Downhill Mountain Biking

You’ve been busy!
I haven’t ridden in TW for a while now, it’s about time to get back on the bike here.
Did some rides while I was in NZ, busted up my hand pretty bad with a faceplant in Q’town bikepark.
Next weekend I’m in Beijing, but the weekend after that I’m game!

[quote=“jaame”]Mr. Lu has made Da Tong Shan totally awesome. That place, said to be very good now.
Also a free bus is going from Taoyuan Dayou Rd (JFG road) to Dadu Shan two weeks today, the 4th I think, and also checking out a new bmx track in Da Jia (Taichung)[/quote]

DaTongShan is not finished, but has enormous potential! So many lines down a really big hill… and if not enough, Mr. Lu makes another one. :smiley:
Making 1 good line might take a while but also be worth it.

BMX track in DaJia??!

Saturday morning I’ve recruited some blokes to work on the new line, finish the stepdown etc…

I’m beginning to regret buying a hope hub. The freewheel is annoyingly loud at times

New Spank pedals are raring to go and NO! Down comes the rain.

I happened across a bit of banter on the internet: Mineral oil for Shimano and other brakes is the same as… baby oil! I tried in vain to get some mineral oil from a couple of auto shops around Jhongli and Taoyuan. I looked on the internet to try to find out what cars need it… I remembered from my bike shop days that it was the same as Citroen clutch fluid. Anyway it seems that Johnsons baby oil is mineral oil with fragrance and according to a few people on Pinkbike, you can use it with no problems at all. I bough a couple of plastic syringes from the art shop, all I need now is a bit of plastic piping from the fish tank shop and I’ll be bleeding them back to perfection. Hopefully there will be a sweet aroma when the brakes get hot. I just couldn’t stomach the 20 quid to import a shimano bleed kit.

Serviced my forks last week too, they feel like new once again.

I want to service my Monarch Plus RC3 shock, but I need the rock shox air fill adapter (IFP tool). The SRAM guy at the TPE show told me to look for the part number in the RS spare parts catalogue, even though I told him I already had and it wasn’t there. I looked again and I still can’t find it. Anyone have any contacts or idea where I can get one from? I haven’t actually asked a local rockshox dealer yet, but I am certain if I go there to order one they won’t be prepared to order one.

HI guys!

Any of you have the GPS coordinates for the Mountain biking sites in and around Taipei? or the closest to its main start point? i looked at the fat tire site and didnt help much getting there. help anyone thanks

Date for your diary, next X-Ride demo event and DH race: Sunday 10th of June.

Bungy look back through the pages, you can find google map for the locations of a couple of riding spots.

Heard some rumors about a race in Taoyuan on May 27th.
James, do you have any info?

I don’t know anything about it as I haven’t ridden over there for a few weeks, I’ve been riding the motorbike the last few weeks. I’ll go over there this weekend though because I want to get some practice in before the X-Ride. I’ll let you know what I find out. Mr. Lu has unearthed a new area which is good to go for development of a new course. I take it you’re coming over if there is a race yes?

Just had the best new today as well. A new Extreme Fitness gym is opening up just a five minute scooter ride from my school. Finally it looks like I’ll be able to get to the gym again and get some muscle back on me. Back in the squat rack an back deadlifting is going to make me a lot faster. Fucking hey!

I love the look of the new Saint and Zee groupsets. I’ll probably get the Saint brakes when they become available. Iwant to change my rear shock as well to be honest. That Monarch Plus has never worked properly. I want a CCDB but I’m not forking out $18,000 for one. I wish my bike had a 200mm rather than a 190, that way there would be loads of coil shocks to choose from. I’m not convinced any air shock will be better than the one I have. I think they’re just not meant for DH riding in 35 degree heat.

I went to HK three weeks ago. I took a trip to Gravity Reaction Cycles to have a look at the Zerode G1. It was very nice but very heavy. I’ll consider one when it’s time to upgrade. I think if you want a not made in TW bike, it would be cheaper to get one in HK and bring it back with you. You could save $10,000 on a frame like a Devinci Wilson or Antidote.

So X-Ride. Are you going?

Yes, I plan to go to both X-ride and Taoyuan race.

[quote=“jaame”]
1I’ll go over there this weekend
2A new Extreme Fitness gym is opening up
3Zerode [/quote]

Darren just confirmed same thing - there’s a race on the 27th - more details later.

1 Nice - can you find out which trail/track the race will be on? I’m in. (despite my fucked up Talas which only has 3" of travel left over)
2 I couldn’t imagine anything worse
3 Zero was made in the US - but that company closed and I know they were looking for a manufacturer here. Not sure where Devinci is made.

[quote=“pommes king”][quote=“jaame”]
Darren just confirmed same thing - there’s a race on the 27th - more details later.[/quote][/quote]

Practise from 8:30 - 11:00
2 race runs in the afternoon…

Sounds pretty good, I’m in for sure come rain or shine. I’ll head over this weekend and try to find out what course it’s being run on.

2A are you joking buddy? I love pounding weights in the gym. There’s only one thing I like looking at more than my bikes and motorbikes and that’s myself after I’ve been going hard out in the gym for a few months. There is nothing like the feeling of being fit and strong in the core. Squatting more than your body weight arse to the floor is one of the great accomplishments one can achieve in life. Plus it makes you a faster rider and more resistant to injury. Jared Graves: unstoppable in the squat rack, unstoppable on the 4x track. Brian Lopes the same. Squats for breakfast makes you fast on a bike. Fact!

