Speaker 1: Hello and good day to you. From episode 47 of our podcast series project, Breakaway, a metaphorical and Literal time in the day. When we hear at Predator, cycling takes some time away from working in the back shop to come and share with our listeners. What we're doing, how we're doing it, what it takes to do it, how ideas, our Innovative success stories and even our missteps and failures. If you find yourself with an interest in bicycles composite manufacturing out of the box design or even Curiosities Beyond I encourage you to stick with us, settle in and learn a little. I'm Courtney B co-owner and project manager of Predator cycling and I'm here with my partner, I'm going again, the other co-owner CEO lead designer, and engineer and storybook Trail dad.
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 1: So we would hiking on the storybook storybook Trail.
Speaker 2: I have the hardest time saying that story book Trail.
Speaker 1: So most of the state parks here in Tennessee offer like a little Half Mile Trail for children and there's like a story along the way that you read.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And in most of them, they're complete.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, our Trail apparently was under construction and about five pages in the story. Ended,
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was like towards the end.
Speaker 1: I just made up the ending. What I assumed that the author would like
Speaker 2: the Courtney's version of the author would like?
Speaker 1: Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was fun though. The boys had a good time. I had a good time. And there's a little
Speaker 1: and that's that trail is more your speed, a half mile, flat Trail, because you had some knee issues going into that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. I guess I'm getting old, I came out of the car and I don't know what I did and I'm like, oh my gosh, like my knee just hurts. But yeah, so but it was good, boys, had
Speaker 1: fun. Yeah,
Speaker 2: let's go to the playground afterwards and run around and play
Speaker 1: so
Speaker 2: all good.
Speaker 1: And awesome. The Grammys were last night. Apparently.
Speaker 2: What are the Grammys?
Speaker 1: The music awards shows where I sat in front of the TV and watched them now. It's like I don't know what exists Beyond Nickelodeon and PBS Kids and weird YouTube videos of other children, unboxing toys.
Speaker 2: I mean, the concept of like, we actually haven't watched him other than like, the occasional football game. Like we don't watch a lot of live TV.
Speaker 1: No,
Speaker 2: I mean, if I'm watching bike races I'm usually watching Recaps or unless it's a tour. The tour is On. But other than that, it's not a whole lot of live TV,
Speaker 1: but Sports. It's an Arenas.
Speaker 2: This is true.
Speaker 1: Halftime shows next week. Super Bowl.
Speaker 2: Super Bowl is no
Speaker 1: will be killing it at the halftime show.
Speaker 2: Oh, she didn't have time show. She
Speaker 1: is the Chiefs versus the Eagles, should have been The Bangles.
Speaker 2: Should have been
Speaker 1: but I guess I'll be reading for the Eagles just in solidarity. I mean I don't care either but I just don't want the Chiefs to win now.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 1: So and then music exists in you know your own personal training usually got the Pod. Then
Speaker 2: this is true.
Speaker 1: Well when you were training they were probably not pause. They're like My First Sony
Speaker 2: iPod Shuffle thing that was like a little clip
Speaker 1: that was like caught. That was like the end of college was like 2008.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's right. I was I mean I started.
Speaker 1: Okay. Well that's when you had your Walkman.
Speaker 2: My sister and I shared Sony boombox had like a tape player and a CD player. It was like It was pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine just today kids with an iPod Shuffle? No screen, like the original one.
Speaker 2: The original one but it was like a block interface. The original
Speaker 1: my sister like a button and no screen and you just shuffles the shuffle yes I hadn't seen me in the car radiator like the next next that was
Speaker 2: annoying
Speaker 1: and then I finally like okay
Speaker 2: listen to a commercial so it's a channels.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's me. Anyway, anyway, moving on. So my girl she went out of the year last night. Oh
Speaker 2: yeah.
Speaker 1: And I'm big fan of Harry even though I have never listened to the entire album. I did watch a documentary on Netflix.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. You told me about it
Speaker 1: and
Speaker 2: it seems like a very interesting person like
Speaker 1: her style
Speaker 2: cool. And
Speaker 1: anyway so if I was gonna jump on there by right now, I'd probably turn that on, listen to some Liza, so that's me. What would, what would you even know current music? What
Speaker 2: is actually? So myself my sister used to make me little mixes. So I was a lot of like
Speaker 1: That left one training
Speaker 2: um, ACDC Queen.
Speaker 1: Okay. The other ones are kind of like my go-to, you need to just like the Ruckus, like screaming
Speaker 2: screaming, but Ruckus for sure.
Speaker 1: Okay. Um yeah, that's mostly what I was listening to the late 90s, early 2000s, like Poppy, Actually,
Speaker 2: that was it was it was a lot of my sister used to make. She had a tape for me and it was it was good. I had a little race one that she used to do and I did it with all my like efforts and stuff is all timed out and then you used to end with. We Are the Champions like because of course, like right before you go after the start line
Speaker 1: I reminds me of I think Circa 1996 one of my only year of Biddy. Basketball. Fourth grade jock jams. Do you remember jock jams
Speaker 2: know what is that
Speaker 1: was the CD. It was like the
Speaker 2: idea what this
Speaker 1: I played Sports in elementary school at like it was what you're talking about. It was like a shuffle mix on a CD and it ended with We Are the Champions.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's good. I had it was clean Right?
