Long term bike ownership philosophy

This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast network. We all have busy lives and knowing when to train and to rest is what leads to better quality, more consistent riding. Ain't no time for burnout guys. I'm busy. Data helps take the guesswork out of training, which is why today's episode is supported by Garmin, who are legends when it comes to data. Pairing a Garmin Edge head unit with a rally power meter gives you metrics like power, cadence, and left right balance. And with heart rate data from your watch or heart rate monitor, you can calculate your recovery and training readiness. That means smarter sessions and fewer blow ups halfway through the climb. Thanks to Garmin for supporting the show from Variah Radar Tail lights and camera headlights to edge bike computers, tax trainers, rally power meter pedals, Garmin cover performance and safety from every angle. One other piece of news, Garmin Rideout is back and we're all gonna be there.. Yep. Yeah We had a lot of fun last year. I'm looking forward to it. Reunited again. It's a lovely eighty K ride around the new forest which is in southern England. It's an aid of action medical research and the route is fantastic. There's also an event village where the talks from people. It's a great day out. So maybe see you there. thirtieth of may. So we'll put a link in the description if you want to sign up. And if you are there, make sure you say hello. It's the ones, it's the wild ones I had to go scrambling down a cliff yesterday . Why? Like, you know, I got a new drone, but it's like a teeny tiny little one and it tracks you and I have had it three weeks and I've crashed it or it's crashed itself ten times probably . It's not a good track record, is it? It's not going well. But because it's so tiny and small, it crashes and it's sort of fine, unless it goes down a cliff, in which case I have to go and retrieve it. It was quite far down. It was worrying. It's kind of like part of being a droney person, isn't it? Is that you're going to crash them and then you're going to have to climb down a cliff. The tracking's getting quite good, but until you like you're riding a bike and you change direction . And then it doesn't track. No, but it's like a big like a hair pin. It was a full change of direction, then it really is like what are you doing ? And it just goes like fast and smashes into a bush and then catapults everywhere I did it on a closed road, closed road , safe place, zero people always . And it's light enough that you're allowed to fly it. Here's a question. If it was zero people, what are you? Cyclists. They don't count as people. That's why people run us over as much. That's good. That's good. We're seen as sub human Very good. Very good. Really get into the hard hitting issues on this podcast, aren't we? Yeah, yeah. Straight in yeah, bang. Well , thanks for that story. I think that our fluff up the week covered already. Oh, good. Yeah, thanks. My life's so fluff up . Welcome back to the Wild One's podcast, the show where we chat about bike stuff. I am Jimmy. This is Francis. Hey, this is Produced Rem ole. Hello. And thanks to Garmin for supporting the show. What else are you guys been up to? The Rose, Shave and Shave FF video dropped ? Yes, they are bikes. They are bikes, yeah, not razor blades. What do you think of the name shave ? Um well I guess it's like shaving seconds off of your time . It's a five out of ten. It just reminds me of shaving your legs. It's probably not where they're going for, but that's what I think of. That's why my brain jumps to. Mine as well. For context, we should say this is a bike that kind of comes into geometries, doesn't it? They're both called the Rose Saveh . There's just the shave and the FF and also the FFX or something. But ultimately it's the ethos of like one bike in two geometries, a sort of racy one and a more endurance racey one. And we actually talked about it on this podcast and we liked the ideas we called it in no spoilers, but we gave our opinion on whether we thought they did that well. It achieved what they set out to achieve. Exactly that. So go and watch the video and find out if they did. I have a question for the audience, which might which definitely contains spoilers, but actually we didn't talk about it too much in the video 'cause I think it's a bigger topic . Question for the audience, do you care if your top tube on a carbon bike is squishy or soft ? A lot of carbon bikes have this and is the reason you're not supposed to sit on your Top Tube, which everyone does . But these after filming, we noticed they are like extremely soft. What do you think about this? Well, I would first like to say, how did we find out that they were extremely soft, Jimmy? Sound on the top Jude. We have a bike rack which every single bike that gets covered on our channel will inevitably be on if it's shot in the UK and as part of clamping the top tube, which is not hard. I've done literally hundreds, well not hundreds, but tens, tens or singles Purposefully, very careful with it because it's like it's got like a ratchet strap, hasn't it? If you just kept going like that, you would just squeeze it to destruction. Well, I don't think you would. I think it would just be too hard . But anyway, it was I was doing it and not even tight and I heard up and I was like, oh that's a that's not a nice sound . So I had a closer look and I was like this is squidgy. This is a bit soft. And then, you know, messaged, message you guys. Francis had a chat with a carbon ex carbon man. It was Rob Carbon, was it? And apparently this is how lots of bike brands are now shaving, saving weight on their bikes is by having the other three sides of the top tube very rigid and stiff, which they are and then the top one just a bit squidgy. So his advice was don't sit on the top t ube. Or squish them? Or squish them? So obviously I went around my garage squishing every bike that I had just to see . It's like when a waiter brings you a plate and says it's hot, don't touch the plate and then you go to test it. You have to test you have to test it . And what did you find? No squishes whatsoever, but all my bikes are old . So I really hope you had said, Well, the plate was hot . Yeah As if they lied to you as well . Sorry, so I cut you off there, Francis. Your question was , is that something that matters to our audience . Yeah, is it a thing? Is it appropriate for consumers to like, well, there's personal responsibility, isn't it? There's people should know to do certain things. That could be one opinion and they should be reading their instruct ion manuals and the warnings. But as we know, people buy bikes, throw away the instruction manual and should these products exist, that are borderline like Like well it's not very good for a user experience because I think most people do sit on their top tubes. Anecdotally hundred percent the people I know sit on their top tubes. I sit on my top tubes. I do and always work. Yeah And for that reason, I would probably would now avoid buying a bike with a squishy top tube. Unless it's a sloping, slightly sloping top tube because then you end up . Oh, the other bike I've got that infotest at the moment, compact frame. Yeah, is the most annoying thing in the world. It can't sit anywhere. The bum just sort of slides into the little like gap