Better late than never

Take a deep breath. With seven of eight races of the 2023 downhill season completed, we've seen plenty of drama already and there is still a bit to come next week in Mont-Sainte-Anne. I meant to start writing a few blogs about downhill racing throughout the season, but as usual got distracted by other things, so I'm making a somewhat late start now. Here's some of the themes and moments of the season so far.

 

Bruni is back, and then he nearly wasn't

Loic Bruni is so good, nobody was surprised to see him finish 3rd and 2nd in the first two races and find himself sitting at the top of the leaderboard, despite having to come back from an injury-ravaged 2022. After qualifying first and winning the semi final in Snowshoe, a result anywhere near the sharp end would have given him a healthy lead heading into the last round. It was a genuine shock to see him bin it into an uncomfortably sharp-looking pile of rocks on his race run after leading at the previous split. I hope he's not too badly hurt and is able to come out fighting next weekend.

Mind games from the French

Apparently Bruni singled out Loris Vergier as his main championship threat earlier in the race weekend. The view from the commentary booth was that this was classic Bruni mind games, but if that was the case then they backfired badly. Vergier put down a solid run to end up in fourth place on the day and close the gap to Bruni to only 60 points going into the final race. Despite this, Vergier decided to tempt fate by pointedly saying in his TV interview that he was happy to be going into Mont Sainte Anne with no injuries. Let's see what happens.

Pain is temporary, class is permanent

The women's field has been sadly decimated by head injuries over the last couple of years. I've really missed Myriam Nicole's presence during the season, as when she's on form I think she's a rider at who can match Vali Höll's raw pace. The second half of the season has also been missing Camille Balanche after a horrible crash in Andorra while leading the championship. Best wishes to both and hopefully they will be back and firing in 2024. The other, happier half of this story is the re-emergence of both Tahnée Seagrave and Marine Cabirou after long periods of injury. Seagrave had, by her standards, a mediocre start to the season, but it seemed like a trip to Hardline rekindled the fire a bit, and after narrowly missing out on a podium at the world championships in Fort William she is finishing the season strong with two world cup podiums and two seventh places. Cabirou has also had a great season, and after a steady start has lit up the last few rounds with a medal at worlds and back to back wins at the last two world cups. I can't wait to see all four of these women at full strength next season bringing the fight to Höll and Hoffman.

Save of the day

Almost every world cup has one of those moments where you are sure someone is going to crash horribly, but somehow they ride it out without even losing any speed. Snowshoe 23 was no exception, with the save of the day award going to Max Hartenstern for his full speed nose wheelie through one of the chunkier rock gardens. His back wheel was in the air for less than a second but it was long enough for him to pump down two or three big rock steps just on the front wheel and must have felt like a lifetime.

New kids on the block

A lot of the talk at the start of the season, and rightly so, was about the arrival of Williams and Goldstone to the elite category. They haven't disappointed. Jackson Goldstone has slotted into elites without skipping a beat and is currently lying third in the overall despite a puncture in the final at Snowshoe. Jordan Williams has been unable to match that consistency, but winning the first race of his elite career is the sort of thing that might never happen again. There are lots of other new elite racers this year too. Phoebe Gale and Gracey Hemstreet are the Goldiams (or Willistone?) of the elite women, and both are in the top ten of the overall standings after round seven. A couple of podiums for Gale were enough to put her into tenth despite some mishaps. Hemstreet has combined impressive consistency with a couple of stand-out moments, including an awesome run in Val di Sole that left her 7th despite a full on front-wheel-wash-over-the-bars incident. Without the crash her run would have been fast enough to separate Höll and Balanche in second place.

Crystal ball time

For the woman this is easy: Höll has already done enough to wrap up the overall and the main interest for the final round is the battle between Hoffman and the resurgent Cabirou for second place. The winner in the men's is a bit harder to pick. Normally with Loic Bruni leading into the final round you'd expect him to close it out, but I still don't know if he picked up an injury in his crash in finals, and Vergier now has a bit of momentum going into the final weekend. I'm expecting an all-French fight for the title but there are another three riders in Goldstone, Iles and Kolb who could mathematically still win if the top two slip up.

Well, I've run out of weekend so that's it for now. Maybe see you again after the final round for some more mind-expanding revelations.

