Today's pairing that matters the most?
Rad Power Bikes & Lost Coast Brewery's Downtown Brown!
Lately Justin has been tooling around on a Rad Power Bikes Expand 5 Plus and he and Colin go deep on the environmental impact of the e-bike category.
Then our in house Cicerone (aka Justin) pairs the perfect post activity beverage to go with the perfect commuter bike on the market: Lost Coast Brewery's Downtown Brown.
Because that's what you get here on Gear & Beer... the pairings that matter most!
Please follow and subscribe to Gear & Beer and give us a 5 star rating wherever you get your podcasts.
Head to www.rockfight.co and sign up for News From the Front, Rock Fight's weekly newsletter!
Want to see your favorite piece of gear or favorite beer featured on a future episode? Send your feedback and suggestions to myrockfight@gmail.com or send a message on Instagram or Threads.
Choose Your Player
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Captivate
Episode Transcript
Colin (00:00):
Welcome to Gear and Beer, the podcast for Gearheads beer buffs, and all adventurers with discerning taste. I'm Colin True and I spent over 20 years working for brands and makers in the outdoor industry. I'm Justin Hausman. I'm a journalist, professional gear reviewer, senior editor at Adventure Journal and a certified beer expert. How does one become a professional gear reviewer? You get paid to do it. Is that it? And you have to get kind of, there's a tryout and you have to get drafted and there's a minor league you to give up your amateur status as a Yeah, yeah. And I had to do a lot of the hard yards in the minor leagues, riding buses to various gear places and reviewing gear. The company of very few people in these dusty gear review fields in Nebraska and Texas and things like that. And then eventually you get called up to the bigger organizations.
(01:19):
And then finally I got my shot at the show back in, I don't know, 2017 with a venture journal and that's how it works. You left out your steroids era. I don't want to talk about that. It's touchy for me and everybody was doing it. Colin's not fair to single me out. It made you such a better writer. You could just, your fingers are flying across those. Yeah, so much easier to carry that gear too. Gosh, today we will first be reviewing a piece of gear the best way we know how. We don't talk about stack height, geometry, or width underfoot, except when we do, and we talk about the gear, the way you talk to your friends about gear, it's about the experience, our likes and our dislikes. And then we take that piece of gear and we pair it with the perfect post activity beverage because Justin is a cone.
(02:08):
In addition to being a formerly amateur gear reviewer, he's also a Cerone, which is, that's the certified beer expert part. A certified beer expert, right? It is a real thing. You can look it up. I have a certificate. Bottom line. You have an actual, I have a certificate. You've got to hang that in your new gear. I got to find it. Recording Studio. You're right. You got to hang that up on the wall. The bottom line is here is where you'll get the pairings that matter most. Gear and beer. And Justin, what gear and what beer are we reviewing today? Well, for the gear segment, we're going to go with the Rad Power Bikes. Rad. Expand Five plus. I forgot to call 'em. This is the expand five. Oh, it was plus plus model. I saw the plus. Okay. Yeah, I don't really know what makes it a plus.
(02:49):
I should probably look into that. And then beer wise, it's little bit more. It's just a little bit more, just a little more beer wise. We're going with the Lost Coast downtown and those things are late and we will talk about it. Why when we get to that part of the show, I'm going to leave you in suspense. Until then though, before we talk about our electrified Penny farthings and brown beer, a couple of housekeeping items. First, whether this is your first time listening to Gear and Beer or the hundredth, which you really couldn't be because there's not a hundred episodes. I don't believe we've made a hundred. They've listened to the same episode 99 times until today. You can do that. I guess you can listen to it a hundred times. Yeah. Have you followed the show is what we're asking. Clicking follow and leaving a rating and a written review, especially you Apple podcast listeners.
(03:29):
It's really important to the show for it to grow. And anyone who sends proof that they wrote a review on Apple Podcasts from now until the end of June, we'll get a gear and beer sticker if you send an email to My rock fight@gmail.com because Gear and Beer is part of the Rock Fight Podcast network. So send your emails over, tell us you wrote a review and we'll send you a sticker and you're going to write, I love you on all of them, right? I think Colin is not your plan. You're going to write a little, I love you so much. Yeah. Little hearts over the I in my name kind of thing. All autographs on the sticker. Yeah, on the back. Don't worry. Not on the front. That would be mean if we did it on the front. It'd be like defacing gear and beer.
(04:06):
But Justin, what are other ways that our listeners can reach out to us? Well send an email to my rock fight@gmail.com. We love getting those. We get 'em all the time now and we're always sending them back and forth to each other and just, it makes us feel terrific even when they're negative, although that almost never happens. You can find us on instagram@rockfight.co. And of course you should sign up for our rock Fights newsletter. It comes out each Sunday. And what else are you doing on Sunday? Nothing. So you should be reading our newsletter. Head to rock fight.co and click on join the mailing list. And am I reading this part? Yeah. Lastly, you should check our other podcast, the Rock Fight. Duh. For the best outdoor industry and adventure sports commentary. And you can find the rock fight wherever you're listening to this podcast.
(04:50):
Chances are, if you're listening to this podcast, you already listened to the rock fight. You probably already know the rock fight. Yeah, but don't forget about it. We're still making that one. Right? And you were still cranking that out. And if you did come across Gear and Beer first, we got a whole back catalog over at the Rock fight for you to catch up on. Talk about, boy, are You, boy, are you in for a treat? Yeah. We've got the next few months. Talk about listening to a hundred episodes. How many, well, I dunno how many I've been. How many have I been on? You've been on probably at least a hundred at this point. I don't think. There we go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Alright man, let's get into the gear. Okay. What are we talking about man? We've got the Rad Power Bike.
