ladies and gentlemen welcome to episode 154 of the MTB podcast presented and
hosted by Worldwide Cyclery Trail 1 Components and Kettle Mountain Apparel i'm Jared i'm Liam and I'm Trevor and in
this episode we are going to discuss a highly anticipated mountain bike drivetrain a sweet new Yeti the rebirth
of Rebel bikes plus listener questions ranging from what kind of sandwich we would be to dialing in your rear shock
and everything in between everything in between it's quite the spectrum quite the spectrum what do you think about
that William that's why they call it a spectrum yeah that's that's exactly right it be a little bit on it or a lot
of bit on it zach's words of wisdom sorry Zach I didn't you know that was play that was
playful um own your morning elevate your life he's he told me that he's been
thinking about this at night and it really helps motivate him for the next day his words of wisdom were own your
morning elevate your life yeah own your morning elevate your life which I like just wake up and get after it wake up
get after it kind of goes along with his words of wisdom from last week the time you don't want to do something is now do
it yep zach was just telling me about that today and how he changed bottle cages on a bike and he knew he he said
that he had a a left hand grab bottle cage and it was making him annoyed cuz he's used to the right hand or whatever
and he was too lazy to to do something about it i'm like now's your perfect opportunity to do something about it
that's right but his own words of wisdom sometimes you got to follow your own words but
the way she goes hey it's easy to say them it's easy to talk to talk it's hard to walk the walk yeah that's right yep
that's right speaking of which silverback gorilla can lift over
1,763 lb or 800 kg that's Daniel's fun fact that's Daniel's fun fact i believe
it so we're kind of talking about Zach you know he can lift a lot gorilla so
pretty similar i don't know so 100 guys versus one
gorilla that would be roughly What's that nine let's go nine
guys or so so a silverback gorilla can lift nine guys at once
i believe it i'm super scared of silverback gorillas oh yeah scary is the one Is the one gorilla versus 100 guys
is that a silverback or is that like I think it's has to be a silverback it's got to be right yeah like like King Kong
you know like top dog yeah top King Kong top dog you got that right yeah so yeah
where'd that even start i don't know some Instagram stuff but yeah some Instagram if he can just lift nine guys
no problem no problem he'll take all I think what do you think one guy versus 100 gorillas who's
winning one guy versus 100 gorillas one guy is Goliath who's a
Bible maybe and you know mythical creature of like Lord of the Rings i don't even think 100 guys versus one
gorilla bare hands like I don't know man m obviously once you get weapons into the mix it depends what what 100 guys
yeah true like gladiators yeah 100 of me is probably not probably getting smoked
he's going to lift all of you guys at once yeah yeah for sure love it well fantastic testimonials great shorts oh
yeah this is the Kettle Skid Mark um this is a review for the Kettle Skidmark shorts i thought this one was especially
funny great shorts my wife is always complaining about my farts so these Skidar shorts are a match made in heaven
in all seriousness these are great comfortable riding shorts i especially enjoy all the pockets with zippers uh
well you know what that makes two of us cuz my wife also complains about my farts
yep trevor and I don't have wives nope pardon my own guess I'm alone in that on
that boat uh hopefully other people can relate because I feel like I just poured my heart out on on the podcast and just
got nothing back from you guys um I just want to give a little shout out to a listener i met him on the trails this
morning oh nice um his name was Jimmy Hart came up to me and kind of recognized me and uh said what's up and
he bought a bike from us and it's a supporter of Worldwide Cycling Trail One and Kettle which is super cool listen to
the podcast and nice homie he was uh yeah he was just pretty stoked on us and I just wanted to give him a little shout
out because he deserves it what up Jimmy thanks for listening we appreciate you dog nice Jimmy speaking of riding bikes
Trevor tell us about that ride what you just built a new bike I heard yeah it was actually the maiden voyage of a new
bike I just built so just built a new Forbidden Druid um custom build
yeah it was uh I've been riding kind of our demo bike for a little bit the past couple months and really kind of fell in
love with that bike and I was like "All right it's time to do a bike build the bike exactly how I want to." Um so new
frame kind of came in ride wrapped it um got a ShraMM drivetrain ShraMM XX Type
on there and uh Rock Shocks components so I got a Lyric and a Superu uh Lyric
set to 160 travel as well so the rear if you if you're not familiar is 130 travel and stock comes 150 fork um but yeah
overstroke it to 160 a little more aggressive i can kind of ride it on everything um got u DT Swiss wheels on
there currently the XM481s which are the trail wheels um so
kind of keeping in the trail category with that and um got the new uh or the the Michelin AM Wild um and M Force nice
tires on there so rolling fast still grippy just uh but it's pretty lightweight this is 2929 right 2929 um
of course trail one components cockpit stem um yeah love that got to have that
can't really ride ride without it honestly and trim the bars to 760 kind of have made up my mind that I'm riding
760 with bars and it's just what it is and it's what I'm comfortable on and so yeah got that all dialed in put Mavens
on it so got the downhill brakes on there with 180 rotors that was kind of cool nice and uh it was kind of an
experiment to see if I could get away with the Mavens on a trail bike with and have like some lighter Yeah smaller post
mount or native postmount rotors size so 180 front and rear and yeah that was
awesome this morning and um yeah it's ripping so it's cool so pretty stoked on that i'm sure you'll see some pictures
on the site soon so um yeah pretty cool epic very cool mhm i for some reason
it's just satisfying to me to not run adapters on bikes sometime that was kind of like my my my theory a little bit
it's like let's just keep it straight on there no adapters i mean I don't mind it but I don't mind it either it's cool the
new Stram adapters make it much better with the 4bolt those are nice but yeah it's I don't know it's just satisfying
no adapters like just the little things looks clean is clean is clean looks clean i have no
adapters on my frameworks right now 200 post front and rear with the Mavens the
other thing that's nice about those fourbolt adapters well the one thing I hate about adapters so when you pull your brake off to like do whatever and
then you have to like finagle the adapter with the bolts and the caliper like that's the most fun you have to you
have to finesse it a little bit and you kind of have to have three hands sometimes just kind of do yeah and we only have two we only have two yep yeah
well well that's sweet new bike day for Trev yep pretty pretty stoked on that it's been kind of a long time coming
with that i'm just waiting on just to build up a new custom bike my last custom bike was the SP140 so which I
also loved and it's kind of the same sort of category kind of do it all bike good for home good for I could still
ride it at the bike park you know and I'm excited to put some more miles in that test some test some stuff that we
get at the shop and um have that be my baby yeah stoked very sick what about
