In this episode, Craig Dalton interviews Andrew L'Esperance, a professional cyclist from Canada. Andrew shares his journey in the world of cycling, starting from his early days racing with his brothers to becoming a professional athlete. He discusses the challenges and opportunities he has encountered along the way and how he has managed to make a career out of his passion for cycling. Andrew also talks about his transition to gravel racing and the different strategies and equipment choices involved in this discipline. He shares his experiences in races like Unbound and Sea Otter Classic and provides insights into the world of professional cycling. Support the Podcast Join The Ridership  About the Guest(s): Andrew L'Esperance is a professional cyclist from Nova Scotia, Canada. He grew up in a family that spent a lot of time outdoors and started racing bikes at the age of 12. Andrew has been racing ever since, climbing the ladder and participating in various disciplines such as road cycling, cyclocross, and mountain biking. He holds a degree in mechanical engineering and has always had ambitions to be a full-time athlete. Andrew has raced for Norco Bicycles and is currently racing for Maxxis Factory Racing. He has also ventured into gravel racing and is excited about the opportunities it presents. Episode Summary: In this episode, Craig Dalton interviews Andrew L'Esperance, a professional cyclist from Canada. Andrew shares his journey in the world of cycling, starting from his early days racing with his brothers to becoming a professional athlete. He discusses the challenges and opportunities he has encountered along the way and how he has managed to make a career out of his passion for cycling. Andrew also talks about his transition to gravel racing and the different strategies and equipment choices involved in this discipline. He shares his experiences in races like Unbound and Sea Otter Classic and provides insights into the world of professional cycling. Key Takeaways: Andrew L'Esperance started racing bikes at a young age and has been racing ever since, participating in various disciplines such as road cycling, cyclocross, and mountain biking. He has always had ambitions to be a full-time athlete and has found ways to make it work alongside his engineering degree. Andrew's transition to gravel racing has opened up new opportunities and challenges, and he enjoys the adventure and technical aspects of this discipline. He emphasizes the importance of equipment choices in gravel racing, including tire selection and the use of suspension forks. Andrew's favorite gravel races include Unbound and Sea Otter Classic, where he enjoys the competitive atmosphere and the chance to showcase his skills. Notable Quotes: "I've always ridden a drop bar bike off-road. My first bikes were mountain bikes, and then I started doing cyclocross, which was my road bike, my winter bike, my cross bike. So, I've always had that mix of riding different disciplines on the same bike." - Andrew L'Esperance "I love the adventure of riding a bike, and it's a lot easier to find adventure on a gravel bike. In general, in the places that I spend the most time riding." - Andrew L'Esperance "If it's going to give you an advantage in the race, sometimes it will, sometimes it won't, and it needs to be at the right time in the race." - Andrew L'Esperance on using a suspension fork in gravel racing "Gravel racing is a combination of endurance, technical skill, and equipment choices. It's about finding the right balance and making the most of each race." - Andrew L'Esperance Transcription:   [TRANSCRIPT] [00:00:00] - (): Craig Dalton: Andrew, welcome to the show. Thanks. Thanks for having me, Craig. Yeah. I'm excited to have this conversation. I know you're, you're off to Europe tomorrow, so I appreciate you squeezing us in before you [00:00:13] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: go. Yeah. Thanks for you making it happen too. I think you were just on traveling as well. So thanks for making it work with your [00:00:20] - (): Craig Dalton: schedule. **** - (): Yeah, absolutely. We always like to start off by learning a little bit more about you. Where, where'd you grow up and how'd you originally find the bike? [00:00:28] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Uh, I grew up on the east coast of Canada, uh, in the province of Nova Scotia, just outside the main city there, which is Halifax. Uh, and yeah, kind of grew up in a family that, you know, spent a lot of time outdoors and we rode bikes together as a family on vacations. **** - (): And I'm the youngest of four boys. In the family, so I have three older brothers, and as you can imagine, like, I just looked up to my brothers big time, and especially my oldest brother, and he did a bike race once, so it was basically like, oh, I've gotta do a bike race, and yeah, I just kind of did my first race when I was 12, and ran, what's that, and, um, I've been racing ever since, kind of climbing the ladder, doing some education in there. **** - (): Uh, but yeah, just been racing ever since and obviously like sprinkling some other sports in there early on. [00:01:27] - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah, was Nova Scotia the type of area where youth cycling was easy to come by? I wouldn't say it [00:01:35] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: was easy to come by. Um, I think, I think I was, like, fairly self motivated, like, to make, to make it happen, and had some good support from my parents to make it happen. **** - (): Um, but there's definitely a tight knit community, and I think