I am a 47 year Ole gravel riding Dane 🇩🇰. I envy your fitness being my age it is awesome, and also your climbs over there 🇺🇸. Thank you very much, you are doing a heluva job Ben. 😊👍🚴🏼
What a great result. Way to prove that racing isn’t just a young man’s game. And I kinda couldn’t believe I watched this whole thing, you really know how to fill 30 mins. Nice work as always, Ben.
Thanks. To be clear - this is the B event! The ‘fundy hundy’, as I call it. Bikes are great, right? Lots of folks of different ages can all come together out there.
I'm 53. I just took up gravel riding a couple weeks ago. I purchased a 2022 Cannondale Topstone off of Facebook marketplace. Came with specialized pathfinder 42C. I've been doing some mixed use local rides which include sections of tarmac as well as the palouse to cascade trail. On average I might do anywhere between 18 and 20 mi. This weekend was my first all Palouse to Cascade trail ride. I did the section between South Cle Elum and Thorpe Washington. It was 38 mi round all gravel. Some deep sections where I think the state park had filled in, but otherwise mostly packed . I can say by mile 35 I had a very similar situation where my legs were telling me to take a break to stop for a moment and stop treating it like a race against myself. I come from the road cycling world where during summer commuting months it was not uncommon for me to do 60 mi a day all tarmac. I did the 2013 Seattle to Portland in one day. Took me about 15 hours. I never really felt any discomfort or anything on that ride until the next morning when we were leaving Portland. Mainly because I failed to stretch out and probably should have got a massage after all those miles. I love gravel bikes! I love being able to go on tarmac and on the dirt roads so I will probably be doing a lot more of that in my future. I hope that I'm able to get back up to doing some distance. I'm not sure if it was just doing distance on gravel for my first time that caused me to need to take the last 3 miles at a slower pace. My ride log shows 38.30 miles in 3 hours and 18 minutes with an average speed of 11.59mph. I agree hydration packs are the way to go. I had a hydration pack with water and a sports bottle full of electrolytes. I started out early in the morning but by early afternoon on my return leg it was in the mid 80s with not much of a headwind or tailwind. **New subscriber
Been riding my Kanzo Fast for nearly 2 years and still love it. Pretty light for gravel (8.8 kg with a pair of Scope R4S wheels and 40mm tires) and still playfull geometry, so it feels agile and quick. Down side is that it runs out of breath on heavier technical gravel/single trails, but if you don't take it there...very fun bike.
Well done Mr. Delaney. Love your unpretentious appearance and your videos. You can be proud of your 2. place. Your competition looked a lot younger than you (to me at least 😊)🥈👍🏻 Keep up the great work. Greetings from 🇩🇰 Denmark
Honestly, on gravel, I am for people riding whatever they like even when racing. The whole scene for amateurs is mostly about fun. There’s 0% chance of most of them truly “winning” so I say rock whatever makes you happy and brings you the most joy. 👍🏾
I love my aero gravel race bike (3T racemax). its a bit stiff, but you cant have all things. Its one of the few bikes Ive ridden that is a great fit for a smaller rider (5'5") with no toe overlap(grevil) or weird handling characteristics (diverge, chamois hagar). Congrats on the podium! SBT was a really great event and I hope to do more next year!
@@cjohnson3836 The geo is tame its just long and the smaller sizes arent as well thought through as some of the other frames I mentioned. It felt really confident on descents but it's handling was a bit of a compromise (felt tall and wonky in an attempt to have a relaxed position maybe).
Excellent complete video, very informative. Great result, very inspiring. I’m 41 and seeing someone like you crushing it fills me with hope. Very humble no BS attitude. Respect
I'm definitely in love with Ridleys. I have an X-Night CX bike from a few years back that is my "gravel" bike with 33mm tires on it. Don't tell my son's Supersix or my Oltre, but I feel like the Ridley might be the most fun bike to ride in the garage.
So much fun to see all the love you get, Ben, from your fellow gravel enthusiasts. I think it merits a T-shirt: The Party is Official when Ben shows up for the Ride. :)
Always appreciate the honest insight Ben D. Please keep it up !! (( For what its worth: maybe I'm old school, but a big NO to any "proprietary components".))
Ben, I recently built up a bike with similar Hunt wheels. It was howling! Same as you, I suspected a brake issue. But pads were not hitting. The issue was the hub and hub adjustment. I needed to remove the axle and re-install at proper adjustment.That was a hassle as the cassette and rotor needed to be removed in order to access the wrench flats on the axle.
I now understand the point of aero gravel for places like Holland, where you can ride for miles on tracks and lanes that need off-road capability but are also really fast.
Same groupset, OEM Forza levanto db carbon wheels, both brakes screetching, I just accepted it at this point. One annoying peculiarity of this frame is that if you overtighten top cap (+2nm) the bottom spacer floating over top tube will start scraping paint off.
Last time a lever loosened up like that for me, the carbon bar itself was broken... Hope it was just torque for you. Also, I love the "coasted away... maybe 'cause I'm 185lb/" comment. I resemble that remark,.
The whole discussion about whether aero-optimization matters int the gravel segment presupposes that people can afford multiple highend bikes. Many use the same bike for gravel and road riding - often using a second set of wheels. To this (surely not that small) group of riders, bike aerodynamics matter irrespective of how much it does to them on gravel. : )
Hey Ben, I believe I watched a video were you tried a new magnetic GoPro mount that was easier to snap out and on and compact. But I can’t find that video anymore. It is not the DJI one.
To stop the water sloshing around in your hydro pack, just turn it upside down and squeeze/suck the air out. Then flip it right side up and no more movement of the water.
Hammerhead hasn’t been able to figure out SRM communication protocol for years now… including PM spiders. Wahoo can’t consistently either it seems. So, Garmin or PC8 only really….
Bummer. I have only used Garmins with regularity recently - and certainly only Garmins when I was doing a bunch of meter/smart trainer testing - so I was pleasantly oblivious to that. Also, I think you are like one of five people out there still on SRM… 😁
Hey Ben. Love your content and have decided that i live in the wrong place. (Louiville, ky) Also loving the giant revolt advance 0 i got a couple of months ago. Interesting thing about the revolt. I had to break it in. Rode like crap when i got it. After a month and a trip to the shop for tightening and indexing, the bike is now riding like a bullet train! I have to say it, the revolt is actually a great bike.
Same here (Revolt Adv 0). Bought in February, started riding it in early April ( living in QC, Canada) and the rear shifting was crap until sometime in July! Felt like the cable was stretching as I was constantly tightening it using the barrel adjuster on the derailleur; in reality, the problem was less about cable stretch than cable bedding in the cable stops and such. (On one ride the shifting was great at the beginning and then all of a sudden, the chain started skipping momentarily on the next smaller cog... had to stop and turn the barrel adj counterclockwise ONE FULL TURN! That is not cable stretch, lol ! ) To compound to this problem was the fact that the cassette had not been tightened properly on the freehub body as I found out in late spring when removing it for a cleaning job: no resistance whatsoever when unsrewing the lockring ! (Assembling employee must have been distracted...). So yeah, same problems as you and everything's fine now and I love this bike but never experienced such a "break in period " with my numerous other bikes! 😂
@@jean-pierrebarre4056 yeah, its definitely a break in period. My felt AR advance ultagra needed no such faff. Was a rocket from the jump. And after months of riding is still tight. That being said. Having to break a bike in has been a good sign in the past for me. And the giant is probably the smothest bike I've ever ridin. Evan smoother than my domane sl.
