Bike Check: Christina Chappetta's Trek Slash

This winter, we welcomed EWS racer and all-round rad human Christina Chappetta to the Pinkbike team as a full-time presenter and race correspondent.

She's recently back from Crankworx Rotorua where she and the video team were busy creating a whole lot of awesome content and once racing is back on schedule, she will be travelling to enduro races, Crankworx, and other events to bring you the inside line on everything good. In the meantime, she's keeping us entertained with workout videos, pro tips for winter biking, and weighing the pros and cons of clips vs. flats.

Christina moved to Whistler almost eight years ago soon after discovering mountain biking at the age of 22 when living in Colorado. She's now a Canadian resident, and until Pinkbike hired her as a presenter, she was working full-time at Evolution Bike Shop in Whistler. She's started in nearly a dozen Enduro World Series races, with an impressive career-best finish of 6th place at the Whistler round in 2018.

She knows her race lines and tech, and her infectious enthusiasm and on-camera demeanor have gained her fans from her day one appearance on Full Enduro.

Christina's suspension set-up factors in her light weight and aggressive riding style. She likes to run a few tokens and spacers so that she can run less pressure while keeping the beginning of the suspension soft but still firm enough to handle big hits and G-outs. She says she generally has to run faster rebound than bigger people because it takes more force for her to get the same result as a heavier rider. She prefers fast and technical trails so having the suspension dialed is crucial.

She runs no clicks of compression damping on her fork and never locks it out, even when climbing paved roads. She has a very sensitive wrist that has been broken a few times so more sensitivity in the fork helps. She prefers to baby it as much as possible and save the impacts to it for the more demanding descents.

Christina runs her bars quite low which she says helps keep her control in the downhill sections. She also noticed swapping to 50mm stem from a 35mm brought her more forward on the bike and in control of the front wheel, when she moved to a 29er from a 650b bike in 2018. She also swapped to slightly narrower 750mm bars from 760mm bars when she made that switch because it keeps the bike from feeling too big and uncontrollable for her while getting a slightly quicker response in side to side and cornering.

To keep her bike running smooth and plush, she likes to service her suspension frequently and keep fresh oil in the moving parts. This includes lubing her chain more often than needed to make sure her drivetrain is running smoothly and doesn't wear down quickly.