Mountain Cog
Mountain bike podcast that will make you laugh and learn. Featuring a wide range of passionate guests.
Mountain Cog
095 - Bike Shop Secrets: Pro Tips on Carbon Bars, Wax Chain Lube, and Dropper Post Maintenance
In this information-packed episode of Mountain Cog, hosts Josh and Dane dive into essential mountain bike maintenance tips that every rider should know. They share their expertise on cutting carbon handlebars safely using abrasive blades, explaining how to prevent fraying and properly finish the cut edges. The conversation then shifts to the benefits of Squirt chain wax for desert riding conditions, with both hosts sharing their personal experiences and highlighting why proper application makes all the difference.
The episode continues with valuable insights on bike modifications, including the importance of changing only one component at a time to properly evaluate performance differences. They discuss tire selection for desert terrain, comparing Maxxis Forecaster tires to specialized options like the Teravail Ehline. The hosts wrap up with crucial dropper post maintenance advice, explaining why you should keep your dropper post extended when not riding and avoid pulling upward on a compressed post. This episode delivers practical maintenance tips for mountain bikers looking to extend component life and improve riding performance.
Park Tools Carbon Hacksaw Blade - https://www.parktool.com/en-us/product/carbon-saw-blade-csb-1
Squirt Lube - https://www.squirtcyclingproducts.com/
Teravail Ehline Tires - https://www.teravail.com/product/teravail-ehline-tire-394761-1.htm
Maxxis Forekaster Tires - https://www.maxxis.com/us/tire/forekaster/
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okay, so I never get to do that. So watch, yeah, there you go, I got one too.
Josh:Yes, the wheels on my bike, the tires specifically on my bike, are pissing me off.
Dane:I you know yeah, I totally get that, I mean they're pissing me off Like they're really pissing me off.
Josh:They keep going flat. You need some sealant. No, I need some sealant. So I sat him down, got to have a conversation, okay, right, I'm like I am so sick and tired of you guys going flat, okay, and you know what they said to me.
Dane:I really want to know this, but I don't. Okay, go ahead.
Josh:They said, Josh, we just can't handle the pressure.
Dane:You said it was a good joke. I don't know if that qualifies. Can you dig it?
Josh:No, you don't think that was a good joke.
Dane:No, no. Do you have a womp womp? Do you have a womp womp?
Josh:Hang on there we go.
Dane:That's that. Yeah, that should have been what you used right there. How are you doing today, brother?
Josh:Good man, I'm sad we didn't ride, yeah, but it did not take much for you to convince me not to ride. I was ready, I was all dressed, in my riding gear, I changed my tire, swapped out my tires, I was ready and I was out. I was out walking michael mocha when he called. I'm like are we still riding? You're like uh, you could convince me not to, really easy yeah, I, we've been so busy it's.
Dane:we got the 24 hour in the old pueblo uh-hour race coming this weekend. It's been so busy at the shop and it's just like you get done. On the drive over here I almost fell asleep Like no joke.
Josh:When you told me that I was like let's not ride, let's get you home early.
Dane:You know, but I do need that exercise. I think this weekend I'm going to make an effort to get out trail.
Josh:No, not with Turner.
Dane:No, we're going to go out there and watch the rock drop. Watch what's going on. Last year, if our listeners remember, we did a live podcast. Everybody's kind of disappointed. We're not going to be doing that this year.
Josh:Uh-oh.
Dane:So I'm sad about that.
Josh:To our listeners, our local listeners or anyone that's in town. I apologize. My youngest son has a soccer tournament this weekend, and so I gotta be a good dad and be there to support him.
Dane:It's a crazy weekend. We've got, um, my daughter's got a big uh volleyball tournament so they're out of town. So I got Turner with me so I can't do big rides, but we're going to go try and ride and just say hi and watch the rock drop, which is fun, and just see the festival festivities. It's just a cool event. The amount of people that have been coming into the shop from all over the country, it's crazy. It is crazy, yeah, and it's really cool. Lacey was telling us a story about meeting people out at the trails.
Josh:Yeah, they were out at 50 today.
Dane:Yeah, they're just kind of getting into town early and then going out on rides and experiencing Tucson and it's cool. It's cool to see those events going on, Cause I think in our this day and age there's been a little slowdown in some events and then other events are getting bigger. So we were talking about triathlons are kind of slowing down a little bit. We're not seeing as much interest, so I'm hoping that's coming back.
Josh:Yeah, right on man. Well, it's just, it's the world famous Dane Higgins, the suspension guru from the world, famous or infamous Guru Bikes and Guru Suspension, and little old me today.
Dane:Yeah, you know what I love these I do. I like just talking bike stuff, you know, and just kind of I mean we do this on the trail Like I do this every day.
Josh:You day. I could do this every single day.
Dane:I just really like this stuff and geeking out on bike stuff and bike parts and little tricks and tips and all kinds of stuff, and hopefully everybody out there listening likes that. I love interviewing people and finding out how they live in the bike industry and how work in the bike industry and what they do and and all of that. But sometimes you just want to sit down and be like geek out on stuff you know, and I like that, so, so we'll do more of these.
Dane:We've gotten some feedback that folks like when you and I just sit down and chat about bikes, are you going to pick fights again, like you're going to be like, yeah, okay, I'm ready, man, I'm ready.
Josh:Although, I think I'm batting like a two for 10. I'm like 20% accuracy level, so I'm learning a ton from you. But we have a list of things to talk about today that I think primarily stem from things I've been learning as I kind of get into new components and new types of bikes and stuff, and as I learned these lessons, I thought it would be good for me to share the lesson I learned and then get your perspective as, like someone that has probably learned these lessons 10 years ago.
Dane:Yeah, and I got to tell you like we were just doing a little bit of talking. There's stuff I learned too and I love learning. Like I am on a deep dive lately, you know, with my getting rid of news in my life.
Dane:I've now filled that with learning everything Like I have taken my van apart three times, like redoing my garage, building a porch, like I'm doing all these things and I just love learning that stuff and so, and I'm filling that time with all of that. So, uh, you made a list, which I think is cool.
Josh:Yeah, I made a list. Uh, okay, so first one. Um for Christmas. Uh, my wife hates presents. She doesn't want presents for her birthday, she doesn't want presents for Christmas. Um, gift giving is not her love language, so to speak, but it is very much my love language, uh, from my youth, um, and as I grew up, we didn't have a lot of money and so like we would pine for things because we couldn't get them.
Josh:Yeah, and so the only time we would get those those big cool things, whatever they were, would be like Christmas, birthdays, things like that. So like gift giving was a huge deal. We would save up and sacrifice. I always bought my own presents and stuff, so it's like a big part of like, of like who I am, okay, and so it's really weird to have a wife that could give two shits and I'm just like, look at this great thing I got you, and like like last year when I bought it, the transmission.
Dane:Yeah, and she's like I don't want that. I don't want that.
Josh:I'm like could you at least like fake it or something Like that was like I had a set of carbon bars, uh, that were from pivot um and they're really good.
Dane:I think they're called the phoenix pros okay hopefully brian mason is listening and not disappointed in me. Um, but uh, I, they're really highly rated bars, I gotta tell you. I got them on all my bikes and I actually will pull them off my bike before I sell it and keep them. And in this day and age of like envies and, uh, I, like my one-ups, I did get a set of one-ups which I really like there's a lot of really good um rentals, you name it.
Dane:There's all kinds of cool bars out there. Usually the house brand bar is not the desired bar, right. But I've had customers come into the shop and say we had one customer come in and goes hey man, I want the pivot bars. And I'm like I at the time this is a while ago we couldn't really get them from pivot and um, they were just coming on the bikes. And he's like, can I just buy the ones off of that bike right there? And I'm like, well, I got to put something on there. And he's like like I'll buy these envy bars. I'm not kidding you.
Josh:You put those envy bars.
Dane:I'll trade you for those bars right there and I'm like okay, so, and we did it. That's how much he liked the bars and it made me kind of change my perspective on house brand on house brand and evaluate things? Yeah, don't don't discount something that's made by the company. Yeah, um, you know, try and look at its merits, not necessarily its label so you gave me all that sales pitchy shit?
Josh:yep, but uh, the reason I bought them honestly was because they were the same like rise and sweep and everything is the aluminum bar she had on her bike, because they were the bars that if you bought us, she has a switchblade yeah if you bought a pivot switchblade with the respect with the carbon stuff, that's what it would have and the aluminum was the same.
Josh:So I was like, all right, this is going to feel exactly the same. By the way, I weighed the I. I cut them down, so she rides them at seven, 80. Okay, they came in 800. Between the aluminum bars and the carbon bars 100 grams, 146 grams. So it's a little bit more than a quarter pound.
Dane:Yeah, it's pretty amazing, right? It's not a big object, right? No, you wouldn't think so.
Josh:And she wrote them today out at 50 Year, which is one of the more technical sections in Tucson.
Dane:Did she even notice?
Josh:I was like how'd the bars work?
Dane:I put everything on there, you're all excited, I'm all excited. They're black.
Josh:I put those new brakes the.
Dane:Hayes brakes on there. I'm like how'd the?
Josh:brakes work. She's like I didn't notice. I'm like you didn't fucking notice that I changed your brakes to a different brand. You didn't even notice. She's such a rad rider, you'd think that she would be in tune with these whatever, there are people that will notice.
Dane:You know like they'll notice if I adjust their brake lever out a little bit you know, I'll know that yeah, people will notice that, and then there's people that won't notice if I've switched the fork on the bike.
Josh:Yeah, like I'm 50, the rider of lazy, but if you change my bike by a half a millimeter, yep, you'd be like something's not right here. What'd you do?
Dane:it kind of shows you that you know everybody does their own thing.
