Dylan Johnson, Road should adapt or die – Peak Talk Show Ep2

If you enjoyed this, please do like and subscribe. Next up on the Show is Dan Bigham where we pose the similar questions on optimisation.

Welcome back everyone welcome to episode two of the peak Talk podcast today I’ve got Dylan Johnson east coast of the USA he’s a professional gravel racer but before that he was a degree educated Sports scientist I think a cycling Coach and he’s pretty much the go-to when it

Comes to reading out or disseminating white papers about Sport Science or sporting performance when it comes to cycling the only white paper he probably hasn’t read through is Einstein’s theory of relativity he has proven time travel to be a thing because he’s now making a career out of riding mountain bikes from

The 1990s so Dylan you can take over now tell us about your Pro Racing part about the lifetime Grand Prix which I quote you for saying is the biggest thing in cycling right now or maybe just in North America lifetime Grand Prix only in America could come up with that name it

Sounds Lusty promising but also slightly threatening at the same time over here we probably just call it the gravel national series or something really lame like that so over to you Dylan tell us about what you’re currently up to yeah well I appreciate that introduction the

The goto for white papers is is quite a quite quite the statement about me I appreciate that um as far as the lifetime Grand Prix goes I hope I didn’t say it was the biggest thing in cycling because that sounds a bit egotistical considering that I’m in the series uh I

Would I hope this doesn’t come off as egotistical there’s probably some who are going to get mad at me for saying this but I think that it’s the biggest thing in cycling in the US right now I think it’s in the cycling world in the

US and maybe I’m biased because I am in the series and I am a gravel racer and that’s kind of what I follow but I think in the US in cycling right now uh that is the most popular Pro Racing that’s going on okay can you tell me a bit more

About what the lifetime Grand Prix is cuz from my point of view maybe the the kind of social media outreach doesn’t reach over here so much because our our gravel in I think Europe and specifically the UK is still kind of just a fun Niche it’s a it’s a bit of a

Quirky Niche it’s not so commercialized and not such a high stakes platform like it is over there can you dive into a bit more what is the lifetime Grand Prix um now don’t spend too long on it because my viewers are really Tech heads and we

Want to get into the techy stuff in a minute so people call it a gravel series but it I would call it an off-road series because it does include mountain bike racing um some of the mountain bike races in the series it’s up for debate whether they’re actually mountain bike

Races or not uh they’re they’re not very technical and they have gotten push back from some riders for including very tame at least technically mountain bike races but I would I would call it an off-road series because there are certainly races in the series that you

Need a mountain bike for um and and then of course there are plenty of races in the series that you need a gravel bike for there’s seven races total in the series um they’re they’re all across the US although strangely enough there are none here where I am on the East Coast so

There’s a little bit of bi a West Coast bias there or something I don’t know um and and yeah I mean it’s just it’s just like any other Pro Racing Series you get points during for the races that you do and uh I think they take the best of

Five five out of seven races and and they tally them up and and then there’s a ranking at the end of the year I think the one thing that probably sets it apart from most most series that are similar to it is that it’s an exclusive

Series so you have to apply to get in and then they accept 30 men and 30 women and it’s not like any Joe Blow who wants to be a pro can line up on the starting line and and do uh do the series they can do the races but they won’t be part

Of the series unless they’ve applied and gotten in well from an Outsiders point of view in the North America has this series or let’s say gravel riding in sort of tame m M bking has that killed off the road scene or is the road scene still alive and kicking and also what

Happened to XC racing has this kind of replaced XC is XC dead in in North America yeah so I would say XC racing is just about dead uh just as an example we had a lifetime Grand Prix race on the same day as our uh XC mountain bike national championships and all the

Riders went to the lifetime Grand Prix race instead of going to the XC mountain bike national championships I don’t want to say all there were some there were some writers that went to the XC mountain bike national championships but it was clear that the priority was the

Lifetime Grand Prix and not our very own national championships for mountain bike XC racing um as far as road racing goes road racing is is dying at a slower rate uh I think that there’s a chance that that road racing Will Survive and and there’s still people that follow road

Racing um it I I think gravel is obviously pulling both Road Racers and mountain bike racers so it may have fully killed off or basically killed off mountain bike racing and it’s slowly doing that with road racing but we’ll see what actually happens with that road race there there’s still a decent Road

Scene here in the US without going too much into commercial side of it why why do you think that that killing off is happening is it is it prize money is it sponsorship money is it there’s more races or uh Mar does it coincide with just like the boom of social media and

It’s just easier to like disseminate kind of content related to that um because you know in the road scene it was probably I guess maybe 10 years ago where you had not the best Riders scoring the biggest salaries because of their social media presence I think that probably started with like San because

He was such an asset for specialized um but that was that was kind of more under the brands control whereas now Riders are having their own brand and their own Instagram and their own Tik Tok godamn or whatever um and those salaries are actually overtaking

Their how good they are on a team like maybe Vander Paul is not going to be the highest paid Rider next year because yes he wins all the races but actually he’s pretty bad at like being on social media so is it is it because of that or is it

Just is it the pure racing that’s made it that big it could certainly be part of that um gravel racing gets a lot of [ __ ] for being a bunch of influencers who are doing it and maybe that’s warranted because I mean there people like me doing it right um and then

There’s there’s a bunch of other people who maybe they they’re big on social media and they’ve kind of taken up gravel racing as their main discipline and uh I think that to get paid as a gravel pro at least right now in 2023 2024 have you you do need a big social

Media presence um if you’re if you’re doing well in races that is probably not enough to to make a living as a gravel Pro but if you’re doing well in races and you’ve got good social media then I think that the reason why gravel is taking off amongst Pros is because it is

Where all the money is um I personally I think that if you are at the domestic Pro level in the US and you’re trying to decide how to make a career you’re going to make the most money right now if you go to gravel uh if you stick with

Mountain biking you’re not going to make any money if you stick with road racing you might make a bit from a team but if you can really figure out everything in gravel figure out your social media and be a decent decent enough racer you will make the most money in gravel racing

Right now in the US uh cuz it certainly isn’t like that here I mean we I guess we just don’t have the amount of gravel roads that you guys have to to explore this Niche but it’s certainly very I think unique in in terms of North America I think it’s coming but this

Brings me on to a topic which we can discuss further in the podcast about where will gravel and road be in in 10 years or maybe even less than that let’s say 2030 will it all converge but before we go into that let’s and I I have to

Say um if if you’re new to the channel you’re maybe Dylan’s viewers from North America or gravel heads welcome do click subscribe because I am now in the gravel Niche I have a gravel bite I’ll have you know and I’m going to ask Dylan for his

Thoughts on my gravel setup later in the show something that we’ve spoken about before and something you’ve spoken about on other podcasts and something I’ve spoken about with Dan bigam obviously performance engineer inos is and this is kind of in in the gravel nich and there’s a bit of crossover with the kind

Of the off-road side of it and vibration damping and things like this let’s talk about Parry rube because I put out a video before about how Parry Ru bikes are basically woefully inadequate they’re on completely the wrong type of machine to do well on that kind of

Terrain now yes the caveat is most of that race is dead flat smooth tarmac so we can’t get around that there are super high speeds I think even even with the cobbles last year I think the average speed was 46 or maybe 45 K an hour so it’s super fast um so Arrow

