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Brake Setup Tips, WC's Origins, Pedal + Shoe Combos & Magnificent Listener Questions... MTB Podcast Episode 89 [Podcast]

MTBpodcast · Brake Setup Tips, WC's Origins, Pedal + Shoe Combos & Magnificent Listener Questions... Episode 89

MTB Podcast Episode 89 is here! We give a quick update on our NICA fundraiser and then we jump straight into a ton of listener questions ranging from everything about brakes, how to get accurate tire pressure and our favorite pedal and shoe combinations to the status of the PB&J supply chain.

00:00 Intro

01:10 NICA Fundraiser Update

04:39 Listener Questions

MTB Podcast YouTube Channel

Worldwide Cyclery YouTube Channel

Worldwide Cyclery Instagram

MTB Podcast Instagram

MTB Podcast Website

Submit any and all questions to podcast@worldwidecyclery.com

Trail1 Components: https://trailone.bike/

If you are one strange human that would like to read a transcript of the podcast above, continue reading below!

[Music] all right shut up

okay ready ladies and gentlemen thank you for

tuning in to episode 89 of the mtb podcast presented and hosted by worldwide cyclery i'm jeff i'm jared and

i'm liam this episode we are going to mostly just answer listener questions because we

posted a instagram story requesting questions from all of you and we actually got really good ones this time

around and i we we intentionally asked for serious and good questions

you know we kind of like that's that's how we started out saying that instead of just like saying oh just give us questions because normally

people just put in really comical things we get we would probably get one good question for every

10 just hilarious comments so yeah we have good questions this time

that i think will be valuable and useful and educational and we did some good research on these various questions and

yeah it'll be good stuff for any mountain biker to know uh before we jump into the questions for those active

listeners out there that remembered what we talked about last episode we ran a uh sort of a fundraiser for the

NICA Fundraiser Update

month of november for world wide cyclery where we did 10 off gift cards and then uh every single purchase on the website

uh one dollar was donated to nika which was cool we actually ended up donating almost 10 grand to nika through

that fundraiser which puts us at just shy of 20 000 for the year that also

includes we have a miles for nika program where everyone in the shop gets to basically track their miles and then

there's a how does how does it work exactly it's like remember what it is yeah we checked it through strava

and then it's like a dollar per mile for miles zero to a hundred and then something like that i don't know it goes

down remember when it was the more miles you're right together like yeah a year ago yeah but yeah it's pretty cool basically everyone on the staff gets to

ride bikes and record it and then uh we uh the company makes a donation to nike

nika national intergalactic cycling association nice pretty is

pretty good right um yeah nika that's actually interscholastic which is wow i just had

i had to say he kind of threw me off i was like is that right at least as far as we know at least as far as we know

yeah i mean currently it's interscholastic at some point probably in the metaverse it'll be intergalactic absolutely and when we're inhabiting and

riding bikes on mars nika will be helping uh middle school and high school kids do the sport of mountain biking on

mars yep do you think riding on mars would be similar to riding in sedona hmm

hope so think they got some sick slabs i think it's all slab here's the real question do you think elon would have an e-bike

when he goes a tesla e-bike right just probably buy us specialized or something

yeah i don't know that's a good question well it anyways uh that's what we did

for nikah which is currently interscholastic and soon to be intergalactic from our optimistic perspective there

it's a great organization and nonprofit that we really like to support because we believe in what they're doing getting kids on bikes all across the country

which is really cool and we're actually just going to do 10 percent off of gift cards for world wide circular and kettle

for the rest of the month of december because you know just seems like the right thing to do with the inventory situation right

now and slow holiday shipping and oh yeah you know so i like it if you want to be sneaky and buy a gift card for 10

off and then just buy something with that gift card it's kind of like getting ten percent off yeah like a fork or a

bike like that yeah maybe i don't know maybe put two and three together you get four

that's right but i have seen not so much slow shipping this year but damaged shipping this year

they're just getting ruthless man making me nervous because my bike is currently being shipped from tennessee to here and

this is i've gotten like six emails about damaged boxes wow

and that's not really my job they're just throwing boxes maybe it's due to a

influx of packages and the drivers are just like i'm gonna get through this like you have no choice i'm just gonna

chuck this they're just going instead of being slow this year they're just ruthless so so buy your christmas gifts

early and don't buy anything fragile thank you for reminding me i've got to go do that yeah no you're not totally

the christmas gift kind of shopper huh that's how i am too yeah

[Music] well let's get into some listener questions but first dj meatball play a

sound effect [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Listener Questions

all right the first question is for me jeff you've mentioned your garmin watch a few times and how much

you like it one comment you made was that garbage does a poor job at promoting how their products can benefit a rider can you do

a podcast or youtube video on the features for average mountain bikers that might benefit suggestions for watches etc from mike p

well mike b thanks for asking because i really like garmin watches i think i have said that before i have the 4runner

945 lte liam has my old one 4runner 945. and uh yeah garmin has way too many

watches it's really confusing but essentially they all have gps in them and heart rate monitors on there so yeah and they're

multi-sport so you can just click one button and tell it if you're doing a run a hike trail run mountain bike ride

e-mountain bike ride road ride gravel ride you can make custom activities it's pretty cool and then it just tracks

everything you want so it'll tell you obviously your distance and your heart rate the whole time and give you a whole

map of everything and you can link it all to strava if you want all that data then import it to strava which i think

is what most people do no most people just record their yeah they use their garmin to just send it to strava

they work amazing i really enjoy it i also like the fact that it has a body battery feature which kind of is

tracking your motion and heart rate and activity 24 7 and the batteries on the things you know depending on how many

activities you do um they usually last how long does yours last well recently since i've been doing a

lot of activity i feel like i've charged it once a week yeah like if i write a lot but it's

funny because you say that you say it like that's bad but people who like hear that and they're like my apple watch runs out every day no that's what i mean

like it's good it lasts a whole week yeah it's it's cool i mean if like oh like if you exercise let's say four

hours a week you probably charge your garmin once every two weeks but if you're doing like

long days or something because obviously what burns battery is um is just running the gps yeah but there's also ways to

like make that better right so when i hike i put the gps setting on ultratrack which is less accurate gps but it's like

way more battery efficient and then if you're doing something where you really want the gps to be accurate like you have a map on your watch so you're like

riding and you actually have a full topo map on your watch which you can do on the phoenix series of garmin watches and

on the higher end versions of the 4runners like in the 900 series 4runners then you can put it on like gps plus

colano glass or whatever and then you have more accurate gps so yeah i think they're great i mean i like i like the

fact that it you know gives you a bit of a you know just take on like your body

battery like what you know what's happening with you in terms of how much exercise you're getting and how good your sleep is that's really good it does

all sleep data if you wear it 24 7. um and yeah it's just like a great device to track that the gps is way more

accurate than your phone's going to be so if you're currently like using your phone to record all of your bike rides or your apple watch

garmin watch is going to be way more accurate at that which is really cool and the heart rate's great and you don't need to wear a chest strap

you could though if you want you can link that up you can also link like what a cadence sensor and a power meter you can hook that up to your garmin so yeah

there's a lot of really cool benefits for garmin watches they're pretty impressive and i think garmin does kind

of do a poor job at advertising that because they do work so well for like all these different things like you can wear it for motocross riding and running

and cycling of all kinds and they're pretty rad so i'm a huge fan of them i think they're just amazing devices

especially with how compact it is and how rarely you have to charge it and how much data it gives you so that's my

that's my shtick on garmin and you didn't have one for a while right liam you just had like the little garmin head unit one and then you went to the watch

yeah i uh i mean i had like a fancy head unit back when i was racing and then

when i stopped racing i kind of like went full other mode and i just had the most basic they didn't make anymore it's

like a garmin 20 or garmin 25th it had like

how long i rode for how many miles i did and like my elevation and that was it and it was like so simple

and then yeah i wanted to watch so um i actually sent jeff an email about like comparing models and he gave me

like a full three or four paragraph breakdown and at the bottom he goes but

i'm getting a new one so do you want my old one i was like i could have saved like five paragraphs and said that i just wanted i just wanted to talk about

it i'm kind of a tech nerd i could talk about laptops and phones and uh like

garmin watches and stuff all the time you don't have one jared i know it's all things i got six bikes

well you have an apple watch don't you i got an up watch does the job whatever do you record your rides on that or to use your phone to record your i record my

rides mostly on the watch but um like i would totally get a garmin watch

but i mean the thing for me is i don't want to sleep in it and i feel like that's how you take

advantage of so many of the features is like you wearing it all the time yeah i guess you just have to get used to it

like the body battery and all of like your sleep tracking that you have to wear it 24 7. yeah um but if you don't

really care as much about that then who cares like if you're just using it to track your rods and runs and activities or whatever then you don't really need

to wear it 24 7. that's true but yeah so i don't know they are really cool devices i really enjoy mine um i think

it's a super good way to record all of your activities and i don't know i used to not want to record stuff you just

want to go out and be without electronics since i stare at screens all day but it's so easy like being on your wrist it's like two buttons and it's

like boom you're recording your activity um and then you have all the data right there and what i also like too is like when i ride new places you know like

when we even took that trip in last july right like i recorded every one of those rides and if i ever want to go back to crestview colorado i can go back to my

garment data and see the whole map and then i can put that route on my watch like if i happen to be there without guides on a chasing trip and i'm there

by myself like and like i record all my rides in new zealand in december of 2019 so i can just go if i go back there i

have like all of my ride data it just tells you like which direction to go and everything yeah it's like you have a full map you can load the whole whole

ride up on here no way and i'll tell you beeps at you if you think you're off gps and wow i think that part's cool too

like i'll hit up jeff be like hey where'd you hike over here and he'll just send me the whole garmin link yeah i'll save that upload on here and i have

jeff's hike that my watch is following wow and took like four clicks all right that's pretty sweet yeah that's a nice

little feature yeah and so i take it you can probably go into like some other back end where there's a bunch of people or like a community of people and then

you can just like their routes yeah that's pretty cool that's right garmin connects similar to strava right kind of yeah

it's kind of weird it used to just be like garmin was like this like back end data platform that connected to strava

but then they've tried to kind of make it a little bit like strava um but it's not yeah it's not really like strava but you can still see like

popular routing and i mean straw is still way better for like that's like social network aspect of it and the

community aspect and like finding popular routes like more people use strava than people that use garmin devices although a lot of people that

use strava are recording it from a garmin device so it's right yeah yeah i didn't even know it was a thing until

zach asks why haven't you accepted my friend request on government connect yeah

i know it's it's not it's not well it's not well built like straw is really well built like almost like a social media

app whereas like garmin connect is not really like that but it's like kind of want to be like that but more about the

data yeah it's more about the data and your own personal stuff tracking it so you can also do training plans like i

don't know if they have them for cycling but i know they have them for running like i was using a training plan for a half marathon on a marathon yeah which

is pretty cool nice um yeah suggested routes all that stuff i dig that all right cool let's hop into the next

one nice next question are we ready what is the best floor pump for accurate tire

pressure none i'm just kidding that's probably the wrong answer

i it's kind of that was that was kind of kind of the answer right i mean

it's just so hard to know what is actually accurate i mean there's like people who make pumps have ways to tell

that are like calib calibrated and stuff but like once you have a pump for like x amount of years how do you know it's still accurate

i just think you should stick with your pump and like try to always use your own pump to pump up or your own digital

pressure gauge to always check your tires most floor pumps gauge is not that great

yeah exactly so i don't i don't think like 23 psn my

pump and 23 psn your pump even if they're the same pump right might be two or three psi different or it'll be close

it'll be close yeah but you really want to accurate tire pressure use a did proper high quality digital gauge and

