 Welcome back to another video, today I'm going to be taking you through the bike that I used to get a top 5 finish at this year's Belgian Waffle Ride Cedar City. I'll be talking about tires and tire pressure, some weight weaning stuff that I did with my setup, some key components on my bike that I think are absolutely crucial for grapple racing, and some last minute changes that I had to make right before the start. This video is sort of a part 2 to my BWR race report video, which you should definitely check out if you haven't already. I wanted to get into detail about my bike setup in that video, but it was already getting long enough, so I decided to make a second video just addressing bike setup. Let's go ahead and get into it. For this event I went with the Niner RLT9 RDO, which is Niner's Carbon Gravel Race Bike, and at 510 I run a 56cm frame in this model. This frame comes with bolt holes on the top tube to attach bolt on frame bags, which looks super clean. For long gravel events, the top tube frame bag is a must for me. I keep gels in there, and it allows me to keep my jersey pockets from overflowing, which was especially important as I opted for a starlight apparel skin suit for this race to get a little bit more of an arrow advantage as I knew the speed would be high. Of course, just remember to zip it back up after you get your snacks. I forgot to do this at about mile 90 of the race, and lost some of my nutrition on a bumpy section of gravel. Fortunately, the lead moto that was following the lead group had gels for us to use. For wheels I ran NV's 3.4 AR disc. This is not your typical aero wheel. It's super wide with an internal width of 25mm and an external width of 32mm. This width means that the rim plays really well with wide tires, not just because the tire sits wider in the rim, but also because wider tires with wider rims are actually more aerodynamic than wider tires with narrower rims. These rims are specifically designed to improve aerodynamics when using a wider 28-32mm tire. Of course, I ran tires a lot wider than that for this race. The race organizers told us that a 40mm tire was probably the optimal width for this course, but I actually opted for a slightly wider tire with the 42mm Specialized Pathfinder Pro. I'm glad I did too because there were sections of this course where we were absolutely flying and hitting rocks and holes with little to no warning. And then of course there was the single track section at the end. Obviously, a 2.2 mountain bike tire was probably the optimal tire for this section, but would have been a drag on the rest of the course. Having a slightly wider gravel tire was welcome on this section though, especially after 115 miles of racing. I talked about how impressed I was with the Pathfinder Pro tire in an earlier video, and that has not changed. The smooth center tread is almost as fast as a regular road tire when you're on the pavement. I'm not going to believe that until you post up some bike path KOMs using those tires. Everyone knows that KOMs are the ultimate form of evidence. The side knobs offer good cornering grip, and the tire is actually pretty puncture resistant. In fact, I actually haven't gotten a flat on them all year. Now this may have something to do with the secret weapon that I'm running inside the tire, which is a tuba light tire insert. I've said this before, I think that this is a game changing product for gravel racing. That tires are pretty common in gravel racing, and it's not too surprising because you're hitting small rocks and holes at high speed. This tire insert greatly reduces your risk of getting a flat and allows you to run lower pressure. For example, for this race, I ran just 27 psi in the front and 29 psi in the rear. This may seem extremely low, especially if you're coming from road, but it's actually faster to run a tire of this width at that pressure if you're riding on chunky gravel. To get a better idea of what tire pressure you should be running, I highly recommend checking out the Silca tire pressure calculator. I'll leave the link down in the description. On top of all of this, the tuba light inserts weigh just 23 grams in the gravel version, well worth the small weight penalty for the added protection. Did you just say worth the weight penalty? Dude, not only do these things add weight to my bike, but they also take away one of my go-to excuses when I get dropped. Yeah, no thanks. For my drivetrain, I ran a Shimano GRX 800 groupset with an 11-34 cassette. For chainrings, I had a 50-tooth big ring and a 34-tooth small ring bolted onto a SRAM-RED Quark D0 power meter. I know a lot of riders are going with one chainring on the gravel bike, but I actually prefer to stick with two chainrings, and it's not just because of the wider gear range, but also because you don't have to cross chain as much. If you have one chainring, then your chain has to bend a lot laterally when you're in your easiest or hardest gear in the back, which costs you power. However, with two rings, you can keep your chain better in line. To get a better idea of how much a 1x drivetrain might cost you, fellow news reported on a test done by Leonard Zinn at Ceramic Speeds Laboratory. The results showed that the average frictional loss with a 1x drivetrain was 12.24 watts. The average frictional loss with a 2x drivetrain, 9.45 watts. Speaking of power loss from the chain, it's probably a good time for me to go over what tools I was carrying during the race. To start, I carried a small bottle of Squirt Chain Lube, which I would apply mid-race. Not only are these small bottles easy to carry in a Jersey Pocket mid-race, but Squirt also makes one of the lowest friction chain lubes. Relubing mid-race is important for most long distance off-road races and was absolutely critical at Cedar City, because the course was so dusty and the drivetrain would collect that dust and start making noise. And if you can hear your drivetrain, you're losing a significant amount of power. How much power? Well, under the worst conditions, you could probably be looking at efficiency losses of over 20 watts. I got a bunch of comments in the last video about how exactly I lubed my chain while riding. So I'll do my best to explain. I would wait until a slight downhill road section and then unclip with my right foot and keep pedaling with my left foot while I bent down to lube my chain. If you try to lube with your right foot clipped in, your foot is going to get in the way. Believe me, I've