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Bike Industry Economics, XC Hardtail vs Gravel Bike, Downieville Race Recap, Is Jeff Blind? Ep. 140
Today on the podcast, the guys discuss Jeff's insane adventure race and Liam's Downieville race recap as well as their recent trip to Mammoth and a new tire from Maxxis before jumping into a classic array of listener questions ranging from if Jeff is totally blind to the best time to replace your cassette and chainring and everything in between. Tune in!
Worldwide Cyclery YouTube Channel
Submit any and all questions to podcast@worldwidecyclery.com
If you are one strange human that would like to read a transcript of the podcast above, continue reading below!
ladies and gentlemen welcome to episode 140 of the MTB podcast presented and
hosted by worldwide Cyclery I'm Jared I'm Jeff and I'm Liam in this episode we
discuss a recap of Liam's downeyville race a brand new tire from Maxis my
Adventure Race our recent trip to Mammoth bike park and of course plenty of listener questions ranging from when
to replace drivetrain Parts if I am blind a followup question to my recent
interview with the ram CEO and much much more action so much more kind of
downplayed the Adventure Race my Adventure Race my Adventure Race I tell people about it later I could have said
like how I nearly died during an Adventure Race that's an attention grabbing intro how I nearly died that is
definitely how I felt death that's right well speaking of that with things Zach's
words of wisdom remember you can do anything you set your mind to but it takes having the Heart of a Lion well
said Zach well and if you're watching on YouTube Here's that's right we're doing
photo of Zach when we just yeah but soon we're going to record him saying his words of wisdom right like he really
wants to be yeah no he doesn't want to we are forcing him he did in math he
said like he wants to see yeah he specifically said he wants to show his face more and talk on the podcast for
his words of wisdom cuz he's sick of too many people recognizing you at downeyville about the podcast and not
him cuz you guys were both at downeyville a lot of people recognize Liam nobody knew Zach from Zach's words of wisdom and he deserves equal
notoriety as equal or more than me yeah absolutely speaking of which Daniel's
fun fact blue whales have the largest hearts on the planet weighing over 450
kilos and pumping 230 L of blood per beat wow can you even fathom that that's
insane 230 L of blood just clearly I'm the only one impr be
per minute though well yeah I don't know if it's like 10 beats per minute you know what's the ratio that's a really
good resting heart rate yeah we're going to reserve episode 141 to just tell you about facts of the blue whale blue
whales heart blue whale Hearts fantastic testimonials hey guys I just wanted to
express my gratitude about the podcast and my recent experience in my local worldwi cycy store in Sparks Nevada I'm
a truck driver by trade and I've been binge listening to the podcast episodes for 2 weeks it's amazing and I love what
you do for the mountain by Community I've learned so much from listening I also just installed a new shifter on YT cpra and just needed an opinion on how
it was shifting and one of your employees was glad to help me out all my buying and service needs will now go to
you guys being the cat needs more exposure Liam's knowledge on tires is impressive Jeff Jeff keep up the amazing
things you do genuinely thank you all thank you very much that was a really nice testimonial I I've for some reason
thought that the reason we put in fantastic testimonials as a segment was just a highlight like people ripping
us that's how they started all well yeah it's just like everyone you know every time I went it was a testimony of
someone saying something rude about me and Jared loved it and now we're so good that we don't have that many of people
ripping us yeah I just delete those emails Jee speak for yourself Bud all right go go
go on YouTube videos more and you'll get some comments I try not to read the comments just little slap and tickle
like most people are most people are pretty nice they just say funny things good pick up line are you trash cuz I
want to take you out oh you know F him down pick them back up sold oh yeah that was a very nice
fantastic monial uh fantastic testimonial great to hear about that you know people getting taken care of yeah
it's cool speaking of testimonials a lot of people said they like the podcast did they say they like the podcast or just said they heard you on a podcast did
anyone specifically say anything good about the podcast or just that you were on it no no a lot of people did say that
hey there's guy from Matt podcast that would be funny if they're like hey you're from Mountain Mike podcast that
sucks worst podcast ever honestly that' make me laugh that would be hilarious dude oh my God uh yeah a surprisingly a
lot amount of people at downeyville recognized me and said they were fans of
the podcast I think most of them said they're fans of the podcast and that they recognize me from that nice but
podcast was first um Trevor as well you know Trevor is with me and Zach was also
with me and by like the fifth person he was like fifth there's probably like I don't know 20 plus people by the fifth
one Zach was so upset that uh he said it and he goes podast
sucks no wayes funny oh so he really wants to get
on here future we got to show he's going to have to do his words of wisdom to the camera and microphone and uh Tidman was
saying he's a groupy worldwide groupy they're like oh you also from worldwi he's like I'm just a groupy which is
awesome yeah no it would be great to get like just Zach in front of the camera even solo just like pre-recorded words
of wisdom and then like insert it into the video or whatever the it's been a while since he's been in front of the
camera it's been a while yeah poti the the sale
whatever sale we ran I think it was May the 4th maybe or something or the Kaz the Kazo video April Fool's prank the
engineer who developed the kazoo his uh that was a good character for him his like one line took him 30 minutes yeah
several takes yeah speaking of downeyville how was it was it fun did you enjoy yourself yes absolutely
downeyville is always fun I mean I literally cannot have a better week on the bike um it's just we got there on
Tuesday which is I thing the early we've ever shown up I had bunch of campsites
and uh camping on the river and we rode bikes you know pre-road the course Tuesday Wednesday Thursday we're able to
basically just chill on Friday and then race Saturday so like all set up all dialed um just ripping bikes we had such
a good crew with us this year it was really hot but luckily we had the river to cool off and uh yeah we're in that
River like probably five plus times a day um yeah and the racing went pretty good good my legs and fitness I think
were exactly where I wanted them uh I had a bit of a fluke bad luck poor line
choice I don't really know but uh I flatted on basically like the near the
top of the climb like I wasn't even going downhill yet I wasn't on a single track I was on a fire Road wa and how
you know your fit when you can flat while climbing when does that happen to you Jared I don't know dude I don't know
me neither I think I think it was just like a fluke where like a piece of sharp shell or something went up and wedged
between my tire and chain stay oh and it just literally quarter inch hole in my tire uh straight down the tread oh wow
um and you know dyo plugs darts basically shoved everything in there
didn't work CO2 it up once uh started riding again sometimes you just shove
everything in and nothing gets the job done yeah I know um the worst started
spraying everywhere after I did that oh my God uh every time yep but uh I ended up riding the insert to the top through
a tube in at the top of Packer saddle and rode a tube all the way down XC core
somehow and did not flat that wow um so yeah I mean 30 uh
238 elapse time with a 230 moving time so I fixed a flat basically almost two
Flats in 8 minutes pretty good so pretty pretty good um you had to insert in you
had to take it out I just left it at the Aid Station yeah yes yeah what else you Canna do um you said you guys can have
this the guy said he was gonna give it to me afterwards and I never yeah so whatever um it's all good
donation and uh so yeah I I think that put me 36 or 7th or something overall XC
day and then um on downhill day I wanted a sub 50 minute
I did 50 minutes and 20 seconds so right on Pace but it's insane what like how
close the times get um I got 20th on downhill day if I got like a minute
faster I would have been like 16th or so and Tidman who got I don't even think he's a full two minutes faster yeah
think he was actually exactly two minutes faster and he got 10th wow in downhill so um it's a long course it is
a long course but it's insane how close everyone is right like you know 45
Racers plus but are coming down this and like people are so within seconds that
like all the seconds matter on a 50 minute course you know 45 minutes I think I think the top three guys went
sub 45 but about everyone after that was 45 to about 50 53 minutes something like
that what was the winning time and who who won it Keegan won Keegan swensson won both days he went one-1 uh I believe
he went faster both XC and downhill were faster last year Keegan went faster last
year on XC and Chris Levens went faster last year on downhill I believe um but I
think Keegan didn't it 44 minutes in some change this year wow which is insane yeah like six minutes faster than
me which is you know over 10% faster it's crazy um yeah no all in all stoked
I don't think I would have changed really anything on bike setup I do think my flat was just bad luck fluke you know
bike racing what tire set up I had Recon Max's Recon front 24 uh Max's icon 235
rear with tubo light inserts front and rear so um I don't think I would have
done anything differently if anything and people are just showing that you can go really fast on even less tire like
kabush was on Aspens Mackey was on Aspens uh I think Tobin was on recon
races like yeah wow so yeah that's pretty much it nice had a good weekend I
beat Trevor in both races wow I'm able to say that even with the flat I beat him on XC day wow um impressive what
about Weaver Weaver uh well day one he said he didn't really try
um but day two I looked at his heart rate data he tried you have you have to try but like um day two doesn't lie I
told him doesn't lie if he go spent 20 minutes in zone five didn't try yeah if
he went sub hour that he's a real mountain biker and he did and he went 58 minutes I thought he did really good he
did really good that's awesome Trevor did a 54 on 54
52 I can't remember 52 maybe um but yeah
weer to 58 and I was super impressed nice so yeah that's epic yeah wow that's
cool but good times as of next year I don't
know yeah I I mean definitely going obviously like I'll go have a year for the rest of my life but uh I don't think
I'll change much honestly I think setup wise is pretty dialed might try to get get away with less tires yeah see if
that works Zach and Trevor running forecasters Zach was on same setup I was
Recon front icon rear uh Trevor was on forecaster two for front forecaster EXO
plus two4 rear and within the first five minutes of dropping in on day one
Trevor's like I'm going to take it easy dude's gone drops me and flats and I
come around a corner and he's like trying to plug it and I'm like yep what' you do man sent it so hard he the problem that
we I was realizing with EXO plus is the EXO plus Protection Plus part is only
sidewall protection so it's sidewall protection and sidewall support but me
Trevor and Zach we all flatted I flatted on mace day they Flatt on practice days all of them were on the tread pattern
where the EXO plus does not add more support or protection so kind of like
what's the point useful Tire knowledge and I didn't know that so that is very useful Tire knowledge yeah yeah
reinforces this Sky comment saying Liam's knowledge of tires is impressive do the tire talking downeyville is real
God was tman on those WTB tires tman was on not the Marcos macro macro mro yeah
Marco Marco Polo um no he what did tyman ran he ran Trail Boss front and rear
light casing fast rolling oh um probably a little bit more tired I think he said he'll stick with a Trail Boss front next
year and probably go something with like a range out back hm yeah interesting so but yeah yeah that's it that's all for
me it's pretty rap and you guys went to Mammoth after that right yeah yeah yeah
well actually we went well you went to Reno Taho Reno then Mammoth nice yeah
yeah we did our annual company camping trip where everyone from the Nevada shop and everyone from the California shop meet at Mammoth just about everyone and
just about everyone and uh ride bikes and sit around a campfire and it's a
good time bike park was running amazing really it was just in really good shape it wasn't it wasn't beat up at all the
dirt was good I think I just opened a bunch of like right before you guys got there yeah there was still like a decent
amount of closed Trails but it was mostly just like the double black downhill Trails I believe it was all the
jump Trails all the all the jump Trails closed yeah but like uh pipeline was
closed top to bottom um any a lot of things that had wood features were closed um so Flo was open FLO was open
shun was open nice hit the drop on Flow oh yeah oh yeah we did we try to convince everyone to do not didn't do it
no but Zach did beat Tyler aara in a downhill race down shotgun huge um you
know super accurate Strava which Jeff argues against but it showed pretty consistent and uh yeah next time we're
going walkie-talkies in a good old fashioned stop clock yeah stopwatch yeah you can just use cell phones those
functionalities on them like the walkie-talkie feature is a similar functionality to a call talking about
like when you call someone and you you know what I mean right but that's there's obviously call there's still a
delay isn't there it's a lot better than a recording a Strava activity well okay we'll do a it was a
good time walkie-talkie and a stopwatch yeah that's what I was thinking we should do but then when it came down to it I was like I don't really care to
like make it that official I yeah I was like I don't really going to make that official like yeah St time
boys that was a super good time Mammoth is I love going there the dirt is that sort of super fluffy kitty little kitty
litter dirt which I think is really fun to ride yeah um I just think it's really good bike park enjoyable I think the
last three years each time I've been there and ridden it more I have more and more fun yeah but actually on Friday I
went up a day early and I did another big XC ride I was just there a few weeks ago did some XC rides I think it's more
fun at XC bite really mm I think especially the part of the mountain well there's a lot of mellow Terrain in
between the gnarly stuff and uh you can get down most of the gnarly stuff like I rode most of Flo top to bottom on my XC
bike really um but you carries so much more speed when the when the trails get flat or you're traversing across the
mountain that it makes it a lot more fun in my opinion yeah yeah and you're floating on top of the dirt versus kind of like dig in and drift so it's a
different kind of riding style but it's fun that's cool yeah I'd like to bring a short travel bike to Mammoth that'd be
super fun yeah yeah you know what would be really cool there that new Maxis High Roller 3 that high roller 3 new from
Maxis brand new tired which a lot of people are would you take a gamble on the High Roller 3 oh I think I would you
know lot of people are uh pointing out doesn't really resemble anything like
the old High Roller it's kind of like the forecaster too right yeah they're recycling the name even though it's not
like a why even call it a yeah I don't know cuz like the high you know the original High Roller then it was high roller 2 yeah those actually did
resemble each other a decent bit and now High Roller three just like why don't you just give it a new name but yeah they're like shorter knobs faster
rolling Tire High Roller make more sense if that was called like a shorty two or a shorty roller I don't know it looks
more like shorty they basically combined an ass guy and a shorty to create a
really good loose condition mixed kind of they call it intermediate spike in
intermediate tires so it's not going to be a popular or common Tire yeah but I do think it's for now until basically
the end of season in the Sierra whether you're in Tahoe Reno Mammoth y uh racing chy to Peak in September I think that's
a amazing front tire yeah um it's going to have grip you know dig into the loose
soil really good orig if if you're kind of riding some wet weather but there's a lot of uh hard
packed BMS and or rocks the shorty is going to squirm on that stuff kind of give you that sketchy feeling where this
High Roller is perfect for that um so I think you'll see a lot even less people running shorties on World Cups and
racing um until it's like a full mutter and they'll be on the high roller three yeah yeah so what would you run as a
rear tire with a High Roller in the front depends how loose it is and if I'm racing or not if I racing I'd probably
run dual high rollers if it was really loose like that otherwise I'd just run a dhrl back yeah yeah pretty cool looking
Tire pretty cool looking Tire already got winds under Jackson Goldstone Ronan dun Marine Caribou Richie rude and
Richie Roode it's impressive I would love to have an excuse to use that tire
yeah me too no reason to use that they showed up the day where you got back from Amo so like come on yeah it does
look cool can never have too many good tires you really can't you really can't y That's a bumer but uh yeah I mean wow
I would love to get some bike park Laps on that tire looks super good that Max grip there's nothing like Max grip
rubber you know downhill right now it's only available in downhill casing but they will come out double down in EXO
Plus in the future yeah but yeah downhill casing Max grip oh just speaking of tires roughly
when this podcast comes out at some point we're also going to have a video about tires on YouTube talking about you
and I Jared favorite favorite tires of this year like current setups that we use on all of our bikes it's like what
video are you talking about yes the one we filmed already yeah that's right yeah
sick yeah it's going to be a great video our our current favorite Tire combos current favorite Tire combos I think that'll be a useful video for people
because we were just like honest transparent these are our bikes these are our tires this is what we've basically been using all year so if
you're interested in that that will be on YouTube on the website youtube.com near you
someday soon Shut Out YouTube youtube.com I have never heard anybody say
youtube.com um maybe we'll put in the show notes for everybody you said it will be live by this right me you would
know when it would be live better than I would yeah it's honestly probably podcast you even know a video you're talking
about similar timing we'll see we'll see first well uh last topic Jeff you almost
died in Adventure Race that's right Jeff to miss a pod cuz I was wrecked missed a
pod dude missed a lot of stuff I don't know if I've seen you that down for a
while yeah that was that was I think as equal as down as when you had your
appendix taken out yeah yeah you're right yeah when the appendix burst emergency surgery and you what did you
say when that happened you said well can I did I reschedule this or can I come back oh yeah that was funny and then he
said no dude you needed this taken out right now people who understand like cuz I didn't know anything about appendix and I went to the ER and got a CAT scan
cuz I was in such pain I drove myself there like 1: in the morning I drove myself there at 1: in the morning like
you know get a CAT scan doctor's like you know hey your your appendix burst blah blah blah you're going to have to get surgery and uh as soon as he said
that I just like God I pull out my phone open my calendar app I'm looking at my calendar and I'm like when when can I
get this surgery I have a super busy schedule this week and the guy's like you're getting the surgery in an hour
he's like your appendix is burst and you could go septic I was like what exactly does that mean and he's like explaining like oh okay
well I guess I'm getting surgery right now and so then I'm like rearranging sendemail bed like sending emails at 1:
a.m. to the whole company like I'm going to be Mia for a few days sorry I love that story TR to schedule like people
who know anything about appendix or anything medical like I just didn't know like I was like when when do I schedule
this you know appendix removal I have a busy week I I didn't realize like did not realize that once your penic burst
and this whole going septic thing and I didn't understand all that so I'm sure some people that understand it are dying laughing right now um yeah that was that
was a rough one but this adventure a so this adventure race was a is a 4-day format so it was a stage race which is a
bit different for an Adventure Race which is kind of what drew our team to it because we thought it would be fun um and I guess it kind of was fun sort of
in hindsight in hindsight it was really hard uh so it was it was three days of 16 hours of racing and then the fourth
day was 8 hours of racing um the but man it started out rugged so so day one day
one was all on foot and uh we did 32 Mi and 9,000 ft of elevation W and 6,000 ft
of that was all off Trail like in big just like scree fields and just total Boulder fields and stuff and tons of
river crossing so we were we were wrecked but a lot of that was our fault it was only supposed to be like 4,000 ft
of elevation but we made several navigation errors adventure racing is so hard that also included a cuz you know
you're so your map en Compass no no electronics allowed going around finding checkpoints um what was really cool
about this was there was a vfa and a canyoning section all on day one so like we did this incredible VF course we did
this epic canyoning course um and then just a ton of running and trekking and
yeah we were all just destroyed like everyone was like I don't know I put in 9,000 ft into my legs I don't know ever
in like a single day so like we were we were wrecked yeah not on foot that's a lot yeah 32 miles 9,000 ft was was
brutal so so then here we come into day two just destroyed ready for another and and that took us 15 hours 36 minutes
barely made the cut off cuz like if you're a minute late you lose a checkpoint per minute which is which is
massive there's only like 10 12 checkpoints a day so like if you lose a checkpoint per minute it's like they
incentivize you to make sure you don't don't hit the cut off so yeah it took us 15 hours 36 minutes day two was
multisport so that was uh 10 miles of hiking uh 19 miles of pack rafting 33 miles of
mountain biking 3 miles of running and then a 7mile bike ride and that took us
15 hours 34 minutes we're making progress wow 2 minutes faster two minutes faster on day two that's insane
we were just we were just absolutely wrecked um the bigger problem was day
one I was like I'm not feeling super good like I feel like something's coming on but I was still hanging in there was all good day two woke up just like
completely congested coughing totally sick I was like this is a really bad time to be sick um and then I remained
deathly sick day two three and four by by day three I was like coughing up and
like Hawking up lime green fleem and by the fourth day it was like blood red no
it was bad dude oh no dude it it was I was so sick um I mean it was just
utterly miserable so a lot of times in adventure racing like you your team has to stay together and finish together and
if one person drops the whole team basically dnfs goes into like what's called a non-compete category um same
thing that happens if you miss like a mandatory checkpoint so I was like I'm going to stay with everyone but it was
it was just horrendous and like you do a lot of Towing actually so like we'll take a strap and like tie it to someone
like so I had angerman actually towed me quite a bit on the cycling stuff to like his seat in my bar and stem and so like
he towed me for some of that stuff um and then like even on some of the hiking on like the really steep as I just could
not breathe like I couldn't breathe out of my nose and I just for all of my life I could not get enough oxygen to like
get I couldn't get out of Zone 2 like I just could get enough energy faster than you on the bike even with you sick yeah
Dom's a strong climber he's he's super fit I know I just you know you're strong as well like well on the the all the
downhill sections and like technical Rudy sections like I could still hang with the team even though I was dead sick um also being towed on a tech
downhill sounds it's impossible like you take the toes wrap off there it's more like for the fire RS and stuff rolling
the dice so it was it was yeah your body is like just stop yeah it just like does
it just like puts a governor on you it's like you can't go any further and then day three was another massive day on
foot so that day on foot was 28 M and 7,000 ft of ascent um and that went into
a 20 M pack raft and that day we literally finished 16 hours on the dot
wow like we came in at 1 minute late and we're going to get penalized um but the
race actually started 1 minute late so we finished at 11:01 p.m. but the race had started at 7:01 a.m. so like we
didn't get the penalty yeah it was we were like sprinting into the Finish oh
my god dude um and I was ready to drop out for day four um but the GU just and
I was like getting this really bad tendonitis in my ankle which was a whole another thing my my left ankle looked like jav of the Hut just swollen red
massive just destroyed could like not walk without being in severe pain everyone's everyone's feet just utterly
disgusting covered in like blisters and scabs and blood like it just this is the most messed up sport ever like I don't
know why people do this sport it's just pure misery um it's like the most humbling sport ever it really do 9,000
ft on day one that just sets you up for a gnarly week well wasn't your ankle messed up going into it it was yeah it
like hurt my foot coming into it and I was like kind of I think that's how I got the tontis cuz I was kind of favoring it and a lot of that off rail
scree fields that we were going through on on day one was like lifting it up like the wrong direction too many times
and then like then your tendons get all swollen and your foot and so it was yeah it was brutal so day four struggled
through it that started out 22-mile bike ride um into a s mile Trek and that that
like was supposed to take eight hours but we basically gave up on a couple checkpoints not mandatory ones but like
the extra credit ones and cuz we were just like yeah let's just finish and it was like the race was kind of decided so we actually end up getting four out of
25 teams which was which was pretty pretty good we were really happy with that a lot of people were shocked cuz
the the three teams ahead of us were like actual Elite teams and we were the first just like random amateur team that
people were like how did you guys get so close to the the elite teams but I mean we were nowhere near for the first place
team was like in a different world it was like you know it was like we were basically like high school football players and they were like NFL players
so it's like not even comparable well I mean you're sick as a dog yeah I know I know can't believe you did it all I
wonder where we would have been at if like you know I wasn't sick but yeah either way it was it was brutal but yeah race was put on by a company called
Adventure immersion lab and they do a bunch of races oh so by the way this was north of bam in between B and Jasper in
like some of the most beautiful train I've ever been in Canadian Rockies are incredible um the race was super well
organized and well done and yeah good time so if you ever really want to humble yourself do a multi-day Adventure
Race yeah wow I also knew going in that since had mandatory 8 Hour basically
rest periods that the pace was going to be super high it was super high yeah which made it really hard jez yeah it's
the hardest one you've done yeah so far but I you know unfortunately signed up for a a race literally called America's
toughest race that's the America's toughest race.com it's sixday Adventure Race you thought that was nonstop well
you may technically did Canada's toughest race so maybe I did yeah my God
yeah I just feel like the the8 hour rest put puts like it's a different style right like yeah the nonstops a different
style The 8 Hour rest is a different style like you know even though you said you only slept like 2 three hours a night but you're still getting full
meals bike prep gear prep like it was it was nice cuz like sleeping 2 hours in a bed in the dark is a whole different
ball game than like last year when I did the 75h hour Non-Stop and hour Trail side now September doing six days
non-stop so anyways yeah we'll see if I survive end with that what well I was
going to say how would you compare it to Breen Ridge like how does it stack up to the one you did it was it's so hard to
compare because like I think I just would have had such a different experience if I didn't get so sick yeah cuz I got so like the like when I just
breathing like the the mucus and fleem like in my upper chest you like hear it
