Oct 19, 2021
Part two of our first Q and A episode. Randall and Craig tacklequestions submitted via The Ridership community.
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Automated Transcription (please excuse the typos):
00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello and welcome to inthe dirt from the gravel ride podcast. I'm your host. Craig daltoni'll be joined shortly by my co-host randall jacobs.
[00:00:12] Today's episode ispart two of our Q and a episode series. Go back in your feed, acouple episodes to find part one. You can certainly jump right intothis episode as we're going question by question. And they don'tnecessarily. Have relation to one another but if you're interestedin part one either after the fact or before you listened to thisepisode go ahead and jump back and listen to that episode.
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[00:02:05] Athletic greenshas agreed to give a free one year supply of vitamin D and fivefree travel packs to any gravel ride podcast listener. So be sureto visit athletic greens.com/the gravel ride. To give it a trytoday. With that said let's jump into part two of the q and aepisode with randall
[00:02:26] Craig: Next question was on optimizingthe adjustment and float intention on SPD pedals. I don't thinkthere's much we can add there cause it's a little bit of trial anderror. In my opinion. I don't know about the float. I don't evenknow if mine has like float adjustment. For me it seems like it'sjust 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 becomemore confident, but certainly starting them out with them. Fairlyeasy to disengage is perfectly acceptable if you're not comfortablewith Clifton riding.
[00:02:57] Randall: Yeah. In terms of tension, Iwould definitely start with a looser engagement and then tighten itdown as you get more confident, Especially when you're firststarting out. And what else? Patrick and I actually talked aboutthis in the bike fit episode. Hey recommending shifting the cleatsback. So if you're running mountain style shoes, which the gravelbike probably should be if you can run them in the back, the boltsto the back then sliding the cleat. Pretty much all the way to theback. Now if that doesn't feel right, you can always move itforward a little bit, but whereas this new real problem with goingtoo far back there can be issues with going too far forward interms of biomechanics and so on. And in terms of the float, youwant to be in the middle of the float and you never want to be in aposition where the you're you're not able to peddle in a naturalmotion where you're using the cleat positioning to restrict yourmotion. That is a a good way to end up with an injury. Sodefinitely don't do that. I generally will start with the cleats.In a position where it's restricting my inward motion so that myheel can't hit the crank arm. And then I'll peddle from there andsee am I in the middle, middle of the float? Am I in my restrictedany part of the pedal stroke? And if not, then that's a goodstarting point. But to really get this right again it is hard to dothis on your own. It's hard to see knee tracking. In souls or thingyou want to invest in, in order to help align the full stack fromhip to knee through the ankle. And this is where listen to thebike, fit 1 0 1 episode and consider working with a bikefitter.
[00:04:30] Craig: I was just going to say thesame thing. It's like one of those things like, oh, bike fit, youdon't necessarily go to clique adjustment, but so often when I'veobserved 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'stoo low and your arches are collapsing and things like that, you'realready starting with things out of alignment and are going to havesome trouble, but at least the advice that, that I just gave willprevent 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'sthe best technique for using a dropper post? How does this helpwith the physics of the ride?
[00:05:14] Randall: I'll let you go first. Icertainly 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 dropperpost where I'm whole, but let's try to offer some quick advice. Oneof the things I like to remind people about with respect to dropher posts is that it's not just a, all the way up or all the waydown product. You've got the full spectrum of range, which meansyou should use it frequently. Obviously when you're in heavytactical descents with steep, dicentric, you're going to slamit.
[00:05:45] But I quitefrequently lower it just a centimeter to just give myself a littlebit more room on terrain. Maybe it's a road descent or somethingthat I'm super confident on, but it gives me a little bit moremargin for error. And as I'm feeling maybe more nervous about thespeed. I'll go down even further just to give myself again a biggerrange of just a bigger margin of error. So practice, and no,there's no right or wrong, use it frequently and you'll figure outwhat feels best for you.
