People Are Angry With GCN & Bike Muggings On The Rise – The Wild Ones Podcast Ep.30

Check out the audio versions of the podcast here: https://podfollow.com/the-wild-ones/view

This week we’re joined by pro mechanic Nic from Backyard Bike Shop to chat the cost of bikes (and whether it can be justified), bike muggings, strange goings on at Sports Direct and more. Here’s the full breakdown:

00:00 New Year’s antics
00:30 People are angry with GCN
14:59 Melissa Dennis death & Rohan Dennis arrest
15:56 The rise of bike-jackings
25:02 The great Sports Direct superbike mystery
34:18 Why the industry needs to cater more to average cyclists
38:05 We need to educate drivers!
40:43 The problem with e-bikes
41:05 The cycling industry needs a shake-up
41:53 Overrated/Underrated: average speed
44:55 Overrated/Underrated: 650b wheels
49:40 Overrated/Underrated: Muc Off
52:21 Overrated/Underrated: frame bags
53:05 Overrated/Underrated: suspension on gravel bikes
54:21 Jimmi’s Christmas Eve error (FUOTW)
55:35 Nic got ‘Home Aloned’ (FUOTW)
56:27 Dry vs wet lube – what’s the difference?

If you’d like us to send in a question, story, some good news, things you’d like us to discuss or anything else, email us at wildonespodcast@cademedia.co.uk
Thanks and see you next time.

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Welcome to the Wild Ones podcast this is a show where we chat about bike stuff so this week I’m actually joined by Pro mechanic Nick and producer Emily so Nick how’s uh Happy New yeary New Year how was your New Year I spent at your house so you did that’s true pretty good

Actually a lot of cheese a lot of wine a lot of Nicholas Cage movies for no reason whatsoever we watched three Nicholas Cage films back to back yes and then Cool Runnings to kind of but we didn’t actually finish it cuz we we got too tired and went to bed at 11:30 we’ll

Leave us for next New Year’s Eve so Nick did you see gcn has been getting a bit of flack yeah I did they posted a video called why does a road bike cost as much as a motorbike they looked at the reasons the bike industry gives for push bikes costing thousands of pounds

Their arguments included that motorbikes have less R&D although this was disputed by viewers they also said that there is an inflated cost of having to stock lots of different components and sizes and they argued that the profit margins on bikes are 40% versus motorbikes at around 10% % because bike shops have to

Do more like build up the bikes I don’t completely agree with that um yes if you do a custom build it takes a lot more time and effort and there’s a lot more involved but generally speaking if we talk as a cycling industry your bike comes boxed you take it out it gets

Set up and then you need a safety check so you need somebody who knows who do how to do it but it’s not more work than a motorbike um or a car even um also dispute the whole R&D thing because motorbikes have a lot of R&D they do

Have a bit more trickle down so which is an issue now but it wasn’t an issue back in the day so gcn definitely wasn’t solely defending the price of bikes they did acknowledge that prices are crazy right now but it seems like trying to justify cost at all

Annoyed a lot of their viewers one of the most liked comments said gcn don’t try to help the bike industry in justifying their high costs consumers are being ripped off and anyone with critical thinking skills can see this this another said the main reason for 15,000 bikes is to make £5,000 bikes

Look reasonable and a third said lots of people don’t understand that things don’t sell for what they cost to make things sell for what people are prepared to pay for them so is the criticism of their video Fair yes uh I do think in general it’s overpriced uh I I

Still believe there are bikes that should cost £20,000 but that’s the same as where there’s cars that should cost well it cost £4 million um if there are people who can afford it want but in general an average the average on a bell curve bikes in the middle for 50% of all

Of them should be more reasonable um should be more durable uh my main concern I think why I think this is happening is uh disc braks the industry after Co switched a lot more heavy towards disc brakes and there a newer technology in the road bike Market I’m

Not talking m bikes it’s been going for years and it just means there’s not been a lot of trickle down where with Rim breakes group sets if you took a 8-speed or nine-speed group set that Technology’s been trickling down for 20 years that’s just not happened yet So

Eventually it will get cheaper but well but but disc brakes is not expensive technology it’s not dis brace but it’s why are we getting 12s speeed and 13 speed group sets we don’t need them they’re spending millions and millions of pounds on R&D on group set technology

That is just not needed I agree with what you said some extent but then disagree in terms of 12 speed 13 there’s no problem with it R&D shouldn’t stop and new things trying new things shouldn’t stop happening the problem is that with these new 12 spe speed group sets they’re generally Wireless they

Generally dis break meaning they don’t haven’t had a chance to trickle down because there’s no eight-speed or nine-speed or 10speed group sets that are really Wireless electronic on dis break so at the moment it’s just massively inflated and the manua manufacturers have stopped stopped producing the older stuff so since Co

You’re struggling to find Rim brake components bikes you can’t just get what you want and because of this it’s not trickling down so it’s not just I mean they should still make all the other stuff as well I don’t understand why 12 why they keep trying to add more gears

On a rear cassette it it just seems pointless to me and it’s it’s additional cost for just no reason it feels like they are engineering products so that they can sell new stuff and I think that is what a lot of people are upset about yes well that that’s true they they are

Making stuff to just justify charging more money and do not get me started on AO because the amount of money that is spent on AO and the development of AO which then increases the cost of bikes because of all the the R&D that’s put into it that you know Francis and I

Posted a video the other day where we literally went to silverston aot tunnel and compared Scott’s addict RC versus Scott’s equivalent level foil bike everything else identical on it and the difference between them was like a couple of Watts but I’ve been I’ve been saying this for for years now that Arrow

I I get the argument is always going to be an arrow B can to be faster yes but the gains are so small for the average person we need to forget about what world T Riders are doing CU none of us are World T Riders

So R&D needs to be spent a little bit more as well to the for the average person stop doing what’s working well for Twitter France only and start thinking of what’s going to work for average people like what like work at what 95% of the cycling Community needs

And spend a bit more on that make the bikes more comfortable um your bike will go FAS by being more comfortable way more than it will be by being Arrow when you are not an elite level athlete in their video they talk about the profit margin on the bike industry being around

