This week we sit down with Whitney Allison, BWR Cedar City Champion and Co-Founder of the Foco Fondo in Fort Collins, CO.

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Whitney Allison

[00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello and welcome to the gravel ride podcast. I'm your host Craig Dalton. This week on the podcast, we have Whitney, Alison who recently won the BWR Cedar city event. I don't know about you guys, but at the beginning of 2020, we are all poised and thinking about gravel racing and looking forward to a whole new crop of athletes coming into the mix. 

[00:00:25] With the pandemic. Many of those athletes have to sit on the sidelines. Lines as events were few and far between. We're at the Alison was one of those athletes who was poised to make a great start. In 2020, but with sidelined into 2021. Early in the season, she had a win at Co2UT. And started to be on people's radar. 

[00:00:45] Although. Although she deserved to be on the radar far before that. 

[00:00:48] With a strong ride to fourth place at Unbound. Around in 2021. I suppose it was no. Surprise that another wind was right around the corner. I originally met Whitney at. The ENVE Grodeo event earlier this year as she's an ENVE sponsored rider and it was great to finally get her on the podcast And Cast We talk about her racing career What brought her to gravel riding and also the Foco Fondo that her and her husband produced in Fort Collins, colorado.

[00:01:13] I hope you enjoy the conversation. And with that, let's dive. Right in 

[00:01:17] Whitney. Welcome to the show. 

[00:01:19] Whitney Allison: Thanks. Thanks for having me. 

[00:01:21] Craig Dalton: Yeah. I'm excited to talk to you about your season and gravel and what's next for you, but I always like to start off by learning a little bit about how you came to the sport of cycling and ultimately how you came to riding off-road with gravel. 

[00:01:33] Whitney Allison: Yeah. I find cycling after high school.

[00:01:37] When I got to college, I went the pledget route. I thought I was going to go for. Soccer to being a normal college student got immediately bored. And, but I do lot. And and I ended up going on a group ride with a cycling team and women are worth a lot of points in collegiate racing. So they like really took me under their wing and kind of showed me the ropes and like collegiate cycling is such an incredible way to get into the sport.

[00:02:06] You get to find this really unique balance of both seriousness and fun at the same time, I think, as unique to any other area of cycling 

[00:02:16] Craig Dalton: right now. Yeah. It's so interesting and mean, we talk about teams in cycling, but nothing really compares to the idea of a collegiate cycling team. 

[00:02:25] Whitney Allison: Yeah. And you have just such a range.

[00:02:28] Athletes from maybe athletes who've never participated into a sport to people who've always been in a sport or maybe even always in cycling and you show up and you're S you're unified, whether you're in like the age category or when I was there, they only have A's and B's for women. So it didn't matter like how good you were.

[00:02:49] You were just still a very essential and important and welcome part 

[00:02:53] Craig Dalton: of the. And we'll you riding both road and off-road at that point? 

[00:02:57] Whitney Allison: Mostly just road. I didn't really have a mountain bike. I think I borrowed somebody's bike a couple of times for some mountain bike races, but mostly just the road.

[00:03:08] Craig Dalton: And what part of the country where you located in for college? I went to 

[00:03:12] Whitney Allison: UT. So it's, I think it was just exclusively Texas for the conference, which is plenty big state. 

[00:03:19] Craig Dalton: And was it a pretty popular sport? Was it a large program that you were involved in? 

[00:03:23] Whitney Allison: It was really large. My first couple of years, I want to say that there were almost like 30 women competing in the A's, which was like so rad.

[00:03:32] Like I remember my first race and the A's on. I didn't know how to sprint. I didn't know how to get out of the saddle and just like sprinting and saddle and like still ending up on the podium. I had no idea what was going on, which is really funny if you know me too, because I'm not really, I'm a sprinter.

[00:03:50] So that's extra funding. 

[00:03:53] Craig Dalton: Did you immediately start seeing post-collegiate opportunities in the professional cycling ranks? Was that an idea that you had early on in your collegiate? 

[00:04:01] Whitney Allison: I definitely cat it up pretty quickly. I was also doing a lot of races in Austin at the time. I ended up getting on a development team out of Dallas that I believe it's still loosely associated with DNA pro cycling.

[00:04:14] But this is this would have been like 2008, 2008 or 2009. And so I was able to get on this team and it had a lot of the national level, like each 23 women at the time. And so that was something I was on the team, it was a regional writer. But immediately did really well. So I ended up with more opportunities than what was originally planned.

[00:04:35] And it was definitely like wild, like looking at some of those women. I had a lot of admiration for the. Just really talented women that, who wouldn't want to be an athlete like that. So I did get a race, do a lot of the national stage race stuff, starting my junior year of college.

[00:04:51] And then and my senior year. And then after that, I had to get a full-time job 

[00:04:56] Craig Dalton: As many professional cyclists have to do unfortunate. 

[00:05:00] Whitney Allison: Yeah, the student loans don't pay themselves. 

[00:05:03] Craig Dalton: And then, so what was next for you and the cycling career? 

[00:05:06] Whitney Allison: So I definitely still had, I still wanted to race professionally and do well there.

[00:05:12] I've always wanted to be an athlete. It's just something that's very much a part of my identity. So while working full time at this office job in port Collins, which is where I live now, I somehow convinced my the company owner to one Spencer me, and to let me go race all summer while working remotely, which had never been done.

[00:05:33] And it was to their demise because essentially as soon as I paid off my student loans, I like left. And eventually I would get a contract with Colavita in 2013. And stayed with them for, I think, four or five years until joining Superman, Huggins, Roman Superman with my former teammate, Lily Williams, who you've talked to before for the 2018 and 2019 season.

[00:06:02] Craig Dalton: And I've heard everything I've heard about that program as it was such a tight knit group of women and everybody had each other's backs, it sounded like a great experience. Those two years, 

[00:06:12] Whitney Allison: it really was. You usually get some of that. I feel like on teams, but it's very rare that you could get it across such a high percentage of the writers.

[00:06:23] So it really was like a special time. We still have a WhatsApp text thread that still gets used. Most of us are all still in touch, which is really. 

[00:06:31] Craig Dalton: Was 2019 a planned retirement from the road scene or did something happen? I know the team obviously stopped existing, I think at that point.

[00:06:40] But what was that your trajectory or your expectation prior to that? 

[00:06:44] Whitney Allison: My trajectory part of, if we pedal back a little bit in August of 2018, I was hit by a driver with an Airstream a couple of days before Colorado. In Colorado. Classic is like a race I've always done really well at. I broke a bunch of bones, had PTSD, went through all sorts of therapy for that.

[00:07:03] And, I was really fortunate to be on a team that was really supportive. And so they're like, of course you have a contract for next year and let us know what you need, let us know how to support you. But it also meant like I couldn't be on social media and I'm focused on coming back. A good mind as best physical ability as possible while still healing from injuries that will have for their spirit life.

[00:07:26] And managing that's like really hard. And I was really proud to come back for the 2019 season, but it was really hard for me to put together performances that were. I was as good as I was having in 2018. I did finally in 2019 with the last race of the season, I did get on the podium at Colorado classic couple of days after the one-year anniversary of my crash.

[00:07:53] And that was like really powerful, but unfortunately from a professional road standpoint, it wasn't enough to find a similar contract than it. So it was a sad reluctant retirement. And so I thought what about the Scrabble thing? It was something that had always interested me, but I really wanted to ride that professional growth wave wall.

[00:08:16] It was there. Just because those are really special times. Yeah. The green teres and Europe, and do a lot of these like iconic spring classics and things like that are just there once in a lifetime opportunities. So 2021 is going to be my big you're getting into gravel and I'm still off of social media because I'm still in litigation.

[00:08:36] And then the endemic hit. So that was like really isolate. Cause you're like, oh, I I could be a really good gravel racer, but nobody has any idea. 

[00:08:46] Craig Dalton: Yeah. I feel like at the beginning of 2020, which there was all this, we knew a bunch of new events were happening. We knew obviously there was other professional athletes, both men and women coming into the scene, but none of that happened and we had no idea.

[00:09:00] So when 2021, when racing actually happened, For me, like watching the women's scene. I just saw all these names that I hadn't heard of before. And obviously when you do a little research, that these women didn't come out of nowhere. They were incredibly talented for a number of years, but I feel like you, they were ready in 2020, but they just didn't get an opportunity to expose their skillset, which is making 20, 21 very exciting as a fan of women's gravel racing.

[00:09:27] Whitney Allison: Yeah, totally. I was entirely under the radar. Just waiting out the pandemic. It did help a bit. Like I was able to finally settle my case and not have to go to trial, which was really, it was a huge relief in a lot of ways. Cause it, I also unfortunately with how our modern world works, you really have to be online.

[00:09:49] And without being able to be online and represent myself as an athlete, it was a. It was a pretty large hit and these other ways that you don't necessarily think of. So I was literally a secret for several years. So yeah, in 2021 rolls around, 

[00:10:06] Craig Dalton: did you feel like in 2020 that you had the kind of gravel skillset, the technical skillset to be successful or was 2020 a good opportunity to just spend more time on the dirt and really get those skills underneath?

[00:10:19] Whitney Allison: It was definitely helpful. Cause like that was the only thing that there was to do because everything else was so depressing. It was just like spend a lot of time in the mountains. Yeah, we have lots of incredible writing super close to us. So then that is definitely a gift of 2020.

[00:10:34] Craig Dalton: Absolutely. And so for 2021, did you have your heart set on a certain series of races that you wanted to tackle throughout? 

[00:10:41] Whitney Allison: I knew that given my circumstances that I would need to hit up a lot of the quote, unquote like most prestigious or most followed events in order to get my foot in the door and establish myself.

[00:10:59] I. I was curious about Unbound. I thought that there was a chance that I could do pretty well there. Just based on the type of road rider I was, which is just like all power all day, but I've always been curious, like how long does that last, if you actually like try turns out, that 12 hours?

[00:11:22] Yes. I kicked off the season. One of my early season races was Cotuit, which I wanted, which was in Fruita. And it's funny because I was under the radar for so long. Remember some of the feedback I was hearing was is she even fast? Did she win by a fluke in feedback like that?

[00:11:42] Which was funny

[00:11:44] Craig Dalton: That it, that is the booze social media moment when you just get trolls like that coming out. 

[00:11:51] Whitney Allison: Yeah. And it's it's whatever I don't really care that somebody off the couch has to say in regards to something like that, but it's still pretty funny. Like I've been here the whole time. It's just.

[00:12:03] You didn't know that 

[00:12:05] Craig Dalton: exactly. Hopefully, and I think this is going to be true after 2021. There's not going to be many people who follow this sport who don't know your name. We'll see. So you followed that up with a fourth place at Unbound unbounded, a 200 mile event, which is pretty spectacular. 

[00:12:21] Whitney Allison: Yeah.

[00:12:22] And that was like, I honestly thought I was somewhere in the top 10 when I finished, because I had 300. And 47 minutes of stoppage of crash with the front flat. I use like the neutral support paid service for aid stuff. Cause we didn't have a aide support person and the person ripped my candle back apart.

[00:12:46] So I didn't have my Camelback for the race after the 50 mile mark. So I rode with literal plastic water bottles in my pockets for the rest of the 200. 

[00:12:56] Craig Dalton: Yeah, I think it's actually a good lesson for a lot of racers that like shit happens and you just gotta roll with it along the way. And so many you can be in first place and go to 10th place and vice versa with just the, the whatever's going to happen on the course.

[00:13:15] Whitney Allison: Yeah. And I think like success in these events, it's not necessarily. Okay. Do you experience bad luck? It's more do you have an absence of bad luck versus having good luck? Like it, it doesn't matter. Like you could ride over the same thing as another person, but for whatever reason, the rock just hits your tire.

[00:13:37] Just that much different. And it's not necessarily oh, you don't know how to choose a line or. You chose a bad tire pressure. It literally just could be a tiny bit of that. Yeah. 

[00:13:49] Craig Dalton: Yeah. I talked to so many people who like throw away their favorite tire set because it failed them at Unbound.

[00:13:55] And I keep thinking to myself, it's because the person in front of you turn that rock over the wrong way and you just happened to hit it. It's not that particular tire is too. 

[00:14:04] Whitney Allison: I know. I fought it in the most benign sections, which I thought was super obnoxious. I would have rather flooded and the really like pokey technical sections.

[00:14:12] But 

[00:14:13] Craig Dalton: the most recently prior to recording this, you had a big victory at BWR Cedar city, which is amazing. Congratulations on that. 

[00:14:22] Whitney Allison: Thanks. It was a really nice way to end my first year of gravel racing. 

[00:14:27] Craig Dalton: I have to say, as a spectator on the couch, it was great. The coverage of the women's event, you felt like you were there, you got a lot of information along the way, and you felt the ebb and flow between you and the other riders and the top four or five, which was great to watch.

[00:14:40] I also noted that there was a lot of technicality in it. BWR San Diego, for example, not knowing. An extremely tactical event, but this course was technical. I read somewhere that you were there as fraught with the source endurance team and you'd actually previewed some of those technical sections.

[00:15:00] Whitney Allison: Yeah. I was actually there as a camp instructor for the course. I hadn't seen me that and that was actually really helpful. Like I got to see all, but one technical section over the course of the week and even ride some of them multiple times, such as the single track section, which I mean, by the time you get to race day and when you get to the single track section, you're not really sure what you're doing.

[00:15:24] Cause I was really cross-eyed and desperate and just trying not to like flat or crash, it was like my only goal going through there. It didn't matter if I went really slow or. Just as long as I didn't get it delayed by either of those other two options. 

[00:15:39] Craig Dalton: How would you rate it in terms of its technicality versus an Unbound?

[00:15:42] For example, 

[00:15:44] Whitney Allison: I thought it was significantly more technical. It was I had done a more technical race this year. So the races I did would be like code to. Unbound. And be gritty is not erased, but that is also quite technical. BWR San Diego Steamboat last best ride. And I would say like a lot of those sections in that race were really hard and a lot of really deep sands.

[00:16:09] Craig Dalton: Yeah. It was interesting. I think more so on the men's side, because there was maybe a pack of 12 or 15 together at one point, but you could see it start to be. Decimated in those technical sections, as one rider would bobble and take out two others. And ultimately, I think half that lead group got shed by accidents and misfortune in those technical sections 

[00:16:31] Whitney Allison: at times, there is either one line or no lines.

[00:16:34] So if you're in a group that would be really hard. 

[00:16:37] Craig Dalton: Yeah. I'm curious to get your perspective because as a, as someone who enjoys the different events around the country I prefer the more technical events, because I just think they're challenging more of a rider's full bag of tricks as a racer at the front end of the spectrum.

[00:16:52] Do you appreciate that? In course, design, 

[00:16:54] Whitney Allison: I think it just goes into your strategy, right? When I go to think about an event I'm looking at anything that would make a change in the race. So For VWR Cedar city, like there is a four minute climb. Maybe it's a little bit longer, like four, eight minute climb.

[00:17:12] That was about 30 miles in. And I knew that was going to be the most important part because after that was a technical descent. And so I knew as long as I could get over the top or near the front, I would be okay. So I see those sorts of technical things as a feature that changes the story. And then you have to decide how you're going to change with the story.

[00:17:36] Craig Dalton: That's interesting. And I imagine most of the people at the front end of the race are taking the course into heavy consideration in their mindset. Is that how they plan their race day? 

[00:17:46] Whitney Allison: Yeah, absolutely. And I am coming from a red background. I'm not a mountain biker, like a lot of other people that are coming into gravel.

[00:17:55] And so for me, it's trying to figure out how do I leverage. My strengths and bobble through my weaknesses. In training, always trying to improve them right 

[00:18:05] Craig Dalton: now. I noted that in the BWR event that the women and the men started 10, 10 minutes apart. Was that true? How did you feel like that played, obviously this year, there's been a lot discussed about women and men racing together.

[00:18:19] Do you prefer that type of format or are you in different. 

[00:18:22] Whitney Allison: I think with my ability, I am more indifferent to it. I think that for example, BWR San Diego had almost a 200 woman person woman's field. And so having a separate women's start there was really amazing. And because it had that size and it allowed like women that are getting dropped, they're probably going to have other women to run.

[00:18:47] And at that particular event, you also had the uncategorized men behind you. And so then once again, you're not necessarily having an entirely lonely day. So one thing that was hard at Cedar city is that the women's field was very small, maybe around 50 women. So the walk women started in front of us and then we were behind.

[00:19:09] And so then you have some women that are not as strong to stay with the women's field. And now they're alone 130 miles. And to me, that's maybe that's probably a consequence of that separate start when the field isn't that large the way for men did catch and we had overlapping courses for about half of the day.

[00:19:31] So some of those women probably had some people to run. But I do think like that is a consequence that has to be considered in those circumstances. But overall, if it's a large women's field, it's super awesome to have a separate start. And if it's a small women's field or a very long distance, like Unbound, it's nicer to have that mixed art because draft ability like helps us get through 

[00:19:55] Craig Dalton: the day.

[00:19:56] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the interesting thing when these sort of quote unquote controversies come up, it's. So much of it is getting through the day and that shared experience, whether you're riding with males or females, that's part of the joy. I realize when there's prize money on the line, there's obviously different things to consider.

[00:20:12] And I certainly fall in the category of Hey, if you're pre-planning these kinds of things, that's probably a negative, but that organic, like I get to ride with someone regardless of the category they're in, for me as a mid pack rider is something that I really enjoy about racing. 

[00:20:27] Whitney Allison: Yeah. And I think it's pretty obvious when you say it, if you come there with people that are planning on securing your result across categories, that's lame, but if it just happens on the road, that's like totally normal.

[00:20:44] Craig Dalton: Yeah, exactly. So it sounds like we're at the tail end of your season. Do you have any more events planned for. 

[00:20:50] Whitney Allison: I'm running one more camp. So my husband, Zach, Alison and I, we have our business bikes works and we run a couple of three-day camps out of Fort Collins. And so we call them gravel grease land, and we just do three totally distinct routes out of Fort Collins, which includes a lot of single chalk ones.

[00:21:09] More out east with big rollers. And the third day is like out in the mountains. So we have one of those coming up in two weeks. But otherwise, like trying to get through some of those like bucket list rides and stuff that you like really want to do all year, but it doesn't quite work out with training or your schedule.

[00:21:26] Craig Dalton: And you've got to get that in Colorado before the snowfall. 

[00:21:30] Whitney Allison: Yep. I am checking the forecast quite frequently.

[00:21:33] Craig Dalton: In addition to the gravel Graceland events that you just described, you've also got your own gravel event. Can you talk a little bit about Foco Fondo 

[00:21:43] Whitney Allison: yeah, Foco Fondo. The first year of that was in 2015. So it's been around for awhile. It's just grown. Organically and grads grassrootsy it's very fun if you've ever been to Fort Collins, like it has a really big outdoor culture that is also extremely welcoming.

[00:22:03] People are very excited to take people back country skiing or, out on gravel bikes or mountain biking or climbing. And everybody is oh, here, let me. You can borrow this equipment if you don't have it. So focal Fondo has a similar welcoming vibe and we have a lot of people who come to the event, having never done a gravel event before.

[00:22:27] So it's their first experience. We have everything from 12 miles to 107 miles and the 12 mile is focused on family. We donate a portion of the profits to safe routes to school here in Fort Collins, and they use the funds that we give them for free afterschool bike clubs. Mostly at socially economic disadvantaged schools in our area.

[00:22:51] They'll do other services. For families that can't afford it, they'll show up with a mechanic at an apartment complex and fix up kids' bikes because not everybody has a car to put their kid's bike, to take it to the bike shop and just like other really thoughtful solutions that really elevate our community.

[00:23:09] And then Foco Fonda, the event itself after the ride. Like Rio Grande makes tacos. They're like a very large cycling staple in our community. We have live music and it's just a big fun. 

[00:23:22] Craig Dalton: And for riders considering it for their 20, 22 calendar, what month is in and what type of terrain should they expect to be riding?

[00:23:31] If they're riding in the longer event, 

[00:23:33] Whitney Allison: our event date should be July 24th. Hopefully hoping I can announce that like more publicly with a hundred percent certainty you the train is mostly pretty rolling. It'll gain elevation overall for the first half. And there'll be pretty fast on the way back.

[00:23:50] The big toss up every year is always the wind. Somehow this year, the writer's got a tailwind around the entire, it ran the entire. So we're like back at home, freaking out because the rat, the top riders are going to get back before lunch was even open. But otherwise it has a little mix of everything.

[00:24:08] There's not too much like technical sections, but there are a few spots and there's a few of those pinch points that you would, if you were going for a result there, you would really want to make some considerations in your strategy. Yeah. 

[00:24:22] Craig Dalton: Sounds like a great event.

[00:24:23] So with your successes in 2021, what do you hope for in 2022?

[00:24:29] Whitney Allison: I think I have definitely learned a lot about myself in these events, different types of races. And I'm also looking forward to going back to some of the ones that I did this year. Like with some of those learnings, for example, Unbound obviously is a really great one where I just was on the comeback all day long was just always riding with a vengeance.

[00:24:56] I really wanted to do well at VWR San Diego with how the timing worked. It was the week before Foco Fondo. So I raced, I still got top 10, but I was a mess. So I'm really excited to get to go deep that in may, way before that time. But yeah. I'm looking forward to getting to experience some of the similar courses or same courses, but then see that your story.

[00:25:20] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah. I think it is that type of sport that any event. Something's going to go wrong. It's really hard to have a perfect day, whether it's misfortune or just a, something not going your way that day. I think it keeps a lot of us coming back to the same courses, thinking, gosh, I could just do it that much better next year.

[00:25:37] Whitney Allison: Yeah. Kinda a little bit of vengeance that it's just a thing 

[00:25:41] Craig Dalton: with you. Yeah, exactly. And for your business, with your husband any changes for next year, we just continue to run fittings and camps and experience. 

[00:25:50] Whitney Allison: Yeah. And the recent program is going to do better as well. Like we're really fortunate, like just with having a good year and yeah, I'm excited to share some of the partners that we'll have for next year too.

[00:26:02] And it's fun too. Cause they get to come on like through the Foco Fondo and stuff as well. Like you get to offer a lot to the companies that work with. That's 

[00:26:13] Craig Dalton: super exciting. I can't wait to hear about these announcements. 

[00:26:16] Whitney Allison: I can't really share them, but it could be awhile. 

[00:26:18] Craig Dalton: Thanks so much for joining me, Whitney.

[00:26:20] I appreciate it. 

[00:26:21] Whitney Allison: Thank you. 

[00:26:22] Craig Dalton: Big, thanks to Whitney for joining the show this week. I hope you learned a lot about her career and a little bit about her future plans for 2022. 

[00:26:30] If you're following women's gravel racing, it's sure we're going to have a stacked 20, 22 roster of elite athletes. Fighting for the win at all. The big events. 

[00:26:39] It's going to be super exciting. Be sure to check out Whitney and her husband's Foco Fondo website. Check out for the date next year and get registered. What for what looks like an amazing event there in Fort Collins, Colorado. If you're looking to support the show, you can visit us at www.buymeacoffee.com/thegravelride. 

[00:26:59] We're also ratings and reviews are hugely important. So I appreciate everybody who's gone out of their way to provide a review for the gravel ride podcast. 

[00:27:08] And finally, if you're interested in joining the ridership, our free global cycling community online. Online simply visit www.theridership.com. Until next time here's to finding. Some dirt under your wheels

This week, Randall connects with Anne-Marije Rook, North American Editor at Cycling Weekly with an exploration of how she got into cycling and from there into cycling journalism, with fun tangents into competitive cycling, exploding e-bikes, and a bit of gear nerdy.

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[00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport

I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist.

This week on the broadcast, I'm handing the microphone off over to my co-host Randall Jacobs.

Who's got an Mariah Rook on the broadcast. She's the north American editor at cycling weekly

randall will take us on an exploration on how she got into cycling. And from there into cycling journalism, with fun tangents, into competitive cycling. Exploring e-bikes and a bit of the gear nerdery that Randall is famous for. Before we jump in and hand that microphone off to Randall. I do need to thank this week. Sponsor athletic greens.

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The key to ag one is that it replaces key health products in one simple scoop. AIG one combines nine health products working together as one, replacing your multivitamin. Multimineral. Pre and probiotics. Immunity support and more, that means ag one does more for your body and saves you time, money and confusion compared to taking multiple unique products.

And that is a hundred percent key for me. I do one scoop in the morning, mixed up with a little bit of ice, and I feel like I've got some of my nutritional basis started before I've even begun the day.

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For podcast listeners, our friends at athletic greens have given us a free year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs. If you ordered today. Simply visit athletic greens.com/the gravel ride to get your age. The one on the way today. With that said i'm going to hand over the microphone to my co-host randall jacobs

[00:02:35] Randall R. Jacobs: Let's talk about how you got into this particular field. How did you end up as a cycling journalist?

[00:02:42] Anne-Marije Rook: Sure. Yeah. So I was actually, uh, a real journalist before, um, not that second journalist aren't real journalists, but, uh, I did a lot heavier topics, um, you know, worked at newspapers, just straight up outta college, became a newspaper journalist, and then, , uh, at some point, I think I was 22, I started racing bikes myself, and when I did, I, I was looking for content and I realized there wasn't a lot of women's seconding content coming out of the us.

So I started kind of dabbling with that on the side. And, uh, then started riding for some different publications and eventually seconding tips reached out and were like, Let's do something. So we founded Ella Cycling Tips, which was the, the women's side of Cycling Tips. And then, um, yeah, just stayed in the field.

I quit my day job and started doing cycling journalism while still racing, and I've been doing it ever since, going on 10, 11 years now.

[00:03:39] Randall R. Jacobs: and was your educational background in writing in journalism specifically?

[00:03:44] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah, I did, uh, journalism, German and French. So interestingly enough I get to use all of that nowadays

[00:03:51] Randall R. Jacobs: Are you native in any of those other languages?

[00:03:53] Anne-Marije Rook: In Dutch. So I was born and raised in the Nets, the, the biking country, and then, uh, lived in Germany for three years and then ended up in the US uh, when I was almost 16.

[00:04:04] Randall R. Jacobs: That's quite a skill to have, and makes me think of a joke about Americans. What do you call someone who's speaks three languages trilingual, two languages bilingual and one language. We have US Americans.

[00:04:13] Anne-Marije Rook: I think a lot of people actually do, you know, they dabble in Spanish and some other languages. I think, uh, you shouldn't sell yourself so short.

[00:04:22] Randall R. Jacobs: True, maybe I'm projecting a little bit. In my personal case, I studied six years of Spanish in middle school and high school and was able to get by during a month stint in Peru. But, it didn't seem immediately relevant at the time. And so later on in life, I moved to China and learned Mandarin and actually being present and having to use it in day-to-day life just makes such a, a world of difference. And for I think a lot of people who are born in the us and who don't grow up in a household or another, the language is spoken, there's just not. That impetus versus in Europe you have surrounding countries where with different languages or maybe even within one's own country there are different dialects or different languages being spoken.

[00:05:04] Anne-Marije Rook: That's really good though. So you're a trilingual.

[00:05:06] Randall R. Jacobs: I wouldn't go as far as to say trilingual, other than in the sense of trying , a little bit of Spanish and enough, what I call cab driver Cantonese in order to be able to fool somebody that I speak some Cantonese before switching over to Mandarin.

[00:05:21] Anne-Marije Rook: That's, I mean, that's pretty impressive. Those are really difficult languages. I never studied, uh, Cantonese from Mandarin. I, I studied Japanese and just having to learn a whole new way of, of writing, uh, is, is, yeah, it's difficult to do.

[00:05:34] Randall R. Jacobs: that's probably the hardest part. I would say that , Mandarin the scripts for sure. It's a very abstracted pictographic script. To be able to read a newspaper, you need, two, 3000 different characters and to have a higher level of sophistication, you need 5,000, 10,000 characters. And, even a native speaker. , especially in this day and age, we'll have difficulty remembering how to write a character.

Cuz everything is being tight.

[00:06:00] Anne-Marije Rook: Hmm.

[00:06:01] Randall R. Jacobs: But on the other hand the grammar is really simple.

So in English we say, yesterday I went to the store and we have to go and we conjugate it as went, which actually comes from an entirely different language family than to go.

and in Chinese you just say, ah, yesterday, go store.

[00:06:20] Anne-Marije Rook: Ah, yeah.

[00:06:21] Randall R. Jacobs: Yeah. English also has way more synonyms because it's such a hodgepodge amalgamation of other languages, whereas Chinese also has external influences, but it's arguably more insular versus English.

You have Germanic, you have Latin, you have Greek, you have various forms of cockney and so on that are all in there and the occasional Chinese phrases, very little that comes over for Chinese. Uh, one example being longtime nok, which is a direct translation from the Chinese

[00:06:50] Anne-Marije Rook: Really, that's fun.

Here's the thing I I discover with my language skills or lack thereof, is that, um, learning all the bike parts, for example, I had, like, I never learned those in my native tongues. So like suddenly I had to learn like, oh shit, what's the railer or what's, what's the railer hanger in Dutch or in German or whatever.

And it's been fun learning those terms for the first time, even though, yeah, I grew up with that.

[00:07:19] Randall R. Jacobs: that's actually a common phenomenon and one that I definitely resonate in my own experience too. I have friends who were born in China, but largely grew up here or even who came over to go to college. And, they're native speakers. I'm not at that level but I will have terms that I know that they don't because I am in this highly technical context of the bike industry of manufacturing, materials and production processes and so on. Um, and so it's kind of the same, same sort of phenomenon.

[00:07:50] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of a fun thing where I was like, wow, I never learned any of these terms in those languages. Yeah,

[00:07:55] Randall R. Jacobs: So you've been doing cycling journalism for, you said about 10, 11 years now.

[00:08:00] Anne-Marije Rook: yeah, yeah. It's been a minute.

[00:08:02] Randall R. Jacobs: I'm curious to hear more about the project at Cycling tips. How'd you get brought into that and, and how did that come about?

[00:08:09] Anne-Marije Rook: So they, uh, I think they found me on Twitter. Uh, Twitter was really where. , um, women's cycling was, was living for quite a while cuz there was very little streaming and you can watch any of these races live, so you followed them online and Twitter had a really wonderful community of, of women's cycling fans and it still does to a certain extent, but yeah, that's where it used to.

Live and I did a lot of, you know, uh, I would watch races and Life tweet and, you know, uh, was pretty active on, on Twitter and um, was writing for Podium Cafe, which is a nation site at the time, and they were looking to start a women's cycling component. Uh, and so they like reached out to various people and, you know, did a job interview and, you know, got going that way.

[00:08:54] Randall R. Jacobs: And this was when? Who was there at the time? Kaylee and James and,

[00:08:59] Anne-Marije Rook: No, this was before Kaylee. Um, this was, it was just, uh, Matt dif and, and Wade.

[00:09:05] Randall R. Jacobs: Oh, okay.

[00:09:06] Anne-Marije Rook: Um, Andy was there already, and then it was Jesse Braverman and myself who came on to do the women's cycling.

[00:09:12] Randall R. Jacobs: Let's talk about women's cycling for a little bit. what are the areas in women's cycling that you find most interesting, most compelling, and that also you think that are maybe, under discussed underreported.

[00:09:23] Anne-Marije Rook: Oh yeah. The nice thing about women's cycling is that it's been growing so much in the last 10 years or so, so that it's uh, people get to see it a bit more and I think what. , uh, intrigue me about women's second from the get-go is just how aggressive the racing is and how, um, while there was a definite period of like modern force dominating, and then we had and then we have anique.

The nice thing about women's acting, I think is because it has grown so much is that you never really know who's gonna win. and it makes a racing very exciting. Cause it, it, like I said, it is so aggressive cuz the races are shorter, so you have fewer opportunities to make, you know, a break stick. So there tends to be more attacking and, uh, you, you don't really experience that unless you're watching it.

I think the nice thing about. Where we are now, we can actually watch in the Tour de France Femme showed this, like watching women's cycling is actually very entertaining. And you know, in France alone, like millions of people tuned in every single day. So it is, it's different and I think that's, uh, something we should celebrate.

rather than point out like, you know, women's cycling is, is men's cycling, but in shorter distances, and that's not at all true. I think women's cycling is a bit of its own sport in, in terms of tactics and the way the races play out. And, uh, in psycho cross especially, that's been very apparent. You know, people have shorter attention spans.

So if you can sit down for a, you know, a 45, 50 minute bike race, you'll see basically what women's cycling is like on. On a heightened level, and it's extremely entertaining. You don't know who's gonna win. There's a lot of good candidates and, uh, it's, yeah, it's aggressive from the gun.

[00:11:03] Randall R. Jacobs: At least in the us it seems that women's cyclocross racing was most prominent, most early. Mary McConnellogue is one example I remember from my racing days, I don't remember hearing as much reporting about women's road racing at the time.

Maybe that was just what I was tuning into, but cyclocross. I remember getting similar billing to men's cyclocross

[00:11:24] Anne-Marije Rook: yeah, I think the, the heyday of women's cycling really was the 1980s, early nineties. You know, we had the course classic and we had some, some really great names. Um, and. That has dwindled down. There were a lot of lack of races. Uh, we've had some great road racers in the US you know, with, with uh, Christian Armstrong and, uh, e Evelyn Stevens, and we've had some really Mara Abod and the Jro, like some really great road racers.

You just don't hear about 'em as much . I do remember a particular race where I like looked to my right and it was like Kristen Armstrong and I looked to my left and it was Evelyn Stevens and I was like, ah. This is gonna suck today, It's gonna be a fast one.

[00:12:04] Randall R. Jacobs: Let's talk about that, let's talk about you're racing background.

So you mentioned that you got into cycling in your early twenties. How did that come about and what was that like for you?

[00:12:13] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah, so I've, uh, coming from the Netherlands, I've been a bike commuter since I was, I don't know, six. Uh, and so I just like grew up on the bike. It's just how I got around. And in college I just rode everywhere. And there were a couple times where people were like, Hey, you should maybe consider. Racing or, or doing like, you know, grand Fonds or something.

And I was like, ah, this is just my vehicle. And then, uh, I moved to Seattle and did the Seattle, the Portland, which is uh, like a 220 mile bike ride between the two cities. And there were some teams that were doing it. And, uh, you know, again, people were like, have you considered racing? You're pretty strong.

And I'd be like, no. I mean, it's kind of like, Hey, do you like driving? You should do nascar. You know, like it's, it was just such a foreign concept to me. Um, which is funny cuz I grew up in the Netherlands, but like, uh, and my grandpa was super into bike racing, but it wasn't, uh, ever like, exposed to me or con like, wasn't just like, oh, you like riding bikes, you should become a bike race.

It just wasn't a thing. It wasn't really a, a sport I was exposed to, uh, in the northern part of the. . And so I was kind of intrigued and, and I had enjoyed training for the 200 mile event, so I, I went to the, the tryout, so to speak, and start racing and. as a Cat four. And I remember my first race weekend was a double header, so Saturday and Sunday and Saturday I, I think I got eighth and I got, I was like, oh, okay, this is cool.

Top 10. And I was like, I wonder if I can get better. And the next day I got fifth. And, you know, that's, that's all it took for me to get super into it and trying to see where, where I could take it. And, uh, I think I was racing UCI like the next season.

[00:13:54] Randall R. Jacobs: Oh wow.

[00:13:55] Anne-Marije Rook: mostly, uh, or at first in cross and then, uh, road and track as well.

But um, yeah, it's, it's an interesting place to be in, in, in the US in that you can be racing as a pro. And I use pro here very loosely because it's called pro level, but no one's actually getting paid to race their bikes. Like I would never consider myself a pro. Uh, I just raced in the UCI one, two levels and it's kind of weird that we throw it all.

Um, when really, yeah, very few people are actually getting paid to, to race their bikes.

[00:14:29] Randall R. Jacobs: I definitely fall on that boat as well. I think my best season, I didn't quite break even as a, as a Pac fodder Cross Country Pro. Mid pack was pretty good at the national level. And then you have a good regional results here and there.

[00:14:42] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a good season for me, like, I loved crits, so that's where the money was at for me. You know, if I walked away with three grand at the end of the summer, I, I was pretty stoked.

[00:14:51] Randall R. Jacobs: Oh, I never saw that. That sort of money and crits, crits always terrified me. There's a certain attitude that you have to have going into a crit, like a fearlessness that I, I dunno. Mountain biking always felt safer for me.

[00:15:03] Anne-Marije Rook: It is, it is. And I, I quit racing after getting injured too many times. Like you can only hit your head so many times and, you know, if, if I list my, my laundry list of injuries, it's, it's definitely evident that, uh, yeah, quit racing is, is rather dangerous and asphalt is hard. And, you know, trees don't jump out on you.

Where's Razor Smith?

[00:15:23] Randall R. Jacobs: Yep. And pavement is like sandpaper when you're skidding across it in spandex.

[00:15:27] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah. There's not a lot of protection there. Um, but it was all, it was all good fun. And you know, I, I wish I'd gotten into it earlier in my life, but I had a, a lot of fun during my twenties and early thirties.

[00:15:38] Randall R. Jacobs: what'd you love about it?

[00:15:40] Anne-Marije Rook: Uh, I liked the, the challenge of like the, the personal level, like how fit can I be? How strong can I get? Um, and then there's the direct correlation between what you put in that, that you get out, um, and then. Especially with crit racing. I liked, uh, the team tactics. I liked the aggressiveness. Like I was definitely that area that went like super hard on the front, on the first lap, just trying to get as many people off the back and then like would go for pre after, pre, pre and then in the last two laps found that I had no legs left and someone else had to finish it up.

But, um, Yeah, I, I like the aggressiveness. I liked, I, I'm really a team sports person, and I think road racing, uh, doesn't get enough credit for the team sport that it is. And I think, like, personally, not to get on like a, a whole nother side spiel, but in, in

[00:16:27] Randall R. Jacobs: No, let's do it. Let's do it. Go there.

[00:16:29] Anne-Marije Rook: In Olympic racing, like why does only one person get a gold medal?

Like in soccer? The whole team gets a gold medal. And I think, uh, you know, road racing especially is such a steam sport that everyone should be getting a medal. It's only, you know, six or seven medals versus 11. So,

[00:16:47] Randall R. Jacobs: I mean, that's one of the, that's one of the things that's nice about the grand tours. There's lots of ways to win. There's the points, there's the stages, there's the gc, there's the most aggressive rider, so something more subjective. there's all these different ways in which to be acknowledged, but I'm definitely with you.

It would quite a feat to show up at an Olympic level road race. Solo and

[00:17:09] Anne-Marije Rook: went away. Yeah.

[00:17:11] Randall R. Jacobs: Yeah. Yeah. No one to defend you, no one to pull you up. You'd have to be very, very lucky. And also be doing a lot of riding on people's wheels the entire time

[00:17:20] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah. And I think as a racer I enjoyed that. You know, I enjoyed the team aspect. I enjoyed the, the collective effort it took to, to win the race. Sure, one person was the first across the line, but it took all of us to, to get that person there. And like, there's, to me as a, as a racer, there's a few things as as beautiful as, as a well executed, uh, lead out at the end of the race.

You know, like where everyone has a role every. You know, executes it perfectly, like a little team train. Like the, those things don't happen very often on the, on the non, you know, world tour level. And it, it's really, it, it feels amazing as a, as a racer to be part of that.

[00:17:56] Randall R. Jacobs: I've had limited crit racing experience and you note about the intensity of it. There are a few things more intense because not only do you have the, the digging really deep, not just at the end, but every single time a gap opens up or every ti single time there's a break and it's such a short, tight circuit, and a short duration of an event that you really can't let anything open up.

And people can sustain a lot more over 30 minutes to an hour than they can over the course of a four hour road race or a long gravel race . And there are curbs and there are other people and there are bottles and there are people taking shady lines. And that person who just passed you is on a trajectory where there's no way they're gonna be able to come around the corner without hitting the outside curb on the other side.

Especially at the early levels like cat four or cat three, where you have strong riders coming over from other disciplines. and just don't have the chops.

[00:18:50] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah, I did a, I did a, a number of, of races in, in the men's field just to get more, uh, racing my legs. And, you know, the, the groups tend to be bigger but also very varied. You know, I'd be running around the course with like 80 dudes and maybe two women in there and be like, terrified of, of the experience.

And at the same time, like that, getting that chariot effect, like having that many people around you, you're kind of just like, Kind of going with the flow and, and being dragged around the course, which was kind of fun too. But I think it's a pure adrenaline rush and I feel like I'm too old for that now.

trying to hold those kind of efforts. My heart rate doesn't go up that high anymore. I mean, it used to go up pretty easily over 200 and I think now I'd be on the sidelines vomiting if I had 200,

[00:19:33] Randall R. Jacobs: that's almost hummingbird level

[00:19:36] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah, yeah. You know, young and fit. . Yeah, I miss that. I think I miss being that fit. I do not miss having to put in the kind of effort to be that fit.

[00:19:45] Randall R. Jacobs: Well, and more recently you've been doing a lot with gravel. is most of your riding gravel at this point?

[00:19:49] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah. And I've always done gravel, like back when we just called it road bikes off road, you know, there wasn't any special gear just riding 20 threes over gravel and, uh, I've always liked gravel and adventuring. I've always liked being underbid. Um, so I've been doing gravel for a long time and I think, uh, I've definitely, since quitting, uh, racing, I've done mostly off-road.

I think nowadays if I have like two hours to kill, I'll most definitely ride through the forest rather than go on a road ride.

[00:20:19] Randall R. Jacobs: You're based currently in Portland

[00:20:21] Anne-Marije Rook: portland,

[00:20:22] Randall R. Jacobs: yeah. So you have fantastic outdoors right out your door in the Portland area and decent bike infrastructure as well,

at least by, by our US standards.

[00:20:31] Anne-Marije Rook: yeah. I mean, I chose, so I live in a, in a neighborhood called St. John's and I, I chose that specifically cause I go over across the bridge and I'm in the, in Forest Park, which is a, uh, a really big, and I think the long shill, there's 30 miles or so. So it's like, it's a, a really big forested area with gravel roads.

Yeah, I'm, I'm there all the time. Uh, I also really got into mountain biking after I quit racing. So, you know, like all, all Mountain, uh, I used to do mostly XE and definitely been working on my skills and, uh, since quitting. Uh, just it's nice to be away from cars. I think the gist of that.

[00:21:07] Randall R. Jacobs: Yeah, I think that, in addition to the exploratory element of it, is one of the things that led me to transition to primarily gravel riding . And I do think it's a major reason why gravel cycling has taken off in general.

Not only are the bikes really versatile, so if you're only gonna have one bike while you can do all these different things, but then also I remember reading a. Some years ago a university study that was looking at the reasons, that people cite for not riding more. And safety is always number one by.

I think that study was maybe eight or nine years ago, so in a few places the infrastructure has gotten a little bit better, but still not enough.

And the attitudes of drivers. Have gotten better, but , still you get out of a certain zone of safety and you still have people angry at you for being on the road.

[00:21:58] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah, I mean, like as a lifelong commuter, I, I've been hit quite a few times. I got hit twice during the pandemic alone, uh, while riding around town. And so, uh, It is the sa Yeah, I understand. The safety team. The thing a hundred percent, like you don't, uh, wanna take your life in your own hands when you're out riding.

And, uh, it, it's, it's a big problem in the US that the infrastructure is still so lacking. And on one hand you're telling people to, you know, go get on your bike and be more sustainable and healthy. And at the same time, they're not offering a lot of, uh, insurances in terms of, you know, uh, infrastructure and whatnot to, to make that.

[00:22:34] Randall R. Jacobs: Yeah. Now I'm, I'm curious as a journalist, what have been some of the areas that you've found most interesting to report on or that, you know, you've been able to dive into as a consequence of having that credential?

[00:22:46] Anne-Marije Rook: Hmm. Uh, I'm, I always love people. I, I, I like to know what makes them tick. You know, especially those people on, on like the, the very top end of the sport. Like what makes 'em tick? How, how are they able to do this? And at the same time, uh, this year, one of the things I've been really interested in is, um, ebi.

in terms of like the, the regulations around, um, lit I and, uh, batteries and, and the, the fact that there's so many fires and then the legislation around it and wish there is none yet, but that's coming. And so, uh, looking into a bit more of where these bags are coming from and, and what it takes. To control these, these devices a bit more has been very interesting.

And it's not something that gets a lot of rates or gets clicks and whatnot, but it's something I find very interesting cuz it'll have a lot of, uh, repercussions I think in, in the next couple years as to which eBags are on the market, which products you can and cannot buy. And, uh, hopefully the safety of it all.

[00:23:50] Randall R. Jacobs: What are some of the things that you've uncovered in that exploration?

[00:23:54] Anne-Marije Rook: Well, the fact that there is absolutely, at the moment no legislation whatsoever, uh, for the consumer. So you can buy whatever you can find on the internet, and there's, there's no guarantee that it's not gonna set your house on fire. There's no safety around it, and that's, that's changing right now. New York City is currently, uh, considering banning the sale of secondhand or, uh, like.

Uh, tested products, which would have massive repercussions cuz there's like 65,000 delivery workers in, uh, New York City alone. And these people are mostly relying on e-bikes to do their jobs, right? It's their livelihood. And so the moment you, you control these products, uh, it'll have a financial impact on these people as well.

Well, third party testing and safety device. It costs more on the, on the manufacturers and therefore it'll have a higher price tag, price tag for the consumer as well. Um, but at the same time, you know, they ha are also dealing with 200 fires already this year. Um, specifically

[00:24:56] Randall R. Jacobs: just the city of New York.

[00:24:58] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah, just the city of New York relating to um, e mobility devices like E-Bikes, ESCOs, hoverboards, e Unicycles, that kind of stuff, which is a lot, you know, that's a lot for one city, specifically around these mobility devices.

[00:25:12] Randall R. Jacobs: Sure, especially when you have such immense density. So a fire in New York City is not a standalone house that's oftentimes a building with dozens of families and a lot of people get displaced.

[00:25:24] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah. Luckily they've, they've only, I should say that in, in quotation marks, they've had six fatalities and, and over 130, uh, injuries related to those fires. So, relatively speaking, that's not a high number, but it's, it's something that could be prevented with proper legislation. So I think for me, what's interesting is just like, The, the, the concept was that you can just import products that don't get tested and, you know, people will buy 'em because it's popular and it's, it's, uh, affordable and, and there's a reason, you know, items cost as much as, as they do and, you know, as, as someone who, uh, creates consumer goods.

So, yeah. Anyway, that's, that's a long wind winded way of saying that's been a very interesting, uh, passion project of mine.

[00:26:07] Randall R. Jacobs: well, on that particular topic, I know that there's, there's also kind of a cultural backlash against, say, in New York City, these e-bike, service providers out doing deliveries and if you look at who it is that is taking on those jobs, generally immigrant, , generally it's the first opportunity that they have in order to survive and make a living, getting a foundation here.

So it's not as easy as simply, we're gonna band all these things , it's some, it's somebody's livelihood.

[00:26:35] Anne-Marije Rook: And like as you said, it's a, it's a culture issue. It's a class issue. It's, it's not, not as simple as like, well, these items are unsafe, so we'll just ban them.

[00:26:45] Randall R. Jacobs: And that, kind of speaks to, broader issues , that we could talk about in the bike space. Like we have this concept of a sidewalk bicycle, a more pejorative way of saying it would be a, bicycle shaped object. So these are, bikes that are generally built to a very low standard, generally sold through non, specialty retail , poorly assembled, and even if they were well assembled generally of parts that are of questionable quality.

So poor breaking things like this, and they aren't required to. Hold up to the same standards as a bicycle that you buy at a bike shop that is designated for commuter use or other sorts of use. And, in the more premium end of the spectrum, which for a lot of people who aren't cyclists, would be any bike that's more than three, $400.

There's detailed, is. International standards organization criteria for testing that. But that's another example of the same thing where, well, you could require that all bikes be built to a certain standard, but then new bikes would be inaccessible to lower income demographics.

Though frankly, I think another outcome of that would probably be that you see more refurbishing of better quality. older used bikes and so that could be a net positive, especially given that they're likely to hold up a lot better.

[00:28:01] Anne-Marije Rook: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:01] Randall R. Jacobs: So, so that's another area

[00:28:03] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah, I mean to that, like, I could ask that a lot and, and we've, we're about to enter another recession. Um, it's, it's apparent in another country already and, and we're headed that way as well. And, and so a big topic becomes budget bikes, like how much do you spend on a bike and new bikes that are. of a certain budget , I always tell people, go, go shop for a, a used bike and, and refurbish it. You're, you're better off than a cheap brand new bike. And there, I think for a long time there was this, this rather like attitude towards buying secondhand. , uh, products, especially, you know, around carbon bikes, like people were worried that they were broken or cracked, and I think there's a huge misconception around carbon, specifically in, in terms of the strength and like a carbon bike, if it doesn't, if it's not cracked, will last you an entire lifetime.

Like, they don't deteriorate. Like, you know, metals will cor. And the restin in carbon doesn't necessarily break apart. Like if maintained well, a carbon bike will last you a lifetime, the end, right? You sure it breaks and you have to maybe get it checked over by, uh, an expert. But I think, uh, now that we have been in this carbon age for a bit longer, there's, there's nothing wrong with a used carbon bike

[00:29:23] Randall R. Jacobs: I think that that is often true. There's a couple of challenges there though, with a metal bike, if there's something wrong with it, you generally see it unless it's cracking. Uh, and, and even a crack, you'd be able to see, but you'd be able to see that with a carbon bike too.

But what you wouldn't be able to see is an impact that causes delamination in a tube but doesn't result in visual cracking or damage. The construction has gotten much, much better, so they are vastly more reliable, but there's been this push for, as light as possible, which means there's not a lot of buffer and there's a lot of higher modus carbons that are not as impact resistant. So I agree with you that the concerns are overblown. but at the same time, actually this is something that, was talking to, Kaylee Fretz about when he was on not too long ago.

The merits of metal bikes, and I think that. Especially on the more economical end of the spectrum, it would be great to see more, steel bikes.

[00:30:19] Anne-Marije Rook: Oh, for sure. I love, I I myself, steel roadie. I, I think I would love to have a titanium bike for sure. Um, I just think that from a sustainability point of view, for the last, I don't know, 10, 15 years, we've been cranking out one carbon bike after another and they're not being recycled, uh, because. Well, you can, but it's very, very cost prohibit, pro prohibitive to, um, try to get around the re resin and recycle that carbon.

And so I think I would rather see some of these older frames be picked up and, and reuse in one way or another. Um, you know, slap a new group set on and it's a good bike. I'm also. , um, privilege in that. In Portland, we have a great company called Ruckus Composites, and they for, for fee, but it's not a significant fee.

They will scan your carbon frame to make sure there aren't any, uh, cracks or whatever that, that you can't see, um, simply with your eyeballs.

[00:31:17] Randall R. Jacobs: That's a great service and one that if anyone has access to, especially if they're buying secondhand or if they've crashed, absolutely worth it., the cost of not doing it is, potentially nothing or potentially catastrophic

[00:31:29] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah. Yeah. And I think I'm, I'm more worried about people buying these really cheaply made. Carbon bikes cuz they're like, it's carbon and it'll be good. And I'm like, there is such a thing as bad carbon and uh, budget bikes that just, um, yeah, they, they don't stand the test of time. Whereas good carbon bikes will, like I said, last your lifetime, uh, obviously.

You know, metal is, is, this is the safer bet. But, um, yeah, we, we just have so many carbon frames out there right now, and I just don't, don't see them being used, uh, ending up in landfill. I don't know. I think that's one of the things that if I could ask the industry to do anything, it's to be a bit more, uh, sustainable in, in what they crank out and, and looking for the opportunities to recycle some of the products that they create.

[00:32:14] Randall R. Jacobs: There is talk about this within the industry. Craig was at the people for Bike Summit and there was a lot of talk around sustainability. It may have been more around packaging and the like, being discussed there. some of this is, the facilities haven't existed.

So carbon recycling, for example, you need specialized facilities. fortunately there's new, ways in which recycled carbon can be utilized cuz it is a degraded material, right? So you're not going to get the long pure fibers that you're getting purely homogenous, resin with and so on.

So you need to be able to create forged carbon components and the like, and you're starting to see that, um, That whole recycling infrastructure, like all recycling infrastructure, for the most part in this country, is not keeping up with the sheer amount of stuff that we're creating and discarding.

[00:33:04] Anne-Marije Rook: No, absolutely not. And uh, I think especially after. You know, uh, right before, um, gravel got real big, I think the industry was just sitting on, on thousands of, of car, like mid-level carbon bikes with, with 10 speed group sets. And luckily in some ways, luckily the, um, pandemic created, um, this, this delay in, in, in the.

Um, in, in getting new components. And I think that that forced people to go back and be like, can we use this nine or 10 speed group set? And there's an interesting amount of, of nine and seven speed groups that's on the market right now that just like got picked up cuz they were laying around. And uh, you see those especially in, in, uh, super adventure bikes or e-bikes where they use older group sets.

And I think it's great cuz we, we need to use the, the things that we've produced.

[00:33:55] Randall R. Jacobs: you've been following some of the supply chain changes.

[00:33:59] Anne-Marije Rook: of course. Yeah. I mean, that's been the story for the last few years for the industry and, uh, it, it is a struggle. I, I can't imagine being one of those businesses that, that relies on. Uh, you know, uh, pretty much anything at the moment. But, uh, seeing, see, I think it's, it's really fun to see some innovations happening around, um, using the stuff that we already have.

And, uh, there's a lot of, you know, maybe I'm just a super bike nerd, but a lot of different ways you can get more gears out of a you a seven speed trailer or like, you know, using micro shift and, and using all the different. uh, like innovative, uh, little handy tools out there to, to make what's old, new.

[00:34:44] Randall R. Jacobs: Yeah, a hundred percent with you there. And some of the organizations that we've sought to support, as a company have been around taking old bikes and making them new again.

[00:34:53] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah. And down to sh shifters, I've been seeing a lot of those and, and just like old friction shifters being used again, which I thought was very fun because, uh, it's a cheap way to build an adventure bike. You know, you just go with, with, uh, , straight up brake levers, no shifting in the, in, in your handlebars, which leaves more room for bags and whatever else.

And then, um, little bar end shifters or shifters, which never thought I'd see those come back again.

[00:35:18] Randall R. Jacobs: Yeah, also provides a lot more options in terms of what you can spec, because there's really only three major players in that space currently. STR and Shao being the dominant two.

[00:35:28] Anne-Marije Rook: What, uh, what's the coolest thing you've seen done with a, with a thesis?

[00:35:32] Randall R. Jacobs: We did have a rider do this really stunning, metallic flake paint job With a painter out of the Boulder, Denver area. So those sorts of customizations have been neat otherwise. we have a lot of people who've done extended bike packing trips.

We have a channel in an online community that we help to set up which is dedicated to bike packing. So there've been whole reports on people's setups, and that's been really cool to see. One. Has become normal at this point. But I think that we were relatively early with was dropper posts.

So had a dropper post in second wheel sets. So had a hypothesis early on, that people would have a single bike for a lot of things and about 50% of people got two wheel sets and pushing 90% of our riders have gotten dropper posts.

[00:36:22] Anne-Marije Rook: Really? That's, that's a, surprises me. That's a, a large percentage of people. Um, do they actually use 'em? Like, do they get shredding enough to where you need a, a drop or post?

[00:36:33] Randall R. Jacobs: I've seen several examples of folks that have either discarded the dropper or who were really concerned about weight, and so you're trying to figure out how to swap it easily. But in general, like the typical response was, yeah, game changer. And, from, me personally, especially living in the Bay Area where there's so much fast and steep road descending, I'd used it all the time. The argument that I make is it adds say three quarters of a.

[00:37:00] Anne-Marije Rook: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:02] Randall R. Jacobs: one, you're, you're faster and more confident, less likely to crash in all of those technical or high speed sorts of situations. But then also, to be able to scoot your butt off the back of the saddle, you need to often compromise your satellite a little bit. . And so that means that you're no longer setting up your bike for pure comfort, pure efficiency, pure performance.

And so that three quarters of a pound, I'm 165, so I'm probably pushing, let's say, round up to 200 pounds with gear and so on. Three quarters of a pound is as a percentage, less than half a percent. So am I getting half a percent more efficient, on a climb because I'm in the right position? I think that that's pretty plausible.

Never. The rest of the time. So that, that's my pitch for droppers. I know that not everyone is sold on them, but I, I think that it's, uh, it is the thing that makes a bike that is otherwise really good on flat and smooth train, something that you can get really rowdy with.

[00:38:00] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah, I mean, I like to get rowdy on, on gravel bikes very much. It's, it's kind of like my, my favorite thing to do is see how far I can take it, uh, to the end I will say, uh, you know, I've, I've come around, I mentioned this to you in email, but I've come around on six 50 bees finally. That took me a long time, uh, to get, but having that actual rubber does, does allow me to get, uh, a little bit more rowdy than, than on 700.

[00:38:27] Randall R. Jacobs: Yeah. And I, I had shared some thinking about why that might have been, but I'm curious, what did you find different and hard to adjust to switching from 700 to six 50?

[00:38:36] Anne-Marije Rook: Uh, I think initially it was like, oh, this feels slow, and, um, You know, given my background, I, I, I liked really quick and, and fast responses and lively rides, and it felt like it did the opposite. Like it became a bit more, more twitchy, which makes for a bit more engaging. Right? But it just felt a little slower.

Um, and it just, the handling was different than what I was used to on 700 seats, which also had to do with the, the tire width that was running, you know, going from, uh, 700 by. F maybe 40 to, you know, six 50 to 47. That's a huge difference in terms of like your, your rolling surface that you have and, and how that feels around the corners.

Um, but then it got real rainy and muddy and I was riding the, this, this rather, uh, you know, Rudy Mound, bikey terrain. And that's when I noticed the difference of like, oh yeah, this really allows me to stay planted a bit better and, and, uh, maneuver these roots. . Um, I also like it, it started off like, oh, I understand this form, like a technical point of view.

And then for comfort, it is really darn comfortable to just like crank out the miles on on more rubber. And it just, yeah, it's cushy and uh, I can see now why, you know, randomers and such opt for that, that tire size. But it took me a while. I, I will say maybe I'm just old school, but um, I finally got around to it.

[00:40:01] Randall R. Jacobs: I can definitely relate to , at least the sensation of it, potentially feeling a little bit slower rolling. And there's definitely circumstances and this is, , Casing dependent as well, where, you know it very well may be, but at the same time, remember the first time you gave up 20 threes and put on 20 fives or 20 eights or thirties and how different that felt.

And it's like, I'm not getting all of that, that road. It just feels slow all of a sudden. But, , data said otherwise, but I mean, six 50 s have their place. There's a reason why a lot of racers in certain types of events run 700 by, I mean, in the case of Belgian waffle Ride in San Diego, I think people are running like 32 slicks,

[00:40:44] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that makes sense, right? Like it's if when you have that much, uh, ground to cover and, uh, a fair bit of road in that as well, I believe, um, you would opt for that. But yeah, I've, I've come around. I'm a hundred percent a six 50 B believer. Now I do think you need two wheel sets. Um, for different, different occasions.

But yeah, it was, it was a fun experiment for me. This, uh, this fall.

[00:41:10] Randall R. Jacobs: When you say two wheel sets, you mean 2 6 50 wheel sets or, or one seven hundred and one six fifty.

[00:41:15] Anne-Marije Rook: The latter. Yeah. 1 700, 1 6 50. Yeah. There's definitely days that, you know, if I know I'm gonna go long, I, I just feel like I'm. covering more ground then, then I'll do that on a, a 700. But yeah, for my, my most, like my lunch rides, that's up in, in, in the trails, that's definitely six 50 now.

[00:41:34] Randall R. Jacobs: So what else have you found surprising or delightful in terms of products or insight into the sport or, experiences you've had of late.

[00:41:43] Anne-Marije Rook: Uh, well, sticking with gravel, I think we're starting to see a, a really broad spectrum. of bikes that are either super capable, have suspension, you know, there's an increasing amount of bikes and suspension. And then on the other side, the ones that are, are really going for speed. , um, where you basically have a road bike, um, that's, that's slightly more capable, you know, so like if you wanna go with specialized, you've got the, the new s C r with the sus, the rear end suspension and front end suspension versus the crux, which is, uh, you know, a very capable cyros bike basically, and feathery light.

And I think we're seeing more of that divide happening, which is pretty quick given that gravel as a category hasn't been around for all that long. Um, and it's, it. I think it's a very interesting development just to see what people are gonna go for and how much we're we're differentiating between gravel racing and gravel adventuring and bike packing.

And like the difference now, like you can't just say gravel anymore. You have to specify whether you're talking about gravel racing or, or adventuring. Cuz those are two very different. Sides of the industry now, which is, it's interesting and it's really fun to watch. Um, and I, I think personally, I like the adventure side from a tech nerdiness a bit more because we know what a fast road bike look like and what it can do, but like, how capable can you make, um, a drop bar bike and how, like watching people bring back rigid mountain bikes and, and just like drawing on, on, uh, old technology and, and, and seeing things.

Redshift and connect with their suspension posts that, you know, remind me of Soft Ride and like it is just from a tech point of view, it's, it's, it's an interesting development and really fun to watch.

[00:43:27] Randall R. Jacobs: It's kind of like, um fashion in, in a way, like what's old is new. I mean, it's definitely radically better with, composites and wide and tubeless and disc brakes, in particular. But in a lot of ways we're riding the original mountain bikes again.

[00:43:42] Anne-Marije Rook: We totally are, we're just writing, you know, those, those spring loaded , what were they? Canadas the ones with the, the head tube springs.

[00:43:51] Randall R. Jacobs: Oh, the head shock.

[00:43:52] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah. Yeah. , which I mean future shock is that, you know, connect and Redshift is basically a soft ride. It's just everything is, is new again. And it's really fun to watch.

And I think what I geek out a lot more is just seeing what people are coming up with in their own shops and how people perhaps are learning for the first time to be a bit more hands-on and, and, uh, mechanical and. Exploring with their own setups. I mean, how many people don't know how to fix their own tire?

Uh, and I think nowadays watching them experiment and building super machines, it's, it's just really fun.

[00:44:27] Randall R. Jacobs: So given that we're kind of coming to the end of the., favorite products of 2022 and then in a general sense, products, racing. Otherwise. What are you most excited about in the new year?

[00:44:39] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah, so my favorite products, uh, some of 'em are things that I bought myself or own, like, uh, my Brompton was one I found on Craigslist, which is super random, but I. I wanted something to travel with, um, that's compact and wouldn't require me having an extra bag or anything like that. And, uh, my Bronson and I have been to the Tour de France fem together.

We've been to the Netherlands, to London, to the Sac Cross World Championships. So that bike goes with me everywhere, which was a really fun, uh, crux purchase that I didn't need, but has given me a lot of joy.

[00:45:13] Randall R. Jacobs: Are you doing a lot of long rides on that, or is it more getting around and being able to get that 20 miler in?

[00:45:18] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah. Yeah. Getting around the, it's not , it's not very comfortable. Talk about like slow rolling, tiny. Like try, try 16 inch wheels, like no. Uh, but

[00:45:28] Randall R. Jacobs: seen dispatches from people doing extended tours on a Bronson, which I've always found super impressive.

[00:45:34] Anne-Marije Rook: I mean, good on them. I like, I, I, I applaud them. I, I don't, I don't enjoy that very much. Um, but it's been a great bike to travel with and, and it's just a really silly, really fun purchase. Um, I also got a ultra cleaner for the first. Which is great for, uh, you know, the position northwest is really wet, really muddy.

Um, our, our gear gets just absolutely destroyed and so keeping it clean, uh, extends the, the lifetime of, of your components. And uh, that's really been a fun way to, um, get like that super shiny clean drive train.

[00:46:14] Randall R. Jacobs: mm-hmm.

[00:46:15] Anne-Marije Rook: Uh, and that was just a birthday present, so it's not something that was sent to me to review.

Um, and then the best shoes I had were to live, uh, much shoes. Um, they are bright purple. Uh, they look great. Everyone is always asking me about 'em, and I keep asking them to make 'em into a gravel shoe because I don't spend enough time on my road back anymore to wear them. Um, go ahead.

[00:46:42] Randall R. Jacobs: Do you love them for their styling or some other

[00:46:44] Anne-Marije Rook: No, they're, they're, they're a pure race shoe, like you're locked in.

They're some of the stiffest shoes I've ever worn, but they also are an absolute head turner.

[00:46:52] Randall R. Jacobs: Yeah.

[00:46:53] Anne-Marije Rook: so it's a two for one package. Um, and, and the gravel side of things, uh, the SW RS tires were super impressive. Um, they're so fast and, uh, I've yet to flat them, which is pretty incredible given a, my, my history and B uh, just how much I've written.

[00:47:11] Randall R. Jacobs: What size are you running them in?

[00:47:13] Anne-Marije Rook: I have, uh, 40 twos, I think is when I was running last, and I, I mean, I took 'em with me traveling. Like I, I did the, uh, Finland gravel and I did not know what I was getting myself into. And, and so getting a file, like bringing a file thread, Racy Tire is a bit of a risk. Um, but they did really well and, uh, they're probably the best tires I've had in no while.

And I'd say in general, the market, it has gotten so much better. Like the, it's so easy to set up two plus tires now, whereas like even two years ago I, it was quite struggle sometimes getting those seated in your, in your garage. Yeah.

[00:47:52] Randall R. Jacobs: Yeah, absolutely. Though I, I will say, um, and this is a hobby horse I often jump on, um, you know, road, road, tubeless hook, less road tubeless scares me,

[00:48:04] Anne-Marije Rook: I tried to, I, I got a few to review this year and I, I tried to see if I could make them explode, but I think I reached my, like, comfort level far before, or the end of my comfort level far before the tires did. So there's that.

[00:48:18] Randall R. Jacobs: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and then going into 2023 and this doesn't have to be gear, it can be events, it can be, personal adventures. What are you excited about coming into the new year?

[00:48:29] Anne-Marije Rook: Uh, yeah, I'm gonna go even more into gravel and attending some more gravel events. So I'm very excited to return to Unbound and to do s p d Gravel. There's talk about, uh, me and a colleague of mine setting an F K T. So there's some really fun challenges and, um, since stepping away from racing and, uh, you know, getting married, buying a house, I've definitely spent less time on.

On the bike as I would like. So getting something to train for, for me personally, is, is uh, it's kind of exciting to get back to it.

[00:49:01] Randall R. Jacobs: By the way, congratulations on those milestones.

[00:49:04] Anne-Marije Rook: thanks. It was an exciting two years of the pandemic. Yeah.

[00:49:07] Randall R. Jacobs: Yeah. Um, well, alright, um, so where can people find you on Twitter? Uh, you're at cycling weekly. How do, how do people get ahold of you or see what you're, what you're writing about?

[00:49:18] Anne-Marije Rook: Yeah, definitely on second weekly.com and then on social media Am Rook is my handle across every platform, including the ones that are popping up now that Twitter is taking a t.

[00:49:29] Randall R. Jacobs: All right. Well, Anne-Marie, it's a pleasure to finally sit down and properly chat and very much looking forward to seeing you at Sea Otter and other industry events now that that's a thing again, and we can be out in the wild seeing each other.

[00:49:41] Anne-Marije Rook: That's right.

[00:49:42] Randall R. Jacobs: All right.

[00:49:43] Anne-Marije Rook: for having me.

[00:49:44] Craig Dalton: That's going to do it for this week's edition of the gravel ride podcast. Big, thanks to Anne Mariah. For having that conversation with Randall, I hope you guys learned a lot and I hope you do follow her on Twitter and follow her work as north American editor at cycling weekly. Huge. Thanks to our friends at athletic greens. Remember head on over to athletic greens.com/the gravel ride to check out ag one.

One today. If you're interested in connecting with me or Randall, I encourage you to join the ridership. That's www.theridership.com. If you're able to support the podcast, you can visit buy me a coffee.com/the gravel ride. Or ratings and reviews are hugely important. In us connecting with other gravel athletes from around the world.

Until next time. I hope you're well. And here's to finding some dirt under your wheels.

This week we sit down with yet another friend of the pod, Michelle Duffy from Life Time. We catch up on the upcoming kickoff for the 2023 Life Time Grand Prix and some of the changes in store for athletes and fans.

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[00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport

I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist.

This week on the show, I'm excited to welcome back Michelle Duffy from lifetime to talk about the lifetime grand Prix for 2023. I know this show. Isn't all about racing, but I'm a fan of the sport. I love riding. I love participating in my own way at the back of the pack. But also like following the front of the pack. And I found that the lifetime grand Prix added a lot of fun

to my 2022 fandom. As I was able to follow the battles throughout the year. And even after the season, I was able to relive some of those moments through a YouTube series that lifetime published about the grand Prix that allowed us to get behind the scenes with some of the athletes and see some of the personalities and some of the action and drama we might not have seen.

As a casual fan, the lifetime grand Prix is back for 2023. They've made some tweaks to the number of events you can now drop to events. So I wanted to have Michelle back at the beginning of the season to just talk about some of those changes. To reflect on the action from 2022 and just generally catch up. Michelle puts a lot of energy into the gravel cycling community, and I'm always happy to highlight those efforts.

Before we jump in, I do need to thank this week. Sponsor athletic greens.

Athletic greens and AIG. One is a comprehensive daily nutrition made from simple, powerful ingredients. It's made up of 75 high quality, whole food sourced ingredients. Carefully curated to nourish all the body's systems holistically. As many of you know, I've been an athletic greens user for many, many years, predating the podcast. So I've been super stoked that athletic greens has been a big partner for what I do

The key to ag one is that it replaces key health products in one simple scoop. AIG one combines nine health products working together as one, replacing your multivitamin. Multimineral. Pre and probiotics. Immunity support and more, that means ag one does more for your body and saves you time, money and confusion compared to taking multiple unique products.

And that is a hundred percent key for me. I do one scoop in the morning, mixed up with a little bit of ice, and I feel like I've got some of my nutritional basis started before I've even begun the day.

If you're interested in learning more about athletic greens, go to www.athleticgreens.com/the gravel ride.

For podcast listeners, our friends at athletic greens have given us a free year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs. If you ordered today. Simply visit athletic greens.com/the gravel ride to get your age. The one on the way today.

With that said let's dive right into my conversation with Michelle Duffy.

[00:03:23] Craig Dalton: Hey Michelle, welcome back to the show.

[00:03:25] Michelle Duffy: Thank you for having me back.

[00:03:27] Craig Dalton: It's good to see you. I was looking back in my notes and it looks like it was just, just a little less than a year ago. We sat down at Sea Otter, which was the first event of the inaugural lifetime Grand Prix.

[00:03:40] Michelle Duffy: Yes. It's crazy to think it's almost the otter time again.

[00:03:44] Craig Dalton: I know I've been getting the emails and I'm like, gosh, I gotta get my stuff together, and it's exciting to have it kick off.

[00:03:51] Michelle Duffy: Oh yeah. It's like the kickoff of everyone's cycling year. I feel like.

[00:03:56] Craig Dalton: And such a big one at that with all the, the expo activity and the so many different forms of racing going on, it literally does cover like every discipline of cycling. I feel like.

[00:04:07] Michelle Duffy: I, yeah, that's what's so special, like from the industry perspective, mountain biking, road gravelly, everyone's together. Um, so I'm really looking forward to getting back to Monterey.

[00:04:17] Craig Dalton: Yeah, for sure. I thought it would be a good opportunity to just sit down with you again and reflect back on that inaugural season of the Lifetime Grand Prix. Such a interesting series to kind of infuse into the gravel world, and I'm sure you learned a lot along the way. I just wanted to sort of get your basic reflections of the season.

Maybe some of the key moments that you'd highlight.

[00:04:42] Michelle Duffy: Yeah, definitely. And I'm, I'm excited that sometime has passed too. We, we definitely reflected immediately after and during. Um, but now that sometimes passed and we're heading into the new year, it feels. There's been more time to sit back and think about, you know, both constructively, what we would've changed, but also celebrate our wins, which is often hard at times, um, because you're always looking for ways to be better.

But, uh, enough times pass that. I think we have a clearer vision of what went right and wrong and

[00:05:15] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah, and I know, I know from hearing from some of the athletes that you guys were collecting feedback along the way, which was great as well. I know you went into this whole process really talking to athletes, getting a lot of feedback. It was difficult to make a series that was gonna make everybody happy, whether it was the events or the points or what have you.

But it seems like in evidence from talking to athletes, you guys really went out there and just asked questions and got feedback along the way, which is great.

[00:05:49] Michelle Duffy: Yeah. I think in the ideation phase it was easier for us to speak to those athletes that are, you know, in our networks, right? Like, Preexisting relationships. Um, but that doesn't necessarily cover all of the participants that were in the Lifetime Grand Prix. So it was important for us at just over the halfway point, we collected feedback and then, um, at the end of the season, both face to face and through email and phone call, have had many a conversation with athletes and brands and, um, just trying to understand needs.

But at the end of the day, we have. I mean, 75 to 80% of last year's field is back with us this year. So while there were definitely areas for us to, to work through, I also feel like that that's a win. Right. Um, having so many of our inaugural class back.

[00:06:42] Craig Dalton: just to set the stage a little bit, so last year's series was 30 men and 30 women. in the series. The series was, and correct me if I'm wrong here, six events with the option to drop one score.

[00:06:57] Michelle Duffy: That's right. Yes.

[00:06:59] Craig Dalton: Okay. So looking back at 2022, what were some of the biggest surprises that you found throughout the year?

[00:07:07] Michelle Duffy: Um, I think some of the, the major surprises were just the nuances that go into building a series like this. Um, , you know, these events were preexisting for us. So in terms of operationally executing the series, um, that, that comes second nature to the team. But all of the other nuance that comes with building a series, especially one that kind of grew to be, I mean, I don't wanna use, you know, too premium of a word choice here, but, that did become kind of this revered thing in, in North America in just a year.

Um, there were many a time where we had internal conversations and we're like, okay, what are we building? Like, what can, what can the lifetime Grand Prix be if we, um, focus and invest in this properly? And not just financially invest, but. , you know, that gathering the insights, investing the resources and time, um, to really lay the groundwork to build something that can be huge for American cycling five, seven years down the road.

And I think that was the biggest surprise, just like how much it took off and continued. Uh, think we're still seeing like new. New, um, comers to the series through some of the content that we've created and like the momentum there. Um, but then also just the, the nuance that became a, a bit intimidating at times.

[00:08:44] Craig Dalton: when, when you think about sort of the goals you set out for, uh, for the Grand Prix last year. Were you guys successful in achieving them and what were they? Are you looking to kind of, I know you're looking obviously to foster the growth of off-road cycling in the United States. You're presumably also looking to continue to grow the, the Lifetime brand and those specific lifetime events.

Has it had that type of net effect?

[00:09:11] Michelle Duffy: I think so. Well, no, I, I, I do believe, yes, it has, um, our primary goal with the Lifetime Grand Prix is to create fans. I, I mean, most simply put the word we use internally as fandom, but to regenerate the interest from not. Professional cycling enthusiasts, but people who ride a bike to care about what's going on at the, the front of the pack.

And like, why, you know, why does, why should the journey person care? Um, I think it creating fans creates more professionalism around a sport. And, you know, more professionalism inspires youth to wanna ride a bike, be like x to be like Keegan Swenson or Hailey Smith. And. . If we can create that, if we can create more fans of the sport from a particip participatory perspective and then also inspire more youth to want to stay on a bike, then we're inadvertently fostering the growth of the sport of cycling from a mass participation perspective as well.

Um, and do I think we accomplished that? I think yes, but I think it's a long-term commitment to truly, uh, be able to make change. We did, and I think Keegan says this in the docu-series, like there is maybe in the last few minutes of the big sugar episode, people came up to him who previously didn't know who he was, and they.

he inspired them to get on a bike or they became a fan of him through the Lifetime Grand Prix. And that's, that's what we're trying to create, um, this like symbiotic relationship between math participant and elite athlete coming together in one place, a shared goal. Um, and then with the Doerries, which I'm sure.

Get into at some point. But we did create this six episode docu-series that lives on YouTube. By YouTube because there's no barrier of entry because to create fans, you need to eliminate barriers. Um, that audience has, has grown. We're up and over 350,000 views across the series right now. And, you know, we don't have 350,000 participants at our events.

Right? So they're coming from else.

[00:11:28] Craig Dalton: Yeah. That's amazing. I mean, I think going back for a minute, definitely the structure of the season allowed fans to. , like look forward to something. I think prior to the existence of this type of series, you might see someone do well at Unbound and then totally lose them for the rest of the year. So this was a really nice way as a fan to kind of just start to get familiar with the names and have something to look forward to for that next event in the series.

And definitely for me, like it did accumulate over the course of the year so that everything got more interesting. Post crusher in the tusher to figure out, well, who could possibly win this entire series, and, uh, particularly on the women's side. It was just really exciting throughout the entire year.

[00:12:18] Michelle Duffy: Um, yeah. And, and while Keegan rode away with it for a first, for the men's side, there was also a really tight, um, tight field there going on leading into big sugar. So both for the women's and men's, um, overalls there a lot was riding on that last event, which made it really interesting to follow through the whole.

[00:12:40] Craig Dalton: Yeah, and I think what was interesting with only one potential, um, event to drop at the onset, when I heard that, that seemed totally reasonable. But when you saw injuries and illness come into play and people being forced to drop races early in the season, it really did become, uh, pretty onerous for them to make sure that they did well at every remaining event.

[00:13:04] Michelle Duffy: Absolutely. And that, that did, um, come into play when leading into 2023 and some adjustments we've made.

[00:13:11] Craig Dalton: Yeah, and we can get into that. Since you did mention the, the Call of a Lifetime series, which was super well produced. I mean, just speaking from my own perspective, I very much enjoyed watching it, and I encourage everybody to do so on YouTube because you did get a glimpse at some of the interpersonal relationships of the riders, some of the.

Rivalries that exist out there, and just general insight into the personalities. I know originally at the beginning of last year, um, you were working with flow bikes. I'm trying to do some live coverage. Had the call of the Wild Series also been in the works for the entire year or was that something that happened in lieu of flow?

Not really being able to get into the action as you had hoped.

[00:13:54] Michelle Duffy: We were focused on both initiatives. So we contracted Shannon with cold collaborative, uh, prior to Sea Otter, and he was out there recording already. Um, actually, , that was our primary focus, and then later in the conversation flow came in and um, we were excited to be able to provide both opportunities. Um, obviously that didn't pan out all year, uh, but the cold collaborative and Call of a Lifetime series was always in the works.

[00:14:24] Craig Dalton: Got it. It must have been pretty challenging that for them to kind of figure out which athletes to focus on. Were they, were they filming across the board with numerous athletes and we only ended up to getting to see a couple storylines just given the amount of time they had for the episodes.

[00:14:40] Michelle Duffy: Um, I think this was a, a challenge and a learning, but can't, I mean, there's no way that we can really storyline across. 60, 70 athletes. So we'll take a, a slightly different approach this year into to mining those stories. But we pretty much got to meet everyone that spent time on camera. Um, the cold collaborative team, we, we trusted, we trust them and, um, put.

Them in a position where they had creative freedom because they are so amazing at what they do. And so they did mine a lot of the stories and really there's a lot of focus, of course, on the front of pac because it was a more consolidated story for us to be able to tell. Um, some adjustments we're looking for towards next year is like, uh, widening that net and ensuring that we're telling the stories of not just those in the top five with the preexisting platform, but you know, mirroring the.

Fully supported professional athlete with the young rider that's still in college because That's interesting for people too.

[00:15:48] Craig Dalton: Yeah, for sure. I mean, across all those athletes, I'm sure there's, last year there was 30 great female stories, 30 great male stories that could have been told,

[00:15:57] Michelle Duffy: Exactly.

[00:15:59] Craig Dalton: but that's awesome. And it sounds like that project is gonna continue through this year.

[00:16:04] Michelle Duffy: Yep, we're, we're finalizing exactly what our content plan looks like and hopefully we can go out with that soon. You know, we, something that was hard for us all years. We were investing all of this time, effort. Energy finances into producing Call of a Lifetime. But there was no product really to show for it until, you know, the end of end of 2022, beginning of 2023.

Um, but this year, now that we've set the, the groundwork, we'll be able to go out with what our, what our plans are. And we are working right now with Shannon on developing something really cool for

[00:16:39] Craig Dalton: Yeah, I think that's, there's an interesting opportunity there. Cause I had, I sort of totally forgot frankly, about like the possibility of a video series and then when you announced it earlier this year, I was super enthusiastic to watch it. But, I would've probably liked to have seen snippets from other athletes earlier in the year, even if it's just on social media, just to get to know them and again, increase my fandom of someone that I wasn't familiar with prior to the season.

[00:17:06] Michelle Duffy: Yep, exactly. And we, we partnered with Mazda and, and have a multi-year commitment with them to produce these athlete vignettes. So we did dig a little bit deeper into six of their stories, and those are available on YouTube as well. Um, shameless plug, but, uh, we'll be digging in and, and telling more stories.

This year, um, whether that's from the Grand Prix perspective or just the community that rallies around the Grand Prix, I think both of those are really interesting and, um, throughout the planning of the Grand Prix, it was important for us to outline like, who is our audience. And I always talk about it in this like reverse funnel where you have your bullseye, that's this person's an avid cyclist and they know who is winning the events.

And then it kind of, the net gets broader, um, from there. But it's important that the content that we're creating doesn't just speak to the preexisting cycling. , um, which I think the series does a really good job of being relatable, broader than that. But if you take that out, then it's like, okay, who, what about the person that rides a bike, but maybe they don't necessarily participate in events?

What inspires them to wanna participate in events? And then it's set further than that. It's like the outdoor recreator. I'm a backcountry skier, but I understand the content that you're producing. And now I'm inspired to get on a bike. And so like they're all kind of working. making someone a fan, but first they need to get on a bike.

And then when they get on a bike, they participate and then they get to meet the athlete. And, um, then they really care about what you're produc.

[00:18:37] Craig Dalton: Yeah, that's true. You know, it's interesting, I was talking to an athlete yesterday and I think one of the challenges, obviously like the, the marquee distance and the professional distance of these races is quite challenging. Regardless of whether it's an Unbound 200 or the climbing at Crusher and the Tusher, they can seem very intimidating, obviously, to the new athlete.

Yet almost all these events, probably all of 'em do have shorter distances, which are. To be more inviting for the recreational athlete to pin on their first number. And I think there's probably an opportunity for all of us in in interested in events to kind of continue to embrace and make sure that audience feels welcome and accomplished for finishing a 40 mile event.

They don't need to do a 200 mile event.

[00:19:23] Michelle Duffy: Exactly. Yeah. And that's the Grand Prix is so amazing and uh, we were already seeing more elites coming to the events and that kind of inspire the Grand Prix, right? It's like this is happening, people are making a living off of participating in these events and we can ignore the fact that it's happening or we can create something.

produces good for the mass participant as well, because at the end of the day, the, the paying customer or a mass participant like that is the ethos of the event. That's the person that's one supporting the events in the business that we're creating. They're supporting the communities that they're visiting, and we, we can't get, we can't let the Grand Prix distract us from like what the actual heartbeat of the event is.

And that'll be important for us this year in storytelling as well as like, This is happening at the front of the event, and that's super special. And let's let you peek behind the curtain and understand that, you know, Sarah Stern felt a ton of pressure going to all of these events the same way. You probably put a lot of pressure on yourself going to these events, but, but it's different.

But you can relate, um, But also what about the community that's making up these events? Because that is what the elites are coming to be a part of. It's not the in, it's the inverse for some, some are now coming to some of these events because the elites are there, but the elites wanted to come to be a part of the mass participant experience.

Um, so it'll be really important for us to, I mean, never lose focus of that. That's our north.

[00:20:54] Craig Dalton: Yeah, it's been interesting as some of the announcements came out around the changes of for Unbound and the professional and the rules as they apply to the Mass Start and Arrow bars, how clearly you guys were conscious of the fact that. , just because you're making a decision for the professional athletes doesn't mean that same decision should apply to the recreational athletes, specifically around the idea of arrow bars.

I thought that discussion was quite interesting.

[00:21:23] Michelle Duffy: Yeah. And look like there's no right answer to a lot of these things because the space is evolving and gravel cycling while it has existed for. At, well, it's existed forever. You could always ride on gravel, but as a quantifiable sport for 15 plus years, you know, going on 20 years now, that's still new.

It's junior, like the game of basketball has existed for over a century. Um, so we're still in this like new phase. The athlete, the professional. , you know, we've been trying to listen and make decisions that are the best decisions for the safety of the athlete and the integrity of the event. Um, that doesn't mean it's the solution for everyone right now.

And as we were going through, what does, you know, arrow bars or no arrow bars and all the, like the drama, um, surrounding the elites as they're figuring out what it means to be an elite in the sport. is the person that's coming from Alabama that's gonna take them, you know, the maximum amount of time to complete 200 miles, and they're gonna ride majority of the event out there solo.

And they need to have the ability to be in comfort positions just for them to get across the finish line. And that's always been a part of the experience. So while we were having a lot of internal debate and external debate, when we stepped back and thought about it, it's like, well, who's to say? if they're, I've always stood really strong in like, no, they're coming out here to experience the mass participant experience, and that's why the elites started to come.

At the same time, they're making a livelihood and we need to ensure that in order for them to continue to make that livelihood, we're providing. an experience that, you know, someone taking them out with arrow bars in the first seven miles doesn't make or break the paycheck that they bring home. That's not the case for everyone.

So if we separate these two starts, it allows us to ensure that the integrity of the event for those that are racing for their livelihood and their paycheck , um, we can isolate that experience.

[00:23:41] Craig Dalton: Yeah,

[00:23:42] Michelle Duffy: And, you know, we made the joke like, we're gonna get you the heck outta Dodge, but like, let's get the. out of there, and then we can provide the same experience we've provided for 16 years to everybody else.

[00:23:54] Craig Dalton: yeah. And I mean, obviously it's up to each individual rider to make good decisions around when they should be in arrow bars. That's the challenge, right? Like some, it's like they're perfectly fine if you're out there by yourself, but cornering and doing the things that you shouldn't do in Aerobars, that's just, people just need to make good choices there.

[00:24:11] Michelle Duffy: Yeah. Agree. And, and there's other events in our portfolio that remove, we are removing the use of Arrow bars in general, an event like Crusher has never allowed Arrow bars because you climb up and you descend and there's never a time that you're on flats and should be in arrow bars in that event.

[00:24:28] Craig Dalton: Yeah. The other thing that obviously you've had to grapple with is just, uh, the women and men starting together or separate. Do you wanna talk about like, the thought process behind how that's panning out this year?

[00:24:42] Michelle Duffy: Yeah. I mean, continuing to, to listen. I think there. I mean, there's been a couple years now of debate on what is the right, the right way to approach at a mass participation event, the start of the women to ensure that they have a level playing field. Um, our approach is varying, depending on course, uh, speaking for, you know, sea Otter and Schwam again, and Crusher, for example.

Women do have their own start. , but for an event like Unbound, they've always been in with the masses and there's just a huge difference between the field sizes and um, that many people rolling out of Emporia as well as from a media coverage perspective. It's super challenging. Um, To cover and we, I think, have done a very good job of making a cognizant effort to ensure we assign a team specific to the women.

However, to give that like equal playing field from a media coverage perspective, a safety perspective rolling out of town, and then also an awareness of where the competitors are. For Unbound, the women will have their own elite women will have their own separate. two minutes after the elite men and eight minutes before the masses.

Uh, an event like Big Sugar or the Rad we're still evaluating, but that very well could be a mass. A mass start there.

[00:26:08] Craig Dalton: yeah. I think it's super interesting and a lot of event organizers I've spoken to this year. Are just playing around with different models and I think to your point, a lot of it will be course dependent. A lot of it will be just affording tens of minutes with the women having their own isolated experience, cuz obviously once.

The rest of the mass participants start several minutes before. Eventually there will be intermingling and there will be the same types of drafting opportunities that have been in the sport forever for the women. But I do think it's meaningful that the women will be able to understand who is ahead of them, who is behind them at that moment in time in which integration happens.

And then most of the women athletes that I've spoken to kind of acknowledge that, you know, there's a strategy around drafting with men, and sometimes you're gonna get in over your head and you're gonna go too hard. But that might be an investment in your strategy to get ahead early on in the race and then plug away on your own while others will roll the dice and play the strategy a little differently.

[00:27:11] Michelle Duffy: Yeah, exactly. And. , um, I think through, through the Grand Prix. I hope and, and believe that it has also deepened the field, um, of women out there. And if you look at an event like Big Sugar, we saw more women riding together at big sugar. Granted, there were points on the line, and so a lot of them did stay together.

But I mean, there was a pack of nine women in places, you know, two through 10 working together for, for much of that event. And, um, we haven't seen that at a, at a lot of events. Usually the women are dispersed, so I think their strategies are changing as.

[00:27:55] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah. And I, yeah, I mean, and all this comes into play in the background with the points of the Grand Prix in general, like how they need to ride, how aggressive they need to be on a, on a particular day. I do imagine that you'll start seeing athletes just really taking a lot of risk because they've got nothing to lose.

Like you think about Page. Big sugar, like she had nothing to lose at that point, to roll the dice and go long in solo and see what happened.

[00:28:22] Michelle Duffy: Yeah, exactly.

[00:28:24] Craig Dalton: Yeah. As you look back to 2022, and I know we've drifted a little bit into 2023 already, but were there any sort of favorite or surprising moments that stood out for you?

[00:28:34] Michelle Duffy: Yeah, I mean, you just touched on one, but, uh, Paige on Weller and Brayton Langs wins at Big Sugar and Schwam again, I. Love the underdog dark horse story. Um, PA both Paige and Braden were, I mean, transparently were fringe riders for us in the selection process going into 2022. Um, There were a few team members, myself included, making cases for each of them as to why they should be selected.

And, um, they were, they were both dark courses and, um, it was really, really special for not just myself, but members of our team to see those two take a win. You know, Braden being the youngest male in the field last year and an up and coming talent, you just love to see and hope that it inspires. The other individuals riding in his age range, where it'll often we see drop off on the bike, um, you know, if they can, you know, see what he's accomplishing.

Maybe it inspires them to keep riding or those young riders that have looked up to him. And this year we have even younger riders as part of the Grand Prix. And then someone like Paige coming from a running background. We dug into, into her during the application process and saw, you know, she was fifth at gravel world on a borrowed bike and , she was doing some eSports on Swift and, um, there was potential there we thought.

And to see that come to fruition for her was really, really special.

[00:30:10] Craig Dalton: Yeah, and super cool. I had her on at the end of last year just to see her be afforded the sponsorship support to really lean into it and not have to, you know, do double duty between her work and the hospital is, it's great to see.

[00:30:25] Michelle Duffy: Yeah. Agree. I mean, I think that's the case for, for both of those two, honestly, that those wins for both Braden and Paige. I think. Um, Allowed them, the opportunity enabled, helped enable them to have some of the sponsorship opportunities that they have this year,

[00:30:44] Craig Dalton: Yeah.

[00:30:45] Michelle Duffy: and it switched things up. We were talking about the same few riders all year because that top three was kind of interchanging, so that was cool

[00:30:53] Craig Dalton: Yeah, absolutely. So as we talk about 2023, what are kind of the major changes that have happened kind of structurally in the Grand Prix that we should be aware of?

[00:31:04] Michelle Duffy: Yeah, I think our goal with the Grand Prix, is to keep things simple so that people can follow it. Um, you know, no slight to, to the world tour, but it can be hard to follow things like the Tour de France because if you're not ingrained in the sport, it's like how many points did they get? And what does this Jersey mean

Um, our goal is really to keep things simple so that, you know, those that are new to following cycling can follow it and, and. Still the goal this year we evaluated our point structure because right now it's just waterfall point structure. Um, your points are the inverse of your place. So last year we had 30 men and women.

So if you finished first, you got 30 points. If you finished second, you got 29. And so it flowed. So this year we decided to keep the point structure the same. Um, however we are. , uh, looking at 70 athletes, 35 men and 35 women. So an extra five men and women. Um, I think we're gonna stay at this number. Uh, I don't, you know, next year's I hope isn't gonna be 40 and, and so on.

Um, but the intent for that change is the drop off that occurred throughout the year. Um, by the end of the season, we had just over 20 men and 20 women remain. . And so our, our goal is to have, you know, a, a deep field and ensure that it's, it's deep across every event. So that extra five on each side, also just based on demand, uh, felt like the right move.

And then additionally, instead of six events, um, we are going to have seven, one of which we called the wild cards. So Grand Prix athletes applied for the series before we revealed what that seventh event will be. And noting that our intent is that our events do. So next year, um, in 2024, I don't, it may not just be the wild card event that rotates.

We may switch up all of the events. Um, you know, we'll probably have a few, like an Unbound and a Leadville and a big sugar that would remain. But we could see some of the other events, uh, switching up each year. Um, but one will remain a wild card in which athletes don't know what it will be. and, um, they can drop two events instead of one.

And this was something, this was a decision that we made after overwhelming feedback in our surveys around, um, some of the challenges. And you mentioned it earlier in the call with injury and sickness. Um, Were forced to drop out even if they weren't prepared because maybe they, uh, flattered and dnf at an event and that still counts.

But then they got sick and had to miss an event. Like they're pretty much out of the points now because they have two zeros on their scorecard. So allowing them the ability to miss two events for everything we're hearing is like athletes intend to come to just about every event. Um, but the other thing that it does allow, , and this is important, is understanding that our season is demanding and it spans from April to October and it is the primary focus on, on the calendar.

But there are other events that, um, there's either sponsor obligations to attend or just like for the health of the sport. It can't just be lifetime events that these riders are attending. So, Hope and obviously expect that athletes are showing up to, to at least five and, and hope they come to more than that, but it does allow if there's a conflict with another event them to go and attend that event as well.

[00:34:51] Craig Dalton: Yeah, like everything, I think it's just gonna be interesting to see whether it, it, you know, in many cases this past year, it would've allowed, you know, like Payson or someone who had to miss two events to be competitive in the standings, having missed those two events. But for athletes that it were healthy throughout the year.

If we start seeing strategy around dropping an event, knowing that they have to, you know, they're, I think with the exception, Unbound and maybe crusher that have their own very specific skillset, maybe that is required for them. You know, whether some people just opt out of one or two of those just saying, Hey, I'm not a climber.

It's not worth burying myself to try to be competitive and crusher because I have these two drop races that I can apply.

[00:35:36] Michelle Duffy: I do think that's true, and I kind of view that as like the negative to having the two drop events. But I think it's the right move. We believe it's the right move. Um, just for like the health of. The athlete. What we also don't want to happen is an athlete feel like, like Pete, he wrote on a broken hand at Sea Otter because he knew that like with his wife expecting there was a chance he was gonna miss another event.

So it was really important for him to finish that event. Um, whereas like knowing that there could have been two drops, like we don't want an athlete, Hannah Otto, she. Unbound consciously. Like she didn't want to bury herself at Unbound. And then she followed concussion protocol, but felt the pressure to it to participate in, um, schwa again, because otherwise she'd be out of the series and she did not, you know, enjoy the experience out there.

And it was probably premature. Would she have made a different decision had we. allowed two drops last year maybe. And I think that's something that's also really important I didn't touch on is the, just the overall health of the athlete. And we heard that too in the feedback like there's pressure to show up and race sick because you, you could have only dropped one event.

So I think this change will, I mean, it's seemingly well received. The negative is. You know, athletes that aren't good on a mountain bike, and so they're just gonna drop two mountain bike events and or like, not wanna bury themselves like you said. So they're gonna skip unbound and let Bill. That's, we hope that we don't see too much of that, but risk like those, that those that were in the top 10 pretty much were consistent in their attendance across the whole series.

[00:37:24] Craig Dalton: Yeah, I think it strikes the right balance. I mean, obviously we'll have this conversation a year from now and we'll see how it came to play, but I don't suspect, to your point, like the people at the front end of both categories, they're not gonna make, they're not gonna drop things willy nilly. In fact, I was speaking to a professional athlete yesterday and they were like, look, if someone was hyper-competitive in the Grand Prix and did not do un.

There may very well be an asterisk in their victory at the end of the year to say like, but they didn't do this one thing,

[00:37:55] Michelle Duffy: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I think just looking at, at the overall scorecard and talking to many of the athletes, it's like, well, of course we're gonna show up to all of the events. Like that's our intent. Because if you can knock off a. A bad day, a 10th place that could make or break your odds of being in the top three.

[00:38:15] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. You mentioned the expansion of the rider numbers from 30 to 35 in each category. Um, super cool to see. Did you see like a different profile of athlete, whether it be different nationalities or what have you start to come to the table this year? Cause I understand, and you commented on this earlier, that, you know, the first year it was the first year, people didn't know.

It seemed like it was gonna be a great idea, but I did talk to a few athletes. Well, I just dunno how it's gonna pan out. I already had my schedule figured out, so I didn't, didn't apply. Just curious like what this year's application looked like and, and what were your takeaways from it?

[00:38:53] Michelle Duffy: Yeah. Well, we had more applications in year two than year one and more qualified applicants. And I don't, I don't mean to, um, that as a, any, uh, derogatory, uh, towards the VA first year's applications, but in year one there was a lot of. either jokes, , some, some people that were, I don't know if they were joking around or, you know, just not in contention.

Um, at the everyday cyclist, you know, some applicant applications that said things around, like, I've applied for the Leadville lottery four times and this is, you know, just another opportunity for me to, to apply. Um, there was also a lot of, uh, like sub. Applications that came through in the first year. And of course there were dozens of elite applications that came through because look at the depth of field.

I think in year two what we saw happen is elites, many, many of them, um, that live here in the US and Canada, but then also internationally. And then we had to make some hard decisions around like equal athlete, um, athletic ability. Someone lives internationally versus domestically. And we do have an international field this year with riders coming from, you know, South Africa and Australia and um, Canada and a few other countries.

But, uh, those that were like fringe , we, I, we did prioritize domestic, um, because. you know, our, our hope is to create some, some heroes here in the us.

[00:40:42] Craig Dalton: Yeah, that's interesting. Sometimes it's easy to forget that lifetime is a business as well. And you know, growing an international audience only has certain value to you guys versus domestic audience.

[00:40:55] Michelle Duffy: Yeah, and it's actually like we talked about that at length because. Having all of these different countries represented would be really cool. But beyond the business piece of it, it's like the health of cycling fandom in Europe is doing just fine. But if you have a bike race in Europe, like. And you can get access to the downtown of a major city and you have tens of thousands of people show up to cheer 'em in and they're lining the streets.

You have a bike race here and it's like, look at like road cycling. They're far and few between. There's barely any fans that show up. And so the goal, like we're, we can't lose sight of the goal and that's to make sure that we're converting people who live here into fans of the sport. Not even. from a future participatory perspective, but just in, you know, to become fans simply.

[00:41:51] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. One of the things we didn't dig into was the addition of that wildcard event and what that wildcard event ended up being. Can you talk about which event you selected and why?

[00:42:05] Michelle Duffy: Yeah, we selected an event in Trinidad, Colorado going into its third year called the Rad Dirt Fest. Um, it is a gravel event. The distance is 110 miles, and it's a high altitude, gravel, gravel race. Um, the difference between this and like a big sugar beyond the altitude is it's, uh, big long climbing miles and.

It's fast gravel, . It's, you know, champagne gravel, as they say. It's, it's almost like road in many ways. It's not very technical at all. Um, we. . There's a few reasons why this became the Wild Card. Part of it is schedule because our 2023 event calendar is already planned, and we wanted to give some breathing room between events because some of our events kind of stack up against one another.

For example, like Tahoe Trail, mountain Bike Race is the week after Crusher and the Tusher. Um, so getting from Utah to Tahoe, and coming right off of Crusher, like that just wasn't super viable. So if you like go through the list, there's also like some Northwood events that we have, like lut in 99 er, but they're already going up there for Schwam again.

So wanna be mindful of travel costs because while it's not expensive to stay in cable, Wisconsin, it's expensive to get there, and um, to have someone, to have a rider go up for loosen as well, like that's just a big. , it has a big impact on them and travel. The travel expenses to do the series are super high.

So those were factors as well as like we do care deeply about the communities that these events are taking place in. And Trinidad is a community that. is up and coming. I kind of view it as like an Emporia many years ago with a completely different personality. It's a hidden gem right on the border of New Mexico.

It's funky, spunky, artsy down home. Like if there, if Lifetime was capable of producing a grassroots, gravel event, the Rad Dirt Fest, is it? And after seeing the. Elation out of athletes after Schwam again, which is like a good down home mountain bike event up in northern Wisconsin. This feels like the gravel version of that.

It's just, it's truly like an endearing, eclectic place. And the vibes are good and the just, it's a, it's such a fun event. Um, our team actually says it's like one of our favorite events in the portfolio. and then selfishly, like, I hope the event grows . I'll just be be honest about that. Like we're into the third event, uh, third year and, um, that wasn't the deciding factor at all.

But I really do hope that the event grows because I really will. Even Trinidad as a community, they're, they're being heavily invested in right now, just from people moving out of Denver. But, um, hopefully they can, they can keep up, keep up with that. They've been a boomer bus town, but they're really focused on outdoor.

[00:45:16] Craig Dalton: Yeah. It's a town that listeners of the podcast may be familiar with because we had, uh, local one Del Roka on who. Developed the original Trinidad Gravel field guide and put down some amazing routes down there, and came on the podcast just to talk all those things about the community. So I do think it's really interested and, and I'm excited to see that event grow as well, and hopefully just contributed to that town and that community in the same way that Unbound has contributed to Emporia.

[00:45:45] Michelle Duffy: Yeah. Juan has kind of been that, um, steer head in that, in that community and, and showing people. These roads, you can go out and, and utilize them with your bicycle and, uh, you know, the big hu hunting culture around there, but how are we celebrating outdoor rec? And they've also just brought in really great figureheads for their, like, economic development and, um, outdoor recreation, et cetera.

So I, I, I'm excited to see how that town.

[00:46:16] Craig Dalton: Yeah. On that, on that decision to make the Rad Fest, uh, the wildcard event. You mentioned the many things that kind of went into that. One of the kind of things that have been hanging over the Grand Prix for a few years is just this balance of mountain bikey gravel racing. How are you guys trying to strike that balance?

Because obviously adding another pure gravel event into the series isn't making it any more technical for the mountain bike cruise.

[00:46:45] Michelle Duffy: Yeah, it's not, and that could change in 2024. Um, I think it's important to note that like this is an off-road series surrounding mass participation events and some of the like super technical type courses that have kind of been thrown our way. It's like, well that doesn't necessarily always cater to the mass participant.

And that's the most important thing is that we're marry. This series with mass participation events. So like that is one factor. The second is there's seven events, so there's gonna be an off kilter there between mountain bike and gravel, but um, that can change every year. And maybe we'll see more mountain bike in 2024.

Um, I think that there's a good chance that we will, but, for this year. I mean, it's an off-road series. I, I think there's so many sensitivities and I totally respect all of the elite athletes. So I say this tongue in cheek, but I'm also like, you guys get over it. Like this is the lineup and it's gonna be a good time.

And I mean, yeah.

[00:47:58] Craig Dalton: I think one of the most exciting things that you've revealed in this podcast is just the notion that 2024 could look a lot different.

[00:48:06] Michelle Duffy: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's like part of the, the freedom that we have because we're playing within the confines of like all of these events are, are lifetime events and it's, you know, the same team working on the production of the event and the Grand Prix, and it gives us the ability to be flexible now.

five years down the road, are we ending up in a structure that it doesn't have as much freedom because this thing's so established that it has to be the same events? I don't know the answer to that question, but um, we're still in test phase and that's what I think, you know, earlier I said we've had time to celebrate some of our wins.

I think that. So important, like early on we definitely received some, you know, there was like tension and criticism and like welcome all of it from, you know, athlete and fan alike. It's also so important to remember and like communicating even to our teams that are on the frontline, like. , these are humans putting on the event.

And we're humans that are really just trying to, and supported by a company who is also just trying to make a difference. Like the Grand Prix is not a revenue driver for our, for our company, but we're trying to align ourself with like positive change in cycling and there's gonna be growing pains with that.

Um, but I don't even view them as growing pains. Right. It's like they're just, it's a developmental. Of, of establishing something that hopefully changes the face of North American cycling. And you know what? There's a couple more series on the calendar this year, and I think that's really rad. I, I don't wanna attest that to the Grand Prix, but I think it's super cool to see that other groups are thinking in the same way, whether that's like happening on the road with the N C L, whether that survives or not.

But they're trying. And you have the group that's putting together a true mountain bike series around the country and like all of these different things are gonna start to create more fans in, in the us and that's super cool. It's, we're really, I feel like everyone in, in the cycling space right now, like what a cool time to be involved in, in.

[00:50:17] Craig Dalton: Yeah, a hundred percent. Like I think we all need to be thankful for Lifetime's involvement in this series and everybody else who's putting energy into North American cycling because agree, like. I think we're in a great place in terms of the equipment and the joy that gravel bikes can bring to athletes.

I think there's plenty of great events out there in the world, but it takes a lot of energy and financial commitment to make these events happen and you guys are putting a lot of money behind this series and investing in growing fandom in the United States, and that's amazing because I think we do need more fans of racing.

I'm quick to acknowledge like this podcast is definitely not about the front end of the pack for the most part. Well, I certainly enjoy talking to the professional athletes and learning how they get into the sport at the end of the day, like it's really the, the mass participant that gets me most excited cuz that's certainly where I sit in these events.

Um, so it's super cool that you guys continue to invest and I appreciate you taking the time and just walking me through last year and this year and hopefully we get to see each other in a few months down in Monte.

[00:51:20] Michelle Duffy: I know we will. Thank you,

[00:51:23] Craig Dalton: Thanks, Rashelle.

That's going to do it for this week's edition of the gravel ride podcast. Big, thanks to Michelle for joining us and bringing us up to speed on the lifetime grand Prix. We are now just around the corner from the first event in April. And I'm excited. As I'm sure some of you are to watch the action.

Down at the seawater classic and kick off another year. Big thanks to athletic greens and AIG one for supporting the podcast. Simply visit athletic greens.com/the gravel ride. And you can get that free one-year supply of vitamin D and B12. If you're interested in connecting with me. Please visit the ridership. That's www.theridership.com.

Or if you have a moment, ratings and reviews are hugely appreciated in the podcast game, it really helps with our discoverability. Until next time. Here's to finding some dirt under your wheels

Part two of our first Q and A episode. Randall and Craig tackle questions submitted via The Ridership community.

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Automated Transcription (please excuse the typos):

00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello and welcome to in the dirt from the gravel ride podcast. I'm your host. Craig dalton i'll be joined shortly by my co-host randall jacobs.

[00:00:12] Today's episode is part two of our Q and a episode series. Go back in your feed, a couple episodes to find part one. You can certainly jump right into this episode as we're going question by question. And they don't necessarily. Have relation to one another but if you're interested in part one either after the fact or before you listened to this episode go ahead and jump back and listen to that episode.

[00:00:36] Today's episode is brought to you by our friends at athletic greens. The health and wellness company that makes comprehensive daily nutrition really really simple.

[00:00:44] A G one by athletic greens is a category leading superfood product, bringing comprehensive and convenient daily nutrition to everyone. Keeping up with the research and knowing what to do and taking a bunch of pills and capsules is hard on the stomach and hard to keep up with 

[00:00:59] To help each one of us be at our best. They simplify the path to better nutrition by giving you the one thing with all the best things. 

[00:01:06] One tasty scoop of ag. One contained 75 vitamins minerals and whole food sourced ingredients including a multivitamin multimineral probiotic green superfood blend 

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[00:01:38] I think by now, you've probably heard my personal jam. I like to take athletic greens. First thing in the morning is to get a jumpstart on my hydration. As well as my nutritional needs. And i'm big ride days if i'm feeling super depleted i'll come home and have a second glass so on a saturday or sunday i might double up my servings 

[00:01:58] If you're open to giving athletics greens, a try, simply visit athletic greens.com/the gravel ride. 

[00:02:05] Athletic greens has agreed to give a free one year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs to any gravel ride podcast listener. So be sure to visit athletic greens.com/the gravel ride. To give it a try today. With that said let's jump into part two of the q and a episode with randall

[00:02:26] Craig: Next question was on optimizing the adjustment and float intention on SPD pedals. I don't think there's much we can add there cause it's a little bit of trial and error. In my opinion. I don't know about the float. I don't even know if mine has like float adjustment. For me it seems like it's just the tension. So I, how hard or easy it is to get in and out. And that's been something maybe I've amped up over time as I become more confident, but certainly starting them out with them. Fairly easy to disengage is perfectly acceptable if you're not comfortable with Clifton riding. 

[00:02:57] Randall: Yeah. In terms of tension, I would definitely start with a looser engagement and then tighten it down as you get more confident, Especially when you're first starting out. And what else? Patrick and I actually talked about this in the bike fit episode. Hey recommending shifting the cleats back. So if you're running mountain style shoes, which the gravel bike probably should be if you can run them in the back, the bolts to the back then sliding the cleat. Pretty much all the way to the back. Now if that doesn't feel right, you can always move it forward a little bit, but whereas this new real problem with going too far back there can be issues with going too far forward in terms of biomechanics and so on. And in terms of the float, you want to be in the middle of the float and you never want to be in a position where the you're you're not able to peddle in a natural motion where you're using the cleat positioning to restrict your motion. That is a a good way to end up with an injury. So definitely don't do that. I generally will start with the cleats. In a position where it's restricting my inward motion so that my heel can't hit the crank arm. And then I'll peddle from there and see am I in the middle, middle of the float? Am I in my restricted any part of the pedal stroke? And if not, then that's a good starting point. But to really get this right again it is hard to do this on your own. It's hard to see knee tracking. In souls or thing you want to invest in, in order to help align the full stack from hip to knee through the ankle. And this is where listen to the bike, fit 1 0 1 episode and consider working with a bike fitter. 

