(metallic whooshing)
- Welcome to the GCN Tech Show.
- This week we've got
an action-packed show.
We've got new bikes, secret tech.
Hang on, what is the secret tech?
- Shh, you'll find out.
- Okay.
We've also got the Bike
Vault, your upgrades,
and a whole heap more.
- Yeah, and our main
talking point this week,
the biggest bike tech flops of all time.
- I'm very excited for this one.
- Yeah, me too.
(upbeat electronic music)
(metallic whooshing)
- This week we're talking
biggest tech flops
that road cycling has seen.
We do love innovation though
and anyone who attempts it.
- Yeah, and it's important to point out
that it's easy to criticize
with hindsight, isn't it?
And we're not looking to
sort of arrogantly assert
that we're wiser than the people
that came up with these inventions.
It's just interesting to
retrospectively look at them
and why they failed.
But, I've come up with some,
you've come up with some
of your own as well,
so, well, you can go first.
- All right then, first up,
Campagnolo Delta brakes.
Yeah, now, beautiful to look at.
Not so beautiful to set up
or even use on your bicycle.
An aerodynamic-looking
brake made up of aluminum.
Beautiful underneath the cover.
Inside of there, it's like
a Swiss watch or something.
Loads of double parallelogram-style system
in the front, I think,
and in the rear, it was even more complex.
And I actually took one
apart once upon a time,
which was an absolute nightmare,
but you needed a 3.5 millimeter
Allen key for the cable,
like the grub screw for the cable,
and you had to cut the cable really short,
and just the whole setup of
them was an absolute nightmare.
They didn't stop you either,
unless you set them up perfectly,
which for most home mechanics,
they just couldn't do.
- Yeah, incredibly intricate system.
I think that's ultimately
the failing of that design.
But, well, I visited
Campagnolo HQ a few years ago,
and I saw, I was quite
amazed, they had a room
that was full of brand new,
untouched boxes of these brakes,
in their original packaging.
- That's the place of dreams.
- Yeah, I know.
I was like, get 'em on eBay!
I mean, don't know if you're
aware, but these brakes,
they're so cool, and they're so desirable,
even though they're
not the most practical,
they go for a fortune on eBay these days.
- I was lucky enough, the pair that I own,
I bought brand new, in
a box, for about £50.
I mean, that was in the mid '90s.
- I've seen them go for over a grand.
- Really?
- On eBay, yeah.
- Time to get 'em off
that bike then. (laughing)
Get 'em on eBay.
I'll put a link down in
the description below.
- Right, my turn, Jon.
- Go on then.
- I've got a good one.
SpeedX bikes.
- Oh yeah.
- Do you remember them?
- Yeah, I do, yeah.
- [Ollie] So if you don't remember SpeedX,
it was a Chinese startup
company that launched, well,
the self-proclaimed world's first
fully-integrated smart bike.
- Right, when I think smart bike,
just going off on a tangent just quickly,
I always think about a self-riding bike,
you know, like a smart car, or-
- I think Smarties like
your hydro dipping.
- Oh, yes.
- [Producer] Can you turn it around, Jon?
- Yeah, yeah, no problem, mate.
There we go, turning it around.
Still looks good, doesn't it?
- [Producer] Let's see the back.
- The back?
Yeah, sure.
- Well it's none of those things.
It was called the SpeedX Leopard.
It was an aero bike, it had
lots of promises behind it,
and it was launched off the back
of several big crowd funding campaigns.
Loads of money, loads of hype,
and it just, well,
fundamentally couldn't deliver
on what it was claiming.
So it was going to be super aero,
super light, super integrated.
Have this sort of fully
smart integrated sensors
and computer built into it.
- It actually looked all right.
I thought that looked
quite good in the stem.
The stem looked quite
good with that computer.
- It did look cool,
but once the first bikes
got delivered to the press
and people reviewed them,
it was found to fall drastically short
of the sort of expected quality
of what it should have been.
What SpeedX was offering
seemed too good to be true,
and it turned out that it was.
A lot of the customers complained
that the product was of poor quality,
and some customers didn't
even get their bikes at all.
Our friends over at CyclingTips
actually wrote a very thorough
and in-depth article about it
that's worth a read if you're interested
and want to know more.
