Could This Legal Doping League Change Cycling Forever? & WTF Zwift – The Wild Ones Podcast Ep.36

Could ‘Legal Doping League’ Change Cycling Forever? & WTF Zwift? – The Wild Ones Podcast Ep.36

Welcome back to another instalment of The Wild Ones Podcast. Francis is back and this week we talk encounters with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Zwift’s latest bizarre move, solar-charging shifters, and a new ‘Olympics-style’ competition where doping is legal. Plus we jump into your Overrated/Underrated suggestions. Here’s the full breakdown:

00:00 Encounters with Arnold Schwarzenegger
02:37 WTF is Zwift up to?
10:08 Trouble at Peloton
13:57 Solar-powered electronic shifters are coming?
18:47 Demi Vollering’s €1million offer
22:28 ‘Doping-friendly Olympics’ gets green light from investors
35:08 Overrated/Underrated: Cycling-specific glasses
38:20 Overrated/Underrated: Pannier bags
43:00 Overrated/Underrated: Loud freehubs
44:13 Overrated/Underrated: Electric cars
48:19 Francis REAL height revealed (FUOTW)
53:20 Men’s health & mental health: a listener’s story

If you’d like us to send in a question, story, some good news, things you’d like us to discuss or anything else, email us at wildonespodcast@cademedia.co.uk
Thanks and see you next time.

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We’re back did you miss us I missed you thanks Francis so this is the Wild Ones podcast the show where we chat about bike stuff it’s episode 36 I’m Jimmy I’m here with producer Emily and Francis is back in the room he’s like the new Elvis

What well you back in back no what’s what’s the Elvis thing Elvis has left the building building he leaves buildings you’re the anti Elvis yeah but he’s in the building before he leaves them I assume he was yeah so what’s been going on I I’ve been away for a long

Time how long have I been away six weeks seven weeks ages had a great time been spending some time with my family uh cuz my dad’s unwell at the moment um so I’m just spending lots of time together and I got married that was all so good

Congratulations thank you I gave you a secret mission before you left to make friends with um Tom Hanks did you succeed no um I didn’t meet any celebrities we were in Los Angeles for the audience at home however my dad did he had breakfast with Arie Arnold

Swartzenegger yes the Arie and when I say with I mean kind of sat near him at breakfast in a hotel but close enough to see what he ate for breakfast two boiled eggs that it yeah I’m surprised it’s a high protein diet isn’t it do you think that’s just his like outward breakfast

And actually he’s just like scoffing protein bars all the time well you were telling me earlier he eats a copious amount of salmon well yeah that was based on a a story which was heard Word of Mouth from about eight years ago when he was promoting veganism Salmon’s not

Vegan this was while I was uh working at lab Bible they do a format that’s about eating different foods from around the world and I don’t know whether the production team got the wrong end of the stick but they were pretty convinced that Arie was vegan I think he I think

He’d said something like I’m practically vegan so they’ panicked and gone out and got loads of vegan versions of food for this uh um sure they were about to do with him but then they took him out for dinner the night before and he apparently ordered like a whole salmon

And they were like okay fine he’s clearly not vegan a whole salmon a jug of whiskey and a cigar probably I don’t think that no no no cowboy boots almost definitely he was cow that’s he’s got like a massive collection of cowboy boots does he yeah is that what he wears

When he’s Terminator probably I want your boots clothes your boots in your motorcycle he even lists boots in that specifically the boots but not necessarily cowbo boots cuz there’s some motorcycle boots he doesn’t count boots as clothes should we move on to some news let’s do

It so do you remember last year that we talked about the beef between zift and Wahoo yes yes Jesus Christ hey I haven’t been in the podcast in a while right I forgot I was supposed to respond I was enjoying my heated seat so Wahoo launched legal action

Against zift in 2022 claiming the The zift Hub turbo trainer was a ripoff of the kicker core the case was then mysteriously dropped with a little information about what would happen next well we finally know the answer because the brands have now just joined forces to release the Wahoo kicker Court zwift

One catchy name it’s basically a kickert with a zift cog which is essentially a single sprock sprocket that allows virtual shifting zift is now selling the trainer on its website along with Wahoo’s full range of turbos I’ve got a question you were on a call a top secret

Call with zift weren’t you yeah for the pr stuff about this Cog thing yeah how does the Cog does it connect to whatever shifting system you have or does it have a separate like button thing you put on your handlebars remember separate button you put on your handlebars okay it’s one

Gear that when you press it it changes the resistance rather than it CH moving a MEC so it like virtually changes the resistance yeah yeah it’s that inside the turbo trainer somehow yeah like urg mode it just uses urg mode to like but in stages yeah so it does work with any

Bike I think that’s the idea of it that you can just Chuck any bike on and it’ll work so if you’ve got different types of bikes I think that call I think that thing it was like their official media like launch information I think that was like September maybe October September

October and there was Zero mention of Wahoo they were just like you know we’ve got this new turbo and this new thing and blah blah blah blah blah so either I’m assuming it was heavily embargoed or they just didn’t know at that point which is quite interesting the idea of

Zift not only having a wahoo collab trainer but also selling the full range of turbos on their website might not seem like a big deal but zwift I remember we had a meeting with swift maybe like 10 years ago or something and their whole principal was about being Hardware agnostic for a better

Term because they don’t want to piss off Garmin by going Wahoo heavy and they don’t want to piss off Wahoo by going Garin heavy and all the other turbo trainers that are coming up and that was always the thing wasn’t it but to be fair though I guess that’s a long time

