‘New SRAM Red’ Leaked & Why Pro Cycling Is A MESS Right Now – The Wild Ones Podcast Ep. 34

A link for Nic’s magic winter gloves: https://amzn.to/42jtEVz (affiliate link)

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

We’re back with more bike chat – this week we talk theories about the new SRAM Red, photos of which were allegedly leaked online. Plus we debate what needs to change in pro cycling as team Ineos fights to save the Tour of Britain, and we ask ‘do cycling clubs have a place in 2024?’ Here’s the full rundown:
00:00 Is Emily the MVP?
02:25 Nic’s Ironman saga continued…
04:28 Is the new SRAM Red here?!
12:58 Pro cycling is a mess… Tour of Britain & the future of racing
28:28 Do cycling clubs have a place in 2024?
45:49 Why don’t cycling clubs have this?
46:34 Overrated/Underrated: Route planning
49:39 Overrated/Underrated: Multi-day riding
51:22 Overrated/Underrated: Cafe stops
53:55 We fixed Emily’s screen (FUOTW)
55:45 To wax or not to wax?
59:47 Frame or components? What to prioritise when buying a bike
01:05:05 More info on Nic’s magic winter gloves

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 Episode 34 this is the show where we chat about bike stuff I’m Jimmy and I’m back with producer Emily and bike mechanic Nick how you doing guys good thanks very good I had a very large breakfast this morning and I am feeling full of energy

So I’m going to sit in this chair without moving and all of that energy is going to come out of my mouth great good news breakfast wasn’t in your original plan that you told us about a couple of weeks ago of course it was breakfast is always in the plan I don’t need

Breakfast breakfast is in the night at 9: that most important meal of the day is nonsense so anyway Emily your speech from last week got a lot of attention a lot more than we either of us thought was going to happen yes it did yeah um I was actually quite nervous after the

Podcast went out because I wasn’t sure how it was going to be received um maybe just because a lot of our audience is mail and I appreciate that I don’t know it might just not be up their street or just I don’t know not connect with

People but actually I was so nervous in fact that you usually I look through our comments of most of our videos but especially the podcast just trying to gauge feedback and I like to do that knowing that I probably won’t crop up as a discussion that much because I don’t

Speak that much but I was so worried that I didn’t dare look at comments and I said to you I’ve been avoiding the internet all day just in case but you had a look at the comments Jimmy and they were actually really really nice very very open I guess I I don’t

Necessarily need to be supported myself but just open to the idea and the discussion oh this made me think you know which was really really um heartening I would say and it’s definitely made me feel more open to speaking more so there you go I I feel

Like there has been a societal SL cultural shift in this country because I feel like if we had made if if you if we had posted something like that 10 years ago I don’t think the response would have been the same I think it really shows that so many more people people

Are so open to understanding other people’s point of view and what impacts them what affects them and I think that is brilliant lots more change to do but I think it’s brilliant that uh people are generally more open yeah or perhaps we just attract an audience of very nice

People that are willing that’s maybe not everyone but we just attract those people and thank you to you the listeners cuz I I felt very supported also at the end of last week’s episode we heard about Nick’s flipflop Iron Man we’ve had a few messages from listeners dying to know more one who

Wrote us was Bernard who said hi team stumbled upon your YouTube video which were very very entertaining and now started listening to the podcast during my training can we please hear more about Nick’s Iron Man as I’m a regular Iron Man participant and feel there might be some fun stories around his

Experience lots of love greetings from Switzerland what does he mean regular does he do it more than once there’s something you take off uh it was a disaster from the get-go uh the shoes the wet suit the I mean I stood on that beach before they like let you go

Off early in the morning and I just remember when that cannons went off I thought what have I done wrong for my life to end up over here cuz I did a quick bit of math and realized I could be out here for 15 hours um so yeah it

Was just a a long long long day of suffering how on the bike I got a full sense of confidence this is going really well I’m going to do well here but then I got off the bike uh and yeah it just went wrong from there how much training did you

Beforehand because I can’t I I really I I’ve seen you walk and you do not look like you’d last R I’m not buil for running but uh I was in the Army at the time in the Infantry so we did a lot of running but generally speaking the

Furthest I would have gone was about 8 Miles um with weight not a normal run so I did a bit of that and then I was swimming a lot of the time and I come from a swimming background cycling came easy to me um wasn’t the fit as moon but

Yeah not a not a lot of a training at all because it was just a I mainly did it it’s free holiday so yeah which wasn’t a holiday because I was suffering for so much afterwards what did you learn from your experience uh stick to one sport just bike yeah it’s just much

More efficient you get a lot further on a bike then no no no it’s too cold over here for swimming well you can get in a heated pool no it’s no it’s cold when you get out I’d swim again if I was back home where it’s warm anyway let’s see

What’s going on in the news so pictures of what apparently is the new swam red group set has leaked online so we’re a bit late on this one and that’s because we’re filming the podcast a bit earlier than usual at the moment to work around Nick’s actual job uh but leaked images

Of lever cassette rear Mech and calipers allegedly from the new Ram red have appeared online the photos appear to be in line with paints we’ve already seen and it’s very possible this could be for real the hoods look smaller in size and more ergonomic than the current Red

Which makes sense as this puts it in line with rival and force D2 there’s also auxiliary buttons at the top of the shifters that we assume might be customizable the rear derailer and disc calipers both have cutout sections that suggests they probably been a bit of a

Focus on weight reduction and it also looks like they’re taking inspiration from the mountain bik world so the rear derailer appears to include a version of sram’s magic wheel this is basically a pulley that allows the outer part of the wheel to keep turning even if something

Gets stuck in the inner part like a stick or debris that’s really hard to to understand have you seen one of these before Nick yes so on the type t mountain bike Rex the rums release it’s on there so if you imagine the teeth is like an outer ring that is separate from

The inner pulley wheel that’s got the bearings in it so if a stick was to get in and sees that inner wheel stop it from moving the actual teeth will still rotate on top of the outer wheel so your chain can still move forward you’re not

Going to just snap your r ear off so the pulley Wheels have like a free wheel in them kind of thing pretty much yeah okay cool um so it’s still all un confirmed reports at this stage but it’s looking pretty likely new red will be released

This year uh I’ve had a look at the photos I think it looks nice it looks really good um you’ve got a couple of theories on some bits and pieces around it so there’s obviously these auxiliary buttons on the shifters which that like Shimano have been doing that

For years though haven’t they yes but this works slightly different I think obviously it’s just theories um the auxiliary buttons on the photos I don’t think are actually buttons I think those are just uh rubber grommet uh hiding where your reach adjust might be I think

The buttons are going to be on the inside of the levers inside of the lever ra right okay so if you set up shr at the moment you’ve got you can set up on like a like a campag thumm almost similar yeah but a bit higher up so I

