October 2018

There are so many features on Zwift, are you sure you know the best ones? If you’re new to Zwift or a seasoned veteran, here are 11 things you wished you’d known about Zwift.


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Zwift can seem like a pretty big place, so how do you meet up with your friends and make sure you’re on the same route? With the companion app for your phone, available for free on IOS or Android stores. It’s very simple, just click on your friend's name in the app then select ride with that person and you’ll not only join them wherever they are, but you’ll do the same route as them too. 

Zwift isn’t just a virtual reality cycling world to pedal around in, you can use it for specific training sessions as well.  Built into Zwift are loads of pre-set training workouts to choose from. On the home screen, you’ll see an option at the top to do a training ride. You can then choose a workout from the menu on the left of the screen. You can even design your own one. 

XP points are accumulated as you ride in Zwift. As you get more, you increase your rider level, right up to 25. Points are added for every km (20 XP) or mile (30 XP) you ride, soon after each km or mile ticks over. Unless you are in workout mode, where points are added after you complete a block. You will see a small alert to the right of your centre console when points are added.

If you’ve got a smart trainer, Zwift can control your workout so that you have to ride at the right intensity, as dictated by your FTP. It’s called ERG mode, and it means that when you start a hard interval, your trainer will automatically generate the necessary resistance so that you ride at the correct power, no matter what gear you’re in or how fast you pedal. 

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How To Zwift - Basic Guide 📹 

Music: Epidemic Sound
Balloon Animals - Matt Large
Iquitos - Martin Baekkevold
Just Chillin 4 - Marc Torch
Observations - From Now On
Sunny Landscapes 1 - Rannar Sillard

Photos: © Velo Collection (TDW) / Getty Images & © Bettiniphoto / 

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Welcome to the Global Cycling Network | Inside cycling

11 Things I Wish I'd Known About Zwift

With Ollie away at the Taipei Bike Show and Jon in Belgium taking a look at some cyclocross tech, it's up to Si and Chris to bring you this show. But fear not, Ollie gives us an insight into the dangers of counterfeit carbon bike parts. 

Ollie interviews Mark Vandermolen, the managing director of FSA about the propagation of fake carbon components in the cycling industry.

Last week Canyon announced the new updated and cheaper version of the Canyon Aeroad. Using the same external moulds as the more expensive premium SLX, they use a slightly less premium carbon fibre layup to create a frame that is as stiff and as aero as the top of the range versions, only a little heavier. The price is considerably cheaper too, Starting at €2699  you can buy an Aeroad CF SL 7.0 with a 105 groupset and Reynolds carbon wheels. 

Enve have released new carbon forks and handlebars for gravel bikes which promise great integration and additional comfort. 

Watch more on GCN Tech...
Si's Moots Routt 45 Ti Gravel Bike 📹 

Music: Epidemic Sound
Tipsy Hunter - Daniel Gunnarsson
I Play Colors - Justnormal
Feriado - Martin Landh
Peaceful Heartbreak 2 - Per-Anders Nilsson
Speak EZ - Matt Large
Guitars De France 2 - Stefan Netsman
Afternoon Tea In Polynesia 2 - Martin Gauffin
Guitars De France 3 - Stefan Netsman
New Found Love 2 - Peter Sandberg

Brought to you by the world’s biggest cycling channel, the Global Cycling Network (GCN), GCN Tech goes deeper into the bikes, kit and technology stories that matter.

GCN Tech is utterly obsessed with seeking out and showcasing the best in bikes, tech, products and upgrades. Everywhere. Every week. From news and rumours, first ride exclusives, how-tos, the weekly GCN Tech Show, pro bikes, set-up tips and more, we geek out over the tiny details that can make the big differences to you. 

With years of racing and industry expertise, we also bring you instructive maintenance videos to hone your mechanical skills, as well as behind the scenes factory tours and in-depth analysis of kit chosen by the pro peloton to keep your finger on the pulse of cycling’s latest technological innovations.

Engage with us every week on the channel and across social media – we’re here to answer every question you’ve got on cycling tech.

Counterfeit Carbon - Spotting Fake Bike Parts | GCN Tech Show Ep. 44

Ollie is back with another instalment from the Taipei Bike Show - this time bringing you the best in weird and wonderful tech. Which is your favourite? Does that bling gold cassette take your fancy?

