Cycling Weekly's Sam Gupta & Joe Baker look at 2024 and cast their predictions on the new road bike tech we may see hit the market. There's everything from wireless brakes, heap electronic groupsets and new glucose monitoring systems that could change the face of cycling forever. Let us know what you think could be released in 2024.
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00:00Some of the tech that we're really excited for in 2024. There is a lot to dive into so I want
00:05to start with something pretty contentious because there's a lot of meat on the bone
00:09but wireless brakes. Talk to me Joe, why do you think that they could be something one
00:14that we should be excited for and two why they'd be any good? Yeah well as you say pretty contentious
00:21issue. I think there's a lot of um a lot of people would worry when you start to talk about wireless
00:26brakes. There are a few things that they'd be really good for. I think the most obvious one
00:30is at least on SRAM's group sets we are one hose away from totally cableless or wireless
00:38operation of the bike which is pretty amazing but I mean why would that be good for the man
00:43on the street? Why would that be good for normal riders? So first of all you've got the fact that
00:48you could completely get rid of internal cable routing which any bike mechanic will tell you is
00:53kind of probably still the bane of their life to an extent. There's the other thing as well with the
00:57safety of headsets and safety of steerers. So at the moment a lot of steerer tube fractures are
01:02actually due to point loading due to having split rings so instead of having a full ring around your
01:09headset thanks to hydraulic hoses going through the frame you have to have that split so there's
01:14room for them that can cause point loading and therefore fracture which is depending on who you
01:19speak to actually kind of quite an issue at least in bike design. It's a weak spot so being
01:23able to eradicate that weak spot would make them stronger. Yeah absolutely. I think the other thing
01:29is general maintenance. It would just make so much sense to be able to easily swap bars without the
01:34stupidly high labor costs that we see to do that. The bike shop I used to work in somebody came in
01:40and they wanted their stem lowered by I think it was eight millimeters. It required two brake bleeds
01:45complete recabling of the bike and I think the labor cost genuinely was £170. That was not
01:52overcharged that was simply just how long it would take the bike shop to do that job
01:56and actually just to be able to go back to the old days if you will but with modern technology
02:00would be really would be a massive gain for consumer and bike shops. Yeah and I guess when
02:05you start to think about it it's not actually too far removed from the TRP hydro calipers
02:12because we've seen similar things where you have the hydraulic reservoir right next to where the
02:16pistons are and having kind of this all-encompassing caliper. The only thing that I can think of in
02:21that situation is obviously you've got a cable actuated system there. How much more bulky is
02:26it then going to be to have a motor that then actuates it plus a battery to run the whole
02:31caliper? You're then ending up with a pretty potentially significantly sized unit right down
02:36at the end of your fork. I mean how bulky is that going to be? For sure I think that depends on how
02:41far into the development cycle you're talking about. I think and I think this is the big caveat
02:45for this one. I think we'll see prototypes next year. I think this is a few years of actually
02:50seeing this on our bikes. Firstly it's going to come to e-bikes first. It was the same with Di2
02:54electronic shifting. It makes sense that something that as you say is bound to be slightly more bulky
03:00will first end up on something where weight is less of a factor. I would argue that in a few
03:04years time we could definitely see working models that actually don't really detriment aerodynamics
03:09too much and also get rid of the cables and say all the benefits that I've talked about. I guess
03:13one of the bigger issues though forgetting about the size and weight of any potential calipers that
03:17are wireless, should we trust the technology? I mean not having that hard link between your brake
03:23lever and your brake that's our big mental hurdle. Certainly that's going to be a lot of people's
03:28biggest worry and I think rightly so it's really not natural to not trust a mechanical system. It's
03:33what we've been using for so long. However if you look to other parts of the automotive industry,
03:38public transport, we rely on electrical systems absolutely everywhere but actually if there's a
03:43fail-safe built into the bike as well I don't actually see a reason that we shouldn't trust
03:47them. Yeah that's really interesting. I think with tech like this you're absolutely right
03:53we would see it on an e-bike first because in that world you're not as concerned with size or weight
03:59it's more about whether it works well or not but I don't know I think I've got more reservations
04:04about whether or not it would be even seen on a bicycle first as opposed to seeing it in the
04:08automotive world in some form because I think with something like this it would just need to go
04:14through so many so many rounds of R&D before it gets to the point where the tech is actually
04:21flawless and you've kind of built up that trust in the public arena. Moving over from e-bikes to the
04:26world of road cycling we're going to talk a little bit about electronic group sets. That's it because
04:30we think that over the next 12-24 months we could potentially see more cheap electronic group sets
04:39and we think that SRAM could be leading the way in that market purely because last year we did
04:44see them release SRAM Apex AXS which is their fourth tier so that sits below SRAM Force and
04:51SRAM Rival so it's whether or not they could actually bring out a fifth tier AXS group set.