Really is still a thing but um a couple of years ago I think about two and a half years ago I did another podcast with Dan bigam and and we both agreed that they were woefully inadequate basically not optimized um and the only point of optimization was around the

Tires and in in no other kind of engineering vehicle where whether it be Motorsport or even kind of Civilian transport would you try and optimize everything just with pressure or tire size but we’re trying to do that in in bike Market um you’ve got ideas about

What your ideal bike would look like and I’ve got ideas about what mine would look like so let’s start with yours what do you think the ideal Parry rub bike should be so I I find it funny that uh he said they’re optimizing Around Tires because I don’t even think the tires that

They’re using are optimal for ruet I think they should be much wider than they currently are and every time I say that the Roes all gasp you know I throw out a number like they need 45 mil or 40 mil tires and they all gasp that’s way

Too wide I mean the same thing would have the the same thing would have happened if you told people that the standard Perry Ru tire was a 32mm you know the last time they had Ru uh if you go back 10 or 15 years if you told

People oh the best tire for Ru is 32 millimeters same thing they would gasp right it’s just kind of it’s all what people are used to seeing uh and if you jump too far ahead it’s just it’s too much for people to wrap their minds

Around you know if you do too big a jump en Tire with it’s just it people can’t wrap their heads around it being fast I guess it’s probably because I come from gravel racing that I think this but um I’ve done quite a bit of testing myself

On gravel and I keep coming to the conclusion that wider tires are actually faster on gravel not slower like so many people seem to still think and uh I think it’s only a matter of time before you know I I think that that uh ruet tires are just going to get wider

And wider and wider and I wouldn’t be shocked if in 10 or 15 years we are up to 40 millim or 45 millim so I guess the way that I’m getting around the suspension question is with the tires um and I I thought your video was interesting because you went about it a

Different way you didn’t necessarily get get around it with a tires you were actually wanting to add suspension to the bike from my point of view I think the tires could could get a little bit bigger but I think the speed is obviously so high and I think you’ve

Done some wind tunnel testing on tire size uh before about you know how many extra Watts you need at a certain speed for a 5 mil extra width on the tire or something like that but if you from my point of view in engineering if you try

And optimize and I’ve said this so many times in podcasts and stuff if you try and optimize rolling resistance grip uh vibration and damping Punk bu of protection just with one component there is going to be so many compromises and by what we’re doing at the moment is essentially approaching rube using a

Slightly bigger tire lowering the pressure we are compromising so many other things like on the flat sections where it’s dead smooth asphal we are compromising so much in crr which is at at the speeds of 50 km an hour could be 60 70 Watts it’s huge I prefer not to

Just do everything with a tire I prefer to see suspension in the frame and you might say oh yeah we’ve seen suspension in frames at rube before they just look stupid they’re elasa shocks they don’t really work but I think it’s been a bit

Of a h like I believe that’s a step in the right direction I just think it’s been a bit halfast because the the brand doesn’t want to put so much R&D money into something they can’t market and sell so if they’re not selling those bikes for the masses there’s literally

No point and that’s the really that you know cycling is a great sport because you can you or I can go out and buy uh vander’s bike that you know he raced Ru on uh but we can’t go and buy uh the stappen F1 car uh so yeah there are good

Things about having you know basically homologated production race machines however they are like completely not optimized for that race um so from my point of view and I’ll I’ll try and put something on the screen here in the edit but I’ve done a video on this I’ll leave

The link in the description it’s a it’s got suspension inside the bike but everything is aerodynamically fared so the the rear shock is hidden as much as possible it’s got a for you know airo profiles to the frame it’s got deep Wheels still and the tires are not too

Wide because at 50k now the tire width is really really important essentially when I RVE my road bikes I’ve got uh two bikes one RI one is Rim um one is disc brake now it’s a it’s a giant TCR one has an integrated seat post U so the

Continuous carbon mask seat post and that offers basically hardly any Flex in the seat post if I ride the other bike which has got the SL riding seat post with a clamped interface which allows way more deflection at the Saddle and I’ve measured it it’s basically two and

A half times the amount of deflection at the Saddle uh back and down as the ISP version I can run the the rim brake bike I can run the the more comfy seat post bike essentially with a much higher tie pressure for the same feel across rough

Ground so when I get to the smooth sections I’m going faster on that bike um so I believe you should optimize the tire pressure for Rolling resistance I slightly High pressures and then put suspension in the frame to mitigate the vibrational losses because a set you know cobbles or rotted tarmac rotted

Concrete and if you’re if you’re approaching that from a smooth section you might be going 45 K an hour you hit the Cobble section you come off it again and you’re coasting you might have gone down to 30k an hour and where’s that energy gone you know you can’t destroy

That energy you had your kinetic energy at the start which is that half that half that mass of you times the the velocity squared you come off the Cobble sections and now some of that velocity is gone your mass hasn’t changed unless your teeth are falling out um that that

Energy’s gone into shaking all your muscle fibers heating your body up internally damped your muscle fibers are not elastic that power that energy is essentially been transferred into heat or or losses in your body which you can’t recover now suspension I believe would fix that and you know you said it

On yourself on another podcast we that sort of Legacy gcn stuff which was really good back in in the day uh where they did the the Cobble test on mountain bike a gravel bike and a road bike and the mountain bike like wiped the floor

It was so much faster yeah so yeah if you could take that suspension principle and aerodynamically Faire it so there was hardly any kind of penalty on the flat I think that’s the way to go but will we ever see these bikes no because the steaming irony dump would be that

The race would no longer be hard it would no longer be like hell of the north and all this [ __ ] so they it’s hell of the north cuz they’re on bone rattling stiff aerrow bikes that’s why it’s hard you know if you put everyone

On a a perfect bike it would just be a flat it’ Be Like A Flat Road Race yeah you know but so so that’s that’s also that’s also a question of whether or not they should even pursue this or whether or not it just makes the race better to

Watch if everybody is on an inadequate bike which a lot of people have that argument Rue Bay is rub Bay because you’re riding a road bike on roads that road bikes were not made for uh I I see that argument but at the same time one of the things that I like personally

About bike racing is when people try to optimize their equipment for whatever terrain they’re riding on um people probably already know that about me by watching my videos because that’s what I try to do with gravel racing but if if I if I saw rub specific bikes that would

Get me super excited to watch the race to see how the bikes performed but that that’s just me personally not everybody um cares about that stuff like I do I I wanted ask you about the aerodynamics of your theoretical rupe bike because adding suspension to the bike is

Certainly going to make it less aerodynamic especially if we’re talking about a front fork I mean that’s that’s the first thing hitting the wind yeah that’s that’s that’s the worst part about my my bike that I’m putting forward um my I guess my ideal kind of suspension would be like an upside down

Telescopic Fork but instead of having round stanions it would have air foil stanions which as far as I know in production is impossible because SKF don’t make a for shaped gter seals they don’t make no one’s making like composite bushes for the stanions to slide in those things always have to be

Round so that yeah that’s the that’s the worst thing aerodynamically about my design um the Scott XC bikes a fully integrated rear shock you can’t even see it you know I I think that the the picture you had had a Lefty Fork um yeah it did that was that was the that was