they certainly took me under their wing, for whatever reason. And, yeah, helped me, helped me Come up in the sport, but I guess the first race I did was a Tuesday night short track series. So from that perspective, certainly, um, that's like, that's a really great entry point for use. **** - (): To the sport. Um, when you say, um, when you say kind of youth programming, I kind of think about like a bike club or that sort of thing for like specifically for youth, because we see a lot of that around now. And there was certainly nothing like that. But that kind of forced me to kind of ride with the older, older people, uh, that were definitely better than me and that kind of helped pull me along in the sport early on for sure. [00:02:47] - (): Craig Dalton: Were you sort of racing consistently at that young age or did it take some time before you kind of really committed to a season? [00:02:55] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Yeah, I mean, I think when I did my first race, I was still doing other sports. Like, so I was definitely not like full on right away. Um, but it was definitely a slow process to get into it. **** - (): Like the, it was more like regional racings first. I don't think I did any provincial level racing when I was 12. It was, it was, the racing I did was the short track series. It was like for, you know, eight or 10 weeks in the summer. And that was, that was the racing and it was, yeah. Like that was the season, uh, and then I just got more and more into it. **** - (): And next year I did provincial, provincial level races. Then probably when I was 15, um, I went outside the province to race. And by that point, it was kind of like doing every kind of racing that I could, uh, coming from a smaller province. You know, there's not, there's not a ton of racing, but, um, so you kind of need to do all the things. **** - (): So like do road, do cyclocross, do the mountain bike racing, do the group rides, all those things. Um, and yeah, that's how it, that's how I kind of started things off there. [00:04:12] - (): Craig Dalton: And at what point did you start to see professional cycling as a career opportunity? [00:04:19] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Yeah, I don't, I don't know. To be honest, maybe, maybe I just have started to see it as a legitimate career opportunity in the last couple of years, you know, I, I have a degree in mechanical engineering. **** - (): It was sort of, um, that was always kind of the way I was going to make, And I never really saw bike racing as a way to make money, but I loved it and I could make it work. Um, and I, I do think I did have ambitions to somehow figure it out to be a full time athlete, whether, you know, putting that professional label on it. **** - (): Um, it's kind of, I feel like that's kind of different. Um, but yeah, I definitely wanted to be a full time athlete. It's a really, It's a really great lifestyle and just, I've just been chugging along trying to figure out how to make it work. And I would say in the last five years, um, Yeah, I figured that out and [00:05:27] - (): Craig Dalton: were you figuring that out from a, you know, what's known as a privateer perspective or five years ago, would you enter a team program? **** - (): Um, [00:05:36] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: yeah, not definitely not as a privateer. Uh, so previous, so I'm currently racing for Max's factory racing, uh, and this will be my third year on the team. And prior to that, I raced for Norco bicycles in various capacities for about 10 years. Uh, kind of finishing my career with them on the Norco factory team. **** - (): Those years, there was a period where there was, um, growth in the team and they went to another level. They stepped up to the world cup level and that meant reducing the team size. And that left me without sort of factory team support for a couple of years. Um, and at that time, um, you know, I wanted to keep racing. **** - (): So it was sort of like, okay, how do I do this? How do I keep doing this? And I created, or myself and a teammate created our own team called forward racing, brought in some other sponsors and kept the support from Norco. And so in a sense, that was sort of privateering, but it was also like, okay, I'm putting, we're putting in all this work to organize this sponsorship. **** - (): Hey, let's support another rider to, or, or a couple other riders, like bring them up with us. Um, so myself and my teammate brought on a younger athlete named Sean Fincham. And we supported him for two years. [00:07:10] - (): Craig Dalton: Uh, that sounds like the racing we've been talking about has been on the mountain bike side. And since the listeners of this podcast may not necessarily be as familiar with that part of the sport, can you describe the type of mountain bike racing that you found yourself competing [00:07:25] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: in? **** - (): Yeah, totally. Yeah, so XCO mountain biking, it's, it's what's in the Olympics. It's kind of the short 90 minute race, uh, done on a short course, you know, three to five kilometers. You do, you know, five to seven laps. It's intense, there's technical features, that's the kind of racing I grew up on, and that was sort of, yeah, that, that was the racing that was available when I was coming up in the sport. **** - (): And there's a pretty clear plan within Canada, you know, to do a national series, which is called the Canada Cup, and to perform at those races, and then you might get selected to do something with the national team, like an international