Cesar Rojo of Unno Bikes - It’s All in the DetailWords Chris Hall
Cesar Rojo is a great rider in his own right, but he's also one of the key engineers in the world of modern mountain biking. Having been responsible for some of the most progressive designs of the time with Mondraker, Cesar has moved on to run a consultancy working for some top brands, and has also established his own brand Unno Bikes.
Unno are creating some of the most beautiful high-end bikes available, but the detail goes beyond just the finished product, with great thought and care going into every step of the process. In this interview, we will talk to Cesar about his thoughts on bike geometry, testing, data acquisition, timing vs feel and comparisons between mountain biking and Moto GP and motocross.
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http://www.downtimepodcast.com/cesar-rojo/
Testing, testing testing, all after lengthy design optimisation, class is the right word for it, all without being an a*shole.
I have heard porter speak a few times but not sure he has the background to quantify much of his opinion, he does have experience though.
Interesting to see the guy from sick have a mini meltdown on video when this interview was raised to him regarding their 'new school' geometry and then flounce on all of the following technical questions.
Cesar led the way with geometry but knew where to stop and left others to race for the longest / slackest / most unuseable geometry.
If that's the case I think you are over analysing this point and looking for too much detail, what he is saying is correct after all to the point that 'long' geometry bikes are not successful at races.
I respect Cesar's background - the guy has a TON of knowledge. But his example of Isak Levisson is a sample size of one rider, represented by a boutique brand.
With many of the larger brands moving towards longer bikes, and many racers experimenting with reach offset cups, etc, it'll be interesting to see where we are at in a few years.
In terms of geometry evolving of course this will happen but I think we are now at the fine-tune stage, head angle numbers haven't really changed for years now in DH and we are now tweaking fork offset and adjusting front to rear weight bias with chainstay length to head angle correlation but no drastic numbers.
The only guys pushing super 'out there' geometry don't have data or results to back them up, it's almost a USP for the brand more than anything - I'm not sure if I personally count porter in with that though as he offers various reach and angle options (though his head angle options are pretty extreme) and he does understand the need for balance in a bikes geometry.
Back to Sick and Geometron - they have a niche, fine. But so was 650b, and we all know what happened. a couple of dorks who started off by stuffing terrible rims on terrible tyres to 26” frames and forks to raise bb, because fhey couldn’t fkng pedal over rocks without hitting them, they suddenly rule the world. Nothing to Kirk Pacenti, dude had his vision, fine, he was supposed to stay on niche level. Same with Eagle, who the F needs all this range. If it was a niche product, OneUp or Wolffooth making giant saucers, fine, but it got mainstream. So the problem arises, when evident deviation goes mainstream. As much as I like Sick boys, Chris Porter, I hope their vision will stay a kink and will not be sold by likes of Trek or Spec.
I read that about the Su-27 particularly, there was a version with "canards" wings and one without, the one with canards was much stable than the one without, but consequently less maniable.
So notwithstanding the relative lack of similarity between a fighter jet and a mountain bike, maybe the same kind of relation can be drawn : The longer the bike, the more stable, and mathematically the faster, but the shorter one, less stable is more maniable and may end up being the faster on the finish line.
It was particularly interesting at MSA as the 3 27,5 coming first went through that tight right turn in the wood pretty easily when some 29er strugled a lot more, though I haven't looked at each one to see if any conclusion can be drawn.
On such a short sample you can't really tell if it was the bikes or the riders.
On a side note I like how the geometron (and others) pushed the boundaries, but yeah maybe we've reach a sweet spot.
A Nicolai factory EWS team would be cool, though maybe geometrons are in fact better for the average Joe who wants stability, but not so good for the top riders who don't need that much stability.
The pits they use to get aluminum out of the earth are heinous. On the flip-side, I don't feel that Cesar's argument for carbon being better environmentally holds true for me either. If I want to recycle something aluminum, those facilities are relatively easy for me to access. For me to recycle a carbon part - it's a lot trickier.
