Welcome to the Pod! Our feed is available on all major podcast platforms and is supported by a small number of advertisers and directly by people like you. If you've made it this far, please consider subscribing to the podcast and if you like what I'm doing, please consider supporting financially via the link below.
Support the Podcast: Buy Me a Coffee
Oct 19, 2021
Part two of our first Q and A episode. Randall and Craig tackle questions submitted via The Ridership community.
Join The Ridership
Episode Sponsor: Athletic Greens
Automated Transcription (please excuse the typos):
00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello and welcome to in the dirt from the gravel ride podcast. I'm your host. Craig dalton i'll be joined shortly by my co-host randall jacobs.
[00:00:12] Today's episode is part two of our Q and a episode series. Go back in your feed, a couple episodes to find part one. You can certainly jump right into this episode as we're going question by question. And they don't necessarily. Have relation to one another but if you're interested in part one either after the fact or before you listened to this episode go ahead and jump back and listen to that episode.
[00:00:36] Today's episode is brought to you by our friends at athletic greens. The health and wellness company that makes comprehensive daily nutrition really really simple.
[00:00:44] A G one by athletic greens is a category leading superfood product, bringing comprehensive and convenient daily nutrition to everyone. Keeping up with the research and knowing what to do and taking a bunch of pills and capsules is hard on the stomach and hard to keep up with
[00:00:59] To help each one of us be at our best. They simplify the path to better nutrition by giving you the one thing with all the best things.
[00:01:06] One tasty scoop of ag. One contained 75 vitamins minerals and whole food sourced ingredients including a multivitamin multimineral probiotic green superfood blend
[00:01:17] And more in one convenient daily serving. The special blend of high quality bioavailable ingredients and a scoop of ag. work together to fill the nutritional gaps near diet. Support energy and focus. Aiden got health and digestion and support a healthy immune system. Effectively replacing multiple products or pills in one healthy delicious drink.
[00:01:38] I think by now, you've probably heard my personal jam. I like to take athletic greens. First thing in the morning is to get a jumpstart on my hydration. As well as my nutritional needs. And i'm big ride days if i'm feeling super depleted i'll come home and have a second glass so on a saturday or sunday i might double up my servings
[00:01:58] If you're open to giving athletics greens, a try, simply visit athletic greens.com/the gravel ride.
[00:02:05] Athletic greens has agreed to give a free one year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs to any gravel ride podcast listener. So be sure to visit athletic greens.com/the gravel ride. To give it a try today. With that said let's jump into part two of the q and a episode with randall
[00:02:26] Craig: Next question was on optimizing the adjustment and float intention on SPD pedals. I don't think there's much we can add there cause it's a little bit of trial and error. In my opinion. I don't know about the float. I don't even know if mine has like float adjustment. For me it seems like it's just the tension. So I, how hard or easy it is to get in and out. And that's been something maybe I've amped up over time as I become more confident, but certainly starting them out with them. Fairly easy to disengage is perfectly acceptable if you're not comfortable with Clifton riding.
[00:02:57] Randall: Yeah. In terms of tension, I would definitely start with a looser engagement and then tighten it down as you get more confident, Especially when you're first starting out. And what else? Patrick and I actually talked about this in the bike fit episode. Hey recommending shifting the cleats back. So if you're running mountain style shoes, which the gravel bike probably should be if you can run them in the back, the bolts to the back then sliding the cleat. Pretty much all the way to the back. Now if that doesn't feel right, you can always move it forward a little bit, but whereas this new real problem with going too far back there can be issues with going too far forward in terms of biomechanics and so on. And in terms of the float, you want to be in the middle of the float and you never want to be in a position where the you're you're not able to peddle in a natural motion where you're using the cleat positioning to restrict your motion. That is a a good way to end up with an injury. So definitely don't do that. I generally will start with the cleats. In a position where it's restricting my inward motion so that my heel can't hit the crank arm. And then I'll peddle from there and see am I in the middle, middle of the float? Am I in my restricted any part of the pedal stroke? And if not, then that's a good starting point. But to really get this right again it is hard to do this on your own. It's hard to see knee tracking. In souls or thing you want to invest in, in order to help align the full stack from hip to knee through the ankle. And this is where listen to the bike, fit 1 0 1 episode and consider working with a bike fitter.
[00:04:30] Craig: I was just going to say the same thing. It's like one of those things like, oh, bike fit, you don't necessarily go to clique adjustment, but so often when I've observed it, cleat adjustment happens in a bike fit.
