I like leaving some marginal gains on the table so I can then surprise myself with how fast I am when there's an event. That's why I ride most days in a retro jersey. It makes an Assos skinsuit that much faster on the day when you put it on.
I think you’re headed in the right direction with the nutrition video this week and the tech guest. Obviously, you have a big fewer bass and a lot of us are well past the more basic videos, and would like to hear about more in-depth topics that would help us go faster/farther
I have to start watching Josh. He’s just saying ”X actually works”. Finally someone who won’t think I’m insane for wanting a 500€ upgrade which has as much of a gain as skipping out on eating that extra spoonful of yoghurt.
🤑 As athletes existing in a marketing-heavy sport, it’s easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees. We understand that marginal gains are “worth it,” but it’s important to remember that 70-80% of the system’s drag comes from the rider, so the most cost effective way to improve cycling efficiency is to improve your CdA through proper bike fit and spending time training in aerodynamic positions.
I’m not sure that many people grasp the idea that marginal gains are not just about going faster, they’re about being more efficient which means you can also go further or do the same for less effort.
Regarding the point that aero gains don't matter for slow riders, there is also the aspect of the watts you need to increase your speed by 1 km/hour, which is much lower at low speeds. So you gain fewer watts at lower speeds, but you also need less power to ride faster. Therefore, aero gains are as important for less powerful riders as for pros. Maybe this makes it in the next video about aero gains
That the inserts expand after loosing pressure is one vital information we didn't get in the last video. And of course are compressed when you pump up the tyre and that way don't influence rolling resistance very much. Good info.
Maxbucky24 here - I’d swapped all the aero gains off of my tt bike onto my road bike just to see how much difference it makes. I went to the wind tunnel test day with EzGains and the disc cover is as fast as a top end disc wheel and 1/10th the cost and the chainring cover is a lot more aero than a separate crank and chainring
Blow the marginal gains in speed, I'm 68 and suffered badly from road buzz in my hands, wrists and feet whilst running v good 25mm tyres at 110 psi, because of GCN I changed said tyres to 28mm same brand, added latex inner tubes dropped pressure to 60 psi to find I can ride all day without pain and discomfort - that's not marginal - that's almost life changing . Thank you guys
The groundspeed vs airspeed thing is SO huge. I live in Kansas and dealing with crazy wind day in day out. Even on my commuter bike, making some aero tweaks (trunk bag vs panniers) makes a huge difference in terms of overall speed and effort.
Marginal gains are a blessing... My fitness is so low, that I appreciate every thing I can do.... especially the position on the bike You mentioned in one of those wind tunnel videos has made the most difference to me.....
I loved every minute of this video. More of this please. Josh was a fantastic guest. I could sit at table over beers and listen to you three talk bike tech all day.
Josh on the show is a huge gain!! As a short-pocket person, I can atest significant gains when you sum up some free and budget tweaks he talks about in the podcast. Specialty the ones that adds comfort. More comfort, less fatigue, far distances!
At the Ridley factory, the purple paint does not cover the decals because it was sprayed before the decals were put on. What you see on the images is the clear coat being applied, as can clearly be seen by the color of the paint in the spray gun (translucent liquid)
Great Show, really informed and interesting guest. PS...The Parachute Regiment also run the Pen Y Fan as part of their training, I first did it in 1965 as an 18yr old Para recruit; passed the training and spent 6yrs in 3 Para.
I have the impression the question do marginal gains matter for a casual rider has not been answered in the conversation. And I'm not saying there is one answer - this rather falls into the category 'it depends'. And I would argue this depends on three things 1. What is your style of riding, or in other words, what for you ride bikes? Is it commuting, adventuring, or sport? Do you ride alone, or in a group? Then we go to the point 2. How marginal are those marginal gains? Because I don't think gaining a few seconds, or even a couple of minutes (like 5-7 minutes) matters a lot for a commuter riding to work. It would matter if this was maybe 15 minutes or more. These margins are of course different for different people, I give them just for example. From the adventuring standpoint, like bike-packing, touring or simply riding fast for fun, again - If not looking at a bike computer, you probably won't notice the difference between riding 28 and 30 km/h - both speeds will feel virtually the same. This was for the 'riding fast for fun' part. And from yet another perspective - saving 15 minutes, or maybe being able to ride a 5 km further on a whole day touring ride probably is not worthwhile either. But make these hours or tens of kilometres - now, that's amazing! So, I think those really tiny marginal gains are worthwhile only if we start to compete - with others, or with ourselves (like breaking personal records). Of course, there are also those bigger marginal gains that can benefit all, but everyone needs to judge them by their own scale. And finally 3. How much do those marginal gains cost? The watts per money ratio? And how does this correspond to the thickness of our wallets?
More Josh please. He's the most knowledgeable guy for all things aero and presents it in a way that is understandable to the layperson. Can't believe that you guys didn't touch on waxing chains!
Seems like you consistently forget about the other half of marginal gains or fail to mention it. Consider the efficiency of marginal gains. You may not care about speed, but less effort to maintain your speed is also an important consideration.
Excellent guest Josh! Great to see Silca enjoying something of a revival as a brand also. At least from my perspective (as a 70 year old in Toronto), Silca has always been "Campagnolo" quality!
Simple answer: For most average Joes, they should be concentrating on better efficiency and better training. Silica and other manufacturers make great products for maintaining your steed in best condition. That's way more important as well. I saw nasty drive trains that needed a deep clean and parts replacement that was avoidable through routine maintenance.
Tailoring: Luke over on the Trave Velo channel did an episode on how to DIY tailor a cheap jersey. If you access to a home sewing machine it is like a 15 minute job, and does not involve any cutting so you can always undo the extra stitching if you are unhappy with the results.
If you look at the guy spraying the paint, check out the colour in the paint holder on top of spray gun, it's milky white which when sprayed dries clear, it's the clear coat going over the base coat or colour.
I'm over this marginal gains ideology. Sure if you competing for the Olympics or on a pro team/serious racer go for it, but for the average rider (who are by far the majority) marginal gains are just another marketing gimic to take your money. In a world where everything is better , faster, must have etc, maybe folks should slow down and actually enjoy the ride, the views and the company around you.
Tyre pressure isn't really a field in which gains can be archived if you are not doing it wrong to begin with. With most cases there is quite a wide spectrum of tyre pressure with the same rolling resistance. The principle and idea behind a pneumatic tyre is that is just lowly pumped up so that it deflects on bumps. Otherwise we would fit solid rubber tyres on the rims. So 50 psi and more are ridiculous! The low limit is that the tyres cannot collapse - not even partially while cornering. With medium sized tyres as 32 to 42 mm the spectrum of acceptable tyre pressures is quite large while with larger tyres it tends to shrink as the maximum pressure gets lower but also the tendency to collapsing sidewalls increases. 42 mm is the optimal tyre width. Where do I get a 44.1 mm wide aero rim with a breaking surface in 650B?
Hello from Indianapolis, where Silca are based! Josh and the whole Silca team are fantastic, and marginal gains really do work. I’m riding as fast this spring solo as I did in a race draft last summer, in no small part due to Josh’s advice and all these tiny compounded gains. Great interview!
@@gcntech Body position feels too obvious, so I would say rims wider than tires (with proper tire pressure). Very noticeable difference especially on windy days in exposed areas.
Regarding marginal gains: If you've solved the bigger gains already, then go for it. A lot of riders go straight for marginal gains but have a bike fit which doesn't work. Riders outright speed is irrelevant.
If I was in any way working for a team partaking in Roubaix, I would absolutely advocate for the use of tireliners. You'd be a sucker if you didn't use them. And because of that, I would not want to make them mandatory, because I wouldn't want to take away a chance for my competitors to make a rookie mistake in not using them...
On the Ridley bike, the decals were applied to protect the white base coat paint before spraying the purple, actually they were "masks" not "decals". The masks were then removed revealing the white base coat paint and finished with clear coat.
How is everyone confused about the decals on Manon's Ridley?? The technique is called airbrushing. Some paint indeed got on the decals, by design, to give them a slight tint matching the paint.
What a great guest!, so many insights and indeed the "air speed is not ground speed" argument does give a mega twist on when aero starts to be a non-marginal gain!!
Been using Vittoria Airliners with my Conti GP5000S TR. Saved me a long walk home already, Although you have to ride relatively slowly, but at least you can still ride home.
I watched the video in which Dylan Johnson comments the results of the wind tunnel experiment. He shows that some hydration packs, frame bags, and toptube bags actually make you faster at 35km/h. I would love to see more information about it
I love the composure with which Axel endures recurring jokes about his first name 😂 Also, please be careful, don't hurt yourself with these razor spoke wheels.