Speaker 1: Started with the looks good. Right? Ito Rumble.
Speaker 2: That's funny. Yeah, we should get it.
Speaker 1: I'm going down.
Speaker 2: Let's do it. Let's get the kids up.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's you back in the day.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You and your ABC.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And
Speaker 1: you're that love. I've been trying to do throwback. Thursday. Yeah. For an entire two weeks
Speaker 2: you put together for him.
Speaker 1: Anyway, last week, I posted some pictures that were all the way from 2010.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So now that's 13 years ago. Okay but just like TV
Speaker 2: first, our first real Team that we put together.
Speaker 1: And the patient posted was specifically of, I guess, you had like four bikes that you made four or five bikes.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And those were like, what? Your aluminum carbon hybrid bikes?
Speaker 2: Yeah. That was our like, it was not our, what was our first, but it was like, one of the first generations of it. It was a really cool bike. It was a very, it was an aluminum, it was all aluminum joints that were welded together and then bonded in carbon tubing. So, it was the main. The main triangle was all carbon and the seats were carbon, and the bottom drive train was all luminum
Speaker 1: was like a road team
Speaker 2: of us. That's it three of us really that actually. I mean, technically uses seven or eight but like we just did local rides at local. Stop it was local credits. All we did. It was like a group of us. It was
Speaker 1: probably not this after being married to you for so long. But is it it's a team and there's like a point system on placement, but is it basically whoever crosses the line first?
Speaker 2: Well, there's certain series have points and then there's like, the national like different series nationality that
Speaker 1: on the team, but you like worked really hard for the team, but you always come in last. Do you get points
Speaker 2: know?
Speaker 1: You're just like
Speaker 2: our teammates. Out. But yeah. It's not like like another special like assess and things like that. No, we don't have that kind of metrics
Speaker 1: like golf. There are six girls on a team but they only kind of the four lowest scores but still your score at the you're kind of A ranked. You the only kind of the four little scores for the tournament you're in but like you're still your score like counting personally. Like oh no. I mean, yes,
Speaker 2: you're you got points on USA cycling how to point system on your points and category as you as an individual. And then there was like a there is a point standing for teams in different categories, but we didn't really that was nothing that we actually competed in or did we just went and did group rides. Had some fun, you know, tried to win the local sprints on the group rides and then went out to the local credits and did some credits.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to talk about points.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. Cool bike.
Speaker 1: You know,
Speaker 2: we made the bikes. We did not make the bars that was they were at the time. It was pretty cool. It was fsa's, it's called FSA plasma, which was one of their one piece bar systems. It kind of what's one of the things that launched me down the Path that actually like the majors and stuff because it was a one-piece system and it was cool because it was a rare at the time. It was a zero degree stem. So it means that the stem kind of went up a little bit. So they had really short head tubes. I mean they were they were crit bikes.
Speaker 1: It was zero degrees, wouldn't it just go out flat?
Speaker 2: So yeah, if the head tube is, you know, straight, it's completely perpendicular to the head tube. So usually it's a negative 8 degree. So that the bar like the stem goes, kind of flop to the ground ish, but a 0 actually gives you some vertical tilt. So it was really cool. So it was the bikes were really short head tubes, really stiff by bikes. I mean they were fast, they were fast crypto.
Speaker 1: Did you win?
Speaker 2: I don't I think we got a couple like top threes and some of the credits and stuff, top, fives. I know Autumn the other arm, he did pretty good in the CVR series. I mean, the bike. We won some Sprints. We want a lot of LaGrange Sprints. We actually, I think I won. There's a there was a nickel's ride and I think I won that Sprint. Every time
Speaker 1: it's a street that a person that Nick
Speaker 2: excuse me. Um yeah it's a mountain, it's a climb. And then at the end of The Climb, you kind of regroup. And then there's like a downhill down Sepulveda and there's this, like, really long Sprint. Finish, that's fun. It's like a slight 1% downhill Sprint, so it's just super fast.