Don’t know you most likely be able to set them up for extra things how you want to shift if you just want to use one leave on one side or whether you want to activate a drop post to it um there’s other theories that it might be

Able to control your head units yeah so instead of having to take your hands off to change again this is all Shimano stuff isn’t it or at least the head unit bit of it cbag well done it before so it’s not cbag actually has buttons they’ve had buttons from the first uh

EPS that came out inside the lever that you can use for head units uh and things like that so that’s one thing um other theories are if you’re looking at the chain and cassette it looks exactly like the mountain bike type te chain and cassette which is I think really good uh

So on that one they say the more power you put through the group set while shifting the better it will shift so currently at the moment when you shift on almost all groups that you have to kind of clutch your knees or reduce your poers slightly to kind of not make that

Whole clunking noise and just destroy your group set where on the mountain bike ones uh apparently optimal shifting is you can shift above 500 watts it’ll still shift perfectly so in racing or if you in the wrong gear when you hit a steep heel you don’t have to worry about

Just putting the power through and pressing the button so you think that that Mountain Bike Tech might be coming into the sh red well that’s is pure speculation but just from the photos the chain and cassette looks exactly the same that does sound good type te so and

It would make sense because if they’re going to release a new shr raid this year you would hope that they kind of making it better not just doing the same thing with an added gear like what’s happened in the past where’s gone from 11 to 12 speed on certain group sets uh

Where where this is they can make it lighter they can make you shift under power um yeah it’s all good stuff that could hopefully come out with it you have a theory on the power meter as well um I’m hoping they do the power meter similar to what they’ve done with uh

Rival and force where you don’t just have the the double chain ring with the power meter integrated that wears out along with the teeth um I’m hoping that they’re going to do it as part of the axle as well I can’t see why not cuz I already have the technology in all the

Other groups it is is the axle one double sided i’ I’ve got one on my rival and it’s definitely one-sided yes but the the crank base is also one it’s not about sided it’s more about it’s it’s it’s axle based if that makes sense no it doesn’t yeah I pedals

Pedals uh run down uh the aspect of double-sided or single-sided meaning there’s a power meter just in one pedal yeah but the one axle combines both both sides of the crank arms fact or speculation speculation but no it’s just a fact you said speculation and fact well

Just I mean I’m not a power meter exp right so it’s so it’s not a fact but you’re pretty confident I’m pretty confident okay I look forward I look forward to seeing comments I might even look at the comments the exact opposite to Emily’s comments where I’m just

Getting rinsed like usual but yeah so s are definitely keeping very quiet on this one I actually messaged one of the samam guys that I talked to quite a bit um and I I I I messaged him and I said said uh looks like red new Reds coming

Out this year are we going to be able to get a set for Cade media it says that he’s seen it and he hasn’t responded but he always responds when I message him left you unre he has yeah so I’m assuming it’s a lot easier for him to

Say nothing than it is to lie to me which is which is why there’s no response before Force they let us know months in advance and we had the group set the two of us mean they did tell us where this one they’ve not told us

Anything so it’s a bit of a well so so what Nick’s referring to is when the new samam Force D2 was launched uh it’s what is it a year ago now or something like that something like that whatever it was um Nick got asked if he would build a

Bike for the launch content of that video which obviously I built with him so it was initially via Nick’s relationship with SRAM uh and then they asked or they brought me into the loop on it as the person that was actually filming the video um and the build video

Is absolutely massive it’s got something like 90,000 views um which actually got launched on the day that it went live so I was kind of hoping I I was kind of hoping by me messaging him he might be like oh actually yeah let’s get let’s get another new group set over to those

Guys and we would have had it for launch but they’ve gone quiet so I’m guessing we’re not going to have it for launch sh’s coming to visit me next week so fingers crossed still a thing obviously it’s what price point do we think it’s going to be I’m assuming it’s going to

Be really expensive because it’s their top end group set the camad group set is 4 and half thousand for the top end one 5 and a half thousand uh dur race is 3,600 but dur as R becomes a bit more complicated how you speack it how you

Speack it you’ve got power meters no power meters um I’m hoping that it it comes in line with Shimano not KAG because that’s but obviously we just don’t know uh in the past I think shrams released their rival en Force ahead of Shimano and it’s always come out considerably cheaper than Shimano but

It’s it’s going to be a lot of money but sham do generally like to do things a bit different and hopefully one of the things they’ve done a bit different is found a way of making it a bit cheaper as well it would if you know like say

For example big group set manufacturer launch the new top end group set and they go actually we’ve not managed to save any weight it still weighs however many kilos which is pretty light cuz it’s our topper end one but what we have managed to do is cut the cost so it’s

500 quid cheaper I would be very happy oh no but no no no not for me they’ve cut out there’s loads of cutouts in there so if you’ve lost weight you’ve lost materials so should be cheaper as well conly you mean I understand if you made it lighter by different materials but if

You just cut out pieces of the rootes and the r Mac it should be yeah as smaller hoods so that’s less everything’s less it should just be cheaper the chains got holes in it so that’s less materials the cassettes got holes in it it has to be less I like

Your point so the new CEO for team inas has said he will do all that he can to help the tour of Britain get back on the race calendar so currently the future of the tour of Britain hangs in the balance as its owner’s Sweet Spot went into liquidation last Autumn Sweet Spot

Apparently owes around 700,000 in unpaid rights fees to British cycling it’s thought that more detailed plans regarding the Race’s future will be made public next week by British cycling I think this begs the question does Pro cycling need a major revamp in this country 100% yes it’s an easy one yes

Probably not even just in this country just in general but how do they owe British cycling £700,000 is what I don’t get like what is British cycling done for the event to justify £700,000 are they giving them the commes I don’t I mean this gen I

Don’t know what it is I mean there might be some really valid reasons but it’s just how I have so many issues with British cycling as we know I could understand owing the council money for the police and things like that which you would need for road closures and

Things but it’s an expensive I mean any race is an expensive thing to put on but recycling gets paid by I’m assuming this is obviously speculation that because it is the tour of Britain it’s a certain level of race which requires British cycling to tick all of the boxes so that

You get the appropriate professional level points and to do that they say you have to give us x amount of money yeah but no but that doesn’t make sense cuz if you if you British cycling and you run all cycling in England you want to

Have a tour of Britain as a thing you need it then why don’t you pay all of that the women’s two got cancelled as well didn’t it a while ago so there’s basically no big major race in the UK now I I just I mean as we as a shop used

To sponsor some of the local races but the problem is that you get 60 Outlet Le showing up and they no real Spectators apart from the odd parent or spouse um and there is just no return because most of those Lads try and if you race at a

High level either get everything free or or you’re bound to contract already you take it quite seriously so you essentially you think or you do know what what you’re after and you just kind of buy everything online by yourself so you’re not supporting the bike shops um

