Too Much Pogačar, Time Trials Go Eddy, and the Factor ONE

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The Rundown: First podcast of the new year, and the guys waste no time getting into it. This one runs from the state of pro racing (and whether one rider is swallowing the whole sport) to a real talk about time trialing, training for it, and the bike that quietly became the hot seat topic: the Factor ONE. Still here, still riding, still making a podcast.

Too much Pogačar?

The year-in-review naturally lands on Tadej Pogačar, because how could it not. The guys go back and forth on it: the monument sweep, the way he rode the back half of the season, the sense that you already know who wins before the flag drops. Lance makes the case that watching one rider dismantle every race is genuinely impressive and a little numbing at the same time. Ian counters that dominance has always been part of the sport, we just have a front-row seat to this one in real time.

The honest take that comes out of it: nobody wants to root against greatness, but a race you can predict loses some of its pull. Jake plants the flag and owns it. He loves watching the guy ride and he is also a little tired of the result being a formality. That is just his take, and he is fine being wrong about it next season.

Time trials, the Eddy way

The conversation turns to the discipline nobody trains for and everybody fears: the time trial. Ian is running his Michael Myers Memorial TT as an Eddy-style event this year, road bikes only, no aero extensions, no disc wheels, no skinsuit arms race. The point is to strip it back to the engine and the effort instead of who spent the most on equipment.

That sparks a good back-and-forth on where TT bikes even sit now. The guys agree the full superbike TT rig has gotten so specialized, and so expensive, that for most riders it makes more sense to get fast on the bike you already own. A team TT comes up too, and the guys talk through the awkward beauty of it: four or five riders trying to suffer at exactly the same rate without dropping anyone or sitting up.

The training thread underneath all of it is the real value. Pacing a TT is a skill, not a gift. Knowing your number, holding it when your legs are screaming to back off, and not blowing the first two minutes is most of the race. A head unit that shows the data you actually need helps, which is why a lot of riders end up on something like the Garmin Edge 1050 for the effort, and a chest strap like the Garmin HRM 200 when they want heart rate to back up the power number. The gear does not make you faster on its own. It just stops you from lying to yourself about the effort.

The Factor ONE in the hot seat

Then the bike talk everyone was waiting for. The Factor ONE lands in the hot seat, and the guys get into what it is trying to be: a do-everything fast road bike that does not ask you to pick between aero and climbing. Jake has one on order and should have it at the lab in about a month, so this is the curiosity-first conversation, not the ridden-it review. He is honest about that. No verdict before the wheels turn.

What they can talk about is the philosophy. Factor builds the kind of bike where the details are the point, the lug-equipped cockpit, the integration, the way the brand sweats the parts most companies cut. Jake brings up his own Factor Ostro VAM as the reference, because it is the bike that sold him on what the brand does well in the first place. The ONE is the next question: does the all-rounder give up enough at the edges to be worth it, or does it genuinely do both jobs. He does not know yet, and he is not going to pretend he does.

One last thing

To close it out, Matt plugs the video he has been working on, a head-to-head comparison of the Garmin watch lineup against the other big name in the space. It is the kind of thing a lot of riders quietly want before they spend the money, a real-world look at what the watch actually does on the bike and on the run instead of a spec sheet read-aloud.

That is the new year opener. Pogačar, time trials done the honest way, and a Factor ONE that is one month from turning a pedal. The guys will be back, and so will the bike.

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