Sea Otter Classic is North America's biggest bike festival, with thousands of riders descending on the Laguna Seca Raceway outside Monterey, California for four days of racing, riding, and checking out the latest wares from more than 900 brands in attendance.
I took a stroll around the massive expo and here are some of the highlights.
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Safa Brian & Tom Pidcock descend Tuna Canyon:
• Descent Disciples ||Vo...
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The Ride is supported in 2024 by:
Castelli clothing: tinyurl.com/43k6pftp
Giro helmets: tinyurl.com/72svzzxp
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First Endurance nutrition: bit.ly/41SDgqq (save 20% with code 'THERIDE')
Shimano shoes & glasses: tinyurl.com/ye274tep
Feedback Sports stands & tools: bit.ly/3S9Dq8r
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0:00 intro
0:27 Cadex
3:02 Smart
4:40 Invert gravel fork
11:35 Scott
13:01 Castelli
15:42 Chandi
17:49 Gary Fisher
20:49 Time
22:36 Buycycle
24:36 Reshift
26:44 3T
34:06 L-Twoo
34:40 FSA Vision
36:40 outro
Of the Sea Otter coverage i would rate that about the best. Interesting product choices and lacking cringe segments. Thanks Ben!
Great seeing you! What a show! Our first Sea Otter, so learning and loving. Bryan.
Nice seeing Gary. The clunker is cool. He lives around the corner from me!!!
Weather was perfect this year too, great Vid 👏 👏 👏 👏
Appreciate all the work (fun) you do (have), Ben!
Super report Ben, Thanks
Hey Ben, appreciate your efforts… nice great weather… what a bumper edition of gear! Enjoy and stay hydrated.
I miss the Time shoes and pedals from the 80s/90s. Great cleat fitting system!!!
Love the simple inverted gravel fork. Can't believe the $475 shoes. Folks on crack. Thanks for the show!
That's a $11-1200 fork....
Wonder how ride compares to lauf grit. Air suspension versus fiberglass springs. Cosmetically it looks different and can put some people off I guess. But it works well, 5 watts faster than normal fork (thanks Ben for testing) and simpler and cheaper.
@@jitterspec Gravel to me is full rigid..
@@tannermccormick4995 not even a carbon seatpost? ,:)
I was there. There was soooo much to see !
Wow, thanks, Ben, for walking all the floors of the Laguna Seca Sears store! And that gent with the World's First Gravel Forks has sold me, I'm convinced that we've been riding on small mountain bike forks, lol. And I still have a pair of NOS road suspension forks from the '90s and I think about actually installing them on a retro build or something. And not to be a wiseacre, this time, but how cool would it be to have a modern vintage class at gravel events, modern components paired with a replica Schwinn frame or thereabouts and MX bars. Gary is like Santa with all these gifts he presents us. 😀
Just to correct the gentleman at smart tires nitonol was invented at Goodyear aerospace. My father-in-law was the project manager. The initial purpose was to use with satellites.
Even before that, NITINOL, Nickel Titanium Naval Observatory Lab. It was originally investigated for sub launched nuclear missile nose cones.
Castelli: "it's the first time that we focused on making a jersey that fits well" 😬😬😬
Almost all brands claimed a first lmao. So much marketing BS with all those brands.
@@thedronescene7474The Cane Creek spiel about the “first gravel fork” was painful. It’s like these brands think their entire consumer base is made up of idiots.
Nitinol has been used for orthodontic wires for decades. Cool tire.
Glad you went to this thing..so I didn't have to!!! Watching these things makes me SO glad I'm no longer in the bike biz!!!
Cane Creek 100% found the Invert sales dude at a used car lot.
😂😂😂
"This car is lighter and simpler, because it doesn't have any shocks! But you still pay full price 🎉🎉🎉"
The fish! Awesome to see a klunker og bike 😀
Super excellent and comprehensive coverage - 2 awesome parts from the video “pray for speed”, and all high-end bikes should come with a power meter - stated Elegantly and respectfully of course 🙏 and man! That 3T bike - super capable and likely with a separate wheel set can be 1 bike for road and gravel - super cool geometry.
Feels like I was there! Nice video, Ben!
Nice video Ben. Thank you 👍
Props to just making one giant video!
I’m excited to hear your review of that CaneCreek gravel fork and the Berd Spoke gravel wheels. I actually have a custom set of Berd spoke alloy wheels for my hardtail that has super wide i35 and i40mm RaceFace ARC rims and absolutely love them. I’ll be getting a gravel set this summer, just deciding on the rims.
Yes, awesome coverage.
Great coverage, as always.