[00:04:30] Craig: I was just going to say the same thing. It's like one of those things like, oh, bike fit, you don't necessarily go to clique adjustment, but so often when I've observed it, cleat adjustment happens in a bike fit. 

[00:04:41] Randall: And it doesn't happen first, right? Everything else has to be right first. So if your saddle's too low and your arches are collapsing and things like that, you're already starting with things out of alignment and are going to have some trouble, but at least the advice that, that I just gave will prevent the worst issues. But again, go get a bike fit. 

[00:05:01] Craig: Yep.

[00:05:02] The next

[00:05:02] question. Yeah, The next question.

[00:05:05] was about what's the best technique for using a dropper post? How does this help with the physics of the ride? 

[00:05:14] Randall: I'll let you go first. I certainly have an opinion on this one. 

[00:05:17] Craig: This is a dangerous one for us. The listener, the avid listener knows we can go into a deep dropper post where I'm whole, but let's try to offer some quick advice. One of the things I like to remind people about with respect to drop her posts is that it's not just a, all the way up or all the way down product. You've got the full spectrum of range, which means you should use it frequently. Obviously when you're in heavy tactical descents with steep, dicentric, you're going to slam it. 

[00:05:45] But I quite frequently lower it just a centimeter to just give myself a little bit more room on terrain. Maybe it's a road descent or something that I'm super confident on, but it gives me a little bit more margin for error. And as I'm feeling maybe more nervous about the speed. I'll go down even further just to give myself again a bigger range of just a bigger margin of error. So practice, and no, there's no right or wrong, use it frequently and you'll figure out what feels best for you. 

[00:06:15] Randall: You've seen my technique with the dropper. I'm a bit more extreme. So for me, I use the dropper all the time. I have it down all the way on a high-speed road descent, and I use it to allow me to, move my mass around on the bike in a way where, if I want the front end to be more planted, I can put more mass on the bars, but then I can shift my weight down and back over the rear axle to lighten up the front end for say, traversing, really rough terrain. Provides that distance between the bike and the body where your arms and legs can act as suspension. Your front wheel is rolling in sailing. Your rear is doing more of your speed control. And in this way, it really radically. Improves the capability of the bike, not just off-road, but I would argue on road as well. I descend much faster because I know I can grab a handful of both brakes and not be pitching over the handlebars. So for me, even on the road, I'm dropping it all the way in a lot of situations. 

[00:07:08] Just because I like to go that much faster and it gives me that margin of safety. 

[00:07:12] Craig: All makes sense. Next off, we're going to an area work. Gosh, Randall I almost think we need an entirely new category in the ridership forum just about tires. What do you think? 

[00:07:25] Randall: We've been asked for this for a while. By the time this episode airs, if we don't have a channel in there, somebody yell at us in the forum, we'll get that up. 

[00:07:35] Craig: The first question comes again from Tom boss, from orange county unicorn tires, lightweight, puncture resistance, fast rolling with lots of grip. What comes closest for you? 

[00:07:45] Randall: I'm not getting in the weeds on this one. I defer to the hive-mind and the ridership on this. I can tell you what I ride. But I'm gonna make no claims about it being the optimal. 

[00:07:56] Craig: Yeah, do. What are you writing in these days? 

[00:07:58] Randall: so currently I'm writing just a WTB Sendero upfront and a venture in the rear. And these aren't especially fancy casings. They're not the most efficient tire. But they're pretty robust and they have great grip and I like the mullet setup. I'm a big fan of going with something NABI or upfront and like a file tread or even a semi slick, depending on your terrain in the back. 

[00:08:20] And yeah, that's the way that I go. We actually just brought in some maxes, Ramblers and receptors. So we go a rambler small knob front and a receptor in the back. And I like the six 50 by 47 size. There are situations where I wish I could have a little bit more volume, other situations where I wish I had a little bit more efficiency, which tells me that I'm right in the middle of the range for most of the writing that I do. 

[00:08:40] Craig: Yeah. For me. And first off, full disclosure to everybody, I'm a Panorai sir, brand ambassador. So I want to put that out there. The gravel king S K was a tire that I got on my first proper gravel bike. And I just fell in love with it. Then I left for many years and went on to more of a setup that you had rocking the Sandero up front. 

[00:09:01] Thinking I was, riding more challenging terrain and could appreciate the knobs, which I did. 

[00:09:06] But recently I've gone back to the gravel king as Kay. And I do find it to be a wonderful all around tire because I feel super fast on the road and it does everything that I needed to do in most of the situations that I get into. 

[00:09:21] Randall: Yeah, sounds about right. And then there's always, if you're, if you had a really long ride out to the trail you could always, bring the pressure up a smidge on the way out there and then give it a little at the the Trailhead. 

[00:09:34] Craig: Yeah.

[00:09:34] And again, it obviously comes down to where you are and one thing I'll just note really quickly, and we've talked about it before is Riding fully select tires at a fat with has been remarkable to me how performance they can be. Off-road you think you need knobs, then all of a sudden you realize where you do need them, but actually if you change your riding style a little bit if you've got a fat rubber tire on there, you can go and do a lot of things.

[00:09:59] Randall: Yeah, the dropper helps a lot with that. In terms of just being able to be more nuanced with your body English as you going over stuff. But yeah, I run 700 by 30 tubeless tires and I'll go out on hard road drives and then I'll pass it on to see a trail and be like, oh, what's over there, I must find out now and then to see. Go and do a little bit of adventuring. And you gotta pick, you gotta pick your lines. You gotta be careful not to hit anything, square, a square edge. That's gonna, bang up against your rim. But if you're if your pressure is high enough and you're gentle enough with your writing, you can do a remarkable amount. Most of the stuff that we've written in Marine together up written on slicks. 

[00:10:36] At one point. Yeah.

[00:10:38] not saying it's a good idea, but it's doable. 

[00:10:41] Craig: True. And you enjoyed other parts of the ride and leaned into other parts of the ride, presumably more because that's, what the bike was oriented around on that particular day. And maybe you needed to nurse your way down Blazedale Ridge or something, but you got through it. 

[00:10:55] Randall: Yeah, and it's definitely more of an uphill thing than a downhill thing. 

[00:11:00] Craig: Yeah.

[00:11:00] Randall: go uphill on dirt and then downhill on, on road, but okay. The, we went on a proper tangent there. 

[00:11:07] Craig: Yeah, sorry. next? 

[00:11:08] one. Next question is from Josh, from east Texas. It's around suppleness. Suppleness in tires is desired by riders. So how do I choose a simple tire without having to buy it and write it with no published measure of scale of suppleness on a given tire from the manufacturer we are left with only this tire field strop sample is TPI and indication. 

[00:11:30] Why don't manufacturers provide consumers with this information? 

[00:11:33] Randall: So I'm going to volunteer Ben Z and Marcus G in the forum as to people who seem to have written. Every tire I've ever heard of. And some that I haven't. And there are others in there that have as well. But yeah, I think this is a matter of finding out what other people like and kindly asking their opinion and experiences with it. 

[00:11:52] Craig: Exactly. I think that's a good recommendation. 

[00:11:55] Next question is from Tom Henkel and it's around tire pressure. He acknowledges that he tends to ride harder pressures than a lot of people seem to recommend, but he's also dented REMS and had to wrangle the, straighten them out enough to complete a ride. So he's nervous about bottoming out. How do you know how low is too low? Given the weight of the rider and width of the tire? Also, how does this vary by terrain type? 

[00:12:17] Randall: The indication of how low is too low is really. He's denting his rims. And pinch flatting as well you can have two riders of the same weight on the same tires at the same pressure on the same terrain, one we'll be a little bit better at picking lines or at shifting weight around. And we'll be able to push the limits a little bit more. But if you're ponderous and steamrolling through things, then you might need to run higher pressures in order not to bang the rims. Now, if you're not already running the highest volume tires that will fit in your frame, start there for sure. And if you are, and you don't want to have to replace your bike, tire inserts, which is something that we haven't really talked about much. And is in its early days in gravel, but it's increasingly popular in mountain bike. And I'll be getting a set of these to try out. Isaac S in the forum loves his and he rides hard. He used to ride his gravel bike like a full-on mountain bike, and even cracked a rim once, and after he put in inserts he never had any trouble and he was actually pushing his pressures even lower. So those would be the recommendations. I have go biggest volume. You can and get some tire inserts. 

[00:13:25] Craig: Yeah, that makes sense.

[00:13:26] It's all trial and error and I am eager as, as well as the listener, I imagined to hear what you think of tire inserts. Cause I do think It's yet another interesting part of the equation that some riders may be able to play around with successfully. 

[00:13:40] Randall: Yeah, it has the same effect as adding a little bit of suspension. If you can drop the pressure that much lower and have a two tiered suspension effect where you have the travel of the lower pressure tire, and then right before it bottoms out on the rim, you have this protective layer. So yeah, I think it makes a ton of sense, conceptually. So I'm excited to try it. 

[00:13:58] Craig: Yeah, interesting stuff. 

[00:14:00] Next question is another one from Kim brown. How do you go around choosing the right tire for the ride? 

[00:14:05] I guess I make more like quarterly or seasonal decisions around this and live with it. I certainly have brought my beef feed set up bike two places in the middle of the country that didn't require such an aggressive setup. But it is what it is like I, I'm not super concerned but I imagine if you have the wherewithal and interest you can dig in and find the right tire for every single outing. 

[00:14:32] Randall: Yeah. And you definitely again see people who seem to do that. And that's great. For me. I have a bicycle company and I have two wheel sets and I leave the same tires on until they burn out. I'll even take the Sendero Nabil upfront and when it starts to wear a little bit too much, I'll just move it to the back and put on another Nabil upfront. 

[00:14:49] I mostly rabid I got, and I got the two we'll set. So I have 700 by 32 blitz and a six 50 by 47 mullet set up. And it's really more of a choice of which wheel package I'm going to go with then. Swapping around tires and things like that, which is a more seasonal or annual decision. 

[00:15:05] Craig: Yeah.

[00:15:06] Yeah. Yeah. Same.

[00:15:07] Next one is probably I could've sat in the maintenance section of this conversation, but how do I deal with a pinch flat or puncture or some other common issue in a tubeless tire? 

[00:15:16] Randall: Punctures. Dynaplugs, bacon strips. Make sure you have a good amount of sealant in there. And have a spare tube as a backup, if all that fails. If you've got a pinch flat in a tubeless tire if it's on the sidewall, then you know, you do what you can to get home. Sometimes a plug will work, but if it's in the sidewall, you're probably going to want to replace that tire versus in the meat of the tread where the rubber is a lot thicker, a plug can last for the remaining life of the tire. And last thing would be, if you really have a problem and you have a tear in the sidewall, a boot or even just jam putting a dollar bill or something in there so it doesn't continue to spread, just so you can get home, and maybe running lower pressure so it doesn't blow out the sidewall. 

[00:16:00] Craig: Yeah. 

[00:16:02] If we assume the question came from someone who knows how to change a two-bed tire and has been through that experience, just a couple of other things I would highlight that may not be known unless you've had to go through it. If you are replacing a tubeless tire with an inner tube, you do need to remove the valve core. 

[00:16:19] First. And you can expect that if you have ample sealant remaining in said tire. It's going to be a messy situation. 

[00:16:27] Randall: Yeah.

[00:16:28] Craig: I don't know what the right thing to do is if you leave the sealant in there, but it's going to be all over you. It's going to be all over the place. It's just something you have to deal with as you get that tire and get your tube in there and find your way home. 

[00:16:41] Randall: Yeah, all the more reason to get plugs and just have plugs with you because oftentimes you can get by with those. 

[00:16:48] Craig: Yeah. A hundred percent. The first time you plug a tire, it's like a Eureka moment and you just top off the tire and continue on your way. And when it goes beyond that, then you're a very sad. And you will have to deal with quite a mess. 

[00:17:02] Randall: There's a picture that think Isaac in the forum shared where he had a hole plugged with eight different plugs in the sidewall and he kept riding it for a while apparently. So Bravo maybe change that casing a little bit sooner. So though. 

[00:17:18] Craig: Related to tires, we're going to move into a section on wheels. And matthew Wakeman ask, what kind of situations would be worth considering three wheel sets versus just two for do most of it? Bikes. 

[00:17:32] Randall: So my thinking is the first wheel set is probably a wide 700 that can take everything from road to gravel tires and then a even wider six 50, that's more focused on gravel and adventure riding. And then an even wider two Niner that would be your mountain bike setup now, then. Then, that's getting into two bikes. So you have two bikes, three wheel sets between them. If you're just with one bike for everything, then if you're racing or if you're constantly switching between very focused road experience to a fast, hard packed gravel experience to a rugged. Bike packing adventure sort of experience, then it would make sense to maybe have two, seven hundreds and 1 6 50 B. It really would be another 700 slotting in the middle. There. 

[00:18:22] Craig: Yeah, for me, it's really around. Tire selection on those wheel sets and yes, it would be a luxury and a full disclosure. I do have three wheel sets in the garage and I'm splitting hairs literally. It's because I'm too lazy to change the tire. And I have the luxury of having the third wheel so that so I've got my sort of NABI. Fairly narrow 700 C off-road sat that will only take me a limited amount of places from where I live. I've got my one that I spend most of my time on which presently is six 50 by 43. And then I've got a 700 with a 30 road tire on it.

[00:18:59] And it's more like Totally when I only had two wheel sets, it was all good. Just choose between road and mountain and don't worry too much about it. 

[00:19:07] Randall: I don't even have three wheels. That's Craig. Bravo. 

[00:19:10] Craig: Next question comes from Craig. Oh I'm curious on the difference between six 50 B and 700 C and confused about boosts standards, wheels, hubs, rotors and whether it's worth the investment to pursue or just stick with my current wheels. Ideally, I was interested in putting faster, thinner type tires on my 700 C wheels that came with the bike. 

[00:19:29] For all their road rides and a second set of six 50 B fatter grippier types for off-road fun. I think we've talked a lot about six 50 B versus 700 C on other podcasts and also on this podcast today. But I was interested in this question around standards, as someone who has a mountain bike, I was aware of boosts standards. 

[00:19:50] What is going on with that with respect to gravel bikes and do we see a path towards a boost standard for gravel bikes or are there specific design considerations that make that not likely.

[00:20:03] Randall: So we have one it's called road boost and it seems to have been driven by the emergence of e-bikes as a major category. And what boost does is it increases the spacing upfront 10 millimeters in the back. I believe by six. And it allows the flanges and the hub to be space more widely apart, so that you have more of a bracing angle and more lateral strength. So the same amount of spokes gives you greater lateral stiffness and strength. So that's the benefit now, does it matter for, gravel bikes of, running up to say like a 2.2 tire or even a 2.4 without suspension. It's pretty minor gains. 

[00:20:46] I do think that we're going to see a transition towards road boost, which is a one 12 by one 10 upfront and a 12 by 1 48 in the rear. There's, trade-offs one of them being a well for pure road bikes. It's going to be trivially, less Aero, there's always the arrow marketing story . And then two in the back to you end up potentially having to increase the Q factor. Of the cranks. So most people actually benefit from more Q factor than the super narrow ones that used to be common on road bikes so it's not really a problem for most riders, but it's just like another design constraint. There's trade-offs is, are you have to fit a lot of things in a tight package and that's the issue, but it's out there, you see a couple bikes with it. Especially E road bikes and gravel bikes. And I think over time, you'll see that transition, but don't consider it an upgrade that you need to swap your bike to get. It's not mean it's not a meaningful thing in that regard, and you can get most of the benefits by just doing asymmetric rims, which, that's why we and others do asymmetric rims to downs the spoke tensions and angles.

[00:21:49] Craig: Gotcha. I'm going to slip a personal question in that I'd put in the forum. How often should I grease the threads of my through axles if I change wheels frequently? 

[00:21:58] Randall: Often enough so that there's always grease on them and no dirt. And if you have any where on the threads you should be doing it more often and use a FIC. FIC Greece. But if you get any dirt in there, like if you drop your through axle or something like that, now you have basically a grinding compound. In the threads. So you want to clean that up. But yeah, that, as with any interface, it will wear over time. So Greece is your way of allowing that interface to last longer than the bike. 

[00:22:26] Craig: Yeah, great. We've got a question from Alex, from Tifton, Georgia. What's happening in the gravel scene to involve youth. 

[00:22:33] Randall: You seem to be taking out junior. Fairly often on whatever kids bike with whatever tires it's got on there. I think that counts.

[00:22:41] Craig: Yeah, I just want to expose my son to riding off road. And so he's still on a 20 inch wheel bike, but I've put some monster, like two, one tires that I found on it's like a monster truck for him, which I think he enjoys. I think it's the key to bring the youth through mountain biking and discover gravel versus prematurely introducing drop our bikes. 

[00:23:06] Randall: Yeah. I'm of the same mind. I've a niece that I take riding in the same way and it's just like she has a 20 inch wheels kid's bike. And I just take her out on the dirt and get her comfortable riding on those surfaces and pushing her comfort zone to try new things. But then also just instilling this deep love of the adventure experience, which for me what we're calling gravel is really all about. It's like going and exploring the area where you live from an entirely different angle than you would get in a car or on foot. 

[00:23:36] Craig: Yeah. Agreed. 

[00:23:37] Randall: And then of course NICA. We have some coaches in the listenership. Then the new England youth cycling association, actually Patrick in Lee likes bikes are doing a skills clinic with them in October. 

[00:23:48] So you have that. And then urban off-road bike parks. Lotta our kids in the city don't have access to trails. And so just providing that access, I think is critical. And there's an example of a McLaren bike park in San Francisco. It's in a part of the city that is pretty far from the bridge and pretty far from the Santa Cruz mountains. And so this would be it, and there is plans potentially to expand that. And building more urban bike parks I think is a big part of that as well. 

[00:24:20] Craig: Yeah, for sure. And you bring a huge skill gain to gravel if you come from the mountain bike side.

[00:24:27] Randall: Yeah. Yeah. And starting with a hard tail or even a rigid flat bar bike is a great way to go. 

[00:24:33] Craig: A hundred percent. Next question comes from Alex in Columbia, Missouri. And it's a question about frame design. With the growing market of gravel. Where, when does the Aero slash race versus endurance market become two separate markets? Also how far do you think it'll go narrower tubing, et cetera. There seems to be a split already forming with Aero features being added to gravel bikes. 

[00:24:57] Randall: I have strong opinions here, so I'm going to let you go first. 

[00:25:00] Craig: Yeah. I think the brands are already splitting hairs with these categories as it is. And part of it is positioning vis-a-vis other competitive brands. Part of it is just the designer's vision for what this bike is intended to do. And those lines are blurry and murky and are going to come down to individual brand managers to execute on. So I think it's already a total disaster. 

[00:25:27] Randall: I think most Aero claims, especially in gravel are entirely bunk. And it's marketing. And I'll give you an example. So on a road bike, a designer can control almost all of the parameters except for the rider, which ironically is the biggest one more than 80% of the aerodynamic profile, the tire with being a big one, right? So you can have your rim with, and your rim depth matched to the width of the tire. You can have the down tube optimized for that tire to end up really close to the front leading edge of that down tube and the down tube, it can be really narrow. So you have a smooth transition between, rim to tire, to frame in a way that minimizes turbulence. So with a road bike, it's more of a controlled system. And even then the gains are very marginal. And if you look at the. What marketers are usually claiming. If you add up all the Watts that you saved, you'd be traveling at a hundred miles an hour on all the different components you can buy. On gravel, it's worse because you, you have really wide tires. And so you'll have a deep section rim. With a big old tire on it and the tire is much wider than the rim. You're already having detachment of airflow as soon as it comes off that tire. There's a rule which folks can look up the rule of a hundred, 5%, which says that as long as the rim is a hundred, 5%, the width of the tire, then you can generally get good attach flow over the rim, regardless of that rims shape with certain shapes being marginally better. But that one oh 5% rule being more important. But if you have a big old tire on an arrow rim, all that at error rim is doing is adding weights and potentially increasing turbulence, especially in a crosswind where it's going to make it harder to steer. So that's my take on wheels. And then obviously handlebars and all that other stuff very marginal gains, especially given that it's not being designed as a system around the tires and so on. 

[00:27:14] Aero helmet and rider position, rider positions the biggest thing that you can do, if you want to improve your. Arrow. 

[00:27:20] Craig: Yeah. And I was looking at the question more, less, so about like aerodynamics and more just marketing and bikes in general. And seeing that. There's just a spectrum of bikes that are marketed in different ways. From endurance road bikes, to Aira road bikes, to arrow gravel bikes. I totally agree and understand your comments, and my comments are more just related to the market in general and how there's a plethora of things being directed at consumers and it's ever more confusing to figure it out. 

[00:27:50] Fortunately with most quality gravel bikes, you do get this one bike that can do a ton of things. And bikes that you can configure in the way that you ride them.

[00:28:02] Randall: Yeah, I think you'll see the incorporation of some functional arrow. There's no reason not to do a tapered head tube or certain other things, but it's such marginal gains. And really, it's hard to build an Aero bike if you're not controlling for the tire volume and given the divergence in tire sizes that these bikes use that's not a really a controllable variable in design. 

[00:28:24] Craig: Yeah. So the final question comes from our friend Marcus in Woodside, California. What are your guesses about the big bike tech quantum leap forward coming next, similar in magnitude to. 

[00:28:39] to e-bikes and olive green bib shorts. 

[00:28:42] Randall: Marcus is a good friend. And I was definitely on trend with the big shorts there. Really, how do you top that? How does the industry come up with the next thing after olive green shorts? 

[00:28:51] Craig: Nothing can make a rider faster or look better than all of Deb's shorts. 

[00:28:57] Randall: So that's it. Marcus? I think that's the end of innovation in the bike industry. Yeah, this is a space that you know, that I've put a little bit, a bit of thought into. I'm going to let you go first here as well. 

[00:29:07] Craig: I think that makes sense, because I agree this is a tailor made Randall question. I do think the continued use of electronic componentry and other electronics that we all use, has to lead to more integration in bicycles, whether it's like battery packs that are embedded in the bikes that can power both my components, my GPS computer, my headlamp, all these things. I feel like it's a natural point, just like we're seeing in every other element of our lives, where battery and power is required. These things start to appear in more innovative ways. So I think that's interesting. 

[00:29:46] I think on the e-bike market, we're starting to see more and more of these bikes that not only is the battery removed, but also the engine, the sort of the motor part of the componentry comes out. So you start to get this bike that has assemblance of ability to ride without the component of it and it's not going to match a pure performance bike, but it may, for some people While still having that opportunity to use the e-bike functionality. So I think those are things that trends that we're definitely going to continue to see. And. And some more forward thinking thoughts. 

[00:30:21] Randall: Yeah, I agree with that, and I have a little bit more nuance to add but I want to start with the big, low lying fruit, and we started doing this, Basic things like proportional, crank length. I find it nuts that the industry up until recently didn't really make anything smaller than a 1 65 crank and continues to not offer shorter cranks for shorter riders. 

[00:30:41] This is one thing that we did, and then you now see FSA has done a good job of having offerings down to, I think 1 45. To accommodate smaller riders and so proportional, crank length. Proportional wheel sizes, I think is a big opportunity. There's no reason why, it's really small riders. Shouldn't have their wheels scaling to some degree. We already have a 26 inch size, so maybe for the biggest higher volume on an extra small bike, you'd run a 26 by 2.2 or something like that. You do need more tire options, but otherwise it would help to make that bike perform more like the bigger ones with a bigger rider on them. So those are two that I would really like to see. 

[00:31:18] I'd like to see continued innovation on integrated quick on and off storage solution. So I think lightweight bags and so on are really slick. And I think that we'll continue to see innovation there. You mentioned electronics. I agree. And it's getting ridiculous with the number of batteries you can have on the bike. 

[00:31:34] If you have a wireless shifting system, you can have a battery in each hood battery in each front and rear derailleur. You can have sensors on the bike each with separate batteries, a heart rate monitor, or the separate battery two lights with separate batteries, computer. It's silly and it adds a lot of cost and weight and complexity the system. So I think there should be a single battery on the bike and that there should be a universal standard that all components use. I don't think this is going to happen because everyone everyone wants to trap you into their particular walled garden, but that's a conversation for another day. 

[00:32:04] But yeah, those are the big ones. And then lastly, self-contained bike systems that leave nearly nothing behind, maybe some sort of lightweight regenerative braking for this one battery. I would like to see. But first things first and then subtler suspension designs, which I think we're already starting to see with more compliance, like flexible components, you. 

[00:32:24] Bar handlebar is built with a little bit of flex or a suspension stem versus going whole hog with a full on suspension fork, just to get 30 or 40 millimeters of travel. 

[00:32:33] Did I answer your question? Marcus, let us know in the forum. Hope, hope you're satisfied with the answer. And what is the next color of big short. Greg, what do you think. 

[00:32:41] Craig: That's putting me on the spot. Maybe like a tan might do something that makes you a little bit nude. 

[00:32:47] Randall: Ooh. Yeah, that would be that everybody would be really comfortable seeing that. Yeah, I'm with 

[00:32:53] Craig: dangerous territory. 

[00:32:54] Randall: we will have various options to match everyone's skin tone. So we all look like we're riding in the nude. 

[00:33:02] Trend leader, Craig Dalton. 

[00:33:05] Craig: This was a heck of a lot of fun.

[00:33:07] And it would not have happened without the community. So big shout out to the ridership community and to everybody who submitted questions. I'd love to see us do this again. So we'll probably set up a channel down the line and put the question out there again and see what's gets generated because it was a lot of fun chatting with you about these questions. 

[00:33:25] Randall: Yeah, it's what we do on our rides only we've recorded at this time. 

[00:33:29] Craig: Yeah, exactly. That's going to do it for us this week on behalf of Randall and myself, have a great week. And until next time here's to finding some dirt onto your wheels.

[00:33:42] 

This week we sit down with Carly Fratianne, musician and gravel racer. Carly turned a period of professional unrest due to Covid into a passion for gravel cycling. We look at how her miles and miles of riding led to artistic inspiration and to completing UNBOUND 200. 

Episode Sponsor: Competitive Cyclist use code 'TheGravelRide'

Carly's music: Lui and Wyd 

Join the Ridership

Support the Podcast

Automated episode transcription (please excuse the typos):

Carly Fratianne

[00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello and welcome to the gravel rod podcast. I'm your host Craig Dalton. For those long time, listeners, you may have noticed a little different intro music today. 

[00:00:19] That's because on today's show, we're interviewing Carly 

[00:00:23] That intro music was courtesy ever band. W Y D she also just recently released a music under the artists name, Louis. 

[00:00:32] So why is Carly on the podcast today? Pretty valid question. If you ask me,

[00:00:39] As you can imagine the pandemic has not been kind to musicians and people who earn their living, playing out in live stadiums, et cetera. Carly is one of those musicians who turn that kind of available time into something different. She became a gravel racer and actually completed. Unbound in 2021. I thought it was an interesting conversation. As you know, I love the fact that gravel is such a inviting community. 

[00:01:08] And to hear Carly's story and her journey to gravel cycling, I just think is really interesting. And I thought it was a unique opportunity. At the end of the year to expose us all to a little new music. So i hope you enjoy this rather unique episode of the gravel ride podcast.

[00:01:26] Before we jump into this week show, I need to thank this week. Sponsor competitive cyclist. Competitive cyclist is the online specialty retailer of gravel and mountain bikes components apparel and accessories Be trained, cycling standout brands like pock castelli pearl izumi in five 10 it's unrivaled in-house bike assembly operation they bring the personalized attention of a local bike shop along with the selection and convenience only possible while shopping online.

[00:01:55] As I've mentioned before, the real difference that competitive cyclists are the gearheads they're equal parts, customer service, cycling fanatics gear heads are former pro athletes, Olympians and seasoned athletes. With years of experience, all available by phone, email, or chat for product recommendations and hard won advice. I had a great experience with my personal gear head maggie but as i mentioned on the last episode is on the competitive cyclist.com site and i think i spent 45 minutes just cruising around looking at all the great gravel goodies over there.

[00:02:32] I ended up way, overfilling my cart and had to edit it back down for my budget. But I got a few important, nice to haves and some critical maintenance items that I haven't been able to find in stock. Anywhere else says stoked to actually have brake pads. It turns out they're a very important component of breaking. 

[00:02:52] Anyway, I encourage you to go check out competitive cyclists.com/the gravel ride. And two promo code, the gravel ride, and you'll get 15% off your first full price order. Plus free shipping on orders of $50 or more. Some exclusions apply. I mentioned the other day that I placed the order in the morning and saw it actually got a shipping notification that afternoon. So there's still time to get those holiday orders in. 

[00:03:18] Go right now and get 15% off. Plus free shipping@competitivecyclists.com slash the gravel ride. And remember that promo code is the gravel ride. Would that business out of the way, let's jump right into my interview with Carly. 

[00:03:34] Carly welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me. I'm excited to have this conversation because it's going to be twofold. I get to talk to you about being an artist and a gravel cyclist, which is a unique position on the pod.

[00:03:48] Carly Fratianne: It's a pretty interesting D person dish world too. 

[00:03:53] Craig Dalton: Yeah, absolutely. Let's start by talking about, just a little bit about your background, both as an athlete and a musician, and then maybe we can talk about how the pandemic kind of brought them two together, for sure. 

[00:04:05] Carly Fratianne: As an athlete.

[00:04:06] I'd say I was fair to Midland in as a cross country runner in middle school and high school, but that was about the extent of my organized activities. There were some like childhood soccer, but nothing to clinical. And then I was always skateboarding and riding my bike around after school, in the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio which was where I got my first taste of freedom.

[00:04:34] And that's definitely. Carried with me for the remaining years of trying to just pursue that musically and I guess athletically, but I like to think of it more as adventuring. 

[00:04:49] Craig Dalton: That's so funny how, like that. Baseline of endurance athletics, like running track or cross-country in high school or swimming.

[00:04:58] So many people I talked to they do that and then they might not do anything for many years. And then they pick up the bike and all of a sudden they're like, oh wow, I already have this fundamental engine that makes me halfway decent as a beginner in this. 

[00:05:10] Carly Fratianne: Yeah, totally. It definitely makes it like more immediately fun, I think, too, which like, you don't have to do so much the legwork, no pun intended, but to get yourself into a position where you can really like go out and do some serious efforts and then once you build on that, Kinda just like how cool are your routes?

[00:05:32] Just like how much of this can you do before you get bored? 

[00:05:36] Craig Dalton: Yeah, exactly. So it sounds like you laid the groundwork for adventure and at least an appreciation for the outdoors, but presumably given your vocation now, you were also pretty actively pursuing. 

[00:05:49] Carly Fratianne: Definitely. Yeah, that was, I think that was probably my first real love.

[00:05:53] I've been doing that since I was a kid as well. And that is what's driven me to explore, in a less. Less on the bike, but just in general, I think like the pursuit of, a new inspiration and new muse and just a different, like geographical place has always inspired and informed the art.

[00:06:17] And I think thusly, like having cycling as like a. Like another means of propulsion is they're just so intrinsically woven 

[00:06:26] Craig Dalton: together. And in the years prior to the pandemic, was that one, your kind of effort towards music and your kind of commitment and the number of hours was really spiking up.

[00:06:37] Carly Fratianne: Yeah, for sure. I, so I was in w Y D and Southern were to time. Projects for me. And then I also, had I worked at a job as a screen printer and in Columbus, or I was, waiting tables. And we were gigging out, but I between the two bands, it was at least two or three weekends out of the month.

[00:07:00] And just traveling as much as we could and Recording all the time. And that was a pretty serious time commitment there. And. It was no longer such a heavy presence from, due to the COVID lockdowns and stuff. It was, there was just like a lot of empty space there. 

[00:07:20] Craig Dalton: Yeah. It must've been it's so shocking to have all those live venues, which in addition to playing, I'm sure you were an active participant in listening and going out to live events and knowing others in the industry, including my cousin, like just that dramatic.

[00:07:35] Removal of that entire part of your life. I can only imagine how jarring it must've been. 

[00:07:42] Carly Fratianne: It was crazy. If I'm honest, I don't even like really remember a lot of that time period. I would just like, so just like devastated and it's almost like I'm only now realizing like what like at serious, like depressive time that was personally.

[00:08:01] But yeah, like the venues, in Columbus, they're all owned by people that we know, like they're like close friends and it's a very like tight knit scene there. Being worried about him, maybe they're not going to come back online or who's going to be able to make it through this.

[00:08:15] Are we ever going to be able to do this again? It was a lot of big questions and really just nothing to do, but wait, see how it pans out. 

[00:08:25] Craig Dalton: Yeah. And I remember certainly personally in the early days you were thinking, oh, weightings going to look like two weeks or a month. 

[00:08:32] Carly Fratianne: Yeah. I remember getting so we had shows lined up, obviously like before the thing I was actually in Texas when the initial lockdown happened and I came back up to Columbus and we still had.

[00:08:46] Between the two bands, at least a half a dozen shows that were scheduled to happen and within the next like month or two and yeah. A domino effect where everybody was trying to figure out if like what we needed to do to postpone things or like how to, work with the logistics.

[00:09:02] And it would, he'd get emails from promoters. Yeah, I think. We'll schedule it again for next month or something, or we're going to postpone our tour date here for a month or two. And we'll see about whatever September, I don't even remember what the actual dates were, but then it was just like, everything just went to a screeching hole and it was like, okay, we're looking at 2024.

[00:09:26] Okay this is happening now. 

[00:09:29] Craig Dalton: Devastating. So when you're, as you're going through that moment, obviously, they've, they're like this big sense of loss and transition. Was the bike something you immediately, you sought out for solace or did you have to go through a process and then discover the bike again?

[00:09:44] Carly Fratianne: You know what I is, it's actually funny. So I had just kinda started getting into doing some like more long distance stuff. In the, probably the year before, like the year leading up to it, I was riding, but it was mostly road riding. Cause I just didn't really know that gravel existed yet. I knew it existed, but I didn't know that there was like a community in Columbus or, in the world.

[00:10:10] That was accessible to me. And I met some people in Columbus. One of them, I started work at a bike shop in Columbus called Velo science. And the owner, Jeff Clark. He was one of my first gravel buddies. And he introduced me to a bunch of people and there's actually the Ohio gravel grinders is a little community that yeah.

[00:10:33] Craig Dalton: Yeah, for the frequent for frequent listeners. I've had Ray George on the podcast before and love, love all the effort that Ray and everybody involved in that community has put into Ohio and putting, just putting such great information out there for wannabe. Yeah, gravel, cyclists. It's 

[00:10:49] Carly Fratianne: yeah, it's awesome.

[00:10:50] That was how I started getting into it. I would just go, on ride with GPS and see what they had on their page. And there's always something that looked like fun and there's like you said, they're so like, informed and like the routes themselves are all uploaded with like awesome like notes and there's a huge dog here or bring a shit ton of water because there is none.

[00:11:13] Craig Dalton: Yeah. I feel like there's one ride that there's a signature animal, like a donkey or something that you come 

[00:11:18] Carly Fratianne: yeah. Donkey March Yeti. I, yeah, I was just seeing some friends when I visited him the other day, the thing is hilarious. I only, I knew he existed. But I never seen him. And I was on a ride one day.

[00:11:32] I was training for Unbound with my friend, Melissa, and we were riding down this road out it's out in Homer is the little town. Okay. And we were just going down and I saw just like a F we okay to rewind for a split. Second, we had been chased by more dogs on this ride then like you would believe was humanly possible.

[00:11:54] It was like five or six of them. And we were just, we were like pissed and stressed out. It was like, it was traumatic in a funny way that, you know, we as cyclists to understand. But. So we're coming down the road and she's a little bit in front of me. And I just see this flash of brown movement come from behind this like really thin tree line.

[00:12:17] And I didn't see that there was like a wire fence or anything. I was just like, oh my God, Mel look out like screaming at her. Move cause she didn't see it. And I stopped the bike cause I realized it's not a dog and I didn't even know what it was. And this donkey just reached his head over the fence and uttered the loudest most hilarious, two minutes of sound. I have ever heard in my life. I wish I had recorded it. It was so funny and I just stood there and Mel just stood there and we were just like, what is this creature? Then obviously figured out that it was the infamous donkey machete. We felt really bad that we didn't have any extra food for him.

[00:12:55] So 

[00:12:56] Craig Dalton: I feel like that's a Ohio badge of honor to visit that donkey. 

[00:13:01] Carly Fratianne: Gotta do it. Yeah, you got, it's really funny. Such a thing now that when we met him the first time, the. Came out with a huge carrot and was just like, oh yeah, I figured you guys didn't have any food for him. So I got to give him this.

[00:13:17] Otherwise he'll just stand there and do that all day. He's just so used to the cyclists coming through she's we don't even really feed him anymore. Each just gets enough food. 

[00:13:27] Craig Dalton: That's so funny. I'm sure Ray, who I'm sure you interact with would love to hear. Like the work that he and the community have done felt inviting, felt informative.

[00:13:38] We talk about that so much on this podcast. Just the idea of the importance of locals, building community around gravel cycling, because it is intimidating, like even here and wherever you are, when you go out into the wilderness, like it's a little bit confusing, can be a little bit scary. It can be a lot intimidate.

[00:13:56] When you're first getting into it. So having someone who's out there just putting information out there, and it sounds like their ride with GPS files are filled with, notes of where to get water and where the donkey is and all kinds of good stuff. It's such a powerful effort that locals can do wherever they are to put good vibes out there in the gravel.

[00:14:15] Oh, my 

[00:14:16] Carly Fratianne: God. Absolutely. And to, yeah to tap on your point about him being like intimidating in the wilderness and stuff. Like I was pretty, I'm a pretty small bodied female in. I think that I'm like, I was not brought up socialized to just go off into the wilderness like that and throw caution to the wind.

[00:14:37] But, and I don't think that a lot of young girls are, or, young people in general these days and to. I have even just a little bit of guidance too, just to show you what you're capable of and help you get your foot in the door has built like an immense amount of confidence for me.

[00:14:55] And I'm sure for plenty of other people and just knowing that you can go out there and like most of the people you meet are actually going to be pretty nice. And like you don't have to be afraid of coyotes usually. And there's just like a lot of. I don't want to say irrational fear, but like a lot of unchecked fear that kind of, if you can just get over it a little bit, you can get over it a lot, a bit.

[00:15:21] And having the guidance of a community is like pretty crucial to getting over 

[00:15:25] Craig Dalton: that first step. Absolutely. Yeah. I think once you get that right bike, that right. Gravel bike that's capable, even if your notion is that I'm going to start on the right. Then you start seeing little dirt paths and maybe you take a quarter mile on the dirt and you start to realize, yeah, not only am I capable of doing this, not only is my bike capable of doing it, but I'd like to do it more and it's better than the time I'm spending on the road and safer, et cetera.

[00:15:50] Yeah. 

[00:15:50] Carly Fratianne: It's safer. More interesting stuff. I always joke with my friends that I have to meet a new cow every day. It's like a hilarious little mantra of mine just to continue to explore, even if, you're landlocked in an area, just keep looking for more different stuff. 

[00:16:09] Craig Dalton: Yeah. So in those early days of the pandemic, as you started to discover gravel riding a little bit more, it sounds like you're available time to explore also expanded because you weren't able to gig the way you were and maybe your other employment wasn't as as fruitful.

[00:16:25] Carly Fratianne: Yeah. Yeah. It was a lot of long days. I did I did my first century ride. I don't even remember when that was. It was probably right about when I got back from Texas, I had been working at rogue fitness as a like assembly line worker. I was just like building squat racks for like the CrossFit scene.

[00:16:51] I was, that was very hard work. And I like took a day. And I wrote a century ride with one of my friends Alex, who was the basis in Southern. And I had never done a ride that long before. And I was just like, oh my God, I can just go and spend the whole freaking day on the bike if I want to this is amazing.

[00:17:10] And so I just started going out or like long days, at least a couple of times a week. I loved it. I just love I would listen to music sometimes, but I really just loved the solitude. And I hardly even rode with anyone. Like when I was first getting into it, I'm into like the longer rides.

[00:17:29] And then I guess it was when I started riding with with Jeff that I got really super hooked on the gravel and just that sort of became the primary focus is just to find new roads and just get off of the, get off of the beaten path. So to speak, 

[00:17:47] Craig Dalton: not that there were likely any events, but were you doing any events at that time or was it all solo riding or with friends?

[00:17:54] Carly Fratianne: It was all similar writing and occasionally with friends they canceled all their races. I think I was signed up to do my first advantage. It wasn't a race it's called the tossers just stands for a tour this side of river valley. And it's it's 200 miles, but it's like in two days, so you get taken out and back a hundred miles.

[00:18:17] And that was canceled. I was like training for that. When I was. Coming back from Texas. So that was going to be my first event and they canceled that. And then everything else just tumbled off 

[00:18:31] Craig Dalton: during this period of time where you're getting all those miles in. What was going on with your kind of musical career?

[00:18:37] Was it, were you working on stuff at the time? Does writing help you come up with lyrics or ideas? 

[00:18:44] Carly Fratianne: Yeah, yeah, it's a lot of songs were written on a bike this past year. It's an amazing place to process. You get out there and you just have, the wheels spinning and you just start thinking about stuff.

[00:18:57] And I tend to think really rhythmically when I'm writing lyrics. Okay. And something about being on the bike is just it's a really like good like rhythmic activity. So it I don't know why, but it just stimulates your brain a little bit. And so I was, yeah, I guess to, to answer your question, I was writing and recording like a little bit In had a little demo studio set up in the house that I was living at the time with my partner in the band, w I D a, we were trying to track stuff, but it was slow going, I wrote a lot that year, but I didn't really, I wasn't really, for any specific.

[00:19:42] Purpose, like I haven't even really recorded a lot of that music and it was just a really like strange black hole of time, wherein it didn't really feel important to be making art that was like for a purpose. I guess that's just like the nature of like human crazies, but Yeah, it was mostly just for expression.

[00:20:07] And I guess that like break period was informative to I think on I don't want to say better physical level, but there was something in my like, spirit that just deeply needed to just turn everything off for a while. 

[00:20:24] Craig Dalton: Interesting. I want to come back to the gravel cycling side of things, but before we do the culmination and then this year in 2021, you've actually launched a solo project.

[00:20:35] Is that correct? 

[00:20:37] Carly Fratianne: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:20:39] Craig Dalton: Oh, yeah. Is that just personal curiosity? Is are there complexities, obviously you're continuing to work with WIDS as a band or their complexities and kind of managing those interpersonal relationships or was it pretty clear oh, this personal thing is, feels so different than it's a different expression of my art.

[00:20:57] Carly Fratianne: It's you know what? It's a little bit easier than I thought it was going to be. Actually, I was worried about that too, but. Keeping communication open is always key. But I think also like it, this material that I was working on for when I started working on the Louis project was definitely very different or at least if it felt that way to me.

[00:21:22] And I think I, if you asked anyone that was involved in the project, they would either project, they would probably agree. So I don't think there was a ton of I don't know there wasn't really much friction, but it is you bring up a good point that there were some conversations that had to be had. So yeah, 

[00:21:38] Craig Dalton: that for the listener, you won't know this, but in the intro, I've played a little bit of the w Y D track that was shared with me.

[00:21:46] And I'll just drop in right now, your need for now track under the artist's name of Louie and let the listener take a look at it. And. Awesome.

[00:21:58] Yeah. 

[00:24:33] Cool. So that was great. I, it's funny. I was playing it last night for my seven year old son and he yelled in from the other room. 

[00:24:39] He's I really

[00:24:40] Like. that song.

[00:24:41] He's very he's very musical, so it's super cute. And he periodically yells things like that to me. So for the seven year old crowd, I guess you nailed it. That 

[00:24:51] Carly Fratianne: is awesome. And got started from young. 

[00:24:55] Craig Dalton: Exactly. Exactly. I'm sure it's going to be a cool journey and hopefully, you'll be able to get back to both gigging as a solo artist and back with the band.

[00:25:03] Cause it sounds like that's where you really come alive on stage. 

[00:25:07] Carly Fratianne: For sure. Yeah. I, it's been a lot of solo, small shows this year, so far which has actually been really nice. I do miss being up there and being loud. W I D is had the opportunity to play a handful of like bigger, full capacity shows.

[00:25:24] And Madison is strange drug. I tell you what it'd be ended up there. It's the kind of energy that I feel really privileged to have gotten to experience even just in the years that I've been doing it. But yeah, there is a good intimacy with the solo thing. That's been enough to hold me over, 

[00:25:44] Craig Dalton: yeah. Yeah. I I think a drug is probably an apt comparison because I imagine that it just feels electric to be on stage and in front of people and to feel the energy and the enthusiasm. Yeah. 

[00:25:57] Carly Fratianne: Yeah. It's it's absolutely on paralleled. When you're, especially in a hometown show and you're in a room full of people that are like really stoked on what you're doing.

[00:26:08] You can just feel the energy. It's like a force of nature and it just comes right back at you. And it's it takes days for you to be able to shake it off even really 

[00:26:19] Craig Dalton: yeah. Now for the most awkward segue in podcasting history, talking about community and feeling that energy, I did want to come back to you did Unbound, which is crazy to think about, obviously you've been active your whole life and it's not like you're a new athlete, but to go from, Hey, I like this gravel riding thing to knocking out on.

[00:26:41] It's quite a journey. So why don't you talk about like maybe how you got exposed to Unbound and what made you think it was a good idea to go for 

[00:26:48] Carly Fratianne: it? Oh my God. Okay. This is I truly couldn't have recreated this. If I had to re-engineer my life it was just very happenstance. I knew of Unbound.

[00:27:01] Just cause I had watched, YouTube videos of, cause I, once you get into it, you're like, oh my God this is crazy. Like these people do this stuff. This is just nuts. So I had watched a couple of videos about it and I was just like, man, like that is some wild shit. I don't even know how you can do that.

[00:27:18] And. I was, I had just joined there's a cycling team called lady NAR shredders in Columbus. And obviously they were no amendments. We were just organizing smaller group rides or, going out and a couple of people at a time to just hang out and get to know each other. And I.

[00:27:37] Meegan Gerkey who is, I don't know if she's still the, one of the administrators, but she was she was doing the recruiting and she sorta took me under her wing and helped show me a bunch of stuff, just about like how to do bike riding in a real, like more scientific way.

[00:27:55] And then Melissa wick who had also just joined that year. And we were, the three of us were like the ones that were into the gravel the most. So we got together and did a gravel ride. It was cold. I feel like it was probably, I want to say December, maybe November, December of that, of the year before.

[00:28:15] We had just all met and we're just riding or riding along, talking about stuff. And Meagan heads, she was set to do it in 2021 or 2020. Oh yeah, 2020. And then when it got deferred, she was going to do it the next year because they announced that they were going to have it. And Melissa had also signed up and they were talking about it and I was like, oh my God.

[00:28:41] You guys just do that. You guys are going to do that race. Like you gotta be kidding me. And then they're both just you should do it too. And I was just like, okay whatever. So it was funny. The lottery opened like that. It was like that week. I think it was like a couple of. Later. And I like set an alarm on my phone and everything.

[00:29:05] I like typed out my little submission and I sent it in and didn't really think I was just like, alright that's in there. And all known like a couple of months, I just keep riding my bike and whatever. And then I went down to Texas in, I think February late February. And it was just doing a bunch of training down here.

[00:29:27] Cause it's nice out and it's boom, not snowing. I was able to keep getting some like longer endurance rides in without getting frostbite. And I got, I was like headed out to go camp in hill country and I got an email on my phone and it just said you're in. And I looked at it and I was like, oh shit.

[00:29:48] Okay. All right. So immediately I called Melissa and me. I'm just like, okay, you guys we gotta get serious. Like we gotta go do this thing. And they're just like, oh yeah, whatever. So I went I spent another month in Texas and then I went back to Columbus and the three of us just started training like crazy.

[00:30:07] And. Yeah, we were doing some really absurd rides, just trying to get as much gravel and as much distance as possible. And I think the training for that race was like some of the most fun I've ever had in my life. Just like the amount of like insane experiences that were had on bikes between the three of us is just I didn't, I wouldn't have thought it was possible to like, have that much fun and be doing a freaking bike ride.

[00:30:39] Yeah. Then we did the race and we all finished and we were just like okay. That was crazy. And that what we do, 

[00:30:46] Craig Dalton: how would, how did that feel lining up at the starting line with such an energy and large field at Unbound? It must've been crazy compared to what you'd been experiencing previously.

[00:30:58] Carly Fratianne: Oh yeah. So my, I did my first race. It was a 50 mile race in Ohio, and then I did the gravel Locos race in Texas. So those were the only two organize events I'd ever done. And they were both like, super-duper small. Like the one in Ohio is I think I was the only person in my age, like in my wave for that And then the Heico race was like super small.

[00:31:23] It was the first year they'd done it. Awesome. And then gravel Locos is awesome. But that too is just I don't even, they were like a hundred people or something there, and this was like nuts. Like you see like videos, people post of like the start lines at these events, but like you, when you have that, when you're in the middle of it, and this is just Unreal.

[00:31:45] And to just to think if you've never done the event before, you're literally just sitting there, like you have no idea what to expect. All the training in the world could go out of the window in a second. Like it's just such an intense place. 

[00:31:59] Craig Dalton: The interesting thing is like you think about gravel riding.

[00:32:01] And for many of us, it's like a small group or solo affair. And when you're riding on a 12 foot wide gravel road, You've got a lot of room to pick lines, right? Your, you can go wherever you want. And then all of a sudden you join one of these events with a thousand people in it or more, you don't get to pick your lines.

[00:32:18] Like you're 12 abreast on a 12 foot road, and you'd never know what's going to come up. I imagine in those first few miles, at least, right? Oh my God. 

[00:32:27] Carly Fratianne: Yeah, there were, oh God, there were so many sketchy areas in the first 50 miles of that. I saw quite a few wrecks or near wrecks. And it, you're just like on top of each other and nothing employer is like just such an interesting mix of.

[00:32:51] Perfectly graded, flat roads. And then just like the gnarliest, like it's just like a washed out Creek, but like no same motorist would drive a car on it, but it's like the same problem. And you're just like, how can this be? And when you're proud on top of each other, like you said, there's, you can't see any lines, let alone a good one.

[00:33:11] So you're just. Holding the bars and like praying, you're just like bunny hopping from rock to rock. Just like hoping you don't get a 

[00:33:20] Craig Dalton: flat. Yeah. Yeah. You imagine the PR pros and fast people at the front of the race trying to get out ahead of it. But when I'm doing these events and imagine like you there's no getting out ahead of anybody, like there's always going to be someone ahead of you and behind you.

[00:33:33] Carly Fratianne: Oh, yeah, you're definitely just in the pack until the pack explodes and it can start, they can take a while to get get spaced out. It's it is it's super wild too. Cause you know, you ride the first half of that race and you're just like sardines and then, by mile one, 20 or. What you're like riding past people that are taking a nap, it's just such a different experience in the second half.

[00:34:00] Craig Dalton: Did you spend a lot of time thinking about that second half and how to make sure you were fueled up and fit enough for it? Cause I imagine, the first half of the. Obviously like many of us can get to a hundred mile fitness, but beyond a hundred miles, it's both a different story from a fitness perspective, but also from a nutrition and hydration perspective, any corner you've cut is going to be a problem.

[00:34:22] Carly Fratianne: Oh my God. Absolutely. That was, that was one thing that I really actually did have to train for. Specifically was like being able to like, take enough nutrition on the bike. Because you it's true, like you, your body it stops being able to like process things after awhile when you're working that hard.

[00:34:41] And the heat is a huge factor that I think doesn't always get taking it in deep and as it shifts really quickly, and once you have started to dehydrate, you can. Really eat any more than what had guessed, which basically renders you in a state of almost bonking for like until you figure it out.

[00:35:07] And I don't even, I had a couple of like really like weird, bad nutrition choices. But I think I was able to kind of phone it in a little bit as far as like being able to keep the food down. So the the actual training from a fitness standpoint was basically just a get as much gravel as you can.

[00:35:31] And because. By the end of a hundred miles or whatever, you're like your whole body starts to just a it's it's like your legs are tired. Sure. But like also, like you're carrying your water on your back and you're just like riding up and down rocks. And everything is just like shaking around, like constantly.

[00:35:51] And I had to just prepare for that by I guess just like doing rides with like fully loaded, even when I didn't need that water on my back. I would take the camera back with me. And then nutrition, I. I experimented with a lot of stuff, because I knew that I was going to need something that was not going to be like invasive to the gut.

[00:36:12] And what Mel and I landed on was we made some of those recipes out of that scratch labs the portables book. Oh my God. It was amazing. Yeah. We just basically made like a bunch of different kinds of rice cakes and just wrap them in foil which it worked really well. And it was like super cheap.

[00:36:31] I will say if I had to do that again, I would have probably brought more gels actually, because I was trying to stay off of them because they typically upset my stomach as probably most people tell you as well. I think between the dehydration, it was just like, it's got to be super hard to process solid food towards the end.

[00:36:53] Craig Dalton: Yeah. I think to your point earlier, it's you need to have variety. Like when you're training rides, it's pretty easy to at least for me, like I can eat the exact same nutritional plans. For a five-hour ride every single week, like no issue whatsoever. But when you're talking about, anything beyond six hours and 12 hours, like you, you're just going to want to have different things.

[00:37:15] And some of the things we talked about this before on the podcast, just this idea that, you're going to have horrible moments in these events sometimes. And that could be a mechanical moment. That could be like a gut moment or even a mental moment. And the important thing everybody's going to go through that from the professional riders to the last place person on the event, you just have to know that it will pass.

[00:37:38] And the only thing you need to be concerned about is continually moving for. 

[00:37:43] Carly Fratianne: Yeah exactly. And like the, yeah, I think the one 20 mile mark is like really where it starts to like, get real. That's when you just see people like, coming apart on the side of the road and you're just thinking wow, okay, what do I have to do to make sure that doesn't happen to me?

[00:37:58] And as long as you're able to like, eat and drink, you'll probably be fine, but there's definitely a moment where. You just don't want anything like you just can't like, you just can't. And think of a single thing on earth. That sounds good. And your w your drink mix just makes you want to puke. Like I bought a huge bag of the strawberry lemonade scratch because it was my favorite flavor.

[00:38:24] I was like, okay, this is great. I will have to buy a new bag of this for forever. I'm telling you by the end of this. I was like, man, I need to just get rid of this whole bag. Like I'll never be able to drink this shit again. It is. So just like sickly, reminiscent of a horrible feeling in my 

[00:38:40] Craig Dalton: body PTSD by hydration, 

[00:38:45] Carly Fratianne: literally.

[00:38:45] Yeah. It was such a even still I still have the bag every once in a while. I'll throw some in my bottles. I share every time I'm just like, oh, okay. It's still just reminds me of that. 

[00:38:57] Craig Dalton: Okay. So as hopefully we look forward to a future where your, know, your musical endeavors can become a bigger time in your life and we can get back to going to live music venues.

[00:39:08] Are you going to continue gravel cycling? Do you have ambitions for 2022 to continue doing. 

[00:39:14] Carly Fratianne: Yeah, I'm I'm not sure which I know I will probably, I will try and do Unbound again. I would like to beat the sun. That's a small goal, but as far as events go I'm less compelled to events this year.

[00:39:28] And I will probably be spending a bulk of my time doing some bike packing. Right now, I'm in Texas, which is one of my favorite places to ride. There are lots of race routes and stuff that you can find that are, pre there maybe an hour out of town, but they're pretty accessible and it's all like ranch road.

[00:39:46] So you can get, I you can go a day without seeing the. Really and it's, it's beautiful and it's temperate. So I'm going to spend some time down here and then I'm going to head out to Arizona and a little bit to do some bike packing on some of the the trails out there. I would, I will probably make an attempt at the monument.

[00:40:09] I don't know that I'll do it all in one go. But if the weather holds out over the next couple of weeks, I'll probably see which one looks the most enticing and go for it. 

[00:40:21] Craig Dalton: Awesome. That sounds amazing. We're happy to have you. I'm happy to have had this discussion. I love, I just love, it's just a great story.

[00:40:28] The inclusiveness of gravel and how everybody's welcome. And whether it's doing events or bike packing, or riding with friends, like we want all comers to the sport. 

[00:40:38] Carly Fratianne: Yeah. It's a, it's an awesome sport. It's like probably the most inclusive sport I can think of as far as any, fitness level can find something, any person of any age can find something you can just like.

[00:40:57] Kind of make it into whatever you want. And I think that's the beauty of it is that, there, there are a few, there are a few barriers to entry. The only one really is do you have a bike? And is your spirit adventurous? 

[00:41:11] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Awesome. I think that's a good place to end. Thanks Carly so much for the time.

[00:41:16] Carly Fratianne: Thanks so much for having me, Greg. 

[00:41:18] Craig Dalton: That's going to do it for this week's edition of the gravel ride podcast. I hope you enjoyed this show. Happy to have your feedback. Obviously I'm not a master editor. So weaving some of that music in was a bit of a challenge for me, but it was a great conversation. I really enjoyed getting to know Carly and her journey into this gravel cycling community that we all love so much. 

[00:41:42] Big, thanks to competitive cyclists for sponsoring this week's edition of the gravel ride podcast. Remember it's promo code the gravel ride@competitivecyclists.com for 15% off. If you're looking to connect with me, I encourage you to come and join us in the ridership forum. It's www.theridership.com. 

[00:42:05] And if you're able to support the podcast financially, simply visit buy me a coffee. Dot com slash the gravel ride. Continuing with the theme of this show, I'm going to drop in one of Carly's other songs, a full track for you to listen. It's the same one that we opened up with, but I'll let it play into its conclusion. 

[00:42:26] As a peaceful way for you ending this podcast. Until next time. Here's to finding some dirt under your wheels

[00:42:34] 

Part 2 of my discussion with Gregor von Medeazza and his experiences at The Munga in South Africa.  Gregor showcases his determination and equipment choices on his way to surviving this 1000km gravel event dubbed 'The World's Toughest Race'.  Gregor reveals the backdrop of his motivation, raising awareness for The Bicycle Empowerment Network Namibia. 

The Munga

Bicycle Empowerment Network Namibia

Support the podcast

Join The Ridership

This week we sit down with Phil Cavell, co-founder of Cycle Fit Studio in London and author of The Midlife Cyclist. The Midlife Cyclist take a comprehensive look at our bodies and mind with an eye towards successful cycling in mid-age and beyond. 

Episode sponsor: Competitive Cyclist - Code 'TheGravelRide'

Phil's CycleFit Studio and The Midlife Cyclist

Episode Transcript (automated, please excuse the typos):

Phil Cavell - The Midlife Cyclist 

[00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello and welcome to the gravel ride podcast. I'm your host Craig Dalton. This week on the podcast, we're joined by Phil Cavell. 

[00:00:10] Phil is the co-founder of pioneering European fit and cycling analysis studio cycle fit. And the author of a book called the midlife cyclist.

[00:00:21] Before we jump into this week show, I need to welcome a new sponsor to the gravel ride podcast. Competitive cyclist. 

[00:00:28] Whether you're looking to buy a new bike, that's ready to go. Need expert advice, or want to customize your current build competitive cyclist.com is your one-stop online bike shop. 

[00:00:38] Now, obviously there are lots of places to shop online, but the real difference at competitive cyclists are the gearheads. They're equal parts, customer service, cycling fanatics. Gear heads, our former pro athletes, Olympians and seasoned cyclists with years of experience, all available via phone, email, and chat for product recommendations and hard won advice. 

[00:00:59] Last week. I wanted to experience it again for myself. So I called up competitive cyclist and I got a gear head named Maggie. 

[00:01:07] Out of curiosity, I gave Maggie a brief rundown of the type of bike I was looking to buy the type of riding I want to do. And she was able to quickly narrow down the products from a competitive cyclist and find a few bikes that absolutely fit the bill. A couple of the models that are available, that fit my style of riding. 

[00:01:27] We're the Haka. The pivot vault and one other bike. I also mentioned that I was super excited about the way the Ridley Canzo fast looked for example, but Maggie was quick to point out that based on what I had told her. That I wanted a bike that was going to be great for where I lived in Marin county. 

[00:01:47] A little bit of racing and a little bit of bike packing. She reminded me that that particular bike. It might not do well. If I wanted to do kind of adventurous bike packing, that it was probably better off for me to choose. A bike with a little less aggressive geometry than that particular Ridley. And she actually introduced a bike to me, a model from Ridley that I'd never heard of before. 

[00:02:09] So it was really great to just chat with her. And, you know, I know part of the journey of this entire podcast for me has been learning about different bike brands and so many questions that I had when I got into the sport. And it was just great to know that you can call a gear head and kind of riff on what you're looking for. 

[00:02:29] And they can break down the different models they're available and get you onto that right. Bike with confidence. 

[00:02:36] So, whether you're looking for gravel bikes, gravel parts, or any of your cycling needs. Go to competitive cyclists.com/the gravel ride. And enter promo code the gravel ride. To get 15% off your full price purchase. Plus free shipping on orders of $50 or more. Go right now and get 15% off. Plus free shipping. 

[00:02:58] At competitive cyclists.com/the gravel ride. Entering promo code the gravel ride. . With that said let's dive right into my interview with phil

[00:03:08] Phil, welcome to the show. 

[00:03:10] Phil Cavell: Thank you, Craig. It's great to 

[00:03:11] Craig Dalton: be there. I'm excited to have this 

[00:03:13] Phil Cavell: yeah. I suspect that you are. 

[00:03:14] Craig Dalton: Let's talk just to set the stage for the listener.

[00:03:16] Let's just talk a little bit about your background as a cyclist, and then also I think your day job, not being a writer, what you do as a day job at cycle fit studio. 

[00:03:27] Phil Cavell: Yeah. Sure. I used to race everything. Come from a time and a place where you didn't really just raise one format.

[00:03:33] We used to race cyclocross, rode mountain bike, time trials, team time and trials and getting back over 30 years now, but it just the team and club I was with us, just, it was a group of people and we just wrote everything. And living in London, you could raise a criterium on Tuesday. At crystal palace, the famous crystal palace.

[00:03:51] And then you could do a time trial on Wednesday and then you could do, or mounted bike race on a Wednesday or Thursday was a big criterium day at the glorious east way circuit. And then you do a mounted by race or a road race on the weekend. So that was in the seat. That's just the diet I grew up on.

[00:04:08] You just raised everything all the time. And until by the end of the season, all of a sudden you couldn't move or speak any muscle in your body. And so that was normal to me until I got injured and until my co-director and a psychopath found pat and I found her got injured and then we couldn't do anything.

[00:04:24] And that's what made us interested in the subject. And so yeah, the cycle fit, we that it was born in the late nineties. And it's all really came on, tap in the early two thousands. So it's been going just over 20 years. 

[00:04:37] Craig Dalton: I want to dig into cycle fit a little bit, but before we jump in. I know your injury was quite serious and actually took you off the bike for a really extended period of time.

[00:04:48] I think that's really interesting just to hear it in your words, and the fact that you were able to come back to the bike is, you know, maybe news and some enthusiastic news to some of the lists. 

[00:04:58] Phil Cavell: Yeah, it wasn't that injury actually, the original injury that made me interested in bike fitting was 25, 30 years ago.

[00:05:04] The injury, this injury was 2011, hit a pothole and spammy me over the bars and very innocuous, really commuting crash, spammy me over the bars and a ambulance picked me up and took me to hospital and Yeah. And then I had a S a, quite a bad spine fracture there, but their feeling was, it was probably an old one that I'd reactivated or, and so it just got worst over it got worse and worse over the next few weeks.

[00:05:31] And I could feel it degrading. And it was I'd missed that period in British medicine when you're treated as an emergency. And so I was almost always trying to get back into the system, but it got worse and worse until I had to have spine fusion surgery that failed quite badly and got an infection and made things worse.

[00:05:51] And yeah, I really, it was. Six seven years of just trying to find where ground, you know, that the kind of base level was like a kickoff. Again, every time I thought things couldn't get worse, they did, which is bizarre because I was working in an, in, you know, working at my day job was helping people who were injured and I was the one I'd run up through, but I couldn't think of myself and a knock and my co-director jewels.

[00:06:14] And you know, he felt awful because, you know, there was no fix. And obviously like most professionals, you know, I opt for the least, you know, you want ops for the least, least invasive corrective therapy. You know, I already had one round of surgery and that didn't go great. So you're a bit gun shy for the next round.

[00:06:31] So you're trying to manage everything with physio and physical, you know, physical therapy. And of course being in my business, I know a lot of them very good ones and bless them. They were all trying to. But it's one of those situations where no one could help. I couldn't help. Nobody could help.

[00:06:44] And it just, so I couldn't really ride at all between 2011 and 2000 and late 17, early 18, I had spine revision surgery in 2017 and it was successful. 

[00:06:57] Craig Dalton: Glad to hear that. Yeah. Yeah. What a journey. And I can only imagine how bad it was, you know, having to service athletes at cycle. If it's studio, meanwhile, not being able to, you know, enjoy the sport.

[00:07:10] That's been a big part of your entire life.

[00:07:12] . I remember you'd mentioned that you and your partner both had differing injuries that led you to starting this cycle fit studio.

[00:07:20] Can you just talk about that process and what philosophy you brought to fit? 

[00:07:25] Phil Cavell: Yeah, I mean, we both had injuries. So we were sidelined from racing and it just made us it, we came from a traditional racing background, you know, which was, you know, you didn't really think too much about your position and didn't think too much about anything at all, or even doing other things other than just racing.

[00:07:43] We just raised and rode all the time. And then we got, when we got injured, it made us reevaluate everything. And then we worked with Paul swift, a lot, one of your, you know, and we went to Ben serratus classes. Ben was great. We really, you know, those early, but Ben shorter classes were amazing. And then it just got it, gave us an appetite for the subject.

[00:08:04] So we just constantly learned and trained and sought people out who could help us learn. People about podiatrists because podiatry for us was where a lot of the gold was buried. We thought, and, you know, I think we were right about that. You know, we just trained and learn from everybody, whether it was a hip surgeon or a podiatrist or a physio, we just kept going.

[00:08:24] And so developed our philosophy from there. And the philosophy hasn't really changed. It's just changed, you know, to help us deliver the philosophy. And I guess that philosophy for that, sorry. 

[00:08:35] Craig Dalton: Yeah, no, I was just going to say, I mean, it seems yeah, I'd love to hear you summarize the philosophy and obviously like the cycle fit studio grew and you started working with a lot of professional teams and individual athletes of really big note.

[00:08:51] Phil Cavell: Yeah. Yeah, I guess the philosophy is that cycling is prescriptive. It's a very prescriptive sport. I think your ranges of movement and that can either be good because it's prescribing good movement for you or it's good. It can be bad. It's prescribing your body to do bad things that are out of alignment with what you can tolerate.

[00:09:11] And so for us, it really is about anatomy. It's understanding each individual on quite a deep level and what their body wants to do and how their body wants to move. And then try and express that on the bicycle. I guess that's our philosophy encapsulated that, you know, when cyclists come in and say, you know, geez, I'm really uncomfortable in pain.

[00:09:29] The bike's hurting me is don't beat yourself up. It's a very prescriptive environment. And right now the prescriptions are wrong. You're being prescribed the wrong. And we need to know, I found out what the right prescription is, and for that, we need to really understand how your body wants to move from function.

[00:09:45] And then possibly part of that is even saying, okay, there's things you can do yourself to make things better here. You know, no, one's a finished project, actually. Everyone's working progress, everybody, especially mid-life athletes things are changing quickly. So you've got to stay on top of it.

[00:09:58] So I guess that in essence is our philosophy. 

[00:10:00] Craig Dalton: Yeah, I was curious. I mean, I think it's a good time that we move on to the book that you've written the midlife cyclist, but were you seeing some of the things as you had older athletes come into cycle fit studio was, and as you were aging yourself, were you starting to see things very starkly about how the aging athlete was fitting onto a bike that led just another thread of why you wanted to write this.

[00:10:24] Phil Cavell: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, we were seeing clients come in trying to do extraordinary things and often not coming from a cycling background. And so we were, you know, it made us very curious really about, you know, you try not to see everybody through the same prism, you know, we're all X races, all races, that cycle of it.

[00:10:42] So it's very tempting to see things through that prism and, you know, The inspiration behind the book was what don't, let's not see people through that prison. Let's see. Pick Trump usually see people through their individual prison. My teachers did right. Looking at it. Thank you very much, Donna. So yeah, the hiding behind that was to really explore that subject.

[00:10:59] You know, someone doesn't come from a side, combat run, they come from a rugby background or a soccer background or and you know, what's the best evidence and advice for them to progress as quickly as they can in the sport safely. And that ultimately is. To try and hold people's hands so they can get the most out of themselves and the most out of their bikes and the booklet.

[00:11:18] The book really is a philosophy discussion about that subject to think. 

[00:11:22] Craig Dalton: Yeah, I think that's probably meets a lot of gravel riders where they're at, because your statement around meeting athletes who were trying to do extra ordinary things that maybe hadn't been riding their whole life to do that.

[00:11:34] Is commonplace in gravel. I mean the tent pole events around the world can be a hundred plus miles, maybe even 200 miles in the case of Unbound out in Kansas, these events that people read about and think, oh, I'm just going to go out and do that because gravel is so inviting, but the idea of coming off of even just a solid fitness background and riding 200 miles off road, quite a tall order.

[00:11:58] Phil Cavell: Yeah, that's right. And. It's beholden and everybody who wants to do that kind of event to really understand what they're demanding of their body, what systems are they going to be stressing? Which systems should they be fueling through? It's not just, it's just not enough to get yourself fit or to keep pushing up your FTP because of the net.

[00:12:18] You're a high FTP isn't necessarily going to get you through a trans continental ride or some of the great big events. It's just not, you know, you need to be working. In an oxidative efficient state. And that requires specific training. And a lot of us amateurs, certainly midlife athletes who have come into the sport late or trying to catch up all the time.

[00:12:38] They're trying to cram the homework is it won't work. You know, you know, you've got to you. I think I say in the book, you've, you know, you've got to put some foundations down before you can move into the penthouse, you know? And if you don't do that, you know, you know, you are not going to perform at your best.

[00:12:52] And so you've got almost slow down to go fast. Even me, you know, I come from a racing background race for decades. If I was going to go and do one of these events and I absolutely want to go and do the trans continent or something like that just absolutely speaks to me. I would completely change the way I ride.

[00:13:07] You know, I absolutely would, you know, I'm by nature, I'm a crit rider, you know, All fast, short distance, 45 minutes or an hour, and I'm gone. If I was going to do the trans continental, I would totally change the way I ride. Totally. You know, you've got to start fueling different. Yeah. You know, it's 

[00:13:24] Craig Dalton: interesting.

[00:13:25] No. It's interesting to hear your perspective on this stuff, obviously. That's why I invited you on the podcast. You know, to that vein, you know, it wasn't, I spent a little bit of time in my life, as a, as an amateur road racer. And then I did a bike tour and I realized as I strapped those bags on my road bike, the day was going to be different.

[00:13:45] I wasn't going to be sprinting. Out of the blocks. It was going to be a long day with a lot of weight on the bike. And it really was instrumental in shifting my mentality around what would eventually in my life become a passion around these Endurant long endurance events. And it is to your point, you just have to think about it entirely differently than an hour long criteria.

[00:14:09] Phil Cavell: That's right. And I remember Joel signed me up for the first Everett tap to tour and, you know, I didn't even know what it was, frankly. And Jules is juices. My co-director is a vet. He's a very intelligent, very disciplined rider and trainer always a much better trainer than I was. I was his lead out man.

[00:14:27] And I, and he was, you know, he was a very good sprinter and he signed me up for this event and I'm like, oh, okay. So we'll do it. So we went out to the tap to tour. I had no idea what it was, no idea what it was. And I got. And we started, I still didn't really know what it was. I didn't even know where it went.

[00:14:40] I honestly didn't know where it went or what climbs it went over. It seems madness now, but it's a long time ago. Anyway, it started and I thought, great race. You know, let's go get into, get my race head on and off we go. I was in the front group to start with the first hour and 10 minutes. I was literally in the front group.

[00:14:55] There's a group of us and I'm going through an orphan. It's an hour and 10 minutes hits and that's my normal distance. And I'm gone. I'm done. I'm not going to blow my. That's it lights went out after burners off, shut down at which point Jules came out next to me on this climb and said, oh, you worn out old Labrador.

[00:15:12] Look at you in touch. I'm sorry, chores. I'd completely blown my biscuit. And I had that five hours left. Yeah, very expensive education. Crazy. 

[00:15:21] Craig Dalton: For sure. You don't have to say, you know, I mentioned that, I felt like this book hit me at the exact right time. You know, I've been suffering the last few years with some lower back issues and felt you know, this was the year I was really gonna change my mentality about writing and, you know, I had been one of those.

[00:15:39] Ride five days a week. That's what riding is all about kind of athletes. And I knew I needed to make some changes when I was reading through maybe the first third of this book and maybe it was chapter three in particular. I was starting to think, oh my God, You know, I'm probably fortunate that it's only my back that's hurting because it could be my knees.

[00:15:58] It could be my it band. It could be my hip. And I started to get in this doom and gloom mentality. So I was super happy when it started to come around in chapter four. You know, the midlife cyclist, it is possible to still go fast and achieve these major milestone events in your life, but the mentality needs to shift.

[00:16:20] So it'd be interesting to just talk about some of the elements of the mentality that needs to shift and how we can think about, you know, writing to. 

[00:16:29] Phil Cavell: Yeah. And I'm sorry, some people have reacted to the book and said, look, you know, I find the book a little bit, you know, I find it a bit, chapter three, you know, is tough.

[00:16:38] And some of it I think is you know, you just a bad news bear. You just, you know, it's relentlessly bad news. And I don't, I just don't intend it like that. I just think the book to me is going into this with your eyes open, there's no point in being Peter pan about this understand the constraint, understand the challenges.

[00:16:53] And once you understand the challenges and the constraints have Austria. You know, and then you can do the best you can do, to go into this, you know, there's no point I didn't want to write a book. It was just a training manual, ignoring the fact that, you know, any other century you'd be dead, you know, 51, 50, 2 years old.

[00:17:10] How old are you? I'm nearly 60. So 51 51 in any other century, Craig, you wouldn't be alive, you know, unless you were kind of royalty, it's just as simple as that. You know, it's, you know, we need to, we need that kind of leveling moments. Okay. It's 300,000 generations of bypass. Every one of them would be dead by now, but not only am I alive, but I want to train and act like an Olympic athlete.

[00:17:33] Okay. All of that's great. I love it. Understand the challenges, you know, and this is people my age and your age, trying to push their bodies hard is a very recent event in human history. So I think it's beholden all of us to understand. And then understand what's happening to our bodies as we do this and challenge our bodies in these ways.

[00:17:54] Not because I think not because I think we shouldn't be doing it, not because I'm trying to be depressing, but because I think the goal is buried in understanding. 

[00:18:04] Craig Dalton: Yeah. And I think by the end of the book that comes absolutely shining through, and that chapter three is a distant memory and I was more on.

[00:18:14] Gosh, I just need to do the things that I need to do correctly. I need to think about my cycling career differently at this point. And there was a bunch of things in the book. That were put out there in a way that sort of makes you think about it. One that I'll highlight that is, I think for a lot of gravel athletes, maybe it's top of mind these days, just because of some of the athletes, we follow just the idea of recovery and you've got products like whoop out there talking about HRV, and there's obviously a number of other ways you can get that, that that stat out of your body.

[00:18:45] But if you could talk a little bit about recovery and maybe. Alongside that over-training syndrome. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on that. 

[00:18:54] Phil Cavell: Yeah, it's a good point. Oh, cyclists seem to be born with a great work ethic and it's, you know, and if, you know, and it's you know, we're made mad by miles.

[00:19:03] We just, you know, we're mile hungry. And if in doubt, put more miles on your belt, you know, I come from that background, you know, the old generation I come from was like, you know, it's all miles, it's all miles under the saddle, you know? And there's, that's partly true. When you get to our age, my age, I'm older than you.

[00:19:18] It's also too to say that you need to respect your body more and you need to rest more. You need to recover more. Remember that you get fit, not when you're training, but when you're recovering, you know, what you do is you have a, you introduce a stress to your body, a training dose to your body. And that stimulates something on a cellular level, and then you need to super compensate and your body then gets stronger to adapt to this.

[00:19:42] You put your body under. So you're actually getting, you're actually gaining fitness, not when you're training, but in the super compensation stage. Now everyone knows that, but cyclists, we seem to, it's no, we never, we don't allow our body to go into the super compensation stage and rest. And we get to my age and degree your age, you just need to have, be more conscious of not just the amount of rest, but the quality of rest sleep is absolutely.

[00:20:07] Go dust to you know, to our generation really, because that's when all the good work gets done. And if you're in any doubt tool bag as to whether you should train, I wouldn't necessarily use heart rate, which is our old gold standard. You'd take your pulse if you know, and you'd say, okay, I'm at 45.

[00:20:23] I'm good to go. Or 50 good to go. You know, a lot of a lot of endurance athletes have bradycardia, which is slow heart rate. So a better way to look at it is HRV heart rate variation, which is the beat to beat changed. And that gives you an, a better metric to work with as to whether you're fully rested and should train, or in fact, you're still tired and you've got inflammation in your body possibly or you're fighting something and you probably are best served to rest.

[00:20:45] Not best served to rest in health, but all certainly that is true, but best health best to rest for performance. Because training, when you're tired really has no benefit, it just doesn't have any benefit. Certainly our. You know, you want to be fizzing with energy when you train, you want to be go out there and think, oh, I could just, can't wait to do this.

[00:21:03] That's the mindset you need. I believe post 50 to train properly. 

[00:21:07] Craig Dalton: It's super interesting. And I think, you know, recovery has been something I've been focused on a lot more this year and just my understanding of it, you know, the HRV number, it's just this quantifiable metric that you can look at some days to be honest I feel like I have.

[00:21:21] The mentality to go out and thrash myself when I have a low HRV number. And I, you know, it takes a bit of discipline to dial myself back and knock, go after it or take the day off. But I think it's just layering on something very simple and a very important reminder, particularly for older athletes about the importance of recovery.

[00:21:41] Phil Cavell: Yeah. And I think. It's a sign of a mature athlete. If they go out and Jules was talking to me the day he went out for a ride and turn back, you know, he went out for a ride and said, you know, I just didn't feel right. Turned back you know, got 20 K in and went, you know what, this isn't going anywhere and turned back and went home and got cold the next day.

[00:21:57] You know, how did he stayed out for his three to four hours? He was planned and got cold and wet and really worked hard. You know, his age, she's two years younger than me. That would have been more, you know, more damaging as it was. He could shrug it off. So it's mature and sensible go out and say, do you know what?

[00:22:13] I'm not as sharp as I should be here. Now if you're a 25 crack on shore, Stop for a few beers. It doesn't matter. You know, you can do all that stuff, but post 45, 50, 60, yeah. You can't, you know, you can't because that stuff in beds, in, you know, that's a layer of inflammation in there that you don't need.

[00:22:29] Craig Dalton: And we've just recently had a coach on talking about just the need to control the things you can control when you're out there in these gravel events. And I think it's even more highly. For an older athlete, just to make sure you don't do something still in not hydrating or not getting the right nutrition in your body, not getting a good right rust, because as you said, we could all do that in our twenties and thirties, but in our forties and fifties and sixties, it's just going to have dire repercussions.

[00:22:56] Phil Cavell: Yeah. And I remember being a mounted by race. I think it was in Scotland years and years ago, probably 30 years ago, 25 years ago. And then the tent next. You know, or the camp, little campsite next door, they were having a party. They were drinking, they were solutely completely blasted. And then they weren't in our race.

[00:23:14] But, and then I remember coming back to the tent later, after we'd finished our race and the kid who in the morning was vomiting over his tent. Cause he was drunk in the morning. Still won his race. Shouldn't be, I remember talking to the you one new. You know, I was probably 30 at the time and he was already 18.

[00:23:32] Yeah. Yeah. Why don't you? And that his preparation was getting completely drunk, staying up all night and then vomiting over his tent. Now try that at 50, just to try that Jordan mean that isn't going to work. And that doesn't mean that was a good strategy. It just means he got away with it 18. I'm not sure that I'm not sure how that anecdote helps anybody anyway.

[00:23:53] Yeah. If 

[00:23:54] Craig Dalton: anybody does take that challenge on at 50, please send us a note. After the fact 

[00:23:58] Phil Cavell: you post a video like, 

[00:24:00] Craig Dalton: So chapter five, you go into bikes, bike, fit, and biomechanics. And I'm curious, I know you mentioned offline that you're, you're passionate gravel cyclists at this point. You know, how have you seen bike?

[00:24:12] Change relative to the equipment that's coming out for gravel bikes these days and the aging athlete. Yeah, 

[00:24:21] Phil Cavell: it's a good question. I just think it's a marvelous time. I think a lot of older athletes, my agent are embracing gravel because it means they get a bite. That you know, they don't have to have, you know, there are some in the air and you know, hands round by their knees, they can get a sense of a bite that can do lots of different jobs.

[00:24:38] It can be a robot, it can be you know, and so they, they're taking more sensible approach to their cycling. They. Once they've tried having a bit more rubber on the road or on the trail. They don't go back to riding a 23 and, you know, a 25, they, the minimum becomes a 28 or 32. So I think they're taking a much more pragmatic and I would say.

[00:24:57] Reassuring route through their cycling career. And it makes me much happier. I always, you know, when when a client walks out with a bike with a 32 Rhode Tyro, 28 or something. Yeah, it's good modem, you know, cause it's, you've got more grip there. You've got more comfort. You've got more control. You've got more safety margin.

[00:25:12] So I just think it's been a really, I think the whole gravel movement has been a altogether, very positive. I have to say for my clients for bike design. And of course it's all been liberated by disc brakes. Isn't it? I mean, seven was doing this a long time ago, one way or another, but I mean, you know, as were other manufacturers, but this has all been bought a life by the advent of disc brakes, isn't it?

[00:25:32] You know, and allowing the frame designer morph. 

[00:25:35] Craig Dalton: Yeah, a hundred percent. When you look at some of your professional athletes on the road that you work with, are you seeing like some of these elements of a little bit more comfort or are we still looking at these, you know, flat backs and high seats and long stems for the road athletes?

[00:25:51] Or are there actual like performance benefits that can be gained by pulling that back a little bit and making them a bit more relaxed?

[00:25:57] Phil Cavell: Yeah, I don't, I'd like to say I did see a bit of the latter and I think some, you know, some of the pros, the younger ones, you know, they look at it, look at Tom peacock. I mean, he comes from a cyclocross background, mountain bike background, you know, it's not, it's never too early, you know, he, you know, he has that background.

[00:26:14] You know, I'm not saying that his rope position is an aggressive. There's a good chance that, you know, he's going to have some, you know, he's crammed some smarts about him when he sets up his road bike. We, you know, I don't see necessarily that they are setting their Roebucks road bikes up any different, but they all do ride gravel.

[00:26:30] They all got gravel bikes. You know, one hopes that at some point they're going to take some, you know, some kind of recalibration by osmosis between the two, two formats. Certainly my amateur. You know, th they're now becoming category sensitive, you know, they, you know, they're no longer, they're no longer seeing these pigeonholes.

[00:26:49] They just, you know, there's getting bikes at work for a number of different environments. And I think that's brilliant and I love that. Yeah. 

[00:26:56] Craig Dalton: The other thing that's been talked about this book was and I heard you speaking on another podcast and referencing that you didn't think people were going to hang their hats on it as much as they have, but just this notion that amateur athletes are riding much closer to their threshold than professional athletes are on a weekly and monthly basis.

[00:27:13] Phil Cavell: Yeah. That, yes, that w the podcast, I was that too. So John Lewis is the 

[00:27:19] Craig Dalton: baseline podcast, 

[00:27:20] Phil Cavell: I think. Yeah. Yeah, it's been picked up on a lot that, I mean, the thing is data doesn't lie, you know, th the fact is that amygdala amateur athletes tend to spend more of their time as a proportion, closer to the red line and professionals per year.

[00:27:34] So we're 50 years of all 50 years of age, you know, in any other century we'd be dead, but there we are literally thrashing our bodies to destruction. Not literally, but metaphorically compared to professional writers. So they're writing at 60 something percent and we're writing 80% of our potential.

[00:27:51] You know, one has to think, what is that sense of, or, and the book really is trying to answer that. It is that sensible, rational, sustainable and you know, and it, what it means is that professional cyclists are more ordered and structured in the way that they ride and train more cognizant of what they should be doing.

[00:28:08] We tend to ride in this kind of mid sort of mid watch the whole time, you know, where are hard, bits are not hard enough. And our easy bits are too easy to just ride in this. What John Baker calls whirlwind of doom, you know, we're just and I can recognize it in myself, you know, decades gone past, I can recognize that, you know, where I'm riding in that kind of just in that uncomfortable zone all the time. 

[00:28:30] Craig Dalton: It 

[00:28:30] Resonated with me for sure. Only because as I mentioned offline, you know, I live in a little bit of a hilly place and I prefer to ride almost exclusively off-road so I, I do find myself grinding like a diesel engine up these Hills, never particularly having a super easy day and but never really doing anything that would resemble an interval either.

[00:28:52] Phil Cavell: Yeah. And that's right. I've worked with so many professional athletes and amateurs. And when they're forced to take things easy, you know, injury or illness, they always come back stronger, but they come back renewed and rejuvenated. It's yes, because your body's been desperate for this for so long. And yeah, and I think that's absolutely right.

[00:29:12] Whereas now I actually literally make myself ride really easy. Oh my God, this is lovely. I can feel my body's rejuvinating as I write. And then if I want to have a little pot and go a bit hard, I do. I definitely never ride hard unless I want to ever it, you know, I, I use that rule for myself unless I'm fizzing with energy and really want to ride hard.

[00:29:31] I don't. Yeah. And the rest of the time, I just knock it back. A couple of gears. I know that I'm building mitochondria, I'm working my oxidative system. It's all good for me. The other 

[00:29:41] Craig Dalton: thing that I picked up was just this notion of. Getting your head around dropping a cycling workout, picking up a strength training workout, or stand up paddle board session in your week.

[00:29:52] And again, with this holistic idea that it's actually going to make you a faster cyclist. 

[00:29:59] Phil Cavell: Yeah. And I think that's right. You've got to take one step back, take two steps forward as a midlife athlete because. Yeah. So I think we'll do nothing for bone density or bone minerality. It'll do nothing for sarcopenia or muscle loss.

[00:30:12] It'll do nothing really for flexibility. There's so much of the, you know, you'll do nothing for balance. Really. There's so much of your potential. That's not being challenged by cycling and not being developed. So you're not building, you're not building resilience in your Shasti. Do you want to build resilience in your Shasti?

[00:30:27] You've got to put the bike aside for a second. And do other things and that will make you faster. It's it's a tool. It's a tool. I was going to mix my metaphors. It's a big pill to swallow that one. 

[00:30:37] Craig Dalton: Totally it very much is. And I struggled with that a little bit myself, but I realized it to be a hundred percent true.

[00:30:44] Like I need to do these different things in order to be successful. And it's been an exploration. I've got a future podcast, guests just talking about why we need to do that. And I think it's critically important. 

[00:30:56] Phil Cavell: Yeah. And I don't athlete in the, in photography today. Very good athlete, you know, was he 47, 48 hours, incredibly strong, very powerful, doing big events.

[00:31:05] You're doing that event where they ride tour stages, you know, back to back tours stages before the tour or whatever. And, you know, I did a single X partial, single leg squat with him and he couldn't do a partial, single leg squat. It's you know what, you know, that's a pretty simple thing to do a partial single as to what you know, Yeah, I see that a lot.

[00:31:23] It's nice. Not a new, that's not, it's not atypical, you know, see a lot, you know, where you got super fit people and they can't do simple things, you know? 

[00:31:31] Craig Dalton: Yeah. No, I think that's so true. And I remember maybe in my forties, patting myself on the back that I'd selected a sport that you can ride, you know, you can ride a bike your entire life, but I didn't realize at the time that yes, you can, but you're going to need to do other things to support that goal.

[00:31:47] Phil Cavell: Yeah, that's right. And we've all heard stories where you've got a friend or a colleague and they're, you know, midlife, cyclists, and they have an accident which is quite innocuous. And the damage is more, you know, more than you, one would expect. And you know, they didn't have a DEXA scan or, you know, looks, which looks, you know, the sort of bone minerality and it's low they're, what's called osteopenic or osteoporotic.

[00:32:08] And it's because all they've done is cycle all their lives and not done anything off the bite whatsoever. And now they've got a bone density issue. You know, you know, if we're going to build resilience in the chassis, one of the things we need to look at is bone minerality, bone D. 

[00:32:21] Craig Dalton: Yeah, it makes a ton of sense.

[00:32:23] The book is great. I really enjoyed it. As I said, hit me at the right time. I hope for those listeners, like if your late thirties, early forties get on this book earlier, rather than later, because at 50, I've got some catching up to do. I'm committed to the cause. Cause I want to see everybody out there on the gravel events in 2022.

[00:32:42] So Phil, thank you so much for the time. Thank you for writing this book and putting such good work out there in the. 

[00:32:48] Phil Cavell: You're so welcome, Craig, it's been a pleasure to talk to you. Have a great weekend. 

[00:32:52] Craig Dalton: Cheers. 

[00:32:53] Big thanks to Phil for joining the show this week. I hope you all go out there and take a look at the midlife cyclist book, whether you're a midlife cyclist, yourself approaching midlife or otherwise. I think there's a lot of value in understanding. 

[00:33:07] What our bodies are going to go through as mid-life cyclists. I know this is something that I wish I was more attuned to as a younger lad. I think I would be in a lot better shape today. 

[00:33:19] And another big, thanks to competitive cyclists for joining us as a sponsor this week and the coming weeks. Be sure to visit competitive cyclists.com/the gravel ride and enter promo code to the gravel ride. To get 15% off your full price purchase and free shipping on orders over $50. Some exclusions apply as they always do. 

[00:33:40] Thanks for spending a little bit of your week with me this week. Until next time here's defining some dirt onto your wheels

This week Randall and Craig discuss 2020: the year that was and the year that wasn't. While the pandemic canceled most of the gravel cycling events on the calendar, it did open up opportunities for adventure and community.

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Join The Ridership Forum 

In this episode of the podcast, we interview Adam Sklar, the founder of Sklar Bikes. Adam shares his journey into cycling, starting with his entry into mountain biking through his ski friends during his childhood in Boulder, Colorado.

He talks about his early experiences in bike racing and how he discovered his passion for frame building during his time in college in Montana. Adam discusses the challenges and joys of building custom bikes for his friends and the process of transitioning from custom bikes to smaller batch production.

He also talks about the design philosophy behind Sklar Bikes, which focuses on creating versatile and fun bikes that offer different riding experiences. Craig and Adam touch on various topics, including the materials used in frame building, the process of designing and manufacturing custom bikes, the popularity of gravel bikes, and the unique features of Sklar Bikes, such as the adjustable dropouts and external cable routing.

Throughout the episode, Adam's passion for building bikes and creating unique riding experiences shines through. Listeners are encouraged to check out the Sklar Bikes website and reach out to Adam with any questions or inquiries.

Episode Sponser: AG1 

Sklar Bikes 

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Join The Ridership 

Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos:

[00:00:01]Craig Dalton (host): Adam, welcome to the show.

[00:00:03]Adam Sklar: for having me. I feel like I've been

[00:00:05]Craig Dalton (host): I feel like I've been admiring your bikes from afar for a while, so I'm excited to have this conversation and just learn a little bit more about the origin story of the brand.

[00:00:15]Adam Sklar: Cool. Yeah, I'm excited to talk about it. start off with,

[00:00:18]Craig Dalton (host): Let's start off with, uh, just learning a little bit about you. Where'd you grow up and how'd you discover cycling in the first place?

[00:00:24]Adam Sklar: Cool. Yeah, so my name is Adam Lar. Um, People know me for my bike brands, car bikes. Um, so yeah, I grew up in Boulder, Colorado, and I guess my entry to bikes was through my ski friends. I grew up ski racing and then in the summers all my ski friends were into cross country mountain biking, like mountain bike racing as you were if you were a kid who grew up in Boulder.

Um, and so after a couple summers of them, Like begging me to go mountain biking with them. I finally tried it and it, um, hooked. I guess I got hooked super hard. It was sort of the thing we could do where we went outside all day and our parents wouldn't bug us, um, or like ask questions about what we were doing.

So we would go up in the mountains and pack our lunch and go on these big long rides. Um, and that was, so that's sort of, yeah, what my entry point into cycling was. Um, amazing.

[00:01:21]Craig Dalton (host): Amazing. And then did you catch the racing bug from your

[00:01:24]Adam Sklar: Not really. They, I tried to make it, make it go. Um, I definitely, my last year of high school was the first year of Nica in Colorado, and that was cool.

And I thought I would get into racing, but I moved to Montana and they didn't really have bike races there. Um, so I never, I never really got super vacy, but I, I wanted to be for sure. And what, what

[00:01:52]Craig Dalton (host): And what, what led you to move to

[00:01:53]Adam Sklar: Um, I came to Montana for college, so I went, I went to engineering school at Montana State in Bozeman, and yeah, that's how I ended up in Bozeman. Gotcha.

[00:02:04]Craig Dalton (host): And in the course of your education there, did you learn to weld?

[00:02:08]Adam Sklar: a little bit, yeah. So I, I built my first frame, winter break of my freshman year of college, so I was, um, or well built as, Maybe a generous word, but I, I got some tubes and stuck 'em together with like, stuff from Home Depot. And at, at the end of my time in Boulder, I'd met this guy Walt, who does, Walt works.

And uh, he built me a fork for my mountain bike. 'cause we were all into rigid 29 ERs, single speeds, you know, very bolder. And, uh, I showed it to Walt and he felt bad for me, and so he gave me a brazing lesson and taught me how to do it. So then I, I did a couple more on my own and then, yeah, went back to school.

I got a job in the machine shop on campus and it just so turned out that the guy who ran that shop had built frames in the seventies and eighties, and so he really took me under his wing. And so I was working in the machine shop helping engineering students with like their senior projects, machining stuff, and then, Some nights there would be no one there, so I would just machine bike tools or work on bikes and that's sort of how I built up a lot of my, my shop and experience. Amazing. If you had

[00:03:24]Craig Dalton (host): amazing, if you had to guess, how many bikes did you make while you were in school? Cool

[00:03:28]Adam Sklar: Oh, probably, I bet like 20. I ended up, I think I met Tom, like I, Tom Youngs, who was the shop guy. I think I built seven when I met him, and then I probably built another 20 or something. Sort of like the, the business started 'cause I was spending all my money building bikes for friends and, which is, you know, it's how it goes.

Like you build one and it was really fun. It's so cool. You ride it and you're like, wow, I made this. That's amazing. And then your friends see that and they want one. And I also wanted to build more bikes, but I had enough, you know, I can't, I couldn't just keep building myself bikes. So I got my friends to buy 'em.

And then, um, I was like, why do I have no money? I need to make one bank account that's just bike stuff and if that's zero, then I'm not making money. And that was kinda the start of learning how to do a business as well. What

[00:04:22]Craig Dalton (host): And what type of bikes, I think you might have mentioned this, but what type of bikes were you making for your

[00:04:27]Adam Sklar: then?

It was, yeah, that was still in our rigid single speed 29 or days. So pretty, I think like out of the first 20, I bet 15. Were those. Yeah. Did you have an

[00:04:39]Craig Dalton (host): And did you have an opportunity to kind of explore the different characteristics of the various steel tube sets available?

[00:04:46]Adam Sklar: I think that early on, yeah, I was still learning about that stuff. Um, a lot of experimentation, a lot of, there were some frames, nothing was ever wildly unrideable, but you know, you build one and you're like, okay, that's super stiff. That feels bad, or, you know, that bottom bracket's way too high. Like, I won't do that again.

Um, so luckily my friends were very forgiving with some of those first ones. Um, but I think, yeah, I mean the, the understanding of materials really happened over time. I think, you know, you're, you're starting and you're just working on the actual fabrication craft. So like, it would come in phases. Like at first it was like, I need to get good at welding and be really focused on the welding.

And of course you're always looking at materials and things like that. But I think after I had nailed down the craft a little bit more, I spent a lot of little dove into materials a little deeper. And I guess being an engineering school also helped with that. 'cause you learn, there's a lot of in the bike world, you know, interesting rumors that get spread around about materials.

But having a scientific background in that stuff. Kinda helps you see what parts are true about those things and what might be made up Interesting.

[00:06:06]Craig Dalton (host): That's super interesting along the way. Just 'cause I'm curious, like as you were learning the craft of frame building, was there an area of the frame that was the trickiest to kind of master? I mean I, in my mind, I'm thinking like around the bottom bracket seems to be the hardest place to get the welds

[00:06:25]Adam Sklar: yeah. I mean, Uh, yeah, I mean, still the hardest thing with like the big tires, big tire chain ring clearance. You know, you'll see all these very creative chains day yolks out there these days. And it's funny, bikes are, bikes are so simple, but, uh huh. Recording can, oh, can you hear me Still?

[00:06:54]Craig Dalton (host): Yeah. Yeah,

[00:06:55]Adam Sklar: Oh, you went away.

Oh no. Okay. What was I saying? Oh yeah, chainstay. Yos. Yeah, threading. And like the cool thing about that era, so this was like 2012 ish, and so the first big tire era I got to go through was like plus mountain bikes, but also gravel bikes. Were kind of just starting to be more popular than I think, and. At that time we were like, how do we fit a 40 C tire in here with a road double and stuff like that.

So that was, um, yeah, it was fun to be figuring out those problems and maybe figuring 'em out. Before companies, like big companies had to, you know, they, they have to make sure that works for the run of a thousand bikes they're gonna do, but I was doing one at a time, so we could make. These cool big tire bikes before they came out commercially, which was pretty cool.

Yeah,

[00:07:54]Craig Dalton (host): Yeah, I think that's, it's been such an interesting journey the last six years or so, just around that specific challenge of.

[00:08:01]Adam Sklar: clearance. Mm-hmm.

[00:08:02]Craig Dalton (host): clearance and how to make that work with gravel bikes. That's interesting to hear you kind of attacking that early on through your exploration of the mountain bike first and then later transitioning like, oh, I already figured out how to do that for super big tires.

Now I just need to downsize it a little bit for this gravel and road crankset

[00:08:22]Adam Sklar: Totally. Yeah. So you

[00:08:25]Craig Dalton (host): Yeah. So you graduate from college, you've made, you know, twenties, 20, 30 bikes. At that point, did you immediately kind of say, Hey, this makes sense for me to pursue as a business, or was there something you were doing along the way at that time as well as you were doing this

[00:08:40]Adam Sklar: Yeah, I, um, no, I. I was pretty hesitant to do it as a job. I had talked to a lot of builders and pretty much all of them said, don't do this for a job.

Um, I really wanted to do it. I mean, I was, so, it was all I thought about and I literally like jumped out of bed on the weekends, excited to go build bikes in my garage and it was what I wanted to do. But I was, um, during, it must have been my junior year of college, I met. A guy at a Cycl cross race who owned an engineering firm.

And so he ended up giving me a job and I was working there. My last, so I was in school and I was working at the engineering firm and doing bikes. Um, but the firm was like sort of product design stuff. We did a lot of, we'd call 'em like electro mechanical devices, like kitchen devices or, I worked on some drones.

Um, some like three D camera mounts for Google was a big thing I did. Um, That was fun. I learned a lot about complex like CAD modeling and working with engineering clients, which was, it was a really cool experience. Um, and then, yeah, a year and a half or so into that. So I did that for half, I don't know, a year or something, and then graduated.

And then that summer I went and rode the Colorado trail with some friends and I took like, I took like three weeks off for that and before like the phone was ringing more and more for bikes and I came back and my boss sat me down and was like, you have to choose this or choose that. And so I ended up choosing bikes and he ordered a bike from me, was the first thing he did.

So it was, it was a very gentle push off into the world of that. It was nice. I love it. I

[00:10:24]Craig Dalton (host): I love it. I love it. Silly question, but did you, did you design your own bike for the Colorado Trail, and if so, what

[00:10:31]Adam Sklar: Oh yeah, yeah. I did it with, so that was actually really fun. It was like four or five of my good friends from high school who, the nerd, the cross country racing nerds who got me into bikes and we were all on bikes that I built.

So, um, think two of us were on rigid. We all had gears at that point, but two Rigids three I think had 140 mil travel hard tail, like 11 speed. But yeah, we were all. On Lars, which was pretty cool.

[00:11:04]Craig Dalton (host): That's awesome. So talk about like sort of the early years of the brand and how when you, when you went full-time,

[00:11:11]Adam Sklar: year was

[00:11:12]Craig Dalton (host): what year was that?

[00:11:13]Adam Sklar: I think that was 2016 that I went full-time.

[00:11:16]Craig Dalton (host): Okay.

[00:11:17]Adam Sklar: Yeah, the, so I was sort of just figuring out, I mean, I was building really, I was, I was super psyched to build bikes and I had my shop space that I'm still in. That's the year I moved into the shop space. And, uh, yeah, I was psyched and orders were starting to come in, so I was building custom bikes, so I'd get, you know, an order for custom mountain bike, custom gravel bike, touring bike, and then that process.

By that point, I had probably built 50 or 80 ish spikes and develop that process a little bit more so, With a customer when they come to you, on average for the custom bikes, it would be 60 or 80 emails per bike. So it's a pretty involved process where they tell you their needs and you know, I'm asking, it's not just like, what are your measurements?

It's like, what, where do you live? What's the riding like? What goals do you have with like, do you want to do a big bike tour on it? Is it to win cycl cross races? Is it, you know, there's so many. And then you're sort of teasing out what the things people tell you mean, because, you know, you can say all sorts of things.

Like, my favorite one is people say like, I want a bike that rides like a big B M X bike. But they've never actually ridden a, like B M X bikes are scary to ride. You know, you don't, you don't want, that's not what they mean. But I know what they mean when they say that, but it's not, unless they're an actual B M X rider, I would never believe them.

When they say that, what does that, what does that

[00:12:51]Craig Dalton (host): What does that, what does that translate to you? That they want the bike

[00:12:55]Adam Sklar: To me, it's like playful, nimble, I think is a word that I would use and like lofty, like easy to bunny hop and stuff. But yeah, beer mix bikes are

[00:13:03]Craig Dalton (host): that makes sense.

[00:13:05]Adam Sklar: You don't want that. Um, so yeah, big really involved process building these custom bikes that were yeah, from the ground up all the way custom.

Um, yeah, and I did that for a long time for. Eight, I guess the next eight years, just building 30,

[00:13:25]Craig Dalton (host): And, and were you starting to go to like the handmade bike show

[00:13:28]Adam Sklar: Yep. I went to the Handmade bike show, I think that was 2016 was the year I won Best Mountain Bike. I was. Which, um, those awards are a little silly, but that definitely put me on the map for a lot of folks.

Um, and yeah, I think after that my, my lead time went up to two years and it really didn't ever go down from there. Which was an interesting journey in itself. It's gets some

[00:13:57]Craig Dalton (host): Yeah, to get some perspective, like how long from beginning to end, obviously you've got the massive number of emails in advance of actually welding anything, but how long would it take you to manufacture a custom bike?

[00:14:09]Adam Sklar: yeah, so most of the time is definitely in the design process.

I mean, that's typically once we started it, it would be about. Six weeks to get everything dialed in. And that would include like build kit and paint colors and all that stuff. But once I have the design in hand ready to go in the shop, it's usually like I can, in two days of work, I can get it done. So like 15, 20 hours.

Um, yeah. And that got faster and faster over the years. But

[00:14:40]Craig Dalton (host): Yeah. Got it. And when did you start to see gravel bikes become more of what customers were asking for? I. And were you kind of prepared for that transition to designing drop

[00:14:52]Adam Sklar: Totally. Yeah, I think that must've, so I was big on the, the mountain bike big award thing happened, and that's my background as well is in mountain bikes. Um, and then it must've been right around then, yeah, maybe 2016 ish, 17 in there. Um, I definitely noticed. Something that I liked, well, I had built myself a couple.

I was a hesitant gravel rider, just 'cause I was like, I'm a mountain biker, you know, road biking's lame, which is dumb. But, um, you know, here in Bozeman, the trails, if you, if you, there's amazing gravel riding. We're in this big valley that's like a hundred miles across one way, 30 miles across the other.

And there's, it's just full of sweet gravel roads and. If you have a gravel bike, it adds four months to the riding season. 'cause there's like two months on either end that the trails are snowed in and that. Um, so I had built myself some gravel bikes and I was getting super into it and I noticed that my friends were mountain bikers.

It was a way for them to have two more months of riding and my friends were road bikers. It was a good way to like, get them to go do actually fun riding. And um, it just seemed like such a fun way to bring. All the bike people together. And then at the same time, what we were just talking about where big companies were kind of figuring it out.

I think it was, it was a time like the, the coolest part about the custom stuff is that interaction, getting to hear what people are looking for. And it was really cool with gravel bikes because you know, I got to talk to hundreds of people who were like, this is the gravel bike I can't find out there and this is what I'm looking for.

And through, you know, That six week long process with all those people. Um, I think I got some pretty cool ideas about what people are actually looking for in a grapple bike. Um, so I think that

[00:16:52]Craig Dalton (host): Given your mountain bike background, when you first designed your own personal gravel bike, was it on the rowdier side?

[00:16:59]Adam Sklar: yeah. Well actually, you know, I think the first, well actually the very first bike bike I built was. Kind of a, it was like a cyclocross. We were still calling 'em cyclo cross bikes then. Um, but yeah, I did, I think the first, yeah, they definitely leaned mountain bike year. They had that mountain bike ego to them.

Um, yeah, and I did a lot of experimentation. Um, I remember, I don't know, I probably built myself like 15 of, maybe not that many, 10, but, um, ranging from, yeah, full. Drop our mountain bike to big tire road bike. Um, and that's been, that's been part of the journey too, to realize what I like in there and also to help me understand what people mean.

You know, hearing about their background as a cyclist, what, what they're used to. I think that's a huge part of design. People might come to you with an idea of what they want, but also. There's, there's something, you know, muscle memory of riding a bike. And if you're used to riding road bikes and you hop on one of those rowdy mountain, like mountain bikey gravel bikes, most of those people aren't gonna like it.

And I think the other way is true too. If you're a mountain biker and you get on a really steep road, road bike with big tires, that's gonna feel unnatural. So the custom bikes are kind of weaving in. Like, what are your goals? Like do you want to, are you a road biker who wants to get on single track?

Like how do we make it familiar enough that it feels like home? You know, it feels like something you like, and how do we make it capable enough that it can make you feel confident to, to do those things? You want to push yourself on that. That's sort of the balance I'm always, I've been trying to do. Yeah.

[00:18:54]Craig Dalton (host): Yeah, it's such an interesting journey. As the listener may remember, I went through my own custom bike design experience, and it's easy to go in and say, I want two, two tire clearance and I want this, that, and the other thing. And then as you get the design out the other side, You start to see the compromises, the longer chain stays, the different things that they need to do, particularly when working with a metal to achieve those dimensions.

And for me, it was like I needed to be more realistic and say, okay, I need to knock it back a little bit because I don't wanna entirely lose,

[00:19:29]Adam Sklar: the notion

[00:19:30]Craig Dalton (host): you know, the notion of a road bike feel. I don't wanna turn this into a, a mountain bike. And there was an interesting just give and take in my own personal journey to say, okay, you know, 700 by 50 is plenty big as a tire.

Let's go with that as a max and let's see how things fall. And we can get a design that is still playful enough, but accommodates everything i, I realistically need at this point in my custom bike.

[00:19:56]Adam Sklar: Yeah. It's so easy to want it all. But that's kind of part of the fun of these bikes, I think is like they're, they're, you're not supposed to ride on Montreals, but that's why they're so fun. And mountain biking is so

[00:20:11]Craig Dalton (host): exactly. And

[00:20:12]Adam Sklar: and it's so fun on a mountain bike and like, don't make your gravel bike, mountain bike.

Go, go mountain biking if you want to do that.

[00:20:21]Craig Dalton (host): yeah. Yeah. I know you've spent enough, you spent time in Marin County, so you know how rowdy the trails can be out here, so,

[00:20:27]Adam Sklar: is

[00:20:28]Craig Dalton (host): Mine is probably definitely way closer to a mountain bike than a traditional gravel bike, but I I, I am conscious of,

[00:20:35]Adam Sklar: have a mountain.

[00:20:36]Craig Dalton (host): I have a mountain bike, so I don't wanna get too close to that chassis.

It needs to feel good when I'm on the roads and still be, you know, zippy enough to do all the gravel bike things.

[00:20:47]Adam Sklar: Yeah, you, I don't. I don't think everyone needs like 12 bikes. I mean, personally, like I have three bikes I ride, so I, I like there to be some, yeah. I don't wanna like be confused about if I should ride my heart tail or my gravel bike. You know? I guess sometimes you still are, but nice to have 'em be a different, different vibe.

Yeah.

[00:21:12]Craig Dalton (host): Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So as the, as you've kind of continued to develop the brand, it sounds like you did a ton of these custom bikes with a lot of analysis about what people were needing.

[00:21:24]Adam Sklar: there,

[00:21:25]Craig Dalton (host): Was there, how, how has the brand evolved at this point? I mean, I know we have a, a model we wanna talk about that's being done in a smaller batch production, but kind of how did it get from custom bikes to, to where you are today?

Was there a midpoint where you started to do like size runs of models and things like that?

[00:21:43]Adam Sklar: Yeah. And in 20, I think it was 2018. I did my first non-custom model, which is a Hardtail mountain bike that I called the sweet spot.

