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Choose the Hard Way: Andrew Vontz on the Beauty of Doing Hard Things like Rasputitsa May 16, 2023

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🚴‍♂️ Get ready, gravel riders! In this episode of The Gravel Ride Podcast, we're joined by Andrew Vontz, a passionate podcaster (Choose the Hard Way) and OG gravel enthusiast (although he may refute this!). I asked Andrew to share his experience at the Rasputitsa gravel event, his journey discovering gravel cycling and how Choose the Hard Way came to be. 🌟 Come along as we explore Andrew's experiences at Rasputitsa, the lessons he learned during the event and how this all connects to his podcast 🏔️. Fueled by the joy of the ride, our conversation will reignite your motivation for cycling and choosing the hard way 💪. Episode Sponsor: Dynamic Cyclist (use THEGRAVELRIDE for 15% off) Support the Podcast Join The Ridership Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: [00:00:00]Craig Dalton: Andrew, welcome to the show. [00:00:03]Andrew Vontz: Hey, thanks for having me here, Craig. It's great to be back together after having you over on Choose The Hard Way. It was a blast. [00:00:10]Craig Dalton: I know I feel like we're, we're becoming fast friends and, uh, as podcasters, as contemporaries, as cyclists and how we discovered the sport and some of the cycling eras we've kind of gone through together. It's been fun. Talking to you on your podcast, which I wanna get into a bit a bit later. Um, but just sharing text messages and seeing and hearing about what you've been up to on your podcast. Really is what sparked this conversation you had made mention in your podcast about doing Rasa in Vermont? A gravel event that I'd had on the podcast. I had to check the date. It's going back to 2018, that I had Heidi Meyers on the podcast. So it was episode 12 of the Gravel Ride podcast for anybody who's going back in the feed and wants to listen to that. But it's an event that, you know, is super well regarded and super interesting. So long, long way of saying welcome to the show, Andrew. [00:01:05]Andrew Vontz: Thanks for having me here. And I would say, you know, I know we're gonna get there, but I would say Rasa is definitely one of the monuments of gravel generally in the entire world and certainly here on the East Coast. And I'm excited to share a bit about how I got dragged into, into doing it and what I learned. But you know, Yeah, I think this is the magic of the bike, right Craig? It brings people together. It, you know, you form these bonds and it, uh, it's really amazing the way communities and friendships form around the bike and the freedom it gives us and the places it takes us. And I think this is just another example of that and why I personally love the bike so much and always have. [00:01:47]Craig Dalton: Yeah, a hundred percent. I don't know if you've, you've done this event multiple times and we can get into that, but just going back to events year after year, it's kind of almost like summer camp. Where you see the same people, like maybe you have a crew that goes from your local community, but there's also the broader cycling community that you're like, oh, I rode with you. We were at the same pace last year, and friends you make on the road or trail, it's just such an amazing part of the sport. [00:02:12]Andrew Vontz: Yeah, absolutely. And this was my first time at Rasa and I may have mentioned this. When I had you on Choose the hard way, but I really felt like I had hit the point of kind of being retired from big gravel as I, I would call it, um, the kind of like these marquee bucket list events. And I definitely, I'll explain why when we get into it and what ended up happening when I, I got there to one of these big bucket list events. But it was definitely an exciting and interesting experience for sure. [00:02:43]Craig Dalton: where did you grow up and how did you find your way to the bike originally? [00:02:47]Andrew Vontz: Yeah, I grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, and the bike found me, I didn't find the bike. Uh, a bike showed up one day. My cousins, Jason and Grady had an old Schwinn Stingray. I'm dating myself here, but it was a green sparkle, Schwinn Stingray with a sparkle banana seat, which at the time that I received this bicycle, which was a secondhand bicycle. They just showed up one day and they're like, Hey, here's this bike for you. This is, you know, this is your bike now. It's a very exciting moment in my life when I got this bike, uh, it was not, uh, the style of bike that other kids were riding. Most kids were riding B M X bikes. This is like the era of et if anybody remembers that, like the B M X bike with ET and the basket. Nonetheless, I was just loved the bike. I loved getting on. It. Started out like everybody else on training wheels. Then they came off. Went from there onto other bikes and then when I was about, did a lot of, you know, playing around with B M X freestyle when I was a kid, skateboarding, and then got into geared bikes in probably 1988 or 89, and then Lamont's victory at the tour in 89 really helped me to fall in love with the idea of riding geared bikes because at the time I, uh, certainly was not great at it. [00:04:09]Craig Dalton: And how did you find your way to those geared bikes? I mean, obviously like at that point, I don't know where you are chronologically in your age, but um, you know, you have to be able to afford the bike. You have to make a decision. Am I gonna buy one of these early mountain bikes, which you start hearing about in, in the late eighties, or am I gonna get a drop bar bike? [00:04:26]Andrew Vontz: Yeah, exactly. For me, the path to all of those things was standing behind a lawnmower and pushing it. Uh, you know, my dad got me out there in my neighborhood, not, and my mom, they were like, Hey, if you want money, if you wanna get a bike, go knock on some doors and mow some lawns. So that's what I did, and that's actually what I ended up doing for about the next decade. I started a lawn business called The Yard Barber. Eventually my good friend Nicholas Crump, became my partner. We merged two companies. Uh, that was my first experience in m and a at a young age. And, um, yeah, but lawn mowing really is what fueled my, uh, my passion for cycling. We had a family friend, pat Twin, and she was into triathlon, which in Kansas City was a pretty bizarre thing at that time and place, but she was an early adopter. And she took me out on one of my first rides on geared bikes. I took my mom's Shwe Morado, which was pink and had flat bars. And my dad had gotten that for my mom for Mother's Day. When I was, maybe, I'm gonna say like 11 or 12, I started riding around on this bike. I went out on a ride, uh, with Mrs. Twitter. She graciously kind of introduced me to the world of geared bikes. And then on that ride, We came up to an intersection, I wasn't paying attention, and I rode into the back of her bike, and that was my first experience of being yelled at on a bike ride, which was totally appropriate. [00:05:51]Craig Dalton: That's the way you learn. I definitely came up in that the school of no one's gonna give you anything when you start riding with them, and they're gonna sort of treat you with a little bit of disdain until you learn the rules of the road. [00:06:04]Andrew Vontz: Yeah, that's certainly how it was during that time and place. And that's also, you know, how I learned how to move around in a pack and ride in a group safely and not hurt anyone, uh, or myself too badly. Only sometimes. [00:06:18]Craig Dalton: And was there a point in which you got drawn into some sort of competitive cycling activity? [00:06:22]Andrew Vontz: Yeah. I always, you know, ever since I saw Lamont on the shops of, in 89, I always had this fantasy of. Competing at cycling and honestly, when I was a kid and I got my, my first, my own first gear bike, which was a trek, I think it was like a Trek 400 touring bike, I soon realized, oh my gosh, this thing has three chain rings. I'm not that cool. I have a touring bike. Then I ended up getting awin circuit, um, that I saved up lawn mowing money and purchased, which had a double crank set. Started doing some stuff with the Kansas City Bicycle Club, met some mentors and. You know, I, I would not say that I had a world tour engine Craig, but I had a lot of fun and it was just something that I always had a passion for. I became kind of obsessed with cycling through print cycling media when I was a kid, started following that winning magazine. If anyone out there is of our vintage, they might remember that Bella News. And from there is, you know, doing a little bit of crit racing. Got into mountain biking, started doing a lot of mountain bike racing, not at your level, um, but just some amateur stuff around the Midwest. And it's just always been a part of my life ever since. It's been like a very core part of what I do. I once heard Chris Carmichael, uh, actually I was interviewing Chris Carmichael at one point and he talked about how he thinks about the bike and training. Is like a misk plus for his life. And I thought that's like a very apt description and it's, it's really kind of how I think about it. It kind of organizes everything else in my life and brings balance and a lot of joy and, and friendship and other benefits to me. I don't know how my family always feels about it, but you know. [00:08:11]Craig Dalton: You cycling also played a role in some of your professional, your early professional life as well. I think it's important just to kind of set the stage with that as well. [00:08:20]Andrew Vontz: Yeah, for sure. So, like a quick thumbnail on me professionally, I, uh, I moved to California. I moved to LA to get an MFA in creative writing. While I was doing that, I started freelancing for magazines. I quickly found my way to challenge publications located in Canoga Park, California. Uh, they had a publication called Mountain Biking. I started working there for, I believe, $8 an hour as an intern. So that was like, Uh, that wasn't my first, uh, paycheck as a writer. My first paycheck as a writer came from Vice Magazine, which was a print publication at the time. I started working at Mountain Biking. I did that for about a year, and then I moved on to be a freelance journalist for about a decade. Wrote for outlets like Rolling Stone, the Los Angeles Times Outside Magazine. Broadly, I wrote about people, places, and things at the limits of human experience. There was some cycling mixed in there over the years. I, I wrote about the tour to France for a couple of tours. Did daily commentary for Fox Sports on their website, and a number of other cycling related things. But cycling wasn't the core focus, but it was always something I stayed really in touch with. I also, in LA I was really involved in. There was a community called Midnight Riders that's started taking off. It wasn't critical mass, it was more just like people getting out on bikes and having fun doing themed rides. So I was doing that a lot for a long time. From that started with like a dozen people and I was there from like a dozen people to several thousand over the years. And then I also had a foot in the world of crit racing and doing other stuff. Later I would be the head of content at T R X, the human performance company started by Randy Hetrick, the former Navy Seal. And then I was at Strava for seven years where I was a communications executive and oversaw media relations, public relations, crisis communications and crisis management and public policy. And um, and then I decided to leave Strava a little over a year ago. I have my podcast, choose the hard way. I'm also the co-host of Beyond the Peloton with Spencer Martin, a pro cycling analysis podcast. And then I also do some strategic narrative consulting and advising. And I'm actually like everyone in tech, I am now working on a startup, um, with David Ls, who is a, uh, fellow executive at Strava. We're working on something we're really excited about, not quite ready to share with the world. [00:10:50]Craig Dalton: Nice. Well, you have to come back and tell us about it at some point. [00:10:53]Andrew Vontz: absolutely. [00:10:54]Craig Dalton: So at some point along the way, you've, so you've discovered, uh, road riding, crit racing, mountain biking. Did, when did gravel racing come into the fold, and what type of events had you pursued previously? [00:11:06]Andrew Vontz: Yeah. So I started, I became fascinated with gravel racing around 2005, and that's when I became aware of guitar, Ted and Jeff. Kurt Covey, who was at the time a bike shop employee in Iowa. Those guys started an event that your listeners are probably familiar with called Trans Iowa. And I thought, wow, this is just completely nuts. And when I was growing up, I'd always heard about Rag Bri. I ended up, uh, doing Rag Bry twice. I rodee a feature story about it for Bicycling Magazine in the early two thousands. So there was always. You know, people think about the epicenters of cycling community in the United States as being Boulder, Colorado, the Bay Area. I mean, later I would learn. Los Angeles has a pretty unparalleled cycling culture and community in my view, as well as access to such a huge variety of terrain. But the Midwest also has this huge cycling culture and, and. Has, you know, for a very long time, and this kind of like d i y ethos that Jeff and Guitars had had putting this event together, people going out and doing this thing that just seemed really inadvisable and the manner in which they were repurposing terrain that I think a lot of people think about as just kind of dull. Uh, and turning it into something really interesting and like this Grand, grand adventure that really captivated my imagination. I wrote about that for Mountain Bike Magazine. I was a contributing editor for a while in the mid two thousands. Interviewed Jeff and then just kind of in the back of my head for the longest time. I was like, I really want to go and try one of these things. Fast forward. I was doing whatever. I was training, I was doing a little bit of racing, and then I heard about the event that at the time was known as Dirty Kansas, and I just felt this gravitational pull. I was like, I gotta go try this thing. I'll also tell you, Craig, I never had any interest in doing the full 200 mile version of that event. I, I know that people have a lot of passion for it, but for me that was just like the far side of something that would actually be fun. So I ended up doing the, you know, the half pint, which is advertised as a hundred, was actually about 105. I first did that in 2013. It was amazing. It was an incredible event. I was so naive about what the event might actually be like. I over prepared. I actually had a physical compass. In my bag because it was like on, it was on the gear list. It's like you have to have a compass and lights and all this stuff. And I was like, I don't know. Do they, are they gonna check my bag before I start? I had no idea. And so that was kind of my. First introduction to the world of Gravel. I've been doing a lot of cross racing at that time, and then I trained for that event. I went there, uh, with my then girlfriend, now wife, Molly. She was my support at the halfway point, and she ended up waiting a very long time because, The signage was not the world's best at that time. At, [00:14:20]Craig Dalton: But you have the compass, Andrew, you have [00:14:21]Andrew Vontz: yeah, I know I had the compass. I should have taken it out because at mile 20, I turned left onto the 200 mile course and realized about 20 miles later I was not on the correct course. I had to backtrack. So I had a very, you know, I think I did what, 135 or 140 miles that day. And I was li…