One of the better walk around videos I've seen. Good images and good extracting stories from the reps. It's actually interesting to see the different versions you got than I did in talking to some of the same people. My only ask is work on the audio (I know it's challenging)
Thanks for the feedback on the audio. I thought I had a good solution with a DJI gimble cam and two mics… but then that camera got smashed and I had to scramble, using a single action cam and a single mic. Doh! Thanks for your patience. 👍
@@TheRidewithBenDelaney Yeah. It happens. That explains why the issues with two people talking. Keep up the good work.
Everything the sponsored pro rider could want!
The claim of the "first" gravel fork is the funniest joke of 2024, cane creek should have announced on April 1. I mean you can argue for looks, it is a nice looking fork, but thats just subjective. The fact of the matter is Fox, Lauf, Rock Shox, and who knows who else have already got proven gravel forks already. (And the lauf already is an undamped gravel fork that looks better)
Thankfully, none of my bikes have fully integrated cabling through the headset. Therefore: equally thankfully, I can continue to travel happily with my classic Evoc or Scicon cases!
NASA indestructible tire is awesome. I loved every bike. If money were no object...
Does anyone know what the rolling resistance of the smart tire is?
Buy cycles pretty awesome have to admit!
Wren has already built the first inverted fork!!
I'll have the 3T gravel bike please 🙏🏻
Hope it’s better than the 3T Exploro that delaminated a few months into ownership that they refused to warranty. That thing was literally trash.
Gravel fork: will the tire hit the top of the fork upon full compression? Does the front end of the bike need to be higher to avoid this?
No - that would be a major issue. Frame geos need to be built to accommodate a suspension fork, even a short one, without affecting the head angle, but we are seeing many go that route.
Where's David Arthur?
Would the first gravel fork not be the Lauf? 🤔
Lauf, Fox, RockShox and MRP would all take issue with that 'first gravel fork' moniker, yes. 😀
@@TheRidewithBenDelaneyThe Cane Creek guy’s explanation of “first gravel fork” was excruciatingly cringe to listen to, your dubious tone was appreciated! 😂
@@Mockle07 He was just doing the song and dance and the product looks good, maybe not the first but the first of its type, the upside-down gravel fork? 😀
@@robbchastain3036 haha I like Cane Creek products, the fork looks pretty decent for what it is too but the guy is straight up lying and sounds like a sleazy lawyer or used car dealer when trying to justify the “1st” claim. I’m sure he’s a nice guy btw, the sales pitch was just was too cringe. It seems most people at shows like this feel like they have to go the extra mile and end up sounding like snake oil sales people.
@@Mockle07 We need a 60 Minutes report from Ben, is it real or marketing hype, lol.
😊
LUCY!
900 brands well 899 RIP Kona
Pour one out for them, eh? Did you see BRAIN’s coverage of how they set up a tent and then took it down before the show opened?
3k for an alloy gravel bike Scott be tripping 😂
Thanks but during your interview of Cane Creek guy, you had camera on his face entire time and not on fork as he was explaining and pointing out functionality. Otherwise...great job as always.
Good feedback, thank you. I had a camera get smashed up and die - which kinda threw me off my game a bit.
I always maintained that Rick Nielsen from Cheap Trick would provide a Newer Breezier Prospective to all the bike Channels not just this one .
even the shoes are outrageously expensive 😟
Marketing from Cane Creek is just ridiculous. Did they forget lefty exists for more than two decades and it’s not the only inverted fork
still lose my atac xc12 for basically everything lol.
Firstly, thanks as ever for the videos. Ben, as a former marketing man, how do you view shows like this when you have myriad brands basically just lying to you and the wider consumer base? So many brands claim things that aren’t true or put a wildly positive spin on something that is literally just yet another version of what has been around forever. I understand that brands need to create stories and/or headlines but you can’t just say any old shite and expect people to believe it can you? I know you show an honest, balanced view in your actual reviews so listening to the guy from Cane Creek (to pick one) must surely have been slightly cringeworthy? P.S. those blue S-Phyre shoes have surely got your name on them? 👌🏼
Thumbnail: Does Ben look like Keegan Swenson???
So, Ben is Keegan’s father? Who knew?
Imaging working for a bike company, presenting at a show and then struggle to even mention the key features of the product……. Looking at you Chandi……..
Hey Ben grab your friend a whole bunch of free stuff
Funny thing witb all the bikes showcased at SO - they push king headsets and high pivot point chain idlers. Just dont see either on the trail. Does market really want it or just something new to sell? It wasnt long ago that manufacturers had us abandoning standard frames for integrated hesdsets.
That giant bike was so lame What in the world are they thinking lol
just 15 seconds for the most interesting brand of the video? :/
Which one is that?
@@TheRidewithBenDelaney ltwoo
@@Carftymk I rode their gravel group the second day along with the Invert. Stay tuned for more.
Sad to see what mountain bike world has become…..used to be just the big brands and their idiot marketing… now it is a generational problem as well. I am glad I gout totally out of the bike industry before it became this.