The Stiffest Road Bike & Big Brands Charging “Silly Prices” | NERO Show

0:00Hi, this is Monica Rinegal of Nutrition Diva. Today's show is sponsored by Nature Raised Farms. Grocery shopping can be a little overwhelming, especially if you're reading labels. And in my opinion, chicken shouldn't be complicated, which is why I appreciate nature-raised farms its chicken, that's just chicken. And their lightly-bredded chicken nuggets are free from gluten, dairy, and soy. Look for nature-raised farms on your next grocery trip and feel more confident about your choices. Hey, before your Q3 call, I've got the campaign brief ready. Built from last quarter's data and the competitive landscape. Great. Did you include the differentiation angle the CMO asked for? Already in there. Three angles, no competitors using right now. Just need your approval. Approved. Thanks. Oh, agents, where would we be without you? Hmm, somewhere with a lot more tabs open. Create your first Monday agent in minutes at Monday.com.

1:02I was doing some late night browsing on the S-Works time. I guess I'll like that. As we like to. As you do on a Monday night. And I went scroll down. They're lead. Hello. They're lead image in the product description is a tour magazine rating badge of approval. Isn't that cool? Justine. We've been banging on about tour magazine numbers, the arrow stuff, the stiffness stuff for years. And there was a contingent of people that kind of went, oh, you haven't even ridden it, which is fair enough. We haven't. You guys are too obsessed with these numbers. What are you doing? And then I thought it was really cool. I just stumbled across this and that like, still the time act SL9's lead stamp of approval. What's the marketing term? It's like a. This would be your serve. Yeah, you're all. It's like a call to authority, yes, sort of testimonial style badge is two magazines, 2026 rating of a 1.4 rest best bike in the world apparently. That score, I haven't actually double checked what all the combined scores are because that score is basically taking all the individual

2:05things they test like aerodynamics, bottom bracket stiffness weight. And then two magazine give them a score. So a lower score is better. And so then they averaged the score in each of those categories. And apparently 1.4 is very low, all the lowest. And specialized have respected two magazines enough to go bang. You're on our S works head of the product page. Um, I don't know this for certain, but I would have assumed the SL8 was right up there as well. Because I remember when we had Robert on, he was glowing of the SL8 to the point where he was saying words like he can't believe how well this thing's tested, et cetera, et cetera. So my point being I assume with that bike having tested really well as well and probably got a very low score that this is a new thing for specialized to the top. Yeah, I've never seen this before. And I've spent a lot of time on this works SL tarmac product pages. 1.4. Is it a standalone?

3:06Is there anything else in that spectrum in 2026? Well, there was one bike I remember that always does quite well in the two magazine testing because of the stiffness numbers in particular, head tube stiffness and bottom bracket stiffness. And that's the giant propel, which also has the final score of 1.4. So as far as I can remember off the top of my head, the SL9 and the giant propel of SL0 are the only two that have a score that high. Interesting, because the propel, but that's like a 209? Yeah. So it's aerodynamically inferior to the SL9, but obviously the propel loves the G comfort. And it's got higher bottom bracket stiffness and highest drive stability they call it in the front end. But it does that with an integrated seat post, which is quite unpractical. Or as the SL9, S works does it with a normal package. But yeah, they're the top two highest rated two magazine bugs. So equal best bike in the world for that one.

4:07And then actually that's, so they've put that ahead of their own time to finish. Interesting. S works finishes faster. Bike reviews, bike reviews. I want to go through a couple if that's all right with you. Yeah, there's a bit relief. We're actually a few. Some bikes we have ridden, some bikes we haven't ridden, et cetera, et cetera. Let's start with cycling news, their YouTube page. They're reviewing the bike that you've ridden and the bike you've reviewed, the in color SSR. Yep, Chinese. Hyper bike. I want you to skip straight through to the stiffness section. OK. Now apparently this has a stiffer bottom bracket than a giant TCR or a specialized tarmac SL8. Apparently it's got a stiffer head tube than just about anything else out there. And that all comes together to create the most uncomfortable bike I have ever ridden. It is fantastically uncomfortable. It feels brittle and crystalline. And riding it for an hour, you can kind of bear it. You can smash it out. It's almost enjoyable. Two hours uncomfortable. Three hours.

5:08Really quite unpleasant. And four hours plus. Now I did a seven hour ride on this. But after four hours, I wanted to throw it in the canal. I wouldn't say unrideable, but it is seven hour does. Incredibly unpleasant to ride for any duration of time. Wow. That's not mince in these words there. No, I actually did like this review. At least you're getting an opinion, as long as it's not just made up for the second made up. At least there is an a level of analysis. No, it's putting it out there. I would half agree. I thought the front end of that in color was up there with the fact the one in terms of lack of compliance. So that feeling in the front end definitely agree. His opinion of that stiffness and lack of compliance was across the whole bike. I found the rear end. And I mentioned this in my review to be kind of standard race bike. E, not particularly noticeably uncomfortable. It was just sort of yep, that's what I'd expect from a race bike.

6:13Helped by the fact that it has the integrated seatpost, which allows a bit more flex in most of the ISP bikes. And I'm pretty sure I also mentioned it's really quite difficult to do, but I thought it was a perhaps a little bit more comfortable in the rear than a fact the one, but maybe splitting hairs at that point. Now, out of interest, we've got our hands on some jig testing numbers very similar to how two magazine testing do it from in color themselves. And they've tested their SSR, their SR Plus, which is their regular kind of do-it-all bike. The time I guess on nine, the factoroster of AM, and the propell advanced SL. So let's go through some of this. Yeah, let's take it obviously. Grane of salt, this is their testing. It's their testing and they could have completely made it up. We know I wasn't there. Well, we even allowed to be fair. Anyway, we met the guy, whatever. Yeah, I have no reason to believe this is made up, but obviously I wouldn't put my house on it.

7:15The other thing that's going to give me a reason to believe they are at least somewhat accurate is that it makes sense for the other bikes that we already know. So the most comfortable bike out of those five is the Prevelle Advanced SL. Yeah, that's a real good timing. Weight pulled through where the saddle attaches and then measuring the deflection. That takes the least amount of force to deflect the millimetre by quite a mile, which is what Tour magazine also found and what I also found in my review. That checks out. Next most comfortable is the Timeack SL9, which is about 300 more Newton's per millimetre, which is quite a big step. And then just a little bit behind the SL9 in the rear comfort is the incul- SSR. So it's about SL9 spec, maybe slightly more less comfortable in the rear. Take that for what you will. You've also got the Factor Ostrovam, which is then another step less comfortable in the rear end, followed by the least comfortable, which was the incul- regular SR model,

