Aaron Gwin to Join Crestline as Rider & Part-Owner for 2024 - Full Interview & Podcast

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When the UCI team list was released for the upcoming season, there were many answers to be found about who will be riding what. One inclusion that didn't reveal any details, however, was Aaron Gwin's name under his eponymous racing team. What bikes were they riding? What would this team look like? And will Gwin himself be lining up at World Cups this year or be confined to the commentary box as he rehabilitates from an arm injury sustained early last season?

We now have all the details. In short, the bikes will be from Crestline, but don't go thinking this is a standard sponsorship deal. It will run far deeper, with Gwin taking part ownership in the brand that was founded a mere couple of years ago. Although not their first outing at World Cups, the RS 205 VHP frame was raced under Sam Blenkinsop last year, this does feel like a big step up for a brand that is still so relatively young. In an interesting twist, this isn't a standard multi-year sponsorship deal, and Gwin will be coming on as a partner as an owner of the business at Crestline.

Gwin will be joined by Canadian racers Seth Sherlock and Mikey Delesalle. The team will race 2024 UCI downhill World Cups, World Championships, and select National races.

Aaron made time for us during a very busy team camp. While it might sometimes seem to be all glitz and glamour in mountain biking, I love the fact that we're still raw enough to sometimes be about propping up a laptop in short-term accommodation as you pack in as much preparation and planning as you can, and answering questions honestly that fans of the sport will likely want to know about. I'm thankful that even as mountain biking becomes more pro the level of access athletes and team owners are prepared to grant media is so great, and it personally only makes me love mountain biking and World Cup racing even more.

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Henry: Aaron Gwin, thank you for coming on The Pinkbike Podcast. Now this is quite exciting because you are at a test camp. You're literally getting ready for the season as we speak. And although it's quite late and even people checking out the UCI team list will have seen you registered, they don't know what bike you'll be riding. I don't know what bike you will be riding. It's all very exciting. So fill us in, what are your plans? What will you be riding as we go into this 2024 season?

Aaron: Yeah, man. So it's been a journey for sure. For starters, this off season has been different than pretty much any other off season I've ever had - I think just at the point in my career that I'm at and the things that I'm hoping to do in the future. We have the bike park here at Windrock now that we're running and we've been putting a lot of time into that. We've got the race team. I've had a race program for about seven years now, but I'm running it under my own name now, which has been exciting and we can dig into all those details. Then yeah, actually I am adding a bike brand to my list of businesses now too. So I'm partnered as an owner of the new bike brand. And because of that, the deal has just taken more time. Like I was really kind of patiently going about trying to find the right fit, kind of moving forward for the rest of my career and then once I'm retired as well.

The bike brand I'll be riding for is Crestline Bicycles. I'm super excited. It's been kind of crazy, and different than maybe some people would expect or think. But really, like I said, it's been a different journey this off season. I've been trying to really find good alignment more than anything. And I think long term for me, I've always wanted to start my own bike company.

I thought about it a few times and you know, so this is basically, like I said, there's a lot of alignment between myself and the guys running that thing, and I feel like it's a perfect fit for everybody. And so I kind of get to be a part of that now.

Henry: How does this differ from your setup within Intense? Because that was more than just racing, right?

Aaron: Yep. Yeah. So Intense, I was hired to be like one of their factory riders, but to also manage their factory race team for them. So the race program, Intense Factory Racing, the last five years was owned, operated and managed by myself and my team that I put together. So Intense was, per se, the title sponsor of the program and we ran that whole team.

I've kind of been doing that for a long time, even back with YT, Martin technically owned that program, but I kind of put it all together. We've just been inching that way for a long time now. So yeah, not much has really changed now with Gwin Racing. It's really the name, but a lot of the staff and a lot of the people are staying the same. There are some changes but it's a continuation of what we've been doing, just under my own name now.


Henry: You talk about buying into this Crestline project. What's that going to look like in terms of how Crestline is structured? Are you going to hold some sort of position within the company? Are you a silent partner that just happens to race the bikes?

Aaron: No, so I'm not buying in. Basically, the goal there is to be an equal parts partner with Troydon and Mark, the other two owners. So we'll each own a third of the company as the goal moving forward and there's a clear path for me to basically get there. So that's kind of where we're at. We're all in this thing together. And, yeah, just excited. We already have a lot of plans and a lot of things we're talking about.

