A Mullet isn’t just another mixed-wheel bike. The secret is the geometry.

Miles from Mullet Cycles has carved out a unique niche in the bike industry by going against the grain. From his brash and unconventional approach to bikes to his knack for creating one-of-a-kind accessories, Miles has been challenging industry norms for years.

He’s dedicated himself to perfecting the mixed-wheel format for mountain bikes, and he’s also the creative force behind Miles Wide Industries, which offers clever, rider-focused accessories. Today we’ll talk about his path into the cycling world, why he’s sticking with mixed-wheel setups, and what’s next for his two companies.

• When did Mullet Cycles officially get its start? Were mixed-wheel bikes considered a novelty at the time?
• A lot of riders use the words “mullet” and “mixed-wheel” interchangeably, but your company actually trademarked the term Mullet as it relates to bikes. Why did you go that route? How has the rise of the term ‘mullet’ affected your marketing efforts?
• What makes Mullet Cycles’ bikes different from mixed-wheel bikes from other brands?
• Unlike most bike brands, you don’t publish complete geometry tables for your bikes. Why not?
• How does your experience as a jewelry designer influence your approach to building bikes?
• What’s the idea behind a Mullet gravel/adventure bike, and how is that project coming along
• Why don’t you offer any of your frames in carbon fiber?

An automated transcript is provided below.

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Automated transcript

Jeff Barber 0:00
Hey everybody, welcome to the Singletracks podcast. I’m your host, Jeff Barber, and today we’re speaking with someone who’s carved out a unique niche in the bike industry by going against the grain, from his brash and unconventional approach to bikes to his knack for creating one of a kind accessories miles from Mullet Cycles has been challenging industry norms.

For years, he’s dedicated himself to perfecting the mixed wheel format for mountain bikes, and he’s also the creative force behind miles wide industries which offers clever rider focused accessories. Today we’ll talk about his path into the cycling world, why he’s sticking with mixed wheel setups and what’s next for his two companies. Thanks for joining me Miles.

Miles 0:43
Hey. Thanks for having me, sir.

Jeff Barber 0:47
Well, you you’ve had a pretty colorful and eclectic background before starting mullet cycles. Tell us a little bit about your previous career and how you made the leap into the bike industry.

Miles 0:59
I did like a mountain bike summer camp, and I was 13 and got altitude sickness, and had a blast, made a bunch of cool friends. Um, I’m from New York, so I was, I went out to Colorado for this camp, and I broke a bunch of stuff on my bike. And was like, I want to work at a bike shop so I can get this kind of stuff.

Jeff Barber 1:28
Were you living in the city at the time, New York City?

Miles 1:31
I was actually living just outside the city. So a lot of people don’t know Brooklyn Queens is on Long Island, and then you have Nassau County, Suffolk County, it’s a pretty big island, so I was actually on the island about 10 miles outside of Manhattan.

Jeff Barber 1:53
And there’s mountain bike trails on Long Island, but it’s not like the first place people think of when they think of mountain biking.

Miles 2:01
No, they, they definitely don’t. I was most more of escaped skater. You know, I’d wear the Janko jeans, and I would go to the Brooklyn banks and kind of hanging out with bad crowd. One of my friends, older brother, had a mountain bike, and my friend’s parents and my parents spoke, and they’re like, Yeah, you should send them off, you know, get them a mountain bike and send them off to camp.

So because I was, I was kind of becoming a bad boy.

So, yeah, that’s, I guess, you know, lucky for me for having that friend and having his older brother that that’s kind of like, you know, I was, I didn’t know what a mountain bike was. It that I knew what a BMX bike was so but yeah, there were trails out in Long Island. My first time mountain biking ever was in Colorado, in Silverton on this camp. So before that, it was like, at this, you know, small walking park behind my neighborhood. So I really didn’t even know what mountain bike it was until I got out there. When I got out there, I was like, Oh, my God.

Jeff Barber 3:19
Like, there’s mountains in mountain biking,

Miles 3:22
Yeah, exactly I was, you know, and that’s why I got altitude sickness, because I was at sea level my entire life, you know, and I didn’t want to be at the back of the pack, so I was just really pushing myself hard. So I ended up working at this bike shop called Bike Works in Greenville, Long Island and small bike shop, and he wouldn’t pay me because I was like, 13, but I was like, I’ll just work for parts. I’ll clean the shop. I just want to learn everything about bikes, how to work on my bike. And, I mean, kind of like, long story short, on that, and I ended up working there till I was, like 26 even when I started other companies on my own, it was just kind of became like a second dad to me, in a lot of ways, the owner, it would just be me and him in there. So, you know, I would just constantly pick his brain with stuff. And then I ended up kind of running the shop. And then when I started my companies, you know, yeah, I would work there, like on Sundays, just as a bit of therapy. So I really working at the shop. I never wanted to get into the bike industry. I just, I saw how competitive it was, plus we carried specialized in track, which is really rare. Um, he kind of got, like, grandfather, yeah. 90s. He opened up, I want to say, like in the late 70s, okay, early 80s. So he got those brands, like when they were, you know, kind of starting out. And, yeah, it was just there. There was so much good stuff out there, and it was just so competitive. And I just was like, well, you really can’t make money in this industry.

Jeff Barber 5:27
And, yeah, and so I know a little bit about your story. I mean, yeah, kind of fast forward through. And you know, you worked in jewelry design, you had some of your own companies. So how did you get like, back? Like, what brought you back to say, You know what, I’m gonna, like, start a bike company. How did, how did Mullet Cycles officially get its start?

