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KETL Treasure Hunt Edition 2, More Tantalizing Tire Talk, Nutrition on the Bike & More... Ep. 157 [Podcast]
Today on the podcast, the boys recap some recent escapades before discussing some sweet new tires they've been trying as well as the KETL Treasure Hunt V2 before jumping into a wild set of listener questions ranging from our pet guard animals to tucking vs. pedaling and everything in between. Tune in!
Worldwide Cyclery YouTube Channel
Submit any and all questions to podcast@worldwidecyclery.com.
If you are one strange human that would like to read a transcript of the podcast above, continue reading below!
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 157 of the MTB podcast presented by
Worldwide Cyclery, Ketl Mountain, and Trail One Components. Why are you laughing? I'm just, you know, cuz this isn't
updated right here. Anyways, in this episode, we are going No. Oh my gosh. We're going to take it from the top. I'm
all discombobulated. Okay, here was this is what I'm going to do.
Jared's in charge of this talk. He's not even drinking. He's sober. Presented and hosted by Worldwide
Cycling Kettle. What What's going on? Why are you doing this right now? You already uh
the whole intro. Yeah, we're going to we're going to go I'm just going to take over while Jared's uh adjusting his document that
he didn't update. So, in this episode, we're going to talk about the upcoming Kettle Edition 2 treasure hunt. Uh, plus
some classic listener questions ranging from pedaling versus tucking during a race run, hydration techniques, and
everything in between. Are you all right, Jared? That's right. No, I'm not okay. Okay, at all. Yeah.
I think this was a great intro. We should leave it and go straight into Zach's words of wisdom because this is perfectly fitting for you right now.
Oh, God. Zach's words of wisdom. Good job. Keep it up. You're doing great. Doing so great, you guys.
Oh, the best words of wisdom for that whole intro situation right there. You're doing so great. Daniel's fun
fact. This is pretty fun. Octopuses have three hearts, blue blood, and can taste with their arms. And when stressed, they
sometimes eat themselves. Do you like eating octopus, Jeff? Uh, yeah, I do.
Liam, no. You do? I like octopus. Yeah, I think it's good. I mean, it has to. It doesn't have It's
kind of like white fish. doesn't have much flavor itself, but if you cook it and season it well. I kind of don't like the texture.
Yeah, the texture I could say is polarizing. I'm not like a big texture octopus guy either. There's a lot of weird things about
octopus. There's a there's a section of people who really believe in it because it's got good health benefits and they
believe in eating high IQ foods. And then there's people who really are not like haters on eating octopus because
because they are treated like very intelligent creatures. Yeah. Like eating a dog or something. I mean,
I don't think dogs IQ's are that high. And people are offended at everything. People are going to be offended if you eat the thing or you not eat the thing.
So, like dolphin, do people ever eat dolphin? I even heard of that. Yeah. Well, who knows?
I'm sure people do like other like it's the only food source, but I'll definitely say like after watching
a couple of like documentaries and and things about octopuses, it Yeah, there was that famous one, right?
I think so. The one that was on Netflix everyone loved probably. It was like become like getting friends with an octopus or
something like that. I don't know where the lady was like following it around. She becomes friends with it and like they go and hang out like every day.
Octopus are pretty hard to say those are from Earth.
Yeah. Well, anyways, those are out there. This kind of got me on to uh the
desire to Google Octomom hot pick because I was just curious if the Octoom was hot and uh
Octoom the one the from K the John and K
plus8 something like that. I don't know the the lady who had like eight kids at once or something.
This has got to be one of the most off-topic intros we've done in a long time. Didn't have eight kids at once. Maybe it was just eight kids.
Was it eight? Was it? I think it was eight once. That's insane. Yeah. How could you be pregnant with eight kids at once?
There there's a a family uh that I grew up with that had seven.
This runs at Yeah, they did like the the section. No, obviously.
Um they had to help like the like a nanny or a No. And I don't know how to say the
word. You you needed help getting pregnant. So, they did that. Oh. And by doing that artificial incimination they got seven
they had seven children quintuplets quintuplet isn't five
this is getting anyways all right it leads perfectly into the fantastic testimonials where the guy says these guys are clean genuine down
to earth and love to talk about bikes and talk about biking that's we've talked nothing of the sort
we have bikes whole intro of this podcast it's pretty amazing um but and he also says a few other
things yeah he says says also thanks for the information on bikes and trips, opinions on products and honest reviews and
providing a calm demeanor. I look forward to the show and listening to your positive outlook on your experiences. Thank you all.
Thank you for listening. Unknown caller. Thank you listener caller. Long time
first time. Long time listener, first time caller. Long time first time. What about uh the
bikes you guys and rides and things you've been enjoying lately? Liam, you've been going crazy getting ready for Downyville. I know that.
I've been pinned. When was that my last podcast? That was a while ago, huh? Maybe like a month ago cuz we had Adam
on last time. Yep. Um, yeah, I've been pretty busy.
Uh, I think we talked after we did the races, right? Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Um, yeah, after that I had like a
wedding and another wedding and I went to Hawaii and then since then I've just been pretty much head down trying to get
ready for Downeyville. um being comfortable getting uncomfortable on the bike and just yeah
doing efforts and stuff is good on the ASR. On the ASR ASR hard tail and road bike
gravel bike like always I forgot you had that hard tail. You enjoying that? Yeah. Yeah. I've been putting in miles on it.
The custom one you got built. I never even saw that. No. Huh. I'll bring it in. It's pretty sick. So
you got to pick the geometry and everything. Yeah. Yeah. I chose all the geo for it. Um, tie frame custom geo
ster. It's cool. Yeah. Wow. It's pretty cool bike. Um, yeah. I've got actually like I think
I was just looking at we got like 350 miles on that already. Wow. Yeah. Nice. You actually properly do you do it in
Garmin Connect or Strava where you record which bike you're riding in Strava? Yeah. But I always adjust it.
It's just like kind of nice to know when you look back like Yeah. No, that is really nice. Yeah, I've been doing that too actually. It's
nice in Strava. On Garmin Connect. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I've just been doing a lot
of that. A lot of, you know, hard rides. Did a couple crit practices on the the roadie gravel bike, which is just hour
power power hour. Yeah. Been doing some tire testing. Yeah.
Yeah. I was going to say this this should be on the next podcast, but you could probably go on at length for your
past downyville tire setups and what you're going to do this time since you change it every year and are never happy with it.
Yeah. I'm not I'm not there yet. I don't know where I'm going. Oh, yeah. I'm still trying stuff out. I'm going to ride again tomorrow and then put on some
new tires after tomorrow. Try some more stuff. Um there's a lot more good options now than
there ever has been. Yeah. Yeah. I uh I saw a question actually down here a little bit about
120 TPI versus 60 TPI and so I'll wait to do some of that. But yeah,
essentially like Downville is such a one-off little kind of niche of a race
where you want a fast rolling tire, especially in the rear, but fast rolling usually comes with a lighter casing. And
this is the one instance where you kind of want fast rolling yet slightly harder to puncture,
which double down. Was it double down recon? Double down icon. Double down icon. But
no one's ever going to buy it. It wouldn't roll fast. So that's the thing. You still want some that roll fast that won't puncture,
right? Which has enough tread to like kind of hold your line, but like
not too much exposed casing. It's a weird kind of like setup. Front tire can
is I want to say less important, but you can like just run a recon up front or
run um right now I'm I'm on a Victoria the new Victoria Barzo that they just redid with the new compound.
Um and like that's enough traction up front. Out back is kind of where I'm like, I flatted two years in a row and I
just do not want to flat, but I also want to try to go fast. So, yeah. What did you run last year? Icon in the rear. Recon. Icon.
Recon. Icon. Yeah, that's good. Like I have that as a brand new setup like in case I just do all
this testing and revert back to I don't know. I'm just going to run the same thing I did. Um,
but yeah, I'm going to try after tomorrow the Victoria Sarah, I believe it's pronounced. S Y E R R A
Sarah. And that is technically in air quotes their downount tire.
Oh. So do they call it that? Yeah. Says on the casing. Whoa.
Um so essentially it's uh looks like a Recon tread pattern wise. It's about 70
to 80 g lighter than a Recon and it has a little bit of reinforced sidewall while being lighter. So and the tread
the tread feels pretty thick too. Interesting. So I'm curious on that. The current setup I'm running is lighter than the
Sarah and lighter than Recon Icon, but I'm worried about puncturing it. So, I'm
going to go ride like the roughest trail we have around here tomorrow to see if it'll puncture.