Ollie found some pretty interesting products at the bike show and talks you through his favourite in the weird and wonderful world of bike tech. From revolutionary saddles to carbon fibre mugs, Ollie was certainly in his element at the Taipei Cycle Show!

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Hottest Bike Tech Taipei Show 📹 

Music: Epidemic Sound
Eccentric Vibes 15 - Håkan Eriksson
Action Packed And Ready 1 - Victor Olsson

Weird & Wonderful New Bike Tech | Taipei Cycle Show 2018

The Taipei Bike Show is here and Ollie is on the ground at Asia's largest cycling trade show. In this video, he shows you the hottest new road bike tech that he's spotted. Which is your favourite? 

Ollie loves a trade show and enjoys picking out the best bits for you cycling tech enthusiasts. From a $40,000 bike to a completely silent freehub system the Taipei Cycle Show has a lot to offer. 

Which is your favourite bit of tech? Let us know in the comments. 👇

Watch more on GCN Tech...
Tech Show Ep. 43 📹 

Music: Epidemic Sound
Gotta Get Back 2 - Martin Landh

Hottest New Road Bike Tech | Taipei Cycle Show 2018

Most of us cyclists will have some sort of quantitative measuring device strapped to ourselves or our bike when we are riding. However, can we sometimes benefit from riding without all this and base it purely on feel? Chris and James run you through how to train based on feel...

To get the most out of training on feel, it is best, as ever to plan ahead. So, a pen and paper, or online planner will be useful to start with. The main reason for doing this is to create a plan that you can follow, stick to and improve with. It is easy to lose direction without planning. So keep on track!

From here, you will want to translate those planned intensities or training zones into on the bike sensations and that is where we will use perceived exertion. And, for certain efforts, max duration to failure. This is particularly useful for maximal efforts.

With ‘max duration to failure’, we are referring to pacing yourself at an intensity that will see you want to stop as soon as the interval is over. In other words, if it is a 2 minutes effort, you empty the tank within that period and will want to freewheel or sit in the gutter as soon as it finishes.

Using a scoring system from 1-10 is useful for perceived exertion. 10 being an excruciating effort that you can only maintain for very short bursts. Whilst at level 1, you’ll be doing an effort you could continue indefinitely.
Your endurance sessions should start out at around 4 on a PE scale, with the 20-minute efforts we described above around 8.5-9.
An effort of 30-60 minutes would be 7-8.
With your 3-6 minute efforts around 9-9.5. For much of the effort, squeezing towards a 10 at the end. 
Anything under 3, is most likely to be a 9.5-10, in reality, as these efforts are so short. 

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Get Fit Quick Ep. 2 📹 

Music: Epidemic Sound
Khandi - Ooyy
Salamanca - Sarah, the Illstrumentalist
Turquoise Waves - Sarah, the Illstrumentalist

How To Train On A Budget | Training For Cycling Without Power Or Heart Rate

Jon is back with another GCN Tech Clinic answering your tech-related queries and questions. In this edition, he answers how to neaten your cables on the front end of your bike, how to sort your gears if they won't go into the bottom gear and how to get rid of unwanted chain noise.

Jon covers lots more in the Clinic this week including questions around derailleur hanger extenders, what Di2 MTB components are compatible with current road offerings and upgrading rim brake groupsets to take disc brakes.

We hope Jon managed to help you out this week and remember to keep your questions coming in using #askgcntech. 👇

Watch more on GCN Tech...
5 Disc Brake Care Tips 📹 

Neat Cables, Gear Indexing & Chain Noise | GCN Tech Clinic

Welcome to the GCN Show - it's a busy one this week with Emma in Taiwan, Jon in Flanders and Ollie at the Taipei show. We also have news of next year’sTour de France route, gloves that might save the world, but first, we expose four of cycling’s most enduring myths!


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This week in the world of cycling we learned that the route for next year’s Tour De France is one for the climbers with more classified mountains than in any other Tour route in history. And we also learned why Dan has gone to Bologna for his holidays. The city has launched a scheme called Bella Mossa to incentivise people to travel by bike or foot instead of cars, and it’s done so by offering beer as a reward!