(05:22):
What is it? Rad Power Bikes Rad. Expand. Plus, it's kind of a mouthful, but you don't really need to say the brand. We might have to induct them in the Bedrock Hall of Fame for any conventions. Well Rat expand Five plus. That is a bit of a mouthful. Yeah, it is. Yeah, that's what we're talking about today. It's an electric folding bike. Colin, how do you feel about that? I don't know. I've always was kind of anti folding bikes when I was working, especially when I worked in Boston. I saw a lot of bike commuters on the folding bikes and I get their practicality, but it just sort of had that you just don't look good on them. But I have not ridden this bike. You're the only one. This is going to be a review. I'm going to offer some thoughts on category stuff.
(05:59):
Sure. So maybe you should tell me how you feel about folding bikes. Felt probably kind of the same. So before I rode this one. So let's see, let's get some background on my experience with these Zero. I've been an electric bike fan for a very long time, but I've never had a rad power bike. And they are by far the biggest electric bike manufacturer in the country, but they're direct to consumer only as far as I know. But they are, man, they're everywhere. I'm sure you're familiar with them, but if you're not, you're probably, you've seen these big giant orange cargo bikes rolling around everywhere. That's their flagship model, the Rad Wagon. And if like me, you live in a place with a bunch of kids and that's very bike friendly, you will see them everywhere and people love, they're cheap. I think the Rad wagon's like two grand and I don't know, I've never had one before.
(06:50):
I guess I usually kind spring for the higher end models of these sorts of things. Well also, I mean you tend to get stuff that's more out. I know there's some outdoorsy stuff with Rabbit, it's more of a commuter style. The brand is more about commuter bikes, right? Well, sort of Actually when they first started they made fat tire electric bikes. That's all they made. And so you'd see 'em like people riding 'em on the beach a lot because the tires are fat enough for they could handle the hard pack sand. And that was kind of the first time I saw them. The Red Wagon came along a little bit later, but it was the perfect time.
(07:24):
This is all pre covid 10 years ago or so. But something, it was the orange I think helped. The price helped. I mean you can buy a long tailed cargo bike from a lot of different bike makers, but usually they're at least $5,000. So the rad being like two grand was great. But anyway, that's the Red Wagon, that's not this bike. I dunno, I'm talking so much about the Red Wagon other than that might be the one that you're most familiar with, but we should also mention that Rad, it's a fun name, but it's also the name of the guy that founded it.
(07:55):
I think you saw, you pronounce it Mike Radden. And so it's not just the Rad Bikes. That's kind of the fun little naming convention that they came up with to work the guy's name in there. If you're wondering why they call, that's pretty great. I didn't know that. I thought it was just, we make rad bikes, so that's what they were saying. And so if you're a bike person might, I guess they have a reputation for being really, really heavy. The components aren't necessarily the best as you could imagine, for two grand. They're all, are you talking about RAD or are you talking about bikes? Yes. Okay. Okay. They're almost all rear hub driven, at least the ones I've seen, which are not the best way to do it. Most of the higher end that you'll see are mid drives, all like electric mountain bikes and stuff like that are mid drives where the motors cranks are.
(08:41):
So I don't really know why it's better. I just know that it is. And so that's sort of something I always went for the mid drives, which is another reason I never had a rad. They just have the rear hub motors and they don't use Bosch batteries, which the higher end ones use, a lot of their stuff are less expensive Chinese made parts. So that's a consideration. But I've never heard anything really bad about them. They've had some recalls, they've had some issues in the past, but everything so far, this spike has been great. So for the most part, although I do have a nitpick that I want to get into in a minute here. So this bike itself is pretty dang cool because it is foldable, which you asked me before what I thought about that. And I expected, because of everything I just said about rad not having necessarily the highest reputation for awesome build quality, I thought it would be kind of janky.
(09:33):
I was afraid it would rattle or something like that, but you would never know this thing folds. I haven't had any issues at all. There's two big class sort of that you undo to fold the bike in half and then to fold the handlebars and that's pretty much it. And when they're locked in place, you would never know. It folds, it doesn't make a weird noise. You don't feel it loose or banging around. I have almost exactly a hundred miles on it at this point. And so that hasn't been an issue at all. But this bike's whole point is dirt roads for the most part, as far as I could tell, it comes with these pretty thick three inch kenda knobs that are specially made for the spike. I believe they're pretty burly.
(10:15):
They do have tubes. I don't believe you can set them up tubeless, but I haven't really, the tires themselves are very, very thick. They're anti, they're puncture resistant, all that kind of stuff. But it comes with a rack on the back, which is great. And one of the things I like about this bike, and I don't know if all rads come with this, but out of the box, it is completely dialed. It has lights on the front and the back, the little screen on the front that tells you how fast you're going, what mode you're in, all that. That's all you rip that off on immediately, right? Because you Yeah, I don't need to see that shit. Yeah, that's all good to go. It has turn signals. How dope is that? It has a little turn signal indicator. So when you're turning left, you hit the little left button and blink, blink, blink.
(10:56):
The rear light blinks the front light. So wait a minute, this, but it's primarily made to put on dirt road I dirt. It's primarily made for dirt. It's just like you can do whatever you Oh, I see. You can take it wherever you want. Okay. Okay. So this weekend I used, it sounds a little overbuilt for a dirt road. Totally. This weekend I used it for a fishing trip and Oh, okay. So I've just been informed that it's not the only one with turn signals, but that this is the first bike I've seen that head turn signals. So this weekend I used it to go fishing, which is one of my favorite things to do with this bike. I can ride dirt roads from my house up to some lakes and I took it on the Burt Fire Road yet with this thing that I've been on with this thing and it handled it just fine.
