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Revel Bikes Founder Adam Miller Talks 32" Wheels, RaTical Development, Future Bikes & More...Ep. 168 [Podcast]
Today on the podcast, our friend and Revel Bikes founder Adam Miller joins us to chat all things Revel. We get into their 32" bikes they are working on, what it's been like to develop their full suspension titanium bike in the RaTical, plus some classic listener questions ranging from the best burger in Carbondale to Adam's thoughts on modern geometry and everything in between. Tune in!
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If you are one strange human that would like to read a transcript of the podcast above, continue reading below!
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 168 of the MTB podcast presented and
hosted by Worldwide Cycling Ketl Mountain Apparel and Trail One Components. I'm Jared. I'm Liam.
I'm Adam. I'm Jeff. That is right, ladies and gentlemen. Our good friend Adam Miller from Revel Bikes
is here joining us today. And in this episode, we are going to discuss all things Revel bikes, including some
exciting new stuff in the pipeline, plus some listener questions ranging from modern geometry to the best burger in
Carbondale and everything in between. Don't forget about 32in wheels cuz
people are going to be Oh, yeah. Peopleet. Throw that in the beginning. Are people going to be more
in over 32in wheels or just ebikes in general? That's actually
that's a good one. That deserves a poll. equivalent and online. We should throw that on the poll
tomorrow. What are you more upset or excited about? That that should be more triggering in
general. Yeah, what's more triggering is a good way to put it. I was going to say we should just do one poll like first one's
like what are you more excited about? Have them both options and the next one is what are you most accept upset about?
Same exact option. Exactly. Exactly. Well, uh, welcome Adam. It's great to have you back.
Thanks. It's great to be back. That was a super fun bike ride we just got to go on, too. Super fun.
Really nice out there. All bike rides are pretty fun, wouldn't you say, Jeff? Uh, yeah. Except for when you break a wrist, for example, we recently
I'm sure he was even having fun until that happened. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There you go.
Didn't it like All pretty fun. I guess it did kind of kill the bike ride cuz I couldn't ride after that, but
killed the vibe a little bit, you know? Big bummer. Yeah, they're all fun. 99.9% of the time
riding bikes is a good idea and always fun. Yeah. Yeah. You know what else is fun is Zach's
words of wisdom but from Jeff today. Get your parents' stories, epic road trips,
hikes, adventures, or trips that made an impact on their life or created great memories and recreate those with your
family. Yeah, that was something that came up recently on a trip I was on when a few
of us were just talking about our aging parents as a lot of people have. And uh yeah, the the idea of I I think a few of
us were talking about these, you know, huge trips that our parents had taken, one that I had mentioned, my dad took this amazing motorcycle trip where we
went from North Dakota to New York, then down to Florida, then over to New Orleans, and I think he did over the course of 2 or 3 weeks. And I was just
realizing, man, that would be amazing to just ask him all about it now. You know, he's still obviously healthy and happy
and good. And just have them write like try and remember, you know, where did you stay? What what hotel, what campsite, what restaurants did you eat
at? and then 20 years from now recreate it. Um, that just seems like a really
fun thing to do in your parents' legacy when they're no longer with you. Um, so that's my wisdom. And
you have a motorcycle, you can do it. I do have a motorcycle. Yeah, that would be pretty. We determined that the DJI with a 28 mph
speed limit is faster than his motorcycle. Wait up to 28 mph. It was the jailbroken crest line.
Oh, I don't know if we should say that. faster without tail broken. I love it.
We might have had prototyping prototyping R&D. It actually it is like a one-off crest
line that I think is like a manufacturer spec. It very It totally reminds me of the
jailbroken iPhone days. Figure out how to basically cuz cuz on an ebike for those who don't know, they're usually
they basically have a governor at either 20 m per hour, right? Or 28, something like that. It's 20 or 21 and now the new
one which is what class class 3 28 m hour
it's 28 and that's what like DJI did. So now Bosch and Specializ had to keep up
and allow their bikes to do that with a setting. Yeah. But technically that's not legal on those trail. It's a
Well, then it's country specific. Someific 14 mph. Yeah. Europe up 16 I think almost
as a whole. Losers, dude. Losers. Got three-cylinder cars over there, too.
You guys don't have a V8. America. I saw this meme the other day and it was like, "We're going to have to
explain to our kids like what jailbreaking an iPhone was, like where we intentionally installed spyware to,
you know, add features to our devices." Yeah, it's cool. Well, even Gen Z doesn't know about Lime Wire and how we
ruined our parents' computers. Dude, music was free back in the day. It was Oh, yeah. I mean, it still came at a
cost, but it was free. Yeah. The cost of the family computer. Yeah. My buddy's dad had a computer just for
Lime wire. Oh, that's smart. That's a good idea. That's really smart. I just remember downloading songs and
then some of them would be way too quiet. No others would be way too loud and that was the worst. And then you got one that was like
remixed halfway through or something. Wasn't the right song. I didn't mean to get this one.
Oh, that's great. Well, uh, great words of wisdom, Jeff. Great words of wisdom. Yeah, really like
that. That's awesome. And you know, if you're spending time around the holidays and the off season, it's perfect time to
sit down with your parents and ask them, write all stuff down. I've actually tried I've been wanting to recreate two photos that my grandfather
has in the Sierra Nevada mountains. One's on Mount Whitney. Yeah, that's a cool idea, too. It's kind of similar. Yeah,
it's a good excuse to go for a bike ride. Yeah, we'll hike Mount Whitney. Really cool. I almost did a couple years back and we
got just shy due to snow packing. But yeah. Yeah, that's on the bucket list as well.
Uh, you what else is really cool is Daniel's fun fact. Sharks are older than trees. Sharks have been swimming around
for over 400 million years, while trees didn't show up until about 350 million years ago. They got 50 million years
sharks have died. Daniel's unverified fun fact. No, that is that is verified by
the shark. That counts. The shark species is older than trees.
However, there are still living trees that are older than any shark on this planet. That's true. Yeah, that Yeah,
individually if there was That's for sure. If there was some a shark older than I mean that'd be crazy.
Like ancient cones are grandpa shark could be out there 900 years. We don't know. You're right. That is true. We do
not know. But ancient bristle cones are like older than 900 years, I think. But so it is possible. It's not
verified. I learn something new on this podcast every time I do the fun facts to give you something
because as uh based on a fun fact we had a few episodes back. remember was like the jellyfish that never dies or
something like that or some sort of deep sea creature that can literally like
there's something in its body that can change its anatomy and it basically can never die but it will die based off of like you know disease it might catch or
something like that. Interesting. So there could be a shark that has never died. Probably.
Probably. Well, we have Josh Shaunders to thank for this this sort of structure.
Do we? Yeah. Remember cuz we were we were talking to him on one of those Chasing Epic Mountains. Oh, yeah. and he kind of said, "Oh, it'd be cool
if you had sort of a structure or things you did consistent." And then that's how we sort of evolved into this initial
structure. Good old Josh. Yeah. He wants to come on the podcast, so we'll have to come on anytime. He usually makes his way through SoCal
this time of year. So yeah, him up, dude. I think he literally text me and wanted to come like today, and I was like, we
actually already have a guest. Sorry. We have a guest who's a little more important than you. Sorry, Josh.
Sorry, Josh. But you'll be on next time. Um, how about a fantastic testimonial? This is hands down the best mountain
bike podcast around. I love your personalities. You are all really entertaining to listen to, and you do a good job of blending in the more
technical aspects of mountain biking into the podcast. Please keep it going. The future of mountain biking depends on
it. We don't know what will happen if you stop this podcast, but I dread the day it happens. Kevin, thanks, Kevin.
It's a little really nice. A little too much weight on the shoulders. Thank you, Kevin. Pressure is on. I still laugh that the
fantastic testimonials started out as sort of a joke because we were getting these sort of weird roasts of mostly me about
we still get the roasts. Yeah. Why don't we include the roast now? And then you you actually just decided to put the real testimonials in
there and toot your own horn. But well, you know, that's what we're all about. Toting our own horn here. Positivity. You know,
the bike world needs it. Exactly. Adam, you should read some testimonials about some recent Revel bikes purchasers.
Oh, that's what we should have done. this bike. Are they good? I only want to read the good. Last week we're uh
I don't know. Last pod we had a positive revel. We did. It was a fantastic testimonial
of a guy about who who got his rascal and loved it. Love to hear it. Yeah, that makes my day every time.