And so that was similar story like with the mountain bikes for, for probably most of the time we've talked about so far. It was split between like 50 50 custom gravel bikes, custom mountain bikes, and this was in mountain bike. Sort of the era of like figuring out this whole new long front end, like. Long front center, steep seat tube thing, which has definitely bled into gravel bikes and similarly to the soup or something, which we'll get to.

I was just seeing pretty much everyone came to me because of the style of bikes I was designing. You know, they see pictures of the bikes I built and they're like, that looks like what I want, which is cool. And I was building them a fully custom bike, even though it felt like a lot of the time they were just defaulting to like, I think you should build me what you think is right.

And so it felt like, I'm not gonna say a waste of time, but it felt like a lot of customers could be better served by a more off the shelf product and it would save time and money for them and be a product that I believed in. So that's why the sweet Spot came about. Um, and that was cool. And I built probably 50 of those over the next few years.

Four sizes, three colors. Sorry. Is that noise bad? Okay. Um, yeah, and that was, that was more successful than I thought it'd be. It was a scary leap. I mean, I, I, I talk about that like when we get together at nabs and stuff with all the handmade builders. Like, everyone's like, I can't believe you're doing that.

Um, not custom. It's crazy. But, oh, sorry. Go ahead. What?

[00:23:39]Craig Dalton (host): What did that actually look like for you as a builder? Is that just a matter of, okay, now I'm gonna buy 10 sets of tubes at a time, I'm gonna cut 'em, I'm gonna weld them in a batch process. Does it, how did it change kind of how you were approaching it? And I mean, part of it obviously is like a financial commitment, buying all that tubing and putting your energy towards welding something that isn't sold already.

But yeah, maybe just describe like what you went through to get to that

[00:24:05]Adam Sklar: Yeah. I mean, it was a, it was a whole new process to really develop a product, whereas, I guess this is something I've been thinking a lot about, like the custom stuff.

You're, you're solving different issues every time. Um, so from a branding perspective, right, the product is different every time, which is not really good for building a brand. Um, so doing the, the sweet spot, which is the same every time, um, I think it gives a stronger message. It's like, here's what I believe in for a mountain bike.

Um, as far as the logistics of it, they all have the same rear ends, so I. Which is one of the harder things to do, that chainstay part. So I would weld like five at a time of the bottom bracket to chainstay, to dropouts and just kind of keep those around. And then there's a couple other things like bending and slotting and putting a dropper port in for a seat tube.

So I'd keep around a C tube. I was, when I did one, I would do four or something. And so I've got a box of them around and someone orders one and I can like throw the chain stays and the jig, throw the C tube on, and from there it's like four or five hours to finish the frame. So it made it Yeah, really quick to do those.

Um, yeah,

[00:25:23]Craig Dalton (host): Got

[00:25:23]Adam Sklar: nice. And then my painter keeps the paint on hand, so it makes paint go faster. You know, we know all the hardware that we need to have to build it up. Bolts and stuff like that. So I just really streamlined everything and that was cool. People got to get the bikes. Instead of waiting two years, it was three months, which is, I think, more reasonable.

I never intended to have a two year wait. That was, yeah.

[00:25:49]Craig Dalton (host): Yeah.

[00:25:51]Adam Sklar: Yeah. Maybe take a

[00:25:52]Craig Dalton (host): and maybe take a moment, Adam, and just describe there, there is something visually unique about the bikes you put out there in the world. I particularly key in on the, the sort of top tube, and that seems to be like a hallmark of the brand at this point. Is that true or do you build bikes with straight, top

[00:26:10]Adam Sklar: yeah. The curvy top tube I started doing very early on. It was, it was mostly because I wanted to alize the tubes, which they're all, they're curvy, but they're, they're pretty ized.

Which, you know, I was in engineering school and we were learning about beams and stuff, and so the, you know, the wider cross section is the ultimate and, uh, Laterally, stiff vertically compliant as they say. So that was sort of what I was going for. But then I also was building frames that looked like that, and I thought, yeah, I mean, what we're talking about with the brand, like I wanted a bike that you could tell without paint was one of my bikes.

Um, and so I think I've achieved that, which is nice. Uh, yeah, it's nice to have

[00:26:53]Craig Dalton (host): Yeah, it's super clever.

[00:26:54]Adam Sklar: was a way to be consistent, even though I was building different custom bikes every time, it was still a slar. And I like that.

[00:27:04]Craig Dalton (host): Yeah, that makes sense. Well, let's, let's jump onto the, the latest model. You're releasing this super something, the gravel bike. I'd love to hear just about some of your design philosophy.

[00:27:14]Adam Sklar: that bike and the

[00:27:15]Craig Dalton (host): With that bike and help the listener understand, you know, who's the intended rider and what are some of the things you considered when designing this bike?

[00:27:23]Adam Sklar: Yeah, so the super something has been exciting. We, um, The first batch went out earlier this year, and the second batch is on a boat from Taiwan right now. So that's exciting. Um, that that project started, yeah, two years ago. It takes about a year to design that bike, but as we've been talking about, it's sort of that culmination of the hundreds of people I've talked to about what they want in a gravel bike, and then that paired with also all these friends who.

Especially during pandemic times when everyone was getting into gravel biking, it felt like I had all these friends, like, what bike should I buy? And I should mention that the custom bikes were, in addition to being a really long wait, were very expensive. And I kind of got bummed, just telling my friends over and over, like maybe.

Like the salsa is really nice. Um, so I wanted to make a bike that in like good conscious, I could tell my friends who are newish to cycling or, you know, maybe an experienced mountain biker, experienced roadie. Like this is a super nice bike that you can build up to be a really cool gravel bike. Um, and yeah, I, experimented, you know, with the rowdy, the rowdy mountain bike ish geometry.

And didn't love that. I love more the experience of riding a bike, like not, you know, engaging, still an engaging ride. So it's, it, it leans a little bit more on that traditional geometry end. Um, it definitely takes into account some elements of new school geometry. So they're designed around a little bit shorter stem.

They're higher offset, um, which allows for a bit of a longer front end, but the trail is still similar to. Like road a little bit more than a road bike. Kind of similar, um, yeah, a little bit more than a road bike. What, what tube

[00:29:23]Craig Dalton (host): And what, what tube set did you end up deciding

[00:29:26]Adam Sklar: So it's our own tube set that we developed there. It's all really nice air hardened, like double butted cro Molly.

It's, it's the good stuff. I mean, I know a lot of brands like slap a label on there and say it's some. Have a name. I don't have a cute name for it, but, um, it is, it's really nice. Um, and it rides super well, so I should, I should come up with a name for it, if anyone has an idea. Yeah. It must have been a pretty

[00:29:55]Craig Dalton (host): So it must have been a pretty heady decision as a custom frame builder and having so put so much energy into your craft.

[00:30:03]Adam Sklar: in

[00:30:03]Craig Dalton (host): A vendor in Taiwan to manufacture this for you? What was that process like to give you the confidence to put your name on this bike with it being produced offshore?

[00:30:13]Adam Sklar: it was huge. Um, I have a great trade partner in Taiwan and you know, in our first meeting he rattled off the companies he works with and it's pretty much every reputable metal bike company that you've heard of, um, does one, which is maybe an industry secret I'm not supposed to reveal. But, um, it's.

They, you know, still hesitant, but we got samples, you know, that process, it took a long time. So four months in, I found I got samples and then I, you know, we checked 'em out, tested 'em, and they're all good to go. Um, they've been really nice to work with. Yeah. The factory, those are made in Max Way, which if you're a big nerd, you've probably heard of, they made, you know, surly salsa all city. I bet you, you know, all the rive Dells and, and then they make, they make so many people's bikes. So very reputable company.

[00:31:11]Craig Dalton (host): Got it.

[00:31:12]Adam Sklar: But yeah, it was a big investment. Huge investment, huge change. Scary for the brand. Um, yeah, big decision for sure. Yeah, for sure.

[00:31:21]Craig Dalton (host): Yeah, for sure. I mean, if you think about it as a listener, you know, to bring in 15, 20 complete bikes in one fell swoop, that's a big financial investment. But Adam, I mean, it sounds like you've developed a confidence in your consumer base for the demand for this bike to kind of take that leap. And even if you have to hang onto some frames for a few months while they sell out, you know that they're gonna

[00:31:46]Adam Sklar: Yeah. Yeah, it went really good. We did, I did a little pre-sale, so about a year ago we did a pre-sale on the first batch, and those sold out in like 20 minutes, 250 frames. So that was pretty exciting. And then, The next batch works I'm excited to have in stock. That's cool. And it sounds all good, but from a business perspective, it turns out it's nice to have stuff for people to buy.

So I'm excited. We'll actually have some in stock this time and that'll be nice. Can you.

[00:32:16]Craig Dalton (host): Can you, can you talk through, since you know, obviously in the, in a audio podcast, it's a little difficult to see. I'll definitely be putting links to your website on the show notes, but can you describe kind of the dropout and break mount on the rear end of the bike?

[00:32:32]Adam Sklar: Yeah. So the, the, so the, for the super something dropouts, they use the Paragon Machine Works rocker system. So it's an adjustable dropout. So you can, you can loosen two bolts and you can change the chainstay length, which does a few things. Um, The first is it allows you to run a bigger tire, so slammed all the way forward.

It'll clear like a 700 by 40 feet I think, but if you put them all the way to the back, you can run a 29 by 2.1 inch tire. Um, which is pretty fun. That's what I run on mine and I really like it. Um, also you can kind of tune in. I mean, it's a pretty minor difference, but you can tune in the ride quality a little bit more stable all the way back, a little bit more snappy, all the way forward.

Um, and then, yeah, you can also swap that out. Um, if you wanted to run single speed, you can put in an insert that has no hanger, or now you can do one that's u d h if you wanted to do that. Or you can switch between a post mount or a flat mount break as well with those inserts. So it's really versatile. I wanted something that,

[00:33:42]Craig Dalton (host): Yeah.

[00:33:43]Adam Sklar: yeah, after the really unattainable custom bikes for so long, something that was approachable and. you have like a bike you wanna swap the parts off of or do a part spin build, like that's been fun to see people building 'em up in all sorts of different ways. So it's really versatile in that way. And then

[00:34:04]Craig Dalton (host): And then it looks like you might be routing some of the cables externally

[00:34:08]Adam Sklar: Yeah, I'm a full external routing always kind of guy. So they they're they're fully external.

Yeah. Yeah.

[00:34:18]Craig Dalton (host): Got it. Yeah. It sounds like, and you sort of expressed this on the website, that depending on what the rider's desires are, you can really configure this

[00:34:28]Adam Sklar: a lot on, you know, on

[00:34:29]Craig Dalton (host): a lot on the, you know, on the spectrum of, um, 20 niner

[00:34:34]Adam Sklar: pouring bike,

[00:34:35]Craig Dalton (host): touring bike, gravel bike kind of style, mountain bike style, all the way to something a little bit r or on the other end of the spectrum.

[00:34:42]Adam Sklar: Yeah. I mean, it really was, it was designed, I mean, my, my gravel bikes typically look like 4,700 by 40 C with a decent amount of like, saddle to bar drop. I, I wouldn't say racy, but maybe more traditional road bike fit. And so that's sort of what I had in mind in that. But it turns out that that geometry is really similar to like, The rigid 29 ERs that I was riding in 2008.

And so they're really fun set up that way. And we've seen people do, you know, flat bars or like a sweat back bar. Um, I also, it was fun. I built up a 60, so I ride a 58, but I sized up to a 60 centimeter frame and that's the bike I just rode on the tour divide. So it was like much more stable. I had a ton of room for my frame bag.

That was so, I had so much fun on that set up too. So it's been cool to experiment with it and have, instead of, I'm so used to being able to, you know, change every millimeter, but it's been fun to be like, oh, I'll just do a different stem, like a normal person.

[00:35:50]Craig Dalton (host): Yeah.

[00:35:51]Adam Sklar: Yeah.

[00:35:53]Craig Dalton (host): That's amazing. Now I have to geek out on do, were you on the tour divide

[00:35:57]Adam Sklar: Yeah. I left at the Grand Apart, um, from Banff with, with everyone.

[00:36:03]Craig Dalton (host): Amazing. Like without, I feel like we could go another half hour if

[00:36:07]Adam Sklar: Oh yeah.

[00:36:08]Craig Dalton (host): the questions. I would wanna ask about

[00:36:10]Adam Sklar: It was fun. If I wrote a, I rode a super something on it and it did. It was, yeah, it was so fun. Wouldn't, wouldn't have taken a different bike. But tour divide was hard also, I'll say that. Yeah. It sounds

[00:36:21]Craig Dalton (host): Yeah, it sounds like everybody got caught with some pretty tough weather conditions and it's a pretty tough year to do

[00:36:28]Adam Sklar: it was. It was a little wet.

[00:36:32]Craig Dalton (host): Did it, um, did it dramatically change, end up changing, like how long it you thought it was gonna take you to complete?

[00:36:38]Adam Sklar: And you know, I, I didn't do the whole thing. I should be clear about that. But, um, I, yeah, I rode, I rode home from Banff. Um, I thought I was gonna make it to Denver, but yeah. Um, I made it, I made it back to Bozeman. Um, the weather, we missed that. The real money part I think was that great base in section in Wyoming.

And. We were also, there was a section right by Yeah. Where I stopped and it was 40 degrees and raining and my friend had a, his family has a ranch right there with good food and a creek to sit in and I couldn't help myself but peel off, so, but it was beautiful. I mean, it's such amazing riding all the way through there.

It's, the Canada section was so beautiful.

[00:37:29]Craig Dalton (host): And were you were, did you set your super or something up with a drop bar or were you

[00:37:33]Adam Sklar: I did a drop bar. Yeah. Big. The crust towel rack is that 670 millimeter bar and it's so, I love that bike. It's, I, I love it so much that I sold my two other drop bar bikes. 'cause I just, I, I'm having so much fun on that bike.

Um, yeah.

[00:37:53]Craig Dalton (host): Yeah. Amazing. Well, I'm glad. I'm glad you dropped that at the last minute. I'm such a tour

[00:37:58]Adam Sklar: Oh, really

[00:37:59]Craig Dalton (host): I've thought about it on a number of occasions to do it and just trying to carve out that right moment in my life to be able to

[00:38:06]Adam Sklar: Totally. It's a commitment, but I would recommend it if you have ever wanted to do it. It's, it's really cool.

[00:38:15]Craig Dalton (host): Yeah. Yeah, no doubt about that. Awesome. Adam, any anything else you'd like the listener to know about the brand while we have you?

[00:38:25]Adam Sklar: What would I want them to know? Uh, bikes are fun. We make fun bikes. Check out the soup or something@slarbikes.com, production mountain bike coming next year. If you do those two, uh, send me an email if you have any questions.

I'm happy to chat. Okay,

[00:38:45]Craig Dalton (host): Nice. I love it. Adam, thank you so much for the time. It was great to get to know you a little bit and, uh, I can't wait to see more of these bikes out there. I find 'em just so visually appealing and I like what you've described as the vision for how these bikes are created and conceived and what their intended uses are.

So keep up all the good

[00:39:05]Adam Sklar: Craig. Yeah, it's been a lot of fun.

This week we sit down with professional gravel racer, podcaster and adventurer, Payson McElveen. We learn about his path to the sport, his drive for adventure and his plans for the Life Time Grand Prix and the rest of the races on his calendar. Episode sponsor: Hammerhead Karoo 2 (promo code: THEGRAVELRIDE)

Payson McElveen Web / Instagram

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Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos:

Payson McElveen

[00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport

I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist.

This week on the podcast. We welcome pacing. McKelvin pacing. As you may know, is a gravel racer, a mountain bike racer. A podcaster, a red bull athlete. And in all around adventurer. I've wanted to have pacing on the podcast for quite some time. I'm an avid listener of his podcast, but moreover, I'm a fan. And that probably comes through in this episode.

I'm a fan of pace. And as he's every bit as approachable in real life, as he comes across in social media, He not only races at the front end of the gravel races on the calendar. But even more importantly, I feel like he's out there in the community and he's always after some great adventures. You can see him crisscrossing the country of Iceland. You can see him setting FK teas.

You can see them getting brutalized on the Colorado trail and one of his first bike packing expeditions, he's just a hell of a lot of fun and a hell of a great guy. So I look forward to listening to this episode. Of the gravel ride podcast. Before we jump in, we need to thank this week. Sponsor the hammerhead crew to computer.

The hammerhead crew to is actually the computer that pacing uses. So you may hear them talk about it, both on his podcast and in social media. His experiences are quite similar to mine. The Karoo two is a revolutionary GPS device that offers the rider. A whole bunch of customizability that really translates to giving you the information you need. When you need it in the format that you need it.

I've mentioned before. A few of the things that I really love about the career too, are one, the climber feature. I've become addicted to the climber feature. It's quite amazing. Every time you approach a climb. The crew too, is going to display in graphical format in color coded format. The gradient.

The length to the top and the amount of elevation you need to gain. I find that really useful in terms of pacing and it's fascinating. I've always been fascinated by grade.

So seeing that great in front of me on the computer, I've started to really understand where my sweet spot is. I know that I'm quite good in the six to say 12% range, but north of 12%, I start to suffer. So it's quite interesting looking at that.

The second thing I wanted to highlight is hammerheads bi-weekly software updates with new feature releases. That are unmatched by the competition. So unlike other head units, your crew to continues to evolve and improve. With each ride being better than the last you can seamlessly import routes from Strava commute and more.

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Would that business out of the way, let's dive right into my interview with pace and McKellen.

Payson. Welcome to the show.

[00:04:11] Payson McElveen: Thank you happy to be here.

[00:04:13] Craig Dalton: Yeah, it's good to finally get you on. I feel like I've been wanting to get you on since back in 2019 and the mid south gravel race.

[00:04:21] Payson McElveen: Yeah. Yeah, that was that wasn't my first foray into gravel, but one of the first

[00:04:28] Craig Dalton: Yeah. And I think it was one of those moments that it was, you know, there was very much a different style between you and Pete when racing in those adverse conditions, all the mud and whatnot, and how you

[00:04:38] Payson McElveen: Oh, 2020. Yeah.

[00:04:40] Craig Dalton: 20, 20. Yeah. So babying the bike and.

[00:04:44] Payson McElveen: yeah.

[00:04:45] Craig Dalton: being a little bit rougher on the bike and you know, both you guys smashed into pedals and I, it's funny, cause I'd heard you interviewed after the fact about that race and I'll refer to the listener back to some coverage there, but you were being, you were very conscious of what mud could have done to your bike.

And that was clear in the way you were taking care of it. And I had that thought while I was watching the coverage, like that's smart, dipping it in the water, clearing it out, just being conscious of what is going to do the driver.

[00:05:12] Payson McElveen: Yeah. Yeah, that was a boy. That was, I mean, gravel racing is always a dynamic thing and I feel like to varying degrees, just

emission of damage control even on dry days. But Yeah.

That was such a dynamic damn. Early on even. I mean, I thought my race was over 20 miles in when literally right as I think it was Pete might have been summer hill, actually Danny Summerhill was just absolutely on a mission early in that race too.

But someone putting in a attack around mile 20 kind of first narrow section, and literally at the same moment, I got a big stick jammed in my rear wheel and had to stop. Pull it out. And yeah.

because that selection was made and I ended up in like the third or fourth group that wasn't moving as quickly right off the bat.

I think I had like a minute and a half deficit to to the lead group of P call and, you know, all the usual suspects. And it was pretty convinced that the day was over at that point. But also over the years, I've learned. Gravel racing or not kind of, regardless of the style bike racing when you don't give up good things tend to happen, no matter how dire it seems.

And I was fortunate enough to ride back into the first chase group with my teammate at the time Dennis van Wenden, who spent many years on the world tour with Rabobank and Belkin and Israel startup nation, bunch of good teams. And. During that day, there wasn't a whole lot of drafting that was going on.

Cause the surface was so slow and there was so much mud and you were just kind of weaving around picking your line, but it was really pivotal to have him to kind of join forces with him there. Because he really quieted me down mentally and he was like, Hey man, if you want to try to get back into this race, you need to do it gradually.

Like don't panic, chase, you know, A minute gap. We could probably bring back and 25, 30 minutes, but if you do it over the course of an hour more you know, you can stay below threshold and that'll really pay dividends late. So long story short, I was really grateful to have his kind of Sage wisdom and sure enough, we got back into the group right before the aid station there at mile 50 ish.

And I was surprised we got back. Pete and Collin and everybody else was even more surprised to see us come out of the mud from behind. But yeah, that was a member of that was a memorable day and in a weird way, I think getting having that setback so early on almost kind of calibrated my mind for the survival contest that it was going to be all day so that when the shit really hit the fan there and the last 30 miles, I was kind of already mentally prepared to roll with the punches.

[00:07:52] Craig Dalton: Yeah, I think there's some good points there. I'll, you know, it's always interesting to me talking to elite level athletes and, you know, with most of my listeners, presumably being like myself, mid-pack racers, the same rules apply, right. Should always breaks down for everybody. And you can have a really bad moment in one of these long gravel events and come back as long as you do the right things, right.

If you're. If you haven't eaten enough, you haven't drinking drank enough. You just got to get back on top of it and the day will come around and more likely than not the field in front of you is going to experience the same problems. Just a generic initially to yourself.

[00:08:28] Payson McElveen: For sure. And I know we're going to get into the grand Prix, but I think that's one of the things that makes the grand Prix so fascinating, especially when combined with the pretty unusual point structure, I think it's just going to be so topsy, turvy and tumultuous and. You know, obviously we saw two, two of the favorites, you know, most people's picks for the overall in Keegan and Mo already take the lead.

But I would be shocked if they maintain that lead, you know, all the way through the next five rounds, just because of the nature of gravel racing. Weirdly, I think the mountain bike events will be the least least selective in a way.

[00:09:06] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be interesting. Well, let's take a step back pace and I know, you know, I feel like I've gotten to know you through the course of your podcast, the adventure stash, but for our listeners, I want to just talk about how you got into the sport of cycling and we'll get to how you arrived at the gravel side of things.

[00:09:24] Payson McElveen: Yeah, sounds good.

[00:09:26] Craig Dalton: Yeah. So where'd you grow up? Where, when did you start riding? What was the first kind of race experience you had and how did you sort of develop the vision that you could be a professional athlete?

[00:09:37] Payson McElveen: Yeah. So I grew up in a very small town, about 20 minutes outside of Austin, Texas. The rural Texas hill country. I'm fortunate enough to grow up on a little I don't know, hippie farm hippie ranch with my parents. You know, we had chickens and dogs and 18 acres couldn't see any houses from our house, which is something I, you know, in hindsight really appreciate pretty cool environment to grow up in.

And I played pretty traditional sports growing up basketball ran track and field. Well, that sort of thing. But bike, riding and racing was always a little bit of the back of my mind because my dad did it some off and on while I was growing up. And then also Lance was winning all the tours during that time.

And actually live just 15 minutes away from us. So he was a little bit of a hometown hero and all that was always front of mind. Freshman year of high school. I want to say I kind of had this recurring knee injury from playing basketball and that nudged me towards cycling a bit more. And I just started riding more and getting more interested in mountain biking in general.

And there was this really cool mountain bike film, one of the early kind of. Shred it mountain bike. Documentary's called Rome that was playing in a bike shop and I just totally was transfixed one day. And that summer just kind of went all in. Building trails on the property and mountain biking and trying to learn more skills.

And through a little bit of, a little bit of coaxing from my dad, I decided to, to line up for a mountain bike race, a local Texas mountain bike race when I was 14. And got absolutely. But for whatever reason, just it hooked me and that fall after getting absolutely destroyed by all the local, Texas kiddos.

I just really dedicated myself to training and developing skills and came back that following spring as a 15 year old. And I don't think I lost a race in Texas that year and it sort of solidified. This idea of putting work in and getting a significant reward. And I'm not really sure why that never clicked with other sports.

I was, you know, I guess had had a little bit of talent for basketball, maybe definitely talent for track And field, but I never dedicated myself to them from a work ethic standpoint, but for whatever reason, I was really motivated to do that for cycling and. Yeah, it just became a fan of the sport student of the sport, followed it like crazy.

You got to know the pros, the U S pros and saw the Durango was really kind of the hotbed for domestic mountain bikers. And one thing led to the other. And now here I am still chasing the dream.

[00:12:25] Craig Dalton: And did you end up going to college in Durango? Is that what I recall?

[00:12:28] Payson McElveen: Huh. Yeah. So went to Fort Lewis college. That was also a big selling point. I ended up going to Europe with the national team as a 17 year old with USA cycling. And the one of the USA cycling coaches there for that trip was Matt Shriver, who happened to be one of the coaches at Fort Lewis college at the time also.

And he sort of, you know, did a little bit of recruiting work with those of us there that. camp and a few of us actually ended up going to Fort Lewis, but yeah, boy, Durango's incredible. I feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity to come here and then call it home for

[00:13:05] Craig Dalton: Yeah there, the riding and mentorship in that communities.

[00:13:10] Payson McElveen: It is. It is it's it's pretty incredible that the town is so small and so. Isolated in the scheme of things like it's pretty hard to get here. It's a long drive from anywhere and it's a kind of pain in the ass flight from everywhere. Also. We found that out on the way home from sea Otter when it took extra, but Yeah.

I'm a small town hard to get to.

And yet it's just this ridiculous hotbed of talent, you know, talent that's developed here, but then also talent that moves here. And one other thing I really appreciate is it isn't super like pro dominated. Like there's a very healthy grassroots contingent of cyclists here that. Frankly, do not care what's happening in pro bike racing whatsoever.

And that's actually quite refreshing. When you spend a lot of your time at big race weekends, and you're getting asked 25 times a day, what tire pressure you're running, it's really nice to come back to Durango and, you know, just go shred some single track with someone that's wearing jorts and grab a beer afterward.

[00:14:11] Craig Dalton: I bet. When you graduated from college and decided to go pro, was there a particular style of mountain bike racing that you were, you had in your head? This is what I want to pursue.

[00:14:22] Payson McElveen: Man, this is where it gets pretty complicated. This is where it's very hard to make the story short, but

I'll be as succinct as I can. So moving to Durango I had my. Sites, very firmly set on world cup XCO and the Olympics. I'd had some successes of junior and making the national team each year and doing some world cups and going to, you know, selection for Pan-Am games and all that sort of thing, podiums at junior nationals, all that sort of thing.

But what I wasn't familiar with yet obviously is most. Teenagers or not is the economics of professional cycling, especially on the dirt side, on the roadside, it's pretty pretty cut and dried. There's almost a league obviously, and there's a fairly well-worn pipeline to the highest ranks of the sport.

But in mountain biking, there's just really. Isn't that USA cycling tries, but it's there's such a high barrier of entry for a kid that doesn't live in Europe to go over to Europe, learn that style racing in a foreign land. And you know, it's very cost prohibitive. The writing style is completely different.

It's not a mainstream sport. So their talent pools inevitably are just so much more vast than ours because of. that there are more kids that are just interested in being high-level cyclists, where most of our, you know, kiddos are interested in being NBA players or NFL players. So it's, I mean, it's a well-known story that it's very hard to break through at that level.

And then there's the other component, which I don't think is talked about as much, which is just you start with the handicaps of inexperience. Obviously fitness, if you're a younger writer and then just start position. And I mean, it's, it is. So it's such a wild setup where you have to be so much stronger to break through and start earning results where your start position improves that just everything is stacked against you.

So I had a few what I'd call kind of flash in the pan results enough to not give up on it, but not enough to really. Make it feel like it was a foregone conclusion. So I felt very fortunate to be in college and getting exposed to other styles of cycling as collegiate cycling frequently, you know, allows for. But going into senior year, I was kind of looking down the barrel of having to make some tough decisions. Cause I was making. Money racing professionally, but it was like serious poverty line sort of situation. And you know, finishing seventh or eighth at pro XC nets as a 23 year old is cool.

But it's not going to give you an illustrious career. And so late late summer, early fall I just started kind of. Looking outside the bounds of this very narrow lane of focus that most folks my age were focused on, which was

XCO mountain biking and the Olympics. And the other thing kind of to notice that one thing that strikes me frequently is that in mountain biking there are just fewer jobs of value in a way, if that makes sense, like on the roadside, if your

[00:17:40] Craig Dalton: Yeah.

[00:17:42] Payson McElveen: strongest on a world tour, You can still have a very fruitful position that is valued.

I mean, if there's 400, some people in the world tour Peloton, I don't know what the number is exactly, but if you're 350 strongest, you're still a very valued member. If you line up at a world cup and there's 200 guys on the start line and you finish even 80th, like what's the value of that? There's

[00:18:09] Craig Dalton: Yeah.

[00:18:13] Payson McElveen: You're the backdrop for the folks that are at the top to anyway sort of digressing, but point being, I started looking around the sport and. I'd had some offers and opportunities to try racing on the road, but culturally, it just didn't quite jive for me. And then, you know, I started kind of looking at some of the folks that have, that had created their own paths, folks like Rebecca Rush Lil Wilcox hadn't really rose risen to prominence yet, but those sorts of people and I thought, you know what maybe I'll just go try.

Something a little bit more adventure oriented. Just for fun. Like I don't know that I'm going to have the opportunity to dedicate as much time to cycling in the future as I am now. So maybe I'll go on an adventure. And sort of around the same time weirdly, I got a message from this race promoter, Italian guy that was putting on a race in Mongolia called the Mongolia bike challenge.

And I still don't exactly know how that came about or why he reached out to me. But sure. You know, I'll come try, erase. And he said if I could get myself over there, he'd cover all of my expenses when I was there. And that said, you know, a flight to Mongolia, I think was like 25, 20 $600, something like that.

And I had maybe $3,500 to my name as a senior in college. And I was like, well, you know, I just have this sneaking suspicion that this style of racing might be more my cup of tea. Obviously the Xes. I'm falling out of love with that. So I drained my bank accounts flew over there, had an amazing experience.

That's a whole other story.

[00:19:50] Craig Dalton: Yeah. It's such an amazing country. I had the good fortune of going there and I had previously raised a couple of the trans racist and trans Rockies up in Canada and had friends who had done the. The ones that were over in Europe. And I caught wind of that Mongolia one after visiting Mongolia on a hiking trip.

And I was like, that must have been at epic.

[00:20:07] Payson McElveen: It was super epic. And you know, it was, I think it was eight days, seven, eight days, the stages where there's one TT day, that was like an hour and 15, but most of the day. Five to four to five and a half hours. And there was some good races there. You know, Corey Wallace was there. He'd won, I think, Canadian marathon nasty year before.

And he'd won the Mongolia bike challenge the year before. There was also this Italian world cup guy there, who I'd never been able to be close to at world cup events. And then all of a sudden found myself going shoulder to shoulder with these guys and just feeling way more capable as an athlete and ended up winning that series outside magazine did a little interview and like photo epic on the wind.

And that's I found out later kind of what put me on red bull's radar, but that was the thing that really set the hook for me, where I thought, you know what? This was way more fun. I got to see an amazing part of the world. The media cared way more about. Like way more media interest than I'd ever received.

And I was just way better suited to it. I had no experience had barely been doing five-hour training. I'd never done a five hour training ride and yet was able to kind of rise to the occasion and do five-hour race days and back it up day after day. So after that point, I started kind of dedicating a little bit more time to to that style.

And then consequently one Pro marathon NATS the following year. And that's, that was those two things were kind of the inflection point, I would say. So around 27.

[00:21:34] Craig Dalton: and was that, had you joined the orange seal team?

[00:21:38] Payson McElveen: So I had been on the rebranded show air team for anyone that remembers the Scott Tedros show our teams. It was called ride biker that year. And it was sort of like a collection of private tiers. It seems like there are some equivalents these days, like, I think the shoot what's it called?

Eastern Overland. I want to say they run something similar to that. And then. As far as I can tell that new jukebox program seems to have a bit of a similar setup. So it was kind of set up that way. So I was able to start to pull together some of my own sponsors. And then once I started to get that media interest, the outside interview was kind of the biggest thing.

I was able to parlay that into better support or SEL came on board as one of my bigger sponsors, but I hadn't that the team didn't exist yet. And then when. NATS. That's kind of when orange seal and track are like, Hey, what if we like made a team?

Like rather than this being a private tier thing, what if we kind of took some ownership and let you just race?

And we set up more of a team. So that's how that worked.

[00:22:43] Craig Dalton: And you mentioned getting on red bull's radar. When did you end up becoming a red bull athlete?

[00:22:47] Payson McElveen: Let's see, I guess 2018, early 2018. Does that, is that right? 2018?

[00:22:56] Craig Dalton: The

[00:22:57] Payson McElveen: I can't remember. I think

[00:22:58] Craig Dalton: timeline sounds right. And did it change your perspective of yourself as an athlete, as you got exposed to the red bull family and other red bull athletes?

[00:23:09] Payson McElveen: Oh Yeah. Enormously. I mean, it changed everything and it's funny because when I say. Started communicating with them. At first, it was just like this childhood euphoria of, or my God. This is the most sought after prized sponsorship in adventure, sports outdoor sports. Like this is, I can't believe they're interested, but this is incredible.

And you start getting so fixated on the potential of it. for anyone that's familiar with their process they'll know that it's not fast. So basically they were doing background on me for a year. And then for two more years, we communicated. Dated almost you could say decided to figure out how much commitment, mutual commitment there wanted to be.

Obviously I was very interested in commitment, but, and then came the phase where it looked like it was going to happen. And all of a sudden you start feeling the pressure and you start questioning. Am I worthy? What is this, what does this mean? What's going to be asked of me, how do I need to rise to the occasion?

And I'd say even after I signed for a solid year, that was kind of my mindset. Like, oh man, need to not screw this up. I need to prove that I'm worthy. I need to do innovative things. But one thing that's interesting is that they red bull never. Puts any pressure on you and they really drive home the fact that they want to partner with you because of who you already are and who you can become the potential that they think they see.

And they really like to bring people on board before they've reached. They're their prime, their best. They want to help you be a part of that growth process. So once I was able to gradually shift my mindset and realize that this was more of an opportunity and less of an obligation, that's where I think mentally and emotionally, I was kinda able to free up free myself up a little bit race with more race with a sense of opportunity and joy.

And then also start to kind of tap into. Creative aspect that I've really started to lean into over the last few years that I've come to realize is like very necessary just for my happiness and sense of fulfillment. And I think that's really where there's most significant interest came from. And it was also just great timing.

You know, they wanted someone in this endurance, mass participation sort of arena. That's also why they brought a in, around a similar time. And so, yeah, like, like any success timing was a massive part of the opportunity as well.

[00:25:56] Craig Dalton: Yeah. I feel like in some way and correct me if I'm wrong, your relationship with red bull for a few years prior to the pandemic left you very well-suited to whether the pandemic and the lack of racing, meaning you had a wider view of yourself as an athlete and the things you could do.

[00:26:13] Payson McElveen: Yeah.

And you know, I over the years I've questioned kind of this all of these extracurriculars that, that I'm interested in. Whether it be the podcast or some of the films we do, or some of the, you know, crazy routes, I like to try to tackle

Question, you know, how much does that detract from more traditional racing cars like riding across Iceland three weeks before the Australis off-road isn't, you know, stellar prep, but But by the same token, you know, I've really tried to zoom out over the last handful of years and think about how will I look back on this time when I'm 45, 50, 55, whatever.

And really, it kind of goes back to Mongolia, you know, T deciding to take that red pill rather than blue pill spend most of the money. I had to go on a crazy adventure halfway around the world by myself as a 23 or. With no experience, you know, I'll never forget that experience the people I met over in Mongolia.

And ultimately I think going through life experiencing as much as the world, both interpersonally and just travel wise as you can is a good way to do it. And I've had many mentors over the years who have raised at the highest level, kind of. Persistently remind me that the, what they remember or the things between the actual races and to make sure that, you know, if you go to all-star Germany for the world cup, do everything you can to make sure you don't only see the inside of your hotel room and the three kilometer race course.

So that's kind of why. More and more ambitiously gravitated towards some of these more adventure oriented things. And ultimately from a professional standpoint, getting back to your point, it really does, you know, the way I look at it as sort of like a diversified portfolio, there are athletes that only hold one kind of stock, you know, maybe your stock is awesome.

Maybe you have a bunch of shares of apple, but you know what happens if for whatever reason, apple tanks. Similarly to the stock market. You know, you want to have a diversified portfolio when we're operating in this space that doesn't have a league. It doesn't have a bunch of structure. And there is a lot of room for creativity.

So, it's a personal need, but also it's worked out professionally as well.

[00:28:28] Craig Dalton: yeah, I think as a fan of the sport, when you're out there doing those adventures, and obviously you do a lot of filming around these adventures. We just feel closer to you as an athlete. So when you line up at some gravel race, like we're rooting for you because we've seen you struggle. Like any one of us might struggle on it.

Adventure.

[00:28:46] Payson McElveen: Yeah.

that's interesting. I mean, that's good to hear. It makes sense, you know, anytime, you know, I think about I'm, I mean, I'm a massive mainstream sports fan, so I'm always comparing. Our little cycling sport to these mainstream sports. And it's interesting to look at something like say basketball versus football, the NFL versus the NBA and in the NFL, there's massive athlete turnover because of injuries.

And also everyone's wearing loads of protective equipment, you know, helmets, pads, all that sort of thing. So you very rarely do you actually see the athletes. They're just these incredible people. Rip it around on the field, hitting each other. With basketball, you see all the writers, interesting hairstyles, writers, basketball players, interesting hairstyles, you know, the way they react to like a bad call, the way they're talking to each other on the bench.

Usually they're, they feel more comfortable, you know, giving more flamboyant post-game interviews. And so it feels like the. Collectively like the fan base for individual players in the NBA is so much more engaged than in the NFL. Like fans are with the exception of folks like maybe Tom Brady or like people that have been around forever.

Folks of the NFL are fans of the game, fans of teams. And on the NBA side of things frequently, they're fans of the individuals because they feel like they know the individuals. And so I think the same can kind of be said for cycling. And interestingly, I think that. This is a whole other conversation, but I think it's one of the reasons we're seeing such amazing professional opportunities for folks outside the world tour.

Now, obviously the most money bar, none is still in the world tour, but there's so much less freedom for personal expression for frankly, like having. Personality. I mean, look at guys like Laughlin that are like redefining the sport and all they had to do was get out of the world tour and do what they wanted to do.

And I think that's really interesting and I feel fortunate to be in a part of the sport where that's more celebrated for sure.

[00:30:48] Craig Dalton: Yeah, absolutely. So chronologically on the journey, we're back at 2018, you've won your second XC marathon title. Had you started to dabble in gravel in 2018.

[00:31:04] Payson McElveen: yeah, I think that was 2018. I did Unbound. Yeah, I guess that would have been 2018 and that was a hundred percent due to sponsors requesting it. I was not interested. And I had a whole mess of mechanicals and actually didn't finish. And I think that might be the. That might be the most recent race I haven't finished maybe besides, well, that's not true.

Mid south just happened, but yeah, I was, I didn't get it in 2018. I was like, man, this is carnage. People are flatting everywhere. Why are we out here for so long? This is so

[00:31:41] Craig Dalton: It does seem like a Rite of passage to get abused by your first unmanned professional experience.

[00:31:47] Payson McElveen: Do it for sure. And Amanda Naaman loves to make fun of me about this cause like I really not publicly, but I was fairly outspoken to some people about how I just didn't understand gravel after that experience.

And then I ended up going to mid south in 20, 19 two weeks before the white rim, fastest known time.

And I was planning to use it as like. Training effort for the white rim fastest load time. And I ended up winning that mid south race. And then I was like, oh, gravel is sweet. Everyone cares so much about this when Getting loads of interviews, like

A massive bump in social media followership, like, wait, maybe there is something to the Scrabble.

It Amanda's always like, Yeah. The only reason you fell in love with gravel is because you were fortunate enough to win a race early on, which, you know, might be kind of true, but long story short, it was not love at first sight with gravel, but

that's obviously since changed.

[00:32:40] Craig Dalton: And you were, are you still kind of in the sort of, I guess 20, 20 season where you still doing XC marathon style racing in conjunction with gravel 2020 is probably a bad example because that was the pandemic year. But in the, in that period, were you doing both still.

[00:32:56] Payson McElveen: Yup. Yup. Yeah. And you know, the funny thing is I still.

see myself primarily as a mountain biker and there are people who, you know, question, you know, how. I define myself as a racer at this point, but I don't even really feel the need to define what Sal racer you are, because I'm just interested in the biggest races in the country.

The, and really, you know, at this point, it's kind of becoming the biggest mass participation, non UCI events in the world. And it's I look at it as a spectrum. You know, if you kind of go down the list of. How do you define these races on one end of the spectrum? You've got something like, you know, BWR San Diego, which in my mind is just kind of like a funky sketchy road race.

I don't know that you're allowed to call it a gravel race. If everyone is on road bikes with 20 eights and thirties narrower tires, then the people use a rebate. But and then on the other end of the spectrum, you have something like. I don't know, an epic rides event or, you know, even like the Leadville 100 that really blurs the lines like is that you could for sure.

Raise the Leadville 100 on a drop bar, gobbled bike, because as Corey Wallace did last year and you've got everything in between. So, you know, you've got grind. Durose where some people are on mountain bikes. Some people are on gravel bikes, you've got the grasshoppers same. So I look at it as much more of a spectrum, and I think we're just in this incredible golden age of. Grassroot grassroots is such a misnomer, but just like mass participation, non spectator, primary races. And I'm just, I'm here for all of it. It's all.

[00:34:38] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah, it's super exciting. And I think the event organizers have just a ton of freedom of how they want. Design the race courses. You know, if I think about the difference between the LA GRA Villa event at this past weekend, which was probably 75% single track, it was the, basically the 40 K MTB course, super single track, heavy required, a pretty hefty skillset.

I know a lot of quote, unquote gravel riders were scratching their heads. After that one, thinking they were definitely under. And then the other end of the spectrum, you have something like BWR, as you mentioned, or even SBT gravel. It doesn't require a lot of technical skillset to be competitive in those races.

So I find it fascinating. And I think that even goes down to where you ride and where you live. Like my gravel here in Marine county as the listener. Well, nose is quite a bit different than Midwest gravel. Not better, not worse, you know, just depends on what's your company.

[00:35:36] Payson McElveen: For sure. And I mean, here in Durango, our best road rides our gravel road rides, and we've been riding road bikes on them for ages. When I first moved here, you know, every, so we have a Tuesday night world's group ride, which for what it's worth is still the hardest group I've ever done anywhere in the country by a lot.

But Frequently, you know, every third week or so the route that we'll do is majority dirt and everyone's on road bikes. And up until a couple of years ago, everyone was on 26 or 20 eights. And you know, they're fairly smooth gravel roads, but pretty much if you ask anyone locally, our best road rides are half dirt roads.

So when this whole gravel movements start. I know I was one of many that was, we were kind of scratching our heads a little bit about, well, isn't this just bike riding, but I understand the industry has needed to kind of define and brand things, but Yeah, it's it's interesting.

[00:36:30] Craig Dalton: Yeah, it's interesting as we were talking about your career in this sort of transition, a transition, but just as melding of your love of ECC and this new level of gravel low and behold in 2022 lifetime announces the grand Prix half mountain bike races, half gravel races. How excited were you around that announcement?

[00:36:50] Payson McElveen: who very excited. Yeah I'd had some conversations with lifetime in the year or so prior kind of generally talking about structure and what events might make the most sense and all that sort of thing. But It was a little bit ambiguous about whether it was going to happen and to what degree and what it would all look like.

So when the announcement?

came out I was sort of primed for it, but I was also surprised by quite a few things. And that certainly. You know, increase the excitement too. As I read through the proposed rules and the points structure and the events they decided on and all that sort of thing.

But yeah, I mean, it feels just like an enormous opportunity and I think it feels like an enormous opportunity. Personally because of the events, obviously, but I think it's an enormous opportunity for north American cycling as a whole, because there are so many aspects of the series that are completely different than any other series we've seen.

I mean, in the United States with the exception of, you know, the heyday of mountain biking in the eighties and nineties, we haven't seen. Cycling massively successful really as a spectator sport or as a televised sport. Because there's always been this goal of making it a spectator sport, but I don't think in the United States, that's really ever going to be a spectator sport.

The key in my mind is that it's a participation sport in this country, and that's what these huge grassroots mass participation events have really tapped into. And made them so successful. And so when you combine that with, you know, a year long points, chase, maybe all of a sudden that is the secret sauce for making it more spectator friendly, even if it's more of this kind of modern age of spectating, where it's very, online-based, there's lots of social media coverage.

There's, you know, maybe a live stream there's, you know, Really cool. Like drive to survive, TVC series type things coming out of it. I mean that actually drive to survive as a great example. Like look what drive to survive has done for F1 in the United States virtually no one cared about F1 until that series came out.

And now, you know, people are talking about peer gasoline and Daniel, Ricardo, like, you know,

[00:39:04] Craig Dalton: Yeah.

[00:39:05] Payson McElveen: You know, Kevin Duran or Tom Brady. So, it's a very interesting time and I just feel fortunate to kind of be reaching my peak career years right now as it's happening.

[00:39:15] Craig Dalton: Yeah, to your point earlier, I think it just creates this great opportunity for storytelling throughout the season. And this idea of, you know, some courses are gonna be more favorable to mountain bike athletes. Others are going to be more favorable to traditional gravel athletes and just seeing how it all plays out and having the points across the season, as something as a fan that's in the back of your mind.

I just think it's going to be a lot of fun and great for this.

[00:39:41] Payson McElveen: Yeah.

I think so too. I really hope so. And the thing that I really hope, I think what can truly set it apart and almost guarantee its success is if they're able to. Lean into those personal storylines, kind of like we were talking about earlier, the things that I think really makes a fan base fall in love with following a league or a sport, which is the individual stories.

You know, like I hope there's all kinds of awesome coverage of Aaron Huck making this return to racing, following pregnancy, or you know, there's so many. Incredible individual storylines that can be told. And I hope that's really seen as an asset and taken advantage of.

[00:40:26] Craig Dalton: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I have a. You can look at like Amber and Nevin and her experience, just like sort of getting a little bit crushed, still getting in the points at , but having a really rough day out there, that's the kind of narrative like you're looking for somebody who's coming way outside of their comfort zone to race this entire series.

And unsurprisingly like a mountain bike style race was super challenging for. But it's going to be fascinating to see like how she bounces back for Unbound, which is this other radically different experience in my mind at 200 miles.

[00:41:00] Payson McElveen: For sure. Yeah. I think we're going to learn a lot over this first year and I hope we get a couple of years at it because I think there will be lots of adjusting along the way. Lots of cool ideas and yeah, I think there's just massive potential and I hope everyone's able to hang in there for a few years to figure out what that potential actually.

[00:41:22] Craig Dalton: Agreed. Unfortunately, you have to drop this race due to your injury at mid south, but I'm curious, like, as you looked at the arc and the style of racing that you were going to experience in the grand Prix, does that alter how you're training do you sort of do one thing for Otter? Morph dramatically into something else for a 200 mile Unbound, which is the next race on the calendar for the grand Prix series.

[00:41:45] Payson McElveen: Yeah. I mean, training Is definitely different. Just physiologically. I kind of gravitate towards those long slow burn events more easily anyway. So preparing for something like sea Otter, where, you know, the, I mean the average speed, I think Keegan said his average speed was like 17.8 miles an hour.

Schwamm against average speed. I did it two years and we averaged over 19 miles an hour, both times. Ironically these mountain bike events and Leadville, you know, despite all of its climbing and high elevation, that average speed is almost 17 miles an hour. So these mountain bike events are very much gravel style, mountain bike events.

It would be pretty funny. To see this field, you know, line up for something like the grand junction. Off-road where you're lucky to crack nine and a half mile per hour, average speed. And everyone's running one 20 bikes and two, four tires. But yeah. In terms of training those faster kind of leg speed high-end events are ones that I have to train a little bit.

I have to like tune up some speed a little bit more for, so for example, I'll attend the Tuesday night. Group right here in Durango almost every week in the month, leading up to that sort of event I'll get in some good motor pacing sessions still, you know, log some good five-hour rides just because that's what helps me be at my fittest, but not worry about a six and a half, seven hour ride with Unbound.

I will notch, you know, some good six plus hour rides. And a lot of it is also just about. Practicing, like practicing your fueling practicing with the equipment you want to use doing some heat acclimation and then just doing massive amounts of sub threshold work. So, you know, I'll do rides, you know, like a six hour ride and do three tempo, three, one hour tempo blocks in there Just like an insane amount of. KJS I'm just trying to get your body used to being efficient really. I mean, that's kind of what it comes down to and being efficient under duress. So being efficient when it's 90 degrees out and your stomach, maybe isn't feeling amazing and you're pinging off rocks and.

You know, trying to navigate a big budge. So there are some different things that I do overall training is pretty simple. You know, on the XC world cup, it training gets a lot more complicated, I think. But for these longer distance events training, actually, isn't terribly complicated at all.

[00:44:16] Craig Dalton: Is there any one in particular that you're super excited about?

[00:44:20] Payson McElveen: In the series

[00:44:22] Craig Dalton: Yeah.

[00:44:24] Payson McElveen: probably Leadville. I've been consistently good at Leadville. I've never had a 100% clean run at it. But I've been third twice, fourth last year. That's one that I would love to win before I retire. You know, if there's one race I could pick. Before I get too old to be competitive. I think Leadville is probably it.

It's tricky though, because we've got these two guys that are just sensational, you know, generational talents and Keegan and Howard, both of them grew up at very high elevation. They're small guys. And they just go uphill like nobody's business and you know, they're hard to beat. They're definitely hard to be so. Every year, you know, I look towards Leadville. I would love to love for everything to come together for me there. But you know, all of these races are really competitive, but if I had to pick one, that's probably the one I'm most looking forward to.

[00:45:19] Craig Dalton: Got it. And is there any room in your calendar for a pace and adventure this year?

[00:45:25] Payson McElveen: Yeah.

Good question, boy. That's kind of the trade-off of the grand Prix, you know, it's really consuming said, I know that I always perform better off of big training blocks. So I've pulled back on race days pretty significantly. So I have some really big breaks in my schedule. I'm probably going to go do this four day GB Duro style stage race in Iceland.

That is the route that We bike tour last year around the west fjords it's 450 mile days. Give her. Which would be a fun adventure. But in terms of like, whoa here's a crazy idea. No, one's done yet type thing. I have a pretty significant list of those. We'll see where they fit in.

I'm going to do another trail town for sure. I really enjoyed that project of Ben last year and the storytelling aspect of that and the big gear giveaway we got to do and kind of the. The community that we developed online there that was really successful. So I'll do another one of those. There's also going to be another matchstick productions film coming up, which is really good for the sport.

You know, really high profile, high production value, feature, length film that typically, you know, features a lot of backflips in three sixties and in Virgin, Utah, and. endurance riding as much, but they've been really cool about working more of that in, so I'm looking forward to filming for that again this year, their next one.

Probably in terms of like a big crossing or, you know, massive MKT of some kind. I have a big scouting mission that I'll be doing in the fall, but it it'll be by far and away. The biggest one I've tried, not in terms of huh. Kind of distance too, but mostly just like it's extremely audacious and not the sort of thing where I can just go in blind.

So I'm going to go in and do a lot of scouting for that and probably knock that out. Summer of 23.

[00:47:18] Craig Dalton: Well, I mean, for the listener, Payson's always an exciting person to follow and your creativity. It's just fun watching how your mind works and the things you want to tackle. And it's just a lot of fun to watch what you're doing. I know we got to get you out on a training ride, but one final question.

I just wanted to talk about your change in sponsorship this year, in terms of the bike you're riding. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?

[00:47:39] Payson McElveen: Yeah, I mean, I don't know. There's a lot of drip, a lot of directions we could go there, but that was What are the scarier professional periods I've had thus far? I obviously had to two really great options and went back and forth between the two for months. I was very fortunate to have the support of an agent that I've come to lean on very significantly over the last couple of years, not sure where I'd be without him, but Yeah.

I mean, that was a, that was another sort of like red pill, blue pill moment where the logical thing would be to stay with the brand that you've been with for seven years and is the big juggernaut and the proven, you know, you can be a reliable cog in a big machine type sort of situation. But I've always had.

Kind of entrepreneurial drive. That's really hard to ignore sometimes. And there was a whole lot of upside with joining allied and they're doing some really industry defining things that other brands don't have, the ability or confidence or ambition to do. You know, they're 100% made in the U S.

Component is really incredible. And that affords all sorts of things from a quality standpoint, a product development standpoint, and just social issue, standpoint and environmental aspects standpoint things that?

felt very good. Morally in a way. But ultimately I just want it to be on the bikes that I thought I could win on.

And Allied's bikes are just unbelievable. I mean, the quality and the care. Their process for product development and their willingness to kind of ignore industry trends in favor of just making the fastest, most badass bike possible was very intriguing and enticing. And I did go back and forth many times for awhile.

But once I finally made the decision, I just it felt like a massive relief, a huge amount of excitement. And Yeah.

in hindsight, I'd make that decision. 10 out of 10 times again,

[00:49:44] Craig Dalton: Right on presumably you've got both an allied echo and an allied. What's the other one with the enable in your quiver, are you using the echo as your road bike or using one of their pure road machines?

[00:49:56] Payson McElveen: so we were, we've been waiting on parts for the echo. I've had an echo frame for a good bit. Parts just showed up last week. So I'll be getting that echo built up. Probably over the weekend. I've test written one but I haven't put huge miles on an echo yet. It's a really, I mean, just a classic example of a brilliant idea from the incredible mind that is Sam Pikmin there, their head of product, but I'll definitely be racing the echo at things like Steamboat where, you know, aerodynamics and weight and more of a road style bike really would pay dividends.

The ABL is just awesome. I was absolutely mind boggled by how light it was. I mean, it's over a pound lighter than the gravel bike I was raised in the previous year, which frankly I didn't really expect. So that's been great. And then Yeah.

I'm also on an alpha, which is. They're road bike, just super Zippy snappy road bike, and has a really cool, almost a little bit old school aesthetic with the level top tube that has this really cool classic look.

[00:50:56] Craig Dalton: Yeah, for sure. I'll refer in the show notes. I'm the listener to my interview with Sam and I've had allied on a couple of different times, so great product, super I'm super jazzed when anybody's making anything in the USA. And as you said, it's just fun as an athlete. I'm sure to be able to go to the factory and see the layups and talk to them to the craftsmen that are working on the.

[00:51:17] Payson McElveen: Yeah, And just to have a lot of input, you know, just to be able to say, Hey, I'm interested in running my bike this way. Is that possible? And then go to the factory five days later and they've literally like machined the part already and run all the kinematics in the way. Let's pop it in, like what

[00:51:35] Craig Dalton: let's do it.

[00:51:36] Payson McElveen: that would have taken two years at a big bike brand.

That's insane.

[00:51:41] Craig Dalton: So true. So true. All right, dude. Well, I'm going to let you go. I appreciate all the time. It's been great to finally get you on the mic and talk about your career. I'm going to be looking forward to your comeback for the, for Unbound and throughout the rest of the series. We'll be rooting for you.

[00:51:55] Payson McElveen: awesome. Thanks Greg. It was great to finally get on and chat with you and Yeah, keep up the good work quality podcasts are hard work and few and far between. So, nice job. And yeah, keep up the good work.

[00:52:07] Craig Dalton: Thanks. I appreciate that.

[00:52:09] Payson McElveen: Cool man.

[00:52:10] Craig Dalton: Big, thanks to pay some for joining the podcast this week. I hope you enjoyed the conversation and huge thanks to hammerhead and the crew to computer for sponsoring this week's edition of the gravel ride podcast. Remember head on over to hammerhead.io. Use the promo code, the gravel ride for that free custom color kit.

And premium water bottle. If you're looking to provide a little feedback, I encourage you to join the ridership. It's our free global cycling community. Just visit www.theridership.com.

You can always find me in that group. And I welcome your episode suggestions.

If you're able to financially support the show, please visit www dot. Buy me a coffee.com/the gravel ride. Any contribution to the show is hugely appreciated. Until next time here's to finding some dirt onto your wheels

This week's episode is a compilation of chats with builders from the MADE handmade bike show in Portland, Or. This week included Rodriguez Cycles, Destroy Bicycles, Battaglin, Argonaut, Wren Sports, Velo Orange, Rizzo Cycles, WH Bradford, Speedvagen, Celilio Cycles, Wheatfall, DeSalvo, Larkin Cycles, Sage Cycles, Wolf Tooth, and Onguza Cycles.

Episode Sponsor: Dynamic Cyclist (use code: THEGRAVELRIDE)

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Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos:

[00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport

I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist.

This week on the podcast, I'm sharing a bunch of interviews with frame builders from the made handmade bicycle show in Portland, Oregon. This past weekend, the event was so packed with builders and bike brands that I'm actually going to have to divide this into two episodes and each of them are going to be longer than I typically would release. I'm hoping you'll enjoy these little snippets to get to know some brands that might not otherwise be familiar to you. So many great hand-built bicycles up there. Very enjoyable show, and I hope you enjoy these interviews. Before we jump in, I do need to thank this week. Sponsored dynamic cyclist. The team at dynamic cyclist has built cycling, specific stretching and strength training routines. That are available from an app. Or directly from the web. Go visit dynamic cyclists.com to check out the videos. They have a free one week trial and gravel ride podcast. Listeners can get 15% off. All plans using the code, the gravel ride. Stretching is one of those things that I've committed to over the last year to try to get over the hump on a back issue. And I found the dynamic cycles program, very easy to follow. They've got a bunch of different routines. They somewhat trick me into doing a little core work, which I appreciate, but I appreciate very much the specific intention of the program directed at us cyclists so if that's of interest to you, go visit dynamic cyclists.com. And remember that code, the gravel ride for 15% off. With that said, we're going to slam all these interviews together. So we're going to jump around a little bit, but each of the builders and brands introduces themselves. So hopefully it's easy to follow and remember i'll have part two coming next week as well

[00:02:24] Alder | Rodriguez Bicycles: My name is Alder Keld and I work for Rodriguez Bikes Alder. Tell me about Rodriguez and where you're from and what you, what your vibe is on the gravel scene. Rodriguez's bike shop over in Seattle on, on the Ave and we've been around for 50 years. I feel like only recently.

We've really kind of tap, started tapping into maybe in the past like three years or so, the, the gravel market. You know, a lot of our disc brake bikes have gone like really popular now. As the road bike trend, kind of like, you know, starts to fade away. But we have our gravel models of Finney Ridge and the Bandido.

That's Bandido. There's also Bandido and that's, that's a Finney Ridge right there. Let's talk about the differences between those two models. I mean this, this one looks pretty amazing with that old kind of GT inspired rear triangle. Yeah. Triple triangle there is is really nice. The, the line gets a little blurry between the two models.

You know, it's mostly the way the break mounts. So the Finney Ridge is gonna be post mount, is post mount, and then the bandidos gonna be flat mount. But you know, we are completely custom. You can choose whatever tire, tire clearance you want, either one. And if you put a carbon fork on it, you're generally gonna get a flat mountain up front.

So the, the line gets very blurred between which one is which. It's kind of, they both come through axle if you want, so. Gotcha. And does one have more of like a, a bike packing orientation and the other, more of a kind of race ride orientation? I would say the Bandido is definitely kind of on the race here, side of things.

Just like the, the fitting of ridge, you know, I mean it's again, like this is a bandido, but it has three pack bounce on the fork. Yeah. And that's Finney Ridge and it has three pack bounce. You can really do whatever you want. And what, what frame materials are you building out of? So we do, for our lowest end one is 7 25, which is still much better than a lot of production bikes out there.

And then we do velo spec and then we have like an ultralight blend that we have. And we do, we actually velo spec makes a lot of our tubing custom for us. So we get our specific Rockwell hardness and budding and tomb shape that we want out of everything. Okay, so what's the best way for people to discover the bikes you have an Instagram that they should follow?

We do have an Instagram. It's at Rod Bikes on Instagram. You can see a bunch of, you know, cool, cool stuff there a lot of fun photos. We do also have a website we, rod bikes.com and you can see all the models. As well. And what does that ordering process look like for customers? Is it a long lead time or what's, what is it?

We have a six to eight lead turnaround time. Okay. Usually, and then in the slower season, it could be four to six weeks. Okay. So pretty quick to get this dream bike underneath you. Yeah. We do full fittings and everything, so we have 20 stock sizes. So if one of our 20 stock sizes does not fit you we'll, measure your body parts, put it into our.

Fit machine that we developed called Next, next Fit, and it'll spit out numbers. We'll double check those numbers and build a frame for you. We weld and paint in-house, so the turnaround time is very fast. Sweet. Thanks for that overview. No problem.

[00:05:22] Sean | Destroy Bicycles: Can I get your name and brand? Yeah. My name is Sean Eagleton and I'm with Destroy Bikes. Sean, can you tell me a little bit about Destroy, where do you build out of and what's your philosophy about Gravel? We are out of Portland, Oregon and we actually just got the c l o, the old c o factory with inside of Chris King.

And Gravel has been, has been growing this last year a lot. Sorry. That's all right. And what about this bike that we're looking at? So this bike is a personal friend of ours who wasn't really riding the last couple of years. She just started racing this last year. And a few of the races that I worked, she came in a good 10 minutes ahead of her husband.

And it was, a friend that has just been killing it every time she goes out on a race and was. Basically a easy choice to say that this was gonna be our next cross racer, gravel racer. Her husband's known for being in the bicycle world already and doing a lot of really long extended gravel rides.

And it was just a, perfect opportunity. Someone that we're very picky about our riders. We like people who aren't necessarily the typical racer. We like a little bit Grier and people with a little bit of attitude. So hence the, that matches with the Destroy brand name. Yes.

That's why we wanted to go like super colorful with this thing. So the lights don't do it justice in here, but the full rainbow sparkle with the gold detailing really shows who she is as a person too. She's just a bit out there, a bit wild. What kind of frame materials this one built out of?

So this is all Chrome, Molly and I like to do, tend to do a mix of stuff. I prefer Columbus seat stays and chain stays on a lot of things. The seat tube is a Tonga seat tube and the down tube and top tube are both Columbus as well. And do you like that from a ride performance perspective or how they weld together or what do you like about them?

The Columbus in particular, like their seat stays, they're one of the few brands that make something that's bendable. I believe a lot of pre-made chain stays and seat stays aren't supposed to be used directly right out of the package. They still should be modified in some way to better fit the ride, better fit the bike and they're one of the few companies that I have, without a doubt, I can always modify them whichever way I want to.

The bends come out clean. There's a lot of tubing that they do, certain hardening processes that it's just almost impossible to manually work them after. And just like to leave no tube left untouched, basically. What, and what does the customer journey look like if they are interested in a destroy bike?

What do they do? How do they reach you? What does the timeline look like and what is the kind of experience of working with you? So it's a fairly simple process. We have. We now have a submission form online on our website, and you basically go on the website. We do a lot of batch stuff as well, so you're gonna choose between one bike or five bikes.

And the whole process is getting to know you, getting a fit for you. And then I like to go a little bit crazy with the tubing talk, which most people get a little bit weary of. But everything is style as well, right? And when I'm choosing tubing, it's what do you want the bike to look like and how do you want it to ride?

Ride, ride quality is just as important to me as how the bike looks. I'm very big on the geometries that we build. I tend to do things a little bit differently than a lot of people. But it's all based on my riding experiences and how I want the bike to handle. Yeah. And what's the best way to get more information about Destroy destroy by co.com.

Instagram, destroy by Co, and TikTok as well. Right on. Yeah. Thanks Sean. Thank you.

battaglin bicycles Okay. Can I get your name and the brand? Hi, I'm Marco from OA Battlin and I'm the marketing manager. We are a small company based in Italy making handcrafted custom still bikes. And how long has Baten been around? Battlin has been around since 1981. That's the year when our founder, Jovanni Battlin won the Jalia and Walter Espania.

It's a legendary grantour double achieved which was achieved only by Eddie Merckx. That in 1981, our founder right after his grand tour victories launched his autonomous bike brand. Amazing. And I know the gravel scene has been slower to take off in Europe, but now it's catching fire over there.

When did you as a brand start to explore building gravel bikes? We started exploring building gravel bikes two years ago. Obviously. The company has been, has always been focused on road bikes because that's that's what our founder used to ride as a professional cyclist, obviously back in the eighties.

We knew that the gravel scene was growing. And we knew also our customers were asking for gravel product. But we wanted to find the right product, not just launch a random random gravel bike. And two years ago we started designing the port of energy which is a sort of gravel variant of our flagship product of the Portofino.

So basically our port of energy has the same shares with our with its road counterpart, the same construction, the lag construction with the oversized logs and the oversized tubing. Yeah, I think that's very, a very striking element of the bike we're looking at is these lugs. Yes. It very much has the feel of a of a race oriented gravel bike.

Yes. Which seems to be the front end of where European gravel is right now. This kind of more racy oriented bike. Would you, is that accurate? Yeah, it's accurate to say that and also you have to consider that our founder Giovanni and his son Alex, who is the c e o of the company right now wanted to.

To design the port of energy went back to the old bikes the company used to make for the professional ra racers of the eighties who who raced in competitions the per rube. On on the pave on rougher roads. Yeah. Back back in the day, the roads were rougher than.

The roads, the professional erasers are riding now. Basically for the port of energy we went back to the old geometries, to the old frames the company used to make, and we wanted to find this gravel variant, but with still with a road racing feel. Yeah, it's super interesting.

I'll make sure to link to this bike in the show notes, 'cause I think people need to see this one. If people are interested in finding more out about the brand, where would you direct them to? They can visit our website, officina battalion.com and they can find us also on YouTube. We have many videos where we share our best builds.

And for a US based customer, how would they get their hands on one of these bicycles? Actually the US is probably our most important market and we sell directly. Okay. We have a direct relationship with the consumer. We build our, all our bikes from scratch, so they send us their body measurements, their specifications.

And we build we start from there. And would they be buying a complete bike with a groupo or are they just buying a frame and fork from you? It depends. All our bikes are custom made it depends on the customer's requests and specifications they can buy just the frame or we are more than happy to build a complete bike.

Got it. Thanks. I appreciate the time. Thank you very much for coming and enjoy the show.

[00:13:30] Ben | Argonaut: Okay. Can I get your name and brand? My name is Ben Farber. I'm the founder and head of r and d at Argonaut Cycles. Ben, where is Argonaut based? We are based in Bend, Oregon. Right on. I think I knew that and I'd seen the bikes for a number of years, but it seems like over the last few you've both expanded the line and added some small batch production.

Can you talk about like the brand a little bit as it spec specifically to gravel cycling? What the custom bikes are all about and what the super knot's all about. Certainly. Yeah. So we are fully vertically integrated production facility based again in Bend, Oregon. We've got two models, the RMM three and the GR three in terms of the style of bike.

So the RMM three is our road bike. It's a fairly racy, generally designed road bike, but it comes in custom geometry as well as proven geometry. With custom layup as well. So our big thing is how we engineer the carbon inside the bikes. And that's true for our gravel bike as well. So our gravel bike is the G R three.

The idea behind the G R three is that it's a go fast up, go faster down, a gravel bike where the geometry is pretty progressive in terms of the front end with a 68 and a half degree head to Bengal. But then also a really nice tight rear end of a 415 millimeter chains stay with clearance for a 700 by 50 C tire.

I think we've seen Sarah Max go quite fast on that bike this year. Yeah, absolutely. Sarah is our is our top racer that's been out there and doing the lifetime series. She was just in Steamboat and then getting ready to go somewhere in the south again. Pretty soon think so. Yeah. Yeah.

Awesome. And then tell me about the Super Knot. I hadn't seen that before. Super Knot is our non-custom production line, essentially. So it's the same technology that is in our custom bikes in terms of the layup pattern of the frame and where and how they're made. They're just not custom to the individual.

So we make these for in two different build, two different. Models. Essentially there's a super knot RMM three, the road bike and the super knot, g R three. And they are the build kit that they're outfitted with is essentially what we at the shop. If we could ride anything, it's what we would ride.

It's if I would build myself a bike tomorrow, this is what I'd put on it. And that's the ethos behind these. And it's for a customer who doesn't necessarily need or want a custom bike, but just wants a really great riding, super high performance, really well made bike. That's what the Super knot is.

Where they're cheaper in terms of relative to the custom bikes. So it's fif 14 nine for a complete RM three and then 12 nine for a complete g R three and lead time's about four weeks. So we're able to reduce the lead time. Got it. And is this bike, does it have a similar kind of race orientation or are you going for a broader applicability of a gravel bike?

It's more of a go fast gravel bike with ample clearance. Essentially. And what does that mean, ample clearance for you guys on this bike? 50 C tire. Okay. 7 0 5 50 C. Perfect. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting to see like over the last few years that size become commonplace, whereas four or five years ago it was a little bit tricky, I think, for a lot of frame builders to make that work.

Yeah. And that's the art. And the cool thing, the magic in the G R three is having that short chain stay length with enough clearance for a 50 C tire. It makes it really capable, but also really fun to ride. Bike. A lot of times with the geometry of clearing that big of a tire, you burden it by having a super long wheel base, especially the rear center.

And what, that's what really concentrate on the G three is that tight rear center makes the bike just so much more lively. Nice. And if customers are interested in learning more about Argonaut, what's the best way to find out about what you guys are doing? Argonaut cycles.com. And then follow us on instagram@argonautcycles.com as well.

And I think you mentioned already the timelines for these various spikes, but if someone was coming to you for a custom build, what does that look like? I realize like the back and forth about getting the custom geometry right with the customer takes some time. Yeah. But yeah. What does it generally look like?

Turnaround time? No. Good question. So we're about 12 to 14 weeks on the full custom bike. Okay, so it's still not too bad. Yeah. Right on. Thanks, Ben. Absolutely. Thank you.

[00:17:29] Cameron | Wren Sports: Okay. Can I get your name and the company? Yeah. I'm Cameron Sanders. I'm with Rinn Sports. Cameron, let's talk about this handlebar you have in your hands. I know this is a little tricky since we're on audio, but let's do your best to describe it. Awesome. Yeah. So this is our perseverance drop bar. We have a perseverance flat and drop bar.

The flat bar. We actually have on a number of gravel bikes out there as well. What it is, it's a one piece integrated arrow accessory alt bar. Think. If you're thinking like Jones or Redshift kitchen sink, you're in the right space but let's say the box that showed up on your doorstep was twice the size.

Yeah. So what we're looking at, it's a, drop bar handlebar with an arrow extension kind of built into it. Correct, yeah. And a lot long as you said, a lot more longer and extended than you might be visualizing with sort of the short stubby extensions that we see on other handlebars. Yeah.

It's not just for a psyching. Cycling computer or just resting your palms on this is like a full other position to get into. And from a manufacturing standpoint, we have not just like one loop, there's multiple angles here. So it's going out, it's flaring up, it's going, it has a nose that it goes around.

And that definitely makes this a harder bar to manufacture. Basically we have enough material out front to make a whole nother bar. And where, what type of athlete, gravel athletes are you seeing kind of gravitate towards this bar? What type of events in your mind as a designer, are they? Is it intended for?

Yeah, so the people that I think are benefiting the most from this are bike packers and like hyper endurance athletes. This was a. I jotted down notes about what I wanted after riding the Baja divide. And then I went and did a thousand mile gravel tour of Eastern Oregon. And between my mountain bike and my drop bar bike, I wanted something that felt at home on either one of them.

But we also are getting a lot of riders and racers that are doing a hundred to 300 mile like ultra endurance days that are really enjoying the bar. Yeah, I bet. I've just recently been, Watching from afar, peri breast, Paris. And thinking like you need to get in an arrow position to finish an endurance run today like that.

We have had a few people that there's some gravel events that don't allow you to a add on the arrow like clips, but because this is integrated, it's like this weird loophole where you can run it at some of those events. And I've had people that bought it just for that, which was not something I intended or thought of whenever I built the bar.

But Even for the weight weaning, because it's integrated. It I'm also not a weight weaning myself. I'm bike packing with a hundred pounds of gear, but because it's integrated, it actually is very lightweight because you're minimizing the amount of stuff you have to use to attach an arrow position.

Yeah. Offline, you were telling me a little bit about the armrests. Can you just describe them a little bit? Yeah. We wanted something in the aftermarket. We talked to profile design and a number of different companies and we just. Couldn't find what we really wanted for the bars. I wanted something that had a very tiny footprint on the bars so that you're not losing any real estate for hand positions or mounting things or shifting or whatever.

And the armrests will clip onto the flats or the drops and either where the bars are themselves on along the top of the plane or in the loop itself, and they fully articulate and rotate so that you can. Just really fine tune your rest position in a way that you can't on a normal clip on. Because they are integrated into the arrow loop, there's only so much you can do with playing and moving them around.

So ours are a lot more adjustable. And if people want to find out more information and or buy your products, where do they go? So they go to rin sports.com. Super easy. That's Ren Sports with a w r e n sports.com. Right on. And Cameron, thanks for the time and congrats on finishing the Oregon Timber Trail just in time to join us here at Maid.

Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, it was a great 18 days of riding. Awesome.

[00:21:22] Igor | Velo Orange: All right. Can I get your name and brand? Sure. My name is Igor Stainbrook and I'm with Velo Orange. And where is Velo Orange located? We are in Glen Burnie, Maryland. The Maryland's not a name you often hear it's such, there's such great riding there, but you don't often hear about a lot of bike brands out of that area.

That's right, yeah. There's a lot of really good riding, especially out of DC like you mentioned earlier, there's the c o canal and the gap trails, and a lot of our customers do long distance touring or random earing events. And so those kind of trails are perfect for our style of bikes. Yeah. What was the origin story behind the brand?

So we first started in 2006. We were basically importing stuff from France and Japan and UK stuff that was more vintage style. And since then, since those sources dried up of new old stock stuff, we started developing our own things, improving on those designs. And now we do a lot of both classic style.

But also more modern stuff too. Gotcha. So that was the inspiration that kinda, I see it in what I'm seeing around the booth here that, yeah, those classic styles and classic lines. As you started obviously it appears to be a touring reveering vibe, some of the stuff you're doing.

As you started to see more kind of off-road riding, popularized in the us, what have you developed from a product perspective? So obviously tires are getting bigger and bigger. Since we first started, everybody was riding like 20 threes and 20 fives, but now we have a number of models. We have one that has, that's the rando that's coming out that has 30, that can take up to 30 eights.

And then we also have the P L A, which is our kind of bike packing style bike. But it lends itself really nicely to, if you wanted to do two point fours, but you could put 45 millimeter tires, two point ones. It takes racks and fenders. You can put drop bars on it. It's a nice frame that has a lot of versatility.

Yeah. You've got. The two ends of the gravel cycling world here. Exactly, yeah. Your road plus and then the bike backing side and not in the middle. It's interesting. Yeah. On this bike you were just describing with the bigger tires, can you talk about the rear end? It looks a little bit unique.

Yeah. So the p l a, it's actually been in our stable for a number of years now. It's gone through a couple iterations, the most recent one. We now have through axles. And it has a new paint, but the geometry that everybody really likes is still the same. It has a wishbone rear end and it has a lot of custom stuff that goes into it that maybe a lot of people don't really, maybe not notice, but it's basically the rear end is a segmented wishbone that has, it's a bent tube and then there's plugs that are custom C and seed inserted and then braised in.

And so it's a lot of. Technical stuff that goes into something that people may not even necessarily notice. Yeah. I think with a brand like this, it gives it some unique, beautiful details. Absolutely. Yep. Which always makes owners super proud to show off their bike. For sure. And you were mentioning that this one can be built up as a drop bar bike or a flat bar.

Yes, absolutely. Yeah. We have a lot of people will build them up with drop bars. They most of the time they're one buys. We've seen some two buys as well. And it just lends itself nicely to a variety of build styles. So we don't really say, oh, it has to be this way, because they come as frame sets so you can build it up as you want.

And so we also designed the geometry and the fit to really fit the rider nicely. So the larger sizes are 29 er and the smallest size of 26. Got it. So you don't have to compromise on frame bag size or kind of having weird fit on a very small bike with really big tires. So it's a nice, it's a nice rider.

Gotcha. And Igor, what's the best way for people to learn more about Velo Orange? Go to velo orange.com or on Instagram. And what are you on Instagram Velo orange. Got it. Thanks for the time. Absolutely. Anytime.

[00:25:17] Reuben | Rizzo Cycles: Can I get your name and the brand? My name is Ruen from Uhha Cycles from Spain. Ruen, can you tell me a little bit about the bike we're looking at? Yeah. We have gravel a gravel bike with a big tri freelance up to 750 with a new MV fork that they are actually selling on their mocks.

But now it's available for the builders. And I have built a fulled titanium gravel frame with the with the full cable integration. We have some three D printed parts the dropouts which are U D H standard compatible. A joke for the chaining credence and the upper part of the head tube for having the custom cable integration without a, without having a super heavy and big head tube.

It's a very clean look. Yeah. It's very You building out of Spain? Yeah, I'm building in Spain. I have the workshop in the near the City Center of Madrid. I'm a one band, one man band operation. I do everything but the paint and the finishing. Yeah, that's pretty much everything about the main things about the bike.

Yeah. Tell me a little bit more about the dropout in the rear here that's using. The newer kind of mechanism of attaching the rear rail. Yeah. I developed my own dropouts for the to match my style and have a custom product my own aesthetic. And yes, we, I recently, this is the second bike I build with the U D H.

We are, we were all forced to embrace this new standard. So I have been pretty reluctant. But now I have developed all this new platform with the dropouts. I have both C N C machine for the steel and three D printer for the titanium. Yeah, you can see it's I achieve because the main problem with the U D H is the symmetry of the dropouts on the rear end.

I kindly achieve the symmetry with a few touches on the sign. And they are three D printed. We have a drive side with for the U D H power. And then Onri side has the flat mount brake mount. So everything is in line and easy to build. And are you able to three D print in Madrid as well?

No. The three D printer is is made somewhere else. It took me a long time to find a supplier that meets my quality standards in terms of finishing overall, because the main problem with the three D printer is this grainy finish you, and you can click easily tell the difference between the three printed part that the rest of the tubes.

And as you can see in here, if you touch the yolk, the finish on the yolk is pretty smooth and yeah, super clean. It's almost seamless with the rest of the tube. That is what I wanted to achieve. So it took me some time, but now I'm starting to use in this so that this technology that give you so freedom for design and so many options.

And how did you get your start building? I start building almost seven years ago when I wanted to occupy all my free time between jobs and I started looking at the I, by that time I started to meet all the builders and see some custom bikes around. So I went into deep into the knowledge of first of all knowing more brands and builders and.

Be aware that we're still people building bikes by hand. So I started really slowly and then I was pretty much self-taught in my workshop and making bikes for friends and for myself and doing this trying and error thing constantly and trying to get better and better in welding and building and everything you do at the sub.

Amazing. And for a US based customer, what's the best way to learn more about the brand or ultimately order one of these bikes? First of one you can visit my website and my Instagram. If you look for Rho cycles in the web, it will be easily appears at the first of one of the first results.

It's r a said O. And it's pretty easy to get in touch with me via Instagram or or mail. I try to keep a quick responses on all the direct messages and mail and yeah, the talk for a custom bike. Start straight away with me and we can talk about all your dream projects.

Awesome. Thanks for the time. I appreciate it. Thanks to you.

[00:29:35] Brad | W H Bradford: Can I get your name and brand? Hi, this is Brad from w h Bradford Designs. Brad, where do you build out of Sacramento, California. Right on, right up the road from me. I'm in Marin County. Oh, awesome. I ride Mount Tam quite a bit. As naturally you would from that area, it's like Mount Tam is amazing and not too far from you.

This bike actually would be pretty good on Mount Tam, given that we're looking at a gravel bike with a suspension fork and dropper post, which the listener well knows. I'm a big fan of. It is actually the bike that I designed to do the alpine dam loop on. You called it out. This is our Gazo gravel frame.

This is the bike we build the most of primarily double butted air hardened c molly for the front triangle Columbus rear end. We've made a few aesthetic changes for the bike this year. We've allowed integrated dropper post routing for 27 2. So it adds a second internal line to the frame.

And then it is designed to work with the fox ax suspension fork, or you can switch it back to an envy, gravel fork if you wanna stay rigid. And so that's like a slight adjustment in the axle, the crown between those two forks, is that right? It was actually. Thank you so much. The axle of the crown is so close and given the fact that you probably want the front end a little slacker and a little higher, I didn't adjust the axle of the crown, but what I did adjust on the geo.

Was the actual forward seating position of the rider. So the seat tube angle was increased forward by half a degree. We offset the seat tube at the bottom bracket by 7.5 millimeters, and then I actually made the top tube longer by like quarter inch and slacked the head tube angle out by a half a degree.

Putting the rider more forward in the riding position and now allowing him to actually actuate the suspension fork better. Yeah, it's interesting. I'm totally with you on that, that, a small difference in actual axle to crown when swapping those forks actually positions the bike more oriented towards a rigid fork versus the suspension forks.

So it's a natural compromise. Exactly. And w given the 45 millimeters of travel that the ax has, it doesn't raise the bottom bracket hype that much, but then you're still gonna be descending into your perfect pedaling position. Instead of having it drop down into a lower pedaling point and possibly smacking, roots and things like that.

And that's a major concern in Marin as well, because you have Nice, those, all those nice polished roots on all your trails. Exactly. For customers, is this a custom bike or are you doing stock sizes? Pretty. So as a builder I offer three separate models. Our gravel bike, our adventure cross, which is a flat bar, gravel bike.

Bike packing bike and our mountain bike. And then we do custom geo custom sizing on all frames, but we don't really venture out of those three designs currently. Gotcha. And how did you get your start building? Oh wow. I fell into this life. I sold my first bicycle design when I was in eighth grade to Alan Brown at Ozone Bikes, and it's just been a never ending process since then.

And I got to this point and I've always wanted to do really high-end, road mountain bikes and I think that I've gotten to that point in my career. Nice. And for a customer looking to learn more about the brand, what's the best way of finding out more? Go to our social media page our Instagram, w h Bradford Designs, or just shoot me a message and ask me any questions you have.

'cause I'm always available. And what does the purchasing journey look like for a customer when they contact you? They fallen in love with what you're doing. How long does it take? What is the experience? Feel like I, I am a working builder, so you'll contact me. Basically, we figure out what bike you want sizing.

I work with you. We produce a cad drawing of the bike and then small deposit down once we've gotten to that point. And it's usually 30 to 45 days for delivery. Okay. Right on. Thanks for the time. No problem. Thank you very much.

[00:33:13] Richard | Speedvagen: All right. Can I get your name and brand? I am Richard Poole. I am the creative director at Speed Bogging. I couldn't come to Portland without talking to speed bogging. For sure. So let's talk a little bit about this bike. Yeah, just gimme a little bit of the details of the gravel bike we're looking at.

Alright, so we got a pretty traditional custom rugged road for us. What we do with our rugged roads are, since they're all custom, they're built specifically to the tire size you want We're good and firm believers in short chain stays and more playful bikes. So if you never plan on running a 45, we're not gonna build you a bike that's gonna clear a 45 if you know you're only gonna run a 35.

That's what we're gonna build it to. That makes sense. All these bikes from speed wagging, they're always Super tight and clean on the rear end. So that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. But if I did come to you and say, Hey, I'm all about a 50 C tire, you can deal with that. We can do that. We actually have the upgraded model of this called the rugged or road.

And that will use, like any of the new suspension forks on the market, like the gravel forks, or we could use the envy adventure fork on that to clear about a 50. Gotcha. And tell me a little bit about the c o situation here on the svi. All speed vs. Have integrated seat masks. The seat post head is made by NV for us.

We've been partners with NV since the launch of both brands. Seriously. They just keep making 'em, we keep using them. What does that translate to? So if I get one of these out of the box and I've ordered it from you, do I need to cut anything down to, to get the right seat post size?

No. No. So the way one, we prefer, everyone that gets a bike from us gets a fitting from us too. That way we can get all the measurements dialed. We will have everything ready to go by the time your bike's built. And then, so we'll cut it down. It'll come as you see it right now. And those seat post heads have 30 millimeters of range.

Okay. So if you do, it's made for 30 millimeters of range, just in case you swap a saddle or something like that. It can go up or down. Yeah. I gotcha. That should be plenty. Yeah. And then what type of tube set are you building with on the gravel bike? Oh all of our tubes are custom to us.

A mixture of two true temper Columbus. And yeah, that's about it really. And what does it look like for a customer looking to get one of these bikes? How, what's the process look like and what's the turnaround time? We start with the fit. The fit is the most important measurement. We like to say we can get your bike 95% there if you're gonna send us your fit numbers from someone else.

But we're big believers in being balanced on the bike and our fitting process incorporates that into each bike we build. And that's proprietary to us. No fitters really do that besides us. They tend to focus on comfort and like body angles and that sort of stuff. And is there a little bit of a sort of customer exploration conversation that goes on when I come to say, Hey, all I do is ride rowdy gravel.

Could be mountain bike trails, but I want a gravel bike. Yeah. We'll walk you through that entire process. It all starts with that fit and at that fitting process, we will try and get you your entire build spec confirmed, your geocon confirmed, and then your paint scheme confirmed. It's about a three hour process, sometimes more.

And by that time, like after the fitting, your bike's going into the queue and getting ready to be built and what does that sort of build process looks like after we've. Got the geometry ironed out between the two of us. Oh, that's a wild question just given the last couple years in the pandemic.

But typically speed volumes are designed to be turned around in three months or so. Sometimes it's three to six. And then during the pandemic it was quite a bit longer, but we're pretty much back from that. Nice. And what's the best way for people to get more information about the brand? The website www.speedbogging.com.

Awesome. Thanks for the time. Yeah.

[00:36:43] Ross | Celilo Cycles: Can I get your name and the brand? Okay. My name is Ross Hatton and I'm with s Lilo Cycles out of Corvallis, Oregon. I'm looking at something rather unique here at Made. Can you describe this bike and the material you're building out of? Yeah, so our bikes are made out of wood reinforced with carbon fiber.

So the outside shell is either hardwood or soft wood, depending on the material properties we want. And then it's reinforced in the inside with a full carbon fiber. Shells. We've got all the riding strength of carbon fiber frame, and a much smoother ride from the wood, which I acts as a damper on the frame and takes up some of the sting of the vibrations.

Fascinating. So can you tell me a little bit about that process as I'm visualizing it? Obviously I'm seeing the, the wood exterior. Are you crafting the wood and then inserting sort of the carbon fiber after the fact inside that? Or does it start with the carbon fiber? So it starts with the wood, and we basically make two bicycle frames, so as if the frame is butterflied open.

So we cut every tube twice, then we hollow them out after joining them together into the frame shape. And then we do a lined layup with the carbon fiber. So we've got all the directional layup inside the tubes. Then we put them together and we do a bladder supported circular layup on the inside.

So there's no seam. It's a continuous circle on the inside. And then the we take the two halves of the wood, we put it together. And we machined down the outside to get the bicycle shape part of the machining process. We set up a we set up spaces for carbon fiber inlay, and then we overmold the carbon fiber and sand everything down.

And so we get a clean fusion between the carbon fiber reinforcing tapes on the outside and the wood appearance. That's most the outside. I think I gave you a basically impossible task to describe how complicated that process is. If someone's interested, and I think they should be to, to sort of discover more about that process and what, what it actually looks like.

Where would you direct them to? It should go to celilo cycles.com. Celilo is spelled c e L i L O. Okay. And you, you mentioned that adding the wood on the exterior of the carbon fiber kind of interior adds this dampening element to it. If you could describe like maybe how this bike might feel different.

Than a, a standard carbon bike. What would you say? It's gonna be a lot smoother. If you can think about the difference between a wooden baseball bat and something so I don't think people do carbon fiber baseball bats, but you can imagine like aluminum versus wood. Yeah. The wood's got, takes a sting out of the impact.

Okay. And so carbon fiber's gonna, would have the same kind of sting if you would make a carbon fiber baseball bat. And the wood is gonna have that less sting. So the carbon fiber frame when you get a hit is going to buzz a little bit. And so the wood really takes that buzz out. So this bike. I take it over like small chattery stuff.

Just you don't feel it all, it just floats. Okay. And are, are you guys in production on this model? We're this is so we are, we are in production. Scott's working on various bikes. We've got a number of different models. Okay. One of the nice things with the with the setup is that it's customizable so that when we come in there's various hard points.

So like, this is our. Showroom flagship model. It's got hard points all around the inside, so you can do different mounting pieces. It's got internal routing for generators, and depending on what you're looking for, the you can, we can tune the, the specific construction to what you need on the bike.

Super interesting. And, and as a customer, if I come to you, are you building something custom from a geometry perspective? For me, we are. Yeah. We, we can do custom geometry. The process has a CAD pro, we have a CAD program that is parametric, so you can put in your reach and stack and all of that. And then the files from which we d cut the different tubes that's all driven by that geometry.

So we can very easily customize that geometry for every given frame. Super interesting. And how long does it take for a customer to get a bike after ordering? It's gonna be several weeks. We can, so that's very quick. Yeah, we can, we, our, our process goes through very we, we've got, we've got a process set up so that you can put that, put that into your into our.

Take. Take your measurements, put them into your production. Into production and manufacture that frame. Yeah. And you mentioned the website, that being the best place to get more information? Yes. Awesome. And then again Celilo Cycles, c e l i l o. Perfect. Thanks for the time. Thank you.

[00:40:52] Ming Tan | Haley Cycles: All right. Can I get your name and the brand? Hey, this is Ming Tan from Haley Cycles. Ming Tang. This is a pretty cool looking bike with a special fork on it. Can you describe what we're looking at? Yeah, so this is one of our gravel bikes. This is outfitted with the cannondale lefty olive gravel fork.

So it's got 30 millimeters of travel up front. This one's built with our standard oversized straight gauge tube set. So basically we offer. Three different tube sets you can choose from when you decide to configure a bike, and then we can build it however you like it. So fully custom geometry and fully custom geometry.

All of our pricing is inclusive of custom and it's inclusive of your choice of paint and finish. Amazing. These bikes, the paint jobs are always gorgeous on these ha's, thank you. Really appreciate it. I mean it's, we really take pride in the fact that almost any bike that you see on our feed is different.

Not all, some of them are similar, but. We really encourage our customers to go and make it unique to them. And are you working exclusively with Titanium? Only with Thai. Okay. Yeah. Gotcha. And what does the customer process look like? If someone wanted to get a Haley, what is what, how do they come in the door?

What kind of consultation do they get and how long does it take to get a bike? It's a pretty organic process and usually it starts with a dis, a general discussion of what they're looking for. Whether it's a. A road bike or an all road bike or gravel bike or a hardtail, anything that doesn't have a rear suspension, no problem.

But it usually starts with the type of bike they're looking for and then we start talking about fit and whether or not the customer has fit data or if they need to get fitted, or if they just want to duplicate their cockpit, fit off their current bike, we can help build that CAD geometry file for them based on the information that they have.

And then, we get deeper into the weeds when it comes to. Tire clearance and gear choice. 'cause it's all interrelated in terms of how the bike gets built. Yeah. And then once the customer decides to move forward and the geometry looks good and the spec looks good, it's about a 16 week, 16 to 18 week lead time to get the frame done Okay and finished.

And then if it, if the customer's looking for a complete bike, the complete bikes are all custom quoted considering that you can customize bikes to the valve stems these days. So everything is custom quoted at that point. Nice. Amazing. Thanks for sharing. Thank you. Appreciate it.

[00:43:14] Julio | Wheatfall Cycles: Can I get your name and the brand? Yes. Julio Burino from wheat Fall Cycles. Julio, where is Wheat Fall building out of? Santa Cruz, California. Okay. He's currently designing there. We are having them made overseas, but we are now currently looking for someone stateside in either Oregon or California.

Nice. And is it a completely custom process with the brand? Right now they're made to order, but we are working out sizes within our Within our bikes, either the gravel or the mountain or the cruisers. This bike we're looking at, what's the frame material? It's titanium. All of the bikes are currently titanium.

Gotcha. And what's super unique for you listeners out there about this bike? It's actually got dual top tubes, the two thin top tubes rather than one across the top and a little bit of a sort of asymmetry and where they hit the C tube. What's the story behind that? It's something that my partner and I have been talking about for a long time to do something a little bit more unique.

Make an asymmetrical bike that is aesthetically pleasing for the eye, but has a compliance that feels really well on the trails and on the road. Yeah. You nailed it on the aesthetically pleasing part here. I love it. That was the emphasis. Certainly for a show like this, it gives you a chance to stand out with a, titanium finished bike.

Oh, thank you. Thank you. So what does it look like for a customer interested in finding out more about the brand? Where should they go and what does the process look like in creating their dream bike with you? So essentially this is our first show. We're just gathering ideas. We have a webpage that we do need to still work on Instagram and the maid show is catapulting our Success to get the name and the brand out there, but you we are at ww dot wheat falls cycles.com and you can get information and email us from there.

Fantastic. Great to have another brand outta Santa Cruz. Awesome, thank you.

All right. Can I get your name and the brand? I am Jeff Fra, and I am with Wild Bikes. Welcome back to the Pod Jeffrey. Thank you for having me. Can you tell us about what you brought to Maid? Yeah, so today at Maid, our big, our kind of big reveal is that my business partner Andy, is a huge Schwinn Paramount fan, and we have a Wayfinder fork, right?

So what's cool about our carbon Wayfinder fork is that it's an inch and eighth straight steer. With all the modern gravel functionalities, dynamo routing, three pack mounts, fender mounts, rack mounts, all that good stuff that we like as gravel folks. Yeah. And what we wanted to really showcase is to other builders really what you can do with this fork.

And so we build a lugged bike and we chrome the lugs. So it would be that, Schwinn Paramount homage. Yeah. Painted the main tubes, painted the fork. And this is the first lug bike that Wild has yet created. And it's this very classic looking thing with all the modern gravel capabilities.

It fits 50 C tires has all the, has three bottom mounts, top two feedback mount. And we just wanted to really lean on our love for the past and bring it into the future and show people what was possible. Yeah, I love that juxtaposition of the kind of old visual styling. But as you're describing all that modern gravel performance, and it's super lightweight and it's a really cool lug set.

So the lugs taper, so if you notice the tube actually tapers down to the C tube. Got it. 'cause you want the stiffness here and you want a little more flex in the seat area, cluster area for comfort. And so it's a really cool, well-thought out lug set designed by Chris Bishop of Bishop Bikes. Okay. And the carbon fork, it's super light.

It's just, it just happens to be lug. And in, you may not know the answer to this question, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. In terms of lugged bike manufacturing experience, is that an art that sort of was at risk of disappearing and are fewer and fewer people understanding how to make a bike that way?

I've been shocked at how few lugged bikes there actually are at this show. So it, it maybe seems to be waning. I think the problem is just the lug sets themselves present physical limitations. So this lug set is cool 'cause it has a sloping top tube, whereas most lug sets have a very horizontal Strat tube.

So the lug itself actually dictates the geometry of the, to a large extent. You have a couple degrees you can play with, but it's set. So when you start building large tired bikes with a 700 by 50 C and then a straight top tube stand over becomes an issue. And so it's cool because we have products like this emerging that actually allow you to build that.

Traditional logged construction with modern gravel features. And so I think our obsession with big comfortable tires has made the old lug sets a bit obsolete. So yeah, I think until we have more things like this available, it is gonna be a little bit of a dying art form because people just aren't building road bikes like they used to.

Yeah. And if you are building a road bike, chances are you wanna fit 30 twos, 35. That makes a ton of sense. And is this a bike that a customer could come and buy from you today? Oh, we would love to. We are so hoping that people, we, we've loved this process and we love the outcome and so yeah, we would love to sell a customer this bike.

We'd love to build more. And is that, is it a longer process for building and design or about the same? No, it's about the same. About four to five months is, what it takes for us from the project kickoff to when we are able to deliver a finished to product. Okay. Awesome. I hope I see more of these beauties on the roads and trails.

No, thank you, Craig. Cool.

[00:48:36] Mike DeSalvo | DeSalvo Cycles: Can I get your name and the brand? Yeah. My name is Mike DeSalvo from DeSalvo Cycles. Mike, can you tell us a little bit about the Scrabble bike we're looking at? This one I built was, it's actually for a customer. It was a fun project. He just wanted to go for a steel bike. Wanted to clear a tire, about 48 to 50 and keep it pretty classic.

Unlike some of the really crazy stuff here with all the integrated hoses, lines, everything he wanted, all external mechanical shifting. It feels a little like blast from the past in a way. And is this a typical like tube set that you build with, or do you build with other materials as well?

So I build with steel and titanium. This one right here is a steel bike, mostly Columbus Steel is what I use. Okay. And is there a reason for that? Is it as far as just, as far as name, the branded tubing, Columbus has always just been my favorite when it comes to steel. Yeah. Most of the bikes these days actually are titanium, but this one is a steel bike.

Yeah. Okay. Gotcha. And you've been building bikes for quite some time now. Is there? Yeah, I'm sneaking up 20, 24. I'll make 25 years of building for me. Amazing. Yeah, it's a huge milestone. Yeah. It's, I know I started when I was 26 and now I'm 51. Has the process, has it always been a custom relationship you had with customers?

Yeah. Everything I've always made is made to order. Okay. Yeah. I've never, I never worked in one of the bigger, or not bigger, but one of the, One of the smaller manufacturers or any of that just been a one man band and always made stuff to order. And how many bikes do you typically put out in a year?

These days it's mostly titaniums and my numbers have gone down. I usually, I'm just in the 40 to 50 range is a comfortable spot for me these days. Is it titanium tube set? Just a little trickier to deal with? Yeah. More time consuming. Yeah. The whole process of building titanium bikes is just more time consuming than steel.

Way back when we were doing a lot of steel road bikes, I actually almost did 151 year. That was my record. It was like 147. It's a crazy amount when you dig into like how much time it takes to make these bikes. Like it's a lot. And they've gotten a lot more complicated over the years too, right?

We've got through axles and disc brakes and if you rewind 15 years or something when we were doing rim breaks and quick releases and things like that, but just a little more streamlined, a little quicker to do. That makes sense. So what does a customer journey look like? If I wanted to get a bike from you?

The interesting thing coming off of Covid right now, at the moment at the moment I'm probably still a year out and I'm actually not currently taking deposits. COVID was a really interesting journey for me because I got a whole lot of orders and got backed up. So about a year ago, I quit taking deposits and I just put people on a wait list.

So if you were to come to me today, what we would do is I'd put you on a wait list and unfortunately you'd have to be patient for, about 10 or 12 months. And then once I would get within a couple months of building your bike, I would circle back around with you and we would start then making the decisions.

As a one man band, it's really hard for me sometimes to track all of the customer changes, shall we say, along the way. Yeah. So what I do with folks is I'm always happy to get excited and everything, but essentially, the gist of the way it works is I get a deposit and as the build gets closer to the top of the list, I circle back around with the customer.

And we go through all the final details. And I think some people are amazed because once they're at the top of the list, that's what I'm focused on. Yeah. And it's gonna be that week or two or three, then I'm gonna build their bike. Versus the waiting, for the 10 or 20 or 30 in front of you Yeah.

To get done. Yeah. That's a good way actually to handle it. Yeah. Master that excitement and enthusiasm and get 'em a bike pretty quickly thereafter. Yeah, exactly. Yeah it's tricky. All of us small builders, it's the battle we all face. Is just trying to get stuff done. When you're wearing all the hats during Covid, was it a, an issue of getting the supplies you needed to make the frame or what, and I know obviously there was a lot of enthusiasm about buying bikes during that period.

Yeah. Covid was a really crazy thing because it was tons of orders. I'm still building bikes. I'm a little embarrassed to say, but I'm still building bikes that are some of the orders that were placed in during Covid. So I, for me, it was a ton of orders and then it was me being too optimistic about how quickly things might turn around.

So then we had the supply issues both. With parts, we had suppliers with raw materials and everything. So you know, what should have taken six months now took a year and a half kind of thing. So just trying to come off of that a huge demand with no supply was just a really awful combination.

Yeah. Gotcha. And if people are interested in learning more about the brand, what's the best place to go to? I have a website, DeSalvo cycles.com. I'm on Instagram at DeSalvo Bicycles as well. And I'm still a little fashioned. If somebody wants to talk to me, gimme a call. I'd be happy to chat with you in the shop.

Perfect. Thanks, Mike. All right. Thank you.

[00:52:49] Darren | Larkin Cycles: Can I get your name and brand? Yeah. Darren Larkin with Larkin Cycles. Darren, where are you building out of? I'm in Deep River Connecticut right now. Okay, interesting. So not a lot of frame builders outta Connecticut. Strangely. There's a couple really good ones right there in my same town is Richard.

Richard Sax lives about Mile Away from Me. Oh. And then Peter Weigel is about 20 minutes away. Got it. So it's a nice, it's like a nice little hub of sort of old school frame building. How did you get into Frame building? As a hobby. I guess I was always a tinkerer and it made sense to, it made sense at some point to build a bike for myself.

Got it. I was doing a bunch of messengering and riding and just made sense to build myself a better bike and then, built bikes for some other friends and got, I got really lucky getting a connection, helping out another frame builder in their shop, and learned a lot from that. Yeah. It seems like that's where you get the reps, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Can you talk about the sort of gravel models that you have and what are you building out of and what are some of the attributes you'd wanna highlight? Yeah so this sort of main stock model that I've been doing, it's been calling it the Dreamer and I've been making it for, at this point, at round five years.

I've been trying to make just like a pretty light good general all around. Like affordable gravel bike, that is gonna ride really great and not cost a ton of money. So it's all tig welded, like Columbus, a mix of zona and life tubing. I'm trying to use like American made, like Paragon Machine Works, dropouts, bottom bracket.

I've been getting fork blades made on my own, like getting those sort of custom fabricated different places. And cool. Yeah. And what does that, what does a sort of customer journey look like? How do they find you and what does the process look like? Are you building stock frames or custom frames?

The, my, my goal is to have this particular model be a stock frame that is just available on the website, but over the past few years, between pandemic materials, availability, and then sort of me moving and resetting shops, it's been a couple years where I haven't been able to do that and I'm. Very much hoping once the dust settles after this show to get stocked back up again and focused on that.

Nice. And so how can customers find out more about you? Larkin cycles.com or Larkin Cycles on Instagram. It's the best spots. Perfect. Thank you. Cool.

[00:55:07] Dave | Sage Cycles: You, Dave from stage. Hey Craig. Good to see you again man. Good to see you too. And super stoked to hear about the updates on the Storm King. It's a bike. I love the original version of Yeah. And this thing is gorgeous, so why don't you tell me about it? Sure. No, yeah, it's the Storm King. The original Storm King has been such a good, fun bike.

It's so versatile. It just, you can do so much with it. Racing, bike packing, adventure riding it just really allows you to do a lot. And as time has gone on from the original bike to where we are now, I've really developed the geometry and the design of the bike to improve it for future proofing, if you will.

So from a tire clearance perspective and a tow overlap perspective, those were things from a custom standpoint have always plagued customers. And so I wanted to go about. Fixing that issue that I want somebody to get on this bike, and no matter what size tire they ride, they're gonna have tow clearance.

How are you achieving that? So what I did was I redesigned the geometry, and what I found is that if I push the front end of the bike out by two centimeters and then shortened the stem by two centimeters, your handlebar stays in the same place for where it should be. But because I've pushed the front tire out, now you now have toe clearance that you wouldn't have had before.

So technically speaking, the bike with the shorter stem will steer quicker than the original version because the, if you think of the stem as a lever and as you turn that lever, the shorter lever turns quicker. But the longer wheel base, because I've pushed out, the front end, actually is more stable at speed.

So if you're going down high speed gravel road, it's chunky, washboard, big stuff like that kind of thing. The bike is actually way more stable in a straight line, but when you have to turn in tight corners because the steering is quicker, you can still turn around corners kind of thing. So it's this really nice improvement of being able to stretch out the rider and give a better ride quality.

It's similar to mountain bike, but it's not mountain bike. Like it's just different in that way. Yeah. I think it's been just this interesting journey for builders as gravel came about. Yep. To distance ourself from the original kind of maybe Road Plus Origins Correct. Of the design. Yep. And thread that fine line between two Mountain Bikey, but still fun to ride on the road.

And I'm super excited about this moment in time because I think for buyers of bikes we're, it's great moment where, yeah, if you get a bike that's produced in the year 2023, There's so much thoughtfulness in the design that have just added versatility to what we were using a few years back. Yeah, no, I agree.

Gravel is, has really evolved over the last 10 years. If you think back to 10 years ago, seven years ago, something like that, a 40 millimeter tire was as big as you ever needed for gravel. Didn't need anything bigger, you weren't, nobody was pushing it. Now, with our new Storm King, for example, yeah, it takes 700 by fifties.

But we also have an option that you can run a six 50 by 2.4. Yeah. It's huge. Yeah. That's just the versatility of that range to go from a 40 to a 2.4 is huge. So you can very much have one bike. You can take bike packing. Yep. But you can also go to S P T Gravel and throw some forties on it and race hard.

Yeah. It'll be great. Yeah. This would be a perfect S B T bike. I know there's a lot of people at S B T that are using road bikes or modified road setups, but the reality is this, Will do the job just fine. Yeah. I think for those of us without a quiver of bikes in our garage to choose from, like you, you wanna be able to modify your bike with just changing tires or wheel sets if you have that opportunity.

Yep. You're also doing some neat things with like three D printing right on this bike. You wanna talk about that? Yeah, sure. One of the things going back to the tire clearance issue, but now instead of tow overlap, now tire clearance on the frame one of the things we wanted to really standardize was chain ring size.

Crank sizing, if you will, but chain ring size in combination with tire size and how that we can make an, from an efficiency standpoint of building the bike. So what we created was a chainstay yoke. Yeah. That sits behind the chain rings. This is nothing new. Plenty of builders been doing it for years.

And. We made a three D printed version of it rather than a, we used to do chainstay yolks that were solid titanium plates. Yeah. And they'd be welded or bent and it was just a chunk of heavy metal. Going the three D route allowed us to really dial in from a CAD perspective using modeling software and and just other types of three d printing software and equipment.

We were able to really dial in. The specs that we wanted. So we knew this is the tire size. We knew this is the chain ring size. We knew this is the Q factor of the cranks. What fits, what do we want to do? And then, okay, it also has to be able to run. If somebody wants to run a mechanical shift line, you can still run a mechanical shift line through the yolk.

It's, oh, really? Just big enough to be able to do it. Okay we worked on that one quite a bit. But it's great because it allows you to From a building standpoint, it allows us to go, we have one chain stay design, and we can sit there and go, okay, this is how the chain stays, are shaped.

We're good. We can repeat it every single time, and we're guaranteed to have this tire clearance, this crank clearance. Yeah. Et cetera, et cetera. And it just it just works. And and the three D parts are actually lighter than the solid plate parts, so we're dropping weight in that regard too. So it's a best of bonus.

Bonus. Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk about the rear dropouts. I know, sure. It seems from the mountain bike side of the world, obviously there's new attachment Yeah. Strategies from various manufacturers going on. Yeah. Yeah. How are you thinking about that? Obviously like it's something you can change in real time as the trends move.

Yeah. But what have you done with the dropout and just your thoughts on that? So the dropouts that we have on the bike that's on display right now, these are technically version one. I actually have version two dropouts, which. Unfortunately as a podcast, nobody will be able to see. But if you take a picture, you can certainly share it.

But we've got a t type transmission specific dropout now that we'll be replacing this one. So in general, going back to the original question the concept of how the derailer attaches and the transmission style attachment, I think it's great because it eliminates that the derailer hangar, which is a weak point, Technically speaking, you have this piece of whether it's aluminum or plastic, it can break.

It's designed to break. Yeah. Whereas when the derailer attaches directly to the frame, you've got a much more secure connection. The shifting's more precise. And the cool thing is the, in the case Ofra, the derailers are completely rebuildable, which is super. So I think it's, I think there's a good future for it.

I, from a future proofing perspective, I do see gravel bike. Going to transmission for going to transmission style drive trains, because it's a one by transmission is designed for a one buy setup. So there's already one buy on gravel bikes. So it just makes sense that would be future thing.

So in that regard, we are forward thinking about having our own gravel specific T type dropouts. It's a mouthful having our own gravel specific T type dropouts. For gravel bikes so that when a customer orders one, they'll be future-proofed for transmission, which I am pretty sure is coming kind of thing.

Yeah. Interesting. Super cool. I love that you optionally spec a dropper on this bike. It's right up my alley. Yeah. You've got, and you mentioned that it's got internal cable dropper routing, yeah. Cleanly integrated into the frame. Yeah. So this is the, this is our first fully internal, everything is internal routed.

Bike. So we're using Envy's New Adventure Fork, which is internally routed. I don't think they've given it a new name yet, but it's, they're Adventure Fork, but it's fully internal. We're using the Chris King Aero set headset and then Envy's internally routed aero stem. So we have our two break lines, and in this case it's the NV dropper post on the bike.

And even though it's Ara Drive train, While I would've normally used a wireless drive train, I wanted to show off the capability that we can run the mechanical dropper line internal. So we have three lines running internal of the bike and there's, the only thing is where it pops out for the brake calipers.

That's it, super clean look. How mechanically challenging is it for the home mechanic to kinda work on with these hidden cables? Let's be honest, Dave, I have a little bit of fear. I would be scared. I would be scared. Fair enough. Okay. So unless you're like a super competent home mechanic, get your local bike shop to work on the sport.

The good thing, at least I will say is that from a hydraulic brake perspective, the brakes have gotten so good. At this point, you don't really need to work on 'em too much. Yeah. Once a year, do the bleeds or twice a year, depending on how much you're using 'em. Changing pads is still easy. And the dropper post.

