Who Is The Fastest GCN Presenter The 25 Mile Race Of Truth

It's rare that two GCN presenters go head-to-head, gloves off, mano a mano. Today, that's about to change. I'm going to take on Alex, and I'm going to take on Si to find out who is best. The stage is set. A brutal 40-kilometer time trial, which forms part of the legendary British hard riders scene. Who will win? Are we even up to the challenge in the first place? Oh, f**k, ow. The reason we don't normally race each other is because we're scared, frankly, of losing. That is why Ollie Bridgewood isn't here today, in spite of being the one to suggest that we come here early March to do a 40-kilometer hilly time trial. Yes, I think he's waxing his chain instead, or perhaps just fiddling with his ceramic jockey wheels. Which means it's left to us, which is why we find ourselves here at the quaint little village of Maiden Bradley, deep in the English countryside. Very early on a Sunday morning. Now, we're not just racing each other, of course. There are over 50 racers here, from grizzled veterans to beginners. It's open to anyone, this time trial, even triathletes, which is why Mark Threlfall from our sister channel, the Global Triathlon Network, is here as well. We want to beat each other, but obviously we want to beat Mark on his stupid triathlon bike. So to find out if we manage to do that, we'll head over to watch their video on the GTN channel, obviously after watching our video first. This challenge, though, is a simple one. Each rider sets off individually against the clock on a 38-kilometer or 24-mile course. There is very little flat and two chunky climbs to hinder progress. It's windy, it's cold, and the roads are good for England, but terrible for the rest of the world. It is going to be very, very hard. Now, I don't want to get ahead of ourselves here, Alex, but I have had a little look at the prize list. You're getting ahead of yourself already. Well, there is 15 pounds up for grabs. That's like 17 euros, almost $20. Right, really is down to business then. Let's do it. In the lead up to this, I have actually done a little bit of training, increasing my weekly average from six hours to seven, which doesn't sound like much, and isn't really, but I have tried to dial up the quality, both on my commuter work and also on Zwift. Alex, I'm coming for you. Be afraid, be very afraid. The trouble with racing Alex Payton is that I know full well he'll be unveiling some top secret piece of new tech and will have spent hours, if not days, getting his bike prepped. So I have tried to do the same. I'm going to talk you through it. First of all, you may remember that I took off a perfectly good power meter from this bike about a year ago in order to go one by. Well, 100% I need a power meter for this race, but I want to run my favorite Dura-Ace pedals, so as luck would have it, I found one. In true Alex Payton style, I have found a power meter. Here it is. I've also got a bigger chain ring on there as well. 52 now. I have put on some Ceramic Speed jockey wheels because I know that Alex will have Ceramic Speed jockey wheels and I want to level the playing field. I've got my fastest Vision wheels on here. These are the Metron 60 SLs and I've got some very fast tires on as well. So those are the Pirelli P Zero Race RS tires. Tubeless, 30 millimeters. If I'm being picky, I think I might have gone two millimeters too wide, but it works with Vanderpool, so probably going to work for me too. Up here, I don't think this is going to make me faster, but it does look cool. That is a new CNC machined mount from a Wahoo from Frames and Gear. The reason it's on here actually is because it's going to allow me to fit an Insta 360. Oh, and lastly, how could I forget? For the first time ever, I have waxed my chain. Give it a good minute of swizzle. Then pull it out and it should be good. Pull it out and then leave it to dangle? Leave it to dry, yeah. Okay. Look, it's got lumpy bits all over it. You know what, actually, it was quite good fun doing it, but don't tell anyone. Okay, Si has been giving it the big one in the office, telling everyone about how hard he's been training. He's been saying how amazing his fitness and form is on the bike. I'm slightly concerned, but I have decided to do what any self-respecting bike nerd would do, and instead of focusing on my own fitness and athletic ability, I've made sure I've got plenty of key upgrades fitted onto my bike. So I too have ceramic speed pulley wheels, but mine are far superior. I have the oversized 3D printed titanium ceramic speed pulley wheels. I also have a ceramic speed bottom bracket, and of course, a wax chain using Cyclo-Wax's race formulation, the exact same stuff that was developed for and used by Lidl Trek. I also have another upgrade, which I'm currently making to my bike right now. So here they are. These bad boys, ta-da, are literally brand new, right? These are the Vision Metron 60 RS SL wheelset, which is a top-spec speedy wheelset, but these ones are brand new and upgraded to make them even speedier. So the key to all this is here in the hub, because these are the ceramic speed special edition versions, which you guessed it, feature special ceramic speed bearings that are carefully matched to the tolerances of this hub to make them as speedy as possible, something I'm going to be very grateful of when we're out on our time trial. Ratchet PRS hub, of course, let's test it out. So I'm going to get these bad boys set up and fitted onto my bike, because I'm going to need some tires. And for that, well, I've also got a speedy Pirelli P Zero RS tires, same tires as Si's using, but I've got 28, so a little bit faster. Anyway, I'm going to get these set up, tubeless, ready, rock and roll, and I will see you out on the road. Now I really, really, really, really hope I beat Si in this time trial today, especially with all this equipment set up, because if I don't, I've only got myself to blame. Now this race will be my longest ever time trial. And in fact, I've only ever done a handful of any length before. So I'm a little bit scared, and I'm also slightly