[00:06:15] Randall: You've seen my technique withthe dropper. I'm a bit more extreme. So for me, I use the dropperall the time. I have it down all the way on a high-speed roaddescent, and I use it to allow me to, move my mass around on thebike in a way where, if I want the front end to be more planted, Ican put more mass on the bars, but then I can shift my weight downand back over the rear axle to lighten up the front end for say,traversing, really rough terrain. Provides that distance betweenthe bike and the body where your arms and legs can act assuspension. Your front wheel is rolling in sailing. Your rear isdoing more of your speed control. And in this way, it reallyradically. Improves the capability of the bike, not just off-road,but I would argue on road as well. I descend much faster because Iknow I can grab a handful of both brakes and not be pitching overthe handlebars. So for me, even on the road, I'm dropping it allthe way in a lot of situations.
[00:07:08] Just because Ilike to go that much faster and it gives me that margin ofsafety.
[00:07:12] Craig: All makes sense. Next off,we're going to an area work. Gosh, Randall I almost think we needan entirely new category in the ridership forum just about tires.What do you think?
[00:07:25] Randall: We've been asked for this fora while. By the time this episode airs, if we don't have a channelin there, somebody yell at us in the forum, we'll get thatup.
[00:07:35] Craig: The first question comes againfrom Tom boss, from orange county unicorn tires, lightweight,puncture resistance, fast rolling with lots of grip. What comesclosest for you?
[00:07:45] Randall: I'm not getting in the weedson this one. I defer to the hive-mind and the ridership on this. Ican tell you what I ride. But I'm gonna make no claims about itbeing the optimal.
[00:07:56] Craig: Yeah, do. What are you writingin these days?
[00:07:58] Randall: so currently I'm writing justa WTB Sendero upfront and a venture in the rear. And these aren'tespecially fancy casings. They're not the most efficient tire. Butthey're pretty robust and they have great grip and I like themullet setup. I'm a big fan of going with something NABI or upfrontand like a file tread or even a semi slick, depending on yourterrain in the back.
[00:08:20] And yeah, that'sthe way that I go. We actually just brought in some maxes, Ramblersand receptors. So we go a rambler small knob front and a receptorin the back. And I like the six 50 by 47 size. There are situationswhere I wish I could have a little bit more volume, othersituations where I wish I had a little bit more efficiency, whichtells me that I'm right in the middle of the range for most of thewriting 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 tirethat I got on my first proper gravel bike. And I just fell in lovewith it. Then I left for many years and went on to more of a setupthat 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'vegone back to the gravel king as Kay. And I do find it to be awonderful all around tire because I feel super fast on the road andit does everything that I needed to do in most of the situationsthat I get into.
[00:09:21] Randall: Yeah, sounds about right. Andthen there's always, if you're, if you had a really long ride outto the trail you could always, bring the pressure up a smidge onthe way out there and then give it a little at the theTrailhead.
[00:09:34] Craig: Yeah.
[00:09:34] And again, itobviously comes down to where you are and one thing I'll just notereally quickly, and we've talked about it before is Riding fullyselect tires at a fat with has been remarkable to me howperformance they can be. Off-road you think you need knobs, thenall of a sudden you realize where you do need them, but actually ifyou change your riding style a little bit if you've got a fatrubber tire on there, you can go and do a lot of things.
[00:09:59] Randall: Yeah, the dropper helps a lotwith that. In terms of just being able to be more nuanced with yourbody English as you going over stuff. But yeah, I run 700 by 30tubeless tires and I'll go out on hard road drives and then I'llpass it on to see a trail and be like, oh, what's over there, Imust find out now and then to see. Go and do a little bit ofadventuring. And you gotta pick, you gotta pick your lines. Yougotta be careful not to hit anything, square, a square edge. That'sgonna, bang up against your rim. But if you're if your pressure ishigh enough and you're gentle enough with your writing, you can doa remarkable amount. Most of the stuff that we've written in Marinetogether up written on slicks.