- Yeah, I remember actually seeing that,
and I did feel that it was a couple of,
I think, Aussie or Kiwi
sort of up-and-coming riders
who were kind of given
a little bit of cash
and they thought they were doing
a promotion video for SpeedX
and it turned out they were sort of
pretending to be engineers. (chuckling)
I laugh now, but sort of watching it,
you see the guy, he feels
really guilty about it,
and, you know, you just
can't do that to a consumer
at the end of the day.
Madness.
Here's another one then,
neoprene bottle covers.
Harking back to the early '90s,
where in a bargain bin
at the local bike shop,
I found some for a pound each.
So, they weren't necessarily
actually neoprene,
but you used to get these thermal jackets
that were made almost like out of foam.
They were absolutely terrible
but they were the only things
that we could get back in the day.
Anyway, these neoprene bottles,
or these thermal bottle covers,
they covered your water bottle
that you would fill with a
warm beverage of some sort,
to try and keep you warm
during those winter rides.
They didn't work for two reasons.
Firstly, the subbing around the top of it,
well, stitching, sorry,
was so tight, you had to
hold it open, or try to,
while someone else tried
to shove the bottle inside
and, of course, you would
have put boiling water
in that bottle,
so the bottle became
all flimsy and flexible.
It was destined to fail,
and they didn't work,
even when you got the bottle inside of it.
I remember being out
on a ride in New Forest
and the bottle still turned
to almost like a slush puppy,
so it didn't serve a purpose whatsoever
and it promptly went in the bin.
Sadly, I don't have an
example to show you.
- Well, they're still used, Jon.
- What?
- Yeah, my Aussie mate Nugget,
he uses it to keep his
frothy cool in the Outback.
- Right, that whole
statement I don't understand.
You've got a mate called Nugget
and he's got a frothy cool in the Outback.
(Ollie laughing)
I have no, honestly.
- Look, don't worry.
It's another one for GCN Tech After Dark.
- Oh yeah, I'm looking forward to that.
- My turn, then.
Magnesium bikes, like that Kirk Precision
that you did a video on.
Well then, yeah, you've seen
seen magnesium bikes, yeah.
- Yeah, it didn't flop, that one.
I think they just crumbled and broke.
- You've got a good fact
though about magnesium.
- I do, yeah.
So a cubic meter of seawater
contains 1.3 kilograms of magnesium.
- Astounding.
- It is.
- Absolutely astounding.
- Magnesium is also one of
the lightest elements there
and it's the lightest
metal that you could use.
- Well, pretty much it
is, yeah, that's correct.
Well, lithium rapidly oxidizes
in air quite violently,
and beryllium is, well,
fantastically poisonous,
so you can't use beryllium.
But one of our favorite places, Jon,
not only that, one of our favorite places
is actually full of magnesium.
- Go on.
- Well, the Dolomites, Alta Badia.
- [Jon] I thought you were
going to say the Safe. (chuckle)
- Well, Alta Badia in Italy,
the rocks that make up that area
and the characteristic of the mountains
are actually largely composed
of calcium magnesium carbonate.
- Correct.
- AKA Dolomite.
- (exhaling) Geo-chemistry?
- Yeah, on it.
- We're gettin' there.
- Magnesium is very
strong, it's very light,
and it's also very abundant
in the Earth's crust.
But its downside is that it's
significantly more reactive
than aluminum, titanium
and, well, carbon fiber.
It's actually so reactive that
it's one of the few metals
that will burn in nitrogen,
which I learned at chemistry school.
Anyhow, this reactivity means that
it can corrode fairly easily,
making it not ideal for
bike parts and stuff,
but it also burns pretty easily as well.
It's used in fireworks and
sparklers and things like that.
There's even instances
where it was used in wheels
for motor sport and it's
been banned in some instances
because the braking temperatures
cause it to catch fire.
- Yeah, there was
actually a rumor years ago
that the Kirk Precision factory,
which I think was in Essex in the UK,
exploded due to some magnesium particles
floating around inside when
they were casting these frames.
I don't know how true that is
because it has a fairly
high ignition temperature,
I think, magnesium.
I mean, you would know this.
- The auto-ignition
temperature of magnesium,
I think off the top of
my head is about 470,
473 degrees Celsius.
- Don't look at me.