Ago in their trajectory but it now since then they had they had plans for a whole bike you could buy a zift bike and there was like those blueprint well like um production images you know pre-production mockups of this weird bike that you could have in your house

But them having their own products doesn’t alienate the industry them having such a strong tide to waho you know like if I was Garmin I would be going like well I don’t really want to be promoting zift because I’m then also promoting waho re exactly um it’ be interesting to see what happens

To the landscape because it feels like it’s going to force the other trainer manufacturers to look at alternative things or or perhaps eventually I can’t imagine anyone’s going to make any quick br crash moves because it just doesn’t make sense to because zwift have got the Monopoly on digital training it might be

And this is speculation it might be that in the future you know if you have a wahoo you tend to go with swift if you have a tax you might go with a different sort of training platform it might become a lot more split because we’ve seen tra other training platforms start

To Bubble Up nothing’s competed with swift yet but it might destabilize zwift a little bit you can’t change from zift though once you’ve got level 30 true you’re going to throw that all away start from scratch no I did have a go on the tax

App the other day and it was a lot better than I was expecting it to be I just kind of assumed that all software that wasn’t zift was just going to be absolutely junk I think it might even use like Google Maps so I think you can

Kind of ride a Google map route I’ve probably got that wrong but there was definitely a thing I was looking at and you were riding along the prominade in I think Barcelona and there’s just like people with faces blurred out oh maybe they they have to blow the faces or

Maybe it’s not Google Maps maybe they actually just record it but the faster you ride the faster the video goes so if you’re really if you’re super slow then everyone’s walking in slow motion next to you kind of yeah yeah I’ve done a a climb yeah so I did a bit more digging

Into zift and the position that they’re in so what I found out is uh this the source of this information is mostly from zwift Insider which is independently owned and operated from zwift March 2020 they laid off a load of execs May 22 they laid off

150 staff which was 20% of the workforce and that was because they were pausing development on their Hardware then March last year they laid off 80 staff um mostly in the marketing and creative department and had a big executive reshuffle brought in some execs from Amazon then they have very in the last

Few days also announced that they’re laying off another batch of people DC rain maker claims that virus Source there’s going to be over a hundred redundancies coming in the next couple of weeks I just realized I did see a celebrity in La God sake Eric Min did you yeah you

Should have asked him about this then we were on a ride I was with Lucy she’s waving and I was like oh I just wave didn’t know who it was and she goes that was Eric Min I’ve never met him before we follow each other though well well at

Least this Interruption was relevant yeah the same sort of level as Anie in uh celeb status only in the cycling World m Eric Min is the CEO of zwift yeah just for context I I just had to Google that I didn’t know who you were talking about so zwift have raised $620

Million us doar of investment over the years their last round was in 2020 which presumably was to push the hardware stuff uh they have not been profitable they have a valuation of1 billion US um there’s a few random sources on the internet which suggest that their revenue is around 100 million but that

Could just be completely made up so I think there’s one of two things happening at the minute at zwift either they’re setting up for an IPO so essentially floating the company on the stock market to try and recover some money for their investors presumably they’ve got a load of VC investors which

Are going like well we’ve given you 620 million when do we get our 4 billion back um I actually think this is unlikely I think actually what is happening is they are running out of money or they’re running out of Runway as it’s referred to which is essentially

Their investment capital and they are leaning up the business to either bring in some more investment or to ultimately push their run route further it’s very typical in tech for them to get a a a bucket ton of investment and it’s you basically burn it until you and hope

That you can turn the business profitable and then float um which they are yet to do so I think it’s actually quite an interesting period for zift because we are either going to find that they are going to do everything they can to massively expand so that they start

Turning a profit or we might find that they start to struggle it’ be interesting see what happens speaking of trainers did you see that uh pelaton is struggling good yeah and it’s I saw a thing on cycling week it said uncertain future for pelaton as share price

Plummets and the quote they picked out from pelon’s CEO is if we’re not failing we’re not being aggressive enough and that is that is some spin isn’t it that is a way of burning a negative in a positive so zift probably won’t want to

Ex to to talk about it or talk about the comparison externally because how bad pelon’s share price has plummeted over the last I think 18 months but essentially they are in the same space zift and pelaton are the same structure they’re trying to be the same thing it’s

Probably why zift got a load of money for Hardware was the industry was going like right so you’ve got really good software that you’re nailing why wouldn’t you also sell a bike product to go along with it Pelon are a great example of it I think pelon’s valuation

Is still in the billions yeah it’s still more than zwift’s valuation because I think they do have a decent Revenue because they’re selling a lot of products and they’re capturing a lot of subscriptions granted it’s fallen off but uh they are ultimately the the model that zwift are hoping to emulate minus

The 95 or 97% of share price drop off I’ve got a question yeah y if a pelaton if pelaton went bust yeah or if they decided they just didn’t want to carry on M would everyone’s Pelon B stop working no they would have a very expensive basic spinning bike that they

Could still use you still ride on it but it just doesn’t give you any but it isn’t it isn’t smart no it’s exactly that’s what I mean a you’re relying on the software to oh it’s a hand it’s what it’s a twisting thing like a spin bike

As far as I’m aware a pelaton bike is a bog standard spinning bike with a hand controlled resistance and a screen on it but what you’re really paying for is the access to live training sessions which you can just quite often they have them at gyms especially in London every gym

That I used in London had these kind of spinning classes where you’ve got uh an instructor high energy instructor which is basically going turn it up to eight get out of the saddle you know like I’ve I’ve done some of those sessions they mess you up they’re hard they’re not