Speaker 1: You're talking. Like, would you say 20079 I wouldn't do it in 2023 down the streets. You just named,
Speaker 2: it was not a good Street to come down. That was still traffic and potholes. And there was construction, there's construction barriers all down the sides but it was. All right, because I had like, literally, I had well, CJ worked with me then. And CJ, was there with me, always, and me, and CJ, like own that thing. And then LaGrange ended up. Actually bringing out a, whole bunch of Heavy Hitters to try and beat us in that Sprint. And I called Autumn, I was like, dude, you gotta help me, so he's a Powerhouse. He would just literally go to the front, just drill it and we would just single file that thing and I think I only lost that Sprint like a handful of times during that team. Like I mean I didn't lose that Sprint very often if ever.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, so she didn't make
Speaker 2: Bar. So there's actually YouTube video of that Sprite of how we do that Sprint on YouTube. One of our old is like 12 13 year old video but there's a video of the lead out. CJ leading it out. I think it. I don't be in it. I don't know, thought I was in or not. But anyways, we're in the kit we're rocking it and
Speaker 1: so and then after that, you had another the team Predator team carbon repair which those were just all carbon repair bikes. But
Speaker 2: yeah,
Speaker 1: in the post that I made this past Thursday, I was like oh, you know, our team in LA and you know, so sunny and you know, maybe a team in Nashville but like that's a we don't have time for that and be like. The weather is pretty horrible here. I don't know if you want to say that. You had a dream Nashville team here. I don't know, I don't know. Well, I'll be proud of our team.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Anyway, dream bikes. How
Speaker 2: are
Speaker 1: 21 for that, would it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, right bike, total totally
Speaker 1: and then talk about but, you know, the build that you would do, you know, team in the bars and whatnot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I mean it would probably go back to like what we originally did. Like, I, we talked about like, on my dream build. You know, to be honest, I'd probably do. I do the RF 20, or I would do the pilot, I'm sorry, the road major cockpit and then I think I would probably go with like some deep dish zip
Speaker 1: 808 setup every day. Deep dish, I still think Pizza Hut, but go on.
Speaker 2: Oh, we see a pizza tonight.
Speaker 1: Sponsor.
Speaker 2: Yeah,
Speaker 1: chicken place.
Speaker 2: I was like a hot chicken place or something. It was something funny. I don't know what it was now, but it was really good. It was a good sponsor. Yeah, I would probably do that. I would, you know, either go with some Shimano or SRAM groups at keep it pretty basic, but just fast, reliable setup. And if you're doing Chris I mean I don't know. I'm looking at doing like a one by now but single front, chainring not having multiple chainrings in the front. Gears.
Speaker 1: Yeah,
Speaker 2: like on your old bike, your bike. You have the three gears in the front. Most right backs have two but now some of them are doing one.
Speaker 1: Again, you never told me that you use all my gears. Yeah
Speaker 2: I told you
Speaker 1: is that the left? So I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So anyways, that's probably what I would do for doing Christmas stuff. There's some crazy. Here's some road racing but
Speaker 1: then there's the speedway is that considered I saw a track stars on that
Speaker 2: know, you'd run a road bike a standard road bike.
Speaker 1: Okay,
Speaker 2: they have done track races on Speedways before, but it to be honest,
Speaker 1: well, long to actually, like need a track bike.
Speaker 2: Know you could do it. You could do it on a track bike, but it just, it just a different Dynamic. It's just, a whole different
Speaker 1: track here in Atlanta to Nashville,
Speaker 2: believe it is. I mean, I think that would be the closest track,
Speaker 1: okay? So talk about the bars, you would use would be your road major, you're actually in the process of making some Pilots, which are the track bars right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we got a couple in the works right now and as soon as I'm done with those, I have a rode one and got some Aero bars too.
Speaker 1: This question for the truck bars that you're working on right now. I think was like sizing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I think it's always a tricky one on those bars. Because it's such a non-standard cockpit because the way that that stem, it kind of makes that point at the top of the bars, like, in the Middle where that's, that's stem system joins and it's kind of spikes back because of that. It gives you this misleading idea of where the bar connection point is. So like, you know, you need a 110 stem but it looks like it's a 120 130 stamp. So it's a little misleading and then because of the way we did those Tops on the bars, the drops are very much. They're not quite standard, they're not in the place you normally think of as the drop. So it gets a little tricky to size them up, sometimes. But yeah that's that's the number one question.
Speaker 1: So as ease dropping on so if you ever have a need or a question about bars, your initial step is basically to have a conversation with RM. A video conference and which many listeners may or may not know, is I'm usually on the side east dropping, I literally stay across from him. So um, yeah, I was listening and I was listening to basically, tell a future customer or potential future customer about like the uniqueness of year, the pilot bars, they were like, well, you know, we Dude, this person does a lot of bars and testing and like what makes your Pilots different? Like how is your testing? Because they were talking about how they get these bars and they're not actually like computer software tested. Oh, just like personally tested and then like, we don't like these,
Speaker 2: right? So like I mean, the thing with us is is, you know, there's a lot of different things. I mean, you're Converse, you're referring to is the pilots and in the pilots are very unique. Just well, I guess it's all our bars. You know, our bars are not designed and none of the equipment that we design is meant to be used in a single static situation. So what I mean by that is like, you know, this quote unquote like race position the perfect position and designed around it. They're actually not designed like that. They're just designed to have multiple holding positions. Multiple places to grab the bars and thinking about the overall efficiency of a writer. So, like on the pilots, you know, it is a race specific bar because it's, you know, most people don't write. Track casually to not race that most people race track, you race to race. Yeah. You you right? Yes, race to race professionally but not even professionally like if you're just like a local Joe Schmo riding the track, I mean like, you know, like I would be now. I mean, I would still practice do a practice run and then, you know, practice racing and I'm still racing. Um, so like the idea being that there's positions to hold on the bars for different scenarios. So like if you're trying to break away off the front or be as Arrow as possible to get like maximum top speed, you know, it has a position for that, you know, that fake kind of Road Hood tops. You know, if you're out of the saddle sprinting, it has a really has two really good spots to hold in the drops for different types of positions. If you're riding relief, you know there's actually sections that are designed to be able to ride relief and you know open up your back and take a breather and you know just catch your breath and stability. There's spots that are designed specifically for Madison and exchanges. You know, there's all these types of different parts of the bar that are designed to use to be Used the way, you write it and race, it. Where's the cup holder?
