This winter, we welcomed EWS racer and all-round rad human Christina Chappetta to the Pinkbike team as a full-time presenter and race correspondent.
She's recently back from Crankworx Rotorua where she and the video team were busy creating a whole lot of awesome content and once racing is back on schedule, she will be travelling to enduro races, Crankworx, and other events to bring you the inside line on everything good. In the meantime, she's keeping us entertained with
workout videos,
pro tips for winter biking, and
weighing the pros and cons of clips vs. flats.
Christina moved to Whistler almost eight years ago soon after discovering mountain biking at the age of 22 when living in Colorado. She's now a Canadian resident, and until Pinkbike hired her as a presenter, she was working full-time at Evolution Bike Shop in Whistler. She's started in nearly a dozen Enduro World Series races, with an impressive career-best finish of
6th place at the Whistler round in 2018.
She knows her race lines and tech, and her infectious enthusiasm and on-camera demeanor have gained her fans from her day one appearance on
Full Enduro.
Christina on her way to 6th place at EWS Whistler in 2018.
Christina's suspension set-up factors in her light weight and aggressive riding style. She likes to run a few tokens and spacers so that she can run less pressure while keeping the beginning of the suspension soft but still firm enough to handle big hits and G-outs. She says she generally has to run faster rebound than bigger people because it takes more force for her to get the same result as a heavier rider. She prefers fast and technical trails so having the suspension dialed is crucial.
She runs no clicks of compression damping on her fork and never locks it out, even when climbing paved roads. She has a very sensitive wrist that has been broken a few times so more sensitivity in the fork helps. She prefers to baby it as much as possible and save the impacts to it for the more demanding descents.
Christina runs her bars quite low which she says helps keep her control in the downhill sections. She also noticed swapping to 50mm stem from a 35mm brought her more forward on the bike and in control of the front wheel, when she moved to a 29er from a 650b bike in 2018. She also swapped to slightly narrower 750mm bars from 760mm bars when she made that switch because it keeps the bike from feeling too big and uncontrollable for her while getting a slightly quicker response in side to side and cornering.
To keep her bike running smooth and plush, she likes to service her suspension frequently and keep fresh oil in the moving parts. This includes lubing her chain more often than needed to make sure her drivetrain is running smoothly and doesn't wear down quickly.
| I've never yet had the desire to run tire inserts because I am very confident in the durability of the carbon wheels I have been riding for the last three seasons. Combining the We Are One rims with Schwalbe's SuperGravity or Downhill casing allows me to run low tire pressures with my smaller build and still feel secure while racing and riding at a high caliber... not always picking the cleanest or smoothest lines! I prefer to run a slightly heavier tire, knowing it will be harder to puncture or slice, especially on big days in the backcountry where technical issues can be detrimental.—Christina Chappetta |
Christina runs her brake levers relatively close to the bar since her fingers aren't very long. She says it helps relieve the stress and fatigue of an outstretched braking finger and provides optimal strength while controlling the bite point.
We're stoked to have Christina on board and we can't wait to see more video content from her.
What?
"Christina runs her bars quite low which she says helps keep her control in the downhill sections."
Really? Her bars appear to be at least an inch higher than the saddle at full extension. Is that really considered to be "quite low"?
"No compression on the fork and low tire pressure to keep Christina's wrists happy"
Running the low-speed compression adjustment wide open is not the same thing as "no compression".
I try not to be too negative here in the comments, but this article reads like a high-school research paper written by someone with no prior knowledge of the subject, who's adding superfluous words to reach the minimum word count.
Semantics much?
Shes using a 5mm spacer and 10mm low rise bar. Reckon that's probably quite low...
"No compression" is a pretty standard term in the community i ride with and is interchangeable with "compression wide open".
You post the same nit picking stuff on the dudes bike checks?
Apparently, when you're 5'4", running a spacer and riser bar on your 150/160mm 29er does not result in a bar that is "quite low".
Sorry pal, but the quality of the technical writing on this site is usually much much higher than this, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the gender of the writer. But thanks for implying that my reasonable criticism was based on sexism. Douchebag.
Bars low = "like...whats up with your stem height"...."played around with it dood, relative to the stack height only runnin' 1 spacer and minimal bar rise, run er' low and your not slow" #geometry
No compression = "yo Chris, how many clicks of compression you runnin' girl"..."none"
Faster rebound = "why you not runnin' more rebound clickz"..."I'm a small rider yo and since I don't use a lot of compression nor a lot of pressure by rebound needs to be backed off, no doy"
PB Crowd: Why isn't her bike set up exactly like mine and why is she not using the terminology that I use? Down vote the whole article.
LOL
Totally agree with you there.
Wow, thanks for dropping all that knowledge on us. Maybe Sarah should consult your expertise next time she writes an article, as she could clearly use the help.
I'll just ignore your comments on the suspension setup, as they're nearly retarded. But, the bar height isn't low... She's 5'4" and running a spacer with a 20mm bar rise, and a 160mm 29er fork. In the profile photo, her bars are an inch above the saddle. It's a perfectly reasonable setup, but the bars aren't low.
I don't pretend to know how the rebound circuit works in relation to air pressure, but they are connected in a way I didn't know before setting up his bike.
Thinking about taking his shock in to get a custom tune eventually... or not... he's 9 and it seems to be work just fine for him... and as he grows we can just add more pressure.
FYI - Bike is a 2018 Marin Hawk Hill 1 XS with a X-Fusion O2 Pro R shock.
Nice post on MTBR btw.....lol
The PB rabbit hole
That front tyre is in "super soft" compound, as evidenced by the purple label.
Got the rear tyre right, though.
Nitpick mode OFF;
envious of your Maxxis and Fox suspension pricing.
Anyway, maybe you'll have better luck with pricing in Fiji than Sweden. Haha!
Then we'll see who WAKI and the Four Horsemen trample...and what kind of ridiculous setups the pedants run.
You kinda get used to it a bit for normal trails. For bike parks and jumps I usually lower the seat post, there is tons of space in the bike frame as I can have it slammed. But why should I instantly replace the seaport for a bike that costs over 3k?
And rocky mountain. Some of Their XL frames have 520mm sest post lol
That and also needing to weight the front end which can get floppy if you don't. Interesting about the 50mm stem. I run my bars (Slash 9.8 ) on the stock 35mm stem but one spacer down. Might look into a longer stem.
Also, stoked to see some EWS coverage eventually. I miss the Whistler valley trails, maybe some local reporting while we wait?
@sarahmoore Thanks for the writeup and pics! Look forward to moore. (Sorry, couldn’t resist)
- ungodly STA
- cranks not level in first pic, OCD screams
*lockdown boredom modality STILL ON*
Nice bike, rad addition to Pinkbike!
The bike is awesome. I have one. But the entire 2020 Trek Factory Team has a RS Super Deluxe on their Slash (at least, for now).
They are very inconsistent over long descent are are still far to unreliable.
The nerds on here will lose their mind.