(11:41):
It has plenty of power. Seven 50 watts, plenty of power to get up most hills. This one I forgot to mention, it's a class two, so it has a throttle as well. And boy, that was the next question. Yeah, if you have not had one of those that is a life change, you will instantly see why all these little kids are banging around on those super 70 threes. Frustrating the hell out of boomers because it is so fun to have a throttle. I mean it is just How much did you pedal on the way up to the lakes? I had to pedal a lot because the throttle, the throttle is pretty powerful, but if you're going up a pretty steep hill, you're going to want to pedal. But around town it goes 20 miles an hour, just a little twist of the wrist and oh my God, especially in a small town, I have twenties kind of faster than you want to go on most of these roads anyway.
(12:24):
It's just a little quiet motorcycle. It's incredible. But yeah, it has no issues at all climbing pretty steep hills. The power is, I would say adequate. There are definitely, if you get into really steep sections and you've had e mountain bikes before, you might expect some more assist getting up the hill. You do have to kind of pedal this thing if it's a pretty steep grade. Anything, if you're even sniffing like 20%, you're going to have to pedal this. Is there power return, do you use a charge when you pedal or no? Can you only get I don't think so. Okay. I don't think so. But it has torque sensors and everything so it can kind of match what your cadence is and stuff like that and give you the power when it feels like you need it. But it's not quite as refined as a higher end system is.
(13:05):
On a bike that costs twice as much. There is a noticeable difference if you're used to a better e-bike. In terms of the smoothness and how all that works, was there a difference with the rear hub propulsion versus the mid hub kind of thing? I can't tell. I mean it's not like you're spinning the rear tire or anything like that. I can't tell there, but I can tell you that it feels like the same hill I've ridden a million times on my old E mountain bikes and I just flew up it without much effort. This one, I had to have it in turbo in the lowest gear and I was kind of huffing to get up the hill, but the bike also weighs like 60 pounds, so it is a heavy bike ride. Bikes are all very heavy. This is a heavy, heavy bike, but it can hold a ton.
(13:43):
The back rack holds like 60 pounds. They send a front rack that holds another 55 pounds. You can add all kinds of cool accessories to it. And so I'll throw, I have a pretty good basket on the back and I'll throw my fishing poles collapse down. Did you use your old man Juniper bag that we reviewed a few weeks ago? No, I don't need to. This has a big giant basket, so that lives on my Kona, but you can throw all kinds of crap in the back. I take grocery shopping, I can fit two full grocery bags in the back. So I used to always use my big cargo back for that, but now I don't really have to, I can just use this. But when I go up to the lakes, I got fishing poles, I got more than one back back. I got lunch, I got all kinds.
(14:23):
I could put my kid in there if I wanted to. She could just dangle her legs over the basket and head on up. But I've been so impressed by this bike. It's also just really, really fun to ride. It's got a great feel to it. I did not expect this level of fun and build quality from a rad power bike for the reasons I mentioned earlier. But I've been nothing but impressed. It's 1900 bucks, which is pretty good for a bike like this. And I haven't even really, the folding is great because I have a truck. It doesn't really matter that much to me, but if you don't, you can fold it in half and put it in the back of a car. I mean it's heavy but it'll fit in the back. I couldn't take it with our RAV4 if it was just a regular bike.
(15:05):
It's too heavy for a bike rack you, but you just fold it in half and put it on the back in the back of your car and you're good to go. So 1900 bucks. Yeah, that's a really good price by e-bike standards. And back to your point about build quality and the way they build out how it's being powered from the rear hub and everything. Is that intentional do you think, in terms of to create something that's a little bit more economic friendly for folks versus I think so, yeah, for seems, I don't think there's anything on their website more than two grand. It's all pretty interesting. Yeah, I think that's kind of their target. And there are a lot of bikes at this level, this price point. There's a lot of brands that are doing this, but RAD has been around the longest. So I personally would probably trust them the most.
(15:46):
They've had their issues, they've had brake issues. I mean they had a big lawsuit a few years back when a girl was killed on a rad bike and it was maybe the brakes weren't adequate. I don't remember really what happened with that lawsuit. But I mean they've had issues. I don't remember if RAD has been part of the issues with the cheaper batteries catching on fire when they've been charged or not, I don't know. But they've been around long enough to where I think they've probably ironed out most of those sorts of problems. And I feel like you can trust this bike. I have no qualms about leaving it plugged in overnight. It seems fine. So I've never had any bike. I always was curious, when you go and you buy one and you give them your soul, do they just ship it right down to the devil or is it okay, so here's the thing, dude. Here's the thing, bro. I mean you're talking me into it. Actually want one. Can't say that if you haven't had one. I mean, well I'm sure cocaine is fun too, but I've never done that. We've done it together, Colin. I've seen you do Coke. Listen. That's why I was so tired of camp that next day I was SW over. It's so weird. I don't used to see people just do lines in the morning. So it made sense you were tired, let go ride bikes.
(16:53):
I've come around to the anti E mountain bike thing. I'm kind of on that point myself, even though I've had them, no is a D thing, but this is a whole different animal. Totally. When I was riding up to the lakes, I'm passing all kinds of people on regular mountain bikes and I don't look like I'm trying to, I'm clearly going up there to fish and this is an easier way to get there. I didn't drive. I'm not wearing spandex, I'm smiling, I'm not sweating. It's just a different ball game. And so at no point do you feel like you're cheating or something like that. I could have ridden a regular mountain bike to go up there and fish and I've done that a million times. It actually sounds like it makes way more sense frankly. It makes so much more sense. I get up there in 15 minutes. I only had about an hour and so it's perfect. I mean it was either that or drive and why would I drive? Yeah, they make your life.
(17:45):
That's actually a great example. So had I driven up there, which I've done also a million times, I'm just in the truck. I'm not really, I'm listening to music, whatever, but I'm just kind of sealed off. I get up there and it's fine, but this makes it fun. This makes getting up to the lake really, really fun. And that's kind of what e-bikes do for you. They take the little things that you would never in a million years associate with any kind of fun going to the store, going to the dentist office, whatever it might be. And you hop on an e-bike for that and you get to be outside, you get to be a little bit active, you get to smell the earth. I mean it just immerses you in the national environment in ways that you probably wouldn't normally be in a car.
(18:22):
And that's why I'm such a big advocate for these things. I mean, I'll evangelize about e-bikes all day long, but this particular one is great just because you can take it most places that you would want to go if you're outdoorsy other than single track. And it's a little workhorse that will get you to where you want to go and bring beers if you want whatever in the back. It's great. Well, the whole e-bike category is really interesting. I sent you, I dunno if you had a chance to watch it, but I sent you a YouTube video I watched yesterday kind of digging into the environmental impact of e-bikes because now you're adding batteries and you're adding more to a bike than it previously existed. And so I did some digging. So in the US the E-bike market in 2022 was just shy of $2 billion and it's expected to grow 15% annually good until 2030.
(19:09):
Globally it's about 43 billion. That was in 2023 and it's expected to exceed 120 billion by 2030. And it turns out that commuter e-bikes, commuter e-bikes are one of the greenest developments that come out of our entire any outdoor sort of product when you take in the larger worldly impact. Because yes, it definitely is more impactful to manufacture them. Yes, you have more considerations at the end of their life and nothing is circular really at this point. But when you're talking about C commuter bikes, which usually is replacing a car, there's a lot of the considerations when you take the entire package of what the environmental impact is of the rider and the bike and everything else. That actually makes it one of the most green things you can possibly do. Mountain bikes not so much because usually all you're doing is replacing an analog bike with something that is then more impactful to make and then you might be splitting hairs to a certain degree.
(20:00):
Yeah, it's not replacing a car trip ever. I mean occasionally Ally, I would ride mine to trails that were kind of too far to ride a regular, like an analog bike too, to start the ride when I had my e mountain bikes. But other than that, yeah, they're not replacing a car, but just the whole idea, the commuter e-bike market, that is something that is, if you're going to put, I am joking around, but it's also like now this one's actually kind of important to your point and especially how fun they were. And that was one thing they commented on in the video is just how entertaining it is and how fun it is to ride. And you just would then want to ride it. Exactly. Are you thinking right now you're like, can I just move back to San Francisco so I can rip around the city on this thing would honestly, that's kind of what I did.
(20:40):
So my first E-bike that's right was a Benno boost and benos are really good bikes. They're higher end, they're all the things I said. This one isn't mid drive, Bosch battery, all that sort of stuff. Probably Bosch motor too, I guess. And it was smallish like this one is, and that thing was so much fun. It didn't have a throttle, but that's what opened my eyes to what you can do with an e-bike. And I immediately stopped driving in San Francisco. I mean, it was just night and day unless it was raining, I just completely stopped. And that's how it is here. I mean, I work from home so it doesn't really have to go anywhere, but I mean I won't drive for weeks at a time because of these sorts of bikes. And it makes a huge difference mean this is also, we talk about this a lot, what's your concern?
(21:20):
Is your concern, things like lithium and what are going to do with a battery. I mean that's kind of a toxic thing and that's lots of reasons to care about minerals and all that stuff, right? Yeah, for sure. Who's digging this out of the ground? What travesties are happening there? That's one concern. But then also removing cars from the road and carbon emissions is another concern. So you kind of pick your battle. And to me especially, hey, yesterday was, well as we're recording this yesterday was world bike day. So a day to reflect on the importance of bikes. These sorts of things make life more enjoyable for everybody. I mean, I'm one less car on the road. Everybody around me that's riding these bikes is smiling, having a great time. There's a reason they're so freaking popular. I drop my kids off at preschool and there's like 15 E-bikes and that's 15 cars that didn't drive.
(22:07):
That's great. That's great. And in terms of this is the rare case, a lot of times we'll take their stuff, oter counter category conversation about the impact. Well, I mean, great because usually you're like, well, it's actually pretty good by comparison to some other things. This is a category, mountain bike's not withstanding that. It's like, no, actually this just makes a lot of sense. And actually it's making positive impact. And by all accounts, to your point about the battery, the recyclability of the ability to recycle a lot of these things has increased tremendously over the last 10 years. And you would assume that 10 years from now it'll be even better. So yeah, really good. A lot of good work going on with the e-bikes. Talking though about maybe they get into maybe some of your concerns, right? Because the thing about RAD is there are basically direct to consumer.
(22:55):
They have several stores, I mean across Western Canada and mostly the Western us it looks like mostly available online. Talk about that. So what was some of the things you've encountered there? I know that's something that you and I have chatted a little bit about the spike as well. Well, I'll get into the negatives in a second, but the positive thing about that is that they, because they've only been DTC for their entire existence, they have that part dialed. So delivery of the bike was great. Typical sort of freight thing where they contact you the day before you get that all scheduled. They have a full on website system that you pick when you want to get it done, blah, blah, blah. That's great. Shows up in a really cool box, all kinds of cool art. That's not that unusual, but it looks nice. And the unboxing was actually pretty neat.
(23:41):
The box had all these really cool little systems to keep everything closed and tight and you take the box off, all you really need are some zip ties and maybe like a Phillips and the bike was ready to go. I mean it was packaged really, really well. It was folded, which is nice. Obviously, I don't know what it's like to get a fulls size one delivered. You probably have to put things on it, but I don't even think I had to put, I don't think had to put the front wheel. I, it was folded together. The wheels are both on, which is great. All I had to do was kind of sit the handlebars and tighten 'em down and that was pretty much it. And it was charged so I could just write it. I mean it was great. It was clearly meant for, and there's also cool stickers on it that kind of tell you what to look for on the frame.