Speaker 1: Here.
Speaker 2: There's no couple different tracks but
Speaker 1: no on the bar.
Speaker 2: There's not, there's no, there's none. I actually jokingly I tried to. We tried to make one for our Starbucks coffees back in the day, so that we can put our bars on it. I made some prototypes, but I never finished them. I always thought I'd be hilarious to have a little cup holder on the funny bike. Yeah. But like, a computer on a track bar, right? You're not allowed to, you're not allowed to in racing to have a computer in the front of your bars, you can have. We make a computer amount that goes behind your seat
Speaker 1: like a phone. Mount
Speaker 2: a phone mount. Yeah, no. So you can
Speaker 1: hear dad Laughlin videos.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Right. Are you Grammys? But no, no. You cannot. Um, anyways. So yes, that was the conversation was kind of around that idea of like, you know, because we're not statically testing things in the single situation where we're testing in a much more Dynamic manner where we're simulating multiple positions and actual event, type scenarios to figure out the optimal bar system is very different and on the track bars themselves, the pilots, you know, we're really looking at the cockpit itself. The hand position points with the bar would be, we kind of leave that relatively stock. Like we don't really change that ever. Unless there's a really big need for it. We can, but it's really the customization is on the stem angle size length connection points that kind of stuff. So yeah, it's a good it's a really cool system and
Speaker 1: I think if you're actually like genuinely interested in a bar cockpit system Road or Pilot definitely hit up arm for a phone call because he will explain every single Thing about it to you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, we do design manufacturer test. Everything you have like special needs. Like he's the
Speaker 1: guy who's gonna design it and make it, and cover it all in the entire process with you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's actually interesting because, like one of the people that we spoke to recently have an issue with how they hold the bars. And it was interesting, like, how the problems that they were facing with their bar system that they have now and the solutions that they're looking for. So just goes interesting to see what people are using and what they need. And, you know, everyone's a little unique. So,
Speaker 1: everyone's a little different. Everyone is and Liza would say, that's what makes you beautiful.
Speaker 2: That's nice.
Speaker 1: Anything else?
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I mean, I was Yeah yeah, good throwback Thursday. So
Speaker 1: yeah
Speaker 2: what do we have mentioned
Speaker 1: on the last podcast? We talked about your participation and then video Omniverse live stream.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: Um we are getting ready to send out our weekly. I'm not gonna say weekly are sometimes Weekly Newsletter this week
Speaker 2: and there will
Speaker 1: definitely be a link to the recording from the live stream. And then there will also be a link to last month by Grimmer podcast that you did as well. So people didn't take initiative to like search for it. I'm gifting you the link. So those will be a bit available for you to check out if you are on our newsletter list. If you're not go to predator cycling.com and hit the little newsletter button.
Speaker 2: Yeah. There's one of the bottle in the footer. There's one there's
Speaker 1: and you will get my weekly not so weekly newsletters. also, next week, we will be heading to The Music City Center here at Nashville, courtesy of our friends at Lenovo to check out the 3D experience World Conference. Oh
Speaker 2: yeah, it's gonna be cool. I'm excited for that. I
Speaker 1: know you're excited for a conference. I love conferences and it'll be great. It'll be a great Valentine's Day date. I'm looking forward.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look at some SolidWorks and Catia demos.
Speaker 1: Yeah,
Speaker 2: nothing's Valentine's Day. Like modeling.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, Maybe snacks, I don't know.
Speaker 2: We'll see
Speaker 1: anyway. So I do know that there are bars of every single direction from that place. They're all
Speaker 2: right. Downtown Nashville, so that's cool. So
Speaker 1: that'll be fun and we'll see what's cooking in that end of the tech world.
Speaker 2: Yeah,
Speaker 1: I assume that the following podcast will probably be review of what we find there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure we'll find a lot of cool stuff. I mean. Yeah. Plus it's a whole different. I mean I not used a lot of that, a lot of the software there. So I'm very interested to see kind of what it is literal Works a little bit but not much. So Um, it should be interesting and I love to see some demos of Katya.
Speaker 1: You love demos.
Speaker 2: I want to see some Katya demos.
Speaker 1: Yep,
Speaker 2: that'd be cool.
Speaker 1: Okay,
Speaker 2: so it hasn't composite simulation demos. Ooh, that'd be cool.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I have a feeling we're gonna come back with a lot of cards so they don't do that anymore. They scan matches
Speaker 2: no or not.
