World Cup Racing, Commentating, and Race Bikes with Ric McLaughlin

Ric McLaughlin is the current voice of World Cup DH and XC racing, as the lead commentator on Warner Brothers Discovery’s coverage. He’s also a former staff writer at MBUK, and a self-professed massive MTB geek.

In this episode of the MBUK Podcast, we discuss the current state of world cup racing, and his experiences of being a commentator. We also discuss his new documentary series, Race Bikes, which dives deep into some of the most important race bikes from the past. Finally, we cover off his wild time at MBUK – the trips, the bikes and the banter.

#mtb #racing #mtbtech #mtbracing #downhill #worldcupdh #worldcupxc #UCI #crosscountry

Hello and welcome to another MBUK podcast. I’m Rob Weaver and as ever I’m joined by Tom Marvin. How you doing Tom? I’m all right, thanks Rob. How are you? I’m great, thank you. Now today we are joined by a former MBUK staff writer who is now the lead commentator for all things Mountite related on the Warner Brothers Discovery Channels. None other than Rick McLolin. How are you doing Rick? I’m great, thank you Rob. Hello Tom. How are you? All good, thanks. Good to have you here, Rick. Look, let’s kick off things right away because you’ve been currently working on a new series which aired, I think it started last Monday, I believe. Started last Monday and when we’re recording this, it’s the second Monday off of paying out. So, yeah. Um, Race Bikes is now a thing. Um, it’s been a thing on my laptop and in my world for a long time, but um, we’re finally out there. First four episodes are going live in this mid-season break amidst the Whoop UCI Mountain Bike World Series racing and then the second four are due to come out um at the end year sort of maybe November time if we can get them all shot and cut and put together. Tell us a little bit about um race bikes to the un uninitiated if they haven’t seen it yet. So race bikes I try there’s no way of like I’ve tried to explain this and I’ve had to explain this to a lot of people who aren’t mountain bikers obviously at WBD and need justification as to why you’re why you’re wanting to do what you’re wanting to do. But my whole thing one of my whole big things that I’ve always find is that people just love bikes. Like people Yeah. With TV, we do a lot of building heroes and talking about the athletes and the incredible things that they can do. But I think one thing that really unites all mountain bikers is a love of bikes. And I mean, we’ve all I mean, that’s it’s kind of, let’s face it, for some of us, 50 to 60% of the hobby, isn’t it? Is just standing talking about a bike and looking at bikes and getting caught up in the little details and tracking down those little parts. And for me, a natural extension of that has always been like there’s never been more interest. There’s never been anything more interesting to me personally than racing bikes. Bikes that have raced, bikes that have been set up by some of the biggest names ever and done incredible things. And I just decided I wanted to make a TV program about those bikes, not necessarily about the people. Um, which sounds actually quite psychotic when you say it like that, but um, it’s I think it’s just kind of it’s a bit like superbike used to be in MBUK. It’s just let’s get a race bike in. Let’s get a special bike in, light it really nice, spend the time and the effort it deserves on making it look really good, and then talk about it and its story like this inanimate machine that we all love. Nice. How long has it been in the making? What was the You know, it must have been a pretty cool thing to sort of kick off. Yeah, so my boss asked me for an idea for a documentary series in the middle of last year. And obviously I was flat out at the time doing commentary and doing a million other things. And he said, “You’ve no big rush. You’ve got two to three months to come up with a pitch like with a deck.” Which I’ve never done a PowerPoint before. L I got to 39 years of age without ever having been asked to do a PowerPoint. So I thought I was doing well. And then at the start of Ludenville race week last year, he said, “Oh, you way I told you you’ve got two or three months.” And I was like, “Yeah, have you started yet?” And I went, “No.” And he said, “Wait, you’ve got four days.” So, I kind of just grabbed loads of Google images of race bikes I loved and examples of why I thought they were interesting and sort of threw them all onto like a big vomit PowerPoint of pictures and bullet points and then presented it to him and he went for it and just sort of saw that, yeah, this guy’s obviously an anorak about this sort of stuff and maybe other people are anoraxs about it and we should make this. So it started then then it went into the bit that I actually probably was the most comfortable with which was actually writing it and the sort of it was a lot of MBUK in that as well. There was a lot of writing for both people who are absolute devoted nerds like we are as well as people who maybe haven’t ridden the bike in 14 15 years and want to get back into it and sort of are picking back up. And then once the new year came, it was down to actually filming them and actually working out what it was going to look like. So, um, obviously, yeah, one episode’s out already. Can you give us just a bit of insight as to what bikes kind of made the final cut and how you actually came about in deciding because I’m guessing that list was pretty big. How did you whittle it down? Yeah, I I think if the three of us were sat in a pub with a pint of something in front of us at the minute, you could probably draw up a list of 30 or 40 bikes within 10 minutes that would deserve to be in there. I can tell you the first four because the second four haven’t been shot yet, so I don’t want to go too far down that alleyway. Um, first four are Steve Pete’s V10 from Canra Worlds. Um, tonight is Sean Palmer’s uh world’s intense M1. The next one are is basically all of Nino Sher’s Scott Sparks. He’s got them all. So, we went and saw all those. And then, yeah, there’s a lot. And then the final one is the Honda RN1, which if I’m being honest, I think the Honda was probably I really wanted to make a documentary about that bike alone and I needed a bit of a vehicle to do it. And then as I started sort of putting this all out on paper, I realized that actually there was probably a bigger series of stuff to do. Was the Was seeing some of those bikes were they as cool as you thought they were going to be? Yeah, definitely definitely definitely and I think that’s what I think that comes across really well in what we’ve made in that that like Palmer’s and 10M1 from Karen’s like the Troy Lee paint job on it and it’s all sort of paint’s crackling off it now and the tires are sort of they’re basically carbon but whenever that thing sat in front of you and I I say this like you could put that bike in front of anyone who doesn’t know anything about mountain bikes and I think they would understand that this is a really special object. This object means something to someone somewhere. Um the Honda the Honda was probably the most emotional one because I I’d never seen one. Um I had no idea. And actually it turned out strangely that I had seen one. The very first big by grace I ever went to was the Worlds in Fort William in 2007. And so whilst having the eyeballs water blasted out of my head, I did see that bike on track. But since then, it’s always kind of been my I don’t want to be all cheesy and say a grail bike, but that’s always been if I could have one bike sat in my house just to look at, it would be an RN1. And that did sort of I don’t know. Yeah, there was a lot of involuntary noises made whenever I saw that. I guess the thing with the RN1 is it was never production bike, so it was a bike that, you know, you couldn’t even get a replica of it. And there were so few of them that it has to be special. Whereas you know you know Nino’s bikes I had the pleasure of watching the Nino episode last night actually and it’s it’s pretty cool like all the bikes and obviously there’s the custom paint jobs and the special bits of kit and stuff but they are in effect a bike that you could pop to the shops and go and buy whereas the one like that is that is it. Yeah that’s it. And it’s there’s none. Well this is the thing. So apparently apparently you know that bit at the end of Indiana Jones know they’ve got all the crates and the guy it zooms out and the guy’s just walking with a big crate through the warehouse. Apparently there might be one in a box in Honda land somewhere in their big sort of like depot where they have one of everything they’ve made. The one that Greg has, Greg Manar, he basically has to sign a contract each year to say that it’s in his custodianship. It’s being looked after. It’s still technically, it’s not even Hondas, it’s HRC’s and that it’s being looked after by him. But a few people told me along the way that Martin Whitley still has one. But I interviewed Martin for another episode we’re working on and he said that no, he doesn’t have one. So, I went through the entire inventory with Google Translate of everything that’s in Honda’s warehouse, and I can’t see another one listed there. So, we had to work on the assumption that that is the last one. Two got stolen without the transmissions in them. Do you remember that? The the internal drive units weren’t in them. And I as people were cy about what happened with them. Yeah, I think that was six. They got nicked. Um, and I think they ended up on eBay in was it Hungary or Hungary or Bulgaria? I think they ended up on eBay. I’d heard various rumors that people had gone into like I don’t know some shop somewhere in Eastern Europe and they’d seen it in the back. You know, you hear all these stories and you’re just like I like the way you’ve gone with some some shop, not even bike shop. Like they’re just in a shop like a a hairdressers somewhere. No, but it was you say you say that it like it was never production, but I think that was one of the really cool things about seeing it for the first time for me was it looked really close to production. Like it’s a finished thing and there’s a lot more Honda on that bike than I knew about. Like the hubs are Honda, the fork crowns Honda, the stems Honda. There’s a lot of stuff that they made for it. And Greg told us that to his knowledge the idea was that you would be able to buy that with the show suspension as a frame kit in Honda dealers and then basically as with a lot of corporate stuff one boss changed and went no we’re not doing it and it stopped. So, I kind of thought that I think when you’re around, like Rob, you’d definitely attest to this. When you’re around racing a lot, a lot of race bikes are kind of held together and sort of a bit wobbly and a bit shonyy and sort of not quite the finished article, but the Honda really was like, and it looked I mean, the wheels look small on it. It was a bit small, but from 30, 40 foot away, that looked like a modern bike. you’ve been around racing a lot and you