A Pressing Issue

 In 1885, John Kemp Starley completed his design of the "safety bicycle" - a bike with two equal-sized wheels and a chain drive - and about a week later the first official complaint about a creaking bottom bracket was recorded. Since then the situation does not seem to have improved much. Persistent BB creaks that resist attempts from bike mechanics, manufacturers and exorcists to cure them are the bane of many an otherwise happy cyclist.

Part of the reason these shudder-inducing groans can be so tricky to get rid of is the challenge of accurately diagnosing them in the first place: there are simply so many possible causes. It's easy to immediately suspect the BB itself, but it could just as easily be an over-tight or under-greased pedal bearing, a worn or innacurately torqued crank / axle interface or even something completely different. (Hint: if the mysterious noise stops when you stand up then give your saddle a good wobble and see what happens.)

But let's assume for the moment that the pedals don't creak when you swap them onto another bike, that you've stripped, cleaned and properly tightened your cranks, and that you are now as sure as sure can be that it's definitely the BB. Before you hurl your bike off a cliff in a fit of rage, it's worth sparing a thought for your poor bottom bracket, and what it has to put up with. 

Landing heavily off drops, "schralping" berms, battering through fields of loose rocks and even pedalling back up to the top again all put a lot of stress on the bottom bracket area. Just standing up on the cranks puts your whole body weight through two pretty small bearings, as well as applying a massive amount of torque to the axle itself. The poor thing is suspended a few inches off the floor, right behind your front tyre, as you plough your way through water, mud and sand. And to top it all off nobody will buy it if it weighs more than 95g, even if pro DH riders nowadays are stuffing their crank axles with lead to make their bikes more stable. No wonder it complains occasionally.

The several different bottom bracket standards currently available fall into two camps based on how they fit into the frame: threaded and press fit. There are certainly people out there who are believers in the one true bottom bracket standard, whichever side of the divide they are on, but as usual the truth is that both of these approaches have pluses and minuses. 

Threaded bottom brackets are less likely to creak. The press-fit interface between the bearing and BB cup can be permanently installed by the manufacturer, and the threaded interface between BB and frame should keep itself tight as you pedal. It is also normally easier for a home mechanic to remove and reinstall threaded BBs, as long as they have the correct BB-specific spanner on hand. Press fit BBs on the other hand can be a bit lighter, and allow for a stiffer and stronger frame design in the BB area, all while being cheaper to manufacture and simpler to build into a carbon frame. You can also install them with a hammer in an emergency, or if you have a BMX.

So is one better? That of course depends on your perspective and requirements. I can only tell you that I haven't had any problems with press fit or threaded BBs in the last 20 years, and yes that includes several well-used and never maintained BMX BBs that were installed with a hammer. Square tapered axles on the other hand are a different story, and the quicker they are consigned to the bin of history the better.

You don't know what you haven't got until it's there

There aren't many pluses to being stuck inside in winter too injured to go riding, but at least it's given me some time to do other things, like sleeping too much, watching too much youtube, eating too much unhealthy food, etc. etc. I've also been making an effort to get my bike running smoothly so that when I am fit to ride I can just go without worrying about that.

Regular readers will know that I got pretty frustrated with the stock drivetrain on the 2019 Marin San Quentin 1 - mainly because of it's annoying habit of dropping the chain just as I was definitely about to beat a Strava record. I finally bit the bullet over Christmas and splurged for a shiny new Shimano 11spd setup with a (gasp) 42 tooth big cog on the back. Given that I'd been running a 32 / 36 ratio as my lowest gear for the last year without any real problems going straight to fifty-something teeth seemed a bit overkill. 

I like to do all the work on my bikes as much as possible, but the installation process highlighted once again how important a good local bike shop is. Despite having the right tools, googling for all the answers, heating it with a hair dryer, whacking it with a hammer, trying every possible alignment of tools including trying to balance standing up on each end of the cassette tool / chain whip combo (don't do this, it is stupid and dangerous and doesn't work. At least wear a helmet if you do) I could not get the old cassette locknut to shift. Five minutes and €4.50 later it was off thanks to a nice big bench-mounted vice in my local shop.

