- Ok, welcome back to another Ask GMBN Tech.
This is the 17th show and this is a weekly show where
hopefully we get to answer all your tech related
mountain bike questions.
You can get your questions into us in the comments
below this very video.
We'll be patrolling that afterwards.
Also, you can send them in with the email address listed
at the bottom of the screen there.
Don't forget to use the hashtag,
#AskGMBNTech if you're sending in e-mails or
you're contacting us via Facebook.
Just makes it easier for us to spot
what you're trying to get.
The first up is from Carl.
Hi guys, I am in the market for a new 29er trail bike.
I was at a bike store and the guy there recommended
a Giant Anthem 29er for trail riding.
He said it got 100 mm of travel
but it's got Fox Suspension on the front and rear.
It's the only bike in my price range
with full Fox suspension.
Would you say this would be a good bike for trail riding
or should I look at a different bike if so,
what would you recommend?
Well firstly, technically the Anthem is an XC bike so
that's by Giant.
It's 100 mm travel and it was
designed originally for the world cup basically so
all those boys and girls are riding the giant Anthem.
It is a very trail friendly bike and its 29" wheels
do make it feel like it rides with slightly more travel
than it has and it certainly gonna be robust enough for
a day to day trail use but
their trail focus bike from Giant is
actually called the Trance.
It's got quite a lot more travel.
It's gonna ride a lot differently.
I mean, if you're not really into sort of riding
that involves loads of jumping and sort of
aggressive terrain,
I'd be more than happy riding the Anthem.
But don't forget,
whatever bike you're riding,
you can go out and ride trails on them,
you can ride cross-country on them.
Don't be too sort of confined by what the bike
tells you to do.
It's only at the upper end of the scale where you shouldn't
really go downhill racing on a cross-country bike.
You're clearly gonna damage that bike.
So in a long way 'round to your answer,
yeah, the Anthem is absolutely fine.
Enjoy it.
Next up is a brake related question from Doug Watts.
Well, it's not really a question, it's,
Hope V4 versus Shimano Saint Brakes.
To be honest, they're both excellent brakes.
I like them both.
I haven't ridden Hope brakes for quite some time.
I'd quite like to try and see 'em again to sort of
remind myself of them.
I always used to run Hope brakes back in my magazine days.
Always love them, especially the color options,
and the customizations you can do with them.
I like the fact that they got braided hoses.
They're really tough.
Especially good if you're into crashing
because they're quite robust for that sort of thing.
But then, the Shimanos,
they're incrediblly powerful.
Perhaps almost too powerful for my liking.
I prefer something not quite as grabby as the Saint.
I found to be honest the SLX is absolutely fine or the XT
or something like that.
But I've got that characteristic, wooden sort of Shimano
feel with the really small lever blade,
that's really comfortable.
They're both excellent,
of course the Hopes use DOT fluid and
the Shimano uses Mineral fluid.
They're both very easy and quite similar to bleed actually.
I'm not sure.
Depends what sort of build you're doing.
The Shimanos are no nonsense.
They work.
Never gonna let you down, any of that stuff.
But Hope certainly a lot tricker.
Next up is from Heath Norton, cool name.
I bought a 24" Rocky Mountain Bike for my daughter.
It's a nice frame with some decent components,
but the front fork is a cheap SunTour unit.
She only weighs about 55lbs,
so the fork doesn't really activate for her.
That is a bit of a problem with some of these
kids' bike I found as well actually.
Have been looking at upgrading her fork,
but I've not found any good options.
Is it possible to rework her fork to make it
more responsive at the lower end
or should I just upgrade it?
Are there any good fork options for 24" bikes?
I've heard Old Rockshox Sid Forks can work,
but the bike has V-brakes and integrated levers
and shifters,
so it would be expensive to upgrade to disc brakes.
Plus, I've not been able to find any
26 to 24 V-brake adapters.
Okay so first start with the tuning.
I'm not entirely familiar with the 24" Suntour forks
but must suspension tuners,
you'd be amazed at the magic that they can work on those
to make them feel good.
I'd have to ask a few questions to some of the guys I know
to work that one out.