know for a long time but did you find yourself learning little bits and pieces about any of these bikes along the way like even if it didn’t make it into the program? Loads. Yeah, absolutely loads. Um I need to talk about other bikes other than the Honda, but that’s just like it’s such a thing for me. But like we there’s a bit in the episode where the all the graphics on the Honda had about 20 layers of like laminate tear off. So basically in between runs they’d get washed, dried, and then the mechanics could repolish the whole frame and then just pull the tear offs off the decals so they all stayed in exactly the right place for all the marketing and for all the photos. And I didn’t know that. And halfway through filming, Greg was like, “Hey, look at this. Look at this.” and started like peeling one of the stickers off it and I was like like I had a bit of a wobble and was like what are you doing? like have you are you having some kind of brain episode? And then and he just pulled it off and I was like that’s it’s so Honda like it’s so that bike. I think yeah a lot of a lot of little touches and stuff like I think the other three for the first the first drop in the series were relatively more straightforward to research because there was just more stuff about them. Um, it’s more, you know, there’s more stuff online. There was more stuff in books and all the old magazines that I’ve kept for years. So, they were a bit more straightforward, but the Honda was kind of a a treasure trove of little details that I didn’t really know about, which I mean, it’s crazy. Now you think about the money they spent on that program and you consider it in a modern light. You would never spend that sort of money without putting somebody with a film camera on it like the whole time like creating videos content. Yeah. They just came in, did it, and then went again. And a point I hadn’t thought about before we sort of got towards the end of an interview with Greg was he said that his biggest regret about it was where would they have gone next because by that stage 2007 obviously Sam Hill on the Sunday was in the ascendancy was like at the peak of his game they would have had to have come up with something that would have been able to compete and it’s that I kind of left it going yeah like where what would they have done? So, that was cool. It’s very cool. I mean, if we were to go back, obviously you and I uh worked together for a long time. The fact now you have your own TV show. Not long enough, Rob. Not Not long enough. You’re welcome back. Yeah. Come on back. I just think it’s so cool you’ve been able to put something like this together that if we would have talked about this sort of 10 years ago, it would have just been just a pipe dream. You know, I guess in many respects, you know, like I said, like they’re kind of like super bikes, right? And, you know, the Mag has had that. It’s just the in-depthness of what you’ve managed to do with with race bikes is is cool. And to go and actually see them in person on location as well. I know, you know, you couldn’t get them all in one place. So, to go to Nino’s workshop or to go and see Greg or to go and see Pete up in Sheffield and to go to Tmacula to see the intense, I mean, that’s a really cool episode. As a massive fan of the Intense M1, I was into that. I left it. I left Intense and I had a 2001 M1 which which I sold criminally to to put lots and lots of lagger inside myself at university. And I left intense going, “Oh, I wish I still had that bike.” And I the the spider the new spider hadn’t been released then, but there was one sitting and like Jeff kindly sort of showed us it and told us about all the points and stuff on it and I was like I’d buy one of these now. I get this brand. You know whenever you go to a brand and you see you see what makes it and I think that’s been I mean it’s probably no I can let you into one of them from the next um from the next load. Uh, we went to see commonal and that was very very similar. Whenever I went to that brand new big HQ of theirs and got shown around by Max like himself, I left there going, I really want a common cell now. I get this. I get I get the passion and the energy of this. Do you know what I mean? And I think Intense Yeah. If you’re are vintage Rob, Intense is one of those ones. They’re a bit like an Alfa Romeo really. I think if you’re into cars, you’ve got to have one alpha at some stage, haven’t you? Even if you know it mightn’t be what you hope it’s going to be, I think you’ve got to have an intense at some stage as well. They’re one of those brands. Definitely. Um, so how does the whole race bike series fit in with everything else you’re doing? So it’s it’s my day job in terms of depending on how close I am to a race. Once I get closer to a race within about two weeks of a race or so, then I kind of swap over into editorial lead role, which is basically working with the team to establish what we’re going to cover at each race. Uh what we need to talk about, who we need to talk to, the stories we need to try and tell, and then as it gets closer again, then I head into commentary mode, and that’s notes. And sort of I always commentary is kind of like it’s a bit like having an exam that doesn’t end. You you just feel like you you constantly make notes and revise and make notes and revise and make notes and revise and then you end up in the booth and it’s it starts and it’s sort of like you have to rely on the fact that you’ve you’ve kind of finessed that process. Which bit of the process do you like the most? Do you like the do you like the com stuff? Do you like sort of making the content pre-race? Is it, you know, race bikes? What sort of stuff do you really get kicks off? I’ve really really enjoyed race bikes a lot more than maybe I even sort of thought that I would because I was actually I was messaging uh the camera operator on it and just general the guy who’s made it look so good, Chris Tindle, um last night about it. And I I didn’t I think I sort of underestimated how much I’d be into it because commentary there’s always going to be commentary on sport. You know, you you’ve sort of stepped into an existing role. This kind of feels like I’ve come up with something and made it with an incredibly talented team and now it’s out there. People seem to like it. And that’s I think that’s maybe I’ve been so caught up in making it that I didn’t understand the the sense of satisfaction I get that I got to watch two weekends ago. Um I got to watch the first episode finished with my mom and my dad and my kids and my partner and that was like a really huge I was I didn’t think I’d be sort of as into and as emotional about it as I was. So that was really cool. But I mean I like I like it all. I like again a very MBUK sort of challenge with what we do with TV is we really want to grow this sport. And I mean we we just mentioned Sam Hill. The three of us know who Sam Hill is and what he meant and you know his impact on the sport. But if you just started watching two years ago, you don’t know who Sam Hill is. So, it’s just having that geek’s eye on, right, we need to explain like we need to just talk about this and actually bring people in and sort of open the treasure chest a wee bit and show them what they could buy into here. That sounds like next year’s series. Yeah. No, that’s the problem though because I’ve got this I already have a list of stuff I want to do next year and in terms of race bikes and I’m sort of like right we need to just actually get all of this year’s done and then think about that. But no, it’s all good. I think commentary commentary is probably the most stressful because I think as a journalist you’re taught to like prepare to make notes to get ready for following a story and what the story is going to be but especially with downhill you sit down and you have no idea what the story is going to be and it’s a very difficult form of commentary in that I mean if you look at the elite men’s field. Anyone in that top 15 realistically top 20 maybe could win it now. And you’ve got to be able to quickly work out place your bets on who you think that’s going to be judging by what they’re doing and give it the right energy to to make sure that that lands. And that’s that’s quite a stressful thing. But I’ve said before as well, it’s kind of like skydiving or what I imagine skydiving must be like. Whereas where if they open the door of the airplane and it’s time to jump out of it, you’ve got to jump out of the airplane and then see what happens. Are you going into the commentary booth with like a massive like p pages and pages and pages of data or is it sort of pretty much up here or So we’ve got um Martin Whitley actually is our stats guy. He prepares a stats package for us a bit like you would like you would get in wider sport moto GP or football or it’s a company called Octa who do it who give you a big the idea is that you should be able to sit down for an hour with this like 20 page dock and be with a highlighter pen and sort of be able to pull together a commentary from it. He does that for us. I have for each format a massive spreadsheet of notes for each rider um which I update at the end of or at the start of each week after a race. But the big thing I’ve always kind of struggled with since school is that unless I write something down, I don’t really feel like it goes in my head. I don’t know if there’s if that’s some sort of pointer to some kind of really really deep psychological malady that I should take more seriously, but like I kind of have now a system where I’ll have a notebook, a big A4 notebook that I’ll be filling throughout the week. Um, and then for top 10 and downhill, I’ll have it ruled out and I’ll have like name, position in the last race, Q1, Q2, and then five or six points or bit of info about them that I’ve probably found out across the week that I can quickly sort of look at. It’ll just be on my knee in front of me and then hopefully somehow it goes all right. How do you find the mix of doing downhill and cross country? Do you find one easier than the other? Is the one that you get more excited about? Obviously, you know, we sort of talk about downhill a lot, but cross country is massive and and super important and we, you know, it’s great to watch, too. Cross country, cross country, I find, is a more straightforward commentary because it kind of opens up in front of your eyes. Like, it’s quite obvious as to what’s happening. Um, if somebody’s breaking across or like is going from one group to another, you can, we can see in our timing screens in the booth, we’ve got our producer Pete Burton’s in my ear letting me know like it’s I don’t get as stressed as I do before a downhill. Um, a lot of that is cuz as I say, downhill’s really like it’s a really really intense commentary. You know, for a lot of the riders, they’re maybe on the screen for a minute and a half, and then once we head further down the field, they we start to get full runs. That’s a lot. But also, I have two people in with me downhill and a lot of my job is to anchor