Josh:Um.
Dane:I, I like the carbon bars. I am a carbon bar junkie cause I found a long time ago they've reduced vibration and so I'm not looking for flex. Uh, I still want them to steer well and I'm not looking for stiff, but what I like is they just reduce some of the vibration that get in your hands.
Josh:Yeah.
Dane:And so it just takes one more contact point and gives it a little bit more comfortable, less abrasive feel.
Josh:Awesome. Um, that's what I told her, as I'm like, I think, in the chatter, it's going to help a little bit. In the chatter she wrote 50 year. Today. There's not a lot of chatter in 50 year, yeah, so she's like I probably won't notice it today. So whenever she rides a Chattery Trail like Star Pass or whatever, she'll feel it. That's not the whole point of this. The whole point of this is that I've had those bars since Christmas it's February 12th had those bars since Christmas and I haven't cut them because I was scared to cut carbon bars, and so I'm a Park Tool guy and so so I got onto Park Tool's website and they have a hacksaw blade that's designed for carbon, but I couldn't fucking find it anywhere. Oh, and so I ordered it from England.
Dane:Really, yes, I have one in the shop.
Josh:For sale. Yeah, oh God, that's awesome.
Dane:I waited like two months, paid $37 for a hacksaw blade yeah, yeah, and granted, like we don't stuff like that we don't put on display, we have three in the drawer.
Josh:Yeah.
Dane:So, as we wear them out, we always have one Right, but we're always ready to sell one.
Josh:So little secrets, yeah, little secrets. Like ask the shop if you don't see it on the floor, cause I did look at your park tools and I'm like all right, they're not selling.
Dane:I tell people all the time we hide shit like we do I don't know about that from a sales perspective. But okay, I got you. It's not on purpose, it's just we're trying to cram so you only have so much show space, yeah you show, show space.
Josh:Yeah, uh, and you have great. Your, your crew is an amazing shop. It's like just got a great, great vibe. Great employees, great setup, great stock.
Dane:I should stop like blowing it right now.
Josh:Okay, anyways, okay, so, um, I talked to you and our friend Nick, who's like a mechanic, and I was like, guys, I never cut carbon before. I'm a little nervous about this. Like what should I do? So what I did was I bought this park tool carbon specific hacksaw blade that kind of looks like a hacksaw blade with like sandpaper on the bottom. Exactly yeah, and it worked like fucking great, yeah, although I did have a problem with it. But before we get into the problem that I had and you can talk and I know you have a solution for that could you tell me, like, how do you guys cut carbon in your shop?
Dane:so we go out. If you go out, in the back of the shop there's this concrete slab and we just rub them really aggressively he's full of shit, he's joking no, we use the carbon blades. So there's a couple different ways. Abrasive blades work really well and they don't have the teeth. If you do have a hacksaw blade that's got a super fine tooth count, like a high tooth count, that works pretty good too, and I gave you. I'm just going to throw this out there.
Josh:You told me and I forgot.
Dane:Okay, I gave you advice on you gave me the specific instructions.
Josh:Yes, okay, probably drinking whiskey at that time.
Dane:I just want that known. I just want it known.
Josh:Okay, so so before you so do you want me to say that? Before you before you get to the solution Okay, all right, are there? Are there carbon specific cutting tools that are not park or that you can go to, like Ace or Home Depot or what are those? Yeah, what are those?
Dane:Yeah, you can get the same type of abrasive blade from other manufacturers.
Josh:Is that what it's called abrasive blade?
Dane:And they look exactly like you described. It looks like somebody took a hacksaw blade with no teeth and glued a bunch of sand to it. Okay, and what it is is just those particles are embedded and they create just a less aggressive cutting surface. It also creates a little bit wider, so it's wider. The, the kerf is a little bit wider, so you don't get the blade stuck as easily. What's the word kerf mean? Kerf? Oh god, I I know exactly what it is and I can picture it, but it's basically the, the, the channel that is left by the cutting blade gotcha.
Dane:So if you were cutting something like if I'm cutting wood and my kerf, which I think is the thickness of the blade, is a quarter inch, which is stupid wide um. If I'm cutting wood and my kerf, which I think is the thickness of the blade, is a quarter inch, which is stupid wide um, if I want the product and I have to make sure that I count for the fact that it's going to take a quarter, okay, this actually makes sense to me because I had it set where I thought it was going to be set.
Josh:Yeah, like two at 780, yeah, and I think I actually got to like 776 or something because of the curve.
Dane:Yeah, and so, like when I learned early woodworking, you always make the line and then you know when you're making your line for when you're going to cut a piece of wood or what have you you kind of develop a habit of either cutting on one side or the other.
Dane:It's just so that you keep that consistent, so that your measurements tend to be consistent, and the kerf is what you learn when you start using those blades they will take a certain amount away. So let's say you have a board that is exactly two feet yep, and you cut it in the middle, they won't be two one foot um lengths, correct, they will both be one foot minus half of the curve.
Josh:Yeah, Holy crap, dude. Assuming that the curve. Assuming that your line was actually exactly, yeah, and so. I apologize to Lacey. Your seven 80 bars are seven 76.
Dane:And then um, so there is, um, there is a, so you get the breast abrasive blades.
Josh:So you can go to like Home Depot, Ace Hardware, like whatever I haven't personally done it we.
Dane:we usually go get them through distributors and stuff. But yeah, Do you use the park ones, or do you use different brands? I have to check Sometimes. You know, we've got a long history of there was a few years where you couldn't get anything from anybody, and so you change your buying habits. And so you change your buying habits, and so we used to just get them from our distributor. Then we would have to sometimes hit Amazon or go to Home Depot or what have you, and so I don't know if that's stabilized yet.
Dane:We just picked one brand.
Josh:So you just need a brace of blade, and then I used a hacksaw. Do you guys always use hacksaws or do you use cutting wheels?
Dane:No normal hacksaw. When I was working at one shop and we did a lot of carbon fiber fork installs, we would use a little mini chop saw with an abrasive blade on it. Really, and that worked pretty good. And so you know, sometimes you know you'll say something like that and then you picture the worst case scenario of somebody going out.
Josh:This is exactly what I'm going to say.
Dane:So like, should we recommend to our listeners hacksaw? Uh well, so with carbon fiber. So here's the thing with carbon fiber. It is a fiber. There's a bunch of laid down fibers in epoxy, and so when you're cutting them, they the epoxy will be removed by a blade differently than the fiber will, and so the likelihood of that tooth grabbing a piece of fiber and trying to yank it rather than cut it causes what they call fraying. And so whenever you fray carbon fiber, you create a stress riser and you create a inconsistency. It doesn't look cool. In most cases, like at the end of the bar, it will never really affect it. It's really a cosmetic thing and it's not that big a deal to freak out if you get some fraying. But what you don't want is to just destroy that bar and create a bunch of opportunities for that carbon to continue to unravel.
Josh:Yeah, so carbon fiber is just literally like strings of metal that are wound or with tape, and then they're infused or impregnated with a resin and then cured in an oven, and that's what makes that material. One of the things I learned you can tell me if this is, or I think I learned you can tell me if this is right or not is that you don't need to use a lot of pressure, no, that you barely push down at all and it just cuts right through.
Dane:So I was working with a guy who builds frames and I was using a hacksaw and I was doing metal, right, right, and I was just wrenching on this hacksaw and he's like, whoa, what are you doing? And I'm like, what are you talking about? I am cutting metal. I think I was 25 or 30. I mean, I wasn't a young person, you know. I wasn't a tiny little baby, you know, 16 year old or anything Um. And he's like you're doing it all wrong. And I'm like what are you talking about? And so this is a guy who makes steel frames and he's cutting a lot of metal and he's much more concerned about the finish and his tools. And so what he taught me was the teeth are meant to be pulled and you don't push so with a hacksaw.
Dane:You have teeth that go one way, yep, and you want to orientate the blade. You need to be aware of the orientation. Usually they have an arrow on there so you can line them up, but you can flip them around and use them different ways. But ideally you want to pull the teeth across the surface of the material, and that will cut it. And then you want to pull the teeth across the the surface of the material, and that will cut it. And then you want to relieve the pressure as you go backwards. Oh, interesting, so you have a softer stroke.
Josh:Same with carbon, same with these abrasive blades for carbon abrasive. Don't actually have that issue because there's no directional teeth, so they'll cut on both.
Dane:They'll cut both, push and pull yeah, exactly, um, but but if you were to use a fine-tooth hacksaw for your carbon, you want to kind of lighten up as you reset and then pull again, or if you've set it up the other way. So what he was teaching me is, in a metal sense, not to dull my hacksaw blades, not to wear them out. Have you ever seen a hacksaw blade that gets worn out? They start to get wavy and stuff.
Josh:It's usually overheat. It's like every one of my blades in my garage right now.
Dane:Yeah, we all do it, we all get impatient and we're just pushing hard and we're like if we just go faster or push harder it'll get done faster, yeah and he taught me that you know one.
Dane:If you picture that tooth and you just picture in your brain there's a cavity. There's only so much metal that it can curl up into that cavity before it starts lifting it and moving it and causing problems. And so if you get impatient, you know you're going to, you're going to cause extra wear. It's it's true. It's cool, because one of the things I learned in school is like when you're in Germany and you're learning metalwork, they have an apprentice, you know they'll put you through an apprenticeship to learn metalwork. They have an apprentice, you know they'll. They'll put you through an apprenticeship to learn metalwork. And like you'll spend so much time just filing and learning how the metal feels in the file and how to file, and like you go through these stages and they're way more meticulous than you know what I learned than us dumb americans?
Josh:well, it's not even dumb americans I.
Dane:I didn't really get that. Even in shop class we didn't really get in that intricate you know it's not even dumb Americans.
Dane:I didn't really get that. Even in shop class we didn't really get in that intricate. You know it's like cut this. You know here's how you work a hammer, here's a drill, you know what I mean and put some glue in between the wood, you know, and it'll stay longer. You know that's. It was just, it wasn't really meticulous and then, and it's kind of cool Sorry, that is a huge tangent it's a huge tangent, huge tangent.
Josh:Okay, so, so, um, but you guys use the abrasive blades. Yeah, park tool abrasive blades.
Dane:The cool thing about those is one, there's not a direction, yep. Two, they don't dull as fast. And three, they don't tend to fray as much because they're kind of pulling the carbon. They're not pulling it as much, they're kind of just rubbing it away instead of like pulling or or almost yanking it up. Gotcha.
Josh:So, um, I cut, you know you gotta get two ends cut, you know whatever, 20 millimeters off each end, yeah, and uh, first, first cut, no problem, and I've got the little park jig inside of a bench vice, right. So I've got everything really secure and I've got it lined up correctly and it's got the channels and it was really, it was really, you know, efficient. Yeah, first one went fine. Second one I got to the bottom and I think I was pushing down too much and it broke off. And when it broke off, at the very end of the cut, peeled it like a banana. It peeled a little time, it just pulled up a little tiny like three or four millimeter piece that didn't cut off. Yeah, so, so you're going to give me a way to resolve that, but let me, let me tell you I did give you a way.
Josh:You didn't, I forgot it and you ignored me, so let's start with there. Like what do I do to to, uh, at least lessen the chance that that happens in the future?
Dane:Well, first of all, I will tell you that in a shop atmosphere and our shop is built in a way that we work on our stuff right in front of everybody there's no back room where the mechanics are are banging away and you can't see what's going on. We are right there in front of you the amount of times that we've cut a bar and the guy is standing or the lady is standing right there watching us do it Like don't fuck that up, yeah.
Josh:Did you?
Dane:know that we do not have a pair of vice grips in the shop.
Josh:What would you need? A pair of vice grips for?
Dane:Well, that's what I say, but do you know how many bike shops have vice grips?
Josh:I can't think of any time. I mean maybe in the old days when bikes were old.
Dane:You work on a BMX bike.
Josh:You're gonna want some vice yeah, yeah, when I was working with, like all steel bikes. Yes, yeah, so, but nowadays I can't think of a time I'd ever use vice grips.
Dane:It's different but um so, uh, what we do is we will wrap tape. Usually masking tape works fine, or the the not masking electrical tape, no, no, electrical tapes too rubbery, and it has a lot of adhesives, so there's a lot like that blue painter's tape. No, uh, it's, it's the clear tape, the stuff like scotch tape, scotch tape. There we go, thank you, okay.
Dane:Thank you could not come up here for you so I just wrap a couple layers of scotch tape and then I make my line uh, with a pen, because sometimes you'll see a mark on the bar and when you cover it with tape you may not be able to see it through that cutter or through the uh, the um, yeah guide.
Josh:So you use like a silver.
Dane:Um, yeah, just a pen works fine on on scotch tape. Okay, and then what? The scotch tape?
Josh:you're cutting through the actual scotch tape.
Dane:Yes, yeah, not like um okay yeah, you don't put it just on the edge, you put it, you cut straight through it, gotcha and it it helps keep that little fraying from happening. Now, everybody who's seen this happen and had it happen to them, don't panic. There's not a lot of you know not a lot is going to happen.
Dane:Yeah, you know, if that happens to you, you try and minimize it. We usually will bend it down and break it off. You know, uh, instead of trying to pull it, because if you pull it, if the, the, the um, the carbons aligned properly, you can actually pull it pretty far up the bar. Uh, so, like, imagine you're peeling that right, yep, and you go to just like, gosh, I'm so mad that I just did this. And then you just yank it.
Dane:We have seen people yank a good six inches and that, where that thing will yank all the way up and unravel it's, it's unsightly, it's not good and and yeah, it's not not a good thing so what I did?
Josh:you can tell this was stupid, yeah, so I didn't pull it, I didn't break it yeah I took a little piece of emery cloth which is like a really fine grit sandpaper. Yeah, I just very lightly sanded it, yeah, until it was gone, gone and it was completely flush. Now I took a little of the carbon away when I did that but I was like okay, this still feels very strong to me, Is that okay?
Dane:Yeah, you're fine. Like what we'll usually do is, once we take the tape off, we'll then finish it with a file to just not have that raised edge, cause then when you go to put your grip on it, may gray grab that rage raised edge and then start peeling the carbon a little bit. Some bars are more prone to this than others, the more that, uh, the high end bars, believe it or not, are the ones that tend to be more prone because they're trying to use less epoxy and a higher grade carbon. And so with less epoxy you have more fabric, you know, fibers, and less of the plastic. You know people joke that carbon fiber is plastic, it's epoxy it's resin.
Dane:Yeah, the resin will create a. It's much stronger. So we will usually use a light file and then you file a certain direction to kind of just give it a good taper so that when you're putting a grip on it doesn't fray more and that's and that's it. So, like the, the big thing, the big takeaways are it happens, don't freak out. If that happens, yep, uh, minimize it as much as you can. The tape works really good, uh. And then you know, try and just take a nice file and be nice and sensitive. We so, if you imagine you're looking down the bar from where the stem would be, we're filing away from the use a file.
Josh:I used Emory cloth yeah that's fine too.
Dane:Yeah, yeah, um, I I don't know. You know there's going to be a bunch of mechanics that are like I use this, you know it just basically beveling that thing so that it's not got a sharp edge.
Josh:Yeah, okay, cool and hey, listen. So we um, we have eight topics to cover. Guess how long we've been talking about 20 minutes, 25 minutes, maybe five minutes for the intro.
Dane:Yeah, 20 minutes we've been talking about my dumb ass cut in a carbon bar I, you know, the the cut in the carbon bars is a big deal and, um, you know, I think I think people want to be able to do it themselves and I think they can. I don't. I don't think you should be afraid and even if you get that little peeling happen, don't panic, it's at the end of the bar. There's very little strength difference. If that happens, it's you know, just don't. You know, I was watching one of the youtube shows, gmbn or something, and they were like oh, how do you cut? Oh, do you use a pipe cutter? Yeah, don't use a pipe cutter, don't use a pipe cutter. Yeah, pipe cutters are something that a lot of people use. I've used them on aluminum and they can be effective. You know, there's always a grain of salt to everything. Don't use the huge pressure when you're using the thing Cause you can, you can cause it.
Josh:Yeah, okay, I hate to like add a, but since we're talking about carbon, okay, it just caught my mind on something like I am a big fan of motor X. You know that already. Like motor X loop, cause I love what I think shimano is distributing now yep, I've just been bringing it in, so they they also are the brand behind some of the brands, so yeah, little right.
Josh:Right, because, like pivot, we learned that, like when we were at the pivot factory. Remember, they told us that even on their drawings it says motor x lubricant. So I'm a big fan of motor x bike lube. Yep, you know um uh or, I'm sorry, not bike lube, but like uh, their, their grease, their bike grease, the white grease and the bike grease, and then um also their carbon paste.
Dane:Yeah.
Josh:And so like. So, as I'm like attaching things to carbon things, I use carbon paste. You don't use grease.
Dane:Yeah, so in the olden days people were worried that grease would like break down the carbon. I don't think that's an issue anymore. Um, the basically carbon can be slippery and so if you use grease it may twist, so on a seat post. I think we've covered this in a couple podcasts, where the the idea of carbon paste is it's not a grease, so it's not a lubricant, nope, and it's got actually a little grit yeah, do not mix them up. They're little plastic balls in most cases.
Josh:Um, I'm like micro, like super small. You can't see them. It's like almost like sand.
Dane:You can feel them yeah, and they just create it and then I think, in a podcast I've also mentioned, where some companies will bond them straight in, they actually really resemble that, that abrasive, uh saw blade. They have the you'll get let. That pivot bar that you, I think, has a whole layer of that built into where the clamp area is. No, it didn't, it did not.
Josh:Okay, well, I sell a lot of different bars. It was completely smooth.
Dane:I was going to like not call you out, but you vocalized that's okay, that's okay, there's a lot of bars that do actually put that, so that you don't have to have it, so so that you don't have to.
Josh:But I'm using carbon paste and Motorex yeah, it works great.
Dane:That's great. Okay, it's awesome.
Josh:All right, we can move on to our next topic.
Dane:Is that it? That's all you want to know about 28 minutes and 47. That was like a product placement for Motorex.
Josh:I just love Motorex. Are they paying?
Dane:you. They're not paying me shit. Is this a sponsored?
Josh:I would like you to hit like and subscribe.
Dane:at this point it is so much better.
Josh:Yeah, like and subscribe, please subscribe to our podcast.
Dane:Here comes our advertisement. You can tell I've been overloading on YouTube stuff. Yeah, you've been listening to too much YouTube, way too much.
Josh:So next topic I want to talk to you is and we've talked about this a little bit before Are you going to tell the story correctly? I'm going to tell the story as I remember it and then you can tell it as you remember it.
Josh:Do you want me to just be quiet while you tell your story, and then I'll just you can tell me where it's all screwed up or you can be like you're exactly right. I think I'm an intellectually honest guy, so I think I was honest. All right, you go for it For years and years and years and years and years and years, I've used this stuff called Purple Extreme yes, for underwater welding. I didn't know that. Look at that.
Dane:Uh here, for you. Yeah, I didn't know that. I knew the rep was doing it and I think he was actually the one selling it.
