Archives For Biking

The Battle Of The Bikes

April 5, 2020

2020 was looking like a pretty awesome year as far as biking goes. A decent amount of big points races at good venues, lots of new bike tech, and my continuing progression of speed and fitness. This whole pandemic has thrown a huge wrench in those plans and goals, and the only race that hasn’t been canceled is the EWS in Whistler. I am very close to throwing in the towel for this season and taking the year off from international/national series racing to improve my skills and have more fun on the bike. That being said, I already have my 2020 bikes built up and ready for the season, so I might as well share some tech and some of the setup that I do on my bikes for racing!

For 2020, I have been incredibly fortunate to be able to build up 2 new bikes for my Enduro racing ventures. This wouldn’t be even remotely possible without Endless Biking, the company I’ve been working for for 4 years, and my title sponsor. Both of these bikes would be pushing the $10,000 retail cost for the average consumer, and I am so thankful to be in the sponsorships and the situation that I am in where I am able to ride both of these truly amazing machines.

2018/19 BC Instinct

For some background, I’ve been riding the Rocky Mountain Instinct BC Edition for the past 2 and a half years. The bike was designed to be ridden with a 160mm fork with 155mm of rear travel. Within a couple of months, I found that a 170mm fork was better suited for my riding style and for the races I was competing in so for most of the duration that I was riding that bike, I had it setup 170/155mm travel. I did experiment with a shorter shock in the rear which brought it to 140mm of travel. While I felt like I was going faster because of less travel and geometry change, I was in reality going slower. I primarily ran the bike with a 170mm Fox 36 and a 8.5×2.5 (155mm rear travel) Float DHX2 shock.

Midway through 2019, there was talk of a revamped Slayer. I had owned a Slayer in 2017, and while it was a very capable bike, It wasn’t the best for racing. The new Slayer was first shown at Crankworx and the specs and geometry looked promising to be competitive on the Enduro race circuit. A little bit later we had to submit our bike orders for the 2020 season. Because of a change in our sponsorship agreements, I ended up ordering 2 bikes. I went with the new Slayer, and an Instinct Frame. My reasoning was that if the Slayer for some reason wasn’t that good of a race bike, I sell it easily and still have a new Instinct to fall back on, which I had already been riding for 2 seasons and was comfortable on.

As it turns out, they’re both really amazing bikes in different ways. So enough talking, here are the bikes and some explanation of how and why I’ve set them up the way that I have.

XL Slayer 29:

Frame: XL Slayer Carbon

Fork: Fox 36 Grip2 170mm 44mm Rake

Shock: Fox Float x2

Drivetrain: Shimano 11spd XT Cranks with Wolftooth 12 speed 34T chainring, 10-51 SLX Cassette, 12spd XT Derailleur/shifter, 12 speed XTR Chain

Wheels: Stans Flow EX3 on DT Swiss 350 hub Rear, Stans Flow MK3 on XTR hub Front.

Tires: Maxxis Minion DHF 29×2.5 DH casing front and rear with Cushcore

Seatpost: Fox Transfer 175mm

Cockpit: Raceface 35 35mm stem, Atlas 35 bars cut to 800mm. Raceface Strafe grips

Brakes: Shimano Saint with 203mm Icetech freeza rotors.

Extras: One up EDC and Pump, Tire plugs and punch integrated into the bar ends.

Weight: 38.5lbs without bottle or spare tube.

New for 2020, Shimano has released their 12 speed drivetrains. To get the ultimate setup, a balance of weight, reliability, and durability, I went with an SLX cassette, XT shifter and derailleur, and XTR chain. I’ve never been a huge weight weinie, but with the bikes getting so big and hefty, and with all the climbing and ground being covered, I’ve been starting to consider it when building bikes.

The SLX cassette only has one aluminum cog, the 51T at the very top (black). The XT/XTR has the top 3 cogs being made out of aluminum, and the rest being steel or titanium (XTR), meaning the aluminum cogs will wear quicker than the steal/titanium cogs (silver). Most of the climbing is spent in the 2-4th cog from the top, so that’s why I went with the SLX cassette. More steel cogs where a lot of time is spent climing plus it’s a lot cheaper than the XT/XTR cassettes, will give me the balance of performance and durability over time.

The XT derailleur and shifter is the perfect middle ground for reliability, weight savings, and performance. The shifter still has one or two downshifts per press of the lever (compared to only 1 downshift for the SLX), and the derailleur just works. I found that the XTR derailleurs are super light and work really well right out of the box, but are quite finicky as time goes on and require more finer tuned adjustments more often than the XT. I’ve read and heard from multiple sources that if you’re going to spend the money and go XTR with any singe component, its the chain, so I spent the extra money and went with the top of the line chain for smoother shifts and slight weight savings.

Along with the rest of the drivetrain, the cranks were also updated for 2020. In my opinion, cranks provide the least amount of performance in a drivetrain. As long as the chainring is in good shape and nothing is broken or bent, they’ll get you up the hill. I decided not to go with the updated 2020 XT cranks and just buy a 12 speed chainring that was compatible with my existing 11spd cranks to save some money. Lucky Wolf Tooth components developed such a chainring and I have no complaints so far!

Previously I have gone with either a 32T or a 30T chainring on my 29″ Enduro race bikes. I found that I like the way the 30T ring feels overall and how it meshes up with the 11-46 or 11-42 cassettes really well, but I have “topped out” on flat ground or paved surfaces with the small 30T ring. For the 12 speed setup, since I have a massive 51T cog on the rear, I went with a 34T ring on the front to get the ultimate balance of still being able to climb up walls, and still being able to accelerate on flatter or high speed surfaces.

Not much has changed on the cockpit from the past couple of years. Enduro racers have seemed to go quite narrow with their bar widths, usually ranging from 750-780mm. Being 6’3, I’ve felt most comfortable with 800mm width bars. I have ridden 780mm, but found it quite unstable for the limited duration that I’ve ridden with that width. I’ll probably experiment a bit more with narrower bars, since I’ll be able to get through tighter sections easier, but 800mm is still my go to since it’s what I’ve been riding on my DH bikes for such a long time.

Shimano Saint are still my go to brake on every bike I’ve owned since 2013. New XTR/XT brakes have recently come out, and while providing more modulation, haven’t been as overall powerful as the tried and trusted Saints. The brakes haven’t changed at all since 2013, so I am anticipating an update soon, but have absolutely no complaint with the amount, or easily accessible power that these brakes provide.

The One Up EDC tool has been part of my setup since late 2017 and I have no desire to change that anytime soon. The ease of accessibility and convenience of tools are unmatched by any other brand in my opinion. I also have Sahmurai Sword tire plugs in my bar ends.