Amazing. I bet it does. Love Revel Bikes. Back to that testimonial. Are we still
the highest rated mountain bike? We absolutely are. Yeah, we are the best rated. Yeah. Did you check? Were you
just saying that? No, it was neck and neck. I'll check right now. Continue continue to leave us a review
and we'll continue to be the highest rated. Yeah. Which speaking of which, we got a lot of reviews this last time around.
Oh, did we? A lot of reviews. People Yeah, you did. People were taking you up on that that
Martin deal. Well, we gave him a a gift card and then I said the Martin test pack was only
like $2 more than the gift card was. It's like a no-brainer to get some try out some Martin basically for leaving
our view for your favorite mountain bike podcast. Yeah, it's like a no-brainer. I'm going to do it now. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Pink Bike has 1.1,000
and 4.9 and we have 1.2,000 now. Let's go.
Thank you listeners for your support and love. It's a race though, so got to keep
reviewing guys. Yeah. And gals. Uh please keep reviewing. Sophie told us
that bunch of her friends listen and that we are definitely in the 20s of female listeners.
Wow. And uh yeah, I mean we we got to be interesting closer and closer to triple digits.
That's what I imagine. Yeah. Sophie said a handful of her friends listen and you know we definitely have over well over 20 female
constant female listeners. I mean I thought it was it was just so funny that time at the old Fort Strong race which
was last December, right? Almost a year ago. a year ago. Yeah. 24-hour fundraiser race. And yeah, so I
did 12 hours of running, 12 hours of mountain biking, and then the the the morning of the you know, the morning
after, we were done. We were packing up. We were toast. Yeah. I finished at whatever 8:00 a.m. or something. I slept 3 hours and you slept 1 or
something like that. Yeah. And this this uh u nice lady drives by this gal and she's got a bike
on the back and she's like says hi to Liam and I like, "Oh, love the podcast." And we were both like, "What? Huh?"
I know. Well, our brains weren't functioning totally, but it's just rare that like a a cute girl says, "Oh, I
like your podcast." And then she emailed us. Yeah, right. I think her name on Instagram is Trail Farts.
Oh, yeah. That's right. Oh, that's great. That's awesome. Something like that. Uh, actually, well, slowly, so I'm just
making sure we're on top here. Pinkpike has 4.6 on Apple and 620 reviews and we
smoke that on Apple. Yes, we love that. We are 4.9 and 1.4K.
If you just take Spotify and Apple combined, we're crushing the best. Unreal. Leaving them in the dust.
Um, this has been a massive tooting our own horns. We should let Adam Adam
like all this. We're the best. Keep the attention on the best, man. This is this is full tangent mode.
Yeah. Well, we have reached to the point in the podcast where we talk about the bikes and rides we've been enjoying
lately. But you, as you alluded to earlier, I haven't really been riding bikes very much. But have you done any
cool bike rides that you want to talk about? Well, I I live in a place where there's snow on the ground for about 5 months a
year, so I end up having to travel to ride bikes. But I like skiing a lot, so I I I don't complain. Um, I got out on
my gravel bike 2 days ago. Mainly because I knew I'd be riding with you guys and I wanted to, you know,
remember how to ride a bike before before I had to ride with you guys. That's fair. Um, and that the snow hasn't been too
good for skiing. So, um, no, I was riding a whole lot this summer, a whole lot this fall, lots of kind of fun new
bikes that we were prototyping, and so test riding new bikes is always my favorite on on any trail. Um, but the
ride we just went on today was my first good solid mountain bike ride in a few weeks is fantastic.
Wow. Can you ride that? Is it Red Hill in Carbondale? Yeah. Can you ride that year round? Yeah, we rode Red Hill a few years back
when you visited. Um, no, not year round, but there's a front section of the trail that's like 3/4 of a mile and
it dries out like 2 months before anything else. And it's awesome product testing. It's like straight up 400 ft and straight
down on chunky rocks. And so like when we're really fiending in like March to ride, you can go do like 10 laps on that
section. Nice. It's great. Is that in snow now? Uh, yeah. It's kind of muddy, snowy.
Just recent, like in the last two weeks. So we were riding that until a couple days. Brian sent me a video. Brian from
Banshee sent me a video of testing some trail one wheels on a drop up there. Yeah. And I knew immediately it's Red Hill cuz
it's red. It's the only red dirt around the Yeah. for a few hours.
But yeah, that was about two weeks ago. He sent me that. We had a good We had a good um fall though. Like the riding was awesome.
Perfect weather for riding until like two and a half weeks ago and then it snowed like a foot. So then it became
ski season like within two days. So we didn't have the whole shoulder season like couldn't do much. So, it's it's
pretty good. Nice. Still miss riding bikes, though. Yeah. Thankfully, you guys are kind of within like striking distance of similar
bikable areas, right? And the Yeah, Grand Junction and Moab and all that.
Yeah. Can't complain. It's not like here you guys get to ride perfect dirt all year. Oh, perfect dirt.
Yeah, that's a bit of a stretch. You get to ride on dirt. Blown out. Yeah.
We get to We get to ride outside all year round. Yeah. But perfect dirt. Far from it.
In January, I'm pretty jealous. Yeah, I come visit more. Hey, you're welcome anytime. You're welcome to stay in Jeff's place
anytime. Heard it on the podcast. That's right.
Everyone's welcome to stay in my guest room. Wow. By everyone, I mean select people I approve. Yeah, very select.
Hey, that that's my room. Can't you can't get Yeah, there we go. I have a strict no kids no pets policy in my place of
living. It's understandable. Maybe I'll come and, you know, cash their see what it's like.
Yeah. Walk down street. He said he said no pets though. Yeah, just me. Yeah, Zach Bean.
Oh, fair enough. I'm in the, you know, if I'm in the doghouse sometime, I'll stop
by. Jeff, you riding your bikes? Um, you know, I I was down in Patagonia,
actually, uh, in the Chilean side and the Argentinian side for the last couple weeks, and I did a 16-mi ride along the
I think it's called the Ganzo River. Nice. Um, it wasn't nothing special in terms of the actual ride. It's kind of
just a sort of basic oh meandering trail that goes along this riverbed and this
beautiful blue river and you're in this huge valley and it's just peaceful and amazing and Patagonia is incredible. Um,
I would highly recommend anyone go visit there and yeah, some good mountain biking down there. I did some average
mountain biking, but the views and the scenery just 11 out of 10. Um, the
trails were whatever. But actually the time I was there in 2018, we rode some proper single track which was amazing.
But yeah, what a what an incredible place. What What kind of bikes did you ride? Just some random rental hard tails.
Nice. Nice. Yeah, it was pretty brutal. Oh, yeah. You said you rode flat pedals and you're dumbfounding how people
actually ride these. Yeah, it's so hard to ride flat pedals when you're so used to riding clipped in. But were they like actually like nice
flat pedals or like just kind of like plastic? I had I had good shoes. Um, I had those 510 trail cross shoes cuz I
actually used I love those things for canyonering too, which we did while we were down there. My my shoes were good, but
flat pedal trail cross. Yeah, that it's funny that trail cross shoe I think originally 510 made as a
sort of like a hybrid approach shoe that worked as a canyonering shoe, but then they realized it really worked well on mountain biking. So now they kind of
market it to all of them. Um, and now Adidas bought it and Adidas says no. I Adidas probably doesn't understand what that shoe is and the original designers
are long gone is my guess. Um, like a lot of 510 shoes, unfortunately. It's kind of grim.
It is. Well, they used to make this shoe. Still a great shoe. Yeah. They used to make a very similar shoe
called the Access. They had so many good shoes. Like cool approach shoes, all the stuff.
Yeah. A bunch of approach shoes that were really good. And the Access is like one of my all-time favorite basically hiking,
light scrambling shoes. And then the Trail Cross kind of took that over. Interesting. Yeah, it's a bummer to see
510 kind of just lose its way after the Adidas acquisition. Sometimes acquisitions cause issues.
Oh, the irony. Sorry. Oh, that's So, for those people who don't know, who
maybe didn't When was the last time Adam was on this podcast? This is right after you uh got the
company back, right? Which was it was episode 156. July 1st you were on
the podcast. This was about a month a month after we restarted the company. Nice. Yeah. Wow. Awesome.
That feels like 10 years ago. Yeah. So, give the listeners the the quick, you know, elevator pitch of what
the heck happened. You founded Revel Bikes. You built Revel Bikes. Yeah. You got it. That's it. Yeah.
That's where the story ends. Some some loop-de-loops happened and you still own it. A few things happened and here we are.
