Joining us today is Ard Kessels; Founder of Kogel Bearings which is the company that I went with to get my Quintana Roo Race Ready for Chattanooga 70.3 and Challenge Roth fast approaching! To be honest, throughout my early days of triathlon I never thought twice of what bearings my bike was equipped with; nor could I even explain where the bearings were on my bike. After a ton of research, I thought it made sense to share this information with the listeners and who better to seek the answers from then the Kogel mogul himself! Ard walks us through the backstory of Kogel Bearings as a company, and he breaks things down and explains to us what the benefits are of good quality ceramic bearings. Ard goes in depth on each of the bearing sets we have on our bike and how these benefits translate over to measurable results in an IRONMAN. We both had a video call before this episode and we agreed that we hope by the end of this show that you’ll walk away with a true understanding of bike bearings no matter what level of understanding you had coming into it! Now before we start; I want to give a quick 1-minute overview of Bearings 101 for bikes; specifically, triathlon bikes. Now on our bikes you may or may not know that we have bearings in all the places they require rotation. Your wheels are in rotation therefore they have bearings in their hubs. The nice thing about wheel bearings is that even when we stop pedaling; they keep moving. We also have bearings in our bottom bracket which allows your crank to spin so you can rotate the pedals. We then have rotation and therefore bearings inside the rear derailleur pulleys which allow your bikes drive-train to spin and guides the chain to the cassette. Lastly, we also have bearings in the headset of your bike to allow your handlebars to rotate. Now some might be thinking right now, yeah okay we get it Steven thanks captain obvious! Aha but for some of the listeners who may be new to the bearings concept I don’t want you going into this episode without at least being primed to understanding where the bearings are on your tri bike and what their purpose is! This is an awesome podcast episode so I hope you enjoy it as much as I did; and if you’re not driving then I highly encourage you to leave aside a pen and paper for some notes.