8:19which is what also that result, incul- of themselves claimed. And it's also what Joe from Panda podium said when he went to the launch of the SSR and rode both. He also noted that the SSR with the integrated seat post was more comfortable in the rear. So that's the result there. So the idea that in the rear end, it's just like almost iridably uncomfortable for three plus hours. I mean, not really backed up here, but I can certainly understand by the time you add in, you know, the saddle he's riding with no padding, which he did say he rides other bikes without padding on the saddle, but then also combined with how stiff the front end is, and I could understand that the whole bike doesn't feel great, but that's the numbers from the seat post. I'll be honest, probably if I looked at vertical stiffness Newton meter numbers three or four months ago, I pretty much just would have thrown it in the bin. It wouldn't have meant anything really to me. I go, you got it. Right, the bike, you can't pull it, a jig, blah, blah. But having heard what you have said about the propel

9:21and haven't seen that kind of play out with me on the cannon Dale, I must admit, I've started to come around to at least having this as part of the conversation. So again, taking it all with a grain of salt, to have the SSR line up pretty close to an SL9, and the conversation to be the most uncomfortable bike I've ever ridden. Again, nothing else, I think it's will, I think his name is. Everyone's experience is going to be different on these things, but that potentially feels like me, it could be a little bit of a exaggeration. Yeah, potentially. Unfortunately, yes, it's what it does look like. It looks, if you were scoring accurate, no, this is, I'm people I don't like this, but I just, I kind of know the way to say it, if you're scoring accuracy of the review related to the objective numbers we have, it seems like he's outside the mark on this stiffness, at least in terms of the recomplying. Which pisses me off because I love the fact he just put it out.

10:23Yes, so I'm so do I'm totally torn with this. I love opinions. That's brilliant. I don't want to, this isn't me shitting on him. I just, I just want to, in this particular circumstance, given so bike, you have ridden these numbers, I kind of believe in, I think it's worth just saying. Here we go. I think I got the review a bit more accurate in terms of comfort and stiffness front and rear than he did. Because you have a gold standard, Jesse. Oh, I think I did. Okay. Can I say that? Maybe being arrogant? No. I think I got that part of the review better than he did. Okay. And I have no skin in the game. And this is just me calling it as a sin. Not that it's a competition. No. But it kind of is. Then they measured bottom bracket stiffness. Stiffest again, we know like the propel is just like, Jesus. It's just like stat maxing every like chick based thing. I think he'll. Advanced SL, forced through the bottom bracket, it's the, it's the stiffest, which we knew from Two of Magazine anyway. Our next stiffest in color SSR, doesn't surprise me. They use a bunch of high modulus carbon, which also makes it less comfortable in some ways.

11:25But it's obviously got the stiffness there. Then their SR, actually third stiffer in the bottom bracket. SL nine is in there kind of next to the Ostrov Am as well, at slightly less stiff. I mean, you all agree with me here, but there's a certain point where you go. The bottom bracket needs to be stiff enough. Do I need 216 Newton's per millimeter in the bottom bracket? Probably not at that point. It's, there's probably a cutoff point. If most people would agree that an S works time act SL nine is stiff enough in the bottom bracket, there's probably a point where you go, you know, above 100 Newton's per millimeter is stiff enough. For example, I'm at the point of saying the most overrated statistic in all of bikes. Okay. Secondly, because what we, I think what we're talking about here is power transfer. I think that's what people get in their heads is this thing of like my bottom bracket's got to be so stiff because I'm putting all this force into it and that force is going forward.

12:27I feel that just like you said there is, there's definitely going to be a threshold to how much a human is putting through this. So then going beyond that is a complete waste of time. And I would argue a, a, an actual drawback because that stiffness is potentially going to cause you additional vibrations and accept if you're a giant propeller there's the stuff. Except if you're a giant male, they're something something something that's all happening there. But yeah, I think you can hear what I'm sort of saying. I'm, I'm not hating on a, on a, on a, on a tube shape because to make it, to make a, to make a jig stiff, the very stiff, two shapes are not very arrow. Yeah. So maybe the propell could have adjusted the down tube shape to save some watts and give up, you know, 50 points. And that is still be the stiffest. That SL9 is just a very normal like round looking, looking bottom bracket. So yeah, okay. Just quietly, giant. Make a friggin' arrow bike.

13:27Okay. You can do this. Just make a, make a 195. I don't want a 209. I want a 195 with all this spec maxing. Leave it with you. Hurry up. Last one, head tube stiffness. Now, I've said this before, this is almost irrelevant because they're not measuring a force with the handlebars. So they're just putting a force through. I think it's, I don't have an image, but it's somewhere in the head tube or actually through the fork. And there's attachment at the top end and it's measuring deflection through there, but without the handlebar on. But in terms of how a bike steers and how a bike handles sprint load, that all goes through the handlebars. So I actually think this, this is not really meaningful because again, the stat max one is the propel advanced SLL in 134 millimeter. So these stiffest head tube stiffness, but I mentioned in that review, it doesn't feel that stiff. And it's because the bars are very light. And I think those bar flex, those bars do have quite a bit of flex in them.

14:29So when you're sprinting, it doesn't feel like the stiffest bike. I have the SSR, feels, I would put my house on, I feel stiffer to sprint, then the propel advanced SL0. Easily. So this number is kind of meaningless with if you're not testing something that has deflection through the handlebar. And two things, I think the steering accuracy that you're talking about actually comes from the stiffness of the fork because that's the accuracy that you're getting through that. From me is a lot of it's based on how stiff that fork is. So what benefit I'm getting out of this, the other thing just anecdotally, I'm running a propel advanced SL or the K-dex. Sorry, I got it. My naming protocol's right. The K-dex handlebars on the Revolt gravel bike now, the road ones. Yeah, oh, okay. And they've got a nice, they're not crazy beating me up, stiff through those handlebars at all. In fact, they've added a nice little bit of accuracy to it.

15:30So those four other bikes are of quite similar. We do. It's like they're all very close each. And then it's like, the propel, what are you doing? I don't know. It's that's why it gets, well, that's why it gets a good score. That's so amazing because these are all, these fields are all rating numbers in two magazines test. So that's why the propel comes out so good because it just kills them all. Out of interest, did he ride the factor one? No. So this is the other thing I was kind of like, was this a fair review that they did of ink color? And I think it was because they also did a review of the factor one, but it was actually Josh that rode it. Oh, yeah. Not Will. Yep. But for the review, they came together and had a chat about it. And I'll just play this section. Is it related to comfort on the factor one? But that stiffness comes at a price. Yeah, in terms of ride quality comfort, it's incredibly harsh to the point that I've had a few moments where I fit very small bumps in the road and my hands have literally

16:30been ejected from the ballers. Josh was also incredibly harsh. So kind of, yeah, it's not like the factor one's getting glossed over the fact that it's very harsh. They're both called it out on both bikes. But I do think the ink color is slightly less harsh through the rear end than the factor one. And the front ends feel about the same. At least with the very, I've talked about this before for those that didn't listen to my ink color review. Ink color released, they have two variations of their integrated handlebars, one normal one, which is 120 stem lengths and less. And when they went to 130 and longer, they reinforced them to be heavier and stiffer because that's what their continental UCI riders wanted. And they're the bars that they were sending out, which I think was a grave mistake because then you've got a bunch of these people. About continental riders. You know, we want stiffer bars. And now everyone's going this bike's like almost iridably harsh.

