- Ready!
- We're here at Red Bull Hardline,
it's practice day.
We're here with none other, all round nice guy,
professional mountain bike racer
and man of the people, Eddie Masters.
We're going to talk some tech, talk some bikes,
take a look at the course
and see what we get, eh?
- I think we're going to see some sights.
That's for sure.
(laughs)
- Yeah, it's going to be great.
- Let's get into it.
- Great.
(upbeat music)
(laughs) Boom!
- And, like, it is rollable,
but I wouldn't recommend it.
(laughs)
(knife sharpening sound)
- So, straight out the start,
we have something that, for something like this,
would you be changing your
pressure settings for Hardline?
- Yeah, a lot of the riders are, like,
making their bikes harder.
- [Henry] Mm-hmm.
- And maybe slowing down
the rebound a little bit.
- [Henry] Yep.
- 'Cause there's a lot of, like, flat drops
where you don't want the bike rebounding out
'cause you're going to be losing traction.
So they are kind of like, I guess, sacrificing
a bit of the feeling of the bike.
- Yes, just to a bit of stability, I guess.
- Ah, yeah, just to make it better on the big hits.
- And if you could get, you know, have a Hardline tire,
do you think you would want something just like,
you know, almost like a triple ply just
to be absolutely raucous or would you not be-
- Yeah, well, there are a lot of, like,
we are seeing a lot of flat tires.
'Cause the rocks here are really sharp,
but in terms of, like, there being a perfect tire,
I don't think there is one
because when it's dry, it's pretty loose
and when it's wet, it's just, like, extremely slippery.
(laughs)
Yeah, it's literally like an ice rink.
- Yeah.
- So, like, I think, yeah, you'd just be like
six and a half dozen or so.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.
- Yeah, so, traction is definitely something
that the riders don't have.
(laughs)
- And when they do have it,
it's for the jumps, so yeah.
- Yeah, totally.
- Yeah.
(laughs)
Holy-
- And there is a perfect example
of the huck to flat
and then I think we'll see guys
who are going to nibble down the rock, as well.
(laughs)
- I think that is a,
ankles of steel, - (mumbles)
- Just ugh! (laughs)
Pretty impressive, man.
- Should we have a little mosey down,
see what we get?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(Chill music)
- But coming in from that compression
up there, which we saw Alex do,
which was incredibly hard.
So, then you think, all the support
you're going to demand
from your fork and from your shock.
Compared to something that which is,
so many small hits,
that's more than (mumbles).
- You set your bike up on the Hardline,
you're constantly going
to be chasing your tail,
'cause you're going to like,
you're going to have given up
the small bump sensitivity
to favor myself when it's like the big hits.
- I almost wonder if you could get something
like you know, you see the,
it's actually,
the preload stuff above your steerer, and you would strap
lead to the down tube and stuff, cause then you could keep
the super hard compression settings but instead of
lifting the whole bike on that small bump, maybe it could
push the bike into a stroke and potentially, although
it would be a heavier bike it might be a bit weird
on some of the bigger features, but it could potentially
make the bike work, I mean-
- And like, you got to be reminded that for a race like this
no one does any testing, you know?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- There's no, a lot of it is like hearsay, it's like
someone will be like
"oh, we've made our bikes harder for Rampage",
and they'll be like
"okay sweet, we'll do the same thing at Hardline".
So like it's not, you don't actually know that what you're
doing is right.
- Yeah, totally.
- But everyone's just like kind of,
- I suppose you must be in like a circuit loop
a feedback loop and been like
"well he's doing it, I'm doing it 'cause he's doing it"
- Yeah exactly, so it just snowballs,
and then all of a sudden everyone's on the same setup,
but it might not actually be the right one.
- Might not be the right one.
(laughs)
(chill music)
- Put your wheel right there and then just like
hop on.
- It's hard because everybody asks you for advice
and you're like
"well I haven't actually ridden it,
but I'm here to hand out free advice".
Backseat driving, yeah.
(tires on dirt)
(yelling)
- So we've gone from high speed hucking, to incredibly
dedicate tech work.
So we'll come this huge drop,
although a relatively slow speed is pretty demanding,
when we talk about some of that,
how much does geometry play a part?
We talk about long reach bikes, super stable,
is that something you're thankful of when you're kind of
coming into off camera terrain like that?
- Yeah, so like this course is like,
I think your best weapon of choice is your just straight up
race bike setup, with that kind of geometry.
Because like the slack head angle,
a bit more space in the reach, long wheel race,
or what helps when like things are prone to getting a bit
out of shape, yeah.
