David Turner Sea Otter 2022

Hi, I'm Hannah from Singletrack and I'm here with David Turner again

And last time I saw him, I asked you about e-bikes. Yep

And then I stood here for a while while you talked about e-bikes. And then this time we were standing talking about the past and you said

old is mould. So there'll be retro bike people like crying, going, oh my God

How come you don't treasure the old stuff that you've got? Well, the truth is that I discard and or offload trash even old stuff

I just don't know why, but it holds no... My old designs, they're the past

and I can look at them and say, oh, I do appreciate the work, you know, my work

I can be proud of that dropout. But I just don't want the whole bike or a frame laying around, taking up space

It doesn't mean anything to me because I'm never going to ride it. So I try to keep stuff, but it's still usable

And if it's not usable, and it isn't just bicycles, it's other stuff

I just try not to collect stuff. Okay, so it's a general life thing

It's not, it's not exclusive. Anti-hoarding. Oh, well, I can get with that

Yeah. And so are you living in the present then, riding the bikes that you want to ride now

Yes. Yes. I'm, so several years ago, we started making a aluminum cyclocross bike

Oh, aluminum. Spelled different. Aluminium cyclocross bike. And then of course it quickly led to riding it

on dirt roads, off-seat, you know, throughout most of the year et cetera And then of course this thing called gravel and it happened you know internationally and over time ended up working with titanium and I basically just started going

towards bikes that again like you you so succinctly put it's like these are the bikes I want to ride

so I'm riding you know either well first of all riding gravel bikes on mountain bike trails you

quickly figure out that they're really not the best tool for the job. So that led to the hardtail

mountain bike, which I know is sacrilege for Turner Bikes because we did 20 plus years of full

suspension only. And, you know, but I'm really enjoying riding the hardtail mountain bike as

well as the gravel because of the, maybe it's the challenge of riding the same type of terrain

that I have for so long or going places and picking new lines

So it's not that you can't ride the hardtail or even a gravel bike on rougher terrain

The excitement is in riding that terrain differently, viewing it differently. It's the same damn piece of dirt, but you can ride it so many different ways

depending on what you're riding. And I'm enjoying the challenge, really enjoying the challenge

So you don't fancy the challenge then of riding your trails on one of the bikes from early days then

Okay, so, all right. Full disclosure, there is an event in Southern California that has a vintage race

And I do have a 94 Turner Burner that I have raced in it

And honestly, I won't do it again. I get the stink eye because people look at it and they they don't think it's really old enough

right it a full suspension bike with cantilever brakes right and you know it truly right down to the the fork in 1994 But when the word vintage is for this race this specific race obviously is thrown about

it's the bikes that are 10 years older, right? The old, you know, fully rigid

It's not old enough. It's not old enough. It's kind of, it's caught in the middle

So now maybe, maybe next year I'll bring it and just go for it

um but yeah that was the thing as i showed up i was the only one on full suspension

and uh it i kind of got this nobody wanted to talk to me

yes yeah yeah um otis guy steve potts you know uh steve pot old stuff yeah it was truly old and so

So you said that you've got some things you've got to get rid of

There might be people watching who are in love with old, but not that old, 1994 frames

So what have you got in the cave that you're thinking about throwing away or selling

Well, what's left in the cave is, I think, I wouldn't throw it away

Because it's, talk about contradictions. because uh it's like some of the stuff i've pitched in the past have been you know five

to ten year old stuff that i just you know chop it up recycle it throwing away of course we do it

responsibly yeah but the stuff that like the i've got a few old dh bikes right of the various models

and i'm not gonna ever ride a 26 inch dh bike but i know that there's people out there that

we've been talking about off camera that are collecting that kind of stuff

And that's pretty cool for them. I might have their contact If you want to get in touch and you watching I put you in touch with David you can have first refusal I send pictures

so old as mold and now is great what's coming in the future

have you got any ideas for what's going to take you next are you going to go down country

well actually I believe the nitrous is down country oh ok who knows make it up

So it's a downcountry hardtail. So to me, downcountry means applying the geometry advancements that the whole mountain bike industry has experienced in the last five to seven years to a shorter travel bike

So I've just taken it to a hardtail. So, you know, the nitrous is much longer reach, much longer top tube, effective top tube, and of course, much slacker head angle than, you know, anything that I did, you know

in 15, 14, 13 model years. So that's, to me, a downcountry, but it's a downcountry hardtail

Well, okay, so cross-country is going full suspension because it's getting gnarlier

So how about a new turner burner that's for the new cross-country

Any chance? Nothing's in the works right now, but I'm always thinking about it, yeah

Yeah, you got it. It's my, I don't know if it's an obsession or a job or I don't know what it is

but I can't ever quit thinking about it. It's just a matter of being able to have the bandwidth to get it all going

Right. Cool. Well, we will get out of your hair so that you've got more bandwidth to think about the new things

So, thanks very much for your time. Thank you, Hannah