Thanks again, to all the Patrons.
Peak Pork feed:
PeakT-20 is the code @ https://tidd.ly/45uc9Db
Patreon.com/peaktorque
PT Merch: https://peak-torque.com
15% off for Patrons
Other links of interest:
Control tyre (GP5000) – https://tidd.ly/3GEF512
Powermeter (Assioma) – https://tidd.ly/3Z98OXb
Reference powermeter (quarq) – https://tidd.ly/3WJx9Bn
Head unit:
https://amzn.to/3C5xMwQ – UK link
https://amzn.to/3G3sEKM – US link
105 Rim brake holy grail groupset bargain – https://tidd.ly/3BNlkSb
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
02:00 Who is Benji Naesen?
10:15 Lanteren Rouge vs GCN/Eurosport
16:45 Patrick hooks Benji up
18:18 Moving to UK and sponsorship
21:10 Generic influencers
25:55 Lack of females in broadcasting
29:45 Contracting vs sponsorship
40:36 Cycling broadcast rights and revenue model
51:48 I nearly ran over Hugh Carthy and drivers in UK
58:23 Fitness and weight loss, and PT looks at Benjis bike tech
1:17:06 Col de Rates challenge
1:21:32 Questions for PT and big reveal?
I didn’t fall into this sport by watching the sport and then falling in love with it I had a puncture in the zwift race not not joking so welcome back to the peak do interview series who is Benji narson and is he one of the most revered cycling experts and
Journalists in the world at the moment we’re going to talk about his childhood his journey into cycling which is very non-traditional and all about his Fitness gains and how he got into cycling draw me like one of his French gos between us we’ve got about 200 kg of
Mediocre cycling talent but before we get into FTP tests and the weight loss tell us who you are and how you got into cycling analysis and how you got so good at that before really even from my point of view riding a bike I would consider
Myself a YouTuber as in my main focus is trying to make as good content as possible on YouTube so that people can enjoy it that’s how I perceived that but how did I begin it’s like what I currently do is I’m a host on the lantern recycling podcast where we
Analyze cycling races world tour men’s and women’s uh and in that way we analyze it after the race finishes we get it up as fast as possible so that people know what happened in the race if they didn’t watch it and if they did watch it have some analysis on what they
Just watched that is for beginners and also Advanced viewers of the sport so that’s number one that’s activity number one activity number two is I’ve got my own YouTube channel which is just called Benji NS and very or I know it’s not like some cool name like Peak dork I
Didn’t fall into the sport by watching the sport and then falling in love with it that’s part of this process but it originally started from me where I was a football player as a kiddo so you’re thinking 9-year-old 10-year-old Benji the kiddo on the field pretty good
Player not going to lie maybe I’m just flexing myself right now as a kid but I I was relatively good and I switched positions all the time first attack recer than midfielder than Defender and I had one year where I was actually a good Defender that I became captain of
The team I was really proud of that but uh I didn’t have a the best year anymore so we’re talking at the age of 12 or something at this point I um I had had a coach a few years back where he would uh come get me from my house and
Bring me to practice but sometimes his son was also with me with with that and he played a game called procycling manager so true that son I saw and play a par R Bay stage on the game pro cycling manager that looks pretty cool Tom bornin I know that name I hear that
Name on the news and Belgium we get force fed Cobblestone names uh as a kid in Belgium but uh yeah when when I saw that game I was like I want to try that and I think a week or two later my mom came home with like a magazine with the
Game pro stock manager 2005 attached to it I reckon so um I was let’s say I was about 10 when I got that or something roughly averagely then obsessively to the point that I started watching the sport because I was gaming the sport cuz I wanted to know who these people in
This game are like alesandro [ __ ] never heard of it when I was a 10year old uh I go watch a sport and see oh he’s a sprinter so I get to learn more about the sport and by 2010 the Andy schle versus contador days on the T I was
Starting to watch every single wter race and then 2014 I was watching Continental races additional to the World Tour race and that’s how I basically got obsessed with this sport is how I uh how I see that so a non-traditional way so thank you to Benji’s mom basically you might
Still be trying to be a pro footballer like Remco was I ended up making YouTube videos about that cycling game cuz I was Hardcore when I was a kid was Hardcore fan of like gaming YouTubers whether it was Minecraft youtubers or there was a game Lord of the Rings Battle for Middle
Earth hardcore fan but I I just got into cycling game YouTube and I made videos of that made little stories about a pro team that would eventually win the Tour to frons in my series and people started watching that and that brought me to a point where only like 20K people play that
Game so you know if you’ve got 10K views the ceiling is near so that was the problem I was I was getting in 2020 like I’ve got this cycling manager YouTube channel and I’m like okay what now never going to be able to live off Pro cycling manager
YouTube I’m enjoying it but I’m also gonna get rid of my pleasure to play this game in like a year because I’ve been playing this game for 12 13 years in my life at this point so I was getting annoyed at having to play the game to make the videos in the
First place but I had this feeling of it’s weird cuz like maybe you have this feeling as well sometimes when you’re a YouTuber you’re making content but with specific content like that cycling game I had played it so much that stupid game I had made so much content about that
Game to the point that I reached a feeling of okay I don’t like it anymore I don’t want to make videos about this anymore but I feel responsible for the people that have joined along this journey with me for the last four years of this YouTube channel from 2016 until
2020 that I kind of feel like I have to make the content for those people and I did that for another year in 2020 until I reached the point where I was like okay not having this anymore I need I need to find something else something
That I like doing as well and that’s when I ended up talking to Patrick bro uh Lantern rou CU I wanted to get past my cycling manager ceiling he wanted to do something else as well and podcast was something that was intriguing so I say the next day we were already
Recording the GP play podcasts hella underprepared and we we did that because the tour of FR was starting a week after in uh 2020 in the co year so we did that as a as a test case I would say and it went well around 3,000 listeners on the
First podcast which came from our own individual channels which also had following that went good during a tour of FR from 3,000 you go to like 6,000 to 7,000 to 20,000 to whatever it’s now roughly 100,000 I reckon per episode so significantly over the years but it’s
Also I personally I didn’t know any of that I didn’t know I mean I could have obviously researched it I could have looked into your your back catalog of the pro cycling manager videos but I just wanted to ask you as as anyone else
Is going to ask you so that was that was very interesting so you you mentioned about you you felt like you had um a responsibility almost to put these videos out to keep your to keep your fan base happy and that that fan base might have been actually half of the total
Users of the game I think coming I mean I’m not a massive gamer but I used to really be into sort of driving Sims you get similar things in in that kind of very Niche kind of driving Sim games where just like setto course or Richard Burns rally it’s like those those
YouTubers that make those videos are almost like extended developers um and it’s interesting like you could have a situation where the developer might write to you and say hey Benji you’re actually way more into this game than we are and you’re like taking that that you’re taking that title and you’re
Keeping it alive basically many many years after it’s been it was an idea so back back then were you were you riding a bike then or no were we just doing the game I was trying to ride a bike as in my own fitness journey has been a a a
Pretty meel one in my early years as in when I was playing football I was fit I was really fit as a kid until the age of 10 11 and at the age of 13 something happened in my life which is my my dad went to the hospital incorrectly
Diagnosed with lung cancer um which in the end was like I don’t know the exact things about it anymore but I think it was Giant absis basically in his lungs and because they thought it was lung act cancer they actually made it worse which
Ended up with my dad in a coma for 2 months and that’s where I my fitness [ __ ] up I was I was just of the Rails I I started eating a lot more unhealthy because my mom was at the B at the hospital B so I was eating like delivery
Food or quick food I could quickly manage to make in the evening and my mom took care of me a lot so to be clear she’s wonderful mom perfect mom but it just that period really put it off the rails and I closed myself off instead of
Like taking it head on I closed myself off into gaming and that’s something that on one end was really good cuz without gaming I might not be here but on the other end um it also made me go into this pattern of unhealthy lifestyle where I didn’t go out and ride my bike
Very much that I didn’t go out and Sport anymore that I stopped playing playing football all that kind of stuff and that’s where I started gaining weight and that’s the period I’m not like excusing myself because my dad got into the hospital kind of pity stuff cuz
First of all my dad’s okay now so in the end that is where that that journey of weight gain started to the point that in 2021 uh I I reached a weight of 129 kilos Jesus Christ it’s it’s actually horrible yeah when you see you’re tall
Though right you’re tall as well yeah I think I’m I’m 1 M 92 but I’ve got computer posture so I’m 189 when I when I try to yeah stand up anymore cuz my back’s [ __ ] uh we’re about the same we’re about the same height I’ve got
Maybe one or two cm above you but yeah that’s uh I mean I don’t consider myself as a lightweight but that is a that’s a lot heavier than me yeah and yeah now I over the last two years I basically was able to lose around 20 kilos to 110
Kilos which I’m clearly 110 I feel like I look slightly less than that but I guess that’s an advantage yeah but uh the weight’s still there and I’m working on it and for example in 2024 I want to lose weight again so it’s all part of
The process but uh you know the cycling analysis with lanon Rouge and you got involved with Patrick it’s fair to say you’ve grown that to be the go-to for post race analysis not just on YouTube um so if I’m watching a if I’m watching a race on sport player or you know gcn
Plus rest in peace um I will as soon as the stage is finished I turn it off because I cannot be asked to watch a couple of clowns dancing around in a studio just dancing like I’m not not paying to watch people dance I want to
See objective of race analysis I want to see numbers I want to see tactics so I turn it off I wait a few hours go have some food and then I put on the uh the lrcp right and I think you guys have have ruffled a lot of feathers because
