The Bike Industry Has Got It All Wrong, Here’s Why | GCN Tech Show Ep. 397

After an inspiring off-road ride up the Stelvio Pass, our perspective has shifted. We argue that the industry’s singular focus on elite, Tour de France-level performance is misguided, and that the real future for growing the sport lies in the accessibility, adventure, and pure fun of gravel cycling.

Of course, it’s not a Tech Show without HOT TECH! This week, we cover the global expansion of the MyCanyon customisation platform, a limited edition Tour de France Femmes Zwift Ride bike (which looks suspiciously like a certain ex-pro’s custom Orbea), the industry merger of Rouvy and BKOOL, and the science behind the new TrainingPeaks Fueling Insights, developed with top coach Iñigo San Millan.

Finally, we dive into the Comments of the Week (addressing a certain name gaffe…) and a stacked Bike Vault, where we judge everything from Tadej Pogačar’s Colnago to a tandem kitted out for the London-Edinburgh-London audax!

⏱️ Chapters:
00:00 – Intro: The Bike Industry Has It All Wrong!
00:26 – The Great Debate: Why Gravel Is The Future
03:06 – The Stelvio Off-Road Ride That Changed Our Minds
06:03 – The Irony: Has Gravel Become Too Race-Focused?
08:55 – The “One Bike To Rule Them All” Question
11:08 – The Joy Of The Ride vs The Race: Dirty Reiver Anecdote
14:34 – HOT TECH
14:41 – MyCanyon Customisation Platform Goes Global
17:00 – Custom Limited Edition Zwift Ride Bike
18:14 – Ruvy Acquires BKOOL
19:25 – Ekoi PW8 Pedals Are Back
20:29 – TrainingPeaks Fueling Insights Explained
23:07 – COMMENTS OF THE WEEK
25:17 – Addressing The “Yates Twins” Gaffe
27:55 – THE BIKE VAULT
34:42 – “Connor’s Gubbins”: The LEL Audax Tandem

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Welcome to the GCN Tech Show. The bike industry has got it all wrong. We’re going to explain why. And in hot tech this week, we’ve got news from Canyon. We got a custom Zift bike. We got some crazy pedals, plus of course comments of the week and the bike vault. Right, let’s do this. Okay. So, this week we are discussing why you think the bike industry has got it all wrong. And I feel like we need to discuss this further. Well, yeah. I mean, I’m mainly talking about the road bike industry. Okay. Okay. Um, and I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I’m increasingly thinking this way. So the vast majority of sort of marketing and R&D and bike development is all centered around the big French bike ride which has just come to a close. Yeah. Okay. The women’s race still ongoing. Yeah. But it’s all about the tour to France. Okay. And it’s all about the bikes that are raced at the Tour to France. It’s all about racing and aerodynamics, which is, let’s be clear here, like the Formula One of of cycling, you know, it’s that it’s that top echelon, and it’s all about, you know, race and performance and and and I love this. I think it’s cool. You know, I love the tech and I love all the performance stuff and I love all that. Um, but I just don’t think it’s the best way to grow cycling. Okay, I get you. But what do you think is the answer then? If road cycling is not the answer, where are you going with this? A gravel bike. Right. Okay. I slightly lost words here. How can you possibly be saying a gravel bike is the answer to cycling and that the industry’s got it wrong? You like you don’t even like gravel bikes. I do like gravel bikes. Right. Okay. You need to you need to explain yourself here like cuz I feel like this is like a huge U-turn. Yeah. So well the first thing is to point out is that the bike industry has definitely recognized this because there has been a big push for gravel. Yeah. And there has been a big you know push into that sector. It’s not new anymore and it’s still growing though. No. And it is growing and it is like this is there there is a lot of effort into this but the the most the most effort the most resource is definitely from if you look at the biggest brands Yeah. is still put into the bike that Tad Pagata is riding, the bike that is the tour to France thing. You know, that’s when the, you know, that’s where the vast majority of marketing is as well. And, you know, that’s that’s it. But I, but I feel like I feel like a bit of a changed man. Well, I feel like you got to elaborate on this a little bit more, like what’s the reasoning behind this? What sort of led you to this decision? And I I think everyone at home is going to be like, how can you possibly justify this? Uh, okay. So, what’s what’s really convinced me, I think, is a recent gravel ride we did up the off-road trail up the Stelvio Pass. There’s a video over on GTN. If you’ve not seen it yet, go check it out. Blooming amazing. Absolutely amazing and beautiful. Um, it’s combination of like old trade routes from the Bronze Age right through uh to sort of uh we also use these Italian World War I army trails that they used as well to get to the front line. Like mega adventure. It’s, you know, exploration. It’s wilderness. It’s freedom. I watched a video and it’s super inspirational and it made me immediately message you and be like, I want to go there. That’s it. That’s a good limit. You get to ride in loads of amazing places. So, if you’re like, I want to ride there, then it must be a good cool place, right? Yeah. It’s cool. And I think the when you when I look at like other sports and other activities that are out there that are really really popular, there isn’t this emphasis on topend performance and competition like you have in the tour of France and like you have in cycling. Yeah. So you’re not marketed products in that way. And we even get this even still with gravel. So you know if you for example look at something like you know hiking is really accessible. Yeah. or climbing, you know, it’s not okay, you have like speed climbers and stuff, but it it’s noting drive, is it? No, it’s like you don’t go for a hike up a mountain and go like, “Oh, get the straa on. Let’s see how quickly we can get to the top and see if we can get the KM.” You just go out and enjoy it and have a great day out. It’s same if you go skiing. Obviously, there is ski racing and there’s the performance side of that sport, but most people who go skiing are just going out and participating and getting outside and enjoying it and having fun. Yeah. Hiking equipment isn’t marketed with like a speed hiker. It’s just like go outside, explore, have a sense of adventure. No. And and as a result, that’s another by by introducing this element of like performance, you’re again increasing the the barrier to entry to the sport. You’re making it more intimidating people. at a certain level and whereas the ideal as well to a a much broader church of people. This isn’t a new concept, right? Like people have been saying this about gravel bikes for a while now. I feel like you’re maybe late to the pie. They have. I mean, but there’s a there’s a comment on under that video from from Burcasta. I’ll read it here. It says, “This video clearly shows why gravel blew up. no cars, spectacular nature, light bikes. You can do it with a cross-country bike, but weight does matter. And even budget gravel bikes like are pretty good for this. I love this video. I fell in love with gravel because of GCN, the Iceland video years back. That’s the one uh that side did with Neil Neil Donahue. Um and yeah, and and like you know, I I think that like gravel Yeah. like like we’re talking about participation, the sense of adventure, but gravel is still gravel racing. That’s like still a massive part of it. I mean, did you not see Unbound? Yeah, I know. And that was great. But but this but this is my point is it’s like even cycling does this thing where even when they’ve created this thing of gravel, right? And initially what the the people involved were probably thinking exactly along the lines of what we’re talking about here. Yeah. about it being just go outside, explore, get out your front door, go for an adventure. Yeah. But then we turn it into a race. That’s cuz of people like me and you that are super losers. I know. And we just turn it into Unbound, which is also great. Like I love everything. I love all of that stuff. Okay. I love the the gravel racing thing. I think it’s really cool. But again then the emphasis of all the gravel marketing now and all of and all of the the R&D it feels the vast majority of it feels now it’s funneled towards gravel racing. It’s like we don’t have to turn everything into a race. No we don’t. That is you know what I mean? But um we need to kind of like bring this back to like the bike. We sp about the concept of exploring and racing but it’s the tech show right? We talk about a bike. Now, the bike that I feel like has really triggered this big mindset shift for you has got to be that the Pinarello Dogma GR that you rode on on the stereo. Obviously, you’ve ridden loads of gravel bikes in the past, but maybe it’s all led up to this point and that’s the bike that’s tipped you over the edge, do you think? Oh, yeah. No, it’s great. It’s nice having something that’s really light and that that that I um I I taken it out for a few little spins, but yeah, that that that Pinarello um uh Dogma GR is is blooming blooming lovely. It looks great. Now, I’ve actually not had a chance to ride it yet. So, I’ve obviously ridden the latest Gravel F and you’ve ridden the Dogma GR, but we haven’t switched bikes. We need to swap. Yeah, we I really want to ride the the gravel just because I think the the one the one thing that I think I’m I would prefer is that you can fit bigger tires. Big chunky boys. You like a big chunky boy tire? Yes. Um well, we can switch bikes around and try that out, can’t we? Yeah. No, I think I think so. I think that’d be really good. I think it’s it’s just um yeah, I was sort of thinking like what is like the like having the the lower weight if you’re going, you know, somewhere uphill and remote and stuff is really good, but it’s it’s just thinking about things like the handling characteristics and having something that’s that’s, you know, makes you confident on those off-road trails is confident, versatile, like kind of like a do it all. I mean, people say this all the time for gravel bikes. They’re do it all bikes. So, we’ve kind of touched on this subject in the past on the tech show, but we’ll just we’ll go at it again. If you could have one bike, what would you have then? Would you have a grab bike? I think I think this has changed for me. See, I I know if I we’ve asked this question before, I now I would say if I was only going to have one bike for the rest of my life at the moment, it might change next week, but at the moment, the way I’m thinking is I would I would go uh gravel bike. Yeah, there’s a range of factors in that and it can be super versatile range of bikes as well. Grand bike could mean lots of different things. I’m not that bothered about racing anymore. Yeah. Okay. I mean like you don’t tell you don’t believe me. I think like No, I mean it’s nice going I like riding uphill as fast as I can, but do you think you’re perhaps getting just a bit older? Yeah, we’re not getting any younger, Alex. No, we’re not. and I’ve got a head start on you and and and I think you know it’s I’ve probably peaked so maybe I just focus on having fun now in which case gravel bike that’s the way to go. Yeah, I would I’m I’m really torn if I would have one bike. I’m torn between like the all-road kind of gravel bikes. I’m like right on the cusp of both of them. I think I would go gravel bike just because I want to have the option of having those big chunky tires and that super versatility. So say what I find the other than the aesthetics, right, of the fact you’ve got a frame that’s got clearance for massive tires and if you run a skinny tire and it just looks really weird. Like why would you you should just get the bike that’s got the most clearance, right? That makes the most sense. Yeah. And then you can just run skinny tires. You want to ride down the road, you want to go fast, you run big chunky gravel tires and anything in between. And then it’s like you’ve ticked all your boxes. Two two big things I’m going to I’m going to say, right, from recent riding I’ve done. Okay. Right. One, and I’ve said this in a video before, but it doesn’t matter what bike you’re riding up a climb, and it doesn’t matter how fast you’re going, the view doesn’t change. No. And that’s like the main thing I love is is this being in the scenery and stuff. If anything, on a on a gravel bike, you’d be a bit slower than a road bike if you’re riding up a mountain. Enjoy it for longer. enjoy it for longer. And then the other thing that I I love the most, you know, having recently sort of been out riding with friends of mine and and stuff and been away is it’s that thing of just riding with your mates. Yeah. And and it and I’m almost like I’m not that bothered how quick I’m going. It’s like just getting out and having a laugh with your mates. Right. I totally agree with you. But do you remember um cast your minds back a little bit? So, the Dirty Reaver like event/ race that I went and did, I made a GCM video about it. Now, people wouldn’t realize, but you were also there lurking in the background, but whilst I was trying to race at the front, you were like for party. I wasn’t in the video. No, cuz I was there for fun. You were working. But we we we sat and had pizza afterwards, right? And you had like loads of really cool fun stories and I was like my version of the stories in it. I was like, “Oh, yeah. This bit was so tough. And then I was like struggling to keep up and you were like, “Do you see that amazing view?” And I was like, “No, I just stopped and took a picture.” And like So I feel like you probably got the most out of that event. It was good. Yeah. We just, you know, went with a group of friends and we just cruised around together as a group and had a had a good day out. But I think yeah, that that kind of really cements home your point a little bit to be honest that sometimes you just got to not worry about racing and