Rodeo 2021: A near death experience

Photos by Samuel Fitzgerald, Sheldon Thompson, and Stephen Fitzgerald

It was near midnight June 06, 2021. Emporia, Kansas. I lay in bed restless before the Unbound 200 gravel race. Nerves were high, as is common before events like this, and sleep comes slowly, perhaps even not at all for some. Sometimes you push through insomnia like this and your body finds its way to let go and rest. Other times you push the home button on your phone, because you heard it vibrate. Not the double buzz of a text message, but the single buzz of some other random notification. In recent years I’ve actually learned to put my phone in airplane mode at night, because a single notification can easily ruin a perfectly good night’s sleep. This one did:

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The Rodeo Podcast: A field recording with Bobby Wintle

and Drew at Rodeo Labs talks about launching the Show Pony

Part one of the podcast picks up with Logan Jones-Wilkins rambling through the middle of America. After leaving the muddy grass field at the Rule of Three in Bentonville, Arkansas, Logan was on his way to Emporia, Kansas to race Unbound Gravel. With time to spare and capitalizing on his proximity to Stillwater, Oklahoma, an idea was born– a Rodeo Labs Podcast field recording. The first field recording is a ride in Bobby Wintle’s 4-Runner. Logan experiences some of Bobby’s favorite roads, which didn’t even make this years course!

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The Rodeo Podcast: Ben Delaney on Cycling Media

Ben has a storied career of over twenty years working in the cycling and media industries. His tenure includes multiple well known outfits– VeloNews, Specialized, BikeRadar, Roll Massif, and Outside Interactive. When Stephen and I got an opportunity to sit down with Ben we grabbed the chance. By chance, Logan, a former guest on the podcast and journalism student happened to be in town, so we made sure to add his perspective into the the mix. The topics ranged from journalism versus marketing to how the media industry generally pays its bills (advertising or memberships). Finally, we learned about Ben’s new venture, a YouTube channel The Ride With Ben Delaney. The channel aims to provide contextualized gear reviews, unique ride insights around Colorado, how-tos and event recaps.

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The New Normal: Take Two

Andrew Maher first invited Stephen onto his New Normal podcast in 2021 and it was a great opportunity to talk about a wide range of topics, philosophies, and what we do here on Rodeo. Now, almost a year later, Andrew invited Stephen on for a second time to get an update on how things are going at Rodeo, and also to to deliver some firsthand feedback on a bike that we delivered to his friend Dave.

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The Rodeo Podcast: Daniel Connell on the 2022 Tour Divide

When Daniel graduated from UC Santa Barbara, the Tour Divide was not on his radar. However, shortly after Daniel discovered a new passion– bicycle touring. His first bicycle tour was to Columbia, it was a crash course on touring and how to maintain a bike over a six month trip. Daniel has not stopped touring. When Daniel discovered the Tour Divide, he was hooked. The first foray was touring the divide, but the the following two years he has raced it. Now Daniel is patiently waiting for next year. On the podcast, Daniel recounts his experiences from the event. Rain was persistent throughout, start to finish. In between, there were awed moments with wildlife, mishaps with bear spray and quickly fostered friendships on the trail.

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The New Normal Podcast

Andrew Maher, an avid cyclist an technology podcaster stopped by last month for a sit down talk about what Rodeo Labs is up to in regards to social media and communicating with customers. It was a fast paced conversation, and Andrew may or may not have added to that by speeding up the speech a bit. That allowed us to cover a lot of ground. We also talked about the supply chain problems of 2021, how we have handled those setbacks, then got nice and abstract as we explored just what exactly innovation is here at Rodeo. If you’re interested in our back story and how things work behind the curtain do have a listen here or on your favorite podcasting platform:

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The Rodeo Podcast: Sam Martin on the Tour Divide

How do you compare and contrast an effort, especially when one is by foot and the other by bike? That wasn’t the driving question when Stephen and I sat down with Sam Martin, but we couldn’t help ourselves and asked anyway. Sam is fresh off of the Tour Divide. From the outside looking in, he was unfazed by the preparation and inevitable supply chain delays. So drastic, that Sam rode the Tour Divide on a demo Trail Donkey while awaiting his Flaanimal pre-order. He took it all in stride. Good, bad, who knows? While on the trip, he would post to photo updates and amazed us with stunning, moody, and in my mind, images that represent a love letter to bikepacking. I saw the Tour Divide in a way I haven’t seen before. However, Sam’s path did not start here. During the summer of 2018, Sam thru-hiked the Pacific Crest Trail. It became clear to Stephen and I that much of Sam’s “being unfazed” was due to his experience (gear and mindset) to prepare for an undertaking of this size. In some senses, while the medium was different, a lot could be translated.

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The Rodeo Podcast: Sitting down with Paper Trail Gravel Travel

If you have been following the Rodeo Labs stories on Instagram you’ll likely have caught onto a theme. Every week stories get posted of smiling faces on Flaanimal’s. Better yet with captions noting you, yes you, can demo the Flaanimal 5.0 directly from Paper Trail Bike Cafe. While Stephen has met both Paul and Mark, I had some catching up to do. Therefore it was only natural to get on a call and hear the ideas they have been concocting throughout pandemic quarantine. They had plenty of time to ideate and now in full swing is the Gravel Travel arm of Paper Trail.

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