No previous world champion or World Cup series winner has ever returned to the following season opener to take a win. The last time Gwin changed teams as the reigning series champion his results seemed to fall into a hole that took two seasons to dig himself out of. Combine this with the fact that Aaron has not only changed sponsors, but nearly every product and team member is different to last year, except his long-term wrench, John Hall, Fox damping and a few items of apparel.To come back and win in Lourdes is astonishing, but there's something else here that's just as noteworthy. How many of these well-priced, red and black World Cup winning bikes will we see at our local trails this year? Has everything just changed?
| The bike was awesome for the first race. We have been doing a lot of testing with the bike and the wheels, tires... everything. Most of the parts are new for me compared to last year. I felt like we were close, but you never know until you get here and ride the course against these guys. It was a tough weekend against the weather, kinda crazy, but I only had to make minimal changes. I think we nailed it with the base settings and they worked pretty good in the wet. I'm stoked for a first race, stoked to put everything together over a few months and come out on top. - Aaron Gwin |
| It's so emotional, first of all, I would like to thank all of our customers that have believed in us and trusted our bikes, and to all the guys that have told us it's a perfect bike, we have proved it today. I'm more than happy, totally overwhelmed. Aaron was riding the bike with such stability, such confidence and not having to take risks. We started this project years ago and the carbon fiber Tues that Aaron is riding is straight out of the box, that's the most important thing. The only thing that is different with his bike to the mass production is the brakes and tires and that's it. I think this is unique at the World Cup circus. - Stefan Willared, Chief Engineer, YT Industries. |
| We really worked hard in the off-season to get the settings where we wanted before coming over here, so we weren't scratching our heads after the first day of practice. John, the guys at Fox and YT all put in so many hours to get it ready. It's crazy to think that it's a bone-stock bike. I could sell it tomorrow and order another one online and be ready to go at the next race. - Aaron Gwin |
| He has slightly higher compression tuning compared to the production bikes, but this is obvious, he is so fast. A normal customer would be overloaded with this, but if they want the same setup they can tune it in, no problem. - Stefan Willared, Chief Engineer, YT Industries. |
| The sag changes slightly between tracks depending on how Aaron feels and how the tracks are shaping up. Earlier this week the conditions were changing almost hourly, from run to run. In muddy conditions, we go a little softer and if things dry out the sag will be a little bit less, anywhere between 20% and 30% at a real muddy race. We have a 'base setting' after our off-season testing, which we started with this weekend and honestly, we changed a maximum of two clicks on the compression, as things dried a little we went higher air pressure maybe 2-3psi. Surprisingly with the altitude at the top, the temperature warmed and raised the atmospheric pressure - the psi raised on its own so that ended up exactly where we wanted it.- John Hall, Aaron's mechanic |
| Everybody thinks that Aaron's suspension is notoriously stiff, and at one point back in the day, it was, comparatively to everybody else. Realistically he is in the range of everybody else nowadays but everyone still thinks it's stiffer. If I had to describe in one word what he looks for in the bike I would say active. He rides pretty centrally, maybe a little front bias. It's important to him for the front and rear suspension to be even, one will never be softer or stiffer than the other. - John Hall, Aaron's mechanic |
| I can't comment on tire pressures, except we went up one psi when we were sure it wasn't going to rain for the race run. We have a go-to pressure that we start with at every race because we know how it feels and then adjust from there. Early in the week, we were -1 from our standard pressure, as it dried we went back up and stayed there for race run. The most we change from the go-to pressure is 2psi, 3psi would be a major change for us. - John Hall, Aaron's mechanic |
| One thing that myself and Ben Arnott, (Angel's mechanic) have been super impressed with is that Aaron has never made it through one race weekend on one set of wheels, here and both riders spent the whole week on the same wheels including Aaron's race run. They held up, the bearings are awesome even in the super muddy conditions we went through, that stuff can tear bearings apart and they are still spinning great. - John Hall, Aaron's mechanic |
MENTIONS: @YTIndustries
But I guess Gwin's demands are different ^^
I'm sure were all aware at this point that Gwin didn't run his sponsors tires, but they don't have a very robust line yet
yup. its no secret in the bike industry about who makes tires for whom
Cheng Shin (CST - Cheng Shin Rubber Ind. Co. Ltd.) a.k.a. Maxxis, make tires for a good number of 'brands' as do Kenda and Duro
The "they're made in the same factory by the same company" -doesn't hold water. Giant, Scott, and Trek's alloy bikes are all made by the same company, but they are all completely separate designs with incomparable traits. Tires regardless of similarity will all ride different with slight differences and top level riders can notice these small minute changes. Hell, how many riders on PinkBike can't stand the Butcher but love the MinionDHF?