That’s why we as a shop we’ve gone more into the gravel because a gravel events um some of the gravel events like d Riva I think gets about 2,000 people down for the event and then there for like two sometimes three days so it’s a captive audience so sponsoring an event like

That you you can actually see the numbers of people showing up um yeah it just seems to be working better and if if people like that are showing up to an event like that they are very definitely consumers as well 100% so like you know

You can have a store there as a brand and the chances are if people aren’t buying then you’re at least getting a lot of good contact with those people that are actually buying products that you presumably sell as a brand the the other issue of the road cycling is

People generally show up for the race they take it seriously because they’ve trained for it and it’s it’s a big deal um so they show up they’re very serious they warm up they race they finish and they go home and that’s it there no cap of audience where some Ura M bike is

Really good for it OD Rock uh I think the the sells out in minute and then it’s it’s thousand it’s limited to the actual Village can’t take more people they don’t have the infrastructure to to make the ride bigger and people come down but after the events everybody’s

Staying around for beer or for food and socializing and it’s it’s a whole weekend away it’s a big trip so like I say it’s just a better setup I don’t think Road cycling could ever do that because there’s no actual scenario where you can do this so for them to change

They’re going to have to do something else the the equivalent would be like ride London yes because what you’re essentially saying is an event where people are also participants and that’s something like ride London which historically has been huge huge huge huge event when it you know it’s a big

Closed Road thing and people get to go and have a good time uh something that me and Emily have definitely talked about numerous times in the past is one of the things that we think is rubbish in cycling is that the well I’ll speak for myself at this point and EM can

Decide if she agrees with me or not is uh the teams being so heavily branded in that they’re constantly changing they constantly have new names they’re very uh corporate and therefore it’s really hard to get behind a team like for example if I am in the mood for watching

Football I am going to watch sundland play football and I’m probably going to enjoy it because of where you’re probably not going to enjoy it if you’re watching sundland I do I do but also I’ve been saying this for quite a while now because you’ll have no loyalty to a

Single player cuz I bet you can’t name me a single Sunland player it’s a towards a team which is better teams need names and they need colors because football’s a really good example I mean footballers get paid the most money but it’s because they generate a lot of

Money as well the clubs generate money in terms of people buy into this these clubs lifelong and the players change every few years or every year um and people like the players but as soon as that player has gone to another club you don’t lose all your supporters they stay

With the club mhm so I I definitely think that cycling would benefit from that there’s too many moving Parts if you’ve got your your players or your cyc your team moving and you have the team name changing there’s colors and the colors changing there’s nothing that that

Sticks is there b you to that the other problem that came in is when I’m going to use Ru as an example when Rua started making the kits and all the plain colors people before that tend to buy a lot of Team kit yeah um I don’t know if the

Teams are getting money for this or if the suppliers were just making knco virgins but that needs to come back uh ef’s done a good job lately with doing really cool stuff and collaborations with uh Palace and people buying it again because they want to wear the kit

Um and a lot of elitism kicked into cycling and people started making fun of people wearing team kit um and things like that I mean there was a story well I can actually one of the local Riders around here uh kicked off massively on a

Ride I think it was last year or the year before because he saw somebody riding around in a national champs Jersey and saying you’ve got no right in doing this because uh it’s disrespectful you didn’t earn the jersey and he went off on a massive rant on this ride about

How this kid shouldn’t be riding in a national champs or similar to somebody riding World Champs Jersey and he went on and on and on and that car on for a while and one of the riders in the ride just went up to him and said like I’m

Not going to mention his name but sad person you do know that is Thomas M the current national champion so that kind of thing but but even if he wasn’t if if if somebody wanted to wear it wear it buy the kit cuz as soon as people start

Buying into these things again there’s other ways of monetizing the sport which will help out because it’ll be really sad if it dies off completely I I I remember the tri camp we used to go to uh the stabs their kit had uh like national champs bands on the arms and

Things like that uh just because he like the guy that designed it liked the style and I remember cuz we I’ve probably still got it one of the original jerseys from that which is God best part of a decade ago now and I remember someone making some some kind of comment like

That or even all that time ago I just it’s just creating barriers isn’t it I love pushing against people and going like you know what what does it matter so so here’s an interesting fact for you I wouldn’t have had my bike shop if it wasn’t for team kit I wanted a specific

I really liked Aqua saoni kit but nobody was selling it anymore and they did a version which was in white and gold and it was outrages um and I just came up with the idea why don’t I get somebody to actually make me the kit again

Because lad of people do replica kit and I went to this Cafe local cafe where they were also making Custom kit um and to go and ask him about this and while I was there I came up with the idea of there’s a space for rent next door if I

Rent this I can start my bike shop with having a bit of a customer base because right next door was a cycling Cafe with loads of people in it um and it was a week later I opened the shop and started growing it from there but if I didn’t go

In there to buy this custom well not custom this replica kit of a team just never might have I mean I was on my way back to moving back to South Africa so yeah I think the the the biggest challenge for pro cycling is ultimately it’s it’s too traditional and

I don’t think it’s taken into account the fact that the internet has meant that brands have just Diversified their marketing budgets so much whereas in the past I mean it still happens a lot a lot of big Brands will invest in procycling but before that was like the only way to

Get massive eyes on your brand whereas now because of the internet stuff like podcasts and whatever it is YouTube and influencers whether you you know you buy into that or not ultimately there are so many more ways for Brands to spend their money and also they have now their own

Channels where they can connect directly with their audience and also from a viewers perspective you have way more options for where you put your eyes I guess and put your time so and I don’t think that necessarily pro teams have kind of caught on to that I think the

Old school mentality is we turn up we do our ride we go home and that is enough for us to fulfill Our obligation to kind of our sponsors and I don’t know if that really works anymore I just don’t know I don’t know it just feels like there’s a

Bit of a disconnect like Pro Racing’s really good and it is fun when you watch but I don’t know I think that there will be a lot of Brands thinking I don’t I’m not getting a return on my investment and then they pull out and then you know you see the

Smaller races like the tour of Britain which is obviously still a big race but in the context you know it’s not it’s not a t to France I guess if it’s not getting the eyes on it you have to think about why that is and maybe there needs

To be more emphasis on marketing within your team and that kind of thing I had a suggestion that I gave recycling that I said which is I know I know you like to think you’re important but I don’t think they care about you name no but I just said

Something in idea that what they could do is um what happens is they’re struggling to put on the Races they were having meetings in the shop quite often about the races and how to put it on Lo I’m just talking about locally up here um and I said why don’t you depending on

The size of clubs depending on how big your Club is if you they need to make different uh memberships a race membership for a club because Club have to pay to be uh registered to PR cycling so make a race membership and make a social membership so two different

Things if you want a club that’s going to race and participate in the local races depending on how many members you have you have to commit to a set amount of days or PE so people per day for the year let’s say it’s 10% you’ve got 100

