Bike theft increasing & our Dream Bikes Revealed…

welcome to the recharge podcast episode three we’re your hosts I’m Rob I’m Adam and I’m will on this week’s show we’re going to talk about Rott Wild’s new Enduro bike we’re going to talk about our best bikes now there’s two categories because there’s dream bike what would you buy if the Money Was No Object and what would you buy actually in the real world with your own money but first off we got some stuff that is a little bit unfortunate that I’ve seen on social media and stuff that’s about bikes being stolen and specifically some World cut bikes from Nico Mal’s Frameworks racing team that was stolen just up the road from Milton ke and it got me thinking about bike theft in general and actually how much more we need to do to combat it because it it absolutely sucks these bikes are worth so much money now and there’s got to be more to be done and I feel so sorry for that that World Cup racing team and anyone that’s that’s had bikes stolen is bike theft a massive problem right now yes I definitely think it is I think what’s you’ve even touched on there was saying about the World Cup frames it’s like not even these top level Elite level Racers who are kind of you know these essentially one-off bikes are protected from being stolen you know it’s the thought of too hot to handle well no now nothing’s too hot to handle you know these are one-off bikes that are getting stolen we had it a few years ago with join the union the Santa Cruz syndic not Santa Cruz Syndicate the Santa Cruz team had all their bikes still and at a World Cup race you know these are like team bikes so and I think these are high profile because they are the World Cup teams bikes that getallen but it it happens all of the time but for anyone that doesn’t know will give us give us a recap of what actually happened with these World Cup bikes yeah so I think correct me if I’m right I think maybe you know slightly more than I do but it was they had a big white van and they went into the hotel and all of the bikes I think quite a lot some some of their Frameworks race bikes the downhill bikes some s Works turbo Leos I think they were yeah the supported ebike side of things you specialized and um yeah I think the the van got stolen didn’t it yeah the van got taken also they basically didn’t just break into the van they they stole the entire van the whole van with the bikes in took the whole van but you know in the wonderful day and agrian there was track haers air tags whatever it might be in the bikes or in the van in the van at some point I believe and I think that they got they found they relocated the van but it been ripped into bikes taken out still equipment left in which is pretty good but but the majority of the stuff was was sadly stolen and race bikes that’s a winning race bike right you know that was just off the back of uh ASA ver vermet I can’t pronounce his name properly but the young Us Rider who won the Junior is first Race season and Bam your bike’s stolen like I don’t know if that’s ironic or not it’s so sad actually like they come to the UK teams from all over the world and Milan keing is is it’s all right you know it’s not like a as a places I say that with with respect I mean you wouldn’t think I’m going to Milton Kings I’ll be careful it’s it’s got F1 teams there it’s it’s the base of Red Bull Racing and it’s home to um Madison who are the Shimano UK Distributors and loads of other things TR bikes used to be well I think maybe in the point of exiting but were based around there you know it’s it’s got cycling Community there you know it’s a hub and yet everyone’s taken and funny enough you know there’s there’s kind of been a chain of them there’s been a chain of bike shops that have had attacks um from from what seems like these calculated thefts especially in this area around s and Sussex which is a shame yeah this is what I wonder about about the framework’s theft um was do you think was targeted or do you think they got super Lucky in picking just a random white van looked inside and it’s got all these 10 grand B I don’t think I I I assume the van was like a like had no windows in the back of the no decals on either nothing like that like no race it’s just a book standard van I think pretty sure it’s a rental you know they’ve come over from the US then it’s got to have been like a a targeted thing hasn’t it I I think maybe right so here’s the thing right with with bikes now the most of them many many bikes especially high-end bikes are more expensive than uh motorcycles they’re more expensive than all the cars I purchased right they’re a lot of money so by a fair bit so top end I don’t know what these Frameworks bikes are worth but they’re they’re basically Pro Racing prototypes with Fox Factory you know all the components on them are but but the sentimental value to to Nico and the team and the fact that they got to go to Poland in a week or they’re on their way or whatever to race and I don’t know all that logistic stuff yeah aside they’re really expensive bikes and the thing with bikes is that they are unlike Motor Vehicles like motorcycles there’s no there’s no real database for like a a VIN number there’s no registration on them so and and these things are worth so much money but there’s very there’s there’s a distinct lack of structure to to kind of protect them or even recover them how do you to some degree and thing is you know you can you can lift up a bike even your heaviest ebike you know your poly for example really heavy 26 25 kilos whatever standard kind of heavy big travel we bik weight I’m not used to it I like these short travel lightweight bikes but no but the argument is you know you’re still lifting up a bike that’s you know you can’t lift up a car it’s easy to steal yeah you can Chuck it in the back of your car you know and argu left off a car people out there speak for yourself but there’s there’s definitely like there’s a point in which you know it’s the irony of you’re spending more money to get lightweight bike and it’s in theory easier to steal but it’s it seems crazy but there there’s more bikes coming with tracking now and there is there is an argument to say that you know ni malali and the the Frameworks team are in a better position than most other people would be in terms of Envy have really pulled out and they’ve got their whole new Wheel sets being built in the us as we speak they had some spare frames you know they’ve got support of brand sponsors which you know the average pter on the street does not have that they they have actually they they have a hole in their garage and a whole load of tears and you know it’s like losing a child I I don’t know if you guys have had a had a a bike stolen but I I have and it was it was locked at the station with a proper what what I thought at the time I don’t know 10 years ago was an adequate lock to to lock up at a station with CCTV on it and I came home from work one day and it had gone and I reported it and it was you know I was I was gutted man cuz this was my mode of transport to get to the station and get to work and I used it every now and again and for for like social riding and I I was I felt like I don’t know it was like someone had really personally insulted me by taking this bike it wasn’t the fact that the bike was gone that was really annoying but and this was from the train station so I can only imagine what it feels like for somebody that’s had a van broken into or worse like a garage or a house broken into and I did some research for this but on the office of national statistics it shows um the type of area that the bikes were stolen from was it like on the public place or but the majority of them are are private like places private property in the evening at night and um it it just goes to show like people are storing them indoors and locking them up in sheds and things and they’re still being stolen there was a big insurgence of like before Java allowed you to do kind of hiding visibility there was always this there was like a surge of people going oh well I can see where they start their ride from and where they end for their ride from and straa puts out the statistics of oh you’re riding your top end Pinella or your high-end s works or whatever and you kind of advertising it to some degree but touchwood I can say I’ve never had a bike stying well no me neither but I’m super careful now like with the straa stuff that you mentioned like you can set the radius where it it goes around it like won’t show your home basically right you’re talking to the wrong person I don’t you unfortunately yeah I’ve got a draw behind me for anyone that’s listening but there are things that are happening and I was just going to try and show you what’s in the drawer that’s the reference to it’s a little Bosch GPS module so I think there’s a real um responsibility maybe or there’s something that the manufacturers of the bikes could do to to make this I don’t know these bikes less easy to steal easier to recover maybe and like EB bikes now they got big batteries in they’re 10 G bikes and stuff there’s no excuse not to have some kind of tracking that could be built into it I put air tags in the frames