Miles 5:52
Well, it again. It was kind of organic. While I was working at that shop, I had started a personal lubricant company, which, you know, ended up being very successful, and we had a customer come into the shop and asked, if you know her, that I made that product, and wanted to pick my brain about it, just like I got a product that I would like to make with you and that I had a bunch of kind of time on my hands because I had, like, a warehouse distributor, it was all pretty just up and up and running. I got into some major retailers such as CVS, with it. So what he had was he was on, like a race, a road bike race team, and they all use Ziploc bags in their bicycle jersey. And he was like, we should make a neoprene bag that has a bunch of compartments to hold all your tools, and we can stick that in our bike jersey. I was a mountain biker. Road biking was pretty dangerous in the metropolitan area. I would sometimes, yeah, you know, people a wife, a widow, would bring in a bike that I had worked on. So, you know, my husband got hit by a car. I don’t know what. I don’t want to see this anymore, you know, part it out and sell the parts, or whatever you want to do with it, you know, after, like, insurance and everything. So I wasn’t that into it, but he was a really cool guy. He actually worked for Blackstone or Blackrock at one of the big investment companies, BlackRock, yeah, one of the big Yep, he actually did their software and stuff for, I guess, trading. He tried to explain it to me that that my brain doesn’t work like that, but he was a really cool guy, like, you just look cool, and he had a swagger. And I was like, Yeah, you know, like, I wanted to pick his brain. And anyway, ended up making that. And, you know, I just kind of made it to make it. It was like a fun little project. I learned he before he started that he was doing clothes, so he knew how to sew. And so I would go over to his flat in Brooklyn and taught me how to sew, and I got materials in the garment district in Manhattan. And it was kind of like, you know, it was like this little side project that was just fun for me. I kind of got sick of New York. I moved to Asheville and Tyler Benedict, a bike groomer, did a review on this sticky pod, which I don’t know how he got his hands on one, because we’re just selling them through the bike shop.

Jeff Barber 9:02
No PR person reaching out.

Miles 9:06
No. And I we had, like, oh, he built a website, like a one page website, and, you know, I would maybe send out, like, five a month, uh, mostly in the northeast area. And so I opened up my paypal and it was just like, Dude, there’s like 15k in there, like overnight. And after just having like a few 100 in the sticky pod PayPal, and I was like, Holy crap, my my website got hacked or something. I ended up googling it was on bike. Rumor opened up my inbox so that there were like distributors in there that wanted to carry it, and all this stuff. At that point, I had sold my lubricant company, um. Um, so I was like, Okay, I’ll start making this stuff, you know, okay, I’ll and I had distributors asking me, what other products you make. So I started just developing a product line of products that I wanted but nobody else is making. So, like, I made the grips for brake levers. I made a shock stiction lube. I made, like, this bottle pod, which was an organizer for, like, it was just basically a bottle that had compartments in there, and you could put in your water bottle cage, because, again, my jersey. So I really didn’t use a sticky pod, like, I would just use it as, like a little thing in my car for stuff.

Jeff Barber 10:46
So a pencil case.

Miles 10:48
Right, a yellow pencil case. After Asheville, I moved to Colorado. I just wanted bigger mountains, and I always had a love for Colorado. After riding there, when I was in my ute, I would do that summer camp, like every year. So I ended up being like a counselor on that on that camp. And so I had experience all over the West Coast and like my teenage years, which is great. Okay, yeah, so when I moved to Colorado, I visited a bunch of bike shops and asked, you know, told them, hey, I’m in Colorado. These are some of my products. If you’d like, you can get them through like BTi, JBI, and it was also a way to make some new friends in the area. You know, some of the, some of the mechanics I want some riding buddies. One of the shops, Timberline cycles was a foes dealer, and I was my personal bike was a foes and I’d always been a big foes fan. And a foes dealer is really rare. So I wanted to, you know, talk to him about bikes and show him my stuff. He was closing his shop. I kept leaving voicemails. He ended up finally calling me back, and he was like, hey, you know, I’m closing up the shop, and, you know, I got your voicemails, you know, yeah, if you’d like to come in and talk about bikes, you know, sure, so we scheduled a day, got into talking, and he basically was, had dropped off his friends. He was the he basically came to Brent with this idea of a mixed wheel bike,

Jeff Barber 12:45
And who was the who was the owner of the shop? What was his name?

Miles 12:48
Mike Vidovich, okay, and he, before he opened that shop, he it was a dirt bike shop. So he carried Gas, gas. And before that, he managed one of the biggest bike shops in the springs, pro pro cycling.

Jeff Barber 13:14
Yeah.