[00:04:41] Randall: And it doesn't happen first, right? Everything else has to be right first. So if your saddle's too low and your arches are collapsing and things like that, you're already starting with things out of alignment and are going to have some trouble, but at least the advice that, that I just gave will prevent the worst issues. But again, go get a bike fit.
[00:05:01] Craig: Yep.
[00:05:02] The next
[00:05:02] question. Yeah, The next question.
[00:05:05] was about what's the best technique for using a dropper post? How does this help with the physics of the ride?
[00:05:14] Randall: I'll let you go first. I certainly have an opinion on this one.
[00:05:17] Craig: This is a dangerous one for us. The listener, the avid listener knows we can go into a deep dropper post where I'm whole, but let's try to offer some quick advice. One of the things I like to remind people about with respect to drop her posts is that it's not just a, all the way up or all the way down product. You've got the full spectrum of range, which means you should use it frequently. Obviously when you're in heavy tactical descents with steep, dicentric, you're going to slam it.
[00:05:45] But I quite frequently lower it just a centimeter to just give myself a little bit more room on terrain. Maybe it's a road descent or something that I'm super confident on, but it gives me a little bit more margin for error. And as I'm feeling maybe more nervous about the speed. I'll go down even further just to give myself again a bigger range of just a bigger margin of error. So practice, and no, there's no right or wrong, use it frequently and you'll figure out what feels best for you.
[00:06:15] Randall: You've seen my technique with the dropper. I'm a bit more extreme. So for me, I use the dropper all the time. I have it down all the way on a high-speed road descent, and I use it to allow me to, move my mass around on the bike in a way where, if I want the front end to be more planted, I can put more mass on the bars, but then I can shift my weight down and back over the rear axle to lighten up the front end for say, traversing, really rough terrain. Provides that distance between the bike and the body where your arms and legs can act as suspension. Your front wheel is rolling in sailing. Your rear is doing more of your speed control. And in this way, it really radically. Improves the capability of the bike, not just off-road, but I would argue on road as well. I descend much faster because I know I can grab a handful of both brakes and not be pitching over the handlebars. So for me, even on the road, I'm dropping it all the way in a lot of situations.
[00:07:08] Just because I like to go that much faster and it gives me that margin of safety.
[00:07:12] Craig: All makes sense. Next off, we're going to an area work. Gosh, Randall I almost think we need an entirely new category in the ridership forum just about tires. What do you think?
[00:07:25] Randall: We've been asked for this for a while. By the time this episode airs, if we don't have a channel in there, somebody yell at us in the forum, we'll get that up.
[00:07:35] Craig: The first question comes again from Tom boss, from orange county unicorn tires, lightweight, puncture resistance, fast rolling with lots of grip. What comes closest for you?
[00:07:45] Randall: I'm not getting in the weeds on this one. I defer to the hive-mind and the ridership on this. I can tell you what I ride. But I'm gonna make no claims about it being the optimal.
[00:07:56] Craig: Yeah, do. What are you writing in these days?
[00:07:58] Randall: so currently I'm writing just a WTB Sendero upfront and a venture in the rear. And these aren't especially fancy casings. They're not the most efficient tire. But they're pretty robust and they have great grip and I like the mullet setup. I'm a big fan of going with something NABI or upfront and like a file tread or even a semi slick, depending on your terrain in the back.
[00:08:20] And yeah, that's the way that I go. We actually just brought in some maxes, Ramblers and receptors. So we go a rambler small knob front and a receptor in the back. And I like the six 50 by 47 size. There are situations where I wish I could have a little bit more volume, other situations where I wish I had a little bit more efficiency, which tells me that I'm right in the middle of the range for most of the writing that I do.
[00:08:40] Craig: Yeah. For me. And first off, full disclosure to everybody, I'm a Panorai sir, brand ambassador. So I want to put that out there. The gravel king S K was a tire that I got on my first proper gravel bike. And I just fell in love with it. Then I left for many years and went on to more of a setup that you had rocking the Sandero up front.
[00:09:01] Thinking I was, riding more challenging terrain and could appreciate the knobs, which I did.
[00:09:06] But recently I've gone back to the gravel king as Kay. And I do find it to be a wonderful all around tire because I feel super fast on the road and it does everything that I needed to do in most of the situations that I get into.