[00:10:36] At one point.Yeah.
[00:10:38] not saying it's agood idea, but it's doable.
[00:10:41] Craig: True. And you enjoyed otherparts of the ride and leaned into other parts of the ride,presumably more because that's, what the bike was oriented aroundon that particular day. And maybe you needed to nurse your way downBlazedale Ridge or something, but you got through it.
[00:10:55] Randall: Yeah, and it's definitelymore of an uphill thing than a downhill thing.
[00:11:00] Craig: Yeah.
[00:11:00] Randall: go uphill on dirt and thendownhill on, on road, but okay. The, we went on a proper tangentthere.
[00:11:07] Craig: Yeah, sorry. next?
[00:11:08] one. Next questionis from Josh, from east Texas. It's around suppleness. Supplenessin tires is desired by riders. So how do I choose a simple tirewithout having to buy it and write it with no published measure ofscale of suppleness on a given tire from the manufacturer we areleft with only this tire field strop sample is TPI andindication.
[00:11:30] Why don'tmanufacturers provide consumers with this information?
[00:11:33] Randall: So I'm going to volunteer BenZ 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 thereare others in there that have as well. But yeah, I think this is amatter of finding out what other people like and kindly askingtheir opinion and experiences with it.
[00:11:52] Craig: Exactly. I think that's a goodrecommendation.
[00:11:55] Next question isfrom Tom Henkel and it's around tire pressure. He acknowledges thathe tends to ride harder pressures than a lot of people seem torecommend, but he's also dented REMS and had to wrangle the,straighten them out enough to complete a ride. So he's nervousabout bottoming out. How do you know how low is too low? Given theweight of the rider and width of the tire? Also, how does this varyby terrain type?
[00:12:17] Randall: The indication of how low istoo low is really. He's denting his rims. And pinch flatting aswell you can have two riders of the same weight on the same tiresat the same pressure on the same terrain, one we'll be a little bitbetter at picking lines or at shifting weight around. And we'll beable to push the limits a little bit more. But if you're ponderousand steamrolling through things, then you might need to run higherpressures in order not to bang the rims. Now, if you're not alreadyrunning the highest volume tires that will fit in your frame, startthere for sure. And if you are, and you don't want to have toreplace your bike, tire inserts, which is something that we haven'treally talked about much. And is in its early days in gravel, butit's increasingly popular in mountain bike. And I'll be getting aset of these to try out. Isaac S in the forum loves his and herides hard. He used to ride his gravel bike like a full-on mountainbike, and even cracked a rim once, and after he put in inserts henever had any trouble and he was actually pushing his pressureseven lower. So those would be the recommendations. I have gobiggest volume. You can and get some tire inserts.
[00:13:25] Craig: Yeah, that makes sense.
[00:13:26] It's all trial anderror and I am eager as, as well as the listener, I imagined tohear what you think of tire inserts. Cause I do think It's yetanother interesting part of the equation that some riders may beable to play around with successfully.
[00:13:40] Randall: Yeah, it has the same effectas adding a little bit of suspension. If you can drop the pressurethat much lower and have a two tiered suspension effect where youhave the travel of the lower pressure tire, and then right beforeit 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 totry it.
[00:13:58] Craig: Yeah, interestingstuff.
[00:14:00] Next question isanother one from Kim brown. How do you go around choosing the righttire for the ride?
[00:14:05] I guess I makemore like quarterly or seasonal decisions around this and live withit. I certainly have brought my beef feed set up bike two places inthe middle of the country that didn't require such an aggressivesetup. But it is what it is like I, I'm not super concerned but Iimagine if you have the wherewithal and interest you can dig in andfind the right tire for every single outing.
[00:14:32] Randall: Yeah. And you definitelyagain see people who seem to do that. And that's great. For me. Ihave a bicycle company and I have two wheel sets and I leave thesame tires on until they burn out. I'll even take the Sendero Nabilupfront and when it starts to wear a little bit too much, I'll justmove it to the back and put on another Nabil upfront.