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Gearing Up: Exploring milKit's Collection of Innovative Bike Tools with Pius Kobler May 09, 2023

Show notes

Hey listeners! Are you a bike enthusiast always looking for better products to improve your riding experience? Then you don't want to miss this latest episode featuring Pius Kobler, founder of milKit. Pius Kobler's passion for cycling started during his childhood in Switzerland where he grew up riding bikes and joining his family on biking holidays. He studied mechanical engineering at university in Zurich, and his love for biking took him on various long-distance rides and expeditions, including one from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. Pius worked for a design bureau that provided product development and design services for companies in the bike industry, such as Scott and BMC. Then, during a bike trip across the US, he got a flat tire in Colorado due to the dried-out tubular tires caused by the heat. This incident inspired him to create milKit, a company that offers a tire sealant solution that allows cyclists to check the amount and quality of the sealant inside their tires. The importance of maintaining the sealant in tubeless bikes is emphasized; still, many bike owners neglect to check their sealant levels regularly. Pius came up with a valve system with a rubber foot that allows the air pressure to remain in the tire when checking the sealant levels. The technology allows for easy maintenance of tubeless bikes and prevents sealant from spilling out. But it doesn't end there! Pius also created the GTA Booster, a portable aluminum drinking bottle that helps push the tire bead out to the side and secure it in place. The booster delivers more air in one second than a compressor and is efficient in changing and installing new tires. But that's not all; milKit's product line now includes additional consumables like rim tape and sealant that have unique features making them an essential tool for all bike enthusiasts. The company has also released a multi-tool with storage compartments for the plugs and other functions like a chain breaker. The latest trend in bike segments is having quick and easily accessible solutions, and Milk Kit has developed a solution in a compact way. The kit is super light and can be strapped to the bike or screwed to the frame. Craig Dalton had a pleasure talking to Pius Kobler, who designed milKit systems with thought behind them. Don't miss this exciting episode - tune in now to hear all about Pius Kobler and his innovative products! Visit milKit online Episode Sponsor: Hammerhead Karoo 2 (use code: thegravelride) 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. This week on the show. We welcome Swiss-based founder and rider PS cobbler to the show to talk about his company. Milk it. And the system they've developed. Around tubeless tires and a brand new product that they've created. To support that system in the form of a multi-tool. I happened to meet PS on the trail, on a group ride. I went on. Last week as he was in town for seawater classic. And we got to chatting about his entrepreneurial journey and his rider first perspective of design. And I thought it'd be great to have him on the show. And I was fortunate to grab him on a Friday night over in Switzerland. To talk more about the company and the company's journey and some of the products I know you'll get value out of being aware of. I encourage you to check out some of the links on the show notes as some of the nuances of the product design, maybe best seen in a video. If you're watching the video of the podcast, you'll see PS reference and hold some of his products in his hands. As part of the conversation, but detailed videos are available on the website, which is over at milk it's dot bike. Before we jump in, I do need to thank this. Week's sponsor hammerhead, hammerhead, and the crew to computer have been longtime sponsors of the show. As you know, The crew too, is the most advanced GPS cycling computer available today with industry leading mapping navigation, routing capabilities that set it apart from other GPS options out on the market. Over the course of my conversation with PS, we talk a lot about rider oriented design hammerhead, and the team over a crew to definitely take that perspective. And they're constantly. Updating their products with bi-weekly software updates. There's nothing cooler to me on the hammerhead crew to then. Getting that notification. That a software updates available because I know they're adding things. That are going to be of interest to me. Whether it's today or down the line. One of the biggest updates I received that I love is the climber feature, which has predictive path technology. Which basically shows you what's ahead of you on a climb. While that may not necessarily be important on your daily routes for me when I'm doing an event or I've borrowed a route from someone that I've never done before. I'd love. Knowing is this a short, punchy climb ahead of me? Or do I really need to settle in for a longer climb? For a limited time offer our listeners can get a free heart rate monitor with the purchase of our hammerhead crew to simply visit hammerhead.io right now, and use the promo code, the gravel ride. At checkout to get yours today, this is an exclusive limited time offer. So don't forget to use the promo code. The gravel ride. Simply add that heart rate monitor, strap to your purchase cart. When you're checking out on the e-commerce system. At hammerhead.io, use the promo code. The gravel ride and that heart rate monitor will be yours for free. With that said let's jump right into my conversation with ps cobbler PS welcome to the show. [00:03:39] Pius Kobler: Thank you. [00:03:40] Craig Dalton: You have the honor of being our first Swiss guest, [00:03:43] Pius Kobler: Oh, I'm very honored. Yeah. [00:03:46] Craig Dalton: and how cool was it that we got to ride together [00:03:48] Pius Kobler: how cool [00:03:49] Craig Dalton: prior to recording? [00:03:50] Pius Kobler: other like three days later across an ocean? Yeah. [00:03:54] Craig Dalton: Yeah, I love it. You know, I'd, I, as I mentioned to you on that ride, I'd been familiar with the, the Milk IT brand and some of the products specific to the, the Tire Sealant solution, um, for a number of years. But I'm, I'm curious to kind of just step back and learn a little bit about. More about you and then the formation of the company. Cuz as the listener of this podcast knows, like, I'm super keen on the entrepreneurial ideas and, and journey as an entrepreneur myself. So let's start off by kind of where you grew up and how you discovered the bike. And then we'll get into how you decided to form this company. [00:04:28] Pius Kobler: Yeah. Yeah. I grew up in Switzerland and I was always a cyclist, like I cycled to school. What's that? Um, 12 miles every day. Two ways. So, so when I was 14 or so, so yeah. And then with my family, we always went on bike trips in holidays. I, I, I literally grew up on bikes more or less. But then man, biking came quite late. I, I, I started Mecca Mechanical Engineering at, um, et h Zurich here. And after studying, I. Um, took my recumbent and rode it from Alaska to Te del Fugo for one and a half years. So I've been cycling a bit. [00:05:09] Craig Dalton: You spent some time on a bike. I see. [00:05:11] Pius Kobler: Yeah, I was, I was in in the Bay Area earlier already passing through. Yeah. And, [00:05:19] Craig Dalton: That's interesting. You know it's funny when you even mentioned the word recumbent as a style of bicycle. That's in my mind, that's such an engineering type vehicle. Why did you choose to tour on that? [00:05:30] Pius Kobler: the perfect nerd in personification, uh, that you can have sometimes as in the US it was most fun. We were getting off recumbent and people go, oh, but you are not handicapped. Why would you, why are you riding one of these? [00:05:47] Craig Dalton: Yeah. And, and not, not, and not to derail the conversation too much, but is, is it from an engineering perspective, is riding a recumbent sort of mechanically or aero aerodynamically better for long distances than other style bikes [00:06:02] Pius Kobler: There is no, no doubt. No. [00:06:05] Craig Dalton: Really? [00:06:05] Pius Kobler: so much for long distances. There is no discussion actually, but nobody knows and, and everybody thinks that they can't be good because then more people will be doing it. You, you don't have any. Pain in your wrists, neck, uh, butt. Wherever you, you have a relaxed sitting position. You have a third less wind drag. You have several of these advantages. You have a lower, um, center of gravity. You have a much better curve stability. You have a longer wheel base, more stability. But then the main, the main factor for me is, You are, you have a completely different way of sitting on the bike. It's not, you're not sitting like this and staring on the road in front of you. You're sitting like this open, you like, like on a couch riding through the countryside. You know, it's for traveling by far the best. But I would never use it in a city or so, like daily life. I don't have one. You know, I, I sold it after I traveled. [00:07:03] Craig Dalton: That's so interesting yet. So off topic for this podcast. [00:07:07] Pius Kobler: Yeah, this was the perfectly wrong start for this, for this episode. [00:07:11] Craig Dalton: Right. And then, you know, I feel like now there's this, uh, potential that a listener isn't imagining you being some nerdy bike nerd on a recumbent yet. My interaction with you was on a mountain bike where you tackled every complicated shoot that we came in front of on Mount [00:07:30] Pius Kobler: rich in Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. [00:07:34] Craig Dalton: Great. Okay, so we, we've, we've established engineering degree. We've established you spent a lot of time on a bike. This is a big leap, leap before, you know, between getting an engineering degree and obviously looking at bicycles from a mechanical engineering perspective, and then starting a company. What was the journey like to that point? [00:07:55] Pius Kobler: Yeah, basically when I came back, I, I haven't, I haven't done kind of performance cycling. It was always holiday or, or work or whatever, traveling. But when I came back, I was in, in okay shape, let's say, and a body of mine was in man biking. So I joined him for some longer rides. And that's how I got into man biking only after I did that trip. And, um, Basically I, I started working, that's the coincidence that led to things. I started working in a, in a company that, it's a design bureau, you could say it's a, they, they do product development and design as a service for large companies. We, you could say we were professional inventors, uh, uh, and we were, we were developing products. For many companies in the bike industry as well. Like we were working for Scott for B m c, for, for these brands here in Switzerland among others. And we were, um, a group of bikers in that company. So one thing led to another and, and what made the. The, the deciding point for for to go into tubeless was basically a, a bit later, after that long trip, I, I had the chance to take an unpaid leave for eight weeks and. Go to the us, buy a van and drive it from one I M b A epic ride to the other for eight weeks, which was amazing. I might have ridden more trails in the US than most Americans, you could say. Here. [00:09:31] Craig Dalton: I bet you have. [00:09:32] Pius Kobler: Yeah. No, that that was really, really good. But the not so smart part about it is W we were going to Colorado and Utah in July, which is not the right moment. It's like 120 degrees or so over there. So we was a bit warmer that than we were used to. And. We ended up with a flat because our tubeless tires were completely dried out because it was so warm. And so I, I'm in the middle of nowhere, somewhere on the continental divide in Colorado with that dried out tire, putting a tube in what everybody hates when you write tubeless, you know, to take the whole thing apart and put the tube in. And that's when I, when I, when I. Started thinking, you know, I had few weeks more to go and which means a lot of time to think and, and I said, wait, if I'm me as a bike freak and, and, and tech developer, like, if I have this problem of, of not being able to maintain my steel and I should other people do it, you know, [00:10:37] Craig Dalton: And when you thought about that problem, p was it, it was, if I'm articulating this correctly, the problem was you just weren't aware of the level of sealant that was remaining in the tire. [00:10:49] Pius Kobler: I had no idea. I had no idea that it was just drying up faster because it was a bit warmer, you know? [00:10:56] Craig Dalton: Yeah. I and I, and I encourage, like everyone listening right now, think about your bike, think about the sealant, and think if you have any idea whether there's enough sealant in there or not. I can guarantee looking around my garage right now, I would say 80% of the bikes I have. They have to be bone dry. It's like without a question, but I don't know. And I'm a bit lazy to find out, right? Like, it's like if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But to your point, you get out there and you have the situation where sealant is a godsend, right? It steals that hole and it's not there. That's that. That's a problem. [00:11:35] Pius Kobler: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's basically we say if you split up bikers into people that ride tubeless and don't, then the ones who are ride tubeless, you can basically split them up into the ones who know that you have to maintain it and the ones who don't know and find it out a bit later. And then the ones who know how to maintain. They have to maintain it. Um, a good part of those things. Yeah. I'm always feeling a bit sealed in and it's fine, but the not, not so big part know that they should look at what, in what's inside. Like they should check the old sealant or get it out before they push in the new ones or you have a, a really good working sealant in there and, and yeah, [00:12:19] Craig Dalton: Yeah. So you, you sort of recognize, you recognize this problem, which when you articulated is pretty obvious, I think, to us. All right, we, no one wants to look inside their tires. What's the solution? How do you go about solving that problem? [00:12:33] Pius Kobler: Yeah, that, that was, uh, as, as often in product development. It, it was a step by step process where, where first we had the idea we need to drill a second hole into the rim to somehow look in there and then, Refill through the valve, and then eventually we, no, we are not gonna have a second hole. We have to make it through the hole that's already there. So eventually we were going through the valve, but then we still had a, because the, the first thing you think about is a dipstick. You know, you need to, to go in and check the sealant, and then you fill and then, By coincidence, like by using it, by having prototypes realized weight. And, and maybe at this point I should explain the, the whole valve. Basic…