underneath the saddle don't you ? Outrageous climb out. Yeah, trying to do like the aero super target . They wow, I guess I'm here forever . Yeah, I didn't know that was a thing. Squishy top tube. Squishy top tube. Well, neither did I until carbon expert Rob explained that actually loads of manufacturers are doing it. I think he said he's only seen it with this is the first time he's seen a smaller brand doing it, but then I guess how small arose they're probably actually massive in Germany, aren't they? Probably secretly massive, yeah. Yeah, well, I guess the conclusion is pass it off to the audience. Let us know what you think . Should we have a look at what's happening in the news? Oh that's first up a new canyon is coming and it's not at all what we expected. So back in November, Matthew Vanderpoel was spotted riding a mysterious new aero frame at a training camp and lots of people thought it might be the new aeroad or a revamped ultimate because it's got pretty flat tubing. It looked like a race bike . But we noticed the wording on the frame that looked like it said endure race and we thought Canyon might be trolling us anyway some of their Alberson team have now started rocking up to races on this bike. So we've seen more pitch anders the general consensus is it is an India race after all . Is the India race no longer endurance bike ? Was it before? I have actually like I've been fiddling around with a geometry tool online because I'm sad and one of the I was comparing the Pearson Endurance bike to other endurance bikes and one of them was the Endure Race and it's not the it's not it's not at all . So I can see why they can get away with riding it in a race. And if the pros are doing funny stuff with higher front ends, I can see why it wouldn't be a problem I'm a bit concerned . So either it's going to be possibly the coolest endurance bike ever made or they've made an endurance bike a, race bike . And what concerns me the most is of the pros that we've seen using it , all of them that I've seen anyway, correct me if I'm wrong, have got spacers under the bars, which makes me think they want an even higher stack height, which is a bit worrying . Because you would expect it to have a high stack height and them have to go really negative , unless the pro bars are actually relatively negative ones and they're just kind of balancing it out. You can see it's not that relaxed. Well, yeah, it looks like doesn't it? You can tell like you can pretty like the shave and the shave FF I, can tell in zero point one of a second which one's which? Yes agree. You can tell a bike if a bike is aggressive or not very quickly . It looks like a lesser arrowed . , yeah, aerodynamics is a funny thing, Jimmy, maybe it's more . The fork doesn't match. That's weird isn't it? They've slapped a different fork on. What I was kind of hoping we were gonna see was, you know, aero is hot right now. It's hard right now. So hot. So taking the endurace , which was based on more traditional aesthetics of roundness and making that endurance bike , you know, arrowy looking , totally made sense, especially because there's this trend for higher stack heights in pro racing or pro races. So effectively they would have the arrowed as the slammed one and they would have the endurace as the if they want to raise the stack, but it still looks and is actually aero . Whereas my concern is they're actually just making another arrowed . They just merged two models into one . But endurance sounds like endurance race . That's surely the word they've created. In their marketing, they've always said it's in between the two , it's not quite a full endurance bike. I can't believe that you would say that this might be the coolest endurance bike ever because this morning I said to you if I was to sell my canyon frame . you Would buy it? And you said, Oh, I would have if it wasn't a canyon. We want it to be sorry, back to Zimmy's point about it being a cool endurance bike. We want cool endurance bikes. So I don't know anything about the geometry of the bike. We haven't seen the geometry. But if they're marketing it like this , purposefully putting bike races on it and in an attempt there's loads of good endurance bikes out there. We're not at a shortage of endurance bi kes. They're just not marketed in the right way . Like they're not made to look cool. And that's why this might be the coolest endurance bike ever. But I don't want one because it's a canyon claim, be claim . You know, it's that point. It's if it's actually insurance geometry, which is almost certainly not going to be based on what we're looking at, and it just looks like a cool race bike but isn't that's the goal . Because like I said , Aero is hot right now. You know just get the worst of both worlds then though. You don't satisfy the people who need a more upright bike and you don't satisfy the people who want a really aggressive racer thing. No , the point is you have your aggressive racer thing and then you have your endurance geometry bike that still looks like a r ace bike but isn't. So the geometry is actually relaxed, like properly relaxed , but it's got big fat carbon wheels and it's got coolness and it's got cool that and you're rocking around in it. You go, o youh go , I feel cool and you see it the old analogy which we use all the time especially Francis of you walk in you know in your hallway at the bottom of your stairs, you walk past it and you go, Do you know what? I'm not gonna sit on the sofa. I'm going out on my bike because that bike is sick. Sofia's pretty good though . I think it's going to be somewhere in between . I think it'll be slightly more relaxed but I don't care about that as much as it being small enough . And let's find out if it's really really long or not , which is really the limiting factor for most people. I do have a theory on the bikes that we are seeing that they might be massively downsizing it so that they're able to get their saddle over the BB position that they want , but then because it's so much , you know, like two sizes smaller than they would normally ride, they're then having to lift who's they the pros. Oh, yeah. We're actually seeing. Right? Because we've seen Alberson riding it. So you're talking about the bikes that they're riding, the ones that we're seeing currently. Yeah, I wonder if they're actually downsizing double to get the BB angle or the seat post angle that they want. Their pelvis position in relation to the BB that they want and then it's bringing it much further closer so they're then having to raise up the front end and push it out. But I don't know, we'll see. Put a one hundred forty mill stem on. I'm assuming with it being shown so much in media at the minute it is coming very, very soon. Next, thieves tried to steal Visma Lisa Bikes' team bikes from the top of their team car in the middle of a bike race. Someone in a car behind caught the whole thing on video, team car was stopped and a man literally climbed on top of the car and started pulling at one of the bikes. His pal then started punching the driver's window . Apparently they were drunk spectators . This happened on stage four of Italian road race Coppi Batali and they didn't get away with any bikes but it was still pretty odd. the strange thing, I keep I kept seeing this being posted online and the people being referred to as fans like drunk