Fastest Ever Focus! & NEW Van Rysel’s Budget Race Shoes

Welcome to Tech of the Month, our round-up of all the latest gadgets, goodies and tech to arrive at BikeRadar towers. This episode focuses on road and gravel tech.

Liam takes a close look at the Focus Izalco Max 9.8. The new Izalco is in for Bike of the Year testing, so make sure you’re subscribed and don’t miss the results!

Simon von Bromley brings us two products that he’s testing – Look’s latest power meter pedals and Van Rysel’s bargain top-end road race shoes.

Finally, the pair have a look in Felix’s new frame bag from Tailfin. But what is lurking in its depths?

Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:26 Focus Izalco Max 9.8
03:28 Look Keo Blade Power & Look X-Track Power Pedals
07:59 Van Rysel RCR Shoes
09:46 Tailfin Downtube Pack
11:44 Outro

What is the BEST power meter pedal? Garmin Rally, Favero Assioma & Wahoo Powrlink tested and RANKED!
→ https://youtu.be/URXyzdSZx1k

What’s The BEST All-Round Road Bike in 2023?
→ https://youtu.be/bi_AXm690M0

Focus Izalco Max vs Cannondale SuperSix EVO | Race Bike BATTLE | 2020 Bike of The Year
→ https://youtu.be/9p-XNY0XBPY

Are These £300 Specialized Road Shoes Worth It? #cycling #shorts #tech
→ https://youtube.com/shorts/hfgr3IbOnIY

Rapha’s Knitted Gravel Shoes, SRAM Rival AXS & 🤑 Custom Sunnies | Tech of the Month Ep 11
→ https://youtu.be/25TjJD8btMA

Listen to the BikeRadar Podcast
→ https://www.bikeradar.com/bikeradar-podcast/

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BikeRadar is supported by Mountain Biking UK and Cycling Plus Magazine –For more information and to subscribe please visit
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These are claimed to be the lightest power meter pedals available at just 260 g per set now chronic data nerd and handsome friend Simon Von Brumley will join me shortly to analyze look’s new power meter pedals we’ll take a look at some bargain focused Road shoes and sniff Felix’s new genius bike packing

Bag from tailin but first I want to talk about this Banger of a bike it’s focuses latest is Alco Max the Brand’s AO inspired allrounder road bike this is the 9.8 model which gets you a Shimano altegra di2 group set and 45 mm deep DT Swiss carbon wheels the German

Brand says that this is its fastest ever bike featuring redesigned tube shapes inspired by airplane Wings the cylindrical down tube has been replaced by more angular tubing a 500ml water bottle in the down tube bottle cage is almost completely concealed from the front and adds only 0.3 watts of drag

According to focus it all adds up to a claim saving of 6.6 Watts at 45 kmph compared to the previous generation of the race bike like every brand Focus has made the fourth generation is alcomax stiffer and lighter but in an unusual move the brand admits to making the bike

Less comfortable that’s direct from the brand 2 which isn’t a claim that we hear every day so let’s dive a little bit deeper on that it says bottom bracket stiffness was 69 Newtons per mm on the third generation bike versus 79 Newtons per mm on the new bike representing an

Increase of 15% the head tube is 8% stiffer on the new bike with the result of these figures meaning that the new frame is 48% less comfortable according to focus’s own tests but the frame is just one part of a bike’s overall comfort in a bid to compensate for the

Stiffer frame Focus says it has improved seated Comfort through the seat post well we’ve got this in for our annual bike of the Year test so we’ll be putting it through its Paces to find out the bike as you see it weighs 7.9 kilos which isn’t super polite but it is in

The right ballpark for an altegra di2 equipped road bike these days the giant Propel Advanced Pro zero access for example which was our AO road bike of the year in 2023 weighed in at 7.97 kilos in a size medium large Witham’s Wireless Force access group set the bike costs £ 6,600 or

6,799 again this is roughly in line with current price trend that same Propel Advanced Pro zero cost £ 6,399 or $88,000 if those prices make you winse and believe me I am with you there are cheaper bikes like the marid scultura 8000 at 4,800 or 5,520 what do you think of folks’s

Latest all round road racer though let me know in the comments below right let’s see what Simon’s got for us So what’s our first product well look has released it’s new generation of parameter pedals with options for both Road and off-road bikes and we’ve been covering this for site we don’t have a review just yet but we do have all the juicy gos right take us through the tech

Details here well so this is like any other Peter pedal a Peter inside up head all set now the claimed accuracy is plus or minus 1% but kind of I think most importantly looks says that these new pedals are going to be much easier to use than their old versions so talk me

Through the installation process why would they so fiddly so look’s previous pedals were produced in collaboration with SRM the German parameter company they had a kind a very fiddly insulation process which required the use of an 8 mil Allen key and a 1550 mil pedal

Spanner and looks app kind of all at the same time in order to get the kind of you know done them up just to the right tightness now with these ones look says you’ll just need a standard 1550 mil pedal spanner and you just need to put

Them on hard basically so they’re look is promising they’re just much more plug andplay all the gubbins then I assume in the axle yeah that’s right all the kind of gubbins are inside the spindle and so they really kind of look just like any other pedal and I think that’s looks big

Pitch for these as well as the off-road ones which are based on their extract pedals essentially look is saying that this is a kind of parameter pedal set with no compromises versus a normal pedal set and I assume that these are fitting standard look Kio uh cleats and

Then the XT track actually use shimano’s they do yeah so the xtrack off-road pedals use Shimano SPD cleats two bolt cleats and these ones use uh look Kio cleats and of course there’s no Shimano spds L CLE option because well they’re made by look the the key headline for me

