- 3 minutes ago
I love cycling, but some of the latest trends are driving me mad. In this video, I'm breaking down my biggest pet peeves in the bike industry and questioning whether form has completely overtaken function. Do you agree with these takes?
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00:00Oh I do love a rant and there have of course been plenty of great developments in cycling.
00:06Bikes are now more aero, more versatile, more capable than ever before but there has been
00:12plenty of developments that seem like steps in the wrong direction. So here's some things
00:18that I hope don't make it to 2026. This is Cycling Weekly, let's get into it.
00:25We'll kick off with one of my biggest bugbears, aero profile tubing on non-aero bikes. Now don't
00:34get me wrong, I love an aero bike. Aero bikes have a time and a place and if you want
00:39to cut through
00:40the air like a knife then you are going to need some aero profile tube shapes, probably designed
00:46in a wind tunnel. What grinds my gears is bikes that have never seen a wind tunnel. They're never
00:51going to be ridden at more than 30 kilometres an hour, for example some gravel bikes and yet
00:57they still have D-shaped seat tubes and seat posts and aero profile down tubes. Like why? I know why
01:06and it's purely for aesthetics but the downside is that it makes a bike worse to ride which I think
01:14is quite important. The thing with aero profile tubes is that they're like an I-beam so they're
01:20really stiff in one direction and not necessarily in another and that makes a bike less compliant.
01:26So the sooner we'll realise that a round profile tube is actually a really bloody good way of
01:33combining stiffness, compliance and low weight, the better. Next on my list is light bib shorts.
01:41No, not low weight bib shorts, they're fine as long as they're not see-through but the light coloured
01:47bib shorts, you know the ones that you always see on on Instagram these days that influencers are
01:53always wearing and I think that's half the problem. They're designed for pure form over function. So I saw
02:01a set, I thought I'd really like them, I think they look really good and so I got a set
02:07and then I went out
02:07on a bike ride and it was summer to be fair and I did an effort up a hill and
02:14when I got to the top
02:15it looked literally like I'd wet myself. Now I'm not a profuse sweater and I have been probably a bit
02:23weird since that and just gone around looking at other people's crotches but it's not just a me
02:30problem. There is so many people wearing light bib shorts that are going out on rides and looking like
02:36they wet themselves or had an accident down their backside or cycling inherently you are going to
02:42sweat or you are going to get grubby and light bib shorts satisfy neither of those. I know Ineos have
02:48just gone for their light bib shorts. I personally think they actually look quite good apart from they
02:55don't actually match the jersey and they look good now in a in a studio photo. Will they look good
03:01at the
03:01end of Paris-Roubaix? Probably not and I am going to call out the influencers for this. They look great
03:09on Instagram. I reckon none of the influencers are actually riding their bikes. They can't be because
03:15otherwise they would have the same sweat patches as everyone else. So let me know what you think whether
03:20you agree or disagree down in the comments below. Is it just a me problem or is this just giving
03:26more
03:26ammunition to actual normal people who already think our cyclists are pretty damn weird? Right,
03:33you knew it was going to be here didn't you? Integrated cockpits. They look great. They're less fun
03:38if you've ever had to do any maintenance on your own bike. The other day I was there with with
03:44my brake
03:44hoses for hours trying to get them through impossibly small holes in the bars. That isn't actually my gripe
03:53with them. Fair enough if you want to save a minuscule amount of watts by hiding your cables.
03:59Cool. I also think it looked really clean. Brilliant. That's fine on an aero bike. On other bikes,
04:06does it really make any difference? Probably not. You can find far bigger gains from, well, moving your
04:13hands or your head. An absolutely microscopic amount would make more difference than having internally
04:20routed cabling. My biggest problem with them though is the fact that they're attached to the stem,
04:26which sounds really obvious. But if you fall off and or your bike falls over, then you now have to
04:32replace your bar and your stem. You can't just replace one of them. The other thing is bike fit.
04:37Bike fit will make far bigger difference to your speed and comfort on the bike than anything else you
04:44can do to your bike. Any upgrade that you could make is far outweighed by your bike fit. An integrated
04:52cockpit really limits that fit. Not only do manufacturers not offer it in enough sizes, they
04:59also seem to be out of stock the entire time. And then when it comes to changing, because your bike
05:07fit
05:07will change, all of our bike fits change over time. You will potentially have not ridden as much in the
05:14last year. And two years later, your bike fit is going to change to when you set up your bike.
05:20Now you
05:21want to change your position ever so slightly. And great, that's going to be £500, please. No,
05:28thank you very much. I just don't think it's worth it. So there's my opinion on integrated
05:33cockpits whether you ask for it or not. Right. I've slated aero tubing already. And now I'm going
05:40to share around the hate onto super lightweight bikes too. Because I'm basically just on a roll
05:49of seeing how many of you I can piss off as possible. There is absolutely no need for
05:56anyone buying their own bike to be on a 600 gram frame. Let me explain.
06:02For most of us, weight makes absolutely no difference when out on the bike. Not the
06:07weight of your bike anyway. A bike potentially weighs 7 kilograms, 10 kilograms, maybe even 12
06:13kilograms. The average human weighs significantly more than that. And the result is that your bike
06:19is going to be maybe 10% of your total system weight and therefore saving even 500 grams, which
06:27could cost you a fortune, is not really going to be very significant in the grand scheme of things.
06:32You'd be far better focused on getting comfortable, putting out more watts and potentially being
06:38more aero. Now, I don't have anything against some lightweight bikes, but taking it that one step
06:45further, for example, a Lab 71 or an S-Works, these really special carbon layups, brilliant for the pros
06:52that are trying to find these microscopic gains. But for the rest of us, why do we want to be
06:58riding
06:59around on really, they're not really fragile, but they are more fragile than the ones that are 200
07:08grams heavier? For what benefit? Next to none. Now, sure, you don't have to go out and buy one. No
07:16one is
07:16forcing you to go and buy one of these bikes. But the marketing departments do seem to like to push
07:23them quite hard. They are trying to tell you that there is a benefit when I don't think for most
07:29people
07:30there is. So what I'd much rather is a pros and cons list. If each manufacturer could give you a
07:36pros
07:36and cons list of each bike rather than just all the pros. That's never going to happen, is it?
07:42And that does sort of lead me on to, speaking of marketing departments, brands pushing the wrong
07:50kind of bike. We recently did a video where we went to the Van Riesel store and it was sort
07:58of
07:58tackling this problem head on because according to the bike fitter at Van Riesel, 80 to 90% of the
08:06customers that come through his door should be or are better suited to endurance geometry
08:12than race bike geometry. And yet brands are adamant that the best way to sell bikes is to say,
08:20ah, but Pogaccia rides this one, Sagan used to ride this one, or Evan and Paul rides this one,
08:26for example. And it's like trying to do the school run in an F1 car. It's great that you can
08:32buy it,
08:32but that doesn't mean you should. There are far better tools for the job.
08:38The thing that I think often gets missed with endurance bike geometry is that it doesn't mean
08:43you're going to go slower. It doesn't mean they're not sit up and beg bikes. They have aero profile
08:51tubing. They have these integrated cables, if that's what you want. And I think the easiest way to explain
08:57this is your back or your hamstrings and hip flexors have a certain degree of movement. And when you're
09:05on the bike, they're going to find what's comfortable. Now, if you have much lower handlebars,
09:11then what happens is your hands go lower or they come higher as you change your handlebar position.
09:19It doesn't necessarily mean that you're actually going to get in a more aerodynamic position,
09:26if that makes any sense at all. So actually on a race bike, some of us might be slower because
09:33as you do that and lower your hands, you actually open up more of your arms to the oncoming wind.
09:41And that's why on TT bikes, we're now seeing everyone actually bring their front ends much,
09:46much higher to try and close that gap. So I don't think that endurance road bikes are actually much
09:52slower. There are some excellent options out there. The Canyon Durace, the Factor Monza sort of tackles
09:58this, the Giant Defy, absolutely excellent bike. And I could sit here all day listing tens more,
10:06but will the majority of people go out and buy them? No, probably not because brands are pushing
10:12their race bikes. If you want to hear me tell us some more hard hitting fruits of cycling,
10:18then make sure you hit that subscribe button. We can do lighthearted too. What else annoys me?
10:24Oh, I've got another one. Pencil cases. You know, the bar bags that go under your handlebars? Oh,
10:32well, no, this is a good example. Why are people not using top tube bags instead of bar bags? If
10:39you need a
10:40bar bag and you've already got a saddle pack, a top tube bag, you've used potentially your spare bottle cage
10:49or et cetera, then fine, have a bar bag. But there's a lot of people, mainly they're all riding around
10:56Richmond Park, riding around with pencil cases under their bars and then nothing else on their bikes.
11:03Sometimes not even a water bottle, sometimes no saddle bag or nothing in their pockets. And they
11:10are all much better places to store things, in my opinion. A bar bag, it's got the potential to rub
11:17your frame. It kind of limits where you can put your hands. They wobble about, the ones I have used
11:22do,
11:23because it's not a physical mounting point. You just strap it to your bars. If you need them,
11:28fine. If you're using one just for the aesthetic on your 15k gravel ride, then fit your stuff somewhere
11:37else. And finally, I know this is going to be a big one. The other thing that I hope doesn't
11:43make
11:43it into 2026 is baggy tubeless tires. I know that tubeless tires, hookless wheels, et cetera, are a very
11:51controversial topic. I personally don't think there is anything inherently wrong with hookless. I know
12:01that there's going to be lots of angry people in the comments. I think that it's technology that we
12:07should be capable of making work. Does it work? No, I don't think we're at a point where it's safe
12:14enough
12:15for us to go out and use it, or for me to recommend it to the average rider out there,
12:22my friends and family, for example. And I think the main culprit for that is tire manufacturers.
12:28They have literally, in most cases, one job, and that is to make a tire and make it the right
12:35size.
12:36And yet you get your new set of tubeless wheels, you get three tires, and they're all different sizes.
12:41Some of them absolutely pop on. They're too baggy. And other ones are a right faff to try and get
12:47on,
12:47but at least when they are on, they're probably going to stay on and they're easier to inflate.
12:52So to all the tire manufacturers making baggy tubeless tires, you're ruining it for the rest of
12:58us. Everyone that I know has a story either from themselves or someone that they know having a poor
13:04experience with tubeless tires. We should be able to make a bit of rubber the right size for a
13:10standard sized wheel. So that one's probably a bit more serious than the others. Let me know any of
13:16the tech trends that you think should make it into Room 101 in the comments below. Apologies if you don't
13:21get the reference. And also let me know whether you agree or disagree with any of my rants down below.
13:28Make sure you're subscribed to the channel for another year of all things cycling,
13:32and we'll see you next time. Good to get that off my chest. I feel much better now.