Aaron Gwin Still Undecided on Bike Size for the Maribor World Cup 6

Large or XL? Rain or shine? Plenty to figure out before the clock starts ticking in Maribor.

sspomer
4/24/2019 9:37am
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The 2019 World Cup Downhill season is within minutes of officially getting underway in Maribor, Slovenia. The Slovenian venue has returned after years of being off the schedule, and the iXS Downhill Cup held just a few days ago on the same hillside as the World Cup, proves that this first race should be doozy. The track looks fun, the topography is right and right on cue, rain shows up.

-photos and interview by @maddogboris unless specified

Feeling out the Maribor course during iXS practice.

@maddogboris caught up with Aaron Gwin, who has been in Maribor for a week or so. Gwin practiced at the iXS event but did not race. Suprisingly to us, one of the most calculated and prepared riders in downhill is still in a pickle about which size Intense M29 frame he should race. 2019 is Aaron's first year aboard Intense frames, and this will be his first World Cup with the new-to-him bike. The announcement came at the end of January 2019 that he and Neko Mulally would be on Intense Factory Racing, a departure from YT.

Aaron Gwin's size XL Intense M29 from the team launch in January.

Gwin says he's in between Large and XL sizes on the M29, and depending course conditions and newly taped sections for the World Cup that weren't in the iXS race, he'll decide which bike feels best after more training. If conditions are wet and slower, he'll go Large. If it's dry and wide open, out comes the XL. He's spent plenty of time on both frame sizes and communicates that there's no worry about feeling uncomfortable on either size. He doesn't seem stressed, so why should we?

14 minutes with Aaron Gwin on racing Maribor, bike set-up, track changes and more

(Bike nerds get stoked at about 2:20)

A little bit of sketch during iXS practice.

How the Intense Factory Racing bikes compare...

A cleaner version of the sketch line.

Vital MTB poll

Another Mixed Wheel Size Win Has Me...

Stay tuned for more World Cup DH coverage from Maribor all week on Vital MTB.

Related:
Intense
Aaron Gwin
UCI Mountain Bike World Cup
Downhill
Maribor, Slovenia
#USDH
6 comments

View replies to: Aaron Gwin Still Undecided on Bike Size for the Maribor World Cup

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bizutch
5 years ago
I think where the struggle lies for someone like him is that he does put in a lot of time on motocross bikes and can handle pulling a long DH bike around, but at the same time, going downhill on a long reach bike with the added leverage of a 29" wheel makes for a hard marriage to play with. For every input your upper body puts in on the longer reach bike, the less feedback at the wheel you can generate in terms of changing direction.
When you move that bigger wheel closer under you, it gives you more leverage to push the bike around, but at the same time, your giving that leverage at your feet and hips up as you lean further out on the longer reach bike.
In the end, with him having both length reach frames on hand, he has the luxury of a mud bike and a dry bike
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grinch
5 years ago
Too many unknowns. Itd be easier to guess if we knew where he ended up with his chainstay length, what his inseam is and the top tube and reach differences. He's 5"10' so I guess our torso lengths are similar. Xl seems a bit extreme but he's extremely fast. Stand over looks fairly similar between l and xl
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Erotomania90
5 years ago
I don’t think Gwin is willing to admit he doesn’t feel right on a longer wheelbase 29” bike. He looks far more dialed on the m29 than he did on the YT 29, but frame size seems like a step one off season thing, not pre-race. Just seems a little unlike Gwin, he usually knows what he wants and makes very little changes.
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Adam_Schaeffer
5 years ago
Its like the previous gen V-10 sizing problem. Reach numbers are short per size, and placed at odd spots. Large should go to 460mm, XL needs to be 490-500mm.
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bizutch
5 years ago
Riding the same track over and over is detrimental to me as a racer as you sort of memorize "what it was" & it changes drastically before the day of the race & your mind still sits on what you rode well before, not even the day before.
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