Miles 13:15
So yeah, he ended up opening up a dirt bike shop Spain kind of had their recession after hours. This is like 2012 so he couldn’t get dirt bikes anymore. And his employees are like, Why don’t you just carry mountain bikes? Since you know mountain bikes very well, you have a Racetech suspension degree. You were the, you know, you would rebuild the shocks at your shop. And he was a great mechanic, and so he carried a bunch of different brands that had, like, all different suspension designs, basically. So he carried single pivot or DW. When he got the 275 wheel, which was like two or ended 2012 he still had some dirt bikes in his shop. And he was like, hmm, you know, this is kind of like the golden ratio. He had, like, he carried, like Ventana, and they had a 69 ER, so they had a 29 front 26 reader as well as Moots did as well. And he felt that the ratio was just too big a part. And he thought, like the 275 was kind of like the Goldilocks. So he started throwing those wheels on his 29 inch wheel bikes that he sold. And was like, well, and he had some really fast riders. He had one guy, Tucker, who won state championships downhill. He was like, well, there, I need to do things to the geometry in order to really get this correct. And so he contacted a couple of companies that he was carrying and say, Hey, would you be cool? Of maybe making a mixed real bike. And they all said, No, you know, it’s kind of like a fad. It’s been done before. And so he ended up reaching out to foes. Who would you carry? Carried single pivot? And he basically said, if you purchase like, 25 frames, yeah, I’ll do it for you. Okay, they kind of, you know, so Mike went out to Pasadena, which is where they were located at the time, and, you know, stayed with Brent and told him what he wanted. Worked it worked at the shop with him. Told him the geometry and stuff like that. Help pay. You know, Mike had to pay for, like the marketing. So he did a video, paid half the booth for inner bike in 2015 which is when they released it. And I was actually, I had a booth at that show under the miles of my my little trinkets product. So I had actually met like at that show, because I want to go to the foe’s booth. So the new mixer model, and I was like, to me, it just looked really ugly. And I had experience on the big hit back in the day when I used to race in the Norbu series, and they would come through ski platichill in New York, and I got hurt really bad on that, and the 24 inch wheel just had no right being on a downfall course, I Guess, got hung up and, like, launched like Superman, couple a couple of feet, and then boom, and I was concussed and broke a bunch of stuff. So anyway, so getting back to, you know, my kind of telling me, and now, and I told him that, he was like, Well, have you ever, you know, ridden one of these, you know, I know you’re a fan of this brand. And I was like, No. He was like, Well, why don’t you take one out and ride one? So he set one up for me, and I that day, I The shop was really close to Red Rock open space, so I just pedaled from the shop to the trails. And he told me to put my Strava on. And I really didn’t take it serious. I was just kind of riding the bike, and I ended up, Ko, I made, like, two sections, and, oh, wow, without really even trying. And I was like, This doesn’t make sense. And I ended up. So I went back to the shop and, like, I PR at every, every, every segment. I went back to the shop, and I was like, you know, something doesn’t make sense here. Can I take out again? And he was like, Sure. So I took it on section 16, which is more of an enduro trail, and I PR my climbing Kom, another segment, and my PRs were so much faster. And he’s like, you know, and I and he, when I went back to the shop again, I was like, Yeah, this is fast, man. It’s actually better. And he was just laughing. And he’s like, I told you, I told you, it’s the future. And I was like, How come nobody else is doing this? And he said, Well, you know, I called some companies, asked him to make them. They said it was gimmicky, and they’re also banned to race on. You can’t race on these on a mixed wheel bike.

Jeff Barber 18:39
Okay, yeah.

Miles 18:41
So you know, was like, Well, why don’t we make it basically, you, you know, understand the geometry. No one’s really doing this. You have Foes. And then I did some research. You had foes and you had light bill. It’s German company. They were the only two that offered them. And, you know, I was like, both of these bikes are pretty ugly. It just my opinion. Eye of the beholder. I was like, let’s make them.

Jeff Barber 19:16
Because Foes was, Foes was, like, a pretty small brand.

Miles 19:19
Back then. Yeah, still, still, you know, pretty small, yeah.

Jeff Barber 19:24
And they were making the bikes. Were they making them in the US? They were like, yeah. And as I recall, they were, they looked pretty, like basic, kind of, like, garage build, yes,

Miles 19:34
Yeah, yeah. You know, they have always kind of, like, some like, when I would ride it, they would, I would get made fun of. They’re like, You look like a photo riding that thing, yeah? And I would just be like, well, you know, made in the USA, and I don’t need, I just need a single pivot, you know, you need all these linkages, yeah? And you’re not even as fast as me, so, ah. But, yeah, you know, like, I didn’t want to get what he had made with with foes, and I didn’t want to get the light bill because that bike was just It looked very unsafe. And so yeah, look, no one’s doing this. Let’s, let’s do it. I think I could, you know, I think I could figure out how to get a maid and and I also wanted to help him, you know, I felt kind of bad after hearing his story. I’m a bit of an empath, so I get happy from other people’s happiness. And, yeah, he was like, All right, so we’re going to meet every day, and we’re going to develop a business plan, and it’s going to be like a marriage. And so my creative side just instantly, like, I’ll never forget, like, our first launch the next day was I had, like, a list of names. And he was like, you know, we got a lot of steps before we’re thinking of names. And I was like, Yeah, but, you know, I want to call it something and and that gets to the name Mullen, which obviously has become a very popular name to identify a mixed wheel bike. When I, when I had come up with the name, obviously. Well, Mike hated the name. I had made some friends in the industry, like Clint Spiegel, owner of I nine. He their shop was like a mile down the road when I was living in Asheville, and he wanted to meet me hear about my adult escapade. It’s funny, a lot of people always just want to hear about that. That’s like, always very interesting.

Jeff Barber 22:14
Yeah, yeah.

Miles 22:19
So I texted him, and was like, Oh, what do you think of this name? And Clint was like, I hate it, you know, it’s trashy. I was, you know, I asked him. I’m like, Well, I asked some of the guys at, you know that, at the shop that worked there, and and I asked Tyler Benedict, the owner of Bike groomer. And, you know, I had reached out to him after he did the sticky pot, and I was like, Hey, thanks, man, and yeah, and he loved it. He thought it was great. So I convinced Mike. I was like, Yeah, this is going to be the name, trust me, it’s great. It’s catchy, and, like, there needs to be, like, a funky name, and, you know, for a bike company, because a lot of the names just have always been so generic, or you didn’t know what it was, you know, I don’t want to mention names, but yeah, yeah.

