Podcasts about BMX

 Mikey Ross has spent the last few years transferring his BMX skills to the MTB world and has had amazing results. We talk about his BMX roots, what it takes to be competitive on a circuit like Crankworx and his world first tricks.We'd love to hear your thoughts on any of the topics on this, or any episode.Hit us up with a comment below or on instagram: Back Bone BMX: https://www.instagram.com/backbonebmxTyson: https://www.instagram.com/peni_chillinMike: https://www.instagram.com/mikerossridesMake sure you join Club Back Bone to build the BMX scene in Australia! https://www.backbonebmx.com/club-back-boneSupport Back Bone BMX by visiting the shop:https://www.backbonebmx.comPlease like the video, subscribe and share it with your friends! 

Let's talk BMX with Matt Smith of The Yea! https://www.theyea.com/ T-Shirts & More! - https://moorebmx.myshopify.com/ Episodes with video - http://bit.ly/talkingbmx Thank you for choosing to spend your time listening! If you enjoyed it, share it with a friend. Consider Subscribing on Youtube - http://bit.ly/Brant_Moore If this helped you in some way, consider supporting the channel with my Join button for a membership or through my teespring store! Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/brantmoore --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/brant-moore/support

This postcast has been long in the making with Clive Gosling as we wanted to do it in person, as we prefer with all podcasts. With Clive living in the UK and really wanting Paul Roberts (living in the US) involved – I still managed a solo hour conversation with Clive on this trip to the UK this week but we also saved a little for maybe a Part 2 when we can get Paul and Clive together. I really enjoyed this one. Clive has 40 plus years in BMX and the industry as a whole with his knowledge, passion and personality it is unequaled. We chat about the early days in BMX starting with Edwards (family bike shop), his mother Carole Gosling who has 40 plus years of deep involvement behind the scenes in UKBMX, EBA right up to today's time working on the London Olympics and still in 2022 at the Glasgow UCI World Cup earlier this year. Clive is always Factory (even today) we talked about some of the teams he rode for, racing Buckmore Park, Outwell, Poole the London scene in the 80s into the 90s. We talk about Clive winning his first National title, racing Superclass, hanging out with Will Smyth and the Jive guys going to the States in the late 80s, hooking up with Gork and the BMX Action guys at Wizard Publications. Clive talks about riding everything in BMX not just racing, riding South Banks, hanging out with Simon Tabron, riding street, contributing for the magazines, working for UKBMX writing the Race Zines for the Nationals and getting into Mountain Bikes in the mid 90s. Clive brings us up-to-speed with what he's doing these days in the industry working for GT and Cannondale (Director of Marketing at Cycling Sports Group) sponsoring both Kye Whyte (Olympic Silver Medalist, European Champion and World number 2) and Malverns Classic last month and so much more.