[00:09:21] Randall: Yeah, sounds about right. And then there's always, if you're, if you had a really long ride out to the trail you could always, bring the pressure up a smidge on the way out there and then give it a little at the the Trailhead.
[00:09:34] Craig: Yeah.
[00:09:34] And again, it obviously comes down to where you are and one thing I'll just note really quickly, and we've talked about it before is Riding fully select tires at a fat with has been remarkable to me how performance they can be. Off-road you think you need knobs, then all of a sudden you realize where you do need them, but actually if you change your riding style a little bit if you've got a fat rubber tire on there, you can go and do a lot of things.
[00:09:59] Randall: Yeah, the dropper helps a lot with that. In terms of just being able to be more nuanced with your body English as you going over stuff. But yeah, I run 700 by 30 tubeless tires and I'll go out on hard road drives and then I'll pass it on to see a trail and be like, oh, what's over there, I must find out now and then to see. Go and do a little bit of adventuring. And you gotta pick, you gotta pick your lines. You gotta be careful not to hit anything, square, a square edge. That's gonna, bang up against your rim. But if you're if your pressure is high enough and you're gentle enough with your writing, you can do a remarkable amount. Most of the stuff that we've written in Marine together up written on slicks.
[00:10:36] At one point. Yeah.
[00:10:38] not saying it's a good idea, but it's doable.
[00:10:41] Craig: True. And you enjoyed other parts of the ride and leaned into other parts of the ride, presumably more because that's, what the bike was oriented around on that particular day. And maybe you needed to nurse your way down Blazedale Ridge or something, but you got through it.
[00:10:55] Randall: Yeah, and it's definitely more of an uphill thing than a downhill thing.
[00:11:00] Craig: Yeah.
[00:11:00] Randall: go uphill on dirt and then downhill on, on road, but okay. The, we went on a proper tangent there.
[00:11:07] Craig: Yeah, sorry. next?
[00:11:08] one. Next question is from Josh, from east Texas. It's around suppleness. Suppleness in tires is desired by riders. So how do I choose a simple tire without having to buy it and write it with no published measure of scale of suppleness on a given tire from the manufacturer we are left with only this tire field strop sample is TPI and indication.
[00:11:30] Why don't manufacturers provide consumers with this information?
[00:11:33] Randall: So I'm going to volunteer Ben Z and Marcus G in the forum as to people who seem to have written. Every tire I've ever heard of. And some that I haven't. And there are others in there that have as well. But yeah, I think this is a matter of finding out what other people like and kindly asking their opinion and experiences with it.
[00:11:52] Craig: Exactly. I think that's a good recommendation.
[00:11:55] Next question is from Tom Henkel and it's around tire pressure. He acknowledges that he tends to ride harder pressures than a lot of people seem to recommend, but he's also dented REMS and had to wrangle the, straighten them out enough to complete a ride. So he's nervous about bottoming out. How do you know how low is too low? Given the weight of the rider and width of the tire? Also, how does this vary by terrain type?
[00:12:17] Randall: The indication of how low is too low is really. He's denting his rims. And pinch flatting as well you can have two riders of the same weight on the same tires at the same pressure on the same terrain, one we'll be a little bit better at picking lines or at shifting weight around. And we'll be able to push the limits a little bit more. But if you're ponderous and steamrolling through things, then you might need to run higher pressures in order not to bang the rims. Now, if you're not already running the highest volume tires that will fit in your frame, start there for sure. And if you are, and you don't want to have to replace your bike, tire inserts, which is something that we haven't really talked about much. And is in its early days in gravel, but it's increasingly popular in mountain bike. And I'll be getting a set of these to try out. Isaac S in the forum loves his and he rides hard. He used to ride his gravel bike like a full-on mountain bike, and even cracked a rim once, and after he put in inserts he never had any trouble and he was actually pushing his pressures even lower. So those would be the recommendations. I have go biggest volume. You can and get some tire inserts.
[00:13:25] Craig: Yeah, that makes sense.
[00:13:26] It's all trial and error and I am eager as, as well as the listener, I imagined to hear what you think of tire inserts. Cause I do think It's yet another interesting part of the equation that some riders may be able to play around with successfully.
[00:13:40] Randall: Yeah, it has the same effect as adding a little bit of suspension. If you can drop the pressure that much lower and have a two tiered suspension effect where you have the travel of the lower pressure tire, and then right before it bottoms out on the rim, you have this protective layer. So yeah, I think it makes a ton of sense, conceptually. So I'm excited to try it.
