Mike Sinyard | Innovate or Die

He sold his VW bus to ride across Europe. That decision changed cycling forever.

Mike Sinyard didn’t set out to build Specialized. He set out to ride.

He sold his VW bus and rode through Europe. What came back was something bigger. A way of seeing the world. The start of Specialized. And a relentless belief that the bicycle can change the world.

In this episode of the Specialized Podcast, Ben Capron sits down with Sinyard for a direct conversation about where it all began, and what still drives him today.

The story moves from the freedom of early childhood rides, to importing Italian components, to building the first Specialized products designed to solve real problems for riders. From there, it tracks the launch of the Stumpjumper and the birth of mountain biking as we know it, and into becoming one of the winningest brand across all major disciplines, including winning the Tour de France.

But this is not just a history lesson.

It is a philosophy.

Innovate or Die. The Rider Is the Boss. Do the Right Thing. Use science to make it better. From Body Geometry to World Cup racing to the rise of Turbo electric bikes, Sinyard shares how these ideas have shaped every chapter of Specialized.

Along the way, the conversation expands beyond product into something bigger. The power of the bicycle to change health, mindset, and the trajectory of people’s lives. The work of Outride. And the belief that bikes can pedal the planet forward.

The episode closes where it began. With a simple idea.

Ride a bike. Change your life.

This episode goes beyond origin stories, covering:

• How a trip through Europe sparked Specialized
• Why the first product was a tire, and what it taught him
• The launch of the Stumpjumper and the birth of mountain biking
• The philosophy behind “Innovate or Die”
• How Body Geometry redefined comfort, performance, and health
• Why racing remains essential to innovation
• The vision behind Turbo and the rise of electric bikes
• The mission of Outride and the connection between bikes and the brain
• What the bicycle can do for humanity
• What still inspires him after 50 years

It is a conversation about freedom, innovation, and the enduring power of the bicycle.

Get More from Specialized

Get More from Specialized

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Instagram: @iamspecialized

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Specialized Factory Racing Instagram: @specialized_factoryxc

Facebook: specializedbicycles

Outride: @outride

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

All right, Mike, let's start from the beginning. Like, I want to hear about your first memories of riding a bike and what that was like for you.

SPEAKER_04 0:12

Really fun to reflect on that. Close your eyes and reflect on it. And really as a kid, it was like uh the sense of freedom to go all around. And you know, we grew up on that farm there and it was pretty modest and and rarely did my dad ever buy anything new. So we would get things at the at uh at the flea market and fix it up, which was kind of fun because fixed it up and painted it, and you felt really close to the machine.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Well, that probably gave a special relationship to the bikes if it wasn't just so easily attained, but instead you were finding ones that had been discarded and then making them work again and paint painting them yourself and stuff.

SPEAKER_04 0:55

Yeah, which was which was just really amazing. And um, yeah, my dad taught me how to do that, and so I really, really enjoyed that a lot.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

And your dad was very mechanically inclined, right? He was a machinist.

SPEAKER_04 1:08

My dad was a machinist, yeah. So he could, you know, at our house and the farm there, he just whatever it was, he just made it. He just made it. And he'd always say, Well, if you go to the store, you could do it real quick, but we're gonna we're gonna make it. It's gonna take a little longer, but it's better.

SPEAKER_02 1:27

And what do you think was better about it when you made it?

SPEAKER_04 1:30

I think for my dad, it's like we didn't have the money, so it was better to make it.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

It was better. It was that or that or nothing. Yeah, that took a long time. But do you think it also gave you an appreciation?

SPEAKER_04 1:41

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:42

Yeah, totally appreciation. Because you had sweat in it.

SPEAKER_04 1:45

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

You had to earn it. Yeah. And the farm, this was a farm down in San Diego, is that right?

unknown 1:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:57

Yeah. We had um thousand chickens and and and all that, and dirt road in the front and yeah, the front of the house.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Aaron Powell Well, and that as well, like I mean, you're so you're finding bikes that were discarded, you're making those work, you're realizing the earned kind of investment that you get from that. But then also growing up on a farm, chickens that are producing eggs, like very immediate, like right there, it seems like that probably had a pretty lasting impact.

SPEAKER_04 2:26

Yeah. And my mom would sell sell the eggs in the in front of the house. And so we were we were right there on the ground floor. It's incredible.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

Dirt floor, yeah. Well, a lot of times the wisdom that you bring comes in that kind of you know, sometimes common sense is not that common, right? Right. But seeing that connection is it's powerful. Okay, so you found these bikes with your dad, you'd you'd get them running again, and then and then you'd ride them, right? And who what was the riding like? Like I liked what you said in the beginning.

SPEAKER_04 2:57

Close your eyes and feel into We just got I can you know, it's like one of those one of those special things in your life. You can close your eyes and you can remember the first time you did it. And uh I remember the first the first bike, uh I think it was actually my dad got it at Goodwill, and it was like uh really uh inexpensive because it was a girl's bike, it was a huge girl's bike. And um and somebody had painted it, but they had painted it with a spray gun, and the tires were it it was kind of messy, but it worked. And I remember I wasn't tall enough to ride it, but I'd ride in between the frame, and it was like, wow, this thing was fast, right?

SPEAKER_02 3:41

So a big, a big girl's bike with a drop bar, so you could ride a big bike too big for you. Yeah, wasn't painted that great, but it sounds like it could really go. It would really roll. And how'd you feel when you were riding that thing?

SPEAKER_04 3:53

Oh, unbelievable. And there was no training wheels. My dad just said, he said, get on here, and I go, Oh, I'm a little concerned, afraid. And he goes, just look straight ahead and pedal.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

That's not bad advice for life. Yes. Look where look where you want to go, keep pedaling. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. If you were to put one word to that feeling that you had, what would the word be?

SPEAKER_04 4:17

I would say it's uh empowerment, freedom, you know, exhilaration.

unknown 4:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

It's so universal. You know, I mean the bicycle has been called a freedom machine and like a big part of like women's emancipation back in the day, and it's given freedom to so many people, like literally being able to get from here to there, but also emotionally feeling free. Something so primal about moving your body through space under your own power on a bike.

SPEAKER_04 4:43

Oh, yeah. Yeah, and like as a kid, we'd sneak out at night uh when we were supposed to be asleep, and we'd meet other kids and we'd ride around. It was like, especially in the dark, it felt amazing. That's incredible. So that was my early start of the bike.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

And then did you keep riding bikes throughout? Was it was the bike always present in your life, or did you step away for a time?

SPEAKER_04 5:04

Yeah, I I um I rode bikes uh pretty much uh all the time and just to get around as well. And then there was a period that, you know, like when you're the cool kid, it's like, oh, you're 15 and a half and you have the permit and you can use the parents' car, and it's like, well, in some ways you don't want to be seen on the bike. But that didn't last long. And uh then got back into the bike.

SPEAKER_02 5:27

Okay, yeah, cool. So you got back in the bike, you're going to school and so forth, and then you know, the adventure capital, you you you that you sold a VW bus to fund a trip to go to Europe and ride your bike. Like, I know the story, yeah, but I I haven't heard you talk so much about what your intention was with the trip. Were you planning on going to like see how to start a business, or were you just wanting to ride your bike through Europe?

