The season is off to a great start for Scott 3Rox, especially for one of the nicest pro XC racers you will ever meet, Geoff Kabush. After taking the short track victory at Sea Otter on the Scott Scale 900 above, and second in the XC on the Scott Spark 900 after the break, Geoff won the Whiskey Off-Road 50 last year also on the Spark. Mikaela Kofman is also off to a great start on her Scale 900 taking the silver medal at the Pan American Mountain bike Championships just a few weeks ago. Fudge, as she’s called by her team mates, took 11th in the Sea Otter XC.
Check out their bikes and video after the break, and make sure to check out the Nascar style KaBolt thru axle!
All three of the Scott 3Rox team bikes we saw were decked out with a full XTR M985 group with a 2x drivetrain and 11-36 cassettes. We were sort of expecting Kabush to be on the new M987 magnesium XTR brakes, though standard XTR Race brakes with IceTech rotors were found. The team is also all outfitted with Stages crank based power meters. As the top dog on the team, all of Geoff’s bikes are outfitted with the Fox ICD Electronic suspension systems. On the hard tail it is plugged into a Fox 32 Fit CTD 100mm fork, though it may be more appropriate to call it a CD. ICD is a two way lock out system that is limited to Climb and descend modes with the Climb mode able to be factory set to near lockout. The battery pack for the system is housed just about the BB on the down tube, and the system is connected with the same wiring used in Shimano’s Di2. Shimano and Fox collaborated to make the system, which is why many of the parts are borrowed from Di2.
At the time of photos this Scale did not have the Kabolt as there are very few of them in existence and were on Geoff’s Sparks at the time for the XC race. Crank Brothers’ Eggbeater 11s keep his feet attached to the cranks.
Battery life on the ICD is said to be around 2 months with recharging taking around 1.5 hours. If the battery was to run out or a wire cut during a race the fork or rear shock would revert to descend mode. On both bikes Geoff was running Maxxis Maxxlite 29×2.0 tires.
No special internal routing for the ICD wiring – just zip tied along the rear brake hose on the down tube. On the Scale hard tail, Geoff runs a Syncros FL1.0 (as well as the rest of the cockpit) set back post, but runs a zero offset post on the Spark.
Taking second place in the Sea Otter XC race, was Geoff’s Scott Spark 900.
As you might expect, other than being full suspension the set of the Spark is pretty similar to the Scale to keep things similar. On the Spark, ICD is able to control both the fork and rear shock simultaneously with one push of a button on the bar. Sandwiched between the brake and shift lever set up with Shimano’s I-spec single clamp set up, the ICD remote is fairly inconspicuous compared to the Fox mechanical lock out switch. The large box on the rear shock is the servo motor for locking out the shock with a red rebound adjuster on the bottom. 3Rox mechanics drilled through the upper internal cable guide in the frame in order to run the ICD wires.
In order to make wheel changes as fast as possible, Geoff and Fox worked together to develop the KaBolt (Kabush + Bolt). Instead of a QR15 quick release, the Kabolt uses and allen bolt that can be attached to the end of a drill for Nascar style wheel changes. Definitely a racer only thing as it requires a pit crew, and there are so few of them available they have to be switched between bike platforms based on the race.
The Stages Power meters though, stay with each bike – though thanks to their design could easily be switched around. On the bars Geoff runs ODI Ruffians with custom 3Rox Lock on collars.
On the Spark the battery wire runs under the top tube and then is taped to the seat tube with electrical tape. This particular Spark and Kofman’s Scale had some interesting blacked out wheels that looked like they had alloy rims and straight pull spokes at the hubs.
As a tiny girl on big wheels, Mikaela‘s bike had the same basic spec as other 3Rox riders, though there were some interesting additions to make it more short person friendly.
In order to get the most saddle to bar drop as possible, Mikaela’s bike does not have a headset top cap to slam-that-stem. In addition the negative Ritchey WCS stem and Syncros FL1.0 flat bar get the bar height even lower. Taking things a step further, 165mm XTR double cranks are used so the saddle can be raised another 5mm to get as much saddle-bar offset as possible.
All of the Scott 3Rox team bikes have really nice paint jobs with the athlete’s name, country, and of course sponsors.
Mikaela runs the mechanical lock out instead of the ICD, but that allows her to run an 80mm fork instead of the 100 as at last check ICD was only available on 100-120mm forks. She was also running Maxxis Aspens in a 29×2.10 size and Shimano XTR pedals.
