- Alright it's time for Ask;
this is where we answer all of
your mountain bike related questions
so please comment below with anymore questions
for next weeks show or send them into ASK@GMBN.COM
I'm just gonna fire away now.
- This questions straight from Blake.
Okay so Jan Duras says,
I've got an old MTB bike and it's
got some pretty narrow bars.
I wanna upgrade them to something around 720
but the problem is all the new bars are 31.8 or bigger
my stem's an old one, so is there anyway
to fit the bars on a bar without buying loads of new stuff?
- I think search the internet.
Put it into Google; there is a few companies out there
that are still doing these bars,
especially DLR Bikes, they have these bars.
These retro steel bars, a little bit on the heavy side,
but they do cater, they will fit your bike, yeah.
- That's the way to do it.
I love this guys name, Megaheff.
- Good name. - I'm six foot five
and would love to know if riding a dirt jump frame
for street is okay for a man of my size.
- It is yes.
I don't see why not.
- Strongest bike you can get really.
- Exactly, they are yeah. - Go for it.
Don't let it hold you back.
Jack Paric.
Sometimes when I jump at my local pump track and jump park,
just before landing i accidentally turn the bars
and I crash; how can I get my confidence up
and stop doing it?
- Just relax more; kinda looks, feels well,
I can imagine you're going jump and then going (grunting)
kinda stiffening up-- - Dead sailor.
- Dead sailoring it.
So kind of relax more, keep your body
in a right good position, keep you know,
just be a little bit more supple in the end.
Don't freeze up cause you are gonna tense up
and go off pieced.
- There you go; practise and chill out.
- Yes. - That's good.
Robert Townsend, I'm returning to mountain biking
after 15 years, good man. - Well done.
On technical fast, downhill trails,
I'm finding myself more out of breath
than I am on the climbs.
- I know. - Who is this?
- I do this, is you hold your breath all the way
down the hill and you're like.
Just relax, concentrate, breath.
Like you would if you're pedalling up a hill.
You're breathing.
- Yeah I mean you're pedalling you get into a rhythm.
You're breathing so, find a way of doing that
with your riding basically.
- I do do that; I tense up when I'm going down hill.
Flat down, I'm like (grunting).
- Don't hold your breath. - Don't hold your breath.
- Okay and for ten ways to improve your fitness,
here we go.
- Give yourself a solid warm up.
Personally if I go off really hard straight away,
my ride will probably be cut short so,
give yourself a good ten or 15 minutes.
A gentle spin in before you up the pace.
While it's tempting to stop at the every climb,
try and keep going and keep your average heart rate up
the whole ride; so basically keep going.
Try and change up the sort of riding you do.
If you normally do one or two hour trails and tight rides,
challenge yourself to do some further miles.
Get out and do some proper cross country riding.
Try changing your cadence and getting away
from your natural cadence.
At the end of the ride I like pushing a really big hard gear
if I've got energy left, just to get my legs burning
and work those muscles slightly differently
than my natural cadence.
- Mircea Badila asks,
I wanted to by a Fatbike, but ended up with a Rockrider 540
well Neil will be very happy about that.
That's a decathlon I think, that bike.
I was wondering if I can upgrade my 27 and a half
by two inch tyres to something a bit more rubbery.
Something 2.8 or more.
I don't think I'll fit that.
- I don't think it would fit that in that bike.
To be honest. - Two four, two five.
- Yeah which is still a wide tyre.
- It's a huge tyre.
Pull it down it's worth using.
Go to your local bike shop and politely ask them
if they can try a few different size wheels
in there just to see what size you'll get away with.
- Good advice. - In your frame
before you spend.
Selsicca Yong says good day GMBN team.
Can you make a video comparison between Shimano and Sram?
- I think we could, couldn't we?
- We probably could, yeah I reckon that's on the cards.
Cheers for the idea.
- Yeah.
- Stefan Dirks says,
hey guys, my new bike's got a hole in the crank
to one side of the bottom bracket as well as top of the fork
I'm assuming dirt mud and water'll get in here.
