Bikes & Big Ideas
227 episodes - English - Latest episode: 14 days ago - ★★★★★ - 118 ratingsBikes & Big Ideas is the weekly podcast from BLISTER that's dedicated to the most interesting conversations and ideas from the bike world — and beyond.
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Episodes
Reviewing The News w/ Ryan Palmer, March 2024
April 11, 2024 17:00 - 1 hour - 75.7 MBMarch was an interesting month for bike news. There was a dispute at Crankworx Rotorua which resulted in the men not competing in the finals, Scott is having crazy management drama, there are a bunch of interesting new lightweight eMTBs, and Simon had a recent trip to ride in Tuscany. In our third installment of Reviewing The News, Ryan and Simon get into all of this and more. RELATED LINKS: BLISTER+ Membership BLISTER+ Real World Testimonials Blister Labs This Week’s Gear Giveaway Bli...
Brook Macdonald on Fresh Starts, DH Race Bike Design, Moving to Forbidden, & More
April 04, 2024 16:05 - 59 minutes - 67.4 MBRacing World Cup DH isn’t easy under any circumstances, but doing so after a spinal cord injury — and needing to relearn how to walk, much less ride — is something else entirely. Brook Macdonald pulled it off, but he’s also struggled with bike setup, burnout, and more over the last couple of seasons. For 2024, though, he’s got a new team, a new bike, and a renewed hunger to race — we sat down to hear all about it. RELATED LINKS: BLISTER+ Membership BLISTER+ Real World Testimonials Bliste...
Georgia Astle on Racing, Freeriding, & Finding Her Way to MTB
March 28, 2024 16:50 - 51 minutes - 60.3 MBGeorgia Astle is one of the many ultra-talented riders to come out of Whistler, BC — but she actually grew up kitesurfing and doing a whole bunch of other sports, rather than mountain biking. Once she fell in love with mountain biking in high school, though, her rise through the ranks was astonishingly rapid — first as a racer and later as a freerider — and we sat down with Georgia to hear all about it, including the state of Enduro racing and women’s freeride, Georgia’s goals for 2024 and b...
Dakotah Norton on Finding Consistency, Moving to Mondraker, the State of US DH Racing, & More
March 21, 2024 16:22 - 45 minutes - 55 MBDakotah Norton finished the 2023 DH season strong, with two podiums and a 6th place finish over the final four races, but as he put it, the season started with “near failure.” We sat down with Dakotah to talk about the struggle of finding consistency at the limit; his move to Mondraker Factory Racing and the dissolution of his former team at Intense; the state of DH racing both at home and abroad; how to better develop up-and-coming American DH racers; and a whole lot more. RELATED LINKS: ...
Sarah Sturm on Her Unconventional Path to Gravel-Racing Stardom
March 14, 2024 16:20 - 55 minutes - 63.8 MBGravel racing has exploded in recent years and Sarah Sturm — who only started racing bikes in college, after burning out on competitive soccer — quickly vaulted to stardom in the sport. So we sat down with Sarah to hear the surprising and hilarious story of her path into gravel racing; chat about the struggle of not excelling at something you’ve dedicated a lot of time and energy toward; the evolution and professionalization of gravel racing; the overall state and health of the sport; and a ...
Reviewing The News w/ Ryan Palmer, February 2024
March 07, 2024 19:15 - 1 hour - 90.9 MBOn our second episode of Reviewing The News with hosts Simon Stewart and Ryan Palmer; Ryan may have uncovered what Kyle and Rachael Strait are keeping secret before their big announcement on Friday (March 8th); Simon considers adopting Ronan Dunne’s pre-race hydration program after watching his incredible Red Bull Hardline winning run; there’s a brake lever lawsuit to talk about; Ryan’s father-in-law’s souped-up scooter; exploding lithium-ion batteries; and Cannondale’s wild Moterra SL light...
Norco on their New High-Pivot Optic and Sight
February 29, 2024 16:33 - 52 minutes - 60.7 MBHigh-pivot bikes are becoming increasingly common but they’re still mostly reserved for longer-travel Enduro and DH models. Given that, Norco’s decision to move their 150mm-travel Sight and especially the 125mm-travel Optic to that layout was arguably a bit of a surprise — and it wasn’t one Norco made lightly. So we sat down with Norco engineer, Colin Ryan, to get the rundown on the new Optic and Sight, including the decision to go high-pivot and the testing that they used to validate it; ...