The reason so some of the Lefty at least the Lefty Forks back in the day I don’t know if they’re still doing this but they had a rock guard on um a rock guard to to you know prevent the stanions from hitting rocks yeah you could have an

Arrow guard so instead of a rock guard around the ston you could have an air foiled shape guard uh I think that’s probably a possibility so i’ got a lefty fork and then at the bottom I’ve made the kind of plastic Guard air for shape

You can’t see it cuz on the other side but yeah that’s that was my thinking but still not great no I I I like where your head is at I think where where I was going with the bigger tires is I was thinking what bikes do we currently have

Available on the market that Riders could actually ride and I think that the optimal without creating an entirely new bike that doesn’t exist I think the bikes that are current currently available on the market would probably be if if you were to take an arrow gravel bike not just a standard gravel

Bike that’s probably costing a significant Arrow penalty over a standard road bike but an arrow gravel bike and you put uh a really fast pair of 40 or 45 MIM tires in it I’m thinking like the challenge strata biani Tire um that would probably be the best rubet

Bike that we that you could make out of parts that you could currently Buy on the internet at 50ks an hour let’s say do you have any number for what what would be the aerodynamic penalty at 50ks an hour versus a 32 mil Tire or 30 yeah

So I think that when we did wind tunnel testing it was uh a five watt penalty for at 40 man I wish I had the numbers right in front of me I said them on the last I said the numbers on the last podcast and it was because I was getting ready for

The video where I was going to talk about my drop arm mount mountain bike I think it was I think it was 5 Watts for 5 mm at 4 40 kmph so it is so here’s the thing it is an arrow penalty um and this

Is this is the argument that I made you would have an arrow a slight Arrow penalty for almost the entire race but then when you got to the Cobble section you would have a significant rolling resistance advantage and that is usually where the races won and lost um cuz we

Have the same dilemma in US gravel racing there’s a lot of us gravel races that uh 60% of the races paved Road and then 40% is gravel so you have to decide okay what am I going to do with my bike setup because there’s actually a majority Pavement in this race and just

Like in just like in Ru the race is won and lost on the hard sections of the course and when there’s no climbing on the course the hard sections of the course are the Cobble sections and in US gravel racing the hard sections of the course are the unpaved gravel section so

You kind of have to optimize the bike for those sections you’re already seeing Riders ride a lightweight climbing bike on a flat stage of the tour just so that they can go faster up the final climb I see it as the same thing you’re picking an inadequate bike for the majority of

The race so that you can win the race when it matters very good point and we must just mention also and I mean the last couple of additions of of rube have been absolutely terrible for punctures almost like there’s been more punctures lately than 10 years ago and I don’t

Know if it’s obviously we’re riding harder the the guys are fitter they’re going faster they’re hitting the cobbles with more energy however you could ride a $200 bike from Wallmart across all those sectors and probably not puncher like if it was a mountain bike so you just it’s not just about the ultimate

Speed across the cob it’s the chance of your race just being wiped out by puncture may be mitigated by just having a a much faster Tire because you can be the the strongest guy and have the best tactics and the best plan to attack on the hardest sector if you’ve punctured

The sector before it’s it’s insane like I mean I think it was a couple of years ago when vanard had obviously one of the the favorites of the race he had something like three or four maybe five punctures in a race absolutely insane and then you see guys breaking Wheels La

Last year uh last year if I’m not mistaken didn’t uh van art and Vanderpool they were off the front together just the two of them and then vanart flatted and that was it vanderp one yeah so the you know Rue right now is kind of a lottery and the Riders know

That they know it’s a lottery because there’s a high chance of getting a flat tire and your and your race is over not only I I personally think that wider tires would be faster I know some people are going to disagree with that but not only would they be faster uh for for

Where it matters in the race but you would actually be reducing your risk of puncturing so it’s kind of a win win in in my yep in my eyes there’s that there’s that win which obviously you to first you know the first thing you’ve got to do is finish the race there’s

That and then there’s there’s a knock on effect isn’t there it’s Logistics of the team improves the stress in the team car gets reduced they don’t need so many mechanics out on course uh the risk of them and not being a mechanic uh with a wheel change in the

Right sector is reduced like everything there’s a KnockOn effect to absolutely everything fatigue on the right less mental stress less morale probably better like on rough ground if you’re feeling it after 4 hours and you’ve got another hour to go are you really going to dig deep whereas if you were feeling

Super fresh cuz the bike’s been gliding around all day it’s just everything like that you can’t measure but they are knock on effects absolutely everywhere but we’ll see will they ever will they ever listen to us will they ever watch the uh the peak Talk podcast I don’t think

So well like I said my my prediction for you know you asked about uh predictions for where road is going or you alluded to that um my prediction for Ru is that whether they do it on road bikes or gravel bikes or whatever tires are only going to continue to get wider every

Single year um tires will just get wider and wider and wider and I guess the argument that I make is why do we have to keep making this incremental progress each year I just want to get to the fastest tire size already uh I just want

To skip 10 or 20 years into the future and just get to the optimal tire size yeah I mean I can’t think of anything else particularly uh you know in engineering where you do these small incremental changes unless it was super risky or there was some safety critical components involved whereas normally

What you do is you find one end one extreme you go all the way to the other knowing that you’ve probably gone too far so you overshoot the the the kind of theoretical Optimum and then you start working backwards and you do like an iteration down towards the Middle where whereas we

Just keep ticking up like 2 mil per it’s like 2 mm every 2 years it seem seems like that yeah um whereas I think I’ll do it on 40s and then start working backwards yeah well I think all it would take is is one person to win the race on

40s or 45s and then it would change forever but I I think the reason why the industry do makes incremental progress as opposed to Big leaps is because if they make too big a leap at once no one will buy the bike you know if you sell a

Road bike with 45s who wants that bike right now no one no no um but in 10 or 15 years when Vander Poole wins Ru on a a AO road bike with 45s maybe a lot more people would buy that bike so it’s fair to say that you science the [ __ ] out of

Everything when it comes to racing in your career because that is your career um where would you be in the pack without science and are you jealous of the what I call the wattage Boomers uh which is a term that whenever you go to a race and you’re in the I

Don’t race much anymore but you know when you when I used to do crits or the old mountain bike race you know you’re having a chat some guys in the car park or on the start line you’re sort of looking around trying to think of something to say like what else what

Else do you say to these weirdos you say oh you know like what tires you’re running what pressure you’re running and and they the wattage boomers are those guys that just turn up don’t give a crap about the equipment and they’re just there with a massive grin on their face

Just waiting to smash out per kilo and they sort of look down at their bike and be like oh don’t know it’s just you know it’s just what came on the bike do you in your racing scene do you have guys like that or they all science based I

Personally I’m envious of those dudes who just turn up and just sit upright bolt ight in the wind and just churn wats and they don’t have that little demon in the back of their head going like oh get your head down or did you wax your chain enough or is a tire

Pressure not optimal or like is this is this helmet not very Arrow they’re just they’re just loving life um are the races in your scene like that or I I guess it’s all relative because from my from my perspective and and viewers of my channel will know how nerdy I get

About this stuff from my perspective I feel like there are a lot of racers and writers like that even at the pro level who don’t pay very much attention to their equipment and then they just have either a lot of natural Talent or they work really hard to get really strong