(24:21):
Make sure you wear a helmet, make sure this, make sure that it is very geared towards someone who you saw that you're like, not for me, fuck no, I put a big sticker right on top of that, no helmets. It's very clearly designed for somebody who doesn't know how to put a bike together, who doesn't want to have to think about putting a bike together. The only downside is it's as heavy as shit. So you might need somebody to help you hold it up while you put something on. I don't want to put a bike together and I'm really strong. So maybe this is, yeah, you could definitely open this box and go for a ride. But that part was great. That part was really, really, really, I mean I like putting bikes together, so I don't mind that sort of thing, but most people don't. So that's a wonderful for, you're a single parent, single mom, whatever, and you don't really work on things. This is for you. You just take open the box, boom, you can go for a ride that day, but I can't take this to my local bike shop.
(25:13):
I think they would maybe put brake pads on and they might replace the tubes, but that's kind of all they're going to do. They don't want anything to do with it. They might also chastise you, tell you never to come back again. Maybe. I don't know. I've had good success taking bikes. I mean, I don't buy bikes from bike shops, so for the most part they've kind of converted to the, we're just going to fix the bike that you bought online model. And I think that's for better or worse, that's kind of what a lot of bike shops are doing these days. But that can be an issue. There are a lot of bike shops that if you bring a rat in, they'll be like, get the fuck out of here. For lots of reasons. Partially because they don't want to be liable, partially because they're angry at the system, partially because they don't know how to work on them, whatever.
(25:51):
So that is an issue. The bikes that I've had that I've had, I've to bring in my, I have an extra cycles long tail cargo bike with a Bosch system. I've had to bring that in to be serviced and they can service that because they sell bikes with Bosch and they can plug it into their system and they can run a diagnostic like you would on your car and tell you what the battery's doing, what the motor's doing, blah blah, blah. You'd have to go to a specialized rad shop to do that with the rad. So that is an issue. And so for me, I've had an issue that seems to be really common, which is that the bike will just kind of turn off as I'm riding it. And so I've figured out how I think I fixed it, but I took the battery off and kind of cleaned all the terminals and put it back on.
(26:31):
I took the little heads up, display off and put it back on. How many miles do you have on your bike? I mean, is it pretty? I can't imagine you've that long. That started happening at about 65 miles. What I presume happened is, but what I presume happened is it just things kind of shook a little bit loose, right? So you kind of tighten everything back down. I think you didn't put enough gas in it, I think is ultimately what happened. Well maybe that's Or too much that could have been the problem. Hey, well that could have been the problem. I keep adding gas. It's just not working. I don't understand why the battery's smoking and glowing. Did you use the throttle? What was the thing you had to pump to get? Oh, on the Coleman lantern. The little plunger. Yeah. Yeah. We'd have to do your lawnmower back in the day to get the, it turns out that as long as you make a brap noise when you throttle, it'll work just fine.
(27:21):
But it has to. I do that on my analog buddy. It has to hear you do that. If it doesn't hear you do it, it will stop working immediately. That's the issue. It as a choke. That's what word I was thinking of. There you go. Yeah. Should you choke at before you try to start again? Nobody under the age of like 45 will know what you're talking about. I know. That's our whole demo just went up a whole other level of that choke choking. Okay. 65 miles is very big in the young sex community. Did you know that? This is a huge thing, by the way, with Gen Z. They're into choking auto asphyxiation. There's a whole article I read recently the other day about this. It's kind of wild. All right, so 65 miles in it starts giving you problems. Not great. Yes. So that's an issue, right?
(28:01):
And you can't go to your IBD to, yeah, going to an LDS church is not going to help you, if that's what you're trying to say. I mean, I don't think they're necessarily experts. There are specialized rad places and I believe they even have, maybe they used to at least have a mobile service. Maybe they'll come to you maybe, I don't know. But I basically took all the electric stuff off, put it back on, and tightened it down and it seems to be fine. So I don't know. I mean, that's a bummer. Can't necessarily, I wouldn't have to worry about that with any other bike I've ever had. So that's something to consider. But they also, they have reputation for having really good customer service. So it might take you a while, but if it turns out it was the batteries of dud or something, they'll replace it for you.
(28:46):
I mean, that stuff is all fine. It has a two year warranty. So I mean, it's a bummer. It is a little bit of a bummer. But I also, there are people on forums discussing this kind of thing, but it's not super prevalent. I asked my friends who have them, if they had the issue, they said they didn't. So I don't think it's necessarily, this could be a one-off sort of an issue. It's not enough for me to say that this isn't a good bike. I still think it's a really good bike. So then, okay, there are some concerns. So how would you rate this? I mean obviously we talked about it from on the stuff oter level. It's kind of a one-on-one, right? There's not a lot of other things out there, but then, I dunno, you've had probably better success performance wise maybe from other e-bikes over the years.
(29:24):
How do you rate the product? Here's the thing. It's easily the most fun ever had. Well, that counts for something, right? I did not expect to say that when they sent, I should mention too, if you're not looking at it on the website, it's a step through. It's kind of goofy looking, right? It doesn't look like a badass bike. I've had it for a few months. Joy, every time I'm on it, I can't wait to go. I literally cannot wait to ride it to the doctor's appointment this afternoon. It's just that much freaking fun. It's like having a vest. It might die halfway there. Well, yeah, I, but again, I can't hold that against, I guess I have a hard time holding that against this bike. Generally speaking, I really do think it's probably just a one-off issue that I fixed by tightening connection down.
(30:10):
That was actually be my follow is, I'm joking around, have you done any research? Is this a common complaint? The thing that you're describing? Sort of. But usually people usually the same thing is like, oh yeah, I just tightened the cables and it was fine. And it was fine. Okay. That's the downside to if you don't build bikes, I don't trust a bike out of a box. I didn't put it together. So often if it's not, this thing has a million cables and the routing is not super intuitive. If it's a regular bike, I usually kind of take it apart and put it back together no matter how it's been boxed, because I want to make sure that everything's done with the proper torque and stuff like that. I don't know who put it together. And so, I mean, it would be nice to eat it and lose the front wheel and then sue the hell out of rad.