SPEAKER_04 5:53

I wanted to ride the bike, but I also wanted to see these places that I dreamt about that of these people in in different parts of Europe that were really deep into the bike. I thought, wow, I'm really intrigued by that. It's very fringe that people were into the bike.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

And this was early, early 70s, you were getting really deep into riding on the road. Yeah. It was kind of when road riding was starting to blip a little bit, but it wasn't mainstream. No. But the people who are into it were into it. Yes. And you looked to Europe, is that right? I looked to Europe. And so you wanted to go to kind of this uh the homeland of really performance riding. Is that right? Exactly. And so what was your plan? What was your plan to go there?

SPEAKER_04 6:39

Not a big plan. It was like um take the bike there and and uh friends, a couple of us knew somebody in Amsterdam who had a bike shop. They said, Oh, yeah, you can stay at our house at Amsterdam, and um if you help a little bit in the bike shop, um, you can stay here. This was in the early 70s, and things were going on in Amsterdam.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

I think they still are, but I can only imagine what it was like in Amsterdam in 1973, 74.

SPEAKER_04 7:10

It was great, it was beautiful, wonderful, and yeah, and it was fun doing that, and then rode the bike. I thought, well, I want to go down to Spain, so I then rode the bike uh down from Amsterdam uh down to to Barcelona. Um what an experience. And just meeting the people and uh and the whole thing of the bike and being self-sufficient and so you had panniers, you had you were self-contained, self-sufficient on the bike. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:43

And were you camping on the way down? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:47

Both. I stayed, I camped out, and sometimes if when I'm camping out, if it was raining, that I'd just go under a picnic bench under the main part, and and if it didn't rain too bad, it was a pretty good place. And then youth hostels were very inexpensive, and what a great thing to meet other people traveling around, young people from all over the world and the stories and the sharing the food.

unknown 8:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:12

Like where are the cool places you've been, yeah, and just kind of getting a sense of how different people saw the world, that kind of thing. Totally. Do you remember any stories of those?

SPEAKER_04 8:20

Oh, yeah. Yeah. A lot of a lot of different stories of people I met there, and and um I remember being so cold riding down in that Mistral wind that was blowing up north, it was like freezing. And it was like, oh, and I didn't have enough warm clothes, and I got some plastic bags out of the trash can and put them in my put them in my shirt, and that helped a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 8:46

I've been on rides where you were with you when you do that same move even these days, or like a a newspaper inside the jersey. Yeah, whatever you think. You get resourceful, right? Oh, yeah. Necessity is the mother of invention.

SPEAKER_04 8:59

Totally.

SPEAKER_02 9:01

Those moments must have been really formative and changed you. You know, the adversity changes us.

SPEAKER_04 9:07

Yes, it does.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

The obstacle is the path.

SPEAKER_04 9:10

Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_02 9:11

I love that. Okay, so you made your way down to Spain, to Barcelona, and then I guess you you went east. You went through France and to Italy, is that right?

SPEAKER_04 9:20

Yeah, went into Milan, stayed at a youth hospital there, and and I knew that Milan was a place, and I was talking to the woman that was running the youth hospital, and I said, Hmm, that's interesting. I'd like to meet some of these um makers. And I mentioned Cinelli and some of the other ones, and she looked looked it up for me and gave them a call. And so I said, Yeah, so I'll go over there, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:46

So you're in a youth hostel in Milan, and the person running it helped you connect with Chino Cinelli.

SPEAKER_04 9:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:52

Amazing. Yeah. And then and so you must have looked a little scraggly, like riding, riding through Europe. So you had this meeting with Chino Cinelli. Yeah, well, I highly respect.

SPEAKER_04 10:02

I went and bought some clothes down. Yeah, so I wouldn't look like a complete bum.

unknown 10:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:10

And so then you had a meeting with Cino Cinelli. How did that so you just reached out to him?

SPEAKER_04 10:14

I just reached out. I went over there and because this this person had called and and it was great. And I was surprised that he was interested. And I didn't say I have a company, because I didn't. I just said, hey, I know a lot of the top writers in the U.S. and we really, really admire your product, and we want to buy some. And he goes, Sure.

SPEAKER_02 10:34

Amazing. So you you you went in, you made the connection, and you said, We'd like I'd like to buy some to be able to share it with the writers I know back in the States.

SPEAKER_04 10:43

Right.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

And he said And he said yes.

SPEAKER_04 10:45

Yes. And it was like, oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 10:48

Yeah. And right there, kind of an import business was born.

SPEAKER_04 10:52

Yeah. And then so I spent all the money I had from the Volkswagen bus, which was about $1,500, and I shipped the product back, and I thought, well, I gotta go home now.

SPEAKER_02 11:02

I better turn that into money. I don't have any I see. I don't have any more money to continue my trip. Right. Trip is over. Yep. Business has started.

SPEAKER_04 11:10

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

Amazing. The trip to Europe in particular to Italy has something to do with the name of our brand, specialized. Like, how did you come to that name and how did you get it from what was happening in Italy?

SPEAKER_04 11:24

Well, I know in Italy, a lot of the people that uh are frame fabricators and are really into making good stuff are are Tejanos. And uh like and you go, You're a specialista, right? And I thought that's what I want to do.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

So the art the artisans, the ones that were making the best stuff, really the taste, were the specialistas.

SPEAKER_04 11:49

And that's what I wanted. I didn't want any cheap volume stuff. I wanted to just do stuff that that I wanted and people I knew wanted, right? That's all I wanted to do. Only that.

SPEAKER_02 12:01

And so you made that into an English word, specialized. Yes, I did. And then it was specialized bicycle imports.

SPEAKER_04 12:07

Right.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

Right there. Right there. Select quality components.

SPEAKER_04 12:12

Yeah, selected quality components. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 12:15

I love that. Yeah. I mean, it's so it's so pure. Yeah. And did you know that right off the bat with the name of the company? No.

SPEAKER_04 12:22

No. And I thought, well, I want to call it like Mike's Bikes or or uh something. I mean, it just like I need to make it sound better.

SPEAKER_02 12:32

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, cool. So then you came back to the United States, you didn't have your your van anymore, you didn't have any money, but you had some high-end components. What the heck did you do to turn this into an actual business?

SPEAKER_04 12:45

Well, I called some I called some bike chefs and I go, hey, I've got this really great stuff.

SPEAKER_02 12:49

And that's here in the Bay Area around San Jose. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:51

Yeah. I called people and I go, they go, where did you get that? And I go, I've got connections.

SPEAKER_02 12:57

And that must they must have been impressed and yeah surprised. Yeah. And I go, Well, I got it from Chino Chinelli directly.

SPEAKER_04 13:05

Yeah. But that was really the start. And so they so those bike shops paid for the product. And then I didn't charge much markup on it. And then I said, hmm, what do I do now? And I said, Well, I'll tell people I can get more products, but you'd have to pay in advance. And I'll give you a discount for paying in advance. So that's the way it started.

SPEAKER_02 13:28

Amazing. And some of those shops are still specialized shops today. What are a couple of those shops?

SPEAKER_04 13:34

Oh, gosh, Garner's Garner's Bike Shop, uh, the two the two brothers. It's been so long that a lot of the stores aren't here anymore. Yes. But um, yeah, great memories of that.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

And if you didn't have your van, how did you get around to the shops?

SPEAKER_04 13:50

I brought the bike.

SPEAKER_02 13:52

How did you deliver the parts?

SPEAKER_04 13:54

Uh sometime in the little trailer, actually, the little trailer that I have downstairs.

SPEAKER_02 13:59

Unbelievable. Yeah. I mean, it's almost it's almost incredible, like in the literal sense, it's almost impossible to believe how the brand started and just how pragmatic. But okay, here's an opportunity. Bring the products in. I'll go to the shops, I'll bring the products in a trailer that I tow behind my bike, and then you were able to have them pay you in advance for the reorder. Yeah. And then you just started growing the business organically.

SPEAKER_04 14:28

Yeah. Just really slowly. And and people trusted me to pay in advance.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

Trust is everything.

SPEAKER_04 14:35

Everything.

SPEAKER_02 14:35

Relationships and trust.

SPEAKER_04 14:37

Relationship and trust. And they trusted me, and I did that, and and that's how it started. And yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:43

Incredible. Yeah. Did you have a warehouse in the beginning?

SPEAKER_04 14:46

I lived in a trailer, 8 by 30 trailer on first.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

Like in a trailer park.

SPEAKER_04 14:51

Trailer park.

SPEAKER_02 14:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:52

Yeah. And and my roommate built, who was a carpenter, built a little shed. It almost looked like an outhouse, but I could hang stuff really high up there. And sometimes there was so much stuff that I had before I could ship it out. I'd just store it underneath the trailer. So when it rained, it wouldn't get wet. But when I had product like that, I couldn't go anywhere because you know people could just go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

Yeah. You had to get it to the shops, keep it safe. Amazing. And so in the beginning, it was parts you were importing, and then what was the first specialized branded product?

SPEAKER_04 15:26

The tire was the first thing.

SPEAKER_02 15:28

And how'd that come to be?

SPEAKER_04 15:29

Well, I was importing some tires from an Italian brand because I was crazy about tires. I thought tires You still are crazy about tires. A big difference.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

Put great tires on a so-so bike, your ride's pretty darn good. That's right. Put crappy tires on a great bike, your ride is crappy.

SPEAKER_04 15:51

Exactly. Exactly. So I thought, well, at the time, uh, you know, tubular tires, the sew-up tires were the only good ones, and the other tires felt really poor when you rode them, right? Almost didn't you couldn't get the flow state with those tires, but they were very expensive. And when they got a flat tubulars were tubulars, very expensive. And when you got a flat, which they would all the time, you know, the tire was never really the same. And yeah, you could patch it. And I patched my share of those.

SPEAKER_02 16:24

Cut it, cut it open, tape the tube out, put it back in. And the reason they're called sew-ups is because you had to sew it back up.

SPEAKER_04 16:31

I had to sew it back up.

SPEAKER_02 16:32

And then glue it on the rim. What a pain.

SPEAKER_04 16:34

Oh, what a pain. And so I thought, well, I want to do clincher tires because, hey, how much more powerful is that? You could just do the tube. But you wanted it to ride right. We wanted to ride right. And so that was the first tires that we did was the turbo tire. And it was a lot of fun doing that.

SPEAKER_02 16:52

So a high performance clincher. And in the beginning with a folding bead? No. Wire beads. And then the folding bead came.

SPEAKER_04 17:00

And then the folding bead.

SPEAKER_02 17:01

So you you were looking towards the performance of a tubular, but the convenience of a clincher.

SPEAKER_04 17:07

Right.

SPEAKER_02 17:08

And that was really the innovation you were bringing to riders. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_04 17:11

Yeah. And just and the casing and the and the and the rubber compound.

SPEAKER_02 17:16

All the details that make the difference. It's in the details. Yeah. We're here with Sam Benedict, the guy who oversees all the equipment, working with the product teams upstream on how to understand what riders need and want, and then also helping bring the products downstream to riders all around the world. And Sam, we're talking with Mike about how special I started, and it just seemed like a natural spot to talk about some new tire technology, because the first product that we brought to market was a tire. And the first one I want to ask you about is the Turbo TLR, a new tire that we just brought to market. What makes that tire so great and who would it be for? And then we'll get into what it is.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

What really makes the cotton TLR magical is it's super fast rolling, it's lightweight, but the suppleness, how this conforms to the road and just feels like a magic carpet is really the unlock with this tire. The riders that are really going to benefit first is racers. Like who doesn't want a super fast and lightweight tire? So anybody that's looking for a competitive tire, this is it. But also anybody that appreciates a really high quality ride, something that feels great and is going to kind of quiet out the road, this will benefit you as well. So it's it's a great tire for a lot of riders. I will say though, it is a racing style of tire. It will wear out, you know, performance is high, which means it does need to stay on top of how long it's gonna last.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

Absolutely. And so so what is what does the cotton part mean? Like what's cotton and how does the tire work?

SPEAKER_00 18:49

Yeah, the cotton is is part of the magic and also what makes it so difficult to work with. So you know, tires are built off of the construction of a casing which has uh two types of materials in it. One is rubber, which everybody knows about, but also what's gonna hold this together. Most tires, it's nylon. But cotton is extra special. One, it's super light, it's very fine, and this is where you get that wonderful feeling, that wonderful rolling style out of these tires, but it's also more fragile, much more difficult to work with. This is why you get a TPI, a threads per inch through the roof. 330 threads per inch, super high. And this is uh difficult to make with just a tube. And then to actually make a TLR system, a tubeless ready system, even more difficult. It's something that we have pursued for years that we can make a stable process, that you can use these cotton style of fibers and put it together with a TLR, which brings both worlds together, this amazing feeling of a cotton tire, but also the benefits of a tubeless. One, you do get a better feel out of that, but also more puncture resistance and a more reliable tire. So the marrying of these two worlds is incredible.

SPEAKER_02 19:59

That's awesome. I mean, I've ridden cotton, and pretty much anyone who's ridden cotton will always rave about the ride feel and the speed. It's palpable, but they'll also say, yeah, but it's got a glass jaw. If you even look at glass, you can get a flat. So now it sounds like the team has solved for the durability and the puncture issues through this TLR process, but retained the speed and the ride quality. I mean, we always say smoother is faster, right? And it's a nice thing to say, like from a marketing standpoint, but are there any race results that back that up? I know there are.

unknown 20:32

There's a couple.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

Yeah. The uh so our World Tour teams have been racing these since last year. We didn't have a ton of these to give out, but the Soudal team, they had six tires uh and they wouldn't give them back. Uh, and so these tires were already raced to multiple world champions under a gentleman named Remco uh pretty fast. So I think he won, Ben, you'll have to help me here one, two, 17 different time trial, including no one's held as many TT titles as he has at once.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

World European uh title, national title. What were the other ones we just counted up?

SPEAKER_00 21:10

There was one more in there. But yeah, the the team Olympics. Olympics. Oh yeah, that one. Oh yeah, the rings, the rings, the teams worked very closely with us. This is a technology and a and a ride and a benefit, performance benefit that they really coveted, but to actually bring it to life and make it a repeatable process. Now they're racing. This is their go-to race tire for 2026. The only question is what width for what type of race of the day.

SPEAKER_02 21:39

So Dynamite. Sam, thanks so much. Shedding some light on the turbo TLI. It sounds like you were always really focused on what the rider needed and what would actually make a difference. And were you clear about that? Did you have that like articulated or was it just instinctual?