Thought I saw you there. I went for the black course and blew up. Pretty sure I was the last person to make it across the 2:15 time cutoff spot, but had to bail. Skipped a 20 mile loops and still nearly crossed the finish for the sunset time cutoff.
btw you mentioned aero dynamics for the pro around 19:00 mark, it actually makes more difference for the non-pro the benefit would be larger for someone like you vs a pro, if he is out there for 4 hrs and you are for 6 hrs your gain as a % of time spent would be larger therefore optimizing it would help more.... spent years racing triathlons, both long and short course and optimizing bike would drive me crazy from my cDA to equipment. and while on a short race you can power through but when you are doing a half or a full iron man and zooming at 23-24 mph its alot of free speed all the aero gives ya
Congrats on the second this year, way hot out there. I succumbed to the heat after a good first 60 miles this year and went into survival mode getting to the finish-22 minutes slower than last year. Anyway thanks for the great videos, and I concur that SBT is a fantastic event.
… nice result! Not easy when you riding a bike you don’t really know. Your fitness is matching that rig. Yeah the aero options are growing but once it settles, wonder what’s next for these brands? Those wheels seem to be a good choice… Hunt is brand I’m hearing a lot about on the inter webs. As for the event, looks too awesome, especially that have your bike fam. Thanks for Feedback! See what I did there
Thanks. I am using the more aggressive one. I have done some sessions filming GoPro and DJI mounted side by side. Just need to pull them together for a video.
I'm curious if you've ever tried Fidlock bottle/mounts for longer rides. I started using them after getting them as a gift and haven't had a drop, but my pace is far more relaxed.
That is a big downside. I just got back from a ride where someone asked to borrow a bottle because they forget theirs. We had to pass the bottle back and forth, because they wont fit in a cage.
To me integrated cockpits are the work of the devil. A shocker for adjusting fit and a disaster for resale to boot. The chances of finding a buyer fitting both frame size AND cockpit reach/stack are vanishing small.
Ben, I promise I follow every word in your video to improve my gravel riding! You seldom leave me with any questions….Would like to know what company makes the shirt and shorts you wore after getting cleaned up? Thank you. Bob C.
My hot take is we’ve gotten to the point where Gravel Bikes should be referred to as Road Bikes and traditional Road Bikes should be treated as the niche alternative, something like Pavement Bikes.
Works with a magnet that is mounted on a GoPro mount. Then you simply attach the cam to the magnet. Makes it pretty easy to switch it between bike and selfie stick f.e. as you don't need to dismount the entire thing every time.
Right on. I have the Go 3 and a GoPro and use the adapter to fit the Go 3 into a GoPro mount for the bike. Be great to be able to grab it for other angles
It is funny at gravel races pulling up with lots of us in aero kit and aero bikes - and then you get the big number plates. SBT actually has relatively small ones.
SBT has a notorious section with some very "special" washboard. In this section water bottle loss is common, even with "approved" bottle cages. For example, I used Arundel Mandible carbon cages last year at SBT, normally these cages are considered secure for gravel riding, but I lost a bottle in that section. I had never lost a bottle before or since using this cages. Also consider that this section comes pretty early in the race, where it is still crowded, and picking a line is unlikely to happen (in the bunch)-racing is different than just going out on a ride in this sense. I can report that this year I used Tacx Ciro cages, and did not lose a bottle (but I was constantly checking through this section!).
Aero gravel bike. Huge hassle and expense with an integrated bar and stem and cable and hose routing through the headset. All for how many minutes saved? But then at the same time, giant bottles and a bag strapped to the saddle. Instead of combining the bar and stem, and running hydraulics through bearings and adjustment point, why don’t they figure out an aero solution for water and storage that you need on a 100 mile gravel ride? And add some real fairings while they’re at it. That way we could run wider tires, and still be faster aerodynamically. I find it strange how all these aero gravel bikes are set up as if they are for UCI pro tour road racing, with all the UCI’s silly restrictions, and with pro teams getting full food and mechanical support from team cars.
Ridley seems to be willing to sell to some non-stocking dealers. If there isn't anything near you on their list, ask your favorite shop if they can call them for a bike