Josh:Bike medicine, I think was the company right back in the day, I don't remember. Anyways, um, it's been great in the desert. It doesn't collect crap. One of the bad things about it is that it builds up over time and you get this kind of like gunky shit on your drive train and then also, like every time you get done riding, you've got this black on your leg from where you're. If you touch the chain, you get this.
Dane:we call that rookie marks so I'm not kidding, I'm not kidding I've been running for 25 years.
Josh:I'm still getting them, so I'm a rookie, rookie mark basically okay, yep, we're gonna have to.
Josh:We're gonna have to dig into that a little bit later, you know. Okay, but Dane's like, what the hell are you using that stuff for man Use wax, and specifically this wax that comes in a bottle, and you apply it just like you would apply regular lube called Squirt. And I'm like, okay, dude, I'll try it. And so I put it on my bike and, uh, I put way too much on, like probably 400% what you're supposed to put on, and it built this giant puddle of wax all around my, my, my bike, and I took it out for a ride and I'm like I feel like I'm riding in mud. This is horrible.
Dane:Yeah, that's the text I got. This stuff sucks. I feel like I'm riding in mud. This is horrible. Yeah, that's the text I got. This stuff sucks.
Josh:I feel like I'm riding in mud, in mud. And so I went back and I was like, okay, I put too much on, so I took that chain off and you can clean it and all that stuff. I threw the chain away. Brand new chain, threw it away, put another one on. This time I put 200% what you need, which to me was a significant decrease. Um, and it still sucked. And then um over about I don't know and Dane's like just shut up, it works, just shut up.
Dane:I can't wait to tell my stuff, yeah.
Josh:And so I wrote it for like three weeks and all that excess cause I put 200% what you're supposed to on, supposed to put on. It came off. And then I was like, holy shit, this is freaking amazing. And I didn't have to lube my chain every day and I wasn't getting the rookie marks on my leg and uh, I was like, oh, this is great. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to like 16 bikes in the stable right now between the whole family. But um, is it really that much?
Dane:It is 16 bikes, holy shit. Yeah, I mean, I can see them, but holy shit.
Josh:Yeah, there's a lot out there, especially now that we brought the Levo back. Yeah, um, anyways, I recently converted my Rocky Mountain because I swapped out chains and stuff, and that's a good time to do it. Anyways, shout out to oh my God, I'm going to forget the name of the company. Oh God, what's the company that makes the wax dipping machine? So there's Moulton. And they also make really good pumps. Oh, silca, silca, silica. Okay, so silica's got a stripper a wax stripper.
Dane:Do you have to give her a dollar wait?
Josh:are we talking about the?
Dane:same thing. We're not. We're not okay. I got kind of excited.
Josh:Oh, for christ's sakes it's like a grease lube, wax strip or whatever are we still?
Dane:talking about it's jesus yeah, okay, grease lube stripper. That's what you said. I just want to clarify, for christ's sake okay, we've gone into the gutter, all right.
Josh:No, this is bicycle related lube, bicycle related wax bicycle related.
Dane:bicycle-related grease Focus.
Josh:So just shout out to the if you have to do any kind of, if you have to I'm not going to say strip If you have to remove in a very robust and thorough way the lubricant that's on your bicycle chain, whatever kind of lubricant it is. This Soka product I'm trying not to use that word lubricant remover. Lubricant remover works great anyways.
Josh:So even even for the packing grease that comes on the chains okay, so, um, I put the new chain on there. Uh, I also noticed, um, that you can buy chain, okay, so, so, like, I'm sold like, like chain, old school chain, loop, bad, wax, good, I'm sold, at least for the desert. We ride in tucson, arizona, in the desert, right, yeah, and I think it's probably good in more places, but I know it's good in the desert. Okay, I noticed that kmc sells and you can buy pre-waxed chains and they're usually really expensive. Yep, I noticed that kmc sells pre-wax chains for reasonable prices, like 45 bucks for like a xt level chain. Yeah, um, so what are your thoughts on just the whole wax topic? Okay, you can tell your version of my story I'll try and do it quick, okay you're, you know josh is at the shop.
Dane:Hey, uh, I need some lube. What do you guys recommend? And I say I like squirt. We've been using it for a while, for a long time. It's really good stuff. You like to squirt? Yep, I do. And josh buys it. I get a text this stuff sucks. I feel like I'm riding in mud. It's the worst product ever. And I text back hey, you, there's a lot of articles about how this is one of the top lubes and actually, uh, there's been articles about how it is one of the um, best ways to get more Watts out of your bikes. And because we have a history of doing a lot with triathletes, they are focused on reducing friction. Yeah and uh, you know getting the most out of every watt that they have to put into that bike. And I try to explain through text I'm not even calling him um and sending him articles that squirt is actually you know, know, I'm a data guy, so you're sending me data.
Dane:Yeah, top three, you know, in in one case. Second, and not only is this little bottle of like $15 lube going up against the $75 like ceramic speed, which is great stuff, but it's $75. It's right there with it and it's in independent. You know studies showing it is just as good and one of the lowest friction lubes on the market okay, yeah and josh is like this stuff sucks you know what you missed?
Josh:no wait, wait here's. That was it, that was it more there's more to the story.
Dane:No, no, wait, this is it, I don't know. A month or so later, I come into josh's garage and I look on the counter and there's another bike of another bottle of squirt lube that I didn't sell them. It's their e-bike version. I don't actually. We don't carry that in the shop, not because we don't believe in it, because I don't know what the difference is. We'll figure it out.
Dane:But I'll tell you why I got that, but keep going okay and I'm like, wait a minute, this isn't the same stuff. He went out and bought more and I got the saddest puppy dog eyes of like yeah, I kind of like that stuff now so what you? That's my side, so the part of the story you're missing?
Josh:yeah, is that in the middle of all this, I went to sea otter?
Dane:yes, yeah, and you talked to the squirt guys, and the squirt guys were there and I was like why do I?
Josh:you know, actually I have this recorded. We've never actually published it. I've got like 30 interviews from sea otter that we didn't publish. But um, and so they kind of talked me through everything. They explained to me what I had done wrong.
Dane:Good, that was what did you do wrong? That that is easy to tell people in case they're thinking or had an experience, I literally put 400% more than you need Way too much.
Josh:There's way less so. So you need to get my understanding. You're the expert, but you need to get a little bit on every rung, yes, and you need to do it slow, yeah, and then you let it dry for like five or 10 minutes, yep, and then you do do it second time on the initial install or the initial application yeah, and you do it again. Get a little tiny bit on every rung and you're good. Yeah, I put a shit ton and created like I was riding with a, with a candle basically on my bicycle.
Dane:Yeah, yeah, right, that was slowing stuff. I can see that. So when we sell score we've been.
Dane:This is one of the things that I did tell you about this is that, uh, when I I I've I articulated this with you and I really kind of enjoy telling people this because I give people my opinions all the time and I say, hey, you should get this, or I think this is a good product, or whatever, and what I don't always get to convey to them is that that recommendation is not me, it's not my recommendation, it's not I use this product. It is my absorption of every person that has ever come back and said I love this product and it's my feeling out everybody that I've ever talked to. Every time I have a discussion about this product and every feedback and I consume all of that knowledge and I kind of just weigh the average and figure it out. And in 20, 30 years of selling squirt I mean a long time I can tell you, the first time I used it, they, uh, we were doing you're gonna tell me the first time you squirted yeah, first time.
Dane:Uh, they gave us a case at the. I was doing neutral support at the 24 hours, yeah, and they gave us a case and I had never heard of it and we just used it. And we had a case left over at the bike shop and nobody had ever heard of it, didn't know anything about it. We just started using it. And what happened was we were like this is free lube, let's just start using it that's all.
Dane:That's really all it was and in a bike shop and and at that time we were really, really, really high-end bike shop and we had so many people coming back and raving about it and we just we had no data. And it wasn't until years later that they started actually doing independent tests of this product and and seeing why it was so successful. I did talk to the squirt guys at different trade shows and I found out really cool little facts, like, for instance did you know that their biggest pain in the ass is the little? At the time? Anyway, was the getting the bottle qualified for us anti kid proof?
Dane:So you don't drink it, so kids don't drink it so there's a, there's a safety, there's the applicator that shrinks the little nipple yeah, that nipple had to fit in, uh to the bottle at a certain friction so that it wouldn't be easily removed and swallowed. No joke, and I'm talking to the squirt guy and he's telling me this story of the. That's his pain in the butt.
Josh:He's pretty much conquered bike lube Dude you could go all between wax, squirt lube, nipple like swallow oh, like we have, this is ripe for dirty lube. Stripper yeah.
Dane:Right, stripper, I forgot stripper. I kind of feel like we need that shirt.
Dane:So moral of the story is this recommendation and our shop, it really likes this stuff. It does really good. However, I will tell you it has limitations and so, for instance, in our climate, in our dry climate, which is dusty we're not in riding in rain this lubricant does really well. It tends to let the dust collect on the wax itself and the wax will naturally kind of flake off. There was a product called White Lightning. There still is a product called White Lightning that kind of did this first but didn't do a good job. One of the biggest things that White Lightning struggled with is the particulates. The wax would separate from the transfer fluid that was meant to move the wax to the chain and because it would separate, you would get super gunk, you know.
Josh:Right.
Dane:And a lot of people that have been riding for a long time had that experience and don't like wax loops because of that. Squirt is definitely different.
Dane:You do need to clean your drivetrain very well to put it on Like very well, very well, like almost like the one time, the one time, the one time, yeah. So one thing that people in the shop get confused about is they're like do I have to clean it every time I put it on? I'm like, no, the one time you need to clean it there is a cosmoline type grease from the factory. You need to get that off. It needs to be really on the metal and it does need to get under the rollers to be as effective.
Josh:So this is that stripper from soca that I was talking about? Yeah, it worked amazing.