So let's just move on to the next bit.
Yeah, I think you're right about the Rock Shox Sid Forks.
I heard that as well.
It's quite old cross-country fork its quite low
the axle to crown height.
It's probably going to be fairly similar to that 24" fork.
Course most kids' mountain bike these days do come with
26" forks with a 24 in there,
so you don't have to worry about
that sort of thing in the future.
I definitely would recommend in trying that out.
I think that'd be a good option
but you would have to get disc brakes for that.
I wouldn't worry about spending too much money on that
because you wouldn't need to do anything
with the integrated shift or brake lever
'cause you could just get a cable operated brake
caliber and a rotor.
You may need a front wheel there.
Of course that is an expense.
The Shimano do the deal caliber.
They're around 40 quid.
They're not a lot of money and the disc rotor you get there
are for about 10 quid.
50 quid for a brake.
I appreciate the fact it's a kid bike,
you don't want to spend too much money on it,
but that is one way around that issue.
The other thing just to factor in is upgrading the fork
full stop up to another one.
Now of course, the only thing you really need to take into
consideration is that axle to crown height so
literally from the axle to the crown,
where the crown race of the head sits on there.
Now if you're replacing it with a 26" wheel fork,
you really want to make sure you don't want to go above say,
anything above 20MM longer,
really is gonna sort of mess up the handling quite a lot.
You can probably get away with up to 20MM on a kids bike
and won't be too adverse.
Of course, you'll get a fork that will hopefully be
a lot more responsive and work better for her.
Next up from Joel Reilly.
Hi guys, love the show.
I ride a 2009 Santa Cruz XC Blur.
Yes. Nice bike, mate.
Ride it hard because I'm more of a rider who takes the
fun line instead of the fast one.
Should I get a new trail 150MM bike or something bigger,
or smaller?
My Santa Cruz is about 11.2 kilos and my dad says I'll
miss it if I get something with bigger travel,
that's heavier.
If I were to get a trail bike, it'll be around $2000.
I live in South Africa by the way, by the beach.
And I'm 15.
Well, wicked.
Love your country for starters.
I really enjoyed our recent trip out to South Africa.
I do think your dad is quite right actually.
So most of the mountain bikers we met when we were in
South Africa were also cross-country trail riders.
They're all running either hard tails or suspension bikes
like your Santa Cruz blow,
with around 100MM of travel.
Now, I don't think that you
A) probably need any more travel.
You've been riding it for so long.
But you could, if you want to make your bike a little bit
more fun,
make it feel a little bit more aggressive,
don't have to spend the earth on the thing.
You could upgrade the fork or maybe get your
fork travel extended.
Depending on what fork you have on there,
that might just be a case of getting the air tube
This is inside the fork, get a slightly longer one.
Which would require doing a service on the fork,
but it's a cool way of just getting a bit more travel
out what you had.
So on a 100MM bike,
you can get away with 120MM fork.
By the time it sags,
you probably be only a little bit longer than the standard
fork length on there but it gives you the extra 20MM of
travel to play with.
Which can make quite a bit of a difference.
If you do that, of course,
you might end up having to put your stem down slightly.
Maybe one 10mm spacer just to compensate for that
and you might need to tip the nose of your saddle down.
If you go for any more travel,
it really will mess up the handling of that bike
and that's a really nice bike.
Just bare that in mind.
Now I've also just written a note to myself here
about the Yeti SB100,
which we talked about on the show
a week or two back.
Now that's a 100MM travel XC frame
but its spec with a 120MM fork.
I've also seen the brand new Santa Cruz Blur.
100MM travel, also being spec with a 120MM fork.
I think actually, that's gonna be a sort of
quite magical start of a bike for lot of riders
over the coming years.
Now we often see people on trail bikes that have 150MM,
even 170MM with travel.
I think people are probably a little bit over biked
for what they need.
Don't get me wrong.
This is a fun game and it's important to be having fun.
By all means, ride whatever you wanna ride
but I do think that a longer travel bike can
isolate you from the trail a little bit.
The thing about riding a short travel bike like that
100MM blur you've got is.