[00:14:49] I mostly rabid Igot, and I got the two we'll set. So I have 700 by 32 blitz and asix 50 by 47 mullet set up. And it's really more of a choice ofwhich wheel package I'm going to go with then. Swapping aroundtires and things like that, which is a more seasonal or annualdecision.
[00:15:05] Craig: Yeah.
[00:15:06] Yeah. Yeah.Same.
[00:15:07] Next one isprobably I could've sat in the maintenance section of thisconversation, but how do I deal with a pinch flat or puncture orsome other common issue in a tubeless tire?
[00:15:16] Randall: Punctures. Dynaplugs, baconstrips. Make sure you have a good amount of sealant in there. Andhave a spare tube as a backup, if all that fails. If you've got apinch flat in a tubeless tire if it's on the sidewall, then youknow, 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 toreplace that tire versus in the meat of the tread where the rubberis a lot thicker, a plug can last for the remaining life of thetire. And last thing would be, if you really have a problem and youhave a tear in the sidewall, a boot or even just jam putting adollar bill or something in there so it doesn't continue to spread,just so you can get home, and maybe running lower pressure so itdoesn't blow out the sidewall.
[00:16:00] Craig: Yeah.
[00:16:02] If we assume thequestion came from someone who knows how to change a two-bed tireand has been through that experience, just a couple of other thingsI would highlight that may not be known unless you've had to gothrough it. If you are replacing a tubeless tire with an innertube, you do need to remove the valve core.
[00:16:19] First. And you canexpect that if you have ample sealant remaining in said tire. It'sgoing to be a messy situation.
[00:16:27] Randall: Yeah.
[00:16:28] Craig: I don't know what the rightthing to do is if you leave the sealant in there, but it's going tobe all over you. It's going to be all over the place. It's justsomething you have to deal with as you get that tire and get yourtube in there and find your way home.
[00:16:41] Randall: Yeah, all the more reason toget plugs and just have plugs with you because oftentimes you canget by with those.
[00:16:48] Craig: Yeah. A hundred percent. Thefirst time you plug a tire, it's like a Eureka moment and you justtop off the tire and continue on your way. And when it goes beyondthat, then you're a very sad. And you will have to deal with quitea mess.
[00:17:02] Randall: There's a picture that thinkIsaac in the forum shared where he had a hole plugged with eightdifferent plugs in the sidewall and he kept riding it for a whileapparently. So Bravo maybe change that casing a little bit sooner.So though.
[00:17:18] Craig: Related to tires, we're goingto move into a section on wheels. And matthew Wakeman ask, whatkind of situations would be worth considering three wheel setsversus just two for do most of it? Bikes.
[00:17:32] Randall: So my thinking is the firstwheel set is probably a wide 700 that can take everything from roadto gravel tires and then a even wider six 50, that's more focusedon gravel and adventure riding. And then an even wider two Ninerthat would be your mountain bike setup now, then. Then, that'sgetting into two bikes. So you have two bikes, three wheel setsbetween them. If you're just with one bike for everything, then ifyou're racing or if you're constantly switching between veryfocused road experience to a fast, hard packed gravel experience toa rugged. Bike packing adventure sort of experience, then it wouldmake sense to maybe have two, seven hundreds and 1 6 50 B. Itreally would be another 700 slotting in the middle.There.
[00:18:22] Craig: Yeah, for me, it's reallyaround. Tire selection on those wheel sets and yes, it would be aluxury and a full disclosure. I do have three wheel sets in thegarage and I'm splitting hairs literally. It's because I'm too lazyto change the tire. And I have the luxury of having the third wheelso that so I've got my sort of NABI. Fairly narrow 700 C off-roadsat that will only take me a limited amount of places from where Ilive. I've got my one that I spend most of my time on whichpresently is six 50 by 43. And then I've got a 700 with a 30 roadtire on it.