Ed Masters on Hardline, the 2024 Race Landscape, Pivot’s Prototype DH Bike, & More
February 22, 2024 16:28 - 51 minutes - 60.6 MBThe first Tasmanian edition of Red Bull Hardline is coming up, so we sat down with Ed Masters to talk about the event, building and testing the course, and getting prepared to ride it. Along the way, we talk about Pivot’s wild prototype DH bike, the state of Enduro and DH racing in general, Ed’s outlook on the future, and a whole lot more. RELATED LINKS: BLISTER+ Membership BLISTER+ Real World Testimonials Blister Labs This Week’s Gear Giveaway Blister Mountain Bike Buyer’s Guide TOPI...
Continental on Designing, Developing, & Testing Their Overhauled Tire Lineup
February 15, 2024 16:44 - 52 minutes - 61.4 MBContinental’s overhauled gravity tire lineup has had a lot of success, both on the World Cup Downhill circuit and with everyday riders (we’ve personally been huge fans of the Kryptotals). It’s a big departure from their prior offerings, with 5 new tread patterns to go with overhauled casings and rubber compounds, and we sat down with Alexander Hänke, the product manager behind the lineup, and Dan Brown, the CEO of Atherton Bikes and Team Director of Continental Atherton Racing, to talk all...
Reviewer Reports: Nicolai Nucleon Supre Drive, Ibis HD6, & More
February 08, 2024 15:22 - 44 minutes - 53.7 MBBlister reviewer Zack Henderson makes his Bikes & Big Ideas debut to talk with David Golay about a bunch of the bikes they’ve been testing, including the Nicolai Nucleon 16 Supre Drive, Ibis HD6, and Chromag Lowdown (and they tease some other upcoming reviews that they can’t yet talk about in detail). RELATED LINKS: BLISTER+ Membership BLISTER+ Real World Testimonials Blister Labs This Week’s Gear Giveaway Blister Mountain Bike Buyer’s Guide TOPICS & TIMES: Chromag Lowdown (2:10) Or...
Reviewing The News w/ Ryan Palmer (January 2024)
February 01, 2024 17:15 - 49 minutes - 58.6 MBSimon Stewart is joined by bike industry veteran, Ryan Palmer, to kick off the inaugural bike-focused edition of Reviewing the News. Ryan and Simon tuck into what happened to Greg Minaar and Santa Cruz; Mondraker’s new focus on the U.S market and their stacked World Cup DH Team; the state of the industry in both manufacturing and retail going into ‘24; UK bike companies that are struggling; a quick look at some new products, and more. RELATED LINKS: BLISTER+ Membership BLISTER+ Real Wor...
Rónán Dunne on Joining Mondraker Factory Racing
January 25, 2024 20:25 - 36 minutes - 62.4 MBMoving up to Elite Downhill racing from Juniors is hard, but Rónán Dunne made that leap in 2021, and promptly started getting great results — despite only racing a handful of World Cups as a Junior and never even making it out of qualifying. After three strong years racing for Nukeproof, Rónán has moved to the new Mondraker Factory Racing team for 2024 and beyond, so we sat down with him to hear all about it, including how he started putting together such strong results so quickly; the state...
Outbound Lighting on Night Riding, Light Design, & More
January 19, 2024 02:07 - 50 minutes - 82.4 MBThere are a lot of good reasons to try mountain biking at night, from simple necessity during the colder, darker months to seeking a new challenge and experience. We sat down with Outbound Lighting’s Tom Place to make the case for (safe) night riding, talk about light design, how to think about putting together a light setup for your needs, and much more. RELATED LINKS: BLISTER+ Membership BLISTER+ Real World Testimonials Blister Labs This Week’s Gear Giveaway Blister Mountain Bike Buy...
RAAW Bikes Founder Ruben Torenbeek
January 11, 2024 16:34 - 58 minutes - 66.2 MBWhen Ruben Torenbeek founded RAAW back in 2016, he had a clear vision for the sort of dependable, no-nonsense bikes he wanted to build. He clearly wasn’t alone in wanting a bike in that vein, because RAAW is going strong with an expanding model lineup, a bigger team, and so on. So Ruben and David Golay sat down to chat about all of it, including why things like carbon fiber frames and fancy details don’t necessarily equate to higher performance; his philosophy on bike design and how he’s g...