Dane:It does great uh, gasoline would probably work, but I don't know um you know we're not recommending gasoline do it in a well ventilates yes, yes, but um but you need to clean it first.
Dane:Um, now I am lazy and I will tell you that what I do with my bikes is I actually will run a new chain on the bike that cosmolines a good lube. Uh, shimano will will tell you that. A lot of the chain companies will tell you, hey, this is a actually a really good lube. It's good for the chain. There's a lot of mechanics that kind of develop this kind of attitude that, oh, I need to strip that off and put bike lube on. I've done that for 20 years because it collects dirt. It does so again. You have to always look at things from your climate, your environment and so is it really cosmoline?
Josh:yeah, like the shit that the russians put their ak-47s in. They're not using them.
Dane:I don't want to say it as like kleenex, like as a a brand, but what it is is a packing lubricant to reduce the option of that metal rusting, rusting and. But it is a good lube and it works very well. And if you're in portland, where it's raining all the time and you're commuting, it's a better lube than squirt. I will tell you that straight up. I would rather have that stuff than squirt because it's waterproof and it's harder to get off. And when you are in portland or a rainy environment, you're going to want to maybe do a different loop. I'm not going to recommend this loop I would recommend.
Josh:And are you paid by squirt?
Dane:no, no, I'm not. I mean, they gave me a free case like a hundred years ago, but that's about like literally a hundred years ago, but ever since then we have bought the product and we really believe in it, and this is definitely not paid advertisement, so I'm not selling squirt. I do actually, like pedros does a good job with their ice wax okay that was the one that I used before squirt.
Dane:Um, again, you didn't have to mix it as much. So the one thing about squirt that's different than like the white lightnings is it doesn't separate. So when you are, if the bottle is clear, which in most cases are kind of a frosted, so you can kind of see in them.
Josh:Yep.
Dane:You don't see any separation where you did with the other stuff and I use a. There's a. I was trying out a WD-40 dry lube and it would separate. There's a lot of brands out there that'll separate um their formula just doesn't do that, and so the transfer fluid when it does evaporate and leave and dry.
Josh:You know which is intentional. Which is intentional, it is after the application. It is so mixed with the lube that it's you're not getting this unevenness so and you don't get the gunk if you apply it properly so I'm sold now, if you're in a dry climate, specifically if you're in a dry climate, you should really try this. It's good stuff. Oh wait, I do need to tell.
Dane:I do need to tell people, because there's going to be a bunch of people screaming at the whatever they're listening to us on. There is a limitation, and one of the limitations that we have found with squirt is, if you're doing longer rides, it needs to be applied. So we just, uh, supported the zia rides tenor race that was in tucson, yep, and that's a 10-hour race, so you're basically a 10-hour relay race, and so if you're a solo rider, you're going to be doing a lot of miles and you're going to want to put this on and in the middle of the race. Well, so yes, and to to an effect, so, let's say, you're going to do 100 miles and you put this on it. It's, you may see, in the the right climate, because at the tenor it was super dusty and we have this arizona super silt, silt, moon, dust, whatever you want to call it. It and it will work its way into the chain. And so what we were seeing and, believe it or not, squirt sponsored that event. We didn't even know that, and we showed up with our big bottles of squirt and they were given everybody, all these little ones. So it was cool, um, but what? What was really interesting. So, um, uh, this is some good feedback from our SRAM versus Shimano.
Dane:The bikes that were coming in with shifting issues on SRAM transmission. We were very confident that they didn't have a bent hanger and we were also very confident that they weren't out of adjustment, but they were making these horrible creaky noises. Guess what fixed it? The lube Just lubed the chain chain. People would come in and they're really like my bike is falling apart. We would put it in the stand. I'm like is it making like a right? And then they're like, yeah, and I would lube it with squirt, run it through, let it sit for five minutes.
Josh:Obviously these are bikes that were already squirted. They were already waxed chains, yeah, yeah I.
Dane:I will tell you that I get away with. Like you know, I don't over lube, but I have applied it to bikes with other lubes and it still survives. But we tell people in the shop, if you mix a wet and a dry lube, no matter what the brands, you're going and you get away with it great, if you don't clean your shit and do it right, um.
Dane:So I'm lazy all the time and I, and I've put it on bikes and it I put it on cosmoline. I've got it to work. You know I'm not as picky, you know, yeah, um, but it it does a really good job, but it actually eventually will just take over. It's kind of like an invasive species, but uh so, um. But the drawback is, what we're seeing is it's not going to be a hundred mile lube, you're. You're going to be at like a around 50 miles, depending on the dryness and the the dustiness where you're going to need to reapply. And so for those endurance athletes that may be doing these long, huge events, or if you're riding solo at the 24 squirt, you may need to make sure that you come in, you know, and get a lube when you get your. You know you take your your 10 minute pee break or whatever you know. And so that is one of the limitations that we've seen.
Dane:Those bikes with transmission, by the way, it was pretty amazing. You would put this lube on it, let it sit for not even five minutes, but just let it soak in. We apply it, then we run it through the gears so it gets a coating over all the teeth and then we just let it sit. And then usually we just take a rag after it's got a good minute of sitting there, so we know it's getting in and we just take off any excess. You and the bike was night and day and people would take them and they're like what did you do? And we're like we just looped the chain. And they're like you're kidding and no that's, that's it lose your chain.
Dane:Suckers, yeah, chain but, um, it was funny because the transmission bikes we were so confident that they didn't have bed hangers, they didn't have a corroded or a corrupted uh cable, uh, because we talked about in electronics and we were so confident they were adjusted right that the only thing that we could think of that was causing this weird noise was lube. And sure enough, that's all so you put.
Josh:So I mean like I follow the instructions on the bottle and what the guys told me, yeah, and I put it on. I let it dry for like 12 hours.
Dane:You don't need to do that. Usually about five minutes is what you need. What? Yeah, so shut up.
Josh:So there's a couple things that foul it up and that is this is this is not the the manufacturer's recommended process for the record.
Dane:Yeah, and I'll again. I've been using this for decades, so I probably don't follow it as strict there. So there's no, you obviously don't follow it.
Josh:so, but what so?
Dane:there's no you obviously don't follow it. So, but what does happen is, if you're having a problem with it, you should default to those instructions and try and follow them, which is what you did, and then you had your good experience. So I get away with a lot more because I'm I'm quickly evaluating what's going on and and if the chain has got the cosmoline it's super fresh and it's like got a really big layer I know it's going to get gunky, so then I will usually uh on the bike, clean that off as much as I can and then put it on. Um, but for the most part, if a customer comes in and they are getting a new chain and we're putting squirt on, we will usually take the time to take the chain off, clean it in the parts washer and do it correctly for a customer. So when I say that I'm lazy, I'm lazy on my bikes. Yes, not so much on your customers.
Dane:Yeah, and it's because I'm usually rushing out the door and I'm throwing some lube on so it doesn't make that creaky noise and, honestly, I never have a problem and so okay, I'd never thought I, I always thought I had to like I couldn't just like put lube on and go 20 minutes later go ride.
Dane:So you have metal on metal movement and you want to get lube in between the metal uh to create the least amount of friction as possible so that you have the least amount of wear as possible. The believe it or not the side plates of the chain aren't as critical as the rollers.
Josh:I didn't realize that for years I've been I've been lubing the side plates and it really is the rollers is what matters, yeah now, uh, there's other waxes out there.
Dane:I use a weld or wield well, w-e-l-d. Weld, I can't remember. Uh, they make a hard wax that you can melt and dip your chain in, or you can put it on, kind of like remember sex wax. How you do it, you're serious um it's like you're talking about surfboard wax.
Dane:Yeah, like surfboard, it's like a stick and you can put it on. I actually put that stuff on my downhill bike and did two whole seasons with one waxing, one waxing. Now keep in mind I in my races I wasn't pedaling a ton. It's not a cross-country race, right you know? I'm just descending and sprinting and descending.
Josh:Yeah, you probably did like four miles of pedaling in two seasons, probably.
Dane:Yeah, that's probably true um, I just coast down, right down, hellers just roll down yeah, you guys don't work. Actually that was my mantra. I'm just gonna roll down, but um, that stuff was amazing and you could still see on the side plates the green, because they had colors and I did green online, so so you can do that, and I do have buddies who will do the dip. They'll, they'll melt it in a crock is that way better than?
Dane:squirt, it's, it's a, it's, it's a a way to try and get that, that lubricant underneath the rollers and in the crevices that sometimes, when you're applying it topical, it doesn't get there and so that's really kind of the. There are different ways to doing it. Also, a paraffin dip is a different material, like it's a harder uh material.
Josh:It's not uh doesn't have the liquid.
Dane:Yeah, I mean, this is literally at at its rest a liquid. So because of that you know it's got a.
Josh:It's not as hard yeah, it's not the same type of product. I mean it's similar but it's not the same time. Yeah, it's not the same type of product.
Dane:I mean it's similar but it's not the same type. I always weigh things like how hard is it to do that? And this in squirt is like super fucking easy. It's super easy Once you start using it. That's when it really shines, because once it is on and you're using it, you don't have to do the deep clean. You just have to reapply it more often. But a bottle like that will last me a long time.
Josh:A long time, yeah, so for all those other bikes, I've only got three bikes converted, now the 16. Yeah, I was thinking that I got this big process. Yeah, it sounds like I can just run those chains through some degreaser, clean them off and put squirt on them.
Dane:I feel like you're super analytical and I think what you should do is do one.
Josh:See what happens. See what happens. Do one another and I was going to do that anyways yeah, yeah, Cause I.
Dane:so that gets onto our, our next step.
Josh:Oh, look at you.