Speaker 1: It's,
Speaker 2: you know how much a seed of Catia was, you know, that we're not gonna come back with anything
Speaker 1: or responsive That's wrap it up. We thank you for choosing to take some time with us, and we look forward to future breakaways. Look for us on Instagram and Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter. And in person here in Tennessee, we asked me, share like And subscribe
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 1: So we would hiking on the storybook storybook Trail.
Speaker 2: I have the hardest time saying that story book Trail.
Speaker 1: So most of the state parks here in Tennessee offer like a little Half Mile Trail for children and there's like a story along the way that you read.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And in most of them, they're complete.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, our Trail apparently was under construction and about five pages in the story. Ended,
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was like towards the end.
Speaker 1: I just made up the ending. What I assumed that the author would like
Speaker 2: the Courtney's version of the author would like?
Speaker 1: Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was fun though. The boys had a good time. I had a good time. And there's a little
Speaker 1: and that's that trail is more your speed, a half mile, flat Trail, because you had some knee issues going into that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. I guess I'm getting old, I came out of the car and I don't know what I did and I'm like, oh my gosh, like my knee just hurts. But yeah, so but it was good, boys, had
Speaker 1: fun. Yeah,
Speaker 2: let's go to the playground afterwards and run around and play
Speaker 1: so
Speaker 2: all good.
Speaker 1: And awesome. The Grammys were last night. Apparently.
Speaker 2: What are the Grammys?
Speaker 1: The music awards shows where I sat in front of the TV and watched them now. It's like I don't know what exists Beyond Nickelodeon and PBS Kids and weird YouTube videos of other children, unboxing toys.
Speaker 2: I mean, the concept of like, we actually haven't watched him other than like, the occasional football game. Like we don't watch a lot of live TV.
Speaker 1: No,
Speaker 2: I mean, if I'm watching bike races I'm usually watching Recaps or unless it's a tour. The tour is On. But other than that, it's not a whole lot of live TV,
Speaker 1: but Sports. It's an Arenas.
Speaker 2: This is true.
Speaker 1: Halftime shows next week. Super Bowl.
Speaker 2: Super Bowl is no
Speaker 1: will be killing it at the halftime show.
Speaker 2: Oh, she didn't have time show. She
Speaker 1: is the Chiefs versus the Eagles, should have been The Bangles.
Speaker 2: Should have been
Speaker 1: but I guess I'll be reading for the Eagles just in solidarity. I mean I don't care either but I just don't want the Chiefs to win now.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 1: So and then music exists in you know your own personal training usually got the Pod. Then
Speaker 2: this is true.
Speaker 1: Well when you were training they were probably not pause. They're like My First Sony
Speaker 2: iPod Shuffle thing that was like a little clip
Speaker 1: that was like caught. That was like the end of college was like 2008.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's right. I was I mean I started.
Speaker 1: Okay. Well that's when you had your Walkman.
Speaker 2: My sister and I shared Sony boombox had like a tape player and a CD player. It was like It was pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine just today kids with an iPod Shuffle? No screen, like the original one.
Speaker 2: The original one but it was like a block interface. The original
Speaker 1: my sister like a button and no screen and you just shuffles the shuffle yes I hadn't seen me in the car radiator like the next next that was
Speaker 2: annoying
Speaker 1: and then I finally like okay
Speaker 2: listen to a commercial so it's a channels.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's me. Anyway, anyway, moving on. So my girl she went out of the year last night. Oh
Speaker 2: yeah.
Speaker 1: And I'm big fan of Harry even though I have never listened to the entire album. I did watch a documentary on Netflix.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. You told me about it
Speaker 1: and
Speaker 2: it seems like a very interesting person like
Speaker 1: her style
Speaker 2: cool. And
Speaker 1: anyway so if I was gonna jump on there by right now, I'd probably turn that on, listen to some Liza, so that's me. What would, what would you even know current music? What
Speaker 2: is actually? So myself my sister used to make me little mixes. So I was a lot of like
Speaker 1: That left one training
Speaker 2: um, ACDC Queen.
Speaker 1: Okay. The other ones are kind of like my go-to, you need to just like the Ruckus, like screaming
Speaker 2: screaming, but Ruckus for sure.
Speaker 1: Okay. Um yeah, that's mostly what I was listening to the late 90s, early 2000s, like Poppy, Actually,
Speaker 2: that was it was it was a lot of my sister used to make. She had a tape for me and it was it was good. I had a little race one that she used to do and I did it with all my like efforts and stuff is all timed out and then you used to end with. We Are the Champions like because of course, like right before you go after the start line
Speaker 1: I reminds me of I think Circa 1996 one of my only year of Biddy. Basketball. Fourth grade jock jams. Do you remember jock jams
Speaker 2: know what is that
Speaker 1: was the CD. It was like the
Speaker 2: idea what this
Speaker 1: I played Sports in elementary school at like it was what you're talking about. It was like a shuffle mix on a CD and it ended with We Are the Champions.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's good. I had it was clean Right?
Speaker 1: Started with the looks good. Right? Ito Rumble.
