Some Poop For Newbies

[jp10jp]

I have been thinking about an idea that is based on my 1st year mtb experience and have decided to post it hoping it might benefit someone else as I feel it has helped me.

When I started in August of last year, I flew over the bars several times. My shoulder joints, including my scapula-clavicle fused joints are the worse for those faceplants I did. They were into ditches and curbswhen i didn't keep my weight far enough behind the seat, the front wheel stopped and over I went.

Well, I decided it was either quit or figure something out. I figured out that I needed a bold management stroke the point of which would be to fundamentally shift my weight back toward the rear of that bike (Trek 7000). I bought me a riser handlebar (1 1/2" lift)...no sig diff .....I bought a angled-up stem (~45 degrees) .... mmmmm .. some noticable effect but I wanted more of it.....steering tube extender (~3-4 inches)...NOW you're TALKING. I mounted my new stem and bars on that tube extender and BINGO I was UP THERE. Too much really, but definiately in the right neighborhood. I lowered that ensemble to min height with all the new stuff in place, and I have ridden it like that (almost daily) ever since. Yesterday, I took all off except the bars, returning to my stock stem w/no tube extender.

The point is that I am ready for this stock setup now. I WAS NOT ready for it when I started my riding career. I am still going to have to take it easy and stay concious of the change til I get my sea legs (balance point) for this new setup, but I am ready and I really appreciate the additional climbing and singletack trail tracking tendency of the stock setup.

BUT, I highly recommend that newbies consider making the mods I did and NOT doing what I did re/the face plants. I sincerely think it made a huge difference in my development and minimizing serious endover type mishaps. It ain't no panacea for ditches, hidden ruts and gopher holes but it gives one that bit of extra fore-aft weight balance margin when these things are encountered and one is not ready for them. This is especially true in downhill events like ditches.

I have not read about this anywhere. I realize this setup is NOT optimum good for the long term. It raises the CG, lightens front wheel at cost of traction. But I maintain that where I was having my most trouble, it saved me and kept me in the saddle, helping me progress safely to a point where now I am ready to take the training wheels off, and I have done so.

While I had it in place, that high stem setup let me loft the front wheel EASILY for curbs, logs, holes, giving me confidence. It climbed bad, front wheel would lift and cause ne to have to stop when I knew I could have made the climb if my weight was more fwd. But I didn't care, cause I knew why and that it was a temporary state. Actually I got pretty good at leaning up over the front wheel to compensate, but still it was not a climber config.

Comments?

John

[DirtRagArt]

Ummm... a riser bar is good, so is a stem with rise, though 45° might be a bit extreme, and the steerer tube extension sounds scary. A short stem is also good, and you can lower your seat or slide it back to put your weight over the rear wheel more. Additionally, some forks have a higher ride height than others, and that may be beneficial to certain riders.

The biggest thing is, you just have to learn to keep your weight back, and you'll actually flip less often once you learn to start letting go of the brakes. Remember, and object in motion wants to stay in motion.

[jonassterling]

I'm with Jeff on this one. Much the same effect can be accomplished with a layback post and short stem riser bar set up, with no raising or your CG. But hey if it worked for you, great. You had to get some weird looks out on the trail with that get-up.

I remember seeing a guy with a similar setup at the last Punk Bike. He was riding a Diamonback fully, maybe a high end model from Dick's. He was tall, really tall. Looked like he had a 410mm setpost maxed out, and an uncut steerer tube on his fork with a high rise stem and bars and maybe a steerer extender also. If you looked at just him his riding position looked good, but if you looked at his bike you wondered which would bend first, the seatpost or steerer.

[jp10jp]

Hey,
Yes, you are right. I DID get some looks in the woods with that setup. One said it looked set up for downhilling.

I tried moving seat back initially, but slid max back wasn't nearly enough, and the shorter stem not good for me as i have a long torso. The shorter stem just humped me up 'tween bars and seat. Already felt lot of weight on my hands on bars from chest out there, eveb with the ~6-in long stock stem.

Even with the bars so up, my seat-to-bars height ratio was normal looking (ie. seat slightly higher).

And YES learning to get off the brakes does help a lot. Trying to ease down into into ditches with brakes draging is asking for the old front-wheel-stop-in-the-ditch thing.

A lot is just learning to feel the dynamics and the balance fore/aft critical range. Comes with time. But I feel I survived by my high bars early period. Maybe it was just right for me with my particular balance and instincts.

Now my bike looks normal and (if it dries out around here) I'll be continuing to check it out in the woods this weekend.

[thomas f brown]

about stem millimeters or head angles or seapost lenths, all i know is i learned to ride on some rakish downhilled cross countrified rigs with forks ranging from rigid to 4 inch(crushed em both). if you want to descend dexterously(d and d term)...short stem riser bar(weyless from supergo so far has done me right)...for climbing(single speed experience applies here) long flat stem and the 1x1 torsion bar(sweet beyond belief!). in between wing it...for the beginner definitely lower your seat, shorten your stem and for bikes sake get at least 4 inches of front suspension(no knockoff brand forks either)....