In this week’s GCN Show, we’re talking about the seven mistakes that virtually every cyclist makes—and one of them got Dan a lecture from his sister about becoming “Mr. Boring”! We also cover the new Pogacar-proof Tour de France route , an innovative new e-bike from Rivian’s spin-off , and the good news about ultra-endurance legend Sofiane Saheli. Plus, we announce the winner of the Hover Air Pro Max Bundle and check out your best Hack or Bodge submissions.

Chapters: ⏱️
0:00 – Intro & Cycling News Highlights
2:17 – The Seven Things Cyclists Do Wrong & Mistake 1
4:15 – Mistake 2: Starting Too Fast (Bad Pacing)
5:34 – Mistake 3: Under- or Overdressing
7:02 – Mistake 4: Last-Minute Bike Maintenance
9:22 – Mistake 5: Talking About Cycling Too Much
11:02 – Mistake 6: Wearing Old, See-Through Shorts
13:10 – Cycling Shorts: Sofiane Sehili & New Tech
22:45 – Hack/Bodge of the Week
29:34 – Caption Competition
31:39 – Comment Of The Week

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From just before the final corner on the National Hill Climb, welcome to the GC show. [Applause] Go on, Dan. Go on, Dan. Yes, lad. Welcome to the GCN show. Coming up this week, seven things cyclists do that we probably shouldn’t, including one that actually prompted Dan’s sister to give him a pep talk at a young age for fear of him becoming Mr. Boring. I guess you didn’t listen. I didn’t. No, but that is a true story. I also got a new ebike from a car company, which looks nothing like anything you’ve seen before. More science, which hopes to unlock how to make urban areas a utopia. Hot new tech from Met. And we announced the lucky winner of the Hover Air Pro Max bundle. Yeah. And some long awaited great news for ultra endurance legend Sophiana Healey. [Applause] [Music] This week in the world of cycling, we learned that next year’s tour to France routes are set to be bangers. The women face Monu on their way to Nice over nine stages. And in the men’s, well, it looks like the organizer tried to make it poggy proof. Yes. Now, by that we mean there are fewer opportunities for him to take loads of time in the first couple of weeks. And then there is a super hard final week when previously he’s been a little tired. A little tired. Yeah. Double outdoor in that final week of the men’s race as well. That’s cool. We also learned that Zift have renewed their contract to support the Tour to France fam until 2029, which is fantastic. Yeah. In just 4 years, that race has grown to the extent that its audience is now in the millions every stage. Fantastic. Uh, meanwhile, in bad news, French pro Victor Lefay was spotted racing wearing trainer socks. We’ll have more on this story as it emerges. Apparently, Lefay is considering retiring from pro cycling. Judging by that photo, I think we might be able to guess what his next sporting endeavors will be. No, you think he’s going over to the dark side here? Potentially. Either that or it’s just a sign he’s hypnotized. It could be that as well, couldn’t it? Anyway, finally this week, we learned that there are some things that we continue to do as cyclists, but we really shouldn’t. Yeah. Now, I’m going to start. Uh, but first, a warning. Don’t listen to this if you’re eating your dinner. What’s this going to be? Well, it’s a mistake that I continue to make. Putting on my leg warmers before my shorts. Well, surely that’s the only way to put your leg warmers on. Otherwise, you got to roll your short legs up to get your leg warmers underneath. I mean, that’s why I do it. But it’s not a good look, is it? Uh that period of time where you have socks and leg warmers on potentially uh like an undervest as well, like a preferably like a slinky one and then and nothing else. Well, admittedly, it’s not something I’d want to see. S, but I’m assuming you’re doing this in the privacy of your own home rather than in a public car park somewhere. Yes. But then sometimes my wife might be in the room and she regularly tells me off for um killing a romance I believe. Is that what she’s saying? Is it? Yeah, pretty much. I also actually I I had a teammate. I think he should remain nameless and and that like he would always do that but then would forget to put his shorts on for like another five minutes and just walk around with leg warmers and under vests. What’s that old saying? I’m trying to think. It’s uh don’t do unto others what you don’t want done unto you. How would you like it, Sai? Well, if uh someone really hot was wearing just leg warmers and I’m talking about your own situation at home. I don’t know how to answer that. That’s a good point. We should probably leave that one, should we? I suggest that you get changed in your bathroom with the door locked side. Then, problem solved, isn’t it? Yeah. What do you do? I do it when Lorraine is out of the room in case I kill the romance. I clearly How many viewers you think have switched off at this point? I probably a fair few. I think our audience retention on this video, sorry guys, is going to be pretty awful. So, let’s move on. Uh, number two, starting too fast on a ride. Yes. Well, and a race as well. It’s exactly what you’ve just done at the Gravel World Championships. It is exactly what I did there and at the Jirona World Series and at the Bath Hill Climbs a few weeks ago and at a 10m time trial I did a couple of months ago as well. Absolutely crazy really because I’ve been cycling for over 30 years and racing in that period as well. I know full well the benefits of correct pacing and more importantly the pain of incorrect