The guys are back after a month away, and they did not come back quiet. Episode 384 of the Dialed Podcast covers a Belgian Waffle Ride podium, one of the wildest mechanicals you will ever hear about from Unbound, an honest look at whether bike racing is quietly fading in the United States, and a 32-inch-wheel debate that nobody asked for but everybody seems to have an opinion on. Jake, Lance, Ian, and Matt cover a lot of ground here. Pour a coffee, settle in, and read on for the highlights. Then hit play above for the full conversation.
Dialed Podcast 384 Recap
Back From the Break, Loaded With Stories
It had been since May 3rd that the guys last hit record, so there was a lot of ground to cover. The episode opens the way every Dialed Podcast does, with the four of them settling into the usual rhythm. Matt gets roasted about whether his jersey still fits, Lance reminds everyone the show is somewhere around the 18th best US cycling podcast (the exact ranking changes depending on which spam email he is reading that week), and Ian and Jake round out the table. The math on the rankings is fuzzy. The chemistry is not. If you have listened before, this is the comfortable, familiar open you tune in for. If you are new, this is a good one to start with.
The Backpedal: Vans, Mallorca, and a Midnight Rescue
Every episode kicks off with the Backpedal, where the guys recap what they have been up to since the last show. With a full month off the air, this one was loaded.
Matt has been deep in coaching mode, running the state meet for his high school athletes and logging more running miles than usual, including a seven-mile day that felt like a milestone for anyone who has fought through running injuries. He shared a study worth remembering for any endurance athlete: injury risk has less to do with total mileage and more to do with how fast you ramp up. Spike your volume 30 percent in two weeks and you are asking for trouble. Build at roughly 10 percent per week and your body has a chance to adapt. It is common-sense advice that applies just as much to cycling as it does to running, especially as we head into the heart of the season.
Ian flew home to the UK to visit his mom, then escaped to the island of Mallorca for five hard days of riding. He raved about his new computer (more on that below) and gave a very honest account of the flat that ended his last day there, the kind of slow leak that turns into a full roadside saga and a ride home on a local bus. If you have ever traveled to ride and had your gear let you down far from home, you will feel this one.
Lance, as always, brought the chaos. He logged nine races in four weeks and capped it off with a midnight drive to Wenatchee to rescue his wife Brandy after the team van's alternator died on the way to a race she was supporting. The Backpedal is really Lance's storytelling segment, and this one delivered.
Jake kept it a little lighter, shipping a kid off to a summer semester in Florence and surviving a few days in the thick of New York City. His takeaway from the city? The sheer number of e-bikes everywhere you look. It makes sense in a place where owning a car is more hassle than help, and it is a small window into where urban cycling is heading.
Lance Lands a Belgian Waffle Ride Podium
The racing headline from the Backpedal was Belgian Waffle Ride California. Lance rode the wafer distance on a chunky, technical, singletrack-heavy course that played right to his strengths, and he came away third in his age group out of a massive field. That result put him in the running for the full BWR series, so he is now committed to the next two rounds in Utah and Montana. It is a best-three-of-four format, and he has a genuine shot at the series podium.
If gravel racing is on your radar this season, this is a great segment to listen to in full. Lance breaks down the course, the field size, and what it takes to be competitive at one of the biggest gravel events in the country.
Leadout News: A SRAM Surprise That Left Jake Speechless
The Leadout News segment covered the Giro d'Italia, which went about as expected, with Jonas Vingegaard taking five stages and teammate Sepp Kuss grabbing one for the squad. But the real moment of this segment happened back at the shop.
Derek from SRAM walked in the front door of the lab, pulled a signed Vingegaard Tour jersey out of a bag, and handed it over as a thank you for everything Dialed Cycling Lab does for the community. No strings, completely unsolicited. Jake admits he did not know what to say. It is the kind of gesture that reminds you why the relationships in this sport matter as much as the gear. The jersey is getting shadow boxed and hung in the new space, so if you are local, come by and check it out.
