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Eliot Jackson, Pro Mountain Bike Life, Grow Cycling & Bike Tips for All Riders...MTB Podcast Episode 76 [Podcast]
Overview
Today on the MTB Podcast, Jeff and Jared welcome pro mountain bike racer Eliot Jackson to talk about everything from downhill racing and bike setup tips to training habits and the future of mountain bikes. We even discuss his infamous Sea Otter crash from a few years back. Aside from racing bikes, Eliot is a Red Bull host, entrepreneur, and just overall good dude and he has a lot to say when it comes to the MTB industry. Most recently, his time has been spent creating and building the Grow Cycling Foundation, an organization dedicated to increasing diversity and inclusion in cycling. Not only that, but he hosts his own podcast and manages the Reggy platform. Sit back and relax, this is a good one!
2:52 Eliot's journey to becoming a pro racer
5:48 Why he stopped racing
8:23 Eliot the underwear model?
11:15 Grow Cycling foundation
20:30 Cycling Culture - the good and the bad
30:10 What is Reggy?
32:44 What was it like presenting for Red Bull?
38:00 World Cup racing, behind the scenes
45:00 What can the average rider learn from World Cup professionals?
55:08 Audience questions
1:05:20 What is everyone riding?
Follow Eliot on IG: https://www.instagram.com/
Eliot going OTB in slippers: https://youtu.be/nnbpMy9vM9c
Grow Cycling Foundation: https://growcyclingfoundation.
Go Reggy: https://goreggy.com/
Grow Cycling Yeti SB150 Giveaway: https://go.rallyup.com/e38eff
Worldwide Cyclery YouTube Channel
Submit any and all questions to podcast@worldwidecyclery.com
If you are one strange human that would like to read a transcript of the podcast above, continue reading below!
[Music]
ladies and gentlemen welcome to episode 76 of the mtb podcast presented by worldwide cyclery myself
jeff my excellent co-host jared and our special guest elliot
nice uh this episode we are going to go over all sorts of things the various things
elliot is involved in he is basically a renaissance man a humble human being a professional mountain biker
co-founder of grow cycling foundation founder of reggie and also a red bull bike presenter did i miss
anything no i think that's yep yep you're good so we're gonna cover the various things
elliot's involved in um we're also going to talk about uh world-class level pro mountain bikers
bike and component choices and what's involved behind the scenes in their sponsorship deals and how that plays into what they
quote on quote choose to ride and win on we're going to discuss the most impactful things the average weekend
warrior mountain bike rider can learn from world cup level professionals we're going to answer your guys questions
covering all sorts of valuable topics all the way to useless and humorous questions that should be entertaining
and of course what we are all riding bikes trails components etc so it's going to be an action-packed
episode thank you guys for tuning in elliot's laughing at me what's up action
action packed on this one i got a lot to live with the speaking of which the image of the
explosion we are gonna put this episode we're gonna start putting these on youtube on not on the worldwide
cycler youtube channel but on an mtb podcast youtube channel um yeah it's gonna be pretty much just
raw recordings of the podcast and we're gonna include that action-packed sound effect image
that elliot said but uh maybe dj pineapples slide in like a sound effect right
do now do we have one of those like or like dj pineapple does that
i think if we had one of those maybe that's something you guys could invest in um for the next couple i would listen
more if i maybe you guys had that i like that idea yeah well more sound effects no no problem we will hop right on that
What is Eliot doing these days?
okay so thank you for the feedback um speaking of you elliot
let's discuss the various things that you're involved in so uh to start just so just for some
historical reference uh i've known elliot for i don't know over a decade uh we actually grew up in the same town for
the most part thousand oaks california slash newberry park and uh yeah elliott is involved in a
million different things now uh something that's probably very interesting to all the listeners here is he's a professional male biker and been
Eliot's journey to becoming a pro racer
doing that for a long time talk about that how did where are you now where did you
you know where did you start sum it all up totally um yeah so it's all started now um yeah
like you said i think i've i was racing world cups for maybe 10 years and it it's really interesting i got into it a
little bit later than most people did i got downhill racing world cup downhill
not not xc not uh soccer football either yeah they don't have
world cup ews yeah still says
um downhill races i i got my first downhill bike when i was 18
and before that was kind of just like riding dirt jumps riding motocross and and doing that whole thing but um got my
got my first downhill bike when i was 18. went up to whistler thought it was like insanely sweet came
back to southern california i realized that not everywhere is whistler but my friend showed me a bunch of
videos of the world cups and i was just really really wanted to go there really wanted to ride the tracks and
travel around and kind of do that thing so practiced for a while beer or so and then um
there's this really crazy process to make it over there where you have to get a pro license get your points i you
know mapped out this whole thing read the rule book and all that stuff and uh went to italy with my mom and my
brother um and like a multi-tool because i didn't know that you needed to work on bikes and
like it rained one of the one of the days and somebody was like oh you should get some spikes and i was like so i'm supposed to put like nails
in my tire or like like metal spikes like what is that like i don't even know what that is like
so it was actually like my first time out of the country going to race this world cup in italy
and uh what year was that this was 2010 so um i
went like actually qualified um at my first world cup race and ended up
kind of getting picked up by yeti and doing the national team thing for a year but part of that for me was that
if i paid my way to go to the world cups like they would give me support and i could pit there so that was kind of like the start of it
and it was really that's all mountain biking meant to me was racing world cups it was all about
going over there um and just having these experiences racing these tracks and and um
like the mastery of it was always really important to me like how do you get better what does it look like to practice and
train and do all this stuff so that's that's what i was doing for the last 10 years wrote for yeti and and pivot
um last i guess two years i raced world cups for last year i was on the on
the giant team giant factor after a team um and then stopped racing world cups in
Why he stopped racing
2017. and so from there just was kind of uh
i think it was interesting because i stopped racing because the actual riding portion wasn't as fun
as it used to be and it was kind of like if you know there's always ups and downs when you're in sports but if you're not having fun riding then
it was kind of like why am i doing this so i spent some time over that next year and said like what would
it look like if i just did exactly what i want to do you know like all this stuff all these experiences that i've had over the last
10 years like what were the best ones and i like went to trans cascadia did some stuff there like i hate camping but
i camped out and it was like the most amazing thing ever i'm like the least outdoorsy outdoorsy person
ever i guess um but yeah like just went a lot of different places did a lot of different things and really kind of
like found my love what i really like to do with mountain biking like just riding with friends traveling
around um like bikes have always been a part of my life there always will be a part of my life and
it's not just about you know racing bikes and going fast it's just like so much more to it so
i think that was kind of what i've been doing last couple years is a series called crank works and have a bit of everything pump track and
slalom and downhill so i do that and go to sea otter which is in northern california and yeah
now we're here today yeah that's awesome it's it's been interesting to see you evolve your racing career from
actually racing to now doing all these other various things but still being more or less like quote unquote
professional mountain biker um which is cool and i think you're not alone in that there's like a number of
other people who have kind of gone that route that aren't just like racing exclusively but yet are still professional mountain bikers totally
didn't exist a decade ago but it definitely does now yeah i think it's so amazing that you
can actually do what you love and make a living out of it whatever that looks like right if
you want to be a racer you can be a racer if you want to do shredits like you know siminic he started in
you know doing crank works the freestyle stuff but now he just does web videos and you have people like that you have
people like nate hills who um does youtube stuff you know people who are doing like product reviews and
and everywhere in between so i think that it's a lot of the stuff that is around
now where you have youtube you have instagram and it's really allowed people to just figure out what makes them
valuable and do that because at the end of the day a racer is kind of just a billboard
Eliot the underwear model?