that and to bring help bring them in and out with their points and what they want to talk about and communicate as well. So it’s like it’s a big it’s it’s really really odd leave like this thing like my whoop band like on a downhill day is like massive like amount expenditure of energy when all I’ve really done is walk from my hotel room to a booth sit down and walk back to the hotel room again. So it’s but then I do think a lot of that comes from like I’m a fan of cross country but like I’ve been a fan of downhill for a lot longer and I think that’s true of a lot of people from our part of the world really. I think downhill runs a bit deeper and it as a sport I just think it’s incredible. I think people riding push bikes down the side of mountains and getting to a finish line within the same tenth of a second as each other is just it’s mesmerizing and I think that kind of hook just sort of adds to the stress of a race day. Um what’s the experience been like since taking over as lead commentator? Obviously, you were sort of you’d been working for Red Bull and but maybe a little bit more behind the scenes and then slowly things have evolved and now you’re kind of running the show. That must be quite a lot to deal with. Yeah, I don’t know about I don’t know about running show. I think you’re definitely in you’re definitely in a very visible seat. Um, with Red Bull, I was working again all editorial stuff, helping with scripts and sort of direction of things and editing the Red Bull bike website as my day job and then doing field reporting. So, questions at the bottom of races at the finish line. Um, and with commentary, it’s been a it’s been a baptism of fire. Um, have you done some training? Did they did Warner Brothers sort of so I know Rob Warner famously talked about having training and stuff at the BBC and stuff like that but was that not the case then? I I had a phone call with a guy who commentated on tennis once. That was good. Cool. Um actually I say I say that not really. You know, I say that um I have had a load of help from Rob Hatch um who’s obviously uh voice of road cycling for WBD and Eurosport audiences and he was really really helpful and it was really really helpful. We’ll send each other we voice notes now and again. He was helpful in the sense that he gave me a lot of practical sort of help. So things like the spreadsheets for notes, I had no idea about that. I didn’t that had never occurred to me that that was a thing. Um but he also he got a lot of um he got a lot of stick and a lot of really horrible stuff online for a long time and deleted I think he deleted a Twitter account with like 50,000 followers on it or something. And like he’s a bit of a an emotional support animal for that as well. But um it’s been real. Yeah, I guess um there has been quite a lot of uh support for Warner and how you know he moved on from it and and you know after Warner Brothers took over, Red Bull sort of stepped away and then obviously you’ve kind of taken over as lead commentator. I know we’ve sort of chatted you’ve had quite a lot of stick in the comments and stuff that must have been really hard to deal with. you you know obviously you’re out there trying your best but getting a load of stick I so I’m three years in now and I’m not saying it doesn’t impact me because I don’t think you’re human if negative comments and like stuff like that doesn’t affect you but what I would say is that I think you can certainly take steps to to limit those. Um I don’t read DMs. Um like I got some horrible DMs of like just people coming up with really really like brutal stuff and and then I just sort of had a dawning in the back of a taxi one day. I was like why am I reading this? this like I think what helped me was I did a lot of work freelance for a long time after I left MBUK and I got used to the idea of ultimately the only person that really needs to be happy with the job that you’re doing there’s two people it’s yourself and your boss like speaking with a freelance head on if you’re if your boss isn’t happy with what you’re doing they’ll tell you how to change it and how to do it differently to justify them paying you so I think I had a handle on that already. And um my boss was really supportive, really really helpful. Um and I’ve always been really up and really sort of like, give me more feedback, give me more feedback, tell me how to do this better. And then acting on it. Um and I get it. Fans are fans. Whenever I was at Red Bull, we used to get pelters that Freecaster was better and that we were killing the sport. So, I guess that will always be there. Um, but at the same time, if I was walking down Princess Street in Edinburgh and somebody told me that they didn’t like my trainers, I probably not knowing them wouldn’t take their opinion on board either. So, why would I take somebody’s opinion that I’ve not met and it can’t affect what I’m doing online to heart? But I think it’s also I think as you get a bit older you get a bit better at sort of handling your emotional state and like if I’m really really tired I’m down the dumps already wandering into the comment section probably isn’t going to help me. So just sort of like right I think I think it was where it really hit me a bit was I would have assumed that I was part of that core audience online and a bit of a you know really really involved in it and now I feel like I’m less involved in it but equally I’m fine with that. I’m all right. I’ve been I’ I think everyone’s been through big stuff in life. I don’t think the internet comments really affect me unless unless you let them. I think you’ve got to choose not not to. And I also I don’t I’m doing like I got asked to do this job on a bike ride, three and a half years ago now and three years ago. And I quickly went, well, imagine saying no to that. You’d spend the rest of your career wondering if you could have done it. So I still stand by that. I still like I still love I still love doing it. I still that far outweighs any any one person’s criticism. It feels like you guys have got a really good dynamic now in the booth. It feels like it’s in a really really good place. The races are exciting to watch. You got some brilliant insights. Is that a really natural sort of occurrence or are you having to kind of make sure I I suppose you’re sort of you’re the glue holding it together to some extent, but it I get the feeling that you guys just get on really really well anyway outside of it. I I think I think doesn’t matter what sport you’re watching. If you’re watching something that feels like free people who are fans of what they’re watching talking about it, I think that always shines through. I think that’s always really really positive. And certainly like even with things like UCI World Championships where we some we it’s a different production. It’s a bit of a it’s a bit of a long sort of explanation as to why. But I’ve done those traditionally with riders. for example, like Charlie Murray or Aris Wilson. And even if you don’t have that same amount of time working together synergy-wise, they’re such fans of it and they’re so knowledgeable that that carries it along. Um, I think Josh Carlson could commentate on two peas rolling across a plate and probably make it entertaining and full of energy. And and I think a really good foil for him is Nico in that Nico’s got this really quiet, calm way about him, but some of the stuff he can spot that Carlson and I will not have seen as a bike rider is unbelievable. He’ll just he’ll just pull something out of the air and Flo or Anthony Flo or Anthony our director will then put the replay up and there you see it like it’s it’s obvious. Um and then Ollie Beck and I are just Yeah, Ollie Beck and I kind of knew each I don’t know if he knew each other. I think we probably would have met a couple of times when I was down in Bath at MBUK, but um we have a very very similar very very sort of dark sense of humor and very sort of we get on we get on really well and we would we would naturally go to go for a beer together in the evening or go for a run or and I think that makes commentary with him really really easy because it’s just like watching racing with your mate. There’s been sort of quite a lot of changes going on with with racing over the past couple of years, you know, and you know, obviously there’s been a bit of backlash against some of that, but the format changes that sort of seem to be in place this year seem to be broadly popular both with with those who are watching it, but also those who are racing it as well. Is that, you know, how how do you sort of see it panning out going forward? Are you happy with that or do you think things need to change again or are we in a in a solid place for the next few seasons? I I think I think Q2 the introduction of the Q2 system has been a real a real positive. Um I know that Rory Cunningham and that the sports team worked really hard on making that a feasible thing and working out where you know where things would fall and how it would work schedule-wise. from an editorial and from a commentary point of view, I think that’s a fantastic move because over and over again, the simpler you can make something, the quicker people can explain it and watch it. And that’s what um as the producer on Enduro Enduro, if it was Enduro World Series, that’s what we used to struggle with that because if you’ve raced an Enduro or you’re a fan of Enduro, it’s really straightforward. But if you’re sitting, as I said, like my parents like a couple of weekends ago, if I sat them down to watch it and tried to explain it to them, it’s a very complicated story to tell. I think what Q2 has done in getting rid of the protected riders rule is that it’s made our job from an editorial broadcast side much more straightforward. And I think that racers are responding to it well because it’s fair. There’s nowhere to hide. You can do it or you can’t. And I think that protection was quite a complicated thing that came about a bit because of broadcast and how we could make sure that everybody gets to see the rider they like every week, but ultimately I mean look at uh Munos at the last one like yeah 100% right he should be last man top of the hill because he went fastest and I think that’s that’s been a real positive. I don’t I don’t particularly think things need to change to a great extent. I I’d love to see I’d love to see more. I we are trying pushing pushing teams like further forward and building a bit more of the stories that you see on platforms like Netflix where they tell so much story around the teams and access to the teams. But I mean, you know, it’s exciting that we get to do that and um hopefully we get to we get to push that forward a we bit more. What’s your take on the the tracks at the minute then in particular in downhill? I mean, I think XC is in a really solid place in terms of how technical everything’s got. We actually had Charlie in Charlie Aldridge in this morning says hi. Um he’s m he’s massive, isn’t he? He’s a big lad. Yeah, very very big. especially for someone. Yeah. Um, but