Bike Check： Mike Kazimer's Raaw Madonna V3

Hey everyone, I'm Mike Kazimer. Today I've got a very special bike check lined up for you, and it's very special because it's my bike, at least the bike that I've been using for the last season. It's a Raw Madonna V3. I built this bike up in order to be a test sled for the year, the one that I could hang off the latest suspension products, wheels, tires, other components that I wanted to put lots and lots of miles on. I chose the Raw because it's nice and basic in a good way. Aluminum frame, external cable routing, very standard shock size, things that make my life and make it easier to source the products in order to review them. It's also super fun to ride, but we'll get to that in a little bit. Let's start at the front of the bike with the fork. I'm running the Fox 38 with the newer Grip X2 damper, currently my favorite suspension fork in the long travel bracket. I've got 170 millimeters of travel. My settings, you can read all my exact settings in the article, but I'm running around 82-83 PSI. Clickers are about in the middle, same with rebound, pretty standard setup I'd say. I found that it's got a good range of adjustment. I've got two volume spacers. I changed it a little bit depending on the conditions. If I go up to the bike park, it might increase the amount of compression. It's nice and sloppy and muddy and mucky. I'll reduce the low speed compression, get a little bit more grip. Overall, it's been a really good fork for the season. It doesn't have the nice integrated fender because this bike saw a lot of Whistler bike park laps, and if you run the integrated fender on their new chairlift, it breaks it off. So, got the floppy fender on there, but Fox does make a nice integrated fender. Other parts we can talk about, we can talk about the rear suspension. That's the PUSH SV8 shock. Again, I've tested a lot of shocks on this bike. See, I rode the Ohlins TTX 22, tried the new RockShox Vivid Coil. I've got this on there now, and I also have another shock on the way. I think I will talk about it when it comes out, but either way, I've been testing a fair number of shocks, and out of all the ones I've tried so far, this is my favorite, and that's why it's been sticking around. Just has the nice blend of good poppy feel, but also has that hydraulic bottom out, so I'm not running through the travel too quickly at the end of the stroke. The tune just feels the best for my preferences, so that's why it's been sticking around on there. It is expensive, but it's not as expensive as PUSH's other shock. I'm running a 65 millimeter stroke shock on this bike, which gives it 173-ish millimeters of travel. It's specced with a 60 millimeter stroke shock, but you can go longer, at least on this size large frame. I haven't run into any clearance issues or anything like that. It's been working well, and I kind of like the extra travel, at least for the way that I've built this bike up. Last is suspension. Let's dig into the drivetrain. We've got that Vivo Enduro rear derailleur and the Vivo F3 shifter that I reviewed recently. It works well. It's cable actuated, so no batteries, which I like. I'm really excited for when SRAM hopefully comes out with the cable actuated T-type drivetrain, and I'm going to put that right on this bike because I think it's the ideal candidate for it. I don't hate batteries, but I also don't love them, and if I can avoid them, that's what I'm going to do. So that's why this bike has zero batteries. It makes me happy. I don't have to worry about getting to the trailhead and realizing that I forgot to charge something. Nice and simple. Yeah, so no batteries on this bike. I like it. But yeah, back to the Vivo derailleur and shifter. It works great. Super expensive. You're probably better off buying Shimano XT and getting similar performance, but it's cool that some little companies out there trying something different. It's also quiet, which I like. Yeah, I'm running it with a SRAM cassette and chain, and then up front I've got an O-chain on there. O-chain's gotten a lot of hype this season. It seemed like every World Cup racer was running them. Basically, it's supposed to be an anti-pedal kickback item or something to mitigate the amount of chain flap. It's got some elastomers and it rotates like that, so when you're going downhill, it keeps it really nice and calm under your feet. I have seen people that are skeptical, claiming it's snake oil. I used to be in that camp, but it is doing something that I like on the descents. It makes the bike feel calmer, at least under your feet. I think it's just dealing with that chain slap. Picture if you took a chain, whipped it up and down. It's a lot of movement. This really helps calm that down. I'm not so convinced that it's the pedal kickback side of things. I think it's more with the chain flopping around. The O-chain really helps with that. And this one's cool because the O-chain R has a little dial that you can adjust and you can switch it between different degrees of engagement, basically. You can even lock it out. If you had a big, long climb and didn't want to feel that mushiness under your feet, you can lock it out and then you could