(loud crashing)
- We're here, another Ask GMBN,
we've got the rat, we've got Martyn and myself,
we got a bike.
- We've got everything we need.
- We've got coffee, we've got some questions!
- Awesome, we've got some statements actually,
so Dylan Johnson jumps in and says,
we're talking about racing, how it can maybe
take away from your love of sport.
- Yes
- Dylan Johnson says, "Competing had
the opposite effect for me,
it greatly increased my passion for riding,
because I had a goal to strive for.
This is different for everyone though,
and I do know people who get stressed
and burnt out when they race too much."
- Yeah, yeah, I mean it can go both ways, can't it.
I mean, sometimes it's the thing that triggers your,
your new excitement in riding and other times it can
kill the passion a little bit.
- Well, Zhenhang Wong says,
"Does a job take fun out of your hobby?
- Ooo, dunno, what do you think,
I mean, it's difficult, 'cause when you're racing
it doesn't feel like a job, it feels like a mission.
You know, like, a mission to get it done.
- I was in two frames of mind,
sometimes it was like, getting paid to do the best job ever,
but if I was not doing very well,
and my contract was up at the end of the year,
it was very stressful.
And you realize that, actually, your performance
was your livelihood.
- Yeah
- And that wasn't quite so much fun.
- I mean, it's high-pressure, for sure,
isn't it?
And definitely those October, November months
could be very, very scary
when I was, - Don't get injured.
- No, you were like, oh, my God,
I'm not gonna get contract and then what am I gonna do?
And is it all over,
and should I have just gone to university?
(Neil laughs)
Aww, and all stuff like that.
I dunno why I said that,
'cause I had absolutely zero chance of going to university.
- Well, I went to university and was a pro mountain biker.
- Well, you're just a showoff
- I wasn't in university very long though,
that was the problem.
(Martyn laughs)
Ashford MTB has got a great suggestion,
he would love to see an Ashton and Hawyes reunion video!
(Martyn laughs)
I gotta see that as well.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Can we dig out the Cannondales?
- We could do that, yeah.
- Also, we'd have to get a Giant I suppose.
- Um, yeah, well, I'll give him a call and see what he says.
You never know, you never know,
stranger things have happened. Do you know what I'd like?
Me and Hawyesey did a video,
if any of you young guys are watching this.
Myself and another guy called Martyn
did some videos, long time ago,
we were the Martyns, imaginatively named.
Um, and we did a video called tricks and stunts,
where we dressed up in 70s clothing
and did, like, this chase scene, right?
I would love to see, like, Fabio Wibmer, Danny Mac,
do the new version of that.
Like, and actually do the tricks we dreamed of.
(Martyn laughs)
- That'd be good.
- It would be so sick, wouldn't it?
I would love to see Danny Mac and Fabio in funny wigs,
and 70s leather.
- Like a Hollwood remake of an old,
doesn't happen with mountain bike movies, does it?
- No, probably for good reason,
but anyway, that's what I'd like to see.
- Okay, right, let's kick it off with some questions.
Uh, Danny Westman's got a great one,
what ignited your love for mountain biking?
- Oh, um, for me, I went to a cross-country race,
I was doing motorcycle trials when I was about 18 or 19,
and I went to a mountain event,
'cause my friend told me about it,
and the vibe!
Right, and I went to a cross-country race,
it was real early days in the sport in the UK,
and just, like, everyone turning up.
And it was super positive, super positive,
and I don't think that's gone away.
It was just, like, you go to an event
and everyone's just chuffed to be there.
And that just pulled me in,
and yeah, I was doing it for,
and what about yourself?
- It was sort of similar, I always liked riding a bike,
from being a kid,
but it's when I saw this mountain bikey thing,
and actually bought the magazines
and it was like, this is cool.
- Yeah, yeah.
- And I bought magazines related to it,
I've got a massive stack at home, at Mum and Dad's house,
from those early days, I'd love looking at.
I just was really into this thing
that loads of other people were into as well.
- Yeah, the magazines back then were great,
oh, my God, they were good.
They were so exciting to see, like, who was in them.
- Yeah, you were on the cover, I'm sure,
of many of those old magazines.
- Yeah, I made it in a few times.
- Uh, Jonathan Christie has got a question
about trials bikes.
What do you think a 29er trials bike would be like?
- Great idea, great idea, great question.
I have no idea actually.
I'd have to speak to, sort of, like,
one of the current trials, probably comp riders,
it wouldn't work for street,
because you want a small wheel on street,
because the bike's spinning and it would slow it down,
I would have thought.
But for comp trials,
- They're still using 26-inch, aren't they, I suppose?
- They're still using 26, yeah,
I dunno if they've done 27.5 or 29,
that's a really interesting question.
I'm gonna ask some people in the know about that.
- Will we ever see you on a 29er, Martyn?
- Um, I would love to ride a 29er,
you might do, you might do.
- What about a hybrid, 29er up front, 27.5 at the back?
- Maybe, yeah, stop giving away my plans, Neil.
Stop telling everyone, they're secrets, you know.
- Oscar Reyes Aguilar said
GCN did a 10,000 calorie challenge,
as per Jack, Jack the cameraman, uh,
that was his request that we do it.
I'm glad I dodged the bullet.
But, uh, Oscar's asking if we're ever gonna do it.
- Aw, man, I should do that.
That is a great idea,
I should do the 10,000 calorie challenge, right,
because, right, how many calories
do you think you burn in a day, when you're doing exercise,
on your watch, it must tell you?
- About 3,000.
- About 3,000, right.
I've got, um, I've got a watch that measures my rolls,
my pushes, right, and it worked out that
I use 200 calories a day.
(Martyn laughs)
- That's not true.
- It is, I just literally sat, I'm sat down all day
doing nothing, so I really should do that
10,000 calorie challenge,
but it's probably gonna take me about 25 years.
- Well, I thought the mountain bikers' version of that
is to go for a normal ride and see what you do.
So you might burn 2,000, 3,000 calories on a super big ride,
but then you go to the pub
and see how many you can pile back on.
- Yes
- That's the mountain bikers' version.
- How many calories can you get back in, yeah.
That's the good version.
- How many calories in three packets of crisps
and four pints?
- It's about, yeah, it's getting on, it's getting close,
it's getting close.
That's a good game.
- Um, Eric Godel says he always feels like
he's got very little traction in corners,
feels like he's understeering, like in a car.
I don't think I'm riding too fast or my setup is bad.
Running a 2.6 Nobby Nic, Schwalbe,
maybe I'm braking too much on my front brake?
What d'you think, Martyn?
Sliding on the front tire.
- You know what, you know what I've found really useful,
when we were out riding recently,
and you told me about, on the bike I was riding,
to, like, get that,
to get up above the bar in the corners,
like Doug Henry style in the corners.
And that made a massive difference to me.
I was, 'cause I tend to enter corners,
and I tend to lean in and my weight's on the inside,
and it's 'cause I've got a bit of a Moto GP fascination.
And I feel like I'm going into the corners like this,
which isn't actually any good on a mountain bike.
You wanna get up above it, so I think,
pushing that inside grip down,
really gets your weight into a good place.
And the grip on the front for me,
really changed when I did that.
And that was advice from him.
- I like it, yeah, cheers.
I do that, on a motocross bike, you know,
you push the bike over,
then you sit on the top edge of the saddle,
of the seat even, not the saddle on a motocross bike.
I do the same on a mountain bike,
so I angle the bike over, I try and stay above the bike.
And it's just more stable.
- Yeah, and I found that made a massive difference to me.
And I've been doing it on that bike ever since
and really, it's transformed the way it works.
- It could be tire pressures, it could be bar height,
it could be all sorts of things.
How big your bike is,
trying to get enough weight on the front tire.
If you wanna see a video
on how to corner with confidence, check it out.
Cornering is probably the number one cause
of crashes on a mountain bike,
they can completely rob your confidence
if you don't feel good in a turn.
(jazzy pop music)
- Nice, right, next question is from Kukuh Wanengkirtyo,
and he, she says, sorry I can't even guess.
I'm thinking a he.
Mountain biking is one of the sports that
technology changes and development happen all the time.
However, how much would it change the way we ride a bike?
In terms of maneuverability,
how you feel the shock and fork work etc.
It would be interesting to know
how you assess a particular same brand model of MTB
from different production years, say, like,
in three-year gaps or something like that.
- Well, I'm self-breaked-in with the Nukeproof Mega,
rode the brand-spanking-new carbon one,
versus the, hmm, 2012, I wanna say, I can't remember
how old it is.
And I think, like, forks and shocks, suspension,
it's developed, but it's not been revolutionized.
It's got a bit better.
- But, the big difference, for me, was in geometry.
So as people experiment, they go a long way,
they're gonna come back, and it's just those little changes
make the bike feel much better.
More, just usable, all round,
and then it is just the things like angles,
which made the biggest difference, I find.
- Yeah, yeah, no, and it's weird isn't it,
we're in a period where the geometry changes have been
quite big in recent years.
There's been this, kind of, move to, like,
the slacker front end, longer wheelbase.
- I think it'll come back a bit though,
I think some of the people have gone a bit extreme
with those things, but it's interesting.
- Yeah, and you weren't a fan of that at all,
at the start, were you.
So what do you think now, are you more towards it?
- No, I'm still a bit conservative with my geometry,
if you look at my new Canyon Strive that is,
it looks a bit conservative on paper,
but it suits me to the ground, love it.
I can get perfect weight balance on it,
and it's not stretched out, although it is
much bigger than the bikes I used five years ago.
- But to be fair though,
this is your full-size bike though, isn't it.
- My thing is, I'm five foot ten,
I'm medium in everything, I've got,
I am your average person, average shoe size,
average waist size, and if I don't fit a medium bike,
then they're making it wrong.
- That's a good point.
- If I have to ride a large bike,
it's not my fault, it's their fault.