17:30So that's, now they do make less harsh bars, which I think they should send. But depending on the reviewer, I don't know what bars they got. But yeah, worth mentioning. Just quickly, the reason, at least I feel like we're, we're kind of banging on about the SSR, which most people kind of think probably is a bit of a niche bike. And you know, obviously the factor one is. But to me, like when, if you go and look at that bike, it is very unique. Like it is, it is what I've been calling for, wanting from an aerobike for a long time. It's this incredibly narrow, like crazy narrow. And so for me, I'm very interested to see what people's thoughts and reviews and ride experiences are of that bike because it is the style of thing that I think we're probably going to be headed towards in the next five or 10 years. Spoiler alert, we're getting narrow. We will move on. About casualized mind comment from that video, which is what kind of sums it up. So this person here says, I own an SSR, I was quite surprised by your comfort comments

18:30as I found my SSR to be more comfortable than I was expecting. My previous bike was an S works Roubaix. So my comfort standards are higher than someone coming from an S-L-A to other race bike. However, with a 30 mil GP5000 and a 29 mil era on the front, along with the correct pressures, I find the bike really comfortable while it's feeling extremely direct in its power transfer. My last ride was a little under four hours, which is not an issue at all. And then he mentions my point. If you have a particularly long stem on the bars, they are reinforced. Maybe you should check with your bar since the ride experience may differ for someone with a shorter stem, as I mentioned. But then it's also kind of like, that's in color's fault. Like, yeah, so it's worth. Hi, this is Monica Reinegel of Nutrition Diva. Today's show is sponsored by Nature Raised Farms. Gross reshaping can be a little overwhelming, especially if you're reading labels. And in my opinion, chicken shouldn't be complicated, which is why I appreciate Nature Raised Farms its chicken that's just chicken. And their lightly breaded chicken nuggets are free

19:32from gluten, dairy, and soy. Look for Nature Raised Farms on your next grocery trip and feel more confident about your choices. You know that feeling when too many things fall through the cracks? Monday.com was built for that gap. The AI work platform where people and agents work side by side to deliver more together. Create your first Monday agent today at Monday.com. Managing, but it's also like, that's on the brand for making these stupidly stiff bars and sending them out. And there's another comment here, this is basically like crowd sourcing reviews of which maybe mine has kind of influenced some of what the other people thought. So I'd have to say that, but this person says, don't get this review either. It doesn't correspond with Jesse's review at all. I think I wouldn't say that. It's kind of, it's on the way. It's part way, it's agreeing with my review in GIST is just in different in scale. So would they say it? It did say it's basically unreadable, but yes.

20:33Yeah, I also mentioned it was, you know, though, obviously that's on different scale, but I think I also said the front end was not very good. Yeah. Writing ASSR myself on Kaden CDA wheels with 30 mill tires. This bike is not that much more uncomfortable than my Scott addict with the exception of the front end. That's interesting. Anyway, I just wanted to bring that. I mean, it's a fascinating bike. This thing is like very, very interesting. It is. I think the part of reason why the reviews are mixed is because it's, well, what bars do you have on it? What wheels are you running? It's a bit of a crapshoot. Are you running their carbon saddle, which I rode for one ride? The first ride I didn't, I had that saddle on. I never rode it again. You need padding in this saddle. Well, I think he rode the non padded one as well. But then he did say he runs non padded settles on other bikes. So that wasn't influencing the result apparently. I have a thing against non padded settles. I think once you go down that rabbit hole, once that's the marginal gain that you're going for, it's, you've racked it.

21:34It's done. You're at that point. At that point, it's Shamilus Bibb. It's, what are we doing? Yeah. Oh, my saddle weighs four grams. Great. We'll see you do a seven hour day. Oh, seven hour day. Oh, Jesus. Yeah. The other thing that got more opinions, I like it though. I like it. I agree. But you know what the problem is, when you put an opinion out, that then opens it off and Dickens like us to come in and it's arguing with your opinion. That's okay. But that's good. We put plenty of opinions out. And a lot of people don't agree with some of them. So that's fine. We can all get and do a bit of back and forth like this. Well, bike review, goodness. Bike radar have released. They're bike of the year, 2026, the three shortlisted finalists. So is the giant propel advanced pro, so not the integrated seat post one. Then the Sivello solver and the Eddie Merck's 525R. They're bestadingly fast. There was, he actually is tripled.

22:35Ryan's tripled that. I love it. He's got an R screw you guys. He's tripled down on devastatingly fast. I watched the video here. Yeah, he could triple down. Good. I like it. So the Eddie Merck's one spoiler alert. So these three are the top three. There was a longer list of ones they tested and clues like the Rose, shave, FFX and things. These were the three that got through the final and the one they picked was the Eddie Merck's. So yeah, the bike radar every year don't pick from every race bike. No, they review a series of bikes and then shortlist from that and then pick the winner from that. So these are only bikes that they've written. There's no specialized SL9 in here because that just wasn't one of the bikes they'd got which is they're not hiding that. But this isn't like best 2026 bike that you could buy. No, because they seem to sort of operate on like an Australian financial year calendar. So it's basically like June to June and what bikes they've written in that time period,

23:37other ones. So for example, like you said, the SL9 which was launched in and around the end of that June period, they wouldn't have written that bike and time to review that bike and therefore included into this. So you are missing things. I think like the factor one, it's kind of crazy that the likes of the Super 6 EVO 3 didn't make it into the top three. Like that new Merida Reactor 10K which tested really fast. Seems to be quite good this one here. That didn't make it into the top three. The Rose, shave, FFX, with SRAM Red, that thing is very close spec for spec with your SL9s and your Super 6 EVO's top specs and that didn't make it through. Just interesting. And then the ones that made it through obviously were the ones I mentioned. In second place, sorry, third place was the soloist. Then the propel second place and the Merks taking the win because mainly of, predominantly the progressive geometry

24:38with the Steeper-Citube angle and then not shortening the top tube. So you get this quite long reach and you further forward over the bottom bracket. We've been a bit, we had a whole episode or section of an episode about this bike in the launch. My complaints with it still stand. Firstly, it is still only four sizes which doesn't get mentioned in the review. The fact that they review bike of the year, race, sorry, race bike of the year without ever racing it and they're not races. That still stands as a complaint. And this bike in particular, in terms of the progressive geometry, it does have the Steeper-Citube angle. But the other two things you need to do for progressive geometry is lower the bottom bracket height to account for wider tires, which I think they might of from memory. But then the obvious big one is increase the stack height which this doesn't have a higher stack height. So it's kind of like two out of three for the progressive geometry. It's not your full factor one level, progressive geo. And my whole gripe with the giving a bike bike

25:39of the year for this progressive geometry thing is a lot of the reviews as well were saying like, it's good because it opens your hip angle up and it gets you in this position and blah, blah, blah. But it's the bike doesn't do that automatically. The bike makes that easier because you can naturally run the saddle further forward without having it slammed forward on the rails or needing a zero off the Steep post. And it naturally may give you a longer reach because the top tube's longer. But you have to still make that bike fit choice. Like you could get this bike and run the saddle all the way back and run a short stem and have it set up like your current bike. You're still having to kind of make that decision as a rider to go, I'm getting this bike and I'm going to embrace this new fit and then reassess my whole bike fit across the board. And actually, Patrick Lino has done that. I don't know you guys have been following him on this XMCS frame. But he said this whole thing, he had quite a data position, it was really far back

26:40and he would have these long stretched out positions. He's seven across us. And he's got, he's got, he's got, he's got, no, I've got this XMCS, it's further forward over the bottom bracket. So now I'm reassessing my whole fit. He's moved his cleats further back on the foot so it allows better connection to the bottle of the pedal stroke and requires less carf action. So it can be a little smoother when you further forward. He's completely rethought his whole bike fit related to getting that bike. But the bike didn't magically do that. He had to still go and reassess all the touch points, get the fit dialed in. So that's my only little gripe is like, the bike's not doing a bike fit for it. No. And then my other thing just my last bit on assessing that would be, like if Warren gets on this bike and he's got the new position he really likes, could he not get that on the sole lowest or could he not get that on the propel? And that never really gets discussed, I'm like, okay, so you like that position. Well, for that bike to actually be better, there would have to be something wrong

27:42with the other bikes if you set it up in that position or maybe they would just never allow you to get in that position because of constraints related to the saddle position or the bars and things like that. And that doesn't really get answered. And so there's an element of kind of, it feels like a little bit of a free pass to the Eddie Merck's. Cause yeah, if you could get that position set up on the propel, for example, and the handling wasn't whack, then I find it a little bit hard to give Eddie Merck's points for that, unless you had a really extreme position that you couldn't get on the propel. Does that make sense? Before you continue, actually the bike rider guys reached out and wanted to come on and have a chat, but I have some stuff going on about you know, much time this week. So shout out to, they're not like, hiding there. They were like, we'll have to come on and re-bate it and have a chat through it. Maybe we'll, at some point. Maybe we will. Yeah, at some point, definitely we have to, we have to get the goat on some point. And okay, but just, I just want to push back slightly on your thoughts there because Eddie Merck's, I mean, I don't disagree generally that we have this,

28:44this sort of sales pitch of progressive geometry is the kind of Goldilocks solution for all bikes at the moment. What does that mean specifically for the Eddie Merck's? So for me, in a 54 or a medium, 75 degrees seat tube angle on the Merck, 73 degrees on the Svelot, 10 mil more stack on the Merck. So if I chose an Eddie Merck's, I would get further over the bottom bracket. Stop. If you choose to set your saddle in that position, it doesn't, the bike doesn't install the saddle. No. Your saddle isn't instantly further forward. You have to put the saddle on the rails and clamp it down. Yes. So you could just push the saddle back and be in the same position. I could. Yeah. But I think, no, no, but that's what I'm saying. You just said exactly what I raged against. But you just said I get the bike and so the saddle's further forward. No, no, no, you installed the saddle, didn't you?

29:45I would reckon I would struggle to get it with two degrees, two degrees further forward. Would you? Maybe you would. Maybe you wouldn't. That's what I'm saying should be discussed in the review. No one mentions it. It's just like, oh, the bike puts the saddle on for me and slams it forward. I'm like, well, didn't you install the saddle? That's my gripe. You choose your bike fit. It may make it easier. You may not be able to match that, but that you, sorry, you triggered me because you said exactly what I said is sloped chat. But the 73 degrees in the Svelot and is the generic number that most bikes come with is a limiting factor. It is, you know, you look at my saddle right now, it is bang as far forward as you can possibly put it on the S5, which is 73 degrees. Is that a zero offset? Yep. Okay. Almost as far forward as you get it. So it's a limiting factor. And the whole point of this is that, okay, this is, we are limited at the moment because of this. Let's keep going. You may be making the fact that I like the fact

30:45that the Eddie Merck's is giving you the choice. You don't have to buy it. You don't have to buy it, but it's giving you the choice that if you want to unlock a further forward position, you're currently limited by a 73 degree on your current bike. You want to choose to go further forward. You can choose to buy the Eddie Merck's. And that's your, you just said that. You just said that with far more nuance than he's ever said. Okay. He's never said that. He just says, oh, it gets you over the bottom bracket. That's with no, you just explained. I'm at the limits of my current bike for my position on a 73 skip, be it on the S5. So if I wanted to get further forward, I would need a bike that unlocks that and this does that. Yeah. Cool. You've explained that. It doesn't, the magical, it's back to, it's last week. So is it of old stuff? It's on my bike fit for me. I just, yeah. Because there's a lot of people that, yeah, that's good. Zero offset post on a 73 degree size medium is way further forward than ever.

31:47And that's that. Right there is a very, very important point. Now, because we are talking about the race bike of the year, the inference here, I think, is that the people choosing this bike are in these weeds and are there for thinking, right, I'm listening to all this stuff. I want to get further over. I've got the short cranks. I'm going to get right. And so it's, this is therefore unlocked in, sorry, unlocking, I said it again, but this is giving you the potential to do that because you're in these weeds. Hmm. And so because it is, because it is a race bike, you are dead right that this position is not for everybody by any stretch of the imagination. And I would argue it's actually going to be a hindrance for the vast majority, not sorry to gatekeep, but it would be a real hindrance for a lot of people because getting further and further over the bottom bracket does put a lot of more strain on your core and your fitness.

32:49It really does. Yes, there is more potential from it, but that comes with all the other stuff you've got to do like train. So yeah, I do think almost the term progressive geometry is almost the wrong term at this where we're headed. It should be almost now called the kind of racing geometry. Yeah, which is this is race bike of the year. So I'm not, I actually think, yeah, for that, given it's a race bike of the year category, not endurance slot bike of the year, that makes sense to give it a tick for that. I'm just saying, can we apply some nuance to it to not just a blanket? Oh, it's got a long top tube, so it's good. Another quick, I want to just step through real fast. De Bartha, Xlab 89. So this is the Astana top spec, Xlab build, taken over the industry, et cetera, et cetera. Et cetera. De Bartha, I'm laughing at the, he pointed the video. He's like, oh, it's the Astana paint job. I don't really like Astana.

33:49I like it. It's just like, oh, geez, okay. Again, been waiting for this one. I am hoping to get my hands on the bike. I'm hoping to get my hands on this in about a month's time, so we can follow that up. But in the meantime, I thought some of this stuff was interesting. So he's talking a little bit about the ride feel, and he compared it to the Canyon Aeroad and the Lightning, the Cube Lightning. Not a massive shock. I mean, even if you just look at the bike, there's some Aeroad tendencies to that bike, but that's a big tick, I would have thought, isn't it? That's about what you expect. No one's expecting full source. No, I wouldn't expect. And he sort of goes into that. He says, not as forgiving and subtle as a time act and a madonne, which are two doodles. So, again, you're probably gonna allow that as, okay, this is a more Aero-tubed bike. So probably is gonna ride much closer to its compatriots,

34:52like an Aeroad rather than the doodle. Again, we're happy with that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, this was an interesting point. So, at 6.8 kilos, as pictured there without pedals, okay? It's impressive. This comment was, it doesn't ride as light as it weights. And interestingly, despite the 89 being light on a scale, 6.8 kilos, we know pedals fitted for a size large, which are very impressive indeed. It didn't ride as light as it weight, we suggest. It doesn't feel as live and delicate and responsive when you're throwing the bike around. I like that. Usually it's the opposite. Usually, yeah, I'm guilty for this too. I said the opposite. Usually, most every bike review I think has been guilty of the old Jesus, it's 7.6, but it doesn't ride as a hill. You wouldn't know. So, okay, he's done the opposite. I did it with the factor. I did the whole, you would, she flopped a hill. It just holds the weight. She's the only, the weight, the gravity's reversed.