What kind of PSI you run on these? Pretty low. Um, I started off with like 19 or 2022 with inserts and I just kept
burping it uh on the first ride and I got back to my house and I ended up at 17519.
When you say burping it, was that intentional? No. Yeah. Sorry. Just like you're taking air out.
Yeah. Out of the tire. Out of the valve. Yeah. Not burping it. As far as like ripping the tire off the rim was a bad choice.
I thought that's what you were talking about. No. No. That was a bad choice of words. just letting little bits out cuz if the casing felt kind of hard and I
was trying to get more traction so yeah I ended up at like 1751 195 or 17520
it's a 24 Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. You know digging the rim at that low pressure. Mm.
With the I do have I do have the V uh No, I have the zip wheels. I have zip wheels and uh
high top the old tub light inserts.
Tubo lights. They don't make anymore. Those like the blue ones. Yeah, they look like blue. No, Turboite.
Turboite. What is the company just gone? No, they redid them and now they're like not the same volume. Like the old ones
used to be like pool pool noodle style, like high volume. And it's great support and they only
weigh like 55 g. Sort of like the Victoria Airliner Light. Yeah, the Victoria ones, they're great
for a front tire, but I don't think they have enough substance as a rear. Yeah. Yeah. Not really any support.
There's not much there. Yeah. Yeah. But it will help maybe ding or break her in or maybe not.
Maybe because I didn't Trevor or somebody run those last year and a few people a few of us ran them in
all broke wheels or flatted. Yeah. Yeah. That's a tough one. I mean Downeyville is definitely like the the
ultimate test I feel like. Yeah. And I have WTBs which they came out with that new Peacekeeper which looks sick.
Yeah. Um and Tidman's been running it a lot. He rides for WTB, but he was really stoked on it. Like he got it and he's
like, "Ah, yes." Like exactly what the gap was that he was missing. Yeah. Um
cuz the Trail Boss wasn't really like that. The Trail Boss was good. It just like was a little square on the profile wise.
Um and this is a bit more round and it actually wasn't that big a volume. Like looked more like a 225 versus like this
Peacekeeper is a proper 24. Yeah. Um they're touch heavy, but then running
that front rear's too much. and then running that front and then the macro rear which is their new XC tire that is
also really good good volume but that runs me back in the same issue of the 60TPI front 120 rear and I'm afraid I'm
going to flat that macro so interesting it's really hard to test here because
nothing really can simulate downville as far as like the sharp shale of the Sierras and riding you know essentially
what is a trail by trail and a little bike yeah so like you said that spectrum is probably the best you'll Probably the
best I'll get around here. Yeah. Yeah. Unless you go ride suicide or something, which is just punishment. Yeah. Yeah.
What about you, Jeff? What about What kind of bikes and rides have you been enjoying lately? Um, I have
not been riding a ton, but I did go on an awesome ride in the Las Padres's National Forest.
That's cool. Um, which I really enjoyed on my ASR. It was a bit more of a backcountry epic adventure style ride, which I think is
super fun and that bike is perfect for it. It was also cool to ride with you and Adam um last week. That was pretty
fun right before the podcast. It was fun to just get out and do a little little simple trail bike loop. Um yeah, I enjoyed that. But I don't
know. That's about it. I've been I've been doing a lot of stuff getting the addition two of the kettle treasure hunt going which is going to launch um next
month. Sneak peek. Sneak peek. Not that it gets anyone anything because like
Yeah. You got to know where it's going to be. Yeah. There. Well, this time I guess I can't say there'll be or maybe I already
said it. I don't remember. Who knows? Uh 20 jars in 10 states and each jar will
have $200 cash in it and $1,000 kettle gift card. $1,000 kettle gift card. Yeah.
Wow. And 200 bones cash. By the way, uh we did launch the Downunder special edition
and there is still a jar with a $2,000 gift card and $100 bill in New Zealand.
Really? In Queenstown that Liam put there. One that Liam dropped. Yeah. Um, the two in Australia have
already been found, the one in Brisbane and the one in Tasmania. And then there's another one with a $3,000 gift card and $100 bill in Papa New Guinea.
Um, which I almost think is a joke and it's never going to get found, but it is actually there. I put it there myself.
So, um, hit the Kettle Instagram if you want to if you want to figure out where
that is. Has anyone asked, is this even real? I don't know. I don't think so. I think people assumed it was real. I mean, you
watch a video. I mean, I guess at this point it could be an AI video, but no, I was there drenched in sweating and
rainstorm in the popping forest tying a treasure jar. Insane. I'm amazed the New Zealand one.
Me, too. Found just going to let those Aussies do that to you.
Oh yeah, you're going to spike some competition now. Yeah, the Aussies got him quick. But
yeah, the one in the one in Queenstown still sitting there. Yeah. But didn't didn't you say there was a gondola that goes part way there and
it's closed now for the season or something? Yeah. Yeah. But like I didn't use a Gandhi when I went. I pedled from
Oh, you did? Yeah. Okay. I pedal. That's totally reasonable to do. Yeah. I pedal way up further up the mountain and on my way down I actually went up
this goalie and Yeah. Got it. Yeah. Nice. Nice. Well, kettle mountain.com/treasure if you want to learn about the down under
one where those last two jars are and then the addition two which is going to be a US thing um that's launching next
month. So, super exciting. Yeah, I'm pumped. I have gotten poison oak and or poison ivy probably six times
in the last 8 weeks from this shenanigans. Yeah, I should have thought about it pulling in Hawaii. That could have been cool.
That would have been cool. Yeah. Wow. Well, the planning for edition three is going to be more of a winter one, I
think, this year. We'll see. I mean, I don't know how edition two is going to go. You know, edition one was amazing. It did 10 jars in four states. Um, they
all disappeared in 24 hours, so yeah, less than. It's going to be rad to see addition two with a lot more jars, more
places. Um, bunch of places out east, too. Uh, which will be cool. Three in North Carolina, which is where it just
was. Um, stayed in Old Fort again at our uh, friends Nikas and Greg. They have,
by the way, massive shout out to those guys. They have three Airbnbs in Old Fort, which is 45 minutes from
Asheville. Yeah. And it's right at awesome little town. Tons of amazing riding out there. and
their three Airbnbs are sort of mountain bike specific Airbnbs. They're right on the side of a a little creek. They all
have um bike stands and workshop areas and dart boards and fire pits and it's
just like designed for mountain bike vacations. It's rad. So um just Google Hey old friend Airbnbs and you'll find
it. Um they kind of call them the hey old friend Airbnbs. There's three of them. They're rad. We stayed in them last year when we went there for that
fundraiser race and then I just stayed in it this time and yeah, they're such good dudes and those Airbnbs are rad and it's like what a perfect place for a
mountain bike vacation. That's from the Airbnb you can ride you can pedal
Oh yeah, pedal out to Kitsuma Trail. Like pretty well guys right there.
Uh classic Pisga trail right there. So Mhm. Was that all you went out there for was to stash treasure jars?
Yeah. No way. That's amazing. Yeah, pretty much. So yeah, I went out
there for 4 days to do that. Yeah, that area is so cool and staying at one of their Airbnbs is just awesome
because the location of it ideal and um yeah, it's just such good access to all sorts. It's that area in the summer is
amazing. It's just endless, beautiful, clear rivers and creeks and lakes and like swim and hike and ride and run and
it's just it's a fun place. North Carolina is a beautiful place. It is, man. That's super cool.
So yeah, man. That's uh that's what I've been up to and now I'm just sitting here itching, you know, poison ivy all over
myself. I also joined Jeff uh on one of the treasure drops here.
Oh yeah. Uh in SoCal and I am also itchy on my leg from it. So yeah.
Yeah, it's a lot of poison. I did choose to wear I did I did wear shorts. It was like pretty hot that day
and I was like h water crossings a lot of them hot. I'm going to risk it and go with the shorts. So
yeah. Yep. Got on my leg. Yeah. I guess that'll happen, huh? Happens, man. Bushwhacking. It's
the way she goes. Even if you stay on the trail, you get poison oak sometimes here and there. Yeah, definitely
for sure. Especially you guys around the sand gabes, right? Yeah. Yeah, that'll happen out there, huh? Yeah. Beautiful mountain range.
