Duane_Bosch

Recently I bought a cheapo DH bike. It used to be a mates bike. I bought it from him in 2019, took it to France and then sold it on my return. It's an Intense M9 in the old CRC metalic blue. Anyway I recently bought the bike "back" for a frankly silly R6500. The brakes were horrible so they were immediately replaced with 2nd hand Magura MT05's. Those were ok but not stellar. Then the mate who sold the Magura's to me told me about this Shigura hack. I love the super light feel of a Shimano lever so this felt like a bit of an idea. I procured a set of SLX levers from Woodstock Cycle Works and they mated the shimano levers to the magura calipers. I did a hellsend shuttle day with the new setup last week and the brakes feel AMAZING! Nils reckons the shimano lever pushes more fluid than the Magura one hence the immense power. IMO this is a highly recommended hack if you've got maguras and you want a little more power.

I think this is good advice. A nice shiny brand new bike. What could be better? The Merida's look well priced on there.

I'd rather have the endorsement of the devil himself.

@LizMTB Maybe take a look at spivi. It's a spinning app that's got online classes and is more geared towards spinning. I've tried it using my smart trainer. It doesn't adjust the tension on the trainer but in a spinning class you would adjust the flywheel manually anyway so it's very much a spinning app. Also you can get 2nd hand smart spinning bikes that are more fit for purpose. whereas trying to pair a spin bike with mywoosh is probably not such a good fit. If you want to use mywoosh then I'd rather get a 2nd hand wheel off trainer and a cheapo 2nd hand bike. You should be able to source a 2nd hand trainer and a cheap hard tail MTB for under your 10k budget in the classifieds. You're going to have to have a phone, tablet or laptop with a decent internet connection to run the app. Just my 2c.

Greg Minnaar Kelly Slater Robby Naish Valentino Rossi Ricky Carmichael All redefined what it means to be a professional athlete.

It's time for a confession. If a grey ford double cab turned into that little slip way front of you on chappies right at the toll gate at around 6.30 a week or 2 ago it was me. Sorry guys in that crew. I did look and I honestly didn't see anyone. I've since started driving in there the "wrong" way to avoid the problem.

They didn't read the bit in the book about de escalation.

At the Elite level it's very much a young mans sport. The rider closest in age to GM who's won a WC or World Champs is Danny Hart at 33. Just shows how incredible he is as an athlete. Kelly Slater like. Source https://mtbdata.com/ranking/2024/downhill/men-elite/2024-07-30 The team manager role at SC had already been taken up by Steve Peat and they had already hired the next big thing in the sport being Jackson Goldstone. Sucks but it's professional sport.

Ja he's won at least one of them France has a great club system. I've often seen groups of sprogs (including Tahnee Seagrave when when a teenager) following coaches around Les Gets.

One more teeni comment and then I'm out. There's a reason Theo, Rory etc base themselves in Morzine and saffers all go over in groups every year and it's not the beer. It's not a bikepark. It's multiple bikeparks all linked making it the biggest linked mountain bike area in the world. You can ride the Champery World Cup track, The Chatel IXS track as well as tracks that have been used in National Champs races including the Swiss National, French national track(s) in Lindarets as well as the French National on Pleney. But the MAIN reason the fast guys base themselves there is the Pleney Steeps. The name says it all. There are MANY off piste trails that pop off the main lines that are SUPER steep and hectic. Like both wheels locked and still going too fast steep.

It's also a feeder series where there are age groups for younger riders to get up to speed. Also the events are typically held at venues that have previously hosted World Cups such as Wilengen and Lenzerheide. The track that they use at Chatel stitches together Bike Patrol and the bottom part of Serpentine which are both part of the Chatel Bike park. Serpentine is typical Euro Bike park with MASSIVE jumps and 5m tall berms. It's a blue. Bike Patrol on the other hand is a proper black that is honestly terrifying to a normal pleb like myself. It's suuper rooty and slippery in the trees and there are parts that are basically impossible to ride unless you are committed and going fast. It starts off with an off camper loose shale section that feels like you are going to fall off the mountain if you get it wrong.

Just a funny little anecdote when Duran was doing his postman pat impression in a tiny van around Europe he'd enter the IXS races because the race entry includes 3 or 4 days of lift access and the race entry was cheaper than the equivalent lift pass at normal times. That and the free food. He'd also collect all the red bull cans and feed those to reverse vending machines to gather a bit of cash.

To race the IXS races you need a UCI license. Much like a world cup there's a track walk followed by training, a seeding run and a finals run. IIRC they have a small final (21st-40th in seeding) and a big final (1st to 20th in seeding) The top 20 fastest qualifiers get to race for the win and podiums in the big final. So everyone gets a "finals" run but only the top guys get to race for the W and the cash. It's most certainly NOT a f*** around mates race series for losers who can't cut it at the World Cups. The level is incredibly high as evidenced by the top 10 around Ross.

What edges is ever so slightly to the Suito for me is that you can fold it up nicely and pack it away neatly. If you're in an apartment or pressed for space that might make a difference. That's probably a moot point tho because most people on here will have some sort of dedicated training area. *disclaimer I have an Elite trainer but not the Suito.

Notice he's on a Pyga proto. *Edit. Dylan Lamb won!