And they yeah they do they do well with uh equipment that is suboptimal in my opinion um I I I think there’s always going to be Riders like that uh I think that at this point gravel Racers are starting to pay more attention to their equipment I I think there’s two

Directions we could take this question cuz your question was where would I be without science well are we talking about equipment or are we talking about training because I’ve applied it to both you know for the sake of my channel uh we we sort of don’t I don’t think my

Viewers are that much into Sport Science Nutrition and training I might be wrong sorry if I was offended people out there but let’s just talk about the equipment first of all so yeah you’re fair to say you know you’re a you’re a mid Packer aren’t you you’re you’re like page one

Of the results but only if the result sheet is uh you know less than font size 12 sure yeah so I the last year they accepted 35 men and 35 women into the Grand Prix I finished 16th place so I was I was right mid pack um slightly

Better I guess than mid pack um so yes I I am a a mid pack Pro every single year more people are wearing skin suits more people are wearing Arrow socks more people are wearing Arrow helmets uh it’s actually weird to see I I remember when people first started wearing Arrow

Helmets and you thought oh that that thing looks weird it’s a weird looking Arrow helmet and now it’s almost weird did not see somebody wearing an arrow helmet uh same thing happens with gravel more people start to catch on so it actually gets harder to have an advantage with equipment every single

Year but I can actually put some numbers on your question with this example that I did with my last video which was on the drop bar mountain bike which I really geeked out over heavily in the preparation for Leadville cuz Leadville is one of these races where it is

Technically a mountain bike race and I think that’s just because historically the race has been raced on mountain bikes and the race started before a gravel bike even existed however I I personally think that if the race was started in in 2024 for the first time they would call it a gravel

Race just because gravel is so hot right now and everyone would show up on a gravel bike and if you showed up on a mountain bike you’d be the crazy one right um but the course is not very technical it in fact there is there is a

Mile on a half of single track in 105 miles of racing wow so it’s it’s kind of uh I wouldn’t call it a gravel race but it’s sort of a Jeep Road Race uh and I to me it seemed like Drop Bars were an obvious choice if you could make it down

The downhills there’s two downhills that I was worried about if you could make it down those fast enough you’d be fine and I tested it out and I was I was fine on those two downhills so I was like obviously I’m going with the drop bars I I

Calculated um what the difference would be between riding that bike and a normal flatb bar mountain bike and I took out every section where I would be in the pack every section where I could do the puppy pause position because obviously if you’re in the puppy pause position it

Doesn’t matter if you have a road bar or a flat bar um and I I came away with the difference was six minutes over the course and six minutes would have been the difference between me getting the 17th Place finish that I got and 21st place there’s aot there’s a lot of

People out there who would say 17th or 21st who cares like that you didn’t win you still didn’t win the race so why does it matter right why does it matter whether you got 17th or 21st I mean sure I like I I guess if you want to go down

That rabbit hole why do anything matter at the end of the day but if I this is this is part of the reason why I like this sport is these is trying to do as well in racing as I possibly can whether that has to do with training nutrition equipment pacing

Okay you can make this change to your bike and it’ll be the difference between you getting 21st place and getting 17th Place it’s a no-brainer for me obviously I’m going to do it uh not everybody has that mindset but but that’s that’s kind of one of the things that keeps me going

With this sport I I just love that aspect of the sport Yeah you mentioned not everyone has that mindset but going back to your original question roughly like how what percentage of the field do you reckon do does is in it for the kind of optimization and the geeking out and how

Many people just turn up and CH churn watts per kilo roughly yeah I mean so I don’t I I don’t really see these as two separate categories like there’s people that are in it for optimization and there’s people in it that just just turn out

Watts I I kind of see it as a gray scale right so maybe on one side of the scale there’s me and then on the other side of the scale there’s a guy that clearly he like he has a unwaxed chain didn’t think about aerodynamics whatsoever ever

Wearing a baggy Jersey like didn’t shave his legs um you know has the slowest tires and doesn’t care just got whatever tires they had at the bike shop um so you know I would say most at the pro level I would say like I said every single year the people nudge closer and

Closer to where I’m at um and I think because the other thing too is it’s just getting more competitive and the margins of Victory are smaller and smaller and smaller so when the margins of Victory are smaller and the it’s getting more competitive and there’s more money in

The sport you’re going to see people doing more things to optimize it’s hard it’s hard to give a percentage because it’s a grayscale but I would say that over the past couple years I have seen a shift in professional gravel racing to where I would say the majority of my

Competition is at least thinking thinking about aerodynamics thinking about drivetrain efficiency thinking about Tire rolling resistance we we can’t really equate to that here because we don’t have that level of gravel competition in this country although I think it’s coming uh but if I was to looking at like the road racing scene

High high level road racing I think it’s been like this for a long time is that everyone is optimized there is no there’s no getting your way up the result sheet because you’ve got skin suit or Aeros socks or skinny bars like everyone not everyone is the

Thinker and a lot of them are the Sheep but when that public that when that information by one or two thinkers is in the public domain then everyone does it super quickly there’s no there’s no it seems like there’s no low hanging fruit anymore um and that’s for the road scene

And of course the time trial sitting here which is super nerdy which is where a lot of these things get spawned from but uh I think the gravel events we do have in this country are a bit more fun there are there are some seriously difficult like longdistance uh gravel events here but

It’s definitely less about optimization and more about having fun but um are you are you that’s how it used to be here in the US oh yeah I I do want to get onto this Spirit of gravel thing the rest of the world the rest of the world is where

The US was with gravel uh 10 years ago 10 years ago no one was optimizing forever for anything they were just going out and having a good time on their gravel bikes right uh so I think that’s where the rest of the world is

Right now I mean for me I don’t race on gravel but I’m I’m I’m tempted to enter a few events enter a few events this summer uh but even when I’m not racing like even if I’m training for Road or gravel I’ll always like set the bike up

In a way that I think is optimized for that terrain or that even just a slow training ride I want to be on a decent Tire like I know if I go out on a slow Tire on the road bike if I’m doing zone two it literally doesn’t matter it

Doesn’t matter but I don’t want to ride a slow Tire like I want to do my zone 2 and get far like I want to cover more kilometers in in 3 or 4 hours um are you at Liberty to discuss your 2024 like race bike setup um like in particular

What tires we using because I think we’re probably in agreement that frames uh more or less converge to be pretty similar when it comes to gravel um the obviously the the average speeds of a race are slightly lower than than they are on road so pure Arrow of the

Frame isn’t so important and we’re not seeing that much suspension in gravel bikes uh I think dropper post depending on the course is is like a really good tool obviously depending on the course if it’s technical enough to to need a Dr a dropper so I think for a lot of people

Looking to go into gravel racing the biggest area of optimization is tires and it’s so difficult because yes everyone’s got different gravel whether it be Flint or sand or like single track like we we have a of essentially gravel races in this country on mountain bike trails um so you said

You you know you’ve spent a lot of time researching tires and you’ve kind of gravitated towards wider tires can you discuss like what tires are the fastest so people can just straight up copy sure yeah yeah so so first of all the equipment that I’m going to be on next

Year a lot of people have been asking me about that because I made a an announcement that I was leaving factor and I have not announced the new brand that I’m going to be on partially because I don’t actually have the bike in my hands yet to take a picture of but