- I thought that was maybe something you say to your wife,
I was wondering where you were going with it.
- No (Neil laughs) - That is a good point.
- You should be riding a large,
I bloody shouldn't, like if I ride a large,
they've done it wrong.
(Martyn laughs)
- Fair enough, fair enough
Right, Oliver Beyens says,
I have a new Canyon Lux bike
and was wondering if it's wise
to ride some harder trails with this bike,
I think green and blue trails work fine,
but the red and black trails, question mark.
Another question, it's my first carbon bike,
I'm curious, if I fall and land hard
does that mean my carbon frame will be broken?
I've got a Canyon Lux, a carbon one,
riding carbon bikes for a long time now.
I've never broken one, so I wouldn't be worried about it.
You do hear these horror stories of falling over
and landing on something and breaking it,
but pfft, it's unlikely.
They're flipping strong.
- Yeah, really strong.
- And cross-country bikes, you can even ride
anything on them, they're just not quite as robust,
you don't wanna be doing a big flat landings,
'cause eventually you will wear that bike out,
abuse it a bit.
But they can ride anything.
- They can handle that tough stuff, I think.
Yeah, definitely.
Jamie Partridge, how can you,
how can you fix a bent brake lever?
Well, you have to be careful,
'cause you can snap 'em, easily.
- That's what I would say, I would say,
probably take the lever blade out,
'cause if you try and bend it
you could damage the actual lever body.
- Yes.
- Stick it in a vice, and I use ring spanners, my old trick.
- That's the one I was gonna say,
the ring spanner's perfect.
You just put it through the ring like that,
and then bend it like that.
That's how I used to do it on a motorbike all the time,
like, bending levers.
- It's quite enjoyable.
- It is, it is. - I quite like doing it.
- Don't do it, like Neil said, with the,
in the, kind of, body of the thing.
- Be prepared to buy a new one.
- You'd be bending it, and just, that breaks.
Jamie M is asking, myself and a couple of friends
have signed up for a six-hour cross-country race,
the Muckmedden, held in Pitmedden in Perthshire.
I was looking for some tips on the best way to train for it.
It's in two months time
and I don't want to be completely useless.
- Two months time, that's not very long.
- Oh, it also says here,
and perhaps Neil would enjoy coming along.
- Uh, perhaps,
although Muck-medden doesn't sound that great.
(both laugh)
- But, onto the question, how can you train for a six-hour
cross-country race in just two months.
Is that even possible?
- I did a six-hour race with Si Richardson
in the Alp, the dolomity thing,
that was a long time to ride a bike for
trying to go fast.
I would say, you've got to just ride your bike
as much as you can.
I don't train so much any more, just try and keep fit.
It's not like a structured regime.
But in two months, just ride as much as you can,
would be my advice, and try and do some big long rides.
Try and get used to your pacing.
So do some really long, mellow rides,
but then try and do a six-hour ride
at the sort of speed you wanna ride at,
and make sure you can do it.
Make sure you're eating loads of food as well.
- Absolutely, yeah, get the old stamina built up.
Be interesting to know what you're riding in that event,
is that a hard tail or a full sus?
Uh, speaking of that, take a look at this.
- When it comes to World Cup cross-country racing
we do see a split between
full-suspension bikes and hard tails.
Now, many of the top riders actually travel with both bikes,
and they'll decide which one they want to use,
depending on how rough and how technical that course is.
So today I'm gonna compare the two.
(techno music)
Correct Me If I'm Wrong,
this has been sent in via the uploader,
and this is from Bjorn, in Fiskars, Finland.
And he's trying to learn how to wheelie at the age of 41.
- Fair play! - Please give me some advice
to do some longer wheelies. - Right, let's have a look.
- In the snow, as well.
- That doesn't make it easy.
- No, you're gonna move around,
the back wheel's gonna slide around a bit.
He's coming over.
- Oh, it starts really well.
- Sat back, nicely into it,
that's one thing I always hear is quite often
people try and wheelie and they try stay upright,
uh, and it doesn't work, you've got to sit into it.
Go with the flow.
- Control it on that back brake.
It looks to me though, on there, that you've got,
you've gotta use your knees and the handlebars
to balance the bike,
and you've kinda gotta do them sort of,
the bike in between your knees,
and if it goes a long way one way,
you can flop your knees one way
or you can turn the bars opposite lock.
In that clip it looks like you go
knees and bars both the same way,
so you kinda end up steering into
coming off of that straight line,
which is a shame, 'cause you got it going really well.
- Ah, it's a good effort.
- Just keep practicing, honestly,
you're really, really close to having a sick wheelie dialed.
- Send us in your videos for Correct Me If I'm Wrong,
using the uploader,
it's in the description below this video.
Leave us your questions down below as well,
try and help you out in next week.
If you wanna see a video of Blake
trying to ride a cyclo-cross bike hard,
over there for that one.
- Absolutely, and if you wanna subscribe to GMBN,
you just gotta hit the old globe, just there.
- Thumbs up.
- See you next time.