Speaker 2: That's funny. Yeah, we should get it.
Speaker 1: I'm going down.
Speaker 2: Let's do it. Let's get the kids up.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's you back in the day.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You and your ABC.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And
Speaker 1: you're that love. I've been trying to do throwback. Thursday. Yeah. For an entire two weeks
Speaker 2: you put together for him.
Speaker 1: Anyway, last week, I posted some pictures that were all the way from 2010.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So now that's 13 years ago. Okay but just like TV
Speaker 2: first, our first real Team that we put together.
Speaker 1: And the patient posted was specifically of, I guess, you had like four bikes that you made four or five bikes.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And those were like, what? Your aluminum carbon hybrid bikes?
Speaker 2: Yeah. That was our like, it was not our, what was our first, but it was like, one of the first generations of it. It was a really cool bike. It was a very, it was an aluminum, it was all aluminum joints that were welded together and then bonded in carbon tubing. So, it was the main. The main triangle was all carbon and the seats were carbon, and the bottom drive train was all luminum
Speaker 1: was like a road team
Speaker 2: of us. That's it three of us really that actually. I mean, technically uses seven or eight but like we just did local rides at local. Stop it was local credits. All we did. It was like a group of us. It was
Speaker 1: probably not this after being married to you for so long. But is it it's a team and there's like a point system on placement, but is it basically whoever crosses the line first?
Speaker 2: Well, there's certain series have points and then there's like, the national like different series nationality that
Speaker 1: on the team, but you like worked really hard for the team, but you always come in last. Do you get points
Speaker 2: know?
Speaker 1: You're just like
Speaker 2: our teammates. Out. But yeah. It's not like like another special like assess and things like that. No, we don't have that kind of metrics
Speaker 1: like golf. There are six girls on a team but they only kind of the four lowest scores but still your score at the you're kind of A ranked. You the only kind of the four little scores for the tournament you're in but like you're still your score like counting personally. Like oh no. I mean, yes,
Speaker 2: you're you got points on USA cycling how to point system on your points and category as you as an individual. And then there was like a there is a point standing for teams in different categories, but we didn't really that was nothing that we actually competed in or did we just went and did group rides. Had some fun, you know, tried to win the local sprints on the group rides and then went out to the local credits and did some credits.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to talk about points.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. Cool bike.
Speaker 1: You know,
Speaker 2: we made the bikes. We did not make the bars that was they were at the time. It was pretty cool. It was fsa's, it's called FSA plasma, which was one of their one piece bar systems. It kind of what's one of the things that launched me down the Path that actually like the majors and stuff because it was a one-piece system and it was cool because it was a rare at the time. It was a zero degree stem. So it means that the stem kind of went up a little bit. So they had really short head tubes. I mean they were they were crit bikes.
Speaker 1: It was zero degrees, wouldn't it just go out flat?
Speaker 2: So yeah, if the head tube is, you know, straight, it's completely perpendicular to the head tube. So usually it's a negative 8 degree. So that the bar like the stem goes, kind of flop to the ground ish, but a 0 actually gives you some vertical tilt. So it was really cool. So it was the bikes were really short head tubes, really stiff by bikes. I mean they were fast, they were fast crypto.
Speaker 1: Did you win?
Speaker 2: I don't I think we got a couple like top threes and some of the credits and stuff, top, fives. I know Autumn the other arm, he did pretty good in the CVR series. I mean, the bike. We won some Sprints. We want a lot of LaGrange Sprints. We actually, I think I won. There's a there was a nickel's ride and I think I won that Sprint. Every time
Speaker 1: it's a street that a person that Nick
Speaker 2: excuse me. Um yeah it's a mountain, it's a climb. And then at the end of The Climb, you kind of regroup. And then there's like a downhill down Sepulveda and there's this, like, really long Sprint. Finish, that's fun. It's like a slight 1% downhill Sprint, so it's just super fast.
Speaker 1: You're talking. Like, would you say 20079 I wouldn't do it in 2023 down the streets. You just named,
Speaker 2: it was not a good Street to come down. That was still traffic and potholes. And there was construction, there's construction barriers all down the sides but it was. All right, because I had like, literally, I had well, CJ worked with me then. And CJ, was there with me, always, and me, and CJ, like own that thing. And then LaGrange ended up. Actually bringing out a, whole bunch of Heavy Hitters to try and beat us in that Sprint. And I called Autumn, I was like, dude, you gotta help me, so he's a Powerhouse. He would just literally go to the front, just drill it and we would just single file that thing and I think I only lost that Sprint like a handful of times during that team. Like I mean I didn't lose that Sprint very often if ever.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, so she didn't make
Speaker 2: Bar. So there's actually YouTube video of that Sprite of how we do that Sprint on YouTube. One of our old is like 12 13 year old video but there's a video of the lead out. CJ leading it out. I think it. I don't be in it. I don't know, thought I was in or not. But anyways, we're in the kit we're rocking it and
Speaker 1: so and then after that, you had another the team Predator team carbon repair which those were just all carbon repair bikes. But
Speaker 2: yeah,
Speaker 1: in the post that I made this past Thursday, I was like oh, you know, our team in LA and you know, so sunny and you know, maybe a team in Nashville but like that's a we don't have time for that and be like. The weather is pretty horrible here. I don't know if you want to say that. You had a dream Nashville team here. I don't know, I don't know. Well, I'll be proud of our team.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Anyway, dream bikes. How
Speaker 2: are
Speaker 1: 21 for that, would it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, right bike, total totally
Speaker 1: and then talk about but, you know, the build that you would do, you know, team in the bars and whatnot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I mean it would probably go back to like what we originally did. Like, I, we talked about like, on my dream build. You know, to be honest, I'd probably do. I do the RF 20, or I would do the pilot, I'm sorry, the road major cockpit and then I think I would probably go with like some deep dish zip
Speaker 1: 808 setup every day. Deep dish, I still think Pizza Hut, but go on.