[00:18:59] And it's more likeTotally when I only had two wheel sets, it was all good. Justchoose between road and mountain and don't worry too much aboutit.
[00:19:07] Randall: I don't even have threewheels. 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 andconfused about boosts standards, wheels, hubs, rotors and whetherit's worth the investment to pursue or just stick with my currentwheels. Ideally, I was interested in putting faster, thinner typetires on my 700 C wheels that came with the bike.
[00:19:29] For all their roadrides and a second set of six 50 B fatter grippier types foroff-road fun. I think we've talked a lot about six 50 B versus 700C on other podcasts and also on this podcast today. But I wasinterested in this question around standards, as someone who has amountain bike, I was aware of boosts standards.
[00:19:50] What is going onwith that with respect to gravel bikes and do we see a path towardsa boost standard for gravel bikes or are there specific designconsiderations that make that not likely.
[00:20:03] Randall: So we have one it's calledroad boost and it seems to have been driven by the emergence ofe-bikes as a major category. And what boost does is it increasesthe spacing upfront 10 millimeters in the back. I believe by six.And it allows the flanges and the hub to be space more widelyapart, so that you have more of a bracing angle and more lateralstrength. So the same amount of spokes gives you greater lateralstiffness and strength. So that's the benefit now, does it matterfor, gravel bikes of, running up to say like a 2.2 tire or even a2.4 without suspension. It's pretty minor gains.
[00:20:46] I do think thatwe're going to see a transition towards road boost, which is a one12 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 goingto be trivially, less Aero, there's always the arrow marketingstory . And then two in the back to you end up potentially havingto increase the Q factor. Of the cranks. So most people actuallybenefit from more Q factor than the super narrow ones that used tobe common on road bikes so it's not really a problem for mostriders, but it's just like another design constraint. There'strade-offs is, are you have to fit a lot of things in a tightpackage and that's the issue, but it's out there, you see a couplebikes with it. Especially E road bikes and gravel bikes. And Ithink over time, you'll see that transition, but don't consider itan upgrade that you need to swap your bike to get. It's not meanit's not a meaningful thing in that regard, and you can get most ofthe benefits by just doing asymmetric rims, which, that's why weand others do asymmetric rims to downs the spoke tensions andangles.
[00:21:49] Craig: Gotcha. I'm going to slip apersonal question in that I'd put in the forum. How often should Igrease the threads of my through axles if I change wheelsfrequently?
[00:21:58] Randall: Often enough so that there'salways grease on them and no dirt. And if you have any where on thethreads you should be doing it more often and use a FIC. FICGreece. But if you get any dirt in there, like if you drop yourthrough axle or something like that, now you have basically agrinding compound. In the threads. So you want to clean that up.But yeah, that, as with any interface, it will wear over time. SoGreece is your way of allowing that interface to last longer thanthe bike.
[00:22:26] Craig: Yeah, great. We've got aquestion from Alex, from Tifton, Georgia. What's happening in thegravel scene to involve youth.
[00:22:33] Randall: You seem to be taking outjunior. Fairly often on whatever kids bike with whatever tires it'sgot on there. I think that counts.
[00:22:41] Craig: Yeah, I just want to expose myson 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'slike a monster truck for him, which I think he enjoys. I think it'sthe key to bring the youth through mountain biking and discovergravel 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 likeshe has a 20 inch wheels kid's bike. And I just take her out on thedirt and get her comfortable riding on those surfaces and pushingher comfort zone to try new things. But then also just instillingthis deep love of the adventure experience, which for me what we'recalling gravel is really all about. It's like going and exploringthe area where you live from an entirely different angle than youwould get in a car or on foot.
[00:23:36] Craig: Yeah. Agreed.
