Why I Bought a Gravel Bike - New Bike Reveal
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- Опубліковано 25 чер 2024
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Thank you for promoting bikes that don’t cost the same as cars!!
The bike actually costs as much as the cars of those riding 15k bikes... 😅
Goeie keuze Benji!
Benji I think you are doing a great job showing what it's like for most people's cycling journey. We all mostly start out on affordable equipment and I think you are showing that it is often more than adequate for the average cycling enthusiast. We need more people riding bikes to grow the sport and you are showing that it is fun and not the massive investment people (rightly, thanks to top end focused marketing) think it is.
It's even more than adequate for the above average cyclist. But people like to have nice things :)
For wet UK gravel paths, fit a Win Wing rear mudguard to keep the mud off your back. A 65 gm miracle. Good luck with everything Benji...
Or an ass saver at the very least!
Totally agree! Wet backside is bad for the skin and can bring down my immune system. Plus, staying dry and clean is just so much more comfortable.
Welcome to the gravel cult, you'll love it here
Me: Read the title and first idea was to write a comment: "Welcome to the cult"
Also me: Reading the first comment: "Welcome to the gravel cult"
😅
This channel deserves all the attention! Great moral values! Keep it up!
Love the videos. I used a hard shell bike box for years with no problems, then switched to the same bike bag you showed thinking a soft case would be easier and faster. I found my bike was more beat up in transit with the bag, the handlebars had taken some hard knocks and weren't in the right position. My friends first trip with the same bike bag, had a similar result as your bike. The airport baggage folks do not treat bike bags and boxes with any care. I immediately switched back to hard shell bike box for travel. No more damage in transit.
Benji: "Why I Bought a Gravel Bike"
Benji, again, looks left then right: "Where da fak do I find me some gravel?"
Great call on the gravel bike, both in terms of gearing and geometry. I would recommend getting a second wheelset for quickly swapping to road in the future!
Enjoy it. I recently got a CX bike and have decided to sell my old road bike to buy a 2nd set of wheels which will have road tyres instead.
Honestly, the geometry is not so different that I need both and the benefits of wider clearance and disc brakes means the new CX bike is adaptable enough to cope with both.
Who else observed, after Benji started getting fitter and fitter, he started using the 'f' word more and more?
As opposed to what?
@@sebastienmoreau-hutchins7644 as opposed to him NOT using the 'f' word so spuriously before . . . and this comment is NOT about ANY morality issue, just statistics . . . AND?
@@savagepro9060 fairs
It seems more to me like an effect of living in the UK ;-)
Yes Benji, back in the saddle!!!!
love your attitude, Benji! have fun with your new gravel bike. Just got one as my daily driver in August and I LOVE it! It doesn't matter what the path throws at me, I'm fine. With my expensive road bike that is not the case!
Congratulations on the new ride! Getting a new bike is always a special time no matter what you are riding! The gravel frame will give you some flexibility in where you can ride, however, I believe more importantly, believe the better gearing range and bike geometry will mean that you are much happier riding the bike.
My only suggestion is to grab a pair of road wheels and swap wheels rather than changing tires. The dedicated road wheels will perform much better and you only need to go through about 1 round of changing tires before that becomes a pain! There are so many great and reasonably priced wheel vendors out there that even if you had to pay out of your own pocket, you can get some great wheels at awesome prices. The various wheel vendors would be crazy not to hook you up with a set of wheels for a review and then having you ride them!!! If you can land some 9Velo wheels that would be incredible, Peak Torque and Hambini can't say enough good things about them!
Finally, I respect your position on a bike sponsor and not wanting to do something that is not appropriate for your channel/audience at this time....however....Team Lotto Dstny & Orbea definitely missed-out an a great opportunity in not bringing you on!
Just get some second hand alu wheels. Plenty of people upgrade the wheels on their race bike and those alu wheels are "worthless" second hand since it's nothing fancy/high end.
Sorry to hear about the bike getting damaged! I have the same bag and had it damaged in transit. Fortunately, my issue was just a bent rear derailleur pulley cage, so it was a relatively easy and inexpensive fix. That's awesome that the insurance company gave you the full value of the bike!
Nice choice Benji! I reckon Merida are generally the best bang for your buck in Australia, where I am.
I just got their scultura endurance bike on sale and am loving it. (Hoping the 35mm tyre clearance will let me do some minor gravel tracks here as well).
Nice!! Enjoy the new bike, look forward to a video from your Andorra trip
Fantastic Video again! Enjoyed watching and wishing you all the fun on your new bike! 🤙🏻🤙🏻🤙🏻
Good on ya Benji. Just enjoy riding!
Benji, it’s your judgement that is always spot on. Keep being you as you see fit and don’t listen to others.
awesome stuff Benji.
