Worst Cycling Tech Innovations of All Time | GCN Tech Show Ep. 206

It has been a while since our last cycling tech flops video, so this week Alex and Ollie are back with some more bike innovations that never kicked off, including hydraulic shifting, strangely shaped and spring-loaded cranks, siamese spokes and suspension road bikes! There's all this plus your weekly doses of hot tech, upgrades and the (super)nicest bikes from the bike vault!

This Week’s Poll:
What was the biggest tech flop/fail?

This Week’s Upgrades:
Girlfriend Peugeot vs Gravel Peugeot

This Week’s Bike Vault:

#Cycling #GCN #GCNTech #RoadBike

00:00 Intro
00:30 Last Week’s Poll
01:34 Biggest Tech Flops
09:18 This Week’s Poll
09:41 Hot Tech
13:34 Screw Riding Up Grades, Buy Upgrades
18:01 Bike Vault

What are your favourite bike tech flops? Let us know in the comments below! 👇

If you enjoyed this video, make sure to give it a thumbs up and share it with your friends. 👍

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Music - licensed by Epidemic Sound:

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[gcntech]

What do you think is the biggest bike tech flop of all time?

[snakeubowski]

Hey, "Snakeubowski" here. Thank you sooo much for featuring my Peugeot bikes. It really made my day!
Much Love and have a nice weekend!

[ruiloureiro]

Fun fact: 100% of the 3% that answered “who needs gears” ride in the Netherlands 😏

[arontal]

Love Ollie's snark with the filtration system. Spoken like a true scientist.

[robbchastain]

I like the theme of this episode's Bike Vault: Screw the drive side, Show the non-drive side. At least it makes the Bike Vault humorous and not so serious. And I like Peugeot Guy submitting two Peugeots, sort of pretentious with panache and they are French frames, after all.

[matteo.ceriotti]

Make sure you don't mention flops from your sponsors! Oversized pulley wheels, ludicrous AF lube, ceramic bearings... 🤭😂

[BrianRPaterson]

Beg to disagree about Maguras being flops.
I've got a set of Magura hydraulic rim brakes on my old Cannondale XS800 cross bike (with a Headshock) that I'm riding on the fairly rough, cracked and cratered, largely concrete roads we have in Hong Kong.

I'll agree, the Magura's aren't a patch on discs. But they beat any other rim brakes I've ever tried into a cocked hat. Plus, I've had them for getting on for 20 years now, and they still do the job. So long as I can find replacement pads, I'll keep riding them.
Cheers

[luukrutten]

Magura HS systems are actually good. And yes the Rotor groupset is still available now 1x but still hydraulic.

[dperreno]

As a Mechanical Engineer, I love the elegance of the Rotor hydraulic shifters - but they came too late. Electronic shifters were already well established and getting better with each generation, and there was no way anyone was going to jump on board this alternative system from a new entrant in the category. Too bad. I'd still love to have a set for my bike. I guess there's always eBay...

[kennethward]

Tech flop-Shimano ax aero brakes. Neither aero nor brakes, predated the Campagnolo delta brakes.
Friend of mine had them, said they were good for criterium racing because they never slowed him down, and he had to learn to use maneuver in lieu of braking to negotiate the pack.

[Nerzyster]

Guys, Magura is still producing HS brakes and they are great. You can find them on a bunch of city, trekking and urban bikes, both "normal" and e-bikes.

[Metal-Possum]

Talks about Zap, shows Mektronic... Mavic made TWO electronic drivetrains, Mektronic being released some years after Zap's failure. Let's not forget the electronic Suntour/Browning crankset, which used cleverly gated chainrings instead of a front derailleur.

[stephenchu]

In 1 year (or less), this tech flop episode will include the absoluteBACK oversized pulley cage. This product will sink this company as no one will trust them with their outrageous claims. Too bad because their chain rings are ok.

[christill]

I used to really want a Martyn Ashton trials bike with those Magura hydraulic rim brakes in the 90s.

One interesting thing now is that some Dutch bikes use the same type rather than disc brakes or roller brakes because they’re protected from damage when they’re parked in the typical Dutch style bike racks.

[kev]

Ollie is showing off his PhD and his 1980s childhood in this video.

[AmaroqStarwind]

Continuously Variable Transmissions are the future.

Except some people apparently don't know how they work.

[johnandrews]

Yep there's Alex slagging off rim brakes again. Seriously Alex.. I've got 44 seasons on rim brakes, racing and training and NEVER had an issue with stopping power or an issue related to 'cable stretch'. And my racing/training was all done in North America in rain, sleet, heat and snow. Stop slagging off rim brakes. THEY WORK, period, full stop. (see what I did there?)

[neilmdon]

Hah. I am an actual atmospheric aerosol chemist - that is an incredibly silly idea. There are “air cleaning filters” in the city of Xi’an that attempt to filter the entire city, and those are equally absurd. Happy to discuss the details but i’ll omit the academic claptrap…

[AnvilAirsoftTV]

Maybe not a tech flop but an interesting story of R&D budgets vs market reception. How about the development, creation and history of the DuPont/Specialised/HED tri-spoke?

[galenkehler]

#GCNTOTWFEM (GCN Troll Of The Week For Engagement Metrics):
Calling hydraulic rim brakes a flop is disingenuous, they were quite successful. Something isn't a flop just because new technology comes along, like friction shifters were good for many years but STI were just better.