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Are Shorter Cranks Better? Custom Shock Tunes, The Downieville Classic & More... Ep. 116 [Podcast]
Today on the MTB Podcast, we discuss Liam's experience racing the Downieville classic and the bikes and rides we've been enjoying lately before jumping into a classic array of listener questions ranging from optimal crank arm length to the best shock tune for your bike, the best food to use as a saddle, and everything in between. Tune in!
Submit any and all questions to podcast@worldwidecyclery.com
Italy Trip: https://allmountainrides.com/products/ultimate-dolomites-8-days
Worldwide Cyclery YouTube Channel
If you are one strange human that would like to read a transcript of the podcast above, continue reading below!
ladies and gentlemen welcome to episode 116 of the MTB podcast presented and
hosted by worldwide Cyclery I'm Jeff hi I'm Jared and I believe did you do
that on purpose it actually didn't I had a feeling you didn't do it on purpose you looked at me and then said I am Jeff
I was like I don't think you did that on purpose you know keep it interesting from you know we're keeping it
interesting minute one you're watching the video or trying to listen and realize who is who you might not know uh
in this episode we are going to discuss Liam's downeyville race which he just got back from various bikes rides and
things we've been enjoying lately plus a story for me regarding a good deed and
of course the listener questions ranging from weird flexes that only bike nerds would understand optimal crank arm
length strong Wheel sets and plenty of other things that will enrich your knowledge of mountain bikes because
we love bikes wow who is that I don't know you really
like that was our intro sound effect uh if you heard that that was uh we used to call him the Green Goblin but now we
just call him Lou dog shout out to Lou dog for editing all these podcast episodes We Appreciate You Blue Dog he's
sitting over there in the dark we're in a tank top make sure the audio levels are good oh yeah it's uh not an easy job
but the audio comes out good sometimes our audio is better than way bigger podcasts yeah which is pretty cool it
frequently is I would say actually yeah almost always I guess we care about podcasts have bad audio no like I just
click off totally yeah I know what you mean speaking of tough jobs
Liam just got back from racing downeyville yeah nothing to do with my
job here though no but it was tough it was it was tough yeah downeyville is a
famous mountain bike race in Northern California I'd say it's probably the best mountain
bike race in the northern uh Americas well that's subjective but I'm sure a
lot of people would agree a lot a lot of people agree some people say that the downingville win has higher ranking and
to them personally than going to the Olympics which that person has also done really so wow who said that uh Adam
Craig okay in the Olympics so I mean I would say in terms of like you know
clout that does provide a serious amount if you win well yeah so Dynamo classic is a two-day race uh that combines a XC
day day one which is a 4 000 foot climb with a 5 000 foot descent uh The Climb
is right off the bat it is brutal it's hot it's exposed um and then you descend into downeyville
the town which still has climbs within that descent and you get a kind of a
range of trails from awesome six single track with berms to
like the fastest fun most fun Fire Road like ever pedally fire roads chunky
single track which is like sniper rocks that'll make you flat any XC Tire or most tires really super fast single
track which like I think on second day of practice I had like 36 miles an hour on that single track geez so you're
ripping pretty good very fast pretty fast for a single track uh yeah and then you got some some tech climbs on the end
of it so um and then day two as you start at the top of the mountain and you race down
600 feet of climbing I think four or five thousand feet of descending uh that is like an hour-long super D race uh so
it's super D is old form of racing it's the same bike same bike rides same bike
no changes same bike no change is uh same Tire setup has to weigh the same
they weigh it before both days and if you don't do the second weigh-in you get like an asterisk next to your result so
so do they so the results uh do they award day one and day two and then both
days combined or just 12 days combined no day one and day two in both days to combine because some people only do the
XC but in order to do the downhill day two you have to do the XC so there's no
just going up for the downhill so um yeah it's pretty unique and it's you
know definitely a long-running race this is the 25th anniversary but after a four-year Hiatus of covid and wildfires
it is back and it's my favorite race um yeah you could argue it's one of
those iconic races that kind of created modern day Enduro racing because it's been around for so long and the idea
originally was let's figure out who is a great all-around mountain biker it is like that's what we were saying it's
like you know Trevor uh our mechanic came with us and he raced Enduro for a
couple years pretty seriously and he's like dude this is like just all around mountain biking like who is the best
mountain biker on this mountain this weekend like you know it's not the best to memorizing stages or who can climb up
this mountain the best like you have to ride a bike so yeah what do you guys want to know how I did my bike set up
hmm um do you regret running any things on your
bike no I don't because you got a flat on the downhill I did get a flat on the downhill stage uh it was completely my
fault though yeah um so your bike setup was good which what did you ride I rode my sp-120 with
a 140 Fork on the front from any cycle bumped up yeah Yeti SB 120. 140 Fork on
the front bumped up from the stock 130. um uh bird Wheels I ran forecaster two four
front tire and 3C compound and icon 235 rear in the new Max Speed compound with
the Victoria airliner um pretty lightweight airliner was in
just the rear one just the rear only yeah pretty lightweight setup but still had enough like travel to kind of give
it and Ride Hard um I thought it was a pretty good setup and I think
I think for what we have it's arguable that the ranger could have been a little bit better
um I thought my setup was gonna be dialed this year I showed up and then all these uh the you know country's best
XC Racers are on like full-blown XC race bikes with like almost XC race tires Jeff cabush was on Aspen two fours and I
was just like what like how are you gonna ride these trails and then what I kind of realized there was like still so
much time is made up on these climbs even on the downhill day like the bush said he lost 35 seconds to Keegan who