(30:48):
I guess that could be kind of fun, but I'd rather not have that experience. Yeah, but I expect mean all bikes go through that right cable stretch. That's true. Bolts jib come a little bit loose. You're supposed to tighten everything down and kind of service it yourself or at a bike shop after 50 miles. So to me that's expected. After 50 or 60 miles. I have spent plenty of times walking back to my car with a broken bike. So e-bike should probably be no different. Okay, but put a number on it though. What are you rate this thing all? Guess I'm going to give it a nine Overall. Wow. Overall, I honestly would've given it a 10 had I had no issues at all with it. At this point, I mean's fair. The price, the utility, the design, the way that it shows up in a box, the ease at which they make everything.
(31:38):
I mean, it comes with every little step for everything you would possibly need to do is very spelled out. It's very obvious. It is a well packaged thing and it really does what it's supposed to do perfectly. I mean, I'm not kidding. It's easily the most fun bike I've ever had, easily e-bike that I've ever had. I'm not going to bond with it. I'm going to bond with my analog bikes. I mean, that's kind of the issue. It still feels like an appliance to me, but it is so damn fun. It is so fun. It makes me want to get a Vespa. I wish they made electric vespas. I dunno what the difference would be. I guess that it goes a little faster. That was going to be like, what's the difference? I honestly don't know. I mean, it feels like you're on one. I guess I like the idea of just putting both feet flat, not even having pedals and just kind of European around town or whatever. But yeah, I'm going to start wearing this thing with a scarf and a bright red circular helmet and just pretend like I'm in France all the time. Well, let's take a quick break and then we'll get into this week's beer.
(32:30):
This episode is brought to you by Switchback Spring, the new outdoor industry gathering for education, networking, and business. Coming to Nashville June, 2025. Connect with peers and players in gear footwear, apparel, hiking, camping, trail running, and more for three days of learning discovery and celebration Switchback spring is the new go-to meetup for specialty retailers, brands, media and outdoor organizations. Mark your calendars for June 16, 18, 20 25. Visit switchback event.com for all the details and start planning your new outdoor industry adventure. So before we get into this week's beer, Perry, we need to mention our new teammates at Darby Communications. What positions are they playing? Yeah, well, we had needed tight end, could use some help. We tight end and No, we got a couple of 'em right here. Yeah, we needed some third down efficiency in the defense. Some power play, some offense in the power play for sure.
(33:26):
Our penalty kills pretty good. Yeah. Look, if you run an outdoor endurance or active lifestyle brand, there's no better PR and digital marketing belay partner or drinking buddy than our friends at Darby. They can help your business reach new heights and they can cure your fear of heights. They can help with that. They're going to load you up on beer and send you up the rope. I mean, can your business can't reach new heights, Colin? If you're scared of heights, if you get vertigo, that's that's terrible for business. You're never going to start a business then because you're afraid of heights. At the Waldorf School of Business I went to, when I was three years old, I was at a very, very precocious toddler and they taught us things like, you got to get over your fear of heights if you're going to make it in the business world.
(34:06):
This all makes sense listening. If you never seen Justin, he's always in a three piece suit. He's always dressed to the nines. Kind of looks a little like Christian Baal in American Psycho. This is the second time you've referenced Christian baed, American Psycho. Holy shit. You're right on the podcast. It goes beyond my mind. I haven't seen that movie in a long time too. Maybe it's I'm talking to you and that's the vibe. That's a really gross movie to be referencing all the time to be thinking about. We'll go Alex Keaton from Family Ties. Is that better? Yeah, I like that better. Okay, so anyway, Darby. Look guys, they might just keep you from falling on your ass. So if they can help us, I mean, they can kind of help anybody, frankly, even me. Okay, now let's turn our attention to after the activity at the break, the put in the trailhead, we're going to crack open the cooler and iib a beverage so we can celebrate our wins and losses in the back country.
(34:50):
Let's have a beer. All right, let's have a beer. Justin. Let's have two beers. Let's play two. Let's play two. Who said that? Colin. Ernie Banks. Is that right? I thought it was Willie Mays. No, it was Ernie Banks, wasn't it? Who was it? The Chicago announcer. Who am I thinking of that will far, no, we was definitely a player, but I thought it was Willie Mays. No, we're not moving past this. Hold on. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Ernie Banks. Fuck. Alright, so we just got home from the grocery store while riding on a rad power bike. We're loaded up with groceries in the basket, in the rear of the bike. We took your kid out first and put the groceries in. We made room. Where's the kid? She's working home. She's fine. She's looking for the, they don't really know how to get home, dude. They're pretty young.
(35:27):
She's yelling for the tables. You got to go back and get her. Alright, we'll zip back and pick her up and then get her back about to have a beer. If we're going to have beers, she'll be fine. There you go. Thank Glad your priorities are where they should be. So we're going to make a wonderful meal for everything we got at the grocery store. But before we start cooking, we need to crack open a lost brewery Downtown Brown. Well, straddling our lost Coast. Lost Coast Brewery. Excuse me. Downtown Brown, lost Coast Brewery. Thank you. Downtown Brown. While straddling our dope as hell, we bike. Justin, why is this the pairing that matters most when it comes to Rad Power Bikes? Because there's some cool as hell shit going on in far northern California. A lot of cool products coming out of there besides Weed.
