Episode Summary

Today on the MTB Podcast, we discuss Liam's experience racing the Downieville classic and the bikes and rides we've been enjoying lately before jumping into a classic array of listener questions ranging from optimal crank arm length to the best shock tune for your bike, the best food to use as a saddle, and everything in between. Tune in!

The MTB Podcast is presented by Worldwide Cyclery, the online retailer for serious mountain bikers.

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If you are one strange human that would like to read a transcript of the podcast above, continue reading below!

ladies and gentlemen welcome to episode 116 of the MTB podcast presented and

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hosted by worldwide Cyclery I'm Jeff hi I'm Jared and I believe did you do

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that on purpose it actually didn't I had a feeling you didn't do it on purpose you looked at me and then said I am Jeff

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I was like I don't think you did that on purpose you know keep it interesting from you know we're keeping it

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interesting minute one you're watching the video or trying to listen and realize who is who you might not know uh

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in this episode we are going to discuss Liam's downieville race which he just got back from various bikes rides and

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things we've been enjoying lately plus a story for me regarding a good deed and

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of course the listener questions ranging from weird flexes that only bike nerds would understand optimal crank arm

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length strong Wheel sets and plenty of other things that will enrich your knowledge of mountain bikes because

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we love bikes wow who is that I don't know you really

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like that was our intro sound effect uh if you heard that that was uh we used to call him the Green Goblin but now we

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just call him Lou dog shout out to Lou dog for editing all these podcast episodes We Appreciate You Blue Dog he's

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sitting over there in the dark we're in a tank top make sure the audio levels are good oh yeah it's uh not an easy job

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but the audio comes out good sometimes our audio is better than way bigger podcasts yeah which is pretty cool it

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frequently is I would say actually yeah almost always I guess we care about podcasts have bad audio no like I just

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click off totally yeah I know what you mean speaking of tough jobs

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Liam just got back from racing downeyville yeah nothing to do with my

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job here though no but it was tough it was it was tough yeah downeyville is a

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famous mountain bike race in Northern California I'd say it's probably the best mountain

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bike race in the northern uh Americas well that's subjective but I'm sure a

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lot of people would agree a lot a lot of people agree some people say that the downingville win has higher ranking and

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to them personally than going to the Olympics which that person has also done really so wow who said that uh Adam

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Craig okay in the Olympics so I mean I would say in terms of like you know

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clout that does provide a serious amount if you win well yeah so Dynamo classic is a two-day race uh that combines a XC

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day day one which is a 4 000 foot climb with a 5 000 foot descent uh The Climb

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is right off the bat it is brutal it's hot it's exposed um and then you descend into downeyville

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the town which still has climbs within that descent and you get a kind of a

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range of trails from awesome six single track with berms to

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like the fastest fun most fun Fire Road like ever pedally fire roads chunky

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single track which is like sniper rocks that'll make you flat any XC Tire or most tires really super fast single

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track which like I think on second day of practice I had like 36 miles an hour on that single track geez so you're

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ripping pretty good very fast pretty fast for a single track uh yeah and then you got some some tech climbs on the end

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of it so um and then day two as you start at the top of the mountain and you race down

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600 feet of climbing I think four or five thousand feet of descending uh that is like an hour-long super D race uh so

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it's super D is old form of racing it's the same bike same bike rides same bike

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no changes same bike no change is uh same Tire setup has to weigh the same

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they weigh it before both days and if you don't do the second weigh-in you get like an asterisk next to your result so

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so do they so the results uh do they award day one and day two and then both

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days combined or just 12 days combined no day one and day two in both days to combine because some people only do the

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XC but in order to do the downhill day two you have to do the XC so there's no

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just going up for the downhill so um yeah it's pretty unique and it's you

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know definitely a long-running race this is the 25th anniversary but after a four-year Hiatus of covid and wildfires

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it is back and it's my favorite race um yeah you could argue it's one of

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those iconic races that kind of created modern day Enduro racing because it's been around for so long and the idea

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originally was let's figure out who is a great all-around mountain biker it is like that's what we were saying it's

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like you know Trevor uh our mechanic came with us and he raced Enduro for a

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couple years pretty seriously and he's like dude this is like just all around mountain biking like who is the best

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mountain biker on this mountain this weekend like you know it's not the best to memorizing stages or who can climb up

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this mountain the best like you have to ride a bike so yeah what do you guys want to know how I did my bike set up

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hmm um do you regret running any things on your

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bike no I don't because you got a flat on the downhill I did get a flat on the downhill stage uh it was completely my

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fault though yeah um so your bike setup was good which what did you ride I rode my sp-120 with

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a 140 Fork on the front from any cycle bumped up yeah Yeti SB 120. 140 Fork on

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the front bumped up from the stock 130. um uh bird Wheels I ran forecaster two four

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front tire and 3C compound and icon 235 rear in the new Max Speed compound with

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the Victoria airliner um pretty lightweight airliner was in

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just the rear one just the rear only yeah pretty lightweight setup but still had enough like travel to kind of give

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it and Ride Hard um I thought it was a pretty good setup and I think

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I think for what we have it's arguable that the ranger could have been a little bit better

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um I thought my setup was gonna be dialed this year I showed up and then all these uh the you know country's best

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XC Racers are on like full-blown XC race bikes with like almost XC race tires Jeff cabush was on Aspen two fours and I

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was just like what like how are you gonna ride these trails and then what I kind of realized there was like still so

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much time is made up on these climbs even on the downhill day like the bush said he lost 35 seconds to Keegan who

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won the overall on the third divide climb which is only two and a half minutes geez so he lost 35 seconds in

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two and a half minutes like that's insane on a downhill run you know which are decided sometimes by seconds to lose

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35 seconds like yeah so um yeah that was my setup Saturday I had a really good day I stoked with what I

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did I did two hours 35 minute result which I stoked with and you know

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uh Simon climb well yeah climbing in downtown yeah yeah

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um but I was stoked with that and was hoping to do a good result on day two and near the bottom on first divide I

