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New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions
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I've kicked off a new project outside of SILCA today called MarginalGainsPodcast and I'd love some feedback from the ST Family.

http://marginalgainspodcast.cc

The concept combines topics related to cycling technology and the search for marginal gains with topics from automotive, aerospace, human psychology, behavioral economics, business and more.. plus lots of great behind the scenes stories from 20 years of developing products and methods to help athletes go faster... in future episodes we plan to detail about a dozen speed hacks that I've never before publicly admitted to, but have been critical in numerous world and olympic victories.

Our first two episodes are recorded, but we are looking for feedback as well as questions to integrate into future episodes and would love to hear recommendations for future guests on the show.

THE Robert Chung recommended us in his Facebook feed saying the podcast was 'informative and fun' so hopefully we can sway him to make an appearance in a future episode!!

Thanks to everybody!
Josh

http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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Great to hear! I just signed up for your email notification.

It sounds like your topic list is off to a good start - new ideas will probably happen organically as the show evolves.

Maybe have some innovative custom frame builders like Rob English on there - he built me a frame a couple of years ago and my chats with him always rewarding.

Oh thanks for being a supporter/partner of our bike club Tekne Cycle Club!

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Last edited by: Bonesbrigade: Jan 22, 19 9:18
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [Bonesbrigade] [ In reply to ]
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Thanks so much and love what your team at Tekne is doing, we need more engaged groups building and supporting the cycling community like you do!!

Yes, Rob is an amazing person to talk to.. you can literally talk to him for hours about one interesting topic after another!!

http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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I subscribed to it on the Google play app. I'll listen to episode 1 later today. I am looking forward to it.
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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signed up, looking forward to giving it a listen.

My Blog - http://leegoocrap.blogspot.com
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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subscribed!
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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I listened to episode one on a long drive last night.

I agree with Robert :-)

http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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Thanks for the kind words Josh.

I just finished listening to the first episode - great stuff! I really enjoyed the balance between the geeky side and practicle examples. I listen to a lot of podcasts and this is already very good. I’m just out of the hospital recovering from iliac artery surgery, so I’m content hungry right now! I’ve got time to burn for a while.

Cheers,

Iain.

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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [Bonesbrigade] [ In reply to ]
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Tom A thanks for the kind words, means a lot coming from you!!

Bones brigade, so sorry to hear you are out of commission and hope that you recover quickly!!

Best
Josh

http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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Definitely going to be listening today!

Make Inside Out Sports your next online tri shop! http://www.insideoutsports.com/
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [BryanD] [ In reply to ]
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Thanks BryanD... look forward to hearing your feedback. In the meantime I'm just happy that I was able to finally beat you to the post with a new topic ;-)

Next episode topic is asymmetry, and other than money, no topic is as related to asymmetry as information.. which in this case worked in my favor!!
Best
Josh

http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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Subscribed. Great first episode. Let us know if there is anything we can do as a community to help make this show a success!

YouTube
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [mlegrand] [ In reply to ]
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Listened to first episode today. Good work.

Let food be thy medicine...
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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I am not a pod cast sort but listened to the first one and will continue. Looking forward to some interesting inside info. In particular I liked the aspect about the CSC team and wonder if you worked with the Cervelo Test Team? That was another team that did things differently. As much as marginal gains many of the companies you talk about were disrupters to the old ways of doing things.
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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I'll agree with the informative and fun feedback. The first one was great.

I like the banter back and forth, and it reminds me of the TrainerRoad podcast. That is more engaging than just regurgitating knowledge.

It does have me really looking forward the spring classics. I hope you can tie the podcast to each race as they come up.

What type of schedule do you plan to release new content?
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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Nice. Guess I've got something to listen to on my turbo session tomorrow.

https://www.instagram.com/mateusfrota/
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [s5100e] [ In reply to ]
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Thanks s5100e and yes, I was there from the beginning of the Cervelo Test Team and we will have future episodes covering that team as well as special guests who were at CSC and also from CTT. Interestingly, SILCA just signed a 2 year deal with EF, who's technical/equipment director is Andreas Klier who I worked with at both Garmin/Slipstream and CTT.. so there is so much good stuff to talk about here and so many good stories to tell, honestly, the hard part is picking which ones and for what episode!!

Josh

http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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Good to hear about the EF sponsorship - the marketing should work really well with Rapha and the gravel stuff they plan to do. Woods just lives down the road from me - so I have to be an EF fan!

