One of the best parts about new bike day is doing a photo shoot of your new bike, made
possible by the obligatory propping stick.
And you will always be punished for this blatant act of vanity.
But once your new bike has some dirt and scratches on it, you can stop babying it and actually
take it for a ride.
This is my new Diamondback 5C, and it didn’t just arrive in a box at my front door.
It actually was presented to me at Sea Otter by my sponsors Diamondback and Box.
Quite a few people at both companies had a hand in outfitting this bike with custom paint
and decals, and that means a lot to me because these are people I’ve ridden, travelled,
and spoken with on a regular basis for the last two years.
So today I’ll show you around my new bike, and go over some of the strange parts I’m
running on it.
To be clear, this is essentially the same as my old bike.
It has a carbon frame with 150 mill fork and 130mill shock.
It’s just a Release 5C.
But the paint is custom.
It fades ever so subtly from black to blue, and the flat finish reveals any and all fingerprints,
so touch my bike and I’ve got the forensics to prove it.
The frame is also adorned in custom decals, like this one of our buddy Drama proudly leading
the charge on the head tube.
That’s about the most you’ll ever see him on a trail.
I did add some accents like these valve caps, and blue chester pedals, although they might
be a little much.
For suspension I’m back to Rockshox, but this was not a conscious decision on my part,
and these days I don’t really have a strong preference for any one suspension brand.
At the high end, everyone is making better stuff every year.
How you adjust your suspension will do a lot more for your bike’s performance than what
brand you choose.
I will, however, be adding an MRP ramp control cartridge to this fork so I can adjust the
progression on the fly.
Up front is a Oneup EDC multi tool.
Installing this requires cutting a half inch worth of threads into the steerer tube so
this hollow top cap be used to put tension on the headset.
Having this multitool built into the bike means I’ll never forget it at home, and
now I even have a tire plug on the end, ready to go.
As for stopping power, I’m running TRP g-spec trail brakes.
The G-specs on my hardtail have been solid performers for over a year, even after a fair
bit of abuse and neglect.
I find that they hold up to air travel better than any other mineral oil brakes I’ve used,
and they are always dead simple to service.
So I’m now running TRP brakes on my main bike, and may use them on upcoming builds.
As for the dropper seat post, I’m going with the Magura Vyron just like I have on
several other bikes.
It’s a wireless dropper post which means I lose a cable and gain a battery.
This tradeoff is fine since I have a knack for breaking dropper levers.
So ironically this electronic seat post provides a certain level of reliability, provided I
charge the battery once per month.
Mounted to this post is an Ergon saddle.
At Sea otter I sat down on this butt scanner to find out what size my sit bones were, and
despite what it may look like, my sit bones are a size small.
So far this seat is really comfortable, but I haven’t spent enough time on it to decide
whether it’s here to stay.
By now you may have noticed the Vittoria tires.
Right now this is nothing more than a test.
I almost always run Maxxis tires, and so this is me being a little more open minded and
trying something different.
So far so good, but I’ll need a few months experimenting with different front and rear
combinations to really learn the lineup and decide if these tires are a good fit for me.
Now, on to the weird stuff like these 41mm carbon rims.
These would not be weird on a bike with plus tires, but on this 5C they are extremely wide.
Wide rims do provide certain benefits like a bigger contact patch, and a reduced risk
of your tire buckling under lateral force.
That’s great, but there’s a tradeoff.
As you may be able to see, the side nubs have migrated towards the center of the tire and
away from the sidewalls.
This means that leaning hard can cause the side nubs to lose contact with the trail,
making for sketchy cornering.
I haven’t experienced this yet but should this become an issue over the course of this
experiment I’ll simply swap these hoops for 36mm.
Ethan at Box thought I’d appreciate a customized Ebike drivetrain.
To be clear this bike absolutely does not contain a motor, it just has an ebike specific
derailleur and shifter which features a 50 tooth 9 speed cassette.
Today we’re used to seeing 11, 12, and even 13 speed drivetrains, and as these gear wars
rage on, we can be sure 14 speed is on the way.
But a 9 speed mech has certain benefits.
For instance it uses a thicker more resilient cassette and chain, with overall less weight.
Bigger gaps between the gears means your bike will shift smoothly even without a perfectly
aligned hanger and dialed shift cable.
In short, it’s more tolerant of long lapses in maintenance.
Perfect for someone who travels a lot.
Even though 9 speed has existed for decades now, to my knowledge it has never been available
with the range of a modern 50 tooth cassette.
And although a higher gear count does allow you to change your cadence ever so slightly,
that doesn’t matter much to me.
Now I did say this was a customized ebike drivetrain, and the customization lies the
shifter.
Unlike a normal shifter which can advanced several gears at a time, the ebike version
is limited to one gear for each push of the lever.
This is to protect the drivetrain from careless shifts under the of a torquey electric motor.
But since this bike is human powered, Box made me a special 9 speed shifter that works
just like a normal one.
So to my knowledge, this is the only drivetrain of its kind out
in the wild.
It’s never going to feel normal to me getting several new bikes every year, and if you’re
a younger person in the audience I don’t want you thinking you should aspire to that.
A Modern trail bike can run for the better part of a decade or longer if you just learn
how to maintain it, and replace parts when they break.
Speaking of which, I’d better get to work on breaking some parts.
Thanks for riding with me today and I’ll see you next time.