Bikes & Big Ideas

Martin Maes practically grew up in the GT pits with his father, and had raced for them since he was a teenager. But he made the move to Orbea for 2022, and so we sat down to chat about his career trajectory and the value of a change of pace; the mental aspects of racing & injury recovery; becoming a father; bike setup for Enduro and DH racing, and a whole bunch more. TOPICS & TIMES: Father...

Yoann Barelli just announced the formation of his Into The Gnar Progression Team  — so we got him back on Bikes & Big Ideas to talk about it. And along the way we talk about Yoann’s career shift into freeriding; what he’s learned about coaching & training in recent years; his plans for 2022 — including teasing some very big news — and a bunch more. TOPICS & TIMES: One year on Guer...

Push Industries is one of the best-known suspension tuners and manufacturers of high-end shocks out there, and their founder, Darren Murphy has a whole lot to say on the topic of suspension. And so we sat down with Darren to chat about his background and how he got into suspension in the first place; the Eleven Six shock and what makes it stand out; his approach to product development and tuning;...

Mountain bike suspension has improved immensely in recent years, but designing rear suspension kinematics is inherently a game of tradeoffs, with no ideal one-size-fits-all solution. Cascade Components founder and engineer Jimmy Davis saw an opportunity to make his personal Santa Cruz Nomad better for where and how he rides, and soon a new business was born, making aftermarket suspension links for...

Joe McEwan had a career as an aerospace engineer working with composites, but when he started building bikes, steel was his material of choice. So we sat down with the founder of Starling Cycles to get his take on frame materials, and why steel is an under-appreciated one; why single-pivots can ride really well; go really deep on the tradeoffs between wheel sizes, & why mullets maybe aren’t th...

Ed Masters often looks like he’s having more fun than anybody else on the EWS and World Cup DH circuits, but that belies just how seriously he takes racing at the top level, and how much thought he’s given to the sport. And so we brought Ed onto Bikes & Big Ideas to talk about the incredible end to the 2021 World Cup season (and get hyped for racing to fire back up in 2022); catch up on his in...

Katy Winton has reliably been one of the top contenders on the EWS circuit, but she found herself without a factory ride in 2021 and had to put together her own team at the 11th hour to keep racing. And despite all that chaos, she had another strong season, which culminated in her signing with GT Factory Racing for 2022. So we sat down with Katy to get the whole story, and she did a remarkable job...

RockShox announced their new Flight Attendant electronically-controlled suspension system a few months ago, so we brought Chris Mandell back on Bikes & Big Ideas to tell us all about what the system is and how it works; who it will benefit the most; what the tradeoffs are; and Chris wraps it all up with a really important Big Idea. TOPICS & TIMES: What is Flight Attendant? (1:58) How does...

BMC has a strong heritage in road and cross country bikes but isn’t as well known for gravity-focused offerings. Mariano Schoefer and Christof Bigler — an engineer and designer, respectively, at BMC — were looking to build the bikes they personally wanted to ride and started modifying existing models as an after-hours side project. Their tinkering caught the attention of their bosses, and long sto...

Neko Mulally has had a very successful career racing for some of the biggest teams on the World Cup circuit, so we were surprised — and excited — when he announced that he was launching his own team for the 2022 season, and racing a bike that he designed himself. So we had to get Neko on Bikes & Big Ideas to talk about how he decided to take on such an ambitious project; designing the bike(s)...

2021 was Blister’s busiest year ever for testing mountain bikes and gear, and there were some real standout products among that crop. So we rounded up a bunch of our reviewers to give a rundown of the highlights of the last year — including a bunch of bikes all over the travel spectrum, some suspension products, and tires, inserts, pants, and more. And since we’re so excited to build on all that m...

Guerrilla Gravity just celebrated their 10th anniversary, so we sat down with co-founders Will Montague and Matt Giaraffa to talk about what inspired them to start a bike company in the first place; going from aluminum single-pivot DH bikes to pioneering an entirely new way of making carbon fiber frames; weathering the Covid-19 pandemic; and doing all that while building every single frame in Denv...

Clipless vs. flat pedals is a hotly debated topic in the mountain bike world, but now there’s a third choice — Hustle Labs’ Avery magnetic pedals. We were, frankly, a bit skeptical about this new in-between option, but we’ve had three reviewers spending time on the Avery, and they’ve wildly exceeded our expectations. So we sat down with Hustle’s Design Engineer, Tripp Hurt, to talk about where the...