concerned that I'm going to mess it up. So I thought I would ask some people for a few tips. So this will be my longest time trial by quite some way. What would be my biggest mistake do you think that I could make? Probably pushing too hard on the hills. There's a lot of climbing on this course. Some of them are quite cheeky. So yeah, I would just measure your efforts on the climbs. On this course, going off too fast, it's a downhill start. It's down to the roundabout. So you can really smash it and put too many watts down. And because it's so hilly, you pay later. Okay, so pro tip, go steady. Yep. Definitely ride to the power you want to finish with. Okay. Right, Alex, good luck, buddy. Thanks, mate. Don't, I would say smash it, but don't, just. Yeah, yeah. Cheers. Three, two, one, go. Go on, Alex. And we're off. Three, two, one, go. Good luck. Trying to start steady. Although if I start too steady, it'll give Si a glimmer of hope. Trying to strike that balance. Hold back. I can see Alex. We're getting slow, mate. Aero, be aero, think aero. Get down, highs up, stay safe, stay aero. You're doing okay. Okay, increase the power. Not that far. All right, coming up. But after just 18 kilometers, I could no longer just see Alex. I was going past him. Now, question is, was I on a really good day or was I making the very mistake that I had just been warned of? I can't believe he called me for a minute. I think that was Si's strategy to try and break me. I'd be cruising. Stay safe, mate. All right, I've got him in the crosshairs now. Okay, now that's a head. All right, six to plant. That's awful. Can't talk. He's back. F***ing hell. I hate you, Si. Ah, you f***er. Right, we've got to get locked in. We're trying to minute deficit. I can't see that happening. But I'm not getting down without a fight. Ah, man. Oh, mate. You're just a d***head. Oh, that was so fun. I can't believe how fast you came past me. My head. Totally fell off. That's what I was hoping for. Yeah, I thought you were. Oh, my goodness, mate. I remember now why I've never wanted to do time trials. That's unreal. Oh, well, it may well have. You see, man, that was, I think we went quite quickly. I think so. GCN. Hey. Road bikes. Open first, Simon Richardson. 58.12. Second was 59.46, which is Alex Taiton. Wow. Turns out all I need to do all this time was work my chain and put some ceramic speed jockey wheels on. And there you go. I am happy. What about the endless hours of training you've been banging on about for the last month or so? What about that? It turns out that, yeah, doing a bit of training has also helped. No, I genuinely, mate, that was a good laugh, that was. I can't believe I got called out for being an old man in the results. That was the highlight of the entire day for me. Tell me, right, how on earth did you manage to overtake me twice? What was your pacing strategy? Well, there was a strategy to it. I know it perhaps would seem like there wasn't, so like I mentioned at the start, I was really concerned. I wanted to start steady, but I was worried that you would catch me early on. Turns out that's exactly what just happened. But in my mind, obviously these are the roads I regularly ride on because I live not that far from here. And I knew that that climb in the middle was a big boy. And I was like, right, I need to invest so much of my effort over the whole time trial into that. Yeah, when you caught me on that climb, alarm bells were ringing because I was so petrified that I was going to pace this badly and go out too hard. And I was riding a little bit over what I discussed in detail with Ollie Bridgewood last week. But I was like, right, don't panic, don't panic. I was doing 420 watts, and you just went woof. So what on earth were you doing? So as we came through into the base of that climb, I saw you and I was like, right, I've got him. He's 50 meters in front. And in my head I went, Si's absolutely getting out of this climb. And I was just like, I'm giving it everything I've got to the top. So I basically did around 450, 500 watts all the way to the top. And I was like, just absolutely have it. Yeah, nice. I did really, really suffer at the top. And then a few kilometers later was when you then re-passed me again. That's so funny. And then you passed me again and it was all I could do just to hang in there to the line. So I think actually I probably did pace it all right in the end. I didn't finish like uber strongly, but I didn't die. So yeah, I was quite happy with that. Do you know what? This is actually really quite good fun. I've been dodging time trials for about 30 something years now. And I don't know why. Maybe because you're cool. Well, yeah. That was cool. I, do you know what? And I love the fact that it's just easy, accessible. It was really chill. Everyone was just hanging out. We had a cup of tea afterwards and a piece of cake. It was very civilized at the end. It's just really good, isn't it? It was fantastic. I have had an absolute blast doing this today, but I've got to be totally honest with you. It's cut me deep that you've beaten me. Oh, mate. It's got me like I'm here for it and I got a lot of respect for you, but it just hurt me. All right, mate. You're cool. What's the next one? I don't know yet. Let it not be unbound. It's not unbound. Can we have a time limit on the cyclocross again? Yeah, I'll do cyclocross again. You got round one. Yeah. I got round two. Yeah, I'll do something else. Yeah. I need to do a bit more training. How about the National Gravel Series? That looks good. Two hour races. Yeah, I feel like that could, maybe that could be the middle ground. We've done a cyclocross race. We've done a time trial. Maybe we just need to do everything and then finish with a downhill race. One of these days, we'll persuade Ollie Bridger to join us. Right. Get involved in the comment section down below. Let us know what you think round three of Alex versus Si needs to be. And well, I'm going to get training. More training. I need to do more training and eat less cake. I hit the like button if you've enjoyed it and we'll see you on the next one. See ya.