i've heard so many people say wow look at those gold class riders
they've got almost no protection on their bike
a lot of them aren't even using bark busters or full wrap handguards
they might have a carbon fiber exhaust on the exhaust
but maybe not even that
what's your take on this at a silver class level
would you say no you just need to protect your bike with all these various guards and protectors
yeah look there there is a downside to having all the protective gear on a bike
those things being you're adding weight
you lose a little bit of clearance on the side of the bike with the big p-tech guards
but the pro side of that argument is that i've done some pretty serious
crashes in my bikes on the rocks on the logs off ledges upside down back to front
and i've only i think with the p-tech gear on the bikes i don't think i've
ever had a mechanical dnf in any of the races that i've competed in
making sure your body is ready is one thing but knowing your bike is going to
last through the abuse of going through these silly rocky creeks that's it's one less thing
to worry about which means you can focus more on what's happening in front of you
and actually speaking of rocky creeks what are your sort of techniques strategies
in dealing with just the endless rocky creek beds and and rock sections in this event
yeah so this was a bit of a funny event because we had a couple of different types of creeks
we had some some lower lower line creeks with sort of softball sized rocks which
were just really awkward to get through and then later on in the race we had some pretty nasty
boulder-filled rocks you know with ankle breakers and arm breakers and all sorts of things in there
so the main thing that i was trying to concentrate on in the nastier rock sections was not getting
my bike jammed in any rocks trying to keep my pegs clear from getting snagged and also trying to make
an effort to keep my feet where i can put them down on the ground if i needed to within reason
there's a couple of sections through here you can see i'm carrying the front wheel to try and
get through holes so that i don't get snagged up but it's super important to get good line choices
through these rocks because you know the wrong line choice can get you hung up for 15-20 minutes
and you end up sort of dragging the bike through the rocks as opposed to riding
it's certainly something i've seen when you watch the the pro riders overseas...
jarvis.... walker.... when they come up to something very tricky they almost always stop
or at least they'll slow down enough to analyze
really quickly i've got six different lines which is probably going to be the best one
that's right and you'll see i suppose this is where the trial
side of uh riding skills come into it
you know sacrificing your front wheel line to get your back wheel in a better position the front
wheel's easier to move around compared to the back wheel but you'll see through some of this footage
here you know the the choice between a good line and a poor line can end up in some pretty
serious injury and bottlenecks it's just being able to think outside the box is um yeah pretty
important and what about tyres and tyre pressures i mean that's what a lot of guys think is the
answer it's like oh i need a new tire i need need more traction the only way to do that is a brand
new knobby on the rear with square edges at 80 percent the tyre 20 the rider yeah i wish i wish
i'm running a 1990 profile front tire meters for this particular race i've gone back to a
shinko 525 cheater on the back um i i have nothing bad to say about those tyres like i've i've used
the crap out of them they always hook up really well you talking about with a tubeless system
in these wet rocky creek sections i ended up letting a bit of pressure out and i think i ended
up at about two or three psi in the back yeah look new tyres are always always really good help but
um not really the the bail endo and that the key to getting through one of these races yeah i i did
this event on a i'm what you pretty much call a shag rear tire i know barry yours was pretty
shaggy i you earned it as a sweep but it still did the same course but yeah i found with the tubeless
system and about 4 psi there was just traction everywhere and that's on that's on a shag tire
you