Neko Mulally on Designing His Own Bike, Racing World Cups & Selling Frameworks Bikes... Ep 101 [Podcast]

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101 of the MTB podcast presented and hosted by worldwide Cyclery this is Jeff

0:12

I'm Jared I'm Liam and today we have a special guest on the podcast for a second time I'm Neko Neko is a long time

0:20

friend of mine and a World Cup racer who's doing something unbelievably unique in 2022 you are building your own

0:27

bike and racing it any more description on that yeah I've uh I've

0:32

raced World Cups for the past 13 seasons and this year I thought it'd be a fun project to take everything I learned

0:38

from the the various teams I've raced for and and build my own bike that was

0:44

kind of just custom tailored to me exactly and uh learn a lot about the

0:50

process of building a bike through racing it and developing it at the races which is uh it's a good way to

0:57

accelerate the development process the the date of the race doesn't change so you got a dead deadline there and uh you

1:04

always learn so much more pushing it at the top level so it's been a really fun season yeah

1:10

getting to do all that nice yeah it's been unbelievably cool to just be a part of one of the sponsors sponsoring what

1:16

your project is doing and how it's been evolving is rad and you were on episode 91 so if anyone wants to go back to

1:23

episode 91 that was kind of when we were talking more about that pre a whole bunch of races and learning that you're going to talk about now and on that

1:30

episode we covered a lot of high pivot stuff because that was kind of earlier on in the days where you were testing

1:35

two different bikes one high pivot one regular pivot um yeah which was pretty interesting so we're going to talk about all of that

1:41

stuff but if you really want to dive deep into the high pivot stuff go back to episode 91 we'll link that in the show notes right there yes we sure will

1:48

um and then uh yeah let's just dive deep we also plugged Instagram to see if we could get some good questions for Neko

1:53

and uh yeah we've got those we've got those queued up but before we jump into that we did want to make a couple quick

2:00

mentions uh we have a another chasing epic trip coming up in is it in June you

2:05

should know that June 10th to 15th yeah we're going to Whistler Pemberton you're welcome and uh yeah it's rad that'll be

2:12

in the show notes it's gonna be great yeah I'm looking forward to that one so if you're interested in going on that I think there's two spots left a couple

2:18

spots left on that one yeah yeah that should be fun so pull that up if you're if you're trying to put on if you're

2:23

trying to get on a Whistler trip uh next year that's gonna be a good time we're gonna do a bike park day I'm looking

2:29

forward to all that yeah you can't get a Whistler and not to the bike park yeah exactly I was thinking the same thing

2:35

um another thing I wanted to mention was the AZ classic which is a what is the AZ classic it's your friend right Liam yeah

2:42

um buddy of mine is putting it on it is a mountain bike race in Arizona

2:48

um and it's kind of having a lot of different categories so if you're pretty much cross country or pump track uh

2:56

kind of racer you want to do some cool new racing um yeah he's putting on an event called the AZ classic January 27th

3:03

through 29th um categories are cross-country cross-country short track pump track

3:09

ultimate pump track and e-bike so and you're going to raise them all I'm gonna race them all who's going to

3:16

win them all I'm not going to win them all but I'm going to

3:23

finish the fastest out of all five categories combined for the overall can I ask a question what up what's the

3:29

difference between pump track and ultimate pump track valid question it is a valid question I'm pretty sure yeah

3:34

one's more ultimate no oh um I think the ultimate pump tracks the

3:40

new thing that crankworks is doing is basically like Red Bull straight Rhythm got it there's no turns with like no chain or anything but I think both of

3:46

them have no chain okay but I think one of them's in a straight line and then the other one has is like a you know normal Pub track course ultimate

3:54

um and then the e-bike race I think the cross country and the e-bike course are on it's at Arizona cycle Park which puts

4:01

on a lot of motocross races um I think both those courses are gonna like go on the motorcycle course and

4:07

it's pretty cool it like drops in this big pit wow um so there's like 400 feet of elevation and Laps so on e-bike it

4:14

will be pretty fun on cross-country bike it might hurt a lot is yeah sounds like a good time yeah so

4:20

that's January 27th to 29th and uh yeah azclassicmtb.com worldwide Cyclery

4:26

Kettle Mountain Trail one we're all supporting that race I love supporting small races I think that they're unbelievably fun and valuable to

4:33

valuable to society and humans uh we also support a ton of Neko's races Neko you have affiliation and ownership of

4:41

three bike parks and Racers I don't even it's too much could give give the audience a rundown on that please yeah

4:47

you guys have been supporting our downhill Southeast races since we started them in 2016. we have a series

4:53

of downhill races every year we started out which is 3A season and now we have seven coming up this next season and

5:00

they're huge too and they're just downhill which is pretty interesting to see that there's that many people

5:06

interested um like this year we averaged 350 Riders at each race wow and most of those

5:12

Riders are are kids under 18. so it's pretty cool like when I started racing I was one of only like 5 kids that was

5:19

under 18 that was racing and now we just split up the categories from like 12 and under 13 and 14 14 and 15 16 and 17 so

5:28

there's like so many kids categories it's cool to see them all um getting into it because those kids

5:33

will be the future um and then my brother put on an Enduro Series the past two years that you guys

5:39

have been supporting the Enduro Southeast and yeah I think like you said those are Grassroots races like that are so

5:45

important it gives something to those core Riders at a Grassroots level that

5:50

they can be excited about and go and give them a reason to go and train and ride their bike more and give them

5:57

something to look forward to and and then at the event just hang out with their friends and it's kind of something for everyone if your goal is to go there

6:04

and just have fun you can have a great weekend with the boys and if you if your goal is to like progress in racing you

6:10

can have some good fun friendly competition to do that and then yeah the bike parks too like I

6:16

started Windrock uh 2017 and that's been awesome it's been like one of the hot

6:22

spots for for us downhill for training like we all go there in the winter to train and it's been super beneficial for

6:28

Tennessee right yeah Windrock is in Knoxville Tennessee and it's been awesome because we have year-round

6:34

riding there and you see almost all the top riders in the country Riders from

6:40

around the world and like Brands doing their testing there now so it's been an awesome spot for that and it's grown

6:47

into a really cool bike park and very well known in the U.S and then we

6:52

started kanuga two years ago which is a trail bike park it's pedal up there's two climbing options a road and a

6:59

climbing Trail and we have it's laid out like a downhill Park is once you get to the top you have eight trails to choose

7:06

from you're never more than 15 minutes from your car so it's it's very um time

7:11

efficient to go out there if you only have enough time to do one lap you can

7:16

get a good one in and not waste any of your climb get a good descent out of it and if you have more time you can make a

7:23

whole ride out of it so it's a pretty cool spot and all the trails are really well maintained which has been something

7:28

that people have been excited to to come to the bike park for yep and then just

7:34

this past weekend we opened Rock Creek which is in conjunction with ride kanuga and it's like just down the road and

7:41

it's a shuttle Park so it's pretty cool to have a shuttle up Park in my neck of the woods we would always drive over to

7:47

Windrock which takes a couple hours to get to Tennessee so it's nice to have a downhill spot right in my backyard now

7:53

yeah amazing I'm looking forward to riding Rock Creek because I'd I was skeptical on kanuga I thought pedal up

7:59

Bike Park I was like I don't know but then I went there almost a year ago right I was there in September of last year and it was awesome I was I was

8:06

shocked at how well it was just laid out well the tracks were super for fun unbelievably flowy something there for

8:12

everyone some good techy stuff but some plenty of good flow stuff and jump trails and people just sending their

8:18

lives and huge Smiles on their faces and I was like wow this is this is rad this is way cooler than I thought it was

8:23

going to be I loved it so and uh I thought it was cool that there were people just ripping up on e-bikes people

8:29

ripping up pushing up downhill bikes people pedaling up trail bikes I was like oh this is this is a pretty fun place to so I'm excited to see what Rock

8:36

Creek is Rock Creek going to be a little bit more focused on downhill or kind of everything well the idea is to make it

8:41

for trail bikes but with a shuttle and like everybody would rather get more

8:47

downhill time than climbing time yeah so it's going to be similar to kanuga and

8:52

in the Asheville area just trail riding is much more popular I guess in general way more trail bikes and Enduro bikes so

8:59

if we have a place where people can take the bikes they already have and get shuttled then I think it's a pretty

9:05

sweet combo yeah and then I built a Donald track for myself to practice on but most of the trails are pretty good on trail bikes yeah yeah canoe is sweet

9:12

too because it's almost like going to the skate park like everything's so tight that you don't need to go with

9:18

somebody you just go and ride and you'll probably see your friends there and you see other people to ride with and you

9:24

can hang out and session stuff and when you're on the climbing Trail you can see all the other trails and see other

9:30

people riding so it's pretty pretty cool like Community vibe there yeah it's awesome I definitely got that when I was

9:36

there um yeah I mean I feel like North Carolina now is this hot bed if you go

9:42

over to Asheville you have Pisgah you have kanuga you have wind rock you have like all these things within a three

9:48

hour drive or less and it's a super fun place to take a mountain bike trip so yeah I would recommend it for anyone

9:54

wanting to go ride any type of bike which is also kind of why you moved there yeah I mean how long have you

10:00

lived in North Carolina 10 years now yeah yeah um yeah I grew up in Pennsylvania and

10:06

went down there to ride in the winter time just to get some more time on the bike training and um

10:13

the mountains were awesome like not just for the weather but year round like the trails are really good and I just stuck

10:22

around I thought it was a great place to be it's really cheap to live there uh the area is really cool and most

10:29

importantly like the terrain and the and the trails are awesome yeah I love it yeah nice that's right yeah that's a

10:36

good place to to live when you want to train year round and especially I guess most of your training happens in the off

10:41

season since the on season you're actually full-on racing how many races did you do in 2022

10:48

um I don't know total it was like a lot I did a lot I did eight World Cups in

10:53

World Champs and then a bunch of our downhill Southeast races uh Continental Champs and American

10:59

champs yeah Pan American Champs um a couple Nationals Us open so just a

11:06

few just a few races on the docket for us man a couple of times it was like eight weeks in a row and it was like

11:12

getting to the end of it I was like man it feels like whatever you're doing two weeks ago was like a world away like

11:19

years past yeah every day you wake up you look around you're like okay where am I today yeah where am I today and

11:26

where am I racing but it's cool because you're you're like doing you're riding your bike in different places yeah

11:31

I think it's pretty sweet to get to do all that yeah and so basically I think every single one of those races was on

11:37

your self-designed bike yeah yeah and um we started out with the two prototype

11:43

frames even when I raced in Costa Rica I raced this is Costa Rica open and then

11:48

the Continental Champs two weekends in a row and raced one on

11:53

the kind of standard pivot height bike that I that I made and then the next weekend

11:58

race the high pivot bike so I got to race both back to back in the beginning was able to like ride bike both bikes

12:05

back to back at races and like even in the same day in the practice session

12:10

switch between the two bikes which was pretty cool I tried to design those two bikes with as few variables as possible

12:17

because a lot of times if you just hop on High pivot bike there's so many other things that are different about it

12:23

there's there's a few chances where people have to like apples to apples test with one variable that they want to

12:30

isolate so it was cool in the beginning of the season to race on those and then ended up going with kind of a hybrid of

12:39

the two I went for a standard pivot height bike but with a with a main pivot that was higher than

12:46

average and the idea was that I like the way that the low pivot turned I felt

12:51

like that is one thing that I could improve on with my riding I was pretty good at plowing through rocks and like

12:58

high speed stuff being strong on the bike which is where the high pivot excelled I felt like I could gain more

13:05

time in my Races by getting through the corners quicker and the low pivot bike was cornering faster and I liked it

13:12

better with the O chain as well so if I was going to commit to using the O chain which takes away some of the pedal kick

13:19

and just gives it more of a takes away harshness from a lot of the bumps which

13:25

is in the direction of what the high pivot would do I was going to optimize it to use the O chain if I was going to

13:31

pay the price which is like a lack of Engagement really I was going to make my Pivot a little higher it's not a

13:37

production bike I don't have to worry about like is if someone buys this are they going to be able to service their

13:43

own chain and will it work without it like I was making a race back for myself so it was cool to be able to do that and

13:51

um yeah I went with like kind of a mid pivot design that didn't use an idler pulley which I don't really think has

13:57

been done before the O chain is a new thing so it wouldn't really be sweet to

14:02

ride the bike without it and um yeah erase that design throughout the

14:08

season I had it ready for the first World Cup I only really got to ride it for like a week before like I said the

14:14

deadlines of the races it's like you know with vendors and getting things

14:19

made materials like everybody knows the supply chain issues that we've been having

14:25

the date of the race doesn't change so you got to get that stuff ready and it's always a time crunch to get it in time

14:31

and then the day or two you have to ship it and then build it and then make sure it all works and go to the race so I

14:37

only rode that bike a few days before the first World Cup and then raced it there and um raced It All season and it kind

