Bike Check: Danny Hart's 29/27.5" Saracen Myst - Maribor World Cup DH 2019

 don't drink and write!

 Infinite love for this comment, I hate those accounts with a passion.

 You've got social media pretty much sussed out. We like your content and would like to collaborate.

 nailed it

 Yeah, this is much worse than the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

 BS. Those trash accounts don't try to cite their sources.

Source: tag owner

 Almost as good as today's Freddie Mercury meme.

 absolute truth

 @dobermon: Dannys bike is still 2kg heavier than a DH bike of a dentist.

 You're so right @WAKIdesigns ... Those idiots are the bane of Facebook groups.

 @BirdBikes: It's even worse on insta

 What's this..."facebook"?...."insta" huh??

 Who doesn't?!

 Doood. I still pronounce all the racers names in my head in....Rob Warner voice. It's freakin hilarious!

 It's funny, I probably do this with DH racers more than any other figures. Other prime examples: Tracey Hannah, Ratboy.

 You desire him.

 6(50b)'9ers.

 97.5 sounds like a radio station that plays all the classic rock hits you never want to hear again.

 @Ron-C: "I got my first real six-string..."

 Mullet bikes

 79.5er

 Rimjobbers?

 @Ron-C:
Amazing that you say that. In London, Ontario where I'm originally from we had "Q97.5" and it was all easy rock and contemporary stuff haha

 They make both a 2.40 and 2.40wt for those tires.

 @Austink: The tubelessready DH tires are all Wide Trail

 How are DH bikes getting so god damn light? That's pretty damn similar to my 30.5lb trail bike. Or maybe the question is why is a short travel, 27.5 trail bike so heavy?

 @rezrov: Well his bike has DT 240s hubs front and rear (strong and light but not cheap oi ^^), carbon made front and rear triangle, frame is probably an L at best, carbon bars and seatpost, note sure but spokes (or at least some of them) appear to look like DT Aerolite or Sapim CX-Ray, probably some lightweight tru-axle with no quick release.

A bit of this, a bit of that and bob's your uncle!

 15kg with 200m coil suspension and downhill tyres. Crazy times.

 @Euskafreez: I just would've thought DH spacing, rims, inserts, casings, fork, and burliness would make more of a difference.

 @rezrov: Nah those EX471 are not that heavy and they only have to last a one way trip lmao. But those 240s hubs are really saving weight without any compromise. I guess if they have the partners with the right products (such as DT) they could manage to save weight without too much of a compromise.

Plus we have to keep in mind that Danny is not the heaviest lad on the circus. So maybe he doesn't need the strongest bike.

And we can only speculate about what we can't see. By using a Formula 1 type of paint, between 150 and 200g could be saved, full titanium and aluminium bolts and screws. I don't know if you're old enough, but Nicolas Vouilloz was a master at making his bike lighter. If money ain't a problem, many things could be done to make it lighter .

 @Euskafreez: let's hope they don't implement the halo on dh bikes.

 @Euskafreez: That can't be, Robert is my uncle

 @Ron-C: underrated comment!!!

 No dropper post.
No pie plate sized cassette.
Decent weight savings there.

But let's see a scale shot to 100% trust the 15.03kgs claim.

 For me that is too light for a DH bike. I TR11 at 33 lbs and it was getting bounced all over town. Then I rode a GT fury at 37 lbs and it felt quite planted. Now, before you flame me into oblivion....I'm well aware that suspension kinematics and suspension setup, tire pressure etc could and probably did play a major role. However, the heavier bike simply felt more planted. For these guys weight is probably a big concern. For me...nah.

 @shirk-007: are you sure you can fit a bottle cage in there?

 @rezrov: No kidding, it's very close to my 34 lbs trail bike... wait a minute...

 I hate this conversation - "wider is better". If I'm 5',800mm bars are going to be a bad time. I'm 5'9" and when I put myself into a push-up position where I feel I can generate the most amount of power, I'm around 765mm. I feel like there is a +/- window within that based on preferences. Then there's the angles on wrists too. I found 800mm bars killed my wrists. One size does not fit all.

 @spinko: I get that brands sell only the widest bars. It can be incredibly hard for customers to make them longer if they wanted to. This is why they make them longer than most people need them to be. They very often do come with cut marks to help them cut down to their preferred width. If yours didn't come with such marks I fully understand your frustration. Easiest in such case would be to go from the full width and go back from there. So if your bars came at 800mm, you'll need to remove 800-765=35. That's 17.5mm both ends. Because of up- and backsweep, divide 17.5mm by cos(upsweep)*cos(backsweep) and you know how much to cut from each end. As you're from Canada, you're just lucky that you don't have to convert it to inches before you can actually measure it. Your American neighbours usually don't cut them because of this, too much hassle. Usually the excess lenght wears off over time anyway, depending on where, how often and how hard you crash.

But my advice now is to double check if your bars may have some cut marks you just haven't noticed. It could save you some hassle.

 Yeah at 6'0 with a pretty wide wingspan the 800mm bars were a huge help for stability and power for me personally- but the idea that wide works for all bodies is ridiculous. Again though, as has been said, aside from some riding the bandwagon and getting saddled with bars that suck for them this isn't an issue as bars can be cut. Way easier to cut a long bar than supplement a short one.

 Can't believe WC vet Danny Hart didn't know his best bar width. Is that not strange?

 @vinay: I have no problem with mfg's providing wide bars for people to cut back, in fact that's awesome. My point was more of the trends of people just saying that wider is better without talking about any other factors.

 @spinko: I think the trend for wider bars was until five years ago or so. There have been a good couple articles on how wide bars really should be (the one from Lee McCormack was one of the more recent) and with bike checks in the past couple of years riders were typically running something between 760 and 800mm wide, rarely over 800mm. I'm about 6ft tall and for the past ten years or so I've been running them at 780mm. That was stock width for these bars back then, but for me it felt spot on. But where I'm from (the Netherlands) I'm very often one of the shorter guys in a group of men. And I feel the current young adults are even taller. So yeah I get that they would run them wider, for those who ride mountainbikes.

 @vinay: yeah man. 780 @ 6' makes sense to me (ignoring shoulder width). Rock on dude!

 @spinko: Yeah, sorry for having a little fun trying to make a fool out of you . Only thing I meant to say is that even tough bars are sold wide, no one is even implying they should be used at stock width and the trend for wider definitely seems to be over for at least a good few years. Look at bars like you look at a aftermarket bicycle chain or shifter cable.

 @vinay: I am the same height as you and I've tried pretty much everything between 710 and 800. My sweet spot is 770 not including grips for DH but last year I did a couple of enduro races in this tight woodland. I cut them down to 760 including grips. It felt weird and never really got any better, but did give me a lot more confidence to hit those tree gaps faster. Amazing how cutting 8-9mm off each end can make such a difference to control, feel and power output.

 Did my math wrong. It's actually about 69 (nice) Big Macs

 @shirk-007: or 1.3 heart disease

 Second to last pic says the chainstays are still in the longer position even though the rear wheel is smaller, so I assume it's a 29 frame with the 27.5 wheel (and custom linkage to keep the geo the same) and he's leaving the rear axle further back to keep the wheelbase long.

 Just saw one on monday. It looked special to me

 I only saw one of those once and we referred to it as the stupid bastard. The rider got a rear flat and argued with us that a 26 tube wouldn't work. Dude ended up pushing that bike 2 miles because he wouldn't let us fit it for him.

 From the article: "A custom link helps maintains the bike's original geometry even with two different sized wheels."

 That is deeply upsetting.

 Pardon?

 Wheel balance?

 The decals on those rims goofy - offset 90 deg from one side to the next. I was so confused the first time I built some...eventually I realized.