Unbound, Keegan Swenson, and a Freehub Rebuilt in the Dirt
If you only listen to one segment from this episode, make it the Unbound recap. The 200-mile gravel race in Emporia, Kansas was a muddy, rainy mess this year, and the Specialized off-road squad ran the table, going one, two, three in the men's race and one, two in the women's, with Sophia Gomez Villafane taking the women's win.
The story everyone is still talking about belongs to Keegan Swenson. When his teammate Mads flatted with a nine-minute lead, Keegan pulled off his own rear wheel and handed it over so Mads could solo to the win. Then, in true mechanic-under-pressure fashion, Keegan rebuilt his own freehub on the side of the road, including hunting through the gravel to find the missing pawls and spring after the cassette let go. He got it working, swapped to a fresh wheel at the next aid station, and still rallied to fifth. It is a masterclass in both selflessness and roadside repair, and it is the kind of thing that makes gravel racing such compelling viewing.
Speaking of viewing, the guys gave a well-earned shout-out to Lifetime for live streaming the entire 10-hour race on YouTube with helicopters and motorcycle cameras. That kind of coverage is a genuine win for the sport and a sign of where gravel is headed.
EPO Chain Mail: Choosing a Bike Computer
The EPO Chain Mail segment is where the guys answer listener questions, and this week kicked off with a great one straight from a fellow Vancouver, Washington listener: what bike computers are you using, are you happy with them, and are you thinking about switching?
This is a question we field constantly at the shop, so here is the lay of the land as the guys see it. There are really three major players in the bike computer world right now, and we carry all of them.
Ian is riding the Wahoo Elemnt Ace and loves it. It is the largest computer on the market, big enough that people at the start line regularly comment on it, and big enough that Ian can read it without his glasses. That large, bright screen is a real selling point for anyone whose eyes are not what they used to be. If you want the same Wahoo experience in a more traditional size, the Wahoo Elemnt Roam 3 and the more compact Wahoo Elemnt Bolt 3 are both excellent and both in stock. Lance runs the Roam and is a longtime fan of the Wahoo lineup.
On the Garmin side, the current generation is the 50 series, and we stock all three: the flagship Garmin Edge 1050, the mid-range Garmin Edge 850, and the compact Garmin Edge 550. Matt has been riding the Hammerhead Karoo (v3), the third major option, and has been happy with it while eyeing what is new from the other two brands.
If you are trying to decide between them, the short version is that any of the big three will serve you well, and the right pick comes down to screen size, ecosystem, and how you like your data displayed. Stop by the shop or browse our full bike computer collection and we are happy to talk it through.
One related rabbit hole the guys went down: the frustration of data not flowing between platforms. If you run a Wahoo computer, your rides will not automatically show up in Garmin Connect, which throws off all your training metrics. Every company wants to be the destination for your data, and none of them want to be the distributor. It is a real pain point, and worth a listen if you have ever juggled Strava, TrainingPeaks, and a sleep tracker that all refuse to talk to each other.
EPO Chain Mail: The Truth About Leg Cramps
The second listener question came from Randy in Vancouver: what causes leg cramping, how do you prevent it, and how do you handle it mid-race? This is one of the most common questions in endurance sport, and the honest answer from the guys is that there is no single cause.
Cramping can come from dehydration, low electrolytes, insufficient calories, heat, being undertrained, or simply your own physiology. Jake shared that his cramps historically hit early in the season, a neuromuscular fatigue issue from racing harder than his early-season fitness was ready for. He also learned to manage it by watching his power, staying under a ceiling of watts where the cramp would not get triggered, rather than spiking into the red with a hard surge. Lance pointed out that heat is a major multiplier for him: anything over 85 degrees and he needs to be far more on top of his fluids.
The practical takeaway is to cover all your bases. Stay hydrated, dial in your electrolytes and fueling, build your fitness gradually, and respect the heat. Nobody, not even the pros, has fully cracked the cramp code, but addressing every variable gives you the best shot. If you are tuning your fueling and hydration strategy, our hydration selection is a good place to start.
