The pros get use to all the coolest gear and prototype equipment,
but where every second counts, sometimes the pros hack their bikes to make them
even better. So here are our top 10 pro bike hacks.
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Loic Bruni's moto foam, this has come from motocross, where guys stick foam pieces to
their bike, and it stops the mud and debris collecting on the bike to save
weight, but also it's to stop stuff getting into places you don't want it.
So Loic's mechanic sticks it down the linkage, where you don't want a
stone getting in there and jamming the suspension.
Julien Absalon's soldered spokes, Julien's rear wheel has small pieces of solder to
actually keep the two spokes that cross each other together. That helps,
especially on 29 inch wheels, where there's a bit more flex. On hardtail,
the rear wheel takes a lot of punishment, so add some strength,
add some stiffness to those bigger wheels.
Dan Atherton's Continental Mud Kings, Dan uses the same tires all year round,
which is unusual because they're mud tires. He likes to cut them down so
they're low-profile spiked tires. He likes the consistency of knowing exactly how his
tires are going to react, and he just changes the cut for different conditions.
So a longer spike for muddier conditions,
a shorter, more cut spike for hard pack conditions.
Josh Bryceland's chopped WTB saddle, Josh is a rider that really likes to run his
saddle low on his bike. On his Santa Cruz V10, if you have the saddle too low,
it will actually buzz on the rear tire. So Josh's mechanic has cut a big piece of the
plastic out of the back of the seat, and folded the cover back around so it looks
brand new, and you can't really tell until you look closely. That gives it clearance
so the saddle doesn't hit the rear tire.
Gee Atherton's chain stay protector, Gee uses a normal chain stay protector,
and then his mechanic uses some sugru, which is a moldable glue,
to cover some areas of the frame that a normal chain stay protector doesn't get
to. Once firm, the sugru gives a rubber-like cover that stops the chain
slapping against the frame.
The electrical tape on Nino Schurter's seat post, it simply shows the mechanic
the exact height the seat post needs to be at without marking or scoring the seat
post. Really important with carbon fiber seat posts. This really helps with
reassembling the bike on race weekends.
Curtis Keene's inner tube taped to the frame, another hack using electrical tape.
Curtis is a rider that doesn't like to carry a backpack, so he straps a tube to
his frame, and uses specialized swap tools attached to his bike so he doesn't need to
carry a backpack for water, or tools, or inner tube.
Custom suspension, a big privilege of being a pro is the service you get from
the manufacturers. Many pros have their suspension built custom for them.
Simon Andreassen has a Rockshox RS-1 reduced from 100 mm to 90 mm to keep the
front nice and low. Curtis Keene has a custom Rockshox Vivid Air R2C.
Marc Beaumont's offset shock bushings, they replace the normal shock bushings to
tweak the angles of the frame. As the name suggests, the shock mounting bolts now sit
offset and slack in the head angle by one degree. The offset bushings effectively
reduce the eye-to-eye length of the shock, therefore slacking in the head angle and
dropping the bottom bracket lower.
Martyn Ashton's Nicolai GeoMetron, possibly the biggest and best hack of them
all. The seat, designed for sit skiing, is mounted directly to the Fox DOSS seat
post, and the rear shock is custom valved to deal with the static weight,
and control the rear wheel when it leaves the ground. The cranks are mounted the
same way and fixed. Martyn's feet are then taped to them. This bike is the first of
its kind, and has inspired others to build their own machines.
So, there you go. There's a few cool tweaks the pros like to do to their bikes.
Let us know if you've got any of your own pro bike hacks. Leave us a comment down
below, and if you want to see more videos from GMBN, you can click up there for our
Pro Bike playlist where you can check out all the rest of the stuff that the pros
use, or you can click down there for our mechanical videos. As ever,
click on me to subscribe to GMBN, if you haven't already.
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