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Croatan Buck Fifty with Matt Hawkins Sep 27, 2022

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This week we sit down with Matt Hawkins, organizer of North Carolina's Croatan Buck Fifty and founder of Ridge Supply. The special origin story of Ridge Supply and ultimately the Croatan Buck Fifty have lead Matt to create an amazing early season event. Episode sponsor: Bike Index Ridge Supply Croatan Buck Fifty Support the Podcast Join The Ridership Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: Croatan Buck Fifty [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've got Matt Hawkins. Matt is the founder of Ridge supply, as well as the creator of the CRO 10 buck, 50. Oh, super well-regarded gravel race out in North Carolina. I've been wanting to get Matt on the show for a few years after meeting him at sea Otter. And I'm excited to have you get to know the Crow 10 buck 50. I believe there's still some spots available for the 2023 edition. It's one of those early season races. So a great way to get tuned up for a fantastic 2023. Before we jump in. I want to thank this week. Sponsor, bike index. Bike index is a bicycle registry and stolen bike recovery platform. No one likes to think about getting their bikes stolen. I unfortunately have had two stolen over the course One was a BMX bike when I was a kid. And I feel like that scarred me. I've always been super careful about how I lock my bike up, which is probably a good thing, but ultimately, a garage that housed my bikes in San Francisco got broken into and I lost a track mountain bike. Neither one of them were ever recovered. Bike index is really the only game in town that focuses on stolen bike recovery. They've built a platform to blast your bike out to local social media channels. And they can provide you all the best advice on how to increase the chances of success in getting your bicycle recovered it's a nonprofit. All the services are free. All you need to do is get your serial number and add your make model and color to the platform. And there you go. It's like insurance. That didn't cost you anything. Simply visit www.bike index.org and get your bike registered today. With that said let's jump right into my conversation with matt [00:02:10] Craig: Hey, Matt, welcome to the show. [00:02:12] Matt: Hey, Hey Craig, [00:02:14] Craig: I'm excited to get into the Croatan buck. 50. Am I saying it? Correct? [00:02:18] Matt: you are, you are a lot of people say Croatian but 50, but I think they do that just to make me mad. [00:02:24] Craig: Yeah, and we'll get into it. We'll get into it. Cuz I think people are gonna need to get out a map and you're gonna tell us where it is in the country. I, I had to do that myself. I knew it was in North Carolina, but I didn't know exactly where and it's actually pretty interesting part of the state, but we'll table that question for the moment, cuz I was like just starting out by. Just a little bit about your backstory, where you grew up, how you got into riding. And I think we should talk about your company Ridge supply, because I think it will filter into why you created the event and you know, the vibe behind it. [00:02:53] Matt: Sure, [00:02:55] Craig: Yeah. So let's start with that question. [00:02:57] Matt: wanna know? [00:02:58] Craig: Yeah. So, where'd you grow up and when did you start riding and when did you decide, when did you discover drop bar gravel riding. [00:03:04] Matt: Well, I, I my wife and I both are from central Virginia. So up near the Charlottesville area born and raised there. My family's been there a long time, many generations. And I, I grew up in a real rural kind of county, a lot of farming communities there, but we just happen to have a race. That started back when the tour Deon and the tour to Trump rode, they came through our town. And we had a, we had a local race called the tour to Madison, and I did that with a buddy of mine on some, some Huffies. And we started racing and riding when I was really young. I've literally been riding bikes for, for almost 40 years. And yeah, so that's, that's kind of how I started. I, I of course I, I crashed on my first race and and loved it, loved doing it, but I was a swimmer by trade and I swam my whole life and swam through college. So I really picked up cycling after college sort of as my primary. And I've been doing that, you know, every, every chance I get as my soul sport really, since I got outta college, [00:04:18] Craig: Were you, were you more excited about the roadside or did you start off road riding as well back? [00:04:22] Matt: You know, actually I did a whole lot of mountain biking to start and did used to, you know, race 24 hour team races with, with the, with a team and did some road racing and some crit racing gravel obviously didn't exist back then. When I moved here to North Carolina back in oh five. I, I, you know, the first place I went to ride was the Croatan because I could go there at night with lights and be off the road. And it felt like, you know, that's where I could take my mountain bike and I could just go kind of ride. And I didn't really know. CRO, Tan's a pretty big, you know, a surface area and it, it has a lot of roads, but they're not all connected. So a lot of it's kind of sketchy. You're just like, I don't know what's down that road. So we started, you know, exploring a little bit more on road bikes with, you know, 25 sea tires or whatever is probably a bad idea. But we are just seeing, Hey, what's down that road. And I got my first cross bike and started really. Exploring it and doing, doing proper gravel, if you will, kind of before the gravel boom, but more like 2013, something like that. And and yeah, so I was like one of the first people here in our little town to do Strava. And so I made a lot of the segments originally. And and that's kind of how I got into, got into gravel was the Croatan was, was here and then everywhere I've travel. That's the bike. I primarily will take, you know, I ride a rodeo labs trail donkey now, and I'll just everywhere. I'm gonna go. I'll take that. So I can, I can ride road or, or gravel or whatever suits a fancy, [00:06:08] Craig: Yeah, exactly. When you first started on Strava and it probably sounds like the same vintage I did. When you created a segment, you could actually name it, right? Like you could name, you could name the, you name, the climbs, all the climbs. You could put your own names on them. [00:06:22] Matt: Yeah. Yeah. My, my mother-in-law sends me things all the time. Bless her heart. If she's listening, I love her to death, but she'll just send like a text message with some, with some cycling related news article and. If you, if you're like us and you follow cycling, it's things that you've already heard two or three days before, but when they hit the mainstream media and maybe my mother-in-law would see it, I would always be like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But she sent me this article about Strava, which I'd never heard of before. I think this was 2011. And I kind of clicked on it. I was like, oh, this is kind of cool. And I thought, well, I wonder who's using it around here. and I, I, I downloaded the, it might have been a beta app or something at the time. And, and of course there was no segments anywhere everywhere. I went for the first six months I was telling you gotta try this, you know? And Yeah, I made all, I made all the segments in the beginning which was kind of funny. And tho the GPS on your phone back then was horrible and it, it was all squarely lines looked like spaghetti everywhere. And so, yeah, Stravos come a long way with better head units and yeah. You know, all that stuff. [00:07:28] Craig: Yeah, yeah. A hundred percent. So it sounds like the Croton is, is actually rideable from where you live right now. Is that [00:07:34] Matt: Yeah. Yeah. So we are, we are surrounded by it's 200 miles a road gravel road. And it's right here. It's five, five miles from where I'm sitting right now, so I can ride over there linked together all I can handle and, and come back pretty and it's open, you know, year round. There's no closures. It's they're public roads. [00:07:57] Craig: And to position it. So it's in North Carolina, but very close to the coast is what I saw. [00:08:01] Matt: Yes. Yeah. So we're, we're in Eastern North Carolina. It's totally flat. There's zero elevation. And the Croatan is what's called a pacoin. So, pacoin is like an elevated section of low lands. So there's a lot of water in. In the Croatan and it has nowhere to go because there's no elevation and there's really no drainage. So what they did was back in the sixties They dug canals to create the roads. So they would go in there, they would scoop out, you know, along the left and the right side, create these canals for drainage and that, and they'd put the earth in the middle and then they'd elevate that section for the roads. And so a lot of what we're riding on is you know, as gravel roads that were built in a swamp essentially. So, that. It's pretty cool. Like when I first started going in there and riding, I was a little bit like, because you, you can be like 20 miles from nothing, you know, which it's really hard to say that, especially over on the east coast, you know, if you're in Montana or something. Sure. You could maybe, but like out here, man, you can't be that far from civilization. And we have this beautiful, you know, national forest that is like kind of weirdly isolated We can, we have it right here in our backyard, which is, which is great. So this is a [00:09:24] Craig: Yeah, isn't [00:09:25] Matt: to start a start a bike race. [00:09:27] Craig: Isn't that one of the, that's just one of those amazing things about having a gravel bike. You can just sort of explore and get into these pockets of wilderness. And in, in this case, pretty large pocket considering where you are now in, in the, in the four, is there, what's the canopy, like, are there large trees in there? Are we looking at kind of [00:09:45] Matt: Yeah. So Eastern North Carolina is filled with pine. And a lot of it is plantation planted pine. So RO you know, long, straight rows of, of pine Warehouser and places like that own. Ridiculous amount of land down here with just pine trees and the Croatan is essentially mostly that except for there are maybe six pretty big lakes that are in the Croatan. And then there's a lot of, you know, tributary, swamp creeks that are coming in and out of that, when we. A lot of rain here, which, which is pretty often it's heading towards the coast, which isn't that far away. It's just that we, we tend to we te we tend to fill the sound is right here, where we're at. So we have the sound and the ocean in a barrier island. That's like 25 miles long. So, it's all connected. And you know, it's three miles off the beach basically is where the, where the place starts. [00:10:48] Craig: Got it. And are there other kind of offroad recreators in there? Are there, you know, jeepers and four wheelers and [00:10:55] Matt: Some, some of that, mostly it's hunters in the, in hunting season. And other than that, honestly, it's, it's pretty much just for us. There, none of the roads really connect to each other. So we, we get to use them. A lot of days when I go out there, man, it's like, I can't believe, you know, just it's like, it's just, it's all. It's just you. And that's, that's, that's a blessing for sure. It also means that the roads aren't maintained as well as they could be. And like we had the, we had hurricane Florence sorry, if you hear that helicopter, just the sound of freedom here. We got the Marine Corps here. So, the hurricane Florence in 2018, which. Yesterday 2018. I mean, we just got devastated and we still haven't had the roads fixed since then. So that's been four years. You, you just can only imagine the amount of potholes and damage and stuff that's there, but that's what makes our race a little interesting too, is that you never know what the roads are gonna be like [00:11:56] Craig: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. [00:11:57] Matt: the new change. They're like a lot. [00:11:59] Craig: before we get into the race itself, let's talk a little bit about Ridge supply and what, what led to you founding the company and the vision? Cause I've when I heard the story, I found it super interesting and frankly made me want to just jump on the website and order some socks. [00:12:13] Matt: I appreciate that. I, I need that. I need that. Yeah. If, if, for folks who don't know, I, you know, I own and operate Ridge supply, which is a which is a cycling apparel. Running apparel brand. I'm a one man show, so I I've got no employees. I've been doing it seven years and it's an online, only business. We, we, we primarily sell direct. So you know, the pretty much the only place you can get our product is, is at our our website. And I, I, I ship everything myself. I started doing. Back in 2015 and I didn't know what I was doing. I, I, I knew that I had I had a pretty good job at the time. And I, the, the, the quick story is I, I got I got run over by a pickup truck while I was riding my bike. And it was a hit and run and I was sort of very, very fortunate to be alive and. Acutely aware of that in the hospital that a lot of folks wanted to know if I was gonna keep riding my bike. And I, I immediately that I had to resolve that was just like, of course I was, I wasn't, it was never like, I'm scared of riding on the road. I, I certainly was aware of the danger prior to this happening. And I knew that that day I was wearing all black. and that's kind of the easy color to find in cycling apparel. Everybody makes black apparel. And I knew that if I was gonna continue to do it, I wanted to try to figure out how to do it safer. And so while I was laid up with a broken pelvis, I started doing some research and I put two sort of premises together. One was that Blocked color was more visible than solid color. And what that means is if you have the brightest, you know, pink or orange, that neon pink or orange, and we, we love it in our products. If you put it by itself and you stick it down the road like you would see from a car, you might, you might not know what that is. It, it, it looks like. anything could look like a road sign. It could look like whatever. It could just be a bright thing that you're not quite identifying yet, but when you put blocked color together like a dark color, a light color and a bright color, it catches the eye in a way that makes it stand out. It's not necessarily as. As the solid bright color, but it's more eye-catching. So that was one premise and was sort of a scientific premise there. And the other was bio motion mechanics. And what that means is that the human, the human brain recognizes another human's movement. And when that, that happens, that that brain will then acknowledge that that's a human and treat it like a. and I think what happens in cycling, the phenomenon that we all experience when we're riding is…

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In the Dirt 32 - LIstener questions Sep 21, 2022