SPEAKER_04 21:55

It was instinctual because I knew as a rider that the tire had Be good. And if you had a great tire, you could have a great experience. And um, and I rode a lot, I rode all the time, everywhere. And so I knew what a difference it would make to have a great tire. And there were very few great tires. And I had the problem with the Italian maker, and I had bubbles in the tires, you know, that it was all lopsided. And I remember they said, Oh, that must be you.

SPEAKER_02 22:27

We've never heard We've never seen that before.

SPEAKER_04 22:29

We've never seen that before. We've never seen that problem before. And I thought, well, maybe I can find somebody to make the tire the way I want. If you say what really fueled specialized was the tires.

SPEAKER_02 22:44

So then you had some capital there based on that intersection of knowing as a real rider, knowing what you needed, and then finding a way to get it created, and then offering that to other riders, like products that would make the difference.

SPEAKER_03 22:57

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

And so then that started to build more revenue and the business started getting bigger at that point. Is that right? Yes. And what time frame is that, you think? Oh, that would be a good thing. Late 70s?

SPEAKER_04 23:07

Yeah. That would have been so the company started in 74, that would have been in uh 75.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_04 23:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:15

Fast. Fast. Holy smokes. You weren't sitting around watching the grass grow.

SPEAKER_04 23:20

No, because because the other things were were great things to do, you know, but they were really small. Whereas as tires, you know, for for a rider is the thing you use the most, or for bike shop, it's one of their biggest.

SPEAKER_02 23:34

Yeah, and you had a unique product you were offering. Right. The riders could tell the difference. So they went to that. Yeah. You created the category.

SPEAKER_04 23:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:41

Powerful. And so when did the first bikes come to be?

SPEAKER_04 23:44

Oh, wow. The bikes didn't come to be until uh about seventy seven. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:53

And that was the Sequoia at first?

SPEAKER_04 23:54

Uh yeah, I think it was the LA and Sequoia about the same time.

SPEAKER_02 23:58

Together. Okay. So one was a touring bike. Yeah. A little longer, more relaxed, and one was more of a racing bike. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:03

And Tim Nenan did the design.

SPEAKER_02 24:06

Re recently passed away. Recently passed away. Rest in peace. Yeah. Out of lighthouse bikes in Santa Cruz.

SPEAKER_04 24:12

In Santa Cruz, a hugely talented person that was uh quite an artist, whether it was cooking or or bikes. I learned a lot from Tim.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

Powerful. Yes. And so he made those on the roadside. And then it was really the stump jumper, I think, that created a huge noise and and really helped to birth the sport. Yeah. And how did that how did Stump Jumper come to be?

SPEAKER_04 24:39

Oh man. So the Stump Jumper, you know, there was a number of people making mountain bikes at the time, and I was supplying a lot of tubing and lugs and things like that.

SPEAKER_02 24:49

So still running the import business, selling tube sets to people like Tom Ritchie and others. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:55

Yeah. And selling to them. And I thought, well, we should make our own bike. And um so made the first bike and and and Tim did the design of the first bike. And um it was interesting, you know, that bike. And you can still see those bikes around today. They they still held up well. Absolutely. After all those years.

SPEAKER_02 25:16

So prior to the stump jumper, it was like one-off bikes being made, or like um Joe Breeze made a batch of his first bikes, but you had to know somebody and wait in line a long time to get a bike. And so the stump jumper really was kind of the first mountain bike that came in a box and could be shipped to a bike shop, and you could go in and buy one at a bike shop. Would you say that's accurate? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:41

Yeah, I would say there's bikes that, you know, Tom Ritchie was uh making, he made the most quantity of handmade bikes. He was a machine for making them, and um and Gary Fisher, you know, was selling some of those bikes. But I'd say the one that really took off was the stump jumper at that time and to a lot of different bike shops.

SPEAKER_02 26:04

Was it like gangbusters right in the beginning with Stump Jumper? Did people see it and get it and understand it, or were you pushing a boulder up the hill at first?

SPEAKER_04 26:12

I would say there was a few stores that were that were into it, but I would say for the most of the stores that I knew, go, oh, Senior, what are you doing with that big kid's BMX bike? We sell adult bikes, we don't sell kids' bikes. People didn't get it at first. Most. And I go, you know what? Just shut up and ride it and tell me what you think. But I knew it, regardless of all the noise. I knew that it was a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_02 26:40

Again, instinctually as a rider.

SPEAKER_04 26:42

Yeah, well, I'd go out riding and I'd see an old person, they go, Oh, they'd tell me a story about a bike they had with those tires when they're a kid. And then you see the young kids and they go, Oh, that's rad. So you know it had this huge, this huge appeal.

SPEAKER_02 26:57

Huge appeal. And it was fun. And you came forward with like with a message like it's not just a new bike, it's a whole new sport. Totally. Which kind of captured that idea and let lots of people who maybe weren't thinking about bikes say, that could be a bike for me.

SPEAKER_04 27:13

Yeah. It kind of took off, and then on the second or third year, it really got pretty slow. Yeah, not that many takers. We kind of satisfied initially, and then we thought The early adopters, okay, I'll have to. Yeah, then it got pretty slow. And then I think in the like the fourth year or something, it really took off. And it took off to where at the bike show everybody had one. And then I thought, well, the only way for us to survive as a little company is to make better mountain bikes.

SPEAKER_02 27:44

Better and better bikes.

SPEAKER_04 27:45

Yeah, and make them more high-end because we can't compete with all these other guys.

unknown 27:50

Right.

SPEAKER_04 27:50

And we don't want to. Right. Just make something better.

SPEAKER_02 27:53

And on that first bike, so Neenan did the design, and then you had them made in Japan, right? Yep. And who who was making those bikes?

SPEAKER_04 28:02

Uh a company, Toyo, who was really good.

SPEAKER_02 28:06

Meticulous. Again, artisanal craftsmanship out of Japan.

SPEAKER_04 28:12

Yes. Yeah, like you can see beautiful knives out of Japan. And it was like. Well, everything we made, we just went, we were so idealistic, we just went to the best place. And they would make something, we go, well, that's not quite good enough. And and uh Tim at the time, or then later Jim Murs really elevated the game.

SPEAKER_02 28:36

Murs, uh a bike builder out of Portland. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 28:40

Jim Murs, yes.

SPEAKER_02 28:41

Jim Murs out of Portland, like talk about a craftsman and an artisan. So he joined the team?

SPEAKER_04 28:47

He joined the team and he was a customer before, and and uh he was building bikes and he bought parts for me, rims and things like that. And I was buying his chain rings. He bought special, he made chain rings and hubs, and he could make anything.

SPEAKER_03 29:03

And I was like, that's impressive. Amazing.

SPEAKER_04 29:06

It kind of reminded me of my dad that he could just really make something incredible. And it was solid. I mean, if Jim made something, yeah, it was like this is the reference.

SPEAKER_02 29:20

And he did amazing things. Like he rode his bike. Oh, yeah. Did he ride all the way to Tierra del Fuego? Didn't he ride all the way to the tip of South America or something like that?

SPEAKER_04 29:28

He did all the way from Portland. In fact, that was a tire story because I was friends with him then and selling him parts. And he goes, Oh, I'm taking a trip. And I go, where are you going? He goes, I'm gonna ride down to uh the tip of South America.

