While at the Saddleback House Show, I had a chat with Joe Breedon, who was there with his bike and team mate Lou Ferguson. I stopped him for a chat about some of the more eye catching additions to his race bike.
Your bike has been all cleaned up from Loudenville. How was that race for you?
Loudenville was great fun. Obviously it was a carnage week. Track conditions were changing nearly as fast as the race schedule because of the heavy rain and weather. It kept us on our toes, but it was super fun. We smashed it back here, got cleaned up and we’re now at the Saddleback House Show.
This bike here has some interesting accoutrements. Let’s start with these grips. What’s going on there?
It’s a standard grip from One-Up Components that we’ve modified. It’s very much homemade, and they look like a set of donuts on the end of each grip. It’s basically a soft, foamy circle on the end of the bar, which I can push my hand into.
In compressions, my hand gets pushed into it so I can relax my fingers a little bit. It’s just less fatiguing on the arms. For anybody that struggles with arm fatigue or hand fatigue, arm pump, etc., it just relieves the strain and allows you to ride for longer. At this point, it’s very much homemade, but I’d like to keep developing it further.
Why isn’t everyone riding giant mushrooms on their grips, if this works?
Very good question. Perhaps in a couple of years’ time, we’ll see a huge amount of people on them. For now, everybody thinks it’s pretty weird.
A lot of people can see the sense in it. I think it will help a lot of people ride for longer, but as of now, it’s never been done before. It’s very new, and it looks very weird, so people are quite defensive to it at this stage.
The UCI hasn’t made any rules about the size of your grip ends yet, then?
No. A couple of them have commented on them, but they generally just check that there are bar ends, and they’re like, OK, they are sufficient bar ends.
Very sufficient bar ends!
Exactly. So as long as they see that, they allow us up and they’ve got no problems with them. So yeah, there’s no issues there with the UCI regulation.
Yet. We’ll add on the end, ‘yet.’
Yeah, true. I can’t see a health and safety aspect to them. I can’t see an issue on that front, but who knows?
And then, what is going on with this lockout? Because that doesn’t look like it’s straight off the shelf.
No, definitely not. Our suspension technician, Jim from J-TECH Suspension, he does all of our suspension tuning and any modifications that we request. And this is something that we’ve worked on in the pre-season. It’s basically an old three-speed front Shimano SLX shifter. I don’t know when they were made. In the early 2000s, probably.
Jim has brought that back to life, reconfigured the leverage ratio inside the shifter to cycle between the three different high-speed compression modes on our Ohlins shock. So I can access all three different compression modes from my handlebar shifter whilst riding. So basically, we have a soft mode to simplify it, a middle mode, and a firm mode.
The firm mode also closes off the low-speed compression, so it gives me a super efficient platform for pedalling and generating speed, pumping, etc. So I can just easily cycle through it in different sections of the track.
And I wonder which came first, the grips or the shifting, because it seems like you’re not having to think about holding on, so you’re giving your hands extra things to do?
Yes, true, true. That’s a good question. To be honest, I came to the first World Cup with them on, but they were only tested a couple of weeks leading up to that, so they kind of came in at the same time.
I wonder if it has to work as a pair, or whether when it’s muddy, whether it would just be too much to be messing around with in your hands in the middle of a race?
Good question. Like, Loudenville was obviously a test of that. The conditions were horrendous. It was super challenging. And for the first couple of runs, I didn’t complicate it any more. I didn’t want to put anything more in my brain about where should I change the compression mode, there was enough on the track to worry about. But by racing, I was cycling between the different modes and had found which setting was good in each section of the track, and was flicking quite subconsciously, instinctively on those runs between those modes.
And you obviously think it makes a difference, or you wouldn’t be doing it?
It’s fractional. I wouldn’t stress too much if I wasn’t doing it, but we like to make sure we’re doing everything we can to gain every advantage possible. And there’s definitely, without a doubt, a few tenths of a second in these facilities, shall we say, within the grips and the shifter.
And that’s what a podium comes down to.
Exactly. You know it. World Champs, the top four Elite Men were spread by a tenth of a second. Imagine if you were fourth place, a tenth back, knowing that you could have made up some free time…
…If only you weren’t fashion conscious on your grips! Yeah.