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just was getting a little sloppy and trying to Pedal it's kind of like a rolling false flat climb with some sharp

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rocks in it and I just like pedals and pedaled over some rocks and rear smashed

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my rear tire into something and pinch flatted um and Trevor had flat of the day before

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he was like oh it's just fumbling all about and like dropping everything I was like all right all good just gonna pull

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out my plugs all calm and it's just gonna do this real quick plugged it it's like okay I'm going to put a bigger plug in it put the second plug in it it's

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like cool grab my CO2 just to top it off tighten up CO2 the O-ring blasted out of the CO2 head

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and that's when I started fumbling real hard the Panic said and then I was like oh

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and then but neither co2s work so I just hopped on my bike and rode the insert in last like 10 or 15 minutes

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um so ended up 12th overall in my category did a lot of people flat a lot of people flattened yeah a lot of them

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there's a lot of sharp rocks there's a lot of sharks rocks high speed like a lot of people flatted Trevor flatted his

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rear tired both days um fixed it flooded again second day

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actually cracked his wheel pretty good so he had like a whole other adventure of just like getting down the mountain

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and watching all the chaos happen like go past him he saw some dude crash and break his femur he said he had helped a

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couple girls plug their tires like it's so crazy I mean obviously people are trying to like you know run as as light

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of a setup possible and like these XI tires and like obviously you know if you're gonna go up there and ride like you wouldn't bring a bike like that

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probably I mean like just to ride that downhill you know but then there is a rain that's what's cool about the event

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it was like there's a range of everything from like 21 pound weight weenie bikes yeah at two like 35 pound

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full suspenser mics my buddy tyman did on like a 33 or 34 pound alloy

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Cannondale yeah I mean like you know they're pretty good get out there and go for it and smash the downhill yeah yeah

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Mike did it on the sb140 with a coil on it formerly Big Mike yeah shout out yeah

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Weaver Weaver did as well he had he finished both days with air in his tires so wow dig kind of crack his Rim but did

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kind of crack the rim um you know yeah that's pretty much it it's my favorite race I'm already uh

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363 days out and scheming for next year so nice so you don't regret anything but

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you would change a couple things I think next year I'm gonna go for a

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even lighter bike to kind of favor the climbs a touch more and maybe

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a faster type roll Tire combo probably keep the icon 235 rear but maybe throw a

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Recon in the front nice but that's scary yeah running Recons up front's pretty scary I don't know I think Recon is

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pretty good I did that last year at Brick okay brand new Recon 3C this makes

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me think uh I need a new set of tires for my Ranger that one aren't those like brand new

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tires yeah but I'm gonna ride them a lot in the next 10 days oh okay I need a fresh set fresh set for the Adventure

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Race yeah I'll have a fresh set for you before you leave nice there you go what are you gonna do dissector Recon I

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actually like the setup that's on there now that forecast yeah that new Max's forecaster is good

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it's way better than it looks like I mean I thought it looks pretty good yeah when we first put it on I was like oh it

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doesn't look like it's gonna grip as good as a dissector but I think it does I think it's about on par I'd say the

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dissector maybe has a little bit more overall grip however I think the forecaster might roll a touch faster and

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has more predictability yeah yeah more transition knobs yeah

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yeah no it works really good especially on that bike I was really impressed with how yeah that's why I wrote it

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um but yeah I think I go touch faster for next year we'll see nice yeah there you go I think they'll join you next

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year it sounds like a really good time let's go to Jeff come on let's go do it I'm retired for mountain bike racing

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it's barely who says it's a race you don't have to race yeah it does sound fun they just it sounds like that sounds

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like a race I would like to do yeah it is five five or six nights of camping no cell service which is you know

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yeah yeah Force disconnect for sure which is nice that is nice I didn't shower for since I left your house in

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Reno well you had the river right yeah yeah I rinsed off in the river but like

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no shower no how many mountain bikers beautiful showered in that River during that weekend all four houses

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sodium I can taste the scratch Labs coming out

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of the pores of these mountain bikers Weaver didn't shower one day because the night before we're getting out and we saw a snake in the water really yeah

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I've seen a couple snakes up there in the water whoa um they're not big they're just you know little too toothless a lot of rivers they're not

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they're not venomous so like kind of snakes are those no downyville water snakes

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I lost my boy Jim Bob or for what kind of snakes live in water nice but uh yeah

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he didn't go in one day and we're like oh come on Weaver's like I'm staying out of there it's like Indiana Jones snakes I'm out

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of here yeah people who watch Indiana Jones will get that well isn't that on the ride too

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yeah that's all right yeah that's enough about me yeah nice what have you been doing lately Jared

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bucks nothing new riding a lot of bikes yeah I've been riding my gravel bike quite a bit actually um in the full spandex huh but yeah

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you've got a new bike didn't you I did get a new bike yeah I got the new forbidden Druid the detail V2 let's get

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some time on it so far yeah I got a couple rides on it it's pretty good love it um I'm definitely looking forward to

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taking it more I don't know just on some more uh challenging stuff um but you know I'm kind of torn because

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my health insurance ran out a little bit ago and I'm kind of in between coverage for the next like five you're not

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supposed to let that last week I know you're not okay well I you know didn't realize this

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is not the place to discuss health insurance and benefits I'm just saying I'm just saying I really

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want to go ride it on some other stuff but like I just don't want to take the chance and then be like oh yeah by the way well he was riding suicide and then

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uh you know crash and uh it's the biggest the biggest almost I had recently was on a Gravel Pike Yeah Yeah

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Carl was just telling me like oh I don't want to go ride the Steeps because I got a lot of work coming up and I was like

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we have a like I almost went down hard doing like 30 on a gravel bike on a fire Road like would have like tumbled down

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the cliff yeah and like right next to cars I think is more dangerous most of the time that too yeah but here's the

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thing if someone hits me on the car then hopefully they're paying for it if they stop if they stop that's a big ask that's a big ask yeah what you know

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whatever we will discuss health insurance options