You got more than enough travel
to get you out of trouble.
Also, you got enough travel to get you enough traction
on those trails to really hammer it on
but you'll still gonna be able to feel the trail
underneath the wheels.
As for me, that's one of the things I love.
It's about fun at the end of the day.
If you want to go really fast
and that's how you need to do it,
then that's great, good for you.
If you want to have fun in a different way,
which sounds like you do,
carry on doing what you're doing.
Maybe just like a slightly longer fork though.
It'll save you money on buying a bike.
However, if you do want to buy a new bike
and you are looking for something.
I'd say 120, 130MM is something you should buy.
Just for example, just throwing this up
on the screen now.
It's a Canyon Neuron.
It's available in both 27.5" wheels and 29" wheels.
It got several different price options on there
and there's one right in your price point.
Maybe that could be the right sort of bike for you.
Hope you make the right choice.
Hi Doddy, I have a setup question.
I currently am running on a 35MM Onza Stem on
my Commencal V4 All Mountain Meta.
When I'm climbing trails, I find the front wheel lifts
and trying to do a wheelie.
Would a slightly longer reach stem solve this problem?
Thanks, Tim.
Yeah, it completely would.
There's a few reasons that this could be happening
of course this all stands as one
but let's start with the saddle.
If your saddle is too far back,
you're going to be too far over the rear balance point,
which when you're climbing,
there's a rear axle of that bike.
You want your body weight in front of that,
or at least try to keep it that way.
So of course, by having a shorter stem,
if your bike is not long enough,
then you're gonna be too far past
towards the rear of the bike.
In which case, a longer stem would definitely correct that.
However, that will change the handling of your bike.
By putting a longer stem on there,
you are gonna feel that it's gonna be harder
to pick the front wheel up,
for stuff like manuals, or the bunny hop.
So you do need to sorta have to do this gently
and play around.
See if your friends have any slightly longer stems.
Maybe a 50.
That's not gonna interfere too much with it.
Also consider the height you have your stem out.
The higher the stem, the shorter your bike effectively
is because of the angle of that head tube,
So the lower the stem,
slightly more reach you're gonna get out of that bike.
It's only a sort of effective thing,
not actually an official measurement
with the way reach is measured
but you can eek out a little bit more length on the same
length stem.
Of course, changing your stem is going to cost you a bit
of money to do that.
So try a few if you do that, a different setup things first.
Now of course,
if you do find that you need to add a stem
that's over 50MM in length,
then it might be a case that the bike might be
a bit too short for you.
Which is quite often the case with people.
They buy it because they want it to be fun,
flickable, on those trails,
but quite often to get that,
you have to have a bike that's on the smaller side
but they may be fun on those jumpy fun trails,
it's never gonna climb or pedal as well
as a bike that truly fits you.
So hopefully, you can figure this out with a slightly
longer stem.
Maybe tweaking the saddle so it's slightly further forward.
Perhaps even just rolling it your bike forward
and lowering your stem.
It might get your bike dialed in.
Hopefully that's the case,
just a slightly longer stem might cure your climbing issue.
Tubeless related now, this one is from
Hayley Clark.
Hi Doddy, I have a 2015 Cube Stereo and want to go tubeless.
However, my wheels take Schrader valves, big ones.
That's a car valve basically,
if anyone wondered what that is.
Would the regular Tubeless Presta valves,
like the ones in your tubeless video, work?
And if so, which ones or am I stuck with tubes?
Thanks for the help.
You've helped me work on my bike at home
on several occasions.
Well, great.
So I'm gonna help you again now because you don't need to
worry about this.
There's a few options out there.
On the screen now,
Firstly, Stan's NoTubes.
The company Stan's did the first proper
conversion kit for tubeless.
They have valves in both Presta,
which I showed you in that vid there.
And also in Schrader, which are the ones you need.
Now they do two versions,
the 10MM and the 12MM,
Just depends on the drilling of your rims so
check that out.
Also, they do an adapter
and the adapter plugs the hole in the rim,
and then you can run a regular Presta one in there,
so that's one way around it.
Also, there's another company, Joe's No-Flats.
