Dialed Podcast 346 - SRAM Joins Us

SRAM!!  Troy Laffey and Derek Kidd from SRAM joined us to talk about a bunch of great topics including SRAM's recent approach to SKU's, why women's races are just so much better, trail advocacy, pet peeves, and so much more... Enjoy the podcast!

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346 Dialed Podcast w:SRAM-1

Intro: [00:00:00] Shut up and sit down. My My Biciclet My Biciclet 

Intro 2: My Biciclet If you see me

Intro 2: at my Biciclet Get your tools out You can come and tweak these sets I got a vicious cycle I'm riding it right though The places that I go The kids go psycho Grit hands rolling under my feet One day we'll be taking over the streets The raps get brought up The jumps are right You get air The hell up Let's go for a ride You and I And if you're on a shiny shipper If it's ghetto take the lead I've ridden whips, ridden beaters, cruisers, all terrains and two seaters.

Intro 2: Used to do it top speed, nobody could touch me. Now I'm on a chill tip, riding on my Dachshund. 

Intro Lady: You are listening to the Dialed Podcast with Mathley Grant, Sir Ian Gibson, Lance Heppler, and Jake Von Doering. Here is another Chinese proverb for you. A crisis is an opportunity riding in dangerous wind. If life is crazy upside down for you, make sure you always look for that opportunity.

Intro Lady: It's there somewhere. 

Intro 2: Hello, it's just me and my velo, and a side pony, and stilettos, let's go! [00:01:00] We ride these streets, workin our glutes, bein urban athletes, like honky honky, beep beep beep beep, get on a bike and When I drink Bang Energy, I feel like I can see other people's WORDS! Cause 

Lance: you're 

Intro 2: reading a 

Lance: book!

Jake: Hi, welcome back to Valve Podcast. I am Jake Vondery. I'm here with Lance Friggen Heppler. 

Lance: Lance Friggen Heppler. On a different mic today. Before you come to the show, I sound odd and feel strange, but I am the silver medalist at the World Senior Games Cross Country. Let me just, uh, throw that out there.

Lance: Here's the thing. 

Yeah. When you're, when it's like a silver games. And you're the silver medalist. Yeah, that's like double bonus gold points. It's like better than gold. Try and fix it with the silver hair though, right? Silver, silver, silver 

Intro: fox, silver, silver medal. 

Lance: It's called sent from silver. If you're over 50, which is what it was.

Jake: Across the table from Lance, Matt Legrand. 

Matt: What's up, ladies and gentlemen of the internet. You guys look fan freaking tastic. It all came together today. It all came together today. 

Jake: We have two special guests here with us, [00:02:00] guys. We've got Derek Kidd. We've got Troy Laffey from SRAM. What's up boys? 

Derek Kidd: Team SRAM.

Derek Kidd: What's happening? Very stoked to be here. 

Jake: Yeah, sweet. Um, we are going to talk about a bunch of SRAM stuff and that, that's obviously gonna be our topic for today. We backpedal, but I don't care what Matt did or what Lance did. I raced, 

Lance: I sucked. 

Jake: Moving on, moving on. It was not a good race. Backpedal over. Yeah.

Jake: Rode on the trainer a few times. That's all good. I want to use this time to let these guys backpedal from today, back to the day that you were born. Tell us about yourself. What was that? So tell us about the day you were born. Well, it's a good day. 

Derek Kidd: It was a Tuesday. Saturday. Saturday. It was a great day.

Jake: All right. So real quick, what are your official titles? What do you guys do for SRAM? 

Derek Kidd: Oh man, Troy, I'm gonna take this one. I'm running with it. Oh, you've even got your name tag. It's got the lanyard. Yep. Great. Yeah. Do you have uh, Tana's name tag as well? , we got, we got a name tag for his doggo as well. She has, uh, better, um, access to the Indianapolis warehouse [00:03:00] than I do.

Derek Kidd: Oh, wow. She get into places. That's Troy's dog. Seriously. Troy's dog. Okay. So she's, 

Jake: she's known throughout. foreign wide up. She has her own batch. 

Derek Kidd: I'm Oregon's field guide. And so that program started a few years ago. Um, we kind of rejigged the way that sales reps were done. Um, looked at that model and said, Hey, I think we can do one better.

Derek Kidd: So we're going to put people in market just to. Be there just to help stores sell SRAM to help people understand what SRAM is all about and to enjoy it more and make sure that people are getting the most out of their SRAM products. And that is what I do. 

Jake: Gotcha. And then we've got Mr. Troy over here.

Jake: Troy, we've had the pleasure of working with you on a few different occasions, helping us out with some pretty technical stuff. What is it that you do? What would you say? What would you say? 

Troy Laffey: I'm sorry. I wasn't ready. Cause I thought going back to the day you were born was going to take way longer. I was on break.

Troy Laffey: Um, so my title, uh, if it matters is Senior [00:04:00] Technical Field Guide. My job is simply to educate the, the future of technicians. Um, I've been in this role for almost 27 years and, uh, Well, I'm tired and I don't want to do it anymore. So I'm, I'm trying to train all of the next generation or two of technicians, um, to be incredibly proficient, to be professional, to do the best work they can do on, on our product.

Troy Laffey: Sure. Nice. 

Lance: Cool. So you've been with SRAM for, you've been with SRAM for 27 years? 

Troy Laffey: No, I've had two roles in that time. Uh, 13, 14, what year is this? 24. So almost 14 years at SRAM, uh, and just under 14 years at Cannondale prior. 

Lance: And with Cannondale, you were one of their field mechanics, one of their UCI mechanics, is that right?

Lance: With the UCI teams? 

Troy Laffey: Exactly. Um, so they bounced us around and started with the Volvo Cannondale team. Uh, the mountain bike team, um, back in kind of the heyday of, of mountain biking, uh, moved into, uh, Siemens Mobile mountain bike team. Oh, wow. Um, and then we, uh, did a [00:05:00] couple years with liquid gas on the road, um, which, uh, Uh, not really my, uh, my personal favorite time, but just 

Matt: cause travel was too hectic or crazy or 

Troy Laffey: travel was great.

Troy Laffey: Uh, I just prefer working on mountain bikes. Oh, uh, I gotcha. Worked with, uh, it was Tim Johnson's mechanic on the cyclocross circuit in Europe for a couple of years. Um, and then wrapped up there around 2010, maybe 11. Um, you know, Cannondale, um, is an amazing company, incredible heritage. And, uh, over. over time, um, they've had some struggles and, uh, around that time of our departure, um, my colleague, Doug Dalton and I, who both worked there since 98, um, saw the writing on the wall that we were going to go through another purchase.

Troy Laffey: And, uh, by that time, Candale had been through several purchases and it was becoming a coming a struggle. Uh, and right off that time, SRAM said, well, uh, You guys should work for us. Oh, nice. Um, and that really, uh, for me was incredible. I, I can never, ever [00:06:00] have any complaint because I was incredibly fortunate, um, that Saram opened up the doors and said, come work for us.

Troy Laffey: And so, um, Doug Dalton, Double D we call him, uh, him and I have actually been on the same, uh, Uh, you know, a squad or team, uh, as terms of technicians, uh, for almost 28 years now. 

Lance: Oh my gosh. That's cool. Pretty 

Troy Laffey: cool. 

Lance: So currently you, you travel around the country and help train the mechanics that are working in different shops on different procedures or whatnot.

Lance: That's, that's one of the main things you do. Is that correct? Exactly. And, and on what types of procedures? Is it mostly mountain bike stuff now, or? 

Troy Laffey: No, everything under the SRAM umbrella of brands. So it could be Zipp, Trivative, Avid, Hammerhead, um, RockShox, etc. Um, my personal, uh, specialty is mostly in hydraulics.

Troy Laffey: So I, and because of our location here in the Rocky Mountain West, Pacific Northwest. Very mountain bike, very suspension heavy. Um, so the majority of my time is used, um, training, uh, [00:07:00] suspension, front, rear, uh, front and rear suspension, telescoping seat posts, hydraulic brakes. Um, what we find is that bike technicians in general are transient.

Troy Laffey: Uh, they all tend to kind of migrate from the East coast to the West coast. Uh, and so the, the West coast and specifically the Pacific Northwest tends to have better, uh, Probably the highest caliber technicians in the country. And so there's not too much in terms of like some of the more basic things like drivetrain, uh, wheels.

Troy Laffey: Um, most of what we're doing these days is, is in suspension and hydraulics. Um, and I, and I don't really know what happens after they hit the ocean. Uh, I think ultimately they like, they all go back to Ohio or something. Um, you know, they hit 50 and they just go back to where they came from. Right. Um, but yeah, we, you know, it's, it's very interesting how we see how the country is segregated in terms of, uh, what's a priority.

Troy Laffey: So for example, my colleague, Sean in the Southeast, he's all about zip wheel and drive and road drive train. And [00:08:00] rarely is doing suspension service. Um, but I find that my days are full of, uh, tuning, uh, mostly suspension breaks, C posts. 

Lance: Interesting. 

Derek Kidd: Gotcha. That's cool. Kind of making knots squishy bits, squishy, and not squished.

Troy Laffey: And I realized it's reflective of the, you know, the topographic expression of where they are. Um, um, But it's, um, in terms of the caliber of technicians, we definitely find that the farther west and north you go, the, the better they get. 

Jake: It's good to know. Derek with SRAM, you've been with them for how long now?

Jake: Oh man, I joined in 2022. Okay. Came over from Norco bikes. Sweet. And so your background is a little bit more like mountain bike centric as well. I mean, you know, the whole brand category, but you personally come more of a, from a mountain biking background, correct? Correct. 

Derek Kidd: I do. Yeah. Okay. I got my first bike when I was 12.

Derek Kidd: Here, Troy, this is my life story. I got my first bike when I was 12 years old and, um, have really not spent [00:09:00] much time off the bike since then. Good. Um, I've been pretty lucky in that regard, but I really fell in love with mountain bikes. Um, mountain bike racing in high school was really what cemented for me.

Derek Kidd: That's a great coaches, cross 

Jake: country, enduro, downhill. It's 

Derek Kidd: Really good question. I raced on a dirt jump bike at one point for one year at a boy, not particularly well, but, um, yeah, you'd call it cross country by today's standards. It'd be a very mellow cross country course, 

Jake: but you still pin on a number.

Jake: Now, don't you now? And then I 

Derek Kidd: do, I actually, I took a 10 year hiatus from racing. Okay. Um, cyclocross kind of burnt me out a few years ago. I was living, uh, up in Canada where I'm from. Where? Where? Uh, in Victoria. Okay. That explains a lot. 

Jake: That's why you're so frickin nice. That's right. 

Derek Kidd: Aw, thanks buddy.

Derek Kidd: Canada. Canada, okay. Yeah. Um, we had the single speed cyclocross world championships in like 2014. It was so cool. Yeah. It was like the heyday of cross and it was so awesome and I got really, really into it and then totally burnt myself out [00:10:00] and like nerves were a really, really big thing for me. Um, so I sort of stopped and then.

Derek Kidd: Um, just, yeah, two years ago, um, a friend approached me and he said, Hey, I'm putting together a team. Uh, we're doing mostly downhill racing, which I'd never been a little bit before. Um, loved happy. Would you like join? I said, okay, yeah, let's do it. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, it was a totally different experience. Sure.

Derek Kidd: Um, maybe with a little bit more maturity or just that team aspect, but it's been fun. Fun, man. Yeah. That is so cool and the race format is amazing and you can really, you know, you're, you're racing solo. Yeah. 30 seconds between you and the next rider, but you're doing the whole weekend as a team. Yeah. And you're track walking together and you're, you're discussing things together and you're pre riding together.

Derek Kidd: It's so good. Yeah. So yeah, it was. Great community there for sure. Great community. 

Lance: Sweet. It's mostly downhill and enduro type racing that you're doing, right? 

Derek Kidd: Yeah. The, the, you know, I'm a, I'm a Maven person. Um, I, I like the big brakes, you know, if I can put a [00:11:00] boxer on the front of my bike, that'll make me happy.

Lance: Maven is a brand of SRAM brakes and shocks and things that are robust. 

Derek Kidd: So for the non mountain bike, the Maven is SRAM's new, uh, heavy application break, which is just mind blowingly awesome. Uh, and I run them on everything, including my cross country bike. Oh, shoot. I'm probably not allowed to say that.

Derek Kidd: It's effectively doubles the weight of your bike. Yeah. Yeah. What bikes do you guys currently have 

Jake: in your Quivers? Oh 

Derek Kidd: boy. Um, Um, I'm going to give a shout out to my very favorite bike right now is a Rocky mountain element is technically a cross country bike. If you go to the Rocky mountain website, it says it's a cross country bike.

Derek Kidd: Um, it is my first bike under 30 pounds in a decade. And thus it's definitely a cross country bike. Um, yeah, it's one 20, uh, rear one 40 front. I've overbuilt it quite a bit. You're doing 

Lance: all that downhill stuff. On a [00:12:00] cross country frame because 

Derek Kidd: I have a downhill bike. Okay. Thank you. And an enduro bike. Okay.

Derek Kidd: Just making sure. And I have a road bike. They're all amazing. But yeah, um, the short travel bike has been, it's just so good, especially around here. Like you do so much on a short travel bike on the trails we have around here. Um, especially a capable one. Yeah, that's, that's my favorite. I've got a, I've got a big smashy downhill bike, which I love riding as well.

Derek Kidd: It's tons of fun, but that's harder. Right? Like, how do you get that to the top of the Hill? I don't want to shuttle every time, so, and hiking it up the top of the Hill. Yeah, that was great when I was a teenager, but these days that's not quite so much. Nope, 

Jake: Nope. Cool. How about you, Troy? What you ride in these days?