Ive always found that more versatile bikes tend to lead to much more frequent riding and bigger gains as youre out and about much more often, you also ride more often simply for enjoyment than pure goal driven riding . . so you end up improving significantly! Enjoy!
That sucks your bike got damaged, but glad the insurance company didn't give you BS and deny coverage. My favorite way to travel and ride is to rent a bike. I bring a saddle and pedals just in case I don't like the rental's. I'm pretty in tune with my bike fit and can quickly tweak any rental to fit me. I've also been impressed by how well maintained every rental has been.
Good choice, Benji. Enjoy the new ride!
If I sold all my bikes and started again, I'd buy a really nice gravel bike with two wheel sets, one for big burly gravel tires, and the other for road. Takes 45 seconds to swap wheels, and you're off to the races.
That's awesome that your insurance covered the damage. What happened to the old components? Did you have to send those in, return them to the bike shop, or something like that?
The insurance company is going to come pick it up for salvage purposes.
We have some great canal paths here in the UK! Great video, hope to see more of this. Also sliding the rear wheel is fun when you can control it :D
your stuff is quite real mate, you rock!
Good choice for your new bike - get a 2nd pair of wheels to easily switch between road and gravel setups and you should have almost any terrain covered.
It's quite baffling that even entry level road bikes aren't offered with easier gearing. Even as a slightly fitter cyclist I barely ever used the 11 tooth ring. So I swapped my cassette for an expensive 12-32 for smaller jumps.
I'm happy to see thatyou got a gravel bike! I think a gravel bike with two front chainrings is a better fit for most people than a racing bike
Veel succes in Andorra en blij dat er nog 1 “youtuber” menselijk blijft! keep up the good work, je bent een voorbeeld!
Great choice. Have fun on the UK bridleways!
congrats on the new bike Benj, looks sweet
Don't worry Benji, a winter riding up and down that canal path and you'll feel like Sven Nys.
Good vlog. I use a hard shell bike travel case for more protection. Good luck with the new Silex, they are a versatile bike.
Nice bike! I love gravel. I put some 30c tires on the stock wheels and ride it occasionally on the road. It is convenient to have two sets of wheels.
Good one Benji. When I got my Wilier Rave I went with GRX crank (48-31) for better ratios taking off the Ultegra (52-36). Never under geared and hardly use the 11cog anyway. No need to make the hill not fun!
Looking where you are you should check out the Downs Link once it's dried up a bit - very flat (and not very bumpy) off-road route the whole way to the south coast
I bought my first road bike from pedal heaven back in 2012 👏
I grew up in Farnham so riding round Aldershot/Farnboro isn’t great. If you can get the other side of Farnham there are lots of quiet roads up to Hindhead/Churt/Alton. For Grav fun I used to go through Alice Holt Forrest as it’s got cycle routes.
Goeie vid benji 🔥
Go hard shell bike box, heard bad stories about the soft shell bags. Look after the new bike, looks fun 🚴😁
What an awesome choice of bike. The best thing I have done was move over to a Merida Sculture Endurance, the brand is so underrated IMO.
Perfect bike if you live near Caesar's Camp, can spend all day in there on the gravel bike
I'll definitely go out there in the coming weeks when I'm back from Andorra.
Love the paintwork on your new bike. Glad you found a route you like away from cars. I'm in the UK and riding on the roads can be an unhappy experience at times. I'd be interested in hearing more about your thoughts on UK driving culture. I find it hard to find much decent gravel where I live, it's mostly just muddy fields and tracks for much of the year
For me the big plus with the gravel bike is being able to do a mixture of surfaces, so even if there's not a big % of gravel, or very "nice" gravel in your ride, maybe it works as a link between some nice bits of road instead of having to use something with fast or busy traffic to join them up on road. Here at least, I also found a lot more little bits of pieces of rideable options than i expected. it's not all special gravel in itself, but like before it can help make a better overall ride.
Looks like you're on the Basingstoke canal 😉 Nice new bike
You'll really appreciate the subcompact gearing! Makes the climbs so much easier, and you'll be able to stay in the big ring more often on flat roads. I'm actually considering moving away from Shimano groupsets because their road offerings don't offer anything less than a 50-34 crankset.
My last bike purchase was a gravel because of the same driver culture reasons. But the nearest gravel section is about 25 minutes away by car - so Zwift is the best option.
Love it! Please keep it coming! And go under that bridge. ;)
Never thought I'd hear the Groene 62 mentioned in a youtube video...
Zeer goede keuze! Meer heb je niet nodig. Perfecte alleskunner voor de gemiddelde amateur. Met 35mm slicks ook ideaal in Andorra.
Beautiful new bike 😍
Stoked that you rolled it straight into messy conditions. Next: cyclocross!
Nice one getting a bike with better gearing! Stay off the carbs my friend. Power to weight improvements will revolutionise your cycling.
Hope you continue enjoying the new bike!