Show notes

This week Randall and Craig open up the floor to questions from The Ridership. Support the Podcast Join The Ridership Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: In the Dirt 32 [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. I'm going to be joined Really By my co-host randall jacobs for another episode of in the dirt [00:00:34] Craig: randall, how you doing today? [00:00:36] Randall: I'm doing well, Craig, good to see you, bud. [00:00:39] Craig: Yeah. Great to see you too. I mean, I've been looking forward this just a, a little bit of reprieve from everything else that's going on in life. It's just nice to connect with you and just purely have a half hour an hour conversation about bikes. [00:00:51] Randall: Yeah. Yeah. I know you've been going had a lot going on with your mom and so on. So, you know, definitely sending a lot of love and good vibes to you and your family going through some challenging times. [00:01:01] Craig: Yeah, I appreciate that. I mean, we it's the conversations we've had on the podcast and certainly within the ridership community, just about the value of this pursuit of gravel cycling and just kinda getting outta your head. I I've always loved it in that, like when you're on a, a gravel trail, particularly a technical gravel trail, like I ride you can't really think about anything else, but what's in front of you. And it's just so, so helpful for me to just sort of think about the bike and performance and riding. Rather than thinking about everything else going on all the time. [00:01:32] Randall: Yeah. Yeah, I can, I can relate. I've been processing some heavy things in my own life these days. And at the same time returning to the bike, I've been doing a lot more walking, hiking trail running lately as well as like canoeing and kayaking the canoes great with the kids. But there's. There's that flow state that you can get into on the bicycle that is, you know, people talk about runners high. I've never really had that. I don't think I can run long enough to get to that head space, but on the bicycle, there's just a place where everything is just in sync and the it's. I just feel very connected to everything, but not overwhelmed by it. If that makes sense. [00:02:13] Craig: yeah. You know, I was up in lake Tahoe last weekend and did a bunch of standup paddle boarding. I got some good recommendations from people on the ridership as to where I should explore to ride. And I had a bike, but honestly I just left it on the patio because I, it was just enjoying the lake so much. And to your point, like with standup paddle boarding, I found, you know, I just have to focus on the balance piece. So I, I, it sort. Took me to that same place. I just got in the rhythm of stroking on either side of the standup paddle board and, and being focused on the physicality of it. And, and the moment that I was experiencing, which, which I also really enjoyed. [00:02:49] Randall: Yeah, standup paddleboards are great. I actually like them. I use them occasionally standing up, but having them as like your own little floating island in the middle of a lake or a pond you know, you can have two adults. I've had, you know, another adult and a, a toddler on one. And so one adult is in the water swimming and the toddler is kind of jumping on and off and, and it's, it's just so much fun. Yeah, [00:03:12] Craig: but you've got, you've got something coming up. That's kind of probably forcing you a little bit to get back on the bike. Right. [00:03:17] Randall: Well, so, well, one I'm wanting to start coordinating more group rides. We've talked about this quite a bit and just life has gotten in the way you know, the logo launch and some things in, in my personal life and so on. So there's that the O positive festival. In Kingston, New York is coming up. That's the seventh through the 9th of October and community member, Joe conk in the ridership. He is the founder of that festival. And once again, we're gonna be coordinating a gravel ride. Together with a road ride and a a mural tour ride, which will be through the, the city of Kingston and is very family friendly. As part of that weekend, I believe it's gonna be on the eighth. So we'll be posting more information about that in the ridership and would love to have people come out and join. [00:04:00] Craig: That's super cool. I remember you talking about the festival last year and some of the riding that you've done with Joe up there. So that sounds awesome. So for anybody on the east coast, that's within range of that, we're able to travel, as Randall said, it'll definitely put some notes out there. Maybe we can talk about it again, more specifically when you lock down the details. [00:04:17] Randall: Yeah, we're, we're finalizing the route right now and we'll create a page for the event. So if you're interested in staying in touch, we'll definitely announce it here on the pod. I might even bring Joe on for a few minutes to share some more details, but the festival itself, it's, it's arts, it's music, it's community, it's great food and just a wonderful vibe right outside the Catskills and the riding out there is great. I've done quite a bit of riding out there with him and others. So if you're in that area, definitely come out and join us. We'd love to see you. The, the event is it'll be, the ride will be you know, we may ask like for a recommended donation, which doesn't have to be provided, and that goes towards the artist community in Kingston. And then, you know, there'll also be an option to get a wristband for the entire festival too. So. So, yeah. And if you wanna be participate in the conversation, definitely join the the Hudson valley channel in the ridership. That's where, where we'll be talking about this [00:05:07] Craig: Cool. I similarly am trying to get my act together. Cause I signed up to support the Marin county bike coalition and the NorCal NACA league for the eventual adventure revival ride. I think it started three, maybe four years ago. They did had one year that was virtual during the pandemic, but I missed last year cause it sold out. So I was sure to get on it this year. And it's a great route starting out of Fairfax, California. So super fun route , very technical it's only 60 miles, but it's got a decent amount of climbing, particularly up the aply named Randall trail. Off of highway one is a, is a grind at the end. And then you're coming across Fairfax BOS Ridge, but it's a lot of fun. And I believe I saw that Rebecca Rush is joining. [00:05:51] Randall: oh, great. [00:05:52] Craig: So that's gonna be cool. She's so nice. Former podcast guest couldn't have been more friendly when I've connected with her and subsequent times when I've ran into her, it's been awesome. So looking forward to seeing her again. [00:06:04] Randall: I got to meet her at a dinner hosted around sea Oder some years back. And yeah, she's, she's a rad woman. And a great rider. Very, very cool. Is it the same route as the original cause I did the original one some years back living in the bay. [00:06:18] Craig: Yeah, I don't, I don't think they've changed anything. I mean, I'll tell you after the 17th, but I I'm pretty sure it's the same route [00:06:24] Randall: Well, if anyone's considering doing this run higher volume tires and have a properly low gear, cuz you will want both and maybe a suspension stem. [00:06:34] Craig: and maybe a suspension for Randall. [00:06:36] Randall: Yeah. And maybe a suspension fork sacrilegious. But yeah. [00:06:39] Craig: No. Yeah, no, it's a great route and, and totally perfect recommendations Randall, cuz it's, it's, it's technical. It'll push your limits. I mean, I loved it. I just thought it was like one of those roots that favored adventure, like the name, the name is perfect, cuz you're just out there on the mountain. They're carving the route through rugged terrain, you know, basic fire roads and just this awesome part of the north side of Marin. [00:07:06] Randall: I mean, it's the location where mountain biking got ITSs start. And frankly, the gravel bikes that we ride are far superior mountain bikes than they were riding back in those days. So [00:07:14] Craig: Yeah, a hundred percent. I think I recently was at the, at the, the museum up in Fairfax, the mountain Mike museum, and looking at a clunker. And I was just [00:07:23] Randall: Mm-hmm [00:07:24] Craig: I can't even imagine with a kickback break, how they even survived going down Mount. [00:07:29] Randall: well, they had to rebuild those hubs pretty much. Every run is my understanding. So. [00:07:34] Craig: he hence the name repack downhill. [00:07:38] Randall: Yeah. I've ridden with a few of the, the OGs of the mountain biking scene and it, it wasn't the good old days. We definitely have it better now speak speaking of which we have a new bike to nerd about. [00:07:49] Craig: Yeah, not may not maybe a bike that I would take on adventure revival per se, but a very interesting bike for people to take a look at it. It's the BMC now, how do we decide that? It would say pronounce it [00:08:02] Randall: CAS say it with confidence. It's gotta be KIS, maybe [00:08:05] Craig: Kay. [00:08:06] Randall: Ks. Yeah. Something like that. [00:08:08] Craig: Super racey bike, actually, what I would've thought that BMC would've introduced to begin with kind of in the vein of the Cervelo ESP Sparrow, this bike looks, I mean, this bike could have been a road bike. When, when you see a picture of it. [00:08:23] Randall: It's stunning. I love they, there's some unique design elements on the top tube that are very BMC. I like how the, you know, the chains, the seat stays are perfectly paralleled with the down tube and it's just a very elegant bike. The, the paint schemes, particularly on that top end model are quite striking and definitely a gravel race bike. And in fact, I would say a dedicated gravel race bike, which is a little bit different than that as Sparrow. [00:08:48] Craig: Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's seven dedicated 700 C. But it still manages a fairly tight change stay and fairly good tire clearance. I mean, 700 by 45 is nothing to sneeze. [00:09:00] Randall: Yeah, especially in such a, a, you know, a tight change stay. And it's, it's optimized for that. It has 80 milli BB drop, which is to say like the bottom bracket drop relative of relative to the axles. And that's quite a bit, so anyone running longer cranks is. Going to have say like a pedal strike issue. If they try to run smaller tires, which is why I say, like, it's not quite like the Aspero, the Aspero is much more of a one bike. Like you could use it as a dedicated road bike as well. And it would be great for that sounds like bikes like that or ours, or you know, the, the open up that I always call out. So this is. The the bottom bracket drop the fact that it's a, a longer top tube, so longer reach relative to the stack, just make it a bike that is very much optimized for bigger 700 seat tires, shorter stems. And all of this works really well. Well, offroad, but kind of takes away from its versatility as a, as a road bike which [00:09:56] Craig: I also, [00:09:57] Randall: for what it's designed for. [00:09:58] Craig: yeah, I mean, it's very intentional, right. I also saw that they speck like a fairly narrow handle bar on there with a wide flare. So like keeping again, keeping that body tight in that race, race position. Yeah. [00:10:12] Randall: Yeah. Which I, I'm not sure how much I like that. I think it makes a ton of sense on the road. But I, I feel like often, well, we'll, we'll see I think there's, I think there's a place for it. I would probably want if I was gonna go so narrow, I'd probably wanna do a compound flare in order to get even more flare in the drops without having the hoods super kicked out. Because that, you know, that that extra leverage in the drops is, is nice to have, and it's kind of, but, you know, interesting to see some some difference of perspective there, [00:10:43] Craig: Yeah, let me be clear. Like I would be terrified to ride. I think it was a 37 millimeter bar hood to hood. I would be terrified to ride that. I mean, that just seems really tight. I have heard of some of the pros kind of going super narrow and maybe on a, a non-technical course, like a S B T gravel, or if you live in a part of the country where it's, you know, you're just basically on dirt roads that might, that might work. But yeah, for me, I think I'd be terrifi. [00:11:10] Randall: I think that there's a, a place for this. And you, you see it on, on the road. You've seen some road pros go towards more narrow up top and it does improve arrow. And there a lot of gravel races are not that technical. And so that arrow benefit is meaningful. I just think that there's a little bit more evolution to happen in terms of one getting even more arrow on those narrower hoods. So maybe like something to support the forearm a little bit. So you can be grabbing the, the top of the, of the hoods, but, and, and have your your forearms perpendicular the ground at parallel the ground in your upper arm perpendicular. So you really get that arrow benefit, but then, you know, again, compound flare to get that, maintain that extra leverage in the drops when you need it. Nonetheless we're we're getting into deep handlebar nuance here. Let's let's back out and look at the rest of this machine. [00:11:56] Craig: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I do think it's, it is just sort of interesting as you pointed out, like this is for a very specific rider and it's pretty natural. Companies are gonna continue to evolve around speed and ultra performance for one side of the market, not the side of the market, that's gonna attract me per se, but as more and more dollars going into racing and more and more people are looking for super high performance, like it's natural that bike companies are gonna do this type of thing. [00:12:24] Randall: There's also an element of like, you know, the bike industry likes N plus one. And so this is distinct enough from a, a road bike where you would have your road bike and, and this bike and the type of person who has this bike probably has multiple bikes. I mean, it is a dedicated race bike so that, you know, it makes sense. [00:12:46] Craig: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You pointed out a few other interesting things about the design as well. [00:12:50] Randall: Yeah, so I like, I like how they did the inter I'm not a huge fan of integrated cabling through handlebars and stems. And I like how it seems that they kept the, the cabling external to the handlebar and then ran it underneath that new rock shop. That new shock stop stem. I think they're calling it some something different. They, they built it in using RedShift's suspension, stem tech. And so it stays external until it drops into the upper headset bear. So that could be a lot worse in terms of serviceability…

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Markus Stitz - Great British Gravel Rides Sep 13, 2022