DH casing tires front and rear

For wheels, I’ve gone with Stans Flow EX3 on the rear, and MK3 on the front with Cushcore inserts. The EX3 is Stans newest DH/Enduro rim and it seems to be holding up very well. I haven’t needed to tension the wheel at all and theres absolutly no dents or any spoke pulling through after some harder impacts. The EX3 is heavier than the MK3 and since front wheels don’t take as much abuse, I decided to stick with the MK3 for the front.

Maxxis Minion DHF’s take care of the grip front and rear. I run 2.5″ width and full DH casing just to be sure that I won’t be breaking rims on those long rough enduro stages. Being 195 lbs I find it to be on the safer side with Cushcore inserts as well. They have definitely helped my confidence on those harsher landings or rough rock sections knowing I won’t be putting dents in my rims. My go to pressure locally is 20/25PSI. Without Cushcore I was running 25/28PSI on average, higher on rougher tracks.

Fox takes care of the suspension and dropper post. I’m running a 36 Grip 2 170mm fork with between 115-130 PSI (still getting used to the new bike). I like a lot of low speed compression to keep my front end up under hard braking and rebound is not too fast, not too slow for the most part. I’ve been experimenting with less high speed compression and air pressure with this new bike since it’s so long and I’ve been having trouble keeping traction on the front tire. I haven’t gotten it totally dialed in yet. The shock is set to 190 PSI with my baseline settings for rebound and compression. I have also been experimenting with volume spacers on this shock because it’s a different bike and actually is designed around a coil shock so it doesn’t require as much progression adjustment via volume spacers. The 175mm Transfer post brings everything together and the bike looks really good with the gold/orange contrast with the black frame!

The only thing I wish I could change on the bike would be the weight. At 38.5 lbs without a bottle or spare tube, that means around 40lbs when I add those things for a race. It is an XL frame with full DH casing plus cushcore, so I can’t expect a super light bike, but it does make pedalling up those steep climbs a bit more of a slog than I’d like. With the way I set up these bikes, I couldn’t expect anything different and it’s only a pound or two heavier than my Instinct BC from the past two seasons. The only way I can lighten up this bike without sacrificing durability is to go to a full XTR drivetrain and carbon bars/wheels. I’m quite happy with my drivetrain and am not willing to shell out 2-3x more money for weight savings, and I think the less carbon on the bike, the better, especially for handlebars and wheels. I’ve seen far too many carbon bars broken in the parking lot, and although all wheels will break, you can finish a race on an alloy rim with a huge dent and a tube, but not on a carbon wheel that’s cracked/shattered. I have seen plenty of that happening. Liftetime warranty is awesome, but won’t help you in the middle of a EWS race.

XL Instinct:

Since I wasn’t sure if the Slayer would be a good bike for racing, I was fortunate enough to be able to order two bikes and I chose the Instinct frame as something to fall back on in case I didn’t get along well with the Slayer. I ordered the normal instinct rather than the BC edition because the only difference was the linkage on the BC edition was locked into the lowest and slackest position on the ride 9 chip and the shock was extended from 140mm of travel (210×55 Shock) to 155mm of travel (8.5×2.5 shock). This way I was able to be adaptable and build up a smaller “trail” bike if I did end up keeping the Slayer, which is exactly what I did.

Frame: XL Instinct

Fork: Fox 36 Grip2 150mm 44mm Rake-130PSI

Shock: Fox Float DPS-200PSI

Drivetrain: Shimano XT 11 Speed; 11-42 Cassette, 32T Chainring on 170mm Crank

Wheels: Stans Flow MK3 on Shimano XTR hub Rear, Stans Arch MK3 on XT hub Front

Tires: Maxxis Minion DHF 29×2.5 EXO+ casing front and Minion DHF 29×2.3 DD casing rear

Seatpost: Fox Transfer 175mm

Cockpit: Raceface 35 35mm stem, Atlas 35 bars cut to 800mm. Raceface Strafe grips

Brakes: Shimano Saint with 203mm Icetech freeza rotors.

Extras: One up EDC and Pump, Tire plugs and punch integrated into the bar ends.

Weight: 32.5lbs without bottle or spare tube.

I’ve never had a real trail bike before, something that was built around being light and nimble that I could pedal endlessly. On my first ride, I did a 38.5 km loop hitting the most XC trails I could find on both Fromme and Seymour and had an absolute blast on the uphills, which I usually dread. I’m used to pedalling around big heavy enduro bikes with lots of travel, so it was a lot of fun to build up a bike that was focused more on climbing and adventure rather than downhill smashing. The Rocky Mountain Instinct usually comes with 140/140mm travel, but I decided to up the travel a little bit on the front to 150mm on the Fox 36 that was on my BC edition last year to get a little more confidence on the local descents.

Since going 12 speed requires a different hub or freehub body, I’m sticking with the 11spd Shimano XT setup so I don’t have to buy a new hub. I didn’t like the big jump from the 37T to 46T in the 11-46T cassette, so I ran an 11-42 for most of last year and got along with it well. I’ve swapped between 30T and 32T chainrings depending on the race.

Saint brakes on a light weight trail bike may seem overkill, but they were the only matching pair of brakes I could find. You can never have too much power, right? A goal of mine was to have the cockpit the same on both of my bikes so it was a lot easier to swap between the two, so everything except the shifter is exactly the same on the Instinct as on my Slayer as far as the cockpit goes.

Wheels and tires are where I was able to shave off a lot of weight compared to my Slayer. I’m still running Maxxis Minion DHF’s front and rear, but I have a EXO+ casing 2.5 width on an Arch MK3 rim on the front and a Double Down casing 2.3 width on a Flow MK3 rim on the rear, both without Cushcore.

Since 2017, the only rear shocks I have used have been Fox Float X2 of DHX2 which are used on DH/Enduro bikes. I was a little sceptical going with the Float DPS which has a lot less adjustment than I’m used to, but I’ve been very impressed with the performance both climbing and descending. It’s simple and just works. I don’t expect it to perform as well as a shock with a piggyback on longer descents, but for everything on the shore, I have no complaints!

Both bikes are pretty new to me so I’m still messing around with suspension settings, but I think I’ve got a decent baseline for the style of riding that I’ll be doing on these bikes. Stay tuned for more of a review on both!

In Biking
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Floor Issues on The Bus

December 27, 2019

Old Flooring Coming up!

If you’ve read my previous post, you’ll know I just purchased an old bus to use as a camper and travel vehicle for racing. I almost immediately started to rip out the old cracked and dirty flooring. It was coming up relatively easily, but leaving a lot of red/pink adhesive that was used to stick it to the plywood flooring underneath. I didn’t think this would be too big of a deal and thought some alcohol or worst case, acetone should clear it up. Oh boy was I wrong.