Very similar name to Stan's No-Tubes.
Joe's No-Flats make Schrader tubeless valves as well
so you should be able to get some of those
and get your bike setup tubeless.
Hopefully, with no problem.
Good luck.
Next up from Ben Kutscher.
First off, great channel, great team and
again, you're doing a great job.
Thank you very much, Ben.
Thank you to everyone for following us,
watching the videos,
and actually commenting on them.
It's great to have that feedback from you.
So your question is, I've been watching your SRAM
bleeding clip.
I got myself an Avid Kit for my SRAM Guide RS Brakes.
It's on a Canyon Spectral 2017 Model
but I noticed the fitting
of the syringe is threaded and different from
the syringe fitting that you're using in your clip.
Does it also work with the threaded syringe for the SRAM
Models after 2015?
Would like to avoid opening the packaging in terms of
a possible exchange.
I'll send you a pic for your bike vault soon.
Yes, please do.
Okay, so this is the fitting you have from your
description and this is the fitting that I use in the video.
So they're both for SRAM brakes.
This is for the older style and this is the one
that's got the bleeding edge port on there.
Now the way you can identify which ones you need to use,
is if you look at the screen right now.
The one on the left hand side of the screen is the brake
that you need for threaded style, adapter you already have
and the one on your right is the one for the Bleeding Edge.
That should help you identify
which one of these you do need.
Now not all SRAM brakes have that port.
I've had some newer bikes in my collection,
that still have the older style port
and some of the older ones have the newest style ports.
There are certain serial numbers of brakes that have changed
over the years but all brakes from now,
moving forward will have that bleeding edge port.
Now you can also just buy the bleeding edge adapter
and use that on your existing syringe kit.
So you can have that and that way
you've got everything covered for all occasions.
So that is worth considering,
especially if you've gone throught the hassle of
having a bleeding kit in the first place,
it's kind of good to have more stuff than less
because you can hope your main bleeds their brakes,
that sort of stuff.
So there's a link on the screen as well,
to where you can get a Bleeding Edge tool.
Obviously, those two photos will hopefully help you
identify which ones that you need.
Next up is a good question.
I really like this one.
This is from Alexander Ashman.
I just noticed a tear in the sidewall of my tire.
I wonder if it's a problem?
I have no idea how it happened.
Should I do something about it?
Or is it fine?
Let's look at his picture.
So the tires, especially ground control.
Yeah, that's a pretty big tire slash on there.
It doesn't look like its gone all the way through
but on the actual sidewall,
I can actually start to see some of the threading in there.
Ideally, you should replace it.
However, I made a video on repairing a tire sidewall slash
just like this one.
If you look on the screen in a moment,
you can see how I'm doing the repair.
I'll just run you through it.
So what you need to do is take the
tire off your bike completely.
Get yourself a decent needle and thread.
I used linen thread 'cause it's really quite tough stuff,
it's got a thick thread.
You need a leather needle to get through
that tire sidewall.
You can simply stitch that up.
Once you've stitched it,
you're going to need some vulcanizing
rubber glue on the outside of the tire.
The one I used in the video is called Shoe Goo.
It's basically designed for skateboarding shoes to put on
your leading edge foot so when you're doing
ollies and stuff,
you're not gonna really wear out your trainers.
As a result, this stuff is really flexible so
it works perfectly on outside of the tire.
Then on the inside of the tire,
you're gonna need to repair that as well
just to make sure there's no chance of that
split going through.
Now I use an all-terrain vehicle tire patch.
There's various different ones in the market.
You can get them on Amazon,
and any sort of online place.
Repair that with your typical vulcanizing solution
and then you're good to go.
Make sure that you monitor it though
and make sure you don't start running really
higher pressures on it because the thread won't hold.
But it does mean you'll be able to get
more use out of the tire
before you have to throw it away for recycling.
So there we go, this is another Ask GMBN Tech weekly
clinic in the bag.
If you've got any comments about
any questions on this week's show,
just add them in those comments below.
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For a couple of great videos, click down here for all the
weird and wonderful stuff we saw out in Sea Otter.
And for the second Sea Otter tech video,
click down here.
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