Track Walk & Tech Randoms: Snowshoe DH World Cup 2022

 it's just for the starting gate sit down.......

 It pained me to look at that

 Should have been an Assegai

 I've been having tire issue recently and been dreading spending $90+ for new ones. So I have like 3 plugs in and patches tryna squeeze every bit of life I can out of em. Then there's these guys out here chopping fresh knobs and making arts and crafts out of em.

 yeah that is ridicilous, what a waste. I knew they don't use bontrager tires on their wheels, but they should be able to find a used tire anyway

 All new $150 seat cover from maxxis review coming soon

 @yoimaninja: Order them from a german bike site or from wiggle. You can get maxxis for around $50-$60. Wiggle will be quicker and they don't charge shipping but it will be a little more expensive. Or just start riding specialized. The new T9 rubber is seriously impressive.

 @WestwardHo: I've seen quite a few riders on specialized tires recently with good things to say. I actually just bought a new vittoria mazza I found on sale. I've been loyal to maxxis minions for years but been pretty upset with the recent quality of mine. Curious to see how the mazza compares.

 It’s the only way Louis is going to put a Bontrager tyre on his bike. They aren’t being used on the wheels.

 @yoimaninja: Yeah, I would say the new t9 butcher is just as good if not better than a maxxgrip minion/assegai.

 @yoimaninja: Try specialized butcher front, eliminator rear. Such a good combo.

 @WestwardHo: Agreed. I have a T9 Butcher on the front of my Stumpy Evo. One of the best front tyres I've ever had

 That's the most action Loris's bontrager tires have seen all season...

 Don't worry is from the revious season

 When you get tires at no charge, money means nada.

 I mean it’s a Bontrager tire… he would cut up his blacked out maxxis tires

 @Gregmurray50: maybe it's a marketing thing.

Bontrager: good enough for Loris Vergier's butt, good enough for you!

 I can understand the frustration. But I also just find it interesting just how different the world of racing is. Raw and WHATEVER it takes to finish fastest down that mountain. I appreciate seeing these bits.

 probable the best use of a Bontrager tire i've seen

 @yoimaninja: I'm running two Specialized Eliminators on my DH bike and two Specialized Ground Controls on my trail hardtail, both are great.

 ... and might get replaced depending on the conditions and the damping on the rubber affecting the balls of the champ...

 @WestwardHo: wow, Wiggle has really good prices ... thank you bro!

 @yoimaninja: If you get the T9, just be ready for knobs that look like an old man's balls 2 weeks into riding.

Butcher T9 in the heaviest casing on the back of my bike looks a year older than the Schwalbe on the front that's been on my bike forever.

 @blowmyfuse: lol that was one of my issues with my current minions. They're only like a season and a half old and the knobs are beat to shit already. Got leaks in 2 spots from them tearing.

 @yoimaninja: Season and a half? Damn...I don't get a season out of tires. Go faster or work less/ride more. :beer":

 @blowmyfuse: maybe I cant be so mad then. I do get out 2-3x a week and def got my moneys worth out of em. Just feels wasteful bc there's still a good bit of tread left.

 @yoimaninja: understandable

 Intense welder on staff, on site and right up to take off.

 @KoffeeAndMTBz: Seriously. Those chainstays are so gusseted they might as well switch to all billet CNC

 @snarlymarley: next it'll be 100% weld bead

 It's not too late to edit the words "pearl necklace" out of that comment. Please.

 @chakaping: LOL!

 Maybe this is where Matt Wragg got his RuPaul Drag Race reference.

 Super unusual cockpit setup, especially considering Snowshoe isn't the steepest track in the World Cup. I do think that taller front ends are likely going to start trending soon, I've heard it makes for good body position on steep tracks.

 With a hand welded aluminium prototype frame the main question is, why din‘t they just give him a longer headtube and save us all the sight of that?

 I started running my bars a lot higher on my DH bike this year and it felt really good. I’m not quite as stacked as Dak but I can dig it.

 @Mattysville: I can see it becoming known as the 'DAK STAK' from here on out if we start seeing it catch on....

 I think he had said he was inspired from moto setups. Seems to be working pretty well for him this year

 That’s a pretty tiny head tube. Probably just experimenting before asking them to add 2 inches to the next proto frame, or they already machined their head tubes ahead of time haha. Also I’m totally pulling this out if my butt, but it might have to do with front end stiffness. I can imagine getting a lot more flex with that little head tube down on the bottom of the steerer as opposed to a full length steerer. Probably not the case but fun to think about.

 @FuzzyL: so they don’t need to setup a new jig.

