Sorry Pinkbike, I Destroyed Your ‘Grim Donut'.

A few years ago Pinkbike set out to make a bike of the future. 10 years into the future to be exact. They call it the Grim Donut. They're trying to guess what the geometry would be like and of course it was made as a joke because this bike is kind of ridiculous. And today I get to ride it. Oh yeah it's not even heavy. I think it's light. Now Pinkbike actually wanted to make a video of my boost monster versus their Grim Donut. Of course I was very excited to do that. I just wanted to make sure that I got some time on the Grim Donut myself and could make my own little video. But as you will see the ride got cut short. Look at this crazy wild thing. Extremely slack headtube angle. I think it's like a 58 degree headtube angle or something nutty. I think it's like a 480 mil chainstay length. Man this thing is wild. We are riding Mount Seymour today. Filming with Pinkbike. Matt Beer's on my boost monster. I'm just exploring what this crazy geometry is gonna feel like. So the first thing I noticed while bouncing around in the parking lot is the front wheel flop. Because of that slack head angle. Yeah this thing just wants to kind of... The front wheel kind of wants to stay turning either left or right. You got to put a little bit more effort to keeping the bike straight. The reach doesn't actually feel like as long as I was expecting. I can tell it's a very low bike that's for sure. Yeah I'm kind of glad that you added more spacers under that stem. Do you want to go in front? I don't really care. Yeah you go first and we'll... All right let's do it. Okay sick. First try on the Grim Donut. Okay I'm... I don't even know this um... Oh I just buzzed my butt. Wait I just went the easy way accidentally. I was uh shifting the wrong way. This shifter is confusing me. Oh it's an electric one. Whoa man this bike is long. Oh my goodness okay. Oh nice berms. One thing I've been nerding out a lot about lately is bike geometry. If you've seen the last video I made riding my boost monster, I announced that I'm making a boost monster 2.0 bike with a custom frame modern geometry to work with my 300 millimeter super monster fork. So that whole project has really got my mind thinking a lot about the numbers and that's one reason why I do appreciate being able to ride something crazy like this Grim Donut because sometimes it's good to just try everything, have an open mind, and I think it's useful finding the limits. Wow this bike is something to get used to. You're telling me. I don't need such a long wheelbase on any of that. Yeah. So it's not exactly helping nor the slack head angle. I don't need that for any of that. Well maybe we could cut them in half and then like switch then they'd both be kind of normal. Yeah yeah exactly. Sounds good you're flying on that thing. All right let's see get some air time. Try some flow. Let's see. Nice. Whoa. So I'll go in front for this one. Sure. See how it goes. Yeah. Pingu. Okay pingu is pretty fun. The uh yeah the tire is buzzing my butt a couple times there. So okay all right so this is chill. It's working. Hit some air time. The bike feels just fine on the flow trails but then again most any bike feels good on flow trails though. What I'm noticing is that really low stance is awkward. It's really not very comfortable. Sweet. Oh. I kind of feel like I need more air pressure in my tires. Yeah I mean it was I was able to like hit the jumps. I'm like purposely like landing front wheel first. I just feel. Yeah you really gotta nose it in. It's just too long like yeah it does feel better sometimes just purposely landing front wheel first and then I don't know for some of the stuff I was afraid hit my rims because I feel like I kind of might have once or twice. I feel like I was bottoming the rear. Probably. It's not that much travel. It's only uh once heavy. Pressure's cranked. Is it cranked? Yeah. You'll probably get it. So I actually did not film the next trail we rode just because it was a secret trail but I actually felt pretty terrible on the grim donut. I was riding it a lot slower and I was feeling pretty rough especially on that rear end. It was rough. It was like. You're just bottoming everywhere on the back? I the back doesn't feel the greatest. I don't feel much support on the back. Okay I'll go for it. Let's see. All right slash. Got some skinnies. Nice. Oh that's a little awkward. Nice. One thing I've been learning about geometry recently is that if you have a really long bike especially with a shorter