In this week’s pod we have invited Mark Barfield back to discuss his framebuilding business and to look deeper into manufacturing standards in the bike industry. We also discuss the relative velocities of wild boar and eBikes!

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As the track cycling events for the Tokyo 2020 (sic!) Olympics start today we are releasing the audio from a CSA Membership webinar in late 2019. Sean speaks to Dimitris Katsanis about his revolutionary design for Team GB and the development of this bike with manufacturers Hope and Lotus.Let us hope (no pun intended) that Team GB’s Olympic run is not Lot’s Of Trouble, Usually Serious!

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As the Tour starts we catch up with our friend, Dimitris Katsanis from Metron Engineering https://additive-engineering.co.uk/ to find out about the intricacies in the design of the new Pinarello Dogma F bikes. https://pinarello.com/uk/en As ever, many mainstream media outlets will have missed the subtle and not so subtle details of these new superbikes and Dimitris shares some surprising results from the analysis of the different models.We also get into the world of 3D printing, of which Dimitris has been a pioneer in the world of bikes. Hear how he had to persuade a reluctant Team Sky to use 3D printed bars for Wiggins’ hour record attempt and how he did it.We also get into the ecological side of engineering and production, not just of bikes, but transport in general.

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Who do you turn to when you want an insider’s view on UCI tech rules, life as a workshop and race mechanic and what people are saying in the Federation of the European Sporting Goods Industry? Introducing Mark Barfield. The man with more hats than, well, Johnny Two Hats.Covering such luminary subjects as Brian Cookson’s ‘Tree of the Day’ and what he actually DID as head of the UCI, the supply of goods in the bike industry (Spoiler alert, stock up when you can!) and all those niggly tech questions mechanics and cycling fans shout at the telly when they watch a race on Eurosport and (phew) an exciting new European venture for bike mechanics, this pod will be the first of several with Mark, who I’m sure you’ll agree is a very engaging and brilliantly knowledgeable guest.Enjoy the pod and peruse the links below;Mark’s ‘day job’ https://www.velometier.com/frHis side hustle https://fesi-sport.org/His former Bond villain lair workshop domain https://www.uci.org/And you can check out Brian Cookson’s Tree of the Day here https://twitter.com/BrianCooksonOBE

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This week John Galloway rejoins Sean for a look at whether to buy the new Sram Rival AXS groupset for his bike.Rather than rehash press releases and a slew of in depth internet articles we decided to take a fairly in depth look at the design and manufacture of transmission components and then looked at which of these features in this, supposedly entry level groupset.

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https://www.northroadcycles.com have established a well loved and respected high end bike brand based in Manchester, England. We were interested in where a small, family bike company sits in the modern marketplace of internet only mega-brands and companies that employ 100’s of engineers.Ian and Jane take us through the startup of Northroad and the growth of the company from a (posh) garden shed to a high street ‘Bikery’ where you can grab a coffee and discuss your dream road, TT or gravel build.Often bikes designed for World Tour professionals are not the best thing in the world for the likes of you and me. Especially me! Jane and Ian describe how they began designing bikes for their friends and have gone one from there. We get into road bike design, gravel bike geometry and of course the commercial realities of the current mess that is the world trade situation. Ian’s new personal gravel bike certainly looks nice. You can see it here. https://twitter.com/NorthRoadCycles/status/1399396238504693761?s=20Their carbon fibre expert is https://carbonwasp.com/ and we shall certainly look at getting them on the show if we can.

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While all the racing is done from the 2021 we have a short Giro d’Italia tech round up for you. From banned hubs to custom time trial bars, Sean tries to cover the tech on show as seen at a distance. Even though we did make it to the race, the riders were climbing the San Bernadino pass when we saw their bikes, so no close inspection was available!Hopefully things will get back to normal soon as we can peruse round the pits to closely look at team bikes.

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The world of bespoke frame building has consolidated in the last decade to a solid and interesting part of the worldwide cycle industry. We spoke to leading UK builder, Richard Hallet back in 2018 and wanted to catch up with him to see how he was faring in 2021.You can read about Richard’s work and see the bikes herehttp://www.halletthandbuiltcycles.com/https://www.bespoked.cc/hallet.htmlWe also recommend you tune into the pervious pod where Richard discusses his particular techniques in framebuilding. https://www.cycle-systems.co.uk/podcast-with-richard-hallet-master-framebuilder/Richard is also a veteran tech journalist and we discuss the bike industry of 2021 from this viewpoint also. Richard currently writes for https://www.cyclinguk.org (formerly the CTC).He is also the author of a superb book, The Bike Deconstructed. https://www.bookdepository.com/Bike-Deconstructed-Richard-Hallett/9781616892289

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As the Giro d’ Italia has just begun, Sean and John trawl through some of Italy’s memorable, amusing and world changing bicycle tech. Why WERE Italian marques the envy of the world and are they still?From trendy furniture, weapons of war, motorbikes and cars, the bike industry has grown from and cross pollinated with many others in Italy, as elsewhere. Join us for some of the stories.Here is a very amatuer production but interesting vid about the cultural history of the bicycle in Italy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdEx0Yq3XTk Here are some links to the manufacturers we discusshttps://dariopegoretti.com/https://www.colnago.com/en/history/https://pinarello.com/historyhttps://www.cyclingnews.com/news/gallery-more-than-50-years-of-pinarello/https://www.bianchiusa.com/history/

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A return of the ever popular and exceedingly knowledgeable ‘Campag Kid’ for a show all about the development of Campagnolo’s renowned hubs and wheelsets.We all know that Campagnolo has been the benchmark in road cycling for decades and that their hubs and later, as one of the first ever producers of complete ‘factory built’ wheelsets have been innovative and sought after. However, the nuanced and detailed history of these components is a story known by very few.Enter @the_campagkid again for a detailed timeline from the 1930’s hubs right up to the modern World Tour level WTO wheel collection.I think you’ll agree that no-one can be considered a true bike geek without this story in their organic hard drive! See the_campagkid on Instagram and Twitter for some reference to today’s topic and to see some of his Campagnolo equipped bikes that we discuss. The C40 and C59 and both stunning examples of that period of bike design.

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