[00:23:37] Randall: And then of course NICA. Wehave some coaches in the listenership. Then the new England youthcycling association, actually Patrick in Lee likes bikes are doinga 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 citydon't have access to trails. And so just providing that access, Ithink is critical. And there's an example of a McLaren bike park inSan Francisco. It's in a part of the city that is pretty far fromthe bridge and pretty far from the Santa Cruz mountains. And sothis 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 aswell.
[00:24:20] Craig: Yeah, for sure. And you bring ahuge skill gain to gravel if you come from the mountain bikeside.
[00:24:27] Randall: Yeah. Yeah. And starting witha hard tail or even a rigid flat bar bike is a great way togo.
[00:24:33] Craig: A hundred percent. Nextquestion comes from Alex in Columbia, Missouri. And it's a questionabout frame design. With the growing market of gravel. Where, whendoes the Aero slash race versus endurance market become twoseparate markets? Also how far do you think it'll go narrowertubing, et cetera. There seems to be a split already forming withAero 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 arealready splitting hairs with these categories as it is. And part ofit is positioning vis-a-vis other competitive brands. Part of it isjust 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 toindividual brand managers to execute on. So I think it's already atotal disaster.
[00:25:27] Randall: I think most Aero claims,especially in gravel are entirely bunk. And it's marketing. AndI'll give you an example. So on a road bike, a designer can controlalmost all of the parameters except for the rider, which ironicallyis the biggest one more than 80% of the aerodynamic profile, thetire 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 havethe down tube optimized for that tire to end up really close to thefront leading edge of that down tube and the down tube, it can bereally narrow. So you have a smooth transition between, rim totire, to frame in a way that minimizes turbulence. So with a roadbike, it's more of a controlled system. And even then the gains arevery marginal. And if you look at the. What marketers are usuallyclaiming. If you add up all the Watts that you saved, you'd betraveling at a hundred miles an hour on all the differentcomponents you can buy. On gravel, it's worse because you, you havereally wide tires. And so you'll have a deep section rim. With abig old tire on it and the tire is much wider than the rim. You'realready having detachment of airflow as soon as it comes off thattire. 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 widthof the tire, then you can generally get good attach flow over therim, regardless of that rims shape with certain shapes beingmarginally 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 errorrim is doing is adding weights and potentially increasingturbulence, especially in a crosswind where it's going to make itharder to steer. So that's my take on wheels. And then obviouslyhandlebars and all that other stuff very marginal gains, especiallygiven that it's not being designed as a system around the tires andso on.
[00:27:14] Aero helmet andrider 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 thequestion more, less, so about like aerodynamics and more justmarketing and bikes in general. And seeing that. There's just aspectrum of bikes that are marketed in different ways. Fromendurance road bikes, to Aira road bikes, to arrow gravel bikes. Itotally agree and understand your comments, and my comments aremore just related to the market in general and how there's aplethora of things being directed at consumers and it's ever moreconfusing to figure it out.
[00:27:50] Fortunately withmost quality gravel bikes, you do get this one bike that can do aton of things. And bikes that you can configure in the way that youride them.
[00:28:02] Randall: Yeah, I think you'll see theincorporation of some functional arrow. There's no reason not to doa tapered head tube or certain other things, but it's such marginalgains. And really, it's hard to build an Aero bike if you're notcontrolling for the tire volume and given the divergence in tiresizes that these bikes use that's not a really a controllablevariable in design.
[00:28:24] Craig: Yeah. So the final questioncomes from our friend Marcus in Woodside, California. What are yourguesses about the big bike tech quantum leap forward coming next,similar in magnitude to.
[00:28:39] to e-bikes andolive green bib shorts.
[00:28:42] Randall: Marcus is a good friend. AndI was definitely on trend with the big shorts there. Really, how doyou top that? How does the industry come up with the next thingafter olive green shorts?
[00:28:51] Craig: Nothing can make a rider fasteror look better than all of Deb's shorts.