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Matt Kadey Unveils the Ultimate Canadian Coast-to-Coast Bikepacking Route May 02, 2023

Show notes

Have you heard of the Great Northern Bikepacking Route? Uncover the origin story of the Great Northern Bikepacking Route with founder Matt Kadey. Matt will walk through the vision for the first West to East Cross Canada Bike Packing route. Through 10 provinces and a brief sojourn into the U.S., the GNBR covers a whooping 8700 miles. Like all bikepacking routes, GNBR will evolve over time and local contributions are encourages to continue to improve the route.

The Great Northern Bikepacking Route Website

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Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos:

In this episode, you will be able to:

Unearth the fascinating tale of the Great Northern Bikepacking Route's conception.
Embrace the sheer beauty, multifaceted trail systems, and wide-ranging terrain difficulties to expect on this adventure.
Gain valuable insights regarding the accessibility, security, and services availability for a well-rounded experience.
Probe the grueling provinces and exceptional trail characteristics that set this route apart from others.

My special guest is Matt Kadey

Meet Matt Kadey, an accomplished bikepacker who has made it his mission to design the ultimate off-road adventure by connecting Canada's diverse landscapes through the Great Northern Bikepacking Route. His dedication to creating an engaging and challenging experience for fellow bikepackers has resulted in a route that encompasses 8700 miles across ten provinces. Matt's expertise in route planning and collaboration with local riders ensures that adventurers can enjoy a memorable and ever-evolving journey across Canada's stunning terrain.

The resources mentioned in this episode are:

Visit the Great Northern Bikepacking Route website (greatnorthernbikepackingroute.com) to explore the 8,700-mile route across Canada.
Join regional bikepacking Facebook groups to connect with local riders for input and suggestions.
Utilize Ride With GPS as a user-friendly platform for plotting and editing bikepacking routes.
Consider a more rugged bike setup for tackling the diverse terrain of the Great Northern Bikepacking Route, as seen on bikepacking.com's Rigs of the Divide or other similar races.
Reach out to Matt Kadey and offer input or suggestions for the Great Northern Bikepacking Route, particularly if you are familiar with specific segments.
Keep an eye out for future alternative route options on the Great Northern Bikepacking Route website, offering more manageable options for some sections.
Explore bikepacking routes in your local area, such as the BT 700 in Ontario, to gain experience and build up to longer routes like the Great Northern Bikepacking Route.

Bike Selection for the Route The Great Northern Bike Packing Route encompasses various terrains and conditions, challenging riders to be prepared for anything. As such, choosing the right bike for the adventure is crucial. Matt Kadey recommends a sturdy setup similar to those used in long haul bikepacking events like the Tour Divide, Silk Race, or Moroccan Atlas Race. In the episode, Kadey explains that while some sections of the route can be navigated on a traditional gravel bike with 700x38 tires, other areas require something more robust due to rocky, trail-heavy, and sharp descents. His practical advice helps riders better prepare for the upcoming journey and ensures they have an enjoyable and safe experience.

Segmenting the Route To make the Great Northern Bike Packing Route more accessible to a broader range of cyclists, Matt Kadey has divided the route into individual province and state segments that can be tackled separately. This innovative approach allows cyclists to experience the beauty and challenges of the route at their own pace without feeling overwhelmed by the sheer distance of the entire project. During the podcast, Kadey talks about the difficulty of piecing together existing bikepacking routes and finding the best off-road stretches to connect them. He mentions using local riders and Facebook groups for advice and direction, as well as employing the Ride With GPS platform to make changes and edits to the route easily. This collaborative process demonstrates his commitment to creating the best possible experience for all cyclists.

Bypassing Problem Areas During the development of the Great Northern Bike Packing Route, Matt Kadey acknowledged some potentially dangerous areas that warranted bypassing. One example is a stretch of road in northwestern Ontario that is heavily trafficked by trucks. To avoid this treacherous section, he discovered an existing bikepacking route through Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Kadey discusses incorporating this southern United States route into the Great Northern Bike Packing Route, thus bypassing the hazardous area and ensuring rider safety. His proactive approach to addressing problem areas further emphasizes his commitment to creating a remarkable and enjoyable cycling adventure for all riders.