personally and it’s it’s not perfect because it relies on it Connect into an iPhone somewhere but it’s better than than nothing I think but lots of things now have got this find my stuff built into them BOS you’re doing these GPS connect modules that go into the bikes and that and you can track them wherever they are you have to pay a subscription after the first year and the module is like 80 quid I think it’s yeah I think it’s about 90 actually but again fitting it can be awkward yeah and it doesn’t work in all frames either yeah exactly because it’s an extra part on the on the motor itself but a lot of a lot of brands are actually fitting them I understand well a few brands are fitting them as standard and it’s things like grape had a really great system straight off the bat for security I mean I wasn’t necessarily the the biggest fan of their original frame design with the battery in the middle but the security system and way it worked it took a photo of the person who took your bike potentially yeah yeah it’s got onboard cameras and stuff like that bit like the Tesla you can it basically triggers it when you get near it and it will record who’s around the car so you could see who’s stealing your bike who is grap what is grape huh what’s grape g e y p they’re a bike brand that they’re Croatian so you know rimac the car brand yeah so it’s the same company the the owner of remac mate mate remac started the Bike Company great cool and uh the factory was just opposite the the rimac factory um and that’s where they built the bikes in Croatia the rimx look amazing grapes lesso should we say no so i’ I like to say that the new one the new one with the fer Moto is much more like a typical bike design and looks pretty good the old ones yeah questionable are they as fast as M no no no no no no I think there was some that could overclock anyway we kind of get an off topic but I the thing that gets me is like even if you’ve got means of tracking you know even with a grae you get a photo of the person who takes your bike doesn’t that just make you even more Angry if you don’t get it recovered you’re just like oh now I know the guy who took my bike or the person or whatever it might be i’ rather see who was who had actually been responsible for committing such hus crime you know I’d like to see who did it personally but and you think the responsibility of this stuff should be with the manufacturers well look they’re building bikes that are £10,000 in many instances that are highly desirable that there is a frame number built into it that is basically useless because you can put it on an insurance I don’t know a database and then if it’s ever recovered it’s uh it can be tracked back to the owner but there’s there’s no like prevention there is there it’s just in case it happens you’ve got a reference number whereas the the prevention thing I think is definitely something that a there is a responsibility on the manufacturer to to maybe take some steps towards prevention and that might be by pre-installing them with GPS modules so when because I think what happens with the bikes that get stolen is they get stashed somewhere just in case they’ve got trackers in them I I disagree do not think that’s what happens so I actually was on a flight back I was actually on the taxi back from I think it was eurobike or something like that I was way oh no Revel G Festival last year really good Festival on the way back and I was chatting to a bike Thief just your average bike Thief no no no I was chatting to a taxi driver on the way home and oh he was like what’ you do and I was like oh you know work with ebikes and you kind of going to down a rabbit hold of someone who’s not necessarily in the bike industry kind of explaining what you’re doing but he’s like oh I used to have an ebike and he was Romanian and he basically he bought an ebike in Romania from a market brought it back to the UK was using it whatever and then was no no sorry he was out in Romania he got contacted by the police they came to his door and they’re like you’ve got a stolen bike because it had a tracker on it from a guy in the UK from London who tracked it to there luckily his work colleague had contact in the Bulgarian police what the Romanian police got there spoke to the guy and he was like funny enough I recorded the whole thing on my GoPro why he recorded a full transaction of him walking around this market and buying an ebike for super cheap but he did and he proved that he didn’t buy it he didn’t know it was stolen and he said oh I work in London as a taxi driver and he’s can you can I can you speak to the owner of it I’m happy to drive it back when I go back to the UK and hand it to him and he did hand it to him but so it sounds like a lot of these bikes ebikes whatever it might be that are potentially too hot to handle in the UK just get taken straight out of the country and sold for next to nothing somewhere else in another in another country but there’s an example of it been successfully recovered I wonder what what tracking device it had in itag it was an air tag air tag yeah wow and the air tags are like 30 30 quid 30 quid couple issues with them for well I say issues CU they’re trying to fix the the problems where they’ve been used negatively with like stalking aren’t they so they’ve put in some anti-stalker features which are actually not that great for bike theft so you could like slip it into someone’s coat pocket if you wanted to track where they are or something I think it gives you an alert if something’s it says you’ve got an air tag near you and you can let it beep as well so if a if a thief has an iPhone and there’s an air tag in the bike they have it will they will tell them and you can make it make the noise so they can find it yeah but you can be sneaky with mine I’ve taken the battery out of the air tag not the battery sorry the speaker that makes the beeping so you wouldn’t be able to Hightech Guy Breaking open Apple products and the thing with air tag is is it was never designed to to be used as like a a a tracking device for stolen goods it’s kind of the thing that you’re supposed to put in your wallet and like on your keys and that’s and and I think people have realized actually they can be used for for like as a security feature but it’s it is is like there is a massive opportunity for I don’t know who it is some kind of Consortium of Brands to come together and and add some kind of GPS or you know with the BOS stuff you can brick it can’t you or you can make it that it won’t turn on at B nailed it Bosch that’s they’ve kind of created a standard adding extras is fine but it’s got you know radius it’s got an alarm it’s got yeah and it’s got AEM uh GPS in it hasn’t it so it doesn’t rely on anything else no don’t need a SIM card or anything like that it goes through all all of them all the Bosch bikes no Gen 4 onwards you can attach this connect module and it’s called ebike security or ebike um in the Flow app it all comes by default right available as like a firmare update but you need to have the connect module for example a lot of canyons will include it as standard any Bosch motor I think generally the newer Bosch motor Gen 4 bikes will come with standard Rob’s doing a bit of digging to see if you can find the I do I do actually have one um here it is just here so so this is the this that is the Bosch connect module and it goes onto the bottom of the Bosch Motors it’s quite quite small it’s probably the length of your finger and a width of two fingers yeah quite small quite neat fairly lightweight but to your point it doesn’t fit in all all bikes all BOS bikes there needs to be enough space at the bottom of the casing for it to fit into and um I think it’s great that like Canyon include this in all of their ebikes So when you buy say all of them like the the strive certainly has it but the Bosch a lot of the Bosch bikes it comes with this and that was a surprise when I got the strive I I was really pleased to see that if you didn’t know it was there like I didn’t know it was there initially and uh I was looking over it and I didn’t see it and as soon as yeah as soon as you connect to the Flow app it kind of gave you the option and I think without knowing it was there so without making a specific point of knowing it had been fitted it it looks very cohesive in the design of the motor like it just looks like another part of the motor not you wouldn’t go oh that’s a Bosch GPS module was if you saw an air tag you’re like that’s an air tag beeping at me wildly and to get to it it’s not like a quick thing you need to a lot of the bikes you have to unscrew you need to take the at least the skid plate off the bottom and yeah I think that’s and it all integrates into the app the Bosch Flow app really well so so I think that is an amazing start to stopping like obviously it’s it’s working on ebikes because there’s a main battery built into the ebike and then even if the ebike battery is removed that’s got its own battery that actually charges from the main ebike battery so it’s really smart like like the tech in it is really good and there’s aftermarket ones now there’s there’s an aftermarket company that do does that do does a very