GCN Tech Show: What is the most overrated bit of bike tech?

Alex Paton is back from his holiday this week, joined by Ollie Bridgewood in the studio, as they set their sights on scrutinising some of the industry's most overrated tech. One of the immediate bones of contention for the boys is just the sheer cost of some bike tech. The industry has seen prices soar in recent times with some of the overrated tech that they discuss costing the same as an alpine riding holiday, which begs the question, is it really worth it?

Starting off the discussion with what is arguably the most agreed upon bit of unnecessary tech to have graced our sport: oversized pulley wheels. Purely on a cost-per-gain front, these are some of the lowest value upgrades you can fit to your bike. Yes, they do look bling, and there is a slight performance gain to be had, but compared to other upgrades, the benefit is minimal. When you factor in the cost of these coming in at hundreds of pounds or dollars, it could be argued that a weekend riding trip is a better investment.

Another bit of tech that seems unnecessary is ceramic bearings. They do serve a purpose in things like bottom brackets or wheels as they do last a lot longer and, if properly maintained, offer a performance benefit. The issue is when every bearing in your bike is ceramic, as things like headset bearings will gain no benefit from the costly upgrade. The issue with ceramic bearings is once again the cost of them versus what they actually give you. For at least four or five times the cost of stainless steel bearings, it's hard to argue that kitting your bike out from head to toe with ceramic bearings is a wise purchase.

Read more: What’s the difference between cheap and expensive wheels?

But what do we mean when we talk about overrated tech? It's something that has been built up and idolised as something you need that is going to have a noticeable effect on the performance of your bike, but in reality will offer insignificant gains in the real world. For the cost of saving a handful of watts, you could instead have a week riding in a dream destination. The argument is that for all but a top-tier professional rider, saving a handful of watts is going to serve no greater purpose and shouldn’t make a difference to your enjoyment of the ride.

Lightweight bikes are seeing somewhat of a resurgence this year, with Orbea releasing the new Orca which is a departure from the aero-optimised everything we've seen recently. There is no denying that saving weight will make a difference to how your bike feels and how fast it goes uphill, however when the trend is taken to the extreme, we think it starts to fall into the category of overrated.

As soon as the other aspects of a component start to fall to the wayside in the hunt for grams, it is hard to justify why you would opt to fit that component over a slightly heavier one. For most of us out there, we don’t have an endless supply of free parts to adorn our bikes with, and the reality is super lightweight components just aren’t all that durable.

Once again, the performance benefits of saving weight are definitely there but not at the levels that are commonly accepted. A weight saving of one kilo has the same performance benefit as saving five watts on a long climb like Alpe d’Huez, which really puts into perspective savings that are in a few tens of grams. A far cheaper alternative that can see you saving weight and watts is by choosing to run a different inner tube in your tyres.

Elsewhere on the tech show this week, we have the latest in hot tech including new Smart inner tubes from Pirelli that are made of TPU and offer five-percent less rolling resistance than the existing smart tubes. The brand has also released the Smart Tube X which has the same TPU construction but is three-times thicker, offering increased puncture resistance.

Hutchinson has also made the news this week with its new Challenger all-year training tyre. The brand is claiming that this tubeless tyre does not require any sealant to be inserted into the tyre to aid puncture sealing. This is because of a butyl liner inside the tyre and added puncture protection to the casing.

Pinarello has released a new endurance bike, featuring a vibration-dampening rear end. It's intended to give similar flex to the old K8 with a little shock absorber, but without any complicated and heavy suspension units.

Read more: Pinarello adds X endurance bike to its Dogma range

Finally in hot tech news this week comes an announcement from Shimano regarding its 11-speed Hollowtech II cranks. The brand has announced a voluntary recall of over 760,000 cranks across the USA and Canada, as well as a separate "inspection and replacement program" for Europe.

Read more: Shimano issues voluntary recall for 760,000 Hollowtech II cranksets

Rounding off the show we have the usual features of comment of the week and the bike vault. This week we have a controversial Specialized Tarmac SL7 in gold, but as always the scrutinising eye of Alex is quick to reject a super nice due to a cropped image cutting off some of the wheels.

If you think you have a bike that is deserving of the super nice accolade, submit it in the GCN App to see if we agree with you!