I'd like to think that a certain person who has been badmouthing ZFC is feeling rather foolish after this... I mean you can't get much more open and honest than having the company balance sheet online for all to see! Great video as always Adam.. thanks 😉
@zerofrictioncycling9924 ай бұрын
how the person is not feeling foolish 100% of the time is testament to many things about them.....
@simongreen45734 ай бұрын
😂😂😂😂 Excellent & well said! Conversely, how you've not got involved in a mudslinging rant with that person is a testament to you 😁 It's all too easy in this modern world of Internet anonymity for some folks to behave absolutely terribly & I hope they get reprimanded for it. Good luck on the bike this weekend!
@zerofrictioncycling9924 ай бұрын
@@simongreen4573 that person just lives to make up whatever he likes to try do damage others and create drama. and there will always be people like that (and personally i think they should be called out a lot more). The sad part re the internet age is just how many sycophants such obviously horrific people manage to get. How he has devoted followers backing such a person.....and how easily fooled so many are......insert sigh here....
@coops777-qj1kj4 ай бұрын
doubt he cares...based on how many views he gets across his 300,000 yt subs he'd be making 150-200pa as an educated guess based on data and he doesnt work...pretty good life there
@zerofrictioncycling9924 ай бұрын
@@coops777-qj1kj dont be fooled. His instagram life aint his real life. Word on the street in adelaide is he is basically living in squalor. Maybe he should do a vid of his home vs his showing off other peoples stuff. How many views do most of his get vs his subscribers? Its about the lowest ratio you will ever see. Again word on the street + basic logic = how many are bought and not real to fluff the numbers. Some of his vids of insidious made up crap about zfc had less than 2k views after weeks of being up. From 300k subscribers!!! that is not possible, even if most of the subscriber base not directly interested, there would be way more views than that just to hear him rant and shit on someone again, thats why they follow him. I know how much YT brings in for me for 2k views, and it aint much :). Even if he is getting 100k views a week - that aint much of living. I can extrapolate out my monthly views and earnings to 100k views a month, and i would be a broke ass man. And that lines up with the rumors about his living. And it lines up with the rumors about bought subscribers. If he didnt care, he wouldnt have made what - 12 video's making up crap about me and zfc?! Despite them being the lowest viewed videos he does? have another ponder coops.
@colinl29084 ай бұрын
I think your prices are reasonable and I admit looking at the Pushys site to compare. Buying a pre-prepped chain just made sense and I prefer to purchase from the store that provided the advice which got me interested in waxing. Sure you could buy a cheaper chain and stripper elsewhere, but to me using your store was like a patreon donation to support your YT effort for producing interesting content. A great lesson for students on the world of business.
@geoffgoldplum12314 ай бұрын
Zero friction, max transparency! Obviously prices on the site are not expected to be the cheapest, but any lower and this would be straight volunteer work. Good thing the YT channel makes heaps and heaps to plan your vacations with, right
@zerofrictioncycling9924 ай бұрын
hahaha yeah YT is currently raking in about $250 a month woohoo!
@jasonlyster24084 ай бұрын
With the chain lasting such a long time, the little extra cost to buy a pre-prepped chain from ZFC seems a no brainer 😊
@n0ch91c3s4 ай бұрын
Some large chain shops have their own house bicycle brand. When they have that, they can buy components at "manufacturer" prices. That's what Chain Reaction etc were doing. They would purposely order way more components than they would need. More recently, some component manufacturers started basically auditing them, ensuring the components were ending up on bikes. They now track part serial numbers, and if the part you purchased aftermarket was supposed to be on a bike, your warranty might get denied. Anyway, we'll see.
@colinl29084 ай бұрын
That's an interesting point and wouldn't't have thought of that. People/companies seem to mess up the status quo with loopholes like this, making life more difficult for normal bike shops and other retailers. In the end all for nothing.
@dominicbritt4 ай бұрын
The simple fact is that Distributors give larger retailers a preferential trade price - their preference is volume over a sustained market for their Brands. There is not an even playing field in the market so it’s actually in the customers best interests to buy from a local store.
@tstigge4 ай бұрын
Thank you for your transparency. This was quite interesting. I have wondered how sometimes places will sell certain items so cheap and then others above retail. I appreciate the information you share freely about chains, friction, and the industry in general.
