages you're getting with, with professional advice. If we look at it this way, right. You've got two options. You can have a basically make your riding style as fast as possible or ride the fastest bike and learn to ride it quickly. Like one's got a real, like if you said any other sport, um, no, that's what we're going to do. We're going to talk about formula one. No, no, no, no formula one anecdotes. You develop the best tennis racket. And then the person that can hold onto that racket to hit the ball's fastest. It's not a case of being the best tennis player with the worst racket. It's maximizing. The racket is the thing that hits the ball. But you can take the best tennis player and give them a really crappy racket and they would still win. A hundred percent like Bruni is always going to beat me on a bike, but like Bruni has also developed the fastest bike. Yeah. I'd be curious to this. Somehow, if this person was able to get their hands on a world cup level bike and see their time lap changes, but in the more real world, I just feel like a little bit time in the gym and some skills. It does depend a bit on like what the race course looks like. Like if it's a really pedally. Downhill race, then fitness is going to be the, the clenching factor, but even maybe like a little bit more prep of the bike. Like he's talking about having a world cup mechanic. Some people forget that they should tune your bike up a little bit before a race. Like make sure your rotors aren't rubbing or make sure your chain is open. You can open your rebound. Don't go too crazy. But basically the reason it's called fast rebound. It's a common misconception that it's related to axle speed. It's related to your speed. Fast rebound goes fast. Just get bucked over. Because the thing is that the both are so fast. You can't get bucked. You just float. It's a petulant motion device. It doesn't miss you. You'd levitate over the trail. Honestly, it's great. But I think as well, to your point. Yeah. If it's super pedally and horrible. Absolutely. You'd be fitted. But you know, how much, how many hours do you think you have to put in the gym cars before you actually notice any level of. A few weeks. You know, do you reckon? Yeah. No way. Yeah. I mean, I just started doing some, like, I don't know, squats and upper body stuff, like getting your upper body stronger and your legs a little bit stronger. I think that would make a big difference. Like being able to maneuver your bike is such a huge thing. Like I'm not a big gym guy at all, but I do notice when my upper body is stronger. It's a, it's improvement, but it just gets weak over all summer. Cause I'm not in the gym. And then if I start doing wintertime things, so a little bit, maybe like a little bit more preseason prep for this guy. It can be good. Yeah. I think you can. Yeah. Let us know what, yeah. Let us know what you pick and when you beat your buddies by how many percent. If you're in BC and you're in Squamish, I'll hit me up. I'll come suspension. You need to be honest though. Are you fun? If you're fun, hit me up. But if you want, if you're not fun, I won't be able to do it. But if you can have a good conversation, we can get a pint afterwards. Hit me up. If you're in Squamish, we will get you five to 7% faster in the morning. It'd be easy. But yeah, I think that'd be a fun little thing. And we'll report back. We could do this in a two-part series. You could also then come down to Bellingham and I'll just beat the shit out of you on the climbs and then we'll go lift logs. The ride-aways of Bellingham are just going to be so physical. Yeah. You know, the what? It's just a flat sprint, you know, that's all we got here. It's basically like a cyclo-cross course with lots of sand, right? Lots of sandy corners. Yeah. That's what we're known for. You could do like a boot camp type thing. You know, you can go to Nick's backyard and stroll through barbed wire and lift up heavy logs. So yeah, if you are in Squamish or BC and you DM me on Pinkbike, and honestly, that could actually be really good fun. Because the thing is, it'll be win-win. If I'm right, he gets a faster bite. If I'm wrong, then I would just never talk about it again. Yeah, we'll never know. Win-win for you. It can be a personal trainer if you're in Bellingham. Sweet. So on to the next question. We have a burning question on the site. It's some number of rim manufacturers and a couple insert manufacturers talking about this exact question. I think Henry can maybe pull it up with his cemetery skills. But in the meantime, it does depend on which rim manufacturer you ask. I have recently talked to a few who seem to think that certain inserts do exert more force on the... Like, if this is the rim, it's like the basin, the lowest point between the two beads. Obviously, some inserts don't touch that area at all, and so therefore wouldn't exert any damaging force. I will say most of the people talk about CushCore as the insert in mind. I think, one, because it's probably got the most market dominance. And two, it's like the densest insert on the market. So it would kind of follow that it would transfer the most load to the rim. It's interesting. When ProbeCore came out, which was probably 2016 sort of time, very exciting time. Imagine you've got a... In fact, I'm going to just do it properly. Can't spell Schwalbe. Ah, we're watching you spell. I know, man. So nerve-wracking. So this is all ProbeCore. I don't know. But basically, it was almost like a road tire inside your mountain bike tire. There'd be an inner tube there, and you'd snap it on. And this was really good, obviously, in terms of tire stability, especially through cornering and high-speed stuff. But the force on the rim, tire manufacturers start saying, we don't really want you to... Sorry, rim manufacturers, we don't really want you to run this. Yeah. Yeah, because that wasn't absorbing anything like an insert. I mean, it absorbed some, but that's basically road tire pressures, too, in that inner thing. You have 80 PSI. It's not like the foam, where the foam is, I would say, putting less force in the carbon rims. I can see them not wanting to recommend inserts, just because they can't control the forces that are going into