Comparable to riding a bike Kim do you do you know Kim nonstop I know she is yeah so she uh used to race Red Hook and stuff back in the day um and she got a job I think it’s for apple and she does so you subscribe to some sort I think it

Maybe Apple TV it comes with Apple TV and she is the person that every week a couple of times a week you get a new video of her hosting a spin class and it’s like up to date so she has a full-time job doing those those spins

And other stuff and then you when you every time you log in because you got a subscription it’s a new workout relevant you know it’s you’re seeing the same person it’s kind of cool yeah I subscribe to that do you I did I stopped

So you could go on you go on one of the taxes yeah and watch Kim nonstop yeah I was doing they do like Pilates and yoga and what’s the service is it Apple TV sports Apple Health Plus I think it’s called something like that I wonder how

Many she does I went for a ride with her after not seeing her for a long time she lives in Los Angeles and she was like oh I’m not riding very much at the moment so I was okay we can nice and chill she’s not riding outside very much at

The she’s so strong cuz it’s just hours hours of like riding flat out yeah shouting at people yeah so in other news oh I think I’ve gone too far I have when are we launching Cade media plus where we charge people an introductory offer of6 for live streams of uh Jimmy’s face

Where you wear some sort of GoPro that constantly points at you and it’s 24-hour live stream 24hour yeah what’s the purpose I don’t know people pay money and they can watch everything Jimmy does but only his face oh so next up charging your electronic shifters

Might be about to get a whole lot easier we’ve just found out SRAM has had a painted people go nuts at me for the way I say pent yeah patent patent patent patent patent I’m going to stick with it patent we found out s have had a painton

Granted for a solar panel that could connect to your frame water bottle or mud guard and charge your batteries the system wouldn’t charge the ponent component directly instead it’s designed to charge a spare battery for a deria or drer post so when you run out of juice you swap the batteries over

Good so I had a some thoughts about this and I I searched this morning how long does a Shram battery last and they claim that it last for 60 hours of riding so in What scenario would you need a spare battery on a ride and pretty much the only thing I can think

Of is off-grid bike packing uh no because 60 hours sounds great but what if you have multiple bikes and you leave them and the battery goes down the battery drains without you using it so I’m constantly having to remember I like set alarms if I remember the day I need

To make sure I put this battery on charge have a fresh battery if for going out right I’ve run out of battery loads with Sham whereas di2 never cuz it lasts million times longer but surely you’d be better off getting one of those four block battery chargers and either just

When you finish a ride or every now and again you just bang him in there or having a cup of extra batteries just living there there’s surely not a scenario where you’re out and you go oh there’s my 60 hours up because even on a bike packing trip you

Just charge every couple of days there are some people in this world that will no matter what solutions they put in place to stop it from happening will forget to charge their batteries and then they’ll end up out on a ride and it will me yeah Lawrence Lawrence has done a premier

Calendar with a battery pack in his pocket connected to his di2 but that’s it’s like it just happens it’s still going to happen some people just can’t are not organized in that way that our brains that don’t work in that way sorry so I was actually thinking the

Only I I was thinking that maybe this is more more than it appears to be and I was thinking that maybe it is going to be more of a battery pack so essentially you solar charge a battery which you can Chuck into a dropper or a Mech but maybe there’s

Going to be the option of plugging something into it so that you could charge your light whilst you’re bike packing or your head unit so maybe it is actually going to be more because it feels to me like if the only thing it does is allow me to switch out a battery

Into one of my mechs or a Dro a post then it’s nearly redundant it’s so Niche it’s like so unbelievably Niche you would get one because you’d be like well I wasn’t get and then you’d probably forget to put the mug guard on the you’d

Have to get one for every bike I’m not put mug guard on my bike either so it’ have to be a b extra stuff no extra stuff yeah I don’t know if you’re bike packing like you were saying and you’re serious about it people run dynamos

Which are really good I know this is not overrated underrated but I think they’re underrated m i they don’t really give you much more drag especially in a situation where you’re bike packing you’re not racing you know and and still the ultra race is use dynamos yeah and

You got your lights plugged in you got your um you can charge things whatever you want you can just plug it in with a normal cable like iPhone Dynamo thing you you probably I’m hoping you you listen to the wild one’s podcast whilst you’re away and we’re

Just going to we’re not I don’t want to know the answer we’re just going to assume that you did you’ll probably remember the Nick and I had a conversation about our like perfect winter bike and I want I want to build a winter bike that has dynamos and it’s

Just permanently set up with front bike front light rear light head unit just all just like wired in and just runs off a Dynamo I think that’d be sick I do I do like dyn yeah I love that bit of the podcast I hope I hope that they are

Going to make it something that charges a battery and then that battery can also act as a battery pack but I don’t think it would have enough char but we’ll just negate that’s the other problem it would take so long to get even one sham batter’s worth of charge is hours and

Hours and hours and hours and hours 60 hours 60 hours is that what you said earlier well that’s how lot much one lasts so so as long yeah so in other news women’s procycling is having what some people are calling its lemond moment so what does that actually mean basically it’s

Been reported that Pro Rider Demi wering who is one of the best riders in the world right now has just been offered a reported one million euros per year to join UAE team adq last year she won the to France fam Strada Bianca Le Baston Le to Randy the Dutch national road race

Champs and more that was a that was a smashed it a massive tongue twister for me though this new offer from UAE team adq is being called a lemond moment for women’s cycling because Greg lemond was famous L the first pro cyclist to get paid a million dollars by his team back