just an advertising tool so if if that's the case then i'm just as valuable uh
you know for myself like going and presenting for red bull um going and doing a photo shoot for
something like i just did a bloody underwear photo shoot for
which which company for saks yeah saxx yeah the guys would make the underwear
with the the nut pouch yeah they're actually they're actually really nice everyone should buy
them because they're insane but it was actually slightly off topic um about the underwear shoot it was
it was super funny because like i never in a million years thought that i would do that and like
i've been not riding a whole lot and i was like oh i should probably lose some weight because they think i'm an
athlete still so i need to like start training and i like called up my
trainer i was like how do these celebrities like lose all this weight like i see them go from fat and skinny like that needs to be me and he was like
okay like here's a diet and like come and do some stuff in the gym and i went to the gym the first time and
like never have thrown up in my life and he was like you're all good i was like no i'm i'm not gonna make it like i need to
go home so i like driving back from santa barbara and like ended up throwing up and like a jug on the way
i was like i got a long way to go but the shoot was actually like
like that's one of the things i mean like it's it's one of the things that i think makes cycling so amazing is that i can
the reason i'm able to do this underwear shoot is because i rode bikes and um and it was like kind of like a
bigger budget quote-unquote thing where um there was like a wardrobe person and
and a makeup artist and like you know photographers and stuff like that and each even in between each shot like
somebody would come and like splay that spray the glycerin and like make me look sweaty or whatever
the wardrobe of an underwear model the wardrobe person would come and like
pull down the underwear to the perfect spot or whatever and then at one point she's like yeah can you tuck a little bit and i was like
what do you what does that mean and she's like yeah like readjust like you're in the wrong i was like oh
oh right oh like okay i could see why that was confusing
yeah i don't do that and i was like yeah that's good that you don't do that that's all good but yeah totally an aside but i just
think that it's um it's cool right that you can take this thing that
typically you would see in this one light when you think about professional athletes professional
racers and things like that and um do all of these other things that are totally kind of orthogonal to that
and still you know make a living provide people value and and just uh have a good life yeah
that's right it's definitely cool to see like how the industry has evolved especially because of social media and all that awareness and
Grow Cycling foundation
yeah it's it's it is really cool speaking of which like another thing you've evolved into is gross cycling foundation
which we've actually talked about twice right the first two episodes we've talked about and plugged elliot's grow cycling
foundation because it's it's a new thing and it's pretty interesting thank you guys yeah yeah absolutely man
jared has probably memorized the mission statement from the website and recited it a number of times now but
now that the man himself the co-founder of grow cycling foundation is here give us the mission man what's it all
about yeah totally i think for me um you know really
so where do i start um so i think one of the things that
makes sports amazing is that they're objective right like if i don't win a race um i
know it's because i was slower than the other person and once you're at a certain level once i'm there right like i was
fortunate enough to have parents and a family who could get me to the races right um to take me to italy so i could have
that chance and i think i think that's why we see so many different types of people in sports why sports are
so diverse but in world cup downhill the throughout the 10 years that i raced i
was actually the only black person to ever start at a world cup um and it's talking to rob warner who's the commentary
person in red bull in the previous 10 years there was only one more um so when you start to think about it and
like when i was racing i didn't really have time to think about any of that right like it doesn't matter if there's
what i'm feeling right um it doesn't matter if i'm happy or sad at the end of the
day kind of my job is to win the race and i had more than
everyone in terms of resources to do that with and so when i got done racing it kind of
freed up a lot of mindshare and and especially when the george floyd murder happened it was kind of a chance
for me to reconcile all of the stuff that did happen right like when people would like i had people
be like oh do you think that you're just on giant because you're black right are they like trying to fill a quota
um what you know being places and and having people like
say super racist things or like i remember i was at a world cup in in france and i was at dinner with the
santa cruz dudes and some guy just sat down and like said a bunch of super gnarly stuff and like wouldn't leave the table
and like luca lucas and greg menard like had to almost like physically remove him from the table um and so that kind of stuff would
happen but it's kind of just a part of life right like it doesn't
in my experience um with that happening it doesn't make it
there's this quote from lewis hamilton where he's like you know i was always taught to kill them with kindness and beat them on
the track and that's kind of how i thought of things where it's like whatever i'm just going to be the best racer i can
so when the george floyd murder happened it was kind of like how do i feel about this like i've never made race a platform in my career
um partly because i think it always feels so negative right like it always is about people
struggling it's always about um how you know it's great that i'm the only
you know i overcame the odds to become you know i got a top 10 at a world cup or whatever and it's great that i'm the
the first black person to do that and i think that to me like it never really felt that
good right because i see being black is like i'm i'm really proud of being black i'm really
i think it's great like there are great black people there are great people of
inventors and musicians and artists um which is one of the things
i have kind of talked about a lot when people are like oh you're not really black and it's like well my relationship to black people is like
these are this amazing group of people like it's kind of like you're saying like oh you're not really a cyclist it's like
yeah i'm a cyclist you know um so there was kind of a response from the
cycling community where like you did have people saying that like oh it's like like racism doesn't
exist here and you know just from the example that i gave like yeah i'm like experiencing it
so it's kind of like you're kind of out of touch here they probably said that because
there's no one really to like chime in totally i mean it's and it totally makes i'm not saying that i think it's one of
those things where if we just um the best example i i give is
that of grief so like when somebody's loved one passes away it's not like you ever say like ah it's
good that that was you know a long time ago you don't you're not grieving anymore like you're not sad anymore or like
that that doesn't matter anymore um because you know that's not true and so like when somebody says to you
like oh you don't feel that anymore it's like well kind of how would you know like just because you're not
experiencing this thing like kind of doesn't mean it doesn't exist so it's more of a to me like more of an empathy thing um
to be able to believe someone um and so you know i think that it was
so going back to kind of that was kind of my uh the reason that i wanted to do
something about it was like i know i've found my voice and then the actual act of starting it katie