- So that is feasible, I mean,
especially in the braking.
But carbon fiber's better
for making bikes, next.
- Of course, Allite and
their recent developments
may have solved issues
that previous magnesium frames had.
We will be keeping a close eye
on exactly what they're up to.
Right, final one then,
because we could go on and on,
Recon Jet smart glasses,
like Google Glasses but for cycling.
So in June 2017, Recon Instruments,
they announced that by
the end of the year,
all their products would be discontinued.
But it begs the question
why did they fail?
- Yeah, I mean, it's
interesting, this one.
The idea is a sound one.
The fact that you can cycle along
and have all your metrics in front of you
and you're not having to
look down at a head unit
and use a heads-up
display, it's a good idea.
But the execution in this
instance wasn't quite there.
- [Jon] It was poor.
- Yeah, so it wasn't a
true heads-up display
that's transparent, like a
fighter pilot would have.
It was a little screen that
was on the side of your face
and then people complained
that it obscured their peripheral vision
when they're cycling along,
which was a bit disconcerting.
And also people complained
about software bugs,
lags in GPS, and just other
shortcomings with the product.
They were also quite heavy
to wear on your face.
- They were really heavy, actually.
I remember putting a pair
on and, like you said,
peripheral vision was for us in the UK
pretty much a nightmare
'cause if you looked over
your right-hand shoulder,
which is generally what we do,
that's where this thing was,
so you had to pay extra special attention.
- Yeah, I mean, the reason why
they were also a massive flop
is the fact that they had huge investment
from tech giants behind them,
from Motorola and also Intel.
Intel invested $4,000,000
into this product
and got, well, nothing from it.
Imagine what you could
do with $4,000,000, Jon.
- I could do a hell of
a lot with $4,000,000
but that's probably something
I wouldn't have made.
But when I did work in
another part of the industry,
we actually played around,
toyed around with the idea
of having a heads-up display
inside of a time trial visor.
- I would buy that.
- It was actually basically
a stripped-down version
of a tiny little mini-projector
and everything was taken away from it,
all of the packaging and all
the plastic-edged casing,
the fan, everything, you didn't need it,
and it was put inside of a helmet.
But, again, it weighed a fair amount.
- But if you could encase
it in a time trial helmet,
that would be really cool.
And also it solves the problem
of not having to look down
at your computer, keeps you safer,
but also you can keep your head
crucially in an aero position, can't you,
by just looking forward
and you've got your speed
and your power there.
(stammering) I think that'd be cool,
if someone can do it and make it work.
- Well, we were pretty close.
It was quite cool, it was
like a fiber optic cable thing
that had all the display there and stuff
and it was just programmed
to just show you what you wanted to see.
- But anyhow, this has
been just a mere selection
of some of the biggest
flops in cycling tech.
So you know what to do.
Let us know in the
comments section down below
any that you can think of
and that you particularly like.
- Yeah, I reckon next
week we'll read a few out
'cause this lot'll have way more.
Get involved.
(metallic whooshing)
Last week on the Tech Show,
we spoke about the technological arms war,
or arms race, which is
happening ahead of Tokyo 2020
and, well, some new bits of information
or products have come out
from the folks at Bastion
Advanced Engineering and Design,
because they've been working
together with Cycling Australia
to produce some custom 3D-printed
titanium parts for bikes.
It's exciting times, it is.
- Yeah, well I also heard
that the Australians
have been doing research
with university academics
about the optimum
cadence for aerodynamics.
- Really?
- Yeah, the arms race is hotting up.
- Okay, right, there's
a couple of things here.
Firstly, physiological capability
and also your physiological makeup.
- Don't shoot the messenger,
don't shoot the messenger.
- Right then, so a couple of
things which they're using,
actually these three different products.
Firstly, there is different stems,
so they can 3D-print titanium stems
to your exact specifications,
I think up to 160 mil in length,
which is a pretty big whopper there,
as well as 17 degree
minus, plus, whatever.
You really can just be direct-mount
onto those Argon 18 frames.
Some new handlebars, these
are cool, aren't they,
these Madison handlebars.
Basically you can ride
like you're on the hoods
but in a more relaxed position.
If you try and do that on a
normal round bar on the track,
you end up being a little bit
tense, so it's nice, that.
