1.Roadman, today I want to talk about aerobikes, climbing bikes

Roadman, today I want to talk about aerobikes, climbing bikes. If they're a real thing or if they're a marketing gimmick. Let's cue 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 Welch and welcome to the Roadman Podcast. Well, man, welcome back to another Rowman podcast. The week is well on their way. Happy Tuesday. I hope you're enjoying this. I want to talk to you today about climbing bikes and aero bikes. Is that a real thing or is this a marketing invention, a marketing ploy to get us to part with a little bit more of our harder money? Because I know the cycle industry, like most industries, they're constantly innovating, But honestly, they're innovating a lot around marketing terms and sometimes less around the actual technology. So I want to dig a little bit into that today before you part with some of your hard earned money on your next road bike. Before I do, I would ask you to jump on over to patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore watch. Patreon is the place you get to go and you get to say, Anthony, I'm getting a lot of value out of this. Today's topic is aerobikes versus climbing bikes. I was potentially gonna spend quite a bit of money there. I'm willing to give you the price of a point of beer or a couple of coffees a month and just say, thanks for that. Thanks for the dig out. I appreciate what you're doing. For you, it might seem like a small gesture, but for me, it's validation that the podcast is going the right direction. And it also helps support and sustain this podcast. And hopefully we can get up to the break even point really, really soon. And that means that this podcast is a sustainable venture going forward. So you get to vote rather than giving Rupert Murdoch and Sky all your money, you get to give a little piece to small creators and, you know, keep, keep and sustained sort of stuff you enjoy listening to. Right. Let's go. Arrow bikes versus climbing bikes. I recently went out a couple of buddies of mine were looking at buying new bikes and we went out to the local bike store and I won't name the brands. But yeah, I was just amazed at the marketing around bikes that, you know, certain bikes are now deemed aerobikes and certain bikes are climbing bikes. And I know this has been out for quite a while and I suppose the first time it struck me was around Cervelo started bringing out their OR series. I wrote an OR tree at the time and then I think they brought out an S tree and then they went OR-5, S-5. One being an aerobike and one being the climbing bike. for listeners who aren't entirely sure what the difference is, the climbing bike traditionally was light designed for going uphill. The aero bike as the name would suggest it aerodynamic bike, a little more focused on cutting through the wind, maybe not as light, maybe not as responsive. So I wanted to dig in and I found some stats. So bike weight, how important is it because that's one of the key things between aero and climbing bike essentially is the weight of the bike. So So a 2 kilogram extra weight on the frame, that's going to be 30 seconds on a 10 kilometer climb. So if your bike is 2 kilograms heavier, which is quite a lot, you're talking about the difference between a very high end 5, 6 gram bike there and an entry level bike, 2 kilograms is a 30 second difference on a 10 kilometer climb. So it's decent, but honestly how many of us are going up 10km climbs and 30 seconds, it's not huge.