in terms of downhill, you you sometimes I think you kind of hear some of the riders talking about how things have straightened up over the years and the racing’s got tighter, but then you have tracks like LWE, which steepest track they’ve had in maybe forever. Loads of steepest track ever. Yeah. Yeah. Loads and loads of turns. Um, but the racing was still really tight. Do you think we’re going to just continue to see a sort of a mix like that? Where do you see it going? My my take on it is that I think people maybe they they they maybe oversimplify how they’re looking at it in terms of if you look at for example the F1 calendar that is a massive mixture of tracks and it’s a massive you know it will be a massive mixture of conditions over a year. It’s a world championship. That’s that’s how it should work. I think that like as you say, the times are so tight, which is kind of the proof of the pudding really. I think that you will always have a group of riders who want a style of track. You’ll have another set who want another style of track. But what’s always fascinated me with downhill are riders like the Rachel Afertton, Lloyd Brun, Troy Brosman, that it doesn’t matter what the tracks doing or what the weather’s doing or they have that ability to turn up and go. Um, so I think actually I mean we had a lot of we had a lot of comments at the start of the year about tracks going, you know, as you say, too straight, too fast, whatever. But then we all knew the Wheel was coming and then the Twe arrives suddenly steepest track of all time. I think 88 corners or something on up on an average of 57 or something like that and like it’s just like for me for me as a race fan walking down I walk the tracks a lot whenever I’m there. Um I find cross country actually just to return to your last question cross country like the Olympics we did from London without having been around the track and you you can do it. It’s difficult but you can do it whereas downhill I kind of I need to see tracks a lot because I think you need to be able to talk like a bike rider and sort of see the things that we would see if we rode them or walked down them. And like walking down the wheel I was like this is insane. This is like a serious serious level. But then I get that same feeling when you’re stood on the side of Leang and they’re they’re pushing over 70 km an hour or through that compression in Palaron Sal whenever again they’re up around 70. And I think it’s a sport where tracks are always going to be debated. I don’t think we’ll ever have a season where everybody goes, “Yeah, tracks are all mint.” Because it’s such a defining factor of it. Um, I guess it’s so subjective as well. Like you said, it’s so subjective and I know there was year years ago there were plans to do an urban an urban round and it was either Barcelona or Madrid I think it was and the teams pushed back and said no we you know it’s too much we would have whatever it’s too complicated to do logistically for us. And then your argument is is an urban downhill track. Has that got a part of a World Cup circuit? But then you go imagine the amount of people that would have put the sport in front of and a bit like the Monaco Grand Prix. That’s not a good racetrack ostensibly, but it is this showcase thing that everyone gets to see every year. I think the tracks are good. I mean, we’re heading Leo, we’re heading into second half of the season, and I’ve not seen what they’re building uh for the late Placid track yet. I’ve not seen anything. But it’s a new track, which as a fan, I love going to as well because it’s a it’s a blank slate. You don’t It’s again, it’s about who can turn up on the day and do it. You know, we got Saint Anne coming up. We’ve got Leger coming up. Both classics. I think it’s good to have a mixture of those big classic tracks and the sort of the new new school debut tones and yeah, I think you’re always going to have comments about tracks. How much influence do you guys as broadcasters have on, you know, the building of of tracks? Obviously, the the local areas effectively asked to put on on the race or they offer the race up, but how much do you get to influence what goes on there? That’s that’s kind of outside of my field of expertise, but I know that once we’re on the ground, we, you know, our director and different members of broadcast team will have a lot of input as to where the cameras are, for example, um where where we can get banners in, where advertising boarding can be to make sure that it doesn’t restrict camera shots. I know that was I did a bit of um sight lacrosse commentary um two Christmases ago and that was one of the things I find really hard about that because they’re all behind screening and so if you get a side on shot you just see a head and shoulders above it so we try and avoid a lot of that but we would never say like put a massive jump over there it’ll look great that’s it is like the track is developed I know Rury travels like I travel a lot Ry Cunningham travels an insane amount And a lot of that is making sure that whenever the rest of the circus turns up, they have a track that will work for everyone, but most of all for riders. Um, so yeah, I think that’s another thing that I think gets a bit misconstrued that TV have the ability to build a load of BMS overnight and go get round them in practice. Like we we can’t do that. Um, we did mention it briefly while we were off air, but uh, how much stick have you had personally just about like the whole pay wall thing? I’m guessing people come to you for answers, but as you pointed out when we were talking about it earlier, it’s nothing personally to do with you, is it? No. As I said to you earlier, I’ve kind of developed this thing of it’s like asking your Ben man about your council tax. I don’t It’s not something I’m involved in. It’s not something I have a dog in the fight over really. Um I get a personal stick for everything, so kind of gets added on to the p it kind of gets added on to that pile. But um yeah, it’s it’s definitely a topic, but it’s it’s not really for me to comment on because I don’t I don’t have anything to do with it. It’s not something that’s across my desk. I guess it’s a bit like it’s a bit like asking it’s a bit like asking you do do you have anything to do with the cover price of the magazine? No. No. I guess that’s the thing. You know you are in effect you’re the face of WBD. you know, you are the face of of downhill racing and you know, as a you know, consumers of if they if they want to direct their comments, whether positive or negative, the obvious place for that to go is is to you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, again, as I said with in terms of coping strategies and stuff, if if you fire me off a load of really really angry threats and disillusionments to my DMs on Instagram, I’m unlikely to read them. So, it’s like it’s one of those ones that um yeah, it’s it’s something that’s so much above what I do. But you’re right in that I think that there is that thing of if you are a voice or a face of of anything in the media. I’m sure you guys will both know from videos that you’ve made and, you know, decisions you’ve made editorially that people will come at you for stuff, but it’s it’s not worth not doing the job over. Rick, I got called disgusting once. Someone actually referred to me as disgusting. His face is disgusting, the comment said. I’ve literally literally never seen you do anything disgusting and I’ve seen you do some things. I was quite surprised. I was like, “Is that warranted?” Maybe, maybe. I haven’t. I don’t. I got I got a DM last time, Last time, last time I sort of hedged the door open on my DMs. I got The first one was, “You make this sport so boring. I hope you die.” And the second one was, “I get that Josh is Australian and Rick is Irish, but their accents are awful.” And I’m like, I can’t change that. Like at least at least I can make it more exciting and not have to die like the first guy said, but the accent thing I can’t do anything about. So, and then you go, I don’t know. There’s a bit of you that goes, “All right, cool.” But I mean, I get it. I watch sport. I I watch football. I get I rate I throw stuff around like a child. That’s sport is entertainment. Anybody who tells you anything differently is wrong. sport is entertainment. We tune every week. We tune in every week to be entertained. And part of being entertained is that you’re involved and you’re caught up in it. And I mean, I think we’re really really fortunate in the quality of the racing at the minute is just like through the roof. Like I I know again like you said it earlier, we’re talking a lot about Daniel, but we are talking about Daniel, but like Lloyd Brun’s run in Palaron Sal and then the big stare over to the hot seat afterwards. You’re just like that’s why we watch this and I get that people enjoy it. So almost, isn’t it? It’s It is. Yeah. It’s like if we And that’s the thing as a fan. you’re in there and with your sort of work hat on, I was like, if Jackson gets five in a row, gets the Jackson five and then we head into this mid-season break, then it’s going to be it’s it’s going to be a lot to build up the sort of the intrigue for the second half of the year. But then Lo went and did that and you go, “Oh, no.” Like it’s on it’s and it was just I mean you you can’t deny like that that’s downhill at its best. So from your point of view, if you were to look at a whole race weekend, what sort of three or four key ingredients would you say are needed to make uh a really memorable race? I think first and foremost you need you need a track. I don’t know. You need something special. You need like Lu was special just because there had been so much buzz about the track all week and it felt like a really it l felt straightforward from the start of the week in that it was so obviously so brutal that whoever won there regardless of what anyone else did it would be special. But then in LW we got those weird Weller brakes and we got um there was a break whenever basically everything went down on the side of the track and we had to fill and there was a bit of the sort of the unpredictability of downhill going on. But I’ve always I don’t know I think whenever you look back on the the most memorable things in downhill it’s always the rivalries. It’s always like cuz it’s such a it’s such an individual sport but at that level it’s not like I think Brun said this interview after pal Aaron Sal that he had in his head the time he thought might win it. He had a time that he thought Loris or Amory would do and then he had a combination of those like a gap between those that he knew he needed to beat. you just you’re just going like he’s seeing time on again the side of a mountain like I don’t know I think you need you’re right you need that fer you need that like I think with downhill it’s always cool when the last rider at the top wins as well I think that’s always kind of like the big crescendo you know the big sort of like look what they’ve just done but then you look at like I think