Speaker 2: Oh, we see a pizza tonight.
Speaker 1: Sponsor.
Speaker 2: Yeah,
Speaker 1: chicken place.
Speaker 2: I was like a hot chicken place or something. It was something funny. I don't know what it was now, but it was really good. It was a good sponsor. Yeah, I would probably do that. I would, you know, either go with some Shimano or SRAM groups at keep it pretty basic, but just fast, reliable setup. And if you're doing Chris I mean I don't know. I'm looking at doing like a one by now but single front, chainring not having multiple chainrings in the front. Gears.
Speaker 1: Yeah,
Speaker 2: like on your old bike, your bike. You have the three gears in the front. Most right backs have two but now some of them are doing one.
Speaker 1: Again, you never told me that you use all my gears. Yeah
Speaker 2: I told you
Speaker 1: is that the left? So I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So anyways, that's probably what I would do for doing Christmas stuff. There's some crazy. Here's some road racing but
Speaker 1: then there's the speedway is that considered I saw a track stars on that
Speaker 2: know, you'd run a road bike a standard road bike.
Speaker 1: Okay,
Speaker 2: they have done track races on Speedways before, but it to be honest,
Speaker 1: well, long to actually, like need a track bike.
Speaker 2: Know you could do it. You could do it on a track bike, but it just, it just a different Dynamic. It's just, a whole different
Speaker 1: track here in Atlanta to Nashville,
Speaker 2: believe it is. I mean, I think that would be the closest track,
Speaker 1: okay? So talk about the bars, you would use would be your road major, you're actually in the process of making some Pilots, which are the track bars right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we got a couple in the works right now and as soon as I'm done with those, I have a rode one and got some Aero bars too.
Speaker 1: This question for the truck bars that you're working on right now. I think was like sizing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I think it's always a tricky one on those bars. Because it's such a non-standard cockpit because the way that that stem, it kind of makes that point at the top of the bars, like, in the Middle where that's, that's stem system joins and it's kind of spikes back because of that. It gives you this misleading idea of where the bar connection point is. So like, you know, you need a 110 stem but it looks like it's a 120 130 stamp. So it's a little misleading and then because of the way we did those Tops on the bars, the drops are very much. They're not quite standard, they're not in the place you normally think of as the drop. So it gets a little tricky to size them up, sometimes. But yeah that's that's the number one question.
Speaker 1: So as ease dropping on so if you ever have a need or a question about bars, your initial step is basically to have a conversation with RM. A video conference and which many listeners may or may not know, is I'm usually on the side east dropping, I literally stay across from him. So um, yeah, I was listening and I was listening to basically, tell a future customer or potential future customer about like the uniqueness of year, the pilot bars, they were like, well, you know, we Dude, this person does a lot of bars and testing and like what makes your Pilots different? Like how is your testing? Because they were talking about how they get these bars and they're not actually like computer software tested. Oh, just like personally tested and then like, we don't like these,
Speaker 2: right? So like I mean, the thing with us is is, you know, there's a lot of different things. I mean, you're Converse, you're referring to is the pilots and in the pilots are very unique. Just well, I guess it's all our bars. You know, our bars are not designed and none of the equipment that we design is meant to be used in a single static situation. So what I mean by that is like, you know, this quote unquote like race position the perfect position and designed around it. They're actually not designed like that. They're just designed to have multiple holding positions. Multiple places to grab the bars and thinking about the overall efficiency of a writer. So, like on the pilots, you know, it is a race specific bar because it's, you know, most people don't write. Track casually to not race that most people race track, you race to race. Yeah. You you right? Yes, race to race professionally but not even professionally like if you're just like a local Joe Schmo riding the track, I mean like, you know, like I would be now. I mean, I would still practice do a practice run and then, you know, practice racing and I'm still racing. Um, so like the idea being that there's positions to hold on the bars for different scenarios. So like if you're trying to break away off the front or be as Arrow as possible to get like maximum top speed, you know, it has a position for that, you know, that fake kind of Road Hood tops. You know, if you're out of the saddle sprinting, it has a really has two really good spots to hold in the drops for different types of positions. If you're riding relief, you know there's actually sections that are designed to be able to ride relief and you know open up your back and take a breather and you know just catch your breath and stability. There's spots that are designed specifically for Madison and exchanges. You know, there's all these types of different parts of the bar that are designed to use to be Used the way, you write it and race, it. Where's the cup holder?