14:45

of evolved I I stuck with the same geometry design and kinematics that I

14:51

was that I designed from the beginning and I improved my construction and some

14:58

of the tubing that we were using with the bike it started out when I was using

15:03

the high pivot bike the low pivot bike and then evolving to this mid pivot design that I went with it was so

15:09

exciting because you were changing ride quality every time and as it went it was chasing fine details of construction and

15:16

Tube wall thickness putting gussets in different places and the different shapes of the gussets to

15:24

um kind of alleviate the stress through the through the whole bike so that it's more durable stuff that you're never

15:31

going to feel when you ride it but makes it hold up longer so those details was

15:36

like when the real work started and it wasn't as much fun because you weren't chasing ride quality anymore it was

15:42

chasing the quality control of building these things so it was it was pretty

15:48

cool looking to all that and um some moments were stressful like I was

15:54

telling these guys on the trail today I could have gone and bought a canyon and raced that paid three grand for the

15:59

frame and raced it and it would have been like my bike's probably three percent better for me than that bike

16:05

would have been but came with so much extra work to to organize and Logistics

16:10

of like making my own frame it was an undertaking but I I wanted to do that like I've I've raced a ton of seasons

16:17

and this was just such a cool interesting project that I was really passionate about and proud to be able to

16:22

do and um will only get easier from now like the first time you do something is going

16:28

to be the hardest and you learn so much along the way that next season will be even easier

16:33

um but yeah there was some stressful moments I raced Snowshoe world cup with a cracked frame I had four frames of

16:40

that version and I um I was going through them all at the race before that and cracked one

16:46

practicing before we went there and when we got to the race I had like one left that wasn't cracked and it cracked while

16:53

we were there and I knew I had to race with it and I just told my mechanic like just don't tell me anything unless it's

17:00

unsafe like don't let me race on something like this I'm gonna die but I don't want to know about it

17:06

imagine that conversation put it out of my brain and then luckily we we drove up

17:13

to Mount Saint Anne which we got to go past some Frank the welder's shop who made all the frames and he um he had a

17:20

new one for us to race the next weekend at Mount Saint Anne which which was cool but yeah there was a couple couple times

17:27

we were cracking stuff and um knew that we were running out of spares

17:32

and trying to like make crack stuff go longer than it should and really props a

17:39

lot to my mechanic ancho Perez he did an awesome job and it wasn't just taking new parts out of the trailer and bolting

17:45

them on like he had to do a lot of of um of grit work to to make it through the

17:51

season and he he was the right man for the job taking in and out bottom brackets and headsets like I would

17:57

imagine yeah he was so good at frame swaps he's like I think I swapped 50 frames it

18:03

sounds like a special version of hell to me to just have to change on it said cups over and over again in the mud yeah

18:10

with your shoes wet all day that is so brutal well for those of you

18:16

listening um if you want to if you want to kind of dig more into the details of this stuff Neko's been documenting all

18:23

of this on his YouTube channel he's also written a couple really in-depth articles about oh chain and about the

18:28

cranks he's using made by five Dev if you just hit the world web Cyclery site type in any KO hit enter we made a

18:34

landing page for Neko links to his YouTube channel has those articles on there all that sort of stuff uh props to

18:40

Jared for making that page thanks he's he coded it up oh yeah I mean he's a tech wizard over there typed in all the

18:46

HTML to make that page 100. quick too remember like I was like hey

18:52

Jeff I'm gonna announce this tomorrow I want to do it on New Year's Day

18:57

because people will be looking at their phones and no other brands are going to do a

19:03

announcement New Year's Day

19:10

but yeah so if you want to check that out um go there we also made a sort of a collection page that has all the various

19:16

different brands that uh support Neko and the stuff that he rides and that he's been riding all 2022 season

19:23

um yeah and speaking of riding that stuff Jared and Liam you guys got to go out and actually ride Neko's bike today

19:29

um what what was it like I mean Nick or you've you've never ridden like proper downhill bikes

19:35

yeah last bike I rode was a V10 in Whistler probably almost three years ago

19:42

yeah um yeah it was a blast I mean download bikes are final yeah yeah like I mean

19:48

yeah it's been a long time since I've ridden a bike with that much travel but um yeah I mean Super solid like you know

19:55

usually when somebody has a bike they design themselves or like built themselves right it's not like that great like yeah if Neko actually built

20:03

it I'm not sure but it was refined in a way and like uh

20:11

super solid and it just was obviously confidence inspiring because it was I mean yeah a ton of travel and suspension

20:17

felt great and um yeah it just soaked up chatter and I mean yeah like a rocky Peak you're

20:23

going off a little drop into a bunch of chattery stuff and that was just like uh

20:29

soaked it all up yeah it was great I don't know but yeah I don't have like a direct back-to-back comparison obviously

20:34

but um it's almost like driving F1 cars nobody really drives F1 cars very often

20:39

so when you get to drive one it's fast it's great that's great lots of travel

20:45

um but no it was it was awesome and like it was yeah super quiet and fun and um yeah solid as heck yeah yeah sold as

20:53

heck yeah yeah I was impressed just seeing it for the first time it looks a lot nicer than I was anticipating yeah

20:58

it looks Less Garage made than I initially it's not it might be like in the photos initials like it looks nice

21:04

but I figured out at some point when I see this this year it's gonna look like it was made in the garage but and I saw

21:10

I was like oh nice work Neko this looks it looks better than I thought it would look better than I think your desk looks

21:16

I'm sure all those tubes came from McMaster Car yeah no it looks like a

21:22

production bike basically right yeah the quality I mean and I've seen like obviously from the first iteration of

21:28

the frame that you may made and like just all the improvements and refinements that you've made I mean it's visibly apparent when you look at the

21:35

bike oh yeah it was great yeah yeah we're going to get to that question

21:42

later because there's definitely some people that want to buy that bike for sure um what do you think Liam

21:47

uh yeah it was solid I mean similar to Jared it's hard to have a you know hop on a new bike and have a back-to-back

21:54

comparison I did ride uh the Crestline downhill bike

21:59

quite a bit this summer which is Loosely based actually on Neko's Geo so Troy

22:05

didn't kind of talk with Neko and like base his Geo very similar to Neko's race bike so

22:10

going on that and then going to Neko's bike um I definitely feel

22:16

like Neko's bike the the Crestline is more of a virtual High pivot than Nekos so there's a bit more chain growth which

22:23

makes the bike kind of feel the rear end feel longer through stuff so Neko's bike felt like

22:28

a little bit more like a normal bike which is easier to get used to right away than a high pivot

22:34

um yeah I mean I had a few runs on it felt solid I mean immediately I went from actually riding my Crestline with a

22:40

single crown uh today to writing Nekos and just hopping on a true downhome bike because