open it up and just pick how many degrees you wanted it to rotate. I've been running it using the six or the nine degree engagement. I think the 12 degree feels pretty mushy. It's good if you're just going downhill, but six or nine, I can pedal it around and be okay. I do want to stress, I wouldn't recommend putting it on an XC bike, even a trail bike. It does feel pretty vague under your feet, so it's definitely a descent-oriented item. And again, it works well for that, but for pedaling, if you just want to feel a nice pedaling feel, we'll stick with that. If that's what you're after, it doesn't have that. Especially if you're in techie climbing situations, we kind of need to do ratcheting and places where a higher engagement hub might be nice. This counteracts that. So if you're big into pedaling, big into tech climbing, don't go with an O-chain. But if you want that nice, calm sensation under your feet while descending, it's worth a try. I've been enjoying it. It's been fun to experiment. Yeah, running the SRAM XO aluminum cranks on there. Other parts, there's not too much carbon on this bike, but I do have carbon wheels. I've been testing these DT Swiss, what are they? EXC 1200 wheels. They're super expensive, like, I don't know, $2,900. It's too expensive. They're great. They've held up. I've smashed them in the bike park. They haven't broken. They're still true. The new DEG hub, four degrees of engagement. Obviously I've kind of counteracted that, but before I had the O-chain, it just feels nice. I feel like it's a good, happy number. Yeah, they've held up very well, like I said, but they are very expensive and there are other options out there that perform to the same level at a much lower cost. Realistically, if it was me looking for a new wheel set, the Reserve aluminum wheels, this is just my experience over the last year. The new Reserve aluminum wheels are great, like 600, I think they're $700 for an aluminum wheel set and they now come with the DEG four degree engagement hub. So same internals as this one. And they're, yeah, a third of the price. So even four, let's see, my math's bad, but yeah, you could buy four aluminum Reserve wheel sets for one carbon wheel set. They weigh more, but I don't know. So yeah, nice wheels, expensive wheels. They are light-ish, which is cool. 1750 grams helps keep the overall weight of this bike down. I do think that's something that you don't want to overlook that, you know, bikes can get pretty heavy these days. So if you can save some weight, although the cost benefit thing, you have to figure that out on your own, but that's the wheels. I'm running Maxxis DHR2 in the back, double down casing and an Assegai up front with an XO plus casing. We're out here where I live in Washington. I can get away with that XO plus front tire. It's not super rocky, tend to be more roots than sharp pointy rocks. So you can save a little bit of weight there. And then the double down casing is nice in the rear for those moments where you have a hard impact or, you know, get a little offline. I did flat the other day in the bike park with an XO plus front casing, which is a reminder that in the bike park, it's good to have some thicker tires, but that was the only flat I had this season. Yeah, we'll call it pretty good. Overall, I can usually get away with this setup on this bike. No inserts because I don't like inserts. They're a pain to install and I don't feel like they improve the ride quality, at least for me, in a meaningful way. Other things we've got to talk about, pedals. I've got flat pedals on there right now. It's been super rainy. I kind of like messing around with flat pedals in the fall and winter when things get sloppy. Overall, most of the rest of the season, I run Shimano SPD pedals, usually XT pedals. They just work and I like clipping in, especially when it's super rough. But I can switch back and forth. And these wave form, wolf tooth wave form pedals have been nice. Kind of a good neutral pedal. Not super wide, but they're not super small. Got some concave to them. Pins work well, especially when you pair them with grippy shoes. It's kind of fun to mess around with flat pedals. I'm not in the one has to be better than the other. I can go back and forth pretty comfortably. What else we have? Little details. Got this seat that's been kicking around for might be three seasons now, at least two solid seasons. Specialized Mimic, super comfortable Mimic Power. Nice and short profile, pretty wide. This one's got some funny little cellulite look to it. It's got some like a harder ball with a softer foam around it, just designed to contour to your rear end better. It works for me. It's real comfy and I like it. One up dropper post, 210 millimeters a drop. It's not extended all the way. It'd probably go up to about maybe there if I extended it. Yeah, it works pretty well. One up does have some of the shortest insertion length, which is nice because it does have a little kink right there. So some riders might have to adjust their post to see how much post they can run in this bike. But again, works well for me. It can get a little slow to go up and down if you're riding in super sloppy weather, but