Hey everyone welcome to LoveMTB!
With the Holidays around the corner I didn't want to miss the opportunity to say thank you!
Thank you for being with me for another year.
And I also want to share with you my top 5 lessons from 2022.
Did you learn anything new this year? Did you discover anything cool? Let's talk about it!
And I don't have a script for this video so sit back and relax, this might be a bit long
but I'm gonna try to cover 5 categories:
number 1 - bikes number 2 - wheels
number 3 - tires number 4 - brakes
and the last one - drivetrains.
And by the end of the video I'm going to share with you what I think is the most impactful one for me
but before we get there let's talk about bikes!
This year you saw me looking at a few bikes like the Fezzari that one of my buddies rides
like this Specialized Epic EVO that I'm gonna build for my son as a race bike replacing the Norco hardtail.
You also saw the ANTIDOTE that, believe it or not, is not mine!
But my friends at bicomponents.ca are gonna build it over the winter
can't wait to take a closer look at that one,
so no new bike for me this year and I'm not planning on getting one next year
and if you look at the geometry numbers, at the design of the new bikes you're gonna see that they all look kind of the same.
And no, I am not interested in the new innovation of high pivot - not interested
cable routing through the headset - not interested at all!
Instead what I focused on was bike fit! The fit of my bikes
and what you see here this is a steer tube from a Rockshox PIKE
I had to replace it to make my Sanra Cruz Tallboy fit me well.
I can tell you that riding that bike right now it's a dream, it's the best fun bike that I've ever had.
What about you guys? What did you do with your bikes in 2022?
Did you get a new bike? Let me know in the comments below.
We all love a good set of wheels and we do use both aluminum and carbon but
we tend to stick with carbon for racing.
And it was early in the year when I looked for a 30mm ID set of wheels
and that's when I discovered Elitewheels and I went for their pre-built set of wheels
this is the PRO36 29er 30mm ID.
Well, after using these wheels for a couple of weeks I ended up selling the wheel set that I built for myself
that's how impressed I was by this budget otherwise wheelset from Elitewheels,
I'll make sure to put the links in the description I think I still have a discount if you guys are interested in something like this.
But the other thing that we also tried was more premium wheels for our bikes specifically for my son's hardtail.
The wheels that I built this year was around the Belgian ERASE hubs and the amazing NOBL TR32 rims.
Now that wheelset would be amazing just by using regular spokes
but I took it to the next level and I worked with this - which is
the PolyLight BERD spokes.
And man oh man, I am telling you, my son absolutely loves the way they ride,
I should probably do a follow-up review or long-term review of those wheels.
They're amazing, amazing, and especially on a hardtail will make a huge difference in the ride quality.
So what we learned this year is that premium wheels really do make a difference.
I mean if you're looking at this DUKE wheelset that comes up at 1060 grams,
if you look at the ride quality of wheelsets with BERD spokes, they are amazing,
so what about you guys? Did you get new wheels this year? Did you learn anything new about your wheelset?
Let us know in the comments below because next I'm going to be talking about tires!
In the past you guys saw me talking about Maxxis and Schwalbe tires quite a bit
but in 2022 I discovered two new tires that are worth mentioning
and something else...that's something else is this
tire inserts, cross-country specific, these PTN inserts are made in Italy
and apparently N1NO used them at some point.
And I needed that insert because this year, for the new, very expensive wheels
we went for new tires as well.
You're looking at the Pirelli Scorpion XC RC and these are true to the specs so we ended up with
700 grams, Cross Country tire up front and about the same weight in the rear with an insert installed which is quite amazing!
So we plan to use the same in 2023. What about you guys?
What are you gonna be using in 2023 for racing?
And with price of tires going through the roof this year we looked for an alternative
and if you don't mind the weight, the DELIUM tires that I reviewed not too long ago are absolutely amazing
and you have probably seen them in some of the videos that I posted including the Habanero run at Sentier du Moulin (QC).
Do you use tire inserts and if so for what kind of scenario? I would love to hear.
So we talked about bikes, then wheels and tires, but what about stoppers?
Well, we tried something new in 2022...
Se've been using Shimano brakes for the longest time
from something like a Deore, all the way up to XTR and I do have reviews even for the MT200 / MT400 on my channel,
but this year I kind of got fed up with the Shimano 4-piston brakes, definitely with a couple of calipers that didn't really play nicely with me.
And after doing my research I ended up with these - FORMULA Cura brakes from Italy.
They come in both 2 and 4-piston variants but the ones that were very interesting to me were the 2-piston variant.
4-piston is double the trouble, more to worry about, sticky pistons, you know the drill.
The Cura 2-piston brakes are more powerful than Shimano they provide more modulation,
they use mineral oil and they were actually used by my fellow Canadian Finn Isles in 2017
when he won the World Cup Championship, downhill Championship that is,
with these brakes, the 2-piston , straight out of the box.
So if they were good enough for Finn Isles I thought they would be good enough for me
I love them, they have the weight of the XTR, they're very good brakes, I highly recommend you guys to take a look at these
if you're looking for a Shimano alternative.
And that brings me to the last little category, drivetrains!
And I'm sorry to disappoint you all folks but I do not have my hands on the SRAM Eagle SL,
the new direct mount derailleur that you saw at the last few UCI races, I really don't.
But that's not what I wanted to talk to you guys about today.
Today I want to talk about this, and yes you're looking at the Shimano XTR 12-speed chain,
and I'm not talking about chains, but I'm talking about chain lubes, and this is the one thing that I'm the most excited about from 2022.
Like everybody else I tried them all, from dry lubes, to wet lubes, to mixed lubes, to one on top of the other lubes!
and all I got was a lot of work, a lot of frustration, a lot of money spent on different oils and worn out chains,
Okay and a lot of beers, but I'm thankful for that!
And even though I researched hot melt wax in the past I thought it was too geeky
and it took one of you guys, my followers, thank you Glenn again,
for pushing me to research this or to do a review on it
and here it is, Silca Super Secret hot melt wax and also they have the little drip bottle.
Just go on the Zero Friction Cycling website and take a look at some of their tests and you will be amazed,
this kind of chain lube treatment is years ahead of everybody else.
I like this stuff so much that, yeah, I pretty much moved all my mountain bikes to Silca Super Secret Hot Melt Wax.
Sooo Silca, just in case you're watching,
I'm really interested in your new Wax X!
So what did you use for your chains?
What kind of beer do you like when you're working on your bikes? Let me know in the comments below.
So that is my "super secret" top 5 for 2022.
What is yours? Did you guys buy anything new?
Did you learn anything that you want to share with us? Let us know in the comments below
Thanks for being with me for another year, Merry Christmas Happy Holidays,
and until next time hope to see you guys on the trails.
Cheers guys, cheers!