Ask PB: My First DH Race, Larger Frame Causes Problems, and Tame Those Nasty Cables
Here at Pinkbike we get inundated with all kinds of questions, ranging from the basic "Can I have stickers" to more in-depth, soul searching types of queries like if you should pop the question or what to name your first child. Ask Pinkbike is an occasional column where we'll be hand picking and answering questions that have been keeping readers up at night, although we'll likely steer clear of those last two and keep it more tech oriented.
First Time Racer
Question: Pinkbike user Roguee asked this question in downhill forum: I'm doing my first DH race next week. Do you guys have an tips for staying calm during my run? Or just any tips in general would be helpful! I've ridden the track a few times and I'm feeling confident, so I think it's a good venue for my first race.
 | I remember being scared shitless before doing my first downhill race! Actually, I remember being pretty scared before all of the racing that I've done over the years. If I could go back in time I'd tell myself that it's all about fun - as much as you may want to end up racing World Cups, you need to forget about all that and just have fun. I'd recommend doing two things: first, concentrating on staying loose and finding flow is going to see you going a lot quicker than if you're really attacking the course and blowing every corner, which then forces you to panic and sprint as hard as you can out of them. That's when you forget to breath and hold your breath by accident, which obviously compounds your issues. Think about momentum and the smoothest lines, not winning or catching the guy in front of you. The other big one is to have your bike ready to race - it sucks to be amped up for your race and to have paid good money only to see your run ruined due to a flat tire because you didn't check the air pressure. Relax, have fun, concentrate on being smooth and having flow, and don't forget to make sure your bike is dialed. - Mike Levy |
Forget about channeling Mr. Hill for the first race run of your life - your day will be much better if you concentrate on just having fun. Photo by Paris Gore
Why Does My Larger Frame Corner Poorly?
Question: DonkeyLunch asks in the All Mountain and Cross-Country Forum: I've just switched from a 2010 Marin Attack Trail, size small, to a 2012 Yeti SB66, size medium, and I feel like my bike is drifting a lot more when cornering. I wanted to go to a longer bike with a shorter stem and these are the only parts that have changed. I'm running the same forks and tires as before and the bike felt otherwise great first ride out. I've gone from a 70mm to a 40mm stem, so I feel I should be relatively centered on the bike in relation to my old position. The head angle is one degree steeper. Do I just need to think more about getting my weight over the front on the new bike or something? I'm usually pretty fast and like to ride with a clean, feet up style. I feel like this could start to hold me back.
| I looked up the geometry of the 2010 Marin Attack Trail and the 2012 Yeti SB66 that you moved up to, and you have good reason to wonder about the change in handling. I could only find the medium-sized numbers for the Marin, but the effective top tube was 1.3 inches shorter than the medium-sized Yeti. Considering that you jumped up from a small-sized Attack Trail, the increase in the top tube length would be closer to two inches (50mm). Switching from a 90 to a 40-millimeter stem may have maintained the same reach as your previous bike, but the combined effect of the new stem and the Yeti's longer top tube has moved your weight back about three inches behind the front wheel. You'll need to learn to ride lower and farther forward over the bike in all phases of your riding, especially when cornering, in order to properly weight the front tire. To assist this transition, I'd suggest switching out one or two headset spacers to lower your handlebar and, if you are not already riding a wide bar, switch to a 780-millimeter-width model. The wider handlebar will force your upper body to hover over the front of the bike and help teach you to keep it there. I assume that you are not a big guy and while wide bars are fashionable, there is an optimal width for each person. After three or four months, when you have dialed in your Yeti's handling, you can cut the bars a bit shorter to free up your upper body so you can throw your weight around to better manage technical sections. (something that many DH pros have done as of late). - RC |
Yeti's SB66 was one of the first trailbike designs to feature substantially longer top tubes to correct for shorter stems. Anyone who plans on purchasing a new ride should pay close attention to both the reach and top tube length of the bike and largely ignore its stated sizing. Presently, designers are all over the map on the subject.
Brake and Derailleur Housing Length?