won the overall on the third divide climb which is only two and a half minutes geez so he lost 35 seconds in
two and a half minutes like that's insane on a downhill run you know which are decided sometimes by seconds to lose
35 seconds like yeah so um yeah that was my setup Saturday I had a really good day I stoked with what I
did I did two hours 35 minute result which I stoked with and you know
uh Simon climb well yeah climbing in downtown yeah yeah
um but I was stoked with that and was hoping to do a good result on day two and near the bottom on first divide I
just was getting a little sloppy and trying to Pedal it's kind of like a rolling false flat climb with some sharp
rocks in it and I just like pedals and pedaled over some rocks and rear smashed
my rear tire into something and pinch flatted um and Trevor had flat of the day before
he was like oh it's just fumbling all about and like dropping everything I was like all right all good just gonna pull
out my plugs all calm and it's just gonna do this real quick plugged it it's like okay I'm going to put a bigger plug in it put the second plug in it it's
like cool grab my CO2 just to top it off tighten up CO2 the O-ring blasted out of the CO2 head
and that's when I started fumbling real hard the Panic said and then I was like oh
and then but neither co2s work so I just hopped on my bike and rode the insert in last like 10 or 15 minutes
um so ended up 12th overall in my category did a lot of people flat a lot of people flattened yeah a lot of them
there's a lot of sharp rocks there's a lot of sharks rocks high speed like a lot of people flatted Trevor flatted his
rear tired both days um fixed it flooded again second day
actually cracked his wheel pretty good so he had like a whole other adventure of just like getting down the mountain
and watching all the chaos happen like go past him he saw some dude crash and break his femur he said he had helped a
couple girls plug their tires like it's so crazy I mean obviously people are trying to like you know run as as light
of a setup possible and like these XI tires and like obviously you know if you're gonna go up there and ride like you wouldn't bring a bike like that
probably I mean like just to ride that downhill you know but then there is a rain that's what's cool about the event
it was like there's a range of everything from like 21 pound weight weenie bikes yeah at two like 35 pound
full suspenser mics my buddy tyman did on like a 33 or 34 pound alloy
Cannondale yeah I mean like you know they're pretty good get out there and go for it and smash the downhill yeah yeah
Mike did it on the sb140 with a coil on it formerly Big Mike yeah shout out yeah
Weaver Weaver did as well he had he finished both days with air in his tires so wow dig kind of crack his Rim but did
kind of crack the rim um you know yeah that's pretty much it it's my favorite race I'm already uh
363 days out and scheming for next year so nice so you don't regret anything but
you would change a couple things I think next year I'm gonna go for a
even lighter bike to kind of favor the climbs a touch more and maybe
a faster type roll Tire combo probably keep the icon 235 rear but maybe throw a
Recon in the front nice but that's scary yeah running Recons up front's pretty scary I don't know I think Recon is
pretty good I did that last year at Brick okay brand new Recon 3C this makes
me think uh I need a new set of tires for my Ranger that one aren't those like brand new
tires yeah but I'm gonna ride them a lot in the next 10 days oh okay I need a fresh set fresh set for the Adventure
Race yeah I'll have a fresh set for you before you leave nice there you go what are you gonna do dissector Recon I
actually like the setup that's on there now that forecast yeah that new Max's forecaster is good
it's way better than it looks like I mean I thought it looks pretty good yeah when we first put it on I was like oh it
doesn't look like it's gonna grip as good as a dissector but I think it does I think it's about on par I'd say the
dissector maybe has a little bit more overall grip however I think the forecaster might roll a touch faster and
has more predictability yeah yeah more transition knobs yeah
yeah no it works really good especially on that bike I was really impressed with how yeah that's why I wrote it
um but yeah I think I go touch faster for next year we'll see nice yeah there you go I think they'll join you next
year it sounds like a really good time let's go to Jeff come on let's go do it I'm retired for mountain bike racing
it's barely who says it's a race you don't have to race yeah it does sound fun they just it sounds like that sounds
like a race I would like to do yeah it is five five or six nights of camping no cell service which is you know
yeah yeah Force disconnect for sure which is nice that is nice I didn't shower for since I left your house in
Reno well you had the river right yeah yeah I rinsed off in the river but like
no shower no how many mountain bikers beautiful showered in that River during that weekend all four houses
sodium I can taste the scratch Labs coming out
of the pores of these mountain bikers Weaver didn't shower one day because the night before we're getting out and we saw a snake in the water really yeah
I've seen a couple snakes up there in the water whoa um they're not big they're just you know little too toothless a lot of rivers they're not
they're not venomous so like kind of snakes are those no downyville water snakes
I lost my boy Jim Bob or for what kind of snakes live in water nice but uh yeah
he didn't go in one day and we're like oh come on Weaver's like I'm staying out of there it's like Indiana Jones snakes I'm out
of here yeah people who watch Indiana Jones will get that well isn't that on the ride too
yeah that's all right yeah that's enough about me yeah nice what have you been doing lately Jared
bucks nothing new riding a lot of bikes yeah I've been riding my gravel bike quite a bit actually um in the full spandex huh but yeah
you've got a new bike didn't you I did get a new bike yeah I got the new forbidden Druid the detail V2 let's get
some time on it so far yeah I got a couple rides on it it's pretty good love it um I'm definitely looking forward to
taking it more I don't know just on some more uh challenging stuff um but you know I'm kind of torn because
my health insurance ran out a little bit ago and I'm kind of in between coverage for the next like five you're not
supposed to let that last week I know you're not okay well I you know didn't realize this
is not the place to discuss health insurance and benefits I'm just saying I'm just saying I really