This week we sit down with Matt Hawkins, organizer of North Carolina's Croatan Buck Fifty and founder of Ridge Supply. The special origin story of Ridge Supply and ultimately the Croatan Buck Fifty have lead Matt to create an amazing early season event. Episode sponsor: Bike Index  Ridge Supply  Croatan Buck Fifty  Support the Podcast Join The Ridership  Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: Croatan Buck Fifty [00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist. This week on the podcast, we've got Matt Hawkins. Matt is the founder of Ridge supply, as well as the creator of the CRO 10 buck, 50. Oh, super well-regarded gravel race out in North Carolina. I've been wanting to get Matt on the show for a few years after meeting him at sea Otter. And I'm excited to have you get to know the Crow 10 buck 50. I believe there's still some spots available for the 2023 edition. It's one of those early season races. So a great way to get tuned up for a fantastic 2023. Before we jump in. I want to thank this week. Sponsor, bike index. Bike index is a bicycle registry and stolen bike recovery platform. No one likes to think about getting their bikes stolen. I unfortunately have had two stolen over the course One was a BMX bike when I was a kid. And I feel like that scarred me. I've always been super careful about how I lock my bike up, which is probably a good thing, but ultimately, a garage that housed my bikes in San Francisco got broken into and I lost a track mountain bike. Neither one of them were ever recovered. Bike index is really the only game in town that focuses on stolen bike recovery. They've built a platform to blast your bike out to local social media channels. And they can provide you all the best advice on how to increase the chances of success in getting your bicycle recovered it's a nonprofit. All the services are free. All you need to do is get your serial number and add your make model and color to the platform. And there you go. It's like insurance. That didn't cost you anything. Simply visit www.bike index.org and get your bike registered today. With that said let's jump right into my conversation with matt [00:02:10] Craig: Hey, Matt, welcome to the show. [00:02:12] Matt: Hey, Hey Craig, [00:02:14] Craig: I'm excited to get into the Croatan buck. 50. Am I saying it? Correct? [00:02:18] Matt: you are, you are a lot of people say Croatian but 50, but I think they do that just to make me mad. [00:02:24] Craig: Yeah, and we'll get into it. We'll get into it. Cuz I think people are gonna need to get out a map and you're gonna tell us where it is in the country. I, I had to do that myself. I knew it was in North Carolina, but I didn't know exactly where and it's actually pretty interesting part of the state, but we'll table that question for the moment, cuz I was like just starting out by. Just a little bit about your backstory, where you grew up, how you got into riding. And I think we should talk about your company Ridge supply, because I think it will filter into why you created the event and you know, the vibe behind it. [00:02:53] Matt: Sure, [00:02:55] Craig: Yeah. So let's start with that question. [00:02:57] Matt: wanna know? [00:02:58] Craig: Yeah. So, where'd you grow up and when did you start riding and when did you decide, when did you discover drop bar gravel riding. [00:03:04] Matt: Well, I, I my wife and I both are from central Virginia. So up near the Charlottesville area born and raised there. My family's been there a long time, many generations. And I, I grew up in a real rural kind of county, a lot of farming communities there, but we just happen to have a race. That started back when the tour Deon and the tour to Trump rode, they came through our town. And we had a, we had a local race called the tour to Madison, and I did that with a buddy of mine on some, some Huffies. And we started racing and riding when I was really young. I've literally been riding bikes for, for almost 40 years. And yeah, so that's, that's kind of how I started. I, I of course I, I crashed on my first race and and loved it, loved doing it, but I was a swimmer by trade and I swam my whole life and swam through college. So I really picked up cycling after college sort of as my primary. And I've been doing that, you know, every, every chance I get as my soul sport really, since I got outta college, [00:04:18] Craig: Were you, were you more excited about the roadside or did you start off road riding as well back? [00:04:22] Matt: You know, actually I did a whole lot of mountain biking to start and did used to, you know, race 24 hour team races with, with the, with a team and did some road racing and some crit racing gravel obviously didn't exist back then. When I moved here to North Carolina back in oh five. I, I, you know, the first place I went to ride was the Croatan because I could go there at night with lights and be off the road. And it felt like, you know, that's where I could take my mountain bike and I could just go kind of ride. And I didn't really know. CRO, Tan's a pretty big, you know, a surface area and it, it has a lot of roads, but they're not all connected. So a lot of it's kind of sketchy. You're just like, I don't know what's down that road. So we started, you know, exploring a little bit more on road bikes with, you know, 25 sea tires or whatever is probably a bad idea. But we are just seeing, Hey, what's down that road. And I got my first cross bike and started really. Exploring it and doing, doing proper gravel, if you will, kind of before the gravel boom, but more like 2013, something like that. And and yeah, so I was like one of the first people here in our little town to do Strava. And so I made a lot of the segments originally. And and that's kind of how I got into, got into gravel was the Croatan was, was here and then everywhere I've travel. That's the bike. I primarily will take, you know, I ride a rodeo labs trail donkey now, and I'll just everywhere. I'm gonna go. I'll take that. So I can, I can ride road or, or gravel or whatever suits a fancy, [00:06:08] Craig: Yeah, exactly. When you first started on Strava and it probably sounds like the same vintage I did. When you created a segment, you could actually name it, right? Like you could name, you could name the, you name, the climbs, all the climbs. You could put your own names on them. [00:06:22] Matt: Yeah. Yeah. My, my mother-in-law sends me things all the time. Bless her heart. If she's listening, I love her to death, but she'll just send like a text message with some, with some cycling related news article and. If you, if you're like us and you follow cycling, it's things that you've already heard two or three days before, but when they hit the mainstream media and maybe my mother-in-law would see it, I would always be like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But she sent me this article about Strava, which I'd never heard of before. I think this was 2011. And I kind of clicked on it. I was like, oh, this is kind of cool. And I thought, well, I wonder who's using it around here. and I, I, I downloaded the, it might have been a beta app or something at the time. And, and of course there was no segments anywhere everywhere. I went for the first six months I was telling you gotta try this, you know? And Yeah, I made all, I made all the segments in the beginning which was kind of funny. And tho the GPS on your phone back then was horrible and it, it was all squarely lines looked like spaghetti everywhere. And so, yeah, Stravos come a long way with better head units and yeah. You know, all that stuff. [00:07:28] Craig: Yeah, yeah. A hundred percent. So it sounds like the Croton is, is actually rideable from where you live right now. Is that [00:07:34] Matt: Yeah. Yeah. So we are, we are surrounded by it's 200 miles a road gravel road. And it's right here. It's five, five miles from where I'm sitting right now, so I can ride over there linked together all I can handle and, and come back pretty and it's open, you know, year round. There's no closures. It's they're public roads. [00:07:57] Craig: And to position it. So it's in North Carolina, but very close to the coast is what I saw. [00:08:01] Matt: Yes. Yeah. So we're, we're in Eastern North Carolina. It's totally flat. There's zero elevation. And the Croatan is what's called a pacoin. So, pacoin is like an elevated section of low lands. So there's a lot of water in. In the Croatan and it has nowhere to go because there's no elevation and there's really no drainage. So what they did was back in the sixties They dug canals to create the roads. So they would go in there, they would scoop out, you know, along the left and the right side, create these canals for drainage and that, and they'd put the earth in the middle and then they'd elevate that section for the roads. And so a lot of what we're riding on is you know, as gravel roads that were built in a swamp essentially. So, that. It's pretty cool. Like when I first started going in there and riding, I was a little bit like, because you, you can be like 20 miles from nothing, you know, which it's really hard to say that, especially over on the east coast, you know, if you're in Montana or something. Sure. You could maybe, but like out here, man, you can't be that far from civilization. And we have this beautiful, you know, national forest that is like kind of weirdly isolated We can, we have it right here in our backyard, which is, which is great. So this is a [00:09:24] Craig: Yeah, isn't [00:09:25] Matt: to start a start a bike race. [00:09:27] Craig: Isn't that one of the, that's just one of those amazing things about having a gravel bike. You can just sort of explore and get into these pockets of wilderness. And in, in this case, pretty large pocket considering where you are now in, in the, in the four, is there, what's the canopy, like, are there large trees in there? Are we looking at kind of [00:09:45] Matt: Yeah. So Eastern North Carolina is filled with pine. And a lot of it is plantation planted pine. So RO you know, long, straight rows of, of pine Warehouser and places like that own. Ridiculous amount of land down here with just pine trees and the Croatan is essentially mostly that except for there are maybe six pretty big lakes that are in the Croatan. And then there's a lot of, you know, tributary, swamp creeks that are coming in and out of that, when we. A lot of rain here, which, which is pretty often it's heading towards the coast, which isn't that far away. It's just that we, we tend to we te we tend to fill the sound is right here, where we're at. So we have the sound and the ocean in a barrier island. That's like 25 miles long. So, it's all connected. And you know, it's three miles off the beach basically is where the, where the place starts. [00:10:48] Craig: Got it. And are there other kind of offroad recreators in there? Are there, you know, jeepers and four wheelers and [00:10:55] Matt: Some, some of that, mostly it's hunters in the, in hunting season. And other than that, honestly, it's, it's pretty much just for us. There, none of the roads really connect to each other. So we, we get to use them. A lot of days when I go out there, man, it's like, I can't believe, you know, just it's like, it's just, it's all. It's just you. And that's, that's, that's a blessing for sure. It also means that the roads aren't maintained as well as they could be. And like we had the, we had hurricane Florence sorry, if you hear that helicopter, just the sound of freedom here. We got the Marine Corps here. So, the hurricane Florence in 2018, which. Yesterday 2018. I mean, we just got devastated and we still haven't had the roads fixed since then. So that's been four years. You, you just can only imagine the amount of potholes and damage and stuff that's there, but that's what makes our race a little interesting too, is that you never know what the roads are gonna be like [00:11:56] Craig: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. [00:11:57] Matt: the new change. They're like a lot. [00:11:59] Craig: before we get into the race itself, let's talk a little bit about Ridge supply and what, what led to you founding the company and the vision? Cause I've when I heard the story, I found it super interesting and frankly made me want to just jump on the website and order some socks. [00:12:13] Matt: I appreciate that. I, I need that. I need that. Yeah. If, if, for folks who don't know, I, you know, I own and operate Ridge supply, which is a which is a cycling apparel. Running apparel brand. I'm a one man show, so I I've got no employees. I've been doing it seven years and it's an online, only business. We, we, we primarily sell direct. So you know, the pretty much the only place you can get our product is, is at our our website. And I, I, I ship everything myself. I started doing. Back in 2015 and I didn't know what I was doing. I, I, I knew that I had I had a pretty good job at the time. And I, the, the, the quick story is I, I got I got run over by a pickup truck while I was riding my bike. And it was a hit and run and I was sort of very, very fortunate to be alive and. Acutely aware of that in the hospital that a lot of folks wanted to know if I was gonna keep riding my bike. And I, I immediately that I had to resolve that was just like, of course I was, I wasn't, it was never like, I'm scared of riding on the road. I, I certainly was aware of the danger prior to this happening. And I knew that that day I was wearing all black. and that's kind of the easy color to find in cycling apparel. Everybody makes black apparel. And I knew that if I was gonna continue to do it, I wanted to try to figure out how to do it safer. And so while I was laid up with a broken pelvis, I started doing some research and I put two sort of premises together. One was that Blocked color was more visible than solid color. And what that means is if you have the brightest, you know, pink or orange, that neon pink or orange, and we, we love it in our products. If you put it by itself and you stick it down the road like you would see from a car, you might, you might not know what that is. It, it, it looks like. anything could look like a road sign. It could look like whatever. It could just be a bright thing that you're not quite identifying yet, but when you put blocked color together like a dark color, a light color and a bright color, it catches the eye in a way that makes it stand out. It's not necessarily as. As the solid bright color, but it's more eye-catching. So that was one premise and was sort of a scientific premise there. And the other was bio motion mechanics. And what that means is that the human, the human brain recognizes another human's movement. And when that, that happens, that that brain will then acknowledge that that's a human and treat it like a. and I think what happens in cycling, the phenomenon that we all experience when we're riding is we're not treated like humans at all. And it isn't because people are driving around saying, you know, oh, these Kirsty cyclists, you know, it's actually that when they're driving, they're just not acknowledging that, that thing that they see is. Another person. It's, it's just an object. It's not, it's not dangerous. But when you think that that's a person, you notice it's a person, you will, then you don't wanna run somebody over. You know, that's not what anybody's trying to do. Then you will start acknowledging that that's person treat 'em like a person. So I took those two premises together and I said, well, I knew defeat is here in North Carolina. I had been to visit. and I was kind of their neon poster child after my accident. And I realized like I could make my own sock. All I had to do was make 72 pair and. I took the most trite design. If you, if you're seeing this on YouTube or something, it's right behind me. But I took the blue Ridge mountains that I grew up with in central Virginia. Everything is blue Ridge, blue Ridge, blue Ridge. It's the most trite non-original thing I could have come up with, but I'd never seen it in a sock. And so I took that design and a contour line also was something I had never seen. I only has it really seen straight. They're easier to knit straight. Or vertical line. So I took that contour line. I made this five color sock and that was my idea was like, if I make a bright eyecatching multicolor sock and it's moving all the time there, you get your bio motion, you get your most visible. And and yeah, so that's what I did. I mean, I. I, I did that in 2015. I, I had no idea what I was doing. I thought, man, if I could just sell these 144 pair that I ended up buying the first time I maybe I could do a sock of the month club or something. I no idea how to ship them nothing. And I made a phone call to a buddy who owns a bike shop. And he was like, oh, this is great. You know, I'll buy six pair. And I called another buddy who owns a bike shop. And he was like, oh, I'll order 18. And I was like, oh my gosh, whoa, I've sold 23 pair. What am I gonna do? You know how I was just panicked. And so I, I, I really worked hard for like a week and I like created a website and did got the shipping integrated and I did all these. Back in 2015, these tools were just becoming available to people like me, who really didn't know what they were doing, but pretty dangerous on a computer, but like, I can't do code, you know, and I could do all these things, like sort of cookie cutter and just like work hard at it and do it. And so that's, that's how I was, it was just dangerous enough to, to get 'em sold. And then I sold them within two weeks and then I was like, well, I'll just take that. And I'll reinvest it in a new, new color and I just keep flipping it. And that's how my business started in 2015. And I literally never put another dime into it. I bet I was able to do that for a while, while still having a regular job. And then yes, slowly but surely it's grown to the point. , you know, I think a lot of people think Ridge supply is a lot bigger than it is. But you gotta sell a lot of $17 socks to make a living. And I'm fortunate to sell a lot of socks. So, we that's, that's what I do, which is kind of, kind of crazy when people ask me, like, what do you do? I'm like, I sell socks and they're like, well, what do you do for a living? I'm like, I sell a lot of socks. I don't know. I mean, that's the deal. [00:18:43] Craig: I, I love that Matt. And for the listener, like I'll put a, a, a link to Ridge supply, so you can check out the color ways and whatnot. And I think it's the type of design that once you see it, as you said, you've, you've iterated on the color ways. Numbers and numbers and numbers of times now. And there's lots of different options there, but the core elements are generally the same, that skyline design that you've talked about early on from the blue Ridge mountains. So it's super cool and visual. And I think I also heard you mention to others that, you know, you, you do find that people talk about their socks, which I think is, is interesting. And you know, in probably a great way that has, has helped the company. [00:19:20] Matt: Yeah. A AB I mean, absolutely. I had no idea. The. The a community nature that was being created. And then the, the virals, not the right word, the personal connection that the Sox would make with other people out in the world. Like I'm always blown away at the number of new customers that rich supply gets every month that I'm not, I'm not advertising to get them. They're they're coming through grassroots. You know, people on a group ride, people, seeing something on Instagram, people telling somebody else about 'em and that excitement around it is something that is, is the blessing of why this is actually a business. And isn't, wasn't just something I did. And , and, and it, and I can't take credit for it because a lot of that is timing. And the MIS the, the mistakes or risks that were taken early on with the business that worked at the time when nobody else was really doing that now in revisionist history, it looks like, wow, you really knew, I didn't know what I was doing, you know, like, so, I, I can't sit back now and be like, yeah, look at this. I, I, I still just in awe and my wife and I will look at each other sometimes and be like, what is going on? Like, we , we both had, you know, Big time jobs and corporate blah, blah, blah. And all of a sudden it's like, we're sell socks for a living. And, and, you know, it's bizarre. It's a bizarre life, but I think I got the best job in the world for me, you know? So [00:20:59] Craig: Yeah, that's amazing. And I, I do, I mean, I think as a consumer, we all appreciate like the transparency and authenticity of business owners. Like now that I've heard the story, the origin story about why the SOC design is the way it is. You better believe if anybody asks me about those socks or says like, oh, those are kind of cool. I'm gonna tell them, oh, they were designed for increased visibility. And like, there's no doubt in my mind that customers relay that story if they hear about it. Because it's just, so it's just an interesting talking point. Like most socks are boring. These aren't. [00:21:33] Matt: and I appreciate that. And you know, you, can't not, everybody can listen to a 45 minute podcast to let me get long winded about telling that story either. So it's, it's hard to, it's hard to get that message out there. I assume everybody knows it, but of course they don't. And so I'm, I'm happy that you've. You know, you, you brought it up because it's, it is a, it's not marketing. I it's the last thing from marketing, it's really the, kind of the core design philosophy of what I do. It, it, isn't just, it's either mountain related, you know? So like the names, the style, the design is kind of related. It also has that five color. I try to do five sometimes I can't, but. And once I that's my brand identity, I don't have a logo that people recognize. I don't have a text that somebody's like, oh yeah, it's it's that. And when I started that in 2015, nobody was doing that. And so when you see my socks in a picture, they really stand out because of that branding. And that I've I've I like to say like, You know, like a dog, like peed around my tree. So many times, like you come near that tree, you're like, oh, that's where it supplies tree. Whoa. You know? And it's because that's what , that's what that did. And I didn't know that's what was gonna happen. But now I, I, it's funny, like I have like, Social media watchdogs out there. You know, if somebody does anything with five colors or contour lines, I get these text messages. Like they're stealing from you. You know, it's, it's not that there's only so much you can do on a sock. That's not really what happens, but that's, what's made it unique. Is it it, you can tell what it is without seeing the words or some, you know, a swoosh logo or. [00:23:17] Craig: Yeah. I love it. I love it. I'm in the listener. Well knows that I can geek out about the basic business behind any enterprise. Cause I love it. I'm fascinated by it, but I definitely wanted to transition to the Caran buck 50. And learn, learn more about the event. So what, when did you get the idea for it and what was the inspiration? Why, you know, it's a lot of work to put on an event as you can attest. And why did you tackle that? [00:23:42] Matt: Well, I mean, ignorance is is a great motivator to do something ridiculous because I had no idea. I had never, I don't think I'd ever volunteered for a race and nor had I ever put one on I'd done a lot of them. And I just knew that I knew that our area was kind of unique. Gravel was something that it hadn't quite taken off. There weren't a lot of big events outside of, you know, like Mid-South and dirty Kansas at the time. And there was really no, and there's there still aren't many events on the east coast, outside of like Vermont. And so I knew we had the Crow team here and I. The better part of six months or so, just kind of riding the Croatan, giving a feel for it and, and trying to come up with something that could work. The, the one challenge we have most, because we're on the coast, you can't go in our case south, because we're south facing, which is kind of strange. They don't, we're like long island, you know, when you go south, you go into the water. So. We don't have options for loops. You kind of go into the Croatan and the way that it's structured with its lakes and its swamps and stuff, some of the roads just don't go anywhere. And they're really kind of like fire access. So we couldn't do like a, a traditional loop, like you would normally like almost every course is. So we had to do an out and back. That's interesting. Nobody really does that. And I wasn't sure people are gonna like that. And so I kind of wrote it enough. So I was like, you know what, I don't hate this. I could do this, you know, and enjoy it. And it is different an out and back's always different. It's going another direction, a different view, different thing, different turns. So, but yeah, in 2017, I, I did that. I, I had a. A buddy at the time that was helping me kind of promote it. And we got it started. And, and we had 250 people, I think in 2018 come and do it. And I like I've told some other folks too, like I had no idea what I was doing and a lot of bike races, you know, you just kind of show up, they start you and then you finish. Sometimes there's timing. Sometimes there's not. If you're not on the podium, you just kind of, you know what I mean? Like there's nobody there to finish. I finished races before here, locally, where I got back to the finish line and there was literally nothing there, you know, I've won event like that where I'm like, there's no finish line. There's nobody to, to document it. You just ride across and you're like, I won. You don't win anything. You're just the first person to finish. So with this race, We just winged it that first year it was a success. People loved it. We do start and stop at the Speedway here, which is, which is one of our crown jewels. We, we have a a, a NASCAR short track. If you don't know what that is, it's essentially like, you know, less than a half mile track. And it is. they call it the nicest one in the country. And the reason that is, is it's built like a, like a Speedway where it's got, it's got like eight or nine bars. It has grandstands, it has towers. It has a restaurant in the middle. It's got a garage. It's I mean, it's, it's amazing, but we, we are able to use it for our start and our finish and it, and it provides this ambiance about. The start and finish in a way that is real communal and has the right vibe. And it's right beside the Croatan so short, little, little paved section to get out there and then you're in the woods. And just that combo together was a good, it just worked in 2018. [00:27:33] Craig: Yeah. And was it 150 mile race? Or did you have other [00:27:37] Matt: Yeah, no. So we have three. We call it the buck 50, because there's 150 mile race. We have a race called the buck, which is a hundred miles and we have a race called the 50. That is 50 miles. W the first year we basically had a course that was almost 50 miles and we did one lap, two laps or three laps. It's a mass start. Everybody started at the same exact time. And we had. We had sections of the course. It changes every year, the course changes a little bit every year, but that first year we had this section of road that was really primitive and abandoned road that was, had a lot of potholes, a lot of mudhole and we called it Savage road. And that was a section that was about three miles long that really broke the race up. It was the, it was the animated piece. And that was a big hit. We were able to use that the first two years. And since then we haven't been able to use it, which is fine. And we've changed the course a little bit, but now, now we have three races. The 50 uses that same out and back to start. And then the hundred uses a 60 mile loop and then a 40 mile loop. And then the buck 50 uses 2 75 mile loops. So what's kind of nice is we have all these people out there in the course, and it kind of is three different courses, but there's a big section of the course where it's it's everyone uses it. So unlike a lot of races, we have a lot of back and forth traffic. So, out there on the course, you will find other riders heading the other direction that are 40 miles. You know, away from you in the race. But the way that we stagger it and that provides a lot of, we found that that provides a lot of positive comradery. Yeah. There's that small group in the front, that's drilling it for the race lead and they're not waving it people. But everyone else seems to be really encouraging of the other groups. And that community aspect, I think, is something unique about our race that people really like. [00:29:49] Craig: Yeah, that sounds super interesting. And I agree. I mean, there's, it's very few races where you double back on yourself and see other people. And it, it's fascinating as, you know, as a mid packer to see. to get an opportunity to see the front front leaders of the men's and women's race go by. That's a lot of fun and inspiring to see. [00:30:06] Matt: Yeah. And I think makes people feel a little bit safer too, you know, if you had a catastrophic situation you're, you're not alone. The Croatan is very remote and you could be. You wouldn't be out there by yourself forever, but the way our race is set up, you know, you're not alone very long. And I think people, like, I think people like that. [00:30:26] Craig: For sure. You talked a little bit about how the terrain was laid out early on in this conversation. What type of equipment do you see people riding? What kind of tires, et C. [00:30:36] Matt: Yeah. You know, the more I've tr traveled around and don't know other races and stuff, I, people that have never done this race, they actually, they just don't believe that the terrain, this terrain exists, you know, and they've never really ridden terrain like this because it is it's perfectly flat and what that means for you is that you never are able to coast or, you know, there's no climb, so there's no dissent and you never stop peddling. And in the course of a 50 mile, even just a 50 mile ride, it can really drain you when you do 150. It is a, it is a serious effort. So as far as gearing and stuff is concerned, you could literally ride. , you know, you could ride road gearing here and be fine. But a lot of folks, you know, this is a great single speed course, because if you get the right gear, that's, you know, the right cadence you want and can get you at the speed you wanna go, you don't need to change your gear. So it's a perfect course for just grinding out on a single speed tires. You know, we've got really good surface area or surface that is not like sharp rocket rocks at. It can be a little Sandy at times. So a little bit of volume is important, but I mean, the race has been one on like 30 fives and 30 twos. So I wouldn't ride it on a 32 myself. I'd rather I ride like a 38. And I feel fine on that, but I ride a slick out here all year round. So even, even if it's wet a slick is fine. Our corners. Our corners are a little Sandy. So tires tend to not do anything for you. You just gotta take 'em a little gingerly. If you go in a corner too hot, you're just gonna eat it. But we don't have many corners, you know, so a lot of the roads are straight and you're what you really have to do is find your line. That's the other thing you can't ever explain to somebody until they come and do it? We have. We we, you call 'em potholes, but like we have small indentations, like a pothole in the gravel and they're everywhere. They're everywhere. And so imagine you're in a group of 800 people and you're nine, 10 riders back. You're not gonna see any of that. And all of a sudden, you're just like, bam, you hit the bottom of this pothole with your rim. It becomes this thing where as the course opens up and as people start to spread out, picking your line, it's like a snake, you know, and it just winds around and, and the groups are all doing it. You can be on the left, you can be on the right. If you're in the middle of the road, it is a nightmare because there is just no way that you're not gonna have some catastrophic pothole in your way. It, it's a weird kind of way to race your bike. But one really cool thing is like, you'll never calm down and just like tune out. You have to be on the Razor's edge mentally the whole time. And I think that's actually a great way to grab a race, you know? Cause if you're just like, you always talk about people, like I just had to grind through this thing, which is so boring. Like this course is not. It's flat and it's an out and back, and that sounds boring to people until they do it. But then when they do it, you throw in these potholes it's, there's something special about it. [00:34:03] Craig: A heck of a lot of peddling and a heck of a lot of attention required. It sounds like [00:34:08] Matt: Yes. [00:34:09] Craig: when you think about the event, were you looking to put something on the calendar that attracted sort of a highly competitive crowd or what was, what was kind of the vibe and intention of the, the race design in your mind? [00:34:20] Matt: Yeah. You know, I, I set out to create something that could be the first gravel race you've ever done in the 50. That is like, You know, like, even if you're going pretty slow, you can complete that course in four hours. And I felt like four hours is like, you know, if, if you're really riding and training, some, you can do that. Even if you never train more than two, you could still pull out a four hour effort. The buck 50. Was always gonna be a challenge just from a time perspective, because like even the fastest people who are blazing this course at like 21 and a half miles an hour, they're still in the seven hour range. And that is that's goes all the way up to 12, you know, depending on who who's doing it. What I tried to do was make a race. and this is the magic of the Croatan being flat. If you're the, if you're the, the person who just wants to come out and experience it and ride, you can line up against, you know, Ian Boswell, who's gonna go, maybe win it. And you both have. An equally rewarding experience. It isn't that the person in the back is just lollygagging. The course they're gonna have to do something really special for them to complete it, but the people at the front are gonna get this unique experience of a March race that doesn't have crazy elevation. Doesn't have, you know, high altitude doesn't have extreme weather and yet it's. But it's just hard enough for wherever your fitness is at. And I think that's one of the sweet spots and we don't bill it. I know it's called the buck 50, but it, we split it about a third. So we have, you know, a third of the people sign up for the 50, a third of the people sign up for the a hundred and a third of people for the buck 50 and. One of the unique things about our race too, is like, we let you switch the distance up until a month out because people will sign up and then they'll be like, ah, my fitness, isn't what I want it to be. Or they maybe have a great winner and they're like, you know what? I wanna do. I wanna bump up from the a hundred to the 150. So we allow people to do that and change it on their own. And that's, that's been a big, a big blessing because it, it, we were seeing 150 people. Change, which is a nightmare for a race director to have to deal with all that. So we just let him do that one bike edge until January. [00:36:53] Craig: Nice. Yeah. It's interesting that March date on the calendar, I think it's like, it's such a great focal point for your energy. Like through the winter to say, oh, I gotta, I gotta stay fit. Cuz I wanna do something big in March and it just sets the table for a great year on the bike. I think if you're fit at that time. [00:37:10] Matt: Yeah. I think people that we, so registration just opened up yesterday and on, on the 15th of September and it's a long way out, but it really isn't. When you think about your holidays. Your new, year's all these things. And people do use this as their carrot. I know I do. I use it as my, I gotta get on swift. You know, I gotta do another workout, even though I don't ride it. I just know that that's what people do and then they, it's not, you wanna come outta your, come out of your, you know, to start your season at the buck, 50 Andy blazing, but you know that you don't really have to perform at a weird, you. Extreme level, you just have to grind and that's, that's kind of a neat way to start your year too. And I think, I think it's worked for people that really wanna set, you know, set a goal, an early season goal and then pick up their June and, you know, July things later, cuz they built that base. [00:38:08] Craig: Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like from your description that the, the race track has just created this very important piece of infrastructure. For the overall event, how are you kind of harnessing that? Obviously like a lot of gravel events try to foster a nice after race party or an event or experience for the community. How do you kind of manage that? And, and what should we expect when we show up? [00:38:32] Matt: Yeah. You know, we're, we're, we're super blessed. We we've got all of these things in this background where you're you're you're on this NAS. You know, short track it's paved. It has a pit lane. We, we have the finish line there, right? Where, right where the the vending is and the food and all that stuff. So it's this communal effort once you've, once you either are coming through for a lap, you get to see everybody or at the finish right after you finish you're right there. And it's been an interesting. It's evolved, but it's been an interesting environment because we also have free camping there on site. So basically like you can literally come in there the night before pitch a tent inside of the track, wake up, you're basically at the start finish line and start the races re reminds me a little bit of the, some of the mountain bike events that you get to do or camping's involved. But we, we offer, you know, meal afterwards and beverage, we typically will have like a, you know, a, a beer, a partner that'll that'll have beer. We do like. A, a full catered buffet style meal, which, which is kind of nice because just some, you know, where we are. It's not like we got eight, 900 people. There's not a lot of restaurants and stuff, you know, you can't just like, say, Hey, go get yourself something to eat. We kind of have to provide it. So we do that. And the big thing that because of Ridge supply and because of who I am as a business person, if you will like. I've always made. I've always tried to set out to make this race a value, even though it's not inexpensive race. There's. I feel like there's peer races that are of our size or bigger that are more expensive. And the return that you get from the buck 50, I've always tried to maximize the return and make every decision that we make. I say we, that I make about the race is rider focus. Because I think what happens with race directors and I'm not pointing any fingers at anyone else, I'm saying this happens, happens to me. You get this registration, you sell your registration, which is great. Then you have to provide services with that, with the, that revenue and the amount of services you provide. There's like a minimum and a lot of folks stop there. They're just like, this is all you gotta do. . And what I try to do is give back enough a in services, but also in product, we give away a huge swag package. Nobody does this, but I do it because a that's what I do. I sell stuff, you know? But like this year, when you come and do this race, you're paying for the entry, but you're get, you're gonna get basically a, a, everything that we do is fully custom just for racers too. So it isn't like you can buy this on this, on the website or. Somebody printed a cooi and gave it to you. It's like you get a custom pair of socks. You get a custom race tee that is not like your typical race tee. It's a legit piece of garment. You get a finisher's hat. When you finish, that's specific to your race, you're gonna get a pair of gloves that are custom long fingered, hand up gloves that you're gonna get. You may get some other things and I'm not gonna say out loud what they are. Those things all add up. It's well, over a hundred dollars worth of stuff. You get a meal afterwards, you get beverage afterwards, you get free camping. It isn't about what you get back, but when you do all those things, and then the value of the race experience in itself is what it is. And people do really enjoy doing this event. I hope that they tell other people about it and then they wanna come do it again. Otherwise, you know, it's a giant waste of time. I've found that from, from a race director's standpoint, if, if it stretches me a little bit where I'm just kinda like, oh man, I got, you know, when you have 900 people, every dollar that you spend is a thousand dollars, you know, and those add up very quickly. And there's a lot of times that that feeling that you have, you're like, well, I don't have to do that. They won't, they don't really, you know, you don't really need that. That's almost the, the surefire indication I need to. And I, the one thing we don't do that a lot of big races have, I don't really have a whole lot. I really don't have any corporate P partners. I don't sell sponsorship. Nobody's presenting this. And I like that because it keeps it, the vibe is the right vibe for March. I don't think a March race should feel like the world championships of anything. It's like, bro, you're just coming outta hibernation in the Northeast. This is your first time to see the sunshine and you wanna ride your bike, but you know, you, you don't need all that pressure yet. And so we try to keep it like that. And I think it's translated. I think the, the race track does provide that. And that's kind of what we use it for. It's just a backdrop. We really don't, you know, you do get to ride around it and finish and you come in and out of it to do your pit. But yeah, I'm not sure if I answered that question correctly, but [00:43:35] Craig: You you, you, you did for sure, Matt. No, I love it. And I do think, you know, by my likes again, like it's come to me through a number of different sources that this is a fun event. If you can get it on your calendar and you're close to the east coast where you can get there. So I think you're doing all the right things and I'm, I'm happy to have you on the podcast and just hopefully expose this race to a broader audience. I really love the idea. Encourage encouraging people to travel, to ride gravel in different parts of the country. Cuz as you expressed early on in this conversation, it's such a unique part of our country that has these funny little attributes that you're not gonna experience elsewhere. [00:44:14] Matt: Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate that. It, it is it, when you live here, you're kind of like, why would anybody want to come here and ride our little gravel and then you make the bike race, and then everyone's like, It's amazing. And you're like, really? Is it, you know, and, and that's kind of been an eyeopener too, is that you realize that it is unique. The art terrain is unique and I've, I, I spent a lot of time in Vermont. I I spent a lot of time in Colorado, kind of all those kind of areas. I'm like, you can't mimic those things. They're just, they are what they are. And they're amazing. It's just that what we have is just. Squished flat and you can get away from everything in a way that is just kind of bizarre. You know, there's no homes, there's no buildings. There's no nothing. You're just on a gravel road in the middle of a forest, as far as your eyes can see. And that's kind of cool. [00:45:04] Craig: Yeah. And thank you. Thank you for just putting a hand up in creating this. I mean, it, I always like to express that sentiment to advent organizers cuz it's, it's hard, hard work, but I know it's, it's a virtual, it's a love story to your local community in the, the trails that you've explored the last few years. [00:45:22] Matt: I appreciate that, man. Yeah. I mean, I would do it again if I, if I knew, but if I knew it was this hard, I would think really hard about starting it. I'm glad, I'm glad the ignorance is, is prevalent for me. [00:45:35] Craig: it, it totally is. It totally is. I don't think you start a business. If you know everything you're gonna have to go through and you probably don't start an event either if you know everything that's in front of you, but cool. Thanks again, Matt. I really appreciate it. [00:45:48] Matt: Craig. Appreciate it. [00:45:48] Craig Dalton: That's going to do it for this week's edition of the gravel rod podcast. Big, thanks to Matt for coming on board and talking about his backstory for Ridge supply and that amazing sounding Croatan buck 50 race coming up in early 20, 23. Big thanks to bike index for supporting the show this week. And big thanks to you for listening. I may not say this enough, but I very much appreciate you listening to the show. And making me part of your gravel cycling experience. If you're interested in connecting with me, you can visit the ridership that's www.theridership.com. It's a free global cycling community where you can interact with gravel, cyclists from all over the world. If you're able to support the show, ratings and reviews are hugely appreciated. Or head on over to buy me a coffee.com/the gravel ride. If you're able to contribute financially. Until next time. Here's to finding some dirt under your wheels

The Dirty Knobs Podcast Season 1 Episode 13 with Hollywood Mike Miranda, JV James Vicente and EC Eric Carter chat with the most dominant BMX racer ever, Cheri Elliott.

Let's talk BMX a life with one eye with Karl Immers! T-Shirts & More! - https://moorebmx.myshopify.com/ Episodes with video - http://bit.ly/talkingbmx Thank you for choosing to spend your time listening! If you enjoyed it, share it with a friend. Consider Subscribing on Youtube - http://bit.ly/Brant_Moore If this helped you in some way, consider supporting the channel with my Join button for a membership or through my teespring store! Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/brantmoore --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/brant-moore/support

In this episode of Scared Of Normal, we sat down with one of the most stylish & humble BMX riders on earth, Matt Cordova to talk about life, his BMX career & passions outside of BMX. Learn more about Traction or purchase coffee: https://traction.coffeeInstagram:https://www.instagram.com/matt_cordova/Mike Murfitt:  https://instagram.com/mikemurfitt/Shawn Neer:  https://instagram.com/shawnneer/https://www.instagram.com/jamesstokoephoto/

Rich Houseman has literally spent his entire life on two wheels. From the early days of racing as a factory BMX'er at 6 years old, to racing downhill for the legend John Tomac, Rocket Rich has more than a lifetime's worth of stories and knowledge. These days Big House spends his days working for Hookit and enjoying being on the sidelines for his two daughters soccer games. He still manages to sneak out for some rips down the trail, and good luck keeping him in sight!

 Troy Harradine is one of the most positive, stoked BMX riders I've ever met and it was my pleasure to have him on the podcast to share his perspective on a lot of different topics. Troy has traveled the world riding BMX and has spent just as much time behind the camera filming BMX vlog style videos, as well as standard BMX video parts. His perspective of BMX and how BMX media could grow is refreshing, so if you're interested in this topic you might find this interesting. We'd love to hear your thoughts on any of the topics on this, or any episode. Hit us up with a comment below or on instagram: Back Bone BMX: https://www.instagram.com/backbonebmx Tyson: https://www.instagram.com/peni_chillinTroy: https://www.instagram.com/troyharradine Make sure you join Club Back Bone to build the BMX scene in Australia! https://www.backbonebmx.com/club-back-bone Support Back Bone BMX by visiting the shop:https://www.backbonebmx.com Please subscribe, leave a 5 star review and share it with your friends! 

