Nerd Alert Podcast

June is turning out to be an exceptionally hot month in terms of new bike releases, and Ronan joins James and Dave as a special guest to help us talk through them all. Although we don't have official information just yet, we know a new Trek Madone, Giant Propel, Canyon Ultimate, and Scott Foil are all likely to be announced within the next few weeks -- and thanks to revamped UCI technical regulations, there's once again some legitimately unique thinking going on in terms of design features. We also dissect Pinarello's new Grevil F gravel race bike, chat about Dave's favorite bikes from the Handmade Bicycle Show Australia, and wrap up with another round of Ask a Mechanic.

Modern bikes are marvellous creations that continually push engineering boundaries with a continued focus on lighter, faster, and sleeker. However, that raises a big question, is the bicycle industry flying a little close to the sun when it comes to safety?

It’s exactly this concern that this week’s Nerd Alert deep dive episode covers. Join James and Dave, as they speak with world-renowned carbon fibre repair, testing, and inspection expert Raoul Luescher of Melbourne-based Luescher Teknik.

The conversation covers existing test standards related to forks, the perceived gaps in those standards, where the industry could (and should) do more, and some helpful hints for safety checking what's arguably the most critical part of your bike at home.

Riders commonly complain that they can’t find cycling shoes that are wide enough, but when was the last time you heard someone say their shoes are too wide? Maybe that’s a sign cycling footwear should be wider in general. We also chat about the utility of bike-mounted cameras (and radar), what Goodr still needs to do to really shake up the cycling sunglass market, and where to draw the line between buying tools and paying for labor.

Roval has finally cleared the air on why its earlier Rapide CLX and Alpinist CLX wheels weren’t tubeless-compatible when they launched in 2020, and while the final outcome is positive, it would’ve been nice if it hadn’t also come with a healthy dose of obfuscation for the past two years. We also give Wilco Kelderman a lesson in how bikes work, speculate about Campagnolo’s mysterious new wheels spotted at the Giro, discuss some new hardware developments at Zwift (or lack thereof, as the case may be), and reveal why you shouldn’t wash your bike like Peter Sagan.

Welcome back to the Nerd Alert podcast! This week we have a deep dive episode about something that’ll likely bring positive change to the helmets we all wear.

Our guest is Peter Haldin, the Chief Science Officer and a Co-Founder of MIPS. However, in this interview, Peter is wearing another hat (helmet?) and speaks about his role as the Convener of the Working Group 11 (WG11).

In short, WG11 is working to bring rotational-based testing to helmet safety standards, and the goal is to help reduce the number of brain injuries suffered from cycling crashes.

Where things get a little confusing is that the likes of Rudy Project and Kask have already started promoting that their helmets meet WG11 test standards. This episode clarifies what this working group is, what the testing involves, and what the future of helmet safety may look like.

So much to talk about this week! Colnago's new C68 is more modern-looking than any C-model that came before it, but it's also lost much of what made its predecessors unique. Headset bearings are still a pain to service on modern bikes, though at least they're lasting longer. And what's going on at Wahoo? Caley unfortunately had to skip out for this week's Ask a Mechanic segment, but that's ok; none of the answers required hammers, anyway.

The topic of sustainability and carbon fiber has long been a black eye on the bike industry, but one company in Tennessee — called Carbon Fiber Recycling, of all things — is seemingly turning that around. Old broken frames? Random components? Scrap uncured pre-preg? It’s all good, according to CFR: just stick it all in its magic machine, and usable raw material comes out the other end.

Best of all, the process is supposedly quite economical for everyone involved, there’s almost no waste product produced, and the company has plans to ramp things up big-time. Sounds too good to be true? Maybe it is. But maybe it isn’t.

This year’s Paris-Roubaix was all about tubeless tires and foam inserts — so much so that it’s easier to talk about who wasn’t on them than who was. But the best part of modern Paris-Roubaix tech? The fact that it’s all so normal.

The Nerds also bring on the owner of a small brick-and-mortar shop to talk about the state of retail in the bike industry, and then he joins us as a guest wrench on a super fun segment of Ask a Mechanic.

Caley promised to be more prepared for our second Sea Otter episode, but his list of neat new stuff that he found at the show was a little… questionable. Luckily for him, we had a special guest on hand: Orucase co-founder Isaac Howe.

Isaac gave us plenty of detail on the magical folding full-size travel case Orucase has in development, shared with us a bunch of tips on how to pack your bike for a trip, and described how he sees the future of traveling with your bike in general now that most of the US domestic carriers no longer charge oversized fees. TL;DR version: it’s time to go into weight weenie mode.

The Sea Otter Classic trade show is back for 2022, and the Nerds are on site with a special episode, recorded right on the expo floor!

James, Dave, and Caley talk about the coolest things we saw at the show on day one — like lower-priced 3D-printed saddles and one seriously sweet garage door opener, of all things — and then we chat gravel tire trends with Vittoria’s VP of product development, Ken Avery.