- No surprise, it is still winter back home for myself,
so to escape the snow I decided
to come on down to Bellingham, Washington and also
meet up with our guest today. Hannah Bergemann.
Super pumped, she is one of the most stylish,
confident, and humble free ride pros out there.
And she's gonna give us a little bit
of time today to check in on her bike,
she got back from Free Ride Fiesta,
so I wanna know how she was running that TR11.
- Yeah, we're back in the PNW where it's
quite a bit wetter than it was in Mexico.
And today I'm just gonna give you a quick preview
on a day in the life here in Bellingham.
We'll do a little digging and some riding.
Should be fun.
- [Christina] Stoked, Hannah.
Let's go.
(chill mood music)
Fresh back from Free Ride Fiesta,
Hannah, how was that for you?
- Free Ride Fiesta was super fun.
It was my first year going this year and it was blast.
It's hosted by my teammate Johnny Salido
down in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Super good vibes.
- Nice, those were some of the biggest jumps
I have ever seen riders hitting.
How did that go for you?
Did it feel pretty good?
- It was pretty good, yeah.
It was definitely intimidating, a little scary at first.
Showing up in a new place and having to figure out
some brand new jumps that are massive,
but once you figured it out they were
super fun and we were cruising laps.
- [Christina] Yeah, and there was a big turnout.
It seemed like the roster this year was massive,
and a huge women's turnout too,
so that was really cool to see.
- [Hannah] Definitely.
The first year there's only one woman which was Chelsea,
and this year I think there were seven maybe,
so definitely a way bigger turnout and it was
super rad to get to shred with all those ladies.
- So sick.
So how is it going down there for something like that
in January when it's been an unusually
wintery winter down here in Bellingham?
- Yeah, that's a good point.
We didn't get much riding in prior to the event,
so I tried to get a couple days on the bike
before I left, but didn't have a ton of time.
Especially not a lot of time hitting big jumps.
So I had to go down there a little rusty.
Jumping into it was a little scary, but made it work.
Came back.
- I love it.
She's adapting.
- Yeah.
- You can just do those sorts of things
when you have enough experience.
- Yeah.
- And how was your winter overall?
I mean Bellingham was getting tons of rain.
It got tons of snow in town as well.
How did that work out for you?
- Yeah, we typically don't get a ton of snow in town.
We are pretty close to Mount Baker,
so I go up there and ski in the winter,
but this year we had snow all the way in town
so actually did some skiing in town which was super fun.
Took a little break from riding which was pretty fun also.
It's good to take a little break
every once in a while and reset.
- Nice, and what is your ski background
for the folks at home that don't know?
- Yeah, I actually was really into park skiing
in high school and competed in slope style and rail jams
and rails were definitely my thing for a while.
- [Christina] Nice, do you think those slope style jumps,
do you think that helped you when you
decided to go more free ride route?
- [Hannah] Yup, totally.
Yeah, it's a similar feeling and concept
of looking at a new jump and visualizing
how you wanna ride it and then making it happen
and trusting your confidence and your skills.
- Coming from a bit of a racing mountain bike background,
how did you then decide to turn it to free ride?
- I think when I got into mountain biking,
racing was the the main route as an outlet
to be competitive in the sport
and push yourself, so I was drawn to that.
But then in my free time I just spent my time
hitting jumps, building jumps, riding gnarly stuff.
So I wasn't really even practicing
for racing when I was racing, it was just
free ride in my own time and then racing
as an outlet to be competitive in the sport.
And then started doing the free ride stuff more
in the public stage when Formation happened
and producing my own videos and especially
working with Transition and then just
jumped into that direction fully.
- Definitely.
Which leads me to Transition family.
How did that come about?
Because I mean you're a Red Bull athlete,
you're one of the most famous female mountain bikers
let alone mountain bikers in the world.
But you also hold down a job.
So what do you do for them and do you
even need to work for them?
- Yeah, actually I don't think a lot of people know
that in addition to being an athlete
for Transition I'm also an employee full time.
I work in the marketing and branding department.
And the roles as a marketing employee
and an athlete mesh together super well.
So it feels very cohesive, not like I have a job
and then I'm also a mountain biker on the side.
And working for Transition has been incredible.
They're super supportive of me and have helped
really push me to pursue free ride
and take it in directions that I want to.
And I'm also learning a lot getting
to actually work for a company.
And my team is amazing.
I love working with them.
- What even does a typical day for HB look like?
- I'm usually working in the office on admin stuff
as I call it which means just prepping,
answering emails for my athletes work
and then also for Transition on the marketing team.
And I also try and get out of my bike at least once a day.
Sometimes I'll be in the gym or out trail building as well.
- [Christina] And it seems like where
the TR HQ is, so close to the trail.
So you guys probably get out
for rides together pretty often.
- [Hannah] Yeah, we're really close to South Galbraith.
We just moved to our new location
this summer and it's been super rad.
- All right Hannah, you're a busy girl.
When you're not working down at Transition
or out on a big photo shoot or film project,
what are you doing for fun?
