Cycling’s Weight Obsession – Does It Actually Matter? | GCN Show Ep. 662

In this episode of the GCN Show, we discuss the biggest topics in cycling this week. We dive into London’s cycling chaos, the weight debate in professional cycling, and why Mathieu van der Poel’s mountain bike dream didn’t go as planned. Stick around to find out how you can win a pair of Elite Drive 2 carbon wheels!

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Chapters: ⏱️
0:00 – Welcome to the GCN Show
0:44 – Cycling Chaos in London
1:11 – The Podiums We Deserve
1:46 – The Truth About Weight in Pro Cycling
4:59 – Why Your Natural Weight Matters
13:09 – Cycling Shorts
19:06 – New Tech & Competition
21:55 – Hack / Bodge of the Week
30:56 – Caption Competition
33:28 – Comment of the week

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The discussion about pro cyclist’s weight got pretty heated. Do you think cycling as a sport has a responsibility to set a healthy example, or is it up to athletes to push their limits to win?👇

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Live from the Grime free cichlus in Montreal, this is the GCN show. Welcome to the GCN show. Coming up this week, we are talking about why weight is an issue in cycling, but why there’s no need for it. Plus, we’ve got cycling chaos on London streets, why big miles are for old people, why Vanderpool did bite off more than he could chew, and why Denmark is investing even more money in cycling. That and we’ve got a new competition for you. A pair of Elite Drive 2 carbon wheels are up for grabs. [Music] [Applause] [Music] This week in the world of cycling, we learned that 2 million cyclists took to the streets of London not to protest, nor for an event, but just to get around after workers strikes closed the tube, aka the subway, to those of you who don’t speak British. Uh, now it’s pretty incredible really and the scenes look like cycling utopia quite frankly, but some people said it was total chaos. The Hunger Games on bikes was one headline I saw. More on that later on. We also learned that if official podium ceremonies get cancelled due to protests, you could just make your own. Visma bike set up some cool boxes, a sort of makeshift podium, and then invited all the other riders to join them in their celebrations. I thought that was actually really, really cool. Yeah. Yeah. No, I thought it was quite cool as well. It was. It was totally. I do feel slightly sorry for the riders though that that was the podium celebration, particularly someone like Pitcock who it was his first ever Grand Tour podium and it looked like something out of a at least he got something locally local evening race. Finally, this week we learned that weight will always matter in professional cycling just so long as gravity continues to exist and climbs I suppose. But it’s perhaps not as much of a thing as you think. So, professional cycling has long been a sport really where skinny people seem to prevail. Not all of the time, but certainly most of it. Even riders who look relatively big and muscular when they’re on the bike don’t really generally look that big off the bike. Filipo Garner being a case in point, he looks massive compared to others in the men’s pelaton. But this picture of him off the bike shows just how skinny he still is compared to well certainly the general population but basically everyone. It is always surprising when you see them in real life, isn’t it? Now the dangers of continually striving to be as lean as possible have long been known and long been discussed. But recently the debate got quite heated when Pauline from Provo Visma bike won the tour to France fam a Zift having visibly lost a lot of weight since the earlier spring classics. Yeah, it it wasn’t so much it was heated. It was just very personal. A number of riders in the women’s pelaton spoke out to say that they felt that she’d set a dangerous precedent for current and aspiring pro cyclists. Now, you can understand why there was that sentiment. Right? So, the potential risks to a female of being underweight are more serious both short and long-term than they are for males. And for either sex, they’re pretty blooming serious, aren’t they? However, it did also feel very unfair towards for provo at the time, didn’t it? Even now. So, there was a rider who under strict supervision of team coaches and doctors trained and prepared meticulously for her biggest goal of the season, arriving at the start in peak form and then riding away from everyone, all of her rivals in the mountains. But rather than getting to celebrate her massive win, she was then having to answer questions about her weight loss. Yeah. Now, Fran Provo is no different to many who’ve come before her and unfortunately many who will come after her. There’s a good reason why there is a weight obsession in cycling because if you can lose weight whilst maintaining the same power then you are going to climb faster. It’s a fact. And climbing faster is quite a key part to success, isn’t it? Particularly in the grand tours. That said, I would say that we are in a better place now than we used to be. I mean, there’s such a wealth of knowledge out there. There are so many ways to accurately measure performance and health that in theory there should be a much lower risk of doing short or long-term harm by