stem you do need more support in the rear suspension and a bit less support in the front fork. That is definitely the case with this grim donut. Wow yeah this bike is just so long. I don't know I'm just feeling like I'm smashing the rear wheel a bunch. I feel like this grim donut can do pretty good on some corners. So I do feel like the days of bike companies constantly going longer lower slacker are coming to an end. I think we are figuring out an end point and then it's really just a matter of finding out the sweet spot. Sure different companies will still do different things but I am going to confidently make a prediction here that no company will ever produce a mountain bike with a 57 or 58 degree head tube angle. I feel like the grim donut might be better for these corners than the boost monster. I was able to do pretty well on that. Yeah. I don't know I just feel like I'm getting beat up more. Yeah. It's like oh boy I just feel like maybe I should almost put more air in the rear. Like there's no foam insert is there? No are you dinging a bit? I kind of thought so or even though the tire is like is it folding it's just an exo plus. Yeah. It's good it was rough. It was a little rowdy. So at this point we were comparing the bikes on incline and I was pretty excited to try this out. This time I'm on the grim donut. Let's try this out. Whoa. That got scary man. Yo. I was like I was feeling better on this. At least at first. Yeah. There was a couple spots where I was a little sketched. Yeah. I was getting pushed a bit too much to the side. But um it was feeling pretty good at first at least. Incline was kind of as I was expecting it to be. And going down some of the stair steps was where it's scary to have a low front end. Your body is really lunging forward and it got a little freaky. Well hey the bike is all intact. At least I'm not like breaking it or anything right? All right guys a little bit of a pingu on the grim donut. Do some more flow. Bike is not too terrible on some of that to be honest. Yo. Whoa. That was a good bottom out. The grim donut still kind of worked on that. Yeah I mean yeah I could do it all on this one. It's just too long. It's insane. Just like what the heck right? Yeah. But yeah like going over that like the ladder bridge to roll down into the rock into the berm. Yeah. Felt good. I felt pretty confidence inspiring on this one. Yeah. Uh oh yeah the frame's cracked. Oh no for real? Yeah. Dude I it might have just been from just now. Yeah. Dude I bottomed out pretty good. I think I heard it. I think that was the sound. Look at the crack. I I heard some ding. I don't know man I was just hitting the jumps. And no I remember I remember hearing it. I did. I did hear it like I thought it was just a loud bottom out. That's what I heard. So as I was reviewing the footage trying to figure out which jump it was. I don't think it was that one. I think it was this next one right here. Whoa. Did you hear that ding? Because I'm pretty sure that's what it was. Devin was filming the jump before. And you can just see me bottoming out. I I think I was honestly bottoming out every single one of those jumps. I'm sorry Pinkbike. I'm sorry Mike Levy. I just destroyed your bike. Well I'm glad that the head tube seemed to be okay. I think that's good news. I'd rather this break than head tube. I like being able to explore this extreme geometry. So I do think that it's awesome what you guys did. I'm thankful that you guys actually made this. Just because it's good to like find the limits you know. I think it's awesome. And that's kind of like sort of like what I was doing too. Is sort of like finding the limits in the other way. But um maybe that's what Brian was saying. We should ride at 70 percent. If I'm gonna hit a jump. I mean I'm just hitting jumps. Yeah I don't think I was riding anything crazy. Yeah sorry Pinkbike. I totally destroyed your grim donut. That sucks. This video did not end the way we were planning. Otherwise I'm just looking forward to my Boost Monster 2.0 build. I hope you guys are interested in exploring more wild geometry possibilities. I'll just say my Boost Monster 2.0 is not a joke unlike the grim donut. My Boost Monster 2.0 is actually going to be taken very seriously. I'm very intentional with my geometry choices so that it'll actually work good. And I cannot wait to show you the content on that new bike soon. If you like exploring other unique interesting bikes check out this video right here. Thanks everyone. I will see you guys next time.