Yeah. It's not the friendliest. Just internally routing 'cause you're trying to put bends and kinks and cables. But once it's in, once it's in, like I've never had to adjust my Yeah. So it's dropper, I don't think it's really as much of a challenge for the general home mechanic. There shouldn't be things breaking Yeah.

On a regular basis. Yeah. And the plus being incredibly clean lines on this bike. Oh's gorgeous. Yeah, it's gorgeous. It's absolutely gorgeous. Yeah. I mean it's, yeah, it's it's tough to work on, but I can. Stare at this bike all day long. Great to catch up with you, Dave. Thanks Craig. Appreciate the time.

[01:04:39] Curt | Wolf Tooth: Cool. Can I get your name and company? Yeah. My name's Kurt Staffy from Wolf Tooth Components. Good to see you again, Kurt. You too. I think Sea Otter was the last time I, I think so. Yeah. And I was super excited. I got a press release from you about the new gravel forks. Yeah. You wanna tell me about 'em?

Yeah. So lithic is our line of carbon forks that actually we developed for Otto Cycles, that's our, our bike brand. And now they're, you know, available for the first time. For people who aren't buying one of the bikes. So this is great. Okay. So previously they weren't available? That's correct, yeah.

So that means it's great for, you know, smaller like frame builders like we have like here at Made Bike Show. But also like, you know, for anybody who has a suspension corrected bike and they, you know, maybe want to swap in and out a rigid fork this is a new option for them. That's, that's what I think is the interesting part about it.

And when you look at the Sea of Carbon forks, You're, you're generally not thinking about suspension corrected sizes, and as someone who do, you know, dove deep into building a frame around a suspension fork, I quickly came to learn that a lot of the forks I was considering swapping it into, I would drop pretty substantially in the axle to crown.

Yeah. Length. Yeah. So it's super cool that riders now have an option that it only has a subtle difference from like what a rock shock or a fox. Forks, gravel, forks axle to crown ratio is, yeah, totally. Yeah, our gravel fork it has a four 20 axle to crown and our mountain fork which is a completely new design.

Well, our gravel and fat forks are also like our own designs too, but we just also announced our mountain fork. But yeah, they're, it's super easy to swap in and out between, between a rigid fork and a suspension fork. So if you wanna save weight and go rigid, That's an option. And 'cause the, the cable routing, which is a nuance people need to be considerate of if you're, yeah.

Thinking about swapping forks, if you're me and you never wanna bleed a brake in your life, I love the idea that I can just kind of unclip it from my suspension fork and sort of clip it to the rigid fork and be good to go with a brake adjustment. Yeah. Brake bleeding's. One thing I don't even like adjusting brakes.

Same, but I don't, there's not a solution for that when you're going between two separate forks, but. Yeah, you can just keep the brake line and because it's externally routed, like you don't need to disconnect anything. Yeah. And on the Wolf Creek side, I mean, I, I know, I know. I love, on my personal bike, all the accents of color you've been able to give me in my headset.

Yeah. On the center lock is it the bolts center? Lock rotor? Lock ring, yeah. And then you've got a new colorway to tantalize me with today? Yeah, it's called Olive. It's available across. A good selection of our, like, kind of more popular items, like we have a few different headset sizes and standards, kind of our most popular three seat post clamp sizes.

We have our like anodized color kit alloy bar plugs and our waveform pedals. Olive was first actually announced as like a limited color last year with remote and remote light action, and our customer service team was flooded. With requests like make olive in everything. Yeah. So it took a little bit of time.

But yeah, we have olive in a lot more things now and it's, it's a really nice, like kind of in the Venn diagram of green and brown. It's kind of right in that, right in that middle. Yeah. I, I thought it would look really nice on my titanium frame. Just a nice, subtle accent. Yeah, totally. Cool. Thanks for the overview.

Yeah, absolutely.

[01:08:06] Dan | Onguza Cycles: All right. Can I get your name and brand? Hi, my name is Dan Craven, better known as Dan from namm, and I am ZA Bicycles. So Dan from NAMM has a very specific meaning that you need to expound upon. What does it mean, Dan? Yes. So it's got nothing to do with Vietnam. I come from Namibia which is the country at the bottom of Africa just next to South Africa.

And as I was just saying, it's two times bigger than California and we've got a total population of two and a half million. So talk about wide open spaces. We've got them. Paint the picture of what, what does that wide open space look like? Are we talking about deserts? Mountains? It's a lot of desert.

Like a lot. A lot. We have some of the biggest, I think the biggest sand dunes in the world. We have a canyon, the fish, river canyon that is, Just a little bit smaller than the Grand Canyon. It looks very similar to that. Parts of Namibia have very much Nevada vibes. If we could farm with rocks, we would all be billionaires.

Where I live is a small little town, two and a half hours from the capital city, and it's very, it's like bushland Savannah. The first time my now wife came to visit, we went on a bike ride and after five minutes, We saw zebras baboons live on the farm, other types of antelope. There's a type of antelope called Aduk that is literally the size of a Jack Russell.

They're the cutest things in the world. Sounds amazing. Absolutely. And yeah, lots of gravel roads, not so many tar roads. I'm an ex-professional road cyclist and it basically doesn't make any sense how that happened. Yeah. That's probably too long for this particular podcast to understand how that happened.

So maybe we'll have you back on. Yes. But let's get a little bit about the gravel bike we're looking at in front of us, and how is it manufactured? Where is it manufactured? What was the sort of vision behind creating a brand out of Namibia? Okay. So just a little bit of background on my graveling.

I built my first handmade steel bike in 2012. And the second one in 2012 and I was wanting to build a gravel bike, but back then they were, didn't exist. I was wanting to build a monster cross and I couldn't find the correct fork until envy finally brought out their fork. And if I'm not mistaken, I got the first envy gravel fork in Europe and I built a, myself.

I built a bike that was in 2016, and the reason was because I was still a professional road cyclist at the time. But I hated the roads back home, so I wanted a gravel bike to be in the same position, but be able to actually ride and have fun. Yeah. So I've been monster crossing since 2016 and it's just it's like e-bikes.

It's the future and it's amazing. So we now are building bicycles in this town that I grew up in and the whole. There's so much background to it, there's so much juice. But in, in short, the people who come from Namibia are amazing at using their hands. They really are just magical, and that's, it's like top class manual capabilities, but very often the ingredients for the things they're working with are not top class.

And I felt as a proud Namibian as a two-time Olympian. I was like, wait, if I can come from that tiny town and go to the Olympics twice, what about everyone else who's not as privileged as I am, but who's actually so much better than me with using their hands? So if you take beautiful Columbus steel tubing from Milan in Italy and stainless steel paragon dropouts from California, and we fly in a master frame builder, an award-winning frame builder, Robin Mather.

And teach these two gentlemen who've been working for my family since 2019. So it's basically you. You take their abilities with their hands and then you give them everything else that's on that level as well. Yeah. And see what comes out. And we were hiding our products away from the world first few years as we are slowly building up and learning the ins and outs.

And we reached a point where it was like, yeah. We are now building bicycles that I can walk into a venue like Maid and hold my bicycle high and be like, we belong here. These bicycles are amazing. They come from a place you don't expect built by people you wouldn't expect. But my little town builds bicycles and we believe in the power of small towns, be it in Africa, be it in America, wherever it may be.

But and going hand in hand with that, the world doesn't need another bicycle brand, but Namibia needs this one. And it's if my town can do this, what can your town do? Yeah. Amazing. I love that story. What's the meaning behind the name? So My Town or Maru is basically if you are going to see Bushman paintings in caves, or if you're gonna see the famous rock engravings in Namibia, a place called Twa Fontaine.

My town is where the tar road is. And so in two of the local languages, ZA means the vast expanse of nothingness out there. Okay. Short for, or the short form of that is the desert. So we live on the edge of the desert. Got it. Beyond us. Got it. What is the customer journey look like when they fall in love with your brand?

What does it take to get one of these? Is it a fully custom experience or do you have stock sizes? We tend to do stock sizes because as a professional, ex-professional cyclist, I never had a teammate who didn't race on a stock size. So my personal experience is that 95 plus percent of the population is stock size is perfect, but every customer must have a bike fit.

And we start the conversation. We have like at least an hour long video call go through. What bikes have you ridden in the past? What bikes do you ride now? What did you like about it? What didn't you like about it? What bike do you want in the future? I recently had someone who was ordering a road bike and we had a conversation.

It turns out that no, actually what he needed was the gravel bike, but you need a long conversation to be sure you get there. And then in that conversation we discuss the bike fit that they've had or about to have. And it becomes very obvious very quickly if someone is a. Is it in the must have category for a custom fit?

Like I have a customer who is as tall as I am, but his saddle height is about four centimeters higher. And for him it's like under no circumstances is a stock geometry right. For you? Yeah. Whereas most people it is. Would you pursue that project or just refer them to another? Oh no. He needs a custom and he's getting a custom.

Okay, got it. And it's like, What the customer needs and what is right for them is what we build within our parameters. We are not a fully custom, you cannot come to us and say, I want a bent this and a squeeze that in a, it's no, this is our bike. This is our color scheme. We stand for something.

Our colors mean certain things and they're recognizable. And if you love it, fantastic. I love you too. But if you don't love it, then well. There are so many beautiful other bicycles out there in the world, and I'd love you to go and support another local frame builder, small builder. That makes sense. If people wanna find out more about the bike, where should they go?

We have our website on gza.com, so that's O N G U Z A and on Instagram it's on Goza bicycles at on goza bicycles, and there's a little, we have a two minute. Brand video that recently won an award at South Africa's biggest advertising awards. So there's nothing to do with sport or cycling, the advertising awards.

Yeah. So I'm relatively proud of it as you should be. So I recommend everyone please go and watch it. Do it full screen, full volume. It really rocks. Yeah. And for us dense Americans, go to get out your atlas, go to Google Maps, figure out what Namibia is. Yes. As I said, and my parents have been there, they said it's an absolutely gorgeous country.

Absolutely. And amazing that you're bringing the bike industry there and taking advantage of these craftsmen and showcasing the beautiful work they can do. Yes. And so just to add on to that America is our target cus our audience our bicycles, the price does not include tax, which is normal here, but it does include shipping to the US for a frame set.

Because of the difficulty of where we are, we prefer to sell frame sets. We can help with complete bikes, but it's case by case. And yeah, come check us out. Got it. Thanks Dan.

[01:16:58] Craig Dalton: That great conversation with Dan seems like a good place to stop for this week's episode. We'll be back again next week for part two. Of the made handmade bicycle show. I hope you enjoyed those interviews. Many of them cannot do justice without an image. So go seek out the handmade bicycle show website@made.bike, or certainly follow these brands on Instagram as they're all such amazing craftsmen and women. Until next time. Here's to finding some dirt under your wheels

This week Randall and Craig discuss the new ENVE Custom Road Project, SPD Power Meter Pedals from Garmin and what vaccinations are going to mean for our own group riding.  

Links:

ENVE Custom Road

Garmin Rally SPD Power Pedal

DynaPlug

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Join The Ridership

Full Transcription:

[00:00:00] Craig Dalton: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of in the dirt from the gravel ride podcast i'm your host craig dalton i'll be joined shortly by my co-host randall jacobs.

[00:00:10]Every two weeks Randall and I discuss how gravel cycling is fitting into our lives in that particular week. And also look at recent product drops and events being announced in the industry. It's been quite quiet over the last few months, but I feel like with vaccinations coming, we're starting to see new product launches and a lot more talk about events. In person later this year.

[00:00:35]

[00:00:35]If you're a first time listener. Welcome. In the alternating weeks, I have long form interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. With a goal of shedding light on the ever nuance sport of gravel cycling.

[00:00:50]We've got quite an extensive back catalog of episodes with about a hundred already recorded. So if there's an event or product or an athlete that you're curious

[00:01:00]About just scroll back in your podcast feed. I think you'll find we've covered a lot of territory over the last two and a half years. The podcast is sponsored by a small number of supporters, but mainly by listeners, like you. Simply visit, buy me a coffee.com/the gravel ride.

[00:01:19]And choose how you'd like to support the show. Your support is greatly appreciated. With that said let's dive right in to this week show. [00:01:30] 

[00:01:30] Randall. Good to see ya.

[00:01:33] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:01:33] Good to see you as well. Craig, how have you been?

[00:01:35] Craig Dalton: [00:01:35] I've been well , for some reason it feels like I haven't talked to you in a long time this week.

[00:01:40]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:01:40] I have been largely off grid. So, I on a road trip was in death Valley with my colleague, Sam, and then now I'm in Southern Utah and where I've been for the past couple of weeks.

[00:01:50] So it's been a good amount of time since we,

[00:01:53] Craig Dalton: [00:01:53] yeah, that makes sense. That's awesome. I forgot that you were intending on meeting up with Sam. Did you guys end up camping and doing some riding together?

[00:02:00]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:02:00] So we left bikes at home and I've actually left my bike at home entirely for this roughly four week trip intentionally.

[00:02:06] So a lot of trail running and hiking and long walks and so on. Just because of. Yeah, I figured it's one. I have a Prius camper and so I can fit the bike, but it's a lot more work to pull it out and then put in, pull it out, lock it up, outside the car to camp and then, throw it back in and so on.

[00:02:21] But then also I just wanted some time away from the bike to, so I could fall back in love with it. And I've been really enjoying trail running and going up a little bit of light mountaineering and things like that on this trip. And so. So yeah, time away. So they do

[00:02:34] Craig Dalton: [00:02:34] not take away your gravel cyclist membership card if you cycle for a month.

[00:02:40]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:02:40] I think I think I got a lifetime membership for the amount that I've put into this particular space. Hopefully people will forgive me for being off the bike for a bit. Yeah. It

[00:02:48] Craig Dalton: [00:02:48] often feels that way. I think, I growing up in the eighties as a cyclist, more primarily in the nineties, obviously.

[00:02:56] There was this going sort of vision as a [00:03:00] cyclist that you just have to ride all the time in order to be a cyclist. So it's, I'm stuck in that mentality. I sort of start to get itchy. If I take a prolonged amount of time off the bike.

[00:03:12] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:03:12] Yeah, I'll be honest. Like I, my relationship to the bike is very different than it used to be.

[00:03:16] I used to have that kind of compulsive need to put the miles in, but I'm really enjoying both the change of scenery, change of lifestyle, still working on the road, of course, but just a completely different Headspace and out of my usual routines and the bike being one of those. When I get back to the Bay area, I'll definitely be doing plenty of riding.

[00:03:34] And then again in Boston when I'm out that way, starting probably in may.

[00:03:38]Craig Dalton: [00:03:38] Yeah. I mean, the thing is, and the truth is, and everybody listening knows it. Like the bike is always there for you. And that's the beautiful thing about it. Certainly when my son was born that first year, I was pretty light on the bike and that predated my interest in gravel cycling.

[00:03:53] And when I came back and discovered gravel cycling, I just sort of grabbed hold of it and was all in again.

[00:04:00] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:04:00] Well, one thing I will say that I'm quite excited about is vaccination. So you got vaccinated.

[00:04:05] Craig Dalton: [00:04:05] Yeah. So I'm one shot in.

[00:04:07] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:04:07] Yeah. So you have the next

[00:04:09] Craig Dalton: [00:04:09] one coming up. Yeah. The next one's coming up, I think April 15th.

[00:04:12] And it was quite a powerful experience actually. I took the time to talk to a lot of the people who were volunteering at the vaccination site and they were like, you wouldn't believe it. Like we have people burst into tears of relief. Just to have started that process. And I definitely felt [00:04:30] that, I mean, by no means am I being cavalier in my life and my protection at this point, one shot in, and obviously my family is not vaccinated yet, but I have a sense of hope.

[00:04:40] I'm really excited about more of my friends getting vaccinated and just slowly returning back.

[00:04:48] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:04:48] I definitely feel that the combination of the, having the pandemic and then having the long, cold winter and both of those lifting and having the thing really excited about as well.

[00:04:59] I'm here potting with friends who are themselves vaccinated met up with a couple other friends who were in the medical field and are vaccinated. And we took precautions, but we could relax a little bit and. By the time I get to Boston, I hope that group rides can be a thing again, granted with appropriate precautions and so on and trying to not have too many people out and keep some distancing and so on.

[00:05:18] But with some  responsible protocol, that being a thing. Yeah.

[00:05:23] Craig Dalton: [00:05:23] Curious to learn sort of how we all have appropriate protocols. I know that the ridership forum, one of the members posted an article originated from USA cycling, but also offered and layered in a lot of his. Personal precautions and experiences and riding throughout the pandemic.

[00:05:41] It's just going to be strange. I went on a ride over the weekend of my largest group ride in, 14 months, six people, three people vaccinated. So obviously we were massed up and trying to stay distanced, but it's weird. It's awkward to sort of be half in half out. And I think we're all going to go [00:06:00] through with this.

[00:06:01]The next four or five months potentially, and it's just important that we stay strong and conservative so that we can go into the winter as a country in a good, in good position.

[00:06:14] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:06:14] I think the other thing that we need to be mindful of is that these vaccines are very effective, but are not 100% effective and with new variants and so on, we might need boosters.

[00:06:25] And, some degree of precaution protocol will be necessary for awhile, but to be able to know that the worst of it is over or hopefully over is an immense relief. So yeah, absolutely. With you there. I think we get mine in April when I'm back in the Bay. I think California is going to. Offer them to everybody starting either on the first or the 15th of April.

[00:06:44] Craig Dalton: [00:06:44] Yeah. This is the 15th of April. It's open to everybody. And I do think, the it was like an assembly line where I went, it was in a high school gymnasium and they were just pumping people through, which is great to see. So I do think if you're motivated, you're going to be able to get in there.

[00:06:59] And I, I hope my wife has sort of similarly is just going to get in on the earlier side of April yeah. To get our household vaccinated. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. But this is not a pandemic COVID medical podcast. We're here to talk about gravel bikes as usual. I feel like a few companies are starting to put new things out there, which is exciting because a few more products coming to our desks.

[00:07:22] I know you sort of, one of them caught your eye and a couple of caught my eye that we should talk about.

[00:07:28] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:07:28] Yeah. So mine would [00:07:30] be the Donna plugger from Dyna plug. And not that it's anything radically new, it's just a much less expensive solution to their already great Dyna plug set up. And I've been using the bacon strips just because I found the dyno plugs cheap, even though the dyno plugs are.

[00:07:45] Arguably more effective or less, less fussy with this, I really have no excuse and I think neither does this will be something that I'm recommending to pretty much all of our right well, to all of our riders from here on in 25 bucks comes with four of the plugs. You can get the replacement plugs as well.

[00:07:59] It's super lightweight and it just works. And it's way better than having to pull off your wheel and pop a bead and dump out your ceilings and pull a valve or pull a valve STEM out and so on and throw a tube in. So. Yeah, good job, Donna plug in making this more accessible.

[00:08:15] Craig Dalton: [00:08:15] Yeah, I think that's cool. Just to drive that point home.

[00:08:17] I mean, they brought the price down from 50 or 60 plus dollars in their original kits that I'd been using previously down to what is it? 29 95. So that's awesome.

[00:08:28] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:08:28] 24 99, I think with these. And I believe that they're made domestically as well domestic to the U S so that's cool.

[00:08:34] Craig Dalton: [00:08:34] Yeah, that's awesome.

[00:08:36] It was funny. I was out Riding Laurel Del maybe three weeks ago. And I had just. I had gotten the GoPro max camera. So I've been playing around with my three 60 photography and my buddy, Jason, shout out to Jason. If he's listening, he is bombing down. There's no tomorrow through Laurel Dell having the time of his life.

[00:08:55] I think he was thinking I was going to catch him, but his speed and velocity was [00:09:00] so intense. Like I kept getting close to them, him, and then losing him again. And he blasted through the rock garden at the bottom before the Creek crossing and the tire just explodes upon crossing the river.

[00:09:17] So we were he was like, that was just the greatest five minutes of my cycling career. And we're like, now it's going to be the worst four hours of your life. As we hike up to the Ridge and try to find your way home, et cetera. But we had it, we had a couple of plugs which is why I'm mentioning it.

[00:09:35] We plugged the tire, but it was too far gone. He'd actually dented the rim and we did have to pull it out. We put a 700 by 30 inner tube for a six 50 by 43 tire. So it was sort of overinflated on the inner tube in, and quite a bit wonky on the way out. But, we were able to ride all the way home, which I considered a victory.

[00:10:02] He finally reflated again, right when we got to mill Valley. So someone was able to come back and pick them up.

[00:10:09] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:10:09] Now it makes me think. He might want to add another solution, which is we have a few riders mentioned my friend Isaac before who's in the ridership and he uses the foam inserts. I can't recall which ones he's using.

[00:10:20] It's the air force or one of the others, but these detonating tires and denting rooms in the process, maybe that's something to add into the package.

[00:10:28] Craig Dalton: [00:10:28] Yeah. I think if you're a larger [00:10:30] rider, That seems to make a lot of sense. I didn't really think about it in that context, Jason's definitely well, over six foot tall, a bigger guy, so he's hitting things hard.

[00:10:39] Those crushed core or other types of foam inserts might be something of interest.

[00:10:44] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:10:44] Yeah. I actually just recommended it to one of our riders who wanted to start exploring lower pressures with our carbon rims. And it's well, they're very robustly made. And when you run them too low and you hit a rock, it's going to be a very expensive repair.

[00:10:58] So, yeah. Yeah, the people I know who ride them really like them adds a little bit of weight, but if you're riding that aggressively, who cares, you're already on a very efficient machine. Yeah.

[00:11:07] Craig Dalton: [00:11:07] Particularly if you're a bigger guy or gal, like why not? Right. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing that I have here, yeah.

[00:11:14] I was going to say the thing that I've picked up over the transom was these new power meter pedals from Garmin, they're called the rally power meters. And they're built on an SPD chassis, which to my knowledge is the first sort of SPD style, power meter pedal that's existed.

[00:11:36] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:11:36] I feel like there may have been another one made by Expedo or some, one of the other Taiwanese pedal makers.

[00:11:44]Don't quote me on that, but these definitely look really well-made SPDs, as I ride them. I'm a big fan. They're ubiquitous. They're a little bit heavy. It adds like relative to an XD. I'm seeing XDS at 170 grams a piece. These are 220 grams. So an extra 50 grams per [00:12:00] pedal. But dual-sided power meters.

[00:12:02] You can transfer them to any bike. They install really easily and you don't have to buy a set of pedals because these are your pedals. So, in all those regards, it makes sense. They're a bit pricey. I think there a thousand

[00:12:13] Craig Dalton: [00:12:13] bucks. Yeah. Over a thousand bucks. So definitely pricey. I mean, I think, yeah. Well, you would know better than I, what can you get into a crank ARM-based power meter for,

[00:12:23]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:12:23] so if you have crank arms that have a flat inner surface there's a good chance that four I's power meters will work for you. And this is what we recommend to our riders. Cause we have our cranks are hollow, forged aluminum, so it's a smooth surface on the back.

[00:12:37] And so this is like a nine grand power meter that you can get either with a coin cell or rechargeable. They both have their upsides and downsides. I like the coin sell myself cause it lasts a really long time and you replace it really easily. And there's no port to get contaminated, but different strokes for different folks.

[00:12:54]And it's 300 bucks. Now the downside is that you have to remove your crank set and ship your crank out and be without your bike for two weeks. So that's a bummer, but it works really well. It's single sided. So it's not giving you. You an average of the two sides. It's not giving you a sense of any sort of imbalance, but most people are pretty balanced and frankly, like it's accurate enough for you to understand your progress.

[00:13:17] And I think that's really the critical thing.

[00:13:18] Craig Dalton: [00:13:18] Yeah. Imagine if you're a professional athlete, knowing about a little bit of imbalance between your legs is something you can work on with your coach. But as the average athlete, as you said, we're, hopefully mostly balanced [00:13:30] and it works itself out in the wash.

[00:13:32] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:13:32] Yeah. Yeah. And as far as the weight is concerned, nine grams. So you could actually buy the cheapest Shimano pedals, like the M five twenties, which I recommend all the time, because it just bomb-proof add one of these nine grand power meters and be at $300 versus a thousand dollars and still have a lighter setup.

[00:13:49] So I think that's something to consider.

[00:13:52] Craig Dalton: [00:13:52] Yeah. Now that you're mentioning it, cause I, I thought, Oh, this would be really cool to be able to swap between the two, but you might as well at $300 price point.

[00:14:00] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:14:00] Get one, one, three different bikes. You have a hundred dollars to buy yourself a nice meal.

[00:14:05] Craig Dalton: [00:14:05] Exactly. Have you ever trained with power?

[00:14:08] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:14:08] Oh yeah, I trained, I had the original wireless power tap with a, an old school Garmin edge, seven Oh five, which was like the big unit back in the day. Yeah. And it was it was pretty radical at the time. And I remember reading I think it's Andrew Cogans book training and racing with the power meter and then Joe Freels book the mountain bikers Bible or something along those lines for a title.

[00:14:33] And it just I'd always trained with heart rate. And hardware gives you a lot of great information and you can correlate that with your perceived exertion and your cadence and so on and learn a lot. But adding power to the, I mean, power is just such an absolute metric. Like I weighed this much.

[00:14:52] I can put out this much power for this much time. And how does that correlate to my heart rate? And how does that correlate to my cadence and how can I optimize those things in [00:15:00] my body, temperature manager and my fueling strategy and so on to get that power number. As high as possible, as long as possible.

[00:15:07] Craig Dalton: [00:15:07] Yeah. I think that's what always interests me about it. There's a purity to a power number that you just can't get anywhere else.

[00:15:15] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:15:15] Yeah. At the end of the day it's if you're in an event keeping all else equal, like power, is it though granted? One of the beautiful things about training with power is it kept me from over-training.

[00:15:26] Right? So now you have all of these ways of looking at being in a certain zone for a certain amount of time based on your. Your threshold power and your max power and so on in this kind of a curve. And then you can see. And so, like I, I found when I first started training with power, that was over-training.

[00:15:41] And so I backed off and focused on recovery more and did more intensity before major events and it actually made a huge difference.

[00:15:50] Craig Dalton: [00:15:50] And were you using the power meter while you were racing off

[00:15:53] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:15:53] road? No. Back then power. The only. I think it was the SRM. And then there was, which was a crank based, very expensive, very accurate but very expensive.

[00:16:01] And then there was the power tap, which was a hub based system. And so I had built up a set of wheel aluminum wheels, training wheels. It was back in the day when you had training wheels and race wheels. Now, everyone just has really nice wheels with disc brakes. Cause you don't really have to worry about wearing them out.

[00:16:16] Peters work well in carbon wheels are relatively inexpensive now, but yeah, only on the road bike for training. And then I would just use heart rate and perceived exertion in my events.

[00:16:26]Craig Dalton: [00:16:26] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you sort of see the road racing the road, racers, [00:16:30] looking down at their power meters and you understand, how scientific the coaching staff can be back in the cars because they know exactly what kind of power numbers these athletes can put out.

[00:16:42] They're like, okay,  go ride the front. We'd add such and such Watts and keep it there because we know you're capable of doing that. And we know you can do that for 20 minutes. And at 20 minutes in one second, we're going to pop you off. We're going to slot the next athlete in there.

[00:16:59] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:16:59] Makes me think back to the conversation.

[00:17:01] I had a few weeks ago with Ted Kwong and he was talking about you have different racers and it's they're feeling good today. Well, you can actually verify that with a power number. Like what, how has somebody's training been? And, we now have things like 24 hour heart rate monitors.

[00:17:15] So you can see how heart rate variability is a reflection of training recovery and all these things, and really make a science out of it to a much greater degree. It's pretty impressive. I still just like to go out and ride my bike. I actually have a power meter on my bike and I haven't charged it for awhile, but But, for training for events and so on, or just understanding how your body works and how it responds to stress.

[00:17:38] It's

[00:17:38] Craig Dalton: [00:17:38] it's really useful. Yeah. For me. Yeah. At most it would be a curiosity. I do think it, part of the thing that I love about gravel is I do feel like skill plays such an important role in your performance. Vis-a-vis other athletes at events, or even in group rides. Like I can't tell you how many more powerful riders I ride with.

[00:17:58] That just don't have the technical [00:18:00] skills to navigate the terrain we have here in Marin County.

[00:18:03]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:18:03] Yeah. One last thing that comes to mind on this topic is in terms of the benefits for say an experienced rider, who's not racing, which is where I put myself versus a obviously a racer. This would benefit there.

[00:18:15]But then the other end, somebody who's relatively new. Who has the budget power meter together with a heart rate monitor really helps you to understand how hard to go. And so, as an example, imagine going up a 20 minute climb. And at the beginning of the climb, you're relatively fresh and you go a little bit harder.

[00:18:32] And by the end of the climb, you're really, suffering quite a bit and maybe your power is way off. And had you just backed off at the beginning and spread out your effort more over the course of the ride, you would end up with a much better overall time up the Hill and end up feeling better.

[00:18:47] But that's something that has to be learned through experience.

[00:18:50] Craig Dalton: [00:18:50] Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, I think every new cyclist has, is going to go through that climb where they absolutely blow up a quarter of the way up and realize they went out way too hard. And yeah, maybe having that power data helps you understand that in advance and you don't make this rookie

[00:19:05] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:19:05] mistakes.

[00:19:07] Yeah. Disciplined really disciplined and understanding your own physiological response to stress.

[00:19:13] Craig Dalton: [00:19:13] Yeah, exactly. So I've had a buddy come to town who only has a road bike. So I've been out on the roads and I've been sort of surprisingly happy with the riding I've been doing when he originally came down and he was like wanting to ride.

[00:19:28] I was frustrated [00:19:30] thinking I'm not riding off road. I'm all about the gravel riding, but it has been nice getting back on the road and sort of feeling that efficiency of riding on the road. And it's opened me up a little bit to, maybe I should spice it up a little bit more because oftentimes I feel like.

[00:19:47] I'm overly abusive on my body with all the off-road riding idea and a little like phone and get in road riding would do me. Good.

[00:19:55] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:19:55] Yeah. You do you still have a dedicated road bike?

[00:19:59] Craig Dalton: [00:19:59] I don't. I don't. And the reason I bring it up is twofold. One. I sort of have been road riding with a little bit of chagrin being the gravel cycling guy and going out on the road.

[00:20:08] It's just giving me a laugh, but I also, this week caught wind of envies new road plus bike. Envy as some of you may know, as a component manufacturer and a tube manufacturer, they've been great supportive company to the gravel cycling scene via their wheels and some great handlebars to push the limits back in the day, but they've come out of their Ogden Utah factory with this new custom road plus bike that accepts I think about to a 35 C tire, but it's pretty fascinating that.

[00:20:42] An Ogden Utah based company is now offering a full custom frame set. So I just wanted to get your thoughts on it.

[00:20:50] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:20:50] Yeah. This thing. So my initial impression was, Oh, here we go, another really expensive bike and it's got a seat mast and so on. Not that interesting, but when I dove [00:21:00] into it, it's custom geometry.

[00:21:02] And so they had to develop a different manufacturing process to accomplish that because usually in a mass produced carbon bike, like our bikes, our frames you would essentially do usually the front triangle in one mold and you'd have five sizes of that mold. And then you do the rear triangle in another mold, and you may have, anywhere from one to three different rear triangles for that to correspond with the different sizes.

[00:21:27] And that's it. And they were allowing, it seems that they're allowing more or less full customization of all the two blanks. And that's that's really hard to do. This is not a mass production process. And so it makes sense why it costs what it does and even the seat mast, which I'm not a huge fan of because it makes it so that a bike has very limited adjustability.

[00:21:47] Well, already this bike is being very highly tailored for a very specific rider. And so in that sort of scenario, a seat mass does offer some very subtle advantages potentially in terms of weight in terms of being able to tune the frame. Just so, it's not a decision that I would make, but I can see why it's done here.

[00:22:07] Craig Dalton: [00:22:07] Yeah. Interesting. Oftentimes we've talked in the past about custom steel builders and that experience when you have the wherewithal to get accustomed bike, it's just a beautiful process. To work with a builder and have it totally customized to you. And to your point, to be able to do that out of carbon is a pretty special experience.

[00:22:29] I'm [00:22:30] excited for the team at envy to have cracked whatever code and put that out there to the cycling community. I'm

[00:22:37] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:22:37] actually very, I would be very curious. They probably won't let me in because I work in the space, but I'd be very curious to see how they're doing the customization. So I'm Craig Calfee is as a friend and I've been down to his workshop down in Santa Cruz.

[00:22:52] And at one time well, I assume he's still doing it this way. He was 3d printing, molds, custom molds for lugs, and then the L and then he would use a carbon tube to lug sort of construction. Which is an older style, which used to see on, steel brace frames and so on, but it allowed him to do a custom carbon setup.

[00:23:11] And in this case it doesn't seem to be, there doesn't seem to be lugs. I'm not quite sure how they're joining the frame joining the tubes. There's no weight figures on here. So I can't even really guess, like if it was on the heavier side, I would think there was probably lugs cause there'd be more overlap and more material.

[00:23:25] So I'd be very curious to see how they're pulling that off. And if they're even doing things with say custom tube, stiffnesses. For different riders have different weights to get the tuning characteristics you want either, something as a little bit more flexible for a lighter rider or an off-road or a rough road rider versus something stiffer for someone who's bigger, more powerful and, or riding more on smooth roads.

[00:23:48] So quite curious here.

[00:23:50] Craig Dalton: [00:23:50] Yeah, it's curious, it sort of reminds me of that Australian company bastion cycles who was doing. Extensive amounts of 3d printed [00:24:00] titanium. So they were 3d printing the whole bottom bracket shell, the head tubes, so they could get the angles as well as the other bits and bobs around the bike.

[00:24:11] And then they were using carbon tubes to bring it all together. Is it possible that envy is actually printing the mold shape custom for the individual and then, doing the process from there. That's I'm wondering if like mold technology has evolved in such a way that, that, that becomes possible.

[00:24:31] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:24:31] I haven't seen anything like that. I could speculate on some possibilities just for fun and see if we if we get it right. But I mean, the way that it's usually done. So it used to be you lay, put the layup on you have a two-piece mold. You lay the carbon in the mold all around, according to a certain schedule, a typical frame might have, a couple hundred plies or potentially more to tune the flex characteristics and so on.

[00:24:55] Just so in stiffness to do custom, I mean, you could do tube to lug if you want. Oh. And then you would put a bladder in, or now the, they use a a foam. And in fact, it's a combination process where it's a foam that is dipped in latex and in that latex creates a bladder. So now you get the best of both being able to force air into a bladder to really push out all, any sort of voids, but then also the foam is expanding too.

[00:25:23] So, the mass production technique is really advanced. Now

[00:25:26]Craig Dalton: [00:25:26] Is that inflation is that to basically push [00:25:30] the. Carbon fiber applies to the outside of the mole, then create whatever the ultimate frame tube shape is going to be.

[00:25:37] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:25:37] Okay. Yeah. It's the, compactified those carbon layers. So all those layers get pushed right up against the inner surface of the outside of the Mo.

[00:25:45]What's the way to explain this this, the outer surface on the inside of the mold, just getting pushed up against there and to the extent that you can. Have more pressure pushing that as it's being cured. You're essentially getting rid of a lot of the voids that are in that material.

[00:26:00] Inevitably, you're still going to have some voids to the extent that you can minimize them and keep them small as well it just makes for a stronger, more consistent frame set

[00:26:10] Craig Dalton: [00:26:10] and talking to you previously. I mean, it's the mold, as you're designing a bike, the mold is a great expense.

[00:26:16] Obviously you've got to engineer what that looks like. But then minting that mold is a big step in the process, correct?

[00:26:23] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:26:23] Yeah. So doing it in granted, things might be getting more expensive. Now, a supply chains, as we've talked about on the pod before are mess right now and the, even the frame vendors are seeing, Much higher than usual demand, which means that they're probably charging more for molds.

[00:26:40] But last I checked from a tier one high volume vendor, a set of five molds would run say 50 or $60,000. And you might spend another say 30 to $50,000 for the molds for the the the foam that goes inside. Okay, so you have this [00:27:00] expanded polystyrene. And so that expanded polystyrene that you're putting in the mold to expand outward and push the carbon applies up against the inside of the steel mold that needs a tool as well.

[00:27:13] And that tool can usually be a bit made out of something like aluminum. That's cheaper as opposed to steel, which is more durable, but much harder to machine. But nonetheless you can easily on a standard say like gravel frame set. Be investing anywhere from 50 to a hundred thousand dollars or even more, if you have, tighter size runs, maybe six, seven, eight sizes in order to launch a new model,

[00:27:35] Craig Dalton: [00:27:35] Right. And then your to tune sort of how you want the bike to perform within that. There's different grades of carbon fiber that you can use and obviously different numbers of layers that you can put on any given part.

[00:27:50] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:27:50] Correct. And of course, tube shapes are that kind of stuff, starting point.

[00:27:54] So a bigger tube is if you have a round tube and you make it bigger, it's stiffness is going to go up exponentially relative to the increase in the diameter of the tube. And so working with tube shapes first. And then from there you can tune flex characteristics, but that mix of tube shapes, and then you can adjust further with the layup schedule the particular modulates of the carbon.

[00:28:17] And you might also want to consider, say using high modulus carbon in a place that requires a lot of stiffness that doesn't have a lot of risk of impact, but then you want lower modulates carbon say on a down tube. [00:28:30] Where you could have rocks kicked up and so on. So there's a lot of considerations in optimizing this complex set of compromises in order to get an optimized structure for whatever you're going for as a product manager or an engineer, which I am not to, by the way.

[00:28:44] Actually, I should just make clear, like I'm a, I am a physics nerd who spends a lot of time in factories. Who's picked up a lot from engineers, both state side and in China. But there are people who know this stuff far better than I do. Yeah.

[00:28:58] Craig Dalton: [00:28:58] Presumably the team at envy, going back to their nice bike.

[00:29:01] Exactly. They've got a lot of smart people over in Ogden. Utah are working on this needless to say, I mean, it's not specifically. Or non-specifically a gravel bike. It's really our road plus bike, but I encourage you and I'll put a link in the show notes for people to take a look at it because I can give them one thing for certain they've produced a beautiful looking machine that people need to put some eyes on.

[00:29:27] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:29:27] Indeed. Indeed.

[00:29:28] Craig Dalton: [00:29:28] Yeah. I appreciate you nerding out with me a little bit. I always learn things from our conversations. I hope the listener. Is happy to go down the rabbit hole. I've I find it fascinating just how much can go into carbon bicycles. It's just much more than meets the eye. You think, Oh, you just slap in some tubes together and that's that, but there's so much nuance from, as you describe the layup process, the shape of the tube, et cetera, that goes into producing a great riding bike.

[00:29:58] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:29:58] Yeah. And before we hop [00:30:00] off, actually, there's one, one other topic I wanted to bring up, which is a, B I did my first episode recording in which you graciously provided the platform for. And we got some feedback and we got a lot of good feedback and pretty overwhelmingly positive, but there was one bit of feedback that I thought was really useful and it made me think and that was from a listener.

[00:30:20] Who mentioned that we were talking about because we weren't making a living as a, as professional cyclists, we weren't technical technically professionals. And we said that kind of off the cuff and self-deprecating Lee, but she made the point that I thought it was a very valid point that by that standard, a lot of women racers wouldn't be professional.

[00:30:40] And that was by no mean, the intention of that statement. And I can see why the distinction there. This word professional has a particular meaning and it's really about the level of achievement as opposed to making a living at it. And so I wanted to call that out and just acknowledge that was an area where I learned something from a listener.

[00:30:59] Craig Dalton: [00:30:59] Yeah. That's awesome. No, I appreciate that. Yeah it's hard to sort of. Talk about the disparity in wages, in professional cycling between men and women, and a lot of strides have been made, but absolutely there's a lot of men and women who are out there acting as professionals, being professional cyclists that aren't earning the living that they deserve to make.

[00:31:23] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:31:23] Yeah. Yeah. And maybe didn't, I should give ourselves a little bit more credit too for having a. Accomplish what we did, even if we weren't, [00:31:30] front of the pack making, making our living at it was definitely a great experience. So please keep the feedback coming. We'll be doing a couple more of these episodes in the upcoming weeks.

[00:31:39] Craig Dalton: [00:31:39] Yeah, that was awesome. And we got a lot of great feedback in the ridership forum. If you're not there already. And you have comments about this envy bicycle or power meter training. Definitely go over to the ridership.com. Get your invite and jump in. We'd love to hear from you and get that feedback.

[00:31:56] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:31:56] Yeah, and even more so with the ridership now that vaccine genes are being widely distributed.

[00:32:03]We can start thinking about really facilitating the sort of in-person interactions amongst listeners and in books, amongst members of that community that we've been wanting to with that platform all along. And that's something that excites me immensely, especially as I prepare to go back to the Bay and then go back to Boston where.

[00:32:20] I have a lot of old friends who I haven't written with in years, not to mention a lot of people in the forum who I'll get an opportunity to meet and explore their local trails.

[00:32:28] Craig Dalton: [00:32:28] Yeah. It's been great to see people sharing the roots, which I've been putting in our ride with GPS club. And as you and I have said all along, our hope is to build something.

[00:32:39] That really facilitates real-world interactions. We're not trying to suck people into some digital void where we advertising. We want you to get out there and ride, and we want you to discover new places, meet new people and let's get out there and have some fun when it's safe.

[00:32:57] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:32:57] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:32:59] Craig Dalton: [00:32:59] Cool. Well, thanks [00:33:00] for the time this week, my friend.

[00:33:01] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:33:01] Yeah, always a pleasure chatting with you, Greg. I'll talk to you soon.

[00:33:05] Take care.

[00:33:06]Craig Dalton: [00:33:06] Okay. So that's it for this week's episode of, in the dirt, from the gravel ride podcast. I appreciate you spending a little time with us this week. If you're not already a subscriber, please go ahead and hit that subscribe button. That's hugely indicated of how we're doing at the gravel ride. It means a lot to me. If you're interested in financially supporting the show, please visit buy me a coffee.com/the gravel ride.

[00:33:31]Until next time here's to finding some dirt onto your wheels

This week we sit down with Greg Williams from the Lost and Found Gravel Festival and Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship to hear about this years festival and the work SBTS does in the Lost Sierra.

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Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos:

Lost and Found

[00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport

I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist.

Yeah. This week on the podcast, we have Greg Williams from the lost and found gravel festival and Sierra Buttes trail stewardship organization. Talking about the lost and found gravel event coming up this June in California. And all the great work that his nonprofit does to make the trails in the Los Sierra, an amazing place to visit. Before we jump in we need to thank this Week's sponsor the feed.

The feed is the largest online marketplace for sports nutrition. They've got all your favorite sports, nutrition brands in one place. If you've developed an affinity like I have for certain brands. You can hop on over to the feed and mix and match. So you get everything you need in one delivery.

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Podcast listeners can get 50% off their first order of feed formula by visiting the feed.com/the gravel ride. Remember that's 50% off your first order of the feed formula, simply visit. The feed. Dot com slash the gravel ride. Would that business behind us let's jump right into this week's episode with greg williams Hey, Greg, welcome to the show.

[00:02:26] Greg Williams: Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited.

[00:02:28] Craig Dalton: I am T a man. , we're going to talk about the lost and found gravel grinder a little bit later in the broadcast. And it's a, it's an event that I've wanted to talk about for a couple of years now, actually probably four years, maybe because everybody who ever came back from it was like, this is an amazing event.

Let's table that for a minute, because I really want to just start with you and just get a little bit about your background and how you ended up in the region. And then let's talk about the nonprofit, because I think everything you do up there is so intertwined with the gravel event and why it's so special that I think it's important to start.

[00:03:02] Greg Williams: Yeah. A little bit of my background. My heritage is Milwaukee Indian up in the Northern Sierra and Nevada city region. And my, my tribe, was displaced almost overnight and my grand great grandfather went he ended up in Downieville actually during the gold rush and.

Met this family called the Shaughnessy's, who had, they were opening a supply shop. So shovels and food in town. And my grandfather started building trails and Downieville and running pack meals to the minds. And growing up, it was always, the story that my dad would tell me about Downieville and and it didn't really matter until I got into mountain biking as a teenager and started riding Downieville and I was like, okay, this is it, man.

This is my spot. This is, this is what I want to do. And as a teenager, I started guiding a mountain bikes, up in the region and then started running shuttles as well. I opened a bike shop in town 1991, and then started an event that was called the coyote classic in 1995. And now that's the Downieville classic.

Downieville has been, a part of my heritage, part of my. My personal economy, part of my survival story. And the town was really starting to transition. I would say, it was a mining town primarily when I got there a lot of dredging on the rivers. And then when that became illegal in California, a lot of the miners in the family started to leave.

And about that same time, a lot of the loggers were starting to leave as well. Recreation working with the chamber of commerce and the county kind of became this thing of Hey, will this work here in Downieville? And I think it has, Downieville is a, an international destination.

The motels and restaurants, all depend on mountain bike, recreation and tourism. So I think it's a great model of like how recreation can keep a town alive that was, could potentially, have burned out the economy was not doing well.

[00:04:59] Craig Dalton: It's so interesting. We often hear about how gravel cycling events have played that same role in rural communities. So it's interesting to hear you reference it back as to how mountain biking was playing that role back in the day for Downieville. Can you just for the listener who may be elsewhere outside of the state of California, can you position their minds as to where Downieville is located?

[00:05:23] Greg Williams: Yeah. So Downieville this region, we call it the Los Sierra, and it's basically north of Truckee and north Northwest of Reno. We're about two hours. Like in a car from Sacramento or like 45 minutes from Truckee an hour from Reno like an hour and a half to Chico. So this is zone up here.

We call it the Los Sierra. And it was really, there was a mail route back in the gold mining days. And the mailman would ski from Downieville up towards Quincy. And I think got lost a few times. And so it's a name we've stuck with. And part of it's loss of opportunities, loss of revenue.

Loss of pride. But we're bringing it back through trying to keep it up, keep it a positive, and that's part of lost and found was, come and find yourself up here.

[00:06:07] Craig Dalton: Yeah, amazing. So for the listener, who's obviously like my listener has a gravel orientation. The mountain biking in and around Downieville is absolutely exceptional. And as you mentioned, it's it's got a world renowned ship at this point. People from around the world have heard of Downieville and aspire to ride their bikes there.

What makes the trail system so special?

[00:06:28] Greg Williams: I think the fact that it Was built during the gold rush. There's a lot and there's a lot of trails, but these trails are like our super rowdy and steep, that's, the character of Downieville is like going fast through the rocks on a cliff. Being scared and then going for a swim and having a cold beer afterwards, so like for us as a trail stewardship, it's really important that we maintain the character of those trails.

They were built for mules to go from point a to point B. There was no sustainable running grade. There was no thought of people like enjoying themselves on these trials, or certainly wasn't, they weren't thinking mountain bikes would be on them, but They have the character that people love.

And so when we do all of our trail work, we're working really closely with the hydrologist to make sure that these trails are sustainable. They're not putting sediment into the creeks. Our region delivers a lot of clean drinking water to California, 65% between the Yuba and feather. Water's a big thing for us up here. And so as a rough and rowdy trails, so we're striking the balance in Downieville. You can't build those kinds of trails today. The forest service would just say out of spec, but the trails we build, today are just different. They're still as fun and enjoyable.

They just, they're just more sustainable.

[00:07:44] Craig Dalton: Was it that the fact that. Technically you already existed as mutual paths that you were able to get them effectively grandfathered in the format that they already existed in.

[00:07:54] Greg Williams: For sure. And these trails, like in.

the seventies, the forest service started to take them into their system. And at the time they were there, their solutions, these trails are open the motorcycles too. So you could ride motorcycles. You could ride e-bikes mountain bikes, hike, equestrian. So a trail for everyone.

Those are the best. Those are the trails we like up here. Cause we're not, densely populated. We don't have high use necessarily. A lot of these trails are directional and in a sense that, just how people use them. So it all works really well together. Yeah just

historic and some prehistoric from the native folks that were here.

[00:08:34] Craig Dalton: You mentioned the Sierra Buttes trail stewardship organization. Can you just talk about the origins of that and what the journey has been like over the time it's existed?

[00:08:45] Greg Williams: Yeah. Basically like we, we needed tools to put in people's hands. We were doing trail work days. And those started like with, a group of 10 and everybody had fun. And then the next time we'd have one, there'd be 20 people. And so we were getting these like work parties to where, there was like a hundred people showing up and this was before we had our nonprofit.

And so we were. We are struggling to put tools in people's hands. We're good at putting a beer in their hands, on a burger at a barbecue, but we were like, man, we need tools. And we formed our nonprofit status in 2003. And the first grants we wrote were really just to buy tools. And so we started tooling up and then We started hiring folks.

Henry O'Donnell who grew up in Downieville. He's our trail boss now. He's been working with us for 16 years and is built, probably a hundred miles of trail with his crews alone. As much as it was about taking care of the trails, it became about taking care of each other and the people and the communities.

We like to say we're in the business of revitalizing mountain communities and we use trails as the tool to do it. So we're surrounded by national forest up here. And there's, the jobs traditionally have come from logging and mining. So we see recreation as being sustainable and a chance like for us to be more resilient and retain working families and put kids to work and really educate people on the importance of this place so that

they can come up.

And join us as land stewards or what the next time there's a bill to vote on for land or water issues, maybe they'll vote. Yes. Because they care about a place.

[00:10:18] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah. It's quite impressive. The scale of the organization at this point, imagining you starting it, it's quite straightforward to start a nonprofit, but it's quite difficult to generate a significant amount of donations or grants or funding. What did that path look like to obtain this type of scale, where you're able to meaningfully hire people in the community and do a huge amount of work in the last year?

[00:10:44] Greg Williams: Yeah.

I think one of the early keys and we didn't realize it at the time was just not being. Like, we could have easily said, Hey, we're Downieville mountain bike organization. Cause we were all mountain bikers. We rode dirt bikes, we all hiked. But because we really landed on trail stewardship and we're more inclusive.

I think that was a real gift that we gave ourselves early on. Cause in this whole region we work we work in wilderness areas. We maintain huge chunks of the Pacific crest trail associate. Pacific crest trail. We put outdoor classroom and trail on every school campus and Plumas and Sierra county for the kids to get a trail experience and outdoor classroom.

And then we build dirt bike trails, we build mountain bike trails. So if there's a trail in our region, like we want to be able to help. We want to be able to maintain it, build it and engage. Any type of recreate or we can become to come join in. So I think that's been a real key to our success.

And then also I think, for me, like just growing up a young entrepreneur, like always having to make my own money not, having a big like support system. Get to be like a survivor, and scrappy and your heads up. And, you're just like, okay, what's the next thing.

And we've just honestly had that approach with grants and projects, knowing what key projects to take and not take on too much. And and then in times, like with the pandemic and the big fires we've had up here is to really be able. Quickly react and a thoughtful way, like not just panic and not start down a road or a trail, that's like going to be the wrong one, and if it feels wrong in the beginning, we're like, Hey, what are we doing here? Do we have to do this like quick analysis? Like check-ins And so we've just, I think that's just like part of the nature of being up here. If you're raising your family up here and you've been here For generations, you just know like how it is, and it's, it takes everything sometimes.

[00:12:38] Craig Dalton: For the listener who wants to support the organization? Do you accept direct donations or is it all grant based? How do you fund it?

[00:12:45] Greg Williams: So we fund it. It's interesting. Cause like in 2019, I would say. Okay. Here's how we fund ourselves. We had lost and found we had the Downieville classic. We had grind Duro. We had a UBA expeditions, which is our guide outfitter business and shuttles like shuttling, almost 9,000 people up the hill.

That was like 30% actually Yuba was like 28% of our gross revenue and events were up around like 35%. And and then the pandemic hit and took away all of our events took away our shuttles for a whole year limited our operations as a guide service, and then also took away barbecues and volunteer big days.

So we got hit really hard. And during that time, We were like, man, what are we going to do? How do we bring up like donations, like to a higher level without events. And so in 21 when that year closed out, our donations were 38% of our gross. When they were at 3% in 2019, we still had no event.

Income. Grants are running a right around 40% of our gross. Basically, we have we have public funding, like through grants and programs. We have private funding, we have foundations and then we have Yuba and we're bringing lost and found back on. So really trying to strengthen all the different, legs of the organization.

So that. We're more, we can react more. We can be survivors. Like we want this to be A hundred year organization. And like those two years are just really just a little blip, but but at the same time, like when you're in the middle of it, it's like a big mountain in front of you, and so I think just, we've learned so much, we've learned like what we're made of, we know we know how to better support each other as staff and families. So there's really we're pretty confident in that we just need, honestly, we need an investment up here. We have some big projects.

We need people sign up for lost and found whether they're going to come and race, or they're going to come and ride and enjoy the aid stations, or they just want to come help volunteer, just like just help us. And that.

[00:14:53] Craig Dalton: percent. Yeah. I hope, I hope for any non-profit that's suffered with the elimination of in-person events over the last couple of years, that as you mentioned, just like stepping up their constituents, willingness to donate directly. And hopefully that can become habitualized. So you keep that 30 odd percent of direct donations.

Plus you've got event revenue and all the other in-person things you were talking about and you come out of this even stronger than when you began.

[00:15:23] Greg Williams: Yeah. That's certainly the goal and like this year we've we're looking at like peer-to-peer crowdfunding. It is one of the components to folks that are lining up or volunteering. But I think it's new, for people they're like, what do I do? How do I do it? Like my son has type one diabetes.

And so I do a ride that benefits. It's totally built in, right? Like you're like, oh Yeah.

of course this is what you do. This is how you do it. And so we want to get there with each one of our events and have the funding, help us with our operational costs, help us match up grants, no grant is free.

It always costs whether it's time or money or volunteers, there's always a cost. So that's like we want, and we want people to be aware, like not just come do the race and be like, Yeah.

that was awesome. But really. Have some ownership and some pride and help us like move this, these communities forward a little bit,

[00:16:15] Craig Dalton: yeah. Yeah. I think anybody, you put some rubber on the road or on the trail in the Los Sierra comes away knowing it's a really special area. I'm sure as we get more people up there, they're gonna have a similar love for it and loyalty to it. One of the things that I saw mentioned and saw a couple of friends in the gravel community talking about where was the connected community project.

Can you talk about what that's all about?

[00:16:40] Greg Williams: Yeah connected communities is really, it's a project that the trails master plan got funded through Sierra Nevada Conservancy, which is a state agency. And and I got invited to, to talk at this mountain venture summit. And I was like, okay, I can just talk about all this stuff like we're doing or the normal stuff, but let's do something cool.

And our board president Greg Carter, and I got together and we just had this huge regional map and we just started like laying out sticky notes about each of the towns. And how man, could we connect these with trails? And at the same time, like they're already connected with dirt roads, but how do we promote this?

How do we make it to where people can look at a map that's readable? Cause there is 10,000 miles of dirt roads in those regions. So trying to plan a trip is holy crap. I don't even know where to start. There's so many roads. So a big effort is we're going to map out all the high quality gravel, dirt road.

At linking the towns so people can start, doing bike packing. Part of our Yuba expeditions guide service will be what we're calling a mountain mule, which is basically hauling your gear from point to point which would be a combination of like overnight camping and then getting you into a town and do some accommodations and restaurants.

And then we're going to build 620 miles of single track to connect these towns. part of that's already in the works. Some of it exists already. Some of it's been planned out for a long time. And we're in construction, like connecting Quincy to Taylorsville the next town over. So we have this big project and.

It's rolling. It's not, we're not just waiting for the plan to be done. We're actually implementing parts of it. Some of it's an environmental review, so heritage botany, wildlife hydrology surveys are being done. We have two crews that are out ground-truthing all the mapping to ensure that those trails are in the optimum location.

But when it's done 15 mountain towns, including Reno and Truckee will be connected all throughout the Los Sierra region was single track. All the dirt roads will be mapped out in such a way that you can plan your adventures. And also know what kind of services each of the town has. And then another component of this is to look at the potential overnight hot locations.

But really we want to drive people riding with the main street of the downtown, with their credit card. To patronize these businesses because outside of Reno and Truckee, all these communities are severely disadvantaged economically. So everybody's struggling. And some of these businesses are just hanging on.

So this is an opportunity to drive an economy into the region. That's going to last for generations.

[00:19:14] Craig Dalton: Yeah, amazing. I love it. I love it so much adventuring to be had in the Los Sierra. No question about.

[00:19:22] Greg Williams: Absolutely. We have plenty of room for everybody.

[00:19:23] Craig Dalton: Let's move on and let's talk about the lost and found gravel festival. It's coming up here in June, and there's still some slots available. So I want to make sure that people walk away knowing what's the festival all about what's the vibe let's get into it. And I'll ask you some questions to just to figure it all out.

[00:19:39] Greg Williams: Yeah. This is an interesting one. And just in terms of how we got into this, and we'd been doing Downieville for a long time and Chris McGovern who's a frame builder. And who also grew up in Nevada city, went to the same high school as I did. I ran into him at Interbike in 2013, and he's dude, you need to do a gravel event.

And I'm like, What is that? And And I, and it was just like, man, this is what we used to do when we were kids like ride all these dirt roads, it's oh, that's a thing now. And Chris put this bug in my ear, we started talking more, doing some mapping, invited him and Cameron falconer.

Up and we just started like testing routes, like those guys are both super fit. I'm like, I'll drive the support vehicle and meet you guys, here's the map. And so we just started really laying out this course, it started just north of Portola and like Davis and and we got the permits pretty quickly working with the Plumas national forest.

And the first year we had around 290 racers and

[00:20:37] Craig Dalton: What year was that? Greg?

[00:20:38] Greg Williams: I was in 2014.

[00:20:40] Craig Dalton: Okay.

[00:20:41] Greg Williams: Yeah. And we had great folks like Paul components and WTB who were like, we're doing an aid station. That's going to be a party of its own, and so we had these perfect elements to pull this gravel event off.

And then, the second year we doubled the entries the next year, we doubled that again. And like in 2019 we had around 1700 people signed up, we were going to cap it at 2000. And I think just the recipe of like how we do these events, we make them super fun. The courses are great. The aid stations are suburb, just an overall great experience camping live music, all the stuff that we like.

And then at the same time, how do we introduce people to this whole new area, and bring them into zones that they wouldn't otherwise get out. So really showcases this region as we're calling it the gravel capital of the west. And

that's because it has 10,000 miles of dirt roads.

Like you can't find that anywhere in the U S and

and there's, great rivers, there's great lakes. There's a fire lookouts. You can visit some of them you can rent for overnight stays. So this is it. This is the gravel capital of the west.

[00:21:50] Craig Dalton: I love it. Put a stake in the ground there. What community is Los and fountain based out of.

[00:21:55] Greg Williams: It's it starts in the city of Portola, which is right on the headwaters of the middle fork of.

the feather river next to the Sierra valley, which is the largest Alpine valley in north America sits around 5,000 feet of elevation with a great big mountain right behind it called Beckworth peak.

And right from there, you can hit all these roads, just right off the main paved road. It's perfect.

[00:22:18] Craig Dalton: Are you offering multiple course distances?

[00:22:21] Greg Williams: Yeah, we have a 35 mile course that has two flagship aid stations on it. And then we have a 60 mile course. That has four aid stations on it. And then we have the hundred that has six aid stations on it. They overlap for the start. Everybody does the first 10 and a half miles, which is a climb up to 7,000 feet.

Those are essential in any event is to have a big climb that, that separates people,

[00:22:46] Craig Dalton: Yeah, for

[00:22:47] Greg Williams: And so those Are elements we learned throughout this. Cause we've had different courses over the years. Some of them were great. Some were like, oh man, don't do that again.

[00:22:55] Craig Dalton: Are they what's the starting elevation up there in Portola.

[00:22:58] Greg Williams: Yeah. It's I want to say the town is like 5,100.

[00:23:02] Craig Dalton: Okay. So starting at 5,100, going up to 7,000 with that first climb, I agree. I feel like back when the events were smaller, it was okay to start off on some single track or something like that. But in this day and age, when you've got a thousand people on a course, definitely great to break it up and to have people find their own, their own tribe in the event.

[00:23:21] Greg Williams: Yeah, and we have, we have a great relationship with city of Portola. Going into this year, we were hesitant of man, we don't want to, the last thing we want to do is have to cancel another event.

And COVID was still a thing. So we got a late start on this thing, like we're really looking at this as like a rebuild year.

We realized like, Hey, we're late to the table here. We also conflict with

the Kansas ride. So there's a couple of things like working against us, but at the same time This is going to be a hell of a party. Like we're throwing everything we have at this thing to make sure everybody has a great time and comes back, brings friends the next year.

And it, like I said, it was important to city of Portola. They approached us and they were like, Hey stewardship, like we need this event. We just went through two years. Our businesses are hurting. The city helps provide a lot of the camping and infrastructure in the town. So they were a real true partner.

And then the Plumas national forest has road crews out there right now, like dialing in all these roads. And what we're hoping is developed, like what we're calling a signature route to where every year the road crew has priorities to take care of on the lost and found routes. So it's every year it's just dial Primo.

[00:24:30] Craig Dalton: Yeah. It's one of those events, I didn't realize actually it had been around as long as it has, but that makes sense because I feel like at least in the bay area and Marin county, like you talk about gravel riding and. Lost and found, always comes up and it always comes up with two thumbs up saying oh, you gotta do it.

It's great. Riding just a great overall community vibe in a sport that is maybe changing a bit to say the least in terms of the amount of resources and the amount of professional athletes coming into it. I think events that just maintain that community vibe are always going to be the ones that are in people's hearts and that they want to do.

[00:25:10] Greg Williams: Yeah. And we, we realized like we get top athletes that come here to put it to each other, but the majority of people are here to just go on a bike ride with their buddies, have the aid stations be able to camp out, have the music like that festival atmosphere.

That's where we're really trying to position ourselves as Hey, if you want it. There, there is alternatives if you're just purely eraser, but if you want to come and ride like one of the best courses in the world and have some top brands like cater to you throughout the course that their aid stations, like this is where you want to come.

And if you want to help support a community recover after, the wildfires and the pandemic and help an organization. With the, with a grand project, a legacy project, like this is the spot like everybody's welcome. And whether you're writing a check or picking up a shovel your help is welcome.

[00:26:01] Craig Dalton: Amazing. You talked about a little bit more about from a mountain bike perspective, the type of terrain that's up there for the gravel course, for those who are coming from outside the area. What type of equipment is important to have underneath you to be successful at lost and found

[00:26:17] Greg Williams: Yeah, big tires. I think that's the number one thing is the first year we had people like on road bikes because people didn't really know it. Like gravel racing was anyway. They're like, oh, it's this thing. But these you're in the Sierra Nevada up here and it's, there's spots where man, you're like, it's rough.

I think like one year, like Carl Decker rode a hard tail man. Fully rigid. So it's just kinda like a mix. And I think, the course that we have this year, I would say you're totally dialed on a gravel bike, but you're going to want like a 40 C tire maybe with a little thicker casing.

Just so you're not flattened.

[00:26:53] Craig Dalton: Yep. Are you staying primarily on fire roads through the mountains? There are you getting off into this single track?

[00:26:59] Greg Williams: We're at, this is a no single track right ride, but some of the roads have single track?

lines, right? Like you want to be, you want your head up, you want to be paying attention. There's ruts there's rocks. There's a smoother line, especially on a gravel bike. You don't want to give yourself a whiplash or, too much excitement.

But I would say you're paying attention the whole time. You're not, zoning out because the road is just smooth and you gotta pay attention, plus it's so beautiful out here. Like the wild flowers are gonna be coming out. The rivers are flowing the mountain stuff, snow on them.

People will be looking around, but they really need to pay attention.

[00:27:35] Craig Dalton: once you get a top that first climb, are you doing a commiserate elevation drop? Is it a big descent?

[00:27:41] Greg Williams: It's a sweet so the roads were using too are like some of the better system roads, like we've taken people in some pretty primitive back country roads, and there is a mix of this, but this particular road is one of the nicer maintain. Like around a set, like a price of 5% running grade.

So you're able to just like big ring paddle through like really big sweeper turns super enjoyable. And then you have another climb that's around 700 feet, another like descent of a thousand. And then a lot of rolling train. Cause you're connecting all these Alpine valleys as you go. And then for the final you come down like the smoothest road in Plumas county.

And and then into this tube that goes under the highway. That's a we negotiate this deal with the landowner there. It's a handshake deal, Hey, races are going to be coming through here, your insured. He's great. I'll have my lawn chair and a cooler of beer here to watch, and that's part of what makes the specialty, right? It's just all the community coming together and people working together and allowing stuff like that riders to come through private property, like ordinarily the guy would not allow that,

[00:28:45] Craig Dalton: Yeah, you mentioned you've got ample camping situations up there for athletes and families coming up. Are there also other accommodation possibilities?

[00:28:54] Greg Williams: Yeah.

There's resorts up here. There's motels. there's a ton of camping, honestly, there's forest service camping around like Davis and some of the valleys that the ride's going to be going through. And then city of Portola they have a city park. That's all grass that has like baseball, baseball, diamonds, a swimming pool, the showers are open.

And then there's camping all along the middle fork of the feather river, right in downtown. So the idea is get people to stay in town and then they can just ride their bike to the coffee shop or, head over to the pizza place. So that's part of the reason we moved the race down from starting at lake Davis was like, let's get people downtown.

Plus, when the lakes full the amount of land we have to work with, decreases quite a bit. It worked great the first year with 200 riders, but now that we're up around 1200 to 2000, we need more. And this park really allows people to spread out. And then we have a little amphitheater for the music and and then there's nothing like just starting in the middle of a downtown, and then finishing at the same place coming through town.

[00:29:54] Craig Dalton: Yeah. I had one final question on finishing. So I've been out there on a great adventure on my gravel bike all day. I crossed the finish line. What's the vibe. What's the scene. When I crossed the finish line at last.

[00:30:05] Greg Williams: Yeah. So you're going to get greeted by our local bike team, the Los Sierra composite team. They're gonna, they'll take your bike. They'll wash it. They'll put the, lock it up and the tennis courts. So like a fully secured bike zone. And you're going to walk over and grab a cold Sierra Nevada beer. And then we hire this, like top-notch catering company and mountain magic to do like a top quality meal for ya.

Then you're gonna pull up a chair in the park, enjoy a beer, enjoy some live music, eat some food, tell some stories, and then if you have it in you, like the music goes and you can dance all night.

[00:30:41] Craig Dalton: I love it, Greg. I think that's an amazing point to end on, and I hope everybody's as stoked about this event as I am. And as stoked about the work that you're doing in the Los Sierra, it really is a special part of California. And I hope everybody clicks on the links in the show notes and goes and checks out the Los and found gravel grinder festival as well as the work you're doing at Sierra.

[00:31:04] Greg Williams: Yeah, come on up and play with us.

[00:31:06] Craig Dalton: That's going to do it for this week's edition of the gravel ride podcast. I hope you enjoyed that episode with Greg Williams, be sure to check out the lost and found gravel festival. It's definitely going to be an amazing event this year. I've heard only good things about it. So I encourage you to check it out.

And grab one of those last available slots. Huge, thanks to our sponsor, the feed. Make sure to go check out the feed formulas to get 15% off. Just visit the feed.com/the gravel ride. If you're interested in connecting with me, I encourage you to join the ridership@wwwdottheridership.com.

And if you have an opportunity, please leave a rating or review or visit me@buymeacoffee.com slash the growl ride to support the podcast. Until next time here's to finding some dirt under your wheels

This week we sit down with Carlos Perez, founder of Bike Monkey to discuss the upcoming 2023 Truckee Tahoe Gravel event. We dig into why Truckee Tahoe is such an amazing area for gravel riding and Carlos’ definition of influencers.

Truckee Tahoe Gravel

Episode Sponsor: Dynamic Cyclist (Code: TheGravelRide 15% off)

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Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos:

[00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport

I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist.

This week on the show, I'm thrilled to have Carlos Perez talking about Truckee Tahoe, gravel. Carlos is the founder of bike monkey. If you live in California or maybe in the surrounding area, undoubtedly, you've done a bike monkey event. Carlos and his team have produced Levi's Gran Fondo bogs fish rock hammer road, rally.

Wente the list goes on and on of the events that Carlos has had a hand in producing. I've had a number of friends that have done the Truckee Tahoe gravel event in the past and had a great time. So I'm finally got around to pinning Carlos down and getting him on the podcast to talk about this year's event.

They've made a couple changes to the event, which I wanted to have an opportunity for him to highlight, but all in all, it's just one of those events here in Northern California, that is well-regarded from an athlete's perspective. It's certainly taking place in a beautiful area. We'll get into why Tahoe is so special for cyclists and why it's a region that you can bring the whole family to.

On that point, we did also dig into when Carlos and his team create events. They think about influencers, but not influencers. In terms of someone on Tik, TOK or Instagram, they think about influencers from the perspective of the family that might be joining you, whether it's your husband or your wife, joining you while you go out and ride, it's always great to have a location where the whole family can enjoy the event and have an event organizer.

Who's thinking about that broader community. Versus just simply the athletes themselves. So I'm excited for you to hear about the Truckee Tahoe gravel event. But before we jump in, I want to thank this week sponsor. Dynamic cyclist.

If you scroll back your feed to episode 1 54, you can hear my interview with Sarah from dynamic cyclist.

Dynamic cyclist is a video based mobility, strength and injury prevention program designed specifically for cyclists. I am probably about 30, 35 episodes into my stretching routine and my low back injury prevention routine. My low back has been a big issue for me the last couple years, and probably the most gating feature of my body in terms of how long and how hard I can ride.

So this winter, I was definitely determined to do the thing we all should be doing, which is stretching. I've struggled, even though I've known the stretches that I need to do. I frankly, struggled to fit it in and having dynamic cyclist in my life and the 15 to 20 minute long routines available for me each night. Has gotten me focused on something easy. That I can do.

And I found it really easy to follow, and I've been impressed in terms of the different tweaks and orientations that they've encouraged me to do throughout the routines to get to different parts of my muscles. And I'm very excited about this being part of my daily routine, because I think we all know that stretching.

Is the number one way in which we can prevent injuries and make sure we're taking care of our bodies. But anyway, I encourage you to check out dynamic cyclists. They have a seven day free trial.

If it looks like a fit for you, use the code, the gravel ride, and you're going to get 15% off the already affordable rates.

To check it out, just head on over to dynamics, cyclists.com. With that said, let's jump right into my interview with Carlos.

[00:04:10] Craig Dalton: Carlos, welcome to the show.

[00:04:12] Carlos Perez: Thanks, Craig. Happy to

[00:04:13] Craig Dalton: Good. Yeah, good to see you. It took us a little while to get this scheduled, but I'm stoked to finally have you and, and get you on to talk about the Truckee Tahoe Gravel event.

[00:04:22] Carlos Perez: Yeah, it can be a little hard to pin me down sometimes, so I'm glad that we made it work.

[00:04:27] Craig Dalton: It sounds like it's especially hard to pin you down in the spring and summer months cuz with Bike Monkey you're producing events all over California and also outside of the.

[00:04:38] Carlos Perez: Yeah. Yeah, our spring's very busy.

[00:04:41] Craig Dalton: Let's take a step back before we kind of jump into Bike Monkey and into the gravel event up in Tahoe. How did you get into cycling originally? And then let's talk about how you got into event production.

[00:04:54] Carlos Perez: Uh, well, it can be, I'll, I'll keep it as short as I can. . Um, we, I was working for a, a medical manufacturer company as a software developer. And, um, my boss at the time, Russell Briggs actually, uh, was like, yo, dude, let's go mountain biking. And I didn't really have a mountain bike at the time, so I went and I bought a mountain bike and he took me into Adel State Park and I was like 20 at the.

And I was like, what the heck is this is amazing. Like, I want to do this and that. That was where I got the bug for, for riding bikes. And did that for several years. Uh, and then ultimately one day, uh, some friends of mine were around, you know, trying to do some fundraising for a cause that was important to us.

And I kind of raised my hand and said, Hey, you know, like I'd like to actually organize a bike race. And so that's where it started. And we organized a small. Mountain bike race with, you know, like one truck full of supplies for about 80 people. And um, that's kind of where the spirit of Bike Monkey was born.

And I, I got the bug.

[00:06:04] Craig Dalton: And to set the stage a little bit for people. So you're, you're based in Northern California, right?

[00:06:09] Carlos Perez: Yeah. We're based in Santa Rosa, which is in the middle. It's the biggest city in Sonoma County, uh, which actually has. roads more paved and gravel roads per capita than I think almost anywhere in the state.

[00:06:26] Craig Dalton: Absolutely. And then that that first event was called Bogs, and where was that located?

[00:06:32] Carlos Perez: uh, it was actually wasn't in Sonoma County, it was just outside of Sonoma County in little town of Cobb. In this demonstration state Forest called Boggs. and we'd gone mountain biking up there a bunch in the past, and so it's about an hour and 15 minutes outside of Santa Rosa.

[00:06:51] Craig Dalton: It's such a great spot. I mean, you talk about a riding in Annadale, getting, getting you hooked. If you have the opportunity to ride in bogs, you'll also get hooked on mountain biking. It's just so good up there and I had the pleasure of doing that event. God, it was must have been eight or 10 years ago, I feel like.

[00:07:08] Carlos Perez: Yeah, bogs. There's a, a lot of history with us and bogs, you know, we, uh, resurrected mountain bike racing there. When we first produced our eight hour event, there had been a multi-year hiatus of mountain bike racing in that space before we came along. And then that event ran for 10 or 11 years before the valley fire blew through that area and just decimated the entire forest.

And so it was off limits. Probably three years, four years at least before we were able to actually go back and host the event again, which it returned last year for the first time in, in a long while. Actually, I take that back, I think it was closer to seven years that nobody had been riding or racing in bogs.

So that was a big milestone for us to be able to go back and get back to our.

[00:07:58] Craig Dalton: Yeah, I remember the word spreading amongst my local bike community that it was back and people were super stoked cuz I think everybody has great memories from racing at bogs. It's such a fun place to ride and doing an eight hour event, whether it's solo or where the teammate is. Always just something that's special.

[00:08:15] Carlos Perez: Yeah, it really is. It's, there's so much camaraderie and hanging out and you know, taking it casually or taking it seriously. It is such a good mix of racing and fun. Um, there really, for me, there's no event that's more fun than our eight hour mountain bike races.

[00:08:38] Craig Dalton: Yeah, there's just like, you know, it's, there's an interesting dynamic when you're doing one of these events with a partner. Because you can decide, you know, the laps are typically 45 minutes or an hour in length. You can decide to do two laps, one lap. If you're tired and your partner wants to keep going, you can do that.

There's all kinds of strategy that just makes it fun. And there's rules around obviously, like how and when you cross the finish line within that eight hours that come into play. And so you have to have a little strategy in in your mind as you start to figure out your lap times.

[00:09:10] Carlos Perez: Yeah, there's tons of strategy around it. It's really cool you see people coming through going, trying to ask us like, should they go back out for another lap? And we're trying to figure it out and you know, we've got it down to a science where like, you do need to go cuz somebody's like nipping at your heels and if you don't and they do, it's game over.

You go from first to third pretty quick.

[00:09:30] Craig Dalton: Yeah, exactly. So that's amazing. So from that or original sort of beginnings of like, Hey, I'm willing to throw my hands up because I think I can produce an event. I'm willing to do this as a fundraiser. What was the path towards you doing it again and, and then expanding to other events?

[00:09:47] Carlos Perez: Well, I, I, after that first event, I definitely had to do some soul searching because, you know, I had a full-time job as a software developer and it paid. L. Um, but I was still young and I just, um, I saw an opportunity to do something that I was really passionate about and I had some close friends really pushing me to try and.

achieve that, and they're like, basically, we're gonna disown you if you don't take a stab at this. And so I took a big risk and I kind of threw all my chips at race production because I just loved it. I loved what it did for the community. I loved that we were able to raise money for a good cause. It just had, uh, all the good stuff around it. it didn't feel like work. So it was that second year, after that second year that I decided, you know, I need to really take this seriously because if I don't, that opportunity's gonna pass me up. And so I took a risk. Uh, I quit my job, cold Turkey, and, you know, kind of lived, uh, hand to mouth for a while, uh, figuring it out.

And then we just, it just grew, you know, what we were doing made a lot of sense. I brought on my first. . And then my second, and then, uh, Levi Leipheimer lived in the area. We were a super small production company at that time, and we were only doing some small mountain bike races and cross races, and he wanted to, he had this idea of putting on a Fondo because him and a friend of his, uh, you know, were on a ride and his friend being Italian was telling him about these amazing events that they have in Italy.

And he's like, you know, Levi, you should do that. Uh, through, again, a mutual friend through Yuri. Uh, somehow Levi came to us, uh, and, um, we said, yeah, we're, we can do this. Nobody had ever done that in the United States actually before. We were the first big grand Fondo on US soil. And, uh, well, I guess technically the second.

There was one in San Diego that had happened a year prior and no one really knew about it. It was, it was relatively.

[00:12:06] Craig Dalton: Yeah, I feel like it, it's impossible not to know about the Levi's Grand Fondo if you ride a road ride road in California, but I imagine that statement probably holds for almost the entire US at this point. It's such a popular road, grand Fondo.

[00:12:21] Carlos Perez: yeah, yeah. And it exploded. You know, we went the very first year we had 3,500 people, and it was in the heyday of Levi having, uh, he was heading into winning his third tour of California. So he was huge in California. and a very popular cyclist at the time. So it was the right timing. So there was, there was kind of that golden moment for us where we had to work really hard to do something really big and really outside of the box.

And we grew really fast, uh, like from a production standpoint. It forced us to grow up really quick.

[00:12:56] Craig Dalton: Yeah, what is, what does that look like? Just to explain to the listener and frankly myself as well, for event production, what type of organiz, what are, what are you doing at the event, and what type of equipment do you need to own in order to provide these services to something like Levi's Grand Fondo?

[00:13:13] Carlos Perez: well, you've got some event organizers that maybe are purely volunteer based and they're kind of scrapping to pull together as much rental equipment as they can and outsourcing a lot of it to produce. And then you've got other nonprofits like the Santa Rosa Cycling Club, which own a ton of equipment that they've just amassed or built over the years.

and multiple trailers that they'll use to move things out to produce stuff. every race organizer. And I, I always, I find this topic really interesting because as race organizers we do talk to each other and we share ideas, uh, on things like simple stuff like how are you calculating how much water you need to have at an aid station and what mechanism we're using to transport that water out there?

Cuz it's heavy, right? And it takes time to fill up a lot of jugs versus it doesn't take as much time to fill up one big jug. You know, how are you getting it out? That kind of stuff. The, the logistics behind the scenes, I think people, they don't have enough information to really appreciate what goes into producing an event and setting up an aid station and marking a course.

Um, but we have, I mean, we're, I'm in my office right now, which is adjacent to a, a warehouse full of equip. Ranging from course stakes to snow fencing, to stage material, to water jugs, to weight down tents, the tents, the tables, the chairs, the timing equipment, um, the arch to make stuff look fancy, and the list goes on.

We've got a lot of equipment too that we use, electronic equipment that we use for radio communications and for R F I D timing tags. and it's just a lot of weird stuff too. It's not the kind of stuff that you would see in like a typical business.

[00:15:06] Craig Dalton: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think it's important to note, I mean, everybody, when you go, it's easy to think of like, oh, I'm just putting it together, a group ride. And when you're doing that for 20 people, there's, there's next to no infrastructure that's involved in that. But anybody who's been to one of these events, you start to look around and you see like, oh, the aid station has a table there.

And oh, there's this massive container of water that somehow got it out into the wilderness. Someone needs to do that and someone needs to provide the equipment. Uh, it's a really fascinating space and I think more and more as I interview event organizers, I'm uncovering that there are entities like bike, bike monkey in other states and other places that are carrying the load for lots of these events in the background.

[00:15:49] Carlos Perez: Yeah. A lot of people will get in touch with us and say, you know, we, we wanna produce a bike race, but we really don't know where to start. Um, and, and a lot of times it starts with the vision of what it is that you wanna produce, but a lot of times people don't, they underestimate how far into the weeds you really need to get simple things.

you know, putting a label on a, on an envelope and putting the rider's information inside of that label and then putting the stuff in the packet so that you can streamline packet pickup or the process of capturing their information in a way that, uh, makes that whole experience smooth. Because it starts when you show up.

If you have to wait two hours to get your packet because the line's too long, well, something's not right already. Little, little tons of, little, little details that you really. , uh, there's no school for this kind of stuff. That's the, I think the thing that probably is one of the most unique characteristics that all event organizers probably share is we all learn, learn through experience and through trial and error, working events and seeing what does and doesn't work.

And that's, that's one of the crucial components. You have to be the type of person that's willing to just continu. Bumble and fail and try to make corrections, and you have to stay committed to that. Cause if you're not, then you're, you're just not gonna make it. It's, it's too much learning that has to happen on the job.

[00:17:25] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah. It's a big lift to put on any of these events. So you were talking about how Levi's, grand Fondo kind of was a big break in terms. Pushing you guys to create more infrastructure, more discipline, understand how to manage a 3,500 plus person event. When did gravel start to become part of the pitcher for bike monkey?

[00:17:47] Carlos Perez: Well, interestingly, we started doing gravel. In 2012, so before it really exploded, right? And it was because of Levi's Grand Fondo, Rebecca Rush came to that event as a guest and at the end of it just came up to us and said, Hey, this was amazing, and I wanna do something like this in my hometown of Keem, Idaho, but I want you guys to help me do it.

I want to do it on gravel, on dirt roads. And we're like, that sounds amazing. Yeah, let's do it. And so we actually started Rebecca's Private Idaho with her, and we ran it for two years. At the time, we weren't really a consulting company, we were in the pattern of just building our own events from scratch and putting them on.

And so we weren't structured the right. To continue to run that event. So we stepped away and let her run with it on her own. And she did that for about seven years and then came back to us last year and was like, can you guys please, please, please come back and run this event for me? Because it's really hard to do and we just need a solid team.

While over that nearly decade that passed, we did become a consulting. and, uh, we came back and, and produced it last year and we're producing it again this year. And it, it's amazing and it, it feels right at home with us and for her. And so we're super excited about it. But that was where we started our first gravel event.

And then gravel kind of exploded everywhere. And the next one that we did, um, officially was, uh, you know, Sagan Fondo, Truckee Gravel. , which takes place on June 10th of this year.

[00:19:48] Craig Dalton: Interesting. So let, yeah, let's go back to that origin story cuz I think it's so interesting. You had mentioned to me offline that obviously like being in this region, the idea of putting on an event out of Truckee had been in your head for a while. Let's talk through like. What, what transpired prior to Sagan's team contacting you, and then what was that like to get that call?

[00:20:11] Carlos Perez: Yeah, it, it's funny, I mean, I always find myself looking back and going, wow, how did the stars align for this? Like, what was it that caused us to go up and start looking around in Truckee for gravel roads to, you know, to go and ride? And it was just, uh, some rides that I had seen people. , just a couple people do.

They were like, wow, check this cool stuff out north of Truckee. And then, um, you know, that's when the gravel scene was starting to pick up a little bit. But in Sonoma County, we don't have a whole lot of gravel. There's, there's gravel roads, but it's not like you have in other parts of the state. But we also knew through experience that in order for an event to have teeth, we needed to have a place that appealed to.

the family component. So we started looking at different towns and we love Truckee and you know, we've been up there so much and it's just, uh, it's got so much going for it. It's got such a cool vibe and culture. The ski scene is amazing, but the Artisan Craft brewing at 50 50 Brewing company and some of the others like alibi and the um, the food scene and the bakery scene and the coffee scene and like the.

Stuff and the outdoor stuff, it was all just, it's just bumping all the time. So it was like, you know, we really should start exploring trucking. And so we spent some time looking around up there. And then we got the call from uh, Peter Sagan's team of people. It was actually through Osmo. Ben Caprin over Osmo reached out to us and we've been associates for quite some time, and he said, Hey, Peter's looking to, Peter and his team are looking to do an event in the US and I recommended that it be you guys because of what you're able to do around here.

And so we started talking and decided to choose Truckee. Uh, we actually persuaded them to move their off-road event to Truckee that they wanted to create and change it from mountain biking to. And that's where it actually was born. Uh, and then we teamed up with, uh, Kurt Gen Shaer, who formerly angry single speeder and now a Trail whisperer.

He's a big in the mountain bike scene in that region and big with Sierra Trail Stewardship. Uh, he was really familiar with that area and lives in Verdi. and so him and I started exploring. He drove me all over these roads. They're basically his backyard. He's also built a lot of trail up there, and we came up with the gnarliest gravel event that I think anybody had ever really ridden at that point.

We kind of nicknamed it Segundo you, you. Left Truckee and you went up into Tahoe National Forest and you went past, uh, a handful of pretty large reservoirs and you went up over Sarine Peak. This huge summit dropped down, uh, towards Loyalton. So you're getting way north now. And then we turned and we came up this trail, this Jeep Road, uh, called Badden off Canyon Road, and it was just, Freaking junkyard of people trying to ride these baby head rocks all the way back.

So we definitely, like, I think, overshot in some aspects that first year. But again, everything's a learning experience and we were exploring, but anybody who did that first Saigon Fondo event definitely earned, earned their keep

[00:23:54] Craig Dalton: Yeah. I.

[00:23:54] Carlos Perez: someone capable of riding a gravel.

[00:23:58] Craig Dalton: I know, I love it. I, I have a neighbor who is constantly scratching his head about gravel bikes and is like, why don't I just ride my hard tail? And he always chooses his hard tail. And he happened to do that event on his hard tail, and he came back and he was like, this thing, this event was amazing, but I don't know how anybody wrote it on a gravel bike,

[00:24:18] Carlos Perez: a lot of people did not ride that section on their gravel bike. And it was long. It wasn't like this, you know, moderate quarter mile long section of, you know, tough to ride stuff. It was probably two miles of climbing on just really technical, uh, stuff, but beautiful country and, you know, I, I'm always intrigued by what our events do to like the Strava heat maps, because prior to us having that, Nobody was riding out there like probably old crusty dudes that, you know, don't use Strava.

You had ridden out there for, you know, eons. Right. But nobody, uh, was going out there and riding with any frequency and now that place is just full of gravel bikes since that event.

[00:25:07] Craig Dalton: So the, the original event was called, was it the Sagan Dirt Fondo? Am I recalling that correctly? And so that happened for, was it two editions under his branding?

[00:25:18] Carlos Perez: Yeah,

[00:25:19] Craig Dalton: Yes. and then it transitioned to the current Truckee Tahoe gravel.

[00:25:24] Carlos Perez: yeah, yeah. Then it transitioned into Trucky, uh, well, it was Trucky Dirt Fondo, and then we rebranded Trucky Tahoe Gravel. But our short name and like the, the operative name is Trucky Gravel. Tahoe is, is part of our name because, um, There's the marketing tactic in there. A lot of people from outside of the state or even further outside of the country maybe aren't as familiar with Truckee.

So it's important that we capture the region and our partners at Visit Truckee Tahoe, uh, are also influential in the naming of it. So we have a strong partnership with Visit Truckee Tahoe. . And so, uh, last year we rebranded the event Truckee Gravel and the long form name is Trucky Tahoe Gravel.

[00:26:15] Craig Dalton: as you're talking about the event to rider from around the world, how would you talk about Tahoe as a destination? Let's set aside like the gravel experience, which I definitely wanna get into, but there may be people out there who just don't understand what Tahoe is.

[00:26:32] Carlos Perez: Yeah. Well, I mean, the lake is the first thing that comes to mind. I mean, you have this ancient crystal clear lake. that has been there for millennia and it, it is one of the most beautiful places on the planet Earth. And it's surrounded by, you know, the lake sits at over 6,000 feet. Uh, and around that basin are the Sierra Nevada mountains.

And, you know, they go up to, you know, 11,000 feet in some areas, and you've got ski resorts in every direct. and you've got mountain bike trails and hiking trails and off-road trails and climbing and hiking and you know, all the stuff that comes with being able to do something on the lake. And then you go almost any direction from Lake Tahoe and you have these other communities like Meyers and um, you know, Carson City and Reno and Truckee.

Um, you've got. more of that in these towns that live up in this area. And so the entire region as a whole has an incredible mix of every type of outdoor activity that you could imagine. And it's just, if you appreciate the outdoors, it's all there. Everything, it's all there. And it's, you know, it's, it's a populated area because of.

It's about as populated as it can get right now, especially during the pandemic. Like everyone went up there. We kind of missed our window cuz we were interested in, in getting a place up there. But that ship kind of sailed during the pandemic

[00:28:17] Craig Dalton: Yeah, no, you're, I mean, you're a hundred percent spot on. It's such a magical part of the country that if you're interested in, if you enjoy being in the mountains, if you enjoy being around lakes, it's just stunning. , and to your point, like 360 degrees around that lake is mountains and ski resorts, and there's so much beautiful terrain regardless of whether you're on a bike or on foot that you can explore out there.

One of the things you alluded to, and you certainly mentioned it to me offline very strongly, was as you think about producing events, you're not just thinking about the riders, you're thinking about their families and what the experie. They are gonna be having at these events. Can you just talk a little bit about that and why that's important to you?

[00:29:02] Carlos Perez: Yeah. Well, so there, there are a lot of different types of events. There are events that are designed for the The Racer that's chasing points, right. And they're just like, there's an event every single weekend. And. Sometimes they're just like in the event promoter's backyard, because it's easy to do that.

You are gonna use the, the local park and you're gonna put on a cross race or a mountain bike race or a road crit. And those are great for the sport of cycling as a competitive sport. Um, we always have, um, strived to produce events that are a little bigger. Chasing points. We we're always, we've always had this mantra of putting on events that are appealing to what we call the influencers and not influencers like on social media, you know, influencers on Instagram or Facebook, but the influencers are my family members, so my kids, my.

They might not race their bikes, they might not be able to participate in this event that I wanna go and do, but there's something in it for them. When you do it in a place like Truckee, or you do it in a place like the Wente Scout reservation, or you do it in a place like Carson City or um, you know, you name it someplace, that has a lot more going on for it.

So I can be out racing my bike for four hours. and they might wait for me. They might go out to an aid station or they might just go shopping, or they might go get on the lake and wait for me, or they'll see, we'll see you at the brewery. Uh, we'll see you at the climbing gym. Uh, but then there's the before and after as well.

So we stay there for multiple days and most people do. It becomes a destination for the whole family. as opposed to just another race that I have to somehow finagle time away to go and do that. And it's, I drive up, I do it, I turn around and I go back home.

[00:31:06] Craig Dalton: Yeah. I feel like that's such an important component for so many of us gravel athletes that are, you know, not super concerned about the pointy end of the race. We're really looking to have a good. Had a hard day out there on the bike, but also wanna share time with our families and not make cycling.

Always something that takes us away from home.

[00:31:23] Carlos Perez: Yeah. And I think that that mentality has shifted as a whole too. It's not just, it's not just, uh, that we are focused on those events, but I think the appeal has shifted over the last few years, a little bit away from racing and a little bit more towards that whole experience that you get from going and having races, and you see that.

You know, the conversations that a lot of pro-athletes are now having about, you know, I raced my bike for a while and that was important and it got me here, but I also wanna ride with my friends. Like, I started riding a bike as a kid because it was fun and I enjoyed it. And then I got serious. And being serious is exhausting, you know, it's like, it is like you can't, almost cannot have fun when you have to be so serious about bike racing and when you can let go of that a little bit at our events and not take it so seriously.

There's a lot more room to enjoy yourself. There's a lot more room to be okay not standing on the podium and riding with your friends and just being there in the moment and, and experiencing what everyone else.

[00:32:38] Craig Dalton: Yeah, a hundred percent. I took us on a little bit of a detour. You had started talking about how in that first year the course was maybe a little bit more technical than, uh, it is today. Can we talk about what the course will look like for 2023?

[00:32:54] Carlos Perez: Yeah, totally. So, um, it's changed a little bit over the years, you know, not necessarily because. It had to, um, well, I guess in some, in some ways it, it did have to, there were some years where the snow was so deep that we just, we couldn't go over Sarine peak. Right. And so the elevation ended up having to be a little bit lower that year because the snow pack was too high.

Ultimately, we pushed the event from. To a later date in June. And so we're in a pretty good spot now where unless it's like crazy snowy in March, we should be able to get over Sardine Peak. That's one of the signature high points on the courses that we design up there that um, you know, it makes sense to go up Sardine Peak.

[00:33:45] Craig Dalton: And when you're, when you're, when you're getting up there, uh, Carlos, like what kind of terrain is that climb and is it like, you know, one of these long sustained efforts?

[00:33:56] Carlos Perez: It is. Um, so once you get to the base of starting peak, you're at about 6,000 feet and it tops out just over 8,000 feet. And it, it starts off at like, you know, four or five, 6% grades. And then as you get near the top, you're pushing, you know, 11, 10, 11% pretty consistently. , you, you don't have to stay seated for this stuff, but it, you definitely are putting out some watts to carry yourself to the top of this climb.

And then as soon as you get over the top, it is just a ripping, white knuckle descent all the way down. Um, about to the same elevation in the past. This year, there's a change. We're actually extending the course, so last year we were about 64 miles in length for that. this year we're gonna be 75, and so it's, or maybe it was 67.

We've, we've increased it by several miles and we're going a lot further north towards Loyalton, and so that dissent off of Sardine Peak goes from 8,000 feet all the way down to 5,300 feet over the course. Probably 10 miles. So you just have this constant descent. It's such a reward to get that after finally making it to the top of Sardine Peak.

And then once you get to that part just south of Loyalton, you turn and you climb a gradual, really well graded and maintained gravel road. And so your return isn't like, arduous, painful journey back. You can really get into a rhythm and warm yourself up and, and keep the pace going. Pretty good.

[00:35:45] Craig Dalton: As we're coming down off Sardine Peak, is that, is it a fire road and is it, is it kind of loose? Are we, are we sort of white-knuckling scared, or

[00:35:53] Carlos Perez: it

[00:35:54] Craig Dalton: it pretty, pretty flowing?

[00:35:55] Carlos Perez: can be rutted. And so it changes a little bit every year. And what happens is we go out there right before the race, like a couple days before the race and we're cutting down trees that have fallen. We're cutting down branches where, you know, maybe there's a spot where it's really bad, there's like a lot of rocks that we're exposed.

We actually go out there and try to fix some of that stuff up where it might be deemed. Unsafe. Uh, and then we mark the crap out of it. So we've got a signed guy, this guy Cole Rasmussen, who goes out there. Um, this actually this past year, it was, um, it was an associate of his, went out there and, uh, marked the course over, over two or three days.

And we take these big, you know, it's like, it's a big deal. We're not just putting. Uh, flags in the ground or hanging ribbon in the tree. We're driving a stake in the ground and then we're putting a big two foot sign on it with an arrow for each of the route colors telling you where to go, or that it says hazard or, you know, sharp turn or, you know, cattle guard things that are important.

Um, for riders to not only be able to race safely, but also to make sure that no one gets lost, cuz it's hard to find 'em once they do. Um, and so anyway, I, I got a little off track with what we're doing out there. The course. On that diss descent off of Sardine Peak. Uh, it varies each year, but it can be a little bit hairy.

And so we do advise people like really pay attention, try to control their speed because you can come around some areas where all of a sudden there are ruts, you know, and how, how that feels. How you pucker when you're like riding next to a rut that's like a train track and you're trying to stay out of it.

[00:37:40] Craig Dalton: Sometimes you do exactly the wrong thing when you see those

[00:37:43] Carlos Perez: you look at it, that's the problem.

[00:37:46] Craig Dalton: Yep. Exactly. Yeah, I was looking at the course profile and I see that big prominent sardine peak, and then to your point, you actually looks like you descend to a lower elevation than kind of the baseline to begin with, and then you've got that one gradual bump and a few bumps, but largely kind of progressively downhill on the way back to the start finish.

[00:38:10] Carlos Perez: Yeah. Yeah. And there is. , there's one descent. Uh, after you get back up to your next peak at about 7,000 feet. That next descent, uh, is a little harrowing. Also, it has some baby head sticking out of it and some ruts and things and roots and stuff. So it's definitely like an o hv road, not, not like a gravel road, but totally doable on a gravel.

You just have to pay attention to where your line is. And like I said, we go out there every year with my beat up Nissan Titan, and we carry tools and we clean it up and get it as prepped as we can For the

[00:38:48] Craig Dalton: I imagine for people listening, there's a couple camps. There's one people like me who are like, that sounds awesome. And there are others that are like, maybe I won't really like that part of this event.

[00:39:00] Carlos Perez: we do not produce events that are easy. , we just don't, uh, there's, there's a sense of accomplishment. Having completed any one of bike monkeys races, whether it be a mountain bike race or a mixed gravel and road event like fish rock or hammer road rally, or a road event like Levi's, grand Fondo, or a gravel event like Truckee or Rebecca's private Idaho.

There is always an element of pretty extreme challenge. We have shorter routes, right? We're talking about the big route right now. We have shorter options for people that do forego having to take on some of those tougher challenges. and that option's there. And there's even time cuts too. So if you don't make it, you know, to the base of starting peak by a certain time, you're not gonna be allowed to go back over that.

Uh, we can't restrain you. You could climb over it if you wanted to, but your support is not guaranteed at that point.

[00:40:05] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. And it's nice that you have the easy, moderate, and hard courses. Available for people. If you, when you think about kind of advising riders, and I know this is like a horribly tricky thing to do, but when you think about ad advising riders as to what sort of tires they should be thinking about running, what are you putting out there in the world about the the Trucky Gravel event?

[00:40:26] Carlos Perez: Well, I mean, tire technology has changed a lot over the years, right? Like it's really improved. We used to, everybody used to think that, um,

[00:40:36] Craig Dalton: I.

[00:40:36] Carlos Perez: a big tire. Was gonna slow you down. Um, that's really not the case. And, and even just the science behind it really. Um, we, we advise you guys as big as, as you want, really.

I mean, it's, uh, as long as you feel like it's fast rolling enough for you, the challenges that you're gonna see and running a small. on any of these events is that when you do get to the rough sections, you risk, uh, you take on more risk in losing control in an area, um, or pinch flattening. Uh, so, you know, and a bigger type volume tire allows you to run tubeless easier and that improves the quality of the race or the ride.

So, you know, 40 C plus, uh, you know, easily, I wouldn't, I wouldn't go smaller than that. . Um, but some people do, you know, it really does come down to preference, but generally bigger riders are gonna want bigger tires and smaller riders might be able to get away with something that might be a little bit faster rolling on some of the flat stuff.

But at the end of the day, I think the tire technology that we're dealing with today has improved so much that. you know, a good volume gravel tire is gonna be the perfect choice for this event. And we see people come out there on mountain bikes and do pretty good. Actually, you know, one of the, one of the, um, photos of the lead group on our homepage is you're scrolling down.

Actually has a dude like with that lead pack, like on a mountain bike, just going for it.

[00:42:11] Craig Dalton: Yeah. I, I mean to each their own, right. There's a lot of fast, hard tail mountain bikers out there that can keep up with the best gravel racers, I'm sure. when you think about,

[00:42:21] Carlos Perez: is like one of the most common questions that we get is like, what tire do I pick? And honestly, like the, the, it's really up to the racer. Uh, the best we can do is explain the course profile and then you have to make your own choice.

[00:42:37] Craig Dalton: Yeah. And look, I mean, I think at the end of the day, a lot of people. Just don't bother changing their tires and run what you brung, right? Run, run what you're comfortable with. There's no, no need to kind of spend money to kind of get somewhere you don't need in your home terrain. That said, I'm, I'm with you.

Like I enjoy the bigger tires and certainly on those descents with baby heads, like it's just nice to have that volume to be able to slam through things even if it's not purposeful.

[00:43:03] Carlos Perez: I think at the point where people start asking and trying to make critical decisions around tire. You're almost splitting hairs at that point. You're really getting into the, to the nitty gritty of like, how am I gonna get that little extra edge what it comes down to. I mean, unless you're on, like, you're talking about running 30 c you know, slicks on your bike, on road bike, then you know, maybe that's a little extreme, but, uh, you know, we're talking like mountain bike size tire versus like a, a bigger gravel size.

[00:43:39] Craig Dalton: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm always like, for me, that performance edge is just around comfort and control, and I'll error that wave over speed any day of the week, even though I totally agree with you. Like the modern high volume tire is not any slower than some of these smaller tires at all.

[00:43:56] Carlos Perez: Yeah.

[00:43:58] Craig Dalton: Yeah. When we talk about sort of the racing element of this event, like is that something you're leaning into?

Is that something that you're kind of craving as an event promoter to get the fastest men, men and women around to the table and, and see them throw down? Or is that a, a secondary consideration for the event?

[00:44:16] Carlos Perez: For me, that's secondary. Uh, I've never been one of the camp to really invest in. Making sure that the professional road racer with a ton of followers is showing up at our events. I wanna make the events appealing enough that they, they want to be there. Um, and so, and there is a competitive component to these events and they often do end up standing on the podium, but I really want to cater to the families.

because that's just how my business is built. It's really built around family experience and. Yeah. So we're not like the, we're not like the lifetime events where it's just hyper-competitive, you know, super like you're, we're . You don't really read about us in Bellow news that often cuz we're not catering to that professional market.

We want professionals to come to our event and because they wanna be there and enjoy themselves, and many of them do. And we make sure they have a good time just like everybody else. And we try to put on a good event for them, but that's not our. that's not by design for us. We really are designing events that are, uh, meant for people to come and have an amazing time with their friends, with their family, and hopefully not take it too seriously.

Um, but we do a professional scoring operation and we give away amazing awards. I mean, behind me and you know, I mean people are mostly gonna see this on nut or listen. On an audio podcast, but we work with graphic designers to make these posters for each of our events, and every one of 'em is fully custom.

And this is kind of the touch that we put on giving awards away. Last year, Forte's Painter, I actually made, uh, We, we handmade, or I hand cast silver ingots because it's in the silver state and we gave away bars of silver that I made myself. That's the kind of stuff that people get to walk away with from our events.

We don't do like cash prizes or, you know, stupid metals. Like everybody's got a drawer full of metals. It's useless, and I hate giving that stuff away. So we don't do it. You know, we give you something that's like either a work of. A real keepsake. Uh, occasionally we might do like a bottle opener, but we just, you know, people have enough junk.

So we try to give people something useful for their efforts that they really feel good about, that we've put our heart into.

[00:46:56] Craig Dalton: I love it. I noted one thing that I thought was interesting. It, it, it looked like on the site that the sort of the race, quote unquote, ends at the, before the last aid station.

[00:47:07] Carlos Perez: Yeah.

[00:47:07] Craig Dalton: Is that sort of purposeful because it's unsafe to race the last eight miles, or was there other intention there?

[00:47:13] Carlos Perez: There's two reasons for it. Uh, one, uh, safety is important and you're in a very remote area when you finish. So you're finishing next to Boca Reservoir. next to a dam. Uh, part two is there. It's beautiful there. And we want people to be able to stop and maybe regroup with somebody that they were racing with before and do the high five and they get actually like a nice, uh, return back to the Riverview Sports Park where we have our festival.

and they don't have to race it. It's on a shared use bike path, and it's important that we don't have racers going the opposite direction of a mom with a stroller and her kids or a dog walker. And so there's the safety component is number one, but number two, we get the added benefit of people being able to do a pretty decent cool down ride after they just throttled themselves for 50, 60 miles.

[00:48:13] Craig Dalton: Yeah, I thought that was a fun concept as I was thinking about. It is nice to your point, to just be able to kind of reconnect with people you might have dropped or been dropped by a few miles back, and then just chill as you have a cool down and then get to the, to the sort of the end point. Just be ready to transition into enjoying the community.

[00:48:33] Carlos Perez: Yeah, and Truckee Gravel is one of the few events that we have where there is a long sustained racing portion of the event. A lot of the events that we're producing now actually have segments. that you add up over time because it's actually really fun to, it's almost like how we ride with our friends in a group nowadays is we ride and then it's like we go hit a segment and then we regroup.

and we ride together and we're bringing that element to a lot of our events and legitimizing it by accumulating segments. And what it means is that you race for a little while, but then you ride with your friends and then you race for a little while and you ride with your friends and it makes the whole experience so enjoyable because you still race, but you don't have to race the entire time and destroy yourself.

But with Truckee Dirt Fonda, we do have more of a traditional longer duration race, and I think that's important. You know, each event we evaluate for what the best experience is gonna be, and Truckee's one of those where we want people to really go out there and work hard.

[00:49:34] Craig Dalton: Fun. And final question, Carlos, around the post-race experience there, I think you mentioned it was Riverside Park. What, what is it like, what's the, what should the, uh, the riders expect at the end there?

[00:49:46] Carlos Perez: Riverview Sports Park is right next to the Truckee River. And so people that are, you know, at that park can actually walk down to the river, which is super cool, you know, and there's a path that takes you down there and it's a really beautiful area. But the park itself, uh, is a pretty neat facility.

There's lots of trees and shade and grass and. It's next to this awesome bike park that the Truckee Bike Park organization has been building over the years. Uh, Brooks Millon, uh, has, has, and, uh, a partner of his have been building this thing and it's amazing and you can. Take your mountain bike or your cross bike or your gravel bike and ride on, uh, the pump track or these features and just, it's a real cool skill building thing.

And they have events there. There's a little pump track for kids. So, uh, it's really is like a, a cycling maker. Mountain bikers make a. It's a really neat place to finish the race at and we're actually partnering up with them this year and we're gonna do some really cool stuff. Activations with that bike park that's part of Riverview Sports Park.

[00:50:58] Craig Dalton: Fun. And then is, is there, are there food and beverages available at the end there?

[00:51:02] Carlos Perez: Oh yeah, absolutely. We, uh, we always have a beer partner that, um, you know, both NA and traditional beer. So we've been working with Best Day Brewing Company, uh, and Truckee. We've worked with 50 50 Brewing Company and, you know, they're right there. Obviously, uh, that changes up every year. So we might have another partner this year.

and then we bring in some really cool food trucks to make sure everybody's fed well afterwards. I think we had three different options for folks last year. Uh, we usually have some music going and it's just a really cool atmosphere to hang out and, and kind of recap the day.

[00:51:41] Craig Dalton: That's awesome, Carlos. Thanks so much for giving us this overview of everything that Bike Monkey's about. I know we only touched on probably like a quarter of the events you have your hand in, so I definitely encourage people to go check out the Bike Monkey site. I'll link to it in the show notes. I also very much appreciate the intention that you've put into all these events and how you make.

Really a community experience in the way that, you know, I certainly look for in events. So thanks for all your hard work over the years.

[00:52:11] Carlos Perez: Yeah, of course. Craig, thanks for talking to me about it and letting us kind of tell a little bit about our story

[00:52:17] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Awesome. And thanks for getting everybody stoked on, uh, trucky Tahoe Gravel 23

[00:52:22] Carlos Perez: Is the place to be on June 10th.

[00:52:25] Craig Dalton: That's going to do it for this week's edition of the gravel ride podcast. Thank you for joining us and big, thanks to Carlos for a putting on all these great events over the years and B for working so hard to make the Truckee Tahoe gravel event. So amazing.

Another. Thank you. Goes out to dynamic cyclists for supporting the show. I remember you can use the code, the gravel ride@dynamiccyclists.com to get 15% off your order. They have monthly and annual subscriptions available. If you're looking to connect with me, please join the ridership. That's www.theridership.com. That's a free online cycling community for gravel cyclists.

If you're able to support the show, please visit buy me a coffee.com/the gravel ride or ratings and reviews are hugely appreciated and helpful in our discovery. Until next time. Here's to finding some dirt under your wheels.

This week we sit down with Nicolas Serrano from Colombia's Scarab Cycles. This episode was recorded at the 2021 Enve builder round up. We learn about the brands origins, ethos and manufacturing process.  This episode is presented by ENVE.

Scarab Cycles Instagram and Website

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Automated transcription (please excuse the typos):

SCARAB_Nicolas

Craig Dalton: [00:00:00]  Hello and welcome to the gravel ride podcast. I'm your host Craig Dalton.  

[00:00:06]This week on the podcast. We welcome Nicolas Serrano from Scarab cycles in Columbia. I met Nicolas at the envy builder Roundup earlier this year and 

[00:00:16]Was super impressed with the bike. They brought to the Roundup, the paint job, and even more impressed once I learned the story behind scarab cycles.  

[00:00:24]This episode is brought to you by our friends at ENVE composites.

[00:00:27]ENVE has been a huge supporter of the gravel industry producing 

[00:00:30]Products since the inception of this type of riding. Up of exceptionally quality. their seat posts. And of course their lineup

[00:00:39]Of gravel wheel sets. Envy across all social media channels. 

[00:00:44] And check out envy.com for a dealer locator. I know it's always great to go into your local bike retailer and get your hands on these products and even better yet, 

[00:00:53] Maybe getting out on a test stride on some of these components.  

[00:00:57]Out to all the new members from www.buymeacoffee.com/thegravelride. 

[00:01:05] 

[00:01:05]It means a ton to me that you've selected to support me with your dollars memberships, start at $5 a month. So big, thanks to John Rankin. 

[00:01:14]Two.   Nicolas Marzano, high Plains, drifter mark S just a few of the most recent members to the buy me a coffee.com program.  

[00:01:24]And further, thank you to the one-time contributors. 

[00:01:28]With that said let's dive right in to my interview  

[00:01:31] Nicolas: [00:01:31] hey, it's Nicolas from Scarab cycles from Columbia,

[00:01:34] Craig Dalton: [00:01:35] Welcome to the show. 

[00:01:36] Nicolas: [00:01:36] Hey, thanks. Thanks for inviting us. And we're pretty happy to be here. 

[00:01:40] Craig Dalton: [00:01:40] And I'm pretty excited to talk about that bike. I just saw downstairs here at the NV Roundup.