Jeff Barber 23:21
And, I mean, it’s kind of like, it’s like, Niner, right? Like, Niner, like, you knew what they were doing, I mean, until they stopped just making 29ers.

Miles 23:30
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, it was pretty edgy, you know, because everyone would just automatically think of the hair, you know. And just like, right? Some, you know, like burly dudes that just don’t give a f, you know. So, and then obviously, you know, people would ask me, Why are you calling it mullet? And I would tell them, this is in the front party in the back. And they would, you know, and they would laugh, it’s hilarious. So I did some research, making sure that the name wasn’t in use at all. You know, all the URLs were available, mulletbike, DotCom, walletcycles, DotCom, mullet bicycle, DotCom, so I bought all of them and made sure that no one had a trademark on it. And what I found was trek actually had the trademark on Mullet.

Jeff Barber 24:32
Trek had a bike when they did their 96 er, is that what their bike was? Well, 69 or always get it mixed up.

Miles 24:39
Yes, 69er, and this is where it gets, kind of like, Huh? They had, they owned Gary Fisher, and Gary Fisher had a 26er called the mullet. And that the Gary Fisher Mullet. It was like a. I don’t know what it was. I guess it was like a jump, jump 26 inch bike, because mullet is also a fish as well. And Gary Fisher would a lot of time use fish for, you know, he kind of like had a fish fetish. But, yeah,

Jeff Barber 25:18
I thought he was into the Grateful Dead.

Miles 25:22
That too. He’s into a lot of cool stuff. I mean, let’s be honest, yeah, he’s a very, very eccentric individual.

Speaker 1 25:31
Yeah.

Miles 25:33
So Trek had the trademark on Mllet, but they didn’t use it when they came out with their 69er, they just called it a 69 which was a 29 front, 26 rear. They didn’t use that trademark.

Jeff Barber 25:49
Good name too. I mean, depending, it’s a little little on the nose, but,

Miles 25:53
Yeah, yeah, a little edgy, especially for track, yeah. But yeah it was a great way to, you know, let people know that it was a mixed wheel bike, or a Franken bike, as we kind of used to call them, like when I had my big hit. We called it a Franken bike because they took a they had a big hit, a 26 or big hit, and then they had the 24 26 big hit, which, so we would call that a 46er, okay, or, or Franken bike.

So, yeah, it was, it was, you know, surprising to me. I mean, not really, but I guess in hindsight, surprising to me, that Trek didn’t call the 69er a mullet. Since that firm has gained so much traction, and when I would Google search for mullet, the only thing that came up was like a cycle cross coffee club in San Francisco. I guess they call themselves, like the bullet riders.

Jeff Barber 27:07
And yeah, vaguely related.

Miles 27:11
And that the rest everything on Google was just about haircuts and stuff. So I was like, Okay, I think this name’s been the table.

Jeff Barber 27:20
I guess there was a thing I thought I heard too. There was, like a gearing thing, where people called, like, certain type of gearing, a mullet setup or something, but had nothing to do with the wheels, correct?

Miles 27:31
Yeah, that actually came in quite a bit later, as far as referring it to mullet, okay, and SRAM was the one that was doing that. They started doing that like in 2019, 2020, after like, after mullet, all of a sudden became a thing of business in the front party, like, let’s mix everything together. And I actually reached out, yeah, everything’s a mullet now, so I reached out to SRAM and said, hey, you know, I have a trademark on mullet. Can you, you know, maybe not call it a mullet. So now they call it the adventure build or something. I’m bigger. They could have come up with something more creative than that, but, yeah, but yeah, so that’s the thing now, yes.

Jeff Barber 28:23
And so, right? So you you were able to get this trademark, yeah? And obviously, it’s the name of of your business. And you want to make it clear that, yeah, when somebody’s saying a mullet bike, like, you know, they could be confused. Are you talking about Mullet the brand? Are you using it in this other way? And so, yeah, do you think that’s like, has that made it tougher for you, or has it helped you? Like, what do you? What do you? Kind of the strategy behind it now, right, right.

Miles 28:51
I mean, when it was happening, like, basically the UCI changed their rules to allow mixed wheels for the 2019, season. And so a lot of media groups made, you know, it was a pretty big deal, and they first started calling it mismatched. Number of people, obviously, you know, they’re like, it’s the return of the Franken bike. Okay, yeah. And then, you know, couple comments was like, oh, it’s the mullet. And everyone loved that, because it’s, it’s cool, it’s catchy, yeah, for sure. When that happened, I was obviously spoke to a couple people. You know, what should I do here? I would say it was like 8020 80% of them were like, Oh, it’s great for you. You should, you know, totally run with it. It’s going to bring more eyes onto you, because you’re the original mullet. I mean, we were out for sorry, i. We’re out for like, a couple of years already, to that point, like, we had started in 2017 so, you know. And I had the URL so people like, you know, when they’re Googling it, you’re gonna pop up and then, you know, I had us right. Really, really, just two people. They’re like, you know, you should probably change it. I had done a lot of work, invested a decent amount of money, you know, on the trademark, designing the head badges, getting them casted by my jeweler, the font, building the website. And I was like, Ah, he and I was like, that’s, that’s what this is, you know? I was like, this is, this is a mullet. This is, yeah, this is my bike. So, you know, sometimes it’s something I do battle with. I, you know, companies started calling the mullet, and I’d have to reach out, you know, just to try to protect my brand as best as I could without suing everybody, because I didn’t want to sue everybody I, you know, again, we carried specialized and that was kind of specialized tactic. And I always thought that that was, you know, dirty. It just wasn’t a good way to grow the bike industry, you know, like with enduro, for instance, and the Specialized Enduro.

