But then Gwin happened, and when Gwin started beating all the guys by 3-7 seconds every weekend Greg started to look and sound a lot more human. Watching Greg try to make sense of a 7-second massacre after what I'm sure was a fantastic run on Greg's part was a lot more interesting than listening to his breakdown of winning the World Cup overall for the umpteenth time. That and winning World Champs in his home country was pretty inspirational and tear jerking and all that pussy BS too, I guess.
Then another thing happened. A few years back I realized I was tall and I couldn't ride like Sam Hill. Going inside on every corner with flat pedals and foot out looks super cool and is also really really slow for me. Suddenly Dr. Boring was the new model for success. Smooth. Big, wide arcs. Early braking. Carrying momentum. Boring it is, but damn if it doesn't work. So I started paying attention to what Greg did instead of just praying for his defeat as a human manifestation of everything boring and uncool about cycling.
Im glad I started paying attention, because something happened last weekend that no ones talking about: long chainstays happened, and they happened in a big way.
The XXL V10 has 10mm longer chainstays than the stock XL, via a repositioned lower shock link forward pivot on the front triangle. Then Greg had an even longer rear chainstay via the custom "GM link," and that's all on top of an already long stock 442mm chainstay. That means he was rolling around on a roughly 462mm chainstay, aka 18".
TLDR: that's really, really long. That's as long as Mick's chainstays on the unridable Cannondale Judge back in the day.
And it worked. He asked for it and then won a race on the bike. All the rules go out the window now.
Sorry for no pictures, I'm in line at the DMV right now.
16 comments:
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Long chainstays are in themselves boring and soulless
go back to reddit
Stick with Enduro Chuck... your DH races have really sucked. If you can't DH with the big boys, go full on Enduro.
Good god you're right...
^^ What a great relevant comment Enduro guy
Good luck at the DMV. Smart of you to have a back up plan.
You mean that the ride quality of a bike isn't singularly inversely proportional to the chainstay length? Internet riders: take note.
Aaron gwin makes greg minaar sound like James Bond
This isn't a popular position to take since most riders ride Specialized short chainstays copycat DH bikes, if not the destabilized Demo itself.
What will Special Ed do now that their whole short rear-end based geometry philosophy has been debunked by the Robots? Double down on short chainstay marketing? Make Gwinny-no-sinny another custom long chainstay one-off? Uh, that might not work do well with the funky Rotec pivot. ...Jason, please come to Mr. Sinyards office asap.
" Smooth. Big, wide arcs. Early braking. Carrying momentum. Boring it is, but damn if it doesn't work."
you just figured this out Charlie?
fuck are you a retard.
kill yourself now.
At the DMV. Paying your rent?
Comparing Minnar to dumb ass Dungey in any way is a huge insult to Minnar.
"I wanna thank the big man in the sky for my victory today, he really made it all happen today. "
Could somebody please address the intellectually debilitating effects that religion has on some of our fastest two wheeled athletes? 10 year old brain but fast insane.
Long chainstays or not, Bruni Gift wrapped yet another one for the Syndicate.
hahah you are not the only one.... you know, when i look the last gold win of steve peat in WC i saw what you say is the boring and predictable race style, well it looked kinda slow for sure but more than that it looks more clean,precise and very caring about not falling to the ground while going precisely fast and trying to be more effective in every turning or technical parts of the circuit, i watched it a few more times and i figured that those details were more close to win that overall than going down in that heavy rock drifting and letting the brake more loose in the circuit psycho mode, thats because going like that makes your time more open to add secs due to the mistakes you end up doing that, at the end of the run you may feel like you destroyed the track and your tires so great that its impossible to loose the race but... ironically the tall guy with the xxl bike ,a guy so big that he have to order a longer chainstay and ran like a guy wearing a big heavy costume almost not movin the body but surprisingly fast on the technical parts like there wasnt any rocks kicked your ass for 3 secs hahah.... happens men, sometimes one mens weakness for one normal height guy could be the best ally for this tall guys cuz due to their size they are more caring about what they do and when, to avoid mistakes. BTW back in the days when the DH star guy was sam hill i watched and downloaded many vids of him, i was shocked about sams technique to ride the bike and corner without moving the entire body, just pushing the bike with the hips and doing precise moves with the arms, maybe thats why today he have shoulder problems but damn it was like he was riding a motorbike without the engine and turned him pretty fast in those sick wc sections,it was like he was going down in easy mode and the other riders in epic mode cuz when you watch his runs it seem like they were no rocks or imposible sections for him LOL .
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