Anyway, back to the point of this post, which is that I found out about a tool I never knew existed, namely the Derailleur Hanger Alignment Tool. The way I found out was, of course, that I installed everything, adjusted limit screws and indexing and it still made a load of noises in first gear. I already had a suspicion that I'd bent the hanger before starting on the job, but thought that one simply bought a new hanger and that was the end of it. However, it turned out to be tricky to get hold of the right hanger, and even if I did it's best practice to check alighnment anyway, and I love bike tools, so I ended up with a shiny new toy.

New tools!

The tool was sold as a "Radon", but it was completely unbranded and looks remarkably similar to the SuperB TB-1946 which is available under a few different names. It was the cheapest I could find in stock anywhere but seems decent enough, and the small amount of play at the pivot doesn't seem to matter in practice. My only concern is how robust the gauge rod and clamp (middle of picture) are, but moderately careful handling should make that a non-issue.

Long story short (well, shorter anyway, I seem to have rambled quite a bit already) - the tool revealed that my hanger was, as suspected, bent, and quite a lot. The straightenening process was pretty straightforward (fnar fnar) and fixed everything so all 11 of the gears now run beautifully. As for cost effectiveness, I hope this one will be OK. I've bent the hanger on every mountain bike I've ever owned (yes, all two of them). As a kid I happily ran with only 12 of my theoretical 21 gears working (the front mech wouldn't go into the small cog and you couldn't get at the limit screws without unscrewing it from the bike, and I just couldn't be bothered) for a couple of years, but I'm a bit pickier now. I also get the feeling that modern drivetrains are a bit fussier about alignment. Hopefully it will be just as useful as the bottom bracket puller I bought in 1998 and used to remove my old cranks about 15 times last year.

Not A Review of the Marin San Quentin

Hello again dear Reader. The blog has been a bit short on posts recently, partly due to Christmas but mainly to do with me being a bit injured. I've been planning to write posts about why manual machines are silly, the many ways to ride off a cliff, what separates a great bunnyhop from an OK one, night riding experiences, what do do when it's raining and more, but they all require me to go out and ride, which I can't. Harrumph.

So instead, it's time to do a not-a-proper-review of the bike I've been riding this year - the Marin San Quentin 1. Why is it not a proper review? Basically because I'm not qualified to do that. As the total number of mountain bikes I've ever ridden is about 6, and only two of those for more than a few hours, and only one of those in the last decade, I can't possibly tell you where the Marin lies in the overall  mountain bike pantheon. All I can do is tell you how I've found it, what I liked and didn't and whether I'd do it all again given the chance.

February, ready for a first proper ride.

My criteria when deciding on a bike in the first place were it had to be fun to ride downhill and do a few jumps on, it should preferably be from a nearby shop, and it must be cheap. As it is the first MTB I've owned for a long time I wasn't sure how much I'd enjoy it and use it, hence my reluctance to get something really expensive. I trawled a few of the local shops and didn't find anything amazing looking in my price range but happened across a couple of likely candidates on a weekend away: a good deal on the 2019 model of the Marin and a Trek Roscoe at a similar price point. After reading all the online reviews on both and a bit of car park testing I settled on the San Quentin (longer and lower and slacker and all that) and went and bought it that afternoon.

The overwhelming first impression was the weight. The full suspension bike I had in 1997 weighed 14.5 kg (32lbs). 22 years later, and I almost couldn't believe that a hardtail that cost me the same amount (yes, the last bike was second hand, and inflation exists, but still..) could weigh a whole kg (2lbs) more. Not only that, but it felt very front heavy, making it hard to manual, hard to bunnyhop and hard to get out of the cellar. Still, apparently weight isn't everything, and I didn't have much choice anyway so I stuck with it for a while. 

The first couple of rides were of course amazingly fun, and pretty wet, but things all started to make sense the third time out, when I finally managed to find the top end of one of the local downhill trails. The slack (for me) head angle which seemed to have a mind of it's own on technical climbs really does make a difference from a 90s XC bike, and I had never felt so secure at speed. The weight also didn't matter so much until I got to the bottom and wanted to have another go. 

The San Quentin 1 is the bottom of the range model, and to hit that price point while still having something that is robust enough to ride hard, Marin had to cut so many component corners that the thing is practically round. The fork, while feeling robust enough, was really really heavy, and I never got more than half of the travel out of it, despite a full strip and grease after the first few rides. The preload adjuster also jammed but that was a cheap and easy fix once I worked out what part I needed. It was a no-brainer to update it once I realised I was going to be riding quite a bit and found something better with a decent discount. That one upgrade completely changed the feel of the bike, making it way more comfortable and controllable at speed, as well as feeling much lighter and more balanced.

