Extreme Cyclocross!

October 9, 2012 10:03 AM

Road bike Party (SLTumblr). The bike featured in the link is the same $10K Pinarello that Brad Wiggins won the Tour de France on. Turns out it's a talented offroad whip too.
posted by lonefrontranger (59 comments total)

That bit on the beach where he rides the 4" wide loopy fence was insane. I couldn't do that on a bmx bike.
posted by mathowie at 10:11 AM on October 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

So that bike, as versatile as it is, would be absolutely perfect for my 2.5 mile commute in a university town. Cool!

And since I already have a nice cable lock, I am good to go.
posted by Danf at 10:14 AM on October 9, 2012 [15 favorites]

The actual YouTtube video.
posted by knave at 10:17 AM on October 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

I hate to think how many carbon bars they went through while making that film.

(oh yeah and wd-40 blue)
posted by photoslob at 10:29 AM on October 9, 2012

And that's not really cyclocross. More like trials/BMX.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 10:34 AM on October 9, 2012

photoslob: carbon bars are pretty insanely good these days. I have them on my long travel XC and cyclocross bikes and a friend has them on his dirt jumper. They are actually stronger than aluminum, which I have personally had fail on me (fortunately not during a race). OS diameter is far stronger (standard these days is 31.8mm instead of 26.0)

the WD-40 thing went right over my head actually, sorry.

this seemed like a good fit with the recent really cool FPP about re-thinking preconceptions.
posted by lonefrontranger at 10:35 AM on October 9, 2012

Man that dude can ride. I loved the endo down the twisty street, the trials hops on the bike racks, the whole thing was incredible. And I tell ya, that guy knows how to land the bike.
posted by Mister_A at 10:40 AM on October 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

mathowie: that was pretty good but low on what I call the "DFU" quotient because if you fall you're like 2' off the ground at worst, and these guys have catlike reflexes.

The part that really gets me was that high, high, 45° angle retaining wall that he went down to the river, and all the while I'm thinking "holy shit he's totally owning that on a set of sidepulls!" control moves like that in high-risk DFU situations is where you really, really, really learn to love your well modulated and powerful hydraulic discs IMO.

not that I could ever manage stuff like that but I have ridden some really scary exposed 6" off-camber singletrack in the high mountains where brake fade will send you tumbling down a talus slope pretty fast
posted by lonefrontranger at 10:46 AM on October 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

I spent the whole video thinking how many bones I'd break if I tried that. Seriously impressive.
posted by arcticseal at 10:47 AM on October 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

I found that infinitely more interesting/watchable than those gymkhana videos. Thanks!
posted by Mr. Merkin at 10:50 AM on October 9, 2012

"No. No. No. NO! No. No. Nooooo! No no no!" -- me, watching that video. Really cool, though.

I think it's 10,000 GBP, not $10,000. Which only added to my horror while watching.
posted by supercres at 10:50 AM on October 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

mathowie: That bit on the beach where he rides the 4" wide loopy fence was insane. I couldn't do that on a bmx bike.

That's my local beach! Seen a lot of bikes down there, never anything like that. I can't even pull a wheelie. Astounding.
posted by dowcrag at 10:52 AM on October 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: golf courses are wasted on golf. They're much better suited for bikes.
posted by the painkiller at 10:52 AM on October 9, 2012 [5 favorites]

Just for the record, WD-40 makes lousy chain lube. Unless you like your chain squeaking two minutes after application.
posted by Pink Fuzzy Bunny at 10:54 AM on October 9, 2012 [4 favorites]

The part that got me was the backflip out of the sand trap on the golf course. Holy shit!
posted by carsonb at 10:55 AM on October 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yeah the backflips and flares were pretty frickin' nuts!
posted by Mister_A at 10:56 AM on October 9, 2012

lonefrontranger: I totally agree but carbon bars for trials riding seems crazy but the video is just for fun and I'm sure a Pinarello rep was standing by with replacements. I've come close to running carbon bars on my CX bike but after seeing a few people break them I just can't do it. Seems like the only time aluminum bars fail is when the rider has gone out of their way to never change their bar tape and the corrosion just does it's thing.
posted by photoslob at 10:59 AM on October 9, 2012