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you do offer several health insurance benefits but yeah exactly for the record just so people don't think we don't

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offer health insurance uh yeah I've been riding my gravel bike a lot I did a century last week two weeks ago oh yeah

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that was funny you sent me a random voice message I did you didn't reply do you mean to send that to me yeah I

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did I was thinking about you because it looks like it was really good I was Jeff told us and he goes I don't even know if

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you meant to send that to me like Paige or something it was hilarious well to let everybody else know yeah it was just

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like you know mid ride I was like 60 miles in having lunch at topatopo in Ojai and I got this bull and it was like

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rice with these lemongrass beef and like pickled veggies and pickled insanely delicious and at the breweries

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where they had that yeah they have like a little a little restaurant on the corner and like I'm just like you know exhausted eating this lunch and I was

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like man honestly if somebody came up and stole my bike right now I wouldn't even chase him because this is so good

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it was so good food is so good if someone stole your bike you'd be like well there it goes

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take another bite Paige you're gonna have to pick me up because I don't have a bike anymore

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um but yeah I did that and then I don't know I rode with uh oh thanks I rode with uh you know a couple buddies and

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did 50 miles on Saturday and Chicago cruise went to Starbucks that was kind of fun had a croissant and a in a cold

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brew mid ride what's that place so like a unique Cafe Starbucks yeah yeah it's got this new hip Castle you missed the r

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bucks in Mammoth oh the r bucks yeah oh yeah they're not the Starbucks on the S and the T or are they gone yeah they

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were gone they were gone we think it was from there's so much snow there oh wow yeah the letters of the sign just

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vanished under the weight of the snow so it was we were calling it our bucks all weekend nice well uh you know that's all

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I got I definitely missed you guys in Mammoth you know yeah we did our uh annual company camping trip uh West

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Coast version where a lot of people from the Nevada store go down to Mammoth and a lot of people from the California

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store go up to Mammoth and we all meet and ride bikes and have a good time and do funny things this year was was very

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unique because the bike park was not open so we just rode uh wrote all the

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various Trails the lower Trails well attempted to but most of them were covered in snow and we still had a good

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time yeah there was some snow Crossings and yeah we tried to Pedal up Juniper and then we made it 300 feet until there

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was like just big piles yeah but we we did ride Mammoth Rock trail that was totally clearing awesome yeah it was

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still super I wasn't totally clear or the Traverse was in the actual Trail was that the one where it was well that

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was before the Lakes was the Lakes Trail where that big snow thing was I saw this video somebody posted where you guys

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were like hiking up this huge snow drift and then yeah somebody's this is like a bit of a mess out there I crossed uh uh

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pretty decent snow drift that if I saw the video or the photo of

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me Crossing it I probably wouldn't have done it but in the time I was the smartest idea in the moment I was one of

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those unnecessary risk situations yeah it's like got this no problem and I got like 10 feet in I looked back and everyone's walking down around the snow

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drift and I was like oh shoot

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that's cool yeah yeah we still had a great time out there no it'll be at less mountain biking than normal yeah that's

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good uh good times around the campfire nice classic charades oh like literal

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charades charades wow yeah it was hilarious that's cool it was a ton of fun somebody win

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ah there was no like delicious winner no it was just like one person but I was thinking whoever probably Dom is a

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winner nice yeah well he was one who said he wanted to play charades because clearly he loves the game and plays the

17:58

game often clearly has an advantage he wants to show everybody how good he is yeah nice yeah it was pretty fun that's

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awesome yeah now's a good time well what's this we're hearing about a good deed a good

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deed talking about I have uh I guess it's it's kind of a brag but uh I don't know I just thought it was a cool story

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that I would tell even though uh yeah maybe it'll Inspire someone I will yeah exactly

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I was uh hastily walking to lunch to meet someone for lunch uh this guy

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actually is going to meet this guy Wes who owns a company called Tahoe Trail bars things are delicious it's one of my favorite energy bars

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yeah not a big not a big company they're mostly sold regionally but they're super good nice

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um so anyways going a lot walking to go uh get lunch with him I walk past this uh this uh homeless gentleman who was

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futson with his bike angrily and and uh like usually when I see something like that I stop and try and help out but I

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was I was like I'm I was gonna be late I got I gotta get there so I walked 20 feet past him and I stop and that that

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James Clear quote that was in that email ran through my head and it was you don't help people when it's convenient for you

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you help people when they need help and I was like ah so I turned around and I walk over and I go hey man I'm a bike

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mechanic can I help you out and uh it was funny to say I'm a bike mechanic you lied I realized I realize that's a bit

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of a funny you embellished come on I'm I could I could qualify and that's enough no I'm just joking so uh it didn't

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matter and uh so he's like yeah yes totally so he's got this old old quick release wheel uh with a beach cruiser

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Tire which was kind of too big for the frame and those slightly angled horizontal dropouts and a lot of people

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don't know how to use a quick release it's kind of a confusing thing should be flipped open and you spin it

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tight yeah like they don't know that you kind of it's loose and then you flip the lever so yeah anyways I help them align

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the wheel and the frame and then I taught them how to use the quick release got the wheel spinning and he was just so stoked and so so great good for you

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man yeah nice so he was really appreciative oh and then he's like hey I've seen you on them YouTube videos

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no he didn't he didn't recognize me from YouTube I don't know why he had a Southern accent in that instance but you

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know I I did I did like marginally Good Deeds yeah yeah this week helped a

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couple people out yeah uh there's just the PCT crosses right above Sierra City

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uh like maybe quarter mile out oh nice and I was just as we're coming down from shuttles I had my empty van so I just

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picked people up every time I saw them hitching around really because it's only like quarter mile down the road and they're just going to the general store

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and get re it's a restock oh no they're a resupply good for you so I stopped a couple in my van got a bunch of room

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really good stories not really it wasn't long enough um one guy's from France one

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girl's from Illinois um yeah well I did ask him though I was

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like dude what did you guys do from Lone Pine to here because you cannot get across there like everyone's just