like I sound like it was having an asthma attack the whole time oh so like I just think the whole and you know like your body doesn't recover then and
you're just you're a mess so I think it would have been a whole different ball game if I didn't get sick yeah but yeah
it would means way more brutal than bre and ridge but this just was a different race so wow anyways and with that
listener questions and now a word from our sponsors advertisements they're
attention grabbing they get you to buy things you may not want to buy and they come at you whenever you're not expecting them they're ads this has been
an ad and now back to the show listener questions I have been riding bikes for a
long time I switch out my chain every year or so but how long should I go before switching out the cassette I have
been doing my own maintenance for years and just never know how how long to go with the cassette do the chain Rings
also need to be changed as often or how often should those be changed that's a great
question well if you change out pretty often your cassettes last a long time and same with chain Rings
um that being said that's the pro tip though change your chain more often to
prolong the life of your cassette of your and your chain ring um I would say bad shifting is a huge sign of a worn
out cassette um you feeling that going or you put a new chain on obviously you're getting chain skipping right
that's means because that's gone too far uh narrow wide chain rings are interesting now unlike old kind of two
by Chain Rings they kind of just you feel like when you put on the new chain you kind of just feel them grinding a
bit and sometimes you will get chain suck like the chain will kind of stay on the ring and go back into the chain stay
um but unless you're getting grinding or bad shifting or you're no noticing your
chains wearing out say you got one to last 12 months 12 months and then it's 10 months and then in the next one's 8
months like that's a sign your parts are also wearing and because it's wearing your chain is going to wear faster um
some of the park tool chain tools I don't really know if it really works though I guess with like new 12sp
speeding especially transmission stuff but the backs side of them you can kind of put into the cassettes they're kind
of like perfectly spaced and you can kind of rest the backside the rounded end in the cassette and if you see like
a ton of uh space or you see some shark too thing or like or like looks like a wave's about to break yeah um that means
your cassette getting worn so checks out yeah yeah I had a super worn uh x01
Eagle cassette that I had been using for probably I don't know a couple years at least and I was just noting like or
noticing no matter what I did brand new chain everything like it was still just not shifting great and I put a new
cassette on and I was like wow like it's so crisp and nice and just mind blown
wow sometimes the upgrade you need is just to take care of that drive train maintenance yes sometimes the upgrade
you need is just to maintain your bike so it works better yeah but uh yeah there's nothing like fresh chain
cassette everything just oh I love that it's amazing oh yeah yeah that is nice
yeah good tips Liam good tips well Liam should you read the next question yep is
Jeff swort of blind what type of glasses does he use you guys should talk about glasses also
what are what does this mean what are the top three contenders for the sp140 lunch
ride like bikes comparing to it to the bike the top three bikes that you would
compare or like hold a candle to the it's just sort of blind I'm going to answer that yes uh I don't know how
blind he is but he needs glasses or contacts all the time yeah that's pretty
blind that's pretty blind probably shouldn't drive without them yeah actually that's a really funny story cuz
I've when I got my driver's license in California when they make you read those letters up on the board so I literally
pulled this off um you you put your left hand over your so like I my left eye is
really bad and I couldn't read those letters with my left eye so I put my left hand over my left eye and I read
the letters and then she said okay next eye and I switched hands but put it over the same eye and it literally like my
heart was racing I was 18 years old it worked and I read I read the letters both times with my right eye just
switched hands no way and then when I went to that's a government employee for you yeah ex especially in California and
then when I went to get a driver's license in Pennsylvania when I was like oh I'm gonna live out there for a while and when we were opening the shop and
stuff um that DMV you have to put your face into that thing that has like can't
the real doctor's office kind of yeah and I can't see out on my left eye at all I couldn't pass the test really they just like denied me they like you got to
so then you have to do this thing where you have to go to an eye doctor and then they approve you for a driver's license and give you this form and then your
driver's license has like a uh like a provision on saying like you have to have corrective lenses so that's what I
have now wow um anyways so but I can I can see okay out of my right eye I just
can't see out of my left eye very well I have thing called amopa which is where like that eye muscle just didn't develop as much when I was a kid um but I also
have a stigmatism and just like General bad Vision out of both of them um so I always have contacts in and when you
have a stigmatism your contacts have to be a certain orientation so they're weighted so they spin to that orientation the shape right of your yeah
it's like shaped like a football so the lens has to be a certain orientation you can't spin it whereas if you don't have
that so like Michael B wears contacts too but his doesn't have that so like he can ride bikes in his seemingly without
too many problems oh but yours kind of like weight and jiggle yeah so like if my head's bouncing around too much or I
get too much wind in there then it spins and if it spins with my contact everything gets super blurry oh um
whereas normal some contacts without a stigmatism you can spin and they don't but that's why you always have that's why I always wear glasses when I ride
yeah and uh so up until recently I had a eye doctor who's a customer of
ours who made some custom lenses for my ombr sunglasses which I'd always used and talked about before um armless
sunglasses and uh that always worked pretty well um fairly recently which you
will see in this new tire video coming out there's an ad in there an ad an ad an ad for sport RX we actually uh got in
contact with sport RX for them to sponsor a YouTube video and help me get some more prescription glasses for
riding um and that's been amazing cuz uh those guys run that company are all mountain bikers and do a ton of
different sports and like educated me a ton on like the different types of lenses and anti- glare on the back of
the lens and um like how an Amber lens Works different than a black lens and anyways I got a bunch of new glasses
from them I could see way better and now I just have like a better set of like I have certain like ombr I'm going to wear
for like all day adventure stuff multisport those 100% Casillas which I really like sport RX makes some frames
so anyways if you want to know about my glasses setup there will be a YouTube short of me talking about that soon
enough as well as a little ad insert for sport RX where I talk about that too in the next video nice so I'm sure there