race. You kind of just, uh, some opportunities open up that way. Um, and so, so that's, that's the kind of racing I grew up doing. **** - (): That's the kind of racing I did for the majority of my career. And yeah, until I signed with Max's factory racing, uh, three years ago. That was my main thing doing, you know, I did it to the level that I was racing World Cups full time [00:08:40] - (): Craig Dalton: Got it. And so was it [00:08:43] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: yeah, I mean, it's so funny like You know, we've always, ever since I can remember, I've ridden, ridden a drop bar bike off road. **** - (): I, my first, I, you know, my first bikes were mountain bikes. And then, you know, you're, you're doing mountain bike racing and you need to, you need to do some road riding. So that actually started for me with cyclocross. So my, my cyclocross bike was my road bike. It was my winter bike. It was my cross bike. **** - (): And obviously you're riding that off road. Um, yeah, there's where I grew up in Nova Scotia. There's just plenty of bike paths, like gravel bike paths and gravel roads to ride. So, yeah, I would say it started with that early on. Um, and I guess more recently, um, Just like training, like for training opportunities, a gravel bike was just a good tool. **** - (): Um, when I was training for XCO racing gravel bike, it just opens up the routes you can ride. You can ride on potentially safer routes. Uh, with less traffic and it's just a whole lot of fun. And I do, I like, I love the, the adventure of riding a bike and it, it's a lot easier to find adventure on a gravel bike, I feel, um, in general, in the places that I, you know, spend the most time running. **** - (): Gotcha. [00:10:21] - (): Craig Dalton: And was when you signed on with Maxis Factory Racing, was gravel racing an original part of the deal when they looked at you as an athlete? [00:10:32] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Um, it was definitely, um, you know, the team has always been focused on the mountain bike side of things. But, uh, the Uh, yeah, the, the way the market, or like the way the racing is in North America, it's, it's more like this off road racing. **** - (): So it's not all mountain, a lot of the biggest races are no crawl races. So, yeah, I mean, that was definitely part of the conversation. Um, And it was certainly something I was very interested in. I actually, I think I've shared this on a podcast before, but, um, about three years prior to, uh, you know, stopping my Racing World Cups full time and signing with Maxis and doing the off road thing, um, I had an unbound, uh, like lottery, lottery registration Okay. **** - (): That I got. **** - (): I was never able to make it work with my schedule, and then the pandemic got mixed in there too. And I just never got to use it. Um, the year that I could have used it, um, was the year I signed with Maxis and we were going anyways. And Maxis was a sponsor of Unbound, so. You know, we had, we had entries that way, so I ended up giving it away, but, um, long story short, this, this kind of racing was on my radar for a while. **** - (): Um, I think I was just before we started recording here, I was telling you. Um, you know, this adventure, I got, my interest got, uh, shifted towards some of this adventure racing back in 2017 when I did the Croc Trophy. It's an eight day mountain bike stage race across, um, tropical North Queensland in Australia. **** - (): And, yeah, just, just this, uh, very different racing compared to XCO. It's an adventure, um, and I just, I just loved it. Uh, so ever since 2017, I've been, myself and my wife, Haley, have been trying to mix in these different race opportunities that are, that I would categorize as kind of adventure racing. So Stuff like, um, Epic Israel, we've done that a couple times, Swiss Epic, um, BC Bike Race, these sorts of things. **** - (): And it's, I feel so lucky, I mean I'm still, I'm so fired up on what we're doing now, cause it's basically Those adventure races, but that's the full meal deal. Like that's what we're doing full time. Yeah. [00:13:21] - (): Craig Dalton: Amazing. Now I think you've been part of the grand Prix for two years already, and you'll be in it again in 2024. **** - (): Is that [00:13:28] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: right? Yeah, exactly. You got it. How did [00:13:31] - (): Craig Dalton: you manage to kind of make that schedule work and hit those mountain bike races that you like? Obviously the. The Grand Prix itself is not mountain bike heavy. There's a few occasions to ride your mountain bike, but not in the same way you had done in the past. **** - (): I'm just curious, you know, obviously with the different skill sets required for the different types of racing, how you organized your year and your training. So you can do things from, you know, 90 minute XC races to 10 hour unbounds. Yeah, [00:14:00] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: I don't, I honestly don't know how we did that first year. We went in like, okay, let's do all the racing and that's, that's what we did. **** - (): We, that first year we still had, well, I say we, cause Haley and I have been on this journey together and we, we, we jumped from XCO racing to this more off road stuff together, but yeah, that year we did five world cups, uh, alongside. The Grand Prix alongside a smattering of other races. And I think it was a big year of learning, uh, which was amazing. **** - (): It was, there was so much newness to it all, which was also like super refreshing. Um, I think I remember kind