Neil: Is it faster to ride a bike down a hill with a chain or without a chain?
Well, Aaron Gwin proved in 2015 at Leogang actually can be quicker if you are Aaron Gwin.
We even did a video back four years ago where we tried to that on a downhill truck in the
sights of Spain, where we did a time with the chain and a time without.
It's time to try it again four years later.
I'm going to ride my PoleStamina 180 and put a timing with a chain, take my chain off and
try and repeat it, try and better it, if we can.
The track I'm riding today is kind of flat at the start and then it gets really rough,
pretty technical, so I'm expecting to lose some time without a chain.
I'm going to have to do some sort of running jump to get going, but then in the bottom
half, it does get super rough.
I did a video, a couple years go actually, about how your chain can affect your rear
suspension.
I actually made a neutral gear I called it.
I put a spacer in my cassettes, the chain could move freely around that and the rear
end of that bike felt much better actually when I was in that gear, so, basically, chain
is not stopping it from moving.
In the second half of this track, I could find my rear suspension works enough better
to actually make me faster.
What we'll do, I put two runs in two times and we'll compare the videos to see if and
where I'm faster on different setups.
There are many skills you need to be a fast downhill racer, but line choice and finding
every bit of speed from the track by pumping or hitting every transition, are definitely
high on that list.
Without a chain, it might even focus your mind, just a bit better at finding those bits
of the truck where you can make a bit more speed, hopefully, because if you get it wrong,
you're never going to be able to pedal back up speed.
Also, the very first world cup downhill I ever did or tried to do, I snapped my chain
in the gates in qualifying.
Actually, I was going pretty well, I really focused until I had a massive crash exploded,
and didn't qualify.
Hopefully it goes better today.
[music] Ready to roll.
I've got my whole hog.
I've got rid of the shifter as well, because why not?
It's neat to remember not try and crank it.
If I slip the pedal, I'm in trouble and I'm going to have to improvise a bit on this start.
All right, here goes nothing.
Oh my God, it's so frustrating.
[music] I've ridden this section of track quite a
lot recently.
There's a couple of bag lumps there, you can jump the one and squash this and there's a
big gap.
I've never actually done it.
It feels like a gap and I'm sure it was quite on, because you basically jump in, if you
see that.
This is a really steep lumpy-- There's a big step in it, downslope on the fire road.
If you just go through this fast, you end up dropping off that quite a long way on to
the fire road.
It's pretty horrible.
It's big old, heavy landing.
I've wanted to jump this for ages.
The tricky part is it's really rooty, if you see this on the way in super rooty and there's
a bit of a lump there as well.
You have to squash that lump and then pop from this root here and then [unintelligible
00:04:32] 15 feet.
You can case it and get pitched over the bars, it's probably 15 foot down to the fire road.
This one's been scaring me for a while, but I think it's time to do it.
Did it.
Stoked.
Yes, it felt good.
Pretty scary, to be fair, that's why I did it twice.
The first time did come up a little bit short.
I wasn't too bad and a little bit off line.
Actually scary because if you go off line to the right, there's another off [unintelligible
00:05:07] step.
Second time, got it good.
I don't feel that excited about doing it again though.
I think I might leave it at that, but I've done it.
Anyway, let's actually compare the runs from my POV, to see the differences.
In the blue corner, Neil with a chain looking very smug.
In the red corner, slightly worried but still somewhat smug looking Neil without the chain.
Computer voice: Three, two, one.
[music] Neil: Look at the power going down on the
left.
The wattage of at least a hairdryer there.
Well, a slow and clumsy start for chainless Neil.
He must be regretting taking off his chain, and straightaway he's lost about two seconds
before the track starts to tip down the hill a bit steeper.
The gap is steady now at the fire road crossing, still two seconds.
On the left, Neil goes off line losing valuable time there.
Every 10th of a second matters in gravity racing.
Now, the track is steep, rough, and technical, and no chance to pedal.
Can chainless Neil make any time back up?
The gap has grown to three seconds now.
Surely too much for chainless Neil, as talented as he is, to catch back up.
A mistake now from chainless Neil.
Off balance and too much break in the tight corner.
No extra speed is going to kill his momentum.
All the pumping in the world isn't going to help as the track starts to flatten out at
the bottom of the hill.
It's a couple of victory jumps left for Neil with a chain as a final margin of victory
is just over five seconds, a lifetime on just a one-minute downhill track.
A decent effort by the underdog, but not enough to beat a rider with a fully functioning bike.
Almost a surprise, but not.
That's another great day on the trail, lots of fun.
I'm very tired now.
Don't forget to follow us on Instagram.
You can check out some of our POV's there.
Probably one from one of those runs as well.
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