When Nino Schurter won the first World Cup mountain bike race of the season in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa on a bike with 650b wheels, it sent a ripple through the cycling universe. Anyone viewing 650b – essentially a size midway between 26″ and 29″ – as a novelty wheel up to that point, suddenly had to take this new/old wheel standard very seriously.
Seven has been building 650b-specific mountain bikes for a few years now, and in our experience, 650b gives a nice balance between the handling of a 26″ wheel and the obstacle clearance of a 29″ wheel. It manages to maintain momentum better than the 26″ and dive through switchbacks better than a 29″. Certainly, for smaller riders interested in the benefits of a larger wheel, the 650b standardcan beeasier to build a well-fit frame around thana 29″.
What we find, time after time, is that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for building a great bike, and we think 650b is a good example of the big benefits to be gained by thinking outside of the conventional wisdom.
Seveneers Joe Wignall and Dan Vallaincourt take a break from the shredding
At Seven, several of our employees are riding 650b for their everyday trail bike, including Joe Wignall who has his set up single-speed with an eccentric bottom bracket and belt drive system, and John Lewis who stuck with chain drive, but is also running single speed. These bikes give a pretty pure trail experience. You work for the climbs. You pick your way through the more technical descents. There’s a lot of stripped down, old-school fun to be had on bikes like these.
The industry looks to be expanding into 650b for the coming season, and while the cynical among us might view that as just another opportunity to sell stuff to cyclists, the benefits of 650b are pretty tangible, once you take the time to ride it.
Mike and Mary Take The Podium At The Trans Andes Challenge
It’s hard to transition from Chile to Northern California to South Africa with a stable of race bikes, enough tools to build them up and break them down, all the other clothing and gear you need, and a shred of remaining sanity to carry you through the first mountain bike World Cup race of the season.
But that’s exactly what Seven riders Michael Broderick and Mary McConneloug did over the last 6 weeks, and their brand new Seven IMX SLX race bikes went along for a maiden voyage on some of the most challenging dirt in the world.
Mike reported back to us from the post-race wind down in South Africa:
“Mary and I literally turned hundreds of heads as we spent the weekend on our new IMX bikes at the World Cup in Pietermaritzburg. The bikes stand apart visually from our previous frames and the majority of the bikes being used by our competitors. The carbon Ti lugged IMX frame design is visually stunning and we were able to build these bikes up to the limit. They really look fantastic!â€
If looks could kill, they wouldn’t have the race though. Mike added, “Those capable of looking beyond the initial bling (including all our on-site sponsors) were impressed especially by the inclusion of the 44mm head tubes as these (or alternative oversize head tubes) are fast becoming an industry standard.â€
We built these bikes specifically to give Mike and Mary critical advantages in the toughest race conditions and according to Mike, performance improvements were obvious straight away. “The bikes ride with a lighter touch. Changing directions requires less effort in tight, low-speed situations, and they exhibit an overall greater level of confidence, inspiring control throughout the majority of demanding off-road situations.â€
Mike and Mary are particularly agile riders, so we aimed for a more lively ride, an overall more manageable bike for all trail purposes, which meant shortening the chain stays for maximum obstacle clearance capability. Mike said, “Mary and I both feel an increased ease when we lift up and over obstacles. Mary was especially tuned in to the ease of being able to manual her bike over trail obstacles without pedal input. This allows for a quicker trail read as last minute input and corrections are more significant and accurate. This, along with the stiffer front end, translates into greater confidence when hanging it out at high speed.â€
He also said,
“The bikes absolutely track quicker around corners when traditionally steered (cutting through the apex) as well as with our preferred hairpin corner attack (hugging the inside of the corner before the apex, steering the front wheel through while initiating a rear brake skid to slide the rear). We both have a good stable feeling on these bikes enabling us to keep our feet clipped in while performing this move all the way through to letting off the brake, regaining traction and pedaling out for a quick exit.â€
How’s that for a pro maneuver?
Shorter chain stays and subsequently shorter overall wheelbase make the bike more agile, but the oversized head tubes give them maximum stiffness and stability. Mike and Mary appreciated that stability as well.