Full disclaimer, I've got a Pole Machine and I LOVE it - and at the same time, it's got carbon parts on it too, so it'd be hypocritical of me to slam on carbon.
From a geometry standpoint, I still feel there will be shifts. Something as simple as crank lengths could change, and from there, a whole ripple could go into frame design again.
Leigh Johnson has been riding a Pole Machine at lots of enduro events and has had great results. It would be super fascinating to see one of the upper tier riders on a more unconventional bike (for example, Greg Minaar when he rode for Honda back in the day). But from a budget standpoint, when you're a design outlier, it's tough to get the money to pay for that talent.
@downtimepodcast - let's get the Pole guys on the podcast so we can keep the dialogue going
downhill24.bike/catching-up-with-cesar-rojo
We will have to agree to disagree on geometry changing in a huge way from this point onwards, congrats on the pole purchase thoigh, I think the construction is lovely, CNC is part of my job so I appreciate the work that has gone into it - it does explain your defence of the geo somewhat though ;-) - enjoy it, I'm sure it rides amazingly well.
Listen to Cesar himself here contradict this , mondraker allowed him to experiment, how else did forward geo come about?! other brands allow engineers to do this too, you also notice riders / racers using pre-production bikes which at the point of manufacture have the ability to be made with geometry of choice within reason, but yet none of these bikes have huge reach figures or mental head angles, do they?
Is this a conspiracy of some kind or is it somehow these smaller companies are run by genius minds that are well ahead of the curve? Highly unlikely.
What we are forgetting is that geometry has already gone through that huge shift - bikes are all much longer than just a few years ago, look at a modern specialized or giant, the reign has a 455mm reach medium and 64.5 head angle, that is a huge shift from the previous 'norm' and slacker and longer than the bike the WC giant riders used a few seasons ago (which is why they stuffed them with angle headset and ran one size up)
The reason nobody is winning on super slack, super long bikes is because normal bikes are now already slack and long, going further for the sake of niche is counter productive and the results speak for themselves, though I'm sure a conspiracy is a better explaination.
If I may hve my half arsed opinion I would say it is the opposite. Those super long bikes with weights attached to them suit shitty riders, because those bikes support being a passenger on the bike. There is no fkng way in the world, geometry has to be a balance between "static" stability (what bike can take without riders input) and "dynamic potential" that is how bike reacts to riders input. It doesn't take a rocket scientists to realize that further the wheels get from BB, the harder it is to make the bike do what you want to do. It takes more sheer muscle power to make the bike do things, since the bigger it is, the less feedback is being transmitted to the rider. So yeah, long bike with heavy center will roll better over holes - YES! but rider input can make the bike skip half of the holes. Here's my little theory applying to the design of the whole bike.
Where does the balance between static/ dynamic lie? Have we reached the optimum? Who knows. But for me personally, Stupid long low and slack smells too much of Awake as f*ck mentality, which only strength is uniqueness, and the moment the mainstream catches up, is the moment when they are left with no trousers on and everyone's looking. As I said Sick dudes fit that picture perfectly, and if they will try play Leo's and Chris pseudo performance game, they will loose.
Plus racers are SUPER conservative, when they get used to a bike they tend to stick to it (which as Cesar explained makes sense). That is why you don't see many racers with wide rims for that same reason, they have been used to thin rims for years. Greg Minaar has been going longer and longer but in tiny increments (his new XXL V-10 has a reach extension headset). He says he's most recent bike feels the best of all in his career! How long has he been riding? Why didn't he have a longer bike years ago?
To use pro riders as references as to the limits of bike design is a bit far fetched. Not to the point of roadbike racing (because of the UCI limitations) but still take it with a grain of salt.
There is a degree of conservatism from the larger brands. Carbon frames are expensive to produce and if they are wrong even more expensive - hence the aluminium Evo from Spec. Also there are very few riders at the top who can dictate to the big companies and engineers what bikes they want. Gwin and Minnaar maybe the only two... As such bigger brands will always follow smaller ones but they have a bigger budget for better riders hence results probably even out.