Show notes

This week we sit down with author and adventurer, Markus Stitz to discuss his new book, Great British Gravel Rides. Markus explores gravel cycling in Great Britain through the eyes of local gravel cyclists to discover amazing routes throughout the region. Markus Stitz Website Episode Sponsor: Trek Travel - Come join us on the Girona Gravel Tour November 6th, 2022. Support the Podcast Join The Ridership Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: Great British Gravel Rides [00:00:00] Craig Dalton: This week on the podcast. We welcome Marcus. Stets the author of great British gravel rides, a book of 25 routes throughout England, Wales and Scotland. . That brings us through the varied terrain in great Britain, through the eyes of community members throughout the aisle each route was designed by a gravel cyclists from that region. In an attempt to get the best. Gravel routes across England, Scotland and Wales. I enjoyed the conversation a lot and i enjoyed the approach to the book and i hope you will too Before we get started. I need to thank this week. Sponsor truck travel and the Girona gravel bike tour. Trek has been offering the Girona gravel bike tour for a number of years. And you may remember an episode I recorded with them about Yorona and what a gem it is for cycling in general, but more specifically gravel. I've been hoping and wanting to go over there myself for a number of years. And I'm excited to say that I'm going to be joining the November 6th trip. And I'd like you to join me. Yeah, I'm not kidding. Take a step back. You can do this. Come join me and ride gravel bikes in Girona trucks. Got everything organized for us from an, a wonderful hotel, right in the center of Girona as well as access to track bicycles to explore the countryside, we've got local guides that have designed amazing routes for us. So we're going to sample everything the region has to offer in this trip. I can't wait to get over there in November and I'm hoping you'll be able to join me too. It'll be so good to paddle with some of you listeners and members of the ridership community. I know we've got a handful of people signed up already and I would love to fill the hotel with people we know and love. As a special bonus, truck's going to give anybody who registers via the podcast or the ridership or free handlebar bag with their trip. So make sure when you go visit Trek, travel.com search Jarana gravel bike tour and mentioned the podcast during your registration process. There's a number of dates this year remaining, but I will be on the November 6th trip. So I'm hoping we can shape the demand and drive you to that trip. We'll have a great time. And I look forward to seeing you there. Remember that's www.trektravel.com. Search Girona gravel bike tour. With that said let's jump right into my conversation with marcus about the great british gravel rides Marcus welcome to the show. [00:02:28] Markus: Hello. [00:02:30] Craig Dalton: It's good to connect with you. I was super excited when I caught wind of this great, great Britain, gravel rides book that you penned and excited to learn a little bit more about your background as a cyclist, and what led to your passion to take on this project and do a great job kind of going throughout Britain and laying out some amazing roots for people. [00:02:51] Markus: Yeah. It's like, it's been an amazing project to work on and especially like, cuz I guess people who live in Britain have, you know, have a better idea of the country. But if you, if you're outside the country, it's such a diverse place. Like it's, it's, you know, from north to south, I think I've been to many countries in the world and it's like, it's, it's difficult to find a country, which is, which is gotten so many different places too, right. In terms of the conditions, but also the people. So my idea was really to kind of look at the community. With all the different shapes and forms it comes and, and, and do a book about it and, and recommend roots to people. Pretty much as an inspiration. [00:03:35] Craig Dalton: Yeah, I think that was a super interesting approach and look forward to getting into it with. Before we get started. Why don't we give the listener just a little bit about an idea about your background as a cyclist. [00:03:46] Markus: Yeah. So I, I think I generally came to cycling. I, I started cycling as a child. I grew up in Germany and you kind of know I'm cycling as default, I think. And I I'd never been in any cycling clubs and I wouldn't call myself like a keen cyclist when I was a child. And then pretty much picked up a mountain bike in, in my years at the university, cuz I lived in a place which had like pretty extensive for is a bit like what you possibly. Which comes really close to north American travel or the idea what we have, like big metal roads and, you know, loads of pine fors and all pretty straightforward. So it was a quite great location to, to be based and then do that. And then I finished university and went to New Zealand and. Think that spare really picked up the cycle, touring adventure, cycling mountain biking buck spent two years in Wellington, brilliant location. New Zealand in general is, is just a, a fascinating place to ride and is also one of those places like. There's. Yeah, there's, there's, there's so much outdoor possibilities and you, you know, you wouldn't, you wouldn't come to New Zealand. I would presume if you want like big city life or you want all the belts and visits of massive cities like New York or LA or whatever. I think I really like the, the mixture between having an outdoorsy life, but also still having a bit of a city lifestyle. Wellington is a capital store. Yeah. We enjoyed it. There did loads of cycling over there. And then. In my time in Wellington, I also decided in some shape or form I want to do around the world trip cycling around the world. And the initial idea was, was just a circus. So I finished my time in in Wellington and moved back to Europe. I moved to Edinburg. And while I was in Edinburgh, I had this idea, or maybe I could cycle from Edinburgh to Dunedin. Dunedin is one of the Southern cities in New Zealand. Then it's the old name for Edinburg. So there's interesting connection there. A lot of settled in that part of New Zealand. So like I could a trip from Edburg to dun and then. At some stage, I think that developed further to say, look, if I'm doing half the world anyway, I might as well do the other as well. [00:05:57] Craig Dalton: And when you, when you were approaching that Marcus, like, were you thinking at that point, like pedaling around the world is something I specifically want to do or were you more, I just wanna travel and experience different cultures and different parts of the world. [00:06:13] Markus: yeah, I think it's a travel aspect, which is which, which was the most important one. Like, and that's like, I think this is coming. I think if you look at all my work so far, like I'm I'm, I would certainly say like, for me, cycling is an amazing tool to connect with people. Like if you look at. Any cycling community. It doesn't matter which one you're looking at. I think they're all slightly different, but I think what they all have in common people who ride bike, speak to each. This is, this is I thing it's, it's like, and they either speak about bikes or you, you know, you just happen to have the same mode of transport. You talk about something else. And, and, and, and for me, that was the important one. I, you know, I was thinking about whether I'm gonna go this. I don't think there's, well, there is no single speed record for going around the world and I could have set that record. Like it would've been an easy task to do because there isn't such a thing. But that wasn't important for me that never played in my mind. I was just like, you know, it will be, you know, it'd be an interesting thing to do, but it would take away from the trip. So for me around the world trip was to meet interesting people. I met so many. Amazing people in New Zealand simply by being friends with a couple of guys that worked in a bike shop and they kind of introduced me to the cycling community in New Zealand. And when I back went back to, to Scotland, it was kind of the same. It was interesting. I came back to Scotland at night. Initially, didn't bring my bikes over to Edinburg and it was the first thing I missed. I was just like, I want my bikes here. There's such a convenient way to get around, but also to make friends if you place, that was the main, that was the main consideration. So yeah, it was, it was like, and is possibly, I guess a lot of people ask why singles speak? Why, why do you take a singles speak bike? And. I guess the most important reason for that one is you don't have to, you don't really need to care about your bike. Like, you know, it's got a chain which needs replacing every now and then there's no F around the bike. It was a pretty straightforward built. You know, everything was rock solid. Most of them were parts were steel. So, you know, like even, even transporting the bike by plane was super easy. Cuz it just Chuck it in a box. There's no area that bends or any, any other expensive part. So yeah, I think that was the, that is the kind of, and yeah, that comes across very clearly in the book right now as well. Like I'm, I'm always, there's always people first, you know, it's about. Is about the community and, and how I connect with them. And, you know, cycling is great. I really enjoy cycling. But I would, I don't think I'd be enjoying just the cycling bit as much as, as I do with the people, [00:08:58] Craig Dalton: Yeah. I mean, I think that's a big element that everybody talks about with our enjoyment of gravel. It's twofold. It's one just sort of getting off the beaten path and two, the community and the friendliness of it all. I think it's just at least today it exceeds any other form. Any other side of the sport of cycling? I don't think you just, you don't get the camaraderie that you do on the gravel side of. [00:09:20] Markus: Yeah. Yeah. And this, I mean, just on my, it's interesting to look back on around the world trip, cuz I was on the mountain bike. So I was on a SERE, which is, you know, it's a hard tail. You can, yeah, it's a typical, hard to mountain bike built. Basically. You could put some, I didn't have suspension forks, but it, you know, you could write a bit of suspension fork as well. But if I look back now and interestingly enough, I went Toor in Kansas. And I wasn't, I wasn't aware of, well, now I'm going, but back then dirty. And I wasn't really aware of that and impor and called Hedman and he introduced me to the whole Yeah, the Kansas travel community. It was awesome. It was amazing. I think there's still a, we picture in one of the pups of me and sitting, there was really sore on that. Kansas is flat a pancake and it isn't it's, it's just, that's a trade lie because the east of Kansas is very, very. The for the west, you get the, you know, the, the, the fluter it gets, but yeah, cycling along the east of is no piece of cake at all, but it's just the kinda thing. And so I kind got introduced to the idea of, I heard, you know, I had heard about bikes, but you could, you know, you might as well argue that I've a bike around the world is just, just to different bars. They have Jones's bars and instead of bars, like, and yeah, it's the, I think it's the least. There's no real conventions yet. There's no, there isn't really anything that you kind of, you don't have to have a certain thing to, to identify as Scrabble, cyclists, but you know, and that, that's the nice thing about it. It's a bit like. It's like, for me, it feels like I would've been, I, I, I would've loved to be there when mountain biking developed in Mo county. And, you know, kind of was literally about people kind of riding around on bikes, having a good time [00:11:27] Craig Dalton: Yeah. [00:11:27] Markus: doing some, doing some crazy things and not really caring about conventions whatsoever. And I think we are mid travel cycling. It's nice to be in the middle. You know, I think if I think things keep coming back, it's like the early days of the tour farms as well, which I, I basically think later foundations of what you now call ultra cycling. You know, again, there's people, you know, people just having a good time being, you know, also being ambitious about thing. And you can, you can, you can say the thing about mountain biking as well. You know, those things develop. And I think we're there with travel cycling at the moment, which is great to be right in the thick of it. No doubt. I think it will at some stage diversify as well. You know, we've got suspension forks. Now we basically have mountain bike tires now onto level bikes, but that's okay. You know, I think it's, you know, this is, this is the evolution where things go, but just being there right there right now is quite. [00:12:27] Craig Dalton: Yeah, it's certainly one of the impetus behind this podcast, beginnings was it was just such an exciting time. I thought in the sport of cycling and someone, as you know, I'd been around cycling my whole life yet. I still made mistakes when I bought my first gravel bike and realized like, oh, I didn't set it up the way I should, or I didn't make the choices I should. And I was like, if I've been around bikes and worked in bike shops and worked in the bike industry and I still managed to screw up this Purchas. There's a lot of people and a lot of questions and fast forward three years, I, I still find myself having interesting conversations with product designers and seeing interesting innovations and new options that just allow people to personalize this equipment to wherever they call home or whatever they're intending to do. [00:13:11] Markus: Yeah. And, and I think it is, I think it, it has made pretty big leaps as well. If I, I think one thing for me, which sticks out is tires. Like if I, if I look back in. So I , I think if you wanna put an official day to it, when I started travel, riding was in 2017 when I had a LER and mapped the first bike packing route in Scotland. And I know back then, I mean, your choice of tires was the 30 yard, the bike. And I could have gone for a Schal G one old round and there were a few other. Tires kicking around on the market. But if you look at right now, just 12 alone has seven different travel tires. Whoa. You know, and, and not speaking about any of the mountain bike tires, you can now, you know, if you look at a fast rolling waste tire for a mountain bike, you can stick that on a co bike these days cuz the, you know, the clearance is wide enough to, to ride those. And so I think this is where you see like how much. You know how quickly the market or the, the, the industry has progressed in, in, in those kind of aspects. So a choice is, is, is huge right now. And yeah, it's, it's, it's great. But I also think, you know, I think it's interesting because I think one thing the book of working on the book has kind of like forced me to do, and I had a keen interest as well. It's just kind of, and, and this is, I think this is where Britain is really interesting is to kinda look back to. You know, what, what you can now call pu writing, where, where did it start? An…

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Tutti Gravel Inn with Mr. Tutti (AKA Kelly) Sep 07, 2022

Show notes

This week we sit down with Mr. Tutti (AKA Kelly) from the Tutti Gravel Inn. Inspired by the Canadian landscape, Kelly set off on a journey to create a gravel cycling vacation inn in Clinton, BC Canada. Episode Sponsor: Logos Components Support the Podcast Join The Ridership Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: Tutti Gravel Inn [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 Kelly Servin ski. From a duty gravel in up in Clinton, Canada. The Inn opened up in 2019. Just in time for the pandemic to make it start a little more stunted than it would have liked, but I became aware of the end and began talking to Kelly about a year ago. And I was keen to explore, you know, what would it look like to create a gravel in many of you may know that over in Europe, Bike hotels are quite prevalent anywhere. There's a bike hotspot. You can find a hotel that will cater to your needs. With little touches, like having a pump or an area to clean your bike, but just the general friendliness to guess rumbling through the door. Dirty and in their Lycra. Kelly gives us an overview of what his vision was and what inspired him to start to the two D gravel in, in Clinton, Canada. Before we jump in, I need to thank this week sponsor. Logos components. Logos Components is introducing their new omnium lineup of wheels. Logos comes from the mind of Randall Jacobs and the team at Thesis bike. The regular listener knows randall well as the co-host of in the dirt on this podcast but also increasingly a number of individual episodes where randall's taking his deep technical knowledge and interviewing guests for the podcast we recently recorded episode 136 about what makes a great gravel wheel set. Where Randall broke down from the hubs to the spokes, to the rims, all the things you should be considering when purchasing a gravel wheel set. As it turns out the Logus omnium collection is the manifestation. Of all those criteria Randall has meticulously gone through and specked each component for what he believes makes the best wheel set out there. I encourage you to listen to that episode 136, to get an understanding about what these wheel sets have to offer. The team has launched the wheel set at an introductory price of $999. And has wheels available in 650, 700 C and 29er. So I encourage you to go check them out at www.logoscomponents.com. I've personally spent a lot of time on wheels designed by Randall And most recently spent time on the 700 C version of the logos wheels. And I can attest they're completely bomber and on par with the best wheels I've ever written. So go check them out at www.logoscomponents.com. If you have any questions after listening to that episode, 136. Feel free to jump into the ridership and talk to randall directly And or other riders that may have experience on the product With that said let's jump right over to my interview with kelly from d gravel In. Kelly welcome to the show. [00:03:16] Kelly: Thanks for having me. [00:03:17] Craig Dalton: Yeah. I'm excited to get into the conversation and learn a little bit more about the 2d gravel in am. I pronouncing it? [00:03:24] Kelly: Yeah. It's pronounced Tuti. So Tuti in Italian means everyone or all. So that's a nice word. It's cute, but it's also the spirit of our business. Everyone's welcome here to come gravel ride. [00:03:37] Craig Dalton: Amazing. Well, let's start off by getting a little bit about your background as a cyclist, and then we'll transition to how you discovered Clinton and, and why creating this, this gravel specific in was in your, in your vision. [00:03:51] Kelly: Yeah, I mean, pretty random for me with my sort of foray into cycling I loved motorcycles to begin with as a kid. I had a BMX bike, but primarily it was dirt bikes. Grew up in the prairies of Canada, I would say north of Montana. So the province of Saskatchewan. So. Farm country, that kind of thing. Yeah, cut to the chase. I was out dirt biking with a friend and adventurous, young guys were 15 and we saw a couple of dirt bikers professionals in a, in a magazine high fiving in the air as they jumped and then. You know, we just thought, Hey, we can do that. and yeah, it didn't go so well. So, yeah, you know, big crash totaled the bike off broke my right femur. My right, pinky finger, my wrist and my elbow in the crash. So, Yeah, my buddy got away a little less worse for wear. He broke his toe, but anyhow, just yeah, long story short bone specialist suggested getting into something other than BMX riding for rehab of the femur. So he didn't say gravel bikes or road bike or anything like that. But he said, you know, what about these mountain bikes kind of thing? So, yeah, about the the bike that I could afford at the time. So the cheapest bike I could get my hands on that was halfway decent and yeah, started rolling and getting the femur going and then Yeah entered my first race after I was feeling, feeling better and all the cast came off and whatnot and ended up winning the beginner category and then yeah, was hooked and yeah, never touched a dirt bike again until just recently got one again. But yeah, this was pretty random, but yeah, that's the way it goes in life sometimes. Right. Just like how we've ended up in Clinton. Just yeah. You never know how things are gonna. Shape up. So just the adventure continue. [00:05:34] Craig Dalton: After those early sort of racing experiences, did you continue racing? [00:05:38] Kelly: Yeah. Yeah. I I really loved it. I, I wouldn't say you know, yeah, it, it was interesting. I was a young guy trying to find my way in the world. Working night jobs you know, going to university, that kind of thing. Yeah, I really love cycling, you know, for the comradery of it, the people that you met, I met my best friends through cycling over the years and yeah, I did. Okay. Like focused on cross country and, you know, had some, you know, halfway decent results, I would say here in Canada and Yeah, I really enjoyed it. You know? I wouldn't say I trained maybe the best, you know, the most proper way, but yeah, no, I had had some, had some good times out there but I had the foresight to pack it in and, and not just keep you know, continuing with racing, thinking I'm gonna keep improving. I sort of saw the writing on the wall, which is. You know, just I thought I got as fast as I could get, so yeah, I ended up going tree planting. So, I did that for a number of years. I didn't complete university, unfortunately, as many, as many people haven't, but yeah, life took another turn and then went out tree planting. Here in Canada, but also in Scotland as well for a couple of Springs. And yeah, planting is kind of, interesting too. It's you only get in, you only get out what you put in just like cycling. So, yeah, it's pretty hard work and whatnot, but yeah, I did that for a number of summers and then hadn't touched the bike for a long, long time, but again, the bike came back into my life and another sort of random. Sort of way. Yeah, after I was done tree planting, so yeah. [00:07:07] Craig Dalton: Yeah, it's funny. You mentioned tree planting. I had an employee of mine many years ago, who was a Canadian. Who was involved in tree planting and every summer she would ask for a leave of absence to go back to it. It was a [00:07:19] Kelly: oh yeah. [00:07:20] Craig Dalton: she loved it. She just thought it was just sort of this great experience. And so it's funny to hear you mention that. [00:07:25] Kelly: Well, you don't ride, you don't ride your bike too much when you're planting. That's also another thing, you know, I would always put a deposit on a bike before I'd head out to the Bush kind of thing in the spring and wouldn't get a chance to touch it till the fall and ride it for a little bit and then it would snow. So, yeah. Did it for a number of years, about seven seasons. And then Yeah, got back into cycling with some of the mountain bike stage races that were happening trans Rockies and Lada and trans ALP and things like that. So, yeah. Then I hung up the bags in the shovel, so to speak with planting. [00:07:55] Craig Dalton: Right, right on. Amazing. Yeah, it was funny as, as we were, as I was prepping for this conference this conversation I was thinking about and researching where Clinton was and wondering if in my trans Rockies mountain bike stage or ACE experience, I got close to Clinton and it didn't look like it did. [00:08:13] Kelly: no, no. Yeah. You, you had been in well to the east of us who knows maybe you and I have crossed paths. Did it a couple of times? Yeah, 2005 and 2007 and yeah. Yeah, it was it was a great experience. So that just fired me up for, for cycling. Again, I'd always love cycling, always followed it while I was planting, but yeah, that really reignited my love for it. It's it's still going these days. Trans rock still happening. They have a gravel event as well. [00:08:40] Craig Dalton: Yeah, a hundred percent. In fact, I just will be prior to this when releasing, releasing an episode from trans Rocky's, gravel, Royal, [00:08:48] Kelly: Hmm, awesome. [00:08:49] Craig Dalton: a lot of those memories, you know, [00:08:51] Kelly: Oh, for sure. [00:08:52] Craig Dalton: experienced, they, you know, the daily recap videos, the camping experience, there's just a, a great way to spend a week. [00:09:00] Kelly: Yep. Totally. [00:09:00] Craig Dalton: So at what point did you discover gravel bikes, drop bar bikes. [00:09:05] Kelly: Yeah, that's an interesting one. I mean, obviously we run our in 2d, gravel in here and we have guests coming, you know, now from all over Canada, Western Canada, I would say, and some Americans and Europeans and everyone has their sort of timeline, I guess when they've discovered I'll do in parentheses gravel cycling, but We don't get into any sort of, I would say pissing match type thing. Just to use that, that phrase about who's been in it longer and all those sorts of things and how, how long ago we knew about it. But again, we grew up in the Prairie sort of area of Canada and there wasn't, you know, Sweet, you know, single track or anything like that out there. So you were riding farm roads and gravel roads on your mountain bike. So, yeah, that's what we had to ride and you know, it it, it was awesome. You could just go and you could go forever as you know. So, yeah that was, you know, obviously back in the day, but I would say. For me the, you know, why I've, you know, set up here in our guest suite you know, in front of the bicycle that you see behind me, that's a bike I rode in Lero. I've done it a couple of times. So, did it in 2012 and yeah, that, that event in Italy the original one had a real impact on me with gravel cycling was over there. I was a rep in the industry for a number of years. And yeah, I was over there and you know, just on some holidays and then thought, oh, you know, this, this Lero event looks cool. Let's do that. And yeah, I just couldn't believe the, the passion and, and, you know, the dust flying on the gravel roads and, you know, the drop bar bikes and everything, you know, albeit vintage bikes. And I thought, wow, this is awesome. Like, look at this, look at the, you know, really it was about the passion. Look at the passion people have for, for doing this and the landscapes and. You know, the serenity of it, just getting away from it, all getting off the paved surfaces. It's not mountain biking obviously, but it has some elements of you know, off-road riding clearly. Right. Which appealed to me. But then the speed of, of road cycling, which I, I, I went through my road phase too, I would say. But yeah, I just didn't like being around cars, you know, just really liked being off the beaten path, so to speak. So yeah, I would say it was Laro that really. Just opened my eyes to, to these bikes, you know, really coming back to where they originated, right? Like they were ridden on gravel roads before all the, you know, roads were, were, were paved, you know, in Europe and north America, obviously. So all these images we have in our guest suites of the geo Tolia, for instance, you know, The riders going over these gravel roads high in the mountains, you know, that's that really struck a chord with me. So I came back and told a friend of mine who owns a bike shop, a really successful bike shop in Squamish BC here, where we used to live for about 12 years that you know, Hey, This I didn't say gravel site playing for sure. But I just said this, this, you know, Lero thing, this, this drop bar bikes on, on gravel roads is I, you know, it's gonna be something, this is, this is awesome. And Squamish is more well known for, for, you know, being maybe the best place in the world to ride mountain bike right now. And he kind of, he didn't laugh at me, but he is like, you're crazy, you know, that's, you know, but. Yeah. And then here we are. So, yeah, it was Laro for sure. A hundred percent. That's the, the one in, in, in Tuscany first weekend of October is the best I think event I've ever I've ever participated in. [00:12:23] Craig Dalton: Amazing. And tell me first off, I'm, I'm interested in how you first discovered Clinton, but for those of us who are geographically challenged for Canadians Canadian landscape, where, where is Clinton in the country and, and where is sort of closer by way points, people might be familiar with. [00:12:40] Kelly: Yeah, I mean, I'll maybe with the geography where it's located the closest sort of major center would be a city called Camloops. So Camloops is you know, got a, a huge history with cycling, but Yeah right now there's a company called we one composite that we ride their, their wheels. They produce carbon fiber wheels there. They're located there. Yeah, I mean, south sort of central British Columbia. Definitely not, not Northern BC, but we're about two hours. Say from Whistler. To give people an idea. So, yeah, you you're, you're definitely out of the populated areas of British Columbia. It's really wide open terrain here at me and ride in every direction. So, yeah, that's where we're located. I guess the most famous spot would be, would be Whistler, you know, International, you know, mountain bike destination. So yeah, just a couple hours drive north from there, but yeah, totally different zone than than around a Whistler. [00:13:36] Craig Dalton: How did you yeah. How did you find yourself there? And, and what did you discover on those first rides? [00:13:42] Kelly: yeah, I mean, it was again random. I just maybe keep using that word. Just was a rep in the industry, like I said, and you know, would travel from living in Squamish and around British Columbia to see, see my accounts and yeah kept coming up to this region that, that we call home now in Clinton, it's called the caribou region. Of BC. And yeah. See my, my accounts up here and do some riding, do some races and then have a good friend that lives up here just north of us. And he's a pilot in with firefighting. So, and a cyclist as well. And he was always, you know, like, Hey, I know you live in Squamish, but you know, Hey, you sh…

