MTB
Mountain bikers are notorious weight watchers, find out exactly how they fight the mechanical flab.
Mountain biking is a sport with compromise right at its very heart. Whether it's tyre compound, bar width or opting to go for porridge or bacon and egg for breakfast, pro racers have to make trade-offs at just about every level. Bike weight is a key factor; machines must be capable of warding off square edged hits at 30mph+ yet svelte enough to offer instant snap as soon as the power gets tapped on.
We spent a year poking and prodding the race machinery of the UCI World Cup along with some of the fastest Enduro World Series sleds to find out just how the big boys fight the flab.
1. Minimalism
Race bikes aren't like the weekend warrior chariots sat in our sheds; they have a single, specific purpose of going as fast as possible. Anything that detracts from this can (and will) be cleaved. When we checked out Steve Peat's Santa Cruz V-10in Cairns, he was running a custom 7-speed set-up. When you put out as many watts as Steve, you don't need 'easy' gears so his mechanic Tom Duncan had ditched two and added an alloy spacer. The spacer itself was then drilled out to reduce weight further!
2. Pro-tuned
Of course, when you're one of the world's fastest racers, your bike will benefit from a smattering of trick parts. But that's not to say they're all exclusively 'pro only'. Sam Hill took an incredible victory in Méribel aboard a Nukeproof Pulse rocking an off-the-shelf 400lb titanium spring. Albeit it was pushing specially manufactured one-off shock linkages...
Interestingly though, Jacy Shumilak, Hill's mechanic admitted that DH bikes can get too light and that 'somewhere around the 38.5lb' mark was just right. The focus on Hill's bike seemed to be more towards making it as quiet as possible over obsessive weight detailing.
3. Balancing acts
For the average rider, the incredible stopping power of the Shimano Saintfront brake is just about the best way to lop off speed. To find Peaty then running a Trail-spec Shimano XTR front set-up (complete with carbon fibre lever) in Cairns really emphasised a) just how committed he and Tom are to saving weight and b) how little he actually brakes.
Other pro riders often mix and match levers and calipers depending on sponsors too. This can help further trim weight and bolster lever feel.
4. Titanium
As mentioned, titanium mightn't be the elusive uber-metal it once was but to coat a bike in it still requires decent financial outlay. But what's a few zeros when you're hunting for seconds off the clock?! Joe Barnes' Canyon Spectral was one of the most bejeweled examples of titanium pimp we've seen. “I really go in for the ti bolts thing,” Joe told us, “It’s basically free weight.” Like Peaty's front brake above, he too was running titanium brake hardware along with just about everywhere else.
5. Nibbling!
This is when it really helps to have a full-time mechanic in your employment... Just about every pro bike we encounter has weight shaved from it in the most unlikely of places, the name of the game is 'marginal gains', or more simply, 'nibbling'. Whether it's material removed from shifters for better feel, mix and match chain devices or even an extremely lightweight grease used in a 'race day only' rear hub, all the subtle changes add up. The devil is most definitely in the details.
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