35:53So, I spent a few hours, sadly. I spent a few hours trying to think about this. And have I experienced a bike that doesn't climb? It's catfished you on this guy. It really has. And I honestly can't come up with anything. I got one. The grow with the 35s. It only weighs like 7.8, but jeez, you hit the risers and just, I think because the weight is in the tires or something, it's, she doesn't fly up at all. And it's not that far off the in color. Okay. So, I'd put it in that basket. I hadn't thought about gravel bikes because you're right. Like even the revolt, which is crazy light. Yeah, it doesn't climb like a, yeah, okay. Right, very tough. Potentially that's, some of that is tire pressure. Like if I just pump the crap out of the 35s, it put them at 65 psi or something. You'd get some zing back maybe, but yeah. Get low down on the air 100 bars, forward on the saddle with that zero setback design and a short cranks.

36:53And you can't really hunker down into an air position. I read a truck along at a brilliant, brilliant speed indeed. You're getting there. And yes, it does hold it speed really well. Yeah. When you're riding on the side, I see you, I see you, Dave. I see you, Dave. I'm proud in a king gang chasing the wheels in front. So we know it holds speed certified certified. Now, they, a couple of little points that he has mentioned. They don't do hand-oboeuze swapouts. So again, you'll be in a situation where if you're buying a 54, you'll probably be getting a 90 or 100 mil stem with 40 mil bars down to your local distributor. Because as we know, X-lab are doing local distributing almost old school style. And though it does ship in a size 54 with 165 mil cranks, which Dave didn't appreciate at my point. I'm gonna get Dave on the program. And but yeah, so it is shipping with 165s. That's that is a thing. And now, his sort of summary, I'll leave that to you.

37:55But the power meter, I reached out to Shane to GP Lama. It has officially not, has not been in the Lama lab. Okay. As yes. And so we still say, proceed with caution in that particular area. But I watched that and I go, you know, I'm kind of hyped to ride this. I reckon it's gonna be, I reckon it's gonna be pretty good. One little bit I wanted to point out, we'll make this quick. I don't wanna, I don't wanna labor on it. Check it, phones on. Let's listen to this bit here we go. It's about the value of the bike. There's a cost. Let's go. And I put that price in perspective. It's about a five and a half thousand dollar cheaper than a special item at S or nine, which is an extreme example. But even a canyon area to see if I still two and a half thousand dollars more than a bike here. So you get the point. It's still an expensive bike. Eight thousand dollars is a big amount of money, but relative to bikes you're trying to compete with, it looks like really good value for money. And that's where the rival Chinese brands,

38:56by X-Lab, get really interesting. Because the repot and pressure on the traditional bike brands, charging silly money for top-end race bikes, which does raise a slightly uncomfortable question. How we simply become too accepting of how expensive premium road bikes are these days. So, no, okay, pause it. So just that bit there. So we've been paying silly money and have we become too accepting of the top-end price. Says the guy standing next to the bike in probably $900 Australian dollars worth of ASOS kit. It was not lost on me the irony of that. If he had just ended it, after he said, this bike is X-thousand dollars cheaper than this and it's good value and he moved on, I wouldn't have thought the price. That just extra double down to then like, I'm gonna just throw a little bit of shit at the mainstream brands because they're overpriced while you stand there and really expensive.

40:00Customers shouldn't have to start from scratch every time they meet help. That's why we build FEM. FEM answers questions, helps buyers find what they need and remembers the context from one conversation to the next. Learn more at fin.ai. Hi, this is Monica Reinagle of Nutrition Diva. Today's show is sponsored by Nature Raised Farms. Grocery shopping can be a little overwhelming, especially if you're reading labels. And in my opinion, chicken shouldn't be complicated, which is why I appreciate nature raised farms it's chicken, that's just chicken and their lightly breaded chicken nuggets are free from gluten, dairy and soy. Look for nature raised farms on your next grocery trip and feel more confident about your choices. Asoskiy. I don't like it personally. Does he answer the question? No, he's just asking the question. I've just thrown a little bone out. Little baked in the crowd. I mean, personally, I don't have an issue

41:01with him standing there in his Asoskiy. I get there's a conflict. Whatever the dude's got to make his money, you probably don't care about that. I don't know, no, no, no, no, no, no, fine. But I think he actually has answered his question because he says it. He says, have we been paying, we have been paying silly money, silly. So he's inferring then that he believes that the bikes are overpriced. Yes. And then he goes on to say, yeah, is that Asoskiy worth all money for an Asoskiy? Australian dollars or whatever would have caught. There's, look, not again, not that I have a problem with Asos or that he's getting sponsored by them to do that. Absolutely fine. It's just, you're just gonna be careful what stones you're throwing and what bait you're throwing out at other, like, you can throw in shade at Western bike brands for their prices. I did bring one of the most expensive Western kit brands. I didn't look at the comments on this,

42:02but I assume that bit of bait got absolutely hookline and synchered by someone and we've got the full, okay, you're nodding at me, outrage. Yeah. If this came with a big brand logo and price to match, Asos would be gushing in his praise. He certainly knows which side his bread is buttered. I thought it was quite positive in the review. No, I think disagree with that. Yeah. I thought he was very positive. In fact, that this is almost why we brought up that statement is because this is a really good positive review that I think moves the conversation forward with these products. Just don't keep revert. Oh, sorry. Yeah. And I've maybe been guilty of this kind of like value signaling stuff before. Maybe I've tried, maybe I'm starting to come through it is kind of say the price, compare the value, let every individual make up a value judgment based on how much money they have or want to spend. Some people spending, you know, 20 grand on a bike, nothing, lose change. Other people, it's like they're remodeling their house,

43:04which is obviously stupid. But yeah, I just that, that aspect, I just wanted to call out because as soon as I saw this bit, I was instantly like, are you kidding? It just triggered something. As soon as I watched it, so I wanted to, I wanted out. So join cycling now reads your aura ring readiness. Can you explain this? Yeah, it tells you what to do. So it now sinks in the aura readiness score straight into join. And then it says, the system behind your training plan, a low recovery morning, easest things back, hopefully recovered day opens the daughter push. So if you're someone that was just blindly following the join plan day to day and wasn't really paying attention to your recovery scores, this is better than that. Yes. At least you're following some degree of training harder when you're ready for it and backing off when you're not. And it can kind of just do this in the background. You don't really have to think about it. If you're new to structured training and you have an aura ring, this kind of does it automatically. You don't have to sort of assess your readiness if you don't want to.