The adhesive proved to be extremely hard to remove. I went out and got the harshest adhesive strippers I could find, and after multiple coats and lots of scraping, the only results were having an extremely slippery floor, rather than sticky. After spending days trying different chemicals and getting discouraged, thinking I would have to resort to rubbing the floor with a rag until the bare wood revealed itself, my dad suggested I try a grinder with a wire wheel brush. I wasn’t very optimistic, but it turned out that using the grinder was super easy. It was a bit messy, with the adhesive coming up in little clumps and being flung against the walls and anything else that was in the bus, but it was working.

Now that I had the adhesive off, I had to deal with the metal tracks used to secure the wheelchairs. I thought it would be as easy as having someone use a drill with a hex bit up top and me holding a socket to the bolt on the bottom. This ended up not working due to the bolts being on there for almost 20 years. Even with me trying to use the socket to loosen the bolts from underneath was painfully slow, and with over 200 bolts, half being unaccessible from the bottom, I knew that wasn’t going to work either. I experimented with drilling the bolts out from above, and estimated that with the number of bolts there were and accounting for about 2 minutes per bolt, it would take 23 hours to get all of them out. This was extremely discouraging, but I decided to give it a go to see how hard it would actually be to see if it would be worth it. The first two ended up taking over 6 minutes each and I could tell the drill bits were already getting dull. Sure, I could spend some money to get some really good quality bits and a sharpener, but seeing how long it still took made me make the decision to not take out the tracks and work around them.

With that out of the way, I needed to decide what flooring I was going to go with. I originally thought of going with some cheap or leftover roll on vinal floor, but the tracks would make it extremely hard to cut and fit perfectly. Another option was to go with 1′ square vinal sheets which would be a lot easier to cut. This would cost between $100-$200 depending on how cheap I was able to find the material, and probably take a day or so to install based on my limited experience.

Again, my dad made a good suggestion. We started looking into deck primer and paint. It was cheap, would be super easy and quick to apply, and would be durable enough for what I needed. If I ever scratched it up or anything, I could just put more on! I got the paint, and started vacuuming up all the residue from the adhesive. After taping over the parts I didn’t want painted, another bump in the road appeared. It’s now December in Vancouver, and while it’s not cold compared to most other places in the northern hemisphere, its probably colder and a lot more humid than ideal for paint to dry. Armed with two heaters, I decided to go for it anyways.

A coat of primer and two coats of deck paint later, it’s finished! I’ll be keeping a heater on it for a couple days and seeing how dry it gets before I have to move the bus out of the driveway. This was the first thing I did that actually contributed to the build, and it took a lot longer than I thought it would do get here. Guess I shouldn’t expect the rest to go any differently…

In Adventure Bus, Biking
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Van/Bus Life???

November 26, 2019

I’ve never really been one to jump on the latest trend when it comes to normal societal things. I don’t like rap, pop, hip hop, or whatever kids listen to these days, I don’t wear skinny jeans (and wouldn’t even if it were physically possible), and I’m not a fan of IPA’s. However, there is one recent trend that I’ve been slightly looking into, but only partially…

Say hello to my new (to me) travel/race bus.

This story really begins way back in April/May, or even before that if you look at the big picture. I had built a custom “camper trailer” in 2018 which was just a makeshift cot in the back of a super redneck truck bed trailer. It was light, looked cool (depending on who you are) and did everything I needed it to do. It protected me from bears and the elements when camping out at the races. I could also lock a bike in there out of sight in case I was in town and didn’t feel comfortable locking it in the back of the truck in plain view.

This setup worked for me for a couple years, but was a bit cramped. I knew this going into the whole project, but it quickly got cluttered on longer trips and at Crankworx when I had a lot of gear. Everything slid around in the back under the bed, and nothing really had a place. I didn’t want to spend a lot of time or money improving those problems because I only spend around $500 on the whole project. Due to me not needing to own such an expensive truck, I ended up putting it up on craigslist and decided I wanted a van that I could sleep in to be more secure when sleeping in the city like I’ve needed to do a couple times, as well as I wanted to have the bike inside out of sight.

I looked at a couple E350 cargo vans in the fall of 2018, but knew that I wouldn’t be able to keep the bikes inside due to the low roofs. I had seen the high roofed Sprinter vans being used because they were tall enough to put the bikes underneath the bed with enough room to sleep on top. A quick google search of “are sprinter vans reliable” scared me. It turns out, the ones I was reading about had a ton of problems. In the spring, I did a lot of research on a lot of different types of vehicles ranging from sprinter vans, short busses, and cargo vans/trucks. I ended up going back to sprinter vans and upon further research, there were certain years that were actually quite reliable for a german vehicle, if taken care of. At first, I was set on a T1N Sprinter van. I could tell you the reasons why these are the best year of sprinter van to get, but that would take a whole other post. I think in the end I looked at over 15 of these vans, but they all had quite a bit of maintenance or repairs that needed to be done, most being ex Fedex vans, and most still cost between $12-15K. That was insane to me, for a 15 year old van which still needed $1000-$3000 worth of parts and maintenance items before they’d be road trip worthy to cost so much. I guess that’s just what the market dictated, and compared to Washington state, they were quite a bit cheaper up here in the Vancouver area. There was one van I almost bought, a 2005 which had 170K km with no rust and was actually not beat to crap on the inside like all the others. The lowest the fellow would go was $17.5K, which I almost went for, but realized after, I would be spending that much money on the base vehicle, without even building it, when a lot of the reason why I went this direction was to save some money by selling my truck. My truck was a lot nicer and worth more than what I needed in a vehicle.

T1N Sprinter

There was a period of time where I was looking at cargo vans with gas engines. I also almost pulled the trigger on a Nissan NV3500 SV. It was a 2012, and had average km for the year, but also needed some maintenance items and was a bit more beat up than I expected and the owner wasn’t willing to budge much on price. Call me picky, but I really didn’t want to mess up on this choice! It was becoming clearer that I wasn’t going to be able to find the ideal van within the price range that I felt was fair for what the vans were. This led me to searching for older short busses.

