- Cross country bikes are built for all out speed,
long distance pedaling and maximum efficiency.
In this video we're gonna run you through
how you can set up to ensure that when
you're in the saddle all day,
it's gonna be as comfortable as possible.
Cross country bikes are really designed
to be fast and comfortable.
Now there's gonna be a compromise
when you really want to set up
to get the best of both worlds.
But the first thing before we go too in depth
is I'm gonna have to get changed.
Whoa.
Got my kit on now, and the first thing we're
gonna kick off with is looking at the saddle height
and adjusting the seat post.
So I'm gonna jump on the bike and get that set.
(rock music)
Okay, so I'm on the bike, I've clipped in
and I can see that that seat post is just
a little bit too low.
I've got a lot of movements down my heels.
I'm gonna raise it up first thing's first.
(rock music)
Without going to in depth about actually
setting the saddle height, we've got a full video on that.
You can see that I've got a slight bend in my knee,
it's not fully locked down when
I'm at the bottom of my stroke.
So just test out by putting the cranks at 90 degrees
right down at the bottom, putting your foot on them
and then just seeing if your knee locks out.
If you've got any ability to extend it still.
That feels pretty comfortable.
(rock music)
Okay so now it's going to actually adjusting that saddle.
I'm not gonna go into how you do that,
I've got the bar pretty flat I'm gonna say right here.
If you're riding downhill then you're
gonna have it a slight more angled backwards
so the back is actually dropped down at a slight tilt.
For cross country you could actually have
it a little bit more with the front,
the nose of the saddle dropped down
just to allow you to get your weight
over the front of the bike.
But I'm gonna keep it right there.
And I've got my rail set perfectly.
I've also got this carbon seat post.
It just gives me a little bit more comfort,
especially this being a hard tail,
it doesn't have any rear suspension.
So there's no damping in the rear.
And carbon has a property within it
that actually damps some of those sort of really
low frequencies just making it a little bit
more comfortable on the longer rides.
(rock music)
So with the seat post and saddle height set,
let's go on and have a look at the cockpit.
The stem length I'm not gonna change that or the bars.
The big adjustment that you can actually do
is by changing the bar roll.
What I mean by that is actually rotating the bars
backwards or forwards just to get that perfect position.
What I'm really looking for is to make sure
that my wrists are actually inline with my elbows.
I'm not wanting to have a sort of
too much of bend in my wrist.
That's gonna really build up fatigue,
especially in the forearms and that is how you can get _.
But you can also look at adjusting the grips
and levers just to get all that perfectly set.
So let's see how you do that.
(rock music)
Guys I've just loosened these off
and actually what I'm gonna do is roll
them just a little bit further forwards.
I've got that correct bend in my wrist
and then tighten it back up.
Top tip here is you've actually got some lines
so you can mark on your stand once
you've got that position set where you can
actually just use them to gauge how much you're adjusting.
Okay first of all, let's talk about the grips.
These ones from Ergon have got
a little bit of taper to them.
They're also suited to actually have you
pam wrap right around them and they're gonna
give you a little bit of vibration damping.
You can also rotate these so you can
get the thickness at different angles
so you can really get that set up.
Of course if you've got bigger hands,
you're probably gonna want to go for a thicker grip,
smaller hands you can go for a thinner one.
But this all comes down to personal preference.
Let's take a look at those levers.
They feel not too bad.
Again, I'm just gonna make sure that
everything is in line, I almost want to be
thinking about drawing a line right the way
from my finger all the way through my wrist
and onto the elbow to make sure that
that can stay completely parallel.
Once I've got that set up,
then we're gonna move on to the suspension.
(rock music)
So we're starting to get there,
we've got the saddle height set
and now the cockpit is all adjusted and dialled in.
There is however the suspension left to do.
The first thing that we're gonna talk about
is the _ and that is done with this air chamber.
We've got a full video on how to do this.
That link will be in the description down below.
We've also got rebound and the Teralogic
which is just sort of a pro pedal platform
where I can really adjust the bike
to make sure that it performs the best
it possibly can over those small bumps
and also when you're pedalling the bike.
So you're not getting too much bob.
So let's set those two up.
So with these two adjustments I've got 15 clicks
of rebound to play with and 10 on the Teralogic.
Now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna set
the bang on in the middle to start with,
go onto the trail and test it just to see.
So I'm gonna wan this off
and start it all the way from on,
four, five, six, seven, eight,
so that should be set.
And then I'm just gonna take some of this off.
One, two, three, four, five.
And that's gonna give me my base setting
which you can adjust the bike from
and really just dial into whatever terrain I'm riding.
So there we go, some top tips all about
how to set up your cross country bike.
I have missed two things though and they are
your tyre pressure and also setting
up your clip less pedals.
If you click right here you're gonna get
to subscribe to GMBN and you never miss a video again.
Click just up there for the clip less pedals
and click down there for how to set up your tyre pressures.
Don't forget to share this video,
leave your comments down below
and of course give it a thumb up like.
There's one thing left to do and I'm going for a ride.