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Bike Maintenance, High Rise Bars, & Favorite MTB Tires...MTB Podcast Episode 77 [Podcast]
Overview
Today on the MTB Podcast, Jeff and head mechanic/media guy Liam Woods discuss the pros and cons of high rise handlebars, bike maintenance tips, what bikes they are currently riding, as well as tire selection. The boys also dive into our plans for Black Friday and how a portion of all sales will be donated to NICA (National Interscholastic Cycling Association). Product inventory is still a mess but the guys are here to update you on the latest happenings in the bike industry. If you are a hardcore bike nerd, this is the episode for you. Grab a cold one and enjoy!
2:21 New Nerf Gun
3:52 Items Still In Stock
4:43 Our Non-Black Friday Sale
7:09 Pros & Cons of High Rise Bars
15:23 Bike Maintenance on Weekend Trips
23:03 Favorite Tires
36:05 What We Are Riding
- NICA (National Interscholastic Cycling Association): https://www.nationalmtb.org/
- Chasing Epic Mountain Bike Adventures: https://chasingepicmtb.com/
- Check out our video on High Rise MTB Bars: https://youtu.be/_lZVpmVJjN0
- Watch our video on the best Maxxis tire combos: https://youtu.be/a2j2bjDTbIU
Worldwide Cyclery YouTube Channel
Submit any and all questions to podcast@worldwidecyclery.com
If you are one strange human that would like to read a transcript of the podcast above, continue reading below!
[Music] ladies and gentlemen
welcome to episode 76 of the mountain bike podcast i am your host jeff kaley and
today i am not joined by jared because he is in palm springs relaxing in the sun tanning his feet
painting his toenails but we have an excellent replacement mr liam woods
hi guys great intro liam woods uh has been on the worldwide
cycling team for several years and started out as uh the head mechanic and now he does a
million different things what do you do liam um well i still take on some of those head mechanic rolls
and some detailed bike builds uh more than that i do a lot of media and marketing would
be a umbrella term everything from reviewing products writing blogs
doing some uh website pages and landing pages to some descriptions here and there i also
do manage a lot of the merch the worldwide cyclery merch as well a lot of hats a lot of hats
working on some other projects as well but uh that's pretty much it yeah solid love it well um liam if
for you guys that didn't catch that or notice a lot of the youtube videos we do are all accompanied by blog articles
and the blog articles have a lot more in-depth technical sort of writing and analysis on all of the
products and they go way more in detail than i typically go on the youtube videos liam writes all
those articles he is like an extremely well-versed knowledgeable bicycle nerd you could say so we're
gonna utilize that talent and that knowledge he has in this episode and talk a good bit about bike tech stuff that
should hopefully be helpful to all of you guys and i also recently just got a
note here that it's episode 77 not 76 so for all of you listening sorry about
that if i confused you um moving on those are wrong
yeah yeah well i i typed those notes so that was that was my fault you are wrong um yeah
you know a lot of you know that we're still getting used to the podcast thing we're still working out some kinks in the audio we also were working out some
situations where if people get too far away from the microphone it was i thought it was a good idea to buy a nerf gun that dj pineapple over
New Nerf Gun
here could shoot the person in the neck when they that's the sound of a nerf gun
chimney christmas um i thought it'd be a good idea if somebody leans too far away from the mic
shoot him in the neck with a nerf gun to let him know to lean closer to the mic um and we got too powerful with a nerf
gun and it probably really hurt if you got hit in the face with it anyways we're still working out some of the kinks here if you want to see the nerf gun we are
now putting these podcasts on a new youtube channel that's an mtb podcast youtube channel they're pretty boring i was told i can't
even look at the camera because oh you should turn the volume down there uh i was told i can't look at
the camera because uh it makes the audio bad so anyways before we dive into the
bike tech stuff um i wanted to give a quick update on the bike industry as a whole
and i think everyone kind of already knows where it's at there was insane demand because of covid and now we're
in this situation of really really bad inventory levels of anything and everything it is slowly
starting to come back to normal and things are trickling in but everyone the entire supply chain has
just been thrashed in terms of products taking forever to show up and delays of freight and all sorts of stuff
so it's hard to find what you need to find whether you're looking for a pair of gloves or tires or an entire new bike or i don't
know just about anything what's what is in stock um i'd probably say drive chain
Items Still In Stock
components is what i see that's most in stock tires trickle in and shipments of
you know a couple hundred but it's a specific tire that comes in so
max's minion dhf might be in stock in the exo but out of stock and
double down in dh casings so yeah just as really sporadic yeah yeah
tires have been have been hit or miss like like most things but they've seemingly been there a little bit more than some of the other
stuff um so because of that i am very curious what's going to happen
with black friday cyber monday what we're going to do and i mentioned this on the last episode
is we are actually going to be not doing a sale like we normally do but rather we are going to do a
Our Non-Black Friday Sale
non-sale for naika so nika the national interscholastic cycling association that's really hard try and say that liam
i don't want to they they have basically their
non-profit that has made the sport of mountain biking an accredited sport in high schools all across north america an incredible