44:04Sounds good. I'll turn to Lively, take the aura ring off and just actually do some bloody hard training because that's what you need to do. And that best way to do it is join cycling join.cc slash Nero Show 30 days free set of just the usual five start ripping into some training. Ryan Condon, no relation to my wife, but King of the Zwifters. It's a very rare name. So it's quite odd to see them come up. King of the Zwifters. Sorry, self-proclaimed King of the Zwift Hubbards. Oh, okay. It's a official title. We mentioned him a few weeks back, went and did his first crit race, scared the living daylights out of himself, said he'd never go back. Absolutely terrifying. He's going back indoors. Life is much safer in there. I bobbed in the comments as a lot of other people said, you gotta get back out there mate. Come on, this is what you gotta do. And he did, he went back and he did his second crit race. So two reasons I want to bring this up. The first is, so he made a very astute realization

45:12that was a lot of people in the comments were suggesting, no, don't go back to do a race, do some more group rides, do some more of these sort of things. And he was like, no, I think just doing group rides, there's traffic around, there's other people around, okay, the crit race was scary, but it's on a crit course, and there with other people who are just riding their bikes, I'm gonna pick up so much more just going back and doing this, they're actually very cool, almost practice crit race type things, it's like a handicap style thing. So he does, he goes back and good on him, but the main reason that he went back, he was having a lot of challenging Zwift at proper, like had barely ridden outside. So steering is a challenge for this dude. But he got one comment, I want you to bring this comment up, Jesse, because for the indoor cyclist, the Zwifter, I thought this was explainer as well, because it was a Zwifter explaining to a Zwifter how to get around a corner.

46:12Okay. All right, you have to go again. I was watching this while Zwifting it, every time a gap opened, I would pedal harder, trying to close the distance. Next time accelerate into the corner, then put all your weight on the outside pedal. Okay. Stand on it. Okay. Don't sit. Oh, that would be very foreign to a Zwift. Very foreign. Because there's no, yes. Yeah, okay. I'm trying, stand on it. Don't sit. Hover on the seat. Yes. Because the Zwifter would be more like, I'm gonna turn the bar. Turn the bars. I'm in game. I'm in game. He's explaining what to do with his body. Over over the seat. Then you'll feel the tires bite the pavement. This is starting. We've got the, yep. It's brought a front tire out. Yep. Practice, please foot down. The feeling is amazing. You'll feel grip. All that fear will disappear

47:12and you'll feel the control of video. Thank you, Jerry Smith. Thank you, Jerry Smith. 8044. Thank you, Jerry Smith. This sounds like good advice. Thanks, Jerry. It was. That's really good advice. And it's interesting because I never would have given that advice in that language. The way that I fellos with the deed. The other part of this is, I want to play a little bit of this in a second. We got him. Ryan is hookline and sinker. OK. And I'll take the moment that he gets it. Is there audio here? We... All right. Here's the one here. Here we go. Play it up. Besides the point, as soon as the steam train hits us, it blows up. So a road-based catch. It's only after lap three after the excitement of the start of the race. So my adrenaline started to slow down that I was starting to settle into it. I started to feel like I was comfortable in the pack. I was rubbing shoulders with the other riders. There was a bit of friendly RG bar G for better positioning. I loved it. I loved every second of that. I didn't think I would. But second times a charm, apparently. There you go. He's right at the front.

48:13He is in. So he... Here he is. Well, that's it. There he is there. Just quick shout to Max, who was a fellow UK YouTuber, who was there with him. So the progression this guy's made in two weeks, where he was sitting about 10 meters back off this group, just like trying not to die. To I think the quote was, enjoying the RG bar G. Hmm. That's it. You're done. So in the Netherlands, they have something similar to that, where it's... It's like a Grand Fondo mass start. So you've got ABC all starting together. They won gigantic peloton that goes round. And then after about 30 minutes, there'll be a sprint for the C grade and they pull out. And then 45 minutes, the B sprint pull out. And then all that's left is A grade, that it all starts as one gigantic hunting pack. Yeah, right. It's quite... It's pretty cool. It's like doing a chop. Yeah. Yeah. With Sprint's all the way in the grades. Yeah. Yeah. No, I fear play. Well done. Well, I'm Max for heading down the helping him out.

49:14I was going to comment this last time. I feel like he needs to reassess his like fit for actually racing as opposed to being on drift, because he's too far back in the... Shifters. The reach looks a bit longer and he's not in the drops. If... Don't you feel like he's a bit... The cornering's going to be hard when you're kind of that upright. Yes, he needs to bend his elbows and get... So if you play this along a little bit, you might get a shot of Max, who's the What Life guy. He actually went and did the race with him. And you'll see... There you go. See Max on the front. Max on the front, kind of experienced racer. Down in the drops. Look at that coming through. Down on the drops. Yeah, see he's like nice and balanced, nice and low. And then Ryan's very upright. You can see he's basically sitting on his with bike. Yeah, he's doing this with bike hold. Yeah, exactly. He looks literally like he's on his with ride. It's that sort of... Yeah. So he controls... Get down in the drops. And...

50:15Yeah, even like on inures, the guy behind him, look at that. Perfect. Down in the drops. Rolling through that corner really nicely. I would just say to Ryan, even if you're on doing some more Zwift, just practice riding in the drops. Because you're probably not very used to riding down there. Yeah. And in a course like that, it's where you want to be. Well, bicycle relief update. We... Scrib set and score on In Color Wheels, gone. So current total is $3.500, Australian dollars, which is enough or 14 buffalo bikes for kids to get school, parents to get to work, etc. So that's pretty cool. That will keep running in the background as we have stuff come up that we don't need anymore. We will sell it on and then we'll just keep updating here as we go. And skin suits, all in stock. Chris, you were out testing the strom on the weekend in the summer suit. Now, that go all good. Very good. Very good. The... Hackability of the rear. I didn't actually run a sugar flask this time around.

51:20But it's still allegedly, well, it's the first day of spring today, but it was pretty warm. So, but started out with the Gilae. So I actually do tend to use the little sugar pouch spot as where my Gilae goes after I wrap it up, put it away. People think of it a little aero-faring back there. Nice. It's nice, it's cool, super breathable. Big fan. So probably the best to both directly to support the Nero show. So if you enjoy the show, if you watch every week, you want to get some nice kit to ride in. Go and grab yourself a Nero suit. Global shipping is free. And you can pay in your local currency. And the both colorways, the regular race suit and the summer edition are in stock. Go check it out. I need new sunnies, Chris. Oh, that's... This is a great topic. This is right now, Chris is definitely here. What podcast dreams are made of? So I've been running the Alba Optics Mantras for all. Every year's probably maybe going on five, the same pair, no issues. They have the photo chromatic lenses that are the transition types that are low light

52:24and then to... They darken as the sun comes out. The problem I have in really deep summer in Sydney is that the dark isn't dark enough. So if you go to the middle of the day in summer, it's just still too bright. So I want to get another pair of glasses for summer riding. But I haven't bought glasses for about five years and I don't even know where to start. What are the cool frames? What are the kids run these days? What are the good lenses? I mean, obviously Oakley, I was like, that's probably the first brand you think of. What can I do? Well, I mean, in that particular circumstance, the default purchase is that road prism lens on the Oakleys. So I know the kind of ride you're talking about because you going west for these rides. A lot of these rides are on bike paths that have like a white cement. And the reflection of those of that cement is friggin nuts, even now already.