Deep. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Deep in the sand gabes. So, uh yeah, it's been good. Um, and the only other
thing, you know, I've been, uh, you know, not bikes or rides, but working on which I could really use some help, is if anyone happens to be an expert on
warehouse management systems. Uh, hey, you're laughing at me, but you know
what? People who listen to this podcast have been extremely helpful. Probably an expert in any area that
listen to this podcast. Absolutely. So, Kettle is growing like crazy. We have three locations where we're doing the fulfillment from California, Nevada,
and Pennsylvania. Um, we're trying to figure out how to connect a warehouse management system and basically revamp
the whole one that we have now with Shopify. Anyways, just email me jeffrolled.com.
Um, I'd appreciate it. We're also hiring a Nevada if anyone is in need of a logistics or warehouse job north of
Reno. There you go. So, those are my favors for the audience, please and thank you. Couple of sweet plugs.
Yeah, couple of sweet plugs. Couple of favors to ask for sure. Yeah, it's just what's keeping me up at night, you
know, standard stuff. run a business and deal with problems all day. Treasure jar and warehouse management.
Yeah, exactly. Some of my quote unquote job is awesome. I'm going to North Carolina to hide
treasure jars and then the other part of it's uh you know, sitting there on phone calls constantly trying to figure out warehouse management system problems.
You know, Jeeoff, I will say I'm pretty disappointed in you. They didn't ride bikes out in North Carolina. I know. I should I should have brought a
bike, but I went with Taylor and she doesn't ride bikes, so I didn't want to um bring a bike and just abandon her.
Yeah. just did a bunch of stuff on foot. I mean, it wouldn't have been the first time. It would not have been the first time.
It wouldn't be the last. No. But I am still disappointed in you regardless. Yeah. Cuz I mean, I've never got to ride
bikes out there and I've just like I was actually just like the other day I was looking at a video of uh like Kuga or
whatever. Um and I was like, man, I just want to go ride bikes out there. There's so much in that vicinity. And go out there anytime you want. Go to Hey,
old friend. Yeah. Stay there. I also will I have family in South Carolina, too. It's like grab a car, drive to Nico's, especially
if it's offseason. Nico will tow you down some sketchy RGLine trail like you did me. It's crazy that I mean between, you
know, Breard, Asheville, Old Fort, Black Mountain, like all that whole It's, you know, within an hour and a half range of
all that stuff. There's so many good mountain bike trails and hiking trails and swimming holes and just outdoor fun
and it's just cool. There's good food. Yeah, it's amazing. That's awesome. Yeah. You got to visit. I'm surprised
you never went there. Well, I've been to North Carolina, just not with my bike. Yeah. And same with South Carolina. Mhm. So, I think I got a cross country road
trip in my future once I get my van all dialed in. I'm making progress on which is pretty cool.
A whole lot of nothing to get out of there. Yeah. Well, there's a lot of stuff we want to see in between as well, you know.
I mean, like what? Not not you know, stop by all the churches in Texas. That's
a little probably New Mexico. Yeah. And then what? Well, I mean, uh, it
would be cool to go through like, you know, would I'd like to go to Northeast as well. So, like, you know, do like a
loop kind of, you know? Yeah. Country like Colorado, uh, Montana.
That would be cool. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, basically just go up and over and down. Yeah. Yeah. Like to I've also Yeah. Never in
Northeast. I don't know about you like Maine or Vermont or uh New Hampshire or anything like that. Like super cool looking terrain. All
these guys listening like, "Yeah, it's cool, man. Come out." But like, yeah, I want to.
Um, but yeah, you know, that's kind of what I've been doing. I haven't really been riding bikes either. Just been
working on my van. Doing stand up paddle boarding. That's true. Sup?
Dude, dude, I love I love sucking, dude. I love sucking. Don't say that too loud, dude.
You know, I don't always suck, but when I do. Yeah, it's been a good summer, dude. Um,
you know, life is good. Yeah. Warm, good weather, bikes, hikes, hiding
treasure jars, dealing with all sorts of uh tech stack problems. Sweet.
Pretty wild. Pretty wild. You know, speaking of tires, it just popped into my mind. What reminded me is
uh those radial tires I got to ride. Yeah. And I'm super impressed with those and
I'm really stoked for the ones. Yeah. The wheels because you have not tried those yet. Right.
Uh, I only rode them on the MTE. You only rode them on the MT briefly. But briefly, the Yeti MTE, which is their slightly
lighter weight EMTB, which is a sick bike. I love riding them. Yeah, it's good. I just think the Magic
Mary is almost too open of a tread pattern locally. And then it's hard to
get a feel for a casing when you're on a heavier ebike, having never ridden a casing before. That's true. So, and I want to say their trail casing
on that. And they probably should be gravity, but they probably did trail to cut weight. Yeah, it might be trail front gravity.
So, I did get I got a trail front Albert. Yeah. So, ultra soft schwabby
trail in the front in the Albert tread pattern. Nice. And then I got the Albert out back in
the soft compound in both trail and gravity casing. Those things are flying like hot cakes.
They're hard to get, dude. They're selling like crazy. hang out often and they come back and they sell out. I couldn't get them all.
Like it's crazy. I would And then I I tried to transfer them at one of them from our East Coast and
FedEx did whatever they want with it and it's just like taking literally like two weeks to get here from the East Coast.
So lame. I know. I I actually want to put that same combo that you got on my S140.
Yeah. So those tires come stock on the Yeti MTE, correct? They come uh merry front,
Albert. Ultra soft front, soft rear. Yeah. Yeah. And you liked them? Loved them.
Yeah, they never feel but yeah, as a thing, the Magic Mary's a little too What's the caveat?
I would say like Yeah, it definitely takes a little bit of getting used to like because the casing is so compliant.
Like I like on I was riding on Spectrum and I felt like I was going to smash the back wheel because the casing is so
compliant and like I just I think I ran like 31 or 32 PSI. They say you need to go up like 3 to 5
PSI per tire than what you normally do. Like you'll push it and the casing deforms so easily. So it almost gave me
like cuz I I mean I was pushing it like squibly like h not really. I mean it gives you like
on they feel soft. Yeah they do feel soft like on so like on jagged and like you know sharp rocks you know you in
like or any tech kind of technical section you just get a lot of compliance like you just kind of you can plow through it real nice but at the same
time if you don't have the pressure dialed like you kind of feel like you might ding or or break a rim you know.
Yeah. Um, but yeah, I mean I I really was impressed with them. Like actually where I did love them was on a tech
climb because they deformed so nicely like on that you know that triumph climb especially at the bottom where it's like
super rocky and they're just like it's almost like bedrock. It's like it conforms to the terrain so
nice in that it's like it's really really nice in that kind of stuff where I was like wow like it the tire didn't
slip like at all where normally you're kind of like you know musling up over some of that stuff. It's like yeah I'm curious to try them. Um,
yeah. Yeah. Everyone keeps raving about them. Yeah. Yeah. I literally couldn't get them and nobody from Schwabi will email me back.
So, I could imagine they'd also be really nice on uh as well,
like Rocky Rudy type. I' I've heard I've I've heard from a lot of people they think their benefit is
better felt in rocky Rudy terrain versus dry hard pack that we have here, which
is why I wasn't rushing to get on them either. For sure. I could see that. So,
yeah. But, but I still want to try them. Definitely impressed. And I got a set on my SB165 that I just have not ridden
yet. And I'm I'm pretty pretty stoked to try that out. What did you do? Magic. Magic mary front and rear, but it's the
trail ultra soft front and Yeah. And gravity soft rear. Yeah.
Um cuz that's just what I could get. So, but yeah, I'm super stoked to try that. Should be pretty fun. And some, you
know, more gravity oriented terrain. Yep. Um, wild news. I just wanted to
check this because I know those Schwabby tires have been trending a ton sales-wise. Yeah. Uh, they overtook Maxis.
Wow. Yeah. So, last 90 days, the top selling tire on WC is the Rick XC Pro.
Wow. 29 by4. No, that's what me and Jeff have on our hard tails. Oh,
they're really fast. Look at that tire. That's crazy. You're right. That isn't one that just like the weird XC one.
It's not even the Yeah, the It's this guy. Just the Rick. The Rick XC. Oh, yeah. You have that on your
Why is that blowing up? That's the best. That's our top selling tire right now. Last 90 days.
You have that on your hard tail as well. Yeah, I put them on Jeff's and then I liked him. He said he liked them. I put them on mine. I actually think they're
okay. They roll really fast, but they I don't I don't feel like they corner that
well. I think an Aspen corner is better or the Victoria Peyote corner is better. Really? But they test faster I think than both
of those. They are fast tires. Yeah. I think it's cool for hard tail. Grippier than a Nikon.
No, Icons are grippier. Icons are grippy. Icons are pretty grippy. They don't roll as fast though.
