Spin Cycle

The Placeholders crew is together in Belgium and talks through the route, key storylines, and crash-reduced field of favorites for the men's Tour of Flanders. 

Welcome back to Geek Warning! In this week’s edition of the regular show, Ronan and Dave discuss why current road bikes may not be ready for emerging trends in seated positions. Later Ronan shares a PSA related to multi-tools that turns out to be more of a Pick One and a rant.On the news side, the geeks discuss the new Cannondale Scalpel cross-country race bike. Pinarello has finally officially revealed its Bolide F HR that Italy will race on the track in Paris. There’s more 3D-printed tech to discuss in the hubs of Scope’s new and impressively light Artech wheels. And Dave gets excited at the chance to talk about Feedback Sports’ new Pliers Wrench tool.As usual, the end of the episode is kept for a quick discussion of other interesting new things. There you’ll hear about Wahoo’s firmware update, another new Mirror saddle (the comfy 3D-printed type) from Specialized, and CeramicSpeed’s new OSPW RS derailleur cages.Happy geeking!Time stamps:4:25 - Cannondale’s new Scalpel is yet another 120 mm cross-country bike option9:10 - Pinarello’s 3D-printed Bolide F HR track bike is now official15:10 - More 3D-printed tech with Scope’s new Artech wheels23:40 - Feedback Sports release a Pliers Wrench28:00 - The limitations of modern road bike geometry is on Ronan’s mind40:45 - A non-PSA that unexpectedly into a wider topic and Pick One about multi-tools53:40 – A firmware update to Wahoo head units55:15 – Specialized brings S-Works Mirror technology to the Phenom saddle56:04 - Our thoughts on CeramicSpeed’s new OSPW RS1:01:00 - Where much of the Escape Collective team will be next week

This week's episode of Placeholders, recorded after a busy weekend of racing – but before Dwars door Vlaanderen ... – ponders which men's Classics team is best right now, riders skipping races to go to altitude, and whether the "Big Six" is really a thing.

Another great episode this week with Abby Mickey, Loren Rowney and Gracie Elvin.They talked about Classic Brugge-De Panne and Gent-Wevelgem, specifically SD Worx-Protime’s tactics and the sprint finish where Lotte Kopecky made the difference for Lorena Wiebes.In order to really pick apart the sprint finish on Sunday they watched it live while recording. If you’d like to join in you can find the video we watched here.

In our final episode of this limited series, we turn the floor over to member questions. Thank you to everyone who became members throughout this series. Every single one of you helps make us produce more content like this. If you're not a member, you can join here: https://escapecollective.com/join/You can listen another podcast you'll enjoy about 'Why are modern bikes so expensive' podcast here: https://escapecollective.com/why-are-modern-bikes-so-expensive/

Cosmo Catalano and Dane Cash have plenty to talk about after a week that was absolutely jam-packed with racing. The E3 Saxo Classic, Gent-Wevelgem, and the Volta a Catalunya all get the How the Race was Won treatment as the Tour of Flanders looms.

Welcome to the first episode of The Rest Day with Jack Haig! This new podcast is hosted by Bahrain-Victorious' Jack Haig and will take you behind the curtain of pro cycling. The first episode is a chat between Jack and his roommate, Wout Poels, discussing Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico from the inside. 

We don't often think of a saddle as a performance item. Sure, the wrong saddle or poor fit can lead to performance-sapping discomfort or injury, but using the saddle to promote, maybe even improve performance, is something we rarely hear about. But that's precisely how Wove suggests we should think about saddles, and after a year or more of using both it's saddles, I tend to agree.As such, that saddle-centric performance bike fitting is the topic of this week's Performance Process podcast, as I invite Nick from Wove onto the show to discuss everything from his bike fitting philosophy to the evolution of Tadej Pogačar's position.

Four weeks on from Thomas De Gendt's now infamous crash, Zipp has released its findings and explanation, but many questions still remain.In this podcast, Ronan is joined by David Morse and Nathan Schickel from Zipp as he seeks the answers to the questions many have been asking.

The podcast discusses the affordability of mainstream bikes, the comeback of Yeti in the XC race bike scene, Salsa's entry into the e-bike market, the impact of marketing strategies on bike prices, the importance of maintaining bottom brackets, and the latest advancements in cycling gear like DT Swiss wheels and WTB Solano saddle.