22:46

the Dual Crown is quite a bit um different just more solid so it felt

22:52

really good um yeah it was fun I'd love to have like a a couple full days on it in a in a

22:58

proper bike park or proper downhill track to really get some runs in on it so for sure

23:04

yeah that's right Neko have you ever considered having those bikes or maybe at one point in the future but having

23:10

them sort of available for people to test out it I don't know in rock or Rock Creek or kanuga

23:16

yeah I think it'd be cool to do like a demo day or something like that liability waivers going to get included

23:24

I mean I tested them pretty hard they're they're not going to break in half yeah they might get a stress crack but I even

23:31

tested them with that so yeah World Cup tested with stress cracks I

23:37

mean it's not going to get much better than that no but Logan and I have ridden the latest one we've got 450 runs on it

23:43

now we've been splitting our time between the same frame and it's got no issues so they're definitely getting

23:50

more durable yeah but yeah I mean down the road if if we ever do go for like a

23:55

small production run it'd be cool to have a demo get people to be able to take a run on them get them set up I

24:02

think one of the things that these guys felt comfortable on the bike right away is like I came prepared with the right

24:09

settings for them like I knew their size and weight have Cane Creek paid some reach adjust headsets so we could get

24:16

the reach they wanted at various Springs and we had the shock pump to set up the

24:21

fork the way they wanted and I have a pretty good understanding of like how to adjust the rebound to their spring rate

24:27

and get them feeling pretty close right away and not really even just for my bike

24:33

like I feel like if I had those tools for most bikes I could probably get them feeling pretty comfy so just taking like

24:39

the time and care to to make sure that they were on the right starting out on the right foot

24:45

um I feel like you can get people off on the on the right direction and feeling good on the bike that's kind of good

24:51

advice for any any mountain biker really that is getting any type of new bike or riding a bike for the first time yeah I

24:58

I get a lot of questions about setup from people who don't even know what tire pressure they have yeah

25:05

maybe start there right yeah should we give a shout out to FBI Matt right now that that was that was directed at him

25:13

so so speaking of uh something I care about is supporting people having fun on

25:19

bikes which is why I'm always into sponsoring Racers and races um and then FBI Matt uh he's a friend of

25:26

ours and he's he is the manager of the B team which he spun up in 2022 which is

25:32

an amateur race team FBI's Most Wanted Enduro race team

25:37

and and uh yeah Matt's Matt's a novice Rider who's progressing a lot and having

25:43

fun and um he's you know been his questions have evolved you may have never noticed tire

25:49

pressure and now he's you know text me photos of uh his brake bleed gone wrong

25:54

and be like oh my God what do I do I'm like I absolutely I'm not no like I'm not gonna help you with this like why

26:00

why did you why did you do that um

26:07

yeah thanks and then Zach hears about it too but uh Neko I think you were definitely

26:13

inspiration for Matt to to race bikes more and and also spin up the B team

26:19

because he kind of saw what you did with uh you know designing your own bike and getting it built and racing it and

26:24

Frameworks and he was like man I can do something like that and he puts together the B team and those guys are out there

26:30

shredding so yeah they're awesome they came and did a couple of our races this year yeah nice it was just so funny like

26:36

I found I find Matt so interesting he's got so many cool stories yeah but um he

26:41

said that before his downhill race it was the first downhill race he ever did was was the most nervous he has ever

26:48

been wow and I'm like dude the stories that I have heard from you and you're now racing like a cat three downhill

26:55

race that nobody knows you and it matter like you could get first place or last

27:00

place so nobody's gonna tell the difference and this is like super nervous for you

27:05

I just found it so funny but uh he's like jokes aside like he always asks us

27:11

funny set up questions but he's one of like the the most positive and also

27:17

funny people I've ever met is just like such a pleasure to have around so yeah I love it whenever he comes out to ride

27:23

yeah yeah I agree I think that uh you know when you get into the sport of mountain biking it is important to just

27:30

stay positive stay curious test a lot of things and laugh at yourself and yeah have fun yeah that is definitely an

27:37

important piece of the puzzle so with your YouTube channel this year Neko you kind of documented a ton of stuff of what you changed on the bike your races

27:44

all of that any common threads that you felt were important in terms of what people were asking you whether it was

27:49

about setup or the bike or the future of your races or um I I think a lot of people are

27:56

interested in like if I was planning what my plans were if I was going to sell it or or how that was gonna go and

28:03

um I try to keep it open like if if I can get the bike to a spot where I'm

28:09

really happy with it and I think it's durable and reliable enough to sell then

28:16

there's obviously people are asking for it so it'd be cool to offer like a small production run and um and make something

28:24

that you know share what I've made with other people get them to experience the

28:29

bike too but that wasn't the really the like my motivation for doing it I just have been super interested in bike

28:37

design and wanted to see how it went to make something like I just wanted to try it

28:44

and see what would happen and I didn't want to be like I find that a lot of times like you

28:49

can make decisions based on sales or meeting

28:54

um like production deadlines and like we got to get this thing done and we got to sell it now and I just wanted to make a

29:01

race bike for myself that I was comfortable with and was everything that I wanted and see where it went from

29:06

there so um yeah for I guess for everybody asking

29:12

about the sales of the bike like there's no plans to do it right now um but I am thinking about like now

29:19

changes that I'm making like is it possible now to put that into production stuff I want to try for next season

29:25

um instead of just buying more expensive prototype frames like think about the possibility long

29:31

term of of what this change could mean so um

29:37

yeah it was it was just cool with the YouTube videos to to be able to show everything that went into making the

29:43

bikes I think a lot of Brands they either have bikes for sale now that they

29:48

they can't show the next one because they want people to buy the ones that are for sale now or they

29:55

um they're they're afraid to show the failures they have different

30:01

and maybe like also they don't know where they're going with it yet so they can't really give us

30:07

transparent of a view at the development of new bikes uh I'm not really sure but

30:13

it was cool that I didn't have any of those those things to worry about I could just yeah you had nothing holding

30:18

your back yeah like if it didn't work um I was the only one to blame and if it was awesome then I could be proud so

30:25

it's kind of a free feeling to be able to do that and I think people enjoyed

30:31

seeing that process and I I'm not an engineer I've just raced a lot and could

30:36

feel what I liked out of the bike and um just tried to show like what a what an

30:43

average person can do making a making a bike without the resources of a huge

30:49

Bike company that's been doing it for year after year so I think that process just showing it

30:55

like an honest open look at that was was pretty cool I at least I found that it was unique and something that was

31:02

different like a lot of times racing World Cups I feel like there's a couple photographers they take