40% and on motorbikes being about 10% do you think is that appropriate you work in the bike industry I don’t know if a single bike brand that’s 40% margin uh we just don’t get it um as a shop so I don’t know where they work that margin

From um yes the cycling industry will have a bigger margin but then is that a gross from uh manufacturer side I think the biggest thing would be gross profit versus net profit because I think they make the bikes for incredibly cheap um so they could be massive profit margins

But then they spend a lot of money on Advertising marketing I don’t think that’s a good thing necessarily obviously understand is to get ahead and sell more of your bikes but customers need to know for some of these big Brands like specialized track um all of

Them they are paying a lot of that money they’re paying for that bike is going towards the marketing it it yeah it does seem the marketing budgets in is like disproportionate to the size of the industry like how much does it cost to sponsor a pro team for a bike

Brand millions and millions 2 million 5 million 10 million depending on what it is and yes they might sell bikes off the back of it but that is a hell of a lot of money just just from an off just from that perspective um so yeah there’s

Definitely a lot of Mark a hell of a lot of marketing costs which goes into the bike industry I’m sure there is in motorbikes as well but you know if you’re if you’re into B motorbikes you’re into motorbikes I’ve wanted a motorbike my entire life I haven’t ended

Up getting one if I did do my license because there’s barriers to getting into it the first thing I would do is go and buy harley-dav ion 883 and as as harly people hate it but it is a beautiful bike and that that’s what I would do I

Would just go and buy it done people will say motorbike industry also spends a lot of money on marketing but they do it through racing but the difference they do I think to cycling industry is that let’s use inos as an example inos has a team um and they’ll have sponsors

And Pinella will pay inos to ride their bikes and give them bikes which is how they pay the marketing where in a super bike Team the Super Bike Company somebody like Honda will actually own most of the team they will get sponsors paying them to be in there as well so

There’s R&D there’s a lot of money goes into it but it’s yeah I think the viewers on their video on gcn’s video is right it is it is overly inflated at the moment um you can’t justify the prices uh you can justify on a custom hand bolt something

Like a sturdy or a bike where somebody’s made Craftsman like a Artisan has designed a bike and made it for you but in the average bikes the bikes that everybody’s buying the the mainstream Brands uh where they are charging that amount of money on a bike is just silly

You get companies like time where they are manufacturing frame sets that takes them 44 hours to make a single frame set and a lot of work goes into and that frame set retails for £3,200 where the rest of the industry standardized bikes made by there’ll be a handful of

Factories in China making all the big Brands bikes and then they charge £55,000 for that frame set and you you think how how’s that justified 44 hours for £35,000 seems like a very healthy hourly rate well it’s not obviously that wouldn’t be the fun you could the the

The the contrast would be I reckon some of the frame sets that are made by other external factories there’s been rumors going around where some of the big Brands where the frame sets retail for £55,000 only cost about $400 is what they’re paying the factory to make the

Bike yeah I’ve heard a lot of those kind of rumors so it’s it’s it’s a bit of it’s marketing marketing is a problem I don’t know the answer to this but I would assume that the actual raw cost of manufacturing a motorbike and a motorbike engine and all

Of the metal Associated to it etc etc etc and bearings that are suitable for those speeds blah blah blah blah blah the actual cost of manufacturing that bike to be significantly higher than the actual cost to manufacture a bicycle yes and I think that is one of

The things that people have issues with I can buy a 15,000 motorbike well I can actually buy a much cheaper motorbike that for example that Harley-Davidson I want last time I looked which was a number of years ago you could buy it brand new for I think about seven and a

Half eight grand and that is like the coolest bike in the world in my opinion um whereas the actual manufacturing cost of that bike was probably a couple of grand realistically the only to play Devil’s ADV over years that bike would have been technology that’s probably

About 20 or 30 years old yeah using it over trickle down this the trickle down does come down I’ve got bicycles that have technology that’s 20 or 30 years old and they’re fantastic they are Harley-Davidsons that cost probably about £40,000 you mean a high-end motorbike now you are looking closer to

40,000 than you are to the 1050 yeah that’s if you want the Gucci handbag but we’re talking about Gucci bikes as well yeah I I but I I still honestly believe that now a good decent good quality bike that will last in the the northeast of England where the weather is terrible

You’re going to have to spend about 225,000 and that is outrageous that should be much closer to £1,000 or less the problem is ultimately that there needs to be more choices in affordable reliable bikes isn’t it it’s not necessarily you’ll look at any industry and you will get stuff that’s at the

High end the mid to high end that’s capitalism but almost I think it almost doesn’t matter what GCM was saying in this video and how balanced they were trying to be the general mood of people people seem so angry at the cost of stuff and it’s because there are so many

Options at the higher price point and the lower end and that’s what’s getting marketed that’s what we’re seeing on teams it’s what we’re seeing on websites that’s the the thing that you need to get in inverted commer but the emphasis on affordable reliable bikes just seems

To have left the room left the chat doesn’t exist a brother steel frame set which is a more affordable frame set retails for £999 for they nicest one they do um I’m pretty sure the manufacturing cost of that frames is exactly the same as what it cost to get

A high-end carbon frame set from they’ll be buying them in from the far east as well uh but they spend considerably less money on marketing so it’s the same cost but the one frame retails for 1,000 one retails 5 and a half and that’s where it becomes ridiculous M it feels like the

Industry is ready for a reset and I think it is about to happen what do you think is going to happen next in in terms of pricing in the industry it’s difficult to predict um a lot of shops a lot of online retailers uh and big names

Are going under at the moment and because of that there’s a lot of stuff being sold really cheap but the big manufacturers aren’t stopping their development so they’ll be producing new stuff so there’ll be a trickle down if ultimately one of the comments said if people aren’t paying then prices will

Come down it’s where you know if if there’s lots of sales on if the secondhand Market gets really good then Brands will find that they’re not selling what they need to sell and I think prices will come down price are already massively come Shimano 105 the