 @ryanandrewrogers: I wonder if as chainstays are getting longer we’ll see racers with taller bars. I’m quite tall and my most recent bike has much longer stays than my previous, and my bars are much higher which feels great. And I don’t feel like I’m falling off the back like I have in the past with high bars

 @ryanandrewrogers: I'm here to wildy speculate here, but in my experience higher bars feel way better except for the relative lack of front end grip. But some race bikes (especially one off prototypes, it would seem) have been increasing chain stay length which should help weight the front tire better, so maybe the higher bar height + longer cs is a design direction we will see more of in the future

 @IsaacWislon82: @sudochuckwalla I've always felt as if new-geometry bikes (with their longer front-ends) feel like they force me to hinge forward at the hips to compensate lack of front-end grip. Seems like raising the bars and increasing the chainstay length would alleviate this body-positioning problem.

I recently mullet-ed my 29er and found the dropped BB (effectively "raising" the bars relative to my body position) also eased lower back muscle fatigue.

 @ryanandrewrogers: The Axle to Lower Crown is reduced so a steeper bike? Wonder if taller riders will go back to the Myles Rockwell 'Camel Toe, Bar height extender, lol

www.mtbr.com/threads/video-myles-rockwells-1998-and-2000-dh-race-bikes.1170330

 @jokermtb: Two downvotes (so far) from guys named Zak, who want it to be called ZAK STAK and are pissed off.

unless there is some other reason to downvote ZAK STAK

 @IsaacWislon82:
As you say, lack of front end grip with higher bar setups is certainly due to either chainstays being too short or improper bike fit overall. Most bikes, if ridden in halfway decently steep terrain, are set up with a front that´s too low in my opinion. I recently made the switch to 50mm rise bars and it totally changed the power i can generate on the bike and for how long i can stay active before fatigue forces me to become a passenger.
So even if a little bit of front end grip may be lost, which personally i highly doubt as weighting the front isn´t solely achievable through forcing the rider into a more forward position, keeping the body relaxed imho certainly makes up for it. Also, with the added ease of recovering from any forward pitching motion due to the higher bar, for me it feels easier to actively weigh the front, as now it´s not always a decision between generating grip or maintaining a stable body position. With the higher front i feel like less forward movement generates disproportionally more front end grip, while at the same time making it way easier to recover if things start going south. Now i generate most of my traction through my legs and through the bottom bracket, as it should be, rather than making pushups on the bar all the way down.

I´d go as far as saying that most people simply are accustomed to their bike forcing them over the front so it feels weird to actually stay in a more relaxed and less aggressive posture. It´s a little like learning to ride with proper forward vision. Looking ahead instead of on the front wheel makes your riding so much more effective, you start feeling as if you´re going slower when in reality your brain simply has more time to anticipate things. Hence why so many people go back to looking at their front wheel. It feels more on the edge and therefore more effective, even though it´s actually not. I reckon something similar is goign on with the low front ends. They feel more aggressive, therefore many people feel like they´re more effective.

Btw, they certainly are more effective on less steep tracks and at lower speeds in general. That may also factor into why the majority of riders feel more comfortable on them. At the averagely low speeds most riders ride at, the lower front gives more control.
Also, my observations only hold true for DH riding, as on a regular trail the speeds you encounter are much more varied and therefore a lower front end has a lot more situations to shine.
So the design overlap between bike categories is most likely another reason why we see less high cockpit setups, since most riders may prefer to stick with one setup throughout all their bikes for similar feel.

Whichever it is though, it´s certainly something to explore for anyone who suffers from back pain or feels like their ride is overly straineous on their back and/or arms.

 Can you do IS mount with carbon? I suspect it has more to do with ease of manufacturing than anything

 @adrennan: Yes you can. Most times they are metal reinforced so to save the carbon.

 For the same bolts, compressive strength > shear strength. You can use lighter equivalent hardware.

 @Afterschoolsports: They are both shear.

 Not ALL manufacturers... Banshee, still rocking the IS mounts.

Fun "LBS Employee Belittling Customers" story... when I was building the bike I went in to get an IS mount adapter. The cocky 20 something responded "Oh man that's OLD school, I don't even think you can get those anymore. Might be time for an upgrade"
"Uhh, it's for a brand new bike; they still exist"
One of the mechanics overheard the conversation and brought an adapter to the front for me.

 Very, very intense. For the life of me I cannot understand why it has been constructed that way

 @ryanandrewrogers: As a mainly armchair engineer, it looks like a temporary fix to prevent buckling failures

 @ryanandrewrogers: always a hard balance between a stiff enough chainstay that it works and one flexy enough to track really well.