holden who i've known forever uh used to race world cup downhill and now she is a
um an ambassador for a lot of really cool companies really tells great stories and so when she came to me um we started
it and we were like what does it look like to kind of put something in place that can do more
um that's not just maybe giving a bite because you give a bike and you know people lose interest get stolen
breaks or whatever and then you give another bike the next year and now you've affected two people's lives um but for us it was about saying cool
like why don't we do something where you know people can ride that same bike
develop mechanicing skills and then we can give them an opportunity to get a job in the industry so you have this complete path
and we're building a pump track in los angeles and for us as well it's kind of about
saying like cool you can go to this pump track but then we want to host the world championships there so you can see
people um what it means right the bicycle is like a vehicle like physically and metaphorically where
it can you know it's a vehicle right it's transportation but then it can also be um
like take you around the world right like it allowed me to race for my country the world championships it's why i'm talking to you guys right now
um and i think one of the things like that i hear a lot is like oh
bikes are too expensive um but if that were the only barrier like we would see a lot of
like rich black people right black dentist riding around but like we don't see that either so
like um i think there's just a lot of cultural stuff um when you start to just like peel back
like even one more layer where it's it becomes really apparent where it's um just giving people the opportunity right
like there were so many things that it got lucky right that i happened to move to california and happened to
meet the right person that introduced me to world cup downhill because if that wouldn't happen none of my friends knew
what mountain biking was um and i think that that's kind of the important thing to say is like not
um why why should someone from that community even come here in the first place
when you have people like you show up to a group ride and like people make fun of your socks or like make fun of a tire that's like
too bald and it's like why would i want to be there and do that so yeah i think for us we kind of are thinking
about it more holistically um more long term
um and really yeah that that mission of education access and opportunity because everyone
in the world is capable of doing things it's just about if you have the chance to do it yeah so
it's almost like introducing the culture of cycling in all that it encompasses right racing professionally
working in the industry in the various disciplines introducing that to more and more people at a younger age and showing them that
that path exists and this is a really fun tool that could also turn into a really fun career totally yeah yeah yeah
i think i think that's exactly it where um it's
yeah it's it's about like you said introducing it um and i think one of the things that we think a lot about is
you know if you were to have something there what does it look like to bring that community's culture like a
kid wheeling in the street in baltimore just as much of a cyclist as i am starting at the world championships
so when i think of culture i think of like food and music you know we have the pump track like get the local bbq down there like we
have red bull bring the little i don't know what that thing is a station wagon like get some people playing music and like
that's cool like that's fun that's like something that people want to be a part of not like
Cycling Culture - the good and the bad
you know a bunch of people talking about spandex and i don't know derailers
i mean the you know cycling culture in general has had kind of a bad reputation for not
really being welcoming right and that's like something i've noticed being in on the retail side working in bike shops
and then owning a bike shop is that that's like a very prevalent thing like people are like yeah this
industry is not welcoming like i go into bike shops and people there's they're snobs they they're like
oh like if you don't know what this is then like i'm not i don't want to talk to you you could totally this new
kid who's working here who can help you with your flat tire like i don't know it's just there's a bad mentality and and you we talked about this the other
episode that uh consumer direct bike brands right like bike brands that are selling without shops and selling directly to
customers and like that youtube video we did and people were surprised on sort of my take on it the comments were crazy and so many of
them were like paragraphs long and a lot of them were about the snobbery of bike shops right you
know and how people felt when they were getting into the sport and the sort of how they were looked down upon um
and yeah i mean that's like that's really bad like that's let alone like getting into it as a as a black person from like it
culturally wasn't normal or like your other friends didn't do it like yeah i can't even imagine like this yeah yeah i totally i think you're
you're so right like a lot of the a lot of the stuff i'm talking about and we're talking about it doesn't matter like
what sexual orientation you are or what race like it happens to all like we all have that experience of walking into a bike shop
no matter if you're a professional athlete an owner of a successful company like just a person that rides on the
weekends like when you walk into a bike shop um not always like not digging on all the bike shops but like
a lot of the time like it's like look at you like you don't even belong there yeah true and and kind of
the same thing like i think if we all even thought about like when we go out and ride with our friends
um how likely is it that if somebody just rocked up that you would be like hey dude like you want to ride with us like or like if
we were to go and do that to somebody else's groups like it's kind of like oh that that's not a
thing like don't do that um so i think that that we were i think we're that's one of the
things that i talk about a lot when people like what can i do um beside donate and that is what is
important right and i think that people feeling empowered where the culture of cycling is all the people
listening is podcast like that's what makes culture and having more empathy to say like
yeah come and ride here you know come and check out this part like i work in a store
or whatever like that goes i would much rather people do that and be more welcoming be more
inclusive to people of all races all genders all everything all like
incomes then like donate some money to the foundation because if that happens that will make
our job much easier yeah that's true i think to me it's it's always been welcoming like that's that's sort of
what i've always thought like the the store i worked in as a kid like the owner was
so welcoming he was just kind and nice and smiled and charismatic as hell to like it did not matter who it was that
walked into the door like he was just a nice guy totally you know and wanted to see people get on bikes and have fun and and to me that
was super inspiring and i wanted to have that same mentality and like a big online retail presence which is like
hopefully what we've built worldwide cyclery into today um and we definitely hear that feedback but yeah just like in general like
yeah cycling could be more welcoming not just in the retail stores but even out on the trailhead if you see someone riding by themselves
be like hey man do you want to come ride this loop with us yeah you know yeah i think that's huge
that's to me like also why i've always been a big proponent of nika so nika national interscholastic cycling
association making uh mountain biking a sport of it an accredited sport in middle school and
high school which it's a non-profit um i'm super impressed with them i'm guessing you're obviously probably really familiar with them yeah