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TransRockies Gravel Royale in the athlete's words Aug 30, 2022

Show notes

This week we take a virtual trip to the Canadian rockies with rider accounts from the TransRockies Gravel Royal. We hear from eventual winners, Rob Britton and Rach McBride among others to explore this 4 day gravel stage race. Episode sponsor: Trek Travel -- Come join me in Girona on Nov 6th. Support the Podcast Join The Ridership Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: TransRockies Gravel Royale [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 bringing you coverage directly from the trans Rockies gravel Royale. You might've heard me mentioned trans Rockies, gravel rail a few times over the years. It's one of those unfortunate events with regards to COVID timing. That got scheduled right at the beginning of the pandemic and had to get postponed on a couple of occasions. But they finally got it off the ground this year. And it is such a great event. Trans Rockies organization has been producing races for over 20 years. I actually participated in a mountain bike stage race a seven day race. That they put on, gosh, probably about 10 years ago. And it was really quite an amazing experience. There's something to be said for being out there in the wilderness. traversing some amazing terrain. And then camping with everybody who just did the same thing as you that day, they do great highlight reel videos. Every night, they've got sort of a. Dining tent, and they prepare all the meals. It's an all exclusive experience. So when I heard they were doing a gravel version, I was super excited to go ultimately and do it, unfortunately that wasn't in the cards for me this year. But I did have my friend Marissa from Verde brand communications up there. Doing some interviews with some of the athletes as they were crossing the line. We were fortunate to talk to many of the stage winners and both of the ultimate winners of the event. So you'll see, during this episode, we'll go through each stage to give you a little bit of a flavor. For what transpired during the race, I'll give you a bit of an overview and then we've got a couple of just general commentaries from participants at the end of the podcast. So I hope you enjoy learning a little bit more about the trans Rockies. And with that i do need to stop and thank this week sponsor. This week we're once again, sponsored by our friends over at Trek travel and the discover Girona gravel trip. That I personally am going to be participating in on November 6th through 10th this year. And I encourage you to join me. You may recall. We did an entire episode on Jarana gravel last year. And learned a lot about this historic city. And what has become. A hub for professional cycling in Girona across the road and gravel spectrums. The city is surrounded by amazing gravel routes. And the Trek infrastructure in Girona is just top notch. It's a location of one of their service courses. So they've got a number of bikes and included in this trip. Is a bicycle rental from track. So you don't even have to travel with your bikes. As we talked about in the intro, I love the idea of multi-day gravel experiences. So whether it was the trans Rockies, gravel Royale. Or even better. A trip like this, where you can design your own experience. If you want to ride your bike from dusk till Dawn, the team attract travel can create routes for you. Or if you want to have more of a city experience and do shorter rides. And enjoy the cafes and the historic surroundings of the community of Girona. You can do that too. I am looking forward to bathing in it all, frankly, I've been dreaming about this trip for a few years, ever since I first found out about it from the group of Trek travel, and I want you to join me. So if you can. The. Trip I'll be participating in and starts on November 6th. If you register for the trip by visiting Trek, travel.com and search for that. Girona gravel bike tour. If you mentioned the podcast or the ridership, they're going to throw in a free handlebar bag. For your trip there and something you can take home with you it will be a small Momento of the time we'll share together. So I hope you'll join me there again. Simply visit Trek, travel.com and search Jarana gravel bike tour. And you'll see that November six. Trip amongst the other dates that they have available this year. And remember to mention the gravel ride podcast during your booking process. Without behind us, let's jump right into the overview of the trans Rockies gravel Royale. And hear from a number of the participants. All right. Stage one, the trans Rockies gravel Royale, Tigger pass Panorama to the, to the community of Becca it's 50 miles and 6,900 feet of climbing. We're joined today by women's race winner, Rachel McBride. And men's race winner, corey wallace from stage one [00:05:00] Rach McBride: This is Rach McBride, professional triathlete, and I guess gravel racer and mountain bike. Gracer this year. I am here at trans rocks, gravel, Royal, and just finished stage one. It was. A pretty awesome day. We started out with a nice neutral descent and Down into, from Panorama into, in Vermer and then started on the big climb up to about, I don't even know what, I don't know how high we went today. It was a really great day for me. I felt pretty strong all day. I saw, you know, there was kind of a pack of folks who went off the front and I did not stay with them. And so I was kind of on my own for most of the day back and forth with a couple of folks. And it was you know, this was probably one of the most technical. Gravel race days that I have ever done, we climbed and climbed and climbed on some gravel roads, but then it quickly went into double track that was not super rideable and there was a lot of walking and then it went into. Basically a trail that was a hiking trail and everyone was walking. I just tried to use some of my tri triathlete skills to jog a little bit up those walking sections. And it was pretty fun to just feel like you were out in the middle of with your gravel bike. And then once you reach the top of the. Of the climb and I knew I just needed to push it to the top of this climb because the rest of the ride was gonna be downhill and pretty flat. And so tactically, it was gonna pay off to spend a lot of matches on that first climb and Coming down the single track on the way down was very exciting. It was definitely quite technical didn't. I stayed on my bike for the most part, had to crash myself once when it got super, super steep and I couldn't stop myself and just need to work on some technical skills to actually. Feel comfortable riding down that in the future. And then yeah, was just like on my own got passed on the downhill by some really speedy downhill mountain bike types, but caught up with them on the flats and yeah, ended up finishing strong. There was I think everyone today is complaining about the. Final turn and the final climb because we're on a beautiful gravel road. And then turn onto basically what looks like. You're just riding into the forest and there's no trail at all and you just keep climbing up, but it was super fun. It was really exciting. And yeah, I don't know. I've never done you know, a four day stage race before, and especially with stages that are this long. So I hope I haven't burned a lot of matches. Today. I know I still have three more days to race and hope I can just keep pushing it and I may be totally dying by day four. We'll get there when we come to it. And this is why I do this sport is to just challenge myself and see how far I can go with it. [00:08:13] Cory Wallace: I'm Corey Wallace, the Kona Factory team, and we're here at day one in the trans Rockies, gravel Royal. Yeah, I finished up epic on Friday and then started the drive up here Saturday and got here last night, around eight o'clock woke up, threw some stuff in a bag and we went off bike racing. I was pretty grateful for the one hour rollout from Panora down to in Vermer before the race started, gave me a chance to woke up and then. Yeah, the race is on. Yeah, typical trans rock up a pretty gnarly climb bit. A hike, a bike is Rob my an American myself kind of, battling it out and they would drop me towards the top of the climb. And then I went pretty hard through the single track and caught 'em on the descent and attacked right away. And Rob came with me and we would work together to the finish. And I kind of knew the finish from 10 years going. We did trans Rockies here, so I did a little effort with about one K out and yeah, took the, took the win and now we're just hanging out and getting ready for day two. [00:09:10] Craig Dalton: All right onto stage two, which is Becca to Knippa CTCA highlighted by Miller pass. It's a 51 mile stage with 4,900 feet of climbing. Once again, we're joined by rich McBride. Who successfully got first place in this stage for the women? And we're also joined by second place finisher in the men's category. Rob britain [00:09:33] Rach McBride: All right. Stage two. We left Nica and came back to beautiful Nica. It has been amazing to be here in this beautiful place. My race was super fun. I just like was determined to make the battle Royal. This time around and yeah, just rode strong all day and finished with a bunch of guys, two guys who I made work with me and had a really, really fun time and made some new friends and that, and then immediately went and jumped in the pond to cool off Is the, I've just been like super impressed with NA NCA here and just the like camp atmosphere is really fun and really means that like, you get to meet new people and like, see everybody coming in and you know, Kind of get to know each other and chill, like the afternoons have been so awesome to just like, hang out and sit in the sun or sit in the pond go for a little walk. I went for a little jog this afternoon and yeah, it was pretty amazing. Yeah. I love it. And. Yeah, food's great too. good. Good evening entertainment as well with the like evening of photos and videos. So you also like get to see like what other people doing on race day and on course, which is pretty cool. Cool. How are you feeling for two more days? Two more days, man. I mean, they're gonna be longer. And I'm definitely feeling tired. And I know that like for me, the longer, the better I'm really excited about the upcoming about tomorrow. And we get to move to a new place. So that'll be cool though. I think we got really spoiled here. totally. Yeah. [00:11:22] Rob Britton: . Hi, my name's Rob Briton. I race professionally for east Overland slash felt bicycles. And right now we are on stage two of the trans Rockies gravel Royal. Currently I am in first, overall and finished second on yesterday's first stage and third on today's stage. So it's going pretty well so far. A little bit different experience than my past life, where we would sleep in hotels and have toilets. And this is more of a roughen it experience. Yeah, camping. So yeah, just hanging out in the tent at night with about 300 folks. and yeah, early starts, which is sort of the, the jam with gravel. I don't really tell you that in the gravel brochure, but yeah, most most stages start before 8:00 AM. So these ones start right around eight and they're relatively short for the races we've done this year around 80 K or. For any Americans listening about 50 miles. So that's give or take three hours and you're done before noon. So the rest of the day is just spent relaxing, which where we are right now. Looking at a pretty incredible view of we've got the cutey mountains on one side and the Rocky mountains on the other side of the valley we've got a pretty incredible. Pond or it's pond little swing hole here from a Creek, which is quite refreshing considering it's about 26, 27 degrees, or I guess 35, 80 degrees. So yeah, just taking it all in it's my first year doing this gravel gig. it's quite a bit more fun than my past life racing on the road, especially kind of the last couple years in Europe when things went from hard to much harder. So yeah, this is, this is nice. You have hamburgers for lunch and beef brisket for dinner and beer is kind of in between. So yeah, it's it's a pretty good gig, but otherwise yeah, running my felt breed carbon right now with. GX D I two, we've got a classified rear wheel on there. So it gives me kind of the option of my standard 48 with an 1134 cassette or the virtual second ring is close to a 32. So pretty killer climbing gear Schwabe G one RS tires and 45 C, which is pretty sweet for traction. And then I kinda made the last minute switch to the Fox taper cast 32 fork. So I've got just a little bit of little bit of cushion to the front end for those descend switch so far has paid off quite a bit. I don't mind carrying it up the climbs for the yeah, the mortal relaxed ASC descending. And yeah, we got two stages left. I think it's about. Tomorrow's 110 K giver take. And then the final day is kind of there at queen stage. And that's about 130 K. So I think that's around 87 miles and yeah, finishing fornia and, and call it a week and then onto whatever my next thing is, which at this point I actually don't even know, but I know I'm busy for the next month, but Yeah, all and all it's been pretty awesome being out here in BC. It's nice to race, relatively close to home. You don't get that opportunity. And certainly haven't had that for a number of years, so I'm stoked to be here. [00:14:33] Craig Dalton: The stage three, this is where the writers are really starting to feel the first two days of effort. This day's stages from Nica to canal flats. I'll actually be moving camp today and it features little ALK pass. 67 miles, 4,900 feet of climbing. We're going to be joined again by Rachel McBride who managed to successfully. When this stage as well. And then on the men's side we're joined by caleb swartz from missoula montana who came in third place on stage three [00:15:07] Rach McBride: All right. Day three, trans Rockies gravel Royal. Today was a more of an epic day than we had experienced in the past couple of days, just because it was a little bit longer and started off. Pretty much right off the bat with the Q O M climb, which was pretty challenging and still involved some walking at the top, which I think everybody was not fond of. And and then quite, I mean, for me, it was a technical descent. I was pretty, I was scared shitless going down the descent, cuz it was super fast yet. There were some technical bits. And and ended up getting up out onto the main road, the drag that was hours and hours long initially on my own. And then thankfully got caught by two guys and we then eventually. Reeled in another two guys. And there were five of us working together for a long time. And that was one of the interesting things about this course today was that it really, your success kind of depended a little bit on who you ran into and what kind of a group you had and if you were working together or not, and I really got pushed by the. Folks that I was riding with, which was awesome. And eventually we got rid of…