fans doing this. You ain't fans. You ain't fans, man. You ain't fans, man. I don't think even are they even spectators ? In a sense of they have eyes and they saw a bike racer. Everyone's a spectator . They had eyes and they saw an opportunity to get some bikes by the looks. They were spectator in theft. Yeah Did you see something similar to this happen to a British domestic team? I did, yeah, recently. A couple of weeks ago, wasn't it? Yeah, they got their team bikes stolen by some Morped boys and the video went viral. It was a team called J akaroo Hansling. Their bikes were locked to the team manager's car roof rack. It was parked up in a residential street in South London. These guys with masks. Classic London Mopeds theft Brigade pulled up, attempted to rip the bike off the rack, absolutely obliterated one of the frames, managed to get the other, although presumably that also took a lot of damage as well 'cause it was clamped around a thing. Clamp. Yeah. Team manager says they confronted them and was threatened with a big knife and they got one of their neighbors caught it on video annoying. Violence . I've had a bit of a revelation because you know, we had our road rage incident last week and at the time, well for quite a while afterwards I was just like, oh, you know, like I want to DS I would have liked I'm glad it got it was de escalated, but at the end of the day, if you have to defend yourself, you have to defend yourself. But then I started recently following channel four documentaries on Instagram as inspiration for stuff to watch. And I saw a clip of an attack in a supermarket in Cobb Surrey and I watched it in more detail and it made me realize that as I know, you know , I never I never want to have a conflict , but you really have to just not ever you just have to just get away from it. So like the team manager, if someone's trying to steal bikes from your car, you just have to let them. You really it's what, you know, when people go, Oh, there's someone stealing a bike or they're angle grinding a bike, stop them. No, don't let just let them have it. That's probably not a person to be messed with. In the documentary, am I right in Singh, there was some sort of conflict, a guy left. He then came back later because he forgot his wallet and the guy he was having the conflict with then like started whacking with a baseball bat because he saw he'd come back essentially. He had a baseball bat and his son had a machete . Yeah it was. just And like the interaction that they had in the shop was so minor subtle that there's no there's no even obvious like conflict. It would have just been a couple of words said and that was enough for a baseball back machete attack. It's just none of it's worth it. What? It's not worth it. Things can go obviously it's unlikely, but mad stuff can happen. There was a guy I watched an interview with who'd got into a fight outside a pub and he punched a guy and the guy died . And it's like ruined his whole life just because of this one stupid decision. And you never know when that could, well, if I punched someone, he probably wouldn't die, but you know, these things happen. You do know how to do that. He punches through people's heads. Yeah, yeah. Well, I haven't practiced yet. I might go and practice on some people outside. Don't do it. So what's the conclusion? Be a lover, not a fire. Yeah , no , no, it's not. It's not be a lover, not a fire. It's just let scumbags be scumbags. Lesson one of fighting is not punched through someone's head. Lesson one is run away . Yes . First, first thing, avoid it. Avoid it in the first place. It's like when you're playing a video game, it's always easier to hide and run away. Metal gear solid. Yeah , I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what that means . I don't know what that means. It means it means Emily. If you get into an altercation in real life , all you have to do is get your carboard box out and you just put it on and then you just sit there. I forgot about that. No one can see you after that. Yeah . As long as they don't see you doing it, run around a corner, a carbo box and then you're fine. Yeah. In other news, Francis, I think you might have cursed Tom Pigcock. Wow. Last week you were talking about his amazing by handling skills. This week, unfortunately , he fell into a ravine at sixty kilometers an hour. Very scary for him. I'm sure unfortunately he did have to DNF from the Vault of Catalunia with a knee injury , wishing him a speedy recovery, obviously. Get was named Tom. Yeah . Apparently he was drinking as he was descending and overshot a corner . You stacked it nearly on the weekend in that? Oh yes. I saved it though. There's like one section of a ride that I do frequently where I always know hand without fail. You know how you get these like little routines in your head and you have to do it between this part and this part you have to do the thing that you know it's called OCD okay well I was doing my little routine of this section I know hand and it happens to be like right in front of a cafe and I was doing it fine and then all of a sudden a massive gust of side wind came and I was like waving all over the place it almost stacked it but managed to catch my bars and sa myveself so, actually fine. One less life. What doesn't kill you make you stronger? I've like plused two more bike skill points, I think. You know, do a handstand whilst no handing. Probably. Upside down, handstand. While we're talking about racing also , shout out to Carol Lloyd from Movistar. She is nineteen years old. She's British and she just took her first world tour in at the tour of Bruges. Nice. Awesome performance, smashed it and beat some of the best sprinters in the world. We met her last year, didn't we? Yes, she was on the Garmin ride out ride. Ride out ride. Ride out ride. She was riding out. Yes, with Garmin. Yeah, last year . And I remember them saying at the point she was the youngest rider in either of the world two A Pelotons at the time. So a bright future I think. Do you know her team's in trouble now? In what sense? They promised her that they would take her to the Lego shop and buy her anything she wanted if she won just before the race . Is this true? It's going to go bankrupt. What? No, it's true. Hundred percent true. My mechanic was like, Oh, I'll take you to the Lego store and you can buy anything if you win it as a joke, but now actually I turned around and I was like, Oh sorry my god I actually won. Why are they going to go bankrupt? Well because she's going to choose the death star. That's expensive, Jimmy. It's Movie Star . They're like one of the biggest telephon companies in the world. You're underestimating the price of Lego these days. The British women's pro Palaton is absolutely flying right now. And I hadn't actually clicked until we started talking about this, but it's actually Movie Star, isn't it? They've got Caris Lloyd, but then they also have Cap Ferguson who's only a couple of years older and an absolute monster on a bike as well . So I see good things for British cycling in the future. Not no, not the organisation British cycling, but British representative cyclists . We get it. I'm not doing well on this one am I . If your business runs on five different apps, twelve browser tabs, and one spreadsheet that everyone's afraid to touch , it's probably time for