Dialed Podcast 382 - Root Canals, Paris-Roubaix Predictions, and AI Coming for Ian's Job

The guys are back after a short break with plenty to unpack. Matt takes the family to DC for spring break and walks them into the ground. Lance survives the week from hell after a root canal goes sideways (seven days of Strava zeros, zero sleep, maximum misery). Ian is quietly cooking up race fitness for Barton Park despite some nagging knee pain.

Then it is classics season. Pogačar just took Flanders for the third time and the guys break down who wins Paris-Roubaix on Sunday. Van der Poel going for four in a row? Pogačar going for history? Mathieu the safe money? Everyone locks in a pick.

Hot Seat gets spicy. Do shallow climbing rims have any place on a modern road bike when the pros are racing mountain stages on 60mm deep sections? Then the guys dig into the new 500-gram airbag vest that is being pitched for the pro peloton. Safety innovation or another thing waiting to malfunction at 40 mph?

Big question of the week: are Pogačar, Van der Poel, Van Aert, and Remco really that much better than every generation before them, or does it just look that way? The guys get into genetics, talent scouting, Zwift racing as a recruiting pipeline, and why the best cyclists in the world are probably playing soccer.

Plus: a deep dive on AI in cycling. Coach Kat, LLM's for race nutrition plans, Strava's famously useless AI summaries, and whether Ian is going to be replaced by a chatbot.

Ian is promoting his Barton Park Road Race on May 9th. Sign up, show up, support local racing.

Dialed Cycling Lab. Vancouver, WA. dialedcycling.com

Transcript

Intro: Shut up and sit down, down.

Intro: I'm totally gonna go vegan this season. My,

Intro: I'm riding harder than a hurricane.

Intro: You shaved your legs. The shaving your legs really make a difference, man. Shaved legs make such a difference. Look at that guy with the hairy legs. I saw the old you.

Intro: You are listening to The Dialed Podcast with Matt LeGrand, Lance Heppler. Sir Ian Gibson 

Intro: and Jake von Duering. Optional listening, required,

Intro: I'm totally going vegetarian this season. Ian is cheating man. I think protein's really gonna help me out in my season. Hey man, do you have a gel?

Intro: You guys have some lube I can borrow? 

Jake: Hi and Welcome back to the Dialed podcast. I'm Jake von Duering and I’m here with Lance frigging Heppler, 

Lance: Lance frigging Heppler. 

Matt: For your listening. Pleasure. 

Lance: Screw dentist. Screw dental pain. Screw teeth. 

Matt: Oh man. 

Lance: You're welcome. Oh, for 

Matt: saying that Last, last podcast. If people don't remember, Lance has been dealing with… Lance’s Face Fell off.

Matt: Lance 

Lance: is Son of a Bitch Man. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lance: Has not been good. We'll get there. 

Matt: Rooting out. Did we talk about it on the podcast or did we? Briefly, yeah. Okay. We did. All right. 

Jake: Bloody Dentist to his right, the one and only Ser Gibson. 

Ian: Hello, you Wankers. 

Jake: Oh, currently not winking. 

Matt: Winking. I feel like, uh, 

Ian: I just came up with that.

Matt: That's good. 

Ian: Good. 

Matt: That's good. That's actually quite the intro. Yeah. Actually I quite like that. I mean, with the horns in the background, it's, it's, 

Ian: it's now my version of ladies and gentlemen of the internet, 

Matt: ladies and gentlemen of the internet. Did you? 

Ian: Hello? You wankers? 

Jake: Did you guys wanna do that? 

Matt: Yeah.

Jake: To his right. Last and least per usual gram, 

Matt: ladies and gentlemen on the internet. I what? I don't even know what I say anymore. 

Jake: Dodgy, wankers. 

Matt: You guys are looking, you guys are looking fantastic. You look like you've seen some stuff. You look like you've been through some stuff this week. There's been some stuff, there's been some things that done.

Matt: You've done some stuff. 

Jake: Cool. How about we talk about that? Matt, you wanna talk? 

Matt: Um, I have been in Washington, DC the whole time. Oh, how was that? It was super great, you know, 

Lance: just with your kids and family. Yeah. 

Matt: Yeah. And it was, it was like, it wasn't like a swimming thing, which is wild. 

Lance: It was a spring break thing.

Matt: It was spring break and we just, we were just tourists, which was super fun. Um, I feel like I haven't done a trip like that in a long time where we're just like, let's just go see the monuments in the Yeah. In the museums and do enough walking to kill a small child. So, you know, I may have lost one, but we're good.

Jake: I've never been Is it pretty clean? Is it safe or, 

Matt: um, 

Jake: what, what's the 

Matt: Yeah, it was, it was good. Clean. Clean enough, and safe enough. I felt fine. Um, I, I, yeah, I mean, we, there were some days where like I would, I would start my GPS watch and it would just be like the second half of the day. So we've been like walking all morning and then I just checked the GPS on like the second half of the day and it was like six miles.

Matt: I'm like, oh man. Which, you know, I'm thinking to myself like, all right, so probably dig close to double that. Like, that was just so much walking. Like all of our kids' legs were just like hurting and aching beat up 

Lance: because there's been so much, 

Matt: so much walking. So we, we got a Airbnb and we're about a mile from.

Matt: Maybe two miles from Lake. Somewhere in that range from like the Capitol. And then there's all this, like, there's another two miles of, they call it like the National Mall or whatever, where it's just like this, like stretch of, you know, museums and things. And you go all the way down, you see the Lincoln Memorial with like the reflection.

Matt: Anyway, uh, so there's, there's just so much walking that you can do if you wanna see a whole bunch of stuff. 

Jake: Did you slap on your goggles and get your Garmin watch out and go jump in the, the reflection pool and 

Matt: do 

Jake: some laps? 

Matt: I did. Yep, I did. I was arrested twice. Make a video there 'cause of the nudity. 

Jake: Oh.

Matt: Um, so yeah, be on the lookout for that video on YouTube. I'm sure that's gonna get flagged. Been there, been there, done that. 

Lance: Uh, when my kids were like 10 to 15. Okay. We went, which is, we went to Washington DC So same, same type thing? Same, 

Matt: same. 

Lance: Except mine was a little bit. More in Heppler fashion. We 

Matt: more nudity.

Lance: More nudity, nudity. 

Matt: The LA Grand, the LA Grands only had a little bit of nudity. Heppler went big. 

Lance: We went big. We were in Baltimore because I was getting some national dental award actually. Yeah. So I, we were in Baltimore and it's close by to Washington DC and we had like an open like 12 hours. Oh 

Matt: wow.

Lance: And so I'm like, kids go, we're driving to DC and we're gonna see everything. We're like, so I was in, I was in full travel dad mode. Hey, schedule, I'm tapping my watch. We, we saw every monument went to the cemetery. Look at the We went to the cemetery. Yeah, went to the Smithsonian. Okay. Went to the White House, went to Capitol.

Lance: We, we saw everything in like 12 hours. And then my kids hated me and never want to go back. 

Matt: Yeah, I bet. They're like, oh, that was torture. I 

walked 

Lance: them into the dirt 

Matt: because the Arlington National Cemetery is. It is walk, you know, it's within walking distance, but then that if you get into that cemetery, it's 

Lance: gigantic.

Matt: So Kristen's grandfather is buried there, which is pretty cool. He was like a four star general, like big. He's a big deal. It's pretty cool. 

Lance: Wow. 

Matt: I know, right? Um, and so we just went to his grave. But it's a lot of walkin. 

Lance: We only went to watch the guard thing, the tomb of the unknown 

Matt: soldier. Yeah, the guard change.

Matt: Yeah. Yeah. It's super cool. No, 

Lance: that's not true. 

Ian: You guys have a changing of the guard too. Is that a thing here? 

Matt: Yeah, 

Lance: there's a, 

Matt: there's just one. 

Lance: There's this different than what you, there's a guard for the tomb of the unknown soldier that is, that is guarded 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And it has been since like the sixties or something.

Lance: Yeah, 

Matt: that sounds right. 60, 70, 

Lance: somewhere there. Yeah, something like that. And so they change guards every hour and there's a whole like 

Matt: ceremony. 

Lance: Ceremony and 

Matt: you probably, it's pretty cool. You probably saw like the JFK spot. I pitch like you guys are, guys are animals, 

Lance: everything. Just 

Matt: like he, where's the next thing?

Matt: He's our, where's animals? Those are animals. Yeah, it was a great trip. It was a great trip. We, um, my little brother lives in North Carolina. He drove up and he saw us for half the trip and the cousins got to play together. His kids are a little bit younger. Uh, one, his like middle kid is like, just like wire, like, just like he's a wild, he's like a wild man.

Matt: And uh, like it's kind of always like, let's, let's go on the escalators and try to run backwards on him. And I'm like, yeah, let's do it. 'cause I'm the uncle, right, right. The uncles can do stuff like that. So he got his, he got his Crocs and his socks stuck in the ex es the Smithsonian escalator. Like, we are like really scared that he is gonna get his foot like.

Matt: You know, really hurt, right? Oh, no. And so they had to like, um, rope off this section of the Smithsonian and like, turn off this escalator. It was hilarious. I was like, taking pictures. I'm like, I send this to my, my dad. 'cause my dad's like, oh, this is hilarious. This is funny. So that was a highlight of the trip, but I didn't, as far as backpedal goes, I didn't, you know, really get to do anything.

Matt: I mean, I did sneak into the pool yesterday after we got back, but I, I haven't, you know, just walking, walk, walk, walk. Not a lot of, not even a lot of running and it's actually a pretty good place to run. So I was too tired. 

Jake: Yeah. 

Matt: Yep, yep, yep, yep. So that's my backpedal gibo. 

Ian: Um, I don't feel like I've got anything.

Ian: Super weather's been nice, interesting pod worthy to talk about since last time we were here. Did I did some riding. 

Matt: Did you get out yesterday? 

Ian: Yeah. 

Matt: I 

Ian: mean, the weather, I've been out the last three days. Really? Um, 'cause that's all I do, right? I'm retired and I go to the gym and I ride my bike and, 

Matt: and you just look good the whole time.

Matt: It's 

Ian: a good love. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Ian: Um, couple of days ago, I, so I already wanna segue into my upcoming race somehow. So, um, two days ago I went out and rode the course for the upcoming Barton Park Yeah. Road race coming up on May 9th. So we can talk about that later in a bit. But, uh, yeah. Yeah. Suffering with knee pain again.

Ian: So my me too training is kind of taking a dive right now. Like, oh 

EPO Chainmail: man. 

Ian: I mean, I'm riding, but it's not very productive. So I, I did some structured training last week and pushed in and thought Great. Doing these VO two intervals. Finally got around to it and, uh, I'm gonna be building race fitness, but I don't think it's gonna happen 'cause my knee hurts.

Ian: Yeah. 

Matt: Hoochie. Ouch. Get on some, get on some PT of some sort. 

Ian: Yeah, I'm 

Matt: sure you've 

Ian: got all that. Yeah. Kind of going back to the, um, the exercises that, that, uh, Evan gave me, uh, president, uh, local PT and, uh, we'll see how it goes. Hopefully, uh, coming up, we have all kinds of things going on. Banana Belt road race, um, go gravel, a race, so I wanna be in shape for that.

Matt: I looked ahead at the weather and it was like all rain. Like for the foreseeable future starting tomorrow? I think so. 

Lance: Really? 

Matt: I think so. I mean, I don't, you know how it is, like, it looks like there's some rain in the forecast. Doesn't mean that it's gonna rain all day, so. 

Ian: Yeah, 

Matt: day positive 

Ian: right now. Next weekend is, Saturday was looking not too bad, right?

Ian: We did, we did burn pa, not burn part. We did banana belt last year at this time. Wasn't it 

Lance: pouring rain? 

Ian: Oh, it was dreadful. It was like the worst racing. Oh geez. Experience ever. I mean, hypothermia. It was horrible. So hopefully we don't have to do that again. 

Jake: That's not fun. 

Ian: Yeah, that's all I gotta say.

Ian: Really 

Jake: Cool. How about you ler?

Lance: Last week sucked the balls like this. This is probably the right way to hear this out because all I'm gonna do is complain like a 10-year-old, 

Matt: that's how you're like, that's your, your actual tooth complaining 

Lance: from the back of your mouth. This is my tooth. 

Jake: Oh, we're talking to Lance's tooth. What's up Lance's tooth?

Lance: Hey, what the, I just, just wanna make it this. Hey, what's happening? Hey. Screw you. You scratch ball. I don't even know what I'm saying. 

Jake: What's up, ler? 

Lance: Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Last week, uh, really did suck balls. I don't know why I delayed when you hit that button. I just felt like you were doing something and I was right.

Lance: Gosh, dang it. Uh, yeah, that my tooth pain actually got significantly worse after we recorded the last podcast. So I, I think it was the day after I had my root canal done. And root canals 90% of the time are inconsequential, don't have real issues. Mine was not that case. It was not because I ignored it for too long or put it off for too long, or went to some hack who didn't know what he was doing or it wasn't any of that.