Ryan Fischer has always been passionate about fitness. He was a world-ranked BMX racer at the age of 12. Since his freshman year, he played lacrosse, football, and track at the varsity level. Growing up, Ryan competed in skeleton and bobsled, qualifying for the US Olympic Team Trials in both sports. For the past three years, he has finished in the top 5 at CrossFit Regionals. Over the past three years, he even finished top 20 in the CrossFit Open. A Crossfit Chalk gym in Orange County, California, and Crossfit Chalk Performance are owned by Ryan. His most popular ebook is the Carb Cycling Lifestyle, and his Earn Your Carbs Challenge is a popular training program. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Exercise Sport Science, a minor in nutrition, Crossfit Level 1 and Crossfit Football certifications, as well as being a licensed private pilot. Connect with Ryan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanfisch/ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/real-chalk-podcast/id1273889235 Connect with me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michaeldavidhuey https://www.hefluence.com/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/michael-huey/message

The Desert Destroyer, Daleny Vaughn, joins us on the show to chat about growing up racing BMX in Tuscon, training with Corben, her big win at The Grands last year, racing Felicia head to head for the USA sleeve this year, and some funny stories in between. We also chat briefly about this weekends Colombian World Cup and who we think you should be keeping an eye on. Ps. The wifi is extremely janky. Enjoy!

We rely on Marginal Gains listeners to provide intelligent and provocative questions, and as always, our listeners do not disappoint. In this Ask Josh Anything episode, we re-open the question of hour record attempts, this time considering pros and cons of a negative-split effort. We talk about Nitrogen and its merits of using it instead of air for tires with sealant. We talk about the aerodynamic penalty of tucking your glasses into your helmet vents. Plus tire temperature talk, cyclocross marginal gain tips, and why most BMX bikes don't race tubeless. 

#46 Walking the Walk With BMX Legend Morgan Wade Morgan Wade is a pro-BMXer, builder, artist, father, and winner of 3 NorCups and multiple X Games. Morgan has had a tremendous career and is still thriving to this day. Though he's accomplished so much, Morgan is a man who doesn't find his identity in what he does. He's someone who truly walks the walk, instead of just talking the talk— an admirable characteristic in someone who's risen to his level of fame. In this episode, Morgan shares the inspiring story of his rise to BMX fame and how he isn't stopping anytime soon.  Conversation Topics: The intriguing backstories to many of Wade's exciting projects  Drew Bezanson's Uncontainable project  Art  Staying authentic on and off the bike  Contests  Morgan's philosophy on competing Injuries Fitness  How morgan has seen action sports change over the years  … and so much more!  Want to connect with Wade? Follow him on Instagram and Twitter Check out his website Wade's Top BMX Movies of All time: Etnies Forward  Criminal Mischief  Recommended Books: The Bible  Fearless by Eric Blehm

Making his second appearance on The GunsOnPegs Podcast, Patrick Galbraith - Editor of the Shooting Times and BMX enthusiast - discusses his recently-published book In Search of One Last Song: Britain's Disappearing Birds and the People Trying to Save Them. Buy the book here: https://amzn.to/3dpsZwU We also offer advice to syndicate members up and down the land, ask what 'Best' means when it comes to shotguns, and tackle the question of how whether to hide one's passion for shooting or embrace it. PLUS Dan Cooper from Weber returns with a cracking barbecued partridge recipe for you to try > https://bit.ly/WeberBBQDanCooper

A fun time talking with the McGraw family - John, Traci, and Beckett - about Beckett's BMX racing and what he likes to do when he's not racing.. Also, Andy Strecker (owner of NWA BMX in Lowell, Arkansas) shares more info on growing the sport of BMX.

Matt Gillespie is a die hard BMX fanatic who has dedicated his adult life to the pursuit of seeing Skateparks built across Northern Ireland. He's built three indoor Skateparks, runs a dare devil stunt team and fronts an organisation who seek to teach every child in the land how to safely ride a bmx, stunt scooter or skateboard. In the last 5 years Matt has added father and husband to the CV and now has 2 of his own adrenaline junkies to enjoy the action sports lifestyle with him. In today's conversation we chat about: The E Myth How he got into BMXing at 9-years-old Why he gave 20-years of his life to the sport Starting his own skateparks Working with Rihanna Saving someones life And the impact COVID has had on childhoods across our nation Check it out. // https://bestofbelfast.org/stories/matt-gillespie-thunder-park-bangor //

Get ready for a heavy episode of the podcast! UNLEASHED is proud to welcome 29-year-old BMX icon Connor Fields from Las Vegas, Nevada. In conversation with The Dingo and Danny, the Olympic gold medalist, shares the background story behind his accomplished career, all the way to his traumatic injury and recent retirement.Connor Fields started racing BMX at the young age of seven and evolved into one of the most decorated racers on the circuit. Hailing from Las Vegas, Nevada, he built a track record including three USABMX National Age Group Championship titles – before he was even 18 years old! Blessed with unique race IQ only surpassed by his strong work ethic, Fields rose to become a two-time USA BMX #1 Pro and two-time UCI BMX World Cup Series Champion. After landing a spot on Team USA, he made history as the first American athlete to win a BMX gold medal at the 2016 Olympic Games. But tragedy struck at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 when Fields crashed in competition and suffered a life-threating brain injury. Fields announced his retirement from professional BMX racing in summer of 2022 but shares on UNLEASHED how he remains involved in the sport as an ambassador and inspiration. Want to hear it from Connor himself? Press the play button (and hit Like) on the new episode of UNLEASHED with The Dingo and Danny Podcast.Make sure to subscribe and stay tuned for more UNLEASHED episodes. Regular editions of the show are recorded live inside Studio M at Monster Energy headquarters in Corona, California and published bi-weekly. Also follow @monsterenergy for updates.

Barry Nobles is a professional cyclist from Alabama who stops by to talk about growing up in Wetumpka, going pro at 17, championships, injuries, competing in the X Games, and racing BMX around the world.

Peter Adam is one of the most prolific filmmakers in the BMX world. He's probably the man behind the lens on your favorite video. I am so grateful he said yes to coming on and having a chat. His life story is insanely interesting and by the end of our convo I love the guy. Hope you enjoy this episode, I sure did. Big thanks to DIGBMX

When Greg Hill thinks of starting out in BMX he points to his first bike a "Royce Union." He rode everyday as a kid. A friend of his in school got him started racing at 10 at Escape County BMX Track. He says he never thought about a future in BMX because BMX was so young. Greg says as a rider he didn't progress quickly. In fact he would even get beat by his future wife Liz.Greg says the biggest impact a team has ever had on him was SE Racing. He says that's when he decided he wanted to go pro.This interview covers Greg's amateur and pro careers. We also talk about him meeting the love of his life, Liz. Our conversation hits on topics of USA BMX, current pros, clips vs flats to racing in UK.Fit, Healthy & Happy Podcast Welcome to the Fit, Healthy and Happy Podcast hosted by Josh and Kyle from Colossus...Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify Smells Like HumansLike spending time with funny friends talking about curious human behavior. Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify

Let's hear about the upcoming Nowear BMX Cornhuckit event September 24th and just chat with Karl about BMX! T-Shirts & More! - https://moorebmx.myshopify.com/ Episodes with video - http://bit.ly/talkingbmx Thank you for choosing to spend your time listening! If you enjoyed it, share it with a friend. Consider Subscribing on Youtube - http://bit.ly/Brant_Moore If this helped you in some way, consider supporting the channel with my Join button for a membership or through my teespring store! Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/brantmoore --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/brant-moore/support

“BIKE SHORTS” PILOT EPISODE - NEMBAFEST 2022 I often chat with fellow cyclists that say they don't have enough bike-related stories to fill a full episode, so the idea of BIKE SHORTS was born! This pilot episode was recorded as a test at NEMBAfest 2022, and overall, I'm happy with the direction! Initially I was going to release each interview as a single episode, but decided for this first one, I'd just drop them into one chronological mashup as it happened on August 6, 2022. I hope you find it interesting and follow along as I work through the process. During one of the hottest days of the summer, I was able to grab 7 different people — each with their own background, voice and take on what it is to ride a bike. Listen in as I chat with John Aldrich who shares a story about the 6th time he was hit by a car, Melinda Martens talks about getting the biking bug after trying her brothers BMX when she was 7, and Lindsay Currier shares her full-circle story about starting mountain biking in Maine, her path to riding out west and how 20 years later she's stoked to call Maine her home again. I then sat with Emily Elswick who at 28yrs old learned to ride a bike for the first time and now can't imagine a life without riding, Peter Graves who's known throughout the cycling world for his work as an announcer at 13 Olympic Games, Justin Nardella reminisces about getting into riding mountain bikes as a kid on a golf course, and finally Josh Brown shares some stoke on coming to Maine for the first time and how lucky he feels to be working with Transition. -- Included in the "Best 40 Cycling Podcasts" on Feedspot: https://blog.feedspot.com/cycling_podcasts/ Follow on INSTAGRAM Follow on FACEBOOK Visit iRIDEaBIKE.com -- A Production of I RIDE, LLC Theme Song by Spencer Albee. Want to hear more? Visit @SpencerAlbee on social media and streaming platforms. PLEASE NOTE: Generally speaking, episodes of I RIDE A BIKE are NOT "explicit"... but due to the passionate nature of our guests, there may be language and stories that aren't appropriate for all listeners. Therefore, sometimes we are required to label as explicit. This episode of I RIDE A BIKE is supported in part by Allspeed, the Official Bike Shop of the Podcast. With convenient locations in Portland, Bethel and Carrabassett Valley Maine, Allspeed is THE local shop for everything bike. For more information, and to check out their latest hot deals, please visit Allspeed.com --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/irideabike/support

What festival, held at Sandy Point State Park, has a 54-year history? There is only one, and it is the Maryland Seafood Festival, and it will be returning to Sandy Point State Park in Annapolis on September 24th and 25th! Today we speak with Brendan Curley, who produces the fest, to see what we can expect. Of course, there will be crabs; but there will also be eight bands, BMX bike demos, the Bay Bridge Paddle, beer, and oyster tasting. And making its triumphant return--the Crab Soup Cook-Off! This is a family-friendly event with plenty for the kids to do as well, and kids under 12 are free! With tickets at $15 ($10 if you use the code eye5) and free kids, a young family of four could be entertained for the whole day! Pro tips-- get your parking early and online if you want to park in the park. Pre-order the steamed crabs from Jimmy's Famous Seafood so they are ready for you. Save the hassle of the line at the gate and buy your tickets online. And of course, save $5 (or 1/3 off the price) on GA tickets by using the code eye5 when you check out! And if you roll VIP, they are capacity limited and selling quickly, so get them in advance now! But here, have a listen as we propped ourselves on the trunk of my car at Rise Up Coffee in Arnold because there was not a table to be had. Final pro tip-- Rise Up-- amazing--go there! Have a listen! LINKS: Maryland Seafood Festival (Website) Maryland Seafood Festival (Tickets) - Remember eye5 Maryland Seafood Festival (Parking) Maryland Seafood Festival (Facebook)      

Wir sprechen über das „Manifest der freien Straße“, darüber, wo das Fett am Fahrrad hingehört und wann man einen Rahmen reparieren kann. [00:00:00] Begrüßung [00:02:42] Themenübersicht [00:03:31] Manifest der freien Straße [00:07:17] Allianz der freien Straße [00:12:03] Woher kommt das Missverständnis? [00:17:32] Lebensadern des Fortschritts [00:24:44] Erfolge und Pionierarbeit [00:41:35] Wohin mit dem Fett? [00:45:26] Fett und Drehmoment [00:49:10] Was muss gefettet werden? [00:52:21] Dreck und Staub [00:57:00] Rahmenbau [01:09:53] Arctic Monkeys – There’d Better Be A Mirrorball Hier entlang geht's zu den Links unserer Werbepartner: https://detektor.fm/werbepartner/antritt >> Artikel zum Nachlesen: https://detektor.fm/gesellschaft/antritt-manifest-der-freien-strasse-fahrrad-ist-krank-wohin-mit-dem-fett

Today I'm joined by an old friend, Rich Simpson. Rich has joined the World Cup circuit this year as the GT Factory Racing mechanic for Jess Blewitt and Ethan Craik. We sat down to chat about Rich's background in BMX racing and his career in engineering. Find out how Rich made the move from a lifelong job in engineering, to following his passion in the bike industry. We hear about Rich's approach to suspension setup, his experiences of his first year at World Cups and plenty more. So sit back, hit play and listen to this episode with Rich Simpson. You can check out Rich's coaching, suspension setup and servicing business here. Follow it on Instagram @rsrbikeworks and find Rich there @_rich_simpson. You can follow the team @gtfactoryracing. Supporting Partners We Are One Composites I've been using WeAreOne wheels for over 4 years now and I'm a massive fan. I'm currently running a Faction 29er up front and a Union 27.5 in the rear and I love them. I feel like they strike a lovely balance of being precise but not so stiff that they punish you for being a millimetre offline. The quality and finish of the product is also second to none. As a downtime listener, you can get 10% off any Revolution wheelsets and all rim-only products from WeAreOne until 30th September 2022. All you need to do is to use the code ‘Downtimewheeling2022' at the checkout over on weareonecomposites.com. Podcast Stuff Downtime EP Downtime EP issue 2 is now available at downtimepodcast.com/ep. EP takes inspiration from the guests and topics of the podcast. It expands on them, and takes them into a stunning print-only format. EP is the perfect companion for some quiet time away from the distractions of modern life. Beautiful to have and hold, and a timeless piece of mountain bike history. Just head over to downtimepodcast.com/ep to save yourself £5 off of the cover price with an annual subscription for just £20 plus postage or you can purchase EP1, or EP2 on their own too. Merch If you want to support the podcast, and represent, then my webstore is the place to head. All products are 100% organic, shipped without plastics, and made with a supply chain that's using renewable energy. So check it out now over at downtimepodcast.com/shop. Follow Us Give us a follow on Instagram @downtimepodcast or Facebook @downtimepodcast to keep up to date and chat in the comments. For everything video, including riding videos, bike checks and more, subscribe over at youtube.com/downtimemountainbikepodcast. Are you enjoying the podcast? If so, then don't forget to subscribe. Each episode will get delivered to your device as soon as it's available and it's totally free. You'll find all the links you need at downtimepodcast.com/subscribe. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google and most of the podcast apps out there. While you're there, why not join our newsletter to get our Weekend Warm-Up email every Friday. Full of interesting bike-related stuff, competitions, product recommendations and more. Our back catalogue of amazing episodes is available at downtimepodcast.com/episodes Photo - Sven Martin

Hold on to your handlebars this episode is loaded with information about one of the Best Coaches in BMX History Domingos Lammoglia aka DL, Coach. DL has been involved with BMX for the last 30 years. He has raced countless world cups, and raced in the  Olympics',  today he is still training and racing but most of you know him as the Coach to the Coaches, Elite Athletes, and local kids around your track. Chances are if your kids are being coached today, that coach has trained with DL. His love for BMX and the kids is amazing. Listen as DL takes us back to his early days of BMX and now what he looks forward to.

I was so stoked when Casey said yes to coming on the podcast. Never met him but been a big fan of his riding for a couple of years now and wanted to know his story coming up in the BMX world. We talk about his family past, moving to ATX, his Kink Pro part, how he got sponsored, Don of the Streets, his best memories filming, some up and coming riders you should be aware of, and some good advice toward the end for you young bucks out there. AND bonus segment with Darryl joining us at the end to watch Casey's Kink Pro Part ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kyeb7kuGR4k )and break down the video clip by clip. Some really cool stories and it's just awesome to get into the details of filming something as epic as this with the rider and filmer together. Casey, thank you for coming on. Just watched you kill it at BOH so it's dope to release this right after you did that. You got a bright future my guy. Darryl thank you again for coming on and giving some "Insight" on Casey's part. (See what I did there?) Follow Casey on IG - https://www.instagram.com/caseycased/ Follow Darryl on IG - https://www.instagram.com/darryltocco This podcast is brought to you by DIGBMX.com.

Myles "Bubba" Roach, 11 years old, was killed on 10/30/2021 at the hands of a school bully. Since this horrific event, his parents, Jordan and Katelyn Roach, have been working on a jam in his memory and working on setting up a non-profit to "put all brakes on bullying". This episode is a small glimpse into what happened, how the family is coping with the loss, and how they are using it as motivation to help curb bullying for others and promote BMX and other action sports as a means of averting bullying within their community. They've still got a long ways to go in the fight for justice, getting a formal 501c non-profit established, and getting stronger every day. Feel free to drop a comment with feedback and any other suggestions for us. Thanks for listening and hit us on the socials at @grindworks_bmx on Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat; and @grindworksbmx on Facebook, Tik Tok, YouTube, and here on Anchor. Don't forget to like and subscribe to the Channel! http://www.grindworksbmx.com Links: Flyer: https://www.instagram.com/p/CiMzn7VOFKI/ Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/7128950397175757

Daniel DeBrocke, the director of education at Kabuki Strength, joins The Trulyfit Podcast to discuss everything from client intake forms to the psychology behind believing in your coach._Daniel primarily works with athletes along side his heavy research based workload. He has worked with athletes of all skill levels, including beginners, world champions in powerlifting, national champions in BMX racing, and professional soccer players._You can find more about him here :IG: https://www.instagram.com/daniel_debrocke/Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBrMmbKtbwRtMtG3JRmw7bA Podcast: https://linktr.ee/daniel_debrocke

Pilbara's new Managing Director Dale Henderson discusses record cash generation, path to 1M ton spoduemene production, POSCO hydroxide JV, Calix midstream R&D project as well as broader market (supply, demand and price) and corporate strategy (M&A vs. dividends/buybacks) #Lithium #Tesla #electricvehicles  Video Index 0:00 - 1:25 Introduction 1:26 - 11:15 Q&A with Rodney - There's lots of cash sitting in the treasury, is this earmarked for spending, or will Pilbara become a dividend paying company? Historically selling spodumene to China was the only game in town; in your mind, is that changing? Pilbara is partnering with Calix in the midstream space - is this venture something that could become a meaningful line item for the company? What are the products available from this stream, and what are the benefits of going this route? The current difficulties around securing labour in WA - is that a short-term issue that will resolve itself over time? The BMX auction platform has been a huge success - will Pilbara expand sales volumes using this method? 11:16 - 22:25 Q&A with Howard - How much "free" tonnage does Pilbara have to sell on the BMX auction platform? What strategy maximizes value for shareholders? When you think of your relationship with Posco, do you look at the operating margin in a similar way that Mineral Resources does with its arrangement with Ganfeng?  22:26 - 24:57 Q&A with Rodney - It looks as if spodumene concentrate grades are drifting downwards closer to 5.5%, is that the new 6% or will grades climb upward in the future? The only way RK Equity sees prices falling is if undisciplined tonnage comes online. Do you see any risk of that happening? 24:58 - Q&A with Howard - How does Pilbara view potential M&A? Have you thought about shipping ore from WA to Europe or the USA? Pilbara's thoughts on long-term prices and reflections on the markets. Is there a takeover risk? 37:20 - End Please join us on Patreon at www.patreon.com/lithiumionrocks Please subscribe here on YouTube to Rock Stock Channel to ensure full access to all our free content. And click the 'like' button and comment so we can improve our content going forward. Please register your email at www.rkequity.com  Follow Rodney and Howard on Twitter (@lithiumionbull @lithiumionrocks @RodneyHooper13) and on LinkedIn.  ----- DISCLAIMER NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE. DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH Welcome to Rock Stock Channel. Today we start a new series of individual short videos on raw materials companies that we think should benefit from the rising demand from electric vehicles, energy storage and other clean energy technologies. No payment has been paid in connection with the preparation of  this video and all Rodney's comments and research are his own independent opinions. Rodney and Howard are not financial advisors nor broker dealers, this video is for information purposes only and should not be considered investment or financial advice. Please do your own independent research and read the disclaimer at the end of the video or on RK Equity's website www.rkequity.com Intro and outro audio credit: Jamie Klein

Today's guest has been consistently filming"high risk, high reward" style clips for the past few years. Most recently, Akram Alneaimy rode down the side of the famous Sheikh Zayed Bridge in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Join us as we discuss the local BMX scene in The United Arab Emirates, and some of Akrams "gnarly-est "clips!Chapters0:00- Intro/the BMX scene in the United Arab Emirates 31:05- The story behind Akram's Blue bridge walkway gap in Dubai51:14- The Lyon 25 and the 26 stair double set. 1:08:54- The Sheikh Zayed Bridge ride in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates1:49:23- Show wrap up and shout outsMERCH! https://www.hvxgoat.com/shop​​​​​​Support the dream!(https://paypal.me/HVXGOAT?locale.x=en...)New "Behind The Clip" video!(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfrbT...)Shout Out's!Cult Crew https://cultcrew.com/​​​​Animal Bikeshttps://shop.animalbikes.com/Dead Leisurehttps://www.deadleisure.com/​​​​​Wonderland Studios Custom professional tattooing and piercing from Wayne Galbraith and Deacon Matheson.Harvester Bikes The best BMX shop in Canada. Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show

Richie Schley is a mountain bike hall of famer, free-ski and free ride pioneer, BMX champion, and successful businessman with a career spanning over 30 years. Richie joined us to talk about why he thinks mountain bikers are underpaid, the business side of mountain biking, the birth of the Whistler Bike Park, and why he wants there to be more personality in mountain biking.