Now this week, we’re talking cycling folklore. We do our utmost here at GCN to share the most accurate information, knowledge and insight available about our sport. But sometimes, despite all the effort, some myths just won’t go away. Firstly then, pedalling technique - how you pedal doesn't matter! In fact, if you take the fastest, most powerful cyclists as the benchmark, you’ll see that they pedal less smoothly than the rest of us.  

You have a perfect saddle height, and it’s measured in mm. There’s no such thing as mm perfect bike fit. We’re really throwing the cat among the pigeons now. The bike fit. We’re not saying they’re not worth it, they are. For many people, it transforms their riding, from painful to pain-free.

Lastly, you can't wear pro kit if you're not a pro. There is no shame in wearing pro team kit when you’re not a pro! Replica kit isn’t frowned on in other sports, so why cycling? Some cyclists will disagree, but showing your allegiance to a rider or a team is fine by us. 

Music:
Cue:
Viper Creek Club - Because I Know (Instrumental)
Epidemic:
Jonas Elander - Afternoon Swing 3
Magnus Ringblom - Horror Trailer 1 T60
Gunnar Johnsen - Documents 10
Johan Svensson - Inescapable
Magnus Ringblom - Victory Themes 1
Martin Gauffin - Salty Breeze 3
Soul Chain 10 - Stefan Netsman
Peaceful Pianos 18 - Martin Klem
Soul Chain 5 - Stefan Netsman
Fast Aggressive Melodic Metal Trailer No4 - Johnny Berglund
Heliolingus - Ooyy
Classical Epics 17 - Magnus Ringblom
Call My Name (Killrude Remix) (Instrumental Version) - Blaeker
Smashing Punks 1 - Stefan Netsman
Hakan Eriksson - Freaky Bats

4 Of Cycling's Most Enduring Myths - Exposed! | The GCN Show Ep. 303

Disc brakes on road bikes are becoming increasingly common and for good reason. They do however require some different maintenance methods compared to rim brakes. Let's look at 5 things you should do to take care of the disc brakes on your road bike.

Don't brake! At least, not without a rotor in the calliper of the bike. 
If you remove the wheel and do squeeze that brake lever by mistake, then don’t squeeze it again. You risk the pistons popping out of the calliper and that's a big old mess. But why? Well, the calliper self-adjusts the brake pads to the rotor and thinks that you still have a rotor in place, when you don’t. You need to reset the pads now, so grab something flat, a tyre lever is perfect for wedging between the pads and pushing them back. You could use a flathead screwdriver but you may score the pad so be careful if you try this. Then a few pulls on the brake lever and the pads will be back to their correct position.

Brake bleeding. With a traditional cabled setup, when the braking becomes poor, we often change the cables to bring the brakes back to life. But for a hydraulic setup, we bleed the system. This is done when, or if, your brakes start to feel squishy or spongy. The reason that your brakes have found themselves like this is that some air has found its way into the system which means the brake fluid isn't doing its usual great work as it's not able to compress fully. By removing the fluid with air bubbles in and replacing it with fresh air free fluid isn’t really troublesome, but does require patience and being a fairly competent mechanic.

5 Disc Brake Maintenance Tips For Your Road Bike

Welcome to the GCN Racing News Show. This week features rider transfers, the Tour of Hainan, more cyclocross, the 2019 Tour de France route, but firstly though, Wiggins and Armstrong… 

Bradley Wiggins is set to publish a book this week, detailing 21 of his cycling icons, one of whom is Lance Armstrong. Wiggins has been quoted in the press as saying that Lance is the “perfect winner” of the race, a position justified by saying that he embodies the ideals of the founder of the Tour, a super athlete who could overcome everyone and everything”. What do you think about Wiggins' comments?

The route of the 2019 Tour de France was announced last week and it looks like one for the climbers. 3 summit finishes at over 2000m bring an ability to cope with altitude into the mix for the contenders. The route also has a record number of classified mountains, although more tricky cat 2s and cat 1s than the biggest HC. 

Fewer kms of time trials, 2 short individual ones and a short team time trial complete the mix. It looks like the organisers have done what they can to create an unpredictable race, something clearly high on their agenda as Race director Christian Prudhomme even reaffirmed his call for a ban on power meters. Unfortunately, it’s out of his hands, but his voice now leads a sizeable chorus. 