Vorsprung’s New Coil Shock & Development Process
January 04, 2024 16:53 - 1 hour - 70.8 MBVorsprung Suspension has been making a wide range of suspension upgrade products for quite some time now — and we’ve been very impressed with a number of them — but they’ve yet to offer a full standalone fork or shock. That’s about to change. So we sat down with founder and engineer Steve Mathews to hear all about the new coil shock that they’re developing, including a whole lot about its design, Vorsprung’s goals for it, how the prototyping and testing process is going, and a whole lot mor...
Gear of the Year (2023)
December 28, 2023 16:52 - 39 minutes - 48.9 MBWe got the gang back together to recap a whole bunch of the bikes and other gear we tested in 2023, and Simon Stewart, Dylan Wood, and David Golay picked a bunch of our favorites, including bikes across the travel spectrum and a variety of softgoods. Along the way, we get into bike design and geometry tradeoffs, headset cable routing, and much more. RELATED LINKS: BLISTER+ Membership BLISTER+ Real World Testimonials Blister Labs This Week’s Gear Giveaway Blister Mountain Bike Buyer’s G...
Forbidden Bikes Founder Owen Pemberton
December 21, 2023 16:38 - 55 minutes - 63.7 MBForbidden might be *the* company most closely associated with high-pivot bikes, but Owen Pemberton didn’t set out with that goal in mind when he founded the company. We sat down with Owen to hear all about his journey through the bike industry, including a long tenure as an engineer at Norco; founding Forbidden; his philosophy on bike design and geometry; how he ended up settling on high-pivot suspension layouts; the new Druid V2 and Supernought; and Owen teases some future Forbidden models,...
EXT’s Franco Fratton on the History, Basics, & Details of MTB Suspension
December 14, 2023 20:31 - 1 hour - 1.52 GBEXT founder Franco Fratton has more experience working on suspension than just about anyone, and today, we’re revisiting our first conversation with him that kicked off our “Very Deep Dive on Suspension” series, where we discuss all the details when it comes to suspension design and tech. RELATED LINKS: A Very Deep Dive on Suspension with EXT’s Franco Fratton, Pt. 2 (Ep. 146) A Very Deep Dive on Suspension with EXT’s Franco Fratton, Pt. 3 (Ep.173) Become a BLISTER+ Member Blister Mounta...
Tool on Their Radical Machined High-Pivot Bike
December 07, 2023 15:58 - 51 minutes - 62.1 MBWilliam Boisvert made his first bike frame — a machined front triangle for a Devinci Troy — in just seven weeks for a college project, and despite the challenges that arose (and the fact that that first frame didn’t survive very long), he’s continued the development of a CNC-machined high-pivot Enduro frame, and founded Tool to bring it to market. The prototypes are visually stunning (and quite interesting technically), and we sat down with William to hear all about their design and the conc...
Albatross Bikes on the Super-Adaptable Apogee Module
November 30, 2023 16:44 - 46 minutes - 57.9 MBA lot of companies have offered bikes with a degree of adaptability in their geometry and travel configurations, but the Albatross Apogee Module is a very novel design that opens up a much wider spectrum of options than most. We sat down with founder and engineer, Will Hilgenberg, to chat about the concept; what he sees as being the advantages of the layout; frame materials and ride quality; his plans for production; and more. RELATED LINKS: BLISTER+ Membership BLISTER+ Real World Testimo...
Katy Winton on Burnout, Recovery, & Returning to Racing
November 23, 2023 16:54 - 1 hour - 70.2 MBTwo races into the 2022 EWS season, Katy Winton hit a breaking point and pulled out of the rest of the series to give herself the time and space she needed to get her mental health back on track. Having made a successful return to racing in 2023, Katy is now ready to open up about the experience. We sat down with her to talk about burnout and what her experience with it felt like; when she knew she needed to punch out and step away from racing; what her recovery process looked like; how she...
