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- These are some small bike style tips
that are going to make a big difference.
- Yes, aesthetically pleasing looking ones,
and help make life a little bit easier out on the trail.
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- Number one is think about your shifter angle.
So, mines attached to my brake lever
so we get my lever angle set up first.
Then I like my shifter to be really steep.
If you look sidelong,
it looks like it's really pointing down.
But that helps because when I'm stood up, really cranking,
my weight is actually quite above the bars.
I need that shifter to be reachable.
If it's too far around, I would have to
slide my arm back down to reach that shifter.
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- Okay, so this is a cool little hack
that I like to do on most of my bikes.
I run an 800 mil bar on most of them
just cause I'm quite a tall sort of guy.
And what I find is my hands always find
themselves towards the ends of the bars.
So using a lock console grip like this Aragorn
I actually just run it about 10 mil over the end of the bars
just to give myself that extra length.
I'll take the grip off just to show you though.
It's quite a sturdy base on this particular one.
You can't do this with regular grips.
But on the lock on design this has got a really tough
plastic sleeve on the inside of it.
Obviously on the traditional lock and grip
they're on both the inside and the outside is not gonna work
so the sleeve is supported by the inside collar.
Just slide it onto your bar, get it in the correct
position you like, leave yourself just a little bit
of room at the end there, securely tighten up that collar.
When the grips in the right position.
Make sure it's not going anywhere,
reinstall your bar end plug.
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- Right this ones gonna help keep your cockpit on your bike
super tight especially when you've got loads of cables
like I have on my new Scott Genius here.
We've got this twin lock which adds another
two cables into this whole spaghetti junction.
And what I've done here is I've got this rad little
plastic tubing, it's cable tidy
especially if you use them under your desk
and your computer and your office, whatever.
It's perfect for these cables.
So it just winds itself all around,
keeps it nice and tight and snug.
Right if you haven't got time and you wanna shred your bike
the next time and you haven't got time to go out and
buy all this stuff, all you just need is a cable tie,
and one of these flat little washers, this is a big washer.
And you can use a real small normal washer.
And what you wanna do is to thread it through the washer
like that, go around the cable, like that,
back through itself, that's key,
go through the washer itself like this.
Push it right up around the cable you want.
Wrap this one around the next cable,
and then zip tie it up.
(techno music)
- So putting grip tape on your controls,
on your shifter levers and on your drop posts,
is really gonna help give you some friction.
Especially in wet conditions, so your thumb
doesn't slide off those controls.
It's definitely something you see a lot in pro bike checks.
Occasionally you even see it on the brake levers.
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- There's something else I just wanted to mention here is,
little custom tyre set ups, so depending on where you are,
how you ride, the conditions you ride in,
kinda dictates what sort of tyre you're gonna use.
The tyre I really like at the moment
is this sort of [Indiscernible] Type, by [Indiscernible]
and it's got really good side wall looks on here.
But it's a bit slow when I run it on the back
for some of the trails, alright?
So I've just clipped sort of the main tread down,
taken that sort of lug profile off
so it's just got good square blocks.
It rolls substantially faster, it's a nice little hack
you can do to sort of modify your tyres.
And of course while we're speaking about that
there's tyre pressures, a firm tire's gonna roll
a little bit quicker, but it's not gonna give you the grip
you need so you wanna experiment with tyre pressure a bit.
Generally on the back I run somewhere around 29 pounds,
and up front around 26 to 27 pounds.
Makes a huge difference in the sort of traction you've got.
(techno music)
- Right this cable tie and this little washer
can come in handy on other parts of the bike as well.
Such like the front end, especially this front brake hose.
Rattles a little bit there on rough terrain.
And also when you crash it can rip part of this little guide
here, and you also can kill two birds with one stone.
You can tie your mud guard on and tie your cable
back down as well with this little thing.
Just like this, look, see thread it through,
then you thread it round the cable, like that,
back through, it's a little bit fiddly, but,
it's gonna be aesthetically pleasing and
keep your mud guard back in place as well.
Then you run it through, your mud guard, like that.
And look at that.
Perfect little hack right there.
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- A simple, fun, mud guard just like this one
makes a big difference how much spray you get
up in your face, I actually think
they look really good on your bike as well.
Of course you can get a GMBN one like this,
but you can also make them yourself really easily.
Just attach them to a fork using zip ties.
(techno music)
A super easy set up tip is to think about
the rebound on your rear shock.
- Yeah that's correct, depending on what terrain
you like to ride, for myself I like to hit some jumps.
I like to nibble about on the trail.
And what I've done is slowed mine down
cause I don't want to have that quick rebound
when I hit a big jump and, you know,
it send me over the bars or something.
- Whereas I like to ride downhill tracks with rougher,
let's say rooty terrain and I want my rebound
bout a little bit faster, so my rear tyre stays
on the floor and I get really good braking
and traction on that rear tyre.
- Don't forget it's really easy to make these
sort of adjustments when you're at the side of the trail.
But what'd make your life a lot easier is
when you set up your suspension in the first place,
make a bit of a note of what sort of settings you have
on your rebound and compression dials.
Manufacturers tend to refer to it as "from fully closed"
but it doesn't matter if yours is from open or closed.
Just have that in mind so you can add on two or three
clicks here and there and you know where to get back to.
- Excellent advice Donny.
If you wanna see a more in depth
suspension set up video click over here.
- And for some mtb life hacks, click down here.
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