SPEAKER_02 29:43

As far south as I can ride.

SPEAKER_04 29:45

And I go, you know what? I said, that'd be a great test for the tires. I go, look, I'll I'll send you these tires, and you can go with a couple spares. And then as you're going along, tell me the places, and I'll send the tires in advance. And he gave reports on the tires along the way, and it was like, I mean, it was heavy duty riding. Heavy duty riding with a lot of weight on the bike. So it was a good test.

SPEAKER_02 30:12

Incredible. Okay, and then you pulled together all the components from different places, some the TA cranks from France and the Magura motorcycle brake levers, but you pulled all those together, yeah, and you put the whole stump jumpers together in a box.

SPEAKER_03 30:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:26

And then you could sell them, and it's a little slow, a little lift, then a little dip, and then four or five years in it it started going.

SPEAKER_04 30:34

Yeah, and it was fun on the first bike to have the TA cranks, and then, you know, these brake levers I saw at the motorcycle show over in Italy. It was these Thomasella levers. Beautiful levers. And it's just like, and I got the the cable housing and the cable from them. So when you put on the brakes, that was some frigging.

SPEAKER_03 30:55

You were stopping.

SPEAKER_04 30:56

Yeah. And not like winky brakes, you put them on and it's just kind of stretching the cable. This was like, wow.

SPEAKER_02 31:03

Amazing. Amazing. Okay, and then so then everyone started coming in, other brands started coming in, and you were like, we need to keep elevating what we were doing. Is that around when the first team stump jumper, the first race team came? Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 31:16

Yeah. Yeah. Jim made that, and we had a a number of riders who said, Hey, the mountain bike racing has really taken off. And Jim said, Well, that bike we have is not a good race bike. And and so he was talking to the team, and of course, the athletes at that time, these guys were really well mountain bike athletes. They're really sassy and full of shit, you know. These guys were.

SPEAKER_02 31:43

Yeah. So the feedback you were getting was knock handy coated. Raw. Which is great.

SPEAKER_04 31:48

Which is great. And and Jim goes, you know what? And the guys go, I want this geometry, I want this. And Jim goes, you know what? Just be quiet. I'm gonna make three different frames and three different colors, and you guys ride it and tell me which one you want. And they go, tell us which geometry is which. He goes, I'm not telling you anything. You tell me how the bike rides. And through that process, Jim made those frames. And it was powerful. Well, we still do the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 32:18

Yeah, we still do the same thing. Something particular like geometry or little nuances. You might think you know what it is, but you don't know until you ride. Right. And you still don't know until you ride, unless you know the difference, just like you were saying about in the beginning with the tires you made and the different things. You got to be a rider to know. Like you could have all the technical chops in the world, but the intersection of knowing and the ability to execute it is the magic.

SPEAKER_04 32:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:44

Would you say that was kind of the start of like racing and product development and the interaction of the two?

SPEAKER_04 32:51

Totally. It was totally that. Of just making something, okay, what is the need? How do we do it? Having a craftsman like Jim fabricate that with all of his knowledge. And um, he came up with the hollow axle hubs, and the writer said, Oh, this isn't gonna be strong enough. He goes, just write it. And it was plenty strong, right? But a lot of those things, so we went from kind of a heavy clunker mountain bike to something that was more like a road frame with fat tires and the right geometry.

SPEAKER_02 33:31

And some of those riders, even back then, were riding with drop bars. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, they look they kind of look like gravel bikes of today.

SPEAKER_04 33:37

Well, they they wanted that because you get down there and you can really you can really dig in.

SPEAKER_02 33:42

Amazing. So this fusion of road and mountain with a pragmatic kind of rider-first approach. Yeah. And then racing just continued like that. The racing kept going, and then Ned Overend joined the team. Oh, yeah. And ultimately, you know, won the first UCI World Championships in his hometown in Durango, they're a purgatory.

SPEAKER_04 34:01

Yeah, it was right there.

SPEAKER_02 34:02

Ned's amazing.

SPEAKER_04 34:03

Yeah. And um, well, it's fun to think about those things. They're just they were just more intuitive of exploring and seeing what to do and and doing it and adjusting.

SPEAKER_02 34:15

And that connection with riders, like, that's still so central. And would you say in in our involvement with racing, that it's more important the product development, like the idea of made in racing than like the visibility or the exposure, like from a product engine versus like awareness?

SPEAKER_04 34:34

Well, we always thought, like, and even now, if we can make that frame, make the bike for that top athlete, and made it stand up to the use and abuse and all the that they do, it's gonna be great for other people. And a lot of times we've done things that we go, oh, this is this is great. And we've ridden it on the lunch ride. And some of the people like Tom Bonin would just be humble but say, kind of look at you like, I'm not riding it.

SPEAKER_02 35:02

It's not so. Oh, why let's tell that story. I mean, I remember when we first started sponsoring Quick Step and Tom Bonin, you know, Tornado Tom was like, he didn't want to ride the bike. And I remember Chris Deluzio was talking to him and he said, Why won't you ride it? And Bonin said, It's too flexible. And he did a little thing where he wiggled his butt side to side, and he said, When I'm winding it up in a sprint from the saddle, it's too flexible. And Chris didn't believe him at first. And he said, We've tested the bike that you're coming off of that you say is better and it's not stiffer. And Tom did it again. He wiggled his butt, and that led Deluzio to say, What's he really saying there? Yeah. And he developed a test that we hadn't done before that showed in one very specific type of rear end stiffness, our bike wasn't that stiff. Right. Because we had done seat stays that were parallel. So they just walked like a ladder, and he then changed the design based on the feedback. And Tom said, That's the best bike I've ever ridden.

SPEAKER_04 36:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:00

That was the first Tarmac SL, I think.

SPEAKER_04 36:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:03

What a legacy that spawned.

SPEAKER_04 36:05

Well, it's kind of a problem solution, right?

SPEAKER_02 36:08

But you need the riders that can push it to that limit and also articulate when it's not good enough so that we can learn.

SPEAKER_04 36:15

Yeah. And you have to have the the artist that will dig into it and say, I don't know how to solve this, but I'm going to figure it out.

SPEAKER_02 36:23

And then, of course, you know, riding a bike is is rider and bike together. So when the machine works better with the human, the whole system can do what couldn't be done before. And if you're racing, time to finish goes down, you win more races. But as you said, part I think of the most magical thing is then we can offer that to other riders in the world who probably aren't racing but have a better experience because of it. Yes. That's the magic.

SPEAKER_04 36:53

It is the magic.

SPEAKER_02 36:54

And then that same feeling, like you said as a kid, like if you talk to most people, what do you feel when you ride a bike? They say freedom.

SPEAKER_03 37:00

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 37:00

Right? There's a lot of universal. It's a pretty simple thing to say, but it's there's a lot that goes into it. Yes. Amazing. Amazing. I think it's cool that the roots of the sport were on the roots of the brand rather were on the roadside, but then it grew significantly with mountain. And I remember one time when it was in the 90s, and less than, you know, it was just a single digit of our business was on the roadside. We were like basically a mountain bike business. Right. And we were actually thinking about, you know, should we even continue on the road? And then one of us slammed our hand on the table and said, Yes, and one day we're going to win the Tour de France. And we all laughed out loud. Yeah. And then the room got quiet and we're like, we will.