you guys what have you guys been riding well Trevor you know it's funny you ask uh speaking of 140s I've been riding my
SB140 and it is decked out in some fancy new parts the new Shimano XTR wireless
wireless Shimano wireless Shimano you said dang that's correct yeah it is
pretty insane um the brakes as well new XTR four piston brakes and the 10 to 40
no excuse me 9 to 45 cassette small range short cage derailer that's the one that's on my bike they have two
different trailers for the two different wide range cassettes um yeah it's pretty insane i mean when did when did uh Stram
bring out Axis like 2019 20 2019 jeez
2018 2019 so it's kind of interesting right like it's Yeah it's a long time coming long
time coming and again it's this is wireless Shimano wireless Shimano XTR
boom just say it one more time wireless Shimano XTR they're catching up a little
bit yeah they are catching up a little bit and honestly it's a pretty amazing to ride with um and a unique feature of
the shifter is like like traditional Shimano XT and above shifters right you get the double click if you push in
harder right or like you get the single and then you push farther and you get the double like the the electronic one's the same which is pretty cool on both so
you can do either paddle you have you know they have kind of a front and back paddle you can single push or like push
through it and you get a double click and you'll hit two gears at once whether you're going easier or harder up or down
and of course you can map it to whatever to make the button do whatever you want to do right yeah and you can hold it and
it just keeps going which is nice just like a Axis and I the the shifter or
controller whatever you want to call it is is definitely super ergonomic i found that like it's really easy adjustable too super adjustable like I you take a
little 3M and you can you know change the angle of the little paddles and everything and definitely I mean yeah
just like right out of the box it's very intuitive yeah which is really cool i think I I really like the shifter of the
new XTR i want to say it's probably the I don't want to say best part of it but it the touch point it's what you
actually touch it's very good it's a very positive feel yeah it totally is it's really nice and positive and also
just like effortless to kind of bang out gears with it it's like just it's like I mean I've only had it on my bike for a
total of two rides now and and I just like without even thinking you're just kind of grazing the shifter and just
like blip blip just going through and it's really nice like only once or twice did I really kind of have to think about
it cuz it's like brand new on my bike and you know after a while everything is really automatic right but um but yeah
kind of like straight away it's super intuitive and really nice the shifting is obviously amazing i mean if you are
used to XTR I'm sure it's pretty comparable like I was telling these guys
I'm not uh I don't think it's like quite at the same level as like a you know
transmission like equivalent XX in terms of like the buttery smooth like shifting under full load like it just like ticks
the gear off you know i mean the Hyperglide Plus is pretty good it is pretty good yeah type is insane yeah so
yeah hard hard to beat that it runs on a standard derailer hanger right so when
if you compared this to previous Axis right do you think this is better
quieter i think it's a little better yeah yeah I would say it's better than than That's a good point it is i would
say it is better than previous Axis like Yeah I would say um I'm not sure I would
upgrade from Axis to this unless you're just like a diehard Shimano fanboy like I I've been waiting for this and I would
need to have it but if you maybe have mechanical then like definitely right
like um and they make an upgrade kit yes so you can buy the controller the
derailer with batteries i don't know the exact retail price off the top of my head i want to say it's under 1,000 or
about 1,000 i think it's about a,000 yeah um and yeah that's if you already have Shimone in your bike that's a great
upgrade to go wireless they do did make a new cassette and chain it's a little bit more optimized but it's backwards
compatible for any 12speed Shimano yeah I think if you especially have like an e an ebike and you don't want to have a
cable routed through the motor routed through the battery routed through a headset whatever it is if your ebike
previously came with XT um like maybe a more budget friendly build then you can slap on new wireless XTR Di2 and have
wireless and it'll be awesome you know and you don't have to get the new cassette and chain ring and all the stuff you can just slap on shifter and
derailer and be good to go for sure i mean there's definitely a few crowds of people who are going to love this right
like people who have bikes that don't have UDH and they want that incredible shifting and then also I thought about
this as well which we kind of talked about with the Shimano guys the kind of gravel crowd like I feel like that 9
to45 cassette with that trailer is like ideal for a bike right yep yeah you can
mix and match stuff um so that yeah all that's really cool um and yeah people and the new brakes
seem cool yeah the new brakes are pretty cool i think I think XTRS are in my opinion when they're bled when they're
bled well and set up perfectly are like some of the best brakes on the market they really just feel the lever feels
like awesome and there's tons of power to be had and yeah with the new with the
new lever and new caliper too they uh they kind of angled the levers up a little bit they're a different degree
angle they call them up sweep up sweep and uh so it's I don't know how you feel about that Jared cuz Jared actually rode
them now but um yeah it's a little bit more intuitive to to break or it kind of follows the angle of your finger a
little bit so it's kind of a cool little project they did with Shan when you think about it you have your hand on the bar your finger out and you pull your
finger in it's coming back towards your hand so it is you know a normal lever
pulls straight back to the bar but your finger doesn't really follow that curve so it does make sense it does make sense
definitely takes a little while to get used to i mean especially just the onoff feel of the brakes coming from you know
Mavens and Muras even they just inherently have more modulation right um
but once I kind of got the hang of them and like the the lever feel and like just kind of feathering them just kind
of like hopping on any new brake right like feels weird at first yeah it totally feels weird at first and like there's also no traction out there right
now so that that does not help there's no traction out there speaking of new
I was just out today i've been riding on it but I was out today before this riding on the new Yeti MTE eBike
yep tell us about that new Yeti ebike mt mte is the model name it has the new TQ
HP R60 motor 60 new meters and the model I've been riding has a 580Wh battery um
so it is a SL or a lightweight or half-powered ebike whatever your category that is that at um but yeah
it's sweet i think what was our bike like 43 lbs that's pretty good yeah it was it was it was pretty light i think
it might have even been lighter than that honestly um yeah it's cool it's 145 rear travel 160 front with a new 36 on
there um it rides like a trail bike nice
i think this is definitely catering to the guys that maybe um still want a
little bit of assist you know but want really want the the trail bike feel of a
of an of a normal analog bike and I think previously SL bikes were pretty close to that but it was still like oh