BMX, family, nazis? That's right, we're talking about the 2020 (yes 2020) Chris Bridges executive produced The Ride.  What else is there to say, Ludacris loves a neo-nazi to BMX glory in this "based on a true story" drama. Except it's all made up! We question why they would even take the story from the UK to the US, what Ludacris thought he was doing with this one, and talk about what second chances actually mean.  Alexis is a fantastic writer who you should definitely be following at @iamlexstylz and hit the Linktree to find all the places you can see her work.  As always, you can follow us at @white_pod for more behind the scenes on this and other movies as well as email us at whitepeoplewontsaveyoupod@gmail.com with your movie recs, caucacity, and more!  We'll be back next week with...The Crickets Dance (shudders).

This week we sit down with Mr. Tutti (AKA Kelly) from the Tutti Gravel Inn. Inspired by the Canadian landscape, Kelly set off on a journey to create a gravel cycling vacation inn in Clinton, BC Canada.   Episode Sponsor: Logos Components  Support the Podcast Join The Ridership  Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: Tutti Gravel Inn [00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist. This week on the show. We welcome Kelly Servin ski. From a duty gravel in up in Clinton, Canada. The Inn opened up in 2019. Just in time for the pandemic to make it start a little more stunted than it would have liked, but I became aware of the end and began talking to Kelly about a year ago. And I was keen to explore, you know, what would it look like to create a gravel in many of you may know that over in Europe, Bike hotels are quite prevalent anywhere. There's a bike hotspot. You can find a hotel that will cater to your needs. With little touches, like having a pump or an area to clean your bike, but just the general friendliness to guess rumbling through the door. Dirty and in their Lycra. Kelly gives us an overview of what his vision was and what inspired him to start to the two D gravel in, in Clinton, Canada. Before we jump in, I need to thank this week sponsor. Logos components. Logos Components is introducing their new omnium lineup of wheels. Logos comes from the mind of Randall Jacobs and the team at Thesis bike. The regular listener knows randall well as the co-host of in the dirt on this podcast but also increasingly a number of individual episodes where randall's taking his deep technical knowledge and interviewing guests for the podcast we recently recorded episode 136 about what makes a great gravel wheel set. Where Randall broke down from the hubs to the spokes, to the rims, all the things you should be considering when purchasing a gravel wheel set. As it turns out the Logus omnium collection is the manifestation. Of all those criteria Randall has meticulously gone through and specked each component for what he believes makes the best wheel set out there. I encourage you to listen to that episode 136, to get an understanding about what these wheel sets have to offer. The team has launched the wheel set at an introductory price of $999. And has wheels available in 650, 700 C and 29er. So I encourage you to go check them out at www.logoscomponents.com. I've personally spent a lot of time on wheels designed by Randall And most recently spent time on the 700 C version of the logos wheels. And I can attest they're completely bomber and on par with the best wheels I've ever written. So go check them out at www.logoscomponents.com. If you have any questions after listening to that episode, 136. Feel free to jump into the ridership and talk to randall directly And or other riders that may have experience on the product With that said let's jump right over to my interview with kelly from d gravel In. Kelly welcome to the show. [00:03:16] Kelly: Thanks for having me. [00:03:17] Craig Dalton: Yeah. I'm excited to get into the conversation and learn a little bit more about the 2d gravel in am. I pronouncing it? [00:03:24] Kelly: Yeah. It's pronounced Tuti. So Tuti in Italian means everyone or all. So that's a nice word. It's cute, but it's also the spirit of our business. Everyone's welcome here to come gravel ride. [00:03:37] Craig Dalton: Amazing. Well, let's start off by getting a little bit about your background as a cyclist, and then we'll transition to how you discovered Clinton and, and why creating this, this gravel specific in was in your, in your vision. [00:03:51] Kelly: Yeah, I mean, pretty random for me with my sort of foray into cycling I loved motorcycles to begin with as a kid. I had a BMX bike, but primarily it was dirt bikes. Grew up in the prairies of Canada, I would say north of Montana. So the province of Saskatchewan. So. Farm country, that kind of thing. Yeah, cut to the chase. I was out dirt biking with a friend and adventurous, young guys were 15 and we saw a couple of dirt bikers professionals in a, in a magazine high fiving in the air as they jumped and then. You know, we just thought, Hey, we can do that. and yeah, it didn't go so well. So, yeah, you know, big crash totaled the bike off broke my right femur. My right, pinky finger, my wrist and my elbow in the crash. So, Yeah, my buddy got away a little less worse for wear. He broke his toe, but anyhow, just yeah, long story short bone specialist suggested getting into something other than BMX riding for rehab of the femur. So he didn't say gravel bikes or road bike or anything like that. But he said, you know, what about these mountain bikes kind of thing? So, yeah, about the the bike that I could afford at the time. So the cheapest bike I could get my hands on that was halfway decent and yeah, started rolling and getting the femur going and then Yeah entered my first race after I was feeling, feeling better and all the cast came off and whatnot and ended up winning the beginner category and then yeah, was hooked and yeah, never touched a dirt bike again until just recently got one again. But yeah, this was pretty random, but yeah, that's the way it goes in life sometimes. Right. Just like how we've ended up in Clinton. Just yeah. You never know how things are gonna. Shape up. So just the adventure continue. [00:05:34] Craig Dalton: After those early sort of racing experiences, did you continue racing? [00:05:38] Kelly: Yeah. Yeah. I I really loved it. I, I wouldn't say you know, yeah, it, it was interesting. I was a young guy trying to find my way in the world. Working night jobs you know, going to university, that kind of thing. Yeah, I really love cycling, you know, for the comradery of it, the people that you met, I met my best friends through cycling over the years and yeah, I did. Okay. Like focused on cross country and, you know, had some, you know, halfway decent results, I would say here in Canada and Yeah, I really enjoyed it. You know? I wouldn't say I trained maybe the best, you know, the most proper way, but yeah, no, I had had some, had some good times out there but I had the foresight to pack it in and, and not just keep you know, continuing with racing, thinking I'm gonna keep improving. I sort of saw the writing on the wall, which is. You know, just I thought I got as fast as I could get, so yeah, I ended up going tree planting. So, I did that for a number of years. I didn't complete university, unfortunately, as many, as many people haven't, but yeah, life took another turn and then went out tree planting. Here in Canada, but also in Scotland as well for a couple of Springs. And yeah, planting is kind of, interesting too. It's you only get in, you only get out what you put in just like cycling. So, yeah, it's pretty hard work and whatnot, but yeah, I did that for a number of summers and then hadn't touched the bike for a long, long time, but again, the bike came back into my life and another sort of random. Sort of way. Yeah, after I was done tree planting, so yeah. [00:07:07] Craig Dalton: Yeah, it's funny. You mentioned tree planting. I had an employee of mine many years ago, who was a Canadian. Who was involved in tree planting and every summer she would ask for a leave of absence to go back to it. It was a [00:07:19] Kelly: oh yeah. [00:07:20] Craig Dalton: she loved it. She just thought it was just sort of this great experience. And so it's funny to hear you mention that. [00:07:25] Kelly: Well, you don't ride, you don't ride your bike too much when you're planting. That's also another thing, you know, I would always put a deposit on a bike before I'd head out to the Bush kind of thing in the spring and wouldn't get a chance to touch it till the fall and ride it for a little bit and then it would snow. So, yeah. Did it for a number of years, about seven seasons. And then Yeah, got back into cycling with some of the mountain bike stage races that were happening trans Rockies and Lada and trans ALP and things like that. So, yeah. Then I hung up the bags in the shovel, so to speak with planting. [00:07:55] Craig Dalton: Right, right on. Amazing. Yeah, it was funny as, as we were, as I was prepping for this conference this conversation I was thinking about and researching where Clinton was and wondering if in my trans Rockies mountain bike stage or ACE experience, I got close to Clinton and it didn't look like it did. [00:08:13] Kelly: no, no. Yeah. You, you had been in well to the east of us who knows maybe you and I have crossed paths. Did it a couple of times? Yeah, 2005 and 2007 and yeah. Yeah, it was it was a great experience. So that just fired me up for, for cycling. Again, I'd always love cycling, always followed it while I was planting, but yeah, that really reignited my love for it. It's it's still going these days. Trans rock still happening. They have a gravel event as well. [00:08:40] Craig Dalton: Yeah, a hundred percent. In fact, I just will be prior to this when releasing, releasing an episode from trans Rocky's, gravel, Royal, [00:08:48] Kelly: Hmm, awesome. [00:08:49] Craig Dalton: a lot of those memories, you know, [00:08:51] Kelly: Oh, for sure. [00:08:52] Craig Dalton: experienced, they, you know, the daily recap videos, the camping experience, there's just a, a great way to spend a week. [00:09:00] Kelly: Yep. Totally. [00:09:00] Craig Dalton: So at what point did you discover gravel bikes, drop bar bikes. [00:09:05] Kelly: Yeah, that's an interesting one. I mean, obviously we run our in 2d, gravel in here and we have guests coming, you know, now from all over Canada, Western Canada, I would say, and some Americans and Europeans and everyone has their sort of timeline, I guess when they've discovered I'll do in parentheses gravel cycling, but We don't get into any sort of, I would say pissing match type thing. Just to use that, that phrase about who's been in it longer and all those sorts of things and how, how long ago we knew about it. But again, we grew up in the Prairie sort of area of Canada and there wasn't, you know, Sweet, you know, single track or anything like that out there. So you were riding farm roads and gravel roads on your mountain bike. So, yeah, that's what we had to ride and you know, it it, it was awesome. You could just go and you could go forever as you know. So, yeah that was, you know, obviously back in the day, but I would say. For me the, you know, why I've, you know, set up here in our guest suite you know, in front of the bicycle that you see behind me, that's a bike I rode in Lero. I've done it a couple of times. So, did it in 2012 and yeah, that, that event in Italy the original one had a real impact on me with gravel cycling was over there. I was a rep in the industry for a number of years. And yeah, I was over there and you know, just on some holidays and then thought, oh, you know, this, this Lero event looks cool. Let's do that. And yeah, I just couldn't believe the, the passion and, and, you know, the dust flying on the gravel roads and, you know, the drop bar bikes and everything, you know, albeit vintage bikes. And I thought, wow, this is awesome. Like, look at this, look at the, you know, really it was about the passion. Look at the passion people have for, for doing this and the landscapes and. You know, the serenity of it, just getting away from it, all getting off the paved surfaces. It's not mountain biking obviously, but it has some elements of you know, off-road riding clearly. Right. Which appealed to me. But then the speed of, of road cycling, which I, I, I went through my road phase too, I would say. But yeah, I just didn't like being around cars, you know, just really liked being off the beaten path, so to speak. So yeah, I would say it was Laro that really. Just opened my eyes to, to these bikes, you know, really coming back to where they originated, right? Like they were ridden on gravel roads before all the, you know, roads were, were, were paved, you know, in Europe and north America, obviously. So all these images we have in our guest suites of the geo Tolia, for instance, you know, The riders going over these gravel roads high in the mountains, you know, that's that really struck a chord with me. So I came back and told a friend of mine who owns a bike shop, a really successful bike shop in Squamish BC here, where we used to live for about 12 years that you know, Hey, This I didn't say gravel site playing for sure. But I just said this, this, you know, Lero thing, this, this drop bar bikes on, on gravel roads is I, you know, it's gonna be something, this is, this is awesome. And Squamish is more well known for, for, you know, being maybe the best place in the world to ride mountain bike right now. And he kind of, he didn't laugh at me, but he is like, you're crazy, you know, that's, you know, but. Yeah. And then here we are. So, yeah, it was Laro for sure. A hundred percent. That's the, the one in, in, in Tuscany first weekend of October is the best I think event I've ever I've ever participated in. [00:12:23] Craig Dalton: Amazing. And tell me first off, I'm, I'm interested in how you first discovered Clinton, but for those of us who are geographically challenged for Canadians Canadian landscape, where, where is Clinton in the country and, and where is sort of closer by way points, people might be familiar with. [00:12:40] Kelly: Yeah, I mean, I'll maybe with the geography where it's located the closest sort of major center would be a city called Camloops. So Camloops is you know, got a, a huge history with cycling, but Yeah right now there's a company called we one composite that we ride their, their wheels. They produce carbon fiber wheels there. They're located there. Yeah, I mean, south sort of central British Columbia. Definitely not, not Northern BC, but we're about two hours. Say from Whistler. To give people an idea. So, yeah, you you're, you're definitely out of the populated areas of British Columbia. It's really wide open terrain here at me and ride in every direction. So, yeah, that's where we're located. I guess the most famous spot would be, would be Whistler, you know, International, you know, mountain bike destination. So yeah, just a couple hours drive north from there, but yeah, totally different zone than than around a Whistler. [00:13:36] Craig Dalton: How did you yeah. How did you find yourself there? And, and what did you discover on those first rides? [00:13:42] Kelly: yeah, I mean, it was again random. I just maybe keep using that word. Just was a rep in the industry, like I said, and you know, would travel from living in Squamish and around British Columbia to see, see my accounts and yeah kept coming up to this region that, that we call home now in Clinton, it's called the caribou region. Of BC. And yeah. See my, my accounts up here and do some riding, do some races and then have a good friend that lives up here just north of us. And he's a pilot in with firefighting. So, and a cyclist as well. And he was always, you know, like, Hey, I know you live in Squamish, but you know, Hey, you should get up to the caribou. It's awesome. Up here. Know for cycling. And again, he didn't say gravel cycling, but he flies over all these roads that we now ride. So he has a real bug in my ear, just, you know, Hey, come on, you know, just spend some more time up here. Cause I'd always be up here and through here, but just, you know, spend more time, not just, you know, an afternoon or a day, you know, so kept doing that, kept doing that. And then. I would point back to really 2019, the fall of 2019 was up here shooting some photos with a brand called seven mesh who's from Squamish they're they're they're yeah, an awesome brand making some of the best clothing out there and yeah, just they invited me to come up, shoot some photos and I think it was really meant to be for me to be here at that time. Yeah, it all clicked. I mean, the weather was clicking or out, you know, shooting photos on these roads, which I'd ridden before. And I looked over to the photographer and I just said, you know, like, this is awesome. Like, this is unreal. And, and really just to, just to sort of round this out, I was heading to Italy a couple of days after the shoot to go do the out route. Stelio in Bo. I've been there many times. And I basically said to, to the photographer, I just said, you know, why am I going to Italy? Like this is paradise for gravel cycling. Not, not, not, not road riding, but gravel cycling. This gives me the same vibes as I get. Flying all the way around the world, going to our friend's bike hotel in Bormio and like this is amazing. And yeah, that night I went back to where we were staying and I looked at real estate and pulled up the houses for sale in Clinton because. I saw Clinton as a, you know, the center of it all he could ride in, you know, every direction, in my opinion. And yeah, called a realtor, found a house that looked like it would fit the bill, a big old house, commercially owned. And yeah, he picked up the phone and he met me there the next day and put an offer that day on it. And yeah, close the deal while we're in Italy at our friends bike hotel telling 'em all about gravel. yeah. [00:16:27] Craig Dalton: What an amazing, amazing origin story there. Did you always have the idea that you were gonna call it a gravel in and make it this hub for adventure? [00:16:35] Kelly: A hundred percent. We had some people say early on, you know, Hey, you're hanging your hat pretty hard on gravel. Like, you know, do you know what you're doing? And I said, well, Yeah. What makes this area special is gravel. Like we love mountain biking too. We have mountain bikes, but for me, what and my wife, Erin as well, what made this area special was gravel cycling. And we wanted to stay specific to that. Anyone can, can ride any bike. As we say, you can ride a mountain bike. You can ride a gravel bike here. Unicycle, you know, whatever, I don't care. It's, it's just, just ride a bike. But yeah, we hung our hat on gravel because yeah, we wanna do to focus right on, on gravel cycling and building a community here around cycling because it's more of an industry community it's origins which is fine. I've worked in industry back to the tree planting, so it's all coming back, back to together, but yeah, gravel That that's our focus. That's what we really love. It's really. Come on with me just the last number of years, I just love the solitude of it, just getting away from it all. So, and there's no bike hotels around really north America. I mean, I, I can't, there is no other gravel cycling hotel that I'm aware of. I mean, there should be a network around and we wanna do stake our claim to that and, you know, say, Hey, let's, let's get this going. Like, let's. Have facilities for, for cyclists, let's create culture here with cycling you know, and good community sort of support and have some fun while we're doing it. So, yeah, we hung our hat a hundred percent on gravel calling it 2d gravel in. So [00:18:05] Craig Dalton: Yeah, that's great. Yeah. I think you're right in north America while I can point to a few kind of cycling specific hotels. It's nowhere near what you have in Europe and elsewhere in the world. And there's some subtleties. When you go into a cycling hotel or cycling accommodations, they just have the little things for you, right? They've got a, a place where you can wash your bike. They've got pumps, they've got tools and the staff is always well versed in what are the local roots and local highlights. So I think it's a great concept. And I'm, I've been big on the podcast about talking about gravel travel. And a lot of times that gets couched in a conversation about a particular event. So you might go to Colorado to go to S B T gravel or up to Canada for trans Rockies, gravel, Royal, but in some ways, traveling to a place like Clinton and, and you're in is even a better use of your time because unlike a race where you might be thinking, gosh, I don't know whether I'm gonna be like complete it, or I have aspirations of going really fast. Obviously you're gonna be super focused and you're not gonna do a lot of riding. In the days leading up to the race. But if you go on a gravel cycling holiday, all you're gonna do is ride. You know, you're gonna go up there for four days and you're gonna pick four mega roots and just ride as much as you possibly can. [00:19:23] Kelly: Yeah, that's true. We, we love racing and we will put on a race here next year. We do a char, we did a charity ride here called caribou gravel rush. So yeah, we love organized events and, and things like that. But yeah, first things first we wanna create a good community sort of. Spirit here around cycling. Everyone's in favor of what we're doing. Everyone's really supportive, lots of high fives and, you know, thumbs up and whatnot from the ranchers and people like that. So, But yeah, you definitely can come to a place like ours or some of the other hotels around the world and yeah, you can spend your money in a little different way. You can ride, you know, to a lake and go jump in the lake, chill out, have some beers. But yeah, we can also provide people with some pretty big rides that , you know, we don't try and blow smoke. Obviously we need to promote our business. But yeah, we've got some rides here that are truly epic. I mean, that's an overused term in my opinion. Yeah, we, we have some epic rides here that definitely can punish you and spit you out the other side if, if you're looking for that, but there's also rides here that, like I said, you can just go on a nice. You know, fairly chill ride and, you know, go through some ranches and see some, some wildlife and things like that. So, but yeah, racing's awesome too. Just just different, same but different, right. [00:20:41] Craig Dalton: Yeah. I've had the benefit of looking at your website and looking at a map and getting a sense for where Clinton is. And you've spoken a little bit about. You know, the remoteness of the in, if someone was coming for two or three days, how would you describe the type of riding you would suggest? Let's just sort of make the assumption that the group is relatively fit and, and up for, you know, three, four hour, five hour rides, what would you be preparing them for expectation wise, if you were to say like, these are the three route I would have you go on during your three day. [00:21:14] Kelly: yeah, there's definitely some classic roots. I mean, there's, you know, I. Pick my favorite roots and just say, Hey, you should really go here. You know, this is a must do. Just like if you were to go somewhere else, I mean, the trainers is, is incredibly varied. So what we like to do is yeah, suggest roots for people. A lot of them have never been here. We are, we do have a lot of return guests, but for people, for instance, that have never been here. We love blowing them away because we know what's out there. And they don't right. They just maybe see photos or something like that or heard things, but we know what's out there. So we love it. When we send people out on a route and say, Hey, you're gonna go here. You're gonna see this, this, this, and this, and we're really stoked to, to hear what, what you say when you when you come back and that's what makes it all worth it for us when people roll back in here and, you know, Hey, we're, we're you know, self-conscious about it. Let's be honest. We want people to have a good time. And we're like, Hey, what did you think? And people like their eyes are just like wide open. Like that was the best ride I've ever done. Or that was amazing. Or, oh my God, I didn't expect that. So, yeah, we've got it all. Truly, we've got really more desolate sort of wide open desert-like kind of roads. Out here. We've got roads going through the mountains lakes and things and yeah, lots of randomness it's really mixed here. So, what we do try to prepare people for is just to say, Hey, you know, what do you like? What kind of riding do you like? Do you like descending? Do you like megas deep climbs? You like suffering? What do you like? And, and then we try to do the best we can to create custom roots for our guests. Yeah, we love doing that because again, we have the knowledge we live here day in, day out. We know all the ins and outs, all the little secret spots, we know the ranchers and so on. And yeah, we just, we love that. So, Yeah, people can, can really tick off a lot of boxes you know, here, and they can also discover some boxes, so to speak that they didn't new existed. Like there's a ferry here where you can take a, you know, a cablecar ferry across the most important river, major river called the Frazier river here in BC and go to the other side of the river and, you know, Like that's part of your ride. There's, there's not many places or really anywhere that I know of that you can do things like that. Just mid ride and it's free. And, and it's just yeah. What an experience that is. So, [00:23:39] Craig Dalton: Yeah, that's quite an, that makes for quite an adventure, for sure. You know, one of the things, obviously across north America, you've got lots of places that are flatter with undulating Hills. I'm assuming in that region of Canada. The climbs that you're encountering are, are fairly substantial in nature. [00:23:55] Kelly: Yeah, there's some for sure. I mean, this wouldn't be like, you're maybe going you know, to the Alps or the Domine or something like that in Italy, you know, but there's some really steep climbs here. There's a one climb in particular that, you know, it's marked in half kilometer. Or, you know, miles to, to people following in the us in, in, you know, half sort of, segments like that, because you're going so slow but such beautiful scenery. I mean, you're just crawling along, you know, suffering away, looking at the scenery around you. So, yeah, and it can get hot here. You know, it's a really diverse sort of. You know, ecosystem or environment, I guess we have here, so really mixed bags. So, yeah, I mean, it's just there are some tough climbs around, there's lots of rolling terrain, but for people that like to climb that sort of you know, puff their feathers out like that, that they love to climb, then definitely we can provide that. And there's many stratas segments here to, to go chase down. So for sure, there's some Hills here. [00:24:53] Craig Dalton: What would sort of be the, the longest climb you could get in front of, in terms of feet or meters of, [00:24:58] Kelly: Oh, yeah. I would say maybe about the, the, the toughest one around is to say about doesn't sound like much about a 10 K climb. So, but the grades are just really, really steep. It'll take most people, some people would walk it to be honest, we've got some Hills like that. So about 10 K and Yeah, just really steep in grades. But lots of switch back so that, that goes and you know, Softens it a little bit, at least you can turn a corner or two and have a look and, you know, be tough to go and take photos and pull your iPhone out and take a photo on, on that one. But and there's lots more here, right? I mean, we don't profess to know it all. I mean, we we love, enjoy enjoying to get out there to to explore and find new roots and new climbs and new places for our guests to ride. So, yeah, there's probably some more out there that. We haven't ridden yet, but yeah, we just keep pushing, but yeah, there's some big Hills for sure. Climbers are welcome here. [00:25:56] Craig Dalton: And let's transition now and let's talk about the, in itself. If you could just give us a little bit of an overview of like how many people you can accommodate, what, what the experience looks like, you know, are you, are you dining exclusively at the end or does Clinton have other restaurants to offer and other activities? [00:26:14] Kelly: Yeah, like I said, it's a big old commercially zoned house. So yeah, we can accommodate really big groups. We've got two guest suites at the moment soon to be three. So our main guest suite that I'm in now is a five bed, two bath guest suites. So completely separate and private from the others. We've had up depending if we have couples. So we've had up to 12 guests in here. And then another adjoining suite that's again, separate is a nice little one bed, one bath. So we've had, you know, up to four in there depending, you know, just there's a sofa bed in there as well. So we keep expanding and so that that's there. And then we've just built a hundred square foot, little Bunky, as we say. Outback. So a little tiny house. Some people would sort of maybe refer to it as that. So which will, will accommodate another two people when it's complete. So, yeah, we've had really big groups, so yeah, I mean really depending on, on who it is and if it's couples or singles or whatever, you know, we're approaching, you know, really, you. 1516 guests quite comfortably just in this property. So, and then, yeah, we, we do have our eyes on expansion all all the time, but this house has a, has a really neat story behind it as well. I'm not sure if I mentioned this to you, but we got a message on Instagram, maybe about a year and a half ago. I'd say from a guy just, you know, following us and, you know, said some nice things and. All that. And at the bottom of the message, he said I'm not sure if he knew, but I grew up in the house and I was like, wow, we grew up in the house. I was like, mm. We knew who we bought from. And it wasn't a gentleman. It was a, it was an older lady. And so I was like, wow, I gotta look at this. Guy's his profile. So, go to his profile and I almost dropped the phone because. Having worked in the bike industry. I knew some of the, the people in the industry I'd never met this gentleman, but it turns out it turns out it'd be a guy named Peter valence used to be a brand manager at Rocky mountain bicycles. And then now is current global vice president of product at Cannondale. So, I mean, it still gives us goose bumps and, and whatnot. That he grew up here. His family did a pottery business here, which we knew about the pottery business, but I never ever thought it would be the same, the same family. So, Peter was just here earlier in August, which was a big, you know, milestone for us, what a cool experience to have him and his entire family and their kids here where they grew up and So, yeah, that's the story of the, in a lot of people call it the, in now we, we noticed that after, you know, three years in business is our third year in business. So it's a bit of the, the history on the, on the property. Yeah. [00:28:52] Craig Dalton: cool. And then as far as like, as far as, are you doing a bed and breakfast style where you're serving breakfast and dinner or what? What's the story [00:28:59] Kelly: You know, with the, the name Tuti, I mean, obviously we love Italy. We've had a lot of great times over there and, you know, not just cycling, I mean, you know, food. So, we offer woodfired pizza. My wife Erin makes the dough homemade. We get vegetables and. Things that we need locally from, from farmer's markets and ranches and things like that. And so we offer that if guests wanna book that with us, they, they can add that on to their stay. We have a, a coffee bar out back with a rocket espresso machine another Italian sort of touch there. If people want, you know, great coffee in the morning, we can do that. Each suite has its own kitchen. So, you know, some people like to cook and we wanna, we want to. Facilitate that as well. But then that's kind of where we end things because we also want people to, to go and support some of the local businesses here that we have in Clinton. It's a small little village. It's 600 people ish. At the moment, there's a few little restaurants and, and things like that. So, our attitude is that yeah, obviously come stay with us and we stay gravel specific and, you know, look after people in that regard and a few other little things, Woodard pizza and, and coffee. But we also want people to go to, you know, Check out some of the, the other places in town, there's a pub right across the street. Yeah. We love when our guests go over there, have some beers and we don't have the attitude that, you know, Hey, these are our guests, you know, don't go to other businesses or whatever, because. That's just not you know, our attitude and our spirit behind you know, our business. So, and yeah, it's great. People come and, you know, stay with us and then, yeah, they're free to do what works best for them. And we kind of like the ALA carte sort of, way of doing things. Hey, you might not need coffee or whatever, you know, or wood fired pizza. That's cool. But if you do, Hey, we can, we can work that out. So [00:30:46] Craig Dalton: And then are you, are you offering rental bikes there or are people bringing their own [00:30:50] Kelly: Yep. People bring their bikes. But yeah, we do have rental bikes yeah. To name, drop our, our bikes or land yachts bikes from Vancouver. They're a great supporter of our business. We've been with them from day one using their bikes. We've got some custom bikes for ourselves, but yeah, they make some great Rental bikes for us and for us to get rental bikes as a small business at this time when there's such a bike sort of crunch, so to speak. Yeah, they pulled out all the stops to get us six bikes this year, really beautiful steel steel bikes, and yeah, it's great. We can You know, have our guests, you know, have an experience on their bikes if they've never tried one of their bikes, but we're getting internationals as well now. So, some of those folks we had our first Italian fly over here and he was here for five days and yeah, he rented a bike cause he didn't wanna travel with one. So bike rental's big for us. And yeah, E E gravel is something else we really want to get into as well. Because I think it's It's such a great thing to get more people on bikes, you know, and great for storytelling too, with brands because yeah, they're just fantastic for sure. [00:31:53] Craig Dalton: Yeah, it's so nice. You know, on a, on a family holiday to be able to pair up maybe incompatible riders with one on an e-bike and one on a pedal bike. So that's certainly a good option. Speaking of international travels, if someone's coming to the, in internationally, where do they fly into and how long of a drive is it from that airport? [00:32:12] Kelly: Yeah, I would say most people would fly into Vancouver. We've had a few people fly into Seattle and then cross the border and then come up that way. Just say from Vancouver. You know how traffic can be, but you know, four or five hours kind of thing, you know, a really, you know, beautiful drive with options. There's, there's a couple of different ways to, to get up here. A lot of people would probably choose to go up through Whistler. And come this way. And we get some mountain bikers too, that are cyclist. Let's call 'em cyclists, not just mountain bikers, but people that are riding mountain bikes and they ride gravel too. Right. So they come up through Whistler, you know, maybe do a ride and then continue on to Clinton. So I'd say Vancouver, but other than that cam loops would be just over an hour away. And it's a, it's a fairly good sized regional airport with really easy access. [00:33:01] Craig Dalton: Yeah, that makes sense. I certainly see the value of stopping off at Whistler for a few runs on the way that would, that would be [00:33:09] Kelly: bet. Yeah. I mean, yeah, we're we, we mountain bike too. So, I mean, of course we, we focus on gravel, but we're cyclist. And yeah, mountain biking's great. Gravel's great. It's all great. So yeah, I mean, a lot of our guests do other disciplines of, of cycling. But to us, I mean, our sales pitch on gravel to people that maybe haven't tried it yet is you know, this isn't just, I guess our opinion, this is our, you know, three years in business meeting, a lot of people, you know, guests coming to stay with us and, you know, chatting about what they think gravel is or whatever, over a few beers and the backyard having a campfire. Really gravel. I've not seen another discipline in cycling some, you know, someone you could correct me if I'm wrong, that really could, it can, you know, pull in people from all different You know, disciplines of cycling, you know, the roadies, get it, the triathletes are, are, you know, maybe not wanting to go to Whistler to go ride the bike park, you know, for the most part, but Hey, gravel, they get it. They love the speed, you know, suffering, whatever it is. We've had iron man, you know, triathletes, come here, this love suffering. These guys are crazy what they do. So, you know, and then mountain bikers, get it, you know, too because they love being off road. You know, most mountain bikers. Aren't. Riding on, on highways and things like that. So, and then a lot of new people, it's just incredible. We'll see you know, new cyclists here buying their first bike, excuse me. And you know, we're just, you know, doing some research and, and whatnot and say, Hey, like, you know, you've cycled a lot before you're new to cycling. It's like, Nope, I just bought a gravel bike. My friend told me that's what I should get because they're awesome. And it looks like a good time. And, you know, we get a lot of people from urban centers. So, yeah, gravel bike. I mean, yeah, you can use it for, of course gravel cycling but you know, commuting, urban assault, bike, packing, whatever. So they're very versatile. So that's, that's really been a, mindblower seeing people for their first bike to go and, and buy a gravel bike. So truly to us back to that rant is gravel cycling. I truly believe is, is the center of cycling, you know, put that out there, but that's what we've, we've seen, you know, that's what we've seen with our guests. [00:35:14] Craig Dalton: Yeah, yeah. A hundred percent. I mean, I agree with all those points and it's just it's such an inviting part of the sport that gives you the versatility to go wherever you wanna take it. So I'm certainly sold. Obviously, everybody listening to this podcast is on the same page. Kelly totally appreciate giving me the overview of the in. I think it's an exciting concept. As I said in the opening, like I do really love the idea of gravel travel and I think from everything I've seen from where you're located, I don't doubt it's gonna be some great riding up there. So I look forward to getting up there and I wish you well, that's going to do it for this week's edition of the gravel ride podcast. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Kelly and learning more about the riding in Clinton, Canada, and the two D gravel in big thanks to our sponsor logos components and their new omnium wheel set. Check them out at www.logoscomponents.com. If you're interested in connecting with the podcast, I encourage you to join the ridership that's www.theridership.com. It's a free online cycling community where you can interact with myself and athletes from around the world. If you're interested in supporting the podcast, please visit buy me a coffee.com/the gravel ride. We're ratings and reviews are hugely appreciated. Until next time. Here's to finding some dirt under your wheels  