Lance: It just was unfreaking lucky that I just ended up with significant pain. It hurt so much I couldn't, I couldn't think straight at all and I was feeling it a little bit during the podcast. Yeah. Last week. I dunno if you kind of tell. I had to get quiet for a little bit. Yeah. Because my brain like just moved to a different.

Lance: Position. But, uh, yeah, I ended up, I ended up recording seven days of zeros on Strava. Do you know how 

Matt: you need a break? You needed a break. 

Ian: That's what I was telling you. He's probably gonna feel better 

Matt: than he's probably gonna come on the other side of this and kick ass. Yeah. It's not fair. 

Lance: Well, my legs are fresh.

Lance: I'll say that. My legs feel pretty fresh. 

Matt: Have you been sleeping at all? 

Lance: Um, I didn't for six days. Yeah. Like I was awake every couple of hours with, with how much it hurt. Um, I was trying to take pain meds to help me sleep. Pain meds don't affect me very much. Like, I mean, the joke is that I can, I could take a handful of Vicodin and still do complex algebra, you know, 

Ian: still.

Ian: Now I wanna, I wanna bring this up. You can still do complex algebra, so, so you can do complex algebra? 

Lance: No. It allows me to do complex algebra 

Ian: when, when you otherwise cannot. Right. So it's, it gives you this superpower. 

Lance: It does. It gives me the superpower. 

Matt: When you look at, look at it after the drugs wear off, it's just chicken scratch.

Matt: That's 

Lance: right. 

Matt: But 

Lance: wait, this doesn't make any sense. You know, it's methamphetamine. That makes you do better. 

Matt: Oh, okay. Okay. Both in cycling and in al algebra. 

Lance: Yeah. Cycling. Cycling and algebra. 

Matt: Maybe cycling while cycling, while doing algebra. I don't know. 

Lance: Anyway, I was freaking miserable. Did not sleep, was in pain.

Lance: Had to go on antibiotics. Really couldn't take the pain meds very much 'cause they weren't really helping. Did the 

Matt: antibi. So do you think it got infected? 

Lance: It just, it was just a, a, a multitude of things that caused the tooth to hurt the ligament that holds the tooth in the bone. We can get really a technical here, dental speak if you want, but the ligament that holds the tooth in the bone had gotten injured and infected, and so that's what was causing some of the pain, not necessarily the nerve inside the tooth.

Lance: Those are two separate things, but it was two things that just like. Resulted in this storm of pain. Like my wife was actually worried about me because I'm just was sitting on the couch rocking like, 

Matt: yeah, 

Lance: like holding my face. Like, I just can't, I can't think. I don't know what to do. And I, and there was, it wasn't, it wasn't like I could call the dentist who did this and said, Hey, what's going on?

Lance: I know exactly what's going on. You knew, I knew exactly what's going on. I knew you knew 

Matt: the ligament. You thought 

Lance: like, this is this ligament. Yes. And I knew there was nothing to be done about it except time and medication and the mea medication wasn't working for me. So it was just like, 

Jake: should have taken more medication.

Jake: Just keep going man. 

Lance: Just keep, just keep piling it on. Sure. Actually, I brought 

Matt: you some of the good stuff I have. 

Lance: Uh, dude, I had some good stuff. My wife just had shoulder surgery. There was good stuff all over the house. 

Matt: House man. 

Lance: Tic-tac. But it just, it just wasn't working. So when the pain finally stopped.

Lance: For lessened. I slept for like two straight days because I hadn't like slept at all. Oh my gosh. It was, it was a big, deep, dark hole. I was not happy. I was not, it was all just kind of bad. I skipped a race that tells you how ugly it was. I didn't ride my bike. I skipped a race. I, 

Matt: I think we suggested you guys that you skip the race last podcast.

Matt: We'll have to play this back on rewind probably. 

Lance: And I'm like, oh no, I'll probably go do it. I really, I really was kind of planning to go, but no, there was no fricking way. There was no way. So anyway, that's behind me. I'm feeling 90% better. Yeah. 

Matt: Maybe you should ease back into things. 

Lance: Um, I should ease back into things.

Lance: There is a race tomorrow, a gravel race tomorrow I'm gonna do the short course. Um, I did a little ride yesterday just to make sure my legs would feel okay. How 

Matt: far is the short course? How long? 

Lance: It's 40 miles. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lance: And 3000 feet of climbing. So there's, there's some climbs in it. Yeah. Um, 

Matt: but you think you, you think it'll take you three hours?

Lance: No, it'll probably take me two 20 or something like that, depending on how my legs feeling. If it 

Matt: takes you three hours, that'd be all right. 

Lance: Yeah, it would be okay. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lance: But, uh, bring 

Matt: snacks. You can snap, 

Lance: stop and have a picnic. I can, I can snack. Yeah. But I did a ride yesterday just to make sure I would like, be able to do it.

Lance: I did like a three hour ride yesterday. Yeah. Not hard. Just zone two for three hours and yeah, my legs felt great. My heart rate was like 10 beats higher than it normally would be because it's like readjusting to being No, not revved up. So anyway, I'm on the backside of that. Um, and we'll see how the rest of this, uh.

Lance: You'll 

Matt: be fine in two weeks, I'll be fine. Two weeks, but give yourself the two weeks, man. Don't put yourself into all these crazy scenarios. 

Lance: Race. I'm doing a stupid race 

Matt: tomorrow. Tomorrow. I'm gonna descend as hard as I can tomorrow. 

Lance: Oh yeah, that'll happen. I 

Matt: know it will. 

Lance: Mike Ripley actually called me yesterday and asked me to lead out the short course again like I did at Pendleton.

Lance: So I'm currently looking for skate parks. 

Matt: Yes. 

Ian: I definitely think though that 

Matt: gravel, gravel skate 

Lance: parks are everywhere. Skate parks are everywhere in Carlton, Oregon. They're, they're very common there. 

Matt: Very 

Jake: common. Wait, wait, wait. Is, is this like a huge opportunity in the making? Like when you lead out, what kind of stuff can you.

Jake: I mean, they, they can't tell what you can't do. Right. They 

Ian: can't. He can lead you into skate parks and 

Lance: he can lead you into a skate park. 

Jake: No, seriously though. Would you consider doing that just to be funny, just like, I dunno, go do a couple laps around, make for a better video. I mean, what do consider Yes.

Jake: What's there, what's, what's there? 

Lance: I don't know what's in Carlton. We actually pull out and hit right. We're right on a main road and we're neutral for like two and a half miles. So it's, there's nothing, just 

Jake: go find a roundabout or something like that and do a couple laps around that first, and then, 

Lance: well, we're only like, we're only gapped by like 20 seconds.

Lance: Yeah. From the long course. So we actually catch the tail end like. Within 60 seconds, we catch the tail end of, of the slower people in the long course. Some 

Jake: fun with it. 

Lance: Yeah, I should have it. I just take em an extra lop around the Carlton Bakery. 'cause that place is pretty fantastic. Just say I don, I don't 

Jake: know guys, 

Lance: we're supposed to go around the bakery.

Lance: What? That's what it says. That's what I was told. Dude. Go around. 

Jake: Blame it on GP Sr. 

Ian: Well, last time you did this for Mike, you gave a 22nd gap be between us and the long course riders and then within about. 15 seconds. You were threading your way through the long course riders. That's that is true. To get to the front, 

Lance: the whole point of me leading it out was just to create the gap 

Ian: and led me and everybody's on, led me straight into the skate park where I That is 

Lance: correct.

Lance: Where you probably 

Ian: crash. Where my race became undone. 

Lance: So I'll do the same thing. 

Ian: Dodgy wan girl. 

Lance: Anyway, that's it. Cool. Jake.

Lance: Freaking

Lance: I didn't do 

Intro: Poo. 

Outro: Charles Champ Bailey. Champ Bailey News on the do podcast. Donlan. No pants. And at a mic. He's got some big news. That's right. Cycling beat on his game. Namedropping the pros and gets the dirt net. Might even a song time be right. Champion here. Some news is my game. 

Jake: Champ Bailey. What's up 

Lance: dude?

Lance: Champ is here. Hey, we did have the tour of Flanders this last weekend. It is like classics week. It is like holy week in Belgium at the moment because we had the tour of Flanders last Sunday and we have per rue this Sunday in two days. So, um, the tour of Flanders, um, was actually a fantastic race to watch.

Lance: Uh, all the big hitters were there. Um, who, who decided to step in at the last minute? REM code decided to line up at the last minute. Um, 

Matt: was he there because he wanted to like test his front flip skills? 

Lance: Right? Did you see the video that came out? 

Matt: I don't know. I mean, I think I saw like, glance. I mean, I know, obviously I know like that, that happened.

Matt: I just can't remember. Like, I don't remember why. I just remember seeing him like, 

Lance: we still don't know why. 

Matt: Oh, okay. 

Lance: Okay. So I'm gonna stop on the Flanders report for a minute because of this is 

Matt: important 

Lance: of video. So, so Remco and Jonas were in a breakaway. This was during the tour of day Catalonia. What was it?

Lance: Cata. The right race wasn't even the right race. Sorry, sorry. So different race. They were in a breakaway in one of the stages and Remco was pulling. Jonas would not go to the front. He was sitting on REMCOs wheel the whole time and they were, they had a ten second gap within like, within kilometers, 500 meters of the finish line.

Lance: REMCOs drilling it on the front. Jonas is behind him and Remco crashes outta the blue. And they don't catch it with the, with the video, with the filming coverage. 'cause they only had a helicopter shot at the time. Well, a, a video just surfaced of a fan who got it on his cell phone as they went by. And you still can't tell what happened other than they're both drilling it.

Lance: They look like they're doing 30 miles an hour. They probably are. Yeah. And all of a sudden Remco just goes over the bars, nose wheelies, and goes over the bars. Whack. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lance: So he either, he either inadvertently grabbed his brake, his front brake or hit something. He hit something. But there was nothing really to hit because Jonos was Right.

Lance: Right on his wheel. So it was, it was a little interesting. But you can see the video where he just all of a sudden, whoop knows we lose in whack. He's on the pavement. 

Matt: I wonder if he hit something. Who knows. Who knows? 

Jake: Has he spoken on it? 

Lance: He just said he, he, he said he thought he hit a, a hole in the road or that he, but he also said that he was switching from the tops to the drops.

Lance: Mm-hmm. Or was he switching the other way? Because they were just about to go through a roundabout Uhhuh. So maybe he was switching from, anyway, bad timing. He was switching from one to the other and he did it two handed, we talked about it last week. 

Matt: Yeah. Yep. But this, this is before Flanders, so he's right, wasn't it?

Lance: Yeah, 

Matt: before Fs. So he, okay, fine. So he's Okay. It was a, he flipped. 

Lance: He flipped over. Bus busted, busted, scraped up some things, got some bruises, and then hopped on the bike and rolled back in. Yeah. Hopped in the bike. Go pull back in. 

Ian: That's, that's the way you know that though, like you can have your hands on the handlebars for 99% of the ride.

Ian: And then when you, um. When you take your hands away, that's when you hit that bump when something happens. Correct. Happened to me. I've, I crashed in the parking lot at a, um, cyclo cross race a couple years ago. 

Lance: That's 

Ian: right before the start, right 

Lance: in mattress. 

Ian: I remember that same thing. Hands off the bar, hit something, boom, hit 

Lance: something, boom.

Lance: Go 

Ian: down. Same thing happened to my friend, uh, Dickey on, on Saturday. 

Lance: Oh no. 

Ian: Went down in the middle of the road again, 

Lance: just all by himself. 

Ian: Yep. 

Matt: Is he okay? 

Ian: He's okay. Yeah. 

Lance: Alright. 

Ian: Kind of bruised up, but yeah. 

Lance: Anyway, so back to Flanders. Remco shows up. Um, there was a selection pretty early on. Uh, all the hitters ended up in it.

Lance: Yeah. So like, it's all that, all the favorites. It was, it was Poot, Vanderpool, w um, Mads, Peterson and Remco. They were all in it for a while. It was just the five of them. 

Matt: It looked like they were letting Poot do the work. From what I could tell, but I, of course, there's these breakaways are a lot longer than the highlights that you see.

Matt: Right, right. And so, like I'm seeing, and I'm like, he's always in front doing the work. 

Lance: Um, a couple of them took some short pulls and came through, but eventually no. They, he, he was doing most of the work and of course he ended up dropping everybody. It, it was kind of a weird finish in that the top five men all finished like 30 seconds apart.

Lance: Like, not like, like Poot finished and then there were 30 seconds and then Vanderpool finished, and then there were 30 seconds, and then Remco finished, and then there was 30 seconds, and then w finished, and then there was 30 seconds. And then Wow. And then Matt Peterson finished, and then they also finished in the order of, of what their predicted finished was going to be.

Lance: Wow. So it was a little strange that it finished like that. But yes, PCIA ended up winning. He wins, uh, flans for the third time. And uh, what, he's just the king of the world at the moment. He's our Leo DiCaprio. So that's what happens. 

Ian: Right. Is he gonna win on Sunday? 