of reflecting on the season at the end of the year. And I like, I color coded all the races that I did based on which ones were new. And it was like, over half of them were brand new. And it was a large number of race days. **** - (): It was like, it was above 35 racing days and there was some stage racing in there. So it's a, it's, it's a little different, but, um, just a lot of racing. And yeah, I don't, I don't really know how we did it. I can't, I can't pinpoint to like, there was, there was no, there was no major thought put into the scheduling. **** - (): It was like just saying yes. [00:15:30] - (): Craig Dalton: If we can be there, we'll be there and pedal [00:15:33] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: totally, totally. And it was a ton of fun. Um, it ended up working, it ended up working out in, in general, um, in terms of like performance in the grand Prix. But again, I think the, the love, like the level of all, all this racing is, is increasing and I, I don't think that approach is. **** - (): is going to work again. Um, I mean, yeah, so there's definitely some lessons from the first couple of years and, um, I'm not, I'm not prepared to like throw all my eggs in the You know, just focus on the Grand Prix races. There's so, there's so many great events out there. Um, and you know, I also want to, want to continue to grow as a mountain biker and do challenging mountain bike events that really suit my, um, kind of my natural skillset and some of my best, uh, some of my strengths as an athlete. **** - (): So, so yeah, we're definitely mixing or I'm mixing a lot of different events in this season along the Grand Prix. [00:16:46] - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah, interesting. It'll be great to follow your season. Yeah, it's complicated. I can see, you know, over the last three years, going to the third year of the Grand Prix here. There's definitely been this specialization. **** - (): Obviously, there's a lot of prize money on the line for those who do well and get into the top whatever that gets paid out, but it is Increasingly clear that a lot of athletes are just laser focused on it. And I think it's still going to be interesting this year to see those athletes who are out there doing their own thing and racing some other crazy races, as well as popping into these races and see how the points end up shaking up throughout the year. **** - (): It's, it's an interesting equation. It's fascinating to me, listening to the athletes, figure out how to focus their time and energy. Yeah, totally. [00:17:32] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: And I mean, I think it's, it is, it is interesting because like, you know, the racing that we're doing, it's, uh, the Grand Prix is this, it is the series in North America right now. **** - (): Yeah, so there's just so many other good events. And, you know, I don't think any athlete is just doing the Grand Prix. And it is interesting to see, to spread, um, To see how athletes kind of spread their time and, and where their interests lie and, and all that. So it is cool to follow that, follow each athlete, um, doing what they're doing alongside the, alongside the Grand Prix. [00:18:11] - (): Craig Dalton: I also think it's interesting with the two drop races to just sort of see how the strategies play out. You hope that people aren't dropping them because they're sick or injured and they get an opportunity to strategically say, Hey, I'm not going to peak for that race because in the overall arc of my season, it just doesn't make any sense. [00:18:29] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Yeah, totally. Yeah, it is, it is a, I mean, the season, the season goes from April till end of October, and this is a long season. Uh, so, yeah, and you can't, you need to be very good for all these races, and it's not possible to be kind of peaked. For every single race. So yeah, yeah, definitely some strategy involved. **** - (): And, um, I certainly learned a lot the first couple of years. Uh, things went pretty well the first year, not so well last year. And it kind of, uh, it definitely has me. Motivated to try to try to perform kind of do all the right things to perform Well all season long for that. [00:19:14] - (): Craig Dalton: Are there specific races in the Grand Prix that you personally enjoy the most? [00:19:20] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Yeah, certainly like sea otter classic. It's definitely the most mountain bikey one. It's at sea level And I I really love the race course to be honest. It's just yes super fast fun riding Um It's not one where you can really, it's not like you can rip, rip this technical section and create a huge separation on, on the people you're truly racing against. **** - (): Obviously there's some big gaps in skills between, um, perhaps those with a mountain bike background and those with a gravel background. But, um, it's, You can't, there's not a huge, huge opportunities for separations there, but, uh, yeah, it's, it's an awesome race and yeah, just the energy at that whole event with the festival alongside of it, it's, it's pretty cool. **** - (): And it's kind of like the season kickoff too. So that's, that's exciting. [00:20:19] - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah, for sure. And anything on the gravel bike side that you look forward to? [00:20:23] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Um, I mean, definitely Unbound, just like the, the scale of it. Uh, I would say that that one's high on the list. And, uh, yeah, Big Sugar's a cool one too. I mean, I, I do, I'm