079 - Derailleurs are Dead! Short Cranks, Belt Drives, and the Evolution of Mountain Bike Components

In this lively episode of the mountain biking podcast, hosts Josh and Dane dive into the evolving world of mountain bike technology, debating whether certain innovations are lasting trends or passing fads. The conversation explores controversial topics like belt drives, gearbox systems, and the hosts make bold predictions about the future of derailleur technology. Dane challenges Josh's prediction that belt-driven gearbox e-bikes will be mainstream within two years, while both agree that SRAM's new Transmission derailleur system represents a significant advancement.

The hosts also discuss the growing trend of shorter cranks in mountain biking, examining how this adaptation helps reduce pedal strikes on modern low-bottom-bracket bikes. Additional topics include the decline of bike lockout systems, the problems with headset cable routing, and reflections on the enduring popularity of Epic Ride’s 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo race despite the general decline of 24-hour race formats. Throughout the episode, the hosts share personal experiences with their own bikes, including Rocky Mountain models and customization challenges.

Integrated eMTB Gearbox & Motor
(a glimpse into the future, according to Josh)
https://youtu.be/-MBaP4PZpKY?si=97_P0EDcB5RBNxpC

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Transcript

Dane 0:02

does people ever talk over this music when you start?

Josh 0:07

yeah, they talk, the music always comes in and we're always quiet, waiting for it to finish.

Dane 0:11

I'm like we can talk over you, can totally talk over it, man.

Josh 0:15

Um, you see my little uh oh, you got a trash bin yeah, how cool is that built into the workbench yeah, so we're. We're in guru bikes, but we're not really in Guru Bikes. We're in Guru Suspension. Yeah, and I've looked back here, but I've never come in and sat back here, it's super clean right now Clean for eight hours. Eight hours clean One day.

Dane 0:35

Yeah, and I put up the shelf. Everybody can't see it's not even the, that's not even a fraction of the collection that you have, so it's going to get filled up with uh. So I've got a bunch of old manatees and marzocchi's and foxes and, uh, there's a, there's a really unique uh dvo, so that that's a yeti painted dvo oh, it's like a I'm colorblind, but it's like a less. It's like a turquoise, yeah, turquoise, yeah whatever the yeti color is, whatever they call it yeah and so that's a one of a kind.

Josh 1:08

And then I have someone did someone custom paint that. Yeah, that was custom, so right on.

Dane 1:12

It showed up on one of the marketplaces and I saw it and I was like it's and it was really clean, like whoever did it did a really good job.

Josh 1:20

Is it a diamond or what is it? Yeah, it's a diamond, but it's a non-boost. Okay.

Dane 1:23

And I'm like, ah, somebody will buy that, and it just never sold.

Josh 1:27

Yeah.

Dane 1:28

And I was like you know what? I don't even care, I'm going to put that on the wall. It's just cool.

Josh 1:32

I don't want to put that up on eBay, and just you know. I don't think.

Dane 1:39

Just put it out there be vintage, but it's uh old enough to not have a lot of value because it's non-boost yeah and it's 27.5. So so it's not 29 and I'm just like you know what. It's cool, it's got a story. I'm just gonna leave it up there.

Josh 1:53

It's a double negative but it is a cool you have so much vintage stuff in here, man.

Dane 1:58

Oh you, this tiny bit. I show you the new trek. I got uh, michael, uh donated this 951 frame. That's a turner burner frame. I've got my downhill bikes, my. I bought two of my downhill bikes back from the guys I sold them to right uh, so that I can hang them up uh in the shop.

Josh 2:16

So yeah what's not is 951. Is that the actual brand? That's intense so yeah, that was their downhill bike.

Dane 2:21

So one of my downhill bikes, my dream downhill bike um is or was well.

Josh 2:27

I've had multiples, but most people have dream girls. You have dreamed out, yeah.

Dane 2:33

When I opened the first shop, the first version of guru, uh, I went to the trade show, interbike and intense had this nine five one DVO edition and it was all color matched. It had a DVO Emerald fork and a Jade rear shock and these spank wheels that were DVO colored and it was just, it was like the coolest bike and, especially if you're a DVO fan, it was just a cool, cool bike. And I'm like, oh, I really really want that. And then the next year we opened a shop and I'm like we became a DV or a intense dealer. Yeah, and I'm like, oh, I really really want that. And then the next year we opened a shop and I'm like we became a DV or a, uh, intense dealer.

Josh 3:09

Yeah.

Dane 3:09

And I called up the rep and I'm like, do you got any of those left? And he's like I got one. It's in your size and I bought it and I VPP whatever version at that time they're calling it. But uh, and so that nine five one is their area code.

Dane 3:29

Oh, interesting so that's where that came from. And then, uh, my old race bike that I got back was an M three that I raced and that one is all custom anodized bunch of cool stuff on it. It's I sold it with lower end so I have to get it. I don't think I'm going to change it. I'm honestly going to probably leave it the way it is, but it's. It's got a ton of race podiums on it, so that's awesome man.

Dane 3:56

And then the other one is a turner dhr. Okay, which was I actually got the bike was a team bike from my old no brakes race team, right, and I got that bike and, um, I sold mine a long, long time ago, long time ago. I don't have any hopes, I don't even remember who I sold it to, but one of the guys that was on the team right after I retired. He had two of them and, ironically, his son is Travis, who we had on the podcast, and so, uh, travis was like, are you interested in these? And I was like, yeah the God, those look really familiar and they were our. He raced on no brakes.

Dane 4:34

Travis from old Pueblo, oh Pueblo, yeah, yeah. So his dad was on no brakes, like the year that I left he joined, so we never knew each other. Oh, that, yeah, and then, and so travis introduced us and I'm still trying to get a picture, uh of, uh, his dad so that I can put it up with the bike, yeah and uh.

Dane 4:52

But yeah, it's got all the it's marzocchi equipped. It's got a romic rear shock we were sponsored by romic. It's got all of the team stuff on. It's really cool. So yeah, I'm kind of excited. I've been kind of spending way too much money on vintage stuff well, every time I come in there's another one.

Josh 5:07

You had that trek 9200 out there.

Dane 5:09

I got the trek. That was like when I was a little kid. That was like the coolest looking bike ever glued together aluminum frame yeah, I got a foes um downhill bike with a are they still around? Yes, yeah, they still are. I think they even have an e-bike now, right on. In fact I saw somebody, oh no, I saw somebody at one of the bike parks that was on lenses, that was in Moab and Lensport.

Josh 5:34

Yeah.

Dane 5:34

I guess the family that had all these bikes that were Lensport bikes. They were friends with Lens, oh interesting. So we thought it was crazy to see that many lens bikes in one spot, like usually you see one in a lifetime you know, yeah, foes racing. Yep, world's finest handmade full suspension bikes yeah, they're still aluminum, that there's a little bit of a market for hand built aluminum bikes, but it's getting hard it's interesting, let's you know.

Josh 6:01

So, uh, okay, so it's uh, what day is today, today's thursday? Yep, uh, we, uh, we're, we're here in in guru suspension in a, in the back of of guru bikes, and uh, there's a monsoon going on outside, so if you hear something in the background, that's probably the rain got a couple of leaks in the roof already.

Dane 6:17

Oh, do you really?

Josh 6:18

Yeah.

Dane 6:20

They're weird, Like uh, one monsoon they'll be in one spot of the building and one in the other, so I know it's wind driving it into somewhere.

Josh 6:27

Yeah.

Dane 6:27

You know, but I'm not 100% sure.

Josh 6:29

And it's not a major?

Dane 6:30

No, no, they're little.

Josh 6:31

It's a flat roof. Do you have scuppers that are coming off?

Dane 6:33

Yeah, there's scuppers and it's slightly.

Josh 6:36

Yeah, yeah, pitched. Yeah, slight pitch on the front, so it looks have you done white rot wash up there recently? Um went right before we got it, but I need to do another coat. Yeah, that's good, wait, wait till the winter. Uh -huh, it's too, it's too too. Uh, yeah, it's too damn hot right now, that's for sure. Okay, I got a question for you, okay, uh, why couldn't the old bike find its way home? It was too tired.

Dane 7:01

No, that's, that's, but this is another punch that works it totally works it lost its bearings. Oh, and I like that you said old, because almost no bikes have bearing like I guess they do have bearings they have lots of bearings well I was picturing loose ball okay, where they literally fall out of the bike.

Dane 7:23

Yeah, the cartridge seal. Cartridge bearings is the new thing. That brings me to our topics tonight. Yeah, what's our topic? Uh, we're kind of going off of trends and trends or fads. Fads, yeah, yeah and uh we were talking about is. Trend is a nice way of saying fad, but I think they're different, like we were arguing with tyler uh, yeah, tyler thinks that what fads go away and trends stick. No, or you were arguing that he said that they're synonymous.

Dane 7:47

Yeah, trends go away too, but trends was like a nice way of saying fad, and my argument was fads usually mean that it went away. Like you rarely go, this is that fad. When you say that fad, it's a past tense.

Josh 8:01

I'm looking up synonyms for trend right now to see if fad comes up. See, I think trend is. Fashionable, chic and vogue, the latest thing, classic, trendy, so trendy, and now that's trend. Yeah, where's fad? Fad's not coming up here, as a synonym?

Dane 8:18

I don't think they're synonyms.

Josh 8:19

Okay, I think one is past tense and one is almost future tense, like I think one is past tense and one is almost future tense, like a fad, something that happened in a trend, something that's happening. Happening or going to happen.

Dane 8:29

Yeah, Okay, and he brought up the point that you know they go away, because I was thinking trends turn into the norm. Yeah, but his point was more on clothing and clothing trends and I'm like, yeah, I could see that that goes away, you know. So that blows away my thinking that it becomes the norm.

Josh 8:47

Well, one thing's for sure is that Dana and I don't always agree on topics, and it and it.

Dane 8:51

I don't know what you're talking about.

Josh 8:52

We always we always agree and it dawns on me. It dawned on me and actually we got some feedback from our listeners that, uh, they actually liked the fact that we don't agree on everything.

Dane 9:01

Yeah the way you put it, which we're not going to talk about, was a little alarming.

Evolution of Mountain Bike Technology

Josh 9:07

I'm just going to say I didn't mean it. I was just like wow, wow, they like it when we fight. He went there Like he said that oh yeah, no, no, the actual phrase that I used. No one of our listeners came up and said that to me. Word for word. If they said it I can't say it on here, okay, all right, it's too your kids listen to this.

Dane 9:28

Now, man, it's too. They don't, all right, okay, this listener said.

Josh 9:30

the listener said I'm glad that you and Dane aren't just blowing each other. That's what they said. All right there we go.

Dane 9:35

I was like oh, there you go, that was rough, Okay, so um it's a really good time to be mountain biker.

Josh 9:40

I think, um, there's all kinds of awesomeness, like the bikes have gotten like really good, yep, and like most, I think most bike brands are putting out really good bikes. We're not like before. It was like the geo was all over the place and you never knew what the hell you're gonna get and one bike would ride like shit and one right bike would ride amazing. I think now most of the bikes out, um, we can argue about this too, if you want. I was about to, but and I know the whole colvid story but what I can't figure out is like why is the bike industry not capitalizing on this great time we've got? We've got trails blown up everywhere, we've got bikes in like great shape. You could argue that the bikes are like way too high priced, and that's one of the things I want to talk about. But, like man, you'd figure you think that they would figure out the bike industry like how to capitalize on how great mountain biking is at the moment. Okay, I want you to picture something.

Dane 10:32

Okay, I'm gonna close my eyes picture uh like a plastic, uh tupperware, that's kind of tall, got it? Uh square, so kind of a I don't know, maybe a quart, okay yo, and then I want you to take like a fistful, like a handful of ants and throw it in there. Okay, that's the bike industry. That's how they fire ants. It doesn't matter. Like they're capable, they can lift a lot of weight, they can do a lot of stuff, but they are running around like their heads are cut off. They don't have any. There's no clear. They have no strategy. There's no, there's no cohesion. They don't have any. There's no clear. They have no strategy. They there's no, there's no cohesion.

Josh 11:06

They don't work together.

Dane 11:08

A little bit of nature comes out and it makes them work together. You know, like if you throw a chunk of food in, they'll start working on it. You know, okay, but realistically they are just running around getting stuff done and doing stuff and and doing stuff. And I don't think they they don't have some sort of cabal where they get together and they talk about stuff.

Dane 11:29

There's honestly we've tried that like interbike was kind of sort of a cabal- like an unofficial one is that way, yeah, and so these ants are just very productive and they can do a lot, but they're really not in in line, uh, under any one mission, and that's why you know so. And then I got to argue with you uh, cause you, you said most companies are putting out good bikes.

Dane 11:50

Well, not only that, but you said that bikes in general are just awesome, and I hear that every few years. Oh, no shit. Well, I mean, you've been riding a long time, I've 25 years so I remember back in the day when we were excited because there was this thing called norba geometry that came don't even know what that is, so probably before you but, um, this is back when rigid forks, you know, there was no suspension and the geometry of the bike is what made the bike. And you know, and I've got these vintage bikes that I'm throwing up here and and bikes like these fat chances that we're putting on there.

Dane 12:23

And then some people will remember that name if they're ancient, like I am. Yeah, and those bikes were not necessarily super awesome, because I mean, how can you take a steel mountain bike with a rigid fork and make it better than the next guys Like they're? You know geometry, it was geometry.

Dane 12:39

And so for a while it was all over the place and Norba geometry became this kind of standard that stood out, that worked well in races and that kind of periflated into the whole aftermarket or people buying them you know, the industry started taking them out and they started trickle down from the race. Yeah, and it and it started to evolve from there and then it's evolved several times and it's almost like these kind of like life cycles they go through you know, and so then, like you had 26 inch and then another big innovation would be like a suspension forks came out.

Dane 13:10

You know, Paul Turner was a guy that started rock shock and he showed up to races and was begging people to ride his fork and they're like, that thing weighs a ton. I have this lightweight chromoly fork. I'm so much faster, that thing is like three, four pounds, I'm not sticking that on my bike. And then slowly people did and they started winning and they started having better control and it just evolved, you know and so. But but.

Josh 13:34

but come on, man Like I, I I probably started riding in in, I mean honestly riding mountain bikes when I was in high school in the early nineties. Yeah, same here, so went through all the 90s, went through the aughts, went through the tens and the teens and up till and I got to tell you, up till 2018, there was so much variability in the geometry. I feel like right now they've got it freaking figured out. Besides stack height. I don't think they have that figured out yet.

Dane 13:59

I guess what I'm saying is every year they say that it's better. I've never well it used to be, you know, so for the last few years it hasn't been, though, but but so what happens is you get big jumps, okay, and we were talking about so we're talking about trends, right, and I was gonna kind of thinking about, like, okay, what are some past trends?

Dane 14:15

like I wanted to talk about fads, because I wanted I did want to talk about something that came and whether or not left when, whether or not they were good or bad or things like that, and so there's some big jumps in technology, and if you did computers for a living, you could probably say the same thing Do you think the Gates belt drive is one of those things? No, no, total fad.

Josh 14:38

But there's $100,000 for anyone that wins this year in the downhill UCI Elite Men's Pro.

Dane 14:43

Yeah, because they can't get anyone to buy it, I'm not kidding, I am not kidding and it's not it's not going to make us make it come back.

Josh 14:53

Like imagine gearboxes get adopted.

Dane 14:55

Just think about it this way Imagine you spent all the money developing that technology, the tooling and trying to get it to take a grip.

Josh 15:03

And you sold it.

Dane 15:04

And you sold it on seven spot single speeds and yes, how many people do you know with a gates belt drive bike like zero? Now, if you're in the uk, that's probably a bigger, bigger percentage, because why would that be the the?

Josh 15:16

they are really a much more useful in a very nasty oh, yeah, because they don't get all, yeah, but you have to have a slit in your frame, right, don't you do because you? Because they don't get all, yeah, but you have to have a slit in your frame, right, don't you? Because?

Dane 15:26

you because they don't come apart, or you have to have some sort of elevated stay or whatever. However, they're figuring it out now. I think they have um connectable ones so I did actually come apart.

Dane 15:35

I don't know if it's dates, but I think somebody's developing one where they can connect them and that would be great. But I I can see a fail point there, because you're trying to put metal with rubber belts and you know you've got a, you've got all kinds of things. When you make a continuous belt, like the gates, you can make it very strong, you know and take a lot of abuse. Yeah, as soon as you put a link in the middle you're creating fail points, point of weakness, for sure, yeah.

Dane 15:59

So that, so that's a fad. To me that's a fad. It's not necessarily a fad because it's not cool or not useful. It's because it just doesn't proliferate to every rider.

Josh 16:10

Well, I'm going to go on a limb and say and make a prediction, and my prediction is is that the whole like gearbox e-bike thing that's just getting started and there's like three or four brands that actually have that right now? I think Shimano came out with the drive unit that does it. Um, where's the gearbox? It's gearbox and and an electric motor that works together, automatic shifting as well. In that, if that takes off and I think it will I think that that's gonna.

Dane 16:39

that's gonna drive or catalyze these yeah, so once you get rid of the derailleur, yeah, then, then you can do that, although I saw something on social media where they're making a um, a belt drive that actually shifts and it has a tensioner like a derailleur, and it has these lobes, that kind of separate, and then a new piece comes in to make it bigger. Yeah, and again, that will never take and honestly, you know so, the derailleur as a trend or something that stays has just beaten. You know everything out, not necessarily because it's better, like there's the guy designing and I'm sorry to all our listeners who are Actually know this shit Well, like addicted to YouTube and have seen many videos and know all the guys' names and everything.

Josh 17:34

You're talking about the guy that's been the derailleur up above.

Dane 17:35

Yeah, in the triangle, in the triangle and then he's putting the tensioner in another part and it's like kind of crazy. You know that is goofy and it's intricate and it can't be duplicated on every type of bike, and so that's gonna.

Josh 17:50

The frame's got to be designed to take that yep, and that design is, is really so.

Dane 17:54

So that's a fad that I think will go away, because you just can't make it so um useful in every aspect, and the derailleurs weathered that.

Josh 18:05

I'm making the prediction right now In 24 months you're going to have in this shop belt-driven e-bikes. 24 months, two months, 24 months Two years.

Dane 18:14

Okay, so wait, define it. Define it Two years. These are recorded. I don't know if you know that I do, I do we're, we can go back. Yeah, you could say yeah.

Josh 18:22

Yeah, Within two years. Okay, so in July of 2026, it's 2024. Okay, In this shop you will be selling gearbox e-bike belt drive Okay, one system.

Dane 18:32

We have to define some stuff Okay.

Josh 18:34

What do we have to?

Dane 18:34

define. So, like the current e-bike motors technically have a gearbox because they have to step down the the rpms in the motor sorry, no, no derailleur, no cassette that's what I needed so no derailleur, no cassette.

Josh 18:48

No derailleur, no cassette. Gearbox that actually does the shifting drive unit I mean it's already out.

Dane 18:56

I mean we have a belt drive bike on the store in the store, uh, it's a commuter okay and uh, it's a bC.

Josh 19:03

Okay, I think. Well, let's see, we'll come back and whoever wins will buy a pizza.

Dane 19:10

Oh yeah, I'm down. What's the Detroit pizza that you brought?

Josh 19:13

Detroit-style pizza transplant Transplant. Yeah, I'm going there next Tuesday.

Dane 19:16

We're doing a work event there. It's over on Speedway.

Josh 19:22

Spoiled me. Same guy as the old cereal grillers. Yeah, that's great All right, some other trends Keep going.

Dane 19:26

Well, I was just going to say so. Derailleur, not a trend, not a fad, right?

Josh 19:31

Yeah, I mean. It's been around for how long? 100 years.

Dane 19:33

Yeah, so the guy with the weird derailleur, and he's doing that to avoid, because up in Bellingham, didn't you say, your daughter just knocked one off this week? What? Oh yeah, yeah, she broke hers at sunrise.

Josh 19:49

She would have been using this new design. Totally get it right. It would have been fine, but guess what?

Dane 19:54

That won't proliferate if I'm using the right word into the marketplace deeply. I don't know, because there's so many constraints, but here's a trend that's going to take off.

Josh 20:04

Okay.

Dane 20:05

Go for it. Uh, transmission, tram transmission, oh, jesus Christ.

Josh 20:12

Well, why we got to talk about now. Come on, wait a minute.

Dane 20:14

You're just saying you're just saying transmission like a wireless electric shifting. No, no, no. So yeah, see, I forgot, you're uneducated.

Josh 20:26

Let me educate you a little bit. Jesus Christ, so okay.

Dane 20:32

So transmission is the new style of the direct mount derailleurs that get rid of the hanger, and so what happens is the SRAM's transmission derailleurs are actually mounting, yes, to the frame, but more to the axle, and so what happens is they have two sides. I got it. I watched all the marketing videos. Okay, good, good. So the selling feature is that it's way stronger. You see the guys standing on them.

Dane 20:59

They are stronger, there's more replaceable parts and it's more duplicatable to proliferate into the marketplace. Does that make sense? It is, and so, and it already has it's already out there.

Dane 21:11

So you've got the guy trying to protect a derailleur and making something that is cool and awesome but just is not easily duplicatable, you know, and can't be applied to, can't, can't allow for the creativity that the bike industry wants. You know, some engineers developing suspension doesn't want to be constrained to make this little area that the derailleur can sit into. But he's already or she is already used to the derailleur hanging off the back of the bike Right.

Josh 21:41

Yeah, I mean, but if you could, if you could, if you could, if you could, you know, envision a way to connect that internal triangle, mounted, uh, derailleur, to a standard udh. It could take off how I don't know.

Dane 21:58

Yes, that's you're crazy, it's not crazy.

Josh 22:01

I, I work for a company.

Dane 22:03

No, I work for a company it doesn't matter who you work for, they couldn't do it no, we totally could do it. Oh my god, in a fucking heartbeat. You're talking about it's like a. It's like a tuesday afternoon at my company I know, but the udh is the goal of the 30 000 engineers.

Dane 22:16

That's what we have yeah, but the goal, goal of the udh was not to move the derailleur out of harm, it was to create a universal mount point, you're saying it won't proliferate because it's not standardized and you have to design a specific frame for it.

Josh 22:28

I'm saying if you could figure out a way to have an adapter that came up and hooked to that UDH had a little piece that came up and then put the derailleur right there.

Dane 22:39

But you're saying right there, that's what I'm saying, that right there In the triangle.

Josh 22:42

but that what is the triangle.

Dane 22:43

Look at the Trek that I just bought. It doesn't have a triangle.

Josh 22:46

Okay, well, you bought a Trek from 1983. What I'm saying, what are we talking about here?

Dane 22:51

There was that triangle is variable, right that?

Josh 22:56

that area where that thing sits. You know whether the chain state, the new Norcos that came out, the new Norcos, yeah, they're super thin, right? Yeah, exactly, and there's not enough room in that triangle.

Dane 23:05

So that's what I mean. You can't take that design and allow an engineer who's designing a bike the freedom to do what they want to do without constraining them a ton. But where the UDH and the rear derailleur sit is already…. It's been adopted as a standard, yeah, and so it is much easier and that's why it takes off, but it doesn't even matter, because it's all going to be gearboxes anyways. Have you heard an?

Josh 23:28

opinion. Oh, yes, I have. Have you ridden one? I have not, but I've heard that it's awesome where it puts the center of gravity, how it pulls weight off the axle on the back. That's all great, but there's so much friction and yeah, and drag in the pedaling, and that's what this is why I said it's going to be e-bike specific, because who gives a shit about friction on an e-bike? Cause you got an engine driving it.

Dane 23:48

So let's talk about trends, okay, okay, and we're totally off subject but that's okay.

Josh 23:53

What's the subject? Well, I think you had you made a list. Yeah, Well, I mean we, I have a trend.

Dane 24:01

So one of the trends that I'm seeing, at least in e-bikes, is a movement towards lightening the bikes up.

Josh 24:47

no-transcript delivery is very natural, you feel like a normal, but there's two or three new ones out that are the same, claiming the same. I'm riding the bosch and it does. It's very good, it feels.

Trends in Mountain Bike Technology

Dane 25:03

Feels like the rocky, my pivot is a fazua yep and it feels great. So, yes, everybody's catching up, except for specialized I don't know honestly.

Josh 25:12

I you know the only I have the, the current model levo at home and it's an on-off switch talk about a fad.

Dane 25:18

Did you see the new specialized stump jumper? It's amazing, it's not it's the same fucking thing as the Evo. They just shortened the fork. That's it. There you go. They shortened the fork on the Evo. They took the Evo, shortened the fork and now they're calling it no more Evo and they're just calling it a stump jumper.

Josh 25:37

Well, the frame actually changed significantly because they used to have that kind of goofy looking bar that came up.

Dane 25:44

Oh, yeah, that's. They used to have that, that kind of goofy looking bar that came up.

Josh 25:48

Oh yeah, but that's gone, so not on the evo. Did I have that on the evo? You didn't have it on the evo. Yeah, I did, because I had to route.

Dane 25:52

I had to route cables through that stupid thing. Yeah, what a nightmare that bike honestly so I I bought a specialized stump jumper evo as an investment bike. It was an investment I bought it. I bought it off a guy who was trying to get rid of it. It was all taken apart. He's like I don't want to put it back together and I'm like, all right, I'll give you this much and I bought it and um, and, and then I'll flip it and that's what I do you know, that's my little side.

Josh 26:17

Put it together, wrote it, figured out.

Dane 26:19

It was the best bike you ever wrote now know why he didn't put it back together, because he had pulled all the cables and housing out and there's internal routing for those things and they're they're supposed to make it easier, but somehow he had dislodged it and so I had to take the stupid rear end off the bike to get the cable routing system back into place so that I could reroute stuff like the brake lines and stuff.

Dane 26:42

And it was a nightmare. You know, and trust me, specialize isn't the only one. So so that's another trend or fad. Um, when you talk to pivot, one thing that Chris, uh, pivot, chris co-house has said you never know. Right, I'm not going to, I'm not going to hold them to it internal, how are in? You know we're not running our lines through the head tube. You know, like that's a trend right now.

Josh 27:09

So that was one of the things actually. Well, I added it since I said but headset cable routing.

Dane 27:14

Yes, yeah, like like he's, like. This is dumb.

Josh 27:17

It doesn't work for what it's for a little bit of visual, it does nothing really and I can tell you from a bike shop standpoint it a nightmare yeah uh, we got a new brand in and we sold this fifteen thousand dollar road bike.

Dane 27:30

Beautiful bike, amazing bike, it just fitting the guy. It shows up with a one-piece stem and bar, and I've seen these before. We sold pinarellos the same way. Um, this bike shows up, we go to fit him. You know tyler's fitting this guy. Yeah, he needs a different stem. Well, what do you do now? The bike already showed up, it's fifteen thousand dollars.

Josh 27:51

Take apart the whole.

Dane 27:52

Thing not only that, but I have to say, hey, I gotta order a specific stem, I'm not paying for it.

Dane 27:59

He is yeah, so you're buying a fifteen,000 and then to get it fit properly, you have to buy a new stem and bar combo. That's $350,000, $450,000. I'm like this is dumb. This is the stupidest thing I've seen. And I told Tyler I go, you need to be loud in their ear and say hey, anytime this happens, how about you exchange? Yeah, this is a $15,000 bike and this gets to one of your other trends and issues is the cost of this stuff. You know, and I'm, I'm as somebody who who is selling this stuff, you'd think I'd be excited. I'm like, yay, this guy's going to have to buy more stuff, but I'm not, because I put myself in his shoes and I look at that bike and I go God, I don't want to have to spend 350 additional dollars just to make the bike fit me.

Josh 28:48

Yeah, which is a very normal that's not necessarily an internal, that's not an internal headset routing problem it's a bar, stem and combo.

Dane 28:55

Yeah now, or bar and stem combo problem. But if you again, this happens if you buy a bike with all of that internal routing yeah if we can't fit it to you without pulling apart everything yeah, cutting the brake lines, we have to pull it all out. Without pulling apart everything, yeah, cutting the brake lines, we have to pull it all out. Yeah, like you, have to disassemble the entire I think the industry has basically rejected.

Josh 29:14

I mean, it's someone, I think it's a Scott right Scott's doing that on there. Yep, and my buddy was looking at the male version of Lacey's bike. Lacey's got an older one that doesn't have the spark.

Josh 29:24

Yep, and I'm like, like dude, it was a great price, I'm like just it's great, it's light, it's it's the bike rides great, yeah, but they got the fork hidden or the shock hidden inside. I'm like that looks like. I don't know for sure, but that looks like a whole big pain in the ass to maintain it's a so you want to know that I can tell me you're okay, because we we sell these.

Dane 29:42

Yeah, you know, um uh, yes, they are a pain like carlos won't even work.

Josh 29:47

Shout out to carlos um gotta do one every episode uh uh, that's right, we talked about him, that was. That was uh justin's joke in the last episode right um carlos won't never. He's never once listened to him.

Dane 30:00

Yeah, they got like umpteen million cables going to the suspension and turn on and off, but uh, they're a pain. He has to pull the, that twin lock shit, yeah, and we have to pull those out of the bike. Now here's the thing that I didn't realize. That's kind of cool, the few that I've done, because this is a newer design. The rear shocks are in really good shape.

Dane 30:21

Because they're protected from all the elements, the dust and the nastiness that I usually see on the inside of just the air can. Just the air can not. Even in the damper right is much lower. So that's that. Little protection is nice, I think. Ultimately, if you stop with the lockouts and you just have that thing in there, it would be a really killer. I think it's a really cool, awesome design. As soon as you start adding the lockouts, you just add complexity but who needs it?

Josh 30:47

if your bike designed correctly, why do you need a lockout anymore? I mean, when's the last time you flipped your climb switch? Okay, here's a prediction, because the Geo is so good.

Dane 30:55

Here's a future trend. Go for it and shout out to Jimmy at SRAM Okay.

Josh 31:00

What's up, Jimmy? You should switch to Shimano.

Dane 31:12

Because I've got a set of flight attendant uh suspension to put on my bike to test out, and so I get to give him feedback. Um, here's the cool thing about this flight attendant it's wireless and it automatically does its job. So I could see that this scott starts to adopt these wireless system suspension systems.

Dane 31:28

You get rid of these cables yeah so they're not in the bike, you don't have to deal with them. Mechanics are not angry. Um, I was at the and and and trust me like, please don't cut this out of this episode you just accused me of something, man well, I'm just saying that I'm gonna badmouth sc Scott, and it's not on purpose, because I like Scott, I'm probably going to cut this out.

Josh 31:48

No, no, no, don't do it.

Dane 31:50

But the rep was there. I was at Sedona and I was checking out the bikes and the reps are trying to show me the bikes. I'm trying to learn them because we're new with Scott and I'm trying to get an idea of the differences between them because they look very similar. You look at their cross country race bike and you look at their trail bike and they look almost identical and I found out most cases they're the same frame but there's slight differences, right, but the mechanic that was chiming in, that works there, that was getting bikes ready for demos at Sedona, right, was the angriest.

Dane 32:20

Oh, you said you talked about this on a previous episode, Actually like he was just I would have fired that guy in a heartbeat. I'm sure he's a nice guy, he was having a bad day. Well, not only that, but he has to sit there and deal with those lockouts all day long. So I totally empathize with him. I know where he's coming from, because I'm sure he's just angry.

Josh 32:47

Probably kicks his dog when he gets home. On Lacey's we replaced the rear shock with one that didn't wasn't twin lock compatible and I think you made a uh to that because I had a 32 on the front. I think you made some type of added something to that 32.

Dane 32:56

Did I do a 30? Did I do a make it a 30? Did I make it a one 20?

Dane 33:00

Well, you didn't make it a one 20, but also you got rid of that assembly was on the top, yeah, where the twin lock hooks on, and you put on like a normal lever, a normal compression yeah, we just converted it to crown adjust. They call it. Yeah, so, yeah and uh, yeah. So I think prediction, if I was scott, I would be looking hard at this flight attendant yeah, and getting it integrated into the bike, because you get rid of all those cables, front and rear, so that's two cables off the bike. You got a rear brake cable going in and a front brake cable that doesn't need to be in the frame and now you make your bike one of the easiest to work on instead of one of the hardest isn't like and I know this is like a neophyte thing to say, but like.

Josh 33:40

There's something like. I don't know the analog nature of a mechanical assembly okay, it has no electricity running through it. There's something awesome about that.

Dane 33:51

There's something it is Like reliable, it's safe, reliable, safe. It feels great Yep.

Josh 33:55

All of this electronic shit, yeah, whether it's the e-bike itself, the motor itself, you know, you get dropper, you got shifters. I'm sure brakes are coming soon. I think there's actually a couple.

Dane 34:05

There's a couple. Yeah, there's a guy that hacked one Used an RC controller.

Josh 34:10

Yeah, we talked about that. It's a pain in the ass, man. I mean it's like a cyborg. Like eventually, it's just going to be a car.

Dane 34:18

So what I'm seeing? Trend, another trend. I don't know if it'll stick around but I don't think your gearbox thing will happen in two years, so it's gonna. I don't. We've already established it's going to. So no, that's what you're saying, we'll see, but we have to wait frickin two years I'm gonna send you some videos and you're gonna see, because they're already out yeah and you're up, you're gonna see them and you're gonna be like oh shit, pinion's got

SRAM Motor and Auto Shift Technology

Dane 34:39

one yeah, opinion yeah like dude, I think actually I think pinion's actually the one that worked with shano on this. That could be so um. I rode that gas gas um with the new SRAM motor.

Josh 34:51

Okay, Did it have the new? It has the DVO. Did it have the DVO? Yeah, the new the WP DVO. Which has got the cup and cone design. Okay, yeah, I want to talk to the DVO.

Dane 35:11

When we do the DV. You know I didn't want to mess with it, you know, so I didn't get to really do it. You know I went off the loading dock and it was great, but uh, the bike was cool. Um, I think gas gas is cool. I told them that from the feedback that I got from people is if they just changed the name, uh, the bikes would do a lot better but gas, gas has got some meaning in, yeah.

Dane 35:26

So in the motorcycle you got a moto guy who will recognize that he's probably going to be great with it. But there are some e-bike people that are almost offended because they don't. They're trying to stop people, um associating them.

Josh 35:40

Yeah, and the design of those gas gas actually look like motorcycles they put like these flares on them and I talked to those guys at when we were, when I was out at Seattle. But you know, they own Husqvarna, yeah, they own gas gas, but they also own felt, yes. So could they just not reissue those bikes that design under felt, pull off some of that flare that makes it look like a motorcycle? You know what?

Dane 36:09

You just nailed something, since they own the two companies. But sometimes when you own two companies doesn't mean those two companies are run together, they're run separate and it's sometimes hard to integrate them. Right, you know that.

Dane 36:15

I do yeah, and so sometimes they're almost competitors and in fact they kind of are, you know but I don't know if I'd put felt and gas gas as competitors but if, if gas gas took that bike and rebadged it, cleaned it up, got rid of some of the moto stuff and called it a felt, I think they would do very little harm to the gas gas reputation and it would increase the the non-moto and you could I mean you could almost offer it under both names and have one that's like flared out and with the cup and cone and designed specifically for moto guys that want to also have an e-bike and then one for the felt customers that want an e-bike and you could share R&D.

Josh 36:55

I mean it seems okay, go ahead and send us our royalty for this idea Gas. Gas and Felt. I can't remember the company, the parent company.

Dane 37:04

I can't either, I think it's Pierre IPL or something.

Josh 37:10

I can't either it's pierre or pl or something I can't remember. Yeah, pierce pierre, we'll put it in the.

Dane 37:12

We'll put in the show notes, we're looking at gas gas as a dealership and I've just I haven't got a ton of feedback on the name.

Josh 37:16

That was the biggest yeah, but I got it, doesn't ride, ride, carry them right now.

Dane 37:19

Carry them, so that's the other thing is they're because they're in moto shops, moto, they go into moto shops and it's it. There's a they're, they're walking a real gray area.

Josh 37:29

It's unclear, fuzzy yeah.

Dane 37:30

Their market's unclear, but it had the new SRAM motor. So this new SRAM motor, if I remember correctly, and and feel free to shout out and tell me I'm wrong, because I love that, it makes me do research.

Josh 37:40

But every time you see SRAM, I think I'm going to throw up.

Dane 37:43

So here's the thing is the SRAM motor, I believe is built by bros, which makes the specialized motors.

Josh 37:51

Really yeah. So okay, You're going to have to start. It must be good, You're, you're. I don't like this. I just talked about the fact that I didn't like the specialized motor.

Dane 37:58

So you're just making my case, but, um, so it only has like, uh, I think it's only two modes, two or three modes, but maybe two modes tunable. Um, not really so. So basically they got like a rally, if I remember, which is like full power, like turbo yeah, and then they've got like a eco, I think I.

Dane 38:20

I feel bad that I didn't memorize these, but we don't sell this product, so I didn't spend the time. Um, but the biggest thing that they have done is they have integrated with transmission on some of the models that have um access transmission and all transmission is wireless. Electric now Yep, and now always um, and Did you have?

Josh 38:40

Ram came out with a low end transmission. Yeah yeah, the S one, yeah yeah.

Dane 38:44

But you can't buy it, it's got to come on the bike. Oh, it's only only yeah, for now. For now, because what if you break a derailleur? You gotta? They'll probably make you buy a gx. That's if I had to guess. That's what they're going to do, but it'll be temporary. So, yeah, eventually it'll come down. So what they did with this fram system is because they have everything integrated, they have auto shift, a true auto shift, like automatic transmission. So I rode this thing and I put it in auto and I went and just sprinted down the street, street. And because transmission does so well, much better than shimano, I had, uh, shifting under load and with an e-bike which puts extra load much more load.

Dane 39:27

Yeah, uh, this thing shifted like a dream, like when did shimano release their automatic shift?

Josh 39:33

it was what? Six months, 12 months ago? So you and you were telling me that shram's ahead of shimano.

Dane 39:37

You act like you know what you're talking about, but shimano has had auto shift for about 20 years oh, look at that, yes.

Josh 39:45

Look at that, yeah, and shram on on trams just now getting around to it.

Dane 39:49

2024 on commuter bikes. There was a bike that I used to sell called the trek lime. Okay, had an auto shift, three speed okay, by uh, shimano. How'd it work? It used, uh, cadence okay, I believe cadence sensor. It had a front sensor on the front wheel and it was a three speed, and so it had a servo that pulled the chain back and forth to shift the gears. Okay, and um, it was based on cadence versus speed, I believe, okay, and uh, it was cool. I actually pulled apart one of those bikes and I was trying to figure out how to put it on a mountain bike.

Dane 40:23

It just never got to it, but right, um. But the problem was it was clunky, it didn't work that great and it was really commuter-based. And I will tell you the same thing After riding the SRAM on this mountain bike, whenever I've seen an auto shift because Shimano does have an auto shifting mode, it's not quite auto, but on their road bike Di2 groups it's sequential, is what it is. So sequential means when you have a double on the front and like 11 in the rear, there is an overlap of gearing, and so when you It'll automatically shift the front and back based on the combination.

Dane 41:02

Well, so yeah as you're going through the gears, you have some duplicates and what you can do is set it up to where you hit, and I believe SRAM is doing this too. You can hit the button and it'll shift to first, or it's in first, it'll shift to two, three, four, five, but when it gets to the doubles it'll automatically skip them. So you get to the next gear and I think there's a round um cause we, when I was at fair wheel, we developed this. Uh, jason uh and a guy that he worked with wrote the app, and we, we made the first di two mountain group.

Josh 41:32

I know I was at a. I saw it in interbike. I was at interbike when you, so the fairway was there.

Dane 41:37

Yeah, I helped build those shifters and um, but the I I have very little credit in that, by the way. I don't want to. I don't want to say that I did much. I did a very little part. Jason was the brainchild and then he had a buddy who wrote apps for Apple Right on he was able to program them. And that was the older Di2, that was a ones and zeros, so you had wires to everything, yep.

Josh 41:59

And so then when this… Well, I think Shimano still has wires to everything.

Dane 42:02

No no, so, like there's, now they use a bus system. They Like there's, now they use a bus system.

Josh 42:05

They all do.

Dane 42:06

And so a bus system. That's when you're pairing your stuff. You're training it to speak a language and you can have multiple languages on the same wire and only the component that speaks that language but Shimano's not wireless yet.

Josh 42:19

They are.

Dane 42:20

The mountain bike group is wireless no mountain bike group nobody talks about because nobody rides it Like it's okay, let me. That's not true, because I went on a ride, uh pivots, got them on one of their bikes yeah, and they can plug into their. They plug into their um, so they're wireless, but they plug them into the e-bike so they have continuous power. Okay, so no battery that's a good idea yeah, which is great, and the shram bike I was telling you about does same thing uh, they have the auto shift.

Dane 42:47

Yep, I think Aaron tapped that derailleur on one rock on South Mountain and it automatically couldn't shift right and then shut down. This is the SRAM you're talking about.

Josh 42:59

This is the Shimano I'm talking about.

Dane 43:00

I know I know, I know, and we're talking very expensive Shimano. I have seen people stand on the SRAM. Oh, here we go.

Josh 43:05

I have seen people stand on the.

Dane 43:06

SRAM. Oh, here we go, and it doesn't do that here we go so but we started this with me telling you about the SRAM system. Even they're auto shifting, so you're not shifting at all, you're pedaling and it's using your power output and cadence. So you've got your torque sensor, you get your cadence and your speed, all giving it info, and it's changing gears for that. So as you go up a hill and you're slow down your your pedaling and your torque goes up, it starts shifting gears for you oh interesting, it's really cool, and I still came back and I told the gas gas guy I go, this needs to be on commuters.

Dane 43:39

This because one of the problems which I'm sure he loved it because here's the problem, the people that really really, really want the bike to do it for them are the people that are not really riding as aggressively like when I'm riding, I'm seeing the terrain and I'm anticipating shifts.

Dane 43:59

I haven't seen a system yet that is faster than me as far as anticipating that climb and there's like on a trail that we ride upper 50. There's one section where we're coming down the super steep section. It's a long descent in, like really technical, yeah, and then right at the bottom there's a straight up and you as a rider know it's coming, so you anticipate the shift and I actually shout to people behind me.

Dane 44:22

You know downshift yeah or getting a better gear, or whatever you know, and that that if I use bike, what will happen is the computer will realize it as I'm slowing momentum, losing the momentum, and then by the time it shifts, it'll be too late. It'll be too late.

Josh 44:39

You'll be stuck, you'll be hung up on the uphill.

Dane 44:41

Yeah and yes, the SRAM system with the transmission is more likely to continue to shift with the motor, but it's still going to be pretty slow and then I'm going to slow my momentum, whereas if I do it as a rider, I can ride that uphill and then keep you know, be in the gear that I anticipate and then be up that hill and pedaling at the cadence. I need to keep my speed up.

Josh 45:02

So what do you okay?

Dane 45:02

Next trend what do you think about?

Pedal Strikes and Suspension Set-Up

Josh 45:04

shorter cranks. Oh God so it was when we had andrew wolf on the physiologist and he told me dude, you got to speed up your cadence yeah and and then I was. I was dealing with pedal strikes when we the first time I started dealing with pedal strikes is when we overstroke the epic evo yeah, yeah and it for whatever.

Dane 45:22

I guess it makes sense that it dropped my yeah, because it raises your bottom bracket a little bit. Uh, it shouldn't. It's the same eye to eye. It dropped my. It shouldn't have done anything. That's all in your head. You did something wrong.

Josh 45:34

Okay, well, I didn't get pedal strikes, and then I started getting a shit ton of pedal strikes.

Dane 45:38

We overstroked it, but we had replaced the shock. We did, we took off the rock shock.

Josh 45:43

No, it had. Well, it has sit on it initially and then it had a step cast A 34 step cast.

Dane 45:47

No, no, no, the rear shock Cause, remember, we overstroke the rear.

Josh 45:50

Well, we over. I overstroke both. Okay, Cause.

Dane 45:59

I took the 120 off the front, put a 130 on, and then we took the 110 off the back and we put a 120 on. Yeah, but those, uh, so when you overstroke the rear, they're the same distance. So so they call that eye to eye right and so that is the same distance. The difference is, maybe you went from a 50 millimeter stroke to a 55. Yep, that's, I think, exactly what it would be. Yeah, which doesn't change the distance of the eye to eye. So the bike's geometry doesn't change at all. What it does is it allows the rear travel to move five millimeters farther than it used to.

Josh 46:25

Yep, and I told you you, you have to check clearance, so you have to drop the air pressure, which I did, yeah, and the clearance worked, yeah, so maybe it was the fork that could drop my so so it.

Dane 46:34

When you go higher, that goes higher, and so that well, it goes.

Josh 46:37

That's why I'm saying so remember, remember, it goes higher in my, unless I'm compressed, right?

Dane 46:42

no, it's the same it's the same, so your bike actually, why am I getting more? Well, you put two different suspension systems on there versus the other one. It's very possible that your compression settings are totally different, your air sag was different, everything so I just have the things fucking set up wrong it probably had, which you were telling me how shitty I rode last night, so you're being super nice about it but it wasn't that. I was like why do you think you're so timid on your bike?

Josh 47:08

Josh, it was noticeable.

Dane 47:13

You climb really well you did. And every time you hit a hill, you, like it, looked like you had a motor. I was like he's on his e-bike and I'm like he just took off and then on the descent I was like I could physically see you slow down and I was like, okay, so that's mental it is it's either mental because it's fully mental or something on the bike is giving you bad feedback and not giving you confidence. Interesting.

Josh 47:36

Well, we'll keep working on that.

Dane 47:37

What was your trend?

Josh 47:40

Oh, shorter cranks. It was shorter cranks and it was when we did the overstock. That's when I started getting pedal strikes.

Dane 47:43

I don't know why, Probably set up wrong sounds like I'm guessing you had more sag than you realized probably uh, the, the. Maybe the air pressures were off, or when you set your sag you weren't. Um that, maybe the fork or they break in so when they're new, they'll they'll be sticky. At first. You can set your sag and then you got to ride it a few times and then it'll start dropping okay and so you got to reset your.

Dane 48:04

So that's my guess. Okay, because you're you actually lifted your bottom bracket doing that so that doesn't make sense. Yeah, no, no logic at all there now you're rocky, okay, so let's talk about your rock the rocky from the first ride.

Josh 48:15

Yeah, from the first ride, and we've seen this.

Dane 48:17

So yeah, you're, you're a bigger guy. Uh, your stature 250 pounds not about weight, though, it's just you're tall and so, as you get, you have more leverage when you're sitting on the seat against that rear swing arm, which didn't change Yep. So if you you put a short person on a Rocky and even if they're 200 pounds, they are not leveraging the back end of that bike like a scissors.

Bike Crank and North Shore Billet

Josh 48:41

Oh, interesting.

Dane 48:42

And so as that thing goes up, it gets more leverage, and we're we're noticing this when I um so when I ride my rocky, when I when I first got mine, I didn't have a ton of pedal strokes, but I run a little stiffer yep um I'm. I also have way better technique than you I actually stopped pedaling through the rocks. That's what she said so, um, and I also, oh and remember I've said this on the podcast before I also always add 10 millimeters to my travel on the front.

Dane 49:12

So, that bike never got ridden stock. As soon as I got it, I put a DVO on the front.

Josh 49:16

So you raise it up right away Always, and mine we haven't. I mean, we put the different coil over on the back. That was after you were having pedal strikes.

Dane 49:25

And the coilover actually helped A big time Because it won't sag quite as much, it'll keep you kind of a little firmer, your sag won't be quite as much and it still gives you that pillowy ride. Yeah, but what I'm noticing about the Rocky linkage and this is not just you, so there's a couple other customers, tyler, tyler's Rocky. He's a taller guy, too taller guys, and so you're leveraging, you're kind of scissoring that bike more. It's got more leverage ratio. Um, you can fiddle with the ride nine a little bit to change it. Yep, but for the most part, if you put it in the high setting, the high bottom bracket setting, you still have that issue and I've noticed this. This is an experiential thing. Yeah, I don't think there's a piece of paper that says this. I don't think, even if rocky understands, because we've called them dude I.

Josh 50:07

I talked to him at sea honor and they were like yeah, I walked up, I'm like I'm having a problem with my power play. Look to me he said pedal strikes.

Dane 50:13

Yeah, okay, I was like yeah, finally, because with tyler's bike, his old one, uh, his old altitude, which was 27.5. They were like I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, and I'm like no, and we ended up mulleting his and putting a coil on it and he said it it it was the best riding bike he's ever had. It's awesome. Once we did that you know.

Josh 50:32

Well, I mean so. So I did what you did. I was still. It was got less pedal strikes with the coil over Yep, it still had them. I ended up getting the one 60 from North shore billet Yep yeah, billet, yep yeah, and which is making a power play version, which is specific power play version. Yeah, uh, had to get a couple adapters and new bottom bracket, that kind of stuff, but other. Otherwise it worked out great yeah it was.

Josh 50:55

It was not cheap. I mean it was probably 500 bucks to do all that stuff I mean, you know so.

Dane 51:00

So let's talk about that. It's a short, short crank trend. Uh, we have a couple go-to's where we go to yeah, um, so back in the day it was like kids. So you, you can find anything, because because no parent is gonna throw 500 bucks on a crank towards their kids, 300 bike, yeah for sure and if they had a 300 bike, that that kid had a cool bike you know what I mean.

Dane 51:22

Like if it wasn't a walmart bike yep, um, I had a customer um alexis and dave, who are awesome, and they started riding short cranks, and this was back when I was at Trek, so this was a good 15 years ago, oh wow, okay. Yeah, and they were into short cranks. Now she got into it because she was riding a Trek at the time and the head tube was pretty straight up and down, right. I'm sorry it was a specialized. Uh, it was a specialized the head, the head tube was really steep. Um, it was a women's specific yeah it was a tiny bike.

Dane 51:52

She's a small lady and probably had shram on it too uh, nope, yeah, and she complained about the shimano all day long. Um, no, she, uh, she kept uh hitting her toes on the wheel when it would turn okay now on a road bike that happens. So on the smaller bikes, uh, you have 700 C wheels. You get somebody who's riding a 49, especially the older ones. The rake of the fork would would cause the slow speed turn in the parking lot. Your toe could actually interact.

Josh 52:19

Yeah, I had a. I had a cycle cross bike that that would happen to me.

Dane 52:23

That should never happen on somebody who's six. How would are you Six two?

Josh 52:26

six three, six three.

Dane 52:27

Yeah, like that's a weird ass bike. Whoever built that?

Josh 52:29

Yes, early.

Dane 52:30

Yeah, Slap them. Uh, like that's just bad geometry If it's that big a bike, you know, but on tiny little bikes for ladies or little people or men or whatever.

Josh 52:40

I don't know.

Dane 52:40

Small people, small people shorter people, those tiny bikes, those wheels start to get close together. Yeah and um and toe.

Dane 52:47

Overlap is an issue so she, she was riding shorter, so she shortened the cranks and and the way that I met her is she came in trying to get her bike worked on and, um, we started talking about I'm like you need a different bike. You know this is something's wrong with this. And she's like I can't find one. And I said I'm pretty sure the trek at the time I was working at Trek is going to have less toe overlap. And I actually sold her a brand new bike carbon bike because of that. And sure enough, the geometry had changed enough to where the head tube was slack, enough where it kicked the tire out.

Josh 53:17

She had no toe overlap 10 or 20 millimeters and she was good.

Dane 53:20

But in that time she had discovered short cranks. And she just got used to that cadence and she liked them. Yep and she just got used to that cadence and she liked them.

Josh 53:32

Yep, and the cadence once you get hooked up on. This happens with e-bikes because they promote you to do a higher cadence and I've noticed a lot of the e-bikes are coming with shorter cranks too.

Dane 53:34

Yeah, not just the short cranks, but the high cadence they want.

Josh 53:37

High cadence they want that that's how the engines work better. The motors work better.

Dane 53:41

It gives them less stress and they work more efficiently. So, um, so she enjoyed that and so I have sold her like five or six sets of cranks, uh, and we were taking the cranks and sending them to a machine shop and they were shortening them and then re-drilling and re-tapping them and they were doing a great job. The guy was back East who used to do them and he was legit like doing a good job. Like a lot of people you know think I'm going to drill holes in my crank and just tap it. Yeah, you can't do that. So, like, a lot of them are cavity backed, so you can't do that. A lot of them are hollow core. You can't do that. And so this guy was very good about working within the tolerances of the crank and doing it at a machine shop level. That was very accurate.

Dane 54:31

Your cranks aren't all wonky, or your pedals aren't crooked or anything. So what are the companies that opt? So north shore billet offers them now. So, yeah, that was back then and we were getting 140s, 150s, 155s, 148s, like I I had. You know, she ended up giving me a box full uh, at one point, uh for kids you know, because they just were. Oh, they got rocky mountain altitudes or Rocky mountain e-bikes and they couldn't. We, the shortest we could get them are one 65.

Dane 54:55

Yep, and she was that's the race, face ones right, yep, yep, the race face, and for a little while they were the only ones kind of making something that would really interact.

Josh 55:03

And that's why.

Dane 55:04

North Shore is new Yep and what people found is their cranks had a race face interface for the chain ring. It's called cinch Yep and that's important for the Rockies and then because the clutch system in the crank is built for that, and then they could get a spindle that was separate. A lot of these newer 30 mils they have separate spindles so you can actually add longer spindles. That's how Race Face are 30 mil, only the 30 mil, or you have to run a DH crank and so, anyway, north Shore started getting requests because people were putting up online.

Josh 55:41

And then all of a sudden, they started making.

Dane 55:43

You got one of the first ones that I've seen where they actually branded it as Power Play.

Josh 55:46

Yeah, you got one of the first ones that I've seen where they actually branded it as PowerPlay. Yeah, I mean, it was that day. Yeah, like I was talking to North Shore, and she's like okay, they're going to go on sale Tuesday morning at 6 am. And like 9 am, you know Eastern time.

Dane 55:56

Was she like you? Got to go on and hit refresh.

Josh 55:58

Yeah.

Dane 55:58

Yeah, basically that's what I was doing. She it's consumer direct. Don't get me started. Oh my god, here we go again with the consumer direct. Well, it's just dumb like you're talking to her. Hey, I'll, here's my money. When it comes in, send it to me it's just a machine shop dude. They don't have sophisticated ordering systems and nothing against them, because they're doing something that nobody's doing, which I think is awesome, but what I was so?

Josh 56:22

forget the power play thing. But like what? So what other companies offer?

Dane 56:25

north shore north shore, a big one that we're seeing, that's really making a push to make their availability.

Josh 56:30

Now is another machine shop is five dev, five dev, they're san diego right, yeah, and same thing.

Dane 56:36

These guys are machining them. They're the ones making them, yeah, and I think that's why. Because they're doing that. And then there's another company, if you want the budget way to go, but it won't fit the power play.

Josh 56:46

I got to double check Simox or something like that.

Dane 56:49

No, uh, simox are like a kid's style, okay, you know? No, uh, it's called a Canfield.

Josh 56:54

You've heard of Canfield. Oh yeah, absolutely. They took over the stock from Gorilla Gravity.

Dane 57:02

Yeah, so they've been on the short cranks for a while, in fact. Uh, we got a Lexus. I think at least one or two sets of those okay, and they are great because they're around 250 bucks instead of 550 yeah which, uh, the other machine shop ones are, and, uh, you can get them in a bunch of different lengths.

Josh 57:15

So we have been using that for the most part okay, so canfield five dev, and then north shore bullet and there's more out there.

Dane 57:22

um, you know, you can get 165 in most of the companies, but to get down to the one 60 or one 55, uh, one 60, ironically, is very easy to get if you're on a road bike. Interesting, isn't that crazy?

Josh 57:35

So, and that's because Europeans are small.

Dane 57:38

No, it's not at all. It's because now think about this. So, uh, when you buy a mountain bike, what cranks do you typically get as a six, three, a mountain bike? What cranks?

Josh 57:47

do you typically get?

Dane 57:47

as a 6.3 guy, 175, right? Yep, if you're 5.2, guess what cranks?

Josh 57:52

you get 175 well, no 170s, at least you got 65 a lot of times so it depends on the company?

Dane 57:58

yeah, that's true. But have you noticed a trend? It goes 165, 170, 175 in the road world. It's like by 2.5, yes, exactly yeah, and, and.

Josh 58:07

in the road world it's like by 2.5, right?

Dane 58:08

Yes, exactly. And in the road world they are way more, I guess, picky about the length, because when it comes to fit, and can you tell me why?

Josh 58:21

When it comes to fit. Can I tell you why? I mean easier to fit the right saddle height if you have the right, if you have smaller increments in the cranks.

Trends in Mountain Bike Technology

Dane 58:35

Yes, yeah, it's, yeah, you're right. Where I was going with it was that you're in the same position Forever For five hours. Yeah, and on a mountain bike, you just aren't. You're moving around the bike Unless your technique's real bad. Well, or you ride Vortex.

Josh 58:52

Or I ride the Vortex and you never move your butt off the saddle, but truthfully, mountain bikers are constantly switching angles.

Dane 58:59

They're cornering, they're turning, they're shifting their weight forward and backwards. They're not really in that same position. Road bikers are rarely doing that. They can spend four hours on a road ride in the same position, and so getting them tuned to that is much harder.

Dane 59:17

And I know that from a personal experience. If I ride a road bike, I can only do about 25 miles before my knees give out, and it's one of the reasons one of the biggest reasons I don't ride road bikes anymore is I have them and I want to ride them, but every time I do they start to lock up and I'm not ready to get new needs yet. But on a mountain bike it takes a lot longer, and that's because I am not in that same position over and over again, and so I'm giving it a break. You know, I'm moving and shifting the weight of the knee back and forth.

Dane 59:50

I'm taking the load you know, and changing it. So. So anyway. Taking the load, you know, and changing it, so so anyway. Road cranks come in many more. Also, a big trend in tri triathlons is been to short cranks, and I just higher cadence. It's not the cadence, it is less of your thigh coming into your chest or stomach.

Josh 1:00:15

Okay.

Dane 1:00:16

So you can create a better ride position, better and more aerodynamic. You can get scrunch or stomach, Okay, so you can create better ride position, better and more aerodynamic. You can get scrunched up. You know more and so, um, you end up, you know, getting more, uh, lung full.

Josh 1:00:27

You're not collapsing your lung on your pedal. If you're not extending as far, you also have less wind resistance, right.

Dane 1:00:37

And tri bikes in particular don't need as much leverage. Can you tell me where short cranks are the worst idea?

Josh 1:00:40

Where short cranks are the worst idea. Give me a hint.

Dane 1:00:44

Or will affect somebody the most adversely, if that's a better way to put it On a single speed, exactly, exactly, because of leverage. You need the leverage. Yeah, no-transcript time. It's just a trend, but whether it becomes a rhythmic trend that happens over and over again as you move backwards and look at a longer period of time, you start to see the trends repeat themselves.

Josh 1:01:36

But who even? I mean I'm thinking back like Spot, you know Niner, I mean hell, even Trek and Tramp they all offered single speeds. You can't find them now.

Dane 1:01:45

We used to sell a Pivot less single speed. They used to have that. They don't have it anymore.

Josh 1:01:49

I mean no one offers. I mean you can go to Surly and get a Krampus. I mean there's some kind of fringe brands.

Dane 1:01:56

Yeah, I think what will happen, in my opinion, because single speed is still cool.

Josh 1:02:00

Yeah.

Dane 1:02:01

I think what happens is there's a point where the technology and all the stuff coming out kind of overloads everybody, yeah, and they just want to retreat to simplicity.

Josh 1:02:10

Yeah.

Dane 1:02:11

And that quiet. You know we sell those Onyx hubs which are silent, yeah, uh, the. You know that we sell those Onyx hubs which are silent, yeah, and the. The feedback that we 99% of the people that buy them are because they just love that when they stop pedaling it's quiet.

Josh 1:02:25

And I like that clicking noise, yeah Well so, like now, you get a Nika kid.

Dane 1:02:30

they want their hubs as loud as possible, oh for hell's sake.

Josh 1:02:32

Now you're saying I'm like a little kid. I mean, I guess my bike kind of looks like a little kid bike right now. It's true.

Dane 1:02:40

But truthfully, I think there's a point where one you get bored with the sport and then you want something different.

Josh 1:02:47

It's just punk rock.

Dane 1:02:48

It's true, right. And also it's bragging points right. I rode a single speed at Robles and about died.

Josh 1:02:57

I've ridden a single speed at robles and about died, you know, and I've ridden a single speed in every trail. Well, besides, bug spring once it gets rocky.

Dane 1:03:00

I just could not keep my momentum and address the rocks and stand up. I would spin out like I was riding with a guy named steve he's an awesome guy. Um, steve came, hey, yeah, and we were doing robles and I literally was like dude, this sucks. And we turned around and went back down the hill.

Josh 1:03:19

It is pretty nut chunk. We was it a front suspension at least?

Dane 1:03:22

yeah, I just put a front suspension, which I thought would make a difference, but before that I was riding full rigid yeah but I normally rode my single speed with my kids, so there was very little challenge.

Dane 1:03:32

Yeah, now I go out with a guy who's got a single speed and he was riding, I think, full rigid and I just could not just clean the obstacles. I was just walking way more than I wanted to and I was just like this is dumb, you know I gotta tell you, though, like my fastest times at the 24 hour race, we're on a single we're on a single speed.

Josh 1:03:48

That's not a I don't know, it's maybe 10 years ago, okay, but it's, and it's only because that course is not technical at all. Yeah right, and that you have a long, sustained climb on the back and you can't with a single speed, you can't bitch out.

Dane 1:04:01

That's true, you just have to stand up and go, so I would climb that hill so much faster because you have no choice. You can't sit down, otherwise you got to stop and walk yeah, right, and so one of the guys that comes in the shop has a single speed. It's like 16 pounds. It's crazy light.

Dane 1:04:15

Yeah, and I think I think he wrote with us out at yes, yeah, devon and uh and so I I feel like single speeds are still there and people like them, but I think they're just kind of the cyclical fringe it's on the fringe right now it's cyclical do you think it's going to come back?

Josh 1:04:30

I think it'll come back. Yeah, maybe you want to make this prediction so like what year is it going to come back?

Dane 1:04:34

So here's the crazy thing is, like 10, 15 years ago, there was a resurgence in single speeds. Yeah, guess what was the most desirable single speed.

Josh 1:04:44

What was the most? Well, I mean like the Surly belt drive.

Dane 1:04:47

Oh yeah, spot. Yeah, well, just spot, like a red line had one, there was a bunch monocoque belt, you know, like there was a bunch of them and that's when belts were cyclical, right you?

Josh 1:04:57

know, but belts are coming back. Maybe belts and single speeds come back at the same time.

Dane 1:05:01

What about? What about my stock? And tell me this in in. Uh. What about an e-bike, single speed? You think anybody would ride that?

Josh 1:05:09

An e-bike single speed, it would have to have a drive like a snowmobile.

Dane 1:05:18

You know, have a drive like a snowmobile. You know what I mean. That doesn't have gears, like or like the continuous drives or whatever they're like.

Josh 1:05:22

What the hell are those called? I know, I don't know, but like the transmission yeah, it's like there's no gears.

Dane 1:05:27

Yeah, it's like centrifugal, yeah, something like that.

Josh 1:05:29

So if it was something like that I guess, totally see it, and maybe that's part of what they're going to do. Maybe we just just came up with a great idea. Maybe I'll cut this part of the podcast. We'll go patent this idea. Let's take the Subaru technology. Okay, all right, man.

Dane 1:05:43

So you said shorter cranks.

Josh 1:05:45

I said shorter cranks.

Dane 1:05:48

Ultimately, I think, what's going to happen. I think what causes shorter cranks is pedal strikes.

Josh 1:05:52

Yeah.

Dane 1:06:01

I think there's less people doing shorter cranks for high cadence, so does that make sense? It does so. If it becomes something that takes off, it's only because the bottom brackets are going to remain low and it becomes a pedal pedal or the industry goes hey, this is better, we can lower the center of gravity and you just have to deal with it. But I think that the shorter cranks for a different cadence is not necessarily going to take off.

Josh 1:06:17

Okay, so, but and we're not going to get into like the riding stuff here because we've already burned through an hour and six minutes by- the way, holy crap.

Dane 1:06:24

And we've gotten through like four things on our list. So there's, one.

Josh 1:06:30

So let's say the riding stuff for later.

Dane 1:06:31

Yeah, but I want to talk about one Okay go for it. So there was, you put a decrease in 24-hour race format, yeah, so okay, I feel like the most popular race in in tucson because we have 24 hours in the old pueblo it is like hugely popular, we all love it. Yep, I would say, there's only one thing that makes us not go the fact that I've done it 20 times. No, no well, I mean for you, maybe like everybody's got.

Josh 1:06:57

The weather is so the money, the money. That's the number one every race the number one complaint.

Dane 1:07:03

I hear about the 24 and I feel like that format, format, would be more popular if it wasn't so expensive I don't know, they've died.

Josh 1:07:11

I mean, I've done, I've done 24 races all over the country, yeah, and there used to be a and I haven't looked recently there used to be dozens and dozens and dozens that you could do. There was a dozen in Arizona alone.

Dane 1:07:22

Yeah, there's like one now in Arizona that I know of and it's still going strong. It sells out every year. Yeah, it's amazing.

Josh 1:07:28

I mean it's one of the epic kind of races in the country.

Dane 1:07:31

Yeah, I feel like it's so. Do you think that?

Josh 1:07:39

one's still going because of either the venue or the way they put it on, or what do you think? I just think, why is it kind of stuck? It's kind of like established some kind of epic lore like it's like one of those epic events that like do you think it's just tucson?

Dane 1:07:49

I mean the people come from all over the country, I mean the world.

Josh 1:07:51

Yeah, so the timing is cool because you know we're riding it's prime riding season here in February and a lot of everywhere else in the world.

Dane 1:08:00

I mean, you know, for the most part, for the most part, it's like shitty, it's either super cold or snowy, or whatever yeah.

Josh 1:08:06

So part of it's like you know good, I get to get on my bike. It's like the first race of the season.

Dane 1:08:11

Yeah.

Josh 1:08:11

I can go out and kind of stretch the legs while while I'm still in the crappy uh you know spring, you know late summer, early spring, Um, that's gotta be part of it. It's just, it's an amazing event Todd's, Todd and Epic rides those guys have done awesome for years and years and years and years and years. I mean, you know, fuck, we had Lance racing here Like I.

Dane 1:08:28

Oh dude, we met everybody here Sam's dead, and I mean I almost punched stands in the nose and like you know?

Josh 1:08:38

do you remember that?

Dane 1:08:38

yes, okay, you have to go back and listen to episodes. Yeah, yeah um, but um, yeah, I I'm just. I think about that race and I think about how much I do enjoy it I don't get to go to it because it conflicts with my downhill series, but I every time I do go to it, like this year, I skipped the downhill series and I was out there, and I just think about how many people love it. It's great. You know, the course is fun. It's nothing special.

Dane 1:09:04

I mean the rock there's. There's like three features that everybody knows, and that's it the bitches, the rock and the climb. That's about it, and then um, and then you know, there's the people and the party atmosphere, it's, it's like I mean people.

Josh 1:09:20

It's like a bike festival almost. Well, people ask me like, what's it like? And I'm like if you could imagine burning man with bikes? Yeah, that's basically oh dude, remember?

Dane 1:09:28

uh, that was brian vance. Was he the one told us that? So, remember, we did our podcast out there and he was like hey, man, I came up with this and Todd took it and I didn't get any credit. I don't even remember where I heard it which happens, I think, all the time Every day yeah Uh, imitation is the best form of flattery. You said the exact same thing, yeah.

Josh 1:09:51

I said the exact same thing then too.

Dane 1:09:52

That's what I mean, like you said that to him same thing then too.

Exploring Mountain Bike Evolution and Trends

Josh 1:09:58

Yes, that's what I mean. Like you said that to him, you're like all right man. So, um, I think we're, we're probably good at this point, okay, um, I don't know if we resolved or we didn't resolve shit, just talk.

Dane 1:10:05

We just talked for the whole time.

Josh 1:10:06

Yeah, basically um, and it was. We have a whole list of things like 30 things, I know we're gonna do. We only got through like I mean, this was mostly until you screwed up the format at the end by bringing up the 24 hour race yes, it was mostly just technology, but but.

Dane 1:10:19

But that could be a precursor, because I'd like people.

Josh 1:10:22

I'd like people to comment, yeah because I I really want to talk about and we'll do this in a future episode, but I really want to talk about, like, how riding has changed yeah um, and how, like gravity's kind of taken over a bit, yeah, and I want to kind of dive into that and like what are, what are you looking forward to or what got you into the sport? Yeah, you know like what's what's going on?

Dane 1:10:39

that would be great. If anyone has comments, put them on facebook or instagram facebook, instagram you can send us a note.

Josh 1:10:45

Yeah, you can just click right in the show notes. You'll see send us a text and we get the fan mail I love we've been getting some fan mail and a lot of spam things lately.

Dane 1:10:53

Is it?

Josh 1:10:54

porn. No, but if I get me I'll send it to you.

Dane 1:10:57

Okay, I'm down.

Josh 1:10:59

Midget porn.

Dane 1:10:59

Oh my gosh Okay.

Josh 1:11:01

And with that, oh, we're going out on midget porn. That's perfect.

Dane 1:11:12

Don't put that as the title.

Josh 1:11:20

I'm going to have to make a shirt. Take care, guys.