SPEAKER_03 37:46

And we started focusing. We started focusing. What does it take to do that? And then ultimately, one day we did win the tour.

SPEAKER_04 37:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:54

It seemed impossible. And now the business is the road business is so important, and the sport, more importantly, has grown in such cool ways. And then the interaction of road and mountain for gravel to come forward, just making it available to so many different people. Amazing. I want to shift gears still on you know the the product side, but one area that so many riders are coming to are the electric bikes. And what parallels do you see, like with a new technology like our Levo bikes to what the mountain bike was in the very beginning?

SPEAKER_04 38:29

Oh, that's an interesting one, you know, and I think like the initial mountain bike, a lot of resistance from on the commercial side from stores saying that's not our thing. And then as it developed, then there weren't any rules at in the beginning about riding your bike off. Access. Yeah. Yeah, there was no rules because nobody you wouldn't think of taking a road bike off on those trails. And then the same was true about the electric mountain bike and the levo. A lot of people were thinking, oh, why do we do that? Right? Hey, I want to pedal. In fact, I was one of the people I'm going, hey, you know, we're uh we're a pure brand. You know, self-powered bikes, and I remember some of the some of the teams that might shut up and try this bike.

SPEAKER_02 39:20

Yeah, you were one of the naysayers in the beginning, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_04 39:22

I was totally a naysayer. And I go, oh, that's not us.

SPEAKER_03 39:25

And then I wrote it, I go, okay, I get it. I get it. This is very cool. And what was cool about it? Say more about cool.

SPEAKER_04 39:34

You know, still the effort, whatever kind of effort you want to put in, you can do. And so so you get all that, but you the sensation was much more, and and everybody could ride together. But still, it's the same thing. The fastest rider is still the fastest rider, but you can all hang together. And so then that became really powerful. And I would say what the e-bike has done is brought a lot more people into riding, like Stump Jumper did. Like Stump Jumper. Before the mountain bike, and particularly Stump Jumper, it was road and it was really narrow. Whereas the Stump Jumper brought old people in and young people in.

SPEAKER_02 40:19

Hey, we're back with Sam Benedict. He's going to shine some light on another cool tire we're bringing to market, and that is our new radial tires on the mountain side this time. Before we get into the nitty-gritty, Sam, what makes a radial tire great and what kind of riding style would most benefit from radial? Just make it plain.

SPEAKER_00 40:38

Yeah, it's it's a great question. A radial tire makes the ride more conforming to the ground. So you're going to get more grip out of the tire onto the ground for natural type of riders. So if you're riding a lot of uh rocky terrain, a lot of loose, loamy stuff, and things where you're like, oh, I want as much control as possible. That's where radial is really going to pay off. You're going to increase your traction. For those riders that are really going at high speeds, they're really pushing the bike into crazy angles, slapping berms, huge jumps, downhill racing style. This is more where you're going to benefit from the more standard style of casing because you're going to get more lateral stiffness out of those tires.

SPEAKER_02 41:22

Got it. All right. And I saw some stats that came out of testing. Same pressure in radial, 30% more contact patch. So you're putting more rubber to the ground, you're conforming to the ground more. So exactly as you say, where you want traction, where you want feel, where you want to ride over the terrain instead of slamming through it, radial is your Huckleberry. But if but if you're slamming or snapping berms, a more standard configuration is probably going to work better for you. Totally correct. Okay. Now let's just peel back. When we talk about radial, what are we talking about? I mean, the casing of a tire is literally fabric that's woven in a certain direction. But but clarify what radial means and why it results in this improved ride quality and traction.

SPEAKER_00 42:07

Yeah, absolutely. So you're nailing it, which is super important, is understanding how a casing is the you have the nylon that's impregnated with rubber and the angle that that comes across, we wrap two plies over each other and those interact together. And that gives you how supple the tire will be. A more radial style, a radial style tire brings those degrees way closer to zero. We can't go to absolute zero because then you don't have any structure. They do that in car tires, but there's more layers in there. But as we increase that angle, what's happening there is you're increasing the suppleness of the tire. We're decreasing radial stiffness. Now, the thing to remember though is as you're decreasing radial stiffness, which is great for ground conformity, you're also decreasing lateral stiffness, which is not good for the structure of the tire as you're pushing into things like berms or big jumps or something like that. So that's where really understanding doing the testing, both our testing, independent testing of where that sweet spot lies for the given experience. So for these new radial tires that we're bringing to market, which are the grid gravity, this is a bigger, more robust casing, and we're looking for more traction on the bigger bikes. That is one type of sweet spot that we've we've identified through that testing that's still going to give you that ground conformity, big increase, like you said, 30%, while not giving up as much lateral stiffness that we're unwilling to do that. So it's it's absolutely the sweet spot.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

And it's always about focusing on the rider's need for a specific experience that is trying to be achieved, and then solving for how can we give them a product that enables them to have more of that experience?

SPEAKER_00 43:48

It's so important what you said, Ben. Like that's what we do is you have to understand what that experience is for really to make a performance product. Like if you don't get it, if you don't understand what that writer is going to do, then how How can you really make a product that's going to be better for them? So it all comes from that understanding. And we we try so hard to get that right.

SPEAKER_02 44:06

Love it. So that's an exciting new world. So our first foray into radial, the team is really diving into looking at and testing different angles of that casing to optimize for specific applications. So stay tuned, world.

SPEAKER_00 44:20

Stay tuned. Our tire team is freaking obsessed and they love it. And that's what they live, eating, breathing.

SPEAKER_02 44:28

So the electric bike came along. Initially, purists resisted it, just like mountain bike.

SPEAKER_03 44:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:34

The first mountain bikes, they resisted. What's that big kid's BMX bike or with electric bikes? Why do we need a motor? We love pedaling our bikes. And of course we did. But then when you tried it, you're like, wait, there's something here. All of a sudden, like it's an amplifier. I can go faster, I can go further. It's an equalizer. Someone of different fitness levels could do it. And then maybe most importantly, it's a big warm hug for everybody to come and ride the bike. You know, whether they haven't since they were a kid or they have all along. No matter where you are, the electric bike just says, come on in, this is an amazing thing to do. Absolutely. Like the mountain bike did with the fat tires.

SPEAKER_04 45:13

And how beautiful is that.

SPEAKER_02 45:15

It's very beautiful. It is just wonderful. Because that feeling of freedom, who doesn't need that? And that feeling of connection with your own body or connection with nature or the friendships that get created when riding a bike, like to me, that's really that's what it's about. That's the plot. The technology is in service of that.

SPEAKER_04 45:34

Yeah. And the freedom and letting people get out there.

SPEAKER_02 45:36

The frequency and also, yeah, whether you're young, whether you're old, whether you're going far or not. Just the what the mount the electric bike says, come on, do it. Yeah. Come on, do it. Get out there. And the first bike we did, the first electric bike we did, the turbo, was decidedly different than any other electric bikes that were out there. And you know, what what's your recollection of what we were really pursuing with electric? If we said, okay, we're going to get into electric bikes, what does it need to be?

SPEAKER_04 46:06

Well, I think in the very beginning, we said we looked at all electric bikes, and I thought, well, we're going to do this. We're going to do something that's inspiring. We're not going to do something that is pedestrian or orthopedic. We're going to do something that is exhilarating. So closing your eyes and saying, okay, if specialized does something in an electric bike, what could that be?