@krautergarten45294 ай бұрын
Hey engineer here, would be nice to have some commercial lubricans in the charts ... that stuff with actual datasheets, motor oil, bearing oil, ... would for sure help a lot of bikers not get caught up in the snake oil cycle ... thanks for the candle wax in the charts 👍
@zerofrictioncycling9924 ай бұрын
yep i would like to test more of that stuff too - it is just time resources and machine availability. I am trying to keep one machine free for open testing (and two are normally fully booked for months for private testing) - so each open test at the moment i am mostly rotating through an exciting product that has a chance of being something, a product whose marketing claims vs reality i have deep concerns about, and then popular requested test. Last open test was general purpose oil (singer). Over time i hope to get to more just curiosity tests like above but there are SO MANY products to test, and each test takes weeks to month + to test. I will not run out of stuff to do anytime soon.... :)
@joshuabuilds30514 ай бұрын
24:04 Dont knock my kitchen I do some good chains here lol
@johnconnor72014 ай бұрын
Great video! Most don’t understand the economics behind small business. Hopefully your transparency will provide cyclists insight into why one should buy small and local if they want you to be viable (stay in business). Appreciate your advice and videos!
@dominicbritt4 ай бұрын
Wiggle and Chain Reaction were helping local distributors in my locality clear their post Covid inventory. They were retailing entire products lines below my trade prices…. Serves them right in my view.
@sureshot11094 ай бұрын
If you provide a good service that people can find "value" in you'll make money. It's that simple. Personally I don't see the "value" in this "pre-waxed" market, I think most of us will stick to the DIY category. But there's definitely a small market for cyclists that don't wanna get their hands soiled......Good luck w/ your endeavor!
@zerofrictioncycling9924 ай бұрын
Hey sureshot - honestly i think you have DIY vs pre-prep other way around big time. Honestly being in this space for awhile now - DIY is overall tiny, and yet pre prep man we are pumping to keep up, i am prepping anywhere from 50 to 100 pre prep chains a week to meet orders. Most do not want to faff with cleaning FG off, just get one pre done, with wax and skip straight to the fun part. Vastly vastly less than that want to go DIY and get paraffin from here, X modifier from there and mix up etc. DIY is - lets say - a very vocal demographic, but it really is miniscule vs literally every other demographic in this space from commercial immersive wax, to drip wax, to wet lube - the would make up 99%+, with DIY lucky to be 1%.
@sureshot11094 ай бұрын
@@zerofrictioncycling992 cool to know and great for you, I had no clue I was in the minority. even my girlfriend does the diy cause its that easy.......
@bikerjk12054 ай бұрын
@@zerofrictioncycling992 Interesting. Of the 5-6 friends who started waxing their chains recently not one purchased a pre-prepped chain. My cycling friends must be a very specific demographic.
@zerofrictioncycling9924 ай бұрын
@@bikerjk1205 yes for sure - the saying birds of a feather flock together! Of all of my cycling friends, not a one would ever consider faffing with DIY vs just buying mspeedwax etc. And its not because i am persuasive - i have plenty of cycling friends who dont wax and just throw on whatever drip lube the lbs slings them. Out of all the people i chat to racing from TT, cyclocross, mtb, gravel and road - i know of two who diy wax. Over the years i have had - i dont even know a rough count - but easily twenty plus - people i have chatted to at races who advised used to DIY wax but now buy commercial (and thus i put a name to a customer at a race event etc). My estimate from my experience is DIY wax is maybe one in one hundred cyclists. But look at say oz cycling group - probably a large % of his cycling group are DIY'ing. Like minded peeps can often form groups, so there will be DIY clusters, forming their own echo chamber on area's of interest. we see echo chambers on many topics and sometimes echo chambers can think they hold a majority common opinion etc. I can only say i chat to a very broad demographic of cyclists from many groups and many race scenes for many years, and over DIY is a tiny tiny representation from all i talk to, but are the most vocal re chatting about their chain lubrication on the internet. They are much more like to be pumping out why they DIY wax, why one shouldnt buy commercial X, Y, Z vs saving money and DIY wax - than people who simply buy and use a commercial product. The DIY'er will typically have put more thoughts into what they are doing and why, and want as many as possible to know those thoughts. This is not a negative sling against DIY waxing, or the demographic - as in many cases the thought process and wishing to share that and help others save money and wear - it is all coming from a good place, and can genuinely help others move away from what are often poor commercial drip lubes at from LBS. Overall the DIY wax scene is a great scene for those in, mostly doing a great job. It just in my experience is a very small, very niche demographic. And with just such huge variance in blends that from a ZFC test and time resources perspective alas i cant spend much time validating the comparative performance of never ending blends and ratios etc.
