grad gesehen neues schickes design von fabien barels rad:
http://freecaster.tv/mtb/1012593/fabien-barel-news
http://freecaster.tv/mtb/1012593/fabien-barel-news
, endlos lange gewartet und dann kommt es 5 Tage nach dem ich mir das Innenband im Knie angerissen habe 
Hi everyone!!!
Sorry but been quite busy lately building up a design studio here in Barcelona and not been much over here...
I will like to give you my point of view on various things and you let me know what you think about it!
For the ones that say 63º is crazy and being able to go up to 59.5º (yes i know 63-2= 62, haha! but with fork height you can go down to that.) is crazy I will give you my point of view. I used to thing as you do, but since Fabien convinced me to try the bike more slack I see things really different.
For the ones that don't want to go slack you can put bike up to 65º (don't thing anyone wants to go 66º, we have the durham that is like summum but on std of 65º), but as I said since I rode 63 don't want to even thing going something more steep.
On the other hand slack bike doesn't depend on how fast you are, probably any of you if you compare to me the difference is smaller than Fabien and I. And we rode in Schladming same geo, just I was on medium stock frame and he was on a Large stock one.
To me setting up a geometry does not depend on how fast you are, depends on how much extra confidence gives you on the most difficult parts of the track.
This year was for me first year on competition after 7 years not riding any Dh at all (I started riding again with the proto of the Summum) and this geo has gived to me that extra confidence. That was demonstrated in Schladming (steepest track of this years WC.) were I ended up with 60º head angle and 450mm chainstay something that FAILS on parking lot test (yes, bike feels like ****), but gives you so much confidence on fast and steep parts of the track, because you don't need to compensate the super steep head angle putting your as* over the tire. You can keep your normal riding position on every moment. That gives you so much more confidence and grip on from wheel.
I never thought I could ride a bike that slack and propably for 90% of tracks you won't need it, but I'm sure that geo gived me the extra confidence to end up 29th on the most difficult world cup of the year. Being not a PRO, just a person like any of you that works 10h a day, trains on free time changing lunch for a ride or at night on a velodrome, goes really latest day possible to races, has no mechanic and being 7 years away from riding I'm sure bike had really big part of this results.
Anyway, what i wanted to say is that if you have it there, if you need it to, I belive it was more useful to have a chance to go up to 61, than have an option to go 67 or 66, so we decided that steepest was going to be 65 and moved from there, but also we wanted that our riders can use a STD frame.
To all the ones that have adjustable head tube, give it a try on the slackest position (you will need a few days to get used to it), but I'm sure once you try 63º you never want to go back as I feel is perfect compromise for all tracks. Let me know what you thing once riden on it!
I want to make clear that I don't want to convice any of you that this is better than that or the other way around, just try to make you be more open minded and really give a try a slack head angle, cause I used to think it was not good, but once I tried it made me change my mind totally...
About what pepper brooks said about tubes cracking (I supose it was an aprils fools joke) but to clarify we haven't had any tube cracking (ok, bikes havent been much around and Fabien has only riden his production bike since schladming last year), but we had no problems till now. But I can tell you we have the thickest tube on the head tube of the market (2.6mm) and one of the most thick tubes on medium taper (1.6mm) And if you look to the design of the bike all the forces from suspension are distributed in a single machined part, so not weldings in beetwen high strees points.
Also we went quite on the safe side on this bike (that's why we give lifetime warranty) frame is around 3.4kg with hardware and no shock on medium size.
It could sound that is quite light, but if I tell you that Fabien rode since November 08 to August 09 ((or worlds, can remember exact date)being a pro that rides so much faster than any of us with a 60º head angle and almost rode it everyday) the same single frame. This frame was 2.85gr and only at worlds appeared a really small crack on the reinforce (this was 1.4mm and now the tube there is 2.6mm as on prototype we didn't use tappered tubes so we had to put a gusset there) of the head tube, to me sounds that we went pretty safe as any PRO cracks one bike a year minimum (ok, theres some that break many more this days), probably no one recognises it...
Hope this is not too long and anoying to read
Cheers!
C.
, ich finde ja schon +/- 0° extrem Flach, also noch mal 2° weniger da fühlt man sich ja wie bei Easy Rider
YES! 