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flipping in this year they just skipped it no one's even doing it just taking the highway or yeah no one's actually

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doing the PCT this yeah from Lone Pine to Tahoe and then they restart Tahoe insane yeah that was that was mine I

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mean marginal goody it's not I didn't go out of my way really one time I turned around but yeah once I did I was like I'll just look every time I have an

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empty car cruising down the street so nice filming best hitchhikers man no one even questioned that I was picking up in

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a weird white van didn't ask him if they wanted candy or anything like that no nice that's pretty

21:28

cool yeah well on that I saw a couple videos of people like who did Mount Whitney this year and it just looks like

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insane like somebody somebody in June who posted like they were posting a video of and it was just everything

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covered in snow middle of June like were they stopping or they had ice ax and ice picks and all that

21:45

um they did not have ice pick oh they did have a nice ax yeah yeah I guess they must have had all that but uh I

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guess the Hut is actually not buried at the top anymore you know the but yeah it looks like it looked like dead a winner

21:57

up there it was insane for those who don't know Mount Whitney is the tallest mountain in the lower 48

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14 500 feet something like that 500 maybe yeah in California in the Sierra

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Nevada mountains I don't think a lot of people know that the tallest mountain in the low 48s in California and also the

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lowest point maybe yeah in the 48 actually might even lowest point in North America

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no don't quote me on that but it is 135 miles east yeah right in Death Valley

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yeah gosh such a diverse landscape we've got here crazy geological stuff going on in California wild totally wild

22:36

absolutely should we jump into the first listener question why not all right well you got three and a half

22:42

minutes all right let's see here when is crank arm length difference noticeable

22:48

currently running 175 millimeter cranks on a large sp-130 I'm considering 170 or

22:53

165 would either of those changes be noticeable I say absolutely yes

22:59

and in this day and age I would probably go 165. yeah I agree

23:05

um I've been a strong one 70s for a long time uh and then recently within last like 12

23:11

months or so I've pretty much switched all my pedal bikes to 165s even my XC bike

23:17

I don't feel any drawbacks except uh smaller circles and more ground

23:22

clearance so yeah bikes are just they've just gotten so low that in you know just

23:27

the recent couple years people started running much shorter cranks also part of that is because more Brands started

23:33

making 165s whereas previously any of these you know relatively good XC slash Trail

23:40

cranks that you'd want to buy never came shorter than 170 and now Brands kind of caught on like oh people want 165 so

23:46

they now make them 165 and everyone's like oh this is great I'm not smashing my pedal into rocks all the time now so

23:52

yeah 165 is is definitely an awesome upgrade and if you're one of those people that's clipping your pedals and

23:57

your cranks on rocks on climbs often then give it a try yeah yeah my new bike actually came with 165 mil cranks yeah

24:04

it did yeah the Forbidden yeah yeah yeah see they're just on top of it yeah

24:10

and actually when uh you know I was looking at the Turning products for our Upton video yep and the

24:16

165 mil cranks are the most popular options oh just for the build kit or you know

24:23

the the group set yeah oh I see for the GXT type 165. nice we do a monthly YouTube City

24:30

YouTube City YouTube city um what's the capital what's I don't know why I said that word we do

24:38

a monthly YouTube video uh of the most trending and popular mountain bike

24:43

products and uh we sometimes do it every month

24:50

60 of the time we do it every time exactly we skip here and there but no for the most part we do it it's actually

24:57

we put in a lot more it's not just just oh here's what's popular we put in more context and information and kind of why

25:02

they're popular usually end up being like seven to ten minutes each time yeah it's just Jared and I goofballing around

25:08

talking about popular mountain bike parts but um it's it's also in a playlist if you ever want to watch it right that's true

25:14

yeah it is a playlist yeah yeah so if you guys want to watch popular mountain bike products on a monthly basis we do

25:20

that and then we do the yearly recap which we actually then did again on the podcast yes this year we did for the

25:26

2022 popular products I think that's important to know like if you're in the mountain bike world it's kind of hard to

25:31

figure out what to buy for any type of upgrade or bike or anything and one good place to go is like well what's everyone

25:37

else buying what's trending what's popular what do people like and why and we try and always cover that on the

25:42

podcast and the YouTube videos for sure in good detail I mean that's how I figured out you know what to get for my bike before I knew all the ins and outs

25:50

yeah it is useful and that's why we do it that's why we do it and speaking of

25:55

why we do it how about an ad and now a word from our sponsors the MTB

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and now back to the show yeah and that's when I got that that prescribed the ointment cream you know a quick

26:44

disclaimer regarding ointment creams and other various topics uh most of the advertisements well 99 of them are

26:51

they're satire uh last episode we did one with Craig federighi which is like

26:57

the senior product development or senior product guy at Apple like you know

27:02

synchronizing him to come through the app super nice of him to come through the ad uh some people didn't realize that was

27:08

satire uh sorry about that we apologize um I don't not yet sold out

27:17

Greg federicki is the guy who does like the presentations on there he's like the third highest ranking executive at Apple

27:23

that would be pretty cool his salary has two commas in it yeah podcast is not there yet

27:28

podcast will never have two commas that would be pretty sick that would be pretty cool he was like yeah you know

27:35

I'm just taking a little bit of time out of my schedule to go do an ad for the MTV podcast yeah you know uh I like

27:41

technology so if any of you out there are high up at Apple I would love to

27:46

actually talk to you I have some complaints

27:56

Dom's friend Nick Burton he does he he rides mountain bikes watches some of our stuff got me a deal on this laptop right

28:02

here so did you tell them everything that you hate about it no I like this song

28:07

I should uh I should send that Craig federigi ad to him but then we might get

28:13

sued or cease and desist or something oh Jeff with technology is like us with bikes like I can always find the

28:18

smallest nitpick thing and it's just like why did they do this this way I can find it way better this way yeah you

28:24

can't find that with everything yeah like he's the reason why I took the door off my closet