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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [Bonesbrigade] [ In reply to ]
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Listened to Episode 1. Learned a lot, and enjoyed the dialogue. Subscribed and rated 5 stars on iTunes. Thanks for the great content, and thanks for the best Valve Extenders on the market.
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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Listened to episode 1 on my flight today. Really strong start.
In my opinion the mix for the format, good... Natural banter mixed with technical knowledge and real world examples/experience is great. I have no interest in baseball but find myself intrigued by the A's arc, that's something special.

Keep it fun, don't let the name become a shackle for what each show "has" to be, and I think it is a winner.

My Blog - http://leegoocrap.blogspot.com
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [Bonesbrigade] [ In reply to ]
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We are super excited for the EF partnership.. team sponsorships have been hard decisions for us as most all the teams buy stuff from us already, so it's generally giving up paid business for free products, but the opportunity to partner with them for their 'non-standard' racing program was too much fun and learning opportunity to pass up!!

I'll be doing cobble testing and gravel testing with them leading up to Roubaix and again up to Kanza, so we will be sure to include those experiences, data and interviews with the riders in the Marginal Gains Podcast so stay tuned!!

http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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Josh,

I still haven’t listened yet! I promise to listen today at work.

Random thought but maybe hire Talbot Cox to do a Silca video for behind the scenes?

Make Inside Out Sports your next online tri shop! http://www.insideoutsports.com/
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [Morelock] [ In reply to ]
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Episode 2 is now live, in this one we cover asymmetry and end up talking about thermodynamics, physics and Kahneman and Tversky.. and of course, tire pressure, plus I tell a story about some stuff we did for Cancellara and Tony Martin that I don't think I've ever told publicly!

https://marginalgainspodcast.cc/asymmetry-part-1/

Also, we now have a voicemail to accept your audio questions and we are going to add special question episodes which will put us on a fortnightly (always wanted to use that..) schedule with one topical episode and one Q&A episode per month. We had so many really good questions from the first episode that this just made sense.

Anyway, please ST family, leave us voicemail questions so we can integrate them into the Q&A show!!
Call and leave them at: 317.343.4506

Thanks!

http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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Just finished listening to episode 2 while doing some 3D modeling at work...thanks for the mention!! :-)

http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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Gave episode 1 a listen during a ride today. Enjoyed it a lot and learned stuff about you I didn't know, which makes it an educational bike ride. Must be able to add extra saddle time for that...

Was wondering at what point someone was going to bring up Sabermetrics as a comparison. That's what was running through my head during a lot of the earlier discussion.
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [Tom A.] [ In reply to ]
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Thanks Tom, you earned it, you named the phenomenon... also mentioned Robert, but will have to wait for a future episode to use 'Chung'ed the $hit out of it..'

Next episode is on non-linearity, which is shaping up to be super fun and interesting, I have some great stuff on both bicycle nonlinearities.. mainly aero as well as some cool stuff on computer processors and others..

Would love to hear other ideas or inputs for that or other future episodes!

http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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Josh, I sent you a suggestion via ST pm (Silca related though).

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Last edited by: Bonesbrigade: Feb 13, 19 4:04
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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Since you've done "marginal gains" and "asymmetry" and next you're doing "nonlinearity," the obvious topics after that would be "thresholds," "loss," and "robustness."

That anecdote about passing up a space in the parking lot? I examined that problem back when I was in grad school. I envisioned it as a problem about driving up to campus and seeing a parking spot 4 blocks away. Do you take it, or do you try to get closer? If you pass it by and don't find a closer spot, it's likely to be gone by the time you turn around and head back. This turns out to be an optimization problem about risk, loss, and gain. It turns out I wasn't the first to have looked at that problem: it turns up in the literature as "The Secretary Problem." The formulation was odd: you're interviewing potential secretaries and the problem is whether to hire the one in front of you or continue searching. This never made sense to me until I learned that the original problem was called "The Marriage Problem." The irony is that my research question at the time was actually about marriage.
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [RChung] [ In reply to ]
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Thanks so much for the topics and love the feedback on the secretary/marriage problem. I honestly hadn't overlayed the marriage problem onto parking before, but I totally see it now. I would have initially thought it to be different as you are essentially able to pre map and determine the ranking of every individual spot before you enter the lot or campus, rather than evaluating them only as they are presented in random order...but in effect despite the predetermined ranking, they are presented randomly as people vacate them.. love it.

I'm not good at reading from a script so we do the podcast live to an outline so the parking story was a bit out of left field in the moment, but funny you mention the parking story as after we taped my only thought was that the best spot is the one opposite the cart return.. minimal distance to return the cart after loading your car, yet opposite side of the aisle to minimize risk of your car being run into by some stray cart rolling out of or missing the cart return!

http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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Listened to the second cast on the way into work this morning. You had my nerd boner rock hard. I ask that you don't dumb it down like a lot of infromation that we get tends to be.

Have you thought about also video recording for youtube? That seems to be the hot trend as well.
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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Another topic could be "renewal," and the example would be team pursuit. That's an interesting optimization problem as you shuffle the order of the riders and the length of the pulls. Different riders expend and recover at different rates, plus riders come in different sizes so a bigger rider doesn't get as much recovery when positioned behind a small rider. That's why you shuffle to find an optimal ordering.
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [RChung] [ In reply to ]
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RChung wrote:
Another topic could be "renewal," and the example would be team pursuit. That's an interesting optimization problem as you shuffle the order of the riders and the length of the pulls. Different riders expend and recover at different rates, plus riders come in different sizes so a bigger rider doesn't get as much recovery when positioned behind a small rider. That's why you shuffle to find an optimal ordering.

Sounds like a classic differential equations problem ;-)

http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [Tom A.] [ In reply to ]
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Team time trials are a pretty interesting problem in general, especially when there are hills or changes in wind speed or direction.
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [Nazgul350r] [ In reply to ]
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So it's a little worrisome that we gave you nerd wood and you now want videos ;-) But thanks for the feedback!
If that lasts more than 4 hours you might need to see a professional..

http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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I look forward to listening!

I'd be curious to hear about different composite construction techniques (such as filament winding), their advantages, disadvantages, limitations, etc. I'd also like to hear about how robust different materials are (e.g. some, like me, used to really baby carbon wheels when in reality 303s are actually quite tough). Another potential topic would be the cost components of something like a wheel. For something like a 45mm deep carbon clincher, how much of the cost is tooling, how much is labor in the layup, and how much is assembly of the actual wheel?
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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Man, I was listening to the podcast when it got into rolling resistance thinking "I'm going to ask about track stuff" and to my surprise, you guys then launched into track stuff. Great! I'm a little surprised optimal pressure at Major Taylor was 115-20, I'd have guessed it was closer to 100. I wonder what optimal pressure somewhere like DLV is... 80? :D

My Blog - http://leegoocrap.blogspot.com
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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I'm loving the podcast so far, Josh. Keep up the good work.

I'm curious to know if vibration dampening features in frames have an effect on the speed a bike travels across gravel. I'm not sure if "rolling resistance" would be an appropriate term for this or not. Basically, will a stiff-as-a-board bike frame require more output from a rider to go the same speed as a a frame that has traditional front and rear suspension, leaf springs (lauf), a future proof shock (specialized), Zertz (specialized), a pivotless rear shock (Dogma K10), or just some really well executed seatstays and geometry that create a smooth ride?

Or, is the additional dampening purely for rider comfort without any direct impact on speed?

I know this is a little different than what you probably study at Silca, but if anyone could figure out the potential marginal gains here, I think it would be you.
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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I loved the second podcast on asymmetry. I have a question for you though: Going back to your testing at Roubaix on the cobbles, you guys kept lowering the pressure and the times got faster every time you did so until you broke the wheels. I'm wondering why at that point you didn't switch to larger volume tires and repeat the same test? It sounds like lower pressure wasn't explored further due to the tire size limitation (bottoming out) and not actually reaching your inflection point.

Did you not use larger tires because:

Was it because you were already using the max tire that would fit on the bike?
Already using max tire size from the sponsor at the time?
Or already conducted an aero/rolling resistance weighted analysis to determine the optimal speed when factoring the course as a whole?
Did you conduct your own analysis with larger tires just for your own research for a later date?


Thanks Josh!

-Iain

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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [rob_bell] [ In reply to ]
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Awesome question Rob! What we are after here to improve speed isn't damping, but rather compliance, the Lauf fork being the best example of something that can significantly reduce impedance at a high level of efficiency. In any suspension system, it's the compliance that it most important to speed and the damping is necessary to control the spring... for small amplitude inputs an undamped spring will be faster, however, as the amount of travel increases, damping becomes necessary for a whole bunch of reasons.

My experience has been that on any surface where the roughness is greater than the safe compliance range of the tire, you will see speed benefits from some level of added compliance in the frame. Having even 10mm of travel in the bike also makes a phenomenal difference in the likelihood of pinch flatting. The problem then becomes that for a race like Roubaix, the losses to suspension on the smooth parts or when sprinting at the end of the race can be great enough to offset any gains from earlier in the race on the cobbles.

So yes, a more compliant frame definitely helps with speed over rough surfaces. The current school of thought for a race like Roubaix is that a more compliant but still rigid frame will be fastest on the whole, whereas for an event like Dirty Kanzaa you might be better off with something that has a small amount of suspension compliance in the frame and fork.

http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [Bonesbrigade] [ In reply to ]
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Bonesbrigade wrote:
I loved the second podcast on asymmetry. I have a question for you though: Going back to your testing at Roubaix on the cobbles, you guys kept lowering the pressure and the times got faster every time you did so until you broke the wheels. I'm wondering why at that point you didn't switch to larger volume tires and repeat the same test? It sounds like lower pressure wasn't explored further due to the tire size limitation (bottoming out) and not actually reaching your inflection point.

Did you not use larger tires because:

Was it because you were already using the max tire that would fit on the bike?
Already using max tire size from the sponsor at the time?
Or already conducted an aero/rolling resistance weighted analysis to determine the optimal speed when factoring the course as a whole?
Did you conduct your own analysis with larger tires just for your own research for a later date?


Thanks Josh!

-Iain


So the time context here is pretty fun... in 2007-2009 when we were really pushing hard to understand the problem, the belief amongst the riders was still that the 24mm tire was faster in the dry and 27 was only good in the wet because it was 'slow'. We also had to contend with the bikes of the time, none of which could really handle more than a 27 or 28mm tubular tire (so measuring ~28mm)..and sadly we haven't been that much better off as of late as I think about it!

So way back then we figured pretty quickly that the 27mm Vittoria that the team had access to was faster on the cobbles than the 24 AND safer regardless of wheel.. so at that point we realized that a good part of the solution here was going to be educating the riders and convincing them to ride the bigger tires. There is a photo on the internet of me with Bjarne and Cancellara in the LSWT in San Diego, and the whole point of that entire test was to put him on a road bike and show the benefits of the aero wheels over the traditional classics wheels and to then show that the added drag of the 27mm tire wasn't that bad, while we did field testing on Crr to show them that the 27mm tire had same or better Crr (which they were all conditioned to believe wasn't true.. wider is higher Crr was the firm belief). I'd estimate that we spent probably 20% of the Roubaix project time doing things to help with rider education and psychology about all of this as the pushback was just so strong.

So yes, we were using max tire that would fit the bike, which was also the max tire size made by the sponsor.
The whole 303 super-toroidal design came about in 2009 from this.. once we settled on the 27/28mm tire we had to design a wheel around it to minimize the aero penalty as it was somewhat significant on the 24mm wide 303 and 404 rims of the era.. and those had previously been considered to be 'wide'.

It would really only be 2012 or so before the bike manufacturers started to catch up with these changes... painful for us at Zipp, the Specialized Tarmac launched the year of the first Roubaix win (2010) could not fit 28mm tires or the 28mm wide 303 rim, even if it had a smaller tire as they had bulged the chain stays inward seeking stiffness.. so looking back it seems like this just happened, but it was really a pretty significant battle for a few years there to get this to change.

In the last 5 years the limiting factor has continued to be the frames and rim brakes... I've been involved with 7 of the last 8 Roubaix winners and all 5 of them since buying SILCA, and the challenge has been finding ways to get 30mm tires into the bikes and/or the brakes.. so you can extend dropouts and things like that, but then you need long reach brakes or offset brake bolts.. we've seen it all. Last year Peter Sagan won on a very custom bike with tires labelled '28mm' and measuring just under 30mm stuffed into some 'tuned' DA rim brakes... Ideally we get them onto disc brakes and the sponsors making 34-35mm wide rims that can be solidly aero with 32mm tires..

http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [RChung] [ In reply to ]
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Marginal Gains Podcast episode 3 just went live, it's the Q&A episode and includes a few from Slowtwitch family members, but most awesomely, includes a 4 minute call-in from THE Robert Chung!!!

HUGE Thanks to Robert and everybody who had questions, we couldn't answer them all, but are moving the format to include a topical show, then a Q&A show 2 weeks later, followed by a show 2 weeks after that.

Please keep contributing your awesome questions, thoughts, ideas, etc.

Josh

https://marginalgainspodcast.cc/ask-josh-anything-001/

http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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Cool concept and podcast Josh...thanks for putting it out.