[00:01:45] It's totally beautiful. But before we get into that, why don't you just tell us a little bit about your background and what led to the formation of the company and a little bit about the company? 

[00:01:55] Nicolas: [00:01:55] Of course. So, as carb cycles has started back in the day, six years ago our founder Santiago Toto, who started the company with a local frame builder, it used to have another name before.

[00:02:05]And then in migrated toward nowadays is described cycles in as the name, it started in 2018 with the name script cycles, but we've been building bikes since 2000 16, more or less. And tell us 

[00:02:17] Craig Dalton: [00:02:17] about where the company 

[00:02:18] Nicolas: [00:02:18] is located. So our company slug is based in in the outskirts of managing it's  Antioquia it's a more or less 30 minutes from aging, which is the second biggest city in Colombia .

[00:02:29] Craig Dalton: [00:02:29] And does Columbia have a large bike building scene? 

[00:02:33]Nicolas: [00:02:33] Not a bike building scene, but it's home of the world known as kind of house, which is basically the we explored world-class cyclist. So we've been there's not a strong bike building scene. There's couple of our one or two or three frame builders in the country.

[00:02:48] But mostly what we have in our country is Cyclists. There's a strong love for the sport. The bicycle itself, it's a very strong object or thing for the Colombian culture. So it's not only a way of transportation. It's a, it's not only a sport. It's just a way of life, a way of being, and it's an element, the bicycle that connects us all as Colombians, you can go to a road and meet you can be with us.

[00:03:12] With farm guy, a company CNO, which he's just training in his Sunday ride and you can actually be writing with a pro. So these two guys are going to have the same own time, and they're just like shredding their ass off a very high speed. Or you just can have on weekdays, a kid going from his very small town moving to a, another small town to go to school.

[00:03:32] So basically the bicycle is a very strong element in the Columbia. 

[00:03:37] Craig Dalton: [00:03:37] That's awesome to hear football and soccer, obviously big sports as well. How would you rank cycling? I mean, obviously like with NARIC and Tanya going back five, six years and all the emerging Colombian superstars today, was that sort of the generation where cycling really took hold in the culture or did it, does it date back further than that?

[00:03:53] It 

[00:03:53] Nicolas: [00:03:53] comes very, it comes back way that with a load, like when we started having a world-class cyclist . Going to two, two big races in Europe winning the winter. Spania for example, that's when we started like getting a name of a cycling and that's where. When they started starting calling us this kind of office, this climbing little box that goes up and up a hill without any problem he just is very good for claiming, so it go, it goes back to the eighties, nineties when everything started seventies, eighties, and nineties.

[00:04:23]But there has been a new hype since NATO containers, as you mentioned it since 2000 five eight but back before from that, it was we had another hype with, for example, cyclists, like Santiago taro, which was which was on our he was the Olympic champion for time trail, individual time trail.

[00:04:40] And then he won as well. The polka dot a Jersey and a tour de France. So there's a lot of history behind cycling, but nowadays I believe it's, as you asked at the beginning of the question if it was soccer or. I bet we're having a very good and strong hyper on cycling. Not only because of the results, but the pandemic has moved people towards this sport.

[00:05:02] So nowadays everyone in Columbia has a bicycle and it's riding around maybe four or five years ago. It was just like a couple of hundreds of people. Now it's thousands. The streets are packed with cyclists in all of the levels. Like you see very good cyclists, like pro classes. And amateur cyclists and like everyone's riding a bicycle from kids 10 years old to like people 60, 70, 80 years old, just sharing the road.

[00:05:27] It's amazing. It's crazy. And we also have another very good thing is that we, Columbia it's divided by three mountain ranges, so there's mountains everywhere. So there's 86 kilometer climbs old paved, which is called Algolia. There was this well, a hundred kilometer, gravel appeal rights, which is called for example,

[00:05:46] So you go from almost zero meters above sea level to 4,000, 200 meters above sea level. That's 12,000 feet. Incredible elevation just in one. Right? So there's many aspects, a little bit of history, a little bit of good results with NATO Cantana egg and Bernard and all those cyclists doing very good in the cycling scene.

[00:06:05] And of course the topography of a country and the culture, which has very deeply embedded the bicycle in its culture. So tell 

[00:06:13] Craig Dalton: [00:06:13] me a little bit more about the brand and when the brand came together, what type of bikes were you intending to make? What types of materials were you using at the time?

[00:06:23] Nicolas: [00:06:23] Yeah, so we've always used we've always been fan or we're always been. Very happy with the results we can have with steel bikes. So we've always been using steel used to, we've always been using, for example, a Columbus steel, which is what we still use. Nowadays we're mixing a little bit doing some blends, for example, Columbus and  or Colombian sand Delta Chi, which is an Italian manufacturer of steel as well.

[00:06:47]And when it started we, our first bikes were mainly meant to stay on tarmac, but giving the conditions of the country where 90% of our roads are secondary roads. That means it's a ground country. So it's basically a gravel paradise where we used to ride our road bikes in gravel conditions take into account that they were very good steel.

[00:07:06] There wasn't a problem with that. But then we started diving into the gravel section. And then our first model was born maybe three and a half year, four years ago. It was called MERITO. MERITO is a town that's located in in in one of the, in the central mountain range, which is called the

[00:07:22]So it's, it lays almost 4,000 meters above sea level. So it's the town that you can only get there by. So that was our first model. And then it evolved to where this town is located, which is a Panama, Panorama is an ecosystem. That's lies between 3000 meters, 3,200 meters above sea level to 4,200 meters above sea level.

[00:07:40] And that's basically the source of all of our water or Edric sources come from the Panamas. So it's a very fragile, yet unique ecosystem. You can only get there by secondary roads or gravel roads. So that's where our bike came from. It comes more, it comes out of function and then function follows form, which is why we create a little bit, a big, bigger tire clearance a little bit more of responsive wheel base a little bit longer to have more fun when you're going down.

[00:08:07] So then we had to do a little bit of twitches in the aspects of the frame. And then w Westwind the Paramo was board, which is our actual ground. 

[00:08:16] Craig Dalton: [00:08:16] So the model name for the bike that I'll show in a picture and linked to you in the show notes, which model 

[00:08:20] Nicolas: [00:08:20] is that? So that's the upper Buena, which is Santee likes to call it.

[00:08:24] It's a road bike with a track shoes, trekking shoes. So it's a road specific bike. Well, not, that's not a road specific bike. It's an old road bike, but it has the. Reactiveness the stiffness, the responsiveness, our road bike bad. It has tires. It can fit tires from 32 to 38 millimeters. So it's very good.

[00:08:44] If you're running on tarmac the time of ends, and then you want to go around for trails or a hard-packed gravel. You're going to have. For example, this morning, we did some of the trails with the guys in that bike. And it was perfect. Well, not the perfect bike for that condition, but we did it and it was fun.

[00:08:59]So that we have three models at the moment, which are our road bike which is called  it's named after the longest climb in Columbia, longest paved climb in Columbia, which is 86 years. That's a road bike, a proper road bikes, TAFE fun, reactive there's this rim brake model, and then comes the in-betweener, which is the old road.

[00:09:18] It's a mix between road bike and grab a bike. So it's this in between, or that has a tight curious for from 32 to 38 millimeters. It's called. Which it's it means road in Spanish,  in you know, an indigenous tongue in limitations language. So that's where Poona comes from and then comes to Panama, which is a proper gravel bike men for like proper backpacking, shredding killing, getting the decents going uphill.

[00:09:45]Everything you want, that's the undestructible bike. Let's 

[00:09:48] Craig Dalton: [00:09:48] talk about the tire clearance on that particular 

[00:09:50] Nicolas: [00:09:50] bike. Perfect. Yeah, that one, since all our bikes are custom made, it depends on what the client needs. It can be optimized either for 700 C 700 by 48, or it can be optimized for 6 50, 6, 50 by 50 millimeters.

[00:10:06] And depending on SIM, in some case, we run bigger. It depends on what the client wants. So there's, there comes some people with the specific requirements. Yeah. I want this. I'm going to fit six 50 bees by 55. We can manage to it. Or most of them like standards six, we recommended six 50 by 48. If they do 

[00:10:23] Craig Dalton: [00:10:23] go to those larger sizes, 50.

[00:10:25] What type of modifications do you need to make to the frame in order to accommodate that kind of big tire on? 

[00:10:30] Nicolas: [00:10:30] So that's basically the change stays a little bit more of about a white capability and we will upgrade to the NB envy adventure fork, which has a bigger tire clearance for the front and for the back.

[00:10:42] Will you just have a bigger space for the, in the chain stays for the 

[00:10:45] Craig Dalton: [00:10:45] You may not know this figure off the top of your head, but what is the chain stay length turned out to be for a 50 

[00:10:51] Nicolas: [00:10:51] ish fish? No, I'll tell you that. I'm not sure I kind of recall like the numbers for that specific geometry.

[00:10:56]But we usually have well, it depends on the customer. I rather have a short chain stays. It makes a little bit more of a fast bike and reactive by. Yeah. 

[00:11:04] Craig Dalton: [00:11:04] Yeah. It's been something that I've been thinking about a lot lately because I just got a demo bike. Longer chain stays and the most sluggish.

[00:11:12] Yeah. I'm trying to internalize the personality of this new bike and understand it. So it's been really interesting for me and now I'm keying in on. That length when I'm talking to other builders, just to try to understand what are you building around? And obviously, as our listener knows, when you go to the big tires, there has to be some compromises.

[00:11:30] You need to make the room 

[00:11:32] Nicolas: [00:11:32] somehow to make the room somehow. And that's that's the first button. That's one of the first questions we ask our clients, what are you going to use this bike for? But usually you don't have a right answer for that because I might be doing some really fast trails when I buy this bike.

[00:11:46] But then I discovered by. Or backpacking races across the world, or just I don't know, very long races or like very, I went to have something very comfortable with a bigger tire clearance, so it might change over the time but usually focus, always center on what the client needs and what you went and w and where do you want to take your bike to?

[00:12:02] Yeah. 

[00:12:03] Craig Dalton: [00:12:03] Can you talk me through the beautiful paint job on the bike? We saw downstairs, 

[00:12:06] Nicolas: [00:12:06] just amazing thing of our bike. First we're launching the Poona, which is the old road. And second, we're launching our new pain ship called humbler, which means jungle. And it's basically inspired  in the Western part of the country. . We have a very deep jungle, which is called the Chaco and rainforest. And it's one of the most biodiverse was there by libraries, places on earth. It's home for lots of species found and flora. Many are endangered many and demic many are unique in that area. And there's just, there's just a couple of roads or basically one road that leads into the jungle.

[00:12:39] It's a 120 kilometer gravel ride. Very muddy. It depends on the time of the year you go. But usually it's very muddy because it's rains a lot. It's the place with most precipitation on earth, basically. So it's rain, it rains every single day. Wow. So when you're riding towards it, You just see a huge deep green sea, it just looks green and very steamy.

[00:13:01] You just see a big green shade. And were you sort of paling towards that? You start to discover there's a lot of detail and there's a lot of immensity into the jungle. And then you start to discover a lot of different trees. Lot of different leaves, a lot of different indigenous groups around walking.

[00:13:17] Maybe you don't see them, but if you look close enough, you see people that are absurd. There is somewhere hidden in the path or in the road. Same as animals. You, if you stop by at a waterfall to fill your bottle up, you might not look carefully enough to see there's a small, poisonous frog besides you.

[00:13:35]So you have to be very careful and look very deep into the forest and enjoy what you're seeing to be able to discover what the forest has to offer you. So basically that's a, it's a whole much to that Shaquan forest. And that's why when you look at the page you see a green by white bike with green panels, but if you look deep and close enough, you start discovering a little bit of animals flamingos here and there, turtles humbug whales, which do their mating season in this part of the world, in the Pacific ocean, the Columbia Pacific ocean in the Gulf of

[00:14:02]So basically that's where our inspiration came from that, for that paint job. It's a whole, much to that Shaquan, right? 

[00:14:09] Craig Dalton: [00:14:09] It's absolutely gorgeous. And I think your description did do it some justice, but I'll put a photo up, please sign for people to see, because as you said, there's just a ton of intricate detail in there.

[00:14:20] Little things you discover when you get closer and closer. Whereas as you said, if you're, you know, 10 feet away and you just see this white bike with green panels, so it's incredibly well 

[00:14:31] Nicolas: [00:14:31] executed. Exactly. That was the idea that was the exact idea. And that was what we felt when we were peddling towards.

[00:14:37] Chuck forest, who were like, wow, this is a huge green in mirrors. See you just see green. You not is between one tree and another. And as soon as you start going in, you're just like, wow, this leave is very different from this one. And there's this animal and this and that. And there's a lot of detail as soon as you get into it.

[00:14:55]So same when you look at the bike wide bike with green panels, and then when you look in, when dive in, there's a lot of detail behind it and that's one of our. One of the best things, that's kind of cycles that we focus on, not on the painting, on every detail. Everything we do in scrub cycles is done.

[00:15:12] In-house so painting is done. In-house the welding, all of the parts everything's done in-house so we have enough time to, to dedicate to every detail of the painting. So that's one of our crazy ones. We have some, of course, a more sober ones with basic colors. Nice finishes maths glossies with a basic lettering from scrub cycles, but that's one of our crazy details.

[00:15:36] Craig Dalton: [00:15:36] I love it. I love it. Chips. Yes. For the listeners who are getting excited about buying one of these bikes. Now, what does that process look like for a north American customer to work with you, to get one of these bikes built? Okay. 

[00:15:47] Nicolas: [00:15:47] So basically we have a worldwide shipping. We have our shop in factory in Ethiopia, but we have of course shop as well.

[00:15:55] From Windstar shipping facility for worldwide orders. So if you happen to live in San Francisco and you want to order a bike, it's just drop us an email. We have actually a 18 week lead time and that's where all the process and the magic starts with an hi email quoting. And then we accommodate according to what you want, depending if you want a full bike or a frame set starts at 2,800 and full build start at 4,000.

[00:16:22] So depends on what you want. You can first select your model, and then we start to talk a little bit about what you need. What are you going to ride if you're living in San Francisco, what kind of grabbing writing are you going to do trails or are you going to do just a hardcore gravel or bike packing or long trips or just aggressive racing?

[00:16:39]The first four to five weeks to decide a little bit of a, about the geometry we present to you that you are meant to, and we both decide what's best for. Then comes the fun part or what I call the fun part, because it's the paint part. So you decide one of our paint, chimps seasoned paint chips.

[00:16:54] For example, it can be a humbler can be achiever, which is an another of the over crazy pain teams or one of our stock, normal pain shapes. You just think a little bit about the color pallette. We're sending some samples, some pictures of samples, then you decide the colors and then the process starts or in.

[00:17:10] For the fabrication in week 16, we get your bike ready. We ship it to Miami. And then from there, it ships to San Francisco 

[00:17:17] Craig Dalton: [00:17:17] and with the customer, if they've ordered a full bike, will it get built up in Miami and then 

[00:17:22] Nicolas: [00:17:22] disappear Miami? Yeah. And some assembled in Miami and then shipped very right to San Francisco.

[00:17:27] Yep. It's just out of the box. Just put the front wheel, put the handlebars and just run. 

[00:17:33] Craig Dalton: [00:17:33] Awesome. Well, as you know, I've had the pleasure of seeing one up close in San Francisco, one of our local riders, Patricia. 

[00:17:40] Nicolas: [00:17:40] She has a very amazing bike. This white with pink, a pinkish or yes, a bike it's. 

[00:17:47] Craig Dalton: [00:17:47] Yeah, it's very stunning.

[00:17:48] So if you want to say hello, she's a listener. So you might 

[00:17:50] Nicolas: [00:17:50] Patricia, we're glad to have you there in San Francisco. We're very happy that you're shredding our bike the proper way. So we're good to know that we have a happy side. Hi peas. It's corrupt cyclist in San Francisco. Yeah, 

[00:18:02] Craig Dalton: [00:18:02] absolutely.

[00:18:02] Well, it goes, thank you so much for the overview. Congratulations on this bike here at the ENVE builder Roundup, it looks phenomenal. And can't wait to see more of them out 

[00:18:10] Nicolas: [00:18:10] there on the trails. Great. Thanks for the invite to the gravel ride podcast. Keep, stay tuned for more upcoming podcasts about this show because it's been pretty amazing what they've got here.

[00:18:20] No doubt. And we're more than happy to help any, if anyone needs something about scrub cycles, we're more than happy to attend your inquiry. Awesome. Great. Thanks again. Okay, man. Thanks.

[00:18:29]Craig Dalton: [00:18:29] That was amazing to get to know Nicolas A. Little bit and a little bit more of the story behind Scarab Cycles. I remember getting introduced to riding in Columbia back in episode 75. When Matt, Katie was talking about some of the bike packing routes that he had developed in that beautiful country. And he just relayed so many great stories about the off-road terrain. 

[00:18:52] The mountains and everything else about the Colombian experience. So to get to sit down with Nicolas here in the United States, when he was over for the ENVE builder, Roundup was a huge pleasure. Definitely, definitely, definitely go out and seek some pictures of what scarab cycles does with their bicycles. 

[00:19:11] The paint jobs are exceptional. The quality of work, just a lot of dedicated craftsmanship under the hood there. Huge. Thanks to envy for continuing to support the podcast. It's been a pleasure interviewing all these builders and seeing the NV components highlighted. Across all these bicycles.  

[00:19:32]If you are interested in supporting the show, sharing it with a friend is very much appreciated. Ratings and reviews are hugely helpful in the podcast game. And obviously visiting buy me a coffee.com/the gravel ride is a direct way to financially support what I'm doing here at the podcast. If you want to get in touch. 

[00:19:53] Please hit me up over at the ridership. If you're not already a member to this free global cycling community. Just visit www.attheridership.com for your free invitation. Until next time. Here's to finding some dirt onto your wheels

This week we come to you with recordings live from the Big Sugar Gravel event in Bentonville, AR. Conversations with Litespeed, Obed, Kuat, BMC, HED, ROTOR, Allied, and more.

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This week we sit down with Kav Helmet CEO and Founder, Whitman Kwok to discuss the companies' innovative 3D printing technology that can produce a custom fitted helmet for every rider.  

Kav Helmets 

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Automated Transcription (please excuse the typos)

Kav Helmets

[00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello and welcome to the gravel ride. Podcast. I'm your host, Craig Dalton. 

[00:00:08] This week on the show, we've got Whitman Kwok the founder and CEO of Kav Helmets. 

[00:00:14] Kav Helmets may yet to be a household name in the cycling industry. But you'll learn. The team has a rich history in the cycling helmet market. They're innovative approach to manufacturing. Using 3d printing technology is a novel approach. And creates a uniquely custom helmet for each rider. I'll let Whitman get into the ins and the outs of the technology but i'm a big fan of the approach as additive technology just opens up a lot of possibilities for where material is laid in the helmet.

[00:00:45] If you're planning on attending this year, sea Otter classic in Monterrey, California, the Kav team will be showing off their 3d printing technology. There they'll even be 3d printing, some key chains, which I think will showcase how the process actually works. If you're not in the area or not attending seawater, be sure to visit the Kav website as they're opening up orders for all. 

[00:01:08] Before we jump into this week show, I need. To thank our sponsor. Today's program is brought to you by Athletic Greens, the health and wellness. Wellness company that makes comprehensive daily nutrition really, really. Simple.

[00:01:19] With so many stressors in life, it's difficult to maintain effective nutritional habits and give our bodies the nutrients it needs to survive. Our busy schedules, poor sleep, massive gravel rides. The environment works dress or simply. Not eating enough of the right foods can leave us deficient and key nutritional. 

[00:01:38] Areas. by athletic greens is a category leading superfood product. That brings comprehensive and convenient daily nutrition to everybody. Keeping up with the research, knowing what to do and taking a bunch of pills and capsules is hard on the stomach and hard to keep up with. To help each of us be at our best. They simply provide a better path to nutrition by giving you the one thing. With all the best things.

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[00:02:36] As many of you know, I've been an athletic greens subscriber for about the last five years. So I truly appreciate their support of the podcast. If you're interested in learning more, just visit athletic greens.com/the gravel ride. The team at athletic greens, we'll throw in a free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your purchase. 

[00:02:59] Again, simply visit athleticgreens.com/thegravelride to take control of your health and give AG1 a try today.

[00:03:08] With that said let's dive right into my conversation with Whitman from Kav Helmets. It's.

[00:03:13] Whitman. Welcome to the show. 

[00:03:16] Whitman Kwok: That is correct. Really looking forward to our discussion. Yeah, me too. 

[00:03:20] Craig Dalton: The manufacturing and additive tech geek in me is really looking forward to this conversation.

[00:03:26] Definitely want to learn how calf helmets came about and what your journey is to creating this bike helmets. And more importantly, what the benefits are for riders in the gravel scene. So let's jump in and let's just in your own words, let us know about cab helmets, how it started and what the vision is.

[00:03:46] Whitman Kwok: Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot of impact, even in that simple question. I think fundamentally the vision was. Oh, providing a concierge service to athletes. I had always, as a competitor cycles in college, tweak my gear, adjusted everything from crank buy-ins to handlebar lengths and all, everything to get the most performance and also just make the bike an extension of myself.

[00:04:10] And I don't think anything has changed in the intervening years. And I think in all the sports that we talked to, whether it's a hockey players or something the gears are really important part of the athletic experience. And so for cab it was obvious to us that the helmet market is really large.

[00:04:26] It is a largely at this point a undifferentiated product where there isn't a dominant player per se. There isn't a apple or a Tesla or a Peloton where people just all grab it gravitate to. And as long as you. For the last 30 years, there's been a lot of tweaking and incremental improvements on injection molded foam helmets.

[00:04:46] And I think what we bring with Kav is this generational leap like Tesla's done with electric cars to a whole new mode of thinking around making a helmet or anything for that matter. That's completely custom to the individual. And the moment you do that there's a whole bunch of benefits that we're able to realize.

[00:05:06] There's the obvious ones around comfort that there's 8 billion sizes that we can provide one for every man, woman, child on the planet. And but there's a huge number of performance. Benefits and protection is always top of mind when you're talking about helmets. And the fact that we can tailor the protective characteristics to.

[00:05:23] And individual and how they ride, how fast they're riding the weight profiles, things like that gives a massive potential improvement in protection over just a standard kind of one or two or three size fits all. I'm fortunate. I have a number of co-founders and colleagues that we found in the company together.

[00:05:42] And I think we all had different experiences, but the same. Echo and voice in the back of our head, that there's just a lot better way to do this. And so I'll do a quick shout out to there. And obviously there's a lot of different areas that we can talk through. But Mike Lowe is our VP of products and he was the VP of events, concepts at Euro bell.

[00:06:03] He also worked closely with Ridell. He did early work with Lance Armstrong's time trial helmet, and worked on all the iconic bike helmets. Since. He's been just fantastic to learn from that whole industry or the homicide. There's a lot of honest, non-obvious quirks and things in the industry.

[00:06:20] And it's a very close knit industry. And so there's a lot of great people that we've been able to meet and work through Mike. And on the technology side, they started migrating. Amazing technologists from Google small company called Google and relatively early employee there, I'm working on search quality and YouTube, one of their, two of their smaller products.

[00:06:39] And and he brings this immense knowledge, not just in software, which ironically is where 78% of our IP is. But also a really great understanding of hardware and kind of physics and mechanical engineering. You really have to. That kind of polymath approach in order to build something like a superior helmet.

[00:06:58] So anyway, it's a long-winded way of talking. It's on the people we work with our early vision and some of the high level benefits and can let you pick and choose your own adventure from there. 

[00:07:08] Craig Dalton: Yeah. So I alluded a little bit to it in the intro, but just so we don't lose this concept right off the jump, because it's easy for the listener to think about this as a traditional helmet, but let's talk about how it's manufactured because you didn't specifically mention that.

[00:07:24] And I think it's one of the most fascinating parts of the process. 

[00:07:28] Whitman Kwok: Yeah, no I do that a lot because I think we always think of it from the N and consumer's perspective. What did they get? And how we get there is really intriguing from an engineering perspective. And I often gloss over it.

[00:07:42] Yeah, we we blended a bunch of material sciences additive manufacturing and software in order to develop the helmets. And I'll speak a little bit more of the additive manufacturing sites since you asked about it, but yes, each of these helmets is 3d printed here in Redwood city, California for the individual.

[00:08:00] And so everything is made to order that has huge implications to everything. Not just manufacturing, but the whole customer. That's alluding to and being kind of concert servers are giving people exactly what they want. And so when an order comes in, we're taking measurements and we dynamically generate actually all the engineering terms, all the CAD files, the dimensions and everything for the helmet.

[00:08:25] And it's not the case that we're just taking three or six or even 12, like shells and then like carving something. We are literally building the helmet from the inside out. So I think, whereas the current concept, the off the shelf is you get two or three sizes and you've got the shell that defines the helmet.

[00:08:46] And then you got to force fit your head into that use foam padding, or several lock things to just sense your head loosely in this kind of bucket idea. And for us you're actually taking the meds. We dynamic create that we define all the offsets that we need to generate and ensure the level of protection than we want for that rider.

[00:09:06] Then we send it through our own what we call printer management software. So we actually have a farm of these 3d printers. So you can imagine it being like analogous to like a data center except of having all these servers slotted in these racks. We've got 3d printers slotted in the. And it basically just creates like all the different parts that you need for your helmet.

[00:09:26] And we have a QA process throughout to measure and make sure what we're printing is exactly meets specs of what we want. And we have to build a lot of that in dynamically because each helmet is custom. And then we do a kind of final finishing process that's done by hand. So you get the best of both worlds of this precision 3d printed.

[00:09:47] But hand-finished and lovingly made here in our shop in Redwood city. 

[00:09:51] Craig Dalton: Yeah. I imagine for some of the listeners, this might be a mind-bending discussion because a lot of people haven't seen 3d printing inaction, no one way to visualize it. And this may or may not be a great way, but since I have a seven-year-old in the house if you imagine sort of building from Legos and you're building from the ground, And you keep building successfully on top of each other.

[00:10:15] It's in my mind how 3d printing works, right? You've got the material that's in this printer and it's being laid out layer by layer. And this is based on the very customized measurements that you've received from the future owner of the helmet. So again, the, in the interest of helping to visualize it's being built from the ground up around your individual, Once you've placed the order.

[00:10:43] Whitman Kwok: That's right. And the analogy I like to use is making a soft cone right. Or going into the yogurt machine. And yeah we basically, it can imagine we're taking our proprietary polymers and it's coming out of this very high-tech yogurt machine. But rather than having, it dumped like eight ounces of yogurt into the cup.

[00:11:00] We're a precision layering, at a fraction of a millimeter at a time. These very intricate engineered what we call energy management system and your helmet. And and so it's a little bit like growing the part on this bed. And we're, as you say, we're creating a slice at a time.

[00:11:17] That's a fraction of a millimeter and kind of building up. And each layer is being laid down by this very sophisticated yogurt machine. And and at the end of the. Yeah, exactly. You have a helmet. That's not on a custom fit, but it's not solid. Like it's not like an injection molded part where you're just dumping a bunch of plastic into a mold or or foam where you're like exploding blowing up the foam into a mold we're actually creating like this really complicated, polygon and hex structure within the helmet which is designed to Trumbull really efficiently to provide good.

[00:11:51] But also takes up the fraction of the weight because most of your helmet actually turns out to be air in this case. 

[00:11:56] Craig Dalton: Yeah. That's an interesting, you hear the phrase fits like a glove, but this is even the next level of that it's like fits like a glove that has been specifically designed for your personal hand.

[00:12:08] Whitman Kwok: That's why it would be like an iron man glove, right? Like it's one thing to have a fabric that you stretched over your head. It's quite an honor to have this in case structure that still has the same sensation of a security right. And being fit like glove, but it's hard right on the outside to protect you.

[00:12:25] And so it is a next level sensation. 

[00:12:28] Craig Dalton: So when I think about, the helmet I have in the garage, I think about, it's got some internal kind of frame and a dial that helps it fit. I understand from your earlier discussion, I can throw that piece out because I don't need that piece anymore because the helmet is built to order to the shape of my personal head.

[00:12:46] I then, if I think about the exterior of the helmet, I often have a hard plastic layer and then not knowing a ton about the interior, but it sounds like we're injecting molding. We're injecting foam. Into a Kavity that kind of creates that if you, if that's accurate and feel free to fill in any details there, but why don't you juxtapose what the outside and the inside of the cab helmet effectively, how that differs and how it changes?

[00:13:15] Whitman Kwok: Yeah. I think the cycling analogy would be it's almost like a monocoque structure, right? If you have a psych, a carbon fiber cycling frame, where for all practical purposes, Like all the tubing and lugs and everything joined in a way where it just behaves as one monolithic well-balanced, machine in terms of and in the traditional process, like you said that in the higher end helmets, you have a, typically like a polycarbonate shell, that's a couple of mils thick and they injection mold, some EPS foam into that have some type of density or multiple densities and The nice thing.

[00:13:49] And so each of those things play a part and they're trying to compensate for different deficiencies in the foam. And so is not it sticks to cement, right? And so you don't want that because it's going to cause bad rotational energies on impact. It's also not very durable and gets eaten up.

[00:14:05] So you have to then create this one millimeter shell to protect it. With all the venting that you put in, it's pretty common now to put like a plastic interior chassis to keep the helmet together on impact. And so I just suppose that with additive manufacturing or 3d printing, because what we're doing is integrating everything into one coherent design, right?

[00:14:26] And so when we're laying down each layer of plastic, we are actually. Integrating the shell with the crumple zone with the chassis, so to speak. And by integrating it just like a well-made carbon fiber frame, we can reduce all the interfaces. And so the helmet's more compact. You don't have air gaps, so to speak.

[00:14:46] It's a lot lighter because we're only putting material where it's needed. It's like the old steel frames, or living on frames where they're double butted or triple butted. We can reinforce it in the right areas. And and it gives us a lot of ability to fine tune each aspect of the helmet.

[00:15:01] So that instead of saying, having a universally, a universal density of foam across the helmet for different impact zones and we learned a lot of this actually from our experience in hockey we can tailor the impact behaviors, of the based on location of the helmet as well, It just gives us just like carbon fiber and forensic gives us a lot.

[00:15:20] The analogy is like the layup, right? The carbon fiber. And what carbon fiber is you use and the residence. We have just a lot more control than just pumping a bunch of foam beets into a mold. 

[00:15:31] Craig Dalton: Yeah. That's interesting. And maybe it goes back to some earlier podcasts I've had in discussion around carbon fiber frames and just talking about, how you.

[00:15:40] Layer something differently where it needs more protection, maybe under the bottom bracket, whereas you don't need to use those same layers elsewhere in the frame where you want to have a little bit more compliance. So I imagine given the team's experience in helmet design, it was really liberating to just freely.

[00:15:57] Think about how, and where do we want to put material, because really the sky's the limit, right? You can optimize around. What's going to be best. For impact protection, both on the, hard impacts like hard and fast as well as slower impacts. I imagine you can, you're free to really design something that performs well across a couple of different factors.

[00:16:21] Whitman Kwok: Yeah, no, that's exactly right. Like we have a lot more control in the general use case. And I think in the future as we've done a little bit of this on hockey and we'll bring it into the bike market. What the individual characteristics actually matter a lot, because at the end of the day for a cycling helmet, we have, twenty-five maybe 30 millimeters of offset we can work with.

[00:16:42] If we make it much larger than that people balk at what they look like, there's certain brands that are known for safety. But they're also known for making your head look like a mushroom, right? We don't want that. We want people to love, frankly, we're in the homeless.

[00:16:53] We want to attract people who, frankly, don't wear helmets into the market. I'm gonna do that. We need a thinner profile. And so the way to actually make a safer helmet is have information about what they're riding, right? A commuter, ride with I commute every day and finish going like 1230 miles an hour.

[00:17:09] That's a very different profile than. A road sort of groundwater going downhill at 30, 40 miles an hour. There, that's a factor of three difference in velocity. And if you think about kinetic energy, the velocity is a square root, right? So that's like a, that's a nine, almost an order of magnitude difference in impactful file.

[00:17:27] So there is gain and exactly what we just talked about, but there's an even bigger gain because we know the athlete and we have that relationship like moving forward. Knowing that their commuter or their downhill racer and their weight, their mass makes a big difference to a kid who weighs a hundred pounds.

[00:17:44] It's just going to be way different than someone who's 220. And again, you have a two X factor there that isn't something, that's a comedy for an issue where it's one size fits. All right. 

[00:17:55] Craig Dalton: Now the business has been selling helmets for over a year and a half. Primarily in hockey and most recently in bike, do you want to talk about why hockey was the entry point and maybe some of the things you've learned across the customers you've been serving in that space?

[00:18:11] Whitman Kwok: Yeah, no, absolutely. So there are a couple of factors that came into play. So one was frankly, what w what could get it to market the quickest. We just wanted to provide value to people as quickly as possible. The second, where was where's the biggest need? And between those two, and there was a little bit of a personal reason as well.

[00:18:29] But the first two were clearly the overriding. From a technical perspective, it turns out making a hockey helmet is just easier than making a bike helmet. One of the characteristic reasons just wait is not quite as big of a factor in the hockey. And so we wanted to basically use the hockey market as our Tesla Roadster, right?

[00:18:48] Knowing that it's a limited market, it's smaller, but people are willing to pay for the equipment. They're willing to pay the premium. And and we can launch quicker. The second piece of why they pay a premium is that as you can imagine, the concussion rate per activity hour in hockey is almost parallel or equal to.

[00:19:03] And meeting quite high, whereas in cycling, it's somewhat incidental, right? If you get in a crash and get an, a concussion in hockey, 3, 5, 10 times a game, you're taking impacts to the head and getting pinned against the board and falling on the ice. And so we thought that the market would benefit significantly from our protective technologies in that space.

[00:19:25] And. The third reason, which just made me very cognizant of it was my son plays hockey. And when we started the company, his team had six concussions on it. And they were only 12 years old at the time. And there was just an outcry, I think with the parents and all the clubs that I talked to did not feel like there was enough being done.

[00:19:42] And the. Equipment manufacturers and hockey are generally about two to three generations on behind any of the other helmet markets as well. So the need was greater. The products were even further inferior and and we thought we could help people sooner in that market than any other market.

[00:20:01] Craig Dalton: You talked about how as a company and the way you're producing the helmets, that you can evolve with the market and you're understanding. Yeah. Within the hockey market, since you've been there the longest, are you doing things differently for a child's size helmet versus the NHL players that you work with?

[00:20:20] Whitman Kwok: Yeah yes. Besides the fit we've actually made modifications to, I should, I would draw the analogy that it's a case that a surprisingly large number of the benefits for either of those extremes helps. And so they now Joel users in the late nineties, early two thousands car manufacturers are realizing like women had difficulty like getting their groceries in the trunk.

[00:20:40] And because the trunk actually came all the way up to the top of the back and they now if you open the trunk of a car, it, the trunk dips down past the lights right down to the bumper. There's this carve-out. And so you don't have to lift your groceries, like over a wall, so to speak, you can just slide it in.

[00:20:53] Watching. Buy groceries at the time was like a motivating factor for that. But we found that obviously that benefited everyone. Like I don't, I'm lazy. I don't want to list the groceries I don't have to. And so I'll give a kind of example that, which is kids wears glasses, a lot.

[00:21:06] And so we ended up putting in little cutouts for people wear glasses so that it actually just slides in. So a hockey helmet actually comes down further than a. And traditionally, there are pads that go up against your temple. And so you can imagine if you wear glasses, you're literally shoving these glasses into these temples and that the pads are forcing your, the sidearms or your glasses into your temples for an hour and a half while you play hockey really uncomfortable situation.

[00:21:35] And we did that and that ended up bending, benefiting a bunch of adults rests and things that. It turns out like the ice rinks are really dry. So like wearing contacts, it's not always actually comfortable. So say, and vice versa, like there's been a bunch of benefits because obviously the professional levels that impact are taking it's just an extreme example and it really drives some of the protective technologies.

[00:21:58] And even if they No, the squirts and mites don't necessarily have the same level of impact there. There's still a deeper understanding. I think of the types of checking that goes on that informed our products for the kids. 

[00:22:11] Craig Dalton: Gotcha. Obviously, given your pedigree as a cyclist and your co founders coming to the bike market was something that you were eager to do.

[00:22:19] Can you talk about the introduction of the first bike helmet and what the goals were there and how for the list of. They should think about whether a cab helmet is right for them. 

[00:22:32] Whitman Kwok: Yeah. It's interesting because the engineering side of me and product matter one, be very specific about the goals.

[00:22:38] Oh, we want to hit this weight target and this usability. But what we ended up doing is taking a step back and asking the conceptually what do we want to, what's our mission, right? A reminder, what's our mission of the company on this build the best protective gear on. And as a very important corollary that the best gear is no use of no one wants to wear it.

[00:22:54] So it's got adjust look and feel fantastic. And when we're doing these new technologies, I think it was important for us to blue sky it and not bound herself by certain things. So our goal is just make the best helmet possible. And this. An all road category, right? So with a focus really on gravel and road cyclist, but with the knowledge of knowing that, a lot of cross-country mountain bikers use road helmets, and a lot of commuters would ultimately use it.

[00:23:24] But if we looking at personas and interviewing people, we focus on the road and gravel side of things. And then from there we really just built around it. And I think honestly I'm glad we've done it that way, because we found a lot of surprising things that I think if we constrain ourselves early on, we would not have done.

[00:23:39] One of them being, for example our interior fit pad system is just radically different from a traditional fabric fit pack. And it would not have come if we said yeah, we just want sweat management, whatever way moisture at this level or thermal capabilities.

[00:23:56] But anyway, I happy to go into the details of that, but what we ended up coming out with, I think is we've focused on fit and the protective qualities, what we ended up with was the ability to make something that as least as dynamic as other helmets out there is significantly cooler. Riding.

[00:24:15] And has all the protective qualities. And again, it has some of these comfort features built in on the inside. That, again, we didn't necessarily envision, but the advantage of having a new prototype every week, that we're all riding is you tend to iterate quite quickly through, and I think we're on version 32 right now.

[00:24:30] And 33 is like on the printing press. It's going quick. 

[00:24:33] Craig Dalton: Yeah, I think that's one of those really cool things about doing both additive manufacturing and domestic manufacturing is that you can continue tweaking the product to optimize it based on consumer feedback which is really powerful. 

[00:24:50] Whitman Kwok: Yeah.

[00:24:50] Know that's right. We we have the benefit now that we're far enough along and we're starting to include like a larger and larger swath of people into the kind of the test. And so we had our Kickstarter about a month ago and we had a 20 plus like early adopters sign up through that.

[00:25:05] And we were shipping out shipping helmets out to them and looking forward to get the next wave of feedback and and just improving. And in real time, before we ship out our production ones at the end of the year, 

[00:25:16] Craig Dalton: yes. At the process of ordering is a little bit different than, traditionally you might use.

[00:25:21] No your size, small, medium, or large, and put an order in, or go to your local bicycle retailer for the cab helmets. You're sending out a kind of measurement fit kit and actually working at a concierge level with the purchaser, right? 

[00:25:38] Whitman Kwok: Yeah, that's right. We the fit process has been really interesting for us.

[00:25:42] I think we're on our third version of the process. Fundamentally, I'm you sign up, we send you this fit kit and it's a caliper and a tape measure. And that allows us we take six points off of your head. And with those six points, we actually map it to a database of 3000 head scans that we've accumulated and basically a little bit of like machine learning type of thing.

[00:26:07] Where we're then extrapolating footnote 16. Other aspects of your head in terms of, the curvature and more details and maybe those six points would initially seem to provide. And we then send out basically we call it like a fit cap and just fun looking, little cap that we 3d print.

[00:26:24] And you can just literally stick it on and wear around the house and slept getting a fine suit, where you get your initial measurement, you put on that. And then you use just some minor tweaks oh, you know what the arm hole just a little bit bigger. Or for me personally, like I like it a little more snug, around the waist.

[00:26:39] And so that, that fit cap gives us some of the subjective feedback, that, that individuals tend to have in terms of how they liked their helmets and fit. And then from there, yeah we generate the the helmet for them and send it to them and ride straight their doorstep conveniently.

[00:26:52] And and then they can enjoy it. And. We've actually found quite a few hockey players. I'm surprisingly, I've gotten multiple helmets because they liked it so much. And it's not a common thing actually in hockey to do that. But they've gotten like different colors and versions of the helmet.

[00:27:06] Craig Dalton: Interesting. Interesting. And then this sort of manufacturing geek in me asked to ask, so the, each helmet presumably comes out of one machine is built in one single process. 

[00:27:19] Whitman Kwok: So we actually do you want to in parallel, so we break up the helmet into sub segments and that allows us to print individual pieces.

[00:27:27] It also turns out it gives us some additional engineering design flexibility that you don't get when you print them all as a monolithic structure. And then we basically bond them together. Again, carbon fiber resident type of analogy, holds true here that there's a little bit of. Attachment mechanism and then we adhere everything together.

[00:27:44] And the effectively the joints end up being, stronger than the sub-components and and then, yeah, and then we attach on the straps and do some final QA checks and literally sign off on the box and and then send it on its way. 

[00:27:57] Craig Dalton: Nice. One of the sort of visual elements that you'll see for the listener when they go over to the website, which I can include in the show notes is there's a.

[00:28:06] Honeycomb look across the sort of front and middle of the helmet. Is there a sort of design rationale behind the honeycomb? 

[00:28:16] Whitman Kwok: Yeah, it is. It's it's an engineer circles. It's w it's known as one of the most efficient energy absorbing structures. It crumbles really well. Which is what you want, obviously in something like that.

[00:28:28] And even better than foam because in foam, what you tend to have is what's called a densification phase where after the foam, if you've got, let's just say 20 millimeters of foam or 20 millimeters from once you start getting past about a third if you've ever been in an accident, looked at your home and you'll see this it'll crack.

[00:28:46] And the foam doesn't compress any further. And so you can think of it like suspension on your mountain bike or your gravel bike. If you have suspension on it it's all about the travel, right? At the end of the day, to absorb the impact you want the most travel without bottoming out. So when you hit a bump, you want to utilize whatever the 30, 45 millimeters of travel that you got. And do you use the full 45 millimeters? You will have had the best ride that you could possibly have had, for that circumstance if you bought them out, obviously not good. Particularly we're talking about your head and if you only do 10 minutes, 10 millimeters of that trial, Then you're not fully utilizing your equipment.

[00:29:19] And so foam has that issue where once it densifies at some point it doesn't compress any further. And so you tend to only get a fraction of that travel. The nice thing about the hacks is that you get nearly the full travel. So the full offset of the helmet can be used to compress it and protect you.

[00:29:39] It also turns out to be quite. And has this other really important ancillary benefit, which is you may not necessarily always be able to see it when someone's riding, but the honeycomb structure extends into, on the interior as well, which means you have an open face structure on your head. And so he can dissipate really easily away from your head as opposed to foam, which is obviously known for beer coolers and other things that has insulating properties, that trap heat.

[00:30:05] So we actually had early versus the helmet that didn't even have venting on it. And the helmet was actually quite cool. I wouldn't say it's the coolest, but it was comparable to the other eight helmets. I have sitting in my shed that I used for testing purposes. And then in the moment we opened it up and added the actual venting, like it's a game changer total game.

[00:30:25] And particularly these last like week or two where we've had some hundred, a hundred degree days, you really feel. 

[00:30:31] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. The the sort of follower of me on Instagram, might've seen me Dawn, one of these helmets a few months back when we were able to meet face to face. It is really, you can definitely feel the weight difference.

[00:30:46] It's marginal, but it's absolutely there and our conversation around crumple zones and that idea of. Protection travel in a helmet is super fascinating via the honeycomb design for those listeners and may fall in this camp. What's the guidance by the industry in terms of how frequently you should replace a helmet?

[00:31:09] Whitman Kwok: You know what I do think that varies. The most common I hear is somewhere in the range of three to five years. I think the challenge though, is it's like how often you need to change your bike. It varies so much by your circumstances, meaning if you're like me and somewhat klutzy and you're pulling your bike out and you're dropping your helmet and the process, or my helmet, I don't know how many times my helmet has fallen off my handlebars.

[00:31:31] Every time it's fallen, like you could have, imagine that impact just compresses the foam just a little bit, right in that one area. And honestly, one or two times it isn't going to be the be all end, all. For me, it's a little unsettling to not know, it's not like my toothbrush that has a wear indicator.

[00:31:47] It says, okay. Time to change those bristles. And so the nice thing with the 3d printing, the polymers that we're using, the design that helmet is that there's a step function aspect of it. Like we've designed it so that if you're dropping it casually, it doesn't activate any of that travel.

[00:32:02] Like it, it stays rigid. And it's going to Maintain that performance indefinitely. And so you don't really have to worry about it. We offer a five-year warranty on our helmets and and because we're confident around that which I think is an industry leading whatever warranty.

[00:32:20] So I think, again, I think that the. Wisdom is three to five years, but I think it varies really significantly and it, and I think it's tough to provide 

[00:32:29] Craig Dalton: that, that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. I think, there's a lot of us maybe who have been fortunate to, to not have crashed and you don't see the.

[00:32:38] Obvious bits of damage to your helmet, but I'm definitely one of those who, whenever I have a conversation about how much and how much the technology, I think to myself, gosh, almost everything in my garage is a PR is probably a pretty long in the tooth in terms of when I should be considering making a replacement.

[00:32:58] Whitman Kwok: Yeah, that's right. It's it's one of those pieces of equipment that's easy to ignore, right? Cause it's not like your bike bond brackets squeaking. Your rim brakes rubbing. It's not going to do that and tell you right. That it needs maintenance or help. Yet obviously it protects the most important part of your body.

[00:33:13] And so it is pretty critical to have at least inspect it and have some regular interval that you swap it out. 

[00:33:20] Craig Dalton: Yeah, absolutely. It's a good reminder to everybody and women. I really appreciate you joining us on the podcast and talking us through this technology. I think the. The tech geek in all of us can really appreciate from listening to you how different the 3d printing technology enables you to think as a helmet manufacturer.

[00:33:41] And it's very comforting to know that you've got smart people around you, including yourself and veterans of the industry who have just been thinking about this helmet from the ground. And how to make the best possible experience for consumers. So I know you I'll send people over to the website where they can find more information about the helmet.

[00:34:02] Are these available for new orders at this point? 

[00:34:05] Whitman Kwok: We will be taking new orders in about two or three weeks. I'm not sure when this is airing. We wanted to make sure that all the early backers on our Kickstarter were well taken care of. And so we've, we're in a good shape there. And then we'll begin opening up borders.

[00:34:20] We'll be at the Seattle classic. So for anyone who's there it'd be great drop by our booth. Look out for us. You can see that the helmets firsthand and we'll be definitely taking orders at that point. 

[00:34:31] Craig Dalton: Amazing. Yeah. I've seen that. I've seen a couple of people in my Instagram feed who were clearly some of your earliest supporters.

[00:34:37] Who've gotten their helmets in already. So that's exciting to see. So once again, Whitman, thanks a ton for this overview. I really appreciated it. And I hope everybody listening got a lot out of this conversation. 

[00:34:51] Whitman Kwok: Yeah. Thanks. Thanks Dan and Craig, I'm always happy to talk helmets or anything related to the cycling.

[00:34:56] So thanks for having me. 

[00:34:58] Craig Dalton: So that's going to do it for this week's edition of the gravel ride podcast. Thank you very much to Whitman and the cab helmets team for joining us and talking all about 3d printing helmets. I think it was a fascinating discussion. Definitely check out their website. They're over at calves, sports.com to see a little bit of behind the scenes about the process. 

[00:35:18] The guarantees. Auntie's around the helmet and just what a custom fitted helmet could do for. You're cycling enjoyment. As always, if you're interested in giving us feedback and encourage you to join us over at the ridership. Our ship, just visit www.theridership.com. 

[00:35:35] That is our free global cycling community for gravel and adventure, cyclists, to talk about the products and experiences and trails and events. We all love. If you're interested in supporting the podcast, ratings and reviews are hugely helpful in the podcast game, our read everything that. You put out there and appreciate it very much. 

[00:35:57] If you're able to financially support the show, simply visit buy me a coffee.com/the gravel ride. I've put a number of options out there. From one-time support as well as a monthly subscription that simply. Helps underwrite this broadcast.

[00:36:13] So that's going to do it for us. Until next time here's to finding some dirt under To your wheels

This week we sit down with Matt Conte, Co-Founder of Outbound Lighting. Matt discusses the origin story of the business and details the benefits of Outbound’s approach to lighting (hint: it has its origins in the automotive world).

Outbound Lighting

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Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos:

Outbound Lighting

[00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport

I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist.

This week on the show, we welcome Matt Conti, one of the founders of outbound lighting. You may remember outbound from a number of years ago when they originally launched the company via Kickstarter project. I, for one, pay a lot of attention to Kickstarter cycling projects. For some reason, I'm a sucker for them, and I was sort of curious, you know, with so many industry stalwarts in the lighting business, how this company was gonna make a mark.

Well, they successfully funded the campaign and have successfully built a. Manufacturing in the United States, which is absolutely amazing. But what was equally amazing was Matt's description of the technology that he applied to the bicycle lighting industry. He came from automotive lighting and had a lot of, advanced engineering skills specific to how to light the world in front of you at night.

And it was fascinating to just hear his take on the existing bicycle light in. Further how he evolved the very specific lighting options that outbound uses and offers customers. Today I've been using their helmet mounted light as well as their bar mounted light and definitely appreciate a number of things about the design that Matt will get into you for you during this episode.

So I hope you enjoy it. And just a quick note, I apologize. A little bit of sporadic release of episodes these days. I've been traveling and had a ton on my plate, and it's been a real struggle to get to the editing and everything else involved in the podcast, so I appreciate your patience. There certainly will be another couple weeks towards the end of the year where I take off just to decompress, but look forward to getting many, many more great episodes out the door to you in the coming year.

With that said, let's jump right into my conversation with Matt. Matt, welcome to the show.

[00:02:16] Matt Conte: Hey, glad pleasure to be here. I'm

[00:02:19] Craig Dalton: excited to dig in and learn a little bit more about outbound lighting. Why don't we start by just letting the listeners know where you are in the world, and then let's talk about what led to you starting outbound light lighting in the first place.

[00:02:32] Matt Conte: Yeah, so we are located in just north of Chicago, Illinois in Skokie, just kind of a middle suburb and stuff. And then we got Tom, my co-owner. He's out in Olympia, Washington. Kind of the Mecca Mountain biking out there for him. Couldn't convince him to move to the city, unfortunately, but yeah, so we are, we got our headquarters here.

It's where we design, assemble, ship, every bike light that we make. And yeah, I guess from like far as what got us to start this company like you sort of mentions that kind of interestingly, like I'm not that kind of guy who. Hardcore biker who saw an opportunity to make something. I came from the automotive lighting ex world.

Used to design l e d headlights, off road lights stuff like that, like Baja trucks and things like that. And I was really into rally car racing where you're on gravel roads, slinging cars, and a hundred miles an hour at night through the woods to blast. But at the time I was kind of looking to how.

Basically branch out and take my experience from developing lighting products to something else. I just kind of wanted to do my own thing. And so I looked at experimental aircraft. I looked at exterior architectural lighting and all that kind of stuff. And wasn't until a friend of mine posted on Facebook basically a selfie of him writing at night Asia being like, Oh yeah, I heard night riding.

And I was like, Huh, that's. You got a couple headlights on your bike, like what is that? Like, what are you using? And oh, I got the night rider, 1800 pros, the best light out there, all that kind of stuff. And I looked it up and it was like 350 bucks and I was like, it's a flashlight. And talked to him for a bit, kind of like, Hey, can I come over and check this thing out?

Kind of seems like this is possibly an opportunity to take what we, what I've done in the automotive space and bring it to bikes. And so yeah, he took me out on a ride and I enjoyed it. Had a lot of fun and kind of was like, Yeah, I could definitely do way better than this. And from there I designed a prototype gave it to him.

He liked it, loved it. Ran a Kickstarter campaign, was able to wait enough money to pay for the initial tool in the product, and bought a bing, bought a boom. Five years later. Here we are and we've now got three different products. We've gone through a couple iterations of stuff and yeah, now the goal is basically just continue to build the best bike lights that we can using all of the experience that I used to have from the automotive sector.

Interesting.

[00:04:50] Craig Dalton: So that was, that goes back to, was it 2017 for that original Kickstarter

[00:04:54] Matt Conte: project? Yeah, just about I think I was starting to kick the idea around like 2016 or so. And then, They drew out some sketches, made some models pro, pretty printed a bunch of stuff, and I was doing this all like after hours from my normal job.

Kind of trying to keep those two things completely separate. And yeah, so it was about a six months, eight months of just prototyping, validating, doing a bunch of stuff until it was like, All right, we've got something that looks production enough. Let's make a Kickstarter campaign and let's see what happens.

I kind of use that as sort of that litmus test of either all my friends and family are wrong and it's not really a great product, or we do have something that other people who are outside of our little in sphere of influence actually find useful and want to have and all that kind of stuff. So that was kind of my testing ground just to see if this is what people wanted and turns out enough people wanted it that we were able to get that started and into production and all that kind of.

That's

[00:05:53] Craig Dalton: such an interesting kind of validating ground for new products Kickstarter. It's, it's got both incredible advantages, but also risks in terms of like getting, getting your fundraising across the finish line, et cetera.

[00:06:07] Matt Conte: Yeah, it's certainly not as good as it used to be. Like I feel like Kickstarter usefulness, we were on the tail end of it.

Not as ma a lot of people have been burned in the past by products that just never came to market, all that kind of stuff, and. It was kind of a challenge to like advertise and get the word out that this is what we're doing. And it's even harder nowadays. I think Kickstart has sort of pivoted their entire model away from my products to artists and creators and games and all that kind of stuff.

So yeah, it's certainly not as, not as good as it used to be but it's definitely one of the best spots to kind of figure. Is this what people want? Yeah. And it's sort of a low cost, low risk kind of method before you go and dump two 50, $60,000 worth of tooling just to find out that you don't have a market, which I'm sure some people have done that, unfortunately, but that's.

The way it goes.

[00:06:58] Craig Dalton: I do remember when the product came to market on Kickstarter, simply because I sort of follow Kickstarter and certainly bike projects on Kickstarter with a lot of interest. And it had me thinking about the sort of decades of bike lights that I have experienced or have in the garage dating back to when you used to have the battery in your water bottle cage.

Attached by a wire to your headlight and if you could get 250 lumens out of that setup, it was sort of miraculous. Yeah. And then I remember the sort of escalation of lumens being the sort of main driver of innovation. Like the, the form factors weren't changing too much. I just kept seeing this escalation of lighting power so much so that you know, when you got up to even north of 500, 600 lumen.

You were getting outshined from behind. If the person behind you had a brighter light than you, it created this weird shadow, and it was worse than having your own light on the bike because they were so powerful behind you. And I think we'll get into this a little bit, but they were very sort of flashlight like and very directional in their beams.

So it's, it's interesting and I wanna get into it for sure, your form factor and how that evolved. But let's, let's start what, you mentioned that you had a cyclic fr cycling front. You kind of showed you his lights that were state of the art at that moment in time. What did you see in that light that, given your experience in the automotive industry, you felt was, you know, dramatic shortcoming and the thing you could improve upon very easily?

[00:08:32] Matt Conte: Yeah, definitely. So the first thing that. I kind of noticed just because a lot of the bike lights were kind of similar to sort of like the cheap off-road lights that I'd see in the automotive side where it was basically just an l e d sitting inside of a reflect bowl. It's kind of your most common, typical.

Standard flashlight type of optic. And the problem with that is that gives you one pattern. It's just gonna be a straight up circle. You're gonna have a tight hotpot from where all of the light was bouncing off through a reflector size and concentrating on the middle. And then you're gonna have like a secondary ring of all the spill light coming straight from the l e d.

So you end up. A very concentrated hotspot, an outer sort of just dimmer ring, and then a hard, sharp edge around the outside. And that's sort of what creates that sort of tunnel vision effect, like when you're riding quickly with behind one of those kind of lights. Basically we have not done that in the automotive sector since the sixties.

We've all been shaped light with lots of, I mean, if you look at any headlight on a car anywhere the ones that are super basic with just a reflective, even like the old hoens, they're all segment reflectors and they're all doing very little things to redirect the light into certain. Because the automotive lighting inject is so heavily regulated.

You have lighting targets that you have to hit, you have to get a certain amount of light at zero degrees, zero left and right, and zero degrees up and down. Like it has to be a hundred. I'm thinking off the top of my head, like 200 Ls or something like that, but then off to the left by 15 degrees up, five degrees down, you have to have a certain amount of Candela requirements to legally sell a vehicle.

So the D o T and all that kind of stuff have set up basically all these lighting standards for high beam, low beam turn signals, brake lights, every kind of lighting you can think of. It's been standardized for targets, but in the bike lighting world, Especially offroad kind of step, especially in the US It's kind of very interesting how Europe and US are completely segmented.

We can get into that later, but in the US there's absolutely no targets. There's no requirements. So the goal there was always just build a brighter looking light. Not always necessarily make it more useful. And I kind of feel like that segment was always so small and niche. Nobody was taking the advanced software packages that we use in the automotive side to bikes because I have personally designed reflectors and stuff for clients and things like that, and it gets expensive really quick.

The software package that we use costs 25 to $30,000 a year just to license because it's such a niche automotive specific lighting package. There's only maybe 50 companies in the world that are using it. But it is what lets us redirect and shape light the way it is. And so when I rode with those older night Rider lights, and I, I don't want to call 'em out specifically cuz pretty much every brand is almost the same.

That kind of what I noticed that these were all just flashlights. They were the same beam patterns that you would expect. From a flashlight that you're gonna use around your house, walking down the woods and all that kind of stuff. And I saw that opportunity to basically be like, All right, let me sit here as a driver.

Not so much a writer, but like, how do I, how would I approach this problem if I was doing this from an automotive perspective? I could, Okay, I'm gonna be my eyesight eyelines here. My lights mounted two and a half feet below me. Six inches in front. Okay. I know that I want to be able to see with a reaction time of 10 seconds while riding at 35 miles an hour, the fastest, like super fast downhill.

I know that I need I know that in order to recognize an object, you need three to five looks of light. Okay? If I know I'm doing 35 miles an hour. And I want 10 seconds, I can figure out that distance that I need to have something illuminated with three to five lus and then backtrack that to figure out how much cannella that I need.

And that sets my minimum target in the center. And then basically I can then shape the beam pattern so that we hit that minimum target so it feels bright enough. And then we take all the other lumens that we have and kind of spread that around so that we build essentially a wall of light. Which is exactly how we do it in the automotive sector.

A lot of fine tuning and figuring out what targets we wanna hit at what beam angles. All right, let's go into our software programs. Let's spend a couple weeks iterating, optimizing, simulating all these different types of beam patterns. Tweaking, reflect your facets individually until we get what we feel is inappropriate beam powdering for that Pacific type of light.

Then we can prototype it. Test. Make changes. It's a very iterative process there. But yeah, it was pretty much that first night ride that I had was very eye-opening as far as, yeah, like if this is the best we can do so much better. And there's so much more opportunity to develop good lighting, utilizing the automotive sector and bring it to bikes rather than being just another bike and enthusiast who's putting together a really bright l e.

Into an off the shelf reflector and calling it a bike light kind of thing. So, that's kind of how I see like our paths to arriving here being a little bit different than other companies especially in the logging space. But it does seem like a lot of biking companies start from bike and enthusiast, which obviously that makes sense.

And so that's kind of how we arrived to that point and got. Yeah, it's super

[00:14:12] Craig Dalton: interesting taking it with a kind of first principal's fresh eyes look and taking what you learned in the automotive industry. You know, one of the, the sort of hallmarks of the outbound lighting visual is it's sort of wider.

You know, you think of a lot of these lights and they're, you know, essentially akin to a flashlight or circular or just square light right in the center kicking out a lot of lumens. As you just described, the outbound lighting profile is quite a bit wider. What do you do with that extra space? You mentioned how you sort of can really fine tune where you want the, the extra lumens to go to, et cetera.

What are you doing across that big visual front plate of lights?

[00:14:51] Matt Conte: Yeah, so that's also kind of playing into the whole like physiological way that our eyes respond to light. Our eyes prefer very. Evenly lit spaces as you can kind of imagine, like when you're riding in, driving in a tunnel and you come outta the tunnel and you get that like big flash of brightness, how it takes a little bit for your eyes to like auto expose.

I guess like from a camera perspective. The same thing happens when you're riding a night. If you're riding behind a light that's like very bright, the center and has harsh edges, when that light is moving around, like your eyes are constantly trying to balance. This bright object moving around in front of you versus when you have a very wide even beam pattern, it feels a lot more like daylight.

And that's kind of like why we feel so comfortable right around in the day because everything is evenly lit from, not only from like where you're trying to look, but also all the ground in front of you from like where you're looking all the way out to the front of your tire. And so that is definitely like one of the biggest challenges.

And as far as like developing an optic. Is to set up the, the beam, and again, the, the surfaces on these things have to be so precise. The tooling for them is very expensive, but it's part of like, why it's so good. Basically what we're doing after we set that target hotspot that we want to hit, then like you said, we're taking all that extra lumens and stuff.

And then first of all, I'm trying to like make the lighting from the, where you're looking all the way to the front of your. As evenly as even as possible on the ground. So I'm able to basically set up like a sensor plane in my software for brightness and then set up like a driver perspective, or in this case a writer perspective.

But since we use an automotive software, we're always using driver. So I set that up and then basically I'm able to like do cross sectional curves and make sure that we don't have any like weird ripples or really. Peaks which you can kind of see if you study a lot of different beam pattern all over the spectrum from like the cheapest lights to the most expensive lights.

You'll see, like there's blotchy areas where lights just gets a little bit more concentrated. You might not notice it, but isn't until someone like me points it out kind of thing. But it's a really, really tough job to try and do that. And that's sort of like where I find the value in the software that we.

To be so valuable because yeah, once we set like the ground plane to be evenly lit from the front of your tire all the way out you're looking, then that's where I try to expand the width and then more importantly, try to taper the brightness so that it's, you get all this peripheral spill light to decide that never shows up in pictures, never shows up in video because it's just so.

That camera sensors can't really pick it up unless you start pull a Photoshop and brightening stuff and all that kind of stuff. But our eyes are incredibly sensitive optical in instruments, so our eyes start to pick this stuff up and then from the very outside corners, I very progressively try to ramp up that brightness to the center so it feels very smooth and progressive.

And that's sort of one of those things. . That's why like when you shine one of our lights, like against the garage wall or the back wall, it's not gonna seem as bright compared to some other lights because we spread it out so much. But it is one of those things like once you're on a trail, on a road pitch dark, and you turn on our step and you give your eyes a few minutes to adjust, and it's one of those things that people just never wanna go back to another type of light.

And it really is all those little. Details and days of simulating and tweaking and simulating and tweaking, and simulating, tweaking over and over and over that it really pays off. And I'm pretty sure that, I mean, I notice kind of like why our lives have been so well received. It's a, yeah, it's, it's something that no one else has really done before.

Because it is a very expensive it of process that if you try to hire that out to somebody, . Like you have to give them the targets. You have to say, I wanted to be this bright, I've got this much light I can do, make it work and that, and I'll give you 10 or $15,000. And that guy's gonna do two days, three days worth of work and be like, Oh, here you go.

Versus like us, we're obsessive about it. I've been up till two or three in the morning just simulating, tweaking. Cuz every time I simulate I'm like, All right, I'm gonna let this simulate. I'm gonna go to bed and be. Wait five minutes, like, Oh, but I'm so close. Let me tweak this again. And Right another five minutes, ah, if I just move this another degree to the left, it'll be all right.

And then boom, three o'clock in the morning. And my wife's wondering why I'm not in bed yet. It's, it's that kind of obsession with lighting is like, it's why I enjoy what we do. I love what we're doing, making lights and all that kind of stuff. And I think that really shows in the products. And customer.

Yeah,

[00:19:39] Craig Dalton: there's a lot of, there's a lot of detail we can get into on the lights. So after the Kickstarter project goes off, you've, you've amassed a little bit of capital to presumably pay for some tooling and get some of the basic products off the ground. What was your vision for how you would, you would assemble the product?

Where are the components coming from and did that change from the original Kickstarter first version to, to what you guys are doing now?

[00:20:02] Matt Conte: Yeah, so. At first, like the previous company I was at before, we did a lot of stuff overseas. Just cause like the tooling's cheap, all that kind of stuff. And so initially, like after we ran the Kickstarter, we raised like 30 grand.

I still needed like another 40, so I ended up getting a home equity line of credit against our house at the time. So I was literally betting the house on this working. Thankfully it did but. It was one of those things where I wanted to work with domestic tooling companies and all that kind of stuff.

But the problem is, is that you need a lot of scale. So these guys usually don't even wanna like start talking to you until you're doing like 5,000 units, 10,000 units. At the time I needed 500. I just needed enough to get going. So in order to get the company off the ground, we had to go overseas as far as like getting the tooling going because they'll do the tooling cheap and they'll do it with low minimum quantities, cuz all they really care about is the tooling.

While domestic suppliers are more for the recurring orders that come in every day or every quarter or whatever. And so we were able to get stuff started and make the initial shipments and all that kind of stuff. And the tooling, all the tooling was done overseas. The PCBs the actual printed circuit boards and the assembly was done still stateside.

At the time I was using a company out in Kansas City. We've always kept the electronics state side because that's, that's the part of developing these products. Needs a lot of hands on experience and needs a lot of like quick turn reaction parts will be out of stock and alright, quickly we gotta find another resistor that can drop into this and all that kind of stuff.

And that's where you need that good kind of communication lanes which don't always get going overseas, but when it comes to like a rubber strap or just a guy cast piece, like yeah, you can go overseas and do that kind of stuff. My goal was always to try and build the company up to the scale that we could do more domestic manufacturing.

And we finally have kind of reached that point where we're building 10,000 EVAs this year, well, I think we did about eight or 10,000 this year. And once you get to about six to eight to 10,000 units per year, that's when domestic manufacturing makes a lot of sense. Not just from, but the tooling's gonna be more expensive.

The lead time's a little bit longer, but the per unit cost is gonna be a little bit cheaper. And more importantly, you're gonna save a ton on shipping shipping, tariffs, all that kind of stuff. And so, as well as just being able to quickly react to different changes and things like that. So we now have a fantastic supplier out in Michigan.

They, they do automotive components as their bread and butter, but they also like working with small manufacturers like ourself and. , we're able to now utilize a lot more advanced materials. We're using thermally conductive plastics and everything, which I think is an industry first. We're able to get it.

It's one of those things, like the quality just gets so much better as you're able to bring things domestically, but you can't do that until you get the scale. And so it's kind of like a chicken before the egg thing where either you're gonna have a ton of money and you can do it right away and just make a big risk, which I couldn't do because we didn't have investors.

We didn't have anything. It. Me betting the house against some tooling that I hope works in an industry that I don't have a ton of experience in. But now we've gotten to that point where every single new product that we develop is almost a hun a hundred percent stateside developed. We do all the assembly and manufacturing in-house.

I've invested a lot into automation, robotics stuff like that. Mostly because I love playing with them. I'm an engineer and I love programming them and trying to figure out how to make things better, faster, quicker. Not just from lights, but also how we can build things better. So we're able to build 30,000 lights a year, which is one production guy overseeing three or four different robotics systems.

Wow. That autonomously dispense grease. They autonomously sold. I've got an order right now for a cobot arm, so we're gonna have like an arm that's picking up pieces, snapping 'em together, checking the torque on all the screws, checking the force to snap those pieces together. Basically, you can turn it on on an optical sensor, make sure that the light output is exactly what it needs to be.

If it's not great, kick it off to the side. Someone else will look at it. But for the most part, trying to do everything I can. Basically make this business run as smoothly as possible so that we can just continue to focus on building better products and as well as like the customer service and all that kind of stuff.

Cause yeah, for me it's one of those things that as if you build a great product first, everything else becomes easy. If you build a product that just works every time, you don't need a huge customer service department that's handling warranties and all this kind of stuff. Build a product that's just simple to operate.

You don't need complex instruction manuals telling you how to turn on the light. Like it's just turns on, it goes and all that kind of stuff. So to me it's kind of one of those things like we'll always spend the extra couple bucks on genuine components and all that kind of stuff automotive grade sealants and plastics so that this stuff just won't break.

And if it does break, we just fix it. We just. You know, if it breaks, it's an engineering issue, we'll be able to figure out how to make it not break and we'll be able to work with our suppliers quickly to modify the tool, and three months later we'll have the product with that problem solved. And so our stuff is incredibly iterative.

The product that you buy a year from now is probably gonna be very slightly different than what you would get today, just because we're constantly trying to stamp out every little issue that comes up. And so, Yeah. Yeah, I love

[00:25:41] Craig Dalton: that. I love that that benefit of us manufacturing and having that tight relationship.

So you can take the customer feedback if you're listening and just put it right back into the product. And sometimes it's minor, but it's always a step in the right direction, whether it's for performance, durability,

[00:25:57] Matt Conte: what have you. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's, yeah, it's one of those things that it sounds easy on paper.

It's shocking, like how many companies don't actually do that. Yeah.

[00:26:07] Craig Dalton: Listening to customers is surprisingly hard and actually doing something about it, I found.

[00:26:12] Matt Conte: Yeah. Yeah. It definitely is. But, you know, let's,

[00:26:15] Craig Dalton: let's, let's talk about the, the outbound and lighting lineup as of today. What are the different models?

And I'd love to just talk a little bit about the intention of the various

[00:26:24] Matt Conte: models. Yeah, yeah. So like, that's sort of another one of those things that makes us unique in this space is, We make a different light for each specific purpose. We're not just making one light at three different power levels or five different power levels.

We first, we've got our like bread and butter, which is more for mountain biking. Its so a trail evo that's like a handlebar mounted bike light that's designed to go into handle bars. It's pretty heavy, so it's not gonna fit on your helmet. And it's just an incredibly wide even beam pattern. So that you can be moving your handlebars, you know, 30 degrees to the left and you'll still be able to see where you're going.

And then we have our hangover light, which is an ultra lightweight, very slim, low profile helmet light that's designed to go on your helmet can work on the handlebar, but it's not great because it is a narrower spot. Because wherever your head is pointed is probably your eyes are looking. So we can kind of take that beam powder and narrow it down.

And still get, have half the lumens, but still the same peak output as I like handlebar light, if not a little bit more. That's so

[00:27:28] Craig Dalton: interesting and, and sorry to interrupt Matt, but I, I spent a bunch of time with the, the helmet mounted light. The hangover recently Loved it by the way. And hearing you describe kind of the very purposeful difference, honestly, my entire lighting.

I've stuck handlebar mounted lights on my helmet. Yeah, and there was no distinction between the two. It was just like, Okay, great. For the uninitiated night rider, like having a helmet light is important because as you turn your head, as you're going through sweeping corners, A lot of times, certainly with traditional lights, the the light on your bar can disappear.

All of a sudden you're going through this arcing turn and you're actually not seeing the trail you're seeing off in the woods. And, you know, you've touched on this in a couple different ways. One, on your handlebar lights you've described how you've tried to purposely widen that, that lighting profile mm-hmm.

so that you can turn that 30 degrees and still be in. But the addition of the handle, or sorry, the, the helmet mounted light just gives you that additional ability to kind of look even further. So from by my likes when I'm mountain biking, the ultimate combination is definitely that Evo Plus hangover helmet.

Helmet mounted light.

[00:28:38] Matt Conte: Yeah, definitely. And that's where those two lights, we also designed to work in concert with each other. So like, the exact same color tempera. Pretty similar being punched strain, so you're not like one light isn't overpowering the other, but it is once you're like looking off down into a hair pan or something like that, that's where it's like you get the brightness of the helmet light.

But we make sure that the peripheral spill blends well enough that you're not ending up looking at like two distinct lights. Like it's still feels like an unbroken wall. And so that was like a really important part of the design constraints that we set up when we set the initial lighting targets.

Both of these lights was they need to work well together, so, I think it was like 135 degrees off center is like what I aimed for. So basically you're looking your hand, the bars are dead ahead and you're looking like way back behind you. And I still wanted to make sure that there light was blending a little bit so it didn't feel like you saw a black hole basically in between.

Yep. Where you're looking and where your hand of eyes are pointing. So it always feels unbroken. Cause as long as you do that, then your eyes are not gonna like. I keep saying like auto exposure, but it's not really the terminology. But basically your eyes aren't trying to adjust for the blackness here and the bright intensity.

So as long as it keeps it unbroken. Yeah. Also it's like as you write with it longer, your eye, your pupils start to open up. Cuz they're so used to it, they're not having to contract and expand and contract and expand with the varying brightness levels. As long as it's consistent, you have people who can slowly expand and take in more light.

So even though we're working with Lower Lu. Because we wanna have a longer battery life. By just having that unbroken wall of light, it ends up feeling brighter as you get used to it because of the fact that you were, i your eyes are physically opening up more and able to take in more light. Just like when you sit in a room for five minutes in the dark, your eyes start to open up and you can start to see a little bit better.

The same thing effect happens with just dim lighting. And all that kind of stuff. And so that's sort of where that philosophy of make sure everything's evenly lit, ultimately ends up helping a lot more as far as like having to like feel a lot brighter, even though the numbers on paper don't seem that impressive.

But of course that's one of those things that you can't really, you can't break that down into a one line item on an ad. You can't show that in a picture. You can't show that in video. It's one of. . You just gotta get out there. You gotta ride with it. You gotta try it. And so that's why like word of mouth for us is our biggest yeah.

Seller pretty much. Well hopefully

[00:31:10] Craig Dalton: this deep dive in the podcast will be a good mechanism for people understanding like the depth of the. Engineering that go into these products and the thoughtfulness that you guys have put in there. Yeah. I think at, before I interrupted you, you were gonna talk about the third lineup, Third light, your lineup.

Yeah.

[00:31:28] Matt Conte: Yeah. So that's our newest light which is called Detour. It's basically like a road beam headlight. It's designed for gravel riding and road riding. The main difference is being, is that it's, it's basically like a low beam on a car headlight. It's got a cutoff. Where, basically a horizontal line where the light doesn't go above it.

So that way you can aim the light up and flat and still be able to see really far down the road where you want to go. Cuz you can put the brightest part of the beam right there, but you're not blinding oncoming traffic. Which is a big deal especially for gravel riders, road riders, or you're approach.

Other rider coming towards you, pedestrians and stuff like that. Definitely don't really need it for mountain biking. Cuz a moose doesn't really care if you don't blind him or not. He's still gonna be in the middle of the trail. So, so yeah, that's our newest one. Which again, it's a very specific type of light.

It's designed to be a hand of our light, designed to be front and center on your bike. And designed to be aimed in a certain way so that you're not blinding oncoming traffic and stuff. And that's still very wide beam pattern, very progressive lighting from where you're looking all the way out to the front of your tire.

I've got side market lights and stuff, so you have better side visibility for traffic or things like that. But yeah, it's just another one of those like. We're not gonna come out with a detour of 1500 or detour 2000 like it's, that's, this is the light. It does around 1200 lumens. You're able to get a lot brighter hotspot because the fact that you, you're not putting half that light in the sky, but to get the cutoff beam pattern so it feels brighter than actually is, you can get good run times and all that kind of stuff.

So, Yeah. Cause I was, it's still,

[00:33:06] Craig Dalton: it still boggles my mind as someone who started out with a 200 lumen light back then as being like the pinnacle of performance that now you can get 1200 lumens in this incredibly small package. No battery, no external battery. It's all right in there. It's, it's just

[00:33:23] Matt Conte: astounding.

And you still get an hour and a half, two hours of run time and weighs, was it 135 grams or something? Yeah, and I mean we've got some other designs in play right now that get set even smaller. I'm really, that's sort of like, you know, looking towards the future. Cause you know, like you said, it, it started out with like halogens and car batteries.

That was kind of how it started out 20 years ago, 30 years ago. And then IDs bulbs came in and they came out with a little really miniature IDs that again, they did 250, 300 lumens. But they were power sucks. As you waste most of that energy and just heat, like heat coming out of the lamp. But then in around 2005, 2006 is kind of when LEDs became a lot more mainstream.

You were able to get them cheap enough that you could build cheap products with. So you saw that explosion, not only the automotive side. Cause that was like when I was really into that, went. The H I d Offroad Lights to Rigid Industries coming out with all their LED D stuff. And the same thing, the bike side.

That's like when Night Rider came out, their first I think it was the new or the Lua, their first Lua, like 2005, 2006. Again, 300 lumens. 400 lumens maybe. All that kind of stuff. But then over the last 10 to 15 years, LEDs have gotten, I'd say there's about a five or 10 year stretch where LEDs just every year, just huge leaps.

Huge leaps, huge leaps, and then kind of slowed down and stuff. Now the biggest technological leaps in LEDs have basically come from the miniaturization of them. So, And that ultimate that's been driven by the automotive sector, that the automotive sector requires smaller and smaller optics, which means that you need a smaller and smaller source, AKA D L E D.

The l e d has to be as tiny as possible so that we can control the rays that are coming, the rays of light coming outta the l e d. So we can control that on a very small optic, and you can put that exactly where you need to. Cause if you put a huge l e. Inside of a tiny optic, you're just gonna get scatter everywhere.

It's not gonna be well optimized and all that kind of stuff. So the automotive sector has driven the LEDs to become smaller and smaller and smaller, and they come out like the lumen values don't look impressive on paper. They'll be like, Oh, it's only 300 lumens on this. But that's kind of like why our trail Evo has nine of these LEDs.

Cuz you can put these tiny, tiny LEDs into a tiny optic. And still get incredible beam control versus if you try to take like a Cree X H P 3.0 whatever, whatever the biggest l e D is that can do 1300, 2000 lumens, but it's massive. It's like a centimeter wide. You need a ginormous optical reflector to put that into for it to be of any use.

Otherwise, you're just scattering light everywhere, uncontrolled. And you see that a lot on a lot of cheap lights. You could tell. They looked at the data sheet, they saw who? 1300 lumens. That looks great. And they're like, Well, let's just, but we gotta fit in this little thing, so let's just taste this l e d, slap it into that.

Cool. We got a really bright light. And it's like, Yeah, but it doesn't do anything. Well, it's either extremely concentrated or it's just blown out. Uh um, and so, man, I kind of go off on tangents a lot if you can't tell So, yeah, like the technological jumps, LEDs have kind of slowed down a bunch. And now there's incredibly tiny, incredibly power dense and it's great for us, but there's not, there's not much more that LEDs can do.

Like we've kind of reached the final form, I guess you could say. But the next big technological leaf that's gonna be really interesting to jump into is batteries. You know, all these automotive company, again, automotive is leading the, the sector to kind of then drips down into bikes. All of the solid state batteries that every single automotive company is investing into companies like solid power, all that kind of stuff.

They're basically promising these batteries that can charge instantly, they can put out huge amounts of power. They won't be as affected by thermals as much. So you can run 'em really cold or really hot and they won't lose a lot of life. And just a lot more power dense. And so to me that's gonna be like the next big generational leap.

Not gonna happen next year. It's not gonna happen two years from now, but maybe like five or six years. We hope that we can get, you know, 21 700 cell batteries in a solid state battery for a reasonable price. And that's, These bike flights can either be twice as bright for the same run time, or last twice as long for the same brightness.

And that's gonna be, and also incredibly lightweight. Those graphing batteries, I think are like half the weight of a single 21 700 cell. Wow. So that's gonna be, that'd be refreshing. Yeah. And that's gonna be really exciting once those can start coming online. But again, that's probably five years until that becomes more mainstream.

They have these technological breakthroughs that they keep promising. Thankfully it's not as vaporware as like hydrogen energy, but we're getting close I feel like. And so a couple

[00:38:29] Craig Dalton: nuance things I wanted to point out before we let you go is correct me if I'm wrong, but you can actually charge the light while you're running it.

[00:38:37] Matt Conte: Yeah, that's, Yeah. Which of the,

[00:38:38] Craig Dalton: It may seem counterintuitive to people that, that doesn't exist across the board, but mm-hmm. , I'd say the vast majority of lights I've ever run. You could not have an external battery pack to kind of top it off if you needed to.

[00:38:50] Matt Conte: Yeah. Yeah, pretty much most bike flights, you do have your external battery pack that you have to plug in into, and once you unplug it, it dies.

Cause obviously you don't have any power or you plug it in, you can't turn it on because it's just simply charging. Or if you can plug it in and turn it on, it's just gonna be stuck in a low mode because the charging current going into the light isn't enough to like actually power the light. So what we've done knowing that we had a lot of customers who do 24 hour races and all that kind of stuff we do USBC pass through charging where you can basically plug in the light and sort of the way that we can do it is that the.

Is being powered off the battery, but we're charging the battery with an external power bank. So you can technically, if you're running like Evo on high with a sort of a low current battery pack, you can technically outrun the battery pack and end up running down. But if you're running like a medium or low, you basically the battery pack charging the battery faster than the LEDs are pulling the power out.

So we're not trying to do like a straight through, like the light isn't being powered by the external battery. The external battery package, charging the battery inside the light, which is then being used. So yeah, that was basically just kind of like, as one of those like customer requests, like, Hey, how can we use a cheap Amazon power bank to power my light?

Can I do that? And like, Oh yeah, we, we can, I don't see why not. Like you just set up the charging protocols and all that kind of stuff so you could allow that to happen. It gets really complex. Turns out USB stuff is not as easy as it seems. All these like handshakes that have to happen between two different components and it's a real pain in the us But Tom, my co-founder or co-owner out in Seattle, he loves that stuff.

So while I'm up at 3:00 AM tweaking beam patterns, he's up at 3:00 AM trying to tweak USB charging protocol. I love it kind of stuff. So yeah, that Love it. Unique features. Yeah.

[00:40:47] Craig Dalton: The final detail I wanted to talk about was just the mounting mechanisms that you guys have designed cuz I found them to be very clever and slick and unobtrusive, which is not something I could say about a lot of the mounting mechanisms I've had to endure from other lights.

[00:41:00] Matt Conte: Yeah, I mean, you should have seen some of the prototypes that we came up with before we landed on this one. They were large Oakley or Vinicky and not great. But the current one that we use for the Well, for Hangover, we just simply just use what everyone has used for the last 15 years, which is just a standard action camera.

I can't officially say GoPro anymore because now they clamp down on that, but it's a GoPro mal. So everyone's used to that. It works great. Low profile. A lot of bikes have, It was built into it, so why not just make sure our helmet light works with that out of the box, which is why Hangover has. Action camera tabs on the back of it.

But for Evo and Detour that mounting system was one of those like real hard design challenges because like, like we obviously buy like every single competitor light we can get our hands on. And all of them, they always have at least like one or two good design features. And I'm like, that's a good idea.

I'm gonna just take this and put this in mind. But when it came to mounting, I literally could not find anything. I was like, This is great. Cause a lot of the mounting things were, if they were secure, they were really hard to put on. Like, you could not take 'em off with like a pair of thick winter writing thick winter writing gloves.

Which for me, that's always been like a design standard. Make sure that we can operate anything on a light with a thick pair of winter writing gloves because most of our customers are ready at night in the. And it sucks to not have to be, not be able to turn on your light or mount it or anything like that.

So we went through a lot of iterations trying to figure out how in the world we're gonna mount this light so that it can quickly be taken on and off and all that kind of stuff. Until one of my friends not related at all the bikes or anything, he's a big camera nerd. He like, Hey, you should look at man photos, camera lights, or camera mounts that were the tripod stuff.

Super simple. People have used it for literally 40 years. I bought one of them. I'm like, Huh, this is a really good idea. Just a little, It's

[00:42:57] Craig Dalton: so interesting that you say that. Now that you say that, I'm like, Oh yeah, that makes sense. I've seen that before and

[00:43:02] Matt Conte: that's where I've seen it. Yeah. Yeah. So basically I took the man photo design.

I checked photo patents. They all expired in like the late nineties. They patented like in the seventies or 80. And so with basically a free for all you could use it you're not gonna infringe on anything. And basically I took what they did, miniaturized it and tried to make sure that it works so that no matter what, you could have it mounted bird according to light.

Disney just gonna fall to the ground. So we put in a little notches and stuff like that to capture it. But for the most part, it's a man foot camera. Designed for bikes or for bike lights. And so all of our lights or all of our handlebar lights have that basically standard n size on the back, a a man photo camera base plate that can slot right into our quick release mount and.

Click it in, push it back, closes the plunger torsion spring snaps it shut, and you just push down in the lever to really secure it in place. Little serrated teeth with a big thumb screw that can again, easily be operated when you're wearing a pair of gloves. So you can adjust the beam angle without having to over tighten the amount or anything like that.

Yeah, it's one of. The, that mount is on its third iteration. We've already got a fourth one in work right now cause we want to get rid of the, the he screw and all that kind of stuff. So we're gonna try to do like an overcame mechanism and everything. Yeah, it's, I don't know if you ever got to experience the first ones where I did 'em, amount of die cast aluminum and powder coding and ugh, that was one of those hindsight.

2020. I really wish I hadn't done that. But now, last fiber amounts. They work great. The smooth action, all that kind of stuff. It's again, goes back to that whole situation of like, every, let's just iterate. Let's quickly make changes. Don't worry that this cool tool cost five grand. Like we've gotta make the product good.

If it's not easy to operate for customers, then no one's gonna like it. Yeah, and all that kinda stuff. So,

[00:44:54] Craig Dalton: Awesome. Well, thanks for walking us through the lineup and that backstory. I love, I love hearing your journey. I love, it's sort of admirable to get out there and Kickstarter and put yourself out there on the line.

As a former small business owner myself, I, I feel your, I feel that pain of when you mortgaged your house just to get the, the product off the ground and congrats for. Ultimately bringing it back to the US for manufacturing, as you mentioned, so many advantages there, let alone helping the economy, but just advantages that you can continue to roll out better and better performance and take that customer feedback to heart every time it comes through.

Yeah,

[00:45:30] Matt Conte: yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's always the golds yeah, it's, it makes business sense from a money profit standpoint, and it makes sense just from. The product standpoint, we're able to, and it's, the goal is to just continually advance ourselves further. So like these thermally conducted materials it was something I wanted to use for almost a decade.

But we just never had the volume to justify it. Cuz I have to purchase three to 4,000 pounds of this material, just like the minimum order quantity, which is equivalent to like 10,000 units. And when you're starting out, you only have 500 or a thousand for the entire years, like, I can't, I can't justify that.

But that's sort of our business goal is like just continually advance and kind of pull away from the competition by integrating these technologies that is not as easy to integrate from the start. Or you need the scale. So, yeah, that's where, yeah, we've got a lot of fun things planned. We've got a long list of things we want to do.

We're trying to push into. Bike shops. Next year, like we finally, we've got our manufacturing dial. We've got the robots in place, like we can finally like outpace building from our retail website demand. So now we're kind of trying to expand into bike shops. We're getting like retail, this display developed and all that kind of stuff.

And so that's sort of what we're hoping, you know, if anybody shot you listening, you can always go to outbound lighting.com and talk to us, get connected, get you all hooked up and everything. . Yeah. That's where if anybody ideas and stuff like that, always open to listening. If you email us, it's gonna be either come to me, it's gonna come to Tom, like there's literally four people in the company.

That's it. And so it's very personable. You're gonna talk to a real person. We don't have any bots running, thankfully. .

[00:47:05] Craig Dalton: Right on. Matt, thanks again for the time. I'll make sure everybody knows how to get in touch with you and super informative and congrats.

[00:47:12] Matt Conte: Yeah, I appreciate it. It's been great chatting.

[00:47:14] Craig Dalton: That's gonna do it for this week's edition of The Gravel Ride podcast. Big thanks to Matt for coming on the show. I hope you, like I did, learned a lot about lighting and the nuances around the lighting choices we can make as cyclists. If you're interested in supporting the show, you can visit buy me a coffee.com/the gravel ride, or ratings and reviews are hugely important.

If you're interested in connecting with me, I encourage you to join the ridership. That's www.theridership.com. That's a free global cycling community. Tons of people, and interesting conversations going on in any given day.

So I encourage you to join that. Until next time, here's to finding some dirt under your wheels.

This week we sit down with Adam Eggeberecht from Spooky Cycles to talk about the resurrection of the brand and how modern day aluminum is crafted for gravel bikes. This episode is presented by ENVE.

Spooky Cycles

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This week we speak with Caroline Dezendorf of the Easton Overland Gravel Team and the Marin County Bike Coalition. We learn of Caroline's start in the sport and her work supporting cycling in Marin County and beyond.

Sponsored by Athletic Greens, the all-in-one daily drink to support better health and peak performance.

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Automated Transcription, please forgive the typos.

All right, Caroline, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me, Craig.

Yeah, we always like to start off by learning a little bit more of your background as a gravel cyclist. Can you talk about how you originally discovered riding off road and maybe a progression from other elements in the sport until gravel racing?

Yeah. I didn't get into bikes till the end of college. My senior year of college, I needed a sport that, of like to fulfill the void of growing up, playing soccer and not really having anything. And I found triathlon and did triathlon for a year in college at UC Santa Barbara. And it was really fun at his background as a swimmer, but the only thing I really liked about it was the bike. So I started racing on the road instead, and then went immediately to grad school and walked into a shop in Eugene, Oregon. When I first got up to a university of Oregon for grad school and the guys in the shop were like, have you heard of cyclocross? And I was like, no, they're like, great. You should come out to a race tonight and borrow a bike and like try it out.

And I was, so I got out there, crashed over every barrier I encountered but was immediately hooked. And so I started racing off-road and cyclocross, and then racing in the Bay for team Mike's bikes. I decided to start racing mountain bikes and really enjoyed it. And then it's just kind of like taken off from there. I think my first gravel race per se was the nog girl grind Duro. I think that was 2015. And I raised my rock lobster cyclocross bike and won it, won the pro women's category and it was kind of hooked on this like long distance gravel writing, something that I always do with my friends, but like, it was kind of fun to have this new format that, you know, normally my races are 45 minutes around a very small, you know, two mile a track for cyclocross. And so it's kinda cool now having this like adventure thing that is competitive, but more just hanging out with friends and going on a cool adventure.

Yeah, it's interesting. I was talking to Amanda Naaman a few weeks back and she had mentioned she had the similar progression from triathlon to cyclocross. What do you think it is about the sport of cyclocross that kind of was attractive to you at the time?

For me, it was in Oregon. The cross crusade series is so incredible. It's just like this huge series. Like you go to these events and there's a thousand, 2000 and the women's fields are 50 plus deep and just, you know, amazing talent like Beth and Orton. When I first started racing was like my idol. She was just like this, this amazing. I mean, I love Beth. She's still a really good friend, but she was just like this amazing person. And it was something that I hadn't experienced. And I think, you know, even though you're, you're doing these small circles and cross it's no two races are the same. I mean, you know, there's races. I go back to year after year after year and every year, the conditions are different. The weather's different, you know, the competition is different and it's exciting and it's challenging.

And it's even though like, it's, you know, you can race with a team or race, you know, you're racing with a bunch of really strong competitors. You're really racing yourself. You're, you're challenging yourself and you know, the other people in the race really don't matter. There aren't very many, there are some cross races where you do find road tactics in play. You are in a small group and you are attacking each other, but I'll often, you know, in, in muddy races, it's just, you're fighting yourself and trying to figure out how to do it yourself. And so at the end of the day, you know, you all hug and smile and laugh and high five each other. And like most of my best friends now I've met through racing cyclocross.

Awesome. And cyclocross, obviously being traditionally a winter sport, although it kicks off pretty early here in Northern California. What type of writing were you doing in the off season from cyclocross the last few years that kind of set the stage for you to kind of jump full force and the gravel racing?

I mean, quite honestly it was, it was adventure riding. It was going out on long rides on my cross bikes. I really like riding my cross bikes on single track and on technical trail and kind of challenging my skills in that way. So it was going on these long adventure rides. I, I'm a total math geek. I love making routes. I love finding new routes and challenging myself with like these new places I haven't been. So a lot has been like, I really want to go out to this really remote place that I've never been before. And so let's find a gravel or a mountain bike loop that, you know, is 45 to 80 to whatever a hundred miles and let's go check it out. So a lot of that kind of writing.

Yeah, that's awesome. And we'll get into your work at the Marine County bike coalition, but I have the Marin County bike map and I just geek out over it because having the gravel bike and the great roads we have around here, you can just create these amazing mixed terrain loops that I never thought was possible prior to kind of getting this type of bike and, and getting that map.

Totally. Yeah. That map is amazing. Or actually I'm just updating that map with tons of new trails that have come up recently and it should be, it should be out in the next month. And I'll, they'll show a lot more of the good stuff in Marin.

Yeah. I'm excited for that to go check out the Bill's trail that I read about. And a couple of the other pieces that the Marine County bike coalition has been working on.

Yeah. Bill's, if you haven't had a chance to check it out is definitely a worthwhile trail. It's four miles long, but it's incredible. And it was made well re remade. It was a trail already, but re-established with mountain biking in mind, so it's really flowy. And it's through my favorite kind of ecosystem is Redwood Fern forest. And it connects so it's Alan, Samuel P. Taylor, if you haven't been out there which is really cool. So it's a California state park and it's really nice to have another mountain bike trail on the state park and it connects devil's goals, fire road to Mount Barnaby. And so the views, when you're up there are incredible. And then, I mean, connecting that with like San Jeronimo Valley and the fire roads out there, you can just put together such an amazing loop.

Yeah. Interesting note about Samuel Taylor park, it's the birthplace of recreational camping in the United States? I found out,

Huh? I did not know that. That's awesome. They also have bike camping there.

Yeah, absolutely. So 2020 was clearly designed to be a pretty big gravel season for you. You were, you were selected to join the Eastern Overland team. Can you talk about that team and what the vision is and sort of just give us a little insight about what it's like being a member?

Yeah, it was, this is such a surreal season. I was really excited to be racing with Eastern Overland. It's an amazing group of people. Matt Harlan is a team manager and he's just compiled this like amazing group amny Rockwell or who's one dirty Kansas last year at Caitlin Bernstein, who is my best friend in the entire world. And Matt Licata, who's up in Oregon and Michael Vanderham, which is a super awesome Canadian super amazing cyclocross athlete as well, Canadian national champion. And so it was just like this incredible group of people that I was excited to write race with. I've raced with Easton for a cyclocross for the last couple of years, they've been a big sponsor. And it was really nice to be able to like raise with them a little bit more have their support in this different capacity.

And you know, the, the team is really unique in the fact that it brings together people with very different backgrounds and skillsets. And also we get to kind of have our own style in it. So I raced with [inaudible] on the Sparrow and the other members of the team, Matt Leanna, also races on Savella. And the other members of the team also have their own bike sponsors. And so it's kind of neat cause we get to bring our own kind of flare and style into it. And that kind of a water audience and also just represent in different capacities. So I really liked being able to have my personal relationship with Cervelo, but at the same time, like be part of this team and this kind of conglomerate that we all, you know, currently our conversation right now, cause we have nothing else better to do is how to make sourdough bread the best we can make it. I'm not a bread maker, so I'm just kind of listening in, but it's amazing the, the detail that goes into a sourdough bread making.

Yeah. I think it's a super refreshing concept. I love seeing all the team members with different frames. It's just, it, I think that's sort of, to me, it's like, what's, gravel's all about right. We don't want these big pro squads coming in and dominating, but like I love that it's a squad that each member has its own personality in a way to kind of reflect the brands that they want to be riding with.

Yeah. And it highlights the uniqueness of the writers. You know, I, I I'm predominantly an off road athlete. Like I dabble in road races. I did one road race this year before you know, the season got shut down, but I definitely, you know, come from a little bit more of a road background and, and like re like riding on the road. And so having the Savella, that's very much oriented as like a an endurance like fast paced, you know, Peloton kind of racing. Gravel bike is perfect for me, but that being said, it's still rips on descends and still rips on single tracks. So I ride that bike everywhere, but then, you know, Caitlin Bernstein she's on DaVinci and that bike is totally a mountain bike, like Caitlin on, on that bike. I can't keep up with, because it's, the geometry is just so much more of a mountain bike and it's, it's a very different, you know, style. So it's really cool because when we're all together, every bike and every person riding has this unique flair and unique style and it's kind of fun to see it that way. It's very different from any other team I've been on.

Yeah. And I think that's, again, going back to it just being sort of indicative to the sport in general, I love that, that you need to choose the equipment for how you want to ride the bike. So if you want to be aggressive, you can go bigger tires and a slacker geometry, or if you're more comfortable on the road section, you know, and that were, you know, roadie type position. That's cool too. But at some point in any given race or ride, you're going to have a shortcoming or you're going to have a better setup than the other person. And I think it just makes it really interesting when you're out there.

Totally. Yeah. Before everything got, got shut down this year, I was able to race the super sweet water grasshopper, and I raised it on my server yellow with 35 millimeter Schwabie tires. And so I definitely had a gravel set up for this very much long, you know, 60 plus mile road race, but that bike was amazing. I was, you know, up there top five women for the majority of the race and, you know, keeping up with everybody on 28 millimeter tires and on, on, you know, true road frames. And the Sparrow is just like, it's so fast. Like it climbed so well. And it was like ideal for that. And then two weeks later, you know, we, we flew out to Oklahoma for mid South gravel, right before shelter and place happened. And I threw on 33 millimeter essentially cyclocross shall be cyclocross tires.

And, you know, we had this eight hour Mudfest through Oklahoma red clay and, you know, the bike on that, like handled super, super well just, you know, so it's like it's and, you know, Caitlin and I rode together and she was on her DaVinci with like 40 millimeter tires. And, you know, we're, she's, she's pushing the pace on the climbs and I'm doing my best to keep up with her. And then I, anytime we hit like a flat section, I was just like, alright, right on my wheel, let's go. We were just like, use our strengths in different ways to work together. But it, and it was kinda nice cause it could compliment each other.

Well, that race was certainly a sloppy mess. Did you make that tire selection kind of knowing that it was going to be quite muddy on race day?

Yeah. Yeah. Matt Lido. Who's on my team and also rides for Savallo. I, I probably bugged him every day for like two weeks going into mid South, trying to figure out the best hire selection. And ultimately we decided the narrowest hire, I could run would be better and, you know, so something that would shed really well and give me the most clearance. They, before the race gave us like Pete six to scrape the mud off our wheels. And thankfully I never actually had to use it. My demise in that race came at mile 90 when my chain dropped between my frame and my chain ring and Katelyn and I spent 45 minutes and watched the 15 girls go past us trying to get my chain and stuck. And it was just, we know, we went from sitting in like top five to sitting top 20. I was like, Katelyn, just leaving. And she's like, we've just done 90 miles together in seven and a half hours. I'm not leaving you out here on the side. And so yeah, that was, that was really the biggest bummer of that race. But it was yeah. Tire choice for that one was pretty key. I think there are a lot of people I ended up running selects for that reason.

Yeah. I've heard stories from that race. It's a really interesting in terms of like what the, what, what worked and didn't work for people. At the end of the day, I don't think there was a particularly good choice to other than making sure you had at least as much clearance as possible.

Yeah. That, that totally was the biggest thing was just get enough clearance and hope that you don't get bogged down and hope that you know, any chances where you're going to get that peanut butter, mud, or clay all over your bike, just run. And like, so I never even dealt with the, my tire clearance was perfect. I had, my equipment was a dial and I just got super unlucky with a drop chain that I couldn't get unstuck.

Yeah. What were you, what were your plans for the rest of the season?

Let's see. I, I don't know a lot. I wanted to do, I really wanted to go to raspy Tita in Vermont. I was really looking forward to the Jackson grasshopper that was supposed to happen to may. I was going to go up to Canada for a ride for water. And then, you know, Downieville, which just got canceled, lost and found. I always love racing stuff up in the Sierra Buttes. And then, you know, trying to figure out a couple more from there. I had seen Bo on my radar Oregon gravel was on my radar, a couple of, up in, in Oregon as well. So I was trying to be selective with races because I do usually have a full cyclocross season that runs from September to December and that ends up being a lot of travel and a lot of racing. But at the same time I was feeling really good at the beginning of the season and really excited to be racing. So I kept like texting Katelyn and be like, what about, should we go to the lessons? Should we go to that? And should we go to that? So my season kept expanding because I was so excited to be racing gravel with Easton. And there's just so many cool events that happen all over, all over the place.

Yeah, absolutely. I think most of those events that you mentioned we've had as previous guests on the podcast and I would love to see them all.

Yeah, yeah. There's some, and everyone is so unique and has its own vibe and experience. And you know, the thing I love about gravel and I think that brings me back is just the community around it. And just how amazing everybody is in the as like I said, famous cyclocross, like as competitive as everybody is like at the end of the day, you're having a drink and celebrating each other and just excited to be out there racing. And I kinda love the comradery that comes with that.

Yeah. I hope everybody listens time and time again to the podcast gets that loud and clear because it's really just show up, hit the start line. You're going to have a blast, whether you're first or last. And that's the beauty of this sport. It's quite unlike. It may, maybe it's similar to cyclocross, but quite unlike other elements of the sport that people may have experienced like road racing, where if you get shelled off the back, it's a pretty miserable experience. It's just simply not the case in gravel.

Totally. It's, it's totally unique. And I mean, even, you know mid South this year, like Katelyn and I are on the side of the road, we're trying to fix my bike. And everybody that came by, I was like, are you guys okay? And I'd be like, no, we're not okay. And you know, they'd be like, do you want our help? And you know, we kept having all these groups of people come and try to help us, you know, that's knowing you don't get enrolled road Pilcher. Like people aren't just like people are, are in it for themselves a little bit more than helping each other. And I just love like, and gravel that, you know, you're just out there to, to be there. You're not out there like to, when you're out there to enjoy it and to see a unique place and, and ride with, you know, hundreds of your friends.

Yeah, absolutely. So you're also working with the Marin County bike coalition as communication director. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about that role?

Yeah. So it's a new role for me. I came on with red County bike coalition in March, so I'm just started there, but it's been an organization that I've known very well for the last five, six years since I got into bikes, I moved into the Bay move to the Bay area. And so it's a great organization, it's they do so much good work in Marin, on the roadside, on the off-road side and on education and outreach. And it's been a really unique time to work with them because we've kind of had to change the way we're structuring to deal with the current pandemic. The most amazing thing about this time for us is there has been such an increase in the number of people, riding bikes. And so we're really trying to reach them and, and reach out to them and get them involved with us to be able to support them and give them that better infrastructure.

I mean, Marin is just, it's, it's a Mecca for a cycling, the paths you know, beyond grief and Barack, he's our policy and planning director. He works on the roadside and he's worked so hard in the last four years since he came with the organization to really improve on road infrastructure and Moran and, you know, make it a more bike friendly place for everybody there. And you know, Tom boss who runs our off-road program, he's phenomenal and, you know, really, really working to get access to more trails and trail stewardship and, and engaging with so many different people in different groups of people. So you know, I coach I started at NorCal league high school league mountain bike team last year. So it's a program that's really near and dear to my heart. And Tom works really closely with North Hollywood, with Vanessa [inaudible] to get students out, doing trail stewardship and learning how to build trail and Morin.

So the last trail day they had was out on the Ponti Ridge trail, which isn't open trail yet. It's a trail and Marin wood Lucas Valley area that will be opening hopefully later this year. But we had 150 kids out there from high schools, high school league working on building trail. So I'm really excited for that trail to open. Hopefully it will open under the season and you know, Bill's trail, like we already mentioned as new trail and Morin that took 14 years to finally be bike legal. I think plans were put into place in 2006 for it to finally be, to, to submit it, to change of use for us to get access to it for a cyclist. And, you know, Tom has been instrumental and, and projects like that that have really opened up more and more land for for mountain biking and Morin.

Yeah. And I think it's been done in a really thoughtful way. I remember when Diaz Ridge project was announced and like it's a six or seven years to get that trail finished. And now it's just such an amazing single track for a gravel bike or a mountain bike. And it's such an important connector. And I know one of the future projects is kind of connecting the bottom of Diaz Ridge to coastal view trail, kind of a, they have Heather cutoff, which is a running trail, but cutting another trail through there. And it's just that kind of thoughtfulness that makes me super pumped to have Marine County by coalition supporting my, my desire to ride new trails. Cause it's just going to be an a, it's going to be an amazing connector and all these pieces, I think Tom and the whole crew they think about like, what does that do for your loop? All of a sudden it makes this completely, off-road starting at the golden gate bridge and going all the way, the other side of Tam completely off-road and completely legal possible.

Yeah, totally. We that's called our, we have this project that's the gaps initiative. And so it's closing three of the biggest gaps of off-road or lack of access to off road from the golden gate bridge to point rays. And so that connector that you just described between Diaz Ridge which drops you down to near beach, you have to go on highway one to connect to coastal and hopefully we'll have a trail there soon. It's still on the planning phase. And we're hoping to get some more grants and money to help us work on that. And then there's another one out kind of on the backside of Mount Tam and the lakes region that's Azalea Hill and that we just got notice that the water district is going to give us access, give bike, to ask, ask, give bikes, access to a mile and a half of trail that will connect to fire roads and help start decreasing that gap a little bit more. So we're, we're making progress and Tom has been huge and in getting those things done and Moran such a unique place because we're dealing with a lot of different land managers. And it's really amazing to see the relationships built with those and how, you know, the, the progress progress that we can do. And so many different unique environments.

Yeah, I think for the problems like this around the country and around the world who are listening, Marin County is an amazing place to ride a bike and there's tons of miles and miles and miles of trails and a lot of great loops that you can create. It's interesting because I think other parts of the country or world might have somehow a little bit more cachet as a destination to go ride your gravel bike. But by my likes, Marin counties should be tops on anybody's list.

Oh, totally. I a hundred percent agree with that when I moved down after grad school and moved to San Rafael and Moran I think that's what hooked me. Like we would go out, you know, on these all day adventures and you'd be on road for maybe a mile and he'd be on trail for, you know, 45 miles and, you know, circumnavigating Mount Tam and have these amazing views of the golden gate bridge and, and the Pacific ocean. And it was just like, it was incredible. I mean, there's no other place like it. And you know, there were a lot of nights, like in the middle of the week that we'd be like, Hey, let's go bike camping up on Mount Tam. Cause there's these bike camping spots that no one goes to. And it's something that's really.

Yeah, absolutely. You disappeared for a second. It might've been on my end, but no worries. I know also the, the Marine County bike coalition is putting on a couple of events later this year pending obviously the safety of events you've got the dirt and then adventure revival, two events, which showcase those trails we were just referring to and how good they are. Do you want to talk a little bit more about the plan dates for those events and you know, how people should be thinking about it in their calendar, giving you know, everything in the uncertain and be going on in the world?

Yeah, so the dirt Fondo is one of our signature events that happens August 15th. And it's, it's a really amazing event, gravel friendly it's mountain bike friendly. I could argue that you could do a lot of it on a road bike because I've read a lot of those trails on a road bike, but not recommended. But it highlights the Marin Headlands and it highlights Mount Tam. So the Queens, the queen route, if you will is 45 miles and it starts when we're at Hedlands and climbs up to the top of Tam and back around. And it's, it's incredible. And then there's routes that are, you know, 30 miles, 20 miles, 10 miles. So it's something that, you know, the whole family could go out and do I drag my sister out there a couple years ago gave her my mountain bike and I rode my cross bike and, you know, she did 30 miles and she's written a mountain bike like four times.

And I was like, yes, you're so awesome. It's something that's, and it's, it's just beautiful and everybody's out there. It's not a race, it's not a competitive event. Everybody's out there to have fun and to enjoy the trails and to just like be part of this amazing community. So we're really hoping that happens this year. We are kind of chugging along with plans for that. We're, we're paying really close attention to the gift current situation. And I think, you know, Tom and I are, are talking every day about it, you know, and trying to see what's going to be like, but it's a small event. Registrations capped at 300 people. So we're hoping if anything, this is the kind of event that will happen because it's a regional pole, it's a small event. And we're keeping our fingers crossed because the more we talked to people and the more, you know, we talk, we, we need things to look forward to.

And with, everything's starting to be canceled. We're just kinda, we're hoping we don't have to, because we want that normalcy back and we want to be back with our communities. And, you know, we're, we're making contingency plans just in case and where we're strategizing, you know, how potentially, if we are allowed to have a small event, how we can kind of keep social distancing requirements met. So really, you know, taking into consideration what our County and what California says, but we want to be able to, to host it this year, it's a really special event for us.

[Inaudible] Wow. And then adventure to revival the later man supports the mountain.

Yeah. So adventure revival is September 12th. And that we run in combination with nor Cal league high school league. And so it's a fundraiser for both MCBC and the high school mountain bike league. So again, it's something near and dear to my heart because I coach a team. I ran a team I love I've been involved with the high school league for the last five years. And so that one's really cool. It's it's promoted as a gravel event. So it's a little more fire roadie and a little more has a little more road in it, but it also highlights, you know, some of the most amazing gravel routes around Marin. And so going out to places that are a little more off off the beaten path.

Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's super creative loop that Tom created over there. I hadn't been on some of those trails kind of in I guess Sandra Autonomo and they were awesome. Like it pushed all the buttons, like you have this great, I think all single track bales, arrow, big climbs, like it was on a route that I, and, and support that event.