pacing and yet I still do it. Well, do you think that perhaps you’ve just overestimated your current abilities? Yeah. Every every race day for 30 years quite possibly. I’ve basically been waiting for a miracle to happen for three decades. It just hasn’t happened. Well, I mean I know exactly what you mean. I have have slash do exactly the same thing. I did it in the gravel worlds last year and basically in every GCM video that’s longer than a cycle cross race. I think I just go back to cycle cross. Well, why why do we do it when we know full well the consequences and how beneficial good pacing is? Well, from watching your gravel world champs, you were just enjoying yourself. Well, there is that. I did. Well, I I enjoyed it for the first hour. A little bit less for the last five. Well, yeah, but that’s fine. That one hour of pleasure versus five of pain, it all equals out in the end, doesn’t it? Right, here’s another one. Underdressing and overdressing. Not talking about leg warmers and shorts anymore. Um, do you still get your clothing choices wrong? I kind Yeah. And I’ve come to the conclusion with all my experience that this comes down to sort of seasonality thing. So, I I tend to overdress on those first warm uh days after winter and I tend to underdress in those first cool days after the summer. Uh and that is because you’ve got got used to being warm in the summer, haven’t you? Used to being cold in the winter and it kind of catches you out when you get the first change of temperatures. Yeah, it shouldn’t be that difficult though, should it? I mean, it takes about 5 seconds to find out what the temperature is, whether or not it’s raining. And if you really want to go into detail as well, you can also find out how windy it is as well. Yeah, this is a very good point. It doesn’t take very long at all, does it? No. Are you saying that you never under or overdress because of Google weather? Well, I can I do get it wrong sometimes. I sort of feel like Well, yesterday I got caught out riding home in the rain and it was freezing cold. I don’t know where that came from. No, but uh yeah, I don’t know. I mean, there are also points in the year obviously where the temperature first thing in the morning is drastically different to what it is around midday, isn’t there? Yeah. So, those really epic rides that you do all the time. When was the last time you rode from early morning to midday then? It was back in the summer, I think. So, it was fine cuz it’s quite a regular temperature from start to finish. That one ride that you trained for for like 6 months and then told us all about Yeah. Okay. And number four, I I am very guilty of this. doing last minute maintenance 15 minutes before you need to leave for a group ride. I I was about to say this is you to a tea, isn’t it? Well, yeah. I mean, literally like there was a little creek coming from the back of my mountain bike and I was like, “Oh, I’ve forgotten just to sort that out.” So then I started dismantling the universal derailer hanger and then I started thinking I could replace it with another universal derailer hanger, but it turns out the universal derailer hangers are not universal. Oh man, got a mess. Yeah. Sorry lads, that’ll be 5 minutes. Uh yeah, one of those. Um but yeah, I mean I have been cycling for a very long time, just like you. Even though I’m significantly younger than you are. Um and I do still make this mistake. Yeah. My issue is normally forgetting to charge everything. Gears, head unit, radar light at the back, whatever it might be. Although I do always find it quite surprising how long your gears last for on quite a short charge of like 10 minutes. Yeah. I mean, I guess they last the full extent of your 60-minute ride. Yes. Exactly that. On a similar subject, I think most of us procra procrastinate when it comes to replacing worn parts on our bike, don’t we? Almost gets to the point where you just you just put up with like a worn tire or worn brake pad or a stretch train or whatever it might be. Yeah. I mean, I have to hold my hands up to that one as well. It doesn’t happen that often because I’m fortunate enough to have a selection of bikes and we also have those amazing GCM mechanics who to swap stuff out for us. But yeah, there are definitely times when I leave the door and suddenly remember that uh that there is something like that I needed to change that I haven’t changed. Just so long as you haven’t forgotten to put your shorts on after your leg warmer socks and under vest. I did threaten to do that the other day, but no. Um yeah, you know what though, on on this topic, not leg warmers and no shorts. I actually was vindicated with my cargo bike. So I didn’t change the chain and I went into the bike shop. I made a video about it and then I remember after three years the guy was like, “Yeah, you should have changed your chain before cuz it’s worn the cassette out now.” Do you know what the chain because it was a double length chain was 70 quid. The cassette only cost me 40. I was like, “Well, if I’d replaced my chain before, it would have cost me 140 quid as opposed to 40.” So, yeah. Anyway, there are exceptions. I can tell you feel very good about that. I do. Yeah. Uh, right. Got any more? Yes. talking to people about cycling who have zero interest in cycling. Yeah. Has this happened to you recently? So, it almost sounds like a fresh wound. No, I like to think that I’m very good at reading the room. I’ve just been told many times that I shouldn’t talk about cycling. Um, but it means I don’t notice it