Lance: That's a great question. We've got day one of the 

Matt: hardest options.

Matt: I mean, if he does then he, does he win all of them. 

Lance: Because that's, 

Jake: that'll be the Never 

Matt: Happened has it? 

Jake: Or WhatsApp? I think there's a couple that have done all of them. 

Lance: No, nobody's ever won all five monuments in a calendar year. 

Jake: Oh, and I'm talking about just in general. 

Lance: Yes, 

Jake: but in a calendar year. Yeah, 

Lance: in a calendar year.

Lance: Nobody's done it in a calendar year. And if he wins on Sunday in per Ru Bay, he would definitely have a shot at, because Ill Lombardia, he fricking owns that race. He's won it like five years in a row. I can't remember what the fifth monument is. Mm-hmm. The last one is, ill Lombardia, what's the other one? I look like an idiot.

Lance: What normal. So, um, anyway, we'll see what happens at per rube. Per rue doesn't have any like big climbs in it, so it's not as advantageous to the smaller climber riders. It, that's why it tends to do better than, that's why bigger riders tend to do better on at Peri Rue because it's just about the rough cobblestone sections and not necessarily about any big climbs.

Jake: Mil San Remo. 

Lance: Mil Sanremo. He won 

Jake: Tour of Flanders. 

Lance: Tour of Flanders Perry Rue this Sunday. 

Jake: The age. Boston only 

Lance: age. Oh the age Best. Only age. Okay. J Lo and then Lombardi. 

Jake: Yep. 

Lance: Uh, liaise. If, if, um, if Remco is actually firing that race kind of favors Remco a little bit, so it could be interesting to see what happens there.

Lance: But yeah, per rupe the Sunday, I'm freaking excited for that. That should be fun to see. What happens. So 

Jake: now, Todd Slovenia, right? 

Lance: Yes. 

Jake: We've got a listener from Slovenia that, that listens regularly. I, I see it in the stats. It's gotta be Todd, right? 

Lance: It's gotta be 

Jake: Todd. Can you just give hundred percent, give us a call or hit us up on that text thing?

Jake: On our 

Lance: uh, it could be IC or Mateo Marick. They're both from Sweden. No, it's Todd. It's Todd. 

Jake: You know, he's listening. Let us know what you gonna do. Anyway. 

Lance: Anyway, so, um, that's the big, uh, stuff that happened. The other stuff that's been happening there is the, uh, the tour of the bass country that's happening right now.

Lance: Mm-hmm. And Paul Sex is just freaking owning it. And I mentioned him last week. He's the 19-year-old kid on, uh, decathlon. And the kid can time trial. Yeah. And he can climb. And so. Whoa. He is just owning that race. He won again today. 

Jake: Yep. 

Lance: So 

Jake: I've hardly watched anything of late 'cause just my life isn't working where I get to have that leisurely time.

Jake: I did catch a clip though, was that was one of the races. One where, um, Jonos was in a break with somebody else and they were kind of like sitting up towards the end and Jonis wouldn't come around and take a pole and it, it came down to like the, the Pelotons going to, you know. Catch him. He didn't catch him or whatnot if they don't get after it right now.

Jake: And so Jonas played his cards as best he possibly could, sitting on this guy's wheel. And then they had to get up and start sprinting. Otherwise they're gonna get swallowed up. And, and the guy ended up riding him off his wheel riding Jonas off his wheel. Oh, for the, the one at the line was that, that race?

Lance: No, Jonni isn't at that race. He's not at, uh, 

Jake: was that a re race country? I just, I caught that somewhere. I don't even know what it was. And I was just watching it. I'm like, oh, bike racing. I wish I could have time to watch it right now. I don't 

Lance: think that was this year. 

Jake: That doesn't that, that doesn't surprise me.

Jake: That checks. Yeah. 

Matt: That could be. 'cause sometimes you get these clips, like you're just like scrolling through and it's like, oh, this is Amazing's cool. And you're 

Jake: like, oh, that was my shit. I don't even, I wasn't even scrolling that just, I think I was probably having to check something on Facebook marketplace or something like that.

Jake: And it was like in the feed. There's like the reel that 

Matt: Facebook, Facebook, Facebook will get you 

Jake: probably. Yeah. 

Matt: Facebook is a place to avoid. 

Jake: Redact that whole thing and carry on. 

Matt: Alright. 

Lance: Uh, yeah. So Ru so sexist is showing up that, hey, there's still talent that's still coming up. And he's 19 years old.

Lance: He's 19 years old. Taking 

Matt: bets on Perry. Rube. 

Lance: Rube. So, uh, w is there, Vanderpool is there. I think, I don't know if Mads Peterson is doing it. Poots there, there's gotta be one of those. It's gonna be random, right? I don't 

Matt: know. It could be. There's this race can do some crazy 

Lance: stuff. It can, it could, a lot of stuff could happen.

Lance: Um, Ws. Pre-race routine got a bit of a blow because he has been training on the wheel set that has, uh, the air, the automatic air regulation. Mm-hmm. Oh, no. And the UCI just decided to ban it. Oh, 

Matt: okay. That's it. Yeah. Nothing else. Okay. That'd be fine. 

Lance: Yeah, so it was, it was the, it was the wheel set where you could, you could raise and lower air pressure while you rode, so, yeah.

Matt: Yeah. Which is great for Perry Bay. I mean, it's, which 

Lance: is great for Perry 

Matt: Bay. We've been talking about this tech on this podcast for like three or four years. Yes. And it's just never really worked, or 

Lance: never, no. Becausecause the wheel set was like $5,000. What was the rationale that behind 

Jake: them? 

Lance: I didn't read it.

Lance: I just saw the headline. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lance: Which, you know, lame. That's classic. 

Matt: Yep. 

Ian: Well, no, I understand it, definitely. It's, it, it's because sort thing taking security of the sport or thing. No, no. I think, uh, that that'll, that trickles down to, to racing at our level. Right. And then be, before you know it, you need to spend $5,000 on a wheel set to be competitive with.

Ian: People that you might otherwise beat. So it same sort of thing with time trial bikes. It becomes this, this race of the tech, not that technology and who can afford it. And I think Yeah, that's, 

Jake: I hear you there, but at the same time, I mean if it's technology that's advancing the sport, I mean, why aren't they still running on mechanical derailers or 

Ian: Yeah.

Jake: Tubed tires or, you know, I don't know. 

Ian: Right. 

Jake: Just my 2 cents. 

Ian: But I mean, I mean just like all like motorsports, you know, there has to be a formula and a greet and agreed on parameters. Yeah. That you have to, 

Jake: and well for them it's, it just has to be available to the general public. Yeah. And that's why like, I think Factor bikes makes a, a track bike or something like that.

Jake: That's, um, 

Ian: yeah. 

Jake: $50,000 if I'm not mistaken. So they'll basically, they'll make you one if you really want one, you know, kind of a thing. And that's how, that's legal. That's, they're just riding on these crazy bikes. 

Ian: Right. 

Jake: Anyway, so going back to the favorites for Perry Rube, um, I mean, you've got your two primers.

Jake: VanderPol and Poot. Gotcha. After that you've got the likes of like a Matt Peterson, VIN Art, Felipo, Gaana. Who else would be on that list? Who else is gonna be lining up that could potentially be a, a hitter in your guys' opinion? 

Lance: No, that's it. 

Jake: What about like a Jasper Phillips and do you think he'll be in there towards the, the finish?

Jake: Hold 

Lance: on. He, it take second. A couple years ago. Yeah. He took second a couple years ago. 

Jake: Yep. 

Lance: Um, Vanderpool Vanderpool was off the front and Asper Phillipson was in the second group on the road and ended up out sprinting everybody. I remember this because Vanderpool had finished and he was celebrating and he stopped a celebration to watch Jasper.

Jake: Oh 

Lance: my God. Out. Sprint, everybody for second place. There you go. So that was, that was kind of cool. 

Jake: Yep. You also got, uh, Floridian Verish and Christophe LaPorte. Stefan Kung. Those are some other notable names. 

Ian: Mm-hmm. It could be one of those, one of those, um, sort of second, third tier, um, predictions because of those top, let's say five guys, the chances of at least one of them having a mechanical or a crash or something at a critical time is, is almost a hundred percent.

Ian: One of those guys is gonna luck out and one of, one of 'em is gonna get unlucky or several of them. Anything can happen in that race. 

Lance: You know, there's a lot about road racing that luck is a big part of it, but it's even more so with Perry Bay because there's gonna be mechanical issues. Call your 

shot, 

Lance: call your shot Po Gotcha's gonna do it.

Lance: He is motivated. 

Matt: Yeah, he's motivated. Ian. 

Ian: No. Can't beat Vanderbilt. 

Matt: Dang it. Who are you going with? Jake? I wanna, I want to go against you guys, but you guys already made hard. Well, GA 

Lance: was on Vanderpools wheel was this last year. He was on his wheel with like 10 K to go. 

Ian: He won't be able to shake him off though.

Lance: And 

Ian: how, where will he crash 

Lance: him off? Crash. He crashed? Yes. He like just, he wasn't a bad crash corner. It wasn't a bad, he 

Matt: just overcooked 

Lance: a corner or something. He, he went his, his bike was 

Matt: okay. 

Lance: His bike was okay. He was back on it and going again. That was all it took. It was too much of a gap to close 

Ian: unless VanderPol has some mechanical incident Where on that race course can Poot shake off?

Ian: Vander Bull? Can't. 

Lance: You can't, you are correct. There isn't 

Ian: a, and then when it comes to a climb to do 

Lance: it, 

Ian: yeah, there's, 

Lance: yeah, 

Jake: I got a hot take. 

Lance: Okay. 

Jake: Bo gotcha crashes. Vanderpool and Van Art are gonna be mixing it up. Patterson might be in there a little bit too. As much as I want w to win, I think Vanderpool gets the better of him.

Jake: And, uh, I think Todd a probably finishes pretty far back, but should be okay. Probably not gonna be hurt. Hurt, but I don't think that it's gonna happen. So that's just my 2 cents. I think that he's got this thing in his sights. I think that he might be a little, not overly confident because when you're that good, you can be that confident.

Jake: But that's a demanding course and I think something's going to come outta left field for him. And I don't think that it's gonna be a situation where, uh, he's gonna be in the mix to win it because he's gonna have a little snafu. 

Lance: He, um, he has won three years in a row. Are are you talking about, did you talk about Vanderpool or are we talking about Poot?

Lance: Po Gotcha. Vanderpool has won three years in a row. Yeah. So is his time up? Because I 

Jake: don't know, but I would love, luck is gonna 

Lance: come down on the 

Jake: wrong side. My heart wants wow to win. I, I, I, I want win. Everybody wants Wow to win. Who 

Lance: doesn't want 

Jake: Wow. To win. So I'll go on a limb and I'll say, W wins, but the little chirpy thing, Hey, Vanderbilt's gonna win.

Jake: You know, I think that's probably gonna be what happens, but I'll, I'll put my money on Van. That's my, 

Ian: I think, uh, VanderPol as well with, with his cyclo cross background and his, his mountain biking background. Uhhuh, he's probably less likely to suffer a fall or a mechanical as well. Statistically wild as well, right?

Ian: Because those guys know how to ride that kind of serene and a, and avoid those situations to a degree. I mean, not a hundred percent anything can happen, but I, I think they've got that, those off-road skills count for a lot in that 

Matt: range. I think. I think MVP's gonna win. I think he's gotta be, I think he's gotta be the favorite, but like, part of me wants to see Poot, like make history.

Matt: So 

Lance: it's fun to witness history, 

Matt: it's fun to witness history. I'm gonna, I'm just gonna go with Poot just for the fun of that. Even if I lose the, the bet, this is an important bet to win. But, uh, if 

Jake: he does win, I'm, I'm on board with you on that. I 

Matt: don't, I don't hate 

that, 

Jake: but I don't hate that. But 

Matt: yeah. Yeah.

Matt: I don't know. 

Lance: It's still not, it's still not boring racing. I mean, that's what everybody says, no. Poot like is winning. Like everything he wants to win and make. Does this make these racists boring? No. Me, 

Matt: every time they go through a, a, you know, like a, a cobbled section, it's exciting. Like it's always like nerve wracking and you kind of always feel like the blood pressure goes up.

Matt: They're about to go into one of those stages. It's just like, hold your breath for however this long, this section is, this cobbled section is, and then you're kinda like, okay. Like they, they made it through that without any crazy stuff happening. And then you get to the next one and it's like the same thing.

Matt: It's like kind of you're on the edge of your seat the whole time watching that race. 

Lance: Okay, Matt? 

Matt: Except for the beginning, which is boring. 

Lance: What's the over under on us seeing video footage of a tubeless tire completely off the rim and sealant spilled everywhere. Don't, don't. We see that every, every year in that race, somebody's like tire is off the rim.

Lance: Not just flat, but like off the rim. A 

Matt: hundred percent. We'll see 

Lance: that a hundred percent. We're 

Matt: gonna see that. 

Ian: That's an amazing race. It is the one race that I, or the one one day race that I'll watch from start to finish. 

