Josh Poertner Reveals The Bike Industry Secrets! | GCN Tech Show Ep. 307

Do you know any bike industry secrets? 🤫

As for flex, when I was racing in the late 90's with New Forest cycling club we had a rider who was over 6ft tall on a steel garden gate frame and before the start he pointed out to us all at the start that his seat tube and cracked and become detached from his bottom bracket. I set off before him but the swing must have been massive, he finished in a good time for a 10 back then. So flex must work, i think he rode it for a while after.

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I see!🙌

Oohh

I have a TON of fun going FAST on a stiff bike as well as the security knowing the thing isn't going to collapse on me 😊 Well, now that I think about it, the wheels HAVE to be stiff. I had trouble with that on the original Mavics that came with my bike. The frame has some (enough) give in it to offer up enough of a decent ride comfort level 👌 👍 👏

Buen deporte

Carbon Dork disks will sell. There are people that will buy and install anything carbon. Wonderful show Boys. Cheers - M

Cómo

Me parece perfecta

Excelente

👍👍👍👍😊

Bueno

Bien

Man, I’ve felt like I was insane telling my LBS guys that I hate my stiff 853 & carbon bikes and have been putting 10k’s of miles on my Tange #2 & 531 bikes the past 3 years. Thank you for confirmation/affirmation.

Genial

Como

Excelente

Como

Bien

swapping wheels < swapping bikes. Just have a rigid 26er and a road bike.

Cómo

interesting conversation. We tend to obsess over things that can be measured (weight, stiffness), often to the detriment of the unmeasurable.

Why does a specialist hill climb bike need brakes?

Theory is nice, but there comes a point where it is... pointless. I have 2 aluminium (UK spelling) bikes, one of which is heavier, but springier than the other when putting down power, but feels faster and more controlled. It is actually more fun to ride the springier rear ended bike, and the 1.5 kg weight difference is just not noticeable, even on climbs. Maybe now springier is actually better anyways.

Who knew you would need a degree in physics or engineering to figure out a bicycle. ???🤪🚲

My dork disc once disintegrated and the pieces were crunched up in the drivetrain.

I remember when I came away from motorcycle racing and started racing bicycles in 1990 riding on a Klein sponsored team , super light and really still was the thing . And very few did that better than Gary Klein . I remember the UCI trying to keep Klein out of the pro peloton with rules that bicycle tubing could only be so big . How much money did the UCI take from all the steel frame builders ? Klein was finally able to compete but only after Trek had bought the company and all technology patents and of course most of the European brands had started using big aluminum tubing . What a 140 pound pro considers stiff versus a 180 pound strong rider considers stiff can be drastically different

Rim brakes or not... It's not like the rest of the bike is optimised for hill climbing, is it? The whole geometry is made for an average incline/decline of zero, isn't it?

I'm no expert but why can't the manufacturers do a frame that can do both disk and rim brake on the same frame, pinarello f is both rim and disk why can't it be both on the same frame it's only a few wholes for rim brakes that can be filled with some kind of grommet, if I want to upgrade my cipollini nk1k rim to disk I have to start from scratch and buy basically a whole new bike ,but if I had the option of changing to disks I could do it later without having to buy new frame just a thought but what do I no 😊

Funny on why you guys push so much on rim brakes. They never worked on carbon wheels for the average joe and pros need to ride whats sellable.

Disclaimer...i have one.
For what reason are other brands gooing down the same road

Whisky and Velo Orange make a fork and rim brakes that can accomodate 35mm tires, so the tire size argument is only partially valid. Production costs? I can see that with respect to carbon disc brake wheels in general (which I'm fine with) and particularly with hookless rims (which I avoid like the plague).

I'm absolutely gutted, I love your longer GCN Plus stuff especially KoM hunters

This guest is another level

GCN Bikes not in biggie smalls…. Valves not aligned at all jaunty angle- should be a bike pile of…. A very poor - you are supposed to show the ideal!

@gcntech, seriously I think the Hillclimb championship proposed would be epic. GCN+ coverage, weekend tickets to ride and huge spectatorship, all the tech (and therefore sponsorship). If it goes well it could even turn into a world tour.
Full on party atmosphere and events. Maybe at the next GCN summer event at Saalbach!?!

I'm sure that absolute black could figure out a way to market a $1700 dork disc if it had supposed aero advantages.

industry standard: don't record a 40min out of focus

....I think there are too many parameters to get to an optimal bike design... with some specifics (rider weight, material, use case, ......etc. etc...) the engineers with their CAD could come up with an optimal design......you just can't do it for each off the rack bike

With 1 joke about spoon brakes, you have solved the problem of no more caliper brakes. Someone needs to design carbon spoon brakes that squeeze between the tire and the frame 😂

Mood GAP! Sorry to see how Edrick and Josh are all jolly and having fun VS. Ollie must have had 'one of those days' 😢 Jokes apart, great job guys! ❤ Love your vids and all of you presenters, thank you and all GCN crew for all you do for us! 🤩

I’m so tired of hearing the dinosaurs come out of the woodwork to rail against disc brakes, electronic shifters and all the awesome new bike tech. I hadn’t had a new bike in over 10 year then in 2022 I bought my first disc brake bike with eTap. It was so awesome that I’ve bought 4 more bike replacing all of my old relics. Even my beloved 2012 Cervelo S5 went away to be replaced by a Canyon Aeroad and I have no regrets.

Cracking show! Went on about hill climbing for too long for my liking though 🤷

Thank goodness everyone has an opinion. And this guy's opinion in my opinion is crap!. Frame flex. It takes energy to make the frame flex, energy that is wasted as it's not transferring you forward. Back in the day it was called frame whip. Which was then decided was crap.

The biggest pimp in the bike industry. Bought a struggling Italian brand, offshored all its redesigned 'consumer-friendly' production to a low-wage country, relied on brand recognition to bilk impressionable noobs out of large wads of cash for midrange Taiwanese products, badged up to evoke premium 'Italian' 'cycling heritage', or some such balderdash. $400 for a set of Allen keys that you can buy the exact same from SuperB or BikeHand for less than $40? Puhleeze. SIlca is the biggest lie in the bike industry. Why are you palling up with them? Yet another of GCN's "synergy" brainfarts that stinks like rotting fish.

Just toss some ceramic bearings on a dork disc and you can charge $500 for it!

The disc brake v rim brake argument has got old, by every performance braking measure disc brakes are better, it’s sounding like the flat earth argument. Funnily how no one talks against electronic groupsets, is there any performance gain? By a massive factor electronic groupset failure is the biggest mechanical issue in our bunch rides outside of punctures