when other people Ollie Bridge would do. This is not confined to the subject of cycling really. There are lots of people who are passionate about any other subject who can go overboard when talking about it to people who clearly aren’t interested in or even who are interested but only to a certain point. Um and I’d say cycling is particularly an easy sport to get addicted to and obsessed with, isn’t it? Yeah. This is where I got that pep talk from my sister when I was in my teens. So, she politely suggested that I might need to find something else to talk about so as not to become one of the most boring people on the planet. Not in those exact words, but that was certainly the insinuation at the time. Yeah. And little did she know that you’d end up being paid to talk about cycling. Yeah. Who’s laughing now? Well, exactly. Nobody that’s not interested in cycling. That’s for sure. They’re all bored to tears. In fact, they’ve probably left this video. Precisely the point where we were talking about wearing leg warmers and no shorts. Exactly. But uh yeah, I’d actually genuinely like to hear from people on this though. I mean, there must be some really funny stories from people watching this about bike boards at parties. So, let us know in the comment section just down below. Yeah. The good thing about bike boards is they’re only boring until 9:00 p.m. at which point they’ll have left the party. Oh, yes. So, got to go back to bed, aren’t they? Yeah. Or go back to do their bike maintenance in plenty of time ahead of their group ride the next day. Losers. Yeah. Okay. Hey, the last thing that a lot of us do that we probably shouldn’t do, it’s a good one. This, isn’t it? Wear old shorts. It’s a classic this, isn’t it? I mean, in much the same way as not replacing chains and brake pads. We’re all guilty of it. We’ve all But we’ve all been on that crew ride where there’s someone normally a bloke is wearing shorts so old that they leave nothing to the imagination when you’re riding behind them. Man, we should have had another warning for people currently eating really for that, shouldn’t we? The thing is, I don’t think that you’d know unless somebody else pointed it out to you. Because I mean, when you’re not wearing those shorts and they’re not stretched, they probably don’t look too worn. No. And then when you’re wearing them, you can only see them from the front, which generally doesn’t work as quickly, does it? So, the only people witnessing this horrific scene are those that are riding behind you. Yeah. Who are now scarred for life, aren’t they? I mean, it’s really not a good look. see through Lyra with like Yeah, exactly. So, I think a little bit like the pep talk I had from my sister, I think we as cyclists probably have a responsibility to politely point out to these people what the problem is so they don’t continue to embarrass themselves. Excuse me. I’m terribly sorry. I just thought I’d let you know that that I can clearly see your bum crack in those shorts. So, um I don’t want to consider buying a new pair. Exactly. Or or maybe a used pair in good condition. I mean they they they do get sold on eBay. They do. Yeah. They be washed, wouldn’t they? I mean, you sit on public toilet seats, don’t you? They do. Yeah. Yeah. Is it the same thing? Well, it’s not far off, is it? I mean, I bet those toilet seats have not been washed by Daz if you can do where you’re going with this. Jesus, everyone make sure they are not see-through. Okay. And that brings us to the end of this part of the show. But do make sure you get involved in the comments because I reckon there are going to be a lot of you with some stories to tell particularly on that last subject. Yeah. Comment of the week next week is going to be interesting. That’s for sure. And also just chip in with any other things that that we’ve missed. Basically things that cyclist do that we really shouldn’t. Yeah. And if you have broach the subject of worn shorts to somebody, let us know what the response was. And now it’s time for cycling shorts. Cycling shorts now. And we will start with that good news that record-breaking French ultra cyclist Sophian Sahili has been released from the Russian prison that he’s been held in for the last 2 months. As a reminder, he was arrested having illegally entered the country from China in order to finish his record-breaking ride across Eurasia. Although in reality, he tried to get in via conventional means, but had been denied access on his bike. Yeah. Now following that good news with yet more good news. My team won their Zift Community Racing. Really? I mean that genuinely is quite good news. Hell yeah. It’s good. Yeah. Teamwork and commitment that would put a world tour team to shame. But I got to give a shout out to team captain Mark. He is frighteningly organized. By my reckoning. He has sent over 1,245 WhatsApp messages over the course of the last 5 weeks. Well, no. I mean, I didn’t count them, but I was mighty impressed. I’m not sure what he does in real life, but I expect it’s probably running a footsy 100 cup. I expect so. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, onwards and upwards, lads. Well done again. Congrats to all the other teams as well. Alex, Alex’s crew were robbed in the final round. Otherwise, we’d have actually had two winners. Well, robbed/complacent, I heard. Oh, yeah. They elected not to race again. Oh, they need their team time. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Anyway, next up, uh, Met have just released a new helmet, an updated version of their Trenter 3K, which you’ll know from both our heads and also TAD Patches. So, this new one has a slightly different external shape, uh, which I got to say, I absolutely love. Um, but importantly, the construction’s changed. So, it now has full ventilation channels front to back, which improves the air flow down by 16%. But more importantly, it’s now one of Virginia Tech’s best rated helmets. Well, that is quite a prestigious list, isn’t it? The Virginia Tech best rated helmets. It is indeed. Now, you said this helmet is yours. Yep. Why is it white? I don’t actually know, but I’m pleased with it. Well, I know, but did you ask for a white one in case you won the World Championships and needed something to go with your new rainbow jersey? It might have been that or for winning the National Hill Climb Champs, which is also quite a white jersey. No spoilers. No. Uh right. Okay. Anyway, that’s cool that is it? It does look good. Yes, I’m pleased. As I said, uh moving on. Uh while we’re talking about new stuff, Zift have just released 31 km of new roads to their New York World. I got to use it last week in my final preparation for the affforementioned National Hill Climb Championships. Yeah. How was it, Dan? Um well, on the Zift part, in between the very intense intervals with enormous power, enormous power site, it was quite enjoyable. Yes. Uh these 31ks make it Zift’s biggest ever expansion in one hit and it’s going to give 12 new bike route options. That’s cool, isn’t it? Uh now we said no spoilers. How did you go at the Well, there are not going to be any spoilers for national climb champs site. That is a secret. You have to wait for the upcoming video which you’ll be able to watch on this very channel this coming Saturday. What I will say Sai is that Dr. Ollie Bridgewood took it very very seriously. Yeah. Standard. Standard. Yeah. Did it work for him? As I said, you’ll have to find out. I mean, I don’t think he’s done any work, has he, for a while in the leadup to this? He’s as He’s worked very hard towards the hill climb challenge, but outside of that, no work. That’s it. Yeah. Nothing at all. He’s basically been a pro, hasn’t he? For the last what, week? Probably week. More than a week. At least. Well, since before the Bath Hill Climb raises that we did, and they were three weeks ago. Okay. Yeah. Well, in the meantime, before we find out, we can all b our time with this very interesting piece of research published in transportation research. Which part? Part F. Ah, I think. Yeah, that’s a particularly good part. Oh, yeah. And this is a particularly good study. Okay. So, it looked at barriers to human scale travel through marginalized groups experiences of streets. Wow. And well, number one is that streets need to be designed to factor in non-motorized traffic. But top of the list is separating modes of transport. So what we all know, separating bikes from cars, but very importantly as well, separating bikes from pedestrians, too. Now, if you’ve watched the GCN show over the last few weeks, you’re probably going to be well aware of the saga of Straa suing Garmin. But you can now rest easy because Straa have officially dropped the lawsuit against Garmin. So, so that’s good, isn’t it? Brilliant. Yeah. Um, a few lawyers probably made a few quid, haven’t they? Straa might have lost a little bit of goodwill, but hey, Pristo, here we go. I I’d love to have been behind the scenes in those board meetings and know the inside story to that one. On the wall, I wouldn’t want to actually have been on the board. No, cuz that might have been quite stressful. Oh, man. I’d imagine there’s somebody off the board at this point. Anyway, next up, American electric car company Rivian have a spin-off microobility company called Also, and last week they showcased their first ebike, the TMB. Yeah, I mean, I’m not sure what to think about this, Dan. Okay, I think I like it, but it feels like by being so different, it might be creating more problems for its customers than its attempts to solve. You looked like you were on the edge of getting grumpy about that one. S you teated there. You held yourself back. No, possibly a bit. Yes. And the big one is that it’s pedal by wire. Okay. So, the pedals are not connected to the belt that then drives the rear wheel. So, instead, your pedals power a small generator which then contributes a small amount of power to the motor. Presumably having lost quite a bit cuz I suspect that’s far less efficient than a chain. That sounds quite similar to that VOC you were driving/ riding last week. Well, I’m raving about. Yes. I mean, that is a fair point. That’s exactly like the VO last week. But to the Vox Defense, it was a completely different vehicle, right? This one, the Rivian also is kind of trying to reinvent the bicycle. Well, maybe we need to do that side to win some people over. It sounds really intuitive actually for non-cyclists with lots of power and torque, but delivered in a seamless way with well, with no gears to operate. Well, yeah. I mean that is true. It does weigh 45 kilos or 90 pounds. Yeah. And also whilst that frame looks really funky, where do you put your lock? Like how like you can’t lock it up. No. Although it’s only worth $4,000 though, so it might be worth locking up. So cheap for bikes these days, isn’t it? In a world of premium ebikes. Too bad, is it? Uh, and the head of that company is a guy called Chris U, who’s actually one of the lead engineers that Specialized for quite a long time, about a decade, I think. So, yeah. Well, yeah, that