Speaker 1: Here.
Speaker 2: There's no couple different tracks but
Speaker 1: no on the bar.
Speaker 2: There's not, there's no, there's none. I actually jokingly I tried to. We tried to make one for our Starbucks coffees back in the day, so that we can put our bars on it. I made some prototypes, but I never finished them. I always thought I'd be hilarious to have a little cup holder on the funny bike. Yeah. But like, a computer on a track bar, right? You're not allowed to, you're not allowed to in racing to have a computer in the front of your bars, you can have. We make a computer amount that goes behind your seat
Speaker 1: like a phone. Mount
Speaker 2: a phone mount. Yeah, no. So you can
Speaker 1: hear dad Laughlin videos.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Right. Are you Grammys? But no, no. You cannot. Um, anyways. So yes, that was the conversation was kind of around that idea of like, you know, because we're not statically testing things in the single situation where we're testing in a much more Dynamic manner where we're simulating multiple positions and actual event, type scenarios to figure out the optimal bar system is very different and on the track bars themselves, the pilots, you know, we're really looking at the cockpit itself. The hand position points with the bar would be, we kind of leave that relatively stock. Like we don't really change that ever. Unless there's a really big need for it. We can, but it's really the customization is on the stem angle size length connection points that kind of stuff. So yeah, it's a good it's a really cool system and
Speaker 1: I think if you're actually like genuinely interested in a bar cockpit system Road or Pilot definitely hit up arm for a phone call because he will explain every single Thing about it to you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, we do design manufacturer test. Everything you have like special needs. Like he's the
Speaker 1: guy who's gonna design it and make it, and cover it all in the entire process with you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's actually interesting because, like one of the people that we spoke to recently have an issue with how they hold the bars. And it was interesting, like, how the problems that they were facing with their bar system that they have now and the solutions that they're looking for. So just goes interesting to see what people are using and what they need. And, you know, everyone's a little unique. So,
Speaker 1: everyone's a little different. Everyone is and Liza would say, that's what makes you beautiful.
Speaker 2: That's nice.
Speaker 1: Anything else?
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I mean, I was Yeah yeah, good throwback Thursday. So
Speaker 1: yeah
Speaker 2: what do we have mentioned
Speaker 1: on the last podcast? We talked about your participation and then video Omniverse live stream.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: Um we are getting ready to send out our weekly. I'm not gonna say weekly are sometimes Weekly Newsletter this week
Speaker 2: and there will
Speaker 1: definitely be a link to the recording from the live stream. And then there will also be a link to last month by Grimmer podcast that you did as well. So people didn't take initiative to like search for it. I'm gifting you the link. So those will be a bit available for you to check out if you are on our newsletter list. If you're not go to predator cycling.com and hit the little newsletter button.
Speaker 2: Yeah. There's one of the bottle in the footer. There's one there's
Speaker 1: and you will get my weekly not so weekly newsletters. also, next week, we will be heading to The Music City Center here at Nashville, courtesy of our friends at Lenovo to check out the 3D experience World Conference. Oh
Speaker 2: yeah, it's gonna be cool. I'm excited for that. I
Speaker 1: know you're excited for a conference. I love conferences and it'll be great. It'll be a great Valentine's Day date. I'm looking forward.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look at some SolidWorks and Catia demos.
Speaker 1: Yeah,
Speaker 2: nothing's Valentine's Day. Like modeling.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, Maybe snacks, I don't know.
Speaker 2: We'll see
Speaker 1: anyway. So I do know that there are bars of every single direction from that place. They're all
Speaker 2: right. Downtown Nashville, so that's cool. So
Speaker 1: that'll be fun and we'll see what's cooking in that end of the tech world.
Speaker 2: Yeah,
Speaker 1: I assume that the following podcast will probably be review of what we find there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure we'll find a lot of cool stuff. I mean. Yeah. Plus it's a whole different. I mean I not used a lot of that, a lot of the software there. So I'm very interested to see kind of what it is literal Works a little bit but not much. So Um, it should be interesting and I love to see some demos of Katya.
Speaker 1: You love demos.
Speaker 2: I want to see some Katya demos.
Speaker 1: Yep,
Speaker 2: that'd be cool.
Speaker 1: Okay,
Speaker 2: so it hasn't composite simulation demos. Ooh, that'd be cool.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I have a feeling we're gonna come back with a lot of cards so they don't do that anymore. They scan matches
Speaker 2: no or not.
Speaker 1: It's,
Speaker 2: you know how much a seed of Catia was, you know, that we're not gonna come back with anything
Speaker 1: or responsive That's wrap it up. We thank you for choosing to take some time with us, and we look forward to future breakaways. Look for us on Instagram and Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter. And in person here in Tennessee, we asked me, share like And subscribe