Troy Laffey: Uh, you know, the, the go to bike right now is a Trek EXE. Okay. Um, which is their low power, uh, e bike. Uh, and. You know, I, I never thought I'd be an e bike person. Um, I have a, you know, a garage full of analog bikes. Um, but now that time is just so valuable and we're so busy, [00:13:00] uh, I mean everyone has just too much to do.

Troy Laffey: Um, what I love about the e bike is, because it's not a full power bike, I still have to work hard. I'm still sweating. And, uh, it's like having the wind at my back. So now, um, If I don't have two hours, but I want to go do a two hour ride, I jump on the trek and uh, yeah It's like an hour 15 instead and it's it's me.

Troy Laffey: It's a gift Anybody who you know, it hates on ebikes just hasn't ridden one yet, right? And and I totally acknowledge that there are full power ebikes. There are 90 Newton meter power bikes that are essentially a moped, um, we're in that space as well. Um, but, you know, Trek with the TQ motor, um, and there's a number of other brands, uh, Mondraker, Scott, who, uh, use the, uh, the TQ motor, which is a sub 50 Newton meter motor.

Troy Laffey: Um, it's just having the wind at your back. It's really all it is. And, um, it's really given me the gift of time. It allows me to ride more. Um, because I don't have to ride as long, and I can still get the whole ride [00:14:00] and finished. 

Intro: Sure. 

Troy Laffey: So an example, um, out of my door, I can get 3, 000 feet of climbing, 33 kilometers, in about an hour, 45.

Matt: Yeah. Yeah. 

Troy Laffey: And, and, and for me, that's, that's all I need. 

Matt: Where are you in Colorado? 

Troy Laffey: Uh, in Colorado Springs. 

Matt: Okay. 

Troy Laffey: Uh, RockShox, uh, R& D Center is based there. 

Matt: Sweet. That's where Rick Wilkes has moved. He used to live here. He was our SRAM 

Lance: rep in the area. Was he? Was it? 

Troy Laffey: He was an OE account manager, so he used to run all of our, um, he would run everything that we had to do with Specialized.

Troy Laffey: Okay. And then he got promoted, uh, to be in charge of all the OE brands. Uh, and that's why he had moved to Colorado Springs. Gotcha. He 

Matt: was just in town. Like last week, we just had lunch. It's a backpedal. It's my backpedal for us, but he's Rick. Yeah. Yeah, Rick. Awesome guy. Awesome family 

Troy Laffey: He scored when he moved to Colorado.

Troy Laffey: He moved in at the right time and The house that is physically [00:15:00] closest to the trailhead. 

Matt: Yes. He told me about 

Troy Laffey: So basically when you go to the trailhead the last house you pass Is ricks and then you turn into the parking lot. Oh, that's 

Lance: perfect. Yeah, 

Troy Laffey: it's I don't know how he like the timing that house was for sale when he moved there, but he has the house at the trail 

Matt: Yeah, he told me about that.

Matt: He was really excited. He's like, yeah, I go out my door and i'm on the trail Yes, that sucks good on you I mean, but that's one that's why he wanted to be there. That's why you want to be in like In the hills in the mountains on the trails His kids babysat my kids for a while and they were, some of them were runners as well.

Matt: So I coached the high school here. And so we miss his family a lot, but I'm glad he's doing well. 

Troy Laffey: Yeah, I think he's having a good time. 

Jake: Yep. Sweet. All right, let's, let's uh, let's move on. Champ Bailey's on vacation this week, right? Where did he go? 

Lance: There's no Champ Bailey. Champ is, was, he was in Watopia is where he was.

Lance: I thought he was 

Jake: like in Tijuana or something like that, I don't know. 

Matt: That sounds more realistic. [00:16:00] 

Jake: Taking shots of tequila. More likely. Having a grand old time. So, This guy, these guys came off with some great talking points. There were so many, I joked back with Derek, I'm like, yeah, let's talk about all of them.

Jake: I don't think we have that much time. Let's let's just kind of kick it back to you guys. Was there something on there that you really wanted to make sure that we chatted about? I know that Troy's got something that's kind of like he wanted to really get into. So maybe we start with that. And then Derek, you can queue up the next one after that.

Jake: So Troy, what was it that you had burning a hole in your pocket to talk about? 

Troy Laffey: Well, um, You know, people always ask about product. 

Lance: Yeah. 

Troy Laffey: Um, we have got a great website. If you want to know more about product, check out the website. 

Lance: Yep. 

Troy Laffey: Um, you don't need Derek or I yammering on about chains, cassettes, forks, shocks.

Troy Laffey: Um. 

Derek Kidd: Although we will. We 

Troy Laffey: can. We can. And often do. We are able. Um, what was more important to me is that, um, I want to talk about SRAM as a company, um, and how I feel like we're a really good partner with the Dialed, uh, Cycling Lab. 

Jake: Yeah. 

Troy Laffey: Um, your community involvement [00:17:00] as far as, um, I can tell is second to none.

Troy Laffey: Thank you. It's inspiring. Um, we recently, as I'm sure Derek has shared with you, we recently had a, uh, a community project open up at SRAM, uh, and the first words out of everyone's lips were, uh, we're Dial cycling lab. Um, and so first off, thanks. Um, that's incredible. Oh, thank you guys. That's freaking awesome.

Troy Laffey: That's good. You know, we, you know, we have to visit bike shops all around the world, you know, thousands of bike shops. Um, you guys are definitely, you know, top tier. So, so well done. But you know, you're welcome. You're welcome. I didn't, I did nothing. I'm not even a part of it. I'd like to thank Matt for really just getting it done.

Troy Laffey: I've been 

Matt: in, I've been in the store once 

Troy Laffey: and that was enough. Apparently that was just to pick a prize out of the Patriot. It was. Yeah, 

Matt: that was it. 

Troy Laffey: Um, but what I want to talk about, um, having Uh, you know, uh, being an avid, avid listener, um, is, uh, recently he talked about some things about, you know, hot topic, hot button topics in the [00:18:00] cycling industry.

Troy Laffey: Uh, um, And I just want people to know, like, what are we doing on our side? You know, uh, there's a lot of observations, maybe complaints, uh, from the bike shop side of the world. Um, and so I thought I'd give our perspective. Um, and one of the hot topics recently was, uh, are there too many SKUs in the business?

Troy Laffey: And, um, that seems kind of mundane to the average bike rider, probably doesn't affect the average bike rider. Um, but it really does. And, and I just wanted to have a moment to speak about it. Um, we, we are actively. Reducing SKU is not by the tens or the hundreds but by the thousands Wow Um, and part of that is we are moving into a right to repair state And so what that means is taking suspension, for example Is there every single part and piece is available and anybody can work on it?

Troy Laffey: It doesn't have to be a bike shop Although we prefer the bike shops do the work But all of our technology our information our guidelines our instructions service manuals We Everything is online. We are very transparent. [00:19:00] We have very minimal proprietary tools. And so what that means is, you can fix anything.

Troy Laffey: You don't have to throw it away and add to the landfill. We're starting to do that on the drivetrain side, on the SRAM side of things. Look at our new transmission RDs. You have 11 replaceable parts on that thing. So, whereas two years ago, if you damaged your axis rear derailleur, you would Well, you've got a 700 paperweight.

Intro: Mm hmm. 

Troy Laffey: But now it's a hundred percent serviceable and again by anyone 

Lance: That is a huge selling point It really is because it does make a difference to be able to fix and work on stuff because we break stuff 

Troy Laffey: Absolutely. Yeah mountain biking is a hard sport. Yeah hard on equipment. Well, so is traveling Yeah, and traveling and you know think about a crit race when you're doing a crit race and you go down Yes.

Troy Laffey: And so, we're really working to make everything right to repair, service ready, and parts available. Now, how that pertains to SKUs is we're getting smart and clever with packaging and parts. [00:20:00] And so, let's say, for example, you have a shock. And It doesn't fit your new bike, you change frames, you skip the shock, and you have to make it a different size.

Troy Laffey: Uh, an example would be in the past we had 16 different SKUs for the 16 different sizes of shocks. Um, now that's one SKU, we've just put them all in the same bag and said, you're probably going to have some parts left over. Um, and, you know, or instead of having two different service kits for one shock, we'll just have one, and if you're not doing one service or the other, you might have a couple O rings left over.

Jake: That is so great for everybody across the board. It's less hassle for you guys. I'm assuming it might be maybe an additional little bit of cost to throw everything away. But when you're talking about us, like we don't have to stock everything under the sun now. Absolutely. And then the customer's not out there constantly like, well, I don't know exactly which one I need.

Jake: And then everybody's trying to figure out where they need to get it. It just makes life so much easier for everybody. And we appreciate that. And as 

Troy Laffey: it turns out, it costs less. Uh, because the, the big expense is packaging and shipping and volume [00:21:00] of space in those containers. So if we have two packages in two Ziploc bags with two header cards and two printed labels, that's all double the work and double the space in a package in a container on a boat coming over here from our factories in Taiwan, or Portugal or wherever they're coming from.

Troy Laffey: Um, and so if we can consolidate all those things, Um, it's better for, it's better, better for 

Jake: every aspect of the business. Sure. Can you speak to SRAM's thought process when it comes to trying to make as many things interchangeable as they possibly can? So you can almost think of a bike when you're thinking about SRAM as being modular to a certain degree, because you can make all these different parts and pieces and components play together.

Jake: What's the thought process there? Where, where, where are you going with that? Is it going to get even better with time? I mean, just for example, like you're talking about a gravel bike for a while there, everybody's running like a mullet setup and like you're running like, like a hybrid of a road bike and a mountain bike and putting them together to make this awesome machine, which is fricking awesome.

Jake: And you can [00:22:00] mix and match parts and pieces. And that's beautiful. 

Derek Kidd: I mean, I think that's the beauty of the wireless system. Sure. You no longer have pull ratios on your cables. As long as it says axis on it. It will work with anything else that says AXIS on it. And so if you do want to sort of splice together parts or make your dream bike out of whatever components you want, you can do that.

Derek Kidd: Sure. Yeah, that is pretty phenomenal. Also, if you want to build yourself, you know, the drivetrain of your dreams, for me, mountain bike stuff, I'm going to pick derailleurs, cassettes, chains based on exactly what they bring to the table, which I will say it's price some of the time, um, but you know, save weight where you can and you can, you can, um, yeah, smash all those parts together and they'll work 

Jake: great.

Jake: So that was intentional, that had to be intentional. And can you speak to where that's going in the future? Is it going to get even more streamlined or things going to play together even nicer? I don't know how much you guys can talk about here. 

Troy Laffey: Oh yeah, for sure. Um, ultimately it comes to choice. We want the customer to [00:23:00] have choice.

Troy Laffey: because we, we acknowledge that we do not make entry level components. We are a high end brand and our parts cost a lot of money. Um, that said, we want the customers to have choice. Um, and this goes back to, um, a plan that was hatched more than a decade ago. Um, so a shout out to give credit where credit's due.

Troy Laffey: Chris Hilton, a former product manager on the mountain bike side of things said, okay, enough derailleur, it's gotta go. Uh, and we went from two by 10. To 1x11 and then 1x12 and now on the roadside 1x13. Getting rid of the front derailleur has allowed us to allow parts and pieces to play with each other.

Troy Laffey: That's the hiccup. It's the front derailleur. And if you plug in the gears and the ratios into whatever gear calculator you believe in, um, it, it's proves that you have all the gears that you need. Um, and, uh, you know, a great example is we only have one rule And [00:24:00] the one rule is, the chain, the cassette, and the rear derailleur have to match.

Troy Laffey: Outside of that, do what you want. Do what you want. Um, all of you know that our parts have, you know, what we call trickle down technology. So we'll come up with a, on our top tier product, we'll have a new advancement, uh, and then we'll bleed that down, uh, into more entry level products. Here's the real beauty of SRAM access components, is that a person that, um, is on a red budget, has the same technology, has absolutely zero gain over the consumer with the Apex budget.

Troy Laffey: And that's a 2, 000 difference. And we think that's incredible, is that those two customers have the same experience shifting, the same experience breaking, the same experience riding. Of course there's difference in weight and materials. But the technology is absolutely the same. That little servo motor in the RD is the same piece, right?

Troy Laffey: The actuation is the same [00:25:00] and as we've trickled down, you know How we change our ergonomics on the pommel of the hood of the of the road controller They're all the same, you know, and so the customers are all getting the same experience regardless of you know What you know tax bracket they're in 

Matt: there's also different like There's different technologies and there's different release cycles too, right?

Matt: Like red components are going to come out probably before, you know, the next two tiers. Is that correct? Or am I wrong about that? Like you're going to see different cases. You're going to see different tech, the trickle down. Takes time too Correct 

Troy Laffey: red e1 which just long. Yes was delayed and so force rival apex in the new architecture lever came out before But that's because we were doing some special things with the new red.

Troy Laffey: We were waiting to design a new caliper We were waiting to design some new pieces inside of the lever and the way the levers connect to the handlebar as well as the way the brake lines connect to the to the to the lever So we were, we were doing some special things there, but in terms of [00:26:00] the trickle down, yeah, it's all normally on that cadence cycle.

Troy Laffey: Um, we're typically going to launch the, you know, full on bells and whistles edition, top tier product, be it XXSL or red, and then those features and benefits will trickle down like 

Matt: two years later 

Troy Laffey: or sooner as, as the, uh, as the material science evolves and we can figure out how can we make this amazing product.

Troy Laffey: with a not as expensive material. Um, and you know, a lot of that goes into sourcing, it goes into purchasing, it goes into what's on hand, what's available. 

Matt: Yep. That makes sense. 

Jake: Yep. That's, um, yeah, I love that. And I have to tell you, I mean, there's a lot of great other component manufacturers out there. Um, there's other colors out there that just aren't quite as good as red, in my opinion.

Jake: So, um, good on you, Sram. Appreciate that. And that's why it's on all of my bikes, with the exception of one that's hanging up on the wall, but that's a different story. Um, anyhow, uh, all right. So anything else you guys want to speak to on that skew part? Derek, did you have [00:27:00] anything that you want to interject before we jump into your little bit?