i also think it's cool what they're doing yeah totally yeah yeah i think that um like you said
like having that opportunity uh in school to be introduced to it and i think that it does
allow schools is one of those kind of equalizers as well where most people do have the opportunity to
go to school so being able to do um one of the things that we've talked about a lot is like
what does it look like to do a little bit of i don't know the right word cross promotion where you'd
have different sports teams right like what does it look like for the basketball team to go and do some cycling and
um and things like that but i think like you were saying making it an actual accredited sport and it's
right it's nice that we do have it the cross-country side of things in the olympics because it gives it some more
visibility and some more funding uh for schools and that path from you know middle school high school
college um that whole thing so yeah for sure yeah yeah it's impressive what nike is doing and they
like we sponsored a nike race i think it was a few years ago now a local one and it was the funnest thing ever you know like
seeing the turnout and how organized it was and all the kids riding bikes and it was i was just utterly impressed because all of us like
when we were in school we didn't have that right you know but we all now live in the bike industry and have
happy careers we enjoy and fulfill us so it was just so cool to see that um and nike now is doing it's called
like nika adventure so it's not just racing because not everyone has to be a racer and like has the whole competitive vibe i mean
most people aren't racers most people just like to go ride bikes for fun and show up and just enjoy themselves and
bike pack out and camp or just go out and do an hour long loop for the funnest way to have exercise or what
i like to do the second funnest way to have exercise i'll leave the first way to your imagination
mountain biking is just really fun it's a great way to have exercise yeah i love it man i i'm i'm definitely
impressed and enjoy how much more philanthropic stuff has been just coming about in the bike industry and i've said that on the last
three podcasts and i'll probably continue to be a broken record on that because i just like it i think it's cool and i did hint at a couple episodes ago
what we might do for black friday cyber monday as a retailer we typically do the generic old big sale
but this year the pandemic obviously has made cycling super popular everyone the entire industry all the
retailers all the brands like everyone has very very to put it nicely subpar inventory levels
probably seen this a lot talking to customers all day every day talking about broken record i feel like the word out of stock is going to be ingrained in
my mind for the rest of my life so that's that's like the story of the cycling
industry in 2020 which is great because like we saw a lot more people do the sport more frequently and we saw what new people get into it which was
fascinating and fun to watch but has also given us a situation where everything is
like you said out of style out of stock so we we are going to do um a very
unusual black friday this year um friday to monday we're gonna add five dollars to every single
product on the site um that five dollars is gonna go to nika gift cards will still be the same price
and if you buy a gift card you obviously get the whole value but we cover five dollars to nica because to me i don't want to discount a bunch
of products and have 60 of the catalog be out of stock i just feel like that's
almost rude yeah you know um so i'm like well why don't we just flip black friday on its head because we
have bad inventory levels um you know gift cards are going to be they never expire um it's federally illegal
for them to expire by the way but so you can buy gift cards uh if you buy a gift card you get the
whole value we chip in five dollars tonight each one that sells and then every single product is an additional five dollars so
i'm excited to do that uh and i also formally challenge any other retailer in the bike
industry i dare you to not do the bs traditional black friday sale and actually do
something philanthropic um there you go so elliot you should start pushing all the brands that you're
sponsored that by yeah to support so
i don't know to me that's i just like seeing more philanthropic stuff come in and you know like to support it and to
me it was like wow this if there was ever such a year to you know mess around with black friday cyber monday
this is this is the year to do it so yeah so we'll see how it goes super cool yeah like speaking of um
like the brands that we're um kind of supported by the foundation
that has been really cool because you know i mentioned the career aspect so we have these like founding partners of fox
yeti santa cruz and pink pike um and red bull kind of a couple other ones um and they
we've actually raised like a hundred thousand dollars and then have another half a million dollars committed over the next little
course of time and uh it's been so cool to see all of these companies like these people
who like yeti and fox like actually reposting each other's stuff um and in the same video call and stuff
like that uh where they're like actually direct competitors so yeah speaking of the philanthropic
stuff i think that it's it's cool especially this year um where bloody 2020 um
and to see people coming together in different ways so that's awesome awesome to see yeah it's it's been a
crazy year so nice to see that pulling together okay well moving on um that was awesome thank you for going in
What is Reggy?
depth on that one i appreciate it of course um but we're not running out of time and want to get
the rest of the show going so the other couple things to mention that you do reggie and then also a red
bull bike presenter so i was i was challenging you on this prior to starting to record but what is clearly
concisely reggie i will uh do this by asking you a question
both of you like tell me where the mountain biking group rides are where the clinics are
and where the races are um in your area in the next week or two
no idea yeah that's that's a complete disaster to try to like figure
that out that is what reggie is nice there you go solution yeah um so i don't even
remember like when i was erasing more how i even learned about a lot of those races other than just like it's it's so
word of mouth and like googling and i mean you say cycling kind of would help because like social
media maybe right right it's very much cult knowledge and i think it says a lot like where you have at this table we
have like an avid mountain biker you know the owner of a huge mountain biking online
online store um really tapped into the community and a professional mountain biker and none of us can answer
that question so i think it and it's something that we all take for granted i think especially once we get into a community
it's kind of like oh yeah hit up so and so you know here's a we have a group text or like a facebook group or
instagram or whatever so definitely working on it it'll be a little bit um but yeah something to look forward to
yeah and like the estimated launch of this is um it's just me uh programming and stuff i
actually hired someone recently so we're just kind of cruising through there's no real rush for it but
hoping early next year yeah nice cool i'm excited for that um and the next
thing red bull bike presenter so for a while there you were traveling around and and
presenting races and commentating and which you have a huge advantage because you're still a racer
you're friends with basically everyone on the field and know what's going on and i remember
talking to you about it when you got into it and like the big thing you were all about was like trying to more articulately explain
what these professionals are doing on the bike because it is hard to understand like when you watch that if you're not there i mean the camera
never never does it justice like the steepness of the train the sharpness of the rocks like all of that
What was it like presenting for Red Bull?
