- I've never known anything to be so confidence inspiring
as riding the Mike Bears
and then going back to normal tires,
I feel like a God.
(Jason chuckles)
I mean honestly, if you wanna become better at riding bikes,
get yourself some Mike Bears ride them for a day,
and take them off again.
(energetic music)
Hello and welcome to another episode
of "Budget versus Baller."
So we've got our bikes,
we've put some questionable upgrades on it,
at least in my case, to varying degrees of success.
And today we are on the Cockpit.
- Yep. Exactly.
Upgrading your mountain bike can be
one of the most fulfilling and rewarding processes
as a mountain biker.
Up there with hitting your first jump,
hitting your first drop.
- I mean, sorry., rewarding my bottom.
Those tires, they pretty much nearly killed me.
- Okay. Yeah. Maybe in your case rewarding
takes a different shape and size.
For example, a lifetime of no broken collar bones.
- Yeah. I mean, it's a certainly more existential
type of mountain biking,
treating everyday much like my last,
a whole new appreciation for simply not dying on the bike.
But what have we got in the cards today?
I presume you're gold plating your down tube?
- Yeah, not today. Something similar, though.
We are tackling contact points.
So that is grips, handlebars, stems, saddle, seat posts,
and pedals.
- Well, without further ado,
one of us is in for the time of their lives.
You probably gonna be quadrupling the price of your bike
or the value of it.
And I will,
I mean, I'll be doing something to it.
Everyone like, blue bars are good. Right?
- Good luck and God speed.
Let's get installing.
(chill music)
- So we're about to throw our parts on our bikes.
We've got some nice, we've got some nice parts.
- Yeah, we do. - I think, you know
Yeah - What is this, $9?
- That was $9. - $9.
- [Jason] That's that. - [Henry] Worth every dollar.
$85, what were these? These were...
- [Jason] Those are $20,
(Jason whistling) - $20 handlebars.
- So I mean it's all pretty, pretty cheap stuff.
- Yeah.
- However, I need to make a little bit of a confession.
So after riding the Mike Bears,
I came to the conclusion,
that to test the rest of these parts
and all the parts we're going to put in,
there's gonna be breaks, there's going to be new suspension.
I would rather do that with good tires.
- Yep.
- Then when it comes to the end of the series,
I'm gonna put the faithful Mike Bears back on
and I'll do my timed run on the cheaper tires.
However, I think to give these a fair account of themselves,
we should do it where at least we have some grip.
And that's what we do normally testing, you know?
On our field test bikes, we want to control tires
to help us discern the subtle differences more.
- Yeah, exactly.
Any ride you go on with those Mike Bear tires.
- It's gonna dominate, but (screaming)
- (laughing) Yeah. - You know?
Which is probably, it's not gonna show how great
this $8 stem is. - Yeah.
Yeah - $9 stem, whatever it is.
(Henry whistles) - It's gonna be good.
I'm gonna get started here.
We're just gonna get right into it.
Yeah. These handlebars have seen some better days.
One thing I'm really excited to get rid of,
this dropper lever.
I know, I know I could have changed the cable,
but it's not the ethos of the series here (laughing)
So every time I went to go push the dropper up,
I just slightly cut into my hand a bit,
get some metal shavings in there.
So, we're actually ditching the wire entirely.
I've got a very nice dropper post to put in.
- [Henry] Beautiful.
- [Jason] So how much was your stem again?
- The stem was, I think it was $8 or $9.
- So mines like, $250.
- [Henry] No! - [Jason] Yeah (laughing)
And then, my handlebar,
170, as opposed to your 20.
- Mm, the Corky, the Corky Grips.
- How do they feel?
- They're actually really good (laughing)
Maybe not really, but they're actually perfectly adequate.
They're not very long if you've got..
Like I like to have my hands quite outboard
so for me they're great.
But I think,
if you want them more inboard you've literally got a place
just to fit a hand in there.
- But $12 man.
- $12, such good value.