Odu. Odoo is an all on one business management software that connects every part of your business into one powerful, easy to use platform. So instead of wasting time switching between disconnected systems, your entire business works together in real time. Your team moves faster, your data stays accurate, and you can actually focus on growing your business . Let one unified system run your entire business from the first opportunity to the final payment everything works together one place. Whether you're a small business or managing a large operation, Odoo gives you one flexible platform built to grow with you. Learn more at Odu. com That's ODO . com Next, Zwift is telling its users to go outside and touch grass according to bike radar. It's all part of an update to their personalized recommendations feature . It's a new thing that suggests your next activity when you load the app . And apparently it could soon give outdoor recommendations too. The platforms also launch in game challenges that will reward Zwifters for indoor and outdoor progress . It's also teased an expansion to the Paris map and a new gravel focused world . I was thinking about this and I was like, Why surely by the point you're loading the app you're already committed to you've got your indoor kit on and you're committed to doing your indoor ride. So then if it went, Oh, go outside, I'd be like, No, I'm here now. I guess I just try to give people more reason to use it during the summer even or more incentive to not cancel your subscription over summer? They definitely started giving, I don't know if this still like this, but they started giving people experience points or drops , whatever you earn in the game for outdoor rides . And that was, I think, I feel like we covered it on a podcast, which is why we've all forgotten about it . So they're definitely they're trying to how do they stop people from just cancelling every summer ? Well, presumably what this is is the foundation of them becoming a full on training platform rather than just a indoor training platform. Maybe, especially when you look at things like whoop who now have a ten point five billion dollars valuation. They want a bit of that. That's mad, isn't it? Big boy . And finally, a bit of bike upcycling that's right up our alley. There's a guy on Instagram called Homerri Pico Khan and he turns old bike frames into armchairs. For listeners, imagine a metal chair frame, but you're resting your arms on two melt top tubes instead . This is where the squishy carbon top tubes would be great. It's comfort upgrade. You have to spend more for that one. When I first heard about this, I assumed it was just gonna be absolute horrible cycling tat But it is actually like proper like bougie high end designer chair style. I'm not a huge fan of the different colorway of the each side of the chair. Now that makes it good, that makes it look up cycled well matching. Yeah, you wouldn't because of that, you wouldn't put it in your living room. What I do know for certain is if you took the bike frames out of those chairs and replaced it with just nice metal, you would have some really nice chairs. Boring. But as far as cycling based interior design goes , it's the best I've seen ever Time for some unpopular opinions . The first one is from Max , who says I've worked at a local bike shop in the UK for six years , and I'd still earn more if I went and worked at Tesco . But I do it because I absolutely love the sport and community . The longer I've worked in an industry, the less valued I think local bike shops are . But without them, I don't see how the sport survives. So here's my unpopular opinion. The cycling industry would be better off without venture capitalist funding, products are updated too quickly, and there's too many online retailers discounting products by thirty percent to fifty percent just to make five percent profit margins. The industry can't survive with companies like Rafa, saying it's a good year after losing fifteen point six million pounds . Support your local bike shop and we'll support you. We will do our best to help out on prices, but we need to actually earn money to survive. This feels like a symptom of a larger problem. It's not a bike only problem, is it? It's that independent retailers and high street bricks and mortar stores can't compete with massive companies that are online first . Like I can imagine if you looked in any other industry they'd say Amazon are killing us or it doesn't even need to be online first. It's just scale and an example is the one funnily enough, the company that he's referenced, Tesco are a great example of it. They are not an online store, but they have destroyed small independent butchers, green grocers, the old fashioned High Street because they just demanded cheaper prices from all of the dairies and whatever , because they could just go, well, we'll buy all of the milk that you produce, but we're going to buy it at this price and we'll do it for the next five years. I do think though playing Devil's advocate there is there's a gap in the market on perhaps there's an opportunity for bike shops to they don't need all of the customers. You know, if you've got three mechanics in your store, you only have so many hours a day that you can be doing work. So you don't need every customer, you need a solid base of customers. And I feel like there's an opportunity for local bike shops to reaffirm what they do offer because I feel like every time we have, you know, when Nick the Mechanic used to come on this show, he used to kind of say stuff similar. And he is an example of a good bike shop and I also think he's an example of a bike shop not trying to be for everyone. He's found a niche and that niche is in higher end customers and he's fine with that . But the feedback we always used to get from viewers was and listeners was my local bike shop isn't like that or my local bike shop is unfriendly or you go in and you ask them for this and they look down their nose at you because they don't want to do the work or whatever and but that's also Nick's bike shop. Yeah, exactly why I guess so. Yeah, true. To most people, that's also NIX bike shop. Yeah, I guess so. But I do think that for and maybe it's a small but noisy minority, they have had bad experiences at bike shops . And maybe that's something that needs to be readdressed even in like bike shop marketing. If you are a bike shop, how can you prove that you are going to be friendly and helpful and offer people a service that they aren't going to get online, maybe . I agree with this guy by the way. I'm just also just moving of is there a silver lining? Is there an opportunity? So some of what he's talking about will come from the idea of you need a new cassette, it's forty pounds. And then they go, yeah, but I can buy it online, which historically would have been wiggle, but I can buy it on Wiggle for eighteen quid. And they go, well fit it yourself then. That's cheaper than we get it for. Yeah . But what can't be replaced by online is the expertise and mechanical help servicing . I think we'll see service centers, you know, like traveling mechanics or one man band because what Nick has done is he's, yes, he's focusing on high end but that,'s only one piece of the puzzle . He's also an extremely small setup in like a teeny tiny workshop where he just services stuff and he