Is that look is claiming that these are the lightest power meter pedals available what’s the claimed weight here so the claimed weight for this is uh 260 g per set the xtract power are a little bit heavier at 400 G per set now 400 G per set is slightly more than say FAO

Asoma Pro MX pedals which just launched we’re around 192 gam each but yeah 260 gam per set is the lightest although you know with pedals you’re only going to be saving sort of 20 30 Gams or so it’s not the kind of which you know maybe for a

Weight wi is a significant amount so all sounds good but what about prices so in terms of prices the uh look Kade Power Road pedals cost 899 899 or $999 and the off-road xtract power pedals are slightly more expensive at $999 999 $1,099 or €1,999

Yeah like I said that is kind of towards a more premium end it’s around what kind of Garmin rally system costs for vero’s pedal systems both the asomo road pedals and the pro MX off-road pedals are a bit cheaper but I suppose looks kind of

Pitch for these is you know not only are they you know accurate Advanced pedaling metrics all all of that sort of good power measurement stuff but they’re also saying that these are kind of like amongst the best Pedal bodies available as well now you know whever that is the

Case remains to be seen of course but that’s kind of part of the pitch these bodies can also be switched over on the axle so you could in theory get two bodies and then just one axle save a little bit of money if you wanted both systems yeah that’s right so like

Garmin’s rally system the kind of the pedal spindle is where all the power meter magic takes place if you like and so in theory it will be possible to swap the road pedal bodies over to a set of off-road pedal bodies if want and vice versa now we don’t have any details on

How much those spare pedal bodies cost yet as you know obviously as soon as we find out we’ll put it up on bik rar.com either in the news story for these or in the review whenever that gets published but yeah in theory that is going to be a

Feature here now that is technically a feature on the Garment pedals as I said but the process of doing that is actually quite fiddly and there’s a couple of very small Phillips head screws that make it not particularly like fun process to do you know I can do

It I’m not professional mechanic but it isn’t something that I’d want to be doing all the time so if it’s a bit easier to do here then that will be a really good feature well I certainly can’t wait to see how these stack up in your review um especially against those

Options from Garmin and FAO cuz those fos are very popular but also I really like the off-road model of these oh and do you want us to do a group test on all of these kinds of pedals 5,000 likes on this video and we will we’ll probably do

It anyway to be honest but 5,000 likes would be really nice yeah Now Liam I know that you are a man after my own heart and I know that you enjoy a nice pair of high-end white cycling shoes oh oh look at those only the brightest dancing slippers will do for me well these are van rol’s new RCR

Shoes they’re kind of a pro Lev shoe you might notice some similarities between these and specialized s Works torch these are kind of 3 mm wider in the for foot they’ve got a new dual dial system 12 on Van rol’s arbitrary stiffness index 12 out of what not so sure but the

Big news with these is a kind of full carbon so prle design but a bargain price of £69.99 I think these look absolutely fantastic and not just cuz they are fresh out of the box are you testing these I will be testing these yeah that’s right but like like you say I

Genuinely do think they look really good now obviously van rle has a big uh reputation for bargain prices and of course just because something’s cheap doesn’t mean it’s automatically good but the soles do look you know very stiff the shoe looks very well made adjustable cleat bolt holes plenty of ventilation a

Nice quality inole they’re reasonably light as well by the feel of things we haven’t got them on the scale yet but we will soon I mean the the key for me I think when it comes to shoes the fit is really what makes a shoe good or bad so whether this fits

Your foot is going to be a big factor there but yeah they look great should we weigh them shall we oh 309 that’s not that’s to be fair that’s not too bad for a 17070 shoe 309 most high-end shoes are around 250 g each so 309 G is not too bad Really I think this is really cool from tailin this is their down tube pack they come in 1.7 and 3 l sizes and you can strap them pretty much anywhere on your bike Felix got this 1.7 L version as he wanted to increase his on-bike storage but he didn’t have extra bottle bosses

In his eyes this bag was perfect Felix used it for a 3-day bike packing trip through mid whales with Jack Luke using it to keep extra tools and a spare tube the main bag is made from hyperon and rip stop nylon and they’re a little rubber feet made from a nice soft rubber

So it doesn’t damage your frame so on Felix’s canondale sign apps there’s not a lot of room between the bag and the front mod guard but it does fit in there and because the mount is so solid Felix said that there’s been zero amounts of rubbing that is waterproof it has a

Little fold over top it’s not recommended for Forks but it will go over existing frame bosses now what’s Felix here cuz this this is loaded I’m betting it’s just gin like a lot of gin he has to deal with us videographers well it’s NS there’s a a tube sorry Felix I’ve ruined that

There is another tube better taped up that one Felix I have to say so this is this is going to wear a hole in the bag is Felix right so Felix what’s going to wear a hole in your inner tube multi- but yes that’s It Felix I reckon

You could fit more in there some Haribo would be my recommendation how much do these cost Liam these cost um so the 1.7 is £60 or $75 and the three ler is £70 or $85 which is not horrific not too bad not too bad really these have a 3 kilo

Carrying capacity as well so you know you could fill it with nice bottle of wine yeah a nice bottle of wine well what an excellent collection of products but what do you make of focuses approach making their bike even stiffer at the expense of comfort let’s know in the

Comments below and if you want more premium bike packing content which I know that you do why not check out Felix’s epic 2,000 km Ultra endurance lph race bike that’s right here above Simon’s face remember if you like this video give it a like And subscribe we’ll

See you next time what’s the charge what is the charge eating chines meal