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Matt Harvey - Enduro Bearings Aug 23, 2022

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This week Randall sits down with Enduro Bearings co-founder, Matt Harvey. Randall and Matt go deep on the origin story of Enduro Bearings (circe 1996), bearing science and myth, and how this often overlooked component enables the ride experience. Episode Sponsor: Athletic Greens Enduro Bearings Support the Podcast Join The Ridership Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: Enduro Bearings [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 handing the microphone back to my co-host Randall Jacobs. Who's got Matt Harvey. Founder of Enduro bearings on the show. You might've heard us talk about Inderal bearings a few times in the, in the dirt episodes, as I was deciding and debating what bottom bracket to run on my new custom bike. Well, I decided on the Enduro stainless steel bottom bracket. And I couldn't be happier with the performance thus far. I was happy that Randall volunteered to take a deep dive into bearing technology. With Matt, as I think he's got better perspective on the technical elements. And certainly there's no one better to talk about this product than Matt himself. Before we jump in i need to thank this week sponsor athletic greens Athletic greens is literally a product that I take every day. I discovered athletic greens many years ago, as I was recovering from my treatment for Hodgkin's lymphoma. I was looking for something that had the vitamins, minerals and probiotics that I needed to kind of just give me baseline support. After I was through that difficult period of my life. I realized that this was sort of a baseline thing I needed for all my athletic endeavors as well. With one scoop of athletic greens, you're absorbing 75 high quality vitamins minerals, whole food source, superfoods. Probiotics and APTA gins. To help you start your day, right? It's a special blend of ingredients to support your gut health. Your nervous system, your immune system, your energy, your recovery, your focus and aging. All the things. I encourage you to check it out, to see if it's something that might fit for you to make it easy. Athletic greens is going to give you a free one year supply of immune supporting vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is that the athletic greens.com/the gravel ride. Again, that's athletic greens.com/the gravel ride. To take ownership of your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. With that said, I'm going to hand the microphone over to Randall. For his interview with matt harvey from enduro bearings [00:02:37] Randall Jacobs: So I cut you off last time we spoke because there are just too many things that I was interested in diving into. And there's the obvious technical aspects of what goes into making a bearing? Of the myths about bearings that we might debunk and things like this. But before we dive in, just tell us a little bit about yourself. [00:02:57] Matt Harvey: well, I've always been in bicycles ever since I can remember. So I started out as a BMX rat, you know, when I was like 13, 12 or 13, and I started working at a bike shop when I was 13. So I immediately into the mechanical, well, spraying, WD 40 on POJO drive, tra is an exactly super high end mechanical things, but that's how it started. So, you know, and you know, through there, I worked in bike shops, my business partner. Now I met in a bike shop when I was 17. We worked in the same bike shop. I ended up working at Fisher mountain bikes. I got an engineering degree, ended up working at Fisher mountain bikes, wide industries Bianchi bicycles, starting out in warranty. Became a product manager, went to Italy, did their mountain bike wine designed a bunch of road bikes and mountain bikes full suspension road bike that got written in Perry RBA. and that was kind of like when I was looking at bearings because everybody was using plane bearings or bushings at the time. And the Fisher RS one with Mert Lawwell work. That was his design. And one of the first full suspension bikes, I think. Well, not first, but you know what I mean? Like current more modern production type, full suspension bike, I should say. Cuz suspension, bikes go back. You know, turn of the last century. So, so that's when I was starting to look at bearings and rolling elements and that's when they were getting popular. And that guy I worked with at a bike shop when I was 17, he was in the forklift business by then. And he was starting to make bearings for old forklifts. And you know, we hadn't lost touch and we were talking and I started doing drawings for him cuz he needed CAD drawings for certain things. I was working at Bianchi. And then we, at one point we decided, Hey, this could become a business. So let's start making bearings for forklifts and bicycles. And that's what we still do. 30 years later. [00:04:58] Randall Jacobs: Well, and I'm curious, we'll, we'll dive into the Enduro bearing story in a minute, but I wanna dive more into that background cuz there's a few things that I find interesting one is, you have what sounds like a technical understanding of the bike that comes from, getting your hands dirty at a young age. I share that experience. And in fact, working on bikes I think is a great way for any person to learn how mechanical systems work. But then also you worked in warranty, so you saw what was going wrong. How did your experience working in shops and working in warranty inform your perspective on product. [00:05:30] Matt Harvey: yeah. They're all related, right? You can't separate it. Obviously at one point I realized I needed more school to do what I was thinking about doing, I wanted my boss's job. I wanted to do what he was doing, which was designing bikes, but I didn't have the background or experience. So I went back to school, but yeah, I mean, Your hands are in the bikes, you ride bikes. So you get a certain aspect, which is super important, the practical aspect, but then you know, getting into engineering and so forth, you have to have, you know, the math, the, you know, the history, the you know, and then you get into business. You need business stuff too, but there there's a lot of corners. You need to go explore to put the whole thing together. I, I think, and, and that's what I ended up, ended up doing. So at, at the beginning it was practical aspect, you know, seed of the pan stuff, cuz I'm just working on stuff. And that's the way, a lot of the way a lot of things happened in the late eighties, early nineties, that's kind of the period I was working on it. But you mentioned warranty. Yeah. I learned a lot in warranty cuz I saw everything that got broken. [00:06:43] Randall Jacobs: Yeah. [00:06:44] Matt Harvey: at Bianchi bicycles and it was the eighties and. Ola was king, you know, shaman was coming with index shifting, but you know, things were being made in in Italy or, or Taiwan or, or various countries at the time, still a lot in the us. And, and then there was people were trying to, you know, save money and then things break. And what happens with heat treating what happens with why did that thing break? Why was there too much heat treating? Well, I wanted to find out, well, that seems like a good thing. How can there be too much heat treating? So, you know, you learn, I, you see the broken parts, you see a box of broken pedals and that's not good. Nobody likes to break a pedal, but you find out like why things get crispy and break and and all the, so I, I wanted to learn about especially metal steel, aluminum at the time it was Prebon fiber. [00:07:40] Randall Jacobs: Mm [00:07:40] Matt Harvey: But so yeah I, you go into, I went into back to school in metal shop too. And but I, I was lucky because I also had, I was going to Taiwan. I was still working for Bianchi. I was going to factories, seeing things you know, forged, spin, welded you know, all the different ways you make things. So I was, I was getting a practical eyes on learning experience in Taiwan where all the production was kind of going. I was also going to Italy and, you know, Italy was still making a lot of stuff. Then Bianchi was making bikes at the main factory there. I mean, they're getting back to it again, but at the time it was sort of Asia was taking over on a lot of the production. So it was kind of split between, you know, Asia and Italy at the time. [00:08:26] Randall Jacobs: So you were right in there at a number of big transitions in the industry. The advent of the mountain bike, which was very much a us and in particular bay area phenomenon . And in fact I've talked about different tariff codes in for mountain bikes there was a significant domestic manufacturing operation. And materials were that much more critical cuz you had this really high stress application that hadn't really been done before. Like those clunks were not were not holding up all that well. And then the transition to index shifting that's another major transition in the industry. That's the reason why Shao is so dominant today. And also Asia manufacturing, a lot of which was people in the us and European bike industries who were going over and helping to, transfer that knowledge and set up that production in what is now, Taiwan in particular some of the, the best, highest end manufacturing for bikes anywhere. It's no, it's no longer a cost thing. It's a quality thing. [00:09:23] Matt Harvey: Yeah. And in the beginning they were, they had the ability to make really high end stuff, but the knowledge needed to come from the people who were practically riding bikes, because they weren't practically riding bikes. They knew how to make things, but they had to know how to make it now, you know, the Taiwanese it feeds back a lot of times they, they do new products that they develop their own new products that are really great. So, but yeah, you're right. Those were the early days of figuring all that stuff out. [00:09:53] Randall Jacobs: Well, and I'd, and I'd say I definitely see more domain knowledge on the product side in Taiwan than there was in the past, but still it, it does seem that the, the most successful Taiwanese manufacturers are those that have, European or American team that is in the market and kind of on top of the trends and the trends are still largely driven by those two markets. [00:10:15] Matt Harvey: sure. But you know, in Taiwan now it's an entire, since I started there, it's an entirely new generation that has now grown up in the bike industry. And there a lot of 'em are riders now and stuff. And back then nobody was riding mountain bikes who worked at the factories or made stuff or design stuff. But now you have a lot of people there that are enthusiast. And I mean, as big an enthusiast as anybody in the world for [00:10:39] Randall Jacobs: Yeah. True. [00:10:40] Matt Harvey: riding. And so it's, it's an entirely new generation that. I mean, it's great. They've embraced it and they know it and they develop things materials and design it's incredible. And at the time, you know, historically you go back, so Italy was, you know, Italy and France were the huge innovators back when right. They came out well, derailer, it's a French word and Italians didn't embrace it immediately. They had other things, other ideas. But at the time when I went there, it was an interesting time because Italy was king, but not quite becoming, you know, they, they didn't catch the mountain bike wave. They were looking at specialized and these innovators at the time Fisher, all, you know, Richie, all the people that were innovating and they couldn't keep up, they didn't quite cuz they're, they were a mature market and not looking at that. So I was the American brought in to be the eyes and. Practicality of that part which I was, you know, it was a little frustrating cuz you couldn't quite keep up and then the name Bianchi and mountain bikes at the time no people are gonna buy a, a Fisher or a Richie or something or an Ibis, you know? So that was a uphill battle and that, and that's why European brands or track, you know, they bought mountain bike brands. They bought, you know, Gary Fisher brand and to sell it because they were known as a road bike company. And that's what people were doing at the time. So it wasn't always necessarily not great ideas at these companies. It was marketing to, you know, you have to have it all. [00:12:16] Randall Jacobs: it's interesting, like you think about camp. No. Which was a really great and, and major player, and they're still significant, but substantially diminished, vis Avi Shao and STR the, the two, you know, arguably we have a duopoly in our industry and it's those two and camp Nolo makes some good stuff, but they didn't come out with hydraulic disc brakes until much later. and, and even then I think they work with McGurk on that. I don't know if that's in house now. They're more recent offerings with the ECAR group, I think are, are innovative. And I'd like to see them contest from more spec because the industry does benefit from competition. But yeah, it's interesting to hear your perspective on how the industry has evolved. What year did you enter? When were you working in those shops? [00:12:59] Matt Harvey: So first bike shop was 1976. And then let's see, I worked in shops until about 81 and I ended up starting at Bianchi warranty in the 82, maybe through 80, 85. And then I went over to Fisher. I went back to school. I, I simultaneously worked at Fisher and was in school and, and then I started moonlighting at white industries because Doug white was, he was pretty, he was making titanium spindles for Fisher. So that's how I made the connection there. And I would go over to his shop. They were pretty close by. There was a lot of people around then Dave GU DKG make, he still makes seat clamps. He was making motorcycle stuff. You know, there was salsa. Everybody was kind of in the same area and everything was happening up in Marin then. So, you know, I talked to lot of people, Peter Johnson, all these people that were making stuff. And so I went back when I finished school. I it just coincided with Bianchi needing a product manager for a mountain bike specifically. So they, I got rehired at Bianchi as product manager, and then it was a lot of a lot of whirlwind you know, once a month to Taiwan. Once every two months to Italy, I was on the plane all the time, doing a lot of stuff and developed two mountain bikes there. And that was a transition of going from bushings to rolling elements bearings and seeing that, you know, the bearings weren't hacking it. I wanted bearings cuz they're faster, you know, than bushings bushings are slow in a suspension linkage. And if you're going over a high you know, water bars or high frequency stuff, [00:14:46] Randall Jacobs: Yeah. [00:14:46] Matt Harvey: they're, they're just too slow. Bushings can't react. So rolling elements work better, but they were wearing out fast. So it was trying to figure out how to do better ones. And then that was kind of my transition into bearings. My friend from the bike shop was he was down at his shop in Emoryville…

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What makes a great wheelset with Randall Jacobs of Lōgōs Aug 16, 2022