 @kajones: either that or to help stiffen up the chainstay...I love watching these prototypes develop in near real time.

 @bulletbassman: Looks like Gwin wanted stiffer then , makes sense considering the speed and force that the last WC subjected riders to

 Holy heat affected zone.

 Came here to say exactly that!

 @kajones: As an early 2000's racer of Intense Grassroots, my first thought was maybe it split and Jeff re-welded it like he's done tons of frames in the past. But as others have all said, this is most likely just double down reinforcement.

I sent my old frame back once for a crack at the headtube. Decided to let a buddy buy it when it came back. He was a ripper and snapped the head tube off again. Sent it back. Steber welded it BACK on.

He ripped it off again and they sent him a small frame as a consolation prize. They had no warranty duty to him as a second owner, but didn't charge him a dime either time.

 There’s a joke there about not wiping your butt with something. But I guess those bontrager tires are good enough..

 Was that supposed to be a poem or something?

 @pargolf8: dark knight reference

 He read the opinion piece about RuPaul's drag race apparently and took it to heart.

 I wonder if his bags got lost in transit

 I reckon he lost a bet of some kind

 Looks like he stopped into the Lewisburg, WV Goodwill store and went ham!

 inflation onv.

 Cause it's a 4 million square mile country with 9 different climate regions in just the mainland?

 Much of the Blue Ridge / Allegheny mountains are temperate rainforest (not kidding) but not all of it. Snowshoe is parked at high elevation (for WV, 4,848') in what is the "southern variant" of boreal spruce-fir / northern hardwoods you'd find in N.England and Canada.

In WV that forest type has moved upslope (once the now-northern forests moved north after the last ice age) and they're now trapped at that elevation. It's above cloud line, so even when there aren't clouds, its 10-15 degrees cooler than surrounding (farmed) valleys. Its also perfectly situated by elevation & distance from Lake Erie to catch tons of SE flow moisture when that's moving off plus the jestream - hence, lotsa rain. Also - mass forest cover (which dominates that area) stores & cycles water locally too compared to urban / developed areas that used to have higher rainfall due to forest & wetland but now don't - so: more rain.

In my east coast mountain area, we've been getting rainshowers almost daily for weeks (common in summer and even in drought years). My nearest mountain-city (Asheville) gets 35-40 inches rain a year - lowest in the state, but just 20 miles out we get 80-90. Its all about jetstream, forest cover, and location.

 @Jamminator: Better and more concise answer than mine. Also I think Matador's FL weather is just Hot & Humid with a chance of Drug Lords (totally kidding man!)

 @Mtn-Goat-13: Hot, humid, and decent chance of getting hit by lightening or randomly attacked by a meth head

 @matadorCE: Good on ya - that's funny .I was gonna make a meth ref - my 1st ever FL experience in the Ocala National Parking Lot involved fighting off methheads & homeless bums, and then fleeing from a shooting (the "rainbow" gathering...I guess it was a Satanic rainbow - and I just never went back. No lack of meth-heads anywhere though - I've been robbed blind and have ran many of them outta my land at gunpoint in western NC. National problem...

 @Mtn-Goat-13: I'm in the valley between Caney Mtn and Chestnut Top in NW Henderson Co, my property is adjacent to the ranger district boundary and I swear it rains twice as much in that valley than anywhere in Buncombe or Henderson Counties.

 It's a chilly 59 here in SF with a high of 64 today.

Top 60 Timed Training is happening in an hour! (12:30 - 2:00 today PST).

Link to UCI schedule PDF might not work:

assets.ctfassets.net/761l7gh5x5an/6HvVSpoYwTuobmdgeITLF4/d1a1be591346a519eaa5e04738a85f82/SNOW_-_2022_UCI_MTB_World_Cup_Program_-_XCO-XCC-_DHI_-_FINAL.pdf

 YUP, was like that for the only time I did the 24 hours of snowshoe race (late 90's).....of course it is now that I'm heading back today for spectating....my fault, totally.

 I am not a great rider - would die on this track.. But even for Pros.. is that safe? You know how they complained about the last track not having been safe.. but this one looks like a disaster waiting to happen? Even the best tires won't be able to get any grip in this sauce????

 @saladdodger: Second that. I love to tear along as fast as possible up til its moist to pretty moist but not in mud & super slick...that just takes another level of skill entirely and the pros have it. Still - Snowshoe is a sedimentary dirt that is an entirely higher level of mud to clean off -takes me about 2 hrs to full get it off & out of everything on the bike @ Snowshoe so I don't even plan trips there if its gonna be wet - it'll also add another 2-3 lbs to your bike! Same at Windrock (Tennessee).