Just because it's made in same factory doesn't mean it's same quality (workers, material, quality control, etc...). I found that the expensive way
wet muddy run day before - gwin doesn't get fastest time
dry track on race day - gwin does get fastest time
...how does this mean he's fastest in wet and muddy?
Pigit, I think you made a mistake mate.
The fact that he got first shows that the bike is top quality, and it's fast enough not to hold him back. Not saying his bike is the best because he won, but it is good enough not to slow him down by so much that he loses his 1st place, or that it maybe doesn't even slow him down at all (or even an optimistic change that he's even faster on this bike).
The thing is, so many haters who were like "bad choice, he'll never win on a YT". And then he wins the first race and those same people refuse to accept that they were wrong, and now start saying shit like "yeah he would have won on any bike" or "he even won without a chain". Fact is that the bike is definitely above decent if he can take it to a win.
Just shows that a centimeter can mean a second slower or faster, probably the same for the angles and heights of the frame. And same for suspension, brakes, tyres, bike weight, etc.
YT is probably the lowest quality materials and manufacturing methods, wrapped in excellent geo and components. S-Works series though is one of the best stuff you can buy out there.
I know it sounds like Spec commercial but I would wrie that about any company doing great bikes, being bashed by delusional accusations having nothing to do with reality. Because Pinkbike decided that Specialized is evil, terrible.
I am telling you straight, you think it's the bike (difference between high-end machines whoch all pros are riding, I am not talking about 2004 Big Hit Vs ENVE10cc) because compared to WC top20 you suck at riding, you live inside a bubble being too far away from the edge to have an idea, nit only about riding itself, but all the small components of athlete's life, like family situation, sickness, training, nutrition, public relations, salaries, paying bills - all affecting physical and mental state in the start hut.
And BTW, I am an ambassador for Antidote bikes so I have nothing else to do with Spec than experience driven fascination with their bikes. And yes I'd chose my Carbon Jack over S-Works Enduro without a blink of an eye. Because it looks fantastic, it's a Koenigsegg of bike world and it is made in Poland.
Then again the smaller companies are usually more innovative because they follow their personal needs to improve the bikes, where as big commercial companies are out for as much profit as possible, so they aren't willing to be the first to invest in innovations that might not catch on. Good examples are the p.fix and p.slope that only came to the market about 5 years too late, only at the point when freestyle fixed gear and short suspension slopestyle fullies were at its highest point in popularity. The real rider owned companies have been doing it for year to produce the best bikes possible. Commercial companies such as Spesh only jump on the bandwagon when they see that it caught on and that there is money to be made. Thereby I will always support smaller innovative rider owned companies that actually invest into innovating bikes instead of those who are just out for my money.
Then just as I said and you both admitted that, There's hardly something if anything wrong with performance and quality of Specialized bikes, it's people's ideological attitude of how an ethical company is supposed to look like and act, that is being projected on certain companies in form of unfounded accusations. I have no problem with the fact that someone, or rather, so fkng many people don't like Spesh for the way they run their business, it's your head, love and hate whorver you want, just remember that this "dislike" of yours better br founded on some evidence before you set off on a crusade. There are people whom I just don't like. But I'm not putting it on a T-shirt. Spesh is Coke of MTB, no doubt it, but it doesn't make me like their bikes any less. I love Coke, but I drink it once a month, nobody makes me drink more and I don't give a tiniest fk who drinks it more often.
I can totally understand that though if (/because) none of the guys at spesh have a passion for FGFS.
And since when are the bad things that specialized did such as the Cafe Roubaix story, stealing the NoTubes design, etc, etc rumors? They are facts and there is plenty of evidence for that.
Yes Specialized makes good bikes, but the things they did were enough reason for me not to like them anymore. Imagine your daughters boyfriend once beat your daughter up. Doesn't matter how nice he'd treat her the rest of the time, I would never be able to like him again.
Since this thread started about YT, tell me what they did with thier bikes that is a major innovation? They simply build carbon bikes with modified Horst link rear suspensions. They did not develop anything. There was no true innovation there. And thier new bike, a slacked out mid travel 29er? Seems like they are the ones jumping in the bandwagon there. I'm not trying to shit on YT here. By all accounts the bikes are good. I'm just pointing out that you comments about innovation just don't make sense.
