About Bikes

I've been making videos about bikes for a long time now and riding them even longer. And along the way I've learned some weird stuff about bicycles. Which you might care about. Or might not. Here they are. N Almost all off the peg bikes have the same bottom bracket drop, no matter which size you go for. Bottom bracket drop is the measurement from the center of your bottom bracket up to the axles of your wheels. Sometimes it's called bottom bracket offset on geometry charts. It's quite significant because it affects your center of gravity, which has a huge impact on how stable your bike feels and your ability to reach the ground when you stop. The weird thing is it's almost identical across all the sizes in most off the peg bike brand's ranges. So as an example an extra small Scott Addict RC has a bottom bracket drop of 74 millimeters and extra large 72 millimeters. Two millimeters different. A 43 centimeter dogma F has a 67 millimeter BB drop and the 59 centimeter has also 67 millimeters. Now Imagine this is down to some kind of archaic ISO, which means bike brands legally cannot make their bottom brackets any lower because of pedal strike. It's potentially going to stop people from grounding their pedals when they lean over in corners. But frankly there's a better variety of crank lengths on offer now than ever before. So I think smaller riders are missing out on better handling bikes here. If you're riding shorter 160 millimeter or 150 millimeter cranks even, you're going to be able to get away with a lower BB and it's probably going to handle better too. Our friend James the bike fitter has designed custom frames with much lower BBs and the results have been fantastic for smaller riders. Is it time to do away with this old school measurement? Perhaps. Off-road shoes have to be stiffer than road shoes for the same effect. Bike race is almost always opt for super stiff, hard cycling shoes. But is this for performance or for comfort? A recent study from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University Colorado found that the effect of stiffness on power output is very small within reasonable limits. I've ridden shoes of many stiffnesses. The more flexible shoes that I've tried have been problematic because you can really feel the small contact patch of the pedal poking through, especially when you're out of the saddle. A stiff sole spreads out this force and makes it a lot more comfortable to pedal. If you're riding clipless, mountain bike or off-road two-bolt cleats have an even smaller contact patch. So it's even more important that these shoes are stiff compared to road shoes, which have a three-bolt system and a larger contact patch. Having said all of this, there's a guy that rides the 24-hour national TT champs every single year in flat pedals and normal shoes and he does really well. So perhaps we're getting it all wrong. Drop handlebars have drastically different reaches. The reach of your drop bar bicycle is essentially how far away your handlebars are from you when you're sat in the saddle. The reach of your bike is a very important factor that determines whether your bike is going to fit you or not. It's more common for people to be able tolerate a fair amount of handlebar drop how low down your handlebars are than an excessive amount of reach. And that's why it's handy to know how to reduce your reach if you need to. The obvious way is getting a shorter stem, but there's only so short you can go. A less obvious way is changing your handlebars with the forgotten measurement handlebar reach. It's the horizontal distance from the center of the handlebar to the center of the furthest point of the bend of the drop. You could be riding a specialized 65mm short reach bar or you could be riding a Bontrager VRC which has 100mm reach, 3. 5cm more. Imagine going from 100mm to 130mm stem. It's massive. Bike brands don't really shout about their handlebar reach so you're going to have to check the websites and the geometry tables to see what reach your handlebar is. It's absolutely worth checking if you're struggling with reach on your bike. You might want to switch out your bars and get it reduced. Double disc wheels are UCI legal and they're not that bad to ride. Disc wheels or wheels that are completely filled in for aerodynamic gains are often used as the rear wheel during time trials. Race against the clock. For good reason they're banned in UCI road cycling events. There's a limit on how deep you can go. Because of this I'd always ass But that's not the case. We filmed a video about riding double disc wheels and apparently it's completely legal. We're actually starting to see some pro cyclist riding double disc wheels in certain events and they haven't crashed spectacularly yet. When we tested the front disc wheel it was surprisingly stable and the faster we rode we noticed the more stable it was. We actually used a front disc cover because finding a rim brake front disc proved to be really tricky. And speaking of fasts, my next point. What feels fast isn't necessarily fast and what feels slow isn't necessarily slow. My brain has been tricking me for many years by telling me skinny tires must be faster. Because surely if they're squishing all over the place you're losing energy. Well apparently not. If your surface is b The b Instead of rattling around which is a real cause of wasted energy. The same kind of thing can be found in suspension systems. There's reasons that gravel races on fairly smooth courses and now using low travel suspension forks And finally in the majority of cases a heavy aero bike is faster than a light not aero bike. Just look at Triathlon. Those bikes weigh a ton. And yes there are some specific cases where that isn'true but usually only when your ride is from the bottom of a hill to the top of a hill without any flat bits or downhills included. Or maybe you're attacking people up a climb. And to end my list, Cyclocross bikes aren't cyclocross bikes anymore. Cyclocross bikes seem to be dying a death. Which is quite annoying for cyclocross races. But not the worst thing in the world for most cons Cyclocross is a weird type of bike race where you essentially take a road bike with slightly knobbly tires around a twisty sometimes muddy course and all crash into each other. A classic cyclocross bike has steep angles and a short wheelbase for nimble handling. High bottom bracket to avoid pedal strike. No sloping top tube so it's easy to shoulder. 33mm tire clearance. The maxim And usually compact gear ratios. At least compared to a gravel bike because if you're in that slow most of the races just j Amazing properties if you're a cyclocross racer but not so much for people doing normal bike rides off-road. The industry went through a weird patch recently where most brands sold a true cyclocross bike and then they started to morph into gravel bikes. So longer wheelbase, bigger tire clearance, more stable at higher speeds. For example we noticed at one point the Cannondale CAD-X and the Topstone both had exactly the same geometry. Now there is no more CAD-X. They just have one very expensive offering on their website left. There's no more crux from Specialized. Well there is a crux but it used to be a CX bike and now it's a gravel bike. Scott used to make an addict CX which is now completely gone. There's a few higher end options but really the choice is extremely limited and pretty much exclusively very expensive. They've all been replaced by gravel bikes. Why is this not the worst thing in the world for most cons Well gravel bikes are better. They're more versatile. They have massive tire clearance. More suited to everyday riding. They've got better gear ratios and now there'so many being sold manufacturers are focusing on their gravel offerings which means there's loads of choice at loads of different price points. It's really cool to see and it's getting loads of people into riding off-road and cycling in general which is fantastic. Sorry cyclocross racers. Got any more weird facts about cycling? Put them in the comment section down below.