Members you need to commit to 10 days where you allow one person to go and help out at Collective race or get all the clubs to kind of bound together so instead of one Club puts on One race get four or five clubs to help each other

Cuz up here we’ve got loads of clubs racing but they’re all fighting for the different races just get them all to help in all the races somehow so yeah so with the cyclocross scene you know it’s like I guess it’s the same way like rugby you like host yes so the league is

Made up of like clubs that host an event so what you’re what you’re saying is Well rather than do that why not make it put less of a burden on one club and actually spread it across multiple clubs to give it a better chance of being successful the cyc cross does well cuz

Gets loads of Spectators as well well this this is something I wanted to talk about is that what if you think about racing in terms of cycling what do you think of you think of obviously the grand Tours the big like Pinnacle stuff but the stuff that always gets coverage

Every single year is professional cyclocross and I think that’s really fascinating because in the grand scheme of things people don’t care about cyclocross people aren’t even bothering like people aren’t going like I’m going to go and buy a cyclocross bike and this is to be my thing they think about road racing

And they buy a road bike and then maybe they get into gravel or whatever but it’s actually cyclocross is a a version of cycling that is like super exciting and super entertaining and it’s got this amazing like Vibe and energy around it and as a result of that it gets lots of

Coverage but it isn’t something that people have an interest in actually doing in a mass environment that’s the difference between road racing and crit racing cycle cross and track uh they on circuits so essentially as a spectator you’re going to see the race several times over and multiple races in one day

Um so I mean if you look I I was watching the cyc across from a few weeks ago in Belgium or the Netherlands one of the two um online The Spectators they minor people they charge people I think as far as going to watch it and it’s

Just mean ins Spectators are like 40 people deep um that that they sell beer you mean there’s farming companies advertising over there it’s not even Sports you need to get outside sponsorship where it’s not just cycling where you know there’s enough viewers or visitors that it’s going to get the

Brand return on investment to be fair that is most big teams so like Bor hand SC all that kind of Stu yeah all all of the big toal France teams are mostly sponsored outside of cycling and I I don’t but and you’ll usually find that actually the owners of those company are

Massive cyclists and that’s why they’re involved and it’s probably a huge loss making exercise but like I don’t know for me what I would love to see in cycling is team teams that are constant cuz it be it would be so much easier for me to get behind a team

If it was like better branded well I don’t know I think I don’t know I almost I almost feel like it I feel like I want it to be Regional like I’d love there to be like uh a northern cycling team that like I don’t know I just think it’d be

Wicked I I would I would get behind like you know I can’t even think what they would be called that’s I mean just give them names so every year they can have a tsle sponsor it is but the team has a name like for example if I see if I see

Something about the Welsh team team Wales in like some kind of you know Commonwealth Games or whatever uh I guess it usually is the Commonwealth Games because it’s team Wales I’m drawn to it being Welsh it’s just it just happens I’m just drawn to it so if there was if there were teams

In in the Tour of France if there was a team in the Tour of France which was and not I’m not saying team GB because that makes me think of British cycling and that’s a whole different thing but if that was a team which was like you know Northern cyclist

Alliance I can’t think of something then I would be like right bang there’s my team I’m in yeah that’s what I mean and then yeah and then doesn’t matter if the Riders changed exactly or sponsors change you’ve got a set kind of colors you have a bit of a kit that you design

Where you can redesign it but it’s look at what football in they I mean I don’t even watch football but look at what they’re doing because they are clearly MoneyWise well now on to our big question do traditional cycling clubs still have a place in 2024 we have a very extensive list of

Good things and some bad things and just some discussion points on this yeah we were going to do this as an overrated underrated one week weren’t we and then we talked about it so much that we thought it could be a bigger piece yeah so an obvious one for the good things

About cycling clubs is they are a great place to meet new people especially if you live in rural places or in super super populated places where like London’s a great example you you we lived in London well we lived in a particular flat in London for the last

Two years or whatever it was that we lived there and we saw we spoke to our neighbors a couple of times a month and you know like you basically don’t meet people um so clubs are a great way to do it one of our good friends Nick Harnet

One of his best Mates is because he decided to join a Cycling Club is Linton CC and then made mates which are now his life friends uh so it is a great place to meet new people um they are always regular so I am I’m a very good

Example of someone which finds it hard to get out of the door unless I have uh some kind of motivation which is why I like park run for running it’s there every Saturday uh clubs are all cycling clubs are great for they’re always going to be riding whatever day of the week plus

Whatever day of the weekend and you’re probably going to be riding with the same people or similar people and they’re always going to be there and you know it’s a good way of having that reliability and regularity which I think is good you guys got anything else to add just who

Just listening we just listening to your um Ted Talk yeah I guess also if I think if you’re new to cycling they’re particularly good because you you meet people and you learn about cycling and cult and all of that I mean hopefully not the bad parts of that because there

Is you know like the rules and all of that kind of stuff but the the good stuff you know etiquette and just the the sort of language people use and the sort of rituals people do and um yeah and also I guess they don’t they don’t

Usually cost that much as far as I can see it’s usually like something like 30 quid a year it get I think it it gets expensive if you want to race yes but to just join a club yeah it’s not that expensive it’s not it’s not golf

Memberships no yeah and but then is there an expectation that you buy the club kit and then perhaps it does get expensive maybe yeah I don’t know how enforced they are but I can see if everyone else is buying it you wouldn’t want to be left out would you two

Massive positives for cycling clubs uh traditionally they would teach good riding etiquette uh inherently riding bikes is dangerous um and there are certain things that you can do whilst you’re out riding to limit the risk and one which I always bang on about is if you’re riding next to someone if you’re

Riding shoulder Tosh shoulder if you get hit by a crosswind or something rather you’re just going to bounce off their shoulder rather than into their handlebars and you both hit the deck so clubs typically will teach safe riding etiquette uh but also on the subject of racing and Grassroots racing which we’ve

Talked about quite a bit this episode that at least in this country that basically exists because of cycling clubs it’ll be cycling clubs that are hosting the junior races or the senior races uh the cyclocross races it’s all hosted by the clubs it isn’t British cycling that are hosting most of if not

Any of the you know it’s the clubs that are doing that um and it’s those events which are essentially bringing through athletes whether they’re professional or not um so without those clubs a lot of that stuff does not happen and just wouldn’t happen it’s also good for

Finding your roots in your local area if you don’t know because all the different clubs will ride different places and different routes and just you can learn more about where you where you’re riding so it sounds like the answer our question is yes they’re great no cuz we

Thought of also we thought of some things that they maybe don’t do so well and obviously I think really this it’s on a club to Club basis isn’t it some some clubs are great some clubs are not so good yeah I’m sure that’s the case I think committee structure can be a

Really good thing but but I think it can also the rigidity of that organized fun can sometimes cause issues so so I guess by committee structure you mean because it’s an official Affiliated Club it will have some kind of structure with someone which is in charge and there’s a