so yeah i remember when you were getting into that and and it was going awesome until 2020 kind of changed the race season a little bit
that's very true um yeah totally exactly what you said like i think the three things that i really wanted to
highlight in that process so the the thing was as i would go to the world cups and i would walk the track
and we would film a video of me walking the track during practice i would talk about it um and then after the races i would do some
interviews maybe before so the big thing i always thought was like when you're watching
a race like you have no context you don't you're just watching some person fly
down the hill yeah um so the context i tried to give while i was walking the track is like here's what you should be watching for
here's the decisions people are making um when you see a rider come up to a section you say
like are they gonna go high here um and if they go high what was the trade-off they made why did they make that decision
um so it's really about giving some context for like when you're watching the live feed and then
like you were saying i had this huge advantage where i could ask these terrible questions and interviews and i would just walk up to somebody and say like how was it and
normally that would be like the worst question ever because if somebody asked me that i would be like it's good yeah they just raced like he saw me
but um yeah it was more like is a friend thing where people be like yeah i did this and had
you know this big moment um and so the other thing and it kind of dovetails maybe into something we'll talk about
which is um i really wanted to show like a little bit more vulnerability for the
riders to say like are you scared like what's going through your head
right now like you know last year there's a bunch of drama it's like are you nervous like you literally have to win this race to win
the overall um and what are you thinking about it or you just had this huge crash like what's going through your head
because i think that there's especially in a sport like mountain biking or downhill mountain biking from
the outside it looks like people just take this insane risk but that's like couldn't be farther from the truth so
i really wanted to kind of highlight that that portion of it um yeah that's right
yeah well you were just getting your bearings and then 2020 so the race season's a bit weird
but looking forward to next year hopefully things are normal or maybe 2022 yeah right um you can get back out there
and commentate more because yeah that was cool and i like how red bull is well they were attempting to
like ex like show racing to everyone in the world and do a really good job with the live streams and then it wasn't
available in like a dozen countries and well that's a it's a it's a bummer because um
so different people own the rights for different um series so red bull doesn't own the
rights for world championships and nbc does so that's why that whole thing happens like and i wouldn't so
it's actually crazy because like rob and claudio the world cup presenters commentators don't actually
go there um on site they don't have anyone on site it's a different totally different production thing
and it's just unfortunate because um the way that in the us that it gets
shown is like on that olympic channel or something like that yeah yeah that is what it is totally so yeah totally not red bull's
fault i'll give them that one yeah just like weird it's yeah it's just a bummer licensing rights
totally different so oh that might get worked out that's the changes all the time uci yep well yeah so so speaking of
uci yeah we don't need to dive into that but if you do want to get into uci and
way more like race specific stuff probably downtime podcast right yeah yeah downtime like
there's so much cool stuff on there where from like bike designers to world cup racers
nico malali who's another world cup racer and i do a post race podcast after each race and yeah it's really
cool because nico kind of goes into like you know here's how my day went here's the bike setup
changes i did like it rained on this day there was cesaro line here so like a really in-depth kind of
behind-the-scenes look at what goes on but yeah chris is awesome over there yeah yeah when we when we
took over uh mtv podcast um when jonathan and steven uh decided they were too busy with their
other lives to to continue it well they did i mean they semi-decided that and then i was like hey man can we
please just take this over because you've really done a good job but you're not posting very often and people are asking um but yeah i mean and then you know we
kind of made the call like you know what we're not gonna really discuss racing much because
you know when jonathan and steven started it like downtime wasn't as big as it is now and like there's a lot of
good mountain bike podcast now and i think downtime is awesome and in terms of like in depth like if you're an aspiring
racer that's an incredible podcast totally um and i thought you know what we're we definitely serve the
you know average common weekend warrior mountain bikers so much more and can bring value to that so like we're just gonna
maybe barely gloss over and not really talk about racing and continue just doing what we do best and leave that to the professionals like
chris at downtime right totally um so yeah speaking of pro mountain bikers uh something we want to talk
about is world class level pros their bike and component choices
World Cup racing, behind the scenes
and i think i think there's some misconception there like weekend warrior mountain bikers
average mountain bikers can sort of get i think they might take it with too much weight when they hear like oh like world
championship winning xyz component or bike um and you elliot like are friends with all
those guys you you racing yourself um you kind of know like there's a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff and it's very
different right like if you're a top 50 world cup writer and you're sort of like a privateer
what you're riding i mean how much do you care or it's just like who's gonna pay
you any money because it's like not a glamorous sport full of money versus like if you're a top five rider
are you then pushing for certain brands i mean there's there's just a lot to it behind the scenes that
i think people should take it with a grain of salt like what the pros are using and maybe specifically what they're saying but
what's what's your thought on that yeah totally i mean like very bluntly
you're you're never gonna say what you're writing is not good um like you're contractually obligated
to say that actually yeah i mean maybe i think there is for sure like
over the years i've um you know written some stuff that i'm more stoked on than others and like sometimes i'll be like yeah
it's good you can't name names but likely this gentleman cannot name it
but like other times i'm like dude that is the best thing ever and like if you took it like good as maybe uh
a two and like insane best thing i've written is like a nine so like maybe there's like some little
subtlety there but yeah you're totally right so like i think the um the thing to think about like on the
racing side of things is like when you're really low privateer you get to pick every part you want right and like
whatever that means to you pick fox and then sram shifting and your model breaks like doesn't really matter
you kind of get to do some stuff and that's one of the nice things about being a privateer is that you can run the best stuff um because you're for
the most part paying for it or just getting it for free maybe if you're lucky totally like i think
you're not getting paid to use it totally yeah i think at the lower end of the world cups like if you are qualifying for world cup so qualifying
for world cup is top 60 then you're getting free stuff um qualifying for world cup is no joke
especially now um maybe the like the pro at your local national level race like um
outside the top 510 or whatever probably buying a lot of stuff maybe getting some discounts from local bike shop
and then as you move up so you have like kind of a more satellitey team which would mean like a
trek but not track factory it's like trek sponsored team um and that's
typically you will have like oh maybe a little bit less good parts on um where you
have to run it because i need like you said i need to be paid i need somebody to pay my travel um and then
once you get up into like the top 10 especially top five every one of
those people before they ride for a team will like test out the bike because everyone's getting other offers right like somebody
specializes going to offer you something trex can offer you something in like whatever santa cruz and so each of those riders like troy
would go and say let me ride a canyon bike and make sure this thing actually works
and then um you know everyone's gonna pay me a lot of money to do that but you do get to pick and choose like
um and i i think one of the things that's really interesting here like is kind of what aaron started
where there was a shift away from like uh just these brands like aaron gwynne
for those who don't know totally one of the best downhill mountain racers of all time
um and so he he kind of was like the first person to say like i'm willing to
you would say maybe develop but i would also put in like get paid a lot more money from brands that aren't as uh
prestigious prestigious yep um like a trp or anza tires or something like that and
um and so that was really different and like i know that that's also
something for a rider right like if i've grown up writing fox um to go on to brand
random um could be something but yeah i think to like
when you're thinking about listening or looking at advertising and things like
that it's more about it's more about you it's like what do you like like you can
choose any part that you want and like any part is good enough like sram is good enough
fox is good enough shimano like they're all can win races and like and the nice thing about
mountain biking is like everyone's pretty much running stock stuff so when you buy something off the shelf like that can win a world cup
yeah yeah that's kind of what i've always preached to people is like so much of its personal preference there's like an
endless array of good product yeah and even like remotely reputable brands are making very competitive great stuff
right totally yeah i mean like don't overthink it too hard right like if you looked and if i buy brakes or something that are
like lower in brakes they're better than high-end brakes that won a world cup five years ago so yeah you're running good stuff
[Laughter] i'm curious jared you you never got like as deep in the racing
scene as as myself and especially not as elliot right what did like as you as like a as growing up right
road moto and then got into mountain biking like what did you think when you sort of saw and heard the like oh these pedals
are world championship worthy rainbow striped pedals like i mean did that sway your choice or what do you
think totally 100 i mean when you see like somebody who's winning races and they're running that stuff like
you're like oh well yeah i should probably have that stuff because it'll make me a better writer yeah like oh yeah that guy's got fox factory like
he's got kashima like i'll win i'm going to beat my strava time last time if i have kashmir yeah
yes i was we were talking about that earlier like i think like for my hobbies i'm the same
way right like i was saying that in rc cars like i would watch the rc car track like local
local fast guy i'd be like what is he running like let me go to the bloody pro shop and go get those tires because
they're going to make me win totally 100 yeah that's pretty much it like if you see the best guys writing that
stuff like you want to be writing that stuff too yeah and that i'd pretty much say that's pretty universal
yeah yeah that's cool i mean i think brand's perception on it has like evolved right because before it was it
was just the competitors and then it became the competitors well now it's the competitors plus the content creators but like no matter what
it's the people who are good right like you have to be talented you have to have you have to have some notoriety some
credibility to like be on this thing and like be good at using it um for people to be like oh
What can the average rider learn from World Cup professionals?
yeah man like i want that one totally i want that brand i want that product whatever so yeah that's cool i mean that
that plays into what i want to talk about next which is the most impactful things the average weekend warrior
mountain biker can learn from world cup level professionals which i think we've kind of touched on that a
little bit but um you know bike choice is definitely one of them and i know you're a proponent of
like not overthinking it and probably and like i know racers not as well as you do
but a lot of them and and they certainly do not care about their components and their setup as much as
probably most average mountain bikers do some do right so like i wanted to ask you if you were to like look at the top 80
world cup downhill racers what percentage do you think are maniacal ocd about like the angle of
the brake lever the millimeter width of the bars their tire pressure down to the single psi
versus like and then there's probably like another batch of people who are like kind of care they want it kind of good but they're just going to go out
and pin it and then like there's a percentage of riders that are like yeah whatever it's fine like just like
the mechanic built it and i just went as fast as i could on it yeah what do you think what's like the percent what's the pie chart of
the best mountain bikers in the world and what they how they like look at this stuff yeah for sure i think in recent years
um in the top 30 it's everyone because you you have to um so you're saying the top
30 of world cup downhill racers are like maniacal i wouldn't say maniacal right like like some people
you'll be doing like spoke tension stuff um and some people
there's there's these two different camps and neither one of them's right it's just personal preference where you're saying do i want to set up the
bike to perform the best on this specific terrain um so there's a two inch bump do i want to set my bike up to
handle that two two-inch bump or do i want to set my bike up once and know my bike
to a t and know exactly how it's going to handle that two-inch bump um and so i think the riders who are
like i'm just going to get a set up and ride it are you know riders like bernard kerr
um and he just wants to know his bike like super well but like even him he's like i don't know if he's still
doing it but like you'd have a tire cut you'd have like you're checking your pressures you know exactly how many clicks you're
running or what pressure you're running in your fork um you know riders like quickly though tire
cut that's not an average male burger doesn't know what that is quickly explain that so like i think it's it's falling out of fashion a
little bit it started um because tires companies um kind of only i was talking about
spikes weren't listening um physically cut the knobs totally so
they it started because you would have a spike tire which has really long knobs and so um it was good for wet conditions
but the knobs were actually too long so you'd do a cut spike and that was kind of a thing um and then uh it became
like a thing to like cut a minion dhr like bryceland started it and uh
he would cut a little piece of the side knob off yeah like the l side knob totally which is
the same on the minion dhf right i did that in like 2009 when i was racing right
here's the dhf it works amazing but it's a little too muddy for a dhf but it's not muddy enough for spike so i'm like
gonna legitimately cut the l knobs off of the tire right so it clears mud back totally and
so it's like that that kind of goes into the realm of like what i was saying about um
that it's mental right like and saying somebody doesn't need to cut
their tire like what the benefit of that is physically is whatever
what the benefit of that is mentally is definitely a lot more yeah um and at that level when you get
to that level in any thing that you're doing any sport business school whatever it's more about the
mental side of it and it's more about knowing what's going to make you perform
so yeah i think now riders are concentrating on the bike a lot more because the sport is maturing
a lot more everyone's training really hard so if i can get an extra 5 or 10 out of my bike um then i have to do that um but
i think the interesting thing that you would find is like as soon as you take somebody out of that race context take them and like put them in whistler
like was riding with troy a couple years ago troy sorry remember to say these things
we're not all friends and um and like we were riding a-line
and i would see him like day after day and like i think one of the days um his like tire was like wobbly and
like touching his frame because he had like been doing whips he'd been riding like two so like for
context this is one of the best mountain bikers in the world um worked with maxis to design the
dissector the tire which probably everyone knows about super good tire um junior world champion
did he win he has the best actually over or like average finish um i think it's like a two or three like
way better than anyone else who's ever raced a mountain bike like his average finish at the world cups like yeah always on the coding unusually
consistent yeah like incredibly talented just like one of the yeah one of the greatest downhill mountain bikers of all time um
and i think that that is something you find where it's like you can ride anything right you're a whistler with him and his tire is
literally so blown out it's like hitting his friends the rim right like the rim is big
and like i used to do that all the time like right like it's like yeah it could stop riding like a couple spokes are loose
but they'll probably last for a couple more runs and like you know luckily i didn't have
to worry about buying a new thing a new rim or whatever but um i just think it's
the biggest thing that people can do is just ride right the thing that makes these people so good is that they've
ridden bikes way more than the average person um i've like for jumps and things like
that like i've ridden thousands and thousands of jumps and the reason that it's um that you get those skills
you know exactly what the bike's gonna do and so the thing that you're concentrating on is like oh my is not
like my rebound's too fast or my tire pressure's too low it's like you know what does the bike do in this
situation like what does it feel like to go over these routes or off this jump um and i the advice that i always give
is just like have fun like just have a good time and you'll enjoy riding bikes which means you'll
enjoy which which means you'll ride more which means you'll get better and then like it's just all good brilliant
it's a vicious cycle good fly wheel going there it's cool i like it i mean it's like the
most impactful things average writer can take from that right it's just like ride more have fun and then like not
worry about it so much like not stress yeah right like i mean there's this like one technique thing that i
think about um that was really big for me is like waiting outside foot and then like when you lean the bike
you could think of like a lot of weight going on your outside foot and and your um inside hand so you're like
actually pushing if you're going around a left left-hand turn your right foot's down and your left hand is kind of like pushing
forward and down um and i think that's really different than a lot of people thinking about people in the youtube video we'll see
but taking the outside hand over like it's like this rather than this i don't know how you
explain that over audio yeah yeah it's hard to say but i mean if you were to sum that up you would pretty much say like uh
bike technique coaching worrying about your form like that's impactful yeah like yeah
it's like time and a place right like sometimes you do stuff for entertainment and sometimes you do stuff
like deliberate practice and like i would say personally like there are a couple things like
never a bad idea to get some coaching or think about some technique but like
you can ride a bike in a million different ways and like don't stress too much about some perfect technique or whatever just
ride and whatever you're comfortable with is probably good yeah totally yeah i i personally like to
go for like what i call flow rides myself that's just like the name i made up but that's basically when i go by myself i'm
not riding with anyone else and and i don't really i do this every now and then i definitely do it every time
if i've been off a bike for a while right like if i had an injury or you know whatever got to it worked for i
worked my face off for too long and i didn't ride bikes for four weeks then i'll go for a ride by myself and all i will do is
i won't ride at a fast pace i'll ride it like 60 70 percent and i'll just constantly
think about like is my pedal stroke good yeah totally you know i'm like am i two is my whole upper body too
tense on a climb you know like so i think about my form my technique and then on the downhill i think about the same stuff right like is my are my
breaking points good am i touching my brakes in my corners am i not like am i waiting properly like
i and you can work on your technique by just riding far less than your skill level and just
being a little bit more conscious of like is my form proper am i following like the right proper guidelines like waiting your outside
foot not breaking in corners yeah you know just like doing the right thing so that's that's helped me a ton yeah for sure
jared totally waiting
yeah totally like pretty much exactly what you said like and honestly that kind of thing has like
totally changed how i've been writing to just like thinking about your technique a little bit more and not like just thinking oh my god i'm going
to go as fast as i possibly can like be my last drop of time right whatever it is yeah because like if
you're you're just reinforcing bad habits at that point yeah right like if you have some bad habits in terms of technique and form
and you're just going out trying to crush your strava times like exactly you're just going to reinforce and really get sketchy on
totally totally yeah like forget about the strava just have fun and think about your technique in your form and then you'll have more
fun and you're going to be a better writer yeah cool i love it man totally um well
Audience questions
yeah hopefully that was valuable valuable available i had too much whiskey for you listeners out there
so i need to talk less jared you've you've queued up some questions
uh from our audience from our listeners our instagram and youtube followers um
correct uh for elliott and just things in general fire em off man sweet here we go so this
question comes to us from raymond sex
he asks when can we see another race run in slippers but for real is there anything that you
think more people can do on a daily basis to make our sport more inclusive
what are some things riders can do to help grow cycling foundation even if they cannot make donations
because of financial hardships totally yeah we we touched on this a little bit like but to sum it up i think it's just
um like really basic it's just like being nice um yeah making support more welcoming
yeah totally nice to people yeah yeah just like and it and it's all people right like it's just um
welcoming people in um remembering that we all were beginners once we all were
goons we all had knee pads that were off centered so it's just like like think back maybe
to last week and like remember that uh you might not have been as good as you are now and uh and just
yeah make sure that you are are keeping that in mind and welcoming people in and making cycling a better place
nice yeah great perfect that was great except you dodged the slipper question ah totally
so some context elliot is is like notorious
would probably be the word for wearing slippers like dvs slipper like these are like casual like you're like you're
walking out of your shower slippers and he wears them while riding mountain bikes and like we posted a video on
instagram of him going over the handlebars after a seat bounce wearing slippers at sea otter anyways
we have what i never even asked you like i just thought it was like a funny thing you did but you wore those for like you still i was surprised you didn't
have them on when you walked in here totally sandals yeah i know i went through this phase like um
where i would just like it was like dvs slippers but also like cvs and rite where they have aid slippers
aisle where they just you should everyone should go there yeah and um you can go and you know just pick
them out of a bin and they're like five bucks and i would just buy those and wear them with everything
i did like nice restaurant wear the slippers people think they're expensive you can wear them like walking
the track like out to whatever around the house um and i was at sea otter like i was
just having fun and went to seabound to jump and my friend had rode my bike and put
the seat down and it hit the tire and i crashed and now like a whole generation thinks that you can't seat bounce a
mountain bike which is sad um but yes it went over the bars and uh
pink bike i was talking to carl who's one of the owners of pink bike and he was like as soon as i saw that video i told them
to slow it down as slow as it would go and post it on the home page yeah yeah full credit to pinkbike for
filming that and um thank you pinkbike thanks carl so bottom line there is a performance benefit to the slippers on a
bike i would say that they let you feel the pedal you really need pedal feel and
they give you that all right yeah that's the okay that's what i was looking for perfect
awesome sweet next question shall we uh this one comes to us from rbr
chkn was it a penny or a nickel that you saw on the ground did that mean
that made you take a dive on that jump it was funny because i i actually wasn't racing that year i was like taking a
year off and i wasn't i where i got down to the finish and i was like it's like i just had the
biggest crash i've had in like years and uh like it it got a little bit bigger than it should have been because
it was like oh it's bloody over the bars
of serious notoriety and not only that but like you're known for being so skilled at jumps
and whips and scrubs and like you're incredible with that like legitimately incredible at it like
better than the rest of the field you know and and then all of a sudden like here he is
and just full-blown front flips over himself so that's why that's why it was like
ended up being so if anyone else did it they'd be like oh yeah dude like yeah i went over the bars a hundred times like everyone goes with the bars but like
when you're when you're you and you do it like it's it was just more of a big deal bloody realistic my glory days yeah so
when we were like oh yeah we're going to have elliott on the boat dredged this up
i was like i was like hey let's get that video of elliott winnie from the bloody wayback machine archive.org
that was insane um sweet all right next question comes to us from eddie raya7369
he says i see mountain biking going more and more in the direction of e-type equipment and bikes and
eventually think all bikes will have some sort of assist type technology is this a good or bad trend um i mean i
think it's i i kind of understand both sides like it's it creates
like a very visceral reaction um with people i've never been like that person who's like you gotta ride up so you can
earn your turns and like i actually hate doing that anyway um so i mean i think it's great that
like now the person one of my friends has a heart condition and he used to actually be a
xe racer and the only way he can ride is on ebike and he gets out and he coaches the high
school team and so you have people like that who you know wouldn't be able to ride otherwise
um and i think that that's amazing and and so yeah i do see the point of you know people going on illegal trails
and creating more traffic and things like that um but you know if
you know what would happen if people got really fit although suddenly more controversial than it should be
yeah it's just a e-bike yeah totally right like it makes it more accessible for
people with a heart condition or people that don't have the chance to ride a ton right exactly why is it this huge
controversy yeah i think that people are all pissed off about i think it's uh i think it's like also like a thing where it's like
um like you you're saying like you have to be this fit or whatever to ride this trail
like this trail is not accessible to like non-fit people which you know mountain biking is really hard
like i think everyone listening knows that like it's just a hard sport yeah whether whether you've been doing it for a
decade or or like you just got into it like it is aerobically very very challenging um at least if
you're riding actual mountains um but either way like it's it's a hard sport so so yeah e-bikes have changed
the landscape a ton made it more accessible to people who aren't in super stud shape
and and like it it gets more fun when you're in better shape because you can ride longer and you can ride faster you
can just feel better mentally physically the entire time um and not everyone has the ability to
do that or time or you know physical condition whatever so yeah it's e-bikes are a cool little thing there
totally i feel like that's like a good example of that just like you know not everyone is a has the time
or energy or capability to like ride 50 hours a week or whatever you
know so if like an old couple wants to go out or even the person that has a full-time job is working 70 hours a week and they need an e-bike
so they can actually go and ride like should be all good yeah yeah this i honestly i feel
it's to me it's deja vu because being in the bike industry when the whole thing went from away from 26
right it was 26 to 29 it was kind of like before 27.5 was invented there was it was like four years of
banter of like oh it's right it's wrong it's stupid oh it's that oh like it was just like so much and now no
one even talks about right it's like yeah
yeah so now it's like four years from now it's like the ship is gonna have sailed on e-bikes and like some people
will use them some people won't like it's all fine like the world goes on it's really yeah i don't know we posted
a photo of an e-bike and said on instagram and said uh do you want to see more e-bike content from us and there was like
a hardcore amount of trolls yeah yes yeah yeah yeah yeah and i was like wow that seems it's
very visceral like it's very much like a very polarizing thing um but yeah
i don't know i mean to me like you look at any like pro mountain biker and everyone
loves e-bikes even if you can't yeah they do like pro mountain bikers are using them all the time yeah because it's just like
i love riding my bike and i can actually ride my back more if i have motor yeah
yeah totally yeah i was talking to so nico malali who you mentioned earlier
um good friend of mine his his younger brother logan lawley also a good friend of mine and worked for worldwide cyclery for several years um i
was just chatting with him recently we obviously still stay in touch we're still friends um and we were just chatting about the e-bike thing and he was saying that
nico and dakota norton another professional world cup downhill racer who's very very good um are riding e-bikes a lot more and
that they're still putting in like the same like physically like they're looking those guys are data nerds right
like they're looking at heart rates and they have power meters and like they're doing training at a very very high level
and they're still doing it to the same extent they're just covering more ground right exactly like yeah it's like it's
not like they're just going up hills being they're going up the hills faster yeah they're just riding more miles
so like the heart rate data shows that it's exactly the same exercise but they've covered two times about a mile so i don't know it is interesting
to see like all these different use cases for these things and yeah yeah i think it's just like stuff one of
What is everyone riding?
those things where it's just like another tool like i don't know i just don't feel like it should be that big of a deal
i know i agree i completely agree yeah well yeah speaking of speaking of bikes um
let's finish off here with what are we riding bikes trails components etc
um i will go first why not uh because i'm excited to talk about i
just went to moab i think on the last two podcasts i said i was going to moab i went there it was a ton of fun um i posted sort of
a recap of it on kettle mountains instagram uh for those of you that don't know kettle mountains and apparel brand that
we as in worldwide cyclery owns um yeah and i had a great time have you been to moab elliott no never
so it's like the rockiest rocks of rocks on rocks it was just pure rock i mean i honestly
didn't think the riding was i mean the riding was amazing if you like rocky rocks piled on rocks
and just incredible scenery i'm more of like a i would rather ride a-line and dirt merchant like flow type jump trails
and berms that's kind of more my thing but i still had a good time liam went with me and had a good time and we went with chasing
epic and there was 12 other people and yeah it was a super good fun amazing trip but i was
pumped on that i wrote my uno dash my italian stallion uh italian spanish spanish stallion
[Laughter] it's one of the few bikes um that's made
an only bike carbon bike made in europe i don't know it's uh yeah it's pretty cool they make they make 50 of them a year i have number 24
of 50. per month yeah per model 50 per model yeah i just very boutique i just i just
sold that uno um and now i'm building up a revel ranger which to me is like
it's 115 mil travel in the back 120 in the front super fun quote unquote down country
bike um i'm excited right i mean i already rode it like our test bike when we had it before we did the review and everything
super fun so i'm excited for that that's my new mountain bike that's where i just rode uh pumped on that jared have you changed
since last episode i've just been riding both my bikes my yeti esp150 and sb 115
um you know a little bit of suicide uh action over here you know one of our my favorite local trails suicide is the
name of this yes yes just to be clear that can be very confusing yes
suicide are one of our favorite local trails yeah um i'm just praying for the rain man
it's just so blown out and dusty i just i need that rain yeah so last episode nate hills was on the podcast and he was
out here hanging out with us we rode some bikes we rode suicide trail he posted the full video of that on his youtube channel
which was rad he had have you ever used a skydio you know what it is so it's a drone oh with the camera on
we're at the top of the trail and he just throws this thing up and then it just followed us down the whole trail super cool touch until we got to
the very bottom yeah yeah that's right crazy yeah it was cool so check that out it's on nathal's youtube
channel um that was a really fun time but suicide is the name of that trail it's a big rocky beefy trail that's what jared ryze
has 150 on yeah 150 mil travel 29er yeah
what's the front one wow that's a great bike yeah it's that is
that's a monster it's good for that trail um elliot what what bikes are you riding right now um when i i haven't really ridden that
much if i'm not riding my downhill bike which i haven't since march um i ride my trance which is like
i don't know how much travel it has like one 140 or no it's like 120 in the front and one
you're really not representing your sponsor that good right now
i think i'm representing them great because it doesn't even matter how much travel is it's an insane night you spend that well
no it's like you get into politics not i literally ride that bike i wrote
it for trans cascadia um i rode it that's all i ride um for me like the smaller travel bikes
are super fun i've never been like a big trail bike person but uh i think it makes it a little bit a little bit sweet to have like a little
bit of travel and i ride yeah max's tires dhf in the front the hr2 in the back
the only combo you should ever think about and tire combos we just did a video all about like my favorite tire
combos i did say that one because that that is just there's just no reason you're running that on your trail bike do you also run it on your downhill bike
totally yeah same sizes the same widths yeah two three five right like there's no i
think it's two three five maybe it's two five two five yeah you're probably running two five in the front and two four in the back
yeah so that's see this this ladies and gentlemen is how much professional mountain bikers really pay
attention to this stuff well it's like they get it yeah they honestly i think you just forget though cause like you've had this figured out
for a long time and like you don't even look at those numbers totally like i know like there was talk about like some people
would sometimes go to like the two seven or whatever yeah in the future in the front but that was that has not been a thing
for a while and so it's like yeah just it doesn't totally doesn't matter but um yeah
uh what i don't know my tire pressure i usually just pump it up to around 30 or
something like that on my download like it was like 24 27 yeah um and then yeah shimano stuff i
rode in santa cruz this past week was up there uh one of my friends is doing this like
one million miles of climbing so she's like has a nine to five job and she just goes
and that is so wow in a year so um rode with her and like
caught her on the like the hour five of her ride so uh yeah did that in santa cruz and wish that we had good trails like that
down i was on your giant trance yep yeah 29 inch wheels yeah yeah yeah nice
the only way weren't you riding a gravel bike too for a little bit no gravel i ride a lot of road really
not recently i'm super i'm super out of shape just to get in shape for that saks underwear
um yeah i'm actually crazy out of shape right now but we i think it's because we live in some like world-class area for road biking
yeah and it's just nice like go out there listen to podcasts listen to the
mtb podcasts by worldwide and um and the elliott jackson episode
super good and um so it's a good time yeah i like it well cool thanks man appreciate it and
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