Dane:Oh, my God, look at you All right, we have number three on our line. We're probably going to get through three in this whole podcast over the eight that we wrote down, so we have six more podcasts planned, but um and it is literally changing one thing on your bike at a time, and so this is something you should. I tell my story.
Josh:Yeah, go for it so um we were out at the bike swap which um every year in tucson, uh gaba puts on a bike swap and, like everyone comes out. I mean this this is probably, I don't know, 40, 50 vendors, one of the biggest in the country.
Dane:Huge bike spots, really cool I think Denver has a really big one. Yeah, I think that's right.
Josh:Think of it like a swap meet for bike stuff. Yeah, yeah, big time. And I was out there helping out Dane in the shop and I had I was trying to sell a bike which never sold, but that's okay, cause I kept it. I was out there helping these guys and one of your employees was walking around and he had Willie and he had a sign on his back and it was like brand new takeoff I-9 Hydra hubs for some like stupid low price. And I'm like Willie, is that serious? He's like yeah, I'm like okay. And so I handed him some cash because I brought a pocket full of cash because I'm like I'm at a bike swap, I'm going to buy something and I was like I don't know what to do with these, but they would fit most of my bikes whatever. And it was in Willie's a Shimano guy, I'm a Shimano guy.
Josh:So, it was micro spline, right, so that'll work. And so I had those hubs for I don thing and I didn't do anything with them. And then I'm like, dang, can you get me a set of carbon rims? He's like yep, I got an idea we can get some carbon rims for you. And I'm like, can you build these up for me? He's like, yep, I'm like sweet, I've never had high engagement hubs in my life. Uh, I look some cheap. Yeah, we've established that pretty clearly on the podcast.
Dane:Big difference between those and the shimano. So the shimano ones are awesome. Okay, no, I love Shimano. I'm not going to disparage them, I'm telling you bang for buck, price-wise the Shimano wheels. Xt I would say is a good hub, but when you get down to the Deore lower, you're just not getting that engagement.
Josh:Yeah, that's fair. I've only had SLX level or above Shimano hubs and they're not expensive, so why the hell would you buy a D or?
Dane:and honestly, you know, my biggest beef with that is not the quality, Cause Shimano. When Shimano makes something, they do a really good job. They, they really make a good product and in fact we have to be careful, if we're rebuilding a Shimano hub, that we use the appropriate level of quality of bearing. So, level of quality of bearing, uh, so because most shimano hubs are open ball and uh, they're cup and cone, they call it, and um, it's very few shimano hubs actually have seal cartridge bearings and because they believe in the quality of that, that bearing. So if you take a durace hub and you throw in wheelsmith ball bearings, somebody at shimano will die. They will actually pass away right there and it's like you know it's not a fairy loses its wings, literally a shimano employee dies yeah yeah, so, yeah, so high precision, very high precision, and so, uh, when they do that, that's, that's great.
Dane:My beef with them is that if you want a shimano hub and you want to run anything but shimano on it, you can't, you can't. So they just don't play.
Josh:Well, with others. The good thing is is, if you get a shram hub, you can put anything on it, right, uh, no, not, no, you can't. What? No, no, wait, it's the same thing.
Dane:Wait so here's the funny thing shimano only makes shimano hg and micros spline shram makes shimano hg and xd shram so xd, yeah, so so so shram plays well, because they wanted to sell their stuff.
Josh:They're an inferior company and they better make something that works.
Dane:Now we're fighting so now you're just picking stuff okay, let's get back to the point.
Josh:Get the point. Yeah, so I got these new first carbon rims I ever had, first carbon wheelset first high dude, I gotta say I'm very proud of you.
Dane:Thank you, I am, you're kind of. I don't want to say that everyone should have carbon, but carbon is a barrier when you're in the desert with the rockiness that we have to, to just just let go and get carpet you have to keep in mind that I'm a large human. Yeah, and it's sharp and pointy out here, very sharp and pointy, and I'm a very large human and I've broken steel.
Josh:Yes, so there's a history here. It's not complete chaos and hysteria. I have actually broken lots and lots of stuff, so I'm nervous, yeah, anyways, um so high engagement hubs for the first time, carbon rims for the first time, hand belt over at guru. Thank you so much. Um, bryant, bryant cheers. So far they've done great. Uh, still need to do a 30 day on them. Yep. Well, we'll get those India.
Josh:I appreciate that. Um, and then I put some forecasters well, max's forecasters, and cause I've been wanting to try them. They're a little beefier than what I normally run. Oh, do you run recons? So I've been running, uh, a ground control, a specialized tires ground. Specialized tires, ground control and purgatory. Okay, and recently I've been running the Terraval E-Line, which I fucking love that tire Okay For a back tire.
Dane:It's amazing. You just showed it to me. It's off my radar, so I'm kind of interested in checking it out yeah.
Josh:It's super light 700 grams and it's really great for like down country kind of loose over hard.
Dane:So did you see what we just did there? We were on number three we've talked about one thing, but we just added in two other five. That was that's how I put in number four. We just skipped ahead.
Josh:I just put them in the order. Okay, all right, go ahead. So so, um, let's talk about the forecast for a minute. Yeah, so so I ride on this particular bike.
Dane:I ride mostly cross-country stuff, loose over hard is loose over hard, a very common term.
Josh:We call it kitty litter kitty litter uh, minor chunk yeah, but not major chunk yeah, yeah, for, for for this bike, it's a one third one 140, 120, uh epic, uh specialized epic, uh evo, yeah, older, older model that's been overstroked. Uh, the suspension's been overstroked. Uh, the suspension has been overstroked. Dean helped me with that, yep, anyways, um took it out and let me talk about the forecasters first. Uh, they fucking stick to the ground like glue going downhill. That's awesome. They also stick to the ground like glue when you're pedaling.
Josh:Okay, so you're on flats or or or going uphill. So when you say, glue it's great as far as like going downhill I mean bad on the flats and climb.
Dane:Okay. So, like it's there, they're a little too grippy, like you're feeling the resistance, or they call it friction.
Josh:yeah so yeah so I go in and talk to dane, one of dane's experts, ben, who we've. We called ben one time in the podcast. Ben's a great guy, he's a funny guy yeah, and I'm like ben, I was like hey is uh, so I got this high engagement hub yeah I really feel like I'm having a hard time pedaling.
Josh:I'm'm pretty sure it's the hub. I'm like is increased friction in a high engagement hub a thing? Is that real? And he's like oh yeah, absolutely. And so I was like yes, yes, I proved myself right. And he's like but you can only really detect that in the lab.
Dane:You wouldn't feel it on the trail and I was like oh, and incidentally, that won't be affecting when you're pedaling, it's only when you're coasting. Fair enough, yeah that makes a whole lot of sense now that you say it that way.
Josh:Makes a whole lot of sense. So he's like, well, what else did you change? I'm like, well, it's carbon rims the first time and I put new tires on. He's like, well, what tires did you put on? I'm like four casters. He's like you're a dumb ass. And so this gets to the point that I want to talk about is like I think the lesson that I learned here and I knew this, but like obviously I forgot it Like, change one thing at a time on your bike.
Dane:Well, if you were, if you were evaluating something you know, like, like, if you get new wheels, new tires, new drivetrain on your bike, you're sprucing up your old bike instead of buying a new one. You're like, I'm just going to pimp this ride. Um, it's hard to do that, Right? But if you're having an issue so like we know this from diagnostics when we're working on a bike trying to figure out what's wrong with it, you don't want to attack like three different things, because then you may not know what actually fixed it, and so you do one at a time, and so that's something that goes on when you're evaluating a new product. If you overload and do a bunch of things, you may not get a good idea of what actually made the difference. And so, in your case, you went to carbon, you went to high engagement and you went to a different tire.
Josh:Yeah, a chunkier tire.
Dane:Yeah, and so all three of those things can make a big difference.
Josh:And my dumb ass just wanted to blame it on the hubs.
Dane:Now tell me something Did you have any data, Strava-wise, that you were actually going faster, or did it just feel or that you were going slower, or did it just feel or that you were going slower or did it just feel slower?
Josh:you know I actually I know I had data from strava that my descents were faster because you get a bunch of prs, okay, so it pops the top and it tells you. So it's obvious. So I know that in certain sections of the trail I'm descending faster. I don't know about climbing or flats, because you'd have to go compare it and I didn't. It's there, I just haven't done that.
Dane:So, um, this has come up a couple times and I'm using my friend mike jones, mike jones, mike jones and sharon his bike. Sharon as an example sharon's his bike, yep yeah, and she has her own instagram, sharon the mountain she's got a good style too.
Josh:Where does she shop? Yeah, everything matches tires.
Dane:I know, I know I know she's got a good look she's got colored tires, true? Um so, uh, I you know mike has been slowly evolving sharon from uh, her stock features and and she's been getting better and better as he rides more and more. He puts more money into her and gets her riding more.
Josh:One of the things that she's an instinct, right, rocky? Yeah, instinct yeah.
Dane:And he's kind of BCD. Yeah, he's BCD or so which means he's put a DVO coil on the back. He got from a buddy and he was like this is amazing. And I said do you need to do the fork on? That particular Instinct came with a pretty weak fork relative to what came on a lot of the Instincts. It was a 32 millimeter, 140 or 150 millimeter 32 millimeters at 150?. Yes, yeah, it was a pretty weak. Wow. It was right on the cusp of when they, you know, basically they're like stop doing that.
Josh:So 32 is the stanchion diameter, yeah, yeah, and then 140, 150 is the amount of travel. Yeah, and that's just not enough thickness to sustain that amount of travel.
Dane:Yeah, I mean just if you look at a 34 at 140 is pretty common, but a 32 at 140 or 150 is not, and uh, so we knew that when he got a closeout bike and it was a spec that they put out before a product was ready and so the next year model they had the right product on there but it was a great bike and the fork actually did really well for him.