 @saladdodger: As with any track, "safety" when it comes to a WC level race is all relative. None of these riders would ever have a problem simply getting down this track safely if they wanted too. But as is the case with all tracks, that all depends on how fast they want to go. Its only "unsafe" if they make it unsafe by pushing the limits of how fast a particular track can be ridden.

 the DHF and High Roller 2 are offended by this comment. I reckon they aren't cutting the tire for faster rolling considering the conditions, seems more likely they are cutting knobs so that the tire sheds mud better. The Shorty seems like a more appropriate tire for this weekend's conditions but perhaps they didn't have 'em on hand.

 @ryanandrewrogers: That's what I meant actually, I found the Assegai a bit too keen to hold on to mud compared to the other tyres I mentioned.
I was riding a HR2 on the front last year actually. It could be a really good tyre if the edge blocks were significantly higher.
I'd definitely favour the Shorty out of the stock Maxxis line-up, but a cut Assegai might be awesome?

 @chakaping: Second that, the Assegai has my favorite edge blocks. The knobs just all need to be spaced out a bit more, maybe incorporating that HR2 slanted block design to shed dirt on the center knobs. Then, call it a DHF "II" and run away with everyone's money

 @ryanandrewrogers: Used to ride Shorty and MM and the latter is like 2x more versatile tire, it grips in the mud and not bad on rock, whereas Shorty simply gives up on harder surfaces. Don't know why, maybe I was unlucky, but for me MM >> Shorty in every aspect.

 @lkubica: Have you tried the new shorty? Came out last year I find it much more versatile than the old one. No diss to the MM tho, probably the most versatile tire on the market, but I don't think WC racers really care about versatility

 @lkubica: Have you tired the WTB Verdict? It's like the Mary but better in the slop and cornering. Amazing tyre.

 @ryanandrewrogers: I think the DHF tread should stay basically the same for the rest of time, but a HR3 as we're discussing could really fill a gap in their lineup.

 @chakaping: Verdict / Judge feel like you are cheating they're that good.

 @chakaping: HR III = DHR II (basically)

 @chakaping:

I love the verdict for "Hero dirt" down through "really wet and sloppy" sorts of conditions. But its not my favorite tire for dry conditions.

Its honestly kind of the wet season analog of the DHF (Which I view as a dry conditions down to hero dirt sort of tire personally).

 @ocnlogan: Verdict doesn't don't for me in the dry. I run Vigis in the dry

 @lkubica: the MM rolls surprisingly well on hardpack I thought, although a little squirmy sometimes. The Assegai I'm running up front now is more stable and rolls roughly as well on the road. I prefer the feel of the Assegai but don't quite know why.

 @tremeer023: Of course Assegai is better on hard surfaces, I was just trying to compare MM with Shorty here (although I did not ride the new Shorty). In fact I recently moved to a more rocky region and changed MM for Assegai (and thus will probably never try the new Shorty since don't need that kind of tire anymore). But MM did surprisingly well, was just a little less volume and did not handle roots that well.

 @ocnlogan: Totally agree. I'm currently riding a DHF front when the trails are dry and Verdict when they're wet. That can sometimes be on the same day at this time of year

 It's a CBF tuned design, one of the Canfield brothers (the one no longer with the brand "Canfield Bikes") has it posted to his instagram.

 @ryanandrewrogers: i thought it was i track?

 @bulletbassman: I think it is functionally a CBF design, but incorporates the "floating" idler pulley that i-track is patenting. i-track is primarily concerned with creating a mobile idler pulley that moves with the suspension (in the Intense proto it is attached to the chainstay). This reduces variance in anti-squat value as the bike goes through its travel.

 yay my four little wanker followers are back

 It's actually not uncommon to sit for a moment mid-race, even for the pros. Especially at races as mucky as this one is going to be you need a second to pull your goggle roll-offs. More aero than standing anyway IMO the tire seat is a great idea- I've personally slid off the back of a slack-angled seat before and introduced my balls to the much more painful tire on my rear wheel

 good for practice run stops for a sit down and look.....why sit in grit"?

 @ryanandrewrogers: I believe Sam Hill/his mechanic jacey first came up with the tire on the seat for mud races. Sdg then actually made a seat with knobs on it for a while.

 @justanotherusername: 2023 UCI under new broadcast is going to be a 30-minute racing summary and 2 hours of venue highlight.

 @KoffeeAndMTBz: More likely 1 hour of venue highlights and 1 hour of adverts.