The giant cycling retailer, Wiggle has made majority of the workforce redundant after entering administration back in October 2023.
Cycling Weekly's Sam, Joe and Stefan talks about pro-cycling tech trends, new digital torque wrench from Topeak and the launch of the cheapest SPD based power meter pedals. The team also look at the Argon 18 Sum Pro which may just be one of the best value bikes specced with Shimano Dura-Ace.
Cycling Weekly's Sam, Joe and Stefan talks about pro-cycling tech trends, new digital torque wrench from Topeak and the launch of the cheapest SPD based power meter pedals. The team also look at the Argon 18 Sum Pro which may just be one of the best value bikes specced with Shimano Dura-Ace.
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00:00 We have so much news to share because we have seen the collapse of one of cycling's biggest
00:05 retailers. Joe has been rubbing shoulders with the pros at the opening weekend and
00:09 Stefan has been testing the cheapest SPD power meter pedals on the market.
00:15 But first, let's start with Wiggle because yes, sadly, they have now started the process of
00:22 winding down their entire business, which I think is actually a really sad thing because
00:27 what it's meaning is that there's a whole bunch of people that have now,
00:30 sadly, lost their jobs. There's a very small team that's remaining and their job is going to be to
00:37 aid in the continual trade of the business but also the winding down of it. But yeah,
00:42 I think first and foremost, we're just really sad to see the end of a company that really kind of
00:48 changed the landscape of cycling retail. Yeah, and I think particularly with the
00:52 brands that it had like DHB and Vetus, they're such accessible, really solid brands with pretty
00:58 good products across the board. Do we know anything about what's going to be happening
01:01 with those at all? We do. We've got a little bit of information. So what we know so far is that the
01:07 mysterious new buyer, who we have no idea who that is, what the buyer has purchased is the
01:14 intellectual property of those house brands. So DHB, Vetus, Nukeproof, all the rest of them,
01:20 it's likely that we might see those brand names pop up again elsewhere. But because none of the
01:27 stock that the business was holding is going to be part of that sale, we don't really know where
01:34 those logos are going to show up or how they're going to be used. And we have no idea how much
01:39 that IP was actually purchased for. So there's still a lot of question marks that surround
01:43 the future. Happily though, it's not all doom and gloom because I saw something really funny
01:48 on Instagram the other day. I saw this video of a guy who had wired up his SRAM rear derailleur.
01:54 It looked like he'd used a 3D printed kind of plate with wires going into it. Those wires then
02:01 go all the way to the handlebars where he's got a wind turbine powering his SRAM mech, which I just
02:07 thought is hilarious. It's quite funny, isn't it? I think, yeah, particularly at the start of the
02:11 video as well, the cables look relatively neat and it just gets progressively worse and worse
02:16 after the handlebars. But still, you know, sustainability at its finest there. Well,
02:21 yeah, exactly. And the thing is, he's actually not a million miles off of something that SRAM
02:25 themselves are actually trying to do. Because SRAM back in 2020, they applied for a patent
02:31 to essentially incorporate solar panels onto a bike to allow you to charge a spare AXS battery.
02:38 So if one of them went flat, be that on a mech, a power meter or a dropper post, you could take
02:43 the one that was charging up via the solar panel and then switch it and interchange it. So he's
02:48 actually not a million miles off of something that's actually being worked on and developed
02:52 by SRAM. And yeah, as we know now, that patent has now been approved. Speaking of SRAM, you were
02:58 at Opening Weekend and you spotted something quite interesting. Yes, hiding in plain sight, it has to
03:03 be said, both me and Will Jones from Cycling News were out at the Opening Weekend and on first
03:08 inspection, we actually both missed a brand new front derailleur from SRAM. It was fitted to the
03:13 bikes of the team Visma Leesa Bike, men's and women's. And yet, brand new front derailleur,
03:19 almost indistinguishable from the outgoing model. Talk us through differences. Yeah,
03:24 absolutely. So the main takeaways are a redesigned front mech cage, which is now black as well,
03:30 sort of anodized black. And the front, sort of the shaping of the front derailleur is also sort
03:34 of slightly more curved back. Same battery looks to be in use. So I would expect likely compatibility
03:40 with your existing AXS batteries when it does release. And other than that, on the surface,
03:46 at least, it looks pretty similar. Arguably, though, I think the biggest thing that we'd all
03:50 love to see is better front mech shifting, but that's going to be down to the motor itself that's
03:54 inside. Correct. Yes. So that we don't know yet. In fact, we don't even know if it's going to be
03:59 SRAM red. As I say, there was no there was no branding on these front derailleurs. Speaking
04:05 with other World Tour mechanics as well, other SRAM sponsored teams, very much seemed to be the
04:09 case that Visma were testing these front derailleurs. So in terms of naming or indeed what
04:15 the internals are going to be like, we're not sure yet, but still really positive, I think, to see
04:19 that they're sort of taking a big redesigning to something that arguably was a bit of an Achilles
04:24 on their previous group set. Worth remembering, though, that this is obviously going to be a pre
04:28 production unit that's probably in place. So what we're seeing, obviously, it's an incredibly
04:33 blacked out unit. There's a chance that actually when if this is a new SRAM red front mech,
04:38 there's a good chance actually it could have a completely new look once it's properly unveiled.