And another thing. Stop acting like only large companies like specialized want to make a profit. All bike companies, even the rider owned ones want to take you money. No one is out there running a charity for mountain bikers.
In the street / skatepark scene this was very noticeable. The rider owned companies were ALWAYS the ones improving the bikes to the riders their needs. Things such as higher bbs, shorter chain stays, tapered drop outs, mid bb for BMX cranks, bmx spacing for pegs, integrated pivotal seatposts in the frames, removable cable mounts, etc, were always coming from rider owned companies such as Black Market Bikes, NS Bikes, Dartmoor, etc. where as the commercial companies didn't even care about our scene because they get so much more ROI on XC and road bikes than on street bikes. Even if they had a kind of like street machine, they were years behind and it was shit.
Same with slopestyle, Dobermann had a short travel fully about 5 years before the p.slope. Same for black market, Kona and some others who were way earlier. Actually the 2 to hop on the bandwagon as last ones were specialized and Trek. Clearly because suddenly there became a demand to bikes like those and they saw an opportunity to make money.
If you follow the scene as closely as I do, you will see that there is a big difference between the ones driven by passion and the ones driven purely by money.
Commercial companies might act like they are the ones improving, but in reality they just wait for others to be guinea pigs and when they see it works out for them, they'll hop on the bandwagon and spend a lot of money on advertisement so that people who don't follow the scene closely will think their bikes are innovative.
How do you know NS-bikes or Banshee is passion driven when one of very few story lines they can make is that they are a small rider owned company driven by passion? All that with using nearly exactly same manufacturing methods at places with surely similar work and environmental ethics as biggest brands use. It's just done on a smaller scale. Bike industry is not the place to earn money, it's a bloody given thing. You have to be nuts to get into it thinking you'll get rich, or at least get into upper middle class. The only thing YT does well in my view is offer a great geometry and components at low prices because I don't believe by a tiniest margin that their carbon frames are neither worse nor better than SC or Yeti, while I suspect their alu work is on par with Rockhopper.
But well it's your view of reality forging your set of values, I shouldn't really give a tiniest damn and it's a historicaly well proven fact that saving people from themselves is the mother of most fk ups.
Every pro knows they'll almost always have to watch what they say around people, but you can normally pick up on the difference, specially when you listen to professional sales pitches and advertising all day from reps and riders who know their words are being listened to carefully at that time.
Those brakes just look cheap.. I don't think trp sales are going to increase even with Gwin using them.
Simply because they may "look cheap" doesn't mean they perform as such. That's all TRP builds.
www.trpbrakes.com
Sorry.. but if I am going to put down good money on a set of brakes I'll keep on buying HOPE.
Loic fell, Gwin didn't. Shoulda, coulda, woulda doesn't count.
I will say it now with a straight face, and I will be proven right in six months (as long as both riders stay healthy) - Gwin is the second fastest rider in UCI World Cup racing this season. Is that because of the bike? I wouldn't rule it out.
...heck, they could drop the team tomorrow, & have gotten their money's worth. in fact, I would be surprised to see them not keep Gwin around after this season, especially if he wins the overall. He's expensive, & he has a reputation for causing trouble during contract season. best way to deal with that is to get what you need out of him, & then send him on down the road before you find yourself at the center of... well, what happened to Specialized last year, & Trek a few before that.
Heck, Nico only raced 10 years, & has 16 wins. I feel fairly confident he'd be over 20 wins by now if he hadn't retired after such a(comparatively) short career.
granting, of course, that Bruni, or heck, even Minnaar don't spoil it for him. But this weekend is a pretty emphatic declaration that he isn't going to have a down year the way he did when he switched to Specialized.
That said, Gwin only needs 3 wins to tie Minnaar. It's hard to imagine him not getting that within the next 8 or so WCs. Certainly, he'll hit 16 far earlier than Nico, as he's not at a decade until the end of next year(& if you count it from his first WC race, not until about the 3rd race of 2018, seeing as he didn't race until the 4th race in 2008.)
For his Palmares to be complete Gwin has to win a few world championships, but aside from the numbers when it comes to figuring out something about how to ride a bike fast that none of their competitors fully understand then Vouilloz and Gwin are surely in a league of their own.
More bang for their buck, kiddo.
Stop runing the puns jimmy! Look! Gwin Masters winning!
