 This video is brought to you by Squarespace, from websites to online stores, and even marketing tools and analytics. Squarespace has got you covered. The earlobe came off. Does this water bottle leak? Wait, two minutes. So, welcome back to the Friday vlog series, where it's at eight. How's Thursday? Oh, no. It looks like you've dislocated your shoulder right about here. Hi, guys. The reason why we do the Friday vlog series sometimes on Thursdays is so we can get ahead of the game, so I'm not actually rushing to get the video live on Friday. So, yes, it is Thursday. Part number one is why I choose SRAM, SRAM over Shimano. And part number two is just a bit of an update what's been going on behind the scenes, including a bit of a change to the channel format. Just a slight tweak. Ruby, did you have something to say? Yeah. I'm going to fizzy after school today, and I get to wear my new uniform. What's fizzy? It's all the dancers put together. Oh, nice. So, mummy is away. I'm looking after the kids for the next three days. Solo, dadding, and we're stopping at my favorite coffee shop in the Sunshine Coast, Punchier, for a preschool coffee for me. Muah. Love you, have a good day. Love you. So the kids are at school now. Just jumped in Lycra. It has stopped raining for the first time in a long time here on what is apparently, it's called the Sunshine Coast where I live. It's not the Sunshine Coast during February, and for this part of the video, I thought I would jump on the Chapter 2 Railway. This is where the story started for me in terms of my favoritism towards SRAM. So, let's go for a ride, and I'll explain to you why. So we are at the Giroin Sporting Complex. I'm on the Crit Track here, and before we get into this little discussion, I wanted to thank today's video sponsor, Being Squarespace. If we actually have a look at my wife's website here, which was built just recently, it's on a Squarespace platform, and you can see how clean, simple, yet intuitive it is. And my wife, who's a non-techie, personally loves how easy it is to go into the back end, altered text, layouts, color schemes, et cetera, without needing any development skills. If you're keen to get a website off the ground, go to squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com backslashcamnicles to save 10%. See all the relevant details below in the video description area. So first things first, outside of today's video sponsor, and thank you so much for your support, I'm not getting paid by any of these brands that I'm talking about today, SRAM or Shimano. Clearly not Shimano, but a lot of you might be thinking, SRAM's behind this, this guy's getting paid. I'm not getting paid anything. Yeah, right, mate, what are you doing the video for then? It's a really good question, and one that's worth answering. And essentially, big project on the channel is building up a super lightweight bike, the Factor O2 VAM. And we're gonna be putting some components on it. Obviously, I put those components to vote on the channel, and also on my Instagram. Got heaps of votes, SRAM Access E-Tap versus Red Mechanical 22. One super light, one's new tech, but I also got a ton of questions. People asking, what about Shimano? What about Durace? And I answered many of those questions, but I couldn't get to all of them. So I thought with all these questions coming my way, why not create a video about it and explain to you why. And I don't wanna disappoint the tech heads. This isn't a super technical video where I'm gonna blow your mind with some bit of analysis or something that I found within SRAM versus Shimano that's gonna change the way that you select your group sets. This is more of a personal story. And some of you might be thinking, if it started with the Chapter 2 Rare Ray, then clearly it's the one bike. That's why I'm a fan of SRAM, because Shimano don't offer this system, and I love this system, because number one, the gear change is amazing. And number two, this chain has never, ever come off, nor has it ever looked like coming off. But it's not one bike. It's something else. So I'm just looking at the radar here on my phone, and I don't wanna get this camera wet. Not the bike wet really. It's already got a bit wet because the ground is pretty saturated. So let's go home and finish off this video. So let me tell you back to 2018. And in 2018, I was an absolute nobody in the cycling industry. And look, I still am a nobody, but back then I was a real nobody. And also I was dead broke. I'd been working for over 12 months on a company called Bike Chases, an online marketplace for bikes. And I hadn't been getting paid anything. So I'd sold my car, I sold my specialized S-Works, Time Mac and bought an LA Sprint, so I could at least ride around on something. And I had no money to funds any bikes or any equipment, but I wanted to get a new business