So these are faster not as grippy as an Nikon. Yeah. Aspen's faster than Icon but not
as grippy either. Hm. Well, so the Rick XC Pro literally they're the first the top two selling
tires. Just the tan wall and the normal black wall. That's so weird. Um then DHR2
fours on those both in two fours. Yeah. Wow. Um yeah, that's nuts.
Tires never top. If they're 225s, it's like a gravel. We we got the gravel bug.
Crazy. Yeah, that is totally crazy. Um, and then DHR2. And then Yeah, DHR2, which is like been in the
top 10 tires for hundred years at this point. Um, then the Schwabby Albert tire
29 by 2.5. So that is the radial one. Yeah. Um, then a Recon Maxis Recon 29 x 2.4.
Then Continental Cryptol 29 by 2.4. Then the Schwabby Wicked Will. Oh, wow.
Uh, Wicked Will. Does is that the radio one or no? No, that's like the
That's a It's on the back of this forest all the short travel type tire. Like it's
almost like a for new forecaster kind of. No, it's less less grippy than that. Less grippy. Yeah, it's almost like a recon.
Okay. As far as grip goes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Then the Maxis has a guy, then I'll be
racing Ralph. Still not. And then the Maxis forecaster, then the Maxis Recon, then I'll be racing Ray.
Yeah, I think this is this is nuts. Like normally when you look at the top
selling tires, it's like you you might see on occasion when new tires come out like you know they'll be
like three of the top 20 tires are not Maxis and they mix around in there and
then they fade away and then some will come back and it's popular and it gets trendy and then it fades away. And this this is the most competitive and
sort of dispersed top selling tires I've ever seen in the history of WC. And that's awesome. I mean, Schwabi has
been like nipping at the heels of Maxis. Like, it's always right there when we do like the top of the or, you know, trending products for best of year.
And I also think previous to this radial, they're a lot more terrain dependent on where you lived.
Yeah. I think if you're in PNW, old Schwabies worked pretty well. Down here, I did not think they worked well.
So, you know, these radios seem to be better as a whole.
Yeah. Yeah. Pretty cool. You you love to see new tech, especially in tires. I mean,
yeah, I got to try some like the you know, Maxis, it's like what DHF's been around for 20 years and like
they didn't change it at all. Yeah. Maybe little slight variations in casing and like construction and and maybe
compounds, but uh you love to see new stuff and then I
feel like this is kind of this is kind of rising the tide, right? Like other other manufacturers like, "Oh, do we
have to do a radial casing now?" Like, yeah, I'm actually surprised at usually that top 10's dominated by gravity style
tires as well. It's not anymore. There's a lot of XC tread in there. I feel like there was was it a Maxis
tire or something that was uh it was in the pits at the at the World Cups and it was like
possibly radial or something. Yeah. No one knows. It just says new DH and they also have a new tread pattern that's suspected to be a new DHF.
It was on Jackson Goldstone or something like that, right? Yeah. So, it's like in between kind of
DHR and High Roller, which is kind of where DHF sits. But no one, not a single person on a downhill
roll cup now runs a DHF. Wow. It's all DHR as a guy or high roller.
Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. I mean, especially given that almost all these World Cups end up muddy anyway.
Yeah. Or blown out. A few or blown out. A few of them run DHFs on enduro, but actually it's a rear
tire. Interesting. Yeah, very interesting. Not sure why. Yeah, it's cool to see
some tires come in there. I got to try some of those radio ones. Yeah, they do seem interesting. Yeah, I was going to say I I have a
feeling if they were uh consistently in stock, they would be blowing the Maxis out of the water right now because I
think that's the main struggle is just people trying to get them like us. Yep. Uh but, you know, it's pretty sweet.
What do you guys say we hear a quick word from our sponsors and then we hop into some epic listener questions?
Sounds good to me. Hop in. Awesome. And now a word from our sponsor.
Pardon the interruption. Jeff here. I am quite hung over because yesterday night
we had Zach, yes that is the Zach of Zach's words of wisdom. His bachelor
party and uh I hosted it and it was a great time. But it didn't stop me from uh putting a little ad insert in this
podcast that Jared forced me to do to tell you thank you for listening. We genuinely appreciate it. And if you ever
want to support us, you can do so by shopping at Worldwide Cyclingery, Kettle Mountain Apparel, or Trail One
Components. We would really appreciate that. And uh yeah, that's it. That's all. And now back to the show.
Well, all right. Part two. Listener questions. Part two. I am a terrible peddler. Maybe the
worst. Terrible not being a sufficient enough adjective. Recently, I observed frameworks testing the tuck technique in
a wind tunnel. Their results were significant and demonstrated tucking can be more effective than pedaling. So, my
question is, as an enduro racer, should I just give up on pedaling and just tuck after one or two strokes from the start?
Formerly FBI Matt, I wouldn't say this about many people, but maybe you should just give up.
Period. All right. for context is a good friend of ours who is putting on the shed
enduro in uh in shred the shed shred the shed and uh in Frederick
Frederick Maryland on August 3rd. You're going not me. I don't know when uh it's a couple weeks from now I'm
going to be there. Um I asked them so Trail One's actually sponsoring the event and uh I'm going to go there. I
asked them who is announcing and I said can I be sort of like a guest announcer and they're like yeah sure whatever. So,
I'm just going to go and get hammered and like yell at people and occasionally ask for the the PA system so I can
announce the race. Nice. Um, genetonics. Trevor's going and Aiden's going. Trevor's racing. So is Aiden. So, yeah,
three of us will be there. Matt is exceptionally bad at pedaling with power. I don't know how, but he
needs coaching. I mean, he does. Well, I I'll I'll try to answer this qu like we could make jokes about
this about this question and Matt all day, but I'll try to actually answer it seriously.
No, no, no. My my thing was serious. Like, I've seen the pedal. I'm like, "Dude, we need to teach you like
you're not Well, we had a whole conversation with him about it when we were in Italy on the all mountain ride trip and he he he sort of bounces and
bobs as he pedals out of the saddle. Yeah, he doesn't have his form. It's
It's like imagine stomping running but on your pedal. Like it's really just with a suspension platform being he grew
up playing ball sports and he didn't start riding bikes until he was in his 30s I think. Um so it's just it's just hard to get
the technique right. Uh I think he legitimately should get a
coach and just practice more and record videos of himself. And I also think what would be really helpful for them and
anyone who is actually in this kind of situation where they're struggling with, you know, getting power down to their pedals, um, or pumping, like putting
power down to your pedals, pumping and jumping, those are the things that you really just you're it's so hard to get
good at those if you didn't ride bikes as a kid. And going to a BMX track is the solution. Yeah.
Go to a BMX track. You can watch people pedal incredibly effectively and with perfect form. and you can watch them
pump and jump and everything's rollable. You can go there yourself and practice and there's tons of other people there
who are noviceses as well and it's like actual the place to go and and practice pedaling and pumping and jumping um at
any skill level that you are and get better at that stuff because it is makes a huge difference. Um, the problem with
his actual question is in order to tuck I think you have to like irrelevant
fast. You have to be going like over 20 like World Cup pros and like you're not really doing that in enduro race often, right? Like you know
not even the pros are really like going over 20 on most stages, right? Very certain sections in certain spots.
Yeah. So, um, you know, you in order for it to like overcome like on the road
bike, it's like close to like the high30s mark when you should just tuck instead of try to pedal through it, it's
like high 30s or 40, it's like, okay, then it kind of becomes an even plane. But,
yeah, when aerodynamics start to come into play, well, yeah. And you can't you can't power past it where like tucking is more
efficient. But yeah. Yeah, Matt, I'm sorry to say aerodynamics aren't really coming into play at 3 miles an hour.
But, you know, we can we're only poking fun because I mean, on the Italy trip, we I don't even know how many times I
watched him fall, but when I saw him fall like back to back back to back
back to back to back to back when we like were all that vista, like that beautiful vista and then we like I just I just have to
laugh because um I'm picturing him tucking too, but maybe
your tuck couldn't be any better than the pedal. Are you I mean you could try it. Try tucking Matt and let us know if
it works. Um but yeah, I think you can fix this pedaling. He just actually needs to put effort into
he Yeah, exactly. Like I I think honestly, which is bad business for us,
but like most people should spend, you know, you have $500 to upgrade your bike. It's like buy new tires and spend
the rest on a coach. Yeah. Like that that is how you are going to get the most out of your money to get
better at riding a bicycle. Yeah. Yeah. Uh like we talked about uh from the Whistler Chasing Epic trip, the
guides were really good at coaching the guys and even like you know giving us little pointers here and there like on
just managing traction in certain sections and like you know your body English breaking points. Exactly. Like it helped especially on
the first day in Whistler like it kind of like cracked the code for a lot of the guys. Yeah. um and just made everything up there ridable, especially if you're not
used to that kind of terrain, which um yeah, you can make the sport a lot more fun if you get a coach and get better at
it and just nail down some of the fundamentals. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Which is really applicable for a lot of
people who didn't grow up riding bikes, just kind of struggle with some of those fundamental skills.