Cornelius Kapfinger on Founding Intend, Inverted Forks, and Doing Things Differently
November 16, 2023 16:28 - 1 hour - 73.2 MBFounding Intend (2:18) Fork design & the first Intend offering (5:24) Why inverted? (7:09) Selling inverted forks & market acceptance of things that look different (8:52) Designing a full fork (17:16) Damper design (20:16) The Infinity EN (24:42) The Bandit (38:32) The Hover shock (43:12) Brake design (48:17) Deciding which projects to tackle (57:07) What’s next for Intend? (1:00:26) RELATED LINKS: BLISTER+ Membership BLISTER+ Real World Testimonials Blister Labs This Week’s ...
Neko Mulally on Selling the Frameworks DH Bike, Signing Asa Vermette, and More
November 09, 2023 16:00 - 1 hour - 81.3 MBNeko Mulally’s Frameworks project has drawn a lot of well-deserved attention, and now he’s opening pre-orders for the production version of his World Cup DH race bike. So we sat down with Neko to hear all about everything that’s gone into the development of the bike this season; his experimentation with different frame materials; the wildly talented Asa Vermette joining the team; and a whole lot more. TOPICS & TIMES: Opening preorders for the DH bike (2:14) Refining the details (10:02) C...
Lachlan Morton on the Tour Divide Record, Bears, Payday Bars, & More
November 02, 2023 14:49 - 1 hour - 82.6 MBThe stats of the Tour Divide route — 2,670 miles and 192,000 feet of climbing, mostly on dirt — are imposing, and Lachlan Morton just covered it in a record-setting 12 days, 12 hours, and 21 minutes. So we sat down with him to hear about what it takes to plan, prepare for, and execute such a wild undertaking, how it went, why Lachlan already wants to go back and re-ride the course, but slowly, and a whole lot more. TOPICS & TIMES: The Tour Divide route Record ethos & riding self-supported...
Contra Bikes on Making the MC a Reality
October 26, 2023 14:57 - 1 hour - 86.8 MBThe Contra MC — a US-made, steel, high-pivot Enduro bike — is an ambitious project by any measure, and designing and prototyping the bike is just half the battle. So we brought Evan Turpen, the driving force behind Contra, back on the show to talk about refining a prototype design and knowing when to stop tinkering; what goes into bringing a design to production and the challenges that arise from that; what he’s learned along the way; and a whole lot more. TOPICS & TIMES: The MC (2:55) De...
Privateer Bikes on the 141 and 161 V2
October 19, 2023 15:31 - 1 hour - 93.3 MBPrivateer has been working on the second-generation versions of their 141 and 161 bikes for three years now, and Dan Hicks, the engineer behind the project, has a ton to share about the thought process behind the updates and bike design in general — and does a great job of explaining all of it. So we sat down with Dan for a very deep dive into the new bikes, and he shared a ton of thoughts that are going to be interesting to anyone who cares about mountain bike design — whether or not you’re...
Casey Brown, Vaea Verbeeck, and Hannah Bergemann on Women at Rampage
October 12, 2023 13:00 - 49 minutes - 60 MBWhen it was announced that Red Bull Formation wasn’t happening in 2023, there was a lot of hopeful speculation that, in its place, there would be women competing at Rampage for the first time. But that didn’t happen either, so we sat down with three of the top freeriders in the world — Casey Brown, Vaea Verbeeck, and Hannah Bergemann — to get their thoughts on how we got here, why they want a women’s category at Rampage (and what they’re doing to make it happen), why representation at the to...
Reviewer Reports: Contra MC vs. Trek Slash, Santa Cruz Heckler SL, REEB Steezl, & More
October 05, 2023 15:16 - 45 minutes - 56.4 MBSimon Stewart, Dylan Wood, and David Golay sat down to talk about a bunch of the bikes they’ve been testing lately, from the short-travel Cannondale Habit to the very not short-travel Canfield One.2 Super Enduro; some eMTBs including the new Santa Cruz Heckler SL; a head-to-head comparison of high-pivot Enduro bikes from companies very large and very small; and a whole bunch more. TOPICS & TIMES: Cannondale Habit (1:40) REEB Steezl (6:24) Santa Cruz Heckler SL (11:39) Devinci E-Troy (17...