Yeah. I think the Corky grips were right by me.
So about to put my zoom seat post in,
how much was this, Jase?
- $85.
- $5. So nearly a dollar a millimeter of travel,
which is a pretty good deal.
It's quite heavy.
I'm assuming it's got literally a mechanical spring
in here as opposed to an air spring.
This externally routes it.
Mm, right how can I make this look
least crap as possible.
That's what I'm going for.
They're going to go non-drive side down there.
And then once I take the shift off later on,
and then I'm going to subsequently
route that back into there.
- These are the first pair of grips
I've ever ridden that came with constructions.
Oh.
Oh man that saddle looks like the definition of comfort.
- It is.
It's actually, it's got a nice hanging ornament
that's staying in there,
the alloy's so soft. So just...
- Uh oh.
- It will come up at some point in the ride,
I think that'll rattle loose.
- That is one grip.
I'm setting it in what Rev calls the medium setting,
so we'll see.
These claim to provide some damping,
so limiting some trail vibration.
So between my carbon rims, my carbon handlebar,
potentially my carbon stem, I'm not sure what that would do,
and these grips, I should be riding on a cloud.
- Beautiful. That's a song to feel.
You know it's good when it has play from new.
- (laughing) You just gotta tighten it up, man.
(Henry laughing)
- Oh, it doesn't reach.
(both laughing)
It's gonna have to be along the top tube.
That's a speedy return.
High quality product.
- [Jason] Is it speedy?
- Actually it's not that bad.
It's quite a lot of work to get on the old lever,
slash there's no real return.
Add some tension.
Impressive, impressive.
Ke-bam. Ke-bam.
Um-pa-cha. Ooh.
(Henry laughing)
- That is beautiful.
I'm not sure how I'm gonna get off these grips.
(Jason softly laughing)
That's a sign of uh,
this is going to be a nice install.
Or a big upgrade I should say.
Ooh, right through.
That, yeah. That dropper has seen better days.
It was incredibly rough.
Mm?
- I can't get this pedal off.
- [Jason] No!
- Yeah, it's completely...
(pedal whirring)
(both laughing)
So now I have to wait for the both pedals
until we get new cranks.
That pedal, basically the left of the non-drive side
of the bike has inverse fancier pedals.
I think the previous owner has,
well they basically completely mashed
the Allen key interface.
So what I'm going to have to do (laughing) is run
odd pedals for today,
until later episodes when I get a new crank set.
You could get that out,
but I just don't have the toolage.
We don't have the time of filming and yeah, it's in there.
It's great. It looks...
Different looks for different places.
You know, different angles.
It'll be fine.
- Dude. I think it looks good.
I think it looks good.
- It is what it is.
(Henry laughing)
- The external routing's a shame. Let's be honest, but...
- You know, it's more that pedal I'm pretty miffed off at,
'cause you're getting a wireless drive train. Do you know?
- I am.
- So yours are gonna look absolutely decked, doesn't it?
- Yeah. - Yeah
- Yeah
It's not going to be like this?
- No, you can't tell.
- No - I can't ride that (laughing)
- No, no, no. But anyway.
- All right, now we have the saddle that I'm surprised
doesn't just float away. If I sway..
- That's nice.
- It's nice carbon rails,
$280.
- $280
- Something like that.
- Feel free to just to leave you all your stuff on the floor
there Jase, don't worry about that.
(both chuckling)
Yeah, honestly it's fine.
(Henry laughing)
- Oh baby.
(seat pops)
A good indicator, is if it's maybe not comfortable
when you're sitting on it here.
- Well, mine's very comfortable.
I've never been so comforting in my life.
This is like... (seat softly whooshing)
- You have the lazy boys
- Yeah - of bikes saddles.
- Look at, it's so voluminous, there's so much saddle.
Bam!
- Oh!
Well it appears the Hulk was the previous owner of this bike
because those are tight.
Nothing like a fresh set of pedals,
to really set things off.
(tool clattering)
All right.
