(electronic music)
- Welcome to Ask GMBN Tech, in fact this one
is a little bit different to usual.
This is ask me specific questions, a special this month.
The guys on our social media team put some posts up
asking you guys to ask me some questions
about the worst bikes I've ridden, the most unusual bikes
I've ridden, accidents I've had, all that sort of stuff.
And we've had so many questions, we're simply
not going to be able to answer all of them, unfortunately
but I'm gonna have a good go at getting through this list.
And if there's enough, we'll make two shows out of it.
Hopefully, this is quite entertaining for you.
So the first question up is from Daniel and is says,
what's your worst injury whilst fixing a bike?
You mentioned that some of your worst injuries
have been in the workshop.
I'm not sure if I said that or not, if I did,
I think I meant to say when riding to work
rather than in the workshop.
In the workshop I've had really typical sort of injuries.
Skin off my knuckles when slipping
on that Allen key or rounded bolt.
Blood blisters, if fact I've got one right there.
Caught in between a set of pliers just when
I was really trying to pinch something
and they slipped and I pinched my skin.
A few lifted fingernails as well is always very unpleasant.
And also splinter from inner cables
which is excruciatingly painful, I'd much rather have
pedals to the shin than one of those splinters
'cause they're so horrible and so hard to get out.
But if it's going back to riding to work, then yeah,
I've had my two worst crashes, actually riding to work.
One, in fact, this is more or less
how I got into the biking industry.
I was testing a set of forks for MBK before I worked there
so this must have been like 1999, something like that.
I don't really remember too much about it, I know what I did
and I basically bunny-hopped off this massive curb
out into the road, it was at a causeway in Staines
so it was quite a bank down to the road.
And the forks, which were a pair of Stratos FR4s,
so it was like a cajole slowing on fork with 4 inch travel.
They snapped clean in half, basically in my face
went straight and pole-drived into the ground.
And I broke my nose, my cheek and my eye socket
and basically slid down the road on my face.
Now, I was lucky, I'm lucky to be alive
because I was wearing a helmet
but the helmet literally exploded on the impact
and I was left with the remaining straps
and bits of polystyrene around my head
and the rest had just disintegrated in the impact.
It was a skate star helmet so it was
quite a tough helmet as well.
I think it might have been a ProtoTech.
So really, thank you for keeping that
in one piece to be honest.
Pretty nasty accident all around,
I nearly tore my ear off at the same time
in that same crash.
So where I slid down the road,
a go faster stripe down the side of my head.
Amusingly, I had long hair at the time.
Went into the hospital and because the side of my head
was such a mess, they basically shaved all my hair off.
To trigger my wounds, a double whammy,
I came out with a hamburger eye, like face all messed up
broken nose and no hair.
So I looked like a right idiot. More so than usual in fact.
And then, a few years later when actually working at MBUK,
I was riding to work on my Curtis SX24,
so it was a dirt jump bike basically.
With 24 inch wheels, single speed
and the free hub gave way on it.
It is the same effect as when you snap a chain.
I'm pedaling down the road, sprinting and it just went.
It span all the way around. So I threw my weight forward.
Same thing again, landed on the right side of my face.
Same nose, same cheek, same eye socket.
Exactly the same injury, the second time basically.
Except I remembered everything about it.
I remember hitting the floor.
I remember not feeling a thing. My face felt all numb.
There was blood just pouring out of my nose and stuff.
And some nice person from the charity shelter
was putting a blanket around me,
telling me I was going to be alright.
And I looked up and my bike was halfway down the road.
Where it had just catapulted down the road.
And that was it.
Check your frail bodies and check your chains.
That was the moral of that story.
But yeah, those are the two worst injuries.
And actually, I do still get some pain over
on the side of my head in really cold weather sometimes.
But glad I was wearing a helmet.
Might not be here today.
This next question is a real hard one actually.
So this is from Anthony Nilsson.
Which retro bike, this is based on, I think,
I'm guessing, on the Cannondale bikes.
Recently, sort of modern, retro ones.
Which retro bike would you like to see
a modern geometry remake of?
For me, I'd like to see a modern geometry 29ER
Cannondale Super V DH Fulcrum.
Yeah, that'd be a pretty bitchin' bike to be fair.
I don't know, that's a really hard question.
Because there's a lot of old bikes
and the thing with the old bikes is the great memories,
but really, you ride them now
and none of them ride very well.
You know, you can have minor suspension platforms on them
for the time and that but,
compared to what we have and the geometry and wheel sizes
and all of those differences,
all of the marginal improvements we've had over the years.