Nissan NV3500

There was a short bus with a diesel engine in Abbotsford with 355xxxkm, but a pdf document with all the recent maintenance done on it. It was only $5400, which is a really good deal for the year and build that it had. Unfortunately I wasn’t 100% sold on going with a bus, so I didn’t make a big effort to make it out there as soon as I saw the ad, so it ended up selling a couple days before It was convenient for me to make the hour long drive. Looking back, that was a pretty big opportunity missed, and I could have had that bus if I had acted sooner and with more priority. A couple other vans and busses ended up working out that way, with me not making up my mind and thinking that it wasn’t perfect, so the vehicle sold before I could go out there. One bus in particular I was super annoyed that I missed. It was a 2002 ex handydart like mine, but with lower km and at a pretty good price. So let that be a lesson! You gotta act fast on craigslist to get the good deals. Fortunetly, when I was really loosing hope after checking for new ads multiple times a day on facebook, craigslist, kajiji, and anywhere else I could think of, I got a reply to one of the wanted ads I posted…

I ended up purchasing a 2001 Ford E350 cutaway chassis. It used to be a Handydart bus, a bus that was used to transport people in wheelchairs. It had the lift still in it when I bought it because the guy who had bought it from Handydart when it was decommissioned used it to transport coffee machines to and from the Starbucks locations and his shop for repairs. I chose this chassis because, as you can see in the photos, the rear compartment of the bus behind the front door, is only an inch or two wider than the front part of the bus, compared to 8-12 inches on something like a short school bus. This means it will be easier to park and manoeuvre in tighter areas (like everywhere in metro Vancouver). It has about 90 square feet of usable space in the back, more than enough for a bed, storage for the bikes, and some other creature comforts that I’m still debating.

I chose the 7.3 over the 6.0 or other chevy engines in this type of bus because it is the most reliable and requires the least maintenance if taken care of properly. I had a truck with a 6.0 Powerstoke, and while it was powerful, loud (in all the right ways), and never left me stranded, it did require a couple repairs over the years I had it, which would have been terribly difficult to do in the van chassis that this bus has because of the limited under the hood space. The 6.0 is a great engine if a few repairs and modifications have been done early on in the life of the vehicle. To do the modifications later on is possible and worthwhile in the trucks, but it is much harder to do on the vans because of the limited space. The only bus I looked at with the 6.0 was poorly taken care of, and not even worth a 1/4 of the $5000 they were asking. The later model Chevy engines that came in this type of bus also were notorious for expensive repairs that would be made even harder and more pricy due to the van chassis. The 7.3 Powerstroke is known for its reliability, and while not perfect (like any engine), it can be a million+ mile engine if taken care of properly. This one has 416000KM, by far the highest km vehicle I’ve ever owned, but runs better than a lot of others that I looked at that have half the milage. It was also registered as a commercial vehicle, meaning it had to have yearly inspections and if ANYTHING was wrong, it had to be fixed otherwise it wouldn’t pass inspection. The previous owner sent me all the service records for the past 5 years (he only had digital records that went back that far), so I could see that it was maintained properly when he owned it. That combined with myself going over the bus pretty closely made me pretty confident that there were no major issues with the engine. Due to all my research and owning a 6.0 Powerstroke, I was able to carry over some of that knowledge to know what to look for in the 7.3, in an addition to some more specific research into the specific issues they commonly have. Due to the high milage and the fact that it did need some maintenance items meant I got it for about $2500-$3000 cheaper than the other busses with the same chassis and same engine that I had looked at. It only has single rear wheels, instead of a dually like most short school busses. While it won’t be able to handle as much weight, I’ll be saving money when I need to change tires, and save a bit on the better fuel milage from less drag.

Stay tuned as I begin to build out the van for the 2020 season!

 

In Biking
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Grip 2 Damper Review

May 14, 2019

Ever since riding a Fox Fork starting in 2013, I was hooked. Back then, I was on a Fox 40 with the RC2 damper. This was before the air spring came out, so it still had a titanium spring keeping me up. I was amazed with the support and how much it was able to keep me up in the travel, yet still being smooth. I had previously been riding a couple different Marzochi 888 forks, which were really good and ahead of their time when they were new, but I could definitely tell a huge difference in weight of the two forks, even though they were both coil. In 2014, the air version came out and things kept on improving, getting lighter and smoother. Fast forward to mid 2018, the new Grip 2 Damper became available to me, and I was so excited to see what it was all about.

Visually, the forks aren’t that much different, until you start to look a bit closer. The high and low speed compression dials at the top of the fork have been visually updated, but still provide the same function. Some might notice the rebound cap is a bit longer than usual. This is to make room for a high speed rebound adjustment, in addition to the low speed adjuster, which we are all used to.

My experience with the Grip 2 damper were limited to a Fox 36 at first, but now I have it on both my DH and Enduro bike and I couldn’t be more impressed with the swap from my 2016 40 with that year of RC2 damper to the Grip2.

There are a lot of other reviews and videos about the actual technology change and the build of the Grip2 Damper, so I won’t focus on that. I’ll focus on my riding/racing impressions, how I set it up, and what settings I’ve found to work well for the different types of riding I do.

Here is Fox Explaining the technology behind the new damper.

First Impressions:

After installing the fork on my Rocky Mountain Instinct BC, I started riding up to Mt. Fromme from home. On the flat road right outside the house, I noticed that the fork would bob through its travel just my pedal stroke. I have never never experienced that from any fork, even some Rockshox forks, which are known for being super smooth. Even at the (much) higher air pressures than recommended for my weight that I like to run, the fork is so sensitive through the beginning of the travel that it cycles even while pedaling casually along a flat road. I was amazed and slightly nervous that it may not have had the support that Fox is so well known for. Boy was I ever wrong.

After a few rides of dialling it in and playing around with air pressure and compression settings, I settled on 8PSI higher than on my fork with the RCT damper and 5-8 more clicks of high speed compression to get the right balance of support and suppleness. The high speed rebound adjustment took a little longer to figure out what was best for me.

I’ve seen/heard a few riders say that they don’t find much difference in the feeling of the fork when they adjust the high speed rebound. There are 8 clicks of adjustment for the HSR, less than LSR, but I found that it was all I needed. It did take longer for me to figure out what exactly I was adjusting and how it changed how the fork behaved on the trail. Simply cycling the fork through it’s travel at stand still will not help you figure out how you should set the HSR. I actually spent a full day in the bike park just dialling in both high and low speed rebound to where I liked it.

The fact that I thought maybe fork wouldn’t be as supportive as the previous damper was foolish, and I was instantly relieved and a little bit surprised that a fork could have such good small bump sensitivity and be able to hold me up nice and high through brake bumps and under braking.

 

Longer Term:

I’ve had the fork for around 9 months now and I haven’t had any reliability issues. A lot more other people now have the fork and I haven’t heard of anybody having issues out of the box so far. I’ve been continually adjusting my pressure and compression settings to adapt to different terrain and riding styles throughout the 9 months, and I couldn’t be happier with how the fork has been performing. Lower oil services are just as easy before, the only difference being it uses a 5wt oil that’s teflon infused for the new damper on the damper side fork leg. The air side still uses 20wt Gold oil.

 

In Biking, Getting Faster, Reviews
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Things I Wish I knew When I Started Racing: # 1

December 3, 2018

In this little “series”, I’ll be writing about the things I wish I had known when I was first getting into racing. I have 5 years experience racing and now am at a fairly high level and have learned a lot over the years of racing, and 10 years of enthusiastic riding before that.