similar thing but it’s just something you fit externally and you have to pay a subscription for again I think that one uses a SIM card if the top of my head and then you got like the NOG which is essentially an air tag FY system but with an alarm the NOG yeah nog k n o the NOG Scout but the problem with that one is that’s like they want you to know it’s there you put it on your bottle cage but it’s so blaringly obvious it’s there so it’s kind of like it’s a deterrent rather than yes it will track but I think it’s that SC you know you can set it to alarm and when it gets moved and all the rest of it the problem is I don’t think that’s going to stop someone and who’s to say you’re an ear shot away from your bike all of these me even get the GPS you know where your bike is but it all relies on the authorities being able to do something or caring enough and I think maybe speak for me correct me if I’m wrong here but in the UK it feels like with the state of the police maybe is that that’s not a high priority and if they know you have insurance for it there’s less drive to go and put themselves in danger to go and recover a bicycle it is very low priority it’s it’s there’s no immediate risk to to to life really once the bike’s been stolen it that event has taken place it’s very difficult to to retrieve but there are there are many success stories will what did you think that thing by the way thought it was quite heavy and I’d probably take it off for weight reduction would you no definitely not right the recharged podcast is sponsored by the electric bike shop The ebike Specialist they’ve been selling ebikes since 2017 from their first store in Bristol and since then they’ve rapidly grown from that single shop to now 10 stores across the UK with more planned for 2024 the electric bike shops Supply a host of Major ebike Brands plus a ton of parts and accessories in stock the electric bike shop are highly reviewed by real customers and they’ve achieved an excellent state on trustpilot.com with hundreds of reviews they offer free UK delivery highly competitive pricing with price matching they take part in the cycle to work scheme and they carry literally thousands of ebikes in stock for quick delivery they also offer test rides where you can get Hands-On with the bike so you can try different sizes there’s really nothing like getting on a bike and trying out the size for real to make sure you get the right bike size for you so check check them out at the electricbike shop. co.uk where you can see the range or you can even book a test ride direct from their website at one of their 10 Nationwide stores thanks again to the electric bike shop for sponsoring the recharged podcast pass here that’s that’s that’s actually we it quite I’ve got I’ve got another great example of of theft especially because I was working over when I was working at YT we did an event in Scotland and we had of a load of our bikes stolen out of a van same sort of situation as the Frameworks team what’s the weight if you guess the weight you can get a prize do I get that you yeah you get this if you can guess the weight to the gram 31 grams no 28 28 look at the size of it okay 20 183 no no it’s actually like it’s only 54 G I was somewhere in the middle I was quite like a banana skin or something it’s really light what that’s so I ate a banana early and the skin didn’t feel very heavy so and it’s the sugar banana skin the weight the weight is distributed low because it’s by the bottom bracket so low spr M but would you take a 54 G weight penalty to be able to have a uh 247 tracker on your bike and an alarm and a way of deactivating your bike remotely and it’s quite cool because you can even set a little radius like a fence I believe around your house so if it if if it’s unlocked and it moves outside of a certain radius so for example your partner your family were likely to move your bike inside into a different place especially me because you’re taking up too much room with your bikes um that gives them the ability to move it without it suddenly screaming at you and you might be in your you know away and you get a call from your partner going your bike’s screaming at me and I don’t know what to do so they they’ve thought of a really it’s really cohesive like everything works and it can be really well customized to suit your lifestyle and it’s also applicable it’s not just e- mountain bikes it’s you know they’ve thought about it from the the BOS in the Bosch unit is like you know they’ they’ve thought about it from a commuter persec perspective Road cyclist mountain bike they just thought it’s really well thought out yeah so that that is only Bosch so we’ve still got Shimano Yamaha Bros uh specialized Motors there you know there’s all the other brands that could take a kind of Lea from Bosch’s book and and maybe you know start start adding some of this stuff because like statistically 77,000 bikes on average were sto in in the UK over the past five years every year 77,000 a year that’s 210 per day get stolen and arguably the value of those bikes has has has risen like over the past I don’t know about your insurance premium but my car insurance is probably all bundled together but like my car insurance premium’s gone up my house insurance premium’s gone up and you know maybe this is contributing to it slightly 77,000 bikes a year it’s a crazy number yeah and I just think the general cost and the general value of bikes has come up it may you know like for argument sake that total number of bikes may have actually dropped over the years but I think the total value has increased and I think what it is is there’s a lot less just like Street theft it’s a lot more more like targeted stuffs like I I was just saying before we went to the weight thing is when I was working at YT we got a load of bikes stolen in uh in Scotland when we’re doing an event we had security for the whole event and it was only on the last day when we left they broke into the van was like 16 bikes stolen but really good is that there’s there’s means of finding them back and we had we had a person we wouldn’t sell them a charger for an ebike because we’re a direct sell brand unless we had the serial number of the bike we find out the serial number turns out it’s a stolen bike have the address phone everything relating to this guy hand it to the police and we don’t get anything back cu the insurance paid up yeah that’s yeah it is sad and and going back to the point right at the beginning that the bikes are now often worth more than motorcycles in in many cases so yeah I guess something needs to be better like from prevention to to tracking to recovery to um to the way the police deal with it the police thing’s quite a difficult thing because there’s a whole mirror of things that they have to deal with as well but I think from prevention but there are some good stories that I’ve seen online people on emtb forums have reported like a year and a half later they’ve got a phone call out of the blue saying their bike has been recovered in fact just two weeks ago I had an email from somebody saying rob I’m I’ve just signed up to your Forum I’ve got a bike that this guy’s reported missing I’d like to get in contact with the owner no way that’s amazing for sure yeah so true Hero Stories yeah so um so yeah he he private messaged the guy and said I’ve got your bike it’s the same one it checks out I saw the pictures that you posted so I don’t know the whole story behind how he got it but it it’s a it’s a it’s a nice story did you say a nice story it’s a dream story oh well even like that so you mentioned about recovery prevention and all the different stages in terms of getting it back and it kind of sparked something in mind there’s a company called backpedal who are UK London based I think they are but they essentially take matters into own your hands you pay a subscription which gives you a GPS tracker and data for your bike mhm but it’s managed by these guys and there’s X policemen X security guards and they will recover your bike for you not in not in violent means I know this sounds really doy like vigilante justice some guys knocking the door with yeah like ebik recovery a but it’s but it’s aimed at ebikes and it’s specifically like they they’ve liaz the police apparently so there’s like a whole yeah they’ve got a whole setup in terms of recovery so it’s not like they’re going to go around there and rough up the guy as much as you want them to but they have a whole setup where they they go and recover it for you and they’ve got stories and yeah here we go it’s they’ve got basic standard and advanced kind of levels um 247 theft reporting hotline boot on ground recovery um recovery guaranteed for the middle standard setup so the the basic is $2.99 a month or £79 £22.99 a month yes oh so maybe we could stage this and review it will you could steal the bike why why me wait wait hold on you can steal the bike I I’ll get a demo bike that you can steal and bury it or something in the garden bury it whoa this is this is going full CSI and let’s watch the aam rock up at your house I mean they say guarant do they say guaranteed so here we go so break down so the breakdown of it is you’ve got your £2.99 a month £79 off oneoff fee which is you get theft assistance you have your oneoff GPS tracker your GPS data is free and you get 24/7 theft recovery assistance then you go to the £ 749 a month the standard setup which gets you everything that one does but boots on the ground recovery wow that’s I’m Inon our network of ex police recovery agents hit the streets to find your bike whoa hit the streets strong wording um and then recovery guarantee in a standard service so if we can’t recover your bike we will refund your backpedal payments including any fees in up to 5 years of subscriptions it’s a win-win situation if we test it what about the bik yeah kind of a bit sad so basically if your bike gets stolen if they don’t get your bike back with the boots on the ground they they give you your money back will you up for this no because your bike’s still stolen but I Haven got to the top one advanced level because that is everything the stand w’t gets you but backup insurance by Sundays so if we can’t recover your bike you can claim back claim on our backup insurance policy so you add yourself insurance policy they basically add it for an extra 2 p a month something like that so they cover your your the value of your bike so they okay so that’s that’s the top level one what this this is not an advert by the way but what are they called because I’ve never heard of this backpedal doco is the website so backpedal I found out about them probably about six months ago and their websites come on a lot and I think that they’re in the mind of you know I think if this gets bigger enough then there’ll be kind of an official means and maybe it’s the case that they partner with Brands whatever you know maybe that’s the Avenue we go down where you have these private security companies I mean it seems pretty extreme to be honest with you but it sounds pretty badass as well doesn’t how many bikes are stolen a year 77,000 not it’s short and work sometimes I don’t know if you remember sometimes they’re pretty ruthless with the thefts as well do you remember in there was one in Forest Dean like two years ago where they pushed a guy down a a hill what and took his bik yeah cuz I thought like I’d say YT a lot but YT got a their full for demo Fleek stolen Forest Dean when I was at Canyon they had Vans broken into Forest is like a real hot spot for bikers so it was just a guy riding along and they just pushed him off down a hill and then stole his bike is he all right luckily he was okay yeah but there was like a big thing and also things just like I remember um one of the it’s not Ed ews now what is it called inste ews EDR I think it was in Scotland or something like last year um specialized Pro Rider William Brody got his bike stolen from down at the the pit area y like some people just took it yeah it’s it feels like there’s there’s this untouched you so this Untouchable feeling to these thieves like I said I’m I’ve noticed a lot in the local area you know it’s you know saying propane uh in Crawley getting taken stuff from there’s loads of shops you know even down to MB cyer who are based in hazir their Brendan faf’s generally their shop his shop to go to and he had his 2018 Rampage VI I can’t remember what it was custom one off and that got stolen yeah and you know you’re like that’s that’s there’s one of them and it’s it’s pretty loud colorway pretty easy to just paint strip it and sell it in a different country wouldn’t it yeah take the forks off to that again like that’s that’s the means but people know that if they take a bikee they’re going to sell it whereas so it’s we’re not talking about lowlevel Petty thieves these are people knowing they’re going in and out you know they go in they will break it they have they Scout the places out they cut them open they go in in bike shops they’ll they cut who open no like Windows shutters doors anything like that they go in and they’re really really calculated they go and they know what bikes are taking they’re in and out and then they’re gone never seen just they they target the highest value they’ve already researched which which ones to take it’s it’s it’s sickening isn’t it uh talking about racing did did did any of you watch the World Cup the first World Cup this weekend how well honestly when you you say how it was okay I would consider myself as a cycling Enthusiast cycling fan iyus I I mean I’m I’m into the industry and everything that’s happening and and I found it really difficult to find out how you actually watch it and we did speak about this last week so I put it on my Instagram story and a few people said you got to sign up for Discovery plus which I did and it was like .99 per month I was like brilliant I’m in got Discovery plus I’m going to have all the race in and I went on the Saturday I had some time spare and I could see on like pink bike and stuff oh it’s uh it’s it’s going to be live timing then the semi-final and then the following on the Sunday the following day the final would be on so I was like right let’s let’s watch them put it on nothing I like where is it I’ve paid my $6.99 whatever like I should have access to it but there was nothing nothing on Saturday at all so there’s hund oh hold on go one yeah yeah that’s how exactly how I felt so I was like okay well well Saturday was main race day Saturday was Saturday was the the qualifying so the qualifying and semi-finals so to get this right it goes from 150ish Riders to 30 that appear in the final so you only get to see the 30 Riders out the 150 best riders in the world like on TV like for the for the for the rank 31 to 150 in the world the elite of the elite they get no airtime no coverage so if you’re a privateer team and you’re you know you’re you’re you’re taking part in the the F1 of the cycling world and you’re sponsored by you know some some great great cool companies from across the world they get they get nothing no absolutely nothing yeah I to be honest like the reason I said how initially was because I watched most of it on anything on the day I was watching through Instagram Just Clips stuff that DCI were putting up on their Instagram feed or like little YouTube bits I thought you were going to say illegal stream for a second because did you see in the pink bik comments I think someone posted an an illegal stream in there does that show this surely doesn’t show anything we don’t we don’t uh we don’t support these type of uh you were curious but you didn’t click no I didn’t click it oh no defin malware yeah maybe no but but that was that was just the normal race that was just Discovery plus race coverage just just pirated right I don’t know I didn’t click it so so I’m assuming yes because like there’s no other way to watch the the the semi-finals so imagine if you had a pirate Independent Media company that was going out there recording the whole thing and string it streaming it live well like a YouTuber like just like send some but I was like much cooler how can you not have something for the top 31 to 150 Riders to Showcase their effort and all of their practice and their dedication and the sponsors and so one of the reasons I was trying to follow it is because the PO Factory race team were competing there Dan slack Onie were competing um and I thought oh cool it’d be really good to watch them and see how they get on um and there was there nothing so again we had to go to a teletex style website to get the results and the live timing and I was like that there got to be a better way than this it’s like fill in the blanks isn’t it when you’re reading it you’re going I can’t really be on the edge of my seat but I’m trying to imagine this all as it needs to be and like you said I think nowadays maybe it’s a curse of how Red Bull allowed greater coverage of more Riders beforehand but you’ve kind of you like you said you you you would line with a rider or like you you want to see Preston or something you know you want to see your your mates but unless the top 30 you’re not getting any and it’s kind of like you need to do that fan service to the wide array and you know you’ve got top level Riders you know like George branagan you know some people are really really interested in seeing these top level Riders who might not make it in that race but they might have a heater of a run or crashed or whatever you know it just feels like you’re not doing you’re not doing the the the the ride as a service so what did they cuz I watched a YouTube live stream was that the day before in like the Junior something ah to be to be fair then the Juniors I think was broadcast live yeah so on YouTube was the women’s broad no the women’s was not broadcast life so it’s just the Juniors that were broadcast life so there was some to be fair but but to watch the elite men and the elite women in anything other than the the final was impossible you couldn’t you couldn’t watch it and even then you maybe I’m maybe I’m just tight and skeptical but you’re paying $6.99 for a discovery Plus app subscription what else do you want to watch on there is it just to watch the I mean you might end up watching other things but you’ve gone in there with one purpose in mind is that is that justified it’s a lot cheaper than like