By Mikkeli Godfree Nathan Rennie posted the fasted time in qualifying for the world Downhill...
The fastest bike in seeding (Image credit: Mikkeli Godfree)
By Mikkeli Godfree
Nathan Rennie posted the fasted time in qualifying for the world Downhill championships and picked up the bronze medal on his machine on Saturday. Steve Peat finished narrowly out of the medals on his V-10, but was second on Thursday's seeding run.
Even if the V-10 bike doesn't win the World Championship, Peat is poised nicely to take the World Cup Series with an almost unassailable lead as the riders head off to the last round after the World Championships down under.
We talked to the Santa Cruz mechanics Ed Chavez and Matthiu Dupelle about the setups on both Rennie and Peat's bikes after the seeding runs. "The two greatest differences between the two bikes is the suspension setup, Rennie's is harder. Tyres also is a big area of difference. Peaty always goes with a little harder compound and a narrower tyre (a 2.2" on the back).
Nathan does a little adjustment to the upshift lever on the XO shifter and he also runs way wider bars, almost 20m wider - Nathan runs little extensions on them actually (little solid aluminium ones). Peaty doesn't use lock-on grips like a lot of other riders. The grip on them is better than most of the lock ons and he doesn't like the metal edge on the lock-ons.
"The greatest similarity between the bikes is that they both have Nathan Rennie stickers on them! Nathan likes Peaty's bike so much he put his sticker on it. Steve's got a sense of humour though so he just left it on. It does confuse people though!