I think for me, I've had such a fun and cool career. I've been fortunate to ride for some of the absolute best bike brands in the industry and work with so many cool people. I think over the years, I've obviously learned a lot and gained a lot of experience. And I don't know, I have always looked at it. I'm like, man, if I could do this myself, and if I didn't have any rules or guidelines I needed to work around, like, how would I do this? Or how would I start a bike brand?

So I've even been to the factories in China and Taiwan years ago and done some research and always considered it. It was just really hard to do while I was in the middle of chasing championships and stuff. But that's ultimately what I've always wanted to do. We had chatted about it a little bit with Intense on the ownership stuff. I know a lot of people think that I had ownership there. We definitely talked about it, but you know, it was kind of waiting to see if it was going to be the right fit down the road.

And we ended up going different directions there, which worked out well for me and just what I want to do in the future. Like I said, I think I've been working under a traditional sponsorship model for so many years, and you renegotiate these contracts every two or three years and you're just kind of in this like a revolving door. And I was like, man, I really want to find a home and build something that's mine or I'm a part of it long-term. You know, you put all this time and effort, it's hard to be switching every couple of years.

It just worked out really well. You know, I was thinking about starting my own thing again. I also talked to quite a few brands this off season, just like we're looking for the right fit and the right alignment going forward and chatting with Troy a lot at Crestline, we really just hit it off. And I think we have very similar visions to what we want to do in the future and kind of how he views things and how I view things.

Yeah, it was kind of crazy how it all came together, but we kind of just got to a point where it was like, man, like, why don't why don't we do this together? It worked out really cool that way.


Henry: So reading between the lines, it sounds like a stake in ownership, almost equity in the company for sponsorship. Would that be how it worked?

Aaron: No, the sponsorship and the team thing is honestly kind of separate. I committed to running my race program probably three months ago and we had secured enough funding through our co-sponsors and stuff. I really wanted to support Seth and Mikey, specifically, who are the two younger riders that are on my program. Obviously it's a little bit of a more challenging year financially for a lot of bike brands, so I would have loved to keep Dakotah and some of the boys on the program as well, but with budgets and how things were moving, they had some really good deals come at them that they needed to make a decision on in a couple of weeks. And I knew I was getting into this transition period where I was looking for something a little more unique that I knew it was going to take more than a couple of weeks to lock something down. I just, I really wanted to continue to go racing, to keep a lot of the base of our staff and our people we've built the last five, six years and support these kids.

And so it was like, all right, let's lock in the team and get everything we need. And then basically had co-sponsors on board and have then just been looking for the right partner on the frame side. I was open to a couple of different opportunities and different things. And we spoke with quite a few brands. I'm fortunate to still be pretty close to a lot of brands I've ridden for in the past and even brands I haven't. So kind of kicked it around with a few people and was just looking for the right fit.

Ultimately, I was hoping for something like this but definitely wasn't going to force it. So that's why the announcement has come late. I wasn't trying to hold off for dramatic effect or anything. I just wanted to find the right fit and was in the fortunate position to not need to be in a hurry to lock a frame brand in. We didn't need the funding at this point. Thankfully, I'm pretty tight with a lot of brands. So if I say, “Hey guys, I just need race frames” they'll send them to me. So it was really trying to find the right fit long-term if it was possible. I was just willing to be pretty patient and methodical to see if that worked out.

It ended up working out and we got a long-term plan with Crestline. Basically I'll just come in as an owner straight away. I'll run the race program as well. My race team will all be on Crestline bikes.

I'm running that segment of the business along with being a partner now with those guys. It'll basically be us making all the decisions on everything we want to be and do moving forward. So really the bigger thing there. The team is a piece of it, but it wasn't why we did the deal. We did the deal because I think we're going to be great partners moving forward and at managing this bike brand in the future and all the things that that will look like.


Henry: Some races want to remove the complications of having to organize themselves. I think for many individuals, that's one of the main pulls about going to a bigger, more established team. There's probably a sweet spot though, a trade-off where having the bike you want to ride and having the influence you want within that company that supports you, whilst also not having it be so impactful that it can distract you from your racing. How do you feel that balance is going to be for you this season?