Derek Kidd: No, I think that about covered it. Yeah, I 

Jake: would agree. All right, so you had a few things that you threw out there as well What's one that was really, uh? Itching for you to talk about 

Derek Kidd: Of course I'm blanking right now. Are you okay? Don't worry. We got you covered. I've got I've got a hot button topic go for it.

Derek Kidd: Okay Women's events. 

Jake: Yep. That was on that list and it's on that list 

Derek Kidd: It's I have attended a few women's events by women for women. Uh huh You They're just better. I I'm, I'm sorry. I like, I, I love, I love the coed racing. I love the vibe of it. It's great, but. Man, events like the Sturdy Dirty, which is a women's enduro up in Washington, is the most fun.

Derek Kidd: Like I, I didn't race it. I was just there hanging out. It was the most fun I've had at a bike event. They took 

Matt: one look at your beard and they were like, you're out. Yeah. 

Derek Kidd: Um, so no, they just, yeah, they somehow capture everything a bike race [00:28:00] event should be without all the machismo and, you know, uh, Um, it's still really competitive and everyone's there to like do their absolute best, but they're supportive of each other in a way that I haven't experienced in co ed racing.

Derek Kidd: Okay. And I don't know why that is. And I want everybody to get there. Um, but yeah, that's, that's my, that's my hot button topic right now. I'm going to say that's almost 

Jake: a kin and we've talked about this before. Like I came from mountain biking. That's, that's what I used to do. And I only started riding on the road to get faster on the mountain bike.

Jake: And that's how I found that community. They were good people, but it's a. Totally different paradigm in terms of like mentality and ego and connectivity. And like, there's just an arrogance and like, Oh, these, these dudes are a little bit different. And I just kind of just always stayed myself. And then, you know, when I came up here and started racing, you get to see it even more in that really ultra competitive like mindset and like, All right, these are so fun.

Jake: I really love the chess match of a bike race on the road that is, but I, there's so many of these teams. It's like, [00:29:00] Oh my gosh, could you be any more arrogant and pompous? I just, that, that's not my thing. I'm like, right, well, I guess if you can't find something that you're looking for out there to start your own thing.

Jake: And that was kind of our vibe was like. Yeah, we're kind of all have that mountain bike mentality. And like, we just like, we're there to have fun and like want to be around good people. It's probably something like that, even though the guys on the mountain bike side still have fun, but they just like, there's something there, it carries a certain weight with it.

Jake: They have a certain way about going to, they, they celebrate each other. They're very supportive. And like you said, they, they check their machismo at the doorstep and they just. 

Derek Kidd: Yeah, it's a beautiful thing and it's just fun to be part of it and to observe it. Yeah. 

Jake: But in the same breath, they're still ultra competitive.

Derek Kidd: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And absolutely out there to do their best, but yeah. Uh, I don't know. It's just something like you cross the line, you turn around and you congratulate them. 

Troy Laffey: There 

Derek Kidd: you go. Is that what it is? How do we get that in co ed and men's cycling? I 

Troy Laffey: mean, you know, my observation is simply that, okay.

Troy Laffey: the women are super [00:30:00] competitive, but they're still supportive of each other. Yeah. You're not going to see this situation like in the cross race recently, um, where, you know, some dude called another dude a name, uh, called him a dwarf is what he called him. An F ing dwarf. Yeah. He called him a bleep dwarf.

Troy Laffey: And he threw a temper tantrum and he stomped on the guy's rear derailleur and wheel as it was laying on the ground. M. M. B. You know, like not 

Derek Kidd: transmission. 

Troy Laffey: You would never see that. No, no, 

Jake: she's got to have transmission. That's not a problem. And if you did break it, you just stomped away. 

Matt: That was an ad waiting to happen.

Matt: And you guys, you guys totally missed it. 

Troy Laffey: Maybe it might be in the works. I don't re enactment 

Jake: reenactment. Lance, I get to stomp on your bike. Reenact 

Matt: it and just be like, Um, but the 

Troy Laffey: point is they have that competitive nature, that spirit, um, but it, it's hand in hand with being supportive because they want everyone to be great.

Troy Laffey: Uh, whereas I just think men are thinking about one person [00:31:00] themselves. 

Lance: Yep. You know, it's interesting that like, uh, the lifetime grand pre this year and announcing for next year, every one of their gravel and mountain bike races is going to have a separate women's start. So the women won't be starting with the men all in one giant thing.

Lance: They'll have their own start where they hope they'll be able to gauge it. So that the women actually race together, not mixed in with the men, which actually it, it It makes for much more exciting racing. It's so much better for the women. They're not, hopefully they're not dealing with a bunch of masters men who are mixing in and helping or not helping them.

Lance: It's they're only racing amongst themselves. And they're, they're kind of trying to dig into that. Look at, look at unbound this last year, we had a seven up sprint at the end of a 200 mile race. All women. That's freaking amazing that that happened. Why did that [00:32:00] happen? It wasn't because They all mixed up.

Lance: It's because they had their own start and they actually raced amongst themselves 

Troy Laffey: Same at the rad in trinidad. Yeah, uh, it was it was fascinating Um, they you didn't see any group bumping into any other group, uh, and then they had separate finish corrals Uh, even for for pro men and pro women and then you know the rest the rest, uh, which was thousands of thousands of people and so, uh coming into the You know, the last mile or two, um, they could, you know, absolutely turn on the gas and not have to worry about getting around a, you know, a master's 60 to 65 person, you know, that may not be going their speed.

Matt: Yeah. We'll just call that person Lance. Definitely not going their speed. So 

Jake: Derek, with these events, they're pretty well attended, yeah? 

Derek Kidd: Yeah, they are. So the sturdy, dirty sold out in four minutes. 

Jake: That's fantastic. 

Derek Kidd: Yeah. It crashed the servers. That is 

Jake: uber important to the development of women's cycling in general, all disciplines.

Jake: So what are those key ingredients? [00:33:00] Because that's what you need to build the women's. Up in their respective disciplines in the sport so that we can get more women out there, riding, racing bikes. I mean, you got to figure that out. And I don't know, is that something a guy can bring to the table for women?

Jake: Or does it have to be women's specific only? I mean, can, can we technically check our testosterone at the door and, and really make that, you know, It'd be something that we hyper focus on to like, say, we're going to celebrate you. We're going to treat you. We're going to give you, we're going to do for you all of these things to make it be something that's going to make you be super excited about it and to see if you can emulate that, or does it have to be a totally women's specific women run women organized thing?

Derek Kidd: I don't think it does. I just think we have a lot to learn. Sure. Um, I would also like to give another shout out to, um, the, the Sturdy Laters put that event on, um, maybe, maybe we need their help.

Derek Kidd: Um, but yeah, you look at your average mountain bike group ride where everybody's cheering each other on. It doesn't matter [00:34:00] if it's men, women, mixed, everybody's there to support each other. First and foremost, there's a little bit of ego. You know, there's the person out in the front of the group who's always dropping in first and that kind of thing.

Derek Kidd: But overall, yeah, overall it's quite supportive. So how do we get that vibe in? In a race scenario where people are still absolutely putting out their best effort. And I don't know the answer to that, but I absolutely want to get us there. 

Jake: Yeah. Lance, would you say that the closest thing we have to that would be cycle across?

Lance: Yeah. The women's fields are, they're extremely competitive, but are not big unless there is like a concerted effort to invite beginners or cover the race fee for beginners, there were a couple of race series that we had here in the Portland area where the, Beginners fields, the beginners, women's fields specifically were covered by a sponsor and we have 60 women in the beginners race for cyclocross, where we normally [00:35:00] have six.

Jake: That's. 

Lance: Huge. Yes. So it was, it was very inviting to kind of be a part of that. So 

Jake: the million dollar question is how many of them came back for another race? Or was it a one and done thing because it was not free 

Lance: for the whole series. So you hope that they would come and experience the fun and the camaraderie and a cyclocross race is a different vibe than almost any other type of race.

Lance: And you kind of get bought into it and realize, Oh, I can do this and I can Pete and I can have a good time, or even if I'm not fast, I can still have a good time and they'll, they'll come back. So, 

Troy Laffey: and the era of, uh, women's dominance in cyclocross has passed, you know, we, we had kind of a golden era in cyclocross here in North America for, for a short lived, uh, time where you had riders like Katie Compton, Georgia Gould, Katerina Nash, um, and if any one of those people showed up to a race, well, then you knew that you weren't going to win.

Troy Laffey: Um, and, and that's not taking anything away from those athletes. They're incredible. Um, but they've aged out, they've retired, they've [00:36:00] moved on into other endeavors. Uh, and now we have a space that allows for people, uh, really to, to go for it because we don't have a single dominant competitive female in the cyclocross circuit right now in the North American side, 

Jake: Claire Hunsinger.

Jake: Claire Hansinger, she's just our favorite four in a row now, but she did not race 

Lance: this year. She has quietly retired from cyclocross racing. You're kidding me. No, she has. She's moved. She, she went into school full time to get her master's degree. Oh, right. I was 

Jake: unaware. 

Lance: Yeah. I had a couple of conversations with, uh, kind of the, the people around Clara to find out where she'd been because she hadn't been showing up to races and that's what she had quietly done.

Lance: There was actually a piece in Vela news, I believe about it as well. 

Jake: So she's not going to race the championship this year. She's done. Yep. Well, thank you, Clara, for all the races and fun that you gave us. Watching those races was fantastic. So man, I'm a little bit bummed out about that. All right. Well, like you said, it's wide open now.

Jake: Right? [00:37:00] 

Troy Laffey: Yeah. I mean, if, if, if, you know, every week you're not going to win because, you know, rider X is going to show up, you know, that might take the wind out of your sails, take the wind out of my sails. Anyway. Yeah. Um, you have to go to 

Lance: Utah to do a race. Right. 

Troy Laffey: So, but now if there's no one dominant rider, um, then, then everyone's got a shot and that's really exciting.

Lance: Gotcha. Didn't you get second in Utah? Yeah. I did not win. Sorry. Thanks for bringing that up. Don't worry. Guess how many 

Derek Kidd: people were in that race, Derek? Um, oh, there must've been at least. 

Lance: Two. Three! There was three freaking people 

Matt: in that race and I only beat one of them. That's why it's funny. Alright, I gotta, I gotta, this might be a perfect time for me to head out.

Jake: Alright, you got any last questions for the boys? Matt's gotta go coach the cross country kids. 

Matt: Thank you guys for, guys for all of your work. We love riding tram. So awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Got to coach 

Jake: some kids. Yeah. And I don't know if you guys have caught it yet, but Matt did just put out a nice little YouTube video on the hammerhead.

Matt: Went live yesterday. Hammerhead crew three, not called the crew three. It's just called the crew, but [00:38:00] hammerhead crew three. If you guys want to learn more about it, there's a video on YouTube. 

Jake: Cool. There's a point 

Matt: in a very harsh review on there. It's very harsh. 

Lance: There's a point in that video where Matt.

Lance: Pinches my ass. You'll have to watch the whole thing to find it. 

Matt: Yeah, it's around the nine minute mark in case you don't know. Yeah, and then I blame it, I blame it on Ian. He's not here. I'm like, that was Ian. And that made it into the video. Somehow that, that's a very important piece. It adds to the Details about the Hammerhead crew cycling computer.

Matt: It's very important. You guys need to know that. Pinch metric on there. Yeah. Yeah. How's the pinch metric? 

Derek Kidd: Would you refer to that 

Matt: as a 

Derek Kidd: firmware update?

Jake: Let's, let's keep talking here. I have the, the list of questions. Would you guys like me to see the next one for you? Or do you guys have another one that's really kind of burning a hole in your pocket? 

Derek Kidd: No, absolutely. Set us up. Set you up. All 

Jake: right. So, Eric. And I'm guessing that's Eric. Oh, that's Eric.

Jake: Neely could not join us. Gotcha. And Eric's role with SRAM is he's my boss. He's [00:39:00] your boss, man. Eric's a good dude. I've worked with him. He was actually the one that I worked with prior to you. And he's the one that helped on board us with SRAM and he's been nothing but fantastic. So Eric, hi, thanks. So his question was, um, did people who joined the sport during COVID stick around or did everybody who already had a bike just buy a second bike?

Jake: How, how do you guys, how do you guys break that down for you? 

Derek Kidd: Yeah, I, I feel like that was a good two parter. Um, the first one was, I think touching on the importance of making sure that everyone does feel welcome. We have a whole lot of new folks to our sport since COVID. Um, they are still only a couple of years into our sport.

Derek Kidd: So how do we make the most welcoming space, the most fun space for them to really enjoy this? And then the second one, which I would fire back at y'all is what do you think? We, we have the numbers. We know that bike sales went through the roof. Somebody could get them. Was that all new people in the sport or were there a bunch of people who, you know, have a couple of bikes in the garage and now they got a few more.

Jake: I think it was [00:40:00] a good mix, but I would definitely say that it was overwhelming. new people coming in. And we did see quite a few people personally. And this is just our personal anecdotes here. Uh, we did see quite a few people who, um, did upgrade. I mean, they were getting those little checks coming in the mail from the old uncle Sam and the government, if you will.

Jake: And they were throwing that at something, and they wanted to get something new under them that they could really enjoy, whether that was upgrading from what they had or just whatever, for whatever reason, they just went out and treated themselves. And, um, so you had that, but I think that was overwhelming.

Jake: A lot of People that were new to the sport because they couldn't go to the gym. They couldn't interact. They couldn't do a lot of things and they just needed that outlet. And we all know once you get on a bike and go out and ride for a bit, it makes you feel pretty wonderful. Especially when the world feels like it's falling apart around.

Jake: You just get that, that dopamine, that little endorphin rush. And you're just, you're, you're good. You know, you come back and you get a renewed sense of everything. So it was mostly that. I do think that quite a few people did stick around, but I think the majority of them have really nice garage ornaments now, so.

