Let's offroad / mountain bike / mtb / ride dirt

Heavier bikes go faster*

*Disclaimer: down hill only

Which is what this one is designed to do best, so that's ok.

Aren't they less chuckable though?

Steve Peat famously had his rims polished to save weight when he won his World title by 0.05s.

Should he have actually painted them with lead paint to have won by more?

Depends how strong you are, I guess. Or how big the jumps are.

Think I remember that bike. Had the hub bearing seals removed and only used half the number of rotor bolts?

Edit - yeah, that's the one

Steve’s mechanic, Rick ‘Ricky Bobby’ Clarkson, went to town on the DT Swiss EX1750 wheels, replacing the spokes, stripping the rims and hubs of paint, swapping grease for light oil and leaving out all the seals and dust shields, to reduce friction. They were so much faster that Steve had to change entry speeds and braking points to compensate!

No, he saved weight on the unsprung mass, that's smart. If anything, he should have given the frame an extra coat of paint to make it weigh more.

they were so much faster
#doubt

Ha, yes. Bit of a ceramic bearings moment there

All weight saved is smart unless the course is dead straight

being a (admittedly not comitted) weight weenie I often wonder about this. Thinking particularly about cx as anyone ever looked at the effect weight has on differences in effort needed to accelerate from a slow corner back up to speed? Everything around weight vs aero seems to be about steady speed. I wonder how that changes when you have a lot of micro accelerations.

(probably not that much but I just built a light weight cx bike so looking for excuses...)

To my mind, with less weight on your bike you will accelerate faster from the same effort (assuming all other factors are equal) Just think, how fast can I lift up a 5kg weight vs how fast can I lift a 10kg weight?

I mentioned this on my MTB thread I think, but Neko Mullaly in his frameworks series of videos did some back-to-back testing of lighter weight and heavier weight components (including taping water bottles to the frame in various locations as they're a handy .5kg) and he couldn't feel the lighter weight, but he could feel the loss of ability that went with the lighter weight.

With regards to the water bottles - he could feel them when up high, on the top of the seat tube say, but when they were down around the BB not so much.

Thinking particularly about cx as anyone ever looked at the effect weight has on differences in effort needed to accelerate from a slow corner back up to speed

Weight is everything (OK and the right kind of stiffness helps) in these situations, especially rotating weight. Aero is basically nothing in a CX race (unless you are Wout putting out 1600W on the only short tarmac section of the course). It's one reason why for crit races people will have lighter wheels compared to a flat steady RR.

Saving weight also generally helps in DH and Enduro, not just for the repeated accelerations and unsprung mass mentioned above but less mass means you can brake later and your tyres have to work less hard in the turns, allowing for faster overall speeds. There are some odd exceptions such as weight helping you keep a straight line through rough stuff but there's a reason why carbon frames, cranks and bars, 180mm rear rotors etc are pretty ubiquitous in DH and Enduro racing.

Shakedown ride on Yeti ARC today. I was grinning all day. It fits so much better than being stretched out on the overly long Bird Aether. It handled so much more intuitively and easily as I can get my weight over the bb but still have chest over stem.

I have found a smaller Bird frame used that I will collect on Friday and then transplant current components over to. However it has a much better fox shock so I’ll keep that and sell my frame with the Rockshox shock.

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Looks damn good, and making me want to pull the trigger on an EXT for my Kavenz!

This is pretty nice...

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Saving weight by ticking the delete brakes option

Sweet donut holder

The steerer tube? Will get it cut (and re tapped for the one up tool kit) when I am certain how many spacers I need below the stem.

Faster that way innit.

Finished, bar a heavier weight spring and a bigger brake adapter for the rear, but it's rideable.
The previous owner mashed up the pedal thread a bit, so got that tapped this morning. Won't get a chance to ride it til the weekend, but bouncing round the garden the shock rebound is pretty noisy. Dunno if that's a good or bad thing, but have spoken with Chris Porter and it's gonna get a service and proper revalve once my bank balance recovers.

A few pics, toddler for scale.

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Ideal for Epping

Quite the contrast between the two bikes.
Has toddler complained yet that you get a new and very badass looking bike compared to cute rockets?

I'd go faster if my bike had rockets on, I'm jealous of him