On today's episode of The What Is Cycling Podcast, we have retired pro BMX racer, Brandon Hopkins. Brandon is a positive influence on everyone he meets, as well as, a beast on the bike when it comes to mountain biking and bmx racing. During our conversation, we covered bmx racing, discuss his injuries, his accomplishments and how he got the nickname Butterman. Follow Brandon on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jbhopkins26/ Follow Brandon on Strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/19056608 Connect With Us: What Is Cycling Website: https://www.whatiscycling.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsbPd9s44lhhxquSF6PQHUw Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whatiscycling/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/whatiscycling Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/whatiscycling

You can watch the Video on the story here:https://youtu.be/SboHc-tE_gkThese are my thoughts and opinions on the most heartbreaking crash of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.  Shanaze Reade, a teenage phenom, was dominating woman's BMX making her the favorite for the gold medal at BMX Racings debut in the Olympics.   Coming out of retirement, the indomitable   Anne-Caroline Chausson, brought competition to Reade that ended in the last corner of the 2008 Olympic BMX Finals.Support the show

This week we've got one of the top 110 riders in the world with us right now, but don't go sticking him in that box. This dude is talented on anything with 2 or 4 wheels and has an engine. Keeping it old school and preferring it to be a 2 stroke! From Motocross to Supercross, Rally, Side by Sides, 110s, BMX or whatever he can get his hands on, Banks Hovey appears to be part of the next generation of riders hellbent on having fun above all else and it shows in every video I've watched. I love watching his no stuffing around approach to rolling in and just hitting any jump put in front of him. If you haven't heard of him yet, well you must not have been listening to any of the last 12 months of podcasts, but he's cut his teeth riding 110s on the big stage of X Games and ended up with the Silver Medal at this years event at Axell Hodges' house, and only beaten to the top spot by Axell himself. But very quickly we've seen him riding some of the biggest events like Nitro Circus Live Tours and watching him smash the Next Gen ramp or Moon Booter. Ramps that aren't to be sneezed at. And then you get an impression of how fast he's coming along on his progress in FMX. But like I said, there's no Box you can put Banks in, he's just taking on everything and having fun along the way. Banks Hovey: https://www.instagram.com/banks169/ Riders Lounge Podcast Contact Website: https://ridersloungepodcast.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ridersloungepodcast/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Ridersloungepodcast/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCihhYzgsvog6Z10uQ_8ePdA TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ridersloungepodcast Riders Lounge Merch Store is available now https://teespring.com/stores/riders-lounge Thanks to Lakes Networking for the new Website! If you want your site built by the best, contact https://www.lakesnetworking.com.au Want to book a Rothaus Brewery Tour with our Partners? https://besichtigung.brauereigasthof-rothaus.de/terminauswahl.html Thank you to Rothaus Brewery from Germany for their unbelievable Tannenzaepfle Range of Beers and Alcohol-free beers for this show. If you want to find a Tannenzaepfle near you, here are some helpful links! Australia USA - St. Killian Germany France UK

Zach Krejmas is a BMX rider and filmer from California. He's the in-house videographer and TM for Odyssey/Sunday. We talk about our past together, his whole career in the industry, who to watch out for, and much more. Zach's a really smart dude and knows what's up. Thank you for listening! Officially brought to you by DIG BMX!

Fede Villegas is from Mendoza, Argentina. Racing Bmx was a family affair, his uncle used to race along with his brothers. He says he was super competitive when he started. His parents had to remind him to have fun at Bmx. Fede says looking back he was more of a power rider who till this day still focuses on his skill. He says racing in Argentina is much different than racing here in the U.S.  Villegas says Argentina doesn't have as many tracks as we do here in the states. Plus, most folks race nationals and there isn't much local or state races in his home country. Thanks the Argentinian national team he got a chance to do some international races. His first major sponsor happened when he was a junior. He was sponsored by a DK distributor.  Then as an elite he began riding for Crupi. During his time with Crupi he was able to design a frame for the company. He's now riding for Rift, Tangent Products, Rock Star Energy, Fly racing, and Restorative cbd. In 2021 Villegas decided to move to the U.S. full time. Fit, Healthy & Happy Podcast Welcome to the Fit, Healthy and Happy Podcast hosted by Josh and Kyle from Colossus...Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify Healthy Lifestyle Solutions with Maya AcostaAre you ready to upgrade your health to a new level and do so by learning from experts...Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify

Today we sit down with the US/THEM Crew to discuss their new DVD "Salad Days", their first DVD, spot mods, being in the 30+ club, 3D printers, and many wild stories from over the years! Chapters 0:00-intro/how US/THEM formed 4:44- the first US Them video/spot usage when filming 13:04-the second us them video, places traveled, 4 years to film, 19:15- clips the crew was stoked on/spot mods 35:34- Bo's edibles almost killed someone, and other edible stories 43:42- US/THEM Premiere at TOO KOLD/ more behind the scenes stories 1:05:33- Ryans editing style/Zack's decision to not put a street flip in his new part/ Canadians1:16:15- physical copies of videos in 2022/ music copyrights/ building a brand within BMX a lot easier then ever before1:31:32- getting older within BMX/building a brand (continued)1:47:39- Zack has been 3d printing parts1:58:45- Howards current film set up2:08:38- Howards X-up feeble down a curved rail clip from 15 years ago2:11:51- Listener Questions/how Zack broke his leg2:17:05-talking about a few more clips from Salad days2:30:46- listener questions (continued)/ guns being pulled on BMX riders2:45:00- listener question leads to the greatest story in all of podcasting history 2:55:05- listener questions (continued)3:00:00- Steven Hamiltons rail hop of destiny 3:03:53- listener questions (continued)3:09:52- Last Question, show wrap upBuy "Salad Days" here! (https://shop.animalbikes.com/product/us-them-salad-days-dvd-zine)MERCH! https://www.hvxgoat.com/shop​​​​​​Support the dream!(https://paypal.me/HVXGOAT?locale.x=en...)New "Behind The Clip" video!(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfrbT...)Shout Out's!Cult Crew https://cultcrew.com/​​​​Animal Bikeshttps://shop.animalbikes.com/Dead Leisurehttps://www.deadleisure.com/​​​​​Wonderland Studios Custom professional tattooing and piercing from Wayne Galbraith and Deacon Matheson.Harvester Bikes The best BMX shop in Canada. Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show

It's scary hours over here, as we talk about our first ever white savior horror film (if you don't count White Man's Burden...or Green Book...or...). Anyways, we're joined by our podcast cousins Jonny and Aileen over at Uy Que Horror to break down 2 time offender Wes Craven's 1988, The Serpent and The Rainbow.  Surprisingly based on a non fiction book of the same title, the film stars Bill Pullman trying to steal the secrets of voodoo priests for big pharma back in America. Not only does that go wrong in so many ways, but so did the actual filming of this movie.  On part one we break down the most glaring parts of the film, including the least sexy sex scene put to film. We also give all praise to Tubi, and voodoo and other indigenous practices are seen as menacing while witch craft is all good.  We cannot recommend Uy Que Horror enough! It's an incredibly fun, funny, and often insightful look at Latinx horror from all around the world. You can find and subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to ours and follow them at @Uy_Que_Horror. You can also find Jonny @jonnyeliot and Aileen @Aileenlilhandz. And as always, you can find us on Twitter @white_pod where we link to all the things we discuss in each episode. Please reach out to us at whitepeoplewontsaveyoupod@gmail.com to give us your movie recommendations, any stray caucacity you see, and anything else you want to hit us up about, we love hearing from you! We'll be back next week with the Ludacris (in more ways than one) BMX movie, The Ride.  