Jake: I agree with that, 

Lance: too. I think, I think [00:41:00] it did bring a whole lot of new people into the industry, but not all of them stayed, is my feeling, so. 

Derek Kidd: So, I guess the further question. Maybe Tor can answer this one. How do we get those garage ornaments out on the road or how do we make those people? Oh, we just need another 

Lance: pandemic.

Lance: That's all. Yeah. 

Derek Kidd: How do we, how do we get those people engaged with bikes again? And people who aren't riding as much. 

Jake: Just, you've got to have a solid community. You've got to make it open, welcoming, inviting for people to come out and ride with you and give them all the reasons. And like, I mean, you're gonna, you're gonna interact with people and like, I've talked, people talk to me about bikes all the time for obvious reasons.

Jake: You guys probably get a lot of that as well. And like, like, Oh, I hear you ride bikes. I'm like, Oh yeah, you ride yourself. Well, yeah, I got a bike, but I haven't like, yeah, come out and ride with sometime or, you know, right now is the perfect time of year to maybe think about getting it on a trainer, even though that can maybe steer you away from wanting to ride a bike again.

Jake: But it's just a good way to like invite them in and let them know that yes, we've [00:42:00] got all kinds of cool stuff that we put out. We've got very high intensity, race paced, very like type a kind of bike grading and. Almost racing that we do in our group rides. And then we've got stuff that's super social. We tell you, Hey, come on out, right?

Jake: I don't care if you're on a fricking beach cruiser, come on out. We ride as fast, the slowest person and where that is badge of honor. If that's you, we just go out and kind of chill. And then there's everything in between, get them to come out and to participate. And they, they know, and they, they know that like once they start writing, they love it, but you just got to help them build that into the routine.

Jake: Um, And it's kind of funny because somebody brought this up to me not too long ago. Like the biggest reason why people don't ride. Do you want to know why? Well, what, what would you say the biggest reason is why people stop riding? We're in Portland. So I'm going to go with weather. Weather is probably pretty high up there, but there's something even worse.

Jake: I'm going to say cars, cars. Well, you can get away from cars. You can go ride on the dirt. The biggest thing that people have a turnoff to cycling. And this is the reason why my wife doesn't ride is they hate the saddle. They seriously, yeah, this, [00:43:00] and a lot of times the bikes come with a saddle and people just don't know.

Jake: I mean, I could sell you a really crappy pair of shoes and, and give you the best, like, I don't know, jogging suit and headphones and all the things make you go run. But if I sell you a crappy pair of shoes and you come back and like your feet hurt, then your knees hurt, then your back hurts and your everything just hurts.

Jake: Are you going to want to run anymore? No. And that's one of the three touch points on a bike. And it's probably the most sensitive part on a bike and bikes come with saddles that aren't necessarily meant for every Tom, Dick and Harry. And people don't understand that you don't, you don't have to ride with what the bike came with.

Jake: And I think us as a, uh, bike shop, we need to do a better job of communicating that to them. Like, Hey, First and foremost, it is going to suck no matter what saddle you have. When you first get going, just ease yourself into it. Don't expect that you're going to go out and ride for three or four hours and be hunky dory after that.

Jake: You're going to like be sore in your, your nether region. So, you know, make sure that you're wearing a good set of bibs with a good shammy in there. Tell them what shammy cream is and why you want to invest in that. And then making sure that you're, [00:44:00] you'd be amazed at how many bikes come in with the nose, Way up or way down and people are sliding all over the place.

Jake: So they're riding a saddle that just is like really not for them. They, they automatically default to, I need something that's thicker with more cushioning. No, you need something that's the right shape to you. So I think saddles is probably a good place to start. We need to somehow. Figure out how to do a better job of communicating that to people so that they can feel comfortable on that and then get over that hump.

Jake: And then it's a matter of like, all right, let's pull you back out there and get your ride and show you all the cool things that the cycling community can bring to the table. 

Troy Laffey: And take away the stigma for like what we all used to call a tractor seat. Uh, cause you know, a couple of years ago, up until a couple of years ago, I didn't care what saddle was on my bike.

Troy Laffey: I just went and whatever was on there. Uh, and then one day I got on my bike and I was like, Hmm. That's funny. I don't like it. And, and so I did a bunch of research and I found a squishy saddle. I think it's maybe Sellitalia. It is. It's the man saddle. And it says man right on it. So I know it's for me.

Troy Laffey: Manly man. And it, and it [00:45:00] feels so good that I bought six of them because I was afraid they may not make it again. Livestock, 

Jake: yeah. 

Troy Laffey: And, and so yesterday we're out for a ride in the pouring rain down in Ashland. And, uh, Derek's like, Hey, can I have your bike out? And he's like, man, your saddle is squishy. And I'm like, yeah, pretty nice, huh?

Troy Laffey: You know, I'm not going to treat it was a treat, right? It was luxury. So I think, I think you hit the nail on the head, but backing up just to, um, to the previous, uh, topic. I think infrastructure is, um, one of the biggest hurdles to getting those people back out onto their bicycles. Um, I think people in the pandemic probably learned how hard it is to be a cyclist.

Troy Laffey: Um, simply because, well, not all roads are, um, you know, are like a German neighborhood, you know. Um, I have a family member that works in, in, in like concrete and asphalt. Uh, and they've told me that the asphalt they have in Europe, uh, specifically Germany is 10 generations ahead of what we have, you know?

Troy Laffey: And so if all of a sudden your local paper was like, we've come up with the next best thing, [00:46:00] they'd have to do that 10 times to equal how great. Surfaces are in Europe, um, because in Europe they're thinking about safety as a top priority Um everything every everything from surface to access And another great example is the way the waltons think in Bentonville Uh, every child in Bentonville can ride their bike to school Never having to cross a street because when they were building that town they were thinking about the infrastructure How do we maintain people on their bikes?

Troy Laffey: Well, if you eliminate dangers eliminate cars like you mentioned lance Um Yeah, they can ride their bike to school. They never have to cross the street. That's incredible. 

Jake: That is, that's, that's awesome. Right. And so I need to go 

Troy Laffey: infrastructure and that, and that, and that can go really deep that can go to your local, um, city council, to your legislature, to the city government, city planners, traffic planners, it goes deep.

Troy Laffey: And I think that can feel overwhelming to a lot of people saying, um, I can't initiate change, you know, but you [00:47:00] know, even in, in little old Colorado Springs where RockShox is based, we're, we're just now getting into our public debates and arguments with our city council about allowing e bikes, um, and not just on trails, but on like on pathways and things like that.

Troy Laffey: Um, there's a, still a lot of hate. Um, but you know, ultimately whenever someone approaches me about You know, an e bike, I just have one question and I say, are you mad that someone's riding their bike? It's like, why does this upset you? Yeah. You know, and, and I'm sure you see it here. You know, I've heard you guys talk about it.

Troy Laffey: People, people get mad. They're, they're yelling, they're revving their engines, they're taking people out. And, and ultimately you just have to ask them the one question. Are you, are you mad that someone's out riding a bike? Like, how is it so offensive? And I, and I think once we change that mindset of most people and we get our infrastructure up to date.

Troy Laffey: Um, I think all those bikes will come out of the garage. 

Jake: How do we get the infrastructure up to date? That that's the million dollar question. I mean, you can go out there and advocate all day long, but I think we just talked about this in the last podcast or two. It was like, you feel like you're talking to [00:48:00] nobody.

Jake: You're talking to a brick wall. Nobody wants to hear that. And now in that same breath, we are starting to see some infrastructure here. There's a few main thoroughfares. As a matter of fact, the one road that I used to go into the dial cycle lab for my house. They just completely redid it. I mean, it used to be four, four lanes.

Jake: It was overkill. You didn't need that. And you know, there's not that much traffic. They basically took away an entire lane and created a full on bike lane and completely insulated it from the rest of traffic. And then now the, the people can walk on this nice sidewalks because they read the sidewalks.

Jake: There's a nice lane to ride on and it's fantastic, but we're talking about like a, what, a mile and a half stretch of road, right? But it's a good start. It's a good start, but you know, how, how do we get them to, to And that more for all of it. Cause you know, when they did that, it pissed a lot of people off.

Jake: I mean, they'll get used to it and they'll ultimately like, it'll be just, it'll be the norm. And that's just how it is riding down that road now, which is fantastic. But how do we do that for all of the other roads? And then the other thing is like, maybe we do need to step up and start saying [00:49:00] more because Lance knows about the things that we deal with here.

Jake: And they create these bike lanes and then they put these things in the road that are like, I don't know, like a little bit of a dome, but like a oval Kind of thing. And like if your wheel touches that, just the, the ever so slightest bit, you're going over the bars into traffic and you're going to get yourself killed if you're not paying attention or you gotta try and miss something.

Jake: And, and whoever's thought process that was, I mean, you'd have to see it to understand exactly what I'm talking about and Lance knows exactly what I'm talking about. Yeah. It was just who, who thought that that was okay? Did you guys ever confer with anybody that actually rides? And if you did talk to a cyclist, lemme talk to that person because they need to get slapped 

Troy Laffey: upside the head.

Troy Laffey: 'cause that was idiotic. So, or, or who chose the bike lane paint. 

Jake: Yeah. 

Troy Laffey: Because when bike lane paint is wet It's slick. It's like an ice rink. 

Jake: Yeah. Yeah, but 

Troy Laffey: what's that all about? 

Jake: Yeah, 

Troy Laffey: you know, there's a really cool Project in Australia right now where not only they're adding texture to the paint. They're making it Glow in the dark.

Troy Laffey: Yep, and they've been doing a series of tests in ten different [00:50:00] municipalities And it's absolutely amazing because you know, we all you know Everyone's played with a glow in the dark thing where if you hold it near light it charges and it gets brighter and brighter So as the automobile headlights are hitting these lines, they get brighter and brighter at night.

Troy Laffey: Um, and they've also added texture to them so that, you know, they're not slippery when it's wet. 

Jake: Yeah. Wasn't there something to do with like recycled old tires or something like that? And it was integrated in the, yeah, I saw like a short, bit on that. It was fantastic. So, 

Troy Laffey: you know, it's a, it's a willingness to change and I know change is hard.

Troy Laffey: Um, it's hard for everybody. 

Jake: Can I ask you to like dig into one thing? I don't know if you know all of the specifics, but you said that the road surface that they use in Germany is 10 generations ahead of us or 10 times better than what we're using here. What's the primary difference? I mean, what are we talking about?

Jake: How is, how is it that much better? 

Troy Laffey: Um, so, you know, transparency, I'm a bike technician. I have no. Um, I have no education on asphalt. Um, you know, but I, but I, you know, but I listened. But you slept at Holiday Inn last night, right? I [00:51:00] did, I did. And, um, but I listen really well. And, you know, what I learned is, and what I've experienced being over there a lot for work, um, is that it could be pouring rain, like a normal day here in, in Portland area.

Troy Laffey: Um, but there, you'll never hydroplane. And that's why they don't have a speed limit on the Autobahn. That's why it's safe to drive 200 kilometers an hour. How do they, what's the waterway? How does that work? Because the asphalt is porous and it, and the water goes through it and then drains out the sides.

Troy Laffey: Uh, interesting. It's, it's absolutely fascinating. It can be a torrential downpour and you will never see a puddle on the autoroute. 

Jake: And how does it last? Is it just as, 

Troy Laffey: Long of a life? They have no, you know, Germans are pretty strict people. Uh, they, you know, they got no tolerance, uh, for poor quality. And so the second there's a crack in the road, the second there's a failure in pavement, there's a crew out there fixing it.

Troy Laffey: They just don't allow things to, to just 

Jake: Can you imagine how nice that would be? 

Troy Laffey: It would be incredible. You know, and it's not that we're a smaller country with less resources, quite the [00:52:00] opposite. Um, and so it comes down to priority. Um, where are the influences in your community coming from? Uh, where's the money that's funding the campaigns for those public figures coming from?

Troy Laffey: Um, and, and who is adverse to change? And why are those people adverse to change? And who in your local government are they influencing? 

Jake: Yeah. 

Troy Laffey: I'm not saying by any means it's easy. I'm just simply suggesting that if we, if the ultimately question, if the ultimate question is how do we get the bikes out of the garage that we accumulated during the pandemic?

Troy Laffey: Mm hmm. Um, we, we have to make it a place where it's not a hard thing to do. 

Jake: Yeah. 

Troy Laffey: You know, why is driving so easy? Because it's easy. Yeah. Like, we have roads that go everywhere, uh, you know, it's just easy, it's easy to drive a car. Um, it's not easy to ride your bike. Yeah. 

Jake: Well, this world would be a better place if everybody did, a hundred percent.

Jake: And I don't want to get into politics or anything like that, but I, there are certain facets of what is going on in the politic, uh, world. Cool climate right now with respect to things [00:53:00] like, you know, Hey, let's take an honest and sincere look at the stuff that's going into our food. Let's take an honest and sincere look at the medications that have been approved for people to use.

Jake: And you can just go down this list. And if things start to change that way and you start to see. People's health start to get better. If you start to see their mental health get better, if you start to see their physical health start to improve and be able to get out and do stuff, let's have these bikes waiting and ready and get some sweet German roads out there with some bike lanes that don't have stupid things in the road so we can go out there and just kick ass and have fun.

Jake: And yeah. And more trails. And more trails. Yep. Which leads me to your next question. To my next question. I was just going to ask that. That was a beautiful, beautiful segue. Beautiful. What's your question? No, 

Derek Kidd: it's, uh, it's more of a comment. Okay. No, it's more of a shout out, really. Shout out 

Jake: slash shaming kind of thing.

Jake: Yeah. It's always. Maybe a little bit. I 

Derek Kidd: couch the one and the other. Um, the Northwest Trail Alliance are doing a really, really great job making trails accessible for people. And, and doing a good job. Getting [00:54:00] them in the, in the Portland downtown core, you know, you've got, it's gone beyond just gateway green now.

