Mark: Aloha, this is a GTN's NOT Kona week. Ordinarily, we would be on Kona in Hawaii this
week. We'd be catching up with the pros, checking out some of the new tech releases, and obviously
following the racing from the Ironman World Championships, but of course,
Kona is not happening this year for obvious reasons, but we decided
we wouldn't let that stop us. In fact, many brands have actually gone ahead and released
some of their products that they would have ordinarily released during Kona week. I decided,
let's bring the Kona Tech Tour to us. [music]
Now I've got to say this tech tour has been a little harder than just simply walking around
an expo, but I have still managed to source and get some pretty exciting tech releases
in for us. I've got bike helmets, I've got goggles, I've got body measurement devices,
bike cars, even bikes. Yes, I'm pretty excited about this one.
Let's kick off with this exciting new release from Muc-Off. Now we actually featured this product
just a couple of weeks ago on the GTN show after it's spotted in stage 20 of the Tour de France,
the time trial stage, and it is called that LOPS system, Lightweight Oversize Position
Shifting system, essentially an oversized jockey wheel system that goes onto your rear derailleur,
and we've seen other products like this before, notably from ceramics paper.
This is, I guess, a pretty interesting move from Muc-Off. It does make sense though,
Muc-Off are at the top of the game in terms of drivetrain efficiency. Can you imagine?
This is going to be pretty darn good. Now you may be wondering, why do I need one of these?
What do they actually do? The idea of these oversized jockey wheel systems is that it helps
to reduce the friction of the chain so the chain doesn't have to go through quite as tight angles
because they've increased the size of the pulley wheels. Yes, Muc-Off have come into this market
with their own pulley wheel system, and they claim it's 10% lighter than its nearest competitor.
Moving on. We have something really quite interesting here, it is called
"core." It is a core body temperature monitor without the need to swallow something or
insert something inside you. This device can be attached to the surface of your skin. Using one
of these pads just sticks on, or even easier for a lot of us, just using heart rate straps. It just
slots in nicely and it will tell you your core temperature in real-time as you're moving. Whilst
you're cycling, whilst you're running, it can actually store that data onto the device itself,
or it can transmit that to a sports unit such as your bike computer head unit.
Had Kona been on this week and given the temperatures we get out in Hawaii,
this could have been really interesting for a lot of the athletes out there at the moment.
They actually had a bunch of the UCI pro tool teams using this device for the Tour de France
and apparently more again for the Giro and Vuelta. As you may probably know, if your
core temperature raises too much, it can impact on your performance or, worse, can be fatal.
Using this device to monitor your core temperature could allow you to gauge your effort better and
pace things better, or just simply know your limits, or perhaps you can use it as
a training tool and when you're trying to heat adapt and acclimatize, you can use this to see
if you're improving. I think this is absolutely groundbreaking, so yes, watch this space.
Form have also recently released a new update for the augmented reality display swimming goggles.
Again, I have talked about these before in the channel, but I genuinely think
these are an absolute game-changer, I'm really excited. I'm going to shout about them again.
Now, these goggles subtly tell you, within the goggle lens themselves, how fast you're swimming,
how far you swim, your cadence, and so on. Now, today that has been limited to just
indoor swimming, and they've used accelerometers to achieve that,
but now with this recent update, and that update can be made to previous form goggles,
you can do the same in the outdoors by linking them up to a smartwatch. It uses a smartwatch's
GPS functionality and moment that is limited just some Garmin watches and some Apple watches,
but it's going to come out across some other devices soon. Yes, you get the same functionality
out in the open water, which-- Before this, I would have said, you get your quality in
the swimming pool and then go into the open waters just to get that open water feel.
Now, you can pretty much emulate quality swim sessions from the pool in the open water and
perhaps even for race day. Yes, you can see, I'm pretty excited about these. Go check Form
out. I'm also talking about swimming, how about this neat little product that is literally
just launched? It's called Zygo, it is a Bluetooth bone conduction headset, so transmitting audio
through the bones on the side of your head and therefore leaving your ears nicely open,
but it seems that rather than the headset storing the music actually on it, it uses a transmitter as
a middleman, I guess. Your phone will connect to the transmitter via Bluetooth for then the
transmitter to your headset via radio frequency. Then you can leave that transmitter on the
side of the pool and swim away with the tunes pumping. You can also use an app on your phone
and access a load of stored guided workouts and head off, be told what you're doing turn-by-turn
length by length and so on. I don't know about you. I do personally struggle quite a lot with
my motivation for swimming, so, yes, I think this could be quite a lot of fun.
We've also recently discussed on the latest released project
cyclone, and cyclone is a running shoe, performance running shoe,
but importantly, it is recyclable and made from bio-based materials. Now, On are actually going
to be setting up a subscription service, which you can start by putting down a deposit of $29.99.
Basically, when your cyclone shoes are done and dusted, you want some new ones,
you can order a set of new ones, send in your old ones and they will be recycled, which, I think,
is absolutely awesome. As I said before, I really do hope other brands follow suit quite soon.
Now, moving on, actually staying with On though, I haven't really spoken enough about these shoes,
they're the On Cloud boom. Now I've had these for a little bit of time now, but they are
a carbon plate shoe from On and quite an exciting release from them, and had it been Kona this week,
I suspect we would have seen quite a few athletes
running around the course of the Ironman world championship in a set of these.
I've worn them just a little bit. I could see just from that little bit of use,
they do feel awesome. They're super light and they just look great as well.