Anyway I think there will be a gradual shift to longer bikes and also more balanced bikes (longer CS) but it will take a other few years to catch up.
IMO Unno have keep their geo conservative so as not to scare off those who can afford to purchase them. Similar to the Taniwha. Again it is all a business strategy to sell bikes.
That's my 2 pence worth. Interested to see others opinions and more interviews on this topic.
His bike has a 475-482 reach, 64ish head angle - its bang within 'normal' on the circuit when his height at 6ft 3 is taken into account.
As I said above, the 'go longer and slacker' thing has been done over the past few years and almost converged now, DH bikes +-1 degree from 63 head angle and 640+- 5mm or so medium reach.
The big brand geometry is no longer conservative (your sucking up that conspiracy again there) as my giant example above stated, many are bringing XL models out with just short of 500mm reach.
Cesars point and one I agree with are bikes that diverge a great deal from from the current norm, which is now both slack and long compared to only a few years ago don't win races, not because of a worldwide conspiracy on bike geo but because they are then not the most suitable.
You seriously think average joe at about 5ft 11 should be on a 500mm reach 62deg head angle enduro bike? Minnaar disagrees.
Big brands are conservative but they are slowly getting to +500mm reach in their XL and XXL models whereas that would be an a L or M in Geometron terms. Plus they are doing that with 430mm chainstays and 74º seat angles!!!
Geometry is the final frontier in the mountainbike world in my humble opinion. Most bikes work great but lack great geometry. Steep seat angles are a no brainer.
Instead going for the regular version #notallowedto?
The argument why which bikes win is flawed. Nobody can really say, this dude wins because of this and that bike. Unlike the awake as fuk crowd, Cesar saod it several times: the rider matters, conditions matter, it is impossible to create controlled testing environment on a World Cup track. Amaury could win on a 26er. He said the same to me and to the Spoomer from vital.
I don't think we are far off. For me CS needs to grow with reach.
And no I don't think 5'11" riders should be on 500mm reach bikes even with a 78ESTA.
I like to test things out myself to see whether or not they work/are faster/better.
My conclusions so far are:
-wide rims are better as they provide better sidewall stability. There is such a thing as too wide for a certain width of tire too eg 40mm internal for 60mm tire (at least modern tires)
-slacker HA is better up to 63-64º beyond that you need serious gradient
-longer chainstays provide more traction and stability but make it harder to manual
-Longer wheelbase provides more stability again without problems going around tight stuff even +1300mm
-steep seat angles coupled with long reach allow you to climb better without being on the tip of the saddle
-Longer reach is again more stable and more confortable
Of course there is such a thing as too long, too slack and too low I just don't thing Pole or Nicolai geometron suffer from those unless you ride the wrong size frame.
There's so much pseudo science applied in bikes. Marketing (and riders) cling on to stuff that intuitively feels correct, but if you examine the simple scientific facts it falls apart. Bigger wheels have a larger contact area, being the best example. No they don't!
The whole long bikes can't go round corners is the same. They are marginally longer. 50mm reach may be a biggish change, but 50mm on wheelbase is bugger all, 5%.
The worse you are the better your kit needs to be.
I really wish this stuff was around when i was racing. Theres really alot of learnable information that you get out of these guys that is directly applicable to anyone that wants to get faster. And its free!
All i had was dumb magazines that delved into nothing of substance, unless it was about how "Specialized was awesome"
In conclusion, there's no right, no wrong when it comes to current enduro /DH bike design. Apart from being mega stiff, it seems that is universally bad..
MTB stuff is impossible to accurately measure and quantify while hurtling down a rocky, ever changing track. It is always going to rely partly on feel and preference.
Interesting when he said that for instance Loic will never go fast on a 29er because he hates 29ers - it's never going to be all about the bike in racing.
It would seem that it's time for a new era of steel DH bikes. Heavy enough to feel planted, just the right flex, not snappy, not megabucks!
#steelforthewin
cheers