And finally some cranks, from
160 up to 180 mil length.
So, again, made out of titanium.
Interesting, maybe they could use that
for their interesting cadence studies.
- Colnago has a new gravel
bike just out as well.
- [Jon] Has it had one before or not?
- No, it's Colnago's first gravel bike.
It's designed to sit alongside
the Colnago Prestige,
which their well-established
cyclocross bike.
The geometry has been changed
so that it's more
endurance-and gravel friendly,
so you've got longer stays,
lower bottom bracket,
more stable geometry, that kind of thing.
- Sounds pretty familiar,
that, doesn't it?
- Looks good though, doesn't it?
- It does, actually.
I'm impressed with that.
Does look like a nice-looking bike.
- But there's only build
available at the moment,
which has got Shimano GRX on it.
- Pretty cool.
- And that's available for
£4,300, or about $5,500 US.
- Yeah, I've got to say
that is a little bit steep,
isn't it, really, for the first one.
Also news from our friends at Fizik.
They've launched the Tempo Powerstrap R5
in a reflective version.
Now that's a cool shoe anyway,
but with that reflective one,
well, it's ideal for this time of year.
- Riding in low light, they're amazing,
almost too bright, them.
- I was really impressed
with the ones they did,
the Giro d'Italia special one this year,
with the pink sort of detailing on it?
Nice little touch, that.
And finally, actually
some news now from Canyon
because they have an announcement to make
and I'm going to bring in the laptop
so we get it absolutely spot-on.
Don't want to make any
mistakes or anything.
Ollie, over to you, mate,
on the official wording.
- Canyon are now claiming
that their bikes are safe
to use on turbo trainers.
In the past, they wouldn't
say if they were or were not.
"The approved bikes are
all Aeroad, Ultimate,
"Endurace, Grail, Inflite,
Speedmax, and Exceed models
"from model year 2019 and newer.
"There are only two conditions:
"the trainer must clamp
to the bike's rear axle,
"and the required accessories
"supplied by the trainer's manufacture
"(such as special axles) must be used."
There you go.
- There we are.
Right, well more tech next week.
(buzzing)
- [Announcer] Cha ching!
- It's now time for Screw
Riding Upgrades, Buy Upgrades,
where you submit evidence
of the upgrades you've made
to your cycling lives.
- Yeah, and we need befores and afters
because there's a lot
of people at the moment
who're just sending in pictures going,
"well I've changed all of this."
How do we know?
I mean, we're very trusting.
- We need evidence, we need good evidence,
we need strong evidence that's
going to stand up in court.
- I don't know about in court,
but I like where you're going with that.
But anyway, small wins, Ollie.
What do they win?
- They win the ultimate prize.
- What's that?
- A GCN cap.
- You love them.
- Yeah, I do.
- See you rocking around
the streets in 'em.
- And also all the time.
- But how do they get to submit
their befores and afters?
- Well, Jon, they don't use the uploader.
Do not use the uploader.
They uploader is dead!
We use the GCN app,
which is available to
download in the App Store,
although I'm told that it's not available
in Switzerland yet.
- And I think on Android in
Germany as well it's not.
But don't worry, we are working on things.
- It's coming.
- Hold your horses.
- It's great to see that so
many people are keen on that,
absolutely champing at the bit.
But first up then, we need to
announce last week's winner.
It was between Ben and,
well, it was between Ben and
Greg but we dismissed Greg
and we said it was between
Ben and Greg's daughter,
'cause that's who owns
the bike, so unlucky Greg,
and your daughter too,
because the winner was Ben though.
- [Ollie] Yeah, so get in
touch with us on Facebook
to arrange delivery of that little cap.
Onto this week's contenders then
because, actually Ollie,
do you want to say it,
contenders ready, in the voice
of John Anderson from Gladiators?
- (in heavy Scottish
accent) Contenders ready!
- Okay, right, first
up is Hew from Cardiff.
- On my first whistle.
- All right, blimey, it's
like we're in Fash the Bash
in here as well, isn't it?
That's a really lost joke
on probably 99% of the audience out there.
Right, okay, first up is Hew from Cardiff.
Now, Hew was inspired by GCN
and after about six months' work,
finished his gravel bike project.
Six months, blimey!
