f40pilot

Hi Jorge, Would it be a case of having to pay for my half of the entry? Silly question I know but needs to be asked! Would you have any performance numbers available, such as FTP etc.? Regards, Jason

One word dude: ChainReactionCycles...

Absolutely lovely, niiiice!

Damn straight! My bad! From now on everyone ignore me and listen to techguy, he's-on. Tech-guy, my RD has RD-M975-SGS on it.

P.S. rapid-rise long-cage RD=SGS, top-normal medium/long-cage RD=GS.

It boils down to cage length, GS is the "medium" which works well on a 3x9 drivetrain with a max cassette size of 32T, and the SGS is the long cage, 34T max and is a better bet for full suspension rigs and guys who cross chains often.

Absolutely spot-on! Maybe you'll like mine when it's done (I promise I'll get there eventually).

My Ventana was built up as a rigid 96er singlespeed, would that count as wierd enough?

Good point, generally the NORBA series courses are more flowing singletrack and less "tight" but the same can be said for some of the euro tracks, Spain is wide-open throttle and one averages 26km/h usually. Both the US and WC courses are a wide selection, sometimes the downhill guys would look at the course, look at the riders, look at the bikes and declare the whole lot friggin' insane! So yes, certain bikes would suit certain courses better but I still believe if you're a privateer and want the "one" bike, the niner's cover most of the bases.

PS. Almost forgot, Katie Compton took the US Nationals on a niner too.

Correct, no World Cup races were won on 29ers nor marathon World Cup. All the results I've quoted are very recent (November)and American.Europeans are always the absolute last to adopt new tech (suspension, disc brakes, tubeless tyres) so it will be a while till we see them in WC. The current Swiss sub-vet Marathon champ rides square-taper cranks with twin-rings, 1.95" semi-slicks and 80mm hardtail and early 9spd XTR, catch my drift? I stopped racing in europe waaaaay back in '97, an accident ruined the whole lot but I have a good pedigree (definately not a fighter pilot, sorry), 7 national road champs, 1 national marathon mtb champ and 1 national cyclocross title. A quick clue: I'm not South African... As for another clue: you might know some of my friends, whom I raced with from a very young age: Suzy Sauser, Axel Moos, Frishi? I also wrench for some folks you'd find are quite influential. Have you raced Elite XC? Those who have don't find my comment flippant at all!

Why can have a convoluted answer! Have you ever serviced your linkages? A summer marathon race usually means linkage bearings ingest quite a bit of mud (contrary to the statement "sealed cartridge" mud gets in everywhere). Failing to purge the gunk and get some fresh grease in there means that the bearings lock solid, start to rotate in their seats and very quickly ovalise their respective seats in their swingarms/rockers/front triangles. I used to have at least two high-end bikes per week that needed new swingarms/rocker assemblies, etc. Once even had a Yeti wherein not even the front triangle was salvageable because the bearings had locked solid, ovalised the rockers and the linkage bolts had fused the whole lot into the frame! SA mud can be very abrasive (see, even the soil is hardegat) and that means that euro and american recommendations generally can be halved in the summer months. Servicing the linkages after a big race (a la wet crater cruise) is a good precautionary procedure, it's expensive but cheaper than needing a new frameset every 3-4 months!

Do you know how much it costs to run a sub-10 short-susser 26er for a season? The beauty of the hardtail niners is that you get 80mm small-bump absorption without having to rebuild your linkages after every marathon event. Comfort? Who cares? I never had the time to think about comfort when I was racing...

Dude, where've you been? The top guys are all going 29". Check the results overseas, Todd Wells won the Sea Otter XC on a Spesh 29er, Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski took the US Nationals on a Fisher carbon 29er, etc.

You'll find that niners are on the brink of becoming the industry standard over the next few years. I was stuck in the same pickle as I've always raced a 26", both hardtail and 4" susser. I wanted something that gave more grip and small-bump compliance than the hardtail but didn't have the maintenance costs and mushy feel of the short-susser. I was also worried about slow-speed handling as I pretty much only do lap races, both here and abroad. Luckily I have very cool mates with a variety of niners and could allay all of my fears. I found that the good framesets turned just as well as I'd ever need but 29ers are very sensitive to tyre weight, watch that. Industry insiders reckon that 4" 26" bikes will disappear soon!