Yeah. And you still own it and run it. Still own it. Still run it. Having a blast. Yeah. I I sold the company, started the company. We launched our
first bikes uh in early 2019. Things took off. I got a call from from Jeff at
Worldwide a few days after we launched and I was like jumping for joy that our tiny small bike company, you know, the
guys at Worldwide wanted to sell our bikes. So that was super awesome. Uh things went great. We took off, grew
really, really fast. Um and then I sold the company at the end of 2021. Uh I
stepped away from the company, stepped down as CEO year after that, then stepped away fully early 2024. Um
earlier this year, uh the private equity company that owned the company ended up uh closing the doors. Um and
all sorts of, you know, whatever stuff happened. I was able to buy the company back in June 2 of this year. Revel, the
official name is actually Revel V2, but Revel Revel started started again. So, here we are. It's been what, six months?
Six months. It's awesome. Six months back having a blast. I'm glad to be back here. Back in action to you guys again.
We're very grateful. Yeah, we really are. The field is mutual. It's good to be back.
Awesome. And if you want more context, you gave the much more detailed rundown of all of that on that episode 156 of the MTB
podcast. So now we just get to talk about new bikes and new things and yeah in the last 6 months.
Yeah, it's been pretty fun. I was very not busy for the year and a half before that.
as you kind of like said last time, you were kind of like, "Wow, I was I kind of got pulled out of like retirement
essentially and now you're like, you know, 0 to 100 real quick." Yeah. Yeah. But it turns out it's
actually like really fun at the end of the day. Nice. It's like I mean like I I you know
got to get all kinds of perspective and stuff and now 6 months in, 7 months into to running the business again, um it's
it's like I feel pretty lucky. I get to like make bikes and you know come hang
out with you guys and ride bikes and talk about bikes. It's it's kind of a kind of a dream job at the end of the day. Lifestyle industry and lifestyle
business for a reason. Lifestyle business. We've talked about that. It's a good it's a it's a pretty good thing. It's the way to do it, man.
It's the way. It's the only way. Yeah. Could be much worse. It's a great lifestyle. Could be selling insurance or real
estate or god knows what. I tried to get into real estate. Not
very fun. Same. Same. Oh, that's great. Well, yeah, let's talk
a little bit more about, you know, what you've been working on. Um, you you uh you kind of dropped that Radical V1 that
everybody, I think, on the internet was pretty stoked about. They were pretty stoked to see some exciting things coming out of Revel Bikes
and that thing was pretty cool looking and I got to ride it. I mean, not trying to like brag or anything.
Yeah. Your your bikes and rides lately is that you rode that Radicle today. I rode the Radical today. Yeah.
Ratick Hole. Rat Tick Hole. R A T I C A T. Titanium. Yeah, that's capitalized. That's the
talle. That is the important part. Yeah. Yeah. Ti. Yeah. What a cool bike. Um I know that
for whatever reason, which you probably know more about than me, but titanium full suspension bikes. They're not very
common. Not very common. Few and far between. Few and far between. There's really zero practical reason to have a titanium full suspension bike.
There's also zero practical reason to just own six mountain bikes. And most of us do. And here we are. That is true.
That is true. That's That is the point. You can only ride one bike at once. Yeah. But bikes are kind of kind of
awesome. Yeah. A titanium full suspension bike I think kind of embodies the This doesn't quite make sense on
paper, but it's really really just kind of neat and unique and interesting and
there was a lot of like good learnings that we had from that bike and we're continuing to to to work on on the next
one. Um so yeah. So, for some context, that bike has only been ridden by me and
some people at Revel um and you guys now. We sent it out here to, you know, have the bike here in person for you
guys to ride and I don't know, just sort of see prototype concept fun bike what it is.
Yeah. Yeah. Checks a lot of boxes in like the weird unique category, which I personally very much enjoy about the
bike industry. The very first bike I worked on when I got a job in a bike shop when I was 14. you know, I was just
old enough to work. Um, the first bike, the first day they gave me to work on was a custom titanium 7 and I had to put
new canolver brakes on it. They really trusted you. They shouldn't have, but you know,
can lever brakes? Yeah. Back in the day, I bet. Wow. You just aged yourself. I wonder what
I wonder what percentage of listeners know what those are, honestly. I mean, I guess they still exist in psychos, so they probably
No, not anymore. They're done. Disc break only. They did a long time for cross. They did. That was
They hung on too long in Cyclacross. I'd say even up until like probably co years, you'd see
like 25 45% of pros can candle lever brakes. Yeah. Was that a UCI thing or the rotor? Like
what was the reason for I guess I should know. I don't make Cyclacross bikes, but it was mud and just like Cyclacross is
such a uh a kind of like historic event, I guess, that no one likes
change. So, like that's a big change, right? Like holding on to the way it was. Yeah. Tubular tires. They still limit
tire size, right? You can only run a 33 width tire Cyclacross really, which is like I don't even run that on
my road bike. I run 35 or larger only. But yeah, anyways, I actually really like Cyclacross. I
raced it pretty seriously back in the day when I was trying to kind of get to some level of racing. And I remember those races, they'd come up
with their little tire jig and put it on there and you didn't want to have too much tire pressure if you were right on the edge there. You know, it wouldn't
fit. You wouldn't be allowed to race. Yeah, that's crazy. I never raced cyclacross here because,
as you know, it was 70° and blue skies today and to me that just doesn't feel
like cyclacross. No. Part of cyclacross is that it's cold and miserable. Yeah. And like muddy, right? Like every time
you see these cyclops race, it's like all muddy. Well, cuz it's in Belgium and southern France in this time of year.
Yeah, that makes sense. That's like where I'd probably say the bulk of it is at the pro level. And yeah, here you're racing in a park in
short sleeves and a t-shirt. Yeah. And a lot of guys in the PA shop race cycle specifically is love cycle.
PA shreds it. And they're really fun races. Like as far as, you know, 30, 40, 50 minutes of
racing goes, it's pretty exciting. Yeah. Yeah. I'd love to go to one of those race. Didn't you go to the cycle world
championship or something like that? Uh Stram took me to a uh just a cyclacross world cup. Okay.
In uh I don't know what round it was, but we were in Belgium. That's That's awesome. That's cool.
Yeah. Bucket list. Epic. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. Well, let's So, you're
talking a little about the radical and kind of working on
potentially a a second radical. Yeah. Yeah.
Continuing the development of the radical. That's what I'm talking about. Um, so this is the only one that exists.
One bike in existence, correct? And I guess could we say is you kind of
had this idea to start working on it before you even bought Revel back. Yeah. So, it's just a fun project to
begin with from day one. Totally. And that actually I I was really surprised when we launched that bike. It was very much an experiment. It
was just kind of, hey, we'll take some photos and make a press release and say, hey, here's this bike we were working
on. And and I mean, it kind of like it was a massive hit as far as like
people calling us and asking about it and writing comments and articles all over the bike, you know, the bike media sites. was totally blown away by how
kind of excited everybody was and very positive like usually, you know, there's always some kind of negativity out there and it was just like a very positive
thing. So, one part I didn't uh talk about really or put in any of the press materials was I started working on that
bike about 6 months before I even knew that Revel was going out of business and I could buy it back. I was just making
it for myself. And I kind of always wanted a I've always liked titanium bikes. Um,
and I wanted a full suspension titanium bike and it just checked a lot of boxes. I was, you know, working with Chris Canfield was always a really fun part of
the job for me and like figuring out kinematics was always really fun. So, I was like, "Hey, I'll, you know, chat with Chris. He'll, he has this cool new
horse link CBF kind of layout that would work from a functional standpoint that would be easily more easily
manufacturable on a metal bike, on a titanium bike, easier to make a stiffer bike. And then at the same time, I had
stayed in touch with this um factory in China that did really high-end titanium 3D printing. So I was like, hey, I'm,
you know, not working in the bike industry anymore. I kind of miss making bikes, I want to make myself this bike. And um as much as I'd always, my whole
career basically has been in bikes and I've always, you know, just just really enjoyed the product development side. Um
but there's a lot of process that goes into it of why you make certain kinematics and certain geometry uh you
know that makes sense to to develop a product and we always at Revel we say like oh we make the bikes we want we want to ride which is totally true but
at the same time if I made a bike that just I wanted to ride it wouldn't fit anybody else. I have like long legs and
long arms and the geometry I personally like is not quite the right geometry to make for a production bike that we would
sell to people. So, um, I had a little bit of time on my hands, uh, after I left Revel and I was like, I'll make
this bike for myself purely, which was a very kind of enjoyable process. And then
as I was working on that, um, before before we even started the actual
physical 3D printing, uh, the the news came out that Revel was closing. I found
out the day before it went public and and bought the company back. And then it took a few more months to keep developing that bike and working with
the factory. And so we were like, "Hey, let's make this project a Revel project because why not?" And um so that's kind
of where that all came from is it really started like purely as a personal bike. And then since we launched it, like the
like we probably had a hundred calls that week when we launched it of people being like, "Can I get on the list to
buy it?" And we're like, "We don't have a list." Like it's it's like legitimately not
ready to be for sale at all. Um that's amazing. Yeah. But we figured you guys, you know,
got to pedal around on it. And I'm I'm curious what you think. I mean, it is like I kind of like I told you earlier,
like if there's kind of one bike that kind of like scratches that weird itch, you know, like kind of like you're
talking about like you you want that you want that bike that you kind of I don't
know. It kind of like just serves that purpose that you can't really find anywhere else. you like it's that unique
bike that nobody else has like titanium full suspension bike with the travel that you want
and it just kind of hits all those kind of spots. Like for me it was a little long, right? Cuz you're saying how lanky
you are. Mhm. I'm I'm I'm lanky. I fit my tweet. Like I think if it was like per like sized perfectly for me, like it would
have been amazing. But like I just was kind of having a hard time like kind of managing it cuz it's a little too long,
a little too big for me. But it's an awesome bike and and like oh man there's
just something about it. Um where yeah I mean I want one and and
the list and that was the most common question we got from the Instagram was when can I get that?