53:29So that road prism gives you... It's not super dark, but it's enough, but it also gives you the contrast. And that's what I appreciate from that particular lens is. So contrast means you can, you know, essentially the idea is you can then see all the bumps in the road and all that kind of stuff. If you just get a full-out dark lens... There is a prism black one. Correct. This isn't an ad by the way. No. Is that... Shall I get that one or that would be too dark? Well, the problem I find with that is in once you do, if you venture somewhere else. So if you do go into a Cooner Bay or something like that and you're in the more shaded environment during a harsh sunlight, it's very difficult to see in the shadows. So that's where the road prisms good is you can tend to see into the shadows in that circumstance. The next kind of version of that is the trail lens, which is more for off-road, but again,

54:29the contrast just ramps up again with the idea that you can see even more in the shadows. By the sounds of it, maybe just the fewer dark lens is what you're after if you're going to be bashing... I mean, there's other... The only thing is I don't like it when it's too dark because I have sunglasses in the past, but that were too dark and it's actually why I... This is a contradictory. I liked the albocque ones because it's slightly lighter. I didn't feel like I could see more. So I don't like it when it's too dark. No. That's where the road prism lens is going to work. The other brands... Yeah, what else is there? So there is the 100% ones, so the Bohr-Anzacrove run. So they've got the blue... They've got the kind of road prism styled, orange one as well. And the other one is the Sun God one. So that's the Sun God? Sun God, I think it's Sun God. Yeah. They're the ones that in your... They're the ones that in your... I think another brand, another team run them as well at the moment. I remember which one. But they're supposedly very good road-focused sunglasses as well.

55:35Okay. The next question then is style. What about... What about like... Is there a tevello of sunglasses? Hmm. Well, yes. I mean... I mean, I'd any of them? Yeah, I have a... I bought a chromatic set when we were at China Cycle. They're fine. What brand were they? Can't even... Okay. Um, weirdly I've found in the past with the Chinese stuff is the lenses are fine. It's actually the frames that are a bit... Shit. So things like the arms... Creek quite often. Okay. And the arm lengths are often... Again, I don't want to... I know I'm sounding Dave after a few years. You know, I've been playing silly prices for... In my experience, and I'm a sunglass snob. I was the first guy. I'm self-completely admitted, sunglass snob.

56:36So... But what I've found with some of those Chinese ones, I'll bring a picture up of the two that I've used. The length... The arms are too short. Okay. And they're Creek. The lenses are fine, seemingly. Okay. Let us know. Well, let me know. Is there something I should be looking at sunglass as wise? And then also shape. So the... The Alba Objects Mantra is a small... It looks like an Oakley M-frame style small. If you can probably see on the camera, I have quite sun damaged around my eyes. And I don't think those lenses helping because it kind of stops there and then that high part of the... So this isn't my guess. So this isn't my guess. I would ideally like something that covers a bit more of my eyes. So because the old crow's feet... I'm lured... I'm a rough 32, as they say. So... I'd have been a bit of a scare the other week. Okay. Yeah. Not around here, but I had a mark on my back. It's the first time I actually got a proper... I'm talking about skin cancer, by the way, where I'm headed with this.

57:39I got a proper test with the GP pulled out the lights and had a good look at me. And he spotted something on my back shoulder. And I was like, yep, you need to go see a dermatologist. And normally, certainly in Sydney, and that particular dermatologist, you can't get an appointment for three or four months. It's like a book down. He's like, no, I'll get you an appointment this week. It's like, oh, that's weird. Okay. Fine. Sounds great. So I got an appointment for that week. And the reason he got an appointment for that week was because he regarded it as a... Highly, highly dangerous mark that he'd spotted. Right. So I go in completely oblivious to this, to the dermatologist and he's like, oh, you know, I'm glad you made it. I'm like, okay, look that far. It's a dreamy one. A big deal is. So he looked over me and he's like, great news. It's not what we thought. I was like, what did you think it was? So look, long story short, he found what he called an ugly duckling is the name for

58:40the mark. But it was not malignant, but certainly and certainly absolutely benign. Well, obviously then we get into chatting about, you know, how I spend a lot of my hours, et cetera, et cetera. And being on the other side of 40 is like, mate, you've got to look at you skin. You're a prickly white boy. If you're in Australia, it's like very common. Someone's like, I got this cut out. They got that cut out. It's just constant people was getting, especially like in the nose quite often. So I'm full paranoid about it now. He's got me on the whole like specific sun cream styles, but following all this long story short, you've probably seen me every now and again, where those horrific oaklies that come down over the nose. And there is a rationale for me doing that. And I'm probably going to do that all summer is the encoders, the caters, the massive ones. So not these. I was looking at these. I thought these are the people. No, I see. I've gone the full schnauz. Even more. Okay. So they come down over my rather large nose, which protrudes out collecting even more UV

59:46rays. And so I've gone to try and get that for a little bit of additional coverage. These ones. Nope. More than that. Yeah. So go to sunglasses. I don't know if I got any meat. It's an abrupt look. I'm not denying the look of it. In fact, I even went back. You remember, you probably don't remember, Dylan Grunovagan was wearing, I think two two or two frances ago when he was at J.C.O. Volley had him wearing these ones with like a big nose beak. I remember the full beak. I went like a whole rabbit hole looking for the beaks. I'm running beak sunglasses from now on. So yeah, you'll see me in those with the zinc, the full program. The other areas, he was like back of your arm, back of your palms. Another really dangerous ones for cyclists and tops of ures. The two areas that get absolutely nailed.

1:00:47You know we were talking on melanoma. You know we were talking the other day about how like funding for sports science doesn't even come anywhere close to like medical peptides, mRNA stuff. The Moderna stock price went up like 200% in a day because they released a trial of an mRNA based melanoma vaccine. I'm saying yes. So stops it coming back. And there you go. That's the kind of stuff you get when you're very cash. Just quickly. So that particular sunglasses, that is a road, that's a prison road black lens. That's what I want though. No, I would argue against that one. That so they do a black lens, like a reflective black, black out black lens and they do that road black lens. So see the Velocato there, that top left, that's the full black out one. Am I an Oakley guy though? See I don't think you're an Oakley guy. It's a bit. No, it's a bit cliche. It is a little. I could see in some pit vipers.

