(upbeat electronic music)
- Welcome to the GCN Tech show.
In this week, we'll not talk about new products.
We've not got an edgy talking point
where fisticuffs could well get involved.
Instead, we're having a vote-off.
Think of it as the Oscars or the Golden Globes of Cycling.
- And the great news is
it is you who will be deciding the winners
of each of our categories.
We've got two polls for each,
one of which is here on YouTube,
you'll see a link at the end of each category for that,
and there's also one over on the GCN app,
and you'll find links to that beneath this video.
Speaking of the app actually, Jon,
those of you who live in Lichtenstein,
Austria, Switzerland, or Germany can now download it,
which means it's worldwide.
So thank you very much for your patience over there.
Your feedback will be very much welcome.
Right, shall we get on with the categories?
- Let's do it, mate.
(dramatic orchestral music)
Let's start then off with our first category,
New Bike of the Year for 2019.
And we have seen plenty of new releases,
not quite as many aero road bikes as last year.
But, hey, we've narrowed it down to five of the very finest.
And best of all,
you get to decide on who exactly is going to win.
It's very cool and interactive, this.
- It is, it's very interactive.
Right, the first of those five is the Colnago Ottantasette.
- [Jon] I'm glad you said that, not me.
- That's my best effort
and that means 87, of course, in Italian.
The reason for that is because Colnago produced
this very special bike to celebrate their founder
Ernesto Colnago's 87th birthday.
And it is quite a special bike, Jon.
It's got a special price tag of €50,000
and it's gold-plated,
although I think I'd want it to be gold full-stop
for that price though.
- [Jon] Yeah, it's a nice looking bike though, isn't it?
It's the sort of thing
that Mr. T would ride himself, B.A Baracus.
- [Daniel] I don't know if I'd ride that thing at all.
That would be somewhere locked up if I owned it.
- Definitely, yeah, and you're not 87 either.
Right, also let's move on then to the next nomination
and that was the new range of Eddy Merckx MyCorsa bikes.
We saw this released during the Champs Elysees stage,
the final stage of this year's Tour de France,
where Oliver Naesen took to the streets on it.
And, well, it was an absolute beauty, wasn't it,
white and gold, a lovely looking bike.
- It's stunning.
It looks really classy.
And I combination of retro and modern.
I really did like that
when I saw it towards the end of the Tour de France.
That's number two.
Number three is the Officina Battaglin Arena 1981.
Another stunning piece of craftsmanship, this one.
Another steel bike, in fact, Jon.
Columbus SL seems to be making
somewhat of a comeback in 2019.
- Yeah, there's a lot to be said for that.
Now, this frameset was actually produced to celebrate
the 38th anniversary of Giovanni Battaglin's victory
of the 1981 Giro d'Italia,
where it finished inside of the Verona Arena,
an ancient gladiatorial amphitheater I've been told.
- I thought it was a funny anniversary
to celebrate, the 38th.
Well, I guess he'll be thinking he gets one
for every year now.
It's like anniversaries, isn't it?
First 15 years is a different gift for every single year.
- What're you up to?
- I'm up to 13 with Loraine
and I think it was lace for the last one,
so I got her some Adidas Gazelles, of course.
Next one's ivory for the 14th,
so I think I'm going to skip that one.
- Nobody likes a poacher today.
- 15th is crystal, which could prove expensive.
I'll get some Cristal Champagne,
which will still be expensive.
But anyway, we shall move on to a track bike actually.
- Yeah, so away from those sort of retro steel-feel
of those bicycles, we've got the Hope HB.T Bike.
So it's like nothing we've ever seen before,
is it, let's face it.
We've got super-wide forks, super-wide seatstays,
3D titanium-printed parts
from engineering company Renishaw.
And also Lotus, well, they've been involved with it too.
It's absolutely beautiful, that.
- Yeah, it's a nice bike,
but what I like most about this bike
is that it shows that innovation can still be made
in cycling within the UCI rules and confines,
which is great stuff.
Very cutting edge, I think you'll agree.
And in fact, the fifth and final bike
for the New Bike of the Year category
is also from the track.
It's the new one from Pinarello.
I think you say MAAT.
- [Jon] I'm not going to disagree.
- [Daniel] Anyway, this is one, again, looks very fast
and I'm sure it will be very fast, Jon,
'cause it'll be ridden by the likes of Filippo Ganna
and Elia Viviani at the Tokyo Olympics next year.
- Yeah, mean, aggressive,
that is more what I thought we'd see.
Well, I thought we'd see more bike looking like this,
being released, aero road bikes this year.
We've not seen as many as a couple of years ago,
where that was all we were having released for us.
- Well, maybe we'll see a flurry of them
that take after the Lotus one.
We'll see in 2020, won't we?
Right, those are your five bikes to choose from.