Andrew Juskatis - Giant Bicycles and the Giant Revolt X Gravel Bike Apr 25, 2023

Show notes

This we sit down with Andrew Juskatis from Giant Bicycles to discuss the Giant Revolt X gravel bike. With 50 years in the bicycle business, Giant brings massive engineering and manufacturing resources to the sport. The Revolt X model features front suspension matched with a compliant rear end and dropper post. Sounds like my kind of ride! 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. This week on the podcast. We welcome Andrew. from giant bicycles to the show. Andrew is a global product marketing manager. And had a hand in the launch of the new revolt acts, gravel bike. I have to say after I saw former Gaston friend, URI has walled. Old riding this new giant bicycle where the RockShox suspension fork on it. I couldn't resist reaching out to the team at giant to learn a little bit more. I'd been curious as to when we'd start to see larger manufacturers bring suspension forks into the gravel bike world. I know it is a topic. That many of you feel very passionately one way or the other about, but I thought it would be interesting to talk to Andrew about that decision and how they see the market evolving. Giant is a close to 50, maybe 50 plus year old company. That's been producing bikes for many, many other brands, as well as developing their own brand. Back in the eighties, they've got a huge amount of research and development and organizational strength in the engineering department. So it was exciting to talk to them about what they were seeing with this bicycle. Obviously they have models available. With, and without that rock shock, we talk about the revolt X model as well as one of the other models that shares a similar chassis, but not an identical chassis. And we'll get into why giant was uniquely capable of producing something specific. For running a suspension fork versus just slapping something on the same bike or the same frame that they had produced for the non suspension. Model. Anyway, I look forward to you listening to this conversation, Andrew and I are contemporary. So we share some stories about our early experience in the mountain bike market and the evolution of that market. And some of the parallels were. We're seeing in the gravel world. With that said, let's jump right into my conversation with Andrew. Andrew, welcome to the show. [00:02:29] Andrew Juskatis: Hey, thanks for having me, Craig. [00:02:31] Craig Dalton: It's good to, good to have you. I'm, I feel like I've been wanting to have someone on from Giant for a few years now, and I couldn't resist reaching out through my friend Yuri Oswald, who just started riding for Giant u s A. Uh, when I saw the new Revolt acts, it seemed like too, too much of a bike that was right up my alley not to get someone on the show to talk about. [00:02:53] Andrew Juskatis: Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's, it's a new launch for us. It just came out this February. Um, so it's still new, it's still hot, and it's an interesting product from Giant. [00:03:02] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah. Before we dig into that, let's just get a little bit about your history. Where, where did you grow up and how did you discover the bike, and ultimately, how did you end up working in the bike industry? [00:03:13] Andrew Juskatis: cow. That's a long story, but I will try and make it short for you so, I'm coming up on 50 years old. I've been riding and racing bikes, specifically mountain bikes since I was 14 years old. I grew up in Southern California. I started ri erasing and then riding, you know, around 87, 88. So I've, I've been through the f almost the full trajectory of mountain biking as, as a result of that, my love and for cycling has grown. So Southern California. Um, you know, went to college at University of Utah and just absolutely fell in love with the sport of mountain biking. But out of that, I took my first job, um, working for cycling publications. So over a period of nine years, I worked for five different magazines starting in 1996, working for Mountain Biking, mountain Biker Bike Magazine, bicycling, and then eventually finished off my tenure at Venu and throughout the entire. I was the tech editor for all those publications. I did a lot of product testing, um, and, and had a pretty good gig doing all that, but it was 2004 when I was an editor. I flew from Colorado out to Southern California to be a guest at Giant Bicycles when they were introducing their maestro suspension technology. And I remember specifically as an. Riding that product, meeting the people behind the product and saying, Hey, giant has something going on for it. Like this is legit. Not only is this technology legit, but the people behind it are serious about what they're doing, and it really put, honestly put Giant on my radar for what is going to be my next job. Lo and behold, position opened up in their marketing department in 2005. I took the job at Giant, and here I am, what, some 18 years later. On the other end of the stick here, talking to editors around the world. [00:04:58] Craig Dalton: Amazing. I love that we're in the same age range and went through sort of our coming up and mountain biking around the same time. I know we could probably share a lot of stories that might not be interesting to our gravel riding audience, but thanks for sharing that. And just for a little bit of context, can you just talk about the origins of the giant, uh, giant company and the giant. [00:05:19] Andrew Juskatis: Yeah, for sure. And for, for those listeners who aren't aware, you know, we're ob. OB obviously a legacy brand. We just celebrated our 50th anniversary. And again, another really long story short, the reason why giant exists is way back in the seventies when Schwinn was having its bicycle boom, Schwinn was manufacturing the great majority of their product. You know, here in the United States. They realized that they needed to expand, they needed to bring prices down to some more affordability. So they sent off kind of their Lewis and Clark guys over to Asia to source out, uh, bicycle manufacturing over in Asia. And one of those guys ventured over to Taiwan, which at the time wasn't. Producing anything to do with bicycles and fortuitously stumbled across a fledgling little company, manufacturing company called Giant at the time. Um, at the time they were not making bicycles, but had the capability to do so well. Long story short. Giant became the main manufacturer of Schwinn bicycles kind of in the, in the late seventies there. And so they were pumping out the great majority of Schwinn bikes that maybe our parents grew up with, or we grew up as, grew up with as kids. That grew and grew and grew. The manufacturing business continued to improve. The factory got bigger and bigger. We got better at it. And then in the, um, early eighties, we started our own brand, and that's the brand that I worked for, which is Giant, that's the brand that most of your listeners are familiar with. So, early eighties on that, we started making our own product, unique product, own designed, um, manufactured and engineered by us. And that's the brand that we're talking about today. [00:06:55] Craig Dalton: I remember in the very late eighties selling a giant iguana or two on the mountain bike side. If I can name, drop that little bit of history to [00:07:04] Andrew Juskatis: Yeah, that's still a running joke I get all the time. What do you feed the Johnny Iguana? I, I love oldie, but goodie. [00:07:11] Craig Dalton: And I also remember obviously like, you know, in addition to that Schwinn product line that they were producing for many years, they then expanded to a lot of product for a lot of different manufacturers. And I remember sort of learning that as I was working in a bike shop on the East coast and realizing that, you know, of the seven brands that we were selling, it was three or four of them were actually produced in the same factory, um, via Giant, which was kind of interesting at the. [00:07:38] Andrew Juskatis: Yeah, for sure. So our manufacturing side of the business. Does produce bicycles for some other brands out there, but the great majority of of product that comes out of our factory is giant. And just to clarify, you know, anything that comes out of our factory is engineered and, and designed by that brand. So everything is unique. Like the giant brand is completely different than anything else that might come out of that factory. Um, but I'm here today to talk about, you know, giant product and the giant brand. So excited to get. [00:08:09] Craig Dalton: Yeah. And you know, as we trace back kind of the brand history as you've been there the last 18 years or so, obviously Giant is a full service brand, meaning they're doing everything from kids' bikes, Tor de France and you know, U C I downhill bikes across the product line. When you think about how the brand kind of approaches. Entire suite of product. Is it, does it, does it sort of come from the top down and you're trying to make the best product possible? Or is each, each kind of division kind of focused on like, oh, I'm trying to make an affordable bike, or commuter bike, or what have you, and really just trying to be best of class in the area that it's competing in. [00:08:49] Andrew Juskatis: Yeah, first things first is we make sure that we have the right people leading the right categories. From that, every one of those category managers, their goal is to build the absolute best in class for that. Whether it be, uh, a youth bike, whether it be a road gravel or mountain bike, we always wanna shoot for the top. Only after we have all those, these pieces in place, do we start thinking about price points. How do we want to, you know, what price points do we want to hit? We look at, maybe sometimes we'll look at our competitors and see what they're doing and see how we can, you know, beat them. But for the great majority of time, because our factory, we are the factory. We have the greatest buying power in the entire cycling industry. If you think about it. I mean, we buy more D R X T rear derailers than any other brand on Earth. So normally we're, we're always gonna get the best pricing out of that. We don't normally focus on pricing. You know, your, your, your listeners can certainly do their own shopping and, and look at different brands and different prices, but that's certainly something where we differentiate our categories. Um, how do we break it down? And that's something we can talk about when we talk about Revolt X. What are, what are the prices here in the United. [00:09:54] Craig Dalton: Yeah. I'm curious and excited given your tenure at Giant, just when you started to see like a gravel bike first emerge in the lineup, and obviously the date you dropped to me earlier I think was 2013. The category barely existed at that point. So I'm curious if you recall, like why was that bike created originally? [00:10:14] Andrew Juskatis: Yeah, that's a really good question. And I, I, I don't wanna say it was created by accident, but at the time, w. You know, the category managers, the marketing staff, we're in touch with the market. We ride a lot. It's our passion. So we're out there and seeing what, what people are doing. Gravel at the time from a mass production level really didn't exist. This is over a decade ago, like you just indicated. The consumers were, you know, maybe the, the elite that bleeding edge was kind of experimenting with, you know, taking a road bike and putting on the biggest tires possible and riding it in more aggressive terrain. I would say we caught onto that, that, that, that trend and it was, it was just a developing trend way back then. And we said, Hey, you know what, let's experiment. It seems like it makes sense. This might actually go somewhere. This, this might not be a fad. Like single speeding, right? Like that came and went for the most part. This actually has legs given the trends at the time of. Generally speaking, you know, road bike sales were just beginning to slump off. People might, might have started getting turned off a little bit about road riding just because of safety issues or just because of wanting to explore their terrain a little bit more than a traditional road bike could take them. Um, so it was kind of a culmination of a lot of a different events. Let us dip our toe in the water with the first Revolt series, and that was like over a decade ago. And looking back at the bike, looking at the geometry, looking at the max tire size, you know, I'm not gonna say it was wrong in every way, but it was an experiment, right? It was our first mass production toe dipped in the water, and we learned a tremendous amount from that first generation. So here we are today talking about our latest generation, which is the Revolt X, which as your listeners know, is a front suspension, gravel bike, and definitely happy to talk about that. [00:12:06] Craig Dalton: Yeah, it's so interesting. I feel like back in that 20 13, 20 14, 20 15, like there was this pocket of riders that weren't necessarily, you know, riding gravel. They were just happened to be riding on dirt roads or wanted a more durable drop bar bike for commuting. And so there was like enough of a pocket in there despite like. People wanting to use the bike for many different things. That type of bike made a lot of sense. And then, you know, as we moved forward into 20 15, 20 16, you started to sort of see this very much more specialized gravel event happen and people like really leaning into a gravel bike as a replacement for a road bike potentially in certain scenarios. So talk a little bit, if you can, at, at sort of a broad level. How you saw the revolt model evolve over those early years into, you know, 20 16 20 17? [00:13:00] Andrew Juskatis: Right. And so just like you indicated, Craig, you know, the, the racing scene at that time was. Just starting to bubble up more local events, little kind of underground events, but we, when we a, anytime we create a new product, we do ask ourselves. Okay. Is this product going to be raced or is this product going to be ridden? Is this for the adventure rider or is this for the guy, you know, shaves his legs and has the liker, uh, one piece kit on and is going, going for the number plate thing? So at that time we said no on racing, cuz racing really didn't seem like it was that big a deal. So the original revolt was geared more towards a. Was more towards exploration, was riding those b and C level roads, or even some, you know, all all, maybe at the time very light single track kind of stuff. But it was not [00:13:47] Craig Dalton: it originally a, was it a carbon bike originally? [00:13:50] Andrew Juskatis: no, no, no. Again, I, I would use the term experimental at the time, and so first generation, I think we talked about this a little bit offline, but committing to composite cutting molds. Is an entirely different thing than building an aluminum bike. Aluminum bikes obviously take a lot of engineering. There is a lot of technology in it, but the commitment level to building an aluminum bike from a, from a mass production standpoint is. Significantly less than…

Full show notes at the publisher

The Bovine Classic - Founder Bryan Yates walks us through the self described 4th hardest cow themed gravel ride Apr 19, 2023

