Trail Running Has Hype Men, Not Journalists | Are We Becoming The Bike Industry? | TrailCon 2026

Fresh off TrailCon in Olympic Valley, Aaron sits down with Mathias Eichler and Krissi Polentz, both on the ground for the week, to unpack what it actually revealed about the business and media of trail running.

Does the sport have any real journalism left, or just hype men waiting on the next shoe drop? Why are the biggest brands behaving like teenagers fighting over a valley? Is the live stream gold rush ever going to pay off, or are we quietly repeating the mistakes that hollowed out the bike industry? And now that TrailCon has won its June date, does it actually know what it's for?

Photo: Scott Rokis

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