Bikes & Big Ideas

Magnus Manson is just 24 years old, but his racing career has largely been on hold for the last few years as he’s battled cancer. And despite his young age, Manson has taken on his fight with remarkable poise and maturity. So David Golay sat down with Magnus — who is now officially in remission — to talk about his experience; how he used bikes as a motivational tool through chemotherapy and a stem...

The most interesting segment of the current mountain bike market just might be the 140–150 mm travel Trail bike range, with huge diversity in the on-trail performance and feel of the various options available. And so we sat down to chat about a bunch of the very different bikes in that class that we’ve been spending time on recently, including the Esker Rowl, Trek Fuel EX, Ibis Ripmo V2S, and the...

Chris Currie has worn a lot of different hats over several decades in the bike industry, and his latest venture, Ministry Cycles , is making big headway on a very, very interesting-looking machined aluminum frame, the Psalm 150. And so we sat down with Chris to hear about the origins of the project — which has its beginnings back in the 2000s — and along the way Chris shares a lot about his philos...

Racing World Cup DH is hard. So is designing a bike to do it at the top level, and running a team isn’t exactly a cakewalk either. But after a season of doing all three concurrently, Neko Mulally is still having a blast, and is running his Frameworks team and self-designed bike back for a second season. And so we sat back down with Neko to catch up on how the 2022 season went, what he learned from...

Climbing 8,600 feet is a pretty big day on the bike no matter how you slice it, but it balloons into something else entirely when it’s going up the Whole Enchilada trail in Moab, Utah, with a commitment to pedaling every inch, and cleaning every move. But Braydon Bringhurst pulled off that wild feat, and produced the excellent 8600FT film about the effort, so we sat down with him to get the whole...

Geoff Kabush has been racing bikes professionally for longer than just about anyone — and at 45, he’s still going strong. So we sat down with Geoff to hear about his unconventional beginnings in mountain biking; how the sport has changed over the course of his career; what’s kept him motivated nearly three decades into his career; skiing; social media; and much, much more.  TOPICS & TIMES...

Just a few years ago, Jakob Jewett thought he wanted to be a professional skier — and was racking up strong results in freeride competitions. But fast forward to 2023, and he’s now got his first season of Elite World Cup Downhill racing under his belt, and has just signed on as the newest member of Pivot Factory Racing. So we sat down to chat with Jakob about his move to racing bikes and what flip...

Most small bike manufacturers don’t dive straight into running a World Cup race team, but Gamux isn’t most companies. So we sat down with their founder Pascal Tinner to talk about all the ways that Gamux is doing things differently — from putting such a strong emphasis on racing, to building a fully-machined DH frame, with a Pinion gearbox and a belt drive to boot. And along the way, we get into f...

2022 was Blister’s busiest ever year for bike reviews, and we’ll have even more coming your way in 2023. But before we dive headlong into the new year, we wanted to sit down and recap a bunch of our favorite bikes and gear that we tested last year, including suspension, brakes, tires, and more. And along the way, we chat about bike versatility vs. specificity, tease some upcoming reviews, and a bu...

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 gravel biking skeptic, found to be delightful. So Andrew, Jonathan, and David Golay sat down to talk about gravel riding and how / why mountain bikers might find it to be more enjoyable than we think; th...

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 lot of insights to offer into what makes a race season come together; how he approaches race day — on both the Enduro and DH bikes; the delicate balance of risk vs. reward and where to push the limit;...

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 her breakout year and what she learned over the course of the season; racing many different disciplines; bike setup and European vs. Australian DH tracks; her mental approach to racing and what does (an...

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 especially-aggressive Canyon Spectral 125, the super-adjustable Trek Fuel EX, the impressive (and surprising) Santa Cruz Nomad, and a bunch more. And we also discuss some of the upcoming bikes that we’...

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. And along the way, we debunk some common misconceptions about damper performance and design, too. TOPICS & TIMES: How a damper is built (3:13) Orifice dampers (10:03) Oil displacement (16:33) Dam...

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 — as Machina Bikes . So we sat down with Tom and Sion to talk about their wild carbon fiber / titanium / aluminum Enduro bike (which also features a gearbox and mullet setup for good measure). Along th...

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 now-operational custom gearbox, which is poised to pick up where Honda left off with their famous RN-01; some updates to the frame construction; and a lot of other details. And along the way we ge...

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 road climb to the top — for men or women — breaking the prior record by almost a full hour. So we sat down with Hannah to get the whole story, including her planning, nutrition, bike setup, and a whole...

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 British Columbia all the way to the southern tip of Baja Mexico, and founded the Orogenesis Collective to make it happen. With the trail taking form — and slated for a “soft opening” in 2023 — we sat dow...

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 with his brother Adam, to provide resources and support for others going through their own journey of recovery. And so we sat down with Adam to talk about everything that LoveYourBrain does, the convers...

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 too far into the technical side of things. But Franco is an incredible wealth of knowledge when it comes to suspension design, so we’ve got him back on the show to share a whole bunch of that knowl...

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 is one of the wildest mountain bike stories of the year, he wound up bikepacking over 3,400 km between races over the course of the season — and still finished 13th overall in the U21 Men’s category. So...

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; the Kavenz VHP 16; we chat about crank length and Hope’s new super-short 155 mm option; we offer some updates on our upcoming brake shootout, and thoughts on brake selection in general; and a whole bunc...

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 aggressive hardtail geometry; racing DH on a hardtail; their wild one-off Gasser DH bike; racing with the Athertons; and a whole lot more. TOPICS & TIMES: Burf’s background & founding BTR (2:06...

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 whole lot of other twists and turns. So we sat down with Pete to get the whole story, and chat about how and why he keeps Pinner running on top of holding down a job at Chromag; saving countless vacations...

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 the sport. So we sat down with newly-appointed rider representative Emilie Siegenthaler to talk about why the riders decided to band together, what they hope to get out of the association, how the 202...