Aaron: It's never easy. I've done this a few times now, so it's not my first time. I think for me, because I've done it a few times, I know that if I have the right team and the right engineers and people that are motivated, that we can make a winning bike. I don't want to sound over the top, but that's not that difficult anymore. I feel like I have the right group of people even now. Dev and my engineer that was with us at Intense and a whole bunch of other people. So if I want to make a fast World Cup winning bike and I don't have a bunch of rules put around what that needs to look like, that's pretty easy for me to do at this point. So it was a little less about the bike directly, this contract, and more about finding the right alignment with a company, like somewhere where I feel like I can really work for years and years and we can really build something that doesn't need to turn over every couple of years. That was more important.

Obviously, the bike is important. I haven't actually ridden the bike yet because my elbow is still healing. I've been back on the bike now off and on for a few months, but it had a couple of complications with it that I've just had to really be very patient with my rehab and kind of do things slower than I would like to. But overall, I'm on schedule for what the doctors say I should be, but I always hope that it will go faster.

I've been back riding really in the last week and this is the first time I've been able to ride without a lot of pain. I've just been riding my trail bike and slowly building up. Seth flew out here about a week ago, my teammate, and he's been testing and riding the bike and he really likes it. And we're already looking into what we have got in terms of different options and things to test there. So we're going to start doing that here in the next couple of days.

Mikey's actually flying in tonight as well. We're really going to get busy now. I've been waiting for everything to come together and I'm excited. The bike definitely looks really cool. And the way it went together is probably the cleanest, nicest bike to put together and the way it looks that I've ever had. The thing is sweet, like really cool.

It's super light, it's very well done. Talking to Troy at Crestline, I think that's where a lot of the alignment was. It's not like, hey, can we just pump out 50,000 bikes a year and do all this stuff? I mean, we're definitely planning to grow and expand into a lot of areas in the future, but whatever we do, we want to do it right. We want it to be quality. We want people to be really happy with the bikes they get, and enjoy great customer service.

We were aligned on a lot of those things. It’s a crazy one, and very different from things I've done in the past, but because of my elbow and just the circumstances, it kind of was what it was. But I'm stoked, dude. I'm excited for a long future with the brand and to be able to be an owner in it and actually participate at that level is a dream come true for me.


Henry: The track record would back you up with your ability to develop a fast bike and program where all the things come together. We know it's not just the frame. There's so many contributing factors that have to meld together to contribute towards a fast setup. You've been around and working with other teams, but also embedded with a scene where you do hear things, you hear the gossip, you hear the rumor mill. What do you think is the biggest inhibitor to a lot of brands making a fast bike? Because people throw a lot of money at it and not everyone ends up doing it. I’m sure we both hear the same rumor of people not getting on with a bike, or maybe even across a whole team, no one rider really liking their race bike.

Aaron: Yeah, it's tricky. I mean, even with Intense it wasn't easy. It wasn't like we got there in a year; we had some setbacks, we had big delays with COVID, I had a couple injuries along the way that slowed it down. We got to a point where I really needed an engineer that was going to be able to take the feedback I was giving and put that into what we were looking for. And so when Devin came on board, I feel like it really helped fill a couple of those gaps as well.

I mean it's not easy, and I feel like while working with Intense we were so thorough in the way we went through things to get to that finalized race bike. Any gaps I had left in kind of learning, I felt like we figured them out with that bike. So now I think if you have a solid group, I know what numbers, kinematics values and other certain things pretty good.

You’ve still got to work around a lot of things, right? Fortunately at Intense, Jeff said, “Okay, build whatever bike you want” and whatever one we can get dialed in the quickest, and just go for it. So we had kind of no parameters, but with a lot of brands have a certain suspension platform or a certain marketing thing they're trying to push, or they've spent a bunch of money on some new technology or something which… Well, maybe sometimes it's more marketing than function because you don't want to just build the exact same thing that everybody else is building. But sometimes you can back yourself into a corner by doing that as well. Maybe it's not the easiest to set up or the best functioning bike. So there are a lot of different reasons that could be difficult, I guess.


Henry: I think if we look back, what was it 10 years ago when that four bar patent expired in North America and people went from telling you that their non four bar system is the absolute best, but how many of those brands were quick to migrate. I think that patents can play a big role in that as well. This Crestline - to the keen observer, there will be some obvious distinctions to the Intense, but to the more casual one there are some similarities. It has got a similar silhouette to the intense, most notably with that idler.