are a lot of visually impaired mountain bikers out there yeah and I mean honestly if they are sport RX is amazing cuz it's like the one the de facto
placed for prescription eyear for any sport it's cool so Bria my roommate one of the reasons why she crashed so much
was she had really bad eyes no way she did not ride with contacts or perscription glasses that explains so
much so much right like as soon as she started doing that she's like I just went started going slower and I could
see stuff and it scared me line choice is yeah yeah yeah that's amazing wow so
she so she wears contacts her whatever now yeah I know actually contacts her prescription glasses but you got to have
something um yeah second part to homeboy question yes top three contenders for
sp140 lunch ride wow um well I'm going to say three that we carry
uhhuh uh Revel rail 29 yeah little more travel but I think it fits in that same
category especially the one 60 Fork got a Banshee prime or Titan could be pretty
close what's so unique about the 140 lunch ride is that it's like you kind of
want to classify it in that like 130 mil travel trail bike and then there's like and there's a lot of those they're all
amazing tons of Brands and then there's the 160 mil travel and duro bike but the 140 lunch ride specifically is like that
little hybrid mhm long legged trail bike short-legged Enduro bike kind of oh
there you go that terminology yeah there you go uh and the next one is the forbidden Druid yeah V2 for sure yeah I
think that one that one can ride really over its head agreed on all counts uh another one the other two that we don't
carry big box bikes the new specialized tump jumper looks pretty good yeah true
um and the TR fuel ex no which I believe one bike of the year one of the years
last year year before something like that I second the banshee Prime no is that what you said Prime yeah that bike
was sick that was another bike I was thinking about getting before I got my lunch that's definitely a price point too cuz it's alloy frame yeah good price
much less expensive than any others I didn't say those are probably what I would have said too Lim yeah yeah I
don't know yeah I don't either that's just a tricky question because that bike is in a very unique category of what you
said a short-legged Enduro or long-legged trail bike right in between which is why honestly it's why it's
bestelling bike it's got to be the best selling bike for Yeti right is for us at least we sell way more 140s than any
other Yeti model cuz yeah it is cool it's like as far as how good it climbs and how good it descends like that ratio
is just amazing for that bike how do you beat it I don't know I don't know it's like yeah every bike is going to have a
compromise right you know it's either going to favor downhills or climbing but it's just everybody's looking for that Perfect Blend of what fits there yeah
local Trails 14 mon ride is a very good blend yeah and it a lot of things very
well I mean Trevor raced his 140 lunch ride at Danville he just threw on DT Swiss xrc 1200 Wheels which are 1,300 G
wheels and four casters yeah and the very next day he threw trail bike wheels and Double Downs on it and was smashing
literal double blacks in Tahoe the next day same bike set up that is like the best case the best case for that bike
ever that's exactly what I'm talking about sick next question why does the
title for hell's G grips on Amazon read some read like some horrible SEO title that YouTubers would read with a super
sarcastic tone the other Trail One ads don't read like this no shade just curious for reference in case you don't
know what I'm talking about MTB grips lock on no twist grippy SL tacky cushioned hellsgate grips Happy
Trails Amazon if he's smart enough to know what SEO is then you should know exactly why that titles like that Amazon
sucks I hate Amazon I don't want to sell products there um got to be there because some people want to go there
yeah it's because like the way Amazon's SEO works and like understands like if people are searching certain key words
we want to rank that product for those key words there's also a thing that's seemingly non-controllable on Amazon
where sometimes it has the brand name above the title which makes this whole thing make a lot more sense other times
it doesn't have that there um which makes the title not make any sense so
anyways write me a new title buddy that's just as SEO optimized and and is uh not sarcastically YouTuber I don't
know if that's possible it's perfect I mean honestly what are you going to write for any grips in a title like if
you're just going to say the brand name and the model name like what else are you going to write maybe the diameter
maybe who knows grip diamet off the top of their head no one's typing in 32 mil grip diameter yeah nobody's going to be
like oh yes the 32 mil grip diam searching for tacky grips Cushing grips there you go lock on grips MB grips no
twist so yeah makes sense makes sense yeah Amazon's a nightmare
for all those things yeah that's all I got to say if you ever want to buy from from us with Kettle or Trail one or
anything from worldwide Cyclery please do it on their respective websites and not on Amazon or Ebay because then
you're just giving Jeff Bezos more money every time you buy a product from us or anyone else on Amazon and do you think
that guy needs any more money and actually not only giving Bezos more money but we pay more fees so you're taking more money from worldwide and
giving that money to Bezos it's like money could directly help a small business of good people trying to do
good and instead just going to billionaire dudes are you upset that you Shing first name with him dude I don't
know yeah I would be he ruined it I mean
I feel the same he ruined the name Jeff Jared from Subway so you should feel the same
way oh he ruined Jared I'm like yeah he actually did I'd rather be Jeff Jeff he
actually did I would rather be Jeff than yeah no it's all the generic American white dudes like the same 10 names so oh
well here's the actual good question that is mountain bike relevant Liam's
Arc or an actual gravel bike for group gravel rides my brother got big into gravel riding him my uncle and dad were
all peer pressuring me into buying one I hate the thought of wearing tights should I tights should I swallow my
pride and buy a gravel bike build up an ultr light mountain bike will I be able to keep Pace they fast or buy an
ebike eike MTB he so like is he just going to scratch the whole thing and just ride emtb or is he going to ride
the emtb with the guys on the gravel bikes the this is a tough one because
your Arc is sick I'm I'm going to Yeti Ark which is a carbon hardil that I built up that's 22 lbs as fast and light
as basically I can make it I built it up to be basically a flat bar gravel B
Quest suspension which happens to be a hard tail weird yeah um and it's what like four lounds heavier than a sick
gravel bike if that right my my gravel bike I rode at Rock Cabo this year weighed 21 lbs this weighs 22 with a
dropper so wow not really anymore um I'm going to go based on terrain where do you live yeah like that's the tricky are
you in Colorado or most of California then you can probably get away with the
hard tail for the gravel bike just run really fast tires like Continental race King 22s MH um and you know yeah you I
mean you don't want to wear tights but it is unfortunately a big thing if you could you know get cut down on advisor