Show notes

This week we sit down with Bovine Classic founder, Bryan Yates to learn more about the 2023 event. Run out of the central California town of Atascadero, the event highlights this unique part of California with its combination of wineries, rolling hills and views of the Pacific Ocean. Bovine Classic 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. This week on the show. We welcome Brian Yates, the founder of the bovine classic gravel event in California. Brian. And I got connected last year, which was the inaugural year of the bovine classic. And I was super excited about his concept. Super excited about the location of the event. Down there in the mid section of California by Morro bay and San Luis Obispo, being that closest major city to the event in arrest the Darrow. As you'll hear Brian has put together a course that highlights the rolling Hills, the larger climbs. The vineyards, the breweries, the single track. Everything you'd want to touch in that region. And packaged it all together for a great weekend for family and writers alike. As you'll hear the event has a couple of warm-up rides and shakedown rides in the days approaching it. And then four options of routes to explore the area, depending on how big of an appetite you have for gravel in that given weekend. The event happens in October. And I encourage you to check it out and I encourage you to listen to the conversation. I'm going to apologize in advance for a few technical hiccups we had during recording. I did my best to edit it down, but certainly didn't want to lose this conversation and wanted to make sure, obviously that everybody is familiar with the bovine classic. Before we jump in, I did need to thank this week. Sponsor hammerhead. And the hammer had Caru to computer. The hammer had crew two is the most advanced GPS cycling computer available today with industry leading mapping navigation and routing capabilities that set it apart from other GPS options. As Brian describes the course later in this podcast. I couldn't help, but think about. The climber with predictive path technology feature that hammer had rolled out last year. This is the type of feature that'll let you know. Are you facing, what are those 45 minute long climbs ahead of you? Or is it some of the punchy stuff that Brian will describe? I found that invaluable when going on routes that I hadn't been on before, because it just gave me, uh, the right mindset for approaching a longer climb or potentially trying to push a little bit. If I knew it was. Are rolling climb. That's just one of the many features I enjoy on the hammerhead. Kuru to hammerhead software updates and new feature releases allow your crew to, to evolve and improve. Ensuring that the device you get today will be even better tomorrow. I've got my personal device connected to both Strava and ride with GPS. I can import routes directly to the device. I can export routes. I can do everything that you'd want to do. I also just became aware since I'm borrowing an e-bike right now. That the crew too has a new e-bike integration that delivers detailed battery usage rights to your display. So I need to set that up. If I'm going to be hanging onto this e-bike for a little while. Right now our listeners can get a free heart rate monitor with the purchase of a hammerhead kuru two. Visit hammerhead IO. Oh right now. And use the promo code, the gravel ride at checkout to get yours today. This is an exclusive offer. So don't forget to use the promo code, the gravel ride. You'll get a free heart rate monitor with your purchase of the Karoo to computer. Just visit hammerhead. Dot IO today. Add both items to your card. Use that promo code and boom. The heart rate monitor price will disappear. With that said let's jump right in to my conversation. Brian, welcome to the show. [00:04:15] Bryan Yates: Craig. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. [00:04:17] Craig Dalton: Yeah, it's good to finally get you on the podcast to record and see you face-to-face. I know we first connected about a year ago, and it was gonna be the first year of the Bovine Classic, and there was a lot of unknowns. You hadn't done it before, so great to finally have you. [00:04:34] Bryan Yates: Yeah, it's great to actually earn my spot in the seat this time, [00:04:38] Craig Dalton: I'm sometimes sheepish about bringing first year events on that haven't actually happened yet because it's so much of an unknown. Um, not that I had those fears for you because I know in talking to you and just seeing the materials around the bovine classic, you were putting a lot of energy and intention. On making the event a success, but at least now we have 2022 behind us and we can talk about it in real terms and we can talk about what's changing and why people should be excited for 2023. [00:05:09] Bryan Yates: Well, let's be clear, I'm still PT baring this thing, right? It's still a lot of smoke and mirrors and a lot of just my enthusiasm. [00:05:16] Craig Dalton: Yeah, I mean, it seems like the first five years of any event, there's just a lot of learning that goes. Oh, [00:05:21] Bryan Yates: for sure. Yeah, for sure. I mean, we learned a lot. So [00:05:23] Craig Dalton: let's start off by setting the stage a little bit, Brian. Yeah, for sure. Let's set the stage where, where are you in California? Just to set the stage for the listener. [00:05:33] Bryan Yates: All right. I am exactly halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, so it is exactly the midpoint. We are about 17 miles inland from the coast, so. Cambria. Moro Bay is out on the coast, but those are our neighbor, neighbor towns. We're on the inland side where things look ranchy farming and Tuscan. And we're also, so our nearest big city is San Louis Obispo. [00:06:08] Craig Dalton: Got it. So stepping back for a second, how did you get involved with the idea of creating events? How did you get into cycling? I know there's a lot to this question, but I think it's important as so much of event organizing and course design is sort of a love letter to where you've been riding. So how did you arrive at this point and how did you get into gravel cycling? [00:06:30] Bryan Yates: Oh man, I love that question. That's like one of my favorite questions. So I, I was a really avid cyclist as a teenager. I was the kid who had, you know, spent all of his allowance on in the eighties, the $3,000 Italian bike. Right. And then, Uh, and then I, I, I left the sport behind for a lot of bad habits for a while, and came back. Came back, you know, like a lot of us do. I kind of popped my head up in my late thirties. What have I been doing? What have, and I came back to cycling, came back to racing. Uh, Racing, uh, cause I'm not very good at it. Right? Completely, uh, completely just above average. So I came back to that and then I'd been coaching, I started really coaching cyclists for about 10, 12 years. And had been deeply involved with a pediatric and pediatric cancer ride that I'd been the team director and Cocha for many years called PAB Bluff across America. And I'd been living in Los Angeles for, you know, a long time. And about four years ago, uh, my wife and I decided that. We were done with Los Angeles and that our careers were portable enough that we were looking for a place to move, and we ended up in this town called Atascadero, which is just below, uh, pastor Robles California. For those of you who know that, you know, basically what we're known for here is. It's essentially like the frontier land of Disney. It's sort of a flyover town. We have the mental hos state mental hospital and uh, it's an emerging, it's an up and coming emerging town. But we moved here and we were. Really welcomed by the community super fast, and I took a gap year that first year. Ended up riding my bike everywhere, riding all the time. In fact, we moved here and I dropped my bags and. I was taking a group of cyclists to New Zealand to go ride and I dropped my bags and said, I gotta go train cuz I'm gonna be riding like hundreds of miles per week for the next, you know, three weeks. And my wife's like, great, get outta here. I don't want you actually putting anything away. She was like, go ride. Went to New Zealand, then came back, came back and was riding a bunch here. It was like, it's 2019 and it, we had a lot of rain that year as well and everything was super green and I end up all of these places. You know, writing in a new place is a lot like learning a new language. I think it rewires your brain in a different way because you have to sort of get lost intentionally and find this new persona. Yeah. And find your way around. And I started discovering all these things like this is every bit as good and all of these things I was doing in New Zealand, this is stunning. And I'd ridden through here a bunch, taking the Pablo crew, but I'd never gone deep. So let's fast forward a little bit. I'm a big Yuri household and I, I have been friends for a million years and I'm a big fan of his Bantam Classic race. It's this little underground race. Can I say that, Yuri? I hope so. It's his, uh, I, it's a little less underground now, and I, I love it. It's up in Petaluma. It's not a gravel race, but it is, you know, as we talked about Sonoma Road. So come with fat tires. And I kind of thought I got down here, I was like, you know, maybe I'll do a, a fall answer to that, something really cheeky, and we'll call it the bovine Classic, and then I put it away. And I had been working out of the Atascadero Chamber of Commerce, had my office there for a little bit and was checking out cuz my home office was built. And at the time I was going off to go work with a bunch of the executive athletes that I was coaching and the president of, uh, the Chamber of Commerce said, oh, what are you doing? I said, this is what we're doing. Gonna go ride a bunch. He said, anywhere Interesting. I was like, yeah. Here, here, here, here. As a complete aside, this was a complete throwaway comment, like I didn't think twice about it. I said, and we have world class cycling here and nobody's talking about it. Nobody's telling that story. And said, do you wanna do an event? I was like, absolutely not. So what we ended up doing is I've done a bunch of work. Yeah. I've done a bunch of work with Peloton Magazine in the past as a consulting brand manager and digital manager, and also have had written a bunch for Peloton. I thought, why don't we bring my crew down and we'll do a full on. Like year long, tell the story of what's going on here and really market it as a, as a cycling destination, as kind of like a Lake Garda minus the lake for cycling. Well, here's the thing. Anyone who's gonna give you money for that wants an immediate return. And so what I quickly found was the only way anyone was gonna do anything is if we were putting heads in. So the idea of Yeah, that makes sense. Taking Yeah, the idea of taking the slow approach wasn't gonna work. And so all my internal resistance was futile. So we, I, we pivoted and we, I hate that term. We, we, we changed directions and put together a really great story. Um, and a, you know, a long time ago I used to be a, a, a producer at Disney. And so, you know, you can take the boy outta Disney, but you can't take the Disney out of the boy. And so it was all about the story and started creating this great story and started getting local buy-in. And once I got local buy-in, it was like, crap, we have to do this thing now. That's the long story for our, and now we have to do it. [00:12:20] Craig Dalton: Yeah, I love that. You know, it's so interesting the different welcoming reception you get from a smaller community that can benefit from 400 more people coming into the community. And that can have a really significant impact on the livelihood of the hoteliers, the, you know, the, the restaurants, et cetera. And everybody can get stoked. Versus in larger communities, there's a resistance to bringing anybody else in. [00:12:48] Bryan Yates: I don't think we could have done this in San Lu Obispo, I don't think. We certainly couldn't have done anything like this in Los Angeles. It, it, it had to be somewhere small and it had to tell a story where people were going, oh, hey, that's interesting. You know, it's so funny. That's why I, I presented in front of. The tourism board here in Atascadero and like the former mayors on the board, he's like, okay, I want you to come over a Friday and we're gonna have, we're gonna have drinks and dinner with the mayors of San, of, of Pastor Robles and Atascadero. You're gonna tell, because I love your story. We're gonna, so you know, the next thing I know, I'm like sitting there having, having, having happy hour with the mayors, which is just so. [00:13:32] Craig Dalton: I love that. It's probably a l I suppose, in the, in the, again, in these like rural markets, like you do get that kind of reception and the event organizers are kind of brought in in a collaborative fashion, which I imagine just sort of opens up a lot of doors for you, whether it's. You know, going through ranch private learn ranch land, and just getting the right introductions to allow access to some of these areas that may not push through in, you know, non race day. [00:13:59] Bryan Yates: That's really a great, a great question and point, and it's absolutely true. You can get things done a lot more quickly, uh, in these smaller communities when they're receptive. Um, you know, atascadero in some ways. It is in the heart of the Pa Robles wine region, which is arguably one of the most beautiful regions in the world. And by the way, I, I wanna come back to that just a moment on a, from a cycling standpoint, and yet most people don't know about Atascadero. So some of the work that we had to do was, is around the marketing of saying we, this is the wine region. It's not just the town of Paso Robles. And I think. There might have been a little resistance from, say, the Paso Hotel Ice, which have more money than a Tascadero a hotel ice. Like, why are we doing this even though you're not gonna be here? So cuz we're selling the whole region and people are gonna stay with you, and we're. Pitching that, and the, the downstream effect is that people are gonna come to your resorts and stay with you when they're not here at the race. So, yeah. And, but it, it's definitely, it takes a little bit of work. But, you know, we, at one of the meetings with the Paso people, the, the city's, um, deputy manager or economic development director has seen my pitch, seen my pitch a couple times. He piped in, he was like, yeah, let's give this thing money. And frankly, I'm absolutely ecstatic and delighted to know that our dirt roads are actually a luxury item that we can, that we can market. So when you're telling a story to people that they're not used to hearing, that also goes a long way. [00:15:42]…

Full show notes at the publisher

Bike Talk Podcast - Craig Dalton interview Apr 11, 2023

Show notes

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 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. 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…

Full show notes at the publisher

Steve Frothingham, Editor-in-Chief at Bicycle Retailer & Industry News Apr 04, 2023