Bikes today are the best we've ever had.
It really is pretty hard to get a bad bike.
But my favorite bike, I think of all time and the bike
that if I could still buy a retro one to build out now
would be a AMP Research B1.
So one of the original ones.
You used to see them quite a lot as a Mongoose amplifier
And identical frame set. Then there's various others.
You know, the B3, B4, different generations of them.
But it was all about the original one.
The last one I really liked and in particular,
that Mongoose amplifier version.
Now, the amp free set had the horsed lightener link on it.
Known as the horse link, which later became the FSR link,
As previously mentioned. And also had the McPherson strut.
So the C stage went basically straight into a shock design
straight into the frame basically.
If you look into the McPherson strut design,
you see a lot in off road racing cars.
You see it on car suspension and maybe other designs.
It's quite popular. Back then, it was amazing.
This thing felt so good. So active under pedaling.
So active under breaking, but it didn't really solve
the pivot point was quite low. So it wasn't affected
too much. So minimal chain groove on that bike.
It was really, really good performing bike.
Now, of course, the geometry back then was very short.
So I'd quite like to make a long version of it.
And have that really nice spindly twin down tube.
So almost the size of my fingers, these down tubes.
Twin all the way.
Unfortunately, they were famous for, shall we say,
parting way. But never the less,
I think still one of the nicest looking frames out there.
Quite simply, I'd love to have a modern version of that.
And actually Coltech, their bikes
kind of remind me of them in a way.
But I still prefer the ball burnished,
like the polished look.
I'm a huge fan of the Cannondale bikes
as we mentioned on the show recently.
Something about the Cannondale bikes,
they are four thousands, two thousands, all out.
They are just beautiful looking bikes.
They had it right the first time around.
There were amazing welds
that were polished and filed off afterward.
So their frames almost looked like carbon fiber
with swoopy frames back then.
So the modern one of those is amazing.
With the lefty Australian fork on there.
What else is there really?
Dangerholms's nod to the Klein Attitude,
arguably one of the finest looking matte bikes of all time.
That original one that weighed 20 pounds, 26 inch wheels.
Mission control bar stem. Beautiful.
And he made a modern classic with that Scott. That was cool.
I did actually do a modern classic of my own.
Quite a few years ago now.
I think it was for the 25 anniversary.
Now it's the 20th anniversary of the GT Zaskar frame.
So the GT Zaskar, is the frame that Hans Rey rode.
And this was a time I was working at MBUK Magazine.
And I got sent one of these frames.
I was like, this is the most beautiful thing ever.
I wanted to do a modern classic rebuild on this.
So I was spoke to the guys at GT and they were like,
keep hold of this thing. Do what you can with it.
I'm sure it will make a great story.
So, I got ahold of a set of Rockshox revelation forks
which was the nearest in the look and amount of travel
to the Rockshox GTSL that would have been
on that bike originally.
And I spoke to Argos which is a frame sprayer over in
Bristol and they still had some of the original
Judy yellow paint. So I had the forks resprayed in
Judy yellow paint, got some original Rockshox Judy graphics
For those forks, even though it was a revelation.
From TF Tuned and they also tuned the fork up on there.
I got Hope to fire up the air in my tires.
Again, I had to sweet talk him for that. To get purple hubs.
And purple disc breaks front and rear on it.
It's basically a period looking bike,
but with modern components on it.
It even had reruns of the Panaracer
smoke and dot tires on it.
This bike, is one of the nicest bikes I've ever been on.
In fact, it was the nicest bike I ever built.
Unfortunately, I gave it away as a competition prize.
Now I'm still not sure why I did that.
Because it was essentially my bike.
I was going to buy the frame.
All the bits were pretty much mine anyway.
But, I gave it away in a competition in MBUK magazine.
Annoyingly, the guy that won it,
his dad told him to sell it. So he sold it.
It was like, who listens to your dad when you dad tells you
to sell a bike like that?
What a plunker? But thankfully, someone I think off of the
retro bike forum, or perhaps single trap magazine forum
they got wind of it and they bought it.
As far as I know, they still own it and once a year they put
those Panaracer tires on it and take it for a ride.
As it is supposed to be ridden, then swap them back
and continue using the bike.
So if it's out there, and any of you own it,
I would love to hear from you.
Because I built that bike
and it's a little part of me, I think.
But yeah, Mongoose amp would be one,
I think is what I'd probably do.
Okay next one, I've totally been called out.
So this is from Mark Adamson,
a good childhood friend of mine, owns a very cool
audio store in Harrow called Harrow Audio, in fact.
