Fort Williams 2018: The Lizard Rockgardening.
- Thread starter chris_f
- Start date
Here's the thing that gets me confused about why flats are still a problem for the professional racers.
In 2010 or so, I worked at a trek dealership. They were blowing out all their old stock of king earl rims for like 6 bucks a pop. It was a fucking sweet rim - 31mm wide, 530g, and could be built up super stiff. The only thing that "sucked" about them was that they dented super easily. I went through 6 of them in a single summer riding pretty hard and replacing them whenever they started to look bad. I get that pro's ride their bikes harder than I do, but there's no fucking way they were doing more stupid shit than I was, casing 10-12ft stepdowns into rocks and such.
And these things were literally impossible to pinchflat. You could run race XC tubes for 1.5-1.9" tires in a 2.5 minion, and pinch flats just did not fucking happen. The rims would bend and ding all the time, but pinch flats were non-existent. No need for a crushcore, or tubeless, or any other shennanagins that the pro's get up to trying to prevent flats - they were super lightweight, and as long as you considered them disposable, they were fucking epic.
It's hard to believe that a race team couldn't afford to say "we run softer aluminum rims for our race runs, they get blown up after one run and we don't sell them to the public, but our racers don't get flats anymore"
Chains are the same goddamn thing. Nobody fucking wants 10 speed, or 11 speed on their DH bikes. If I remember right, Sram even put out a 7 speed few years ago, and then ditched it and forgot about it.
The solutions have existed for a long time, they've worked for a long time, and then were abandoned for god knows what reason.
In 2010 or so, I worked at a trek dealership. They were blowing out all their old stock of king earl rims for like 6 bucks a pop. It was a fucking sweet rim - 31mm wide, 530g, and could be built up super stiff. The only thing that "sucked" about them was that they dented super easily. I went through 6 of them in a single summer riding pretty hard and replacing them whenever they started to look bad. I get that pro's ride their bikes harder than I do, but there's no fucking way they were doing more stupid shit than I was, casing 10-12ft stepdowns into rocks and such.
And these things were literally impossible to pinchflat. You could run race XC tubes for 1.5-1.9" tires in a 2.5 minion, and pinch flats just did not fucking happen. The rims would bend and ding all the time, but pinch flats were non-existent. No need for a crushcore, or tubeless, or any other shennanagins that the pro's get up to trying to prevent flats - they were super lightweight, and as long as you considered them disposable, they were fucking epic.
It's hard to believe that a race team couldn't afford to say "we run softer aluminum rims for our race runs, they get blown up after one run and we don't sell them to the public, but our racers don't get flats anymore"
Chains are the same goddamn thing. Nobody fucking wants 10 speed, or 11 speed on their DH bikes. If I remember right, Sram even put out a 7 speed few years ago, and then ditched it and forgot about it.
The solutions have existed for a long time, they've worked for a long time, and then were abandoned for god knows what reason.
i believe there is a UCI rule that teams must be running items available for sale to the public; i think there might be a 6 month window associated with that.
Same thing with 1st gen DT Swiss rims, but everyone fucking moaned about it so they made subsequent models out of a less soft alloy.
I find that hard to believe. Half those guys are on frames with longer front triangles, experimental suspension, and have all sorts of crazy custom modifications going on.
Ha, I remember my old Sun MTX rims being like that. 10 dents at Mt. Snow, and only one flat.
Those rims were made out of ice cream in the summer.
this gets brought up occasionally, most recently with the 29er V10 and Norco prototype. I've glanced at the rule book and don't recall seeing any such rule for MTB. maybe a roadie thing?
Problem is- everyone wants tubeless for less weight (i'm assuming)... can't seal tubeless with 50 dents in your rim.
Last time I rode a proper DH bike I had a crap set of wheels with tubes, and a "race" set setup tubeless. Dented the tubeless setup in 1 run, flatted and went back to tubes.
I've dented wheels so bad you could poke the tube with your finger and still no flat. I don't get it either.
Last time I rode a proper DH bike I had a crap set of wheels with tubes, and a "race" set setup tubeless. Dented the tubeless setup in 1 run, flatted and went back to tubes.
I've dented wheels so bad you could poke the tube with your finger and still no flat. I don't get it either.
yea i just perused the rules and i probably got confused with road. there is an approval process for road frames for the UCI.
I've got confirmed by the VVR team leader that there is no such a rule for DH
and still only has 7 speeds.
PB waved that flag also, when talking about the Norco proto. They used the argument to justify their wish of seeing the new proto released to mere mortals.
I remember those, those were great!
D6.1
I only used them for race runs. I still have a front wheel with one in my bike hole.
Lots of people do
“many people are running them...the best people...” (they’re not, really)
I'd be real curious to weigh them. I donno, maybe having ~1 race a season wrecked because of a flat is worth any amount of weight savings, but I just have such a hard time imagining that a cushcore + sealant is a significant weight saving over a 70-80g xc race tube.
