Bryan Hance is a bike enthusiast and web developer who combined those two interests in co-founding Bike Index, a database that tracks ownership to help recover bikes that end up stolen. Through that work, Bryan uncovered a sprawling bike theft and trafficking operation, which he traced back to one man, operating out of Jalisco, Mexico — and the story only gets crazier from there. So we sat down with Bryan and Chris Solomon, who wrote a piece for Wired on Bryan’s work, to hear all about it.

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TOPICS & TIMES:

Bike Index & Bryan’s interest in bike theft (2:14)

Constru-Bikes’s operation (7:46)

What did this network look like? (13:41)

How Bryan uncovered Constru’s trafficking (22:20)

Arrests in the US (29:11)

How to shut this down? (34:56)

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Bike companies file a lot of wild patents, spanning from “nearly released product” to “outrageous pie-in-the-sky idea.” Dan Bacon of Wheelbased chronicles many of the more interesting ones, and we brought him back on the show to talk about some recent highlights, from Bilstein’s proposed fork damper to Shimano’s multiple electronic brake concepts, a carbon fiber cooler from Yeti (the BIKE company), and a whole bunch more.

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TOPICS & TIMES:

Bilstein’s wild fork damper (2:28)

SRAM’s gravel linkage fork (7:48)

Fox’s new Live Valve (17:04)

Shimano’s piezoelectric shifters (25:10)

Shimano’s electronic brake (31:11)

Yeti (the bike company) making a cooler?? (38:45)

Dan’s Big Idea (43:48)

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Mike Ferrentino is back again as co-host for this month’s iteration of Reviewing the News, and Simon is delighted to have him in the studio to help try and make sense of the Red Bull Hardline drama. There were two exciting DH World Cup races to talk about, as well as an XC World Cup in Nova Mesto to cover. And in a fun change of pace, they get into the recent Giro d'Italia and the upcoming Tour de France. And there’s much more than just racing to go over, including an exciting update about Kona and a whole bunch more.

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TOPICS & TIMES:

The MegaVolt eMTB festival (0:59)

Red Bull Hardline’s insane canyon gap (3:46)

Moto rider Johnny Walker’s mindblowing run down the Hardline course (15:10)

Mike’s microphone is safe (for now) (20:47)

Loic Bruni dominates (23:13)

Ronan Dunne and Mondraker (26:56)

Bike theft (30:56)

Nova Mesto XC World Cup (33:51)

Tom Pidcock (34:59)

Nino Shurter’s incredible career (35:49)

The Giro D’Italia (42:39)

The Pog (43:39)

Tour de France predictions (46:46)

The return of Kona (53:57)

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