31:08

pictures in a few places on each track and then you end up putting up the same picture as everyone else with you in it

31:14

instead of some other Rider and a similar caption World Cup bouncing and

31:20

day two whatever so it's hard to like do something different like there's obviously the top couple guys that are

31:27

winning and on the podium and fighting for wins but after that there's still 160 guys in all the races and

31:34

everybody's kind of doing the same thing so I found like this was a cool way to do something that resonated with me

31:41

personally and was interesting and unique at the same time yep yeah I love it it's been rad to see it

31:48

evolve um definitely something that is yeah I mean I don't know if anyone's ever really pulled off Quite a feat so far I

31:55

mean I guess maybe a racer has designed a bike but I don't know if they've ever done it the same way you did it oh they

32:01

definitely never documented it like you did which is pretty cool it's kind of the uh the epitome of bike nerdage if

32:06

you're if you're deep down in the funnel and you really want to learn about every little thing I was surprised how many people were interested in it honestly

32:13

like I thought it would be really cool for the core mountain bikers but

32:18

maybe there's just a lot more of those people than I expected there to be like a lot of the information I could see

32:24

being really boring if you weren't really into it but the support I got and

32:29

the amount of people that were into it was um was overwhelming so it was pretty cool I was proud to see that yeah

32:36

oh yeah that's amazing well we're gonna have a quick word from one of our extremely high paying sponsors and we

32:42

will be back with some rapid fire questions for Neko and now a word from our sponsors this this is downhill Billy

32:48

here with Windrock bike park we got bigger jumps better berms and faster lifts and antibike park in the world so

32:54

come on down to Windrock bike park where we own the park and now back to the show questions

33:00

questions from the audience for you Neko uh the first question what is the biggest challenge you had to overcome

33:07

while designing your bike uh the biggest challenge would be manufacturing

33:12

um it was is just tough from a person that doesn't have the resource

33:18

of a bike brand behind them and contacts with factories to be able to figure out the right path

33:26

efficiently um to be able to do all this so a combination of of the manufacturing

33:33

and then the funding as well like I've spent money that I saved from racing over my career which

33:39

if you ask most World Cup racers isn't a lot um so you got to be smart with how you

33:45

spend it when you don't have a lot of money and figuring out how to build the bike um with those parameters was was the

33:53

biggest challenge nice well I guess we'll jump into the next one

33:58

this is a weird one for me to ask but Neko how much travel do you have and I'm not talking about your bike

34:05

yeah you don't have to answer

34:10

Jeff made me a guess question we're gonna find out later oh

34:17

hey Jeff you made a mess that and you said to try to be peachy

34:22

okay I see the stuff on Disney Channel nowadays

34:28

it's right here and doesn't go any further and we start asking the next question which is uh what's the most

34:34

what's the most important ride characteristic to you in your race bike

34:39

um that transition that was great that's a tough one because I've gone

34:44

back and forth with when you're designing a bike everything is compromises so you turn one dial up and

34:51

another one goes down you can make a bike that has one super power or is pretty consistent across a variety of

34:58

situations and I've I've gone back and forth between thinking like certain

35:04

things are a priority and others aren't that important and come around to that they're all important I wouldn't say

35:10

that one thing is more important than another but maybe for the average person

35:15

something that they wouldn't consider as much um that is a issue for racing is braking

35:22

quality most World Cups you're dragging the brakes most of the time like more

35:29

significantly more time than not you're breaking or at least Trail breaking

35:34

and how the suspension performs under braking is a big consideration for designing a

35:40

downhill bike um bikes with lower anti-rise are going to

35:47

ride higher in the travel and be more active under braking bikes with higher anti-rise they're going to squat and

35:54

it's nice on smooth terrain if the bike squats in under braking because it has a

36:00

really predictable chassis feel and gives you more downforce into the ground but when the tracks are really rough

36:07

like most race tracks are there's huge breaking holes rocks and routes and all these steep sections that you're breaking if your bike feels like it's

36:15

locking up if you're putting all your energy into the spring when you're loading it then it feels like you you

36:20

have a hardtail when you're braking so a bike that rides higher and is more active under braking is going to get

36:25

more grip and feel like it's absorbing the bumps more under braking so

36:32

something for a downhill racer to consider yeah that was insightful and cool and not

36:38

what I was expecting no me neither which is kind of where the ocean comes into play a little bit

36:44

yeah nice yeah does the ocean I guess the O chain still does something when you're braking right well yeah I mean

36:51

it helps a lot when the freehub isn't

36:56

moving so when you're braking and your your Hub is locked up the distance between your cassette and

37:02

your chainring as your suspension compresses is growing and if the rear

37:09

hub can't rotate forward because your wheel is locked then your crank can only

37:14

rotate backwards so it's pulling back on your on your foot really that's that's

37:19

on the crank arm so it creates a harsh spot in the travel and the O chain allows the chainring to rotate back and

37:28

take away that harshness of the chain tensioning so

37:33

um under breaking for sure the old chain offers some

37:39

Square Edge absorption that makes it the bike feel smoother yeah that's cool so

37:45

do you think the O chain would be necessary on a bike with less than six inches of travel

37:51

I don't think it matters as much the amount of travel I would say more so the

37:56

intended use so if you are riding downhill sections of trail that have

38:03

square Edge bumps on them then you can see a benefit from the O chain

38:09

in that it will make those feel smoother if pedal engagement is important whether

38:15

if you're doing a technical climb or uh you just want a Snappy feel out of a

38:20

turn if you're racing cross country obviously or um dul solemn race or something obviously

38:26

you'd never want that but um if that's not as important and the

38:32

not necessarily even the efficiency but like the snappiness of your climb isn't a huge consideration if you just like to

38:39

get up to the top so you can enjoy the downhill I'm sure that most situations you'll

38:45

enjoy the doubt home more with the ocean some good Insight that is some good

38:50

Insight nice oh change should be cataloging all of the things that you say and write Neko because they have a

38:56

lot of explaining to do which is hard to understand product and I think you've done a better job explaining it than

39:01

anyone including them themselves it's hard for me to even understand what Fabrizio says because this is broken

39:07

English he's very Italian and very proud of his

39:13

Italian made product yeah that's awesome which is cool there's passion yeah but it's also a very complicated technical

39:21

piece that's hard to explain yeah do you think they could get Jeff to ride a no chain on his next bike ooh yeah I mean

39:28

if we can make it lighter than a regular training

39:35

perfect answer I I don't I don't sacrifice uh performance for weight I

39:40

try and get the performance I am Desiring while also making it as light as possible

39:46

fair so that's my that's my thought on being a weight weenie

39:51

um so we're gonna move silent yeah I I just don't feel like weight and

39:57

performance have any direct correlation yeah their compromises like you said earlier