In the 80s it is quite wild that that was the 80s where a million pound a million dollars was what does it say Euros a million whatevers was significantly more than a million now yeah that was a lot of money so it’s a pivotal moment for

The sport and is a promising sign for the future one of her teammates was questions about it during a press conference last week she acknowledged that Demi was absolutely worth it but also made the point that the distribution of the money within the pelaton is just as important if not more

Important than the growth of the top Riders salaries it is great that finally that side the women’s side of cycling is growing and uh gives a much better platform and career for people to get into what a cool thing to look up to yeah I know young girls 100% And it’s

Like oh that’s a legit like I could be not only can you have a career but you can make it you’re so right I feel like when I was I was as a young kid I was so so into sport I was obsessed with sundland football team I used to live

And breathe in my full sundland kit but they really wasn’t I feel like there wasn’t women’s sports not on TV so women’s football is right now is like buzzing right it’s huge yeah and like they’re selling out games and you know women’s uh World Cup and that kind of

Thing which I I watch now but I don’t think I don’t think that was ever that wasn’t ever televised that wasn’t really a women and girls growing up now as you say just have such a different perspective and it’s exciting isn’t it and that that trickles through that has

An effect in you know decades time it’s literally how it grows isn’t it because they they will those people will be 20 and they’ll be really into Sport and that’s great but it’s also creates more of a realistic proposition cuz historically like like you know if if

You wanted to be a professional women’s cyclist you had to go well I know I’m going to make basically nothing to be able to do it it’s a gamble isn’t it well what it’s it’s more than a gamble like even if you’re at the top end you’re probably there because you found

A way to be able to make it work financially whereas it having money in the sport uh and prize money and salaries that are actually worthy of of the amount of effort that goes into it then it gives you a chance of actually going well you know I’m not

Realistically going to be the best in the world but if I’m one of the top 50 top 100 female cyclists of all time or of the year then I’m going to make enough money that actually makes it worth all of the effort it’s definitely picking up pace now it’s not a linear

Growth at all is it it’s just getting faster and faster it’s picking up momentum what other graph types do you know um stick with that one then not not linear now onto our big question I feel like we’ve covered loads before we’ve got here this is going to be a Hench boy

I feel like we’ve only done five minutes what the hell is the enhanced games and is it a good idea oh jeez there’s a controversial new sporting event launching it’s called the enhanced games the the name really suggests I I I I feel I know where this is going this is

What everyone in school was like why doesn’t this exist in school what school did you go to the enhanced School sorry it’s basically a doping friendly Sports competition that’s just had a bunch of money chucked behind it by some Venture capitalists Aussie Olympic swimmer James Magnuson says he would come on board as

Their first athlete he even recently claimed this is ridiculous I’ll jued to the gills in an in an attempt to break a world record and earn $1 million that is that is quite clever though saying to the gills because it’s kind of implying that by doing the juice he might develop

Gills like X-Men or like uh Kevin Cosner in Water World this is a film before both of your time I bet all he has to do is inject himself with fish DNA I’ve watched water world have you awful film Now isn’t it what it’s absolutely incredible it’s like Mad Max but War oh

You are you’re in you’re going to upset a lot of people three times Olympic gold medal swimmer leel Jones has also come out saying she’s not against the con concept suggesting it might actually keep clean sport clean it won’t it won’t surely if you want to cheat the whole

Point is to get an advantage there’s also been some backlash over safety concerns UK anti-doping said a competition like this would be unsafe and dangerous to athletes’ health meanwhile the website for the enhanced games makes the extraordinary claim that the sports can actually be safer without

Drug testing the blur blur at the top of the site reads when 44% of athletes already use performance enhancements it’s time to safely celebrate science I I I do like the concept drink 44% is massively under yeah I do I like the idea of celebrating science because science is unbelievable

And the stuff that it can it can achieve is incredible but I just don’t see how it is ever going to be possible to do it in a safe way and that that’s the bit that is like unbelievably concerning so organizers say that the competation competition even will be the safest

International sporting event in history with competitors undergoing Medical medical screening before competition so I guess they’re working on the basis that the medical screening will be the test to see if someone’s healthy or not I’m guessing they’re not going to allow unhealthy people to compete I don’t know how they’re planning

To work that into it um the event would not be subject to World anti-doping agency rules and any times will not be official so some so I guess an event that we have seen over the last couple of years that have not been official World Records have been the marathon

World record attempts where he’s drafting with the special shoes he drafted some people didn’t he he was paced the whole way well yeah but I think pacing and drafting is technically allowed in racing because you can obviously sit in a bunch you’re competitor but the people he was

Drafting they would like switch out and stuff so they could run the same Pace whereas in a race race it’s just the competitors you’re allowed to draft otherwise you get the L situation where you get people cheating and coming in who aren’t actually in the event yeah

Whereas his one was people coming in specifically to run the pace he had to run yeah I guess that’s an example of a space that they set the fastest time ever but it’s not an official world record so so perhaps things like that are kind of what have inspired this like

What other options what other things can be achieved um as I said earlier I I just don’t see how it can be safe I I just feel like it’s going to push people too far and very quickly there’s going to be people dying or being seriously seriously ill SL injured and then it’s

Going to have to shut down surely the name and The Branding when 44% of athletes already use performance enhancement blah blah blah is pretty wild it’s like they are just I think the reason it’ll have got good VC backing is people are going to watch it exactly

I’m going to tune in even if I’m not I’m undecided on whether it’s eth ethical you can’t look away yeah yeah I definitely couldn’t look away something I think I’m seeing more and more of recently and I’m sure it’s always been there is this idea that um money is