on your helmet get jersies that don't flap a few things like that you're saving like 30 40 Watts which is
aerodynamics going to help you keep up with Ries yeah um or gravers but if you're outside of these areas where you
have real flat gravel roads Arizona you know even Eastern Colorado midwest
Kansas um you know even other Texas um
even like Utah Montana stuff like that um I think you'll probably need actual gravel bike uh cuz the speeds and the
flat the the amount of terrain you're covering is just greater right you're going faster and further on flat ground
reason why I can ride the hard tail is because all my stuff out here is just riding straight up and down fire roads
yeah you know aerodynamics doesn't play that much an advantage um but bigger tires are not really slower right so so
I mean honestly I would say yeah like you said if that's the use case I'm going hard if I'm actually need a gravel
bike I would go like open wide or a Rover for big tires you know cuz the my
gravel bike I love it but I wish I had more clearance yeah um just straight up I wish I could throw fat 45s on there
45s 48s even 50s now yeah I think multiple people Unbound had
mountain bike front tires two 20 two two front tires yeah I would also say to this guy why does he want a gravel bike
if it's just to ride with it sounds like he wants to ride with his his brother his uncle and his dad if they're
you know slower Pace than him and cruising around on relatively smooth roads on drop bar bikes and he just wants to go ride and hang out with them
just like get a similar bike and ride bikes with them yeah if all of them are riding trails that you probably should
ride on a mountain bike and you would think that would be more fun to be on flat bars than true just do that instead
just get bike yeah yeah like I have no interest in you know trying to go rip the roads and the fire roads fast and
aerodynamic with drop bars so I build these like weird gravel bikes that are more like mountain bikes kind of like what Liam did with his so for sure
you know and if you really hate the think the thought of wearing lyera just get a sick kit dude look dope out there
I heard a new acronym called a mammal middleaged man in
Lyra that's hilarious lot of those around there are wow we're like the capital oh that's funny well this one's
a doozy yeah uh you want to read that Jeff you want to read that I'll read it
sure Jeff great interview you did did sort of ask this question but didn't pursue it about how
expensive some Ram's new technology products are so this is referring to our last podcast or two podcasts ago yeah
episode 138 where I interviewed Ken luberg the CEO of sham which that was a good episode if you haven't heard it it was great so little background he's a
mechanical engineer um both applications in manufacturing and mechanical products
electronics and controls to go with them I'm baffled at the cost of how of how
many of the bike parts in the mount how many of the parts that go into mountain
bikes seems to be that there are a lot of price gouging by the suppliers based on demand possibly
collusion collusion collusion that's where big companies and corporations collude together to fix prices and rip
off the American Consumer collusion I bought a brand new top-of-the-line Subaru Outback in the
fall of 2023 a little over $40,000 all the new safety driving features for what I thought
was a bike with the quality would be worth purchasing the price was close to $10,000 25% the price of a new car
really 3 to four more K than a comparable mountain bike has a teeny motor with electronics
aren't nearly as sophisticated as a $300 Smartwatch Jeff were you satisfied with the in that Ken gave about the cost of
the new technology longtime worldwide cyly customer Ray dot um yeah I mean
thanks for the question Ray yeah great question Ray this uh uh similarly I get asked this all the
time about like I can buy brand new 450 out the door for you know $7,000 why is
the ebike cost 10,000 yeah but immediately I go the ebike that you're buying is the nicest spec nicest Parts
ebike you can buy yeah it's like buying you know Ken roxon or jet Lawrence's
Supercross race bike right like the fork internals the fork is the same the shock is the same the brakes are the same that
the pros are riding the mountain bike the mountain bike right you cannot do that on a motorcycle yeah not even close
those guys' race bikes are like 60 80,000 right like the the stock 450
again off the showroom floor no Racers is going to be able to race that and even qualify for a pro race yeah it's
just not possible so the other thing with motorcycles versus mountain bikes is how many combinations and
permutations of mountain bikes are there right like think about how many sizes the yeti has or and build kits for just
for one model right like they have to take into account all those variants whereas if you're just going to buy 450
they're just making one 450 for everybody right you don't go get a small medium large you're just buying one motorcycle which allows them to bring
the price down of all of the manufacturing components just way down yeah but don't to go to the actual kind
of point of this question do you think Ken's answer
was accurate about the technology and what it cost here's the thing like I've been in the bike industry so long I've
heard what you guys just mentioned a lot of those comparisons to mountain bikes to cars mountain bikes to motor M cycles
and it's you know that that happens a lot and the thing is is like when you really dig into the nuances of it and
the technicalities behind how things are manufactured and then the business side of it where you have things such as economies of scales and mass production
and all these other little different things that are involved in the cost of a final product um I'm not as familiar
with the margins well a a lot of the margins on car companies and these other automobile companies are public so like
you can see how much their margin is in their finances um I assure you there's there's not fat cats that are colluding
or gouging in the bike industry and if you don't believe me just try and start even a component brand right so like
even for us like when we manufacture Trail one products like there's so many things involved in manufacturing all
this stuff and realistically high-end mountain bike parts is laughably Tiny in
terms of scale compared to all these other industries that they get compared to often um so when you get into that
sort of stuff and you work with the manufacturers and you see the development costs and you see quotes like there isn't one winner right so
it's not like you know SRAM is has his monstrous margins it's not like the Distributors do or the retailers do or
the actual weigh down the weeds uh manufacturers do or the raw materials Productions companies do like nobody has
a massive margin like all that stuff gets competed away in a global capitalistic market so it's it's just
there is no gouging or collusion and the further down the industry you go you realize how real that is um that's a
different case when you look at certain technology products and when you actually have monopolies and oligopolies in different Industries so I'm satisfied
with Ken's answer also the thing Witham is you know which he mentioned this on the podcast is SRAM does try and start
at the Pinnacle at the top right like they're going to try and develop the nicest most expensive stuff and which is