For sure. Yeah. Well, Jeff, what's the least intimidating animal you could train into
an elite guard pet? intimidating looking or
least intimidating looking that could be a elite guard. I'm going to say honey badger.
They don't look Well, those are those are actually vicious, aren't they? Yeah, but looks wise they just look like
a you know little something. Badger. Badger.
I don't know. I was just thinking of one of those huge cats. You know those like massive cats like like a panther?
No, no, no. Like an actual house cat. Oh, like a Mun. Yeah, man. Yeah, that'd be cool to train into an elite
guard. I was thinking like a a massive wombat. I was initially I had thought wombat as
well. Yeah. Or a Tasmanian devil. But I think those are kind of small. I think a wombat in the bush could
potentially be intimidating if you're if you come up on it. They are cute. That's what I mean though. Visually
cute. Yeah, intimidating. Yeah, it will it could probably break your shin with its skull. The way they ram you and stuff.
Yeah, true. Yeah, totally. And they have I think they have sharp teeth. I don't know, man. Also, just like you
ever seen a bear cub? Oh, I know. You just want to take them home. Yeah. I'm going to have to go
mine. What? It's like a little uh weasel. Okay.
But they can actually hunt uh up to 10 times their body size. Animals up to 10 times their body size.
Um and they are very they they're like very small. Are you looking it up? I don't even know what this is. Show a
Liam. I've seen videos of them. It almost It looks a little bit like a mircat. Oh, I saw mircats at the Disney Disney World
Zoo and Could you imagine just like having one of those by your side and being like him and it's like
Yeah, that guy. Yeah. Yeah. Wat's a good answer though because that could actually, you know, fend off
some some predators probably. Yeah. What' you say? You said like a main. That's pretty good.
Yeah. I don't know. Like some big cat. Yeah, like a big cat. Those huge ones. That's like cute. But
yeah, could jack you up if I wanted to. Be like a mini panther or something. Yeah, I like that.
All right, this one's for you, Jeff. You want to read this one? Sure. Hey everyone, I had a question for
Jeff based on something he mentioned a few pods ago about not wearing contacts while racing. I usually wear mine and
totally understand why someone might choose not to. It got me thinking, how effective are those clip-in lenses
attachments for glasses? It seems like the vibration and movement of glasses during a race, especially after a few
long enduro stages, could be just as distracting as the initial blurriness with contacts.
Uh oh, yeah, man. I got tons of experience with this. Well, for starters, um there contacts are not all
created equal because if you have if you do not have a stigmatism, your contact doesn't need to be a certain orientation. If you do, it does. So when
you have a stigmatism and your contact has to be a certain orientation and it the problem then is if you get like any
wind or sweat or anything it spins and you can't really see [ __ ] it's all blurry. Um
typically they're like slightly weighted so it sits Yeah. They are weighted so they Yeah. So people who don't have a stigmatism wear
contacts all the time and can get away with it a lot better than people who have a stigmatism with contacts. So I
have a stigmatism. So um they're just way more sensitive to spinning. So that's why I prefer to wear glasses. Um,
and I use Ombres a lot with prescription lenses. Um, I get the lenses from Sport RX. Those guys crush it making custom
prescription lenses for any glasses. And I also have some 100% glasses um that have prescription lenses from Sport RX,
too. And I did actually uh he did mention the clip-in. Yeah, clip-in. I don't know if he's
talking about clip-ins for glasses or for goggles. Um, but the clip-ins, the
little clip-in things that you can put inside of goggles, like enduro goggles,
um, I have tried those and like if I'm wearing full-blown like motocross goggles, like fullface helmet goggles,
um, then I just wear contacts because if with goggles, you don't really get
wind or sweat in your eyes. So, it pretty much protects your contacts from getting out of chillating doesn't bother it as much.
Not at all. Wind sweat. Yeah. So, like if I'm going to go ride downhill and have a full face helmet and
actual full-blown goggles, I'll wear contacts and it's totally fine. Um, but if I'm going to wear just sunglasses, I
can't wear contacts. Um, and I have tried riding moto with those things that
go Sport X makes these, too. They're basically prescription lenses that like go inside of your Moto goggles. Um, I
didn't really like them as much. And I I know that they work well, but they kind of block your they kind of make you a little more tunnel vision. It like cuts
into goggles already kind of do that to start. Yeah, exactly. Like makes it worse. It's It's almost better to just wear contacts
and you can get away with it cuz when you have goggles on it totally eliminates sweat and wind and everything. So
yeah. Anyways, weird problems for people with bad eyesight that need prescription lenses, but hopefully that helps. But basically like you basically
recommend going prescription prescription like sport glasses like riding glasses.
Sunglasses. Yeah, just prescription riding glasses. Yeah, all day. Yeah, that's that's definitely the way to do it. And so like the Ombres that I have
and the 100% glasses that I have that have um RX lenses in them, those are amber
in color and they're transition and it's like a zero to three. So it's basically totally clear and then it goes to a semi
dark. Um that way I can still use them at night time. So like during adventure races I'll wear the same pair of glasses for multiple days and I wear them all
night too and they'll just go clear in the night and dark in the day. Wow. Um, so that's that's I think the
way to do it that I found the you know most efficient. Seems like it. So seems like you might as well invest in
the glasses if you're going to if you're in that position, I guess. Yeah, totally. Oh, I mean and that last a long time. Like a good pair of glasses
and prescription lenses will last you years. Yeah. Well, it depends if your prescription changes. That's the only problem. As you
get older, your prescription changes faster. But jeez, it usually doesn't change more than once every two years or so.
Yeah. So, yeah. Gosh, I haven't had my eyes checked in a long time. Hopefully that helps. Can you
still see? I can. Yeah, I can see you're great right now.
What about this one, Liam? You want to read this next one? Yes, sure. Question. I live in New
England and the trails are jank. Big roots, big rocks and climbs, short downhills with garbage mixed in. You
really sell in New England. I'm not doing any large jumps and bike parts. In the future, I would really
only be doing blues. I'm a beginner and immediate and I don't need to go fast. Would the Yeti SP120 Lunch Ride or the
Yeti SP140 be a better fit for me? I'm 200 plus pounds, if that matters. I enjoy playful, puppy bikes. I try to
jump off full of stuff and have fun. Most shows are mellow, but technical jank can get real. Thank you. And cats
are as fun as bikes. I beg to differ. Um,
those get pretty blurred. Like SP120 lunch ride. I think he didn't say 140 lunch ride, but
140 lunch ride anymore. It's just 140 or it's just 140 and then they have a lunch ride still.
It is. Yeah. Oh, it's just a 160 fork and bigger brakes. Oh, right. Versus the
bigger bigger tires. And then it has the DPS on that or the float, right? No, they they made that both floatex.
So, yeah, they're they're pretty similar builds, but Okay. Um, that's a tough one. I mean, I' I'd say
it really comes down to SP120 lunch ride. I'd say even climbing,
descending as far as like what you enjoy and like what your rides are going to look like. And SP 140, you might
uh prefer or value the downhills a little bit more climbs slightly favor the
like they're both going to be really similar. 140 will obviously be a little bit more comfortable in that like jank.
Mhm. But 120 will be a little bit more efficient on like the steep climbs and
stuff. So random random thought um just because I've ridden in New England a few times.
Sometimes New England quote unquote jank um is actually can be slow speed jank
where 120 is actually pretty light and agile. That's what I was thinking. It wasn't fast jank. M yeah, but I mean it also
can sometimes be fast [ __ ] where a 140 might be better. But so maybe if you're riding a lot more stuff where you want
that bike to be nimble, um the 120 is a little bit nicer there. Yeah, I I love the 120. I I had mine as
a lunch ride and like that thing goes so good. It is a trail bike. Yeah. Yeah,
man. I mean, I'm biased. I have 140. I would go 140, but that's also because I
Yeah. Yeah. And if you're going to have one bike and or 140 the travel range, right? If you're going to go other
places potentially, you know, obviously it's not going to go any bike parks, but like I don't know,
a one a one bike to me for the type of riding I do would be a SP40. Yeah,
it's perfect. I could pedal it all day. I could go to bike parks. Trevor rode Whistler in me Mexico City on his last
year. Like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is that is a good allarounder. Yeah. The one quiver bike, man.
