What Bike Am I Using for the UK’s HARDEST SPORTIVE? – Dragon Ride 2025

It’s almost time. Dragon Ride 2025. Today I’m going to be showing off my bike setup.

Strava – J Mow
Zwift – Jarrod Mower
Instagram – JMowerFitness
Zwiftpower – https://zwiftpower.com/profile.php?z=4323586

Gear
Insta360 One x5
Wahoo Element Ace
Trek Domane AL 3

Contact me: JMowerEnquiries@pm.me

hi guys welcome back today i am going to be taking you through my bike check for the dragon ride sport in england actually technically it’s in wales but still so if you don’t know this is probably the hardest grand fondo/sportive thing in the uk it is pretty brutal the longest route is 296 km with over 4,000 meters of climbing so making sure your bike is in good shape is one of the most important things you can do so quick rundown i am still on the trusty old trek demane al3 love that bike it has served me perfectly for the last four four years i think i’ve had it yeah getting on it’s been a while it’s definitely a mid-range bike about £1,000 new but it does everything i need it but i have made a few modifications to make it a bit better for such a hilly event right first off is the gearing stock this comes with a two by but i’ve swapped it out for a one by i did that just because i wanted to try electronic shifting so on the front i’m running quite a small chain ring i’ve got a 36 to there and on the back i have a 10 to 36 so that should give me enough to get up all the hills 1:1 ratio is good for just being able to spin them out there are a lot of hills like i said on this course but none of them are too too steep most of them average around 5 or 6% but obviously there are points where it gets like 15 16% so for those bits it’s good to have a really low gear just so you can make sure you can get up them properly for the downhills i will definitely be spinning out but i don’t plan on really pushing the speed on the downhills anyway i’m not like a speed demon like that i just want to get down safely so in terms of comfort it is an endurance geometry the bike is not designed for getting really low and fast so for a long 8 9h hour ride like this it is going to be pretty good so the saddle i’ve obviously swapped out the stock one i have a rock solid carbon fiber one i don’t know if it’s real carbon fiber that’s what it said on aliexpress it was about a tenner and this saddle really does agree with me for some reason it doesn’t look particularly comfortable but i’ve never had any problems with it and it weighs almost nothing i did go on the search for more comfort by trying some softer saddles but none of them really agreed with me so i’m sticking with my tried and tested old saddle here so let me talk about the front of the bike on the handlebars i have a set of stram blips these let you change gear from different places this is one of the advantages of electronic shifting so i’ve put them on the handlebars so when i’m sitting upright on a climb i can shift without having to put my hands back into the normal position so that’s just nice it means you don’t have to be faffing around with changing where your hands are i also at the front have my camera mount and bike computer mount i’m running an insta 360 x5 at the front that’s obviously just so i can make the youtube videos and it is a pretty good camera i would recommend it if you are into 360 cameras i also have a separate mount for my bike computer you might be thinking why don’t you just put it on the same mount where your camera is and to be honest i did think about that the only problem is that my bike computer is so big that it blocks the light that shows me whether the camera is recording or not so that’s a bit of a hassle also if i have it on the right hand side slightly it means i can press all the buttons on my bike computer without having to move my hands off the handlebar so again it’s just a another convenience thing it’s easy to press all three buttons with just my thumb again not having to take your hand off is always a bit more convenient the bike computer i’m running is quite new it is the wahoo element ace i upgraded from my garmin edge 530 a couple of months ago and to be honest at first i was like this computer is way way too big but it has grown on me especially when you’re following a route it’s really nice to be able to have quite a lot of data up and then still have a really big map screen especially when you’re going on a long ride like this and you’re going to be following the route most of the day it’s quite useful to have it also has a wind sensor on it which is a bit of a meme but i do quite like it it’s nice to see the wind speed go down when you’re sitting behind someone for example that’s also why i have it on the separate mount because to get accurate wind data it needs to be perfectly parallel with the ground and unfortunately the camera mount is not parallel it’s at about a 10° angle so the wind data i get when it’s mounted on that is just really bad and inaccurate so i have it on the other one just to make sure i get cool accurate data probably not a consideration for most people but i like having the numbers being correct so i’ve swapped out the standard cranks i used to have 175 millimeter cranks but i swapped them out to 165s i thought i’d give it a go and to be honest it hasn’t made much difference to me at first when i first got them it felt a bit weird but it took like a day or two to get used to them and now it just feels normal i sold my old crank set because they had a power meter in them and it was a bit redundant because i also have power meter pedals so i ended up actually making a profit from selling my old cranks and getting a new set so that’s pretty good the pedals are favo aiomas they are the mountain bike versions spds i have never got along well with road bike pedals and to be honest i think they’re just a bit of a hassle unless you’re actually racing which i’m not i always prefer to be able to walk around properly in my cycling shoes in terms of power data you get left and right side so pretty good stuff there so let’s talk about my repair kit i have this in a bottle cage on the very bottom of my bike it contains a lot of stuff i’ve got two tubes and everything else that i’ll probably need to repair anything that goes wrong unless it’s a major major catastrophe but if that happens then i probably have bigger problems to worry about so two spare tubes i am running tubeless so hopefully if i do get any sort of puncture it should seal itself up but it’s always good to be prepared i also have my tire levers and a few co2 canisters so i should be good to go there i don’t really get along with tpu tubes i’ve always found that when you use them with co2 they don’t seem to hold the air very well so that’s why i’m sticking with proper rubber ones they are a bit heavier but my entire setup is really heavy so it doesn’t really make that much difference so for water i will be triple bottling it i will have two bottles on the bike and then one in my back pocket the feed stations are around every 50 km but the forecast even though it’s still like a week out does say it’s going to be really hot and i do not function well in the heat so extra water is always going to be useful that’s why i’d rather be safe than sorry and have three bottles rather than two in terms of food i will mostly have carbohydrates mixed into my water i will take a few gels as well i’m wearing cargo bib shorts so i’m going to put them in my leg pockets when i first got these cargo bib shorts i thought it would feel a bit weird having things in the pockets by your legs but honestly they’re really good you don’t feel it once you get going and you can store a surprising amount of stuff in them so how much does my entire setup weigh with the computer camera bottles empty bottles i should say it weighs over 10 kg so it’s definitely a pretty heavy bike and i’m a pretty heavy person so it does match up quite well anyway that’s it for this one that is my bike setup for the dragon ride let me know what you think in the comments down below any tips on how i can improve it then i will definitely be interested in hearing about it anyway that’s it from me i’ll be dropping a final video at the end of this week about my preparation and how it’s been going but that is it for this one i will see you in the next one peace out