football for example like getting Sky I don’t mind the money I I don’t think it’s like no but more like is it just being funneled into using the discovery you only want one thing out of it can you not get people to pay per race you know like a pay-per-view kind of thing because I don’t want to pay for a discovery monthly subscription if I’m only going to use it for the one thing I want to watch on there but I I yeah I mean it’s you you no doubt contributing to other things but I don’t think 699 not crazy I mean it’s it’s like yeah it’s an inner tube or whatever 699 but but I think for one for One race a month maybe one couple races a month it’s kind of like I think like at least show the semi finals maybe some tech talks like get the riders that didn’t quite make the the the live final like get them featured in it like give some more value to to the teams that are competing and and to the viewer I was a bit I was just a bit like Oh I thought like the idea of it going to Discovery was you’re going to get $6.99 you’re going to get way more you’re going to get F1 coverage you’re going to get Euros sport Discovery level coverage for the you know for a much more mainstream audience in theory but regardless it’s good race though it oh it’s wicked like the actual race was good yeah so good I I cannot believe that over a 4minute track there was one and a half seconds between first and second it’s crazy yeah bruny and Troy brzin one one or whatever it was I’m pretty sure it was very very close and then between the top five what was it between the top five so from Luca Shaw in fifth place was 3679 seconds up from bruny that’s insane czy incredible to watch and he’s so smooth jum me 1.8 second lead broen that’s quite big but everyone fin is it’s a lot smaller in terms of Fin ises and broen than it is with bruny but to be honest the women’s racing you know Valley Valley coming back first first run of the season first run you know first race of the year and she smashed it on the new tourers and you got Nina and like again you know if we’re talking three years ago it was always like pom pom and Tiny crave and camil Galan but now Nina Nina Hoffman seems to really really be pushing like since she’s been on Santa Cruz amazing to watch so yep so what’s that new choose two two two s two a markv two a means do it that’s that’s the story behind it yeah there you go uh the new two markv I I was sounds bad didn’t look that different did it exactly I looked at it went oh cuz didn’t they use the neoprene cover to cover up like and with them in Canyon and everyone’s like oh is it near brein season but but what did what were they actually covering up then it’s got the MX so mullet to 29 flip chip so you can change the rear end um it had just a few little different design tweaks around that do we think neoprene is just like the thing you do when you’re about to release something new prototyping prototyp like no one would have noticed that other than the fact they’ve put neoprene on it now it’s like oh look at what they’re trying to hide it’s the Strand effect isn’t it I genuinely think so YT kind of say we retain strong in our DNA throughout the range and you know there’s a lot ofand you know Santa Cruz are great example of this all their frames pretty much look the same AP from the downhill bikers it’s just kind of like different version travels of the frame so it’s like you know that’s their core DNA but I was a bit kind of like oh okay there’s not a huge amount different with it whilst the canyon had a lot look like you know it was quite a big difference in terms of its look thinking back to that true is now now we’re talking about it like that has literally been the same since like 2015 I’m so sorry hello hello hello hello oh it’s so annoying there he goes my frame that’s the worst feeling watching someone drive off with your things that they haven’t delivered sorry to interrupt you guys I’ve been waiting for that I went actually to collect it this morning but they’d already loaded onto the van I’m so gutted been waiting for a delivery all morning I went to collect it and they’re like oh we’ve sorry we’ve just loaded on the van and he’s just left he’s gone no no anyway what were we what were we talking about so Rott wild have released a new bike and I got to say the the front of it looks kind of traditional the rear chain stay looks pretty funky it’s got like that curved chain stay uh but the specs on it look really decent long travel race bike 820 w battery is this the year of the bigger batteries that’s a an interesting one 820 the year of the lightweights it’s a year of the lightweights but also the the heavier weights getting bigger batteries I think like everyone wants a bigger battery I say everyone lots of people want a bigger battery big batteries sell bikes yeah I i’ I’d agree I think people want people don’t want to be run out don’t want to run out power like even if you’re on a lightweight bike if you’ve got the ability to have as much battery as possible you know you just you just don’t want to have that fear of running out it’s that cake and eating it but I think the bike looks incredible I I think it’s quite a different talk through the uh yeah talk us through the bike and the the specs so few interesting things it’s like fully carbon frame like everything but the rocker link by the looks of things it’s a pretty solid spec it’s got a huge massive swing arm with a that’s chain stay and it still got a seat stay as well but really interesting is you can choose a range of different travels so you can get 145 15060 mil travel on the rear with a 170 Fork pairing it’s got mixed wheel size so mullet set up but now that changing of travel on the rear is a really interesting point for different you know for different race circumstances so it can run on the rear either 145 150 or 160 travel it’s epic yeah yes there’s three different travel configurations and reading through the press release I I I joked with you because it said the bike features are udh and I was like well what what’s what’s so revolutionary about that and I went you went full joural and just read the first Buzz sentence I stopped there and I was like that you cannot put that in a news article because every bike from the last few years has it has a udh but you rightly stopped me and said hold on read the next part which which basically I think that’s quite unique cuz it’s a udh but you can actually change the chain slay length so it’s like a it’s like a overized space with a little space like a spacer in there to push it forwards or backwards but that’s five mil difference front or rear that’s that um forwards or backwards is That’s great so you can go like what Center or plus five or negative five or just five just five yeah it’s five either way so I guess it’s and the chain stay lengths you’re not a big fan of this are you though chain stay length on this bike is uh 436 it’s a really tight chain stay so 436 and so you get four you’d either get 436 436 or 441 I believe with that flip chip position change that uh chain St lengthen it who needs a chain stay length for 436 how are you going to climb anything on that without the front lifting at I don’t know to me that seems really short that is that I didn’t think you could make a an ebike chain stay that short I thought like how are you going to fit a 27 and a half inch rear wheel or 29 in rear wheel potentially in that space that is very short might be fun bike though playful yeah but it’s a race bike and it’s got 63.3 Dee head angle that is slack ass it’s not as slack as this Cano that I’ve just let you ride let you borrow but what’s the head angle 61 .9 bro it’s crazy we were riding it at swinley yesterday and it felt like the head tube was going to snap in off what we done I I just mulleted it and 29 of it so I yeah I was curious to to try it with a mullet and I measured 29 on the front when it was originally 27 and a half okay so you brought out the front and and lower the back and 29 Fork yeah so so it’s 61 I mean it I’m interested 61° I’m talking about 63.3 being bit like oh that’s pretty out there 61 61.9 62 call it yeah that’s crazy but I know so I think this is a really cool bike I think like the the fact that it’s a race specific bike is quite an interesting thing you know like the fact that if you look at the Ed and we’ve just talked about racing it doesn’t get great coverage I think a lot of it is like marketing does it get any coverage now like not any live coverage okay I think even race results aren’t live you just get post you must is is racing dead it’s like racing as we know it like World Cup racing no because World Cup’s popping off on on social media on everything it’s just look at you like GN Z popping off on social media not joking no but it is it is on social media you see it all the time but to actually watch it like is I don’t know because we got we’ve already discussed how difficult it is to watch Elite level uh World Cup Downhill Racing but when we get to Elite level Enduro racing like EDR Eed arguably ebikes are the biggest thing in the market right now that’s where a lot of the R&D is going in how how can you watch it so you can’t even watch it and I’m just looking I was going to say interesting fact of the day how many riders do you think there are actually in a in a typical EDR e EDR race God 100 100 what total women and men no 150 total what do you reckon what’s your number four four less three no keep going two sorry lower no um no there’s 36 this year 36 men and 36 nine women nine that’s it what that so hold on so in the opening round of the the biggest Enduro event in the world there’s 36 this is for ebike specific ebike yeah which is arguably the the biggest category in the world ebikes yeah I I’m I’m assuming once you hit a certain price point ebikes are taken the line share of the bike sales and there’s only 36 and N women and put it this way there’s 12 different brands I think there is 12 different ebike brands on there so 12 different team brands of different models of bikes so there 36 Riders 12 that means there teams at three just you know technically it’s getting less and less of a breakdown there’s less there’s less people there’s less people going into this going oh I need to make a really competitive race bike so is that less than last year yeah last year let’s have a quick look so this gives average was about 38 39 last year so it is less marginally marginally and and finale is probably the most central location it’s it’s easy to get to it’s not like a mountain climbing Trails they’ve really focused it on and it’s the opening round so you would expect maybe this this one to be the the the more popular round I this this every time I think about racing I I think about the ideas we shared on episode one about how to make racing a thing the Super Cross this happen baby let’s go the Supercross Arena style laps like shoulder-to-shoulder racing hot dogs in the stand beer floating fireworks like just just more I don’t know it’s frust it’s annoying because it’s less about the the the song and dance of it but more about the format and making it like we talked about like weight differences I think like the I know there’s always a a misrepresentation or like an imbalance of women versus men but I think ebikes ebike racing and the format it’s currently out doesn’t lend itself to a lighter Rider or you know female riders for the most part evikes aren’t tailored that way and I think the our format the one we worked out last time that’s fair for everyone that’s that’s the way needs I’d watch that like even if I it wasn’t an idea that we collectively came up with I would watch something that was shoulder-to-shoulder racing gnarly climb sections you can overtake on downhill sections that you can overtake on big wide tracks that are easy to televise that are short laps short course XC gnarly ebik racing style M startv lunch St the more I think about it the more like how do I set this up it goes to show that I don’t know we’re talking about now because Race season has just started last weekend it’s just kicking off this weekend there’s loads of stuff on social media there’s loads of YouTube Racers putting out content it’s kind of the Forefront and I think it’s a worthy topic I think it’s like if you’re into ebike development this is The Cutting Edge of ebike development so where the Bosch race motor come from the bigger batteries all of these things are kind of contributing to what we end up getting when we buy our ebikes maybe we don’t have the coverage of ebike racing as we want it and as it is but as the rockfeld is the example of this this is still the birth of super cool Tech and it’s still comp competition and racing is still pushing the Forefront of bike design is still pushing those those extra few you know those marginal gains it’s like the BOS race limited edition motor you know performance line race limited edition motor that was birth and racing and it’s those kind of things it’s cool and I’d say that rockv I like the look of it I I if I was going to say dream bike really press the tones go oh the dream or I actually think it’s more of this bik I’m not a fan I that chain stay looks a bit weird that whole chain stay set up Z Guy come on you remember the old Comon met old framed his own Mass swing on orange had done it well uh Marin did something like that as well didn’t they Marin and polygon the Wolf Ridge with the extra shock at the bottom what is the reason for that design by the way is is there looks sick is it just looks I mean I I understand what will saying like the the lines don’t quite work and then you’ve got the seat stay and the chain stay and look at the small Gap in between it look it looks like it’s I’m sure there’s a reason for it but the the one thing I would like is that you get less chain slap right You’ it’ probably be a bit less drivetrain noise but I’m sure there’s a much more technical reason of why they’ve done that I think it’s well you also the position of the pivot is in front of the BB there’s all all going to have like kinematic kind of implications of placements bearings and pivot and again to your point of having an narrow Gap in there imagine you got a stone in between that that be really frustrating would it and I I have to say if I looked at the Press photos under compression it doesn’t look as good because of the shape of it but regardless I think you’ve got a I think as much as AES Statics player key does it ride well doesn’t it I think I think that’s that’s all that matters no it’s not you need to look cool bro don’t I’m done with that I don’t so so talking about uh like you you mentioned dream bike what I’d like to know from both of you is if you you got a choice right I’m going to get your opinions on bikes you get two bikes that you can choose one is dream bike so if you were to pick your dream bike out of anything in the world right now has to exist what would it be money no object and number two if you were buying a bike with your own money right now your forced to buy a bike like you know you want to buy not forced you want to buy a new bike for 2024 no Rob I can’t afford it stop forcing me you’re spending your own money what bike would it be can we do that one first the realistic bike first and then the dream Bike second of course yeah why why don’t why don’t you k a surf wheel with your realistic bike and then dream bike so I thought about I thought about it a little bit for anyone who’s listening he’s got he’s got a full spreadsheet a breakdown of all the bikes pricing spec no I didn’t go that far right my realistic bike uh I’m thinking you’ve both seen it it’s the new alloy Aon bike the 170 mil I can’t remember it’s that am 170 fair play like you TR me on that that’s super cool bike I think it seems I mean I haven’t ridden it so is that affordable it’s not bad it’s okay sort of sort of a rough I think the cheapest spec one is around 5K spec spec wise uh it’s got like performance stuff perform performance Fox stuff and it’s not running NX or SX on the dver I think the cheapest one has got NX on but I could be wrong um but i’ probably buy frame only and then build it up but seems pretty bomb prooof like it looks bombproof it’s got really nice Geo um it looks cool like the colorway it’s in that Raw it’s sort of that silver right like silvery gray yeah brushed um yeah loads of sizes as well like there I think there’s like 140 I can’t remember the number but there’s an insane amount of sizing that you can get it’ll fit you then really long reach and really long chain stays but that’s cool I think that bike stands I I prefer the aluminium Aon lookwise to the carbon ones 22 size configurations sick 22 and it’s not common either I think one thing for me is I like something that’s a bit flashy and like stands out from like it’s not like everyone has it like if you have hopefully this is not what your choice is but like a YT kaer or something like it’s so common like you see it everywhere whereas this I haven’t I haven’t seen one yet I know it’s only been released recently but I don’t think you’ll see that many in the wild that was a really good choice bike yeah yeah you’ve St and I think there’s little things on that bike like they use um a gr of aliminium that isn’t I think it’s 7075 that can’t be welded but it’s got better characteristics for a bike and now they’re not welding it pressing it in and gluing it oh perfect frame only frame only on that is 4,500 and then oh really yeah so it’s not I mean it’s it’s it’s it’s a lot of money but it’s not like we’re not talking five figures plus are we we’re not talking like 10,000 plus um frame only option yeah but buye full bike from 6950 so I thought it was less that’s the alloy one oh no sorry going to say I’m pretty sure it was four and a half for the cheapest build or something like that I was going to retract my realistic bike into let’s um let’s whilst you’re giving us your full price like dream bike Adam can you can you get us the actual price not my because that’s a carbon lugged one that I just got you so that’s the the the more expensive one yeah so then my dream bike I was thinking one of I’d like I’d like a downhill bike I think I I think one that I’ve always admired but I’ve never owned has been a Santa Cruz V10 like the top spec Fox Factory Saint drivetrain it’s it’s got a lot of history in the racing scene like I remember watching those OG Santa Cruz Syndicate the series