Exactly. So yeah, it’s pretty quirky, but they work for me, and I believe it makes me faster, so I’ll obviously run it.
Okay. And then, is that the VCR…?
VHS.
I was confusing my videos! But yeah, VHS tape with a spoke in it to make a little cable tie there.
Yes. It doesn’t look the neatest, to be honest, but it’s just a really nice way to keep the cables secure on the frame, and it stops any rattling or any wear on the frame. So it keeps the bike silent, keeps it looking fresh, and yeah, it’s pretty creative. A snapped spoke cut in half, and then some VHS tape – which is supposed to be on the chainstay – stuck to the head tube. It’s pretty cool.
And is there anything else on here that’s been chopped and changed?
The frame itself is actually fully stock, so exactly as you buy off the shelf. We spent several years developing it to get to the point which we’re happy with, so nothing needed to do there. Other than that, you can pretty much see everything, to be honest.
All the components are stock, and yeah, there’s nothing else that stands out. I think the grips and the shifters are enough, to be honest!
And is the paint job by your dad? Is that right?
Somewhat correct. My dad designed all the frames for all the team riders, actually, and then Lee Morgan Artworks painted all of the frames. So it was a collective effort from those two, really, and they’ve come out really nicely, so we’re stoked.
And the Lewis brakes, I have not had a chance to use them. I understand they have reach adjust and bite point adjust. Can you describe to people how they feel?
Yeah, I mean, you can kind of tune them to the feeling you want. I think brakes are the most specific component, the component where people have their most specific needs. Everybody likes a different feel, something that bites really, really sharp, something that’s a little softer.
With these brakes, because there’s a three-way adjustment of the leverage ratio, from the same brake setup, you can access kind of a softer, more spongy feel that’s not quite as harsh on the bite. Or you can have ultimate bite, power, everything at the start. So yeah, there’s good flexibility.
I personally like a solid bite straight away, and I like to access as much power as possible, with as little effort pulling the lever as possible, so I run the most powerful setup possible.
And do they have different lever options or anything like that, or is that as they are?
For the downhill, well, the current four-piston LHT brakes, these are the only levers. They do make, I think, a six-pot brake, an eight-pot brake, and a lighter sort of trail XC brake as well. But for the four-pot Enduro, aggressive mountain-style brakes, these are the only levers, yes.
And anything else on your bike that we think people should know about your particularly bike?
We’ve got a very high stack here. Five 5mm stem spacers, and a 35mm Rise One-Up carbon handlebar.
Why don’t you just steal a pair of bars from Dak?! [Dak Norton]
I could do, but I think he’s probably pretty short on those! They’re not going around everywhere, that’s for sure. They’re pretty rare.
We have got some 50mm bars coming before too long, but the stack is super easy to adjust. Between the tracks, it’s a lot easier to remove the stem spacers, or add stem spacers, than it is to switch a bar out. So it’s actually far easier to adjust from session to session at a race, or track to track. You can keep everything else the same.
And so what will you be doing to the bike for Mont-Saint-Anne? Anything or nothing?
Probably not a lot. We’ll play with suspension in the early doors. It’s a very fast track, it’s very rough.
You need good stability, because the speeds are so high. So we’ll probably play with suspension a little bit, but we won’t really change a lot to be honest. We’ve got a good set up now, and we’ll just continue on the same path that we are here right now.
Will there be much to be fiddled with in the off-season? Anything you’re hoping to change? Or is it all just physical training?
No, there’s a couple of ideas in the works. Obviously Intense have teased a gearbox version of this bike. So we’ll complete some testing on that bike, and see if we feel it’s faster than the conventional drivetrain M1.
If so, then we’ll have to get to work on that, and optimise the set-up there, which will be a big job. But perhaps we will figure that this conventional drivetrain M1 is faster and more simple, and we’ll just stick with this, which means it’ll just be more fine-tuning of a few little bits.
But again, probably mostly around the components on the bike, rather than the frame. Because we’re really happy with where the frame’s at currently.
Well, have a good final race of the season. And then into the off-season, and all the best for next year, because who knows what that holds?!
Yes, there’s a lot of rumour of change. Stronger than just rumour, there’s definitely going to be quite some major changes, I think. So yeah, we’re all waiting to hear exactly what’s going to happen. Next year could look a little different, but we’re excited for it, and going to continue growing with the sport.