Part 2 of our spooky discussion with the good people of Uy Que Horror! We finish up our talk by going over the actual history of zombies and voodoo in Haiti, the wild and cursed happenings on the set, and Jonny and Aileen give us some amazing Latinx horror recommendations. We cannot recommend Uy Que Horror enough! It's an incredibly fun, funny, and often insightful look at Latinx horror from all around the world. You can find and subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to ours and follow them at @Uy_Que_Horror. You can also find Jonny @jonnyeliot and Aileen @Aileenlilhandz. And as always, you can find us on Twitter @white_pod where we link to all the things we discuss in each episode. Please reach out to us at whitepeoplewontsaveyoupod@gmail.com to give us your movie recommendations, any stray caucacity you see, and anything else you want to hit us up about, we love hearing from you! We'll be back next week with the Ludacris (in more ways than one) BMX movie, The Ride.

Brian, Blake, and Richard are back for an all-new episode of the Chasing Tone Podcast!Blake believes the Universe is conspiring against him because he dared to have a good time and he tells us all about the awesome Pedal hangout he went to and the various foods he sampled on the way.  He returned to find all was not well in the shred shed and this then leads into a conversation about quirky British words. Is Brian becoming more puritanical in his old age? We ponder this deep and meaningful philosophical question with all the scrutiny of a bored teenager and move swiftly on to BMX and Electric Scooter talk. At some point we may talk about guitar stuff again.  But first - Banger Racing!Brian also confesses to his Guitar based Dungeons and Dragons childhood tomfoolery and Richard wonders if he has been writing hit Netflix shows. He's also noticed a bit of a price hike on certain Fender guitars and puzzles over what this means for the guitar industry.  Portland Pedal Party, Knob toppers, Worm Creek, Murray from NZ, Brian's first car, Blurkle, Brycream Hair Lacquer...it's all in this week's Chasing Tone!We are on Patreon now too!Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/chasingtonepodcast)Awesome Merch and DIY mods:https://modyourownpedal.com/collections/booksFind us at:https://www.wamplerpedals.com/https://www.instagram.com/WamplerPedals/https://www.facebook.com/groups/wamplerfanpage/Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdVrg4Wl3vjIxonABn6RfWwContact us at: podcast@wamplerpedals.comSupport the show

Olympic Bronze medalist in Womens BMX Freestyle, Nikita Ducarroz, joins us to chat and teach us all things BMX Freestyle. We chat with Nikita about when she gotted started riding BMX, the boom of womens bmx freestyle, how the sport has changed and become more 'professional', her Olympic experience, the process of trying new tricks, working with J-Rich and more! Also, what would you do if you won $18 million? Enjoy! #Chatter

Please help support our show by listening/viewing, liking and subscribing. We would really appreciate it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! https://www.tiktok.com/@workingppod?lang=en https://www.instagram.com/workingperspectivespodcast/ https://www.facebook.com/workingperspectivespodcast-100884222318497 https://twitter.com/workingppod https://linktr.ee/Workingperspectives   On this episode of the Working Perspectives Podcast, Matt Lavelle (aka old uncle Matty) is joined by "jdub" Justin Richardson to host their very special guest Bill "Dental Bill" Lynne. The gang starts off the show by answering some of life's most important questions and providing an important backdrop to the badass that is, Bill Lynne. The gang keep it moving when they get into Bill's early life and growing up in Doylestown PA and getting into BMX bike racing and going through school. After that Bill shares some incredible stories about getting into BJJ and surviving the gym early on. As well as some legendary stories about kicking ass and taking names. The crew then talk about Bill's life now and his Plans for the future. We are then sent off into the sunset with some final thoughts!!! New Episodes Every Tuesday!!!!!!!  

Ethan Craik has had an incredible first elite season taking an incredible 7th place in Mont Sainte Anne. We sat down to find out more about this upcoming talent. Hear about Ethan's background in high-level BMX racing. Find out how he ended up riding for GT Factory Racing and what that support has meant for him. We dig into Ethan's process, his warm-up routine, how he finds his race pace and plenty more. So sit back, hit play and listen to this episode with Ethan Craik. You can follow Ethan on Instagram @ethancraik. Supporting Partners Wahoo A market leader in Road cycling, Wahoo are relatively new to the mountain bike world, but are serious about getting involved. They are already supporting top athletes like Tahnee Seagrave, Danny Hart, Wyn Masters, Brendan Fairclough, and Loic Bruni, along with many others too. Wahoo were kind enough to support my training for the EWS100 and since November last year I've been using Wahoo's products and found them intuitive, robust and a great addition to my training. Their GPS watch the ELEMNT RIVAL, their GPS computer the ELEMNT BOLT, and a Wahoo KICKR smart trainer were my choices, all combined with the super comfy TICKR heart rate strap. You can also check out their online one stop training and virtual racing platform, Wahoo X. You can check out all that Wahoo have to offer over at wahoofitness.com. Podcast Stuff Downtime EP Downtime EP issue 2 is now available at downtimepodcast.com/ep. EP takes inspiration from the guests and topics of the podcast. It expands on them, and takes them into a stunning print-only format. EP is the perfect companion for some quiet time away from the distractions of modern life. Beautiful to have and hold, and a timeless piece of mountain bike history. Just head over to downtimepodcast.com/ep to save yourself £5 off of the cover price with an annual subscription for just £20 plus postage or you can purchase EP1, or EP2 on their own too. Merch If you want to support the podcast, and represent, then my webstore is the place to head. All products are 100% organic, shipped without plastics, and made with a supply chain that's using renewable energy. So check it out now over at downtimepodcast.com/shop. Follow Us Give us a follow on Instagram @downtimepodcast or Facebook @downtimepodcast to keep up to date and chat in the comments. For everything video, including riding videos, bike checks and more, subscribe over at youtube.com/downtimemountainbikepodcast. Are you enjoying the podcast? If so, then don't forget to subscribe. Each episode will get delivered to your device as soon as it's available and it's totally free. You'll find all the links you need at downtimepodcast.com/subscribe. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google and most of the podcast apps out there. While you're there, why not join our newsletter to get our Weekend Warm-Up email every Friday. Full of interesting bike-related stuff, competitions, product recommendations and more. Our back catalogue of amazing episodes is available at downtimepodcast.com/episodes Photo - Sven Martin

Episode 135 - Brooks Manbeck by Interviews with the BMX community

Ryan Sher of Subrosa Brand stops by the Tom Kelly Show to talk about New York's Dawn of the Streets. Plus: What can regular people learn from the BMX community?

