Tech Randoms: Nove Mesto XC World Cup 2022

 I was thinking the same thing. Those are eggbeaters.

 That would explain the pained expression on the mechanic’s face.

 I lol’d I have had them disintegrate on my mid-race multiple times.

 Have the same set of CB Eggbeater 11s on my XC bike. Been riding the same pedals for 5 years. Add some grease once a year. Super annoyed with any noise my bike might make. Ride thousands of kms a season on dusty trails. No issues.

 With a filthy sand speckled syringe....

 @rockyjonny: I have >3,700 Miles on my Candy 7's in the Arizona Desert without a rebuild. Love Candy.
I've had dozens upon dozens of rock strikes and have only been unclipped from the underside once.

 @Augustus-G: +1 for good experiences with crank bros stuff, my eggbeaters have been super solid!

 Rode of set of crank bros mallets for 10 years. Never one problem.

 same report here. I've probably got like 8 sets of cb pedals. I broke one set in that middle ground time where qc got really bad, but I have a couple of sets from before that era and a couple from the last few years and they are absolutely rock solid. One pair of egg beaters that lives on a commuter bike has gotten a little bit loose with the wings, but they still hold, just not as tight as they should and they are from the bad qc era.

 A friend had CB pedals and it completely froze during a 5hr ride. I have pictures of us beating it with a rock to get it spinning again. Good for you guys that haven't experienced reliability issues with yours, but for those of you who've had issues and continue to run them... drop them already. Leave the dark side, come to a place where pedals just work.

 But they still sell like hotcakes. ‍♂️

 All the Shimano sponsored racers mechanics are scratching their heads here wondering why one needs to service pedals, all they do is give the pedals a good scrubbing and they are good for the next 10 seasons of racing.

 @englertracing: every picture in here looks like there is was some sort of sand storm.

 @whereispat: Spring has sprung and the Pollen is a flyin' everywhere.

 Except for Shimano SPDs which go on for ever

 also the ones for the orbea oiz.

 Is the BH a Specialized?

 @A-HIGHLY-EDUCATED-PROFESSIONAL: With an axle concentric rear pivot? No, it isn’t.

 "The orange fork's connected to the....black bike. The black bike's connected to the.... green (?) tyre...."

 Then you should play the mtbfantasyleague.com ;-)

 @mtbfantasyleague: thanks for sharing! Bummer that I missed the first 2 rounds.

 He's probably on a frame that's too small for him and trying desperately to make the saddle to bar length work for him

 @stephenthesquirrel: a good deal of the racers on steep hta bikes have the saddle slammed back. It's a useless fad on XC bikes.

 It’s a shame that in the age of the carbon monocoque even the pros have to ride off-the-shelf frames. Looking at the saddle positions of Schwarzbauer and Valero Serrano, I want to tell them to get a frame their size already - knowing perfectly well, that they already ride the best approximation available to them.

It’s even worse in road racing, where the middle aged customers of Pinarello or Colnago didn’t want to have a myriad of spacers below the stem any more, leading to frame designs where 2m tall pros now ride size M frames with -17 degree 140mm stems and the saddles pushed all the way back in order to get the seat to bars relation they want.

 @Clink1983: TBH most of them have only started using dropper posts. I wouldn't loose too much sleep analysing it!

 There are like two pics of slammed back seats, two of a slammed forward seat and the rest seem in mid position. We can get het up about a lot of unimportant shit cant we?

 @paulskibum: What else to do while waiting for the weekend? ;-)

 @stephenthesquirrel: its probably better in XC to use a smaller frame for the weight savings

 @stephenthesquirrel: if you actually care about your XC bike fitting properly having the right STA is kind of important.

 are recycled/2nd hand tyres. The new trend for global warming...

 That pollen is going to be worse for people than suspension. The ultra fine moon dust of the Tahoe/ Sierra's is what is brutal on suspension (straight from Jordi's mouth)

 Yep, thats a pine tree pollen. For almost a week now, in Poland we have plenty of it everywhere. Pretty annoying

 You're in luck, they also come in black.

