- Man, we never get sore asses on GMBN.
- Never.
- I don't know what's going on here.
(laughter)
- Welcome to Ask GCN.
This week, Simon and Matt are away.
Dan's away.
We've got an even better replacement.
We are joined by the legend, Martyn Ashton
- Hello! - for a very special GCN
- It's nice to be in here.
- It's good to have you. - You're very tall!
- I know, I'll slide down a little bit but
this chair only goes so low - My wheelchair needs
I need to pump it up or something.
Anyway, we'll bear with it.
- We'll bear with it. - We'll bear with it.
We've asked you guys for a bunch of questions
on social media so we will be getting live-ish
questions throughout the show, although the show isn't live.
But first, Martin, I really like this question
from Purple Ice who is asking
Does he need a 1000 dollar bike or will a cheap 500
dollar bike be a good beginners bike?
What do you reckon?
- Well, I always think when you're thinking about budget
for your bike, it's what you can afford.
Get out riding is the most important thing.
You're gonna learn so much from that and then you're
gonna start to understand the differences in bikes
and the things you wanna spend your money on
because there is lots of scope in road cycling
to spend lots more money and once you've got a bit
of experience, that's when you'll know what to spend it on.
Yeah, don't go mad at the start.
You just gotta get out there riding.
- Yeah, I reckon in the UK, a bike for under 500 pounds,
which I guess is about 750 dollars will definitely
allow you to decide whether or not you really like cycling
and want to invest a bit more of your hard earned cash
into it and, at the same time, if you decide
that cycling a lot isn't really for you,
which is fair enough, although, I would encourage
you to cycle a lot, it's a good commuter.
You'll save a bit of cash on the train, in your car.
- And that's still a good amount of money on a bike.
That is not gonna be a bad bike.
- It's gonna be a good bike.
- It's gonna work pretty well.
- Seriously will.
Anyway, if you'd like to find out what you should prioritise
when you buy, say, a used bike or a cheaper bike,
Simon Richardson has done a video on how to buy
a bike from Ebay.
- My first tip would be to buy a brand
that you're familiar with.
There is an awful lot of weird stuff lurking around
on the internet.
But buying a familiar brand at least eliminates
some of the risk of going second-hand.
Yeah, you might not get the warranty, but at least
you know it was decent when the product was new.
- Next up Martyn, this is kind of mountain bike-y road
cycling-y questing, kind of both, is from
Oliver Friis who is a mountain bike XC dude from Denmark.
Oliver is asking, basically, why don't road cyclists
use dropper posts in UCI races?
- I know, Oliver.
That's a really good question, isn't it?
- It is.
- 'Cause that would be pretty cool.
Imagine the guys coming up over the top of a big climb
and they're all like (mechanical noises).
All the seats are going down.
I love it.
You'd be quicker, I think.
You've got more space over the bike.
Get your knee down.
Oh my god. - Almost.
- We might have discovered something.
- There's loads of benefits, as well.
'Caus the UCI has such a tight lower minimum weigh limit
on road bikes, that almost now, it's quite easy to make
a bike reach that weight.
Any way that you can
add weight will effecively - Yeah, your excess weight.
be making it faster.
So things like disc brakes, drop a seat post
could well have a benefit and he'd be more narrow.
- It could be brilliant, although dropper posts
don't look too road-y, at the moment.
They're pretty bulky things.
- They don't have the road bike look just yet,
as Dan Loyd demonstrates in this video we're about
to throw to you.
It's a colossal bout to when he got it to work.
But the findings are quite interesting.
Here's Dan trying to decide should road riders
use a dropper seat post.
- Do it!
(stimulating music)
- Well, Dan was definitely descending like a boss
in that one, wasn't he?
- He was.
It looks cool.
- I thinks it's the way forward, just not
how Dan executed it.
Anyway, this one's from Gordon Moat and it is specifically
about road cycling but I think we can broaden out
to mountain biking, too.
What Gordon is saying, what makes the modern peloton
so much quicker than in the past?
Is it the kit, the wheels, or different training?
- Well, it's got to be a lot of things, isn't it.
It's the marginal gains across time.
- Definitely
- Tech has just improved, and that's in both sports.
The tech on the bikes, how much better they're getting.
Actually knowledge in training.
- Yeah, for sure. - Knowledge in fitness.
That's got to be making a big difference.
- You just have to look at Nike's sub two-hour marathon
attempt to see that they had a leading car and the pace
is there, but by pushing everything together,
things are advancing.
Yeah, there is gonna be a human limit to what is possible,
but we probably haven't hit that just yet, have we?
- No, I mean, I guess over the years of road cycling
is there even more knowledge and understanding
about how the peloton works itself?
- Definitely. - Is a body moving?
I mean, has that changed?
- Probably.
Definitely.
Possibly.
One thing I'm interested, Martyn, is now that skin suits
aren't legal for use in downhill races,
are the riders going faster?
That would definitely show if that was
tech in training, not clothing.
- That is really hard to answer because there is so many
things going on in downhill racing.
Particularly, at the moment, wheel sizes are changing,
wheel geometry is changing, the actual geometry of the bike,
wheel base, so much is going on.
I guess, the course is never the same.
It's changing all the time with more riders
and with weather so it's really hard to say.
What is interesting is that there is now a limit
on downhill clothing of how much bagginess they can have.
- What?
- Yes, and it's getting really, really close to limit now.
Everyone has gone baggy out of their lycra
but now it's getting tighter and tighter.
The marginal gains ethic is coming into the mountain
bike side of things, for sure.
- But when you were doing trials, did you perform
better when you were lycra or not lycra.
- Actually, the honest truth, I think I perform
better in lycra.
I think Road Bike Party is proof that lycra makes
you do cool stunts.