SPEAKER_02 46:32

How do we make it exciting?

SPEAKER_04 46:33

How do we make it exciting? And it was a cool bike.

SPEAKER_02 46:36

28 miles an hour. Yeah. Super fast. Yeah. Bright red. Yeah. You know, when we brought it to market with Rich Silverstein's guidance, like with the media, everyone had a Superman cape on. Yeah. Like it was not pedestrian. It was designed and it was high performance. And even then, the team worked so hard to make sure that the way the power came through was so natural.

SPEAKER_04 47:03

So smooth.

unknown 47:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:05

So smooth.

SPEAKER_04 47:05

So sometimes you'd be you wouldn't even think of it as an electric bike. You're just riding along and you go, geez, I feel strong.

SPEAKER_03 47:12

I'm having the best day of my life.

SPEAKER_04 47:16

And you are. And and you get a huge workout with it, but you're you're you can really go somewhere far.

SPEAKER_02 47:22

Absolutely. Yeah. And I we've really stayed with that. Yeah. You know, as a differentiator, is something that we're offering to riders, you know, the supernatural ride feel. And as as bikes have gotten more advanced and the terrain that we're able to ride in now, the steepness, I mean, there's so much power and torque. You could practically climb a tree if you had spikes and the traction. But the way that the power, and they've become so much more powerful. The way the power goes to the earth is critical because you could have all the power in the world, but if it's not controlled, you're you're going to spin out. You're not going to make it. So that thing that we were on to early has become maybe even more powerful now. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_04 48:03

Well, it is, and that in how usable the power is.

unknown 48:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:08

Yeah. Great point. And the whole the team in HOM that's driving all that, like best in the business in the way that the power gets meted out, metered out precisely and predictably is magic. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Is all that tuning? It's the same thing, though. It's like it's different technology than what you were trying to do with tires in the beginning. But the kind of the ethos is the same. Like attention to detail from the vantage point of a rider that knows the difference. In this case, really technical software and firmware on electric motors and controllers. But it's the same idea. Like, what's the ride we're trying to bring and how can we do it better? We don't know, but we'll find out.

SPEAKER_03 48:47

Right? Yes. Very cool.

SPEAKER_02 48:50

Very cool. Um I want to shift gears maybe a little bit abruptly, but we're talking about a lot of the high points, you know, the high fives and the great times. But, you know, the obstacle is the path. And I'm thinking in particular, you know, around the end, the late 90s, when we made some mistakes in that period of, you know, what we call the near-death experience. Yeah. You know, talk a little bit about that. Like what do you remember about that time and what lessons did that teach us?

SPEAKER_04 49:23

Yeah, a lot. And I think um over the the period, it's just like your own personal life. You think about the mistakes you've made. And it's like when you really stop and reflect, sometime you weren't really that as myself, as a person, not that grounded to uh the values or what you what you really believe are reality. And I would say as a company, the same. We thought, well, in order to really survive and do well, we have to do some lower end product and and and sell it to other channels. And it was really, and you go, when you look at it, you go, Well, that wasn't us. Why did we do that? Or sometimes making low-end product and and trying to make a lot of them in the wrong way. And that was really coming out of that, making all those mistakes. Um, was the time that we created the brand book to say we we hooked up with the famous guy, Peter Moore, who was kind enough to say he turned around Adidas, and we said, How'd you do that? And he goes, Well, I created this book, and this we go, Wow, that's powerful. Would you help us do that? He goes, Yeah. And it was really a light touch, and we did that. We learned a lot.

SPEAKER_02 50:47

So by losing, by losing our way around who we really were focusing on riders as riders, making better product for riders. When we stepped away from that, we got a clear signal in the terms of the business and almost went out of business. Yeah. Financed by the bank at that time, we couldn't pay the bills. They said we're gonna come and take all your assets. Yeah. Mike Haynes, you know, very mild mannered, said, then come and pick up the F and keys. Right. Right. And at that time, you you know, you reached out to Peter Moore, the the guy that brought the whole idea of branding to a little brand named Nike. Yeah. And he helped us, but he helped us remember who we were and get back on track.

SPEAKER_04 51:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:30

And then from then, you know, we really had a good run at it for we've had a good run at it for a number of years.

SPEAKER_04 51:37

Yeah. And since then we've gone off track uh a few times too, and not as long of going off track, but we have. Right. And and that kind of getting right back to it. Right. Was was really helpful.

SPEAKER_02 51:53

It's powerful. I mean, it's powerful on a business front, it's powerful on a personal front. When we lose track of who we are and what we're really about, success can't come from that.

SPEAKER_04 52:02

No.

SPEAKER_02 52:02

No. And you got to tune in, you got to have the humility to learn those lessons and then adapt and and change.

SPEAKER_04 52:09

Right.

SPEAKER_02 52:10

And focus on the rider's needs. And ride your bike a bunch, because when it's hard going, nothing like the bike to make you feel better again. Or to get clarity. Yeah. Yeah. That's a perfect segue because I want to talk about outride.

SPEAKER_04 52:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 52:22

So riding a bike, this amazing machine, you started uh Outride, a nonprofit that originally was the specialized foundation and then changed. But talk about how did that start and what was your hope in this nonprofit that that you helped to create?

SPEAKER_04 52:41

Yeah, well, it's interesting. Umride, I remember reading an article, it was in bicycling, uh, that this doctor was talking about the benefits of riding for from Harvard Medical, and there's this young student that showed the student riding riding a bike, happened to be uh an LA on a track, and goes, Riding is my riddle in. And Riddlein is for ADHD for youth. And I read it and I thought, oh my God. That is so obvious. I said, That's me.

SPEAKER_02 53:18

You said that's me.

SPEAKER_04 53:19

That's me, and that's millions of other people.

SPEAKER_02 53:22

Meaning what?

SPEAKER_04 53:23

That's meaning that's me with the ADHD. And although I did feel better from from the writing, I didn't directly connect the simplicity. It was like uh aha, I knew that, but I didn't wasn't really telling myself that. And then I thought, wow, that's a lot of people. And so then I called the doctor and I said, That's incredible. I said, that is so profound. And I said, Why don't more people know about this? And he said, Well, there's no drug company to support it.

SPEAKER_03 54:03

And I thought, duh, that's right. No money in it.

SPEAKER_04 54:07

Yeah, no money in it. I thought, wow. And I said, What would it take to do that? And that was 14 years or something ago. And he said, Well, we could do a study and prove that. And of course, naively thinking, Oh, well, let's just do this one thing. And then and then the world will look at it and go, Of course, right? So 14 years later, you know, we've we've you know, we've done this research and it did prove that.

SPEAKER_02 54:37

It proved that riding through the work that Outride has done, it's it's demonstrated scientifically that riding a bike has a beneficial impact on focus and attention for kids with ADHD, or for anyone with ADHD. Is that that's what you're saying?

SPEAKER_04 54:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 54:57

And and we proved it in the schools with the kids. With the riding for pro for riding for focus, and you know, the kids would ride and then they would go in and and do homework or or take a test, and the results were incredible. And the teachers knew it, right? And the parents knew it, and the kids say, I'm feeling great, right? I'm feeling very calm. So that became very clear, and then over the years, you know, we've had all these kids going through the program. So 14 years.