I read that Zerode was designed in NZ, made in USA. I think the MK1 still has some things to be ironed out. I’d love to see a full carbon MK2 made in TW.

Devinci are fully made in Canada from what I can gather.

Either of you two going to Jung Fu Gong to practice this weekend then? Sat or Sun?

Nope, have some work teambuilding event involving biking, hiking and river tracing in Hualien.

See you next week then Roel!

Actually it will make you slower - unless you combine with intensiv fast training afterwards. Like spinning or slipstreaming behind a motorised vehicle…

I think I can make it sat around lunch or sundaymorning to JFG…

PS;

For endurance riding maybe it will make you slower, but for intense bursts of power, such as a downhill race that lasts 90 seconds, it will definitely make you faster having massive legs and arse. It’s pure physics, how much power you can put down. BMX riders are a pretty beefy bunch, and track cyclists are fookin massive!

“Have you ever seen so much piss hey Jakeyboy?”

I’m going to JFG for 2-3 hours on Sunday morning. There will be a river running down it today. Have you ever sen anyone putting a bag of ice on an air shock at the start of a DH race to bring some damping back? I might give it a try next week, unless there is a safety reason for not doing so. My air shock pretty much loses all damping after a run or two in the heat of summer.

Ignorance is bliss hey? :ohreally:
If you are not reading other posts anyway, how about putting a link to those Taoyuan vids you were telling about?
This actually might be a nice race - if they pick the right trails that is.

Anyone has a bike or a fork they wanna borrow for a DH race? :smiley: My Talas has now less then 4" of travel left and new parts won’t be here on time.

PS; I’ll put some pictures up from the track later - gimme a couple of hours.

[quote=“pommes king”]
PS; I’ll put some pictures up from the track later - gimme a couple of hours.[/quote]

Start!

fast jump in the first part;

followed by a massive step without landing;

shitsteep from there on


with an occasional speedbump;

and some slower sections near the end;

finish jump/ road gap;

Wish I brought my bike yesterday, damn!

BS? Pah!

Have you ever seen Dwain Chambers (sprinter) vs. Kevin (body builder) in that sprinting race?

Well Dwain Chambers can run faster than Kevin Levrone certainly, but Kevin Levrone puts in a pretty good showing for a bodybuilder who never touches supersets.

Ignorance is bliss. I will continue to believe that if I put a load of beef on my legs, arse and back (even without supersets), it will make me faster at riding my bike. It is inconceivable to me that having more muscle on these areas is going to make me slower. Are you a sports scientist Pommes? Thought not! I’m not saying the supersets you suggest are a bad idea, but I am saying that they are not strictly necessary to improve my own personal physical performance over short distances on a bike. Agree to disagree if you will. If someone qualified wants to teach me about it I’ll listen!

In other news, I’m in the process of trying to order a Fox Van RC shock. I’ve had enough of my crappy Monarch and can’t shell out $18,000 for a CCDB. Maybe I can sell the Monarch on eBay and recoup a bit of the money anyway.

Any idea what that new track in Taichung is like? Apparently it’s totally new location, never used before! Have you heard anything about it? I was hoping they were going to use the same track as the last race actually, now I’m going to have to waste a few hours and loads of energy trying to learn the new one. I would have preferred to just rock up, do a couple of runs without pedalling and then have some gas left for the race run. My legs were fucked in the race last time out. I should have done my supersets beforehand. I’m not kidding! I know supersets are the way forward for training your muscles for intense anaerobic work. I’m not going to argue that part with you, but I am going to argue that having more muscle gained by weight training without supersets is going to make me slower rather than faster. It’s just not!

“Pain today, pays tomorrow” - Arnold, 1975

OK chaps, one of the guys from JFG messaged me to ask if I want him to put my name on the start list for the race on Sunday.

I don’t know if it is actually necessary to list, but anyway I told him me, Pommes and Roel all need putting on the list. If you know anyone else who is going to race and they want me to ask that bloke to put them on the list too, just let me know. Are any of your colleagues coming over Pommes? How about Moshe and your boys from over there Roel? Let me know… or not if you’re not bothered. You can probably enter on the day I would think, that’s what I did every other time.

Here’s the track video from the Jung Fu Gong facebook page. I read somewhere the bottom section is TBC. I think I’ll go over there on my CPI on Saturday arvo to scope it out. They usually mark it out the night before, or at least a few in the know guys will be practicing on the race line. As long as it doesn’t rain before then it should be a good fun race. Sunday was a mudbath but it’s sill fun sliding around. My glasses were steaming up pretty badly but I’d rather have that than a load of grit and shit in my eyes. I just hope for sun on Sunday.

I found out from Fox that there are no tuning options for a VAN RC shock, so providing the distributors in TW have the right size, I should be rocking it in less than a week. I’m looking forward to having some rebound damping for a change.

Roel, do you have a titanium spring? How much did you pay for it? I tried a couple of websites to calculate the spring weight I need. Fox say 500, TFTuned say 450. I suppose I’ll just have to try both if I can.