Andrew Dodd on 20 Years in the Bike Industry: Truths, Reviews & The State of MTB
The Ride Companion
TRC Media House
4.9 • 533 Ratings
🗓️ 25 March 2026
⏱️ 129 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Andrew Dodd aka Doddy is the podcast!
Doddy is a man who has lived through every era of mountain bike media, from the golden age of print magazines at MBUK to YouTube with Global Mountain Bike Network and now working inside the industry with Mondraker. We dive deep into the evolution of mountain biking, how bike media really works behind the scenes, and why the modern bike industry might be overcomplicating things. Doddy shares untold stories from his time testing thousands of bikes, what it was like reviewing products when magazines could make or break brands, and how the rise of YouTube, TikTok and influencers has completely changed the landscape. We also get into why modern bikes might be 'too much', the truth about bike reviews (then vs now), the explosion of content and how it affects riders, e-bikes, gravel bikes and industry trends, burnout from working in bike media, what actually makes mountain biking fun and much more. This is one of the most insightful conversations we've had about the bike industry — from someone who's seen it all, we hope you enjoy it!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This stuff is actually super interesting because as maybe people listening to it don't know what goes in like the free socks, how much it costs to do a project like the free socks. 13p cover was a maximum budget for that, for cover amounts, yeah. There you go. And if you think you're printing that many magazines and you're giving away 13P cover, everyone's like 13P, cheap skates, you're like, you don't understand. Like that's's not paid for that's money that came out from within the company yeah insane amount of money |
| 0:24.4 | on today's episode we have a man who has lived every era of MTV media from Mags to YouTube to |
| 0:39.5 | brand communications with Mondraker we've got mr. Andrew Doddy John oh no told you it'd be |
| 0:47.3 | better yeah it's better the second time dude a bit of flavor to the voice at the end you |
| 0:50.9 | know what I mean yeah it was yeah yeah hung the out a little bit. Yeah, that was nice. |
| 0:54.7 | Thanks coming on. |
| 0:55.6 | This is well exciting. |
| 0:56.5 | Thanks having me. |
| 0:57.3 | Hell yeah, there's so many things to talk about with you, I think. Yeah, I apologise about that. Could go on a bit. Well, you know what? If someone's been in the game this long, I noticed this when watching Down for Life, the DMR documentary. |
| 1:13.2 | I found some of your like, I noticed this when watching Down for Life, the DMR documentary, |
| 1:13.6 | I found some of your like bits that the snippets of talking to you, |
| 1:18.0 | some of the best bits in there. |
| 1:19.7 | And it like became apparent that you've been here. |
| 1:22.0 | Not only you've been here this long, |
| 1:23.4 | but you've been like as passionate as you are for this long. |
| 1:28.1 | Like about bikes, about the whole thing. |
| 1:30.8 | It's pretty cool. |
| 1:32.2 | I've said for many years there's nothing else. |
| 1:35.0 | This is everything. |
| 1:36.4 | This is it. |
| 1:37.2 | What you see is what you get. |
| 1:38.3 | Plus house music. |
... |
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