want to go ride it on some other stuff but like I just don't want to take the chance and then be like oh yeah by the way well he was riding suicide and then
uh you know crash and uh it's the biggest the biggest almost I had recently was on a Gravel Pike Yeah Yeah
Carl was just telling me like oh I don't want to go ride the Steeps because I got a lot of work coming up and I was like
we have a like I almost went down hard doing like 30 on a gravel bike on a fire Road like would have like tumbled down
the cliff yeah and like right next to cars I think is more dangerous most of the time that too yeah but here's the
thing if someone hits me on the car then hopefully they're paying for it if they stop if they stop that's a big ask that's a big ask yeah what you know
whatever we will discuss health insurance options
you do offer several health insurance benefits but yeah exactly for the record just so people don't think we don't
offer health insurance uh yeah I've been riding my gravel bike a lot I did a century last week two weeks ago oh yeah
that was funny you sent me a random voice message I did you didn't reply do you mean to send that to me yeah I
did I was thinking about you because it looks like it was really good I was Jeff told us and he goes I don't even know if
you meant to send that to me like Paige or something it was hilarious well to let everybody else know yeah it was just
like you know mid ride I was like 60 miles in having lunch at topatopo in Ojai and I got this bull and it was like
rice with these lemongrass beef and like pickled veggies and pickled insanely delicious and at the breweries
where they had that yeah they have like a little a little restaurant on the corner and like I'm just like you know exhausted eating this lunch and I was
like man honestly if somebody came up and stole my bike right now I wouldn't even chase him because this is so good
it was so good food is so good if someone stole your bike you'd be like well there it goes
take another bite Paige you're gonna have to pick me up because I don't have a bike anymore
um but yeah I did that and then I don't know I rode with uh oh thanks I rode with uh you know a couple buddies and
did 50 miles on Saturday and Chicago cruise went to Starbucks that was kind of fun had a croissant and a in a cold
brew mid ride what's that place so like a unique Cafe Starbucks yeah yeah it's got this new hip Castle you missed the r
bucks in Mammoth oh the r bucks yeah oh yeah they're not the Starbucks on the S and the T or are they gone yeah they
were gone they were gone we think it was from there's so much snow there oh wow yeah the letters of the sign just
vanished under the weight of the snow so it was we were calling it our bucks all weekend nice well uh you know that's all
I got I definitely missed you guys in Mammoth you know yeah we did our uh annual company camping trip uh West
Coast version where a lot of people from the Nevada store go down to Mammoth and a lot of people from the California
store go up to Mammoth and we all meet and ride bikes and have a good time and do funny things this year was was very
unique because the bike park was not open so we just rode uh wrote all the
various Trails the lower Trails well attempted to but most of them were covered in snow and we still had a good
time yeah there was some snow Crossings and yeah we tried to Pedal up Juniper and then we made it 300 feet until there
was like just big piles yeah but we we did ride Mammoth Rock trail that was totally clearing awesome yeah it was
still super I wasn't totally clear or the Traverse was in the actual Trail was that the one where it was well that
was before the Lakes was the Lakes Trail where that big snow thing was I saw this video somebody posted where you guys
were like hiking up this huge snow drift and then yeah somebody's this is like a bit of a mess out there I crossed uh uh
pretty decent snow drift that if I saw the video or the photo of
me Crossing it I probably wouldn't have done it but in the time I was the smartest idea in the moment I was one of
those unnecessary risk situations yeah it's like got this no problem and I got like 10 feet in I looked back and everyone's walking down around the snow
drift and I was like oh shoot
that's cool yeah yeah we still had a great time out there no it'll be at less mountain biking than normal yeah that's
good uh good times around the campfire nice classic charades oh like literal
charades charades wow yeah it was hilarious that's cool it was a ton of fun somebody win
ah there was no like delicious winner no it was just like one person but I was thinking whoever probably Dom is a
winner nice yeah well he was one who said he wanted to play charades because clearly he loves the game and plays the
game often clearly has an advantage he wants to show everybody how good he is yeah nice yeah it was pretty fun that's
awesome yeah now's a good time well what's this we're hearing about a good deed a good
deed talking about I have uh I guess it's it's kind of a brag but uh I don't know I just thought it was a cool story
that I would tell even though uh yeah maybe it'll Inspire someone I will yeah exactly
I was uh hastily walking to lunch to meet someone for lunch uh this guy
actually is going to meet this guy Wes who owns a company called Tahoe Trail bars things are delicious it's one of my favorite energy bars
yeah not a big not a big company they're mostly sold regionally but they're super good nice
um so anyways going a lot walking to go uh get lunch with him I walk past this uh this uh homeless gentleman who was
futson with his bike angrily and and uh like usually when I see something like that I stop and try and help out but I
was I was like I'm I was gonna be late I got I gotta get there so I walked 20 feet past him and I stop and that that
James Clear quote that was in that email ran through my head and it was you don't help people when it's convenient for you
you help people when they need help and I was like ah so I turned around and I walk over and I go hey man I'm a bike
mechanic can I help you out and uh it was funny to say I'm a bike mechanic you lied I realized I realize that's a bit
of a funny you embellished come on I'm I could I could qualify and that's enough no I'm just joking so uh it didn't
matter and uh so he's like yeah yes totally so he's got this old old quick release wheel uh with a beach cruiser
Tire which was kind of too big for the frame and those slightly angled horizontal dropouts and a lot of people
don't know how to use a quick release it's kind of a confusing thing should be flipped open and you spin it
tight yeah like they don't know that you kind of it's loose and then you flip the lever so yeah anyways I help them align
the wheel and the frame and then I taught them how to use the quick release got the wheel spinning and he was just so stoked and so so great good for you