Archibald Cycles on Canadian Manufacturing & the Wild AC1
September 28, 2023 15:47 - 49 minutes - 59.8 MBHigh-pivot bikes are having a moment. Mullet bikes and steel full-suspension frames are too. And while gearbox mountain bikes haven’t achieved widespread popularity (yet?) they’ve got their ardent supporters. The Archibald Cycles AC1 brings all those elements together in a Canadian-made Trail / Enduro / Park bike, and the end result looks pretty interesting. So we sat down with Archibald founder and designer of the AC1, Alex Troughton to hear all about the bike, his goals for it, when it mig...
Sklar Bikes: A Custom Builder’s Shift to “Mass” Production
September 21, 2023 15:44 - 45 minutes - 56.4 MBIt’s rare for a small but well-established custom bike builder to make the leap to overseas-built production bikes, but Adam Sklar has done just that. While it might be easy to romanticize the idea of a custom hand-built bike made by a single builder, Adam speaks very openly about the ways running that version of Sklar had ceased to feel like the way he wanted to bring bikes into the world; the challenges (and high points) of building custom bikes; coming up with a production lineup after ye...
GEAR THERAPY! (Session #1)
September 14, 2023 15:31 - 57 minutes - 67.7 MBWe recently launched Gear Therapy over on our GEAR:30 podcast and now we’re bringing it over to Bikes & Big Ideas, too. For our first session, we chatted with Blister Member Andy Majewski about his bike quiver and the ways it’s evolved; how he might better dial in his current bikes to suit his needs; what bike would make the most sense to add to his quiver; why he needs the Philadelphia Eagles to go back to the Super Bowl for that to happen (it’ll make sense, we promise); and more discussion...
Trek on the New High-Pivot Slash
September 07, 2023 15:18 - 39 minutes - 51 MBTrek’s new sixth-generation Slash has changed a lot from the prior-generation bike — including a high-pivot suspension layout, some big updates to the geometry and suspension kinematics, and a default mixed-wheel size setup — and we sat down with Matt Yerke, the lead engineer on the new Slash, to learn all about it. Matt walked us through the design goals for the Slash; their early experiments with high-pivot Trail bikes, including prototyping the layout on what would become the current Fuel...
D3O On The Past, Present, and Future of MTB Armor
August 31, 2023 14:40 - 43 minutes - 54.4 MBD3O’s non-Newtonian materials are used extensively in mountain bike protective equipment from a lot of different brands, and David Golay recently sat down with their Senior Vice President of Marketing, Kevin Franks, and their Head of Product, Kevin Fleer, to talk about the state of the mountain bike armor market; the ways it’s changed in recent years; where D3O sees it going in the future; the tradeoffs inherent in designing armor; testing standards for armor and how D3O thinks about them; a...
Chromag’s Full Suspension Bike Development
August 24, 2023 15:02 - 44 minutes - 55.9 MBChromag has been doing things very differently from most bike companies for decades now, helping to pioneer modern hardcore hardtails — and doing so in Whistler, BC, in the shadow of the legendary bike park — not exactly classic hardtail terrain. So when Chromag launched their first production adult full-suspension bikes late last year, it wasn’t a huge surprise that the Darco and Lowdown stood out from the rest of the bike market in a number of ways, from geometry to material selection and...
Reviewer Reports: Chromag Darco, Pivot Shuttle AM, Commencal Supreme, & More
August 17, 2023 15:23 - 48 minutes - 59.5 MBDavid Golay, Dylan Wood, and Simon Stewart sat down to chat about a whole bunch of the bikes we’re reviewing currently, from the Chromag Darco to the Commencal Supreme, with a ton of other ones in between, including the Pivot Shuttle AM and the Trek Fuel EXe AL. Along the way, we discuss bike design more broadly; eMTB drive systems and their tradeoffs; and a whole bunch more. TOPICS & TIMES: Chromag Darco (0:56) Pivot Shuttle AM (8:28) Trek Fuel EXe (18:31) Rocky Mountain Instinct Power...