The one bike to rule them all. I really liked it. That was like two years in a row. I had that Rebel Rascal
and I just it was 130 in the back obviously and then I put a 150 fork on it and it's just like proper tires and
that was such a fun bike to have. Yeah, that bike's really good too. True. That's why I took to North Carolina and
rode uh some blacks and then rode some Secret Nico stuff on that 150 130.
Nice. Yeah, that's true. You going to get another Rascal someday? I'm thinking about it. Rascal SL. Yep.
And we'll see. My uh my Banshee Titan V3 with the intense suspension is currently for sale on Pink Bike Buy.
Wow, what a bike. From a smoking deal. Smoking smoking deal. Downside, the bike is basically in mint
condition. Super nice. Five dev cranks. Um intense suspension. Suspension. Yeah,
it's dialed. Other than there's a bit of a scratch on the top tube from
taking it back from Tasmania bike box. just put a sticker over it and call it a day. It's just cosmetic.
It's simply cosmetic. Simply cosmetic. And the frame is it's like cleared raw. So, it's like raw, but
it's like cleared raw. So, then the raw aluminum is showing through. So, it's not like a
black bike that's scratched to silver. Mhm. You could basically buy the bike for how much it would cost you to buy the
suspension? Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much. Pretty much. Nearly. Nearly.
Yeah. Yeah. It's like one of those things. It's like, yeah, I had the guys put it for sale. I don't really want it to sell cuz I like it.
And you need a bike. And I kind of want to ride it in uh when we do our company camping trip in Mammoth in a few weeks.
And aren't you going to take that to the shed? I don't think I'm going to ride at the shed. Oh, you're just going to commentate?
Just going to go there and drink beers and commentate. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. Oh my gosh. You should do a course
preview. That'd be awesome. I should just make a whole bunch of I should just take over the shed social
media account. You should for the weekend and just do like wind TV style totally lives and stuff. That's
actually a good idea. You should do like Claudio style course preview. Like, oh my god, this rock art is crazy.
This job. Oh my god. All right, I'll plan this out. That would be so cool. I'll probably actually I could just take one of the demo bikes from the PA shop
with me down there and then have take it back. It's all right there, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that'd be awesome. Yeah, I'm excited to
go and I'm sure some of our listeners are going to be there. So, come up and come up and say hello and uh should be a good time. I mean, I would tell people
to sign up, but it's been sold out for weeks or months. So, really, it's a pretty big race. I think it's like 170 people or something.
Um, it's a decent event. Nice. I'm looking forward to to seeing the coverage and hearing all about it.
Yeah, I'm I'm now looking forward to taking over their Instagram account and just being an absolute goofball the
whole time. Nice. Making an ass out of myself. That sounds fun. Awesome. Well, how about this next
one? Liam said 60TPI to 120 TPI. Last pod 155 during tire talking near the end
at the 1 hour 9minute markish. Liam made a comment about not wanting to go from 60 TPI to 120 TPI as he mentioned
earlier. And I'm hoping you guys can expand on this. I was under the impression that the higher TPI was better in every way and often carries a
higher price tag. would love it if you guys could talk a little bit about TPI and highlight the pros and cons of 60
versus 120 and why you'd want to avoid 120 and include personal preferences. I'm personally running large volume
29x2.6 Kender Booster rear and 29x2.6 Kender Karma 2 front. Both are actually
120 TPI on my 130mm trail bike. I've had great success as they are fast, light,
quiet, and comfortable. But wondering why Liam avoids 120. Thanks guys. Tom.
Um, I would say not every brand is created equal on this uh topic just because like you know he
has those 120 on a Kenda tire on his 130 bike. I haven't ridden Kendas ever so
I'm not really sure how that casing is. Mhm. Um, with Maxis' lineup, you have
the Aspen, Recon Race, and the Icon, like the XC lineup, the 3X tires that are available in a 120
TPI as their standard option. They do have a 170 TPI as their team only option
that comes in limited batches, but essentially most of the time 120 or TPI.
The higher the TPI, the thinner the threads, the higher the count. It's like your your sheets on
your bed, right? Like the higher the thread count, the softer it's going to be. Um it's also the thinner it is and the
least protective it is. So that's why with Maxis, I don't want to drop drop um in quotes to the 120
casing because I flat those at Downivo. um similar feels with WTB when their new
macro is 120 and their new peacekeeper is 60. And essentially you're running
what turns out even though they're both EXO casing with Maxis, it ends up that
the 60TPI in the front is a little bit more protective and flats less easy as
the 120 TPI that I'm running on the rear. So, if you have the thicker casing on
the front and the lighter on the rear, you're basically going to be plowing the
front and your rear is going to be following. Therefore, flatting. You have more weight on it and you're not
controlling where it is as best, right? So, it's not equal to like every brand.
Um, these Vtorias I'm running, they run 60Ti on all their XC tires.
I don't even like their Peyote, like their light as fast as one is still 60tpi. So, like I don't know if you know
they've figured out a different way to make the tire fast. TPI also usually the higher the TPI corresponds
to a faster rolling tire because the sidewall is more supple.
Okay. So, but it's not apples to apples like you know Kendon to Maxis to W2B to Victoria
like right I've just noticed that with Maxis tires once you drop to that 120 XC style
casing I tend to flat those easier so
I'm trying to not flat well it's interesting that you've noticed that correlation and uh that you
that much of a difference just in the TPI I also don't flat icons around here or recon race
like well yeah just cuz it's just such different terrain like you said down bel I'll go all year long without
flatting that and I go to downy I flat it first run so very interesting
so yeah there's a lot to unpack there it's it's better in every way if you're considering
it's not better in every way to like with what I'm thinking of it's better that it's more supple and it's typically
faster rolling, but that also lends itself to be more flat prone with a
thinner sidewall. Interesting. So, do guys on like the XC World Cup circuit like do they switch between
60120 TPI or like you said like they go 170? They go 120 170. So, what's the So, the benefit of 170
then it's even faster and also even more thin. Okay. Yeah.
Interesting. What do you think about all this? I think there needs to be a meme that's
just like why so complicated pretty much. Yeah,
it is definitely in the weeds. I mean, I also have the thought of just running a Recon 60TPI and just chopping
down the center knobs just so fast. Yeah, just to go fast. You don't always have the option, right? Cuz like for example, I have that uh
Recon Exo Plus Plus. That is just only comes in one TPI, right?
Well, yeah. You have EXO or EXO plus. Those are both the same TPI. Exo Plus just gets a
Yeah. Kevlar or plastic sidewall insert. Yeah. So, most people on trail bikes like that I have that Forecaster up
front, Exo, and then the Recon in the back, Exo Plus. Like, I don't even have an option to get the same tires with a
different DPI. No. Yeah. It's It's kind of rare that you have like a TPI option as a
There really is a variant. There is an options. Yeah. But I'm avoiding the 120 Maxis tires.
Yeah. As a whole, which is Aspen Recon Race Icon. Yeah. Yeah.
Interesting. I guess those are the fastest. Yeah. And it makes sense. Like you don't
want I mean I already said it, but you don't want the lower tread pattern, the
faster tread pattern with a thicker casing. Like it no one wants that
typically, right? Like, right, you know, they'd sell approximately 45 tires a
year to the 45 people at Down Eagle that care. Yeah. You know, and maybe some people and um
it could actually be a good tire for Bentonville. Okay. Because Benville is I've suppose
uh what I've heard really sharp rocks. Sharp rocks. And you want rolling speed because there's not a lot of elevation. Correct. Yeah. Yeah.
So yeah, Benville and Dannyville tire. Other than that, it's probably useless everywhere else in the world.