charges for that. Instead of being a giant store with loads of product . Yeah, he's quite interesting that he doesn't stock stuff. And like bike brands will go, oh yeah, you've got to buy in X number frames and he' s going No you want to be involved in me, it's not how it works here because otherwise all of your capital goes into just dusty shelves of stuff of stuff that very shortly after as, Max is referencing , they then go, Oh, this is the new one. Do you want to buy the next ones? Well, no, we still got the old ones. Well, you can't be one of our dealers there. Yeah. And I think actually these bike brands benefit from having a physical place to display. It's like a showroom, isn't it? So maybe it actually needs to be flipped on its head and no Bike Brand, you pay for this space to display your stuff. And if you do sell it, then I will give you I don't know eighty percent and I'll keep twenty percent or whatever the arrangement is rather than buying in . There's there are there's definitely stuff going on at the minute like we know Pearson are doing their They're technically direct consumer, but they're creating little hubs around the UK so that if you buy a bike from them, it then goes through that shop and that shop makes money, they make money, and you've got this point of contact . And there's definitely some bike brands that are approaching things differently, but agree with lots and lots and lots of what Max is saying. You're obviously never going to get rid of the VC boys because if there's an opportunity they',re going to sling money at it. That's literally the model of VC . And if it fails, they go, well , you know, one in ten works, we're good. We're golden if one in ten comes off good . But Go with Emily's point. Look, look at how you can niche down on stuff . I can understand as well though. While you know going back to my point I was saying some people feel that they're not welcome. Maybe the reason they feel like they're not welcome is what you said is that they've come in going, what's wrong with my bike? The mechanic spent time and looked at it, put free labor into diagnostics and then going, you need a new cassette and they're going, okay, well, I'm not getting it here and then leave. Or they go, I want to build a bike, can I use your expertise and then go and buy the parts? It's like there's a lack of respect or value for the expertise . Yeah, and it's massively under valued and underappreciated . And it's like it's the little the little bits and pieces. When you're, if you've ever, if you are someone that has built a bike , you will know that there will always be something that you don't have. And it'll be like a weird little spacer you'll put a screw on that comes with it and it'll go, well, it's just too long. And you need a smaller one. But then you go, well, where is the smaller one? What's the right size? How do I find it? If you go, you'll go into certain bike shops, Nick's is a great example of it. You'll open a drawer and it will just have thousands of little bits and pieces and that have been collected over decades knowledge and experience and knowing what you need . And it's those little things that actually physically don't have much value , but they clearly do if you don't have it and don't know which one it is. Knowledge is power. Yeah, yeah, but I think a lot of people don't give it the respect that well it deserves . Bikes are inherently simple. The industry wants to make them more and more complicated . So maybe there is a space for bike shops to exist. For example, everything we're seeing now is coming with hydraulic brakes, which are manageable yourself if you know what you're doing and you buy the right tools . Tubeless wheels, again, manageable yourself if you're happy to make a bit of a mess and work out what you need , but most notably the integrated bit of things . And that's where things start to get more complicated . But how often are people actually changing their headset bearings? They're probably just riding them into the ground and then eventually go, well, I guess I should do something about it . I'll sell the bike and buy a new one . I do think as well, even like away from like the sales and buying stuff. I think if you aren't supporting your local bike shopimes. S youomet just 're missing out sometimes you're just missing out on quite a nice little bit of the community . You know, like think of the people we've met in the bike shops and also like the rides that they put on and you know usually they'll have a cafe stop. So you know, if you're someone who's like, I'm new to cycling, how do I make friends then going hanging around a bike shop and having a coffee and getting them, you know, having a chat and getting your bike service and stuff like that you will be rought into a community that way, you know? Yeah, yeah. Scratch their back, they will scratch yours. They will be a mutual, it will become a mutual relationship. You used to work in a bike shop, Francis? Yeah, a few. Did you used to talk to customers? No, I just used the thread bottom brackets in the wrong way and round off bolts and stuff downstairs nothing's changed . Yeah Tony I was filling around with a free hub yesterday and literally explode pulled down bits went everywhere in the carriage . It was very good . It was very good. But it meant I had to assemble it back to like put it all back together. So it was learning. It was good. It's good. I can generally fix stuff once I've broken it, but I do break a lot of things in the first place. That is the issue. Don't give me your bikes. I'll squeeze the top tubes . How do you fix a threaded bolt or round bolt. A new bolt. Okay, well if you can't get it out, drill he really has done this before . Yeah . If you're rounded up, cut a slop, screwdriver It takes ages really cut it really that is a pain in the ass when that happens. That is annoying . Spend hours just being paid minimum wage to fix my own problem . So last week we had an unpopular opinion that race categories shouldn't be based on age. They should be based on how many kids you have at home to look after This week, a listener called Chris says cycling categories shouldn't be age related, they should be weight related . He says, I'm tall, generally fit human, more than double the weight of some competitors at events and constantly get dropped on climbs . Like fighting, weight in my opinion is a much bigger predictor of performance and actually is a far more fair mechanism of performance. On hilly courses, light riders win and on flat courses, bigger riders win. Weight, not age. I actually really like this. He's got a point, hasn't he? It would turn everything into a time trial though, wouldn't it? Essentially . Because then you This is why Grand Tours are so good because you have to be good at everything . Well, except for sprinting maybe. But the GC guys are very, very light, of course, because they have to be good at climbing , but they are still winning the TTs . Like it's this would be boring. Sorry. But this isn't pros. This is for normal people. Yeah, this is for people who are age going into races like that are age categorised. Then it's just a real mixed bag, isn't it? Because there's always some guy who's massive who still can climb because they're just everything's it's a way more of a mixed bag of tal ent in the lower end races. Different skills, different. That's