lends it some credibility. I’ll give you that. So, I’m going to reserve judgment. Um, I Yeah. H we’ll see what happens. I think I can’t see well I can see it working in the US with the different laws that they have there about different speeds of ebikes and different powers but I don’t know that it’s going to work worldwide and I also can’t help but think it’s just not the answer to simplifying transport is it? Yes, it’s better than a car but it is way worse than a bike or a lightweight electric bike. Yeah, you’ve gone you’ve gone over teeter and gone over the edge. You’re a hard man to please sign aren’t you? Yes, basically. Right, we will finish cycling shorts with news of the Lifetime Grand Prix. This pleases me. I’m not I’m not pleased. Yeah. Um, so it’s America’s premier gravel and sort of endurance mountain bike racing series. Fresh off the back of the finish of the 2025 season, which was literally like two weekends ago. We’ve now got a lowdown on 26 where there are going to be six events uh three mountain bike and three gravel the same as this year in fact and with a prize purse of $59,000. I might enter. That sounds like quite a lot. Yeah. I don’t know whether the prize purse extends down to midpack veterans. Best positive split of the day. Best best rider on two hours training a week. Well, there is that. Done more than that since the world. Well, yeah. I mean, you had to peak for the Hill Cl. Uh, you were telling me you got you got ripped as well. Lean. Well, I’m down to 73 kg. Yeah. Not deliberately. So, as I’ve mentioned in previous GN shows, I don’t really want to lose weight, but um I’m actually going to go and do a DEXA scan soon to see how cycling’s changed my body composition. We must might be two or three people out there interested in seeing. Well, weirdly, I’m looking forward I’m looking forward to it. I was looking forward to it and you put that image in my head. Uh, no. There’ll be a video, won’t it? Coming soon and not of you in leg warmers and no shorts. No, that’s just a thumbnail. Like an an update of Dan’s health and fitness. Uh, right. Um, there is one left thing left in cycling shorts now. That is to announce the winner of the Hover Air Pro Max bundle. That’s the one. So, this is the self-flying drone with 8K camera, which automatically tracks you from whichever angle you tell it to, plus a whole load of cool accessories that come with it. Yeah, this is really cool. This prize is. Yeah. The winner of it is Michael Furby. Well done, Michael. If we haven’t already been in touch with you, we will be soon. And you’ll be receiving that hoverair bundle. Well done. Next up, as you know, it’s hack/bodgege of the week. Globalcycling.com/uploader to get involved in this part of the show. Uh the first person to get involved this week is Robert. Uh, I’m commuting with this bike around 60 kilometers per day. So, I’m all into minimalistic solutions. Instead of a bulky and heavy edge computer, I mounted my old Garmin Fenix watch, a broadcast heart rate from my phone on a wearable, plus power meter and radar light. Below, I mounted an AliExpress frog lens 300 lm flashlight, which is also a service and SOS lamp. Not only that, it also has a power bank, so I can charge anything with it. All accessories have great battery life, so you don’t need to worry about it before they go outside. Right now, mate, that’s good. So, on a charge, I can make even more hours of riding as with the Garmin Edge computer. Plus, it’s somewhat arrow. I mean, it’s just say somewhat arrow. Yeah, I mean, I can see that actually. It kind of doesn’t look super neat, but equally, I mean, I can’t argue with the function of it, isn’t it? It’s like head on, it does look a little bit more air than from the side. Looks like a bit of a brick from the side. But, um, I mean, it does make me think, right? I don’t think there’s much of a market for super minimalist head units. But equally, clearly some people would like, you know, strip down, take out loads of features, really small, you know, we got the Wahoo Element Bolt, which is super neat and small. But then maybe you could condense it down half the features, half the size. Well, I think Ollie put in a request for that ahead of the hill climb jam. Just didn’t quite get to him in time, unfortunately. Oh, no. Yeah, good point. It was a bit heavy as head unit for Ollie. Yeah, poor lad. That what is it? An extra 50 g. So I think that’s 0. 0.5 seconds. I think you worked out. Was it? Yeah. Uh right. What we going with that one? Uh I think I’m going to say hack to be fair. I’m going hack just for the charging during the uh during the ride. Yeah. No, I think that’s cool that. Yeah. Okay. What we got next? This one is from Vitia. The sponge is the answer. Okie do. Uh, I realized that my head unit is extremely wobbly, so I tried to fix it with this awesome hack. I get the sense there’s a bit of sarcasm involved in this. Yeah, I don’t I still can’t quite work it out. There’s a lot of stuff on the front of your bike. What is that? Is that like a storage unit mounted between arrow bars? Ultra endurance style, I guess. Actually, going back to what we were talking about earlier, this is one of the things that on my gravel bike, I do need to replace the head unit mount because it has started to rattle a bit, but I just every time I forget until the next ride and then think to myself, I need to replace that and never get around to it. Yeah. No, that what I won’t be doing is just putting some sponge underneath it. Although, you could put it on I don’t