SPEAKER_02 55:34

Half a million kids now.

SPEAKER_04 55:36

Yes, yeah, because it's uh it's over 50,000 kids a year. Think about that, 50,000 kids a year. So we go, hmm, that's really something. And then we talked to Stanford, and Stanford said, Oh, that's really interesting. And at first, Stanford put a very big proposal of money for us to pay, and we go, Well, we we we can't afford that. And so we weren't going with them. And then they called and they go, We're so passionate about this, we'll do it in a very uh modest way. And so we started that work and and actually created the the helmet with the sensor so you can actually see the brain, like a kid's brain or adult brain, before the ride and after the ride, and you can see how much the brain lit up.

SPEAKER_02 56:31

And even during the ride, and during the ride with with that cap.

SPEAKER_04 56:34

Yeah, so so it basically was totally proving that you we could have the anecdotal stories before we we knew it, but actually having that it was like wow. And then even since then, in working with other groups, including Stanford, we said, and the doctor said, well, the same effect and maybe even more profound for aging adults with dementia because it's the circulatory thing. And it's like and how powerful that is to light up the brain. So on one end you have the the kids, where you can really light up the brains instead of over-medicating the kids. We say pedals, not pills, you know. Your bike is your brain is better on the bike, and then for adults as well. So I'd say we're really inspired by this. It's like sometimes, you know, when there's something that's so obvious, you think, well, why doesn't the whole world know this? Right? And so that's our mission.

SPEAKER_03 57:45

That's our that's our mission. Spread the word. Yeah. Pedal the planet forward.

SPEAKER_04 57:48

Pedal the planet forward. And it's like, how great is that? Because I believe we're gonna look back years later and go, oh my God, we over-medicated our children.

SPEAKER_02 57:58

There's a there's a time and a place for the right medications, but probably it there's an over-medication situation happening. And now we've got the scientific evidence that shows in a lot of instances riding a bike is actually more effective for some of these, some of these challenges that people are facing. And just recapping, you have experienced focus issues. You found riding a bike kind of as like self-medication, but then as never until the article came out, you never put the pieces together. Oh, that's what it is. I feel better, I can focus better. Riding is my riddle in two. Yeah. That led to the creation of Outride, and that has led to a body of scientific findings that substantiate what we've all felt along the way. I feel better, I can focus better, you know, my mood, my attention, my focus is all improved by riding a bike. Now we know it's scientifically. And then leading into for aging populations, you know, significantly reducing Alzheimer and other forms of dementia from riding a bike. It's just Mike, no one else has done that work. And I just want to say thank you for funding it and making that body of research something that's in the world because and it's there. People can go to Outride, they can look at the different research, they can look at the findings, um, and it's extremely powerful. And you know, the bike is this incredible machine. It's a freedom machine, but it's also give, you know, give mention, note any problem that we're facing in the world, obesity, climate, just go down the list. The bike can be a significant part of the solution.

SPEAKER_04 59:43

Yeah. And you think about how powerful is that?

SPEAKER_02 59:46

It's it's transformative.

SPEAKER_04 59:47

It really is. And uh and the over-medication of the kids is uh is a big deal. It is. And you think about any old person, someday I'll be old.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:00

Never!

SPEAKER_04 1:00:00

Never. No, but you think you think about people when they're old, it's like, okay, like I I've seen people uh, you know, they're 85 years old, they're still riding their bike, and you go, well, probably those those people that are doing that and doing it pretty rigorously, I don't mean fast, but they're really doing it, probably maintaining quite a sharpness. Because all exercise helps, all help, but there's something about the balance and the rotation of the bike and the sensory that just really lights up more than just being like in a gym or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:39

It's a special, it's a special combination. It is a special one of a kind.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:43

And what inspires you most, Mike, as you look forward and you think about specialized and what specialized can be in the world and what bicycles can be in the world, like what inspires you most?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:54

You know, what inspires me is um is to make a difference, for us to make a difference and and um to see people out riding our our bikes and equipment that they're going, hey, I love this. They don't know you work as specialized, but they go, hey, I really like this. This really changed my life. I mean, how many stories have this really changed my life? What else could people, what other kind of products could people get that they go, hey, this changed my life? So making that difference like that and being able to do the thing of of outright because a lot of the sometimes I think the the kids that are the most have the most angst or the most ADHD, when they find the way to channel that, they are really you know, it's not a matter sometimes of focus, it's a matter of interest.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:50

Are they inspired, are they engaged?

SPEAKER_04 1:01:52

Yeah, and what can offering kids something that they can just pour themselves into. They can do it with their friends, do it alone. I just love that. I've taught so many kids around the neighborhood to to ride their bike. I've known different people that have addictions and and just put them out on the bike and they just outride it.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:15

Absolutely unreal. I personally have lived that and like with the work that that you helped to start, and we helped to start with Nica, the high school mountain bike league, that's across the country now, and I'm you know, I'm coaching it and seeing that take root with young people. I have goosebumps, I have goosebumps right now.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:36

Well, yeah, I've been to those races and I I like the races, but I like the one with the kids the most, and and you go, it's really beautiful and it's really community and makes such a difference.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:48

Powerful. When you in so 51 years now, Specialized has been around. When you think in 50 years from now, what is your dream of what Specialized would be and what it's doing in the world?

SPEAKER_04 1:03:02

I would say just like in the beginning, we're kind of doing the same thing we did, we're doing now. And I would say to do more of that, to bring to bring uh the bike to the world in a way that could really change people's lives, really make a difference.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:20

How great is that. Yes. Just one more question, really. Looking back, like you're you now, but you had the opportunity to talk to the Mike Signard before you took that trip to Europe. What what would you say to that uh Mike Signard?

SPEAKER_04 1:03:38

I would say the thing is is the journey. And what's great about the journey when you have no options but to execute is really kind of like living on the farm. You have to make make it go. And I I think that just to have the courage and conviction to just keep moving through kind of that thing of the obstacles the way. I love that.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:05

And the wisdom of no escape.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:07

Yeah, the wisdom of no escape. And and you just keep going. And you know, when I was young was so idealistic, I would just say, Well, yeah, of course it can happen.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:19

Right?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:20

And and now that you know, I'm not young, but I know now that it can happen. And working with the right people that have that that have that shared vision is really fun to do things.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:32

So just keep going. Keep going. Yeah, the obstacle is the way. There's a wisdom in no escape. Go all in, keep moving forward.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:41

It's a very powerful message for the audience.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:44

Yes. I like the wisdom of no escape.

unknown 1:04:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:47

Any other things that you want to share, Mike, on this podcast?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:50

No, I just say that I feel a lot of gratitude for the support that everybody has given us and the company and in the world. And yeah, I feel really fortunate to be doing what we love to do.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:06

It's a huge gift. Well, thanks for taking the time, Mike. Yeah. Thanks for tuning in. Hope you enjoyed this episode with our founder, Mike Siniard. I certainly did. And if you did like it, please like us, follow us, subscribe on YouTube. You can watch the whole thing in video if you want to see what we look like while we're talking. Otherwise, you can keep following us and finding us anywhere you find your podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in. In the meantime, keep riding your bike, have fun, keep the rubber side down. We'll see you next time.