Cannondale has a long history of doing things their own, quirky way, and the last couple of bikes they’ve rolled out — the Jekyll and Scalpel HT — are no exception. So this week, we’re joined by Cannondale’s Scott Vogelmann and Travis Tomczak to talk about those bikes, Cannondale’s weird streak, the wild dual-shock DH bike prototype that informed the Jekyll development, and a whole lot more. And a...

We’ve been testing a ton of bikes, and have a whole lot of updates to share, so Jonathan Ellsworth and David Golay sat down to discuss all of it. We get into it about high-pivot Enduro bike comparisons (with some surprising conclusions), offer some early impressions of an ultra-efficient long-travel Trail bike, and David talks about the frontrunner for his favorite bike of 2021. And along the way...

Mountain bike derailleur drivetrains haven’t fundamentally changed for just about as long as there have been mountain bikes — until now, anyway. Cedric Eveleigh has a very promising idea for how to rethink the derailleur and founded LAL Bikes to make it a reality. So we brought Cedric on to talk about the limitations of existing derailleurs; why gearboxes (still) haven’t taken off; prototyping and...

Mic Williams was racing as a privateer when Covid hit and racing went on hold. But instead of binging Netflix, he used his free time to start a very unusual bike company — Williams Racing Products . Mic has a whole lot of ideas for how to make bikes better and WRP has offered a lot of out-there products, including what can only be described as the reincarnation of the Honda RN-01 downhill bike. So...

Jordi Cortes spends much of the year on the road, working with Fox’s top racers on their suspension setups, and that has left him with both a wealth of knowledge about suspension setup and a unique perspective on the mental aspects of racing at the top level. So we sat down with Jordi to talk about all that, as well as the importance of consistency; developing working relationships with a huge ran...

Sealant-based tubeless systems are now ubiquitous on mountain bikes, but how did we get here? We sat down with Mike Bush, the President of Stan’s , to talk about the early days of tubeless development; why we still use rim tape and sealant; rim profiles; tire inserts; sealant formulation and how it actually works; and a whole lot more. TOPICS & TIMES: Origins of Stan’s No Tubes (1:18) UST vs....

We’ve been testing a lot of bikes of late, so we sat down to provide a rundown on what we’ve been riding, including the Santa Cruz Bronson, We Are One Arrival, Norco Range, and more. TOPICS & TIMES: Canfield Lithium (1:11) Guerrilla Gravity Trail Pistol (5:55) Canyon Spectral (9:13) We Are One Arrival (16:52) Santa Cruz Bronson (21:02) Norco Range (31:45) RELATED LINKS: Getting Here: Gunnison...

Mick Hannah just concluded a 20-plus year career racing World Cup DH, but he’s far from being done in the bike world. So we caught up with Mick to look back on two decades of top-level racing; discuss how the sport has (and hasn’t) changed; racing alongside his sister, Tracey ; retirement; what comes next, and more. TOPICS & TIMES: Life at home & unwinding from race season (0:40) Early day...

It’s wrong to call Vinny Armstrong “up and coming” — she’s won multiple Crankworx Whip-Offs, ridden at every year of Red Bull Formation to date, and firmly cemented herself on the world freeride stage. But Vinny is only 22, and with a bright future ahead of her, we sat down to hear her thoughts on what it holds — both for her personally, and the sport at large. TOPICS & TIMES: Growing up on a...

We catch up with Greg Minnaar , the greatest DH rider of all time, about this past season and his World Champs victory; keys to his high-level longevity; his mental approach to racing; Tom Brady; and more. TOPICS & TIMES: Update: Andora, Greg’s shoulder, & Eliot Jackson (1:26) Vali Hӧll’s question for Greg (6:53) World Champs week in Val di Sole (8:48) Mindset / mental approach going into...

Matt Manser (of GEAR:30 fame) and Jonathan Ellsworth talk to the very impressive (and very candid) Vali Höll about her remarkable season; race tactics; racing styles; Greg Minnaar & whether she can imagine still racing in 20 years; and more.  TOPICS & TIMES: How Vali & Matt met (3:47) Do you remember your 1st bicycle? (6:45) Vali's ski background (8:33) Choosing biking over skiing...

Mountain bike tech is evolving rapidly, and patent applications are a great window into what’s coming down the pipeline. So we talked to someone who's very keyed into this world: Dan Bacon of Wheelbased . We discuss cockpit integration (and why some of us hate it); electronic brakes(?!?!); active suspension; automakers joining the fray; and more. TOPICS & TIMES: SRAM integrated brakes (6:28) S...