still, like, I feel like I'm a beginner at this gravel stuff, and I'm still, um, I don't really have it figured out yet, to be honest. **** - (): And So all these races still feel like, like opportunities and they're very interesting to me. And, uh, yeah, so, um, yeah, I guess Unbound and, and Big Sugar are probably my favorite gravel races in the series. [00:21:05] - (): Craig Dalton: With Unbound being the longest one on the calendar on the gravel bike, uh, side for the Grand Prix, how do you, how do you approach that as an athlete? **** - (): I mean, obviously you train up to that distance. When you think about being competitive in an event like that, just kind of walk me through briefly, like the mindset of like, you know, are you following the early moves or are you conscious of Hey, this is a 200 mile day. And, you know, maybe I'm not the most in, I don't have the most endurance of everybody in the, in the Peloton. **** - (): I'm just curious, like how you manage that to maximize the best result possible for you. [00:21:42] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Yeah, definitely. I mean, when I go into those races, I'm not, there's no, there's no pacing. It's going with the front of the race as long as you can. There's, there's no, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna try to make the front group. I'm gonna try to get on the podium. **** - (): I'm not going to have a deliberate strategy to not follow so I can, you know, finish 20th. Like that's, I'd, I'd much rather go for it and blow up than, than not go for it. Um, that being said, I do, you know, we learned last year that there is definitely some in terms of taking care of equipment in certain, um, conditions like, you know, very rough conditions, muddy conditions, there, there does have to be some strategy surrounding how you ride that stuff. **** - (): Um, so I'm definitely. taking that into Unbound this year, just that, that whole experience. Um, [00:22:45] - (): Craig Dalton: and you caught up in any disastrous way in the mud this past year? [00:22:49] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Yeah, just, I lost my derailleur, um, very early on. Um, I just kind of snapped off in the mud and it was, uh, Was [00:22:58] - (): Craig Dalton: that game over for you? [00:23:00] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Yes. I, yeah, I, I tried everything I could to try to, um, keep it going, but yeah, it was game over and it was just very, um, that, that was tough, I guess. **** - (): Uh, I definitely learned from that experience because I had never dealt with that kind of mud before and it's really something you need to experience to fully understand. Um, And yeah, so, um, yeah, looking forward to going in there a little more prepared and having those experiences under my belt and yeah, hopefully a little bit of luck too. **** - (): But you know, I think in chatting with my friend, Ian, who did quite well, he was, who's done in Boswell, who's done quite well at that race. His, his strategy was. Just kind of, um, sitting back and watching a little bit how, how those, the first section played out, and definitely a more conservative approach, but I was, I was like third wheel into that mud, riding on Tobin's wheel, um, I think when my derailleur came off, I was sitting on Russell or Keegan's wheel and just run, just run the race as best as I could and going for it. **** - (): Yeah. Those conditions, you know, if my bike can make it through it, it's a huge advantage for me. Um, just cause that is, you know, some technical. Technical ability is a huge asset, just pedaling the bike through that stuff, but you need to have a bike that stays together, um, to take advantage of those, uh, that, that opportunity. **** - (): Yeah, a hundred [00:24:52] - (): Craig Dalton: percent. I'm, I'm one of those sort of people who started out mountain biking like yourself, and I love I love the technical elements of gravel racing and the harder technically the races are, the more fun I think they are. Totally. That's the, that's sort of where I hope the sport would go. **** - (): And frankly, you know, as the Grand Prix got announced, like I've, I've always been hopeful for the mountain bikers to get more of an opportunity, not only in the mountain bike specific races, but in the gravel races to just kind of show that skillset. [00:25:24] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm with you on this. I, I would really. I would really like to Yeah, maybe just see a little more texture in some of these gravel races I I really like what the bwr does pulling in some single track Uh, yeah, I did A couple years ago. **** - (): I did It's in BC called BCBR Gravel and, you know, BCBR is a BC bike race. So it's the same promoters that do this, you know, um, seven day mountain bike stage race. So the gravel version of it was, was what you can expect from the organizers of a mountain bike stage race. And it was very gnarly. I kind of joked at the race. **** - (): Uh, like I wrote a, I wrote a taper cast, the Fox taper cast fork. During that race and it was like, oh man, if you had a, if you had a truck full of those at the finish line of that race, you could have sold them all. No worries. It was like a huge advantage to have, uh, Uh, yeah, have suspension on the gravel bike. [00:26:31] - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah. It's so interesting. Do you ever, you know, as someone who's obviously well adept with suspension and using it on your mountain bikes, how often do you consider it on your gravel [00:26:41] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: bike? Yeah, it's, it's always a tough, tough decision. And it's like, I've, you know, if I'm not sure if you've ridden it, but riding a suspension fork on a gravel bike is. **** - (): It's an amazing feeling and it's wild how much more capable the bike becomes. It's 100 percent so much more than what you think. [00:27:06] - (): Craig Dalton: I've got one on my bike for Mount Tam here in Marin County, and I can't even explain how much more confidence inspiring it is going downhill and. It's kind of cheating for me because I've got a mountain bike background. **** - (): So generally I ride harder downhill than most of my contemporaries, but putting that suspension fork on, it's just, it's almost unfair at times. Totally. I'm curious to kind of drill into that a little bit as a suspension owner. So what is that? Tell us more about that line for you. I mean, when we would consider it is the main, is the main downside in your mind, just the weight. **** - (): And if it's a climbing race and you need to stay up at the front, you got to shed the weight and otherwise you'd use it. [00:27:50] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Yeah. So I think, uh, I, I reach for it quite often, uh, to be honest, I, my first year at Unbound, I wrote it. Uh, so that was two years ago and it was. It was a huge advantage in the rough stuff, but the thing is, um, that didn't, that kind of just kept me near the front of the group and out of trouble. **** - (): It's not like it, it gave me a huge advantage in the race overall. [00:28:23] - (): Craig Dalton: Do you feel like from a, does it, does fatigue come into play when you think about it? I mean, it's [00:28:28] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: so hard to get a sense of that because You know, no, no matter what bike you ride, if you're riding, riding unbound for 10 hours, fatigue is going to be high. **** - (): Um, I've not done like, I think that would be a fairly hard thing to test. Um, and I've not done like back to back testing on that, but it really does. The way I think about it is if, if it's going to give you an advantage in the race and some, sometimes it will, sometimes it won't, and it needs to be at the right time in the race. **** - (): So like, so I did BWR Vancouver Island last year, and the first, in the first bit, there was, um, some single, some heavy duty single track and I just rode away from the whole race. Uh, And was two minutes off the front by like the bottom, you know, in the first hour of the race, but this isn't super helpful because it's a seven hour race and then I was off on my own for the next few hours. **** - (): Um, so like from a tactical point of view, that wasn't great. Um, but the final descent on that course was one where having like the final descent, a few K from the finish. Having a suspension fork would have been an advantage. So it's sort of like, okay, do I carry this around for the whole race? It's definitely a little bit heavier, not as aerodynamic, but in those sections, it's like a laughable advantage. **** - (): Yeah. Yeah. [00:30:06] - (): Craig Dalton: I think that's, I mean, I think it goes with almost every part of a gravel bike. It seems like you just, you have to make these trade offs. And decide where is it going to benefit you like as a recreational racer, I consider comfort to be a big part of it, right? I got to get through these races to, to enjoy them, but comfort at the cost of, you know, an extra pound or so may come to bite me in the ass climbing 12, 000 feet in a day. [00:30:35] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Maybe. It depends on what your goals are. Like for me, I really need to think this through. But if I was riding my bike for, um, purely for fun and trying to enjoy and especially if I wasn't racing, like suspension fork on the gravel bike, for sure, as long as, as long as the terrain you ride and the way you ride kind of suits it, if you, if you go on to double track and single track, um, and you have access to that in your area and you enjoy that. **** - (): It's like, yes, get yourself a gravel suspension fork. It's going to be great. You're going to have a huge smile on your face. It's going to be fun. Um, and you'll be able to drop your friends. No question. [00:31:20] - (): Craig Dalton: I think you've been training this winter down in Santa Cruz, California. Is [00:31:23] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: that right? Yeah, yeah, we've been, uh, yeah, we did, uh, well, uh, pass through Santa Cruz on, I did this, uh, Rob Britton and I did this ride down the, down the entire coast of California, um, and then spent a week here after that training, and then I've been here for the last couple weeks, so, yeah, uh, basing out of here for quite a bit, and, yeah, just, Yeah. **** - (): Yeah. Yeah. Really enjoying the kind of road riding here. Amazing. [00:31:54] - (): Craig Dalton: Um, before we go, I'm curious to just learn about your bike choices for the year. What, what brands are you riding on the mountain bike and the gravel bike? And what do you like? [00:32:05] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Uh, yeah, I mean, for, so I don't believe our mountain bike. Sponsor has been made public yet. **** - (): So I'm going to stay quiet on that, but, um, yeah, we're on, uh, new drop bars bikes for this year and that's around time bikes. Which is, yeah, kind of, um, exciting new, new brand, uh, well, new to us brand, obviously it's a pretty storied, uh, brand that's been around for a while. Yeah, [00:32:39] - (): Craig Dalton: we just had them on the podcast about