Topic #1: Spend your money on your bike wisely

We can get carried away looking at all the new technology, components, and design of bikes. Unlike skiing, snowboarding or other extreme sports, mountain biking allows us to nerd out a lot more on our equipment. Modern mountain bikes and their components are very complicated and sophisticated. We all aren’t made of money, and there are some things that are worth spending money on over others when on a budget.

The top 3 component that I would spend more money on when you’re first starting out would be Brakes, Suspension, and Tires over Carbon frames/components, Expensive hubs/wheels, or top of the line Drivetrain.  This doesn’t mean that you have to get the top of the line product, but it is worth spending more money on them to get a better product that works for you and your strengths, rather than cheeping out.

Brakes over Drivetrain:

Brakes are obviously important, you can’t go fast with bad brakes. Does this mean you have to spend $400 a piece for brand new Saint or Magura stoppers? No, but when on a budget, or buying a budget bike, brakes are something that you may want to consider upgrading if you’re serious about going fast. My choice for the best budget brakes are Shimanio Zee Brakes. You can find them new anywhere between $100-$150 new per wheel. $300 is still a lot to spend on brakes, so if that’s still too much, then I’d take a look on Pinkbike for a set of used ones. The top of the line Shimano brakes, Saints, can be up to twice as much, and honestly, don’t give you twice as much performance. The main difference between the two being the adjustment, build quality, and weight of the brake lever. You can read the review I wrote comparing the two back in 2013 here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A lot of bikes are still coming stock with Sram Guide brakes, and unless you’re a small or a very light rider, I would stay faaaaaar away. These may feel good in the parking lot and on the first couple of rides, but the pain and frustration they will soon cause you isn’t worth it. If you want more modulation than Shimano (think of a dimmer switch as opposed to a flick on and off switch), Avid Code brakes are a very good upgrade to the Guides. Sram has also come out with their version of the Code, but I haven’t ridden that one yet. I can only assume it will be as good if not better than the Avid version. Unfortunately, these are the top of the line brakes from Sram and Sram isn’t known for being very cost effective, so Codes are going to cost you more money.

If you’re racing DH, I would stay away from the Shimano 2 piston brakes (XT, SLX, Deore) unless you are small or very light. They simply don’t have the consistency in power over time on steep race tracks and will fade much quicker than the 4 piston brakes. For Enduro racers, XT or SLX would still be good enough, but Enduro courses are getting harder and harder, so if you’re on the taller/heavier side, I would still recommend the Shimano Zee or the new 4 Piston XT. Shimano brakes are designed so that any lever (from Deore to XTR) will be compatible with any calliper. This is an advantage because if you break your Zee brake lever, you can replace it with an XT or SLX off your trail bike.

Your drivetrain is inarguably important. In DH racing you need quick precise gear changes for maximum acceleration out of the start gate and on flatter sections of track. For Enduro racing you need a wide enough range of gears and something that will be easily repairable or adjustable if you have a run in with a rock. Most modern bikes come with decent drivetrains, even on the cheaper end of builds. If it’s running well, no need to upgrade. There is little performance gained for money spent compared to brakes. On my own DH bike, I’m currently using a Shimano Saint drivetrain, which is top of the line, but I have used and been just as happy with the Zee derailleurs and cranks. Same goes the Sram. I didn’t notice much of a difference between the XO1 DH and the more budget GX Drivetrain. On the Enduro side, I use a Shimano XT drivetrain, but carry a spare SLX derailleur with me for race trips because it’s cheaper than carrying a spare XT. XTR is simply way too expensive and the only advantage you get is lower weight (Before the new 12 speed came out). In fact, I found the 11 speed XTR Derailleur pretty finicky and more sensitive to thrashing and needing more adjustment more often to get it perfect. The 11 speed XT/SLX just works, and is much cheaper than XTR. For Sram, I haven’t had much experience with the XO1 or XX1 Eagle, but on the few rides with the NX or GX setup, I have mixed feelings. Sure, 12 speed is awesome and the range is huge, but if something is the slightest bit off in adjustment, you get some skipping. Maybe I’ve just had bad luck and ridden poorly adjusted derailleurs.

In conclusion, when choosing components to upgrade on your bike, I would prioritize brakes over drivetrain. Even on the cheaper drivetrains, if adjusted and maintained properly, they will get you to the top and the bottom of the hill without issue and are less important in racing than good strong brakes, in my opinion.

Suspension over Carbon Frames/Components

Now that you’ve got some good stopping power and your drivetrain is running smoothly, you’ve saved up enough for some more upgrades. Before you get all googly eyed over the latest and greatest carbon components/frames, take a step back and think about performance. Will carbon cranks or handelbars help you go faster than a fresh rebuild or upgraded damper on a fork/shock? Same thing with carbon vs aluminum frames. I would rather buy an aluminum frame with a higher components spec than a carbon frame with a lower build spec for a same/similar price. Sure, aluminum is heavier and doesn’t look as clean, but it is more durable, forgiving, and cheaper than carbon.

Most low-mid or even higher spec bikes don’t come with top of the line dampers or suspension. Even on bikes DH that are one step below the highest spec model, it still may come with a coil sprung fork and a budget damper. If you do it quick enough, you can upgrade these forks to an air spring which allows for more adjustment using air pressure and volume spacers. If you wait too long before the upgrade, the spring rattles inside the stansion and make it incapable of holding air. My Rocky Mountain Maiden came with a Fox 40 Performance series fork, which was very smooth and worked very well overall, but I wanted the advantages that came with an air spring. Fortunately I caught it quick enough and was able to get in converted to air before the coil spring damaged the inside of the stansion. My brother ended up liking the all black fork, which went well on his bike and we traded, so I ended up with a Factory series Fox 40, Kashima and all. This fork also had a RC2 damper, which has high and low speed compression adjustment, which the performance series didn’t have. This was also crucial for me because I like a fork that stays quick high in it’s travel and doesn’t dive too much, which I can control using the high and low speed compression. My experience with Rockshox forks was the same. The bikes came with coil sprung forks, which we upgraded to air spring and that allowed for more adjustment and a better overall feel. For lighter riders, coil springs up front may be an advantage. On fork air pressure charts, there isn’t usually a recommended pressure for someone under 130lbs.