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In this episode, Craig has Randall back in the guest chair to explore wheel design and development along with the philosophy and design principles behind Lōgōs and its new Omnium wheel collection. From engagement systems and materials to profile design and assembly and everything in between, this episode will leave you with a broad understanding of the wheel landscape and equip you with the knowledge necessary to make an informed decision about your next set of wheels regardless of brand. Episode sponsor: Hammerhead Karoo 2 (use promo code: thegravelride for a free heart rate monitor) Support the Podcast Join The Ridership Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: Logos Components [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. Today on the podcast. I'm welcoming Randall Jacobs to the show for an interview. You may very well know him for his efforts in the, in the dirt episodes, as my technical sidekick, as well as an increasing number of standalone interview episodes that he's handling on behalf of the podcast. I very much appreciate his technical orientation and his passion about the gravel cycling community. But today I wanted to get him on the show to talk about his new efforts with his company logos components. He's introducing three new wheels this month to the gravel cycling community. We wanted to do an episode obviously touching on the new company, but also as something that's standalone for anybody who's interested in upgrading their wheels or purchasing a wheel set for their gravel or mountain bike. I think there's a lot of nuance in the hubs, spokes, and rims that you can learn from this show that you can take across any decision you're making with any of the. RI and wheel manufacturers out there in the world. So with that, before we jump in, I need to thank this week's sponsor hammerhead and the hammerhead car two bicycle computer. The hammerhead car 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, free global maps with points of interest included like cafes and campsite means you can explore with confidence and on the go flexibility, I've talked about how I've been appreciating the hammerhead and how increasingly I've taken the time. To customize each screen. My latest way of geeking out was with rival access componentry. You can actually track the number of shift. In any given ride, obviously not mission critical information, but I just thought it was kind of interesting because as you think about it, uh, you know, you do shift more or less depending on the ation of the terrain out there. I very much appreciate. Hammerheads biweekly software updates. I always look forward to it. Sometimes it's things that are like no brainers. Like they've been improving their points of interest along the way. And other times it's deep tech that, you know, I perhaps don't have a need for today, but I very much appreciate the fact that they update it constantly because it's just something that gives me confidence that I've always got the most up to date. Technology on my bicycle computer recently, I think I mentioned I've been doing some exploring in my hometown. I love and appreciate that return to home feature. I was out on a route, um, actually when I was traveling and I wasn't exactly sure how I was gonna get home and I was pretty beat and I just navigated to return to start. And it gave me the most bike appropriate route home, which was very much appreciated as I was cracking in the heavy Tucson heat. For a limited time, our listeners can get a free heart rate monitor with the purchase of a hammerhead Cari, 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 for a podcast listener. So don't forget to use the promo code, the gravel ride. Add that free heart rate monitor into your cart. And when you purchase the car two, you'll get that heart rate monitor for. Go to hammerhead.io, add both carts and the promo code, the gravel ride with that said, let's jump right into my conversation with Randall. [00:03:56] Craig: Randall welcome to the show. [00:03:58] Randall: Great to be back on Craig, been looking forward to this conversation. [00:04:01] Craig: I feel like I owed you a more specific welcome because unlike our, in the dirt episodes, this one's a little different, we're gonna go deeper. And I think it's important. Many people who listen to in the dirt are where you're my sidekick. You're someone who's got, you know, a little bit more technical knowledge about the bike industry and bike components, et cetera than I do. And we're just a good muse for each other on our journey in this sport. But in today's episode, we're gonna go a little deeper about you and your companies. [00:04:30] Randall: Yeah, it's a bit of, a bit of a throwback. It reminds me of I think it was June 2018 when I first came on the pod, which is when you and I first got acquainted as well in this friendship. That's blossom from that. So, it'll be fun to have another, another such conversation. [00:04:45] Craig: Yeah, it's super early days. And I remember, part of that journey was me ending up selecting a Thesis Bike in part, because I just found you to be very thoughtful as a product designer. And I would love for the listener today who may be coming at it, having not listened to that original episode, to just understand a little bit more about your background in the bike industry and your philosophy around creating bicycles and componentry. [00:05:11] Randall: Sure. There's a deeper dive that we did in that aforementioned episode, but long on the short I've been riding, as many of us have been riding, since I was a kid really got serious into it. Around age 18, started racing was working in a bike shop here in the Boston area. Then later on, I got to pack fodder pro status on the cross country circuit for a couple of years, which was a lot of fun dirt bagging out of the back of my Honda element around the country. And from there did some supply chain work outside of the bike industry in China lived there for some years picked up Mandarin, [00:05:44] Craig: Hang on Randall. So how. Did, how did you get into supply chain? [00:05:49] Randall: So let's see. I was 21 and getting ready to finish college and decided to go and do a study abroad. I was at Zhongshan university in Guangzhou and met a man who became a good friend and a mentor who hired me to work for his trading and manufacturing company. It was a Chinese company Chinese own Chinese management. So I was the only non-Chinese on the team. And I was charged with first business development. But later on, got deep into product development, I was brought into all the, the key meetings with our big vendors and learned the ropes of how it works at that very deep level. And at the same time was picking up a lot of the. Not just the technical language and understanding of how things are made across a, a broad range of sectors, including, technologies that apply to bike. But then also the cultural elements of successfully architecting a supply chain. That was a pretty formative period for me. [00:06:46] Craig: I bet. Yeah, it's so huge. And one of those things that it's easy, if you've never got into the manufacturing world to, to not think about, but really understanding the culture and particularly in your case, understanding the language and developing a fluency of communication in the native tongue. It's just so immensely helpful in greasing the manufacturing wheels, so to speak. [00:07:06] Randall: Oh, absolutely. Frankly, none of what, the companies I've been involved with do, would be possible without, having learned the language and later did a graduate degree in us China relations. So learning, not just the culture from a firsthand perspective, but also a lot of the history, a lot of the philosophies reading some original texts, very slowly with the dictionary, but reading them nonetheless. It all makes a big difference when you're trying to build a, a deep trust based relationship with a party who has a very different background. [00:07:39] Craig: A hundred percent. Now, was the bike still part of your life during this period? Or had you shelved it, pursuing your professional vocation? [00:07:46] Randall: So I was riding a bit, not a ton but I was good friends with the owner of the biggest bike shop in Juhi a couple hours outside of Guang Jo, where I had lived when I first went to China was teaching English for a period. He's still a good friend. We've actually done some bike packing together. And it was, it was interesting. He was someone who, doesn't speak much English at all. So I've only ever spoken Mandarin with him. And this is saying in Chinese, it's like a duck talking to a chicken. And that was our relationship at first, but we are unified by this love of the bicycle. And over, over time, I, I, you know, obviously learned to communicate and we had a lot of shared experiences, so, [00:08:22] Craig: And then did you, did you find yourself drifting back with interest into the bicycle industry? Proper at some. [00:08:29] Randall: That kind of came later. I got to a point in my career where I graduated from grad school, going through a lot of, of life change, life transition, and. Was just thinking to myself, well, what, what is that kind of nexus of things that I'm good at that I'm knowledgeable about? That I care about that resonate with me in, in my lifestyle and that I can, I can get paid to do. And working in the bike industry made a lot of sense because I had the experiences as a racer. I had some relationships, obviously Mandarin was, very useful from a supply chain management standpoint. And also I ended up doing some market development stuff when I was at specialized, but mostly supply chain. And so it really, it's kind of the, the same way that my decision to go to China you know, was made it was okay. Well, you know, here are a bunch of different factors that I can weigh in order to, to make a decision. And ultimately, bike was like, okay, this makes sense I can do this and I can probably do it well, and I can, I can learn this. I can Excel at this. If I put my mind to it, [00:09:32] Craig: So you mentioned that you ended up at specialized bicycles out in Morgan hill. Can you just talk about what your role was there and some of the things you've learned, obviously you had supply chain experience. You had the experience over in China, but transitioning to a bicycle specific supply chain. What were some of the takeaways from that experience and, and maybe what were some of the projects of note that you worked. [00:09:54] Randall: Sure. So as you make clear, I wasn't there very long around a year some places are a good fit. Some places are not for each of us. But specialize in a lot of ways is, is arguably one of, if the not most innovative big brand also a marketing powerhouse and marketing is a substantial part of it, but there was a lot of very smart people in the room. And working for a company like specialized. We were a major account. So even though I was not an executive in the company I was working with the leadership of the factories that we were buying from on the projects that I was helping to manage. So that was, again, another one of these serendipitous experiences that made it, such that when I started my own thing, those relationships were already established in terms of projects. So the one that probably people know know most would be the diverge. And I was one of the team members on that. I shouldn't overstate my role. And it was an interesting project. I remember riding around on, prototypes of that bike. And just the concept of a gravel bike, making a ton of sense and being really excited about it. It didn't realize the vision the way that I would liked it to have. I think the biggest compromise I saw was there was a different tariff code for frames that can fit bigger than a 35 millimeter tire. So it was like 7% more expensive. And so we constrained the tire size to a maximum 35 millimeter in order to stay under the tariff, cuz otherwise it's a mountain bike and there was some protectionist policies around mountain bikes at some point. And then there are various other things that I did on my own bikes later on. I didn't have those constraints. [00:11:27] Craig: Yeah, that's so interesting. I, I remember in our earlier conversation back in, in June of 2018, when you first came on to talk about thesis and you talked about your history there, and I remember walking away from that conversation, just finding it, very interesting, the business decisions that get thrown on top of a product designer's vision that end up creating constraints, whether it's the time of year it has to launch or the, the tariffs that it may incur because it has larger than a 35 millimeter wheel tire size. It's super fascinating and interesting, and I can see why knowing you as well as I do that. You know, you don't want to be constrained by those criteria. You ultimately, your heart is in creating the best product. [00:12:10] Randall: Yeah. And there, of course there are constraints in what I do too. Right. I, I'm not gonna make a, like, I didn't make a $10,000 bicycle. I made a bicycle that did everything that I think a bicycle needs in order to, not. Really be dreaming about the $10,000 bicycle at night. Right. So, there's different constraints when you have to have a complete line and you have to have good, better, best, and you need to have a 3.2 to 3.5 X markup relatives cost a good sold in order for your business model to be viable because all these different things that when you are a small company with less overhead when you're mostly word of mouth and so on that, you can do things a little bit differently. [00:12:49] Craig: Yep. Yeah. So I'm gonna fast forward a bunch here, but at, at you decided to create a brand called thesis bicycle. And when did that come into the world? Was it 2018? [00:13:01] Randall: Early 2018. I flew over to Asia, did a whirlwind several week tour, three factories a day in mainland China in Taiwan to set up the supply chain, decide who we were gonna work with, build to build the materials, came back with a suitcase full of parts and built up a prototype. And then was actually you'll probably recall I had that, that raw black frame that I had a decal cutter that I cut decals for. And then I had all the parts and then I was loaning this bike out and asking people, would you buy it? And enough people said yes. And I said, okay, well here's the website. And enough people actually put their dollars down where it made sense to start a company around it. [00:13:38] Craig: And people keep saying yes to the thesis bike. I mean, it's, it's one of them that's in my quiver, in my garage that I, I still enjoy to this day. I mean, it's super well executed. And I think my opinion of the bike has been well documented. One of the thing along things along the way, you know, you decided it was gonna be a direct consumer bran…

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Girls Gone Gravel - Kathryn Taylor Aug 09, 2022