organization that i really respect because i just think they're getting more kids on bikes which is awesome
and we are going to raise prices on every single product on our site five dollars so and that that five
dollars if you buy anything those five dollars in whole will go will be donated to nikah we're
also not raising the prices on our gift cards but we're still donating five dollars so if you buy a hundred dollar gift card
you get a hundred dollar gift card but then we cover the five dollars to nika and i'm still challenging our other
retailers our other competitors in the bike industry to admit their subpar inventory levels
and actually do something philanthropic for black friday so do you think anyone will do that liam
at this point we're a couple weeks out it's possible possible maybe a smaller guy i don't think any any bigger ones will jump on
that at this point yeah if i haven't already i'd be i'd be surprised if somebody is listening or or cares to do that and
probably just wants to bask in the you know boost the top line revenue do the black typical black
friday sale but i think black friday is going to be interesting for a lot of industries especially the bike industry um and just the influx the additional
volume that like e-commerce in general online shopping has seen throughout the pandemic so
anyways there's your quick update on the bike industry and sort of what to expect for black friday cyber monday
i'm sure there'll still be some good sales out there and some cool stuff going on but yeah might be a lot harder to find what
you wanted to get on sale this year than maybe what you did last year if you were trying to sneak some good bicycle industry buys during bfcm
so to jump into the bike tech stuff we're gonna go over high rise bars
pros and cons bike maintenance tips for weekend trips in particular and then
tire combos so our favorite combos personal preferences and how liam is actually a good bit different than me
when it comes to preferences and then we're going to end of course with what we're riding bikes components
all of that so jumping in high-rise bars pros and cons we did a youtube video on
Pros & Cons of High Rise Bars
high-rise bars and it was very well received those the reason we did that video the reason we do a lot of videos is because
we see sales data high-rise bars have been getting more and more popular um over the last uh what three years would
you say probably two or three years two or three years definitely the last year it's jumped a lot yeah yeah it has and
and i think people are just noticing you know people love to experiment with their bike and and change things up and um bars are a
pretty noticeable one if your bike came with a you know 15 or 20 mil riser bar and you put a 35 on it it's a pretty significant
like anyone will notice that change and there's pros and cons to it and and it does different things i would like to
you know kind of caution people to i don't know experiment if you think it's fun but
also high-rise bars usually solve a problem and usually that problem is if you feel like you're too leaned forward on your bike currently
and like you feel like you're going over the bars or your lower back is aching after rides those are usually the problems would you say that
like people would help people solve with high-rise bars yeah i think so i think you know those are like the pretty
obvious ones um you know back pain you feel like you too far over the front especially in rock
gardens and steeper sections um so that's where i think you know it's really easy to know if you need one
um another thing why i think they've gotten more popular uh is bikes they keep getting longer and
longer so that also kind of stretches you out and therefore puts your weight a little bit more over the front end
as the bikes get longer so i think bringing that front end up you kind of get the best of both worlds
um you know easily yeah bringing your body position up but you still get a long wheelbase
and a stable bike so those kind of go hand in hand with just what's being popular
yeah definitely no i agree yeah i mean bikes bikes are evolving pretty quickly every year that
goes by they get longer lower and slacker as as the saying goes um and yeah adjusting
your own personal bike geo to make it feel more comfortable for you can help you ride the thing better and overall
just give you a better ride and like in the video i talk about and it's pretty visual in the sense that
you know bikes are purpose built for a reason right so if you look at a world cup cross country race bike they're very
leaned forward and pointed down because they're made predominantly for going fast on flat
ground and up hills and having keeping the rider in an aerodynamic position which is a
totally different concept than what you'd be doing with an enduro bike or especially a downhill bike which
are going to be a lot more upright because they're made for predominantly being pointed downhill and riding at speed and
at their limit going downhill so just something to consider there but yeah when it comes to a trail bike or an
enduro bike you can kind of go either way if if you are more of a climber and you're climbing a lot
lowering the front end might actually help your climbing and help your body position but you know i think in our experience
most people are not super big climbers all the time these days yeah we we definitely serve more of the
the baggy short crowd of enduro and trail riders and and uh you know that's the crowd that
can think like wow a high rise bar might actually help my back feel better might make me feel more confident on downhill
make it a little bit easier to lift up that front wheel if i'm trying to like hop over a rock or pull a wheelie or a manual so yeah
pretty interesting something i would like to elaborate on that i don't talk about in the video a ton is like my own personal preference which
for me on a trail bike i'm probably always going to run a 20 mil rise bar i'm never really going
