I Swapped My Aero Road Bike For THIS…

Ollie has a new bike: the new Orbea Orca! Although he LOVES aero, he has traded in his aero bike for this brand new super lightweight (and UCI illegal!) climbing machine. In this bike check, he tells you why he has made the switch, as well as going through his set-up, including his choice of wheels, saddle and gearing. And, of course, does the all-important freehub soundcheck!

00:00 Intro
00:33 Orbea Orca frame
02:53 Why Ollie went lightweight
04:23 Groupset
05:49 Power meter & pedals
07:03 Wheels & tyres
08:41 Freehub soundcheck
09:20 Brake rotors
10:26 Saddle
10:58 Handlebars & stem
11:56 Bike fit
13:14 Weight

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Watch more on GCN Tech…
📹 New Orbea Orca First Look! 👉 https://youtu.be/AvaaFsbGSFw
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🎵 Music – licensed by Epidemic Sound 🎵
Heaven Was Mine after All (Instrumental Version) – Zorro
Anamorphic – baegel
Shoebox – Cushy
Springwood – Dusty Decks
Nsciety – Felix Johansson Carne
EZ Target – Matt Large
Shadowed – John B. Lund
San Pedro – Sugoi

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📸 Photos – © Velo Collection (TDW) / Getty Images & © Sprint Cycling Agency

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This is my new orbea Orca isn’t it a beauty and it’s super light but not a specially Aero I’m gonna tell you everything about it how I’ve set it up and why free up sound check it and of course weigh it you wonderful people I’m

Also going to tell you why I’ve um why I’ve gone for lightweight I’m not Aero So here it is what a beauty this one’s got the bare carbon finish on it which I really like the look of it I love the way it shines in the light and I’m also told it’s actually a bit lighter than the painted finishes so great

Um and then the all Bear logos are in this kind of like what like sort of teal effect which looks rather nice although I didn’t pick the paint job on this particular one however if you uh go on the all bear website you can go in there Mayo app and completely configure your

Own paint job at no extra cost which is an amazing feature now before we go any further full disclosure here at gcn we are sponsored by orbea which is great but it does mean that what you’re about to watch is not a review I can’t stress that enough it’s that classic adage of

You know when we speak to pro riders at races and stuff and we say what what’s the best bike it’s always the one that they’re riding um that said I can tell you about how I set it up why I’ve specked all the different things on it

Um and also why I’ve opted for the lightweight option despite also having the Aero bike that all bear makes available to me and when I saw a size video on this bike when it first launched a month ago it intrigued me because in several ways it feels like it’s a step backwards you

Know with its like round seat post and it’s round tubes round handlebar and high seat stays but I mean I’m a car guy and I like I think of it a bit like where you’ve got like singer 911s and like Eagle e-types where you’ve got something that

Used to be you know amazing back in the day but then it’s been reimagined and then just made better with like modern technology and it feels like that’s a good analogy for what is kind of going on here you know you’ve you’ve got the mod more modern layup techniques you’ve

Got uh fully integrated cables so it just looks cleaner and nicer and you’ve got the added functionality of better brakes um and that said round tubes the bikes were made with the high seat stays and round tubes for a very long time but for very good reason because it’s light and Incredibly stiff

And when I watched Psy’s video that he did with feather where they were riding this versus the Aero one upper climb um and I did some calculations which we showed in the tech show and I worked out the sort of the differences between the two bikes yes in in most scenarios the

Aero bike is going to be faster it’s going to absolutely destroy it on the flat and across a rolling course it’s going to destroy it but in one key area this wins and that is long like epic climbs and so when I modeled this on sakalobra with the weight difference and

The Aero difference of the two bikes for me it’s coming out as being around 20 to 25 seconds quicker than the Aero one which for me is a lot and when I distilled cycling down in terms of like what I enjoy the most it’s like it is just

Like flogging myself and going as quick as I can and trying to set PBS up on on climbs like that that is that’s my absolute favorite thing and also just racing my mates and my brother and trying to beat them and drop them um which I don’t always manage to do but

Such is life when I go on a cycling holiday with my mates no one remembers who was fastest through the valley floor but everyone remembers which of like your group of mates was first to the top of Al dues so there you go like you know lightweight bikes just feel mint don’t they The group set is your Ace the i212 speed uh throughout great um but my gearing at the back I might surprise you a little bit so I’ve got the 11 34 cassette on there rather than the 11 30 which seems to come as standard with with the new 12-speed

Group set that is my favorite thing about 12 speed I I think it’s great and I think that that should be the standard option rather than the kind of 11 30 which seems to be what most bikes automatically come with having that 34 gear is so so useful and I find that it

Allows me to even when I’m going hard on like long climbs I use that gear it allows me to spin my legs more and also just stay seated for longer which is you know more efficient and a bit more like aerodynamic I mean way more difference

Than the actual sort of bike frame your body makes most of the aerodynamic difference so yeah that’s yeah 34 and wax chain Patrol of course it is what do you take me for you see a load of wax in there first thing I do when I get a new bike now I

Just got into the habits of it take the chain off while it’s still clean and new and not been ridden strip it wax it done uh up front I’ve got a 5236 mid compact chain set which again ideal for climbing um I find for me that’s good especially

When paired with that 34 and that’s mounted on a quark D4 power meter so at present we don’t have a power meat sponsor on gcn so that gives me a bit of freedom to use whatever I want I just really rate quarks I’ve got one on my TT

