What is MTB? Featuring Ned Overend, Nino Schurter, Ian Boswell, Haley Batten & Lachlan Morton

Life in the Peloton, presented by MAAP

Mitch Docker

Fitness, Sports, Wilderness, Health & Fitness

4.8 • 543 Ratings

🗓️ 15 March 2023

⏱️ 95 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

If you´ve been following me over the latter part of my career, and especially over the past couple of years, you´ll have seen my progression from pure roadie to lover of gravel riding and, more recently, mountain biking. I´ve lined up in a couple of MTB races, but next week, I´ll face my biggest challenge yet, at the brutal South African MTB race, Cape Epic. But before I head off to Cape Epic, I really wanted to learn a bit more about the history of mountain biking, and the evolution that it has gone through to get to where it is today. I wanted to educate myself, and any others out there listening, that are in the same boat as me – just starting out in the sport of mountain biking but with your head still mostly in the road game, to understand the sport from the bottom up. I wanted to start at the beginning, and I wanted to know what it was like to race the sport and learn the etiquette from the inside out. So I turned to a few greats of the sport. For history and background, I spoke with Ned Overend, one of the early adaptors of the sport. We chatted about the backstory of MTB, and the early legends, the ones who developed the iconic bikes - The Klunkers - those beach cruisers adapted into makeshift mountain bikes, which they then started racing downhill. Next, I wanted to learn about the beauty of mountain biking racing, and that meant I needed to speak to the best of the best, and in my mind, that is the GOAT, Nino Schurter. Nino´s been part of the evolution of the sport from its inception, so what better way to find out how the sport has changed – the racing, the bike development, the course structure, all the technical stuff. Next, I spoke to someone who started a bit later in the sport but has been really entrenched in the professional racing side of things and that´s Haley Batten, a rider who is now just coming to the forefront of mountain biking, and Haley really helped me to understand the nuances of the sport, the unwritten rules and the etiquette. Lastly, I wanted to speak to someone who was a roadie but had transitioned to MTB, like me. Lachie Morton, having come from the road and transitioned to MTB, understands what it´s like for someone like me who is coming across from the road and trying to understand the sport. I´ve developed a bit of a love for this sport, and I can´t wait to get stuck into the challenge of Cape Epic. It´s happening next week, and I´m heading there with my roadie partner Ian Boswell. We will document throughout the time in South Africa at Cape Epic and bring it to you after the event, but for now, sit back and enjoy learning a bit more about the beautiful sport of mountain biking. Cheers, Mitch Show notes- Intro with Ian Boswell – until 15´44 Ned Overend – 15´50 Nino Schurter – 43´30 Haley Batten – 1´08´30 Lachlan Morton – 1´25´20

Transcript

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0:00.0	Well, good-day, everyone.
0:24.5	Welcome to Life in the Peloton.
0:26.3	We're back for another episode.
0:28.0	And actually, I'm joined this week by a special guest to help me intro this very special episode.
0:35.0	Ian Boswell, all the way from Vermont, USA. Mate. Welcome to the podcast. Yeah, it's good to finally be on. I've been a long time listener of Life in the Peloton. I've never been a guest so happy to actually finally be invited on the show. You've leapfrogged it. You're not just a guest. You're part of the show now. You're introing it. You're just essentially. Yeah, I mean, in the, in the deep water. I mean, we've had a lot of both experience in podcasting from our own podcast to doing stuff with the cycling podcast. We've kind of been living parallel lives on, on separate continents. Anyone doesn't know who Ian Boswell is. He's 32 years old from Vermont, USA. Been 10 years as a pro on the road,
1:12.7	riding for a team like Sky, but finished also with Katusha in 2019. But that wasn't it for
1:18.4	Boz. He decided to jump off-road and do a bit of gravel, as we know it now. And he won the
1:24.0	biggest gravel event, the unbound 200-mile. That's 200 mile, not 200K, so like epic length in 2021.
1:31.9	But he's also got his own podcast, Breakfast with Boz, and we cross paths in the Peloton, but I don't remember that much, you know, because you were often at one end of the Peloton on the hills.
1:42.2	I was at the other, and I want to say vice versa,
1:44.9	but I can't comment on the flats. Maybe you handled yourself a bit better on the flats crosswinds.
1:49.7	Boz, what was our experience in the pro peloton? I mean, we definitely race together. We're also on
1:55.6	very different teams, you know, especially the time when I was at Sky. We always had, you know,
1:59.2	Frumie or Thomas or someone riding at the front.
2:01.1	You were lucky to have the Yates brothers as your team leaders.
2:03.7	And they're just like, hey, guys, we're just going to sit at the back until the last, you know, until the last climb. And then we'll move up then. So we definitely encountered each other. But I wouldn't say I'm a specialist at the flats at all. I mean, there are a handful of times just being at Sky that you make the split in the crossing
2:16.3	just because you're already at the front and happens behind you.
2:18.5	You don't really know, but I wasn't one riding across gaps and making, you know, people hurt in the crosswinds at least, maybe more on the hills. No, I mean, we definitely, you know, kind of ran in the same circles, but you were in Drona. I was in Nice. So, you know, we were kind of always like one step removed. But we definitely,
2:34.7	definitely, I'm sure, had our fair share of encounters out on the road. Well, let's get to the
2:38.9	point why we're chatting on this episode. This episode is going to be called what is
2:42.8	a mountain biking. Why the hell are we talking about that? Well, because Ian and I are going
2:47.3	across to do Cape Epic and they call it the Tour de France of mountain biking.
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