MONDRAKER CRAFTY CARBON XR MIND
Integrated data-logging comes to mountain biking courtesy of Mondraker’s MIND system
We live in a world of big data. We willingly give it away and it’s mostly collected for the benefit of third parties – whether that’s serving up your favourite products when shopping online or predicting which trimester you’re in. It’s scary, but US retailer Target is likely to know if your daughter is pregnant before you do. That’s how sophisticated data collection, analysis and prediction has become.
Now, you’re probably thinking, “what’s this got to do with mountain biking?” Well, have you ever wondered what’s going on with your suspension? We set the sag with O-rings on our shock and fork, but we really have no idea how much travel we’re using as we rip down the trail, the two basic data points being static sag and maximum travel. What happens in-between is anyone’s guess, unless of course, we use a suspension data logger.
And while the days of bulky black boxes bolted to the down tube are long gone, even state-of-the-art units like Motion Instruments require a certain amount of home engineering to get them mounted to the shock. And the reason is simple – a universal system needs adapting to each specific frame design so some degree of ingenuity is required to get it to fit.
But what if your bike came with a discrete data logger pre-installed?
Well, that’s exactly what Mondraker is offering with its MIND system, available as an upgrade for £299 on selected models. And by discrete, it’s barely even noticeable. The only giveaways are a small magnet mounted to the back of the fork lowers, and what looks like an ultra short mudguard protruding from the fork crown. On the MIND rear suspension it’s even more subtle with a rotational magnet mounted to the main pivot of the rocker link calculating and recording shock movement.
No wires or linear potentiometers, MIND is as unobtrusive as it gets.
Both sensors have rechargeable batteries and are charged using the
USB 3.0 cables supplied with the bike. Tucked up inside the head tube, the fork sensor has a much bigger battery capacity than the one on the shock link. Being small rechargeable units however, both batteries drain quite quickly, even
£8,999 + £299 for MIND / 29in / mondraker.com
And by discrete, It’s barely even noticeable