I’d be interested in some marginal gains in other sports. The budgets in F1/NASCAR make for some interesting opportunities, we’ve seen skiers in speed events go from long to short to somewhat longer again, horse-racing has been refining a pretty similar model for over a century, track&field is measured in 1/1000’s of a second ( shoes??), even pinewood derby cars from cub scouts I think would all be fascinating and maybe have some parallels to bikes and tri’s.

" I take my gear out of my car and put my bike together. Tourists and locals are watching from sidewalk cafes. Non-racers. The emptiness of of their lives shocks me. "
(opening lines from Tim Krabbe's The Rider , 1978
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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Thanks for the kind words. Actually, you're one of my heroes.

Oddly, I worked on neonatal and perinatal outcomes in NICUs a couple of decades ago with the CPQCC, which has links to the current CMQCC. One of the things we were trying to do back then was figure out how to convince people to change their behavior and follow checklists.
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [TriDevilDog] [ In reply to ]
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Thanks TriDevilDog, awesome suggestions and we have some great car racing stuff in future episodes! I also love the topic of horse racing if for no other reason than the unexpected parallels to human sports in terms of negative outcomes and the massive power imbalances between management and the athletes, great ideas!!

Funny enough, we had sort of a reputation for our pinewood derby cars, and now I bring the scouts each year into SILCA and we teach them about the mill and the lathe, and also the physics behind the cars, then show them how to make killer cars, how to make an axle lathe out of a hand drill, etc. AND because of SpeedBalance I have a massive supply (see what I did there) of tungsten slugs for them to use which are just so much better than the weighted putty or zinc stuff that they sell now that you can't buy real lead weights anymore!! Really fun to do a day with the kids and then hear them talking about density, mass and potential energy!

http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [RChung] [ In reply to ]
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Robert,
I'll send you an email.. sounds so much like stuff she's working on with the group at CAPE/Stanford and also the AAP..
Doesn't surprise me that you were in front of this decades ago!!

Also, next episode is non-linearity, talking aerodynamics, computer processing and more, before going back for asymmetry Part II.

Please everybody send topics, ideas and questions!

Josh

http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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As I was listening to podcast #2, I couldn't help but wonder if we're testing crr of tires (against one another) correctly. Let me preface this by saying I'm an idiot, so just remind me of such if this doesn't make any sense.

Instead of testing all tires (on drum rollers) at the same pressure, should we not test all tires at a range of pressures? To find out which tire performs best as its depressurized? Or which tire has the least amount of crr increse as the tire is depressurized? Since we want to operate on the left side of the break point, shouldn't we test for the internal tire losses at low pressures? Or can we just assume that the tire that performs best at 100 psi will also perform best at 50/60/70 psi?
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [Sean H] [ In reply to ]
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Sean,
You are totally onto something and we have some future plans to do some cool stuff in this area..
yes, current testing is oversimplified, but for a couple of reasons. One, the test rigs to do what people are doing now are very expensive and to really get to the level that you are imagining will probably increase cost of test rig tenfold.. secondly, if you look at what BicycleRollingResistance does today, each single tire test probably requires 6-8 hours of work just to get a single curve showing a single load on a single surface at 6-7 tire pressures. Adding alternate surfaces, different loads, and more granular pressure changes will increase the time required to capture the data exponentially.

We saw this with wind tunnel testing, the more refined the testing, the more time and $$ required to do a single product or test, while the data coming in is coming in with diminishing returns as the directionals from part to part tend to hold between simplified testing and more complex testing, i.e. if tire a has lower Crr on a smooth drum it almost certainly has lower Crr on a rougher one.. though admittedly, with tunnel testing, we occasionally found outliers here where this broke down and the results created new opportunities to do something unique or better.

More to come..

http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [Sean H] [ In reply to ]
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Sean H wrote:
As I was listening to podcast #2, I couldn't help but wonder if we're testing crr of tires (against one another) correctly. Let me preface this by saying I'm an idiot, so just remind me of such if this doesn't make any sense.

Instead of testing all tires (on drum rollers) at the same pressure, should we not test all tires at a range of pressures? To find out which tire performs best as its depressurized? Or which tire has the least amount of crr increse as the tire is depressurized? Since we want to operate on the left side of the break point, shouldn't we test for the internal tire losses at low pressures? Or can we just assume that the tire that performs best at 100 psi will also perform best at 50/60/70 psi?