Being put towards sporting events and trying to make the sporting events more exciting or have an angle so I think but I think one from maybe what is it 20 years ago or whatever there was um can’t remember what it’s it’s like the 50/50 Cricket they basically

Made a version of cricket that was much faster and the idea is that it would be more exciting and then tried to uh develop the game in a way that kind have made it more interesting for spectating I guess it’s normal Formula 1 has changed loads of times and they’ve made

Changes again to try and make it a more exciting sport rugby has changed loads over the last few years because they’re trying to make the game faster so that it’s more entertaining and just keep the game flowing so that younger people are going to not switch out uh which I guess

Is the opposite of a lot or a handful of American Sports well I guess most notably American football because it is famously slow you know it takes 3 4 hours for a game to go through because there’s so many starts and stops whereas a lot of sport is trying to kind of make

Things more exciting faster people tried to do it in cycling or they tried to try something new in cycling with hammer Series right remember that sounds familiar it’s like it was all a team based thing where the team time trials everyone was on the road at the same

Time and they were like overtaking each other but they weren’t allowed to draft each other I’m sure and it was very strange but I never watched it people who tell me about it said it was really good and they were sad that it disappeared well I I get uh topend competitive

Triathlon is kind of well sort of more in that space what is really exciting about the triathlon stuff at that like Elite Olympic level uh Olympic distance not Olympic as in the Olympics is that drafting is legal so you had drafting in the swimming drafting on the bikes

Drafting in the run and it was just such a Wicked entertaining sport it is really really good the drug side of it’s dodgy though isn’t it a lot of these medicines that they’re going to be taking I was reading a thing about on the BBC and it

Was kind of saying even if they have had clinical trials for their actual medical use they haven’t had clinical trials for what they are going to be used for and actually a lot of them haven’t had any clinical trials and surely there’s going to be a lot of money involved with the

People who are administering this dping so I don’t know I feel like when money leads medicine that’s never a good thing either I think the biggest problem they’re going to have is actually getting people to sign up potentially exports people who aren’t in the Limelight but if you’re a practicing Pro

Sports person are you going to go yeah I’ll dop well no they because then the SP the spotlight is kind of on you you need either everyone to go at once so they have enough people to put this game on or you open your up yourself up to

Potentially having the finger pointed at you or why are you so Keen to do I it’s it’s I think it’s almost never going to be existing you think it just be randor people who yeah because bear in mind once you do it you can’t go back well I guess You’ have

To repass tests but but ultimately like I think it’s it’s going to be people I would imagine that are at the late the latter end of their career and there’s the opportunity to make a big pot of cash because it s if there’s if there’s millions millions of dollars worth of of

Prize money then you know you might have spent your whole career on 200 Grand a year and you go well if I dope the hell out myself for the next two years I might get myself 2 million quid in two years this is it you can you can imagine

There’ll be a lot of money behind it cuz it’s it reminds me sort of of the Jake Paul fighting competitions they sell that pay-per-view and they make millions and millions per thing because it’s almost like you can’t look away a spectacle isn’t it yeah it’s a spectacle

And I imagine that I mean no linear traditional TV channel is going to take this on you won’t see it on the BBC but it might be a pay-per-view thing on the internet that it will definitely be that will make a substantial amount of money

It reminds me a little bit of is of Man TT yeah the same sort of person who would do it as in you’ve been a is it Moto GP I see they start off with like the F1 version of motorbikes is it F1 is it Moto GP is that what it’s called Uh

Yeah I think so and then the Riders who are getting close to the end of their career often start racing Isle of Man TT which is a race around the Isle of Man incredibly dangerous on uh on normal roads but ridiculous speeds and they have to get the turns

Down to absolute perfect but I think every year people die because it’s so dangerous Chris Hall’s dad has raced that he’s raced that so Francis you have long joked with me about getting a course of epo now is your chance uh for clarification I didn’t actually do that

No but you’ve joked about wanting to do it no I haven’t yes you have loads of times no I’ve joked about Lawrence being put on EPO lots of times you’ve said wouldn’t it be a great video series if I do a course of EPO and we’ll see what

Happens well you’ve been an elite guy from uh what’s it called Icarus yeah we’ll get you some EPO we’ll get you some test boosters we’ll get you on the enhanced games and you’ll win perfect million million bucks and you have to give it all to charity sweet otherwise you’re a monster

I’m game um I was Ching to Lawrence about it and you about the the conversation came up which is what you’re talking about Icarus there’s a documentary on Netflix where a guy dopes for the grand Fondo national champs I think it is or gr Fondo World

Champs it’s not the official name but he starts off as an okay amateur bike racer and tries to dope to get to a certain wats pilo so he can win this thing and then it ends up being uh the story twists and uh am I spoiling the

Documentary for people it’s been out a long time he ends up getting the help from a Russian uh doctor and then he unveils this huge Russian doping Scandal and the documentary changes completely and they just focus on that but you never saw really what was going to

Happen with the guy who was doping and documenting it and I still think that’s an interesting thing to experiment not on me please let’s do it to Lawrence for clarity this is a joke I wouldn’t do it because you probably die like the people in these games might

It’s too unknown isn’t it I remember listening into a Lance Armstrong documentary where he when he finally came out and revealed that he was dpin and I’m sure he was asked cuz he was taking hormones testosterone and growth hormone growth hormone and he was talking about the possible links between

That and his cancer obviously that’s not it’s not definitive but hormones have a huge effect on your body as well so it’s just you don’t know you have no idea what the actual effect of these things are going to be talk to any shortterm or longterm you used to work as a lifeguard