know if it needs to be there. Does it? Just isn’t in the cradle. Little bit of like one strip of cardboard. Sorting it out, mate. That’s my hack for Let’s say bodgege then, shall we? Yeah, Bodgege. I’m going Bodgege. Anyway, Darren wrote in say recreating the steep slopes of Bank Road, scene of the National Hill Climb Champs from Sundayside. Is that what it felt like, mate? Uh, final preparation for the National Hill Climb Champs on Bank Road with plus 20% sections. We improvised with the indoor trainer, stacking toolboxes to raise the front wheel as high as we could. Uh, they weren’t the most stable, so definitely added to the balance issues like to be felt on the race day. Ruby, 8 years old, is competing in her second national hill climb champs. Or second national hill climb. Yeah, champs. Fair play. Uh, that looks I mean it’s hard to tell from the angle of the photo, but it looks a little bit more than 20%. It does look a shade more, doesn’t it? It looks like the kind of thing that you could practice doing wheelies with. Yeah, you know those like wheelie wheelie practices that mountain bikers have. Um, well, I suppose what we don’t know is how Ruby got on. If she smashed it, then it’s a hack. We can find out. But again, no spoilers. All right. No spoilers. No spoilers. I mean, I have to say it was great to see so many youngsters competing at National Hill Climb Champs. I think I might have beaten a couple of them. Oh, really? I showed him what’s what. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. When you say youngsters, do you mean anyone under 40? Very good, S. Very good. Thanks. Yeah. Uh, right. Okay. Last one for Hacker Bodgege. Graeme Pierce. Oh, Graeme is the person I was lined up next to at the World Gravel Champs for an hour and a quarter. That still meant we were basically near the back of the grid. Um, but anyway, we got Didn’t hold you back though, did it, mate? Got to know each other so well. We exchanged numbers and he sent me this hack. Did you bodgege? Uh, my daughter is getting into cycling. So, I bought her a bike, decent value ribble, and got her Elite Turbo. Gave her cycling shorts and the top plus helmet. Set her up online. The one thing I didn’t find for her was some shoes. I’m like, here are some cleaches. Buy shoes from Dclapon or whatever. And then this is what she sent me. So for podcast listeners, Graeme’s daughter has put some Crocs on the pedals and just gaffitate them on. Brilliant. I mean, what can you say to that? Absolutely brilliant. I mean, one almighty massive bodgege. Um, but uh yeah, I mean the the one plus side is if you get really sweaty feet on the indoor trainer, you’ll be able to clean them pretty pretty well. Well, they’re quite airrated as well. Crocs, aren’t they? They look not ventilation at the front. Yeah. Not when you gaffer tape over all the holes, but uh still have some holes visible at the front. Well, yeah. I mean, there’s no wind going that direction. I guess when you’re static on an indoor trainer, depending on the fan situation, maybe you could have a foot fan. Yeah. I’ll never forget, do you remember during CO when like everyone was doing indoor training? Like all the pros were doing indoor training videos. I forget who it was. Some pro like I don’t think it could have been TJ Vanguard, someone American guy anyway. And he like it was a clip of him getting off his indoor trainer after like a one of the Zift World races or whatever and he rung his socks out. I was like I didn’t I didn’t think feet could sweat that much. Unbelievable. Yeah. So maybe he would have benefited from some Crocs. He would have benefited from changing his weight in game based on that sweat rate. It’s a good point. Anyway, uh we’re going to go Well, I’m going to go bodgege and putting words into your mouth. Yeah, I mean I think that is a bodgege, isn’t it? I mean, it’s it’s there’s a degree of ingenuity there to make make sure she could ride the bike at all, but I’m still saying botch. Sorry, Graeme and your daughter. Well, no, hang on. You don’t even Why would you put Crocs on there? You could put like some, you know, at least trainers on there. Yeah. No, it’s a bodgege. It’s a bodgege. Sorry. Bodgege. Yeah. Right. Look forward to receiving your um hacks and budges ready for next week’s show. It’s time now for caption composition. 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 caption a photo. We’ll give you in just one second. Uh stick it in the comment section down below. We’ll pick a winner next week. Start though, as always, with results from last week. Dan, you said this might be one of the best ever. Oh yes, this is a great caption. Uh the photo is this one of Paul Manet on the podium at tour of Hangji with a cardboard cutout of himself. Our winner is Carl Ford who put Paul shown that he was cut out for racing. Genius. Amazing. Very good, Carl. Get in touch us on Facebook with your address. We’ll get a bottle sent out to you. Very, very good indeed. It’s like it’s like that old catchphrase thing. Just say what you see, Carl. Say what you see. But yeah, genius. Right. Um, what you see here for this week’s caption are two riders from the Queen stage of the tour of Hangi. I should point out this is after the finish, but it’s quite a short, punchy 10-minute climb. Everyone goes flat out, or most people do. I will get you started, guys. You never guess what the new G Sen show is out now. If you watch it, well, I mean, maybe that was just the thought of uh seeing you in leg warmers and no shorts. No, it’s you that they