- I like to spend a lot of time skiing in the winter.
It's definitely a big passion of mine.
I also spend a lot of time just hanging out
riding with friends here in town.
And I also love to build trail.
- [Christina] That's pretty awesome.
Are you building a lot of personal trail would you say,
or do you go out on the local trail nights?
- A little bit of everything.
I like to, yeah, go and help out in the community.
We built Blue Steel last year which was an amazing project.
I like to just build stuff that I think would be
fun to ride or maybe for a photo or video project.
- Nice.
Well now that she said that,
I think we should just get to some riding.
- What do you say? - Let's go.
- See?
(chill mood music)
All right Hannah, let's talk about the bike.
We've got your TR11 here.
I can see that it's a medium
cause it's got a nice sticker there.
But for the viewers at home, how tall are you?
- [Hannah] I'm about 5'7.
- So you just got back from Free Ride Fiesta.
Obviously you set your bike up
a little bit differently today,
but how are you running it down there
for those massive hits and dry conditions?
- Yeah, I didn't change any of the components
on the bike, but I definitely changed the setup.
The biggest thing is the suspension, the tires.
So I bumped up the pressure in my shock to 250
which is quite a bit higher than I normally run.
And the fork up to 150,
also way higher than I normally run.
And then also bumped up compression,
slowed down the rebound, just make it
so it's really planted and stable
and doesn't move a lot for those big hits.
- Are you running any token or air volume
spaces in the shock or the fork?
- Yeah, I have a couple volume spaces in the shock
and I also have a special tune on it.
It's a high high tune which is
Rockshox's high compression,
so high speed compression and slow rebound.
So it's just a little more skewed
than the normal shock towards those adjustments.
- That's really nice, and did you come up
with that yourself based on your previous experiences,
or did you have a Rockshox mechanic help you there?
- Both.
I felt how I wanted the shock to be for big jumps
and then had a Rockshox mechanic help me dial it in.
- Nice.
- Yeah.
- Good tools to have when you're out there basically
risking your life on those types of features.
So looks like everything worked out out pretty good for you.
I think I only saw one tiny evidence of a crash.
- Not too bad, yeah.
I made it out pretty clean.
- Nice.
Do you wanna run us just through your tire selection there?
What you're running and how many PSI because
as you said, you run them a bit firmer.
- Yup.
Yeah, here I run mid, low twenties,
and out there I was running 45, 50 PSI.
And I run the same tires in both places.
Just the pressure's way higher.
But I run a WTB Verdict & Judge.
- What sort of components, bars, stem, all that fun stuff.
- Yeah, I got Tenet bars and pedals.
And these are actually my pro model color
which I'm just releasing very soon.
Which I'm stoked on.
And then I've got We Are One Strife downhill rims
and the Industry Nine Hydra hubs.
And then I run a SRAM Code RSC brakes and draft trade.
- Nice.
What's the rise on those bars?
Do you know?
- I wanna say they're 40 mils roughly.
Yeah, so pretty tall.
- [Christina] Sweet.
- [Hannah] I definitely like a tall setup on my bikes.
All of them.
Even the trail bikes.
- And then how wide do you run in your bars?
You're a tall lady.
- I run about 760 millimeters.
Yeah.
- Nice.
- I feel like having a little shorter is nice for jumps
and doing tricks 'cause you can maneuver the bars
for a table or different things, yeah.
- Definitely.
A little more SRAM componentry on your bike, Hannah.
Tell us about the rest of those bits.
- Yeah, I've got a SRAM XO Downhill Drive Terrain,
I think it's a seven speed cassette.
Super dialed.
- Tell us about your sticker collection.
- Yeah, my friend Sophie who is 11, she's a shredder,
we filmed a video together with TGR this fall.
She gave me these cool stickers.
And I also have this cool top cap of my cat Garbo.
- I love it!
In comparison to riding something like Free Ride Fiesta
or Dark Horse even, big compressions,
what sort of PSI are you running here
in the Northwest for just your average trail?
- In the shock.
Yeah, in the shock I run normally I think a 175 PSI,
so quite a bit different for hitting big jumps
versus having that supple trail feel.
And then in the fork I think I've got 115 PSI.
- And do you change that special high high tune?
Like you would take that...
- I don't change the tune, but I'll just
adjust the low speed compression
and the high speed compression
and rebound a little bit for trail riding.
- Nice.
Thank you so much, Hannah.
That was a rad time today.
- Yeah, of course.
- Nice to check out the bike,
learn some more about that.
I took some notes myself.
Don't think I'll be implementing them any time soon,
but I say we get out of the forest.
It's a bit dark.
- Let's do it.
- All right.
Just got out of the forest and we are
right on time because the sun is setting.
I had such a good day out there with Hannah.
Getting to hang out, do a little bit of riding,
and also learning more about her bike setup.
I hope you enjoyed the video.
Maybe you learned a little thing or two for yourself.
And if you did, make sure you subscribe to the channel.
(chill mood music)