WD-40 has jumped into the cycling market big time recently with bike specific lubes and cleaners. Personally, I like Gnarlube because it's smells yummy and they package it in honey bears.
posted by photoslob at 11:01 AM on October 9, 2012

Maybe the same frame, but they must have swapped the wheels. I suspect that if you were to show this video to a set of carbon TdF wheels, they would shatter sympathetically.
posted by iloveit at 11:01 AM on October 9, 2012

WD-40 isn't a lube at all. It's a water displacer. That's what "WD" stands for. It's supposed to coat a metal surface to prevent water from adhering.

I see people using it on metal lathes instead of oil all the time and it's a terrible practice because the stuff dries to a yellow crust that's going to take elbow grease to remove.
posted by DU at 11:04 AM on October 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

they're actually using the WD-40 in the vid the same way we use it in the shop: as a cleaner to remove crud from the bike. they've never marketed it as a lube because it's not a lube, it's a penetrant. We also use it to remove stuck seatposts, etc.

They've also recently come out with some other formulas that are actual lubes for the bike industry which they featured at their interbike booth, but this probably isn't the place to have that discussion, actually.
posted by lonefrontranger at 11:08 AM on October 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

I like how they entertained the idea that I might think seriously about trying that out for myself.
posted by MuffinMan at 11:11 AM on October 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

Holy shit.

He's... he's clipped in the entire time...
posted by spiderskull at 11:13 AM on October 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

That’s one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen, even with whatever insane amount of editing went on. I would like to know how many wheels they went through though, and what the stunt wheels were.
posted by bongo_x at 11:33 AM on October 9, 2012

I see stuff like this and wonder whether they are human and I am not or vice versa, because we're not the same species.
posted by maxwelton at 11:36 AM on October 9, 2012

I like how they entertained the idea that I might think seriously about trying that out for myself.

what it did for me was get me really super inspired to finally, actually learn how to freaking do a manual. It's the basis for a lot of your more advanced cross-country and DH skills, and often the difference between riding vs bailing bigger rock drops / tech sections, or railing vs. having to slow down and crawl over those big ditch/waterbar rollers on resort fire roads, etc.

one of the best things about this video is that he's wearing roadie spandex instead of baggies / park shorts. It means you can really tell what he's doing with his weight shifts, body english, balance checks, etc.

He's... he's clipped in the entire time...

He's actually using flats with some type of DH/skate shoe. I think he does mention (possibly jokingly) in the Youtube vid version (thanks knave!) that he'd try SPDs next time "which might help with the bunny hops".

the reason I think he's being facetious is that most decent BMX/trials riders can rodeo bunnyhop onto the top of a picnic table from a standstill using flats. It's all in the compression technique. I've been working hard at the pump track lately trying to get the timing down, but I still find I cheat waay too much on the bike's suspension and pedals, which is risky as it means you can't keep the front end high enough to land predictably rear-wheel-first as you're supposed to.

Which is why I need to learn how to frickin' manual.
posted by lonefrontranger at 11:40 AM on October 9, 2012 [4 favorites]

Sometimes at a traffic light I do a trackstand.
posted by Wolfdog at 11:51 AM on October 9, 2012 [3 favorites]

Holy shit.

He's... he's clipped in the entire time...


I'm not so sure about that. In several scenes, he is definitely riding bmx pedals. Whether or not they have an mtb clip in them remains to be seen.