pushing things too far. Yeah. Either with weight loss or with training load. Yeah. So anecdotally, it also appears that professional cyclists are consuming more calories than ever before. Like just literally eating more. Although part of that is it’s a necessity since they’re also expending more calories per hour than ever before as well. But as we said, all of that is planned and analyzed in detail by the proteins, all of whom want their riders to be in peak form and also peak health. Cyclist salaries have increased massively in recent years. And the last thing that any team would want is zero return on their investment because a rider is sick or ill and can’t race. Yeah, quite a cynical outlook, but also probably quite true. Um, I think though there is a wider topic here, isn’t there? Okay. So, proathletes has, as you just said, incredible supervision. The problem is that normal people, everyone else tend to hold up sports stars, their physicality, something to aspire to, and that therefore causes an issue, doesn’t it? But maybe there needs to be more of a distinction. I mean, elite sport is about pushing boundaries, isn’t it? And the general population shouldn’t be aspiring to emulate somebody who’s pushing the limits of human performance under that strict supervision. Hard to make that distinction though, might it? Yeah, true. Yeah, I’d say undoubtedly it would be actually thinking about it. But we can also we also can’t, should I say, ask professional sports people to sacrifice performance because they’re deemed to be negatively influencing those that watch those performances. The fault doesn’t lie with the athlete. No, I get your point there. And I guess well when you look at cycling, there’s probably a few other sports on there as well. Marathon running maybe as well where the most highprofile athletes can often look unhealthily skinny, don’t they? Um although one look around the pelaton or the um what a run what’s the pelon version for running park. Park run. No, not park run. You know what I mean though? There’s loads and loads of different sizes and shapes of athletes who can end up winning whether you are muscled or built like a pipe cleaner like me. Yes. Maybe the point is that we shouldn’t aspire to look like anybody. So because if you look at the other end of the spectrum which would be like sumo wrestling. Yeah. Like sumo wrestling. Uh is that a dangerous president? The sumo wrestlers for example. Bit of a tangent here. I don’t think anybody should be looking at the best sumo wrestlers in the world and trying to look the same. But I also don’t think that suma wrestlers should be asked to shed a few kilos if the extra weight genuinely helps them to be at the top of their sport. Well, yeah. I must admit I hadn’t envisaged talking about sumo wrestling when I sat after work this morning. You brought it up when I stumbled a minute ago. I feel like I was prompted to be fair though. I I feel like it’s slightly different, isn’t it? Sumo wrestlers because I think fewer people look at them and think that they are like to be like that. Yeah. Like you know, we don’t know because we’re not in that culture. Well, no, that is true. Yeah, maybe maybe maybe it is just but do you know what I mean? There’s something about being like like visibly athletic that is something that appeals to people. I think what you would be correct in saying is that we don’t know enough about sumo wrestling to really pass comment or judgment at this point. So, we should probably get back onto the topic where we do know a little bit about. Yeah. Okay. The other thing that we should bear in mind is that humans natural weight, it varies massively from person to person, doesn’t it? Personally, I’ve always been skinny. Yeah. up until now at least and my whole family is skinny as well. It’s not that any of us are consciously restricting calories and in some ways we’re very fortunate in that way. We can kind of eat what we want without fear of piling on the pounds. And I think it’s worth keeping that in mind if you’re ever scrutinizing an athletes weight. Yeah, it is a good job that you like cycling, isn’t it? Cuz I mean bear in mind how upset you got when you tried for a year to put on loads of muscle and then you managed a couple of kilos and then then then you lost half of it after three bike rides cycling. Yeah. Yeah. Um but it is a really good point actually. I’m making light to it but um the Scottish runner is molan um she talked very publicly about it recently. She has been criticized horrendously on social media for being too skinny uh and accused of having an eating disorder to the point where she then felt like she had to explain to people that she is healthy. She just same as you. She just got a very slender frame. Yeah. Her size and shape is as much a part of natural talent really as ability to develop, you know, monster what FTP, isn’t it? Or a tour of France winning sprint. Just like you can overtrain when trying to get fitter, so too you can mess yourself up if you try to lose too much weight. Yeah. So, I never had any issues with with eating or with my weight when I was like racing full-time. But I did spend my whole career wishing that I looked leaner like and it genuinely used to make me unhappy at times. And then as soon as I retired, I stopped caring about it as much. Even though I still talk about your ankles all the time. Yeah. Talk about or just take the piss out of my ankles. probably shouldn’t do in sort of context of this subject really should I in all seriousness. Well, yeah, I’m all right being called skinny as well, although I have put 4 kilos of muscle on. Just starting to get that back on now. Oh, are you? No, not really. Didn’t that guy stop you in the middle of the uh your Manchester to London ride and say that he thought you would look bigger? Yeah, he was exasperated at how skinny I looked. He thought I thought he I thought you’d look way bigger having been down the gym so much. Anyway, uh what’s also worth bearing in mind in all of this is that weight actually doesn’t matter as much as you might think. Of course, being overweight does have health implications and you’re likely to feel better if you’re able to shift a bit of that. But when we’re talking about getting underweight, really there are very few gains to be made from shifting a couple of extra kilos. Yeah. Ironically, Paulie Feron Provo would still have won the tour to France without that weight loss, wouldn’t you? When you look at the maths and what did you find when you put it in the calculator this morning? 10 was it 10 km climb at 10% 1 kilo body weight difference was what 16 seconds or something? No, it’s at 10% it was 22 seconds but that was on a 65 kilo rider but I was expecting it to be a lot more than 22 seconds over a 10 km 10% climb at 65 kilos if you lost a kilo. It’s not as much as you’d think is it? No it really isn’t as much as you’d think. Yeah. Um, so yeah, Paul from Provo was just so much stronger than everyone else, but you can say that her margin of victory was greater than it otherwise would have been having lost that little bit of weight. I’d say so. Yeah, almost undoubtedly. Right, time to hand it over to you guys at home. What do you think about this whole issue? Was it overblown or should it be talked about more? I sort of feel like cycling’s actually in a really good place. I think it is as well at the minute. I think there are so many of the top riders, men and women, who just look so much stronger than they used to because they’re doing stuff off the bike, they’re going to the gym, because they’re eating more. Like, they’re still obviously super lean, super, you know, fit. But I just think it’s better. And we’ve got more role models for bigger riders like Abraham Hamson. And every member of the public, professional, amateur, or whatever, has way more information at their disposal to learn and to eat the right things and do the right things than we had as pros 15 years ago. Yeah. Like way way more. I do wonder whether it’s just a lot of it is just it’s just crap on social media, isn’t it? Like a minority of people making comments that then makes it seem like it’s a bigger thing than it really is. Quite possibly. Anyway, that’s where you come in now, right? because you can tell us whether this is actually a thing or whether look forward to reading your comments. Uh just before we move on to the next part of the show though, we actually got a corrections corner. This is a rare rare moment on GCN, isn’t it? Where we got something wrong. It’s almost unprecedented. I know. So last week, you might remember we announced that there was a new world record for cycling non-stop. It was 5 days and something, wasn’t it? Yeah, we spent quite a long time discussing the toilet arrangements for cycling for 5 days. We did. number one off the bike eminently doable and number two. You reckon that’s more difficult? Well, I mean, you tried. Anyway, subsequent to that show, it was pointed out to us that that record was not in fact broken the previous week to that show, but rather 35 years ago in 1990. I mean, it’s a minor detail, but we thought we should correct Thomas. It came up in Google News. They did. Yeah. I sorted it by last seven days and that was one of the Indian Tribune came up with that record. I don’t know why. It’s just recently reported on something from 35 years ago. At least we know now why it wasn’t on Straa. Yeah. And there’s no other record of it. And now it’s time for cycling shorts. Cycling shorts now. And we’re going to start with news that older riders cycle further. This was something that we saw on bicycling.com which looked at average distances cycled by age on popular cycling app Straa and Ride with GPS. So on Straa in 2023, the age category with the highest median distance per ride was the 58 to 76 year old group uh at just under 21 miles. Whilst on ride with GPS, it was the 70 to 80 year old bracket who averaged 22.3 miles per ride. And the latter was from 5 years worth of data. I guess this could well be down to having more time to ride in retirement. You just thought I didn’t think that was pretty cool. I think it’s cool. Yeah. I mean uh especially after last week’s news that hours are the most important metric for training. True. It should mean that we all get a nice little performance boost as we get our pensions. Very nice. Meanwhile, two weeks ago, we were chatting about whether Vanderpool had overreached by trying to race the mountain bike world championships this year. You might remember that. Yeah. We concluded at the time that the odds for Vanderpool to get the mountain bike worlds and join well it’s a it’s a pretty rare club isn’t