Show notes

This week on the podcast, Randall sits down with Kathryn Taylor, co-host of the Girls Gone Gravel Podcast and Chief of Staff at Feisty Media. Looking at inclusion in the sport of gravel cycling and how Feisty Media is looking to build a brand centered around helping active, performance-minded women find the resources they need to do the things they love. Episode Sponsor: Bike Index, a free, non-profit bicycle registry and stolen bike recovery platform. Girls Gone Gravel Podcast Fiesty Media Support the Podcast Join The Ridership Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: Girls Gone Gravel [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, my co-host Randall Jacobs is gonna take the reins. Randall did an interview with Catherine Taylor of feisty media and a co-host of the girls gone gravel podcast, Catherine. And the team at feisty media are helping active performance minded women find the resources they need to do the things they love. Many of you may be familiar with Catherine's work with Christie Mon on the girls gone gravel podcast. Christie is also a former guest of this podcast, and you can refer to that episode. We did about the big sugar gravel event. If you scroll back a little while in your feed, before we jump into the conversation I wanted to thank this week's sponsor bike index bike index is a nonprofit bicycle registry and stolen bike recovery platform. In fact, take a moment, hit pause, and go register your bike. It takes five to 10 minutes. The hardest part is locating your serial number, but once it's in the system, it's a free resource. Bike index has no business talking to you. They're hoping to just sit there in the background as a utility, but God forbid your bike goes missing and gets stolen. Bike indexes. One of the only resources you're gonna find online to help coordinate the efforts of recovering your bicycle. They're a nonprofit. Everything they do. Any donation you make is tax deductible. Registration is free, so you really don't have any excuse other than time to register your bikes. Go on, hit up bike index.org and get your bike registered with that said, let's jump on over to Randall's conversation with Katherine. [00:02:05] Randall: Katherine, thank you for coming on the gravel ride podcast. It's great to have this conversation. It seems like we have a lot of alignment in terms of the types of community building projects that we're most interested in and obviously our shared love of this particular sport. So, would just love to start with what's. What's your background with the sport? How did you end up doing a podcast called girls gone gravel . [00:02:26] Kathryn: Well, it's funny. I'm as many of the guests that we've actually had in our podcast, I've learned there's a lot of burnt out triathletes that end up in gravel. And that was definitely me. So I was really involved in triathlon for about 10 years. I raced coached. I even worked at a triathlon store. That was one of the top triathlon online retailers in the company. And I got really burned out from it because it's all about checking your power and your wants and. A lot of training all the time. And a friend of mine that was in the tri club was doing this race at the time called dirty cancer. And sh because she had heard this woman named Alison Terick on a podcast and she had never rid her bike more than 20 miles, but she signed up for the 200 mile event and was training through the company that I coached with. So I wasn't her coach, but one of my coworkers was her coach. And so I just heard all about this journey to this crazy gravel. Race. And I was like, oh, this sounds kind of fun. I think I'm gonna get a gravel bike instead of a traveling bike. And so I got a gravel bike and I would go out, she would go be doing like five laps of this local 20 mile loop. And I would go out and do one lap with her and just started to love it and love the adventure. And then started hosting some rides on the weekends for local community women. And Got into that. And then it's actually a funny story. So I was working at a bike shop at the time. And when I bought the bike, the bike shop owner was like, well, I don't think you're gonna like gravel because it's hard. And that made me really mad yeah. [00:04:00] Randall: oh [00:04:01] Kathryn: yeah. And so I had way too much wine one night and I woke up at two in the morning and I was like, I'm gonna start an Instagram account. It was when Instagram was. Starting to grow. And I was like, girl's gonna gravel, that's it. So I got the handle at two in the morning and I just started sharing like community pictures and it grew. And that ended up eventually turning into a podcast and now has become a whole brand where we have events. We have a little team, we, you know, go do cover, live events. We're done a few other things in the future, so yeah, that's, that's how it got started. [00:04:34] Randall: And I'm curious, where were you living at the time and what timeframe are we talking here? [00:04:38] Kathryn: So it was 2019. It wasn't that long ago. And I was living in Atlanta, Georgia. So, and, and there's not a ton of gravel around Atlanta. You really have to drive. So it was really in the Southeast the gravel scene. Was much behind kind of the Midwest Northwest, Northeast gravel. It was really just starting to come onto the scene. And the, and people didn't know about things like, you know, Unbound or, or any of those things at the time. My friend Lauren was the first person that any of us ever knew that had gone and done, you know, at the time it was dirty Kansas. So, so yeah. That's, that's where I was living. [00:05:15] Randall: One of the obvious questions that, that, you know, came up to me prior to us recording today was, you know, what was your inspiration? And I kind of feel like I got a little bit of a taste of it when you're talking about that bike shop person. I think that the industry has catered to a particular audience that mostly looks like me, frankly for a very long time. And there is a dire need for more accessible on ramps to other people who wanna participate. And it seems like you, you feel a niche And half the population. It's not really a niche I'd love to hear more about that inspiration and how you've gone about it. [00:05:49] Kathryn: Yeah. So I had been a part of Atlanta tri club, which is the. Probably the third largest triathlon club in the country. And I was one of the coaches for Atlanta tri club. I also was on the regional board for USA triathlon. And we were doing a lot of initiatives in the women's space at the time. And so I, I started to see, there were a few things, if you could do, you could really increase women's participation in the sport. And I had a, a good friend that we were doing. A lot of these things kind of side by side in that. And she, she actually passed away very unexpectedly in 2019 and. [00:06:27] Randall: to hear that. [00:06:29] Kathryn: Thank you. It was yeah, she, it was a, a brain aneurysm. So just out of the blue and I kind of looked back at her legacy and I was. I wanna continue this, but the triathlon space, isn't where I feel the passion anymore. At the same, I was starting to get into gravel. And at the same time I had another friend that was an ultra endurance cyclist. Her name is Danny Gable, and she's done all these crazy ultra endurance adventures. And I started hearing her stories about cycling and how male dominated it was and started looking into it. And I was like, oh, I think there are some things that we could do. That will really bring women to the forefront that are really simple things like telling women stories, giving women a place to connect with each other giving them a space and, and everything just happened to come together right around the time of the pandemic. That's when Christ and I started the podcast and we started a private Facebook group. The, I was like, oh, a couple hundred people. And within, I don't know, two months, it was like 5,000 people. And we were doing, you know, all kinds of webinars and stuff. Over the summer, cuz everybody was stuck at home. Laura King actually had connected with me and she said, Hey, we were gonna do this, this camp or this weekend with rooted, but we can't do it because of the pandemic. But do you wanna do it like just a virtual DIY gravel? Summer thing. And so we did like every Friday we would do a webinar where women could come on and learn for free. And, and so it just, everything started to come together and the community really naturally formed. And it it's really cool because now I go to races and people will say, oh, I heard the podcast. Or I followed your stuff or I'm in the Facebook group. And that's the reason I decided to come do this event or, you know, This inspired me or so. And so story inspired me. So, I think I started rambling, but that's kind of my, my very long answer to your question. It was really [00:08:18] Randall: is entirely the point. [00:08:20] Kathryn: Yeah, but, but I it's been driven by what the community wanted all along. You know, so. [00:08:25] Randall: Well, and I was sharing before we started recording that I actually heard about you and your work from one of our listeners who, who came up to me at rooted Vermont, her name escapes me is actually two women. So if you're listening please drop me a note and remind me your name and just thank you for the introduction. And I asked them, who should we be bringing onto the podcast to talk about community and to elevate their work. And you were the first person that they mentioned. So, there's clearly a deep resonance with what you do. So you have a background having worked in shops, you've been a pretty serious triathlete. You had your own journey into the sport. I'm curious to unpack that a bit. What was it like when you were first getting into cycling or endurance athletics generally? How far back does that go? And what aspects of that experience do you think were different as a consequence of being a woman versus a man coming into it . [00:09:16] Kathryn: Yeah. I actually got into triathlon when I moved to Atlanta. So it was like 2010, I think, 2009, 2010, somewhere right around there. And had lived a lot of places. I had moved there. I was living with my parents and I'd always wanted to do a triathlon. I was a swimmer growing up. I was a really bad runner, but I'd never, like, I'd only ridden my Walmart bike around town. I'd never ridden like a real bike. And so I Googled triathlon. Atlanta and team and training was actually having a info session for their summer training program. So the options were like, sit at home with my parents and watch wheel of fortune, or go meet a bunch of strangers and maybe raise money to do an event. So I ended up signing up for team and training and, and that experience really informed everything I did from then on out. The, the team in training chapter in, in Georgia is, is one of the strongest team in training chapters. At that time was one of the strongest team in training chapters in the country. And they were just so great at bringing people in and teaching them everything from, you know, how do you ride a bike? How do you prepare for a race and, and creating a community around it? And I didn't know anything, like I showed up at my first ride with my mom's bike. That was Just a, like a towny bike and Umbro shorts and a t-shirt everybody was there, there, you know, try bikes and their kits and stuff, but people had just made me feel so welcome. And so part of it, even though I felt like I don't belong here at that moment. And then took me through every piece of it from. Falling over in the parking lot, three times is the first time I tried to clip in and, you know, a woman stayed with me and rode with me that whole day to teaching me, you know, everything about the bike. And then on the contrary, I'd be like, oh, I'm gonna go to this group ride, which would be primarily guys and primarily a race instead of a group ride, like the Tuesday night race, but they didn't communicate that. And so I remember one time I was up I. Dog sitting with my parents or something. And so I was at their house, which is in the north side of Atlanta. And it's really hilly. It's kind of, you're starting to get up into the Appalachians. I went on this ride and I didn't have like a Q sheet. They didn't give them out. They didn't communicate. They didn't say hello at the ride. I was like, okay, well I can hang. I'm a travel now. And I got so lost. Didn't know where I was. Didn't have anybody to call to get back. Finally, like somebody came by and pointed me the way back to town. And I thought if that were my experience, like the first time I showed up at a group ride, I would've never, I would've walked away from the bike. I. Forever. And and I've heard that experience from so many women of just having horrific experiences. The first time they walk into a group ride or a bike shop. And so I just want women to feel confident and be excited about, you know, that, and, and so, because I had such a great experience with team and training and saw the difference, it just it informed the way I wanted to contribute to the community. [00:12:23] Randall: That's great. And I have a confession. I was absolutely one of those men who treated every group ride like a race. I came into the sport, very hard charging and just wanted to compete and go hard and crush it and go into the pain cave and all the things that are associated with that very aggressive more ego driven aspects of the sport that make it so inaccessible. And, it's in recent years that I've come full circle and seen the opportunity to not just take what I've learned and to help bring someone in but also the huge benefit that I get personally from just slowing it down and taking the time to connect and facilitating. So I'm curious, how do you define your community? You have your podcast listeners, you have your Facebook group. What is the extent of the community? How do people interact with you now? How many people are in involved ? What's the structure of it? [00:13:12] Kathryn: Yeah. That's well, just real quick before we move on from like the group ride. Cause I do want like, it's okay. If you have a really hard, fast charging group ride, right. Like I think that is totally fine. And it's appropriate for some people. It's the communication and helping people understand and even saying, like being able to say. this isn't for you. If somebody shows up that's not ready or like I'm willing to sacrifice my night for you. So like, I don't wanna get rid of the group rides that people love to go out and smash themselves on. I just wanna make sure there's spaces. What that, when we say we're welcome to new people, that we're actually welcome to do people [00:13:47] Randall: Yeah. I, I think that that's a really valid point. And if you're going to have a ride that you're opening up to a broader audience, having something in place, whether it be, Points wher…

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Nick Marzano - 2022 Tour Divide Finisher Aug 03, 2022

Show notes

This week we sit down with Nick Marzano to explore his experience during the 2022 Tour Divide. The 2022 Tour Divide began with over 200 riders following the 2,745-mile Great Divide Mountain Bike Route from north to south starting in Banff, Alberta, Canada and finishing at the US/Mexico border in Antelope Wells, New Mexico. Episode Sponsor: Trek Travel - come join The Gravel Ride Podcast crew on the November 6th trip. Support the Podcast Join The Ridership Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: Nick Marzano [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've got Nick Marzano from Philadelphia. Here to talk to us about the tour divide. Nick recently finished the tour divide routes during the grand depart from Banff, Canada, and made it all the way to the edge of the border of Mexico. If you don't know about the tour divide, it's roughly follows a route called the great divide mountain bike route, and it's recognized as one of the most important off pavement cycling routes in the United States of America. If not the world, the root criss crosses the continental divide from north to south, starting in Banff, Alberta, Canada, and finishing at the U S Mexico border in antelope Wells, New Mexico. I've been following the tour divide for many years. In fact, in some small part, I credit it with getting me excited. About making the transition from mountain bike, riding to gravel riding. It's an amazing accomplishment. To have achieved this event. It's 2,745 miles, and God knows how much climbing along the way. When Nick picked his head up in the ridership forum and mentioned to the community that he was doing it, I was super stoked to not only follow along. is.as he completed the route, but hear his stories along the way. It's amazing to get a firsthand account of what the tour divide experience looks like. . It varies every year, as you can imagine, with 2,745 miles. Across the United States. You've got all kinds of things to contend with. This year, there were some late season snow up in Canada. Which wreaked havoc. On the race and ended a lot of people's tour divides efforts before they even began. As you'll hear Nick persevered and had an amazing experience out there. It was a real pleasure talking to them. Before we jump into that conversation i need to thank this week sponsor trek travel You may recall last year when we had Trek on talking about the Jarana gravel bike tour, I was super excited. What you don't know is I've been talking about going on this trip since that moment in time. I'm super excited to go to Jarana this year in November, and I'm inviting you to join me. I'm going on the November 6th trip. From Trek travel just you're on a bike tour. You know, Jarana is a cycling gym. There's a reason why all the pros call it home with butter, smooth, tarmac, and perfect weather. But the road riding is just the beginning. And after that conversation with you, and I've looked at a number of routes out of Jarana and I'm super excited to get over there and experience the amazing gravel, the quiet mountain passes and the little villages of Spain. I feel like I've had this trip in my mind for. The entirety of the pandemic, and we're finally pulling it off. Trek wanted me to invite you to join me on this trip. Any of our listeners are going to get a free handlebar bag and a free pair of socks when they joined the trip. You simply head on over to Trek, travel.com and search for the Jerone gravel bike tour. It's a five day four night trip. The team over a, truck's going to handle all the logistics from the hotel to the routes. They're going to have guides on hand. It's actually one of the Trek travel service course locations. So they're gonna have a lot of beautiful track. Demani SL disc brake bikes available for us. As well as the option to bring your own, I'm super excited to get over there myself. We've got a small crew that's already signed up for this trip, but I want to invite you the listener. How amazing would it be for us to finally get together? And in Jarana of all places. I'm certainly looking forward to finally getting some dirt under my wheels in Europe, on a gravel bike. Simply visit truck travel.com. Find that you're on a gravel bike tour and make sure during booking that you mentioned, you're a gravel ride podcast listener, or a member of the ridership to get that free handlebar bag. With that said let's dive right into my conversation with nick Nick welcome to the show. [00:04:42] Nick Marzano: Hey, thanks for having me, Craig. [00:04:44] Craig Dalton: You look surprisingly refreshed considering it's not too long ago, you just completed a 2,700 mile off-road bike ride. [00:04:52] Nick Marzano: Yeah. I mean, I'm gonna rack that up to the, the food monster has been strong. The sleep monster has been strong. I've been, you know, you can indulge in both of those for, for about a solid week. I've been trying to get back to. The sleep has, has rectified itself, the, the nutrition and the food monster. I'm working on getting back to a, a normal diet. But I, yeah, I'm feeling back to a hundred percent for [00:05:15] Craig Dalton: Yeah, I gotta imagine. After an event like the tour divide, you're you just want to eat, eat, eat all day long. [00:05:22] Nick Marzano: You look sort of longingly, like whenever you pass a gas station, like, should I stop and get. 10 Snickers. Should I stop and get some little debes? But, and I typically eat pretty healthy. So it, it is kind of like no holds barred when you're, , when you're only resupplies gas stations for a few days. But yeah, trying to get back to, to some greens in my diet, some fruit [00:05:45] Craig Dalton: Nice. I've given a little bit of preamble in the intro about what the tour divide is, but it's such, it's something I've been following for, gosh, I feel like a decade and it's such an event that if the listener hasn't heard of it, you're going from Canada to Mexico. On gravel effectively, except it's pretty extreme gravel along the way. [00:06:06] Nick Marzano: Yeah, that's, that's pretty much, it, it is mostly dirt. There's some paved sections and this year. I think more than prior years, there were more paved sections because of the initially we were all looking at the, at the black fire in, in New Mexico and, and a couple of other fires that cropped up that forced some some reroutes on pavement. But we made up, we more than made up for that in difficulty with late season snow on the mountain paths in Canada, and then early season monsoons when we hit New Mexico. So it, the route looked a little different this year than it has in years past. Once you hit around New Mexico. But it was still very challenging and a lot of fun. It was very beautiful. [00:06:43] Craig Dalton: With a 2,700 mile plus route, we've got a lot of ground to cover, but as you know, I always like to start off by just learning a little bit more about your background. As a cyclist. And when you discovered gravel cycling and then let's get into, like, when did the tour divide creep into your mind as something you wanted to do? [00:07:01] Nick Marzano: Yeah, it was kind of a rapid progression. So I was a, I'm a, I'm a COVID gravel bike baby around July, 2020. I had, I had wanted to get some kind of, you know, I didn't know the terminology for it until I started researching. I wanted to get something that would, that would allow me to get offroad. I had a hybrid single speed that I had used to try to keep up with people who were doing road rides every now and then if I was on vacation, I used it for commuting almost daily. It was just like a red line, 20 Niner hybrid kicking around Philadelphia. It was great. Did you know, I would, I did like one alley cat race with it. At some point in Philly just used it for ridiculous purposes, but mostly, mostly commuting. And then around 2020, I wanted to transition into something with maybe a little, a little bit of gearing and got my first gravel bike really started listening to, you know, in the research came, wanted to, to find community and, and find some advice and came across the gravel ride podcast. Pretty soon after that. And immediately started signing up for, you know, signed up for like a 60 mile race nearby here to see if, if racing was, was something that was into, I don't remember when the concept of bike packing got a hold of me, but it was pretty quick because by the fall of that of 2020. I was, I, I, I definitely roped a couple of buddies into a 60 mile bike pack trip out to just like an overnight or out to French Creek, state park, which I know you're, I think you're familiar with, from your time out [00:08:31] Craig Dalton: absolutely. [00:08:33] Nick Marzano: Yeah. So it ramped up from there. The following year. I, we had a vacation my partner and I had a vacation planned for the finger lakes. And I said, well, why don't I try to take the long route? I've been reading a lot about bike packing. Let me meet you up at the finger lakes. And I'm gonna take a four day trip and try to link together forest roads and some rail trails that will kind of take me from near Philly up to the New York finger lakes and had fun building that route. Learned a lot, you know, about gear learned a lot about you know, how to plan resupply, how to plan, how long could I make it? I had, I had not done a, I don't believe a, a century ride at that point or had only done one century ride. So figuring out that I could link together, you know, a hundred mile days was kind of a revelation I had planned for six days. I did it in three and change. [00:09:28] Craig Dalton: Yeah, it's kind of hard, like, you know, two things there, one, like it's unusual that you have all day to ride, right? So who knows how long they can ride when they have all day to ride. And two, when you're loaded down on the bike, it's a totally different factor, right? You don't know how long can I ride with a fully loaded bike? [00:09:48] Nick Marzano: totally. Yeah. So , you know, and I, and I had sort of under I conservatively booked each of those days I had put out a sort of an itinerary for myself for six days and was really conservative and realized the other, the other concept with solo bike packing is you get to camp at the end of A long day. And if you're not worn out, you really, you don't wanna get to camp at, at six o'clock seven o'clock, there's nothing to do. You know, I'm fine with solo time. But I think I got into one campsite around like four o'clock and was just sort of twiddling my thumbs for the rest of the night. So I knew, you know, I was capable of, of pushing a little bigger and I can go, I can go further, but I kind of went down, you know, from there. Every couple of months, I would pick an event or design something where I would like add one new challenge to that. And so quickly from 2020, I kind of ramped up in that way. Let me, let me pick a new challenge to sort of add complexity to what I've been doing. Add racing into the mix, add cold weather, camping into the mix. Add, you know, you add rain and, and riding in the elements pretty quickly when you're linking big days. Yeah. And that, you know, Where are we at two years later? I feel like I've got a, a pretty good amount of experience under my belt and at least, you know, 2,600 more miles from the, the tour of divide, [00:11:05] Craig Dalton: And had you, had you had an a background with endurance athletics prior to coming to cycling? [00:11:10] Nick Marzano: Your, you know, your normal running events around Philly, do the broad street run and the Philadelphia marathon a couple of times. But it, it kills my knees. And so I knew. While I still run for just bone health and, and a little cross training that was part of the reason, you know, I wanted to get a bike in 2020 cuz I was I'm. I was pushing 40 at that point. I'm I'm now over 40 and, and wanted something that I could do much longer than I think I'll be able to do running event. [00:11:37] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Do you recall when the tour divide first came into your, your head? [00:11:43] Nick Marzano: Yeah. Yeah, so things ramped up after that finger lakes trip pretty quickly. I reached out to, I reached out to Nelson trees who, who runs the silk road, mountain race and the Atlas mountain race and asked him if I could get a last minute sign up for the Atlas mountain race that. Which is ridiculous and was probably not the right next challenge. If I'm, you know, I've talked about adding sort of stepwise challenges that would've been probably a little out of my wheelhouse, but he accepted my application and I was set to go and it got, it got canceled at the last minute, which worked out perfectly. Because I ended up going to Virginia for something called the trans Virginia five 50. Where I met this great community of bike Packers. It was a much more it's about the same length. It's a little shorter than Atlas mountain. The, the elevation really, and the, the difficulty is, you know, we'll see, I'm going to Atlas next February. We'll see if, if this checks out, but it it's a pretty difficult race. And the elevation is. Not exactly comparable, but it's, it's pretty hefty. So it was a great challenge, nonetheless, and I, you know, more importantly, I met this great community, which gets to, you know, the answer to your question is around December the organizer of the trans Virginia, five 50 Dave Landis reached out to a bunch of us and said, Hey, I'm setting aside the time I'm doing tour divide. Does anybody want to get a little training group together? Anybody who might wanna put this on their, on their calendar? And I think it was like a week after that I talked to my boss at work and said, I've been here 10 years. Can I link together PTO and, and take a month off. This is really important to me. And, and he's great. You know, my company's great. They, they said we support you completely take the time. And, and then I was, I was in, [00:13:31] Craig Dalton: That's amazing. Yeah, I think it's one of the things that as the listener does some research about tour divide and realizes like you really need to have a month long block of time available unless you're one of the elite elite athletes that might be able to do it in half a month. But that that in and of itself is a huge challenge. Let alone just the logistics of planning, your equipment, your nutrition, your pacing, everything else that goes into it. So you, you sign up for the event you graciously get the time off from your employer. You're ready to go in your mind. What type of preparation did you need to do? Obviously you've been doing some of these bike packing races at that point. You'd kind of presumably ironed out a lot of the equipment questions you might have had of what works for you. What type of bags, et cetera, but with a 2,700 mile race over the tour divide based out of Philly, what did you feel like you needed to do to prepare for that start? [00:14:29] Nick Marzano: The one of…

