Even though Danny MacAskill didn’t have his riding pack for us to check out for the Every Day Carry series, he did have his bike. Specifically, his Santa Cruz 5010 CC. While you’re probably more familiar with seeing the Scottish legend on his signature Inspired. street/trials bike, as we learned in our interview with Danny, The Ridge really opened up a lot of opportunities within mountain biking for him. Since Inspired. doesn’t make any mountain bikes, Danny was able to work out a deal with Santa Cruz Bicycles.
Most of the time, that means you’ll find Danny on his 5010 CC. Long enough travel to tackle many of his typical rides, but still short and tight enough that Danny can still pull many of his trials moves and surprisingly – fairly stock…
Since Magura was the company responsible for arranging the interview, it’s only fair that we start with the brakes. More than just a contractual thing, Danny mentioned he is really enjoying the MT7’s for their durability. While riding a competitor’s brake previously, he said he would often destroy the calipers – basically ripping them in half. Since he switched to the MT7s it’s apparently been smooth sailing, and he loves the power:
“I have it kitted up so it rides amazing on the trails, but I also like to play around on it like I do. So for me, there’s no such thing as ever having a brake that’s too powerful. These MT7 brakes are insanely powerful anyways, but with the 203 rotor it means you barely have to do anything at the lever. ”
When asked if there were any custom touches to his bike, surprisingly the only thing he mentioned were the bits of rubber on the back of the brake levers:
On the backs of my Magura MT7 levers I run a little bit of rubber. Because when you’re riding trials – it’s the same with most brakes, not just Maguras. You’d never pull your brakes as hard as you’d do on the trials bike. And what you end up doing when you do big drops to flat is that you can sort of catch the back of your fingers with the brake levers. It’s something you’d never ever do, or ever have a problem with on the mountain bike because if you pulled them that hard you’d be going well over the handlebars.
The brakes seem to work well as demonstrated with a reverse nose manual down the infamous Corkscrew at Laguna Seca.
