Interview: Gee Atherton - on Flat Pedals and the Cairns World Cup DH
Below the podium: Gee Atherton wearing what may prove to be the most famous pair of shoes of the 2014 World Cup DH tour.
Until the World Cup DH at Cairns, Australia, you could count the contenders who raced with flat pedals on one hand. If there were a national anthem written for flat pedals, though, race announcer Rob Warner would have grown hoarse singing it in Cairns - because the lion's share of competitors there opted against riding clipped in, as the prevailing method of descending the sticky red clay soil, kneaded into a nightmarish greasy glue by three days of rain and three hundred practice runs, was to keep one foot out and hope for the best. The "best," turned out to be Gee Atherton - on loaner shoes and flat pedals - which, along with Warner's glorious trackside testimony, inspired hopes among old-school gravity riders that flat pedals would make a triumphant return to World Cup DH racing. Well, one can always hope. Here's Gee's story about it.
How did that moment go when you decided to switch to flats and borrowed the Five Tens? Was the guy a fellow pro racer, or a spectator? Did you find him to return them after the race? I decided I needed flats after my quali run. I knew I'd be faster on them, but I also knew I hadn't brought any Shimano flats with me. I did my first practice run on race day on my normal pair of vans and it was so slick! So, while I was looking at a section of track, I asked a spectator what size feet he had, as I'd seen he had a good pair of flats on. He agreed to swap shoes with me trackside! By the time I'd finished anti doping after the race, the guy had left, so I still have his shoes. I need to find out who he was. His name was Sam.
Cairns was the first course in years that caused the majority of competitors to switch to flats, yet we've seen some horrendously muddy courses where most rode clipped in. Why was Cairns so different?Well, I think it was the awkward nature of the track and conditions. I can ride clips in the wettest of conditions, but this track had such tight awkward sections that I felt I wasn't at any advantage using clips. I was literally dabbing a foot on 80-percent of the turns, and these turns were so close that you didn't have time to put in a sprint in between. Plus, I always enjoy changing to flats for a bit.
Many said that as the track dried, the mud wrapped tightly to the tires, preventing them from gripping anywhere on the course. How was this from your end when you made your race run?The track certainly felt faster when it was raining hard and the mud was a bit thinner. Once it dried, it was this heavy clay that was trying to suck you in, and it was really impossible to get traction on. Some sections were just polished clay with a shiny surface.
What was it like accelerating with tires that weighed a kilo more due to mud buildup? It really affected the way the bike handled. You had to make sure you got up to speed as soon as possible to clear the tyres out and in turns, you could feel the extra weight of the mud changing the way the bike handled. It also affected the way the suspension worked as, obviously, the mud on the tyres was all having to get moved by the suspension.
Do you think that a tire could be designed that would be effective in those conditions? Is DH tire technology pretty much maxed out?I think we are pretty close to having mud tyres dialed. The Conti Mud King seems to clear the mud well, even at full length without any cuts. It's always a balancing act between traction and rolling speed, but I think we have a good in-between. I mean, we are asking a lot from these tyres at a race like Cairns. We wanted traction on wet roots, deep mud, wet rocks, and we wanted fast rolling speed on the long pedal sections, and we wanted the tyre to hold up in the hard-pack switchbacks at the top.
Outside of tires and traction, did you or the others have problems with mud fouling the frame or fork during the race?The extra weight was the biggest problem. We spend a huge amount of time and effort shaving grams of the bikes and then suddenly, the bike has three kilos of mud weight added to it. That affects the bike enormously, so it was all about adjusting the suspension to make up for that added weight and trying to guess how it would alter the bike's performance.
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always on SPD-SL on the road bikes, but when its time for Mountain biking its Specialized Bennie pedals and 5-10 Karver shoes
I use this stuff on my mountain bike shoes, I'm sure you could use it on the frame and tires too, I doubt it would affect the performance much, certainly couldn't hurt!!
Props to 5:10 to, this is why I support companies like u, good products good people looking out for one another.
Braaap..
Check out the pics @ JDM Photography on facebook.
But seriously, he's one of the best rider's in the world right now, if not the best, but he seems to have the most boring personality on the planet.
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