Nita Hoffman’s been a star this season you look at her running pal Aaron Sal when she stopped halfway down for a selfie with a marshall and stuff like that and you go that’s cool as well it’s a very different thing but it’s still very downhill I don’t know what what do you think it needs I think I think you’re right I think the rivalry I think whether that’s downhill or cross country I think there’s a lot of uh if you’re into it and you kind of have some kind of understanding I think it counts for a lot Um, I think the tracks matter, but as long as the racers are happy and feel like they can race hard, they maybe don’t matter as much as everyone thinks to a degree. I think if they’re into it and having fun, I’d go with that. I’ve seen I’ve seen really really well or affected races in the past and then you know somebody goes berserk and it’s it’s a great it’s an unbelievable piece of bike riding but I don’t know if that’s remembered as a great race necessarily I think yeah it it’s hard though right because I think sometimes those things that when they some of the Nina mo Nina Nina Sher moments or Rachel Athetherton moments or Sam Hill moments that really stand out help to kind of build the sport as a whole. But yeah, I don’t think you necessarily need that over. You don’t need each weekend to have one of those things. But is it a funny sport? I always think it’s a funny sport in that if you look back at the Sam Hill era or the Aaron Glenn era or the Rachel Afton era, whenever they’re winning them by a country mile or certainly a lot of time, whenever they’re at their best, everyone’s a bit like Sam’s going to won again. Oh, Rachel’s won again. you know, then they stop winning for that’s given a year and then they come back or they start again and everybody’s like, “Oh, it’s great to see them back. Great to see them back at the best.” And then it just it just it changes straight away into like, “Ah, it’s fantastic that they’re back.” And you go, “Really?” Cuz at the time you weren’t enjoying this. Yeah, you’re so right. You’re so right. And I think yeah it that’s what I think the Hill era was a bit different because he would go all out win everything by a huge margin then it’d be injured. So you wouldn’t necessarily get just that dominance that say like Quinn had that Rachel had that um maybe we’ve seen Jackson have to a degree. So, it was more sort of like I think that I think what’s happening now with Jackson what’s happening now with Jackson is going to be fascinating because I’m so interested to see what mental reserves he has to to deal with that defeat in Palaron Style and what Jackson comes back into the last few races of the year because where I think downhill is so interesting I it’s interesting on so many levels for me but I I talked about this a lot with people in that, you know, Danny Hart in 2016 was winning them. Like he if he was on a bike, he was the fastest person there. Like it didn’t matter what the weather was doing, what the track was like, what the session was, Danny would go out and win. But is that the same as a Greg Manar, a Gafford and an Aaron Gwyn who are mentally putting everything together and you know working out sections here, sections there, building that whole puzzle of the perfect run and then just executing it. I don’t necessarily think it is. I think there’s a there’s a there’s a level of confidence in downhill that will make you do incredible things. But once that stops, the question marks kind of hang in the air a bit. And I think like Brun said it in where was it? In LA, I think in his post race interview, he said like I need a rival to get the best out of myself. And bad news Jackson, this year it’s you. Yes. And I’m really interested I’m really interested to find out as a as a young man how he because he is a young man. Let’s He’s an unbelievable bike rider, but he’s young, and it might inspire him to be even more incredible. But I’ve always had this sort of real fascination with riders who race a season and not just, you know, one round. Well, just remember back to the late great Stevie Smith and Gatherton juking it out. Was it 2013, something like that? 2013. cuz that was my first that was my so whenever I left MBUK I started writing for Red Bull Bike and they started sending me out to races to do race reports and I that was my first one was Leia Gang in 13 when he did the bike flip and Stevie Smith did the bike flip when he crossed the line. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And like that’s Yeah. That’s still just such a moment. And again, that was a rivalry that went all year and no one knew what was going to happen with it. I’d love it. I’d love it if this one goes down to Saint Anne this year. Yeah, it would be incredible, wouldn’t it? Do you have um favorite riders on the circuit at the moment? Well, who do you love watching? I guess maybe personally, but more from a race point of view. I think you probably should say Charlie Aldridge at this point because he did mention that. Charlie Aldridge. Yeah. Mainly because of mainly because he’s so massive. Yeah. Um, I think I’m a Yeah, I’m a I’m a big fan of of anyone who can get on a bike and race at a UCI World Cup. I’m I’m automatically a fan of um who’s impressed me this year standoutwise, there’s been so many. I’m really impressed with Jordan Williams this year actually. Yeah. Um, I think he’s been in the wars, but to come back and just be consistent, he’s one like what was really interesting for us was, and I was sort of ringing the bell about it from quite a long way out editorially about Q2 is going to find a lot of people out. And weren’t sure how it was going to go for Jordan, but I he’s been superb this year, I think. Nina Hoffman has really impressed me as I say as well. Um I love love watching Reese Wilson ride a ride a push bike. Um I I sort of like we would we would ride the odd time together uplifts and stuff during the winter and having a bit of background into what’s going on with setting up that Aon racing tour a camper vans team and that bike I think is really interesting. I got to ride it at the start of the year and that was really really interesting. Um, yeah. I mean, there’s so many names. I think I’m always I’m always slightly in awe of Verier as well whenever you’re stood at the side of a track and Loris comes through to have it’s he’s got real composure just a real just magic touch on a bike where he kind of floats through stuff that looks like you see you’re watching the world’s best struggle with and he’s just and I’ll tell you who else impresses me. um Aaron Gwyn who we just talked about Sam Hill. I don’t think Aaron Gwyn gets the credit in the grand scheme he deserves in this sport because I I’m not convinced you would see someone ride like Amarie Pieron without Aaron Gwyn. He just had that physical strength and just just sheer determination and vision of what he was doing. Um, so having Aaron back at the races and having done a bit of commentary with him and got to know him a bit and then getting to see him on a race bike has kind of opened my eyes a bit to to what he’s capable of. He was in the twe in the middle of practice like just disappearing down a track that had a lot of guys not half his age but a lot younger than him stood shaking their heads not knowing what was going on. Another sorry I can I’m now just naming mountain bikers too. Um Tel Aren Maxel but Tel Aren I think could be the absolute real deal. Um yeah, like that run in Lule was one of the runs of the weekend for me and it was very vigieresque. There was maybe slightly more aggression than Loris would have gone with but just dancing a very fine tight rope the whole way down. A lot of that’s um I don’t know if they told us sorry Tom they told us this when we were there last week. I didn’t realize that bike that till Max are running is bone stock. Huh. But I think they said the only difference between their bike and the one you can buy in the showroom at common s is it has an old chain um on the chain ring which I thought was a really I mean if you want to see how good, you know, a measure of a downhill bike that’s pretty impressive. the, you know, the the guys and girls who are racing, obviously they’re they’re incredibly fast on the bike, but I guess these days there’s whole professionalism around being a rider. There’s interviews, there’s the the brand ambassadorship. Are there any riders in particular who stand out as being actual true professionals? Who’s that easy to work with? Who do you want to head down to the pits and have a chat with? Well, I’m I’m kind of in an odd position in that it’s not odd to say you’re old, but I’ve been doing it a long time. So there’s there’s a lot of people that you just naturally recognize from your workplace. Um, but I think what Specialized Gravity do that’s they’re very forward facing with that stuff like you know you you have a time you ask for time with them at the start of the week you get your time they’re there early in the right kit like and are very on message on brand the stuff they done with Brembo this year I think we as a sport need more stuff like that we need to stop not stop but we need to realize that just marketing our sport to companies in our sport is not a sustainable long-term thing and actually going out and bringing in big big brands from outside. I think they’ve done that really well and they’re always super engaged and super easy to work with. Common soul uh Muck Off by Riding Addiction, same thing. you know, their their approach is very it’s more akin to Moto GP than a lot of other teams might be. You know, it’s very sort of very high-tech, very every last little detail is sweated. They’re really impressive. I love what Orba FMD are doing. I think Tony Tony Crave driving that team on and and he is like he I chatted to him the other day and he was saying you know they used to race Rachel Afton out the back of a van and now they’ve got probably the biggest setup in the pits but not only that they did it the proper way and that they built it themselves because from his view it would have been easier to go out and buy a trailer but it wasn’t how that team’s been built and so they had to do it this way and the thing’s unbelievable when you’re in the back of it. Um, yeah, they’re great to work. They’re all we’re we’re very very lucky and I think I get to hear it a lot from people who have worked for WBD in different sports and are maybe on this production from something else. But in terms of the athlete access, we get the time with the teams and people’s just I mean you see it as well if you’re at a World Cup like fans in the pits can actually just stand outside the specialized pit and watch Lloyd Brun setting this bike up which in other sports I mean road cycling there’s a team bus they come off the bus they ride off they come back to the bus again they get on the bus you know it’s you don’t really get to see as much. Um, so I think that’s in a lot of mountain bikers maybe without them realizing. Um, you just sort of mentioned about uh chatting to the WBD guys for who who deal with