Rowman, today I want to talk about three upgrades you can make to…
Rowman, today I want to talk about three upgrades you can make to your road bike, which are guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Let's keep that intro! The big question is this. How do we use cycling as a tool to improve our health, our happiness and our longevity? That is the question and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Walsh and welcome to the Rowman Podcast. Robeman, welcome back to another Robeman Cycling Podcast and today I want to talk about 3 upgrades you can make to your roboik which are guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Before I jump into this podcast Robeman, let me remind you about patreon.com. Head on over to patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore watch, that's the place you can support the podcast. The podcast is 100% fun that buy you the good listeners. If you'd like to join that league of people supporting the podcast, make it possible that you're listening to this today, that you're listening to my voice in your ears. The way to do that is to buy me the price of a beer once a month over on patreon.com. In return, I'm going to give you access to the secret podcast where I give away all the best off that I just can't talk about on the podcast, the latest bio hacks that I'm going through, latest training tips, and all my open comment news first. Give it all away over on the secret a podcast, you'll get that instant access to that and all the back episodes of that as soon as you sign up for the price of a beer once a month. But today, what I want to talk about is, tree upgrades you can make to your road bike. And what I love to do with upgrades is I like to earn the upgrades. I like to build myself an incentive system where I say to myself, okay, if I lose X amount kilograms, I'm gonna buy myself a if I ride over 500 kilometers this week I'm gonna buy myself x it's a great way to do it so whatever you're trying to accomplish at the moment we're all on this journey to accomplish our cycling goals whatever you know make sense as an intern target for you maybe it's not a mileage target maybe it's a power target maybe it's a time-up decline maybe it's a completing your sessions target whatever target makes sense use that as part of the incentive scheme and when you hit that then you buy yourself something. Because it's not really about getting the new shiny object, it's the motivation you get from that. It's something as small as a new pair of gloves, a new pair of overshoes. It gives you motivation and it pulls you through that week and I know this because it's pulled me out of rut after rut, even the smallest things like a new set of cycling sucks, has got me out the door and feeling like I was allof a leap racing invisible, you know, versions myself uphills on crazy german what's a companion feature where you race your old self it's the dumbest shit but even the motivation of those sucks convinced my brain that that dumb german feature of racing yourself up a hill was a good idea so let's dive into the upgrades I think wheels are such a sweet upgrade I'm gonna list them as my forest of tree upgrades wheels get a carbon wheels I What I said years ago, carbon whales should only be bought in tubs, tube lure version, tube lists of Kline Gakuel in the last few years, but I'm actually going to rock the boat and I'm going to say get yourself a nice set of carbon clincher whales because you can train on these, you can race club legs on them and with the new savage tubes that they're making with the less rolling resistance super light, you can race no problem on carbon clincher whales now.
When you puncture you don't need to spend that 7080 year on Buynanoo…
When you puncture you don't need to spend that 7080 year on Buynanoo tubular. Carbon clincher are mint now. So save up, pick a nicer carbon clincher wheels like a nice set of Envys or something cool like that. They're gonna be light, they're gonna be stiff, they're gonna be more aero, they're gonna be super cool or else if you want to get really geeky on it by yourself like a set of hubs like a nice set of Chris King hubs then pick your rim and go to your local boy shop and have them make up these wheels, personalized for you. You can get Chris King hubs in all sorts of mad colors, like I've been neon green set of Chris King hubs. They're honestly like having an electric assist on the bike. They're absolutely brilliant and they sound amazing. And remember, the arrow often beats light waves. So don't always think I have to get these super cheap, super cheap or sorry, super light, super light. Arrow beats that and you're gonna go faster on an arrow wheel than your arrow on a light wheel. Number two, I think, is really good because I'm gonna add a little caveat to it. It's new shoes, new shoes for a bunch of reasons because coming into the summer months, a bit of a stretch in the evenings, we typically ride a little bit longer and new shoes, they're gonna give you a more comfort, they're gonna give you a better power transfer, they're gonna give you no hot foot, and all that's likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy and you're gonna ride a little bit longer. You could get something cool, like I'm trying to take the cool shoes that I've used, The Physique R1's I'm using at the moment with the Kangaroo Letter. They're over on roadman resources. There's a link to them there and I'll do your cool shit I recommend. Physique R1 Kangaroo Letter Shoes are awesome. Specialized S-Workshues are awesome. But if you really want to pimp your shoes, there's loads of designers now where you can send them a set of your S-Workshues and they'll design it up with your name on it or cool design that you're into on it. You will be bulging and you'll be the talk of the group right. The turd and final upgrade you can make going into the winter. It's a chain. Chain a dirty chain a used chain. One it's dangerous going into the summer. We're going to be doing club league races. The bikes going to be peeled down. The bags are off and the mudguards are off. We're starting to sprint. We're sprinting for town signs. I've had so many nasty crashes and seen so many nasty crashes with friends sprinting on dirty old worn chains. So replace your chain, because even if it's not super worn, if it's dirty, it's costing you what. When I was racing the track on the tandem last year, we put so much effort into drive train efficiency.
We'd use a special wax coating on the chain, which would save you…
And we'd use a special wax coating on the chain, which would save you around 7 watts, which translated the serious time difference over a 4km pursuit. But what you can go with a combination of cosmetic, beauty and function, go with something like a KMC gold chain which does absolutely nothing to make you faster but you'll look cool as fuck go with something like that and then add like I want to like the watch up and get some of our wax so use the watch up wax on a gold KMC chain cosmetic meets function if you've new wheels you've new shoes and you're rocking this chain you could be on a hundred and fifty euro bike and you're gonna be the coolest cat in the chain gang heading into the summer months. Roadman, thanks for listening. I'm gonna chat to you again tomorrow. Hey everybody, it's Anthony again. Really quick, I want to invite you to join arguably the best thing I've ever put out inside the Roadman community. It's a challenge. It's a challenge called a 14-day kickstart challenge. So regardless of where your fitness is at right now, this is going to be the catalyst for making you faster and making you the leaner. I've created this challenge to take the guesswork out of everything. It's 14 days training plans regardless of what your level is. There's masters, beginner, advanced, there's meal plans, shopping list, and even a video course holding your hand and talking you true at all. So what I recommend you do right now is just stop everything, press pause on this audio and go to roadmansoycling.com forward slash 14 day or check out the link in the bio that roadmansoycling.com slash 14 day.