Story Time With Ryan “R-Dog” Howard
August 10, 2023 15:18 - 48 minutes - 59.4 MBAptos, CA is a small beach town that has produced an incredible number of world-class mountain bikers, and Ryan “R-Dog” Howard has a lot of great stories to share about the scene that gave rise to him, Cam and Tyler McCaul, and too many more to list — not to mention serving as the winter riding escape for the likes of Brandon Semenuk, Martin Soderstrom, and many others. And along the way, we chat about everything from Ryan’s incredible catalog of custom-painted bikes and where he gets his in...
Prevelo founder Jacob Rheuban on Designing a Better Kid’s Bike
August 03, 2023 15:16 - 43 minutes - 54.2 MBWhen Jacob Rheuban founded Prevelo in 2017, he had no engineering background and no experience in the bike industry, but identified a need for better kids' bikes, and set out to fill it. And now, more than six years later, he’s got a lot of great stories to tell and insights to share about both what it takes to start a bike company from scratch, but also what makes for a good kids’ bike, and how their needs differ from those of adults; what it took to get folks (even dedicated bike riders) t...
Miranda Miller on DVRGNT Minds, Burnout, & Riding All the Bikes
July 27, 2023 15:56 - 38 minutes - 50.1 MBMiranda Miller has done a lot of different things in her career, from winning DH World Champs to racing the EWS (and now EDR), but in the last few years she’s branched out more than ever and is having more fun than ever before. So we sat down with Miranda to chat about her DVRGNT Minds project and how she charted this new course for her career; getting into gravel riding as a gravity-oriented mountain biker; the Downhill Southeast scene and the return of grassroots DH racing; and a whole lot...
Lal Bikes on Making the Supre Drive a Reality
July 20, 2023 17:44 - 55 minutes - 62.3 MBWhen we first had Lal Bikes founder and Supre Drive inventor Cedric Eveleigh on the show about a year and a half ago, he’d just announced the Supre Drive — a wild take on reinventing the mountain bike derailleur — to the world. A lot has happened since then, including the first production Supre Drive bikes being delivered to customers, so we brought Cedric back on the show — joined by fellow Lal engineer Alex Ham — to tell their story of launching a new company and trying to get the industry...
Gear of the Year (So Far), 2023
July 13, 2023 15:26 - 40 minutes - 51.8 MBSummer is in full swing and we’ve been testing a ton of new bikes and gear, so I sat down with Simon Stewart and Dylan Wood to chat about some of the things that have stood out to us the most, including a variety of bikes, SRAM’s Transmission (including the new GX version), and along the way, we veer off on a few tangents, including some discussion of the World Cup Downhill season so far. TOPICS & TIMES: Revel Ranger (1:56) Commencal T.E.M.P.O. (7:32) SRAM Transmission (8:28) World Cup ...
Deviate Cycles on High-Pivot Bikes, Onshoring Production, & the Lowlander Prototype
July 06, 2023 18:05 - 1 hour - 72.4 MBDeviate Cycles is well known for their high-pivot Trail and Enduro bikes, and that concept has gained a lot of traction in recent years, but getting consumers to accept new ideas can be challenging. Deviate co-founder Ben Jones has a lot to say about the balance of bringing new ideas to market without alienating potential customers; the tradeoffs of gearbox bikes and why they haven’t widely caught on; and much, much more. In this conversation, we also talk about Deviate’s recent efforts to e...
Anna Newkirk and Abby Hogie on Beyond Racing, the Contra DH Bike, & More
June 29, 2023 15:42 - 1 hour - 71.5 MBBeyond Racing started as a pipedream of Anna Newkirk and Abby Hogie: wouldn’t it be cool to have a World Cup race team that you run and race for with your best friend? Few people have the skills or determination to make it happen, though, and the story of what Anna and Abby — with the help of none other than Eliot Jackson — have pulled off is a great one. So we sat down with the two of them to hear all about the founding of Beyond Racing; why they chose to go that route rather than getting o...
Reviewer Reports: Commencal T.E.M.P.O., Tons of Suspension, & More
June 22, 2023 15:47 - 53 minutes - 63.5 MBWe’re testing a ton of new bikes with more on the way (stay tuned!) so David Golay recently sat down with Dylan Wood and Simon Stewart to talk about the Revel Ranger and Commencal T.E.M.P.O.; offer more thoughts on the new SRAM Transmission; and give a rundown on a whole bunch of suspension we’re testing from EXT, Öhlins, and Manitou. TOPICS & TIMES: Commencal T.E.M.P.O. (1:15) Revel Ranger (7:08) SRAM Transmission (14:20) Orbea Wild (25:11) EXT Aria and Era V2.1 (34:14) Öhlins TTX Ai...
