Bikes & Big Ideas

Velocio co-founder Andrew Gardner enjoys biking in many different forms, and earlier this fall, he and Jonathan Ellsworth went on a gravel ride through New England — which Jonathan, something of a gr…

Ed Masters is always good for an entertaining story — and his recap of his extremely wild Vallnord race run from earlier this year is reason enough to tune into this episode. But Ed also has a whole …

Ellie Smith is the reigning Australian National DH Champion (having won the race on an Enduro bike, no less), and that was just the start of her 2022 season. So we sat down with Ellie to chat about h…

Though ski season is well underway in much of the Northern Hemisphere, we’re still testing a lot of bikes, too, and have updates on what we’ve been spending time on. So we sat down to chat about the …

We’re continuing our deep dive on suspension technology with EXT’s Franco Fratton, and this week, it’s all about dampers: how they’re built, how they work, how EXT goes about designing them, and more…

A lot of small frame builders start out just making the bikes they wanted to ride, but not many come up with anything nearly as polished-looking — or involving as many exotic construction techniques …

We’ve been following the development of the Trinity MTB with a great deal of interest, and Mic Williams is back on the show to talk about the latest developments — of which there are many — including…

The Whole Enchilada in Moab is one of the best-known mountain bike trails in the world, but most folks take a shuttle to the top. Hannah Otto just demolished the FKT for the full loop, including the …

The Pacific Crest Trail is well known in the hiking world and beyond, but what if there was a mountain biking version? Gabe Tiller has ambitions to establish a route — predominantly on dirt — from Br…

Traumatic brain injuries are an unfortunate reality of many outdoor sports, and after professional snowboarder Kevin Pearce suffered one that derailed his career, Kevin founded LoveYourBrain, along w…

When we first had EXT founder Franco Fratton on Bikes & Big Ideas back in Ep. 110, we had plenty to cover with just the story of his long and remarkable career in suspension design and didn’t delve t…

Matthew Fairbrother showed up in Scotland for the 2022 EWS season opener, at age 17, having never left New Zealand before, and with no plan for what was going to follow that first race. And in what i…

We’ve been testing a ton of new bikes and gear (as always) and we’ve got updates on a bunch of it including the new Santa Cruz Tallboy and the RockShox Pike that came on it; the Intense Tracer 279; t…

BTR Fabrications has a well-earned reputation for building burly, aggressive hardtails, and we sat down with Paul “Burf” Burford (the “B” in “BTR”) to talk about his design philosophy and pioneering …

Pete Fowler’s path to founding Pinner Machine Shop was an unconventional one, including teaching himself how to be a machinist, running a mill in his kitchen while his partner was at work, and a whol…

One of the biggest stories of the World Cup Downhill season that just wrapped up has been the formation of the new rider’s association to better collectively advocate for their interests and those of…

Vaea Verbeeck has had a very impressive and varied mountain bike career as a racer (across a wide range of disciplines), a freerider, and a whole lot more. And so just before she headed off to this y…

Dillon Osleger is a man who wears many hats — he’s a professional mountain biker, the head of the Sage Trails Alliance, a climate scientist, a founding member of the Protect Our Winters Bike Alliance…

We’ve been testing a ton of bikes, suspension, brakes, and other gear, so Dylan Wood and I sat down to chat about a whole bunch of it, including the Pivot Shadowcat, Intense Tracer 279, Canfield Jedi…

Reynolds is one of the biggest names in steel and titanium bike frame tubing, and they’ve just released a very interesting report on the environmental impact of their various product lines. So we sat…