I'm riding an ebike i think this new one since it's so light and has that little bit extra power now it uh it it follows
more closely to riding like a normal analog bike yeah and the power delivery feels good on it and it runs on the same
6finity platform that the 160e does from Yeti quiet motor pretty quiet motor yep
um nice screen digital screen on the on the top tube nice um it's pretty killer
what do you um How do you feel like the motor is on downhills like with rocky stuff i
couldn't really hear it it wasn't apparent nice that's good yeah but it probably gives you that little extra
weight to like kind of be stuck to the ground you know like ebikes can be really beneficial for that sometimes like yeah the full powers are like a
little heavy and sometimes it can be a little lethargic but I think with this half power gives you a little bit extra weight kind of in your bottom bracket
kind of like how these downhill guys are putting weight on their on the lower end of their of their frame for sure and it
just kind of makes the bike turn better keeps it stuck on the ground the suspension can be a little bit more active yeah especially with how Yeti has
their 6finity system with the ebikes it really performs excellent yeah and like
you can you can tune the anti- squad and the anti-rise for like ebike forces you know and so it's not just like slapping
a motor on a normal bike and just calling it a day like they've really done their homework on it and I can I
can assume it rides super well for that i've always thought that the 6finity ebikes from Yeti ride extremely well
yeah um you know there's just been uh well whether you like it or you don't it
had a schema motor on the 160E um and now with this motor in the SL platform
it it's pretty sweet and it's also mullet compatible where the 160e was not
so I think that's a big difference mhm um I think ebikes are amazing with mullets they just corner so well they
just can like back in that rear end and lean the bike over um so I've not ridden
it in a mullet but we do have mullet wheels I can slap on it and try oh sick um yeah so yeah i mean new Yeti ebike i
always thought the 160 was one of the best descending ebikes like right up there with Crest Line and I don't know
probably those are the top two top two in my book uh that's pretty sick yeah looking
forward to getting more miles on that and checking that out i mean it's a golden era of ebikes i feel like just
they're constantly coming out i mean left and right yeah things are getting very very specific and this Yeah this is
definitely catered towards a specific customer but I think who if you are that customer you're going to be pretty
stoked on this thing yeah totally yeah i mean today I rode with full powered i we just did a little uh basically lunch
ride afternoon ride i rode almost 12 miles 1,200 ft of climbing uh I used 25%
of this battery yeah it's pretty and I was in full power almost the whole time it's pretty impressive so um it goes al
there's also availability for a range extender on this too so if you put a range extender and had a had a bottle in
your or camel back on and you could go for a pretty big ride you can do a pretty big ride big backount ride and
still feel like you're on a normal bike which is pretty sweet and like I I would be fit enough to ride this bike and keep
up with full powered most of the time really for the most part yeah there's times where they're going to pull me but
like I mean the torque's not that far off no I just work harder yeah it's just the range that'll really get you at some
point but but even then the range is is 580 watt hour where that's actually pretty good like the DJI small motor or
even the Santa Cruz only comes with a 600 all the new Santa Cruises come with 600 they don't come with bigger
batteries so um it's the same watt hour you're just going a touch slower mhm and then you
run the extender on there you're you're going just as far as those full power bikes yeah and big range bikes you're
just a touch slower on the the watts but even like the opposite end of the spectrum let's say you're a guy who has
a bunch of buddies who are fit or riding normal bikes and they're stoked on it or whatever and you know for life gets in
the way you're you're you're not fit got a kid or whatever you know like out of shape and you can't hang with your
buddies but you still want to ride with them or get a lap in after work or something like that this is kind of like I think perfect a perfect bike for that
kind of scenario you'll still still hang with the boys or the girls y yeah i wonder what this means for the
future of the 160E well it's still in the line it's still current it is but yeah they're not uh
changing it as of now yeah so interesting yeah still rolling interesting well I guess we'll have to
see and speaking of still rolling still rolling bikes is back uh Rebel is back
back in action we back again uh our guess who's back our good friend Adam
Miller yeah he has reacquired the brand from the bank I guess the bank yeah so
and uh Yeah tell us a little bit about Liam you talked to him today right yeah yeah I talked to him today um
uh it would have gone live like a week ago at this point um yeah so kind of the
classic story that's been happening in the bike industry you know private equity is interested it seems good they
want to invest it's great for capital making bikes running a bike company is heavily capital intensive you need a lot
of money to buy bikes you don't make it back right away so it's like this kind of put all your money in wait to sell
bikes to get it all back um so when someone comes in and goes "Hey I'll give you a bunch of money for a piece of your
company it sounds great at the time." Well private equity wants to make money back really fast they want to grow they
want to scale and that's just not really what the bike industry is yeah um scaling is so tough with that too it's
hard yeah so these guys you know co boom numbers look amazing you know off the
chart they invest a bunch co bust they're not seeing the return they want they're not seeing you know uh money
come back oh we need more money to put stuff in they're not stoked on that that's not where these guys are at these guys are business guys cutthroat
business guys so they weren't seeing that they stopped doing it the bank took control adam's baby that he created was
basically no longer so Adam was like "Well I don't want this to happen." Adam stepped up he reacquired the brand from
the bank and now Adam's the sole owner again um and he's just going to run it
like a small boutique brand um kind of where his heart was at when he started it kind of back to Yeah back to its
roots for sure super cool um super cool so it's great news for Revel that they're not going anywhere um we're
lucky that he wants to work closely with us um so we will still be carrying Yeti or not Yeti Revel bikes um and yeah
it'll it'll be awesome they still have two brand new models the Rerun and the Ritual that they currently are taking
orders on the Ritual I believe is available now the Rerun will be available in July sweet so current bikes
brand new modern up to-date um yeah and then they still have the
Rascal SL and some Rangers as well are rolling through so it's kind of a wild turn of events like Sea Otter just
happened and the they released these new bikes everyone's pretty stoked on it and it's like this kind of buzz is in the
air about Rebel and then it's like oh they're shutting down dang totally i know a lot of our customers were kind of confused and and bummed and bummed like
I think like we saw like the comments on Pink Bike you know like people love CBF