it of Pauling for provo at the minute of someone who’s won road cyclross and mountain bike at the elite level. Yeah. The reality is though that it was sadly a step too far for Vanderpool um this season anyway. Yeah, I’m sure he’ll keep trying. I love the fact that he keeps trying though. Yeah, I do too because he’s such a champion. you can forgive him thinking, “Well, I don’t really want to do a race where I might not look as good as I am on the road or cycle across, but he still sticks at it.” Ironically though, his technical skills lacking two weeks ago did look good enough this time around. It did. Yeah. It was his legs that seemed to give out instead. Yeah. Although he finished 29th, we think that was because once he realized that the win was out of reach on lap two out of like nine. It was quite early on, wasn’t it? It was from 33rd of second back to 29th in the end. But yeah, at that point he switched off. Although he did say at the end that he wasn’t going to quit because I quote here, mountain biking is the only discipline where it’s fun just to ride around. Yeah. Well, do you know what I did in my last Elite Mountain Bike World Championships? I’m now going to guess that you pulled out. I quit. Yeah, it was not fun that day. Um Alan Havly by the way retained his title of cross country world mountain bike champion of the men’s category with you got to say a very impressive ride. He dabbled in road racing this year for JO Alula and it doesn’t seem to have slowed him down in the end. Um and then in the women’s race it was Jenny Rristids of Sweden who took her first senior world title. Funny enough 9 years after she broke through by winning the Olympics. That line. Yeah. Isn’t that bad? Yeah. Uh, next up, some good news and some bad news for cyclists in Copenhagen. Uh, which one would you like to go with first? Uh, shall we go with bad news first and end on a positive? As you wish. As you wish. So, the bad news is that Copenhagen has been overtaken by Flanders as the second largest cycling region behind the Netherlands. We’re still in top spot. Presuming. That’s good news for Flanders. Absolutely it is. Okay. Um, an incredible one in five journeys in Fllanders are now made by bike. Wow. They’ve put the increase down to improved infrastructure especially in Gent and Brussels but their aim is to get that number up to one in three trips by 2040 and with an annual investment of over €300 million euros. I’m not going to bet against them. No criy. They mean business, don’t they? Do you? We should do a little road trip out there. Dan, you can go for the beers and I’ll go for the cycling infrastructure. I’m in. We can nerd out. You can drink beer. I’ll nerd out. Um, what’s the good news for Copenhagen? Oh, yes. Um well not to be outdone side they have allocated the equivalent of over €80 million euros in Danish croner to cycling related projects the largest investment in the city’s history and over three times as much as this year 2025. Uh they’re focusing primarily on improving the safety of school routes interestingly where they are apparently lagging behind other cities and countries. I’m not much of a mathematician Dan but isn’t that quite a lot less than less. Well how are we going to catch up then? Well Copenhagen is one city. Flanders, as we mentioned earlier, includes the likes of Brussels, Gentur and other cities. I see. So, you think on a per capita basis it might work out? I’m kind of making this up on the spot at this point just to defend my ground. Okay. I mean, I to be fair, I’m quite surprised that Copenhagen is lacking in any way in its cycling. Um, given what we think we know about cycling in Copenhagen, but I will take their word for it. Um, now moving on, we will head back to the sudden influx of cyclists that happened in London last week. So the stats for the public higher ebikes from Lime and Forest were quite staggering reporting that almost double the number of people as usual hired them and rode them further as well. But as mentioned there were a lot of column ines devoted to the apparent chaos. Yeah. Cycling traffic jams were one. Um regular bike commuters were annoyed that new people were cycling. Um not just annoyed but also scared frankly by people at times. Um and then well most people moaned about lawlessness it would seem particularly jumping red lights and then one story in the London Standard even went in with a headline of the huge surge in cycling accidents in that they reported a 44% increase which does sound like quite a lot it does. Yeah. But what that actually amounted to was eight. Yes. So eight more accidents apparently. Yeah. It’s funny how there are very few i.e. No headlines when there is traffic chaos caused by motor. Well, it’s never called anarchctic. No, that’s to be fair. Yeah, but maybe that’s the point. Bikes are the intersection between pedestrians and vehicles, so we should have more freedom than cars, but still abide by the rules. Yes, I mean, always abide by the rules, right? Uh now, some tech news for you this week. Argon 18 have just launched a new Aero road bike uh made kind of in collaboration with the wheel brand Scope. It’s called the Nitrogen Pro and they’re saying it’s not a bike designed for wind tunnels. It’s a bike designed to be fast in the real world. Excellent. That’s why we want a bike to be fast, isn’t it? Really? It certainly looks good. Does look good. Yeah. Um right, we’ve got a competition for you now. Our friends over at Elite Wheels are giving away a pair of their limited edition Drive 50D2 wheels. 50 mm deep, weighing just 1,300 g with carbon spoke, ceramic bearings, and a hooked rim design. Quite the pair of wheels that now if you would like to enter the competition then just hit the link in the description. There are one or two countries where you can’t enter from though I’m afraid. So just have a little check. All details are in that link below. I’ve also got some competition winners to announce. I have our Insta 360 competition where you could win one of two camera bundles. So congratulations to Aiden Cray and also someone else who didn’t want their name read out. That’s not you, is it? You would have just been a bit embarrassed to have won that one. If I win anything, Sai, I make sure that my name is up in shining light. As you well know, you you wouldn’t shy away from making your own podium in a car park, would you? No, I sometimes do at the end of my training rides in my driveway. To be fair, you need a medal when you get out training. Although, actually, you said you don’t need a medal when you’re training at the minute cuz you were actually genuinely finding your group rides on Zift. The group rides, yeah, great. Keeping you honest. They are, but I’m still struggling to get out the weekend. I didn’t get out the weekend. I just did a run. So, what you’re saying is you need I need rides on the weekend that I’m sort of held accountable to. So, remind everyone when they can join you on t they’re during work hours. Sorry, they’re during workout hours. During workouts. Yeah, just clarify that. So, on Tuesday it’s at 9:00 a.m. BST, British Summer Time, and on Thursday 11:00 a.m. BST. 130 of us last Thursday. Oh, wow. That’s cool. V2 max workout. It was quite a good Well, I wouldn’t say I wouldn’t go as far as to say it was fun. It was a V2 max workout, but the bits in between were fun. Oh, to be fair. Yeah. No, like Yeah, I I’ll be down with that. If I wasn’t working, I’d be there 100%. You did quite a long ride during work hours last Thursday. Actually, that is a good point. We had our annual uh we actually had two group like GCN rides a year and uh and so yeah, that was Thursday. That was good fun. We got a bit wetter than you did unfortunately on Zift. Well, I am sweating. Right, we will finish cycling shorts. It’s a bit fun, shall we? Bit more fun. Uh, this is how Inosios Grenaders World Tour Pro Ben Swift cleaned up after getting a silver medal at the British Gravel Championships. A little bit. [Music] It is now time for hack forward/bodgege of the week bumper edition this week. So, I got five instead of four. Woohoo. Uh, so we’ll crack on. Homer gying. But I was getting tired of the cramped quarters inside my camper van, but unfortunately my trailer hitch can no longer accommodate a bike carrier with my homemade kitchen wooden camping box installed. That’s when it dawned on me, why not have both? I could just screw down a fork mount bike rack on top. Now my 2017 Bianke specialist has a designated place and I only have to sleep with the front wheel inside. That looks pretty cool to me, Dan. So, uh, for those of you listening to this as a podcast, we’ve got your your standard like toe bar or hitch rack on the back, but then on top of it is a giant wooden trunk. Mhm. Which I guess he’s just said is full of kitchen. Um, and then bolted on top is a bike rack, which uh I’m here for. Yeah, I think that’s wicked. That’s a hack from me. It’s a hack from me as well. I just hope that, you know, when something’s bolted through wood, like I’m sure he’s thought about how strong it is, but there must be quite a lot of like side forces on a bike mounted like that, you wouldn’t want the the bolt to pull through the quite a square vintage Volkswagen camper van, isn’t it? Maybe most of the air goes over the top. Maybe. Yeah, let’s keep our fingers crossed. Okay, you can say hack then. Hack. Yeah, hack. All right, Aaron sent in this next one. In preparation for a 180 km time trial, Yowzers, I needed to add an extra bottle cage to my bike. Are you laughing at me saying Yowzers? No, just 180k time trier than the old team time trials back at the World Champs. That is it. Yeah. Anyway, uh his frame has only got the attachment points for one bottle. Aaron did not want to take a drill to his 30-year-old steel frame. Um, so instead he attached the bottle cage with a pair of cable ties, cut them as short as he could, added some additional stability with duct tape. But Aaron says the bottle nicely hid the end of the cable tie and it stayed in place for the 6-hour long ride. Um, the bottle is not going to hide that gaffer tape. Is it for for listeners rather than viewers? Uh, this tape is as luminous yellow as you can possibly imagine. Yeah. Now, I know what everyone’s thinking. It’s a zip tie. Therefore, I’m immediately going to say this is a bodgege. That is what I was thinking. Yeah. But Aaron solved the problem temporarily here with a lowcost and effective fix. It pains me that that was a zip tie, but I can’t I can’t say anything other than I mean that that is effectively a hack and he has it is a pain to say that he’s removed it. Now, do you know what I think is a bodgege? What’s that? 180 km time trial. Yeah. What’s that about? I’ve never heard of such a monster. Six hour time trial. Yeah. Know I would I wouldn’t be up for that. Well, I mean it is a thing obviously two bottles that 12 and 24 hour time trials. But uh yeah. No, I think I’m I’m cool with that. Okay. Well, yeah, I’ll go hack as well then just to be positive for the week. Tom Wner wrote in say this is my third frame. I think we might have seen these frames before earlier iterations of with this frame. I improved the stiffness by increasing top tube size and reducing wall thickness. I used heat expansion silicon cores and external mold to create the tubes. Then bonded them together with carbon fiber laps. An integrated seat post clamp, integrated handlebar complete build. Frame weighs 1,000 g, bar and stem 295. And the complete bike is about 7.3 kilos. Fair play, Tom. I love that you are doing this. I don’t know why you are doing it. Um I assume it’s just cuz you love making. I think I’d do that if I had any chance of being able to do it. Looks really cool, doesn’t it? It looks really, really cool. I’d be interested to know why you are now on your third one. Was it the longevity of the others or was it just that you wanted to tinker and make some new cool stuff? I would imagine the latter. I mean, no bike manufacturer stops at their first one. They make improvements, don’t they? Good point. Um, can I tell you something slightly concerning? Uh Connor bought uh a kit off eBay that allows you to fix carbon fiber. Oh yeah, I saw that in the office today. He’s also bought a clearly broken carbon fiber frame. And he who is possibly the least qualified of all GIM presenters to do anything like that is going to try and Yeah. So Tom, if you can get in touch and give Connor any tips on how to wield carbon fiber, probably be gratefully received and it might save him from getting a face full of tarmac. We’d better check our work insurance covers homemade carbon repairs. True. Conducted by Connor done before he gets on with it. I’m not going anywhere near it. Well, that’s a definite hack from me. Yeah, hack from me. Yeah. Amazing. Uh Martin Rodri said, “The they say necessity is the mother of invention. I was in need of a bike stand to fix my grandson’s Bobby bike. So, I made one from my many timber offcuts I’ve been saving in my garage. Reminds me of my dad. We had so many timber off cuts in the garage. Works perfectly clamped into my workbench. Am I a genius or just a tight Yorkman? I mean, to be fair, it looks pretty neat. I don’t know how on earth it works. I had a a metal stand that I bought that went into the um workbench like that. That was my first ever bike stand. Was it? Yeah. Worked well. That’s cool. not dissimilar. I know. I think that’s cool. I’m going to say hack, but I want to know why it’s called a Bobby bike. I don’t know. I like the fact that he’s written bike stand on the bike stand in case there’s any confusion or Well, I mean, he might just think it’s an offcuting away. I was going to say it might get used to do something else. Whereas, if you’ve written on it, this is a bike stand. You’re less likely to, I don’t know, accidentally make it into How’s it actually clamped onto the stand? I mean, there are many things that don’t make sense. It just look precariously balancing on there. That was that was the issue I had. Anyway, did you say that and I wasn’t listening? I mean, I might have done. Yeah. Uh I’m going to go hack. Even though I can’t quite see how it’s um Yeah, we’ve just got to go on trust, haven’t we? Martin is telling the truth. This works. It’s all good. So, yeah, I’m going to say hack as well. I like this next one. Yeah, I like this next one, actually. Um, so Helmsley 5 said, “I love having a super smooth and silent bike. Who doesn’t?” I mean, I love it. Yeah, me too. Alex, how do you feel about having uh super quiet bikes? Alex came on the GCN group ride on Thursday. I heard this earlier. I mean, it was the noisiest rear hub I have ever come across in my life. It was astonishing. Apparently, it was something to do with these titanium end caps. Is that right? Yeah. Ale Alex also competed in 19 to35 age group at the British Gravel Champs the other day and got overtaken by some very fast 45 to 49 year olds. Yeah. Who interestingly Alex said smelt better than the juniors that that passed him. Yeah. It was an interesting conversation. Anyway, we’ve got slightly uh slightly lost here. So, Helmsley 5 uh said um he finds the annoying rattle of a head unit in a worn out mount uh particularly pesky. He said Blu-Tack works for a bit, which I’d agree, as does a lump of tissue. Bit gross, but yeah, it definitely works. Um but I found that one of my daughter’s hair bands is a perfect fit. So, these are like the little clear hair bands. He says they come in packs of a thousand little blighters for next to and they claim to be biodegradable. So you stretch it over the rear of your Garmin or your Wahoo or whatever else. Twist it in and Bob’s your uncle. That little bit of uh clear plastic just takes up enough slack to stop the rattling. So it last for about four or five mounts and dismounts before degrading. Uh you said really sad that CLA’s accessories has left the high street. I hadn’t noticed actually. But yeah, nobody would until you needed these hair bands. No. To stop a rattle. I do you know what? I think this is genius except for the fact that they last four or five mounts and dismounts. That would annoy me. Look, I mean, well, it’s not horrendous, is it? Like the battery life you’d be looking at, I don’t know, once every like That’s fine. Couple of months, maybe. But it’s fine for me changing it once a year. Okay, go on then. Hack. Oh, definitely a hack for me. Yeah, definite hack. All right. Thank you very much for all of your hacks and bodgege submissions. Uh, have you done the bit about where you can upload it? Uh, global cyclingetwork.comuploader. Why did you decide that tissue was a bit disgusting for you? You immediately just assumed it’s going to be used tissue. I mean immediately, yeah, that did cross my mind that that might imply that I would have used a used tissue. But there’s just something about like particularly in the UK where it’s often wet. Like if you then remove your hedge unit and you find like a soggy bit of tissue stuck to your bike, like it’s not really in keeping with the whole like high tech carbon fiber and then just like Yeah. Okay. You know what I mean? Yeah. Point. Yeah. I’d rather have a hair band. It’s time now for caption competition. that part of the show where you get a chance to get your hands on a coveted GCN Camelback water bottle. All you got to do is put a witty caption in the comment section down below that relates to a photo we will give you in just one second after the results. Uh this was the photo that we gave you last week. Three of the TUDA pro cycling riders signing on at the Tour of Britain. In the middle, Judah Alafe spoiler winner of a big one day race in Canada in Quebec last Friday. That was a nice return to form, wasn’t it? It was. Yeah. First one day win in two and a half years for Ella Philipe, believe it or not. Anyway, he’s got a G Thomas mask on. Our winner this week is Mitch Hollander 13. Put caption competition. I need to do this right as I ain’t Thomas. Sorry, what? That ain’t Thomas. Oh, I see. Like G ain’t Thomas, but that ain’t Thomas. Got it, Mitch. Well done, Mitch. That was great. Yeah, well done. I think the problem was the delivery. I thought that was all right. Right, this week’s photo comes back from backstage at the Grand Prix Montreal, won by Brandon McNei. Quinn Simmons is there in his US Champs jersey eating a bit of pizza. Uh, I will get you started. Quinn, could you just describe your post-race recovery meal for us? Sure. Pizza cake. Oh, that is terrible. Um, you know what? Looking at him sat there with his incredible mullet tash thing. He doesn’t look like your quintessential pro cyclist right there, does he? Clearly he is cuz he’s just got third at GP Montreal. He’s a beast on a bike. That’s for sure. He is indeed. Yeah, I I admire that that look. I He’s very cool. He’s got a nice leadle trainers on. You uh you should maybe go for a mullet like that, mate. You’ve had a lot of different hairstyles over the years, but you’ve never had I’ve stuck with the same one now for about 10. No, not that long. Not far off, really. Yeah. About eight. I’ve got to the point where I’m just going to leave it until it comes back into fashion. Okay. You sure you don’t want a mullet? I mean, that would be funny. I had a mullet 20 years ago. I should have left that when I waited for that to come back into fashion. I remember I had one when I met Lraine 20 years ago. Anyway, we’re going off topic. Leave your caption in the comment section down below. You most lure your wife when you had a mullet. Yeah. Bloody hell. Says a lot about your personality, isn’t it? Uh, right. Well, that’s the end of that part of the show. Just before we let you know what’s coming up on Gin this week. A few comments from last week’s videos. Starting uh with these underneath the GSN show. Taylor the 314 T5. But I only do long slow riding. But that’s because I’m crap. Well, I mean, I think that’s quite amusing, but uh the long bit that’s impressive. Can’t be crap if you’re doing long bike rides. Bluey Hills said, “Stop going on about your age. Neither of you are that old, so make the most of it.” I mean, I think we are making the most of it, aren’t we? I guess we feel old because of our colleagues being younger. Carl Nelson, if riding slower makes you faster, I should have a great shot at winning the tour next year. Yeah, nice. Uh, tattooed Fred said, “I do short slow training and so far it’s paying off. I’m still slow just as planned.” And finally, uh, no, not finally actually got two more. Uh, Bergen Nicholas, but to be fair, at least in Switzerland and Austria, more people get hurt or even killed by cows than sharks. Stats don’t lie. No, they don’t. They landlocked countries, they Well, I mean, they are, but still like, doesn’t mean that cows aren’t dangerous. Um, but then this one I thought was interesting. Andrew Olsen Sai needs to collab with the Hoof GP on a video of what to do when you encounter cows on a bike ride. You up for that? Uh yeah, in principle. I mean, as long as the hoof GP says turn and run or turn and ride as fast as possible, no, it’s not safe to go through a field of cows cuz they’re potentially lethal killers. So, um, but I’ll do some research, find out what the hoof GP says. One of my good friends is a, uh, is a boine vet, right, who specializes in cow. And you’ve never thought to