[00:28:57] Randall: So that's it. Marcus? I thinkthat's the end of innovation in the bike industry. Yeah, this is aspace that you know, that I've put a little bit, a bit of thoughtinto. 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 thinkthe continued use of electronic componentry and other electronicsthat we all use, has to lead to more integration in bicycles,whether it's like battery packs that are embedded in the bikes thatcan power both my components, my GPS computer, my headlamp, allthese things. I feel like it's a natural point, just like we'reseeing in every other element of our lives, where battery and poweris required. These things start to appear in more innovative ways.So I think that's interesting.
[00:29:46] I think on thee-bike market, we're starting to see more and more of these bikesthat not only is the battery removed, but also the engine, the sortof the motor part of the componentry comes out. So you start to getthis bike that has assemblance of ability to ride without thecomponent of it and it's not going to match a pure performancebike, but it may, for some people While still having thatopportunity to use the e-bike functionality. So I think those arethings 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, andI have a little bit more nuance to add but I want to start with thebig, low lying fruit, and we started doing this, Basic things likeproportional, crank length. I find it nuts that the industry upuntil recently didn't really make anything smaller than a 1 65crank and continues to not offer shorter cranks for shorterriders.
[00:30:41] This is one thingthat we did, and then you now see FSA has done a good job of havingofferings down to, I think 1 45. To accommodate smaller riders andso proportional, crank length. Proportional wheel sizes, I think isa big opportunity. There's no reason why, it's really small riders.Shouldn't have their wheels scaling to some degree. We already havea 26 inch size, so maybe for the biggest higher volume on an extrasmall bike, you'd run a 26 by 2.2 or something like that. You doneed more tire options, but otherwise it would help to make thatbike 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 seecontinued innovation on integrated quick on and off storagesolution. So I think lightweight bags and so on are really slick.And I think that we'll continue to see innovation there. Youmentioned electronics. I agree. And it's getting ridiculous withthe number of batteries you can have on the bike.
[00:31:34] If you have awireless shifting system, you can have a battery in each hoodbattery in each front and rear derailleur. You can have sensors onthe bike each with separate batteries, a heart rate monitor, or theseparate battery two lights with separate batteries, computer. It'ssilly and it adds a lot of cost and weight and complexity thesystem. So I think there should be a single battery on the bike andthat there should be a universal standard that all components use.I don't think this is going to happen because everyone everyonewants to trap you into their particular walled garden, but that's aconversation for another day.
[00:32:04] But yeah, thoseare the big ones. And then lastly, self-contained bike systems thatleave nearly nothing behind, maybe some sort of lightweightregenerative braking for this one battery. I would like to see. Butfirst things first and then subtler suspension designs, which Ithink we're already starting to see with more compliance, likeflexible components, you.
[00:32:24] Bar handlebar isbuilt with a little bit of flex or a suspension stem versus goingwhole hog with a full on suspension fork, just to get 30 or 40millimeters of travel.
[00:32:33] Did I answer yourquestion? Marcus, let us know in the forum. Hope, hope you'resatisfied 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 bitnude.
[00:32:47] Randall: Ooh. Yeah, that would be thateverybody would be really comfortable seeing that. Yeah, I'mwith
[00:32:53] Craig: dangerousterritory.
[00:32:54] Randall: we will have various optionsto match everyone's skin tone. So we all look like we're riding inthe nude.
[00:33:02] Trend leader,Craig Dalton.
[00:33:05] Craig: This was a heck of a lot offun.
[00:33:07] And it would nothave happened without the community. So big shout out to theridership community and to everybody who submitted questions. I'dlove to see us do this again. So we'll probably set up a channeldown the line and put the question out there again and see what'sgets generated because it was a lot of fun chatting with you aboutthese questions.
[00:33:25] Randall: Yeah, it's what we do on ourrides only we've recorded at this time.
[00:33:29] Craig: Yeah, exactly. That's going todo it for us this week on behalf of Randall and myself, have agreat week. And until next time here's to finding some dirt ontoyour wheels.
[00:33:42]