enjoy all of the cycling. Well, to some people this is obvious, Alex. They’ll be at they’ll be screaming away at the TV now. Like, it’s taken us how many years to sort this out. Yeah, we know, right? Um I I do feel like the gravel bike has as I led to that point, though. One point I do want to just quickly pick up on um from your Stelvio gravel video. I mean, everyone at home, if you haven’t watched it, go check it out. Um towards the top you seem to be trying to blame a thin air for your inability to cycle up a side technical rocky bit. It was well it was a combination of the fact that it was like super it was super steep and then it got quite rocky on that bit. There had been quite a bit of erosion. It was just like one small section like skills mostly rather than thin air. Skills. No, but thin thin air was a big thing cuz like No, serious cuz it got really it got really steep and so you know when it’s like you’re on like gravel and it’s like 25% or whatever you you you know manage like a first big sort of chunk of it and then you’re like I’m absolutely I’m cooked here. Okay, I’ll let you. So and uh and when you are at you know 2,600 m it’s it’s hard work mate. Yeah. All right. Yeah. So, I think admittedly I could have gone an extra 200 m before walking if it wasn’t thin air. Okay. I probably still would have resorted to walking regardless of the air. Okay, fair play. Well, there you go. That’s um I mean that’s our thoughts on the whole subject. Turns out we’re not races anymore. We just like riding our bikes. Um but get involved in the comments section down below. Did you win a crit last week? Yeah, I Yeah, look, it was a it was I I lost. Well, I won a race last week. If you want to see me win a entrylevel race against people that are getting into the sport, head over to GCN um this weekend. I think it made me think of you know the Fresh Prince of Belair when Uncle Phil does like breakout loose seal and he like just hustles hustles all the pool people in pool hall. It’s like you just going along hustling hustling forth cats. Look, whatever. Check the video out the weekend over GCN. Um, and share your thoughts in the comments. Right, I can’t talk about anymore. It’s killing me. Right, hot tech. Right, let’s do it. Okay, first up in hot tech. We’re going to start with what I think is like some pretty big news here because Canyon’s customization platform, My Canyon, is now available in a huge range of locations. Because when it first launched, I believe it was only available in the US. So, it’s now available across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. And that has literally just rolled out, which is pretty cool, right? Um, so this gives you access to loads of different exclusive um colorways, and you’ve also got special editions which have been designed by unique artists. The there’s a selection of different ranges, obviously, which ranges in price point, but then the the most elaborate ones are all hand painted, and each one is ever so slightly unique. They’re really nice. There’s a load of them being ridden at the Tour to France Pan. Yeah. Um so a lot of the Canyon sponsored riders on team sponsored by Canyon um have like examples of it. Well, there’s actually a massive list here, but there’s so many different ones and all the different riders have got all different types of riders. I can’t read them all out. We’ll be here forever. Yeah. But I tell you what, got one. Chloe Digert’s got one. I tell you what’s actually like possibly the coolest thing for me. Um, just want to drop it in here. I’m I’m actually heading out to Canyon in a couple of days time. Yeah. Going to find out all about my Canyon. Perhaps might be able to order myself a My Canyon custom bike. What you going to go for? I haven’t actually fully decided yet. So, I’ve been weighing up the options a lot in terms of which which different design I go for, what components. I also been thinking about my like stem length and my bike setup and stuff. You know, I’m trying to trip you up here. I’m trying to make you go, “Oh, get get an air road.” No. And then and then and then everyone in the comments would be like, “Yeah, you just said gravel bike would be the one bite you’d get.” And then you get an air road. Well, I am going to get an air road. Yeah. But guys, you can’t mock me, right? Whatever. Um, but I am going to, so jokes aside, I’m going to be making a video showing some of the like the people that are behind like the My Canyon platform, the artists, the ethos part of the bikes, how the crazy paint designs are done, and then also I might show you the cool bike that I’m going to place an order for. That’d be really cool. Um, yeah, it’s cool. Um, one of