to go high that's because you know i grew up racing downhill and racing well
super d which is now just enduro and i just like the feeling of i won't say a low front end but you know
i think it's as high as it needs to be i like that in terms of like the attack position
and cornering and just lower center of gravity i get why not everyone would like that
but that's my own preference so yeah i probably won't run a really high rise bar maybe when i'm
45 or 55 and my lower back hurts but what about you liam don't categorize age
menard just won a world cup yeah but i bet his back doesn't hurt um
and he also runs a high setup um yeah he does like a lot of those santa cruz guys run like
unusually high setups for sure um yeah i think you personally do run a slightly
lower than average front end as well just to touch on your personal preference like um you're on most bikes your stem is
pretty low on the stack height you're running 20 mil bar so um yeah i think for myself it's more or
less finding the balance and what the bikes made for right my sp 130 i have
a little bit more set up to go downhill so i'm gonna sacrifice a little bit on that uphill
uh climbing position to have a better downhill feel yep um like this morning i was climbing
a technical trail and yeah i wish my bars were like 20 30 mil lower to climb that but then i went down a
downhill trail right after it so um where my bars were the perfect height so i think
it depends on what your situation is as well um yeah there's no balance yeah
exactly yeah balance balance is a good word for it right because it's like yeah what are you doing mostly what do you care about the most i mean unfortunately
like there is pretty much everything you do that makes your bike work better on a downhill is going to make it
worse on an uphill yeah um so yeah i like that concept of like finding a balance which for most people
could be a higher rise bar because for some reason like most you know over the years we've seen all
these different bike brands like get their build kits way better right they all figured out like oh everyone who buys our bike puts a
shorter stem and wider bars on it maybe next year we should just spec it with that over the years you know bikes have come
with way better and better just like out of the box build specs but no one's doing high-rise bars like
out of the box build specs that i've seen like everyone's still doing pretty low bars aren't they yeah i'd say
evil on the complete builds i noticed that i think a year or two ago mm-hmm they're coming with 30 or 35 mil riser
yeah um and that kind of fits the brand's mo right yeah it does they're definitely always ahead of the curve
when it comes to that sort of thing and just kind of you know more get to the top and have a lot of
fun on the downhill is that kind of brand and that's kind of what a high-rise bar most
of the time lends itself to is you can climb fine obviously it just won't be as efficient or
attack position while you're climbing um but yeah you're gonna have a little bit more i guess i should say it's a little
easier to pull up that front end when you're going downhill and and jumping around like you kind of would on the evil
yep yeah yeah that totally makes sense and then you look at a brand like yeti which is like what's their slogan
it's like race bred race driven race driven yeah so like they're you know they're less in terms of that
playful thing so like they're probably never going to spec their bikes with high-rise bars like that yeah so i don't know something to
consider if you've currently got a bike that you feel like you're a little too for far lean
forward on it and rise 20 or 10 or 15 mil rise bars um peak around at something that's like
30 35 it's definitely something that's like getting trendy and and you know a lot of people like for us
like when we see things trend like that like a certain type of product there's always a reason and a lot of times it's like
you know the reasons are it's it's almost like a discovery process like people start discovering
like something that they put on their bike that makes it work way better and then it hits a tipping point and they tell their buddies and their buddies are
like oh that's a great idea and then they try that and that works and then it like hits this tipping point then all sudden it starts trending and then you
know becomes sort of a staple but that's definitely what's going on with high-rise bars in the last few years and especially like you said in the last one
year yeah so something to consider more more context on the whole thing um check out our youtube video on it if you haven't
already seen it um next topic this one is your wheelhouse liam uh bike maintenance
Bike Maintenance on Weekend Trips
on weekend trips so the weekend trips i think is kind of important there because it's you know if you're just doing general
bike maintenance like usually going out leaving home going for ride coming back home like you have like your tools and
everything but a weekend trip you're probably like taking a tool kit with you rider like you're taking a little mobile sort of
stash especially if you're going on like a you know a shorter or even like a three-day trip
liam and i just went on a trip with chasing epic to moab which we rode for four days and we drove there so we took
a we took a hell of a mobile toolkit yeah more than your average uh tool kit yeah for sure but
still kind of have that same situation of like we don't have a chain cleaner we don't have a hose
the normal stuff we we would clean a bike with we didn't have so um yeah i think
uh bike maintenance you know really is like what what do you need to touch up on a
weekend trip and especially if you're doing usually when you go out on a trip you do a little bit bigger ride than you're
gonna do at home yeah so your bike gets a little bit more thrashed chain gets dirtier more dry uh you might
need to check some more bolts uh like bino uh our buddy brandon um yeah