other sports and stuff like that. Um, how has how is the sort of the sport of mountain biking perceived by those guys that are sort of from outside of it? What’s the what’s the general vibe with those lot? I think it’s it’s nearly universally treated with like great sort of first of all surprise and enthusiasm. People get into it really really quickly because I’ve said this a lot over the last three years, but especially with downhill and actually cross country to be fair. I genuinely believe that to get the sport you need to go and stand beside it and just watch it. And I remember I used to watch a lot of Moto GP and then I went to the British Grand Prix one year and when you’re stood beside that sport, it’s insane. Like the dude’s like hanging off a motorbike, he’s almost underneath it doing 140 mph and you’re like I think increasingly in in our modern world, we get to see a lot less of that for for a lot of good reasons probably. But whenever you see somebody do something absolutely ludicrous on a mountain bike, I think it does kind of your brain goes, “Oh, that’s a really visceral thing that grabs you.” And when you couple that with what I’ve just said about athletes that are accessible, happy to talk, easy to work with, especially you hear a lot with people who have worked in rugby and football where they don’t have that access. and there’s many many layers of people to get through to get to a player, they they react really really well to it. Um, and there’s a load of passion and enthusiasm starts like coming for that. Then you find yourself at dinner tables where people who three or four months ago hadn’t been to a mountain bike race are talking about mountain bikers, talking about racing and what they’re looking forward to and what they’re predicting in the next race. Um, so it’s it’s been really really positive and we’ve seen we’ve seen really really good responses to it in the company. It’s a funny sport though, isn’t it? Because it it’s always kind of been you and your mates weird little sport. Yeah. And then whenever you get other people who don’t know it and start looking into it, they go, “Oh yeah, actually I mean as I say like that downhill final in Palaron Sal, you you could never have heard of downhill racing and and I would contest that the last 10 riders on that hill you could have sat down and enjoyed.” And I think that’s that shows how good a position the sport’s in. Yeah, I think that Yeah, that’s a really good example. I think that’s wicked. Um, I suppose we should probably ask of the So, since you’ve been doing the the lead commentary, what’s what’s been your favorite race to look back on to kind of cover off? Favorite race? It’s hard not to say the Olympics. Um, getting to do that, yeah, felt like a big thing. Um, quite surreal, I suppose. Quite a strange sort of And it was it Yeah. And it’s really odd because it’s kind of was on my calendar all year. You know, it’s the Olympics. Olympics are coming up. You’re like, right, cool. Yeah. Signed. And you get to it and you go, I’m I’m going to commentate on the Olympics. Me like a daff a daff lad from county down is going to talk about something that will remain in sport like forever really. And I I’m I’m not naturally somebody who’s I think people go very I don’t know gooey eyed over the Olympics and the the the sort of romance and the cell of it and as you know Rob slightly more anchored in I don’t know pessimism but it did it did it did have a bit of a thing I did have a bit of a thing about it and then as I say we did it Um, we commentated remotely from London. Um, which happens. Yeah, that was something I didn’t know 3 years ago. Remote commentary is kind of industry standard. You don’t there’s not a lot of commentators at events. It’s all kind of it’s a lot more um it’s a lot more straightforward to do it from a centralized point. And woke up in the morning, brighteyed, bushy tailed, had a coffee, had my breakfast like I’m going to commentate on the Olympics. So then you walk in the door and it’s like there’s been 10 days of Olympic commentary happening there and they’re like yep sign in that box 20 minutes. You’re like, “Okay.” Mhm. And then that’s terrible. And then at the end of it, at the end of it, yeah. Like the the producer who was in the PCR came down and sat down with Ollie and I and went, “Okay, let’s talk about what went well first.” And then she gave us this quite glowing report. And the two of us were sitting there going, “What did we say? What was wrong?” And she was like, “What do you mean?” I was, “Well, you starting the conversation with,” let’s talk about the positives first, which kind of implies there’s going to be a negative. And she was like, “Oh, no, it was all fine.” And then got up and left and the two of us were just like And it was it was really, really nice. I think that was I think I’ll look back on that. I think getting to getting to meet Ken Roxson the other day, that was pretty cool. You sent me a photo. That was fantastic. I sent you I sent you a photo with Ken Roxson. And do you know what was really cool about that is that he was he was such a fan. Like he was so like of you. Yeah. Mainly of you. Yeah. He was just really really into it. And then I saw I saw in another podcast somebody moaning about how oh yeah he stayed a bit long in the commentary and I was like he’s Ken Roxson. Like what you know what would you like me to do with Ken Roxson? He had this like he had this big watch on and like he was just for a long time he wouldn’t say stuff because he would just be watching it and listening to us and then at the end he got up to go and like I was talking about the podiums or something and he like tapped me on the shoulder and I turned around and he sort of mouthed at me, can I can I take a bottle of water? And we had, you know, like a sort of an open pack of bottles of water and I was there going Yeah, you can. Yeah. And he was like I was like you’re kid Roxson like I’ I’d give you my passport if you asked me for it. Like so that was really cool. That’ll stand out. But yeah, I’d say for the time being probably Olympics in terms of downhill Luden last year was really good. Um, but I think probably actually I mean you kind of remember the things that are closer to you, but let’s this year and it felt it felt like the three of us had a good time. Yeah. And we enjoyed it and I think that was and then like Palar and S the the stare over to the hot seat that Jackson thing like yeah I’m I’m just a massive fan. They’re all good for me. I really enjoy them all, but yeah, Olympics probably stand out. Nice. Um, we should probably just briefly talk about your time at MUK. Um, any please any time that really stands out for you? Was there any uh cool trips or silly features or there was so much we did? I was there for if people are listening to this and they maybe didn’t read bike magazines. How long ago was this now? This is what 15 years ago? 15 17 years ago. When did you start? Because you started like Well, I started a year after a long I was freelance for before that though, wasn’t I? And then and then I was in the office at the end of Oh, 2009, I think. So that’s So yeah, I think I I started there 200 end of 2007. So we were there for this sort of Top Gear, the TV show Top Gear was in its like heyday and we used to remember you and I used to be constantly in editorial meetings with people saying things like why can’t we just make it like Top Gear and you’re like they’ve got a million an episode and we’ve got a van. Um, the weird the weirdest one and I still remember how weird it was was um we were we raced dogs. Do you remember that we raced Were you on that one? Oh, yeah. No, I wasn’t on that one. I do remember it though. But no, I wasn’t on that. Ollie Beck was on that. And I’ve not Ollie, if you’re listening, we’re going to have a beer and we’re going to talk about this in Leger. I forgot he was on that. And this guy turned up in a Sprinter van with like 16 Huskys in the back of it and the whole van was shaking and stuff. And then yeah, it was I don’t know. It was a it was a really interesting time to be in publishing. Um I think probably the the best trip. It was weird. It’s still on YouTube. I watched some GoPro clips of us at the mega avalanche. That was a really cool That was a really cool trip. Um that was funny. But largely because of James Blackwell. Yeah. And we me and you told him that he’d hit that guy and he’d had to have his legs cut off him on the mountain because he he ran into his legs. And then um I think as well I remember my last trip my last trip was to go and see the first full carbon V10 to go and ride it. Um, by that stage, we knew I was we knew I was leaving and I had like two months to work or something and I went over to your desk and you said, “Do you want to go on the launch of the new carbon fiber Santa Cruz V10?” And I went, “Yeah.” And then instantly went back into self-deprecation and was like, “I don’t know if I’m a good enough rider to go on that launch.” And then you you hardly even looked up from your computer screen and you just went, “It’s a 10 grand dino bike. Don’t worry about it. It’ll be pretty good. And I went and it was I wrote a feature about if Joe Punter was given a World Cup mechanic and tips from other World Cup pros, would that make them a better rider? And it was in Tuskanyany. And the first morning, Cedric Gracia got on a ride on lawnmower and cut a massive [ __ ] and balls into the lawn outside this tiver outside this like place we were staying. And then it kind of disintegrated from there. And then it turned out that what they’d actually done was they’d sold this package. The idea was that they would get Santa Cruz syndicate super fans to come on this riding holiday for a week with a syndicate. But only one guy had actually bought it. So they were like, “Right, well, everything’s booked. We’ve only got one dude coming. We need to turn it into something.” And they turned they’d hurried the bike up and they turned it into the bike launch. So there was just a load of dirt bag journals all the new V10s the syndicate and this one guy who was like a sort of holiday maker come hostage on this just like ramp rampage of like I remember doing the first run down this track and being like right that didn’t feel awful there wasn’t anything on it I couldn’t do I will be able to actually try and go faster next round up I looked over and Steve Pete just had like a glass of procco that this like barman was just stood at the bottom with like glasses of procco at the bottom of the run and stuff. I was like, “This is not going to end well.” And it didn’t. But yeah, I I don’t know. I Yeah, I think I definitely think that I what I love now is I’ve I’ve got really I feel like the last year I’ve got really back into riding a lot more. And maybe that’s been a bit of a coping thing for all the sort of I don’t know the stuff on like the online stuff. But I’ve kind of really reminded myself in the last year how much I do love riding my bike and how much I’m into it. And I think back to MBUK and just being able to ride