(tires bouncing softly)
I reckon that's a bike. - Yeah!
Actually, it looks all right.
- (laughing) Surprisingly.
- It does, it looks pretty good.
- I just put over a thousand dollars of parts on this thing.
- It does look kind of more expensive.
One less cable,
nice pedals, swanky handlebars.
- It feels good now.
Like the paddles, yeah that's good.
All right, Henry, it only costs me $1,500 ish,
but I have lost almost a pound of weight off my bike.
- Almost a pound? - 32 pounds, two ounces.
- That's like, a hundred dollars an ounce.
- Yeah. (Henry laughing)
- Something like that. But who's counting?
- Yeah (laughing)
- What are you sitting at?
- I'm at 33 6, which is a bit heavy,
but we have reinstalled heavier tires as well.
So that weight will hopefully come down
when we put the Mike Bears back on at the end of the series,
and taken it away.
But I think it can be a lot better bike to ride.
I'm excited to see how it goes.
- Should we get back to the trail?
- Let's head onto the trail and do some riding.
(upbeat music)
- So we've come back up to the top of Hybrid,
which was the scene for some nearly very big crashes
of the day.
How has that fork feeling?
- Uh the same, if not worse. (both laughing)
- But you have got loads of other new parts on your bike.
Pedaling up the road, initial impressions?
Do they fit?
- Initial impressions: everything feels quite good.
Actually, the dropper works fantastically,
it's so nice to just have that (clicking tongue)
instant engagement,
especially compared to the old one.
The seats: I'm on the fence at the moment.
It's a little uncomfortable
and it's going to be pointy edges on it that keep catching
my shorts.
- Mate, I've slept on sofa beds firmer than this thing.
This is so comfortable!
- [Jason] It better be.
- It looks good as well. Right?
It's got the relief channel (Jason chuckling)
for the old fella, I think is great.
I mean, one thing I would say is that this dropper
is not very long: a 100mm.
And so what that means is in my efficient pedaling position,
I got the cable routing correct.
But now that I've given myself some clearance
to get this thing in between it,
yeah, it's looking pretty messy.
- But how's the lever actuation?
'Cause your old one, it was like completely rubbed off
on the coating of the posts. - Yes
I mean both, they are horrible in different ways.
That ones.. the previous one was kind of,
you know, grinding.
This is just so...just feels so,
it's like return it
by your own thumb - Oh no!
- And it just feels..I mean it's fine,
it was 80 something bucks, but you can tell.
(Henry laughing)
Um, but everything else, look the grips are great.
The logo looks mysteriously similar to ODI.
I can only see that was an accident.
- Totally by accident.
- They're going to be kicking themselves
"Oh no, people are going to confuse us."
But (laughing), no apart from that,
everything feels all right.
- Well let's turn things downhill
because all we've done so far is climb
and put some, you know, stress testing
on a couple of these parts.
There's some big compressions, routing stuff, all that.
- You haven't got an $8 stamp.
- No, I got a $300 stamp.
- Uh. (both laughing)
All right, let's get into it.