2.Now, I want you to contrast this to if you took the same 2kg and you…

Now, I want you to contrast this to if you took the same 2kg and you lost it off your body weight instead of your bike weight, you would be 2 minutes faster. So 4 times as effective losing the weight off your body rather than losing it off your bike. obviously to do with the way we pump oxygen around our body, the way we use fuel within the body, it's more than the actual mass. So the only benefit of loosening it off the bike is the mass. The benefits of loosening it off the body. They're fueling their oxygen production, they're so numerous. They take a podcast to go and list them. So for me, that's nearly validation and vindication that unless you're asked five, 6% body fat and you've no body weight left to lose. It's just so much cheaper and easier and much much more efficient to lose that as body weight rather than bike weight Secondly now we have in recent years a UCI weight limit of 6.8 kilograms And if you look at aero bikes now are all nearly 6.8 kilograms Historically the aero bike was super heavy But now the aero bike is is the 6.8 kilograms, the climbing bike can only really get down to 6.8 kilograms. So now you're kind of asking, well, what is the difference? Why is there a climbing bike and an aerobike when they're both the same weight? So it's the shape of the tube. So now we just get down to a ride preference. What do you prefer to ride? You know, the shape of the tubes typically makes the aerobike a little bit more of a rigid ride. It makes it harder ride. The top tube can be a bit shorter. when you go to get set up on the bike, maybe the aero bike actually doesn't fit you. So, that's something to definitely bear in mind when you get into the bike shop. Look at what bike actually fits your body rather than getting obsessed with the sales and marketing jargon of aero bike, climbing bike. Go in and look, actually, you know what, I want a bike that fits my unique shape. So don't try and get a bike. Don't try and get your body to fit the bike. Get a bike to fit the body. It's a lot easier to change size a bike than change size your arms. Let me tell you. Arrow boy, can we think about an arrow boy? What are we thinking about? We think about arrow boy. Now, this is something as a lot of our regular listeners know, I spent a big part of the winter getting ready for the World Track Championships on the tandem of the individual pursuit and the track is all about aerodynamics. So the big thing, the two variables when you're going uphill, they're what's on weight, what's per kilogram, power to weight ratio. On a flat road indoors on the track, we don't care about what's per kilogram, we care about what's and aerodynamics. So aerodynamics, we call it CDA, a coefficient of frontal drag. So aero is all about coefficient of frontal drag. So when we talk about aero frames, that's what we're looking at. But honestly, I haven't tested so many times indoors and just before this podcast, siv'n through some studies, the frame makes such a marginal difference to your overall CDA that it's really not worth chilling out that much cash. Like the things that actually make a big difference to it are your body position, your head, what you do with your head, the helmet you wear, the clothing choice, your shoes, shoe covers, these are things that make a huge difference to the CDA. Frame makes a very, very marginal difference. So if we're saying the climbing bike and the arrow bike are essentially the same weight. So historically the climbing bike was prioritized because it was lighter. And now we're saying the arrow bike is marketed because it's more arrow, but actually aerodynamics on a frame is way overrated.

3.What are we left with

What are we left with. We're left with personal choice. You got to get the bike that you like. You got to get the bike that makes you feel really warm and gooey inside. I remember I had a football manager and I'm not sure if I've told this story before. I had a football manager and he fined me for having dirty boots and that lesson stuck with me because when I asked him about why he was finding me for dirty boots, I said look I'm going to go out on the pitched boots. You're going to get dirty anyway. Why are you finding me for having dirty boots? And he said think about if you go to the night club and you're wearing the skankiest chains that are dirty, you're wearing some scaldy runners with grass stains on them. He's like, how are you going to feel about yourself? And what's already girly going to attract with that? Now he's like contrast after you're wearing your best clothes, you feel great, you have a swagger, you have a conference about you. Now what's already girly going to attract in the nightclub? Two very different outcomes if you're looking to attract girls in the nightclub, that is. That's how you got to feel about the boy. You got to feel like, yeah, this boy fits me. I've got a bit of a swagger under me with this boy because what that's going to do is it's going to get you out the door on days when you don't want to get out the door. I talk about this all the time. We can't only train on days we feel like training. We need to train on the days we don't feel like training. And if that boy gives you that warm, gooey feeling and you think, you know what, I'm the man. I look class on this boy. I feel great on this boy. That's going to get you out the door and it's getting out the door doing that extra bit of training that's going to get the weight down, it's going to have you more comfortable so you can get into a better position on the bike and that's actually what makes the gains. So ditch this marketing gimmick of Arrowbike versus climbing bike. There's Arrow Reuters, there's Reuters who can climb well. There's no Arrowbikes and climbing bikes, they're all the same bikes. There's beautiful bikes out there and I encouraged that marketing companies and this bike companies are nearly the same thing, marketing companies, bike companies. I encourage them to keep making these bikes and keep innovating because it's given us more choice. It's given us more choice on colours. It's given us more choice on frame geometries and layups. And this more choice, what it leads to is us getting a bike that we really feel represents us and gives us that gooey, special, warm feeling. And that gets us out the the door. Row men, that is aero bikes, climbing bikes, the myth is debunked, like Mythbusters. Remember that show? Mythbusters, it was a classic. When you bonked off college and you were sitting at home, you had your routine down, judge duty, homes under the hammer, Mythbusters, and then you might try piss a skate mark off the toilet as a good old Frankie Boyle joke. Row men, thanks very much for listening to another Robeman podcast, I will update my preference of bikes into RobemanResources.com when I get around to it. Keep checking back there because it is one of these organic things that just keeps growing and growing and growing. Robeman, I'll be back tomorrow for my favorite episode of the week. The Robeman Long Form Weekly podcast. I'm going to chat to you all then.