(36:08):
Colin Rad Power Bikes, the founder, Mike Radden, ba from the Lost Coast area. That's basically everything from more or less Mendocino up to the Oregon border. He's from up in that zone and Lost Coast Brewery is from Eureka, which is kind of the biggest town up there. So it just made sense, right? Brad Power Bikes come from there. So does Lost Coast Brewery. And Lost Coast Brewery is also like Rad Power Bikes, one of, they're an original, they're one of the earliest of the craft beer breweries in California, if not the rest of the country. California came late to that party, but they been around, they're kind of an OG in the California craft brewing scene. So that is why Collins. So they've been around since 2014? Yep. They're pretty big. I mean, they're available in 21 states, like coast to coast. They're in 12 different countries.
(36:56):
Their website says they bottle and can 225,000 beers a day. So yeah, early 2014. Actually, that's not that old. I mean, that's pretty big for really widely distributed, which actually I feel better about because anybody listening somewhere other than you should be able to get it where we live. You should be able to get it. Yeah, they were one of my favorites when I first got into brewing beer, making beer drinking, because their great white ale is fantastic. And that was the first beer they really made. I believe that was the first beer that they made, which is just kind of, it's a nice white ale, which is a wheat beer. It has a little bite to it that I really enjoyed. And then this is probably their, I would say great white's, probably their most famous beer downtown Brown is probably their next favorite or most famous beer, but it's just something that's always been around for me since 2014. Seems. Did you get that from their website? Yes.
(37:55):
I would've bet it's been around longer than that, but I guess not. But maybe there's a rebrand or something on. Yeah, I think there might have been because been drinking Downtown Brown for a long time. I'm pretty sure I was drinking that before I moved to San Francisco, but I could be wrong. Maybe there's something that sounds similar. But anyway, it's one of my favorite brown beers. It's like a much better version of Newcastle. That's kind of what you're expecting here. This is, I dunno if it's technically a nut brown, but a brown nail really just means that it has been brewed with barley that's been way more roasted than a pal L would be. I mean, that's entirely where that comes from. They're probably using crystal malts, which is a really neutral, almost sweet kind of a barley that is the backbone for a lot of dark beers, porters and stouts and things like that.
(38:39):
Almost always use crystal malts. And I don't know what the hops are in this, I don't believe they say, but the hops are probably, I would guess they're European hops. They're not quite as bity and almost like a stringent in terms of the bitterness you'll get from a lot of kind of avant-garde American Hobbes these days. But a really nice, pleasant, smooth drinking beer. Probably less heavy than you're anticipating. It's a brown a, but again, that doesn't really mean the color of the beer has very little to do with how heavy a beer is. I mean, people always think Guinness is a strong, it's not that heavy, heavy beer, but it's not. It's super light. It's like less than 5% alcohol. It's very light. Doesn't even have a ton of calories. I love Guinness. It just means that just because the barley has been roasted a lot does not have anything to do with the body of the beer, right?
(39:24):
I mean, it will provide a kind of a chocolatey roasted flavor, but which tends to be more powerful than a very clean, crisp, light ale would be. But other than that, it doesn't really impact the heaviness of a beer. So this isn't like a beer that you have to drink in the wintertime. It's nice in the winter. It does something about that flavor. It really makes sense with a lot of wintertime activities. But it's not a heavy beer. It's easily drinkable. I don't remember what the A BV is. I should have looked that up, but it's 4.1. Yeah, pretty mellow. 4.1 that low. Wow. No, no, excuse me. 5%. I was looking at something else that makes a lot more sense. 5%. So that seems about right. So this is definitely kind of a session beer, a nice session, brown beer. You can have a couple of these without feeling overloaded or drunk. So yeah, my only real, I've never had this before.
(40:11):
There's a couple of different local craft brews where I used to live where they'd have some browns and stuff like that. But New Castle is definitely the one I drank the most and I was a big Newcastle fan. I like Newcastle, Newcastle's good new castle's good. But Newcastle is pretty thin and watery compared to this, I would say. That's what I was going to say. What should I expect mouth feel. What do you think? What should I expect as I try this for the first time? You'll get a toastiness, not quite sweet, but a really smooth, again, like a nut brown. I think this is, again, I'm pretty sure they consider this a nut brown, which means it's just a little like a shade lighter than a big dark rich like porter would be, but lighter than you expect. Real round, real smooth, just a little toasty. That's what you should be expecting here. And you might even think that you're tasting nuts just from that kind of whatever you get from that toasted barley kind of flavor. These nuts, de nuts. Yeah. Let's do this. Open it up. Let's open it up. Right. I see you're going to open it up with me. Yeah, let's do it. Okay, here we go. Okay. Then in a bottle. I think it's only bottle in bottles. I've never seen it in a can. Okay. All right. 3, 2, 1.
(41:18):
That smells great. Smells good. Okay. Definitely smells like there's definitely more of an odor than you would get from a new castle. I'm going to pour, it's in a bottle. You said in the spot you pour in a glass, right? Yep, yep. Hold that up. That's nice. See? See what I mean? Not too dark, nice and nutty. That's nice. That's nice. It's pretty good. See? Oh wow. See what I mean? Little toastiness on the back end. I had to get a 12 pack. It's all that was available at the store I went to and I was a little like right now. I hope I like this. Otherwise, it's a lot of beer. I will definitely have this finish is really great. Yeah, finish is really, really nice. It's a well made beer. A little bitter aftertaste, but not bad. Not a bad way almost. I mean a little coffee, a little tiny bit of a coffee.
(42:06):
Little coffee. Yeah, a little bit of a coffee. They described that. It says it's a blend of chocolate and caramel malts with parley malt and it makes it a nutty brown nail. Now let's talk about the label, the bottle art. Are you a fan of the sort of the art deco kind of weird, it's like Frazier. This feels very antiquated. Tossed salad and scrambled eggs kind of vibe to me. Very, very late nineties, which is again, I could have sworn this beers way older than 2014. I don't look at it. Maybe they moved locations in 2014. Oh yeah. It's way older. Yeah, like 1990. Yeah. What was the 2014 that I saw? Maybe it was on, I saw that on something on the website maybe. I think they changed locations at one point. So that's probably, maybe that's what you saw. I was going to say, I know I was serving this beer when I was waiting tables in the early two thousands. Yeah, I love that they haven't changed the label. I think that's awesome.
