The Pinkbike Podcast

Henry, Ben, and James talk about the first World Cup race of 2022, including long lift lines, fast juniors, and a resurgent Amaury Pierron.

It's all downhill from here, with Henry Quinney and Ben Cathro as they follow the World Cup circuit and take you with them to see what happens behind the scenes.

What do one-piece wheels, linkage forks, and air-powered drivetrains all have in common?

There's more to it than a GoPro and iMovie...

Cactus, rattlesnakes, and nine value-minded mountain bikes.

Did someone introduce you to riding, or did you stumble into and never looked back?

Most rides are a good time, but what does your perfect day on the bike look like?

We pick the bikes we'd want to own at $1,000, $3,000, and $6,000 USD.

Lachlan talks about what it takes to compete at the highest level and how that can bring out the worst in some people, wild tours in Columbia and Eastern Europe, and mountain biking at Leadville and across the 142-mile Kokopelli Trail.

Blacked out tires, glued on fake fork dials, and what it's like to wrench for the fastest racers in the world.

A behind-the-scenes look at costly press camps, but should the media even be going to them at all?

Always wanted to go to a tradeshow? We explain how Interbike, Eurobike, Sea Otter, and the Taipei Cycle Show work and what it's like to attend them.

We're back in action for 2022 and answering your questions about mountain bikes (and aliens) for our 100th episode.

A doable list or just a bunch of bike-related resolutions that we'll abandon by the second week of January?

Six aluminum, carbon, and steel trail bikes, varying ideas of what that even means, and liberal use of purple and toothpaste. Plenty to talk about, including a bunch of your questions from each review.

Looking into our hazy crystal ball and making a bunch of terrible guesses about 2022.

The riding scene in Mexico, what Israel brings to the table that a quicker racer might not, and how his time at the Pinkbike Academy went.

The Field Test bikes we wanted to keep, why we didn't get on with a few of them, and what we'd change to make them even better.

Thousands of riders from all over the world applied, but only ten made the big show. Now it's time to catch up with some of the PBA competitors, starting with Squamish local Tori Wood.

The fire will come back, though, which is exactly what we're talking about on today's show. A lack of motivation or burnout can afflict anyone, from the average Joe and Jane to the best riders and racers in the world, so today we're chatting about how to fight that cloudy feeling with strategies to keep you pedaling.

A lot of things have changed with mountain bikes over the last decade or so, but some obvious ones are an increase in both capability and weight. The two go hand in hand, of course, and while a contemporary trail bike comes in a few pounds heavier than it might have many years ago, I think we can all agree it's nice to know that your headtube (probably) won't peel off anytime soon, that your four-piston brakes can stop you like a brick wall, and that the only tacos you'll be seeing are the delicious kind. And not only is this newer and slightly heavier bike far more reliable, but it's also saving your ass instead of actively trying to murder you, which is always nice.

Christina Chappetta set out to ride every double black in the Whistler Bike Park in a single day because, er, why not? If you're hoping to get to Whistler in the future, or if you just appreciate a solid day of riding, this episode might be for you. Christina explains how she planned the day, why it was far from a slam dunk, and what made it such a rowdy seven hours of descending.

Cedric Eveleigh, the man behind Supre, says that the four key elements are durability, efficiency, chain damping, and a lower unsprung mass, all on a proprietary high-pivot full-suspension platform, and we've got him on today's show to hear how it came to be and where it might be going.

Episode 89 sees the crew chat about all things drivetrain, from the so-called "good ol' days" when nothing was that good, our favorite drivetrain tips and tricks, our dream set-ups, gearboxes and cranks with gearboxes, and also how today's drivetrains could be even better. We also dream about having our own EGS Up Cage and White Industries LMDS derailleurs, although a Shimano Airlines system would also be near the top of the list.

With a bit of smart shopping, you might be able to find yourself a great bike, new fork, brakes, or whatever else you might need at a reasonable price. The key, of course, is to figure out what it's worth spending a few extra fun tokens on, and when it's better to save them for the next time you need a fresh set of Minions.