- There we go, Gordon, so it's a mixture of everything,
but it is possibly clothing.
Right, we've got this one from Mark Berger and this
is something that every cyclist has suffered through.
He said, Hey GCN, it happened to me.
I have my first sore ass.
A really bad one with red and bruised skin.
Thanks for the detail, Mark.
What's the best way to treat it?
- Don't look to me on this one.
- Okay. - Don't look to me.
- Okay, I'm gonna throw you very quickly to a video, Mark.
Like you said, sore asses do happen to everyone
who has to sit in a saddle for a protracted length of time.
Things like clean, but also good cycling shorts help out,
making sure you have a saddle that works for you,
making sure your saddle is the right height,
but that's pretty broad advice.
For some more specific stuff, here's ten ways to avoid
a sore ass while cycling.
- Cycling shorts are tight for a reason.
That reason is so you don't get friction burns
on your most delicate areas.
Make sure you get the right shorts for maximum benefit.
Too tight, they're going to dig into some of the areas
you don't want them digging into.
Too loose, and they'll be sliding around
on your undercarriage, like a duck on a frozen pond.
- It's time now for quick fire round.
Martyn's got his helmet on.
- Quick fire! (gun noises)
- It's the quick fire round.
First up, Martyn, we've got this one, I'm not sure what
you're answer is gonna be.
It's from Mart Wengelaar on instagram and he said
Who is Martyn gonna choose as the Giro winner?
- I think it is gonna be
what's this dude, little dude just won a round.
Went on stage.
- Nairo Quintana?
- That's the dude. - You heard it here first.
Jonwalujo said, I can't bunny hop.
Please help.
What's the number one tip to start bunny hopping?
- Really good tip.
Put a stick on the ground, a small stick,
use that to mark where your front wheel bumps
off the ground, bump, wait for the back wheel to fill
that bump, bump, and then keep practising that.
- Bump bump bump bump bump bump and take the sick away.
You're bunny hopping.
- How much training should I do a day from Eoin Grey.
- About nine hours.
- Nine hours of training a day?
- You'd be pretty good if you did that.
I finish, I'm just joking.
I used to ride for about an hour and half a day.
- Really? - A really good ride, yeah.
Never used to ride for too long.
You can only be interested in it for so long
and if you're trying to do the sort of stuff I used
to do on my bike, you've got to really want to do it.
If you don't wanna do it, it's probably best to leave
it til tomorrow.
(laughing)
- We've got a couple more on Facebook.
We've got what did you eat for breakfast?
Your return, I suppose, before actually.
- I had brown flakes with sugar this morning.
They just looked amazing.
I could have had the works but I just got off on saying no.
I loved it.
I like putting pressure on myself.
- When you were filming Road Bike Party
and Road Bike Party II, did you use special wheels
for your road bike trials videos from David Bettridge.
- They weren't special rims.
They were just standard FSA rims, very good ones
and the hub was a hope trials hub, just to add engagement
on my cassette.
So I just had a quicker engagement on pedal
because I wanted it to be very direct and flickable.
- Russel, I never knew there was a difference
between trials hubs and normal hubs.
- Yeah, just loads more engagement.
A trials bike is like (buzz) really like, buzzing a lot
'cause it's got loads of teeth and loads of engagement.
- From schaechlbua on Instagram, why is Peter Sagan
racing the tour of California and not the Giro?
- I think, personally, I think Stephan's the guy
behind the camera thinks it's because of money.
I don't.
I think he's gone beyond that.
Sagan, he's so perfect.
What I think is that he actually is thinking about yellow
this year at the tour and he's just going for an easy
time in California and he's gonna win the tour this year.
He's gonna win the Tour de France.
I said it first.
I meant by road bikes.
- One from me, connected to Sagan, how long do you think
it would take him to win a world title in mountain
biking if he went back to it?
Think he could?
- I think he's got an awful lot of power.
I think he would have to spend a bit of time diluting
that down into something that can compete with Schurter
over a long race.
Schurter and Absalon are really, really good.
Sagan?
Sagan, Schurter?
- It's close.
- I think it would take him some time but I think
he could do it.
- He'd need a flatter course. - He's good.
He's good.
- Whereswattywatsford, what was the best trick
you ever nailed?
- The best trick I ever nailed was a...
it's boring.
It's backflips are so much fun.
There's nothing more - They look cool.
outrageous as you go towards the ramp and you think
I am going to backflip and no matter how many times you
do it, you ride towards the ramp going really?
Am I really going to do that?
And then you have to mean it when you take off.
It's pretty serious.
When your head's closer to the ground than your wheels,
it's always a pretty tricky place to be.
- More difficult on a road bike or a mountain bike?
- Surprisingly easy on a road bike.
- Really? - Yeah, yeah.
Similar bikes.
They've got two wheels and handlebars.
They're all the same.
- A bike is a bike.
Links back to our first question.
- It does, it does.
- Okay, thanks for all of your questions, especially the
live-ish ones we got through on social media
and thanks to Martyn for joining us.
- Thank you for having me.
I've loved it.
I like your desk.
I may take this.
- It's very solid. - Will that be okay?
It's very nice.
- It's very nice.
Anyway, Martyn, thank you.
I don't think we could have done this week without you.
If you would like to see Martyn back in the show,
hit the thumbs up button and we'll see what we can do.
- Yeah, I'd love to be here.
And if you want to see more videos on GCN, then why don't
you refer to a few of my favourites.
- Your favourites.
- Why don't you click just here for Road Bike Party II,
a bit of a classic.
I like it.
I like the girls riding in it.
It's very good.
Click over here to see me and Neil teaching Dan
how to manual.
He does a good job, actually.
- Eventually.
Don't forget to subscribe to our channel.
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Thumbs up.
Thumb up, like.
It's what you call it, isn't it.
- See you next time.