In gym and a load of the guys there would like be on steroids and stuff and all of them now look back and go like I wish I’d never done that yeah like they have lasting effects and it’s just it’s just messed them up and this is it

There’s a lot of ways to get money and I’m sure it’s hard if you know you sport is your passion and you really want to make it your career and someone’s dangling a load of money at you to do something you go oh f it I’ll do it but

There’s a lot of dangerous ways to make money which you might regret Fitness influences as well because they have to basically their job is to look fit yeah and as we know looking like an athlete for an extended period of time is not realistic like athletes even uh cyclists

It’s gravity sport you got to be lean yeah in the offseason no one stays that leanness cuz it’s just not sustainable whereas whoever does fit Fitness at you know on Instagram has to look ripped all the time well I guess they edit the photos with Photoshop as well but it’s a

Weird but pressure fantastically unhealthy oh yeah yeah yeah really bad time for a round of overrated or underrated I’m going to read out a list of things and you’re going to tell me if you think they are overrated or underrated first up is cycling specific

Glasses so this is this is so many s’s this is a suggestion by JJ who says as someone who wears prescription glasses do I need specific glasses does it keep my eyes from watering yes yeah yes it does I have ridden with non cycling specific glasses loads of times and I

Always end up with water streaming down my face or tears running down my face and it’s not because I’m suffering on the bike uh the main reason I actually moved to cycling specific glasses and it’s arguably for the same reason but it’s not is about eight years ago I started completely randomly getting

Really bad hay fever that I never used to have I thought you were going to say that and I remember George Galbraith our friend was like oh yeah I get really bad hay fever I always wear wraparound sunglasses because they stop pollen getting into my eyes and I was like oh I

Guess I should buy some and I bought a set and I still have them now and I use them specifically for that reason so generally in like winter or bad weather in Winter I ultimately don’t wear glasses that often but if you are going to will they stop your eyes from

Watering yes if they’re big wraparound ones you can get very cheap ones that don’t look horrendous these days as well which wasn’t always the case and with prescription glasses the glass were you doing me a secret signal then eating your microphone or were you was that just I was just hry eating it

Yeah Oh you mean as in like actual proper spectacles glass okay not everyone rides a bike the same way but if I’m out on a road ride I don’t want glass on my face because if I did crash slim chance but they would shatter in it yeah plastic is the the purpose made

Cycling glasses don’t shatter I would say as a glasses wearer prescription I I actually talked about prescription different types of prescription glasses in an old episode if you go to Cade media extra and scroll down we put Clips out and you’ll be able to find one there um but prescription

Glasses are quite expensive most people I know and myself wear contact lenses with normal glasses Over the Top If you’re comfortable cycling specific glasses over the top exactly if you’re comfortable wearing contacts perhaps do that and borrow someone’s cycling glasses and see what it feels like uh

That definitely going to give you it’s going to make your eyes water we less uh but I have done rides with my normal glasses on and it is fine it is fine I I would say I choose to wear cycling specific glasses more as a fashion thing rather than a comfort

Thing can I say on that note I choose to not wear cycling specific glasses as a fashion thing you want to wear way farers I just yeah I typically I I often wear just normal Su glasses I probably shouldn’t yeah I just want to blend in

You like to Peacock don’t you you could you can get plastic plasticky normal looking sunglasses and then it’s Best of Both Worlds yeah but the the wind does go in yeah it does yeah you’ll get you’ll get eye Waters next up P bags this one was sent in by H who says apart

From the very good but really expensive tail f products I feel that trunk trunk bags are often ridiculed in the community for most only a saddle bag counts affectionately referred to as an ash rocket ashet aset which is ass rocket in German however these are usually cumbersome to pack they wobble

On the saddle and when fully loaded they’re not so easily detachable all fair points trunk bags on the other hand don’t wobble easy to pack can be easily detect attach and still remain in the slipstream of the body what do we think is the reason for their low popularity is it the luggage

Rack additional cost the massive marketing of saddle bags aesthetic reasons or there’s simply a disadvantage to trunk bags that I’m not aware of thank you for the wonderful podcast I always look forward to new episodes best regards from leap Zig the road cycling world is obsessed with weight traditional paner racks and

Paniers are typically very heavy and are often found on heavy Touring bike setups I have used a tail fin many times and what I know about paa bags is they are better than traditional bike mounted luggage so I would always pick a pier over a saddle bag if I was doing a long

Trip if I could afford it I would go for the lightest one I could get a hold of cuz in the Grands if I if if it’s going to save me 3 kilos I’m going to be thankful of that when I’m riding up the climbs on my

Trip if it’s going to save me 500 grams I’m not going to notice it saddle bags are trendy and fashionable and bucket loads of marketing was thrown into them at various points because they allowed for lightweight packing of I I’m like at least in Ultra Mar space I don’t know if

It’s the same with like TCR and things like that is that compulsory kit you have to carry like a safety jacket and things like that uh some of them uh particularly in France you have to have a high viz something even if it’s just like the straps that you wear on top of

A jacket like they hand them out at the start of the races so that’s it I think one of the reasons they grew in popularity is you had the the people that were getting attention from the old ultra distance cycling events were the people that were doing it as fast as

They possi Poss could which meant they were carrying as little as they possibly could so they wanted a tiny bag that meant that they could stuff a down jacket in and a sleeping mat so that they could just throw themselves on the side of the road they didn’t want an

Extra 5 kilos of luggage they wanted to be light and efficient but they wanted to carry more than what would fit in a jersey pocket so I think you had these like people which were coming through 10 years ago which were doing like really cool interesting stuff that wanted