1:01:48Oh, what about what about going full, you go back to Albert optics and go full, um, Valum van Schmidt. No, there's no protective cocaine sunnies. No, no protection. No, full coverage. So you want the big, I think the 100% the one's Remco. Have a look at the one Remco was running in the tour this year. I could see you in those. You're a bit of it. I, you're a sneaky Remco frotha. These big things. They do that. They do a gold orange and a red bull hands. I've had a hundred psychons. A psychon. No, no, psychon. No. No. I do like the idea of covering part of the nose. Not from a fashion point of view, but just some protection of that's then you only don't really have to put much zinc on. Maybe a little bit here. Yeah. Okay. I just quickly on sunny. Did you see that, um, I think it's Willy Schmidt. Um, writing in, uh, so he was running King, King highlight.

1:02:49And was running the, the Oakley Vanguard, um, AI sunnies. Yeah. Shooting some, as he's been doing, like, I know the case guys had been doing as well. They've been doing some, like, sprint finish, um, just, he turns it on. I grew as we were talking about, um, dequeued, kicked him out of their ace because he had a camera. He had a camera on. So they, something had come through. No, what's the UCI, um, banned them. Be not because of the camera functionality, because of the connectivity functionality, but the joke is, it's like, there's no head up display. You can't. It's like, it's no heads up display. And there's no connectivity because he doesn't have his phone. So it's, it's just a, it's like when they, I think they banned the Apple Watches at one point before there was connectivity. And it's like, what are you doing? So in a race where no one's watching it anyway, they banned the one guy who was actually shooting a little bit of footage of it that made it somewhat interesting.

1:03:51So yeah, I think he writes for China glory. One of those ones. Okay. Yeah. So I've found now that I will, because I do run them. I use them all the time in races. I found them really good for like little Instagram clips and stuff. I'll just mention it to a conversation before I end up running it. No one seems to mind. All right. We're going to finish up with a sugar chat, Jesse. Before we do, quick mention to pillar performance. Now you've got some sashays there. You mentioned last week the program. Can you just quickly run us through again, the protocol? Sugar water in the flask, sticking in the back of your neerosuit. That's your carbohydrates. Keep your water separate. So if it's hot, you can just stop and fill up as you need. Drink to thirst, whether that's 400 milliliters an hour, 1.2 liters per hour, whatever it is, then you're good because your water's separate. You sugar separate and then you've got your electrolyte sashays. So there's a few options with these. You can just dump them in with the water, consume them like that. And then as you stop to fill up, you carry these in your pocket, fill them up as you go.

1:04:54Or if you're running the sugar flask, you could mix this in with the sugar syrup and have just your electrolyte and sugar mix and then water separate from that. However you like to do it, both work. That would also help with covering the flavor. Personally, I'll just drink the sugar. I'll drink it. Sugar syrup, don't care. Don't need flavoring. Some people like a bit of flavor in the sugar syrup. I like the flavoring in the sugar syrup, personally. Pillarperformance.com, use code Nero at checkout 15% off. We offer first purchase if you're in the US, the feed.com slash pillar code Nero. Big thanks to pillar performance. All right. Now along the lines of some of that chat, I got a great question during the week. This is perfectly timed. So I found myself in this particular situation over the weekend. What should I be getting when we do a gas station stop? Okay. Our group ride stops at a similar place every week. Tends to be two, three hours in to what is normally four to four half.

1:05:55Sometimes we add another hour onto the end. So I still want to hit some carbs. What should I be choosing? Now, the reason I wanted to bring this up is I found myself in this exact situation over the weekend. Three hours in. To what eventually turned out be five and a half. And I walked myself in to a gas station slash slop stop. Should I call her here? And actually the options are quite limited in 2026 because what's happened is I feel we're taking sugar out of the drinks that I thought had lots of carbs and sugar in them. My normal go to I thought, I'm just going to get a good old fashioned gatorade blue bowl. You know, you get the blue tongue, you got the blue goal. All good. Happy days. 600 mils. Then can fantastic. Here we go. 600 mils of blue bulk gatorade is 36 grams of carbs. Hardly worth spitting on. And plus that's 600 milliliters of water.

1:06:58So I've got to go in, slosh all 600 milliliters into me to just get 36 grams of carbs. I want my personal feeling is I wanted a minimum of 100 grams and the picking is a small. It's going to take with me. Oh, I mean, this is a, I've got enough. Not in one bottle of gatorade. Well, not well. That would be awful. It would be very, very sweet. But I mean, I can put 100 grams of sugar in my bottle. Yeah. And I ride quite happily. Whereas I feel that same bottle up with gatorade 36 grams. Yeah. Well, well, some quite a lot of the soft drinks are similar. So usual, a usual standard can of soft drink used to have 45 grams or 40 grams of carbs. And then you just get your zero sugar, which has nothing. But now even regular sprite, I think is 15 or 20 because it's half sugar, half sweet now. There you go. So even you're not, you think I'm getting a can of sprite and I sugar eliminate. It's not.

1:07:58It's half sweet enough. And that doesn't really say that. So yeah, I think Coke is still legit, but a lot of your soft drinks are half sweet now anyway. So I actually don't have a very good answer here. I did some research. I ended up running a slurpee. Now it was quite warm on the way. It's a slurpee. I think that's a universal term. People know what that is. It's like the frozen crap that you get. I went for a frozen Coke with berry. That's how you drinking that. So this is the challenge. So I put it straight in my bottles. So you to fill up the two bottles with the frozen Coke. All right. Now it's very hard to get a metric on these. I did find and we weren't at a 711, but 711 claim on their website, the nutritional facts of their slurpees were a large, which I think was about a litre. There's 136 grams of carbs. There are sugar free ones though. Well, don't start me on sugar free.

1:09:00Because Gatorade now and Powerade are almost labeling their sugar free's without sugar free. They're just calling them different words. So they're calling them like hydro-hydro-rate or something. There's not obvious that it's sugar free. It just sounds like, oh, extra hydration. Definitely. I'm thirsty. I need that. Two grams of carbs. So you find the taste of the slurpee a bit. Yeah. But not seeing a move. I'm going for a bike ride. I'm two hours, I made it. I was pretty boxed on the weekend. I need that to get me home. So it is actually quite difficult. And the problem with having running the soft drinks is you're slamming down a fizzy drink. And then you sort of set it off and you, I find anyway, kind of bubbling around in the gut. That can happen. Yeah, I've had that report quite a few riders. There's a little left comments with me going, I had a coat get the stop and then after that my gut's. So the actual option of what to fill your bottles up with at the gas station when you

1:10:05need more carbohydrates is very, very limited, at least in Australia at this current moment. I know mountain dew gets some. Mountain dew gets some pretty good. Some of the energy drinks don't have much carbonation. So like a full sugar monster isn't that carbonated. I desperately want the caffeine. No, okay. Well, if you want the caffeine as well, they can be a good option. They're like loaded with sugar. I wish he's there. I think those big 500 mil cans of monster are like 60, 50, 60 grams of sugar. But let us know down below. We need gas station options. I want 100 grams minimum for my 650 milliliter water bottles. I want to be able to leave with 200 grams packed ready to roll. And on that night, Chessie, we'll see you around next week. Can we do that? Hi, this is Monica Reinegel of Nutrition Diva.

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