Now let's talk bikes. Actually, last week I got the pleasure of riding a brand new bike
that came out just this weekend gone. It's the newest iteration of the Orbea or do the same
model of bike that has been written to a Kona win and by Andrew Starykowicz
to numerous Ironman bike course records. In fact, if you'd like to see more on that bike
and me actually putting that bike up against a road bike of the various different train,
head on over to the GTN channel and to some of our videos from the weekend,
you can see that there, or head on over to GTN where I put that TT bike up against Hankin Kona
whilst on road bikes in a two-up. Yes, very interesting, head on over
to see both of those videos for a little bit more on the bike. Now, it is really quite an impressive
bike. They've really improved the aerodynamics of the bike, shaving a staggering 11.5% of the
total bike drive, which is quite impressive. Also, whilst improving its handling, its
comfort and the ergonomics, and also the weight which I can vouch for now having ridden it.
Now, essentially, they've achieved this by increasing the top tube length which actually
helps the handling and those technical sections, descends, the climbs and so on, but also on top of
that, they've made it incredibly adjustable. Now they've done that with this new front post system,
as well as other various parts, but this front post system is really quite impressive.
Essentially, just one post coming out from the base bar, which also helps aerodynamics,
but makes it really easy to just slide up and down to get the height you need, the
angle that you need, essentially allowing you to get the position that you need nice and easily.
Oh, and we have another bike that I've been excited to talk about, although,
unfortunately, I can't give you much more at the moment, though fortunately for you,
Sebastian Kienle has teased us a little bit. If you head on over to his Instagram,
you'll see these recently put up a photo of him riding a blacked-out bike whilst
being fitted. Yes, we can only imagine that this is going to be a new bike, or maybe it's just a
custom colorway specifically for savvy, but if you remember a couple of years ago, there were some
leaked images of a new Scott bike, so fingers crossed it's that just got to wait and see.
British brand Reap have come in with something quite exciting too. Now, you may remember back in
2017 at the Ironman world championships, we featured Harry Welch's Reap bike. They've
made a few adjustments to that since, a couple of tweaks, and actually, 18 months ago, they released
their Vulcan Triathlon bike that they've designed for the Vulcan that are really of interest, and
they've actually dubbed them the ballistic bars. Now, their idea was to create the first production
bike with a fully aero-integrated cockpit. Aero bars and all. Now, you may have seen with
numerous pro riders, we've been featuring them in some pro bikes with their custom aero-integrated
cockpit, but they cost an arm and a leg. Whereas Reap's idea is to make these bars for everyone
at an affordable price. It appears to be very adjustable and compatible with an integrated
hydration system. I've got to say, I've been very impressed with the work that Reap are doing,
so do make sure you head on over to their site and check it out.
A few months back Selle Italia released their new Watt saddle. Saddle they designed closely
with Patrick Lange and the BMC Triathlon Team. A saddle I suspect we were seeing quite a few
athletes riding at Kona this weekend had it gone ahead. Now, it's a split nose design,
as you can see there, but they actually managed to keep it quite narrow as it goes
further back, which is, I guess, a little unlike some other split nose design saddles
out and obviously going off the feedback from Patrick and various other athletes.
It also has a slightly grippier surface towards the front of it to sort of help
you stay perched in the saddle. I would say, I'm looking forward to using this one myself.
Another little teaser for you here, this time from Polar. Its due to drop this week. In fact, even
Lucy Charles-Barkley has been teasing us with it over on social media. Stay tuned for this week. We
can only suspect it will be a watch, who knows. Another product that I'm excited to see develop
is the Incus Nova device. Again, we've talked about this one before on the channel. It is
a device that slots into your suit and tracks a ton of data, more than you can
imagine actually. They started out in swimming, and it's again, slopped it into a swimsuit,
and it will track things like your swim cadence, your rotation, any imbalances, and so on.
It's been really popular with elite athletes and some coaches using it for their athletes to
monitor their stroke and try and iron out those imbalances,
but they're now branching out into running and other sports too, which is really interesting.
Again, it will track a ton data with the running, more than I even thought was out there. I'm very,
very interested in this, and I think it probably deserves a followup video on that. Again,
stay tuned for this one. I think it's quite an interesting one to keep your eyes peeled on.
Finally, to finish a couple of bikey bits, we have the brand new
Laser Volante TT helmet. It looks super slippery and was worn by Roglič in the stage 20
of the tour to France. Unfortunately, though, it does look rather hot, perhaps lacking in
ventilation. I'm not too sure. Maybe not the best helmet for Kona, but Laser claim it to be
their fastest helmet today, and I've got to say it does look really quite cool and looks super,
super aero. Also, we have a couple of goodies from Vision. We've got their TFW disc wheel.
Again, using the Tour to France, and it is one of the lightest tubeless disc wheels out
there coming in under 1000 grams. Although, unfortunately, not something that you would
have seen in Kona anyway, because disc wheels are forbidden in Kona due to the crosswinds,
something we may have seen out in Kona, though, are the new TFE extensions from Vision a wild.
One piece designed the armrest and the extensions as one, and that is meant to be around 8% faster,
so Vision claim, which would shave around 9.4 seconds over 40 kilometer time trial
and comes in at under 128 grams for the pair. Yes, that is a ton of tech there today.
Unfortunately, it is not in Kona. Hopefully, we get to enjoy that next year, but I hope you have
enjoyed my little Kona Tech Tour today. If so, please do give it a "Like." Let us know which
bits you've enjoyed in the comment section below and how excited you are for new tech
that's coming out very soon. Don't forget to head on over to our GTN social media channels.
Give them a little "Follow," and if you're not subscribed to the channel already, because we
do have a ton of Kona content coming out this week, you don't want to miss it, if you're not,
give us a "Subscribe," just down below. [00:13:36] [END OF AUDIO]