[00:13:58] Craig: Yeah, interesting stuff.
[00:14:00] Next question is another one from Kim brown. How do you go around choosing the right tire for the ride?
[00:14:05] I guess I make more like quarterly or seasonal decisions around this and live with it. I certainly have brought my beef feed set up bike two places in the middle of the country that didn't require such an aggressive setup. But it is what it is like I, I'm not super concerned but I imagine if you have the wherewithal and interest you can dig in and find the right tire for every single outing.
[00:14:32] Randall: Yeah. And you definitely again see people who seem to do that. And that's great. For me. I have a bicycle company and I have two wheel sets and I leave the same tires on until they burn out. I'll even take the Sendero Nabil upfront and when it starts to wear a little bit too much, I'll just move it to the back and put on another Nabil upfront.
[00:14:49] I mostly rabid I got, and I got the two we'll set. So I have 700 by 32 blitz and a six 50 by 47 mullet set up. And it's really more of a choice of which wheel package I'm going to go with then. Swapping around tires and things like that, which is a more seasonal or annual decision.
[00:15:05] Craig: Yeah.
[00:15:06] Yeah. Yeah. Same.
[00:15:07] Next one is probably I could've sat in the maintenance section of this conversation, but how do I deal with a pinch flat or puncture or some other common issue in a tubeless tire?
[00:15:16] Randall: Punctures. Dynaplugs, bacon strips. Make sure you have a good amount of sealant in there. And have a spare tube as a backup, if all that fails. If you've got a pinch flat in a tubeless tire if it's on the sidewall, then you know, you do what you can to get home. Sometimes a plug will work, but if it's in the sidewall, you're probably going to want to replace that tire versus in the meat of the tread where the rubber is a lot thicker, a plug can last for the remaining life of the tire. And last thing would be, if you really have a problem and you have a tear in the sidewall, a boot or even just jam putting a dollar bill or something in there so it doesn't continue to spread, just so you can get home, and maybe running lower pressure so it doesn't blow out the sidewall.
[00:16:00] Craig: Yeah.
[00:16:02] If we assume the question came from someone who knows how to change a two-bed tire and has been through that experience, just a couple of other things I would highlight that may not be known unless you've had to go through it. If you are replacing a tubeless tire with an inner tube, you do need to remove the valve core.
[00:16:19] First. And you can expect that if you have ample sealant remaining in said tire. It's going to be a messy situation.
[00:16:27] Randall: Yeah.
[00:16:28] Craig: I don't know what the right thing to do is if you leave the sealant in there, but it's going to be all over you. It's going to be all over the place. It's just something you have to deal with as you get that tire and get your tube in there and find your way home.
[00:16:41] Randall: Yeah, all the more reason to get plugs and just have plugs with you because oftentimes you can get by with those.
[00:16:48] Craig: Yeah. A hundred percent. The first time you plug a tire, it's like a Eureka moment and you just top off the tire and continue on your way. And when it goes beyond that, then you're a very sad. And you will have to deal with quite a mess.
[00:17:02] Randall: There's a picture that think Isaac in the forum shared where he had a hole plugged with eight different plugs in the sidewall and he kept riding it for a while apparently. So Bravo maybe change that casing a little bit sooner. So though.
[00:17:18] Craig: Related to tires, we're going to move into a section on wheels. And matthew Wakeman ask, what kind of situations would be worth considering three wheel sets versus just two for do most of it? Bikes.
[00:17:32] Randall: So my thinking is the first wheel set is probably a wide 700 that can take everything from road to gravel tires and then a even wider six 50, that's more focused on gravel and adventure riding. And then an even wider two Niner that would be your mountain bike setup now, then. Then, that's getting into two bikes. So you have two bikes, three wheel sets between them. If you're just with one bike for everything, then if you're racing or if you're constantly switching between very focused road experience to a fast, hard packed gravel experience to a rugged. Bike packing adventure sort of experience, then it would make sense to maybe have two, seven hundreds and 1 6 50 B. It really would be another 700 slotting in the middle. There.
[00:18:22] Craig: Yeah, for me, it's really around. Tire selection on those wheel sets and yes, it would be a luxury and a full disclosure. I do have three wheel sets in the garage and I'm splitting hairs literally. It's because I'm too lazy to change the tire. And I have the luxury of having the third wheel so that so I've got my sort of NABI. Fairly narrow 700 C off-road sat that will only take me a limited amount of places from where I live. I've got my one that I spend most of my time on which presently is six 50 by 43. And then I've got a 700 with a 30 road tire on it.
