Damien Oton's Devinci Spartan - Finale Ligure EWS 2017

Damien Oton finished fourth when the Enduro World Series made its way to Finale Ligure, Italy, last year, and he'll be on the hunt for another strong result this weekend to finish off the season. Damien's on the newest iteration of the Devinci Spartan, which has 165mm of rear travel, 27.5" wheels, and a full carbon frame. The bike's longer than the previous version, and Damien initially debated between going with a small or a medium frame (he's a little over 5'6" tall) before settling on the medium size.






Cockpit

At the Whistler EWS round Damien was running 770mm bars, but for the Finale race he's on 750mm bars with a 40mm stem. There's no hard and fast rule for bar width, and some riders will switch sizes depending on the course, while others will stick with the same dimensions no matter how tight the tree are. Damien's brake levers are nearly parallel with the ground, a trend that seems to be especially popular with the French racers – Yoann Barelli runs a similar setup. There's a small swatch of grip tape on both levers, as well as on the dropper post and shift levers – precision is the name of the game when it comes to enduro racing.




Suspension Setup

Damien was on a coil shock for Whistler, but he's back on an air shock for Finale. There's 116 psi in his RockShox Superdeluxe RCT, and the maximum number of volume spacers have been added to the air can – Damien prefers his suspension to be as progressive as possible. His rebound has been tuned to be quicker at the top of the stroke, and slower at the end in order to keep him from getting bucked around by bigger hits. Damien and his mechanic do pay attention to sag – it's typically between 30-35%, but the final setup is based more on feel than anything else.

Up front, the 170mm RockShox Lyrik RCT3 is set at 63 psi with three bottomless tokens. According to Oton's mechanic, Vincent Poliseno, the fork has quite a bit more compression damping than the stock setup, but they've worked hard to give him enough suppleness at the beginning of the travel as well.





Tires

There's a DH-casing Maxxis Minion DHR II inflated to 22 psi up front, paired with a DoubleDown casing DHR II inflated to 25 psi in the rear. That setup's a little different than what we're used to seeing – riders typically run the heavier tire casing in the rear for extra flat protection, but in this case Damien chose to run the DH-casing tire up front because he prefers the way it feels out on the track, not for the flat protection. As a lighter rider with a smooth riding style flats aren't usually much of an issue for Damien, which is why there aren't any foam inserts hidden inside the tire.

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