Dane:But he upgraded to a DVO Diamond and the moral of the story is he he basically went from one type of suspension that was kind of under biked for what he does, cause he's a very aggressive, very fast. We we call him the human e-bike. Um, he is like a human, yeah, and um, he does a lot of riding and he's, he's got a lot of power and stuff. And so he had this weird experience after he gets this new fork. And the DVO diamond at the time was a thousand dollar fork. It's a great fork, is one of my favorite forks. It does really really well. They have bunches of versions when he got this for it's the same one we gave out at the.
Josh:I think so. Yeah, yep, at the poker yeah.
Dane:And now they've since changed since changed the design and we had a whole episode with ronnie from dvo where he talked about that but but this fork was leaps and bounds ahead of what he was riding and he came into the shop and he told me something that I always dread somebody, dane, I rode this fork and I feel so slow, so much slower with this fork.
Josh:Yeah.
Dane:And I immediately get the sense of dread that flows over me, because I don't like it.
Josh:You gave bad, you gave bad advice.
Dane:Yeah, remember, I'm not just telling him what I like, I'm regurgitating all of the different experiences from the people that have have used this product, and that's what builds my confidence.
Josh:You're assimilating and summarizing a thousand different data. Yeah.
Dane:I'm really looking at all of that, that info and getting good info and putting it out. It's not just my opinion, and uh. And so I'm just like, oh man, the next thing he says blew me away and I've been thinking about this since he goes. But then I looked at Strava and I PR everything, not joking. So he comes into the shop and tells me that this is so slow, this fork has made me feel so slow, but when I look at Strava I'm PRing everything and I think this is a phenomenon that happens more often, that I don't really think about than people realize, and I think maybe you may have experienced a little bit of this.
Dane:What we think happened and I think a lot of people out there probably have guessed what we think happened is that because the suspension was an upgrade, it did follow the terrain better and give him more traction and control and was more plush that he was actually traveling at a faster speed but getting felt like he was going slower getting, because he's used to getting his ass yeah yeah, when you're going fast, you get used to this kind of like out of control.
Dane:I'm just I I'm going so fast that I mean, if you picture somebody just blasting through, you just picture their face just shaking apart and like the wind blowing them backwards and like there's a lot of gyration with their arms and they're just moving up and down and that's kind of what you know, you kind of learn is fast when you put high quality suspension on your bike. You may not experience that and you may actually go faster because the the suspension may work and not jar you as much and track the ground better and keep you from being needing to suspend yourself as your, your, your suspension may actually do it, and that's what we think happened. And so what we think happened is he moved from a system that just was just being it was just under under forked on his bike to a suspension that was just doing a way better job and he was going so much faster but not feeling that sensation of almost just riding that out of controlness you know, and so it taught me a lot.
Dane:It taught me how to help evaluate when people are describing what they're going through, and to keep that in the back of my head.
Josh:Yeah, you may have actually gone faster.
Dane:Yeah, you may actually go faster, even though it feels slower. And as much as I don't Strava. I feel like Strava is a great tool to be able to help evaluate that. You should use it. You know, I think Jilly's getting me into it. Good, because she likes the data, like you. Yes, she gets kudos and she likes to give kudos.
Josh:I've got to go follow her on Strava. Yeah, I've got to get her to do more.
Dane:She's still working on it.
Josh:She's still green, that's all right Now.
Dane:we now we've gone through five, yeah, and we're out of time, are we?
Josh:we are. We're literally out of time, but that's good, because we really have only gone through four, because I haven't. Well, I'll talk about it now. Yeah, that terravel, I think it's a, I think it's a company that started, as I understand it, with, like some, I don't even know what an all road tire is, but I guess it's some new category of road bike I?
Dane:I know ben has terravel on his gravel bike yeah, so they've done gravel and some type of. Maybe they're bringing that over and kind of just getting a bigger tire. There's a this thing in gravel called monster gravel yeah, which are actually 29ers, you know they're. They're running two, threes and stuff like that drop bars with drop bars and so maybe that's what they're doing is you've got a what they think is a gravel tire, but it's working great as a cross country tire.
Josh:Well, you know Chris Croteau over at RVBS. He recommended it to me. I tried it out. I went and read a bunch of reviews. Lone Wolf's reviewed them. They get great reviews. This tire is freaking amazing. That's good. I love it. I'm using I've only used it as a back tire and so I've taken the forecaster off my back, kept the forecaster on the front.
Dane:That's okay, by the way. I just want everybody out there you can have two different brands of tires. Don't feel pressured into having the same brand.
Josh:I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, I'm not, or you're just being honest.
Dane:I am actually being honest because, the amount of people that come in and kind of stress over having like a Vittoria on the front and a Maxis on the back or vice versa. They just don't do it and I think it maybe comes from cars.
Josh:Okay, you think that you want everything to match.
Dane:Yeah, you want everything to match, because the, the, the, the tires have said hey, you know, you don't want one tire gripping more than the other, and I totally get that in a car, in a bike and in a motorcycle and anything with two trailing wheels, you know, and that's all you have.
Josh:they do different jobs well, my hypothesis here is that, like I don't need as much traction in the back, no and I need more. I need more rolling in the front, I need more traction.
Josh:Yep, so I'm gonna run, I'm gonna and I've I've run this type of configuration for years, and years and years and had success on it so I'm gonna try the forecaster on the front so I can get some of that grip, some of that downhill capability, but then get a little bit more of that rolling like, like ease of rolling in the back. I'm, I'm, I'm. My hypothesis is this is going to be a good configuration yeah, I want, I want to try the forecaster out.
Dane:Um, I don't know, if you remember I got one. If you want to take it, you can take it but do you remember when I was like giving somebody crap about you?
Josh:screwed up. I screwed up wrong, it was the wrong tire and I was talking about customers like I would.
Dane:Basically was saying don't just follow blindness blind. You know uh mindlessly what people say on youtube yeah but listen to us for sure. Well, but, but. But pay attention. And and my example was, I screwed up because my example was hey, this person recommended this tire on YouTube. They came into the shop and they ordered it and it turned out to be a mud tire.
Dane:And we're in Tucson, arizona, with no mud, you don't need a mud tire and I had called that tire the Forecaster, I think that tire ended up. What I figured out was that actually the name of that tire was the Medusa and it was a tire that Max has discontinued and I just kind of didn't realize because we had some really good customers that gave me a bunch of shit about, like I like the forecaster, it's a good tire. Since that, I will tell you listeners that uh, I have brought those into the shop because it is yes, have you sold a lot of them, I wouldn't say a lot but they're not sitting on the shelf for months and months, no, and.
Dane:And their uh tread profile is much better than I expected. It is not the medusa, it is not this mud tire it is a very capable tire, um, and I do want to put them on a bike and see how they do, because I'm a big fan of the recons, um, I think it's like one level up from the recon yeah in like the. At least, that's my impression so I would probably be on a trail bike recon um rear and forecaster front.
Josh:So that's effectively what I'm doing on my on my down country bike. All right, so we've gone through, I guess, now five of our yep like nine topics, because I got it mislabeled, so we'll save the rest of them. Um well, maybe let's cover one more Just you want to do the dropper post? I do. I do because it's a. It's a, it's a, it's a short topic, but it's something I didn't know. So Dane was at my garage, I went and was showing them the Terraval.
Dane:You hang your bikes front tire up, uh. So they're kind of vertical and they're kind of sticking out and as I'm walking by I'm noticing I'm pushing your dropper levers.
Josh:So so. So we had the dropper seat with a seat down on all the droppers, and we do that and have done that, because it just creates more room in the garage. Yeah.
Dane:Cause when you're walking, they're sticking out. When you're walking by, they're not grabbing, so it just takes a couple inches out.
Josh:Yeah, and Dane's walking by hitting my dropper post.
Dane:I'm like like I just thought he was being annoying.
Josh:I'm like Dick, like what are you doing, but you said that's bad, so explain what's going on.
Dane:So remember, I'm ancient and I've been around since before droppers and I've seen what causes a lot of problems with droppers. Droppers have gotten so much better in the last few years.
Josh:It's probably worth, uh, highlighting also that guru suspension which is, which is, which is one of your companies, and you are the suspension guru, not only services shocks and forks for, but you do droppers as well, yeah, and um, one thing that kills droppers pretty fast.
Dane:there's two things that kill droppers and that's what this little blurb is. Before we finish up tonight. I see this in the shop too and I'll walk by and I'll undo them. Dropper Post has anywhere from 150 to sometimes 400 PSI in them. Most droppers are built with an air system and an oil system and the air is. When you push the dropper down, it compresses the air right and makes it, you know, super, super high pressure, so that when you hit that lever again, it's using that as a spring and the air is lighter than having a metal spring. It doesn't make noise, it doesn't clank, it's that's's, that's how, that's how they do it.
Dane:There's a couple of posts on the market that don't have air, believe it or not? Um, but uh, for the most part. And then there's cartridge posts where they actually use the same thing. It's usually a nitrogen instead of air and it's a sealed cartridge cartridge. When you lower the post, you are compressing that air and you're increasing the pressure of that from, let's say, a Fox post is at 400 PSI. When you have it down, you're now putting that Fox post at like six. You know, I don't know exactly how much.
Josh:Yeah, but you're increasing the pressure.
Dane:Yeah, it'd be cool to actually put a gauge on.
Josh:Why is that?
Dane:bad. Uh, now you're just loading those O-rings that hold the air in and hold the air separate from the oil, Because on a lot of cases there is a floating piston in there that separates the air and the oil, and so when you do that you're just overloading them. You're just really putting way more pressure needlessly. You're doing it just to store them.
Josh:that way which, over time, can build up and create problems.