Episode 87 sees Mike Kazimer, Sarah Moore, Henry Quinney, and I go over our tips for staying warm and somewhat dry, set-up advice to keep your bike running smoothly, and even share some cautionary tales about what notto do if you want to stay warm.

Can you imagine having the skills, fitness, strength, and mental fortitude to win a single World Cup downhill race? That's essentially impossible for all but a few of us, regardless of how hard we train. But there are also those inimitable racers who not only win a World Cup or three, but also defy the passing of time to keep winning... Despite much younger competitors pushing the sport to new heights. Having won four World Championships, with his first and most recent coming eighteen years apart, Greg Minnaar is definitely on that list.

Our sport is full of gnarly people doing gnarly things, be it cross-country racers pushing their bodies to the limit, downhillers finding the limits of traction and handling, or just that local rider going so damn hard, far, or huge without having to tell the world about it. Everyone town has a few, don't they? But I don't think it's out of line to say that the Red Bull Rampage is, without a doubt, the rowdiest, scariest, most intense riding out there.

Rather than you reaching down to flip the pedal-assist switch, Flight Attendant manages the fork and shock's compression in real-time, constantly adding or subtracting damping as required and, importantly, to varying degrees depending on how you want your bike to behave and the terrain you're on. If all that sounds complicated, that's because it is. There's a lot to unpack, which is what today's episode is all about; Mike Kazimer, Sarah Moore, Henry Quinney, and I talk about what Flight Attendant is like on the trail, what the heck Bias Adjust does, how the fork now adjusts the shock's low-speed compression (seriously), and whether ten batteries is enough or if Kazimer should use two GoPros.

Given that our needs can vary from having to survive being tossed aside mid-air at the dirt jumps all day, meeting some cross-country racer's fetish for being the lightest such and such on the market, having to withstand a season of downhill racing at Bootleg Canyon, or hopefully just survive a couple years of abuse on your over-taxed trail bike. And when a carbon fiber component (or frame) does fail, especially in a calamitous way as it often does when it gives up, you'll be able to find countless other riders with similar stories.

Just as with previous examples, this Field Test was all about comparing test bikes to each other, a cage match of sorts but on the trail, and the fleet included some of the most interesting bikes on the market. Of course, the pickings were a bit slim this year given the lack of bikes anywhere, but our goal was to represent a spectrum of what's available, from the efficient We Are One to the heavy-hitting Norco Range. And the same goes for the eMTBs, with the relatively lightweight Specialized Turbo Kenevo SL contrasting the chonky Range VLT and its 900Wh battery.

Today's episode sees Mike Kazimer, Henry Quinney, RC, and I get through around half of the questions I had originally planned on answering. There'll be another Q&A podcast in the near future, but this one covers everything from high-end aftermarket shocks, hardest challenges, explaining World Cup downhill racing, suction cup bike racks, standards, interviews with CEOs, our favorite underdog brands, and a ton of other questions. Did we answer yours?

While we all love riding bikes, sometimes our vehicles go hand-in-glove with our sport. Today's podcast sees Alica Legget, Mike Kazimer, James Smurthwaite, and I talk about the vehicles that make sense for mountain bikers, vehicles that don't make any sense but that we want anyway, trucks versus vans, tips for good van living, and what kind of bike racks make the most sense.

There was much dissent when eMTBs first began to show up on Pinkbike, with both commenters and a few editors being less than enthusiastic about battery-powered bicycles on the homepage. Fast forward a few years and we have way more eMTBs and much less protesting, although I'm almost positive that Pinkbike's optional filter has something to do with that. Either way, it's about time for us to do an entire podcast about them.

It’s geometry that’s had the most significant and consequential impact on how our bikes perform. Podcast #78 sees the crew explain how geometry numbers have changed over the years and what that means on the trail, compare some modern numbers and talk about if longer and slacker is simply always better, and we of course explain what all the terms mean.

The news of Outside acquiring Pinkbike saw nearly 1,700 comments posted under the July 14th press release, with most being equal parts surprise, disapproval, and ''spirited debate.'' And while that concern is no doubt justified, I'll be honest with you: we didn't have the answers to most of your questions and concerns, and we had plenty of questions ourselves.