Matt: Do you feel like the beginning's a little bit boring or, I mean, there's still like attacks and there's still stuff.

Ian: Yeah, it can be, it 

Matt: just kind of feels like the, it almost feels like a long stretch into the first like, comp Sec, I dunno. Anyway. 

Ian: Yeah, yeah. Well it is, it's like 90 Ks before the first SEC sector, 

Matt: and that's early in the morning too, so, yeah, 

Lance: I think it's on, uh, it's on HBO Max, I believe. 

Matt: Is it? Okay. 

Lance: This race is, 

Ian: this is how freaking old I am though.

Ian: I remember watching this race the first time, stumbled across it, um, and it was like 19 90, 94, I think. 

Lance: Oh, they didn't do the race back then? 

Ian: They did. 

Lance: No, 

Ian: but it was a, it was a wet edition and it was, I was. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. You know, there's so much carnage in that race. 

Jake: What's the forecast?

Jake: Is 

Ian: it It's gonna be dry. I think it's gonna be dry there saying yeah, this year. So 

Jake: didn't even take 

Ian: that into 

Jake: consideration, but, all right. 

Ian: Yeah. 

Jake: Cool. 

Ian: Good times. 

Lance: It is exciting. Have you guys, have you ridden on any of those co sections? Mm-hmm. I think, I think it's, it's way worse than what we think. I think the cobble sections are significantly bumpier and harder and nastier than I've 

Jake: ridden the hell of the North Old Evergreen Highway.

Lance: Old Evergreen Highway. 

Jake: Isn't that a segment? 

Lance: That is a segment. You do have the KOM on that segment. Jake still, 

I 

Jake: dunno, maybe 

Ian: any who I'd love to do it. It's gotta be on the bucket list. Go out there and do some of those. Do 

Lance: some of those sections, 

Ian: Coberg and. Yeah, 

Lance: yeah. Anyway, champ out. 

EPO Chainmail: I did it with nothing but my own blood, sweat, and tears and extra blood.

EPO Chainmail: People don't. Yeah. You know, this is a sport with literally hundreds of dollars on the line and dozens of fans. The stakes are medium. Come on. How do you beat a man on drugs if you're not on drugs? Wait, did you just admit to being on drugs? The EPO Chain Mail. Send us a text with your questions. Forward this podcast to 15 people and you'll lose 10 pounds overnight without even trying.

EPO Chainmail: You've got mail. 

Jake: What's the sweet spot for the amount of time we take off between podcasts now? 

Matt: Four months, I think 

Jake: I, I wasn't expecting to have this podcast until, what, like early June or something like that. Right 

Lance: here we're, we're only a week 

Jake: out, so I don't think we gave the listeners enough time we to submit their, their inquiries.

Jake: So, 

Lance: and our last didn't, it didn't, the last week's podcast just came out like two days ago. 

Jake: It came out on Saturday or Sunday. 

Lance: Saturday what, what day? 

Jake: We recorded like on a Wednesday and I didn't get the time to post it until the weekend. Oh yeah. Alright. I was up at four o'clock or three o'clock in the morning and I'm like, I should probably get that done right now.

Jake: I 

Lance: never saw when it came out because I was in a 

Jake: asleep 

Lance: funk. 

Jake: Oh, you were in 

Lance: a funk. The semi sleep. 

Jake: Yeah. So anyway, uh, although 

Lance: take, yeah, you did, you did text, uh, the group this morning at 3:08 AM Jake 

Matt: I was, I didn't even look and see what time he text, but I was like, I, I got the text and I was, 'cause I woke up at, at like four 30 or whatever.

Matt: 'cause I wake up early like Jake and I was like, I looked in, I got the text from Jake and I was like, I wonder if this was last night. 'cause I go to bed early or if it was early this morning. This morning. And I was gonna look at the time and see what time it was 3:08 AM But I just feel like you and I should have like a long text thread with, with these guys on the thing.

Jake: Hilarious. 

Matt: Like 4 30, 30 was waiting, what 

Jake: the hell? I used to not send it out, but everybody's got their phones on silent now when they're asleep. So I'm like, f it just, it's going, just do it. 

Ian: Is that, is that the secret to getting a hold of you is like text you at three o'clock in the morning? Yes. Yeah. 3 34.

Ian: Okay. 

Jake: I enjoy my time from three to 6:00 AM because nobody's awake. 

Ian: Yeah. 

Jake: My wife does get up sometimes to go run or whatnot. Sometimes like five o'clock in the morning. But even then she goes off and she's running, you know? Mm-hmm. But it's, it's quiet time. I'm drinking my coffee, I'm getting my work done, and it's, the best dogs are in here snoring still.

Jake: And yeah, it's, it's good times. So, you know, um, yeah, hit us up. Say some stuff, say some funny things, make fun of us. Have questions. But, um, just, it was funny 'cause I was looking something up to see if anybody had pinged us and there's like a little stats thing and I'm like, oh, this is kind of interesting.

Jake: Just the last podcast, it hasn't even been a full week. How many countries slash territories do you think people have listened to the podcast in? Like an honest question. 

Lance: 20, 

Jake: 20, 

Matt: 10,000. There's 

Jake: not 

Matt: 10,000 countries. 

Jake: 17. I dunno how many countries there are. 17. That, that's pretty amazing. 17. Wow. I mean, 17 

Lance: countries, 

Jake: 20 Honduras, Vietnam, Slovenia, Singapore, Costa Rica, Denmark, Romania, Japan, Taiwan, New Zealand, Spain, Camero Australia, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, of course the United States.

Jake: That's amazing to me. Camera listening 

Lance: on. Those are all, those are all just, uh, listen bots, 

Jake: those not 

Lance: real people. Listen 

Jake: bots. If you're listening to any of those places, ping us and say hi and say where you're, where you're listening to. That is fricking awesome. 

Lance: I hope we get a message now from Cameroon saying, I'm not a listen bot.

Jake: Oh. But it's just, I don't know. It, it just blows my mind how small the world has become with technology. And I think it's a, a pretty freaking awesome thing. And I'm gonna pull up one other quick stat here, because that's what I'm rambling on. Um, where did it go? Dang it. Oh, locations. That's what I'm looking for.

Jake: All. All right. So we switched over to this platform year and some change ago. Yeah. And so it gives us way more information and details. In terms of the statistics, it's, I think it was like November of 24, so it's been like a year and like four or five months or total countries slash territories. How many think.

Lance: 30 

Jake: 30. Go ahead. 

Ian: Uh, 32 a million. 

Jake: That's close. Just take off a couple zeroes. 101. 

Lance: 101. Wow. Countries 

Jake: slash territories. Territories. Correct. It's, doesn't that blow your mind? I mean, there's like territory of my ass, you know, I mean, it's not a ton of people, but I mean, let's see here. We've got, I dunno, Denmark, we've got 19 people that listen from Denmark, say hi to us, you know, you know, just Belarus and, uh, Jordan and Kazakhstan.

Jake: Oh, I didn't know that. What's his name? 

Lance: Who? Kazakhstan. 

Jake: Borat. Borat. Is he from Kazakhstan? Listens to us. I don't know. No, 

Lance: that was Kra. His as Astan. 

Jake: No. Oh, here's one war step. Definitely 

EPO Chainmail: listen to us. 

Jake: 1,126 different cities. 

Lance: A thousand different cities. 

Jake: Yes. Pretty cool. Pretty cool. Yeah, 

Lance: that's pretty cool.

Jake: Yeah. What do you think the 

Matt: way off with my 

Jake: million? The, the, the, the top two are obviously gonna be 

Matt: Portland. 

Lance: Portland and Vancouver. 

Jake: Yes. Any, any takes on what? Three, four and five are 

Lance: Camus and 

Matt: Seattle? 

Lance: No, 

Jake: Camus isn't even in the top 20. 

Lance: Beaverton 

Jake: not in the top 20. Beaverton. 

Lance: I just wanted to say 

Jake: Beaverton and, and again, when I say cities, this is worldwide.

Jake: This isn't just the United States. So you've actually got the other Vancouver of British Columbia, what? Dallas, Texas, Los Angeles, um, Cville, Ohio. You got just all kinds of places. So it's pretty cool. I thought 

Lance: it, I thought it was only my mom listening to this show. I didn't realize. Right. 

Matt: She, she tuned out years 

Jake: as well.

Jake: Ian will like this one. This is actually in our top, I think 15 Gresham Morgan. 

Ian: Yeah, 

Jake: I know 

Ian: both. 

Jake: Yeah. Anyway, I, I just like the stats. I think that's pretty cool. 

Ian: I didn't listen to it. 

Jake: No, I don't. All Let's move on to bollocks. 

Ian: Really? 

Jake: Some of this stuff 

Hot Seat: that's hot. That's hot. That's hot. That's hot. That's hot.

Hot Seat: That's hot. Hot. 

Jake: That seat. That seat is hot. Hot. That's hot. That's hot. Hot. We got hot seat this week and I feel like we might be a tiny bit unprepared, but hopefully you guys wow me, right? Oh, we're 

Outro: definitely unprepared. I have nothing right now. 

Ian: US unprepared would 

EPO Chainmail: like to go first, 

Ian: right? I'll go first, 

Jake: go 

Ian: right.

Ian: I'm looking across the table behind you at a beautiful looking, brand new factor. Road bike, Uhhuh in a kind of a blue paint paint scheme. It's really nice. 

Jake: Can you, can you put your finger on what team might've been riding that exact same custom paint job? 

Ian: Um, I can't remember 

Jake: at the tour. A France 

last 

Ian: year.

Ian: I should know. Yeah. Dunno, given what? Who? 

Jake: Uh, Israel Premier Tech. 

Ian: Ah, really? Okay. 

Jake: Yep. That's the exact, that's a custom painted, um, they call it the watercolors. Yeah. And that, that's the exact frame that they were writing on. That's really freaking cool. It was very limited. And there was one person that did all of those frames.

Jake: I think he's in Taiwan, if I'm not mistaken, or maybe South Korea. It's one of those two places. They told me this story and they, they sought him out because he is an artist to do this and he agreed to do it. So he was able to do just a handful of frames a month, and they obviously did the whole team, but then he, he agreed to do a few more and we were able to get our hands on one of 'em.

Lance: How did you get your hands on one? Because you know, people, 

Ian: let me ask my question. 

Jake: Ask nicely. Go ahead. 

Ian: Anyway. Beautiful looking Factor o Otro van. 

Jake: Yep. Yeah. 

Ian: Yep. Uh, the only thing with it is it looks like it's got like little 35 millimeter deep, uh, rims on it. So my question. Is there any need these days?

Ian: Is there any point in having the, a low profile, um, climbing wheels anymore on a bike? Um, 

Jake: if you like to climb, sure. 

Ian: Well, if you watched, um, the Raceless last weekend, CIA was riding like 60 millimeter deep arrow rooms on a essentially climbing course. Yeah. And that's the way all the pros are going, given that there is probably a handful of grams difference.

Jake: Yeah. 

Ian: Like, you know, now we've got these wheel technology down and we are running disc brakes and we are running wider tires. Is there any place for low profile wi rims? That is my question to discuss. 

Jake: I have, I have no desire to ride on anything shallower than a 40 mil. Um. Back when I used to ride bicycles, um, forties were the sweet spot for me that I, I did have some sixties and 60 fives, if I'm not mistaken, liked them, but I felt like I got blown around a little bit when it got breezy out.

Jake: So, I mean, you can find certain situations where you can kind of play that to your advantage, but I didn't like having to even think about that. The forties were just always the sweet spot. They weren't too heavy to climb, they weren't too shallow to not get the aerodynamic benefits, and it just kind of accomplished everything I wanted to quite well.

Jake: So anyway. 

Ian: What do you reckon hap, would you buy a bike with 35 millimeter rims? 

Lance: No, I probably would not. Um, and almost for the same reasons as Jake, I don't, I don't need super lightweight. Um, like climbing rims because I suck at climbing. Maybe that's why I really planned my rides and races for the descents anyway, and I want all the arrow advantage I could get.

Lance: So I'll go with deeper rims If it's not, if it's not, uh, howling windy. Yeah. I will. 

Ian: Yeah. 

Lance: I think 

Ian: I was just looking at that race this weekend. I mean, all the, all the top pros were running deep dish air rims and uh, I think even with the wind situation, things have gotten better. Like 

Lance: yeah. 

Ian: Like you can run a 60 millimeter rim and not feel those side winds as much as in the past.

Lance: There is, there is a way to make the, the shape of the carbon, you know, that elliptical thing make it just a, with some grooves in it that that allows for more side wind force Yeah. To not cause as many issues. And so some of the zip wheels look like that. 

Ian: Yeah. 

Lance: Um, so that maybe that's not as much of an issue anymore.

Lance: Yeah. 

Ian: There's not a whole lot in the, in the weight is there like 

Lance: not a lot. 

Matt: And wheels. Some 

Lance: expensive 

Matt: wheels are expensive, but still, it's still fun to have climbing stuff and have, I don't know. I think that it would be fun to have like hop on it and be like, oh, you can feel like you can climb faster on this, this particular wheel set.