Dane:Yeah, it can. It can seep air into the oil, so reverbs are notorious for that. Uh, and there's lots of different ways that you can just take the life away from your dropper and so if you make it a good habit not to have it down all the time, so if you're traveling and you have to have it down so it clears your buddy's bars on your bike rack that's fine and you have to have it down so it clears your buddy's bars on your bike rack.
Dane:That's fine, that's fine, but when you're leaving it, when you get to that hotel and you stick it in the room for the night just pop it up and leave it that way, you're just relieving that pressure.
Josh:So when you're not riding your bike, unless you? Don't have a choice for fitment, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dane:Keep your seat up, yeah, when. Keep it at a the least amount of pressure state, so that you don't stress that stuff out and then you told me one more thing, yes, that I didn't know related to droppers what's that? So, uh, when you have the dropper down, I sit down yeah, the seat down.
Dane:I've seen people pull it up without using a lever or put pressure, or this is what happened early on with uh demo drivers. Uh, they would put the seat down and then they would hang them on those a-frame racks by the nose of the saddle and the bike would sit there with all of the weight of the bike trying to pull the seat up. What that does is it can cause a suction event that sucks air into the oil and then if anyone's been riding droppers since they came out, they probably had a reverb at some point that developed this cushion at the top. We call it suspensioning, and a lot of that would be artificially accelerated to be caused by that syringing, that pulling up on the dropper, so no upward motion on your seat when the seat post is in the down position.
Dane:Yeah, yeah, when the seat post is in the down position, yeah, yeah. And so when we bleed brakes, I'll give you an example. When we're bleeding brakes especially on Avid sorry, sram you're doing a double syringe and you can have the opportunity to pull the syringe or you push it. When you pull the syringe, it's very common that you'll pull air past the seal and you'll see it go into the syringe. It's very common that you'll pull air past the seal and you'll see it go into the syringe. And what's happening is the O-rings that are meant to seal are actually better under pressure than they are under suction and they don't function as good. And so in the seat post, the same principle applies. So when you're syringing, you're pulling that c-post up, you're creating a suction which can allow air to to pull past an o-ring, uh, and create those that air in the oil situation so it's actually the opposite of like the bedroom where suction is good, yes, bad, yep, yeah in this situation suction's bad, pressure's good, yeah yeah, yeah, okay, I'm good with that.
Dane:So can we talk about dirty little strippers?
Josh:because uh one more time, because I really let me, just before we get into the jokes and we end this podcast, just one more question about droppers. Like can I put my dropper post up and then clamp my dropper post into a bike stand? Is that okay?
Dane:So I'm going to say yes, but there's a lot of caveats. You don't want to damage the shaft In most cases. Another good reference yeah, you don't ever, don't ever.
Josh:Don't ever damage the shaft. That is another t-shirt.
Dane:Take care, don't ever damage the shaft, and that goes for a lot of things. Yes, it does In most cases the shaft, let's call it a stanchion.
Dane:The stanchion of the seat post is not actually creating a airtight or oil tight seal and so, like we see in the service center a lot of times, a damage on the back of a seat post from debris flicking up from the the bikes yep, you know, and so it's not super critical. It can cause little cavities, will introduce more dirt inside the dropper, and so your service interval should be sooner and things like that. So you don't need to freak out. There is some possibility now with a lot of e-bikes on the market and heavier bikes. If a mechanic clamps that upper post and it's a smaller diameter, and this is a real thing you can actually do on your bike, you can bend it, you can bend it, and so you want to be careful.
Josh:Bend the stanchion, the seat post.
Dane:Yeah, if you're riding in a g out event and you're on your saddle and you're a bigger rider and it's. We saw this a lot when they started doing 170 posts and bigger yeah because it causes a big lever arm and, uh, one of the pushes I think we're going to see in the future is that diameter is going to start going up, uh, not only in the seat post itself, but the stanchion.
Josh:Just to get more rigid, Just to get rid of that. I know you've been surprised At my weight. I haven't bent a seat post yet.
Dane:And that usually, from what I've seen, is a lot of technique. We almost never see any damage on a seat post from a clamp in a work stand that has provided your work stands in good shape and has protective rubber or or something on there, protective rubber is good, I worked in, yes, for your lubed up stripper. But um, I've worked in a bike shop where those little plastic things are so worn out that the metal's poking through yeah you don't want that and in fact I've worked in a bike shop where we're putting rags over that to protect stuff.
Dane:Um, it's a not a big item to order it's like four bucks. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and all the major companies have replacement I feel like bike shops need to do that and at home you need to do that, but that's really all you're worried about. It's not as critical. Um, nobody wants to scratch on there, so you need to be careful and uh, but you're not in typically going to kill the post. The bending will kill the post. That gets expensive.
Josh:So just make sure you're not bending it not like putting it at an angle where the bike is downward force on the?
Dane:on the absolutely Like we. We tilt the bikes all the time. If I'm doing something quick on a fork and I don't want to remove it from the bike, I may tilt the bike you know 45 so that I can have that fork level and I'm putting all that pressure on that dropper. And if it's a really heavy bike, I may just mark where the dropper was extended out of the bike and use the below the, the below uh the, the dropper, uh shaft, not the dropper shaft, come on. Tube, not the stanchion.
Josh:There we go. Yeah too, all right, all right, man. So, uh, not we definitely. This happens all the time. We did not get through all of our stuff. What we talked about cutting carbon bars yes, we talked about what chain wax we talked about? Change one thing about it on your bike at a time. We covered a little bit up a forecaster, the terravel e-line, and then we talked about droppers and, like you know, keep them up when you're not riding them.
Dane:Yeah, I'll tell you guys that are listening to this. There's a couple of things that I would love some feedback If people want to hit us through Instagram or Facebook or you can click that text on our you can, but didn't we find out? We can't respond.
Josh:We can, we can. Uh, well, you got to put your name or contact information Like we can't respond directly.
Dane:We can't respond directly, so, um, but it would be cool because we're in a particular climate, if you have a particular chain lubricant yeah. Like what do you use that works better in your area and maybe why you know, or why you chose it. You know that, uh, because again we're dude, dude, you're opening the flood doors.
Josh:We're going to get like 200 people.
Dane:That's cool, that's actually because I like to absorb that data and then use it, bring it.
Josh:Is some guy in.
Dane:Portland going to be like dude, you're full of crap.
Josh:I use it for work. The best answer gets a free Mountain Cog hat. I'll ship it to you.
Dane:There you go, the best answer Is that in one of the videos right did, we were starting to do videos, so you should be able to see that.
Josh:I think, oh, you can see the videos, the hats, yeah.
Dane:So if you, want one of those hats. Yeah, just let's. Let's tell us about your lube. I have one of those hats and I love it. It's pretty freaking dope it's a good hat, so yeah, so oh, it was in ruth she was ruth, ruth, ruth. Put it on too, yeah so we're sticking them in all the videos. So if you want one of those hats, tell us.
Josh:Tell us which uh chain and right now you can't buy that hat, so it has to be something that we give it to you.
Dane:Yeah, I gotta tell you that all of the products we talked about, none of them were given to us nothing.
Josh:We bought all of them and we get no money, none of those companies are in contact with us.
Dane:I just want that clear because if those companies do want to send us stuff, that's great we do.
Josh:Yeah, and we do have. It's interesting the floodgates have opened a bit in that we do have a handful of products that people have given us. Yes, I will tell you that's not quite true, because we talked about seal it, seal it, and the seal it guy did give me some we didn't talk about seal it, that's.
Dane:Oh, that's right, we talked about that before the podcast that will be coming up, that'll be coming up. So yeah, so, so. So that's our good segue before we leave, just to let everybody know that we are starting to get product to. We don't want to make this a review podcast. It's not our goal to just be like this is the latest product.
Dane:That's not really what we do I mean, if anyone's listened to this for a while, they they know that that's not what we're doing, but it's been kind of fun to check out some cool stuff and we have been contacted by a couple of companies who want our opinion and what we have told them, I would say, is pretty ringing true. We would love to try it and talk about it in an honest way. That's not a paid advertisement.
Josh:And we'll likely. We'll likely, uh, either give away or auction off or something the products Cause we don't like we want to keep that.
Dane:Some of them I'm going to keep. Uh, I'm going to be straight up honest Like I. We just got to tell our listeners what we're getting.
Josh:Like. We like this so much. You bastards don't get it If.
Dane:Squirt sends me a case of Squirt, I'm going to keep one bottle. I'm just saying.
Josh:Can you throw a few my way too?
Dane:Yeah, dude, I'm telling you I like that stuff, but yeah.
Josh:Don't say the name of that thing right there. No, I'm not going to say the name of that thing. Some of these things are embargoed.
Dane:Well, and plus we have a whole episode that we're going to talk about this stuff?
Josh:Yeah, actually, I think I want to. He lives here. I think I want to bring him on, yeah, and I want to have a conversation not just about his product, but about the process of launching a new product.
Dane:Yes, I think that would be a cool concept. Yeah.
Josh:And I just want people to know that. And again, if you have an opinion on this, if you're like no, I'm not going to listen to you guys.
Dane:Don't talk about talking about product. Let us know we probably ignore you, but honestly, no, we will not ignore you. We ignore nobody. But but honestly, we want that feedback. Like we, we're just having fun with this, but it seems like people really like it and it keeps growing. We're still in top 10, bro, yeah, and top 10. And now people are contacting us which is like crap, crap, this is cool, you know so. So if you do have opinions, we really want to hear those things because we're running out of ideas.
Josh:No, we're not running out of ideas. We got a shit ton of ideas. You might be running ideas.
Dane:I never run out. I got 7000.
Josh:All right, we love you guys. Sorry that we rambled for the last five minutes.