Should I plug them up to stop it getting rusty?
- Well if you're gonna plug it up,
it's gonna get in there somehow.
It needs to drain out somewhere.
- Oh yeah, don't need to stick around in there.
That does cause corrosion. - Yeah it does, yeah.
And even worse for your bearings.
- Yeah you're better off just maintaining your bike,
keeping it clean, keeping an eye on, that it'll flop out.
- Especially if you go on a winter trip or like
some horrible muddy trip,
then you're gonna get mud everywhere.
Give your bike a good old clean.
- Yeah don't be tempted to fill in any of those drain holds
in your bottom bracket; remember to let the water out
if it does get in. - Exactly.
- So to prepare your bike for winter,
and all of those sort of tips, check this out.
- Winter is coming; bearings take a lot of work
in winter with all the wet and the grime getting into them
so things like your headset,
your full suspension pivot bearings,
and your bottom bracket could really do
with being cleaned and greased.
Another way of water proofing your frame
and make sure no water gets down inside there,
is try and seal the seat post so either using grease
or if you've got a carbon fibre frame, or seat post
use a bit of fibre grip and just that layer of something
is gonna stop water getting down into the frame
and potentially wearing your bottom bracket really fast.
- Part three yes.
- Okay Raimo Vaha says
I was wondering how I can diagnose if I've bent
my cranks or the spindle.
- Give it to your mate; let him ride your bike.
Cause you are gonna get so used to those bent cranks.
My brothers, here's an example, my brother's cranks are bent
and he was like, I can't get, what's wrong with my bike?
So I go on his bike, took it for a run
and straight away, bent cranks or bent pedals.
Either way.
- There you go good tip.
T-Rex from Colorado says,
when people are racing downhill, what is mean
when the guys on the side of the track blow the whistle
when a rider goes past?
- Why?
- You wanna know why? - Yeah.
- They're marshals so they just whistling to let the
next marshal down know, the rider's safely gone through.
- There you go. - They also mean
if you're spectating, you walk on the course
and you hear a whistle, don't cross the trail
cause it means someone's coming fast.
- Exactly.
- Ludvig Sahlstrom from Sweden.
I'm looking for a new bike and I'm really need some help.
At the moment I've got a Hardtail.
I'm positive I need a full suspension bike
for the type I like.
I like to go to the local trails but I also like
the big mountains, bike parks, enduro and downhill,
everything; so going after trail bike with 140, 150 travel
or enduro bike with up to 180.
- Trail bike, 140, 150. - I'd say trail bike.
All day long. - All day.
- Less bike will make your ride better
and you'll have more fun cause you'll ride it more places.
Malcolm coming from Lincolnshire, hi Malcolm.
- Hey Mike.
- Malcolm.
- Hey Malcolm.
- I've got a carbon bike and some of the rubber chainstay
protectors need fixing down on their edges,
but I'm not really sure what's safe to use.
There's a lot of talk about this so obviously
epoxy used within carbon so you could you an epoxy
but I wouldn't recommend it cause you don't wanna
disrupt your frame so you can use some sort of silicon
adhesive; you get a hobby kits, they're quite safe to use,
but they're not that grippy on the carbon itself.
What I would prefer to use is sugru
which is a self settled rubber.
It's totally non-damaging to the carbon
and also you could get this rubber mastic tape from Free M
so I'm just gonna throw you to sort of a pro hacks video
that I recently did and you can see those right in there.
While getting your bike set up is a relatively
straight forward process, the thing that really defines
your mountain bike as your bike is the little custom tips
and tweaks you can do to it.
So with that in mind, when I have my own bike,
what I like to do is get suspension guarding
and after that these are my seven best tips and tweaks.
- Cool, that mastic stuff's pretty good, eh?
Super quiet. - Yeah solid on bikes.
Okay so Isabelle Chayer says,
I just broke my rear derailleur and shifter
in a gnarly crash; is it now time to switch
from one eleven, to one eleven from three by seven?