Matt: I think that might be, there's, there's value to that. 

Lance: Yeah. 

Matt: It's not a ton, but there's always more weight to take off the rider than the wheels, but you know. That's okay. Still fun to have light, lighter weight bikes and things like that. 

Jake: Our good friend. And teammate Michael Myers had a bike that Oh, yeah.

Jake: That he had built up prior to things that happened. Um, it was a trek, I can't remember which one it was. And everything on it was a hundred percent geared towards being as light as it could possibly be. 

Matt: It was a weight weenie bike. 

Jake: It was a weight weenie bike that weighed about 10 and a half pounds total.

Jake: And it had a, a shallower grandma. Was it the Trek 

Matt: Iman? 

Jake: I think that might've been what it was in. It was, it was a trek. I can't remember which one it was though. 

Matt: I can look 

Jake: it up. But that bike was like, he picked it up and you're like, this is stupid. And I could see like, okay, maybe for that kind of a bike, if you really wanna make something that light, maybe that makes sense.

Jake: But that's the only case or use case scenario I could see for something that's gonna be a little bit more shallow. 

Matt: Yeah. That's the Amanda. 

Jake: Yeah. 

Matt: That's their lightest lighter bike. Yeah. 

Jake: Everything on that thing was geared towards, I mean, he had this carbon fiber paper thin seat that was super uncomfortable, probably that weighed next to nothing.

Jake: It was, the whole thing was carbon and. 

Ian: In the, uh, in the UK they have this series of races, the, the British Hill Climb Championships. Yes, I've seen 

Matt: that. 

Ian: That's cool. They're mostly shorter, punchy hills. Yeah. You know, steep hills and if you, you know, it's sort of anything goes as far as the bike goes. Um, so you see incredible examples of, of lightweight by like, like people will cut their drop handlebars off below the brake levers mm-hmm.

Ian: To save weight, uh, no bar tape. Um. I mean, just, 

Matt: it's a whole culture. 

Ian: It's a whole culture. 

Matt: Yeah. Which is actually really interesting. I think there's a guy that I follow on YouTube that's part of like the weight weenie culture and like you, everything's weighed and like, and then you buy the next thing that weighs less.

Matt: And it's just like, I mean, crank arms, every single thing that can be hollowed out is, I mean, it's just very interesting and I think it's kind of fun. Like, yeah, people collect cars, people collect baseball, you know, I mean cars, there's interesting things to collect in like lightweight bikes. Why not? Like, it's just, it's, it's neat.

Matt: There's different pedal systems for lighter weight stuff too. There's a lot that you can do to reduce weight on a bike. 

Ian: I think it also, uh, I believe I'm riding saying it's the only sanctioned bike racing where you don't have to wear a helmet because it's pill just an uphill, relatively slow Oh really?

Ian: Time trial uphill. Yeah. So anyway, stuff 

Lance: that still looks so weird to me when you see people riding 

Matt: without a helmet, 

Lance: a helmet that'll like on a race bike but aren't wearing a helmet. I still, I, you'll still see it on hill, climbs in places. I've seen it in Tucson a few times. I've seen it, seen it here a few times.

Lance: I 

Matt: think rim brakes are still lighter than disc brakes, if I remember correctly. Does that sound right? 

Jake: Yeah, 

Lance: they are. 

Matt: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Lots of stuff. Lots of fun things 

Jake: to your, to your helmet thing. This isn't my hot seat question. I see this often. Would you say something I've seen just recently, uh, two boys riding on E-bikes and they're riding down the road and they've got helmets with them clipped together, hanging off their handlebar as they're riding down the road.

Jake: And then I saw two girls on e scooters, same exact scenario. I'm like, 

Lance: helmet's not on. 

Jake: Not on hanging. Hanging on. Handlebar. They have, I'm like, Hey, I'm glad you got that helmet with you. That that's awesome. 

Matt: We always used to be like, okay. So I taught my kids to yell out the window outta the car at people that didn't wear their helmets.

Jake: Yeah. 

Matt: And they, you know, and we would just be like, I'm glad you're protecting the handlebars. Like, 'cause that's always the thing. That's 

Jake: the smart way to do it. Yep. 

Matt: Yeah. Protect the handlebars of that bike. I'm like, 

Jake: I feel like I need to say something 

Matt: in your 

Jake: head. Like, no, don't, don't say anything. 

Matt: No, 

Jake: you're gonna embarrass me 

Matt: again.

Matt: Teach your kids to yell out the window. That's well played down. That's the key. 

Jake: Yep. My kids never go anywhere with me anymore. But 

Matt: yeah. 

Jake: Gotta have some more kids. All right. Um, 

Matt: yeah. 

Jake: Or no, 

Lance: at least practice. 

Jake: Would you 

Matt: say something though? Grandkids, grandkids, grandkids. It teach the grandkids to yell at other kids.

Lance: Um, if they're kids, nah. You know, you saying anything or you just like, I probably wouldn't say anything. I just probably like 

Jake: grumpy old man. I'd 

Lance: just shake my head. 

Jake: Probably call us a boomer, even though we're Gen X, but you know what I mean. Boomers are 

Ian: you, you just gonna get the middle finger back. It's if you say something, 

Jake: you're Gen X.

Jake: Yeah. Or did you, are you boomer? 

Ian: I'm a boomer. Apparently 

Jake: we learned something new today. 

Ian: I don't believe in all that stuff. 

Jake: Oh, it's a thing. Well, 

Ian: yeah, sure. But I'm supposed to have all this stuff in common with people that were born in like 1945, which is a you do, you 

Jake: do. 

Matt: Maybe I, Jack, get off alone. Um, the funny part is all four of us who are like contemplating, should we yell at people out the window?

Matt: All of us, every single one of us grew up riding bikes without helmets on. 

Outro: You're right. '

Matt: cause we're old as f Right. You're right. And, and and seeing how fast your bike could go without a helmet downhill. Like, and then, you know, take the brakes off. 'cause that'll make your bike faster. Like, this is all stuff that we, we did.

Ian: I still ski without a helmet and like, I'm, I'm one of the only people up on the slopes, um, without a helmet on skiing. It's like, yeah. 

Jake: Crazy. 

Ian: Okay. I say those, those trees, those trees may blur at 40 miles an hour, but they don't bend So

Jake: sunny bono, that's all I gotta say. 

Ian: Yeah. 

Jake: Anything else? Is that, are we done with that 

Matt: done 

Jake: question? Done? We'll answer 

Matt: question. Question. 

Jake: I think so. They 

Matt: on Target. We're too close. They on target. They're assholes. They're assholes, sir. 

Jake: All right. Who's got a question? 

Matt: Um, okay, so there's this company Van Reel is, is trying to introduce a 500 gram wearable airbag 'cause we're about safety here and not wearing helmets.

Matt: So this is an apt conversation to, to follow that one. Would you guys use a 500 gram? You could call it like an arrow airbag system. So it sits on the, on your back, like, almost like a, does it shoot 

Jake: out your butt? 

Matt: Yep. And it basically comes up and over your head if you are into some, if you're in some sort of crash covers vital organs and things like that.

Matt: So is it 

Lance: like, like a fanny pack that you like strap on your 

Matt: back? Um, it almost looks like it fits, it's almost looks like a camel back. Okay. Okay. So, so, but it's kind of like, it looks almost, it's tight. It looks like it's built into your jersey almost like it doesn't look, the one I saw a picture of doesn't look too, um, in, in fact, you know, if you, if you were to really think about this, like that technically makes you more aerodynamic if you have a camel bag kind of system on your back anyway.

Jake: How's it triggered with like accelerometers? 

Matt: I'm not, haven't, you're not gonna believe this. I haven't prepped for this podcast enough to know the tech, but we gotta assume that it's gotta be just like, um, your Garmin watch that, you know, sometimes you go over a curb and it goes off fantastic. 

Jake: My garment watch has told me that I've died 14 

Matt: times.

Matt: My wife 14 nine. 

Jake: Yeah. 

Matt: So or so. Yeah. So it's gotta be accelerometer. Um, 

Ian: I would, I would worry about just that. I mean, the amount of times that I've, this 

Matt: thing explodes on me 

Ian: when my watch or my garment has told me incident detected. Yeah. And if that resulted in this pyrotechnic thing going off on over my head, you in the 

back 

Jake: of the head.

Jake: So 

Ian: that would cause a crash, right? If you, if that thing went 

on, 

Matt: they're testing it and they wanna put it in the pro peloton within the next like year and a half, 

Lance: no, none of them are gonna wear that thing. 

Matt: Well, I mean, 

Lance: I love this idea. This is a fantastic idea as far as safety. If it works perfectly, if it works perfectly, but none of it does.

Lance: We can't even figure out tires that work perfectly. You know, my God, I've been doing it for 150 years. 

Matt: But, but we, and 

Lance: so 

Matt: I feel like airbags and cars are pretty, I mean, there was a ma there was this massive recall, like whatever it was 20 years ago, that they had this, they airbags were killing people, but, uh, 

Lance: too forceful.

Matt: Yeah. This was a big problem. A little while ago. Anyway, so, but, so within airbags, within cars, maybe that's a bad example, but we seem to be doing pretty well on that system. I don't know if there's something, again, accelerometers might be our, our point of failure, our weak point. But if they could get the technology, is this something that you guys would use on, would you, would you be like, okay, maybe I would use this on a dangerous, in a dangerous situation.

Matt: Normally I wouldn't. Or would you just be like, sure, I'll wear this all the time? 

Lance: That's a good question. 

Matt: A scale. It depends on, on a scale of one to a hundred, say the technology works, would you use it daily or not? A scale of one to a hundred. So you got a little range there. 

Lance: I would say 15. 

Matt: 15. Like pretty 

Lance: much 

Matt: No.

Matt: Low, pretty 

Lance: much. No. Pretty much, no. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lance: Because I would, I would like bunny hop one curb and blow. Blow up on you thing would blow on me. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lance: Yeah. Mm. 

Ian: I don't know, like, yeah. Are you less than 15? No, but I, I'm with Lance. Unless the technology was super foolproof and also only if the pros used it because I'm a vain fashion conscious roadie, honestly, there is who obsesses over the color of his socks and 

Matt: Yeah.

Ian: All that kind of 

Matt: thing. There's something real to be said there. Sometimes. It's like if the pros do it, it's like, eh, they're doing it. So there's some, you know, there it must be, must be okay. Right. Like there's real value to that. I think if these companies get things into the hands of the pros or whatever it is, like they're using this bike so it must not be made of Chinese museum and it must be safe enough.

Matt: You know what I mean? Like there's this, like the click in your head of like, oh, this might be okay to use. 

Ian: I think there'll be a lot of pushback from the pros. I mean, well, o only 20 years ago the pros were, oh, most of the pros were dead against wearing helmets. Helmets. And it was disc 

Jake: brakes and you 

Ian: Yeah, and then it was discs.

Ian: It seems crazy now that, that people would. Put up arguments against wearing a, a helmet. Mm-hmm. In a, in a road race. But that was the case. And I think, yeah, 

Matt: you just worry about these, I mean, they're kids in some ways and they're falling off mountains and like, we, we like these guys die in some, in some of these races.

Matt: It's not like it happens every year, but like, almost like every other year. Yeah. Every three years. I feel like we'd lose someone. I don't know if a system like this could help. 

Ian: I mean, I think there's definitely a, a place for it. Like, um, I mean I have really mixed feelings about some of the, um, like the, the Red Bull type Extreme Mountain bike stuff.

Ian: Because, because 

Matt: interest think it was in that, that di you know, like what they wear it, they're talking about the pro Peloton in this article. But it'd be interesting to be like, well, this technology was flushed out with the red rampage downhill. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, of course, 

Jake: to answer your question yes.

Jake: Like when you first said that, I'm like, Ooh, I've had. A bad run in with a car before. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Jake: And what would have, have done, would that have helped me in any way? I mean, I, I don't think it would've hindered me, but I'm like, oh, I, that, that's plausible for that. You know, given the, if it wasn't cost prohibitive, if it wasn't something that was super clunky or uncomfortable, let say, let's say 

Matt: it costs $500.

Matt: Oof. I'm just, I totally made up a number. I have no idea what it would really 

Jake: cost. That seems a little heavy for something that I would want to purchase to do that. I, I don't know. I, I would have to see some pretty like 

Matt: Yeah. Compelling evidence 

Jake: exactly. To, to make me want to have it. If it was compelling enough, I maybe, I just can't 

Matt: imagine it being, 

Jake: then I got a 

Matt: hundred dollars, 

Jake: then I got to think.

Jake: I'm like, yeah, probably just use it for the road. I wouldn't need to use that for any offroad stuff. And then I got to think about that a little bit more. I'm like, if I'm bombing down like a big logging road or a forest road and going way too fast and I overcook something on a gravel bike, maybe that would be a good thing to have.

Matt: Let me, let me ask you a hot seat, follow up question. 

Jake: 800 euros. 

Matt: 800 Euros. Okay. That 500 was a good guess. 