(42:58):
I love that. It's like, okay, this is very clearly a period of the late nineties. I think that's great. Alright, so let's tie it together. We got to have, hold on sec. I want to talk about the founder for a minute. Can we talk about her? Please? Please, yes. I get saw a picture of all Barbara Groom, which is a great name. I just love her backstory. This is actually so common in that before the giant boom of craft brewing, you got these kinds of people all the time. Now you get people that go to college for it. They know they're going to be a brewer. They go to brewing school early on. I mean, it's a lot different now. Back then it really was people making beer in the garage. They were like, you know what? I wonder if I can make a brewery.
(43:38):
And that was Barbara. Barbara. She was an Avon makeup rep for a while. How great is that? Does not strike me as someone who even wore makeup. But she was into that. Then she became a pharmacist. She was a pharmacist for 20 years, which I think is cool. But like I said, she just loved beer and was making beer at home. And then she was making really good beer at home and she finally was like, you know what? I'm just going to see if I can make a go of this. And I thought, that is so awesome. That wasn't a sure path to success, not that it is now, but this is an OG days of doing this kind of thing. And I miss that about, I guess you'll still get that sometimes these days. But I love that she was just a garage brewer that just decided that she was going to make a go of it a way up there. There wasn't any really other breweries up there that I can think of. Mad River Brewings up there somewhere. North Coast, which is in Mendocino is not super far away. But I don't think either of those would be as old. There's another one. I can't imagine. 12 different s Remember the name making tons of beer. She did good. She did good. Alright, so pair this with the bikes. Why does it go together?
(44:45):
The lineage of where they're from? Yeah, that's really it. Call. Is this something, are you a brown guy? Do you love brown? Seek out Browns brown. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love them. When you think about, we talk a lot about the refreshing nature of the loggers and the like, how we would choose a Budweiser in certain situations or whatever. When you think about more satisfying, I know where you're going. It's more satisfying than it'd be like that. Even though it's not crazy. It is not like it's going to put you to sleep but it's just more satisfying. This feels a little less to me, like the thing you want to have in the cooler at the Trailhead, but this is the beer that you have with the burger when you're on your way home from doing something, right? Yeah. Yeah. What do you like to pair with?
(45:22):
What Food? Burger would be Excellent. Burger would be excellent. Mexican food's really good with brown ales. Spicy food's pretty good with brown nails. Yeah. Yeah. Fish and chips. Anything you drink with a new castle. Alright, so let's rate the beer. What are you going to rate The Lost Coast Brewery? Downtown Browns. It feels like an easy one to me. 8.5. 8.5. Yeah. Yeah, I'm, I'm not quite as bullish on it. I'm not quite in the eights. I think like seven for me. Sure. I really like it, but it's also, yeah. Yeah. I think seven works. Alright, well to summarize this episode of Gear and Beer in our gear category, we had the rad power bike. What was the model? Rad. Rad. Expand Five plus. Right? I'm glad you said it. Not me. Was Justin rated a nine. We like that bike. Justin likes that bike and when you're looking to refresh yourself after your commute home, maybe on your rad power bike, the official cone of the rock fight suggests that you should enjoy yourself with a frosty cold lost Coast Brewery.
(46:16):
Downtown Brown, which Justin just rated an 8.5 and I gave an 7.7 on the gear and beer. Just keep in mind, one of us is a beer expert and one of us is not. Beer scale. I'm the every man. I'm the avatar for the audience. So I'm a little more, I think you're going to elevate everything there out there. There's cone out there listening to it. Do you think we have a big cone following here on gear and beer? Yes, I would hope so. The official podcast of the Cone Community, I mean little do you know, but I actually have my own sister own podcast that I just put this right on that. Is it mostly banking for master status? We get like 12 million downloads a day. Is that a lot?
(46:53):
Yes. Probably sell ads on that. Well man, that's another one in the bag. We did it again. How many is that? I think this is 13 or 14, somewhere in there. 12, 13 or 14,000. Yep. Yep. We've made more podcasts than anyone. No one's ever made so many beers and beers. So many. This is like, we're over a dozen now. Maybe Bakers dozen. Yeah. That's good. Well that's the show for today. What did you think of this edition of Gear and Beer? Do you have a suggestion for a future edition of Gear and Beer or do you simply gear and beer and want to tell us about it? Send an email to My rock fight@gmail.com. Let us know what you think. The rock fight is a production of Rock Fight LLC for Justin Hausman. I'm Colin True. Oh, in today's episode, you know who it's produced by.
(47:33):
Tell him Justin, who's it produced by Grand Mof. Tarkin. Yep, that's exactly right. Recreated ai. The CGI Grand M Tarkin. Yes, exactly. Who was actually funnily up portrayed in the movie by David Carta, who's our producer today. He portrayed the CGI version he did of Mop Darken. Yeah. Yeah. But thank you for listening and here to take us out guys. It's Krista Makes he's back with the gear and beer theme song. We're debuting our new theme song written by our favorite composer Krista Makes. Will we continue to call this the Gear and Beer theme song? Maybe send your suggestion titles to my rock fight@gmail.com. But in the meantime, enjoy this new original song from one of the founding members of Less Than Jake. And here it is.
Justin (48:20):
We have just like you're with your pals out on the trail, we review outdoor adventure gear pair with the perfect beer. Now let the games begin. So glad that you're here at the break, the podium, the trailhead. We're going to crack open the by the beverage where we can celebrate our wins. Those losses we hold so close line, get that matter most.