Take into consideration I've got
a one piece shifter and breaks.
It's pretty expensive to upgrade
so as well as your break and shifter, you've gotta get
a dedicated chainream chain, set and ream.
I'd probably continue with what you've got to be honest
and wait until the whole lot is worn out
and then move on after that.
- Good advice.
- Tom 1: I wanna put a front brake on my dirt jump bike,
but still want to barspin, but I don't wanna gyro.
- You can run your front hose through your steering tube,
down there that could work, but you're gonna have to do
a little bit of modification.
You can get these things, you can buy them off the internet,
and you can do it, but if you can you gotta cut
your stern not one of your little bits.
- Feed the cable down?
- Feed the cable though there and then you know
drill out your top cab.
- That sounds like a little hack that,
I reckon you should do.
Make a cool video actually, we'll have to do it.
- That's a good idea actually.
- Dave Lanki, I was thinking of putting quick links
in my chain to simply make it easier to remove and clean
but would it create a potential weak spot
compared to the permanent chain?
See it doesn't but I don't really wanna be spitting those
to rejoin cause they're normally a single fix.
I'm just gonna throw straight to three ways to join a chain
cause this informative video will tell you
what you need to know.
Chain is one of the most important parts of the bike.
It has to go through a hell of a lot of stress.
If it wasn't enough it has to put up with the torque,
the leg power puts through,
but also there's immense twisting forces
from all the gear range so it's not surprising
hearing that you've snapped a chain.
So here's three ways to rejoin your chain.
Quick fire round?
- Yes go for it.
- Ready? - Yep.
- RicketyGem13 can you ride park on a Hardtail?
- Of course you can.
- Josh Rodriguez, can bing bong play ping pong?
(laughing)
- Yes, I think I can.
- Anthony Mowl, can we have another Hartail week please?
- Please. Yes.
- That's a yes.
Dylan Rodriguez, how come mountain bike brands
don't make more double XL full suspension bikes?
- Cause it's why, you don't need--
- Do you know why I struggle with that as well?
There are some really good XL bikes that
you just gotta search for em and you'll find em.
Hunter Carney, what is boost on forks?
- 120, 110 sorry, 110.
- That's right yeah, originally it's 100mm
so it's just an extra ten more spacing.
Get bigger tiring basically.
Brad Stiff, how come you guys don't wear sunglasses?
- I always to. - We do.
We do. - When it's sunny.
- Dave Harding, can you do something on
winter riding and clothing?
- Yes we can; winter is coming and we can.
- And Ivo says, what is the easiest bike
to learn bunny hops on?
- Hardtail.
- Boom. - Done.
Quick fire round, done.
- You know what it's time for?
Correct me if I'm wrong. - There you go.
- Okay so Warren Basin says,
I'm struggling to get distance from my manuals
so what can I do to get more distance?
- No pedalling.
- You're the manual king here so let's have a loot at this.
(laughing)
- Wow that I dare's a challenge.
Alright, squished it in, lift it, cut it back,
he's got it to, yeah no.
To get a balancing point it's further than you think
so you gotta lean back a little bit more.
It'll feel like your going off the back,
but that's when your feathering the rear break
to stop you from doing that.
- It is quite ridged as well,
could use his legs a bit.
- Bend your knees a bit more I guess.
Bend your knees a bit more, lean back,
lean back a little bit more.
Yeah that is a good outfit.
- Good work.
- That looks like Table Mountain in the background.
Cheers Warren for sending that in to Correct Me if I'm Wrong
it's pretty good but just try and find that balancing point
and also just feather that rear brake,
to stop you from going off the back,
but we love answering all your questions that you send in.
So send them to ASK@GMBN.COM or in the comments down below.
- Yeah please keep sending them in;
we love that stuff and if you wanna see
Raymond Metalio's pro bike check click right down here.
- Very good, well then if you wanna see nine nights
and what it's all about where I went and took part in this
whole event, takes a whole week, click just down here.
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- Oh yeah.