the customer I met this morning uh Jimmy he was on a a rail 29 and he loves CBF
and he loves the way it pedals and it's like perfect for everyday trails you know and and and pedals so well and yeah
it's it it's a bummer to see that go at first you know people people are like
have a little bit of an attachment which is super cool to see from a little boutique brand like that you know so it's cool to see that coming back and
coming back more into its roots right i think it's this is the part of the story
we all kind of wanted to see happen right like we all knew that re rebels was going to like cease to exist and
like like we all knew something was going to happen and I think we all wanted Adam to get back in the fold obviously some people are joking around
that Jeff was going to buy it i don't know that's that's a move of the heart and not the brain right there a lot of
people tell me said Jeff should buy it back or Jeff should buy it no he did or a lot of people said that they're like
"No I don't think Jeff's too keen on buying a bike company right now." Yeah um but luckily Adam and Jeff are friends
uh you know I spend a lot of time with Adam so yeah it's awesome to see it in the hands of the original owner um we'll
still work closely with them we'll still carry them and Yeah yeah it kind of makes you feel good a little bit you know it's like Yeah it's the warm fuzzy
ending to the story that we wanted you know exactly exactly sweet they're back check them out give them some love uh
they'll be stoked and yeah they're just going to be running it with a small crew kind of some OG OG people that were
there and yeah keep pumping out bikes so awesome awesome yeah it's super cool we love to hear it you know what else we
love to hear listener questions what do we What do you guys say we get one of these in before a little ad break let's
do it let's do it if you woke up tomorrow and you were legally classified as a sandwich what kind of sandwich
would you be peanut butter and jelly oh dang i was going to say that were you
because it's just elite it's It's It's the OG it's elite like my Downyville
peanut butter and jelly sandwiches smack smack oh they're so good wow with with
like real peanut butter real jelly some good bread like we're not talking like Skippy and Smuckers we're not talking
like an unhealthy PB&J we're talking about fuel here i go to I go to Winkco i
get the honey roasted peanuts grounded into fresh grounded real peanut butter
oh yeah dude what are you talking about you get fresh peanut butter is that what you're saying yeah it's next level it's
next level you got to go down to get it dude are you kidding me no i don't It's not I can You can get it in Ventura
there's a one but it's like it's like gourmet i go out of my way to get tubs
of this for Downeyville week because like if you come back from a hot ride
and a PB&J a sparkling water and a river dip it's just like childhood but also
like life life it just brings you it gives you energy so that would be my choice my downing PB&J
that sounds pretty good i was going to say that just also because like let's say you're in you don't have food at home or something and you need to just
have something real quick you can have that before a bike ride perfect pre-bike ride on the bike ride post bike ride wow
um all that stuff but I'm going to change my answer cuz yeah that's that's Liam's answer now but um my next Yeah
it's okay my next favorite sandwich is like would be like some sort of like chicken pesto caprii Caprici kind of
sandwich big pesto guy at first that's kind of where my head was going like those Meno sandwiches we had after that
that was bomb we were also like super hungry i love Meno not so fried chicken sandwiches that's what I had it was so
bomb turns out one of the best parts about going on a big bike ride is eating whatever you want afterwards
so good 100% all right Jared you're you're the food guy here though you are the I'm curious about your answer i
wasn't even thinking about the not so fried chicken sandwich until just now cuz that's that's definitely a contender
but my initial chicken tender oh Mendescino my initial knee-jerk reaction
was meatball sub m because that is that is a very elite sandwich like from where
though not a Subway meatball sub no like a from like a proper Italian belly olive Garden what they even have a meatball
sub doubtfully hey Jared's about to Trevor his
Italian telling people to go to all their Italian itali probably has a really good one um
just a little mom and pop shop yeah or I would also do a just like a classic
Italian sub you know all the good cold cuts the mortadella the capacola there
you go yeah the gabul you know what I'm saying sounds good um I don't know i'm a
sandwich fiend anytime jared does bring sandwiches to work almost every day
um he just has sandwich supplies on his desk ready to go i do indeed it's known
it's well known as well oh god sometimes I snake a piece of sourdough from him and I'm like "Yo can I get one?" Yeah
anytime man i'm the bread boy well I guess we'll uh throw in an ad real quick what do you guys think about that here's
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worry no longer download our state-of-the-art app right now and now back to the show listener questions i
can read I can read this one go for it Trev hey guys I have a 2018 Rocky Mountain Instinct Carbon 70 it's been
modified a good bit over the years and has served me well my question is I put a Cane Creek uh DB coil it's a 210 x 55
uh with the progressive rate spring 55 mm so it's a 500 to 610 lb spring in May
of 2021 it's been a game changer over the OEM Fox Float DPS Evolve Performance Elite which is an air shock mhm today
I'm feeling like it's not quite providing the level of support and response um that it used to think of a
few up a few pounds versus then around 213 should I replace the spring with a
heavier weight and should I go with should I go with progressive rate or linear well let's see so I mean yeah if
you've gained a few pounds I would go up a spring rate for sure and if you already have the progressive and you
liked how it felt I would just stick with that and uh yeah it's also like worth trying
one of those uh spring decks coils one of those for a while not not a bad idea i've seen people who are like
racing use those just so they can fine-tune it fine tune the spring rate by what is it 25 to 50 lb something like
that like a 40 lb 40 or 50 lb range so you can really fine-tune stuff cuz otherwise you're kind of stuck with what
you got um yeah try to yeah one size up spring um or add some compression or the
opposite go up a spring rate and take out some compression see how just see how it goes yeah i mean that's always
the kind of the puzzle with a coil right is like sometimes you're in between rates that's like where spring decks is
kind of nice um Yeah i mean I've never tried a progressive spring heavy either you guys
um I don't think No I haven't uh no I don't think so it's not like
extremely noticeable um but it you know it just helps a little bit at the end of a coil ramp yeah cuz Yeah the one that's
the one issue with coils is um there's a ton of traction and it's
super supple off the top but sometimes you can really like bottom it out hard like not even on purpose and sometimes
there's not much support like he's saying and the air shock gives you so much support like you can you have a platform to kind of push off of the coil
just wants to go through that really easily or more easy I should say and uh it's just a different style of riding I
would say like just depends on what you're looking or you need something like super simple or it's super rocky