New group says last year sold for 1780 and now all of a sudden you can probably pick it up for 1,200 quid um it it’ll all just come down again um it’s going to have the big reset is going to happen I think we’re going to see more non

Cycling specific brands that have big pots of money that are going to start entering the space especially because Wiggles come down so cathon is an easy example of it um they’re lunging massively into the cycling space and I think they’re going to make a huge dent

In it and from what I’ve seen thus far I’m really happy with it uh the other thing I reckon we’re probably going to see is I think we’re going to see more Finance the the classic um and it’s popping up everywhere now the Classic Car Finance model you get a bike on a

Threeyear agreement you pay 200 quid a month and then after 3 years you give it back to them and you get the next one you never actually own the bike they then sell it on I reckon we’ll probably see more of those kind of things I really hope that doesn’t happen I think

You’re right but I hope it doesn’t because it’s just wasteful start making bikes last longer again yeah I mean it’s a whole thing of they made stuff in the 50s and the 60s that last for ages and ages and ages and now all a sudden everything dies really quickly and it’s

Not because they’re make it’s they’re using cheaper materials to make stuff material signs make it out of better steel out of better materials stuff that’s going to last longer more sustainable um carbon fiber was quite a bit of an issue aluminium wasn’t great either go back to Steel stop buying fast

Tires buy more durable ones which ones that last longer yeah they still be fast if they last longer it’s not that fast and slow thing is such a small margin that average person will never realize um comfortable get more comfortable but it’s yeah just make things last longer more durable

Before we move on we also want to briefly acknowledge a tragic event that hit the world of cycling this week the death of cyclist Melissa Dennis Melissa was a retired Olympic track cyclist who won Gold in the women’s team pursuit in the 2015 UCI World Champs among other

Achievements she died at the weekend and her husband worldtime trial Champion Rohan Dennis has reportedly been charged with her death it’s reported that Melissa was hit by the pickup truck he was driving near their home in Adela Australia and later died from her injuries Rohan was reportedly arrested and charged with

Causing death by dangerous driving and driving without due care and endangering life he was bailed to appear in court in March there’s lots of speculation about the details of the case but at this point we think it’s important to acknowledge Melissa and share our condolences with her family Melissa was

Described in tributes by friends as a beautiful soul and inspiring athlete now in other news new stats show two bike jackings a day take place in London on average muggers reportedly have shopping lists of popular bike brands with high resale values including bromton folding bikes they’re also apparently targeting

Premium road bikes and ebikes many use mopeds and threaten victims with knives the Met police says that they’re doing all that we can to prevent robberies and thefts targeted at cyclists but many think that they’re not doing enough these latest stats focus on London but similar patterns of crime are happening

In other parts of the country too I know if Francis was here he would talk about the incident which he likes bringing up as much as possible from when him and I were making a video on gravel bikes and a couple of kids on mopeds were riding

Up the the gravel paths and waiting for us we did being ex londoners looked like the typical thing that that was people trying to stay bike so we turned around and went a different way and then they came back down around looking dodgy at us another time I know

He would want to talk about that story I still think it’s speculation and I think they were just hiding somewhere to have a cheeky spliff away from the police and then were just going about their business uh but who knows who knows maybe maybe there is this type of crime

Happening in Newcastle I’m sure there is as well I I had a look online and there were there were a few reports of bike muggings in it was basically all cities if you do a Google you can find a couple it’s hard to I don’t know whether this

Is something that extends outside the UK but usually you have you find when there are patterns of crime emerge it usually spreads I think this is obviously it’s newer and a problem in the UK with the rest of the world this is a massive problem for years and years I remember

As a kid uh one of my friends Jason was riding near my mom’s house and he got in South Africa in South Africa and he got held up at knif knife point and he had a call Nago C60 I think it was the time really big one 64 CM frame set they

Stole all his clothes his helmet his telephone his shoes his socks he was butt naked he took the front wheel off his bike flung it down the hill and left his bike didn’t take his bike bike W so he obviously after the left got his

Wheel back on rode his bike naked to the police station um yeah wait what were they after then his clothes his clothes yeah and his shoes with the bike was monstrously cycling clothes or normal clothes cycling clothes yeah why would they have no idea but uh my mom’s been

Shot at on a bike um loads of people that I know have been held up a gunpoint knife points over there uh it’s crime is an age-old problem I don’t know what the solution is it’s hard isn’t it cuz like for example I’m quite a country bumpkin

And when I first met you Jimmy in London you being the the hardened Cardiff boy that you were I was walking around the streets with my phone in one hand and my purse in another because I don’t like to carry a bag um and you thought it was

Ridiculous I was such a easy Target and I didn’t really appreciate that but the thing is you know a phone costs can be upwards of a grand now they’re very easy to take valuables and you’re encouraged to hide them from view but you can’t do that with a bike can you as

We’ve just talked about bikes cost a fortune a lot of the bike crime outside of London that have been seeing online is ebikes and there must be an easy sellable market for them but how do you protect yourself against other than just not riding your bike or carrying a

Weapon which you’d obviously never encourage how you can’t really I I guess one of the issues with bicycles is they’re they’re not really traceable they you know Technic they have serial numbers and things like that but it’s you know most people aren’t going to register a serial number or even know

What their serial number is I’ve got a couple of custom bikes that don’t even have a serial number so there isn’t even an ID identifying feature on them so if someone steals a bike they can often you know dispose of it via whatever means possible and there’s no direct link back

To that person there are things like the National Bike register where you can register your serial number with the police and what bike it is so that if they if one gets handed in they’ll check the serial number to see if they’ve got a record of who owns it uh but it’s it’s

Just ultimately not enough the other thing we were talking about this earlier Nick mentioned which is a really good point and I think happens a lot and you even with cars it does happen to be fair you steal a bike you strip it so even the components on a lot of these bikes

Are worth thousands of pounds which have even less identifying features than the frame itself with a serial number so there’s just no there not there not really an easy way of linking it back to a person once it’s stolen in an ideal world and I know there’ll be things