Who are these young experts you know no offense to Patrick just looks like some dorky chubby kid in his bedroom I know he’s losing weight I know he’s losing weight he’s flying now he’s flying now allegedly not seeing the numbers not seen the files these young experts qualified as essentially what what are
You qualified as you’re not you’re not cycling journalist but you are wiping the floor with the analysis and just showing up the whole kind of journalist in industry um you basically show that you don’t need to have a race pass you don’t need to be hustling to shove a a
Dictaphone in front of a rider and just asking dumbass questions and the Riders just you can see behind the eyes there just like they just want to die when they’re just getting asked the same [ __ ] over and over again like oh was today stage hard and they’re like yeah
The legs felt hard we’ll go full gas tomorrow it is what it is and it’s like [ __ ] I can’t watch it how’s the reception been from the the professional journalism industry have have they has it been threatening has it been inviting have you got job offers I know um
Patrick was on gcn or Eurosport Plus for for a few stages may maybe a couple of years ago to do some analysis uh and it didn’t look comfortable uh and it was quite uncomfortable to watch because his level of intellect was too much for what they
Wanted and it was just he wasn’t he wasn’t there to do his thing he was there because he was he was this new star but it was like it clearly didn’t fit in and then going back to you know his own channel his own podcast it was like that’s the environment Patrick
Thrives in um so how’s the reception been from the professional industry I think it’s mixed uh there’s people that certainly support what we do and there’s people that are enthusiastic about what we do there’s also people that simply Express that they’re a bit jealous of the position that they’re in
As in I’ve had Dutch journalists tell me that okay I wish I was in I knew as much about the social media and the online world of the sport as much as you so I could also tap into that stuff like that Al so for example an ex cyclist that was
Wondering if I had any advice on whether he should become a commentator for euros sport in some country or something so there are people that like respect what we do in that sense that they that they ask our opinion or enthusiastic about it but I also have a feeling that there’s
Quite a bit of people that are looking negatively at us as kind of invadors if that makes sense and um in addition i’ also add that it’s also you’ve always got this feeling of like being unsure of when you meet someone how they feel about you that’s the
Initial part let’s say I go to an event let’s say I went to ruler Al at the end of uh 2023 in uh in London some like bike event thing uh and every journalist and person that I meet there I’m like okay does this person care about me is
He just saying hi because he wants to be friendly so I don’t roast him on the internet uh an example of a very friendly person is Jess Cox Eurosport uh commentator gcn commentator now he’s really nice he’s like one of the nicest guys in the industry that I’ve met in
Person so that that’s really nice but there’s also just people that always are un I actually can’t think of a name individually at the moment otherwise I would actually throw it throw it on the table this kind of feeling towards the the journalism world and I feel that comes up more
Whenever we let’s say we do something wrong then it’s always going to be the the people that aren’t necessarily listening to our content and more likely to be a journalist that call us out than the average viewer to call us out and that’s when you notice okay there’s there’s a clear negativity
From that side but also when it comes to Riders it’s it’s mixed when it comes to Riders I’d say that most Riders are okay and and respect what we do and are pretty HED about it especially Young Young Riders CU for example young Belgian Riders I’m like really friendly when I’m on the
Road like last week I was in Dena um trying to get up goldes which for other people that’s an easy climb for me that’s alz I’ve got a CH a challenge for you you know you’re all about these uh weight loss targets FTP targets I’ve got
A cder rates Target for you so we’ll talk about that okay the rider side of it we’ve got riders that are straight up negative towards us and there’s a shocking amount of responses from not the writer but their partner sometimes and I do understand that as in if let’s
Say my wife was a a cyclist and someone starts roasting her on the internet I would probably stand up for her even if I disagreed with what she did so I understand why they do that and I guess it’s something that does happen quite a bit but most of the time
Cyclists are okay with what we do and don’t necessarily call us out um okay okay let’s let’s move away fromy procycling scene just a little bit uh talk about personal stuff so you’ve moved to the UK uh relatively recently uh was that a move to further the the
Cycling career or or what what’s that all about I actually think it might have reduced my chances in the cycling career as in uh the reason that I live in the UK now is because going back in time the Juro of 20 20 2 2021 I don’t J 2022 I reckon the
One that started in budapes um I met my wife in budapes for the first time as in my then unknown person I I met her in a restaurant because Patrick had invited her uh and we ended up having a click and as a consequence we got together she’s from
The UK I’m from Belgium and to be able to live together I have to move to the UK because she has a job that is in the UK I’ve got a remote job that I can do from everywhere so that was the idea behind it sound sounds pretty okay has
It reduced my my career in the sport I think it’s made it maybe a little bit harder but I think the the trade-off is very worth it for me as in I prefer living with my wife and I think she’d rather hear that too first of all Belgium moving away
From Belgium a space where I was starting to get opportunities from the media um as in every now and then I would get Sports up for example on a phone call could you give a take on this or or news blood which is one of the main newspapers in in Belgium where they
Were like okay could you we we’re organizing this this live viewing experience where two Experts of the sport uh watch the Rays and give their takes live and then we post those takes on the on the timeline on the website so I did that in 2023 for example but those
Opportunities are easier when I’m in Belgium cuz it’s hard hard for me to go to the studio every every time there’s a classic if I live in the UK I don’t feel like I’m going to get that opportunity in the UK much because one let’s be honest about it gcn seases as a
Competitor so I don’t think I’ll get any opportunities through gcn in that way I never had any offers from gcn except one joking invite to become a web developer when I quit my web developer job personally speaking I mean yeah I I I moved back to the UK a year and a half
Ago from from Asia and uh big change since I since I left the UK it’s kind of like we’re stuck in the Dark Ages a little bit but positively speaking do you feel that your personal brand so your Benji Nelson brand of like your cycling progression your Fitness videos
I think you you’ve got big opportunities in the UK for that for for like attaining sponsorship or or getting brand Partners I think I mean I don’t know what it’s like to live in Belgium but I can imagine it’s a bit more open and freeth thinking to to give you
Sponsorship and give you like a path to follow on on that side of things do do you feel like that’s a game from moving over I think it’s a break even if I think about it okay cuz on one end I would tend to agree but on the other
Hand there’s many cycling YouTubers in the UK so it’s a space where others are being promote are promoting Brands already and then those Brands might not get another YouTuber on board so that’s one thing but in Belgium it’s also for example I am currently actively looking for more sponsorships on my YouTube as
In I’ve got two or3 partners Soko for recycling kit some other uh every now and then I make a video with zift etc etc I want to make sure that it’s a financially viable thing that I keep putting money in this channel cuz I spend money to go for a week on a
Training camp for cycling for a video for example to Spain I want to try and hopefully make that money back in those videos and right now I’m at a point where I am making that money back but I also want to see if I can earn something
On it so let’s say about 50% of my content in 202 for you only has secured sponsorships uh but I’d like to have 100% secured sponsorships I mean I mean compare it to my channel I have zero sponsors never have a single sponsor um I’ve had affiliate deals with uh Brands
You know cameras and nutrition but with me I have to keep it so objective because the mind’s all about technical analysis of K of Kit I really can’t take on a kit sponsor or a bike sponsor or a wheel sponsor um so that I’ve not gone
After sponsors per se because my my sort of day job is engineering so like I still have that as a my R my main kind of Revenue income but um I think with you it’s a it’s an open book like everyone should be jumping on board but
Uh if I had one piece of advice I probably wouldn’t go after a bike sponsor because buy buy what you want to ride um yeah the one thing I am trying right now is like when I threw the media k out it was one to secure more
Sponsorships and one to secure a bike sponsor which is opposite to what you’re saying right now but I’m also on the page of like one it needs to be good enough that I have bikes both in Belgium and the UK and sometimes a like specialized told me I think um in 2023
Came to me and said okay we can give you a bike for a year but I’m like that’s not really what I’m looking for I’m looking for a bike PLUS Financial uh motivation to ride in in first place yeah and these year these yearly contracts are so they’re so
Easily seen through uh if you look at you know influencers on Instagram it’s like they’re gushing over pinell one year yeah and then suddenly poof the next year it’s like oh this is the best bike and uh it’s just so lame man it’s like and yeah I only want to promote
Something I truly stand for as in like I promote zift that I inherently have been riding since I started riding my bike which for me has been a huge part because my hours let’s say before I went full-time into cycling so before 20 20
Oh God when did I F Go full I think the 1st of January I went fulltime of 2022 so the year of 2021 when I was at my highest weight 129 kilos that period I started riding on zwift um because I was also having health issues as a
Consequence of being overweight as in like acid reflux and so for I was was not good I was doing an 8 hour job during the day web development I was doing four five hours of podcast plus my content per day so I was doing 13 hour
Days 14 hour days and I had no life like I I won’t lie but I had no social life anymore and it came to the point that when I was riding my bike on Swift was 11:30 in the evening midnight uh 12:30 at night just because
I wanted to get some cycling in every day yeah and in 2022 that’s kind of what I did I tried to get a half an hour in every day to to get some cycling in and that’s how I combined with eating a bit healthier trying to meal prep some food actually
Got lost weight but back to the back to the thing we were talking about sponsorships it’s like I agree that I don’t want to take pick up any bike brand I don’t want to actually work with and that’s why I’m hoping that the brands that do Reach Out are ones that I
