Bikes & Big Ideas Podcast
Conversations with the pro riders, product designers, & others who are shaping the sport and bike culture.
Recent Episodes:
Few companies still make truly women-specific mountain bikes, but Liv Cycling is leading the charge there — we sat down with Off-Road Category Manager Ludi Scholz to talk about what Liv does and why.
A lot of mountain bike companies started with one or two people building stuff in a shed, but not many of those folks *began* by building their own gearbox, and even fewer have stayed committed to gearbox...
Vermont Mountain Bike Association, in conjunction with Vermont Adaptive Ski and Sports, are building an impressive network of adaptive trails. So we sat down to find out what has made them so successful;...
Simon is joined by freeride legend Wade Simmons for the July edition of Reviewing the News. Wade and Simon try to figure out why they keep crashing; then get into Crankworx Whistler, the wild Les Gets...
Last time we checked in with Hannah Otto, she was fresh off setting the FKT on the Whole Enchilada in Moab, Utah. Her follow-up was to chase the FKT on the Kokopelli Trail, where she had an extremely harrowing...
Neko Mulally is getting ready to offer his Frameworks Enduro bike for sale, so we sat down to hear about its development; discuss the various DH frame variants Neko has been testing; talk about the expanded...
Geometron arguably did more than any other bike brand to kick off the geometry revolution of the late 2010s, but they haven’t been content to rest on those laurels. The latest version of their G1 Enduro...
Mike Ferrentino and Simon Stewart get into the polarizing topic of bicycle access in wilderness areas, the inclusion of women at Red Bull Rampage, a new tire valve standard, and much more in the latest...
We check in on a whole bunch of the bikes, tires, and other gear we’re currently testing, from the razor-sharp Specialized Epic Evo to the ultra-composed RAAW Madonna, and a wide range in between.
Thousands of high-end bikes have been stolen across the Western US and wound up in Jalisco, Mexico. The story behind the trafficking ring and how Bryan Hance of Bike Index uncovered it is a *wild* one...
A lot of wild patent applications have been filed in the bike world of late, so we brought Dan Bacon from Wheelbased back on Bikes & Big Ideas to talk about a bunch of them, from Bilstein’s wild fork damper...
MTB racing season is in full swing and Simon Stewart and Mike Ferrentino have a lot to cover on this iteration of Reviewing the News, from World Cup XC to Hardline, the Giro d’Italia and upcoming Tour...
EXT is updating their (already impressive) Storia and Arma rear shocks, so we sat down with their founder, Franco Fratton, to hear all about the new dampers; the potential for truly “active” suspension...
Air- and coil-sprung rear shocks have been used on mountain bikes for decades, but Cane Creek’s “air-charged coil” Tigon shock is a novel concept. So we sat down with Will Hart from Cane Creek to hear...
We’ve been testing a huge spectrum of bikes — from Gravel to Enduro — plus a bunch of new tires, suspension, and more. Simon Stewart and David Golay sat down to talk about all of it, recap the World Cup...
High-end metal bikes are having a resurgence, and we sat down with Daniel Yang and Nick Neuhaus of Neuhaus Metalworks to talk about why; hear their takes on frame design and size-specific geometry; discuss...
Simon Stewart is joined by special guest host Mike Ferrentino to talk about Kona’s Sea Otter debacle and the state of the industry more broadly; the start of XC World Cup season; new XC race bikes being...
Norco hasn’t been shy about the fact that they’re working on a new DH race bike, and we sat down with Norco engineers Adrian Ward and Kirk McDowall to hear all about it.
It’s been an insanely busy last few weeks for new bike launches, and we’ve been riding a whole lot of them. We sat down to chat about our early impressions of a *lot* of new bikes, from the Specialized...
In their third installment of Reviewing The News, Ryan and Simon get into: the slopestyle strike; Scott’s apparent management instability; riding in Tuscany; some reflections on how we ever rode without...