We Want To Hear From You
This week, we’re launching a listener survey. It’s a quick one, but it’ll help us keep delivering great episodes for you. It takes about 90 seconds to get through, and there are a few areas to add even more information if you want to share. We truly want to hear from you! Please click this link and let us know how we can continue to make this podcast better and better:
The Bentonville Blueprint
Gary Vernon, Scott King, and Aimee Ross have spent a combined half-century building what is now one of the most significant mountain bike destinations in the world. What started in 2006 as a five-mile trail system in Bentonville, Arkansas has grown into 600 miles of trail across the region, 1,200 miles statewide, and most recently, a lift-access bike park with its own chairlift, restaurant, and membership model.
In this conversation, the three founders walk through the design principles that made it work: building for beginners first, focusing on progression, and the decision to build within city limits rather than isolating trails on private land. They also break down the economics of trail building compared to traditional recreational infrastructure, what it actually took to build a 38-trail bike park in under two years, and the advice they give every community that calls asking "how do we become the next Bentonville".
Second Nature Is Supported By Halo
Halo is a hospitality platform built by trail runners specifically for sports and event travel. They work with brands, event organizers and professional leagues to simplify one of the most operationally painful parts of any event: lodging. If you’re a brand thinking about experiential marketing, managing travel for your team or professional athletes, or a league handling lodging for your athletes and fans, Halo’s platform gives your brand a custom hotel booking platform and locks in better rates so you’re not managing hotel logistics from scratch. They’re already working with names like Western States, Aravaipa, Rabbit and New Balance.
And if you’re just heading to a race or event yourself this year, it’s worth checking out, too. Same platform with great rates, community, perks from band partners and less hassle. If any of this sounds like you, reach out to their team and tell them you heard about Halo on Second Nature.
Job + Article Of The Week
We’re combining the article and job of the week section this week to share the lastest listings from WIRE. 90+ open roles! (Some of these are also listed in our Jobs channel in the Second Nature Slack Channel, often by the hiring manager. Join us there if you haven’t already!)
Show Notes
Here To Help
The most common refrain we hear from friends working at brands is “we need to find content creators, but we are strapped on time”. This is the exact problem that Popfly has solved. If you’re working at a brand that needs this kind of help, you need to check this out (and tell them we sent you), it’ll be worth it. And…if you’re an athlete or creator, you should definitely get on this platform - there are brands, ready to support you and looking for your talent. We’re using it outside of the podcast and having a lot of success with it - and this is exactly why we wanted to partner with Popfly in the first place. Highly recommended!
BPC - Brand, Product, Content
BPC is our closing segment where we share Brands we’ve discovered, Products we’re using and Content that we love.
🤘 Cone valve suspension: We had to google this one - it’s a really cool style of suspension for moto (and will probably show up on MTB at some point).
🍺 Sierra Nevada NA: Aimee shared this NA beer with us - which may end up in our rotation this summer. It’s awesome that there are more and more NA options popping up, we’re here for it.
🏍️ Triumph Daytona: Two moto references in one podcast! This looks fast…
📕 The Design Way (Book): The rest of the book title goes like this: “Intentional Change In An Unpredictable World”. Enough said - this one is going on the list!
⚡️ Marin Alpine Trail EXR (Aaron's Bike): This is one hundred percent fun on two wheels - Aaron’s latest e-bike, just ready to rip right out of the box. The “XR” stands for Extra Rad, which means the parts on this bike are as good as you can get. E-Bikes continue to get more and more fun, and this one is no exception!
Thank You
Stay tuned, next week’s podcast is with someone we met at TrailCon. As soon as she started sharing her insights at our event, we knew we needed to get her on the podcast. Next week’s episode is about building an empire from scratch!
"Build for beginners and focus on progression" is solid advice for entrepreneurs. Whatever problem we're solving, the job is to remove complexity, not add it. Looking forward to listening to this on tomorrow's long run!