I can’t I can’t remember what exactly it was called dial no that was Fox wasn’t it even this is py oh no what was it it was something I know what you yeah I know but like Josh bryand riding that bike like being so steezy and now they’ve got Jackson Goldstone and Lor Greenland on them and it’s just like whenever I see that bike being ridden I just want to ride one basically um but yeah it is a lot of money and it’s not something that I would ever probably buy just because of the cost of it but that is my dream bike that is that is a really you a one I mean you’ve got two really strong choices there the V10 I love the V10 adjustability the amount of stuff that you can do to tailor it reach adjust lower link flip chip rear axle chips as well to change change a chain stay for anyone wants to like really kind of Tinker around and and and completely dial it in but the rear linkage looks super cool uh just a very quick one one 4,800 for the s170 in.3 from ason bikes the base spec model and that’s what full build domain super Delux coil um superx ultimate coil which quite interesting NX drive chain and Haze domain his is it domain brakes yeah Dominion Dominion that’s the one not domain and what was the frame only did they did they do the frame only for thaty let’s find out I don’t know so so two two yeah two strong choices two non- ebikes though in on our ebike podcast that’s the only thing F you you can uh you can be trying to chase us up the hills on your V10 like Dy you’ll be on your V10 Adam will be on his 120 130 140 trail bike X 50 130 sorry 150 Fork 130 wear at D honestly makes all the difference I’ll be on my 26 kilo poly you we’ll look like a right bunch of numpties won’t we like yeah especially especially as it you to be in the back was me whipping off Lightning Fast breaking your legs on the oak drop cuz you got no travel out the so it’s 2799 great Bri pounds for a frame only option so that’s that’s decent it’s a great I think it looks better than the carbon one for sure I think it’s I love the lines on it the angular look at the bottom as well and it’s quite like a it looks like this this isn’t me this is a positive thing so don’t take this the wrong way G Dan or Rachel or any other designers who get involved with this but it looks a bit like scaffolding like if you look where the seat tube is you’ve got all the bits that connect on so you’ve kind of got the the sleeve that goes over where the rocker link attaches to and then you’ve got your sleeve which is the top bit where the top tube attached to do you do you get what I mean and I think that’s quite cool it looks like it’s kind of like I wouldn’t ever say that looks like scaffolding to anyone ever but but now we’ve just done it to however many thousand people so should we talk about you just done it yeah you yeah it should we talk about your realistic bike and dream bike myself yeah okay um oh you really I think we’ve working scale down so price point affording kind of bike I’ve said it again and this is this is something that’s maybe quite times I feel like at the moment and is a Canon you’re on on CF CF6 CF7 uh sorry not C what am I on about cf8 or cf9 sorry mainly because the spec on it when you get to that point but Pike ultimate 140 130 and it just it’s a really fun bike but the thing that I haven’t seen many short travel aggressive Geo bikes with a Bosch motor which is a big thing for me a 750w hour battery and something that can kind of a full powered Bosch you know not a lightweight short travel bike it’s a full powered short travel bike this one say only 22 point something kg the one I was looking at then yeah it’s still it’s still lightish weight for full power but it’s not like they’ve now just come up with the canyon urine on fly with the Bosch SX motor which is a much lighter you know that’s that initially that’s probably where you’d think it would be more aligned to if you look at Canyon’s neuron in their lineup anyway so I just like that bike I just really enjoy it fun bike it’s Poppy it’s playful and then if price point was no option the gas gas ecc6 weird one with with a sham power train sham powert Trin Which is less of the probably the driver towards it but more battery size and suspension what is the price of this one this is €9,000 off the top of my head I’ll find out the exact price is 8,999 it’s nice is it got D suspension on there d ension with WP dampers so it’s the gas gas what what’s the ecc6 it looks very different to the rest of the lineup the suspension is probably the thing that excites me the most have you ridden it I’ve had a go on it yeah I have um I think it looks amazing and they’ve got the thing that I wasn’t that fast done is they’ve got like the what do they call them like the plastic oh the Moto Motocross lights inspired like Plastics you can take off and change I didn’t like that I thought it was like a really cheap gimmicky thing but then I was like oh I like that yeah wait what do you mean so oh like like f so it’s like all the side bit so you could you know you could get your Monster Energy Rockstar Energy super like your super cross track decals bang it on there you get your saddle made up like it no that’s I like that that’s a really good idea and that gives you full customization like you can with motorcross bikes you can yeah all your all your different decals and things on that you say full customization it’s it’s aesthetic customization there’s not there’s not really any performance gains with it no but it looks cool doesn’t it and I just I just think it looks cool it’s different it’s got spec I’d like on there and yeah it’s just I think like there’s a point you made I don’t want something that everyone’s got yeah no I’ve only seen like one gas gassy bike in the wild yeah most of the others don’t look nearly this good no yeah they all look quite different it’s like the designer was quite different the whole sham powertrain thing was probably the Big Driver to get someone else in to do it as a big big design but anyway that’s my choices nice a couple of strong bikes there mine is uh so my if I was to buy a bike now I think it would be really difficult to look past the strive on Underdog Canyon Drive on it’s £ 4,749 which is basically a 170 160 Enduro bike with bang up to- dat geometry the B motor mullet what’s the battery size that is with 625 but you can pay an additional £200 to upgrade to the 750 so so the total price is 4950 for the configuration you’d have out yeah with but but I think what you get for that is one of the best handling bikes like ebikes in the world right now that is on sale as well they might not be that all the time so normally that is 5499 but what I’ve noticed on the canyon site is they go on sale every few months it seems so I’ve seen regular sales they’re not all the time but every now and again they seem to do these 10day sales or or whatever I don’t know how long it is but for 4749 you get a a very well sorted ebike with Fox 38 uh Fox whatever that shock is is that an X2 performance maybe uh let’s not Overlook it’s full carbon frame like 10 years ago and you you it feels like we’re not mentioning even frame material now because it’s so like carbon is so like part of the vocabulary but it’s a full carbon frame DT Swiss wheel set this is the price of this is the price of my realistic bike but it’s an ebike so so yes your realistic bike is is was what five 48 4 the cheapest spec wasn’t it cheapest cheapest spec was God it was 48 yeah it was 4 4,000 and this yeah this is the same price with the motor with a motor and a battery and similar spec as well and Sim and a motor and a battery like it’s just not going to include the battery like it’s got a motor no battery and it’s car so so yeah I think that value for money is like outstanding um and the bike rides really well it’s not just good value for money it’s a really decent bike I owned the Canon strive the next one up but I think for the money that’s really really good yeah I tried I tried the Spectra the drive and the torque and it rides very very different I say the Spectra and the torque have similarities and their characteristics like short back end low bottom bracket strives completely different and it’s quite it sets itself apart I think it’s really I think it’s really stand outly different what was it your favorite amongst those three that you wrad yeah out of those three for sure it was one power the neuron on I found like the ne it’s almost like they missed out of like your XC bike and your your endur bike are paired up and then your trail bike and your free road bike are paired up it’s like kind of missing a gap out but found that the yeah the neuron on was that kind of quite quick quite rampy hi bb gave you a good position didn’t feel like you were just going to crank strike That’s my kind of indicator of whether whether I like a bike or not because the geometry um yeah it just felt good felt dialed yeah I I agree I I love riding that and uh yeah that that for sure for me and then dream bike would be uh sorry I keep missing tones dream bike would be uh the crest line RS 180 e or RS 180 as it’s called which is a 180 180 travel carbon framed Bosch powered ebike with few customization options you can run it