The idler thing's both literally gone up and down. Super high idlers a couple of years ago, they're coming down even with brands like Commencal coming to a mid-high idler. How important do you think that is? Do you think it's a race specific thing? Do you think it's a rider specific thing? And in your testing with Intense, did you find it to be faster?

Aaron: I don't know that there's a magic answer to anything. I think it's really having a well-rounded setup at least for me. I like bikes that kind of do everything well. I don't like to back myself into a corner by making a bike that can just smash bumps, but it's got a really rearward axle path and it's hard to turn.

I usually land in the middle on kind of everything because I feel like when you're racing, you need a bike that's going to be able to do everything pretty good. Then you as a rider need to just maximize those strengths and make the most out of it. The thing that's interesting with the Crestline and I'm really excited about is, I never felt like we really got a hold of that VPP suspension platform with Intense. We went down the road a little bit and I just wasn't familiar with it at the time and I felt like we were in a place where it was like, “Hey, you can make a whole new bike or we can keep messing with this one.”

With Intense when it started off, it was more of a sizing issue at the beginning. Then we had some issues with the kinematics and at the same time as when the wheel sizes were changing to the mullet wheels. And so we were prototyping with that and then we had COVID and then I had crashes. It was just really hard. We never got a chance to really maximize that suspension platform for what I wanted. We got to a point where it was like, “Okay, I know this other one works. I know we can get there pretty quick. Like, let's just do that.” So with the Crestline, it's a VPP platform, just like the older Intense was, but I feel like the kinematics and everything is all really close to where I feel like I would like to be.

It's not a crazy rearward axle path like a lot of bikes.The Intense was rearward enough where you needed the idler pulley. If we would have gone just a little bit less on the axle path we wouldn't have probably needed it. The Crestline falls pretty close to that so I'm excited

We can do whatever we want with that thing. We've got a good team of engineers, and a good geometry starting point and the kinematics. A lot of that actually is pretty funny. Neko Mulally helped a lot with the kinematics on the Crestline with Troydon. So with Neko, before he left Intense, we went out and bought a bunch of the top bikes. We decided what we wanted to do with Intense as far as where we wanted to go with that suspension system in the future. I just wanted to ride everything and see what was what.

We were still at that time where mixed wheel sizes were kind of becoming the new thing. So not every brand had a production mixed wheel size bike out yet, even though their factory teams were on one. I really wanted to get a Santa Cruz, but they didn't have any and we tried. So because of that, we rode the Specialized and the Trek and the Commencal.

I knew Neko was going to go start his own thing and we've always been really tight and I was like, “Hey dude, if I'm going to go buy all these bikes because I want to know kind of like really do a deep dive here”. Not that any one of them are perfect, especially in stock form. A lot of times the race bikes are a little different, but we spent a bunch of time actually here at Windrock testing all those bikes. And we both came to the same conclusions on what we wanted and the direction we wanted to go.

When he started Frameworks, he started putting those kinematics and geo into those bikes. When I moved forward with Intense with those other two bikes, I basically did something pretty similar. So Neko was kind of a big help with Troydon and figuring out the kinematics and the geo and everything for this Crestline downhill bike. So it's kind of funny, like it's the same feedback that went into this bike as into what we were doing. So it's actually pretty close compared to where a lot of things would start, I think.


Henry: You’ve mentioned kinematics a couple of times and sort of settled on the attributes that you would want anyway. What do those attributes look like? Are you after something particularly progressive or, dare I say, quite linear?

Aaron: I think it depends. Every bike’s gonna react a little differently especially with what type of pivot set up, whether it's a VPP or four bar six bar or whatever. You can run the same kinematics but they're always going to feel a little different depending on what bike you're on. There are also some other factors that can change some of those things as well.

I think for me, with the kinematics, I've found a setup that's a little bit more linear. I think it's more consistent through the stroke. It was something at Intense, and the YT was like that too, and the Specialized was before bikes were getting really progressive. If you do that in some ways, at least what we were finding is that it's really hard to get the bike to hold up at the top part of the travel. You kind of find, at least for us, this setup where it's really hard to get the bike to have enough hold in the mid stroke support. So when you push into the bike to pump it or to make it turn or get in and out of corners, you've really got that platform to push on. So it doesn't feel like the bike's really wallowy and soft.