Hierarchy which can C which can make a club uh less flexible perhaps yeah totally and I think the the vibe of that club can really be made or broken by that committee and obvious that committee will usually change as well um and that can really make a sudden shift

In the experience I would say it’s a bit mean maybe it’s a bit like um dating you have to find your right one not every Club is going to be the right fit for you definitely and therefore you have to shop around uh some clubs are known for being unbelievably elitist

Which isn’t a bad thing as long as you know that some people want that some people want elitist clubs CU that fits them so yeah I’m not good for this cuz I think different clubs because you are Mr elitist no cuz I rule my club

With an iron fist you know what I mean like dictatorship properly like there’s no committee there’s no um I don’t think it’s always bad I think it’s difficult that the real difficult thing is if you’ve got a massive Club it’s really good to have all inclusive and cive for

Everybody so our club back home in sou Africa we used to do between four and five ride outs on a Saturday in different categories so essentially the front guys like they called the a group um they used to race ride as hard as they can as fast as they can and there

Was a few professional cyclists that used to show up and it was just fast and then obviously it gets slower as it goes in different distances if you’ve got a really small Club I don’t think you can cater for everybody because we’ve noticed with our club where we’ve got less than 40

Members but um the majority ride at roughly a pace of between 16 and 19 mph average speed so if you then all of a sudden throw somebody in that’s new to cycling and can only ride 12 M an hour which is perfectly fine or somebody like

James that wants to ride at 28 miles an hour it’s just going to cause a massive problem because then you have to make the majority of the club change their ride for the minority MH and that because you can’t make two or three groups because if you’ve got three

Groups and there’s only like six people and show it up then you’ve got people riding on pirs yeah so I think small clubs some of the clubs do need to start off with finding an identity of what they want to do those clubs can eventually grow muckle’s a really good

Example up here they started small I think Five Guys started something and then eventually now the club’s got over 100 members so it had to more from them just doing absolutely monstrously long rid to doing a few different things like chain gangs and stuff like that but yeah

So you can’t being an elst Club I don’t Elites is the wrong word but like a club that cases for certain if you’ve got a club where you got five or six guys that just want to wear fancy clothes buy expensive bikes and just ride to the

Local cafe have a drink and ride back well so be it if you had 200 members and you’re letting everybody come in then you might want to change it up slightly I I actually agree with you in the sense that I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with establishing an identity

Which is we can’t possibly cater for all people whether that’s because you’re new or you you know you don’t have the capabilities or whatever I think the problem is when you don’t um sign post that and up front just be UPF front about it if you’re you know if you don’t

Have the proper structure in place to do a shorter shorter lower speed ride whatever it is then just say that but I think the I think in this day and age sometimes clubs feel pressured to say on their website we cater for all abilities all genders all minorities da da da and

Then you go there and you get something completely unexpected if you’re not going to do it don’t say you’re going to going to do it cuz then someone can make the decision to not turn up there because as much as I was saying before it’s really good for beginners to be

Part of something you can also be really put off if you turn up like I remember speaking to her last ages ago this is when I was still in London and she just messaged me on Instagram but she was talking about a local Club in South

London and she said she turned up and they were literally just doing hill reps up and down and she was like I have I’ve not even done a hill on my bike like it was that kind of level it was such disconnect but she was told to turn up

They would cater for her blah blah blah and then they just in her mind left her there was no support and it was it was so disconnected from what she’d been sold and I think that’s probably the problem with it isn’t it it goes back

Both ways when I first moved to the UK and I was racing back in the day I mean I just left I was was fast and I went onto a local Club ride and I showed up and they didn’t advertise that it was going to be a 12 12 M hour average which

Is perfectly fine but for me it was just I I showed up I committed to it I start on the ride and I didn’t want to be like well this is just not what I was at that point in my life looking now would be perfect for me but back then I just

Wanted to go and ride incredibly hard y um and get my legs torn off um but yeah yeah I think I guess in the past there was no other option other than to join your local Club whereas because of the internet people can connect with people and probably people that they’re better

Suited to rather than we live in the same geographical area and we we we both ride bikes that we might still be completely different cyclists whereas in theory the internet lets you connect with well more like minor people if you can find the right place that is how I

Ended up meeting so many people that are still my friends now yeah like Chris Hall’s a prime example of it he was one of the first people I met and it was the collective concept yeah uh which was in the previous early wave of cycling so

That’s post 2012 wave and then the rise of social media once you hit kind of 2014 2015 it was when like stuff got cool e-commerce became a thing uh stuff became more accessible the internet was blowing up and like cycling scenes were developing and I am very fortunate that

I was on the London cycling scene when it was happening and I ended up falling in line with people like Chris Hall uh Toby from Cold Duck North because he used to spend a lot of time in London and there was this crew of us of maybe

15 20 of us uh one of the lads had an Instagram account which kind of like pulled it all together it was what did you it was 10,000 km CC and it was Richard Fraser’s vision of aim for consist it’s all about consistency his thing wasn’t about performance it was

Just about consistency if you’re consistent every week then riding 10,000 kilometers in a year is achievable which is for the record a huge distance and most people are not able to achieve it um but that’s by the buy and we ultimately just used to ride a lot

Together as a collective but it is a we were essentially a Cycling Club what you could argue is that’s exactly what Nick’s talking about that is a club that sets out very specifically their purpose and what you can expect from doing it if you like these things then this is for

You rather than we a traditional Club everyone welcome but fundamentally it it it really was a club yeah because we used to meet on most days of the week but not all days of the week we would ride we’d go for coffee we’d go to work

On a weekend we would meet up and do a longer ride this is where BR cycling’s coming and pay you now as a club have to pay to be part of what they do but you don’t need to be part mean exactly we’re doing this for the bike shop at the moment um

We’re going to do Saturday ride out gravel this is for gravel um but anybody’s welcome we’re going to set out what we want want to do the kind of idea and if you don’t like it just well hopefully you do but if you don’t you can just go your own pace

We’re going to put the the root out and you just ride well I I actively do not go on your rides because they’re never actual gravel rides are you telling me that you’re actually doing proper gravel rides now are you still doing your stupid mountain bike and stuff it’s not

He likes to fling people down very muddy Hills and stuff I don’t because you can walk down if you want it’s gra gravel is a weird term I don’t think anybody knows it’s just that’s what we like do most of the guys I ride with enjoy doing it and

That’s why we do it question is are your inclusive gravel rides actually mountain bike rides like your usual rides yes okay cool thank you so I still not to be going on them um we do know some amazing clubs uh I know if Francis was here he would be

Shouting about Kingston wheelers so that’s the club that he was a junior with they are huge they’re in London they ride around Richmond Park a lot and S uh we know plenty of people that excuse me have and do ride for them they’re amazing Club um so I’ll shout