terrain or whatever a lot of downhill then be good yep facts well there you go
hey y'all I'm Callie Kitchen and 16 years old i live in Texas i'm a downhill biker i do almost all of my riding at
Spider Mountain Bike Park question what is y'all's take on building a bike versus buying a bike i bought a used
bike that was built but I would like to build my own and it's very costly so what do y'all think also absolutely love
the podcast listen almost every day i've learned so much from y'all thanks well
um if the bike I mean there's there's no replacement for like customizing the
bike how you want it right i mean you can get a off-the-shelf bike that is super good for a lot of things but
nothing really like replaces that you know fully like tailored built bike every little part is what you like
that's your preference right yeah but Homeboy is 16 that's true and
probably doesn't have enough money to buy to custom build a bike so I think nowadays bikes are so well speced stock
true it's hard to you know not many bikes I mean yeah he said he bought a
used bike i don't know if he's buying another used bike or looking into a new one but like a Forbidden right now like
a stock Druid build with like GXT type is literally perfect yeah I mean that
for that example that's exactly the bike I had been riding the past couple months GXT type forbidden druid and um I just
changed the wheels and tires on it that was it just cuz I didn't want to use the the stock ones and
it was super good i literally had no complaints the I built this new one a
little bit different just to kind of make it different but is it is how much better is it actually marginal but it's
not that much different it's not that much different like if you were to buy the XX build of it yeah pretty similar
pretty similar pretty pretty similar for sure so yeah I I agree stock stock bikes are really good nowadays i think it'd be
better for you to buy a stock bike and just change one or two things than to build it up custom if you're trying to
if you don't have much money to spend cuz no matter what if you buy every single part individually it's going to be expensive yeah unless you're
likeounding the pink bike by itself or you know used stuff or cheap stuff yeah which you could also do it'll take more
time and effort but for sure like Yeah shout out to Ken you're also 16 and you probably just need some uh time to
figure out what what you like too what's good and what's bad and um that just takes going through a couple bikes to to
figure all that stuff out I would say yeah i mean to your point as well uh I don't know if it's just forbidden but
the druid I had I don't think I changed anything on it it was a exo transmission build with codes and those crank brother
synthesis carbon wheels and that Yeah that build was awesome it was Yeah pretty dialed oneup dropper they even
come with 165 cranks which is what I run you know what I mean like there's I mean I put a troll and cockpit on it because
it's me but like I could run the stock barn stem no problem it's the correct length correct rise i cut it down to my
width and throw Hell's Kate grips on cuz I don't like to ride without those but everything else is perfect like throw
your grips and pedals on and go ride so not every bike is that perfect um
especially if you're buying a bike like I don't know let's say you're buying a ASR or an Epic Evo and you're looking
to kind of do slightly more like trail build then you're going to have to customize stuff right cuz you're not buying and riding you're not buying the
bike for its intended purpose but if you're buying like a trail bike these days up to like an enduro bike
he's also a downhill biker that's true true and downhill bikes like GX level downhill bikes are awesome don't need to
change it you don't need to change anything that's true true like it probably comes appropriately speced yeah i don't know if you ride a downhill bike
at Spider Mountain i think you still ride like a maybe i think that would be a good cool place to do a trip spider
Mountain i've heard cool things about it it's like Yeah it's outside Austin right i think so yeah i've seen some videos on it and seen people do some races there
and it looks like super fun nice that's really sick uh there you go i guess buy
that pre-built bike customize it the way you like and you will almost certainly save some dough all right
guys this is a pretty heavy-hitting question if you could instantly become fluent in the language of any animal but
only one which animal would you choose and what would you ask them first that
second part of the question is the hard part they're both both tough they are both
tough lamb I don't even know if I have an answer
for this right now is it dog i'd probably say dog and I'd probably say why you whining
probably be a doggy uh Maggie and why are you bummed why are you whining you're spoiled what's the deal what's
the deal Maggie but then you have to be if you're fluent in the language of the animal then you have to just like bark
all the time see I think that's part of the question i think that's that would be super annoying do you think but just
cuz you're fluent doesn't mean you have to speak it all the time you could be fluent like you can you can
be barkling lingual barkling and cool that's nice yeah uh do
you think dogs are smarter than us um I think that dogs are smarter than us like
Maggie knows a handful of English words and I know I know zero bark words right
like body language i think dogs are That's funny i mean that is true Liam
i think that dogs and animals in general are pretty good about reading your body language and vibes are giving off dogs
also don't worry about human problems they're just simple you know yeah that that would probably be my choice because
I'm just always like "What why you're spoiled what do you need?" Yeah you
don't need anything yeah i don't know i'd probably be like just for the the fluent in the language part I'd probably
be like a bird or something like that a little bird chirping on a nice day interesting choice something like that
interesting choice Trevor is there are there any birds out there you're looking to chat with i I don't know yeah what kind of I'm not a bird lingual are are
bird species Can they understand other bird species can a cockat cockatail
understand a robin that's a great question they're definitely talking to each other i don't know if they can
understand what they're saying but there's definitely a call and response kind of deal going on maybe a bird specialist will uh will tune in to the
podcast and email us and let us know about that different bird species are communicating what's your answer Jared
um I think it's well known that it would be cat and the first thing I would ask
is are you happy that's a little deep for the podcast i know I always wonder sometimes cats
don't really they're kind of a little bit emotionless are cats ever happy that's a good question too i mean I
could tell when she's happy right i mean like overall general you can tell when she's happier i can tell when she's happier but I'm like like are you
getting like fulfilled like let's say you come home from a long trip you know the dog's happy to see you you don't
know if the cat's happy to see you bean though for sure we can tell she's like
you know she wraps her tail around your leg and stuff and like she's like rubbing up on you and stuff i'm sure Bean's stoked bean is stoked for sure
she is very affectionate it's funny not all cats are affectionate but she is but yeah that's what I would do and I say
"Is your life fulfilled?" Can we do Can we do more what can I do no I want to go outside what can I do