yeah his his bike well there was a couple people on this trip we were riding with whose bikes like were like wow that's not sounding so
good and then it was like yeah you have three loose pivot bolts too you know you should tighten these more off yeah so so you're gonna be riding a bit
longer um so you definitely need to touch up on some stuff i think yeah the main thing is is having a good
rag cleaning out your chain pretty well adding your chain lubricant and it's specific
to where you're going to right if you're going to very very dry area like moab you know really good dry chain lube um
you don't want to show up with a wet chain lube because your your drive chain is going to get worse and worse over three days then better
and better now if you're taking a trip to washington this time of year and it's raining off and on every day
pack that wet chain lube so it's definitely specific to that but yeah keeping your chain clean
wiping it down with the rag applying lube um and it can't hurt just to do it twice
right like wipe it down dry add chain lube wipe it down again
kind of get just more of that gunk off the chain and then adding a little bit more lube and and
just going that route um i think it on a trip like that you're doing bigger rides it's gonna
keep your chain a little bit more lubed for a longer longer time yeah that makes sense something i wish we would have
brought to moab was just a cassette brush yeah yeah because like it the it was so dusty and the dust was so fine
powder like our chains and our cassettes and pulley wheels on the drillers really kind of just like eventually got
you know just gummed up and without a hose and a chain cleaner and like a whole you know setup we would have at the shop
or at home a cassette brush which i mean park tool sells it for like twelve dollars or something i don't know
that much yeah they might have me that much it's a very simple small tool that you should have at home and really easy to
travel with but yeah cassette brush really good microfiber rags to help clean your chain
and wipe down the other air various areas of your bike like stanchions and dropper posts um and then chain lube of course like
those those are like clutch and then the other thing for me is like i like doing a full-on bolt check which i was
one of the few people there who was doing proper bull checks but that's probably just burned into my brain from being a racer um
i don't know you tell me how important you think that is no i mean i think it's important uh on after
what was it i think captain ahab um that day is day two i bashed my chain guide
three or four times probably three or four more times than i have out in socal yep and my chain guide was
loose my rear derailleur bolt was slightly loose my one of my shock bolts was slightly loose
um and i always check cranks and and pedals as well almost every other
ride even at home um so i definitely think doing a good bolt check is also pretty key on those
those trips i mean the last thing you want to do is be a couple hours out from your car let alone any tools or maintenance
and have a crank fall off or a pedal fall off or a derailleur get loose shifting gets
messed up so leads to bigger issues yep and actually will start damaging a bike
and could ruin your trip so yeah i agree yeah i mean i i think um
for me the key things i go to are like rear derailleur for some reason rear derailleurs just kind of
like to wiggle themselves loose depending on where you're riding um cranks pedals um axles uh those are like my
sort of like instant go-to's am i missing anything there's like loaded bolts yeah rotor
bolts i always used to check those but i don't think i've ever found one come loose i've had a center lock rotor
probably multiple times come loose but i've never just like regular old six bolt rotors like i've never had those really comfortable yeah i think they
still do um i think it's one of those things where especially if you're riding a newer bike on a trip
yeah bike is a whole different ball game like making sure things are tighter yeah if you have a you know six month old bike year old
bike and you've been checking those a couple times like usually they they find their their snug spot and stay but
i'd always be safe again why why risk it on a trip when it's like check a couple bolts
yeah yeah it doesn't take long to just run through that stuff like you know if you're done with your ride run
through all that stuff get your bike dialed in and then tomorrow morning wake up and know that your bike is all ready to go
yeah that's that's key and i mean i think pivot bolts are always important to check i mean that's kind of
dependent on your bike and where you're riding and all that sort of stuff but i don't know i i always check i mean the
i was riding my uno out in moab and i mean i've checked the pivot bolts on that uno i mean tons of times like all this local
at home i go through that sort of little race prep as well as in mob like i've never had a loose pivot pole like that bike just didn't that bike wasn't prone to
them but some bikes are just more prone to loose pivot bolts than others um and you know especially like you know
if it's a newer bike pivots are way more important to check than if it's like a little bit older but pivots are probably yeah i always go
like cranks pedals rear derailleur axles um brake rotor bolts pivots
those are really key things to like just double check yeah what else what else weekend trip
wise would be like good just maintenance things to have i mean before you go on a weekend chip
tire sealant yeah preparation press key here yeah yeah perhaps a lot everything we just said was only
relevant if you properly prepped your bike before your weekend trip yeah so definitely tire sealant before
you go um and uh yeah i don't know i think on
the on the trip really it's chain i wipe down the stanchions with a very clean microfiber that's like
specific to just stanchions and yeah have one microfiber for your stanchions
