- Alright, I'm in the shed for this week's Ask.
I'm trynna answer all your questions
you left below last week's Ask,
and you've sent in using the email,
and all sorts of different ways.
So let's get to it.
(dramatic thud)
(loose dirt crunching)
First question comes for Finnemann_
He says, he's just curious,
"as a former dirt jumper stroke slope style rider,
"does Blake set up his enduro bike
"like someone like Sam Pilgrim
"who puts maximum pressure in both fork and damper?
"And would it be beneficial to set it up like that
"for normal mere mortals like myself when riding bikeparks?"
So jump tails, flow trails.
So Blake does set up suspension pretty hard.
He's a big guy as well,
does big stuff on his trail bike
so yes, he does definitely put more pressure
in his shock and fork.
Probably not quite as aggressive as Sam Pilgrim
'cause Blake does a lot of normal trail riding as well.
I'd say Sam probably doesn't do quite so much,
just rides those big jumps, so he has his rock hard.
But yeah, it does help those riders
when they're landing big tricks.
Big heavy landings, you need 'em super hard.
Mere mortals, I would say probably not.
You might wanna set up your suspension quite progressive
for doing things like riding bikeparks and flow trails,
but to have 'em just super hard
isn't gonna help you out very much.
It's gonna be super unforgiving
on the rest of the trail to be honest.
Snowsniper Airsoft, that's a good username.
"I have a cracking noise coming from the pedal area
"of my downhill bike, what could it be?"
Downhill area, well it's gonna be drivetrain of course.
So I would, first thing I would check
would be your bottom bracket, they can creak.
A cracking noise, probably, especially,
I doubt you've got a press fit on a downhill bike
but even if the bearings start going in your bottom bracket,
that could cause that.
Having said that, it could be your pivot,
so if your pivots have dried out,
when the bike moves around
when you're pedaling really hard,
the bike will flex a bit so it could well be that.
I would say it's definitely a case of servicing your bike.
So either greasing up your bottom bracket,
or replacing bottom bracket,
or greasing up your pivots on that full suspension bike.
But definitely start with bottom bracket, pivots,
could be your pedals, could even be the rear hub.
But if you wanna see a video where we go into real detail
about how to stop creaking from your bike,
click on this link.
- A smooth operating mountain bike
is an absolute pleasure to ride,
but due to the conditions we ride in as mountain bikers,
it doesn't always happen that way
and you can end up with a bike
that creaks and groans all over the place.
- Right, next question comes from Logan Rides Bikes.
He's got a specialized Rockhopper
with a three by nine gear setup.
So three chains on the back, nine gears,
on the front, sorry,
nine gears on the back.
And he went for a 30k ride
and didn't use the second and third chainring.
"So can I take the front mech off
"and just use it as a one-by-nine?"
So by second and third chainring,
I presume you mean the smaller ones
so you just use your big ring.
You can do that, yeah, it's fine.
You're gonna have not that many gears, of course,
only nine speed, and your range isn't gonna be massive,
'cause a nice big set, compare that
to those new massive one-by-12s,
you just don't have that range of gears.
So you can do that.
What I would say is move your big ring into the middle,
so where your middle ring used to be,
so you've got a better chainline, so,
yeah you can try that, and you can always
put them back on if you don't like it,
so it's not a massive deal.
It just takes a bit of time to do it.
Ian Lourenz Santos,
"Where can you stash your spares on your bike
"if you're wearing a cross country jersey?"
Yeah, I used to do this quite a lot
on my cross country bike,
so I used to take one tube
and I'd stick that under my seat,
so in between the rails, and then use electrical tape,
so you wrap it around and over the top of the saddle,
it's so thin you won't feel it when you sit down.
And then either you can stick a pump in your back pocket
or you can get some of those mini pumps that will
mount to your bottle cage, so it's pretty simple.
And then I used to just take a multi tool in my back pocket,
water bottle on the bike, and that's about it.
Pretty easy to do, loads of pro enduro racers
do this now as well,
and you can buy those sort of velcro straps
to strap a tube to your frame
rather than sticking it underneath your saddle
because if you're running, say a dropper post,
you probably don't want to stick that weight on a saddle,
but pretty easy to do.
Ethan Manzi is 12 years old,
he's very interested in racing downhill
but live in an area where
there's not much elevation or steep descents
and the only riding clubs are cross country.
"I was wondering how I could try and get into it?"
Well funny you should say that Ethan,
that's pretty much exactly the same situation
I was in when I was young.
So where I lived the hills were two or 300 meters high,
basically I got into it because of friends.