That will be announced shortly not not here on this podcast unfortunately oh come on I was going to come to that come on we can delay we can delay the release of the podcast if you want we can delay it a month and put down B’s podcast I

Don’t know I don’t know I don’t know if you want to I don’t know if you want to delay it that much cuz I don’t know I don’t know when I’m going to get the bike built up but what I will say cuz what you were talking about with the

Frame I I tend to agree and I think you know when we went to the wind tunnel um I didn’t include this in my video but maybe I should have we uh you know we cut the lights out and we kind of used this I it was um I don’t know what it

Was a soap that was that was glowin the- dark to try to see um what sections of the bike were making a difference aerodynamically and the down tube was making almost no difference the down tube it it it it’s like the what what made the biggest difference was was the handlebars and

The fork sure yeah yeah on the gravel bike yeah it’s think I mean on on any bike right but particularly a gravel bike because the tires are so wide and they’re knobby it’s just the the air moving around most of the frame is so you know is so dirty

That it just I I’m not going to say it doesn’t make any difference but it it makes less of a difference than people think and I would say the two what you want to focus on if you’re concerned about aerodynamics is your handlebars and your fork um first first of all body position

Let’s be honest well yeah body body C obviously body position and handlebars can help with that right because there are hand you can get narrow handlebars and yeah so um handlebars and Fork I actually think are the most important in terms of aerodynamics even it especially

For a gravel bike um and then moving on to the next part of your question about tires I I have done tests where I I test different sizes of the same tires and again it depends on what kind of gravel you’re testing on there’s there’s obviously a lot of different types of

Gravel there’s gravel that’s so smooth it’s basically pavement and then there’s gravel that’s so chunky it’s basically mountain biking but on on gravel that I would say is in the middle between those two extremes I I’m I continuously find that the widest tire is the fastest and

This is not me feeling like it’s the fastest because I know a lot of people the way they test things is they just get on their bike and they feel whether something is fast or not I usually what I do is I have a set course and I ride

It at the same power output and time it and I’ll do and I’ll do multiple laps and wider tires are usually faster and the other conclusion that I’ve come to is that lightweight mountain bike tires like we’re talking about a schwabie Thunderbird or a Cony race King something like that are actually faster

Than almost every gravel tire and I think that part of the reason for that is because it is a it is a higher volume and I think that’s helpful but also I think these tires get away with using a thinner casing and not always but generally a thinner casing means a

Faster Tire too and they can get away with a thinner casing because the volume of the tire is so much higher so you’re not actually increasing the puncture risk and yeah for me mountain bike tires are are the fastest whether it’s the cony race king um which is basically

Like Tom pick’s Tire isn’t it that’s what the the the best xers in the world use that um and for another benefit I think the the high-end like XC tires because XC is a little bit kind of Niche and dying they tend to be a bit cheaper than the the high-end really Boutique

Gravel tires as well so it’s a bit of a win-win um but yeah I certainly I mean maybe it’s just cuz I’m maybe it’s just cuz I’m I’m much bigger and I don’t need to worry about the arrow of the bike so much and I would normally choose a wider

Tire anyway for my gravel bike and what I do on it I 50 mil is my minimum like I wouldn’t choose anything smaller than that which is essentially a 2.0 basically exactly a 2.0 mountain B Tire the the use case for very skinny gravel tire is is almost not there

Unless you’re on pretty much Road a lot and you need to worry about the arrow but in your testing what what what type of average speeds are we talking for these super wide tires to still be faster so the the segment that I use has

A slight I I do I I’ll do the segment out and then I’ll do the segment back and I I repeat multiple times out and back so I’ve got a data point from out and a data point from back and out is slightly uphill and back is slightly

Downhill so when I’m coming slightly downhill I even though I’m not putting out uh the power that I would put out in a race it is the speed that I would be averaging in a race yeah and and so I’m again I’m generally finding that uh and and this is

Something that I want to work with Sila on um I think we have plans of doing Wind Tunnel testing again this year and also doing rolling resistance testing but I I what I kind of want to work out is at what point does the the increase

Width of the tire is it such a big Arrow penalty that that’s the point at which you need a stop right I I want to I want to find what the stopping point in width is because right now I think that the the industry just has gravel tire size

Wrong everybody El on gravel tires that are too narrow but my question is you know I don’t want to make like like we said with Rub I don’t want to make incremental improvements I just want to find what the fastest tire size is right now and be running that right now go to

The extreme and then work backwards the I think the the issue is on this on this subject as as we go much above like a 2.2 or 2.25 we’re into the realm of like a different type of Tire where it’s a like a heavy Trail or even an Enduro tire and

Then obviously it’s it’s going to be start to be slower because of the the really thick side walls or the tread pattern so maybe you’re actually asking for a scenario that doesn’t exist like maybe your fastest gravel tire is something like a race King you know a thin sidewall

Lightweight XC tire but in a much bigger width and it just doesn’t EX so maybe maybe not going to find that I want to see Continental come out with different sizes of the race King the the race King that is the fast tread pattern the black chili

Compound um or the fast compound the only comes in a 2.2 I want it in a 2.0 for gravel racing and I want it in a 2.4 for mountain bike racing and if they kept the 2.2 that would be great too but they need more sizes I don’t think

Enough people have caught on to the fact that the compound of the tire is what makes a Fast Tire uh at least in gravel racing most people when they’re trying to decide what gra what tire gravel tire is fast or slow they’re looking at the tread pattern and the tread pattern does

Make a difference but I would argue that what makes more of a difference than the tread pattern is the compound of the tire yeah I’m I’m at fault here because I mentioned about the cost of tires but actually but my point is the performance gain from a Fast Tire is is cheap versus

What what people think are are going to make them go fast which is a fancy frame actually the frame really doesn’t matter as long as it puts your body in the right position it doesn’t matter spend your money on the tires even if you have to buy you know many just spend the

Money on the tires which brings me on to like in a race what what do you do if you get a puncture in a race you know one that doesn’t seal with the sealant is that race over for you or can have you got a very quick like strategy and

You you’ve trained your kind of puncture repair you know put a put a dart in it and carry on is what’s how do you how do you deal with a punct in a race you know what’s funny I don’t recommend this to people but this is what I do I I don’t

Carry a tube with me and that’s what I don’t recommend to people people should be carrying a tube because you know you you want to you want to make it out of of whatever situation you’re in some of these races are in the middle of nowhere

And if your bike stops working you could actually be in trouble um but the reason the reason I don’t carry a tube is because almost always in a gravel race if you have to put a tube in you’re going to get another flat it’s just inevitable that you’re going to puncture

Puncture the tube uh I carry a dino plug with me and I think dyo plug makes the best plug on the market I’ve used a bunch of different plugs and I think I think dyo plug works the best in my personal opinion and I carry co2’s and

The amount of co2’s that I carry depends on how big the puncture risk is so for example for Unbound I might carry three co2’s but for something that’s I don’t know like Steamboat gravel I might only carry one by the way having a flat tire in a

Gravel race when you have that setup is probably a 30 to 45 second mechanical it’s not that big a deal you you hear your tire you stop immediately you get that plug out hopefully it’s in a spot that you can get to really quickly which is something I recommend for gravel

Racers the plug should be you should be able to get to your plug in 5 seconds and then you plug the tire hit it with the CO2 and you’re off on your way and if you’re good at it it’s 30 or 45 seconds and you probably have to chase

For 5 minutes to get back to the group but other than that your race is not over by any means I think I think that could be a bit of a a win for a lot of people that maybe come from a XC or cyclocross background is that if you if

You get a flat essentially you get into that mental state where you think okay my race is over I’m I’ve got no rush to fix this because I’m going to be lost but actually if you have a very well- drilled routine that you’ve practiced and you can keep it under a minute

You’re not doing too bad like I think that’s a massive game that people don’t appreciate enough so how long like a lifetime Grand Prix race how in terms of hours what are we talking like how long is the race or are the races on average they yeah they vary a lot the shortest

Race is schaman which is a mountain bike race on grass and that one is about 2 hours long and the longest one is Unbound and winning times from that have been around 10 hours 9 or 10 hours at this point it’s a there’s a huge variation in in race length I mean

Schaman is kind of an XY mountain bike race style effort and then obviously Unbound is is completely different than that can drop in by a couple of minutes just on the puncture repairs if you’ve you know well drilled it so that’s a good point yeah so to that point that

You were just making I want to make this point about the last race which is Big Sugar uh big sugar in the lifetime Grand Prix is the final race and it is notorious for Flats it’s just the gravel there is really sharp and flat tires are really

Common and the the rider that got first and the rider that got second and the rider that got third so the podium all the top three Riders all got flat tires during the race right and they still managed to finish 1 two three I guess

That kind of goes to show you in these races a flat tire is not a race ending mechanical by any means I I think it’s something I definitely need to work on cuz if I’m out on my gravel bike if I’m getting a flat tire I’m thinking about

Starting to head back because I don’t trust repairs uh whether my plugs are not very good my my sealant tends to be okay but I don’t know if you got any like tips and tricks on on like what sealant to use or any any special cocktails you’re putting in the sealant

Because from my point of view if the puncher is big enough to hear it and this goes for mountain biking as well like my Enduro bike and my downhill bike if the puncture is big enough to actually hear it whilst you’re riding then it ain’t sealing um and I’ve tried

All of sealant I just I am sponsored by this company but I do genuinely think that this is the most puncture resistant sealant on the market uh Sila I don’t want to say it’s a perfect product because there are trade-offs with having sealant that works so well uh Sila

Sealant works really well and it’s got carbon fibers in the sealant to help seal and but the tradeoff with it working so well and sorry you said it’s got carbon fibers in the sealant that that sounds like snake why why do you need carbon fiber

In a in a Tire why don’t you just use cotton have you ever have you ever heard of people putting glitter in tires to try to help with the help with it I’ve heard I mean it’s it’s it’s that it’s that same idea I think the reason why

They went with carbon fibers is because they’re very fine and they’re very small um because if if you use glitter uh it’s kind of a crapshoot whether the glitter is actually going to hit the hole or not because it’s a it’s kind of big um I think that was a piss take I’m

Using a a basically an off-road vehicle sealant in all my tires I mean if I was sponsored I might not be using such a cheap sealant but the the amount of tires I swap out like on downo bike Endura bike hard tail and now gravel

Bike I I just need lots of the stuff but actually I found it to be really good it’s uh I’m not sure if you can get it in the states it’s um I think it’s a Spanish company but it’s basically for like off-road vehicles mining trucks and stuff the Silka sealant the Silka

Sealant will clog your valves and it will dry out quickly um but they actually make a replenisher that doesn’t have any carbon fibers in it so it doesn’t dry out or clog your valves as much but I don’t use any of the replenisher when I’m racing cuz I just

Want the sealant to work as well as possible and this is what I tell people there’s a trade-off for having sealant that works so well the trade-off is that it dries out quickly it gunks up your tire it clogs your valves but the for all of that extra headache which for

Some people is too much headache I will admit but for a racer the the tradeoff with all that headache is that you have a sealant that works extremely well during the season how often are you pulling the bead off the tires on your race bike to you know just check the

Amount of wet sealant in there every I’m almost doing every single race on a new pair of tires which I I’m that’s that’s just me there are some people that I’ve talked to that did the whole season on one pair of tires they’re those people that you were talking about earlier just

Show up on the equipment that they have and Smash It smash the Watts out I’m not that person I’m I’m doing almost every single race on a new pair of new pair of tires or at least a fairly new pair of tires um yeah because having a newer

Pair of tires also reduces the risk of getting a puncture and obviously you put a new pair of tires on you got fresh cealing in there I don’t I don’t want a tire sponsor why well so but here’s the thing there are so many Tire companies that get get

It right with the gravel tire and then get it wrong with the mountain bike tire or vice versa they get it right with the mountain bike tire and get it wrong with the gravel Tire uh I don’t know if a I don’t know kti is pretty good because

The Terra speed is pretty good and the race King is pretty good but I don’t know of a single company that that I would I would actually buy both of their tires for you know for the use case and use that even Conti I mean I’ve used the

Terra speed and I thought it was a decent tire but I wouldn’t use the Terra speed for a lot of gravel racing I think it’s too narrow uh and some gravel races I think the puncture risk is too high so the reason I don’t want the reason why I

Don’t want a tire sponsor is because I think it’s one of the most important components on the bike for gravel racing and I don’t want to I don’t want to compromise on that component I would rather spend my own money and run the tires that I want to run I’m actually

Riding like Cony on every discipline of my bike so if Cony want to sponsor the channel uh come along you know I’ve plugged you enough on this channel I pluged them enough on the channel but yeah it just tends to be my go-to but I’m not riding gravel tires I’m riding X

XC tires on my gravel bike I wanted to hear more about is your the classified hubs I was I was skeptical about classified hubs because I as a marginal gains nerd I want my drivetrain to be as efficient as possible and I was just thinking okay I mean if there’s if

There’s any sort of efficiency loss I don’t want I I don’t want to hear about it I’m not interested and then I watched your videos on the classified hubs and I was actually quite impressed by how how good they got the efficiency on those I must admit I was very skeptical as well

Um and going back a year year and a half ago when I first looked at the system and looked at the patent drawings I was I was a non-believer I was I’ve designed planet gearboxes myself in in my job like robotics engineering and um to get a system with efficiency like above 98%

Is really difficult um but to get in an application like for a bike which is not hermetic it’s not in a clean environment I I thought it was impossible I must admit so when I did the testing I well I actually met the guys uh classified at uh eurobike earlier this year earlier

Last year and basically tried to bler bler wheel set off them they they were very concerned that I was going to you know take it apart and show everyone the internals but hey look anyone can go and buy one and do that themselves so I don’t know why they were worried about

That too much but it’s really hard to test these things in in a in an outdoor environment but that is the acid test because yeah you can test it on a like a back-to-back Tor rig in a lab but then you can’t apply radial loads like ryer

Weight and any bump inputs on those rigs so even when they’ve tested their their Hub efficiency against the DT Swiss 24 or something it’s only in a like it’s basically weightless there’s no ride of weight going down on all those hub bearings uh the the the main Sha of the

The Hub which is similar like a 15 mil axle it’s similar to you know the main Hub axle of a dt240 there’s no bending on that there’s no bearing misalignment so it’s a very perfect case scenario so in my head when I did the out testing I

Was thinking uh yeah wait till I put my fat 90 kg ass on it and start doing stuff to the axle and then you’ve got like sinusoidal loading of the pedal is different to like a motor applying the torque in the test rig but from what I

Could tell I mean yes there is lots of error present in doing outdoor measurements whether it’s you know distance variation as you as you go up a climb unless you’re unless it’s a dead straight climb are you slightly going longer on one repeat or you know it

Could be a couple of meters different here and there which could be you know ten of a percent on the time um you got the power power meter accuracy which isn’t so important it’s more about the repeatability is is the issue with the parameters which is obviously why you do

Repeats but even with the repeats uh there was like pretty good consistency to say that the efficiency was right up there it was like 90 98.7% efficient MH with the caveat is that efficiency figure of 98.7 which I got is based on the theoretical efficiency of the Hub in

Its locked state so when the Hub is in a 1:1 gear ratio it’s essentially just working as a normal rear hub it’s four bearings on a shaft basically so that efficiency reduction of when you’re using the the lower gear ratio is based on a theoretical efficiency from their lab test so what

The actual efficiency is no one knows but you can’t test that you can’t test two hubs back Tob back on the same on the same bike at once um so yeah after that I was I was I was really really impressed there is a tangible weight increase from the

Setup I went to so I was taking off like a dur Ace front Mech and quite high-end parts so I think I put about 150 g onto the bike with the classified system even though I lost the chain ring it’s it’s I was talking about this to to a colleague

Recently it’s such a shame that the bike industry is so hung up on weight because it really doesn’t matter like that 150 gr if you work out like the extra energy on a climb is is almost nothing um we should be worried about efficiencies so any inefficiency or whether it be drivetrain

Or crr rolling resistance is basically like adding a gradient to it’s like adding percent to a gradient of your clim it’s a direct like linear thing essentially it’s like a virtual front Mech I now I’m using the system on my gravel bike I’m changing gear way more

Often like just banging in between those two big ratio jumps okay there’s a massive jump but if you’re if you’re speeding down a hill and you’re coming into a gradual like kicker which gets really Steep and really slow at the top instead of like fiddling around the rear gears because it’s so

Smooth I’ll just press the button uh and there’s no like there’s no worried about chain drop or you know coaxing the front Mech it’s like it’s instant maybe for the same gear at the back now with the two ratios you don’t need to be cross chaining so much so there’s a a big

Efficiency gain from not cross chaining okay in the extreme ends of the cassette you’re still going to get cross chaining there’s nothing you can do about it it’s one by no I think it uh I think it’s a good system I’ve got a slight doubt about the longevity so basically in

Another couple of months I’m going to do the same efficiency test Outdoors again U just because I’ve put it through like 6 months of basically rain constant rain and salt on the road yeah I need to do a like a a long-term efficiency test to see if it’s there’s any decline in the

Efficiency yeah unless you’re racing up our hour and a half long climbs in the Alps I think it’s a good system it’s just a shame I think it’s so to commercialize I don’t think the big group set makers will take it on I don’t think frame Builders will try and

Integrate it that’s what that’s what I wanted to ask you is is do you see this actually taking off in performance cycling like do you do you see teams adopting this do you see uh individuals who are interested in performance picking this over having uh you know two chain rings in the front

With a with a Mech I think in road racing I don’t think it’s going to take off because of the logistics of wheel wheel changes it’s it’s going to be one of those things where everyone’s on it or the or no one’s on it you know like

When disc brakes came in it was it was even even you know just 140 or 160 disc brakes on the team car or on the neutral service car was enough of a headache you know the through axle size or whatever like this is a is is another level

Compared to that because you’ve got to have this weird torque reaction lever which reacts the torque you’re pedaling that has to brace up against the frame and that is specific to every different frame you have to look up this little lookup table and get the right length

One and the right height of washers and all this stuff so that really needs like a frame frame redesign or built into the frames in the in the initial stage so if you instead of the Dropout you know just dropping the wheel into the Dropout the Dropout to get around this issue the

Dropout recess in all the bikes would have to be a square so it could like react that torque or a spline or something so I think there are a couple of Ridley knocking about with custom dropouts for this the system but I don’t think it’s going to take off in in Pro

Racing because I think Shimano and S so big they’re just going to ignore it I don’t think they particularly want to buy it so it’s I think it’s still going to be like a privateer thing um there are I know a couple of pro riders out there with these systems on their TT

Bikes um so they can train on TT Bikes Long Long rides and they can training the mountains on TT bikes um and have the added gear ratio of a of a front Mech where the aerodynamics for those guys racing at 55k an hour is is pretty bad to have a

Front Mech and another chain rink so there are these small niches where the system really works I think for gravel like like epic gravel events or Marathon XC I think it’s amazing because I think Marathon XC although we might think it’s a bit of a Dying Niche

Those kind of rides where you’ve got long hours in the saddle long climbs you don’t really want to be in a one by scenario with a 50 to Cog on the back cuz it’s so inefficient like if it’s just your local if you’re a local dude at the woods you

Know on pedling up pedling up his Enduro bike and then he’s going to have a beer like afterwards it doesn’t matter if you’re cross chain from a 30 to to a 50 Toth like it sounds awful but no one’s worrying about the efficiency but when

You got these n races like big kind of multi-day XC races or gravel races where you do need to worry about the effic efficiency I think it it’s it’s it’s a pretty good system to have I mean just as an example uh the race that I was talking about

Leadville I I think that there is a all mountain bikes are one by at this point pretty much but I actually think that is one race where there is a good argument to be made for for going back to Tu by for that race and it’s for that reason

Uh for example going up Coline which is the climb that goes to the halfway point you’re climbing for over an hour or depending on how fast you are an hour and you are you are close to you are either in the 50 tooth or close to the

50 Toth for most of that climb right so you’re spending a lot of time in your least efficient gear ratio um and so that’s why I’ve made the argument that a tu by might actually be a better uh a better call for Leadville but it could be possible that using something like

This might be a better solution too obviously everything comes down to testing but I personally I’ve I’ve not actually done a efficiency test on like a 5 to rear cassette or 51 to rear cassette but just from looking at it and the sound it makes when you’re on a on a

Dirty drivetrain as well which a lot of you know you’re going to have by the time you get to these these climbs it’s Sandy or it’s dry the lubs come off it’s pretty bad yeah um so yeah 2 by or classified Hub could really be a a big

Winner and you know I recently rode a hard tail that had two like an XC hard tail with tuy on it and I haven’t ridden Tu by on a mountain bike for for years and it was so good it was just like why why are we we’re doing this stupid one

By thing when most of the gears are terrible and noisy and like you go on a two you go on a two by bike again and it you know the chain is straighter the front met works amazingly the only downside is that with a smaller chain ring up front you’ve got higher chain

Tension which is another source of chain uh you know drivetrain friction but if if the chain line can offset that loss then yeah I if I was to go and buy an XC mountain bike tomorrow I’d probably have it with two byy again you’ve played around a bit with arrow sensors I have

An arrow sensor myself but I will admit that I have not used it a lot and I have not done any meaningful testing with it uh I think that right now they’re they’re you have to man you have to be such a nerd to even get any sort of