Mike said,
“The increased front end stability is probably most apparent when muscling the bike through low speed trail obstacles that take maximum strength and input on the bars and pedals at the same time. A good example would be when out of the saddle splitting a large trail feature (between the tires) and torquing the pedals and the bars simultaneously to try and move forward. I can feel that there is far less flex and a better power transfer in these cases. The increased stiffness at this point also really helps with the confidence when in a rough spot and looking to commit to a feature that is at the limits of our confidence levels.â€
As you can imagine we’re anxious to see how the bikes perform at the next round of the World Cup in Houffalize, Belgium next month. As we type, Mike and Mary are getting their gear together, breaking everything down again for shipping and trying to keep their bodies on track for what promises to be a grueling and exciting MTB season.
When we sat down to design new bikes for Mike Broderick and Mary McConneloug to race in the upcoming World Cup mountain bike season and possibly the Olympics, the big question was how to improve on the bikes they’d been riding for the two previous seasons.
Their all Ti Sola SLXs have been race winners. When most other riders on the circuit were trying to pack more carbon onto their bikes, Mike and Mary persisted, quite successfully, with titanium. We went to the absolute limit of our building experience to make those bikes light for them. We shaved down their cable guides. We drilled holes in their bottom brackets. But they were all metal bikes. And they were fast.
So, the biggest change they made from past seasons was to go to a Ti/carbon mix frame, our IMX SLX, but without the integrated seat post (ISP) that distinguishes that model. Instead Mike and Mary opted for an adjustable 30.9mm post that is fatter, stiffer and has a thinner-walled carbon than standard seat posts. The weight savings and added stiffness were big bonuses, and we ultra-butted all the frame tubing to save every last gram for them.
Mike knew he wanted to experiment with shorter chain stays to optimize front end maneuverability. A shorter overall wheelbase lets you make tighter turns on technical courses, and the agility he hoped to gain suits both Mike’s and Mary’s aggressive riding style.
To dial in the chain stay length we built multiple rear end modules to test the interaction and spacing of wheels, tires and components. It’s a game of millimeters, but over time we settled on the right set up for them, and then built their bikes based around that rear triangle.
Mike and Mary also knew they wanted to add over-sized head tubes and tapered forks for extra front end stiffness, and they wanted an opportunity to experiment with Cane Creek’s new angled headset. As an inveterate tinkerer, Mike thought he and Mary could both dial in the handling response they liked for each course. Being able to adjust that responsiveness might be a huge advantage in the variable weather conditions they see while racing in Europe, Africa and South America.
The final act was getting the bikes in their hands. We shipped them out to coincide with a short stopover in California, between their pre-season training in Chile, where they won the Mixed Open category of the Trans-Andes Challenge, and the first World Cup race of the year in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.
What is so special about a Seven? We get asked this question all the time. A custom bike is an investment, and people want to know the money they’re spending is being put to good use. They want to understand the real value of working with Seven.
First of all, what is the value of a custom bike? An apple is not an orange. They’re both fruit, but they’re just not the same thing. In much the same way, a production bike is not the same thing as a custom bike. They’re both bikes, and all bikes are good, but there are some big differences.
The first question you want to ask is: Who is building your bike?
More and more, production bike companies have become design offices. Significant R&D and design time is put in on the front end before a detailed design is sent off to an Asian factory where the actual bikes are built in batches, by size.
Make no mistake. The bikes being built in Asia can be quite sophisticated. Carbon fiber construction techniques in particular can be complex, nuanced and vary wildly depending on the company the factory is building for. The workers in those factories are not inexperienced bike builders, nor, in most cases, are they simply stamping bike frames out of molds.
They are also not, by and large, avid cyclists. True road and mountain biking, have limited appeal in the manufacturing region of China. So, while the workers who build production bikes may be highly skilled, they seldom, if ever, bring an experience of or passion for cycling to their everyday work.
Our craftspeople are also riders. They use the products they make. In many cases they race on our bikes, train on them and commute on them. They know what makes the bikes good and learn what can make them better. It informs their craft and ties them more closely to our customers, who are living and riding the same experience.
There is also a positive feedback loop we get from pairing the designer with the craftspeople. Any new design that comes into the factory gets evaluated by the people who will build it. They bring up tooling or materials challenges the designer might not have considered. The design gets refined. It gets prototyped and ridden by the builders.
Is it important for the people building your bike to be knowledgeable, passionate cyclists? Is it important that the craftspeople cutting your bike’s tubes can talk directly to the people who designed it? We think so. This is what you get when you invest in a custom bike. This is what you get when you buy a Seven.
