Hogfly

Been looking forward to this one for a while!

Jesse is awesome, and his bikes rock. His partner, Natalie Peet, is also a hell of a cyclist. Her Doom story from last year is insane (and the whole film is worth a watch) here: https://youtu.be/Bx-v_cWYmkQ?si=QsKpgSoMycLn7WKu Her dramatic finish crash story starts around 1:02:55

Biggest thing that turned my kid into a bike fanatic was finding a "social" spot to focus our riding. When I was dragging him out on XC trails with me, he had very limited interest. Once we started going to "session zones" whether a pump track, skate park, indoor park, skills park, miniature gravity park or anywhere else where other kids were riding that he could talk with, watch, follow and emulate, then his love of the sport really exploded. I realize that not everyone has access to those kinds of facilities in their area, but that worked for us. I'll say, that my kid is very social and was quite a bit older (like 8) when he really started riding a lot, so it's probably a bit different with much younger kids who aren't as social.

If you haven’t checked out the Downtome pod with Shawn, do so. They’ve got big plans for where they’re going with this App and Livestream that could be huge for regional racing.

Ahh PB.... never change. Don't want e-bike content. Don't want 32" content. Don't want XC content. Insert meme of Abe Simpson shaking his fist at a cloud.

First day in Finale Ligure on our family vacation (we started in Nice for a couple of days of non-riding), and I went OTB on Pino Morto. Was wearing a half shell because that's what we flew with, and I went face first into a rock. I immediately knew I had screwed up and we in bad shape, as things felt very weird on my lip. Walked down the trail with my bike and had an ambulance called. My son rode from Finale to Pietra where the hospital was (luckily we had rented e-bikes) and got ahold of my wife and other son to let them know I'd had a wreck. No one spoke English in the hospital, so that was fun. It was also filled with elderly people in, what seemed like various states of the journey toward death, spread around on gurneys in the hallways as all the rooms were full. No general anasthesia throughout the procedure and I had to wait a long while as they called a plastic surgeon in. I had detached a good portion of my lower lip, and it was hanging on by a small flap of skin. but otherwise just sort of dangling. Lots of stitches on my nose as well. I also broke my nose and my cheekbone on one side. They proceeded to clean the wounds without administering local and eventually did start in with the needles for locals, which was just awful and they never really got it numbed fully before proceeding with stitches. The most pain I've ever experienced in my life as they worked on me, and I felt like such a baby because they acted like I was being a wimp with repeated exhortations to "tranquilo, silencio por favor" etc.. Eventually got stitched up and released from the hospital to find my sons and wife had taken a taxi there. I walked out with my entire face bandaged up like the invisible man or something. It took us forever to get a taxi to actually pick us up and take us back to Finalborgo, but eventually we did. Mind you, this was day 3 of a 2 week vacation in Europe. So I got to spend the majority of the time in Italy eating soft foods (thank god for gelato) and with bandages all over my face. I was told to return in a week for a followup. I went back and realized I was supposed to be settling up the bill at that point and started geting nervous on what the cost was going to be. They handed me the bill for CT scan, plastic surgery, ambulance ride and general hospital/ER visit... and I laughed out loud. 26 Euros. I've worn a beard ever since, as I look like I have a dip in all the time due to the injury to my lip.

@George-from-Tailfin: I know that Remi Gauvin and Jesse Melamed used to do some pretty big bike touring adventures in the offseason back when they were teammates. I think they were mainly doing credit card touring, but I'd love to see either of them on one of those big adventures that was a little more "bike packing."

It’s actually good marketing for Tailfin as a way to expand their customer base beyond the traditional bike packing crowd.

Buffalo Springfield song, not Creedence, Dario!

Hell yes for Elder! Going to have to give that one a listen. And on a throwback to a previous episode: I'm still reeling that Stephane had never heard of Uncle Tupelo, Wilco, or Son Volt. I guess alt-country was a pretty American-centric musical deal. If you've never seen the pretty hilarious story about Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar, post break-up, coincidentally staying at adjoining beach houses in Mexico while on vacation with an Uncle Tupelo fan staying between them, it's worth a watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukOEXaGIQLw