Welcome mountain bikers. Thanks for tuning in to The Inside Line and thanks for your patience this week. We had some technical difficulties with the recording of Ian Hylands that you’ll hear today, but I’m stoked to report the interview was recovered after some painstakingly repetitive work, and the stories and history await through this special talk with one of our sport’s most influential and inspiring photographers.

Ian and I talked for almost 3 hours and I’ve broken it up into 2 parts. Today we’ll learn about his journey into mountain biking and photography, his incredible depth in the mountain bike scene with one of the first north shore photos to ever run in BIKE mag in the early 90s…his journeys as Darren Berrecloth launched his career in the mountain bike world, road trips with Voreis, Lenosky and chase and so much more and so much impact on what mountain biking is today, whether directly or indirectly through his imagery. we don’t even touch on half of what he’s done for our sport, but it’s an honor to have this one on the record. thank you Ian. Thank you the listeners, enjoy the show.

I just want to thank you all again for your responses to our question about flow trails and trail design in the last episode. The passion and diversity of opinions about how we ride make our sport great. thank you. On the topic of trails, have you heard of The PayDirt Fund? They’re pledging a million bucks over the next three years towards trail projects, local organizations, events...anything geared towards creating and strengthening opportunities for people to get out on the trails.

The Inside Line Listener Response Questions

Since our guest this week is a world-class photographer who’s made a living creating mountain bike pictures for magazines, riders and brands over the years, I figured we’d open the social media can worms for discussion this week. As Ian and I talked, we both recalled individual images that defined moments in our lives, images that crusty older mountain bikers like me would all probably remember because there were only a few places to look at mountain bike photos back then. Now I don’t remember photos or videos I saw last week because of the flood of content out there. And Vital is to blame for that flood, no doubt. My goal here is not to just shit on social media like a “back in my day” complaint. I think there are incredible benefits and positives to the accessibility of info we all have through our phones and places like Instagram. I want to know what benefits you get out of social media. What are you losing because of it? Do you make buying choices for or against something because of what you see on social media? Let’s open it up, let me hear your thoughts, pros and cons of social media, specifically related to mountain biking.

Ideally, I’d LOVE to get an audio message about this from you, so it can play on our Listener Response episodes of The Inside Line. Use your phone's voice recorder and email your audio file to [email protected]. You can send me a written response to that email too, and I may read it on the show. As a carrot, you should know that if you send an audio file, you could be in the running for something special. I'll run the episode with your responses sometime next week and we’ll continue with part 2 of Ian’s interview on February 12th.

Thank you - Maxxis Tires

Thank you - Jenson USA