Derek Kidd: There are other areas for people to ride mountain bikes safely. Where you don't need to load up your bike onto a car and drive for an hour. Sure. Because that is a significant barrier, barrier to entry for a lot of people. Mm-Hmm. . So shout out to them making a lot of really, really good beginner trails. Um, building, building out the trails that are there.

Derek Kidd: Mm-Hmm. and expanding access for people, um, in a, in a meaningful way for Yeah. People just to get out into nature a little bit more easily on the bike. So 

Jake: Justin. Full disclosure, I have never built a trail since I've moved to Washington and that's been almost 10 years. I've never gone out and helped to do anything, no trail maintenance, no nothing.

Jake: And it's just because I don't know where to start or who to contact. And I'm so caught up in everything. And I, I should probably press stop, look into a little bit more, try and meet some people because I would love to help because I used to do that. Cause there was a couple of different entities in Southern California.

Jake: They would go out and do trail maintenance stuff, trail build days. And [00:55:00] we would go and people would show up with all their tools and you'd just go out there and have a fun time. And usually there was like some pizza and beer involved at the end of it. And everybody was just stoked. And then you get to go ride this stuff.

Jake: It was fun, 

Derek Kidd: brother. I got some work for you to do. Okay. We're going to talk. 

Lance: You know, I used to have, uh, I, I have people that ask me, you know, you mountain bike here in the Portland area, where do you go ride? And you know, years ago it was, okay, there's some trails up at cold Creek and you can go to Sandy Ridge.

Lance: And those are the kind of two closest areas, which are both. 45 minutes or an hour outside of Portland, but now we have Rocky Point and now we have There's other places. Is this kind of what you're talking about? Yeah. Yeah, and just putting in, you know 

Derek Kidd: I'm putting in pump tracks all over the place and Sandy's got a new pump track and we've got sunny slopes open in Lake Oh, and we've got yeah, Rocky Point is Exploded.

Derek Kidd: It is got like they're like Five new trails every month out there. Um, and a [00:56:00] lot of the shops as well are, are helping support that. And 

Jake: let's be honest, these are a big attraction for the kids. And if you get the kids involved, what generally happens next is the parents start to get involved, you know, like, Hey, mom and dad, maybe you should consider doing a little bit of this bike riding stuff as well.

Jake: And then, yep, then it's in plus one and then they're doing all the things. Right. That's the goal. 

Derek Kidd: Also kids work real hard when they're traveling. It's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Like eight, nine, 10 year old kids. Give them a shovel, tell them what to do. Like they will actually work really hard. It's amazing. So, and then they're really tired.

Derek Kidd: And then doesn't every parent want a tired, tired 

Jake: child? Yeah, you got that. And then they're, they're not doom scrolling too, just sitting there on their phone all day long and get to actually teach them how to interact with human beings, which is pretty fantastic. 

Lance: I have helped with a little bit of trail building, um, not with Northwest Trail Alliance, I really should get involved with that, but, uh, Some of Scott Schultz's companies up at the Washougal motocross track, we've, we did a few cross country races there this year, and we built some [00:57:00] trails for those races, cause it's not really a public place.

Troy Laffey: Isn't that the guy that opened up the gate and said, do what you want? Yes, yeah, the owner just said, 

Lance: Here's my 150 acres, do what you want, which is fantastic. So we uncovered some old trails, but then we actually cut down and built some trails, which that was, uh, that was eyeopening how much work it was, how much work it was to actually do.

Derek Kidd: Y'all are lucky you have evergreen Southwest, uh, over in the like Vancouver area and they oversee. Yeah, Colton, all those trails out there. And Evergreen is one of those, uh, you know, it's the trail organization I think everybody else is looking to. That's a statewide organization. They get funding from all sorts of sources.

Derek Kidd: They manage things just so well. Oregon hasn't quite figured that out yet. 

Lance: There's a, there's an organization in Bend. Is it called CODA or something? The Central 

Derek Kidd: Oregon Trail Alliance. Okay, 

Lance: so they also do trail building and trail maintenance. A [00:58:00] ton. In the, but it's just in the Central Oregon area. It's just in Bend.

Lance: NWTA 

Derek Kidd: is just Portland. Um, the Westside Trail Federation, which is my personal favorite. Uh, and we build out in the Tillamook. We're doing the, the more advanced, like, the downhill trails. Okay. Um, yeah, there's, uh, H RATS out the Hood River. Trail builders, uh, you know, Corvallis has theirs, Salem Area Trail Alliance, you know, as you go down I 5, basically all the, all the riding spots have their own trail.

Derek Kidd: group who are overseeing all those trails, and they all have to apply for funding individually. Uh, they probably don't have any grant writers, um, on the board. Um, so it's really, really tough for those folks to get money. Versus if you have a statewide group like Evergreen, you have a full time paid grant writer.

Derek Kidd: Actually, I should probably check on that first. But, um, they get money from a lot of places and then they disperse it all across the state, which is brilliant. Yeah. Um, I think Oregon's a little ways away from that, but I know [00:59:00] it's top of mind for a lot of people. So, um, yeah, money's hard to come by, but there are a lot of folks who are really, really excited to dig trails and, and it's just a great way to get even beginners out and, and being part of the community.

Derek Kidd: Yeah. It's 

Jake: cool. Is there a national, uh, Body that everybody kind of subscribes to where people can go and check and see if maybe there's a, an organization near to them. That's a part of this national organization. 

Derek Kidd: I mean, that'd be Imba. Wouldn't it? Yeah. 

Troy Laffey: Yeah. In, but, um, yeah, Dave Weins is the president, uh, former national champion, professional, professional writer.

Troy Laffey: Um, and that's really great when you've got a writer. involved in the leadership. Um, you know, Imba has gone through a lot of iterations in the last 25, 30 years. Um, but they're doing great things now. And they, um, them as well as people for bikes, um, they really will teach you how to deal with your municipality as well as, um, apply for money that maybe you don't know is out there.

Jake: Look them up and see if there's something in your [01:00:00] backyard and get connected and start helping out. Me included. All right. Another one. Did you have anything else that you wanted to talk about, Troy, Derek, anything from you? Next topic, please. There's a few more things on here and I thought this would be kind of fun.

Jake: Um, this one kind of like made me chuckle a little bit, um, pet peeves in cycling. What are some of your pet peeves and why? And there's a list on here. It's just angles and breaks and saddles that are too flat. Derek does not 

Troy Laffey: like cushy saddles. No, a 

Derek Kidd: saddle's gotta look cool. A saddle is there for looks, primarily.

Derek Kidd: Keep in mind that I came up riding like trials bikes and BMXs and dirt jump bikes. And now I ride downhill bikes, so a saddle is very much like a tertiary concern for me. Um, on my XC bike, you know, I've got one that I like. But, yeah, I don't spend a whole lot of time sitting down, so it's gotta look cool.

Derek Kidd: And the angle. has to be correct. I don't care. I don't care what it's like when I'm sitting on it. But the, the nose of the saddle has to point at the handlebars. And thus, if you've got a higher stack height, if you've got higher handlebars, you [01:01:00] need to angle your seat down. Because aesthetically it looks cleaner.

Derek Kidd: Brake levers, people who run their brake levers, super flat. I don't know. I mean, the homeless 

Troy Laffey: style with the curly bar is faced up with the brake lever. Yeah, that's actually super comfortable. Right? If you don't knock it until you've tried, it's actually really comfortable. Um, it's the 

Derek Kidd: dumbest pet peeve, but those, those are my absolutely subjective.

Lance: I'm afraid of what my bike looks like because you have messed with a few of my bikes and now I'm afraid of what you thought of me personally. 

Troy Laffey: No, no, just self. Don't let him touch. Don't let him touch. That's right. Um, you know, I think the pet peeves on our side of the table are, are different than the pet peeves from perhaps the bike shop side or the consumer side.

Troy Laffey: Um, you know, for, for me, it's, uh, everyone loves to point the finger of blame at a manufacturer, you know, and so, uh, Why don't you break some tires? Word, right? Or like, like, what do you mean I have to have a different [01:02:00] bottom bracket? Like, why are there so many different standards? And standards is like a really hard word that everyone loves to pound home.

Troy Laffey: But, you know, there's one, there's one answer to every single question that someone says, why would you do this, RockShox? Why would you do this, SRAM? There's only one answer. And it's because somebody asked us to. We're, we're a business. We, we are a for profit business. We are making components to sell in exchange for money.

Troy Laffey: And so we do what our customers ask us to do. And if some, you know, if company XYZ comes along and says, we have these two triangles that look like a bike and we want you to make a thing here, we're like, all right, well, we'll make a thing for there. Now, you know, Standards typically coincide with evolution of product.

Troy Laffey: And so, uh, let's take Dubb bottom brackets. For example, people got out of their mind when we introduced Dubb and we went away from a 24 millimeter spindle. Um, and Dubb is, you know, it's, it's, it's not exactly 30 millimeters. It's [01:03:00] 29, nine and people, people get all crazy about it. Um, but it works. And we have 14 different ones.

Troy Laffey: And that's to accommodate every frame style out there, including Italian Thread, and Beady Wright, and 386, and all three variants of T 47, and the list goes on. But remember, we don't make frames. These are things for frames. Just like maxles, uh, you know, the threaded through axles. So, We, we don't decide how wide or what thread pitch, we just do what the customer said they did.

Troy Laffey: So if one, if one bike manufacturer says, we have a 12 by 1 thread pitch, And customer B says we have a 12 by 1. 25 thread pitch. And customer C says we have a 12 by 1. 5 thread pitch. We gotta make all three. And so, people get upset at SRAM, um, as an example for, Oh, I can't believe you make all these different things.

Troy Laffey: We only did it because somebody asked us to, [01:04:00] um, you know, and, uh, that's my, my pet peeve is when people aren't asking the right question. It's okay to get upset about change. Change is hard and it's okay to get about upset about things that, you know, probably should be standardized in the long run. But in the end, we're just doing what our customers ask.

Jake: Do the engineers ever, obviously they're not going to get together amongst each other from all the different bike manufacturers, but did they ever converse with folks over at SRAM and say, Hey, this is what we're thinking? Then SRAM's like, well, did you ever think about maybe doing it this way? Because that makes a little bit more sense and it's not as difficult for us to make the 14th different iteration of this thing.

Jake: I mean, do you guys have any input on how bike manufacturers, the universal derailleur 

Lance: hangers. 

Troy Laffey: So, that's a great example, and I think we were going to get to that, uh, we were eventually going to get there, but I'm going to, there was a moment when the stars did align, and it was about 2015 ish, um, all the RockShox engineers.

Troy Laffey: Got together with Fox engineers, uh, and RST, and, um, SR, [01:05:00] and, uh, Marzocchi at the time wasn't part of Fox. Um, and, and whomever else is out there in the suspension space. And we all got together and agreed on a standard. Because at that time, there were several ways to measure your shock and how it fit into the bike.

Troy Laffey: And we, we call it metric. It doesn't mean that we're using the metric system. It just means that we all agree that we're no longer using, um, a number of other different ways of doing it. And, and we have the exact same style. So. You know, no matter who your brand shock is, a trunnion mount is 54 millimeters wide.

Troy Laffey: And no matter, uh, what brand your shock is, your, if you have an eyelet style attachment point, it's 13 millimeters 

Intro: wide. 

Troy Laffey: And so there is a standard there. And in that time, for however it happened, uh, we all agreed, and we all got together, and we all spoke to each other, and we all said, you bet, we're gonna do it this way.

Troy Laffey: Now, you know, you mentioned, uh, Lance, UDH. Um, that's just a slice of Brilliant's pie. And, um, you know, obviously, [01:06:00] I had nothing to do with it, but, um, You know, a lot of people say, Oh, it was a Trojan horse. And yeah, you're absolutely right. It was, you know, we do not make any qualms about that. However, I just want to throw this out there.

Troy Laffey: It was a good solve. We had a problem. Yes, we had a problem. I mean, the only people who don't like it is wheels manufacturing because they can't make that poster anymore. Yes. The whole 

Lance: freaking poster of every single thing. 

Troy Laffey: Now their poster has one thing on it, you know, so sorry, but not, sorry. Uh, you know, it was, it was a good solve.

Troy Laffey: Um, and what we, by introducing that in 2018 and transmission didn't come out till 2023. Yeah. What we did is we gave all the companies Yes, we know that Trek, Specialized, BMC, all of your large manufacturers, they can change their molds in a year. Changing molds is really expensive. You know, molds are 10, 000, 15, 000 per size.[01:07:00] 

Troy Laffey: And that's if the mold is correct, you know, after prototyping. So to change a run of road bikes, that's 100, just in the mold for the carbon investment. So, not all local small manufacturers. you know, or independent frame manufacturers can do that. So we gave everybody five years to catch up or to save up, uh, to be able to change and make that change.

Troy Laffey: We knew that the big, big companies were on board. We've been in discussions with them, but this allowed everybody. Secondly, we gave it away. So if you go to, uh, universalderailleurhanger. com, all the CAD drawings, all the licensing, everything is there. Anybody can use it. And it's just a good idea. 

Jake: Did, is Shimano going to bring something to the table?

Troy Laffey: I can't speak to what Shimano is doing. Um, I'm sure whatever they're coming out with, in the future will be amazing. Um, you know, they've always been a very conservative company. Um, and typically when they make something, it's, it's pretty good. You know, they, um, [01:08:00] you know, I have nothing but good things to say about Shimano.

Troy Laffey: They have a 65 year head start in manufacturing, you know, so when we started making grip shifters in a, in a little building in Chicago, they'd already been making shifters for 65 years, you know, so can't take anything away from them. Um, but. You know, that said, SRAM loves innovation. We love making new product.