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Robert Duran - Gravel cyclist, valued community member and cancer survivor Jul 26, 2022

Show notes

This week Randall sits down with Robert Duran from Encinitas, CA. Robert's inspiring story fighting pancreatic cancer while never losing his community and cycling spirit is lesson to us all to continue pedaling forward in life. Episode Sponsor: Hammerhead Karoo 2 (promo code: thegravelride) Robert's Links: https://pancan.org https://robertduranduran.com https://www.pancan.org/stories/not-just-a-patient-a-survivor/https://youtu.be/fS9Q1BT8Za0 Support the Podcast Join The Ridership Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: Robert Duran [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, I'm handing the microphone off to my co-host Randall Jacobs for an interview with Robert Duran Robert's of four times stage four, metastatic pancreatic cancer survivor. And the cyclist. I think his story is going to be an inspiration to anyone listening. Robert's been through the ringer, but never lets it get him down. He's out there every week, riding his bike, regardless of whether he's getting chemotherapy treatments. Or some experimental drug he's pioneering for the benefit of all those who suffer from pancreatic cancer. As a cancer survivor myself, I really enjoyed hearing about Robert's journey. I certainly drew some parallels to my own experience many years ago. I've included some links in the show notes for how you can learn more about Robert's journey. And a fundraising link for his pan can purple stride campaign. He was the number one individual fundraiser and his teams have garnered over $31,000 in donations for pancreatic cancer research. I hope you'll take a moment after learning Robert's story and donates to his fundraising campaign. Before we jump into rental's conversation with robert i need to thank this week sponsor hammerhead and the hammerhead Karu to computer The hammerhead crew too, is the most advanced GPS cycling computer available today with industry leading mapping navigation and route capabilities that set it apart from other GPS options. Free global maps with points of interest, include things like cafes and campsite means you can explore with confidence and flexibility on the go. I've had a bit of a funky schedule the last few weeks and only had about an hour or so to ride when I've been heading out. And I've really wanted to do something new here in mill valley I've been exploring some of the lesser known fire roads and how they connect to the various paved road neighborhoods in the hillsides, across from my house. And I've been using the crew two's mapping feature, which I've always appreciated having that color screen and the ability to kind of pinch and zoom and move around. Has been instrumental in me unlocking a few new pathways through mill valley, which has been a lot of fun. I remember at one point in my first ride thinking about exploring and I was about to pull out my phone to use that big screen, to find the road in the trail and how they connected. And I remembered the hammerheads got that same kind of screen resolution as a mobile phone. So I was able to kind of pinch in, find the trail where it was going to connect and navigate through this neighborhood. I've never been in, it was a lot of fun. And while it wasn't the purest of pure gravel rides, it was a real fun adventure for me when I only had a small amount of time. As I've said before. Hammerheads mapping functionality is really where one of the areas where it shines big time for me, I remember in the original device, that was what blew me away. And now that they've reduced the footprint in the size of the device. It's spot on exactly what you need. You know, you can customize it as much as you want in terms of what's on the screen. You can set up as many different swipeable screens as you like. It also has the buttons on the side. So if you've got a glove that doesn't have any capacitive touch to it, You can still navigate. Through your hammerhead. I encourage you to give the hammer head to look. It was Nanda, bicycling magazines. Editor's choice award for GPS cycling computers the last two years, and continues to collect accolades from many more people beyond myself. For a limited time, our listeners can get a free heart rate monitor with the purchase of our hammer. Head to computer, simply visit hammerhead.io right now and use the code, the gravel ride at checkout to get yours today. This is an exclusive limited time offer only for my podcast listeners. So don't forget to use that promo code, the gravel ride, and that's a free heart rate monitor with the purchase of the hammerhead crew to go to hammerhead.io, add both items to your cart, insert that promo code, the gravel ride. And the price of the heart rate monitor will disappear. Big. Thanks to hammerhead for continuing to sponsor the show. And with that, let's hand the mic over to Randall and his conversation with Robert Duran. [00:04:37] Randall R. Jacobs: Robert Duran, welcome to the podcast. [00:04:40] Robert Duran: Thank you, Randall. How are you? [00:04:41] Randall R. Jacobs: I'm doing well. I'm really glad to be finally having this conversation. You're somebody who I've had the pleasure of interacting with in a couple of different forums. So far, both as one of our riders and then as a member of the, the ridership community. And as I've gotten to know your story, I've just found it really compelling. And I thought it'd be a, a great story to tell here on the pod. So thanks for coming on. [00:05:02] Robert Duran: Thanks for asking me finally get a chance to tell my story that that I'd been asked to tell over and over again for the past eight years, but, [00:05:09] Randall R. Jacobs: Yeah. [00:05:10] Robert Duran: glad I'm here. [00:05:11] Randall R. Jacobs: yeah, I would imagine it gets it gets repetitive. You have kind of your, your canned responses or what have you, and, and, you know, today we'll just have a, have a conversation about, Who you are and how you got here. And maybe we can just start with just give us a little bit of background about yourself both in a general sense. And in terms of your relationship with the bike. [00:05:31] Robert Duran: Great. Let's, let's do this. I, I think I'll start top down. I think bottom line is let's see, I'm an old guy. Yeah, it's, it's really funny. I'll, I'll back into that later, but yeah. I I've, I, I live here in Encinitas and I've been here for about 16 years now, but I lived all over the world. My dad was in the United States Navy. He joined the Navy to escape from the Philippines. Know the country had invaded. His country in his village and did horrible things when he was child. So he knew he needed to get out to live in a better place. So he made his way to the United States and he had my two sisters and myself, I'm the middle child. And and so basically I, basically was Had a very interesting childhood, but through all that and that's another story by the way. I I lived here in two thou. I got here in 2004. From the bay area, I lived in the bay area and I was doing a lot of.com, a lot of high tech stuff, and it was great, but I left the bay area to move to the beach, to just have more of a quiet, relaxing lifestyle. But I still hung onto technology. But it was a good trade off. Right. So I got married, had two kids. And then roughly, I would say 10 years later, I was diagnosed with my terminal disease and I've been living ever since, and it's been eight years now. So that's kind of like me as far as you know, the beginning so we can take it wherever you want to, because this could be a really, really long story. [00:07:09] Randall R. Jacobs: Sure. Yeah. And so this your diagnosis, what year was that? [00:07:14] Robert Duran: 2014 It was 2014. A matter of fact the thing that I love the most is is what helped the diagnosis. I was losing weight and I had indigestion and I had bouts with nausea once a week or so this was roughly late 2013. And whenever I would overindulge. Food, so to speak. I would feel a little bit of heartburn, little pain in my stomach, and I thought, well, maybe it was too much habanero I live in San Diego. They, they make really good breakfast burritos, you know? And and and so I, I just did what the normal person would do. Just go to two the pharmacy and just get semantic acids and whatnot, and didn't work. Sometimes it would get better, but it would progress. So one, one day a week I would feel nauseous and then it would go two times a week and it would go three times a week. And so eventually it got to the point where I had to go see my GP. And they kind of did just the normal testing, which is what they normally do based on protocol, which is a good thing. Right. I could talk about protocol being a good thing and a bad thing, but it's necessary. It it's what moves the millions of people through the health system on a daily basis. Right. And it gets us to where we are today. But after a month and a half of that just didn't work and A lot of testing, a lot of antibiotics, a lot of things, just take this, come back see how you feel. And, and by then, what we didn't know was I had a tumor in my, in my pancreas that was just growing. It was doubling. I mean, it was, it was growing pretty fast to the point where it was closing my part of my upper Gira. So there's the, after the stomach, there's the Geogen and there's the, there's a duo num where it takes that first turn. And then there's the second turn and that's where all the food gets absorbed. So to speed all the nutrients right after it comes down from the stomach, and that was closed off because the tumor was just getting too big and eventually I kept losing weight and they couldn't find it, but I was pretty heavy at that time because I had kids and I gained weight. Yeah. Yeah. I gained a bit of weight, so I was happy to lose weight. I really was. And so I was riding, I kept riding and there's a local crew that I ride with on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. And we went on a, on a 30 mile ride and I was riding, riding, riding. I did really well was drinking water on the bike and I got home and I tried to rehydrate, like we always do. Right. And And I ate again and tried to get the calories back in me that evening. I ended up throwing up and that's pretty much my life for three weeks was laying on the bathroom floor on my side, withering in pain until my body would force the food and liquids that I consum. The entire day out, and then I would feel better, but then it would just repeat. So if you can imagine going on a ride and never hydrating yourself and never giving and never filling yourself back up with the energy in the calories and the nutrients. That's what put me in the hospital. I had double kidney failure. I had li I had liver failure. Sorry. I had double kidney failure. Yep. And then I had liver failure. I, my body was just done. And that's when they found that I had a tumor after a few tests, the doctor at the, at the emergency room came back and said, Robert, your insides are kinked like an inner tube, and that's why you can't eat. And that was the first time I realized what was going on. He put it to me in terms. Bike terms, like we all know what a kinked inner tube is, and we know what it looks like when you frame, when you pump up that inner tube, it's just it's kinked. And so that's why, when I was eating, nothing was going down, nothing was being absorbed. And at that point a few more tests later, they confirmed that I had adenoma carcinoma of the pancreas and it was stage three. And yeah, that was the start of my journey. [00:11:37] Randall R. Jacobs: And stage three is to clarify for those who might not know, what does stage three mean and how many stages are there? [00:11:44] Robert Duran: Well, stage one through four four being its metastasized whatever you had inside you has now metastasized traveled, so to speak to other parts of your body and it's no longer local. And when that happens, That means that cancer has spread. In my case it was stage three, which means that it did spread outside of the immediate local area where my tumor was living, which was in my pancreas, in the middle part of my pancreas, but it actually sucked up part of my upper GI tract because of the way the GI is positioned near the pancreas. The pancreas is behind your stomach, so to speak. And so. The tumor was growing and it was blocking my upper GI tract. So nothing was going down and my pancreas was inflame, stretching it stretching it, I would say, not vertical, but horizontally kinking, my upper GI tract. So, and yep. No, because it had spread outside of the actual immediate area. Involved other body parts. It was stage three. So, yeah, and the sooner you catch any cancer, right? The better chance you have to, you could survive. But once it's later, stage three, stage four, you know, the odds drop. I was, I was told that the chance for me to survive at the time when I was diagnosed in 2014 was. 6% five [00:13:17] Randall R. Jacobs: a five year survival. [00:13:19] Robert Duran: five year survival rate was 6% with the majority of those diagnosed with pancreatic cancer pass within three to six months because pancreatic cancer is discovered out of all cancers pretty much late because it disguises itself. And so, yeah, I had a lot of work in front of me, but that's how it happened. [00:13:42] Randall R. Jacobs: What was, I mean, obviously that is a, a hugely traumatic thing to find out. And yet here you are. And one of the things that I have noted about you and, and that really made me wanna to, to bring you on was just your. The positive attitude you bring to life and your kindness towards others and your enthusiasm, and the fact that you are still going strong. And in fact are probably a much stronger rider than many of our listeners despite the ongoing treatments that you have. So I'd love to hear a bit more about that. What was your, your, you know, emotional journey with this or spiritual journey with this? [00:14:18] Robert Duran: You know, I I've struggled with trying to identify why I've been able to react the way I I did. And a lot of it is learned, right. Trials and tribulations. A lot of it was probably what. I was born with and how my dad, my mom, my parents brought me up. And so I, I think it's, it's a mental part that was ingrained in me since I was born. And a lot of it was when my parents first came here, it was like, Robert, you are responsible for your life, your happiness, you create your world. Don't depend on anyone to give that to you, but love right. And will help. And so, I said, okay. And of course I didn't listen. Right. You know, you're a kid, your parents tell you all kinds of things. Right? I can't remember how many times I didn't take the trash out. My dad would wake me up at, you know, seven o'clock in the morning. The trash comes at 7 0 5 on purpose. [00:15:23] Randall R. Jacobs: Yeah. [00:15:24] Robert Duran: up outta bed. Did you take the trash out last night? And he knew I didn't so I'm outed in my PJs, chasing the trash truck with the trashcans. Trying to dump it in. So those t…

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