If it's a super progressive bike, a lot of times it's softer through that first half of the stroke. Then when it finally does ramp up, it really ramps up deep in the travel. So for us, you end up stiffening the bike so much to get that mid stroke support, but then it's just unreal to try to hang on deep in the stroke. There's a range of acceptability. There's not one number that just works all the time. Your shock tunes and so many other variables go into that.

As far as kinematics go, that's one thing cool about this Crestline is we already have a bunch of different links and we're making some more stuff. So we have a lot of options that can tweak that thing. But I've found that I've kind of started to lean more towards a more linear setup.


Henry: I think especially with a race bike you do need so much mid stroke. Progressivity, people often assume it enables you to go faster and it does, but you can also feel like you're in free fall, which can be no good. Back in the day you were famed, especially when you were on Trek or even Specialized, for having an ultra hard setup, especially in the fork. Rob Warner would always be shouting about it. It visibly looked so stiff. Is that something you've persevered with? Do you run a stiffer fork compared to other people the same weight as you?

Aaron: Yeah, I'm probably still on the stiffer side with how I run things, but not like I used to be. The suspension performance and technology have gotten so much better in the last 15 years. I felt like when I was racing, like on Trek, for example, back in 2011 and 12, we were on a 26 inch wheel bike. They were quite a bit smaller, even frame size wise than what we're racing now.

And the suspension and the frame technology, everything about it was just not as good as it is now. So for me to hit stuff as hard as I felt like I needed to hit it and not slow down, I basically just had to make the bike really stiff. It was hard to hang on to. If you were doing bike park laps, you would be miserable. But for a World Cup race bike, if you just wanted to slam into stuff and not slow down, and get the bike to maintain geometry and not be pitching and diving and the steep stuff when you're hitting big holes, I just ended up going really stiff. It was a really fast setup, even though it was tough to hang on to. But nowadays, the suspension works so much better. The bikes work a lot better. The wheel sizes are big. Everything kind of goes to where you don't have to run it that stiff. And it's just way more tuneable, like everything. You can run something that's going to have really good small bump sensitivity, but still have good hold up deep in the travel.

Back then I remember it was like a lot of guys were like “Oh, I just want it to be really supple on the bump.” So they'd run like a softer setup, but then it had no hold down deep. And for me, I thought “I'll skip around on top.” I just need the thing that slams into walls real fast. So I just made it stiff, but thankfully these days you don't have to go so extreme to get the bike to hold up.


Henry: As we look into this season, you obviously mentioned the continuing issue with your elbow. It also sounds like you're very much thinking of the big picture with this Crestline project. Will you be having a run at some races, particularly something like World Champs? And how's that gonna interact with the commitments you might have to Discovery? Will you be commentating again?

Aaron: Yeah, just shout out to all the people that are supporting us and giving me the freedom to do what I want to do. My plan is to come back to racing as soon as I'm 100% fast and strong and healthy. So we'll see. It's been hard, dude. I've never been off the bike this long. I think eight months now and I'm kind of cruising around on a trail bike now for the first time not having a lot of pain when I ride. So that's been really exciting, because usually I ride my bike almost every day and I love it. So being off the bike for eight months has been… I mean, we've been busy for sure, but it's been hard. I've missed it a lot. But I just want to be smart. I don't want to make it worse. I want that thing to heal so I don't have issues down the road. And so just trying to be patient. My plan is to come back to racing as soon as I'm basically 100%. So if that's the first World Cup - sweet - if it's a few rounds in sweet. We have a good gap before World Champs. So my my goal for the last four months or so is to then really make a good push for World Champs this year and so that would have me on the bike and up to speed around the beginning of July and I'd probably do like US National Champs and Crankworx Whistler and as much racing as I can. Hopefully a World Cup or two at least before that and then see if I can go win that race would be awesome. It's in Andorra this year. It's probably my favorite track or one of my favorite tracks and then I'll finish off the season from there. The plan is just to race as soon as I'm back up to speed and feeling good.

I'm chatting with Warner Brothers about the commentating stuff right now. And the plan on that if I miss any of the World Cups, I'll be commentating at those. And then we'll probably work on some TV stuff even at the races I am racing as well. So super excited about that. I don't feel like I'm done racing. I want to keep pushing at it, but I do enjoy the commentating as well. So I want to be at the team supporting or at the races supporting my team, regardless and if I'm there and I can't race, I'd love to do the commentating. So that's the plan.