Yeah. And I and and it's you know we we well well Jeff
and I talked about it years ago of like hey what you know why do bike companies keep things so secret? And so I think
part of this bike was like, well, hey, why not just show off what we're working on? Like it's it's it's an idea at this
point. It's a concept. We know car companies have concept cars. We've Revel has now done a couple of these with the
rodeo. Um, which we still get asked about a lot. Uh, and then this is kind of another one. And and it's it's funny
cuz it's it it's all part of like the way as a small company I want to do a lot of R&D and development and
experiment with like how to make things and how to make things better. um but that doesn't always turn into a product
that we can actually build and sell and have any financial business sense behind it. So kind of separating out these two
aspects of our development, practical product development and then experimental. And it's it's just like I mean it's kind of a fun creative outlet
at the end of the day just as much as anything. But with like this product in particular, we we did learn a a lot. We
learned about kinematics, learned about geometry. I got the first bike that fits me perfectly, which selfishly I'm very
happy about. will never make that bike into production cuz it won't fit very many people. Like when and if we make
it, we will make the geometry more more practical for most riders. Um, but with the 3D printing it, it allows
you to make small batches of different geometries. There's no mold like there is for a carbon frame where a lot of the
expense of a carbon frame comes from that mold. Uh, so there's, you know, some potential neat things there, but we
are working on a second one. We, uh, worked with Chris Canfield to tweak the CBF horse link layout. Uh, I think the
current bike pedals not as well as our as as the, you know, Rascal and Ritual.
Got a little bit more pedal bob. So, trying to see if we can tweak that a bit to make it pedal a bit more efficiently.
Um, and then just a kind of a few other uh geo tweaks, but mainly some tube shapes. Right now, it's round tubes. Uh,
my design skills only go so far. So, the the really big thing with the next version of the radical that we're
working on is our director product, Mike Geese, uh, put his uh, touch on the on the product and he's got some incredible
design skill. Steey touch. The Steey Touch. Amazing. He designed the first three Revel bikes
back in the day. So, he and I worked together with a few others and he he has kind of he designed the Revel logo back
in 2016, you know, four three four years before we even launched. Wow. So, he's our director product now. He's
got a ton of incredible skills that I'm I'm excited as you know we've been working on a ton of stuff for the last few months and as it comes to life it'll
be really fun to show off. But he sketched out this version the next version of the radical and it took him
like I don't know like we talked in the morning and then he showed me some sketches and I was just blown away. I
was like dude this looks 100 times better than any bike I can I can sketch out. So I'm I'm excited to see that one
come come to life here. Can't wait to see that. So, tweaks on the V2, kinematics, tube shape, and all
that. And then you'll kind of assess how that one rides. Yeah. And see if it's closer to a production
possibility. Totally. We're not going to bring it to production if it's not something we're super stoked about. Yeah. Like even if
it's cool cuz it looks cool cuz it's a titanium titanium full suspension bike, if it doesn't ride really well and isn't
something that we're confident will will last a super long time and you know be something we're proud of to have the Revel name on it, we're not going to
come out with it. So we got to check those few boxes which are important. Seems reasonable check.
Reasonable boxes to check. Yeah, we'll see. You don't want to release just a bike cuz it looks cool and then have it ride
like you Yeah, that would be bad. Not up to par. It's not what we're here for. I think some brands do that though.
You think? Oh, that's awesome. Awesome. Well, let's
talk a little bit more about a couple other things you're working on. Um, you said you have a very cool Well, you've
done a couple of these projects in the past. Love your brain project with I believe was it rail 275? Was that the
first one that you did? Yeah. Um, and then was it a rail 29 the second one you did or
Yeah, I'm trying to think. We did four. We did purple rascal. Purple. Oh, that's right. Purple rascal. And then the last one was a rail 29.
Rail 29 and Rover and a Rover. We did two bikes one year and then when I was gone away from the
company, I had done a a bike like I'd worked with this paint factory to do like a crazy pink bike and then after I
left the company, they they did that one. So, we've had we've always used it as a way to like the the main thing was
we knew when we started the company, we wanted to be able to, you know, give back to the community somehow. And uh
this Love Your Brain organization kind of hit close to home cuz a few of us at the at Revel, you know, bonked our heads
and had pretty bad concussions and TBI. So, Love Your Brain does um all sorts of clinics and resources and classes for
people with traumatic brain injuries. Um, so it was it seemed it seemed kind of very applicable and something that we
could all sort of relate to. So we were like, okay, how can we like work with them to raise money? And so then at the same time, it's really fun to like
custom paint bizarre looking bikes and show those off. So we've we've kind of made crazy looking bikes, done a raffle,
raise money for cool organization, and it's kind of fun all around. Trail One's been a part of it for the
last since Trail One Yeah. existed. Yeah. Send them send you whatever you want. Okay. Heard it here first.
Yeah. Um, I wouldn't say this one looks crazy
at all. This one looks sweet. So, it's awesome. Very sick. We We got a a teaser pick out for you
guys to see. They showed us a teaser pick. You guys have to wait, but you said it'll be out Januaryish. Ear
early January goal, depending on, you know, the holidays and us making sure we get photos of the bike and all that.
But, um, how's the how's the raffle situation working? Same thing as before. Like,
it's on the Love Your Brain website where you go and buy the tickets. Yeah. Yeah. There's all these weird like laws
around graphics. Yeah, we've looked into that. We know. Yeah. Very weird. But yeah, they have to be
run by a nonprofit, right? So that's why, you know, they they run the thing. Um but there'll be one link, right,
where people can go see the bike, buy the raffle tickets for it. Yep. So we we we make the frame. And
this year we we did kind of go all out with this custom painted frame, few colors, and looks looks pretty pretty
good. Um, and maybe I'm biased, but I think it looks kind of cool. And so then, so we build the bike and then we
work with uh like ShraMM and Rock Shocks donate parts. You know, Continental donates tires, Industry 9 on the wheels,
uh, Trail One, you guys on on cockpit parts. And so we kind of get brands together to be a part of it. And then we
donate that bike to Love Your Brain organization, and then their website hosts this, you know, raffle. I think
legally it's like donate to win. Um, but yeah, it's like I think we're going to do55 or $10 entries and each entry you
get a chance to win. And it's a rascal this year. I don't know if we said that already. It's a rascal. It's a rascal. Cool.
Yeah. When it when it's live, we'll post reshare worldwide stories and anything of it. Absolutely.
You won't miss it if you tune in to Worldwide or Revel Media. It'll go the whole month of January, I
think. So, some time. There should just be more of those. I mean, it happens in the bike industry with some really nice mountain bike
maybe a couple times a year, a few times a year. Yeah. You see it a lot for like
It's just a great idea. Yeah, it's a great idea. 20 bucks and get four entries to potentially win a $12,000 epic mountain
bike. Yeah. And it goes to a good cause. I'll say the people that win won the bikes like they send us you know
of course we talked to them and they send us pictures and it like it's like the emotionally amazing like seeing how
stoked they are that they just I can't even imagine how stoked I would
be to win a bike in a raffle I would be I would be so yeah you're right
custom painted one of one bike dude yeah I don't know if you guys saw but I think Brandon Faircll is raffling off
Yeah. Yeah, he's raffling off his like rampage bike from like 2 years ago I think to for
Adolf Silva's recovery. Oh, that's awesome. So, I was going to say you see a lot of those things, right? Like
um you know, someone's donating a bike to raffle off to help an individual
person or like uh aid on around us. It's a lot of like fire recovery. Um you
know, someone donates a bike because you know X Y and Z lost their house in a fire or something like that.