As I mentioned, you can find a poll on-screen right now
or you can find it in the first link just below this video.
(high pitched buzzing) - [Man] Cha-ching!
- Next up, we have Screw Riding Up Grades,
Buy Upgrades of the year.
And we've had so many brilliant ones sent into us
over the course of 2019,
it has been quite hard to narrow it down to just five,
but we've done that.
I'm sure there're a few people out there
that would've liked to have bribed us
to get theirs into the top five,
but we're not easily bribed, Jon, are we?
- I don't know about that, well, I am.
Anyway, right, let's go on then to the first contender.
And actually, it should just be pointed out
that there is an actual prize to be awarded
and it's a very fine trophy.
- Yes, Jon has just shown it to me.
It looks amazing.
We're currently in negotiations
with the eBay seller, aren't we?
- (chuckling) Yeah, we are, yeah.
- Down from £7.50 to £6.50.
- That's right and if we can get it delivered by Christmas.
Right, okay, well the first nomination
is actually Fred from New Jersey
and I remember this one very fondly
'cause I like tinkering with electronics myself.
Now, Fred wanted a smart trainer
but didn't want to waste a perfectly fine existing product,
so he did some wizardry, added Bluetooth,
added an ANT+ resistance control unit,
and made it compatible with Zwift and his own iPhone app.
It works so well, Fred also did the same to his rollers.
- [Daniel] My goodness.
Some people are just too clever
for their own good, Jon, aren't they?
- [Jon] No one likes a smart ass, do they?
- No, which is why not many people like me.
Not that I can do that,
I can just be a bit arrogant sometimes.
Anyway, moving on, this one from Thomas
in Bensimon, Australia, who was able to construct this,
well, pretty sweet cyclocross rig,
which was originally a Shogun Metro bike.
This is roughly what it would've looked like originally,
a kind of hybrid.
He hasn't got a picture of the original bike
but that's as close as he could get to it.
And this is the finished item.
Quite the transformation, really.
- [Jon] Yeah, lots of seatpost!
- [Daniel] There is a lot of seatpost, yeah.
There's almost as much seatpost as seat pin.
Ah, that's the same thing.
There's almost as much seatpost as seattube.
(bell dinging) - Yeah, that's the one.
Oh, it's nice though, isn't it?
- [Daniel] Yeah, well it's certainly an upgrade
from the original one, that's for sure.
- [Jon] You also quite liked the exercise bike--
- [Daniel] I did, take a look at that!
- [Jon] I think that's what you were looking at.
- One of the most retro indoor trainers
I have seen in a long time.
That's got to be from circa 1962, I reckon.
(hysterically laughing)
- Pretty precise there--
- I mean, if you want to take that into consideration
when you're voting later on, please by all means do so.
- And of course, we couldn't leave out Cameron
from Victoria Park in Bath.
- [Daniel] Blimey, that's local.
- Yeah, that is literally a stone's throw.
I reckon we could probably reach it.
We should have a go after this,
see if we can reach the park.
Now, he turned a £230 eBay bargain,
the Trek Speed Concept, into a modern-looking aero bike
for a fraction of the cost.
- [Daniel] Oh wow. - [Jon] Yeah.
That impressed us.
- That's an impressive-looking machine there, isn't it?
He hasn't cut the fork steerer just yet though,
but, still, quite the upgrade from what that was originally.
We're now going to go to the southern hemisphere though
and to Cape Town to be precise with Theo.
This was his Giant TCR
that started to look a little bit tired
so he gave it a spruce-up and a pretty bling paint job,
a flip-style paint job.
And the cheeky part though is he even put it
by the pool side to show it off even more,
and perhaps just to show off his pool in his backyard.
- Hmm, all right for some, isn't it?
- Mm hmm.
- I do like a bit of flip paint.
And then the final contender is Jeff
from Duluth in Minnesota, USA.
Apologies as well that Dan and I haven't done any accents
for this section, but neither of us are any good, are we?
- Well, neither is Ollie, but he still does them
but will never refrain.
- (laughing) All right then.
This year, we had loads of flat bar-to-drop bar conversions.
So many, in fact, I decided to do a series
on turning an old garbage mountain bike
into something more suitable for us slobbering on
on GCN Tech with some drop bars.
And anyway, this one here, like I say, it's Jeff's
and a Specialized Hardrock that he got from Craigslist.
It was repainted and, quite frankly,
the transformation was amazing.
- [Daniel] Wow, that's a nice-looking upgrade, isn't it,
except, perhaps, for the rear fender.
- [Jon] Yeah, not really a fan of fenders, not like that.
But, hey, keeps his bottom dry.
- But the rest of it,
I think looks really, really nice indeed.
It's quite amazing, really,
how in contrast the bigger modern stuff is,
like the STIs versus the smaller steel tubing
of the original frame there, isn't it?