the custom bikes actually. Yes, we’ve got another custom bike in a sense. So, this is the custom Zift bike and it’s a special limited edition Zift ride for the tour France fam Zift. Question, has this been designed by Connor Dun? Right. No, at least I don’t think it has unless you’ve been moonlighting. Um, because you know why I’ve asked that question? Yeah. So, for reference, if anyone is relatively new to the texture, they might not have seen one of Connor’s previous bikes. I’m going to say a couple years ago. We’ll find a picture of it. We’ll put a picture of it up now. Here’s a picture of the Zift bike and Zift ride, sorry. And here’s a picture of Connor’s previous bike, which he which he chose the colors of on the AAO. Yeah. All of his own accord. Yeah, that was he chose that. So, perhaps this was the inspiration for the Zift ride design. Anyway, I think it’s super cool. Oh, I like the colors. And check this out. Right, it’s limited to 124 units. I mean, by the time the tech show goes out, might all be gone. And that represents each one for one of the kilometers on the final stage of the toilet famic swift. Cool. Yeah, I like it. Uh, what else we got? Uh, bit of bit of talk indoor training, bike biz news. Yeah. Um so Ruvie big um indoor training platform have acquired Belell who was a slightly smaller indoor training platform like a bit of a merger. So the Ruby group say they’re looking to bolster their position in these territories where Belell was strong and also make use of the Bele solution for turning um GPX files into 3D virtual routes for people to go and ride. Um pretty cool. Also, if you are someone that uses Belell, let me tell you the information here because what does this mean for you? Well, Belell is going to continue as a standalone brand within the Ruby group and the focus is going to be building like stability and reliability on the platform and it sounds like they’re kind of deciding what the future holds for all. Um, so I guess stay tuned to find out more. Nice. Yeah, it’s amazing how far indoor training’s come. Oh, it’s a long way. I mean, when I when I was a kid, um, it didn’t really exist and I used to have to do efforts on a really like old school dumb turbo trainer and I used to have a stopwatch which I selled onto my handlebars. No joke. That’s what I did. Um, commitment, right? Let’s talk about some crazy pedals. Okay, so these launched a little while back from Ecoy as a a shoe and pedal system and were banned by the UCI. They were banned by the UCI. Apparently, that has now been there’s been a U-turn on that. So, a U-turn. Yeah, that’s all right. Um, but the news here is that you can now buy the pedals separately rather than being restricted to buying a shoe and pedal together. So, if you bought into the system, it gives you more options. So, these are the PW8 pedals from Ecoy. And yeah, I mean, for those who didn’t remember it the first time when they came round at the tour and were then promptly banned, um, the big selling points on them are that they have a really sort of wide platform shape. Yeah. Which is apparently good for say they claim for sort of power transfer and stuff. Um, and then the other thing is the incredibly low stack height that they have. So you can 8 mm. Yeah, that’s pretty cool, eh? Um, if you want a set of these pedals, £170 a pair. Um, there you go. And then finally, in hot tech this week, there’s some updates from Training Peaks. Now, this is news to me and I feel like you’ve got a bit of an understanding of it. So, do us a favor, explain what’s So, Training Peaks is a very popular uh training software program um that coaches and athletes use. I’ve used it for many, many years, and they’ve just launched Fueling Insights. Okay. Which is really cool. So they’ve they’ve um done this in collaboration with Inigo Samalan Pogs Pog’s old old coach and viewers of the channel will be familiar with with Inigo Saman and what he did was a load of research looking at carbohydrates and fat oxidation rates within different levels of athlete at different intensities. And from that data, they’ve been able to accurately come up with a a sort of much more accurate estimation depending based upon your specific level of fitness. What is likely to be your sort of fat and carbohydrate burn for a different uh exercise for for a different workout. So, it will analyze your workout. It will look at the power zones that you did and it will work out with a a a good approximation what proportion of in terms of the calories you burnt in that workout, what proportion was fat and what proportion was carbs. And I I think this is mega. So, for example, if you if you did a a an hour of exercise, but you did it at FTP, like a full-on max effort, then you’re basically burning carbs. Yeah. Right. Whereas if you did that hour, but you did it at cruise around really zone one, you’re going to be burning still some carbs, but a lot more fat. And and what’s good is it, you know, it analyzes your ride and it works that out and it puts that in into the thing. Where this is cool is because I think in the past what people do, right, is they do a ride, they look at how many calories they’ve burnt, even if they’ve accurately computed this with a power meter, and then they go, “All right, so on my ride today, I burn 3,000 calories, which means I can eat all the chocolate 3,000 calories.” Whereas this, it’s really cool. It’ll, you know, break it down and go, “Well, actually, half of what you burnt was fat.” Yeah. Okay. And so, more information the better, basically, if you want to like dial into those specifics. But seeing as we’re both not interested in racing anymore, we can just go have fun. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I think this is uh, you know, from a sport science perspective, really cool. Okay. Interesting. Right, that’s it for Hot Tech. It’s now time for comments of the week. Comments that you’ve been leaving underneath our videos from last week, and we’re going to pick out the best ones. So, first one, um, from your wheel balancing video. Yeah. What’s the name of this person? I’m going to put a name up on the screen. [Laughter] Got me. Yeah. So, what did they say? This this person wonderful person uh said that a blind test is such a great idea. It’s informative and entertaining. More of these tests, please. Yeah. So, basically, we did a blind test of balanced and unbalanced wheels and side stitch you up. They did stitch me up, but they were adamant that they could tell the difference. I You’ve not tried balance wheels yet. I need to get you on it. Yeah. Um Ampuz says, “These are some of your best videos. Keep up the good work.” Um Jim says, “Um, seems a great way to descend more confidently and faster as you illustrate it.” It’s probably been overlooked so long since descending faster on a road bike is not a place many people are looking for gains. Occasionally I see people asking about it, but for the vast majority of us, it seems like once you get to the downhill section, we just enjoy going down. Nevertheless, for a few dollars of lead tape and an afternoon full of swears at the bench, it’s something for us nerds to try out. Um, could be an upgrade point for wheels and feels so much better since cheap wheels might be out of balance more than something high-end. Yeah, I think that’s some pretty good points. Yeah, riding balanced wheels feels really, really nice. And um it yeah it’s it’s something that you can do yourself at home pretty cheap. It definitely feels like it’s one for the nerds out there. It’s one for the nerds. But I mean even if you’re you know not trying to race but you just want a bike that feels amazing and handles amazing and feels really good. Then it’s then it’s a a thing worth looking at. Um but yeah, check out the video if you’ve not if you’ve not seen it already. Now we’ve got comments under last week’s tech show. Now this is absolutely I remember seeing the second the guy or the person sorry posted this comment I thought this is pure genius. Yes. So when so right I I criticized Luke Row and Gar Thomas right in their podcast for getting Dan Bigham’s name wrong calling him repeatedly Dan Bingham. And you said for for goodness sake at least get his name right. Yeah. God valid point I suppose. It’s just it’s just it’s just basic levels of respect for another human being and then I proceeded to get Adam and Simon Yates mixed up. I’d love to say that I did that on purpose. Um but no, I I mean yeah, I can only I can only apologize. I’m a massive plonker. No, I think it’s good to nothing wrong with apologizing. We get mistakes all the time. I mean, the thing is though, right, in the thing is, do you think it’s possible that when they ride a grand tour together, they could swap places and one of them can have an easy day in the gra and then one of them could Do you think you could get away with that? Cuz with sunglasses on and and a hat and they swap their clothes, you like the Prestige. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Yeah, it’s probably very likely. I think they I think they could. Um Okay. Hey. Well, do you know why I think that? You know why I think you know why I think that? Why? And why I think it’s possible? Cuz they never You often have one in GC and one not in GC. Like there’s like one maybe chasing stages. The other one show me a GC group of both of them at the same time. Yeah. Someone’s going to someone’s going to find out where they’ve done that. Category will 100%. Um so a number of people picked up on your name Fauxar and the tech show. So glad everyone joined Mo Barker said get his name right proceeds to get Ryder’s names wrong. Smooth Dr. Bridgewood. Um and then also at the other video the weekend I made a bit of a video taking a closer look at like PVD or like oil slick coatings, right? Um I thought it was interesting. Some people enjoyed it, some people didn’t enjoy it, but whatever. Um Magic M66 says oil slick everything. Yeah, I’m in agreement. Lazer boy man 8003 says no mention of costs. I’m assuming you can buy a cassette pre-coated. Yes, you can buy all the parts pre-coated and done. It’s not something you can ever do yourself. Um, in terms of costs, there’s very little difference between like a coated chain and it’s really just like choosing a different color. Like they’re the same cost, so no stress over that. And someone who didn’t leave their name says if rust is an issue on your bike, it’s not the components that need to be different. Good point. Yeah, you just need to maintain your bike to a higher standard. Yeah. Okay, there you go. Um, which leads us on nicely to the bike vault where you submit pictures of your bike using the link in the description down below. We pick the bikes out and judge be either nice or super nice. If they’re super nice, the bell gets rung. Big entry this week by some dude called Tad Pagatcha and today for catcher. Yeah. Have you se Have you seen that floating around online? Yeah, I have. today for catcher. Yeah. Um anyway, decked out tour of to France winning bike of Poggy. What were we saying about this bike? Yeah, it’s a super nice, isn’t it? I mean, it is a super nice. We should judge it to the same level as all the other bikes. Slight jy angle. Uh a little bit. It is. Yeah, valves aren’t aligned. Valves are not aligned. Are they the uh fancy They’re the archetype, aren’t they? The fancy tire. the new Continental Fancy limited edition thing. Um, yeah, matching bottles. Yeah, it’s pretty pretty swish, isn’t it? I We should super nice this show, mate. How can you not? Cuz it’s Pog and he’s won everything. Yeah. Well, you see, you just go nice. I mean, the background’s not the best, is it? Yeah. As he used the shadow stand and it’s just Can’t see. And it’s the wheels aren’t aligned, mate. Yeah, that’s what I said. The valves not No, it’s a nice just a nice so should be a super nice. Resubmit it next week. Resubmit next year. Take the feedback on board. Yeah, win tours next year. Resubmit. Yeah, cool. Uh Franco. Franco’s next with a with a Cannondale uh Super Six Evo. Look at that. I like that paint job on that one. That’s a That’s a nice Yeah, quite a simple simple paint job. Um, is that a I’m not sure what the bar is for on the wall. Is it like a ballet bar where you know where people do rest and do ballet and stuff? Oh, yeah. Is that what Oh, yeah. I mean, I’ve never done ballet myself. Me neither. But yeah, it does look like that sort of thing. Um, maybe it’s just a handrail. Uh yeah, I think that’s a I think I think that’s a super nice valves are aligned. It’s in the correct gear. Um saddle bag, but it’s pretty neat and tidy. Super nice. Pedro Nev Nev Neves. A handmade titanium frame by Isaikes in Portugal. Portugal. GRX 610. Das world saddle. I like it. Yeah, I’m into that. I love titanium bikes. I say it every time. I think um it’s got gubbins on it. Big old top tube. It’s got goubbins, but it’s it’s appropriate goubbins, you know what I mean? Yeah. Suitable. Uh wheels aren’t aligned. Close, but not quite. Tire. Yeah. I quite like to super nice. It seems Looks like there’s a bit of a shadow stand thing going on there. Yeah. Or similar. Super nice. Yeah. Ki J with an Enigma Alan. Another titanium bike. Altegra Di2. I picked it out specifically. Yeah. Did you? Yeah. Right. Um, no. I remember looking at this image and thinking, you tell me what you think here. Is this Cheddar Gorge? I don’t think that’s Cheddar Gorge. I think that’s Burington Kum. Ah, is Yeah, now you’ve said that, it makes sense. I don’t know. I might be wrong. Um, I think it is Burrington King. Um, Coley J. If this is your bike, please let us know. Carrington Boom. Cheddar Gorge or Burrington King. Uh, I want a super nicer. It It’s not. I’ll tell you why I don’t think it’s Cheddar Gorge. It’s because there aren’t seven Ford Fiesta STS being driven by Chavs with Asbos in the background. Yeah. Okay. Nice or super nice? I think um I think that’s super nice. Yeah. Um Luna Buuna next where they say when hitting snooze isn’t an option. Early midsummer’s ride out to watch the sunrise. Love