When I was young I was racing - the better I was the less I cared for technical gimmicks- at the time people drilled holes in chain wheels and break leavers I had a trainer who told us better to go on the bike instead fiddling at the bike for marginal gains this guy became later DS of La Vie Claire! Last Tuesday I was watching a training race where amateur riders come from Alsace Germany and Switzerland close to Basel it was not the guys with very expensive bikes that performed best but the fittest
#askgcntech love this video! Makes me wonder... what's the most aero way to carry a laptop on your commute to work? In some ways a backpack seems the most obvious answer, but is it? What about a frame bag? Wouldn't that act as a faring?
As an American now living in Canada, I can tell you Americans DO NOT say "deh-kil" we say "dee-kahl" it is Canada that says it that way! And not even all Canadians, just some, haven't quite figured out where that line is yet.
Would love to hear more from Josh about his brief comment on hookless rims, or maybe another topic for a deep dive discussion in a future GCN Tech show.
Brilliant guys!! Love the explanations. Hysteresis is in many dynamic systems to some extent. For example our lungs 🫁 have slightly different pressure-volume loop characteristics between inhalation vs exhalation.
Literally today I applied Silca wax for a first time. It took me a bit of time as I indeed spent two hours on ultrasonic bath to clean my chain and cassette. Tomorrow will be a first ride and I have a big hopes.
I would think that the biggest gain the average rider can achieve would be to spend 3-4 hours a week in the gym. The cost is low and the gains keep coming. You can spend $1000 on a set of wheels for a few watts or $25 a month for 50 to 100 watts gain. I see so many people with money trying to compensate for just being in poor shape. Dylan Johnson is not your average rider. He spends many hours in the gym and any gain would help him in long races.
Yes, of course. I think they do two things one you can actually drill down on some topics and gain some knowledge from it and two they create more questions for future videos, so not only do they help the viewers they can help you get more video ideas. I really enjoy when you get have guests like Josh, Inigo San Milan, and Nigel Mitchell addressing their area of expertise
Aero marginal gains even make it easier to stand in one place (if there is air moving around you, ie wind). So regardless of you moving speed - aero is everything!!!
Tubeless tubulars are a product made by challenge ( not tufo ) These are just tubulars with a latex coated inner. So tubulars can be made without an inner tube and they can be ran with sealant. I guess since its from challenge they will not be as slow as tufo tires. Since those tufo tirs have never been fast! However I see no point in running these tubeless tubulars either.
There is a misconception here. There are no marginal gains. There are cost effective gains, for which the average rider will say "why not" and not cost effective gains, for which the average rider will say "you must be kidding'"...
Hey Josh thanks for maybe helping develop the Zipp Tangente Puncture resistant road bike tire which is the ONLY tire that can replace old road bike tread inserted in the new roadbike tire as a liner. I live in Indonesia and every road is uneven and full of holes ! Thanks Josh !
Don't make inserts mandatory, then there is motivation to improve tubeless compatibility between tires and rims rather than relying on a foam noodle in the tire.
Hey Josh, you are missing the biggest part of rolling resistance! It's the suspension losses. You cannot test rolling resistance with a wheel rolling on a steel drum. Because in that setup the rider is missing. Suspension losses occur when the tissues of the rider are rubbing against each other - induced by vibrations from the road. A tyre that is supple deforms itself for a fraction of the suspension losses that the bump would induce in the rider's body if it came through. Study Bicycle Quarterly.
Suspension losses are real, and only half of the equation.. actually Josh termed the phrase 'impedance' to describe these suspension losses, which he feels is a more accurate analogous phrase, and first wrote of this back in 2008. Check out the SILCA blog, it has some great blog content and data on this far beyond what has been featured in BQ. However, in this case, the question was regarding the tire moreso than the system, and tire hysteresis measured on a drum correlates very tightly with that measured on the road, with air pressure in that tire being the factor that then drives impedance losses from the rest of the system.
@SILCA Velo I will check the blog. The steel drum test leads to the conclusion that the tyre should be pumped up to the max to have minimal "rolling resistance". That's because this test only measures the hysteresis. The suspension losses in the rider are real and a substantial part of the rolling resistance of a bike. So the drum test leads us to false conclusions.
Anyone who says aero in xyz situation doesn't matter or only matters on a road bike, is just wrong. In my experience I'm inherently lazy and want to do as little for as much as I can get. After experiencing a road bike, going back to a mountain bike....now im taking off the rack when I dont need it etc etc. It matters and makes real difference when your doing time sensitive things like bike commuting. I love the safety, feel, load and stability commuting with an MTB, but the speed of a gravel or road is so tempting. Some days I change it up, record commute time was done on a gravel when normally I ride a e-mtb (20mph), felt pretty good about that. When you start really paying attention to bikes and have multiple types its very obvious just how important aero is. Especially same route day in day out over the whole year.
