Podcast – Rodeo Adventure Labs, LLC

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

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.

Podcast: The Race Director Round Up — Part One

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 nucleus 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.

In part one, Logan introduces the series through a field dispatch from the Gravel Worlds gravel race in Nebraska last summer and the dialogue that followed. The first conversation was with Andy Jones-Wilkins, who is not only Logan’s father, but also an accomplished ultra-runner and pundit. Using the conversation with Andy as a framework, Logan sat down with Jason Strohbehn, the race director of Gravel Worlds and the co-host of the Gravel Family Podcast, to learn more about the race and start at the question that is guiding the whole series: what is the state of gravel bike racing?

Podcast: Adventure Guidance

Adventuring on dirt is what brings everyone to Rodeo Labs. Yes, there are other contributing factors, but if your intention is not to adventure on bikes, on dirt, you might want to find a different bike company. With that ethos at our core, Logan wanted to do a bit of a deep dive into a fellow dirt adventure based cycling company: The Gravel Adventure Field Guides.

Nonetheless, while reporting on the guides themselves, Logan found the project was a gateway into a discussion about adventure on bikes, on dirt, in the 21st century. So, in hopes of not ignoring those other voices, the podcast grew into something different from the standard Rodeo Labs production.

In this episode you will hear from Juan and Stephen from Gravel Adventure Field Guides, but you will also hear from Wally Wallace from the economic development office in Trinidad, Colorado; Kevin Prentice from Ride With GPS; and Gordon Wadsworth and Emily Hairfield who are cyclists from Roanoke, Virginia, who helped builds routes for the recent guidebook there. We hope you enjoy it!

Podcast: The Atlas Mountain Race with Ashley Carelock

The Atlas Mountain Race sets off for its third edition next week. In anticipation of the bike packing race, we brought in Ashley Carelock to look back at her Moroccan experiences in last year’s October edition of the race, while Stephen Fitzgerald dropped into the chat to add his own perspective from his outing to Africa in 2020.

If you are interested in following along to the 2023 Atlas Mountain Race, be sure to check out the race website, here. Additionally, back in the depth of the pandemic, Stephen penned this expansive write up about what that race was like. You can find that here. Lastly, Ashley eloquently wrote more about her race on her blog, which you can access here.

Rodeo Podcast: Ascend Armenia

Rodeo Labs has been supporting the development of a new bikepacking event in Armenia for two years now, and the race is set to have its first edition on June 25, 2023. In this episode of the Rodeo Podcast, Stephen talks with Tom, Tatev, and Jay P about the work done thus far, the “why” of the event, and what the goals are for it. Armenia is a beautiful, challenging, and welcoming country for bikepackers and bike tourers alike, and Rodeo is proud to help support the effort to introduce this place to more riders.

Ascend Armenia Cycling Flaanimal Gravel Bike Mountain Biking Rodeo Labs traildonkey

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!

Field Recording Mid South Show Pony

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.

Colorado Cycling Podcast