Already want to ride so that’s kind of the The Hope here in that in that scenario because you never know if they were reach out or not but it’s also if I can secure other sponsorships then I might be able to be more with buying another bike but it’s
Also is it weird to say that in a position that I am where I’m still 11 10 kgs when it comes to the progress I’ve made on the bike I’ve gone from a a terrible FTP of FTP doesn’t mean everything but for me it was a good
General indicator of if I got better over time is how I perceived it I don’t see it necessarily as that’s my 1 Hour Power I see it more as that’s where I was a year ago and that’s where I am now roughly 190 FTP and like of my weight
That’s horrible uh at the start of 2023 even that’s after a year of losing losing weight that was my FTP at the start of January 2023 and now I’m like 25 30% better I reckon at the end of the year which I think is healthy progress I’m at a point
In my fitness journey where I don’t feel like I need to have an expensive bike I just have to need to have a bike I just need to ride my bike it’s easy for me to say because I I love you guys for who you are but I think
There is a risk that if you take on a load of Channel sponsors yeah it could I from from a personal like selfish point of view I don’t want it to change your yeah your your way of producing videos I don’t want it to affect the the cycling
Analysis side of it I don’t want you to turn into a generic influencer because we have like you said that it’s just saturated one my aim with like getting sponsors that it doesn’t necessarily change the content because I don’t depend on the income from that channel
It’s it’s more that I want to monetize the content that I already make by hopefully finding sponsors that align with it perfectly to the point that it doesn’t necessarily ruin the viewing experience that’s my goal and if whenever someone really I had one sponsor on a pro cycling manager video
Two years ago where it was completely different was like a football game or something but I was like let’s let’s see if I can earn some money with a proy manager video and someone said this doesn’t really fit your content and I never got a sponsor like that again
Because I felt like I agreed with that feed back it’s like when you get feedback from the audience there’s one haters that I don’t listen to I just ignore it at this point there’s two people that are giving positive feedback I listen to those and three it’s constructive
Feedback that I try to take on because if you don’t try to take that on you’re also not going to get your content better but back to your point of female versus male I think that’s part of the industry in itself to the point that if you look at
The other side if you look at analysis for example do you see many female and sports analysis cycling anal analysts it’s like I know there’s on Twitter quite a few where I was like okay there might be something in there where I would listen to that person if they if they did it
But I also feel like they get less opportunities on that side does that make sense yeah for sure yeah 100% I think they are far there could be far more in the in the analysis and broadcasting side there could be far more so but if you if you look on
Instagram or YouTube as as like vlogging influencers or kind of the cycling lifestyle influencers if there are that many women who are sponsor who are able to be sponsored why AR they not in the broadcast side why are they not in the an analysis side it’s it can’t be a
Coincidence and I I’m sick of the bike industry and the bike companies saying it’s for equality reasons it’s essentially the dirtiest oldest marketing trick in the book which is sex sells and it’s a fact sex does sell but stop saying it’s for equality reasons cuz it’s not the balance is out on one
End I agree but on the other end I also feel like the reason that those people that there’s not as many women in the broadcasting sphere is because I feel they get criticized way more than I do like y b commentator of of gcn and also in in the Netherlands she was actually
Like severely criticized because the battle for third place most most of the comments were literally oh she’s got such an annoying female voice like the annoying voice I’m okay with but if you say annoying female voice then you’re then you’re showing then you’re self-reporting yourself that’s weird
Yeah but then you look at like the the Lynch pin of the Eurosport team which is AA she I mean it would be nothing without her like she leads those guys she puts them in their face when they’re wrong she’s solid she is like the the
Anchor of that show yeah um it’s just a shame there’s there’s we don’t have more allers in the world but uh if we had a studio full of allers I don’t think anyone would complain because the other guy yeah I don’t know like and she still get
Criticized all the time what are you wearing why are you wearing a short skirt like let her wear whatever she wants but she she she’s she’s trolling then like she she she’s good enough to do what she likes she doesn’t care like I think it’s amazing but uh I think the
Other guests on that show are sometimes just dead weight like they don’t need to be there they need or and then they need you and Patrick that’s my opinion um can they afford us though that’s a question well that’s why I’m saying I think I think from my from my point of
View this is because basically I can’t get sponsored for what I do on my channel because I’m not very safe for like a frame or wheel sponsor but I my recommendation to you from again from a selfish point of view would be to to monetize the offline parts so like get
Into Consulting get into like Media or marketing or broadcast Consulting and monetize that and then the Vlog stuff just do whatever you like and just keep it completely clean um I know it’s practically very very difficult and yes you need to cover your cost of of going to calpe or going to
Eurobike or whatever but from what from my YouTube channel was brought me as like yeah more Consulting in the background rather than actually just Plastering the the first 20 seconds with companies if I look at your channel for example let me lay down the foundations first one I already felt like an
Imposter going into this podcast I won’t lie as in like you’re a very equipment focused Channel and because of the way that I got into the sport not necessarily by a bike I have less of a Basics when it comes to equipment to the point that I’m
Still learning every side of it like if you ask me every part of my bike right now I don’t even know every part of my bike like I don’t really care it rides it gets me from point A 2 pointb in my ride and I’m happy with that I just know
That I have two little gears to go up the hills that I want to go up and I think it’s 11:32 because I could just Googled it so that that’s that’s the position I’m in compared to you but when it comes to cons consultancy are you talking
Consultancy for brands or do you also see that as an opportunity for consultancy for actual teams um from my point of view it’s not been with any teams um although well I’ve done a bit of engineering kind of testing and Consulting for for one team in particular but largely it’s been for for
Companies um and sometimes companies that aren’t even in the bike industry they just like what I say in one video or they like the analysis I did in one video and you say hell hey there’s there’s a guy that clearly gets engineering he can also disseminate it to you know Layman versus technical
People um and it has brought about you know offline kind of offline monetization let me say my my my threshold is is there a conflict of interest with what I review if if it’s a no then I’m happy to do it like a company that I worked with quite closely
Last year is a nutrition brand called Vel for and it genuinely is the tastiest I’m not working with them at the moment but it’s genuinely the tastiest stuff I’ve ever tried there’s no conflict of interest because I don’t review other nutrition I my channel is not about
Nutrition or diet or Sport Science so yeah 100% um I’ll take some affiliate commission to I wasn’t sponsorship it was affiliate commission but 100% I’ll do that um other things like cameras or maybe even clothing if a company says look we’re having real trouble testing
This or we want to develop this we know you’ve worked on gear boxes or talk rigs or something can you can you work for us for a bit like yeah I’m happy to do that but I try on my channel not to put the sponsors on uh well try and keep
Sponsors away from it because it I think however however much you say it won’t change your your content it does because you have to make it safe you have to constantly think am I satisfying all of these you know media managers um maybe it’s is this is a very selfish way of
Looking at it compared to my my sponsors but I perceive it as in if you’re not okay with me doing the content the way I do it now then I don’t want you to be a sponsor in the future anyway that Mak sense it’s also the kind of thing where
I’ve Got Friends in the pelaton whether it’s cyclists stuff like that um if I look into that relationship with those writers they’re friends of mine but I’m not going to be more friendly to them on the podcast just because they’re friends of mine and if they respect me and what I do
Then they’re okay with that cuz I respect their opinion towards what I do if if they disagree with me they can openly say that too and I feel like when it comes to Brands I I kind of feel like I’m in the same position where let’s say
I have a a kid brand then they’re like oh could you could you be a bit more friendly towards that or could you I don’t know could you do something on that side I’m like we signed this this proposition on the basis that I can do
Whatever the [ __ ] I want and if you disagree with that then I also feel like I that’s the end of our partnership like for example in 2022 I um I worked with Yambo visma on tactical analysis while doing lrcp but if they respect what I do which
They did then they have no input on what I say on the podcast and to the point that I was called a wildart Hatter doing the Twitter fronts but uh yeah I’m considering of the on the record cuz I’m on a podcast so I’m going to say it
Anyway I’m considering taking on a a similar smaller activity as in race analysis for a few races in um in 2024 for a team and I’m currently figuring out if I want to do it if I will enjoy doing it and whether it’s worth the time
That I cuz sometime is it weird that this is going to sound really weird but working for Yambo visma in 2022 it’s a it’s a cool like freelance work work it’s a cool opportunity every opportunity comes with an opportunity costs because that could be time that I’m spending making content to the point
That the ybo visma thing was such a notable package of things I felt like at the end of it it felt more like an opportunity cost and an opportunity for me is that harsh because a lot of people would jump for it you know Word of Mouth
Over time you know the news spreads oh Benji did this Beni did that for young like it’s on your CV there is a legacy effect to that and I think yeah the way of working is changing right being self-employed or being an influencer whatever but there’s one thing I think
Holds true is that you still need some sort of CV you can’t just have everything at once you need to put the work in and maybe no one heard about it at the time or maybe no one really valued it at the time or it didn’t
Really get you much exposure but it will in time I I took I took you know annual leave last year to go to bloody eurobike um yeah the the [ __ ] hotels were so expensive because everyone’s going why is it always during the tour I I don’t
Know but yeah um I I don’t know it’s just when they got the The Event Hall at to in Germany but everyone’s going like why you pay why would why would you pay out of your own pocket to go there expensive crappy Hotel you know a couple
Of days travel a flight it wasn’t cheap it was uh everything included probably about 800 quid round trip and that was doing it on the cheap you’ve got to invest in the early days You’ got to get your it’s like you can’t replace face Toof face meetings you can email all the
Marketing departments from all the companies you like but actually going there giving them a business card having a chat is uh is it’s like the Legacy effect and they remember you and just just by going there and meeting Brands like that I got loads of work from that
Yes and and some of that work like like you were saying I feel like is more of an opportunity cost than it has been an opportunity um it hasn’t it hasn’t paid for the trip but in time that I think it will because people talk about you your
Name gets around a bit more and I think yeah yeah if you think it doesn’t make money at the time or it’s not worth the hours of the day I guarantee it probably is you just need to let it play out a little bit longer that would be my
Advice but what do I know yeah you go to Euro bike do you feel like the people that are there the brands marketing people and so for had a clue who you were before you spoke to them uh only a couple of brands most most people I I could snake in and
Around completely Incognito no one knew who I was um uh I’ve got a feeling that no one knows who we are whenever I go to a bike equipment event it’s weird cuz like in the procycling sphere that’s different as in if I go to a race then most writers know me most
Stuff know me and when it comes to the public every now and then someone ask like oh can I get a picture or something whatever but if I go to like an equipment event or even at ruler life for example MH most brand people I don’t
Think had a clue who we were and that makes it in my head also harder for us to get those equipment sponsors on the podcast for example is it because the people that are necessarily at those events the marketing people of those equipment Brands aren’t necessarily as
Invested in the Pro cycling scene I mean it I think in in a lot of companies there is a crossover like the like the road marketing from uh Ora like they will be invested in the tech Tech side like who’s doing the technical reviews whether it’s t
Magazine and they will also have a very close relationship with the procycling team but I think in some Brands there’s a massive disconnect and at least at least in your situation you’ve got you know you said when you go to the races you are recognized but when I went to if
I went to a race no one would know who I am and then when I went to eury and I was talking to technical people uh or marketing people no one knew who I am either so it’s like I’m inito for everything and that that has its benefit
Cuz I can I can creep around and look ATU and and be critical and and film it and no one’s going to go oh hey like yeah they just don’t they just income aroundand them which is good without without sounding big headed you know I’ve got 50 50 50 or 60,000 Subs on
YouTube don’t forget to like doing pretty well for Benji can do his Benji can do his little heart symbol go on Benji I’m trying it’s not working there we go it’s there we go yeah um so some Brands and they were saying okay what do
You do then I was like oh well I do like completely independent product testing on on YouTube whether it be aerodynamics of wheels or whatever and uh if I was in a marketing marketing department I would want to know who I was I think it’s I think you should know who every
Relatively big YouTuber Reviewer is I agree it has a big impact in the market and it was almost they’re watching the guys like me and hambini they know kind of the counterargument to the kind of paid ad [ __ ] on gcn yeah they should they should have like at least one eye
On that and if it if if I spoke to someone who from even a small company who kind of was like oh no I we don’t really keep up with YouTube reviewers I was like red flag how can you in this day and age how can you not know who a
YouTube Reviewer is because no one’s buying printed mags anymore no one’s I mean the the kind of paid avoral on on online publishing is I don’t know whether it’s like bike raid or cycling weekly is is I mean who’s do who’s really paying for that [ __ ] like it’s all on YouTube
I think a brand is more likely to throw 80k at a at a traditional media business to promote their business in a a brand new podcast that they create in that traditional media that might not have a proven following then show it at us for example and that to me shows that
There’s something in these brand equipment companies that they don’t realize traditional media doesn’t necessarily sell products as in I’ve never never bought a product because I’ve seen it on on a newspaper on on a newspaper podcast or something like that along along the lines I buy my products
When I see a YouTuber use it well at at some point we we’re not going to be the I mean I’m I’m getting there already we’re not going to be the young ones in cycling and then yeah the young ones in cycling will be buying stuff they see on
Tik Tok uh and I don’t have Tik Tok I’m I’m just not going there uh so at some point YouTube and got a Tik probably be the old the old thing the old guys do but at the moment we’re in that we’re in that we’re in that era now but it’s not
Always going to be like that probably all right moving on from uh sponsorship and monetization and Consulting whatever uh this is this is something that’s spoken about every year you and Patrick are obviously very clued up on this what’s your take on the revenue model or the rights model of cycling broadcasting
Um I always kind of joke you must be absolutely mad or you’re washing money to want to sponsor a pro team apart from um you know the marketing of of the bike companies I think that’s probably quite beneficial what’s the what’s the model going forward because everyone every
Year we hear the same thing all like cycling’s dying you know gcn plus is dead we we’re not going to be able to watch the cycling in many territories around the world it’s it’s it’s impossible to watch Pro races apart from maybe the tour yeah um how do we how do
We get around this and how do we encourage fan engagement in the last podcast I was speaking to Dan bigam and obviously being a very technical podcast we spent a lot of time talking about fan engagement and comparing it to F1 um which is you essentially you’re taking very
[ __ ] boring racing but you’re keeping fans engaged with amazing data um yeah and it has you know cycling cycling if you’re watching a flat stage in the tour [ __ ] boring um but yeah if we had the fan engagement that F1 has maybe we can make it work maybe we can make it uh
Maybe we can make it pay hey do you have any quick thoughts without you know lingering on this too much how how we can fix the broadcasting and the and the revenue and the rights model number one the sport is so bloody dut decentralized like every organizer is different every
Organizer has a different media comp uh rights company that sells their rights and then if you go to that company you might be able to get the rights but if you go to the other one you might not be able to get the rights and every one of
Those companies does it differently to the point that you got to go and and find 70 we sites to watch every single race at this point so I think Patrick has a good idea of like the ideal scenario which everybody keeps talking about that one cycling but I feel like
Cycling is too decentralized for these teams to come together and actually pull it off and also I feel like it needs to be someone that is not necessarily in the teams yet but someone that is third party that sets us all up some kind of broadcasting a default
Built by the governing body of the sport itself like you have one like you have in all these other sports as well so that that’s one part of the the thing but to not reg regurgitate too much of what Patrick stake is on this I also feel like it’s not necessarily dying in
Its curin form it’s stuck in this endless loop teams dying because they lose their sponsor new team comes up because uh there’s a passionate person about cycling that is owning a company that shows his money at it and that cycle keeps going and the the points that might
Become dangerous is if the money necessary to sponsor your team becomes too much to the point that it’s kind of a bubble that pops and then oh money goes down a bit in this Sport and that’s the danger I see on the road as in what
If cuz Riders are top teams are paying top Riders more and more to the point that they’re forcing smaller teams to earn more and more when it comes to sponsorships and that cycle might keep growing growing and growing to the point that it will be harder to find sponsors
In the at the lower teams in the sport and then you’ll have bit of an issue in that way how to fix it I think it’s [ __ ] it’s it’s going to get to such a level of fuckness that it’s going to go it’s going to sort of like nationalize
So one eye one one one eye opener for me was like talking to Dylan Johnson about this thing called the lifetime ground pre in America no clue what and that seem that you don’t know what it is neither did I so that seems to be extremely self-supporting well-funded
The Riders get paid a [ __ ] ton it’s on gravel or it’s ex or it’s mountain biking so it’s not even it’s not even the road category but that seems to be a very sustainable well-oiled business essentially that’s like quite well liked by the Riders it’s loved by the fans and
Because it’s not decentralized and split across the world it’s a very well self-contained kind of model and and whether other countries could support that whether we could support that in the UK with a kind of Road scene I just don’t think you I don’t think we could
Because we tried and failed so many times U but there’s something about that lifetime Grand Prix which seems to work it’s a model which is laughing in the face of I think Road cycling in other countries or or gravel cycling in other countries so I also feel like in this in
This sport there’s so many people that are coming together to do things that are such just so bloody useless as in you’ve got multiple teams that came together to create this concept called velon which was a concept that was initially made to try and make sure that
Teams was a initiative by the teams mhm to make sure that the teams start earning more from the sport itself so for example part of the the money that comes from the the the broadcasting and so forth so stuff like that um well that didn’t work Von’s dead they started
Organizing their own events outside of the UCI called The Hammer series which was enjoyable to watch every now and then but mhm it’s dead then they created this thing called Road code which is an app that you can get on your phone that most people have never heard of Cu they
Didn’t Market it and it’s basically an app where teams post exclusive content outside of the stuff they already Post in their social media I’ve never even bothered opening it because they marketed it as the a new app built on web tree blockchain technology and when
When I heard that the the use of the buzzword I was like this is [ __ ] that’s you that apps useless and we’re in this cycle of just people in the sport just making useless ABS because they don’t understand the sport they are working with my so my my second
My second take and the one I I like the most is is that I like it that cycling is hard to pin down uh it can’t be it can’t be bottled up and sold in containers like football or boxing or you know NFL or something it the very
Essence of cycling is you know escapism that’s why we do it chasing Horizons uh you get moments of like drama and then you get long periods of boredom you got a million miles of Headroom that is you can’t bottle that like and that is proof that cycling is is very much alive you
Know and that’s how it should be so I think it’s beautiful that it can’t be monetized or or TV rights don’t work it’s uh that’s how it should be is it ironic that teams that are complaining which in some space they have to complain but also complaining about oh
We’re not like a sport like Formula 1 whatever also just dock [ __ ] at social media I think from my point of view the social media and hype and marketing in cycling is is overweight actually I think there’s too much [ __ ] for actually what occurs if you
Look at you know stage racing or road racing it’s and then you look at all the marketing surrounding that all the influence it’s too much it’s it’s like we forget that actually you know the the talking about the revenue model or the rights model for for cycling you know on
TV we’re talking about racing here um all the other faf and paraphernalia around the marketing is is you know like a fancy kit or coffee rides it’s like it’s kind of sick it it it’s a bit sickly and I think it goes to show how little money the racing actually makes
Because of all the other [ __ ] we have to watch on the side um I’ve I used to love watching racing I would follow every single race I would fly to watch the the VTA or trying to see stages of the tour when I was younger because are we
Consume so much cycling content I mean the iron we we’re doing a [ __ ] podcast um just eroded my argument we consume so much cycling content outside of cycling racing that when cycling racing does come about I kind of lost interest like I I I didn’t watch any of the tour down
Under um I Heard bits and Bobs that sounded a bit boring um and and it is boring a lot of pying racing is boring trying to explain you know minor tactical nuances to new fans is there’s a fine line between just boredom mansplaining and just not being
Relevant to what people ride bikes for so it’s a it’s a very weird it’s a very weird sport for some people it’s not sport for me it’s not a sport anymore I just do it for for escapism um so yeah another RN thing is is why am I talking
About technology so much and marginal gains but hey that’s that’s the niche in 1996 the UCI signed the Lugano Charter which is a document that states that the developments and Innovations in the sport should not take away from the fact that the sport should inherently stay human to the point that I think
That Lugano Charter is actively stopping the sport from using more data in the sport we Dan Dan bigam and I spoke spoke about this when we were comparing against F1 and we actually said that you know one thing that would help the the fan engagement is uh upping the weight
Limit on all the bikes so increasing it from 6.8 to 8 or9 and then equipping all the bikes with the same kind of telemetry you know when they’re on the brakes what power are they doing what’s the heart rate because we get if you watch ing the tour on Eurosport or
Sports or whatever you’ve got we get these crappy Graphics of like Rider power but the C the camera’s not even looking at that Rider you don’t know if that Rider’s in the wheels and coasting or they’re you know on the climb and it’s like okay you’ve got 400 wats on
The screen but it means nothing it’s like there’s no you don’t even that ride is not even under shot or the heart rate like it’s laggy it’s not accurate like it’s it’s so there is we’re trying to get there I guess a lot of the push back
Is cuz I we don’t want to run a camera on our bike cuz it’s going to make it less eror or too heavy I think that’s why they’re kind of stopping the idea of uh glucose and so forth meters on the bike and lactate meters live that kind
Of stuff which I’m pretty sure that if you’re a viewer you probably don’t want to see the lactate meter on the TV but it would it could be disseminated in a in a in a friendly way so you’re not going to get like milles of lactate you
You get some other metric that they’ve developed which is understandable from from Joe blogs during the jro broadcast I’m pretty sure that the broadcast was being sponsored byop and EF was being sponsored by whoop and as a consequence on TV we could see uh every every piece of data about uh Hugh
Gy and the thing is I mean you get to the third week of the Juro and you don’t need a whoop score everyone is just [ __ ] like you just put [ __ ] not enough got Co fun fact I actually nearly ran over Hugh kthy the other day it was
Boxing Day in the UK and uh don’t know don’t ask me why I was going out in the car and I was going up a very narrow Lane near where I live in camria and there it’s like one of those moments where you you sort of like someone
Else’s life flashes before your eyes so there’s not enough space for a car and a bike and is that is up it was up towards a farm and uh all of a sudden this big pink helmet actually like a pink helmet not you know not part of his genitals was
Flying around the corner and I nearly had a head on with Hugh karthy and I was like [ __ ] I need to killed a cyclist and then it dawned on me that it was Hugh karthy so there we go if you’re watching Hugh karthy I need to killed you feel
Any guilt about uh the driving situation no I mean I was it was one of those things where if it was a member of I don’t know what we were talking about for this but it it was one of those things had it been a member of the
Public who wasn’t like good bike Handler they probably would have hit the Bonnet of the car cuz there wasn’t enough space for the car and the bike but you know he just he actually like let off the brakes and just like got down a gap between the
Hedge row and my car by about that much and just carried on didn’t even phase him he was just gone how do you perceive the driver culture here because I swear that if I look at my cycling myself my personal cycling for a second I um
Riding in Belgium is easy I just ride on a big road for a kilometer to the point that I arrive at the big road probably has has a separate cycle path we arrive at some Canal where I can ride on a a cycle cycling only mhm part of the part
Of a road for 20 km straight I go to Andora driving culture amazing cars go out of the way an entire road with to make you feel safe m in the Dena region in Spain It’s a combination of that and some tourists that are a bit less careful around some some British British
Experts who probably could murder you yeah yeah in the UK I’m bloody terrified if I go out on my bike one I need to ride on the opposite side of road so that probably helps a bit mentally with trying to make me a bit more scared inherently more dangerous because there
Very limited cycle Buffs in my area at least around the Guilford area roughly yeah yeah um and then I look at driver culture and the amount of near the amount of close passes I have in the UK usually white Vans by the way always the white Vans mhm um it’s just Prime
Inherently more dangerous country cycling in my opinion obviously we can’t paint everything with the same brush but I think from my experience I used to live not far from sorry I used to live in Twickenham in London uh right out Sor all the time it is one of the worst
Places in the UK I think you’ve you’re unlucky places like that suburbs of London are extremely dangerous um it tends to be like very you know impatient commuter traffic where I am yeah be honest I think yeah to be honest I think the north of the UK is better in general
Anyway okay uh people are a lot more patient um yeah it’s uh it’s generally there less dense traffic so you don’t have that level of Rush uh the roads are the same or if not worse probably more potholes but I will never complain about car culture in in or or cycling
Conditions in the UK cuz I’ve lived in Asia and that is horrific like where I was living for seven years in in Hong Kong you know in in in Europe you go for a ride to chill right in Hong Kong or Asia you need to be chilled before you go otherwise your day
Is ruined it’s uh you’ll just come back steaming with rage it’s uh it’s so bad um it’s it’s almost like you if you’re on a bike it’s almost like you’re not rich enough to own the road therefore we’re just going to run you off the road um yeah I’ve touchwood never had a
Collision with a car in my cycling career in the UK I’ve been cycling since I was like 10 in in Hong Kong I had three or four instances where I was hit with a wing mirror of a bus or or a taxi like getting too close just like
Clipping the handlebars and then taking me out and and then there’s a culture there of like oh [ __ ] uh there’s Insurance to deal with I’m just going to get back in the car and go yeah so that’s bad so UK I wouldn’t complain ever but I I do think you’re
Unlucky in sry because it is yeah it is pretty bad which is a shame because there’s a massive cycling culture in s like it’s if you took everyone who rode a bike in in in the UK like per you know square kilometer there’s there’s shitloads of Road cyclist there I feel
Like it’s actively hindering my amount of endurance rides I do because for sure as a consequence I tend to choose zift over going outside quite a few times and I can’t drive two hours or three hours on zwift without being bored like my zwift rides are doing zift races are
Doing a 1 hour maybe 1 hour and a half if I’m really gener generous that day of an endurance ride and I know that in the riding if I do an hour and a half it’s a it’s more than if I would do an hour and a half Outdoors at least everybody keeps
Telling me that but um I just feel like it’s it’s reducing the amount of endurance writing I do and if I if I would live in Spain the like if I spend the week in Spain I do three hours a day so such difference three hours a day and
Not feel stressed or beat up or anything yeah well hu karthy doesn’t own boxing day he wants to be killed by a car so um was in mayorca last week and uh I’ll be honest I haven’t loved Road cycling for probably about 10 years I’ve it’s been something I’ve done because of the
YouTube channel um first and foremost I’m a mountain biker I used to be a down downhiller when I was a kid I used to race downhill and then I just got into Road cycling after University to keep fit and but I haven’t loved it since you know I was
Younger and I used to go to training camps in CPE and stuff that was when I really liked it and yeah since living in busier countries it’s been more of a thing to keep fit rather than love it and I think I actually found my love for roadcycling last week because I was
Riding 3 or 4 hours a day without worries you know without having her ass smashed by potholes um and just getting get into the rhythm again but uh maybe one day when when we return to the EU I’ll be able to move to Europe and enjoy my retirement in in
Spain yeah U so talking talking a little bit about your your Fitness Journey then if we can continue that um you says you said you were 1.29 kilos and you’re down to 110 how was the weight loss and yeah and do you feel like from my point of
View when I started to get fit when I was younger I I like you I was pretty chunky I used I think my my heaviest was about 110 cuz I used to play rugby and it didn’t really matter and they yeah they just liked us being bigger which is a
Bit weird they used to encourage us to eat um do you when I started to lose weight and get a bit fitter I found the progression very very fast like it was not exponential but there was a very steep part of that curve do you think
You’re on that steep part of the curve now or are you starting to sort of level off and finding it harder to to find gains or lose weight in the year of 2022 I lost basically 20 kilos and during that year I didn’t necessarily I got
Better on the bike to the point that I was [ __ ] at riding a bike and after half an hour I was dead to I could actually ride an hour and a half without feeling like I just took on a full train with my bare hands like that’s that’s the
Difference in 2022 so I have no stats when it comes to my wats in 2022 in 2023 I started the videos because I’ll be honest I wasn’t confident enough to do what I do on the channel in 2022 like this show what I what I was going through that process I wasn’t
Confident to do that in 2022 to the point that I reached the point where I had lost those many kilos at 2023 to start and I said to myself okay I lost that weight I know how to do it now I understand I’ve Got Confidence in in in
This that I know that my process is working and I feel better about myself to be on video I have more confidence the self-confidence growth of me in the last four years has been significant one went the podcast to the point that the first year of the podcast I we didn’t
Have video only audio the second year we we added video and I didn’t sleep for days before the first time we Ed video because I was so terrified of what people would think of me crazy right like right now I don’t give a [ __ ] yeah that’s good the difference
Across those years in self-confidence growth is absolutely insane and YouTube’s been a big part of that for me I switched from I want to lose as much weight as possible to I want to become a better cyclist in 20203 where I really wanted to focus on getting better on the
Bike and actually getting more wats and so Forin I think because I made that switch I got better on the bike but I started to look at my nutrition Less in 2023 to the point that I got 30% better we’re talking from again FTP not ideal
But started at 190 FTP in January and by the end of the year I had I think 225 roughly um so I was happy with that growth but the weight had stayed the same now my view for 2024 is I’ve been counting my calories actually and in addition to that I’ve been riding
My bike more than last year so inevitably my view on 2024 is if I keep this up because my goal is to do roughly 100K per week which for me is for me that’s a a four five hour ride like per per week four four or five hours of
Riding per week be so busy during the tour of fron that I need to tune it down to three hours or something during that week but it’s all situational but the overall view is roughly on average 100k per week and then I’m already doing double of what I did last year and then
I will not only on paper get better Watts wise absolute Watts but my what pre kilo will go exponentially cuz the kilos will go down so for me data super important because it keeps me motivated and that’s kind of how the process has been so far so first year was weight
Second year was what’s got better third year I want to do both and combine it in like a what per kilo special so that’s kind of the the vibe of got going on and so far it’s working but maybe you can as a as a content creator yourself not necessarily
In the same space but I sometimes feel like whenever I make videos quite often it needs to be a video that has an interesting aspect to it that could either be the title or the thumbnail if I upload a video every week that is oh
My Z2 ride of the week who the [ __ ] cares like nobody’s going to watch me do a Z2 ride every week so I need to find things that are interesting so I can’t do the the maybe more ideal 80% endurance writing and 20% flashy things for me it’s more a balance of 50%
Endurance writing and 50% trying to do flashy things which for me is still a good balance because let’s be honest about it I will lose weight and get better regardless of what zone I ride in as long as I just do the hours on the bike but I quite often get comments of
Like oh you shouldn’t be doing zift races you should be doing Z2 rides all the time or something and I’m like I won’t have a video if I don’t do anything like if I just ride my by endurance right you’re not watching anything on this channel anymore so the
Content is slightly impacting the amount of sure progress I can make but I I think I’ve got a good balance of trying to do 50/50 endurance and flashy video things I mean when when you say flashy video things you I don’t think they should be smashing yourself doing
Intervals or fdp tests because 50/50 like high intensity and low intensity is probably way off the ratio which you should be going I mean I’m no expert on training but uh I think that’s that’s too high that’s too much intensity stuff unless your volume unless your volume
Like your weekly volume is very very low um so let’s let’s say you’re training like two or three hours a week yeah go I mean do that all at high intensity yeah um that that could be that could be maybe your your thing is that you you
Skip all the zone to and you just do two hours a week and kill yourself and I don’t I think you know there are studies to show that’s pretty pretty successful in the short term obviously you’re going to hit a ceiling pretty quick I think I
Think we get into people have a you know on stra or something they get stuck into a a yearly kilometers achieved Target yeah and I mean for me last year I think I did one of my lowest yearly kilometers in six or seven years and actually i’ taken a step back
From doing so much work I’d moved somewhere where cycling was pretty easy you know cycling in Hong Kong was extremely difficult you basically had to finish a ride by 6:30 a.m. or forget it too much traffic and too many crazy drivers and I actually did less kilometers last year living somewhere
Where I could cycle work every day it the the hours on the bike were through the roof because I was training a lot on the gravel bike or on the mountain bike I was doing a lot of product testing on the mountain bike side my hours were up
There like one of the highest hours I’d ever done so don’t get stuck into the kilometers achieve look at the hours and then this is where I really think zift training and and riding outside is not really well comparable because you mentioned you know like the whole Interstellar meme of
Like 1 hour on the trainer is worth 10 hours on Earth there’s all sort you know you’ve seen you’ve seen the meme you know like the time dation thing I I think there is something in that because yeah the way the turbo trainer works is that you the you are always pedaling
Whether you’re going downhill you know in a race or even a fast ride on yeah in a race or cornering or even a fast kind of group ride on with if you stop pedaling on the downhill you’re getting dropped in reality when we are riding outside everyone’s coasting the downhill
If it’s beyond like 3% because you don’t want to die um so you’re always pedaling there’s like tend to have like greater leg speed on the indoor trainer if you look at the number of revolutions per hour on the indoor trainer versus Outdoors it’s it’s it’s almost double I
Would say yep um and I think we need I think we as like sport science you know Sport Science is or cycling performance is missing a metric and I would call it I’m just think I literally just thought of this as we’re chatting I would call it um normalized Cadence or like normalized
Revolutions so you know like normalized power is essentially the power that you’re doing when you are pedaling yeah and it doesn’t it doesn’t take into into effect the coasting so normalized power is a better way of analyzing your power for for a session if it’s hilly or lumpy
Or there’s a lot of traffic or stop start but when we are when we looking at zift you can jump off zift and you look at your TSS and um or your kind of straa intensity score whatever it’s called on straa and it looks quite low but [ __ ] me
You might be really feeling it way more than an hour outside and it’s because for this the whole hour you’ve been pedaling um and I think we need to put more emphasis on on that that an hour on zift I think for your for your leg speed
Training and and just it is it is more important than an hour outside um I hate to say that because I’m not a fan of the indoor trainer but I think it’s far more effective so how you log training if you’re just logging hours there is a
Massive disconnect like I know for a fact if I did 8 hours per week on the trainer versus 8 hours per week Outdoors my 8 hours on the week on the trainer will be so much more effective and at the moment we don’t really have a a coefficient to link those two
Obviously there are other physiological effects that you don’t get on the trainer that you need to get Outdoors so like let’s say you’re training for something like the Fred Whitten like a sportive very very hilly sportive where You’ got repeated climbs above V2 Max at like
20% you can’t really do that on the trainer unless You’ got one of those front wheeel Riser Wahoo thingies yeah um because you’ve got certain like muscular adaptations that happen when you are literally climbing with your center of gravity all the way back and you’re sort of Clinging On to the bike
And like really like pulling with your arms um so set you know 8 hours a week on Fuego flats or whatever it’s called on on stra ain’t going to ain’t going to cut it like you you could you could you could train you could train 20 hours a
Week on is it called Fuego Flats the flat one something like that I think there’s a flat one there but uh my favorite is temp Tempest fugit Tempest fugit yeah yeah so if you’re doing that 20 hours a week you think right I’ve log 20 20 hours a week on TW Tempest fugit
I’m going to nail the Fred Whitten I guarantee when you go to the Fred Whitten after 4 hours of climbing up those [ __ ] steep gradients your hamstrings like the tops will probably start to cramp you’re like oh I’ve not used this muscle at all in my training
So yeah there are benefits to Outdoors but um I think there needs to be some coefficient to link indoor versus outdoor at least on the time on the time basis yeah but that this brings me on to another quick topic before we wrap up like as a you know not not being
Offensive but bigger gentleman like we are we’re on the bigger end of the cycling Spectrum do you have any frustrations apart from like this getting out the SLE thing do you have any frustrations with like the B Tech or how you interact the bike where whether
It’s like the sad or the comfort of the bike or like how do how do you get on with your bike currently the bigger gentleman a wheel on Drive trainer never yeah firstly I always felt like I was riding a flat tire on that but know
That I was riding that when I was still 129 kgs mhm um then I switched towards an actual um a come on come on uh Direct Drive trainer and that switch actually was part of the motivation that started me riding more because I just was demotivated by having a wheel on drive a
Wheel on trainer yeah I can remember when I had one it’s just it would like if you got it tight enough so it it didn’t slip when you were sprinting yeah then when you were pedling it felt like it was like step input rather than actually having any inertia and then you
Get off and it’s like the whole [ __ ] floors covered in rubber and it’s just [ __ ] it’s just yeah it’s it’s terrible and yeah I started off without knowing that I needed a special trainer tire for that in the first place because I burned through my other tire that way uh like
Literally I had a puncture on my on my on my wheel on train as a I had a puncture in a swift race not not joking that’s cool I’ve never had a punct his with race I have to use that excuse yeah I’m going to use it every time now but um
Uh a wheel on trainer is is is number one of the frustration I’m never buying that I’m never recommending that to anyone um then I look at the actual on bike it’s like it’s not necessarily A frustration but it’s something I’ve realized as an issue for me is that I
Run out of Gears very quickly on climbs the steeper it is the faster I run out of it think I’ve got a 1132 I’m not sure about that um so that’s the difference between you I mean you know every part of your bike do not uh I bought this bike
Secondhand in London fun story uh just I wanted to look I wanted the bike that looks good on video always important for me but I wanted um I was I was I was okay with Shimano 105 and Sil for we’ll put a picture of Benji’s bike up on
Screen here so everyone can hinse it down in the comments below but I think it I think it looks all right it’s it looks like a 58 or 60 La is it specialized La looks pretty good doesn’t even know 58 it’s 58 but I’m not sure I
Might need a 60 I’m not sure actually no I think I think as you as you loosen up and you get a bit more flexibility I think that’s perfect the the all is like the entry level on if you go to the 60 it’ll be it’ll be too high at the front
I think it’s I think I think I think your bike from from looking at you on the bike it looks pretty good your bike fit um the contact points look to be roughly the right place I think you might if you’re going into like more climbs and stuff I think you might want
To move further forward on the saddle to get you gravity forward um but yeah I I have this I have this I have this issue with gearing right you know like people say oh I’m going to get a lot of hate for saying this but people say oh the
Angoo is the hardest climb in the world or I know other I name other steep climb it’s like oh hard not Pars in the UK is the hardest climb in the world blah blah blah no no climb is hard if you have the right gears you just go slower but we
Are still the road industry is still stuck on selling us gears that [ __ ] Pros can ride so the pros now are on 1134 cuz of 12 speed yeah most of us riding still around on 11 speed we’re we’re still on 11:32 or 1130 and what we on
Like harder gears than the pros are they just like what other what other sport would you get that situation where you’re riding like a more Macho thing than the pros it’s it’s crazy but yeah if you if you have a mountain bike set big enough the
Angoo is not the hardest climb in the world something else is harder with lower gears so it’s all about gearing so there are modifications and we can chat offline about this but if you want to change your gearing on your bike and I think everyone should be riding lower
Gears like the the I always ride a 34 11 to 34 on the back and I’m actually looking to for the majority of Road riding that I do is pretty hilly around like late District in the UK I’m actually looking to get 1136 or or something rigged up on there with a with
An adapter but yeah that whenever the climbs hit I’ve got this more the thing is indoor I’ve got virtual gears from The zift Hub but outdoor I’m riding with like the actual Gears of my bike which means that I’m using that 1142 and then I whenever
I hit a climb I’m already out of gears at 7% 8% yeah like between 6 and 8% and that makes it really because my Cadence dropped significantly to yeah to like 65 60 and I’m just grinding up a up a bloody climb and the most commented
Thing on my videos is your Cadence is [ __ ] and two your handlebars are too wide The Handlebar thing is because I’ve got a 360° camera and that makes it look very wide yeah I agree yeah I’ve got the same setup with the camera it makes it
Look very old data side if I look at the Cadence people are right my Cadence is [ __ ] but on CLS I just can’t do anything about it it just yeah what I said about training on zwift it if you’re training on zift all all your training when you go and get
Massively under cadenced on a clim when you run out of Gears you haven’t trained for for that it’s like that’s the first time you’ve done it a week and you you your your muscles aren’t adapted to that located so you need to match the kind of gear that you’re you’re getting on sft
To the gear that you can actually pedal in real life otherwise you’re training something that is not comparable to the real world the only way to do that is to adjust the gearing on the bike and even if you were to technically Shimano say the biggest cassette you can fit on your
Bike is 1134 as a percentage change that’s not that much better it’s it’s you need to be on like a foure that you’re what’s like I’m not being funny at you’re what’s P right and this goes for anyone who’s getting into cycling who wants to steep to ride steep hills because
They’re fun you know you need to be at a 40 too cassette minimum um and maybe the the the I mean I’m not an advocate of one by but maybe the short-term solution to get there because the bike industry doesn’t Supply an 1140 and a 2 by road
Setup is to go like one by um and yeah you’re going to be you’re going to be spinning out at 50k an hour but newbies ain’t riding at 50k an hour in in races so it’s not an issue no I mean if you’re going to do some more content in like in
Belgium on the cobbles or you know Flanders coming up or something you a peak talk special build of your bike and get you on a you know a 40 cassette at the back and a grx front chain ring and a yeah you’ll just enjoy it you’ll enjoy climbs because you’ll know you’ve got
Headroom to go into a lower gear y knowing that you’re in the lowest gear to start off with is never a nice place to be I do have plans to do like a flry end challenge for example like stuff like that where I do the Cobble
Climbs in flers again and I did out quum on ones which is not even steep compared to the others yeah that was already hard cuz I’m running out of gears and especially with the added cobblestones to it that makes it a bit harder yeah I mean the having a rough row surface or
Cobblestones is like adding gradient it’s it’s it’s analogous to the essentially the bike doesn’t know if it’s adding crr rolling resistance or adding gradient it doesn’t matter y anyway just talking about I know you said you were in uh I think you were doing some I don’t know reporting or
Something with teams in in the training camps in denya which is near CPE in Spain last week uh I think I I think I spotted you on on stra or something uh I looked at some of looked at some of the Cates times 3755 which is a [ __ ] time
But I’m happy with it Catz for people who don’t know is is is a very popular test climb for training camps in in southeast Spain near alante and uh it’s very very consistent gradient very consistent row surface very little wind affects it sometimes um so I think it’s 6 6 and 1
12K at around 5 5% average well you you seem to all be about the targets on on your content at the moment so I’m challenging you I’m throwing down the gaunlet right now before we wrap this up to go sub 21 minutes sub 21 minutes sub 21 minutes
And I’ve picked why I’ve picked 21 minutes is because oh no time limit end of the year I don’t know okay uh maybe that’s hard because you might not get there again this year but maybe if you go again early I’ll try go back next year and
I’ll try it yeah okay right so that’s the target so I’ve picked that because it’s three and a half watts per kilo and my theory is that anything above 3 and 1/2 Watts or 4 watts per kilo you start to get into genetics yeah uh and I think no matter
How hard you train if you want to get to five watts per kilo you got to be pretty gifted in terms of genetics but I think three and a half to four is about your pretty damn good average cyclist who’s you know got their head screwed on when it comes to training so
I don’t think it’s massively out of the the Realms but so I did the I did the watts per kilo on it it’s 3 and a half watts per kilo um to do SUB 21 I think on that climb based upon like some guesses of rolling resistance and arrow and stuff
But if you this is the scary thing Benji if you stayed at 110 kilos you’re going to have to do 374 Watts I know so my goal for the end of the year is being under 100 kgs already under under 100 okay so you’re looking about 340 watts or something like this yes
Which it’s still going to be very yeah is going to be difficult yeah but hey if it if we even get close to it it’s already a major step I’m always from this this is going to sound lame but a friend of mine is a uh a fitness
YouTuber and his concept is it doesn’t matter if we are perfect the next day but we always need to try and be better than yesterday and that concept is what they try and push into my cycling Journey where yeah if I don’t reach my goal and I’m one wat under it I’m
Probably going to be happy because I’m already 24 WS better than when I started that’s the the mindset I’ve got on that and okay like for example sub 21 sure I’ll try I’ll see how close I get and the next time I’ll try again and I’ll
See if I can beat it the de time then and for example C ordino is one of the sles that I I um have done multiple times now I Did It For The First Time In I think in May 2023 where I did it in 1
Hour and 31 minutes mhm and then the next time I did it in July which was 2 months later in 1 hour and 23 minutes so 8 minutes better the factor to that climb was that I still needed to take breaks on the climb to able to survive
Mentally to be able to feel like okay I can do this I needed to take a bit of a break mid climb then at the end of the year I did Al theift which I did in 1 hour and 56 minutes which what pilo basis was better than my ardino climbs
Plus I didn’t take any break break on that climb so that’s that’s the upping there so my goal was to do I think Al zwift in 1 hour 30 or 1 hour 40 um which I think I can do if I train concentrate on the outdoor targets first and not the
Out with because on the outdoor Target if you’re if you’re going for a time you can like add a bit of science to help you whether it be rolling resistance tire pressures arrow on zwift it it is what’s per kilo so uh if you want any help setting your bike up for those
Outdoor ones we can I’m I’m not challenging you to 3 and a half watts per kilo I’m challenging you to 21 minutes how how you do that it’s up to you so ebike yeah some no we’re not doing ebikes just better tires optimal pressures yeah looking at the weight a
Little bit but lead out by the entire train of Quick Step yeah lead out from the the coffee disc team car that would be fine but uh just before we we go we should probably wrap this up but um if you got any questions or anything you’d like to add before we
Before we say thank you and uh first of all I just want to thank you for inviting me I’ve uh I’ve followed your content throughout the the last year and a half I think I reckon the the thing for me is that half of the time I’m not
100% sure what you’re talking about but I do find interesting like for example the I think it’s your popular most popular video the hini BB thingy um like it’s crazy how the algorithm works for some reason I enjoyed watching that entire video despite at first not
Even knowing what that part was that you were looking at so it’s crazy it’s crazy that’s one of the highest like viewed videos on YouTube and it’s probably one of my worst videos because it was like it was a lunch hour special filmed on my phone
The way I was measuring you know you’re not going to understand but run out and tolerances it it wasn’t perfect it was pretty bad actually cuz I’m not QC engineer I’m design engineer but um yeah it was pretty piss poor that video but YouTube algorithm takes it to the sky
It’s crazy isn’t it like yeah there seems to be no um no correlation on what does well on my channel it’s just at the mercy of the algorithm let’s say an average video I post gets like 30k views in a month um and if I then look at
Specifically the ones that do better are the ones that are on zift so zift does is better than outdoor content for some reason I never thought that would be the case and if I then go even further on that the content with the best titles and thumbnails are the ones that does
Best like my best video isil Yeah thumbnail is the video that I named I wrote on I raced on Swift every day until I won which that’s a [ __ ] great video title I started that video with the title and then I feel realized oh [ __ ] and now I need to raise every day
Yeah don’t hold yourself to anything maybe maybe we should start Maybe I want to start uploading videos where the where the thumbnail is just a black box and uh cuz I’m not making [ __ ] money out of AD revenue on YouTube like I never have never will and uh I just do
It for I do it for fun and that that will cut the uh cut the Deadwood from my subscriber list wouldn’t it it’ll just see who really who’s the hardcore Engineers who wants to watch 20 minute of engineering with a black box as the advert yeah and like what’s your
Ambitions with it cuz I know you’re engineering when it comes to your your usual stuff and then the content you add on is cycling engineering stuff but is there an ambition of something you want to reach with it as in do you care about the growth of your
Content no I think this has been said before but subscribers is is widely used metric for for success or content growth but it’s not very accurate becausee I hate to say this but I watch Channels I’m not subscribed to all the time because they’re fed to me in the
Feed and it’s not you don’t need to press subscribe so I think if you look at my subscribers it looks like my my videos have like plateaued years ago but actually My Views are through the roof well not through the roof but higher than they’ve ever been and they’re still growing it’s
It’s opened doors to the cycling industry um so I’m doing consulting work with this within the cycling industry whereas normally my engineering is like Aerospace or Automotive stuff yeah um and uh but yeah it’s given me so much confidence of of just getting feedback like like you when I was before I
Started YouTube I was actually really shy um I didn’t really have much self-confidence but now when I you know when I’m meeting new people even though when it when I’m speaking to a camera at home it’s just one-onone actually it it does translate into the real role so
When I’m speaking to new people it helps me be confident and and getting up in front of a room to do a presentation at work you know some people that that freaks them that freaks them out they hate doing presentations but I it’s just like my you know when you do it on
YouTube you’re doing it all the time so it it’s it’s G me a lot of confidence and but in terms of growing it uh I don’t really have any Targets I just I don’t put out content for the sake of doing it or for the sake of hitting a
Threshold by a sponsor it’s just if I don’t make content for a month it’s because there’s nothing interesting to talk about and that’s how I want to keep it luckily you know I have I have a few dedicated fans on patreon um but they don’t ever write and say Hey where’s the
Videos you said you know you’re going to make videos for us monthly I was like well do you want do you want me to talk about [ __ ] or do you want me to wait until there’s something interesting to talk about because not a lot happens in
Cycling really it’s not there are a few Big Technical developments that come out you know here and there but I wouldn’t say it’s that riveting but one thing uh I don’t think I’ve told anyone yet and this is exclusive is that I’m making my own bike frame now o so I’ve decided
With someone else uh I can’t mention any names yet to make a a frame um okay that’s not going to be completely radical but it’s going to have all the basics done well so in terms of the engineering and the QC and the tolerances it’s going to be spawn and
That is going to be the selling point and and it’s non UCI compliant so you won’t be seeing it in any UCI races and we’re doing that to make a better frame y because the UCI is kind of stifling when it comes to developing Arrow or weight or structures so it’s
Nonu compliant it’s going to be a bit fun I’m sure it will sell frames because it’s different but the the idea is to make a frame that we want to make not we want to be I say we me and my partner we want to be Mike Burrows Mark 2 not
Canyon Mark 2 Mike Barrow is the the crazy kind of guy that did recumbent and he also was behind the giant TCR so we’re going to do something off the wall completely wacky and yeah that’s going to be a really busy project for the next
Couple of years when I can fit it in that’s pretty cool that’s that’s that’s that’s the shortterm goals and and I hope to when we get it off off the ground a bit more and get the ball rolling I hope we can do like design forums and and put them online yeah so
Every kind of bit we talk about the bike whether it’s just like the bottom bracket standard or the fork integration we’ll do like a design video and then put that online for people to comment and get feedback and stuff yeah kind of like a developer blog for a for for a
Game yeah yeah and we’ll take we’ll take suggestions and we’ll get we’ll get advice and yeah so we’ll see what happens yeah okay that’s it that’s cool pretty hyped about it but um I think we should wrap it up because this has gone on way too long okay for most people I
Reckon thanks very much for Benji uh for joining us and if you want to hear more of him we’ll get we’ll get him back on again please let me know in the comments down below and uh yeah don’t forget to like and give us a heart see you in the next one bye
31 Comments
Jez Cox is a very good commentator, but he does seem to be on the 'outside' of the cliquey group of others, apart from Robbie McEwen.
Great chat. On the topic of wanting a 11-36 cassette at 1:13:45, I run 11-36 without issues, unmodified. Shimano spec sheet says my medium cage derailleur tiagra limit is 11-34 but 36 works well. Just needs B limit screw wound in. This saves buying a GRX derailer. The easier gears and the PT front 180mm disc adaper makes hills up and down better.
why the thumbnail is black and white, I thought this guy died
I have enjoyed Benji for a few years now as he has gained "english speaking proficiency" you are a fine counter to Broe love your take.
Thumbnail-Benji brought me here
I got 105 r7000 – 50/34 with 11-32 immediately swapped for 11-36 and it works great straight out of the box. Absolute minimum and I am after serious training finally close to 4 W/kg, so for people closer to 3 W/kg setups that bike industry is currently selling are completely ridiculous. Like some people's minds are still in the 60s – take Emonda ALR – new frame but short cage derailleur AGAIN and 28c tire clearance. Trek are insane.
Great conversation! I’m also really interested in that little teaser you put out there about designing a bike frame!
It’s funny that I was bored of PCM game much faster than watching Benji’s PCM content… actually I probably would watch it untill now despite not playing the game for a long time ☺️
I would totally agree with your ~4w/kg being that most people can achieve, and anything in the 5w/kg needs genetic gifts
The reason LRCP works is because it fills a void in the cycling media space. Benji's decision to focus on his own Youtube in the way he is seems short sighted. There are countless doing what he's doing, doing it with better production, or more insight, or telling stories better. Just because he wants it doesn't seem a good reason for brands to get on board and just give him money to do whatever he likes. I think PT was right and he needs to leverage his clear skills as an analyst and have the Youtube as a hobby/side hustle. Regardless, hope it works out for him!
super excited to see peak frame.. it's going to be so much better and radical than the openroomen frame
I disagree about there being a lack of metric for indoor/outdoor riding. If you're not pedaling outdoors, your power will be lower, and thus reflected in the average power, normalized power, or whatever metric you use for training load. A 1 hr swift race or a 1hr outdoor criterium are both extremely hard and I feel shattered after both, but it's a very similar feeling, and both have a relatively small TSS.
If you start putting black rectangles as your thumbnail, then you'll be as cool the TheDarkInstall. Not a bad thing…
Australia I recon would have the worst driving culture in the world. The number of close passes I put up with on a daily basis commuting is ridiculous.
Shoutout to mike burrows- what a lord
55:40 same as Singapore. I think cost of cars are so much you feel entitled to the road.
1:27:07 yeah don’t bother with uci. Every changing rules
I've enjoyed the chat, but a mention of Peak Torque frame is particularly exciting! You know, with your recent gravel bike content you got me to look deep into gravel bike geometry, which led me to find out that a road bike with slightly wider tire clearance doesn't make for a good gravel bike. That's exactly what 99% gravel bikes on the market currently are. I designed something quite different, which in theory should be fast and capable pretty much anywhere. I need to get it built though, probably out of chinese titanium…
Couple thoughts, I couldn't help but feel like Benji was getting a lot of unsolicited advice here unnecessarily. Also, just because driving sucks in Hong Kong doesn't mean you can't complain about it in the UK. (American here so I get the car culture wanting to murder all cyclists).
Great interview. Really enjoy his podcast/analysis on LRCP especially after GCN evaporated… It's always good to learn a bit more about the personalities behind it.
11-36 SRAM 11 speed fits Shimano free hub and shifts fine 👍🏼
Benji, I love your honesty and humility. You are special.
Really found that very interesting. What about track cycling. Go along enjoy a beer watch lots of short exciting events and you can see the whole thing from a comfy seat. Excited about your frame building project. That will be extremely interesting. I would think very expensive as i would think the volume will be small especially if you are going to do different sizes. Good luck
Would never have picked Peak Torque as shy! Comes across as extremely confident, with the knowledge and expertise to back it up.
Great chat ❤
Great chat, guys! Appreciate the real experiences shared. Looking forward to more of these conversations. Keep up the good vibes! ✌
@BenjiNaesenTV personally, 3 W/kg seems like a more realistic goal, good luck either way! I have set goals that are too far out from where I am and get discouraged, but that could just be my personal issues 😅
Bit late on this – but the default sram rival setup of 46/33 or 43/30 on the front and 10-36 on the back is insane range and 'great' value (as far as you can go for price with batteries…)
Have you seen PTO (T100) races? They stared showing speed and HR data, fastest segment times and it made the race fun to watch compared to Ironman races.
From the black and white thumbnail and glowing photo I thought for a second this was a memorial video and benji had passed…heart sunk for a second…very glad that wasn’t the case
Bro stop telling us about how your gearing is not right for climbs. We don't want to hear about it 20 times in one podcast — just go switch your gearing. Either get a triple crankset (if that is possible on your bike) – or switch to gravel / 1x gearing like peak torque said