- (high pitched squealing)
Take a look at him,
he's ripping him.
I did it in two weeks. (laughing)
- No, that six months
might've been a shock,
like wow, that was quick.
I'm not going to give it (laughing).
Hew, good work, right, okay, anyway.
So Hew turned an old and abused
26"-wheeled mountain bike
into a gravel bike.
Original bike was in a very sorry state.
The forks are completely
seized, the paint was flaking,
the bottom bracket and pedal bearings
were completely destroyed, and
the drivetrain was all rusty.
We don't like rusty, do we?
- No.
- Bust the rust.
However some parts were of good quality
and could be salvaged,
including the wheels, seatpost,
stem, frame, and cranks.
Hew stripped and sanded all
of the paint off the frame
to leave the aluminum, or aluminum, raw
and then heavily polished it.
Carbon forks were bought for the bike
but Hew also stripped
the paint off the cranks
and polished them to match.
He went with one-by 38-tooth chainring,
a nine-speed 11-32 cassette,
Sora STI and Deore long-cage rear mech
with no compatibility issues,
so that's good news
for everyone out there,
and here is the end result.
There it is.
- Oh, look at that.
I mean, that was a sorry frame.
Look at that.
- Tell you what, you've used
some of the old patented elbow
grease to get rid of that
and it looks good.
Is that a GCN?
No, it's not a GCN
bottle, Hew, disappointed.
- I think it is.
- No, it's not.
And where's that, is that Cardiff Bay?
No, that's more like towards
past Swansea, that, I think.
It could be Milford Haven.
Once did a crit there in the rain.
Absolutely chucked it down.
- Got his sort of bike packing set-up--
- He said he left all this on
to show it in its genuine state.
- [Ollie] (stammering) It's
not a Bike Vault, that's good.
- [Jon] Yeah, yeah, I like that.
- [Ollie] That's good, that.
- Very, very good submission, that, Hew,
and well done, mate.
All right, great submission there.
All right, so (stammering) who
is Hew up against this week?
- Well, Hew is up against Hannes
from Pfrungen in Süd Deutschland.
- I don't know why we
put ourselves through,
everyone through this, but yeah,
Hannes from Pfrungen in South Germany.
- I think it's Hannes.
- Okay, Hannes, okay.
- Anyway, he loves
cycling and woodworking.
And why shouldn't he
combine both those hobbies,
cycling and a road bike made from ash?
- [Jon] The wood, yeah.
- Wood.
It wasn't expensive.
The wood and the epoxy cost
£100, but 180 hours of work.
- That is some serious time, isn't it?
- Yeah, so to this bike,
he hollowed the wood,
saved a bit of weight.
- Saved an awful lot of weight.
- Yeah, but 2.9 kilo in a size 54 frame,
it's pretty heavy though, isn't it?
- Heavy weight.
- Yeah and he put SRAM Apex one-by on it,
Fizik Antares saddle, nice bits those.
The fork from Hannes' father, or Vater,
Vater's friend, Freund.
- Vater's friend?
- Mein Vater's Freund.
And (chuckling) cost
his dad just some beers
after their training rides.
- [Jon] Incredible, swapping
beers for bike parts.
Lloydy'd be good at that.
- Now the bike weighs exactly 10 kilograms
and apparently it's a very smooth ride.
And he's going to cook the
fork steerer when he has time.
He hasn't had time yet.
- [Jon] Blimey, look at that!
He's a bit better than
your GCSE woodwork project.
- [Ollie] Yes, well, no, it is.
- What did you do, what did you make?
- I can't, actually I made,
oh, I'll tell you another time.
It's for After Dark, that.
- I made a spare wheel
carrier for my roof.
Anyway, this is about Hannes's
bike, or Hannes's bike.
It's a beauty, that is.
- [Ollie] Look at that.
- [Jon] I mean, the finished
item is an absolute beauty.
- [Ollie] It is.
It reminds me of Giant TCR.
- Look at the integrated seatpost!
Hannes, I don't know,
I imagine that'd be a cool
pro bike too, wouldn't it?
- Yeah, it would.
- Of course, you'll have to win,
otherwise you're probably
going to let some--
- Well, it's not down to us, isn't it?
- No, Hew or Hannes.
- [Ollie] You can vote in
the uploader, can't you?
