- Okay, that's officially the hardest part of my day.
- Yeah, there you go.
How was that for the intro? - Nope.
(upbeat music)
What 17 year olds can say
that they've gotten a call from one of the best downhillers
of all time to join forces and become a
Factory Team downhill racer?
Not many, I can tell you that, but luckily,
Seth Sherlock here, he's keeping a level head
and he's learning from the best, Aaron Gwin.
2019 was an awesome season for Seth.
You were a standout privateer
on the Junior Downhill World Cup Circuit.
2020 was a bit of a curve ball for all of us.
I think we can agree on that.
But this year, you're going into your first season
of the Elite Downhill World Cup Circuit.
It's no surprise Intense wanted to get him
on this brand new prototype, M279 frame,
do some early season testing here in BC.
Seth has basically grown up on intense bikes.
He's been riding them since he was 10 years old
and that same year he released his first free ride edit.
Fast forward a couple years,
free rider here is turned pro racer.
So I'm pretty interested to know the biggest differences
from his previous intense downhill bike to this current one.
He's had a couple of days testing on it already.
So let's dig in and get to the specifics.
With a bit of a delay in the downhill season this year,
Seth, you've got some more time
at home to get really comfy on this bike.
I know you've had a couple of days on it already,
but what can you tell us and the viewers at home
about the M279 so far?
- [Seth] Yeah, so this is the,
I guess the prototype M279 and this is gonna be a large
I think, there's an adjustable flipped chip in the back
so I can kind of adjust the a chain stay length.
Yeah, so far so good, I'm loving it.
- And as you can see, we've got the fully aluminum frame.
I'm guessing that's easy for a prototype bike.
If you want to make some adjustments just to change
out one piece at a time, rather than, you know,
committing to the full carbon layup.
- Yeah, exactly.
If they come into a carbon layup, it would be,
it's pretty committed, right?
You can't really make changes that easily.
- Totally. - It's very expensive.
So they're going aluminum for now,
just cause we're still kind of messing
with geometry and stuff.
- So this is the large they're calling it.
But I think I heard you earlier.
Maybe they're gonna, they've got a bigger one
in the works for some of the other team riders?
- Yeah, so Nico's on an XL sort of thing, but I don't know.
All the sizes are kind of up in the air at the moment.
It's really not that close to production.
- How tall are you and how much do you weigh?
- Yeah, so I'm a five foot nine
and I'm 160 pounds with gear on.
So I'm like, I think like an inch shorter
than Aaron and I'm like 30 pounds less.
- Give or take. - Yeah, give or take.
So the suspension setup's a little different obviously,
but the sizing is pretty much the same.
- Sweet. - Yeah.
- And you said earlier, like,
I mean obviously Aaron's got a lot of experience on bikes.
He really knows what one thing feels like in comparison
to another, but Nico's may be a bit more tech savvy
with the numbers and the angles.
So do they kind of work together in that way?
- Yeah, for sure.
Nico, he like knows a little more about suspension
geometry and stuff.
When Aaron more just like really knows what he likes
with the bike.
So they kind of work together
and get this basically. - Awesome.
- Which is kind of like a combined force
of Aaron and Nico. - Totally.
What are some differences that you notice
from your home tracks
where you're doing your own testing
and set up on the bikes
versus the tracks you're gonna race.
But also, like, you've got access to Whistler Bike Park.
Does that even come into play for you?
- Yeah, it's tough.
Like world cups are a lot less tight.
They're a lot more like wide open, a lot faster,
a lot bigger like hits and stuff.
Provo's like the closest thing to it.
The Whistler Bike Park can't even really compare
a lot of the time.
- Seth you've had a couple of days
on this bike now dialing it in.
What are the biggest differences you notice right away
from your M29 to this M279.
- All right.
Well obviously the most obvious thing was the mullet.
And really the geometry
and all that was like pretty similar to the M29,
but a little more modern, - Totally.
- a little more aggressive.
- What does that mean for the viewers at home?
Modern and aggressive?
- Yeah, so that'd be like longer slacker
and lower basically.
So it's like a little bit,
but it's still not the most aggressive bike in the world
I wouldn't say, I don't know.
Like last year I was running an M29
with I think a six mil reach adjustment.
- [Christina] Right.
- And the reach feels pretty much the same as that I'd say.
- Have you experienced the Mullet before?
Is this your first kind of Mullet bike?
- No, this is my first time ever on a Mullet
and that felt super natural right away, actually.
So I'm really happy with it.
It felt like a little more like nimble
around tighter corners I found
and the berms felt a little bare
of all struggled with berms.
So that was a pretty welcome improvement
- Moving forward.
Do you just want to take us through
and run us through your bike?
Maybe let's start at the wheels and work our way back?
- Yeah, sure thing.
So the wheels are the LG1 RDHs,
so they're like E*thirteen carbon race wheels, basically.
They're pretty sweet.
We've had really good luck with them, actually.
They're super bulletproof
and for tires I'm running the Gran Muddas
at the moment, fully cut.
So they're like, can this mud spike and I haven't cut.
So they're pretty good.
Like all conditions.
- Okay. - Yeah, we can like,
we don't run them in the dry obviously,
but for Squamish when it's almost all was pretty muddy,
they're pretty perfect.
- Personally, I've never run a cut spike tire.
Is it something that takes time to get used to
or is it better for you like to maybe run them now,
so you're ready to go in the wet season?
- Yeah, exactly.