There are all sorts of complicated laws and rules about these things, of course, with long-winded explanations when copyrights, trademarks, and patents are involved with intellectual property, but the last thing we want to do on this podcast is to put you guys to sleep, so we’re not gonna go down those boring roads. Instead, we've come up with a bunch of examples of products that have been imitated over the years.

Have you ever looked at a bike and thought, ''What the hell were they thinking?'' Because we have, and not just about bikes. From 80lbs of cardboard packaging to pricey video shoots to the costs of running a factory World Cup team, brands can sometimes seem like they're burning money and getting a questionable return on their investment.

A 5,000-foot steep ass climb up a gravel road in the blazing summer heat while wearing oversized knee pads and riding an overweight trail bike with DH tires and an idler pulley? We’re happy to do it if the singletrack is good. Today’s podcast is all about the trails; we’re gonna talk about the singletrack that each of us loves and why, the factors that make a good trail so good and less good trail a lot less good, why we owe everything to the people that build trails, and some trail features that either blew our minds or maybe scared the shit out of us.

Tire pressure and suspension sag, of course, but do you also need your cable housing to be perfectly parallel or your dropper post to sit flush with the top of the seat tube?

We discuss being acquired by Outside and what that means for the future of Pinkbike—how things might look like down the road, mean comments, and why we're cautiously optimistic about all this.

RC tells about his time at Mountain Bike Action and testing some of the wildest - and most unreliable - bikes ever created, his opinion of the internet before and after joining Pinkbike, his most important lesson for writing bike reviews, thoughts on e-bikes, and he answers a handful of reader questions.

Today's episode is the second part of our bike ownership history chat, with the first covering Kazimer's Spooky Junebug hardtail, rattle-trap RM7, and his Iron Horse Sunday that was powered by Loctite. My old Giant ATX DH and heavily modified Prophet and Remedy made the list as well, but today's episode sees us get much more modern. But don't worry, there are still some sketchy hardtails, exotic downhill race bikes, and modern classics to cover in podcast 70.

Sarah Moore joins us to rate each bike according to our three choices: 'Trade it for an Xbox' if the bike is really scary, 'Hang on the wall to admire' if it's a piece of history, or 'Take it for lap' if deemed safe and interesting.

Episode 68 is all about the unsung heroes of our sport, from the pioneers in the early days, under the radar ultra-distance racers, talented photographers, underappreciated event organizers, and even a brilliant freerider-turned-rocket scientist who wheelie dropped the Large Hadron Collider while interning at CERN. Yes, that's a true story.

Episode 68 is the first of a multi-part series of talking to RC about his love of flying, building his own planes and teaching himself how to fly (yes, you read that correctly), his father's secret work for NASA, and even a massive (and very secret) explosion of a Saturn V rocket engine.

Today's podcast is all about working on and repairing bikes, from the fun jobs to the dirty ones, to having to install twenty tire inserts for the Field Test, to spending ten hours installing Di2 only for it to rattle apart on the first ride, to our favorite tools, to our most embarrassing workshop injuries... Including the time some scary chemicals messed with RC's, er, "component."

episode 65 sees us talk about the pros and cons of riding without rear-suspension, why there aren't many hardtails reviewed on Pinkbike, and how to get the most out of your hardtail.

The massive faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln on the real Mount Rushmore are meant to represent the first 150-years of America's history. Specifically, the country's birth, growth, development, and preservation. With that in mind, who - or what - do you believe represents those four points well enough to deserve to be up on mountain biking's hypothetical Mount Rushmore?

When you really boil it down, it seems like there are two types of purchasing people: those who buy with their head and those who buy with their heart. And while Mike Kazimer might usually make more informed, "better," decisions when spending his money, Levy would argue that he has more fun burning through paychecks while taking the latter approach. But when it's time to spend a big chunk of hard-earned cash on a new mountain bike, you're far better off following Kazimer's lead to find your new ride.