Yeah. It's and there are trails that don't get written very much. There, it's funny cause they're really not that much farther away than everything else, but they seem a little more rugged and some really steep climbs, but it's beautiful. It's rain. We're we normally put together like training routes for, or training rides for the Fondo and the venture revival to get people out and writing some of these things beforehand in a group setting. And obviously we can't do that. So what we're doing instead is doing kind of curated DIY gravel rides. So I just put together a ride that we shared with our member base and it's on our website. We're calling it the dirt ramble, but anybody wants to check it out. And it's, it kind of highlights some of those Sandra animo Ridgeline. Why am I often forgetting the name of where, where it's going out behind the lakes but highlighting a lot of those trails that you don't get written as much and highlighting just like the unique terrain around Marin, because there's so many different ecosystems and so many different habitats and, and you can experience so much in such a Stuart ride.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, just having as a, sort of a city-based rider previously, having those roots and understanding like, Oh, maybe I'll ride the road out to Fairfax and then start hitting the trails. You all of a sudden on your gravel bike create these really interesting loops that you never thought of. Because if you, you know, that's, that's quite a long way if you're riding off-road the entire way from the city, for example. But if you bypass it cause with the efficiency of the gravel bike and just hop into the trails, like there's some great stuff up there.

Yeah, totally. And it's, it's, you know, it's easily accessible from so many different locations from the city I used to my parents live in Petaluma, so I I'd ride, you know, out from Petaluma and hit the Belinas Ridge trail. And you have this amazing really hope it's a long day, but it's so worth it to come down and ride these trails.

Yeah, definitely. So is your plan this season to go back to cyclocross at the end of the year again,

We're, we're kind of making the joke with Eastern Overland that it's like hashtag cyclo mountain gravel season, because everything is now being pushed into one. So right now I'm just looking forward to riding the dirt Fondo and writing adventure revival in September and kind of going from there seeing what what's still happening and seeing what changes I definitely will still race cyclocross. I'm hoping maybe to start a little later this season so I can do some other gravel events as they happen in late September, early October. But, you know, I think at this point, the biggest thing that I want to focus on is connecting back with my community and having fun and racing. You know, obviously I'm competitive, obviously I want to do well on my racing, but I'm kinda like it's secondary right now. Like I miss my community, I miss my friends, I miss my competitors. I want to see them. And I also just want to have fun. And it's kind of weird because I'm still training, hoping everything happens and, you know, putting in the hours and putting in the miles and really trying to find to the engine. But I also am trying to balance that with just having a good time on the bike and seeking the ventures that are really important to me.

Yeah. Well, I think that's the dream for all of us. It's just to have something back on the calendar that we all get our municipalities approving us getting together and enjoying that gravel community. Cause I think the important thing to remember for everybody listening is it's still there. If anything, there's more pent up demand and love and desire to get back together as a community, as you just said. So we'll get through this together.

Yeah. I think, I think just staying hopeful right now is the biggest thing. And knowing, you know, that bikes aren't canceled, like you can get out and ride, you know, like I said MCDC is putting on our kind of own challenges. There's a lot of other challenges out there, although I'm biased towards the challenges that I'm creating. So I would, I would encourage you to check them out on our website. But you know, we can stay connected in different ways. I started twisting a little bit more to stay connected with people. But I think that's the biggest thing is staying connected, staying hopeful and hoping things work out soon.

Absolutely. I think that's a good note to end on Caroline. I appreciate all the time and the insight about the events. I'll put some links out to Marin County bike coalition so people can find the events we're talking about and I wish you the best of luck and hopefully, I'll see you out there soon.

All right. Thank you, Craig.

This week Randall and Craig discuss the essential gear for early morning and evening rides. Go to gear for every gravel cyclist.

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This week I recount my recent trip to Girona, Spain with Trek Travel. Our knowledgeable guides took us on a 5 day adventure throughout the region exposing us to Girona’s plentiful and diverse gravel. As a bonus, we were able to connect with a number of local cycling brands contributing to Girona’s reputation as the hub of European cycling.

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Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos:

Girona Gravel Live

[00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport

I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist.

This week on the show, I'm releasing some recordings I did during the tractor on a gravel tour. I participated in, in November. It was a great trip. I encourage you to check it out on Trek's website and I appreciate Trek's support in getting the over there to have this wonderful experience.

With my friend. Was able to sit down with our guides as well as some other members of the Jarana cycling community. To give you a flavor for this wonderful cycling city. I hope you enjoy and let's dive right in

Day 1

[00:00:56] Craig Dalton: Right here we are, day one, Trek Gerona Gravel tour here in Gerona, Spain here in the hotel. Nord got set up on my Trek demo bike. Not the one you'd expect for these gravel trips, but it turns out the gravel roads here in Gerona are pretty smooth and you don't need the big wide tires that I typically ride at home.

So we're riding a 35 C Pirelli tire on these Damani bikes. The great thing was, Sent them over. My fit measurements had everything dialed, so it was just some quick adjustments Right before the ride. Today we did about 25 miles today as a shakeout ride. Riding along, essentially along the river, out and back on either side of the river, which a lot of fun.

We got into some single track. Super smooth. Not a lot of elevation today. That's gonna come tomorrow where I'm excited that we're riding off to the Mediterranean. So great first day. Great intro. The guides. Rafa and Mickey are awesome. Mickey's a local here in Jerron and Rafa's from London. Bringing a little bit of international flavor to the trip.

We've got a group of about six of us, so it's pretty easy to keep people together. I've got two friends from San Francisco along for the ride, so that is a joy and a pleasure. More later in the week, and I'll get some commentary, a little bit more specifics about the writing from Mickey Rafa along the way to to give you an idea about what to expect.

It's a five day experience here in the Jonah Gravel tour. They've got some other options I think, coming online next year, but super excited for the days to come as the mileage is gonna creep up, and I'm told the technicality is gonna creep up as well. So super excited for that. We'll see how these 35 C tires on the demos go, but I'm confident we've got the right equipment for the job.

Day 2

[00:02:50] Craig Dalton: Okay, so on day two of the Trek Gerona gravel tour today, we did about 60 miles of gravel, about 1800 feet of climbing on our way to the Mediterranean beach, the Mediterranean Ocean. We started in Gerona and followed the prominent river all the way to the east. Surprisingly, the whole ride, we were on gravel roads, beautiful gravel.

Started out getting outta town on some small paths right next to the river. Some real fun single track to wake you up and then onto some amazing roads through forests. There's a lot of forests here. We were told that the trees that were being planted there were for the paper industry. They were super beautiful tall trees and lined in rows, and we just weaved throughout them until 29 kilometers later.

We met the van, the Trek travel van, and our second guide Mickey, who had water refills and food and everything we needed for the second half of our ride out there to the coast where we went through orchards, basically this incredibly smooth gravel road. Very, very little car traffic. I think maybe we saw a few, maybe three vehicles out there the whole day, but super pleasant ride.

Relatively flat for 60 miles, only 1800 feet of climbing. We got to the ocean to meet Mickey in the van again. Had an amazing lunch and a few of us decided we were gonna jump into the. It wasn't exactly warm, but it wasn't unpleasant. It was so fun to kind of get off the gravel bike in the middle of your ride and go for a swim and play around.

And one of the riders, James, my friend from San Francisco, took a nap on the beach while we were in the water and we had to rouse him to get him back on the bike for our 45 kilometer return home. Adding up to, as I said, 60 miles and no idea why I'm converting miles to kilometers and vice versa.

Including them in the same sentences. But anyway, I'm a bit groggy from the ride. The legs are taken a little bit to get used to it, but it's been amazing. The town's been amazing. We, we spent sunset at, on the wall here in Jerome, next to the big church, and you can see the purities and the sun was setting right over the pys.

Pretty incredible Second day. Getting ready for the third day, which I guess is a little bit more technical. I'll get some of the guides on to describe some of the terrain, excuse me, that we're going through and we'll see how the legs hold up.

Day 3

[00:05:29] Craig Dalton: Day three of our Jer gravel cycling tour with track travel. Today was a little bit more technical, especially with the 35 Sea Tires. We got out into some rolling farm roads and definitely off into some single track and double track. That was pretty amazing, the first 30 K or so, rolling farm roads.

Just a little bit punchier than we've been experiencing. A little bit looser gravel in most cases. But nothing too technical on the. 30 K of the ride. We had this amazing stop at Ro Roca corba cycling, a new 17th century Chateau kind of building that's being converted into a cycling. Kind of lodge and Airbnb pretty amazing.

They took the kind of areas that used to house the cattle underneath the building and made them into kind of the bike room and a little cafe. It's a super like rustic arc, arc ceilings beautiful stonework on the grounds. This beautiful old building, it's being renovated by a couple professional cyclists, ones who's already retired, and one who's in the Women's Pro tour today.

So that was really special. Kind of get to tour that facility and definitely something. It's about 30 kilometers outside of. Jer. So kind of an interesting place to stay. You know, the ideal might be stay in Gerona for, you know, four or five days and then go out there for three or four days, or two or three days to just get a little bit of different starting point.

It's a little closer to closer to some of the climbs particularly for the roadies. So, you know, if you're interested in getting out and hitting some of those climbs and having a little less distance in your legs from Gerona, that's a good option. Once we left there, the riding got a little bit more technical through some farms.

Took a lot of single track. Some punchier climbs actually reminds me of what I recently experienced at, at big sugar in Arkansas. Kind of loose gravel, the sense definitely some loose gravel pushed the technical capabilities. Clearly. Track is the, has done a really good job of making roots that are gonna explore different areas of your gravel cycling ability again today.

Was definitely on the more technical side, particularly if you were a newer rider of which we had at least one in today's ride. And you know, you could. Some of them were, some of the dissents were definitely making them think, but everybody went through fabulously. We even got to stop at the property, which my one of the guides fathers owned, and I'll get him on to talk about that a little bit.

But it was great being able to reminisce with him and he learned to swim up there. His father owned a restaurants, a typical Catalan food restaurant in this really beautiful building, which was kind of cool to see. Then we rolled back into, I'm always looking at the GPS and amazed that, you know, we could be within seven kilometers of Jerome and still in these amazing forests and woods, riding gravel, basically all the way back into town.

So another great day out there. It's interesting how they've explored. The first day was kind of getting to know your bike a little bit. Second day was that long. Ride out to the beach. Not very technical. Beautiful, beautiful gravel roads today being more technical, and we'll see what the next two days have to bring us.

Day 4

[00:08:46] Craig Dalton: All right. Day four, Gerona gravel. Definitely woke up feeling a little tired, not gonna lie. Fourth day riding in a row with some big climbs. Yesterday. Got a massage yesterday afternoon, which was awesome and quite affordable here in Gerona, which was a bonus. Got up this morning, got the bikes ready. We got the route loaded up.

We were riding through the fields. Kesier de Las Selva known for the cork. It's cork production. So they actually, it was kind of interesting. They, the trees kind of about five feet kind of from the ground up. Five feet they chop and that's the cork that they used to make cork bottles, flooring, everything.

So that was super cool to see. We continued rolling through some dirt roads through there, through the mountain range of Lis gravis. Then we tackled a famous road climb called Santa Aea, known as the George hie Climb for Local. This was awesome. I mean, I know we're here to talk about gravel and the gravel was great that first half of the morning, but that road climb was spectacular as well.

I kind of felt like it was a bonus, obviously, like we signed up for a gravel trip, but to be able to do kind of a famous climb, road climb was amazing. It was great gradient, fantastic descent. Right at the bottom of it, we turned up another dirt road and had a a 12 K climb to lunch. Great climb kind of loose.

Actually more similar to riding I do at home than the first couple of days. So that was interesting. Got up to a church where Salvador Dolly was married, had some lunch, then we dropped down the kind of backside of that climb. But before we got to the bottom in Jer, we took another hard right and got into a trail system right above.

Rode some steep descents through and down back into town. Those steep descents were very much like mount ta. You know, maybe 12, 15% grade going down and loose. A lot of fun. I discovered by the time I got back to town that I managed to cut the sidewall of my. But fortunately the sealant held and it was all good for me to roll back into town.

We dropped a few people off and ended up going on an extended loop, a pretty vicious climb on the extended loop they call extended loops for the avid riders. My legs were screaming at me, but it was a, it was a lot of fun. We were kind of just, again, in that same area going up into the ELs Angels climb area.

Steep dirt climbs pretty loose. We grinded that climb for a while, but the descent was a hell of a lot of fun. Pretty gentle loose rock, but pretty easy to handle at speed. Fun. Coming back into the town the way that route did was a lot of fun. It really felt like you were kind of entering a village, not downtown gerona like we've done in some other, the the entrances back into town.

Anyway, another great day out there for day four. Super fun, super varied. The team has done a really good job of kind of making each day feel different and like many areas around the world, kind of directionally where you head outta town, the, the dirt and the gravel. Has just a different feel to it. So it's been fun to explore.

We've got one more day on the official tour, and then I've got an extra day here. So we're gonna do a sixth day of riding where I think we'll head back out to the Mediterranean Ocean. Cuz how, how cool is that?

Day 5

[00:12:17] Craig Dalton: All right. Day five of the Jarana. The gravel tour with truck travel, bit of a shorter day, as most of the clients were leaving today, it's the end of the official tour. So our guides took us on a really fun kind of single tracky tour through a different part of the surrounding area that we hadn't visited before.

Lots of fun. Just kind of a great community day where we got to interact with the other riders a bit, and the writing wasn't too challenging nor too long as the ideal schedule had you back by noon and getting checked out of the hotel. Fortunately, we don't have to leave today. So we decided at least a few of us who were staying on a couple extra days to go out and climb the LA angels.

Road climb again. We had such a good time. The day before on that climb, we thought it'd be fun to go back up. And we had some energy in our legs and a little bit of time in the afternoon to go tackle that. So we said goodbye to the other members of our tour group and our guides and headed off on a road loop.

It was great. We talked about the climb a bit the other day. Just a fun group. Growed climb we saw a bunch of pros climbing up at which was always fun got to the top crews back down and put another day behind us in the books

Day 6 and 7

[00:13:31] Craig Dalton: All right. Well, the official tour from track is over at day five. We had a couple extra days on our hands over in Gerona and you better believe we wanted to go out there and ride Mickey. One of our guides that you'll hear from later in this broadcast was nice enough to share.

Another route. Out to the coast for us. So we really enjoyed that ride out to the coast, just super satisfying to kind of hit the Mediterranean. I shouldn't come back. Over to Gerona, but he had us go over some great trails on the way out and then a really, really fun road climb. Just gradual great fun descent down into the Mediterranean. You got to the top and you could see the ocean just super satisfying.

We sat around in a cafe for gosh. Probably an hour and a half, just drinking some teas and coffees and having some snacks. We were having a great time, but we realized we needed to head back to Gerona. And Mickey's rude had us go through some similar type of terrain that we were on in our coastal roots, a few days back, those nice long flat undulating gravel trails that seemed to be pervasive in this area. So we're super appreciative of Mickey.

Sharing one of his favorite routes that he loves to do with his friends, with us. So we could get another big day. You know, on the bike. I'll move on to day seven. As I'm recording this after the fact day seven, we didn't have a bunch of time left. So we decided we were going to basically revisit the route from day one, some of that nice single track and double track along by the river, it was actually fun without the group with just two of us remaining on the bikes, the kind of rip the single track a little bit harder.

We were comfortable with the bikes. We'd been on them for seven days at that point. So really fun to just kind of rip the single track and nail it a little bit harder. Knowing that we could go as hard as we wanted because we had an overnight in Barcelona and then we were going to be on a plane saying a sad goodbye to Gerona.

Overall. It was a fantastic trip. Jarana is a very special community. There's a reason why so many cyclists flock there it's clear whether you're a gravel cyclist road cyclist, or even mountain biker that there's ample terrain every direction outside of Jarana. And then the town itself is just really special, special.

Between the old world, the old town roads and the city. City walls, the church walls. It was just a really great experience. Our guides from track were phenomenal and I wanted to introduce you to them. So I've recorded some tracks. That'll play immediately after this commentary. So you can get to know Mickey and Rafa, who were our guides throughout the week for track travel.

I also was able to capture a little bit of audio from a few different sources. We talked a little bit about Roca Corp, but cycling. Both the 17th century Villa that's being converted into a cycling Airbnb, as well as there's Roca, Corbus cycling clothing, which was founded by a gentleman by the name of a test who's happening to be opening his store this month in Jarana. So it was able to get him on the mic. I had Andrew from the Airbnb.

Cycling house. And then also Oscar from Castelli Castelli just opened up a flagship community store in Gerona that week we were there as well. We witnessed a number of group rides going out from the facility. So it was great to hear what Castelli's perspective was for opening that facility. And I was surprised to learn it had.

Had little to do with selling. Jerseys and clothing and bib shorts, as you would imagine, and everything to do with promoting the cycling community and creating yet another hub. In Jarana for cyclists. Which brings us back to why you should all go to Jarana. As i just mentioned it's a great place to go and i highly recommend it and i hope you enjoyed this overview of my experience there.

With that said let's jump right into those conversations

Rapha - Trek Travel Guide

[00:17:33] Craig Dalton: Okay, can I get your name and what you do with Trek?

[00:17:36] Rapha: My name is Rafael and I'm a second

[00:17:38] Craig Dalton: guide for Trek Travel. And

[00:17:40] Rapha: where are you from? Well that's a good question cuz originally from the Philippines grew up for most of my life, 20 years in London and now anywhere in Europe. So I'm a resident of France, but I gotta find a place to live , so.

[00:17:54] Craig Dalton: And how long have you been guiding for

truck

[00:17:56] Rapha: travel? This will be my fifth year now, guiding for truck.

[00:17:59] Craig Dalton: And what does that look like? Are you always based here in Jer or are you all over the place? We, we

[00:18:03] Rapha: sort of congregate here in the beginning of the year and then come back at the end of the year, but in between, we're all over

[00:18:09] Craig Dalton: Europe.

And are you leading, I know Trek Travel has got many, many road tours. Probably a lesser degree of gravel tours. Are you leading trips on the road and gravel

[00:18:21] Rapha: for now? Yeah, and we're, we're starting off gravel next year and so it's a mainly road for the beginning. Next year we're gonna bring in unpaved which is gonna be a whole gravel series.

So we have a whole unit of bikes just traveling throughout Europe, and it's gonna be exciting for next year. Yeah,

[00:18:37] Craig Dalton: it's exciting. I heard, I heard from the, the extended team that you're gonna really build out the gravel experiences for next year, which is great. I think if my experience in Jerome with the gravel tour is any indication there's gonna be a lot of magical trips across Europe, helping riders discover gravel all over the.

[00:18:56] Rapha: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I do a lot of the road tours and I'll see just a patch of undiscovered area and I'm thinking, Hey, where does that go? Or I'll be traveling along the hills and in between you're gonna see these gravel patches of fires and you just want to go and explore. And essentially that's what the guides that went into design these trips or, or want to do, they want to do that.

They want to find out those roads. Where does it lead to? Can I connect these dots and see the town and where am I gonna.

[00:19:25] Craig Dalton: Yeah, I think it's one of the things I've talked about on the podcast a lot, just the power of local knowledge as we're following the GPX files or following you guys' guides through Jer here.

You know, there's a lot of nuance, a lot of little trails that you can pop onto that would be easy to miss if you just sort of saw a heat map of the area. You might just choose the carriage way instead of the the nice trails. So it's really cool and important. I. To have guides that are local to kind of pick apart the best of the best for us to ride on.

[00:19:57] Rapha: Yeah, I mean this is what we do. We, this is what we do for fun. So on our time off whilst we do a lot of road riding for work on our time off, we want to go out there and ride gravel. And so this is why we get to know the places. We live around here and in the places that we research gravel all we're doing is just riding and riding and riding and then through.

Time, just knowledge. You build up tracks in your head and you wanna put that onto design and then maybe create a trip around it. Find a hotel, find a restaurant, the best restaurants, best hotels to stay and yeah, it's awesome.

[00:20:30] Craig Dalton: Yeah, I feel that way. Whenever anybody comes to Marin County, I just wanna show them the best of the best and not the most obvious trails, but the, the ones only the locals know.

Yeah.

[00:20:41] Rapha: You, you wanna share it? I mean, it's, its more fun riding a gravel. It's more fun with people, friends and random people that you meet up on

[00:20:48] Craig Dalton: trails as well. Yeah. When we were, when we first arrived during the week and you were giving an overview, you were talking about kind of the progression of roots that we'd be doing during the week.

I thought it was very interesting, like the thoughtfulness in, in how you guys conceived of the roots and the, the relative challenges, whether they be distance or technic. Can you talk about, you know, if someone's come coming into one of the spring trips for the Trek Travel Corona gravel tour, what would how would you describe it?

[00:21:16] Rapha: Well, so, well, there was no brief in the beginning, so actually when we rode this, For the research we rode 500 kilometers in five days and it looked like a picture of a lung with all the trees of just dead ends. But once we put it all together, we decided to, okay. Day one is a bit of an introduction.

Let's get you used to the surfaces, the mixed surfaces, but we're gonna keep it flat. And on the second day we're gonna add on a little bit of distance just to make sure you have endurance for grab, because it's a lot of work. You know, you're doing a lot of cadence. Mind work as well, trying to figure out what's coming up.

And then day three we add technicality. Now we're having multi services, soft sand, big rocks, technical climbs, and technical descents, which, you know, your wheels dig in, you gotta react to it. And then we put all of that together for the fourth day where you. Pick up all the skills you've had and we put it all in a fourth day for you to enjoy.

Yeah. Right

[00:22:11] Craig Dalton: on. And can you talk about the bikes that people are offered for this

[00:22:15] Rapha: trip? Okay. For this trip, we are currently running Damani 2019 s SL seven. So it has gravel wheels on it for 35 millimeter. And it's just fun. That's what it is. So it's, it's not an all out gravel. It tests your limits on this ride and you get electronic shifting.

So when you really need that gear on those technical climbs, you're gonna get it. Of course you're gonna prepare for it, but you're gonna get, get the gears. Yeah. When

[00:22:39] Craig Dalton: I first saw that, that was the bike spec, I mean, it almost immediately had me thinking of more the trails that we took out to the coast when the carriageway, the, the, you know, the reclaimed rail line.

Right. But at the end of the day, like now, four days into this, You're pushing the limits of these bikes and it's been a hell of a lot of fun. I mean, it, I really do think it's one of, it is kind of a perfect bike for this situation because it did everything you needed to do if you were ever on the road, it felt snappy and lively and it could withstand some of the abuse we were putting it through today.

[00:23:11] Rapha: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, these, these can do rock gardens and slick rock on, on good terrain. Good. These bikes are perfect around your owner. Of course, you know, you can always go wider. You can get flat bars and you go, world is your oyster. When it comes to gravel. I mean, you ask anybody what is gravel to you and they'll give you a million answers depending on who you're talking to.

So every, everyone's got their preferences, and next year, you know, who knows? We have Wider checkpoints next year and it's it's gonna cater up to 50 mil tires and it's gonna be amazing. So we have sneak preview, we have a few in the warehouse at the moment in, and we can't wait for next

[00:23:48] Craig Dalton: year at a checkpoint.

Yeah, I think it, I mean, the checkpoint's obviously like gonna be a little bit more versatile and you can imagine the opportunity if you have a rider on day one that's seeming a little nervous. Maybe you spec it with a 40 to begin with and maybe you swap out the wheels and maybe you put him or her on 50 millimeters just to give them additional comfort.

And who knows, maybe it's even for day four, we put you on 50 millimeters cuz we know it's gonna be kind of more challenging, technically speaking.

[00:24:17] Rapha: Yeah, I mean, absolutely. We're gonna, as guides, you know, we're gonna test write these. We have a few in now and we're gonna have fun and check it out. So to checkpoint with all this capabil.

It's gonna be more forgiving and hopefully you'll get more people coming in and not be so scared about gravel and check it out and try, try something different from

[00:24:37] Craig Dalton: road riding. Yeah, for sure. As someone who didn't grow up in gerona, what have been some of your favorite things that you've discovered in town?

[00:24:43] Rapha: Oh, you know what? Last night was probably one of the best nights ever because it was random. Mickey invited me down to the cast Telluride, and we did a Night Gravel, which is absolutely epic. Like, it's add just a different layer of difficulty, not seeing too far around and the group dynamic and you know, getting to know people and.

Absolute blast.

[00:25:04] Craig Dalton: Yeah, we were more than a little jealous that we didn't have lights with us and our legs were probably cooked enough that we shouldn't go for another eye, but we probably would've been excited to do so. Craig, maybe next time we're gonna invite you around. Exactly. Outside of Jer, since you've done Trek travel trips in a bunch of different places, what would be like one other trip that you'd recommend?

Gravel or road? Either way. Oh, that's,

[00:25:26] Rapha: it's like choosing between your children really. Like I adore all the trips and, but for me, this. The classic climb of the Alps. It's so stunning. It's beautiful and it's challenging. That's one of my favorite trips. And what,

[00:25:39] Craig Dalton: what classic climbs, if you can recall, some of 'em are on that

[00:25:43] Rapha: trip.

Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, we start in a place LA Luce and the first ride you're doing quarter cord Qure. Okay. And, sorry, my mistake. Yeah. Qure. And it's a, it's a first. Already you're getting like 1500 meters of elevation in a 55 kilometer ride. So it's just day one and you're already getting straight up, okay, we're here to climb and we're gonna go all out the whole week.

Nice. Of course, we, we do the epic outdoors at the end trip, sort of the icing of the cake and so that's the last climb of the,

[00:26:20] Craig Dalton: of the trip. Yeah. It's certainly nice for anybody who's been watching the tour to come over and knock off any one of those climbs that are bucket list.

[00:26:27] Rapha: Yeah, it is, it is a backless trip.

I was fortunate, fortunate enough to climb outdoors on the TDF day in 2022, and the atmosphere there is unbelievable. Just the, the crowd cheering you on it, it just gives you an extra beat and you are just hammering up the hill just because of the people cheering you on. It's absolutely epic. And then of course you get more quieter climbs.

So Wears is a great climb, but like Holyland. It's not celebrated enough for just Serenity, and it's, it's still challenging. It's 21 kilometers and but it's a good, it's a good time. Yeah. It's underrated my opinion. Amazing. My favorite call.

[00:27:05] Craig Dalton: Awesome. I love your passion for it, . Thank you. Cool. And I, again, I wanted to thank you for all your help this week.

It's been great getting to know you and riding with you. If it's, if it's unclear in anything we've said before, Each day we've had one of these guys riding with us and so one person's in the van and we've got one person on a bike with us. So we've had good camaraderie and lots of miles to get to know one another.

So thanks again for everything

[00:27:28] Rapha: this week. Thank you to, to you guys. Cause without you we wouldn't be here. And it's an absolute pleasure to be guiding you around here and it's so fun just doing own gravel. Cheers. Thank you.

Miqui

[00:27:38] Craig Dalton: All right, sir, can I get your name and what you do for truck travel?

[00:27:42] Miqui: Yeah, so my name is Mickey Mic Reta, and I'm one of the guides of the truck travel ju gravel.

[00:27:50] Craig Dalton: And not only are you one of the guides, you're a local here

[00:27:52] Miqui: in Gerran. Yeah, I'm local. I'm born and raised in Gerran and I'm very happy to have you guys here in Gerona.

Let's,

let's

[00:28:01] Craig Dalton: actually start with that. You've been in Gerona your whole life as you just. What's it been like growing up here? How has the town changed and as cycling has become more of a hub, how has it been infused into Gerona culture?

[00:28:14] Miqui: So I would say cycling has always been a part of Ger. I remember as a kid going to a bunch of mountain bike races with my brother, probably.

I did my mountain bike race, my first one when I was like six years old. And then, After that, it's just, it's been growing like crazy and I remember probably about eight years ago as one, it just went insane. Like all the pros started moving here and somehow it created a community that is just like a magnet for all the cyclists anywhere in the world up until the point that now I would say Juran is the cycling capital of the.

[00:28:55] Craig Dalton: What is it about the roads and trails around here that you think attracted them people to gerona? Obviously, you've given us a great sample these five days of what the gravel has been like, and it's been spectacular. We've touched on some of these roads. I'd just like to hear in your words, why do you think everybody's coming here?

[00:29:14] Miqui: So I would say Jona has everything you are looking for in. Or anything related to cycling? The weather is good all year round. It's true we have a rainy season, which lasts for a couple weeks or a month. We have a very few weeks in summer, which is very hot in very few weeks in winter, which is very cold.

But the rest of the year is incredible. It has an. Endless options of road riding. If you wanna ride to the peer, you can, it's a long ride, but you can actually do it if you wanna ride from ju to the coast and do a nice short loop, short-ish you can do it if, yeah, I would say in ju you could be riding for almost a month and you would never repeat a single ride.

[00:29:58] Craig Dalton: Yeah, I believe it. I mean, just from sampling it for this week. Yeah, for sure. And I mean, I think it's great that you've. Flat options. You've got hilly options. I think today we were up on kind of the local climb you would probably do after

[00:30:12] Miqui: work. Yeah. You guys were up on Los Angeleses, which. I feel like it's just incredible to have a climb like that starting at three kilometers from the center of Una and yeah, it's, it's a long climb.

It's about 10 kilometers and on top you get views of the purines. You get views of the ocean, well, the sea. Yeah. I feel like we are very lucky

[00:30:33] Craig Dalton: in here. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like it's like probably one of those climbs that every local athlete knows their exact time to the top. Yeah.

[00:30:41] Miqui: I would say that.

People's fitness, you always ask, what's their time of Los Angeles ?

[00:30:47] Craig Dalton: Yeah. That'll tell you if you're a compatible rider with them. So let's talk about the, the Trek Jer Gravel tour. I think you had a hand in a lot of the mapping, being a local and figuring out all the roots. How did you go about kind of, I always say whether it's an event organizer or a tour, it's almost like a love letter to your community and your trails, right?

You're. You've got guests coming in from out of the country or out of the area and you wanna show them the best of the best. How did you go about thinking about the, the trails and roads we were

[00:31:17] Miqui: on? The thing about this trip is that I had, I had to think that I couldn't make it super intense cuz sometimes we are taking guests at not super experienced on, on gravel riding or they just come from the.

So I couldn't make a trip very technical, but as you guys saw, we have a few avid options after the look we do every day, which are a little more technical. But yeah, I feel like I, I was really happy when they actually said, Hey Mickey, do you want to give us a hand with this trip? Because, It's Una, I'm, I'm, that's where I started riding and I love grow riding, so actually my favorite ride of the trip is the one where we go to the coast.

So we start in Una. It's super flat. We actually did on an incredible day. It was super sunny and we stop at the at the sea and yeah, we have lunch by the sea. Then after you guys went for a little swim and then we brought back to Una, we tried to stop at the brewer, which was unfortunately close that day.

But yeah, I just think it's, I was very happy when Trek Travel said, Hey, do you wanna give us a

[00:32:23] Craig Dalton: hand on this? Yeah. It's interesting. I think it's, it's sort of, you know, I imagine Trek travel draws a lot of road athletes Yeah. Onto their trips. So I think it is very approachable, but definitely had moments where you needed some skill.

Not, you know, I think for more experienced gravel riders, riders, there was, there was no fear. It was just fun and exhilaration. But for a couple of the newer rider, When they were going down the looser descents, they were probably a little bit scared but exhilarated when they got to the bottom. Yeah.

[00:32:54] Miqui: I don't think it's, it's nothing crazy.

We haven't put anything on this trip, which would be like dangerous or scary for like total beginners. We've had intellectual, we, we classify rider in four levels, four being the, the most expert. And we've had people on this trip, they're like level twos and they've. They've loved the descents, they love the writing.

Yeah. I think it's, it's got a great balance of hardcore and not hardcore, so. Yeah.

[00:33:23] Craig Dalton: Yeah, it's super interesting. I mean, we, we sort of weave through the farmlands and into little villages, and it's been a real pleasure to kind of pop out of some woods and go through some, you know, 17th century sanctuary buildings and then back out onto some trails.

It's, it's super fun. So,

[00:33:39] Miqui: and that's the thing about Juran, right? So everyone, Toronto is for road cycling, but as a local, I'm a hundred percent sure that there is actually a lot more gravel riding than there is road riding in Toronto. Yeah, I

[00:33:56] Craig Dalton: believe you. I mean, I think within four kilometers of town every day we've been on the dirt.

Yeah.

[00:34:01] Miqui: The extension of like farm roads and Yeah, just unpaved roads. I mean, I'm not talking about single track, I'm just talking. Real, what I like to call the real gravel, which is smooth and fast.

[00:34:15] Craig Dalton: Yeah. You were telling me about that railroad line that used to go from the Yeah. The sea to the purities, and now it's all a gravel road.

Yeah,

[00:34:23] Miqui: so I would say it's about 50 years ago when they removed the, the train line, the, well, the railway, which there was a train that went from sun follow g. Which is one of the towns on the coast. And then it run all the way up to Ola and now yeah, they just remove the whole railway and they lay gravel on it and it's just an incredible, it's, it's actually a bike path, so on the weekend it's gonna be full of kids on bikes and yeah, the extension to the Villa Verde, which that it's included on the Villa Verde, is just incredible.

How

[00:35:02] Craig Dalton: many kilometers do you think that that trail. It's over a hundred kilometers. That's amazing. I mean, to be able to cruise, I mean, and relatively flat presumably, until it gets to the purity side. Yeah. It's

[00:35:14] Miqui: totally flat. But since a train used to Yeah. Be on it, so they made sure it was super flat

[00:35:20] Craig Dalton: for it.

Yeah. Miles and miles and miles. Going back to the community in Ger, what are some of your favorite kind of, if a cyclist is coming to town, what are some of the go-to businesses they should

[00:35:30] Miqui: visit? So if a cyclist comes in, ger, I would say most people, they would come here for about at least a week. So you're gonna have time to visit all of them, which they are all a hundred percent worth visiting.

But there is a couple of places. You should a hundred percent go see if you're here for a short period of time. One of them being a coffee shop called La Fabrica, which it's only open in the mornings and lunch, so it's, it's the perfect place to brunch. Yeah.

[00:36:05] Craig Dalton: Quick aside, I literally ran into someone I know, know from the United States today, and they told us to go have brunch at

[00:36:13] Miqui: Left Africa Till Africa is owned by Christian Mayer and Amber Mayer.

He was, well, he's a, he's a former, Yeah, they were the pioneers in Una, so they were the first ones to open a coffee shop, only focused for cyclist, of course, for everyone. And now it has become like a super great, like it's, it's a tourist attraction right now, but that's what kind of triggered the whole cycling movement in Joran.

Okay.

[00:36:41] Craig Dalton: So La Africa, and what's the

[00:36:42] Miqui: second one? La Africa. They also have another coffee shop, which is only for. Which LA Fabric is more like brunch and food. The other coffee shop is called Espresso Mafia, which is one meal walking from La Fabrica, and that's basically where Christian roast the coffee and then you can drink it at Espresso Mafia.

And then another place you should go visit in general, well, mid January. Trek and track travel. It's opening the first track store in the world, which is gonna have truck travel inside of it. And with a rental fleet, we are going to be the biggest, as in space, we're gonna have the biggest bike shop in ju, which it's pretty exciting.

[00:37:29] Craig Dalton: Yeah, that's really exciting. And then finally, what's one sort of cultural place within Jerron that a tourist should visit?

[00:37:36] Miqui: The whole old town itself. If you go to Juna, I highly recommend getting a walking tour of the Old Town because you're really gonna see what our culture is here and how it was in the past.

And everything around the old town is just, it's just incredible.

[00:37:55] Craig Dalton: Yeah. That's fun. You recommended we go up onto the wall for sunset. Yeah. And we've, we missed it the first night. The second night we, we made it up. We may have had to like randomly climb over a fence to make it there in time because we couldn't find the way up.

But we got there and it was spectacular with view. Is that the purities that you're looking at out there? Yeah. You

[00:38:14] Miqui: get to see Purees, you get to see a bunch of things and yeah, there is a restaurant called Aro. Which is in one of the steps. Well, there's like, Juna has 200 million cathedrals, but in one of them.

On the stairs there is a restaurant called , which they actually film Game of Thrones there. And the terrace of the restaurant, it's actually on a little like flat section it has on those stairs. And I think it's a really cool location.

[00:38:45] Craig Dalton: That's super. Cool. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you so much for all the hospitality this week.

It's been great to getting to know you and the local terrain

[00:38:55] Miqui: here. Yeah. Thank you guys for coming.

Girona Cycling Friends

[00:38:57] Andrew - RocaCorba: All right. Can I let me get your name and let me know where we're at. What's this beautiful place? So my name is Edward Green. I'm the guest, the general manager slash I don't know what, at Rocka Culpa cycling. So we are a cycling tourism business just outside of Jer Corona in a town called Bans. We are based on a 17th century Catalan estate, or Maia as it is in Catalan.

And we are basically trying to be a boutique hotel with some villas attached, which is exclusively for cyclists, road, gravel, mountain. Whatever you enjoy on two wheels is, is what we wanna do. And how far away from Ger are we? So we are currently 18 kilometers from Gerona, or 10 or 11 miles depending.

Country. And about a 30 to 45 minute ride depending on, on how you get to us. Can you describe where we are in, in the villa right now? So we're downstairs basically in what used to be the old like area for the animals. So we've got some troughs around us, but we've done huge renovations to basically create our cycling dungeon down here.

So we've got beautiful old vaulted Catalan ceiling. Rustic concrete floors, beautiful stone work, and then cycling history all around us with some beautiful frames. Cycling jerseys. Good coffee from the rocket espresso machine. Everything you can need for a good cycling stay. And what time of year is best to come here?

Pretty much all, all year. To be honest. I don't think there's necessarily a bad month anymore, like December and Januarys tends to be quite quiet, but we see strong gravel riding in October, November, and the rest of the year is a lot of road riding. Summer is quite warm, so unless you like waking up early, probably avoid summer a little bit.

But like June and September, October, probably buffer the. I'll note when you said strong gravel riding, you looked right at exactly a hundred percent. You are the epitome of what we see in November. . Tell us a little bit about the rest of the. So we are on 37 hectares and it's basically an old, what was an old family estate of the Campier family.

The estate dates back to the 17th century, so 1673, and it was with the same family until 2018 when we took it over to create. What we want to create is basically cycling paradise all you need in one place. Out in the countryside, but close to Gerrin. And how many rooms do you have available here? So currently we're at eight rooms, but we'll be at 13 by April next year.

So we're currently in the process literally starting today, which is very exciting of putting in five beautiful unsweet rooms in this main can poly manor house, partially they'll have views over down towards the lake onto some vineyards, but also into the courtyard and just generally over the rolling hills of, of Jerome.

And tell us a little bit about the village. So just on our doorstep, we have the town of Olas which has a beautiful lake in it. It's where they had the rowing for the 92 Barcelona Olympic. It's a great place for like active people, for families, et cetera. But there's a lot of rowing. A lot of of the British university teams come out and train here.

A lot of the national teams come and train as well, but generally just a fantastic place to be. Good quality of life and just down to earth and authentic. Amazing. And how do people find out about staying here? So if you have a look on Rocka coba cycling.cc, you'll find us and you can kind of do anything from there.

Or if you are enjoy climbing, just Google Rocka Coba, you'll find the climb, and then you'll find us and the clothing. Amazing. Thank you. Perfect. That was great.

[00:42:14] Oscar - Castilli: Okay. Can I get your name? Hi, my name is Oscar. And Oscar. Where are we standing today? Well, today we are in the, the first flag shipper store in the, in the war from Costelli here in Una. And what's the plan for the store? What are you trying to do with the community here? Well, una, you know, is the Jamaica for for European cyclists, I think all over the world.

So, right now Castelli store, it's coming to. The big cycling club in Giona and well, why not in Spain? Nice. And we, we rolled by here last night and there was a big group ride going out on the gravel. Yeah. We have almost 40 people doing the full moon ride. It was amazing. So always we keep a surprise for all the riders.

We stop in a food truck in the middle of the forest with fire. Some dinner and and beer. So it was super fun. That's amazing. And if someone's coming to Jerone to, to visit, do you have a calendar of events that they can look at? Yeah, they can, they can follow us on our Instagram and yeah, you can check.

So, but every week we have a ride, so, and 2023, especially now it's coming a low season for the weather, but from February. So it's coming. A lot of events. Yeah. Amazing. Thanks Oscar, and congratulations on opening the new Castelli store. Yeah, big pleasure. Thanks for coming.

[00:43:30] Mattias - Rococorba Clothing: All right. Right. Can you tell me your name and your shop? Mattias from Roco, COBA Clothing, Giron Mattias. Tell us a little bit about the brand. Yeah, it's a brand. It started in 2017 in the top of the mountain of Roco Coba. It's a very famous climb here in Giron, and I decided to, to put a food truck up there and to start at the same time closing brand called Roca corba.

And yes, five years. Later. I just opened a new shop in GI selling all my stuff, selling online, gold wide, and really happy too. Have, what are some of the products that you sell? I sell Jersey t-shirts, shorts accessories, bags, Macs, beat ons. A lot of things sucks. Yeah. Amazing. These jerseys I see on the wall are beautiful, very colorful, very expressive.

What inspires you and the, the designs? Yeah. Yeah. Right now I have like more or less 50, 60 different designs and I inspir it from everywhere. My slogan is cycling apparel inspired by the rob because we have so many different landscapes or different places and always I, I have inspired inspiration in the.

In our region. Yeah. And when is the shop opening up? I hope next Thursday it will be open. Now it's ready and I have to do some things, little things, but next Thursday, big opening here in J in the center. Amazing. I'm excited. We got a preview. We are able to pick up some of your lovely clothing. You said you, you're available worldwide.

Where can people find you on the. Yeah, we can find in ro.com. We have online shop with all the products and we we ship worldwide. Amazing. Thank you. Thank you. Pleasure, .

[00:45:22] Craig Dalton: So that's going to do it for this first international version of the gravel ride podcast. I've been talking and dreaming about international gravel travel for some time. So I was super excited to have this opportunity with track travel. To explore Durona with their Gravel cycling tour. It was amazing trip. As I said before, I highly encourage you to check it out.

As Raffa mentioned. They're unveiling a whole new series of gravel adventures for 2023. So they're really leaning into this gravel travel concept. What I loved about it was that unlike a gravel event where you might be focused on. Simply one ride when you visit somewhere amazing. Here. We were able to focus on riding every single day and there was no one ride that we needed to save ourselves for to get across the finish line. It was really about.

Exploring as much as our legs could handle. I wasn't as fit as I had normally been when I've gone over to Europe in the, in the past, but it was still an amazing trip, still an amazing experience that I highly, highly recommend. If you're interested in connecting and learning more about the trip, please visit truck travel.com. If you're interested in pinging me, please visit the ridership's that's www.theridership.com. If you're able to support the show, please visit buy me a coffee.com/the gravel ride or ratings and reviews are hugely appreciated. Until next time here's to finding some dirt under your wheels

This week we welcome Jonathan Hornell-Kennedy from Canada's Framework Bikes. Jonathan is a relative newcomer to the world of bicycle framebuilding, but his background in manufacturing and design supporting the aerospace industry provided him with some unique skills and insights he brings to his craft.

Jonathan sheds light on his entry into custom bike building, sharing the evolution of his process. He explains the meticulous method behind the creation of his unique carbon fiber tubes and aluminum lugs. We delve into what makes these bikes versatile on various terrains, and the challenges and decision-making involved in custom builds. Jonathan also touches on the struggles of establishing his brand within the competitive bike industry. 

The conversation rounds off with discussions about the future of Frameworks. Join us for an insightful conversation, as we delve deeper into the fascinating world of custom bike building. 

Framework Bikes Instagram

Episode sponsor: Hammerhead Karoo 2 (Use code: TheGravelRide for free HRM)

Support the Podcast

Join The Ridership 

Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos:

[00:00:00]Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport

I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist.

[00:00:25]Craig Dalton (Host): This week on the broadcast. I bring you Jonathan Cornell Kennedy from frameworks out of Canada. You might've heard Jonathan briefly on the podcast. When I did one of my made bicycle show recap shows.

I was captivated by his designs at the show as they were relatively unique amongst the field of titanium and steel welded bicycles. I'd been familiar with lugged carbon construction from a number of other builders along the years, but I hadn't seen his particular approach. And after following him on Instagram, which I definitely recommend you do, I became a NABARD with the manufacturing process. So I was excited to have him back on board to learn a little bit more about his history. He's a relative newcomer to the world of bicycling, which I think always yields interesting and innovative approaches to things.

That's builders who have been around forever. Might not care to revisit as an approach. . So. I'm excited to have this conversation before we jump in. I do need to thank this week sponsor hammer had, and the hammer had Caru to computer.

Maybe you've been thinking about updating your gravel cycling GPS computer. This time of year, the hammer head crew two is the most advanced GPS cycling computer available today. With industry leading mapping navigation and routing capabilities that set it apart for other GPS options, it has free global maps with points of interest included like cafes and campsites.

So you can explore with confidence and on the go flexibility. One of the things I always talk about when talking about my hammerhead crew too. Is the ongoing software updates that they ship. You never have to feel left behind from a new feature coming out in the world because the team at hammerhead are always looking to improve. The device, the climber feature is one that I always call out as it notably has this predictive path technology. Which lets you visualize for the upcoming gradient changes in real time, whether without a root loaded. That is something that I particularly lean on when I'm doing. An event in terrain that I don't. I have familiarity with, or I'm on some sort of adventure ride for me.

I really just love to see what's ahead of me in the climb. So I can just think about my cadence and effort level. Et cetera. The other big update that I saw come through was around this new e-bike integration, which brings detailed battery usage data right onto this. The display. As the new owner of N E MTB, I'm excited to explore this feature. Because I do have a bit of range anxiety. So having those battery details right in the display unit. By which you can access via a specific persona on the head unit.

So I can switch between things I need on an e-bike ride versus things I need on a traditional gravel ride. Anyway, I encourage you to give. The Karoo to a look right now, our listeners can get a free heart rate monitor with the purchase of our hammerhead kuru two. Just visit hammerhead.io right now and use the promo code, the gravel ride at checkout today. This is an exclusive offer for my listeners.

So don't forget that promo code, the gravel ride. You'll get a free heart rate monitor with your purchase of our crew to just go to hammerhead.io today at both items to your cart and use that promo code, the gravel ride. With that business behind us, let's jump right in to my conversation with Jonathan.

Jonathan. Welcome to the show. I'm excited to have this conversation after we originally connected at the maid show in Portland, Oregon. Super cool. I thought your product was one of the more. Interesting products I saw in the entire show. So I'm stoked to give the listeners a little bit more insight as to your background and what frameworks is all about.

[00:04:26]Jonathan: Thanks for saying that. That's nice of you. Um, yeah, it's kind of a tired story at this point. Someone with a passion in bikes and who makes things for a living decides to combine those two

of their life and see what happens.

[00:04:40]Craig Dalton (Host): Jonathan, where'd you grow up and how did you discover cycling in the first place?

[00:04:45]Jonathan:

so I'm, uh, native Southern Ontarian, uh, up here in Canada. I was born in Toronto and have lived within a few hours of Toronto my entire life. Um, so, started biking, just, you know, when you're, Parents kind of teach you how to ride a two wheeler kind of thing in the school field. Well, I was probably like six or seven at that point, um, and we moved out of the city when I was seven and into a more, well, we were still in a town, but I would say a more suburban kind of town.

So biking around the neighborhoods and going to see your friends and stuff, kind of a little bit of escaping mom and dad's supervision. Uh, and then just started kind of. Like, loosely mountain biking. I had like a giant hardtail for my whole, like, biking career from age 12 to when I left for university.

Um, so, you know, go on, jump off of stuff, try and jump over logs, whatever, you know, just being a goof with buddies, and then in university, I, um, that was like, what, early 2000s, um, there was kind of like, the original fixie craze, I feel like

[00:05:57]Craig Dalton (Host): It comes in waves

[00:05:59]Jonathan: but, so I started riding a fixie.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. It's cyclical, I'm sure. Um, so I started riding a fixie then to get around town, and that was the last bike I purchased before I made one for myself,

I studied, uh, a somewhat esoteric field of statistics called, like, uh, financial math. So it was taught in the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Sciences at the university I went to, so that's like the people who do insurance math. Basically figuring out how much your life insurance policy should cost based on, you know, statistics and market values and things like that.

So, um, yeah, so I was at school for quite a while. I, seven years, I think. Um, studying that I have a master's degree in it and then ended up doing nothing with that degree, uh, in practical use, like I should have been working as like a finance math kind of guy, you know, so didn't really

[00:07:05]Craig Dalton (Host): And then you had mentioned, you know, you had that fixed gear bike that was the only one you had and the next one was one you built yourself. That's for most of us. That's quite a massive leap and journey. What was going on there? I mean, you had, you develop sort of a passion for the sport of cycling. Was it more the idea of frame building and how did you even begin to acquire the skills to manufacture your first bike?

[00:07:30]Jonathan: Yeah, so that, that's maybe where the academic journey ends and then what I've done to earn a living, uh, commenced after that. Um, I, my wife and I own and operate a machine shop and, um, what we started the business with was, um, again, another esoteric thing, uh, pattern making is what it's called. And that's the, the trade that is involved with making the tools that foundries

[00:07:58]Craig Dalton (Host): And how did,

[00:07:59]Jonathan: castings.

[00:08:00]Craig Dalton (Host): I'm curious, Jonathan. So how did, I mean, how did you even see that as an opportunity? Did either of you have, you know, ties into the manufacturing world to begin with?

[00:08:10]Jonathan: Yeah, absolutely. So my dad is a mechanical engineer by education, and he owns and operates a company that, um, basically repairs, refurbishes, remakes large industrial pumps. Um So they, they oftentimes begin life as a casting, like a large chunk of, uh, iron or steel or bronze, whatever it might be. So when I was done university and kind of doing a little bit of soul searching, a friend of mine who's a few years older and was sort of, um, not thrilled with the job he had, I would say, or maybe that's not the right way to say it, but was looking for a change, um, He is, uh, he's a civil engineer by training and approached my dad cause he knew he was self employed and said, uh, Hey Pat, what do you think of like going out on my own?

Got any ideas? I'm pretty handy guy. And my dad said to him, like, Hey, I think you should look into pattern making. The guys are all old. You really can't go to school to learn that stuff. It's all sort of apprenticeship based and they're kind of phasing out their businesses, you know? Um, so there could be an opportunity there.

So Stefan, my friend, and I, um, I took like a night class at a local community college to learn how to do 3D modeling and was kind of pretty handy with SolidWorks. And the modern way of making patterns is to use CNC machines to carve 3D shapes, typically out of like blocks of foam or wood or, uh, tooling board, it's called, which is like a hard plastic.

And those objects that you create are what the foundry uses to create their sand molds. So picture like a cast iron frying pan. The way that's made is they melt iron in a pot and they pour it into a mold that's made out of sand and the mold has the shape of the iron, uh, the cast iron frying pan inside of it.

So my obligation or sort of the service that we offered was not only to produce the tooling, but I was also. You have to design it to work for the foundry. So, uh, cast iron frying pan is a relatively simple object, but we got, over the years, as my skill set grew, got involved with, um, some relatively complicated castings for, like, world leading Aerospace foundries.

And, um, so yeah, Stefan and I ran the business together for about a year, year and a bit. He was living in a different, like he lived in Toronto property. We're in Hamilton, which is about an hour outside. And, um, he had, uh, his first kid in that time. And I was like super hungry to get the business going. And so we were kind of on different paces and there's a little bit of friction that resulted because of that.

So we parted ways and then. We're still good friends, but, um, I kind of ran the business on my own and then my wife, Elise, came on, um, as we started to grow a bit, move facilities, and then started to expand more out of just pattern making to do, um, machining as well, which is, a lot of times, foundries have these metal castings that they produce that are relatively intricate shapes that need some more precise operations carried out on them.

Um, you could, like, an example might be, like, an engine block in a car or turbocharger, like, objects that people, like, think of more readily than some other things I got involved with. So you've got this object that's relatively crude when it comes out of the foundry, and it might need a bearing put in it or threads added so you could bolt it together.

So that, that's an operation that typically happens in some sort of machining setup. So we had this customer base of all these foundries that trusted us to make these relatively complicated things like patterns are, are big, like organic shapes, lots of 3D things that need to be accurate and go together and work.

Um, so it was a pretty easy thing for us to say to them, Hey, you know, he trusts us to do this. Would you allow us to machine your castings for you? Like, can we quote on that work? And the idea for us there was, um, kind of more repeat business. The thing about, uh, uh, pattern tool, uh, is you only make one of them.

Hopefully the customer is not coming back to you for another one right away, because the idea with a mold or a tool or something of that nature is that it costs a lot of money to make, but it allows you to make a ton of parts. Um, so think of that as like a mold for a carbon fiber frame. It's the same kind of idea.

You've got this thing that costs a lot of money is really complicated, but it allows you to put, uh, a basic material into it and get

[00:12:39]Craig Dalton (Host): And then you're in your example of like the engine block, they would have pulled something out of the mold that was a bit rough around the edges, maybe not as precise as it needed to be to fit. You would bring it back into your CNC capabilities and really use the tool to, to make precise edges and cuts and shapes around the basic block.

[00:13:01]Jonathan: exactly.

[00:13:01]Craig Dalton (Host): Gotcha.

[00:13:03]Jonathan: Yeah. And like a lot of that stuff would have happened more historically in the, the cycling industry when they used a lot of investment castings for lugs and things like that, or, you know, a lot of that type of product has moved away, like, um, in favor of probably more cost competitive and superior products.

Uh, but yeah, like, uh, there would have been a whole bunch of examples. I'm sure old shift levers and things like that die castings

[00:13:28]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah, I remember.

[00:13:29]Jonathan: um. The, you get a

[00:13:31]Craig Dalton (Host): remember in the early days of mountain biking, the wave of CNC machined parts that came out, preferably color anodized that were all the rage at the time.

[00:13:41]Jonathan: Yeah.

[00:13:42]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah.

[00:13:43]Jonathan: Yeah. So it's, so that's sort of the, the story on, and then we got involved in injection molding and doing, um, work for the government during COVID to make PCR testing consumables, uh, so that involved like some pretty complicated work in terms of reverse engineering, um, yeah, plastic components, getting a clean room set up,

[00:14:05]Craig Dalton (Host): And what was that additional equipment that you invested in at the time?

[00:14:09]Jonathan: Yeah. So we were, we got a grant from the government to set it up. Uh, so we had to put some capital into it for sure. That's how it worked, but you know, we felt like we're definitely doing the right thing when North America was kind of running out of those parts. The whole world was running out of them because when, when did like they ever see a demand spike like that in terms of lab consumables, right?

So, uh, yeah, we got that up and running and then. worked our butts off for two years to make it all happen. And then that's kind of what I would say gave me the financial

[00:14:44]Craig Dalton (Host): So that's that brings us to maybe what 2000 2022.

[00:14:48]Jonathan: yeah, honestly, man, the whole pandemic is a blur in sort of timelines. Yeah, I think so. That sounds about right. Um, yeah, I would say July of 2022 is when we shipped our last part, um, to fulfill the order to the government. And, um, yeah,

[00:15:06]Craig Dalton (Host): And was there a driver behind you saying like, Oh, I want to make a bike? Had you like increased your cycling during the pandemic? Yeah.

[00:15:15]Jonathan: So it's another pandemic story of, I'm sure you remember trying to buy bike stuff. Um, so yeah, the, the, all along, I've been, I've always had a passion for making things, right? Like, using my hands to create an object, like I, like, when I was in school, I worked in, like, fine dining restaurants, like, 40 hours a week.

That was kind of my first form of, you know, trading my time for money in terms of making things. Uh, so the, the shop that I've built up over the years, I've got some really nice equipment. I've paid for it all out of cash flow by doing other people's work. And I've always wanted a product line of my own stuff.

Um, not that I don't like working with other people and you're certainly exposed to a lot of really interesting and challenging problems to solve when other people are bringing you their stuff. But it's a bit of a, like, you know, everybody's got masters, even when I started making my own product, I've got to sell it now.

So that's a whole other thing. But, um, yeah, it's a bit of a, always wanted to make something and I've always been into bikes. So that's why I was saying earlier, kind of combine those two things. And the big push was, um, yeah, just not being able to buy a new bike during the pandemic. I was riding

[00:16:28]Craig Dalton (Host): and given the equipment that you had in hand at that time, can you describe the bike that you were able to make?

[00:16:35]Jonathan: yeah, well, uh, I had originally thought like I'm watching Cobra frameworks as Or yeah, Cobra frame buildings, YouTube channel, how to weld a bike. And I ordered a bunch of chromoly tubing. I've got welding equipment here and milling machines. So I was like, I'm going to just make myself a bike and that's it, right?

Like that's going to be, it'll be very, it'll be a piece of junk because I'm not that good at welding and I've never done one before, but the, it'll be the thing that I made and I'm riding it. And that's cool. Um, and then the tube shot sat on the shelf for like two years. Because it's like, it's not, that's not what I do, right?

That's not my, it felt like too fussy. I was going to have to be like sitting at a welding table, filing things. So the bike that I decided to make was, um, a format that is gaining popularity right now with the advent of 3d printing, which is a lugged. construction frame where the lugs are alloy and I'm using carbon fiber tubes.

So, um, I had actually originally, like I'm really good at 3d modeling. That's one of my main skill sets. So designing the bike took like a day, less than that. And then I was going to have the lugs printed, like 3d printed, like everyone else is doing. It's a pretty, um, in comparison to CNC machine shops that could produce a part like that.

In terms of intricacy, it's relatively easy to find vendors that do 3D printing as a job shopping service. Like, that's kind of the main

[00:18:03]Craig Dalton (Host): And are those, are those, uh, 3d printing? Are they printing in titanium or aluminum or both? Okay.

[00:18:10]Jonathan: both, there's stainless steels, there's all sorts of alloys coming out, there's different forms of printing. And then we, because we do aerospace work, like we had our aerospace designation working with foundries and machine shops that do that type of stuff. Um, we're involved with some of the like, Canadian leaders in terms of operating that equipment and having those processes validated.

So I sent them to the engineers and they said you're not actually going to ride that thing. Are you? I was like, what are you talking about? I was like, yeah, I'm going to write it. And like, well, I don't know if we would like, what do you mean? And that's when I started to like do a bit more research into, um, the metallurgy of 3d prints and would have needed to beef them up more than I thought to get it to work.

But the main thing that

[00:18:56]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah. Cause I often, when I see companies using the 3d printing, it's often. around the rear dropout. They might highlight that they're doing it back there, but I don't recall of anybody doing a head tube, for example, in the 3D printing style.

[00:19:11]Jonathan: most head tubes on bikes that are logged with 3D prints, they actually segment a piece of carbon in there, um, in between, or a piece of titanium pipe and weld it at the two ends, because that particular shape might actually exceed the build volume of some printers. It's not that they, cost wise it doesn't make sense, it's that it, you're literally talking about a little microwave oven.

[00:19:33]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah.

[00:19:34]Jonathan: to cram all the lugs into there. Um, and it's the build volume might be like nine, 10 inches cubed. So if you've got a head tube in there, that's, you know, for a taller person, it just won't even fit. So yeah, there was the, the structural element is one thing it can be overcome. The, what floored me was the cost.

Um, these guys are like, often engineers are also in gear guys, right? And they're into cars and biking and stuff like that. So a lot of them knew of these brands that are doing it. And they're kind of saying like, uh, I don't know. We can't with our own cost structure on what it costs to operate these machines.

And kind of how long it takes to print something. We don't get it. So then I kind of went, okay, you know what? For that amount of money, um, that we're talking just to build myself a bike. I can, I can just take a couple. Blocks of aluminum that I have on the shelf and sacrifice a few days of my life to see if I can machine them Um, so I made myself a fixie that that was the first bike and I just bought Carbon tubes from McMaster car like carbon fiber tube.

McMaster car is like, uh, I don't know the Amazon of industrial Ordering so they're they're awesome. They've got everything next day shipping kind of thing. So I got all this stuff and I glued the thing up manually and then I started riding it around, um, around town and going out to group rides, which I hadn't done before.

And people started asking questions about it. You know, most bike people are, they pay attention to stuff like that, whether it's a saddle bike they would ever ride themselves. Maybe not the case, but They know, right? And like, everyone's got

[00:21:07]Craig Dalton (Host): your bicycles have a very distinct look that is going to get people to ask questions. And for the listener, maybe who hasn't, isn't able to kind of visualize what a lugged construction looks like, you've got the head tube. With a little bit of kind of aluminum coming out for the down tube and the top tube, you've got another lug and bottom bracket set up in a similar fashion.

And similarly around the C tube and the rear stay and the carbon fiber tube basically goes inside that aluminum, that lug as we're talking about, and is bonded together in some way to kind of. Create the frame that's somewhat accurate. Jonathan,

[00:21:47]Jonathan: I think that's a pretty

[00:21:48]Craig Dalton (Host): I've never thought about describing lugs to someone in their ears. Not looking at a picture

[00:21:53]Jonathan: Yeah, like, Colagno, Cologno? I don't know how to say the name properly. Like, even their carbon fi Colnago. There you go. They're, they're, uh, Their carbon fiber bikes are logged. So just like there's a step, like most bikes, carbon fiber bikes are made in multiple pieces. They just seen them and sand them and you don't see it because it's under the paint or they might do clear coat

[00:22:13]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah, exactly.

[00:22:14]Jonathan: wrap or something.

But yeah, anyways, there's a bit of a step and it's, yeah. The, and the, and the first bike, I, it's like bright aluminum. I just left it raw. I didn't put any of the, um, kind of plating that we do on the ones you would have seen. And I use like a more old school looking carbon fiber with like the checkered weave.

So it's like quite, um, yeah. And it's built like a steel bike, like skinny tubes, like I think inch and an eighth or inch and a quarter down tube. Like, uh, yeah, so it was, so I started riding it around and people were saying like, Hey, you know, like go look at, then they list brands X, Y, and Z. Go look at those guys and what they're charging for a bike.

And I thought like, holy cow, like that's, uh, that's, I could do this again and charge less than that and make a pretty good go of it. Um, so that's when I kind of went like, okay, maybe I should try to spend a bit more time not doing it as a one off, but think about how I would build it with the skill set and resources that I have at my disposal and to kind of rethink the construction methodology a bit.

So, as much as my bike is like a object at the end, what I'm, what I really focus on when I'm thinking about the bike is, Everything that goes into making it and optimizing the design so that it can produce the best possible result, uh, in a really predictable manner

[00:23:36]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah. And in riding that first fixed gear bike and using those off the shelf carbon fiber tubes. Did you kind of recognize something in the tubing that left something to be desired?

[00:23:47]Jonathan: Um, are you, is this like leading towards why I started making my own tubes? Yeah, um, so yeah, they're, they're roll wrapped, so that's a process where you take sheets of pre pranked cloth and picture like rolling pastry on a rolling pin. You've got a 2D sheet on your table and you roll it over. Um, so you're kind of at the, like, you're constrained to what the fabric itself will allow you to do in terms of laying the fiber in certain orientations and what resin is already in it.

Um. So it's, it makes a more limited tube in terms of strength, but honestly, the main motivating factor for me starting to wind the tubes in house was that sourcing stuff in Canada can be problematic for a relatively small economy, you know, and like, there's the border. So every, all these tubes that I had access to were coming out of the States, I'm paying import duties on them.

I'm paying in a currency that's worth a lot more than ours. So when I looked at what it was going to cost me to buy a set of tubes from Rockwest, which is what I made the first bunch of bikes with, like I was working with them on the tubing, um, I just thought like, okay, maybe I can, if the whole idea is to try to optimize the process and drive costs down a bit, I thought I got to do this in house, right?

Like the, the tubes were costing me a lot more than the aluminum that goes into the bike. And that's like aerospace grade coming from a certified mill with traceability certs. And you know, it's. Good stuff. So, um, then there's the option of like when you're using, or option, that's the wrong word, sorry, there, there's the limitation that when you're buying an off the shelf product, you're constrained to how that is made, right?

So the tubes I could have spec'd out to Rockwest, like, Hey, could you make me the tubes with this recipe? And they'd say, yes. But one thing I wanted to maintain, um, as wide open the variable set as possible was like making bikes customizable. Right? So like, say you're talking to a, a frame builder that's using any type of alloy.

They're at the mercy of what tubes they can buy. They can't tune beyond that, right? They can maybe squish them a little bit or change the shape of them to get some different bending compliance in them, but the material is what it is. Um, so it, with internalizing the tube manufacturing, I've got a considerable amount of control over making the tubes behave differently.

Um, so it looks like a fairly basic bike in profile. It looks kind of as like a classical shape in terms of if you overlaid a welded steel bike over it, they'd almost look the same, right? Like, I use a relatively large down tube, but, um, but I wanted, like, I, I think carbon fiber is an excellent material, but to produce a carbon fiber bike in a traditional sense.

Um, you need a mold and then you're not doing custom geometry at that point, right? So I wanted to maintain the ability for every bike to be both custom geometry and have a lot of the benefits of

[00:26:42]Craig Dalton (Host): Can you describe what the filament wound carbon fiber, what's that process like?

[00:26:47]Jonathan: Yeah, so instead of roll wrapping where you're taking prepreg sheets, um, you have a machine, it's like a CNC machine that I built. Um, that operates like a lathe, so a lathe is where you have a spinning thing on a single axis rotating and something tracing back and forth along it. So, I've got a mandrel that's spinning and I, uh, like a spool of carbon fiber is on this carriage and it goes back and forth and I can basically roll or wind the single strand of carbon fiber onto this tube.

So I, I got to do the math again. I did it a few months ago and I forget the number, but I think to make a tube set for a bike, there's like 20, 000 linear feet. that I lay up in a really precise manner. Um, so we build up the tube in layers and we can have different layers for different tubes, different rider thicknesses.

And then what the winder allows me to do is put the fiber down in different orientations. So like, I'm not, I don't have to buy prepreg fabric from someone where it's only unidirectional, it's only. 45 or 90. Um, I can go any angle I want and put down as much or as little as I want in certain areas, and that's all done

[00:28:00]Craig Dalton (Host): that sort of pastry analysis, uh, comparison you used, is there the equivalent of the rolling pin inside that you remove at the end after it's sort of wound into shape?

[00:28:11]Jonathan: yeah. So our, that's where our process is differentiated once again, from people who roll wrap is I don't cure on the mandrel. So most production roll wrapping places or other frame builder, or sorry, um, filament wound tubes, what they do is they have a really precise rod that they wind onto, the mandrel, and then whether it's, you can use, so just to really muddy this a bit more, you can use two forms of fiber to it.

You can have prepreg fiber, so it's a single strand with the resin already in it. Or you can do what I'm doing, which is wet winding, where I buy dry spools of fiber, and then I'm mixing my own resin, um, and the fiber gets wetted on the way to the mandrel. Um, both systems require a cure cycle after to set the resin, but with the prepreg toe, you're subjected to the same constraints that prepreg is in terms of, you know, needing to store the stuff in the freezer.

It has a shelf life. You've got no say over the resin whatsoever. Um. So for us, I can mix and match the recipe for whatever I want. We use some really high performance resins and that's something that I think, you know, the bike industry doesn't talk a lot about. They talk about the fiber. I've got Toray T1100 in my frame or Ultra High Mod in my frame here, but no one talks about the stuff that actually holds it all together, which is

[00:29:28]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah. I've never heard of it beyond a technical discussion.

[00:29:31]Jonathan: so we spent a lot of time

[00:29:32]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah. Yeah. I would say, I would say I would encourage the listener while they're listening to this in their earphones to go onto your Instagram account because a lot of this discussion will become more visual. If you start looking through some of the framework bikes, Instagram stories, you'll get sucked into this process and everything Jonathan's saying will come together visually for you.

[00:29:54]Jonathan: I appreciate the plug. So I think the question I'm taking a really long time to answer is like, what happens once the fiber is on the rod? Most places, what they do is to get some amount of consolidation is they wrap tape over it once it's on the mandrel. Kind of like wrapping a hockey stick or a golf club grip or a tennis racket or whatever.

So they've got an additional head that has what looks like packing tape and they pull on it kind of hard and then try and wrap, wrap it under tension to consolidate that fiber down onto the mandrel. Then that whole thing goes in an oven. Some guys will vacuum bag it depending on what you're doing. So that means they put a big plastic sleeve over it and pull vacuum on the sleeve.

So that'll give you, I think it works out to about 14 PSI of consolidation, um, and then, then they have to remove the rod from the carbon fiber once it's cured, pull it out the end, and you're left with your final carbon fiber tube. So what we do that's a little different is, while the fiber is still wet, like the glue, the epoxy glue hasn't set up yet, mandrel, and then I place it into a mold, like a, The mold that has two hemispheres in it.

So I slip a bladder inside of it and then, um, expand the fiber into the mold to give it a really accurate shape and much higher consolidation than you can achieve with, um, traditional

[00:31:21]Craig Dalton (Host): Interesting. You mentioned you, um,

[00:31:24]Jonathan: So that there's, there's a few motivations for that. One is to get like much higher quality product without, because when you're wet winding, um, air and stuff gets worked in.

It's really hard to avoid little micro air bubbles and tiny little air bubbles in carbon fiber is what causes the material to break down over time more rapidly. It's if the, if the plastic starts to fatigue, the fibers get overworked and then the thing kind of breaks down. So the higher quality you can make the product coming out of the mold, the longer it's going to last, the better performance you get out of it.

The other thing for us is I wanted really accurate. diameter on the outside of the tube because that's how we glue it into the lugs. Um, so if you can imagine the process that I described where you tape the outside of it, you're left with a fairly coarse outer surface on your filament wound tube. So most people have to sand it quite heavily to get it either dimensionally accurate or, you know, looking good.

So that's another step I wanted to avoid. Like my whole thing is about trying to minimize the amount of human

[00:32:26]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah, I think when many of us look around our garages at the carbon fiber frames, uh, clearly like they, they must've been sanded. And then obviously like the paint and everything gets it smoothed over. So you don't see if anybody's seen like a raw construction of a carbon fiber frame, they look a lot rougher around the edges than the finished painted products do.

But in your case, there's nowhere to hide. You know, the, the, the product is everything.

[00:32:52]Jonathan: You could, like, like you, what you could do to rectify it, and I think some other builders do need to do this, is like, you've got little pinholes everywhere, you've got little wrinkles in the surface, you lay on a clear coat, you mix up your epoxy, or some other finishing agent, you lay it down, and then you sand it.

And then you repeat that process three or four times until you've got something that looks really nice, but it's, you can kind of think of it as like the, the mosquito trapped in amber, you know, there's like, your carbon fiber tube is in there, but you have layers of extra resin and clear coat on the outside to make it look pristine, but there's actually a lot of like little plastic and paint on the

[00:33:31]Craig Dalton (Host): So we've given the listener a little bit of an understanding of like the process that you go through and all the, your background as a machine shop first, and why you became suited to kind of create these frames with the process you have today, what is a customer engagement look like, how do they work with you?

How do you leverage? All of that customization capability you've just described to create a unique ride property for a customer's bike.

[00:33:59]Jonathan: That's a question that I don't have a, I don't think I have a satisfying answer to for most people. I'm, I'm coming to this from an extremely technical background where, like, you have to measure and prove everything and, uh, ride feel is totally subjective. You know, there's no, there's no, um, industry standard guidelines for how you test for ride feel.

So people will say to me, Oh, I ride your bike. If you could. talk more, or I'd buy a bike from you if you talk more about how it feels and all these things. So my, I would say my thesis on it is that torsional stiffness is really important. So again, coming back, there's so many layers of like, I could go into techie deep dives on everything, but the, the torsional strength you can get from a filament wound product is like exceptionally high.

It's how they make, like, really high performing, um, motorsport driveshafts and stuff like that. So, torsion refers to how much twisting the downtube can handle, basically. Um, that's the main structural element there. Uh, so, if you wanted to make an object that had the same strength as our downtube, and sort of, in terms of torsion, they would be really stiff in all your other dimensions, right?

It would be an uncomfortable bike to ride. So, I really focus on, um, like, speed and comfort. I would say, uh, you'd think those things might be at odds with one another, but the efficiencies from sort of the bike, not wanting to twist it, like. Yeah, when you pull on the handlebars and push on the bottom bracket, you're trying to torque the down tube, right?

So, I can make that strong enough to resist that, that you're not being inefficient during pedaling or riding and you're gonna corner well. But it, it's not unnecessarily stiff in plane, so you don't get like, uh, a chattery feel when you're going over bumps. So, yeah, but I, I don't like, I don't have an answer that I think is satisfying.

I, I, I, Honestly, I was researching this last night, going through like academic literature for what places, like, where do you put accelerometers and strain gauges on a bike to try and figure out ride feel? And there's no, there's no answer. And then even if you, even if I come up with a rigorous testing methodology, I say my bike's a seven.

Like, what does that mean to you, Craig, when you're going to buy it? Right. So I think within custom frames, the customer is taking a little bit of a risk. Because they can't go to the showroom floor and try my bike, right? And even if they did try my bike, um, that was built for a different rider, there's no guarantee that the one I make is going to be, you know, I'm not a mind reader and a psychic.

I don't know how to translate those things. But, um, for people who are very concerned about that, I don't have a satisfying answer. I don't think I can't tell them I can make you exactly what you want. The things we look at are your weight, your riding style. Um, your preferences in terms of stiffness, like just having a sort of verbal conversation about that, and like describe what you're looking for, your power output, like FTP, things like that.

Um, yeah, and

[00:36:59]Craig Dalton (Host): the challenge with your process that you can make it overly stiff and it's backing it off to the

[00:37:06]Jonathan: Uh, no, I don't, I don't think we'd ever be able to, I, I, I maybe could if I redesign things, but no, we're not going to be like, uh, you know, early 2000s, we feel like riding a board. That's like our, our two profiles in a lot of places are slender, our chainstays are small, they're strong, they're very strong.

But, um, you know, I think if, if you're someone who comes from riding like pretty hardcore road bikes or like time trial bikes, our bike is not going to feel, um, too stiff to you. There's no, no, I'm making something that I want to ride for a couple hours and have fun on, and we can stiffen things up for sure if that's what you're looking for.

But I. You know, like there's the whole conversation of, um, pedaling efficiency, aero gains, all those types of things. Like I'm not making a type of bike that anyone is going to race on, right? Like people who are racing and are concerned about aero gains and drivetrain efficiency and all that stuff are, they're probably on, they want to be on the BMC or the Canyon or the Factor or whatever other guys are racing on.

So for me to try to tailor the bike construction methodology to capture that little bit more of the market, Even if I had a product that met their needs, I don't think I'd have a very easy time selling it because it's not got, you know, it's not what other people are racing. So, um, yeah, I've, I've. Tried to make a bike that is really enjoyable for most people.

Like even if you are a serious racer, train on one of our bikes, you're going to have a lot

[00:38:33]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. So, I mean, just to be clear. So for the would be gravel cyclists looking at one of your gravel frames, what size tire clearance can you get? And do you sort of in your mind say this is sort of a, this is an all around gravel bike. This is going to get it in that sweet spot of you can do almost everything from including racing with it to, you know, your local group ride, gravel rides, et cetera,

[00:38:59]Jonathan: Yeah. I think that comes down to what do you define a gravel bike as, right? So we, because everything is custom geometry, I can take it from being basically like a nineties, late eighties mountain bike, um, to. Basically a super fast road bike that you can fit gravel tires on, right? Like it's, I can do the whole spectrum.

So I kind of didn't answer this part of the question that you asked about what the customer experience is like. Everything we do is like, I haven't made two bikes that are the same yet. Right. And I'm on a boat. Bike 20 at this point. So we can do all your normal fit stuff. But then again, yeah, the question of tire clearance, drivetrain impingement.

Um, I'd say, uh, we would have a tough time stuffing a 50 millimeter tire in with a two by drivetrain with one by no problem. Um, upfront. So we're, uh, classified OEM. I don't know if you're familiar with those. Uh, yeah. The internal shifting hub. So if people like really want huge tire clearance and two by that's like one of the things I can lean on there.

Um, but yeah, like I think my, I've made myself, uh, kind of an all road gravel leaning bike and a gravel bike. That's got a really slack head tube and I ride it with 45s on it all the time. Uh, so yeah, we can, we can kind of do whatever you're looking for. I think. Gravel as a segment has a lot more variability than like a road bike, you know, there's fast gravel Um, you know, whatever slack bike packing type gravel.

So yeah, we can kind of do Anything really and that that is one of the challenges we have is like, okay I'm telling you about how diverse our system is in terms of its output and we can tune tubes and all this stuff It

[00:40:39]Craig Dalton (Host): 100%. Yeah.

[00:40:40]Jonathan: For the customer, right? Like they can't, it's, it's, it's too much.

So that's why in the new year, I'm working on it right now. We want to offer like pre made geometry essentially at a slightly better price than our customs. We're going to have a couple of geometry tables, um, for, you know, road, all road, gravel, maybe even do two gravels, like the fast gravel and the, but that'll kind of like, which is all road,

[00:41:02]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah. Yeah. Having gone through my own, uh, custom

[00:41:05]Jonathan: And just to kind

[00:41:07]Craig Dalton (Host): overwhelmed with choice all of a sudden when someone says they can make you anything all of a sudden, it's hard not to become paralyzed. And it took me a while. And fortunately, I'm surrounded by lots of advisors in this front to help that helped me kind of just narrow down the constraints.

Of what I wanted and then kind of work with the frame builder to say, yeah, this makes sense.

[00:41:28]Jonathan: yeah. So our, like. Easiest customers, fastest, like, time from first interaction to when the bike is built are people who have commissioned lots of custom bikes already, right? They don't, like, they're not doubting their decision. They know what they're looking for. They know they're fit. Um, so they're not belabouring these decisions of like, oh, what's a 0.

2 degree difference on my head tube gonna do, right? Like, they're, it's To them, it's not a big deal. So that's where it's, someone said it to me at, at made actually is like, Oh, what you want is freedom from choice in terms of like having the, the, the product, you know, take this or leave it, you know, that's, if you want to do the full custom thing, we can do that, but maybe it's easier for you to just cross shop geometry tables on like bike insights.

And that's what you, how you want to do it. So I need to kind of make that, um, available for people. So yeah, it is, it is totally overwhelming. And I think it's, so there is no customer interaction for me right now that isn't like one click buy on the website, right? Like I'm, there's a bunch of emails back and forth.

There's drawing revisions, there's discussions about what you're looking for, what bikes you currently have, um, and what your goals are for the build. So yeah, it's, it, it's involved. And that's part of the reason for shifting to like sort of the tiered model of like prebuilt at one price. And. Full custom at another price because there's a ton of time involved in custom where I can just like Turn on the CNC machine and make make the size 56 all road and you get your thing a couple weeks later You know, there's

[00:43:06]Craig Dalton (Host): You had mentioned in this conversation sort of this journey to becoming part of the bike industry. Is, is there anything that stands out that surprised you? About the way people buy bikes or what it's like being a bicycle manufacturer.

[00:43:20]Jonathan: no everything. I'm I'm yeah, we talked about this a bit before we started But yeah, like that's the whole side of it. That's It's a total mystery to me, like I'm, I'm a like tech focused, fact based kind of person and to try to navigate, um, the mind of the consumer amidst all the information they're giving, given from general marketing and you know, what, what's important, what's not, it's, and, and convincing someone that what you're doing is worthwhile.

Is really challenging. That's, that's going to be the kind of crux of my success or failure. It's not like, I think we make a good product and I can't guarantee you. Sorry. I think my heater just kicked on in the shop. Did that come

[00:44:03]Craig Dalton (Host): No worries.

[00:44:04]Jonathan: microphone a bit? Okay. Um, so yeah, like that, that, that's going to be the make or break for me.

Can I sell enough bikes to keep it, uh,

[00:44:14]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah. Yeah. It's, it,

[00:44:16]Jonathan: So

[00:44:16]Craig Dalton (Host): so interesting

[00:44:17]Jonathan: inside the mind.

[00:44:18]Craig Dalton (Host): your business over Instagram because you're, you're so, um, open about sharing your manufacturing process and open to engineering debates and discussions with would be commenters on your Instagram stories that I do think, I mean, from an outsider's perspective, Jonathan, I think you, you showcase the quality of your work in those discussions.

And you have always shown up in every story that I've, I've watched in our, our previous conversations, you show up as someone who's very thoughtful about the things you're doing. And obviously there are different ways of doing things, but you are clear about why you are doing things the way you are doing that.

[00:45:00]Jonathan: Yeah. So that's always been what's worked for me is sort of the behind the scenes, lay it out for what it is. Um, I think what a lot of people have told me in that sort of marketing branding thing is like, you need to take it a step further. You need to not just show what you're doing, but you need to explain why it's good.

And that's where I think I draw a little bit of a personal line because it's like, I'm not, I don't want to take it to, I'm telling you what you should think. I want to leave it at let me show you and you decide for yourself and I don't know if

[00:45:29]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah, I think, I mean, I think the challenge now just my two senses, um, given the small number of frames you have out there in the world is just getting rider feedback, testimonials, reviews, other people riding bikes that are willing to comment on things like ride quality to kind of bring it all together, because as I just said, like, I do think that you've yeah.

You've established through your social accounts that trust in your skill as a manufacturer. Now people are just wanting to see what do people say when they've got one of these underneath them?

[00:46:02]Jonathan: Yeah I've had people literally DM me and said like there I've got some review bikes out there with Certain reviewers and I've had people say when so and so writes their review as long as it's not bad. I'm buying a bike It's like okay great I think that's good that you need that little like last bit of confirmation that it's not a crapshoot but Like I'm, I'm over here kind of feeling a little vulnerable to be honest, like you put yourself out there.

I'm selling bikes. I don't know what expectations I had in terms of how fast sales would take off. I think, like my wife keeps reminding me, like you've been doing this for a year, like maybe you have unreasonable expectations. Just keep your head down and keep like doing good stuff. So yeah, I think you're right.

That'll just take a little bit of time, awareness.

[00:46:46]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah. And then

[00:46:47]Jonathan: Yeah, all those things of

[00:46:49]Craig Dalton (Host): would say, and I maybe I've missed this on your account to the degree in which you are writing your own product and out there. Just sharing a little bit of, of your own commentary again, like everybody's going to take it with a, Hey, this is one rider and, you know, maybe it's a very self interested rider's perspective, but I, you always have struck me as someone who's honest.

So I'm not thinking you're going to film a video of yourself riding a gravel trail saying this is the fastest bike ever been produced on earth.

[00:47:17]Jonathan: so yeah, I might've given, uh, discredited myself already in this conversation in that regard of, I wrote a fixie for the last 20 years, right? Like what's my frame of reference? I've, I've said this to people and they look at me like, Oh my God, this guy must be a total idiot. Where I say like, I'm not a bike guy.

Like, I'm a cyclist. I love riding bikes, but I'm not a guy that's reading the magazines every month, seeing what the latest and greatest is, or knowing what the trends are. Like, I'm kind of outside of all of that. So I think, to your question about what are the biggest kind of shocks is, um, yeah, the whole branding, marketing side of it.

I was, I really underestimated that. I thought like a good product, a good, well made product is worthy of, um, you know, at least consideration from a buyer, but there's so much information out there, right? There it's overwhelming and it changes

[00:48:06]Craig Dalton (Host): hundred percent. I mean, I think what,

[00:48:08]Jonathan: me saying, I'm enjoying riding my bike.

It's like, yeah, of course I'm going to say like,

[00:48:14]Craig Dalton (Host): oh man, well, I mean, this is great. Jonathan, just one final question on like the customer journey. Like if someone was to come to you with a custom project and assume that they kind of are in the know and got to understand the basics of what they want. Once you kind of locked in design back and forth, how long does it take you to produce a bicycle?

And are you typically selling a complete bike or just a frame?

[00:48:35]Jonathan: so I'll answer the last part of that question first. We do both. Um, I would say. The farther away the bike's getting shipped, the less likely it is that it's a complete, if that makes any sense. Like I'm in Canada, I'm sourcing components here, so our American customers, it might make more sense for them to work with their local shop.

To fill out the build and I just send the frames work and handlebars or whatever they're buying down there. Um, local people have bought full builds. I've sent stuff, yeah, internationally as far as Japan more recently, and those are typically frames. So we do both. We do want to know about component, um, compatibility, even if we're not the ones.

We're doing the full build, you know, that's an important part of making sure everything works for the customer when they get it. Um, so the way we work is we take a deposit, uh, 500 right now to reserve a spot in the build queue and to kind of do that back and start the discussion on what you're looking for.

That deposit's non refundable, but it gets applied to the balance of whatever the build cost comes out to at the end. Um, and from the approval, like some people approve same day. They know exactly what they want. Might go to production later that day or the next morning. Uh, it's, I would say it's typically about a month right now from start to finish to build the bike.

Like, it's, there's, it's not a lot of my time, but there's a bunch of steps where you wait in between. The main one being that I send the lugs out for plating for, uh, corrosion resistance and Uh, and that, you know, if I finish them on a Monday, I ship them out a Tuesday or Wednesday, I get them back a week and a half later, uh, in that time I can have made the tubes.

So, yeah, it's our lead time right now is about two months. I think we've got some backlog, a small backlog of orders to work through, some review bikes going out and. Yeah, so it's, we're pretty quick, I think, like our, the theoretical throughput on what I can do in a year, uh, on our current equipment is

[00:50:41]Craig Dalton (Host): Okay.

[00:50:42]Jonathan: 200 bikes. So I don't expect to be selling that many. If I was,

[00:50:47]Craig Dalton (Host): Well, we'll get you there in time. Jonathan. I'm good. I'm excited to see this journey ahead of you.

[00:50:53]Jonathan: Thanks.

[00:50:54]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah. Cool. Well, I'll put links to everything in the show notes. So people know how to find you again for the listener. Definitely follow the frameworks framework bikes, Instagram account, which I'll link to as well.

You can get all the behind the scenes. You're going to want a friend of mine who tipped me off to your brand when we were at Manufacturer's porn, which I think is appropriate.

[00:51:15]Jonathan: No, Yeah, the website, uh, it's there. It needs some work. Like I said, we're working on the kind of program for 2024 in terms of the stock sizes. Throwing some more information up there. It's just really it's a placeholder website right now. So definitely needs

[00:51:31]Craig Dalton (Host): Right on. Thanks for all the time, Jonathan.

[00:51:34]Jonathan: Thank you

[00:51:34]Craig Dalton (Host): that's going to do it for this week's edition of the gravel ride podcast. Big, thanks to Jonathan from frameworks for coming on board. And telling us all about his journey and manufacturing process for those beautiful bikes. Additional thanks. Goes out to our friends at hammerhead. For sponsoring the show many times this year, truly appreciate their support as I couldn't do what I do without some of their underwriting.

If you were able to support the show, a couple of things you can do for me, ratings and reviews are hugely appreciated. They really help. With discoverability. Or if you're able to financially contribute to the show, simply visit buy me a coffee.com/the gravel ride. Until next time here's to finding some dirt onto your wheels. 

Welcome to another episode of The Gravel Ride Podcast 🎙️. Today, our guest is Kyle Rancourt from Pinebury Clothing, a quality-focused, US-manufactured cycling 🚴‍♀️ apparel brand.

Kyle takes us through his journey into the cycling industry 🛠️ and Pinebury's specific focus on Merino wool for its inherent performance benefits. He walks us through his vision, design and the critical role manufacturing in the US plays in their brand's commitment to quality, and sustainability 🌎.

One thing is for sure after this conversation, Pinebury's Nuyarn performance wool isn't the wool of yester-year! Give a listen to learn more 🎧.

Pinebury Website

Episode sponsor: AG1 

Support the Podcast

Join The Ridership 

Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos:

[00:00:00]Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport

I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist.

[00:00:28]Craig Dalton (host): This week on the show. I welcome Kyle rang court from pine Berry clothing. Onto the show. Kyle and I first got connected at the Maine bicycle show in Portland, Oregon, and I was super excited to talk to them about the new type of wool he's using in conducting this clothing line. And I was incredibly excited to learn that all of their manufacturing for pine Barre happens in the United States.

After this conversation, you'll learn a little bit more about his history and his family's history in manufacturing in the United States. So I hope you give them a look@pinebarry.us. Before I jump in. If you're a long time listener, you might know I've been drinking. One for over five years,

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Simply go to drink. Dot com slash the gravel ride. That's drink AIG one.com/the gravel ride. To check it out today. Would that business behind us, let's jump right in to my conversation with Kyle.

Hey, Kyle, welcome to the show.

[00:02:41]Kyle Rancourt: Hey, thanks for having me. Happy to be here.

[00:02:44]Craig Dalton (host): I feel like this is the second week in the row where I have to say to the guests, like, sorry for the trials and tribulations of getting you on. We've had some fits and starts trying to record this, but we're finally getting it done.

[00:02:54]Kyle Rancourt: Yeah, that's that's the important thing is we're here now. So glad to be here.

[00:02:59]Craig Dalton (host): Yeah. I can't wait to, to sort of explore your story a little bit. We met at the maid bike show in Portland, Oregon, where you were there representing your brand Pineberry. Um, with jerseys and arm warmers and socks, but there's so much to the story as I got to know you a little bit in Portland, I'd love to just step back and just get to know you a little bit and sort of follow your journey into cycling first and then into manufacturing and creating this brand.

[00:03:28]Kyle Rancourt: Yeah, actually it's funny you bring up the maid show I got an email today from the organizers of maid that they're it's on again for next year and They're already planning it and I reserved my booth. So Uh, hopefully i'll see you there again excited to to be part of it.

[00:03:45]Craig Dalton (host): Yeah. It was such a. Just a great show. I mean, as someone who's been to like Interbike and CABDA and some of these old industry shows and then the North American Handmade Bike Show, this was just a nice amalgamation of them all. It was small and intimate. And I feel like around every single corner of that show, I was finding brands that I loved or wanted to talk to the founders.

So much fun. Highly recommend it. And hopefully I'll be back there again myself.

[00:04:12]Kyle Rancourt: Yeah, I totally agree. It was a great experience

[00:04:15]Craig Dalton (host): Yeah. So tell me about where did you grow up and how did you find the bike originally?

[00:04:20]Kyle Rancourt: I grew up in Lewiston, Maine, which is, um, about 30 miles north of Portland, Maine. Uh, we're, we're an interior city, an inland city, so we're not on the coast. Um, there's... Uh, really great ice hockey heritage here. Um, some, some great, you know, hockey players have come from this area. And, uh, so I grew up on skates.

Uh, that was, that's sort of my, was my, my first love as an athlete was, was skating and playing ice hockey. Um, and I think, you know, those experiences in Maine have definitely, uh, informed my, um, and my, my experiences as an athlete going forward.

[00:05:15]Craig Dalton (host): And did you, did you continue playing hockey through college?

[00:05:18]Kyle Rancourt: No, I played a little bit of club hockey in college. Um, but no, pretty much stopped after, after my senior year of high school or freshman year of college. Um, and you asked how I, I got into cycling. So. It was actually through triathlon. So, um, in college, I, you know, wanted to get back in shape. I started running and swimming, um, just for exercise.

And then after college, um, I continued and I had a coworker who was into triathlon and suggested I try one. He, are you familiar with the Xterra? Triathlon it's like the off road triathlon. So he was doing one of these. I think it was in New Hampshire it was one summer and He suggested I join him and I really I hadn't ridden a bike since I was a kid probably I was about I was maybe 24 or 25 at the time.

So it'd been a long time, you know I grew up obviously riding bikes in the neighborhood and in mountain biking with friends. I always had a mountain bike, but I think organized team sports took over in high school and, uh, stopped riding my bike. So I bought a used mountain bike from a friend and, uh, started riding with the local bike shop.

I went in to have it tuned up and they told me they had a group ride every Wednesday. And so I went to the It was a mountain bike group ride and I was just terrible. I was such a fish out of water. I remember we, we were riding up this trail, this single track, and there was a log down in, in, uh, over like across the trail and I got off my, I saw the other guys like hopping over it.

And I got off my bike and, and walked over it. And I, a guy next to me was like, Oh, this is all you have to do. Just ride up to it and, you know, lift up on the handlebars and then, you know, pick your feet up to kick your rear wheel over and that's it. And I was like, Oh my God. I was like, what did I get myself into?

He made it sound so easy, but in the moment it seemed impossible. Um, but I kept at it. And, uh, fell in love with the sport. I did some triathlons. I, uh, that XTERRA triathlon was the first one. And then I, um, I did a couple like sprint and Olympic distance road triathlons after that. And, and very quickly realized that I not only was better at cycling than I was at running and swimming, but I actually liked it a lot more as well.

And so I feel like this is a common story, but it wasn't, it wasn't very long before I dropped the running and swimming act and became a

[00:08:05]Craig Dalton (host): Yeah.

[00:08:06]Kyle Rancourt: full

[00:08:06]Craig Dalton (host): Certainly my experience as well. Much easier to drop running and swimming than it is cycling.

[00:08:11]Kyle Rancourt: Yeah, exactly. So yeah, the rest is history. Um, I've been

[00:08:16]Craig Dalton (host): Were you back in Lewis, in Lewiston at that point?

[00:08:18]Kyle Rancourt: yeah, I moved back home, started to join the family business.

[00:08:23]Craig Dalton (host): Interesting. And I know we want to get into this. So what is that family business?

[00:08:28]Kyle Rancourt: Uh, we are footwear manufacturers. We make shoes here in Lewiston. We have, we have a factory that, that we've had here for over 50 years and we have our own brand we sell online. Um, we also sell to retail stores all around the world. And, um, we're a private label manufacturer, so we make footwear for other brands as well.

So, yeah, lots of big brands you've, you've definitely heard of, and, and if you've worn some of their Made in USA, uh, lines of shoes, it's... There's a good chance we made them. The Rancourt's of Lewiston, Maine made them.

[00:09:05]Craig Dalton (host): Yeah. What, say, drop the name again of the brand?

[00:09:08]Kyle Rancourt: It's called Rancourt and Company.

[00:09:11]Craig Dalton (host): Okay. And are they making, um, like leather boots? Is that the type of

[00:09:16]Kyle Rancourt: Yeah, leather, leather dress and casual shoes, you know, everything from loafers and boat shoes to, to boots. You know, we even make winter boots with shearling lining and, you know, rugged vibram soles. Um, but definitely in, in the lifestyle lane, not like work boots or anything like that.

[00:09:36]Craig Dalton (host): Gotcha. So interesting. So the facilities right there in Maine, how many people does it employ?

[00:09:42]Kyle Rancourt: Uh, we employ about 50 people. So there are approximately 40 shoemakers, um, in the factory making shoes every day.

[00:09:53]Craig Dalton (host): That's fascinating. And I'm imagining, so you've probably got a sort of a leather cut and sew kind of mechanism there. And then you've also got to make the sole. There's probably a bunch of components to that manufacturing process.

[00:10:06]Kyle Rancourt: Yeah, there's like, there's over a hundred steps in the process. Making shoes is, uh, is more complicated than, than people think. But yeah, there's, there's a lot of different steps. So we do everything from, from start to finish right in that factory.

[00:10:21]Craig Dalton (host): It was super interesting. Um, I'll put a link to that brand in the show notes. I'm sure people will be interested to seeing what shoes come out of that factory. And now I'm scratching my head because I do have a couple of like American made boots and wondering if they came out of that factory.

[00:10:38]Kyle Rancourt: it's possible. It's a good chance.

[00:10:41]Craig Dalton (host): All right. Well, we're not here to talk about shoes. We're here to talk about. Your clothing brand. So why don't we talk about like, what was the journey like talk about the Pineberry brand? What led you to creating it? And then I've got a ton of questions about the product and the type of material you're using, et cetera.

[00:10:59]Kyle Rancourt: Yeah. Um, so like I said, I, about... 14 years ago, I is when I would identify as a cyclist. I began identifying as a cyclist and fell in love with the sport and became a huge part of my life. Um, I, I was racing on the road for many years and, you know, continue doing triathlons from here and there. And, but really, I would say, um, you know, When the pandemic started in 2020, um, it became a much bigger part of my life.

I, uh, was, I had dabbled in gravel cycling for a long time. You know, I raced, my first bike race I ever did other than a triathlon was a cyclocross race. So I had always been in that sort of off road space or culture. Um, and so, you know, we would, it was, I remember in 2013, 2014, like we didn't even have a word called gravel cycling.

We would just go ride dirt roads with our cyclocross bikes, you know? Um, and, but as the gravel thing, the gravel boom grew and the, with the pandemic, spending more time at home and kind of having more free time. Um, I started doing these really long gravel rides with friends and which led to, you know, signing up for.

Unbound 200. And you can imagine, I'm sure, you know, all the training that goes into trying to, trying to finish one of those. So cycling just became this huge part of my life. And I started thinking more and more about the apparel that I was wearing, you know, the gear that I was buying and wearing, um, and how it performed and, and where it was made and, you know, what.

what was ideal, I think, for, for me as a cyclist. And, um, that's where the, that's the seed was planted that I wanted to try something different and, and follow this passion into the cycling industry. And I had always loved, uh, Merino wool, the, the story, the feel of it, the performance, you know, the performance aspect of it.

Um, How, you know, it dries so quickly, and even though it's super light, it still can be extremely warm, the warmth to weight ratio is pretty much unmatched. Um, when it's wet, it continues to keep you warm, you know, there's, it's, it's really like this magical fiber.

[00:13:46]Craig Dalton (host): Yeah, it really is. I think I got my first exposure to Merino outside of cycling. It was sort of Envogue for hiking and you know, REI or someone might have had Merino wool long underwear And I remember doing some hiking trips and thinking like oh, this is great but when I think about where I thought about at the time wool for cycling It was a hundred percent always in the retro Jersey.

I remember I had one from Pearl Izumi and one from a company that my wife worked for. And it was like an old school aesthetic, old wool Jersey. And it reminded me of like the Randonneur culture. And to your point, like it, it had these amazing attributes. But it never felt like me as a cyclist, like I might even wear it as more as a casual sweater than I ever did on the bike that the, those garments I was describing.

But I know now that wool has so many different attributes depending on how it's made. So I'm interjecting my own thoughts, but love to hear you continue your journey of like, okay, you've kind of stumbled upon wool as being this magic fabric, but how do you make it? Modern and and, you know, make the right aesthetic for gravel cyclists.

[00:15:01]Kyle Rancourt: Yeah, like you, you know, to your point, I, I had only used it for like hiking and skiing, you know, uh, I didn't mention that earlier, but, um, you know, in addition to, to my, Winter, winter sport, hockey career. I also am an avid skier and have been my whole life whenever I wasn't, when I was growing up, whenever I wasn't playing hockey, I was skiing.

It was like, I was doing those two things. I was always on ice or snow. I, to this day, I absolutely love winter. I look forward to it. I love ice and snow and, and you know, the opportunities that it provides for, for outdoor activities. Um, so. You know, it was a part of my hockey and merino wool was a part of my hockey and skiing kit, you know, as base layers or long underwear, things like that.

So I was always aware of it. And then I started to see in the market, um, some cycling brands were making base layers or accessories out of merino wool and maybe a jersey or two, right? Like I bought a jersey. I bought a merino jersey from Bontrager years ago. I bought a couple from this Italian brand that I was into and I I thought two things.

One, I liked what they were doing, but I felt like I could do it better, and nobody was specializing in it. That was the key thing is that, um, there are merino specialty companies, but not in the cycling space. And so the brands that were making merino wool, um, pieces for their cycling lines, it always felt a little bit like an afterthought.

Or like you mentioned, it was sort of this like retro throwback. piece, you know, that, like that Bontrager jersey I bought years ago was very much in, in, you know, in that vein. It was, it was like this. Old school, you know, sort of heavy wool had, um, these retro elements to it. It didn't, it, it felt, yeah, it didn't feel like it was this, this core piece that they were, you know, trying to, trying to put out there.

Um, so when I, when I made, finally made a decision to do this, I started researching Marino wool, yarn, and fabric, and I very quickly came across. This company based in New Zealand, they're called, uh, TMC, the Merino company. And they have a patented technology, uh, called New Yarn. It's a patented yarn spinning technology.

And, um, essentially, they're able to spin Merino fibers without twisting them. Conventional merino, uh, core spun and ring spun merino. When, when those fibers get spun, they get twisted and the twisting, it creates a rope like structure. So it takes out, to put it in the most basic terms, it takes out the volume and the elasticity.

So you're inhibiting the natural benefits of merino wool. So with this new yarn technology, they're, they're able to create. A merino wool yarn and fabric that performs as closely to merino wool in nature as possible. So they're not inhibiting any of the benefits. And what you get in the end is a laundry list of, of benefits over conventional merino.

But the most important ones are, it's nine times more durable than conventional merino. It's um, has 85 percent more elasticity, which you can imagine for a cycling jersey is incredibly important. So we make a cycling jersey that's really comfortable in form fitting, and it has no Lycra in it whatsoever.

It's all, um, mechanical stretch from, from these Merino fibers. Um, and

[00:18:58]Craig Dalton (host): when I put it on, I mean, everybody's used to these Lycra jerseys that kind of stretch over your arms and body. Does it sort of have a semblance of that stretch and give?

[00:19:06]Kyle Rancourt: it does. Yeah, very much. So it, I think. most people wouldn't even notice the difference in terms of the fit. And, and the benefits are, um, Lycra tends to break down faster than other fibers, and it doesn't deal with moisture very well. So it doesn't dry very fast. It doesn't wick very well. So you take out You take lycra out of the equation and you get some performance benefits there.

So I fell in love with this, this new yarn merino and, um, decided to, to dedicate this, this new project to it. So, um, most of our pieces, all of our apparel and, uh, is made from new yarn, new yarn merino wool fabric now.

[00:19:52]Craig Dalton (host): So you found the yarn and the material. There's a big kind of process between that and actually having a finished garment and designing it. Did you have any experience in that realm? Or was it a lot of trial and error with the sewers to kind of get the fit you were looking for?

[00:20:09]Kyle Rancourt: Yeah, so I have a lot of product development experience and design experience, but only in footwear. So that was, um, there was a sharp learning curve for me, for sure. I, I would say over somebody with no experience, I definitely had a huge advantage having the background that I do in shoes and footwear, um, in getting this thing off the ground.

But at the same time, uh, the apparel business and making apparel clear, you know, has its own intricacies and, uh, this knowledge that this deep knowledge that you, that you need to acquire, I think, to be able to do something like this. The one of the, after finding, yeah, go ahead.

[00:20:59]Craig Dalton (host): yeah, just to say, I think one of the wonderful things about sewing is you can, you know, work with a sewer to pattern, you can test things if they need to be adjusted. It's quite easy and fluid to have that conversation with a sewer to get the right fit and feel. And then once you have it patterned, obviously it can then be replicated.

[00:21:18]Kyle Rancourt: Yeah. Yeah. So it's in to add to that after find after finding this sort of Developing the idea, finding the fabric that I wanted to use. The next step was finding a manufacturing partner. Um, and I knew I wanted to do this here in the U S American manufacturing is super important to me. Obviously that's, um, my background and what, and my family business for as long as I can remember is, has been us manufacturing.

So I found a manufacturing partner and they connected me with, um, you know, Pattern maker and in product development people. And so that's that's where we got the ball rolling there.

[00:22:01]Craig Dalton (host): Nice. Understandably, you were interested in doing a U S manufacturing approach, as you said, given your family's history, do you want to talk about some of the trade offs there that, you know, in your mind is someone who's starting a brand, obviously there's cost trade offs, there's quality trade offs.

Where do you see it all kind of fitting together? And to add to that question, I know sustainability is an important part of the brand. So if you just kind of want to layer in that thought process and some of the net results of manufacturing in the United States.

[00:22:33]Kyle Rancourt: Yeah, so the number one thing that I think Most people probably understand but but for those that don't is that manufacturing in the United States is extremely expensive you know and the reason is The, the craftspeople, you know, working in these factories, they are paid well, you know, they're paid living wages, and I, that's super important to me, that's like, the number one reason why I support manufacturing, and, you know, would never, Make things elsewhere just wouldn't be worth it to me is that reason that the Workers are not being exploited.

They're being treated fairly Um, they're being paid fairly and from for many of them, it's Um, it's a tradition You know what they're doing that is a lot of times it's a family tradition in our shoe factory. We have three, three generations of people, you know, who've, who've been shoemakers and continue to do so.

Um, so that's the number one thing, you know, a trade off there is, is, you know, domestic manufacturing is expensive for that reason, um, that, that the wages here are just higher, but at the same time, there are considerable cost savings in, in shipping and freight. You know, you're, you're not shipping everything, all your, um, all your materials, your finished goods, your samples, you know, everything you need in order to, uh, to make your goods, you're not shipping to Southeast Asia or to South America, wherever you're, you're manufacturing overseas.

So there's cost savings there and then, you know, the simplification of, of logistics. Um, and so, you know, that. That comes into play on the sustainability side too, you know, our our apparel is made in Massachusetts. We're in Maine. Like, that's a very short car ride. You know, I can drive to the factory. I can see my things being made and then the shipping, you know, shipping from Massachusetts to Maine is, is again, very uh, minimal.

It's, it's inexpensive. There's very low carbon emissions. Um, yeah, it's, I think that's one of the often overlooked. Benefits of US manufacturing, you know when you're an American brand who's selling mostly in the United States. Is that the transportation?

[00:25:07]Craig Dalton (host): Yeah. Yeah. I think when NUS, when we pick up garments on the rack at our local bike shop, it's, it's easy to forget what that product took to get there. And if you think about an offshore manufacturing setup, the designer probably is flying over to Asia, wherever it's being manufactured to work with the factory, try to get it right.

Maybe then they get, then go home, get a sample sent to them. The sample's got some minor thing wrong with it, so they have to fly back to Asia, work with the factory. Yeah. And then these factories don't operate well unless you have Significant volume. So maybe you have to take a hundred pieces of every size in order to get a run done with that factory.

And God forbid there's an error in any of those things that has been sent to you. So now you're sitting on a hundred garments of which you kind of have to sell, right? Because you've paid for that inventory and all of a sudden you have to make these really tough decisions as a brand to say, like. Okay. I really set out on this journey to have a super high quality level, but what has turned out in this factory experience is not really what I want to achieve as a brand.

And you either scrap it and lose all that money, or you sell it and your reputation takes a hit. And I think that's the trade off. I mean, obviously like you're able to make sure that those first five, 10 that came off the line are perfect. Cause you can go down to Massachusetts and make sure they're everything you as the product designer.

Wanted to express in that garment.

[00:26:35]Kyle Rancourt: Yeah, those are all those are all great points Alright

[00:26:40]Craig Dalton (host): That's why I get paid the big bucks, Kyle.

[00:26:43]Kyle Rancourt: The though I I sort of noted or remarked, uh, to others, you know, noted internally or remarked to others many times that how invaluable it was that I could just drive an hour and a half and be at my factory whenever I needed to be. Um, you know, I, to be honest, it was I, I can't complain, but at the same time, I'm so used to having my factory in my backyard.

Like our family shoe business, the factory is two miles away, you know, so we, we live there basically. Um, so driving an hour and a half was a big change, but still, I'm, I'm, I was there, you know, frequently and during that first production run. And when we were. you know, developing the patterns, doing, doing fittings down there.

I was there multiple times to do that process as well. So, um, yeah, just invaluable having it so close.

[00:27:44]Craig Dalton (host): a hundred percent. I mean, to my backstory, I ran a manufacturing facility in San Francisco and went through that same journey. It was just so nice to work with the craftsmen and women. And if there was a problem, you can just kind of address it right there on the fly. If you get customer feedback, you know, it's not like you have thousands of these garments sitting around.

It can get be woven into the products very quickly because you're, I assume you're not sort of being forced to hold a ton of inventory at any one time.

[00:28:15]Kyle Rancourt: Yeah, I think, I think in general, um, another benefit of domestic manufacturing is that the minimums will are lower, you know, that's not always the case. I've definitely encountered some U. S. apparel factories where the minimums are very high. Um, but in general, you can make smaller quantities of things.

And so, yeah, it leads to, you know, a business and an organization that's a lot more agile. You know, as you, as you said, you can, you can make changes on the fly, um, without, you know, without worrying about, uh, the thousands or tens of thousands of, of garments that you have in production or in inventory. So it's a, it's a great place.

Um, I think it's a great place to start. And for me, it's the place I'll continue to be. I wouldn't do this any other way. Um, but I, I have many friends who started apparel businesses and started in the US, um, because it's, there's easy, easy entry and then have moved some production overseas, you know, sometimes in Europe or, or in, in Asia, but it's a great starting place.

[00:29:32]Craig Dalton (host): Yeah. I think, I mean, these are some of the trade offs that one gets as an entrepreneur and a founder, right? As you scale and then you start to see, Hey, well, maybe, maybe REI would sell this line, but the price point has to be different. And then you, I mean, then there's just a decision point there to say like, maybe part of the line is always made in the U S and maybe part works with, uh, an ethically sourced factory overseas, which is possible as well.

[00:29:59]Kyle Rancourt: Yeah. And it's, as you know, it's really common in the industry for that to happen. You know, there's many brands who are doing that.

[00:30:07]Craig Dalton (host): Let's, uh, transition and talk about the products in your collection. I'm interested just to hear you describe the aesthetic and then maybe just call out some of the garments that you have available at this point.

[00:30:19]Kyle Rancourt: Um, yeah, so the The collection is growing, uh, pretty rapidly, but right now what we're, what we have to offer is pretty tight assortment. Um, because I, I had Kind of two things that I really wanted to focus on when we got up and running. Uh, we just launched in, in April of, of 2023, April of this year. So we have, uh, cycling jerseys, short and long sleeve, you know, traditional full zip with three pockets in the back.

And then we have performance tees, short sleeve and long sleeve. And we also have a sock collection, um, that's made for us by Defeat, which is, you know, a very well known and well regarded manufacturer. Um, Sock Factory has been around over 30 years. They make all their own socks. And so they do essentially like a private label for us.

So it's our custom designs and specifications, but made by Defeat. And

[00:31:19]Craig Dalton (host): Are they also doing the arm warmers?

[00:31:21]Kyle Rancourt: they do the arm warmers. Yeah. They're a great partner.

[00:31:25]Craig Dalton (host): yeah, my eagle eye caught that one because I have to say that, that garment is awesome. But the, the wool arm warmers in San Francisco with the wet fog we have here, I can't tell you how invaluable they've been to my, my wardrobe for sure.

