Cyclists love gear, and there is a lot of kit available on the market. There are some items whose existence causes us to scratch our head. However, that doesn't mean there aren't gaps in the market. Here's a list of five items I wish did exist.
And of course, a caveat: if any of these already exist, outside of my knowledge, I'm thrilled and keen to test them. If not, maybe someone will take my ideas and make them a reality.
1. Stems in 5 mm increments
With very few exceptions, road and gravel stems are only available in 10 millimeter length increments. It’s too much! I want to be able to dial in a bike fit more precisely than that. Where are the stems in 95, 105, 115, and 125 millimeters? Why is it that no one manufacturer offers this?
I suppose if you’re industrious—and meticulous—enough, it would be possible to procure a pile of different stems and carefully measure each of them. I would guess it’s likely you’d find that there are some differences, even if the stated lengths are the same, as different companies measure them in different ways. But the pursuit of precision should not require this sort of approach.
Would it be so hard for a single company to start producing high quality stems in off-length intervals? Excellent stems in the most common lengths (80, 90, 100, 110, 120, and 130 millimeters) are already available, so I propose making lengths from 85-135 to fill in the gaps. That’s only 6 different lengths per stem angle; it seems achievable. I think it’s especially pertinent now that many newer hood shapes have gotten longer. Riders who are upgrading groupsets but want to maintain reach numbers would benefit from being able to micro-adjust their reach.
With that said, stems are increasingly becoming a proprietary part of newer aero-focused bicycles. From a design standpoint it makes sense to design everything in concert, both for aesthetic and aerodynamic reasons, however integrated cockpits make bike fitting much more complex. This is often borne out in the setups of pro riders opting for separate stem and handlebars to achieve their optimal fit (typically longer and lower than is otherwise available).
Despite this trend, I think there will always be interest in bicycle stems that are simple, work well, and allow for precise and repeatable fitting results.
2. A performance-oriented sunglasses company that caters specifically to prescription glasses wearers.
Here’s one that’s close to home for me. According to various different sources on the Internet, somewhere between 55-65% of North American adults wear glasses of some sort. Not all of them need cycling sunglasses, of course, but I do. I have tried several different options currently available, from prescription inserts to integrated lens solutions. None of them are terrible, but they all could be better.
For the non-sight-challenged, there are an unfathomable number of different sunglasses on the market, with a massive range of options. I would like to experience some of this freedom of choice.
Here’s what I propose: Sunglasses designed from the ground up for prescription lenses both with aesthetics and performance in mind, from premium price points on down. Cycling is a reasonably big market, and endurance sports as a whole are a massive one. Surely there’s an opportunity here.
I’m tired of making do or cobbling something together. I would like something simple, modern and well-executed for those of us who need a little extra help seeing while on our bikes!
3. Better tools and techniques for cleaning out dried tubeless sealant.
Cleaning out dried tubeless sealant is one of the most aggravating jobs most of us experience as home bike mechanics. It may not be as frustrating as dealing with internal hydraulic lines or replacing spent headset bearings, but most people leave those jobs to professional mechanics.
I don’t know the chemistry behind the issue, and perhaps it’s complex, but I’m surprised that sealant manufacturers don’t also sell solvents specific to their products (like Silca's Ultimate Sealant Remover) that help neutralize the dried sealant and allow you to easily wipe out the residue. This would be much easier than the current method which entails a mixture of scraping, peeling, cutting and wiping in order to get the inside of the tires clean and ready for fresh sealant.
Riders spend hundreds of dollars on expensive, high-quality tires and then end up riding around after a few months with those same tires woefully unbalanced by glued-on sealant chunks. The benefits of a light and supple tire are quickly diminished by thick, caked on swaths of sealant on the sidewalls, but getting that sealant out isn’t easy.
I would like to see a line of products designed specifically for this purpose, ideally an eco-friendly solvent that softens the sealant as well as some purpose-built scraping tools that are shaped like the inside of a tire and allow you to easily remove the offending bits. It should be possible to return the inside of tires back to nearly new again with only a little bit of elbow grease. Let the home mechanics rejoice!