Either way, judging by the spatter on his right calf, I don't think I'd want to use WD 40 lube on my chain either.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:53 AM on October 9, 2012

Ten thousand dollar bike? It must have like, a solid gold kickstand.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 11:55 AM on October 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

If my bike didn't weigh 20kg I could totally do this. Maybe I'll ditch the water bottle.
posted by tigrefacile at 12:04 PM on October 9, 2012

dances_with_sneetches, exactly the opposite. Gold is heavy. Light is expensive.
posted by craven_morhead at 12:10 PM on October 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Turns out I was wrong - it's more like $16K (GBP 10K at current conversion rates), thanks supercres for pointing that out.

high tech high modulus carbon fibre + Di2 (electronic shifting) will get you about 2/3rds of the way there and the rest is boutique brand snobbery and ridiculous industry markup.

The wheels are in fact carbon rims but appear to have an alloy braking track so I'm betting they're not actually the ones used in le Tour - these would be a (marginally) cheaper set and I'd imagine one reason is that the alloy rim gives better braking performance for stuff like the stoppies / endos and the aforementioned ultra-ballsy river retaining-wall ride.

n.b. industry markup is totally insane and I completely agree, and that's as someone who just dropped over seven grand on a full custom carbon 29er.
posted by lonefrontranger at 12:12 PM on October 9, 2012

I do a few thousand miles a year on my (inexpensive non-carbon) road bike and have absolutely no concept of how he performed some of these moves. When I see race drivers drifting a car or making an amazing rally move ... well I can relate to it. It looks like something I've done in a more simple and slower way at some point. But this... I've no idea how to do that on a road bike.

And on WD-40 ... lots of hate for it in the Youtube video too. But it isn't a lube, no one sensible is saying it it. Its great for CLEANING and for displacing water and freeing anything you can't easily undo. Very handy thing to have when you're doing a weekly service. General purpose chain lube - no. Useful tool - yes. The massive WD-40 hate on every bike forum is a bit much. Its out of patent and generics are dirt cheap. Embrace it ;)
posted by samworm at 12:15 PM on October 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

How does he ride into the golf course sand trap without instantly sinking on those narrow tires? You can't skill your way out of that.
posted by Mitrovarr at 12:57 PM on October 9, 2012

See also, from two years ago.
posted by hot soup at 12:58 PM on October 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Hey roadie dudes wanting to try this, see that part where he's cutting down a grassy slope down to the beach? Please don't do that. We fat tire guys are constantly fighting for our rights to ride existing single track against a barrage of unfounded erosion concerns. When you cut trail it makes us all look bad.

And WD40 should never be anywhere on a bike. Full stop.
posted by Big_B at 1:05 PM on October 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

I hope he went back and raked that bunker. Damn kids.
posted by StephenF at 1:13 PM on October 9, 2012

The part that really gets me was that high, high, 45° angle retaining wall that he went down to the river

Incidentally it looked to me that this was done at Blenheim Palace. More precisely here.
posted by Brockles at 1:13 PM on October 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

How does he ride into the golf course sand trap without instantly sinking on those narrow tires? You can't skill your way out of that.

yea, you can actually - deep fluffy sand pits (aka "beach volleyball courts") are a frequent "feature" in cyclocross races out here in arid Colorado and lots of skilled racers can ride them. It feels super sketchy and if your technique sucks as badly as mine, you should probably dismount and run to save yourself the faceplant potential, but the key is to keep your weight shifted really far back, and the front wheel super light so that it can skip over the sand without digging in and washing out / flipping you. It almost feels like you're trying to ride a wheelie or a unicycle.

Here again it all leads back to the manual, which is the entry-level key to, well, all of these stunts, actually. Learning to manual properly on a bike is exactly the same idea as having to learn how to do a solid ollie on a skateboard before you can do much of anything else fun or useful.

that and the sand in that bunker is likely a bit damp and thus potentially quite a bit firmer than the dry fluff we have here in the desert.
posted by lonefrontranger at 1:29 PM on October 9, 2012

My favorite thing about trials guys is the way they do little things that make them look like they learned to move around on bikes long before they ever learned to walk - for example, the casual, low speed skid into a stop (perfectly square to the stairs!) he does before pressing up into a manual. The super-casual way he does it says a lot about how deeply he's internalized bike control, to the extent that breaking tire traction and maintaining balance on a bike that's moving sideways is second nature.