[00:31:39]Kyle Rancourt: I bet, and they're so versatile because, you know, you can, you can wear them under a t shirt if you're hiking or you're just on like a, you know, chill mountain bike ride or whatever. Um, but they, same with a cycling jersey, you know, you wear them under a short sleeve jersey and, and it just makes that both garments way more versatile.

So,

[00:32:00]Craig Dalton (host): Yeah.

[00:32:01]Kyle Rancourt: so yeah,

[00:32:02]Craig Dalton (host): been using your, I've been using your short sleeve Jersey, not the Jersey, excuse me, the t shirt that I got in, uh, and at made at the made bike show. And it's been great. I mean, I, I do love, as you've said, it's it, you can sweat in it, but it'll dry. You don't smell, you know, there's all sorts of good attributes there.

[00:32:20]Kyle Rancourt: You don't have to wash it every time you wear it. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, so we, we, our first season, um, was a sort of light mid weight. merino that we used, which is great for sort of all, you know, year round wear. And again, we have the short sleeve and long sleeve jersey and the performance tees.

And then just recently we, we launched our fall winter collection, which is a heavier midweight merino. Um, I, which I absolutely love just that little extra weight adds, you know, a really luxurious feel to it. Um, but it's still extremely light, you know, we've had customers order the new jerseys and say and say Oh, this isn't as as heavy as I thought or isn't as thick as I thought um, but then after they wear it, you know, they realize that it doesn't need to be because that new yarn fabric is just It's so amazing.

There's such an excellent warmth to weight ratio.

[00:33:23]Craig Dalton (host): Gotcha. Interesting. Yeah, I'd be curious. That thicker one sounds perfect for this time of year around here. It's interesting as you like try different materials and different garments, how you have to rethink your layering strategy of what makes sense and adds up to the level of warmth that you need.

I've been playing around with a few garments lately and sometimes I'm a big winner and sometimes I'm a big loser that I've just got it all wrong and end up too cold or too hot.

[00:33:50]Kyle Rancourt: Oh, these, like, our long sleeve, the new fall long sleeve jersey, it's called the, um, the Grafton long sleeve jersey, is, uh, 180 grams per square meter. That's the weight of the fabric, which is on, like, the heavier end of a mid weight. And... You know, it's very cold in Maine right now. Today I went out for a ride.

It was about 38 degrees Fahrenheit. Um, and I wear that thing with no base layer. Usually, uh, uh, if it's, if it's in the thirties, I'll go the jersey and a vest of either like a light thermal vest or a wind vest and, and the jersey and that's it, and I'm, I'm plenty warm. And one of the things I. I always disliked about riding in the winter, was wearing bulky clothes on the bike.

I just found to be so uncomfortable. And so this transforms that experience because you can, you know, you put a light, even if you put a light base layer, one of our jerseys and then a vest, there's almost no bulk there and you're plenty warm in, you know, high twenties or even low thirties.

[00:35:01]Craig Dalton (host): Wow.

[00:35:02]Kyle Rancourt: Nice pair of gloves, some warm shoes, good to go.

[00:35:08]Craig Dalton (host): And your aesthetic is sort of very kind of clean and earthy. Is that the right way to describe

[00:35:14]Kyle Rancourt: Yeah, yeah, I would, uh, I've been a long time fan of minimalist design. So, um, we have this one signature, you know, design element, the double stripe on the sleeve, which, you know, has this, of course, like, retro feel. You know, racing stripes and across all all sports, right from auto racing to cycling and running the stripe, you know, the retro stripe look so we have that one design element.

And then other than that, they're just solid colors. And I focused really on picking colors, um, that that represent the brand and its heritage being in Maine. So, um, you know, the, the first season, it was like our granite gray, you know, for the, for the granite mountain, big old granite mountains here in Maine, um, pine green, for obvious reasons, Maine is the pine tree state and then Atlantic blue, you know, a nice dark, like Navy blue, um, to represent, you know, our, our Atlantic coast.

And then, The fall, uh, we added, we added black, um, and then sort of this, this rusty red color we're calling brick red, reddish brown color, which is really beautiful, and, uh, and moonbeam, which is this warm off white, um, that to me sort of symbolizes the shorter You know, the shorter days and that early moonrise of fall and winter.

So yeah, really simple design, minimalist design, and a focus on telling color stories, but in these like muted earth tones,

[00:37:00]Craig Dalton (host): Gotcha. Yeah. Everybody can take a look at pineberry. us, which is the website. Any advice you'd give someone who finds you online in terms of how to get the correct fit of the jersey?

[00:37:12]Kyle Rancourt: um, all of our garments are run true to size for us sizing. Um, but we do have a size chart on every product page, so you can match up your. Your chest measurements or your height and weight, um, and pick the best size for you. The The jerseys are meant to be more of a relaxed, like, club fit, so if you order your, your regular size, you can expect that.

It's not going to be like this really, they're not aero jerseys, you know, they're not meant to be really tight fitting. Um, but they are tailored and snug, like you'd expect from, you know, a performance road jersey.

[00:37:52]Craig Dalton (host): Yeah. Gotcha. Where's the best place for listeners to follow your story?

[00:37:58]Kyle Rancourt: Um, Probably on Instagram. Well, there's two actually. Um, that's a great question. Definitely Instagram. Always. We're very active. They're always posting, you know, our adventures, new products, um, uh, in our, on our stories and reels and posts. So lots of, lots of great content there. But then we also, I want to, I'm glad you brought this up.

I have this Pineberry Journal component to the website. And It's really about telling, it's about taking time to tell stories about outdoor. adventures or what inspires people about their environment. And, um, I'm, I'm trying to have a contributor every two or three weeks. I haven't been super successful at that.

So, you know, there'll be like two in a month and then I think I missed a month and, you know, we have like three lined up right now, three contributors. Um, but I'm bringing in, you know, a, a really wide variety of. So we've had, um, runners, cyclists, we had a gentleman from Maine who's a writer, who's an avid fly fisherman, and he wrote this, you know, really beautiful piece about, um, discovering your new home water, because he moved here from, from Washington, and when he moved to Maine, he, he had to discover his, his new home water.

So, and then we have a, like a champion, um, horseback rider and trainer who I went out and spent a day with and, and, uh, photographed her riding and training horses. And so, you know, we're telling these stories about these amazing things people are doing outdoors.

[00:39:43]Craig Dalton (host): Yeah. Awesome. I clicked through some of them. And, uh, yeah, it's always, I love seeing that. I think. It acknowledges that most of the people who are going to be visiting your site are probably multi sport athletes and outdoors people. So you've got the cycling specific garments, but you've also got t shirts and long sleeve t shirts out of the same performance wool that people can use for fly fishing or horseback riding or hiking or all of the

[00:40:10]Kyle Rancourt: Yeah. Yeah. And there's more coming, you know, we're gonna, we're focusing, uh, some time on, um, building out the hiking and running apparel line. And then we're going to, we're going to gear up for skiing as well. So we'll have a couple items this winter coming out for skiing and more in the future.

We'll always be a cycling focused and cycle and rooted in cycling. Um, but, uh, definitely wanting to serve, you know, other athletes or, or the cyclist like myself who loves doing other things as well.

[00:40:44]Craig Dalton (host): Yeah. Awesome. Well, Kyle, thanks for joining us. Thanks for telling this American made story. I love what you're doing over there at Pineberry and I hope many of our listeners will go over there and check you out.

[00:40:54]Kyle Rancourt: Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Good. Spend some time with you today.

[00:40:57]Craig Dalton (host): That's going to do it for this week's edition of the growl ride podcast. Big, thanks to Kyle for joining us and telling us all about. The pine Berry story.

I love, love, love that they're manufacturing in the United States and I'm intrigued by this new wool story I've been using one of their performance teas for a while. And all the attributes Kyle mentioned are coming true. I'm excited to try one of their performance jerseys. They're particularly their new one.

They just launched the winter weight as it's getting cold here in mill valley. And I could use a way to warm up on those early Dawn patrol rides. Big, thanks to our friends at age. For supporting the show this week, remember head on over to drink ag one. one.com/the gravel ride to get that free one year supply of vitamin D three K two and five free AIG. travel packs.

And if you, dear listener are looking for a way to support the show, there's a couple easy ways in which you can do it. Ratings and reviews are hugely appreciated in the podcast world. They really help in our discoverability and connecting with other gravel cyclists. Around the world, or if you're able to financially support the show, please visit buy me a coffee.com/the gravel ride. Until next time. Here's to finding some dirt onto your wheels. 

This week Randall and Craig catch up on all things gravel. We discuss introducing friends to gravel riding and events, suspension on gravel bikes and comparative bike geometry.

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This week we sit down with Sarah Wallensteen from Dynamic Cyclist to learn more about stretching and injury prevention. Dynamic Cyclist offers a comprehensive video based stretching program designed specifically for cyclists by cyclists.  Each session is designed to be completed in under 20 minutes to easily fit into our lives. 

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Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos:

[00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport

I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist.

This week on the show, we're welcoming Sarah Wallenstein from dynamic cyclist, from British Columbia to talk to us about stretching and strength training and how important it is for us as gravel cyclist. Dynamic cyclist has been around for five years, providing a video based stretching and strength training program for cyclists.

It was developed specifically because the founders. Saw the need in their lives for stretching and strength training. To support their cycling endeavors. I had a super fun conversation with sarah and i can't wait to get into it

Hey, Sarah, welcome to the show. Hi. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to dig into all things stretching. I feel like every winter period I start thinking about stretching and then forget about it in the summer period, but it's super poignant for me every winter as I'm like, What can I do to really make sure I'm gonna have a fun and productive cycling season?

[00:01:31] Sarah Wallensteen: Yeah, that's funny how that works though. As soon as we're back on our bike, we, uh, we let it go.

[00:01:37] Craig Dalton: and everybody else, everybody I've spoken to in terms of recovery, PT, performance, like they always say stretching or yoga, like it has to be part of your program and mm-hmm. , I've certainly been hung up on this as a, an aging.

Just of how to keep my performances high, and it is so often not about riding my bike more or, you know, doing intervals or anything like that. It's just about creating a, a body that can, you know, just be, have the flexibility and have the resilience. To handle gravel cycling.

[00:02:17] Sarah Wallensteen: Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:02:18] Craig Dalton: Yeah. We all start off by the show by learning a little bit more about you.

So Sarah, can you tell us where, where you're located, um, and maybe just a little bit about your background as a cyclist and maybe something you're excited for this cycling season.

[00:02:32] Sarah Wallensteen: Sure. Um, my name is Sarah Wallenstein and, um, I live in Cologna, bc so beautiful cycling here. Pretty much any kind. I have, you know, the classic road gravel mountain bike shed.

Um, I grew up cycling. It's very much a part of my family's culture. Um, my parents for their honeymoon rode across both islands in New Zealand. Um, my aunt and uncle toured most of Europe. Um, so it's just, it's something that has always been a part of our family. And then as we grew up kind of seeing that, uh, in the adults in our lives, it was just natural that we would also hop on bikes and go places, and um, uh, explore that way.

So it's, yeah. Biking has always been such an important part of my.

[00:03:20] Craig Dalton: Amazing. And was it, um, when did gravel cycling come into your cycling worldview and what's the gravel cycling near you like? Yeah,

[00:03:29] Sarah Wallensteen: it definitely, it came in last. Um, so I started off on road, um, and doing triathlon when I was, I did my first triathlon when I was 12.

And then I morphed into mountain biking cuz that was the fun adrenaline while I was a teenager and I raced, um, cross country, mountain biking all through high school. Uh, gravel has definitely been, it's within the last couple years. I mean, it's exploded in popularity within the last couple years. Um, and just as roads have become more and more busy, I still love my road bike, but I love the quiet that you can, can, you can get on gravel and just go.

you know, for six hours and not see anyone else. . I love, I love that part of it. Um, cause I also come from, I did some ultra running as well and I've loved that. Just getting lost in the woods and you can achieve that on a gravel. Um, and in the Okanagan we are so blessed. We have the K V R, which is just such a nice intro to grapple of riding.

Cause you can go, um, You can go for days and you're just on railroad grade, uh, cuz it's the old railroad, uh, track. So it's no more than 2% incline . So it's just an amazing way to explore our valley. So that's the main, um, the main kind of route that I do a lot on my gravel riding on. Cuz it's just, it's e it's easy, it's beautiful.

It's fun. We. You know these amazing wood trestles that you get to go across in canyons and it's stunning and it's 10 minutes from my house, so can't really beat

[00:05:02] Craig Dalton: it. Amazing. And given the prevalence of mountain bike trails, do you in that area as well, do you tend to. Kind of under bike and explore those trails on your gravel bike?

Or is it kind of more that rails to trail type riding that you like to enjoy? No,

[00:05:18] Sarah Wallensteen: I've definitely, I've definitely pushed my gravel bike on onto single track and trying to test out how that feels. Um, I am signed up for the BC Epic this year, and that does include some single track. So I've been wanting to kind of test my , tell us how that feels.

Um, And it just, it opens up where you can go too in exploring, you know, discontinued, uh, logging roads that are a lot rock, but, uh, can get you to some cool places.

[00:05:46] Craig Dalton: What is the

[00:05:47] Sarah Wallensteen: BC epic? Um, so it's a thousand kilometer ride that takes you from merit to Furney. Uh, and it's all, they have a breakdown of what it is, but I think it's, it's 80% gravel, 10% single track, and then 10% road.

Um, So you basically have however long it's going to take you, and you start out as a group. It's not a paid race, it's just an event that you just start with a group of like-minded people and then. Spread out over the days to come . So I, it's amazing.

[00:06:19] Craig Dalton: Is it, is it a bike packing style race where you have a grand depar and however you wanna handle it, you handle it?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Super cool. Yeah. Is your vision that you'll, you'll, um, bike pack it in the context, like you'll be camping every night or are you gonna credit card toward, is that even possible? Um,

[00:06:38] Sarah Wallensteen: you can, quite a few people especially, um, Last year it was, there was like a heat dome during the race time, which was really unfortunate.

Um, so a quite a few riders did get a couple hotels along the ridges to cool down, which is totally fair. Uh, I'm hoping it'll be a lot cooler, uh, and I wanna do it all camping. Um, okay. There's only two nights that you could possibly spend in a town. Yes. And

[00:07:04] Craig Dalton: do you have a vision for how long that'll take you?

[00:07:08] Sarah Wallensteen: Days, um, yeah, I'm thinking seven days. I'd like to do it in a week. Uh, the course record. Is free in a bit, so very fast. But I like my sleeve way too much. So

[00:07:19] Craig Dalton: sleep , I hear you on that. Well, it sounds like we could do a whole episode on that endeavor cause that sounds super exciting and I, I hope you'll keep me posted on how it goes cuz it's will do.

Fascinated by that kind of thing. But we're here to talk about dynamic cyclists. Yes. So why don't, why don't we start by what is dynamic cyclist? When was it founded? And we can go from.

[00:07:42] Sarah Wallensteen: Sure. Uh, dynamic Cyclist is, um, an online video-based program that provides stretching and strength training specifically designed for cyclists.

That's the sales pitch. That's what we are. Um, we started back in 2018 and it kind of came about in a random way. So myself and the two co-founders, um, they actually hired me on as a blog writer, um, for a site called I love bicycling.com. And I'd just come out of a newsroom I'd, I'd kind of tested the waters of journalism.

It wasn't what I wanted it to be. I was looking for an out, so this writing job came up to ride about bikes and I, uh, jumped on that. And from there, the blog. , it was kind of hard cuz it's like the end of when blogging could make money. So , they were just kind of paying me out of pocket and just, okay, we'll eventually do something.

We'll figure something out. Um, and we were just sitting around one day and just talking about cycling and what is missing in the cycling world. And it came down to both Lee and I, one of the co-founders were both cyclists and he said, I know I should be stretching. I never do, but what can we offer? In that world, can we create something that we ourselves want to use that will help us, therefore it will help other cyclists.

And that's kind of how dynamic Cyclists was born. So I took that idea and built the website and worked with a physiotherapist and sports therapist to put together the programming and record the videos and we went from there. That's

[00:09:20] Craig Dalton: super interesting. I mean, obviously like the best entrepreneurial stories.

Much very similar to that. Right. It was just like, what is missing from the world? And I think many cyclists can own up to the fact that we've been aware of cycling our, or sorry, stretching our entire lives. Mm-hmm. , but not doing enough of it. Mm-hmm. . I also find it interesting that you, you know, you started from a content perspective because I've been aware of the brand for many years, and it's always been sort of in that context of like, you're, you've been putting good content in front of me.

Clearly, like as I mentioned earlier, I think about stretching hardcore every winter and click through and you know, obviously you were chasing me around the internet with your ads for forever, and I'm, I'm glad I finally clicked through and in fact, I'll mention this and we'll come back to it. It couldn't be easier because you offer seven day free trials.

So if you're curious what it's all about, just jump in and try it. Mm-hmm. . But to put a point, a fine point on. What is the type of programming you offer specifically? It's a video, right?

[00:10:25] Sarah Wallensteen: Yes. Yeah, we, we designed it with ourselves in mind, which sounds weird, but as cyclists, you know, I've tried yoga and no offense, yoga is amazing and works for so many people, but I would get bored, and I think a lot of cyclists are the same.

We're a certain type of people that have to be on the move. Right? So doing an hour long class just isn't appealing. I'm gonna go once and then I'm not gonna go again. , what we were aiming to do and what the website is, is trying to keep that video, that routine to 15 to 20 minutes tops. Um, , it's bite size.

That's, that's doable. You know, it's funny, human nature, anything above 20 minutes and we're like, ah, I don't have 20 minutes. But , you do. I promise. You do. Um, and we wanted it to just be you. Click play, you follow along. You don't have to think about it. You know, you're targeting the right areas for you as a cyclist.

and then you're done. Then you can, you know, get on with your day, hop on your bike, whatever else you

[00:11:27] Craig Dalton: wanna do. Yeah. Yeah. I think those two points landed very well with me. Just this a, this idea that yes, yoga would be a great thing, and if I had a yoga routine, That would be amazing, but it is an hour long and I struggle with finding enough workout time for my cycling passion, let alone adding something like that in and 20 minutes is available to me.

Mm-hmm. , hopefully it's available to all of us. You can, I, I've found a little time, like if my son's watching tv, I just have it up on my phone and I do stretches where normally I might just be cuddling with him and watching a show that has no interest to an adult. Right.

[00:12:05] Sarah Wallensteen: Yeah. . Um, yeah, no, that's perfect.

[00:12:09] Craig Dalton: And the, what type of equipment is typically involved? Like what do I have to have in my home in order to successfully complete the program? Yeah,

[00:12:18] Sarah Wallensteen: we've tried to keep it as minimal as possible or things you can use that are around the house. The list has grown over the years as we've added more content, cuz you know, the more we add, the more we're trying to find new ways, new exciting ways to stretch your hamstrings.

You know, get creative. Uh, but for the stretching program, all you'll. Is just a mat or a space to do it. Um, blocks you can use books, um, a strap, use a belt, it works. Um, and then a broomstick, believe it or not, we use it as like a pole that you can do some upper mobility stuff with. Um, and that's all you need.

To get started and then a foam roller, if you wanna include the, we do include some foam rolling and, uh, release stuff,

[00:13:00] Craig Dalton: so, yep. Yeah. Yeah. I think when I, when I think about starting the program each night, I'm thinking about foam roller block and a strap. Like those are my, those are my, those are the main days.

Yeah. I do like, and I have done a little bit of broom work and it is interesting how it adds, um, just a little something, uh, additional to your twisting.

[00:13:21] Sarah Wallensteen: Activities. Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:13:23] Craig Dalton: Yeah. So it, it's, it's such an interesting concept and we talk about stretching, but why is stretching important for cyclists?

[00:13:33] Sarah Wallensteen: Yeah. This is, this is the big thing. It's, it's important for cyclists of course, but it really is important for everyone. But why cyclists specifically? Um, when you think about when you're on the bike and the pedaling motion, you're taking your muscles through a linear range of motion for one. So you're moving in one direction.

You're not going out to either side. and you're also never taking the hip, the knee, or the ankle joint to its fullest range of motion. So we're never straightening out those joints. There's always a little bend, which can c just put a lot of pressure on those muscles and those joints cuz they're not fully extending.

Um, so just what this can do, you're also taking it through hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of repetitions on the bike, right? So it's, of course cycling is so good for you and it's amazing for your joints cuz it's low impact. , but you are taking it through the exact same range of motion over and over.

Um, and we're bent over, which doesn't help us, uh, especially with our modern lifestyles, which we spend a lot of time at desks driving, sitting on the couch. And then it's just more time spent with our hips crunched, our back, hunched. Um, so all that kind of accumulates to. Muscle imbalance or posture. Uh, we all know , you know, we all hunt forward, uh, slowly over time.

And it also just, it turns our quads into powerhouses and then our weak little hamstrings can't handle it and they weaken and, uh, loosen and it can just throw off the whole pelvis. It's essentially what happens. .

[00:15:10] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah. It's so true. I mean, if we just, if you're out there listening and you think about how many hours in you eat in your week, you pedal a bike, and how many weeks in your life you've been a cyclist, we become very good at doing one thing and mm-hmm.

I always tell that to people like, you know, I feel like I'm a, a decent endurance athlete on a bike , but, but I am not a decent endurance athlete in many other things. Yeah. Because the rest of my body is, Not conditioned to do it. Mm-hmm. , and I've been making concerted effort to kind of diversify my, my personal sporting interests with just the sense that I'm not gonna be able to continue cycling if I don't consider other muscle groups.

Mm-hmm. , you know, the, just general wellbeing of my body. I recently joined a gym, don't you know, God forbid I finally did it, , but one of the offers they had was like a, a full 360 body. And the person who was interpreting for it for me was talking about my muscle mass and my fat and where they're distributed.

And we were talking about like my inner thigh area. I think that's the adductor. Mm-hmm. and how it was so underdeveloped compared to the rest of my leg muscles. Yeah, and to your point, as you were describing that pedal motion, like we're doing one thing and it's evolving a lot of muscle groups in our legs.

but not all the muscle groups in our legs

[00:16:35] Sarah Wallensteen: and yeah, sorry. Another thing that can happen, you just, you brought up the abductors and they're the perfect example. Um, and a lot of endurance cyclists will understand this, that. You know when you're at hour 4, 5, 6 on a bike and those powerhouse muscles are starting to fatigue, it's those stabilizing ones that we don't ask to do anything for us that start to be recruited like the abductors, and that's when you can get insane cramping or.

Fatigue. Cause those just fatigued so quickly. Cause they're not up to the task. You ask them to help and they're just these weak little things I can't do. can't

[00:17:12] Craig Dalton: do it. So it's so funny you say that because in the instances where I have had those vicious cramps, latent an event, it's been the abductor.

Yeah. And it's been a frigging disaster. . Yeah, .

[00:17:25] Sarah Wallensteen: The calves will do that to you too. .

[00:17:28] Craig Dalton: And the other thing we were exploring, as you know, this woman was sort of analyzing my, my issues was just how my muscles that, as you were saying, aren't the strongest. late in the day when I'm riding are compensating mm-hmm.

and causing all kinds of problems in my back. And yeah. So we've just kind of brought together this, this idea that you need to stretch more and we do need to look at a more holistic, weightlifting routine mm-hmm. to strengthen these other areas.

[00:17:57] Sarah Wallensteen: Yeah. As much as our, our core programming and where we started was with stretching, it's almost, we had to ease ourselves into it.

And therefore our members, you know, it's like, okay, you know, you need to stretch. You should. and then we just snuck strength training in there as well. Yeah. It's equally as important and just as much of a foundation of our programming. Wait. We just have to kind of be a little quieter about it. Cuz when you ask people to stretch and strengthen, I don't have time for that.

But we do have, uh, routines that combine them. Right. That combine the mobility work and the stability work. Yeah. To make that as easy

[00:18:31] Craig Dalton: as possible. And I've got a bone to pick with you because , I'm quite sure I'm doing AB and core work. Yes, yes,

[00:18:40] Sarah Wallensteen: you are . Um, the core is one of the most neglected things that's like this.

Uh, they don't understand the importance of, and I mean, low back pain is the number one thing that comes up for cyclists. Um, I don't care what level you are. If you ride your bike for over an hour, your low back is going to start hurting. If your core is not strong, and all that is, is your core and your hamstrings and your.

are the supporters for your low back and your pelvis. And so if your core isn't up to the job, your low back is just going to have the little wave in it. It's gonna cave in and your low back will have pain on and off the bike. Um, , but you need a strong core. There's no way to sugarcoat

[00:19:27] Craig Dalton: it. Yeah, . Yeah. Yeah.

And I think it's, you know, it's interesting as we age as athletes, you can kind of fake a lot of things in your twenties and maybe early thirties if you're lucky. Mm-hmm. . But as you get into your forties and fifties and beyond, It, it starts to add up and that's my, certainly my advice and takeaway to younger athletes is get a routine and build those strength systems earlier rather than later.

Mm-hmm. , it's probably obvious if you're a high performing professional cyclist that you need to do that, but even for amateur cyclists, like if you wanna be long into. Game of cycling. And cycling can be a sport that'll be around your entire life. Yeah. But you still have to play a few other cards in order to make sure you're, you've got the right platform to enjoy cycling.

[00:20:12] Sarah Wallensteen: Yeah, absolutely. It's been interesting over there the past five years that we've had dynamic cyclists, cuz our, our membership in the beginning was very much, you know, 50. , um, older athletes who, who wanna keep riding but are experiencing those pain points. So we're, you know, ready to jump on a solution. But the longer we've been around, the more and more the 20 somethings, 30 somethings are getting in there cuz they're seeing the value of that as well.

Of, okay, I wanna be doing this in 30 years. So what I have to do now to, to make sure that can happen. .

[00:20:48] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent. So you've got, uh, can you describe the program just a little bit? You've got the sort of basic strength, or sorry, the basic stretching program mm-hmm. , but you've also got some derivative programs to specific parts of the body or ailments.

[00:21:04] Sarah Wallensteen: Yes. Um, so yeah, as I said, the core of our programming is a daily stretching video. We have over two years of content in that you'll have a, a new routine every day. Um, that are stretching and some mo we sneak some mobility and like dynamic exercises in there as well. You, you wanna be moving through the range of motion, not just doing static stretches.

So, um, that's the core of the program. And then we have various different strength training programs. So we have like a beginner, intermediate, advanced and then a winter strength training program that was designed where you're not as on your bike as much cuz it does fatigue. Powerhouse muscles you're gonna be using on the bike that you may not need to work those while you're riding as much.

Um, and then we do have our injury programming, which has become kind of our more popular programming. So we have a low back programming program, a knee, a hip. An ankle reset and foot, which, you know, a lot of people don't understand. You know, like that seems kind of random, but it is very important to start at the base and work up.

Um, and what these programs do is they combine into 20 minutes the mobility, stretching work, and the strength training that you need to be doing to correct, um, the muscle imbalance that is likely causing pain in those areas. Yes, you're gonna be do doing core strength in a hip program because it's all connected.

So you're, you're working on stretching and strengthening those surrounding muscles around that joint to make sure, um, that it is balanced.

[00:22:35] Craig Dalton: Yeah, I went through the, the seven day introductory kind of trial period for the basic, uh, stretching mm-hmm. , and then went right into, I think I'm like 21 days into the low back.

Yeah. Uh, phase one

[00:22:50] Sarah Wallensteen: training, right? Yeah. . Yeah. The, the injury programs are, they're gonna be at least six weeks. Um, just because that is what it takes to experience. , um, I promise you can do it. 20 minutes a day. Even if it takes you, you know, two months, three months to get through that one program, you're still, uh, doing your body a huge service.

[00:23:12] Craig Dalton: That's good to know. And I didn't internalize that concept. Maybe I saw at some level that the first phase was six weeks. Mm-hmm. , but that's what your. Research or experience has shown that it takes six weeks to kind of get a little bit of impact in that area. Yeah,

[00:23:25] Sarah Wallensteen: you will feel results right away. You're, you're gonna have faster recovery, you're gonna just feel better.

Um, but to actually start to change, um, those structures and the way the muscles recover and the length of muscles takes four to six weeks. Yeah.

[00:23:40] Craig Dalton: And how about with the, uh, the basic stretching routine? I mean, you just mentioned, you know, you'll start to feel some more elasticity potentially mm-hmm. in your areas, but is there a particular amount of time that you really want people to stay on the program for every year?

[00:23:57] Sarah Wallensteen: Yeah, that's an interesting question. I mean, ideally, , you continue on forever. not with dynamic cyclists, but you continue this mobility practice. Yeah, we have a ton of members who have been with us since the beginning and you know, they reach a point that they're like, you know what? I've learned so much from you guys.

Loved it. and they move on cuz they've, they've made it so a part of their routine and their life. They know all the exercises they should be doing. They're good to just put on music and do their own routine at this point. Yeah. And we're totally happy with that. If, if you can learn from us to put together your own routines, your own injury prevention, that's great.

Um,

[00:24:36] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Job well done at that point. Yeah. ,

[00:24:38] Sarah Wallensteen: we'll pat ourselves on the back and wish you well. . .

[00:24:42] Craig Dalton: Yeah. When you think about cycling, what are the, and, and if you wanted to impart the listener with like three focal areas you think that they should spend most of their time thinking about and, and working on from a stretching, um, perspective, what would those.

That's

[00:25:00] Sarah Wallensteen: an interesting question cuz it's, you know, I, I would go to say like, hamstrings are the number one thing, um, but they're kind of a different problem for everyone. They're super tight, but they may not be, um, shortened as you think they might be. But it might be the overdevelopment of the, that's pulling it so there's no stretch there cuz it's stretched to the point of its limit.

Um, So there's a bunch of things that go into fixing that, but the hamstrings are more important. Of course, you should be stretching them, but you should be strengthening them. Those need to go hand in hand. That would be my number one. . Does the

[00:25:37] Craig Dalton: hamstring, does it connect to other, well, obviously it does, but where does it connect and what other parts of the body does?

Like poor hamstring maintenance, uh, attributes, problems to,

[00:25:49] Sarah Wallensteen: yeah. The poor hamstring, mainten. is a large cause of the low back pain as well. Um, cuz it connects to the pelvis at the top. Um, and then as well it comes around and the quads and the hamstrings were so connected. So like what is happening with one, uh, is gonna affect the other.

Yeah. Um, but that's where a lot of both knee and hip pain comes from is hamstring and then what it does as it like goes down the chain. Got

[00:26:15] Craig Dalton: it. Yeah. Okay, so that's first is our hamstring area. Hamstring. What, what would you put.

[00:26:21] Sarah Wallensteen: Uh, we've already talked about it, but I would say low back and core, um, are the next biggest things.

Just cuz that is gonna be the thing that, um, we've found injury-wise. It's, there's some things like knee pain, you'll get off the bike and you'll be walking and it goes away and it may hurt just when you're on your bike. Low back pain sticks around. It'll hurt when you go to pick up your groceries or whatever.

Yeah. So it's just one of the most important things you should hop on as soon as you feel that little tweak , you know, before it gets any. .

[00:26:51] Craig Dalton: And you mentioned earlier the sort of the, the importance of core strength. Mm-hmm. when you perhaps are, are fatigued on the bike because without core strength, other, other areas of your back may be taking the brunt of mm-hmm.

holding you in the, in the correct position. So core strength. And so core strengthening is one element of that. How do you access and what type of stretching do you recommend for the.

[00:27:20] Sarah Wallensteen: Um, the most important stretching, uh, is like twists that you can do in the spine. Um, cause we don't, we don't actually ask a lot from our back, especially on the bike.

You know, we're in one position holding, so anything that we can work on, you know, the thoracic spine and how important that is to just have that range of motion, um, will impact the low back as well. . Um, and as , it may sound weird, but the quads are so important to stretch, rule release. Um, just break up that tension cuz cyclists are known for our overdeveloped quads.

That's the, that's the main thing. So, um, that's one

[00:28:03] Craig Dalton: of the most important areas. Yeah. That and the it band and the IT band's con contributions to low back have been something mm-hmm. That I've definitely acknowledged in my own body. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so that was two, and I'm not gonna command you to get me a third , but if you have a third, let's

[00:28:20] Sarah Wallensteen: hear it.

Um, yeah, the hip flexor, we actually just released a intensive hip program. Um, our new injury programming includes, uh, an informational piece cuz we want people to understand why they're doing these things and why it's important. So we brought in. Dr. Ben, we like to call him, um, to just, he's really good at explaining the joint and why these injuries happen.

Um, and the hip is so important because it's number one, just the biggest joint in the body, most complex, most, you know, elements going in there. Um, and it's also one that, as I mentioned before, in the way that most of our, most of us live our lives. is just crunched all the time at a 90 degree angle. You know, um, standing desks and stuff like that help, but.

our hips are notoriously tight and weak. I mean, you try to go into a pigeon pose, you go to a yoga class, you know that your hips are tight, , you know that, that, that doesn't feel good. Um, and again, that can impact you on the bike. If that hip flexor muscle, which again gets recruited as the quads fatigue, if it's not up to it, you're going to, uh, start feeling it in other areas.

So has to both again, be stretched and strengthened.

[00:29:40] Craig Dalton: Yeah. A hundred percent. And I'm a hundred percent guilty of that and have felt that on many occasions. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things that, you know, a lot of times we learn how to stretch and we learn the basic stretch, and one of the neat things about the program that I've observed was positioning your feet at different angles while you're doing stretches.

Mm-hmm. , you know, if you're doing like sort of a, a bent overstretch, for lack of a better definition of what I'm talking about. Yeah. It was super interesting to. to really feel how probably limiting my approach had been previously. Mm-hmm. without doing the different feet positions to access different parts of that muscle.

Yeah. And

[00:30:23] Sarah Wallensteen: that's something that has come up the longer we've been doing this and also working with professionals who, who can pull from these amazing libraries in their brains of, you know, how to reach those harder to get muscles. And like for an example, I think we have like five different versions of a low lunge because you know, the basic one, but.

The position of your foot matters. What you're doing, engaging your pelvis matters. You put a pole out in front that changes it entirely. So we're always trying to introduce, um, you know, everyone knows how to do a lunge, but how can we make this, um, target different muscles? And it's really interesting to feel when you add just a little variant and it hits a different place entire.

[00:31:07] Craig Dalton: Yeah. For me it was immediate. The body gave me that feedback. Mm-hmm. , and I was like, whoa. It, it made, made a ton of sense once I did it, but never thought about it prior to doing it. ,

[00:31:16] Sarah Wallensteen: why am I turning my toes

[00:31:18] Craig Dalton: in ? Yeah, . Exactly. I know you've got some other sort of minor parts of the, the offering in like training plans and I did just want to give you an opportunity to mention.

[00:31:29] Sarah Wallensteen: Sure. Um, because we have been around for five years at this point, we've been constantly working with our members, um, to offer them more value, more of what they want and need in their cycling journey. And so we worked with, um, one of Canada's best, uh, triathletes, Jasper Blake, to put together four different training plans and integrate that with our stretching and strength programming to make that just all encompassing and as easy as possible.

We do integrate with training peaks on that level, but it is very basic inter integration cuz we're not a tech company. So it is what it is. It exists on training peaks. You can use that in your training peaks. Yeah. Um, we have the training plans, we do have some skills courses as well for it's very beginner cyclist stuff, you know, like how to clip in for the first time, had a corner.

Um, and then we do have. Um, you know, yoga, Pilates roll and release section. Just learning how to roll out the different parts of your body and why. . Um, and I think that's,

[00:32:34] Craig Dalton: that. Is it ? Yeah. I was, I was impressed when I, when I got into my dashboard and saw mm-hmm. , all those different opportunities mm-hmm. to learn about stretching and strength training.

It was super cool. There's like a lot there. It's really easy to use. Everything's seems to be pretty straightforward and mm-hmm. in terms of how it's organized and I, I basically, I, I feel like I, I've accessed it from three different devices now. My, my personal computer, my phone, and my iPad. Yeah. I just log in and it sort of knows exactly where I left off and is ready to serve me up that video.

Mm-hmm. . , which I appreciate because I don't have to spend a lot of time futzing around like mm-hmm. , I believe I have the 20 minutes. I don't believe I have 22, so I wanna get right into it. ,

[00:33:17] Sarah Wallensteen: no, again, we, we were the first product testers and we had to be no more than two clicks . So, uh, we try to make it as easy as possible and, and we love hearing from our members as well and just what we can offer them.

And you know, like the ankle injury program that we have, um, that was requested by members. You know, like, this is an area that I'm having issues with. Can you put something together? And we did. And so we love, we love bringing our team, um, together to solve problems like

[00:33:46] Craig Dalton: that. . That's great. That's great.

Well, I, I appreciate everything you guys are doing. It's been an interesting program for me. I mean, I think I, I clearly have not hit that six week mark yet, , so I need to keep doubling down on my efforts and make this part of my 2023 routine. Mm-hmm. , I also appreciate just hearing about the business story behind dynamic cyclist, and I, I love that entrepreneurial journey.

Hey, this is missing. We love cycling. This would be a great part of our lives. Let's see if it would fit into the broader cycling community. So, mm-hmm. , kudos to you guys for just getting off the dime and creating something, and five years later, having this vast catalog of content that we're now lucky enough to tap into.

[00:34:30] Sarah Wallensteen: Yeah, it's been a, it's been an awesome journey and, uh, so much fun working with, you know, different sports therapists and physios and I've learned so much. I didn't come into this as a physio. I came from, you know, the content side, like you said. And so it's, uh, it's been awesome.

[00:34:46] Craig Dalton: Super cool. What's the best way for people to find out about dynamic cyclists?

[00:34:51] Sarah Wallensteen: Yeah, just, uh, Google Us or go to dynamic cyclist.com. Um, this Sunday, exciting news, we are launching our own custom app. Finally, uh, so you will be able to search dynamic cyclists on the app store, um, and purchase from there. Try. Tried the seven day trial. Um, and that'll just make the whole, um, multi-use streaming.

You know, if you wanna cast your tv, it's just gonna be a lot easier. And also one of the biggest features that our members have been asking for. Cause we do have a lot of bike packers, endurance cyclists. Is, uh, download, like offload, um, offline viewing feature, which the app now has. So you can preload, you know, a couple weeks of programming, do it on your phone, you know, on the side of the road, you know, make sure you go well off the side.

But, um, we wanted to, uh, give that to our members as

[00:35:42] Craig Dalton: well. Awesome. Super exciting. Yeah. Feels like one less click that I am now away from. Exactly. Getting the content. Yes. . Sarah, thanks so much for the overview. This was awesome. And I, you know, like I said, I encourage people to go check out dynamic cyclist.com and see if it's a fit

[00:35:59] Sarah Wallensteen: for you.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. And feel free to reach out to us on Instagram or Facebook. Uh, our team is always checking and we'd love to hear from you. Right on. Awesome.

[00:36:10] Craig Dalton: Big, thanks to Sarah for joining the show today. I hope you enjoyed that conversation and I hope even further that you're embracing, stretching as part of your cycling routine. I know how important it is. So many people have told me I need to be doing more of it over the years. And I only wish I did it earlier. Personal experience with dynamic cyclist has been.

Pretty easy to find those time slots. The format's quite easy and engaging to do. And I do see clear benefits in what I'm experiencing. If you're interested in learning more head on over to dynamic cyclist. Sarah has shared a discount code with me, simply use the gravel ride and you'll get 15% off any of their plans. They have that free trial. So head on over, give it a go. If it seems like a fit for you, feel free to enroll. If not. Just remember. Keep stretching.

If you're looking to connect with me, the easiest way is to head on over to the ridership. That's www.theridership.com. That's a free online community. We started. To connect gravel, cyclists from all over the world. I'm certainly no expert on everything in the sport. And I've found immeasurable amounts of knowledge from the other community members. It's over 1500 riders strong at this point from all over the world. So go check it out. If that sounds of interest to you.

If you're able to support the podcast, there's a couple easy ways in which you can do that. If you have the financial means, please visit buy me a coffee.com/the gravel ride. I'd love your ongoing support for the podcast. Separately ratings and reviews are hugely appreciated. It really helps with the discoverability of the podcast. So if you have the ability to share with a friend or write a rating or review in your favorite podcast app, amazing. I love you for it. Until next time here's to finding some dirt under your wheels

This week the microphone is turned the opposite direction with Dave Mable, host of Bike Talk with Dave, interviewing your host Craig Dalton. Dave had mentioned the many references I’ve made to my career and felt the audience should get to know me better. This is a re-broadcast of the original conversation from the Bike Talk podcast feed.

Episode sponsor: Dynamic Cyclist (use THEGRAVELRIDE for 15% off)

Bike Talk with Dave Spotify

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Join The Ridership 

Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos:

[00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport

I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist.

This week on the podcast, I'm actually going to be the guest. So a little while back I was the guest on bike. Talk with Dave. With host Dave Mabel. Dave reached out to me and said, he's been a long time listener of the podcast. He and I connected earlier via one of his film projects. And he mentioned that he felt like I left a bunch of Easter eggs in each episodes.

Easter eggs about my history or a little mentions of things that I've done in my life. And he was curious to unpeel the onion and get to know me a little bit better. And it dawned on me that so much of my time on this podcast is spent interviewing others that I rarely share that much about my history, how I found a love for the sport of cycling, how I became a podcaster.

And what I do for my day job.

So with Dave's permission, I'm going to republish the conversation I had on bike. Talk with Dave. That was originally found on his feed, just so you can get to know me a little bit. So I hope you enjoy the conversation again for the frequent listener. You'll get to know me a little bit. If this is your first time listening to the gravel ride podcast.

Maybe this isn't the episode to start with, unless you want to get to know a little bit more about me in the meantime, I did want to thank the dynamic cyclist. I mentioned them in the last episode as a long-time sponsor of the show. At this point, dynamic cyclist offers a stretching and strengthening programs specific to cyclists.

It's a video series. Each video is about 15 to 20 minutes long. It's designed to be easy to fit into your life. Something you can do. In addition to all the cycling training you're doing. But it's critically important, especially as you become older, that you really do strengthen and stretch those parts of the body that get overworked. You can imagine as a cyclist, we all sit in this kind of awkward, unique position, and it's important to kind of work other muscles as I'm learning more and more as I'm getting older.

So I encourage you to check out dynamic cyclists, just go to dynamic cyclists.com. They've got a free one week trial. So you really know what you're getting into and very inexpensive, either monthly or annual memberships, if you're a gravel ride podcast listener, which obviously you are, because you're hearing my voice.

Simply enter the code, the gravel ride, and you'll get 15% off. Either one of those programs. So I highly recommend making it part of your routine. And with that free trial, that's a no reason not to try it out. So with that, I'm going to hand over the microphone to Dave Mabel, who is going to interview me.

[00:03:10] Dave Mable: Craig Dalton, I am so thrilled to have you on Bike Talk with Dave. You are the OG of Gravel Podcasts and just talking to you before this thing, I'm just having these flashbacks cuz I do listen to your podcast very, very regularly and even go back to before I started listening to podcasts to hear your old episodes.

But it's a treat to have you on and hear your voice in my. Uh, yet another time today. So welcome to the podcast. Thanks for

[00:03:40] Craig Dalton: Thanks. Yeah, thanks Dave. I'm, I'm appreciative of you having me and looking forward to the conversation.

[00:03:46] Dave Mable: I wanted to have you on because, well, a, you've got a cool podcast and you've done some cool things, but you throw out these little teaser about your past history or past life, and you've just peaked my curiosity to be perfectly honest, and I'm like, I just gotta ask this dude. Who he is and how he came to be.

So first of all, um, where you call it, where, where are you right now?

[00:04:13] Craig Dalton: So I am in Northern California in the town of Mill Valley, so we're right at the base of Mount Tam, which is purportedly the birthplace of mountain biking.

[00:04:22] Dave Mable: bike. No doubt. Do you have an old mountain bike?

[00:04:25] Craig Dalton: I do, I've, I've, despite the Gravel Ride Pods podcast being my main public persona in cycling, I am an avid mountain biker and have been for, for a very long.

[00:04:36] Dave Mable: So I asked you if you had an old mountain bike. How old? What's your oldest mountain bike?

[00:04:42] Craig Dalton: My oldest mountain bike is probably 12 years old,

[00:04:46] Dave Mable: oh, all right. It's getting

[00:04:47] Craig Dalton: so not, yeah, not, not exceptionally old. And I probably, if I had enough room, I probably would've had a few more laying around. I do have one access to.

[00:04:56] Dave Mable: to one

[00:04:58] Craig Dalton: 25 year old Dean titanium mountain bike that is with my father right now. And the long term vision is that'll come back into my life and hopefully that'll be a bike my, my now eight year old son can grow into at some point.

[00:05:13] Dave Mable: a, oh, that's that. That's pretty cool. You better hang onto to that. That's, that's very cool.

[00:05:18] Craig Dalton: Yeah, it's got a, you know, in addition to being like a neat titanium bicycle from that, that era, I actually, and we can get into this later, I worked at Dean Titanium. That was my first sort of professional job out of college.

[00:05:32] Dave Mable: Oh, cool. Oh, I, I do wanna get into that cuz that's one of the things you throw out are little, uh, tidbits about you working in the cycling industry, um, and, uh, and being a lifetime cyclist. , I, I feel like cycling often leads us to cycling industry jobs. So am I guessing right that cycling came first in your life?

[00:05:56] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah it did. And I'll, I'll take you on the way back machine for a minute here, Dave. So my father, my both my mother and father are from England, and my dad was an avid bicycle racer before he came to the us. And a little bit when he set foot on US soil, always a road racer. By the time I was around, he had transitioned into marathon running because having kids wasn't allowing him enough time to ride.

But the bike has always been sort of around my life, but I, I certainly didn't pick it up with great interest. I did a little bit of BMX racing, which my father thought was.

[00:06:35] Dave Mable: was completely

[00:06:36] Craig Dalton: Crazy and uninteresting. He thought that was a, a discipline of cycling. He didn't understand. And thankfully my neighbors raced BMX and they would take me because my parents really had little interest in fostering my BMX career.

[00:06:50] Dave Mable: Did your dad ever use the word silly? I'm just picturing an English guy. What are you doing with that silly sport?

[00:06:58] Craig Dalton: E exactly. I mean, I think his progression to his progression from cycling as he would describe it, First he had a truck bike, so I had to translate that to being like, you know, beach cruiser kind of city bike style and then fell in love in, you know, in, in the UK they have a lot of cycling clubs that are fostering interest for the kids.

So, you know, by the time they're 10 or 12, if they're showing interest. They're getting offered bicycles to use on the weekends and really kind of fostering them and developing them. In fact, my father is one of five boys, and I think four out of the five boys all raced as kind of teenagers into their early twenties.

And it's a, it's been a, a unifying thread for the entire family, just the sport of cycling. In fact, my cousin from Australia, originally from the UK is staying with me right now, and he and I reconnected as an adult via Facebook as a platform and our love of cycling. And we ended up going and riding in Belgium together.

But I completely digress my progression, again, BMX kind of then just used the bike for getting to and from school. My freshman year of high school, my dad took us on a, a bike tour. It was three of us, freshman in high school and him, uh, up through upstate New York and Vermont. We were living in New Jersey at the time, but it was still not a, something I was craving to do, riding a bike.

It was just something. It was a great activity and a lot of fun. It wasn't until my freshman year of college and after my freshman year of college, my dad had bought a mountain bike, and this is to just to date me. That would be sort of around 19 86, 19 85 timeframe. So pretty early on he bought a Cannondale Mountain bike, and while I was home for the summer, I fell in love with it and I decided I really wanted to get a mountain bike.

I was in school in Washington, DC. Um, got a job in a bike shop to bring that cost of entry down and ended up buying a Trek 7,000 aluminum hard tail and started cutting my teeth. Uh, mountain biking in Washington, DC for the uninitiated. Washington DC believe it or not, has a lot of dirt trails. You have to figure out how they're all interconnected and it, you know, it's certainly not like being in, you know, Iowa or Colorado, where there's a lot of open space to kind of pursue these.

But it was there and it was a quite a fun community. So started racing mountain bikes, kind of my junior and senior year and falling in love with it. It coincided with me falling out of love with being a university student. And fortunately, maybe, I dunno, fortunately or unfortunately, I said to myself, if I can get a degree in business, I can apply that to anything.

And in order to finish this degree, my intention is gonna be to go work in the bike.

[00:09:48] Dave Mable: the bike. Oh, cool. Wow. That's pretty intentional.

Did you end up getting the degree?

[00:09:55] Craig Dalton: I did, yeah, I finished my degree and I was managing a bike shop in Washington, DC and I said to my son, you know, I was also bike racing mountain bikes at that time and being fairly competitive at the expert level in the mid-Atlantic region. And I decided, well, if I, if I'm just managing a bike shop, I can do that anywhere.

Why don't I move to Colorado? And at the same time, I was applying to bike companies. Via, gosh, snail mail probably at that

[00:10:21] Dave Mable: Right, right. Licking a stamp.

[00:10:23] Craig Dalton: Yeah. And, uh, I remember, I, I had got some interest from Dean Titanium and Yeti. They both had potential positions available and I said, that's enough. And I packed up all my stuff, moved to Colorado, went down to interview at Yeti.

That didn't work out. Moved to Boulder, got a job in a bike shop, connected with the team at Dean and they, they brought me in for an interview about a month after I. And that led to me becoming National Sales Manager of Dean Titanium.

[00:10:54] Dave Mable: Wow. Cool.

[00:10:56] Craig Dalton: That title would imply some lofty position and experience, but at that time it was, uh, that meant I answered the phone and tried to convince bike shops and customers to buy bikes.

[00:11:09] Dave Mable: Fair enough. Fair enough. So what bike shop in Boulder in what year?

[00:11:14] Craig Dalton: I worked for psychologic.

[00:11:16] Dave Mable: Okay.

[00:11:17] Craig Dalton: And that would've been, uh, 1993.

[00:11:22] Dave Mable: huh? Okay,

[00:11:22] Craig Dalton: And for, yeah, it was a pretty brief stint actually at the, at the shop before I ended up moving over to Dean.

[00:11:27] Dave Mable: actually. Yeah. I had a little history with bike shops in Boulder. A friend of mine was part of the, uh, Morgo Bismarck crew and uh, and then ended up that closed and there was another cycle works, or I don't know.

Anyway.

[00:11:46] Craig Dalton: so many great bike shops there in Boulder.

[00:11:48] Dave Mable: So many great bike shops there in Boulder and so much great riding there in Boulder. I spent a summer in Boulder and, oh, I mean, we still love to go back with our road bikes, believe it or not, and uh, and do some of those road roads either up into the mountains or out into the planes. Like some of those rides out towards Nawat and Longmont and, I don't know, just go east.

Were awesome.

[00:12:14] Craig Dalton: yeah, yeah, for sure.

[00:12:16] Dave Mable: So how long were you at Dean?

[00:12:18] Craig Dalton: I was at Dean for about a year and a half, and then I, I took a break and was focusing a little bit more on, on racing, which I was still doing. Turns out working for a small bike company doesn't actually give you a lot of time to ride and train on your bike, so I took a break and, you know, got some menial job and, and raced.

And then I got an opportunity to move out to California to race for a team that was sponsored by Voodoo Bicycles. And Will Smith and I had a, had made a friend who was out in Palo Alto and got me a place to live out here, so I moved out to race for that team and I was able to get a job with a bicycle computer and accessory manufacturing company called aat.

[00:13:01] Dave Mable: Aset. Awesome. I, I should have gotten 'em, but I've, I probably have three old AEC computers in my garage in some old box somewhere.

[00:13:12] Craig Dalton: I would love to see them.

[00:13:14] Dave Mable: Uh, Avice. I'm thinking of the wrong thing. Who made the Fat Boy? Was that Avice? Did they make

[00:13:22] Craig Dalton: that wasn't. They did, yeah. They did have a very popular slick tire. Their computers were, um, had numbers associated with 'em. So Theat 20,

[00:13:33] Dave Mable: Yeah.

[00:13:34] Craig Dalton: 30, and the AAT 45. And then one of the big innovations that happened while I was there was the aviset vertex. And the vertex was the first. Watch, digital watch that could track elevation, gain and loss.

[00:13:49] Dave Mable: I remember that.

[00:13:51] Craig Dalton: And it was really, I mean, the older listeners will understand this moment. At that time when you were talking to your buddies about a mountain bike ride and the only piece of data you had was mileage. It was really difficult to compare one ride to another, right? So you could say, I rode 10 miles, but if you did 10 miles and 5,000 feet of climbing, that's a lot different experience than 10 miles and a thousand feet of climbing.

So the, the v the vertex became this, this great unlock that we all take for granted today. Like when you go to a course profile for an event, they're always talking about mileage and, and elevation gain that you're gonna experience. But prior to that point, that just wasn't available as a data set. The average consumer.

[00:14:33] Dave Mable: Yeah, it was a big deal, wasn't it? Uh, barometric, fresher based.

[00:14:37] Craig Dalton: That's exactly it. Yep,

[00:14:39] Dave Mable: Yeah, that's pretty interesting and pretty kind of vague. I mean, it's certainly not an exact science,

[00:14:47] Craig Dalton: yep. Yeah. And it drifted, right? The barometric pressure would drift and there have to reset your elevation to a known elevation in order to get it to.

[00:14:56] Dave Mable: yep. I, I remember those days. I never had one, but I do remember that I did have the ACET 20, ACET 30, whatever they got up to.

[00:15:05] Craig Dalton: I think there was definitely a 40 and, and I can't remember if there was a 45, there was one that actually had that Vertex technology into it. Um, that might have been theat 50.

[00:15:16] Dave Mable: yeah.

[00:15:17] Craig Dalton: But my experience there was gr, my experience there was great. I, I ended up, um, uh, going to work on the national mountain bike circuit.

So I would go to all the events and kind of represent AED and have an opportunity to do a little riding myself. I was able to go over to the tour of France once and represent aed. At that time. I mean, the, the thing that, that always, I always come back to with Aset, they used to have these bi, these ads in the bicycle magazines where they would show the front of the, the professional peloton, and every one of those riders had an aviset computer on their bike.

And my favorite tagline was, what 90% of the workforce brings to work?

[00:15:57] Dave Mable: That's awesome. I can picture that ad.

[00:15:59] Craig Dalton: yeah. I was so sold. So I was one of those guys who went over and made sure everybody was dialed when, when onsite changed from their traditional yellow to their Tor De France pink. We gave them all custom pink computers.

[00:16:13] Dave Mable: Nice. Nice. That's awesome. What a fun experience. What a great, great, uh, if you're a cycling enthusiast, what a great gig.

[00:16:24] Craig Dalton: Yeah, I think, I mean, the bike industry as an as as you know, like, it, it, it has its ups and downs. I do think, you know, as a young person in their twenties, it's a phenomenal place to work. It's just you have to start questioning your career path later in life. Like, where am I? Where am I gonna get to?

Obviously the bike industry is fairly small. There's some exceptions, but you know, a lot of these businesses, unless you're the owner, it's kind of hard to really move up the food.

[00:16:51] Dave Mable: Yep. And, uh, time is, uh, like if you want to have a family, it's, it's hard to be. At the tour of France for a month every year. And then the tour of Spain, and then the tour of California, and then the et cetera.

Et And then you go to Interbike and then you go to the Outdoor Retailer show and you, you, you can be home, gone from home a lot, lot, lot. So it is a lifestyle for sure, but, uh,

[00:17:18] Craig Dalton: to that, To that exact end, I, I ended up accepting a position with one of a's competitors, Veta and I moved over to Switzerland to be European. I forget, I was European sales and marketing manager. And effectively they, they, they had a person in the position who was um, usurping too much power. As according to the US bosses, and they wanted someone young who they could control, who was willing to live in Europe, travel around country to country and represent the company.

And I was like, that's me. I raised my hand. I'll go. I had a great, I mean I had a great time. The, the company was, was in the course of my brief tenure over there, which was only about six months. The company was bought by a private equity firm and I had some issues getting paid, but I don't. I don't, uh, you know, I had a great experience for six months over in Europe living on someone else's dime.

Again, just talking about bikes with people. But I will say after that experience, I was like, I need to take a professional break from the biking industry and go find something else to do. I'll still love riding my bike. In fact, I may even like it more if I don't have to talk about it, you know, 50 hours.

[00:18:35] Dave Mable: There's true truth to that statement for sure. Uh, so what'd you end up doing? I mean, that's still a while ago.

[00:18:42] Craig Dalton: yeah. Yeah, so I mean, I guess the sort of abbreviated version is, um, moved back to California, ended up going to business school and St studying technology management. Did a series of work for a series of small companies in the mobile. And then, um, in 2010, I founded a company that made iPad and iPhone accessories, a company called Dodo Case.

And, and it ended up taking off, I won't belabor this since this isn't an entrepreneurship show, but ended up building a manufacturing facility in San Francisco. Our products were handmade. I a hundred percent referenced back to my early experience at Dean Titanium in terms. How to build a brand, how to build an aura, how to build quality products, how to, how to stand behind those products and really kind of take and accept consumer input as like the guiding principle of where you take the business.

It was in the early days of social media being here in the Bay Area. We sort of understood the game that needed to be played at that time, and we amassed a pretty big following because we just had a great compelling story. I mean, who's hand building phone and iPad accessories in the United States?

[00:19:58] Dave Mable: iPad. Yeah, nobody,

[00:20:02] Craig Dalton: Exactly. So obviously cycling continued to be part of my life, but it was just a, a recreational activity. I wasn't doing much. I don't think I was attending any, I wasn't going down to Sea Otter, like I let most things come and go. Maybe I would pin a number on here and there as I sort of went out to Leadville and did the Leadville 100.

I had a brief stint doing Ironman triathlons, but it was all just in the, you know, the pursuit of fun and scratching that endurance athletics itch.

[00:20:33] Dave Mable: bag. Do you remember what year you did? Leadville

[00:20:37] Craig Dalton: Um, it would've been either 2007 or 2009.

[00:20:44] Dave Mable: Hmm, I'm gonna have to look. We were in that era, so we might have lined up together.

[00:20:50] Craig Dalton: Amazing.

[00:20:51] Dave Mable: you were probably ahead of us, but, uh, nonetheless, I think my first was like oh, three or four. I did it solo and then I told my wife, I was like, Hey, I think this is tandem about, and she believed me actually. She said, if we get a new tandem, I'll do it.

I'm like, uh, I, I'm calling the bike shop right now.

[00:21:15] Craig Dalton: Oh man, I can't e

[00:21:16] Dave Mable: And she said, yes.

[00:21:19] Craig Dalton: I can't even, I can't imagine going up Columbine nor down Columbine on a tandem.

[00:21:24] Dave Mable: You know, up Columbine was a lot of pushing, as you can well imagine, and down Columbine. Uh, we bought a Ventana full suspension rig with the Maverick Fork. So six inches of travel front and rear, and I needed all six inches.

Like you're going down Columbine and there's people coming up on the other side of the trail. And there's a giant rock in front of you. All you can do is hit it, you know? And so I did, but uh, we always made it down. Uh, the only time we crashed was going up the power line and uh, you know, it's just rocky and hard and.

I, uh, come around a corner and the front wheel like just gets up on a lip and then hits another rock and just stops all of our momentum. And for some reason we leaned to the right and there was nothing but air below our feet. And so down we went. friend of us was, a friend of ours was with us at that moment, and he looked at us, he's like, you guys good?

Yeah, we're all right. He's like, I'm outta here.

[00:22:34] Craig Dalton: Goodbye. It's already been long. If you're on your way back up power line, it's already been long enough of a day. You can't, you can't wait for down soldiers at that point.

[00:22:42] Dave Mable: No, that's true. That's true. We made it home though. Uh, so you have a lot of mountain biking in your history.

Where did Gravel.

[00:22:54] Craig Dalton: Yeah, so the story around gravel, I had moved from San Francisco to Mill Valley where I live today, and I was riding into the city, and for those of you who don't know the geography here, There's actually a lot of, um, there's the coastal range of hills that kind of go right from the Golden Gate Bridge into Marin County, so you can actually ride in on the dirt.

And so I had this new commute and I'm, I'm gonna mention that this was also when I discovered listening to podcasts. And we'll put a pin in that statement for a minute here, but I was riding into the city and I had an opportunity to ride on the dirt or ride on the trail. And I had had a cyclocross bike back in the day and I.

[00:23:34] Dave Mable: in the, like

[00:23:35] Craig Dalton: It was, this was would've been around 2015 timeframe just to give a, a, a timestamp there. So I bought a, a niner aluminum gravel bike with a max tire capacity, I think of maybe 33 millimeters. And I started riding that and it had mechanical disc brakes, and I started riding that into the city. And, uh, listening to my podcast and I thought, well, this is sort of an enjoyable hybrid of, you know, it's a drop bar bike, so it's efficient.

So when I get on the pavement, I can ride to my office, which was, it was about a, an hour and 15 minute trip. Um, one way, but with probably 60% of that being on pavement. So again, like playing, playing in that mixed terrain angle. But I also started to recognize, One that I was enjoying it, but two, that the bike didn't have the capabilities that I needed.

The, the hills were steep, so my mechanical disc brakes were requiring too much hand strength to brake, and I, it felt like a huge shortcoming, only having 33 millimeter tires around here. Disclosure, the gravel riding we have around here is, is rough, and many people would argue that it's mountain biking, but it's my cup of tea.

But again, so I, I thought. How was I around the sport of cycling my entire life as we've just discussed? How did I botch this bike purchase and buy something that wasn't suitable? And you know, I was reading about the gravel market. It was obviously early days at that point in terms of like the amount of models that were out there, et cetera.

And I just had like, I want to go all in on this. Like this is the type of riding I really like. I.

[00:25:17] Dave Mable: I get

[00:25:18] Craig Dalton: The best bike that I can afford. I want disc brakes and I want big tire capacity. So after a bunch of research,

[00:25:27] Dave Mable: I think that's called a mountain bike.

[00:25:31] Craig Dalton: possibly, possibly a bunch of research, I ended up, um, selling a road bike and pushing all in on a, an open up with two wheel sets. So I had a road wheel set and, uh, a gravel wheel set. And I absolutely fell in love with it.

[00:25:49] Dave Mable: huh, what was the tire capacity of that?

[00:25:51] Craig Dalton: Oh, I could run 40 sevens, six 50 by 47

[00:25:55] Dave Mable: huh. Wow. That's, I mean, that's, that's pretty early. I mean, those are, if you're talking 15, 16, like we're still riding cross bikes on gravel those days. I mean, that's, you go by a cross bike and that's your gravel bike.

[00:26:10] Craig Dalton: Un unquestionably that open bike was visionary and ahead of its time. It's it. I would still argue that it's spec still holds up with the sweet spot of gravel cycling today.

[00:26:23] Dave Mable: Huh, interesting.

[00:26:24] Craig Dalton: Yeah,

[00:26:26] Dave Mable: So I feel like you dove in Headfirst podcast and you're going all over the freaking world riding a gravel bike.

[00:26:36] Craig Dalton: Yeah, so I, I pushed all in. I realized like one, I had a di, I had a, uh, caliber brake road bike and I was like, this thing's gonna be worthless a few years from now as people go to disc brakes. So I was like, I just need to clear out the garage, take the money I get from that, sell the niner and, and buy this one bike for me.

The type of road riding I do, I found that the open totally cap. As a road bike with, you know, 28 sea tires on 700 sea wheel sets. And then as I said, with those six 50 B 47 s, incredible bike for everything we have in front of us here on Mount Tam. At around the same time. Now this is going to 2017, we ended up selling Doto case.

The business I had. And I had mentioned as a little something, we put a pin in that I had been listening to a bunch of podcasts. Doto case was a manufacturing business. It was also an e-commerce business and a social media business. So I was always in front of a computer, you know, building websites con, you know, trying to convert E-commerce customers to customers.

And I said to myself, I need to do something totally different for a break. And selling the company gave me, I don't have to get a job tomorrow. Money. It did not give me, I don't have to get a job ever money, but you know, it gave me a little bit of a window to just kind of explore my own creativity. So I said I'm enjoying podcasts.

I'm flabbergasted that I managed to screw up this gravel bike purchase. There's so much going on in gravel. I get so many questions about how to spec a bike. I said, why don't I, you know, I took, I took a podcasting course and I began the Gravel Ride podcast in 2018. With this simple vision of, I was gonna interview people, product designers, and event organizers.

[00:28:25] Dave Mable: which I feel like you've stuck to for on five years now.

[00:28:31] Craig Dalton: Yeah. It's been pretty much the journey and I still, I mean I, you know, as you and I both as podcasters, there's days where you're like, can I keep up the energy and enthusiasm to do. Obviously being conversational podcasts like we both host, it's important that you're engaged and excited to talk to your guest.

And I still am. I mean, I, I, I do think, you know in, as, as we hit 2023, some of the, the massive innovation in the, the bicycle design maybe is behind us for gravel. There was a long journey of many years. For designers to figuring out like, well, how do we get the right tire capacity? How do we get the right geometry?

And I don't think the, the, there's not one single right answer to that. I think what has emerged is you've got this great category that as writers explore their own interests as they reconcile their own terrain, there's, there's the right bike for. And I'm always the first to say the bike setup I have here is not the bike set up for Kansas, for example.

Like, it's just, it would, it would be way overkill. Um, and there's, there's nothing wrong with what I've set up my bike as, and there's nothing wrong with how you've set up your bike.

[00:29:52] Dave Mable: with Yeah. Well, you would totally make fun of me. I'm still on a, uh, Uh, this is kind of interesting, a trek Crockett, the pink one, and, uh, flat bar, which is interesting. And it is signed by both Gary Fisher and Katie Compton. Which, I don't know, maybe that went down in value a couple years ago, but I feel like it still has value. I, I'm a Katie Compton fan, but uh, it was kind of funny cuz they were, it was at the TRX CX Cup and truth be told, I wanted spend nest to, uh, uh, to sign it. And every time as a journalist, every time he was available, I was working and.

I wasn't working. He was working, coaching, doing whatever. So, uh, I walked past the Katy Compton compound and uh, I was like, Hey, you should sign my bike. She did. Gary Fisher walks by at that moment. He's like, well, how come she gets to sign it? I'm like, dude, here's a pen right here. And then they argue about who had more input into its design, which I just stood back, listened and. But, uh, you know, it's a pretty old sc I mean, it's a cross bike. It's a high, it's a high performance cross bike, and it is a bit sketchy on loose gravel, but on the, when the gravel is concrete, it is awesome. It flies. I have 33 millimeter tires on it, which people are like, I didn't know they still made those.

Oh God, I saved them. But, uh, You know, looking at the, the well, 40 sevens. Holy moly, those are big. Uh, I could envision a pair of forties I could envision, um, you know, the, the benefit of a longer bike. Talking to a guy about, um, fat biking recently, he builds his own bike. You'll want to tune in, um, to Steve McGuire and, and hear how he has come up with his fat bike design.

Um, Is long, like, really long chain stays because it acts like a keel in the loose gravel. And I'm like, oh, that, I mean, that really makes sense. So there is kind of something for everyone. I, I also have to say, like, I talked to a dude, um, the podcast I dropped today. The guy is, uh, the reason he loves gravel is nobody cares what you're.

Nobody cares what you're wearing. Nobody cares how fast you are. They don't care what color your skin is. They don't care how you talk. Like it's just a gravel ride.

[00:32:38] Craig Dalton: Yeah.

[00:32:38] Dave Mable: uh, and he really appreciates that. So, boy, that was a rant, wasn't it?

[00:32:43] Craig Dalton: a little bit, but we learned a lot about your bike.

[00:32:48] Dave Mable: Like I said, there's little Easter eggs we can throw out in these podcasts, right?

[00:32:52] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I think that the, the sport of gravel's in an interesting place right now, um, just in terms of like the, for lack of a better term, the professionalization of the front end of the pack and that that's impact on the rest of the field. I mean, obviously like we talk about the spirit of gravel and the type of experience that anybody who's willing to sign up for one of these.

Should have, like, we're generally, we're not at the front. We're really just just there for the experience, but there is this ongoing kind of evolution of what the front end of the pack looks like and act, you know, the requirements for safety and, um, competitiveness that need to be figured out.

[00:33:34] Dave Mable: signal out

[00:33:35] Craig Dalton: I'm. I'm, uh, sort of optimistic.

There's a lot of experimentation going on this year. You know, Unbound just announced that they're gonna start the professional men by themselves, and then the professional women two minutes after that, and then the rest of the field, uh, eight minutes after that, which I think is interesting. I, I do think, you know, in talking to female athletes, it's, it's always been this curious race dynamic of clearly you're working with.

[00:34:03] Dave Mable: men,

[00:34:04] Craig Dalton: And other women throughout the day, like anybody would, right? No one wants to ride by themselves, but so much of that can come into play with who takes the win, right? If you, you could, you know, a strong woman can go off the front and someone drafting men could bridge that gap putting in, you know, 20% less effort.

And that could be the difference between winning and losing and. I, I have no idea what the right answer is, but I, I do like this idea that they're gonna have some time to themselves to kind of strategically do one thing or the other,

[00:34:40] Dave Mable: And

[00:34:41] Craig Dalton: knows what those things will be.

[00:34:42] Dave Mable: right? And at least have the opportunity to see where people are relative to themselves. Like, oh, there's five women ahead of me and there's 25 behind me. And then the men come and you get mixed in there. You still know like, okay, there's still five women ahead of me and 25 behind me, and so I'm in good shape.

As opposed to just not having any idea where the rest of the women are. Cuz you lose them in the, the me.

[00:35:09] Craig Dalton: exactly. So I know the, the Shasta Gravel hugger, which I just did an uh, episode with him a few weeks back. Uh, Ben, he's trying a few things. That'll be interesting to see. We'll see the results of that in, in March. Um, yeah, I just think it's gonna be an interesting year for.

[00:35:23] Dave Mable: for sure. It, it is going to be an interesting year and it was an interesting year, especially with the world UCI, world Championships and that was definitely an interest. I wouldn't call that US style gravel, uh, women raced on a completely different day than the men.

[00:35:44] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Not at, yeah, totally Not at all. US style gravel. In fact, I, I just had, um, the gentleman on, I haven't released the podcast yet, who's got, who's running the UCI world's qualifier out of Fayetteville for the second year in a row. Um, the name of the event is escaping me. It'll come to me in a minute, I'm sure.

But it was interesting talking to him both on the podcast and offline. You know, the, the expectation, I guess, at the USA cycling level for a long period of time was that this first inaugural, um, uci, uh, you know, world Championships was going to be held in the US and I think they just, UCI just wasn't communicating really well with USA cycling.

And ultimately it wasn't until, like the very sort of last quarter of the year that they really figured out and leaned in. Hey, if we're gonna pull this off, it needs to be in Italy. It needs to be somewhere, somewhere where they've run events and it's close to home and they can kind of, they, I think they just felt like that was the only way that they could execute.

[00:36:49] Dave Mable: was, huh.

Interesting. Um, yeah. U S USA cycling, I feel like instead of, it was just interesting who showed up, how they showed up. And then how the race went. And I feel like it was a sep kind of day versus a, or Keegan Swenson for sure. I mean, he probably could have,

[00:37:11] Craig Dalton: Yeah,

[00:37:11] Dave Mable: uh, but, um, but it was such a road race. It was like Perry Rube with gravel sections.

[00:37:18] Craig Dalton: yeah, yeah. And, and obviously like shorter than we're accustomed to. I'm not necessarily opposed to like that shorter length because I do think. An argument to be said, to say, you know, it's hard to be racing after 200 miles, whereas everybody's racing hardcore after a hundred. Um, I don't know what the right answer is, but I'm, I'm like, my gut tells me like those ultra distance ones are like their own special thing.

Um, while I, I just pulled it up. So it's the Highland Gravel Classic in Fayetteville, put on by Bruce Dunn at All Sports Productions. He's got the, the UCI qualifier for this. Um, in Fayetteville again. And I think the interesting thing is, um, you know, who's gonna show up? Like what is the process he and I were talking about, you know, as an age grouper, I could go to Fayetteville and if I'm in the top 25% of my category, I could go compete in the world Championships doesn't mean anything sort of, of my relative ability here in the United States across, you know, any of these big races we have here.

But I have to say that that's, that's a compelling story. Like I, I would go to, I would go to Italy and represent the United States. I'm, look, I'm a tourist cyclist, but to like have that honor of like, in the 50 plus category to go over there, I would, I wouldn't, you know, snub my nose at it.

[00:38:41] Dave Mable: it? Yeah, for sure. I'd, I'd, I'd jump at that chance. I've got a lot of work to do to even hope for top 25% of our group

[00:38:49] Craig Dalton: You, you and me both.

[00:38:51] Dave Mable: but, uh, but nonetheless, you're right. It, it would be super cool. I, I feel like there's room for all of it. You know, if you, I feel like gravel cycling. An analogy is marathon or just running road

[00:39:06] Craig Dalton: Yep.

[00:39:07] Dave Mable: And, uh, anybody can sign up. You can do 5k, you can do the local 5K in your neighborhood and get a t-shirt. Or you can do like the world's largest 5K in, I don't know, Boulder, Colorado. That'd be a 10 K. But, um, same with marathons and uh, you know, Chicago Marathon. 30,000 people, the front line's up at the front and the mid packers line up at their pace and then they go run it.

And I feel like gravel's pretty similar.

[00:39:40] Craig Dalton: I do too. I think, I mean, I think that the moment in time to build a big race, like a thousand plus person race, it's difficult to find a spot on the calendar where that'll work.

[00:39:52] Dave Mable: mm-hmm.

[00:39:53] Craig Dalton: Um, today I do think there are, there are always gonna be geographic opportunities, right? Like if there's not a lot of racing in upstate New York, there's an opportunity for someone to create a great race in upstate new.

It's probably also important that the economics match up, right? So if, if you've got a, if you're gonna make, if a 200 person race is gonna be the size of your race, just understand that going in and don't overinvest, and you know, it's gonna have little, little bit more of a community feel and some of these major events that are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in their product.

[00:40:27] Dave Mable: Yeah, it is kind of amazing having watched this happen. Everything from like the beginning I was in Trans Iowa, number two and uh, to full-time staff, full-time year round staff, multiple full-time year round staff running these gravel events. That's kind of crazy actually. Um, We can dissect the world of gravel forever.

But, uh, I wanna know more about your podcast. Um, you've got a co-host with Randall, and, uh, I'm curious how that works. Uh, how'd you find him? And, uh, how do you guys, how's it work between the two of you?

[00:41:08] Craig Dalton: Yeah, that's a good question. So Randall and I got connected. Randall Jacobs is the founder of Thesis Spike and more recently Logos components, which making, uh, some great carbon wheels. He and I connected because he started that business in San Francisco. He was offering people demo rides of the bikes, and, uh, Randall was an ex specialized employee, helped design the original diverge.

I got to know him and appreciate his, his personality, his technical acumen. Um, ultimately ended up buying a thesis bike and riding one. So I transitioned from the open to the thesis. The thesis is a fraction of the price of the open.

[00:41:48] Dave Mable: Yeah.

[00:41:49] Craig Dalton: Incredibly capable. In fact, for anybody on video, it's the, the pink bike right behind me is my thesis.

Bicycle,

[00:41:56] Dave Mable: I love that pink bike.

[00:41:59] Craig Dalton: but very much like the open. Anyway, so, um, he and I just became friends and became people. We, we rode together. We, we saw many elements of the, the, the industry and the world. Similarly, I also recognize that Randall became my go-to guy for technical question.

[00:42:15] Dave Mable: guys

[00:42:16] Craig Dalton: And it started out, um, first did an episode about thesis bikes and got to know him a little bit, and then I invited him to do a gravel bike 1 0 1 episode.

So in kind of quizzing the community, what they were looking for, I realized, you know, a lot of time the starting point of our discussions on the podcast are a little bit more. I'll make the point that I absolutely endeavor to start at the beginning and try not to make too many assumptions, and I'm not trying to be a tech podcast at all.

Um, but I brought Randall on and I was able to, he and I were able to have a discussion of, what do you look for when you buy a bike? Let's break it down. Let's help the listener understand at the time in which we recorded the first one, what should you be thinking?

[00:43:03] Dave Mable: about?

[00:43:04] Craig Dalton: We did the same thing a year later because I felt like the industry kept changing and it was just this great thing to have in the podcast feed, you know, 2019 Gravel bike 1 0 1 episode.

Um, as he and I continued to communicate, it became clear, like there were probably some themes, some discussions, et cetera, with people in the industry that he was going to be a. Person to interview them with. So, Randall's episodes tend to either be more highly technical than mine. So for example, he did a great episode with Matt from Enduro Bend, uh, Barings.

Where, where they really kind of dug into ceramic and stainless steel bearings and the viscosities of oil and stuff. That's kind of, you know, I can sort of, I'm smart enough to be, you know, it sounds somewhat intelligent about, but I definitely don't know everything those, those guys and girls know. So I said I'm loose on that.

And then the other big thing he's super keen on is just community and the community of cycling and the, uh, frankly, the mental health value of cycling as an activity. Uh, and cycling the cycling community as something that, you know, we benefit from not only physiologically as athletes, but. Emotionally in that it, it, it does become this, this release for us when we get out there.

And it is one of the things that's always attracted me about riding Off Road is that, you know, you ride a technical section and you just stop and you wait for the next guy or girl to come through and High five 'em, whether they crash or clean it, it's just, it's the best feeling in the world.

[00:44:48] Dave Mable: No doubt, no doubt. I it really is. You mentioned community and you started a thing called the ridership. Uh, tell our listeners what it is and what's, why'd you start it?

What,

[00:45:03] Craig Dalton: Yeah, the the rider, the ridership, a free global cycling community. It has a sort of orientation towards gravel and adventure cyclists, but, Everybody's welcome. It serves two purposes. One, you know, I, I definitely wanted to have a, a easier back channel to me as a podcast host. I wanted people to be able to chat with me directly and, uh, but I also realized like I'm, I'm, I'm potentially a authority in the world of gravel cycling, but I'm not the a.

And to my earlier comments about, you know, my technical shortcomings, I realized that, you know, I had this amazing community of listeners that are very capable of interacting with ano one another and they have hundreds of different experiences than my own, or, or Randall's, for that matter. So we're basically built, uh, a community on Slack, and that may not be, Going forward platform, but Slack, for those who don't know, it's just a, a program or an application you can get on your computer or phone and we can sort of segment the conversations into what are called channels.

So we have a channel on tires, we have a channels on nutrition, and we have also have regional channels. And the vision was, you know, as gravel cyclists, when you're a road cyclist, it, it, to me, it seemed easy to find. Like I could go and there wasn't a lot of questions. Like as long as I knew the mileage and maybe the elevation gainer loss, like I kind of knew what I was gonna be pedalling on.

But gravel, I feel, I felt like you, you missed the real gems. Like it's easy for me to tell you to go up old railroad grade and come down here on Mount Tam, but I've got 20 different, you know, little paths that I can take you on that are gonna create those high five.

[00:46:53] Dave Mable: s

[00:46:53] Craig Dalton: And we all do. And I wanted, so if I go to Iowa, I want someone in Iowa to tell me where I should go gravel ride, and I wanna ask questions of them.

If I go to Europe, I wanna ask questions of someone who lives in the country that I'm visiting. So we started out with that basic premise that everybody's welcome. We've created this open platform that's free to use. Its devoid of any advertis. We, you know, I originally had like a Facebook group for the podcast, and it's like, I don't want to bring you into Facebook to have other ads shoved in your face.

I want you to get out on your damn bike. So we wanted something that was like, come talk about bikes to your heart, heart's content, then put it away. We're not looking to be part of the attention economy. I'm not. Monetize your attention. We're just trying to create this community where we can share, share, and exchange value.

[00:47:50] Dave Mable: can. Is it working?

[00:47:52] Craig Dalton: Yeah, it is, you know, we've got a, a pretty passionate group in there. There's probably, I haven't checked lately, but probably around 2000 people that participate in the forum. The channel, you know, every day you go in, the channels are lighting up from, you know, people. Having a mechanical question that they're getting someone more technical to answer, or we tend to get a, a bunch of like event organizers who get in the mix there saying, Hey, you know, Shasta gravel huggers coming up.

If you have any questions, I'm Ben, I'm the promoter. Just, you know, I'm happy I'm here to answer things like that. And then, you know, a lot of direct messaging, people sell stuff there to, you know, when they're getting rid of a bike or a wheel set or what have you. So yeah. Yeah, I would say it's working.

It's not my day job. So, you know, we've, I believe we've created a thoughtful structure. We don't, we haven't had any issues that we've needed to police. Everybody's self-selecting as someone who's just there for information and the enjoyment of the sport.

[00:48:51] Dave Mable: there. One of the, there are no rules in gravel, but one of the rules is don't be a dick. So maybe you have people who abide by the rules and are not dicks.

[00:49:04] Craig Dalton: That. That's pretty much it, and for anybody who's listening, it's just go to the the www.theridership.com and you'll get a free invite to join.

[00:49:13] Dave Mable: Perfect. I love it. I love it. So I want to ask a couple of podcast questions. Who is the guest that you were most surprised? Said yes.

[00:49:29] Craig Dalton: Uh, I'll answer this in two ways. I think Rebecca Rush was that guest and the, the second part of that is she could not be a nicer person.

[00:49:39] Dave Mable: correct. That is a true statement.

[00:49:43] Craig Dalton: Unbelievably engaging, inquisitive, generous with her time like. That's the one I point to that I just, one super stoked that she came on and two super stoked to see that she is every, she shows up in a podcast interview as much as she does on her social media.

[00:50:02] Dave Mable: on. Yeah. That's cool. That's kind of fun. What was a surprising moment for you with a guest?

[00:50:10] Craig Dalton: Gosh. I mean, I mean there's, there's sort of tricky moments, I think, in any podcast interview sometimes, you know, I don't, I don't do a lot of, um, like pre-show interviewing because it's conversational. Like I just generally want it to happen. I've had a few guests who weren't as. Verbose as I would like them to be.

[00:50:35] Dave Mable: or you have to like pull those words out of their mouth.

[00:50:40] Craig Dalton: Exactly. I mean, we're obviously an audio medium and, uh, you know, we need people to talk and we need people to tell stories. And, you know, I, I wouldn't invite someone on who I didn't think had an amazing story. I've just had a, a few odd occasions where, you know, they weren't good at telling their own.

[00:50:57] Dave Mable: occasions. Yeah. Yeah. I, I can relate to that. And only 50 some in, but, uh, yeah, you, you are right about that. Where, what's your vision? Where do you want it to go?

[00:51:11] Craig Dalton: Yeah. You know, I think, as I mentioned earlier, like I, I still am excited to pull the mic in front of me and have these conversations. Um, if I wasn't, I wouldn't keep doing.

[00:51:23] Dave Mable: a,

[00:51:23] Craig Dalton: scratches an itch for me. As we said earlier, like I've been around bikes and bike racing my entire life, and I do enjoy. Having a foothold in this world and the Gravel Ride Podcast has provided me, you know, opportunity to build an audience and build a community and build relationships within the bicycle industry.

I'm fortunate enough that I've got a handful of sponsors that'll come in and help me pay for some of the overhead of the podcast, and on a rare occasion, you know, give me an opportunity. Go to an event or attend something that otherwise might be difficult to get into. And that, you know, that, that to me was the in, in my mind when I started the podcast.

That was the reward I was looking for since I'm going to be involved in this sport anyway, having a little perks here and there and, and opportunities because of the, the hours and hours of effort that I put into this podcast seemed like a fair, fair.

[00:52:25] Dave Mable: fair, yeah. I actually had somebody ask me today, is this your full-time gig?

[00:52:31] Craig Dalton: Yeah.

[00:52:32] Dave Mable: So Craig, is this your full-time gig

[00:52:34] Craig Dalton: you don't really understand the economics if you're asking that question.

[00:52:37] Dave Mable: You're right. No, I did not win the, was it the Powerball $1.1 billion thing? I did not win that.

[00:52:46] Craig Dalton: right. Any of you think about it? You mentioned when we were offline about some recent interviews we've been doing with cycling media. Uh, journalists and, you know, with outside laying off a bunch of staff and a bunch of publications, kind of grappling with what the future of media is. You know, I've always felt very blessed in the fact that I, the podcast has never had to provide income for my family.

It has never had to put food on the table because that, that's complicated. I mean, the economics don't really work out. For this could not be a full-time position for me. And I am, I'm certainly empathetic to the plight of people who have dedicated their lives to become proper journalists, um, and who are struggling to sort of make ends meet in this current environment.

[00:53:38] Dave Mable: Yeah, it's, uh, it's definitely a challenge. I actually was editor of a actual paper magazine that was printed on real life paper and you like, sat on the toilet and read it. Um,

[00:53:54] Craig Dalton: Love it.

[00:53:56] Dave Mable: And I feel like I am a Cartwright in 1912 when people are st starting to buy the, the Ford model A or whatever, and that I'm seeing the writing on the wall that like, in a few years, there will be no more Cartwrights.

[00:54:15] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah, I, I think it's a super difficult transition because, I mean, the obvious answer is like, consumers should pay for the content that they consume, whether it's audio or the written word, but the, frankly, like even if there's a willingness to do that, the mechanisms to do so are still klugy and create, you know, the minor hurdles for people to get over.

Right. Do I want to get out my credit card to read a particular article that I, you know, became exposed to? N no. But if it was like embedded into my web pay, like into my web browser, like this micro transaction that could be made simple, like I would, I would do that. So I'm sort of, I'm stuck in that, like there are definitely content channels that I pay for, but there are certainly other bits of content that I enjoy consuming.

That I like the mechanisms for paying for them. Just the, the friction's just too much for me to do. So, and you know, you, you as podcasters, we see this all the time, right? We, we occupy this very intimate place with the listener, right? We, we've spending, they spend an hour a week with us. And if you think about like that, that attention that we're, we're fortunate enough to garner from our listeners, that's a massive amount.

Attention. People know a a lot about me from the years of podcasting and my myself on the mic. Yet

[00:55:46] Dave Mable: Yet

[00:55:47] Craig Dalton: it's very difficult for anybody to figure out how to compensate me for their appreciation of my words.

[00:55:53] Dave Mable: Right, right. They could buy you a coffee.

[00:55:57] Craig Dalton: Yeah, indeed. Yes. That's a little, I appreciate the plug, Dave. I mean, I have, I've always had this sort. Super modest, buy me a coffee account, buy me a coffee.com/the gravel ride. And I mean, I'm always like super appreciative if someone takes a moment and does that cuz it's not, it's not first and foremost, it's sort of like something I do mention, but I, I don't push it and I don't have a, like a, a really elaborate Patreon program that allows you to get bonus episodes.

And if I had more time, I would love to do that. Cause I, I. A hundred percent like to provide more value for those people who, who are supporting me.

[00:56:35] Dave Mable: yeah, I send, uh, my supporters as sticker. So it's, I mean, it's something, but you're right, it's, it's, it's a treat to get an email that says, uh, Hey, somebody bought you a coffee. Like, ah, that's super nice because it's, I mean, they do have to log on and they do have to like, get out their credit card and punch a bunch of things on their computer and push send and, and, uh, it's time outta their day to show their appreciation for what, what you're doing and, and what you're bringing them.

And you're right. Uh, an hour a week and we're like, Like drilled into people's heads through their ears. Like that's,

[00:57:14] Craig Dalton: Yeah.

[00:57:14] Dave Mable: that's, uh, that's privileged space and time, isn't it?

[00:57:21] Craig Dalton: Yeah, for sure. And I will say like, I think just to give the listeners some perspective, I think for every hour we publish probably is three hours of combined effort to kind of get to that hour. That's, that's sort of my, like back of the envelope math around like the effort it takes to kind of produce the podcast.

[00:57:39] Dave Mable: Yeah, I feel like you're more efficient than me.

[00:57:45] Craig Dalton: I mean either that Dave or my editing is, is really low pro.

[00:57:49] Dave Mable: Oh, I don't know. You should listen to the podcast I dropped today. There was a moment where I just drew a blank in this conversation and I said to the guy, I was like, you ever like just have a blank moment and you can't come up with whatever you're gonna say?

And he's like, yeah. And I was like, yeah, it sucks cuz I did not want to edit this and I'm gonna have to. And then as I was listening to it, as I was editing, I'm leaving that in there. Like, that's raw me. I'm leaving that in there. So I

[00:58:17] Craig Dalton: Yeah. I do have to say Dave, like I, I, I had that issue early on in the podcast where I felt like I wasn't eloquent enough and I wanted to go in and edit everything out. And, you know, eventually I came to the conclusion like, the, the effort is not worth the. Meaning like people came for this kind of raw conversation and the fact that I may have stumbled over my words, et cetera, like that's just part of the conversation and yeah, just gotta go with it.

[00:58:48] Dave Mable: Yeah. And it's, it's a, okay, uh, Don, uh, Dan Patrick says, um, quite a bit,

[00:58:54] Craig Dalton: Yeah.

[00:58:55] Dave Mable: you know what I mean?

[00:58:57] Craig Dalton: exactly.

[00:58:58] Dave Mable: Well listen, we've been, uh, just about an hour. I really have enjoyed getting to know you face to face here. I'd love to meet you on the bike sometime, whether I make it to Cal, California, whether you make it to Iowa or we meet somewhere in between.

Uh, do you have any big rides planned this year?

[00:59:18] Craig Dalton: I'm still like, I'm still thinking about my schedule and I probably spend too much time thinking about that. This is the off that one of those positive offshoots of like, I feel like I have the opportunity. If I, if I'm, if I can afford it and get the time off from the family and work, like, there's a ton of things that I can do.

Um, and I, I need to get my head around here in January, like, what are the things I really wanna advocate for myself? There's a few races that I'm super keen to do. One being Rebecca's private Idaho. The second being, uh, the Oregon Trail gravel grinder. The weeklong stage. Both, you know, super great reputations.

I love the idea of multiple day events because I feel like when you travel to go do one of these events, um,

[01:00:10] Dave Mable: events,

[01:00:11] Craig Dalton: you're taking up the time anyway, so you might as well ride and enjoy that area for multiple days versus popping in, being super anxious about a race and then just doing that race. So I'm really trying to think about that.

I had the great fortune of going to Jer with track travel in November, and that was fantastic. So I'm super bullish on like just the general idea of gravel travel. So, Long answer to your question, definitely you'll see me at at at a handful of events this year, and definitely like I hope to do at least one cycling vacation type trip.

[01:00:46] Dave Mable: Ah, very. Very cool. Well, you're, you're welcome to come out and put your 28 millimeter road tires on and do rag Bry with us. It's a fifth 50th anniversary of Rag Bry and I'm an old hat at Rag Bry, so if you want to come out and spend a week riding on the road and eating pie drinking beer, that's about it.

That's about what we do. Ride our bikes. Eat pine, drink beer. Uh, you're always

[01:01:13] Craig Dalton: uh, I appreciate that, Dave. I've had a couple Iowans on the podcast talking about various events there, and gosh, we, there's so many places to go. I would love to end up in Iowa, one of these years.

[01:01:24] Dave Mable: Yeah. Well, you, you've got a, a friendly face here and you got my number, so look me up. Yep.

[01:01:30] Craig Dalton: Right on.

[01:01:31] Dave Mable: All right. Well thanks tons and, uh, good luck with the pod. Say hey to Randall. Tell 'em I enjoy listening to, uh, his conversations as well as yours and keep up the good work.

[01:01:41] Craig Dalton: Yeah, I definitely will, and it was a pleasure being on the show, Dave. I appreciate what you're doing.

[01:01:45] Dave Mable: I, uh, I appreciate that you're, uh, a good, um, role model for me.

[01:01:49] Craig Dalton: Chairs.

So that's going to do it for this week's conversation. Big, thanks to Dave Mabel for having me on bike. Talk with Dave. I hope you as a loyal listener, enjoyed getting to know me a little bit better. If you have any questions about the things that I've done or want to get connected with me. I encourage you to join the ridership. That's simply www.theridership.com.

That's a free global cycling community. We created to connect gravel and adventure, cyclists. From all around the world.

So I think we'll leave it at that this week. And as always until next time. Here's to finding some dirt onto your wheels.

Ever wonder what happens if you dent, ding or crack your fancy carbon frame? I did, so I asked the experts at Ruckus Composites. Shawn and Dan walked us through what can be done to salvage a damaged frame or component.

This week's sponsor is you.   See how.  

Ruckus Composite Website. 

Ruckus Composite Instagram.

Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos. 

All right, welcome. Everybody. We're live from the gravel ride podcast. And today we've got some guests from, from Ruckus talking about carbon warfare. It's actually quite timely for me as a couple of friends that asked me about some carbon repair work they wanted to have done, and I had no idea how to approach it. So gentlemen, welcome to the show.

Thanks for, thanks for having us.

Can you guys start by introducing yourself?

Take away. All right. Yeah. As Dan said, I'm Shawn and the owner and founder, and I started ruckus over 12 and a half years ago.

Yeah. My name is Dan and I am our repair strategist and customer success person

Right on Shawn. What was the impetus behind starting Ruckus?

Okay.

Is kind of a long rambling story of, I was 24 at the time, fresh out of engineering school and really liked bikes. And didn't really fit the traditional mold of being an engineer. I'm not an office guy per se. Um, I can't spend all my day on a computer, so I would like working with my hands a lot, really wanted to create a business where I could work with my hands, but also kind of create the ideas that were locked up in my crazy head

Right on. And were you, did you start it off as sort of a one man show?

Oh yeah.

Robot or two. I probably had a Roomba at the time that Rubin's ever around, but I always try to keep a balance of one human and one robot at every time.

There you go. That's the engineering year. Right? Exactly. So I was excited to talk to you guys about carbon bike repair, cause it is a little bit of a mystery to me, how it all works. And you know, you think about cracking a carbon frame or at least I did prior to this conversation that, you know, the thing's hosed it's, you know, I'm never going to be able to ride it again. Can you talk about the types of repairs that are possible for carbon frames?

Did Dan you're good at this one?

Yeah. I mean, it's, for us, it's kind of the circumstance of we can repair almost anything, but it's only really, we take it to the point where we think it's safe to do so. A lot of times, you know, things that will decline, for example, our car and bike situations where a rider will get into an accident and, you know, bikes that have four or five visible damages. Um, technically we could repair something like that, but we don't really deem it safe to do so. Um, that's like the extent of things that we won't do. Um, but for the most part, you know, we do basic tube repairs. We do dropout replacements. Uh, we can do full bottom bracket, repairs and replacements as well. Um, you know, we, we will, a lot of things that we've been seeing recently, uh, our tire rubbed damages on gravel bikes, for example, people, the combination of too wide of tires in a given condition that isn't suitable, um, front derailer mounts have been coming off. Boy, am I missing anything? Sean? There's a lot. We do. We do a, we do a lot, a lot, a lot of different types of repairs on a very regular basis.

Yeah, it's pretty, very, but you know, at the same point, it's just, we see the same bike over and over or same bikes over and over and over again. So it's some days it feels a little bit not honest. And you kind of forget that. We see some of the most interesting things on the bike side. Like we already got a brand new specialized 20, 20 Shivan and it's like, I haven't even seen this bike online. It's got this kind of cool, uh, course of the camera. Cool. Like vertical cross cross fork, and you look at it and you're like, okay, bikes are getting crazy again. It looks just like that. It looks just like the Lotus track bike fork. Oh yeah,

Yeah. It's that dual, that dual bladed thing. So yeah, we do. Um, it's, it's again, it's like we can, we can repair almost anything, but we choose, you know, specifically based on whether it's safe or not to do

Right. What did that poor individual with the brand new Shiv do to his bike to put it in your hands

Shipping damage hasn't even been built for assembly yet. And it's just getting shipped across the country. And I don't know a lot of shipping companies that are generally fine, but you know, you throw enough probability into it and you know, there may be 10%, 5% of scenarios and you're going to be on the losing end every now and then. So shipping insurance is always good.

So what does that process look like on your end? So let's just say I've cracked my chain stay and maybe, you know, I see some damage, but I don't see a hole. Do I send it up to you? And do I get some sort of analysis back for me to consider if the repair is something I want to move forward with?

Yeah. Where we usually start with something like this as we'll have the customer send us pictures, um, and a variety of ways, email, we, our number also gets texts as well. So it's, it's an easy way to communicate with people, but we usually start with photos. Um, on the odd chance we can actually tell, um, you know, through a photo only, um, if the bike is okay, we'll just tell the customer to monitor it. But most things start with the photo. Um, and then we take out a case and we'll bring in the bike. And if the area is in question of if it's broken or not, it goes through the ultrasound scan process. Um, and through that, we can determine, you know, empirically within a thousandth of an inch, whether the bike is actually damaged or not. Um, and then after that's all said and done, we'll communicate with the customer again, if the bike is okay, it's, you know, ready to send home at that point, if they want, uh, if they want to paint, touch up, we can do that. Or if the bike actually needs to be repaired, they'll get a confirmation of the original estimate at that point. A and then we can

Begin the repair process if it's a normal tube repair, uh, at pretty much at that time. So yeah, it usually starts out with photos and a conversation of what, you know, the rider was doing at the time, what the damage looks like and kinda on top of that, like we've seen over 13,000 cases. So we were pretty good idea if someone says, Oh, I have this type of bike and this type of bike and they go, Oh yeah. Is your seat stay broke. Okay,

Cool. Gotcha. So when I imagine ultrasound, I'm thinking of a doctor and a pregnant woman and that little gel, what goes on when you ultrasound a bike?

I mean, that's exactly, that's exactly it. It's, it's a very, it's a it's that. So Sean has a couple of fluid that he puts over the area and our transducer is, is what, two and a half to 2.5, right? Shawn, 2.5 millimeters in diameter. No, it's four it's four. Okay. So he has a four millimeter transducer that he puts over the area and it puts a wave sound into the bike and comes back. The readout would be different from something that you would see in the hospital. Uh, it's more of a wave form than actually an image, but Shawn is able to tune the wave based on the specific layup of the bike to gain the information that he would need to determine if something would be broken. So if I had to,

I say I had a really bad scratch, you know, from a rock. And I clearly went through the paint and into the carbon fiber. Is that analysis able to tell you, you know, from that wall thickness, you've gone halfway through it or three quarters of the way through it.

Yeah, exactly. So kind of how that works is the ultrasound is Dan said, it kicks out a wave the way it penetrates through the carbon bounces off the backside. And it comes back to my transducer. That's kind of how we read it. And if we hit something that would be an air pocket or Boyd, or, you know, if there was less material, the screen's going to show that and we have to, you know, we have to interpolate it a little bit or interpret it quite a bit to kind of convert that squiggly wave form into, you know, a bicycle, but it's kind of the gist of it.

And is there, is there some amount of carbon kind of deep scratch that is okay and livable and you'll message back to the customer, Hey, you know, you're only 15% down. It's probably safe.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's, it kind of, every single bike is different. Every single rider is different. Every single location is different. Like, you know, it doesn't matter the material per se, but almost every bike, the wall thickness of whether it's steel or aluminum or titanium or carbon changes so much throughout a bike. You know, we have, we see some mountain bikes nowadays that are over three millimeters thick of carbon, which is insanely thick. Wow. And then we have certain seat stays that are our top tubes that are only 0.7 millimeters, which is like next to nothing. So everything's gotta be kinda comparative or you kinda look at the whole picture of like, okay. And then, you know, we don't like to think of like the rider too much. We like to think of just making sure everybody's safe. So we don't really take into account if someone's like, well, I don't really hit too big of jumps. And you're like, you know, we talked to some guys up in Bellingham or Whistler and you know, to them and I don't, I personally don't leave the ground. So anything leaving the ground is a big job. So

Yeah, absolutely interesting. And so the, can the range of repair work go from, you know, that deep scratch that has affected structural integrity to a complete break in a tube?

Oh yeah. The entire tube could be severed off or even missing. We've replaced entire tubes before, you know, it's a little more severe. Um, but really, you know, there's not a lot of limits and that's kinda one of the cooler things about composites as a material versus like some of the metals is, you know, your repair work is so much smaller. Um, it's more of a localized repair versus having to replace an entire tube, you know, with a metal bike, you know, you can repair any metal bike as well. Um, but it typically takes an entire to replacement. So it's surprisingly way more expensive. You know, most composite repairs are about 500 bucks or less on average, but you know, metal repairs, you're closer to a thousand.

So let's, let's take a couple of the different scenarios. Let's stick one on the one hand, which is just maybe a, a piercing or a scratch that is, is definitely dangerous and needs to be repaired. What does that repair look like? How do you actually address my carbon frame with the materials you're going to use to really support it?

Good question. Um, it's, as far as the repair goes, our process for let's say it, you know, some something that we've seen a number of times is a very piercing strike on, on a down tube. Uh, but Santa's mountain bike, especially recently, the way that all of the down tubes are being extruded from the bottom bracket with more of an exaggerated curve, we see a lot of damage to that area. So the process for our repair is repeatable, but not necessarily, not necessarily always similar if you know, we're doing the same steps towards every bike, but every damage is different. So it's not exactly the same process. Um, so the cost options that we provide are not tuned towards the repair. It's all on the finishing side. So basically every normal tube repair that we do, we'll give our customers a range of options from just a basic mat, black paint or a Mason or basic matte black vinyl wrap to a full paint match. And that customer is getting the same exact safe repair lifetime, but we're going to give them a different option of price depending on what they want it to look like. Because some people don't care. You know, some people are like, Hey, it's my mountain bike. I'm going to beat the crap out of it. I'll take the $500 repair rather than the full paint match. You know, that, that works fine for somebody they're getting the same fix either way.

So if I've pierced my frame, um, is it sort of like you're taking some carbon material and almost bonding a bandaid of carbon over top of that,

It's a little more involved than that. It's, you know, carbon composite repairs better on the aerospace industry for a long, long time. So there's already proven standards written by the American society of mechanical engineers or American society of testing and materials. And we really follow up pretty similar guidelines of repairing tubes is a little more complicated, especially tubes of insane geometry that bikes have nowadays, whether they're, you know, ovals schools, squares, or rectangles around. Um, but it all kind of starts with, you know, we evaluate that whole area and we kind of have to like map out how far the damage goes for starters. And then after we map out the damage extent, we got to kind of map out the repair extent, which is usually extents. You know, let's call it three inches and every direction around it. And what we do is we then kind of excavate or machine out all the broken fiber and we get rid of it. You know, it's not doing anything there's not really much you can do with it to kind of repurpose it. So then we kind of machine out all that area and sand it all out and get rid of it. And now we apply a brand new carbon fiber on top of it and taper it out through the entire tube to make sure the entire tube is completely strong repaired, and we're not creating any stress risers anywhere on the bike.

Gotcha. And then we add one of our listeners write in and ask about, you know, the completely broke the stay. Are you basically then sort of sawing off the, you know, the completely mangled sections and adding in an entirely new tube?

Uh, we could be, we do a lot of three D printing in house. We have a big, we've always had a big strap, like professional, industrial Stratasys 3d print machines. So we can pro um, or three D print and design molds and tools and inserts. And you know, and the hardest part with honestly with bikes is in maintaining the integrity of alignment. You know, if there's a slight variation at your dropout, um, your wheel's going to be crooked and with everybody's running huge tires right now, which is great. But if you then have a, like a, a little bit of a dropout misalignment and then multiply that over 13 inches of a wheel radius give or take, and that exacerbates the angle so bad that it pushes your wheels straight into your chance. So the hardest part is sometimes alignment more than anything, just making sure, you know, we're trying to align kind of thin air with certain repairs. You're like, well, I need to put this seats.

I need to put a seat, stay back in the frame, but there's a huge gap in between. So how do we fill that gap?

There's a lot of puzzles involved

Frame alignment tools. Yeah. We probably have almost every tool you can, you end up having frame alignment tools to help in that process? Yeah. We have framed jigs. We've had a lot of custom built tools. We have, you know, end mills for milling and mitering. We have drill presses of, you know, we have almost every tool you can think of. Like, don't forget the lady, boy, the lady boy, which so we can lay it all around tools and answers. Um, repair is more about like being inventive and tool creative than anything. You're like, how are we going to hold this shape? That's not a shit, you know, like a wacky school goal type thing in alignment, or we have, we have two granite tables as well for alignment that are, I think they're done to it like 10,000, no more than that 0.000001 of an inch of alignment.

So we can always plot things on there and make standoff blocks or use dial indicators. So before, before we move on from, uh, from Greg's question of being able to repair that seed stay, this is actually a, uh, the case in point of an example of where we wouldn't do Greg's repair until we performed a full inspection on this bike. Um, you know, 45 mile an hour front flip that bike didn't come to a complete stop immediately. Uh, I've I've had a crash similar to this, uh, about 10 years ago and it was really, really bad. Um, so we would basically say that this bike is going to start out at the full ultrasound inspection for the frame and fork and pending us finding damages elsewhere in the frame. Then, then we would begin to consider the other repairs on this bike because that's the beauty of ultrasound.

And that's why I think we shine as an organization is we're not only fixing things that are visible, we're actually able to impuricably discern other damages in the bike. So we're not just guessing that one area is going to be okay. We're able to see every other area on the bike if it's okay or not. And you know, a lot of times we'll find in these kinds of situations, we'll find the fork to be broken, um, based on, you know, the bike tumbling or the steer tube getting, getting tweaked, um, and a lot of our customers, once they find out that the fork is broken, if it's an older bike, they'll decide not to do the repair because it's going to be very difficult to source a, you know, proprietary fork from 2013. So not only are we keeping people safe, uh, for a low costs, we're able to steer people in the direction of a new safe bike, you know, because now that they know that they're not going to be able to get these parts anymore. So that's, this is a scenario that we see all the time of there's an visual damage, but we need to take a step back and look at everything before we commit, just to make sure that everything is safe and able to work well down the road together. So yeah, that's something that we see almost, you know, I see this like two or three times a week talking to our customers.

Yeah. I think I would be a bit torn up if I cracked my carbon frame and I would just be grappling with, you know, do I send it to you guys for repair? Or at what point does it make sense to upgrade? It's a tough call, but it's, you know, many of us are riding bikes that we absolutely love and would hate to sort of send out to pasture earlier than they need to, you know, in an ideal scenario, I want to ride a bike hard, love it, and then pass it on to someone else who can love it.

Correct. And for me, one of the things that I always say is if you have bought your bike within the past five years, and aren't dreaming of a component of a serious component upgrade, then it makes sense to fix your bike because that's usually the thing is if you decide to replace your bike, you know, and that's been made in the past couple of years, there's going to be some chances are there's going to be some kind of proprietary element that you need to also get. So you're not just going to be in shipping repair return, shipping fee. You're going to be in that additional cost as well. So, you know, I still, my, my personal bike is a Scott addict, rim break. It's been broken two or three times. Luckily I work, but I don't, you know, I it's, it's my good weather road bike. I don't dream of a disc road bike for the summer. So it made a lot of sense to get it fixed because that bike serves that utility. So if you know, if it's a bike that you want to keep for a long time and you have components you like on it, then it's almost no question repair is usually the way to go. But if an upgrade is then your future and we can help you figure that out, Hey, then we're happy to do that too.

So we talked a bit about the assessment process and the repair process, and you alluded to a couple of different options. You can just get the black carbon put on the frame, if you just kind of want that. You know, I don't care what my mountain bike looks like on the down tube kind of phenomenon. But I also saw on your site, some immaculate paint matching and repair work you've done on some beautiful bicycles. Are you guys doing that in house? Are you working with someone local to you?

No, we do it all in house. The hard way, uh, growing our paint department was kind of a very hard and painstaking process because bike painting is it's socks. Um, it's super hard. Yeah, there's no shortcuts. And you know, you could go to an auto body shop, people that can paint cars, they all think they can paint bikes. And the idea of there's people that can paint flat things. There's people that paint round things. And there's two different words. And we know almost all the bike, major bike painters that are independent bike painters in the country as well. They'd say the same thing like spring a tube is so different spraying a quarter panel, a, you know, on like a card or something. And laying graphics is so hard. So we grew everything internally, painstakingly very, very painstakingly and learning how cheap paints will kind of screw you some days versus expensive paints or cheap clear codes versus expensive clear codes.

And I don't think the average person knows how expensive paint or clear coat is, but some of our paints are, you know, if you're talking about like half a pint, you know, it's almost 70, 80 bucks. Uh, and our clear coats are almost $500 for a gallon. And it's like, yeah, they last a while, but they don't last that long. You're maybe talking like five to 10 full bikes, maybe, um, depending how many bronze and clear you want to shoot this. Stuff's just very expensive and the guns are expensive. You know, they're, you're in a thousand to 2000 bucks just for the gun air compressor. And Oh, I could go forever about this, but luckily we have a great painter in house. You could just freakishly max a match, everything under the sun, all the insane specialized, uh, glitter coats that are doing right now, the shimmer codes we've done all the Thermo chromic paints where they change color with different heat signature. Oh, Dan's bike actually changes with different colors. He does. Yep. Wow. All,

I think I was looking at a picture of a [inaudible] on your site that was beautifully color match and had intricate pin, like a pin Stripe line through the color. It was, it was insane. And from the picture it looked brand new.

Some of those coal Naga restorations are absolutely the fine are some of our painters finest work there, boy, they're not cheap. Um, but at that point, you know, and the owners even agree with us. It's like, you're doing a classic car at that point. So, you know, why would you want to do it inexpensively anyway, you want it to be proper and in its pristine condition and he has the ability to do it. Um, yeah, they're, they're, they're not cheap and they take a long time, but the end result is boy, if they look the third doing some of the photography around here, those are some of the best bikes to shoot. Cause it's an endless amount of detail that we have to do to them. So yeah, we, uh, we have quite the range of, of, uh, finishing that we're able to achieve here. Be it the most basic vinyl and, and get it out as quickly as possible to, you know, uh, hand pin striping [inaudible] but yeah, he does it all. It's pretty, it's pretty, pretty wild.