04:42 Indeed. Yeah, absolutely. But I mean, even so, I think it looked pretty clean, pretty polished. So
04:47 I would imagine maybe in the next sort of few months, I'd likely I think we'll see this released.
04:52 That wasn't the only thing that you guys saw, though, because there was something else
04:55 chain set related. Yeah, a little bit of a trend, actually, just across the world tour. So I mean,
05:00 where this all starts, we're talking about chainring sizes here. This all starts with
05:04 Tobias Foss at the UAE Tour. So a couple of weeks back now, we saw him roll off the start ramp of
05:10 the TT with a 68 tooth chainring, which is absolutely colossal. Now, it caused a bit of
05:15 a stir online. A number of media sites reported on it, and it actually got a bit of clap back from
05:20 Dan Biggum, who is a performance engineer at Ineos. And he tweeted that anyone that was confused
05:25 about the gear choice should Google gear ratios. And in fairness to him, when you do that, it does
05:32 all make rather a lot of sense, really. A 68/14 gear actually is about equivalent to a 54/11.
05:39 And at 90 RPM, that puts you at about 55 kilometers an hour. Sure enough, the winning
05:43 speed for that time trial was 55 k's an hour. So there we go. And I guess the biggest benefit
05:48 they're getting there is actually it's just a perfectly straight chain line. So the drive
05:51 train efficiency is going to be- Yeah, much better. I think going really conservative,
05:56 this can be the combination of a straighter chain line and also the chain not having to
06:01 sort of bend around such a tight corner can look to gain in the region of about 1%,
06:04 which doesn't look much on the surface. But these guys for prologues like this are doing about 450
06:10 watts. So I mean, four or five watts, we very, very roughly calculated that to be about 0.2 of
06:16 a k an hour, which over that course, you're looking at three seconds. And bearing in mind,
06:20 the podium was separated by I think less than 15 seconds. Every little helps.
06:24 And the other interesting thing we saw as well is this is absolutely spilling onto the road scene
06:29 as well. So Victor Campenaerts at Omloop Heed Nieuwsblad and Koerner-Brussel-Koerner was
06:33 riding a 58 tooth setup on his Shimano chain rings. But that actually wasn't the biggest gear
06:40 ratio we saw. That award goes to Trapnik, who he does like to grind a little bit, doesn't he?
06:44 Doesn't ride the highest cadence. But yeah, his 54.10 is actually equivalent to riding a 60.11,
06:50 which I thought was monster gears. But then again, the average speed for the race was
06:54 over 50 k an hour. So it makes sense. What else did you see while you're out there?
06:58 Well, on the topic of aerodynamics, actually, the other interesting sort of new grounds for
07:02 development was handlebars. I think realistically, this is coming off the back of the UCI starting
07:07 to crack down on turned in lever hoods. But interestingly, I saw a number of different teams
07:12 using aero cockpits that had been specifically developed for the teams. Now, a team mechanic
07:18 from Intermarche 1T explained to me that three of their riders were using this new 34 centimeter
07:23 wide setup and confirmed also that it had been custom made by Cube's component brand, Newman.