 @bman33: and occasionaly pistachio

 @ZanderShredsMtb: Sometimes even root beer!

 Or anywhere else. Has anyone actually seen one of these things?

 You can buy a unpainted version fairly easily and interestingly enough inexpensively.

 Cheap open mold frames. Pretty sure you could score one sans graphics.

 kinda like David Hasselhof

 @pedalt0themedal: Yes I have seen one....but only because I was liviing in Denmark for a little bit and would see Sebastian Fini on the local trails from time to time when he rode for their team in ~2019 - 2020. Other than that...nej!

 @pedalt0themedal: Its a dutch company as far as i can tell.
Im not sure about the old school geometry tho.

 @Thirty3: Same can be said for Thomus, Olympia or Torpado bikes

 @Whipperman: Yeah it's pretty wild how many there are. With some smart shopping a rider can have a WC ready frame without selling your kidneys.

 They aren’t American. They aren’t Eagles. Tawk amongst yourselves.

 @wyorider:
Wow - you've just ruined my day. I thought they were made out of the bones of the American Eagle......

 Strange right,
We believe there’s a huge amount of skill/knowledge in building a carbon framed bike, we pay a huge premium for them. We know that the equipment to build them is expensive, and requires a huge investment.
It would make you think that “catalog” frames should be of sufficient quality for us to ride, but we shun them.
Then we complain about bike prices, we complain about companies only being interested in making money, and ripping off their loyal customers.
Then we critique and criticize them for not updating their geo every 5 mins, and not putting money into R&D, but want more sustainable environmental practices.

We are our own worst enemies, bunch of silly apes riding bikes in the woods thinking we are better than everyone else….

 @onawalk: the issue with alibaba $400 carbon frames aren't the tech that went into them, it's the quality control behind them.

 @Starch-Anton: regurgitated pellets of the fried chicken the Bald Eagle is so fond of.

It’s so bad that I’m Alaksa they call ‘em dumpster chickens.

 According to his Instagram there's a bike check coming this (euro) evening on red bull. This is interesting as he seems to also have pulled lockout cables on his epic evo.

 The old Captain made for a nice front XC tyre. Fast rolling down the centre, but decent size side knobs. This one looks a lot slimmer.

 The smart riders don't need a brain....

 saw that and scrolled down to see if anyone else noticed

 Michelin launched some CX tires in the historic green just before Covid19 hit... maybe they had MTB plans in the pipeline that are now finally coming to fruition?

 And then we wonder why saddles break on race day... now we know.

 Team only at the moment I was told by a US based rider for them (but not sure if would be available in 2023 or not for everyone). It's a much better color in person than their 'salmon' color (IMHO)

 They last for a little while but they're replaced (sometimes) or cleaned and re-lubed (a lot) to minimize friction and all that XC jazz

 DT Swiss

 Advantage of new Spark that not sponsor correct shock is hidden.

 Actually - on second view I wouldn't considering there is what I suspect to be a bottle of Jack Daniels Whiskey on the table. Or is that the anesthetic?

 It looks straight out of Dexter.

 @iamamodel: it’s like one of those old cowboy movies where the doctor saws your leg off because you twisted your ankle.

 @iamamodel: anesthetic and disinfectant. Those traveling mechanics are super efficient.

 Don't know about the wire but Spesh is using a lot of data collection, as in dh.
Last week they were studying various points of vibration in order to decide between a hardtail versus a fully (re: flat probability)

 seems like a speedo

 I was thinking it was possible pollen?

 @neologisticzand:
Dandruff

 No Brain, Epic Evo setup with remote lockout Hump

 @HumpDiesel: good for him. that fork is jank

 @mm732: when I had the Epic, if it would have had the option for Brain or standard manual lockout, I’d have went for standard.

Hump