28:33

it's not a pocket door it should be a pocket door but in order to access like

28:38

this whole house you have to go inside and shut it and shut it it's also in the bathroom so why you don't need a I don't

28:46

know I don't need to close my back closet off to my bathroom like who cares the Stoners developed this path who

28:52

knows but for context everyone listening Jared and I live in a parallel universe we live in the exact same we live in the

28:59

exact same condo not the same not the same condo but they're the same layout same layout condo 400 feet apart yeah so

29:06

that's that's what he meant that I used to almost live in the exact same apartment layout one day I had to do a

29:12

favor for Jeff you know and uh I am specifically in my closet specifically I

29:18

had to go get a pair of dirty underwear out of here that is actually the truth that is pretty funny so we're we're developing

29:25

uh some boxer briefs for Kettle and I had some prototypes and I was out of

29:31

town and I needed to get those prototypes back to Dominic who's in our Nevada facility and I needed Jared to go

29:37

in there and find my dirty prototype boxers on the floor and yeah get them to the shop and then ship them to Nevada

29:42

and so when I went up to his place I was like oh I got a couple of nice ideas for my place one of which was

29:48

remove the closet door and it wasn't even you know Pages like oh I want to go too I was like you know have fun bring

29:53

some company with me and then we go in there oh this is nice I was like all right I'm doing it when

29:59

we get back you know otherwise I'll never hear the end of it you know it's like oh well what if we took it off the closet door

30:05

I'm like okay I'll do it right now and admittedly yeah it's really nice like you can access 100 of the closet I

30:13

digress uh mountain bikes Home Interiors not home interiors gosh that would be a

30:18

whole other good podcast we could this this gentleman has got a few questions we're going to answer answer a couple of

30:23

them um because we thought the last one wasn't that good he says his first question we just

30:30

didn't like that with bikes coming with some form of factory tuned settings for

30:37

the suspension uh could upgrading a fork or shock was something off the shelf with a neutral

30:43

tune have a negative effect on the bike that's actually a very common question yeah a lot of bikes are like oh we

30:48

worked with fox or RockShox to develop a specific tune for our rear shock for this Frame and then you're like well I

30:54

don't want that shock anymore and I want to get a different one and this one has a mid-mid tune yeah um I think there's some bikes that are

31:01

pretty off the deep end that do really benefit from a you know Factory tune and

31:07

Brands like Yeti and revel and whoever else do work a lot with fox or Rock

31:12

shocks or whoever to set that factory tune like yeah well Yeti has a guy in-house right that does all their shock

31:18

tuning for sure I think it's multiple people as well just one person yeah Santa Cruz has Karen who you know does

31:25

all their yeah a lot of like dominant brands do a lot of work to get those shocks to work perfect for those frames

31:31

yeah and you know they're messing with one shim stack different like most people can't feel that right most people

31:36

probably won't know the difference from a factory tune to a medium medium off the shelf tune as well however yeah it

31:43

had pretty small changes yeah it's hard to say though it's one of those it's like it does kind of depend bike to bike

31:48

and yeah setup to set up and what you're actually looking for and sometimes it benefits it like we had that mod maker

31:55

um yeah way too stiff which had a crazy stiff tune that you had to ride like pretty aggressively for it to like feel

32:01

good so yeah if you put a light tune on that a light compression tune it probably would have felt great yeah yeah

32:06

yeah because a lot of it's subjective too right so the guys you know in the case of that mondraker they probably did

32:11

that intentionally because they wanted it to feel like really stiff and fast as like a cross-country race bike I mean we

32:17

got it and we're like well we kind of want this thing to feel like a trail bike yeah so this shock sucks exactly um this tune sucks yeah so yeah it is that

32:25

is a challenge so I don't know I mean I think it's when you're in that case you have to just understand if your bike has

32:30

a custom tune and then you know talk to you know talk to the brand and say well what does the tune do does the tune make

32:36

it stiffer off the top does it make it more Progressive like what that does it do and then figure out if you like what

32:41

they answered or don't yeah and want to change that or not one of the reasons on my SP 120 Yeti SB 120. you gotta specify

32:49

not everyone just knows every model name of every bike well I've said it like six times now

32:54

um that's the reason why I haven't changed the rear shock on it because it does feel so good stock it is a DPS and like

33:00

sometimes I ride like a trail bike I'm like oh float X would be sweet I'm like you know what I don't want to mess with it because it feels so good and What's

33:07

it gonna give me a little bit more like downhill performance you know heat up a little bit less quick so yeah Fair

33:16

totally well how about the next question I think we got that one pretty good why does SRAM still make NX on your site

33:24

it's a five dollar difference for the shifter and a 20 difference for the trailer to go from NX to GX why wouldn't

33:29

every manufacturer just give everyone the much better performing GX I feel like everyone would pay an extra 25

33:35

bucks for a bike to have that upgrade from the factory as it makes a big difference in performance I think SX needs a few small upgrades

33:42

and then just can the whole NX system you know gotta agree with the guy I mean

33:48

it's it's a little close yeah I mean except for the cassette I guess like there's a huge weight difference and

33:55

price difference between the NX and GX cassette um but I guess like well the shifters

34:00

aside from the chain I guess but the shifter is the cheapest piece of the whole group sets right gonna be closest

34:06

all together right so yeah yeah like Jared said the the cassette is a much different beast from NX to GX the chain

34:13

as well and also a lot of these kind of lowering stuff NX and SX both

34:19

mostly exists for OE spec not for aftermarket specs yeah which is a whole

34:24

another ball game of you know they Excel NX and SX they do aftermarket but it's mostly replacement for that right like

34:31

No One's Gonna build a brand new bike and be like I want SX on it it's like yeah you're buying a bike at a price

34:36

point with SX or NX on it and those big manufacturers that are doing that

34:42

um are penny pinching to be honest and they're just trying to get a bike in certain price point that someone can

34:48

afford yeah what I guess if they're making you know a thousand bikes then 25

34:53

a bike is a big difference right you know yeah yeah it is totally and especially if they're trying to just hit