man yeah nice so he was really appreciative oh and then he's like hey I've seen you on them YouTube videos
no he didn't he didn't recognize me from YouTube I don't know why he had a Southern accent in that instance but you
know I I did I did like marginally Good Deeds yeah yeah this week helped a
couple people out yeah uh there's just the PCT crosses right above Sierra City
uh like maybe quarter mile out oh nice and I was just as we're coming down from shuttles I had my empty van so I just
picked people up every time I saw them hitching around really because it's only like quarter mile down the road and they're just going to the general store
and get re it's a restock oh no they're a resupply good for you so I stopped a couple in my van got a bunch of room
really good stories not really it wasn't long enough um one guy's from France one
girl's from Illinois um yeah well I did ask him though I was
like dude what did you guys do from Lone Pine to here because you cannot get across there like everyone's just
flipping in this year they just skipped it no one's even doing it just taking the highway or yeah no one's actually
doing the PCT this yeah from Lone Pine to Tahoe and then they restart Tahoe insane yeah that was that was mine I
mean marginal goody it's not I didn't go out of my way really one time I turned around but yeah once I did I was like I'll just look every time I have an
empty car cruising down the street so nice filming best hitchhikers man no one even questioned that I was picking up in
a weird white van didn't ask him if they wanted candy or anything like that no nice that's pretty
cool yeah well on that I saw a couple videos of people like who did Mount Whitney this year and it just looks like
insane like somebody somebody in June who posted like they were posting a video of and it was just everything
covered in snow middle of June like were they stopping or they had ice ax and ice picks and all that
um they did not have ice pick oh they did have a nice ax yeah yeah I guess they must have had all that but uh I
guess the Hut is actually not buried at the top anymore you know the but yeah it looks like it looked like dead a winner
up there it was insane for those who don't know Mount Whitney is the tallest mountain in the lower 48
14 500 feet something like that 500 maybe yeah in California in the Sierra
Nevada mountains I don't think a lot of people know that the tallest mountain in the low 48s in California and also the
lowest point maybe yeah in the 48 actually might even lowest point in North America
no don't quote me on that but it is 135 miles east yeah right in Death Valley
yeah gosh such a diverse landscape we've got here crazy geological stuff going on in California wild totally wild
absolutely should we jump into the first listener question why not all right well you got three and a half
minutes all right let's see here when is crank arm length difference noticeable
currently running 175 millimeter cranks on a large sp-130 I'm considering 170 or
165 would either of those changes be noticeable I say absolutely yes
and in this day and age I would probably go 165. yeah I agree
um I've been a strong one 70s for a long time uh and then recently within last like 12
months or so I've pretty much switched all my pedal bikes to 165s even my XC bike
I don't feel any drawbacks except uh smaller circles and more ground
clearance so yeah bikes are just they've just gotten so low that in you know just
the recent couple years people started running much shorter cranks also part of that is because more Brands started
making 165s whereas previously any of these you know relatively good XC slash Trail
cranks that you'd want to buy never came shorter than 170 and now Brands kind of caught on like oh people want 165 so
they now make them 165 and everyone's like oh this is great I'm not smashing my pedal into rocks all the time now so
yeah 165 is is definitely an awesome upgrade and if you're one of those people that's clipping your pedals and
your cranks on rocks on climbs often then give it a try yeah yeah my new bike actually came with 165 mil cranks yeah
it did yeah the Forbidden yeah yeah yeah see they're just on top of it yeah
and actually when uh you know I was looking at the Turning products for our Upton video yep and the
165 mil cranks are the most popular options oh just for the build kit or you know
the the group set yeah oh I see for the GXT type 165. nice we do a monthly YouTube City
YouTube City YouTube city um what's the capital what's I don't know why I said that word we do
a monthly YouTube video uh of the most trending and popular mountain bike
products and uh we sometimes do it every month
60 of the time we do it every time exactly we skip here and there but no for the most part we do it it's actually
we put in a lot more it's not just just oh here's what's popular we put in more context and information and kind of why
they're popular usually end up being like seven to ten minutes each time yeah it's just Jared and I goofballing around
talking about popular mountain bike parts but um it's it's also in a playlist if you ever want to watch it right that's true
yeah it is a playlist yeah yeah so if you guys want to watch popular mountain bike products on a monthly basis we do
that and then we do the yearly recap which we actually then did again on the podcast yes this year we did for the
2022 popular products I think that's important to know like if you're in the mountain bike world it's kind of hard to
figure out what to buy for any type of upgrade or bike or anything and one good place to go is like well what's everyone
else buying what's trending what's popular what do people like and why and we try and always cover that on the
podcast and the YouTube videos for sure in good detail I mean that's how I figured out you know what to get for my bike before I knew all the ins and outs
yeah it is useful and that's why we do it that's why we do it and speaking of
why we do it how about an ad and now a word from our sponsors the MTB
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and now back to the show yeah and that's when I got that that prescribed the ointment cream you know a quick
disclaimer regarding ointment creams and other various topics uh most of the advertisements well 99 of them are
they're satire uh last episode we did one with Craig federighi which is like
the senior product development or senior product guy at Apple like you know
synchronizing him to come through the app super nice of him to come through the ad uh some people didn't realize that was
satire uh sorry about that we apologize um I don't not yet sold out