what makes bike racing exciting because you've got this section here, there's a flat bit which is really cross windy. So I probably need a big guy with me. Ideally we get this guy in the breakaway. I'm smaller so I can sit on his wheel, then there's a climb. I'm going to attack him there. That's where the tactics come in. That's what makes bike racing exciting . And not all the same. But a small rider can hold on with a big rat. Like it's everyone that's what makes it good, that's what makes it good. But that can still exist. It's just you wouldn't be you would still be in the same race presumably , but you would be weight adjusted. Weight adjusted. Yeah. That never worked. That becomes chaos to me. That becomes a real chaos. I mean yeah, the problem is that all of this is a nightmare in practice. What are they doing? Are they weighing everyone when they turn up? Are they going? Is it like a fight where you turn up a week before and get weighed in? Well, they're getting aged so why, can't they be weighed? Because your age is on like your passport and it doesn't change for a year. Yeah. Your weight could fluctuate. You could like what my age changes by the second. Okay, well, okay , but I mean, will you agree there is a standard unit of measurement for age? Generally goes the same. And there's also a standard unit of measurement for weight. Yes, but it fluctuates though, doesn't it? So does age ? No . Is it bodybuilders who do wanes? Who does wayne's and they and they cut they just like dehydrate themselves massively? Well bodybuilders do dehydration thing as well. Yeah, I feel like I follow different reasons. I feel like I follow a female bodybuilder and she was talking about all the toxicity in that world and basically that they'll like drink pints of wine the night before so that incredibly like dehydrated to then have some sort of weigh in or something. Well, it's not so much the for weigh in it's for the pose. The body builds for posing because they want veins. They want to be as vasodilated as they possibly can be, so they need to be dehydrated for all their veins and everything to be popping. Whereas for fighting it's to make weight. I feel like people would find a way to make it unhealthy. Oh, actually that is actually no hit the nail on your head, that's the issue isn't it? Yeah. Because then you go, well, if I if I neck my bottle of wine and dehydrate , you'd cut for the weighing . Yes, exactly. And then for the day. Yeah. So if it's like a week before, or if you're cutting like and getting weighed an hour before the race, you dehydrate to the menu. Yeah, sorry Chris, this doesn't work because people are I was going to say idiots, but it's not even that it's just people are willing to do horrible things to themselves for success and they would it would be bad. People can't have nice things. They can't. It just makes the bike racing boring. Sorry sorry it does. A quick break to tell you about our favorite VPN service NordVPN , one of today's sponsors. If you're into pro racing , then you might already be familiar with it. Yes, because one of the reasons that NordVPN is great is that you can use it to stream your sports and entertainment subscriptions wherever you are in the world . So for example, Jimmy and I are about to go on holiday, which I'm very looking forward to. Yes, and we can use NoraVPN to keep watching our streaming services. That is one of the , you know, I like going on a holiday, but I legitimately find it annoying when you're halfway through a box set or would do you even call it these days box? Yeah a series and then you get there and you can't watch it. Yeah, because God forbid we would want to unplug and actually enjoy the surroundings now we don't have to. We can unplug from the world and each other. So we've recently talked about Emily's dad getting caught by an AI crypto website scam . And had we known that NordVPN had all of these online privacy tools, well, I wish he had had it sooner, but yeah, it could have potentially helped. So yeah, it helps you increase your privacy online. It keeps your data safe, protects your bank details, your passwords, protects you if you're using public wifi. It can alert you to dodge your websites. My dad in this scam potentially exposed some of his passwords and let's just say they weren't the most secure . He definitely needs a little bit of extra help keeping his details safe online. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but now we can set him up on Nord . They have a password manager tool, which I think will really help because that's one of the difficulties people go, Oh, how do I remember all my passwords? And one NordVPN account can be used on up to ten devices so you can actually protect your whole household. Yeah so you can protect yourself, you protect your family, watch your sports, it's a win win. Yeah, with the classics now in full swing and the Grand Tours on the horizon, it's a great time to have a VPN and Nord is one of the best. We got a deal, don't we? Oh yes, we do. If you click the link in the description, you will get four extra months on a two year Nord VPN plan. So that is the equivalent of now until the end of July AKA peak tour de France season for free. Nord offers a thirty day money back guarantee, so there is no risk. There's a link in the description of the podcast Do it . Next up, Tom says I think too many cyclists treat bikes as toys that are somewhat disposable. I've been in this trap and when I first started cycling I bought a new bike every year . They were only mid to upper range planet X bikes, but still two to two point five thousand pounds per bike by the time you upgraded a few bits. In twenty twenty five it was clear that I was fully in the cycling bubble and I decided to treat myself to a forever bike. Instead of a high end carbon I went for titanium Riley fusion . It took me ages to decide and a tipping point was being able to go to the factory, meet the owner, shake hands with the team, and the care and diligence that went into the whole process. I consider that bike to be a long term investment and while the cost was three to four times the cost of my historic purchases, I expect it to last for years more than those entry level carbon frames. I suppose what I'm trying to say is you should buy a bike with a long term outlook that allows you to justify the cost over a significant period. If there's visibility of the brand's environmental social and governance standards even better and definitely something more people should consider. Keep up the great work, Tom. Are people buying new bikes every year? I feel like I can't comment because I haven't been in a situation where I'm not on test bikes or or a bike racer where there's you ride a bike for a season, the team lends it to you and then you send it back and then they replace it with whatever new one and then you only ride it for a bit. So it's always refreshed . I guess if you like had a cycle to work scheme with work , you might just use that to buy a bike every year which kind of makes sense sort of it's very wasteful but I am all for what he is doing here. Metal bike , well done, ten, ten . Buying a bike that will last for many years is better than one that you're buying for a year . Yeah, I guess the I agree with the principle. The only thing I would challenge is those mid to uper range planet X