Show notes

On this week's episode, Stephen Frothingham, Editor in Chief of Bicycle Retailer & Industry News at Outside, Inc, joins Randall to share his unique perspective on bicycle industry dynamics in general and the bike shop and OEM ecosystem in particular. Steve is an industry veteran who approaches his work with a warmth and curiosity we've long appreciated, and his reporting continues to serve as an influential resource for all of us who work in the space. Episdoe sponsor: Dynamic Cyclist (Promo code THEGRAVELRIDE for 15% off) 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. This week on the podcast, I'm going to hand the microphone over to my co-host Randall Jacobs. Who's got Steven Frothingham editor and chief of bicycle retailer and industry news on the show to discuss his unique perspective on bicycle industry dynamics. The general bike shop and OEM ecosystem in particular, Steve is an industry veteran who approaches his work with warmth and curiosity that is so appreciated. His reporting continues to serve as an influential resource to everyone who works in the bicycle retail space. I think you'll get a lot out of this episode, learning a little bit more of the ins and outs of the industry as it all trickles down and has an effect. On us as riders. Before we jump in, I do need to thank this week. Sponsor, dynamic cyclist. The team over at dynamic cyclist has created a video library of stretching and strengthening techniques. Specifically designed around cyclists. The founders, cyclists themselves found a niche in developing this content as it didn't exist before their efforts. They've created hundreds and hundreds of different stretching routines to focus on different parts of the body that affect your performance as a cyclist. It's something for me that has become super important. I've been following the routine since around November last year, really specifically to work on lower back strengthening, but it found that I'm much more disciplined knowing that I've got these 15 to 20 minute episodes always available to me, both streaming from their website or also available from the app. I encourage you to give it a try. They've got a free one week trial, and if it works for you, They're offering gravel ride podcast listeners, a 15% discount off monthly or annual plans. It's quite affordable. I think it's less than a hundred dollars for an entire year's worth of programming. I expect like me I'll dip in and out of it with a heavier focus in the winter, but trying to stay on it, as I realized that stretching needs to be part of my routine. If I'm going to maintain my love and active cycling lifestyle, particularly on the gravel bike, where we all tend to get roughed up a bit. Use the code, the gravel ride to get that 15% off, just put it in the coupon code box@dynamiccyclists.com. When you check out, If that sounds like it's up your alley, I hope you give it a try again. They've got that free one week trial. So why the hell not. With that said, I'm going to hand the microphone off to my co-host Randall Jacobs. And jump right into this conversation with Steven Frothingham. [00:03:11] Randall: You're an old hand in the bike industry in the journalism space. Give us a little bit of background about that. [00:03:17] steve: , know, I started at Brain, I think I was the first editor hired back in think 92. And then I left and worked for the Associated Press twice and then came back into the bike industry to work for, be News for a few years. Uh, left them, went back to Brain, and then the company that owned Be News bought Brain. I ended up back in that same company again, which became outside. So it, yeah, it kind of feels like, uh, even though I don't work for ERs again, I feel like I'm back with the same crew. Uh, I literally was in the same, same desk, same office for a little while. So, uh, that, that seems to be, seems to be the pattern in my career here. [00:03:55] Randall: Just to clarify for our listeners, brain is bicycle retailer where you are currently, uh, editor-in-chief. Correct. [00:04:01] steve: Mm-hmm. [00:04:03] Randall: Tell us a little bit about the nature of that publication. So what role does it serve in the industry? [00:04:09] steve: well, when we started it in 92, you know, the full name is Bicycle Retailer and Industry News. And, uh, the, and was important back then because the, um, the other trade magazines, and believe it or not, there were three others back then were all print magazines. We were the fourth. Um, but they had this real focus on. Kind of this old school dealer thing, like, you know, we're gonna profile this retailer this month. We're gonna do a story on, know, uh, how to hire kids for the summer. We're gonna do a story about how to display your tires. Um, and we're not really gonna write about the industry, the supplier side. So we came along and we were bicycle retailer and industry news. And we used to kinda joke that what we're doing is reporting. We're telling the retailers what the, uh, suppliers are doing to them this month. Um, which is maybe a little bit too cynical, but we, we reported on what the industry was doing. We reported the news of what the supplier side was doing for the most part, which is what the retailers want to read. Um, most retailers, they might say that they'd like to read a story about how to merchandise their tires, but that's kind of broccoli. You know what they were, what really wanna, wanna have is the, uh, the steak and potatoes of, uh, finding out what one of their suppliers, uh, just bought another company or just went bankrupt or just switched factories in Taiwan or, or something like that. And that's the kinda stuff that the, uh, the other titles we're not doing back in the nineties, which is why, uh, this is gonna bring out the competitive bike racer jerk in me. But we, we put the other three out of business in three or four years, I think. Um, it wasn't very long before Brain was the only, uh, industry title in the US and, um, to some extent we're still doing the same thing. Obviously we've had to adapt to social media and the internet, which didn't exist when, when we started the magazine. But, um, we're still doing the same thing. We, we focus on news and, um, You know, we like to do some, we like to profile important retailers once in a while, but for the most part, uh, we still report on what the supplier side is doing with the knowledge that most of our readers are, uh, are retailers independent? [00:06:37] Randall: I actually hadn't appreciated that you were on the founding team for bicycle retailer. So can you share a little bit more about that and who else was involved and how that came to be? [00:06:47] steve: Well, I didn't have an investment unfortunately. Uh, I was, I think I was 22 years old or something, so I was just the first hired gun there. Uh, mark, who still writes for us, was the founding editor, uh, and a partner early on. There was another partner named Bill Sandler, who, uh, passed away quite a few years ago now. Uh, so Mark and Bill were, were really the founders um, Uh, I think they hired a, uh, an office lady named Kathy, and then they hired me. And, uh, that was kind of the start of the fun and, um, you know, and then the company went through various different ownerships, uh, some of which happened when, after I left, when I was, uh, outside the bike world for while. Uh, sometimes I forget it went through three or four different ownerships. Uh, when I came back it was owned by Nielsen of the famous Nielsen Ratings Nielsen, which, uh, owned, uh, trade shows including interbike. And, uh, we were actually operated by the National Bicycle Dealers Association, the nonprofit dealer trade group. Um, so we were owned by Nielsen, which was kind of renamed as Emerald Expositions. Uh, so I think my paycheck came from, now my paycheck came from the Mbda a you know, we went through quite a few years of being run by a very small nonprofit trade association. And then, and then it changed hands. Uh, M BDA a had some financial problems and, uh, we were not exactly helping things. So, uh, we got handed off to, uh, what was then called Pocket Outdoor Media, the company that owned Velo News. They owned Velo Press Draft, fleet Magazine. At that point, uh, Robin Thurston was a minority investor, I believe, in pocket outdoor media. And then, uh, you know, about a year or so after, uh, brain became part of that group, became the ceo, um, started raising money to buy a whole bunch of titles, which you've probably heard about, including Pink Bike Cycling Tips, um, some, uh, some bike events in Colorado. And then eventually the big purchase was raising the money to buy outside Magazine. And, um, company Pocket Outdoor Media was, I think, I think Robin had actually hired a marketing company to come up with a new name for Pocket Outdoor Media, because people thought Pocket Outdoor Media was a billboard company. Uh, and the sales reps didn't like that. Uh, so they were, you know, doing the marketing thing of, of bouncing all these ideas off the wall, coming, trying to come up with a new idea and a new name. And then after they bought Outside magazine, they're like, well, why don't we just, you know, renamed the company outside? we became outside, which things have been moving very quickly. It's, you know, it's a big change for me moving from for a very tiny, little underfunded non-profit trade association from bicycle shops N bda, to working for this multi billion dollar startup basically a tech company. Um, change. And that's why the, the time, you know, I mean, I think back it seems like, you know, a decade ago, but it's only been like two and half years. [00:10:23] Randall: So Robin Thurston is the current c e o of outside the group. And he previously founded is it, uh, map my. [00:10:31] steve: Map my ride, map my run my companies, sold to Under Armor. [00:10:35] Randall: I think that was like 160 million acquisition or something. I remember having this number offhand because it was part of my pitch deck for another company that I was trying to raise money for. It's like, oh here's a comparison point of this company that was acquired in the space. [00:10:50] steve: Yeah, I mean map where I was kind of ahead of the curve with doing some of the stuff that Strava's doing now, and uh, now and outside. We have Gaia, which is a, mapping app that's primarily used by hikers and skiers. And then trail Forks, which was developed by Pink Bike as a mapping app mostly for mountain bikers. [00:11:12] Randall: It's quite well regarded of, of seen in some of the forums. People are very keen on that particular application in the quality of the routes there [00:11:19] steve: are really good. They do have their niches. I use Gaia for backcountry skiing and it, it works really well. And it's, uh, uh, you know, we could go way down a rabbit hole, but you know, why I choose to use Gaia when I'm skiing and why I use trail forks when I'm mountain biking and why I use, don't know what else when I'm road biking. I don't know. But, you know, each has its own, uh, its own advantages in different spaces. So, yeah. Robin, made his fortune, I think, fair to say, selling that company to, uh, under Armour. And then he worked for Under Armour for a while. I think he was the Chief Technology Officer at Under Armor, uh, left and did some other stuff, and then eventually came back to this group. [00:12:02] Randall: So you started when you were 22, essentially first hire for bicycle retailer, this fledgling industry magazine with a particular point of view that resonated with dealers. What drew you to this particular space? You studied journalism in college. Were you an avid cyclist? [00:12:18] steve: Yeah. All that. Yeah. Uh, I was a cyclist. From day one, I started in B BMX when I was a little turd. Uh, I'm definitely, I'm totally of that age now where, you know, I'm 55 now and I go to the shows and I see these retro BMX bikes that some of the companies are doing. My light up, oh, there's that red that I wanted when I was, now I buy it. I've resisted so far, but yeah, I started in bmx. I did mountain bike races back in the eighties and road racing and, and, uh, and yeah, then I, I got a journalism degree and I did work completely outside the bike world for about 10 years, the Associated Press, covering presidential politics in New Hampshire where the presidential primary is a big deal. So that was really fun. I think I covered three or four primaries in New Hampshire. Plus the usual AP stuff of plane crashes and lost hikers and syrup and lost mooses and stuff like that. [00:13:18] Track 1: Standard, Northeast Fair. [00:13:19] steve: Yeah. Typical New Hampshire stuff. [00:13:21] Track 1: And remind me where you grew up. [00:13:24] steve: in New England. Uh, I was born just a little north of where you are in Salisbury, Massachusetts. And, uh, my family moved up into New Hampshire when I was a teenager. And then when I came back, when I worked for the Associated Press, I lived in Wolfborough, New Hampshire for about 10 years. [00:13:38] Track 1: So you and I when we chat tend to go off in various tangents so, where would you like to go? Or, or we can start with the email that you sent me yesterday about shaman cues. [00:13:49] steve: yeah. I could interview you on that. What do you know? [00:13:52] Track 1: Well, you're the one, the inside line. Yeah. You saw the press release. [00:13:56] steve: the inside line yet. You know, I'm just starting my research and I'm, I'm going to Taiwan next week, so hopefully I'll learn a lot more over there. But, it looks like a fairly significant development, this cues thing. I was sitting through a, I think it was an hour long video recording from Shaman about it yesterday. And, I got antsy halfway through and started calling people and emailing people, and, uh, video was moving too slowly. So like, I need some more need. I need to check in with some people around the industry here to see what they think. [00:14:27] Track 1: For those listening, shaman released a new, not just group set, but family of group sets on their kind of entry to entry, mid-level. And, it's significant for reasons that go beyond simply, here's some new parts. They have a reputation for using constantly varying standards and interfaces and pull ratios, which is the ratio of cable pull to, gear shifting. so how much cable pulls results in how much movement of the derailer constantly varying that, not just year to year, but from group to group in order to avoid cross compatibility with third party components and even within their own groups so that brands don't mix and match. Say you want a higher end quote unquote, set of levers connected to a lower injury derail because you don't see the value in the higher end derailer. Well, they preclude that by adjusting the pull ratios from group to group. And so what they've done with cues is make it such. The pull ratio is the same across all the groups, even with different speeds. And the thing that the major…

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In the Dirt 34 - SRAM's New 'hanger-less' derailleur Mar 28, 2023