Factory Series vs Performance Series Forks

Tires over Hubs

Tires are arguably one of the most important component on your bike. It being the only contact point with the ground. Everybody has unique riding styles and technique so I’m not going to try to tell you which tires you should use. Unfortunately, tires are extremely expensive, almost as much as some car tires, and during race season, may only last a week or two. Hubs are also important, but I think people can get distracted by engagement degrees, sounds, and fancy colors that they now come in. In my opinion, I don’t think a lot of money should be spend on front hubs. As long as they roll well, aren’t loose, or require constant adjustment, there isn’t need to spend a lot of money for a brand new super fancy front hub. Rear hubs are a bit more important. I have broken a few rear hub axles in the past couple years, but it doesn’t mean you have to buy a DT Swiss 240 with the upgraded 48T engagement teeth. My personal favorite is the DT Swiss 350. It’s still a bit expensive, but other than the freehub bodies being a little soft, I’ve never had any issues. They have different cups that you can use to convert them from 150mm-157mm or 135mm-142mm. It’s easy to grease or disassemble if you need to get a stick or something out of your cassette, and I’ve never had any failures. The fastest rolling hubs would be from Shimano. Because they use a loose ball bearing system, they roll extremely fast. The downside to this system is that it needs to be serviced frequently to maintain the smooth performance. The service procedure isn’t particularly hard, but its annoying and finicky. Not something you want to be doing in a dusty parking lot on Saturday night. By frequently I mean every week in some cases. XT Usually last a bit longer before needing a service, but the Saint hubs need a lot of attention to be kept rolling smoothly.

Sealed Bearing Hub

There are different tire compounds for different applications. For the sake of this article, I’m going to be talking about Maxxis tires, since they are the most common and I have the most experience with them. For every day training and practices at races, I recommend using a tire with a harder compound. Maxxis has 3 main tire different compounds for MTB Tires. 3C Maxx Terra, 3C Maxx Grip, and Super Tacky. 3C Maxx Terra uses 3 different tire compounds starting with the soft compound on the corner knobs, a medium compound on the center knobs, and a hard compound in the last layer. You get a tire that lasts quite a long time during normal race. 3C Maxx Grip still uses 3 different compounds, but the softer compounds makes up a larger amount of the tread compared to the harder compound. This will cause it to wear out quicker than the MaxxTerra. Super Tacky has the softest material throughout the whole tread of the tire, meaning it will wear out super quickly, but also give you the best grip throughout the lift of the tire. Schwalbe has a similar range of compound build up called Addix.

You may be thinking that the Super Tacky will be the best tire to use for racing. This could be true for certain tires, but you need to take in consideration that the softest material may have the best grip, but it will also be the most pliable and flexible. I realized this the hard way when I bought a Super Tacky tire and mounted it up and used it on a local race which I had practiced on earlier on a 3C Maxx Terra tire. On the harder packed corner, the side knobs folded due to the super soft compound and I found myself sliding around a lot due to this. For tires with taller side or middle knobs, you may want to consider the 3C Maxx Grip compound if there are a lot of hard pack corners. In super muddy or loose conditions, the Super Tacky will work just fine, but for hard pack, Maxx Grip may be the way to go. The harder compounds deeper in the tread may help prevent the side knobs from folding over as much in the hard pack corners.

 

Stay tuned for more tips and advice!

 

 

In Biking, Reviews
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Natural Pain Killers

November 17, 2018

I recently crashed on a trail I hadn’t ridden in years; which by the condition of the trail, hadn’t been ridden by anybody else either. Ned’s on Mt. Seymour was a trail that my brother and I rode a lot when we first moved to the North shore. I don’t think I’ve ridden the trail in 3 years, if not more, but the day was so rainy that any other trail would be washed out and full of puddles and running water. Since Ned’s is basically just a river full of rocks, it is pretty good in the wet, in fact, the rain washes away all the dust and dirt from the rocks which makes them quite grippy. This was the same for the wooden ladders. Since nobody, or very few people had ridden it in recent years, the rocks were still grippy, but the wood was slippery. My front wheel washed out as soon as I touched the wooden ladder on a relatively fast section. Since the trail was mostly rocks, it wasn’t a soft landing and I stuck my hand out and my palm hit a big rock. It was pretty painful and got very swollen and bruised, which usually doesn’t happen when I have big impacts, so I was a little worried something may be wrong.

After 2 X-rays over a couple weeks the Dr determined nothing was broken, but it was still pretty tender. I started doing some research and learned that the use of Advil and other similar drugs can interfere with the healing process if used long term. Several articles suggest that athletes shouldn’t use these drugs over long periods of time and should look at natural pain killers instead. I went to a health foods store and picked up some things that may help me heal a little quicker.

 



The Curcumin reduces inflammation and research shows can be better over long term than more mainstream drugs that do the same thing. The Piperine helps the body absorb both the Curcumin and White Willow Bark, which helps reduce pain and is safer long term than Advil.

This is sort of an experiment to see if these help my hand get back to normal quicker and I’ll keep you updated with the results!

In Biking, Getting Faster, Learning
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Race Season 2018-What Happened??

November 9, 2018

My 2018 race season has come to a finish. It hasn’t been an easy one, and for the first time, I didn’t see much of an improvement in my DH Racing Results. As I learn more about enduro and how to train for it, I have seen improvements in the results in that discipline, but a lot of that fitness based, which I had specifically focused on in the “offseason”. Here is a bit of a reflection of the 2018 season and some observations of why maybe my speed seemed to hit a bit of a plateau.

The first two races of the 2018 season were two of the most difficult that I have ever done. I’m not talking specifically of the technicality or physicality of the races, but the fact that they were on another continent and it my first time being outside of Canada/US made it a little more difficult than driving 5 or 6 hours to get to another MTB resort in BC. Food, water, sleep, elevation, and the conditions were all a factor, plus it was my first internationally sanctioned race. I’ve written in much greater detail about my racing in South America, so you can read about them below. I’m not saying that my trip down south made me slower, in fact, I think it did the opposite, but it was a new experience and took almost a month of pre-season riding/training on my local trails out of the year, which I’m not used to and usually get most of my local riding in during this time.

Once I stepped off the plane, I had the option of racing the following weekend in Port Angeles. I opted out of that race and took some recovery time, as well as some time try to get some DH laps in. When I left, there was a lot of snow still on the trails. When I came back, a lot of the snow was gone, but it was a really cold and wet spring, so I couldn’t get a whole lot of training in on Cypress, the mountain used primarily for my DH training.

My first DH race back was the Pro GRT in Port Angeles. I always love going to Port Angeles because it’s a nice little town, the race tracks are always fun, and the crowds go wild. I was feeling pretty decent in practice, but only being on the DH bike a few times before the first race had a bigger impact than I had thought. I ended the race pretty near last on a run with a few mistakes, but I didn’t think I would have been that far behind. I was pretty devastated. The new experiences and conditions I dealt with in South America didn’t help me go as fast as I usually had which I had thought they would have.