It's amazing what a difference a fork that moves makes.

The drivetrain was also a bit of a letdown. It shifts fine and I could happily ride with 9 speeds and a lowest gear of 32/36 as there aren't any long steep hills where I ride, but the chain just would not stay on despite the chain guide supplied. The problem was that the crank spider was too big to allow the chain guard to sit as close to the chain as it should, meaning that there is plenty of room for it to fall off between the chainring and chain guide. There are also no ISCG tabs on the frame (the higher models get a slightly different frame that does have them) so the chain guide sandwiches on between the bottom bracket and the frame. That means that when the chain inevitably comes off it gets jammed in the chain guide, yanking it forward which then gradually unscrews the bottom bracket shell. Nice. I tried running without it but the budget clutchless rear mech and plain chainring (no narrow-wide here) just couldn't keep the chain on. All this chain dropping has also made a complete mess of the driveside chainstay, but hey, it's made of metal and has no resale value anyway, so no problem. 

One thing that is great to see (well, for future buyers, not so much for me) is that Marin have changed the spec for the 2021 model, upping the price slightly and adding a narrow-wide chainring and clutch rear mech, so it looks like they have been listening to some customer feedback.

The brakes, although being low end Tektro models, I actually found to be pretty good once I'd worked out how to bed them in properly, cleaned the rotors and changed the pads in one of them. At least until one of the levers took the full impact of being ridden into a tree hard enough to tweak my shoulder pretty badly. The other brake is still running great, with a solid lever feel and enough power for short 2 minute downhills. 

It is definitely not the unbranded cockpit holding me back from jumping this..

The other spec point of note is that there is no dropper post - inevitable at that price. I tried to go without for a while, but finally caved and bought one, and boy am I glad I did. I really wasn't expecting it to make so much difference to my riding, but being able to quickly change seat height for short sections of trail, as well as transitioning between climbs and descents without an off-bike pause really is a game-changer.

So, what have I changed, and did I get the right bike? In hindsight, if I'd known I was going to spend so much time this year riding bikes, I would have gone for a more expensive model, but I think I would have been very happy with a more expensive model of the San Quentin. The SQ2 looks like a much more solid spec, and I get on well with the sizing and feel of the bike.

Here's the current San Quentin lineup:

SQ1 - 899.00 € / £725 - Suntour XCM32, 9spd Microshift / Sunrace drivetrain, Tektro M275 brakes, own-brand finishing kit and wheels (which are "Boost QR 141"), Vee Tire Co Flow Snap tyres(27.5 x 2.6")

SQ2 - 1,399.00 € / £1,245 - Rockshox Recon RL, 11spd Deore / Sunrace drivetrain, Shimano MT201 brakes, Shimano boost hubs, TransX dropper,

SQ3 - 1,999 € / £1,695 - Rockshox Revelation RC, 12spd Deore drivetrain, Shimano MT420 brakes, X-Fusion Manic dropper, Maxxis Assegai tyres (27.5 x 2.5, Maxx Terra, Exo)

As for upgrades, I really don't like buying stuff unless I have to, but I've already upgraded the fork (useless), tyres, seatpost (for a dropper), chainring (didn't keep the chain on and then irreparably bent), chain guide and one brake (OK, that one was my fault). I haven't done the maths, but I guess that I've bought enough parts to take it past the price of the San Quentin 2, and although I'm happy with the bike I have now I'm still stuck with the lower grade frame without ISCG tabs. 

Love at fourth upgrade.

Got any questions about the bike? Fire away in the comments and I'll do my best to answer.

One can never have enough socks

In the name of Science, I went for a mountain bike ride today in odd socks to see if they made any difference. To cut a long story short: no, not really. I went for a reasonably lightweight merino sock on one foot, and a standard cotton sports sock on the other.

The things I do for my readers.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view) it wasn't really cold enough for a proper test, and both feet survived the ride without major discomfort.It was also one of my slower, shorter rides, so not too much opportunity to get them soaked in sweat either. In hindsight it would have been interesting to paddle in a stream mid-ride to see what happened, but somehow that idea didn't occur to me until too late. Oh well. Maybe next time.

