Rodeo – Rodeo Adventure Labs, LLC

Highline Midnight Rally

Beer, watermelon, cool air, way-past-midnight tacos, are the natural ingredients to fuel the night ride. When the light fades and the dark blankets the trail, some go to bed. Others heed the rally cries to pedal. We all came looking for something – what I’m not sure – but I reveled in mystery riding at night. Rarely do I feel lost while riding a bike. When your vision is dulled, your other senses heighten, and your sense of place is muddied. Throw in good company, old + new, and you have a night rally.

Is Flaanimal a good mountain bike?

Flaanimal in action on the mountain bike trails of Ken Caryl

We’ve been shouting about it pretty hard lately, but just in case you missed it, we launched the Flaanimal 3.0.

Straight away we started reading and listening to peoples’ reactions and impressions about what we’ve created. Some people were all-in from the start, with the first order coming in no less that five minutes after we launched. Thank you!

Other people were more skeptical. What is so great about our bike? Why should anyone pay attention? Could anyone trust our claims that a single frameset can be suitable for road biking, gravel riding, cyclocross, city riding, or trail riding?

Skepticism is fair. No harm no foul. But as I read through the comments one comment struck me.

“Yeah you can build a mountain bike with it, but is it a GOOD mountain bike?”

bikes Colorado CX Cycling Cyclocross Bike Dirt Gravel Mount Falcon Mountain Biking MTB Road Bike Rodeo traildonkey

Trail Donkey 2.0: The First 1,000 Miles

A lot has happened at Rodeo Labs since my first review of the Trail Donkey 2.0, but most notably for me is that I now have a Donkey of my own (and only have to borrow one from Stephen when I visit him in Denver). This week my Donkey crossed it’s 1,000 mile milestone so figured I’d give an update on how things have been going. The TL;DR version is I couldn’t be happier.

Gravel Rodeo Trail Donkey traildonkey

Where to next

Today is almost exactly the three year anniversary of when we started Rodeo Labs in 2014. On that day Peder Horner and myself had some beer and ate some pie at Denver Bike Cafe while dreaming up the beginnings of this circus. We scribbled some names on some paper and laughed a lot as we considered the possibilities that starting from scratch allowed us.

2017 Community Flaanimal goals plans products Rodeo Rodeo Rally Rodeo Roundup Rodeo Wheels Team traildonkey

Colorado: Rodeo Team Night Nov 10th

RSVP HERE:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/rodeo-labs-2016-colorado-team-hangout-night-tickets-29023844099

2016 is drawing to an end and we haven’t yet had a proper team party and get together. We need to fix that! If you are Rodeo or if you might be Rodeo but aren’t sure then come on out and meet your team mates and friends in the real world. Rodeo does a lot online but one thing we want to do is get better at getting the crew together in the real world. We’ve got people flying the colors all over the world so it’ll be difficult to get everyone together, but if we could get a solid crew of Colorado people under one roof that will be a great place to start!

Dinner and some drinks will be provided. Currently we are leaning towards some sort of taco setup from a local food truck but that isn’t quite locked down yet. If you have a favorite drink or brew bring a six pack to share.

YOU REALLY NEED TO RSVP if you are coming so we know what to plan for. You CAN bring friends, etc but you need to RSVP them. Kids are allowed but it might not be the best idea to bring them because there is finite space and they tend to get a bit bored at bike hangout events.

On the agenda:

1. Hang out and meet more of the team in real life. Connect names and faces.

2. Talk about what it means to be on the Rodeo team.

3. Talk about what we’re getting right and what we should be doing better such as:

– Group rides

– Rallys

– Communication

– Including more people

– Drawing out lurkers

– Road trips (2017)

– Races? (2017)

– Etc

– Ideas from EVERYONE are welcome.

4. Discuss the possibility of a team board of some sort to help break leadership into bite sized chunks.

5. Talk about leadership incentives.

6. Talk about how Rodeo the bike company relates to the team.

7. Eat food

8. Drink things

Colorado Denver Labs Party Rodeo Team

Lets Rodeo in Belgium

We are in the beginning planning stages of a Rodeo trip to Belgium in 2016 and we want to open up the invite to the larger Rodeo family.

The idea is to make what might be a complicated trip full of unknown for the uninitiated into a fun and much less stressful opportunity to meet up with other Rodeoers, watch some epic spring classics (Flanders and Roubaix) and do a whole lot of riding and hanging out in between.

The prototype for this trip happened this year and before going much further you should at least scan these two journal entries to get a sense of the trip:

Pilgrimage: Donkey does DeRonde. Belgium Part 1.

Belgium day 2: Good roads, great company.

Belgium Flanders Rodeo Roubaix Trip

Evening derp sessions #traildonkey

#Crossishere twelve months out of the year for us. Playing around on local trails and bike parks is a pretty great way to mix up the rhythm of the summer months between road riding and mountain biking. It is also a great way to experience familiar terrain in a new way. It is also just fun! A lot of people spend time doing cyclcoross drills to build skills and that is very useful, but we think that people should see cyclocross bikes as everyday bikes, not race day bikes. If you spend time on the bike regularly and just go out and have fun it’ll fit and ride with perfect familiarity on race day. You might just be surprised at how tame a cyclocross course is as well after you’ve finished a summer of shred on your local trails.Continue reading

Adventure bikes Colorado CX Cycling Cyclocross Denver derp Rodeo Rodeo Labs thederpsearch trialdonkey

The Castelli “Rodeo” Jersey

Early on in any endeavor the work to payoff ratio is incredibly low. (Did I say that right? Lots of work, low payoff). But occasionally something really cool happens and you start to think that those investments of time and sweat are starting to come full term. I won’t count any chickens, but I’m really happy about the progress.

These jerseys will be available in bike shops around the world next year.

Source: Ello | stephenfitz | Early on in any endeavor

Castelli Collaborations Design Jersey Kits Rodeo

Of cycling, friends, and fun

Cycling is so great because, at least for Rodeo, it’s fundamentally about having fun and spending time with like minded people. Yes, it’s also about rad gear and exploring and racing and the outdoors, but who cares about any of that if you don’t have friends to share it all with?

Rodeo is fundamentally not “pro” in the traditional sense of the word. We don’t field the fastest race team, our feats will never come close to being mentioned amongst the top ranks of the sport. That’s fine with me. We are “pro” at a couple of less traditional things though. One of those things is having fun. We hold our w00ting skills in high regard. Bonus fact: Nobody wins or loses at having fun. There is no leader board, there is no way to accurately measure it. There is no KOM of fun. You just go out and do it and you know you’ve done it right if you come back from a ride and you feel like maybe you are levitating and you can’t stop talking to people about what just happened. When you’ve had fun you feel compelled to share it, and therein lies some of it’s value: Sharing our best experiences with each other is one of the simple joys of being human.

Castelli Colorado Cycling December Fun Gruber Mt. Evans Rodeo Snow Winter

#Topobunny debut + Boulder Cup

Our much maligned, much loved, much misunderstood, much understood CX.1 team kits arrived on Friday, just in time to debut at Boulder Cup on Saturday. w00ts! Instead of doing our first CX race of the year the normal way (drive there, warm up on rollers, race, drive home), we decided to ride 40 miles to the race course, race, and ride 40 miles home. That’s a Rodeo style day of CX racing.Continue reading

Boulder Boulder Cup Colorado Commute CX Cycling Cyclocross Rodeo Topobunny