Bike Check: Vaea Verbeeck's Rocky Mountain Maiden
Pinkbike's Ross Bell spoke with Vaea Verbeeck in the Hope pits about her Rocky Mountain Maiden DH racer and how she sets it up for World Cup races. Verbeeck says that she has two primary sponsors: Hope Tech and Rocky Mountain, with the two race programs splitting travel and support. She is five foot, seven inches tall and weighs 150 pounds (170cm, 68kg), and prefers a large sized frame - the size she has ridden for three years, since the Maiden prototype she was given when she signed on with Rocky.
Verbeeck hails from British Columbia and says that park riding figures heavily into her riding regime. No surprise then, that she is a top contender in the Crankworx series. She rides off the back of the bike, and prefers a softer shock set up with a relatively stiff fork (both coils, with a 300-pound shock and a "firm" fork spring). Like many park rats, VerBeeck sets her rebound slower than most WC DH competitors - she says she likes it for smoothing out braking bumps. Compression? She'll add or subtract a few clicks depending upon the track or conditions. The Maiden has flip chips to adjust bottom bracket height and head angle - and as one might expect, it's as slack and as low as it can go (9.5mm BB drop and 63 degrees).
Verbeeck has a sharp mind and a lot of skills - and now that she seems to have broken the curse that sidelined her with injuries for three seasons, her journey to the top could be a short one.
Verbeeck hails from British Columbia and says that park riding figures heavily into her riding regime. No surprise then, that she is a top contender in the Crankworx series. She rides off the back of the bike, and prefers a softer shock set up with a relatively stiff fork (both coils, with a 300-pound shock and a "firm" fork spring). Like many park rats, VerBeeck sets her rebound slower than most WC DH competitors - she says she likes it for smoothing out braking bumps. Compression? She'll add or subtract a few clicks depending upon the track or conditions. The Maiden has flip chips to adjust bottom bracket height and head angle - and as one might expect, it's as slack and as low as it can go (9.5mm BB drop and 63 degrees).
Verbeeck has a sharp mind and a lot of skills - and now that she seems to have broken the curse that sidelined her with injuries for three seasons, her journey to the top could be a short one.
 | I tried the medium for two weeks last year, just for a crack. It was sweet in the bike park, but as far as race tracks go, I definitely love my large. |
Hope crankset, Slick chain guide and quarter bash plates. The arms appear to be the shortest, 165mm option.
Coil-sprung RochShox Boxxer with "firm" springs.
300-pound shock spring. Rebound set slow.
Hope Tech 3 V4, four-piston calipers.
Lever position. "I do get a lot of arm pump, and I ride pretty far over the bike, so I like to keep them up, so I'm sitting back a little bit."
"I used to run them really far from the bars, but again, arm pump is a huge issue that I have on steep tracks, so I run them pretty close the bars now."
| For Andorra, I put a dropped crown on my fork to raise the front just a little bit. And, I went back to neutral, the smaller crown, this week [in Lenzerheide] - just back to regular settings. Bike park setting! |
Maiden's flip-chip slammed to the lowest position.
Hope's aluminum DH 275 rims.
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