Wyn Masters on his Privateer Program, the 2023 DH Race Landscape, & More
June 15, 2023 17:14 - 30 minutes - 42 MBMaking it as a World Cup Downhill racer is hard and, as we discuss in this episode, the new rule changes to the series for 2023 just might make it harder. So we sat down with Wyn Masters, whose incredible new Privateer Program — the escalation of his longstanding Privateer Award, whose past winners include Camille Balanche and Nina Hoffmann — to talk about all of it, including why he started the award in the first place, how the race landscape has changed over the course of his career, and a...
A Very Deep Dive on Suspension with EXT’s Franco Fratton, Pt. 3
June 08, 2023 16:01 - 1 hour - 73.2 MBEXT Suspension founder Franco Fratton is a wealth of information when it comes to all things suspension, and in the third installment of our deep dive on suspension series, Franco and I cover everything from the tradeoffs between air and coil springs to the history of coil springs being used on wheeled vehicles; EXT’s new Aria air shock; inverted vs. conventional forks; and Franco teases an upcoming EXT project as well. TOPICS & TIMES: Air vs. coil springs & their historical uses (1:28) E...
Forge+Bond on Envisioning, Designing, Testing, & Refining a Carbon Fiber Wheel Design
June 01, 2023 16:41 - 52 minutes - 62.2 MBDesigning, prototyping, testing, and refining a carbon fiber wheel is deceptively complicated. Things like weight, stiffness, vertical compliance, and durability are the standard buzzwords for talking about a new wheelset, but how do you strike the right balance between all of them, and how do you go about validating a new design? And what how does athlete feedback factor in, especially considering that the needs of top-level pros aren’t exactly the same as those of mere mortals? We sat dow...
Jesse Melamed on His 2022 EWS Title, “Near Death” Save, Moving to Canyon, & More
May 25, 2023 15:31 - 1 hour - 74.4 MBJesse Melamed won the 2022 EWS Overall, and then, despite that success, made the move to Canyon from longtime frame sponsor Rocky Mountain. So we sat down with Jesse to chat about what he changed with his mental approach and bike setup to make the 2022 season come together; why it was time for a team change despite that success; his decision-making process in choosing his new race bike from Canyon’s extensive line; the start of the 2023 season, including Jesse’s insane save at Maydena; the n...
Bikes vs. Skis, 4th Edition (2023): Part 2
May 18, 2023 15:05 - 1 hour - 90.4 MBAfter tackling broader questions like “which bike and ski brands are the current holders of their respective ‘Cool Kids Belts’” in Part One of Bikes vs. Skis, 2023 last week, we’re diving into the head-to-head comparisons: which bike company is most comparable to Rossignol skis? Who is the ski equivalent of Guerrilla Gravity? And many, many more. And we’ll be back with a third installment next week, so let us know what your best comparisons are, what we got wrong, and/or if there’s a specif...
Richie Schley on Inventing Freeride MTB, Bike Evolution, Fixing Rampage, & More
May 11, 2023 18:12 - 1 hour - 75.1 MBRichie Schley is one of a kind — pioneering freeride mountain biker, former pro skier, hilarious storyteller, & much more — and in this conversation, we cover a lot of ground, from the early days of freeride MTB to the current state of the sport and what he’d like to see change, and along the way we chat about his recent bachelor party; how Richie was too early in adopting fanny packs; how hard it is to get new ideas to achieve widespread adaptation; and a ton more. TOPICS & TIMES: Richie’...
Payson McElveen on “Crossing Tasmania” & Finding Joy Beyond Racing
May 04, 2023 15:32 - 54 minutes - 63.9 MBWhen Payson McElveen rode across Iceland in a single pull a few years ago, he found something in that effort that’s not present in his racing career and immediately knew he wanted to follow it up with something in the same vein. So he dusted off his globe, and after an immense amount of planning, he put together a monster route across Tasmania, spanning 360 miles and nearly 35,000 feet of climbing — most of it on dirt — and set out to ride the whole thing straight through. And while the phys...