They should just come out with a tire called The Vil. The Vil. Yeah. Bentonville, Downeyville. The Villain. There you go. Well, how
about this next one? Big fan of the pod. Been a companion through many long drive
and while working on my bikes at home. I just completed my first 50k mountain bike race, the Carabacet Backcount Cycle
Challenge. I've done longer rides in the past, but in contrast, I wasn't racing the whole time. My biggest takeaway was
how difficult it was to manage a balance between staying hydrated, retaining salts/ electrolerolytes, and keeping up
on carbs. I felt that every time I drank water, I got closer to cramping, and every time I took electrolytes, I could
feel my body begging for water. For a bit of context, it was around 80°, wicked humid, and very little wind at
the time of the race. Total vert for the 50k segment was about 3,000 ft, and I averaged 163 beats per minute over the
first 4 hours. Max 197. Wow. Any tips for a relative race noob on maintaining
a nutritional balance on the longer races/ rides? As well as any other tips for avoiding getting smoked during the
latter half of race. Many thanks, Dana. P.S. You guys should do this race next year. It's rad. There are 25k, 50k, and
100k races. And proceeds go towards supporting trail building and maintenance in the area. There's more to Maine than just moose and lobster. We
really like bikes, too. See, I told you we got to go to the northeast. Well,
Maine's far. It is far. as the far away as it gets from us right now. Furthest you could
get from us pretty much. Yeah. Well, Liam, you've got a lot of experience and Jeeoff, you do too, I
guess, with your adventure races, uh, managing nutrition and when you're just deep in the pain cave.
What do you guys recommend? I think there's a bit of both. I think part of it is like you need to almost
train in a similar way as you're racing. Mhm. And you need to get your body used to like doing that effort and also
intaking that much water and processing that much carbs and electrolytes. Yeah. Um cuz like it's not normal for your
body to just like I don't know what like grams per hour he's doing for carbs, but like when I first get back into training
and I'm trying to push that like 80 g to 100 gram threshold like my stomach hates me. Yeah.
For a while. Yeah, for sure. So, um I go because I mean he did four hours. 4
hours is kind of like the borderline of where you can kind of get away with just going like drink mix gels and salt
pills. If it's over four hours, you need to start working in more solid food. And then over eight, you need more like
protein and like real actual food food. Yeah. Like Jeff does stuff. He's taking in
protein or meat sticks that have 2,000 milligrams of sodium or some [ __ ] like that.
You know, it's like 500 milligrams of sodium and 200 calories. Yeah. And you know, 20 g of protein, 12
g of protein, you know, we're like, I'm not doing anything that's taking that I need protein or necessarily that
much sodium at one go. Right. Right. Um Yeah. I mean, it's it's eating before
you're hungry, drinking before you're thirsty, making sure you have a a balance of it all. Um, I find it easiest
just to have drink mix and bottles, gels on me, and then take salt pills. Yeah. Um, I know a lot of people are also
starting to do like uh flavorless carb mix and putting
element flavored stuff in their carb mix. So, they doubling up on it. Yeah. So they get both the sodium
potassium from the element and then also having the, you know, 80 grams of carbs in their bottle.
Wow. Although that is kind of a gut bomb of a bottle as well. For sure. If you want to figure this stuff out, my
opinion on it, you know, if if you're a novice racer, right, like if you're an elite athlete, you all sorts of
different routes and science and weird things and yada yada, whatever. But if you're a novice athlete, um, and this
stuff is your hobby, the best way to figure this stuff out is to just actually do it. Like, get out there and do a 50K on a weekend and start it at
7:00 a.m. or whatever obscene hour of the day they make you start it. And and figure this stuff out because it is all
balance. Like, you need to understand your body, how many calories your body burns, how much sodium it needs, how
much hydration it needs. And you're not going to figure that stuff out unless you do these mock races. So that's what I always say like just practice it
yourself and like do the real thing as absolute close as possible as you can and you'll figure this stuff out.
Um but it is a balance, right? Because you know I can tell by just reading this you know he's he's struggling um you
know if he if he has the the sodium hydration balance is tricky because if you have too much water you dilute the
sodium and you might start cramping. If you have too much sodium um you know you could you start feeling like deathly
thirsty. So, you need to balance that correctly and that is tricky and again like you don't figure out how to do that
until you go out and you spend 4 hours at 163 beats per minute on average. Um,
so you just have to figure that stuff out and figure out what works for your gut and what works for your pallet. Some
people really don't like tasting certain things. Um, you know, it it is very different. And I'll admit, I mean, it's
it's tricky. Like when when I used to do more um, you know, enduro mountain bike racing, it it is nutrition is hard when
you're running high heart rates, like zone four and five for hours on end.
It's really hard. Yeah. Um, it's a lot easier if you stay in zone 2 and three. Um, like adventure
racing, you're in zone 2 and three. Granted, you're like that for literally multiple days on end, but so then you have sort of different problems, but it
it's it's just easier for your body to digest anything and everything in zone 3 and below. And if you're in zone 4 and
above, it gets way trickier to digest things and feel good and have your body like be able to consume that stuff. So
yeah, I mean, um, you really got to practice. Even the other couple weeks ago, me and Tyman threw oursel in a first race and my legs
were flat, but Tyman, who's been racing at basically an elite level for almost 10 years, was throwing up on the last
climb. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like it it doesn't happen all the time or it doesn't like get perfect. Keegan, who's
like, you know, arguably the best endurance racer in the US right now, uh, threw up across the line at Sea
Otter. He won the race. He's crossing the line and he's throwing up. Yeah. And it has nothing to do with like his
nutrition's bad, the company. Yeah. It's just sometimes like your body's like, "Nah, not today, dude. It's just hard."
The human body is like it's it's a it's a serious challenge and trick to try and
put down carbohydrates and sodium and water and everything else while you're running zone 4 and zone 5 heart rates.
Like, that's really hard for the human body to do. Um, we're much more lower endurance
athletes. like we can go way longer for more days on end if we stay in zone two and below.
But yeah, the biggest thing is just just training your body to do it on the weekend and practicing.
Yeah, practice it. Do it. Go back to my saying. For sure. You got to actually do the real thing.
Yeah, for sure. Like don't go out and do 1-hour rides and think you're going to figure out how your nutrition is going to work when you have to do a 5 hour race.
Yeah. You don't even have to eat on a 1-hour ride. Like, you know, you're okay. And and getting a breakfast that sits well with you, too. like totally at
the right time, right? Because that's the other thing a lot of especially with runners deal with that is like a lot of those are running races like they start
at 6 or 7 a.m. and people are like I never train that time of day. It's like well what's going to happen with your bowel
movement and how early you have to wake up to digest your food before that, you know, gun starts the race. It's it's tricky. You got you got to actually do
these things and figure out what your body does. For sure. Uh, it reminds me of a couple years ago when I did uh when we did
Nosco, I was riding with Zach and uh in like in my head I'm like I know I have
to down like at least one bottle per hour like just to even avoid cramping. And even then I was still cramping like four or five hours in. Yeah.
But like Zach didn't even have a bottle until we're at like 2 hours in. And I'm like, dude, you're going to cramp. And nonetheless, he's cramping in like, you
know, a couple hours. And I'm like, dude, you knew this was going to happen. Why aren't you drinking? But even then, like, you know, you're five hours deep
and you're like you're you're not coming back at a certain point. Yeah. It's over. If you if you mess up
the first hour, you're not coming back, right? So, it's like timing it literally from the start. Um and and like Yeah. At that point,
you're like, I just want something to eat. Like, I'm sick of gels and I'm sick of, you know,
Yeah. See, that's that's a pallet problem. Some people get so annoyed with certain foods and tastes and whatever.
Yeah. you get you get flavor fatigue which like when I did Lost and Fallon I was getting pretty over
the gels that I had. Um but that was just because I hadn't done 8 hours at that or 7 hours of that effort all year.
Yeah. Um and yeah, you like you just got to train yourself to do. So yeah. But yeah, like you guys said, I mean, if
you're not training like that and and consuming that stuff like consistently, then then when it comes race day, like
you know, what are you going to do? It's never never going to work. Yeah. It's not going to work. You're going to you're going to wish you had trained more. Yeah. Um,
trained like the real thing. Yeah. Think we got time for one more, boys? Yeah, let's do it quick. All right, go for it, Jeff.
How am I going to do it quick? That's a huge question. A big question. Should I just chat GPT? Make this more
concise. It'd be great to know more about your opinions about the consumer direct model in the context of what you think
uh we should do as consumers. I bought a Rebel Rascal V2 framed directly from Rebel last year because a there are no
shops near me that carry them, but mostly B wanted to support them specifically as a brand and paying for retail to them seemed like the best way
to do it. I still support my local bike shop uh with any component needs I have and WWC picks up anything else they
can't get. I'm also curious to know how you feel about the new business model that Intense is rolling out and if you think it'll gain any traction. Also also
curious about how you guys, Jeff especially, thinks about the looming tariff situation. This is like a whole podcast worth
question. Uh will impact companies that rely on Vietnamese and other Asian areas. Uh is
Trail One going to be impacted? Uh do your best of course to avoid the political minefield. Smiley face emoji.