- [Jon] Yeah, yeah you
can vote in the uploader
or in the app.
- Yeah, not the uploader,
the uploader's dead.
- Yeah, what are you talking about?
- I'm sorry.
- Right, next week we
will announce the winner,
Hew or Hannes, or Hannes.
- Hannes.
(metallic whooshing)
- Right, it's now time for the Bike Vault
and we love it, don't we?
- Oh, yeah.
- So you lot at home, right,
you use the app on your smart phone
and you upload pictures,
videos, whatever of your bikes
and we get to rate them
nice or super nice.
And when they get rated super nice,
the bell gets rung, which is great
because we do like a good
old bell ring, don't we?
- Yeah, we do, yeah.
Also if you disagree with
our ringing of the bell
and our assessment if
something's super nice or nice,
then don't worry, 'cause you
can actually vote in the app
and have the People's
verdict, the People's say.
- This could backfire on us badly, Ollie.
- It could do, but anyway, first up--
- (laughing) First up,
we've got Dean from Wales.
It's not Dean Saunders,
the famous footballer.
It's a Trek Cronos CX Ultimate bike
but you can't really
see that because it's--
- [Ollie] That could be anything.
- [Jon] Yeah, it could
be absolutely anything.
- [Ollie] It could be anything.
- It's covered, that's,
I mean this is a brave submission.
Dean, (stammering) you're incredibly brave
to submit such a filthy
bike into the Bike Vault,
something I wouldn't condone.
- (stammering) I'm also slightly concerned
about Dean's cycling shorts as well.
I feel that should probably be pixilated
for whoever edits the show this week.
(laughing) Oh god.
- It's a nice bike.
At least you front wheel was clean.
You obviously used your front wheel,
or front brake, for 90% of the braking.
A nice bike I think, Ollie.
- Yeah, it's nice though.
- Okay, good.
- Next up, we've got--
- Is it TomHolm11?
TomHolm11, we've got no
idea where you're from.
- Yeah, we've still got his Trek Madone.
This a video submission.
I'm all for more video submissions.
I think we should have more.
Have a look at this video.
- I like the horses.
- Yeah, he's trying to take the
perfect picture of his bike.
It's a beautiful Trek Madone.
- Oh, hang on, he's got a light on him.
(both laughing raucously)
Should we watch that one again?
So TomHolm, don't know where you're from,
I don't really, but you can see,
I reckon the horse doesn't like
there's a flashing light
underneath this saddle.
- [Ollie] He's trying to eat it.
- It's flashing in its
gob and then watch this.
(both laughing)
Rear mech hanger, gone.
Rear mech, gone.
- Unfortunately, it wouldn't have got
in the Bike Vault anyway
because he's not taking
the picture square on,
the crank arm is in the
wrong position there,
and he's not gone for
biggie-smalls either.
Tire's not lined up.
Yeah, I mean, nice.
- So TomHolm obviously took this--
- Also, I don't think he
knew he was in video mode.
I think he thought he was in picture.
(laughing)
- Sort of thing my dad does,
sends me a WhatsApp and
it's meant to be a photo
and it's actually a video.
- Good, nice.
- Yeah, right, who've
we got next there, mate?
- We've got MBates form an
unknown, undisclosed location
with his Ridley Fenix SL.
- Secretive.
It's a clean-looking bike, that, isn't it?
- I wonder if he's a secret agent.
- Yes, MBates, don't know.
- [Ollie] I like his KMC chain
that's not a gold chain but
it's like the two-tone thing.
- [Jon] Is it the 11 DLC?
They call it something else.
- [Ollie] It's very clean, I like it.
- That looks brand new, actually.
- I mean, he's ticking all of the boxes.
- Nearly.
- The crank arm's
slightly not quite right.
A little bit of steerer.
- [Jon] Like 15 mil of steerer,
rather than the sort of regulated five.
- [Ollie] Yeah, but I mean--
- [Jon] Valves, not at six o'clock,
they're at 12 o'clock,
which is, again, acceptable.
- [Ollie] Yeah, well he's
got the logos though.
I like what he's done with the logos
of these DT Swiss wheels.
Ah, that's super nice, I think.
- [Jon] Yeah, I think it
is a super nice bike, yeah.
Skin of your teeth.