Question: corockymtnrider asks in the 29ers forum: Recently I had a 2015 FSR Carbon Expert Evo Stumpjumper built. The shop that built it wants to leave the cables really long. It makes sense when they spin the handlebars 180 degrees and tell me that it's to keep them from snapping in the event of a crash. This I can understand. However, it looks both sloppy and dangerous. So they pulled the cables down a bit, where they are a little slack underneath the frame by the crank, but even there it seems like they might catch on branches or stumps I navigate over on the trail. My question - do you find it more of a hazard to have the cables long (where the handle bars can spin 180 degrees, OR is it better to get them cut shorter and risk an accident that might dislocate a cable?
| Leaving the brake and derailleur housing long enough to allow for a full 180 degrees of handlebar rotation might be a touch excessive, unless you picture yourself doing X-ups in the near future, but you do want to have enough room to keep from kinking a cable or pulling a line out in the event of a crash. Pulling the cables further down underneath the bottom bracket isn't the way to accomplish this - there should be just enough slack in that area to allow the rear suspension to go through its travel without pulling on them, and that's it. Pull the housing snug against the bottom bracket, let the air out of the shock and compress the rear suspension all the way through its travel. Once the shock is reinflated you'll be able to see exactly how much slack there needs to be under the bottom bracket shell. Once you have that part of the equation figured out, you can then determine how much housing you can afford to trim up front. I'd say somewhere around 130 - 140 degrees of handlebar rotation should be enough movement to avoid issues if your bike takes a tumble. After everything is trimmed down the housing will only stick out a few inches in front of the stem, but if things still look too cluttered for your liking, a little electrical tape in key locations can help help organize a rat's nest of housing. You can use a few wraps of tape to hold your rear brake and derailleur housing together, which will help keep them from rattling around against your stem or handlebar and create a cleaner look. - Mike Kazimer |
A little time with a roll of electrical tape and some cable cutters would help clean up this mess.
Have some unresolved tech questions? Jump in the Pinkbike Forum and we'll look to answer it for next time.
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Cable tie(s) with short piece of clear tubing between the cables. Works a treat.
Alas, I am still learning how to approach races. I did my 3rd ever DH race at the weekend and it was frustrating to see how much slower i would hit sections in my race run than when I would section that part of the track. Not much use hitting it flat out in practice if you cant go anywhere near that speed in your race run. It has happened in enduro races too (in which I'm more experienced) where I go really slow on one stage and then very fast on the next despite feeling wrecked after the slow one and fresh after the fast one. Obviously being relaxed and breathing right must play a role in that.
I figure the best way of addressing that is to do more full DH runs instead of only hitting the track fully once or twice. That way when I do a race/seed run its not a completely new experience where I'm trying to put an entire run together for the first time in weeks maybe.
One venue in S-East England called Aston Hill had a great fireroad at the top of the start area, it was easy to keep an eye on the roll-call / time for your race run, and do some gentle pedalling around with some short sprints on the fireroard to get your aerobic system ready, and help your warm up / stay loose.
Nothing better than arriving in your start slot after 10-15 minutes of warm up, and being able to put down some proper power and flow down the track, without the shock your body feels if going in cold
Good luck and have fun!
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21.8" ETT is really short, even for a small, and Yetis run longer than average; 2" is a big jump.
You should choose one that slips over easily. those tubes do shrink quite a bit.
Simplest way to figure out the right size for your application is to measure around the cables you want to bundle up with tape measure and order the next bigger available size.
for two cables i use this:
www.frys.com/search?search_type=regular&sqxts=1&cat=&query_string=%233222371
but honestly its quite tight to set up.
@slumgullion. Yes it absolutely is. You would have to cut it open with a exacto which is easy but if you want to put it back on you would have to take of the brake lines to be able to slip the new tubing over. I usually do it when i set up a bike first and so far i never had to exchange the housing before selling the bike again so no issues for me yet.
oh by the way. I started doubling up in areas where the cables might rub against each other or against frame/fork.
For the dude with the hose/housing issue. Simple answer...cut them and make it right and clean. Don't be a redneck mountain biker and use zip ties, duct tape or whatever...don't be lazy and do it yourself or take it to a shop and have it done.
Theory: Assuming the same reach and stack (and head angle) are achieved with the 2 diff setups, then the wheel base is longer and the front axle is farther forward relative to CG and handle bar. You would therefore need to get more forward on the bike to weight the front wheel the same amount.
Real world anecdote: I've gone back to longer stems (50mm to 70mm on my trail bike and 35mm to 50mm on my freeride bike) with big improvements in cornering and I no longer feel too far over the bars. I'm 6' tall and ride a sz L 2014 Uzzi and a sz M 2015 Spider comp 29.
So why are shorter stems/longer top tubes better?