Ian: I think it would be great for downhill sports, like Red Bull rampage stuff, downhill mountain bike racing, um, stuff like that where, where the, you know, the weight or the uncomfortableness of the product wouldn't, wouldn't be a hindrance.

Matt: Am I allowed to a follow up question? Yeah, absolutely. Follow potsy questions against the rules. So let's say that the technology works and maybe the price comes down some, and you made the purchase, would you be more risk? Um, I was gonna say risk averse, but that's the opposite of that. Would you be more willing to take on risky Oh, that's a good point.

Matt: Descent or risky? 

Jake: No, because that ish still hurts no matter what. 

Matt: Yeah. So, yeah, that's true. 

Jake: Yeah. 

Matt: But you just know like, oh, I'm, you know, like I'm in this race and I kind of wanna bomb down this hill and I got this safety thing on. I don't know. 

Jake: Don't bet. Would think that would change my personal perspective.

Jake: It might. Even to this day, if I go out on a bike ride and I'm gonna be on the road Yeah. Before I go, I'm always, I've got this little voice inside of me. It's like, this could be the last 10. Let Yeah. This could be the one. You've dealt with this before. It could happen again. People are just getting worse.

Jake: Yep. It might take a little bit of that edge off, so maybe 

it's, 

Lance: but then I, at least I'm gonna go out having fun. 

Jake: Yep. Yeah. 

Yeah. 

Jake: We to look at it. 

Matt: All right. That's it. It's 

Jake: good product, 

Matt: hot seat out 

Jake: kind. Cool 

Lance: that, how much is 800 euros? That's like 1200 bucks or something like 

Matt: that. 

Lance: Yeah. 

Ian: It's more, 

Matt: it's, it's more than that.

Ian: Well, I don't know. 

Matt: No, it's more 

Ian: like 900 

Matt: bucks. Yeah, that's what I gonna say's. Not 

Ian: that. 

Matt: Yeah. Still that's expensive. But if it saves, you know, if it saves someone in the prop Peloton that, that thing nine 40, honestly, like the first life it saves in the prop Peloton. They're gonna be like, oh, well we're all doing this now.

Ian: Yeah. 

Matt: If it, you know, if it doesn't start blowing up on people in the mid, mid pack while they're trying to sprint, 

Lance: they bump, they bump elbows, they bump each 

Matt: other. 

Lance: The guy in his back and Slack guy, there's a, there's an e there's an eject button you can hit. Yes. And you just go by and boop, hit the button.

Lance: We, I don't want that guy racing anymore. Oh, you got, boop. 

Matt: This is good tech. Yeah. 

Ian: I think what the way it'll come into the pro Peloton is there'll be a team who gets sponsorship Yeah. Contingent on them. 

Jake: Using, 

Ian: using, using that, wearing it. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Jake: Maybe. 

Ian: And that'll, that'll be its way in. But 

Jake: I think if you can bring the price down, bring the weight down, and make it be something that's not gonna.

Jake: Be uncomfortable in any way, shape or form. Like, you know what else? You have to, you have to get it to the point where you would say, why wouldn't you wear that? 

Ian: Yeah. 

Matt: You know, the other thing that could bring it into the prop peloton, if like, to, to sell it to the riders. If, if you put this thing on your back, you are a more aerodynamic, you are faster.

Matt: And then all of a sudden people are like, well hell, I you have, you have to, we 

Jake: win. 

Matt: Uh, 

Ian: it's a, it's a big thing in, uh, in mo gp right? In on the motorcycles. They wear them now. 

Jake: Okay. 

Matt: They wear, do they really? 

Ian: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

Matt: It's like an airbag, 

Lance: like airbag 

Ian: things, airbags along their spine on the back in the leather in the neck.

Matt: Really? 

Ian: Yeah. 

Matt: I didn't know that. 

Lance: But this, there is an article here that says that it, the airbag is gonna be integrated into a skin suit. Huh. Wow. So it's not even like a thing you put on, it's in the skin suit. 

Matt: In 

Jake: the suit. Yeah. It just inflates inside the skin suit. What, what about the head though? How does it protect the head?

Matt: It comes up and over your head when it inflates. 

Jake: Interesting. 

Matt: Well, the, the old ones that I saw a long time ago used to do that they would like come up and almost, almost like form a helmet, but of an airbag. 

Jake: I'm sure they listen to the podcast as well. Maybe they can send us some samples and we'll send Lance out.

Jake: We'll try do a bunch of crashing. I'll bunny hop it, see if lives or not. 

Matt: Speaking of, should we do dumb stuff? 

Jake: Yes. 

Matt: Now that we have this technology, 

Lance: we have this technology and an idiot who will do it. 

Matt: Liz, do it. 

Lance: Ler, you got a question for us? I got a question. What? Okay, so, oh, are we in this like. Golden age of cycling where we have these incredible athletes who seem to be so far and above and beyond everybody else.

Lance: We have, we have Poot, we have Vanpool, we have Van Art, we have Remco, you know, and, and these guys seem to be on such a different level than everybody else in the pro Peloton. Is that, are these guys just specimens? Are they just unique individuals that are just. You know, made for cycling or has this happened in every other generation too?

Lance: Like in Merck's generation there was Merx and there was probably two or three other guys that were also really good. Or in the eighties, you know, there they had three or four guys that were all really good. I'm fielding to coming up with names or are these four guys right now that we are looking at really that much better athletes than everybody else?

Jake: First and foremost, look at all of those names and look at the countries that they come from and look at other sports. 

Lance: Nia, Belgium, Belgium. 

Jake: Look at 

Lance: Netherlands. 

Jake: What other sports are popular in those areas? 

Lance: That's a good point. 

Jake: It's predominantly gonna be like soccer, right? 

Lance: Soccer, yes. 

Jake: There's not. Like they're not being diluted with 30 different sports to, to choose from, and therefore the best athletes are going into those sports.

Jake: And I've always said this, the best cyclists in the world aren't riding bikes. If the United States had a fraction of the sports that it had and, and cycling was one of those, I can tell you without question that we would probably have some superhuman out there riding and racing bikes that would absolutely crush.

Jake: But that person probably doesn't care about bikes because they were never, they, they probably have ridden them before, but they just don't care because they're making gazillions of dollars just playing a different sport, doing something else. Whereas you go to these other countries, you've got these superhuman people that are just out of this world, and as time goes by, you've got them, you know, writing more refined equipment.

Jake: The training is like more precise. The food, the nutrition, the everything, all the marginal gains, all that stuff comes together. So we've got these superhuman people in their super humans and all these different cultures. That are specifically focused on cycling, and that's what we're looking at. 

Lance: That's interesting.

Lance: I mean, you look at, you look at, uh, at, and he's not like this physical specimen. 

Jake: No. 

Lance: You know, he just looks like a skinny kid 

Jake: with a massive VO two and he puts out Right. Puts out like good watts for size 

Lance: For his size. Yeah. Yeah. 

Matt: But that's kind of normal for cycling. He doesn't, of course. Yeah. He looks like a normal cyclist.

Lance: He does. Yeah. 

Matt: I, I think that there's probably a whole bunch of different factors playing into this. Yes. There's so, so a little bit of a crap answer, but like, yes, there were standout people back in the day and also Yes, the. For sure what Jake is saying about how there are certain countries where they, there is more pressure and more prestige to participating in our sport and that's gonna affect who chooses what sport and things like that within a country.

Matt: I also think that there's drug use probably still going on and probably some really interesting stuff. Like there's, um, don't be suspicious. Don't being suspicious. Actually 

Intro: be suspicious. Don't be 

Matt: suspicious. I wonder, I think it was like, I feel like a years ago Evan Price and I were like getting on our conspiracy hats and thinking, talking about like how maybe there's genetic manipulation stuff going on and I think that that's probably the case.

Matt: Yep. Yeah, I think that's probably the case. 

Ian: I think that in the past, the waters have been mud because of the drug use, differentiate. Talent, which, you know, or genetic ability from those, those who took more drugs. I mean, it, it wasn't as measurable in decades gone by. 

Matt: So maybe that's interesting, right?

Matt: 'cause if there was a block of 20 years where EPO kind of leveled the playing field, then you don't have as many of those standout athletes. But 

Jake: did it level the playing field where those elite athletes just that much more elite than the others? I mean, 

Matt: you 

Jake: would, they've always said that Lance Armstrong never did any of the drugs and raced against everybody else not doing drugs, and 

Matt: everyone else was 

Jake: clean.

Jake: He would've still won. But, 

Matt: but we don't know. And that's just, we, we will never be able to know that. And I also think that one of the let's, because then we're like saying, okay, well we're kind of comparing genetics to genetics. Mm-hmm. Right? So then at that point, like, what are those genetics? Those genetics are like a predisposition to ha carrying more oxygen in your blood, which guess what EPO does?

Matt: It does exactly that. Yeah. So it's kind of like, well then that kind of takes that genetic advantage away. If everyone's doing EPO, I think that. I think that could be part of it. Um, and we also could just be living through a little bit of a special time. Right now, I do think that Tara Pcha is the greatest of all time.

Ian: I think what has happened is that it's hard to argue with that. 

Matt: I think it, I think it's, I think now it is established. The podcast has decided, darn it. 

Ian: I think what's happened is all the other variables have, have, have become homogenized, right? The training nutrition are pretty much uni this, this has sort of got to be one way of doing things right now.

Ian: That, that training methods have become so effective that everybody's training the same nutrition science has become so well understood that everybody's doing the same thing. So the only thing that is differentiating the really good from the, just really good, the really, really good from the, from the great is, um, is genetics.

Ian: So what we term talent now is. Those people that are genetically gifted. And maybe what's different is that we are able to, um, scout out those people and, and spot those people who would otherwise be hidden in the general populace, you know? Mm-hmm. There's, there's always been those, those, those freaks of nature are out there, but we've never been able to identify who that is.

Ian: And, you know, there's, there's probably people with incredible potential VO two Maxs that have never ridden a bike, never done anything athletic in their life. Right. But maybe what, what's happening now is we're able to spot those people and, and, and channel them into, into these Yeah. Endurance sports.

Lance: Well, and you've got these kids coming up. Yeah. Like 

Ian: this 

Lance: Paul sexiest, this French kid who's 19 or, or Brandon. 

Ian: So what's happened is somebody's been scouted him out Yeah. Seeing the potential. And, and maybe that wasn't the case in the past. 

So 

Lance: listening to a podcast yesterday, uh, with, uh, Mike Woods. 

Matt: Yeah, the Canadian, the Canadian 

Lance: used be a runner who was a runner, and then he was a grand tour rider for a number of years.

Lance: Is 

Matt: he done? 

Lance: He's done. 

Matt: Oh, I really liked him. He never quite got there. 

Lance: Well, he won a tour to France stage and he won like three stages of the Giro and Okay. And, uh, he was third in the world championships one year, so he had a pretty good thing. But, but, um, um, hi, his, his cycling, um, he was discovered because he had some running, he had a coach that was helping him.

Lance: He was just trying to break into cycling and the coach did some testing on him, and he fricking test numbers were off the chart. Like his coach came back and said, quit your job. We're you're gonna be a professional bike rider. And he's like, what? This sucks. And, you know, but he, but he did because he had those numbers and somebody just was able to test him and, and he did well.

Lance: So, I mean, yeah. How do you find those 

Ian: people, you know, also you have these, uh, swift, what, what is it? The swift, um. 

Jake: Races or the championships or something like that. 

Ian: There's, there's, yeah. This program within Zw where 

Jake: I know 

Ian: what you're telling. Yeah. Basically every, you, you can just look through the data and, and look at a million athletes Uhhuh and go, oh my God, look at this, you know, and, and, and then recruit them to your team.

Lance: Didn't, uh, didn't Jay Vine come from that 

Jake: possibly, 

Ian: yeah. 

Jake: Vgo got scouted on Strava because he put up some crazy tap on a cycling social media app. You know, it's, 

Ian: so, I think that's what's happening, right? Is, is people that otherwise wouldn't have featured in a, in biking have now been spotted and, and recruited.

Ian: Right? 

Jake: Sure. I'm going back to those, those people from those countries, they have a full like ecosystem for this, that starts at a very, very, very young age, and they develop them. Mm-hmm. The kids here, generally speaking from the United States, I mean, how old are they when they're like actually getting discovered?

Jake: To be a very talented cyclist. They're probably in their mid to late teens where some of these other kids have probably been on their bikes training since they were like six or seven years old because they see something in them. 

Lance: Right. 

Jake: Crazy. I dunno. Good question though. I like it. Anything else? 

Lance: Nope.

Jake: Yeah. Cool. I'm gonna just ask mine real quick and then we'll move on. Um, Matt and I were having a, a deep discussion for far too long before the podcast and Lance, and you were probably going, God, well these guys shut up. We were 

Lance: yapping about something else. 

Jake: We were talking about all kinds of AI stuff and like all of the cool things that it can do now.

Jake: And we've, God, do you remember the podcast we did many years ago? Yeah, 

Matt: we were. That was, gosh, that 

Lance: was like, we, we tried to have it, make it like write us a a a training program. A training program. 

