The Lab – Rodeo Adventure Labs, LLC

Podcast: Rodeo Rider Profile – Jeff Chapman

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

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

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

Podcast: Ride, XPLOR, Create?

This week, we are back in the Lab to consider the new SRAM RED XPLR AXS (so many capital letters!) and its use of the UDH (moar capital letters! moar!). While we jest at the branding, the tech is serious business. The new 1×13 groupset leans into the SRAM Transmission style rear derailleur and brings it to drop bar bikes, with the UDH hanger instead of the previous convention of specific hangers for specific frames. This change is a big deal for Rodeo because the design is at odds with the pre-existing design of the Trail Donkey as the frame is not UDH compatible.

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

Host: Logan Jones-Wilkins

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

Producer: Logan Jones-Wilkins

Iceland by Skis. Iceland By Bike.

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

Bike Touring Bikepacking Iceland Matthew Tufts Skiing

The Rodeo Podcast: Tour Divide Recap

We sat down with two Rodeo athletes, Edyn Teitge and Cade Reichenberger, who both completed the 2,700 mile 2024 Tour Divide with class, and both in with their unique style. Cade rode to a 4th place overall finish in 15 days on his Rodeo Labs TD4, an incredible achievement on it’s own, but even more so considering that this was Cade’s first go at Divide as a relative newcomer to the genre. Not to be outdone, Edyn rode to the finish in 20 days, also on his TD4, becoming, at 15 years of age, the youngest solo rider to ever complete the event.

With stories this diverse it’s hard to fit them both into a single episode, but we gave it a good shot with hosts Logan Jones-Wilkins and Steve The Intern tossing in questions from their own cycling perspectives.

Here is a photo breakdown of Cade’s TD4, which featured flat bars, a Tailfin rear rack, and a Fox 32 50mm front suspension fork.

Edyn chose a different built type for his TD4, leaving it in drop bar configuration, and foregoing a suspension fork in favor of Redshift suspension stem and seatpost combo. As a Tailfin supported rider, Edyn enjoyed a particularly cool array of bags built specifically for his bike.

Edyn’s ride in particular has been well covered in the media at the following links:

Bikepacking.com

velo.com

Bikes Or Death

Both Cade and Edyn wore our Explorts Expedition bibshorts, which are design with the demands of bikepacking and ultra racing in mind, and each also wore RDO lab jerseys with Edyn chosing our SPF Highlighter jersey, and Cade option for our Merino wool short sleeve jersey.

Both riders also ran our Rodeo 2.0 wheelsets.

Bikepacking Cade Reichenberger Edyn Teitge Rodeo Wheels Tour Divide traildonkey

The Rodeo Newsletter, Chapter 4

I’m not sure how it’s April 2024 already, but here we are. Newsletters are tricky! Each month I intend to write one, but they are probably the single most difficult thing for me to stop what I’m doing and work on. There is so much to catch you up on though! Rodeo Labs has been non-stop on so many levels through the end of last year and into this year, and I’d love to bring everyone up to speed.

Adventure Colorado Cycling Flaanimal Gravel Bike Rodeo Labs Rodeo Rally traildonkey

Open House and “In The Dirt” Screening – May 16, 2024

Join us for an evening of film and conversation at Rodeo’s new Lakewood, Colorado HQ. This will be our first ever open house, and we are proud to use it to feature a beautiful film titled “In The Dirt, by director TC Johnstone, which tells the ongoing story of members of the Navajo Nation who are building an incredible community on and around bikes.

Through a grassroots native-led effort, this group of dedicated cyclists and their families have overcome countless odds to build a cycling culture that today has become the fastest-growing recreational sport on the Navajo Nation. 50% of the proceeds of this screening will go to Silver Stallion, in Gallup, NM.

The Rodeo Newsletter, Vol 3

Summer has transitioned to fall, and with the change of seasons a lot of change has also come to Rodeo Labs, even more than I had anticipated, it seems! So before we dig into any product or event news, let’s talk about the biggest news at Rodeo Labs right now:

We’ve moved!

Adventure Colorado Cycling Cyclocross Flaanimal Gravel Bike Mountain Biking Rodeo Labs Rodeo Rally traildonkey

The Rodeo Newsletter, Vol. 2

It has been a hot minute since I last published a Rodeo Newsletter, and there is a whole summer worth of activity to bring everyone up to speed on, so let’s get started!

Adventure Colorado Cycling Flaanimal Gravel Bike Newsletter Rodeo Labs Rodeo Rally traildonkey

Podcast: From Waffles to GRVL

Welcome to the Rodeo Labs Race Director Round Up! Over the next few weeks, as the gravel race “season” gets underway, we have decided to take on a mini-series focusing on gravel racing through the collective eyes of gravel race directors from across the country. Race directors are both the tastemakers and the police of the nebulous concept of “the spirit of gravel.” While race directors have a fantastic platform to voice their perspective for their own races, that voice is often limited to those narrow confines. The goal here is to use our podcast, as a small journalistically minded outlet with no skin in the game, to give them a collective platform to share their interpretations of the state of the sport.