07:29 And the big thing here is that's really not cheap to do. So normally, whenever there's a new carbon
07:34 fiber product, there's a tooling cost associated with that. So clearly, I would argue the new sort
07:39 of rule changes that haven't been enforced yet are clearly providing a bit of financial incentive
07:44 for teams to get narrower. Yeah, I mean, I do wonder if those molds might actually be slightly
07:50 modular so they can add in parts to that motor, elongate the stems or narrower or kind of take
07:57 parts out to allow them to make the bars narrower. Yeah, indeed. And it's something we've reached out
08:02 to a couple of brands about this to sort of try and confirm this because Enve, for example,
08:05 they do offer, they offer custom handlebars. And you would imagine if they're doing that on
08:12 any sort of scale that there would be some sort of cost management involved, but still quite
08:17 interesting. Also, the other one was Deda. So the guys over at Decathlon AG2R Le Mondial, I saw one
08:24 of them riding a 16 and a half centimeter stem on the Deda aero cockpit, which I thought was,
08:29 yeah, particularly large. Talk to us about tires because I think that was quite a mix of different
08:33 setups. There was actually, and that's what stood out to me. Absolutely no pattern. Really
08:38 interesting. The majority of teams were on 28, 30 and some on 32 millimeter tires. So stuff's
08:45 definitely getting wider. A couple of mechanics also told me that that basically allows them to
08:51 not really change the bikes beyond that for the classics. So maybe the days of suspension systems
08:57 and changing tire pressures and such may be sort of on the way out now, I think. But crucially,
09:03 people were still riding tubs. So Liv, Jayco were using tubs and the guys over at Little Trek as
09:10 well, also using tubs. And the reason for this is really interesting. So head mechanic of Liv
09:15 Jayco, Valentin Armand, actually told me that the reason they were running tubs was for rider
09:20 safety. So he said, okay, tubeless with a liner protects the rim, but it doesn't protect the
09:26 rider. What he means by that is tubeless setups, as we saw with Thomas De Gendt in the UAE tour,
09:31 sometimes can have the tendency to actually fail and blow off the rim. Now with a tub,
09:37 because the tire is actually glued onto the rim, there's less chance of that happening.
09:41 And more also, he did mention as well, you can keep riding them when they're flat. They rarely
09:45 blow out. So in terms of, you know, if you're racing, you get puncture, you can keep riding
09:49 until your team car gets there. That's also obviously a really, really big gain. Yeah.
09:54 Wow. So quite a bit, quite a lot of, quite a lot of different options, especially ahead of Roubaix.
09:59 Different. Yeah. Things are being tested. Absolutely. Things being tested. Also,
10:02 interestingly, Visma Lisa bike had the lowest pressures on the day. So they were running 30
10:07 millimeter tires with unreleased reserve carbon wheels, or at least some of their riders were,
10:11 which the mechanic, Bart Kennis actually mentioned. He let on to me that the new wheels might be
10:18 optimized for these 30 millimeter tires, but they were running them with the Victoria Air
10:22 liner inserts and they were actually running them as low as three bars. That's about 45 PSI
10:27 for some riders. So I hear that you've got a fancy new tool. I do indeed. So last week I was at
10:33 Core Bike, which is a trade show here in the UK. And I met up with the guys from Top Eek because
10:38 they've always got generally quite interesting things going on. And they have come out with a
10:44 digital torque wrench, which I think is pretty cool. It's a really neat little setup, to be
10:49 honest. It comes with hex keys ranging from two to six millimeters. There's four different torque
10:55 set sizes and there's a Phillips head in there as well. So I think it just works quite well.
11:01 Yeah. Nice and compact. Yeah. How does it actually work? Is it sort of a specific number in terms of
11:07 the torque setting or? I mean, think of it kind of like, it's almost like the shift lights on an F1
11:13 car. So when you're talking something up, you'd use, you'd kind of get the bolt on and then you
11:18 can see the LEDs running up the screen. So when you kind of hit the number that you want to be at,
11:23 it's job done. It's not the cheapest thing in the world, but torque wrenches aren't that cheap,
11:28 but I think it's a really good solution that would help a lot of people out, just undertake their
11:31 normal day-to-day jobs and know that they've done them safely. Potentially as well, something great
11:35 for those who are going on a training camp, for example. There's nothing worse than when you
11:39 haven't got a torque wrench and you're sort of just really gently doing up the bolts when the
11:43 bike comes out of the bike bag. So having something that's real nice and compact to
11:47 sort of make sure everything's okay would be really good for that. Yeah, I completely agree.
11:49 And I think that's what, that's, I think, yeah, it's that type of a person that this is going to
11:53 work really well for. If something of this is of interest, it's not actually out just yet. I think
11:58 you can pre-order it, but then it gets properly released the first week of April, but I've left
12:04 a link down in the description if you do want to go and check it out. Next up, I believe we've got
12:08 some pretty good value power meter pedals. So Stefan, tell us about them. Yeah, so yeah, Favaro,
12:13 well, I think they're well known as a pretty good value power meter pedal brand all around with
12:17 Asioma road pedals, but now they've come out with, yeah, set for SPD, increasing the number of SPD
12:24 pedals out there on the market that sense power by 50%. There's only Garmin and SRAM that have
12:30 their own models and they've really brought the price down to a much more accessible point,
12:35 really, which is really quite impressive. And so these pedals in a single sided option retail for
12:40 $500 or 400 pounds. But I think that the best thing about these pedals is not the price,
12:46 but it's really the dimensions that they offer. The Garmin Rally system is great in so many ways
12:52 with the interchangeable bodies. And you can, if you have a set of look road pedals, for instance,
12:57 you can get the body and change it to SPD for riding through the winter perhaps. But the issue
13:03 always was that the stack height is just significantly higher than Shimano SPD pedals,
13:08 and it just throws you off a little bit. And for me, I have to adjust the height of my saddle
13:13 when I swap onto Garmin Rally pedals, because it's just that much higher. And when it comes
13:18 to the cornering, like with your center of mass, just raise that a little bit more. Yeah, for me,
13:22 I just don't really like that. Yeah, changed what I'm used to in my setup. But with these pedals,
13:27 the stack height is just that bit lower and it just feels, it's not quite the same as actual
13:33 Shimano SPD pedals. It still is a little bit higher, but for me, it's completely imperceptible.