Troy Laffey: Man, we crave new product almost to a fault and Uh, I think that's why we've kind of sorted out our niche in the high end spectrum because we know that companies like Shimano make Not only high end but also entry level better. They're good at it And so we don't need to we don't need to play in that in that arena.

Troy Laffey: It's interesting 

Jake: Well, when are we going to get the UDH of bottom brackets? Please. 

Troy Laffey: What a great question. You know, uh, you know, if I take off my Stram hat and I have a personal opinion, um, if we could just all be, [01:09:00] you know, uh, BSA threaded bottom bracket. Yes. Life would be so much easier. Um, but, It's not conducive to the direction that frames are going, uh, which is super lightweight, thin wall, carbon fiber, big tubes, because then that means you have to have either, uh, an aluminum insert, or you have to have some pretty tidy carbon.

Troy Laffey: Um, and that's pretty hard to do. 

Jake: What's your take on T47? Do you think that that's a good direction to go? 

Troy Laffey: Um, I like one of the three variants of T47. Elaborate. Uh, so T47 for, uh, those in the listener world that don't know, um, is a, uh, adopted mostly by Trek. Um, there's three different variants. You have a outboard, outboard, outboard, inboard, and inboard, inboard, meaning one side has an outboard bearing, one side has an inboard bearing, and it's all about the spacing of the crankset.

Troy Laffey: Um, if you have the outboard variant, then your tooling is nowhere near the frame. Um, and you're totally good. If you have the inboard variant, either on one [01:10:00] side or the other, or both, um, there's really no way to install it without scoring the frame. Um, it's just not possible. So it's, it's a little inconsiderate of, you know, custom paint jobs.

Troy Laffey: Um, the, those bottom brackets are going on typically road carbon frames that are pretty fancy, um, especially Trek with project one, uh, and putting that thing on without even a slightest score to the painter, anything is, is near impossible. Hmm. So it's just. Kind of seemed like an afterthought. Gotcha.

Jake: Interesting. What are your thoughts on that stuff, Derek? What do you think? 

Derek Kidd: I'm a big fan of threaded bottom brackets. Yes, please, yes. And I think, uh, I think this is a place that Um, maybe the, the, the bike social media world has had some effect. You know, you look at the comment sections on, on certain websites.

Derek Kidd: I looked at Pinkbike a whole lot for that. Um, and the comment sections for the past few years have been, this frame is great, except, It doesn't have enough water bottle mounts or something. And it usually calls them out for a press fit bottom bracket [01:11:00] where it should be a BSA. And I think we've seen a lot of companies, at least in the mountain bike world, switching back to BSA.

Derek Kidd: I know Norco was, was one of them. It was press fit everything. And now all their new bikes are threading bottom brackets. 

Lance: Thank you. 

Derek Kidd: It's just great. And I have 

Lance: one bike with a threaded bottom bracket and it just makes me so happy. It's kind of nice, right? 

Derek Kidd: You still, you still don't have a thread a headset.

Derek Kidd: I don't push the headset. No, but, uh, 

Jake: Right. We talked about pet peeves. This one was on the list, too, and it kind of made me chuckle. And you guys run across a lot of stuff. What are the dumbest bike upgrades you guys are seeing out there? And what do you think is the dumbest bike upgrades? If you saw this on somebody's bike, what's going to make you just like, Oh, gosh, 

Derek Kidd: I roll.

Derek Kidd: I pitched this question because I am the culprit of this. So, um, Uh, tire pressure monitors, tire whiz, uh, man, I, I, I have to run them on all my bikes, but when I first got one of these things, I was like, this is a lot of money for a tire pressure monitor. I don't need that. This is, this is silly, [01:12:00] but I'll try it out.

Derek Kidd: You know, whatever. What's the MSRP on this again? Uh, it's like a hundred bucks. For a set. For 

Jake: a set. 

Derek Kidd: Yeah. And now after using one, now I have to run them on all my bikes. 'cause they're awesome . I use it all the time. 

Lance: Does it every ride, does it connect to your head unit? Yeah. So your head, it tells you what your tire pressure is, so know exactly what 

Derek Kidd: my tire pressure is.

Derek Kidd: Does a warning come up that says you are currently losing air? Yeah, and you don't even need the head unit. It has a light on it. I just look down and I'm like, oh yeah, it's, it's flashing red. Oh my gosh. It's either too high or too low. Oh, I went through that river crossing and now my tire's too low. And, um, so I, I agree.

Derek Kidd: Like on the prima facie, it looks a little silly, but man, wow, they're so good. And I went out and I bought more and I, what's the next iteration 

Lance: of that little guy? When the air I think adds air back into your tire when you lose it, that's already happening. Yeah, that's right. 

Derek Kidd: That's This is considerably cheaper than the 4, 000 hub that inflates your tires [01:13:00] But yeah, I think maybe it'll just get smaller and that kind of thing.

Derek Kidd: I do agree that Integrated would be pretty cool. But, um, yeah, that's one of those things that I agree it's dumb, but then you try it and it's like, oh, this is so not dumb. Does this have actually awesome. 

Jake: Does it have any issues with a tubeless, um, set up with the sealant and whatnot? 

Derek Kidd: So you can't put the sealant through the valve stem.

Derek Kidd: Um, cause that. little port that measures the pressure is pretty fine. Um, so I, I guess that's the only hassle. You have to 

Jake: take that out and does it screw into the actual another valve stem or does it, how does that work? You have to break the bead and pour the sealant in that way? You just break the bead.

Jake: Gotcha. And like the back washer, the sealant that's kicking back up there won't have any effect on it. 

Derek Kidd: Yeah, not, not an issue. 

Jake: Doesn't get gunked up there at all. 

Derek Kidd: Sure. It's possible maybe, but Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's not really the air pressure is 

Troy Laffey: air pressure is holding the ceiling against the rubber.

Troy Laffey: Perfect. 

Derek Kidd: I don't know. I've been running these things for a while and I have any issues, but I will absolutely agree [01:14:00] there. Oh man. I wish I didn't love him so much. I wish I didn't need them. I understand that it's a lot of money for a tire pressure monitor, but man, once you try one, yeah, I just, I, We've set a few customers up 

Jake: with them and they speak highly of them.

Jake: I'm like, I don't know if I need that on my bike, but now you're making me second guess myself. Here, 

Derek Kidd: I'll, I'll, I'll loan you a set. There you go. This guy, 

Jake: here's your first hit. What about you Troy? Do you have any major pet peeves? You've got to run across some crazy stuff out there with all of the different.

Jake: Places you go and people you see in the bikes you're in are changing with. Is there something that just absolutely drives you bonkers? 

Troy Laffey: Um, yeah, there is. And, uh, you know, I, I have to be cautious, um, because my, my best friend, um, he's guilty. Okay. So, uh, uh, double D, sorry. Um, but people who ride on trail with a speaker, To me, that's a criminal offense.

Lance: That's a downhill or mountain bike thing, right there. That makes me want to bring 

Troy Laffey: back, um, you know, like, physical punishment. [01:15:00] Honestly. You know, I'm not opposed to like riding with a single earbud. Um, you know, two obviously is probably not safe But you know riding with a single earbud or whatever you got in your helmet or whatever system you have, you know That's that's that's a personal thing I don't want to listen to other people's, you know music 

Jake: Yeah, I don't Know it's never a rock.

Troy Laffey: It's It's, you know, it's always, it's always gonna be something, something obnoxious or whatever Derek listens to really, you know, some kind of something crazy. And I, you know, we all, we all ride bikes for, for different personal reasons. Um, and you know, for me, um, you know, time is a luxury. And so when I get to go ride my bike, it's, it's for me, uh, selfishly, and I just don't want to listen to somebody else's music.

Troy Laffey: And when I hear, I can always hear one coming and I just have to. You know, I'm like, I, I don't, it's one of the reasons I don't [01:16:00] ride in SRAM branded clothing anymore. I, I ride in plain clothes. Just so that if if it gets to it and I have to say something like I just turn 

Lance: that power boost up and hit that throttle 

Derek Kidd: Okay, I I have a story for this and this is this is my defense of people who ride with speakers So last year I was getting into the cross country bike and really trying to like go for go for distance I was riding my local favorite place doing as many laps as I could and I was going for like five laps in a day and on lap two I'm coming back down and a skunk Runs across the trail and I run over said skunk and I get sprayed and I think if I had had a little speaker with me And it was blaring some slayer That skunk would not have been anywhere near the trail I would not have run over the skunk or you know, you're riding in like a Wyoming or something you come across a moose.

Derek Kidd: You do not want to spook a moose I understand that the woods are beautiful and you need to be like out in the serenity of quiet nature But I [01:17:00] also believe sometimes you just kind of like you got to let the nature know Okay, 

Troy Laffey: totally invalid because there is an invention for that which Like my wife and I each have on all of our mountain bikes Which is the little bell that you can turn off and on and so you but it doesn't play Slayer true But you can turn it to the silent mode And then when you're screaming down a trail, you can flip the lever and it allows it to ring when you're going downhill because in Colorado Springs, we have, um, an abnormally large amount of bears.

Troy Laffey: Um, now they're cuddly little black bears, but nonetheless, you don't want to be friendly with them. No. And so, um, you know, or just like when you're riding in Whistler, um, you know, funny story. No, 

Derek Kidd: those are, those are your brakes. Those bears, like they're, they put there just in case your brakes fail and you just like.

Derek Kidd: That's exactly 

Troy Laffey: what I'm about to talk about. Um, The first year of our, so we've had two CEOs since Ram's 30, uh, almost 40 year history, right? Um, 1987 to present. So founder and CEO of StandA. Uh, [01:18:00] about 2017, says, you know what, I've been doing this for a while, maybe we need some young blood. And, um, so he steps down.

Troy Laffey: And assumes, um, director of the board position and we hire, um, just brilliant man, uh, Ken Luesberg from, uh, Terex Cranes. And people were like, Cranes? You know, like what does he know about SRAM? Well, he didn't know a lot about SRAM, but he knew a lot about running a business and, and we are, you know, just immensely better off for having him as a CEO.

Troy Laffey: Sure. That said, his first day on the job was Whistler, uh, Crankworx, and he brings his whole family and, uh, He's like, Hey, uh, you know, can someone take, take me and my family out for a ride? And I was like, sure, no problem. Um, and then, um, somehow he hurt himself, uh, cut his hand or something. And yeah, he cut his hand.

Troy Laffey: He couldn't ride. And he's like, Hey, just take my son, Luke up to the very top and bring him down top of the world. And, and all the way to the base, which is basically, um, a sender run from the top to the bottom [01:19:00] full send going from Alpine to Tundra, to forest, to, to lower trails on, you know, ending in like the very bottoms, like a line or something.

Troy Laffey: Yeah. So his name, uh, kid's name is Luke. We, we take him over to the top and we're somewhere in the mid section and it's a, it's a switchback zone and I come around one switchback and there's just a bear Big bear just sitting in the trail and um, he knows that he doesn't have to move but you know, we're going really fast So my I start screaming up the hill stop stop stop and all I could think of my head was how am I gonna explain to?

Troy Laffey: Ken that his kid got mauled by a bear 

Lance: Again 

Troy Laffey: You know, and anybody who's been to Whistler, you know, has sat on the chairlift and looked down and seen the grizzlies walking to and from, they're out there. Sure. Um, so it's a terrifying experience in and of itself, uh, but then my, my brand new boss's boss's boss's boss's boss, the CEO of the company, um, now I'm responsible for his kid and said grizzly bear.

Troy Laffey: So I'm a big advocate for the bells. [01:20:00] Yeah. 

Derek Kidd: All right. I think, I think you won me over. The speaker will stay home. No more Slayer. Wait, do you bribe with the speaker sometimes, Derek? I have. Oh, you have. I mean like twice in my life. I also find it incredibly annoying. 

Lance: But I just wanted to play Devil's Avocado.

Lance: Troy's moving away from you. He's moving closer to me and further away from you. 

Derek Kidd: He just doesn't like my metal music. You know, I've tried to play, um, quite a bit of, I've tried to educate him on new metal. It 

Troy Laffey: makes people angry. Your music makes people angry. 

Derek Kidd: Yeah. But in like a good way, in like a, like a, you know, wizards 

Jake: and orcs 

Derek Kidd: and stuff, 

Jake: you know, you guys do travel around a bit, right?

Jake: Who gets to rule the radio or do you guys Rochambeau for it? Or is there an alpha here? 

Derek Kidd: Uh, no, it's seniority. Try, try guess today. You know, 

Troy Laffey: um, talking about rolling around. So, um, the field guide team that Derek's part of is a, is a much broader, larger team, [01:21:00] uh, than the team that I'm a part of, which is the technical field guides.

Troy Laffey: So there's four of us around the country and 30. three of you guys. Um, so it's, it's about a one to five, one to six ratio, depending on what part of the country you're in. Um, and so I do get to travel with Derek often, um, because he's, um, embedded in the community and just amazing. Um, and there's certain parts of the country where we don't have in person representation simply, it's just not a viable, um, you know, option, you know, not to say that there's anything wrong with the state of Wyoming, um, but it's not the bustling hotspot of cycling.

Troy Laffey: Um, that maybe Portland is. And so we have to figure out where to put those resources. But I do get to travel with, you know, a bunch of different people. It's, it's pretty awesome. Sweet. 

Derek Kidd: And how many of them listen to? Slayer. 

Jake: One.

Jake: All right. Um, unless you guys want to talk about anything else, I think we can call those done. I did want to ask you guys just a couple other quick things with respect to [01:22:00] Stram and just the cycling industry as a whole, unless Lance, you had anything that you wanted to ask them about? 

Lance: I just wanted to know about Troy's recent.

Lance: Trip through Canyonlands National Park, because, uh, I did a similar trip, but we can talk about 

Jake: it. That can be a one last thing right there. That's what I'm hearing. Um, what in the cycling industry has you guys really stoked right now? What are you really excited about? And you're like, I see a lot of direction here.