Jake: It probably 

Matt: did. Okay. I don't mean, 

Jake: yeah, it was chat GPT, like the very first early model, 

Matt: 3.5 or something.

Jake: Something like that. Yeah. So it's come a long way since then. It turns out it's, um, pretty useful stuff. Now I'm curious. What AI models are you guys using these days? How are you using them for all of your cycling endeavors and planning, and are you using it in your purchase making decisions? 

Matt: It's okay to say no.

Lance: Uh, n no, I'm using it quite a bit. Okay. These days I use Coach Kat as my coach. Alright. 

Jake: Okay. That's an AI based 

Lance: program. It's an AI based program based on, uh, Frank, um, wait. I can't remember his name right now. 

Jake: Frolic? No, 

Lance: no. 

Jake: That's a 

Lance: different, I can't believe that. I can't remember Frank's name, coach Frank's name.

Lance: He's like Phil, guy's coach and all these other, um, he, he taught it's, they're not using like an an LLM to just answer d different questions. They're actually, he actually developed his own base with his own, his own coaching, 

Matt: the models, 

Lance: trained, trained on his responses and all stuff models trained on his responses.

Lance: And so the responses are all like they're coming from him. 

Matt: Sure. 

Lance: So, and I've been using him for a couple years and I have found that that works decent for me because, um, I, I don't have accountability to, uh, 

Jake: real human, 

Lance: to a real human. And, and that's probably one of the reasons why I don't race as well as I do.

Lance: Because I, um, because I race way too much. And a real human coach would say, you're an idiot. And I already know I'm an idiot that's been established. Yeah. And so, but I like racing. That's part of my life is to, part of the fun is to race and part of the fun. So, um, so I do use that coach app. I try not to promote that on this podcast because a 

Matt: secret, 

Lance: it's not a secret.

Lance: It's because e ian is a fantastic coach. Aren't you 

Jake: using that dodgy winkers AI training program? Aren't you using that 

Lance: soon? The dodgy Winkers AI program. 

Ian: What about I, I will concede that of all the AI applications in sports, then remote coaching programs is probably most suited to ai. Mm-hmm. It's definitely a, you know, I, I'm feeling it.

Ian: You, you know, there's always this media discussion about the. Perils of AI and, and who's gonna lose their jobs Yeah. Because of it. And I, I think I'm one of those people for sure. It's possibly, it's one, it's most suited to this thing. However, I think it's still only works if you're a highly motivated athlete.

Ian: You're right. If you've, if you've got Yeah. Um, actual goals, real, real goals, and know what you're training for and have the motivation, then it, it does kind of work for you. But there's a, there's a huge range of, of, um, people's motivations out there. Yeah. Even within my own clients, there's, there's people that stick to the program religiously.

Ian: There, there's, there's some that, that can't for whatever reason. Yeah. And if you gave all those people, uh, an, an AI based coaching program to follow. Some of them would do better than others on it. Yeah, for sure. 

EPO Chainmail: That's 

Jake: very true. You can't replace the human connection, the human element to that. Um, your personal anecdotes, your understanding, your empathy for where they're at, the ability to recognize things that they're might, they might not see mm-hmm.

Jake: To help people realize that maybe they're being a little bit passion blind about something and, and, and not looking at the, the, the bigger picture. AI can tell you some of that, but the, it can't give you that human element or that human touch the same way. So 

it's, 

Matt: it's also only gonna respond to questions and things that you lead it towards.

Matt: It's not gonna be like, Hey, listen, I saw this race that you did and where your power numbers dipped here, and really what we need to do is like, you know, save ourselves for this spot and attack this spot. Like, you're gonna see stuff and make like proactively. I mean, think about how huge that is for a coach to be able to proactively make recommendations for change.

Matt: Like that's crazy compared to any AI that will never do 

Ian: that. I mean, I think, I think a coach can be familiar with not only that athlete's abilities, but. His or her potential, um, rivals in the race, you know? Mm-hmm. We, we know the local, um, cycling community, uh, yeah. The particular part course, you know, like what course is suited to a particular athlete.

Ian: There's all kinds of mm-hmm. Of, um, things that are AI model can't really capture, and not least of which is is the, the whole accountability thing. Yeah. It's like one thing being. Having your AI scold you for not doing a session? A hundred percent. 

Matt: Let's just say racing too much. Yeah. 

Ian: Yeah. 

Lance: You know, it, one problem I have found with it, it, it drastically underestimates my ability to absorb training.

Lance: It thinks, it thinks I'm always doing too much training. And, um, and I think I, Jake laughs immediately because that, that would, if you would look at my straw, you'd think, yeah, you're doing way too much. But it's what my body is able to right. Absorb and do. And I know that about myself. It also, it reads my sleep data every morning and it gives me an, an outlook on the day.

Lance: Like, okay, your HRV is this, your sleep hours were this, your resting heart rate was this, um, this is what you can look at for the day and, you know, maybe you should back off because your HRV was, you know, 20 beats lower and yeah. 

Ian: Yeah. I mean those, those are, 

Lance: I don't do that 

Ian: objective measurements you can make.

Ian: But the other reason why high volume training kind of works for you is because you have very little other stressors in your life. Right? 

Lance: Correct. I can, I can recover the rest of the day. 

Ian: Yeah. So training stress adds on to all the other ways you stress your, your body. Yeah. So it's a, 

Jake: yeah, 

Ian: it's, it's a one big thing.

Ian: Really. Yeah. And that's why you can probably do a, a high volume of training because the rest of your life is not stressful. 

Jake: When we go to training camp, like we're gonna go do 20, 25 hours and like before you go into, I'm gonna die, but you forget that, oh, I don't have to do anything else. Yeah. You just go, you ride, ride a bike and you recover that.

Jake: That's Lance's life. 'cause Lance is an asshole. 

Lance: That's an asshole. 

Ian: So can, can your AI program take that into account? Does it, does it look at the rest of your. You 

know, 

Lance: it, it gives you like a load, like it gives you like a, a load number for like the last rolling, like two weeks, like how much effort you've actually done.

Ian: But does it take into account the load of life? You know, like other things? 

Lance: No. 

Ian: Right. 

Matt: No, it doesn't know that. It can't know that. 

Lance: Although, you know, this last week I've woken up and I'm like, uh, I'm in tooth pain. I ain't doing crap today. Please change my training plan for the next few days because I'm not sure when I'm gonna be able to get back on the bike.

Lance: And it, it fixes everything forward, which 

Matt: is impressive. 

Lance: It moves it all forward and then, but then it under. Estimates 

Matt: everything. 

Lance: What, what I can do 

Matt: still. What, what about outside of like training plans, stuff like that out, even maybe outside of cycling. Do you pull up Chachi PT and talk to it or, um, use it ever or?

Matt: Yes. Do you? A 

Lance: little bit. Um, when I'm, when I'm traveling I have it do itineraries for me. 

Matt: Oh, 

Lance: okay. Instead of having to try to find like, oh, I'm gonna have a 14 hour layover in Frankfurt. Yeah. Um, do I just sleep that whole time or is there something I can see cool in a four hour session between this time and this time and in my hotels here and it will who give me Yeah.

Lance: A itinerary to go do that? Um, I'm in the market for. Um, you know, another set of tires. Um, what are the five tires I really should be considering and what are their prices and where can I get 'em? You know, I, so I use chat GPT with, 

Matt: do you pay 

EPO Chainmail: for chat, GPT 

Lance: chat? PI don't. 

Matt: Okay. It's free for people. I mean, it's, it's good.

Matt: The free option is excellent. Ian, have you played around with any of these things like chay, bt at all? 

Ian: No, not, not a whole lot. 

Matt: Yeah, no. Yeah, I don't think you have to. I'm, I mean, 'cause you like Google stuff, right? Like if you need to figure out something. 

Ian: Yeah. I'm still, 

Matt: which Google 

Ian: is, can kind of be, Jake and I were talking about this earlier and, and, and I, I hate to admit it, but I'm falling behind the curve on this technology.

Ian: Well, 

Matt: even when you Google stuff, there's like ai, there's an AI section 

Lance: at section at the top. You can take the AI section or look at your results, which 

Matt: is good. 

Ian: That's, I think it's funny, the AI feedback I get from Strava on my, on my right. Oh, that's freaking 

Lance: terrible. 

Ian: That's the worst. Yeah, it is terrible.

Ian: It's always so encouraging you, well, you may have sucked today, but at least. 

Jake: Must be running chat. 

Ian: GBT something, something. You 

Lance: can turn that off. 

Ian: Yeah. 

Lance: There is a 

Ian: way. No, I like it. 

Lance: Okay. Never do you like it? Cheerleader? 

Ian: Yeah. 

Jake: Then 

Lance: take your cheerleader. 

Jake: That's funny. So do you, so you pay for Fast Cat, is that the only AI thing that you pay for?

Matt: Yes. 

Jake: But you, Ian, 

Ian: I don't pay for any ai. 

Jake: How many things are you paying for? 

Matt: Only, I'm trying to think like two. Two for sure. Um, I don't know. Maybe, maybe less than five. 

Jake: Okay. 

Matt: We'll say that. 

Jake: What are some other ways that you guys use it for cycling? Other than coaching? Do and Lance alluded to purchasing products.

Jake: Did you guys 

Ian: I once used it to write a blog. 

Jake: Okay. 

Matt: Did you? 

Ian: Yeah. Yeah. 

Matt: Just, and it needed to be one step, it, you need to go over it again. Stuff like that. I imagine fix things 

just 

Matt: like, 

Ian: yeah. Yeah. You had to go back in and 

Matt: Yeah. 

Ian: Yeah. Do 

Matt: some proof. It's a good place to get, it's, it's helpful to get things started.

Ian: Yeah. That and actually. And then I just felt, yeah, it, it sounded good. It looked good, but it, it wasn't really me lack human. Your voice. Yeah. It wasn't my voice necessarily. So the subsequent blog I just wrote myself. 

Matt: Yeah. I think it might be good for you to get, like, if you're working on a blog post or something like that, be like, you know, there's, here's two points that I wanna make, or whatever.

Matt: Mm-hmm. I really could use three points. You know, I feel like there's, like, it could be a help you for like idea generation as well. 

Ian: Yeah. 

Matt: But I don't like the way that, that doesn't sound like you, 

Ian: I think there's a lot of ways AI could, could improve, um, could enhance my life that I'm, 

Matt: maybe 

Ian: I'm just not using its potential right now.

Jake: Do you ever use it for like racecourse recon, like asking questions about that? No. Hmm. Okay. Maybe 

Ian: I should, 

Matt: I wonder if it could, 

Jake: I'm sure it could, I can use GPS data and I'm sure if you maybe fed it some information about you, what kind of rider you're, what kind of weight you are, what your power numbers are.

Jake: You 

Matt: might be surprised because some of that information is very fragmented, you know, because like, it's hard to get access to Strava data, which is where the, the best data would be probably in the entire world for cycling, for race, cycling stuff, Uhhuh. And it's just hard to get access to that from an ai.

Matt: I think it's really, it's not impossible. 

Ian: It is really easy to, to get out of touch with the, all of these tools. Now I'm finding it now, I'm retired. You know, it's, it's when you're, when you remove yourself from the workplace, some of that, that technology is just not as relevant. And even though there are. A myd of, of applications you could use to enhance your personal life once you're not using it professionally anymore.

Ian: It just seems to Yeah. Melt away, I guess. 

Jake: Well, that also means that you're doing life right along all of your worries because you're just focused on the things that are most important to you. Yeah. Even though you are curious that way, but you're, you're having fun, you traveling, you're riding, you're doing all that fun stuff.

Jake: So that's cool. Any other ways that you guys think you could use AI that you're not, that could be beneficial in some way, shape, or form? We'll say, try and keep it to cycling, I guess to a degree. Do you use it for any meal prep? Do you use it for any, like, you know, planning out like what kind of macros you need and what's nothing there?

Lance: I have had it do race plans for me, 

Jake: Uhhuh, 

Lance: um, like this is the race I'm doing, this is how many. This is, this is what the climbs are like, this is how long it is. Um, give me a nutrition plan for the race and a, a race strategy for the race. Mm-hmm. And it will, 

Matt: I think that's the key is layout. You provide a lot of context to the AI and it can start to give you really good answers.

Matt: You even give it a GPX file if you wanted to. Even, 

Lance: I even 

Matt: elevation 

Lance: even I even have it break down my, like a race performance. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lance: Hey, how did you feel about this? Okay. Actually, tell me, tell me where this was good. Tell me where this was bad. This is what happened. This is why I had to do that when I did Belgium off ride Arizona, because, um, I chased for like three and a half hours.

Lance: Yeah. Because I had that flat early on. And so I chased for so long and I explained, Hey, this is what happened during this race. Tell me what you think about this. And then they were like, oh, that skews the data quite a bit and this is why it's so much better than what we thought. Anyway. So I've, I've done it to use that.

Ian: Some of, as a side note, some of the, the hardest tss, the biggest T ss I've ever had have been in that exact situation where something happens during your race and you spend, you're chasing an hour chasing, yeah. 