So just like that extra stability you get from the geometry,
it's going to be super helpful.
- Totally.
- Two years ago teams weren't doing as much,
and then you've got Bruni's approach,
Minnaar, he's like down to the details,
but for me I think to make the next step to the next level
and downhill, I'm talking downhill,
would require me to like put a lot more emphasis on setup
doing a lot more testing, cause I just basically set
my bike up for the whole year and ride it like that.
You're seeing how Bruni races, the races are so tight,
the margins, that you've really got to look at the
marginal gains that you can get outside of your riding skill
- With Luke, the way his bike tracks the ground
is just unparalleled
- It's like a magic carpet.
And that is because of the effort that they're putting
in behind the scenes.
- Are you just trusting the course builders and thinking
"they've probably got it right,
off the brakes and see how she goes"?
- There's riders who have been here before,
and they will be like "okay, here's the brakes"
- This is the recipe, yeah.
- And they'll say, come in here, two pedals, jump over
this rock, no brakes, and a little bit of a pull.
And you just trust that they're not going to throw you
under the bus.
- But if you have a harsh bottom out on something like that,
do you think "oh, fair, that was my bad",
or are you straightaway looking to setup?
Must be case by case.
- And it's like, the thing is like through practice you
will see guys like adjusting their setup.
You can't be like "okay, I'm going to go up to 86 PSI,
and that's the magic number"
- Totally
- So you might have to go like 3, plus or minus 3 PSI,
of like where your ballpark is,
but bottoming out is good as well.
- Of course.
- You should expect to bottom out,
especially on a course like this.
- Yeah, of course, yeah.
You've got that much spare at the bottom.
- Yeah if you're not using all your travel when you're
hitting stuff like that then you've gone too hard.
- You heard Brendan go through there and tap the rear brake.
- Yeah
- Just to keep the nose down.
- Yeah, all the riders are doing it 'cause, coming out,
we've got about a 60 foot step down leading into this
section, so you're probably coming out of these trees
at close to 60 ks an hour,
and you really need to scrub your speed off,
but one thing the riders are being really careful is,
to not drag break on the lip, because it's going to
like pack the bike down differently.
Another thing that's kind of tech related,
is like this roller here is for, almost for a reason,
so that when you go over it the bike starts packing down,
and then you're much less likely to get bucked
heading a lip like that which is actually quite steep.
(energetic music)
- This whole area here is clay.
When you put that on the rocks it's like super slippery.
- I saw Brendan actually running some DHR2s
which I thought would be, because he's super good at
man made stuff, similar to say the Conti Kaiser
or something like that, really really good, but
it's loose enough to get almost overwhelmed.
- Yeah a bit like, the DHR2's good because it's like
the DHF has got the knob that goes like that,
and that kind of like fills up with mud, so the
DHR2's got better clearance.
I used to just be DHF front and rear,
cause that's what Sam Hill ran and he was like my hero,
and now I run DHR2's front and rear, because I think
the tire actually just lasts a little bit longer
without having that split knob, because that kind of
tears off sometimes, so I just run those front and rear.
I mean variety is the spice of life,
but too much choice can land you in trouble.
- It sounds like you speak from personal experience.
- Yeah, yeah
(laughs)
(chill music)
- So, we've just saw Bernard come down, he looked composed,
and he was saying he's actually doing gapping features
that were--
- And no one else will be.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- Like, what makes him so good at this type of event,
is he just such a technically kind of professional rider?
Is it big cohones?
Yknow, what is it?
- I'd say it's a combination of a lot of things,
he's probably one of the most skillful riders on the planet
in terms of all around bike skill, he loves big jumps,
and loves to be the center of attention when it comes
to like doing big gaps and stuff, it's something that he's
know for, and then going fast on a course like this
lends itself to confidence and he has
and abundance of confidence
(laughs)
so like those probably three things are what means he's a
four time podium guy.
So this is like a really good example of why
you've got to like set your bike up harder and probably
slow the rebound down, because you're coming in here,
and you've got these two rollers, and then into a big
steep loop, and if your bike's too soft,
and the race is harder, then that loop
is more likely to buck you and you're probably not
going to get the distance.
Even if there was just this feature, you'd probably have to
change your bike setup, just to ride this because
you probably wouldn't be able to complete the course.
And if you don't have your setup right, you're probably not
going to be able to do it.
If it was just for this,
you'd still have to do all the setup changes,
just to be able to get through this one.