This week Randall sits down with Enduro Bearings co-founder, Matt Harvey. Randall and Matt go deep on the origin story of Enduro Bearings (circe 1996), bearing science and myth, and how this often overlooked component enables the ride experience. Episode Sponsor: Athletic Greens Enduro Bearings Support the Podcast Join The Ridership  Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: Enduro Bearings [00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist. This week on the show, I'm handing the microphone back to my co-host Randall Jacobs. Who's got Matt Harvey. Founder of Enduro bearings on the show. You might've heard us talk about Inderal bearings a few times in the, in the dirt episodes, as I was deciding and debating what bottom bracket to run on my new custom bike. Well, I decided on the Enduro stainless steel bottom bracket. And I couldn't be happier with the performance thus far. I was happy that Randall volunteered to take a deep dive into bearing technology. With Matt, as I think he's got better perspective on the technical elements. And certainly there's no one better to talk about this product than Matt himself. Before we jump in i need to thank this week sponsor athletic greens Athletic greens is literally a product that I take every day. I discovered athletic greens many years ago, as I was recovering from my treatment for Hodgkin's lymphoma. I was looking for something that had the vitamins, minerals and probiotics that I needed to kind of just give me baseline support. After I was through that difficult period of my life. I realized that this was sort of a baseline thing I needed for all my athletic endeavors as well. With one scoop of athletic greens, you're absorbing 75 high quality vitamins minerals, whole food source, superfoods. Probiotics and APTA gins. To help you start your day, right? It's a special blend of ingredients to support your gut health. Your nervous system, your immune system, your energy, your recovery, your focus and aging. All the things. I encourage you to check it out, to see if it's something that might fit for you to make it easy. Athletic greens is going to give you a free one year supply of immune supporting vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is that the athletic greens.com/the gravel ride. Again, that's athletic greens.com/the gravel ride. To take ownership of your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. With that said, I'm going to hand the microphone over to Randall. For his interview with matt harvey from enduro bearings [00:02:37] Randall Jacobs: So I cut you off last time we spoke because there are just too many things that I was interested in diving into. And there's the obvious technical aspects of what goes into making a bearing? Of the myths about bearings that we might debunk and things like this. But before we dive in, just tell us a little bit about yourself. [00:02:57] Matt Harvey: well, I've always been in bicycles ever since I can remember. So I started out as a BMX rat, you know, when I was like 13, 12 or 13, and I started working at a bike shop when I was 13. So I immediately into the mechanical, well, spraying, WD 40 on POJO drive, tra is an exactly super high end mechanical things, but that's how it started. So, you know, and you know, through there, I worked in bike shops, my business partner. Now I met in a bike shop when I was 17. We worked in the same bike shop. I ended up working at Fisher mountain bikes. I got an engineering degree, ended up working at Fisher mountain bikes, wide industries Bianchi bicycles, starting out in warranty. Became a product manager, went to Italy, did their mountain bike wine designed a bunch of road bikes and mountain bikes full suspension road bike that got written in Perry RBA. and that was kind of like when I was looking at bearings because everybody was using plane bearings or bushings at the time. And the Fisher RS one with Mert Lawwell work. That was his design. And one of the first full suspension bikes, I think. Well, not first, but you know what I mean? Like current more modern production type, full suspension bike, I should say. Cuz suspension, bikes go back. You know, turn of the last century. So, so that's when I was starting to look at bearings and rolling elements and that's when they were getting popular. And that guy I worked with at a bike shop when I was 17, he was in the forklift business by then. And he was starting to make bearings for old forklifts. And you know, we hadn't lost touch and we were talking and I started doing drawings for him cuz he needed CAD drawings for certain things. I was working at Bianchi. And then we, at one point we decided, Hey, this could become a business. So let's start making bearings for forklifts and bicycles. And that's what we still do. 30 years later. [00:04:58] Randall Jacobs: Well, and I'm curious, we'll, we'll dive into the Enduro bearing story in a minute, but I wanna dive more into that background cuz there's a few things that I find interesting one is, you have what sounds like a technical understanding of the bike that comes from, getting your hands dirty at a young age. I share that experience. And in fact, working on bikes I think is a great way for any person to learn how mechanical systems work. But then also you worked in warranty, so you saw what was going wrong. How did your experience working in shops and working in warranty inform your perspective on product. [00:05:30] Matt Harvey: yeah. They're all related, right? You can't separate it. Obviously at one point I realized I needed more school to do what I was thinking about doing, I wanted my boss's job. I wanted to do what he was doing, which was designing bikes, but I didn't have the background or experience. So I went back to school, but yeah, I mean, Your hands are in the bikes, you ride bikes. So you get a certain aspect, which is super important, the practical aspect, but then you know, getting into engineering and so forth, you have to have, you know, the math, the, you know, the history, the you know, and then you get into business. You need business stuff too, but there there's a lot of corners. You need to go explore to put the whole thing together. I, I think, and, and that's what I ended up, ended up doing. So at, at the beginning it was practical aspect, you know, seed of the pan stuff, cuz I'm just working on stuff. And that's the way, a lot of the way a lot of things happened in the late eighties, early nineties, that's kind of the period I was working on it. But you mentioned warranty. Yeah. I learned a lot in warranty cuz I saw everything that got broken. [00:06:43] Randall Jacobs: Yeah. [00:06:44] Matt Harvey: at Bianchi bicycles and it was the eighties and. Ola was king, you know, shaman was coming with index shifting, but you know, things were being made in in Italy or, or Taiwan or, or various countries at the time, still a lot in the us. And, and then there was people were trying to, you know, save money and then things break. And what happens with heat treating what happens with why did that thing break? Why was there too much heat treating? Well, I wanted to find out, well, that seems like a good thing. How can there be too much heat treating? So, you know, you learn, I, you see the broken parts, you see a box of broken pedals and that's not good. Nobody likes to break a pedal, but you find out like why things get crispy and break and and all the, so I, I wanted to learn about especially metal steel, aluminum at the time it was Prebon fiber. [00:07:40] Randall Jacobs: Mm [00:07:40] Matt Harvey: But so yeah I, you go into, I went into back to school in metal shop too. And but I, I was lucky because I also had, I was going to Taiwan. I was still working for Bianchi. I was going to factories, seeing things you know, forged, spin, welded you know, all the different ways you make things. So I was, I was getting a practical eyes on learning experience in Taiwan where all the production was kind of going. I was also going to Italy and, you know, Italy was still making a lot of stuff. Then Bianchi was making bikes at the main factory there. I mean, they're getting back to it again, but at the time it was sort of Asia was taking over on a lot of the production. So it was kind of split between, you know, Asia and Italy at the time. [00:08:26] Randall Jacobs: So you were right in there at a number of big transitions in the industry. The advent of the mountain bike, which was very much a us and in particular bay area phenomenon . And in fact I've talked about different tariff codes in for mountain bikes there was a significant domestic manufacturing operation. And materials were that much more critical cuz you had this really high stress application that hadn't really been done before. Like those clunks were not were not holding up all that well. And then the transition to index shifting that's another major transition in the industry. That's the reason why Shao is so dominant today. And also Asia manufacturing, a lot of which was people in the us and European bike industries who were going over and helping to, transfer that knowledge and set up that production in what is now, Taiwan in particular some of the, the best, highest end manufacturing for bikes anywhere. It's no, it's no longer a cost thing. It's a quality thing. [00:09:23] Matt Harvey: Yeah. And in the beginning they were, they had the ability to make really high end stuff, but the knowledge needed to come from the people who were practically riding bikes, because they weren't practically riding bikes. They knew how to make things, but they had to know how to make it now, you know, the Taiwanese it feeds back a lot of times they, they do new products that they develop their own new products that are really great. So, but yeah, you're right. Those were the early days of figuring all that stuff out. [00:09:53] Randall Jacobs: Well, and I'd, and I'd say I definitely see more domain knowledge on the product side in Taiwan than there was in the past, but still it, it does seem that the, the most successful Taiwanese manufacturers are those that have, European or American team that is in the market and kind of on top of the trends and the trends are still largely driven by those two markets. [00:10:15] Matt Harvey: sure. But you know, in Taiwan now it's an entire, since I started there, it's an entirely new generation that has now grown up in the bike industry. And there a lot of 'em are riders now and stuff. And back then nobody was riding mountain bikes who worked at the factories or made stuff or design stuff. But now you have a lot of people there that are enthusiast. And I mean, as big an enthusiast as anybody in the world for [00:10:39] Randall Jacobs: Yeah. True. [00:10:40] Matt Harvey: riding. And so it's, it's an entirely new generation that. I mean, it's great. They've embraced it and they know it and they develop things materials and design it's incredible. And at the time, you know, historically you go back, so Italy was, you know, Italy and France were the huge innovators back when right. They came out well, derailer, it's a French word and Italians didn't embrace it immediately. They had other things, other ideas. But at the time when I went there, it was an interesting time because Italy was king, but not quite becoming, you know, they, they didn't catch the mountain bike wave. They were looking at specialized and these innovators at the time Fisher, all, you know, Richie, all the people that were innovating and they couldn't keep up, they didn't quite cuz they're, they were a mature market and not looking at that. So I was the American brought in to be the eyes and. Practicality of that part which I was, you know, it was a little frustrating cuz you couldn't quite keep up and then the name Bianchi and mountain bikes at the time no people are gonna buy a, a Fisher or a Richie or something or an Ibis, you know? So that was a uphill battle and that, and that's why European brands or track, you know, they bought mountain bike brands. They bought, you know, Gary Fisher brand and to sell it because they were known as a road bike company. And that's what people were doing at the time. So it wasn't always necessarily not great ideas at these companies. It was marketing to, you know, you have to have it all. [00:12:16] Randall Jacobs: it's interesting, like you think about camp. No. Which was a really great and, and major player, and they're still significant, but substantially diminished, vis Avi Shao and STR the, the two, you know, arguably we have a duopoly in our industry and it's those two and camp Nolo makes some good stuff, but they didn't come out with hydraulic disc brakes until much later. and, and even then I think they work with McGurk on that. I don't know if that's in house now. They're more recent offerings with the ECAR group, I think are, are innovative. And I'd like to see them contest from more spec because the industry does benefit from competition. But yeah, it's interesting to hear your perspective on how the industry has evolved. What year did you enter? When were you working in those shops? [00:12:59] Matt Harvey: So first bike shop was 1976. And then let's see, I worked in shops until about 81 and I ended up starting at Bianchi warranty in the 82, maybe through 80, 85. And then I went over to Fisher. I went back to school. I, I simultaneously worked at Fisher and was in school and, and then I started moonlighting at white industries because Doug white was, he was pretty, he was making titanium spindles for Fisher. So that's how I made the connection there. And I would go over to his shop. They were pretty close by. There was a lot of people around then Dave GU DKG make, he still makes seat clamps. He was making motorcycle stuff. You know, there was salsa. Everybody was kind of in the same area and everything was happening up in Marin then. So, you know, I talked to lot of people, Peter Johnson, all these people that were making stuff. And so I went back when I finished school. I it just coincided with Bianchi needing a product manager for a mountain bike specifically. So they, I got rehired at Bianchi as product manager, and then it was a lot of a lot of whirlwind you know, once a month to Taiwan. Once every two months to Italy, I was on the plane all the time, doing a lot of stuff and developed two mountain bikes there. And that was a transition of going from bushings to rolling elements bearings and seeing that, you know, the bearings weren't hacking it. I wanted bearings cuz they're faster, you know, than bushings bushings are slow in a suspension linkage. And if you're going over a high you know, water bars or high frequency stuff, [00:14:46] Randall Jacobs: Yeah. [00:14:46] Matt Harvey: they're, they're just too slow. Bushings can't react. So rolling elements work better, but they were wearing out fast. So it was trying to figure out how to do better ones. And then that was kind of my transition into bearings. My friend from the bike shop was he was down at his shop in Emoryville making LAR much larger bearings, like five, six inch diameter bearings for forklifts, but they were max type, which we use in suspension, bearings. And I go, oh, that's a cool idea. Forklifts use these full complement bearings full of balls. And why don't, why don't we do that for mountain bikes, but just a make a micro version. And that was the beginning of trying to make bearings for suspension, bikes, and kind of the beginning of it. [00:15:32] Randall Jacobs: so let let's talk about that. I remember a lot of it was cup and cone for bearings. I remember bushings in mountain bike linkages, and then cartridge bearings, when did those come to the four? Is that where you started or were you doing loose ball initially? [00:15:46] Matt Harvey: No, it was cartridge bearings, but yeah, you're you're right too. Like cup and cone were often max type bearings, as you say, no retainer, you know? And, but [00:15:56] Randall Jacobs: which is to say the balls are, are rubbing up against each other, spinning an opposite direction. So there's a high degree of friction between those two surfaces of the balls versus having a retainer with a lower friction coefficient separating them. [00:16:09] Matt Harvey: that's true. But surprisingly the friction between the balls is actually extremely low. Believe it or not. I mean, theoretically, you would imagine that there is, but the balls are so smooth. And I've studied this a little bit. There there's very little friction from the balls rubbing against each other without a retainer. It is a little bit better with a retainer, but it's almost immeasurable. It's really small coefficient of friction between [00:16:35] Randall Jacobs: Oh, that's super interesting. Are there applications where you would not want a retainer then? [00:16:40] Matt Harvey: Usually, bearings run smoother with a retainer. The thing about max bearings is you have to get the balls in there. So there's a a side hole, if you will, to feed the balls into their slots and, and it, it gets into the ball path and that creates more friction than the ball's rubbing against each other, especially in an axial, like if they get off center and they rub against that fill slot. So that's why they're really good for pivot bearings. Not really recommended for hub bearings or, or bottom bracket bearings for that matter. [00:17:19] Randall Jacobs: yeah. Cuz you have those, those non radial loads that are being applied to them. [00:17:23] Matt Harvey: right now, the old [00:17:25] Randall Jacobs: I just wanna state, we did, we did promise a properly nerdy podcast for this. So we're gonna get into the weeds. I'm loving this. I hope that our listeners will as well. There's a lot that goes into bearings that we kind of take for granted [00:17:37] Matt Harvey: sorry, I can go into the weeds pretty quick. Just you [00:17:40] Randall Jacobs: that's, that's the point? That's the point? This I, this is, this is as much for me as it is the audience. So let's go into the weeds. And so you have this, I was actually going to ask how you get the bearings in there in the first place. So you have a, a single location where there's a, a notch, and then you have this retainer that makes sure that the bearings never track into that notch. [00:17:59] Matt Harvey: Well, yeah. So in a retainer bearing, you can assemble the bearing without a fill slot. So you put in all the balls on one side and it kind of, well, I'm not gonna demonstrate it here, but they, they all go in on they're all on one side of the lower race and you kind of snap it together in the, so there's no fill slot on a retainer. There's only so many balls you can get in there because of that design and, and that was developed in Germany in the late 18 hundreds. And then max Barings, or, you know, those were the first ones actually in S hubs going back to 1860 1870s and their angular contact Aless hubs. Yeah. [00:18:39] Randall Jacobs: that's a, I think Bontrager had a line of wheels called OLIS. Is that the same, [00:18:44] Matt Harvey: Yeah. I think they revived the name. But yeah, it's an old, it's a really old hub name and developed for bicycles. Like the first precision bearings are interchangeable. Part bearings were developed for early bicycles. Rolling elements that standardized rolling elements, [00:19:02] Randall Jacobs: Were they even bicycles at that point? Or were they like velos or some of these [00:19:07] Matt Harvey: speeds. [00:19:07] Randall Jacobs: yeah, so, [00:19:09] Matt Harvey: safety bicycle was until 1885. So, but you know, same bearings were used in those and, and bone shakers or, you know, the various things that you saw developed, you know, three wheels and four wheels and so forth back [00:19:25] Randall Jacobs: and this term, this term Velo you know, velocipede and safety bicycle for those who don't know the, the history of the evolution of the bicycle. Can you talk a little bit about that? [00:19:35] Matt Harvey: yeah. So I think philosophy is anything that rolls by human locomotion, whereas safety bicycle, you, penny farthing is the large wheel up front because it was pre chain gearing. And that's how you got your gearing was to use a really big wheel in the front or medium, you know, various size wheels. The race bikes had a huge wheel. Extremely dangerous. And then they called it the safety bicycle with two wheels, the same size chain drive, because it was much safer than a bone shaker or penny far with the big wheel. Cuz the crashes on those were horrendous. [00:20:13] Randall Jacobs: sure you're starting from a high point. And then if you hit anything, you're going, lawn dart but then still fixed gear. And then you had to have ratchet mechanisms or some sort of free hub or free wheel and all these things that we take for granted they had to be invented and evolved and materials had to be there and, and the production tolerances had to be there for all of this to exist. [00:20:34] Matt Harvey: That's right. It, it took it, it was pretty quick how the the development of the bicycle, all the things that came became developed came in quick succession. It's amazing how early things were invented that. We see as quite advanced. In fact, I was just looking at something recently, cuz you know, there's a two speed rear hub that has become pretty popular in the industry classified and you know, the first two speed rear hub was actually like 1896. That's how far back stuff [00:21:03] Randall Jacobs: was, what was the company behind that? [00:21:06] Matt Harvey: it was called, believe it or not. The name of it was they, it was so early. They just called it the hub. That was the name of the company. And I forget the guy who developed it, but he called it the hub and it was extremely popular at two speed rear hub. And then there was like five companies within two years making them back [00:21:25] Randall Jacobs: Got it. [00:21:26] Matt Harvey: We, we are getting into the weeds here but you know, it all comes together. It makes sense because people are always looking for, you know, right now it's a front derailer thing with full suspension bikes. It's hard to put a front derailer on the bike and you know, so the two speed hub here, we have it again because it solves a problem. But it's interesting to know that it was developed a hundred years or over a hundred years ago too. [00:21:52] Randall Jacobs: Sure. Yeah. Yeah. And it's also like the, the solution that you had in the bearing space, it had a context. It's another one of these enabling technologies that had to be put in there to have, you know, you look at something like the Delta suspension design that Dave weel came up with for, for evil and just the number of bearings in there. And imagine having that with a bunch of bushings that have a high static friction and so on, it just doesn't work, never mind the high rolling efficiency of our wheels and bottom brackets and all these things. So let's go back to bearings. You alluded to how Enduro got started and you were doing forklift bearings so let's continue on that Bain. [00:22:31] Matt Harvey: all right. So we were making bearings for forklifts that you couldn't get anymore because forklifts last their electric vehicles, or, you know, you can put a new engine on 'em. So the, the car that you of the forklift keeps going, so, or the truck. So, yeah, we were making specifically the bearings that go up and down in the mast that hold the forks. So those have to be. They carry extremely high loads and they don't spin very fast. They're max bearings. And that's [00:23:01] Randall Jacobs: What, what defines a max bearing? [00:23:04] Matt Harvey: maximum fill of balls. So not a retainer bearing. You can put, if you take the retainer out and just fill it full of balls on max maximum fill, you can put about 35% more balls into the bearing and then your, yeah. Your load capacity increases. By that amount, 35% [00:23:27] Randall Jacobs: Mm-hmm so you can either have a bigger bearing or you can have one of these max bearings to fit the same amount of load capacity into a smaller form factor. [00:23:36] Matt Harvey: Exactly. And as long as the rolling element, isn't spinning really fast. Like, you know, it's not an electric motor going 10,000 RPM. It's, it's going maybe I don't know, 20 or 80 RPM, pretty, pretty slow. Even on a bicycle, you know, cranks and wheels. They're hundreds of RPM, not thousands. So, well in a suspension pivot, it's just swiveling back and forth. Maybe 15 degrees. So max bearing makes sense, cuz it's not spinning. You're not looking at a lot of friction from the fill slot or whatever. So we started making we were making those forklift bearings and ironic white industries was actually making 'em for us up in Nevada, those early ones. We made some at the shop. We were turning at the shop, but when we got into larger numbers, white industries was doing it. And. So I was working with them and then we ended up making some hub bearings which are retainer bearings, which for hubs, hubs need to have higher precision to spin smoothly because in a, in a back hub you have four or five bearings that you're stacking up and you need a higher level of precision. That's why we do ABAC five bearings at Enduro for, for hubs specifically, because you need a higher level of tolerance. Now, ABAC ratings are significant in that they give you a level of the precision. However, all of the Abe parameters are not really applicable to bicycle application, cuz it's really a lot about noise ratings and spinning at 10 20,000 RPM, which bicycle bearings never do. So we do. Abe grading, Abe bearings for the ID OD with tolerance to make the alignment. Correct. But we do very deep groove to take higher loads than most high spinning bearings. [00:25:31] Randall Jacobs: Got it. That makes sense. So you have a bigger surface area where the bearings are contacting those races and thus you have less deformation of the balls, less deformation of those races as the, you know, as that as it's spinning. And that load is, you know, coming on and off of each ball. [00:25:47] Matt Harvey: right. And so a lot of high Abbe rated bearings may not be good for bicycles because to reach the noise level testing you want it's easier to make an Abbe, a high Abbe rated bearing with shallower grooves. And less surface contact, but that's not good for a bicycle because you have pretty high axial loads and everybody who makes hubs and bicycle components in general, they're always trying to save weight. So they try and use the lightest weight bearings possible. So you need that bearing to be as robust as possible to resist the the the loads of, of the you know, axial loads, radial loads that, that small bearing has to put up with [00:26:35] Randall Jacobs: And just to clarify terms for those in the audience who don't have an engineering background, radio loads, being those in plane with the bearings. So in, in, in the same plane as the bearings, so if it's a wheel it's like a load that's coming, straight up perpendicular the ground through the center of the bearing essentially versus an axial load is, would be like a twisting load on that same bearing. So if you have a lateral force on that wheel or something like that, which you can have, presumably you have somewhat significant axial loads in especially in like mountain bike linkages and rear wheels and things like that. [00:27:09] Matt Harvey: oh yeah. Or even road wheels, like a rear hub. When you're going up a hill, like a really strong rider out of the saddle, going back and forth. There's significant axial loads and twisting between the cassette mechanism, the, where the Sprockets are and the hub shell. It's, you're literally trying to pull the thing apart because it's not a motor running it on a chain, like sitting stationary, you know, like a you know, a generator motor or something, you know, the human is just, doesn't put out constant power. So that's why you see elliptical. Sprockets and stuff, but you you're basically putting on a, a as you're going up a steep hill, let's say you're, you're twisting everything apart. So there's high axial loads on the rear bearings, and even the front bearing, you know, when you're sprinting the front wheel bearing it's, it's moving side to side when people are throwing their bike and you have now dis brakes too, which puts on unequal loads, cuz it's one side of the hub onto the bearings. So you're pulling the bearings over again with dis brakes and that's brought a whole new well for me, I like it cuz it's a challenge, but that's another new challenge of conundrum of of problems to address with front wheel loading cuz front wheels were just mostly along for the ride with rim breaks. But with dis brakes, you gotta, you gotta look at it closer. They're asymmetric forces on the front wheel now too. Uneven [00:28:37] Randall Jacobs: Yeah. And it's on the hub, it's also on the fork itself. And fork legs had to be redesigned a primary driver of the creation and adoption of through axles was also because the torque loads were so great. And in fact, if that quick release was not tightened fully, you could actually have a wheel eject itself. So yeah, just massive forces in those areas that people don't really consider when they throw on a 1300 gram wheel set and say, okay, this is gonna support my entire weight and keep me safe at 30 miles an hour on a steep mountainous descent. [00:29:09] Matt Harvey: exactly. And, and a lot of times the bearings are even by the designers, surprisingly, sometimes they're the last thing thought about, and they say, oh, we need a bearing to fit in this. You know, it's gotta fit under the disc and over the through axle and it become. Extremely thin. And then you gotta look at other ways to make a solution for that. So it holds up and doesn't burn out. I mean, early in disc breaks that you'd see hubs that the disc would get so hot. You could burn out the, the the disc side bearing in one downhill run, [00:29:43] Randall Jacobs: Oh, wow. [00:29:44] Matt Harvey: and some [00:29:45] Randall Jacobs: I didn't realize that. [00:29:46] Matt Harvey: Oh yeah. And some riders were buying like full tubes of the, this side, front wheel bearings for certain hubs, because they would knock it out after every run and put a new bearing in. It got so hot, it would like boil the grease out of it and just toast the thing. It would practically set the weeds on fire, you know, cuz , it got so hot. I mean the dis brakes have improved and cooling and some other things and people have gotten smarter about the hub bearings on that side. But like about eight years ago we were selling a lot of certain sizes of bearings cuz for downhill guys. [00:30:20] Randall Jacobs: Well, and disc diameters have gotten much bigger. You have aluminum spiders with venting that can help to shed some of that transfer it to the air versus early disc breaks were I mean, a lot of it was what, 140 millimeters [00:30:34] Matt Harvey: yeah, small ones. [00:30:35] Randall Jacobs: lot of, [00:30:36] Matt Harvey: when we start, there was no dis when we started with that RS one with Mert Lawwell we needed a disc break. There were none around. We used to fill disc break from back then. That was a all fiber disk. I don't know if you remember that one, but there weren't any discs that would that, you know, and they faded, you know, faded miserably. That was really hard thing to slow that bike down. [00:30:57] Randall Jacobs: yeah, again, I can't impress upon our audience enough of just how good we have it right now, in terms of how, you can have an extraordinarily lightweight breaking system that will stop you plus your bike, plus whatever gear you have reliably and consistently for long periods of time and everything just works. And it's actually, I, I mean, I remember my first bikes, you know, I'm only, I'm only turning 40, my first bikes didn't just work. There was a lot of service. There was a lot of parts failures and so on, and now things just seemed to be engineered and manufactured to a much higher standard such that it's increasingly surprising when things don't just work. And bearings are a big part of that. [00:31:39] Matt Harvey: And so, what if you don't mind, like the there's one development that I worked on A long from a long time ago, I had heard about this metal that air Airbus had developed and for their, for making bearings in the planes. And I read about it and I immediately wanted it. And there's only a couple foundries that make this particular steel in the world, but I knew it was gonna be perfect for ceramic bearings. And but you know, it was frustrating because the amount of steel that I needed even though it was a lot of money for me who they, they would never be interested in. I, I got my business partner, speaks Germany called the Foundry in Germany and they basically hung up on him, you know, or they didn't hang up on him, but, you know, I was like, yeah, thanks kids. See you later. And I was at a show and I met this guy who. To you know, I, people sign trying to sell me metal all the time. Cuz we make bearings, but this guy, I heard the word nitrogen steel and I said, wait a minute, you can get nitrogen steel. And he's like, oh yeah, you know, I represent the company. So the long and shorts of the story is he's a mountain biker who worked for the Foundry in France. There's only two foundries. So he got me in there and was able to get me some steel. And, and so we'd been making XD 15 bearings now for over 10 years, I think maybe 12 or something. But that material cuz ceramic bearings, they're when you think about ceramic bearings, they're kind of fragile, right? They they're really great because they do spin really well. Cuz you have a super hard ball. It's seven times harder than steel. It won't flex or, or push out of the way deform and but it wears the races out. If there's no grease or. They can rust and all these things, and here's this material XD 15, it won't rust it won't corrode and you can run a ceramic ball in it with dirt, whatever you want and it won't wear out. [00:33:33] Randall Jacobs: It'll just Ize it, whatever gets in there. [00:33:35] Matt Harvey: it, yeah, it burnishes the races it'll like Polish and so you don't get Goling or pitting. So what usually happens with a bearing when it wears out, it'll just, you know, you get dirt or no grease in there and what happens. You get a pothole, essentially. If you're in the race and it's a little pit in the race, and then as the ball rolls over that the P like a car running over a pothole gets bigger and bigger until you feel that it's rough. So that's what happens when a bearing wears out. Well, that doesn't happen with XD 15, nor does it corrode. So, me and this guy, you know, we're, we're, we're still buddies and he he still rides his mountain bikes and he gets me the steel. Still we're still friends, but you know, the bike industry is so small. We're probably 20 minutes of, or not even 10 minutes of production out of this Foundry for all we buy in a. Because Airbus soaks that stuff up by the, you know, it's just aviation uses so much more material than, you know, any sports industry thing. So, I'm just lucky to be able to get it. But it's it's an interesting material to work with. We have to get raw, we can't get tubing, you gotta drill it. There there's a lot of it's hard to make these bearings, but I'm kind of proud of it. I mean, it's my favorite thing that we make because it answers the question when somebody calls and says, I want something to put in my bike and then I never wanna work on it again, which is kind of my goal too. Cause I never have time to work on my bike. And it's just like, I want to, you know, you can put these bearings in your bike and never think about 'em again. So that's why I like them. [00:35:12] Randall Jacobs: well, and this is a great segue into a topic that I think a number of our more performance or competition oriented listeners will be curious about, which is the ceramic bearing landscape, right? There are a few options out there. Maybe they're included on a very premium wheel set. Maybe it's some bearing kit that you can press into your existing hubs, but the perception that these are better or even necessarily faster or more efficient is not really backed up. And there's a phenomenon where, you know, you end up and, and I made this mistake. I. Ceramic bearings early on trying to get every little edge. And the science simply says that, well, it may give you a slight, maybe imperceptible benefit for a few hundred miles and then, the performance is going to a degree rather quickly because they're a significant part of that performance benefit has less to do with the bearing and more to do with say the thinner grease that's being used or the lighter seals that are being used. And then you have contamination, you have the Goling and, and pitting that you just described and so on. So maybe help us to understand the ceramic bearing landscape generally. And what's true and not true about ceramic bearings. How do you make a good one? How do you make a bad one? [00:36:21] Matt Harvey: right. Well, what you just said is, is all true. You know, friction and bearings has more to do usually with the seals and the grease at first grease dissipates. And, you know, after you've ridden it, a couple of rides, it dissipates and it's less of a factor, but right. Brand new out of the box, there's some grease not friction, but resistance [00:36:43] Randall Jacobs: to the viscosity of the grease, the thicker, the grease, the more resistance it applies. It's simply just within the friction of the material within itself. [00:36:52] Matt Harvey: Exactly. And, you know, first of all, the reason you don't see a lot of data about what actual test data about what that is, is because it's really small and hard to measure what that wattage difference is. So the drive train is your drive train is about seven Watts of suck, or if you will, or, you know, the and five of the Watts are the chain because it's basically a chain is 110 plane bearings rolling around on your Sprockets. So that's, that's, [00:37:24] Randall Jacobs: Plain bearings, meaning not having a ball bearing. It's just a metal on metal interface. [00:37:29] Matt Harvey: Rolling element. So it's a, it's a metal, a steel ring that rolls over your chain rings and there chain is extremely efficient. It's great. That's why everybody we use 'em but so that leaves two Watts for all the bearings in your bike. So if you do the math, you know, there's at least 12 bearings. [00:37:44] Randall Jacobs: So two in the front wheel, four or five in the rear wheel. Two in the bottom bracket and then [00:37:51] Matt Harvey: couple in the pedals [00:37:53] Randall Jacobs: Oh, in [00:37:53] Matt Harvey: and the pedals [00:37:55] Randall Jacobs: Yep. Yep. Can't forget that. Usually it's a cartridge ball bearing and then maybe a needle bearing [00:38:00] Matt Harvey: needle bearing. Yeah, [00:38:01] Randall Jacobs: has to fit in that really tight form factor. [00:38:04] Matt Harvey: exactly. So. [00:38:07] Randall Jacobs: for all of that. [00:38:08] Matt Harvey: Yeah. So you're talking under a wat it's it's it's per, per bearing. So it's really hard to measure because not very many people have equipment that can measure under a wat, you know, and even a bad bearing is still under a wat, you know, we're talking 0.2 0.2, five Watts per bearing, something like that. So, but so there are some efficiencies of ceramic what that is, you know, I'll let you leave it to your imagination, but it's not, it's not like, full Watts. Let's say it's you know, and my interest, so ceramic bearings in general are always best as you just pointed out right out of the box, and then they go downhill. From, if you will, from there, they, they deteriorate and you have to keep up with servicing XD 15. The reason I really like it, it's, it's more of a longevity story than a wattage story. Well, it is a wad story because they actually get better over time. The balls burnish, the races and they get smoother, but what's nice about 'em is they don't wear out. And if you don't wanna service 'em, you don't have to. So, you can never open 'em up and put grease on 'em. You can just keep riding 'em and they won't get loose or they won't get rough. They might get rough when you get some dirt in them, but the rough, the dirt will dissipate get ground up or come out and it they're fine again. So that's what I like about 'em. They're if you're talking about wattage there's yeah, they're a little bit better, but it's. Almost immeasurable. So right now we're doing some wattage testing on bearings, but how we're able to do it and see the differences is we have to amplify the tests. So we're, overtraining the bearings so that we get out of one bearing. We can get 10 Watts. Actually it's less than that's seven Watts of resistance, but we're over straining this bearing and we'll publish this next year. You'll see it. But in a way to amplify the results. And then we do comparison tests, [00:40:20] Randall Jacobs: and there's some assumptions that need to be made as to whether the relationship between the, load applied and the change in wattage, is it linear? Is it exponential? That's interesting. And I appreciate how transparent you are about this, because it's, it's a question that we looked into when we were developing our wheel line, which use your bearings by the [00:40:40] Matt Harvey: mm-hmm . Oh, [00:40:41] Randall Jacobs: and I had, I had a great conversation. No, thank you. One, you make a great bearing and two you had product available when we needed it, which at that time was, was a big challenge. I had a long conversation with one of your either support people or engineers. I suspect if it was a support person, they have an engineering background cuz they really knew their stuff and talked about the, the different ceramic options and the only one that. That really resonated with me as a potential offering in the future was this XD 15 because of the purported benefits you cite. But listeners should not lose sight of the fact that this is a marginal gain at best in terms of performance. A lot of it is probably coming from the ability to use less restrictive seals and a lighter lubricant in there as opposed to bearings for themselves. But, the, the benefit is there, but if you are unless you are, you know, either riding to the ends of the earth for years on end and want something ultra durable, or you are a high level competitive athlete with a sponsorship and a team car and a mechanic who works on your stuff, ceramic bearings it's not the lowest lying fruit in terms of improving your performance. But at the bleeding edge, if you're going to do it. You would want to do it with something that maintains its performance advantage over time. And that is not true of a lot of ceramic bearings out there. And in fact, quite a few of them are manufactured to a standard such that they're actually worse out of the box than even a traditional steel bearing. [00:42:11] Matt Harvey: Yeah, it, it depends on, so there's a lot of different balls out there. There's only really there's very few factories in the world that make really good ceramic balls, San GOBA, or Panasonic or Toshiba in Japan. And then there's, you, you, there's a lot of balls you don't wanna put in there that are worse than steel balls. So, you know, that's another reason for the price, because if they're really cheap, ceramic bearings, they're probably really cheap for a reason. Cause I know what the price of the balls good balls are, cuz we buy 'em all the time. But that's the first thing is good. Good ceramic balls. You do on sta if you use, so what we're talking about, the other steel, so there's XD 15 steel that we've been talking about, which is called a nitrogen stainless steel. And the other steel that is used almost across the board is called 52, 100 chromium steel. So that's the, it's a that's the steel that everybody pretty much uses in ceramic bearings and it can rust. It's extremely hard. Get it up to like 60 Rockwell, which is really hard. That's why people, that's why factories use it for bearings it's industry standard. But with a ceramic ball, it can wear it out unless you keep up with the maintenance. So that means when the grease is gone, you probably got about two weeks left before that bearing. If you keep riding, if you're running, riding a couple hundred miles a week, you probably. Couple weeks left and then it's gonna be rough. So you gotta keep up with cleaning it and greasing it. And you know, if you clean 'em and grease, 'em ceramic bearings on a regular basis. They, they last a long time and they work. But that's the reality of ceramic bearings with that [00:44:00] Randall Jacobs: Yeah. I look forward to getting some data sets from you because the XD fifteens are actually something that I'm quite interested in for a future offering for us. They're not cheap, but if you, if you actually want to have the benefits both upfront and over time, it is what it costs. Otherwise unless you have a mechanic constantly taking care of your bearings, popping seals and repacking grease, and so on. You're better off with a high quality steel bearing. [00:44:24] Matt Harvey: Yeah, I think so. But you know, I tell people the story. They still buy the regular ceramic bearings all the time. Cuz I, I just can't I come from engineering background, not marketing. So I just kind of tell it like it is, I'll get 'em anyway and they put 'em in and say, you know what, you're wrong. They, they roll better. I can feel it, but you know, that's, I, I get it all the time and it's like, well, it's okay. You know? It's you know, there is a lot of in the mind, especially with bike racers, it is psychological thing, you know, like, if you, if you're on the best bike you think you have, then you probably are faster too. [00:45:00] Randall Jacobs: yeah. There's that? I'll tell you too though. I was friends with the European pro who I was talking. Because I was just coming up and I was never at his level, but asking does it matter all that much? What you're riding and so on. He's like, you honestly, yeah. I wanna win. I wanna have the best equipment, but there's a lot of parody between what's out there and if you pay me enough, I'll ride a shopping cart. [00:45:20] Matt Harvey: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you're strong, you're strong you'll you are gonna win the race. [00:45:26] Randall Jacobs: Yeah. [00:45:27] Matt Harvey: no, it's, that's very true. I agree. [00:45:30] Randall Jacobs: well, I think ceramic bearings, they have a lot of bling factor. So if you say that your product has ceramic bearings in there, it doesn't really matter. If the bearings are better than a non ceramic bearing, it just matters that you can say ceramic bearings. And now you just marked your product. In the case of a wheel set, it's anywhere from several hundred to a thousand or more that you're able to mark that product up because it is perceived as having the best of the best, even if it's not necessarily the case. [00:45:58] Matt Harvey: Yeah. And in, in the case of XD 15 so it, the ceramic ball is perfect for that material. Number one, when we started, there were no XD 15 balls available. So you would have to use chromium steel or four 40 C stainless balls, which is another bearing steel that's out there. But the problem with four 40 C or an unmatched steel ball in XD 15 is at micro weld. And then you do have problems. So with X micro weld is the ball actually under pressure welds itself to the race in certain situations. So for XD 15, you have to run ceramic balls. And the benefits also are that they won't corrode like the XD 15 material. So. They're they're kind of made for each other in, in this instance. [00:46:49] Randall Jacobs: Interesting. It reminds me of a phenomenon with the doors of the space station, where they were finding that the door could seal shut because you had raw aluminum surfaces that had no oxidization on them. And so that it basically would bond and, and weld in that vacuum. [00:47:04] Matt Harvey: oh my God. And then right when alien shows up, you can't get you can't jettison out of the, your [00:47:11] Randall Jacobs: Yeah. So, so thank you for this dive on ceramics. I find it really fascinating and it was no less. So when I was talking to one of your teammates, so let's talk about the bearings that most of us are riding, which is a steel bearing, typically a stainless steel bearing, what goes into a good bearing for all the different applications on the bicycle so this is everything from headsets to bottom brackets and radio bearings versus angular, contact bearings, and so on. What makes the kind of the best bearing for each one of those applications? [00:47:42] Matt Harvey: so it's a really good question. Let's just go to the com most common bearings. The most common bearing in the bike industry is this number 6, 9 0 2. And so that's an industry standard of a bearing in just briefly 6, 9 0 2. The six refers to radio nine is the series. And then, oh two is the internal diameter. That's if anybody's interested, that's how that works. So 6, 9 0 2 though. So it gives you some specificity about the bearing, because that gives you the ID, the OD and the width. However, what's inside the bearing can vary greatly. You can have different size balls, you can have different. So there's no standard on the 6, 9 0 2 as to what it looks like on the inside, but that's the important part, right? So you can buy a 6, 9 0 2 that works in a printing machine. It's very common in big printers and it's going back and forth, or you can put a 6, 9 0 2 and a turbo charger, and now it's going 50,000 RPM. And now you can put it in a hub and it's going 200 RPM. And it has a lot of axial loads that we talked about earlier. So you'd have a different 6, 9 0 2, even though it's a standard bearing in each of those applications. For instance, if you put a bunch of grease, like we do 85% grease fill in a bicycle 6, 9 0 2, because it's only going 200 RPM and you want it full of grease. If you put that in a turbo charger, bearing, going. 40,000 RPM, that grease is gonna fly out and set the car on fire, [00:49:19] Randall Jacobs: I was gonna say, yeah, I was expecting a flammable situation. [00:49:22] Matt Harvey: Yeah. So, for bicycle application, we or I started by designing the inside of the bearing for the bicycle application. So number one, it's got the biggest ball possible, cuz that's your biggest load bearing capabilities to start with that [00:49:41] Randall Jacobs: okay. [00:49:41] Matt Harvey: second you use the deepest grooves possible that you can design around cuz some of 'em are shallow grooves and you have loads side to side loads, axial loads, and you need to support the ball once the ball rolls past the groove and it's on the edge, you're either like doing some damage or it's not supporting how it can. So deepest grooves, largest balls. And then we look at the seals and we do groove type seals. A lot of, so two RS, 6, 9 0 2, 2 RS, two RS litter means two rubber seals. That's but it doesn't tell you what kind of seal. So we do these seals called LL B and L L U. And those are, we actually machine a groove into the seal at that point. And there's two lips that run inside that groove [00:50:33] Randall Jacobs: Machine into the the races, right? [00:50:36] Matt Harvey: yeah. [00:50:36] Randall Jacobs: Where the seal is interfacing with the race? [00:50:39] Matt Harvey: Exactly. And there's always an external groove to hold the seal, but on the ID, there's often just a flat surface that one lip, a two RS seal just rubs against, but it's not very, and sometimes they don't even make contact on cheaper bearings. You know, you can hold them up to the light and see the light shine [00:50:57] Randall Jacobs: oh, wow. [00:50:57] Matt Harvey: well, it's, it's not even making contact. [00:51:01] Randall Jacobs: which means that all sorts of grime and dirt and dust and water is getting in there in a bike application. [00:51:07] Matt Harvey: Right. And so, like our, so our dual lip LL B L O use one lip, keeps the grease in and then the other is kind of a sweeper seal that keeps the dust out from the outside. And then in between the seals, you get some, when you start turning it, the reason for the full grease fill is some grease comes out and that makes an extra grease seal, if you will, on the, on the idea of the bearing. So, that, [00:51:33] Randall Jacobs: inner inner diameter of the bearing. [00:51:35] Matt Harvey: exactly helps keep the moisture from crawling in, or, you know, [00:51:40] Randall Jacobs: The seal is static relative to the outer race, but the inner race is turning be presumably because it's a smaller surface area. So you have less friction [00:51:48] Matt Harvey: Exactly. Oh, [00:51:50] Randall Jacobs: Yeah. [00:51:50] Matt Harvey: engineering mine there. Yeah. So less friction on the [00:51:53] Randall Jacobs: physics, physics nerd. [00:51:55] Matt Harvey: No, that's good. Yeah. And so yeah, and, and the grease so that's the dynamic lip on the inside and the grease. You got kind of a grease barrier there. So on Enduro bearings, you'll have some grease come out and that's a good thing cuz grease is another barrier that catches dust and holds it back from getting inside. So, that's, that's the basics of how we design the bearing. Of course you have to start out with good balls good material, good steel. It's like making bread or you know, food. You, you gotta start out with good ingredients to have good end results. [00:52:30] Randall Jacobs: And when you say good ingredients, you're talking high precision in the formulation, the right heat treatments, really tight tolerances, high hardness that is also consistent across the entire material. And there's all sorts of technologies that make that possible too. There's a lot that goes into a bearing, even if it looks the same as a cheap bearing. [00:52:51] Matt Harvey: exactly. You gotta get the steel from a good Foundry. It's gotta be clean without pollutants in it. And we're lucky cuz we have the industrial side that we, we buy a lot of steel every year. And so we're able to buy from the bigger foundries that supply, the big boys, you know, the big bearing companies, cuz we're a little teeny bearing company, you know, in this, in the universe of bearing companies, but very niche, you know, area. But we do enough that we can buy good steel because of both sides. But yeah, so you start out with really good, 52, 100 or four 40 C or well, XD 15, obviously you have to start out with really good steel and good steel balls and then heat treatment. So for XD 15, that stuff has to be heat treated on ceramic tables in a you have to pull a atmosphere you know, it it's of gas. So to, to do it properly, it's, it's not just in [00:53:50] Randall Jacobs: an atmosphere of gas. Do you mean like you're doing this in a vacuum? [00:53:53] Matt Harvey: yeah. In an inner gas to to keep it stable. [00:53:56] Randall Jacobs: have oxidization or something like this. [00:53:59] Matt Harvey: we do the same with four 40 C and then we do tri cryogenic treatment as well. So you bring it down to almost absolute zero and that normalizes. The steel, so it lasts longer. So these are the things people don't really know about. With four 40 C and XD 15 it's similar heat treatment. Not exactly the same, but it does go from those ceramic table induction heat treatment to cryogenic treatment. And other bearings can be heat treated in like a gas environment without that atmosphere and so forth. That's why they cost less. But you know, there's different processes for different levels of, of bearings. They're not just all the going through the same process says. [00:54:43] Randall Jacobs: yeah. And it's the sort of stuff where even if you have the technical expertise to be able to understand the nuances of this conversation that we've just had. I think the thing to really make clear is that again, two things that look very similar can have very, very different properties in terms of how they perform out the gate and how they perform over time and to make a quality product. Well, when you buy a product, you're essentially trusting that company and that product manager and, and the decision makers on that product to, to really focus on those details. And it's not just the company, it's not just the product manager. It's also, the team at all of vendors. [00:55:18] Matt Harvey: Yeah, there's a lot of things. You know, I obviously go deep here, one other, we do a lot of things that people just don't know about. Cuz you buy it and you see it. And it's like, well, what's the difference between this one and this other one. And we do for the For the suspension, bearings, the pivot bearings, we do a black oxide treatment. And when we do it, it turns the bearing black and people like it, cuz it looks cool, but it's people like black things and it you know, it, there is an advantage to it because it actually does a second heat treatment to the metal besides making it corrosion resistant. But we gotta take those and we gotta grind it off where the ball rolls because you can't have the black oxide treatment where the ball rolls. Well, there's similar products out there and they're black and they're max bearings, but it's almost like a paint that they do, or sometimes it's black oxide treatment, but that they don't take it off the inside of the, where the balls roll. And what happens is if you do black oxide treatment and you leave it on where the balls roll, that stuff rubs off mixes with the grease and makes a nice paste that wears the bearing out faster than if you just didn't do it at. [00:56:29] Randall Jacobs: Yeah, and there's so much of that in our industry. I think that that's something across the board, but we are a highly technical industry. The bicycle is a highly technical product, and there's so much to know in order to do things right, that you can't really expect a rider to know all of this stuff. And so they're like, oh, ceramic, great. Oh, this black coating. Well, it looks like the other one and it's cheaper. Okay, great. I have the, the latest and greatest but I've seen so many examples, so many examples across the industry, including on projects that I have been involved with and didn't have authority over where decisions are made purely for marketing purposes, purely to get you to think that it's a better thing and to spend more money on something that oftentimes at best it's neutral. And oftentimes it actually makes the bike worse in ways that you will experience over its lifetime. [00:57:21] Matt Harvey: Yeah. And it's, it's hard to get, you know, it's hard to get people interested in say bearings sometimes, cuz you don't see 'em on the bikes now they're all buried. Like, you know, new carbon bikes, you, oh, there's bearings inside that thing you, I mean there's not, you know, used to be, you could see a headset, you know? [00:57:39] Randall Jacobs: We used to press them directly into the carbon frame. cuz that was a good idea. There's there's one other thing that I wanted to call out, which I thought was interesting when I was looking through your bearing catalog, which is using different seals on one side of the bearing versus the other and because the, the risk of contamination is always much greater on the exterior facing seal, but the one on the inside. Well there's not much to contaminate there for example, facing the inside of the hub. So you can run a, a seal that keeps the grease in, but doesn't need to be as as tight for water ingress and dust and dust can be lower friction. So even like those little micro optimizations matter. [00:58:17] Matt Harvey: Yeah. And so, you know, if you roll back like 10 or 15 years ago, everybody wanted bearings in their wheels to spin, like, you know, like a metal roller skate wheel, you know, where you spin it and it won't stop or you see those videos, people doing [00:58:33] Randall Jacobs: The YouTube videos look at how efficient my bike is because when, when there's no rider on it and it's up on a stand, it just spins for a long time. And somehow that is a good proxy for how it performs in the wild [00:58:44] Matt Harvey: Yeah. And so if you take the seals out and put sewing machine oil in there, yeah. You can get it. The spin, like CRA you know, old track bikes used to do that. They'd do that. And but it's on a track, you know, but if you're riding out in the rain and stuff so we used to do getting back to your question. We used to do just LL B seals, both sides on the ABAC five bearings, which was real popular wheel bearing. And, you know, in certain environments especially like Vancouver, wet environments, you know, Vancouver, different places where there's a lot more rain. People say, Hey, you know, we're just the water's the grease is getting washed out too quick. We're getting dirt ingression. So we, we always had L L U seals, but L L U if you use a factory, sorry, industry standard, LLL U seal, it's really tight. And [00:59:32] Randall Jacobs: In L L B versus L L U L L U is the, the tighter, [00:59:38] Matt Harvey: medium contact. Yeah. [00:59:39] Randall Jacobs: okay. Yep. [00:59:41] Matt Harvey: Or, [00:59:41] Randall Jacobs: Versus the LLL B, which is [00:59:44] Matt Harvey: light contact. Yeah. LL B light contact, but LL U in the industry is pretty tight contact. So we make it medium contact. So we had to, we reengineered L L U for bicycle industry, basically. So ours is, is medium contact. So it's an acceptable amount of seal friction. If you do it too much, people just don't like the way their wheels spin and it's really sealed. Right. But it just, you know, you spin it and it goes once around and stops. Like if you had a really tight seal in there, so there's compromises [01:00:19] Randall Jacobs: it's kinda like, you want a bike that lasts forever, but are you willing to add that half pound of weight across the entire bike to make it more durable? You know, that's a half pound that I'll add every day, but if you wanna be in the magazine listed at some headline weight, well some people are only looking at that number. [01:00:37] Matt Harvey: Right. Right. And you know, when you, and, and that's a good point if I could just touch on this, like really super lightweight hubs, which people were going crazy, you know, again, 10 years ago with extremely lightweight hubs with really small bearings. And one of my customers did some tests on those hubs, like versus his hubs, cuz they were heavier and he used a thicker axle and so forth. And in some of those hubs, when you're going up a hill, the bearings, the thin bearings, cuz they're so thin, they're only a millimeter. Thickness of the race. They [01:01:15] Randall Jacobs: Oh, they're distorting. Yeah. [01:01:17] Matt Harvey: they're, they're twisting so much that they're actually locking up and skidding. So you, if you're going up a hill, you essentially have a drag break that you're working against and sure. They're light, you know, you just shaved some weight off your bike. But you're working against yourself because that's, that's like the worst case scenario. Now you got a drag break going uphill. [01:01:40] Randall Jacobs: So I think at this point anyone who's made it this far into the conversation should have an appreciation of just how much goes into not just bearings, but the bike generally to make it function as well as it does. And, kind of a sense of the depth of innovation and all the layers of innovation that have to happen at every level, from the steel maker to how it's heat treated to new coatings to how it's assembled. And so on that go into making a product like a 20 pound bike that can go over single track at high speeds, under a heavy rider and do so day in, day out for years on end. I hope also that folks get a sense of. What you compromise when you push up against the limits of that, because technology and material science and so on can take you so far in, in pushing the envelope in terms of performance and weight and strength and so on. But there is a point at which you're compromising something. And so I want to acknowledge how cool it is to hear and detail the innovation that you and your team have done in order to enable the sorts of highly reliable, high performance bicycles that we have today. And then also the transparency on how that process works and the trade offs and so on. And being able to unpack that with you today has been a lot of fun and hopefully has been informative to some of our listeners here. Is there anything else that you think listeners should know about bearings and, and how to think about them and what to look for? [01:03