The next few races were Canadian National Enduro Series rounds, so it was back to the little bike. I was stoked to get a lot of time on my new 29er on my local trails in, so the DH bike wasn’t used that much at all except for a couple days in the bike park in May. At the CNES races, I really struggled with my fitness. A lot of the courses were really physical and the long climbs and hot weather in the spring took their toll and when it came to the DH stages where I knew I was strong in, I didn’t have the energy to perform at my best. I learned a lot about nutrition and hydration from these experiences, and didn’t have issues with mechanicals or things like that like I had in previous enduro races. I tried to take positives out of every race and use them to learn how to become better in the next races, but I was getting pretty discouraged getting on the lower end of the results sheet, something I hadn’t really experienced in the past few years.

2018 was a busy season, not only for me personally, but for the business I’m working for, Endless Biking. We had more rental bikes, more lessons and tours going on, and that required me to work more than the 3-4 days during the race months than I was used to. This resulted in less riding time than I was used to. While racing enduro, I was always trying to get fitter and maintain the fitness I had improved, so I was constantly trying to go on longer harder intensity rides, rather than shuttling or bike park focusing on getting faster on the downhills. I knew I wasn’t getting as much speedwork in, but I needed to focus on fitness to prepare for the Whistler EWS, which was my main focus for the year.

July was a full on month with DH races almost every weekend. Working Monday to Wednesday, driving all day Thursday, and racing throughout the weekend made it a bit difficult to maintain my “enduro fitness” that I had developed over the spring and early summer months. Before I knew it, it was a week until crankworx and the course for the EWS was about to be released. I went up to Whistler for a couple days to ride all the previous years race trails to try to get a sense of how this years race would be. Right before I left to go back home, I got an email with the course release and I was happy because two of the trails that I had just ridden were going to be raced the following week.

The big day finally came, and I was pretty excited and a bit nervous. You can read the full race recap here, but long story short, I wasn’t feeling as fit as I had hoped for, and that definitely became a factor in this race. Not only were the transfers pretty hard, the stages were even more physical, and I was pretty beat up and disappointed with my performance by the end of it.

After the EWS, I didn’t really want to ride that much. A week after was Canadian Open, the DH race at crankworx. The first practice run in, I had a crash and banged up my left leg pretty bad. The rest of the practice session I just rolled down to try to look at lines for the race. It wasn’t until the third practice day until I could really push for speed, but my leg felt pretty weak still. I wrapped it up good and tight and decided I was going to ignore it on race day. The practice of race day actually went pretty well and I felt fast on track. My race run was average on top, but towards the bottom things fell apart a bit and I started noticing the pain again. I was way back from where I knew I should be in the results

2018 was an up and down year. I got to travel outside North America for my first internationally ranked race, experience new countries and cultures, and race against the best in the world. I was fitter than I had been, and even though I struggled to maintain it throughout the full 7 month DH and Enduro season, I’ve gotten closer to my goals than I’ve ever been. There are some reasons why 2018 was also one of the hardest seasons physically, mentally, and results wise, and I’m still racking my brain trying to figure out why some things happened the way they did.

One thing I struggled with throughout the season, especially towards the end was crashing. Starting the season off in totally different terrain and conditions than what I’m used to makes me not so surprised or disappointed I tasted some Chillian and Columbian dirt. When I got back to racing in Canada, I struggled to find the limit of pushing too hard to cause mistakes, or not pushing hard enough and going slow and getting frustrated. Towards the end, the Whistler EWS. The rain the night before messed with my head a bit, and I tried to ride everything like it was dry, which obviously didn’t work. The physical fatigue also played a factor in how many times I went down.

Reflecting on the year, I also noticed that I spent so much time making sure I was fit enough to race enduros to their full potential, that I wasn’t riding enough fast trails, like the ones on Cypress. I was training mostly on Seymour or Fromme. It sort of clicked that I should have done more riding on the fast trails on Cypress when someone from Vancouver mentioned that the only “race” type trails we have on the shore are on Cypress when we were down in Chile. That’s something I’ll definitely need to work on for 2019.

In Biking, Cardio, Getting Faster
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Endless Biking Shr(edit)

November 7, 2018

In June, Anthony and I met up with Petr who was going to be filming us for an edit to promote Endless Biking. We met up early in the morning and headed up to Seymour for a quick warm up lap to make sure we looked our best.

Early morning light in the Old Buck parking lot

Our videographer is awesome! Petr is really easy to work with and is always stoked on things, but will also tell you when you need to go faster or do something different.

Sometimes getting stuck in a tree is the cost of getting the shot

We shot all over Seymour and even though it was sunny, we managed to get some good shots that weren’t too affected by the sun.

Just look at that bike…

A little while later in the summer, we went out to get some more shots to finish the film and this time we were joined by Eric, the program coordinator at Endless who also happens to shred and look super good while doing it.

Nice poses…

I’m super happy with the end result and I’m so glad I got the opportunity to be a part of the project! I can’t wait for the next one.

In Biking, Where I Ride
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Garmin Edge 520 Review-Why You Need One

September 8, 2018

Last year after I started racing enduro and saw a few other people using them I researched and ended purchasing a Garmin Edge 520. It’s a device that you attach to your handlebar that tracks distance, speed, elevation, and more data like that. The device is usually used by road bikers, and there are plenty of general overviews and reviews of them out there, but I’m going to be talking more about the MTB use of the device and what I use it for to become fitter and faster.

The device in general is well made, waterproof, and easy to use. I have had to get one replaced because I put it on the front of my seat post on my DH bike, which I hung up on a stand at the Whistler Bike Park and ended up damaging the screen. Fortunately they have a crash replacement deal where you send in your damaged one and for $100 they’ll send you back a refurbished one. A whole lot better than having to buy a brand new device! The screen is definitely the weak point on the device. I have seen many damaged due to relatively low impacts and they do scratch very easily.

There are so many different data fields that you can record and have show up on your screen. You can customize everything and put it where you want it to go as well as individually chose what system of measurement you want each field to display. If you want your distance in Metric and your elevation in Standard, you can do it. I chose to display Distance, Elapsed time, Speed, Time of Day, Temperature, Heart Rate, Calories Burned, Total Accent and Elevation in that order. That isn’t a random choice of data fields, each one is chosen to give me the information I need to make choices in the way I’m riding.

During the EWS race in Chile, they provided the distance, elevation, and elevation gain for each stage and liaison. On the longest one that was the most exposed, I was able to gauge my pace, water, and food because I knew exactly how far away I was and how much further and higher I needed to go before the feed station. Temperature is probably the least important field, I just like bragging about how hot it was during a ride.