You've gone too far. You're too deep in the rabbit's hole.
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [jkhayc] [ In reply to ]
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Do you even marginal gains, bro?
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [Sean H] [ In reply to ]
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Marginal Gains Podcast Episode 4 just went live: Non-linearity, covering some fun aerodynamic stuff as well as a minor dive into computer processors

We are taping our next Q&A episode a week from today, so please be sure to get your questions in, and if possible, please call them in so we can include you on the show!

Thanks
Josh

http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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Castbox showed it live before your website.

Will you do a show on thresholds? That seems like it would fit.
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [RChung] [ In reply to ]
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Ha! Yes, it was supposed to go live midnight Tuesday AM.. and was accidentally scheduled to be live this morning, so we were rather caught off guard by the timing!! Lesson learned..

Yes, thresholds, I have thresholds penciled in for sometime in summer and have started working also on your suggestion of renewal which is something I hadn't thought about before you mentioned it, but it absolutely fascinating! Please hit me up with any suggestions or particular phenomena you are familiar with that we should cover..with 2 shows per month we are quickly overrunning my personal knowledge on these topics, so going to need help crowdsourcing some of the info!!

Thanks again for your help!
J

http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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I'm interested in the possibility in the future of actually "good" AI or machine learning as it relates to data driven training.

It has potential to help folks like me who don't have the time or money for a real coach, it just isn't something that would be helpful at my level. But, if I was in a 1 month focus on VO2 for an event and the AI/machine learning could optimize which workouts to do when I choose to do them........that'd be key.

Like it could see my TSS/CTL/ATL etc.....then when I say "I'm about to do a workout at lunch" it would choose a VO2 build workout based on MY data at the time.

That kind of thing. Any interest in that?
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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joshatsilca wrote:
Marginal Gains Podcast Episode 4 just went live:

The sort of "crank asymmetry" talked about at the start of the podcast used to be common. In the days of adjustable square-taper bottom brackets, the spindle was just one piece of the bottom bracket assembly, and it was easy for the market to support a variety of interesting dimensions. Lots of bikes came with asymmetric spindles.
I suspect the main reason for this practice was to minimize q-factor. If both crank arms are as close to the bike as can safely be afforded, the drive-side stuff usually needs to be farther outboard than the non-drive side.

On my '79 Fuji America, the spindle is about a centimeter (!) longer on the drive side, and the difference in actual pedal position relative to bike centerline is similar. Overall q-factor is about 142mm, which isn't too shabby for a triple! Similar to what was said in the podcast, I never noticed the asymmetry until I took the BB apart for service and looked at the spindle.

edit:

I won't take a photo of the America's spindle because it's currently inside of the bicycle, but here's a less extreme example. One side is about 3mm longer than the other:


Last edited by: HTupolev: Mar 12, 19 0:05
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [burnthesheep] [ In reply to ]
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burnthesheep wrote:
I'm interested in the possibility in the future of actually "good" AI or machine learning as it relates to data driven training.

It has potential to help folks like me who don't have the time or money for a real coach, it just isn't something that would be helpful at my level. But, if I was in a 1 month focus on VO2 for an event and the AI/machine learning could optimize which workouts to do when I choose to do them........that'd be key.

Like it could see my TSS/CTL/ATL etc.....then when I say "I'm about to do a workout at lunch" it would choose a VO2 build workout based on MY data at the time.

That kind of thing. Any interest in that?

So I know people who know people working on something similar to this... I'll see what I can find out as I agree, it sounds super interesting.. though the physiology is part is way beyond me and I'll need some help! Will keep you updated.
J

http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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Q&A #2 Just went live with 2 of the questions coming from Slowtwitch!

Also, I am proven completely wrong on something from a previous episode..

Thanks ST!
Josh

https://marginalgainspodcast.cc/ask-josh-anything-002/

http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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Episode on Hysteresis is now live... talks rolling resistance as well as aerodynamic stall and recovery
Plus insights on hysteria which is NOT related to hysteresis and our ongoing love affair with Douglas Adams novels!

https://marginalgainspodcast.cc/...s-in-marginal-gains/

Looking for Questions for our Q&A episode which we are recording next week! Please ask them here!
Josh

http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc
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Re: New Podcast Project - Ask Me Anything/Make Suggestions [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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Josh,

Question regarding wheel balancing. While I love your speed balance kit for deep wheel sets, how do you balance a disc wheel? Trying to figure out the best way of doing this. Love the podcast!



Thanks,

Andrew
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