sort advice? Well, do you know what? One of my abiding memories is of said friend riding through a field. We were mountain biking in the Alps 20 years ago, this summer, and uh, there was a bull in one corner of the field, and he was like, “It’ll be fine, mate.” and off his set down to his field and this bull went absolute freaking mental and I was like I stood on the other side of the electric fence watching this unfold and I could just see that they were going to intersect. Anyway, to be fair to Ed, he’s a big lad like and he just he sprinted down to his field and I’ve never seen anything like it. He just slid the bike down and went underneath the electric fence. Yeah. On his side as this ball just like scre to a hole. But then the bull was in the corner where the path went. So I spent about 3/4 of an hour climbing through a gully in order that I didn’t have to go through. Was this the start of your fear of cows? Probably. Yeah. I might have to I might have to talk to Ed about that and tell him that he’s got something to answer for anyway. There we go. Yeah. Or the hoof GP. He’ll do he’ll do instead. Meanwhile, under what happens when real people try cargo bikes, bike rides. But I’m here for global cargo bike conspiracy. Yeah, watch out for that. It’s there. Uh Neil Pen Skull. Neil Penskull. Uh the sad reality is seeing how governments are subsidizing buying an expensive electric vehicle, but if you want a cargo bike to replace a car, most countries don’t give any benefits. At least where I live. Yeah, this is a tricky one, but it was something pointed out to me actually whilst making that video. Here in the UK, if you uh have if you are salaried employee, then the bike to work scheme can potentially get you quite a big chunk of an electric car. Like potentially more than a subsidy off an electric vehicle. So there are there are actually subsidies out there. I don’t know where you’re from, Neil, but um but yeah, worth looking into. Yeah, it is worth looking into. Uh Mixo Deficto puts people some very complicated names to read out, don’t they? Sickest electric cargo bike drift entrance I’ve ever seen. Gets better the more time you watch it. More times you watch it. Thanks. It’s actually the second best skid intro I’ve ever done on any cargo bike. Is it? Yeah. There was a better one before, but I think this is proof that skids aren’t just for kids. They’re also for middle-aged people. Yeah. Right. Uh then um there was good good few comments on your Zift on a budget video down. Uh Tammy Moore said, “The Zift bike has made it possible for both my husband and I to train indoors in inclement weather. We haven’t used it much over recent months cuz we’ve been able to ride outdoors, but as the season changes, it will begin getting more use again. No regrets here having invested in it.” And then some banging comments under exoskeleton Connor’s video where he cheats cycling. Yeah. Curly Fry films, but they restrict ebikes to 25 km/h, but nature found a way. They can’t restrict our legs. There were one or two people genuinely going like, “Oh god, this is going to ruin Straa now. I don’t think it’s going to ruin Straa.” Matt Deck Feather needs to ride him and see what difference it makes to his time. Yeah, we should maybe strap a pair to Andrew Feather. What we could do is cuz Connor said he needs to do a time trial in him. Andrew Feather is rubbish at time trials on the flat. We should maybe give him to Feather to see if it can actually get him to uh ride at a reasonable speed. Uh Matt Warbuckle put Oie’s disgust is joyously wonderful. I agree with you. Whilst Daily K put Ollie’s impression of Wallace 100% on point. I thought that was great as well. Was a good impression. Very good. I wouldn’t tell Ollie that. He doesn’t watch the show, but fantastic. Right. Uh all that’s left to be said now, Dan, is just what’s coming up on the show. Starting with Thursday on the channel this week on Thursday. All training trends evaluated. which ones actually work. There are a lot of different training trends. There are Conor’s been doing some some really interesting research actually. He’s been talking to some very interesting people, not just world tour team coaches. Uh there’s a guy that’s got um probably the oldest AI coaching business in cycling. He’s asked him as well as like Mr. Common Sense coach himself uh who uh yeah, I’ve got all the time in the world for. So that’ll be super interesting. Uh and then on Saturday, the uh Canyon Endur Race All Road broke the internet when it came out earlier in this year because of how value packed it is coming in at less than £1,000,000. Um so we went to see whether it could survive the UK’s fastest group ride. And then finally on Sunday, um how would you describe this video? So I haven’t thought of the title for it yet, have we? We we basically got a few colleagues at work to do a test and then one week later a test again and in the middle we gave them some performance-enhancing supplements. Well, what we’ve discovered is that there is a a pill, a tablet that can give you a 15% performance. It’s completely legal. It’s completely safe. It’s available to everyone and yet it’s pretty bonkers. Like genuinely, the science is there. So, uh, so yeah, I’m can’t wait for people to see that video. It’s going to be wicked. Great stuff. Right, thanks for watching.