People find loopholes and things is as technology improves bikes are becoming more and more electronic so they probably can already do it with ebikes but now with your group sets being electronic and things like that down the line all they’re going to have to do is

It has to be like activated towards your phone or your eye watch or so Apple watch or something like that where if your phone’s not there your bike just doesn’t work you I mean like like keyless entry on cars so it’s linked to that and doesn’t work the other one would be with

The bike register shouldn’t be with the police it should be with bike shops meaning a bike goes in for servicing and I understand there’s going to be issues with this but bike comes in for servicing gets booked in and every Bike Shop should just be required to kind of

A cursory check of the frame number and maybe the wheels it should still be the police as well no but you can still police but Bike Shop should have it as well it should be like a National Database that everybody’s got so when a bike comes in service you can instantly

Check yeah the guy who’s dropped it off’s name or the girl who dropped off his name corresponds to the bikes has been dropped off so it’s there so you can instantly see yes I get the moped cries be different cuz they’ll be stealing these bikes right until it

Needs a service burn it in the temps and then buy or not buy sorry steal another one so that’s going to be an issue as well but every little bit helps my biggest issue with bikes at the moment is that it should become more common place to be allowed to take your bikes

Into shops so if you go to a supermarket I want to go for Gregs for lunch but I’m not riding my bike there because I have to leave it outside to go ins decid to get my sandwich I know that’s that’s a proper first world problem but but I I

Think the bit that people are missing is I think people will assume or businesses will often go like oh but there’s not enough space for bike storage I don’t want bike storage I want to be able to walk around with my bike I want to be able to just keep it with me

Exact not not lock it indoors yes I want to be able to walk around the shop with it and you know I live with a bike all the time I’m not going to be bumping into things cuz I carry it through a house and I don’t bump it into things so

Like that isn’t issue these massively inflated bike prices you mean I don’t want my massively inflated bike to be I guess the thing is bike crime and bike theft has always existed and the worrying thing about this is that it’s it’s not theft it’s robbery so it’s it’s theft with assault you’re taking

Something directly off a person rather than you just coming back to a bike lock and it’s not there anymore and I guess that’s the worry for people isn’t it there needs to be more I mean police presence which is there’s never going to be there needs to be harsher penalties I

Guess so apparently and this is from back in the the London days when this sort of crime started popping up more and more and more apparently there was a uh met police of the the London Police Force the metrop Metropolitan Police they had a rule that if someone was

Getting away on a motor on a moped or a motorbike they would let them go because there was inherent risk to people the public that that motorcyclist might crash into people kill people ride on the pavement go down roads they shouldn’t be going down and it was dangerous so there was definitely

A point in time where these people realized that they could effectively steal whatever they want and the police wouldn’t chase them I would imagine that has been lots of changes to this um because otherwise it would just keep going up and up and up there was like this little loophole which basically

Meant they wer cars yeah but I’ve been watching police interceptors where they’re running them down with their cars still so yeah I think that Rule’s been I don’t know might have been abolished and then brought back I’m not sure but it’s just it’s it’s an absolute Minefield because you can then say harsh

Harsher punishments but then how do they do that how do they implement it m so I I’m really interested to know if other countries have this type of crime especially the moped style because that feels unbelievably British doesn’t it um so if if you what if if you have any of

These kind of issues comment in the video below or ping us an email at well one podcast at CAD media. co.uk uh cuz I would love to know if this is a UK issue or if is happening in other places and if it is what if anything’s being done

To tackle it I used to live with a Russian we when we were racing back in the day he used to be adamant that if he thought if we start training at 4 in the morning none of as he call him the wrong on uh would be awake that’s Prime theft

Time he was convinced they don’t they don’t do it at that time of the night so he only used to ride his bik every he used to wake me up at half past three to go training at 4:00 uh we never got mugged so so next what is going on at

Sports Direct the British retailer with a reputation for cheap deals and dubious Employment Practices looked to be moving into the premium Road cycling space earlier this week we noticed that they were selling high-end specialized Tre and Cannondale bikes we found the Seven Grand Tre Mone a canondale system six discounted to £

7,600 and an 8 Grand tarmac on the sports direct website but when we had to look again this morning they were all gone so what’s going on at Sports Direct I reckon obviously this is pure uh speculation I reckon they’re buying wiggle there’s definitely cuz because

The list when we had to look at it was it like two days ago it might have even been yesterday they had basically every single specialized bike available apart from the S Works models so it was like it was very premium bikes and a lot of them and now if you search Specialized

In their search function on the website there is zero specialized bikes so there’s definitely definitely something going on I know they’re doing lots of weird stuff with um Evans um so Sports Direct itself is part of the Frasier Group which owns a load of High Street Brands Evans House of

Frasia game um they are renowned for buying struggling brands for sometimes nothing or pound a nominal figure um they began making moves into the cycling industry in 2017 when they bought Tri UK and then Evans A year later Frasier group is said to be one of the biggest businesses that is

Considering buying wiggle so it’s interesting that you say that you think that they have bought wiggle so Sports Direct brand doesn’t have the best reputation it’s been criticized in the past for business practices such as zero hours contracts poor working conditions and pay have they bought wiggle are they

Restructuring it seems very odd that there would be that amount of range available yesterday and zero of it today yes obviously we saw this on the weekend um I feel that if those Brands go into sports direct which is generally a sporting shop you go to buy cheaper stuff you buy cheap football

Jerseys it’s like cheap and basic is cheap and basic which is fine I mean it’s definitely needed but I just feel that all the millions we just talked about earlier that these brands are spending on their marketing will just be completely but are they all sold in

Evans could it could it be a simple as like a website error if like that Evans is merging with sports direct and their teamsg I’m going to assume they still have different teams running the different things they’ve not actually merged the companies it might be that that they’re just bringing those

Closer together because there was definitely um and they added an Evans bike shop inside the flagship Sports Direct store in Birmingham so they they’re definitely trying to merge the two together which makes sense you know Sports to sports hello this is Emily from the future here just to let you