♪ Gonna need all the wins, yeah ♪
♪ Ain't no L's, I gotta get it, no callin' quits, ♪
♪ Yeah yeah ♪
♪ Gotta keep on moving no matter how hard it gets ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
(bike clattering)
- Oh see, oh the pedals
(bike clattering)
♪ You, yeah, better move gone get knocked out, knocked out ♪
♪ I wear my heart on my sleeve, sleeve ♪
♪ Stressed, feel all my grief, grief ♪
♪ That's how I get it, success, ain't no givin' some days ♪
♪ I don't eat, I don't sleep, I don't eat ♪
♪ When I'm focused, I'm dangerous ♪
♪ They don't want it when I'm anxious ♪
♪ Aint no limit till I tank ♪
♪ I'm runnin' on fumes, the opposition don't amaze ♪
♪ A rose risen through the pavement ♪
♪ Get your hands outta my bag ♪
♪ I know this 'cause I've been hittin' it ♪
♪ I don't mean to brag ♪
♪ I guess that's what happens ♪
♪ when you takin' care of your business ♪
♪ Plus a family, you do the math ♪
♪ I'm out of my pocket, Houston we got a problem ♪
♪ I ain't perfect, let 'em watch me ♪
♪ Elevatin', got 'em nauseous ♪
♪ 'cause I'm the pilot in the cockpit ♪
♪ Nosedivin' ain't no option, whoo ♪
♪ Watch how I get ahead, watch how I get ahead ♪
♪ Watch how I get ahead, whoo ♪
♪ Watch how I set it up, bet you I shut it down ♪
♪ Watch how I get it a win ♪
♪ I don't think they really wanna come against the one ♪
♪ Who got a find 'round the pin on the grenade ♪
♪ I ain't never been the one, you think you can pet ♪
♪ I'm a lion, but the one up out the cage ♪
♪ I need all the wins, yeah ♪
- So we made it back to the car.
Today has been a bit more successful, would you say?
- [Jason] I totally agree, yeah.
I think we both rode more confidently.
We're clearly getting more used to the bikes
and the bikes are getting better, I think .
- (laughing) The bikes are getting better.
So if we talk through the bike,
starting at the front and moving backwards,
let's start, you know, the bars ,stem, grips.
How did you go on today?
- Yeah, overall definitely a massive upgrade.
I think the particular shape of this bar
fits me a bit better. I like the shorter stem.
The Rev grips (inhaling)
maybe not the most ideal testing situation.
You know, I think the claim to fame there
is high-speed chatter.
We're not going crazy faster through those woods,
it's wet and slippery.
So I didn't notice the inherent benefits.
- Yes - They just felt like grips.
- But you know, middle of summer full runs through Whistler,
maybe it will be a different story.
- Maybe, but for $90, I don't know, I.... (sighing)
- But look at it this way. You've gone to the bike park.
You're there for a week. I'm not saying these,
if they did help in that instance
and you're getting really bad arm pump,
'cause you not used to running that stuff back home.
For $90, you'd be like, "Oh my God, $10 a day
or something like that, is going to make these far better."
- Totally, and maybe you have like arthritis
or pain in your wrists or your hands when you ride,
could help there.
- It could help, but yeah,
I mean it's hard to always test these things.
- So are you saying you'd spend $90 on grips?
Are you happy with the grip?
- I think these grips have been.. they've been fine.
I mean, the thing with grips is,
if you don't notice that there,
they've kind of done that job in a way.
You know, (sighing) I mean with the front of this bike,
this stem and bar, dimensionally it's fine.
Like you touched upon,
a lot of it is personal preference anyway.
So there's no point me saying this is the perfect
or the bad shape because it might not suit you.
I think dimensionally they're fine.
They don't have much back sweep,
but that's not so much of a problem.
I would say that the thing would concern me,
is how long these things are gonna last.
Because if you know you tackle a wheel,
or something bad happens at the back of the bike,
it's one thing. (laughing)
But anything that is basically going to act
as a very effective brake
and your face (smacking hands)
going forward scares me a bit.
- You're saying you don't trust the integrity of a $9 stem.
- [Henry] I don't.
- Okay.
- I mean, who am I to say.
I mean you know, brand recognition,
it can be good and it can be bad.
I'm not saying the MIGHTYDUTY are not a reputable brand,
but I'm just saying that for me
and how I think about my safety,
I would like a little bit more.
- Honestly, I would go:
your grips.
- [Henry] Yes, absolutely.
- My bar and stem, for the exact same reason, the integrity.
I need to know that this is going to stay together
when you're hucking off the crazy stuff.
When you're riding hard, maybe doing bike park.
Got to trust it more.
- Yeah, totally.
I think peace of mind (laughing softly)
is very, very valuable.
But how about your seat posts? How do you go with that?
- [Jason] Honestly, I loved it (laughing)
- It is nice.
- [Jason] It's so nice. It was so easy to install.