Show notes

This week Randall and Craig have along overdue catch up and discuss SRAM's new XX SL Eagle 'hanger-less' derailleur and its implications for the gravel market. Episode Sponsor: Hammerhead Karoo 2 (use code: THEGRAVELRIDE for free HRM strap) 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. This week on the podcast, I'm joined by my co-host Randall Jacobs for another edition of, in the dirt. We're going to take a look at Schram's new mountain bike derailer group. Oh, and the removal of the derailleur hanger. It's quite big news and has big implications. We've already seen a couple of gravel bikes with this type of dropout ready for this new type of derailer system. Perhaps some mullet systems will be up and running as we speak. And as we record this podcast, It has ramifications in terms of compatibility, both backwards and forwards. And we asked some questions about how Shamana will play into this new paradigm. The new derailer has some super nifty design elements to it. And a lot of thought was clearly put into it by the folks at SRAM. Speaking of the folks at SRAM, I need to thank this week. Sponsor hammerhead and the hammerhead Caru to computer. They hammered crew two is the most advanced GPS cycling computer available today. With industry leading mapping navigation and routing capabilities that set it apart from other GPS options. It has free global maps with points of interests included like cafes and campsites. So you can explore with confidence and on the go flexibility. As I've mentioned before, one of my favorite features is hammerheads exclusive climber feature with predictive path technology that lets you visualize and prepare for upcoming gradient changes in real time. With or without a root loaded. I was using this feature today. In fact, I was adding on to one of my favorite rides, the Dawn patrol here in Marin county on Mount Tam. And I decided to extend the day. And honestly, by the time I dropped down to mirror woods, I decided I'd climb up the roads because I did not have the legs to go up the trail system, knowing that that trail up middle green gold Chaz. Gosh, it's probably about a 20% climb. I opted for the road and I had my face glued. To the hammerhead crew to screen, as I was watching those gradients change. And my legs were aching. I knew what was ahead of me. I knew how long I had to go and I just kept plugging away. And that kind of knowledge. Whether it's in your home terrain or even more importantly, when you're riding routes that you've loaded on that potentially you haven't written before. It's just great. It works well for me, I tend to like to know how long I need to suffer for up these Hills. So kudos to the team at as you know, they continually update via over the air software upgrades. So they're keeping the system fresh. They just released a new e-bike integration that brings detailed battery life usage. Right to your display so you can stay attuned to if you're running low on batteries. Right now for listeners of the podcast, you can get a free heart rate monitor with the purchase of our hammerhead kuru to simply visit hammerhead.io right now, and use that promo code, the gravel ride at checkout to get yours today. This is an exclusive offer. So don't forget to use that promo code, the gravel ride. Just add that heart rate monitor to your purchase of a kuru to@hammerhead.io. And you'll be good to go. With that said let's jump right into my conversation with my co-host Randall Jacobs. [00:03:57] Craig Dalton: Hey, Randall. How you doing? [00:03:59] Randall R. Jacobs: Doing very, very well, Craig. Good to see you buddy. How are [00:04:02] Craig Dalton: Yeah, good to see you. Yeah, it's been a while. I feel like we've exchanged a few texts here and there over the last, say, 30 or 40 days, but we haven't actually connected. [00:04:11] Randall R. Jacobs: Yeah, I think, uh, you've been pretty busy with work and with family and on my end, um, I just bought a house and so that's been occupying a lot of my mindshare and time, uh, which [00:04:22] Craig Dalton: That's huge. I'm both, I'm both excited for you and then a little sad cuz I think feel like that has more permanence of you on the East coast than not on the West coast. [00:04:32] Randall R. Jacobs: Well, the good news there is that, um, I will have two different little, uh, guest loft suites in the space. And so come out anytime with the fam and, uh, we'll put you up. [00:04:43] Craig Dalton: Great. Where is the house located? [00:04:45] Randall R. Jacobs: Kingston, New York, which, um, folks here may have heard us talk in the past about the Old Positive Festival. Um, and, uh, we actually sponsor that ride and that ride will be the sixth through the eighth and, uh, of October. Um, and the riding out here is beautiful. It's right in the Catskills, the Hudson Rivers there. It's the original capital of New York State. And so there's a lot to do, a lot to experience, and I can't wait to. I mean, to meet some of the people, um, in our, you know, in the ridership and, and some of our listeners out here now that I'm officially putting down roots. [00:05:21] Craig Dalton: Yeah. I know you've spent, uh, a bit of time there in the past through the O Positive Festival and other rides you've, you've had with, with friends up there. What's, what's the riding like in that area? [00:05:31] Randall R. Jacobs: uh, we have mountains. Uh, the biggest mountain in the Catskills is about 4,000 feet. Uh, you can't ride to the summit, but there are plenty of hills, as you might imagine. Uh, and then Kingston is this little. Urban oasis amongst the sea of, you know, towns and, um, you know, and, uh, farms. Uh, there's communes, there's, there's lots of, um, interesting social innovation, new economics type thinking happening here. Um, and as far as the riding, it's, it. It's like classic northeast riding, um, quiet back roads, plenty of gravel. Uh, there's a rail trail, uh, that comes out of town here and goes up into the, uh, into the mountains. So plenty to do. [00:06:21] Craig Dalton: And just geographically speaking, so you know, listeners can figure out where is Kingston without going to a map, how would you describe it relative to other big city landmarks? [00:06:31] Randall R. Jacobs: So it is about an hour and a half to two hours from, uh, Manhattan on the Hudson River. Uh, if you are coming from little further north, uh, I come from Boston, so it's about three hours from, from my hometown of Waltham, uh, out on the 90 and and south from there for about 45 minutes. So right on the border with, with Connecticut on the Hudson River. [00:06:55] Craig Dalton: Okay. Awesome, awesome. Well, I know like we've had a lot of listeners from that area and I know it's got a great cycling community. I think the interesting thing about um, the east coast cycling communities is you have such good proximity to other communities, right? So if you live in ride in Kingston and you have an opportunity to. Go to an event in Vermont, like that's feasible, right? Versus going to Vermont for us from the West coast is obviously a bit more of a, of a hike. [00:07:25] Randall R. Jacobs: Well, and there's lots of small local events in the Northeast as well, which is, which is quite great. And I love the vibe at those. Uh, there's a place for the really big events, and we'll talk about Sea Otter in a second. Uh, but the intimacy of an event that has 200, 300 people show up and, you know, everyone's volunteering and it, you know, maybe the funds go towards some local cause, uh, is something that's very New England. Uh, [00:07:49] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. And I mean, I know you've been operating out of Massachusetts for a while, for, for thesis bike and locus components. Any changes in operation for, for, for the business, for moving up to that area? [00:08:03] Randall R. Jacobs: Uh, I will need to take my laptop with me from Walham to Kingston, um, and then hook up to an internet connection here, uh, to do all the same things as before. But otherwise, we've always been, uh, a remote distributed team with, uh, you know, warehouses, one in the US and one in Taiwan. So that'll all stay the same. [00:08:25] Craig Dalton: Yeah, we don't have time to get into it on this podcast, but I have heard about this thing called the internet and how it empowers entrepreneurs to work from around the world. [00:08:34] Randall R. Jacobs: It's like a series of tubes, um, is what I heard from one, uh, senator in, uh, deliberations at one point. But, uh, I'll, I'll have to read his testimony, uh, you know, in more detail. So let's, let's get in, let's get into something serious here. Um, so. [00:08:49] Craig Dalton: Yeah. [00:08:50] Randall R. Jacobs: Lots of stuff to cover. Um, the, the, we have, you know, escape Collective. We had Kaylee Fritz on the pod, uh, a few months ago talking about, um, what came next after, uh, he was let go at outside and that's huge. Escape collective.cc. , they have a, a, um, a member funded model for independent cycling media. Uh, they are over subs. They, they more than, uh, achieve their goals in terms of the initial subscribership. And they've got people like James Huang on board who, you know, as you know, I, I personally respect immensely. He's obvi, arguably the best in the game. Um, and, uh, yeah, they, they seem to be doing it. Uh, I think it's super promising. [00:09:39] Craig Dalton: Yeah, it was really interesting that interview you had with him earlier in the year and how he was teasing out some ideas, but pretty impressive how quickly they moved from ideation to actually execution and pretty impressive how many other journalists across a number of different disciplines they managed to get involved in the project. Great to see like, Their community and their following. I think a lot of these journalists have pretty strong individual followings. Good to see those followings all kind of come together and see an enterprise such as Escape Collective garner enough early subscribers to kind of kick it off and become a going concern. [00:10:26] Randall R. Jacobs: Well, I think it speaks to the quality of the community and the content that they were creating at Cycling Tips, which was founded by Wade Wallace. I remember the early days of cycling tips. I was. It was, you know, my racing days and that was the go-to cycling tips blog. It's where you went to get like inside line on training with power in the latest tech and so on. And they did such a good job and continued doing a phenomenal job right up until the end. , uh, when unfortunately, you know, economic pressures and, you know, venture capital demands, um, on the model at outside, you know, uh, resulted in a lot of good people being let go and then, um, a lot of people following them after. But, you know, it's, and the, I, I don't know if you've been in Velo Club. Which was the cycling tips, uh, slack forum, um, super vibrant, healthy, uh, community there. And those people, I mean, I think, I think it's still active. Actually. I'm, I'm in, I'm in that slack, but they have a new discus, or, or I should say discord and um, you know, those dynamics are continuing. So [00:11:33] Craig Dalton: Yeah. [00:11:34] Randall R. Jacobs: it just goes to show that like, The label of the, the publication mattered a lot less than the integrity and the competency of the people involved with the project. And, uh, yeah, I'll power to them. I, I'm very excited to have this sort of funding model for independent cycling media. [00:11:51] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah. I am as well. I'm, I'm, you know, I'm a member and excited to kind of get it into my routine of sites that I hit for cycling news, and I'm, I'm still trying to get it straight in my head, like, where, why, and what I'm going for there is it, Long form media, is it the podcast, et cetera. But, you know, super excited to support what they're doing. And I'd love to see the, the sort of media go that direction. I do sort of have some sort of concerns as to, okay, six months from now, eight months from now, a year from now, how does the economic model pan out? Right? Can they, can they get more subscribers? Can they, can they do more? Can they all get paid what they deserve to get paid? Under this model, I'm, I'm hopeful that there's enough shift in how people want to, uh, pay for the content they're consuming, that they can achieve the goals and make it, you know, a con going concern for years to come. [00:12:45] Randall R. Jacobs: Well, and if anyone knows what the potential is, it's the people on that team because they had the numbers from when they were at cycling tips. Right, so they know what the potential market size is and what the willingness to pay. Um, they had a lot of people paying 99 bucks a year, and that's, that's significant. Um, but you're right. Yeah. If you have a, a, a crew of, you know, 15 full-time. Uh, journalists, um, you know, that that requires sig significant funding, particularly if you are going to not entirely forego advertising, but, um, have it be largely member funded and, uh, forego, uh, for reasons of, of ethos, um, any sort of like, Pay to play or, you know, um, are, we may earn a small commission when you click this link and buy the product that we just did the review of. And even if there's journalistic integrity in the review, well, you know, it, it's still isn't a great look. Um, so, so, Yeah, [00:13:46] Craig Dalton: it was interesting. I, I was listening to, uh, another podcast the other day, um, and it was reminded of the cycling independent. which was something that was started, you know, maybe 18 months ago. And it's, it's, I'm curious like how both businesses evolve. I mean, I think with the Escape Collective, the journalists involved, they all had big social followings and, uh, a lot of committed kind of listeners and fans and, and readers of their work. So I think they had an easier time kind of bringing together enough subscribers versus like, I don't hear a ton about the cycling in depend. [00:14:23] Randall R. Jacobs: Well, and I, I think to the community piece, they were really engaged. You look at the, the, I've said this on the pod before, the comment sections in their articles, they were in there and answering questions and providing perspective, and then the forum, um, you know, there are real relationships formed in the forum, as with ours. But, uh, the scale, or when I say ours, I mean collectively, ours, not you and I, uh, the, the, the ridership community. . Uh, but I think that that is where they really differentiated themselves and it's, it's been an inspiration. There's a reason why I kind of wax on about this is because, uh, for me, I looked at that and it's like, oh, I would love to be involved in building something like that. Um, you know, just from a distance, not, not that I want to be a cycling journalist. Um,…

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Michelle Duffy - Life Time Grand Prix 2023 Mar 21, 2023

Show notes

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. Episode Sponsor: Athletic Greens 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. 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 th…

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Amanda Nauman - Mammoth Tuff, Tuff Ventures and women in gravel racing Mar 15, 2023