34:59

a certain price point yeah so I don't know I mean I I don't envy the the team

35:04

at SRAM and Shimano that's trying to figure out all of these different skus and different price points and then they

35:10

have all this feedback from all their aftermarket customers and all their OE bike customers that want different price

35:15

points and different features and yeah yeah it's a complicated business I mean there's a reason we have 18 000 products

35:21

on worldwide cyclery.com yeah it's just a there's a lot of parts in this game so and that's why you also literally yeah a

35:28

lot of parts in this game yeah well Andy they got to differentiate these things right like yeah that's one of the

35:33

hardest parts you can't make nx2 good you can't make you know you gotta yeah it's like you have to make GX a certain

35:39

amount better and same thing with xo1 so yeah I mean that's so one of our our top viewed YouTube videos is the breakdown

35:45

between the differences of I think at that point we did I think it was the x01 and xx in here too

35:52

yeah we might have put SX in there too um yeah and it's tough and and they're it's there used to be more feature

36:00

differences like a little feature here and there but it's kind of most of the there's been mostly feature parity

36:05

between most of the higher end at least GX and above or SLX and above um for the most part just like materials

36:11

changes which ends up being like a little bit of quality of feel and weight and oh that's it so Nuance Nuance yeah

36:19

yeah but yeah price point and weight but I don't know if you are upgrading go GX like you said yeah yeah

36:27

depending on where you're coming from yeah yeah for sure totally right on next question

36:32

hey guys I'm curious about running a mixed wheel setup on the Revel rail platform have any of you tried this

36:38

would you start with the 27.5 or the 29er version oh well Liam has done this

36:46

and you started with the 27.5 frame yeah so the Revel rail which is a 27.5 bike

36:52

not to be confused with the Revel rail 2-9 right yes um yeah I did it before the rail 29

36:58

existed which is why I did it was I wanted basically two nine front wheel on that platform um I started the rail 27 I

37:08

believe I Short Stroke the shock because it was that bike 165 right yes 165 so I

37:15

Short Stroke the shock to 157. and then I put a 160 mil Fork on it

37:22

instead of 170 to compensate for a little bit higher front end of

37:28

the two nine front wheel so it dropped it back down a bit right

37:33

um because that bike was 170 180 so I ran a 160 on it uh adding

37:39

adding a 29er adds about 20 mil to your stack height roughly I believe I did the

37:46

math when I did this nice um and it worked out pretty well uh and then I just realized I don't love

37:52

pedaling in wallet bike yeah um it's great like super fun down I

37:57

literally wrote it straight to Santa Cruz like I think I wrote it once or twice around here and then went to Santa Cruz and I was like this thing is

38:03

awesome like yeah just ripping laps and steep trails and I was like dude I like found you know this Goldilocks and I

38:11

came back down here where we just have fast straight trails and I was like oh a lot of those benefits are like Santa

38:17

Cruz specific like yeah getting into steep ruts and steep shoots and stuff it felt really good so yeah

38:24

um that being said for this dude I still think probably starting with a

38:30

27.5 would be better unless you want a really low bottom

38:35

bracket because if you do two nine you put a 27.5 wheel on it you're gonna drop that BB like an insane amount like 15

38:42

mil which you know bikes ride weird if they have like five mil BB drop difference so um

38:49

I think going to 27.5 and kind of doing similar to what I did would be your best

38:54

bet yeah yeah I think I think so too yeah instead of putting a smaller wheel

38:59

on the 29er yeah I mean I think like most things use case dependent right yeah so uh

39:06

depending on the trails if he's writing stuff that's similar to Santa Cruz that's yeah steep shoots a lot of

39:11

corners and that's what he loves to do is shred things like that and have a playful bike then heck yeah mixed Wheels

39:16

a lot of fun just doing more high speed straight line or a lot of technical climbing or just more on the XC side of

39:23

things then yeah it does just go 29 and get on with it yep for sure use case

39:29

dependent and personal preference speaking of use case what is the proper setup for a downhill wheel set my Hub is

39:35

a DT Swiss 370 all my spokes were incredibly loosed after three hours of downhill and my stands MK4 flow Rim

39:42

looks like it belongs to a wave pool ouch well was your wheel brand new

39:50

perfectly laced perfectly trued with spoke prep and

39:55

even Loctite before those three hours of downhill that we don't know yeah that's a big part of it and building up a lot

40:01

of wheels for people who ride hard uh I put so much

40:07

like what'd you say effort or like attention prepper like into the prep of the build

40:13

into the prep and even smoke tension yeah your wheel can look a little wavy you run downhill it doesn't matter

40:19

you're smashing rocks you know as big as your wheel yeah but if your spoke tensions even you'll have a really

40:24

strong wheel um so that's definitely first is where you'd set up for a downhill set is your

40:30

problem spoke tension is that their downhill room too the floor the floor the flow the flows are downhill right

40:36

now okay um yeah just strong Wheel sets in general I

40:41

think the you know who built them is is a big piece of the puzzle like how well it was built and if it used spoke prep

40:48

and tensions all dialed next piece of the puzzle is maintenance so every time you ride that thing you know check it I

40:55

guess you spoke our spoke still good did you bend something like you got to maintain your wheels if you want them to continue working

41:01

flat spot it which then put uneven smoke tension in your wheel yeah and then kept riding it um what kind of spokes do you

41:07

usually use on those downhill Wheels uh I pretty much use DT Swiss uh competition on everything which was a

41:14

201-820 uh spoke sometimes I'll use what's the other ones competition or

41:21

Champions which is a 2-0 straight gauge um but I don't think the 201 h20s are like

41:29

any weaker per se but they are a bit lighter um button spokes butted spokes yeah

41:37

um so that's what I usually use I use Will Smith spoke prep or I actually been

41:42

digging these Stan's powder spoke prep in combination with the DT Swiss nipples

41:47

that already have spoke prep in them so I double spoke prep them wow and then I get an attention I put a wheel on it and