Really small luggage I think a typical person on a bike packing trip it doesn’t really make a difference and you just just use what you can afford and you like the look of I think p is a great for these fast people who they’re riding normal normal bikes they’re riding bikes

Without pxs on without the mounts on yeah so you have to use either a seat pack one of these things that’s a pain in the ass to pack and swings around or later the tail fin which is what came up and that’s a solution which is the kind

Of the best but is really expensive again well ultimately because they’re they’re prioritizing performance there therefore they want a fast bike which typically isn’t one which is loaded with with uh rackmount yeah typically a a bike with mounts will be a steel frame a bit heavy there’ll be additions of TCR

Where people are riding like fullon like a road B carbon frames yeah yeah I would say even outside of that though if you’re coming to cycling from a road cycling background you probably got a bike that doesn’t fit pxs if You’ come to it specifically from a Touring bike

You might have that but so if you’ve only got one road bike and your mate goes oh I want to start bike packing or whatever then you’re not going to go out and buy a touring bike so you you you do with what you’ve got yeah yeah it’s true

All yeah that’s why I end up ended up using the tailin yeah I still to this day don’t have a bike with proper P mounts on yeah and you you because of the stuff that you do you needed space to be able to fit a large laptop yeah so

You had to have the paa ones a paa yeah yeah and that was the the only option available so what’ll be saying overrated or underrated underrated underrated as well I agree with you next we have two suggestions from Sam the first one is loud freehubs underrated

Overrated I hate loud freehubs I use it instead of a bell but it’s less aggressive to the okay so if you use a Bell if you’re riding down a path here so passive aggressive it’s unbeliev and you ring a bell the people either go they hate you for having a

Bell and they hate you for not having a bell so you can’t win whereas if you have a free Hub that’s clicky everyone knows you’re coming and they move out the way and they cuz they can hear you that’s it I think there’s a third option

Which is what I use which I go hello passing on the left or hello passing on the right and then they go why haven’t you got a bell they go oh why hav you got a bell never I’ve had that hundreds of times it’s because you’re it’s because you’re clearly Buzz pting them

And then saying it as I’m shouting early so they can hear me and then they’re wondering and they go oh and they’re shocked and they wonder why they’re being shouted at and they’re like saying it you try and get a bell you can’t shout it from 50 meters away

And then Buzz past them and then and then be like oh I told you buzzing happening unbel I’m just telling you my experience I’ve done a lot of riding on the off-road paths around here and that is the clicky freehub solves the problem underrated electric cars no nothing

To uh I don’t drive I want to say they are massively underrated they are so we have an electric car and a not electric car and the electric car is unbelievably amazing to drive I know a lot of there’s there there’s a lot of this kind of like anti-electric car movement but everyone

People are going to have cars so surely an electric car is a better option than a not electric car in the grand scheme of things I I don’t I don’t know enough about the science but as a a vehicle to drive they’re great it would be I hope technology

Keeps getting better so drivers know on their screen like so I was in um in La everything is an Tesla so you get an Uber and nine times out of 10 it’s a Tesla and you can see on their iPad in the middle of their car it beeps and

Tells you there’s a cyclist on the screen and people and all sorts so I assume more sensors is better as long as it’s not a distraction it’s not an electric the giant iPad with Spotify on it in the middle of the car is a distraction though so there needs to be

Some sort of rules put in place there there’s also fully driverless cars driving around La is there yeah so you’re riding along and then there’s a driverless there was two near each other and they had a drag race they drive really slowly around like they’re obviously not letting them go on

Any fast roads but that’s weird there was a video which hit the newssocial literally a couple of days ago actually about this it was I think it was in San Francisco and there was uh is it Chinese new year was it recently Chinese New Year Year of the Dragon so I think it

Was a celebration for that and there was a driverless car which was a taxi was trying to go down one of the procession procession roads and uh a group of people were really angry by it not just I think they were just like skater kids

And they smashed the car up and then set it on fire and I was just like what the hell they’ve literally just set a taxi on fire and then it said this was a driverless vehicle with no one in I was like what so I think it was anti-d

Driverless Vehicles was was was the sentiment that does seem scary I know when we’ve talked about electric cars before we’ had a couple of comments we must have said that they were more sustainable or whatever and people were saying in the comments they’re not more sustainable because you plug them in it

Goes off your electricity which is still burnt off fossil fuels but I guess number one you can get green you can go with green companies can’t you that use renewable energy yeah a lot of companies now have either 100% renewable tariffs uh some companies have only yeah in the

UK there’s there’s a handful which are 100% renewable there’s some which have renewable tariffs and there’s obviously some which still are just not but I think if you look into it a lot of them at least at the minute or more recently even the ones that are not renewable

Ones have a large proportion of renewable energy as part of them yeah um in this country yeah you can also if you’re that way inclined have your own solar panels and charge it off that there are sustainable options for powering your vehicle whereas I guess the difference is with petrol or diesel

There is no sustainable way to power a lot there’s a lot of people questioning the battery side of stuff as well right producing a battery the life of a battery battery in normal car not comparable in terms of um the resources required to produce it mining lithium

Isn’t it there’s I’m not even some of them aren’t I think there’s another thing as well which they are it’s not just lithium But ult ultimately Battery Technology is something that people are concerned about with sustainability because I think think you also get to a point where it’s effectively landfill

But then car all cars are ultimately end up as ultim I feel like we’re not qualified to talk on are we absolutely not let’s do the next one oh wait that’s the end thank goodness keep sending your suggestions to Wild ons podcast at Cad media. co.uk and we might read yours out