going to be really expensive to develop really small batches and really expensive and then they're going to try to like trickle that technology down to
the other stuff later they're not going from bottom up they're going from top down which is a different development
strategy with Al which also just leads things to being expensive so I get I get
his concerns and we've heard them a lot and uh yeah go ahead and get into the weeds of it and start your own company
and you will see the prices yeah there there isn't I wish there was a winner because if it was like all I have to do
is build a drivetrain company and I'll be a billionaire I'm going to do that yeah it's like no nobody has a huge
margin it all gets competed away like that's both of us have been to samam drive train headquarters in Germany and
the amount of testing machine and you know just amount of people they have running literally 247 to test these is
insane you think you can start a drive chain company you just you'll take one look in that and you'll be like yeah I
can't compete here yeah like it's insane they've got you know 30 40 machines in one room just literally shifting up and
down cassettes for yeah it's wild hours and hours full Cycles cycling industry
is tough too because like you have to like whenever you compare it to Automotive um or or motorcycles off-road
like that the the tolerances and the weight and the specificity of all the
cycling stuff is so small so tight and like you take all of that like these things have to be strong durable
lightweight you know all of these little things and like you're not producing a lot of them so like it's just you're
never going to get to the economies of scale that you're going to get to in the automotive industry for the same cost
even bleeding a Spam break versus bleeding a car break it's like oh that was all it was to bleed a car break that
is the easiest gravity feed I've ever done in my life yeah you just did that Jerry I did that it was a spray bottle
yeah exactly yeah yeah it was amazing I mean yeah a lot of really good points
and um it just is what it is right like you look at the bike industry you don't see a industry like with a bunch of
millionaires dude I I would be the the first person to be like making ousting
videos like the the CEO of Shimano is on his private yacht with Jeff Bezos like n
dude he's not none of these guys are there's probably a very small handful of people like that are wealthy right like
in the bike industry from starting up C what level of wealth there certain people who have done done you know well
for themselves but there's there's not it's not like the tech industry or like all these other industries by maybe having a vacation home in Mexico is well
you know but they're not tech industry wealthy they don't have Yachts they're not you know living this lavish life that's for sure maybe a fishing about
there yeah that was that was a nice little discussion and a lot of good points thank you Jeff you bring a lot of
nice insight into that but you know what nobody's talking about Rider weight when
the question literally starts why isn't anyone talking about why isn't anyone talking about Rider weight When selecting a full suspension bike for
example if a 130 lb Rider and a 210 lb Rider took the same short travel bike to a technical Trail wouldn't the lighter
Rider have a better ride of course the shock would be properly adjusted for reach each Rider or as another example
if a goat and a bear took turns riding the same bike who would have a better time that's a great question and I've
seen people ask this before like should lighter Riders have like a shorter travel bike or heavier would they like a
heavy Rider have more fun on a longer travel bike like I don't know there's some Merit to that maybe but like
hypothetically if the suspension is set up properly then you should be having a similar experience right they're all
pretty customizable right so like you can already get there's already most bikes are in four or five sizes and then
you adjust the suspension and then you can you know choose what type of bike you want in terms of that for your use
case I'd say there's some like I'd say my ASR from riding it um if you know 210
might be close to the max for that bike for sure as far as frame stiffness goes and the intended use you know yeah for
like a lightweight cross country race bike yeah that makes a lot of sense yeah we like you know 120 would give you 80
90% of that performance yet have a much stiffer frame and have a better ride quality if you're over 210 lb right so I
think there's some stuff like that but yeah a lot of it just comes down to suspension setup yeah riding ability
technical skills you know I know some Big Boys you know 230 240 guys that are
smooth super smooth they could ride short travel breaks no problem but it is true that uh if speaking of economies of
scale and big or small markets if you really wanted to like customize a bike per the exact person you could be like
well you know this guy rides a size large this guy rides a size large but one of there it's a 80 lb difference so we'll lay the carbon up differently for
the heavier guy that's like almost what Aon is doing right yeah it kind of is right and then like create custom not
not just change the air pressure in the suspension but like custom shim Stacks in suspension for the ride that's another thing I was going to say heck
yeah that bike would work better if you fully customize it to every single aspect of the human body that is riding if you're on the extreme side of weight
one side or the other whether you're 100 lb or you know you're 50 plus and then
some yeah uh suspension tuning would be you know a great place to start to get
the shim stack slightly changed uh to better like be in the middle of your adjustments right like that XC Rider
probably will never get her rebounds uh what would it be slow enough or fast
enough a light Rider yeah trying to think is he back off that you back off
yeah it' be like you can never get it yeah it doesn't go the adjustment doesn't go far far enough fast enough
and then if you're you know large Rider you can never get it slow enough um and so on so makes sense makes a lot of
sense yeah road bike custom road bike brands will tune stuff for Rider weight
and size like Argonaut um and even some steel like lays up the frame specific way yeah argonut has like a bunch like
bunch of different sizes and layups and then yeah steel and and titanium manufacturers will choose different sized uh tubing for the rer weight in
needs so you think Canyon did that for LeBron's new bike I don't know I know I know I know
some stuff back in the day like Tom boonin used to have like carbon wrapped around his bottom bracket shell tomin is
one of the best uh Classics writers to ever exist in the world tour um but he's a bigger dude for a road cyclist he was
lean but he's still probably 180 pounds um with a lot of watts and they I believe they wrapped extra carbon around
his bottom bracket to make the frame stiffer wow so yeah one I'm going to
have you wrap my bottom bracket next time with all the Watts I'm throwing down speaking
of speaking of Watts that Jared's throwing down and wrapping his bottom bracket and extra carbon because he
throws down so many watts throw down some Watts by sending this podcast to your other mountain bike friends well
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