Bikes & Big Ideas

There are a lot of good reasons to try mountain biking at night, from simple necessity during the colder, darker months to seeking a new challenge and experience. We sat down with Outbound Lighting’s Tom Place to make the case for (safe) night riding, talk about light design, how to think about putting together a light setup for your needs, and much more.

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TOPICS & TIMES:

Tom’s background & founding Outbound (7:21)

What makes a good bike light? (14:04)

How to choose a light setup (22:14)

Bar vs. helmet lights and their different requirements (30:33)

Power output, battery size, and runtime (35:59)

Features (41:52)

Why ride at night? (47:31)

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When Ruben Torenbeek founded RAAW back in 2016, he had a clear vision for the sort of dependable, no-nonsense bikes he wanted to build. He clearly wasn’t alone in wanting a bike in that vein, because RAAW is going strong with an expanding model lineup, a bigger team, and so on. 

So Ruben and David Golay sat down to chat about all of it, including why things like carbon fiber frames and fancy details don’t necessarily equate to higher performance; his philosophy on bike design and how he’s gone about designing bikes to both ride well and be easy to live with; the expanding RAAW lineup and how it’s evolved over the years; and a whole bunch more.

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TOPICS & TIMES:

Founding RAAW (2:12)

The original concept for the brand (6:36)

Bike weight & its relevance (or lack thereof) (11:03)

The V1 Madonna (14:59)

Cable routing (19:34)

Ride feel and being “in the bike” (23:53)

Launching RAAW & the initial reception (30:41)

Evolution and growth of RAAW (37:15)

The Jibb (44:05)

The Yalla! (45:38)

The Madonna V3 (47:15)

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Vorsprung Suspension has been making a wide range of suspension upgrade products for quite some time now — and we’ve been very impressed with a number of them — but they’ve yet to offer a full standalone fork or shock. That’s about to change.

So we sat down with founder and engineer Steve Mathews to hear all about the new coil shock that they’re developing, including a whole lot about its design, Vorsprung’s goals for it, how the prototyping and testing process is going, and a whole lot more.

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TOPICS & TIMES:

Why build a shock now? (3:05)

Designing a new shock vs. tuning products for existing ones (10:21)

The design (14:01)

High- and low-speed rebound adjustments (24:52)

Why coil? (29:10)

Will there be an air version? (32:11)

Packaging & bike fitment (33:50)

Mounting standards (38:11)

The biggest challenges (50:21)

Picking test bike platforms (55:09)

Availability & pricing (59:20)

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We got the gang back together to recap a whole bunch of the bikes and other gear we tested in 2023, and Simon Stewart, Dylan Wood, and David Golay picked a bunch of our favorites, including bikes across the travel spectrum and a variety of softgoods. Along the way, we get into bike design and geometry tradeoffs, headset cable routing, and much more.

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TOPICS & TIMES:

SCOR 2030

Transition Smuggler

Cannondale Habit

Chromag Darco

Pivot Shuttle AM

Contra MC

Fox Union Shoes

Yeti Freeland Shorts

Akta Trail Knee Pads

Velocio Trail Access Pants

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Forbidden might be *the* company most closely associated with high-pivot bikes, but Owen Pemberton didn’t set out with that goal in mind when he founded the company. We sat down with Owen to hear all about his journey through the bike industry, including a long tenure as an engineer at Norco; founding Forbidden; his philosophy on bike design and geometry; how he ended up settling on high-pivot suspension layouts; the new Druid V2 and Supernought; and Owen teases some future Forbidden models, too.

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TOPICS & TIMES:

Owen’s path into the bike industry and tenure at Norco

Founding Forbidden

High-pivot bikes and the V1 Druid

Chainstay lengths & proportional geometry

Trifecta V2 & suspension kinematics

What’s next from Forbidden?

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EXT founder Franco Fratton has more experience working on suspension than just about anyone, and today, we’re revisiting our first conversation with him that kicked off our “Very Deep Dive on Suspension” series, where we discuss all the details when it comes to suspension design and tech.

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A Very Deep Dive on Suspension with EXT’s Franco Fratton, Pt. 2 (Ep. 146)

A Very Deep Dive on Suspension with EXT’s Franco Fratton, Pt. 3 (Ep.173)

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TOPICS & TIMES:

Dampers vs. Shock Absorbers (1:42)

Sprung vs. unsprung mass (7:39)

Coil springs & the need for dampers (8:59)

History of damper design (9:31)

Adjustability vs. damper quality (21:28)

Orifice dampers (23:22)

Valve types (28:03)

High- vs. low-speed adjusters (29:42)

Range of adjustments (35:49)

Damping “knee” (41:47)

Twin tube vs. monotube dampers (46:55)

Damper design philosophy (59:25)

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William Boisvert made his first bike frame — a machined front triangle for a Devinci Troy — in just seven weeks for a college project, and despite the challenges that arose (and the fact that that first frame didn’t survive very long), he’s continued the development of a CNC-machined high-pivot Enduro frame, and founded Tool to bring it to market. The prototypes are visually stunning (and quite interesting technically), and we sat down with William to hear all about their design and the concepts behind it; why he’s opting to machine and bond his frames; what’s next with their development and when they might be available to buy; and a whole lot more.

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TOPICS & TIMES:

William’s first bike project (7:12)

The difficulty of building something (11:44)

William’s first ground-up design (18:12)

Suspension travel, geometry, & modularity (30:23)

Prototypes (33:42)

Machining frames & “human scale” manufacturing (36:50)

Moving toward production (44:25)

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A lot of companies have offered bikes with a degree of adaptability in their geometry and travel configurations, but the Albatross Apogee Module is a very novel design that opens up a much wider spectrum of options than most. We sat down with founder and engineer, Will Hilgenberg, to chat about the concept; what he sees as being the advantages of the layout; frame materials and ride quality; his plans for production; and more.

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TOPICS & TIMES:

Founding Albatross (3:29)

Dropped seatstays (5:51)

Recumbents? (12:30)

Frame materials & ride quality (15:07)

Full suspension bike development (16:58)

The Apogee Module (18:38)

Suspension kinematics (22:41)

Flexibility & adaptability (23:38)

Geometry options & customization (31:45)

Moving to production (34:03)

Why “Albatross”? (36:36)

Hardtails (37:42)

“Bikes for everyone” (39:00)

The ordering process & customization (40:26)

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Two races into the 2022 EWS season, Katy Winton hit a breaking point and pulled out of the rest of the series to give herself the time and space she needed to get her mental health back on track. Having made a successful return to racing in 2023, Katy is now ready to open up about the experience.

We sat down with her to talk about burnout and what her experience with it felt like; when she knew she needed to punch out and step away from racing; what her recovery process looked like; how she managed to come back in 2023; what the future holds for her career and Enduro racing more broadly; and a whole lot more.

TOPICS & TIMES:

The 2022 race season and pulling the plug (3:41)

Going public with the news (13:54)

Katy’s recovery from burnout (17:13)

Mental performance coaching (21:15)

Lessons learned (30:05)

Making a career of mountain biking (33:26)

Bike setup & feeling at home (38:03)

Getting back to racing & the 2023 season (50:52)

The 2024 season & what comes next (54:23)

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Katy Winton on 2021, Life as an EWS Pro, & Signing With GT (Ep.103)

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Founding Intend (2:18)

Fork design & the first Intend offering (5:24)

Why inverted? (7:09)

Selling inverted forks & market acceptance of things that look different (8:52)

Designing a full fork (17:16)

Damper design (20:16)

The Infinity EN (24:42)

The Bandit (38:32)

The Hover shock (43:12)

Brake design (48:17)

Deciding which projects to tackle (57:07)

What’s next for Intend? (1:00:26)

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