don't get it confused with the one for your chain please totally different so stanson's
chain bolt check um that's really it i mean
those three things yeah a little cassette brush just scrub off that cassette and chain and pulley wheels before you do your little chain lube and
clean yeah i think you'll have a successful trip and hopefully don't have any bike issues
yep and uh no tire issues which kind of yeah it's a good good segue into
the next topic right tires so tires man tires we talk about tires
Favorite Tires
so much you know whether it's just internally amongst arguing that the
staff here or it's on youtube we have a whole tires playlist because we've made so many different videos about various tire things um the recent one we
did was tire combos i thought that that would be like just a helpful video in a sense because
um you know a lot of people just want to like kind of have the mentality of just like just tell me what to buy already
like there's like i've been researching tires and my brain is going to explode i don't know what's good just tell me what
to buy so the tires combos tire combos video the idea was to kind of just demystify
it simplify it like hey here are my favorite combos here's what i think the best combos are
and the best combos and most popular combos for downhill all the way to enduro then to trail then to xc
and you know i i didn't include a whole bunch of maxxis tires so this was just max's tires once again trying to
simplify it let alone all the other various brands you could do but just max's tires and i didn't even include like a whole ton of
maxis models just in my opinion the best ones the best combos for those various types of riding so
i think it helped it definitely got a lot of good feedback but it also got of course what we expected which was
like oh yeah but you forgot the high roller too and you forgot this and like oh that was great but could you do it with schwalbe
because i only write 12 and it's like okay well the tires topic just it just never ends
um something we didn't touch on there too much was casings and compounds and i think
probably casings is a little more important than compounds but um so just just like a recap of that video
um you know on the downhill side it was the maxis acid guy ass guy front and rear i think the ass guy is like the grippiest
tire ever would you agree yeah definitely almost every condition it's going to be
uh probably the grippiest tire yeah yeah that thing is incredible i mean it certainly is not
lightweight and it doesn't roll fast but that's not the point um the dissector then so like a cool
combo is a an acid guy dissector so ask guy in the front dissector in the back that lightens your rear end up and makes it
roll a bit faster which i thought was which is a pretty dialed setup um
yeah i definitely enjoyed that because dissector is quite a bit different than the ascii guy for sure totally different
tread pattern and everything um you know then another tire setup which to lighten it up even a bit more
um which this was the one i ran in new zealand when i was there for a week riding with new zealand mountain biking i did a
dhr2 in the front and a dissector in the back and i think i had was exo both on that on that entire
setup right yeah so and then beyond that then what i normally ride locally almost
all the time is a dhr2 in the front and then a recon in the back which is even lighter weight it's kind of like
almost like an xc tire probably yeah um exo on both of those and 2.4
yeah and 2.4 so that's like my most common go-to is a dhr2 recon exo and then 2.4 so that's like my most
common trail bike setup um i change it up depending on where i'm going like when we went to moab
i did what i do ask the guy in the front two five yeah and then what was in the rear
dissector sector and those are exo plus casings dxo plus yeah so you have like
exo exo plus which is a little bit more durable just a touch just a touch
and then double down which is yet again a little bit more durable actually two 120 tpi casings so it's two
xe tire casings on top of each other yeah so double down is like significantly more robust than even an
exo plus yeah and like way more robust than exo yeah and then downhill which is like
pretty rare i mean that's like a really robust like the downhill casing is hardcore so yeah i mean tire casing
that's that's where it gets interesting because i i'm only 150 pounds i'm a small guy so
i i don't really care to run heavy duty tires i also i also i'm just a weight weenie so like
even if i'm going somewhere i could probably probably should be running double down i just don't want to
i'd rather ride exo plus or maybe even try and get away with exo um maybe not the
best thing to recommend but i don't know it's just kind of my preference but you're a bit differently and you're always running way heavier
tires than i ever would yeah on my trail bike enduro bike
um my usually have two bikes i have a lighter travel lighter weight shorter travel bike and
then a more heavy duty more travel bike i don't categorize them that much i just
kind of ride them as they are um right now i'm on sp 130 it's built up basically it's beefy as
you can make it sp 130. lunch ride plus lunch ride plus yeah
lunch for those who don't know uh yeti does offer uh one the sp 130 29 inch wheel travel
130 in the back and they're 150 in the front yeah yeah and so they offer like a variant called the lunch ride which is
what 160 in the front and then they have a longer stroke or a shock on it for 137 out back yeah so that's what
they call there is that only on the 130 like that's the only one yeah so that's what they call their quote unquote lunch
ride so when i was saying lunch ride plus plus i was saying liam's 130 is built up like even more beefy and
robust than like what yeti considers their beefy robust lunch ride to be yeah so you you over biked
i over biked it a lot which also leads to over specking tires yeah so makes sense
um most of my bikes i i like the d the maxis minion dhr 2.