You can upload maps to help you get around just by using the device, but I haven’t used that feature yet. I think it would be really useful for road riders who are riding in new areas of town, but I don’t do that often enough to use the feature. You can also do that using Trailforks for mountain bikers. Maybe one day I’ll be surprised and wonder why I haven’t tried it out yet. There are also options to display and record things like Power output, Total Decent, Direction, and others things like that which I’ve tried using, but didn’t see them useful for what I need during racing. Cadence is something that is helpful during training so I can get used to pedaling at a certain speed so that when I’m racing it just comes naturally. Unfortunately the Cadence sensor doesn’t fit on my mountain bike, only my road bike.

Even though I got the device with a Sportchek discount, it wasn’t exactly cheap. The watch I have is able to record Heart Rate, Distance, Speed, and will show you a map of where you went with elevation after you upload it to the app, but I wanted something that I could easily see during a hard ride. Plus the battery wouldn’t last long using the GPS on my watch, where as I’ve never ran out of battery on the Garmin even during 8 hour rides using all the features. The benefits outweighed the cost of the device, in my opinion and I didn’t regret the purchase.

Another reason why I take it on every ride is that it directly records and uploads your ride to Strava where you can compare you times to your previous attempts at the same trail or segment and to other peoples times. Sure you can also use your phone, but during a long ride, using the GPS tracker can really cut down the battery life. Some people make fun of Strava, but as you may have read on my How Strava Helps Me Go Faster post last year, using it can be beneficial.

If you’re a strategic racer/rider like me and like knowing how much further or higher it is to the next feed station during a hot hard race, I would recommend this device. If you like to log your rides, it’s easy to connect the device to Strava and automatically upload your rides so that you can see how fast you were that day without eating through your phone battery. The only problem I have with using the Garmin is that I haven’t quite gotten used to electronics mixing with mountain bikes, and have forgotten it on the charger at home during the EWS race in Columbia. I also had lost it the day before the EWS race in Whistler and definitely could have use the information that it provides to better gauge my effort on the steep liaisons. Those aren’t problems with the device itself, more with the dork who’s trying to use it.

In Biking, Getting Faster, Reviews
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Crankworx-DH Races

August 30, 2018

The Monday after the EWS race, I woke up and my shins were so sore I could barely walk after getting up. I knew practice for Garbonzo, a 12-14 minute DH race with plenty of pedaling didn’t start for a few hours, but since I’ve been racing it almost every year and the course not changing, I thought it would be a good idea to take a day off and do a couple practice laps on Tuesday morning before the race. I was feeling alright in the middle of the day, but in the late afternoon I started to feel really dizzy and light headed. I went to take a quick nap before dinner and after I got up, I realized I had a fever. I took some Tylenol and went to bed super early, hoping that I would feel better in the morning so I could race, but that wasn’t the case. I decided to pull out of the race so that I could continue racing later on in the week. I probably could have put together a decent run, but I knew that I would be ruined for the following days after considering how physical the Garbonzo race is. I took another rest day and my fever went away that evening.

I knew that I could race the Air DH, even if I wasn’t feeling 100%. The race is down the most famous trail in the world, A-Line. 5 minutes of pumping, jumping, and some sprinting in between. I did some practice runs in the morning and was definitely nowhere near where I knew I should be as far as energy and speed goes, but I wasn’t about to take another day off. I planned to keep it smooth and fast, not taking too much risk and really trying to have a good flow. I knew I wouldn’t be able to pedal everywhere I should be, so I tried to carry my speed through the corners as best I could and keep it super low over the jumps. I was actually really impressed with how well my race run went considering the circumstances. The only area where I messed up a bit was that I didn’t go for a natural gap near the bottom right before the tech section. I do it almost every tome I ride A-Line, even for fun, but I didn’t go for it in my race run. It could have been I was too tired to put in the extra pedal stroke required to clear the gap, or I didn’t think I needed to take the risk right before diving into the tight trees. Either way, I ended up improving my time from last year by 2 seconds, even with not being able to put in nearly as much effort as I normally would have been able to. 2 seconds doesn’t sound like a whole lot, but on such a smooth and wide open course, it is a significant improvement under the circumstances.

After Wednesday, I put away the Enduro bike and dusted off the DH bike. I have struggled with Canadian Open in the past. Crashes, concussions, and mechanicals have always hindered my results here. I was improving physically every day, but still wasn’t 100%. It’s also worth mentioning that the smoke that had rolled in on Sunday was getting worse every day. Last year, the smoke was bad up until the first weekend of Crankworx, but after a short rain shower, it went away. This year was opposite. Every morning we woke up with sore throats, scratchy voices and headaches from the air quality. It was the same for everybody, however, and it wasn’t bad enough to cancel any practice sessions or other events so we all pushed through it.

The first practice session started Thursday evening. This year, we had an extra day of practice, but with the sessions only being 2-3 hours long, and considering how long the lineups were, you could only get 2-3 runs in per session. I was one of the first to get to the top and drop in, and on the first corner, there is a gap onto a rock. As I launched out of the corner, as I had been doing for years, my right foot came unclipped from my pedal, and I landed on the rock with my shin/leg/hip taking all of the impact. I got myself off the track and took a few minutes to calm down to evaluate the damage. Nothing looked too bad at first but when I tried to get up, my left leg could barely hold my weight. Usually when this happens, it is fine and you can still ride, but this time I had lost strength in my lower leg and when I tried to ride, it was nearly impossible to keep my heel from dropping, which is really not a position you want to be riding the entire DH track in. The pain was also pretty bad and I couldn’t really take any big hits, but I was determined to make the most our of my practice and still did as many runs as I could, just limping down the course to see what it was like. Even though I couldn’t hit any lines or hit anything at speed, I thought it would still be helpful to be on track, so I finished up the day.

The next day was better and I was super relived. The pain had gone down so I could actually ride the course with some speed, but it was still quite swollen so I still had to if I avoid any big impacts because I knew I still didn’t have much strength. I wrapped my leg and ankle up tight to try to keep my heel from dropping too much and it seemed to work alright, but I still didn’t have a lot of strength to keep my foot in a good position. I focused on finding lines for this practice session and hit the jumps at the bottom of the course. There were still a few that I wasn’t comfortable doing but I knew I could do them in the following days once my leg got a bit stronger. I was still struggling with speed and getting a bit frustrated after how the beginning of the week went and really wanted to finish on a good race. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to improve that much and even with an ankle brace that I had put on the next day, I still wasn’t able to perform how I wanted.

My last two practice runs actually went really well and I nailed some of the lower lines in the technical trees which I was struggling with earlier, but I didn’t have the endurance to put it together in a full run and hit them well in my race run. I came down with a run that wasn’t horribly riddled with mistakes, but one that I wasn’t proud of, even with how I was doing physically.

It was pretty hard knowing that I didn’t have any really good performances at this years Crankworx, having some sort of issue with each event. I’ll take the positives I can and learn from them to be even better next year!

 

In Biking, Getting Faster, Where I Ride
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