Jake: I see a lot of future cool things happening. I know that you can't disclose and you won't disclose some of the cool things that are in the works. We'll have to just wait and see, but what has you guys pumped about the cycling industry right now? 

Troy Laffey: I, I mean, have bikes ever been. As awesome as they are today.

Lance: Yeah, that's a 

Troy Laffey: good point. Like, you know, so many times, you know, I like trucks. I like to work on my own trucks. Um, that said, I couldn't work on anything from the past 20, 25 years because you'd probably need an electrician. Uh, as opposed, and a, and a computer technician as opposed to a, uh, a mechanic. Um, and so [01:23:00] it's not true in every industry that things get better.

Troy Laffey: Um, maybe the features and benefits and reliability get better, but ultimately, um, you know, for example, the cars we have today are not going to last as long. because of parts and pieces that aren't going to be available. No one's going to know how to work on them, but you take any car from 40 years ago and you can still make it run.

Troy Laffey: No problem. Um, and that said, bikes are kind of going the opposite way. They're just getting better. They're getting easier to work on. Um, for example, using the access app to set up a bike, you used to have to measure a chain and do all kinds of crazy things. And there's nothing wrong with going through those motions, but now we've done all the work for you.

Troy Laffey: And so we're giving you again, um, The gift of time, which is immeasurable in terms of value. Um, and so what we're doing there is allowing bike shops to have a better margin because most bike shops aren't factoring in the amount of time it takes a person to build a bike into the price of the bike. Yeah.

Troy Laffey: You know, um, Brand X says the price of this bike is 1, 000. And you're like, great, I bought it for this [01:24:00] much, but then I had to store it. Um, that I had to pay someone to build it. Um, and maybe that took two hours to do a professional build. Um, like recouping those costs can be hard. And so if we can make putting the bike together easier, if we can make the components last longer, our new, um, transition transmission, uh, X, X, SL chain, we're saying 10, 000 kilometers on that chain.

Troy Laffey: Wow. You know, people say, I can't believe it costs twice as much. Yeah. 

Jake: But 

Troy Laffey: it lasts five times longer. 

Jake: Yeah, how many more chains are you going to have to buy if you went the other direction? So, yeah, it adds up. 

Troy Laffey: And we're changing the dynamic of the way bikes last and move into the future. You know, it used to be you would change your chain and your cassette or whatever, derail your pulleys at a certain cadence.

Troy Laffey: But it's crazy to think in this time, an era of modern Uh, materials and material science that all that stuff is solid steel, the chain steel cassette steel, right? So it doesn't wear as fast. Now our wear point is the chain ring. [01:25:00] We'd never would've thought that in the past. And that's so easy to change out and they're not expensive.

Jake: Truth. Yep. Do you have anything that you're kind of stoked on, Derek? 

Derek Kidd: I think it's along a similar vein for sure. I think it's really hard to buy a bad bike these days. Gotcha. Um, I think it's really cool to see how far your money goes. Uh, at least in, in the mountain bike world, you know, 3, 000 for a mountain bike was like, you get something pretty decent 10 years ago when I worked in shops and now you go into a shop and you see a 3, 000 mountain bike and it's pretty darn good.

Derek Kidd: You're getting a bunch of good components on it and stuff you can trust. And geometry just. Like at least mountain bike geometry. And I think road geometry as well, apart from the gravel side of things, maybe. Um, but it's not changing too much. It feels like we've kind of got somewhere good. You're seeing a lot of companies releasing new bikes where the geometry doesn't fundamentally change year to year, um, or the suspension kinematics aren't changing.

Troy Laffey: And we've, and we finally have endurance road bikes, [01:26:00] right? Like that's the gift, you know, because road bikes were always, um, I'm going to emulate professionals. Yeah. And nobody should ride, uh, a professional's bike. It's not pleasant. It's not comfortable. No, it's not. Yeah. It is not pleasant. And, but, but if you were being paid, uh, 8.

Troy Laffey: 8 million euros a year for the next five years. Yes, you do. Yes. You put up with it. You know, or, or like Cipollini with a, with a, with a minus 2140 stem. No, no, no, don't do it. You know, and so like the fact that we can have a whole nother category Uh, where the, where the manufacturers are willing to spend the money on the R and D, the prototyping, the molds to give us an endurance road bike.

Troy Laffey: I mean, that's just going to make road bikes cool again. Yeah. 

Jake: Yep. And 

Troy Laffey: we 

Jake: sell a lot of them. They're fantastic. So that same question, 180 degrees in the opposite direction. Where's the cycling industry, Mr. Mark, where are they sucking? What, what's, what's the pain point of the cycling industry other than I guess, riding on the road and [01:27:00] cars and all that other stuff, but you know, something that maybe the cycling community, not community, but the industry has their, their finger on the pulse, but they're just not changing it.

Jake: They're not making it better. I mean, Part of it for me for a while was the skews. Part of it was the fact that like, there are some bikes since 2018 that we've worked with. That the cost of those bikes has increased by 60 to 70%, which is pretty nuts and absurd. So price points are kind of out of control a little bit, but I think we're starting to see maybe some mild corrections there possibly.

Jake: I don't know. Where do you guys think that things are kind of needing some attention, some fixing? They're sitting over here. Press fit bottom brackets. Yeah, 

Derek Kidd: um, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna go ahead and say that I'm a pretty positive person overall. Yeah. And I'm having a really hard time. Really? 

Lance: That is a cop out there.

Troy Laffey: I'm sorry. I'm a, I'm a keep dwelling on this. Um. My, my observation is that, um, on the bike industry side of things, We assume that everyone's getting a new [01:28:00] bike every year. Okay, 

Lance: that's a good 

Troy Laffey: point. Um, because bike manufacturers, um, and I have to be kind because they're our customers, Um, They make new bikes every year.

Troy Laffey: Um, and it's kind of perpetuating the whole, um, you know, I'll pick on the iPhone, um, full transparency, I have one in my pocket. But, um, the second a new iPhone comes out, you instantly have an inferiority complex. Right. Um, and the second a new bicycle comes out, you have an inferiority complex. Um, and I think that we don't need to have a new bike.

Troy Laffey: Every year. Mm hmm. It's I mean straight up. It's just wasteful. Let's just call it what it is. It's wasteful, 

Lance: but flight attendant 

Troy Laffey: Yeah, flight attendants amazing, but new bikes a new bike new bike New bike day is a real thing but ultimately I just don't see the need. And, and I, I gotta give credit where credit's due with RockShox, at least, uh, on the RockShox side of the [01:29:00] business.

Troy Laffey: Um, in, you know, every so many years, we need to have a change in our lineup. We need, we need to shake it up, have a new product to make it compelling to the consumers. However, in between those six or seven year, Um, big design changes in product. We have small generational changes. And one thing that we've started doing is, um, for example, if you bought your bike in 2021 or 22, it came with a certain generation of shock and fork.

Troy Laffey: Um, in 2024, this year, um, for my 25, which in the bike world is right now, um, we upgraded all those products, but we didn't relaunch them as a new fork. We simply added some new parts and pieces to make them better. And, you know, bike companies are always worried and bike shops are always worried about things that are backwards compatible, but putting on the customer shoes, um, you're worried about forward compatible.

Troy Laffey: And so what we've done is, um, all from moving forward, all of our products that have just launched, um, the parts that made those [01:30:00] P things different are available for sale by themselves. And so you can take your my 21, 22 product. And for example, on a fork, Uh, for 75, you can make it an my 25, um, without spending 1, 200 for a whole brand new suspension center.

Troy Laffey: Um, and same with the shock. Uh, and I think that's a plaudible. Yeah, that's fantastic. 

Jake: Love it. Anything else? Lance? No, it's what sucks in the bike industry. 

Lance: The fact that. That you can't fit bigger tires on your gravel bike. You gotta buy a whole new frickin frame. I can fit, like, 

Derek Kidd: 2. 6 inch 

Lance: tires on 

Derek Kidd: my Shut up.

Derek Kidd: On the bike that I ride on gravel. There you go. It's got 200mm of suspension travel, too. 

Troy Laffey: We just need to admit that John Tomac was right. Yes, and move on. 

Derek Kidd: That's correct. Fat tires, 

Troy Laffey: drop bars. Real talk though. Yeah. 

Derek Kidd: Yeah, mountain bikes with drop bars, right? Right. Gotcha. Yeah. 

Troy Laffey: What do you guys think? I mean, you've [01:31:00] been kind of asking us.

Troy Laffey: What do you think about drop bar mountain bike? It's been a thing this year. 

Jake: It has been, I have not really played in that arena in terms of putting a set on a mountain bike. Um, I'd love my gravel bike. I, that, that it's almost like perfection. I mean, it's, it's not perfect for one thing or the other, but it does everything so well, especially just right off on the gravel stuff.

Jake: But there's just something about that bike that is uber special. If I were to take that same bar setup and put it on a hardtail mountain bike or a full suspension mountain bike, I don't know. Is that something you're going to want to go rip down a single track trail? Are you going to want to go hit some sweet little jumps?

Jake: Do you? Well, yeah, 

Derek Kidd: because then you take that bar off and you put a flat bar on and then you're, then it's money. So, so let me, let 

Troy Laffey: me ask you this is the gravel bike. The, the greatest thing to come along in the last 20 years. Is it the last bike you'll ever need? Or is it, if you could only have one bike is, is it a gravel bike?

Jake: Uh, for me, it would be, yeah, if I could only have one, it would be that [01:32:00] because I can take that thing out. And I tell people this all the time. Like if sometimes if you ride all of the time and you're always going outside and you're kind of feeling like, I don't know what the hell I want to do. You just go jump on that bike.

Jake: And the next thing you know, Oh, I feel like doing this and then you're going and doing it. I mean, you can go play on single tracks. You can go ride the gravel roads. You can then jump off and you can go do a 20 mile road ride. And, you know, and a lot of times, like you can keep up with some group rides as well and be just fine.

Jake: I mean, we've had plenty of people that have showed up to our little flogging ride, which is like, that's a knockdown drag out, like punching the gut kind of ride we've had guys show up on gravel bikes and be able to hang with our a group and Mike, that's fantastic. I mean, so, so, so what 

Troy Laffey: is it about the gravel bike that makes it that bike?

Troy Laffey: But it wasn't for cross bikes. 

Lance: Geometry. They're comfortable, too. 

Jake: Just that lower bottom bracket, the little bit longer wheelbase, and it's just stable. It's the short 

Lance: wheelbase of a cyclocross bike that doesn't make it as fun to ride on the road. 

Troy Laffey: So should, so should some manufacturer who's listening Make a gravel bike that comes with a set of road wheels.

Lance: Yes. That's the [01:33:00] perfect solution to a bike that will, that will ride on most things is a gravel bike with two wheel sets. Yeah. 

Jake: If that, I mean, don't do it, but that, that helps us sell an extra set of wheels, but in the same breath, I guess if you're selling a bike where it's got that, that it's going to be built in there, but that solves a lot of pain points for people.

Jake: And. That's a lot less expensive to get a second wheel set than it is to go out and get another nice bike. And granted, you can spend gobs and gobs of money on that wheel set. But I mean, if you're going to go out and get yourself a set of three or three S's or something like that, and you want to have that for, you know, your backup road wheel, but you can also use that for gravel as well, but you can just, you know, you can have one of each set up for road, set up for gravel and just like whatever you feel like going and doing.

Troy Laffey: And disc brakes have really allowed that. Yes. Yeah. You know, that's, that's really the, the invention that, And that had allowed it and, and, you know, it had a hiccup in, in, in professional road cycling for about a year. Yeah. Um, because again, We've all converted. Change is hard, but nobody would ever go back.

Troy Laffey: No. [01:34:00] It would, you'd, you'll never see it. And so, um, you know, The power in the biosecual industry really is on you. Um, you know, owning, running a bike shop. Um, because when you talk, you know, you're the customer for the bike shop, right? The, the, the OEs are SRAM's customers. So we do what they want, but they do.

Troy Laffey: What you want. And so, you know, that's where the power lies is with the bike shops and talking about how we can get more people on bikes and get those bikes outta the garages. You know, keeping in steady contact with your OE suppliers. Tell 'em what you want. 

Jake: Mm-Hmm. 

Troy Laffey: they're gonna make it because they, they need to sell things and they're not gonna sell what people don't want.

Jake: True, true. So. You obviously don't want a bunch of customers calling you guys or do you guys welcome that kind of stuff? Do you want people to say you should make this or are you more interested in what the bike shop has to say based on? You 

Troy Laffey: know, oh, no, we we love to hear from the bike shops and I'll give you a great example We you know, you spoke about Leadville over the summer champ gave a [01:35:00] great recap about Keegan spenson running road pedals.

Troy Laffey: Yeah road shoes drop bars But more detailed, he was running a 40 tooth ring. I got, I got two dozen phone calls on that. Because our mountain rings, which are available in 0 and 3 degree offsets, only go up to 38. Why do they go up to 38? because that's what Nino Schurter rides and we assume that nobody can push a bigger gear.

Troy Laffey: Nino Schurter has a lot of influence on what we do at SRAM, um, in, in a lot of different ways. Um, and I, and I say that jokingly, but it's, it's probably true, but you know, Nino runs a 38. We're like, all right, nobody can run anything bigger. So here comes Keegan on a 40. How do you do it? Well, his technician, uh, Myron Billy, he put on an Explorer transmission ring.

Troy Laffey: But those are six degrees offset. So he actually had to add and remove dub spacers and push the whole crankset over. So, so Keegan's Q factor was [01:36:00] totally off. He, he was riding, it looked like he was riding a horse. But only half of them. Yeah, he had like a huge gap on the non drive side. And he was, you know, his legs was rubbing up against the seat tube on the drive side.

Troy Laffey: Uh, just to make the chain line work. And so that sparked a conversation at SRAM. Should we make a six degree, uh, Explorer ring? So that you can run that mullet setup that a lot of people enjoy. Yeah. So, I mean, we get those ideas. We do take that feedback. Interesting. 