a different bike every day and actually work out what felt good, what doesn’t feel good, how to set things up, and how to work on bikes and be around bikes. I think I’ve I’ve re I’ve refound a bit of that again. Um, which is really really cool. Yeah. How’s your druid? Lovely. But more on that soon. See, I did that. Okay. Yes. Um I was gonna say at least you didn’t have to do the feature where uh raced skiers. Had to race skiers. That was Where was that? Was that somewhere up north? That was somewhere in Scotland. No, that was in teen. That was in team. Yeah. Raced. Why did we do so much of that? Was it Was it just a Top Gear thing? Cuz I remember doing I did I raced I raced dogs. I raced dogs. I did I did a lot of stuff. I remember because I was into like motorsports. So I did stuff with different like motorbike riders and I went to the aisle of man um for TT press week which again turns out to be a massive pissup. Who would have funk it? Um with Steve Peak because Carter Cumins TT racer used to race cross country. Um, if basically if I could find an angle of doing anything weird that involved mountain biking somehow, I tended to to go for it. But no, it was really really good. I I really like I loved working at MBK. It was brilliant. We had a lot and I think it still is. I think you I think you boys do an amazing job with the mag. I got a a copy of it in the airport the other day and I was like, this is still as good as it’s been. This is still like really really good. You need more dogs more obviously. Well, that and skiers, honestly, I did that when I was a freelancer, so Tim just called me up and said, “Do you want to go and race some skiers?” I was like, “Yeah, okay.” And then I had to drive to teen with some Sarales and a couple of the guys from the Mad Team. Do you remember the Mad Team? Yeah. Remember the Mad Team? Yeah. Me and the lads. Me and the lads down there racing some like Canadian ski. We’re on bikes on snow. It’s not going to go well. And it didn’t. No. And And it didn’t. Is that the theme? Yeah. Yeah. I remember doing I remember doing a I did a Rocky Mountain launch. I forget. It was in like Madiraa or Malaga or somewhere and that was a similar thing. It just like it it just went off the rails really really quickly. Um, I I dislocated and broke that finger on that launch and that’s why it doesn’t sit anywhere near at the ang that’s as straight as it goes because of that launch. Um, one of the guys I don’t going to go into there. Um, but I also feel like I don’t know. I don’t know what it’s like now cuz I’m not there anymore. But I also feel like there was a lot of product like there was a lot of stuff being launched every month that we used to go and cover or find out a way to build a feature in and I don’t I don’t know is it still like that? Is there as much stuff physically being released to the press and sort of like probably not quite the volume from back then and the trips are definitely way shorter, more efficient. Yeah, that’s the the general sort of takeaway now is like it’s all about maximizing your coverage for the shortest amount of time you could spend out the office. It’s a bit punchier and quicker turnaround. We don’t have the luxury of just working on the print mag, you know. So, yeah, those sort of monthly deadlines now become a weekly or daily deadline. I’m trying to get u I’m trying to get Carlson into the idea of he does those um crosscountry course previews where he, you know, he rides a lap on a different team bike each year or each each round, sorry. And I’m trying to get like we’re trying to do this thing where we make that a bit of a his impressions off those bikes and get a bit of sort of like get cuz like I always have a sit on them and a roll around on them and they’re always massively different and I always find getting informed people’s takes on a product is very very interesting. Um that rock rider I got on it the other day expecting it to I don’t know I don’t know what I expected of it. I didn’t really I never been on a rock rider before but I got on it and I instantly went oh this feels really really good. This feels really really fast and really capable just from 20 foot of sort of rolling along on it. And I think that that sort of in cars they call it a butt dyno don’t they? But like I think that comes from those MBUK days of riding lots of bikes and instantly getting on one and going, “Oh yeah, this feels modern cross country bikes are amazing.” By the way, they are aren’t they so good proper proper things. Yeah. Yeah, they are so good. I was going to ask you, what bikes are you riding at the moment? Obviously, you have a druid, hence the question, right? You you’ve got I have a Druid that was a difficult what they call a difficult birth. Um, I ordered one from Germany completely forgetting about the situation with taxes and import duties and then had to pay a load of tax on it and then they sent me the wrong size and then Forbidden very kindly helped me out and I’ve finally got a bill. I’ve got um I’ve got a build kit with uh Fox and Shimano and I just got a ShraMM um flight attendant quite posh build kit as well. Um and I’m loving it. I’m I’m just loving I’m loving having a bike and having I was on I was on through through Enduro World Series and then just you know through knowing them I was on Santa Cruises a lot for about 10 years which were absolutely fantastic but I’m really enjoying going down a sort of segment of travel but also trying a high pivot bike trying stuff that I haven’t tried before. Um, and it’s it’s a great we bike. I’ve got uh I’ve got a V10 dino bike. Uh, just just got one careful owner before you, wouldn’t it? Just one careful owner. Let’s let’s not give the game away on that. Um, version seven. Uh, so the 29, the 29 all 29. Okay, this may be an old man thing, but I massively massively prefer full 29 than mullet. I still I think that’s a tall person thing. That could be my like my my legs start in my armpits so I don’t really get hit by the back wheel a lot and I I like that feeling of I like that feeling of both wheels having the same contact point. I’ve tried a few mullets and I just I sort of get a bit prickity over them. I don’t really. Um, other than that, I’ve got a Canyon road bike, which I love. Uh, it’s an ultimate CF, which I think is about as posh as somebody of my capability should get with a road bike. And I have got a SNM BMX that I’ve had. I think it’s a long I’ve worked out the other day. I think it’s the longest bike. It’s the longest I’ve ever owned a bike. I’ve had it for 15 years maybe. Wow. Well, but I still we’ve got they’ve just opened a Veil of Solutions pump track in the village. So, I’m busy finishing up finishing off whatever cartilage is left between my knees and my wrists and my ankles on the SNM most days. But, um, loving it. Um, I’ve I’ve gone through a very dangerous thing over the last few days for an older sort of project, maybe like a Sunday or something. So, this is so this is Tom’s like one of Tom’s best questions he likes to ask, but it’s of all the bikes you’ve ridden and you’ve ridden a lot. What which one bike would you keep if you could keep any? But this is tricky, isn’t it? Because so I’ve I’ve got to I’ve got to I’ve got to still do I still do I have to ride it for everything? You’ve got you can have one of the bikes you’ve got now. Get rid of the rest and then pick one bike from the last 15 20 years of being in the industry. And those are your two bikes. Yeah. I am I am absolutely loving that little druid. I really like I’ve really sort of it took me a little bit to get my head around. I’m just sort of running a bit more sag to get it going and like it it’s one of those bikes that like you know like you get excited. I’m not going to say you get your gym you put your riding kit on and get into bed the night before you go and ride it, but like I’m if I know I’m going riding on a Saturday morning, I’ll go to bed excited to go and ride on Friday night. Do you know what I mean? It’s just it’s just a lovely little bike and I’ll do that really tragic thing where I wheel it out and have my coffee and have a we look at it whilst I’m getting ready. Um I love and I’ve had a couple of them. My last one got nicked. I love the current generation of Santa Cruz Tallboy which I think is maybe maybe maybe the perfect if you had one bike to do everything. Do you know what I to just like, all right, you’re not going to go to the Alps or do an uplift day and be as fast as you would be on an enduro bike or a downhill bike. But in terms of if you rode every day, I think a tall boy’s pretty bob on um what about from like a nostalgic point of view, which of the bikes Sunday Iron Sunday that easy? Yeah. Not the M1. I think I think I look back on I had a Sunday for MBUK as a long-term bike. And I I’m not like I am by no means a great bike rider, but I’ve ridden a lot for a long time. But I think I learned how to properly go around corners on that bike and it’s just got that I just have nothing but positive associations with it. I rode one when I was freelance. I did a feature where I I bought one for 500 quid and I sort of serviced everything on it and put new tires on it and went out to see how crap it would be and it was actually still brilliant. It was just still too small for me. I’ve never I’ve never tried the bigger one. I only ever tried the medium one. So, I have a bit of unfinished business with that. Although the bigger one looks a bit awkward. It doesn’t look as Sunday like. Um, if I could have one bike just to have, it would be a Honda RN1. Cuz that that was an interesting topic of conversation that one of the guys that we had with us asked, how much is that bike worth? And we like Manar and I kind of fell into this probably to the guy who asked the question originally, very boring conversation about it’s how much is a Formula 1 car worth? You can’t do anything with it. like you it’s kind of just an object ostensively. No, no parts from it will go onto anything else. It’s a bespoke thing, but it’s still a Formula 1 car. And that bike Manar reckons in its day was valued at 80 grand and that was based on that was based on the cumulative time and effort of all the people involved in the project like their hours and then the actual material added up to 80 grand. So now nearly two decades later that must be worth but I would still if I was Bezos I’d probably have that in my office and just lose a lot of time to looking at it. It’s a lovely thing. It’s a lovely thing to be around and to just look at and sort of see all the little details on it and yeah, but I yeah, I kind of Yeah, I need to stop looking at Iron Horse Sundays on eBay because I have that thing I do with bikes what I do with cars in that I put this little hurry up on myself where I go if if you want one of these, if you’re serious about wanting one of these, you need to get on board before they get too expensive and you can’t own them. And I think some days I saw Connor Connor Fum rac Connor Fum was racing one and I saw someone else has dusted one off lately and I loved you’ll remember