40:02

normally normally yeah not always but sometimes I look for the ones that aren't

40:07

interesting maybe we can dive into my weight weenie theory on another time

40:15

all right Liam what's the next question uh Neko how do you deal with the nerves when you're about to drop in for a race

40:21

run I'd say about to drop in is the best because you don't have much time to

40:27

think about it um it's more like a downhill race there's so much waiting around that it's

40:33

through the whole event like you wake up on the qualifying day nervous you know it's a heavy day you go through that and

40:40

then the next day you wake up on race day and that's an even heavier day so it's like managing it through the

40:46

weekend that can feel pretty stressful but I just try to focus on what I can control

40:52

which is like my lines my strategy for the race um how I want to approach the track and

41:00

and if I think about those um things that I can be doing

41:06

that I can control it makes it a lot easier than all the things that could go wrong or

41:12

how is this guy how fast is this other guy going to go and things like that what's the weather going to do it's like

41:19

you can worry about it or not it's going to happen so yep and that's a good

41:24

metaphor for life you know just worry about the things you can control right I mean racing teaches you so much about

41:30

life like it's a it's a pretty cool learning experience to put everything

41:36

you have into something and see what the outcome is normally you get out what you put in and it's uh it's it's it's a good

41:44

lesson to learn at a young age I think it's pretty cool to get to do these races and take away those life lessons

41:51

nice all right here's I think this next

41:56

question is the most important question on the podcast yeah speaking of life lessons an apple on pizza or no

42:04

I like the one with the ham and pineapple like a Hawaiian pizza yeah nice controversial but I agree yeah I'm just

42:10

all over these food questions but Jared loves them yeah I mean who doesn't like food pineapple pizza is very controversial Jeff yeah Jeff could take

42:17

a pill and not have to eat if he you know if it was available I'll eat anything

42:22

Audi dog food folks can we please sound clip that

42:30

sample that for whenever we need to just make a short form video of like we

42:37

would like say like some really glowing intro of Neko and we really respect his opinion about bikes in his racing career

42:42

and then say we were on the podcast and here's the sound bite and it's just that probably anything

42:48

just take it fully out of context hey some of that like high-end Artisan dog food you know oh yeah man that's

42:55

basically humans so the next question was what does the future look like for Frameworks which you pretty much already

43:00

answered earlier so we don't need to answer that again and then of course the one after that Jared put in another food

43:06

question just another I mean I kind of like would like to go back to the question that he was kind of talking

43:12

about because I was I am interested if you are going to be making any new bikes of like different you know categories

43:18

like an Enduro bike or a trail bike and um

43:26

a gas bike ews ews

43:32

tell us about all the new bikes you have in store um yeah I've got some plans to further

43:39

develop the downhill chassis um and then I'd love to make an Enduro bike I ride those bikes more than I ride

43:45

my downhill bike for training anyway and um I love riding Enduro stuff it's super

43:51

fun so I live in a great spot for it too like in North Carolina in Pisgah National Forest we have like the best

43:57

place to train for Enduro so um I would love to make one like I've got a bunch of bikes that I've

44:04

I even have now like an Enduro Nomad I have the raw here and I take notes every

44:11

time some sometimes like riding so many different bikes it takes away from my experience riding

44:16

because I'm always like criticizing the bikes and normally it's negative but I'm like ride a section of

44:24

Trail and I'm like thinking about this or that or how the bike worked but anyway with that said I'd love to make

44:30

an Enduro bike I have some things that I think that I could do that would make check all the boxes for me and I've just

44:37

waited because I'm I wanted to figure out the construction and the the

44:42

materials with the downhill bike before making the trail bike so I didn't have two problems just going

44:49

at the same time and I think a lot of what I learned from the downhill bike now that I'm figuring out the tubing

44:55

making it durable enough I can put that into the Enduro bike and if it holds up for downhill it's going to hold up for

45:01

Enduro um it's just a matter of having the seat post insertion and changing some Geo

45:08

changing some kinematics but in Enduro bikes a lot harder to make

45:13

than a downhill bike because there's so many more constraints mainly like seat post insertion and not being able to put

45:21

the pivot through the seat post is makes it a lot more difficult to design and then having clearance for the rear

45:29

wheel to the seat post on a long travel Enduro bike and most of the time I think

45:35

that on like the four bar designs you need a brace in front of the rear wheel it's tough with longer travel 29ers to

45:42

fit that brace and the seat post insertion but then the bikes can have a like a flexier rear end to front end

45:48

feel so there's just a lot more to consider like a downhill bike is beautifully simple especially mine like if it

45:56

doesn't make it go faster racing then you don't consider changing it the seat

46:03

post only needs to stick in a couple of inches and it doesn't matter how it goes uphill you

46:10

have a 27.5 rear wheel it's pretty easy with clearance so it's like less

46:17

drastically different things to make it do or as an Enduro bike has to do a lot

46:22

um always saying that I'd love to and I think I'm pretty close now that I've figured out this tubing stuff with a

46:29

downhill bike I'm going to try a steel front triangle this winter the guys from

46:34

codic in the UK they're like a pretty well-known steel Bike Company Psy the

46:41

owner comes to a lot of the races and I've been chatting with him and he offered to make me the front triangles

46:46

for my bike in their Factory so he's got experience with it and I know the bikes will be

46:51

dialed and come out working so he's making me two front ends to put on and

46:56

then I also invested in a in a carbon mold for the chain stand seat stay and

47:02

the idea there is that the alignment of the rear end there's like a lot of precise things

47:08

um the brake mount the rear axle the chainstay pivot that all need to line up

47:13

and a lot of small pieces welded together there and I've struggled to get them to align perfectly you kind of have

47:20

to learn how much they're going to shrink and expand when they heat from welding and heat treat and now we're

47:28

getting further along we're getting them a lot better but it's still a challenge control wise over over multiple frames

47:34

so the carbon ones will come out perfect every time and they'll be lighter so the unsuspended mass is the rear end of the

47:42

bike basically everything that isn't sagging the bike in under its own weight and and is moving with the suspension

47:50

making those pieces lighter makes the suspension work better as you can imagine like as the the bike is going

47:57

through compression and rebound as your rear axle is moving up and down the less weight that has to be shifted from going

48:05

one direction to the other the better the suspension and the more freely it will work so if I can get that feel a

48:13

carbon right and all those other things come with it then that'll be a cool a cool quality

48:19

and it's nice because the same rear end mold we designed to be able to work with

48:24

the Dyno bike and if I wanted to do an Enduro bike so I was already using a

48:29

boost Hub but we made it so that it would have clearance for a 73 mil bottom bracket shell as well

