Privateer elite downhill racer Preston Williams breaks down how he’s managed to figure out the ultimate downhill bike setup as a privateer.
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Edited By: Doug Tucker, onlyflightdispatch.com
#TheRideCompanion #mountainbiking #mtb
um I want to ask you cuz I’ve noticed you’re quite The Puzzler on your mountain bike back when you on a factory team Factory KTM team yeah what level of puzzling would go on what were you aware of what because it’s it is interesting like engine suspension yeah like how much do you affect I can tell when something’s not running right like I can tell if the suspension needs to be changed a bit or if you need to change the jetting cuz it’s not quite reving right it’s not as crisp as it should be but like I wouldn’t actually know how it needs to be changed I just know it needs to be changed and luckily my dad was just like clued in on that stuff obviously being around it for so long I just go this isn’t right they go try that sweet perfect so I didn’t have to actually have like any mechanical knowledge I was just like this doesn’t work I mean should that’s the dream scenario right that’s what a team would want as well I don’t he don’t know how a car works clue but you can tell you it’s wrong yeah you know what I mean I love that I love I love the thought of just being like yeah like front left going can we do something you know what I mean or just anything yeah yeah but also been able to feel it’s like so important yeah been able to know because a lot of people probably wouldn’t yeah you know what I mean I’ve personally always really guilty of that like on a mountain bike anything I can like I don’t really know what’s going on right I’m always very impressed by people who can be like the suspension is off the front is off whatever I always find that really impressive I never used to be able to when I was a kid I would I’d like ride whatever you could give me a bike and like the bars could be on backwards or something and I just be like oh it’s so good I just rag it to be fair I can still do that now but I can actually feel I can feel every little what’s going on a little bit Yeah I was impressed what like hearing you talk about suspension setup when we you know when we’re in Germany and you’re like yeah like I I’ve never been able to do do that yeah i’ I’ve never been able to be like a my front keeps pushing or like I can’t I can imagine that’s like pretty probably helped a lot coming from Moto yeah so the main like thing is I had to teach myself like obviously not being on a team on a mountain bike I don’t have someone to like just make the changes for me I kind of need to know myself what I need to change and like the way I done that was just kept going out and changing stuff even if it wasn’t good just so I know what it feels like so now I just know what like every single thing feels like it’s just ingrained in there so now if I fill some things off I’m like oh yeah that was that so I just need to change this like I already know cuz I’ve already done it it’s good way doing it actually it is isn’t it can can we do an example this is probably annoying to you but I find it really interesting so you you were having trouble at the ey EXs you were saying like oh I keep losing my front so what was your because I know you’re like quite like uh you you have it lined up how you’re going to you like troubleshoot yeah what were your steps that you took for instance with the front pushing yeah in turns when you’re pushing hard so that track at the I EXs it wasn’t very steep was it it was quite flat um and so I’ve you know I’ve played with how far I’ve dropped my Forks through the crown I’ve probably got I’ve probably played with like 10 mil and I’ve done every single mill um cuz depending how steep it is you want to raise or lower that and it was the same with motorcross actually in sand You’ drop the forks right through just to so you kind of know I like the front’s pushing like it’s a bit far away from me I’ll just bring you’re trying to get a bit more weight on the front is that what you’re saying yeah and then so you can kind of push in a bit harder and then with that if you add more weight then you have to adjust mhm accordingly what are you adjusting so you’re not it depends how much you do it all by it could literally just be a click of compression I appreciate these are annoying questions but I just I I quite like that I quite like your like non nonsense approach like when you talk about it there’s it’s quite like it’s actually scientific you know what I mean so like you’ve thought about it and I it’s not there’s no [ __ ] really you are actually saying what You’ felt and yeah I just find it interesting it’s literally just putting like all of my past experience no matter what sport together just memorizing how every single thing feels on the bike and then it just speeds up the process basically because you could you know have a problem and there could be like five different ways that you could fix it but if you know what works for you already because you’ve tried it instead of having to go do five different runs and being like Oh yeah that’s finally good you can pretty much get like done in one run yeah yeah yeah and it just saves you so much time and you can start focusing wait and focus on other stuff yeah a bit more so then you have your bike just at its base setting and you can adjust it per track based on your memory of things that you’ve mhm and like you don’t really get like one base setting though like throughout the year I think a lot of people have this your bike actually ends up getting stiffer throughout the year CU you’re getting faster throughout the year which is pretty nuts and you don’t really you don’t really go back unless the track conditions change like it could be sppy or something you’ll soften it back up I’d be interested to hear what a fast bike feels like for you when you you know your bike’s dialed yeah what what does it feel like does it it just gives you confidence it’s like the confidence that you can go into this term of outbreaking and just push it’s just going to grip and then that’s that’s the main thing I’ve always said this actually because um you obviously can like use uh technology to set your bike up and stuff but in my opinion it’s good it’s very very good to get you progress fast but it’s definitely not always right in my opinion it’s more rer feel cuz I think you’ll get more out of a bike that’s statist uh more out of a bike that feels correct to you and gives you more confidence than more out of a bike that’s like statistically correct so interesting how long would it usually take you to get it let’s say you go to a World Cup yeah how many runs are you talking to get a B like dial so it feels like that and do you sometimes Miss at some weekends and you because obviously you hear people say that like I just didn’t have the bite that there been times where you just miss it you just can’t find a setup 100% to be fair my bikes been we’ve got such a good base setting that I never really have to change too much it’s always really minor stuff here and there we did have one when the track was super quick I put new Tunes in my shock and forks which is quite a big change yeah and it’s a lot to get done in a weekend yeah so actually depends quite a lot on the track I’d say okay cuz some tracks I could turn off my bike would be sweet other tracks I could be like right like I’m blowing out let me try a few different things and I’m still just blowing through it right new tune we got to go stiffer on the tune so when you’re saying new tune are you saying are you are you trying to make things just harder or ramp up more or both so I’m running the odens on my downhill bike so with the ramp you’ve got a top air chamber and a bottom air chamber so you can adjust it pretty well with that but you put more air in the bottom chamber it’s going to ramp up a bit quicker um what these Tunes do it’s like a compression tune so if you’re sat at the top of the compression and like you can’t make it any stiffer on that then you put a bigger tune in and then the middle of those clicks will be like the top of the tune before so it just gives you more adjustment basically yeah okay um so that sort of thing you’ve learned all this yourself yeah so yeah me and my brother kind of just spent like oh the smart one yeah all right he comes in handy when you get start racing World Cups he’s he’s my world cup mechanic or he was no way so um like last winter we just kept driving places and I was like I’m just going to change every something every lap we change loads of stuff and then we just talk about it we kind of discuss each other’s ideas and then just try it and see how it goes sort of thing so it’s literally all just trial and error like hours and hours of trial and error with’ um we ho forward quite quickly to racing World Cups what was the point where you decided to stop the Moto side racing JK bikes um what an episode you did really well though oh thanks dude do you know what to finish it off what if you could put some sort of Link over my face yeah I can do that I could put a video up on ol’s face of an episode we think you’ll love is it on now there is a subscribe button here on this chair and on my face another video we think you’ll love thank you we appreciate you there’s nothing in the chair now subscribe