Bikes & Big Ideas

Eric Olsen just returned from bike touring between the first three rounds of the EWS, so we sat down with him to hear where he got the idea in the first place; how it all went, including encountering golf-ball-sized hail and a flock of schoolchildren mid-race; the notion of bikes as transportation & European bike touring culture more broadly; and much, much more.

Eric Olsen on Bikepacking the EWS (Ep.126)

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Eric Olsen just returned from bike touring between the first three rounds of the EWS, so we sat down with him to hear where he got the idea in the first place; how it all went, including encountering golf-ball-sized hail and a flock of schoolchildren mid-race; the notion of bikes as transportation & European bike touring culture more broadly; and much, much more.
Betty Birrell riding the North Shore (Photo: Travis Rummel)

“North Shore” Betty Birrell on MTB at Age 73

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Few 45-year-old women were taking up mountain biking in the early 1990s, and even fewer are still riding the North Shore nearly 30 years later — but Betty Birrell hasn’t let that stop her, and at 73, she’s still getting after it. So we sat down with Betty to talk about what keeps her going, and along the way she shares some great insights on motivation, role models, and not letting the expectations of others slow you down.
RockShox has released a crazy amount of new suspension in the last few months, and we’ve been spending time on both their Flight Attendant electronically controlled setup and the new ZEB and SuperDeluxe. So on this week’s episode of Bikes & Big Ideas, we give the rundown on all of it, plus updates from our testing of bikes from Santa Cruz, Orbea, Rocky Mountain, YT, and Antidote.

Reviewer Reports: RockShox Suspension & Bikes Galore (Ep.120)

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RockShox has released a wild amount of new suspension in the last few months, and we’ve been spending time on both their Flight Attendant electronically controlled setup and the new ZEB and SuperDeluxe. So on this week’s episode of Bikes & Big Ideas, we give the rundown on all of it, plus updates from our testing of bikes from Santa Cruz, Orbea, Rocky Mountain, YT, and Antidote.

Contra Bikes on Building a Bike From Scratch (Ep.118)

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Designing a bike frame is hard enough. Taking it to production is an even bigger challenge, but that hasn’t stopped Evan Turpen, and his Contra Bikes high-pivot prototype is extremely impressive. So this week on Bikes & Big Ideas, we sat down with Evan to chat about why he decided to start a bike company, and what he hopes to achieve with the bike; learn all about designing and fabricating frames from scratch (and how he learned to do it), and a whole lot more.
Kavenz had been working on a high-pivot Enduro bike long before it was cool, and the VHP16 and new VHP18 that came out of the project have a lot of unique design features. So this week on Bikes & Big Ideas, we sat down with Kavenz founder Giacomo Großehagenbrock to talk about the founding of Kavenz; the design philosophy behind their bikes; starting and growing a business; and much more.

Kavenz on Engineering a Better Enduro Bike (Ep.117)

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Kavenz had been working on a high-pivot Enduro bike long before it was cool, and the VHP16 and new VHP18 that came out of the project have a lot of unique design features. So this week on Bikes & Big Ideas, we sat down with Kavenz founder Giacomo Großehagenbrock to talk about the founding of Kavenz; the design philosophy behind their bikes; starting and growing a business; and much more.
Lazer’s new KinetiCore technology is meant to protect against rotational impacts while being lighter, cooler, more comfortable, and using less plastic than other systems, including MIPS — and its design is very clever in its simplicity. So on Bikes & Big Ideas, we sat down with Lazer’s Chris Smith to get the rundown on what KinetiCore is, why Lazer developed it, how helmet testing standards work and how they might fall short; the Lazer KinetiCore lineup (including the Jackal KinetiCore that we’ve just started testing) and a whole lot more.

Lazer KinetiCore (Ep.112)

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Lazer’s new KinetiCore technology is meant to protect against rotational impacts while being lighter, cooler, more comfortable, and using less plastic than other systems, including MIPS — and its design is very clever in its simplicity. So we sat down with Lazer’s Chris Smith to get the rundown on what KinetiCore is, why Lazer developed it, and a whole lot more.
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