then try to use like just i just keep one in my riding bag and whoever i ride with i just use my pump and my gauge no

matter whose pump i use right yeah the other thing to remember is that with presser valves as they get clogged by

sealant then it totally throws off their ability for pressure gauges to even work yep so which i had no idea kind of a

prerequisite you need a really clean fresh valve core in there otherwise nothing's going to give you an accurate

reading including a digital gauge you learn something new every day you learn something new every day the nv

tire pressure digital pump it's like it's really expensive

that one's probably pretty accurate i hope so yeah pay that much money for it right

yeah well if if you're wondering more about tire pressure i think it was last podcast we talked a lot about it didn't we yeah i like the yeah

so yeah if you want to know more about it and you didn't already listen to the last podcast we talked a lot more about like what to put your tire pressure and

why and various ways to calculate it and that sort of thing so all right all right do you do you want to do the

honors of reading this next question jared i'd love to actually um who should this i think this is

probably directed to you jeff jeff would you rather die from holding in your poop or marry jared with a wig and 25

thousand dollars in store credit i didn't actually like

properly read this question at first i thought it said i thought it said holding your poop like i was in my head i was fixing you like you die while

you're holding a poop in your hands i think that's worse than actually the other way around yeah no holding in your

poop or married the funniest obviously i would just have jared thank you but you already you get 25 000 store credit to

the store you own i know yeah just like how does that mean

so essentially it's like thirteen thousand five hundred twelve thousand five hundred dollars that's right

and i just divorce you and i get the twelve five is that what happens yeah you get a divorce and you split the

credit that's a good deal for both of us all right i'm down great perfect

we're going to we're going to put we'll pay for our next bike we're going to put jared on mountain available

mountainbikehusbands.com oh god oh my god website we should build that

yeah we should all right liam this is a good question for you it is

what are the pros and cons of dot fluid versus fish oil i mean mineral oil

well a jab at shimano for making fishing parts i'm gonna yeah is that what that is that's exactly that's my question that

flew right over my head flying fish um i'm going to first preference it with

dot fluid is a standard by the motorized like vehicle

department the motor automotive yeah whatever that is department transportation yeah it's like standardized right like you

can get four you could get dot 5.1 which both sram uses at an auto parts store

and it will almost anywhere if it's 4 or 5.1 for whatever reason.5 does not work

weird um mineral fluid is not mineral oil like the mineral oil that you can buy at

the cvs local yeah drugstore drugstore is not the same as don't put that in your

brain absolutely that will never work so all mineral fluids or oils are

like shimano's own mix right or magura's own mix

they're not defined so that's the hard part but then when you really break them down say you're just doing shimano

mineral oil versus sram.fluid right make it super standard

they both have pros and cons and like at the end of the day they kind of both

even out right um i am by no means like the tester of all

this uh epic bleed solutions has a crazy in-depth blog

like it's really in-depth yeah we can put that in the show notes i mean it's it's unbelievable yeah it's like 12 pages how

long i don't think anyone will make a better blog than they did no way um so i'm just going to read off

the advantages and disadvantages of both good i'm ready so dot fluid the

advantages high boiling point uh can you see that hydroscopic nature

means water will never pool in the brake system uh it's regulated governed by minimum standards with

regulate that which regulate the quality wow yep widely available inexpensive

easily cleaned away disadvantages corrosive uh high growth skill pick nature poor

shelf life so it is when you do like if you're a home mechanic

you break a seal on your spam dot fluid uh you don't want to like have that sit

around for like six months really yeah it'll actually lower the quality of it wow um

so something to know buy the small bottles and keep it fresh uh advantages and disadvantages of

mineral oil high boiling point hydrophobic nature

non-water absorbing means the boiling point will never drop long shelf life non-corrosive it's unregulated easily

cleaned away i don't know why unregulated kind of is a i guess manufacturers get free rain

over the spec of their fluids so they could tweak it how they which is why mineral oil is not really like a defined thing which is

why the mineral oil you buy at the grocery store is different than shimano or magura mineral oil

disadvantage disadvantages are expensive compared to dot fluid hydrophobic nature limited

availability it's unregulated so it's kind of

give and take on both uh the article doesn't actually

give a like a winner yeah but that's what's cool about it i think because there

there isn't really a winner it's kind of up to you to decide but they do have at the bottom a poll

that says you tell us what you think is the winner and out of 14 000 votes there are

8666 for mineral fluid and 5 399 for dot fluids so the public thinks

mineral oil wins interesting or the 14 000 readers and voters of

this blog how much 61.61 of them do you think we could post on social media and get that

flipped around ooh wow i mean if we told people no no that doesn't make any sense yeah we want

people to vote honestly i mean i'm not biased either way like i

mean i agree with this blog there's advantages and disadvantages to both of them but i don't know

one time it's one of those things to me that like you just shouldn't really worry too much about yeah there's like when it comes to brakes like you're not

gonna buy a set of brakes because it uses one oil or the other i mean you should buy for a bunch of different

reasons some people definitely do but i've never had an issue on either side where i'm like oh if only this was dot

fluid or if only yes it's never like the problem with the brakes are never really related to the fluid inside of them

definitely not i mean the one thing i don't like about mineral oil is like when you bleach toronto break and it comes out black and it's like

yeah that's gonna happen with the top fluid will do the same thing oh really i mean i've just never seen

black dot fluid but oh yeah and it's just like it's definitely it happens yeah you said to

yeah heat it up enough you have to not bleed your brakes for a year and do really long downhills and hold your brakes it'll turn black all right well

there you go i guess they both turn black so yeah so we we will put the the link to this in the show notes um epic

bleed solutions i think they're out of the uk they make like a they sell like a bunch of brake parts and stuff i don't

really know too much about them other than that they wrote this unbelievably well done article so massive props to

them on that one yeah really cool really well done we would no one i don't think anyone will ever do something that in depth