[00:18:59] And it's more like Totally when I only had two wheel sets, it was all good. Just choose between road and mountain and don't worry too much about it.
[00:19:07] Randall: I don't even have three wheels. That's Craig. Bravo.
[00:19:10] Craig: Next question comes from Craig. Oh I'm curious on the difference between six 50 B and 700 C and confused about boosts standards, wheels, hubs, rotors and whether it's worth the investment to pursue or just stick with my current wheels. Ideally, I was interested in putting faster, thinner type tires on my 700 C wheels that came with the bike.
[00:19:29] For all their road rides and a second set of six 50 B fatter grippier types for off-road fun. I think we've talked a lot about six 50 B versus 700 C on other podcasts and also on this podcast today. But I was interested in this question around standards, as someone who has a mountain bike, I was aware of boosts standards.
[00:19:50] What is going on with that with respect to gravel bikes and do we see a path towards a boost standard for gravel bikes or are there specific design considerations that make that not likely.
[00:20:03] Randall: So we have one it's called road boost and it seems to have been driven by the emergence of e-bikes as a major category. And what boost does is it increases the spacing upfront 10 millimeters in the back. I believe by six. And it allows the flanges and the hub to be space more widely apart, so that you have more of a bracing angle and more lateral strength. So the same amount of spokes gives you greater lateral stiffness and strength. So that's the benefit now, does it matter for, gravel bikes of, running up to say like a 2.2 tire or even a 2.4 without suspension. It's pretty minor gains.
[00:20:46] I do think that we're going to see a transition towards road boost, which is a one 12 by one 10 upfront and a 12 by 1 48 in the rear. There's, trade-offs one of them being a well for pure road bikes. It's going to be trivially, less Aero, there's always the arrow marketing story . And then two in the back to you end up potentially having to increase the Q factor. Of the cranks. So most people actually benefit from more Q factor than the super narrow ones that used to be common on road bikes so it's not really a problem for most riders, but it's just like another design constraint. There's trade-offs is, are you have to fit a lot of things in a tight package and that's the issue, but it's out there, you see a couple bikes with it. Especially E road bikes and gravel bikes. And I think over time, you'll see that transition, but don't consider it an upgrade that you need to swap your bike to get. It's not mean it's not a meaningful thing in that regard, and you can get most of the benefits by just doing asymmetric rims, which, that's why we and others do asymmetric rims to downs the spoke tensions and angles.
[00:21:49] Craig: Gotcha. I'm going to slip a personal question in that I'd put in the forum. How often should I grease the threads of my through axles if I change wheels frequently?
[00:21:58] Randall: Often enough so that there's always grease on them and no dirt. And if you have any where on the threads you should be doing it more often and use a FIC. FIC Greece. But if you get any dirt in there, like if you drop your through axle or something like that, now you have basically a grinding compound. In the threads. So you want to clean that up. But yeah, that, as with any interface, it will wear over time. So Greece is your way of allowing that interface to last longer than the bike.
[00:22:26] Craig: Yeah, great. We've got a question from Alex, from Tifton, Georgia. What's happening in the gravel scene to involve youth.
[00:22:33] Randall: You seem to be taking out junior. Fairly often on whatever kids bike with whatever tires it's got on there. I think that counts.
[00:22:41] Craig: Yeah, I just want to expose my son to riding off road. And so he's still on a 20 inch wheel bike, but I've put some monster, like two, one tires that I found on it's like a monster truck for him, which I think he enjoys. I think it's the key to bring the youth through mountain biking and discover gravel versus prematurely introducing drop our bikes.
[00:23:06] Randall: Yeah. I'm of the same mind. I've a niece that I take riding in the same way and it's just like she has a 20 inch wheels kid's bike. And I just take her out on the dirt and get her comfortable riding on those surfaces and pushing her comfort zone to try new things. But then also just instilling this deep love of the adventure experience, which for me what we're calling gravel is really all about. It's like going and exploring the area where you live from an entirely different angle than you would get in a car or on foot.
[00:23:36] Craig: Yeah. Agreed.
[00:23:37] Randall: And then of course NICA. We have some coaches in the listenership. Then the new England youth cycling association, actually Patrick in Lee likes bikes are doing a skills clinic with them in October.