48:35

so really we designed an Enduro sized rear end

48:41

that will work on my downhill bike and it'll be cool that it's interchangeable it helps with amortizing the cost of

48:48

mold over the two bikes and then if I want to change the size of the rear end

48:53

to make it specific for the multiple size bikes I can move the main pivot and

48:58

The Rocker pivot and the shock and everything forward I'm using a udh so I don't have a flip chip at the axle but I

49:06

can make the rear end specific to the front end size so it's all proportionally correct moving just the

49:12

front triangle so there's a bunch of stuff that I'm interested in in diving into and

49:17

like I said one day it could be cool to sell them but for now it's um it's a fun Challenge and process to figure out and

49:25

I'm really excited to to kind of step into that Enduro Duro

49:30

realm too just like I said ride those bikes so much that it would be cool to ride one of mine just a fun hobby

49:37

project yeah to do nice yeah that's that's you're starting to talk like the

49:42

head engineer of a highly qualified bike brand it sounds like yeah I do that too

49:50

I am I is I'm all the jobs at Frameworks that's

49:57

awesome yeah that's wild I'm I'm yeah I'm

50:03

looking forward to seeing what you pull off in the next handful of years that that reminded me of which this isn't a listener question this is just a

50:09

question that popped into my head that I thought of because I remember talking to you about boost your ends at one point any controversial opinions you have or

50:16

maybe not controversial but just hot takes you have on mountain bike standards Hub spacing because I remember

50:23

you had the whole thought of like boost versus super boost and I don't know anything off the top of your head do you

50:29

think is just should totally be changed and go another Direction in the bike industry right now

50:35

um not like that that any standard is really bad but there's just too many

50:40

I I just hate how like stuff isn't com compatible

50:46

um I think it would make it a lot easier and I think there's some stuff coming that is going to be going in that

50:53

direction but um just that there's four is there four Hub standards right now it's like last

51:00

week I've lost count it's just too many um so I think we should just like pick one

51:07

that makes the most sense and and stick to it um one thing like for downhill and maybe

51:14

now with e-bikes the the post mount standard for brakes has been the same for so long and I feel like brakes could

51:21

be they're limited by like fitting on that post mount being able to make them bigger or make the Pistons bigger and if

51:29

the posts were further apart you could probably make the break stronger six bolt is probably 30 years old and

51:35

like probably not the strongest thing so um it could be waste like and and cycle

51:41

cross did that by May or even gravel now I guess the cycle cross doesn't exist anymore it's now gravel right yeah it's

51:49

like frost is still cool whatever that category is they change the mounts the flat Mount yeah so they

51:55

did but then even there there's like no standard to Flat Mount there's like all these different bolts and spacers and right like it'll get there it's kind of

52:02

still yeah I'm not asking them to change the standard another time like we don't

52:08

need another standard but I think that the brakes could probably be better if they could be bigger for downhill and e-bikes yeah yeah that's fair

52:16

yeah that is fair I always thought it was interesting you know because I I grew up racing mountain bikes and

52:21

downhill a ton and the what Racers do especially at a World Cup level

52:26

professional stage like you're doing is what you're doing to bikes and demanding out of bikes is quite substantially

52:34

different than what the kind of average Rider does so you needing way more powerful brakes totally makes sense most

52:41

people probably they're they're looking good with those 220 rotors and four piston brakes right now they're going

52:47

over the bars I'll tell Nikos today I need to pull the 220 off the front of my bike and put a 200 on

52:53

I guess it's like at the time when that break starts to fade because it got too

52:59

hot most people are not having fun riding anymore so they're gonna take a

53:05

break yeah they're like well they've already started yeah we're just stopped from arm pump or stopped their bodies

53:11

can't go further than the brakes Ken for sure but a lot of the race tracks are are Steep and Relentless so yeah totally

53:19

yeah I really think there should be something in professional sports where you you basically show sort of the

53:25

average Joe partaking in the same thing I mean imagine so let's talk about the World Cup right now let's put an average

53:30

soccer player like full-blown average guy like out on the field with the same team let's see what happens like let's

53:36

go to a world cup and put an average Joe on the track and film them like I just think there should be it's hard to

53:41

compare and understand what's happening at these professional events if you don't really really know so much about

53:47

the sport yeah it's hard to know like what are these professionals really doing and someone would be great someone said about the Olympics like yeah you

53:54

know it'd be awesome if some Average Joe jumped in the pool and tried to swim next to these guys yeah like it was so

53:59

great yeah give it context yeah I think too with like Downhill Racing

54:05

specifically it's really hard to tell how steep the stuff is yeah it's 100 no

54:10

idea what that is like in in real life versus the on camera yeah and you can't see like the texture of the ground as as

54:17

well like how many intricacies there are and roots and rocks and ruts and holes and yeah you go to the race in person

54:24

yeah it doesn't look so bad on TV but if you go in person you can you can see

54:30

firsthand yeah or even that small little Gap that the top 20 guys are doing that no one else can even pull off right yeah

54:37

yeah that kind of stuff is is so cool it's also so hard to see on TV yeah

54:43

mm-hmm I feel like we should definitely we should skip this one because the next one's better but go ahead man

54:52

ask whatever question you'd like Jeff you could have a Mario Kart Mario Kart

54:57

item on a downhill race run what would it be um I'm not really familiar with that but

55:03

probably that rocket boost yeah I mean that would be more useful than the other

55:08

items you said banana peel earlier because that would be great but that would only ruin one of your competitors

55:14

and the guy behind you and only the one that qualified One Step worse than slower than you're here

55:20

I guess yeah yeah okay so the rocket yeah I mean that would put you right at the front

55:25

like [Laughter]

55:30

good little boost through a flat section that's a good answer how about what scares the crap out of

55:37

you um if anything

55:44

I I would struck I struggle the most with the steeper parts of the tracks like any split that is

55:51

you're working for the speed and you have to like generate the momentum through like pumping the ground or even

55:59

pedaling um or just working the bike through the terrain I'm normally like at the front

56:05

of those splits and the steeper stuff I feel like it's easy to lose time in

56:11

those quickly like if you're braking too much um also like lighter guys can slow their

56:18

weight down quicker so maybe more Nimble um just like coming into steep gnarly

56:24

sections at speed where you're like going over a blind Crest into a steep section that you know you're gonna have

56:30

to break in and like not over breaking into it I I um

56:36

it's not like scared to die but like just over break I tend to do that in in those

56:43

steeper sections I feel like tracks have more of that like World Cups we used to race in places like South Africa or

