I'm back in Spain for another week of riding. : ) No Murcia this time as my trip begins from the Basque Country and will continue down to Girona. Along the way, I have some very fun stops:

A workshop visit & ride with Norbert of Norka Bikes in Bilbao today.
Onwards to my first Border Bash Aragon this evening! Stoked!
Then, further west to Staffan from Ass Saver's 50th bday getaway.
And finally to Girona to cheer for Kike at The Traka & stay with my friends Hahn & Jana.

If you'll be in Girona next week, do say hey! I'm not racing this year and keen to catch as many people as possible.

In other news, we have a very cool announcement coming from Team Twotone soon. I'll announce it here next issue but please do follow us on Linkedin if you don't already.

And, speaking of Linkedin, we're wrapping up some projects in the coming months and will have some bandwidth to take on new work. If you or someone you know could benefit from our support, please share our zine & let's meet in person or by screen!

Lastly, the 'intro' you're expecting is below & penned by Kike after attending National Geographic Summit 2025 last week.

Thank you for reading!

with gratitude,

Jon

p.s. I'll be going to bed early tonight after Peter from Let's be Fwends reminder on how essential sleep is!

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Upcoming Events

April

🇪🇸 24-27 Border Bash Aragón
🇬🇧 25-27 Bespoked Manchester
🇳🇱 20 Wheelrunner Wednesday Morning Ride (Weekly at 7:00am)

May

🇳🇱 1 Gregario Thursday AM Ride (Weekly at 7:30am)
🇪🇸 1-4 The Traka
🇳🇱 11 Mark's Mixed-Terrain Ride from Gregario
🇵🇹 16 Angels of Dirt Screening Lisboa Motorcycle Film Festival
🇳🇱 16-18 Urban Sports Week Amsterdam
🇳🇱 17 Wildcard Rally
🇬🇧 21 Angels of Dirt Screening at DEUS in Dorset
🇩🇪 31 Angels of Dirt Screening at Craftwerk Berlin
🇳🇱 31 Fenderfest Nº2

June

🇳🇱 1 Aidsfonds Rainbow Ride Amsterdam
🇩🇪 5 Angels of Dirt Screening Cologne hosted by German Flat Track
🇳🇱 7 Angels of Dirt Screening Noordelos
🇳🇱 8 Pathfinder Maastricht
🇧🇪 17-18 Micromobility Brussels
🇩🇪 25-29 Eurobike (26th is 4th Annual Twotone x CRANK! Dinner!)

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Ideas

Kike's National Geographic Summit 2025: The Power of Connection Recap

The photo above & text below are from Twotone colleague Kike Molares' imppression after attending the 2025 National Geographic Summit in Amsterdam.

The National Geographic Summit took place in Amsterdam last Tuesday, April 14th. Far away from the mountains, the wild nature, Antartica and everything wild you could imagine. Maybe besides Centraal.

And this is not a local pun; one of the upcoming shows from National Geographic, now part of Disney, is around our glorious central station: Amsterdam Centraal, I guess, one of the reasons they chose the capital of the Amstel for their summit.

The summit motto was ‘the power of connection’, something that felt a bit out of place, until we started to see images, hear speakers, and understand what this nineteenth-century organization meant by the power of connection.

The show opened with Tommy Caldwell, a self-defined 'dirtbag climber’ (more than an insult is a status symbol within the climbing community) who sneaked through the backdoor.

Like many of us interested in outdoor photography, I had a National Geographic magazine in my hands as a teenager. I'll always end up putting it down to then grab the climbing or surfing one. There is too much Antarctica and caves and too little action.

But that changed almost a decade ago with, precisely Tommy Caldwell's Dawn Wall cover. It was the first time for me that a 'legit climber’ had the cover of the magazine– instead of a more white collar ‘explorer’, ‘alpinist’, or a diluted mix of both.

Move a decade forward, and yes, I was shocked to see Tommy opening a National Geographic summit in Amsterdam, from all places, even after climbing went mainstream with the very same National Geographic movie, ‘Free Solo’. But then, ‘the power of connection’ started to kick in. Tommy gathered everyone's connection immediately and, in a very approachable and relatable way, started to talk about expeditions, friendship, adventure, and, of course, climbing.

As the event went on, speaker after speaker, I realized that every single image and video displayed was indeed making us all connect with each other and, more importantly, the world outside; from the closest central station to the distant penguins of, yes, Antartica, through Muhammed Muheisen's photojournalism, we all got curious, laughed, and got emotional.

As the anchor repeated several times, we're in challenging times, and indeed, curiosity, inspiration, and connection are very effective tools that when combined create the most powerful human tool: hope.

The organizers and speakers always managed to steer the conference away from cheese anecdotes and pure visual overload, although they used them wisely to convey powerful messages that gave attendees points to take home and reflect on.

Those very same images are the node of the whole National Geographic ecosystem: the exploration, the science, the entertainment, the environmental activism, and the constant inspiration of curiosity and wonder about this world. Those images connect different audiences, cultures, and topics. So I'll close with the very same points that the BAFTA winner, Bertie Gregory, used to close the gala:

They have masked the climate crisis under very difficult and abstract terms like global warming and CO2, but plenty of wildlife is becoming extinct due to more immediate and clear human effects like overfishing & sheer exploitation of natural resources

Wildlife is not something nice to have; it’s us, it's our home planet, and where we belong

We are doers, and we are still in time to do something for our planet and our wildlife, so let's get to it

Thanks to Moses Mihan, manager at The Patagonia PRO Community, and the rest of the Patagonia team for the invite.

Nature-Inspired Innovation & Low-Impact Aluminum | May 28

Shift Cycling Culture is at it again with a number of events! "For many cycling companies, aluminum is the biggest contributor to their greenhouse gas emissions. To address this, companies have been looking into different ways to lower the impact through new material choices and working with their supply chain." **Register here.**

How brands can reach consumers without giving money to Meta, X, Google, etc…

I love it when a post gets only a handful of likes but dozens of comments. Kudos to Tyler for getting the convo going!

"Meaningful experiences IRL. I'll take one high-five over 1000 likes. Humans still have 5 senses, yet we're increasingly reliant on only two of those (increasingly overwhelmed) senses. But experiential focus is also a fit for our brand and sales model. If I were trying to convert through online channels, it could be different. Likely with a PR push - no sense competing with a math formula that's constantly working against me." – Eric Richter, Marketing Director - Mondraker USA