Rodeo Adventure Labs teases prototype TD 3.0 which transforms from flat bar to dropbar

This bike is probably the exact opposite approach of the full suspension Niner. We can’t really speak to that bike, but this bike is just a continuation of us having fun asking “what if” and “would it work?”. 95% of the people on our bikes just want to go out and ride gravel roads and that is always going to be the sweet spot of the Traildonkey. But those of us at the core of Rodeo are generally into trying crazy ideas that hit us. It is genuinely fun for us to push ourselves and push the bikes outside of traditional boundaries and categories. What we aren’t saying with this or any of our bikes is “sell your MTB, our bike is better”. We also aren’t saying “don’t buy a MTB, buy our bike instead”.

We all know a dual (or just front) squish MTB is going to be butter and super fun out on a good trail. But, quite honestly that story is already being told by 99.9% of cycling culture, media, and other bike brands. Does anyone really need to be told that a modern MTB is an amazing machine and you’ll be fast and comfortable if you ride one? I don’t think so. The TD3 Switch-Up exists because I want it to – for me – because I’m never not experimenting with our bikes. It’s super fun to say “could we make this?” and then make it, and then test it. It’s even crazier when the idea actually works. And if we can race the bike against traditional MTBs and kick some ass then all the better. We’re competitive too.

It takes away from nothing and nobody to create a configuration of an existing bike that allows the bike to be used in a wider range of conditions. That is what this bike does. Or, perhaps even more importantly this bike simply brings the connector technology out of the shadows and gets people’s imaginations going. Very few people need a switch up bike, but a lot of people travel with bikes with hydraulic brakes and packing them is tough. If you can easily disconnect a handlebar / brakes with these couplers and more safely pack your travel bike because the bars are easy to move around then that’s a huge win. If you own a Ritchey Breakaway but couldn’t run hydro brakes on it, but you can now with hydro couplers like this then the TD3 Switch Up has done a good thing by getting people’s imaginations flowing about different ways to configure their bikes and make them more useful.

The funny thing about these connectors that are at the core of this bike is that they were released in 2013 and I’m pretty sure just about nobody cared and even fewer people bought them. My understanding is that they are now discontinued. We bought the last four connectors in the USA and we couldn’t find any in Europe. The manufacturer essentially said “go away”. So this super useful technology came and went and nobody cared. Maybe the technology just showed up too soon and now that it is 2019 and more bikes have hydro disc brakes the time is right to put the product back on the market. We know another manufacturer is working to do exactly that right now.

In my observation a lot of big bike brands tend to want to funnel us into categories and niches and sell us highly specialized machines tuned for max performance. That is totally fine! But Rodeo wants to make very un-niche bikes that are generally fun to ride and are used to re-interpret categories and terrain in any way that THE RIDER sees fit. This does seem to ruffle feathers of category die-hards but we’re no threat to traditional categories, we’re just out having fun and trying to inspire creative bikes and creative riding.