a month ago, learning all about the new owner, the manufacturing processes for that bike. **** - (): I think that the ADHX 45 looks like a rad bike to ride. [00:32:53] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Yeah. No, I listened to that episode. It was great. I, I, I really enjoy kind of hearing the background and the business dynamics of, of, of some of these companies in the industry and yeah, the bike looks really great. I've just seen one once, um, I was down in Bentonville at the end of the season and it looks really good. **** - (): Uh, so I, I'm very excited to get on one and yeah, really push it. And, uh, yeah. Yeah, it's going to be fun. [00:33:25] - (): Craig Dalton: Awesome. When do you, when do you think you'll first race on that bike? [00:33:29] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Yeah, we're, uh, first race will be BWR Utah. So yeah, once I got back from Spain after the stage race. Uh, probably spend some time on that, get it set up, get it dialed. **** - (): And yeah, it'll be a, that'll be a great first one for it. And yeah, I can't wait. Um, it's gonna be good. And [00:33:49] - (): Craig Dalton: since you're been on the Maxis squad for a few years, which, what are your favorite Maxis gravel tires? [00:33:57] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Well, the, the new, I mean, the tried and true Rambler, um, you really can't go wrong with that. If you know, you have to pick one tire to do it all, that's going to be it. **** - (): It's, um, Yeah, just super predictable. Easy to ride. Casing's very good. There's options there, um, you know, for a super heavy duty casing or a, um, you know, a higher TPI casing that's going to be a little more supple. Um, so yeah, Rambler for sure, but the new favorite is definitely the Reaver. Uh, it was released last year. **** - (): I expect that's going to be the go to, um, for the majority of the racing. And I haven't tried it in a 45 yet. Um, but yeah, really looking forward to that because I do think, um, yeah, just given the tire design, like a fairly kind of a file tread in the middle. I think it's going to scale up pretty good and feel. **** - (): Um, still roll really well in that larger size, um, whereas sometimes when you scale up on a super hobby tire, um, yeah, yeah. Just the, the speed changes quite a bit with your mountain bike skillset. Sorry, just from the casing and the, and the knob design, I guess. [00:35:14] - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah. With your mountain bike skillset, do you feel like that file tread provides you enough kind of traction for most of the gravel races? **** - (): Yeah, yeah, [00:35:25] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: I feel like I can, I can run with less for sure just because the, it's, it's just like not a limiting factor for me. Um, I can run, I've, I've raced gravel races on the refuse, which is just a very tough casing, but it's a full, full slick with no shoulder knobs and you, you know, I, I can manage that. **** - (): Um, you have to ride it a certain way. You can't, you can't push, you can't, you can't push it into the ground and expect that it's always going to hook up. Um, but it's, uh, yeah, it's a good tool for, for certain, for certain situations. And if you, I mean, with, with tire choices at the pointy end of things, you're always, um, you're always trying to choose the fastest one. **** - (): Um, and, and. Ride it, basically ride it correctly, like manage the tire well. Um, so yeah, you're never, at least I'm not, I'm always kind of pushing the limits on what I can, what I can run for speed and performance. [00:36:37] - (): Craig Dalton: And what do you think about inserts for gravel racing? [00:36:40] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Yeah, yeah, I've, uh, used inserts quite a bit. **** - (): Um, typically on the Tannis, Tannis Armor inserts. And, yeah, if there, if it's rough and there's a puncture risk, it's, um, yeah, it's a, it's, it's a, I go for it, um, compared to, I mean, I think inserts, they, they kind of came from mountain bike, but they're actually far more applicable for gravel. Bikes just given the the low volume tire. **** - (): Yeah, and how how close the rim Like the tires aren't that tall compared to a mountain bike tire So there is there's kind of very little space for the tire deflect before it before it hits the rim and yeah having that cushion there and Yeah, it makes a huge difference. And, um, yeah, tire pressure obviously like pretty important on the gravel bike. **** - (): And, um, yeah, sometimes lower if you can manage it is, is a lot easier on the body faster. So many, so many little, uh, uh, so many things to think about all the time. And I'm, I feel like I I'm out of practice cause I, I haven't been racing for a few months. Um, so I'm definitely gonna have to brush up on my decision making skills cause the race season's coming and all this stuff really matters. [00:38:09] - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah. A hundred percent. Would you consider Unbound one of those courses that warrants inserts? [00:38:14] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Yeah. One, one hundred percent. Both years I've raced it, I've, I've run inserts. It'll be interesting with the North route this year on tire choices and, uh, on suspension choice as well. Um, yeah. Hoping to get there early and kind of suss it out and, uh, and do some testing there because it is, you know, equipment choice there matters and, um. **** - (): Yeah. North route. I hear it's a little rougher. [00:38:41] - (): Craig Dalton: Interesting. I think that's a good place to end, Andrew. Thanks so much for the time. It was great to get to know you a little bit and excited to follow you throughout the season and maybe run into you at Sea Otter. [00:38:52] - (): Andrew L'Esperance: Sounds good. Thanks very much for having me, Craig. **** - (): And uh, yeah, I appreciate the time and yeah, see you at Sea Otter for sure.      