04:56We did speak to a spokesperson at SRAM who said that they expect the adoption of electronic group
05:00sets to continue across more price points. They didn't want to give a time scale unfortunately
05:04which isn't all too surprising but yeah I think it's certainly something that could be coming
05:09as you say in the next 12-24 months. Yeah absolutely I think it would be really interesting to see how
05:14other competitors in the market react to that because I think from a consumer's point of view
05:19that buzzword of electronic gears it kind of makes it seem like anything mechanical
05:26just really isn't good enough so as we know Shimano is going to be coming out with Q's
05:32in the next couple of years but before we see Q's Di2 well that is clearly going to be so far down
05:38the line you potentially have to look towards other rivals that might be bringing out you know
05:44these budget electronic group sets. I think you're absolutely right I think in fairness Shimano is
05:49fair to say it's got some work to do. They're playing catch-up big time. They're playing catch-up as
05:54you say and I think the recent release of the GRX 12 speed in mechanical well Shimano said that
06:00well 50% of our customers still buy mechanical shifting I would argue that a lot of that is
06:05down to price in the first place. Yeah and I think that's the question for the masses of riders that
06:10are out there that are on mechanical group sets and you can look at say Tiagra and below
06:15what's it going to mean for the prices of those bikes because currently there's so much of that
06:21product out in the market that you can have something that is slightly affordable at the
06:26moment that if we did start to see either a fifth tier axis group set or something from Shimano
06:33land on stock bikes is that just going to mean that the base level of bikes gets pushed up even
06:40higher? And that's my biggest concern is yeah what's it going to do to the cost of bikes?
06:46Adoption of more electronic group sets I believe will probably inflate the price more
06:50to an extent the only thing that would stop that is if actually a budget competitor like we saw
06:56L2 made quite a storm in the social media space early this year if a brand like that was able
07:00to severely undercut SRAM or Shimano and then was adopted by a big major bike brand. And that's the
07:06key that's the key I think the number of people that go out and buy a group set and then put it
07:10on their bike is such a small percentage of the overall market like I'd be amazed if it was even
07:15one percent that it has to be adopted by one of the really big bike brands for it to actually be
07:21a meaningful move for the industry. And then it would only be it would be kind of a budget play
07:27would would the brands be able to still sell a bike with electronic gears for less than a thousand
07:35pounds less than a thousand dollars? I don't know. It's certainly a push but I think arguably a
07:40pretty big power move for a big bike brand to choose to partner with one of these more budget
07:44groupset manufacturers and be able to undercut the market. I agree. 2024 is an Olympic year but
07:51what is that going to mean for track cycling and track cycling tech and what's it going to mean for
07:56maybe that tech being adopted on the road? What are you predicting? As you say it's an Olympic
08:01year whenever we get an Olympics normally we get a huge amount of new developments in tech
08:06the biggest one really that we've seen on a few different bikes actually at the World Championships
08:10last year in August is split seat posts and we're not talking about sort of the canyon style
08:16seat post that's designed to give sort of some comfort and deflection we're actually talking
08:20about sort of having two separate seat posts side by side creating like a Dyson Airblade
08:26seat post. Exactly and that is pretty much the best analogy for these the idea is that you can
08:30accelerate air between a rider's legs and that can help to fill the low pressure area behind the
08:36rider's legs behind sort of behind the lower back. So it's the same kind of concept as like
08:41the Trek Madone Isoflow but kind of above a bit higher up. Exactly really similar to that
08:47the biggest hurdle here I think is the aesthetics they do look pretty strange so you know for the
08:52road bike market I think that's kind of more of an Achilles than potentially on the track and in
08:58sort of time trialing but really I think there's no real reason why we won't start to see them
09:03sort of creep into the the wider road world. Yeah I think I think that's one thing is that
09:07like with the aesthetics people get used to aesthetics over time people tend to hate things
09:12when things are new but then they get used to them and they accept them and then they want them
09:16I don't necessarily see that as being like the biggest downside in the world I think what would
09:20be interesting is what's it going to do from like a saddle comfort point of view like is that going
09:25to mean that you actually lose compliance in the seat post because obviously there's been a lot of
09:30R&D recently put into making sure that seat posts do work really well for kind of smoothing out the
09:36ride as much as possible so I can see that potentially being a downside but I mean it
09:42seems to make sense it's whether or not any bike manufacturers would try to build it into their
09:47bikes or whether or not it would be an upgrade that people kind of buy from a third party brand
09:51like Dorema or someone else like that. From the thrilling world of seat posts to some new fitness
09:56tech we may well see in 2024. Indeed and this is something that actually could be pretty
10:02revolutionary within both the pro racing game but also at grassroots level. Super Sapiens is a company
10:09that currently exists and they make glucose monitoring systems and it's a little patch that
10:14sticks on the back of your arm and there's a little needle which then obtains the data from your blood
10:19work however currently they're completely banned from pro cycling. What's exciting though is that
10:25there's a company in Wales called Athon Technology who's developing a system where they can obtain
10:31the same data but without needing the needle prick in your arm so don't need to have the risk of
10:36infections and it also means that it would be virtually impossible to ban. The tech is currently
10:43in development but from our point of view if they develop that and they make it really successful
10:50and they make it work I don't think there's a reason why they then wouldn't just sell that tech
10:54to say Garmin or Wahoo or Whoop like I think the all they could just license out to all to all these
11:00parties it would be um it would be pretty revolutionary I think and I think it would be a
11:04really good thing for the majority of cyclists. For the majority of cyclists I hold a very
11:11different view to be honest. I think I would genuinely go as far as to say that if this was
11:15widely adopted in the pro ranks it could genuinely I think ruin bike racing. Okay so why do you think
11:21that is? A couple of reasons um what it comes down to is that bike racing at the minute is
11:28absolutely thrilling due to the fact that so few variables are controlled. A classics race for
11:33example there's 200 riders on the start line any one of those riders could be on a great day
11:39take out the domestiques and you know communication in the team as to who feels good
11:43on any one day there's at least 50 riders that could win that race yeah and that and the fact
11:48that we don't know who's going to win is exactly why it's cycling is so exciting to watch a lot of
11:53that comes down to fueling look at the Tour de France this year for example the only the reason
11:58behind Taddy Pogacar cracking as he explained was due to not being able to take on enough
12:02carbohydrate so if you're able to completely control a rider's glucose levels for me I think
12:07that could really just take away an element of volatility from racing. I think though that that
12:13development and that that progression is kind of inevitable um and I think it feels like what
12:20you're arguing for is almost a stunting of development and a stunting of innovation for
12:25the sake of good racing and I mean arguably you can see in F1 when teams reach a certain level
12:32um they really are kind of it can make racing boring because essentially they've kind of
12:37cracked the code um but I think that it is kind of inevitable and maybe there would be more
12:45variables being pulled out in different areas of pro racing but remember that's only a very small
12:49part of cycling because I mean the bulk of cyclists are amateurs um so I think if amateurs have a
12:56better understanding of what their body's doing um how to better utilize their body and it's even
13:01if you're not racing but if you're anyone who wants to go out on like an ultra ride um and you
13:06need to monitor how many carbs you're getting into your system that's really critical information so
13:12it could be that the tech is developed it I mean we all know what the UCI is like if they want to
13:18ban something they will ban it so absolutely they will but the problem is they even if they can ban
13:23that in racing they can't ban someone from wearing smartwatch when they're training so I think we
13:28might see a situation where people learn lots in training but they can't use it in racing yeah but
13:33just going back to the point of view from the wider sort of adoption of that technology
13:37I am more for that because I can think of many times particularly when I was a junior
13:41that I've bonked on rides it's led me to in some some cases getting ill and even early last year
13:47I did the tracker 360 360 kilometers and at every single feed station I was trying to just
13:54hack down carbohydrates literally plain rice energy bars every half an hour and actually being able to
13:59keep a track on that for ultra riding would have to be honest made it safer actually yeah that's
14:04really interesting so I think there's a lot of merit to the technology and if it does become
14:08more widely available um which I think having a system which doesn't need to be kind of you know
14:13have a needle in your arm then I think that does make the most sense um I think one the most
14:19exciting thing is that this tech is it's right there we could see it this year and that would be
14:25that would be pretty significant for the sport now finally there's one more thing that we're
14:29quite excited for um but it often feels like we talk about quite often that being new gearing
14:35systems but you have a pretty strong belief that actually we could be on the verge of something
14:39fairly big here yes it's something that we've talked about for quite a few years now but I
14:43genuinely think we really are on the cusp of seeing a lot more development in the world of
14:47drivetrains and that is going away from derailleur gears okay so um what bikes can we see this on
14:53and is there actually a benefit to the end user yep once again I think e-bikes are going to see
14:59this technology first a great example which isn't quite production ready yet is driven technologies
15:04orbit drive system which is a planetary gearbox that won an innovation award last year at eurobike
15:11but when it comes to the end user I think really it's something not necessarily for us cyclists
15:16but more something for the wider audience so something like that driven technologies orbit
15:20drive system can actually would actually allow you to just jump on an e-bike choose a cadence say 80
15:26rpm 60 rpm everything else can be done for you total automatic shifting you would just have an
15:33ecu unit that chooses how much input comes from the motor how much from your legs and from that
15:37how fast you go again all for one cadence the other thing is maintenance we once again look
15:42to the automotive industry gearbox oil for example does not need to be changed very often
15:46if something is properly engineered in a sealed system there's no reason why you wouldn't have
15:51to service your gearbox for say 10 000 miles which for a lot of people is probably getting
15:56on the life cycle of a bike absolutely could not agree more I think it would be really interesting
16:00to see what it does for I'll say it again the cost of bikes however I think the benefits here
16:06could potentially be really outweighing the potential cost yeah and once again going back to
16:13why next year I think the big thing here is e-micromobility is massively on the rise it has
16:18been for a few years now but it's getting to the point where actually we're starting to see some
16:22bigger players come into the e-bike market this year I think we've seen four or five different
16:27collaborations with the automotive industry and automotive brands and once again that funding
16:32is potentially what could just tip us over the edge of seeing something like this come to production
16:37so joe out of everything we've spoken about today what would be your one innovation or trend that
16:42you're most excited for above all else despite my slander earlier in the video I think it would have
16:47to be the watch technology yeah as I say I don't think it'd be a great thing for bike racing but
16:51for the wider audience I think it's really exciting yeah how about you sam I think for me
16:55I think the concept of cheap electronic gears and that being like really widespread I do like the
17:01idea of um like I said earlier my biggest concern really is what it will do to the cost of more
17:07entry-level bikes if that can be kept in check I think that will be that'll be really really good
17:14in the long term let us know down below out of everything we've spoken about today what would
17:18you be most excited to see in 2024 if you enjoyed the video then please do drop it a like
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