About them on his behalf yeah do you know what I actually had a look on their website when I was trying to look at what the sort of cost of joining a Cycling Club was because in my mind it was hundreds of pounds but it’s only3

Pound a year but one of the things I saw so when you come up on their homepage you see an FAQ section and it said f one of the FAQs was how many women are in the club and it said there’s something like 50 you’re more than welcome we also

Have a dedicated women’s officer and we have a policy of inclusivity and du D du and that I would say is something that would make me go to that club just just mentioning that well it would it would actually make me want to go to that club more as as a a male

Because for me I look if if they’re treating people like that then the likelihood is they’re not going to be horrible to me either yeah and I mean this is it you can it’s all well and good saying it but you have if you’re going to say it you have to be prepared

To deal with in incidents if they do occur and deal with them in the appropriate way and I do I’m not going to name names but I do know there are clubs that say that and then something actually happens and it is not dealt with appropriately so um that’s not

Kingston Whalers but but you know having a dedicated women’s officer for example would be something that would make me you know if there was any sort of incident I would feel like they would I could go to them and it would be addressed properly in a way that it made

Me feel that I could be comfortable in that club um obviously there are other minorities as well that definitely feel are going to feel out of place in what’s predominantly a very like white male environment so I think again don’t offer it if you’re not prepared to do it and

Fine but if you are prepared to do it then I think that is something that is very worthy of having a club another version is uh velocci posy these are all London based because this is kind of when we were looking for clubs wasn’t it velop posy are predominantly for women

Trans and non-binary um focused around racing and sort of track but not just they do a lot of skill sessions and just ride sessions and just more bike proficiency they’re super cool as well I think they were originally like a fixed crit kind of like racy team setup sort

Of thing not not just about racing but they were they were very present in that space and then they grew and grew and grew yeah and I was I was part of them for a while and it was absolutely great and I’ve met a lot of people there that

I rode with afterwards as well you know kind of I guess there aren’t a lot of women on bike so that was kind of a place that everyone congregated so it helped me meet other people like that yeah this sounds horri but it shouldn’t

Be needed like I mean when I was a kid riding so our club back home select Cycling Club had about 450 members um and there’s loads of different categories so the race side the social side there was Juniors and then those women and they every year the club voted

On captains so you got your race Captain your road Captain your uh ladies captain and your Junior captain and then you go on the rides and that person had full Authority so if somebody on a ride was misbehaving or doing something wrong they would just get booted yeah so you

Wouldn’t have to have like just somebody that’s got a bit of a they get voted in but somebody that’s essentially there just to say so there could be one girl with 30 guys and if one of the guys just behaving somebody just go over and say listen do

One it shouldn’t be that it’s like it didn’t ideal well that would happen totally but like I said this has been happening for 20 plus years it’s just it should be more of a common thing in clubs that’s probably the first thing that should vote in um just so there’s

Somebody that’s there as a kind of your job is just to make sure people so if you ride too fast or you do something silly it’s just or if somebody gets dropped somebody that’s aware that there’s a new cyclist on The Beginner’s ride they’re struggling to back so that

Person is just going to drop back with them and kind of make sure they’re okay so just a bit of a common sense mhm maybe that’s what’s lacking from some clubs then Common Sense tell us about your experiences with cycling clubs if you love your club and you think they’re

Doing great stuff shout about them in the comments send us an email whatever you want to do but tell us about them we might even give them a little shout out one day maybe we can pile a list of the best clubs in the world that would be

Great you know how there’s that um glass door thing for business like employes employees yeah and you can kind of give them a rating and stuff if there was something like that oh there should be there should be that be sick yeah we should um should we start that that

Would be awesome I don’t I don’t know if I have the skills to be able to create that but that would be really cool based on actual you know they say this what do they actually offer yeah and it updates per year as committees change and all of

That kind of so good accountability so time for a round of overrated or underrated I’m going to read out a list of things and you’re going to tell me if you think they’re overrated or underrated first up root planning good root planning is underrated blessed are the root makers

Is uh what Toby from cold dark North always says uh bearing in mind he is known for being a root maker so he’s basically saying he’s important and everyone should should should worship him but he is also very good at making Roots so I’d say that’s probably Fair

Root planning uh I like not knowing I I like not making routes and just riding and just finding new places I don’t like doing that off-road because I’m always terrified of dogs attacking me um so I think for Offroad stuff I usually rely on things that I know which is why I

Ride the C Toc which is basically a pavement to the coast or into the penines and I ride it roou planning is under ever um I would say knowing where you’re riding if somebody else has planned a good route is you shouldn’t bother with that but somebody that

You’re going riding with should know where they’re going you say this you don’t like to share your roots but I think that requires the other person to have trust in you yes but it’s also because I plan my routes as I go so that’s kind of I’ve got a rough idea of

What I want to do and then I ride and then depending on conditions wind conditions rain things happening whether that it’s a weekend and the tracks are busy or whatever or you’re on the road and there’s more traffic I can adjust the route accordingly but you can do

That even with a planer I know but that’s but I just then if I change it then you’d be like oh people panic Biz it’s just it’s just such a weird concept for me where with cycling clubs while people all need to know what the root is

The day before cuz then you’ve got a pre conceived idea what to expect and then you could be like oh there’s too many Hills I’m not going to enjoy it or we’re going in this direction I’ve been there once before I didn’t like it and then oh

I’m not going to enjoy the ride and you come with a negative aspect where perhaps they just need to plan their time they need to know how long they’re going to be out for if some dodgy block said to me oh let’s go for a ride I’m

Not going to tell you where we’re going I’ll be like nah you’ve done it loads you did it with me once and we lied to Chris Healey saying it’s only going to be an hour and a half that was his wife is waiting that was terrible I he enjoyed

Enjoy I messaged Helen to tell her that he’s going to be LA and she was fine I used to get Mega Ride anxiety when I was relatively new to riding road bikes so if I didn’t know how long a ride was going to be I I I basically had to

Mentally prepare for what was going to happen so if I didn’t know I would I I just wouldn’t go on it CU I would have just I would been like well no I can just make my own route and then I can prepare for it mentally that’ be more

Enjoyable if he didn’t know well well yeah if being able to get over the ride anxiety it would definitely have been better which is which is me now I suppose next oh wait what are we saying under underrated yeah we all agreed it underrated was uh multi-day riding I

Think is underrated as long as you stay in a spa hotel or somewhere s afterwards um so I guess some people will think of this as racing some people think of it as um endurance like TC some people think about it as just like Emily said bike packing some people

Think about it as just doing multiple rides head-to-head like on a ride on a bank holiday weekend Friday Saturday Sunday for example uh I think in most cases those things there’s something added to riding back to back even if that’s just from your own front door it just elevates the intensity of your