Henry: We see this sort of rejuvenated Minnaar going on to this Norco deal, you're still wanting to talk about winning world champs. Do you care about the whole GOAT debate? Does that mean anything to you?

Aaron: I mean, I'd probably be lying if I said no, right? I'm pretty competitive. I wouldn't say if I was to keep racing, it's because I want to win more races than Greg. I think I love riding my bike. I love racing and I felt like it was really hard to sit on the sidelines last year because I felt really good coming into the season. I had a good year before that.

I felt like we were in a good place with the bike and the equipment last year. I felt physically better than I ever had coming into a year. And then I just went out on my third practice run and missed the whole year. So it was hard, man. The whole plan was to try to be back to winning races and win that World Cup overall title and maybe world champs last year. That was the goal. The hunger to do that is definitely still there. I wouldn't say it would be trying to chase Greg's record, but if I was able to beat it, I definitely wouldn't be mad about it.


Henry: Did you feel, coming back in with those really strong 2022 results, somewhat vindicated? You were really, really pushing on with YT and then moving to Intense and then developing the bike. And there was the question of does he still have it? You know, that sort of commentary was floating about. People often forget that you might be a bike racer for some of your life but you're a human for all of your life and all your live long days. Did that weigh on your mind at all? And did you feel vindicated kind of getting towards the sharp end again?

Aaron: I would say I was just happy because I know the work that I put in and I feel like you know people don't see all the stuff going behind the scenes. It was very challenging. You know for three/four years before I had that good season in 22, the types of injuries I had, how random they were where, I felt like there was literally nothing I could have done. You come up over a blind rise and there's a huge loose rock in the track and you land straight on it and have a huge crash - first practice run - you're like, man, I couldn't have done anything better or different to avoid that. It was just one of those things that happened. I had some parts failures. I had just weird stuff happening. I felt like the whole time I had the speed, I hadn't changed. I battled through some bike stuff for sure. Like setup wise, trying to be comfortable.

And then, with COVID and the injuries and everything kind of compounding, I just never had a chance to like put more than a few months together without some sort of setback. So I think for me I never lost hope. I always know if I'm comfortable and I'm fit, I can compete for wins. It's not easy to have both of those things come together at that level, a lot of things need to go right. But I still feel like I could do that for five more years if I wanted to. That's just my belief. So I wouldn't say I felt vindicated, because it wasn't about trying to do it for anybody else but myself. I just really love the feeling of being comfortable and being on a downhill track and being able to ride that pace and compete for wins. That's always been everything for me when I go racing. So it was more just really fun to be able to start doing that again and I felt like the best was yet to come. We weren't able to quite get there with the injury but we'll see what happens in the future.

Henry: When you turned up to World Cup racing, there were a lot of people who'd been plugging at World Cups for years and maybe having the sort of conversations that you and I are having now. “When I'm comfortable, when I'm happy, I know I can deliver”. And then you turn up and you make winning look so easy. Did it feel easy at the time, winning all those races so early?

Aaron: It never feels easy. It's always been hard. I think, and as I've gotten older, I appreciate it more because I know after winning a lot of races for a lot of years and I would have never said it felt easy. The gap was different back then. I think the sport has just elevated so much. Back then it was just if I had my best run, nobody's going to touch me and I'm probably going to put a big gap in everybody.

Now if you're going to put eight seconds into somebody, it's going to be, unless there's a very unique situation with weather or something… I don't know that that's happening. So just the depth of the field now has just risen so crazy, and there are so many people I feel that are capable of kind of running at that speed. You still do have those top couple of guys that kind of end up winning consistently.

Even last year we had a different World Cup winner every single race except Jackson won two. And then with world champs, Charlie won it. So a different winner every race. It's just the depth of speed and talent is just bigger and better than it's ever been. And like everybody is on a full program now. Like they're all fit, they're all fast, they all have good bikes.

For the most part, it's like, it's just more competitive now, which is great as a fan and a little harder as a racer.


Henry: As someone that's been running programs for a couple of years, and has that role of picking riders and selecting riders, if you had a blank check book and weren't interested so much in rider development, who would be the riders that you would pick? If you could sign any one rider from the male elite and female elite, which two riders would you think would be the best investment to go win races this year?

Aaron: That's a tricky one. You're putting me in an awkward spot too because I'm friends with a lot of those guys. I would say, just to keep it simple, if I had the access to money a little sooner in the off season, I would have kept Dakotah. We'll just say that. Dakotah and I, we had a really good time riding and working together.