The Hot Seat: Is American Cycling Back?
The Hot Seat is where the guys dig into a bigger topic, and Matt opened with a timely one. The new Modern Adventure Pro Cycling team, George Hincapie's American outfit racing on Factor Bikes, just scored its first win at the Tour of Wallonie. So is American cycling back?
The verdict was hopeful but measured. There is no shortage of American talent, and riders like Sepp Kuss prove the depth is there. The real challenge is sponsorship. High-level racing lives and dies on whether sponsors see a return, and that is harder to pull off in a country where the cycling scene is spread thin across huge distances. The guys are genuinely excited to see another American pro team making a serious go of it, especially one connected to the community through a Portland-based sponsor, but they stopped short of declaring the sport fully back. It is a thoughtful, well-argued segment that any fan of pro racing will enjoy.
Why Bike Racing Is Fading, and What Might Save It
This was the heart of the episode, and the most important conversation the guys have had in a while. Across road, gravel, and cyclocross, race participation is down, and the reasons are stacking up.
Local promoters are getting squeezed by rising fees. Ian spent 5,000 dollars to put on his Barton Park Road Race and needed 100 riders just to break even. A Tuesday night series at Portland International Raceway was canceled outright because the promoter could not keep losing money every night. Layer on calendar fatigue from too many overlapping events, a dispersed population that makes it hard to draw a crowd, nervous road riders worried about traffic, and a tough economy where filling the gas tank competes with the race entry fee, and you get a sport under real pressure.
The guys did not land on a single villain, and that is the point. The decline is a composite of many factors, a lot like the cramp conversation earlier in the show. The path forward is the same too: address all of it, and find ways to make events unique enough to stand out. There were some genuinely good ideas floated here, including rethinking the calendar so events are not all stacked on top of each other. This is essential listening for anyone who races, promotes, or simply loves the local scene and wants to see it survive.
The 32-Inch Wheel Debate
The tech rabbit hole of the week was whether 32-inch wheels are the future of gravel or a fad nobody asked for. New gravel-specific wheels from ENVE are letting riders run bigger, more aerodynamic tire setups, and a handful of pros showed up at Unbound on full 32-inch bikes. Cam Jones raced one and finished 10th, a result that kept the hype firmly in check.
The consensus from the guys leaned skeptical. Bigger wheels mean more SKUs for shops to stock, fragmented standards across the industry, frames you cannot retrofit, and a minimum rider height just to fit the geometry, all in exchange for gains that may not be worth the squeeze. As Lance fairly noted, the industry said the same thing about 29-inch mountain bike wheels years ago before the whole sport adopted them, so never say never. But for now, the table was not convinced this is the next big thing. If you are shopping for proven gravel performance today, our wheel collection covers the setups that are winning races right now.
One Last Thing
Each host closes with a final note. Matt is testing the new TymeWear heart rate strap that doubles as a breathing monitor, a clever piece of tech that can estimate your ventilatory thresholds and VO2 max from a single strap. If you are into data-driven training, keep an eye out for his upcoming video on it. For chest straps you can buy and ride today, the Wahoo TRACKR is a solid, dependable option we keep in stock.
Ian gave a well-earned proud-dad shout-out to his daughter Hannah, who is graduating from the School of Architecture at the University of Oregon, finishing a five-year program in four years with a 4.1 GPA. Lance pointed everyone to his YouTube channel, where he has filmed a video for nearly every race he has done this year. And Jake marked eight years since the crash that changed a lot for him, a quiet, honest moment to close on. Still here, still riding, still making the show.
Listen to the Full Episode
This recap only scratches the surface. The full episode is packed with the kind of unfiltered banter, race breakdowns, and hard-earned wisdom that only comes from four guys who genuinely love this sport. Hit play on the player above, or find Episode 384 of the Dialed Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
And if any of the gear above caught your eye, from bike computers to wheels to heart rate monitors, we stock it all at Dialed Cycling Lab. Have a question? Stop by the shop or reach out anytime. We are always happy to help you get dialed.