Experience in my opinion and I like it as long as you appropriately account for the additional mileage and you’re fit enough to be able to do it like I’m not suggesting it’s good if you’re so unfit that it’s just horribly uncomfortable and you shouldn’t be doing it but some

Of the multi-day stuff I’ve done has been unbelievably satisfying and grateful yeah like multi-day Point too stuff is fun I mean there’s kind of no way out my my I do my best riding when there’s no way to get out of it you have no choice for to get home but I guess

You push yourself more it it always hurts when you get up in the morning and then it you you feel a sense of achievement because of that don’t you I think there’s just so many factors to it for that instance it is quite good Josh Reed was telling me when he did Atlas

Mountain race last year um he started coughing up blood and he he was like he needs to scratch but then he did the math realizing it’ll take him longer to ride back to the previous checkpoint instead of just carrying on um I mean that’s hell I don’t know it’s just such

A vast topic I enjoy it so I’d set underrated next or the final one the list is Cafe stops so when I first started riding seriously um I used to ride with a couple of people in essics a lot and Cafe stops did not happen ever and it

Was it was actually so that that a lot of the people I used to r with back then were triathletes or Runners that did some cycling and what I learned a couple of years into riding really seriously is that Cafe stops is was something that triathletes didn’t do and Road cyclists

Did do so it was always just alien to me it was just something I never experienced we used to just go out Hammer the absolutely obliterate ourselves on 100K ride and then you’d be riding back into town you be right see you later and then you just all just

Everyone just went home and then and then I learned about um what it was social because you know we’d still be chatting and stuff but when I then started doing more Road stuff and getting start hanging around with people like Chris Hall and you do as many

Coffee stops as possible and then it’s all of a sudden a lot more enjoyable well the triy athletes have got to go back and then do the running session as well yeah that’s the thing yeah we I’d get home and do my brick right my brick run this becomes a lot more in-depth

Though if you’re really thinking about it because a cafe stop during a long ride will hurt you I hate it because the restart your legs are just tired but that’s if it’s A Hard Ride yeah so that’s the thing on a hard ride um but then a flip side if you’re really hungry

And you didn’t take enough nutrition with you then it’s great because you’re getting some fuel in which is also something I also if you’re going to do multi-day bike packing or things that Chris Hall does you need to get used to stopping a lot and starting again

Because it’s kind of part of the training um I do think every ride should end with some kind of coffee or social stop whether there’s coffee beer food whatever it is just because otherwise like you say you just ride and then everybody leaves each other and it’s so

You’re saying at the end rather than during yeah definitely at the end some instances you need to during but also some instances you should completely avoid stopping during the ride because if it’s an instance for that if it’s really cold really hard ride if you stop in the middle of the

Ride you’re warming up and then you have to get back out and be cold and tired and get going again it is hard also if you’ve got a Cycling Club and it’s time sensitive if you’re stopping at a cafe for an hour somebody might need to be

Home to do something else but if you stop at the end that person can hang around for 5 minutes 10 minutes 15 minutes 3 4 hours if they wanted you are full of logic today aren’t you this is unusual keep sending us your suggestions to Wild Ones podcast at Cad media. co.uk

And we might read yours out in the next show next up we we have fluff up of the week up of the I have a quick one oh yeah while I was reading through the emails for this week we had one from Alex from Australia who basically said I I thought you going

To say Alex from gcn no no Alex from gcn please stop talking about us no um Alex from Australia who said that there is a black blob just behind my head um which every week he hates to see because he thinks that there’s you mean on the wall by behind

Your head yes is it still there or have you got rid of it it is still there and he says that uh every week he tries to wipe his screen and it bugs him so much and he just said please please please can we remove it can can we can we get a

Pen draw an arrow to it and call it the blob and it just be the blob forever I mean we could do yeah is I think it’s actually tape isn’t it from where we’ve had something else stuck there in the past I don’t know do you want to remove

It or do you want to I to make a big deal about it I’m not sharping on the wall while Francis is away I’m I’m going to Sharpie behind Jimmy’s Head now on the door what and call his head the blob no just make another arrow point at his

Head Arrow to Jimmy how rude unbelievable okay well I’m going to get a Sharpie then and do that I was going to get rid of it but sorry Alex we’re not well you going to do it right now yeah a few minutes later sorry to Francis if you see this Jimmy said I

Could paint on the wall are you devil P blob devil is that yeah yeah does that work it’s a bit small isn’t it yeah you should have done it much bigger no leave it it’s no don’t redo it don’t redo it that’s that’s perfect so okay Alex we fixed it for you

There you [Laughter] go um now for more listeners takeover we have an email from Jordan titled to wax or not to wax it seems like I’m being bombarded by content about how great running a wax chain is for Road cycling is running a wax chain all it’s cracked

Up to be maybe just for a longevity of components perspective well surely this is one for you nick uh I’m a I’m a naysayer to wax there’s a massive issues with wax I mean I get that they can talk about it being cleaner they can talk about and making

Components last longer but both of those situations are an Ideal World situations in terms of you properly treat the chain you properly wax it you properly stay on top of the wax the other issue that I’ve got with it is that um if the wax starts getting into your rear Mech in between

The pivots and things like that I’ve seen uh with some of that wend wax back in the day that being a problem and then it just start sticking oh no wend was a proper wax was that stuff was horrible though I don’t think my my research suggests that current waxing is not

Comparable to the wend stuff back in the day fair enough and then my next issue with is hot waxing where people take their chains off and dip them in wax bars and things like that fair enough if you want to do that but from a bike shop or you guys or gcn or

Anybody online’s perspective you might cause yourself a lot of Problem by recommending it because Shimano Shram and compa the three main chain manufacturer says you cannot reuse their split links and they should telling these customers that they have to put new split links in Campa will go further and say you can’t use

New split link on an old chain what so if you do this every week unclipping your chain and clipping it back in you suffer the risk of your chain failing your split link now I know there’s going lots of people are going to com in saying they’ve never had any issues but

I’m just saying that’s fair enough I’m happy for you but I can’t say that you can do it because that opens me up to a massive public sorry professional liability lawsuit so I I used to have a a whippman chain yes whippman chains actually say you can do it but wh it’s

Like a it’s like it’s a special link split link no it doesn’t even need a chain tool they’re really good chains we sell them for 11 speed in the shop they’re expensive mind yes they last quite well but that’s fine and a KMC also do uh reusable split link chains

Right but do they work with 13-speed campack or do they work with shr flatop chains some people might say they’ve found they do but from once again from a Shop’s perspective we can’t say this and it worries me that some of these YouTube channels or bike shops are telling

Customers this is fine because the manufacturer say it’s not so if somebody there’s a lad in our club that actually does it and he has snapped two split links from doing it um I’ve not told him I’ve told him not to do it but if he if

He was to crash and break his hip or his neck and comes off as from a split link snapped and he just says so and so told me that it’s okay to do it yeah he’s opened himself up to well he’s opened them up to a massive lawsuit so from my