uh i think it has a really good rolling speed to kind of consistent grip it's not
going gonna be the most grippy it's not a nas guy but i think it's the most consistent riding locally
going to moab i can go to you know northern utah which i was at earlier this summer and go to santa cruz it's
just kind of like the most consistent tire i find it's versatile and clears mud really well totally yeah and it works great in the
dust yeah and another cool thing is you run through the same tires you wear all the rear front to the back only
buy one tire a little money saving trick um but yeah so for on that
sp 130 i'm running dhr 2 2.4 front double down casing
uh in the back same tire minion dhr2 2.4 downhill casing
so definitely on the you know most most or more aggressive side of tire casings
uh i originally built the bike up with double down double down to do the wore out trick front to back
and keep buying a new front tire uh bike was like four days old i think in
park city and i sliced a double down tire so i threw a dh on because that that's what i brought as a backup and
i've kind of ran the dh for the rest of the summer um but it i will say when i was riding that
bike in moab uh after i think second day i was over that downhill casing tire
climbing 5000 feet yeah we did a lot of climbing yeah and i wish i had brought more of like an
exo plus front double down rear just line it up a little bit but my thought
behind the big casing is i can run slightly lower tire pressures not ruin rims again i'm only 150 pounds
same with jeff so traction is a hard thing to do at our weight because we don't have really the
weight just all out gripping the tires yeah if i take a dumb line and i jump into some
rocks uh i don't want to smash ramp yep so it's definitely a fine balance and i
think the thicker tire casings help with that um just yeah kind of taking more dumb
lines and making it through without ruining a ram or slicing a tire yeah yeah it's
pretty like it does need to be you're gonna be thoughtful with it and what i mean by that is like if your riding style is to like
aggressively slash corners and kind of jump into rock gardens at full speed or try and gap
them and potentially not totally clear them and land halfway in them yeah so like and
and you're kind of notorious for dinging rims you know then if you're notorious for digging rims and riding in the way i
just described you're probably also like notorious for slicing tires open and like you just need to
learn who you are and where you're riding and then realize like wow when what at what point do i need to go
double down casing at what point do i need to go downhill or at what point maybe i need to step down like man i've had double down for a long
time since they came out and i've never once hit the rim like i don't know you could probably shave some weight off your bike and run the same tires in an
exo casing or ex0 plus and it's always nice to save shave weight on like something that has
uh rotational weight like tires so yeah um so yeah i mean it does just need some
thought and it really does come down to like where you're riding and how you're riding and then just like your past
experience you know like are you are you gentle on the bike you know how much do you weigh um bigger guys are gonna have a
different situation when it comes to slicing tires and trashing rims and all that sort of stuff
so i don't know just it just takes some thought and it does take some experience of just like being on the bike for a couple of years
or so which makes it a hard topic for people who are newer to the sport because then they're like well what do i what do i get like i
don't really know exactly where i'm gonna ride yeah totally it's like oh i don't know it's it's stuff i i will say though i think tires are
like my favorite thing about a bike because you just by the swap of a tire you can make a bike feel differently
yeah and it's also they're expensive but they're not very expensive in the grand
scheme of like mid to high-end mountain bikes yeah so yeah it's like a pretty inexpensive like
thing that makes a dramatic change to how your bike performs definitely you go from an exo casing a downhill casing
same tread same width it's going to feel completely different on trail um
and i think i've just on the bigger bikes i've just kind of gotten used to that thicker tire feel and i just like it more um
i it's really hard thing to explain but it just has a different feel to it so i think it's a great thing to
experiment with i'm a complete tire nerd i have a full spreadsheet that breaks down model to width to
weight to casing um across pretty much max's wtb schwalbe uh just to
kind of find that like again it's a balance right to find that weight to toughness to grip ratio
um and just trying to try to get that right for where i'm riding and how i want to ride that bike yeah yeah
definitely and i mean i think yeah it is super fun to experiment with and it does boil back down to like if you're new to
it or you're changing tire brands like it's probably smarter to you know error on
the side of thicker casing tires because like you know just think about it like if you're just doing little 30 minute loops
from your house and you're not too worried about it you just want your bike to be lighter and like yeah maybe step down to an exo
and just go for it but if you're going on these like more extensive two three four hour rides or you're you know
driving an hour to go ride somewhere like the less you want that tire to rip
in that case so yeah just just consider that i i'm usually like my trail bike that i ride locally all the
time i'm really just doing rides that are not that far away from from home and from the shop here so
i run lighter sketchier tires because like i like how light they are and how efficient the
bike feels with them and i'm not too worried about slashing them because i don't know then my bike ride just turns into a hike and
that doesn't doesn't really bother me too much but some sometimes it might bother you if you need to get home because you have
a wife and kids i don't yeah and maybe that's another reason why i do