And it was really cool to see him find some consistency in his speed. He has so much skill and talent on a bike. So to be able to start putting those other little pieces together and kind of start believing in himself that he could do that every weekend. It was really fun. It sucked to be off the bike last year, not racing, but to be able to spend a bit more time with him and the other boys on our team and to see the success was really fun. And I know we were both pretty bummed to not be able to keep doing that this year. So yeah, if I had a contract, maybe I'd just buy him out of his contract.

And for female elites, if you're looking for results, it's really hard to go against Vali right now. I think she's so strong and she's young and I honestly feel like she's still got some progression left. I think there's still some areas there. Like I think there's a good chance she's going to just keep getting better. So yeah, I mean, that would probably be like if I had to pick.

I mean, a bunch of them are awesome. I really love Nina's vibe, attitude, her energy, personality and everything. Every time I see her, I feel like she's smiling and she'd just be somebody really fun to be around. I don't know, just pick any of them really, can't miss Rachel. They're all amazing, and then there's some new junior riders coming up too. Some of those junior girls are ripping. So yeah, we'll see.


Henry: And it's so close right now that we're in the field. Through the season, rumors swirled as this is probably the silliest season to date. It feels like it's had a bit of everything. Is that something that you ever keep an eye on in terms of caring what people think is happening? And also as someone that's hunting down deals, it must be kind of strange to hear if X is going to say sign with Crestline, that means I'm not going to Crestline. “Am I going to give any credence to that?”. Is that something you ever consider?

Aaron: No, not really. I know a lot of people now, both brands and riders. So I usually know where everybody's going to end up, three or four months, half the time before it's announced, sometimes sooner. I mean, a few of the athletes call me to help them figure out their deals sometimes. So I'm usually pretty clued in to what's happening. And I kind of just like to laugh at it because a lot of people will be very sure about certain things happening and like it's a hundred percent done deal. I heard it and whatever and you're like, man, you are way off, but it's cool. I think it's fun. It makes it exciting. I'm a huge fan of motocross as well. And as much as it's cool to see a rider like being with a brand forever and if it ends up working long-term, I think it's really cool, but it's also pretty cool to see people just pop onto the track with a different color bike and different gear and a different team. It keeps it fun every year. So I think it's cool. I follow some of the forums a little bit loosely. My wife gets a kick out of reading stuff sometimes. But for the most part, I'm usually pretty clued in on what's happening before most people know.

Henry: At Pinkbike, if you meet a pro rider on their new deal, you would never say if you found out because you’re going on an organized group ride with them. If me and you went riding and you rocked up on a Crestline and hadn't announced it yet, that's not fair game. Whistler bike lift queue, that's kind of different. What's the craziest rumor you've ever seen about you, where you're going over the years?

Aaron: Oh dude, there's been some really good ones. I'm kind of drawing a blank now on what they've been. I know that there's a couple, my wife if she was here would probably yell it at me, but I don't remember. Like everything from KTM motorcycles to… you name it.

Henry: I remember KTM, that was a huge one. That was a whole thing. I was convinced.

Aaron: Yeah, there's a lot of people even now that think that I'm an owner of Intense and they say it like it's fact and I never was. We had chatted about it earlier and I think I maybe had mentioned that in an interview and so people kind of jumped on that but it's funny the things that, not just even sponsorship stuff, like certain things that fans are like “Oh yeah that happened” and you're like man that never happened or if it did, not like that. But that's a power of the old social media.


Henry: It can run rampant. We know that these are different times for the bike industry. How much has that affected putting this program together? Let's face it, Crestline, they make some really interesting bikes. I think they have a lot of people's curiosity, but they probably weren't the first name to think of when thinking of Aaron Gwin’s new World Cup frame brand.

How different has that process been this year and what's your kind of temperature take on where the bike industry is at currently?

Aaron: I know it's a tough time for a lot of bikes, right? And I'm sensitive to that and aware of that. I think and I hope it's just kind of a natural implication of the last couple of years we've gone through. I mean, with COVID to have a surge in bikes like that, but then have the supply chain shortages and the long lead times and everything where everybody was trying to get outside and buy bikes.

