Thankfully.
Image: Matt O’Keefe
Tag: Team Seven Cycles
When Prototypes Come Home
When you build prototypes you expect to see them again. As the first iteration of an idea, they are the canaries in the mine of innovation, and, if all goes well, when they return they bring back a load of valuable information with them. We now have Mo Bruno Roy’s elite race bikes back after they’ve been flogged hard on mud, grass and sand the world over. One is her Mudhoney SLX . The other is her Mudhoney PRO, known as the Mo Honey PRO when we first built it. Now we’ve done a debrief on what worked and what could have been better, and, as always, it’s time to get back to work.
Dan’s Steel Mudhoney
This is Dan’s new, steel Mudhoney with a paint scheme he designed himself and we liked so much we made it one of our standard offerings. We call it ‘Antsy,’ because once this frame got to the paint team, Dan checked in on it every fifteen minutes or so until it was done.
It is safe to say Dan is the fastest guy in the building, and he built this bike to race, not just to embarrass us all on the regular Wednesday night Battle Path ride. The basic idea here was to build a light steel racer he could go hard on during the season, but would keep on the road year round. The 44mm head tube and integrated head set give the bike a modern look, and the paint feeds that same vibe.
So this is really a balance of traditional materials and design with a more contemporary aesthetic. The geometry is “American cross,” with a lower bottom bracket and slacker head tube angle. The paint scheme says, “I’m probably faster than you.” And he is.
Joe’s Disc CX – Mudhoney SL
This is Joe’s Mudhoney SL, disc CX race bike. Joe didn’t need a new bike to race CX with, but he built one, because he’s restless and he couldn’t get disc brakes out of his head.
While he was at it, he thought he’d move to a tapered fork with a 44mm head tube, and finish it out with custom decals, silver with a red outline.
We can’t vouch for every one of Joe’s design decisions on this bike, it’s his bike and no one else’s. We will say that he’s finishing closer to the podium this year than he was last year. Draw what conclusions you may.
“I really wanted to race with disc brakes this season,” Joe says, “so most of my focus has been on how the braking is different and better from my cantilever brakes. You ride so many dramatically different surfaces during a single race, the way your brakes work, from surface to surface, is a big deal. I noticed with cantis that I got pretty unpredictable results from the road to the grass to the mud. I’d pull the lever and see what happened, and then react to that.”
Obviously, that’s part of the charm of racing cross, or at least it has been. After so much talk last season about the emergence of discs, still only about 10% of racers seem to be running them, versus more traditional cantilever set ups.
Joe says, “The main difference with the discs is that they’re predictable. You grab a fistful of lever, and you stop. If anything, I am finding I can roll faster into turns and technical sections, because I know better what it’s going to take to slow down.”
The counter argument, the reason to stay with cantis, is the weight penalty. Today’s discs with their heavy calipers and rotors can add as much as a pound to your race day rig. Joe still hasn’t decided what he thinks about the added weight.
“I know the bike is heavier,” he says, “but I’m not sure that’s a problem for me in race situations. Maybe, because I can carry more speed into the barriers or the run ups, I’m less aware of carrying more weight on my shoulder or pushing it around the course.”
Whatever the case, we are building a lot more disc CX bikes this season than last. Whether those are race bikes, gravel grinders, or all-weather commuters, it’s a set up that is working for Seven riders all over the world, and we expect to see a lot more, on the road, if not on the race course.
Gran Prix of Gloucester CX II – Photos by Matt O’Keefe
