It’s a weird bike, very weird. Is it fast? It seems, but it’s still weird.
Yep, I know, they’re there to win the race, it’s not a beauty contest.
Don’t the tire inserts help with this?
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With stopping flats?
Along those lines though, I am curious… the extra weight of an insert is better than a heavier tire that reduces the risk of a flat?
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not just stopping flats, but providing a bit of structure to the tire after a flat. If you have to ride on a flat, I’m assuming riding on a flat with an insert installed is better than riding on a rim.
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The running inserts option flew over my head when I proposed my question. Stopping to rip out the insert, valve, put in a tube, wrap up the insert and carry probably isn’t worth it time wise compared to not carrying a tube and relying on plugs and just riding the flat with insert to the next aid station. I’d be curious to see how many pros are riding inserts vs not/carrying a but just in case. I guess most if not all are running inserts. My guess is all?
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If I remember right, last year Keagan did not run an insert and ran higher pressure (I think on the podcast he said somewhere in the 20’s for psi). Did he run one this year?
I believe it was rear insert only, but I might be confusing his bike check with Laclan’s. I’ve run a rear insert at leadville the last 2 years after banging a rim a few years ago down powerline and dealing with a slow leak all the way to twin lakes. Honestly, I think powerline is the only place with significant pinch flat risk, maybe better to back off a little and loose a minute there and skip the insert.
I wonder where those guys flatted. There was one spot on powerline this year that had a couple tough lines and no line I’d consider good. I struggled with it twice during pre-rides and there were ~7 bikes on the side of the trail at that exact spot when I rolled through on race day. It’s kind of on a blind corner also, so if you enter with speed there is
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It’s FAR better. You can hold pretty good speed and the tire doesn’t “slosh around” nearly as much, so you can be a lot more aggressive…
I mean, pretty much any other XC tire wins in puncture resistance vs a 170tpi Aspen Team Spec. The best part is most XC tires also win with less rolling resistance vs an Aspen TS too. Oh to be blessed with the ability to run an arguably not very good tire and still dominate the race.
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DJ is in the chat! LOL
(this was meant to be a reply to @nathan 's tire comment above, but I hit the wrong reply button).
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I wouldn’t use race kings on a BWR course that’s mostly paved, but he’s right sometimes
Ironic that riders have to come up with stuff like this because not a single (big) manufacturer manages to make a capable gravel bike
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If you believe BRR then yes, everybody who has tested them in real world will tell you they are fast!
Nope, the fastest bike at Leadville was not a full-suspension. The fastest bike was a hardtail. Now go train on a hardtail and get the skills needed to ride one. You also need to ride a hardtail to get the body hardened (conditioned) for the efforts/impacts.
There are a handful of brands that make a gravel bike that fits mtb tires. But maybe limited to running a gravel fork rather than a mtb fork is what you mean? In my opinion if you want to run a mtb fork then just get a hardtail mtb frame which is what a gravel bike would become if it was designed for a mtb fork. Scott is marketing their hardtail for gravel now, wonder when more brands will do that.
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I think Scott would have been smart to configure that bike with drop bars to make it more unique and aligned with the drop bar trend. But there are still some challenges to overcome (in my opinion) before we get mainstream bikes like this. Many MTB frames are limited to 38t chainrings if running a normal chainline. Keegan was able to fit a 42, but it looked like it was rubbing the chainstay and it’s unclear if he had to do anything special with the chainline to get it to work. 38 works for some courses and levels of fitness, but I think you need to support at least 42 (and probably 44) to work across flatter courses even at the amateur level.
There is also the question of dropper and lockout remotes. The SRAM axs (and now rockshox FA) can help address some of this by making those things electronic, but that was probably the biggest challenge I faced when considering turning my scott RC into a drop bar bike. The Scott requires a front and rear lockout for efficient pedaling and I just couldn’t find a good cable-remote lockout system for drop bars.
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I wonder if this genre of riding is what will push some to consider different drivetrain options other than the traditional chainring and cassette.
I imagine that you could get some really good gearing with a pinion system or something similar that would utilize a small-ish front cog which wouldn’t interfere with the chainstay like big chainrings do.
If you could get the gear ratios that you wanted while using a small chainring that would solve a lot of problems…
I do ultimately think that this style of riding requires a new type of bike though. MTBs are designed to be ridden with flat bars, and it’s a bit of a stretch to put drop bars on them and have them handle as best as they could otherwise.
The weighting of the front vs. rear wheel is important here and the suspension kinematics were designed to work in a specific way. I think throwing drop bars on a MTB and riding it like a gravel bike results in ultimately a sub-par experience in comparison to something specifically designed for this type of riding.
That’s not to say that these types of builds aren’t necessarily the right tool for the job right now in some scenarios, but I imagine that we will look back on this one day and shake our heads. The industry needs to catch up!
Boost spacing solves a lot of issues on its own. Does anyone remember the Trek Stache? It only took Boost spacing and an elevated chainstay to clear 3" tires with a 420mm chainstay. The chainring clearance probably wasn’t huge, but if you only need ~2.4" tires I imagine that would open things up quite a bit… 
It’s fun to think about!
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I’m putting a 42t from the new xplr red 13spd groupset on my 2023 epic evo frame for core4 on saturday. The t-type crank has to be shimmed over a little but not much. Putting drop bars and race kings on it too and the suspension lockouts are solid, maybe aero bars too. Core 4 is a gravel race with about 10 miles of rooty rough mtbing in the 60 mile course but plenty of fast and relatively smooth roads. I’m very interested to see how that works.
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I feel like this is an area where something like a classified hub could be awesome.
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I think the jury is still out in regards to whether running inserts decreases flats with XC tires. In theory they should help reduce pinch flats, but I’ve had more pinch flats when running inserts (Tubolight or Airliner Lights) than I ever did without. This year I’ve heard from a Schwalbe rep that they are not recommending inserts with their tires and one Kenda pro told me they stopped running inserts as well. Ultimately though it probably depends on the course and circumstances. For pro’s, if being able to ride to the next aid station/pit area is the priority versus trying to fix the flat on the course, then it would seem inserts still make a lot of sense.
I’ve continued to run inserts on my gravel bike as I have been lucky and avoided flats through a lot of rides and multiple big events like Unbound and Big Sugar. But I also primarily run Pathfinder Pro’s, so maybe it’s more the tire versus the insert.
For XC I took them out starting last fall after Leadville (where I double flatted with inserts) and simply ran a little more sealant. Knock on wood, no flats since then, but small sample size…
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