Photo Epic: Dual Slalom - Crankworx Rotorua 2020
2020 brought clear skies, warm weather, and a brand new course for the 100% Dual Slalom. We saw some incredibly tight racing with very close times and a few upsets along the way. The new course featured the usual berms and rollers, but had the addition of a large scrub jump about halfway down the track. Racers could definitely make up time on the scrub, but it was the flat corners that followed which proved to be the most challenging part of the course.
On the women's side of things, we had many dual slalom regulars like Jill Kintner, Anneke Beerten, Kialani Hines and Vaea Verbeeck. Casey Brown, who isn't necessarily known as a dual racer made an impressive finish and battled Jill in the final heat. In the end, Jill remained dominant with Casey grabbing the silver and Vaea rounding out the podium in third. For the men, we had Kyle Strait finishing up top despite breaking multiple chains throughout the night. Bas Van Steenbergen was looking impressive on course knocking out most of his opponents, save Kyle. Local Matt Walker and US-based Colin Hudson battled it out for third place with Matt narrowly taking the win.
Author Info:
Must Read This Week
Sign Up for the Pinkbike Newsletter - All the Biggest, Most Interesting Stories in your Inbox
PB Newsletter Signup
teamrobotkillsyourface.com/2017/12/28/ett
The X01 and XX1 and similar chains have VERY tight tolerances (and as a result marginally more friction drag than some cheaper chains), but super fine silt might cause those top-end models to seize up in a way — ever so slightly, but enough to cause a problem for torque-monster racers. I’ve seen Whistler silt do weird stuff to my chains and certain other moving parts and bearings.
Whistler silt will cause almost any freshly-rebuilt fork of mine to spew fork oil — the silt is so fine that it gets into the wipers and seals and then seems to wear them, ejecting silty dirty oil in the process. Only happens to me at Whistler, nowhere else yet...but any silty riding spot might have that effect. Considering my experience with nano-scale diamond for grinding and polishing, I bet Rotorua’s silty-looking dirt has something to do with those broken chains. That and possibly the combo of silt and side-loading from shifting under power, and/or chainline, or just silt + massive power.
www.pinkbike.com/news/4-key-facts-from-the-cycling-tips-ultimate-chain-test.html
Likewise, I wouldn’t wear attire that directly resembles Yakuza tattoos (and I’ve inadvertently befriended and hung out with tattooed Yakuza — an assistant to a Yamaguchi-gumi head boss — in Tokyo numerous nights in 2017 at a bar by my AirBnB...they insisted I come back to meet their hot girlfriends the next night, LOL, and the unruly banter thus continued for several nights thereafter), the tattoos on a 6’8” 300 pound Bandito member I met when he mentioned he liked my RHD Honda Type R, Russian jail tattoos on some random spooky dudes here in Seattle, or other logos or symbols that could be confused with nefarious or hateful activities or groups. The one thing I’ve learned is that there are a lot of unsavory people and groups RIGHT below the polished surface in our society and world!