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Boise, ID
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Edited Date/Time
6/22/2017 11:28am
So this is how Yoann Barelli runs his brake levers. They're nearly parallel to the ground. His reasoning is that the position puts more of your palm on the grip (instead of just your thumb hooking with a more standard position) and the result is no arm pump. He feels the lever position also adjusts his upper body and ultimately his head so he's able to focus further down the trail better (which is key in riding blind enduro courses). Teammate Adam Craig has been playing with a similar setup and seems to agree with Yoann, also Adam's levers are not as parallel to the ground. When we asked Marcelo Gutierrez about the lever position, he thought Yoann was crazy : )
Yoann and Adam discuss in audio
Get more shots of Yoann's ride (and Adam Craig's) in our Bike vs Bike feature that hits the homepage tomorrow.
Yoann and Adam discuss in audio
Get more shots of Yoann's ride (and Adam Craig's) in our Bike vs Bike feature that hits the homepage tomorrow.
http://www.velovert.com/information/10979/bike-check-le-spartan-de-damien-oton
That's what he says : "I wish that my years in enduro motorbike. I tried to ride with a more traditional setting like everyone else because I realized that I was alone in this configuration. But clearly I could no longer to ride. the advantage is that I am less in tension on the handlebars in long runs. "
I always thought you MTB guys were weird for running your levers so low.
Remember a few years ago when EVERY downhiller got this notion that riding with your elbows up meant your levers had to be near vertical? And remember how EVERYONE said how much better it is for your riding? lol.... From one extreme to another.
I'm not discounting the flat lever position, but it seems we mountain bikers like to go for the extremes first then settle into something that makes sense. Be it suspension travel, wheel size, or whatever. Now it seems that we are in the "bigger tires are better" stage. But that's another story.
I've always run my levers at about the same angle that arms are at, because anything else feels too extreme of an angle for me. I always ran my levers flat on my moto because like I said, it makes way more sense on a moto due to how varied your body position can be. I tried running my mtb levers flatter and it felt so awkward unless I'm seated. My wrists were bent at such an angle that it was a struggle just to brake.
When we are descending, we are standing. So we kinda want our levers to be neutral, as in, you don't notice them. Whether your levers are flat or pointing straight down, its not a neutral position. Get on your bike, hold onto the bar, and notice what angle your fingers lay out. Like I said, I'm not discounting someone's personal choices, but it makes little sense to me.
Then again, personal preferences.
I also don't like the feeling of a bar being rolled back into my lap, and flat levers give this effect.
I'm very fussy over my cockpit set up. Probably too much.
I have my lever reach in as far as I can so when the wheel locks the lever's almost on the bar. I also have the tip of the lever under the big knuckle of my finger as opposed to the tip of it, as most seem to do. This results in an almost closed fist around the bar, and I never get arm pump.
Make a fist and extend your brake finger. You'll feel the tendon linked up with the muscles in your forearm creating some tension there as long as that finger is extended. Bring it back to a fist and the forearm relaxes.
Some people get a little sketched out by my brakes since they come to the bar. But these are high powered hydraulics with big rotors, you don't need a death squeeze to stop.
On a moto I wrap my left finger all the way around the lever since on is a clutch after all. The other side has a throttle, its easier to reach the lever when it's high. The lever s also need to fit behind hand guards.
Bars are also much higher on a moto.
Pretty much never riding long downhills on the brakes on a moto either and when you do, they have engine braking and a foot brake.
I keep my levers inline with my arms which is around 4 o clock.
No engine braking on a two stroke and a Rekluse clutch!
I tried this set up after I noticed some Enduro guys using it at the end of last year. I could see the theoretical merits of the setup with a higher lever position but it didn't work at all for me, I got terrible arm pump and couldn't modulate my brakes properly. As always the cop out solution/ answer is do what feels best to you. I've never had much of a problem with arm pump though and I know a lot of riders do so maybe for those guys - if you haven't already - try this setup, even though it looks a little odd! We're so dynamic on a mtb compared to road bikes and everyone rides a little different and on different terrain so traditional setup guidelines don't make much sense.
Too much backwards pressure on the fingers can cause serious even permanent nerve damage.
I used to ride with my levers raised, caused more aches and pains than computer and cell use combined.
Dropping the angle helped a lot.
Brutal. For the reason Diedre_Rashid said - way too uncomfortable and unnatural.
And of course as someone else mentioned, the relative bar height on a moto is much higher than on a mountain bike.
I raced moto off road and a little bit of track. Off road racing is a little different in that you are standing a lot of the time. When I did that, I would have my levers pointing down slightly, but still at a point where it wouldn't feel uncomfortable while seated. On the track, riders usually are seated more, like through the turns. It makes more sense to run flat levers because of that.
I can kind of see your point about being seated but they still take a lot of big impacts standing up, whoops for example.
MTB is more static though? Really?
fairly long ride with steep rocky technical descents, i was quite surprised at how natural it felt, its a really similar hand position to bench pressing and i think it utilises the forearm muscles better. Drops felt fine, jumps felt fine.
The only thing im still sceptical about was when manualling, the pull up felt like a strain on the remaining 3 fingers, although i will say this, my hands were aching anyway from a bouldering session on friday night.
So yeah for a fairly rough trail ride im sold, interested to see how it feels downhilling next week.
On a mountain bike, we are either standing with our knees slightly bent, or seated, with our knees slightly bent. lol! Way more static.
On a moto, most of the traction is through the back wheel, so getting your weight back there is vital. But on a mtb, we're usually riding over the front as most of our traction is through the front wheel.
I get that lever position if all you ride is super steep tracks all the time. Then your weight is more rearward and your position is lower. But for all around riding?
"I take that from my years of riding enduro motorbikes. I tried riding with a more traditional setup when I realized that I was the only one at the races with my levers setup this way, but I never managed to feel comfortable with it. The advantage is that I have to hold onto the handlebar less tightly on long descents."
Another interesting note from that article is that Otton says that he rides 36 tooth chainring all the time no matter the terrain. Beast!
It seems like this lever position is a bit of a thing for French riders at the moment. I'm not sure if it's kosher to link to pinkbike here, but there is some more discussion of it here http://www.pinkbike.com/news/ask-pinkbike-10-6-2015.html. According to that article Barelli began running his levers further up after taking note of Otton's setup. Apparently Nico Vouilloz is also into setting up his levers that way.
Vouilloz is know for being particularly meticulous about his bike setup so if he's choosing to run his levers close to level I'd imagine that he spent some time experimenting before deciding that it has merit for him. After reading the pinkbike article I experimented a bit with my lever position and settled at about 3:20. Anything further up than that left me feeling like I was having to reach up too much to get to the levers. Right now I've go a broken hand, but once I'm back on the bike again I'll probably play around with it a bit more.
I find that I tend to be quite sensitive to cockpit changes on the bike and if its too big a change all at once its going to feel weird no matter what! Before breaking my hand I was experimenting with bar roll a bit and that was a weird one for me! I tend to ride with my bar rolled pretty forward. I tried rolling it back a bit just to see how it would feel, but I had a really hard time adjusting to the different feel!
As a side note, if anyone is having real trouble with forearm pump try getting into a climbing gym on occasion. I've been a climber for years and I can say that arm pump on the bike has never really been an issue for me. Climbing stresses your forearms like no other activity that I know of and I suspect that if you could make it into a climbing gym even just once a week for a month or two your arm pump issues would pretty much disappear.
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