for you yeah where's the Where's the mice we do take her outside sometimes but not like an outdoor cat like you
know it's highly supervised she loves the van there's a lot of uh coyotes in our zone
that's not cool that's not cool yeah speaking of which why don't you read the
next question Lamb yeah okay i'm looking for tips on ways to reduce pedal strikes i ride flat pedals
with mountain bike specific shoes and I tend to pedal strike more often when I'm riding my full suspension 130 front and
rear uh versus my single speed hard tail bb on full suspension is higher verse hard
tail he lists a bunch of numbers um yep that's typically the case uh your BB on
your full suspension will be higher because then you have sag um I recently change crank length from 175 to 165
frames are XL tends to occur most frequently on technical sections with rocks and roots what would you think
riding technique is similar oh would like to think riding technique is similar any tips or suggestions um it's
just kind of the nature of the full suspension versus hard tail like you are bobbing up and down like yeah even
though you're at sag correctly and BB's higher to start with like you're not sitting at 25% sag the entire climb like
you hit a little g out and you're going to be at like 40 45% like I tag pedal
pretty often on climbs on my frameworks yeah like the cranks are going to be lower to the ground if you sag lower
yeah like I I tag pedal or cranks almost every time I climb my frameworks yeah
same with my 165 yeah and you got to time it like you have to be constantly thinking about it right yeah where like
the hard tail is going to be a little higher you don't have sag um it starts
lower but technically it doesn't get as low right yeah right yeah i
think riding style can help a little bit too and like really be kind of methodical about it also some places
where you I guess he's saying roots and rocks but if some places where you ride it's going to be you're gonna hit pedal
and crank no matter what like let's say you're riding in Phoenix oh yeah you know like you're doing these technical
kind of trials maneuvers you're going to hit your chain ring you're going to hit your cranks you're going to hit your pedals and they're going to get
scratched up just is the nature of the beast um but sometimes you can time it a little bit better with where your crank
arm is going down and maybe miss it a little bit but it's hard to be perfect on that yeah maybe lean the bike a
little bit in the you know corresponding direction like when you're cranking like if you if you are about to hit a rock i
think the smaller cranks are a simple solution though and he's like looks like he's already gone to it like he could
maybe even go to 160 it would help a little yeah but he's 67 so 67 though yeah that's a big boy yeah yeah um No I
mean I think smaller cranks riding technique and I don't know i mean if you
clip pedal on climbs it's not really that bad you don't want to clip pedal going downhill
you know what I mean like that's that's where stuff gets dangerous but like on a climb that's kind of the beast really
yeah i'm I'm literally like sometimes I'm stepping on my pedal and pedaling
over it and like my rear end lifts up but I'm trying to make a tech climb that's just the way where I need to put my pedal and where I need to go that
time so yeah sometimes you can ratchet back and like you know kind of uninterruptedly
get through a climb and not but sometimes you just are where you are and you can't do that and you're kind of just smash your pedal smash i think a
higher engagement hub could help a little bit maybe you could just like for for a tech climb that's so marginal
though so but it does help with tech climbing stuff for sure yeah definitely but it's not really going to help you besides
ratcheting a little bit you're still going to have to pedal through at some point so Mhm you're still going to like
pedal through and and tag your pedal your shoe or your crank arm but yeah might buy you a couple seconds to figure
out what you're going to do oh no not too much exact tips but those
are some those are some tips I would say what's up uh Worldwide Crew good uh
podcast question for you or at least I think so maybe we'll find out right now i've had my current bike for about 5
years and with sag set appropriately I only use about 80 to 85% of the rear
shock travel on a typical ride i've never bottomed it out i guess I'm just not that rowdy of a rider i know it came
stock with one volume reducer should I take it out would it give me a more plush ride or help me utilize more of
the travel would love to know oh yeah that's about it uh yeah yeah i mean if
you're not if you're not bottoming out I guess it wouldn't hurt to take it out and see what happens right i mean yeah i don't think I don't think you should be
bottoming out every single ride if you're if you're not like pushing that hard but Yeah right but uh if you do
like hit a drop Yeah maybe maybe you should be bottoming out yeah and without knowing the bike model and
like what progressivity the bike could be cuz like you know like u evil evil
bikes are quite progressive right um little harder to bottom out uh now if it's like a Specialized and it's pretty
linear and you're still not bottoming it there's Yeah there's either too much
volume spacers in the rear shock like you said maybe your compression set too hard uh high speed um you know one of
those things you can also try to drop sag a touch as well um but yeah removing
one volume spacer to answer his last bit of the question take it out it won't
necessarily make it more plush but it will help you utilize the endstroke of the travel a little bit better
uh your initial sag will like dictate the
plushness per se of the shock and then the volume spacer will dictate you know
the last 30ish% of your travel so like he's saying it lasts 80 to 85% removing
the volume spacer will get you a little bit closer while still retaining the beginning feeling of the shock yeah it's
worth a try can't hurt it's always worth playing with pressures and if you're riding pretty consistently just one
change each ride can go a long way having you figure out if something's going to be good or bad so yeah try it
why not yeah there you go try it why not nothing to lose and try different like sags too you know yeah make sure it's
within the appropriate range of what the bike um whatever bike you're riding whatever they recommend but yeah try different sags and you'll have different
characteristics come out of it yeah sag is a starting point it's not you know
a exact science right it's not the end all be all suspension setup you know if
you're wanting you start at 30% sag but you're not using it all then drop a
little bit you know or you have 30% sag and for the previous guy you're tagging
pedal a lot well you can maybe try 28% you know see if that holds you up a little bit better um you know so yeah
it's sag is just the starting recommendation and where you should base your beginning suspension setup from and
then from there you can range a bit yeah i really like on Rock Shocks shocks that
um they have the kind of sag indicator on there as you can see if you're running like 25 30 40 45% sag you notice
they took that off the forks i did and I was kind of bummed about it yeah cuz I really do like to see that and so for
instance I'm setting up this this new druid and uh Forbidden has a cool chart
that they have tested all the shocks on or tested the shock the shock on and per your weight this is what they recommend
and clicks and all that stuff so I just went exactly to their base setting and they recommend I think is 32 to 35% sag