41:53

it kind of lowers it and then I actually use blue Loctite on the nipples as well wow like triple spoke prep nice

42:00

um yeah a lot of things go into having a good strong wheel and maintaining a good strong yeah but yeah I don't know

42:08

downhill wheels and big riders or hard terrain like they all they all blend on

42:13

maintenance yeah take time all of your parts are good well depending on your spokes and your nipples um brand but you know flow MK4 is a good

42:20

Rim Yeah good Hub GT Swiss 370 is super good so as they're just main maintenance

42:26

and making sure it's set up good from the start is you know most important for

42:31

downhill yeah indeed nice all right here's another question that makes no sense this one's

42:36

super technical if you had to replace your saddle with a fast food what would you choose and why

42:42

I mean I think it's pretty easy pizza yeah I had that I had that thought but I'm gonna take it one step further I

42:48

think it's too soft I think it would like Crush I was gonna say a calzone

42:53

that's pretty good except then every time you sat down it would just change out the back I got it I got it a dense

43:01

and stale ciabatta bread oh it's like a sandwich imagine that on top of the

43:07

subway decent that would actually hold up I think yeah or is it rained or a dense

43:13

Bagel would even be okay yeah that would look like some of those

43:18

time trial Saddles I guess some of these are really fast food these are just food well yeah I mean you could get I don't

43:26

know calzone steel that thing's stiff that thing's

43:33

fake you know it's gross otherwise yeah go foot long foot long uh speaking of footlongs

43:41

what's an Unwritten rule in the shop at worldwide Cyclery

43:46

you don't know one there's a couple that are not common sense that's the

43:51

unwritten rule um those things have been written down at this point well except for this one we

43:58

were talking about earlier is you really shouldn't be heating up salmon in the microwave I really

44:03

shouldn't or fish it's like a it's a fish no fish yeah like in the microwave

44:09

or air fryer or whatever especially in well actually I've never been a pH shop but in Reno and

44:15

uh Cali shop the kitchens are in the middle of everything with zero ventilation so you heat up some fish and

44:22

it just lingers yeah and then you go to hit up like chicken teriyaki bowl and it's like a fish chicken teriyaki bowl

44:28

you know what you know what's Unwritten is uh no no booze until one hour before

44:35

close yeah that is Unwritten that is yeah but everyone follows that yeah as far as I know why you look at me this

44:41

guy's the one who drinks more than I do hey what are you talking about no you're right I do follow that and

44:48

yeah you and Weaver follow it I mean Weaver's up at 359 pouring his drink

44:53

some days but he waits an hour yeah right yeah that's a good one that's a good one I can't

44:59

think of anything else like yeah you don't like Trek a muddy bike through the whole shop like that's pretty awesome

45:05

yeah um next question next question how much time on average do y'all

45:12

think you spend thinking up taking and selecting a thumbnail for each podcast so the podcast not really much time at

45:21

all because pretty on the spot yeah you grab a prop let's shoot it I don't know we just do something Rando podcast not

45:27

important but regular videos that go on the worldwide Cyclery YouTube channel we spend a lot more time and thought into

45:33

the titles and those thumbnails oh yeah it's a whole game on YouTube Michael Michael's been clicky interesting

45:40

thumbnail Michael's been getting real he's been on a fire really he's been on Firestone he'll attack with them and

45:45

some crazy Photoshop skills yeah

45:53

he had been in that one but nobody found her he hit her really good well maybe the photo of you with the briefcase and

46:00

the suit with no shoes yeah that's fine that's the one maybe if anyone will have

46:06

Mike keep hiding Bean yeah we should if anyone sees it send us an email yeah

46:11

maybe we'll get a special little uh gift card I like that how about that

46:17

worldwide.com if you find Bean in the next worldwide Cyclery YouTube video cover

46:22

photo perfect done deal it's in writing there you go all right speaking of which

46:31

what's one of your guilty pleasures that you're willing to share hmm

46:36

you go all right I'll go we'll uh you know if I uh from a little snack hungry

46:43

I like to take a date and I dip it in this cocoa spread it's basically like a

46:48

Nutella as I do I do you're gonna set my food your brain went to Food it's a guilty

46:55

pleasure I'm like you know it's a little dessert time take a date you dip it in there and it's like a Snickers bar it's

47:01

insane I'm not a huge Snickers guy but it's really good

47:07

all right you too uh mine is Disney Disneyland it's not

47:12

really that guilty I mean spend a decent amount of money going

47:18

pretty conservative Frugal guy but you know Disneyland I go Disneyland off the rails

47:25

the rails 25 per person to get a lightning Lane for the Cars ride buying

47:30

it you dog 27 to get a lightning Lane for the Galaxy Edge ride buying it wait for each ride do they do this there's

47:37

like the two popular rides you have to after okay you buy your genie plus which is already 25 extra per ticket per

47:43

person what does that get you I various like it gets you into the lightning Lane access basically and then you can spend

47:48

more money but it's only on all rides except for the most popular two and those ones you got to pay individual on

47:55

top of everything yeah after Cove at Disney's trying to make some money so they really expect it to uh so you got

48:01

to spend like 75 bucks to get to get faster lines

48:07

due to the amount of like it's it's become very pay to play it's a big it's big controversy because a lot of people

48:13

say well this is not inclusive it's not affordable for a lot of people and Disney's like well you everyone hates crowded Parks everyone hates high prices

48:20

do you understand economics yeah supply and demand we didn't build this park so everybody could come so we can make

48:27

money uh it's a challenging problem for them to solve but yeah I mean that's that's where I spent couldn't you used

48:33

to just go get like a fast pass and like it was like free or whatever you just had to go and get used to be free yeah

48:38

when you're a child after then you grew out of it Kobe shut down and it was

48:45

hahaha yeah I've never been there oh you got you

48:52

there man I want you to go a lot when I was a kid to Disneyland yeah my grandma's neighbor worked there we got

48:57

lots of free tickets all the time no that's cool yeah well Liam what's your guilty um I don't know I couldn't really think