4. Shoe covers designed in conjunction with shoes
This one might be a little too pie in the sky, but what if a shoe company designed overshoes that are specifically made to fit with that shoe. A somewhat analogous example can be found with helmet manufacturers who used to make clip-on plastic shields to cover up a vented helmet and allow you to enter into “winter mode” or “aero mode” as needed. The UCI cracked down on this practice, stipulating that racers are responsible for “Using only a helmet that has not been altered or had any element added or removed in terms of design or form,” which in turn stymied the development of this particular avenue of modification. With shoes, though, no such regulation exists.
I can envision multiple ways in which this could be utilized. One is aerodynamics: a road racing shoe could be designed in such a way that an integrated aero cover could be added for specific events to seamlessly blend the shape of the shoe and lower leg. This could be done to an even more sophisticated degree than simply putting a stretchy cover over an existing shoe and calling it good.
The other very useful scenario for a shoe and shoe cover integration is for cold weather or inclement conditions. Here a shoe cover could be designed in such a way as to plug up any existing vents, closely matching the shape of the shoe and adding insulation while avoiding interference with the tread or cleat in any way.
I’m not sure exactly how such a shoe cover would attach to the shoe, but every time I pull a knit shoe cover on or zip up a neoprene overboot in the winter, I always think there must be a better way. I do own insulated winter-specific shoes and I think they’re a great option for truly cold conditions, but they cannot match the performance, in terms of stiffness or stack height, of a race shoe.
Plenty of companies currently make both shoes and shoe covers, so while I’m not holding my breath on this one, it doesn’t actually seem like that much of a stretch (pun intended) to make it a reality.
5. High-quality race replays, all in one place.
My final ax to grind is regarding race coverage. Road cycling is different from other sports: you can’t sell tickets, so making money and providing access to TV or streaming coverage is always a tricky thing to sort out. Also, it’s a global sport, so events are taking place across time zones all throughout the year.
What I would love to pay for (and hopefully I’m not the only one) is spoiler-free race replays all in one place. I have in the past subscribed to places like NBC sports, FloBikes, GCN+, etc for race coverage, but none of them cover all of the races, and some of the have replays and some do not. Most aggravatingly, they often put the race results up on the home page. Also, they have a habit of going belly up unexpectedly, but that’s an altogether separate issue.
If you don’t have time to watch races live (like many of us), then watching a replay while eating lunch or while riding the trainer is the easiest way to keep abreast of racing results. But a good deal of the fun is ruined when the result is known ahead of time. This is actually one of the primary reasons I canceled my FloBikes membership: it was too hard to watch racing without having the outcome spoiled ahead of time.
Ideally, all of the racing (broken down by categories) would be available in one place, with options for both complete broadcasts or just the last 10 kilometers. You could sort by year, type of event, etc. to find what you’re looking for, and nowhere on the website would the results be listed.
I realize that, at the moment, broadcast rights are a vastly complicated interconnected rat's nest of individual holdings in different countries, but wouldn’t it be nice if the UCI made an effort to make cycling more approachable by helping to make something like this a reality? But then, they’re very busy making sure everyone’s brake hoods are straight, so they probably don’t have time for that.
The best current iteration of this fever dream is at cyclingfans.com, which is a website I very much appreciate, but as it doesn’t host the content, it’s still a mixed bag in terms of what you get each time you click on a link. spoilerfreecyling.com, anyone?
Conclusion
There you have it; my somewhat whingy wish list for the bike industry. I have the good fortune to ride a lot of new bikes and see a lot of fresh products as they come out and have learned over time to appreciate each and every one for what they offer, but also think critically about how they could be better!
There are always products, both new and old, out there that I haven’t seen before, so it’s entirely possible that these things have been done, are old hat already, and I’m just ignorant, or else companies have tried them out and the market didn’t support them for one reason or another. If that’s the case, then I look forward to learning about them. If not, then I would love for someone to take one of these ideas and run with it.