Jake: Now we know to speak up. 

Derek Kidd: I'd say my, my job is partly to take that feedback from all sources, right?

Derek Kidd: Whether it's you all or whether it's people in the community and fire that up the chain. I was hired to be a punching bag. 

Jake: Well, you heard it here. Um, we'll, we'll, we'll put the show to us. We'll give them your direct email, right? No, seriously, drop us a line. If you're listening to this and you've got some input, feel free to reach out.

Jake: I mean, there's a couple of people that listen to this. I think it's 

Troy Laffey: like the engineer in office space. I take the information from the engineer and I [01:37:00] give it to the customer. 

Jake: Oh, I think I, my only gripe right now with the cycling industry is just to get the prices back in check. I mean, we used to be able to get like a top shelf.

Jake: Like high end road bike with a nice SRAM red group set on it for about 10, 000. And that, that bike's now 000. And I don't know if that's coming from SRAM or if it's the manufacturer or whomever, but I mean, it would just be nice. And I know we're never going to get back to where we were and. You know, pre pandemic in the 2017, 2018 time.

Jake: But again, looking at those price points in comparison to where we're at today, that's still kind of hurts. And you, you hear that from your customer. I mean, you have people that money's no object. They'll come in and buy whatever, but for the average person that comes to the door and they look at the price tag on the bikes and like, Oh, you know, that that's a lot to get anything that's like few thousand dollars less or, you know, something along those lines.

Jake: And yes we do, but I don't know. I just, I want people to be stoked on bikes. One thing. To have that be out there and just not be so far out of reach that they can't ever strive to get there. But [01:38:00] what's nice about SRAM land is like, we tell people this all the time, like just get into the sport, you'll fall in love with it.

Jake: And I always tell people, you put your pension where your passion is. You start to invest in the things that really get you stoked and you'll put the money in there. And what's beautiful about SRAM. These things all play really nicely together. So like, you can start to look at things and say, all right, you know, if you want to start to make your bike lighter, you that that's pretty much going to be the driving thing, because as you've already alluded to, it's all the same technology, it's all going to work really well.

Jake: So it's just a matter of, right. Or if you want to lighten your load up and you want to, you know, take your bike from being 19 pounds down to. 16 or 17 pounds. You can do that. Fortunately cost about a thousand dollars a pound to drop down, but you can start to, you know, change out the crank set, or you can put a different cassette on there.

Jake: You can play with things and make it all kind of play nice together, upgrade that over the course of time, which will keep you stoked to go out there and ride. And next thing you know, you've got yourself a pretty slick little bike. So that part, I do appreciate. Lance. Yep. You done? I'm done. You're done?

Jake: That's good. I think we need to jump into one last thing. We normally talk to Matt. [01:39:00] You want to speak on Matt's behalf because you did watch the video. 

Lance: Matt put out a video yesterday about his hundred day review of the Hammerhead Karoo Uh, bike computer, and so, which is a SRAM owned product. How about that?

Lance: So, he put out a That's why I wanted to make sure that that was mentioned. 

Jake: Have you guys ever watched any of Matt's videos by chance? I, I subscribe. You subscribe to his channel? Oh, right. There you go, sweet. 

Lance: So, he subscribed. So, he put out a very good video about it. It's, uh, it's, it's interesting to see what his thoughts were, uh, after a hundred days.

Lance: So, and it's, it's even been updated since The video was put out. Yes, indeed. You can use headphones now. Yeah, there's an 

Jake: update that just came out, if I'm not mistaken. There are a lot of updates that come from Hammerhead, which is fantastic because it's always cool new features, so It's a blessing and a curse, right?

Jake: It's 

Troy Laffey: like, oh, I gotta learn something else. Yeah, or just to remember to do it, you know, but um, you know, a great example is, I think a couple shows ago, you were speaking about having to have Wi Fi. [01:40:00] Uh, to make your computer work. This thing's Android driven. It's like having a cell phone on your handlebar.

Troy Laffey: Yeah. Yeah, doesn't 

Lance: the wahoo You have to have Wi Fi to update it. Yeah. 

Troy Laffey: Yeah, you know with the with the new third generation crew Which we just call the just the crew It's an Android device and you just don't have to have Wi Fi. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Fantastic 

Jake: Lance, was there anything in that video that you, uh, that you thought was particularly special?

Lance: Uh, uh, Matt, uh, pinched my ass in the middle of the video, so you'll have to go look for that, where that actually was. It's in my queue. 

Jake: It's, it's sitting in my queue of, uh, videos to watch. It'll probably be something to watch on the trainer. And it's so sweet to be able to watch those videos now with no commercials, which is a thing of beauty.

Jake: That's right. YouTube premiums, uh, oh, it's 

Lance: My personal, uh, one last thing, I wanted to ask Troy about his, uh, 4x4 vehicle trip through the maze section of Canyonlands. You just went on a trip, I had recently done a trip through, on the White Rim in Canyonlands, so, uh, it [01:41:00] was, it looked pretty awesome. What was your favorite part about that trip?

Troy Laffey: Uh, it's, you know, in a world that, uh, Like there's no unexplored places left to go right like, you know You think about your idols all the explorers of the past and they got to make the maps. We can't do that anymore There's only so much surface area, but there are some places where most people have never been and for me That's the draw so or the allure Um, and you know, uh, earlier this year we did the White Rim, uh, we, in the past our, our group has done the San Rafael Swell.

Troy Laffey: Okay. Um, you know, all over Moab and Arizona and Colorado, uh, did a month, uh, off road in Baja earlier this year. Oh. Um, for me it's just finding the places that no one ever gets to go to and, and the maze is that, One of those really special places. It's about 10, 000 square miles with one trail that goes through it 

Lance: It's the room.

Lance: It's the most remote section of Canyonlands National Park. It's very difficult to get to correct at any 

Troy Laffey: given time You're never you're never [01:42:00] less than 200 miles from a gas station. And and and so you're out there you're remote And the things that you will see out there You can pretty much guarantee that maybe 500 people a year get to see those things.

Troy Laffey: Um, and like I said, there's one trail that goes through the whole, you know, top to bottom of the trail that goes through it. It's called the Flint Trail, and then there's a bunch of spurs that go off of that, that have varying degrees of, of difficulty in terms of a 4x4. But really, the, the desolation, um, if you've never seen the Milky Way, Um, it's that big white stripe going across the sky every night.

Troy Laffey: It's, it's absolutely mind blowing. And, you know, sometimes in, in a city you're fortunate if you have low light pollution and you have a clear night, you might get a glimpse of the Milky Way. Um, but in the maze, every night, it's just a massive white stripe. Uh, and, and, and the scenery that just goes on for thousands of miles and you know that there's nobody out there.

Troy Laffey: Yeah. Um, it's, it's a special place. It's, it's great to get out there, kind of clear the head. Um, yeah, and I [01:43:00] look forward to doing, uh, a lot more of that in the future. It looked awesome. It looked like a great trip. 

Jake: I have been so jealous and envious of watching you and your little escapades when you document that on, on, um, Instagram, it's just spectacular.

Jake: So 

Troy Laffey: everything I'm doing is working towards that. Um, you know, uh, SRAM is extremely good to me. Um, but I realized that I'm not going to do it forever. Um, and so, uh, I'm working towards, uh, how do I figure out how to do that full time? You know, it's just, you know, you got to have a plan. You got to have an end game.

Troy Laffey: Sure. Um. And yeah, five stars would recommend. 

Jake: One last thing we do this and you get to mention one last thing. I don't know if you guys came into it with something that you wanted to talk about. Um, but Troy, do you have a one last thing that you would like to share with us and everybody else? 

Troy Laffey: Yeah, absolutely.

Troy Laffey: Get involved. Um, You know, it's, uh, in the digital world that we have, it's, we, we've created a place, um, the Royal, we've created a place where, um, we don't need a community as much anymore because we have information, [01:44:00] um, we don't have to ask questions, we don't have to go seek help, um, and that's really creating a strange place to live in, uh, where you don't have to have friends and you don't have to have, you know, colleagues, people are working from home.

Troy Laffey: Uh, people aren't going down to a newsstand to get a newspaper. People aren't going to diners. Um, you know, people aren't, you know you don't really hear about the Elk's club or the Lions clubs or any of those social activism, activism or community clubs anymore. Um, and so for me, I, I want people to, to go outside and get involved, make a, you know, you don't have to be a club.

Troy Laffey: You don't have to have a patch and a jacket, but you know, go hang out with some people, talk, talk to humans. Um, and I'm not going to say devices are bad, you know, like I said, I have one in my pocket. Um, but we don't need them. Yeah. And it's, it's not the end all. So, so just go down to your bike shop, be a part of your community.

Troy Laffey: Well put. 

Jake: Derek, one last thing from you, bud. 

Derek Kidd: Wow. Once again, Troy, I'm just hopping right off your idea here. Um, Um, get involved, get outside and, uh, [01:45:00] if you mountain bike, do some trail work. There are a bunch of cool ways to make new friends in the woods. And totally guilty 

Jake: of, um, not doing that. And I will definitely be something that I think I need to put on my, uh, my to do list.

Jake: Got you. Got me. Sweet. Yeah. Roll into your local 

Derek Kidd: bike shop, figure out who builds the trails in your area, show up to one of their build parties. If you don't want to do that, um, apps like trail forks, all the, all the people that put out the maps, mountain bike trails. They'll always have a little shout out at the bottom for who manages that trail system.

Derek Kidd: It's going to have a link. You go to their website. It will definitely have a way for you to volunteer. And it's just a couple hours, Saturday, Sunday morning, something like that. Um, but you meet a lot of good people and especially on like the really miserable days. Yeah. When it's raining sideways and it's 40 degrees and you're really, you feel like you're in the trenches with these people.

Derek Kidd: And yeah, that is where fun is. Fast friendships are, are made, so yeah. 

Jake: It's just good to get outside to be in nature. It just makes you happy. 40 degree sideways rain. Sure. All right. My one last thing is, [01:46:00] um, I don't even think I've told Lance this. You might've read it on our little Slack thing, but I just switched our, and some people will know exactly what I'm talking about, but we switched all of our hosting for the podcast over to a brand new platform, um, because the, the straw broke the camel's back, what happened last week, and they, screwed up and things were getting pushed out to different platforms.

Jake: And I've got people pinging me like, Hey, I can't see the podcast on Spotify. And it literally took them a week to like, try and help me get things fixed. And like, it's one of those things where like you give them a very detailed outline of everything that's going on. And then they'll send you back an email like a day and a half later.

Jake: Like, did you try this? Like, are you kidding me? I give you a detailed email. I'm like, yes, I tried that. Here's everything. Like I said, already that I did. And can you please help me get this fixed as soon as possible? Two days go by, Oh, okay. Well, what about this, this and this? I'm like, all right, I really need somebody to get this taken care of today.

Jake: And like, again, another day and a half goes by and then like, all right, we're kind of looking at this. Are you sure you didn't do, no, I didn't do that. Did you unplug it and plug it back in? Exactly. If I had that option, I absolutely would. So [01:47:00] anyway, That was the straw that broke the camel's back. I'm like, you know what?

Jake: I need to make a switcher. And I'm glad I did because I haven't looked at all the different platforms. It's been six and a half years that we've been doing this podcast and we've been using the same service that has been integrated into our website and things have changed a little bit. Turns out in the last six, five, 6.

Jake: 5 years, things have just taken leaps and bounds. And so we're on a new platform, which is going to give us all kinds of new tools to play with, which I'm super excited about. And there's a lot of cool little ways that people can be more. Interactive with us. So you can like send us text messages, there's ways to email us and there's even going to be like a, a way to, to call in and there is a service out there that we could do this with, but it didn't work out kind of the way that I wanted, but I think that that's going to be an option for people to call and leave like a recorded message for us, which is kind of cool.

Jake: And there's easier ways for people to get involved in like, be a part of our Patreon and get messages. And then there's. The cool ways for us to put information out there for people. So I'm really stoked about this. It's going to give us a lot of cool stuff to play with. And I'm really stoked. And to everybody who was a little peeved about the podcast, not dropping last week, that [01:48:00] should be up there now.

Jake: So we should be good apologies, but know that that problem has been fixed and hopefully fingers crossed that'll never happen again. And one of the big driving reasons behind me going to the platform that I chose is they've got five star customer service and people were in awe at the fact that people are getting back to them and fixing problems with like in an hour or two, I'm like, Oh, so kind of stuff about that.

Jake: All right, perfect. That's it. You guys, we really, really greatly appreciate you coming in and talking shop with us. We'll have to do this again in the near future or sometime in the future because it was a blast. So yeah. Thanks so much for the invitation. 

Derek Kidd: Yeah. So much for having us. 

Jake: And I'll be, uh, definitely hitting you up with some questions about or comments on how to get there.

Jake: More things change to make myself and my kids happy.

Jake: All right. We really do appreciate everybody listening. We will be back next week with another one ladies. And until then, bye for now.[01:49:00] 

Outro: Let's be in touch, Uh, Uh, Set a new record. Be be be bebeat.

Troy Laffey: Oh, cool. Axis goes beep boop. Shimano doesn't do it. 

Outro: Axis goes beep boop. 

Troy Laffey: Put it on my car, that's what I'm saying. Axis goes beep boop. Shimano doesn't do it. I love it. Axis goes beep boop. Shimano doesn't do it. Axis goes beep boop. Shimano doesn't do it. 

Derek Kidd: Axis goes beep boop. Shimano doesn't do it. 

Intro Lady: Axis goes beep boop, Shimano doesn't do it.

Intro Lady: Axis goes beep boop, Shimano doesn't do it. Axis goes beep boop, Shimano [01:50:00] doesn't do it. 

Troy Laffey: Axis goes beep boop, Shimano doesn't do it.