Know we did reach out to sports direct to try and find out what was going on but by the time the podcast was published we still hadn’t received a response from them something that could happen obviously I’m just pure speculation again is that they could run everything from a central Central stock

Feed warehouse and somebody just accidentally clicked onto the Sports director website those Brands and it’s just populated over from Evans yeah I I definitely think it’s one for us to keep an eye on to see what happens because there’s something going on and especially with Wile wickle wiggle having uh being in administration

There’s going to be a lot of big money people which are thinking well how do we capitalize on this I guess regardless of whether they actually buy them out or not there is going to be there is a space for like the the cheap deals Wiggles thing

Wiggle yeah yeah and I mean obviously you know wiggle the brand is probably not going to go it’ll be taken over but if there’s a little bit of devaluation or D strengthening in that brand then someone like sports direct is probably in Prime position to swoop up and take

That market I actually think we might see wiggle disappear because or at least drop in value significantly over the next few years because they were so dominant they ultimately there isn’t the brand isn’t as valuable as you’d probably think because there was there’s ultimately no competition so you could

Just go well if wiggle are no longer there I can just do my own thing now and go right well I can just spend loads of rather than spend 100 million on buying wiggle I can spend 10 million on Advertising that this is the new wiggle perhaps but as

Venture capsule firms coming into the space and I just feel that they’re ruining cycling uh I know it’s a really harsh thing to say but cycling industry does not work like any other other industry the retail of cycling Goods is just different um and it’s just they are

Again and again and again coming into the cycling industry and failing they’re buying Distributors they’re buying Brands they’re buying clothing brands quite a few of them out there and spending all this money thinking that and running at a loss every single year their basic function I would assume is

To pop up the balance sheet so they can sell it on for more money not thinking of what they leaving behind how they are inflating prices how they are ruining small Brands how they I know some you guys will probably know better about clothing factories where VC Capital bought the factories and then

Essentially just a few years later when it’s not worked from this Clos it down a family business that’s been running for 20 30 Years Gone just so that people can get their money high up somewhere yeah I just wish that at some point they realized they’re not making

Success out of it and they just stop interfering and let the Browns car how they used to do I think you’re right I think probably ever since 2012 there’s been a cycling boom especially in this country definitely and it’s all like the rise of Rafer and all of that kind of

Thing and you’re right VC money has come in to Brands based on that and it means that you have to hit sales targets you have to do stuff and if grow grow grow the Departments grow the jobs grow and therefore the and they they have their

Product I’ll use rough as an example and they sell it at a massive discount all the time and it just means that people like atus back in the day would have clothing and it’s how do you compete because somebody’s just going to buy and they don’t care that they they’re

Selling it at a loss I your thing last week about Canyon their sales are up but they’re making a loss meaning well if you would to start making BB shorts and sell them at 5 quid a pair you’ll be the biggest cycling company in the world on

Sales on sales but you’re not making any money you’re just losing and you’re also making sure that nobody else is selling stuff it just becomes a has the wiggle stuff had an effect on Indie retailers yeah uh because it’s it’s complex it works but I mean our shop Works a bit

Differently to your traditional shop but yeah loads of people have had quotes with things like oh well I can get her wiggle for less than what it would cost us to buy it in excluding vat uh We’ve also had a few guys well a few we had a

Guy before Christmas bought two bikes of Wiggle um came in ebikes in administration when they were in admin they bought it for Christmas yeah it’s arrived but they both have warranty problems he’s too scared to send them back so he said I’d rather bring it to a

Bike shop to get it fixed there but that’s the risk with buying from a business that’s in administration um we’ve definitely talked about that previously that yes there are going to be some Bargains but that comes with certain caveats and risks and concerns and that well that’s a prime example of

It if you do have a war warranty issue you’re not well you probably can still go back to wiggle but who knows what will happen the problem for me with it is from person Al point is that you as a consumer buy the product from wiggle going into Administration then you have

A warranty issue of a problem and then a bike shop is required to look after you afterwards but we’re having to look after and I understand the consumer doesn’t want to be left behind but we have to look after something where these VC companies have sold everything at a

Loss they’ve run everything their sole priority was to kill the small bike shop and then we have to kind of help them out afterward it’s just a bit of it’s not fair Playing devil’s advoc devils Advocate though does that not mean that the money is to be made in the servicing

And the Aftercare rather than in the sales why why compete in the sales if actually there’s a there’s a hall for the aftermarket stuff is it because it doesn’t pay as well no servicing obviously it’s it’s better but it’s Brands rely on bike shops as spe to

Consumers and somebody to speak to and ask questions and all these things a relationship afterwards and it’s but all the small shops are I mean there’s loads of instances where I saw on the internet Pro by kit when they closed down um I think they were also people saying

Horrible stuff about saying they’re happy that it’s gone and then people defending saying all there people losing their jobs but then you can flip it with wiggle them say but the amount of people in bike shops that have lost their jobs yeah because of Wiggle it’s yeah onto our big question what

Cycling Trends do we hope to see in 2024 go you first uh I want cycling industry to move more towards the average person and away from the pros oh I wish because there’s how many Pros do we have and how many average people do we have you mean thisly skewed statistic

Francis and I uh talk about this a lot it’s something that Emily and myself have been very passionate about since even like prior to starting attacus and it’s actually just thinking about so so we used to always do it with with designing ATA stuff was normal people are going to be

Wearing this kit not professional cyclists or like super skinny Uber lean hardcore whatever you want to call them so make it appropriate for that you know and that that was what we always focused on and and it’s it’s little things for me like bike geometry so much bike geometry is made

For trickle down from procycling geometry and that isn’t how normal people should be riding bikes I get what you’re saying but at the same time no I think too much emphasis has being put on that um if as long as a bike fits it fits it’s more of a yeah

But a lot of them don’t fit but people are forcing them to fit yeah but that’s not that they force they trying to get the look well exactly yeah so they they’re trying to look like the pros on the bike and it’s like that that that’s