- [Jon] Yeah, they are big, ol' levers.
- Yeah, they are.
Anyway, those are your five for this category.
As ever, you can vote in the poll that's on the screen
or over on the app.
We'll link to that in the description below.
(dramatic whooshing) (crackling)
- The final category,
and probably the most prestigious of all, Dan,
because there's another trophy to be won
and, well, actually trying to narrow it down
is not an easy job.
And, in fact, I didn't want to be responsible for this,
so instead, I actually compiled
all of the super nices this year,
I did quite a lot of work behind the scenes,
and then the ones with the most amount of votes on them,
well, they got through and here is the shortlist indeed.
- Oh, so they are all worthy contenders for this final five?
Good to get the titanium wrap away then.
Don't blame us.
- Blame yourselves.
(dramatic music)
Right, the first one then is Paul from Hong Kong
with this bespoke titanium frame
from TITANcycles in China.
- [Daniel] Which has that classical horizontal
flat toptube and the stem.
He's got an ENVE fork, mechanical Dura-Ace,
Hunt carbon wheels, 3T finishing kit, and an AX saddle.
And to top the whole thing off, Jon,
on his toptube, he's got his children's names etched.
- Yeah, now Paul didn't send us any photos of that--
- Oh, right no proof.
- No, don't have any proof.
Just trying to pull the old heart strings, eh?
- If you wanted to be the ultimate cycling geek,
you can just call one of your kids Dura-Ace, couldn't you?
Then you've got the name already there for you.
- Moving on then, Dan, (chuckling)
let's go onto the next contender.
And it was Shawn from California and that Colnago Arabesque.
I mean, this one didn't necessarily match everything
with what we look for,
such as must have all of the wheels included
and nice clean backdrop, but just goes to show
it's not always about those fine details.
- Yeah, again, don't blame us.
It was you lot that voted the most for this bike
or these top five.
Next up, we have this one from Dean in Brisbane,
which is the Wilier Cento 10 Pro with the Ramato finish.
A fine looking bike when it came out a couple of years ago
and a fine looking bike still in 2019, I think you'll agree.
Although, and not one to knock something, again,
a few filters going on with that photo, aren't there?
- Yeah, I do like a bit of vignette,
but that's like looking through the keyhole, isn't it,
something I'm not very familiar with.
- [Daniel] Still, a lovely looking bike.
- Yeah (chuckling) and we've got Holger from Odenvald,
which is near Hirschhorn and Heidelberg in Germany.
And this is Holger's De Rosa SK Pininfarina Luxury Edition.
And, to tell you what, that looks luxury, doesn't it?
- [Daniel] It does.
That is an amazing looking bike
and I for one am very glad to see De Rosa
back in the World Tour next year with Cofidis.
- Yeah, same here.
Give me one of those, Dan. (thwacking)
- Nice one, we love De Rosa.
- We're not too old to do that, are we?
- We are, Jon, as we are too old to do most things
but we carry on regardless.
The final one to vote on in this, the final category,
is from TomHome11 and this is that Trek Madone
that got knocked over.
Let's relive the moment.
- [TomHome] Ah, you knocked my bike over.
- Still love that.
Basically it was a super nice bike, wasn't it?
We're not sure if it was still super nice after that fall.
Might've broken a derailleur.
I love the horse runs away like a naughty little schoolboy.
Not going to catch me after that.
- Wasn't me, sir.
- No, exactly.
So those are your five choices
(loud scraping) for that category.
Are you going to ring the bell?
- Do you know what,
I think I might just give it a quick ring.
(loud clanging)
Just for old time's sake.
- Yeah, I would hear that on the other sets.
Anyway, cast your vote on-screen right now
or, just a reminder, they're over on the app.
In fact, they're all in one handy place.
If you scroll across the top of the app to Shows
and click on the GCN Tech Show,
you'll find all the polls right there in the same place.
- Nice and simple.
Even we can do it.
- Yes, exactly.
- Right, I hope you've enjoyed the tech nominations
for this year.
There've been some absolute crackers in there
and, well, someone, in fact, two lucky viewers
are even going to win a prize.
- When are the results going to be read out?
- They are going to be out in two weeks' time.
- Two weeks' time.
I'm sure the people nominated cannot wait
for the results of that.
- Boxing Day, in fact, Dan.
- Is it? - It's Boxing Day, yeah.
- Well, what a great day to do it.
Right, if you've enjoyed this video,
then please give it the thumbs up
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every time we upload a new video.
Speaking of videos, we're going to add to another one now.
We talked about a few retro bikes at the start of this show,
these retro modern bikes,
but if you want a true retro one from exactly 20 years ago,
Ollie went to the Colnago headquarters in Italy
and took a look at Andrea Tafi's
Paris-Roubaix-winning bike from 1999.
- What beauty. - Just down here.