The Road to Respair

Nick sits down with Doug Baker, Chief Strategy Officer at Shift Active Media, to work out whether gravel, bikepacking and ultra-distance riding are genuinely growing — or whether it just looks that way from inside the algorithms.   Doug works with bike, run and outdoor brands to help them understand real riders at scale, largely via Shift's own recruited panel, the Rider Research Hub. In this conversation he and Nick get into:   Why the cycling industry's post-COVID "slump" is a sales story, not a participation one What the actual search and panel data says about gravel's growth (steady, not explosive) Why most gravel riders still treat it as a secondary discipline to road Bikepacking's high interest / low equipment-spend gap, and what's really going on with borrowed bags Why ultra-distance riding is small, and why that's exactly why it produces the best stories Whether gravel bikes will ever "get it right" — and why the answer is probably no, on purpose Where women's participation is genuinely growing, and where the data is murkier than the anecdotes suggest Why getting into a niche sport happens faster now than it did a decade ago, and it's got nothing to do with cycling specifically   A conversation for anyone who's ever wondered if their feed is showing them the sport, or just showing them themselves.

Jacob's the only guest to come back a second time, and this one's a different beast to the first. Less bikes..ish, more of everything underneath them — my daughter's cancer diagnosis, a hard run of loss in the friend group, and Jacob's own experience since losing his dad. Two mates talking properly about a hard year, no format, no schedule, nothing dressed up for content's sake. Also in this one: Jacob's off to TT nationals in Scotland next week, and how ASCND ended up drifting from what it was originally for — and why this episode is the pull back toward that. The Road to Respair — new episodes when there's something worth saying, not because it's Friday.

At 19 years old, Bash has spent the better part of a year riding his bike across two continents. What started as a solo bike packing trip through Japan 66 days, roughly 4,500km, top to bottom became something much bigger when, instead of flying home, he bought a ticket to Istanbul and started riding northwest. By the time Nick caught up with him (recording from the road while riding from Marseille to London while Bash wound down his final days in Antwerp), he'd passed through Turkey, Greece, Albania, North Macedonia, Italy, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Belgium. He got home the following morning. In this episode they talk about what Japan actually felt like to ride, why not planning a route is the best plan, the art of listening to your body over long days, kit that got ruthlessly edited down over thousands of kilometres, and why the finish line in Japan sitting at the end of the world with sushi and an Asahi is a feeling he'll never forget. Bash also shares his three tips for anyone thinking about doing something like this (spoiler: it doesn't have to be epic to be worth doing), and looks ahead to GB Jura in August — a 2,000km off-road ultra from Land's End to John O'Groats which would make him the youngest finisher if he completes it. A genuinely joyful conversation about riding bikes, going places, and trusting your gut.

Lucy Choules didn't grow up dreaming of riding a thousand kilometres through the Scottish Highlands. She only learned to ride a road bike in 2020. But somewhere between qualifying as a tax accountant, watching her eight-year-old sister discover cycling, and turning down crit racing in favour of stamping a card in a school hall at 2am, she found her people — the quietly brilliant, slightly unhinged world of Audax. In this episode, Nick sits down with Lucy to unpack her rapid journey from cycling convert to completing LEL and a 1,000km Scottish Audax in under two years, all while studying for her final accountancy exams. They talk about why Audax suits her life in a way that road racing doesn't, the joy of riding with a group of women who just get it, and the liberating logic of going in underprepared. They also get into kit — bibs, merino jerseys, dynamo hubs — and the Van Rysel endurance bike that Lucy put to the test over 1,000km of Scottish terrain, ferry crossings and all. Lucy is funny, honest, and completely without ego about what she can and can't do on a bike. If you've ever talked yourself out of attempting something big, this one's for you. Topics covered: Audax vs ultra racing · London Edinburgh London · 1,000km Scotland event · Dynamo hubs and charging on the road · Merino jerseys for long-distance · Bibs, kit and what actually matters · Content creation without the performance · Teaching her sister to ride · Why cycling is a leveller

How did three mates build a cycling brand that’s now a decade strong, with products that truly innovate? What does it take to build a cycling brand that lasts and what began as a passion project has grown into one of cycling's most respected names in ultra-distance and gravel riding. In this episode, we dig into how Albion built a loyal community by staying obsessively true to their niche, solving real problems for real riders from British weather to fabric innovation and repairability and working hand-in-hand with textile mills to create gear that actually pushes the sport forward. It's a story about authenticity, craft, and why doing one thing brilliantly will always beat chasing trends.