So two or three of us would go out
and we'd just section that hill.
So you can make great little downhill tracks
out of not a lot, and just ride them over and over.
You don't need a big six-minute, 10-minute,
downhill run to get good at it.
Just go out and ride those sections over and over again.
And I really think that helps you get better as well,
'cause if you ride the same one,
the same bit, 10 times, by the tenth time
you're gonna be better at doing it,
and you're gonna be faster.
So try and find some mates to go and do it with.
Hopefully you've got some round by you.
If not I'm sure you'll find some
using social media, Facebook, Instagram,
try and find some people who're into it as well.
George Allman has got a 2016 Cube Stereo 160 Race.
"The rear brake cable is routed round
"the bottom of rear swing arm into the caliper."
Photo's attached, that's up on screen now.
"Is this the correct routing, or does it look weird
"and could potentially be an issue
"with the cable stretching?"
Well I've looked into this, I've Googled your bike,
and I think you're absolutely right,
that's the way it comes standard.
And actually you can see those parts of the frame
where you mount the zip ties, they're called braze-ons.
So you have the routing that
is like you've got now from standard.
Which I do think looks a little bit weird,
I've not seen any others like that,
but I presume it's not a problem if Canyon,
sorry if Cube are sending those bikes like that
then it must be fine.
If it was me I'd probably neaten it up to be honest,
and do what most people do,
is run from that bottom chainstay and just go straight up
on a diagonal to the caliper.
Would be easy enough to do,
you just have to shorten the hose a little bit
and swing it round on your caliper,
and potentially have to re-bleed it.
But if you don't mind the way it looks
then fine just leave it like that,
I don't think it's a problem at all.
Okay, next question.
David Wallace says he can never get this straight,
"How do you classify a dual suspension mountain bike
"with 130 mil travel front and rear.
"Would it be enduro, trail, all mountain,
"or something else?"
Yeah, can be super confusing this.
130 mil, that's somewhere mid-travel I would call it.
So I would actually call that bike a trail bike.
An enduro bike, I would say, would be more travel than that.
So something from 140 plus, probably really 160.
I know super confusing.
All mountain, I would say, is bigger travel than that.
But we've actually done a video on this,
if you want to check it out:
What mountain bike should you choose
for your riding discipline.
And we do give those disciplines names
and talk about what those types of bikes are.
- Mountain biking has evolved a lot
over a history of about 40 years.
There's all sorts of disciplines now that fall under
that mountain bike umbrella.
So we thought it would be a good time
to explain all the different types of bikes
and what their intended use is.
(energetic music)
- Right a few quick fire questions.
Liam O'Neill:
"Why have you never done a video on the Canyon Torque?"
Well, funny you should say that,
coming soon, Blake has just got one,
I've seen it downstairs.
And he's going to Whistler in just a couple of weeks
and taking that bike with him,
so you will see a Canyon Torque very soon.
Maxance Lapointe:
"Have you ever gone mountain biking in Quebec City?"
Yes I have, I used to race at Mont-Sainte-Anne World Cup.
I've probably been there four, five times, love it!
Classic downhill track.
That's the only place I've ridden in Quebec,
but it's a cool part of town,
cool part of the world in fact,
good place to go out for a beer as well.
Cam-Boy-093:
"Can I use standard 27.5 tires on a plus rim?"
Yes you can, it's possible.
However, it's probably not completely recommended
'cause a plus rim will be quite wide,
so, I don't know, probably 35 mil wide I woulda thought,
so if you put a normal tire on it'll have a weird shape.
So it will sit further in,
not as it's designed to be really,
but you can do it, I'm sure.
Having said that I've not tried it,
but I'm almost 100% sure it will work,
just probably not going to give you the best tire profile.
Michael Gilbert:
"I feel like I have to bleed my rear brake far too often.
"After only a few rides the lever
"can go all the way into the bars.
"It's a Shimano XT."
Two things here, I would say.
Either you're not quite doing the bleed
as well as you'd hoped.
So sometimes you have to do the lever,
so there's a couple of techniques to actually
strap the lever to the bar and try and bleed both
the caliper and the lever,
so check out Shimano's instructions
to make sure you're doing it completely properly.
And the next thing I would say is make sure
you haven't got a leak anywhere.
So make sure all the banjo bolts are tight
on the lever and on the caliper, nice and tight.
Or you haven't got a hole in your hose
'cause that is also possible.
So just run your hand over the hose,
make sure there's no oil leaking out anywhere.
Not the quickest answer, but there you go!
That's it for this week's Ask.
Leave your questions down below,
anything to do with mountain biking
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