49:02

of that many except for bread I love me some bread and I'll go as far as like

49:07

knocking out carbs like all day long just to eat a loaf of bread at the end of the day it's arguably probably worse than if I

49:14

just like moderated my carbs but you know yeah no one said this is a healthy

49:19

pleasure they said it was a guilty it was guilty yeah what kind of bread just like a French Loaf in any of it 24

49:26

inches long sourdough yeah I went to what's that printed paren paren yeah

49:32

fancy Bakery good crushed it oh no no butter no nothing just eight out of

49:38

eight out of the bag that place has um yeah that sounds so good oh jeez all

49:45

right yep that's fine all right we got a couple more here what's a stronger hub for a 200 pound

49:50

dude that rides blue and black trails at bike parks on a 2023 Trek Roscoe

49:58

I've broken two in the month of June Shimano mt410 and DT Swiss 370. yeah

50:04

Shimano hubs aren't known for their robustness I have to say they roll really good but

50:09

definitely not robust DT's supposed to be 70 on the other hand are usually robust but I'm guessing it was a three pole system probably huh uh if you were

50:16

to upgrade that 370 to the ratchet Ln which is their new

50:22

system for 370 hubs I think you would have a lot harder time breaking that for

50:27

sure that being said I think the DT Swiss ratchet system

50:33

350 I would say is the most robust Hub you can probably buy and honestly like

50:39

that's my go-to Hub it's on my downhill bike I put on e-bikes I put on Friends bikes like it's you know

50:45

it's as close to bulletproof as a hub with small bearings and spinning stuff on the inside can get I'm wondering how

50:52

he breaks them you think it's the paws I'm guessing you're probably a shears Paws or teeth on uh what on the ratchet

50:59

ring yeah the ring Drive yeah serious power wow how much you're almost 200 pounds are you like 190 190 yeah you

51:06

ever broken Paul's in a hub I've only broken a hub axle um and hydro which is yeah which I guess

51:12

is common um someone last podcast someone said we roasted you when I said oh yeah yeah

51:19

this was like well Jared's got like 40 pounds on us and they're like roasted they put the time stamps in so we drew

51:25

them yeah it's like I don't even think about it like that yeah it's just like yeah well you know we're talking about weights and I was like oh he's got 40

51:31

pounds on us well not more like he's big it's more like we're small yeah we're just small like guys there's pretty

51:38

normal size for uh a male right now somewhat proportioned you know yeah you are and you're under the average

51:44

American's obese you're not so you're doing great that makes me feel pretty good you know when you put it like that

51:49

yeah well well I think we got this guy's Hub woes all solved how about this one

51:54

last question what's a weird Flex that only bike nerds would understand

52:01

uh I would say custom painted frames or little uh modifications to the various

52:08

tidbits on your bike such as taking your rebound knobs or compression knobs and scraping off the color or painting them

52:16

sandblasting them uh custom decals taking off every little tiny sticker

52:22

that you don't like so it looks just ever so slightly unique oh I gotta Flex I got one yep a black o-ring on a rock

52:30

shock oh that is one of my bike because Liam dropped the lowers to change it to

52:36

Black because I didn't want the red that's actually what I was gonna say is this imagine that I dropped Jeff's

52:41

lowers on a brand new Fork to put on a black o-ring over the red stock one I

52:47

can't have that red one and you know you know what my bike looks like it has the red one on there yeah because I don't care that much trust me no it's my bike

52:54

my rail T9 is sick green frame green Fork everything else blacked out the red

52:59

O-rings just look they look hideous yeah however I just don't and then you can't do the

53:05

rear shock and not do the fork that's even worse yeah yeah because it's easy to do the shock yeah but uh yeah I mean

53:11

I hear you already have to do it for one guy why'd you you know break your back go do it again for yourself

53:16

well he's not paying himself that's why

53:22

it's true for me for free oh man those are good flexes I was just gonna say like uh you know like you have a sick

53:27

shock like a push 11-6 or yeah that's definitely a flex I'm like oh yeah I got the Zeb but I got the Avalanche damper

53:33

in there it's not your stock average charger that's true charger I was thinking another weird flex but it's

53:38

mostly on Jeff's end yeah his uh he was like you know I'm doing 10 rides soon I need some new tires

53:50

new tires I'm putting on you know it's like a it's like racer dilemma yeah tires on my gravel bike are tires I got

53:58

from you like over a year ago I put them back on the bike and I'm still running and I'm like oh they still work it's

54:03

hilarious I was like wait oh yeah these are Jeff Soul tires from your gravel a lot of people benefit from me wanting to

54:09

always have fresh tires and they take my Slightly Used Tires yeah yeah works out uh I'd say another thing mountain bikers

54:17

would understand is like having like multiple pairs of shoes like riding

54:22

shoes oh yeah I think always always rolling up with like a different pair of shoes every time you ride with someone that's ridiculous fresh kids I don't

54:30

even go that far oh I see I have like six pairs of riding shoes I think I just like my shoes to be properly broken into

54:36

like my feet and the pedals and everything I like that too I just don't like having that many pair of shoes it doesn't work you know it's a really

54:42

weird Flex is like having fresh cleats

54:48

you know what's a good Flex oh yeah nice being a really nice human and leaving us

54:53

a review on Spotify or apple podcasts it genuinely helps out the podcast and

54:58

helps us out and if you've listened to this far I think you owe it to us

55:04

you owe us one dude you owe us one man yeah man uh well but seriously please do

55:09

it it really helps out we appreciate it and if you have any questions you'd like them answered we answer the good ones so

55:14

just email them to Jared podcast at worldwidecyclery.com yep send

55:20

in your questions yep and that's it that's all for episode 116. talk to you guys in the next one thank you and good

55:26

night Chariot peace out the cookie crumbles you want to say it nah it's flowing in the other part I wanted to

55:32

say and that's all the cookie crumbles but Jerry came in with you know it's another good segue yeah

55:39

get out of here