Where the problem come we we going quite hard or we definitely did at the beginning of this uh series of podcasts about how you know bike weight doesn’t matter in racing isn’t that important blah blah blah and it’s not it’s not trying to diminish the fact that some

People like to go fast and some people like to race it’s just an acknowledgement that the whole industry seems really geared towards the the racing the fast the pros more than anything else isn’t it it just seems so skewed in some ways one of the comments on our most recent video which

Is the climbing versus aerobike uh was referring to the difference in wattage between the two bikes which was something like two or three Watts it was a really small amount um and someone commented that’s the difference between first and second place and my absolute first thought on that

Was how many people are caring about first and second place they might think that it’s something that’s important but 99.99% of cyclists are not I mean it’s fine if you care if you care about that then you care fine no no but it’s not about care but the problem is that it

Starts giving people unrealistic uh expectation no expectation for what they’re buying and then they buy the wrong bikes because of it we did a test a while back about four years ago now had a look 795 of super record and Bor 60 M wheels on it I commuted in every

Single day for two weeks on it and then I rode my canesa’s alloy gravel bike with 38 mil tires on every day the same route and over the 4 weeks test um the kesa was only 3 minutes slower it was way more comfortable and enjoyable it’s like trying to explain to people that

It’s 3 minutes that you are buying a 10,000lb bike versus a 1 and a 12,000lb bike yeah um most people who cycle bikes are not racing and even fewer proportion of those are coming first gravel is a very good example of this because bizarrely I might be wrong but I just

Feel that the gravel industry is not been made uh a developed catering for the pro they did it at beginning and then they realized quickly oh we need much bigger tie clearance cuz originally Ridley and a few guys came out with 40 mil Max Tire clearance and things like

That now all of a sudden just make it for everybody else still obviously cater to the people racing but it’s just look after the rest of the people a little bit more make it more balanced so something I hope to see is uh I would love to see better Road user education

And better infrastructure that isn’t when I say infrastructure I’m not just talking about better cycle Lanes uh I do believe that cyclists should be able to integrate or use roads as well as pedestrians as well as Runners as well as horse rid ERS whoever I think roads

Need to be adjusted in how people think of them currently it’s a road is for a car whereas that isn’t the case especially where Emily and myself now live we live in the lanes and there aren’t uh there aren’t uh what do they call Pavements sidewalks whatever you

Want to call them um there is literally a road with a hedge next to it and I run on them I walk on them I cycle on them I drive a car on them and when I run on them I get get nervous cuz I have to

Jump off of the road every now and again when I cycle on them nearly always it’s very pleasant but you always just have a moment where it’s like I wish that car had just slowed down a bit you didn’t need to go past me at 60 M an hour it’s

A lack of understanding that’s you say education is important I I feel cych loans are great but they spend Millions on making some of these cyc lanes and you think if you took one cycl Lane’s millions of pounds didn’t spend it on that and you did a intern sorry a

National this is more for the UK but a national advertising campaign explaining just basic facts to people firstly nobody pays Road tax it’s uh vehicle excise duty so it’s not a thing of taxing a bike or a car is different second thing is cyclists are allowed to

Ride to a brace it’s encouraged in the highway code educate people of this so that the fight because it’s road rage becomes an issue because people see two cyclists riding next to each other and then they get all upset about it and then do stupid things um and then lastly uh

The minimum passing distance of a meter off and just explain to people a bit like give examples where if you’re behind a tractor or a horse you’re just going to wait as a car it’s the same with the bike mhm and then lastly the fact that a vehicle is a weapon it’s a

Dangerous thing if you hit somebody with a car you mean it’s you wouldn’t hit somebody with a baseball bat why would you hit them with a car so do spend the money on an advertising campaign do it for a year and see how that Chang the

Old do you remember the old piracy as a crime thing that would come up at the beginning of videos you wouldn’t steal a handbag you wouldn’t steal a mobile phone do that for a while yeah well it’s a big cultural change so you’d have to do it for 20 years unfortunately but you

Got to start something somewhere what what else do you want to see more standardized ebikes Motors and batteries and everything keeps changing every year it’s like mobile phones at the moment the technolog is moving forward which is good but just try and make it move forward and will make so the old ones

Still work um and are more compatible with each other so batteries can work on several different Motors several different bikes not think of yeah I’ve got one more I want to add uh I would like to see more non-traditional cycling brands that preferably have lots of money getting into the cycling space I

Know that sounds ridiculous but I want more competition and I want competition from outside of cycling so that it forces the traditional brands that do stuff in the ways that they’re doing it to have to rethink to be competitive a great example of that is the cathlon I

Am super excited to see where they go over the next 12 months CU I think they’re going to disrupt so hard and I’m very excited for it but I want more I don’t just want the kathin to come in and take over and be like we’re now the thing I want more I

Want more and more more I want more competition but and I and I think what that will force is better value at the low end which is something I’m massively massively passionate about time for another round of overrated or underrated I’m going to read out a list of things

And you’re going to tell me if they’re overrated or underrated so the first one is average speed so this is suggested by Aaron in Nashville who said when I first started riding I was using my average speed on a ride as my biggest metric for performance it’s something I know a lot

Of people do and it makes me very upset anyway The more I’ve ridden since then the less I care about how fast I am going I would love to hear y’all’s thoughts can I say y’ well has literally Ys y’s thoughts um yeah I I have

Historically done it I know a lot of people that do do it and I I tell you what the place where I most significantly noticed that it is such a bad metric was moving to the North in London you can kind of get away with it

Because it’s so flat it like you can you can you can ride huge distances in London and practically hit no Hills at all so it’s a lot easier to manage in average speed the second you start riding up here it is so hilly and so varied and it it’s just so different

That you can’t use speed as an appropriate metric you could if you were if if you were saying okay my average speed on this climb or my average speed on a climb of this sort of steepness should be around X but you can’t use it

At an entire ride no well you can but you can’t you can get in and out of it as well as your garment said to autop pause at 4 km an hour at 0o km hour and when traffic CL you stop at when you accelerate forward that’s all going to