56:49

Canberra or places that were pretty flat and you had to you had to like be good

56:55

on those flat sections and now it seems like they take away all the turns and

57:00

they're just Steep and straight and like they're just gnarly like who can break the least not the best yeah

57:08

um so yeah nice for those for those listening that aren't super clear with

57:13

splits uh do you want to give a quick rundown on yeah so at the races they

57:18

just have sectors of the track um they'll have and they're not always the same but on different courses maybe

57:24

like the first minute the second minute the third minute there'll be a split time that'll give you your

57:30

your rank at that particular place and you and basically every other racer is

57:35

obviously clearly deeply analyzing your speed in between the splits and what

57:40

everyone else is doing and yeah because you can you know what's in those sections and and like where you s where

57:46

you stacked up in that sector of of the track and you can look at like spots

57:52

where you did well in spots where you can improve and it helps you to come up with your strategy they have time

57:59

practice on Fridays at the races and then they have uh qualifying on Saturdays and racing Sundays so in each

58:06

of those sessions you can analyze where you are in those sectors of the race and try to improve those sections

58:13

yeah nice red good answer I wasn't expecting anything I thought

58:19

you're just a Man of Steel speaking of well it's not really

58:26

speaking of Steel but does the industry cater to post racing careers what are your thoughts on that

58:35

I see I see quite a few people that have raced in the past get into a industry

58:41

job I don't know if it caters to it but I think that maybe some Racers don't know

58:47

how to do anything else so that's the only job that they can do and uh I think having experience is

58:54

valuable though like in certain certain industry jobs uh you can you can step in

59:00

and if you've been around it for so long have experienced that somebody else wouldn't be able to have so they're

59:07

they're definitely some advantages to a racer getting into jobs like that

59:14

um and I see it pretty often so nice probably yeah nice

59:22

last question last question go for it Liam

59:27

how do you get back in the saddle and progress your riding after a bad injury

59:34

um you just gotta I would say like the the first thing is

59:39

to take the necessary time off sometimes if you start riding again too early you

59:46

can develop bad habits if you're if you're nursing an injury you kind of

59:51

protect that area and maybe ride around the injury and then

59:56

you're not 100 committed and can start to develop a bad habit due to that I

1:00:04

think a lot of racers are like having their mind they want to come back as quick as they can but I've learned that

1:00:09

it's best to wait until you are 100 and you can ride the way you want to and try

1:00:14

to use that time off to maybe like watch some old footage of yourself and maybe

1:00:20

watch some guys that you want to ride like and try to come back like a reinvented version of yourself ride the

1:00:27

way you want to um not with like nursing and injury that you have to

1:00:34

ride softer however to get around

1:00:39

um and and when you're out on the bike like be disciplined and make sure you're

1:00:44

you're riding the way you want to nice nice good advice that is good

1:00:50

advice yeah nice work Neko thanks yeah you're a lot more well spoken now than

1:00:56

you were when you were 16.

1:01:03

I'm sure both Neko and I have a lot of funny stories about each other um we've we've been friends for way too

1:01:10

long and roommates at one time stuff in bunk beds yeah yeah we did that's amazing I

1:01:17

remember when Facebook sort of like became a thing it must have been 2009 or something we were roommates and I remember posting on my Facebook wall

1:01:23

like hey Neko can you bring a popsicle upstairs and you did and it was like

1:01:31

this is hilarious and I'm looking back at that I'm like man that just seems like so long ago I

1:01:38

feel like we're old but yeah it wasn't that long ago but it was it's longer ago enough that it's funny to me good times

1:01:43

it was good times yeah I mean I think racing mountain bikes has brought a ton to my life and I think you as well

1:01:49

obviously and it's such a good sport to to be in and a good hobby to be in or whatever you want to call it's a good

1:01:55

thing to be an Enthusiast about which is really fun so Neko where do where uh if people are listening this far where can

1:02:01

they uh kind of follow along obviously your Instagram any k-o-m-u-l-a-l-l-y yeah

1:02:08

yeah your best place is that your most active social media channel I would say so for for most of us downhill Racers

1:02:15

that's the best place to post up to date quick content and then my YouTube

1:02:21

channel as well is my name Neko malali um and we made a Frameworks Racing Page

1:02:26

as well that we don't really update very often so I have trouble with with all the social

1:02:32

media it's like I I don't know I like to to post stuff on there that's relevant and has some

1:02:41

some substance to it and if I don't have anything to say like I don't know don't don't post anything

1:02:47

yeah but it's exciting when we got stuff like when we have new stuff for the bike

1:02:52

when we um when we're racing and we're working through some new things it's

1:02:58

it's pretty cool to be able to share that stuff and and like I was saying not have to wait until an embargo date to

1:03:04

share the info like I've got prototype parts here's what they are here's the idea here's how they wrote

1:03:11

yeah pretty cool to be able to share that it's awesome yeah that is cool I think you've written some really well

1:03:16

done Instagram captions not that most people probably read long Instagram captions these days but years are worth

1:03:22

reading because I think you read some really good stuff which is pretty cool and I think uh yeah over the years you've done a really good job with that

1:03:28

even when you worked with hand up to design your own gloves I remember reading that one and going man that was

1:03:33

a really well written post and I care a lot about apparel nerd stuff these days because working on Kettle so much and so

1:03:40

when you wrote that I was like wow that was really good and that's kind of what spawned the idea to be like Jared we should get Neko to write some articles

1:03:47

on ochain and five death cranks and other cool stuff yeah I enjoy writing the Articles because you can go deeper

1:03:54

with with those details and that's kind of like the idea of doing a lot of the

1:04:00

video stuff that we do too is to be able to go deeper and like if it's not for you then you don't have to watch it or

1:04:07

you don't have to read it but for the people who are interested you almost can't write enough yeah it's pretty cool

1:04:13

to have a platform and be able to do that yeah that's rad nice man well yeah for those of you listening um hit Neko

1:04:19

on all those platforms he's got a lot of good stuff going on which is really cool another place to find all of that just go to worldwidecycler.com and hit the

1:04:26

search bar and type in any KO and enter and there you go thank you very much for listening if you've listened this far we

1:04:33

love you we appreciate you Neko thanks for being here and thanks for five Dev for hosting you while you're out here I

1:04:38

guess that's why you're in California yeah absolutely I visited the five Dev Factory past couple days and these guys

1:04:45

uh chauffeured me up here to your beautiful shops to do this podcast so yeah yeah awesome they got to drive me

1:04:52

back to San Diego now so we got we gotta go yeah sweet thank you for listening thank you

1:04:57

Neko thank you everyone see you guys next time thanks peace