[00:23:48] So you have that. And then urban off-road bike parks. Lotta our kids in the city don't have access to trails. And so just providing that access, I think is critical. And there's an example of a McLaren bike park in San Francisco. It's in a part of the city that is pretty far from the bridge and pretty far from the Santa Cruz mountains. And so this would be it, and there is plans potentially to expand that. And building more urban bike parks I think is a big part of that as well.
[00:24:20] Craig: Yeah, for sure. And you bring a huge skill gain to gravel if you come from the mountain bike side.
[00:24:27] Randall: Yeah. Yeah. And starting with a hard tail or even a rigid flat bar bike is a great way to go.
[00:24:33] Craig: A hundred percent. Next question comes from Alex in Columbia, Missouri. And it's a question about frame design. With the growing market of gravel. Where, when does the Aero slash race versus endurance market become two separate markets? Also how far do you think it'll go narrower tubing, et cetera. There seems to be a split already forming with Aero features being added to gravel bikes.
[00:24:57] Randall: I have strong opinions here, so I'm going to let you go first.
[00:25:00] Craig: Yeah. I think the brands are already splitting hairs with these categories as it is. And part of it is positioning vis-a-vis other competitive brands. Part of it is just the designer's vision for what this bike is intended to do. And those lines are blurry and murky and are going to come down to individual brand managers to execute on. So I think it's already a total disaster.
[00:25:27] Randall: I think most Aero claims, especially in gravel are entirely bunk. And it's marketing. And I'll give you an example. So on a road bike, a designer can control almost all of the parameters except for the rider, which ironically is the biggest one more than 80% of the aerodynamic profile, the tire with being a big one, right? So you can have your rim with, and your rim depth matched to the width of the tire. You can have the down tube optimized for that tire to end up really close to the front leading edge of that down tube and the down tube, it can be really narrow. So you have a smooth transition between, rim to tire, to frame in a way that minimizes turbulence. So with a road bike, it's more of a controlled system. And even then the gains are very marginal. And if you look at the. What marketers are usually claiming. If you add up all the Watts that you saved, you'd be traveling at a hundred miles an hour on all the different components you can buy. On gravel, it's worse because you, you have really wide tires. And so you'll have a deep section rim. With a big old tire on it and the tire is much wider than the rim. You're already having detachment of airflow as soon as it comes off that tire. There's a rule which folks can look up the rule of a hundred, 5%, which says that as long as the rim is a hundred, 5%, the width of the tire, then you can generally get good attach flow over the rim, regardless of that rims shape with certain shapes being marginally better. But that one oh 5% rule being more important. But if you have a big old tire on an arrow rim, all that at error rim is doing is adding weights and potentially increasing turbulence, especially in a crosswind where it's going to make it harder to steer. So that's my take on wheels. And then obviously handlebars and all that other stuff very marginal gains, especially given that it's not being designed as a system around the tires and so on.
[00:27:14] Aero helmet and rider position, rider positions the biggest thing that you can do, if you want to improve your. Arrow.
[00:27:20] Craig: Yeah. And I was looking at the question more, less, so about like aerodynamics and more just marketing and bikes in general. And seeing that. There's just a spectrum of bikes that are marketed in different ways. From endurance road bikes, to Aira road bikes, to arrow gravel bikes. I totally agree and understand your comments, and my comments are more just related to the market in general and how there's a plethora of things being directed at consumers and it's ever more confusing to figure it out.
[00:27:50] Fortunately with most quality gravel bikes, you do get this one bike that can do a ton of things. And bikes that you can configure in the way that you ride them.
[00:28:02] Randall: Yeah, I think you'll see the incorporation of some functional arrow. There's no reason not to do a tapered head tube or certain other things, but it's such marginal gains. And really, it's hard to build an Aero bike if you're not controlling for the tire volume and given the divergence in tire sizes that these bikes use that's not a really a controllable variable in design.
[00:28:24] Craig: Yeah. So the final question comes from our friend Marcus in Woodside, California. What are your guesses about the big bike tech quantum leap forward coming next, similar in magnitude to.
[00:28:39] to e-bikes and olive green bib shorts.
[00:28:42] Randall: Marcus is a good friend. And I was definitely on trend with the big shorts there. Really, how do you top that? How does the industry come up with the next thing after olive green shorts?
