Singletracks Mountain Bike Podcast

Joey Klein has been involved in mountain bike trail design for more than 30 years, and has worked for the International Mountain Bike Association (IMBA) longer than anyone else. This year he's being inducted into the mountain bike hall of fame in recognition of his contributions to the sport.

• How did you first get involved in trail design?
• What it like to be a part of the Subaru-IMBA Trail Care Crew program for three years in...

Jack Pittens is the co-founder 9point8, an Ontario-based bicycle component brand known for its dropper posts and other innovative products. 

• How did 9point8 get its start? What is your background?
• For dropper posts, is there an advantage to using a sealed cartridge vs. one that's tunable, or another design? 
• How do you make a dropper post lightweight? Do today's buyers even care about the weight of a dropper post? 
• Why do y...

Lee McCormack is a mountain bike skills instructor and coach, and he's the author of nearly a dozen books, including the NICA Skills Training Manual. He's written extensively on bike fitting and fitness training, and just last year he launched his own bike brand, Mistress Cycles.

• How have mountain biking techniques changed over the years?
• What's the difference between a good mountain bike racer, and a good mountain bike coach? 
• Is...

In this episode of the Singletracks podcast we're going to be discussing some of the latest news and trends from the world of mountain bike trail development.

We discuss:

• A recent meta-analysis of mountain bike tourism by IMBA and the Trust for Public Land
• The use of private land for trail development
• Threats to existing trail systems
• What's happening in Arkansas
• What to expect in 2025 and beyond

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David Folch is the founder and CEO of Dirty Sixer, a boutique bike builder focused on fitting tall riders with big wheel bikes. The Dirty Sixer line currently features gravel, all-road, and electric bikes, and will soon include a mountain bike with 32" wheels.

• How did your brand Dirty Sixer get started?
• How tall do you have to be for a 32er to make sense?
• What are some of the MTB geometry challenges involved in designing arou...

Thomas Schoen is the CEO of First Journey Trails, a trail building company based in British Columbia. He's also the Director for the Williams Lake Cycling Club, the Aboriginal Youth Mountain Bike Program and is the President of the Cariboo Mountain Bike Consortium.

• How long have you been building mountain bike trails professionally? How did you get started?
• Which aspects of a trail build do you enjoy the most?
• Is everything on...

Cory Wallace is the reigning, six-time World Solo 24 Hour Mountain Bike Champion and the Head Organizer for the Rockies 24 race in Canmore, Alberta. His mountain bike adventures have taken him all over the world, inspiring riders and raising funds for various humanitarian causes along the way. 

• How did you get interested in endurance mountain bike racing, and 24 solo racing? 
• What happened to 24-hour racing? Is it making a come...

Chris Canfield's company, Suspension Formulas, develops and licenses mountain bike suspension designs used by brands including Revel and Canfield Bikes. Now he's launching his own bike brand, Vampire Bikes while also continuing to race DH at the Masters level.

• In 2019 you won the UCI Masters World Championship at Mont St. Anne when you were in your 40s. What's allowed you to be so fast for so long?
• How much of DH...

Miranda Miller is a downhill mountain bike World Champion and three time Canadian National downhill champion from Squamish, British Columbia. Her video series, Here, There, Everywhere regularly features inspiring riders and mountain bike destinations around the world as Miranda takes on new cycling challenges ranging from gravel biking to gravity racing.

Lance Canfield is a mechanical engineer and former professional mountain bike racer who drew his first mountain bike design in 1996. Today his bike brand, Canfield Bikes, sells mountain bikes and components designed and tested in Poncha Springs, Colorado. 

• What were downhill bikes like when you began racing in 1994? What did you want to improve about your bike?
• Your first bike design in 1999, the Big Fat Fatty Fat, had 12 in...

Riley Amos won overall Under 23 World Cup titles in both short track and cross-country this year and finished seventh in the Paris Olympics, the highest an American has ever placed in the event. He is a member of the Trek Factory Racing Team and lives and trains in Durango, Colorado.

• Going into the 2024 season did you expect to win the overall U23 titles in short track and cross-country?
• Do you plan to change your race train...

Lennard Zinn is a bike designer and frame builder based in Louisville, Colorado. His shop, Zinn Cycles, offers "a full line of semi-custom and off the shelf bikes for riders from very small to very tall and everyone in-between." He’s also the author of Zinn and the Art of Mountain Bike Maintenance, one of the world’s best-selling guides to mountain bike repair.

In this first-half of our podcast discussion, Zinn talks about drivetra...

Craig Calfee is an innovative bike builder and the founder of Calfee Design. Calfee was an early adopter of carbon fiber for bike frames in 1987, and brand's ​​Tetra road bike is said to have been in production longer than any other carbon bike. You might also recognize his work with Bamboo bike frames, which he began in 1995.

• How did you get your start building bikes?
• What did people think about the carbon bike frame yo...

Wes Holland is the owner of Bullmoose Softgoods where he designs and produces one-of-a-kind bags for cycling and adventuring. Bullmoose is based in Summerville, Massachusetts and currently offers handlebar and frame bags plus hip packs and accessories.

• What came first for you: bikes or bags? 
• What kind of riding do you like to do? What is the riding scene like in Boston?
• There are a lot of hip packs and handlebar bags out ...

Greg Mazu is the self-described "Chief Dreamer" behind Backslope Tools, a company that designs and sells tools for trail building and forest maintenance. He's also the founder of Singletrack Trails, a trail building company that recently finished its last project after 20 years in the business.

• When did you build your first trail? 
• How did you get into professional trail building?
• What motivated you to start T...

Hannah Otto recently became the fastest known woman to ride the 137-mile-long Kokopelli's trail from Moab, Utah to Loma, Colorado, besting the previous fastest known time by over an hour. In addition to racing gravel and mountain bikes, she's also a certified athletic trainer. 

• How do you feel now that you can finally talk about your accomplishment? Were you worried someone else would make an FKT attempt between then ...

Chuck Teixeira is a Senior Advanced Concept Engineer at Specialized where he's been involved in countless projects from mountain to road, and from bikes to components. Prior to joining Specialized in 2011, Chuck spent 28 years at Easton-Bell where he was the director of R&D.

• How did you end up in the bike industry?
• How does the Smartweld tech used on the new Specialized Chisel mountain bike frame work, and what makes...

Colin Ryan is a Senior Development Engineer at Norco and was involved in the design of the latest Norco Optic trail bike which features a high-pivot design. Prior to joining Norco he worked at General Kinetics testing and developing shock absorbers for military and construction equipment. 

• At a basic level, what problem does a high pivot design solve? Is there a certain type of riding that benefits from having a high pivot?
• ...

Sara Hunter is a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor in the state of North Carolina and a PMBIA Level 1 Mountain Bike Instructor. Her practice includes individual and couples counseling services plus mountain bike therapy and counseling for athletes and outdoor instructors. She's also a Specialized USA Ambassador.

• What led you to get into counseling?
• Does everyone benefit from spending time outdoors, or do you thin...