So to me, it's not logical that that level of bike sales would just continue and continue and continue. And you go from having no bikes and selling everything to eventually these are all going to show up and everybody's back to work now, and the world's like back to normal and literally everybody has a brand new bike. So it's probably going to be a few years before they start to buy another bike.

I'm interested to see what happens in the first few quarters of this year, through the spring and summer to see if things are in the aftermarket world and certain things with certain parts and companies I work with starting to turn around a little bit again. So I hope for everybody that it's turning around and I feel like it will. I think cycling and mountain biking is bigger than it's ever been. There's so many people riding. I think it's just that a lot of people bought brand new bikes a couple of years ago. So I think it's going to be a little bit of time till they're ready to buy them again. I don't feel too freaked out about it, but obviously I'm in a different position than some of the brands are.

Henry: And what will these Crestline bikes be equipped with? Will it be the normal mix of Fox, E13, etc?

Aaron: Yeah, we'll see. I mean right now the way Troydon's approached it is that he just wants to make really quality bikes and put the best parts on them. Right now, there's not a bunch of different options of part kits available. They usually just spec them with one kit, which is usually a really high-end kit. They literally only make e-bikes and they did a limited run of 50 downhill bikes. So you can't even buy the downhill bike right now. We'll change that in the future for sure.

But yeah, it's kind of funny. I mean, I'll get some hate for it but if I could only have two bikes in my arsenal, I'd have an e-bike and a downhill bike because I think people think I'm joking when I say I just really like going downhill and I don't love to pedal - but I really love to go downhill and I don't really love to pedal. So e-bikes and downhills for me are the most fun. So I thought that was funny. We both kind of got a kick out of it. Troydon's like I don't know, I made an e-bike and a downhill bike because those are the bikes I like to ride the best.

We want to make really fun bikes that we love and share them with other people. So we'll definitely be expanding the lineup in the future. And we're already chatting about what that's going to look like. We're open to working with whoever on the parts side of things. We just want to work with great brands and spec really good products. So if you have those things lined up, we're not gonna kinda rule anything out really.


Henry: Yeah, I think for a certain section of the consumer having the ability to buy a race replica almost can be really, really valuable. In terms of Gwin Racing sponsors, apart from Crestline, who else will be featuring this year?

Aaron: We're still finalizing a couple of those deals, but more or less it should be pretty much all the sponsors that I had last year. There'll be a couple small little tweaks, but I've been fortunate to be with a lot of these brands for quite a while. We'll be working with a lot of the same brands and that info will all come out soon. We're working on everything. This whole deal, like I said, I was pretty patient to let things come together right. I just wanted to find a brand where I felt like there was a really good future there that I could be involved in for forever really. And so that was the priority. And that's what I'm super excited about with Crestline.

As far as parts and all that, we kind of ironed out the last few details. We’ve got the bikes, and we’re testing. My whole priority was, it would have been nice to announce everything months ago, but as long as my guys on my team are taken care of and they have the parts and the bikes and what they need to do their training right now and stay on schedule, that's been my priority. Obviously, it'd be cool to have kits and everything, logo it up, immediately and all that stuff, but that'll come here in the next month.

The priority was just the boys and making sure they were sorted and letting these pieces really come together. We're finalizing the last few little co-sponsors now. We'll be testing all week. We have all of our final products now and then we'll get graphics on jerseys and all that stuff in the upcoming weeks and shoot a bunch of photos.

Henry: Amazing. Well, thanks for filling us in on the details. It sounds like you've got a lot on and are a very, very, very busy man. Thanks again for coming to The Pinkbike Podcast and best of luck, not only with the season, but also your arm. It must be so frustrating. It's going to be great to get up riding regularly, I'm sure.

Aaron: Thanks. Yeah, appreciate it, man. Yeah, it's doing all right. I’ve got a full range of motion back, which I'm super excited about, and finally starting to ride pain free, which is, I can't tell you how happy that makes me. So we're on the right track and I’m excited. I'll probably get on the downhill bike in a few days, actually. I'll go do a couple of cruisers on an easier track and just start going through the process. The plan is to come back as soon as I'm fit and healthy. We've got a lot of cool projects going on and plan to be at all the races and be heavily involved in a lot of different areas of the sport. So excited, man. Thanks for the time.

Henry: Amazing. Thanks, Aaron.

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Interviews Podcasts Videos Racing Rumours The Pinkbike Podcast Crestline Aaron Gwin