were singing leg warmers, no shorts. That was your anecdote. Yeah. Okay, good point. What was that? I screenshotted a comment and sent it over to you about having to explain your caption competition. Oh, yes. What was that? Seems a bit like dissecting a frog or something, wasn’t it? That’s right. Not really worth it. Or or all the motivation’s gone by the end of it. Uh, no, but by the end it’s dead. What? Oh, man. But we send each other a lot of messages, don’t we? Yeah, we do. Yeah. That photo was leg warmers. That’s all right, mate. I knew you’d like it. Where has it gone? I can’t find it. Well, if we hadn’t already lost all the viewers at the end of the first part of the show, we have now. Yeah. All right. Sorry. There was a blooming great comment that I sent to Dan about about why my captions are rubbish basically. Basically. Yeah. Uh right. Okay. Like um should we go seamlessly into what’s coming up on the channel and before that comment of the week? Yes, I think we should. All right. Underneath last week’s GCN show, this is the future. What do we need to do about it? Gilbert Tang wrote in say I’m definitely not tired of Andrew Feather content and does Dan and Dan does not put out crap. I was Does Dan put out crap? I was like, “Yes.” Uh, in both instances, I’m inspired more often than not, this is exactly why I keep coming back for more, watching good people grow, rebound, overcome, try new things, learn new things, push themselves, and advocate for cycling. Uh, advocate, should I say. This is why Gen matters. That’s very, very kind of you, Gilbert. Thank you very much. I said Gilbert and Gilbert. I’ve covered all bases at this point. Yeah. Uh, correction corner. Oh, I don’t like these. Oh, I put this in. Yeah, you were wrong last week. Was I? Yeah. I I wasn’t going to bother putting it in until he pointed out um the comment that you’d sent me about captions. So, here we go. A 10-hour gap in a 50-day race is equivalent to a twominute gap in a 4hour race. I don’t want to do the maths again. No, somebody’s done it for you. So, well, yeah, but were they like you’re saying that DP7558 is right purely because they’ve picked me up on it. Maybe they’re not. I think they will reply to DP7558 saying, “Thank you for pointing it out. I was going to do the same thing.” So, clearly we’re wrong side. Yeah. The hydra of keys. I feel like lower tax and cost will be enough of an incentive for people to use these vans. In Japan, Kai cars were popular for that reason. Yeah, I Yeah, I’m all for it, mate. All for uh micromobility and humanized transport. Uh Andre Hanzel, I would have bought a full suspension gravel bike for sure. The only reason why I don’t have a gravel bike is that they have no suspension. There we go. Interesting. Yeah, to see the uptake with the advent of suspension on bikes. Unbelievable stuff. Meanwhile, underneath the GCN presenter challenge, um Simon Lee 7121 up vote if you would like to see Alex and Lloyd do Unbound on a tandem next year. Uh as we record this, it’s had in the region of 500 likes. That comment, not bad. I actually Do you know what? I wouldn’t put you through it. No. Like sending you to Unbound on a on a normal bike, I suppose. At least with a tandem, you’ve got Alex to pan. Yeah. At least at least. Yeah, exactly. I don’t need to pedal much. No. No. I mean, that did make me chuckle all through that race be like, “God, this feels really easy.” And then behind you, Alex is Well, I wasn’t that. This didn’t quite make the edit in the way I thought it might. I wasn’t finding it easy, but every time I looked at my heart rate, I was like, “Surely, surely I’m putting more effort in than that heart rate suggests.” And in twothirds of the way through the race, as was in the edit, I realized that I had Connor’s heart rate and he was not putting any effort in. Unbelievable. But what was so funny is that Connor was looking at your heart rate going like, “I’m having a really bad day here. This feels so hard.” Oh dear. Yeah. Poor old Connor. His head fell off, didn’t it? Um the uh Dunkey 90. I enjoyed Dan farming Alex’s power for Zift Achievement. I had to delete the ride because it had updated my FTP, making my workouts too hard. Uh, Adam Branson put, “One of the greatest GM videos of modern times, matched only by the random bike races of the lasty period.” Oh, Adam, I’m so pleased you’ve been with us that long. That’s amazing. Um, and then Greg Midn 20 minutes of laughing here. Great video, guys. So, yeah, thank you very much, guys. Quite a few people seem to enjoy that video, which was nice to see. Just like the National Hill Climb Champs on Saturday. Boom. It’s the one we’ve all been waiting for. It is. Yeah. Yeah. We all wanted to win that. I bet you No one as outwardly as Ollie, but we all Some of us secretly wanted to win it. Some of us just wanted to win it. I wanted to win it. I just couldn’t be there. Now I know. How did the swimming gala go? Uh, good. Yeah. Um, I didn’t get booed as the announcer. Oh, that’s good. They’re going to invite you back again. Well, I don’t know. My fingers are crossed, mate. I uh yeah, I didn’t used to like swimming and then now I really do like swimming. Not actually doing it, I don’t want to get wet, but uh I like it as a sport. You do get out 3 minutesish of pain. They are they’re hard hill climbs. My goodness. Anyway, yeah. Did you taste blood at the end? Pretty much. Did you spend the rest of the day coughing? Yes. No, it’s not gone yet. Anyway, we’ve been rambling along. Thanks again for watching. See you next week.