Trail 1 is another company that I continue to support not only because the products are good, but also because the donation concept is stellar.
All right, so four questions for the final question. I can do this quickly. You can do this. Uh it could be a whole
podcast though for for starters when it comes to buying bike brands uh bikes
consumer direct or really even just components because these days you can buy a lot of stuff consumer direct. True. Um just do whatever you want. That's
what I say at this point. Like it I made a YouTube video about the bike industry. How long ago was that? Month.
Couple months ago. Couple months ago. Two or three months. Yeah. I talked a lot about you know you know the bike industry boom and bust the
evolution of the bike industry. how much things have changed because not only have a ton of bike brands gone
consumerdirect or these consumerdirect hybrid models, but so have all the component brands. Um, and that's just
really changed the dynamic in the industry. And uh, you know, for better or worse, whatever, a lot of retailers are going to struggle with that and
probably disappear in some ways or another. Um, and uh, yeah, who knows?
Just do whatever you want. I don't know. It's like if you if you buy from a retailer, there's some advantages there.
or if you buy from the brand directly, it helps. But either way, like I think at the end of the day, what matters is
the brand you buy. Um, if you buy from a small boutique cool brand like Revel that is, you know, a handful of people
in Colorado designing really cool mountain bikes, that's very different than buying from some huge incumbent
that's already made it, that probably has a terrible company culture and treats their employees like crap. Um, so
choose wisely when it comes to the brands that you buy and worry less about if you're buying directly with them or
your LBS or does it feel good to buy from them and do you think they do cool stuff?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So support support cool small boutique brands which there's a lot of them in the bike industry which I
really like about the bike industry and that still exists. Um,
and the new model that Intense is rolling out. God that was like the Kimos. Do you even remember how that
works? It's like the most confusing weird I listen to podcast about it. A bike shop can sell it, but then they
get a commission. It's like what is it? I was lost. I was like, what are you guys even talking about?
I listened to a podcast about it and I can't really recall exactly what it was after listening an hour of it. Um yeah,
it's something to do. It's like you could have your local bike
shop order an Intense and they make a little bit of margin and so does Intense. Even if they're a dealer or not or
Yeah, I guess anyone could be a dealer. Yeah. And they're also doing um build kits
through QBP. Oh yeah. Which is part of it, which is a a distributor, wholesale distributor that,
you know, it's the biggest in the US. We use them every single day. Um essentially like their website is tied
into QBP. So you can like buy a lyric and add this color or this travel and it it pulls from them
so you can get exactly what you want on their intense model. It is cool. Um
I think propane where you can like customize I think propane's been doing something pretty
similar with their own inventory but they've they didn't have complete bikes. They had
more like all the cart bikes that you kind of selected stuff and build kits to choose your overall bike.
Mhm. It it's a it's decent way from a stocking aspect like you don't have Yeah. The shops don't have to carry a
bunch of stuff. Yeah. You don't have to carry 30 models. You carry five frames and then all the parts and then you kind of compile them
as they get ordered. Interesting. Um if it works for Intense, cool. I mean Intense is definitely last couple years
have been probably one of the only bike companies to I guess try something different.
Yeah, I I commend their efforts and trying to innovate the business model a little bit. They went to they went to Costco to sell some of their old molds
and bikes to them and kind of wor kind of didn't work. Kind of put a sour taste in people's mouths.
Yeah. Is that bikes snobbery or not? I'm not really sure. But like devalued.
Some of their other business models weren't amazing that we've dealt with. And then now this one seems like they're trying, you know, very consumer direct
focus in a way. Seems like the hardest part is just going to be price competitiveness. Yeah. Correct. like it's it's going to
be very hard for intense with this model to have competitively priced bikes um
when you compare them next to sort of uh through and through consumer direct brands
and for for Intense and even if they are competitive the dealer and Intense will just be making pennies.
Yeah. And won't be supporting really either of them. Yeah. It's like a razor thin margin for everyone and the consumer doesn't really
get all that competitive of price when it comes to what they got for their bike and the parts on it. But I commend their efforts. Um yeah, I
mean realistically, you know, the the industry is just evolving because technology is evolving and a lot of it
happened because of co the industry went through a huge boom and bust and during that all these brands that used to
really rely on retailers ended up with way too much inventory. Okay. So, they started selling direct. And it also it
also got so much easier. Like in the modern day, it's so much easier for a bike brand to then just spin up a
Shopify website and sell their bikes consumer direct. Whereas, you rewind 10 years ago, they actually needed
retailers. Like, they didn't know how to build a website. And that was hard to do back then. And they needed to, you know,
contact retailers and have retailers take care of the hard part, whether it was the instore sales or the online sales. Um, but all these brands, big or
small, it's just like, oh, just fire up a good old Shopify site and sell direct. Um, and yeah, that's that's a huge kick
in the nuts to retailers. Um, and you know, you could argue there's some benefit too to consumers because they
get a more competitive price, but then there's also a caveat there because now it's like if something goes wrong with it, like who you going to go back to? Or
if you just don't want to work on it. There's a lot of people who want to buy a bike locally because they like the local experience and they want to have
it maintained locally and they have better things to do with their life than bleed their own brakes their whole
Sunday. what um what there are those people. Um so the
industry is evolving, technology is evolving, you know, it's all changing. There's pros and cons to it and very
different elements to it. Um but yeah, watch that YouTube video I made about the bike industry. I talk a lot about
that stuff and also how our business in particular evolved because of that, which is why Kettle became a big thing
and is now a bigger business in WC and also where Trail One came from. Um, and
yeah, so leads into the next question. The tariff situation, you know, it's it's a huge mess because there's a lot
of uncertainty. So, it's hard for businesses to figure out what to do because the tariffs are on again, they're off again, there's a deal, there's not a deal. Um, it's it's very
confusing for businesses to operate in an environment like that. Regardless though, every business and every
entrepreneur that's running the business like understands like we all we all we're playing a game here, right? The
referees might be changing the rules and then changing them back and telling you they're going to change and then not change them. It's it's annoying to play
a game when the referees are doing that, but as an entrepreneur and a business owner, you you operate on the playing
field you're given and we'll figure it out. And will it cause inflation? Who knows? Probably. Um, you know, we'll
we'll see how it all pans out. There there's it's a very big complex ball of wax when it comes to international trade
and tariffs. So, um, like the second, third, and fourth order effects to doing something like that are pretty
interesting. Um, and you we're just like to try and predict those is speculation
that I don't care to do because I think it's too complicated to speculate on. Um, and uh, you know, some of the TR1
stuff is made in Asia, some of it's made in the US. Um, some of it's going to matter. Maybe some prices will change,
but again, we'll figure it out and it'll be all good. And, uh, yeah, I don't know. That's just business. You know,
you deal with problems all day like warehouse management systems and tariffs. Improvise, adapt, overcome. Yes, pretty
much. Yeah. What is that from? It's like uh Bear Grills or something like that. Oh, yeah. You're right.
Survivor Man or something. Yeah. Whenever I hear that, I also remember that one, what was that one Billy Bob
Thor movie where he's like cheating on his wife or something and he's telling the other guy to keep cheating on his wife and he's just like lie, lie, deny,
lie, lie, deny. It's like it reminds me of that scene, too. That used to be Andy's like manager.
Lie lie and deny. That's too funny. That's a pretty good explanation of what's going on as a
whole. Tried to make it quick and concise, but you know, if people are more interested, they can ask ask it again and or
different ways and we can answer at the front of the pod. Yeah. I mean, the YouTube video is you pretty much did a deep dive on it.
Yeah, we did a big deep dive on it. The tariffs, everything else is in there. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. The tariff thing is funny cuz it's it's it's so on and off again and it's
like there's so many long-term ramifications from changes like that. Um it's just like yeah you could sit here
and speculate on it all day but I don't know speculation all day to some extent it's just kind of boring. Yeah there's no point to speculate when
things could change and then the speculation is gonna be inaccurate. Totally. Yeah. It's like speculating on AI.
Yeah. It's just like tomorrow GBT5 comes out and your whole podcast is useless now.
Yeah. Some things just move too fast. Yep. That's for sure. Especially Well, I think that just about wraps this
one up, boys. Wraps it up. Thank you everybody so much for tuning in. We truly do appreciate it. And uh
yeah, what an excellent episode. Thank you all so much for sending questions. If you guys have questions, please send them to podcast worldwide.com.
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