Michael Hanslip Coaching

If you want to go faster, you have to pedal harder

BC Bike Prep

04/08/26 17:39 Filed in: Gear
Less than 2 weeks to go for the 2026 BC bike adventure. Bikes have received new tyres, new sealant, fresh chain lube - everything required to ensure they start off working 100% on day 1. Doing around 6 hours/day for more than 3 weeks is hard on any bike, so I'll be doing daily bike checks and expecting to refresh lube, replace brake pads and probably replace a couple of pedal pins lost to rocks.
Probably the hardest job of bike prep for any bike trip is digging the bike travel bags out from the back of the closet. They aren't high demand, and the closet is under stairs so it tapers as you go back - bike bags fit back there very well. It means emptying the closet to access the bags. Harder than the packing itself.
Then there is the "what can go wrong phase?" that covers the entire trip between my house and sitting on the first plane seat. At that point I can relax and enjoy (?) the flight.

B1 Reverb AXS

27/07/26 22:29 Filed in: Gear
I'm off to BC for a month of MTB riding next month. One thing I remember about BC trails is they can be challenging, even at the blue level (blue for intermediate trail difficulty). When I bought my Slash, the longest AXS Reverb you could get was 170mm drop. So that's what it came with. But the seat post was short enough for me to run a 200mm drop (which I have on the Ripley and get along with there really, really well).
On more adventurous trails, the Slash seat dropped by 170mm was sometimes in the way. In anticipation of BC, I found a new B1 specification Reverb AXS post - the one where the battery has been moved from the back of the seat area to the front of the seat post collar area - and got it on sale.

The new B1 post is all air. There is no hydraulic circuit at all. At the top some mechanism locks it in place so the seat is as rigid as a traditional post. But dropped it sits on an air column which means it moves a little bit. Not actually that much because it uses a crazy amount of pressure to support the rider - about 330 psi (and the skinnier ones use 400 psi!!!). Which means no 'vent valve' and no air leaking past the seal into the oil and no squidgy seat syndrome when it does.

I haven't had a chance to ride the post yet, but I can say that the seat now vanishes almost completely when dropped compared to 30mm higher on the old post. Obviously, I'll report back on the experience after Canada.

I'm excited to go back to BC after a 7 year Covid-forced absence.

Big rotor...

21/07/26 17:18 Filed in: Riding
It feels like the bike industry has pigeon-holed what size rotors each type of bike should be using. I haven't subscribed to this. The most obvious mis-match is my Ripley with 120mm of travel front and rear sporting 200mm rotors front and rear. I didn't do this for better braking - and it might not actually be better braking - I did this so I could quickly and easily swap wheels with my Slash with 170mm of travel and 200mm rotors.
The Ripley runs less aggressive tyres on light-Enduro rims. Perfect for most of what I use the Ripley for. But not perfect for going fast on some of Stromlo's sketchier and more technical trails. Then the full Enduro tyres from the Slash make sense more than the 170mm of travel on the Slash do - the hybrid is the fast and fun option.
One could conceive of a day when I'd like the lighter wheel and tyre combo on the Ripley underneath the Slash, but so far that day hasn't come.
What the big rotors on the Ripley have taught me is gentle brake use. If I pull the lever hard the wheel will lock up instantly. There is much more power than there is traction. It also means I can drag a brake and not overheat anything. Those big rotors shed heat well.
My Sender also sports oversized rotors in the form of 220mm front and rear. That feels less oversized today than it did 4 years ago when I put them on. The Sender came with dual 200s, and I didn't even try them. I knew it was destined for 220s before I ordered it. And on most trails it also has more power than traction.

There is an upside to mostly having too much braking power. When I ran into the 'roo a year ago, I yanked hard on the brakes to try to slow down. But not so hard as to crash even while avoiding the hopping animal. My fingers are very sensitive to braking force now after several years of running big rotors.
Rather than ride around relying on my hand strength to stop, or on incredible brakes like the SRAM Mavens, I have created a good system that works well for me through a more regular brake (Guide on Ripley, Code on Slash and Sender) on a big rotor.
And practice. Practice. Practice.

Early days saddle review

14/07/26 21:21 Filed in: Gear
I now have 28 hours on the Flite and can report back that it is a very comfortable perch. Not perfect - I don't know if I can find perfection at this point - but very good. I can sit in many places along the length of the saddle and they are all comfortable.
Meanwhile, I put the Ergon saddle that came off the commuter bike on the Slash along with its new seat post. I've only ridden it a few hundred metres, but it seems better than what was on there (a lot) and I have the angle correct. I put a longer dropper post in before we go to Whistler so I can get the saddle as much out of the way as possible. I'll report back on the B1 generation of Reverb AXS posts after some riding - the new battery location is OK, but I didn't have any issues with the tyre rubbing my battery on the A1 version. And I'm not too happy about the extremely high air pressure inside - I have nothing that will pump that up. I just hope I don't need to refill it often.

Amazing hubs

21/06/26 21:43 Filed in: Gear
In 2018 I bought everything I needed to put two new road bikes together using Campagnolo Record with the new 12-spd and disc brakes. For commuting I got a red Checkpoint gravel bike with Shamal wheels, and for racing I got a green Madone aero bike with Bora wheels.
The red Checkpoint and its Record group are no longer with me - a frame issue led to Trek replacing it with the gen 2 Checkpoint. And that gen 2 Checkpoint was not meant to work with mechanical front derailleurs. Alas, the Record had to go, and Red AXS replaced it. But there was a freehub available to convert the Shamal from Campagnolo cassettes to SRAM cassettes.
Which means the Shamals have been my commuting wheels for 8 years now. In the neighbourhood of 30,000 km travelled in 11,000 hours on the bike. Thinking I ought to, rather than I needed to, I opened up the front hub recently to see what was going on inside. The original white grease put there by Campagnolo was still - pure white. It could have been put there yesterday. Amazing sealing on those hubs.

I've read a lot of complaints about unusual wear from ceramic balls on stainless races. The balls are too hard and the races take all the damage. Maybe for some, but not for the Shamals. The races were perfectly smooth and polished. Unlike traditional bearings of steel, there was not even a wear track on the cone. It, too, could have been assembled yesterday.
There was a fair amount of the original grease outside the seal - some escaped but no dirt entered. I wanted to add a little more grease, just for good measure. There are conflicting reports about appropriate grease for these hybrid hubs. I squeezed a tiny bead of my regular hub grease on each cone and reassembled the hub.
After checking the feel of the rear hub, I didn't even bother to open it up.

Those are some amazing hubs and they aren't even the "good" ones.

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