and so what's cool in the rock shocks is you can just look down at your shock and you can see oh I'm I'm right here oh if
I have my gear on I'm a little bit further you know and um with any other brand that doesn't have that it's kind
of hard to tell really what you're what you're wring without getting off and measuring it and it's kind of cool to see that as you're riding yeah you're
just kind of like "Ah that looks like 30." Like for example on the on the Crest line as a Super Deluxe or sorry a
Vivid Air and I was running I thought I was running appropriate sag turns out I was running like 40 45% sag and it and I
it felt okay but then when I went to go ride it I was blowing through the travel
this bike felt super super yeah sagged out felt super slack and uh the bike
just didn't work as it was intended to and um I think it's super important to really check to make sure you're running
the right air pressure in your shock for sure cuz it really affects how the bike's designed to work a certain way if if you're running too much sag it's not
going to work correctly or not enough or not enough right yeah i mean it is really crazy how 5 PSI in your shock or
a couple PSI in your fork it just makes a huge difference yeah yeah I think it's worth it to be a little bit more on the scientific side of that and just kind of
get dialed in with your pressures write them down record everything and yeah check sack yeah did you go to the
bathroom this morning maybe not that scientific
right all right here we go first thanks for what you guys do the AMTV podcast has kept me sane as I've
been off the bike since November due to a crash where I used my leg as a pogo stick after going OTB resulting in three
broken bones in my foot and a ruptured ACL surgery has been completed and I'm progressing through rehab i'm listening
to the podcast again and again you guys piqu my interest in squirt since I've got some time to kill I thought I'd try
it what do you recommend for cleaning and stripping the lube on my chain in preparation for squirt thanks in advance
p.s i was really close to violating my doctor's orders and going after the scavenger hunt and mission trails down
here in San Diego dang um glad you did not do that but keep an
eye out for a future scavenger hunt in the future for Kettle there will be a
2.0 there will be a 2.0 there's probably many more but who knows jeff is
pretty stoked on it jeff was pretty stoked on it and we had a great uh reception and just you know everybody
was very stoked in the community about that and I can't believe how fast everybody went out it turns out it's too
easy crazy turns out he made it too easy yeah um well you guys are the pros uh
strip the chain just a nice degrease like make sure it is as clean as
possible and then put squirt on and I use anything I I typically just keep it
pretty basic dawn dish soap throw that in like a chain brush it takes off pretty much all the grease you're going
to want to get off for like so simple green um or diluted Simple Green um just don't let the Simple Green sit on stuff
for a while but if it's diluted and you you know scrub the chain and then you
hose it off after with water you're good to go i like to run a air compressor through the chain as well after that
process of either of those just to get all the water completely out of the rollers and bone dry and then you can
really get the squirt in there two to three coats for the first go after a good clean like that and let it dry and
you're pretty good to go uh squirt will be great for San Diego just dry just like it is here just make sure it you
let it dry kind of overnight yeah let it let the score dry yeah that's the thing because if you don't if you do it before
the ride like Yeah sure your chain's going to be lubed but it's not how it's intended to work and you're going to attract a lot of dirt you're going to
attract dirt not repel it and if and when the squirt dries it's like it's just a wax basically and it uh will keep
your chain dry and and stay good for a while yeah my my chain made zero noise after a good squirt lube and Trev and I
rode in the wet in the rain and crossed 17 water crossings over the last weekend
really and still go through all that it's great wow besides the sand in it and that was unavoidable due to wing
riding through creeks uh my chain was like not even bad wow
mhm it's pretty impressive um for me for cleaning Yeah same thing as Liam said sometimes if the drive I mean I clean a
lot of really dirty drivetrains our drivetrains never really get that quite quite that dirty cuz we just like to
take care of them but which is recommended but I I work on bikes that
are not worked on too much and so sometimes I'll use like a bike specific
degreaser and like really scrub it and let that sit and maybe do it twice or three times even um just to really get
all that dirt off of there and then yeah like like Liam said air compressor through it i just like to put it in between the two pulleys and that way
you're not kind of spraying stuff all over your bike like it's kind of just going on the ground and yeah get that chain super dry cuz if you lube the
chain when it's still wet too it's just going to drip off so you kind of want it to soak in there like I like to to
backpedal it like five or six times and get it all up up in the rollers that's where you want the lube is up in the
rollers all up in there all up in there but yeah nice well there you go nothing
too much to that one here we go this one has got a little bit more to it okay
read this one go for it i'm still looking into this with TRP they are slow to reply a pod question perhaps i
recently bought a set of TRP Evo downhill brakes with the RS05E rotors
for a downhill bike i believe those are the new TRP rotors um they kind of look like the Galer Shark fins um I got them
shot mounted so I wouldn't mess up the bleed but notice immediately that the front brake pulls about a/ inch to the
bite point it's okay but it still feels a little bit loose while the rear pulls one plus inches away or one plus inches
to the bite point huge bummer i like near instant bite point um I can get that with even many cheaper brakes so
I'm confused on this huge difference took the brakes back to my shop they reblled the rear there's no change in
the bite point at all and it's nearly unbearable this is and this is with the bike control dials fully tightened um
this also has nothing to do with the pistons on one side extending further than the others i already fixed that problem i'm now $750 debump brakes and
two bleeds all I've heard is how awesome TRP Evo DH is but these easily feel weak
versus the mid-level um slates that came on the bike even with the worst rotors
so confused on how this is possible at the highest price any ideas on this or is it just a return item m that is a
huge bummer well TRP Evos have like a certain lever
pull to them um and if you don't have the Pros they don't have a bite point
adjustment it is what it is the Pro is the newest one the Pro is the newest one
they do have a bite point mhm and they also have a redesigned lever so it doesn't feel like it pulls as close to
the bar that was some complaints with some people is they couldn't get the lever to feel the way they wanted with
the old lever shape and they were going to aftermarket lever blades like a freedom cut a lot of people would do that um but I think on this he's talking
just about the old style yeah not the pros that's what I mean so it's kind of like putting that out there um for the
front sounds like it pulls correct mhm uh the rear pulls far which to me says
there's something wrong with the brake line the way that the olive and barb is put in and tightened on um or the bleed