That's a great way to do Um, but yeah, it's awesome. Raises money for a good cause and people get excited about a cool new bike and
Yeah. Yeah. It should happen more. Maybe we'll do it more than once a year. For sure. If there's any good causes you guys can
think about. Absolutely. There's Let us know. There's plenty. There's a lot. Yeah. Yeah.
I've seen some people Yeah. Go ahead. Oh, just It is available in all sizes for the Rascal this year. So, Oh, really?
If you win, you're not stuck with a size small that won't that won't fit you. Oh, that's smart. Yeah. Nice.
Yeah. Wow. Very cool. So technically there'll be two out there if I do my math correctly.
So selfishly, well there's a photo bike and then there's the bike that's getting given away.
After Revel started doing, you know, started selling a few bikes for each of these raff each of these raffles, I've
always made one extra bike for myself, which was which is very selfish. So
Oh, that's amazing. Um, well, what do you guys say we uh take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors and we'll
jump back in. A word from our Yeah. Yeah. And now, a word from our sponsor.
This episode is brought to you by Adam's Slim Slam Jerky Jam. Beef jerky infused
fruit jelly jam. Handmade in Aspen, Colorado by Finn, an organic vichla, who eats a strict diet of cooked rice, pork,
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addictive. One gulp and you're guarding the jar like it's contraband. Slim Slam Jerky Jam is Slams link in the show
notes. And now back to the show.
Hey Jeff, will you pass me my Slim Slam Jerky Jam?
Uh Finn Finn was busy today. He's playing too much ball. He didn't get his batch of uh Dang it slack and slim slam jerky off
season for really hoping I would get some of that jam jerky jam. That is
speaking about jamming. Let's jam through some quick listener questions. Rapid fire, baby. Real quick, we got to touch on the
a few more the 32 in bike. Yeah, we didn't even talk about that. That is crazy. We got a lot of stuff. I'll try to talk
fast. It's mental. It's We We got to learn a little bit about what's going on here.
32in prototype. Yeah. What What do What do you guys think of 32-in bikes? Jeeoff, do you
want a 32inch bike? I tried it. I've been around long enough that I used to ride 26-in wheeled mountain bikes and
they were terrible. And then someone made a 29iner and everyone freaked out and panicked and there was massive polarization and arguing and yelling and
name calling and then everyone's like, "Oh, this actually works really good and now everything's 29 in and you know it's
so why not try it out." I don't know. I think it's going to be interesting. similar to 29 when I was that was like
when I was first getting into mountain biking was when 29's were like becoming more than just like XC hard
tails. Yeah. Um getting the geo right for a 32 in totally cuz I don't think it's you're just going
to plug 32-in wheels to a 29 and have it feel great. There's going to be it was back in the day took a while took
several years. You know, you're going to have to nail the trail numbers and offset of forks might have to change again and
bottom bracket drops. All that stuff is going to it it's going to take a couple years and you know stabs from everyone
to like perfect it. Totally. But uh yeah, I'm I think it has some great applications like a titanium hard
tail. I'm glad to hear you say that cuz I agree. That's what that's what uh yeah, just I
guess kind of to share a little bit about what we're we're working on is we have a couple 32-in uh hard tail uh I
don't know if we call them prototypes or concepts or or a little bit of everything. We're we're we're making some bikes for 32-in wheels to try out
and see what we like. Um the titanium bikes are a great way to kind of
experiment in small batches. Uh, so we have I don't know what our timing is,
you know, it's I never I never want to say exactly cuz sometimes delays happen and again if we make a bike and it like
isn't something we're stoked about, we're not going to show it off. Um, so we'll we'll see how it shakes out in the
next few months. But yeah, we have a uh I think I think the really difficult part that that maybe everybody is thinking of is how do you make 32-in
bikes work for, you know, like a even even like a a size large bike, you know,
small small and mediums are just 510. Totally. It's already tough, honestly, to make a 29iner work on a size small.
The the stack is automatically maybe higher from like a ratio standpoint because you have to have a certain size
head tube to make a frame one strong enough to clear um a tapered steer tube
with cable routing. So, size small bikes and 29in wheels is already tough. It's not impossible. Um but the geo ends up
being a little bit more upright on a lot of them, especially on longer travel bikes. So, with 32-inch wheels, it's
like it seems nearly impossible unless we get super creative. So, we're making a size extra-large um bike and a size
medium bike with a kind of a few unique features that we think might might make it work and then we're going to ride
them and maybe we'll bring them out here and I like that.
Talk about them on the next podcast. I'll throw my leg on a medium. Perfect. I may be more checked out than I should
be, but who the heck is making 32-in tires and wheels right now? Uh, Max Aspen has a 32-in mold and DT has a 32in
rim. No, not for consumer right now, I don't think. So, they exist, but they're sort of it's it's just OE's trying them out
and doing them. Yeah. So, as far as I know, those are the two that's been on like every bike that I've seen is is
that Max's Aspen mold and then a DT rim. It's it's funny because we, you know,
and and if you look at like the the maid show and some handmade bikes, there there's been a lot of kind of custom one-off 32-in bikes from some really
cool builders out there. Um, and then just just a month or two ago, we started
like actually working on geometry charts kind of like when we had, you know, a little bit of time. Um, and then just
recently, it was announced that the UCI made 32inch tires legal. that like all
of a sudden now like the last couple weeks in kind of the OEM bike manufacturing world like tons of people
are talking about it. So we'll see. It could be something that totally falls flat and there isn't really a use case
or we ride it and we're like maybe this works for like just bike packing or and you know not for most people for everyday riding. And if that's the case
like great. But half the reason I I started Revel and I like doing this is
like is is this exact thing. because like well let's try something out and if it's awesome it's awesome and if it sucks it sucks. I'm like
what's the worst that can happen? It could also be like a 275 plus wheel size which basically is dead which
was a big deal for a few years which I think the only application that I think it could work for is like bike
packing essentially. Mhm. But I'm pretty happy to see that basically fall off for the most mountain
biking. Totally. And we even my Y cycles with a Revel Titanium before we called it Revel
Titanium back in 2016. We made a 275 plus hard tail and it won best hard tail
of the year with bike magazine. We sold way more than I ever thought we would. Like super fun bike and then kind of the
same time we were like, "Ah, this bike isn't as fun anymore." It was kind of when everyone else was like, "This we don't want this tire size anymore." So
we stopped making it. Yeah. That's so weird how quickly it just fizzled out, you know? Yeah. that things things are trends and
fads and fun and you realize like oh it was fun
29 I rode some um I don't know if 2.6 sixes or 2.6.
We had a Yeti 5 plus 5 plus, right? That Yeti made a dedicated bike for one
dedicated 275 plus bike. Well, for the longest time, I shouldn't say the longest time, but probably a solid year,
the top in the top 10 selling tires of Worldwide Cycling, I think seven of them were 275 plus tires, most of which were
WTP tires. Oh, really? Yeah, I was going to say it was no joke. Everybody wanted to try it. Everyone was
having fun with it. everyone was experimenting with it. Um, and you didn't it it kind of coincided with
people realizing that the internal diameter of a rim can be bigger and how that whole wide trail. So, it's like
that started happening and then people realized, oh, this this larger diameter internally on the rims, you can put
these way beefier, you know, higher volume tires on it and they would roll. Yeah. And then WTB was really on the
trend of making the tires to where they would have clearance. So you could fit them on a normal fork and a normal rim
and then they would still have the clearance you needed for your frame and fork. And it was fun. It was a very different feeling sort of supple when
you have that much air volume in the tire. And it's and it was fun for a while and then you know I rode them for a handful of times and I was like oh
it's cool and then I was like well it's not like it's not like cool enough to continue
riding it but I had fun for six months or so messing around with these and then kind of like a rebound you know rebound
girlfriend. That was fun. Yeah. Cool. All right. Go back to, you know, schedule programming.
Yeah. I mean, things, you know, but that's part of what makes the bike industry fun and interesting is that these random trends pop up and and
people love trying new stuff, especially when it comes to tires. People love trying new tires, right? So, it's fun to
play around with tires. Great way to bring it full circle because it is exciting to try this new
thing of 32 in wheels. Yeah. And like we're all still kind of figuring out like are we liking it? Like people are people you're just like first
seeing all these first people riding these first prototypes and I think everybody's like excited to hear about like oh did they like it like is it
faster? Is it like more efficient? Like does it handle weird cuz it's a massive wheel entire mood phase. It's like fun.
Exactly. It's a great way of putting it. You're just it's just so interesting to know will this pan out the way 29in
wheels did or will it pan out the way 27 5 in. That's a great way of putting it. Yeah, it's like will this be in 5 years from
now everything is 32 or will we realize like ah like certain applications certain frames you know
that's why I brought up 275 plus to counterpoint in the 29 argument right because obviously 29's pretty much
besides gravity bikes that are mullet now it's the only wheel size pretty much
yeah and like I think it I forgot what the bike was um that they just did that test on Pink Bike where the guy was
riding it on the course um who's the main the manufacturer uh BMC. Yeah. Okay. And they had to like they
had to like add weight to the 29iner one to make it like even. H I I didn't really actually look too
closely at that, so I'm not sure. It was weird. They had to like hamstring the 29iner to make the 32 in bike look
more comparable. Interesting. So people like, why did they add weight to the 29iner? Because it would have
been more like realistic test if they were interesting the bikes they were. Yeah. So I don't know. I'm interested to see
if it's like actually faster. I guess it all depends, right? like for an XL guy or like for a for a huge
person. Yeah, for Reggie Miller. He probably love 32 in, you know. I don't know. I'm super
excited to see what you think. It'll be cool to see what see where it goes. Like we're not, you know, we're we have this amazing thing where so we we brought our
titanium bikes back I think just after I was on the podcast the last time just a few months ago and and they've been going great. Like
I'm constantly amazed at how excited people are on the titanium bikes and everyone wants a tie hard tail or a tie
gravel bike to, you know, go along in their collection of six bikes and and it's awesome. So we so I feel pretty
lucky with Revel that we have this kind of titanium outlet to do some of these more fringe things. Like we're not going
to go cut carbon molds for a 32-in carbon full suspension bike. I don't I don't know. It's that maybe in the
future, but not right now. So, kind of we're kind of dabbling. Are uh some learnings from the Tyratical V1
and what you're doing with the V2. Is that getting put into the 32-in hard tail of some of the stuff you've learned
of uh tube shaping and stuff like that? Yeah, for for for sure. Nothing like too
specific I'd say, but all the learnings from each of those bikes all kind of add into like how we have our geometry and
product development discussions and you know our documents are like pages and Excel pages and pages long of of kind of
why we choose a certain head angle or a certain reach or whatever. And so every bike you make that's a little bit unique, you gain a little bit of, you
know, knowledge of what is awesome or often times what really sucks and what you don't want to do. So yeah, nothing super
specific from that bike, but but a lot of general concepts. with a 32-in bike, just chain stay length and bottom
bracket drop and how that might affect things is a big part of it. And we're not even going to think about the full suspension side of it yet because your
your axle path as wheel sizes change even, you know, from 275 to 29, how you design kinematics because of that axle
path. So, think of how you're like climbing on chunky terrain and your wheel sometimes people say a wheel like hangs up or like climbs really well. The
axle path has a lot to do with wheel size. So, it's not just kinematics. So that there there's just so many kind of
compounding factors that add into like how a bike feels. So if anything with these 32-in bikes, we'll be like, great,
it sucked. We won't do that thing on on another bike. So yeah, um but we do have
some other kind of, you know, kind of neat stuff in the in the in the carbon realm that we're working on too that, you know, I'm excited for for next year
as well. Sweet. Amazing. Speaking of next year, give us a little window into what is new for Revel for
next year. Oo. I can't I can't share too much. I'm just going to leave leave it at that. We got some new stuff. That's it. Use your
imagination. Um, no, we do. Uh, yeah, we we actually
the last few months we've been going like full craziness on product development. Um, with Mike Geese back at
the helm of of of leading our our design and creative. I'm really stoked for that, by the way. See what he comes up with. So,
awesome. like we've we we have more product development projects in the works right now than Revel has ever had
in in history. Um and some of these projects take a few months, some take a few years. So, you know, we'll kind of
see how that all shakes out as far as when we launch these things. But, um you know, maybe traditionally bike companies
wouldn't share much. I think we've sort of talked about how things stay really secret, but we do have in I think
sometime in February, again, if we really can line up all the all the work ahead of time, we're launching a bunch
of new new colors of bikes. So, new colors are always super fun. Epic. And then we do have a new
same same bikes, new colors to look out for. Yeah. Yeah. So, between now and then, there's a few few discounts here and
there for some Revel bikes that, you know, current colors that we have. So, good time to buy a bike if you don't care too much about colors. If you do
care a lot, I do too. There's some pretty sweet new colors coming. So, you can wait till till February.
Or if you like a current color. Yeah, grab it cuz it might go away.
That does happen. People like the current colors and the new colors come out and then they waited too long to
pull the trigger and they're like, I want that other one. Oh, absolutely. It's actually kind of wild how um
unhappy some people get with that exact scenario. Oh, yeah. People call me are mad.
Let me guess. I almost guarantee I know the color. That's the most requested color to come back. And it's that uh
navy color. That's what I was going to say. Like your shirt. It's like the navy colored rascal.
The OG rascal with the gold with the gold letter. Yes. That was such a gangster bike.
Especially with any like gold part like Yeah. Remember when like gold XX1 dropped and like that bike just like
gold? You had that crazy gold 11-speed cassette. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I cut the back off. It looked
all That was actually on the Ranger. That was on your green Ranger. Yeah. Oh, what a cool bike that was.
I am actually working on a Technar is custom painting me a rerun right now.
So sick. I'm I'm getting a little selfish with my own bikes this this year. So, um, you deserve it, man.
Hey, don't worry about it, man. I've been doing that my whole life. I know. You're you're my You're my inspiration. This is why we work in
this. He's an inspiring guy. Technar painted his ASR that he wrote today. And I tried to get him to do so much
more to it and Jeff's like, "No, blue logo." I can't believe you didn't hydro dip it
like the one that Liam did. That looks sad. It does look cool. He didn't want anything crazy. He wanted
He sent me He sent me a photo of a Ferrari and he goes, "Make this changes." Next time we'll get Jeff a Revel that he
can custom paint. Yeah, we've already been talking about it. Now we're talking. Well, I had an
epically looking uh Ranger. True. That was technar. The 5050. It was like it was in thirds.
It was blue, white, and black and it looked super rad. You raced it at BC or brick, right?
He had it at I did some adventure race on it. Yeah, that
actually bridge adventure race on that bike. Yeah. And then I had that hydro dipped reindeer. So, that was my inspiration
for that bike. That's still the best looking bike I've ever personally owned. That was unreal.
And I think it's up there in like some of the best bikes I've seen if I've gold foil. So that was my inspiration.
So the the blue and gold the Alaska colorway was my that combined with your hydro dip bike was the inspiration for
this rerun. That's like hydro dipped blue gold. Looks so sick. Like gold leaf on the logos, right? Yeah.
Yeah. Techn posted it. So that one. Oh, dude. That's it. And that picture. Yep. Mhm.
That's a good one. Yeah, that was a one. That's proper. That was in 2022, I think.
Yeah, that was on the way to Bre. I shot that in uh St. Cedar City or Cedar Seas. That's right.
Yeah, Cedar City. Cuz we uh I spent a really cool bike. Yeah, that was cool.
Yeah. Oh, with the like the head tube half. That's right. Yeah, cuz it looked different from each side.
Yeah. Too Ranger. That's cool.
Who has that bike now? I don't even know. Somebody probably listen to this bot. But you sold your Ranger to
Egypt Ranger. Yeah. You sold it to um Oh, man. He's going to listen this to you. Listen on the podcast. Can't
remember his name right now. It's It's uh Amanda. Amanda's dad. Gary.
Gary. Gary. Yeah. Gary Sabrica. Sebastia. Sebastian. How to pronounce that great either. They're the He's the
man. Yeah. Gary. Gary got it. I shout out I drove it to him in Vegas. Gary's a hardcore podcast fan. I think
he comments on every YouTube video. He's the best, dude. Yeah, Gary. Gary got this. Hope you're still loving that bike.
Still need to go to Vegas. Do some gambling with Gary. He's a dealer, right? Car dealer one.
Not exactly sure. Pretty sure he works one of the casin. Yeah.
Awesome. Yeah, that's a killer bike to have in that area, too. At least it went to someone awesome that
still has. Yeah, we really appreciate it. Absolutely. Well, what do you guys say we jump into a few listener questions?
Really, some of this hard-hitting journalism right here. I don't know if you call it journalism, but journalism hard-hitting stuff. And this is probably
the one I'm most excited about. What is the best burger in Carbondale?
Could I could I preface that the best burger is probably no longer there cuz it was at the silo.
Oh, is that best burger? The silo burger is the the Yeah, I mean some of the best
gone. I went there like four days a week from the office for years. That was some of the best food. Jeff and
I went there I think three times in two days. As you should eat anywhere else. Yeah, I know. We Jeff and I do this. We
go on trips. Sorry, I'm totally tangent. Like we'll go on we'll go on trips. We're in Barcelona and I think we at the
same restaurant like four times and like these are freaking dorks. Barcelona doesn't have a lot of restaurants. This place is good. This is where we're
going in Carbondale. It makes sense. There's like six restaurants in the town where we live. Barcelona, I'm worried about
you. That's the difference because if you're if you're a city person, you want to try this restaurant, that restaurant, this
cafe, that guy. If you're not a city person, you have to be in the city and you find a great place and you just keep going there until you get out of the
city. We we ate at multiple different restaurants like for sure. Like we ate
at like we're probably there for like four or five days and we ate at like that restaurant once a day and then like
we tried somewhere else for the other meorn. You know, you know the two people working there like what? You guys are so probably but all right.
So what's the best burger? What is the best burger? Well, silo is the best burger. Well, let's start a petition to bring silo
back to Carbondale. Let's ask the listeners for some help. Uh you know that's a great question. The
best burger. No, there's no best burger. There's best burritos in Carbondale.
Carbondale has some of the best uh burritos and takaras of any place I've been outside of Mexico. Wow.
Yeah, there's tortilla. Oh, there's like 13 tortillas within like one mile of our
of our office. I go to the same one every day. Kind of. I've never even when I'm there.
When you guys are out next time, we'll go. Yeah. You They're great. Like really good authentic
burritos. I love that. What's it called? Tortilla Ria, Aaroka, Garcia's
Valley. Oh, there's so many of them. Wow. If you if you Google Carbondale Tortaria, you'll Google maps that you'll
see all of them right near our office. You can walk or ride a bike to all of them. That's amazing. I want to do a bike packing trip where
we pack up our bikes and we have a taco and a beer at every single um tortilla
around Carbondale. It would be like one mile of riding total. Did you say bike packing or
bike? Burrito packing. Burrito packing. That's amazing. After the first two burritos, you could set up your tent and take a nap in it
for an hour and then break it down and ride to the next place. Yep. That's a good idea. Do they still have that parking lot in the middle of town that you can like car
camp in? Yeah, they they got a little strict with that now. Um but you can just car camp at the Revel office if anybody comes
through. Sick. Be careful saying that, dude. Bigger podcast than you think. There's
five people there. Actually, you can only camp there and selective audience rules
have to be pre-approved. Um, pre-approval required. Yeah, that's it. Awesome. Well, how about this next one?
This one's a little more of a deep dive. What's the most meaningful part of being back at Revel to you?
That is like a yin andyang question. It is. We hit you with the soft one and we slap you with the hard one.
Oh man, make me really dive deep here. Yeah. Um, no. And in in in a serious sense, the
most meaningful part of being back at Revel it it feels a bit surreal. Honestly, the
LA the last few months have been like truly incredible, rewarding. I I I I
couldn't be happier to be back. It's been it's been a pretty wild um you know from from well from starting the
business and and all that fun but but really from selling the company working for a private equity firm to run my own
company um wasn't quite my cup of tea leaving my company then seeing things change was was a little bit you know had
its host of challenges uh and then the you know finding out the day before the
company was closing like that that was is quite emotional so so then uh I felt
extremely fortunate to be able to buy it back. It was not an easy process. It was not a guaranteed process. It was it was,
you know, I learned a lot and super stoked that I was able to buy it back. And then from where things went, you
know, June 2 to now has been like night difference. It's freaking awesome. We're making more bikes than we ever have. I,
you know, personally love riding bikes, making bikes, getting to come out here and hang out with you guys, talk about bikes. So, most meaningful part, I don't
know. It's like it's working. It's awesome. It's fun as hell. And yeah, I don't know. It's all great. like returning your company back to its
former glory. That's the goal. Yeah. Yeah. That's the goal. And and and not and not even that as much as what can it be now? Like what
did we all learn through this process, which was a ton and not even the former glory, but what's you know, what's the
next phase of grapple? What what can it be? I'm I'm not sure, but I think it can be something hopefully pretty cool that
gets people stoked on bikes and hopefully ride more bikes. And if we can do that, I'll be pretty excited.
Amazing. Yeah, it is really cool. I mean, I'm sure it is super cool for you to see and have a have a direct impact
on, you know, everything that's going on at the company and like the future of the bikes and the product cycle and
everything. It's got to be pretty cool. It it Yeah, it's Well, I think something that's cool and probably feels really
good to you is uh yesterday Pink Bike Oh, yeah. the Rascal most recent iteration of the
Rascal Rascal SL went out its trail bike test. So, yeah. Yeah. Congratulations.
Thank you. That's kind of started the podcast. It's funny you said that because I literally had that thought. I was like,
I want to introduce Adam and congratulate him. Totally forgot to do that. We had to talk about podcast metrics.
So, yeah, congratulations. Review count. Just like, oh yeah, this guy over here
by the way. So, yeah. No, congratulations for winning the field test pink bike trail bike of the year. That's amazing.
Thanks. No, like like honestly I was sitting in the airport yesterday to to to to fly out here and I read the news
and I was I was like emotional. Like I could not freaking believe it. Like that was actually like a really awesome
I couldn't believe it. It was It was great. So cool. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. It's a sweet bike. I have one
waiting for me. So, yeah, you do. Right out right outside that door. It's looking pretty clean. You got to get some dirt on that thing. Get healed
up. I got to get in the dirt. Get healed. Get this guy dirty. Speaking of getting
dirty, um, what's your favorite flavor of Simple Green?
Who comes up with a question? No clue. It's a good one, though. That's a good question. Listeners. The listeners.
Listeners. Yeah, the listeners. These are questions. These are all listener questions. Thank you, listeners. Yeah.
Um, does the Simple Green come in different flavors? I'm That's what I asked. I'm pretty sure there's different
colors. I'm not sure what the the different tastes like how they taste differently, but
I mean me personally, I'm more of a classic, you know, the classic OG simple green green flavor.
Yeah. But I dilute our spray bottle about 50/50 like or like under that. So,
a little bit less simple green and more water cuz it comes concentrated. Oh, yeah. 50/50 is a good Yeah. No, I just
especially for the dirty stuff. Just drink it straight. Drink it straight. Straight up guy. I'm not I'm not on the rocks and on nothing. No, don't sit here.
Liability disclaimer. This is satire. Do not drink slee. It's not meant for human consumption. Next question.
Thank you, Jeff. All right. All right. Adam, what are your thoughts on high
stack and long chain stays? Um, interesting specific question. So, I
mean, it's it's the the easy quick answer is very dependent on what the use case is. If you're talking about a bike packing bike, absolutely it should be
high stack with long chain stays. There's some pretty unique bikes out there with like very like the the long tails has become kind of a,
you know, subset of of bike packing bikes. Um, personally, I don't like long
I don't like high stack and long chain stays for my personal riding style. Even if I'm going on a bit of a bike packing
trip, I don't do crazy like super super long wild bike packing because I now
you just ride around from the different burritos. Yeah. one mile
maximum. Um, but I I kind of grew up in with more of like a bike racer like road racer, you know, XC Racing, Cyclacross.
So, I kind of like lower stack bikes. Uh, which is a very personal bias. So, um, it it it's sort of on trend that
bikes, full suspension bikes, like the bikes we make are getting a little bit higher stack. Um, just people are a
little bit more upright. I do believe chain stay length got far too short for
many years. It was kind of like the the the long low slack with short short chain stays became, you know, on trend a
few years ago. And I think bike manufacturers all realized if you go too short on your chain stays, it's really
awesome if you're going around tight corners and it's really not awesome for 90% of riding and it's not awesome for
climbing and not great unless you're like a downhill racer. So the chain stay length thing of being practical like you
know the 436 is like a good practical number for a size medium bike and then you adjust a little bit based on size
size specific geo become a thing um some of it's very practical some of it's a little bit kind of marketing speak I
think uh and a lot of it really your seat angle your your center of gravity
how the kinematics are set up while you're at sag and then in what gear are you measuring your kinematics for if
you're climbing you you want efficient pedaling usually in the easier gear because that's where you practically are. Some bikes are designed with, you
know, great kinematics in a hard gear for pedaling. Well, that doesn't make sense because you're not in that in that position. And all that fits into your
your body position on a bike and different practical use cases. So, when we design a bike, we always try to say, well, what what are we trying to design
this bike for? And then that, you know, your your your geo for your handling, your geo for your riding position, and
your and your kinematics are all sort of at play and interrelated. And I think that's where kind of some of the nuance
of of different bikes comes in. Hopefully that wasn't like way too longwinded of a nerdy bike. Gio answer
exactly what the I think it was who asked that wanted to hear. Yeah, it was like a nice great quick deep dive.
Sweet. Yeah. So basically, you don't want four 50 mil chain stays on your Rascal.
Personally, I I do not. Our tie bikes have 17 mm of chain stay adjusted on them, which is pretty sweet. in your V1
Radical out there from my estimation has a little bit longer chain stays than what the Rascal currently has.
Yeah, a few millimeters though like I guess it would be if you if you start on that medium like you said and you grew
up proportionally it's probably right around there or for an XL 442 I think on that one. Yeah. And and
and your kinematics and axle path play into that as well cuz some bikes you know the wheelbase shortens as you get
into travel and some bikes it stays similar. So, um, yeah, I for what it's
worth, um, when I had my LHF, I kind of found the exact same thing. Like, yeah,
it was amazing to corner with the super short chain stay adjustment, but then like climbing, it was just like, oh,
wow. Okay. And then when you made it longer, it was just like, okay, this is a much more practical, you know, ride.
At least for me, like climbing, it felt like it just kind of all evened out a lot more when I made it a little bit longer. But you ride it longer usually.
I'd left it in the longest setting for when like the remainder of the time I had Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
Remember the Canfield Riot? I think it was that had those insanely short chains,
dude. Yeah, if you were just slapping that thing into corners going down a hill, it was it was awesome.
Yeah, that thing was actually so sick. I could hop manual that thing so well. I felt like a BMX bike.
Really fun. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, again, totally practical riding at Rocky Peak got pretty spicy pretty fast,
I bet. Yeah. Oh man, I went on a quick like pink bike. I don't know what it
was, but like one night I just remember I was like, "Oh, I'm on pink bike. I'm going to buy it. Can't feel dry." I was
like probably after you got one, I was like, "Oh, this thing is so sick." All right. Um, when are we getting a
rodeo? Can I count the number of times this question's been asked?
Oh, man. Today or um,
yeah, talking about prototype bikes that are awesome. everybody wants. Can I refer to the previous podcast
episode that I was on where we talked about this bike? Yeah, same answer. Probably the same thing. Uh we we really want a rodeo. It will
happen uh someday. Uh I don't think it'll be called the rodeo. I don't But yeah, it'll it'll happen someday.
Nice. I don't know when. Don't know when. That's it. That's all I got for It'll happen one day. We don't know when. Yeah. Uh well, that's promising to hear at
least because that thing is sick. Did anybody actually ever get to ride that bike?
a little bit, but not nearly a proper test ride on that thing. We got to the point where we were like, "This is not going to get to production.
It's a great concept bike. We'll show off what we did, but it's not going to get there." Do you still have it? Is it still a Revel?
Yeah, it's Yeah, it's like up on this cool shelf in the office. It's pretty sweet. Keep it, right? Oh, yeah. It will always be. It'll always be there.
There's like 3D printed carbon, right? 3D printed thermoplastic. Thermoplastic. So, so carbon, but with a nylon polymer
instead of an epoxy resin. Uh, such a sick on paper. makes so much sense in practicality. Not there.
So in other words, investors could be you could be you. We uh yeah, we we're being very
practical about our product development now. So yeah, um but a huge part of this company is we
want to make the bikes we want and I think all of us at Revel, I don't know about you guys, want a downhill bike.
Yeah, 100%. Fun to ride. I would love a downhill bike. Yeah. Sweet. For one week a year when I
go to Whistler. Yeah. I also the other 51 weeks don't really need one. I also would just probably be okay
slapping a 180 mil dual crown on a uh ritual. Yep. Ride the crap out of that. A Whistler.
Is a ritual crown compatible? It's It's up to 180. Yeah. Really? So, yeah.
Yeah. I I haven't personally ridden it and I just haven't set mine up that way, but we do test all our bikes for 10 mm
longer fork travel. It'd be a sweet uh Whistler bike. I actually think that would be more fun at Whistler for like 80% of Whistler trails
than a downhill bike. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, we'll stick with that until there's a Revel downhill bike.
Sick. Awesome. Well, we will cap it off with this. How about a best and worst thing
for Revel this year? Oh, big another serious question for the for the end here. Yeah. Hard-hitting again.
I mean, if I say for Revel, it would probably be, you know, the company closing being the worst thing and then
best thing. I don't know. that it's been like we're at the end of the year here. You
know, usually it's pretty slow this time of year. It's honestly been a whole lot busier. We've been selling more bikes than I expected by a long shot, you
know, even through the winter months here, which which is super exciting. Everything we're doing now is is about
getting set up for for next year. We have some cool new colors and some other cool new products coming later in the year. Um, but we we've sort of done like
a 180 on so many things like, you know, on the backend nerdy nerdy business side. We've had some huge wins on like
new new website, new uh entire new MRP inventory control system. We have we
have two warehouses. We have our Colorado facility, our Taiwan facility. And then from like the accounting, inventory, supply chain side, like we
have all this awesome new technology that I called Jeff and asked a lot of questions probably many too many times
about. So, thank you Jeff for all the advice. Uh, but we're like exponentially more efficient and set up well from that
standpoint, which helps make it easier to put more focus on making new bikes. We're making more new bikes than we ever
have. Um, you know, everything's vibing really well and people are stoked and so
yeah, I'd say that's the best thing. Like super super freaking fun. Yeah. My heart is beating.
It's pumping. Mhm. And you could also add to that the Rascal just won the trail bike test.
That's right. We just won this thing, too. Another great high. That was a pretty That was a pretty good one. Yeah, that was awesome.
Amazing. Can't complain. And we're out here in Southern California riding bikes and talking about bikes with you guys. So,
can't complain. Life's pretty good. Life's pretty good. Yeah. Awesome. Well, Adam, we were you say
something, Joe? No, that's all. Just thinking. Yeah, it's good. I was actually just
uh daydreaming about my rascal I'm going to build. Oh, new bike day video coming to YouTube in
I don't know, March or something. Whenever we get around to it. Yeah, probably March. It will be March. Epic
things. Yeah, I'm already uh working on your wheels. I'll make sure we ship you a frame the second they come off the production
line. Yes, because we're currently out of large rascals. Yeah. Hopefully they're hopefully
they're ready soon and then we'll put one in a box for you. I took I took the last one. Oh, good.
I just want to make sure I have a dialed in bike for some of the all mountain rides trips that I'm going on this year. Oh yeah. Yeah. Good call.
Speaking of which, if you guys want to ride bikes with us, uh Tasmania in April, two different trips,
Italy, Dolommites in September, and then when is it Paul? October. Uh October into November. So late
October November. Uh yeah, one or all of us or someone from WC, maybe Trevor will be on the
trip. I don't know. Yeah, we'll be on the trip. But whether or not it doesn't matter because all mountain R
is absolutely incredible. Um go there, tell them WC sent you, get a discount on the trip, and it's going to be epic.
That's true. Yeah. Go on the Nepal trip. I I really want to go. It does sound pretty epic. Like those mountain sick. We'll we'll
get a plan down on who's going on what trip soon so we can advertise that. But and then you can hang out with
whoever you want. Regardless if you're looking for an
excuse to go on an amazing mountain bike trip, there you go. Yeah. No excuses. Topnotch
the best fun guaranteed. Full full-blown just daydreaming about this new rascal. What it's going to look like the YouTube video in just like
bases on that in Tasmania. ripping spacing out on that ripping. You're like, "Oh, derby."
So good. Amazing. Sweet. Sick. Well, Adam, thank you so much for joining us. It's truly been a pleasure. It always is
and already looking forward to the next time you're out here. Thanks. I can't wait. Next time's going to be great, too.
Truly will be. Thanks. Appreciate you taking the time to be on the MTB podcast. The best mountain bike in the world.
In the world. Quantifiably proven based on review count on Apple Podcast and Spotify. Please leave us an additional review. It
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