as a mullet you can run it as a 29 you can change your travel out the back between 180 163 it’s uh yeah it’s it’s a great great build good geometry you can run it with a coil you can run it with air it’s got the VPP so it looks a bit like Santa Cruz um glad Santa Cruz the pattern expired on the VPP so lots of Brands can now use that much like the horse link from specialized lots of brands use that and I think uh initially when it came out everyone was like it looks like a Santa Cruz of the Bosch motor I thought it was yeah I mean it was not a bad thing maybe no um but it it I’ve ridden it in the UK Italy took it over to to the US and I’m going to build up another one in a slightly different configuration this year for for a video wait hold on a minute so we’re talking about dream bikes you’re the only one that not only owns your dream bike but is about to own two of your dream bikes you say own they’re not they’re not my bikes so I get the opportunity to build them up for videos and Fe there’s new stuff coming out product wise over the next couple of months and I’m going to use that bike to to test these products and make video cuz I need I need like something to build onto and this bike is a bike that I really enjoy and I say dream bike cuz it’s is really expensive so it’s £ 11,999 which I completely understand how much money that is you could buy nearly three Canyon uh bikes for it and it’s not three times better like no way but there are some some improvements in it specifically around like chain stay length now they do different links you can you laugh but it makes a big de I’m a tall guy man I’m 1 M 91 like the the we’ll cover another but we’ll talk about ratios and front to rear biases because it does make a difference especially on climbing and cornering um but anyway you can you can have a different link to make the chain stay longer out the rear so it’s like a real Enthusiast bike agreed as opposed to the strive on that is you get it as no flip chips at all and that’s fine yeah but you can’t do any adjustments at all I said this last I think it was the last episode we did is like do you need to and the question is like with all that adjustment it’s kind of where where where do you set and forget on the crest line specifically with that bike never cuz I always like to try and uh what I no talking about spec cuz you said it’s 180 180 on the back 163 where does your preference we’re talking one dream bike like I I really like the hybridizer got a load of adjustment I kind of say I like it Mallet or this or that what is your dream setup did you say I was thinking it was I was overusing it a bit so I was going to stop doing Tes tones are if the tones get too much we’re recording them on a separate tracks you can just mute them and it would just be a really weird awkward silence but dream spec would be my dream one would be 180 180 with a 455 to 460 chain stay and mullet 450 to 460 sorry 455 to 460 chain stay does it come with yeah you can you can he’s I’m getting a few different links so I can run it between 450 4 55 and 460 okay so you haven’t decided whether it’s 455 or 460 okay that’s cool that’s fine I was like you can’t just be like oh I have two of them I’m converted to Mullet now like originally I didn’t like the mullets because the the the reason for mullet that uh from a lot of the bike brands was to create the the really short rear yeah and uh I found them like really light out the front unless I put in loads of body language you’ll see on the video on the orb rise lots of people say dude why are you climbing with the seat so low you look really weird and yes it does but my center of gravity is way lower and more Central on the bike as soon as you start raising the saddle your sat more over the rear wheel with a bike with a shorter chain stay or I am for sure and the what the front wants to lift so um uh yeah so I’m converting more to a mullet but the chain stay has to be long enough for it to feel balanced so it’s just going to look like a Rudder on a boat it’s going to be like this really long thing with a tiny wheel in the back just just just to catch you up but no I think it’s a valid point I think it’s it’s it’s I think it’s quite admirable that you’ve really questioned that and delved into it and been really conscious of that because it’s just like get on a bike ride it it’s here we go do I like it do I don’t rather than try and overanalyze it and not not over analyze it but try to analyze it too much it’s the it’s the job it’s a channel well I think with the whole chain stay thing like there’s definitely not one siiz fits all and most brands do a one siiz fits all rear end some are going slightly bigger on the rear like when the bike goes up but not tionately so like physics dictates that if you just keep the rear the same and grow the front that the balance point for taller Riders is going to be totally different with the weight placed in the same position right so I find with a short chain stay they’re very hard to keep the front down and much harder for me to corner so you see my like weight really will and I were editing uh a video that’s coming out soon and you can see my weight placement so far over the front cuz I’m trying to get weight on the front wheel and it it it looks it’s really odd and it feels like kind of odd I want more of a neutral balance feeling and my like 460 chain stay is probably the equivalent of a a small bike having a 440 do you think that comes down to that the guy who designed it the guy the bike was based around a medium for example and they just haven’t really scaled up or do you think that do you think people want a short back end or it feels like the industry is going it comes down to one thing and it’s cost yeah yeah it costs way more to have multiple uh molds for re very true package them um it it comes purely down to that I think so uh but you know it’s good to see taking taking it back to Crest L it’s good to see them giv different options and they don’t have uh they have two different rear rear chain stays and they can do the rest with links so the link moves and grows and and that that’s what grows the rear center so it’s quite cool we we talked about the you know World Cup racing now the new 2s has come out and that’s got a 29er uh MX flip chip so you can put 27 and 1 half inch rear in the wheel or you know a rear wheel in or 29 at will think there’s a lot of Brands doing that I think that’s quite cool you didn’t feel like choosing that as your dream bike nah no it’s a really nice bike don’t get me wrong I I still think the the look of it hasn’t really changed it’s kind of how I felt about the catpro it was like new catpro coming out it looks really similar to before but riding it has changed here’s a question for you how many years will YT go with the original decoy and do you think we’ll get a new decoy out really soon and I say that with the greatest respect because the bike’s brilliant oh it’s way ahead of I’m trying to get rumors from you I I think like it’s the Baseline of my ebikes like it is it is the standard like if I had to fall back on anything I know that bike so well and it’s a great bike still to this day but it came out in 2019 so we’re talking like frame design is pretty much yeah we’re talking five years down the line now wasn’t it so ahead of its time when it came out as well yeah cuz that was when we had like external batteries you know like I say external batteries for lack of well like the kind of you get them on the top of the down tube and things like that and then the decoy is the first one where it was integrated but it wasn’t properly integrated it was their own proprietary battery geometry numbers the whole way of the look you know the whole look of the bike was way ahead of its time it still looks really good now we saw one in uh where we were filming yesterday didn’t we and they they look really cool They Ride really cool there’s lots of big massive fans of it like it’s yeah I think they’ve done a great job with it and I would love to see the progression to the next model it’s I’m worried it’s going to be the same thing like oh new On’s coming out oh it hasn’t changed that much they’ll change the Geo numbers but I think maybe the frame design won’t much change but we should should revisit this got to be they’ve got to do it this year in within the next 12 months I’m hoping I’m hopeful we’ll see a new decoy I’m hoping I’m praying and hoping we’ll see a new decoy cuz that’s yeah the last one on the line up so it’s really cool to hear your dream bikes we had some good selections there some real varied selections of dream bikes yeah it quite diverse it was good good range of travel good range of non e bikes yeah I think your choice was the best probably will yeah Will what do I win even do I win the bike yeah um afton’s going to be in contact to sort you out with your back your bike and and gas gas it’s already in the post apparently so you didn’t guess the weight but you still get this connect module for your non ebike you have a GPS mine give back about what banana peel say about there thanks for watching subscribe for more ebik content and we’ll see you back with a recharge podcast next Sunday cheers bye see you