It's sad but totally unsurprising to hear your feelings about riding on the road in the UK.
Drivers are out of control in this country and the media and now even the government are actually encouraging them to behave however they want.
De Groene 62 is inderdaad een beetje tam voor een gravelfiets. Proficiat met je nieuwe fiets. Get shreddy 🚵
Hope you really get the habit of training and develop consistency in your training. You have the right bike for you now and the extra gears will do wonders for your climbing. keep at it man! You'll know when you need a bike upgrade, you'll be riding so often that cheap parts wear out every 2-3 months and it becomes a hassle.
I am personally not a gravel rider, but I think you made a really intelligent choice with this, given your skill level. This bike is definitely going to improve your bike handling skills. The gearing is also going to be great fro you! Eventually, you're going to want another road bike though! Have a great ride, and never forget the N+1 Rule!
Benji your thoracic spine flexibility is crazy. A bit of work to lengthen the hamstrings and you'll be getting into an aggressive position in no time
I'm afraid it's more a "I slouched too much when I was a developer spine so it's now fucked" than actual flexibility. 😂
Looks like I'll be exploring that canal path at some point!! You got a root for it?
What works for me in the thick mud is to drop the cadence, relax (easier said than done ofc), shift weight forward and back and let the bike guide where you go. Unless it is into the canal of course then stop.
0:20 that foot wow
The paths on the canal is often called a towpath as horses used to use those paths pull boats in tholden days
I wonder how the horse went under that bridge back in the day :p
I’ve got that same exact Siroko jersey
South Downs way benji gotta do it
That's a great outlook to only ride a relatively affordable bike, and not chase a bike sponsor who supplies an upmarket bike. what I like to call 'a bike of the people'.😉🚴
As someone else said, slap some Schwalbe G-One RS in 35mm on those wheels, set them tubeless, and you don't need a second set of road tires. Unless you want to go riding through heaps of mud, then they are not the best.
Hi Benji, great video! For the bike fit app the discount code should be in all caps and not as indicated in the video comment! You should probably update the video description. I plan on using the app when my new bike arrives 😊
Thanks, mate!
Great choice! I‘m impatiently waiting for the 2024 model of the Silex to be available.
The bridges are crazy. Who came up with the idea to make them so flat that nobody can pass?
For combating the UK roads a gravel bike is the weapen of choice! Nice bike! What madness drove you to the UK in the first place?
I belive you made a great choice with that bike.
And if you are thinking of switching tires depending on what you need at the moment... maybe you can go for wider tires than 38mm for gravel? Or at least think of it when current pair will get used up.
I understand that you want to promote the bike fit app, but I was just wondering why you didn’t have your bike fitted at the store when you bought it. Did they at least adjust your seat angle? I understand that’s very important.
They offered adjusting the seat, but I knew I had to integrate a bike fit sponsor in the video anyway, so declined the kind offer.
Coincidentally, I've been looking at buying a Silex, you've convinced me.
If he wants better spots in Aldershot he should check out ceasar camp
soft bagz are for soft ….. fill in the blank
I like your POV on not having a bike sponsor. Super bike or budget bike, just get out and ride.
Sensible choice of the bike
This winter: Time for some cyclocross 😈
try to reach out to superior. affordable bike brand and their bikes are designed to be used on road and on gravel. Its in the 2K range, but I feel this is a perfect fit for you.
So what bike bag is that? We should all avoid that particular bag right?
As an armchair bike fitter, I noticed that after the seat height increase, you were bobbing up and down quite a bit compared to before. This suggests that change might have been a bit much and you might find you arent feeling too comfortable.
As a fellow chunki-boi, I recommend 11-36 road too! Great vid
The bobbing was related to the bike being on a turbo trainer without resistance (as it wasn't plugged in) so I was "falling through my pedal strokes", haha.
@@BenjiNaesenTV I should put more emphasis on "armchair" then, happy riding!
No, you’re right, he’s losing control at the bottom of the pedal stroke. Saddle is definitely too high. Many motion capture angle-based fit systems, including the really fancy ones, often result in saddles that are too high. I know the video is sponsored by the app, but I think any app would come with the disclaimer that final adjustments need to be done by feel. But it’s pretty obvious to me, having seen previous footage of Benji riding, he doesn’t normally ankle that extremely (nor should he) at the bottom of the stroke.
Actually, my saddle is lower than in my previous videos, by quite a bit, and I was perfectly comfortable during my rides since then. 😅
for sure too high indeed
Welcome to the dark side Benji - it's more fun here!
Smart choice, if I only had space or money for 1 bike I also would get a gravelbike.
Just mount that broken bike on the turbo and let it live there forever more!🤙🏻
Honestly prefer to rent a bike abroad because of this reason, I get emotionally attached to my bike can't bear the though of it getting hurt like this 😅
Love the bike, but it's impossible to get a proper bike fit with an app. It's probably better than no bike fit, but nothing beats a session with a good bike fitter. Probably not the best thing to be promoting.