As for Yeti, Trek, Spesh and YT. All are top of the line brands and top of the line bikes. The difference between top of the line bikes is very small. The difference between a top of the line bike from a great company and an entree bike of a not so good company with outdated geo is huge.
Regarding the second paragraph, I disagree. Loic on his lappiere was always behind Gwin last season who was riding a demo. First race back this season, Loic was on the demo and potentially could have beaten Gwin by 3 seconds, if not for the crash.
Coincidence?
And a bike can be better on one track that a different bike than another track. My point was that a great rider is great on whatever he’s on. Charlie Parker would run circles around anyone on a pawn shop saxophone he picked up that day. Sure a better one would have sounded better but he would still have been great. The greats find a way.
Gwin may be earning more money now, but he doesn't have the Specialized facilities or team. Loic, Finn, and Loris were offered to go to other companies who were willing to pay more, but they chose Specialized.
the bike is completely stock. well, except for the ti hardware, the custom brakes, the tires, the Blackbox shifter, and the RAD suspension.
For sale
Large YT TUES
Lightly used
Compared to magic mary or dhf
having a look at onzas line-up (and personal experience) their mud tire, the "Greina" has a different spike distribution with the outter ones reaching deeper into the tire flanks and having bigger space in between the single spikes on the tire's edge, this allows nice cleaning of the tire but (and I learned it last autumn) gets f#+ing slippery on wet rocks and it is not possible to work against this with cutting them (afaik) - after switching to the shorty, riding on wet rocks became more controlled due to more grip. I had the same experience with the hutchinson DZO (with trimmed center spikes) which delivered a riding experience comparable to the shorty (having a look at the spike alignment revelas some similarities). Of course I ride just for fun - but even with my modest riding level I was able to notice this (Or was I just blinded by the new purchased stuff?)
For dry and dusty conditions I still use the onza "citius" on front and "ibex" on back, works fine for me. Could be a possible setup for socal cond.
A: Many and YES. As long as there isn't a four-month-ish wait time for the Tuesday.
"Markus says that its name conjunction of two German words that translate to, "do it" in English"
So whats this yt weigh?
Dirt even put the Alu version in the Dirt-100 for years before the the carbon version came out.... they even continued to put the bike in there while it was still on 26 inch wheels. Once the 650b carbon one came out Dirt basically said to YT's owners that they had a WC winning machine and asked why they didn't have a team... so the rumour goes, YT looked embarrassed and said they'd only want to come in with the best....best team, best riders, best chance of winning etc....much like they did with Lacondegeuy in freeride.
I guess this was their plan, hasn't worked out too bad has it?!
The bikes are great, I had a Wicked-150 (remember those!?).... they're so cheap in Europe they will dominate the DH scene for a few years yet.
Do they have a US distributor?.... I know Canyon don't which is a shame as you're missing out on some mega deals as they sell off their 'old' 26 bikes in readiness for the new part carbon 650b bike reviewed on this site this week.
Long live companies like YT, they allow blue collar workers like me access to WC level bikes, couldn't be happier for YT and Gwin right now.....even though I prefer Loic Bruni as a person.
Thanks, keep up the great work on Gwin's bike and have a kick ass season!
shhh... the target customer might realize world-class performance has very little to do with the product and I *can't* buy my way to the podium!
*giggles*
I do think its important from a marketing perspective for these companies to have teams so that they can show that their products can stand up under the toughest tests under the best riders. But the "results" or the bikes themselves? Non relevant IMO.
Not hating, but things got better for Loic. Came back 2 seconds faster than Gwin, unlucky that he crashed, but hey ho. Finn also won his first world cup on the demo.
Have your opinions about Specialized as a company, yeah, but don't underestimate their bikes. They are godly.
Yes please
I hope you're not a rapper bro
BTW - the quote from the Smith bike check I gave you had them insist they rode the same wheelset for two seasons and you had no problem with that, but having Gwin's wrench say he rode one for all weekend is some high crime to you. You really have a problem here.
There isn't a problem with someone saying they rode on a set of rims for 2 seasons. That is pretty ambiguous and it means that they probably were referring to their non race day wheelsets.
Promote all you want but it's a f*cking bike check. we already know he'll promote the companies the give him money. what's your point?
PB knows what they are doing well enough. I don't mind it, but when its glaringly obvious it is pretty damn annoying. The 2 articles. This one vs the devinci, or hell, any other one read much differently. I guess you didn't do too well in englush eh?