Affect your average speed you can con your average speed to look much better than what it actually is but Al and then are you enjoying the ride that’s what’s important like ultimately what I think we’re all getting out here is average speed is not a performance metric it’s definitely overrated it is definitely

Overrated yeah I’ve even I actually forgot we were even doing overrated underrated then so yeah I’ve done 16 km an hour average gravel rides that is 20 times harder than 30 as an hour road right it’s performance metrics are well things that you can use to monitor your

Performance and fitness are uh Power meters heart rate monitors doing certain tests riding certain courses in certain ways and repeating them uh ultimately testing and looking at benchmarks on that but just just generalizing an average speed on all or frequent or many rides that you do it’s overrated it is

It’s a rubbish metric yeah it doesn’t even take obviously it doesn’t take into account varying terrains but it also doesn’t take into account varying like how tired you are for example like you know you might just do a ride and you’re not able to put out the same wats you

Were last week because or you’ve not eaten enough food not e yeah there’s loads of things not drunk enough water the other thing that I don’t like about it is it encourages you to ride hard from the start and all the way to the end because you’re focused on trying to

Maintain that average rather than giving your body a chance to warm up and cool down uh next is 650b Wheels most underrated thing ever I’m not having anything else that’s just a fact so I I think there’s two ways to look at this um to most people most people that ride

Bikes won’t even care or know what 6 650b wheels are and to them they are arguably underrated to people in the gravel world like Nick that in my opinion they are massively overrated they’re not they’re underrated because I’ve ridden both have both uh I arguably don’t even notice a

Difference however what a 650b does allow me to do especially on a really small frame is put massive massive tires on it so I’ve got 2.1 mountain bike tires on my steel custom howler gravel bike which I absolutely love if I had 7 if I had 700 Wheels I just wouldn’t be

Able to fit that kind of size tire in it which is appropriate for that bike yeah it’s much better for smaller bikes are you talking specific specifically gravel or Road here can you specify gravel um Road well I I think it should be a thing on road as well for really small bikes

And that’s the only place I would have that but for gravel it’s it’s bigger tires it’s more comfortable it will if you run tubeless you’ll seal more punctures you’ll have more grip um your acceleration slightly better you don’t ride gravel at such massively high speed that you need that roll over you you

Need to if you’re riding up something technical it’s just easier getting through tight of Corners is easier it’s I have I have to say I’ve never I haven’t noticed any difference in like rolling resistance or I don’t find my 650b bike to be like slower than a seven

Like uh so so my gravel bike with 650b is like a proper gravel bike you know it’s Massive Tires it’s heavy it’s bulky and it’s not particularly slower than a really fast carbon gravel bike with 700 and 38 mil tires on it um they both ride incredibly well and are fast bikes so

Like I don’t think there’s a difference in that in that the idea that 650b is slower I think is overrated cuz they’re not but again we’re talking averages versus non- average you are way below average in weight so somebody that weighs 80 90 kilos and above a bigger

Tire is going to make the bike more durable you can have more goup we can have more leeway to do things when we had milky riding with us at 120 kilos in weight plus his bikes weights 130 kg if he was to run 700 C’s where at that

Point tires limited to 40 mil Tire on most gravel bikes he’d have to run out of 50 psi to not puncture or just dant his rims which will have no grip Mega uncomfortable where with 650 BS bigger ties could go up to 2.1 inch and he’s

Running it at 25 psi it’s more enjoyable so it’s just not utilized enough I’m not saying that it’s going to kill 700 I think 700 has definitely got a place especially now a 700 by by 50 mil for gravel um but it’s just once again it’s

Yeah it’s it’ll take a bit of time and you would always advocate for tubeless on gravel bikes wouldn’t you so you’re not having to deal with the different um in the tubes yeah Tu tubeless has come on massively over the last three years um but obviously bigger ties brings it

Closer to mountain biking where they’ve done it for years and years and years um the mistake people make is thinking tubless is going to stop all punctures but if it stops one puncture yeah um from my own experience I usually get about eight or nine punctures for

Everyone where I have to plug it um that’s being saved by the tubless put it all B and off you go um yeah for me tubis is it’s just not what are you saying Emily overrated or underrated honestly I’ve never ridden a pair I don’t know maybe ignorance is for

Your size bike six few yeah we talked about this in a previous podcast so I I actually bought a a larger bike than is comfortable for me because I didn’t want to deal with 650b wheels on a road bike because I didn’t want to have to deal

With buying different inner CHS to what jimy Jimmy has because we keep them all cuz we both ride we keep them all in a big bag and it’s just like pull it out whereas I would have to manage my own stock of smaller and I just didn’t want

To have to deal with on the road bike I can see problems so I understand although I had a dream the other night where you know how we were talking about I’m going to get a new bike I had a dream that I bought a new bike what was

It it was a live oh okay I mean I don’t know I don’t that’s so weird I don’t know I must have just got in my head somehow cuz they I guess they have I don’t know what did it look like it was small and it was purple sparkly and I

Don’t think I would ever buy a i i visualized when you said live a purple sparkly bike someone’s been subliminal messaging me and Jimmy clearly so weird yeah that’s not I don’t think I will do that but anyway Muk off no comment no you have to comment that’s the whole

Point of this part of the podcast overrated I I think uh they have fantastic marketing and branding their product in my opinion are hugely overrated as are most cycling specific cleaning products they’re everywhere aren’t they they’re in Aldi I saw them in the middle of yeah in the middle AIS

Of Aldi I was chatting to when we were at the Garmin dinner the guy that now works for Gan used to work for mof and he was saying that moff are sold in something like 70 countries they are absolutely massive I hadn’t realized how humongous mov are and I guess it’s

Because it’s such a uh retail sellable product so they can just sell to like supermarkets and shops and loads of stuff that’s like outside of just you know cycling retailers so therefore they’re probably humongous I just think there’s a lot better products out there tell us I don’t know I’ve used I’ve

Personally I’ve always liked fex um we’ve been using for a few months now juice Lubes um and they just make really good Lubes um and cleaners and it just works really well actually smells well uh they do like a gt85 equivalent without PTFE in it um are they