Greg federicki is the guy who does like the presentations on there he's like the third highest ranking executive at Apple
that would be pretty cool his salary has two commas in it yeah podcast is not there yet
podcast will never have two commas that would be pretty sick that would be pretty cool he was like yeah you know
I'm just taking a little bit of time out of my schedule to go do an ad for the MTV podcast yeah you know uh I like
technology so if any of you out there are high up at Apple I would love to
actually talk to you I have some complaints
Dom's friend Nick Burton he does he he rides mountain bikes watches some of our stuff got me a deal on this laptop right
here so did you tell them everything that you hate about it no I like this song
I should uh I should send that Craig federigi ad to him but then we might get
sued or cease and desist or something oh Jeff with technology is like us with bikes like I can always find the
smallest nitpick thing and it's just like why did they do this this way I can find it way better this way yeah you
can't find that with everything yeah like he's the reason why I took the door off my closet
it's not a pocket door it should be a pocket door but in order to access like
this whole house you have to go inside and shut it and shut it it's also in the bathroom so why you don't need a I don't
know I don't need to close my back closet off to my bathroom like who cares the Stoners developed this path who
knows but for context everyone listening Jared and I live in a parallel universe we live in the exact same we live in the
exact same condo not the same not the same condo but they're the same layout same layout condo 400 feet apart yeah so
that's that's what he meant that I used to almost live in the exact same apartment layout one day I had to do a
favor for Jeff you know and uh I am specifically in my closet specifically I
had to go get a pair of dirty underwear out of here that is actually the truth that is pretty funny so we're we're developing
uh some boxer briefs for Kettle and I had some prototypes and I was out of
town and I needed to get those prototypes back to Dominic who's in our Nevada facility and I needed Jared to go
in there and find my dirty prototype boxers on the floor and yeah get them to the shop and then ship them to Nevada
and so when I went up to his place I was like oh I got a couple of nice ideas for my place one of which was
remove the closet door and it wasn't even you know Pages like oh I want to go too I was like you know have fun bring
some company with me and then we go in there oh this is nice I was like all right I'm doing it when
we get back you know otherwise I'll never hear the end of it you know it's like oh well what if we took it off the closet door
I'm like okay I'll do it right now and admittedly yeah it's really nice like you can access 100 of the closet I
digress uh mountain bikes Home Interiors not home interiors gosh that would be a
whole other good podcast we could this this gentleman has got a few questions we're going to answer answer a couple of
them um because we thought the last one wasn't that good he says his first question we just
didn't like that with bikes coming with some form of factory tuned settings for
the suspension uh could upgrading a fork or shock was something off the shelf with a neutral
tune have a negative effect on the bike that's actually a very common question yeah a lot of bikes are like oh we
worked with fox or RockShox to develop a specific tune for our rear shock for this Frame and then you're like well I
don't want that shock anymore and I want to get a different one and this one has a mid-mid tune yeah um I think there's some bikes that are
pretty off the deep end that do really benefit from a you know Factory tune and
Brands like Yeti and revel and whoever else do work a lot with fox or Rock
shocks or whoever to set that factory tune like yeah well Yeti has a guy in-house right that does all their shock
tuning for sure I think it's multiple people as well just one person yeah Santa Cruz has Karen who you know does
all their yeah a lot of like dominant brands do a lot of work to get those shocks to work perfect for those frames
yeah and you know they're messing with one shim stack different like most people can't feel that right most people
probably won't know the difference from a factory tune to a medium medium off the shelf tune as well however yeah it
had pretty small changes yeah it's hard to say though it's one of those it's like it does kind of depend bike to bike
and yeah setup to set up and what you're actually looking for and sometimes it benefits it like we had that mod maker
um yeah way too stiff which had a crazy stiff tune that you had to ride like pretty aggressively for it to like feel
good so yeah if you put a light tune on that a light compression tune it probably would have felt great yeah yeah
yeah because a lot of it's subjective too right so the guys you know in the case of that mondraker they probably did
that intentionally because they wanted it to feel like really stiff and fast as like a cross-country race bike I mean we
got it and we're like well we kind of want this thing to feel like a trail bike yeah so this shock sucks exactly um this tune sucks yeah so yeah it is that
is a challenge so I don't know I mean I think it's when you're in that case you have to just understand if your bike has
a custom tune and then you know talk to you know talk to the brand and say well what does the tune do does the tune make
it stiffer off the top does it make it more Progressive like what that does it do and then figure out if you like what
they answered or don't yeah and want to change that or not one of the reasons on my SP 120 Yeti SB 120. you gotta specify
not everyone just knows every model name of every bike well I've said it like six times now
um that's the reason why I haven't changed the rear shock on it because it does feel so good stock it is a DPS and like
sometimes I ride like a trail bike I'm like oh float X would be sweet I'm like you know what I don't want to mess with it because it feels so good and What's
it gonna give me a little bit more like downhill performance you know heat up a little bit less quick so yeah Fair
totally well how about the next question I think we got that one pretty good why does SRAM still make NX on your site
it's a five dollar difference for the shifter and a 20 difference for the trailer to go from NX to GX why wouldn't
every manufacturer just give everyone the much better performing GX I feel like everyone would pay an extra 25
bucks for a bike to have that upgrade from the factory as it makes a big difference in performance I think SX needs a few small upgrades
and then just can the whole NX system you know gotta agree with the guy I mean