lean towards bigger tires too you know i do some santa barbara country rides or you know head out on
trips and stuff and yeah the last thing i want is to slice a tire 20 30 miles out from my car
like yeah that's that's a bad situation yeah absolutely and then you're limping a tube i think
every time you put a tube in you're gonna flat again it's almost a guarantee yeah so i'd
rather not fly the first time yeah yeah so there you go different mentalities a lot of personal preference
and just where you're riding what you're riding how you're riding a lot goes into it which is why it's such a confusing
topic so um yeah endless endless array of things on the internet to learn more about tires yeah um but yeah hopefully there's
enough to start going circles with tires you could say you go in circles with tires
i'm sure a lot of people feel like that um well to uh to move on from tires let's finish it out with
what we're riding and uh obviously mention the tires on those bikes so i you know previously in writing an uno
What We Are Riding
dash it just sold and went out of the shop today um i'm gonna dearly miss that bike i
loved i really really liked that bike but i'm currently building a revel ranger
which i'm really excited about and that is a rebels down country bike so 120
millimeters of travel in the front 115 in the back um i think it's gonna be an amazing bike for local stuff and basically when they
came out with that and we're like wow this is like the kaneho valley we live in the kaneho valley area so
i was like this is the kanejo valley bike and i think liam and i agreed on that one um and uh yeah that's like still in the
build process but what tires am i even putting on that dice i forgot
liam if you didn't catch this already i don't do a ton of my bike stuff liam really takes care of most of it for me because
so i'm good at it on that one we're actually going with the revel spec pretty much yeah which is
sector two 2424 which is even lighter than a dhr2 recon
the dissector in the same size is lighter than a dhr2 we might have had a slight say in that
also and that yeah that's true yeah that is true those guys did ask us like
when they were working on that spec like what do we think could make sense and yeah we mentioned that combo so yeah i
think it's a great combo for that kind of riding it's yeah good down country tires yeah lots of grip but still rolls fast you're
not really compromising and you still get big volume and yeah you can kind of ride like a 120 115 bike over what it's
you would normally yeah if it came with some some skinny you know treadless tires to go fast like
yep that bike wouldn't be as fun yeah true yeah i agree so yeah so that bike
will have um industry nine trail 270 wheels on it right um did i do the
24s on that one too yeah so that one's gonna be super light that's what i ran on the uno too um those things i love those things just
super light and just gorgeous looking um we will have etherteen xcx cranks the lightest carbon
production mountain bike crank set right so is it still the lightest i mean they said that at one point but you never
know like yeah you never know i think they are for carbon i want to say that ee wing titaniums might like squeeze them
out but i have to double check weight made by cane creek fyi um yeah interesting so anyways like
super super lightweight but good stiff cranks um yeah and then rock shock set up so
rock shock sid up front and then their sid lux rear shock um and then sram
eagle drive train but with some funky weird stuff going on so this is this is maybe not the best
idea but my thought was um on a lightweight bike like that that i'm going to ride
locally i really didn't need the entire range of eagle at my fitness level so i didn't want the 52 tooth large cog
so the and i wanted to like shave weight on the rear derailleur so i was like well i could run sram 11 speed still works great um or
and i don't know how i think we collectively came up with this ridiculous idea it was like let's take a sram eagle derailleur and
take the cage off of it put an 11 speed sram cage on it then let's take the eagle cassette 10 to
52 and dremel off the 52-tooth large cog so liam has yet to do that but
he's going to soon right yes yeah yeah i want to make sure the derailleur works before i take
a dremel because i could reverse the derailleur if need be but i can't reverse really a
chalked up that's in three four hundred dollars same eagle cassette to test so um we might totally
and completely regret this but we will see it'll be on video yeah yeah that's true
we will openly admit if this was a terrible idea um and saram will look at us and just
shake their head but um you know that's it's fun to do these things yeah what else are you running on that bike do you know
uh gas post we went over the build spec a long time ago i mean so we went over the whole build
spec like two months ago i think and and then it was like the frame took a long time to show up because of
covid and then every other single part took a long time to show up because of covid and now it's finally all here um so
yeah i almost forgot a lot of spec it is a ks carbon led carbon post weight weenie status
right there um and i don't even remember what saddle wtv silverado with carbon rails
uh one up bars right one up carbon bars i really enjoy those things um what brakes am i doing g2
rc's by sram uh g2 ultimates i believe ooh ultimate fancy that's nice
yeah things should look really good i'm i'm definitely excited for that bike i think it's gonna come out looking amazing and i just think it's
gonna be a really good bike for the winter time here um where i'm never going to bike parks because bike parks
are closed in the winter so perfect local ripper trail bike to have yeah so that's that's what's currently
in the build queue for me and liam you also have a rebel ranger somehow you got yours built up way
faster than mine i wonder how that happened well the frame prioritized your own bike build over mine uh partially frames arrived at the same
time i happen to be a bit more prepared and have a low blow
have parts laying around since i knew about this bike in spring once i knew this bike was coming i said