tried. I did this twice over the course of the 125 mile event. I also carried a small lightweight multi-tool, a 25 gram CO2, and a Stan's Dart plug in case of a puncture. Notice how I didn't say tube. That's because for this race, I actually didn't carry one. Finally, something I can agree with you on. If I get a flat, I just ask my riding buddies for a tube. Saddle bags are so not pro. So what's with the decision not to carry a tube? Well, given the strength of the field, if I were to get a flat that I couldn't fix with a plug and had to put a tube in, then I'd already be out of contention for a high placing. Not to mention that if you do have to put a tube in during a gravel race, then your chances of getting another flat skyrocket. I talked to multiple people after the race who got one flat and then continued to get many more flats throughout the day as they pinched their tubes. So if your tire plug doesn't work and you have to put a tube in, make sure to put a lot of pressure in there or else you could be looking at a long day on the bike. And don't get me wrong. I wouldn't pull out of the race if I got a flat. I'd do my best to get to the finish. Pulling out is always the last resort. While we're talking about dumb weight-weaning advice that you should definitely not take from me, let's talk about pedal and shoe combo. A lot of riders run mountain bike pedals and mountain bike shoes for gravel racing, but you do see some riders run road pedals and road shoes. I actually run mountain bike pedals with road shoes. Why? Well, for starters, it's the same combo that I run for mountain bike racing, so it's easy to swap over. But also, road shoes can be significantly lighter than their mountain bike shoe counterparts. There can often be a 200 to 400 gram difference depending on the model and brand. That makes sense, but why use mountain bike pedals? I personally run the Crank Brothers Eggbeater 11 pedals and at 180 grams, they're actually lighter than most road pedals. And if you get into some mud or have to get off your bike, the cleats don't get gunked up making it hard to clip in. Fortunately too, Crank Brothers makes a three-hole mountain bike cleat so I don't have to do any drilling into my expensive carbon road shoes. Speaking of which, the shoes that I ran for this race are the Jiro Empire SLX, which are super light and come in at 185 grams per shoe. Just to close out this weight-weaning segment, in my Shenandoah 100 video, I talked about how I need to start using a GoPro during these races. Well, I actually have a GoPro, but given the strength of the competition, I didn't want to put myself at any disadvantage, so I was actually just too much of a weight we need to use it. Fortunately, there were a lot of people out there getting footage, and that's what I used for my video, so big thank you to all of them. I left links for their channels and websites down in the description, so please go and check them out. Back to the bike check, I ran a carbon NBC post with a carbon rail Specialized Phenom saddle. Interestingly enough, I have both the S-Works and non-S-Works version of this saddle, and I actually opted for the non-S-Works version even though it's a little bit heavier, because it has a little bit more give to it, which makes it quite a bit more comfortable over a long day of gravel riding. You know, I was really starting to get into this video when you were talking about how light your shoes were and how a GoPro is too heavy, but now you just lost me again. A heavier saddle? Ugh. Alright, let's talk about this cockpit. We should probably address the elephant in the room first. Yes, in this bike check footage shot the day before the event by Envy, I do have arrow bars on my bike, but the next day during the actual race, no arrow bars. So what gives? No, I wasn't trying to psych out my competition, I did fully intend to run arrow bars for this race, but the night before the event, somebody sent me a message on Instagram saying that they thought that arrow bars weren't allowed at BWR. The next morning, I got to the race about 30 minutes before the start and asked a race official, and it turns out he was right. No arrow bars at BWR. So there I was, taking my arrow bars off about 20 minutes before the gun went off. Honestly, man, you should probably buy that race official a beer. You saved you from completely embarrassing yourself. To be honest, though, I don't think they would have made a whole lot of difference at this race, and here's why. For the first 105 miles of the race, I was working in a group and the only thing they would have done is allow me to pull through a little bit faster when it was my turn at the front. The race was really decided on the big climb at mile 105 and the four mile single track section right after that, both of which I wouldn't have been able to use arrow bars on. And in fact, having extra weight on my bars may have just slowed me down. Moving on to the rest of the cockpit, I ran an envy arrow stem 100 millimeters in length and a negative 17 degree rise. In order to run this stem, which uses a proprietary top cap to make it more aerodynamic, you have to take off any steer tube above the stem. So durian rider would be proud. Actually, I take that back. He'd be pissed because I had disc brakes on my bike for handlebars. I use the envy roadbar in a 40 millimeter width, which is pretty narrow, but I do that to get in a narrower, more aerodynamic position. This is also the reason why I don't run a typical gravel handlebar that's flared out in the drops. When I'm in the drops, I want to be as aerodynamic as possible and having a wide bar that's flared out is not the best way to do that. To keep things comfortable in the drops, I run roadtogs, which act as a thumb rest. During the course of a long race when you're spending a lot of time in the drops, these help to make that position more tolerable. Finally, we have the Shimano GRX hoods and levers. One thing I love about these is the ridges on the hoods and the slightly wider brake levers, which give you a bit more confidence that your hands and fingers won't slip during technical gravel descending. Thanks for watching. If you want to stay up to date on my racing and bike setups, the best way to do that is to follow me on Instagram. I also announced when I post new videos there. If you enjoyed this video, give it a like, subscribe for weekly cycling videos just like this one, and share this video with your cycling friends. I'll see you in the next one.