Not that most mountain bikers can't do the same thing, but that type of casual control definitely separates people that get on bikes to ride them from point A to point B from people who get on bikes to play (obviously not mutually exclusive categories).
posted by hot soup at 1:32 PM on October 9, 2012 [3 favorites]

For my part, I liked the long slow ride over the iron bridge arc.
posted by chavenet at 1:54 PM on October 9, 2012

Impressive as this video is, is it not painfully cringe-inducing to road bike fanatics?

Imagine if someone did Hells Revenge in a Porsche 918 Spyder.
posted by CynicalKnight at 2:00 PM on October 9, 2012

The high-speed endo while taking that downhill curve is what got me. This is pretty seriously impressive.
posted by broadway bill at 2:23 PM on October 9, 2012

Impressive as this video is, is it not painfully cringe-inducing to road bike fanatics?

Yes. That's where my literal out-loud protestations came from. The sand and the water were the worst. The "Nooooo!" was the downward-looking shot on the truss bridge.
posted by supercres at 2:41 PM on October 9, 2012

Imagine if someone did Hells Revenge in a Porsche 918 Spyder.

Pretty close...
posted by LordSludge at 2:48 PM on October 9, 2012

Ugh, I am not a fan of the music used. Can we put on an alternative track? I'm kinda feeeeeelin' this
posted by alex_skazat at 3:20 PM on October 9, 2012

Impressive as this video is, is it not painfully cringe-inducing to road bike fanatics?

welll, I'm a 25 year road racing veteran and have a pretty sweet carbon roadie myself, tho nothing at that level, and I can say: not as much as you'd think. I think it's incredibly, stupendously impressive, but I'm also not worried for the bike at all.

Partly because, as Mister_A pointed out above, this guy can really stinkin' ride. As in, that is possibly the biggest understatement of the thread. He is ultra light on the bike with unholy telekinetic control, and he knows exactly how to land those big drops all catlike ballet-dancer style. It's as if he and the bike combined weigh no more than a gently drifting leaf. It takes immense skill and immense STRENGTH (his core strength has to be off-the-charts hero level) to do that. The majority of riders, myself included, will never be strong or skilled enough to even land a shallow drop that gently. I also don't cringe to see one of our local pros pulling off 4' gap jumps with x-up flare on a carbon cross bike with featherweight carbon tubulars at the local bike park races either - he has the same ability as this guy does to float the bike down to a super soft landing.

And partly in the sense that, seeing as I'm a longtime veteran of riding roadbikes all up in places they're not entirely intended to go myself (dirt/gravel/"roubaix" style racing, couriering, commuting to work via easy woods trails cos it's fun, riding down shallow staircases for the pure hell of it, and clutch maneuvers in criteriums like hopping curb or some dude's head to avoid a wreck, etc.) I can tell you that they are both far sturdier, and far more balanced and flickable / maneuverable than one might guess. They may look spindly and delicate but in truth they are spindly and delicate in the same way as spiderwebs, Dubai skyscrapers and cable spans. Road bikes have been immensely well refined and engineered over the past century, and a correctly built wheelset can and will last for decades if you want it to. Carbon fiber has a (somewhat obsolete) reputation for being brittle that I believe all the cheap / low grade / poorly designed CF sports gear from the 80s and 90s gave it. In reality, when properly engineered and laid up using modern molding techniques, it is not only the material of choice for stealth fighters, helicopter blades and F1 racers, but it is easier to repair than aluminum or titanium and much more durable in the sense of corrosion resistance than steel.