So easy to set up.
I was basically done in under five minutes
and now with the longer drop I'm able to get the seat lower.
- [Henry] Mm.
- Which on the downhills helps out.
And then on the climbs,
it's just right there when you need it.
- That AXS seat post is really well-executed.
I think it's a super good bit of kit.
And the saddle though,
you said that you might not be quite so happy with that.
- Yeah. The saddle, (sighing) it just goes to show,
you can spend all the money in the world
and still get a very uncomfortable saddle.
(Henry laughing)
Unfortunately for me,
saddles are so personal. - (laughing) Yeah
- They're so, so personal.
So you know, take this with a grain of salt,
but for my body shape and my thighs (laughing),
it just didn't fit. It was a bit wide.
So I always found it tagging the inside of my legs.
And then just the overall shape,
it's not super comfortable for my behind.
Well, let's chat your drop rims
- and seat as well. - Yeah
- So you've got the a 100mm Zoom dropper, $85.
- Yes - How's it working?
- Well, for 85 bucks,
it is going to come down to your stature
as much as anything.
if you only need a 100mm drop, for 85 bucks,
'cause droppers can't get horrifically expensive.
- [Jason] Yeah.
- It is really good actually. It works.
I mean it's heavy and it's not the most elegant.
The lever feel isn't very positive,
et cetera, et cetera.
However, I think the value is really, really impressive.
The saddle, I mean,
I think the dropper isn't so much of a problem.
The saddle, it adds a lot of stack.
We said it's the deep dish.
It's hard to get out of the way.
But then again, if we're doing a big ride,
would you be taking this one over yours?
- If we were doing a big ride, honestly right now,
saddle vs saddle.
I would take Henry's.
- Okay. - Yup.
- I'll take your word on that.
I think let's go for this one.
- Yeah.
Dropper? I think I'm probably...
- AXS. - Yeah
- It has to be.
- It is very, very - Has to be
- Very, very nice.
- Okay, Henry, we have one final product to talk about.
Literally one in your case.
- Yeah (both laughing)
- We swapped your pedals this morning.
How is your right pedal feeling?
- My right pedal? I mean it feel largely
like its not quite as grippy
as whatever it was that came on.
Oh and ultimately it could be a lot worse.
I think a lot of modern riding shoes are so good,
they can cover the blind spots of a lot of pedals
- Mm - and just shift all that grip
But I would like a bigger platform, I think on long pedals.
I think the small platform could begin to give it a hotspot,
but I do have large feet, it has to be said.
- So I on the other hand,
have some pretty meaty boys under my feet.
And honestly that was a huge upgrade for me.
The pedals that previously came on this bike,
we're not cutting it on that kind of rougher chatter.
I could always feel my feet wanting to dance around
and these solve that problem completely,
my feet were locked in.
In fact, sometimes when we were dropping into dead,
and I put my foot
on a little wrong? - And you have to...
- And you know when you're like, "oh, oh, oh no."
And it was almost like, you're not clicked in,
but close enough. - Yes.
- You know, I mean, if I could split hairs,
I'd say those pedals, they do come in to come
in the non-titanium axle version.
I've ridden those pedals before and they are very good.
Noticeably better than the cheapest stuff.
- Yeah. I agree.
I think I might have to ball out on the pedals as well,
but not a bad option under your feet there.
Lots of options here
and a lot of personal preference involved.
- And not one Mike Bear in sight.
- Not yet.
- Not Mike Bear - Not yet.
- Not yet (laughing) - They're going to come back.
(both laughing)
All right. Well thank you guys so much for watching.
We've had a ton of fun swapping all the contact parts today.
Next time we're tackling...
Oh, I'm so excited.
We're tackling suspension, finally.
We're putting on a new fork and a new shock
and you're getting something in as well.
(Henry laughing)
I think it's going to be a massive upgrade either way.
Stay tuned, keep on watching
and make sure you subscribe for the next episode
of "Budget vs Baller.