Jake: There's a lot of cool ways you can use this stuff right now. I, I am more people to go out there, just ask it some questions, see how it can help you with doing different things.

Jake: It's, it, it's been pretty awesome for a while. Matt and I were talking about this before in the last three months. Seems like there's been another quantum leap, so might be worth taking a peek at. It's been good. Yeah. That's it. I, well, I mean, I did have one other question, but it's just like, how do you vet these answers to make sure that they're legit, they're good, they're, they're not.

Jake: How 

Lance: do you vet the questions from the ai, 

Jake: the, the answers the AI gives you because it's, lot of these a question, a lot of these models are very much people pleasing answers and there's some hall hallucinations in there can speak, I swear. Um. You gotta go out there and make sure what it's giving you is legitimate.

Jake: So 

Lance: like, what are the sources for these answers? 

Correct? 

Lance: Yeah. And then you look it up 

Jake: and it's, and sometimes though it's like, it, it, it, it will fill in a gap with what it thinks or what it assumes or what it thinks you want to hear, which can kind of steer the whole conversation or the whole, like, quality of the feedback it's giving you.

Jake: So. I 

Matt: think the more time you spend with these models, the more you're, you'll start to sniff test. Like, it's kinda like, um, what's the, what's the classic like sniff test example that doesn't pass the sniff test, blah, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, so I think you'll start to like learn like you're going sideways here, like you're going off track and you need, is 

Lance: this underwear clean?

Matt: Right? Sniff test. Sniff test. Nope. 

Lance: All right. 

Matt: Right. The AI model said it was, it was wrong. It 

Lance: was wrong. 

Matt: Very wrong. 

Jake: Moving on. Let's 

Matt: do, moving along. 

Jake: Let's, one last thing stuff. La Grande. 

Matt: Um, okay. So I think we po we talked last week and I talked about the new E-bike I had, I meant to ride it up here, but I forgot.

Matt: Anyway, I'll, I'll ride it up here. The next podcast. Yep. Um, so there's a video about that and that was a pretty fun video to make. I think I have some watches coming up, a polar grit X, which is tough because, um. It's, it's a, it's a watch that, uh, you know, you want the best for these companies from Polar and things like that.

Matt: And I've been using this watch a ton. I've been using it for well over a hundred days and it's just not that good. And it's expensive. So it's just like, it puts you in a tough place where you're like, I mean, I'll find nice things to say about it. It does fine, it's nice, blah, blah, blah. It like checks a lot of the boxes, but it's just not something I would recommend.

Matt: And I don't know how to, like, I'm struggling with the whole, like, how do I say that on camera to whatever, a couple thousand people, no one's gonna watch my channel, but if they do, I don't wanna be like, you know, completely blast this thing. But it's just not a watch I'd recommend to anyone. So 

Jake: I think people would appreciate you saying that.

Matt: Yeah. Unless you're 

Jake: paid to, to 

Matt: some, almost everyone would appreciate that. Except for Polar. 

Jake: Correct. 

Matt: And that's okay. 

Lance: And they send you stuff all the time to test. 

Matt: They, they used to send me more stuff. And so, um, and that's okay. It's just the, like, I think the people that work there, like I want this balance right, of being respectful to the people that, like there's someone that like stayed up late working on this watch.

Matt: And I don't wanna just like, I wanna be respectful to that person as well as the person that's like, I don't know if I should buy this. And the answer is no, you should not buy this. But also respectful to the person that spent a lot of time working on this, like, good job. You've, you stayed up late working on this watch and you did something miraculous.

Matt: This is an amazing product. It's just not where the market is right now. 

Jake: Yeah. 

Matt: And that's, that's the thing. 

Jake: Be real. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Jake: You know, 

Matt: we're, 

Jake: see what you like about it, but give the constructive criticism that's due and, 

Matt: and I think people kind of have to like, watch my review and, and. Read between the lines a little bit to be like, yeah, he's not pumped about this 

Ian: one.

Ian: I would, I would bet though not only would a negative review be bad for the manufacturers, but 

Matt: Yeah, 

Ian: I don't, I don't know if there would be, if that video would be as popular. That's 

Matt: true. 

Ian: I feel that that that's true. Some of the people that watch those review type videos of people that have already 

Matt: decided, 

Ian: purchased, bought, purchased, and they're sort of trying to validate their own purchase.

Ian: Mm-hmm. And when you have something negative to say about it, they don't want to, they don't wanna hear it. They 

Matt: don't hear that they just spent $600 on a watch. They don't wanna hear anything about 

Ian: it. They were hoping for somebody to say what a good purchase that was. In 

Matt: fact, sometimes done, sometimes people will make the purchase on Amazon or whatever and it's being delivered and then they start watching all these reviews.

Matt: Yeah. So they really don't wanna hear anything negative. But still, I got the 30 

Jake: day return window 

Matt: though. Yeah. I still feel like. You click on my video, you're gonna get Yeah, you're gonna get the honest, you know. Yeah, 

Ian: definitely. Yeah. 

Matt: I mean, I might sugarcoat it a little bit, but like, we're gonna, at least the, the review itself is honest.

Matt: I, I hope anyway, coming up, be on the lookout for that one. And then I do have a whole bunch of watches that are really awesome coming up as well. The, okay. I don't have, I actually, this watch hasn't been reviewed yet too much. This watch is the Garmin four Runner nine 70. It's been out for forever. I've had it for a while and I still haven't reviewed it.

Matt: It's great. I've got the, uh, venue four, the Garmin Venue four, which is another watch that my wife's been wearing. It's fantastic. Mm-hmm. She's been wearing that a long time. She loves the flashlight built in flashlight and, um, so just tons of watches that I need to get to. I need to get my ARS in gear to get some reviews out the door.

Jake: Good on you. 

Matt: Yep. Yeah. 

Jake: Well, one last thing, Bob. 

Ian: One last thing. Um, well, we're still four weeks away, so this is probably not the last time I'm gonna mention this. That's okay. 

Jake: One last thing Today. 

Ian: Today is that I am working on my Barton Park Road race that is happening on May the ninth. So we've got, I've got permits, I've got my flagger, I got my picnic shelter reserved.

Ian: I went out and checked out the course. Everything looks great. Really would like people to sign up and race it. Um, could well be, the last year I do this, it's getting financially less secure. I would say costs are going up, 

Jake: but if you had a whole bunch of people show up, you might be 

Ian: Oh, yes. Yeah. 

Jake: Like inclined to do it again next year, so, 

Ian: well, my, yeah.

Ian: I mean, that's the thing. I, I love doing it for the community. I think. I think it's, it's great that people have these races to go to, but I understand. Why a lot of them are fading away. Like, uh, sure. 

Matt: What if there's some sort of insurance policy, like this is be a cool thing for Oprah to like, provide, where it's like, Hey, you're gonna pay a little bit of money for this insurance policy, but if you come out negative, they, the insurance policy like falls into place and it covers the, covers the loss.

Matt: Oh. Say promoters insurance. This is, this is, I'm just wondering, and maybe there's something like this that exists, but I know like this is a common thing for like farmers, right? They're like, they're looking at the weather and the weather's not looking good and they have this option to, 

Ian: yeah. 

Matt: Anyway, 

Ian: I don't know.

Ian: I 

Jake: it be like a threshold. Not necessarily like losing money, but like, you have to make at least this much money. 

Ian: Yeah. I mean, the threshold right now is I, I would guess, um, I need a hundred people to show up. Last brick, last year I had 150, so it should be fine, right? Mm-hmm. But all it would take would be a crappy 

Jake: weather.

Ian: Weather forecast. Yeah. And then you're not so sure. So it's right on that threshold. Shall I do it? Shall I not do it? It's rewarding, but at the same time it's a stress fest. And, yeah. 

Matt: Let me ask you this, how was the weather when you had 150 people? 

Ian: It was nice. It was good. Good weather. Okay, 

Matt: so that's tight then that's bad because then like, yes, if bad, if there was, if you had 250 on a nice day and you're like 150 on a not so great day, then you're probably safe.

Matt: But 

Ian: yeah. 

Jake: What's 

Matt: the 

Jake: cost to do the race? 

Ian: Um, it's gonna cost me close. 

Jake: Well, not not, not to you. 

Ian: Oh, 

Jake: to the racer To come out. 

Ian: Oh, to come out. 50 bucks. 

Jake: 50 bucks. Okay. That's a good price. And then you're gonna have like your what, four or five field? Probably like a three field. And like your one, two field, is that gonna be how it's broken down ish?

Ian: It's gonna be the standard breakdown master's age categories plus, um. Race threes and fours and one twos and you know, the, the standard kind of setup. 

Jake: So masters and like broken into three chunks effectively. 

Ian: Yeah. 

Jake: Forties, 

Ian: fifties, sixties. Yeah. 

Jake: Gotcha. Um, how many laps will each of those respective categories do?

Ian: Um, let's see. The longest race will be eight and a half laps, and I think that's 60 plus miles. Mm-hmm. Uh, the medium distance, so most of the masters categories and the cat threes and cat four fives will do like a 6.5 lap race. Mm-hmm. Um, which is mid forties miles. And then the juniors will just do a lap and a half, two laps, something like that.

Ian: Good. Um, 

Jake: good course You got the Eden. Is it the Eden wall? Is that what 

Ian: Yeah, 

Jake: yeah. That's a, it's a fun little one to go battle up 

Ian: and it is a fun one. Yeah. 

Jake: The 

Ian: very, but it, it is weird that you really, you can only charge 50 bucks for these road races and, and you know, some of these gravel races now are like 160, $175 to do.

Ian: So 

Matt: what would happen if you put the price at $65? I don't think that it's 15 bucks. I know. I don't know if they would bat an eye at that extra. 

Ian: I don't know. Like 

Matt: someone would complain. I guarantee that. But that's just life. I 

Ian: think price, the way prices have risen are they are getting prohibitive. People are thinking like, I'm thinking like tomorrow this gravel rates, I'm not gonna do it 'cause it's, I can't afford, it's 

Matt: like 

over 

Ian: hundred bucks or so.

Ian: That's, that's getting to the point where, you know, it used to be like, it, it only, it was only a small part of your costs was actual race entry fees, you know? Mm-hmm. On when you take into account your bike and your kit and everything, the race entry was a small part, but it's, it's not that way so much anymore.

Matt: True. 

Ian: And, and road races, it seems to be particularly sensitive to 

Matt: really 

Ian: to price 

Matt: increases. I feel like also there's always this like, Hey, I can just go ride my bike. Like, you're not Right. You don't feel like you're missing out on that much. 

Ian: Right. But you are. But 

Matt: you are. 

Ian: Yeah. But you 

Matt: are. Absolutely.

Matt: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I wonder if you could raise your prices a touch, even five bucks for, you know, a hundred people. It adds up. 

Ian: Yeah, I dunno. I dunno. It's a bouncing act in swag 

Jake: or something like that. Opposite. 

Ian: Yeah. Well, we're gonna have, you know, hopefully I've got kinds of sponsors, so it should be great podium prizes.

Ian: Um, just a good atmosphere. It's always been, it's always been a good atmosphere out there. And, um, that's fun. It should be good. I hope you have 

Matt: good weather. 

Ian: Yeah. Hope. I hope so too. Thanks. Hope 

Matt: hopeful. 

Ian: Yeah. 

Jake: Done three times I think personally, but 

Ian: yeah. Yeah. 

Jake: Cool. 

Ian: Well, we'll, I'm sure you know, in the weeks coming up We'll I'll, I'll plug it incessantly, so Good.

Ian: Please do. Please do. Yeah, you 

Jake: should. 

Lance: Yep. Blur. Uh, yes, I am going to do the expensive gravel race tomorrow. It's called, uh, Sasquatch Duro. It is one of Mike Ripley's, uh, events. It is in Carlton in, it's close to Portland, actually in the Yamhill area. So, um, I will go out there. Um, I. Don't know how I'll feel.

Lance: We'll just see what happens. I will make a video, so hopefully you'll be able to see how crappily I embarrass myself at this race. That's it. I 

Ian: think you'll surprise yourself. 

Jake: Cool. Um, I'll be in Greensboro, North Carolina next Wednesday. 

Lance: Oh wow. 

Jake: Soccer tournament. 

Lance: Soccer tournament. 

Jake: Watching my daughter play soccer.

Jake: What's to do there? Lance? You been there before? 

Lance: I have not been to Greensboro. I've been to Asheville. 

Jake: Okay. 

Lance: Gorgeous town. Okay. Fantastic. Great food. Nice riding. Um, Greensboro? Nope. 

Jake: I've 

Lance: not been to Greensboro. Can't 

Jake: help 

Lance: you. 

Jake: I don't think I've ever even been to, uh, what's going, kinda looking for, but it's what it is.

Jake: That's where I'll be. 

Lance: Cool. 

Jake: Good times. Um, I think that's it. You guys good? 

Lance: Good. 

Jake: Getting a little longer tooth on this one. So. Alright, we'll be back another one of these days. Who knows when that's gonna be, but, uh, stay tuned. Thank you for listening. And tell them

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