Well, it takes a bit to get used to
and that was kind of the problem.
I never ran them cause I didn't want to cut the spikes
but then I go to the World Cup
and it's like probably the main tire we're running,
especially this year when it was really wet.
- Totally.
- So this year I'm definitely gonna run them
a lot more to get used to them.
'Cause that was a little sketchy at first
but I really like them now.
And they're the AGC compound.
- [Christina] What sort of air pressures
are you running front and rear?
- So at the moment I'm running 23 in the front
and 25 in the back and that's working out pretty well.
Normally at the World Cups,
I can't get away with much less than 26 and 24 of them.
- Let's talk about the brakes.
You were squishing the brakes earlier.
You really were talking up a storm about them.
Let's hear about these TRPs.
- Yeah, I love the TR--
These are the THR EVOS and they're fricking awesome.
I'm loving them.
So I'm running them with the resin pads,
like the organic ones.
I think I'm gonna switch to metallic next time
I put a new set of rotors on, just to try them out.
I like these though, they're great.
And we're running the two or three mil rotors
which are actually a 2.3 millimeters thick.
So they're thicker than the normal brand.
- Let's move up into your cockpit there.
What have we got going on
other than this super custom number plate?
- Yeah, so this is a little funky actually.
I'm used to like a really low front end
which is probably not ideal
and I need to test out some other stuff this year for sure.
And I'm actually running 10 mil rise bars
which is pretty different from the rest of the competition.
I feel like I get a little lazy sometimes
and get a little backseat.
So that really forces me onto the front of the bike.
It gives me a little more like front-end traction.
- Totally. - Yeah, so there the 10 mil,
31.8 mill Renthal Fatbars.
- [Christina] Sweet, and how wide do you run those?
- [Seth] 770.
- And is that pretty standard across all your bikes?
- Yeah, I try and keep all my bikes 770.
- [Christina] We might as well talk about the grips.
- Yeah, so these are the Odi elite pros
and they're my favorite Odi grip.
I've tried them all pretty much.
And I really liked the padding that they give.
Like this kind of padding on the top,
it kind of reduces arm pump for me at that.
- Let's talk about something
that makes a huge difference on bikes,
especially downhill bikes at the level you're riding them.
How are you setting up your fork for this?
- Yeah, so this fork say a Fox 40 obviously,
and I am running at 15% sag at the moment
with four volume spacers.
That's kind of the baseline setup I'm going for.
And then the rear, I got a flow decks two with 25% sag
and four volume spacers.
- And how are you running your fork as far as
compression and rebound?
- [Seth] So we've got a high-speed compression is wide open
on the fork.
And the low speed compression is 10 clicks
from fully closed.
When the high-speed rebound and low-speed rebound,
they're both seven clicks when fully closed.
- Let's talk pressures on the suspension.
We've we've got your details, but what sort
of air pressure you're running on the fork?
- Yeah, yeah, so on the fork,
I'm running 90 PSI, which is 15% sag for me.
And then the rear, I go to 190 PSI, which is 25% sag.
- What sort of details can you tell us
on how you're running the shock?
- [Seth] Okay, so I got a high high-speed compression
is wide open again,
low speed compression is a 10 clicks from fully closed.
And a high-speed rebound is eight clicks
from fully closed when low speed is
10 clicks from fully closed.
- Woof, easy to remember.
Moving on to the part of the bike that makes it turn over.
Run us through what you've got for your drive train here.
- Yeah, so I got the TRP like seven speed drive tread.
So that's pretty sweet, really liking that.
It's cool, it's got like a little B tension locker.
So that really reduces noise, I find.
That's sweet and then that's a hooked up
to a E*thirteen seven speed integrated cassette
and then we got STF use to keep the noise down.
That's pretty sweet.
And we got the E*thirteen, chain code hooked up to an
E*thirteen center rack.
- I feel like I remember you as a
a flat pedal rider for a long time.
- Yeah, for way too long.
And I switched over
and that like, massively improved my riding.
So I'd never really switched back now.
It feels so weird whenever I go on flat.
But really loved the clips I'm on HTs.
So these are the X1s
and I run them with four pins and about halfway tighten.
- It's a very fancy seat post you have there, Seth.
Please tell me more.
- [Seth] Yeah, so I got the SDG I-Fly 2.0 seat
melded to a I-Beam carbon seat post.
- Seth, what on your bike are you super picky about?
I know some people freak out about bar roll
or lever placement.
Some people actually run like grips cut down.
Is there anything on your bike
that you're absolutely particular about?
- Hmm, brakes, I guess.
If my brakes aren't bled right,
super picky about that.
Low front end and brakes are probably the things
most picky about that.
- And is it more about the bite point of the lever
or how far the lever is out?
- Just more of the bite point.
Yeah, 'cause I kinda like keep it pretty much
at the bite point and just pull it when I need to.
- Thanks so much to Seth here today
for sharing the details and letting us feast our eyes
on this brand new bike from Intense.
We're all really excited for your first year elite.
We can't wait to see how you do
and how you perform on this new bike.
If you guys have any questions for Seth
on his season or the new bikes that he's gonna be riding,
make sure to leave them in the comments below.
I think he's got a little bit of spare time on his hands.
He'll be checking those out for sure.
And if you liked what you saw,
definitely subscribe to our channel
because we like to do bike checks
like this as often as we can.
And we want to keep you guys stoked on the ride.
So we out and by we, I mean I'm going biking
and this guy has got some chores to do. (upbeat music)