Steve-O made his way to the No Jumper to talk to Adam about his recovery journey, Jackass, being a legend, doing comedy, going on tour, still having a list of stunts he wants to do and much more! ----- 00:00 Intro 0:47 Adam had reached out to Steve about the whippits in the rap community 3:56 Steve-O started dabbling in 1993, it got gnarly when he started making money 4:31 Doing a competition with Party Boy of who can stay homeless the longest 8:55 On his way to rock bottom, Steve actually loved the hallucination phases 13:11 Being messed up was such a waste of time and mistakes made got clean and sober in 2008 15:39 The difference between the symptoms and actual disease of addiction 21:14 Adam pretended to be Steve-O to get a girl 28:55 Becoming famous overnight, fucking the baddest chicks the next day, and falling in love with the power of fame 31:42 Putting drops of acid in his eyes + Pushing himself to the limits because he was jealous and impressed by how fearless Bam was 34:22 Always thinking about some crazy stunts he could do to this day 34:41 Going to comedy clubs a lot since 2010 and developed stand-up routines, quickly started touring 40:28 Steve on building his podcast studio on his tour bus 46:59 Joe Rogan has surpassed Howards Stern 50:46 Lil Xan on Steve's podcast + S/O SonnyV2. Xan was bragging about this up-and-coming tour on Steve's pod and literally the next day the pod came out, the tour got canceled 53:56 Ryan Dunn aka Random Hero in Jackass, looks up to him for showing love to the BMX culture 59:30 Started his youtube channel after getting fired from a tv show 1:01:29 Creating his own ecosystem is way more valuable 1:04:56 Amy Schummer made a bad joke about Ryan Dunn during a roast 1:08:39 Metallica getting canceled for old footage resurfacing ----- NO JUMPER PATREON http://www.patreon.com/nojumper CHECK OUT OUR NEW SPOTIFY PLAYLIST https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5te... FOLLOW US ON SNAPCHAT FOR THE LATEST NEWS & UPDATES https://www.snapchat.com/discover/No_... CHECK OUT OUR ONLINE STORE!!! nojumper.com SUBSCRIBE for new interviews (and more) weekly: http://bit.ly/nastymondayz  Follow us on SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/4ENxb4B... iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/n... Follow us on Social Media: https://www.snapchat.com/discover/No_... http://www.twitter.com/nojumper http://www.instagram.com/nojumper https://www.facebook.com/NOJUMPEROFFI... http://www.reddit.com/r/nojumper JOIN THE DISCORD: https://discord.gg/Q3XPfBm Follow Adam22: https://www.tiktok.com/@adam22 http://www.twitter.com/adam22 http://www.instagram.com/adam22 adam22hoe on Snapchat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices