PROTOTYPES, Lego Building and Bike Nerding at Val di Sole World Cup Downhill

Win @sram Maven Brakes – Vital DH Fantasy, It’s Free – https://www.vitalmtb.com/fantasy
World Cup Downhill mountain bike racers go from Leogang, Austria, to the steeps of Val di Sole, Italy for the 4th round of the UCI World Cup. Bikes are being prepared, setups are being changed and Reece Wilson is working on a fresh Lego Speed Champions kit before the action begins!

#MTB #DH #bike

[Music] so yeah training different rotos just on the maven to get a a really good contact but hss2 or sine Roto are just really good they walk with the new Maven breake as a Sant line is a little bit thinner than the HS to and uh yeah just make the the feeling on the brake a little bit different it’s always a OD one with breaks even on the candicate days when we’re shimo and now sh so is just really picky uh the last two years we were happy and good on the Proto rex on the RAR and the code steal on the front but no we we really want to ride the maven front and rear so we got to find solution to have a really good feeling on the on the lier you can have a metallic or organic and yeah different compound as well you can have different feeling and just playing around with all this and yeah and now I think we found a good uh a good setup so Loris is a and Lis is I I’m we’ve got got my new Lotus it’s it’s my birthday today turned 28 got through the 27 club and uh my wonderful friend Max Ren always got me this gift I think it’s a great gift not got much on today it’s raining still got very sore shoulder after Leo gang so perfect activity for me today are you normally a Lego man oh I was a massive Lego kid I’ve spent or my parents should I say spent hundreds of thousands of pounds probably on Lego as a kid I’ve I had up them all everything I think it’s probably still got it all in the attic to be fair never got rid of it it’s probably worth some money now so yeah I’ve always been a big Lego guy and uh I guess I got too old to get it for birthdays and Christmases so this is the first one I’ve had in a while buzzing about it is over there playing with Lego um Ben Vero working for J Factory team and actually Remy teran’s mechanic o chain is kind of a I would say not clutch system or it’s just like help on uh braking when you have braking points and just release a bit the tension they give you more like suspension activities and the braking and it helps a lot actually for the Riders pedal feedback here and uh chain gr flat and squat a little bit as well and then you can just adjust in between different degrees like from 4° up to 12 and it depends more on the tracks and the Riders feedback for example Remy is running in between between 6 and 9° and a bit of a preferences for 6° so far it’s just like every race like since we put it on it never took off and the braking like when it’s really rough you really feel it like when the brake is kind of loaded and the bike still really active under the braking pressure and you have less pedal feedback in your feet like and then it’s way smoother and you can just really go for it and aim for it without having that much of a pressure in your legs Well normally we we clean the bike after the race but that time cuz because of the good result we had a quite a bit of a party under the pit so we just going to was them now so yeah pretty much we watch we wash everything and just make sure everything is fine for for training so just um the same routine as usual cleaning everything making sure there’s no issue just preventing any problems well it’s it’s product new material in development so we are not that’s not one of the key point to be waterproof it’s at least waterproof enough to ride into the m so it’s what we’re looking for but for now yeah we develop the pro the all the material so we every time we we clean it we wash it we just give feedback to all in and but obviously we’ve been riding a week in schladming under the rain was great and we had couple day of testing under the heavy rain and even snow in pillar so that seems to work well Richie’s downhill bike between the EDR rounds he’s got a bit of bit of time where he wants to give the DH bike a bit of a run uh valder soul is a track that he really really likes it’s been 10 years since Richie was here he’s done pretty well in qualities and stuff here before and even as a junior this is one of the first tracks he did a pre-run of and was like top 10 dime sort of thing so I know the sports changed quite a bit but um he’s really excited about riding this kind of terrain it is the yet cycle special projects down bike it’s made specifically what Richie and mck Hannah Wanted U with a bit of input from the mechanics and the engineers just kind of went to town and made us what you see in front of you um 275 dedicated rewh 29 front so I guess the dedicated malt pretty adjustable sort of progression in the shock so we can make it different rates of progression to tune it for even air shocks as well got an airshock kicking around that sometimes he uses yeah him and Mick and our young Tyler have all got the the 2024 model love I’m Ben Oakley and we’re working on Charlie hatton’s bike this week we’ve just gone 3 and 1/2 mil longer um and that’s going to be the only change really from him it’s probably the only change he’s done in the last 2 years yeah just new headset cups um it’s just been a little process of um you know going slightly higher in the front end and now since we have gone higher he’s starting to feel a little cramped up um we’ve only gone up five mil um but it’s just shortened it up a little bit so yeah just giving them a bit more bit more reach and relief at the front so V all it’s an early truck you expecting a different setup no Charlie doesn’t change anything feels comfortable on the bike and yeah he likes feeling comfortable more than anything Charlie’s pretty much standard even tire pressures tires he likes to know what the bike’s going to do on most tracks so he pretty much changes his riding instead of changing the bike just he knows what to do and trusts the process take the stick off the packet and hide it so what have we got here then this finest Scottish Roofing lead um picked up in Fort William in haste uh for a bit of extra weight on the bike OE in-law’s running 500 gr underneath like The Bash plate on the bike couple of plates just like wrapped in a load of tape and then nice and Central a low center of gravity um just yeah little bit more weight in that sort of lower part of the bike really everyone’s theory on it is yeah lower Center gravity bike feels more planted carry a bit more speed especially for the lighter guys on the motorway like Jackson’s a really big fan of it Ollie likes it um they reckon they can feel that the bike’s just a bit more planted I it’s like when people get on an ebike and you’ve got all that weight in the bottom bracket motor area they feel just super planted if you have them set up nicely um you know it’s a small change at the end of the day cuz it’s 500 G on you know the bike’s 16 17 kg plus 70 kgs of Rider but then because it’s in the area it’s in it arguable how much difference it makes but the boys really like it they like the feel of it um so yeah I’m George I’m oen aahan mechanic we’re still full 29 at this point yeah we spend a while at the start of the year in Australia and New Zealand flipping between two wheel sizes seemed like we were pretty settled on Mallet at the time um then did a couple of races down there and by the end of it we we SLA back where we started on full 29 yeah I don’t know I mean he’s he’s got incredibly long limbs so he doesn’t suffer too much getting his uh his ass buzzed off the tire I mean it rolls real well he’s he’s super happy with it so for now I think we’re stick with it maybe offseason we’ll get back to doing some more more testing we’re in the M drer factory racing pit these are the three officers that start here my office there’s Dakota’s office and ronan’s office coffee maker very important coffee maker chill out area food Area Treatment area and gym but there’s some we have clients in there now so let’s go inside little kitchen dining area congresso area this is where we have our team meetings we watch GoPros we do all kinds of stuff all the important decisions are being made here bedroom Pablo’s asleep he always is 1 2 3 4 double bed and uh from here we go to the what is the bathroom here shower and we walk into the garage the mechanics garage so Wheels the bikes stay here um all the parts we have all the truck stuff that you need and then fridge for beers storage on top back door you’re are backstage now kitchen out outside and uh yeah we’re back in the front this is our European setup y brand new first time first year we use it and uh yeah we’re liking it it’s good it’s nice to have a big truck not so nice to set up but it’s nice once it’s set up samam and rock shocks the blackbox program is our sort of secret kind of ability to test products in the public eye like with the highest level athletes that we’re lucky enough to sponsor blackbox has become over the 20 25 years of we’ve done it it’s become the key of like ability to test stuff that isn’t available to the public may never be available to the public blackbox is kind of synonymous with like our future um Technologies and where we’re thinking of going and where we’re trying things out but the core of it is absolute cutand Edge technology from Rock shocks from samam um and sort of the direct connection with engineers and athletes um and yeah any product with Black Box on it be something different special we’ll take feedback throughout the whole season sort of do debriefs throughout the uh after every you know World Cup round and stuff and take that at the end of the season and move into what are we going to try to sort of accomplish what aligns with the engineers visions and ideas going into into the future we can do a race like a drag race hey let’s go 3 2 1 [Applause] Dylan are you feeling a bit under bike there yeah definitely he’s got a little more horsepower on me than uh on the turnon than the scooter [Applause] so arry we’re here in val Soul do you like it here yeah it’s good like it’s good like [Music] to to finally have like kind of cheap track all the way like not like a Mot or whatever I got last week and the motor so I’m up with only step and then no more excuses for me I F better every week and uh yeah last week was a another step forward and I’m really happy final run did not uh ended up as I would like but anyway speed uh on the weekend was good and I’m happy about it so looking forward for this weekend