13:38 And so I've been really enjoying riding these. I've been using them for all of my rides.
13:42 And it's been quite nice actually, using these. Yeah, on the road, on gravel and everything,
13:47 it's a single set of shoes. You just jump on with the pedals. I've become a little bit of a convert
13:52 really. And I've taken the road pedals off my road bike and put some non-power-sensing SPDs on as
13:57 well, because it's just nice and convenient though, really. Yeah. It must be nice being able to walk
14:01 at the cafe, Stefan. Yeah, exactly. So is there anything else to know about these pedals? Because
14:07 I believe, I think they are rechargeable. Yeah, exactly. And so like for various other
14:12 power meter pedals, these are rechargeable. They have a little clip that just attaches to the
14:16 pedals and these, they've got a micro USB attachment to them. And so you don't have this
14:20 great big long extra cable that you have to carry around. You can just take this little unit and
14:24 then attach it to any micro USB cable that you have, which is something that's quite neat and
14:29 something that I personally really like as well. The thing that I actually most like about these
14:33 pedals is how the spindle actually works inside of it, or the fact that it's got a completely
14:39 sealed internal spindle. And so you can service these pedals just like any other non-power meter
14:44 sensing pedals. And the SRM, which is quite a bit more expensive, has a little port that
14:51 attaches. And so that's potentially a weak point for water ingress. And this completely obviates
14:56 that. And so you can replace the spindle if you were to have any issue that can just be straight
15:02 up replaced, which is something that's really quite neat as a part of these pedals as well.
15:07 So I think that all around, it's very well thought out, very simple, but very functional. And so far
15:12 it's proven durable set of pedals and the price as well. Yeah, cheapest on the market. So it's
15:20 thumbs up really at this point. - For this month's bike of the month,
15:22 we have an Argon 18. And Joe, I think you've been hands-on with it. Tell us about it.
15:26 - Correct. So I've had the Argon 18 Sun Pro only in the workshop so far. I haven't actually ridden
15:31 it, but I just think it's worth a mention because there's some really nice headline stats that I
15:35 think are going to make this a really interesting bike to a lot of people. So firstly, the full
15:39 Dura-Ace build with 303S zip wheels comes in at eight and a half thousand pounds in the UK,
15:46 which, okay, it's not cheap, but that really puts it in line with some of the more sort of
15:51 value brands. It's going to go toe to toe with bikes like the Van Rysel RCR Pro, which again,
15:56 another bike we're really interested to get our hands on. So I think that just puts it in a really
16:00 interesting place in the market, as I say, for that full top-level build. Now it is missing a
16:05 one-piece carbon handlebar and stem. Currently there's an FSA alloy setup on there. All the
16:10 cables are pretty much internal. So from that point of view, the bike looks really clean. That
16:15 is sort of an area maybe if you were looking to upgrade, it's maybe the first thing you'd look to
16:18 do. So the build with this alloy handlebar and stem comes in at 7.2 kilos for a size 54, which
16:26 I would actually say is pretty respectable. Bearing in mind that a carbon cockpit would
16:31 likely save probably one or 200 grams anyway. It's really in the ballpark of sort of bikes
16:36 a lot more expensive than it. The other thing I'd like to mention is the build was really simple.
16:42 Now I personally think you can tell really quite a lot about a bike from how easy it was to build.
16:47 I've had lots of bikes in the past where problems have arisen from exactly where you would expect
16:53 them to after you've done that bike build. So I'm thinking potentially something like the old
16:56 Cannondale Super 6, the third generation. Just like there were parts feel a little bit finicky
17:03 and it's just not quite as nicely finished arguably than the Mark 4 that's out now. Whereas
17:08 this was absolutely brilliant. The seat clamp was really clean, just no nonsense. And I think,
17:13 yeah, I think generally speaking, it just seems like a really well put together bike.
17:17 One more thing on that Argon 18 as well, particularly in light of what I've seen at
17:20 the opening weekend, 28 millimeter tires as standard. Interesting. Let us know down below
17:26 what is your favorite tire setup given what all the pros are doing.