what is this next question quick tips on how to get the most out of your brakes

i got some do you yeah mine are done

[Music] mine are to really really care about the quality of

the initial setup so who bled them and how they were installed right that like that really

matters like having your brakes properly bled is really really important and it's not as easy as some people like to

imagine it is it's not like a i'm just going to willy-nilly home mechanic this like it's just not like that like you really really need to have the right

tools and know exactly what you're doing or employ a mechanic who does the next part is breaking them in

properly i think that's where people totally mess that up they get new pads and new rotors at the same time or one

or the other and they don't break them in to the specified manufacturers like processed breaking in the pads and that

will like permanently damage the rotors and or pads simultaneously which causes them to not be as powerful or

inconsistent or make noise so break them in properly which typically i think we talked about this i get on some podcasts

like several times ago because it gets brought up a lot because people were like oh why don't my brakes how i broke them in i just you know i rode down this

massive hill and dragged them the whole way and it's like that's exactly what you're not supposed to do that's called glaze um

yeah so the proper break-in is you know when you have new pads or new rotors or both pedal up to speed about you know 20

miles an hour or so and slowly like gently grab those brakes come to a slow roll not a complete stop and come to a

slow roll and then let go and then repeat that five times take a break you'll be out of breath the brakes will

be hot do another five times and then pretty much good to go so that's what you want to do you don't want to lock

them up you don't want to drag them that damages kind of the process of bedding in the brake pads to the rotors so

that's those are my two quick tips on how to get your brakes to work well you got anything else

that's definitely i think like the easiest ones to do for people um use all

the same brand stuff i yeah i kind of lean that way it's just safer it's easier it's

people have really done your research yeah people with ceramic shimano are not dumb they they put a lot of time into

why the rotors have certain holes in them why the brakes pads have certain compounds you know like yeah and how

that meshes together yeah like it's always meant to be a system been tested and engineered you know for

years and years and years that's not to say that aftermarket companies aren't good

uh you know gaufer and other brands like that are are super good um

but i just kind of lean towards like you know stick with your brand it's all meant to work together like people are

working really hard to to make that product so yeah yep i mean for me like

i think most people probably just don't do regular maintenance enough just check your pads and your rotors and like align them and bleed them like

you know you could probably take like an hour out of your day every couple months and just like do that and then your brakes are going to be dialed

that's pretty much all i got yeah that does help don't contaminate them don't contaminate them that's a that's a quick

tip you don't want to spray sc1 on your rotors to clean them anything you do anything yeah definitely don't put

whatever not even fingers yeah um when i worked in more of a traditional local bike shop

we would have people coming in constantly that would just have contaminated pads wd-40 on the pads yeah

they would be like they squealed so i put lubrication on them this was also when disc brakes were more new too right

so people come off of v brakes for 20 years and they got disc brakes and they didn't really know how to

i don't know set them up or they would be like oh it's rubbing and then instead of aligning the caliper with the proper

screws they would loosen the whole like the caliper has two sides to it right and then like

crack it open and flew everywhere um yeah so you know make sure you're you

know loosening the correct bolt on there depending on what you're trying to do

yeah so yeah that stuff happens a lot oh yeah yeah one other very

nerdy way to take care of your brakes is on the first install but to

actually face your mounting surfaces especially now with a lot more bikes having like direct mount carbon

uh ain't nobody got time for that hey dude you want good braking surface i have time to use your bike right

yeah i mean because otherwise the pads will be slightly angled not perfectly parallel to the rotor yeah so

that's a that's a that goes that goes back to like third way it's almost like if you have a local mechanic be like hey

do you ever do you ever face the brake mounting surfaces and if they're like what then you know

if they're good or not and if they're like yeah absolutely i do that every bike i build then you're like oh amazing you're employed i choose you

it's a good qualifier question even if you don't know what is a good one here's a here's the next

question why does shimano use a phillips head on their lever that does absolutely nothing wow i've been trying to figure

this out for years shimano usa sliding on dms yeah uh

if anybody knows feel free to let us know because we're still trying to figure it out from what i recall

um when sram came out with the with us back when it was avid so it was originally

avid stream bought the company avid uh the juicy brakes were the first mountain bike brakes where you could actually

adjust how far the lever pulls like on the fly without having to over bleed or underbelly the system like you could

actually adjust how much you know throw that lever would have before it engages with that ugly red just google avid

juicy sevens and you'll see this like cast cast aluminum looking color pewter lever

with this like big ugly red i just have a knob and that would adjust how far the lever would pull until it engaged and

saran got a patent on that and it was actually amazing like it it worked and it was cool and it still exists on saran

breaks and now it's a much more refined look with a nice little knob that spins

and uh yeah it allows you to adjust how far the lever pulls until the break engages which is incredibly convenient

shimano tried to do such a thing while not encroaching on sram's patent

and they put that phillips head screwdriver on there i don't know why i saw an allen why

why on god's greener [Music] the bikes the bikes are covered in allens and they look so much nicer and

everyone ha philip says what it is and it's a silver phillips head screwdriver like you could just paint it at least

let alone like maybe a blanket maybe something um we're just like don't put that there because it doesn't

do anything yeah it also like just doesn't really work at all hardly does anything yeah it's pretty useful

and what's crazy too is like i i will give it i honestly think that shimano xtr brakes

are the best looking brake in existence that's obviously my personal opinion but like the way the lever looks and the

caliper looks and the rotors look like they look like they're from a stealth bomber like they just look incredible

and then there's still a phillips head screwdriver why is that there no let me bust out my

screwdriver and i'll just adjust that for you though let me just hit home depot real quick to get a little only a screwdriver on a 10 000 bike only one

guaranteed only philip said and it will only ever be the one until they change it yeah i have no idea what's going on

there oh gosh um anyways that's that question

how about this one jeff what was the step that took you from working at a small local bike shop to running this

mtb retail powerhouse um well that story so we have a youtube

series called ask jeff anything or i answer all sorts of various questions so if you ever want to know more about me

personally and sort of my journey of what i did racing bikes and working in the bike industry and then starting

worldwide cyclery go to youtube and check out that youtube series because i answer all those types of questions

to sort of sum that question up i as a kid so i grew up in newbury park

california and i worked at a local shop called michael's bicycles just one single location not to be confused with

mike spikes the much larger like chain of shops in northern california but michael's bicycles in in newberry park

california which was a family-run shop really cool people really nice people um

they at the time so i think now they're like trek and specialized i'm not sure i

don't have total close contact with them anymore um but the uh

it was a cool shop i worked there i think i started working when i was 13 years old which maybe it's not legal maybe i

shouldn't have said that i don't think these days it was legal back in my day uh mom said

it's all right yeah exactly my mom said it's okay i was like you know as a teenager i was

watching bikes and then you know i was just obsessed like as a kid i was just utterly obsessed and infatuated with

mountain bikes and i was just constantly learning every possible thing i could about them and went from washing bikes

to working on bikes to then talking to people in the retail store and i worked all the way until i was like 20 years old and

uh the last couple years i worked there i was you know i'd asked the owner i'd

said hey like i think so this is back in 2009 at the time 2008 i was like hey i think this i think this internet thing

is going to be big you know it already was but obviously not as big as now and so i told him and i was like

hey i was like hey i want to start selling stuff online blah blah you know super nice guy and he's like he's like

look he's like it's above my head i'm not too interested in it he's like if you want to buy stuff you know at wholesale from our distributors and sell

it on your own time like feel free like you have total rain like i trust you it's all good so i was like okay cool so

i was just buying random things at wholesale cost and then i would sell them on on ebay and like pink bike

forums and mtbr forums things like that just talking to people and and i realized like wow there's just there's a

huge opportunity here like there's there's some incumbents but they're not really good at all and there's a lot of

opportunity here for other players and people to do it way better and people to do it on like just different marketing strategies yada yada and

so i kind of just like dabbled and i tested the waters and then because of that i learned a ton it was

all just a learning experience but working at that shop for all those years taught me who the distributors were who the customers were

all about the products all that sort of stuff so from there i you know again like i told the owner i

was like hey i really want to do this i think there's an opportunity and he's just like he's like i know i'm sure you're right but like

i'm yeah he was older yeah he was in his late 50s at the time and so he's he's you know he was kind of just

i'm not you know i don't i don't want to bother yeah if it ain't broke don't fix it yeah you know and again you know i

respect him like he's got he's got his ways and and and i said okay well i'm gonna go do this then by myself and he's

like that's cool man like good luck i mean he was the nicest guy ever and um

you know so you know and uh so i did so i took off and uh i i went and yeah i i

told this whole story one time on on one of those ass just ask jeff videos but basically um i don't come from a wealthy

family by any means but like a middle class family at least and my my mom gave me a 20 000 loan at 10 simple interest

um which i paid her back in 11 months and and i opened i released a little

dinky shop and and i put a shop in there and i started i got the distributor accounts that i knew and started selling

product on the internet and it was like super small it was literally just me and a friend and we were just trying to sell

bike parts on the internet and it was like really small really podunk really grassroots and then from there just like

grew and grew and we just learned and progressed and you know tried tried more things and figured out how we could get

more customers and do a better job and build a nice website and like educate people and provide a great customer

experience that wasn't currently there and yada yada and now worldwide cyclery is where it is today which is in a very

different place 11 years later so yeah that was kind of the transition from the small local shop that i worked at to the

you know what this gentleman says mtb retail powerhouse

i don't know if i call it that but maybe it is it's a compliment yeah it's compliments thank you thank you for calling it an

mtb retail powerhouse yeah i like that so i don't know i mean a lot of it really at the end of the day was just good business acumen i saw an

opportunity in the industry and i also understood that you know it's not just about the

opportunity but it's about how you take advantage of it and then serve your customer and like have a customer-centric business and making

sure like you're always doing right by the customer and getting good customer feedback and doing things to make people

impressed and happy when they shop with you and then also doing the same thing internally like making sure your internal staff is like excited and happy

to work there and enjoying their jobs type of things like those are kind of the fundamentals of business that somehow

are forgotten a lot of the times in modern day business world but that's all i really did it wasn't wasn't rocket

science certainly not zuckerberg over here starting the metaverse just just running an mtb retail powerhouse i guess

uh all right next question you want to read that offlane are there any plans for

t1 trail 1 to produce frames um

not really so that's a that's a big uh big task

yeah if if you listen to last podcast uh trail one components is something that uh us and brian kennedy and an uh former

race face engineer uh mount by component brand we launched to like make really high in mountain bike components that we

want and want to have for ourselves but also have this like really cool give back story to where every product sold

the dollar goes back to a trail network um anyways you could check it out trail one dot bike but uh yeah we were

currently you know in the early phases of that brand and uh we have some really

quality you know kind of cockpit stuff right now in terms of grips bars and a stem as far as frames i mean

i won't say a definite no but not in any non

maybe like a secret hardtail like for me

not initially i mean it could happen who knows i mean i won't give it a definite no but yeah currently we have no plans

for producing frames we just want to try and refine the existing components we have and make some new cool really good contact points and various things like

that we just want to make like good high quality stuff and also find a way to have the business like have really cool

stories to tell about the trails that the products are named after and giving back to the trails while simultaneously

making just kind of the stuff that like we've really always wanted in terms of high-end mountain bike components

so i don't know frames would be cool but now my frames are a challenge man i mean they're they're

i like to say they're at a product innovation plateau it's hard to make them any better than they are excluding

the e-bike space i think e-bikes still have a lot of runway to evolve and innovate but i think regular

mountain bikes don't have too much room they're pretty amazing as they are so you said it yeah there's so many good

ones there are so many good ones yeah they really are all right next question is

what's jared's next bike it's a really good question you were you were i was walking out of the bathroom and you were

like had a yeti box in your hand and you were like staring at me in like shock and i was like what's wrong with you

and you you were embarrassed to to tell me what was happening

before you answered you know because like i'm pretty bad but i think you've surpassed me this year maybe um i've

kind of calmed down i'm like i know what i like now you know yeah how many bikes ahead are you planning

like do you have like you this bike you're building do you have the next one already planned technically yeah

[Laughter] i'm totally guilty i'll accept the i'll

accept the charge uh all right so what are you building so it's a bike i've been wanting to build ever since it came

out and it's a yeti sp 165 dh bike and i've got it well it's not supposed to be

a dh bike it's just a super no bike it is going to be a dh bike well yours is yeah but it's supposed to be a 165 mil

travel 27.5 inch wheel right yeah which what do they have 170 that's a 180 ford

180 that's what they spec it with yeah okay so yeti specs it with 27.5 inch wheels 184 yeah 165 rear travel so

mine's going to be like a 190 dual crown and then seven is the same actual crown as a 180

yeah so it doesn't change any geo right and then i'm gonna do a seven speed like

proper you know seven speed dh ceramic drivetrain and code breaks and rigid post

and some mine on wheels and send it send it it's gonna be dialed i'm so stoked i haven't heard they're going to be ready though because you can't

even really like ride cool bike partners it's all going to be it's all going to

be ready except for the fork which isn't going to be around till like march or something so

it's fine like i did this on purpose to plan it out like for next summer i'm not planning on riding it obviously anytime

soon i just wanted to like be ready for bike park season but yeah i haven't had a proper dh bike in like pretty much

ever the last bike i had that was a dh bike was a santa cruz vp free it was like a 2004

and that was kind of like an enduro bike you could put a dual crown on you know or like before in durability in terms of mountain yeah like super

weird geo but i mean i'm trying to remember like what geo was

like in 2004 oh this thing was like super high and short and like oh yeah it's there but it was 26 inch wheels for

the time it was rad and i loved that bike um but it was not like a proper dh bike and i've always wanted something

just like proper and this will be it even though it's like a mini dh bike quote unquote whatever

um that's it i'm stoked i mean if it could ride rampage and get a podium at rampage i think it's pretty probably

yeah we did that rebugs right on that board yeah and it was a 165 dual

ground fork yeah yeah that's a sponsored yeti rider and he's yeah absolutely incredible black rider so a little bit

of inspiration from him but um yeah thing's gonna be sick and still has

one too yeah nate hill's actually yeah nathan's does one he's also a little bit of my inspiration as well that's jared's

next bike and we've all lost track that's it all right [Laughter]

the next question with the new hpc compound for deity bras

how will it affect the pb and j supply in the usa yes

yes [Laughter] i don't know who asked that but i give them a high five for creativity because

that is pretty funny it's like an ad-lib or whatever right yeah that's just

like how will it blank blank it's low-key though pb and j's are my favorite yeah what's

up pb j that's what's up i had a toasted one recently like a really high quality

bread and it was toasted and uh it was joe fox's wife she's an amazing cook she also put butter on it so it was

like butter pb j and it was toasted high quality like she's an amazing cook that's pbh

well we requested him she also made like she's she used to be the head chef at the biltmore in phoenix

wow i've been there oh you're so high class you've been there that's where every president has

been there i went to school in arizona man so you say the biltmore isn't like a thousand dollars a night i never said i

stayed there no i said i've been there just been there like well i've driven by it too yeah

you've been there too it's true

all right more importantly jared yeah how did you get the fox floatex to fit the ranger that's a great question i

picked the correct size which is 190x45 and i got the correct mounting hardware

and it bolted right on you know what what the hell is that a good question

there's nothing special about it here's the special part you can just buy it in the right size here's the special part okay you got to get the right bottle

cage to get a water bottle to work on there you get a lasagna flow cage and you can like dremel out the

you know the mountains or you can get the wolf tooth uh bottle

cage liam you know the name of it i think it's more more code okay something like that morse

cage or something like that where it has all the different mounting points and then that way you can mount it lower down inside the triangle and then you

can have the water bottle with your beautiful float x and then you get a 0.001 percent advantage of having your

water bottle weight lower towards the bottom bracket yeah i like that bigger advantage

is getting off the sid lux yeah getting on a shot do you think that's that much of

a difference i like that sid looks like i don't know ranger i don't think i got a roll for that bike i just took i just put the super deluxe on because i'm more

a rockshox guy on my ranger instead of the sydlocks and like

mo like very like mellow riding it's the same right it doesn't make much difference like the sydlocks is

impressive for how small and light that shock is i think it's on a really big descents and really big

multiple compressions that this lux just is way more composed or the sorry

the floatex or the super deluxe is way more composed on super long downhills or like multiple

big compressions right the sid lux kinda is a little pogoy

after a little bit yeah and you can't blame it on anything the thing's teeny yeah so small yeah for how light

it is yeah i think it does a great job for the weight and size totally yeah i don't know i didn't personally have an

amazing experience with sid lux when i rode that bike just i don't know if it's my weight versus your weight and me being like closer 200 versus you being

closer to 150 or something like that but like even i preferred the dps i felt

i feel like it felt better on the ranger the floatx it's just like it's obviously unnecessary but it feels great like it's

super consistent kind of like what liam's saying and yeah for bigger stuff it's just a little better like yeah

you can do drops and not feel like you're destroying it like you know yeah i i

i can definitely i would agree with you but i also think that i don't know just it's just tough

because to me in my head it's like well that's a different bike no you see the weight difference you think that's

that's a couple hundred dollars and it's just a different bike if i want to ride a lightweight shorter travel bike like

the rebel ranger 115 mil in the back 120 in the front then i want it to be light and fast and a shortest travel bike and

if i if i start caring about like how composed it is on long downhills or how

it feels off of drops then i just ride a longer travel bike but what if you're out for a big ride and then you find a

long downhill or a drop yeah that's that's all right that's our name

if we go back to colorado any other choice between a composed long travel bike or a ranger that's kind of over

built what would you pick oh it's still right exactly what i wrote the rascal 130 mil 29er in the back with a 150 fork

in the front that bike's like the best one quiver bike it is really good but i still think i'd choose my ranger because it's just a

little bit more efficient on the climbs hold speed a little better yeah honestly if i were to go back i would bring the

ranger with that shock that would be perfect on that same trip yep i mean i rode my 120 120 following well i also

am just not like on trips like that like i'm just never anywhere remotely close to the back of the pack

climbing yeah i mean i don't care i'm not i'm not like oh i'm going to need to bring a lighter bike

next time like yeah if anything i could have brought a heavier bike you want to trade packs next time yeah you did bring all the camera

equipment hand tools and water and snacks for everyone else that was dying yeah

depends on what you're riding with if i constantly rode with people that were faster than me then i'd probably be

nitpicking things differently but in trips like that i'm usually not a slow climber so fair enough i'm not thinking about that yeah

that's fair all right favorite part about mountain biking this i like i love this question oh okay well go ahead and

go first yeah um favorite part about mountain well give me a second oh my

gosh i thought it was loaded well here's here's what's challenging is is we all know there is

kind of an endless amount of things we like and enjoy about mountain biking yeah but the the problem with the word

favorite is you have to pick one i'm gonna go with almost frustrating it's like

hitting the reset button like if i'm in a bad mood or like having a rough day and i go have an epic ride and i come

back it's like boom i'm feeling great yep that's probably my favorite thing about it yeah

mine's similar i think if you're on a mountain bike ride solo or with people um

you have to be pretty focused on what you're doing to like ride well totally

and you forget about everything else and like anything else you pretty much are

just focused on getting down the trail and the adrenaline rush is like unbeatable for me so yeah

yeah the one the single single track mindedness

oh i'd love a good pun yeah it's a great way to clear the mind yeah that is true

what's yours jeff your favorite thing about mountain biking his huh was like like looking down on our views yeah like

i don't know i mean i i agree with those exactly i just don't know how i can pick a single one

i would i would probably i would probably say it's the beautiful

combination of exercise fun and adrenaline and flow state like all of

those like putting those all together in in an orgasmic way so you kind of

picked four i would agree but yeah you kind of like cheated it was a beautiful combination you totally cheated and picked four

[Laughter] yeah i mean people have asked me like why are you like obsessed with mountain

biking it's like that's it's like when you're riding it everything else disappears it's hard to

explain and adrenaline rush is like but i really do think it's the combination what is it i do always tell people it is

the funnest way to have exercise for sure outside of the bedroom don't laugh keep

it's the funnest way to get exercise yeah and yeah it's amazing yeah i agree and

and probably the best exercise that also achieves a flow state almost the entire time yep it's cool great i'm glad that

we can all agree that we agree yeah i have no idea what you said

why are kettle mountain products illegally excellent um

that's a pretty creative thing to say illegally excellent i don't know we work really hard on them thanks for the

question we're not in trouble are we yeah i don't think we're doing anything illegal as far as i know uh

will kettle make sizes for taller and bigger folk so a small apparel brand like what we're

doing with kettle is trying to make really high end high quality sort of like technical stuff a lot of nice

features and really nice unique fabrics things like that when you kind of go down that path uh

you you start out making product making apparel that fits the majority of shape

and sizes of people and then you expand from there so that's kind of how it goes so absolutely

obviously if you were to look at some type of uh you know line chart of like the average body type

people who are tall and skinny or short and stout they're more outliers so that's kind of what comes next

so yeah we absolutely will and uh just a matter of time so thanks for the question wasn't there another question

here about man nips yeah it's two down yeah split up oh i wanna i want to read that one

because i thought it was funny there you go uh i don't know where it is just two down

how do you make an mtb jersey that doesn't show my man nips so

as as funny of a question as that is it's kind of a good question because everyone has different nipples that's a

reality it's a reality everyone has every nipples oh you're breaking it down that far well i'm actually taking this

question seriously because for starters a lot of athletic apparel whether it's a mountain bike

jersey or it's a running jersey or just a lightweight top can be a really thin fabric which can then very prominently

show your nips and uh there's kind of not really a great

solution one solution is worth two of them uh or wear a thicker one which then this causes a problem with heat

so the end all be all solution which a lot of people do is just put a little tape over them that's what i was going to say right they people do like

athletic tape a little athletic tape it also prevents chafing if you're getting a chafing that's the number one way to prevent nipple chafing

this uh one of my race kits one year the whatever the way the bib straps lined up

in my jersey all right get chafing so i used to put band-aids over him yep yeah

yeah i mean it's it's it's an interesting thing but the reason i wanted to actually seriously answer it is because as we've developed more

fabrics with kettle and different products like we have two things the no fry sun hoodie and the departed tech teas are both this like unbelievably

lightweight fabric and there's no going around the fact that like if you have an unbelievably lightweight fabric you can it kind of

contours and shapes and you can see things more clearly than if it's a thick fabric so there's not much of a solution

there other than either where to wear something with a thicker fabric or use some tape or a jacket on those man-damn

swords put a jacket on 85 degrees or just own it man you know what check out my man nips yeah

dude got a thin jersey it's not like no one has yeah yeah flex those nibs yeah

all right jump back up what is each of yours current shoe and pedal setup

jared i'll go first i've got crank brothers mallet ease

yeah good clarification there thank you and uh let's see 510 kestrel

boa which i love i've been using those for a couple years i probably need new cleats

because like there's a little bit of play i feel like when i'm climbing and stuff but i love that combo and the boa has

not broken yet and it's awesome sweet yeah what about you guys jeff

uh i also have crank brothers mallet ease i really like those pedals i think they're kind of like the perfect

all-around trail pedal i don't really know if i'd ever want to run a different one and

i have now i was running 510 shoes for a while because they had such

stock issues in the last 24 months or five years i don't know

510's had a lot of various stock issues even and they can't really use a pandemic as an excuse um because it happened before that i

love their shoes i always have but crank brothers came out with their own shoes not too long ago that was in like december of 19 or december of 20. it was

in 20 20 yeah crank brothers made their own shoes and i really like them um i have

the mallet speed lace right is that what i have sounds or do i have the mallet oh i have the mallet

the mallet e speed lace um i like those shoes i think they're i have them up right here

yeah so i like those shoes i think they're really comfortable and the speed lace feature is nice just quick to put

the shoe on and off and yeah just a good comfortable durable quality shoe so far it's not nearly as stiff as the kestrels

that you're using that has a way stiffer shank which makes it much more efficient pedaling

makes it less comfortable to walk in or push your bike in hike your bike in and uh

so i don't know it's give or take right like a really stiff shank is is the best for pedaling and efficiency a little bit

more flexi shank is way more comfortable hiking the bike or if you have to walk

um i also think for downhill too yeah better yeah i think you do get better pedal feel

with a less stiff shank stiffer the shoe is i get hot foot oh you ever you guys are better yeah

i've never had a problem with that but i know people do maybe on flats stiff for the shoe i kind of get hot i'm

like that's we're talking about like long descent you know like yeah constant 10 minute plus downhill yeah yep i also

run that same melody pedal on everything so even though it doesn't

make sense to really have a pedal that beefy with a you know whole platform around it i put still put on my gravel

bike i just want consistency so like i run the same 760 wide bars on every bike

i have and the same pedals on every bike i have unless it's my dirt bike which i have flat pedals but that's a totally different situation um but i try to just

have consistency in terms of like shoe and pedal and then bar width and and sort of lever position i always want to

have consistency there so yeah that's what i'm currently running and i like those i have not really any complaints

they could be they could be 15 percent stiffer shank i think that would be a

little better in terms of stiffness of shank maybe it's still not too stiff like i think the i think the ones in the 5 10

kestrels are probably i would call them maybe a little too stiff for my liking and the crank brothers are slightly

too flexy so i want i want the goldilocks right wait i was gonna say we got a goldilocks situation going yeah exactly

what we do liam what are you running um kind of a shoe diva just kind of in my

life in general i have a lot of shoes um i i won't i won't you know hide that

uh i have shoe wise i have crank brothers mallet

for kind of my big bike riding which is their downhill shoe i have crankbrothers mallet e for my

general trail riding uh both the speed lace version and then i have

kestrel laces that i don't really wear that much anymore but i wear them for big xc days or like big kind of

more days i want the efficiency but i'd say 75 of the time i wear my mallet e

speed light shoe oh crank brothers a man of culture yep and then uh

pedal wise i'm still on shimano no he says it with a shame

i tried i've tried are you actually using shimano or using some other brand that just uses an spd no i'm actually using shimano now um i

was using ecs for a bit but i had like after a couple years you know i

think i broke a spring on one and rebuild kits and stuff so if they bring them back i'll run those um

but i tried crank brothers i couldn't just get used to it uh so back on shimanos i do however want to

try time because i heard they're kind of like in the middle kind of in between um and now time is owned by sram so i'd way rather

support that um so if you're listening time nice hit me with some pedals i'll try

oh but good luck bro i know i'd buy them honestly if they're in stock but they're not yeah

speaking of that don't we have a i feel like i did a youtube video

a hundred years ago on clipless pedals how to set up the crank brothers cleats and no detail yeah

wow you've memorized the exact title yeah i we did that video and uh

it was when we were still didn't have the color correction quite perfect and i looked like a oompa loompa because i was orange but but it was it was a good

video people still comment on that video and are really appreciative of that video because when you are trying to set

up a crank brothers pedal for the first time and you need all the little details about how to use the shims where to place the cleat how to break in the

rubber on the bottom of your sole all of that sort of stuff that i think was that video 18 minutes long

um i mean it was ridiculous it was in ridiculous detail so so yeah if you're trying to set that up

check out that video but we also did a video that was uh

what was that called i'm trying to remember what it was i think it was like best clipless pedals

and um or maybe like top five clipless pedals something like that but i i

remember in that video i i kind of went into detail of all the various different brands between uh crank brothers shimano

time ht about kind of how they feel like how much float they have how snappy they

are when you clip into them different things like that so i don't know they all do have a different feel

like they're certainly not ones not one is better than the other um but they have a different feel in terms of

how they work and yeah my my preference on clipless is you know crank brothers liam's is shimano for different reasons

the title of that video you're looking for jeff is mtb clipless pedals buyer's guide everything you need to know wow

all right cool we also did a clipless first flats and

the synopsis of that is essentially do whatever makes you feel more comfortable because if you're going to be clipped in

and you don't feel comfortable you're not going to have a good time on your bike so don't do that i can have a good time all right what do we got

welcome have a good time um oh man we're out of time we're out of time that's it that's all

uh we don't want this podcast to run forever uh oh wait one last question one last

question should i read it um which one that one yeah yeah if you

have to wear lycra every ride for the rest of your life what color would it be and why would you

never ride again

that's what we will that's what that is the philosophical question we will leave you to ponder over the next three weeks

while we come out with another mtb podcast if you've made it this far thank you for listening we genuinely

appreciate you and we love you right jared we sure do i love you we love you very much thank you very much seriously

thank you for listening and i got nothing else got nothing good night new york good night new york

[Music]

December 13, 2021

MTB Podcast › NICA › Video ›

Brake Setup Tips, WC's Origins, Pedal + Shoe Combos & Magnificent Listener Questions... MTB Podcast Episode 89 [Podcast]

If you are one strange human that would like to read a transcript of the podcast above, continue reading below!

December 13, 2021

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