that doesn't take very long to fix a little grease in there, get things running smoothly again. Up front, got some Raceface Aira carbon bars. I'm getting that 40 mil rise. I've been liking higher rise bars lately. You know, this bike has a very tall head tube and overall high stack. So I'm just running one spacer underneath, but then I can run the 40 mil bars. Puts me in a nice upright position. Some Ergon GD1 grips, I believe. They're comfy. Soft rubber compound works well for my hands. I got big hands, but I prefer thin grips. Those ones are kind of like a nice happy medium. They get some shape to them, but overall they feel thin and comfy. What else do we have? That's pretty much it. 40 mil stem, water bottle. Water bottles are important and it's nice that this bike holds one. I can even put a longer one. I mentioned that external routing. I didn't mention the wheel size. Mixed wheel. You can run this bike in 29 inch version or switch these little pieces out there and run it with a mixed wheel setup. And I've been preferring mixed wheels on the longer travel bikes. Just that steep terrain. Super fun to carve around. And then it also has the UDH dropout, so I can run SRAM transmission, which I've also run on this bike. It worked well on the non-UDH version of the dropout, so you could you can have adjustable chainstay length. But this one comes fixed at 450 millimeters, which I feel like works very well given the the other dimensions of the bike. Kind of longer back end. Smaller rear wheel. Low bottom bracket. Tall bars. Super fun. Yeah. Oh, I did forget to mention something else. Kind of newer addition to this bike that I'm in the process of testing. You'll be able to read a review sometime in the next couple months. These Formula Cura brakes. They're single piston. It's the Cura X because it has a carbon lever blade because that's fancy. Yeah, kind of they're billed to be more of their XC trail brakes, but Formula said, hey, why don't you toss this on an enduro bike and see if it's enough power for you. And I would say so far it is. It's not, it doesn't match, you know, the new SRAM Maven brake power or something like Shimano Saint, but it's been working pretty well. I've got a 220 front rotor, 200 rear. And yeah, I think it's a good testament that, you know, not all brakes, you can kind of adapt the brakes power by, you know, using different rotors, different pad compounds. Personally, I probably wouldn't choose these brakes for this bike, but I would happily put them on something a little bit less travel, but it's been kind of a fun experiment. Yeah. They're mineral oil, super easy to bleed. Like maybe some of the easiest bleeding brakes that I've dealt with in the last handful of years. So yeah, they're making some good stuff. Nice, light lever action. We'll have the full review up in a couple of months. Once I get some more miles and, you know, a few more steep descents and kind of some wetter conditions, but after a good start, again, not really perfect for this bike, but it's working well enough that I'm not rushing to take them off. I think that's just about all the little parts. The frame itself, like I said, aluminum, external cable routing is cool. Big bearings. Sometimes it gets a little creaky, but I just kind of pull it apart, clean out the grit, put some new grease on it. I mean, that's been fine. No play or anything like that so far. Yeah. How much does it weigh? That's without pedals, right around 36 pounds. So about 37 pounds with pedals. I think that's kind of normal these days. It seems like Enduro bikes weigh 36 pounds. I wish they were a little lighter, but I can still pedal it. It's not my first pick for big, long XC Epics, but that's not what this bike is meant for. What else did I tell you? I can tell you about my tire pressures. I run 21 PSI in the front, usually 23 PSI in the rear. Change depending on conditions a little bit, but typically around there, I'm pretty light, so I can get away with those pressures. And yeah, that's it. That's the bike I've been riding. I like it. That's kind of the ride impressions takeaway. This bike's super fun. Like I said, low bottom bracket, your hands are up high. You can just carve around. There was a full review up a couple months ago, so you can read that for the more in-depth nitty gritty, but I just like having a bike in my fleet that I can toss around, smash into things, and it just feels good, especially in the steeps. That's where this is the best. You're just in the right position. You can attack the trail. It's kind of cool to get the most out of it, and it's aluminum, so if it tips over and tumbles down some rocks, it's not usually the end of the world. Yeah, that's it. That's the Ramadana. That's my staff ride, the bike I've been on for the season. It's going to keep going. I'm going to hang some more parts off it, but it's been a great addition to the bikes that I've been riding. If you have any questions, put them in the comments. Happy to answer any setup questions or why did I pick this part, or you can tell me what I did wrong. There's my staff ride, Ramadana V3. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening to me ramble. I'll catch you next time.