Yeah. I'll put, I'll put some photos up on, on Instagram and Facebook and I'll obviously put your URL in the show notes so people can go over and it out before

We go tonight, do you guys have any sort of funny or outlandish stories from the over 13,000 bikes you guys have inspected, that would be fun to share on the podcast. Poof,

There's so many, we've seen stuff from a lot of pro racers, so like very household names, um, from the pro tour, even we even have one in the shop right now, those from the tour de France last year. Um, so do stuff on that level. I just saw there was a repair request from today of a guy that like ended while doing a manual at 25 miles an hour to show off is to show off in front of his 11 year old. Uh, I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of great stories are like peop bikes have gone through forest fires and boy, I dunno, what do you got damn.

The one of our classic favorites is, uh, I think we tell this story every time, but it's, it's so great. Somebody dropped an industrial waffle iron on their top tube and broke it and that's all we got. And that's why it's one of my favorite stories because there's so much intrigue and mystery into the details of this story, full iron. Why, how big is it? How, how many waffles can it make? Why do you have, what were you doing? What kind of waffles did you make? Right. So that's the mystery also, where are they? Uh, that one's great. Um, some of boy, I mean, we've seen somebodies beloved house cat chew through their seat's day sounds. I mean, the stories we see you can't make up. Um, I'm also thinking of, um, on the inspection side, one of the thing, one time we, we, somebody brought in a damaged bike and it had some issues or in front of, uh, or excuse me, kind of like right behind the bottom bracket on the chain stay.

And Sean did the ultrasound scan and was like, this is, I don't know about this. This is pretty bizarre. And right along the crack line, we found a piece of pre preg backing paper that wasn't mold that was molded into the laminate. Um, and Shaun's ultrasound readings were, were totally wild. He was like, I don't know what to say. I've never seen anything like this. And it was like, I forget what brand it was, but it was an older bike, like 2010 or 2009. Uh, yeah, prepregs backing paper in the laminate. And that's exactly where the damage occurred. Um, we've found tons of dirt in bikes from the factory. Those are

Inside the frame, like closed off and we poured out like, I think it was like 90 grams of dirt. And we were like, okay,

This bike is brand new. You're like, how did all this?

And then also imagine you get the, uh, I drove my car into a parking garage.

Well, daily, weekly, yeah. At least one at least once or twice a week. Every, every, every once a week. But that one, yeah, that's a full inspection. Those are always full inspections. So if you're listening and you did that, don't yeah. We know, you know, don't think it's going to be okay that you just hit your car into a house, even if it was only five miles an hour. Yeah. I just say you take like

Moveable object of your house and like a 4,000 pound car and then a 20 pound bike. And you're like, alright, that's going to stop.

But all that apparently. All right. Yeah. It's simple. All the time we saw, we, we have seen people doing like longer descents, uh, who have hit deer who have hit deer before. Uh, also also a full inspection, definitely full inspection. Those bikes can be pretty, I don't know, but sometimes we do the full inspection and Sean and I joke about this all the time. It's like, sometimes they're, there's nothing wrong with them and you know, it's, it's not every time we do a full inspection, the bike is completely smoked. Um, you know, oftentimes they're, they're totally okay. But at least people are able to walk away with that peace of mind. And, and now that now, now they know they have the safety to do all their favorite rides again. But yeah, we've seen so many wild things over the years. That's awesome.

Well, I appreciate all the information you guys, there's a lot of fun for me to learn about carbon repair. I think one of the takeaways specifically for our listeners who are obviously the majority gravel, cyclists, is just pay attention to that tire diameter and mud damage.

I have one more for you as well. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, drops chain stays. It's all the rage be careful.

And how do you see that playing out with the drop stays? Cause that is a design feature in a lot of these gravel bikes. I know

I was actually looking about like, I like to do a just review and analysis and thinking about drop chain stays versus res chain stays, you know, like on the Trek, uh, stash has a raised chain stay and I'm like, okay, that totally removes the chain suck issue. But with the drop chain state, it kinda like puts it more in harm's way. And I think people are trying to run a one buys system, which I love one by systems. But when you try to maximize your chain ring side, let's say you go to a 38 on a drop chain, stay on a like standard road with bike. You're playing with fire a little bit. Um, and you start to see, you know, like you're bouncing along. And even if you have a clutch or whatever, I don't think it really matters. Um, either way the chain kind of comes up a little bit on the bottom lower side of the chain ring and it just comes right into that chance today.

So I would like to say like, give yourself

A little more room or you may not be that.

Okay.

I dunno, stoked, but maybe run a slightly smaller chain ring. Like go down to six, maybe. Um, give yourself a little more room there. Just get that chain away from that drop chain state.

Yeah. This comes from being a lot of these. Yeah. Next time I'm grinding some mud through my chain stays. I'm going to have a little bit of fear in my heart after talking to you guys. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It's an easy fix. So just let us know Craig, you can just let us know, just keep pedaling if anything happened. Just peddle through it. That's my alright guys. Well, I appreciate you joining me live and I appreciate the insight for our listeners take care and we'll, we'll talk again soon. All right. Thank you so much. See you guys. Thank you. Bye bye.

In this episode, Craig Dalton interviews Andrew L'Esperance, a professional cyclist from Canada. Andrew shares his journey in the world of cycling, starting from his early days racing with his brothers to becoming a professional athlete. He discusses the challenges and opportunities he has encountered along the way and how he has managed to make a career out of his passion for cycling. Andrew also talks about his transition to gravel racing and the different strategies and equipment choices involved in this discipline. He shares his experiences in races like Unbound and Sea Otter Classic and provides insights into the world of professional cycling.

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About the Guest(s):

Andrew L'Esperance is a professional cyclist from Nova Scotia, Canada. He grew up in a family that spent a lot of time outdoors and started racing bikes at the age of 12. Andrew has been racing ever since, climbing the ladder and participating in various disciplines such as road cycling, cyclocross, and mountain biking. He holds a degree in mechanical engineering and has always had ambitions to be a full-time athlete. Andrew has raced for Norco Bicycles and is currently racing for Maxxis Factory Racing. He has also ventured into gravel racing and is excited about the opportunities it presents.

Episode Summary:

In this episode, Craig Dalton interviews Andrew L'Esperance, a professional cyclist from Canada. Andrew shares his journey in the world of cycling, starting from his early days racing with his brothers to becoming a professional athlete. He discusses the challenges and opportunities he has encountered along the way and how he has managed to make a career out of his passion for cycling. Andrew also talks about his transition to gravel racing and the different strategies and equipment choices involved in this discipline. He shares his experiences in races like Unbound and Sea Otter Classic and provides insights into the world of professional cycling.

Key Takeaways:

• Andrew L'Esperance started racing bikes at a young age and has been racing ever since, participating in various disciplines such as road cycling, cyclocross, and mountain biking.
• He has always had ambitions to be a full-time athlete and has found ways to make it work alongside his engineering degree.
• Andrew's transition to gravel racing has opened up new opportunities and challenges, and he enjoys the adventure and technical aspects of this discipline.
• He emphasizes the importance of equipment choices in gravel racing, including tire selection and the use of suspension forks.
• Andrew's favorite gravel races include Unbound and Sea Otter Classic, where he enjoys the competitive atmosphere and the chance to showcase his skills.

Notable Quotes:

• "I've always ridden a drop bar bike off-road. My first bikes were mountain bikes, and then I started doing cyclocross, which was my road bike, my winter bike, my cross bike. So, I've always had that mix of riding different disciplines on the same bike." - Andrew L'Esperance
• "I love the adventure of riding a bike, and it's a lot easier to find adventure on a gravel bike. In general, in the places that I spend the most time riding." - Andrew L'Esperance
• "If it's going to give you an advantage in the race, sometimes it will, sometimes it won't, and it needs to be at the right time in the race." - Andrew L'Esperance on using a suspension fork in gravel racing
• "Gravel racing is a combination of endurance, technical skill, and equipment choices. It's about finding the right balance and making the most of each race." - Andrew L'Esperance

Transcription:

[TRANSCRIPT]

[00:00:00] - (): Craig Dalton: Andrew, welcome to the show. Thanks. Thanks for having me, Craig. Yeah. I'm excited to have this conversation. I know you're, you're off to Europe tomorrow, so I appreciate you squeezing us in before you

[00:00:13] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: go. Yeah. Thanks for you making it happen too. I think you were just on traveling as well. So thanks for making it work with your

[00:00:20] - (): Craig Dalton: schedule.

**** - (): Yeah, absolutely. We always like to start off by learning a little bit more about you. Where, where'd you grow up and how'd you originally find the bike?

[00:00:28] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Uh, I grew up on the east coast of Canada, uh, in the province of Nova Scotia, just outside the main city there, which is Halifax. Uh, and yeah, kind of grew up in a family that, you know, spent a lot of time outdoors and we rode bikes together as a family on vacations.

**** - (): And I'm the youngest of four boys. In the family, so I have three older brothers, and as you can imagine, like, I just looked up to my brothers big time, and especially my oldest brother, and he did a bike race once, so it was basically like, oh, I've gotta do a bike race, and yeah, I just kind of did my first race when I was 12, and ran, what's that, and, um, I've been racing ever since, kind of climbing the ladder, doing some education in there.

**** - (): Uh, but yeah, just been racing ever since and obviously like sprinkling some other sports in there early on.

[00:01:27] - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah, was Nova Scotia the type of area where youth cycling was easy to come by? I wouldn't say it

[00:01:35] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: was easy to come by. Um, I think, I think I was, like, fairly self motivated, like, to make, to make it happen, and had some good support from my parents to make it happen.

**** - (): Um, but there's definitely a tight knit community, and I think they certainly took me under their wing, for whatever reason. And, yeah, helped me, helped me Come up in the sport, but I guess the first race I did was a Tuesday night short track series. So from that perspective, certainly, um, that's like, that's a really great entry point for use.

**** - (): To the sport. Um, when you say, um, when you say kind of youth programming, I kind of think about like a bike club or that sort of thing for like specifically for youth, because we see a lot of that around now. And there was certainly nothing like that. But that kind of forced me to kind of ride with the older, older people, uh, that were definitely better than me and that kind of helped pull me along in the sport early on for sure.

[00:02:47] - (): Craig Dalton: Were you sort of racing consistently at that young age or did it take some time before you kind of really committed to a season?

[00:02:55] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Yeah, I mean, I think when I did my first race, I was still doing other sports. Like, so I was definitely not like full on right away. Um, but it was definitely a slow process to get into it.

**** - (): Like the, it was more like regional racings first. I don't think I did any provincial level racing when I was 12. It was, it was, the racing I did was the short track series. It was like for, you know, eight or 10 weeks in the summer. And that was, that was the racing and it was, yeah. Like that was the season, uh, and then I just got more and more into it.

**** - (): And next year I did provincial, provincial level races. Then probably when I was 15, um, I went outside the province to race. And by that point, it was kind of like doing every kind of racing that I could, uh, coming from a smaller province. You know, there's not, there's not a ton of racing, but, um, so you kind of need to do all the things.

**** - (): So like do road, do cyclocross, do the mountain bike racing, do the group rides, all those things. Um, and yeah, that's how it, that's how I kind of started things off there.

[00:04:12] - (): Craig Dalton: And at what point did you start to see professional cycling as a career opportunity?

[00:04:19] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Yeah, I don't, I don't know. To be honest, maybe, maybe I just have started to see it as a legitimate career opportunity in the last couple of years, you know, I, I have a degree in mechanical engineering.

**** - (): It was sort of, um, that was always kind of the way I was going to make, And I never really saw bike racing as a way to make money, but I loved it and I could make it work. Um, and I, I do think I did have ambitions to somehow figure it out to be a full time athlete, whether, you know, putting that professional label on it.

**** - (): Um, it's kind of, I feel like that's kind of different. Um, but yeah, I definitely wanted to be a full time athlete. It's a really, It's a really great lifestyle and just, I've just been chugging along trying to figure out how to make it work. And I would say in the last five years, um, Yeah, I figured that out and

[00:05:27] - (): Craig Dalton: were you figuring that out from a, you know, what's known as a privateer perspective or five years ago, would you enter a team program?

**** - (): Um,

[00:05:36] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: yeah, not definitely not as a privateer. Uh, so previous, so I'm currently racing for Max's factory racing, uh, and this will be my third year on the team. And prior to that, I raced for Norco bicycles in various capacities for about 10 years. Uh, kind of finishing my career with them on the Norco factory team.

**** - (): Those years, there was a period where there was, um, growth in the team and they went to another level. They stepped up to the world cup level and that meant reducing the team size. And that left me without sort of factory team support for a couple of years. Um, and at that time, um, you know, I wanted to keep racing.

**** - (): So it was sort of like, okay, how do I do this? How do I keep doing this? And I created, or myself and a teammate created our own team called forward racing, brought in some other sponsors and kept the support from Norco. And so in a sense, that was sort of privateering, but it was also like, okay, I'm putting, we're putting in all this work to organize this sponsorship.

**** - (): Hey, let's support another rider to, or, or a couple other riders, like bring them up with us. Um, so myself and my teammate brought on a younger athlete named Sean Fincham. And we supported him for two years.

[00:07:10] - (): Craig Dalton: Uh, that sounds like the racing we've been talking about has been on the mountain bike side. And since the listeners of this podcast may not necessarily be as familiar with that part of the sport, can you describe the type of mountain bike racing that you found yourself competing

[00:07:25] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: in?

**** - (): Yeah, totally. Yeah, so XCO mountain biking, it's, it's what's in the Olympics. It's kind of the short 90 minute race, uh, done on a short course, you know, three to five kilometers. You do, you know, five to seven laps. It's intense, there's technical features, that's the kind of racing I grew up on, and that was sort of, yeah, that, that was the racing that was available when I was coming up in the sport.

**** - (): And there's a pretty clear plan within Canada, you know, to do a national series, which is called the Canada Cup, and to perform at those races, and then you might get selected to do something with the national team, like an international race. You kind of just, uh, some opportunities open up that way. Um, and so, so that's, that's the kind of racing I grew up doing.

**** - (): That's the kind of racing I did for the majority of my career. And yeah, until I signed with Max's factory racing, uh, three years ago. That was my main thing doing, you know, I did it to the level that I was racing World Cups full time

[00:08:40] - (): Craig Dalton: Got it. And so was it

[00:08:43] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: yeah, I mean, it's so funny like You know, we've always, ever since I can remember, I've ridden, ridden a drop bar bike off road.

**** - (): I, my first, I, you know, my first bikes were mountain bikes. And then, you know, you're, you're doing mountain bike racing and you need to, you need to do some road riding. So that actually started for me with cyclocross. So my, my cyclocross bike was my road bike. It was my winter bike. It was my cross bike.

**** - (): And obviously you're riding that off road. Um, yeah, there's where I grew up in Nova Scotia. There's just plenty of bike paths, like gravel bike paths and gravel roads to ride. So, yeah, I would say it started with that early on. Um, and I guess more recently, um, Just like training, like for training opportunities, a gravel bike was just a good tool.

**** - (): Um, when I was training for XCO racing gravel bike, it just opens up the routes you can ride. You can ride on potentially safer routes. Uh, with less traffic and it's just a whole lot of fun. And I do, I like, I love the, the adventure of riding a bike and it, it's a lot easier to find adventure on a gravel bike, I feel, um, in general, in the places that I, you know, spend the most time running.

**** - (): Gotcha.

[00:10:21] - (): Craig Dalton: And was when you signed on with Maxis Factory Racing, was gravel racing an original part of the deal when they looked at you as an athlete?

[00:10:32] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Um, it was definitely, um, you know, the team has always been focused on the mountain bike side of things. But, uh, the Uh, yeah, the, the way the market, or like the way the racing is in North America, it's, it's more like this off road racing.

**** - (): So it's not all mountain, a lot of the biggest races are no crawl races. So, yeah, I mean, that was definitely part of the conversation. Um, And it was certainly something I was very interested in. I actually, I think I've shared this on a podcast before, but, um, about three years prior to, uh, you know, stopping my Racing World Cups full time and signing with Maxis and doing the off road thing, um, I had an unbound, uh, like lottery, lottery registration Okay.

**** - (): That I got.

**** - (): I was never able to make it work with my schedule, and then the pandemic got mixed in there too. And I just never got to use it. Um, the year that I could have used it, um, was the year I signed with Maxis and we were going anyways. And Maxis was a sponsor of Unbound, so. You know, we had, we had entries that way, so I ended up giving it away, but, um, long story short, this, this kind of racing was on my radar for a while.

**** - (): Um, I think I was just before we started recording here, I was telling you. Um, you know, this adventure, I got, my interest got, uh, shifted towards some of this adventure racing back in 2017 when I did the Croc Trophy. It's an eight day mountain bike stage race across, um, tropical North Queensland in Australia.

**** - (): And, yeah, just, just this, uh, very different racing compared to XCO. It's an adventure, um, and I just, I just loved it. Uh, so ever since 2017, I've been, myself and my wife, Haley, have been trying to mix in these different race opportunities that are, that I would categorize as kind of adventure racing. So Stuff like, um, Epic Israel, we've done that a couple times, Swiss Epic, um, BC Bike Race, these sorts of things.

**** - (): And it's, I feel so lucky, I mean I'm still, I'm so fired up on what we're doing now, cause it's basically Those adventure races, but that's the full meal deal. Like that's what we're doing full time. Yeah.

[00:13:21] - (): Craig Dalton: Amazing. Now I think you've been part of the grand Prix for two years already, and you'll be in it again in 2024.

**** - (): Is that

[00:13:28] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: right? Yeah, exactly. You got it. How did

[00:13:31] - (): Craig Dalton: you manage to kind of make that schedule work and hit those mountain bike races that you like? Obviously the. The Grand Prix itself is not mountain bike heavy. There's a few occasions to ride your mountain bike, but not in the same way you had done in the past.

**** - (): I'm just curious, you know, obviously with the different skill sets required for the different types of racing, how you organized your year and your training. So you can do things from, you know, 90 minute XC races to 10 hour unbounds. Yeah,

[00:14:00] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: I don't, I honestly don't know how we did that first year. We went in like, okay, let's do all the racing and that's, that's what we did.

**** - (): We, that first year we still had, well, I say we, cause Haley and I have been on this journey together and we, we, we jumped from XCO racing to this more off road stuff together, but yeah, that year we did five world cups, uh, alongside. The Grand Prix alongside a smattering of other races. And I think it was a big year of learning, uh, which was amazing.

**** - (): It was, there was so much newness to it all, which was also like super refreshing. Um, I think I remember kind of reflecting on the season at the end of the year. And I like, I color coded all the races that I did based on which ones were new. And it was like, over half of them were brand new. And it was a large number of race days.

**** - (): It was like, it was above 35 racing days and there was some stage racing in there. So it's a, it's, it's a little different, but, um, just a lot of racing. And yeah, I don't, I don't really know how we did it. I can't, I can't pinpoint to like, there was, there was no, there was no major thought put into the scheduling.

**** - (): It was like just saying yes.

[00:15:30] - (): Craig Dalton: If we can be there, we'll be there and pedal

[00:15:33] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: totally, totally. And it was a ton of fun. Um, it ended up working, it ended up working out in, in general, um, in terms of like performance in the grand Prix. But again, I think the, the love, like the level of all, all this racing is, is increasing and I, I don't think that approach is.

**** - (): is going to work again. Um, I mean, yeah, so there's definitely some lessons from the first couple of years and, um, I'm not, I'm not prepared to like throw all my eggs in the You know, just focus on the Grand Prix races. There's so, there's so many great events out there. Um, and you know, I also want to, want to continue to grow as a mountain biker and do challenging mountain bike events that really suit my, um, kind of my natural skillset and some of my best, uh, some of my strengths as an athlete.

**** - (): So, so yeah, we're definitely mixing or I'm mixing a lot of different events in this season along the Grand Prix.

[00:16:46] - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah, interesting. It'll be great to follow your season. Yeah, it's complicated. I can see, you know, over the last three years, going to the third year of the Grand Prix here. There's definitely been this specialization.

**** - (): Obviously, there's a lot of prize money on the line for those who do well and get into the top whatever that gets paid out, but it is Increasingly clear that a lot of athletes are just laser focused on it. And I think it's still going to be interesting this year to see those athletes who are out there doing their own thing and racing some other crazy races, as well as popping into these races and see how the points end up shaking up throughout the year.

**** - (): It's, it's an interesting equation. It's fascinating to me, listening to the athletes, figure out how to focus their time and energy. Yeah, totally.

[00:17:32] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: And I mean, I think it's, it is, it is interesting because like, you know, the racing that we're doing, it's, uh, the Grand Prix is this, it is the series in North America right now.

**** - (): Yeah, so there's just so many other good events. And, you know, I don't think any athlete is just doing the Grand Prix. And it is interesting to see, to spread, um, To see how athletes kind of spread their time and, and where their interests lie and, and all that. So it is cool to follow that, follow each athlete, um, doing what they're doing alongside the, alongside the Grand Prix.

[00:18:11] - (): Craig Dalton: I also think it's interesting with the two drop races to just sort of see how the strategies play out. You hope that people aren't dropping them because they're sick or injured and they get an opportunity to strategically say, Hey, I'm not going to peak for that race because in the overall arc of my season, it just doesn't make any sense.

[00:18:29] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Yeah, totally. Yeah, it is, it is a, I mean, the season, the season goes from April till end of October, and this is a long season. Uh, so, yeah, and you can't, you need to be very good for all these races, and it's not possible to be kind of peaked. For every single race. So yeah, yeah, definitely some strategy involved.

**** - (): And, um, I certainly learned a lot the first couple of years. Uh, things went pretty well the first year, not so well last year. And it kind of, uh, it definitely has me. Motivated to try to try to perform kind of do all the right things to perform Well all season long for that.

[00:19:14] - (): Craig Dalton: Are there specific races in the Grand Prix that you personally enjoy the most?

[00:19:20] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Yeah, certainly like sea otter classic. It's definitely the most mountain bikey one. It's at sea level And I I really love the race course to be honest. It's just yes super fast fun riding Um It's not one where you can really, it's not like you can rip, rip this technical section and create a huge separation on, on the people you're truly racing against.

**** - (): Obviously there's some big gaps in skills between, um, perhaps those with a mountain bike background and those with a gravel background. But, um, it's, You can't, there's not a huge, huge opportunities for separations there, but, uh, yeah, it's, it's an awesome race and yeah, just the energy at that whole event with the festival alongside of it, it's, it's pretty cool.

**** - (): And it's kind of like the season kickoff too. So that's, that's exciting.

[00:20:19] - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah, for sure. And anything on the gravel bike side that you look forward to?

[00:20:23] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Um, I mean, definitely Unbound, just like the, the scale of it. Uh, I would say that that one's high on the list. And, uh, yeah, Big Sugar's a cool one too. I mean, I, I do, I'm still, like, I feel like I'm a beginner at this gravel stuff, and I'm still, um, I don't really have it figured out yet, to be honest.

**** - (): And So all these races still feel like, like opportunities and they're very interesting to me. And, uh, yeah, so, um, yeah, I guess Unbound and, and Big Sugar are probably my favorite gravel races in the series.

[00:21:05] - (): Craig Dalton: With Unbound being the longest one on the calendar on the gravel bike, uh, side for the Grand Prix, how do you, how do you approach that as an athlete?

**** - (): I mean, obviously you train up to that distance. When you think about being competitive in an event like that, just kind of walk me through briefly, like the mindset of like, you know, are you following the early moves or are you conscious of Hey, this is a 200 mile day. And, you know, maybe I'm not the most in, I don't have the most endurance of everybody in the, in the Peloton.

**** - (): I'm just curious, like how you manage that to maximize the best result possible for you.

[00:21:42] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Yeah, definitely. I mean, when I go into those races, I'm not, there's no, there's no pacing. It's going with the front of the race as long as you can. There's, there's no, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna try to make the front group. I'm gonna try to get on the podium.

**** - (): I'm not going to have a deliberate strategy to not follow so I can, you know, finish 20th. Like that's, I'd, I'd much rather go for it and blow up than, than not go for it. Um, that being said, I do, you know, we learned last year that there is definitely some in terms of taking care of equipment in certain, um, conditions like, you know, very rough conditions, muddy conditions, there, there does have to be some strategy surrounding how you ride that stuff.

**** - (): Um, so I'm definitely. taking that into Unbound this year, just that, that whole experience. Um,

[00:22:45] - (): Craig Dalton: and you caught up in any disastrous way in the mud this past year?

[00:22:49] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Yeah, just, I lost my derailleur, um, very early on. Um, I just kind of snapped off in the mud and it was, uh, Was

[00:22:58] - (): Craig Dalton: that game over for you?

[00:23:00] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Yes. I, yeah, I, I tried everything I could to try to, um, keep it going, but yeah, it was game over and it was just very, um, that, that was tough, I guess.

**** - (): Uh, I definitely learned from that experience because I had never dealt with that kind of mud before and it's really something you need to experience to fully understand. Um, And yeah, so, um, yeah, looking forward to going in there a little more prepared and having those experiences under my belt and yeah, hopefully a little bit of luck too.

**** - (): But you know, I think in chatting with my friend, Ian, who did quite well, he was, who's done in Boswell, who's done quite well at that race. His, his strategy was. Just kind of, um, sitting back and watching a little bit how, how those, the first section played out, and definitely a more conservative approach, but I was, I was like third wheel into that mud, riding on Tobin's wheel, um, I think when my derailleur came off, I was sitting on Russell or Keegan's wheel and just run, just run the race as best as I could and going for it.

**** - (): Yeah. Those conditions, you know, if my bike can make it through it, it's a huge advantage for me. Um, just cause that is, you know, some technical. Technical ability is a huge asset, just pedaling the bike through that stuff, but you need to have a bike that stays together, um, to take advantage of those, uh, that, that opportunity.

**** - (): Yeah, a hundred

[00:24:52] - (): Craig Dalton: percent. I'm, I'm one of those sort of people who started out mountain biking like yourself, and I love I love the technical elements of gravel racing and the harder technically the races are, the more fun I think they are. Totally. That's the, that's sort of where I hope the sport would go.

**** - (): And frankly, you know, as the Grand Prix got announced, like I've, I've always been hopeful for the mountain bikers to get more of an opportunity, not only in the mountain bike specific races, but in the gravel races to just kind of show that skillset.

[00:25:24] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm with you on this. I, I would really. I would really like to Yeah, maybe just see a little more texture in some of these gravel races I I really like what the bwr does pulling in some single track Uh, yeah, I did A couple years ago.

**** - (): I did It's in BC called BCBR Gravel and, you know, BCBR is a BC bike race. So it's the same promoters that do this, you know, um, seven day mountain bike stage race. So the gravel version of it was, was what you can expect from the organizers of a mountain bike stage race. And it was very gnarly. I kind of joked at the race.

**** - (): Uh, like I wrote a, I wrote a taper cast, the Fox taper cast fork. During that race and it was like, oh man, if you had a, if you had a truck full of those at the finish line of that race, you could have sold them all. No worries. It was like a huge advantage to have, uh, Uh, yeah, have suspension on the gravel bike.

[00:26:31] - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah. It's so interesting. Do you ever, you know, as someone who's obviously well adept with suspension and using it on your mountain bikes, how often do you consider it on your gravel

[00:26:41] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: bike? Yeah, it's, it's always a tough, tough decision. And it's like, I've, you know, if I'm not sure if you've ridden it, but riding a suspension fork on a gravel bike is.

**** - (): It's an amazing feeling and it's wild how much more capable the bike becomes. It's 100 percent so much more than what you think.

[00:27:06] - (): Craig Dalton: I've got one on my bike for Mount Tam here in Marin County, and I can't even explain how much more confidence inspiring it is going downhill and. It's kind of cheating for me because I've got a mountain bike background.

**** - (): So generally I ride harder downhill than most of my contemporaries, but putting that suspension fork on, it's just, it's almost unfair at times. Totally. I'm curious to kind of drill into that a little bit as a suspension owner. So what is that? Tell us more about that line for you. I mean, when we would consider it is the main, is the main downside in your mind, just the weight.

**** - (): And if it's a climbing race and you need to stay up at the front, you got to shed the weight and otherwise you'd use it.

[00:27:50] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Yeah. So I think, uh, I, I reach for it quite often, uh, to be honest, I, my first year at Unbound, I wrote it. Uh, so that was two years ago and it was. It was a huge advantage in the rough stuff, but the thing is, um, that didn't, that kind of just kept me near the front of the group and out of trouble.

**** - (): It's not like it, it gave me a huge advantage in the race overall.

[00:28:23] - (): Craig Dalton: Do you feel like from a, does it, does fatigue come into play when you think about it? I mean, it's

[00:28:28] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: so hard to get a sense of that because You know, no, no matter what bike you ride, if you're riding, riding unbound for 10 hours, fatigue is going to be high.

**** - (): Um, I've not done like, I think that would be a fairly hard thing to test. Um, and I've not done like back to back testing on that, but it really does. The way I think about it is if, if it's going to give you an advantage in the race and some, sometimes it will, sometimes it won't, and it needs to be at the right time in the race.

**** - (): So like, so I did BWR Vancouver Island last year, and the first, in the first bit, there was, um, some single, some heavy duty single track and I just rode away from the whole race. Uh, And was two minutes off the front by like the bottom, you know, in the first hour of the race, but this isn't super helpful because it's a seven hour race and then I was off on my own for the next few hours.

**** - (): Um, so like from a tactical point of view, that wasn't great. Um, but the final descent on that course was one where having like the final descent, a few K from the finish. Having a suspension fork would have been an advantage. So it's sort of like, okay, do I carry this around for the whole race? It's definitely a little bit heavier, not as aerodynamic, but in those sections, it's like a laughable advantage.

**** - (): Yeah. Yeah.

[00:30:06] - (): Craig Dalton: I think that's, I mean, I think it goes with almost every part of a gravel bike. It seems like you just, you have to make these trade offs. And decide where is it going to benefit you like as a recreational racer, I consider comfort to be a big part of it, right? I got to get through these races to, to enjoy them, but comfort at the cost of, you know, an extra pound or so may come to bite me in the ass climbing 12, 000 feet in a day.

[00:30:35] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Maybe. It depends on what your goals are. Like for me, I really need to think this through. But if I was riding my bike for, um, purely for fun and trying to enjoy and especially if I wasn't racing, like suspension fork on the gravel bike, for sure, as long as, as long as the terrain you ride and the way you ride kind of suits it, if you, if you go on to double track and single track, um, and you have access to that in your area and you enjoy that.

**** - (): It's like, yes, get yourself a gravel suspension fork. It's going to be great. You're going to have a huge smile on your face. It's going to be fun. Um, and you'll be able to drop your friends. No question.

[00:31:20] - (): Craig Dalton: I think you've been training this winter down in Santa Cruz, California. Is

[00:31:23] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: that right? Yeah, yeah, we've been, uh, yeah, we did, uh, well, uh, pass through Santa Cruz on, I did this, uh, Rob Britton and I did this ride down the, down the entire coast of California, um, and then spent a week here after that training, and then I've been here for the last couple weeks, so, yeah, uh, basing out of here for quite a bit, and, yeah, just, Yeah.

**** - (): Yeah. Yeah. Really enjoying the kind of road riding here. Amazing.

[00:31:54] - (): Craig Dalton: Um, before we go, I'm curious to just learn about your bike choices for the year. What, what brands are you riding on the mountain bike and the gravel bike? And what do you like?

[00:32:05] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Uh, yeah, I mean, for, so I don't believe our mountain bike. Sponsor has been made public yet.

**** - (): So I'm going to stay quiet on that, but, um, yeah, we're on, uh, new drop bars bikes for this year and that's around time bikes. Which is, yeah, kind of, um, exciting new, new brand, uh, well, new to us brand, obviously it's a pretty storied, uh, brand that's been around for a while. Yeah,

[00:32:39] - (): Craig Dalton: we just had them on the podcast about a month ago, learning all about the new owner, the manufacturing processes for that bike.

**** - (): I think that the ADHX 45 looks like a rad bike to ride.

[00:32:53] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Yeah. No, I listened to that episode. It was great. I, I, I really enjoy kind of hearing the background and the business dynamics of, of, of some of these companies in the industry and yeah, the bike looks really great. I've just seen one once, um, I was down in Bentonville at the end of the season and it looks really good.

**** - (): Uh, so I, I'm very excited to get on one and yeah, really push it. And, uh, yeah. Yeah, it's going to be fun.

[00:33:25] - (): Craig Dalton: Awesome. When do you, when do you think you'll first race on that bike?

[00:33:29] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Yeah, we're, uh, first race will be BWR Utah. So yeah, once I got back from Spain after the stage race. Uh, probably spend some time on that, get it set up, get it dialed.

**** - (): And yeah, it'll be a, that'll be a great first one for it. And yeah, I can't wait. Um, it's gonna be good. And

[00:33:49] - (): Craig Dalton: since you're been on the Maxis squad for a few years, which, what are your favorite Maxis gravel tires?

[00:33:57] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Well, the, the new, I mean, the tried and true Rambler, um, you really can't go wrong with that. If you know, you have to pick one tire to do it all, that's going to be it.

**** - (): It's, um, Yeah, just super predictable. Easy to ride. Casing's very good. There's options there, um, you know, for a super heavy duty casing or a, um, you know, a higher TPI casing that's going to be a little more supple. Um, so yeah, Rambler for sure, but the new favorite is definitely the Reaver. Uh, it was released last year.

**** - (): I expect that's going to be the go to, um, for the majority of the racing. And I haven't tried it in a 45 yet. Um, but yeah, really looking forward to that because I do think, um, yeah, just given the tire design, like a fairly kind of a file tread in the middle. I think it's going to scale up pretty good and feel.

**** - (): Um, still roll really well in that larger size, um, whereas sometimes when you scale up on a super hobby tire, um, yeah, yeah. Just the, the speed changes quite a bit with your mountain bike skillset. Sorry, just from the casing and the, and the knob design, I guess.

[00:35:14] - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah. With your mountain bike skillset, do you feel like that file tread provides you enough kind of traction for most of the gravel races?

**** - (): Yeah, yeah,

[00:35:25] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: I feel like I can, I can run with less for sure just because the, it's, it's just like not a limiting factor for me. Um, I can run, I've, I've raced gravel races on the refuse, which is just a very tough casing, but it's a full, full slick with no shoulder knobs and you, you know, I, I can manage that.

**** - (): Um, you have to ride it a certain way. You can't, you can't push, you can't, you can't push it into the ground and expect that it's always going to hook up. Um, but it's, uh, yeah, it's a good tool for, for certain, for certain situations. And if you, I mean, with, with tire choices at the pointy end of things, you're always, um, you're always trying to choose the fastest one.

**** - (): Um, and, and. Ride it, basically ride it correctly, like manage the tire well. Um, so yeah, you're never, at least I'm not, I'm always kind of pushing the limits on what I can, what I can run for speed and performance.

[00:36:37] - (): Craig Dalton: And what do you think about inserts for gravel racing?

[00:36:40] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Yeah, yeah, I've, uh, used inserts quite a bit.

**** - (): Um, typically on the Tannis, Tannis Armor inserts. And, yeah, if there, if it's rough and there's a puncture risk, it's, um, yeah, it's a, it's, it's a, I go for it, um, compared to, I mean, I think inserts, they, they kind of came from mountain bike, but they're actually far more applicable for gravel. Bikes just given the the low volume tire.

**** - (): Yeah, and how how close the rim Like the tires aren't that tall compared to a mountain bike tire So there is there's kind of very little space for the tire deflect before it before it hits the rim and yeah having that cushion there and Yeah, it makes a huge difference. And, um, yeah, tire pressure obviously like pretty important on the gravel bike.

**** - (): And, um, yeah, sometimes lower if you can manage it is, is a lot easier on the body faster. So many, so many little, uh, uh, so many things to think about all the time. And I'm, I feel like I I'm out of practice cause I, I haven't been racing for a few months. Um, so I'm definitely gonna have to brush up on my decision making skills cause the race season's coming and all this stuff really matters.

[00:38:09] - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah. A hundred percent. Would you consider Unbound one of those courses that warrants inserts?

[00:38:14] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Yeah. One, one hundred percent. Both years I've raced it, I've, I've run inserts. It'll be interesting with the North route this year on tire choices and, uh, on suspension choice as well. Um, yeah. Hoping to get there early and kind of suss it out and, uh, and do some testing there because it is, you know, equipment choice there matters and, um.

**** - (): Yeah. North route. I hear it's a little rougher.

[00:38:41] - (): Craig Dalton: Interesting. I think that's a good place to end, Andrew. Thanks so much for the time. It was great to get to know you a little bit and excited to follow you throughout the season and maybe run into you at Sea Otter.

[00:38:52] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Sounds good. Thanks very much for having me, Craig.

**** - (): And uh, yeah, I appreciate the time and yeah, see you at Sea Otter for sure.

This week we tackle gravel bike maintenance 101 with the goal of equipping you with tips for daily, weekly and monthly habits that will keep your gravel bike rolling well in the dirt. We also discuss what to look for in a riding buddy and the value of camaraderie in gravel cycling.   

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This week on the podcast we speak with 'The Queen of Pain' Rebecca Rusch about her gravel event, Rebecca's Private Idaho and The Be Good Foundation.

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Rebecca's Private Idaho

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Automated Transcription (please excuse the typos)

Rebecca, thanks for joining the show.

Oh, it's awesome to be here. I'm stoked. Thanks.

As is customary. Even though you've got to have well-documented history. I'd love to just hear how you got into gravel riding specifically.

It's kind of funny cause I got into gravel. I'm kicking and screaming. I was forced into it. I'm a mountain biker. For those who don't know, I'm a mountain biker, a at heart and rock climber. And had a sponsor that really wanted me to go to this race called the dirty Kanza. And that was maybe 10 years ago, nine, 10 years ago. And I didn't want to go mostly because 200 miles on a gravel road to me seemed like a death by boredom. And it was the first race that I used headphones and was kind of looking, the distance didn't scare me.

It was more I, I just wasn't intrigued by riding on roads as a mountain biker. And I was really surprised when I went at how unique and interesting and how gravel roads are really, you know, kind of the combination of the cool things about mountain biking and cool things about road and really were sort of a melting pot in a way where you needed technical skills to kind of maneuver the chunky gravel and you needed some road skills to sort of stay alive at the beginning and find a wheel if you could. But really it was, it trended a lot more towards the solo mountain bike. Things that I really gravitated to. And really going to that event was the impetus for me to launch Rebecca's private Idaho. And I'd always wanted to launch an event in my hometown because it's a really special place.

I wanted to support my community to some fundraising rides, but I always thought it was going to be a mountain bike stage race. And it ended up, you know, once I got intrigued by gravel and the second event I did that year was an event called Levi's grand Fonda, which is a road event. And again, a sponsor made me go. And I was pleasantly surprised at the community that they built around that with a festival and a party and all sorts of things for everybody from, from kids to elite athletes. And so the combination of those two events in one year really inspired me to take, you know, some of the best things I love about riding, which is, you know, being alone and you know, out in the wilderness and having a really kind of solo experience, but then also coming together as a group in a community at the end to really celebrate.

And that really is kind of the flavor of, of what Rebecca's private Idaho is about. And so, yeah, I was, I got involved as an athlete because my job required it, but it really did sort of spawned this whole new facet of my riding in my career. That opened a lot of doors for me. There's places in my hometown I've never written. So I started exploring for a course for private Idaho. I was just like, wow, I've never been here. I've never been here in Idaho. Has a lot of dirt roads. So it's a, it's been a really fun multi-year experience for me and I never could have imagined that I, you know, what I launched was a really big event. We're going into year eight now. And I, I just did not expect even anyone would come. Or that, you know, I was on the front end of this sort of gravel explosion. I had no idea. I was just presenting what seemed cool to me and a style of writing that seemed fun for me. And little did I know it was gonna eight years later be really kind of blowing up. I'm in the cycling world.

Yeah. Yeah. One of the things, and one of the reasons I was excited to talk to you today as I share a mountain bike passion and a mountain bike background, and I think sort of anecdotally, it seems like a lot of people get drawn into gravel from the roadside of the market, not necessarily the mountain bike, mountain bikers, you know, we've all written those sections and experienced those high fives. You're like, why would I ever want to go on the road or why would I ever want to ride gravel? Like mountain biking is so fun, but as you noted, there's, there's something different about the gravel bike and it's not to take anything away from our shared continued love of the mountain bike, but the idea that you can explore a little bit further than your normal mountain bike loop and you can forgive yourself. The notion like, Oh, I might just ride on a road for a little while to get somewhere. I definitely found myself getting out the Marine County map trail map and sort of just tracing out places I wanted to explore that I just never would have reached on my mountain bike.

Totally. I did the same thing like I've lived here for almost 20 years and I just started looking at maps and seeing like can I connect these dots? And it was super exciting for me. And I do feel like you touched on something that's really special about gravel is that it is exploratory and it is this feeling of like what's around the next corner and can I go a little further? And you know, I've been that kind of, I've had that sort of spirit and mentality of explorations even since I was a little kid. Like I would camp in my backyard. I wanted to like see what was the next block over. And with all my sports that I've done, I've just kind of wanted to see what was over the next Hill. And cycling really has provided such a great template for that because like you said, you can just go further on a bike than you can walking, you know? And I love paddling and climbing and hiking and running, but I can see more on a bike. And so it's that childlike curiosity in me that you know, is alive and well and the bike is such a good, a great tool for that.

And I think that's one of the really cool things about the gravel event community is you're seeing event organizers over the country basically take what you and I just described, that passion for their local community, that obsessing over maps and trying to figure out the best routes and then saying, I finally nailed it. Come to Vermont, come to Kansas, come to Oklahoma. These are the roads you want to ride. So you don't have to think about it. Just get over here and I'm going to take you on the best tour possible for the next hundred or 200 miles.

It's so cool. And I think that is where you touch on something. You know I talked about how gravel is, is really is kind of a coming together, a meeting place a mixing pot of gravel or of road community and mountain bike community. But the spirit to me and what you just described of life, like

Going to explore, offering checkoff at this cool route, this spirit to me it feels much more like it's not to dis

Yeah.

When, Oh this is really,

Cause it's, it's in there. The road aspect of steering a meter, you know, catching that next person and getting on a wheel and not losing a wheel wheel and you're, you're so focused on staying in the draft that you're not looking at the Sioux all the time and think when roadies could be shaped sort of the dirty, gritty, you know, different nature of gravel level. And I think that's why mountain bikers like it to be true because it does feel it's dirt in, you know, it's, Oh, it's like the dirt. There are mites like something this isn't totally smooth underneath your tire. And you know, as people come in and as gravel

Travel grows and grows, it's real.

That's really important to me. That's roots and gravel community maintain that grittiness of grit, call it that. And that gravel doesn't become just a cookie cutter of what didn't, didn't work on the road. And I know U S USA cycling is looking at that kind of stuff and people will, you know, the community is, is kind of like what's going to happen with gravel. And I think, I think what's really cool as we have these discussions, discussions, and we're in this sort of like, we're probably in the, in the golden age of, of gravel events right now as they're growing, they're popping up people, people are loving them, but there's also the growing pains of the pains of like what is gravel, what's it going to become? Come. And there is a, there is a uniqueness in every single single event and mine's more towards my personality as a mountain biker and I'm going to try to make it as rough and technical and, and off-road as possible. Where another other event might trend more towards a road aspect. Like, like Belgian waffle ride is a good example where there's a lot more pavement and it's not to say it's not a good, a good event, but it has a very different style and personality that you then, then what my event would and, and I, I liked that they're all different. I think that's really important for him to maintain that uniqueness.

Yeah. I think that's great. As as we currently have a schedule or a calendar that allows athletes to kind of go wherever they want. And there's not like this, Oh you have to do these five events in order to win some sort of calendar. Cause I think the danger there is yeah, you want to have events that have multiple different personalities. I love the idea of an event testing everybody's skillset from raw horsepower to super, super technical terrain.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean that's why I launched a stage race in the way that I did the queen stage race, which Chaz, you know, stage one is all an motorized trail 50% single track. And then stage two is a five mile uphill time trial, you know, which suits a totally the road. Please love that one. I've had some of the mountain bikers beg me to get rid of that stage. You know, it's like, no, I'm not getting rid of it. And then the third stage is, you know, the, the, the long course, the baked potato around the a hundred miler that has as kind of a bit of everything. And so, so yeah, I I, you know, try to offer up something for everything and the, you know, the regular private Idaho course. So one day there's, you know, sections where, you know, the big Hill climb at the beginning.

Trail Creek summit is a, you know, more than thousand foot climb and you know, that really separates everybody. And then there's a couple of small sections where if you do have a road and, and pace land mining skills, you can hop in with people and then I throw them for a loop and get people off on a really rough double track that I call LD abuelito. It was a new five mile section this year and not really split everybody up on the way back home. And some people loved it, some people hated it. But yeah, I want to offer places on the course that suit a variety of different riots writers so that you may hate me on what part of the course, but you're going to look at me on another part of the course.

Yeah, I love that. Personally as an athlete, I love, I love when I hate my bike during one section saying like, Oh, I made it to off-roading on this road section. Like I feel like that's the Mark of a good course designer. Yeah. Yeah. We're gonna, we're here today really to talk about your event. Rebecca's private Idaho. Can you just kind of break it down for everybody? What are the dates? Where is it located? You talked a little bit about why you started it, but I'd love to hear it just a little bit more specifically about the event and what people can expect.

Yeah, the is labor day weekend, so this year that falls on September 3rd through six and you know, the main event is on Sunday of labor day and that has everything. Now. We've grown to a 20 mile tater tot route to the, you know, 60 ish mile French fry and a hundred mile baked potato root. And those are all on the Sunday of labor day weekend. I've also expanded to include the queen stage race, which is a three day gravel stage race that takes place over four days. And really what I found is Ketchum, Idaho, sun Valley, Idaho, where I live, my hometown is where the event takes place and it is off the beaten path. It's the reason I call it Rebecca's private Idaho. Because it is quiet and, and intimate here and it's a small town and it's hard to get to.

And that's why I put it on labor day weekend. One is, it's a beautiful time of the year here, but also to allow people that extra holiday to travel. Because once you get here, what I find is people don't come for one day. They come here and they want to stay a few extra days and they want to explore a little bit more. And that's why after about the fifth year of private Idaho, I launched the stage race because people have asked me, Oh, this year we're going to come, we're going to say a few more days. Where can I ride? Where can I ride next? And so I decided to just put that platter out for everybody to select from. And you know, and there's a big parade that weekend, my goal was, was not just to host a bike event, but to really show people this special place to support my community, to support bike charities and eventually my foundation that I launched.

And so, and also I want my friends to stay a little longer. You know, we've all been to those bike races where you drive up in your car, you got your gear, you, you know, unload, get dressed right at the back of your car, go do the race, load up your car and go home. I didn't want that kind of experience. I wanted, you know a bigger sort of by end of the season bike celebration. And that's, that's what it has grown to become. It's, it's really cool. I really look forward to it. But I, and I do try to, the reason we've launched different distances and is to try to welcome everybody in. So the tater tot, for example, it's 20 miles. It's non-competitive and hopefully it's a stepping stone for people who've never tried gravel or you know, parents of kids who want to ride and then they step up to the French fried and they step up to the big potato. And I have a course in my head, 125 mile course that eventually I'll add when I can call the twice big potato. So, and Rebecca on that tater tot route, is that sort of dirt roads that kind of, you know, anybody who's sort

Of comfortable riding a bike is likely to be able to achieve?

Yeah, totally. It's about 50% payment, 50% dirt, and you get a nice little taste of this cool road called corral Creek, or you ride out and you get a view of the pioneer mountains. And it is kind of like this little little teaser to, to one show you that, Hey, riding on growls just fine. And number two to make you feel like you want to see what's over that next Hill on the pioneer mountains. Cool.

Nice. And then does the French fry get into any sort of dual track or single truck,

The French fries and the big potato they had out the same way. And so you know, you climb the really big Hill at the beginning up to trail Creek summit and that's the same route that the wagons came over during the or days, you know, where they were mining for or across the Hills. They come over that same Hill and much of that terrain as you had up and over that Hill. It's kind of the gateway into the copper basin, which is very remote, very few homes. It really looks the same as it did a hundred years ago and it's the same route that the giant wagons traveled over. And that's the parade that we have is our wagon days parade. So it's pretty cool. Once you leave Catchum, you know, you ride about 20 minutes on pavement then you drop cell phone coverage, then you hit the dirt and you don't get off the dirt until you return back to town.

So you really do, it is kind of a gateway for me into like going back in time and you leave the technology, you, you leave it all behind and, and climb up and over trail Creek summit, that first big climb, that's the biggest climb of the route, which people are always kind of like, Oh my gosh, it's such a big climb. But what's really nice is it's pretty cold in the mornings in the mountains at that time of year. And so it does two things. It warms everybody up and it also really breaks apart the groups. And so it's nice if you're, you're nervous about riding in a big group or like me, you, you like to ride in smaller groups. The trail Creek Hill climb really does kind of separate everyone. So you end up with these nice pods of, you know, might be a 1500 person start line, but almost immediately it doesn't feel like that because the Hill kind of puts you where you know where you should be and people that are riding your speed and it instantly makes the community feel smaller. And that's the biggest climb of the day. So I was telling people once you're up and over that, you know, it's not the biggest challenge of the day, but it's definitely the biggest climb of the day that you get out of the way early.

And how much, how much elevation are you gaining in that climb?

I think it's about 1200 feet. So you know, you go from, you go from, you go from 58, 6,000 feet up to eight. No, it's, I have to look, I should know this number. It's, yeah, it's, it's over a thousand feet of climbing. And so a nice big time you know, I think fastest times are, you know, 35 ish minutes up at S, you know, up to twice as long as that. So, so you get warmed up right away, get nice and nice and sweaty and into the group, and then you really do drop into what feels like you're going back into time into the copper basin in that area. And both the tater tot and or sorry, both the French fry and the baked potato go up and over and do the same beginning part of the course and share a lot of the same course.

Cool. And then, so you're over that Hill then what's next on the big of the baked potato? Yeah, in the copper basin. You know, then you hit some nice smooth fast road for a while where the road diesel will be enjoying that. It's a pretty well traveled road. But then we hang a right over towards wild horse. It gets chunky again. And what's cool, the summit that you've climbed over for trail Creek, you're, you're crossing the pioneer mountains. And so the view from Ketchum, you see the pioneers from, you know, from the one side, from the West, and then you cross over and you, you just get these beautiful views of this mountain range from the other side. And so you're completely on the other side of the range. It's very remote. You'll see antelope, you'll see you know, probably more wildlife and definitely more bicycles than you will cars.

And it's all public land out there. There's a few ranches but mostly it's public land. And so it's, it's really a special place. And there I do, like I said, I do put people on a couple turnoffs that are nice and chunky. So WildHorse Canyon is a Canyon that both courses go up the French fry and the baked potato and that gets real chunky and you know, loose gravel and splits. The Peloton is apart again. And then that's the point where the French fry folks turn around and head home back to catch them. And the baked potato people continue on to copper basin loop road, which is, you know, your along the big lost river for a while, which is really beautiful. And then you do the copper basin loop, and that's the most remote loop. It's 23 mile loop.

I think that's one of the hardest parts of the course, cause you're the first, the furthest out you have the longest stretch between rest stops. And the road is, is quite bumpy, can be quite windy. But it's also in my opinion, the most beautiful part of the course and you really are rewarded with these stunning views of the mountains. So I try to get people to look up if they can back there. And then you have the long journey home. You know, at that point when you finished copper basin, you still got 30 miles to get, to get back to catch him. And you know, there is a very predictable headwind that happens every day. You will have a headwind going home from private Idaho. It's just how it is. The slower you are, the stronger your headwind will be.

So it's motivation to get yourself back up and over been over trail Creek, your last rest stop. And then one of the most beautiful distance in the world over the climb that you came up in the morning is back into Ketchum down the trail Creek you know, Hill climb and, and back to the wood river Valley. And it's pretty special. I mean I, I train on that Hill all the time cause it's really nice, awesome grade of a Hill. And I never used to see anybody like doing intervals or riding up and down that Hill. And what's cool now is I see people all the time just out there and it's, it's pretty awesome.

Yeah. And for those of you haven't been to Idaho, I encourage you to go on Rebecca site, the Rebecca private Idaho site, and check out some of the images. They just look spectacular. I love it.

It's pretty special. And that's the point. You know, we ride our bikes to challenge ourselves and I'm all about being competitive and pushing myself and going hard. But we also ride our bikes to be with our tribe and then to be in a beautiful place. And it really is, you know, people place and purpose, you know, those are kind of the things that, that drive me for private Idaho is the people that get to come here and be part of it and, and share this special place that I live. And then the purpose, which is, you know, as we talked about a little bit about the be good foundation and helping other people ride bikes.

Yeah. Yeah. So we talked about how you can pop in, you can do just the Sunday event, but you've, you've created this whole kind of four day ride experience. So if you're signing up for the whole shebang, I know we do a rider meeting on Wednesday, but tell us about Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Yeah. So Thursdays

Of course. And I will say, you know, this stage Reese at this point I'm the queen stage race. It is sold out because it's only, my permit only allows 250 people. And so it's a much smaller offering as I can expand that I will. And so for those of you who are bummed, you're not in the stage race. I do have on, on Saturday there's a ride. On Thursday we do a, a night or Friday we do a night ride. That is a we're a dark sky preserve. And we're also we have some history with Ernest Hemingway here who lived here. He wrote here and eventually took his life here. And so we do a dark sky reserve, Hemingway ride to some of his haunts, like his grave and the Hemingway Memorial and read some poetry. So even if you're not in the stage race, I do try to put in a whole bunch of rides that are open to anybody so that if you come here for a few days you have something to do with us.

And there's the parade. We have two different expos. So if you're not in a stage race, don't be all bummed out and sign up earlier next year. But stage one is and they're all different with this. The goal of this stage race was to show people three very distinct, different parts of the wood river Valley. And so stage one is it the Galena, Galena lodge trails. And that is mostly single track mountain bike trails really that are rideable a hundred gravel bike. You know, and you do have to use the same bike for all three stages. You can change tires, but you know, you can't ride a mountain bike. And stage one, a TT bike on stage two, for example. And so stage one is a lot of single track, quite a bit of climbing. You're up at higher elevation.

I'm about 50% single track. And then the other 50% is a non-motorized trail that is our cross country ski trail and sort of double track ish wide. But that's the Harriman trail and that goes to up and down the entire wood river Valley. And so you do a bunch of single track and then you drop onto the Harriman trail. And that's a about a 50 mile stage. And I think when you times are about three hours, but it's, it's, it's cool because you're doing like whooped dues and bermed corners and you know, roots and rocks. You know, on a mountain bike it would feel like easy single track. But on a gravel bike and it gets pretty spicy, there's a lot of flat tires. There's, there's a lot to be said. If, if you have the skill of a mountain biker you're just going to be able to avoid flats a little better, be smoother, you know, and find a better line. So it, the mountain bikers really love that stage. And I think for the gravel writers, what's cool is it really shows you where you can take your gravel bike. I have had so many people finish that stage who were like, Oh my gosh, now this opens up a whole like menu for me at home. I didn't know I could take my gravel bike on that type of riding. And that's, I really love that because it opens their mind to go explore where they live.

And then stage two is I, stage two is probably my favorite stage because the race part of it is only five, four and a half miles, the uphill time trial. But the whole stage together is 50 miles because there's like a 20 mile neutral ride out to this very remote Hill called dollar summit. And then a neutral ride back. And so it's kind of the best, it's the best part because everybody's riding chill. They want to save their legs for the, their race segment, the time segment. And so for 20 miles, you're just riding and chatting with all my friends and all the pros are up there talking to each other and it's cool. Social ride with a really hard uphill time trial. And then a social ride home and there's hot Springs on the way back. You always see people who are like got into the hot Springs and they're soaking there on the way back from the ride. And so it just feels really festive. Even though you know you're going to taste blood in your mouth on the uphill part of the time trial the rest of it is super fun and exciting and, and I really love that stage. It's my favorite one.

And then there's a rest day for the stage race folks and that Saturday and so that's the day of the parade. We have a big social ride. If people want to do that, that is free to anybody. We have our welcome expo that happens with, you know, vendors and you know, all that kind of good stuff. So Saturday is a pretty fun social day. And then Sunday, you know, of course is the big day with the baked potato, the French fry and the tater tot and 1500 people all lining up. And then, you know, when we finish, we have a giant expo with live music and you know, shooting potato guns and you know, there's a game we had called Gulen de coughing that is sort of like you know, sliding beers into the air and trying to catch them and pour them on your face. But yeah, I mean, people take it seriously when, you know, they're the writing of chill Creek, but the idea is to celebrate when you come back. And, and we've had we had a wedding at the finish line last year. That was pretty exciting. There's a lot of cool stuff that goes on at the end.

Yeah, it sounds like an amazing weekend. In addition to the amazing writing and event that you've put together, you're also focused on raising some money for your, the be good foundation, right?

Yeah, exactly. And I'm, you know, private item has always been a fundraising ride and I've always partnered with sorry, I can hear my dog bark panel here. That's Gracie. So private Idaho has always been a fundraising ride since you're number one. And my goal really was to give back to bike charities that I feel really strongly about and I wanted to do that on a local, national and global scale. And so locally we have combined, we have partnered with our wood river trails coalition, which, you know, takes care of our trails here and our local Idaho, Idaho high school cycling league. So those are our local partners nationally, people for bikes, which if you don't know, they do the hard work. With the government to maintain transportation funding for bikes and pedestrian and you know, non-motorized transportation support around, you know, the U S and then globally the world bicycle relief, which, which helps provide bikes for people in Africa to make their lives easier to get to school, get to market.

And so from year number one, I've always partnered with those groups. Last year I was able to officially launch my foundation called the be good foundation and the be good mission statement, you know, it was the impetus for, it was the ride I did down the whole human trail to find the place where my dad's plane was shot down and I came back from that ride realizing I could use my bike for a bigger purpose. And so I launched the be good foundation in his name because it is how my dad signed all of the letters home from the Vietnam war that he wrote to us. And so I felt like he was giving me a message and I was able to officially launch the foundation last year. And the mission statement really is to use the bike as a catalyst for empowerment, healing evolution.

And so I have kind of three main categories that I work under. One is clearing unexploded ordinance in Laos along the [inaudible] trail and the bombs that are still left there from the Vietnam war. And so every year I do a big fundraising ride over there and do a lot of work to clear those bombs. And second big mission is to provide bike access for people from Idaho to Africa. And that's where private Idaho falls in, is putting bikes in more people's hands under their legs. And, and you know, whether they're using a bike in Africa to get to school or whether a kid is using a bike to with the high school cycling league to find confidence and learn who they are or, you know, or you're riding with me, I'm in private Idaho. And so, so that's the second big mission. And then the third big mission of the be good is protecting public lands and the spaces where we want to all ride.

And I honestly believe that nature is therapy for people and if we don't protect these public spaces you know, one, we don't have anywhere to ride our bikes, but I also feel like our sort of emotional health is really tied to open spaces. And so that's what the be good, excuse me. That's what the be good foundation is about. And it's so cool to see how many people come together during private Idaho and year round. Actually people are realizing that you and me and a lot of us really do need that tool. It's a simple two wheeled machine. That really does do a lot more than just make us physically strong.

Yeah, absolutely. I think in this time where this year where we've all experienced personal and municipal restrictions around our time and where we can go, it's become all the more important and all the more kind of valued. When you're able to get out there and ride amongst all this turmoil in the world, you can just free yourself. Do you, as you said before, when you get over that first mountain pass and you just feel like you're in this remote area, it's so invigorating and revitalizing for your soul.

Yes, it is. I know. And it's like, it's hard as that Hill is. It does. It's like an entry, you know, you work super hard physically to get up the top of trail Creek and then you're just like, okay, you know, and you get this downhill on this breath of fresh air and like no buildings, no cell phone and it is an entry into another place. And hopefully people can mimic that in their backyard, on their trainer indoors, you know, with some visualization. But I do believe we all need to get to that sort of physical and emotional place on a pretty regular basis.

Yeah. And I think that's one of the things that we, going back to the first part of our conversation, the gravel bike is this great enabler. I've always been surprised, you know, even in a, you know, 15 miles North of San Francisco where I live, if I put a little bit of effort in, I can be riding completely by myself and see no one. And that is just such a gift.

That's really, it is a gift. It's really special.

Yeah. Well, Rebecca, thanks so much for giving us an overview of Rebecca's private Idaho. I will put a link to the website and registration and hopefully people can hustle over and still at least get a slot in the final day event.

Yeah, there is space and the tater tot, the French fry and the baked potato right now. So hopefully I'm, yeah, people go in and sign up and I really look forward to hosting you and everybody else in my hometown in September.

Right on. Thanks Rebecca. Absolutely be good.

This week we wish Randall well on his cross country journey, highlight the Gravel Adventure Field Guide from Trinidad, CO and discuss casual cycling shorts.

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This week on the podcast we welcome Justin Bowes, a coach at FasCat Coaching. We discuss the evolution of Fastcat Coaching and the development of their training app, Optimize. Craig shares he'll be lining up for the UNBOUND 200 in June and Justin has the tough job of getting him ready. Justin shares his background in racing and coaching and his love for gravel racing. They also dive into the specific challenges and strategies for training for the Unbound Gravel 200, including nutrition, hydration, and pacing. Justin provides valuable insights and tips for preparing for a long-distance gravel race.

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About the Guest(s):

Justin Bowes is FasCat cycling coach with over 20 years of experience in the sport. He started racing at the age of 15 and has competed in road cycling, triathlon, mountain biking, and gravel racing. Justin has raced professionally and has coached numerous athletes, including national champions in road cycling, mountain biking, and cyclocross. He is passionate about gravel racing and has an active 2024 gravel race calendar.

Episode Summary:

This week on the podcast we welcome Justin Bowes, a coach at FasCat Coaching. We discuss the evolution of Fastcat Coaching and the development of their training app, Optimize. Craig shares he'll be lining up for the UNBOUND 200 in June and Justin has the tough job of getting him ready. Justin shares his background in racing and coaching and his love for gravel racing. They also dive into the specific challenges and strategies for training for the Unbound Gravel 200, including nutrition, hydration, and pacing. Justin provides valuable insights and tips for preparing for a long-distance gravel race.

Key Takeaways:

• Fastcat Coaching has evolved over the years and now offers personalized coaching as well as an app called Optimize, which provides real-time analysis and feedback for athletes.

• Training for a long-distance gravel race like Unbound Gravel 200 requires a strategic approach, including proper nutrition, hydration, and pacing.

• It is important to listen to your body and adjust your training based on factors like recovery, sleep, and overall fatigue.

• Simulating race conditions and practicing your nutrition and hydration strategy during training rides is crucial for success on race day.

• Having a support crew and a well-thought-out plan for aid stations and resupply points can make a big difference in your race experience.

Notable Quotes:

• "Unbound Gravel is a challenging event, but with proper training and preparation, you can enjoy the ride and achieve your goals." - Justin Bowes

• "Training for a long-distance gravel race requires a balance of endurance, strength, and mental fortitude

Transcription:

[TRANSCRIPT]

[00:00:00] - (): Craig Dalton: Justin, welcome to the show.

[00:00:04] - (): Justin Bowes: Hey, Craig, how are you doing?

[00:00:05] - (): Craig Dalton: Um, excellent. I'm excited to have another fast cat on the podcast. Frank on his gosh, it must've been like a year plus ago that we had Frank on board.

[00:00:14] - (): Justin Bowes: Yeah. That's what he mentioned that, uh, when we first started talking about, uh, bringing you on is I hope you don't mind a project.

**** - (): Um, he said, yeah, it was almost two years ago, I think that he was on. So yeah, this is cool to be on with you.

[00:00:28] - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah. It's been awesome. I mean, I've been a big fan of the fast cat podcast over the years and I've picked up a bunch. I've never really in the last couple of years had anything super substantive to train for something that terrified me.

**** - (): So we'll get to what that is and why I came back to you guys. But the evolution of fast cat over that time, obviously. That brought on additional coaches, but also built out a pretty amazing application, uh, iPhone app and Android app, I assume.

[00:00:59] - (): Justin Bowes: Yeah, it's as, as Frank says, you can actually feel us getting faster and it's like you can feel us growing as well.

**** - (): Um, yeah, with, you know, not only the, the success that Frank and the other coaches have had previous to me coming on, uh, which is the one on one coaching, but implementing. new AI, uh, scripts to, you know, a coaching app that can give you this amazing analysis, just as if you're communicating with a human.

**** - (): Cause it takes all of Frank's 20 years of training peak comments and puts them into this app. And so when you get done with the ride, you get that instant feedback as if, Coach Kat, who is coach Frank, you know, is giving you, you know, that real time analysis just as you've uploaded that ride. Whereas me as a coach, you know, I may see that you've uploaded a ride, but I probably won't make a comment or analyze that ride until like the next day.

**** - (): But with fast cat. It's there and it's right there for you. And, you know, as a coach, it's just like having a, uh, you know, a 24 seven virtual assistant. So it's, it's really cool.

[00:02:09] - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah. It's been super interesting that the app is called optimize. And basically you can choose from Any number of the fast cat training programs.

**** - (): So if you're training for a gravel race, or you're just trying to get faster in your group ride, you can just pick a plan and then it'll give you a program every single day of the week with built in rest. And to your point, a couple of months ago, I think they introduced coach cat. This AI, and it is pretty amazing.

**** - (): The unlock I think originally for the app was this intersection of. Taking your HR RV, your recovery score and looking at that in the context of what's your workload proposed for the day and making sure if you're in the red in terms of recovery, they're not sending you out on a six hour ride. So I noticed as I was using it, you know, coach Kat would say, You know, you're in the red, do you want me to modify this workout?

**** - (): And then you can just type in, Hey, yeah, I'm feeling crushed. What should I do? And you'll get back a workout. That's kind of slots into the overall plan or vision for where you're trying to get to.

[00:03:12] - (): Justin Bowes: Absolutely. And I think, you know, So with the sleep metrics, more and more people are getting into and really understanding that importance of, you know, we've always been told, get that eight hours of sleep, you know, get, you know, get the bed and keep a consistent, uh, schedule, you know, the sleep hygiene aspect of your training.

**** - (): And it's just more and more as the wearables, uh, whether it's the aura ring or a whoop or your Apple watch or. Uh, garment device or any of those other, um, devices, the metrics that they are kicking out are just getting smarter and smarter and fast cat, the app can collect all that just like you did a ride.

**** - (): And so, like, as soon as you wake up and whatever device you're using uploads it to fast cat. He's already, you know, reading that and gives you that thumbs up or thumbs down on, you know, to go for it or, you know, Hey, let's hold back. And to your point, it's really nice to be able to, you know, have that chat with fast cat coach, um, to say, yeah, yeah, you know, I do feel great.

**** - (): Let's, You know, keep the schedule program or yeah, I do feel kind of worn down. So maybe an active recovery day is, is better or a day off. And so fast KAC coach, you know, can adjust that immediately for you. And so you're on your way and not have to think about, should I, should I not? And it's actually a coach telling you that it's not just you putting a guilt trip on yourself to say, Oh, I know I should, but I've got a planned workout, so I should stick to it.

**** - (): Great. Great. Yeah. I'm getting that feedback just as if I'm your coach or Frank or any of the other Fastcat coaches or your coach telling you, Hey, you know, let's take a day off.

[00:04:57] - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It took me a minute in January to kind of get everything set up like the, the head unit integrations are, are totally seamless for Wahoo and Hammerhead and other computers.

**** - (): into the system for me, since I didn't have power at that point. And I was doing indoor training on a Peloton. There was a bit of a head scratcher because there wasn't a Peloton integration at the time. And it took a minute and going back and forth with the team over there to figure out, Oh, if I just at least record my Peloton ride with my Wahoo head unit and a heart rate monitor.

**** - (): At least the data is coming in at that point. Right. So while it wasn't perfect, it kind of got me one step further. And then ultimately, uh, with the thanks to SRM, I did get some of their SRM X power pedals to put power on the bike, which has been a godsend, obviously in terms of our communication and just my ability to kind of really work within the app.

**** - (): I mentioned that all to say. Like I was super jazzed with the optimized app and what it was delivering to me, but what I started to get a sense when some personal travel kicked up for April, this big chunk of time before my target event in June, like I was going to have a problem. I didn't trust that the AI could figure out this complicated equation of.

**** - (): You could training for this big event training for the unbound 200 got a limited amount of time. How are we going to get the volume? How are we going to get all the different things that we need into a program? And that's why I went back to fast cat. And that's where I got introduced to you, Justin. So Yeah.

**** - (): Long, very long intro talking a lot about the Optimize app, but Justin, welcome again to the show. Thank you. Let's just learn a little bit more about your background and then I have lots of questions about what's coming up for me.

[00:06:45] - (): Justin Bowes: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's crazy. Um, yeah, again, thank you for having me on the show.

**** - (): Um, long time listener, first time caller. Um. Really appreciate, uh, the opportunity to, uh, to speak with you and obviously, work with you now, uh, with getting you on board and, um, get you ready for Unbound. Uh, so my background, um, the quick and dirty is I started racing when I was 15. I watched the 1984 Olympic Games, uh, in Los Angeles, watched Alexei Grewal, from the United States, win the gold medal in the road race.

**** - (): And it was just like, my mind exploded. I was like, what is this? Like, I want to do that. And it wasn't like I was a stranger to endurance sports, um, between my oldest brother and my two younger brothers, all four of us, were involved either with swim team or, uh, cross country and track. Um, and we slowly kind of got into just, you know, riding at that time, 10 speeds as just, you know, part of training for running and swimming and everything else.

**** - (): But it was, it was watching the Olympics and watching Alexi win the gold medal. I was just like, I want to do that. And so that next summer, um, I started road racing, but I also, um, got into triathlon as well. So I grew up in Kansas city. And at that time, there wasn't a huge racing scene in Kansas City. Um, there was in the Midwest.

**** - (): So you had, you know, St. Louis was a hotbed. Oklahoma actually had a really cool old time, uh, stage race called the 89er. Um, Wisconsin, Chicago, obviously with, um, Uh, super weak and, and those crits out there, uh, back in the day. So we would have to travel to do, you know, the bigger bike races, but there was a booming triathlon scene in and around Kansas city.

**** - (): And so, uh, raced in that, uh, worked my way up, um, got my pro card early, got my cat one, you know, about the same time as 17 years old. Um, Yeah, it was just, it was a good time of, of racing and training and everything. We had a really good, um, group of people to train with. Um, then, you know, raced professionally for a few years, um, decided I got, I wasn't making a career out of it.

**** - (): Um, and so it was more like there was probably more to life than just living out of your car and traveling to races to try to get pre money to get to the next race and, and so on and so forth. And so. Um, I did transition to mountain bike racing in the early nineties, um, as I kind of aged out of the juniors and triathlon and road cycling mountain biking was taking off there in the late eighties, early nineties, and so race the nervous circuit.

**** - (): And, you know, was good enough, but wasn't a great, you know, elite pro rider. And so that was when the light kind of turned on. It's like, you know, there's probably more to life than, like I said, living out of your car and going to bike races all the time. And so, um, yeah, I decided to start a family, settle down, have kids, um, and then literally did not touch a bike for, uh, six plus years.

**** - (): Um, you know, I tell people they don't believe me. I don't share pictures, but there's evidence that I did blow up to like 250 pounds at, you know, one point while I was taking a sabbatical. Um, but it was about that time that, uh, my daughter was entering junior high and she wanted to, you know, run track and she wanted to do distance.

**** - (): And so, and it was about the time where I was starting to get an itch to get back into it. The kids were getting old enough. I didn't feel as bad or as guilty trying to like get back into, to cycling. And so, um, Yeah, bought a bike off of eBay, bought some extra large bib shorts from the local bike shop, um, started riding, and then also running with her in the morning before school and work, and yeah, pounds fell off, the training itch came back, the racing itch came back, um, Started racing again in Kansas City, um, helped with some local clubs there, helped with race direction with the tour of Kansas City and some other cyclocross races there.

**** - (): Um, yeah, and it just kind of blossomed, you know, from there. And then, uh, My wife and I, we moved up to Chicago. We lived there for five years, raced in the great crit and cyclocross scene up there, had an amazing time. We were up there for five years, and then now we are based out of central Virginia, uh, just outside of Charlottesville at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Crozet, Virginia, and, uh, now taking advantage of the amazing riding that's here and just, Head over heels, uh, into gravel racing in the last, you know, five years big time.

**** - (): And yeah, just haven't looked back since. So, um, all along the way, um, you know, coaching was a big part of that. And it was kind of a casual thing as far as coaching was concerned. When I first kind of started into it is when I got back into racing. The second time I had, you know, some friends that were running a team, a local club there for You know, new riders to get into, and they asked if I would help, you know, kind of mentor and bring those new riders into the racing fold and kind of introduce them to, you know, the ins and outs and kind of the protocols of training and group rides and, and things like that.

**** - (): And one thing just led to another. It's just like, Hey, what did you used to do for training? And that kind of spiraled into here. Let me help you. And then more and more people are like, Hey, can you help me? And so, um, after we left Kansas city and went up to Chicago, the same thing kind of happened. And I was just like, maybe I should do this.

**** - (): And then, um, I still, you know, I was working full time in the corporate world. I was in it. And, um, still racing and everything, but once we moved down here to Virginia, um, my job didn't transfer. And so my amazing wife, Andrea, she was like, why don't you just coach full time? You know, why don't you do that?

**** - (): And so, um, it's like, maybe I should. And so I did. And so for the last seven years, yeah, I've just been a private coach and I've had, I've Yeah, a handful of national champion, uh, riders in road, uh, mountain biking, cycle cross, um, three from three different countries and road cycling, um, so yeah, it's been really exciting, um, and now I just started with, uh, Frank and the team and Fastcat, uh, here in the last month, um, It's, it's been amazing, full time, you know, transition from having my own coaching business to working with a team of coaches.

**** - (): And that was kind of the allure was working with, you know, nine like minded individuals who shared the passion for development, mentorship, and. Teaching and, um, to be able to like collaborate and have our coaches roundtables, you know, and our team meetings every week and just be able to bounce things off of, you know, other, you know, coaches and, Hey, have you seen this?

**** - (): Have you done that? Um, so I hope that wasn't too long and winded, but, uh, Yeah. That's, that's how we came about.

[00:14:29] - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah. No, it's great. Yeah. And I, you know, to your point around the fast cat coaches, I've been enjoying getting to know some of them through the podcast and getting their different perspectives.

**** - (): And I could see, you know, some of them have like a strong nutritional background or, you know, different backgrounds to bring to the table, which I'm sure leads to some vibrant conversations in your coaching meetings.

[00:14:54] - (): Justin Bowes: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we, we all kind of have our own niche. Um, I mean, we all obviously overlap with all the different disciplines, but you know, um, we have some that are really strong, you know, in mountain biking, some are really strong in cyclocross.

**** - (): Some are really strong in road. Some like myself or, you know, kind of jack of all trades, but like, I really love, you know, racing gravel now. And so that's the language I speak. And so, um, Yeah. And so we can share, Hey, what tires are you using? What equipment's best for this race or that course or, you know, things like that.

**** - (): And, uh, you know, I've got an athlete going to, you know, this race who's done it, who's had athletes there and things like that. And so to be able to cross pollinate, um, is, is really cool. And it's, it's really dynamic and exciting.

[00:15:44] - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah. Let's talk a little bit specifically about your experience in gravel, both as a coach and as an athlete.

**** - (): I know you've been passionate about it the last couple of years. What have been some of the events you've been hitting? What do you, what do you like, like to do in gravel for yourself? And what have you been seeing across the athletes you're coaching?

[00:16:02] - (): Justin Bowes: Sure. Um, so as far as like, you know, that, you know, I still haven't done steamboat.

**** - (): Uh, gravel. I want to do that. Um, I'm trying to qualify again for, uh, the world cyclic cyclo cars, world's gravel championships in Belgium this year. I'd really like to go over there and, um, race in the worlds. Um, I missed it by a spot last year, uh, going to Italy. Um, we can talk about that. My. Body just kind of said no bueno during the middle of the race and later found out there was some medical stuff behind it.

**** - (): So, um, got that all fixed, but, um, yeah, gearing up like you, I'm gearing up for Unbound, but, uh, unlike you, I'm only doing the 100. Um, this will be my third shot at it. My first time in 21, I was able to take 15th, uh, overall on that one. And then next year, 2022, I DNFed with a mechanical. Um, and so I punted last year and deferred to, to come back this year and we're going north and I really like the north course more, more so than the south courses.

**** - (): Um, so I'm really looking forward to that.

[00:17:15] - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah. What do you like about that north direction now that we're on that subject?

[00:17:20] - (): Justin Bowes: Ah, I like the nasty, chunky gravel. Um, I, I think it, it's, You know, it, it's plays more into my strength, um, as a rider, I like the technical aspect of it. Um, the short punchier climbs is very similar to what I train on here.

**** - (): Um, yeah, so it just, it, it fits in really nice. And I also like, this is going to sound really kind of sadistic, but I really like having the headwind on the way back. It really exposes, uh, the, the weaker riders and those who, you know, don't know how to deal with the wind. Um, and so, um, I just remember in 2021, uh, coming back and it was just like sucking on a hairdryer for, you know, 50 some odd miles of just like, it was just, Exhausting.

**** - (): But at the same time, you know, growing up in Kansas city and racing across Kansas and Missouri and Oklahoma, I mean, I was used to it. And so it was, it was, it was almost like I am home, you know, it's like, it felt like being home. And so I was really comfortable with it.

[00:18:27] - (): Craig Dalton: There's something interesting about like places you've trained and how they, your body recognizes them after the fact, when you come back and you're like, gosh, I have existed in this environment, this, this before I kind of get it.

[00:18:40] - (): Justin Bowes: Exactly, and I mean, I, I do really well in heat. Um, my body just responds well with it, and unbound is inevitably extremely hot , um, and uncomfortable. Um, yeah, I just, I, you know, over the course of the, the, the, uh, the race, I just, I mean, everybody loses power. I mean, just because of, you know, the, the natural.

**** - (): ebb and flow of the race and the distance and the duration and everything like that. You're, you're, you're going to lose power, but you know, the heat doesn't really affect me that much in the, in the fact of it, I can prolong that drop in power. Like I can put it off, you know, longer than, than most. And so I can kind of cope with it.

**** - (): And yeah, I know, I think it's mental too. Like when, you know, you do well in a certain environment, um, or, you know, climate. That you're just walking into it and you're feeling like, yeah, I can do this when everybody else is like, oh, it's going to be 90 degrees, you know, and they're already, it's kind of like, you know, when it's raining or freezing cold, they're already shut down before the race even starts.

[00:19:50] - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah. For those of us who might be heat challenged as a coach, how would you advise your athletes to prepare if climate in their home environment doesn't necessarily get up to those heats?

[00:20:03] - (): Justin Bowes: Yeah. So it is a challenge, uh, because heat. obviously affects us, you know, differently, even if, even if you're in it, uh, some people just don't do well with it, but you have to be ready for it.

**** - (): And so, um, you know, this is something we, you and I actually haven't even talked about. Um, but it's, it's one of those things where we want to do simulation rides to, um, prepare not only for You know what we're eating and drinking and distance and things like that, but also, you know, weather conditions and it's, it may be, you know, getting you back on your Peloton, you know, in a long sleeve Jersey and leg warmers and things like that, just to, you know, do some interval work, um, while raising that body temperature as much as possible and, you know, restricting the cooling aspect of it.

**** - (): So, you know, the exact opposite of what we talk about when we talk about it. Training indoors of like keeping it 68 degrees and air flow and and all of that. Yeah, but to get you ready for something like that It's more like let's put a you know, thermal jersey on some leg warmers and you know close the garage and you know Sweat it out.

**** - (): So

[00:21:13] - (): Craig Dalton: well, I can I definitely have a hotbox environment in my garage if it's Plus 65 degrees, which I can reasonably get to here in the Bay area. The other thing you mentioned, and maybe just to put it in context for people who haven't done the North route at Unbound or just been out to Unbound in general, when you talk about a short punchy climb, what, what, what does that look like?

**** - (): Give us some parameters.

[00:21:35] - (): Justin Bowes: Sure. Uh, so duration, I know you and I've talked about this, uh, duration wise, you're looking anything from 30 seconds to, you know, as the race goes on, maybe five minutes. Thanks. You know, as opposed to, you know, a 20 minute climb or 30 minute climb or something like that, but just repeated short punchy climbs where it's just like straight down one side and then all your power up the next side for 20 to 30 seconds, you know, to get up and over it.

**** - (): Um, and so that's, those, those are punchy climbs and you're, you know, you're looking at like, you know, anywhere from like seven to 12%, you know, type of gradients. You know, mixed in.

[00:22:19] - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah. A lot of times, obviously, like when we can see the top of a climb as athletes, if we've got, if we've got the requisite power, we're going to want to push and roll over that right in a race of 200 miles.

**** - (): And maybe there's 400 of said punchy climbs in the middle of that. How should you be thinking about it? And maybe, You can use some terms that we can get into later about VO2 max or sweet spot or like, where do you push to knowing that early in the race? Like I could probably hammer over this thing, but it may not be in my best interest six hours from now.

[00:22:50] - (): Justin Bowes: Yeah, and you know, it's again, you know, with Unbound and especially the 200, we kind of want to reverse thinking as far as like, Hey, yeah, I can punch over all of these like really early on. And we want to like, think the opposite and say, let's take our time getting over these and just get over as smoothly as possible.

**** - (): With, you know, putting out as little as power as possible to just maintain, you know, the pace that we, you know, you and I, you know, set upon as far as like our target, um, because course like unbound, it's a death by a thousand cuts. And those thousand cuts are those, you know, punchy hills repeated and things like that.

**** - (): But in addition to the punchy hills, you just have these false flats. Of this never ending horizon also, you know, and so while, you know, maybe you have a section where you have a few rollers or punchy climbs there, you may have another, you know, 10, 15 miles of just nothing but a false flat of like one, 2%, if not more.

**** - (): Where you just don't see the end, you know, that end just keeps moving on you. And, and that's, that's where the mental aspect really comes in of just like not allowing yourself to like, you know, get distracted by the fact that you can't see the end because most climbs We're on we know that we're up and over that climb and we're on to the next, you know, flat or downhill or something like this, where this is just nothing but a grind.

**** - (): And so you just have to keep a mental, you know, a positive mental, um, attitude of. This is what I wanted to do. This is what I trained for. This is, you know, I'm ready for this. And so, um, you know, in everybody's power, I get, I get a little wary of like putting out power numbers, you know, for just examples, just because everybody is so different and the climbs there.

**** - (): because they are technical in nature of because of the chunkiness of the gravel and things like that. Each one is so different. I mean, there just really isn't one that's the same because believe it or not, even the middle of Emporia, like there's a dozen different types of gravel that you're going to encounter and they're all in those climbs too.

**** - (): And so, um, You know, one, you're, you know, you're sitting at, you know, 400 Watts to climb, climb up and over. No big deal. You don't even think about it, but the next one is steeper and chunkier. And so now it's just like to try to put out 400 Watts consistently. It's just like, I can't do that. Yeah. So it's just, it's a matter of, you know, just, you know, again, going back to your mental attitude and, and, and realizing that, Hey, I did the training.

**** - (): I know I can do this. This is just another 30 second type of effort. I'm onto the next.

[00:25:43] - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah. I'm, I'm confident there's going to be a lot of discipline along the way that needs to be applied as a writer. We all have the tendency of following wheels with enthusiasm, particularly if, you know, I, I won't and will not be doing many events.

**** - (): So this being a singular event or one of a handful this year, I'm going to be enthusiastic and, you know, it's fun to ride in a pack. It's fun to do all these things. And I think it's going to be critical to always just check, check oneself and say, We've got a long day ahead of us. We need to play this out, the long game and be mentally disciplined along the way with our physical efforts.

**** - (): And then also back that up with a strong nutritional strategy that you don't waver from as well. Because I certainly know from my Ironman days, you can make a mistake early and you're just going to pay for it. On the bright side, when you're talking about a 15 hour day, there's always opportunities to recover.

**** - (): Yes. You cannot afford to get yourself in too big of a hole. And I do think it's just about having a system in place for nutrition, for hydration that you're following like a check, check box, like a robot. So just interested to get some, some more detailed comments from you on the nutrition side of things.

**** - (): And you know, should we be writing things down on the top tube? Should we have alarms on our watches? Like, what are some tips to make sure that. We've got a fueling strategy that's going to get us through a long day.

[00:27:15] - (): Justin Bowes: I, you know, as far as, you know, backing up for just a second and, and getting caught up in like the enthusiasm of, especially an event like Unbound, because that is like the center of dare I say, even the cycling world is focused on Emporia, Kansas on June 1st. You know, it's gotten so big that, you know, when you have teams like Ineos sending, you Cameron Worth over to check it out to see if it's even worth, you know, doing it's kind of a big deal, right?

**** - (): You know, you have Peter Sagan dropping in just to check out what's going on and things like that. So it's very easy, you know, that entire week leading up to the actual race day to get caught up in just the swell of, you know, excitement and, and things like that. And then as soon as that gun goes off. And you're surrounded by, you know, 3000 of your closest friends to go do 200 miles.

**** - (): Everybody wants to like be a part of it. And that's, that's like point number one of like, keeping your, yourself in check of just like, Nope, I lined up with, you know, the 14 hour crew or the 15 hour crew or whoever you line yourself up with. And that's who I'm staying with no matter what. And to that point, you know, it's easy to start talking with people and feeling good.

**** - (): And I always tell my athletes. You know, when, when they have a, you know, struggle with, uh, you know, completing a workout or not feeling like they did their workout, you know, the right way, we immediately go back to the nutrition and hydration, uh, question. It's those simple, low hanging fruit, um, aspects of, well, what did you eat?

**** - (): How often did you drink? And if it was an early morning ride, a lot of times, you know, they may have skipped breakfast altogether, or maybe just had like a slice of toast or a banana or something like that just to get them out the door because it was early. And while that used to be kind of. You know, common practice.

**** - (): Now we know that that's not the case and our bodies need way more fuel than what we originally thought. Um, and a lot of us used to train with. And so now it's, you know, make sure, you know, if that, if you means getting up, you know, an extra hour earlier to actually eat a breakfast, that's what you have to do, you know, and as, and, and with you, you know, as we get closer to the event.

**** - (): You know, we're gonna have to start practicing that early morning breakfast routine because you guys go off at 6:00 AM a lot of people aren't used to doing anything at 6:00 AM let alone embarking on 200 mile gravel race. And so, you know, practicing, you know, that fueling strategy ahead of time to, you know, wake, you know, the wake up time, the, you know, pre-breakfast, you know, was that coffee or tea or, you know, whatever it is.

**** - (): And then eating, you know, substantial breakfast. And then getting on the bike and as you're sitting in the corral waiting for the start eating again, you know, and so I like to tell, you know, my athletes, while it's a neutral rollout, it's, you know, it's neutral, it's not, but at the same time, it's, that's, that's another opportunity for you to like grab, you know, another bar, another gel or something like that to stick in your face.

**** - (): Um, because the more often that you can eat, the better off you're going to be because eventually you will get to that point where, you know, just through exhaustion and mental fatigue and physical fatigue and everything like that, it's very easy to stop eating and, and drinking, you know, you're just like, Oh yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll drink in five minutes, you know, or I'll eat again and you know, 20 minutes or something like that.

**** - (): Well, an hour passes and you didn't eat, you didn't drink, and then you're in the hole. And so the tips to help, you know, get the food in and the drinks in, you know, a lot now are our head units have alarms on them, uh, to set, you know, at different, you know, uh, time, uh, periods of like anywhere from 15, 20, 30, 45, however you want to do it.

**** - (): Um, To set reminders to drink or sip or eat or snack or however you want to do it. But for Unbound, you have to eat, you have to drink as often and as early as possible. And also for a big event like that, I like to recommend Real food early as much as possible. And when I talk about real food, it's like, you know, for myself, um, you know, my big ride that I had on Saturday, I make a double batch of pancakes, you know, a batch for me to eat for breakfast and then a batch to take with me on the bike.

**** - (): And I'm eating, you know, a pancake every hour with my drink mix and everything like that, carbs up. So whether it's pancakes or peanut butter and jellies or, bagels, or, you know, I'll get fancy some days and do like mini croissants and ham and apricot preserves, something like that, or pretzel roll with, you know, country ham on it, things like that, where your body can digest and get really good, you know, high, Call it high quality carbs and calories into your body early, because the longer we go, our bodies will then not be able to process that real food later on.

**** - (): And it's, that's when we start switching over to gels and blocks and the really simple sugar stuff, you know, the gummy bears, you know, things like that, um, to just keep the sugars coming and by eating the real food. earlier than you kind of stave off that flavor fatigue that you'll get from the gels and the drink mixes and things like that.

**** - (): Um, and if, if, you know, if your head unit doesn't have, you know, reminders on there, um, I'm a big fan of putting like, um, colored stickers on my handlebars and stems, um, from multiple of reasons, you know, but in this instance, it would be like, Hey, why is that orange sticker there? Oh, it's to eat. You know, why is that yellow one there?

**** - (): Oh, it's to drink. And so, you know, things like that. And then, you know, you hit the nail on the head. Make a little top tube or stem sticker, you know, decal with eat, you know, at this time, at this, you know, you know, make a little checklist for yourself to like run down and eat at, you know, six 30 at seven o'clock at seven 15, you know, whatever it is, just to remind yourself to, you know, constantly eat because.

**** - (): As you, as you're going to find out, those aid stations are few and far between in Unbound. It's not like your local races where they're staffed every 20 miles or something. You have two aid stations and two water oases. That's it. You know, and it's a long distance in between those.

[00:34:08] - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah, I've started, uh, on my long rides carrying my use way hydration pack and two water bottles just to kind of get into that routine of having that additional weight on my body and bike.

**** - (): Um, and that, that sort of pressure to keep hydrating, I definitely need and appreciated your comments on. The kind of food strategy, I definitely need to think a lot more about what's going to work for me. I've got a pretty strong constitution historically in terms of like, I can eat the same thing all day long, but I don't think I want to do that.

**** - (): Um, so I want to figure out like, yeah, what's, what is my strategy between real food and gels and what's going to be accessible? What's going to work. I've got plenty of questions on like, how the hell do I carry all this stuff? I know we've got a resupply point at one point, but I got to do the math and probably start, um, training with.

**** - (): That volume of, uh, nutrition on me just to get a sense, like, do I have the right places to put it on the bike and where, how is it going to be accessible? Cause nothing's worse than that alarm going off for a gel and it being in your backpack and the hydration pack and you can't reach it. And

[00:35:15] - (): Justin Bowes: yeah,

[00:35:15] - (): Craig Dalton: you got to think these things through

[00:35:17] - (): Justin Bowes: for sure.

**** - (): And that's, you know, that's, you know, why we do the gravel simulation rides or the race simulation rides to not only. Get our bodies ready for the duration and the intensity of the race, but also to get our bikes and equipment ready. So, you know, if you're using a certain tire wheel, you know, that's what we're going to use on our gravel simulation ride.

**** - (): Or I can't tell you the number of times where, you know, people are like, Oh yeah, I forgot where I put my tire plug and my CO2, you know, was it in my frame bag or was in my Jersey pocket, you know, and things like that. And to your point. You got to figure out where, you know, what pocket those gels are going in or what pocket the sandwiches are going in or, you know, whatever that may be and what that feels like, because we all know we have to stuff our faces.

**** - (): But we have a finite amount of room, you know, to put it all on because we also have to feel what that bike, you know, feels like over rough terrain, you know, it's one thing to have a really nice light bike, you know, in training, but when it comes to race day and you're not used to your hydration pack, you know, And all the food in all three pockets.

**** - (): And oh, by the way, where am I putting my emergency toolkit, you know, am I taping it to the frame or am I putting in a pocket or a bag and, and all of those things, and so, um, you know, I tell, I tell my athletes, you know, whether you eat at all or not. You know, at least train with it. So, you know, what that feels like, you know, so you know where to access it and what it feels like when you're climbing, because standing with a hydration pack and three pockets full of food, and if you're wearing cargo bibs and your legs are, Bunchy and, you know, bulging and things like that.

**** - (): You know, what does that feel like? And you don't want to show up for a 200 mile race and be like, that's the first feeling that you've ever had, you know, and it's, it doesn't set a great precedent for the rest of the day. A

[00:37:15] - (): Craig Dalton: hundred percent. This has all been super interesting. I want to jump into a couple of specifics around training.

**** - (): Okay. As we've worked together, as I mentioned, you know, I was, I was doing the sweet spot training through the app in. February. And then we started working together the last week of February, first week of March. Right. And I've been pretty consistent since then, knowing that I had this travel date coming up this week on April 3rd, where I'm going to be gone for about 10 days or two weeks of losing two weekends.

**** - (): And that was the big challenge I kind of put to you is like, Hey, I realized this is, I Really screwy. I need to figure out a way this, to make this work. And when we started working together, I started getting on these intervals and getting the consistency of the training program you were laying out. You know, one of the things that cropped up for me was like, gosh, I'm doing all these short intervals, definitely feeling stronger on the bike.

**** - (): There's no question about that. But I had this nagging feeling of like, am I going long enough? And we talked a little bit about this offline, but it's, it's Maybe just for the listener, just kind of lay out, like, how were you approaching this challenge of, Hey, we've got, I guess, three months to get ready.

**** - (): We've got a two week block in the middle where Craig's not available at all.

[00:38:37] - (): Justin Bowes: Yeah. So it was interesting because like I said, um, We've got a challenge here. You know, this wasn't like, Hey, a year from now, I want to do unbound 200. Um, I probably should, you know, think about getting ready for that. It's like, Hey, I'm doing unbound 200 and we're three months out.

**** - (): And so, um, that in of itself is, you know, a huge challenge just, you know, as, as an athlete to put that, put that on themselves to say, Hey, this is what I'm doing. Uh, but for a coach to hear that it's, it's like. Oh, man, how do we, how do we make that happen? And so, um, I was, I was confident. Um, I shared with you offline, you know, I worked with an athlete a couple of years ago and got her ready for unbound when, and we started working in January of that year to get her ready.

**** - (): She had done unbound before, so she knew it wasn't her first rodeo. So she knew what she was getting into. Um, but still, you know, for a 200 mile race. The 1st of June and starting in January, it's like, okay. And like, at least you had some fitness, her fitness had kind of like dipped way off. Uh, she had just kind of like taken the winter off and was just like, Hey, I'm going back to unbound.

**** - (): I heard you're a great coach. Can you get me ready? And so, you know, part of me was like, Challenge accepted. And then the other part was like, what did I just sign up for? And so I kind of had a little deja vu with you, Craig, um, when this popped up, uh, with you and with you and Frank. But yeah, getting back to your specific training, um, since you had some fitness coming in, Um, what I, how I wanted to approach this was I looked at it in kind of a couple different parts.

**** - (): One, the actual event that we're looking at, but then the main challenge of you being gone for a huge block of time in what I would consider pretty critical timeframe, um, for our training. And so it was kind of like, yeah, we, we definitely need some saddle time. We definitely need to build up to, you know, as close a distance as possible to get ready for, you know, 200 miles and, you know, likely, you know, anywhere from 12 to 15 hours, um, on the bike.

**** - (): So, but there's two weeks where he's not going to have access to actually riding. And so what, what can I do to. jumpstart the training. Um, and that's how I kind of looked at it. It was just like, okay, we gotta put the, uh, put the jumper cables on here and, and give it a jolt and, and see what happens. And so incomes, you know, our bread and butter at fast cat was, you know, our sweet spot training, um, and adding some intervals into those sweet spots as well.

**** - (): So that we're, we're tapping into all of your systems. Um, we're not just sending you out and doing, you know, four hour rides just for the sake of doing four hour rides just to get in, uh, training. That's, that's definitely an approach, but I feel like if we can touch on, you know, some sub threshold, a lot of sweet spot, um, and even some anaerobic work.

**** - (): In the weeks leading up into your two week, um, off period, then we're, we're really, really kickstarting your fitness to get ready for those longer, harder rides that we have planned for you once you get back. Um, and to let the audience know, you know, you're going to be doing a gravel training camp basically the week after you get back, you know, from being gone for two weeks.

**** - (): And so, um, we'll have a couple of active recovery days. after the two weeks off to kind of get you back into the swing of things. But then you're gone to just basically ride as much as you can, um, to build back up that fitness. Um, uh, that not, we're not losing it in those two weeks by any stretch, but it's taken a hit.

**** - (): And so we have to Start addressing the duration and the longer hours in the saddle. So yeah, I mean, looking back on your, your workouts, I mean, we, we've kind of hit it all we've done, you know, everything from 30 thirties to extended, uh, sweet spot, um, intervals, um, some threshold, um, anaerobic over and unders.

**** - (): Um, and for those that don't know what over and unders are, it's basically like a burst of power. For a short amount of time, you know, 20, 30 seconds, and then you settle into a sweet spot, um, or a tempo style, uh, zone for a while. And then you end it with like another, uh, burst of, uh, power at the end of that.

**** - (): And so a couple of things we're doing with that is not only, again, Trying to build up as much aerobic capacity as possible, but also getting you ready for those type of little punchy climbs that you're going to encounter out in the middle of Emporia, Kansas, to where you will have to put out power to get up and over those, but then you're going to get over them and then you're going to settle back into your, your tempo, your sweet spot type of zone.

**** - (): That's going to carry you on, you know, till the next, You know, climb is going, you know, that, that pops up. So that's kind of the thinking behind it. Um, you know, you work full time too. So it's not like you can just like, Hey, uh, give me six hour rides to do. If that was the case, it would look a little different, but because you have a life outside of this, um, we have to be very strategic with your training and take advantage of the time that you do have.

**** - (): And, you know, you do have, oh, you know, time on the weekends to get into longer rides and we've That's what we're doing. That's what we're taking advantage of but during the week when you have to be accountable to your other Other part of your life. We have to get in as much aerobic training as possible And that's what these type of workouts have been designed to do

[00:45:02] - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah, it's been super interesting transitioning from indoor training to outdoor training with the power meter and figuring out where I can get the work done.

**** - (): I live in a relatively hilly place, so sometimes it's taken me a bit to just figure out how long will it take me to get to this particular section of road. Where I can do the work required or, you know, go back and forth to do these intervals and make it all work. It's been fascinating. The other sort of funny takeaway for me has been, I swear, like last year, I probably, the, I, the only effort I would ever do would be going uphill.

**** - (): Right here in the Bay area. I mean, there's substantial effort required, but like if I was writing somewhere like writing to Nicosia or some loop around here, I was not writing purposefully at all. I was lollygagging. Like when I look at the power meter now, it's like every, every bit of the workout that's structured, like, I'm like, Oh, I'm actually putting effort in, even if it's like the easy.

**** - (): Period of the workout, right? Because it's all programmed. Right. It's just been fascinating to me and funny. Like I have a lot of chagrin about the whole experience to be honest.

[00:46:14] - (): Justin Bowes: Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, this whole thing has been interesting for me as well, because you know, not only like, you're kind of, you're kind of an anomaly in the sense of like, you've, you've done training in the past, right.

**** - (): With your Ironman background and everything. And it's not like you're some new cyclist, you know, Come lately and just like, this is what I want to do sort of thing. I'm going to hop on the bandwagon. That's not you at all. But to your point, the purposeful training hasn't existed, you know, for a long time.

**** - (): And then like, we're training for, you know, the biggest gravel race in the world. And then also it's like, I haven't been training with power and it's just like, I have to get some power meters. And it's just like, that's definitely going to help. And so, um, Yeah, you know, coaching you with, you know, understanding, you know, again, it's not like you live in a simple area of like, Oh, yeah, I've got an uninterrupted, you know, 30 minute spot that I can go and do intervals on.

**** - (): It's carless and it's flat. It's perfect. You know, it's like, no, you're like, I've got an hour climb this way. And I've got a 45 minute climb that way. And. You know, it's just like, how do we do this? And so, but then also like how, you know, not only coaching you on, you know, how we're going to get you ready, but then also like, how do you ride with power?

**** - (): Not just outside, but how do I ride with power outside? In my environment, you know, that is not conducive to, Oh yeah, I can do a five minute effort here. No problem. Or this over here is like the perfect loop to do my 20 minute test or, you know, anything like that. It's like, so it's, it's been interesting to say the least, but I mean, to your credit though, Craig, I mean, like when I, when I get the alert that your ride has been uploaded and everything.

**** - (): And I take a look at it. And then you, you do a really good job too, of, you know, of following up with comments, um, which note to everybody out there that has a coach, please make comments to your coach. Um, but you know, to be able to see, you know, what you did and you give me the context of, Hey, this is the route that I did.

**** - (): And, you know, I can take a look at it on the GP, uh, GPS file and see like, Whoa. Yeah. That was, A steep one or, you know, longer climb that what we expected, but, uh, you're handling the training. Amazing. Um, and you know, again, to the audience, you know, the purpose here, the last month is, has been to load you up, to load Craig up as much as possible with, uh, workouts.

**** - (): So when he goes into this two week time, it's actually like a recovery period for him to allow his body to soak up as much of the training as possible. Um, and so when he does get back and we do start piling on the hours, his body's ready for that. So.

[00:49:13] - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah, I've tried to, tried to stick to the plan , as you guys always say,

[00:49:17] - (): Justin Bowes: FTFP, ,

[00:49:18] - (): Craig Dalton: FTFP.

**** - (): One thing you had mentioned to me in our last conversation was that, you know, my, I forget whether, whether it's the fatigue score in training peaks or something, like we are running in a pretty hard deficit. Yes. And you would normally say like, he's gonna crack at some point. Right. But we, we've been riding, riding that edge and I, yeah, and I feel it, I mean, as an athlete, like I am.

**** - (): Still super motivated to get on the bike, even though I am feeling the fatigue, but I also do feel like I am somewhat on the razor's edge at times and I have to be really cautious about making sure I'm getting the proper rest and the proper fuel in me to kind of recover to go at it. So I am looking forward to.

**** - (): A little bit of time off in the next couple of weeks.

[00:50:02] - (): Justin Bowes: Yeah, I bet. No. Um, for those who are, are familiar with training peaks, um, he's talking about his form score or his TSB, um, his training score balance. And, um, a lot of, a lot of coaches, uh, subscribe to this and, you know, I've worn athletes, you know, once we get into that negative 20 to 25, That's like kind of the, those are when the alarm bells start going off of like, Hey, that's usually what we see at the end of a training block.

**** - (): Right. Um, of like a three week build, if we're doing it on that protocol of like, okay, we've gone as far as we really want to push. Um, now it is time for a recovery week, a regenerative week to just allow that, um, work to just soak in and allow your body to recuperate because, you know, in training, the basic training principles are, you know, we throw.

**** - (): stress after stress after stress at you and then your body adapts, adapts, adapts, and then we rest and then it does a full, you know, adaptation and it moves on to the next, you know, training load. And, um, for those who are keeping score at home right now, um, Craig finished the week, um, his CTL was 61, uh, his fatigue or his ATL was 107.

**** - (): And his form is a negative 42, um, leading into this week. Now, today he had a recovery day. He had a foundation stay where his, uh, mobility work, uh, he was off the bike. Um, tomorrow he does have one final threshold, uh, workout to do, but then he is. gone for the next two weeks. Um, and so, as we have it planned out, um, once he comes back, um, to, back home, he will be, his form will have risen back into the positive side with a form, his TSB will be at 28.

**** - (): Um, and so that's well rested and to the point of like, we start losing fitness, um, depending on the individual. Um, and so that's why it's a really, it's a great thing that Craig has this available that he'll be able to go away and do, you know, His own mini, uh, gravel training camp where he'll just have multiple days, you know, in the saddle and we're going to do it to the point.

**** - (): If you don't mind me sharing, Craig, we're going to do it to the point where, you know, we're going to stair step it in because he'll have four days. You have pretty much uninterrupted writing. And I see a lot of times mistakes being made when people go away for a training camp or a team camp or they get their writing buddies together.

**** - (): Hey, we're gone. We're away from home. We're away from work. We're just going to ride, ride, ride. And. Which is all well and good, but if you don't do it the right way, you can ruin your your camp like on day one. And you know, most people like, yeah, let's go smash a six, seven, even eight hour ride. Well, then they're shot for day two and day three.

**** - (): And they're just kind of on the struggle bus, the rest of the camp. And so, um, Craig and I talked, uh, on our last one on one meeting to, you know, stair step those rides so that, you know, day one, um, It's going to be a longer ride, you know, two hours, three hours. That's, that's great. But then that way for the next consecutive days, he can keep adding hours to it as opposed to just doing the biggest ride he can on day one and being torched the rest of the time, because that's not going to do him any good.

**** - (): We're not going to get anything out of this, uh, getaway. If we share ourselves in the foot on day one. So,

[00:53:50] - (): Craig Dalton: yeah, yeah, I'm excited, scared and all the above for, for may. I'm definitely excited to put in the long hours as I mentioned to you in a previous conversation. Like if I was planning this out, I basically would have put every single weekend.

**** - (): Longer and progressively longer distance and more brutal amounts of climbing across the three months remaining. So, you know, it's been, I definitely feel stronger as an athlete already from this approach. Definitely. I'm still concerned about my ability to get to a time volume level that makes me confident showing into the 200 unquestionably.

**** - (): It's, it's unknown. Territory for me. I think the longest I've ever ridden on a bike is 130 miles in a day so that, you know, there's a lot of gray area ahead of me, but I think that is not uncommon for recreational athletes hitting the unbound 200 for the first time. It's the first time for everyone.

[00:54:51] - (): Justin Bowes: And I mean, and to be honest, Craig, there's, there's not many, uh, professional or elite, uh, riders that are training.

**** - (): You know, over 150 miles, you know, and one pop, uh, to get ready for unbound. So you're, you're not alone. Um, but again, it's, it's, it's being strategic with our training and not just writing for the sake of writing. Um, we, we obviously want you to finish and we, and. You know, finishing is one thing, but I want you to enjoy the ride as well and enjoy the, just the environment and being there and being part of it.

**** - (): And if you're just completely gassed because we didn't train you properly, it's, it's just going to be a miserable experience from dawn to dusk basically. And you know, that doesn't do you any good and it doesn't do, you know, anybody any good to, to just, you know, suffer through something. Undeniably, you're going to suffer regardless of, you know, how we train everything like that.

**** - (): That is just a long day. I don't care who you are. Um, and, and it's all relative, right? You know, whether you're Keegan at the front of the race or the very last cutoff finisher, you know, that they keep from the, uh, the checkpoint, the final checkpoint. It's all difficult. Um, and so, um, I'm just trying to make it as less difficult for you.

**** - (): Yeah. Um, yeah, along the way. And

[00:56:17] - (): Craig Dalton: that's definitely one of, you know, one of my stated goals is I want to do it in a healthy way and feel, you know, it's going to be hard. It's going to be hard. It's going to be suffering, but I want to, you know, Enjoy the community. I want to enjoy the people I'm around and I want to get to the finish line and be able, you know, not be a shell of myself.

[00:56:34] - (): Justin Bowes: Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, one thing also, um, just real quick, I was thinking, you know, as far as like nutrition and things like that, Um, one thing I haven't shared with you yet, uh, Craig, is I have like a nutrition checklist, um, for your support staff to, you know, at the aid stations. Um, just, you know, suggested this is what you should have not only for Craig, but for yourself and, you know, for, for those who are doing unbound and you guys who are taking, you know, spouses or partners or teammates as, you know, support staff, um, look out for them as well.

**** - (): You know, they, they need to have. Like their own nutrition and hydration plan as well, because they're out there just doing nothing for a long time. And it's helpful just to, you know, think about, Hey, yeah, um, I should have like a couple of different varieties of drink and sandwiches or, you know, whatever their case may be.

**** - (): So

[00:57:33] - (): Craig Dalton: a hundred percent hats off to anybody who supports the athletes endurance events. I know Uh, supporting my wife's Ironman efforts. I felt like it was harder than doing them myself. Oh yeah. Just because you cut, you cut corners, you know, you're not thinking about that. You're actually on your feet all day as well.

[00:57:50] - (): Justin Bowes: Yeah. I know. I remember when Andrea did the Chicago marathon, like I ran from, you know, train stop to train stop so I could, you know, catch her at the different, you know, checkpoints. She thought maybe she'd see me once out on course, but there was like half a dozen times that, you know, you're just running around doing different, um, trying to get to different points on the course.

**** - (): So yeah. Tip your support staff for sure.

[00:58:19] - (): Craig Dalton: Amazing. Justin, thanks so much for the time this evening. Thanks for all your efforts on my behalf to date. Uh, it's been a pleasure working with you thus far, and I'm excited to get to that finish line together.

[00:58:32] - (): Justin Bowes: Oh, for sure. Craig, it's been awesome working with you and yeah, I'm equally as excited.

**** - (): Um, you know, it's, it's one thing for me to be training. You know, for my unbound, but when I'm training multiple athletes, you know, for, for unbound as well. And I just, I, I get, I, yeah, I I'm, I'm right there alongside them, you know, no matter what. Um, and you know, seeing you finish and complete your workouts.

**** - (): And when you, you feed me the comments of like, yes, I'm getting tired, but man, my. You know, my spirits are still high and ready to get on the bike tomorrow and, you know, tackle this next workout and things like that. That's just like a, a check along the way for me knowing that, you know, I'm helping you, you know, achieve something that you really wanted to do.

**** - (): And that's really exciting on my end.

[00:59:22] - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah. Fantastic. I know we'll be checking in. Maybe we'll do something again on the podcast. Um, cool. Yeah. But until I talk to you, Have a great night, Justin. Thank you.

[00:59:32] - (): Justin Bowes: Thank you again, Craig.