[00:28:51] Craig: Nothing can make a rider faster or look better than all of Deb's shorts.
[00:28:57] Randall: So that's it. Marcus? I think that's the end of innovation in the bike industry. Yeah, this is a space that you know, that I've put a little bit, a bit of thought into. I'm going to let you go first here as well.
[00:29:07] Craig: I think that makes sense, because I agree this is a tailor made Randall question. I do think the continued use of electronic componentry and other electronics that we all use, has to lead to more integration in bicycles, whether it's like battery packs that are embedded in the bikes that can power both my components, my GPS computer, my headlamp, all these things. I feel like it's a natural point, just like we're seeing in every other element of our lives, where battery and power is required. These things start to appear in more innovative ways. So I think that's interesting.
[00:29:46] I think on the e-bike market, we're starting to see more and more of these bikes that not only is the battery removed, but also the engine, the sort of the motor part of the componentry comes out. So you start to get this bike that has assemblance of ability to ride without the component of it and it's not going to match a pure performance bike, but it may, for some people While still having that opportunity to use the e-bike functionality. So I think those are things that trends that we're definitely going to continue to see. And. And some more forward thinking thoughts.
[00:30:21] Randall: Yeah, I agree with that, and I have a little bit more nuance to add but I want to start with the big, low lying fruit, and we started doing this, Basic things like proportional, crank length. I find it nuts that the industry up until recently didn't really make anything smaller than a 1 65 crank and continues to not offer shorter cranks for shorter riders.
[00:30:41] This is one thing that we did, and then you now see FSA has done a good job of having offerings down to, I think 1 45. To accommodate smaller riders and so proportional, crank length. Proportional wheel sizes, I think is a big opportunity. There's no reason why, it's really small riders. Shouldn't have their wheels scaling to some degree. We already have a 26 inch size, so maybe for the biggest higher volume on an extra small bike, you'd run a 26 by 2.2 or something like that. You do need more tire options, but otherwise it would help to make that bike perform more like the bigger ones with a bigger rider on them. So those are two that I would really like to see.
[00:31:18] I'd like to see continued innovation on integrated quick on and off storage solution. So I think lightweight bags and so on are really slick. And I think that we'll continue to see innovation there. You mentioned electronics. I agree. And it's getting ridiculous with the number of batteries you can have on the bike.
[00:31:34] If you have a wireless shifting system, you can have a battery in each hood battery in each front and rear derailleur. You can have sensors on the bike each with separate batteries, a heart rate monitor, or the separate battery two lights with separate batteries, computer. It's silly and it adds a lot of cost and weight and complexity the system. So I think there should be a single battery on the bike and that there should be a universal standard that all components use. I don't think this is going to happen because everyone everyone wants to trap you into their particular walled garden, but that's a conversation for another day.
[00:32:04] But yeah, those are the big ones. And then lastly, self-contained bike systems that leave nearly nothing behind, maybe some sort of lightweight regenerative braking for this one battery. I would like to see. But first things first and then subtler suspension designs, which I think we're already starting to see with more compliance, like flexible components, you.
[00:32:24] Bar handlebar is built with a little bit of flex or a suspension stem versus going whole hog with a full on suspension fork, just to get 30 or 40 millimeters of travel.
[00:32:33] Did I answer your question? Marcus, let us know in the forum. Hope, hope you're satisfied with the answer. And what is the next color of big short. Greg, what do you think.
[00:32:41] Craig: That's putting me on the spot. Maybe like a tan might do something that makes you a little bit nude.
[00:32:47] Randall: Ooh. Yeah, that would be that everybody would be really comfortable seeing that. Yeah, I'm with
[00:32:53] Craig: dangerous territory.
[00:32:54] Randall: we will have various options to match everyone's skin tone. So we all look like we're riding in the nude.
[00:33:02] Trend leader, Craig Dalton.
[00:33:05] Craig: This was a heck of a lot of fun.
[00:33:07] And it would not have happened without the community. So big shout out to the ridership community and to everybody who submitted questions. I'd love to see us do this again. So we'll probably set up a channel down the line and put the question out there again and see what's gets generated because it was a lot of fun chatting with you about these questions.
[00:33:25] Randall: Yeah, it's what we do on our rides only we've recorded at this time.
[00:33:29] Craig: Yeah, exactly. That's going to do it for us this week on behalf of Randall and myself, have a great week. And until next time here's to finding some dirt onto your wheels.
[00:33:42]