Show notes

This week we catch up with Amanda Nauman to discuss all things gravel. We touch on the Mammoth Tuff gravel race, Tuff Camps and how to continue to invite women into the sport. Amanda is an OG in the sport and friend of the pod which made for a super enjoyable conversation. Tuff Ventures Website 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. This week on the podcast, I'm super stoked to invite back. Amanda Naaman. Amanda is a big time friend of the pod. A podcast or herself as the co-host of the grody. Podcast. A very accomplished off-road athlete. With notable wins twice. At Unbound 200. Five times at the rock cobbler, . We touch on rock cobbler this year, and some of the help she provided Sam aims with inviting and encouraging more female athletes to toe the line at this year's rock cobbler event. She and Dave Sheik are also the co-founders of the mammoth tough event in mammoth, California, which occurs in September. Each year She's a member of the gravel cycling hall of fame advisory board. And according to her. She's Walter, the dog's favorite. I'm not going to get into that domestic squabble, but we'll leave it at that. I'm excited to bring you a followup conversation with our friend, Amanda Naaman. Hi, Craig. How are you? I am doing great. It's so good [00:01:32] Amanda Nauman: to see you. Yeah, likewise. I'm excited. What, almost two and a half years [00:01:36] Craig Dalton: later. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, the funny thing about our first recording I was recalling, we were doing an Instagram live at the same time. It was back when everybody was trying to figure out Instagram Live, so we were doing that. And recording our conversation and I ultimately posted it to the podcast Feed . [00:01:54] Amanda Nauman: Nice, nice. . [00:01:56] Craig Dalton: What am I sort of, I would say to the failed endeavor into Instagram Live. It's not something I, I jam on. I'm much more comfortable in the podcast format where I can just talk to people and publish it later. [00:02:08] Amanda Nauman: Yeah. Yeah. No, it's hard and distracting. You get all the messages, you're like, what? What is that question? ? . [00:02:14] Craig Dalton: I feel like we have so much ground to cover. We were chatting a little bit offline, but I, I thought what would be an interesting place to start knowing you participated in the Lifetime Grand Prix in in 2020 2, 20 22. I just wanted to get your kind of overall perceptions as someone who's been around gravel racing for many years with that structure of your season. infused onto your life. H uh, how did it go and what were your thoughts on the, the lifetime Grand Prix in general? [00:02:42] Amanda Nauman: Yeah, I signed up probably on the last day that was possible to turn in the applications that, um, winter before, cuz I really contemplated whether or not it was something that I wanted to do for a while cuz I knew. You know, I had done Unbound Excel. They had put Leadville on the list for the Grand Prix, and I was like, man, I've always wanted to do Leadville. I can kind of shape my calendar around the rest of the series as well. So ultimately I decided to sign up for it knowing, you know, it's kind of a shoe-in to Leadville, which is one thing I had always wanted to do. And at the same time, I get to do some gravel and some other mountain bike races that I hadn't necessarily done before. So I was very optimistic and excited about the Grand Prix last. . It didn't necessarily go how I had planned or anticipated, but uh, yeah, I think what they have created in the series and the opportunities for athletes to go race that, I think it's a great, a great thing and great structure for a lot of people, but it wasn't necessarily, let's say, the right fit for me last year. [00:03:44] Craig Dalton: Did that make sense? I mean, just for the listener's sake, like if you go back a few years before that as a gravel racer, how would you go about picking your Cal. [00:03:53] Amanda Nauman: Yeah, I mean, there's just some of the marquee events that. I would've picked, you know, in 2019, like for sure rock cobbler, mid-South Belgian waffle ride San Diego. And then you'd go into Unbound, like for I think a California racer. That was sort of the way you would go. And then as summer happened, you know, you could pick and choose events. S B T I think was a was happening at that time. So it was a good summer. One gravel worlds. And then R P I. Was kind of sort of a season ender a little bit before you hit fall, and some people would race cycle lacrosse and whatnot. So that was kind of the loose structure, I think, at least in 2019. And then 20 20, 20 21, everything kind of changed and there was a big reevaluation of what was important in terms of picking events, going to events or not , and then, Yeah, in 2022, everybody had the opportunity to apply for the Grand Prix, so that changed things. But beforehand it was sort of what events were some of the big names going to, which ones had the most prestige, and, and if you were looking for sponsorship and stuff, you wanted to make sure you were at an event where there's enough competition there to show that let's say your results are are worth not. [00:05:11] Craig Dalton: Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. It's so interesting to think, like, think of it from the professional athlete's perspective, going back prior to the existence of the Grand Prix, just the flexibility to kind of go do whatever you wanted and whatever was exciting to you. And then to see athletes be, uh, forced because as you said, this amazing opportunity and I think the Grand Prix. Fits so many people's needs right now. It does exclude certain events and it certainly does drive your calendar and just looking at it from the outside and maybe talking to a few athletes along the way, there's definitely an increased stress when you've, you've got this season long endeavor that you're pursuing and you're trying to get points at every stop. [00:05:51] Amanda Nauman: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I think that was where it caused me some stress last year because I got sick a couple times and the kind of sick where had it been a normal year, I just would've like pulled the plug and not gone to Sea Otter, for example, cuz that was the first one that I was sick for. and in hindsight, like I probably should have done that, but when you're in the moment you're like, no, I can't skip this cuz I only have one scratch race. I had to skip Schwa again because of Mammoth. So I was already in a tough situation of like, I have to do all of these other ones no matter what. And that was the stress for me, I think was feeling like I had to do this thing. And especially because last year we paid for it. So I was also like financially invested in the decision that I had made. Um, so yeah, for me, like I said, that that feeling. Wasn't perfect for me because. Bike racing isn't my only source of income. So it, I've always tried to go towards what I'm doing has to be fun because if not, then like, what's the point? It's not like the money puts food on the table for me. So I have that ability to say, Hey, I need to pick and choose things that are important to me. And I think I've come back a little bit more to that, uh, in 2023, which I would say I was at in 2019 for sure. Um, and then a period. A few years floundering of what, what was important for me, . [00:07:13] Craig Dalton: I know you guys at the Groo podcast did a really great episode with, I think it was Michelle Duffy talking, just talking about your, how you felt the season went at the Lifetime Grand Prix, and some suggestions and some questions. What were some of the key takeaways if you look back on that season to say, What would you recommend they changed in that program and did they ultimately end up doing that for [00:07:36] Amanda Nauman: 23? Yeah, I definitely, I asked some hard questions. I think he, I told chemo I was going to ask some hard questions and he was like, yeah, okay, But I, you know, I pulled some of them from like actual trolls on the internet that would say like these most. Outlandish things and you're like, really? Like, did you even pay attention at all? But I wanted to give them the opportunity to respond to some of that stuff. Like, like did, did social media matter? Or you know, how could you charge everyone money and all the ENT entry fees to go do this stuff? And kind of. Pinpoint some of the things that people had complained about, I would say. Um, and yeah, they changed a lot. I mean, at that time they had already made 2023, like no fees so people don't have to pay for the entry fees. Um, and I think they're doing a much better job with social media. And that was. , one of my major points that I wanted to drive with them was like the stuff that I was seeing, they had relied so heavily on the flow bikes deal that they had made. Yeah. And doing that live coverage and really just making sure that flow was going to do the storytelling for them and it just never happened. And that was my, my main frustration. in March, like before we went to Mid-South, Flo did one-on-one interviews with probably everyone, and they had all this great content that they put out before Sea Otter, and it was very in depth and it felt like everybody was telling their story and it was fun to follow that part of it. And then after Unbound, it just stopped. And then they had the issues in Utah and. . So ultimately for somebody like me, where being in the top 10 wasn't necessarily realistic and being in that midfield to back of the pack zone, I kept saying like, what is the point for somebody like me and somebody let, and now let's say somebody in the 20 to 30 range, what's the point of being in it if you're not giving me the exposure? that I want if I'm gonna be in the series and like, invest in this with you. And so I hope that that's the biggest thing that they change for this year is not relying on the flow stuff, probably expanding the storytelling to more than the top five at each event. Yeah. And, and being able to tell more of the story of everyone [00:09:52] Craig Dalton: I. Yeah, that would be interesting. I, I sort of, when I look through the list of writers, both male and female, and I think about like who, oh, who might I interview over the cross cost of the cross of the season, as you know, this isn't specifically a racing podcast. Yeah. But even if it was like, I can't get to all those athletes and it's almost like I just need to get a dart board, just throw a dart and pick someone that I don't know and interview because I think you're right. There's interesting. Across the board and the more that they can kind of create those personal connections with the athletes, the more excited people are gonna be to follow. [00:10:27] Amanda Nauman: Yeah, for sure. And I think, like chemo said, his major goal was to get non-endemic sponsorship into the sport and to get these athletes able to make a living off of it. Like those were his two main goals in making this series. And I was like, okay, if you do that, like you need to work more on the marketing side of it and you need to tell. All of the stories because if we're just gonna talk about the top five and we're only gonna pay the top 10, then what's the point of going 30 deep So . Yeah, like that's, I think, I think they get that now and they'll probably work more on that this year. But for sure, like I'm, I'm gonna have Anna Ya mochi on Groo next. And she just won rock cobbler and she's doing the Grand Prix and she's one of those like up and coming names where it's a really exciting story to follow and if they go the same route they did as last year, which is like, well, let's just focus on the top five hopefuls at each event, like she's never gonna get any coverage then So yeah, if they can expand the way that they tell those stories, I think that would be, [00:11:31] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Similarly, I just launched an episode with, uh, Ian Lopez, San Ramon, nice. 19 year old out of Northern California who's joined. He's the youngest person who's part of the series. Yeah, and it's just, I think it's just gonna be an interesting timestamp for. He and I to like look at this interview where he is at, what he's thinking about with his career in cycling and yeah, follow him throughout the [00:11:52] Amanda Nauman: year. Yeah, I love that [00:11:53] Craig Dalton: stuff. I love it. Yeah. So did you decide to, to throw your hat in the ring for 2023 in the Grand [00:12:00] Amanda Nauman: Prix? I did not, and mostly because I think of the experiences that I had in 2022 and not enjoying that stuck feeling. Um, if they had. another deal or contract, or if they had presented a way that they were going to do marketing for all of the athletes, I might have reconsidered it, but because we were just going blindly on the hope of like, yeah, we're gonna make it better than the year before, I was like, well, I'd rather focus on more of the stuff I think that I wanna do personally. Um, so yeah, I'm, I'm optimistic about the things that they do change for this year. I just think it would've been cool for them to maybe present that upfront. [00:12:42] Craig Dalton: When you saw the call of a Lifetime series on YouTube, did that make you. They might be approaching it differently or what were your thoughts on that series? [00:12:50] Amanda Nauman: Yeah, I, I loved it. I think they, you know, they had told us initially that it was going to happen and before every race weekend they had said, Hey, if you're in the top three men or women, cuz they alternated. Genders throughout the the series. They told us all of that upfront and they said, if you are going to be in this top group, please make sure you make time for the interviews and all of that. So that part of it we knew was for sure happening. And they made some of the vignette videos highlighting some of the athletes, but it just wasn't, it wasn't everyone, and it wasn't clear how they were picking the stories to tell essentially. Um, So, yeah, I think they did a really good job with the series though. I, I joked that it's, like they said, make it like drive to survive with a little less drama, but, and a lot more cool bike racing. I think they nailed it pretty good. [00:13:42] Craig Dalton: Yeah, I enjoyed it as well. Yeah. With with the idea that you can drop two races and now it's up to seven races, do you think that would meaningfully change, like what your experience would've been? If that was the scenario last [00:13:54] Amanda Nauman: year, yeah. It would've eliminated some of that stress of feeling stuck or knowing that. you had a little bit more flexibility. Uh, yeah, I think that, that that format will be healthier for people and I think that is for sure something that they realized last year with some of the injuries that happened already, like Pete racing through when maybe he shouldn't have with his hand still hurting and pacing. So, um, yeah, just lessons learned, growing pain…

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