you know you you took it back to the same shop twice they might be bleeding in the same exact process right which is
letting air in yeah or just they're just not getting it yeah uh so it sounds like
the front brake is working how it should with you know half an inch to blit point whatever that means um cuz it's wherever
you put your your lever but uh the rear sounds like it needs a bleed i' I'd even
try to recut the cable put in a fresh olive bar make sure it's seated absolutely correctly retighten that up
to spec and then give it a solid bleed as well um he said he fixed the pistons
extending further than the others but I think as we've learned with Mavens piston massage does wonders for bite
point and the feel of the brake mhm which is just extending the pistons out uh you know you can throw four mil Allen
in there extend them out push them back do that on your breaker i do it five times yeah and the pistons on the on the
uh on the TRPs they're they're metal too and um yeah don't be afraid to to get in
there and push them back and push them forward and Yeah yeah pump them and get those get those really moving that
honestly does a huge that's a huge part of that and it could be what that is i know he's saying it's not nothing to do
with the pistons extending on one side but um I think yeah having them be move
moving freely is super important and honestly there's probably a bubble in there there's probably a bubble in the
caliper somewhere and you just need to get it out and do a better bleed i would say also make sure you bleed it with a
bleed block um so it's at the right the right fluid level that's super important and uh make sure Yeah the rotors in the
center of the caliper and make sure your brake pads are hitting evenly that stuff will make uh the brake feel good or bad
yep straight up yeah and then to get the most power out of them which you want to do in the brand new but make sure you
properly bed in the brakes with a full like legit process um which makes a huge
difference over the power of the brake as well yeah i had a customer recently he was complaining to me about his
brakes saying that they were he would hold them down but it would be like on and off on and off on and off and I was
telling him I'm like "Did you bend your brakes in?" He said "No of course." And uh so what what happened was he once he
hit it a couple times right and it more brake pad material gets embedded on one part of the rotor and then the other
part's not as embedded in so it kind of there's friction no friction friction no friction and it's going to make your
brake feel horrible so definitely Yeah betting them in properly is super important yeah and then last some brakes
just people don't get along with them right like maybe you don't like where the lever sits the bite point you know
you like super touchy brakes i I wouldn't say uh TRPs are necessarily like super
touchy and tight bite point you know like a old uh Shimano Saint seems those
are pretty touchy ony yeah um TRPs are are like lighter lever a little bit more
pull to it than Yeah I would say a little more pull especially with those levers are super long and yeah you can
get the bite to be a little bit snappier but where where it should be is not a super tight bite at all um it's it's
pretty much in the middle I would say yep yeah i mean that's a bummer right like you just kind of plop down all this
cash on these new brakes thinking they're going to be sick yeah and like obviously one of the solutions is maybe
uh maybe get one of those upgraded levers but like now you're just kind of throwing money at them hoping they're going to be what you want them to be um
and that you kind of gave them to a shop and they didn't give you back like the brakes you wanted like that's kind of I
think no matter how expensive your brake is or how good it is how good people say it is if your bleed's not good it's not
going to work you know just it just is what it is and uh it's this kind of goes back to Zach's words of wisdom from last
week but it's like this is probably one of the least things you want to do working on your bike is like puzzle your
brakes and like so frustrating we've all been through it but like watching you uh
work on the Mavens and like all the tricks then trade that you have and like
you're like "Okay I just need to learn these and do them myself because otherwise you're just caught in this
loop of having somebody else try and fix this for you." It's It's worth It's worth it and and it's it's so important
to have the best brakes possible on your bike it's like the best thing you can do it's so confidence inspiring it is and
and knowing every in and out of your brake system is like totally worth the pain in the butt it is to like do all
these things like oh god it is it is so frustrating having issue and just like
going down that rabbit hole i was just saying today I'd rather have a slightly underpowered brake that's consistent all
the time and I know what it's going to do yeah than a super powerful brake that I'm not sure of where it's going to bite
yeah 100% yeah on our uh our demo ASR had came stock with level two piston
brakes and I was and it came with a 160 and 180 rotor and um I I rode those a
couple times and it was scary and the upgraded we did a backcountry ride
riding some pretty proper trail and Trevor's in the back because of the brakes trevor's faster than me i
couldn't stop dude but but Jeffers in the back was like "I ain't going in front on these dudes." No seriously though like they they'd burn up really
fast and there was no bite and they would get super hot so I upgraded the rear to 180 put metallic um p metallic
pads in them still not okay so uh we got a set of um motive ultimates which are
the kind of code KOD caliper level lever and those have been awesome huge
difference huge difference i can shred the bike now are you on metallic pads metallic pads 180 80 on the ASR and I
can stop yep it's amazing and I can relaxed on the bike and it just makes the biggest difference if your brakes
suck um do something about it yeah it's almost like the bike should have come with those brakes i mean I know that
those brakes were If you're riding I mean granted I'm I'm an aggressive rider but if you're riding
just a single track or fire road we're not really riding the bike for what it's originally intended we're definitely
over biking it you know that being Yeti like a lot of people are going to be getting this bike doing the same thing that we're doing like to be fair the
bike came out before Motives and now they're spec with Motives are they spec yeah oh okay so there you go um uh yeah
i mean I mean yeah what can you do aside from just get it dialed and know everything about the brakes and like I
mean the ASR the ASR almost go down this rabbit hole of like okay well now I've upgraded the brakes and like now the tires have to be grippier and now it has
to be you still you still uh yeah you still have to run the tires that are appropriate for the bike and that are
appropriate for the brakes as well for sure that's also that balance is important balance is important in all
aspects of life wow Jared thanks i think we should just end it right there i think we could end it right there on
those wise words wise wise words from Jared those wise words well everybody
thank you so much for tuning in to this episode we truly do appreciate it and if
you haven't heard we have a discount code for all you listeners it's the MTV Podcast 10 that is MTB Podcast the
number 10 all one word and we will see you guys in the
next one cheerio like subscribe tell your friends neighbors bike people non-bike people
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