34 Comments

  1. Once out on a group ride, I informed a new lady (very politely 😊) that her shorts were indeed a little see through (to the point I could see her French knickers!) and her reply was "yeah thanks, I know" 😮 I had no words!!

  2. When I started getting a bit serious about cycling I bought the cheapest padded bicycle shorts from Decathlon. I think they cost 9 euros or something. Turned out they were pretty much see through right off the shelf. Luckily I noticed this before ever going out for a ride. Being a newbie at the whole thing I opted for dark underwear to mitigate the issue.

  3. I have solved the problem of riding out either overdressed or underdressed by creating a sort of “table of equivalences”, matching temperatures with corresponding clothing. That way I have a quick snapshot of what I need to put on. For longer rides, I factor in one removable layer. Not at all scientific, simply based on my own experience, but it works.

  4. I think you should try to develop an agreed euphemism for the faded bibshorts problem. That way everyone could be 'informed' in a less embarrassing way. You could have a GCN competition with a prize (water bidon maybe) to establish a widely agreed method. I suggest "Getting a bit free from behind, mate".

  5. I'm 47 and taken up cycling this year after the passing of a friend. I've completed 3 gravel events and just did a 220km road event. Thank you for all your content, it's been a big motivation and enjoyment to watch. Keep up the good work. Thanks

  6. Keep up the good work Si & Dan. You two work really well together after all these years. I throughly enjoy your videos and mostly the banter, it’s good to see blokes being mates in this disjointed world with mental health challenges. It’s a tonic.
    I used to really like the epic ride videos in the GCN+ days particularly with Mark Beaumont and Jenny Graham. Anything in the pipeline with the next generation perhaps, their successors with similar big rides?
    Regards Rob form Down Under 🦘🙃

  7. I regularly underdress. I forget what was comfortable last year and end up getting chilly on the first few rides of fall. Also, judging by what other cyclists on the road are wearing, I’m underdressed even when I’m comfortable.

  8. #1 yep, definitely doing this and normally in public changing rooms before heading into the public bath. So I am kind of doing it both ways. When getting undressed prior to the bath first the shorts come off then legs warmer and socks. And when I get dressed again after the bath socks > leg warmer > shorts. But public dressing rooms in onsen in Japan are chill. Anyway everyone is ending up naked soaking in the hot water together.

  9. Talking about pulling on leg warmers a friend of mine told me once that as he was getting ready for a ride one morning he caught sight of himself, leg warmers and arm warmers on but not much else and reckoned he looked like an aging transvestite – I nearly fell off my bike laughing at the thought

  10. The issue with Strava suing Garmin was never that I was worried about Garmin or worried about them getting along; I don't understand the "everything's fine now" takeaway. The issue is that Strava seems to be pushing the envelope with regard to how much they can lay claim to user data and push away all the related services they get it from or send it to. I may miss swapping kudos a bit, but I have no regrets about the episode pushing me to cancel my Strava account.

  11. I have a friend who is both very tight with money and somewhat thin-skinned. It was mildly awkward explaining to him that he needed to dispose of his shorts and get a new pair. I think I need therapy to deal with what I saw. It's every bit as graphic and as horrible as you might imagine. And about the "tights before shorts" topic: I thought I was the only one disturbed by this. It's not a good look!

  12. Twenty years ago I told a friend her shorts were transparent. She still brings it up today. I mentioned it sinceshe usually rides alone & might not know. I thought I was being helpful. Guess not 😅.

  13. I am sharing this story with full permission of my other half. She is known for hanging onto kit for too long despite me telling her it is ok to buy new stuff as she commutes daily and her kit gets a lot of wear. But to no avail. Anyway, she was commuting home one day on her ‘foggy’ detour cycle path when she met a couple of touring cyclists going the opposite way but stopped. She loves a chat so checked they were ok and then proceeded to talk to them for about ten minutes. Obvs being cyclists they were checking out each others gear, looking each other up and down – bikes and cycling kit. The chat ended and she set off for the last four miles or so home. When she arrived home and went to get changed, she realised her shorts’ front seam had slit wide open leaving her pubes on full display to everyone including the two touring cyclists! Obviously she threw them away…but she didn’t. She thought she’d repair them. They went in the wash and it was me that removed them from the washing line and binned them.

  14. What I like about the Also bike is that the company completely rethought what an e-bike could be. It seems like the only things they kept as requirements were 2 wheels, pedals, a place to sit, and handlebars. We're so used to seeing every new e-bike looking only slightly different than the last. I think there is a possibility of this bike appealing to riders who don't want to learn about shifting gears and it may be more user-friendly than other bikes. I think the price will limit significant adoption and I hope they have a plan to reduce the price with a de-featured model that does away with the suspension but I'm looking forward to a test ride as soon as possible.

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