Who cares, it pays the bills and people like you and me are smart enough not to buy into this nonsense. A decent bike fitter is someone who is more creative than just moving things around until all numbers are green.
Can we all just agree they are just 80’s mountain bikes?
Would decathalon not get onboard for sponsor maybe give you a new road bike, even if cheap and you can say how it is for you as a newbie/leisure rider. Unless you know your going to stick at it there is no need to buy a top of the range steed. I know Cade media have been doing a lot recently on budget bikes.
I just had the same experience on a flight to Amsterdam. Exactly on the same spot and ironically exactly with the same (pretty good!) bike bag. So fucking annoying. But at least mine was a steel frame, I can fix it.
My locally torched travel and travel bike is made out of tandem grade steel. After ask them about a dent I.acquired after a south america trip. "Keep riding that's nothing" they said 10year later still good.
As a guy who would like to fly with my bike. I hate that you can get on a flight and have got bike get totalled thru no fault of your own
That's why you should only fly with your bike in a hard case. A soft bag is good for throwing it in a car or van. Not for a plane.
Sorry Benji, now you have to grow a beard and a mustache to embrace fully the spirit of gravel
What bike insurance did you purchase?
Laka
your saddle is too high after the 'bike fit'
can somene from Canyon please give a call to Benji please? :)
Did you also buy another pair of wheels or are you gonna switch the tires on you wheels everytime?
For the time being, I'll switch tires until I get tired of it.
GET IT, GET TIRED OF IT. 🙈
Check out Specialized gravel tyres (the s works version). They have smooth tread in the middle like a road tyre and knobs on the edges for grip when cornering. A 40mm version will be perfect for sloppy UK gravel and road.
@@BenjiNaesenTV would discourage buying an additional wheelset (even if you buy additional rotors and cassette, you run the chance of the hubs of the two wheelsets not being exactly aligned to your calipers, so you might need to move your calipers every switch to avoid rub). Based on the video you posted, if that's the type of gravel you're riding, something like Continental GP urban 35mm might be perfect for all your riding, road and gravel
Just get Schwalbe g-one rs they're really fast even on road.
@@laughedcartman Listen to this man @BenjiNaesenTV . I have G-One RS in 45mm on my "gravel" bike (that I only use on the road, equipped with 105 Di2 2x12) and they are fast rolling and comfortable.
I also only have an under 2k bike, and every race I do I literally pass a million bucks in bikes. It’s not the bike, it’s what you do with it. I guess I’m looking forward to upgrade eventually but especially when you are new to cycling or don’t have the fitness 10000+ bikes and the position you ride on them are not that fun
and all those rough bicycle ways...i.e. bridleways
“Discount code not found “
It's "BENJI10" in all caps, my bad.
11-36 ain't much for gravel, in my view. That's a perfectly good chunki-boi road cassette though.
depends what you've got on the front i guess :)
30/36... .833 is the lowest ratio you can get on a drop bar groupset from either sram or shimano
I contemplated paying more for a wider gear ratio but considering what I'm planning to do with it, which is mostly flat and undulating gravel, I just didn't need it. 😄
What do you ride on your gravel? 30/36 is all you could need on gravel.
@@oliverp6770How can you possibly know what someone else needs? SRAM XPLR cassettes are 11-44. Mullet setups run 10-52.
My steel bike have dents I still ride them. My ALU bikes.... Replace. One sensible gravel bike and one sexy race bike but then the dreaded n+1 starts. Thus wife aggro begins.
i am also using my gravel bike as a road bike for more than 3 years now, can recommend!
Name and shame the airline that destroyed your bike!
Sell that bike bag and buy a hardshell case dummy. The companies that produce a bag to ship a bike are clueless.
Please less in video sponsoring!!!
I have 1 in-video sponsor per video. If you want less than 1, there’s no video.
@@BenjiNaesenTV Okay Benji! Keep going with creating nice videos!
saddle looks way to high after the "fit" you are heavily pointing your toes. those apps are complete garbage. sad that you promote them for money.
I usually take in feedback but what you’re saying actually isn’t correct. My saddle height after this bike fit is 1.7cm lower than the saddle height set by a professional bike fitter in April last year. I’ve ridden in this position for multiple hours now and its extremely comfortable. Anything lower would actually trigger hip pain which I’ve had on lower positions.
The reason it looked “high” on the trainer is because I moved up and down a lot due to the trainer not being plugged in, so there was 0 resistance on the pedals.
Professional retul bike fits use extremely similar technology, albeit from more angles, which is feedback I’ve given to the app developers and is something they’re are considering adding, so I have no issue promoting an app that uses similar tech as pro bike fits. It’s not like the app claims to completely replace a bike fitter anyway.