When you were young, did you ever chop your handlebars
down to approximately 385mm to speed up your steering?
Didn't we all do it back then?
Yeah, I've got vague memories of doing this.
And it was so short, it was the fashion,
I wasn't alone in doing this.
You had to fit your bar ends on and your controls
and you just had one brake lever higher than the other.
So the barrel was, would be over top of each other,
Which just sounds bonkers.
I remember the moment my dad was like,
do you want to do this? And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah
Dave Hemming does it. It's the way.
To have my bars like this.
Come down, put everything back on. Got on the bike,
rode it outside the house and he's like,
How do they feel? In my head I was like,
This is the worst thing I've ever done.
I went outside and was like, they're amazing.
It feels so good. Everyone, you should all do this.
So I told everyone to do it.
I think some of my friends did it.
Maybe Mark did it which is why he's calling me out.
But I blame Dave Hemming for doing this
Dave, I hope you're watching.
Dave is actually a bit of a legend. He's had probably
20 front covers of MBUK magazine over the years.
He was the first British racer to bring back a medal
from the World Champs, he got silver in downhill.
Absolutely a sterling guy, but your fashions mate.
You made life hard for people growing up in mountain bike.
I can tell you that, but you were the original influencer
I think, long before YouTube and people like Casey Neistat.
You were an influencer. So that was pretty cool I think.
Okay, next off, from Chatztxo, Is running a dropper post
on a XC Hardtail worth it? Would it look odd?
100% of course it is worth it.
A dropper post is probably
one of the single best inventions.
Now I've actually said that, in the past, I would
rather have a dropper post on a rigid bike
then a full suspension bike.
With a straight up two post because
there's way more advances, to move your body position
that dramatically on a bike.
And keep your center of gravity low.
Then, I think a suspension bike
that you can ride really fast off road.
But you'll still have to suffer your body position
if you have the saddle at full height.
But at the same time, with cross country riding,
there is something about mastering how to ride
the bike on technical terrain
and leaving the saddle where it is.
You do get a lot of respect from riders for doing that.
And you will find, that a lot of riders actually
will give you stich for having a dropper post.
But in my eyes, I have a cross country bike coming,
I'm gonna be putting a dropper post on it because
I'm a tall person, so my body weight is up higher
So basically that weight up high can act like a pendulum
and actually put you at a huge disadvantage
when you're riding technical terrain.
Why would I not want to get my weight nice and low?
Alright, arguably, you are adding weight to a bike
by having a dropper post.
But as we saw on that BMC four stroke
that Neal rode when they integrated dropper posts
that weight is coming down and they're looking a lot nicer.
So, it won't be long, I think,
until everyone is running dropper posts on XC bikes.
Now UCR World Cup, it was interesting to see that
most of the women are running dropper posts and only
a half of the men are, but it is starting to happen.
You are definitely starting to see benefits
in the way people ride.
But I do want to emphasize the point.
You can master riding on the bike
without having a dropper post.
Look at Nino Schurter, one of the greatest
cross country racers that's ever lived.
His technique on the bike is absolute textbook.
The guy is phenomenal. This guy is unbelievable.
But I'm still sure he would be faster with a dropper post.
Maybe that's a video we could ask Nino to do.
I'd love to see what he could do
on a cross country bike, head to head against himself,
with a dropper post and without in a time trial.
Doing the full Nino attack.
I think that'd be a pretty interesting video
to see how his riding changes
and the way he approaches stuff.
But something that is important to say about dropper posts
It's not just about going faster or being a bit more rad
with your riding, I think the point is,
that it's safer, but also it saves wasting energy.
Now, a lot of the time, if your riding a cross country bike,
and you've got the high saddle position,
you can be fighting the bike
when you are riding technical terrain
that wants to almost throw you over the bars.
Fighting the bike wastes a lot of energy.
It's also quite traumatic on your body,
you're tensing the whole time.
With a dopper post, the saddle down and out of the way
a nice, low, center of gravity,
more room to move around on the bike.
You're conserving energy. You're riding faster.
And your riding safer. I just can't see why anyone
would not want to run one.
So, yeah. Get a dropper post basically.
That's actually all we've got time for right now.
There's loads more questions here.
So we will delve back into this again in the future.
But if you've got any comments on the questions
I've been through today let us know in those comments below.
Don't forget to get your questions in
again for next week's show and any further shows.
Hellotech@gmbn.com and of course in those comments.
And for another cool tech related video, click down here
for all of the sorts of kit you should keep in your car
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