In the next show next up we have fluff up of the week fluff up of the week whoops have you read this yet Francis so this is your fault no it’s not well one this is your fault and we’re going to settle the we’re going to settle things

Once for all so I watched so whilst you’re away you dropped the first edition of the van rle video where you we got a van rle from D cathon it is a sponsored video um and the first video you out in La your first ride first

Thought some specs on the bike um and for some reason you you told the world that you are significantly taller than you actually are and people called you out for it you measured me yeah I measured you at 5′ 7 so why did you say 5′ 10 let’s let’s

Measure me now let’s do [Applause] it right what was what was that you must have got a dodgy tape measure from somewhere so that that suggested that you are 5′ 9 and a half okay so you measured me in the studio 5′ seven at 5 10 uh when we were together because I

Questioned it when we so I was at a party in LA and people were like let for some reason we started it was like 2 a.m. so you’re just doing weird stuff and we measured we measured each other each other’s height and I was 5’9

And I was like how was Jimmy an inch wrong like that is ridiculous he wouldn’t have I know he’s he’s I know you’re so small that it was quite hard for you see the reading but an inch is a big a big difference and I googled

Because I had this have this thing in my brain of James I filmed so many bike fit Tuesdays episodes with a bike fitter called James Thomas and he has this thing where he’s like saddle height what’s the point there’s no point in being millimeter perfect with your saddle height because you’re taller in

The morning when you wake up than when you go to bed at night I Googled that and it’s true up to a centimeter different by lunchtime and up to 3 cm by the end of the day depending on who you are it’s just different for everyone so

I’m 510 when I wake up I’m 5’9 at 2 a.m. so because your your spine like there’s just things that compress and you end up shorter what time of day was it when I measured you at 5′ 7 then early it was the first thing in the morning here oh no you miss

[Laughter] 5 I’d been awake 50 hours so I guess the I guess the context of this conversation is that you said 5′ 10 what was I then what just then yeah just then 5 59 and a half 59 and a halfway through the day and it’s 1:00 yeah there you go and so

And also an inch is 2 and a half centimet so that it does it’s in line with what Google says so you said you were 5 fo 10 and you got the extra small bike and people are like how can you be 5 fo 10 and get an extra small bike and

I think so firstly you exaggerated your height as we’ve now established secondly I think have we by half a centimeter no half an inch I think the other bit which is missing from that as a piece of information which you actually probably should have

Said in the video is you and I like to ride aggressive bikes so although you are 5′ 10 and riding an extra small no I physically couldn’t ride the small it’s too long it’s a centimeter too long for me and a centimeter of reach is a long lot

Of reach not if you ride it at 2 a.m. cuz you’re shorter then no no no in the morning that be even worse in the morning it’s fine in the morning I’ll be fine I can ride it for about an hour and a half before I’m too

Short this is my morning bike this is my evening bike as I have learned through filming a video with James which is unreleased about endurance bikes and the geometry of those endurance bikes from all the big Brands a lot of Brands don’t make a bike which is suitable for people

If you’re less than if you’re 5′ eight or less yes you have very limited Choice even in endurance bikes let alone race bikes and the van rle is a race bike made for athletes the RCR is yeah the RCR Pro they make an endurance version they make an endurance road bike now

Which we haven’t seen ien actually like I haven’t even seen the PDF they sent us some sneaky PDFs of future things well no no I think I think it’s an existing bike is it yeah so I think the RCR is an update on an old van rle bike I don’t

Think it’s a brand new bike I think it’s just a new version of it’s similar so there’s going to be a video with James where we cover this and actually the the lower end trian that we looked at the geometry chart for was really good it’s one of the endurance bikes which is

Short enough for people and I hope the higher end one that you’re talking about there has the same geometry no idea but at the end of the day it’s you know the race bikes a race bike now for some more listeners takeover hi all I just wanted

To say a massive thank you for raising the issue of Men’s Health especially mental health everything you said rang very true with my own recent issues and more needs to be done in the media to keep people aware of what’s out there back in September last year I was on a

Sunlounger by a pool in Tunisia when all of a sudden I started to cry I thought nothing of it until I was back in the UK and driving home from my first day back at work suddenly I thought how much of a car crash do I need to have to not go to

Work I was completely shocked by this and realized something was wrong I spoke to my partner friends and boss and then contacted my GP the NHS were very quick to get me an assessment and the support I needed having since been diagnosed with depression and anxiety I feel I

Have been very fortunate to have such good support not everyone is as lucky as me and your podcast is doing a great job at spreading the word thank you Andy thanks Andy I feel like what he’s saying thank you to is you guys while I was

Away well no we because you had some really good chats with Nick and uh yeah but we as well we talk about mental health and health in general a lot it’s very consistent through lots of conversations that we’ve had since day one in the podcast there’s loads of conversations little convers bits that

We’ve added and I think it is really important I’ve had um similar exper well I’ve had comparable experiences to Andy and um when your brain does weird things it’s it’s it’s terrifying because you start to feel like you’re losing control and that is a horrible horrible horrible feeling to

Have and it’s really nice to hear a success story with the NHS as well because I have heard not success stories so it’s nice to hear that they are helping people yeah good on you for doing something about it and glad you’re feeling better yeah thank you Andy thank

You all for listening keep sending your emails to wildes podcast CAD media. co.uk we love to read them that’s all for this week if you’re listening leave us a five-star review if you’re watching leave us a like and comment and remember to subscribe so you don’t miss the next

Episode thank you and see you next week