It also looks as if a change is happening at Team Sunweb, as last week saw further departures in the way of coaches Morten Bennekou and Adriaan Helmantel. This follows in the wake of Edward Theuns terminating his contract early, Simon Geschke ending his 10-year association with the team and grand tour veteran Laurens Ten Dam moving onwards as well. Could so much change prove detrimental for the ambitions of team leader Tom Dumoulin, especially with 2019’s Tour de France course looking less appealing with each glance of the parcours and the loss of experiences teammates? In a world of high profile, high-value signings, team structure is often overlooked as a key to success, so hopefully, this doesn’t rock the boat too much. 

Watch more on GCN...
How To Test Your Bike/Position 📹 

Wiggins: Lance Armstrong Is The "Perfect" Tour Winner - Seriously?! | The Cycling Race News Show

We challenged our friends over at GMBN to find out what the ultimate all-road bike is, a gravel bike or a mountain bike? But we weren't going to solve this question anywhere, so we went to the ultimate testing ground, Iceland!

In association with Moots, Reynolds, Cycliq, and Komoot.

Thanks to IceBike Adventures for help in making these videos: 

Simon was joined by Neil for his icelandic adventure, GMBN vs GCN, gravel vs MTB, Drop bars and pretty skinny tyres vs suspension forks and flat bars. Just who would have the best tool for the job?

Over two days, and 200 kilometres Si and Neil traversed the Icelandic Highlands by bike. The guys aimed for the Icelandic summertime, but it turns out summer means something different over there, as the temperature hovered around 0 degrees Celsius in the daytime!

This was an absolutely incredible adventure over some of the most stunning terrain you can ride a bike on, and we'd love to know what you think of it. So leave us a comment down below this video!

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📹 Si's Moots Routt 45 

Music: Epidemic Sound
Fall-Copse
Some Kind Of Magic 1 - Niclas Gustavsson

*Map tiles by Stamen Design, under CC BY 3.0. Data by OpenStreetMap, under CC BY SA
*Map tiles by Stamen Design, under CC BY 3.0. Data by OpenStreetMap, under CC BY SA
*Map tiles by Stamen Design, under CC BY 3.0. Data by OpenStreetMap, under CC BY SA

Gravel Bike Vs MTB | Iceland Bikepacking Epic - Which Is The Ultimate All-Rounder?

Welcome back to another amazing GCN Unboxing. Today we’re shedding some light on sports cameras, that’s right we’ve got the Cycliq Fly12 and Fly6 Cameras/lights. 

To be in with a chance of winning one of 5 pairs of Cycliq cameras, click here: 

As always with our GCN Unboxings, you lucky people will actually be able to try to win these cameras. In fact we’ve got 5 pairs of Fly12 and Fly6 cameras to give away. Make sure you keep watching to the end of the video to find out how you can get your hands on them. 

The Fly12 is Cycliq’s front unit, again light and camera. The idea behind these units is that you will benefit from them bein on your bikes at all 

 light can put out up to 600 lumens, which makes it a light to see with, as well as to be seen. It can shoot up to 1080p at 60fps with a super wide angle, 135degree lense, comparable to other action cameras out there. 

If you'd like to contribute captions and video info in your language, here's the link -

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📹 Hank's Red Hook Crit 


📹 [any related/mentioned video, play sign, shortened link] 

GCN Tech Unboxing: Cycliq Fly12 CE & Fly6 CE Lights & Cameras

Working out how to make your position on the bike more aero can be really expensive. So Emma has some top tips on how to do your own, completely free experiments while out on the bike!

We do love to do a bit of science here on GCN, but the problem with the tests we run, is that they tend to be quite case specific. So the results we find are probably only valid for us, on that day, riding that particular road, in those particular conditions. But you can actually run some really good tests and experiments by yourself, and get results that will help you go much faster.

There are a number of things to take into account when planning an experiment:
Variables
Validity: Making sure you're measuring what you want to measure, and not something else instead.
Repeatability: Perform the tests a number of times for each variable change, that way you can ignore any outlier results.
Reliability: If there is more of a difference between the times for one variable than there is between the times for the two different variables, your test isn't very reliable.
Measurement

Watch more on GCN...
📹 Does Size Matter? 

Music: Epidemic Sound
Seona - Ooyy
Khandi - Ooyy
Ganja - Ooyy

October 2018

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