(yelling)
(laughing)
So like if you overshoot the step down at all,
you really are like stuck
running out of your breaking there,
and that's the whole like slowing the rebound down as well.
- Keep it tracking I suppose.
- Then it's not just going to get popped out of the ground,
it's going to be slow to come up
and you can actually get on the anchors.
(yelling)
- Oh boy, that was a big drop,
he was right at the top of it.
- You can see him coming through
- He went pretty deep, eh?
- And the bike wants to rise up, as you're then
trying to get on the anchors.
- And it's real, one thing we haven't mentioned
is it's really crucial to have a balanced bike
- Yes, of course.
- Because a lot of this, even the janky rocks and stuff
when the wheels are going like that, if you can like
keep that to a minimum then you're going to have
better breaking and it's just going to be a lot easier.
(laughs)
And you get that from like a downhill setup,
one wheel base and stuff, you're not like,
free ride guys are riding like smaller bikes,
but here you just want that balance.
- That's one of the things I've really enjoyed when working
with riders was just talking about balance.
And just being like
"right, so I'm a bit, I feel like I'm a bit behind the bike
or a bit in front of the bike"
and just actually sounding out that everything
has a consequence, and it was just like chasing a
conceptual perfect setup,
and that for me was always the most satisfying bit.
Manifestation anxiety?
There he goes big, oh he goes big.
- You see that like he's set up
a little bit wider on the lift,
and that meant he could like cut in.
- I've thought, I've always wondered,
his body position is always so satisfying to look at,
even you see him then and he's getting the,
riding the brake and he's getting the bike already off axis
and he's just like elbow down.
It's amazing how high his bike was sat in its travel
but using all here, but Phil there was maybe 70%
and then suddenly--
- And it's like, you're dropping off here,
and you're into a compression, and the bike comes up,
but you don't want to like let the wheels
come off the ground at all here, because you need to
have it planted to take off.
It's just the whole thing again of juggling,
you want one thing here, but you don't want it there,
and up there you want this and yeah,
- Yeah,
- So it's like, yeah, it's a really tricky one,
but it makes it interesting for us.
- Oh, totally
(laughs)
- That's like a house.
That's like a whole house.
- If you get this section too good,
like you really nail it, it can be a curse
because then you come off this drop with more speed,
and you're going deep,
and your landing's only getting smaller.
(laughs)
So it's like, you get punished for doing it too well,
it's pretty funny actually, and you just,
I think I broke a peak, head slapping on this section,
yeah, just like "boom".
- Would you ever be tempted to wear a full helmet
in something like this?
- No, but I've actually like knocked a tooth out from
hitting my face, so I probably should, yeah.
(laughs)
- Captain hindsight on the case.
- It is rollable but I wouldn't recommend it.
(laughs)
- I might bring my trail bike up afterwards from the car.
- Well you're more than welcome to roll off it if you want.
- Yeah, I think I will.
Do these guys do patios, 'cause that looks fantastic.
- They're doing landscaping,
we're all going into landscaping.
- So, pretty monstrous feature,
- The finale.
- The finale, and we've seen some people actually
kind of struggle, not necessarily for speed,
I think it's more about like trajectory.
In something like this would you run an insert?
- I think you'll find a lot of the riders are
running inserts.
Hypothetically if you popped a tire coming into a takeoff,
and you've got a crushed core in, you'll probably be sweet,
like you can carry on rolling
and it's not going to just like blow up,
and then you're also like,
with the rocky nature of the course,
less likely to get flats with an insert,
and the insert actually like holds the tire
- On the beam.
- Onto the beam.
- Have you ever been tempted to glue the beam to the tire,
to the rim?
- Nah, 'cause I just don't like extra work for my mechanic.
(laughs)
- Such a nice guy.
- Yeah, yeah, so, and like if you're running carbon wheels
and stuff, it's going to get expensive and it can
you know, you can break a rim.
- Yes.
- Whereas alloy will dent.
But then if you're denting alloy rims,
then you're losing tubeless.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- So it's like yeah the insert just kind of helps
everyone, riders and mechanics.
(triumphant music)
- Well, and that is how you set up your bike
for Red Bull Hardline.
- Yeah.
- I'm pretty sure that's the hard bit anyway, we could just
- Yeah the riding's easy, it's all about the bike setup,
that's what the riders are struggling with.
- I just want to say thank you very much
for coming on the show.
- Hey, thanks for having me, it's been my pleasure.
- It's been real interesting, I would shake your hand--
- We can do a left handed.
- Bam, nice one.
Cheer guys! - See you later.