bikes that were two and a half k . What about them wouldn't last for more than a year? Like if you're say ing, you know, I consider Israelis cost more money and therefore he considers it a long term investment rather than entry level carbon frames , why would those frames not last for longer? Like if you're a person who can't afford buy O'Reilly but you have one bike like it's not going to break after a year is it? Well, I think he's more talking about not specifically those bikes not lasting a year. I think he's ultimately talking about the idea in your head that buy what you can afford right now and then just buy another one and buy another one and rather than just thinking let me outlay more than I want to right now, but keep it as a long term purchase. Yeah, he's probably in a position where he can afford to drop two grand on a bike a year and it's nice having something to go to be excited about. It's always nice to have that kind of like , you know, yes, this thing's nice and I get excited about riding bikes again. It's ultimately why I end up stripping and rebuilding my bikes so often because it's just an excuse to like them again. Not well, not like them again. It's an excuse to be excited about them again . But you know, it's it's ultimately unnecessary. There's nothing wrong with those bikes. Just maybe wasn't excited by them. Yeah, I mean, I like the idea that it's it's not a toy and it has more. I have such sentimental value about things that I'm like the opposite of early cyclist version one Tom in that I'm so stubborn and tight that I will just stick to the first thing that I buy even if it is painful. There are better options . I bought a car , which I absolutely love, and you tell me it's a piece of junk every single day. That's not true. You do. You refuse to drive it because you think it's so bad. It is horrible And I love it because it's my car. I have a road bike and a gravel bike which I bought seven years ago now and I love them both. I'm in the process of getting rid of them because I have accepted that I need a different I'm uncomfortable on them. However , I love them like still right now I love them and trying I'm trying to get you to have one of them so I don't actually have to get rid of you. Yeah Francis Emily was basically trying to sell me her canyon this morning so it could just stay in the house. Really want to get rid of it. Oh so you can actually stay Yeah, I love it. I think it's the perfect bike. I feel like you're we both do the same thing, Emily. We're not very good at buying new things or getting rid of old ones . I think the important I like tinkering with bikes , same with my other hobbies, all of them guitar guitar bikes. There's only two real ones that I focus on . But the most exciting bit when you do buy a new piece of bike is when it's on the way and you can see it's about to be delivered . So maybe buying stuff which is cheaper and you still get, you know, use out of and not be wasteful, extremely wasteful is just buying smaller things more often. Perhaps that's the solution. So basically you're saying what Tom has done is ridiculous and he should go back. He should sell his much more expensive titanium one and keep buying two thousand pound planet X bikes every year. By the time keep the titanium one, but also you're gonna still buy new bikes and you could buy lots of little things for the Riley and make it better every time. Like Star Wars themed bot . I was just thinking that. Look , look this, I don't know how good the camera is if you can see it. Look, describe it for our listeners . It's a Zia Clone Trooper, clone trooper , valve cap . I'm actually the most settled even though I'm about to change everything. I feel like I'm the most settled with bikes than I ever have been. And I feel like I'm finally at a point where I just want to ride them rather than tinker with them. Yes, that should be it . I think bikes are the least exciting thing about cycling. What's the most exciting thing? The actual riding ? No hands, almost crashing, almost crashing. Oh , and almost crashing is actually really isn't it? Yeah, I do enjoy that. I do enjoy that. That's why gravel is better. Could you almost crash more often? Yeah, yeah. And the drone. It's novel, novel experiences. It creates novel experiences, which don't often happen like if you go for a walk. You could see a cool dog, maybe . But bike riding always There's always something that happens like a snake attack or some I have a way to make Walksmore novel. There's an app called Merlin Bird ID I think it's run by Cornell University and it will if you if you turn the sound on, it will live record all the birds it can hear around and live identify them so it'll tell you all the birds that are around you . Buzzards we have a lot. Owls? Owl. Owls, yeah, we get owl in the garden constantly. Tawny owl. Owl. Tell me that's not good. But I guess the novel experiences thing, maybe that's why our brains crave the buying stuff 'cause it's like that it's a dopamine hit, isn't it? It's novel and yeah, we just go in a circle of like we sit around we're satisfied it's a circle so it doesn't start anywhere but we got to sit around, get bored, want something, get it, get bored of the thing, want something, sit around bored, get something, want it again, and it just goes round and round like that. So really you just want to figure out what's not a really non wasteful or destructive way of dealing with that cycle. Perhaps. Merlin bird ID. Tinkering, tinkering with stuff. This is why creative stuff's so good though . Or at least it is for me is that like making a thing gives me that like endorphin buzz but your output is just a thing rather than um waste arguably especially when it's music because it's like oh I've made a thing and I get a buzz out of it and it was just music yes I, use some electricity, but not very much. Yeah. Well, if you've got an unpopular opinion, you can send it to Wild One's podcast at kidmedia. com uk or what's up us on plus four seven eight six eight six zero two one three and you might featureure on a fut episode. You can also send us stories, dilemmas and comments for listeners takeover . First question comes from Naut in the Netherlands and it's one many people want to know. Where did Francis and Giles end up sleeping at the end of the cycling for the biggest burrito part one video? 