Jeff Barber 31:30
And the Roubaix. There’s a lot of examples, right?

Miles 31:33
Yeah, yeah. And they were going after, like, bike shops and stuff. And, you know, enduro became, like a whole sect of discipline and riding, so I didn’t want to do that. So I just, you know, it’s all bike companies. You know, you probably don’t know I exist. I’m small, but, you know, have this trademark. Can you please not call it that? So they called it MX, which is why you see a lot of companies called MX. So that’s kind of Yeah, you know, I I didn’t make these bikes to sell a ton, to make friends, to be cool. I just made them because I wanted a better bike for myself. And there were certain things on the bike that I wanted, such as three, oh, tires I like a really big chain ring. I was like a runner back in high school, and I didn’t want to be able to run faster than I can pedal. And yeah, with a 38 two chainring and a 52 cassette, I’d be able to climb anything. And then when it came to descending, I’d be pedaling past people, and they’re in their tuck, you know, if we’re on the fire road, or if I’m on like, a long, descending single track, I can still keep my speed up without just pedaling out. And yeah, people weren’t offering that. So, yeah.

Jeff Barber 33:09
So talk about what makes a Mullet Cycles bike different from other mixed wheel bikes. You know, obviously when you first started out, there weren’t a lot of choices. I mean, sounds like there were two, maybe, yeah, now seems like everybody’s got a mixed wheel bike. So what? What makes mullet cycles bike different from from all the other ones that are on the market?

Miles 33:30
So this kind of, I would say, the geometry, the geometry is, is the big deal with it, which is why I don’t publish it. When we were building out prototypes, I still had, like, a vision of certain numbers. I was like, and I, I need the head angle to be this. I need, I need the bottom bracket to be here. And Mike was pretty adamant. He was like, Look, if you want to make a bunch of prototypes, go ahead and time test them and you know, see, see what’s going to be the best. So I made, like, over a dozen prototypes, ranging from like head angles, from 62 like all the way up to 68 different bottom bracket heights, different seat angles, different chain stay lengths. And over the course of almost a year, I would ride like sometimes three times a day on section 16, which in that trail in the springs, kind of has everything they have dumbed it down. It’s not as chunky as it used to be, but had really steep switchbacks.

Jeff Barber 34:53
I remember riding it when I lived there for sure.

Miles 34:57
Oh, okay, so yes, you’re familiar with. It, yeah, that’s, I felt like that was a great proving ground.

Jeff Barber 35:05
Sad that they dumbed it down. It was definitely a challenging trail.

Miles 35:09
Yeah, a lot of people got hurt. So, you know, what are you gonna do? I guess the town just didn’t want to get sued, or, who knows. So when I was time testing and everything like there was. I remember one prototype that just felt really fast, but it just wasn’t the fastest on Strava. And one particular was consistently the fastest on climbing and descending. And again. Long story short, this was the this was, this was the geometry. And it wasn’t what, at that time, modern geometry, you know, you had long, low, Slack it. It didn’t follow those guidelines at all. And, you know, the difference between a bike from the 90s versus one today is geometry you can put, like great suspension, great brakes on a bike from the late 90s, it’s still going to feel very unstable and ultimately slow. So like, yeah, you know, dirt bikes get their speed out of motors. We kind of get our speed out of geometry, like a modern hardtail with modern geometry symmetrical wheel or safety bike will be faster than a downhaul bike from the late 90s, and what’s his name, did a test. Kyle Warner did a YouTube video on that with his Niner hardtail versus like a retro downhill bike, and the hardtail ended up being faster. So with mixed wheels, I do, you know, there were things that you’re able to do that you couldn’t really get away with on a symmetrical wheel bike, or 29 or 275 or platform, and you know, it’s still something I kind of struggle with, because I would love to share the geometry, but at the same time, people would see the geometry and probably say, I can’t that. I can’t ride that on my trails. It’s, you know, I’ll get hurt.

Jeff Barber 37:40
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, is it like, I know you won’t, you won’t share the numbers, but yeah, I guess you’re saying it would be surprising to people, or shocking, or they’d be like, Whoa, that number is ridiculously high or ridiculously low. That couldn’t possibly work.

Miles 37:55
Okay, yes, yes, because I, have, you know, told some of my friends, and they’re like, that makes no sense, you know, like, after they ride the bike, and they’re like, Okay, yeah, it’s fast, oh yeah, you know, they open up their Strava and they got a bunch of PRs, and they’re like, Okay, please tell me. And I tell them, they’re like, that doesn’t make sense. So, you know, released into Geometry, people would look at me and be like, they don’t know what they’re doing. And then specialized, or one of these big box brands would do it, and then it would be okay, you know, kind of like, you know, specialized in Loic Bruni, you know, he was one of the first

Jeff Barber 38:47
You still haven’t seen, still haven’t seen those numbers from anybody that get close?