the rims they design. It doesn't mean they'll just catastrophically fail if you did run one. But they're kind of protecting themselves by just saying, hey, we don't know what's going to happen if you do this, so we recommend you don't. There was a thing, probably, yeah, I remember hearing you have certain people going to inserts and suddenly breaking more wheels than workouts, because it also does reduce the stroke. It's like, is your bike most comfortable in suspension? It's using 99% of the travel often, or when it's using 80% of the travel to a firm ramp. It's like, obviously, the 99% thing is flying very close to the sun, and maybe when it does bottom out, it could be catastrophic, i.e. not running an insert. Maybe the 80% is actually a net less comfortable experience once it's all factored in. I think it's, to your comment, Kaz, I think as long as people know what they're getting themselves in for, if they publish that, hey, we don't mess with inserts, I think that's fair enough. I think it's hard being a rim manufacturer, because there are so many different ways to break a mountain bike wheel, right? I think We Are One have done a really great job, especially in the North American market, sort of establishing themselves as kind of like, almost like the people's champion, in a way. Yeah, it's hard to write a review without, if you write a carbon wheel review, there'll be very vocal fans in the comments. Yeah, they're the best, which they are great. I wouldn't say there's not one company that's like, you have to get this as the best carbon wheel ever, because it's kind of at a pretty good place right now, there's a lot of good options, but they are making great stuff. It's made in Canada, so good kind of like selling points. But yeah, if you're to the person who's asking the question, if you really do want to run inserts yet, I would say there's a bunch of other brands that allow you to run them, or you could also try to not run inserts. And maybe if you're having trouble with flats, bump up to a little higher, thicker casing tire, and you might be surprised. There are definitely breaks that you could identify as the insert being at fault, and then there are breaks where you're like, oh, I hit a square rock and obliterated the rim. I think that those are distinguishable. But those Cushcore trail inserts are pretty cool, because they can, they actually, they're trying to be, and I think are, a halfway house of, you know, low weight, just that stability through the turns and stuff. I have some Italian inserts called Tubolite right now that are not, they're like, no claims about durability increase, it's just about ride quality. And as a result, there's almost none of the insert that touches the rim. It's all sitting in the tire with just these little, like, reference feet. It's a very sculpted looking insert. They're like scalloped with dimples, and the idea is that they're creating airflow through the tire. I'm a little skeptical. They're creating, hold on, hold on. You had me there. I look away for five seconds to get this window up, and I come back and people are talking about airflow through the tire. Shame on you. What's going on? I know. Apparently Amaury runs them, but if you look at the middle one there, yeah. Oh my goodness. So it's got this, like, kind of dragon scaling thing going on. And the idea behind the, like, scalloped sections is that air can travel to the interior of the insert and then back out to the outside of the tire. I just, I can't help but think that that's not happening because it's just a pocket of air. There isn't, like, a valve or a check between the two chambers like you would have in suspension or really any other thing with, like, it's not unlike the two chamber Tannus thing, but. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. Have you tried it yet? Can you notice any difference? Yeah, I mean, they have, like, I'm not going to comment on ride quality yet just because I haven't done any, like, good back-to-back stuff, but on a couple rides with them in lighter casing tires, they do add some nice stability and the insert feel where you can, like, run lower pressure, feel like it's a bit more damped, but not, it's not, like, mind-blowing yet. The Tannus were a bit like that. They felt, they're probably a very comfortable insert, actually, as I'm getting perilously close to talking about old reviews. These are old reviews. They're on the website. Yeah, but it's interesting, the whole, it feels like the whole industry went mad. There was a huge insert, like, fever, and it's kind of gone away a bit now. Hey, did that's because wheels have got better or because people refuse to run 41 pound e-bikes? Yeah, I think it's a bit of everything. Like, tires have gotten a lot better, wheels have gotten much more durable, and with, like, the fat beads that you see on most carbon wheels, getting a snake bite in your tire is significantly less common. So, I think that, like, maybe enough people just dealt with the hassle of inserts and they kind of have to, it's, you know, you kind of weigh in, is it worth it? And so, if you're not flatting that often and maybe not, like, some of those thicker inserts are just such a pain no matter how many magic tricks people say. It's still a lot more of a pain than not running an insert. So, it could be that too. Yeah, I think that's fair. And that's fair. Now, that's kind of it from our first ever video thing. I'm going to try and edit this. Jesus Christ. Are you really? That's why I said nothing's coming out, because I don't know what to do. Yeah, basically, it was decided that the person, Eric, who does a great job editing now that I can actually work it out, he can actually be doing really other important, good things in the video land. And he definitely probably doesn't want to listen to us waffle on any more than he already has. Fair enough. But that's it for our first ever video podcast. Thank you very much for watching. Please do get your questions in. The link is on the website article. And also, next week, let's roll through the article and answer some questions of the podcast from last week. And then we'll catch them all that. So thank you very much for watching. And we'll catch you next time.