i want one and i started collecting parts for it kind of before covet actually really got
yeah it affected the industry so i was able to snag up a lot of parts right there that was luck
yeah that was that was luck um but then the frame took a you know a while to come which is no
one's fault really except exploding industry demands yeah um
so it's actually pretty similar spec to yours um same suspension rock shocks front and
rear sid ultimate front 120 said lux out back um
wheels i actually have e13 xcx we carbon wheels 24 internal so they're
a bit narrow um 24 internal yeah xc ones but i really like the weight on them um
they do make a thing of 28 internal but they're about 150 grams heavier so i think these wheels are under 1400
grams for stiff carbon wheels that have yet to damage and then what size tires on a 24
internal width 2.3 million dhr2s front and rear front and rear
exo casing 3c compound so i still get a 2.3 tire it measures about 2.3 with a 24 internal
it's wide enough to support that but the weight of that tire and wheel combo is awesome i really
enjoy that so that's kind of why i have it on there and and i have a bigger bike so i can ride
that yeah you know light trail xc rides i'll throw on a lighter
ardent race or icon out back if i'm doing a real xc day and keep the dhr up front um
then cranks wise i have the same e13 xcx carbon cranks um i actually do have
an 11 speed sram drivetrain on that as well kind of for the same reason that jeff does i just don't think
i really needed the full eagle range i like the way the smaller 11 speed derailleur looks and is
not as close to tagging rocks yep yeah a little more clearance shave some weight definitely sacrifice a
significant amount of gear range but on a bike like that if you have good fitness you know you probably don't need
that full range no um [Music] i have reverb access dropper post
one up handlebar and a ritchie trailstone at 45 millimeters
kind of like a low in between from a 40 and a 50. [Music] sram g2 rsc brakes
i think that's you know kind of covers it physique uh ontario's saddle carbon rails which i kind of run on all
my bikes at least that that model saddle just works for me i'm probably on the more sensitive side for
saddles so i just kind of stick with what works and don't change it ever yep um makes sense yeah and the whole
bike weighs about 26 pounds which is that thing's at 26. yeah with pedals
yeah 26 with pedals wow um impressive so hence the wheel why i really like
those wheels and tires because if i ran something a little bit heavier it'd probably be closer to the 26 and a
half 27 range yeah so you took a you take a revel ranger which is a down country bike 120
in the front 115 in the back and you like parts wise leaned it towards an xc
setup with those wheels at least the wheels yes the tires are probably
trail yeah yeah yeah um i i consider it more of like a a lightweight trail bike yeah because i
can ride it hard yeah but like wheels and cranks wasn't crazy you would slant towards xc definitely
and then like your yeti sb 130 which that is you know 130 in the back
um that you slanted towards like way heavier enduro so you put the longer
stroke shock on it which gives it what 137 yeah so 137 and then fork you have the
zeb yeah i have a zeb at 160 which is ultimately too much fork yeah um but we had it for testing and i
really liked the way it felt and the plan was just to have it and get a bigger longer travel bike and bump it up to 170
180 where that zeb should live um 160 is a bit overkill uh yeah
and then the rest of those parts on that bike are also pretty beefy code rc brakes downhill brakes 200 rotors front
and rear dt swiss 511 rims which are like their
downhill 30 mil internal rim uh we already went over tires on that i got a dhr double down front
dhr downhill casing rear i do have a
new full range eagle 10 to 52 tooth um on that alright so one uh x01
cassette no x1 cassette i actually run gx derailleur and gx shifter on that
bike uh the new one like the new revised gx as of what june came yeah yeah
um and actually put a x01 uh derailleur bolt on there
because it's a little bit sturdier bolt and it takes up some of that play for getting real nerdy but the reason why i do the gx is i'm way
more likely to smash a derailleur on the bigger travel bike when i'm
going through rocks i'm also more likely to crash and it won't hurt as much to replace
that so yeah yeah hurt your wallet yeah yeah then i got a one-up
dropper post on there um 180 mil travel 180 mil travel dropper
and then a physique ontario saddle again on that uh stem i have an e13 40 mil stem
paired with a carbon 35 mil riser bar so i do have a 35 rise on that uh reason
being i really like the reach number on the 130. so by over forking it i kind of eat up
a couple millimeters of that reach um over fork longer travel fork lifts the
front end of the bike up which then like kind of pulls it back towards the rider so that's what he meant when he said eating up the reach
yep yeah so then um i put the stem down as far as i can go
so slam it down to the headset cap to kind of bring that front end back out
lengthwise um so the 35mm riser bar puts me exactly kind of where i want the bars
and the balance of that bike yeah um so i yeah i could run a 20 mil bar
and 10 mil spacers and be at the same spot but just getting nitpicky on bike setup
there yep yeah that is but i mean that's part of the fun of it i think that's why like we like it and
so many of the people in the mountain bike world like it because it's just fun to change stuff and try new things and upgrade
things and um i don't know that's that's part that's the whole part of the sport that's enjoyable
so all right well cool hopefully that was a value to you guys um let us know feel free any time to uh you
know ping us at worldwidecyclery or our instagram mtb podcast um or you can send an email
to podcast at worldwidecycler.com we can answer that no problem and we're
gonna try and do some more like listener questions and stuff um in the in the future episodes but uh yeah let
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[Music] you
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