it. Love a sunrise ride. Yeah. Not one car view of the sun coming up. Not in biggie smalls has just climbed up 10 to 12% gradients. sweating face emoji. That gate’s massive. Is that to keep Connor out? Or is it a is it a normal size gate in a miniature bike? That’s what I’m trying to work out. Answers we need to know. Yeah, that is a mega picture though. That is cool as well. It upsets me a little bit that the bike is sort of lent up against the gate with the seat post. I tell you what’s upsetting me a little bit. The bike is a little bit like out of focus. I think it might be a little bit. Yeah. Um, it feels like the other things in the frame are more in focus. Okay. So, um, I think it’s not Biggie Smalls. It’s the wheels aren’t Well, similar to what we said to Talipaga, don’t hit the snooze button. Get back out there. Resubmit. Yeah. Yeah. Mike from Victoria, BC. Hey guys, this is my 2023 Villia Sento 10SL that I purchased used from Bicycle from a guy in Spain. It’s their first proper road bike. Well, so it’s their first rare. We can be leaning here. Gearing incorrect. Cranks not aligned. Valves not aligned. Oh, he’s doing that thing Connor does. Mismatch bottles. Mismatch bottles. Although they are camel back podium bottles, so we can we can be leaning with those. up against the wall like in a way it could fall over. Yeah, it’s um I’ve been to Victoria. It’s nice. Okay. Very friendly people there. Very good. And uh what do you think of the bike then? Do you know what? We could be leaning. It’s their first proper road bike. It is. But it’s I mean it’s a lovely bike. I love Aento, but and I love villars, but I think we’ve got to we’ve got to lead them down the correct path of Okay. You know, how to properly We were being doing a disservice. Yes. Okay. We’d be, you know what I mean? Like, we’ve got to Yeah. Okay. You You’ve got to You’ve got to know how to celebrate and properly show off your wonderful steed in all of its glory. And that’s not doing it. Okay. Sorry. the nice James James Gil next with um Connor’s Gubbins tandem edition. Can’t believe I just said those words. Can’t wait to see this. Submitting our entry mainly for Connor’s Gubbins. Just finished packing. Wow. Landscape tandem. Where are they going with it? Oh, here you go. London, Edinburgh, London orax. Oh, one of my friends has done this. It sounds horrendous. gearing USB charger in the steering. Can we just take a moment to appreciate that that thing that’s claiming to be a saddle on the on the front? Have we got any information about I’ve seen this kind of saddle before? What on earth is that? Ah, it’s not uh I haven’t got what the saddle is. I’ve seen them. They got a giant cutout. It’s just like the the edge edge bit. Apparently, this frame has seven bottle cage mount points. They’re only using four. Wow. I think you might want to use all seven for Imagine how Connor excited Connor would be if you if you gave him a frame with seven bottle. He could put seven different colored bottles on his bike. Right, we get this thing back on track. We’re waffling on. Oh, it’s got Gates uh Gates um belt drive. Okay, I like it. Do you know what? This bike isn’t for me, but I can appreciate the bike. Ah, they’re going to put 40 C the 40 mm PLLIS on the bike. Okay. Um, which I think actually is like a great that for like when you think of the system mass of that two riders, that’s not an application that I’d thought of for those big 40 tires, but it makes total sense. Yeah, it definitely does. That would be mega. Yeah. Um, I like the tail fin rack on the back. That’s very neat. Very slick. I I think this is fantastic. I’ve um I’ve only ridden a tandem a couple of times, but I’d uh Yeah, I think you’ll have a great time on that. Just um Well, I’d mean that saddle um please send us more information about that. Yeah. Yeah. My first instinct is I see that and I think like you’re riding you’re riding this crazy orax from London to Edinburgh and back and um you’ve added the added challenge of sitting on that the entire Right. Okay. Super nice. Yeah, that’s a definite super nice. Right. There you go. That was the last bike in this week’s bike vault, which means the tech show has drawn to a close. That was good fun this week, mate. Really enjoyed that. Oh, thanks, mate. I’m glad that we’ve both come to sort of come to terms with the fact we’re not really racers anymore. We’re getting on a bit. We just got enjoy the bike ride. Have some fun. Go have some adventures. Yeah. Um and on that note, we’ll see you next week. Uh get involved in the comments section down below. And if you want to help support our channel, subscribe to Gint Tech. Turn on notifications. Right. Right there. Love you. Bye.