I went this time with my partner, so we were at least in a very unscientific way able to compare how our clothes worked for us. In both cases, the coldest bits were our hands - nothing groundbreaking there. Other than that we were both perfectly comfortable for the majority of the ride - me in one mid-weight wool layer and a light jacket and her in three layers, two made of cotton, under an insulated jacket. The main difference was what happened after we stopped for a snack on the way back. I carried on feeling fine but she reported feeling pretty cold on the downhill parts of the way home. Perhaps there is some truth to what you can learn about "technical" clothes on the internet.

The cows don't seem bothered by the cold - maybe hooves are the answer.

It was overall a very pleasant ride, and proof that you don't need to break any records, or arrive home totally exhausted to have a good time. I also saw a couple of promising looking drops and gaps that I will hopefully make it back to at some point.

Another tempting and not too impossible-looking tree balance.

I've ridden past a lot of fallen trees crossing streams in the past few months - they seem to be quite common around here. At some point I'd like to have a go at riding over one of them but that's probably something that's better for a warmer day when tyres are a bit grippier and the thought of a long limp  home with wet feet and a twisted ankle isn't quite so horrifying.

I feel it in my fingers

 

Today was another chilly one, and I had a second go at testing my minimal cold weather outfit - just a synthetic baselayer under a thin windproof jacket. This time the plan worked perfectly. As soon as I got outside I was slightly uncomfortable, and could feel cold leaking in (or heat out, whatever..) in my hands and also through the front of my jacket. But then the magic happened - a few minutes of pedalling later and I was toasty warm apart from my fingers. Even they warmed up once I got to the woods and started going uphill.

Proof!

The only bit of me that was cold for the second half of the ride was my feet. They actually got worse every time I got off the bike, so it must be that they lose heat quickly through the ground when it is so frosty underfoot. Next time out I'll experiment with some different socks and see how that goes.

The first section of one of my favourite trails.

The ride itself was good! I recently went on a ride with a friend and went through part of the wood that I didn't know already, so today I wanted to go back and explore that area a bit. I got a bit lost getting there but found some nice trails on the way and made it in the end. After that I headed over to my favourite area and did a few laps of the "normal" trails. The conditions were pretty good for going fast! The ground was frozen enough to firm up some of the softer corners, but not icy enough to be slippery or scary, and according to Strava I had a couple of personal bests on some downhill sections. I also made it down one of the scariest bits of trail I've found so far without stopping or dabbing for the first time, so a double success. I like to try to find one new interesting thing, or do one thing I haven't done before on every ride, and today I managed both.

One day I'm going to ride over one of these. Maybe in the summer.

 

Tu-be or not tu-be

Coming back to mountain biking after nearly 20 years off meant I had to get up to speed with a few changes. First was the sheer number of types of bike available! Once you've been riding, reading and learning about it for a few months it's not so bad, but wanting to buy a brand new bike with no run-up was pretty overwhelming. Of course nobody agrees on what sort of bike you should get, and working it out from your riding style or local terrain is tricky when you really don't know what either of those things are yet.

Tyre pressures have also become much more important than they once were. Knowing your "ideal" type pressure, and checking it every ride is now essential. There are plenty of online sources that will tell you how to find a good starting point from which to experiment, and the right experiments to run from that point.

This trail is great fun and easy to ride as long as you don't look down

Coupled to that is the introduction of tubeless tyres, and at least here almost everyone seems to be in agreement: tubeless good, tubes bad. So being the curmudgeon I am I naturally decided to run tubes until I found them unbearable. Why? Well, tubeless costs money to set up (tape, sealant, valves, new pump), money to maintain (new sealant every now and then), requires maintenance and seems to in some cases be pretty awkward to get to work. You still have to carry a tube with you in case of tyre failure, and I don't like the idea of spraying sealant all over the woods either. Also most of the commonly mentioned advantages don't (yet?) apply to me. 

I've settled on 22psi in the front tyre and 24psi in the back which has given me more grip than I believed possible. I've been riding a tubed setup since February and am yet to have a puncture. Some of you are probably thinking that I need to ride faster, and I can only say that I'm trying - I'm a lot faster now than I was 6 months ago and still getting better. So although I probably will experiment with a tubeless setup in the future, for the moment I'm sticking with my tubes and I don't think they are holding me back.