Comparable in price yes yeah yeah uh obviously muck of being so big in some places shops will be clearing it out but it’s not expensive products I mean I think fenex for bottle of lub is about7 um and I think juice lubs comes just below 10 quid so it’s not silly

Money but the the problem I have even with that is there’s products available that are as good as those products that cost two one pound maybe even less well you can just you can like for example uh you used to be able to get a motorbike cleaning product in like it

Must be like 10 L ear thingy absolutely mosive and it costs about 60 70 quid which is obviously a lot of money we bought one about three years ago and we’ve used about a third of it like it lasts for eternity Francis has got one

As well it’s pink which is one of the brands that we are talking about he is color so is it the same product who knows no speculation we we we used uh Motocross products in the bike shop for few years that’s it that’s that’s what I’ve got and it was excellent it worked

Really well you want a few companies that specialize in a few products and just do it well fex is a good example of that they they’re not trying to make everything in terms of sealant and things like that where Silka focus on sealant I know they’ve started getting

Into the cleaning business but it’s not thousands of products or hundreds of products yeah frame bags like I couldn’t live without mine anymore if you ask me five years ago would say most overrated product ever it looks terrible but it’s like a handbag on your bike um I have

Snacks in there I’ve got money in there I’ve got tools I’ve got jackets I’ve got um when I ride a road bike now I feel like I’ve forgotten something at home I agree I’m a prepper I like to have everything and also when I commuted I

Never wanted to commute with the backp I don’t like bags at all I’ve got wonky shoulders and it hurts me carry bags so I would always have some sort of frame bag that for commuting as well I think luggage in general is still underrated yeah it’s just it’s just useful I I

Don’t like having a backpack even for like commuting and stuff like you said so yeah underrated um suspension on gravel bikes I’m going to go in first with underrated and I’m going to caveat that with when I think of suspension I’m not just thinking about a mountain bike

Suspension Fork there is lots of different types of suspension red shift is a great example of that I think it’s underrated because the the tests the I’ve done and the bikes that I’ve ridden there’s a bike on the wall over there which is caked in red shift it’s incredibly

Comfortable uh I’m going to go both underrated for the performance benefits the Comfort benefits and how well it’s going to ride massively overrated and how much going to cost you to maintain your bike with the suspension Fork on it well a suspension a traditional suspension Fork sure but there’s there’s

Other options oh yes like the rate of stat obviously needs no servicing I I could never ride on a bike without it again you no I can’t like I love it so much I I I turned down um I was looking at getting a bike but it would only take

An integrated handlebar like your Scott and I won’t ride it because I can’t put my R shift on it um it’s just so comfy it actually saved me from a crash the other day so yeah no it’s title of this podcast red shift saved my life red shift keep sending your suggestions to

Wild ons podcast Cad media. co.uk and we might read yours out in the next show so next up we have fluff up of the week the week we have two fluff UPS of the week we have also been talking for a very long time today so we are going to

Rattle through them as quick as possible um we Emily and myself are currently decorating our house over like a 10year plan and for some reason even though there is not a rush on anything that we’re doing I decided to empty our bedroom on Christmas Eve because I

Thought a quick liqu of paint and it would be done and then it ended up taking about a week and a half so we spent the whole of the Christmas period in our spare bedroom in a really small uncomfortable bed well it’s not uncomfortable but it’s not as nice as

Our lovely big bedroom bed my main issue is that you always start DIY projects at like 300 p.m. on either a Sunday or a bank holiday and therefore like shops are closed so inevitably you you find halfway through the project that you need another piece of equipment and

You’re not able to go out and get it like you started draining our radiator change the radiator at 300 p.m. on a Sunday and to turn the he had to turn the heating off and then you didn’t have the tool which meant that we were going

To have no hate and thankfully my dad lives 10 minutes away and had the tool but still mhm pick times better you’ve got to do what you got to do um we actually have another fluff up of the week which is one of Nick’s ones um I I don’t even

Know if if he’s willing to talk about it so I’m going to talk about it so as some of you will probably guess or just know Nick is South African and currently his entire family are in South Africa and he is in the Northeast on his own I.E why

He spent New Year’s Eve with us in our house rather than being lonely on his own um it’s like a real life home alone story yeah they went home see my family but forgot to take me with them no what actually happened Nick well my passport expired and hasn’t come back yet from

Being renewed I think I think secretly you intentionally delayed renewing it because you thought actually I’m going to have two weeks in the new year to ride bikes and not have to look after a baby [Laughter] so let’s finish up with listeners takeover Carl asks what’s the deal with

Dry versus wet Lube is it for specific climate conditions or is one type of lube fine all conditions Lube uh dry Loop works well in the dry wet Loop if you some dry Loops you put on a bike and you ride in really wet conditions when it’s raining you’ll realize halfway

Through your ride that you just don’t have a Lube your Chain’s making a horrible noise um but some wet Lubes turn into a glue so been testing it for quite a few months now in the Northeast which is really wet and horrible weather uh all conditions find a brand that do an all

Conditions Lube it’s very watery but it just seems Lube’s gone on it works better so yeah fenex do one juicy lubs do one either one of those I’ve tried both I’ve also used wolf tooth Lube um that’s a bit more expensive but all three of those work really well yeah

That was that was always the problems I used to hate using wet Lubes cuz they just get filthy but they stay on the chain for ages so I would use dry Lubes which are essentially good weather Lubes like you’re saying but then they last one well you wash your

Bike at the end of a ride and then you’ve got to it again I like that I want to be able to wash my bike wash it off but I don’t want it to be washed off by just writing it yeah keep sending us your questions stories and fun stuff to Wild

Ones podcast at CAD media. co.uk before we go we want to ask you a favor if you liked the episode please take a moment to leave a five-star review or leave a like and comment if you’re watching this on YouTube it doesn’t take long but by

Doing this you help us boost the profile of this podcast and that allows us to continue putting it out for free and don’t forget to subscribe thank you very much thank you Nick thank you Emily thanks see you on the next one by bye