it's it's a little close yeah I mean except for the cassette I guess like there's a huge weight difference and
price difference between the NX and GX cassette um but I guess like well the shifters
aside from the chain I guess but the shifter is the cheapest piece of the whole group sets right gonna be closest
all together right so yeah yeah like Jared said the the cassette is a much different beast from NX to GX the chain
as well and also a lot of these kind of lowering stuff NX and SX both
mostly exists for OE spec not for aftermarket specs yeah which is a whole
another ball game of you know they Excel NX and SX they do aftermarket but it's mostly replacement for that right like
No One's Gonna build a brand new bike and be like I want SX on it it's like yeah you're buying a bike at a price
point with SX or NX on it and those big manufacturers that are doing that
um are penny pinching to be honest and they're just trying to get a bike in certain price point that someone can
afford yeah what I guess if they're making you know a thousand bikes then 25
a bike is a big difference right you know yeah yeah it is totally and especially if they're trying to just hit
a certain price point yeah so I don't know I mean I I don't envy the the team
at SRAM and Shimano that's trying to figure out all of these different skus and different price points and then they
have all this feedback from all their aftermarket customers and all their OE bike customers that want different price
points and different features and yeah yeah it's a complicated business I mean there's a reason we have 18 000 products
on worldwide cyclery.com yeah it's just a there's a lot of parts in this game so and that's why you also literally yeah a
lot of parts in this game yeah well Andy they got to differentiate these things right like yeah that's one of the
hardest parts you can't make nx2 good you can't make you know you gotta yeah it's like you have to make GX a certain
amount better and same thing with xo1 so yeah I mean that's so one of our our top viewed YouTube videos is the breakdown
between the differences of I think at that point we did I think it was the x01 and xx in here too
yeah we might have put SX in there too um yeah and it's tough and and they're it's there used to be more feature
differences like a little feature here and there but it's kind of most of the there's been mostly feature parity
between most of the higher end at least GX and above or SLX and above um for the most part just like materials
changes which ends up being like a little bit of quality of feel and weight and oh that's it so Nuance Nuance yeah
yeah but yeah price point and weight but I don't know if you are upgrading go GX like you said yeah yeah
depending on where you're coming from yeah yeah for sure totally right on next question
hey guys I'm curious about running a mixed wheel setup on the Revel rail platform have any of you tried this
would you start with the 27.5 or the 29er version oh well Liam has done this
and you started with the 27.5 frame yeah so the Revel rail which is a 27.5 bike
not to be confused with the Revel rail 2-9 right yes um yeah I did it before the rail 29
existed which is why I did it was I wanted basically two nine front wheel on that platform um I started the rail 27 I
believe I Short Stroke the shock because it was that bike 165 right yes 165 so I
Short Stroke the shock to 157. and then I put a 160 mil Fork on it
instead of 170 to compensate for a little bit higher front end of
the two nine front wheel so it dropped it back down a bit right
um because that bike was 170 180 so I ran a 160 on it uh adding
adding a 29er adds about 20 mil to your stack height roughly I believe I did the
math when I did this nice um and it worked out pretty well uh and then I just realized I don't love
pedaling in wallet bike yeah um it's great like super fun down I
literally wrote it straight to Santa Cruz like I think I wrote it once or twice around here and then went to Santa Cruz and I was like this thing is
awesome like yeah just ripping laps and steep trails and I was like dude I like found you know this Goldilocks and I
came back down here where we just have fast straight trails and I was like oh a lot of those benefits are like Santa
Cruz specific like yeah getting into steep ruts and steep shoots and stuff it felt really good so yeah
um that being said for this dude I still think probably starting with a
27.5 would be better unless you want a really low bottom
bracket because if you do two nine you put a 27.5 wheel on it you're gonna drop that BB like an insane amount like 15
mil which you know bikes ride weird if they have like five mil BB drop difference so um
I think going to 27.5 and kind of doing similar to what I did would be your best
bet yeah yeah I think I think so too yeah instead of putting a smaller wheel
on the 29er yeah I mean I think like most things use case dependent right yeah so uh
depending on the trails if he's writing stuff that's similar to Santa Cruz that's yeah steep shoots a lot of
corners and that's what he loves to do is shred things like that and have a playful bike then heck yeah mixed Wheels
a lot of fun just doing more high speed straight line or a lot of technical climbing or just more on the XC side of
things then yeah it does just go 29 and get on with it yep for sure use case
dependent and personal preference speaking of use case what is the proper setup for a downhill wheel set my Hub is
a DT Swiss 370 all my spokes were incredibly loosed after three hours of downhill and my stands MK4 flow Rim
looks like it belongs to a wave pool ouch well was your wheel brand new
perfectly laced perfectly trued with spoke prep and
even Loctite before those three hours of downhill that we don't know yeah that's a big part of it and building up a lot
of wheels for people who ride hard uh I put so much
like what'd you say effort or like attention prepper like into the prep of the build
into the prep and even smoke tension yeah your wheel can look a little wavy you run downhill it doesn't matter
you're smashing rocks you know as big as your wheel yeah but if your spoke tensions even you'll have a really
strong wheel um so that's definitely first is where you'd set up for a downhill set is your
problem spoke tension is that their downhill room too the floor the floor the flow the flows are downhill right
now okay um yeah just strong Wheel sets in general I
think the you know who built them is is a big piece of the puzzle like how well it was built and if it used spoke prep
and tensions all dialed next piece of the puzzle is maintenance so every time you ride that thing you know check it I
guess you spoke our spoke still good did you bend something like you got to maintain your wheels if you want them to continue working