(bell clanging)
Right, NPlus1.
These usernames are getting weirder
and weirder, aren't they?
- Yeah, is that your real name?
- Yeah, don't know where
you're from, again.
Anwyay, titanium Moots
bike, Enve wheels, yeah.
Is that Ultegra R8000?
One of those ISM saddles,
one of the split saddles.
Beast in the background, interesting.
Is it in Germany, I presume,
judging by the signs?
- [Ollie] Yes, yes.
- [Jon] What are we thinking, Ollie?
- Eh, that's a nice.
- Cranks not lined up,
saddle far too back.
- [Ollie] The wheels are filthy.
We might not've if you
had gone in for that.
- [Jon] Nice bike.
- [Ollie] We cannot let
any old riff raff in.
- [Jon] No, and the final one this week
comes in from ErikR in Rotterdam.
That's an interesting
looking OG-Evkin bike.
- Unbelievable.
- What?
- Well, that appears to
be the Erasmusbrug, Jon.
- Oh yeah, you're quite into your bridges?
- I can bike, well--
- Bridge wood.
- A combined cable-stayed
and bascule bridge
in the center of Rotterdam
connecting the north and
south parts of the city,
completed in 1996,
802 meter-long bridge,
the second largest in the Netherlands.
It was named, actually,
after Erasmus of Rotterdam,
a prominent Renaissance
Christian and humanist no less.
- How do you know all these things?
- I know a lot of things, Jon, my friend.
- You do.
- It was designed by Ben van Berkel.
It was completed in 1996
at significant cost.
I believe it was the
region of €150,000,000.
Significant sum.
The cable-stayed bridge section
actually has a single 139-meter high
asymmetrical pale blue pylon
with a prominent horizontal base,
earning the bridge its nickname--
- [Jon] Go on.
- The Swan.
- Oh, what a lovely nickname!
- Also many of you will no
doubt recognize the bridge
as being the backdrop in pivotal scenes
in the Jackie Chan film Who Am I.
It was also used in the 2010
and 2015 Tours de France.
- Well, there's only
one thing for it, Ollie.
The Swan is a super nice.
- [Ollie] Super nice bridge.
(bell clanging)
More Bike Vault next week.
Right, before we head off then,
let's go through some of the comments
underneath last week's Tech, shall we,
because, well, there's
some crackers as ever.
Firstly, Ian Snyder, who says,
"Ollie should ride around
with that 3D printed face
"on the back of his head."
Why?
- Yeah, I don't understand why. (laughing)
Okay.
- Should you also dress backwards?
- CF O'Sullivan says, "I want
the bust of Oliver Bridgewood
"and I'm willing to pay
anywhere up and including
"11 British pounds and 70 pence.
"PM me for exchange
"and I'll get the money order lined up."
- Ooh, we should do that.
- Yeah, cool, yeah.
- Yeah, call him.
Right, Simon_says,
"Package from BELLgium,"
of course, 'cause the bell
arrived back from Belgium
after Ollie left it there
when he was doing the Bike Vault Special.
- I see what you're doing.
- Who's next then?
- "A free GCN water bottle
"for the person who 3D prints a toilet
"for Oli's figurines to
sit on!" from jfdavenport.
Yeah, I like that, yeah.
- And finally--
- They have 3D-printed me
in a compromising position.
- Yeah, someone else
said it was you running.
(laughing)
The weirdest running pose ever.
Finally, Ollie Tee, "Is
the postman Tom Last?"
Well that would be telling, wouldn't it?
- It's another one for
GCN Tech After Dark.
- Yeah, we can't reveal
who the postman was.
- Thanks for all your comments.
We really enjoy reading
them and going through them.
And if you'd like to support
the channel and what we do,
then, well, it's easy.
Subscribe, click the bell
icon if you haven't already,
it really does help.
And also ahead of Black Friday,
we've got some cool stuff
happening in the shop tomorrow.
We know tomorrow isn't
Black Friday, we know that,
but there's some cool stuff going
to be appearing in the shop,
so if you want to grab yourself a bargain,
head over tomorrow.
- I'll have to head on over.
You've got me all intrigued.
Right, so if you want to
watch two more great videos,
click on Ollie and, well,
click on me, I suppose.
Until next week, cheerio.
