Comparing Miranda Miller & Connor Fearon's Kona Process X Race Bikes - EWS Val di Fassa 2021

 just means it's a gnarly set of stages.

 These riders are all on another level for sure.

 My hat's off to anyone who can uninstall inserts trail side mid-race without being DQ'd for unsportsmanlike like conduct.

 @ryanlabar: haha, so true

 It's race day, tube is a last resort to finish if everything else fails.

 Carry a tube, never flat. Don't carry a tube, flat every time.

 @ryanlabar: That is what the chainsaws at races are for. Quick swaps.

 @AndrewFleming: So true.

 I do think it is more for moral support rather actual usage, change DD tyre with cushcore trailside?

 @AndrewFleming: science

 That's the curse of anyone not running Michelin DH casings. Plebs...

 @AndrewFleming: Peer cience.

 While Moir win it all with no cushcore at all

 @mateo5: not always a good idea, getting a Cush core out is really hard let alone making a liaison. you need some gnarly tire levers for that.

 I'm 5'9" and 157lbs on a medium frame and Connor is 5'10" and 158lbs also on a medium frame...

 Also rider weight, and tire width.

 @mkem: with your very non-descript username, I assume it was just some random giving unsolicited personal dimensions

 @mkem: 5'10" on a medium frame, he must have a really interesting inseam-to-torso/arm-length ratio.

 @seraph: More likely pros don't need to ride super long bikes like amateurs do (as a crutch for the steep & high speed trails).

 @seraph: What do you mean? All top three EWS mens podium this weekend are 6 foot on mediums.

 @mkem: long chain stay or short chain stay setting?

 And weight of bike

 @lefthandohvhater: yes because they want to ride a more balanced bike which rides WAY better… the tall guys riding mediums are because the front and rear centers are the most proportional in that size vs larger sizes.

 @seraph: or it's a massive bike...

 @btjenki: has to do with them wanting a more balanced bike. The best riding bikes out there are the ones with the most proportionate front and rear centers. Do a survey on all the top ews and DH bikes being ridden and more specifically on the geo numbers of the exact size being ridden and you’ll see

 @stormracing: "Most proportionate" doesn't really make a ton of sense to me. Should be different for every rider don't you think?

 @lefthandohvhater: as in the front and rear are closest to each other in length

 @glenno: including all enduro tools and water in the bottle hahaha

 @stormracing: Not necessarily. That perhaps has something to do with it, but the reality is that Wheelbase has a big impact on a bikes abilities that impact both speed and fun factor. A longer wheel base gives you stability in rough straights/chutes...but that doesn't mean stability equals speed every time. That long wheelbase also has some cons obviously just like any vehicle does which is why there are a fair amount of pros sizing down...even with adjustable, longer chainstays that are more common these days. Regardless of the Why, lots of talented riders are sizing down since manufacturers jumped the shark with these wheelbases. Its fine to size down (assuming the TTL still works) so likely not a big deal unless you are a small rider. I'm a tall guy so its nice to have options I guess, tho at times I'm feeling inbetween a Large and XL in some of these bikes...

 @briceps: that's a possibility

 @Svinyard: I agree with what you are saying for sure! The wheel base part on some of these trails is big and some of these trail bikes have a bigger wheelbase than my 29er XL V10 and it’s insane.

But also just take a look into what I said and you’ll see.
I know for a fact that that is why Richie rides a medium

 @seraph: Keep in mind this bike has a reach of 465mm in a size medium, pretty close to a lot of "large" bikes from other brands

 @sitkadog: at least in these in these photos Miranda has short CS setting. Can’t see so clearly from Connor’s bike, but looks like he has the long setting.

 @btjenki: this is the truth. If you can deal with it you get better control and performance not steering a canoe

 @stormracing:

No mountain bikes, in the old days, mid days, or new days, have anything close to equal front center and rear center.

Rear wheel weight bias is good for mt bikes. To what degree, that’s the question everyone’s looking at these days.

 @stormracing: Very cool, yeah I also like the longer chainstays that grow with the bike. Interesting on Rude. On his SB6 he had 442 chainstays iirc and 426mm of reach. SB150 is is 433mm stays and 460mm of reach. Both are mediums. It'd be interesting to hear what he thinks in detail. He's no small dude for sure lol.

Geometry is such an interesting thing especially since the "LONGER" part seems to be bouncing back a bit for some manufacturers. Maybe we need shorter, more like 2019 Reach/FC's but another 10mm on the chainstays? Or hell maybe we just need that 2018/2019 Geo modernized a bit with STA's and touch extra chainstay length and then Richie can ride a large someday lol.

 @AckshunW: front ‘center’ was a poor choice of wording. I typed it a bit too quick. You know what I meant though

 @adrennan: You can click on their user name.

 Oh and be sure to ad mid race average grundle temperature

 @Svinyard: myself as well. Riding XLs the proportions are so messed up. Drives me nuts. It’s eye opening how well things ride when there’s more balance. I see why people talk so highly of certain bikes and they are always riding mediums and larges. Usually mediums.

Yep. Bingo! His numbers are close as compared to look how out of whack it gets when looking at larges and XLs. Check out the numbers on Sam Hills bike and all those guys. You’ll find many similarities. He’s spoken about that too somewhere(I need to dig and find it) when talking about the development of the Mega and also what bikes have felt the best to him over his career and why. Always had to do with balance.

I think wheelbase is really great in the DH department(arguably one of the best things we’ve done in DH bikes in a lot of years!) but it’s debatable how beneficial it is in enduro racing and just general trail riding.

I do think we are stretching out a bit much. I agree that we are maxing out on where bikes should be for length and all. We should definitely be making the rear end longers now to match and make a better riding bike! 20ish mm would go a long ways on XLs etc already out there.

I agree with what you are saying. Definitely some solid thoughts

 @stormracing:

I think i can—— but the idea that reach and Chainstay length should be close to equal to be “balanced” might be true, but it’s also arbitrary.

Center of BB is where the vector of weight from your feet goes, say 450mm from the rear axle. But then reach is measured forward from the BB, not measured from the front axle. I don’t see how reach and Chainstay length can really be compared in that way. They are not in equivalent “units” in my way of thinking.

 @seraph: At his height, Kona’s website has him firmly on a medium or on the bubble between medium and large depending on his inseam. I’m 5-11 with an average inseam for my height, and they recommend either a medium or large for me as well. So I don’t think this is anything out of the ordinary. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a medium Process X, but the medium Process 153 is like a kid’s bike.

Others have made references to other pros sizing down… Richie Rude is one of them. He and I are roughly the same height, and I’m with him sizing down to a medium Yeti. The larges feel gigantic! Pivot would be another brand I’d size down to medium. Kona, I’d stay with a large.

 @MisterChow: well I know that. at first glance reading the comments you don't know who it is.

 @stormracing: So they should be on smalls or x-smalls by your reasoning. You're arriving at the right answer but your reasoning doesn't make any sense.

 @lefthandohvhater: I agree.
The more I think about it, the more it continues to make sense to me but I know I’m definitely not wording it correctly and explaining my thought very well. I’ve been sitting here thinking about that for a bit now.
I’m trying to figure out how to get it out correctly to show my calculations and why

 @stormracing: Yeah I think it's just a matter of feel for these racers. the shorter the front center is in relation to the rear center the less hand pressure is required to evenly weight the wheels. Somewhere along the spectrum of front center to rear center there is a sweet spot for any rider but no one's is going to be the same really.

 @stormracing: This bike has adjustable chainstay length, either 435 or 450mm. If he wanted to ride a large he could just increase the length of the rear centre if what you are saying was true. Maybe shorter bikes are faster for some riders at higher skill levels and us mere mortals find stability and confidence with long bikes.

 @lefthandohvhater: oh most certainly down to feel. And definitely. I think it can be seen though from the majority of top racers that they all end up on bikes that like you said, have more evenly distributed weight on the bikes.
At the end of the day, short rear ended might be more fun for others but I think and it can be seen that the bikes with better and evenly weight distribution are the ones getting results

 @Daaaaaaaan: correct and the one being ridden is in long chainstay mode. Fearon has it in long thus creating a more balanced bike

 @lefthandohvhater: u saw latest mediums? people do not get bigger over last 10y, Current mediums have nice seat tube and roomy cockpit(460 reach or so) for 6'

 @lefthandohvhater: Jesse is not 6 feet tall. Closer to 5'7" yet he too is on a medium AFAIK

 @AckshunW:
My old 2015 XC Trek session had 450mm reach with 450mm chain stay and was a very well balanced bike tbh although I'm only 5'10" so was a great fit I don't think you'll see many taller riders on a 480/480

 Xc is typo

 @Prestige: We both run our CS in short at 435mm

 @stormracing: everyone will love the next MGM video where I do a bit of a sneaky mod not mentioned here

 @mkem: excited to see it!!

 @mkem: Oo, thanks for letting me know! Very interesting! I have the same bike, but in XL size, so I run the long CS setting. Just swapped to the mullet setup, and hoping to do some AB testing between mullet and 29" during the weekend. Why did you decide to go with the mullet?

 DH tires with a cushcore.... close to 40 lbs I bet

 I think most riders would be happy with chargers that don't leak out the top.

 @samnation: so much this. At least make that top seal serviceable. So wasteful chucking a perfectly fine damper for one seal (unless I'm misunderstanding the problem when they leak). Local suspension shop says it's crazy common with both Charger 2 and 2.1

 @piratetrails: cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0519/4441/files/Charger_II_Disassembly.pdf?89 that's charger disassembly directions care of Push suspension.

 yeah... bike will have traction when they hit the rear brake if the put the pivot on the cs.

 There are hot patches on his tires, on the drive side.

 They do have hot patches, but I think I also spotted the TK patch there. Also likely to be the illusive 2.5 DHR2s

 It's a Rock Shox Super Deluxe coil shock with a coil from Race Only in a 300-403Lb progressive wind.

>>https://www.raceonlysprings.com/

 @nouseforaname: that's interesting..so you get the best of both worlds instead of picking one spring rate? it responds differently as you ride?

 @crysvb: Noooo, I don't think so, unless I misunderstood you. It gets harder to compress the further into the travel you go. Like an air shock. Moto world has used this for years, and I'm not positive that there's necessarily been definite evidence of an improvement.

 @nouseforaname: LOL not sure why I’d get down voted but I’ve just never heard of something like that but it makes sense now. Thanks for the info

 I run a **350-403lb progressive spring, not a 300-403lb. Typo in the article

 @mkem: Do you find that the progressive spring makes a difference?

 @SonofBovril: Progressive springs rely on the leverage curve already tuned into the bike. In short travel applications such as XC you can have a leverage curve that ramps up then back down to keep the mid support firm and pedaling efficiency high. So with that in mind we are looking for a platform relying on increased support from the shock absorber, so in principal we are actually making it HARDER for the suspension to apply damping. This is where the progressive spring plays its part. As you sag into the travel of the bike you rest the damper shaft about 1/5 of the way into the body of the unit (air or coil) this allows a load equivalent to the rider to create control in both the weighted (compressions) and unweighted (the instances when your suspension finishes its compression and you've gotten over the obstacle, the low ground friction moment) which can be for performance reasons increased in either direction of weight applied to the spring. If you require more bottom out the ramp up will allow that at the end of the stroke while still dialing in the roughly 1/5 of sag to keep the bike stable in low ground friction moments. And to come full circle the traditional XC leverage curve is designed to make the suspension harder somewhere in the sag area but due to moving the axle path to more rearward these principles require a different shape and curve which can on certain bikes (namely single pivot linkage driven horst link or similar style layouts like the fsr or abp) be aided by increasing the bottom out force which is usually found from the volumetric displacement qualities of an air shock by way of a progressive spring.

 Because they couldn't engineer their bikes not to break with one back in the day, and now they understand that it makes only a small amount of difference.

 LOL. High pivot just complicates things. No chains come in lengths long enough for high pivots, you have to buy two chains and run two master links.

 @Simann: LOL! Wrong. The Deviate highlander uses a standard length chain.

 @Simann: that's why there is a chain shortage right now!

 @Simann: new Range runs single chain also. Believe it or not the design engineers do think about these things (most of the time).

 @andrewbikeguide: bullshit. Way more luck then good management .

 @porkchopsandwich: isn't that only on the smaller frames though...I think the larger sizes do need 2 chains.

 @Simann: That's your whole reason for disliking HP bikes? 2 chains?