As far as the sand and water issue goes, enh, not so much these days. You don't really want to pressure wash it daily, but sealed cartridge bearings are sealed catridge bearings, and there's very little to differentiate the BB30 bearings on that roadie versus the BB30 bearings on my 4" travel Niner. Seeing as mine's 2x10 they'd even potentially be the same part# if he happened to have been using SRAM instead of Shimano. You can do just as much potential damage riding in the rain on dirty tarmac, which is to say: none if you pull and grease it every so often, mostly just to make sure moisture isn't hung up in there.
posted by lonefrontranger at 4:16 PM on October 9, 2012 [5 favorites]

I vote for "not clipped in". There's a good view around 0:31-0:32 to see his pedals.

Amazing video!
posted by sarah_pdx at 4:46 PM on October 9, 2012

The wheels have an alloy braking track because they are most likely clinchers. Most wheels in the Tour de France are tubulars.

At 5:03, you can barely make out the sidewall of a Continental GP 4000 25mm tire. This is further confirmation these are clincher wheels since, while Conti makes a GP4000 tubular, they don't make it in a 25mm width.

I would also mention doing most of these tricks on a road bike is even more impressive than on a "trials bike" because:

• Trials bikes have fatter tires to grip and absorb shock
• Trials bikes seats are much lower. You have more range of motion in your legs to absorb shock
• Trials bikes are lower to the ground. Most tricks are easier when you have a lower center of gravity. (On a lower bike, you also have less distance to fall if/when you wipe out.)

posted by sarah_pdx at 5:10 PM on October 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

In some scenes, it looks like he's clipped in, but I think you're all right -- it may be my eyes playing tricks on me.

In either case, this is still utterly unbelievable.
posted by spiderskull at 8:50 PM on October 9, 2012

Oh god... the pinch flats...
Many inner tubes died in the making of this video.
posted by Pseudonumb at 9:15 PM on October 9, 2012

In the same way that there is no movie star called Bradley Pitt, there is no cyclist called Brad Wiggins. Not ever.
posted by devious truculent and unreliable at 5:21 AM on October 10, 2012

Wiggins calls himself Brad (Ride with Brad, @bradwiggins). Are we to assume that Bradley Pitt prefers his long form name: William?
posted by MuffinMan at 5:31 AM on October 10, 2012

Wiggins calls himself Brad

The website uses the name Bradley Wiggins Foundation, because it has the space so to do. The shortened form is merely for ease of use on Twitter, rather than a generally used term of address.

You're being truculent, which is confusing me.
posted by devious truculent and unreliable at 8:15 AM on October 10, 2012

Excellent!
posted by OmieWise at 12:19 PM on October 10, 2012

LordSludge: "Imagine if someone did Hells Revenge in a Porsche 918 Spyder.

Pretty close..."

Never that knarly, but I think that's what some people thought I was trying when I took my CRX on roads no CRX had any business being on...
posted by notsnot at 4:56 PM on October 14, 2012

followup for anyone still watching this thread: here are some of the outtakes from shooting the Road Bike Party video, where Martyn Ashton explains that they used one bike and one set of wheels that made it through the entire video shoot just fine. Only one tube was sacrificed (he says to look for the puncture in the video, but I can't tell where it was). Oh and he scratched one of the levers and put a small chip in the clearcoat on the fork. I managed to do that much damage to my own Javelin within the first week of owning it (knocked it over in the garage in a similar "argh, dammit" moment as Martyn himself experienced towards the end of the video).

it's worth noting that even his outtakes show far more skill than most of us could ever dream of, and I'm speaking for myself as a decent amateur bike racer.
posted by lonefrontranger at 9:41 PM on October 19, 2012

Thanks for that, lonefrontranger. It was really gratifying to see him muff the sand trap backflip (and get up and walk away, of course). I gasped just the same as when I saw him land it in the original video.
posted by carsonb at 7:34 AM on October 20, 2012

(he says to look for the puncture in the video, but I can't tell where it was)

Just after 2:12. The long slide results in a pop that then results in an "Ah, I fucked the tyre" from him. Presumably those nutso long slides wore right through the thing...
posted by Brockles at 8:26 AM on October 20, 2012