For instance, going off claimed weights (which are dubious), an ENVE DH rim is 475g. My old rims were 530g actual. A cushcore is 290g. Add another 50g of sealant, and you're hitting 815g on rim, liner, and sealant. A pretty basic XC race tube is 90g, so for a non-UST setup I was at 620. Is a UST tire really 200g lighter than a non-UST tire?
I donno... I guess I'm just still baffled by this move to carbon rims + cushcores + tonsoffuckingflats instead of the "easily dented rim no flats" model
Really?
By "basic" I assume you mean Butyl? I don't think I've ever seen a 26"x2.0 butyl tube under about 140g. I wouldn't use a 700x25 butyl road tube under 90g. Been there. won't be making that mistake again.
How about this: A decent hoop, plus cushcore, plus decent tire, plus decent psi = the best thing evar
For me, I'm tubeless with aluminum Stan's hoops. Cushcore, Maxxis exo. Maybe DD in the rear for teh gnar. But for us in sunny CO, most endurbros and saying "not needed".
Edit: To make this relevant to this thread...Didn't Gwin say "8psi is better than no psi" in one of his vids? Attributing making it down the rest of his qualifying run to his flat tire foam...which is Flat Tire Defender. I think? (too lazy to look up, but you get the point.)
For me, I'm tubeless with aluminum Stan's hoops. Cushcore, Maxxis exo. Maybe DD in the rear for teh gnar. But for us in sunny CO, most endurbros and saying "not needed".
Edit: To make this relevant to this thread...Didn't Gwin say "8psi is better than no psi" in one of his vids? Attributing making it down the rest of his qualifying run to his flat tire foam...which is Flat Tire Defender. I think? (too lazy to look up, but you get the point.)
Last edited:
I honestly don't remember what they were. I just remember that they were the lightest weight tubes my shop sold for MTB sizes, and they weighed out at 90-100g, and I one tube the entire summer, even though I went through said 6 rims. I guess my point is, flat avoidance was largely solved with tubes, and for some reason we switched to a shittier system that gets more flats with the extremely dubious claim of weighing less.
Whatever happened to using tires and tubes? Lightweight casings and kevlar beads to maintain more reasonable big wheel diameter weights is asking for trouble.
Just imagine if you took that X grams of sealant and Y grams of tire insert and added that to a casing or a rugged tube.....
Just imagine if you took that X grams of sealant and Y grams of tire insert and added that to a casing or a rugged tube.....
Small data set, not representative of the total riding population, but noteworthy:
Whistler opening day stats from PB
Tire Type Opening Weekend 2018:
Tube 55.00%
Tubeless 39.67%
Insert 5.33%
https://m.pinkbike.com/news/opening-weekend-survey-2018-what-people-are-riding-at-whistler-bike-park.html
Still using a 26" rear wheel. No more pinchflats (so far) since I started using a heavy dh tube.
i don’t. in the decade i’ve been watching wcdh people have always flatted. chains have always snapped. brakes have always failed. etc. at least since “dh” courses stopped being run on grassy ski slopes and les skinsuits were banned...
shit happens. nothing’s perfect. that’s part of ehat keeps it exciting. now if you make a stupid decision like running a 29er AssGui, there’s not much sympathy i can muster on your behalf...
shit happens. nothing’s perfect. that’s part of ehat keeps it exciting. now if you make a stupid decision like running a 29er AssGui, there’s not much sympathy i can muster on your behalf...
I do kinda feel sorry for Minnaar... he doesn't really have any other choice but to run his subpar signature tyre. Anyone else running them though, no sympathy.
Magic Mary's roll that well? Seems like a strange choice for a track with a long pedally bit
There are still some catalog companies that sell super soft rims.
He obviously hoped for Wetscream kinda season.
I think so too that the overly stiff carbon rims are part of the problem. And they aren‘t actually much lighter then their aluminium counterparts.
Just use a softer rim together with a liner and tubeless. The problem should be solved.
It would be interesting what people were running during a flat in the last three or so years (pinchflat as a cut doesn‘t count).
I have a feeling that there would be a high percentage of carbon rims.
If I was riding/racing DH I would be. And to be clear it was DH tire, DH tube, talc powder (lots of it) and soft aluminum rim to make that work.
On my enduro bike I run tubeless (with an insert when needed). It's lighter and less flats when running the lighter tires. I think a XC tube in a EXO/DD tire would flat too easily and I ride through a lot of cacti and thorny stuff so I'd be running sealant anyways.
All this anti-tubeless talk? Sounds like it's time to institute lizard re-education camps.
On a serious note though, I started riding tubeless because of flats. I can smash rock gardens and never get a flat. I feel this is one of the few areas where bikes have legitimately improved because of new technology.
Full disclosure: I once paid money to see David Icke speak. Also, I run dual ply minions, taped rims with sealant, no pool noodles.
On a serious note though, I started riding tubeless because of flats. I can smash rock gardens and never get a flat. I feel this is one of the few areas where bikes have legitimately improved because of new technology.
Full disclosure: I once paid money to see David Icke speak. Also, I run dual ply minions, taped rims with sealant, no pool noodles.
Last edited:
100%