flat spot it which then put uneven smoke tension in your wheel yeah and then kept riding it um what kind of spokes do you
usually use on those downhill Wheels uh I pretty much use DT Swiss uh competition on everything which was a
201-820 uh spoke sometimes I'll use what's the other ones competition or
Champions which is a 2-0 straight gauge um but I don't think the 201 h20s are like
any weaker per se but they are a bit lighter um button spokes butted spokes yeah
um so that's what I usually use I use Will Smith spoke prep or I actually been
digging these Stan's powder spoke prep in combination with the DT Swiss nipples
that already have spoke prep in them so I double spoke prep them wow and then I get an attention I put a wheel on it and
it kind of lowers it and then I actually use blue Loctite on the nipples as well wow like triple spoke prep nice
um yeah a lot of things go into having a good strong wheel and maintaining a good strong yeah but yeah I don't know
downhill wheels and big riders or hard terrain like they all they all blend on
maintenance yeah take time all of your parts are good well depending on your spokes and your nipples um brand but you know flow MK4 is a good
Rim Yeah good Hub GT Swiss 370 is super good so as they're just main maintenance
and making sure it's set up good from the start is you know most important for
downhill yeah indeed nice all right here's another question that makes no sense this one's
super technical if you had to replace your saddle with a fast food what would you choose and why
I mean I think it's pretty easy pizza yeah I had that I had that thought but I'm gonna take it one step further I
think it's too soft I think it would like Crush I was gonna say a calzone
that's pretty good except then every time you sat down it would just change out the back I got it I got it a dense
and stale ciabatta bread oh it's like a sandwich imagine that on top of the
subway decent that would actually hold up I think yeah or is it rained or a dense
Bagel would even be okay yeah that would look like some of those
time trial Saddles I guess some of these are really fast food these are just food well yeah I mean you could get I don't
know calzone steel that thing's stiff that thing's
fake you know it's gross otherwise yeah go foot long foot long uh speaking of footlongs
what's an Unwritten rule in the shop at worldwide Cyclery
you don't know one there's a couple that are not common sense that's the
unwritten rule um those things have been written down at this point well except for this one we
were talking about earlier is you really shouldn't be heating up salmon in the microwave I really
shouldn't or fish it's like a it's a fish no fish yeah like in the microwave
or air fryer or whatever especially in well actually I've never been a pH shop but in Reno and
uh Cali shop the kitchens are in the middle of everything with zero ventilation so you heat up some fish and
it just lingers yeah and then you go to hit up like chicken teriyaki bowl and it's like a fish chicken teriyaki bowl
you know what you know what's Unwritten is uh no no booze until one hour before
close yeah that is Unwritten that is yeah but everyone follows that yeah as far as I know why you look at me this
guy's the one who drinks more than I do hey what are you talking about no you're right I do follow that and
yeah you and Weaver follow it I mean Weaver's up at 359 pouring his drink
some days but he waits an hour yeah right yeah that's a good one that's a good one I can't
think of anything else like yeah you don't like Trek a muddy bike through the whole shop like that's pretty awesome
yeah um next question next question how much time on average do y'all
think you spend thinking up taking and selecting a thumbnail for each podcast so the podcast not really much time at
all because pretty on the spot yeah you grab a prop let's shoot it I don't know we just do something Rando podcast not
important but regular videos that go on the worldwide Cyclery YouTube channel we spend a lot more time and thought into
the titles and those thumbnails oh yeah it's a whole game on YouTube Michael Michael's been clicky interesting
thumbnail Michael's been getting real he's been on a fire really he's been on Firestone he'll attack with them and
some crazy Photoshop skills yeah
he had been in that one but nobody found her he hit her really good well maybe the photo of you with the briefcase and
the suit with no shoes yeah that's fine that's the one maybe if anyone will have
Mike keep hiding Bean yeah we should if anyone sees it send us an email yeah
maybe we'll get a special little uh gift card I like that how about that
worldwide.com if you find Bean in the next worldwide Cyclery YouTube video cover
photo perfect done deal it's in writing there you go all right speaking of which
what's one of your guilty pleasures that you're willing to share hmm
you go all right I'll go we'll uh you know if I uh from a little snack hungry
I like to take a date and I dip it in this cocoa spread it's basically like a
Nutella as I do I do you're gonna set my food your brain went to Food it's a guilty
pleasure I'm like you know it's a little dessert time take a date you dip it in there and it's like a Snickers bar it's
insane I'm not a huge Snickers guy but it's really good
all right you too uh mine is Disney Disneyland it's not
really that guilty I mean spend a decent amount of money going
pretty conservative Frugal guy but you know Disneyland I go Disneyland off the rails
the rails 25 per person to get a lightning Lane for the Cars ride buying
it you dog 27 to get a lightning Lane for the Galaxy Edge ride buying it wait for each ride do they do this there's
like the two popular rides you have to after okay you buy your genie plus which is already 25 extra per ticket per
person what does that get you I various like it gets you into the lightning Lane access basically and then you can spend
more money but it's only on all rides except for the most popular two and those ones you got to pay individual on
top of everything yeah after Cove at Disney's trying to make some money so they really expect it to uh so you got
to spend like 75 bucks to get to get faster lines
due to the amount of like it's it's become very pay to play it's a big it's big controversy because a lot of people
say well this is not inclusive it's not affordable for a lot of people and Disney's like well you everyone hates crowded Parks everyone hates high prices
do you understand economics yeah supply and demand we didn't build this park so everybody could come so we can make
money uh it's a challenging problem for them to solve but yeah I mean that's that's where I spent couldn't you used