Miles 38:53
They’re still pretty far away. And now, okay, new trends have come with really steep seed angles, and now they’re going longer. Chain stays like the industry is always evolving geometry, and I firmly believe it will continue to evolve. It’s a great way for companies to sell you a new bike every year. It’s marketing, and marketing is a hell of a drug. And you get really fast riders that can be fast on anything, and they’re fast on this quote, unquote, newer geometry. And then everyone’s like, Oh, that’s what I need. So it’s like, I get it like, you know, like people want to know the geometry, and real writers want to know I totally understand, because I’m a real writer, and I don’t know if I. Would trust a company that wouldn’t release their geometry, because that’s just generally how you get a good idea of how the bike’s going to perform and behave on certain trails. So I you know it’s kind of like proprietary information. If you look at dirt bikes, which is a great example, most of them don’t release their geometry, and most of dirt bikes, their geometry hasn’t changed since the 90s. They took a lot of like the 70s and 80s, figuring out different wheel diameters and different geometry, and then they got, you know, 90s came, and they basically optimized it, and it really hasn’t altered off of that platform Since to this day. So that’s kind of like, and obviously they’re using mixed wheels as well. So I kind of, you know, look at it at that perspective, like it’s proprietary. It’s the blueprints of this bike. If I were to publish them, I would get, you know, there’s, like, a lot of these steel garage welders kind of thing, and they would do it and say, Holy smokes. And, you know, I don’t know, it’s like, Well, I came up with that.

Jeff Barber 41:38
So, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, it sets you apart for sure, and it’s the secret sauce, and it’s a little bit different, a little bit of mystery. And I’m sure people appreciate that. Maybe beyond the bikes, the designs that you know, the geometry, the technical secret sauce, the thing that strikes me when I look at mullet cycles, bikes, and like the one that I tested is they’re just, they’re beautiful bikes, the frame, the finishes, and then the build as well. And I know that you’ve worked exactly designer in the past, and so I’m curious, does that experience kind of carry over into your bike builds? Like, are you looking at these as if they’re like, a piece of jewelry?

Miles 42:24
I am a red blooded male. Like, I it’s, it’s got to look hot, if it’s not hot. Like, or, you know, I mean, the bikes, you know, when I go out on trails, a lot of people because they just don’t know the brand. I really don’t do a lot of advertising or marketing. It’s just, I just made the bikes. And if you want it, here you go. You want something that’s cool and fast and, you know, kind of reliable. This is it. But, yeah, I always had like an eye for things like, even when I had my foes, they would always be tricked out in such a way that, I mean, you know, they would look cool like I would, you know, my friends would make fun of me for it, because they could. But when I would go out, people be like, Oh, wow, that thing looks cool like I had my foes FXR at my booth in 2015 Interbike, and it was a real eye catcher, and people were coming up to it. I had, like, white wall tires and stuff, and a lot of purple, and it looked like a beach cruiser, but, yeah, cool. So, yeah, I made so many drawings of our bikes, like I have a book of probably 500 I mean, a lot of all different lines, and yet it had to be esthetically pleasing. Wow. And coincide, you know, with the geometry, and same with the single pivot, like single pivot generally look pretty old school, very basic. So trying to make, and then we used an elevated chain stay as well. So trying to make that look, in my opinion, and some people might think it’s ugly and it’s totally fine, in for me, it’s just a very,

Jeff Barber 44:39
Very good looking, yeah, it’s a challenge to make look cool.

Miles 44:44
Yeah, you need functional cool. And the elevated chainsack, I really didn’t want to do that was really like, Mike’s thing. And he explained to me, he’s like, look you. You want the big top. Tire. You want the big chain ring. The only way we’re going to be able to do this is if we do an elevated chainstack. And he was like, just make it look cool. He was like, that, you know, okay, you know, you worked as a wax model maker. You should be able to to make it look like art. And in my opinion, that I think they do. I think they look like jewelry. They’re gorgeous bikes in person. There’s so much, dare I say, prettier,

Jeff Barber 45:35
Yeah, lots of details that you don’t necessarily get from the photos. So one thing I noticed is you don’t offer any carbon fiber bikes, all aluminum, though you did also you’re bringing back a titanium version of the honeymaker. So yeah, why not carbon? Why? Why do you stick with metal bikes?

Miles 45:55
That’s a good question. I’ve always had bad experiences with carbon, I would just break them after I didn’t have a carbon bike for like, longer than, let’s say, five months before it would fail on me. So, oh geez, it was, it was definitely a topic with my manufacturer because of the lines that I wanted to do. I, you know, showed them my drawings of the tubes, and I was, I was wanted to do hydroforming, and they said, you know, it would be a lot less expensive if you went the carbon fiber route. Carbon fiber frames are actually really surprisingly inexpensive to manufacture, quite a bit less than my aluminum frames. It might come surprising to people. I do believe that might be why a lot of bike manufacturers are able to offer a lifetime warranty, because there’s they’re pretty inexpensive to make, but it’s carbon fiber. So people think, well, I should be spending a lot of money on this. I I believe that carbon is great for pavement. It’s really stiff, really light. And you know you want. You want something really stiff, that that gets all your power down, and for a full suspension, you want something right, that’s laterally stiff, so that rear triangle is just going on a vertical path, so it’s just it, it’s easier on the bearings, easier on the shock, and the bike will feel more plush than if that rear end is flexing. But again, I just, I had really bad experiences with it. A lot of the times I would break them, if I would crash the bike, would just kind of, I would walk back to the bike, and then I would, you know, I would inspect it, and I would see a hole in it because it hit a rock.