Perspective don’t do it if you’re going to use wax use something like squirts drip wax um or wax your chain when you’ve just just bought it and then that’s it never again yeah use the drop on wax it’s it’s a it’s a very interesting perspective that I’ve never

Heard anyone ever talk about is wild why so I’m I’m really interested to see if the what cuz there’s going to be so many people that watch SL listen to this that do wax their chain and have either not considered that don’t care about that but I’m interested to get any people

Commenting on the YouTube video or send us emails if you have had issues with your quick links snapping or damaging as a result of taking it on and off so you can wax it I think that’s a really interesting thing to explore it is yeah

Last time we talked about wax which is a while ago people were very passionate the the waxers were passionate weren’t they yeah and I’m assuming they’re not changing their quick link every time no no way so next up we have a question from Lee in the past when buying a new

Bike one would prioritize the frame because the components group set Wheels Etc can always be upgraded later is this still true or does one prioritize the components because those can be moved onto a new frame I think that’s actually a really good question it’s definitely something that I have I guess

Experimented with in the past I always used to work on the basis of get I so alloy frames was specifically something I was interested in so I always used to get the best alloy frame I could and then I would upgrade the components until they were as best as I could

Possibly afford and I’d end up with a really cool relatively light durable bike well durable in the sense that I could crash it in crit races and probably still be fine um it is an interesting thing what are people doing these days I think it’s massively budget dependent so if your

Budget allows if it’s a massive budget then do whatever you want but I would say if your budget’s middle of the road and you are have plans on upgrading bike eventually then you need to start thinking where’s the best place to spend the money uh upgrade your bike is in

Your frame do you mean frame or groups at or wheels so depending what you buy the it’s just such a complex thing to get into because certain expensive frames aren’t better than certain cheaper frames uh we’ve established a group sets from something like a Ral to

A red or a 105 to dur Ace it’s a bit of weight it’s not really going to perform that much better it depends where you start whatting with where you’re going so yes um I was saying if you’ve going to buy a bike for £3,000 as an example I

Would prioritize the group set and the wheels because if you buy something like shr force um and a decent set of wheels but a more entry-level frame set you will keep that group set on several bikes and then later swap your frame out so it’s a bit of

A but if you if you’re buying a frame set that’s £3,000 and you’re spending obviously that’s an extreme and you spend very little on an incredibly basic eight-speed group set you’re just not going to enjoy the bike to start off with I actually think so from when I

Used to dabble with h how I wanted to build my bikes many years ago I actually think the difference in the space between group sets has narrowed so much so actually like if a bike has 105 altegra or dur race in a Shimano sense there’s not really any in my opinion

There isn’t really any difference apart from some weight they’re basically the same group set so like actually if you can afford at least a one if you know if if if you can afford a 105 altegra or du race group set then get the 105 one and

Spend the rest of the money on a better set of wheels because you will not in my opinion you’ll notice the difference between a really good quality maybe probably carbon wheel set versus a really cheap alloy heavy wheel set 100% y your the main things you’re going to feel and

Notes in the bike is your wheels your handlebars the tape and the saddle those are the main things to get right to start off with and then use the rest of your budget wisely around it the next thing would be if you’re running disc brakes hydraulic disc brakes are always

Going to work better than mechanical disc brakes so that it’s a big thing and then also whether the budget allows you to go from mechanical to electronic gears um if you can go straightway to electronic gears a decent wheel set but you have to compromise in the frame set

I would go that way first otherwise if you buy you just be buying again and again so yeah yeah yeah I I I think that’s a good point I do like the idea of buying a bike to a set thing and then planning on upgrading stuff if you can

But be sensible about it try and not waste as much if you’re going to buy a set of allo Wheels buy a nice set of allo Wheels where you think if you get caral down the line you can still use the Alo Wheels as like a winter wheel

Set or as a training wheel set may maybe this is actually something that we can maybe even make a video about in the future almost like the the things to consider like for example if you’re buying like there are some there are really good alloy wheels it

Doesn’t have to be a carbon wheel set but to make it a really good alloy wheel set it will probably have sealed bearings rather than cone bearings whereas a lot of the alloy or the cheaper end of alloy Wheel sets will probably have rubbish bearings in them

So it’s it’s like it’s knowing the minimums that actually make it a good investment um and and the same applies to like if you’re going to buy if you’ve got money to buy a new bike if you can get a disc break bike you’re going to

Have a better experience than if you buy a rim brake bike yeah what’s the verdict here then I think the verdict is it’s difficult there’s too many variables it depends on your budget it depends on what your how much you plan to spend over the next few years if you got one

Amount of money which is a oneoff or are you in a position that you want to spend 750 quid every 6 months 10 months 12 months because you get a little bonus from work and that’s what you want to do and therefore you can probably build some kind of upgrade

Options there’s just too many variables so finally I want to finish up with a message from guy and he says Hey guys is that multiple of him just wanted to say a big thank you to Nick for his recommend recommendation for winter gloves I brought a pair of these work

Gloves from Amazon straight after the podcast last Thursday they arrived on Saturday I have now used them in both cold and rainy conditions and Nick is a genius there are not many people which say that so much better than so-called branded cycling gloves so much better

That I’ve ordered a second pair in a different color keep up the great work with the podcast and general bits and pieces yeah so we have had in the last couple of weeks since Nick mentioned his cycling glove hack we have had so many emails from people asking for a link and

I haven’t emailed them back because I didn’t know what the specific link was but we’ve now confirmed what the link is and it was in no way an advert but on Amazon you can make something into an affiliate link which we have done I will put it in the description of this

Podcast and if you click on it it means we make a little bit of money you can choose not to click on it you can just put it in the search bar yourself it’s just called storage gloves as we mentioned last time but if you would

Like to click on the link it means that we will make a little bit of money on which we will probably use on coffees before the podcast because uh it’s cold and here and Francis won’t let us turn the heat in so we can warm up like that

I’m not sure how much the commission is the absolute Maxum the maximum that Amazon says is 12% yeah but based on how cheap the gloves are I don’t think it’s going to be a lot yeah it’ be a couple of pennies it might be pennies you do

Not have to click on this link and the original thing was not an advert but I mean they let you do it so why not I didn’t think of this first we’ll share any we’ll share the 12 Pence that we make hey don’t say that we

Not share an we bought him the coffee uh keep sending us your stories questions and fun stuff to Wild Ones podcast at CAD media. co.uk before we go I just want to say a massive thank you to all of you thanks for listening thank you to those of you that have left us

Five star reviews and thanks to those of you that keep liking our stuff and subscribing on YouTube it really makes a massive difference to us your continued support is what allows us to keep putting out this show for free so please keep doing what you’re doing we do

Massively appreciate it we love you you are beautiful thank you very much