to just go get like a fast pass and like it was like free or whatever you just had to go and get used to be free yeah
when you're a child after then you grew out of it Kobe shut down and it was
hahaha yeah I've never been there oh you got you
there man I want you to go a lot when I was a kid to Disneyland yeah my grandma's neighbor worked there we got
lots of free tickets all the time no that's cool yeah well Liam what's your guilty um I don't know I couldn't really think
of that many except for bread I love me some bread and I'll go as far as like
knocking out carbs like all day long just to eat a loaf of bread at the end of the day it's arguably probably worse than if I
just like moderated my carbs but you know yeah no one said this is a healthy
pleasure they said it was a guilty it was guilty yeah what kind of bread just like a French Loaf in any of it 24
inches long sourdough yeah I went to what's that printed paren paren yeah
fancy Bakery good crushed it oh no no butter no nothing just eight out of
eight out of the bag that place has um yeah that sounds so good oh jeez all
right yep that's fine all right we got a couple more here what's a stronger hub for a 200 pound
dude that rides blue and black trails at bike parks on a 2023 Trek Roscoe
I've broken two in the month of June Shimano mt410 and DT Swiss 370. yeah
Shimano hubs aren't known for their robustness I have to say they roll really good but
definitely not robust DT's supposed to be 70 on the other hand are usually robust but I'm guessing it was a three pole system probably huh uh if you were
to upgrade that 370 to the ratchet Ln which is their new
system for 370 hubs I think you would have a lot harder time breaking that for
sure that being said I think the DT Swiss ratchet system
350 I would say is the most robust Hub you can probably buy and honestly like
that's my go-to Hub it's on my downhill bike I put on e-bikes I put on Friends bikes like it's you know
it's as close to bulletproof as a hub with small bearings and spinning stuff on the inside can get I'm wondering how
he breaks them you think it's the paws I'm guessing you're probably a shears Paws or teeth on uh what on the ratchet
ring yeah the ring Drive yeah serious power wow how much you're almost 200 pounds are you like 190 190 yeah you
ever broken Paul's in a hub I've only broken a hub axle um and hydro which is yeah which I guess
is common um someone last podcast someone said we roasted you when I said oh yeah yeah
this was like well Jared's got like 40 pounds on us and they're like roasted they put the time stamps in so we drew
them yeah it's like I don't even think about it like that yeah it's just like yeah well you know we're talking about weights and I was like oh he's got 40
pounds on us well not more like he's big it's more like we're small yeah we're just small like guys there's pretty
normal size for uh a male right now somewhat proportioned you know yeah you are and you're under the average
American's obese you're not so you're doing great that makes me feel pretty good you know when you put it like that
yeah well well I think we got this guy's Hub woes all solved how about this one
last question what's a weird Flex that only bike nerds would understand
uh I would say custom painted frames or little uh modifications to the various
tidbits on your bike such as taking your rebound knobs or compression knobs and scraping off the color or painting them
sandblasting them uh custom decals taking off every little tiny sticker
that you don't like so it looks just ever so slightly unique oh I gotta Flex I got one yep a black o-ring on a rock
shock oh that is one of my bike because Liam dropped the lowers to change it to
Black because I didn't want the red that's actually what I was gonna say is this imagine that I dropped Jeff's
lowers on a brand new Fork to put on a black o-ring over the red stock one I
can't have that red one and you know you know what my bike looks like it has the red one on there yeah because I don't care that much trust me no it's my bike
my rail T9 is sick green frame green Fork everything else blacked out the red
O-rings just look they look hideous yeah however I just don't and then you can't do the
rear shock and not do the fork that's even worse yeah yeah because it's easy to do the shock yeah but uh yeah I mean
I hear you already have to do it for one guy why'd you you know break your back go do it again for yourself
well he's not paying himself that's why
it's true for me for free oh man those are good flexes I was just gonna say like uh you know like you have a sick
shock like a push 11-6 or yeah that's definitely a flex I'm like oh yeah I got the Zeb but I got the Avalanche damper
in there it's not your stock average charger that's true charger I was thinking another weird flex but it's
mostly on Jeff's end yeah his uh he was like you know I'm doing 10 rides soon I need some new tires
new tires I'm putting on you know it's like a it's like racer dilemma yeah tires on my gravel bike are tires I got
from you like over a year ago I put them back on the bike and I'm still running and I'm like oh they still work it's
hilarious I was like wait oh yeah these are Jeff Soul tires from your gravel a lot of people benefit from me wanting to
always have fresh tires and they take my Slightly Used Tires yeah yeah works out uh I'd say another thing mountain bikers
would understand is like having like multiple pairs of shoes like riding
shoes oh yeah I think always always rolling up with like a different pair of shoes every time you ride with someone that's ridiculous fresh kids I don't
even go that far oh I see I have like six pairs of riding shoes I think I just like my shoes to be properly broken into
like my feet and the pedals and everything I like that too I just don't like having that many pair of shoes it doesn't work you know it's a really
weird Flex is like having fresh cleats
you know what's a good Flex oh yeah nice being a really nice human and leaving us
a review on Spotify or apple podcasts it genuinely helps out the podcast and
helps us out and if you've listened to this far I think you owe it to us
you owe us one dude you owe us one man yeah man uh well but seriously please do
it it really helps out we appreciate it and if you have any questions you'd like them answered we answer the good ones so
just email them to Jared podcast at worldwidecyclery.com yep send
in your questions yep and that's it that's all for episode 116. talk to you guys in the next one thank you and good
night Chariot peace out the cookie crumbles you want to say it nah it's flowing in the other part I wanted to
say and that's all the cookie crumbles but Jerry came in with you know it's another good segue yeah
get out of here
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