'Cause this ended on a cliffhanger, didn't it? No, didn't it ? It ended on us going to sleep on a sofa . And that's what you're maintaining is it. That's where you slept. Well, that's what I saw when I watched the video back. Me too. That's why I saw. Okay . That's what I saw. Okay, fine, well, moving on. Last week we were talking about ways of jogging with babies and Ray has messaged in with another great baby based sports idea. I have three kids. They're all grown now but when they were little, I often had two of them either in a jogging stroll or on a bike. And I always wanted to make a triathlon for parents where they had to swim with their kids and then ride with them on the bike and then put them in a jogger. And there had to be a requirement of a minimum amount of diaper changes in bottle feedings along the way. By the way, two of my adult kids are trans and I'm riding as an ally for them and the rest of the queer and trans community from Florid a to Maine this summer transamerica ride. org Anyway, have a good day. Love the show. Thanks, bye. I'm Google mapsing where Maine is. Oh, I've been to Maine. It's up to the top. Oh gee, that,' thats's long a long a way. It has a really long way. Really long way. Good for you, Ray. Yeah, awesome. How and this is maybe parents can tell us in the comments, but if there is a baby that requires diaper and feed bottle feed stops. How are you swimming with it? I think I know the answer to this. Guan. I think they have waterproof diapers . No no, I don't mind. I mean like, logistically , like a baby that young can't swim. So how are you putting it in a pool and then doing a swim with that? Unless they're really young, Emily. They swim. Yeah, yeah, they just they know and they can breathe underwater and everything. They're fast they're as fast as Michael Phelps immediately from birth . Gills, all of that stuff and awesome breathing . Yep. Okay. If you've not seen Waterworld, that's a documentary. I do like the idea of this. It does sound like hell though. Yeah, triathlon . It sounds like transitions in a triathlon . Is this the same Ray who I was arguing with about music . It might be, it might be, yes . I feel like I recognize the voice . On top we were still friends. Yeah, I think so. Oh, okay, yeah. Good. Well remembered. Thank you. I thought about it for weeks afterwards. I was just replaying his voice note four o'clock in the morning he must have been because as we know, none of us remember anything . Well E,mily does because she obviously has to spend hours editing it, but me and Francis don't remember anything that we've said immediately afterwards. So for him to recognise that it really highlights how much thought you put into it I thought courageous. Not the topic , more just like upset again . Just felt too bad . Okay, well thank you for that again, right? And good luck on your bike ride. I'm going to finish this off with some postcards. Thank you to I hope I'm pronouncing this correctly Kajell in Seattle currently enjoying doing coffinering challenge that one of our listeners suggested. Do you remember the coffiniering thing? No . Neither do I know the word. I read this earlier on the doc. I was like, I know this word. It was I know this word. Visiting seven different coffee shop or thirty different coffee shops or doing a ride with a coffee shop for thirty days. I can't remember it. I should have looked this up before we started the section. Ride your bike seven times to at least six different places you can repeat one . At least two miles round trip every time, maximum two rides per week drink seven total cups of coffee. Awesome. This is this is novel . Yes, exactly. Novel explains new, it's interesting. I like stuff like this. One of the things that I love is how our listeners are at suggesting things and then that we benefit from and others is cool. The listeners benefit from. Good community. Like it. Thank you for that one. We also have two postcards from Chandler in North Carolina. He is a photographer and he sent us these two postcards that he made himself. Boon and Pilot Mountain. And finally, Charlotte and Tink sent us this one from the road. They are on a road trip of South Africa. You've seen which Charlotte is, have you not ? Oh, it's our Charlotte. Oh, it's Charlotte from Hot Chile. I didn't realize that at all . Amazing. Hi Charlotte. Love you, Charlotte and Tink. That's all for this week. If you like what we do, make sure you subscribe so you don't miss out on the next one and until then , goodbye. Bye . That's sad. I was enjoying that. We talked a lot about Lego this week. Who's your favorite Batman? Favourite Batman S.orry, what that's all relate? You just was like , we talked . What just happened then? In my brain, it made sense because my favorite Batman is Lego Batman. Who's your favorite person who's ever played Batman? Lego Batman. Will Arnett, Lego Batman . Outrageous. Lego Batman is Flaster. Oh man. I thought I wouldn't like the Robert Pattinson? Paterson, I don't know his name. I thought I wasn't gonna like it and I did. I know I've watched it, but I remember none of it. You said you I said I didn't think he was a very good batman, but I haven't also watched many Batman films, but I thought he seemed like a bit of a drip and you said, No, that's what Batman's meant to be. What a drip? Yeah, just like sad. Yeah, because he's not a superhero, is he? He's just a guy with calls and money. Yeah, he's not a superhero. Yeah. Batman is not a superhero . He's a human . He's a symbol actually. With lots of money. Yeah, Batman is a symbol, yeah. The modern that film, the Pattinson Whatever is like the old Batman comics where it was all investigative, like a film and noir detective vibe . And I think it was very different from the other ones, the Christian Bell ones it was good, worth watching. Long though, it's a lot of him standing looking like Batman. All the Batman's along, though. We were gonna re watch the Dark Knight and stuff long . Underrated first film as well . No one watches that one. Man begins. I don't understand. Liam Neeson, Qui Gon Jin. I don't understand why that first one isn't even really even really considered part of it when it's so part of it . It's written you need to watch I don't get it and it feels a little bit different from it but you still have to watch it. Yeah, lower budget, perhaps it was just a smaller deal. Yeah, that's what it feels like. It feels like they did it. And they were, oh, right, yeah, this did well. They did the next one. And then they've gone, oh , whoa. Yeah, this is this is big time now . But you still have to watch it. It's essential . Me and Danny are halfway through the Sam Rami Spiderman films and it's reminded me how good films used to be. Which Spider Man superhero films, The Tyby Maguire one , which was just Spider Man, Spider Man two, Spiderman three, I think they were called. They're great films , really great films. And then they just decided to remake it in exactly the same way with Andrew Garfield. Weird. That's odd. It's just They've done the same thing with Harry Potter. Have you seen the new trailer for Harry Potter? Yeah. Yeah , it looks like it's so similar, but it just looks like an AI generated an AI generated trailer of the original films where everything's just a bit weird . You think has it been long enough? Is this just happens when what you get old? No because things are being removed. It's like live action Moana. Like Moana came out like five years ago or something, didn't it? In live action Lilo and Stitch. I watched it, and that's the point, isn't it? They want you to watch it , but did we need it? I don't know. Moana came out a decade ago. Did it? Wow, great film. So good. I've never seen that. I've never seen the I don't know what it is. Good film. You missed. All of the rail no. Oh , he's got adult children, he might not know. All the people with younger children. When's the live action one come out? Denobits also got the rock in it. They're even just recasting the same people. Yeah, that's class. I rarely. Oh, the same with mean girls as well. They made a mean girls. That was just a mus ical version and it had the same teachers in. Yeah . I like it's like weird little We didn't watch it though, didn't we? We did like stuff. We did like it, so yeah . We're the problem . Okay, can we stop this now? Bye . See you . You gonna say bye? Oh, fine