@sureshot11094 ай бұрын
It's only a hobby business if you don't make money ;)
@dahonkie4 ай бұрын
Yayy
@steveedwards52804 ай бұрын
Another great video, thank you. Can I ask some advice about chain prep? Prepping a could of new XTR chains. Two goes through Silca chain stripper but microfibre cloth showed dirt after a good rinse. So tried degreaser but still the microfibre was dirty. They've spent a week in mineral turps but still, after rinsing, the microfibre is still dirty. With KMC and SRAM chains I'm able to prep to a point where the microfibre dries clean. The chains sound very dry and empty but I can still see fine black residue on the filter paper for the turps. Have you found similar? And just how clean does it need to be before waxing?
@zerofrictioncycling9924 ай бұрын
Hey! how are they showing dirt if new chain? And there is no point re week long soaks etc - after 15 mins the turps will soak all it can before would need a new bath if it starting process. Both stripper and DT clean leave a film behind after soak, agitate, rinse with boiling water and dry. that film to help wax adhesion. so unlike traditional solvent method where you will get bare metal after cleaning properly, stripper will leave a film, so you will not get clean looking wipe of cloth after clean. If you just follow the stripper instructions all is super.
@steveedwards52804 ай бұрын
@@zerofrictioncycling992 thanks for the reply as always. whatever cleaner I use, I always wash with water and detergent and dry under the grill before the next stage. It allows me to monitor progress. Before grilling, I wipe the chain with a yellow microfibre cloth to check if the chain is clean. These XTRe keep leaving black marks on the cloth. (SRAM and KMC didn't after similar treatment). I'm also seeing a lot of dark material on the lab filter paper when I clean the solvents so clearly they're removing something. The only reason they got a week long soak was because I had to work away.
@zerofrictioncycling9924 ай бұрын
@@steveedwards5280 Hmm - if one is using stripper or DT clean to clean off factory grease, then just following the instructions for that product is best. If you use a detergent after - a) this may remove the film that is supposed to be there and b) a film left by detergent may not be best for wax adherence. over the years i see a lot of comments on forums etc on cleaning chains, and many are WAY over complicated, sometimes using 3 or 4 different products, many many steps - and i have no idea how some people arrive at such processes. If using an expensive fancy prep product like stripper or DT clean, just follow those mfg instructions, don't add other steps to it etc. If you follow prep as per those products instructions, you immersive wax after prep will be all as it should be.
@steveedwards52804 ай бұрын
@@zerofrictioncycling992 I was only looking to move on from the stripper as things still didn't seam clean. That's when I went back to other solvents. Those two chains have seen 4 baths of 250ml turps each now. The filter paper I ran the turps through was really dirty. I've started the cycle again. KMC chain that has already been cleaned and waxed came off one of the bikes at the weekend. Quick shake I some hot water and that is showing cleaner on the microfibre that these XTR chains that have been through every solvent I have. Even my SRAM XX1 chains cleaned easier than these. 🤦🏼♀️
@steveedwards52804 ай бұрын
Update. I'm starting to make headway on these chains. Two litres or turps per chain was still leaving a black slurry on the filter paper when cleaning the turps. That's finally turned a corner and is now leaving less residue behind. Never known a chain take as much cleaning as these.
@92redferrari4 ай бұрын
Wow no comments yet!
@zerofrictioncycling9924 ай бұрын
theres one!!
@joshuabuilds30514 ай бұрын
I set my fastest ever 10k tonight at 21.1mph. Am I slow?
@zerofrictioncycling9924 ай бұрын
Its heaps fast if that was a run! ;) Was that a flat 10k, very hilly? what bike? was it an event? How much do you train and for how long? Ie if you have been cycling for 1 month and average 2 hours training a week, its probably not bad. If you have been cycling for years and train 10 hours a week and you aren't 80 years old on a flat bar mtb - then its not that fast. Im an almost 50 year old hubbard, who as a disc injury and terrible flexibility so my aero position is similar to that of acting like a wind sock (i can only run 5cm drop). I try to "train" - use that term loosely as its more just riding z2 for enjoyment vs training - around 8 hours a week. Our local TT series has a flat 17.3kmh course (often windy though) - and most rounds i average circa 42 to 44kmh (call it 27mph avg). If one is training anywhere similar amount to me, and anywhere similar age to me give or take a decade, if they are slower than me i would class them as being on the slower recreation racer side vs on the faster side. Fast riders can do circa 50kmh average on this course at vastly higher avg power and vastly more aero.