The Rodeo Labs Podcast

We are back with another Rodeo rider episode! This time we sat down with Jeff Chapman. Jeff is from Kansas City, Missouri, and is new to Rodeo Labs this year as he has waded further into the gravel thicket.

Jeff started his journey into cycling around the pandemic and is now a two-time participant of Unbound. The race in Kansas has taken on extra meaning for Jeff whose day job is spent out on those same Flint Hills gravel roads. Nevertheless, as is common practice for Rodeo riders, the urge to explore has brought Jeff to expand his racing exploits and explores bigger challenges, most recently taking on a race in Germany.

Jeff's story is different from our previous guests, but for me, it was very similar to the countless chats I’ve had with rodeo owners all across the country at races. Only this time did we turn on the microphones first! 

Host: Logan Jones-Wilkins

Guest: Jeff Chapman

Producer: Logan Jones-Wilkins

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Over the last few weeks, the Lab has been hard at work finishing the new updates to our range of bikes before the holiday season goes into full swing with a brand new Flaanimal 6 Titanium and a tweaked Trail Donkey 4.2. Both bikes offer a new Spork and a new UDH-capable slider system, while the new Flaanimal offers a laundry list of new innovative ideas packed into the bike that builds on the legacy of the previous Flaanimals that have already wandered the Earth. Logan sat down with Drew to get into the weeds of Rodeo's unique way of doing development cycles, what goes into a new iteration of a bike that has a great tradition, and the specific joys of the myriad of gems included in the final cut of the Flaanimal. Less is said of the new Trail Donkey, mostly because the bike is the same, beyond the way the slider adjusts the rear of the bike and the fork updates. More information on both bikes is available on the Rodeo Labs website.

Host: Logan Jones-Wilkins

Guest: Drew van Kampen

Editor: Logan Jones-Wilkins

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Cullen Perkey is a U23 mountain biker and a new member of the Rodeo Labs Family after he got his Trail Donkey 4.0 this past summer. Cullen's baby blue Trail Donkey is what he describes as "the most aerodynamic mountain bike ever," and trail mode is his standard operating procedure: big tires, short cranks, and lots of steez. In this conversation, Cullen and I dove into his roots as a rider and a racer, what brought him to get a Rodeo, and what he has done thus far as a mountain biker with a new drop bar habit.

Host: Logan Jones-Wilkins

Guest: Cullen Perkey

Producer: Logan Jones-Wilkins

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This week, we are back in the Lab to consider the new SRAM RED XPLR AXS (so many capital letters!) and its use of the UDH (moar capital letters! moar!). While we jest at the branding, the tech is serious business. The new 1x13 groupset leans into the SRAM Transmission style rear derailleur and brings it to drop bar bikes, with the UDH hanger instead of the previous convention of specific hangers for specific frames.

We delve into some of the specifics, but the majority of the conversation is about how these big standard shifts in the bike industry affect small-frame brands. Along the way, we also find a few tangents to discuss some of the nuances of groupsets in this day and age of cycling. In this conversation, Stephen and Logan talk shop at first, before the Intern passes the baton to Drew Van Kampen and Cameron Lindberg to get into the weeds. Then, it's back to Stephen and Logan to bring it all around.

Host: Logan Jones-Wilkins

Guests: Stephen Fitzgerald, Drew van Kampen, and Cameron "Coco" Lindberg

Producer: Logan Jones-Wilkins

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This is the first installment of a podcast series that we are calling the Rodeo Rider Files where we will sit down with extended members of the Rodeo Labs community. First up is Conor Dancy.

Conor lives in Northern Virginia, amongst the historic gravel roads of Loudoun County, and is a pilot in his free time. He is a real matter-of-fact presence and someone who loves cycling, the little things, and Big Dumb Rides—all things we can get behind.

Host: Logan Jones-Wilkins

Guest: Conor Dancy

Producer: Logan Jones-Wilkins

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Cody Cirillo and Matthew Tufts approached us early this year with an inspiring pitch: They wanted to spend a couple of human-powered months riding the outer perimeter of Iceland on Rodeo Labs bikes, all the while carrying their skis, and peeling off to notch seemingly innumerable ski descents along the way. We get plenty of project pitches at Rodeo, but this one stood out because it combined a world that we know a lot about with a world that we know very little about, all in a land that we very much want to explore ourselves someday.

Sit back as our hosts Logan Jones-Wilkins and Steve The Intern discuss the adventure all the way from it's "why", to the preparations, the endless headwinds, the long days on the bike, the line between skier and cyclist, the impacts of adventure travel, and more.

Stay tuned for the cinematic release of this story in fall / winter 2025, and in select ski publications.

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We are back with another round table conversation, this time focusing on the 2024 Tour Divide and, in particular, the two Rodeo Lab-affiliated riders who took on the challenge this June. Both Cade and Edyn had a massively successful outing with Cade arriving in Antelope Wells as the fourth finisher and Edyn finishing a few days later as the youngest-ever finisher of the Tour at just 15 years old.

Nevertheless, on the Continental Divide success is still filled with many ups and downs that come with some of the highest, wildest terrain in the United States. Stephen and Logan dug into it all with the pair of intrepid athletes, recounting the run-ins with lightning, mud, wind, and technical choices that went into the effort.

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Carbs Fuel has come on the scene this year as a simple, cost-effective gel that delivers 50 grams of carbohydrates in a neat $2.00 package. Stephen and Logan have both felt a shift in their fueling ability and understanding of on the bike nutrition after adding these gels to their pockets for training and racing, so it seemed like an easy choice to have the creators of this new endurance elixir on the podcast. To learn more about the company we invited Gabe Multer, the founder and CEO of Carbs Fuel, and Laini Ritsch, the CFO of the brand, into the Lab's podcast studio for a wide-ranging conversation on starting the company and why Carbs Fuel gels are the way they are.

From the jump, we also would like to stress from the get go that neither Stephen, Logan, or this episode is sponsored by Carbs Fuel. We buy our gels at full price and we wanted to look at the company since there are aspects of the company that are unique in ways that fit what we are doing at the Lab.

Hosts: Logan Jones-Wilkins and Stephen Fitzgerald

Guests: Gabe Multer and Laini Ritsch

Producer: Logan Jones-Wilkins

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The Traka is the biggest gravel race in Europe and it offers a wide range of distances including 200km, 360km and 560km. The Rodeo Labs gang were set on the big one: 560km, or 348 miles, of Spanish gravel.

Nevertheless, the rain had other ideas, with torrential downpours causing the race organizers to cancel the 560km distance. The Rodeo crew were gutted, but are still determined to make the most of the trip and have set-off for their own version of the race, because that's Rodeo! That is what we do.

Here is our conversation from before the race when rain was still only a rumor. Come back later for a report from Spain, but for now let's delve into the Traka and the ins and outs of this type of bike race.

Host and producer: Logan Jones-Wilkins

Guests: Stephen Fitzgerald, Cade Reichenberger, Nick Gilroy and Luke Hall

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