Cross-Country Tech from the Pits - Les Gets World Cup XC 2019
Spain's Carlos Coloma's BH has been painted to commemorate his appearance at the 2016 Olympic games. Those aren't stickers, either, with even the fork's lettering and logos being done by hand and brush rather than with stickers. The phrase on the bike's top tube is a tattoo that his oldest son wrote out for him.
Michelin has a new cross-country tire that the Orbea KMC team was testing during the week in France. The fast-rolling, dry and dusty course suited a less aggressive tread pattern, though.
If you were watching the Andorra World Cup closely, you might have spotted Anne Terpstra's prototype Ghost cross-country rocket. Given that Terpstra won that race, she's probably a fan of the new bike, too. No word on tech details yet, but it looks to have a steeper seat angle, longer front-end, and a slacker head angle.
Bike setup in the Giant pits. Every millimeter is important.
A pair of Fox Step-Cast forks waiting to be called into action.
SR Suntour's Axon 34 Werx with a carbon crown and steerer tube. It gets a new air spring system with self-equalizing positive and negative chambers replacing the old version's coil-sprung negative spring. This drops grams and ensures that the negative spring pressure is always ideal, too. Adjustments including low-speed compression and rebound, and lockout.
Togs at the World Cup. The idea is to have some stability while resting your hands on the 'bar when climbing. Your thumbs come up over, not under like a with traditional grip.
Jolanda Neff's new Quarq power meter sports a solid chainring instead of being milled out to save grams. It's said to provide more accurate numbers.
Kate and Nino's new brakes.
Violated troll tire valve caps.
Ramona Forchini's Felt looking fast while sitting still.
Czech cross-country racer Ondrej Cink's Kross with DT Swiss suspension.
Henrique Avancini's Cannondale for Les Gets. The course doesn't look that rough but it's especially fast and bumpy, especially through the grassy sections, so Avancini chose full-suspension for comfort and traction but skipped using a dropper post. He also uses slightly wider rims and tires for the same reasons.
Chris Blevins tested both a hardtail and his full-suspension bike, eventually deciding to go with the latter due to the fast, bumpy conditions. His setup includes a set of fast-rolling Renegade tires, and much like Avancini, he ditched the dropper post for the tame Les Gets track. When it comes to suspension, he's running 70 PSI in his fork with three tokens, and the Brain fully on for his rear suspension.
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I've trashed several 29'er wheels on my other bikes in that timeframe but the flow EX just keeps rolling.