Usable data out of an Aeros sensor I think anybody who’s watched your videos using Aros sensor can attest to that um I I’m wondering if if you think that there will come a point where the data that you’re getting from an Aeros sensor is so userfriendly that it could

Actually start being a product like a power meter where almost every performance oriented Road cyclist is using it you’re right you do have to really want to go and do some testing one day uh it’s almost a whole day gone to test maybe two or three wheel sets back to back just

Because of the level of preparation uh checking and the the weather conditions have to remain pretty constant uh you Tire you need a calibrate a tire pressure sensor because the error sensor doesn’t know what crr you’ve got so you’re essentially fixing the crr but to a kind of guest value um

So you need to make sure that that CR throughout the whole day of testing is the same whether it’s you know you start the testing and it might be 10° C in the morning and then in the afternoon it’s 20 that’s going to throw the results

Like the it the stars have to align to get a good day of testing when they work they work really well and you can get some really valuable data find a resolution then you can get with the Chong method or doing timed segments or anything like this U because you know

Time stra segments unless the segment is like an hour long they’re a waste of time so I I do like using it however I’ve like you not used it so much because the I I feel for myself the time invested is not worth what I’m gaining from it

Because I’m not at that yeah I’m not at the competition level where I need to do it now if I was a coach and I was coaching Juniors or guys who really wanted to go fast at tting I’d get back into it but if if if I’m not monetizing

My time with this sensor I’m not using it because it’s it just takes too long so you have to do I think the one I’m using I’ve got pretty much every test is at least 10K um and it’s just out and back same course if if if at some point that

Course changes like the crra changes you can’t compare like if if if the local Council was to go and resurface that road tomorrow I wouldn’t be able to compare anything that i’ done on it before until like again I’d have to start all of the library of tests and

All the data again so uh it’s it’s amazing technology because it it leverages so many sensors um GPS wheel speed barometer power sensor like it it gets all these high-end bits of tech talking to each other to give you a CDA but the problem is for these guys making these

Amazing products you just can’t commercialize it so they don’t we don’t see them because they’re not I mean I would consider myself well you and me were pretty nerdy when it comes to these things but even I draw the line at going to waste a whole weekend to do some era

Testing on some Wheels like there are a couple of other companies I’ve been talking to this year so maybe I will have a new I mean I’m I’m talking a more of a legacy kind of point of view but I am hopefully going to get my hands on a

Couple more senses this year from other companies um that have you know emailed me and hold my hands up I’ve been a bit Tardy on on replying um because I don’t really fancy a testing in the pissing rain um but maybe when spring summer comes around I’ll get back into it but

Yeah I think one of them is is promising a live CDA reading which would be really really cool that I think is that’s the level we need to get to but doing that reliably is super difficult so I I don’t I I’ll be honest I actually don’t know

How much I can talk about this product so I won’t I won’t name the product by name uh but I the one the one that I have it’s not on your head unit but it is on your phone and you can quadlock your phone to your handlebars and you

Can actually get live CDA while you’re writing and it’s um I I think that what they are trying to do with it is is as the techn what they foresee is that you know 10 years down the line if the technology has gotten good enough this could be

Something that you know it goes to the head unit and it is it is a standard piece of equipment on road bikes just like power meters are and you can actually if you have live CDA right there in front of you um you can have your your you can have

Your power output you can have your CDA and then you can have your watts per CDA and you can actually you can actually do something about your aerodynamics in real time you know you can get your position even lower or you can get your your shoulders in more or you can get

Your elbows in more and you can actually train aerodynamics while you’re while you’re riding or while you’re racing uh which I think is is interesting I actually think that that is perhaps a more uh is that’s probably more useful for people than using it to test a pair of Wheels um is actually

Looking at your CDA in real time and trying to do something about your CDA with your body in real time and you can see the CDA change on the screen in real time as well it’s kind of a it’s kind of a reminder uh oh yeah I’m not I’m not

Getting as aerodynamic as I possibly can because if you look at people while they’re racing um that aerodynamic position for most people isn’t very comfortable and they’re not holding that aerodynamic position for nearly as long as they should and having it on your screen is just that reminder to say hey

Get back in the Aero position we don’t need to over complicate this if this is be going to become commercialized product I think all it needs to be is is even if the number was a bit like drifty and not very accurate it’s just that reminder so you know if you’ve got a

If you got a 20 hour week training program lined up you might think yeah I’ve hit all my numbers this week I’ve you know I’ve gone out and done a couple of really really long rides I’ve done my intervals how many hours have you actually spent in your race aerot tuck

None and then you come to your race first five minutes and your triceps are like killing you because they’re so fatigued because you not practice any of it so I think sometimes to put like there maybe there could be a level of the sensor or the

Data where you could you could do some of your post like analysis and get really deep into kind of like the lap cdas if you did want to se separate it but I think for most people they need is just a reminder um yeah just so just so when

You’re out there doing like a 4-Hour ride you you you spend you know couple of blocks of 10 20 minutes really really really like tucked down and trying to train your body on that cuz I I mean I’m guilty of that you know doing long long training rides and then yeah the last

Thing I want to do is sit in a arrow position so I just don’t do it and then you come to a of Road Road TT or something and you you just it’s hell because your legs feel great your lungs feel great but yeah your triceps or your shoulders are burning because you

Haven’t practiced that position so um maybe yeah maybe we don’t need to do a sensor maybe just a piece of duct tape on the stem that says get small you fat fard or something yeah I don’t know can’t tell us your bite sponsor we can put we can put a nice

Picture on the screen we can download it well I’m pretty good at uh cuz I’m pretty good um so yeah I um yeah I don’t know if I should save my bike sponsor I mean I I would hope I don’t it could make my when

You’re I know right I I don’t know when you’re planning on putting this out uh I’m hopefully getting the bike within the next week or so and the the picture should be up on Instagram then so um any any features that might have a little clue there followers of mine will know

And probably anyone who just listened to this podcast because we talked about tires so much um yeah I am obviously a fan of Wier tires and I would not accept a sponsorship from a bike company that has a max Tire clearance of 40 or 45 mm anymore so the max Tire clearance on

This bike is 50 mm and that was that was uh that was a selling point for me because I I want to experiment with doing wider tires on gravel bikes now I I got I’ve got a uh an idea of who it could be but I’m not

Going to we were talking about this before we started recording I I don’t know how much crossover there is with our two audiences because I talk mostly about coaching or I’m doing or or training related topics or I’m doing a race report and then yours is yours is

Engineering and Tech oriented so there may be a lot of crossover there maybe people in the in the comments can tell us whether or not they watch both of our channels or only one of our channels um but yeah yeah let us know let us know

Down below uh who did you find first was it Dylan or myself and I I definitely think since you’ve been racing more and doing less kind of sport Science white paper discussions I think maybe there has been more of a crossover because of the the drop bar bike and the the

Nerding out on tires and stuff I I definitely think they sort of merged a little bit lately but uh yeah let us know down below I have quite uh animated commenters and trolls in my uh in in my demographic they’re very needy uh opinionated some say like they’re

Master but uh yeah we’ll see we’ll see what happens but yeah anyway thanks for joining and uh we’ll hope you get you on again sometime soon yeah thanks for having me on Cheers