this in dirt. There was a picture of Duncan Riffles one, the white one with the Honda logo. It was Iron Horse Honda, wasn’t it? Yeah. And it had a skinny I think it had an airshock in the back of it. Was it Sven’s team? Something like that. May have been. Yeah. M I’ I’d like to build a like and I have in my head last night I was sitting on the sofa going a replica of one of those would be pretty cool and then you go what are you going to do with it? You’re not like are you going to ride that over a 2-year-old over a 2-year-old V10? Like still don’t know. What would you have? What would you What’s your one bike from back in the day that you’d still have if I could get any? Was it that giant that used to bang your knees? They used to bang your knees around. No, it’s not that. No, it would have been if I could get any and not necessarily ones I’ve owned, I would take a Sun Radical Plus for sure. Oh, just because of the whole kind of back to the whole theater and everything, you know, the mysticism and everything behind all of that. For me, that was part of the racing back then and and obviously it was harder to watch then. But when you saw pictures of Nico and Caro, all of those guys, and they just dominated everything, and they had these bikes that weren’t just run-of-the-mill, you know, you couldn’t go out and buy the suspension. I, you know, you could eventually could go by the frames and stuff, but nothing that they were racing was just off the shelf. It was so sort of it was so cool and so ahead of its time that it was just like this is the coolest thing ever. Do you two or Oh, I was just going to say or Brendan’s custom orange or the one that Steve had, the old 222 that was slammed that was super low, super slack when he had it. They had they had them in black. Those things looked fast. Yeah, that was a good looking bike. Here’s one for you two though. Would do you think that in downhill? Do you think that it matters if they are racing what you can buy in the shop? I like that they do like you know the all round like you’re saying like those those those kids racing that stock bike. I think it’s a cool story and I think for a brand it’s an incredible story for common cell to go and say you know this is the bike that you can actually go and buy and I think mountain bikes one of those sort of uniqueish performance sports where you literally can go and to most extent buy what you see at the weekend. You can’t do that with a lot you know like with any motor sport. Yeah. So, you know, you can’t go and buy a world superbike really, certainly not for any sort of money that people can put on a credit card or whatever it might be. At the same time, you know, the stuff that, you know, Specializ are doing with, you know, with their race bikes and stuff, like if you want to see, you know, downhill is like the the horrible cliche of like the F1 of of of mountain bike or the F1 of cycling, like it’s cool to see those bikes being pushed and the the tech that’s going in there, you know, the the lights on the stems and the buttons under the bars and the, you know, the crazy machining and the linkages that you can’t really quite tell what’s going on. Like, it’s cool. It builds intrigue. builds a story and it builds like that hype and excitement around it that you know h yeah so I’m sort of split on that but you you just mentioned the sun the sun the sun radical is that isn’t it the sun radical is like they must have sold what all of like seven of those like in reality production bikes probably I mean I think um so I actually wrote an article about this uh just a few months ago and my take was Well, I think it’s great that you can buy those bikes. I don’t think it’s the be all end all. And I think uh yeah, by having that there’s that rule, the UCI rule whereby if you’re racing on something, in theory, it should be available 12 months after it’s been used unless there’s some kind of you can basically kind of have a get out clause somehow where you I don’t know, you get exempt for another year and you have to just keep applying for that like I guess the specialized guys have done. But I think if you were to ditch that and open it up again to brands like Honda or, you know, McLaren made an ebike, maybe they’d want to make a downhill bike. You know, kind of venture into something slightly different. It’s a good way to kind of showcase stuff. And if it’s on the mainstream TV, what a great way to kind of push your brand in a different direction. Or I think as well I think people sort of people as well I I’m sure you find this routinely overestimate how many downhill bikes are sold in the world, right? Yeah. you know, it’s it’s very much it’s a it’s a pinnacle product, but it’s such a specific use thing that Well, you’re selling the brand, aren’t you? You’re not selling the the bike. You’re selling the brand. We speak to distributors, you know, and they say, “Oh, how many bikes have you sold with the downhill bike?” You know, it would be single figures in a year or maybe 10, 15, maybe 20 at a push, you know, but there aren’t many people buying downhill bikes in the UK. And when you think that a lot of big brands have a downhill bike, you know, Trex, Speesh, Common Cell, all these sort of brands, they have one. Like, how many are you realistically going to sell? You know, if I was going to start bringing a a new brand to the UK as a distributor, would I buy 10 of them in a year? Don’t know. You’d have to push hard to sell them, maybe. It’s it’s a tricky It’s a tricky one, isn’t it? Because but yet they’re so like think Commal and you think Miriam Nicole or Armory Pier on like full flight in behind the stem and that is the bike they’re on. Yeah. Yeah. I imagine if Speesh bought out that downhill bike now and they said right off your chop you can go and buy that like you’d see so many of them around. And I mean in terms of a marketing exercise gold right? even if they didn’t sell that many, it’s going to just push people in that direction, isn’t it? So, it’s a Well, that’s what like it’s kind of to to kind of like Yeah, it’s one of the things that kept coming back when we were filming race bikes was you look at all the little things on like like Pete’s Camber bike and the center section of each of the original high roller tire that they’re cut down by a couple of mil and you go like he won that race by 500s of a second. Do you know what I mean? that then it’s like all of that effort is poured into now that V10 is not a stock V10, but a Santa Cruz V10 won that race. A Santa Cruz won that race. It’s it’s a funny sport like that. I’ve had, you know, I’ve had a lot of conversations with people. I know like for that was one of the big things on track for a couple of seasons recently was that you had to run what they could sell. That was their approach. And I at the same time you’re looking across the pit and Specialize were going wild with data acquisition and you know like secret breaks and all this stuff and you go which of these is actually commercially the clever way of doing they probably both work out. Let’s let’s face it they probably both stack up. You know there’s people smarter than us in those boardrooms going let’s do this but it’s it’s a it’s a really interesting sport in that way. It’s sort of like what is I mean then you’ve got TDY on a bike that can do enduro apparently downhill you know down tube storage in there. Yeah. Which I mean what two two years three years ago that would have been like that would have been you people wouldn’t have believed you that would have been a thing that an enduro bike could do and you can bolt weights to it but now it’s it comes with weights. Yeah. So, I I can understand I can understand why nobody’s done a neater solution than like this is the first bike. Is this the first bike that you could actually there’s a there’s a way you can bolt weights to it. Whenever you’re saying like some of the Whenever you’re seeing like some of the biggest teams in the world like gaffa taped roofing lead to the bottom of a down tube, you’re like there’s got to be a better way than this. For an industry obsessed with standards and sizing and width and measures and Yeah. and detail. Just get a child and his 3D printer. Exactly. He’s big into that. Or if you want to make it look really 3D printing, get them to wear a backpack with it in. Yeah. Brilliant. What could go wrong? Camel back. They could they could change it. They could change it per lap. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Or if it’s all going wrong, go and weigh it in. Bit of cash in the back pocket for the party on Sunday night. Yeah, everyone’s a winner. Yeah. And you haven’t had to put any tape on your bike. I mean, I I I’m not against tape on the bike, but I Yeah, I the world’s fastest people pissing about with roof and lead feels feels like it’s gone the wrong way. It’s a bit home brew, isn’t it? But then that’s racing, isn’t it? I mean, that’s and that’s the thing I talked about. The Honda was such a finished product. There’s there’s stuff that you see whenever you’re on these things that you go, that’s how you’re doing that. It works. Why would I do it any other way? Like, there’s lots of cool stuff knocking about that is just racing is necessity, isn’t it? Yeah, we need to do this. What’s the easiest way of doing it? Right. I think uh on that bombshell, we should probably wrap things up. Thank you very much. This has been a pleasure. Oh, it’s been an absolute pleasure to have you here talking to Well, not here, not here, here on on there here, but it’s been absolutely lovely to see your wonderful face to chat again, to catch up, to reminisce, to talk about everything you’re up. We should do Yeah. Yeah. We should do we should do a future one of just the MBUK years and get I don’t know. Get a few over get a few central characters overlapping. Get Collins boy in. Get like get Jimmer on. Is Jim get a band back together? No, I think Why is he not aging? Why does he look the same age? He is the Peter Pan. Well, in fact, no, he’s not. I’m not going to say he’s the Peter Pan mountain biking. He is Peter Pan. It’s as simple as that. He has with questionable life choices. Well, he he’s Yeah. You just wonder how he survived so long knowing him having been on nights out given what he’s been up to. Yeah. And every time I see him, I’m like, what is he doing differently than I am? I’ve got a face like a bag of smash crabs and he’s like refusing to age. It’s quite incredible. Yeah, maybe Max has said it’s surfing. Maybe it is. Maybe we’ve done it all wrong. No, you and I you and I have talked about surfing before, Rob. Surfing is cold and wet. Sharks. One word. The sea is a cruel The sea is a cruel mistress. We do not belong there. I’d rather be on the moon. In a wet suit. It’s a really, really cheap spacuit. Okay. A wet suit wrapped in foil. Your insides would stay inside it. you once the vacuum I got you. Okay, on that note, maybe we do things. So, thank you again, Rick. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you, Tom. Please join us for another MBUK podcast soon.