Bike as well at the moment the cranks on there quite interesting that’s 170 millimeters normally at my size which is 185 centimeters bikes tend to come with slightly longer cranks than that but I I’ve just found that switching to slightly shorter cranks I just prefer it

I feel I can spin more and again just helps me stay seated on climbs and I get along well with it the pedals on there my trusty Wahoo Aero speed plays I just really get along with speed play pedals I like how low the stack is compared to other pedal types

So the gap between the pedal axle and your foot and it just feels like makes you feel a little bit more connected and also you have a lot of float control on on Speed play cleats but I tend to wind that right in so I don’t have much flow

At all and again I like that to accommodate this power meter into the bottom bracket we’ve we’ve got a dub sramder bottom bracket fitted in there too wheels are Vision Metron sl45s now in terms of wheel depth we often get asked that here at G10 like

What’s the best now I do have the option to swap out wheels and put thinner what you know lighter ones in and more Aero ones in it if I need to which is great but I find that for most riding um a 45 just feels like the best

All-round depth for me if you’re a lighter Rider then it might be a bit too deep for you and it might feel a bit Twitchy in the wind but um you know I weigh around sort of 69 kilograms and that’s yeah I get on well with that it’s that good balance between

Handling Aero and lightweight and when you actually start to again model the the effect of the weight penalty of slightly deeper wheels on Alpine climbs around sort of six seven eight percent gradient yeah a bit like sakalobra you find that within that range if you’re

Going for it the depth of the wheel the added Aero benefit that you get often offsets the weight penalty so you more or less tend to sort of break even that said if I was going for like a pure kind of hill climbing setup probably would go for a lighter shallower wheel

On these wheels they are tubeless compatible but I’ve got them set up with um pirelli’s P0 TT tire and TPU tubes so for that for that weight saving and rolling resistance gain um for trying to do sort of PB efforts on on Long climbs let’s free up sound check right Not Dragon at all I knew it was going to sound good because I greased it myself so there you go anyway yeah nice In terms of brake rotors uh got 140 on the back which is good because it saves a bit of weight because it also if you use the 160 there’s an additional like mounting plate that you put under the brake caliper onto the onto the direct mount on the frame

Um so and I am fine with a 140 on the back on the front however I’ve got a 160. now there’s no additional plate required so you need to worry about that but it does weigh a bit more than a 140 and in previous gcn videos you will have

Seen me saying 140 is a weight saving um for the front brake caliper it is but with loads of riding that I only do about 20 000 kilometers of riding a year I found that I prefer a 160 on the front I’ve changed there you go said it because

You get Superior stopping power and crucially your rotors last a lot longer the 140s on the front I you know I find that I was just burning through them quicker than I would have liked um and so for the superior stopping and the better descending performance

Because I still do love this ending yeah 160 is on the front is what I’d recommend um saddle we’ve got a c59 Cellar Italia on here which is super light 59 grams um now this is on here because well I do actually find it really comfortable the

Shape is is really good for me I’m I do also use the SLR boost which is a slightly heavier saddle so this is kind of in Hill Climb mode if I was doing a super super long epic ride I’d put on the SLR boost but for riding you know

100 kilometers or so that I’d absolutely get along with it fine and it saves a load of weight the stem on here is obeyer’s own uh stem which integrates the cables in um and it’s 120 millimeters and the bars are obey as carbon bars 38 centimeters um end-to-end so very narrow I like

Narrow bars I mean I’m not I’m not especially wide I’m quite narrow so for me that that is like the optimum width I feel really comfortable if I go down to 36s I feel that’s I feel a little bit of like strain in my shoulders bar tape on here we’ve got some really

Nice lizard skins bath tape which is just really like cushy in your hand I really like the way it feels and you know what like just if all my bikes in the last few years have had Aero handlebars which are great you know they’re Aero they’re fast when

You’re riding fast and stuff but round bars do feel nice there’s no denying it so in terms of the sort of setup and my subtle height and measurements and all the rest of it I had a seller Italia ID match bike fit a couple of years ago did

A video on it and that was quite a transformative thing for me in terms of how I set up all my bikes and I feel it helped me go up a level with the riding I do I set up all my bikes in that way now and the two key areas where it

Helped was having more lay back on my saddle um so I’ve got the minus 20 lay back seat post instead of the straight up one that helped me get more power out when I was seated um and I just feel more comfortable climbing seats and stuff now the other

Area is it shifted my weight on the bike less off the front end and evenly distributed my weight over the bike so you know you talk about it in cars 50 50 weight distribution better for handling and and I feel that descending now I’m descending faster

Than I was several years ago because my weight is just better distributed on the bike um so yeah something to something to consider for yourself I guess other details on here we’ve got these really nice to Peak carbon cages which uh well they’re very very light so

Enough jibber jabber let’s get to it let’s weigh it um I’ve not actually weighed this bike yet set up like this so I’m Keen to see what it hits the scales out place your bets now 6.74 where you see I illegal with pedals and a power meter huh so there you have it I’m delighted that this is below the UCI weight limit they’ve got no jurisdiction here but let us know was that more or less than what you were expecting um

Yeah oh I’m pleased with that 28 mil tires as well I could go 25 and save a bit more weight and still still be good um yeah let us know if you’ve got any questions about about the bike and and how I’ve set it up and let us know your

Thoughts on it in the in the comments I can’t wait to hit some epic climbs with this so keep an eye out for it in future gcn videos and subscribe if you don’t want to miss that stuff and uh well I’ll see you in the next one love you bye