Miles 48:06
So for me, it, I liked aluminum. I mean, there’s obviously steel as well, which is another fabulous metal. It’s very strong. Obviously they make bridges out of it for full suspension. I I, I admire the power, or the strength to weight ratio that aluminum provides. It’s and when I’m climbing, I having something lighter, it’s just going to get me up the hill faster. So, right, yep, aluminum, I just felt was going to be the best material, at least for a full suspension bike. For the hardtail, we could have done steel. Our frames would have been a lot less expensive because it’s such an inexpensive material, and it’s also far easier to weld than aluminum. But again, I love speed. I kind of like a speed. All I want to do is just go fast. So having an aluminum frame, even a hardtail frame, was just going to be faster than a steel frame. And what’s great about steel is it is very compliant. So it does like to stretch and bend and flex. It likes it. That’s why like bridges again made of steel, so the bridge can flex train rails, steel. If you ever watch a train going over the rails, you can see the the wheels flexing the steel. Titanium offers a lot. Lot of similarities to steel with that compliance, but it kind of has like all the good, none of the bad, obviously, other than the price, it’s still pretty easy to well, but the material is far more expensive. However, it’s far lighter and it won’t rust or corrode. So all the bikes that I make I ride, yeah, right, it’s just an advantage. And I just all the bikes I ride, I just want to go fast. So, you know, would I sell more if I would make him in steel, probably, you know, steel is real. Is a great marketing term, but I wouldn’t be going as fast.

Jeff Barber 50:52
Well, speaking of going fast, your website teases a mixed wheel gravel slash adventure bike. So I’m curious about that bike. What’s the thinking behind a mullet gravel bike? And where are you kind of in that development process?

Miles 51:07
I believe that a symmetrical wheel bike. It’s based off the road bike platform mountain bikes being symmetrical. And also, like in the early days, it was basically road bike geometry. It was just using knobby tires. So I don’t, after diving into this mixed wheel hole that I have for almost 10 years, I look at a mixed wheel bike as the dirt bike platform. Your front axle sits higher than career axle, so it’s more difficult to go over the handlebars. And there are things that you can do on a dirt bike platform, as far as geometry that you just can’t do on the road bike platform, symmetrical wheels. Gravel bikes were going off road. You uh, going over the handlebar sucks. And I kind of got into gravel riding because, you know, I just enjoyed it. You can really put in a lot of miles and see certain places that you know, generally you might not see, at least on my mountain bike trails where I was living. So, yeah, I’ve went over the handlebars on a gravel bike a couple times, and I’ve, it’s said I need to make a gravel bike with a larger front wheel where my front axle is higher, because when you are running a larger front wheel, you’re basically lifting up on the handlebars almost an inch off the ground. Even when you’re obviously not, it’s just all the time like that. And when you come up to an obstacle or something that looks a little sketch that’s in the road, you lift up on the handlebars so and sometimes you don’t even see it, if it’s like a pothole, and you just got your head down. So by doing, by by running a larger front wheel, it just made the bike more stable off road. So figuring out the geometry, again, has been nothing short of a lot of work. Again, I made a bunch of prototypes. I’ve been working on it since 2019 so like six years almost, which is nuts, yeah, but it like it had to be perfect, and it had to be better. I just didn’t want to make a mixed wheel gravel bike and say, Oh, here’s the mixed wheel gravel bike. You should buy it like, because I ride it and it needed to impress me, and it needed to be faster than what I, you know, my road bike, platform gravel bike, my 700 C from rear it needed to be faster, both on climbing and obviously descending. I couldn’t just take the geometry for my hardtail and copy it. Of course, I made a prototype like that, and it just, it didn’t, just didn’t feel right, and I wasn’t fitted on the bike properly with the drop bar. So finally, and it, it’s somewhat funny, like I Strava testing on gravel is a lot more. The segments are longer. And some days you feel good, you know, on a 4050, mile ride, some days you don’t, and it takes a lot of time. So comparing times, it was difficult. When I finally i. Figured out the geometry I was living in Alabama, and my dealer southern carnage, and I forgot what it’s like a small town in Alabama, but he’s such a cool bike shop. He’s a bit of an OG down owner as well. He did group gravel rides once a week, and he would have, like, groups of 3020, people. And he’s, he’s turned into a fairly big gravel rider, and we’re the same height. So I dropped off this final prototype to him, and I told him, tell me what’s wrong with it. I was I told him, I don’t care which What does. What it does good, I need to know what it does bad. And because I couldn’t find anything anymore, I was like, I think this is it. And I almost wanted to make another prototype so that Thursday, so it’s Friday. I called him because I didn’t hear from him, and I was like, So what’s wrong with it? And he goes, Well, sorry, you’re not going to be able to get it back. And I’m like, Oh no. Something go wrong? And he said, No, I’m keeping it. You’re not getting this back. Let me know how much you want. And I started laughing. I was like, so it’s so, so you like it? And he was like, it is perfect. I this is, you got to make this. I’ve been working on them. I ended up having to make my own fork. So I made my own titanium fork, and in order to coincide with the geometry that was one of the missing pieces of why it was I just couldn’t find a fork, and I couldn’t design the frame around the fork to get just proper stack heights and stuff to make me fit right, and also get the hammer down when I’m pedaling or out of the saddle, and still be stable and easy to turn on like 2030, mile an hour descent. So anyway, yeah, probably in the next couple months I’m going to release it. I’m only making 30 of them, so very limited. I just kind of want it for myself again. And, yeah, if other people want it cool, maybe I’ll make more again, you know, in like a year or so. But it was just, it’s she was so much work, and I’d imagine other companies will probably make a mixed will gravel bike down the line. I don’t see why not. I mean, just even taking a single track off off of a gravel road, you just don’t feel like you’re gonna die, and you’re still able to have fun. And that’s what bikes are about.

Jeff Barber 57:58
Yeah, that’s a good upgrade, and to fit smaller riders, I would guess too, people are Yeah, in between like a, like a 650 B gravel bike and a regular full size 700 C, yeah, it makes sense. So yeah, in addition to mullet cycles, you run miles wide industries which offers some unique products. We kind of talked about cable buddies, the fork, cork, sticky fingers, brake lever covers, which one of those products, or any of your products, is your your personal favorite?

Miles 58:33
You know, that’s a really, really hard question. I probably, and this might come as a surprise, I’d probably say the Wet Seal stiction lubricant,

Jeff Barber 58:52
Okay, yeah.

Miles 58:54
And it’s, it’s not the same formula as my old company. This actually developed when I was living in Asheville. So back like in 2014 2015 is when I came out with this. And the suspension experts, which was a suspense bike suspension shop in Asheville, they ended up getting purchased by Fox, but they were really good. And the I kind of worked with the owner on that, on coming up with something that would be safe and work and not attract dust and residue that stuff the moment I put it on my fork or my shock, it just instantly makes it feel like butter, instantly. And then, as well as my dropper post, so instantly, just like, Bing, fly right up, if it was having trouble going up. I use that stuff a lot.

Jeff Barber 59:53
Yeah, I’ve used it for sure, like on a sticky dropper post, one that I like, I actually, you know, probably. Really needed to service it, but, yeah, just put it’s a good band aid.

Miles 1:00:05
It’s a good band aid. Then I’ll probably, I mean, it comes close with the sticky fingers, the grips, because I don’t ride with gloves. And obviously, when I’m every time I ride, I’m on my brakes, I’m using them so and either times when I take them off, or I have a customer’s bike that I built up, and you know, their option without them, and I’ll do a quick parking lot ride just to make sure everything’s styled and it feels wrong grabbing metal brake levers. It just they almost like, I don’t want to sound like a wimp, but they almost hurt after being so used to the grips. So, you know, I mean, and the four quarts, great too. I have, like, a little plug kit for tubeless plugs, and that has saved me and a bunch of my friends, you know, it’s one of those things, like, is anybody have a spare plug, you know? Like, and I’ve got, yeah, I’ve got 10 of them right here in my steer tube, like a plow, you know, and that’s that one has saved. You know, if you, if you talk to me when I’m like, 15 miles out from a trailhead, 20 miles sometimes, and I got a flat all day. I’m gonna say this is the best product I’ve come out with, for sure, because it’s there and you never forget it. It just sits inside your your head tube. So yeah, but I priced it, yeah, the Wet Seal, and that stuff is, is butter, and there’s been a number of companies that have tried to replicate it over the years, because that stuff’s been out for like, 10 years already. But yeah, my formula is the best.

Jeff Barber 1:02:01
So, yeah, cool. Well, we talked about the titanium honeymaker that you just rolled out, and then obviously you’re working on the gravel bike. But what else is there? Anything else that’s next for Mullet or Miles Wide you can tell us about?

Miles 1:02:21
So for Mullet, I’m kind of working on something, which I mean, I would love to share, but if I do, everyone’s gonna kind of jump on it, and I don’t want to, I want to release it and then say, Here surprise. So, yeah, can’t really, you know, the gravel bike is kind of like the next, the next thing you might see, like a teaser of what I’m doing. I mean, I really don’t post on social media. I could totally hire someone, obviously, but it’s just, I don’t I, I don’t think it’s healthy. I don’t know. I’m not. I guess I’m an older generation and I’m not. Yeah, I don’t get into it, but I’ll probably, I’ll probably shoot a shoot out a little teaser of what you could expect, as far as miles wide. I’ve got like a shock grease that which you can use on anything that I’ve been working on. I’ll probably release that in a couple months. It’s really good. And then I’ve got this thing, which I don’t know if the video is, is on or not, but this is like a little four cork attachment thing.

And, yeah, I don’t know if this might not be PC to show, but yeah, it’s like, it’s a, it’s a little doohickey that you can I guess smoke oregano out of. And it attaches to the fork cork. And it’s got a little secret storage compartment in here, and then it goes back into, you know, screws onto the fork cork, hides in your steer too. I’ve got that, and I’ve also got a multi tool as well that attaches to the four cork that will probably won’t be ready for a couple more months, and that, you know well, and if you don’t,

Jeff Barber 1:04:54
if you don’t partake of the oregano, you could use that to put like a have one of those Air Tags, right? That’s a good spot to put an Air Tag so nobody steals your bike.

Miles 1:05:04
Yeah, people have, like, sent me photos of stuff, of what they stick up their exterior tube. It’s very impressive. I’ve seen like first aid kit to emergency energy bars, like, yeah, a bunch of cash, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s a hole, you know, might as well fill it with something instead of just leaving it exposed to mud and water. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, and obviously an air cat, yeah, you can totally stick an air tag up there.

Jeff Barber 1:05:48
Well, miles, it’s been great talking with you today and hearing the backstory behind mullet cycles and miles wide industries, I know our listeners are going to enjoy getting a deeper understanding of Wake what, 321, of what makes your bikes and accessories unique, and we’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for that gravel bike and whatever else you’ve got in the works. So thanks for sharing with us.

Miles 1:06:10
Hey, thanks so much for having me. So I hope it wasn’t too long, and I hope it was interesting for people.

Jeff Barber 1:06:18
Oh, it was great. So and for our listeners, if you enjoyed this conversation, be sure to subscribe to the Singletracks podcast so you never miss an episode. And if you’ve got feedback or a suggestion for the podcast, drop us a line. We’d love to hear from you. So I’ve got this time, we’ll talk to you again next time. Peace.