off the ground. I wanted to leave Bike Chaser and start my own YouTube channel. And I wanted to have a cool project when I started the YouTube channel, because I wanted to engage the audience. So what I did before I started this YouTube channel is I reached out to a number of brands to see if I could build up a criterion bike at a discounted rate in return for content. And this is it right here. Chapter two rare, my dream criterion bike. I'll put the video up here somewhere. It's my most popular video of all time now, but back then no one knew what was gonna happen. And essentially I reached out to these brands to see if I could get the bike at a discounted rate in return for content. And I'll be forever thankful to Mike Pride from chapter two for leaning in. But I also reached out to SRAM and Shimano. And I don't wanna talk out of school, but the Shimano rep who I eventually got hold of over the phone, he kinda laughed me away as if to say, who are you? Why would you even bother calling us up asking for such a thing? And to be honest, I don't really blame him. I was an absolute nobody. But then I got an interesting call from the general manager of SRAM in Australia. His name is Rob Eva. And he had read my email and had even watched a video that I'd sent him. An example video of some content we'd made on bike chaser. And he heard me out. He listened to my vision. And then we had another conversation. And then another conversation and they ended up, so there it is, SRAM Force One Buy. I do absolutely love this group said, I'm not just saying that. But the thing about Rob, at that point in time, he did not need to give me his time of day. He did not need to even respond to the email, but he called me up. He leaned in. Maybe because he thought of me as a bit of an underdog, somebody who was trying to have a crack, kind of similar to SRAM's story against Shimano in the industry. I'm not exactly sure why, but I'll never forget that. He could have told me to bugger off, but he didn't, he leaned in, he engaged with me and he gave me an opportunity and I'll be forever grateful. So it's an emotional thing that makes me wanna buy SRAM a lot more than Shimano. I still buy and use bikes with Shimano as per the BMC team machine and the Giant TCR. So if the bike comes with it, I'm not gonna deny it, but if I have the opportunity to put these group sets onto a bike as I do with the Factor O2VAM project, I'm gonna go for SRAM. So part two of this video, Rossy, you here, mate? Rossy, come on, up here, good boy. Over here, no, no, no, over this side. Come on, he's just gone over here. Come on, over here, over here. So the second thing that I wanted to share with you is a little bit of what has been going on behind the scenes, notably some changes to this channel or some tweaks, I should say, because what's happened in the last couple of months, we've had a big change on the channel. We've moved the RCA training tip show, which was on a Wednesday. We've moved that to a new channel and I'll link to that new channel below if you wanna check it out. But as a result, it's kind of left me with where do I do reviews, where do I do stories, where do I do training tips, et cetera, because I don't wanna muddy the waters. This is supposed to be more of a, as you can see, casual vlog-style series where we're sort of, you know, my kids, my wife are in it, riding around, dogs relaxing on the couch, et cetera. And as I said, I don't wanna muddy the waters. So what we're gonna do is keep the Friday vlog series the way it has been going. But on Wednesdays, incorporate some reviews, some training tips, et cetera. That's external to the Road Cycling Academy training tip show. It'll just be on this channel instead and that way we sort of keep the format the same and I don't muddy the waters with people that like the casual side of the Friday vlog series. What's been going on behind the scenes? Well, Rossi's full Rancho Relaxo mode. My wife Alice is away at the moment. She's in Byron Bay on a bit of a business trip. So I'm solo doubting it at the moment. And I've been super busy on the Road Cycling Academy. We've just hired a brand new coach. Ryan Thomas is his name. He's helping me out with the Road Cycling Academy for the Aussie clients, which is cool. Back in last year, got a coach on board in the UK, Danny Roberts-Clark as well. So RCA is kicking some goals, which is awesome. It's great to have those guys supporting me so I can spend more time on content creation, which is what I really want to continue to do. And that is pretty much it. If you've gotten value out of this video today, I always forget to say please give it a like. If I don't say it, people will forget to do it. So give it a like and I'll catch you in the next video. I don't wanna walk away, wait till we fast up. Walkin' straight with the jazz stuff. I know I will leave.