In this episode, host Craig Dalton interviews professional cyclist Andy Lydic. They discuss Andy's journey in the world of cycling, from his early days in high school to his decision to pursue a career as a professional cyclist. Andy shares his experiences racing for amateur teams in Spain and his transition to gravel racing. He also talks about his participation in the UCI Gravel World Championships and his goals for the future. The conversation highlights the growing popularity of gravel racing and its potential as a pathway to professional cycling. Episode brought to you by AG1. Support the Podcast Join The Ridership  About the Guest(s): Andy Lydic is a professional cyclist from Boulder, Colorado. He began his cycling journey in high school, transitioning from track and cross country to mountain biking and road racing. Andy joined the Boulder Junior Cycling team and quickly progressed in the sport. He decided to pursue a career as a professional cyclist and moved to Europe to race for amateur teams in Spain. After facing challenges with team closures, Andy shifted his focus to gravel racing. In 2023, he participated in the UCI Gravel World Championships and had a standout performance as the unofficial under 23 world champion. Andy continues to pursue his passion for gravel racing and aims to make a mark in the professional cycling world. Episode Summary: In this episode, host Craig Dalton interviews professional cyclist Andy Lydic. They discuss Andy's journey in the world of cycling, from his early days in high school to his decision to pursue a career as a professional cyclist. Andy shares his experiences racing for amateur teams in Spain and his transition to gravel racing. He also talks about his participation in the UCI Gravel World Championships and his goals for the future. The conversation highlights the growing popularity of gravel racing and its potential as a pathway to professional cycling. Key Takeaways: Andy Lydic's passion for cycling began in high school when he transitioned from track and cross country to mountain biking and road racing. He joined the Boulder Junior Cycling team and received mentorship from experienced cyclists, which helped him progress in the sport. After facing challenges with team closures in Europe, Andy decided to focus on gravel racing as a pathway to professional cycling. Gravel racing offers a unique combination of physical and technical challenges, making it an exciting and competitive discipline. Andy's participation in the UCI Gravel World Championships showcased the potential of gravel racing and its ability to attract top-level riders. Notable Quotes: "I want to use gravel as my pathway to pro... I want to write the story of what is the future of gravel." - Andy Lydic "Gravel racing is a true test of a rider's strength, endurance, and technical skills." - Andy Lydic "The U.S. has limited opportunities for young American riders to race in Europe, and gravel racing can provide a unique pathway to professional cycling." - Andy Lydic Resources: BMC (Andy Lydic's bike sponsor) It Could Be Me (Andy Lydic's title sponsor)  Maurten (Andy Lydic's nutrition sponsor) Northwave (Andy Lydic's shoe sponsor) Don't miss this engaging conversation with Andy Lydic as he shares his journey in the world of cycling, his experiences in gravel racing, and his aspirations for the future. Tune in to gain insights into the growing popularity of gravel racing and its potential as a pathway to professional cycling. Automated Transcript (please excuse the typos): [TRANSCRIPT] [00:00:00] - ():  Craig Dalton: Andy, welcome to the show. [00:00:04] - ():  Andy Lydic: Thanks so much for having me. I'm stoked to be here. [00:00:07] - ():  Craig Dalton: I'm excited to get into a little overview of your career and What's in store for you in 2024. I always love to start these conversations by just learning a little bit more about you. I mean, you've been involved in bike racing for a long time since your junior days, but why don't you just say, you know, where did you grow up and how did you originally get into cycling? **** - (): And we can kind [00:00:26] - ():  Andy Lydic: of go from there. Yeah, totally. So I'm from Boulder, Colorado, grew up here in Boulder, Colorado, and got into cycling in high school, probably my junior year of high school. I used to run track and cross country, and I used to also be a downhill ski racer previous to that, and I was pretty burnt out on track and cross country as a high schooler, just didn't find it that fun. **** - (): And a bunch of my friends were doing high school mountain biking. A couple people that I knew, but weren't really my friends at the time were doing road racing as well. And my dad was pretty into the cyclocross scene here in Boulder. We've got quite a few local events in the front range area. So he got super into that and there was sunshine hill climb my junior year. **** - (): Sunshine's a big climb here in Boulder. It takes like 45 minutes or an hour or something like that. And he was like, yo dude, if you go right up sunshine during this hill climb faster than I do, I'll take you out for a burger and some ice cream. And I was like, yeah, totally. I want to go get a burger and ice cream. **** - (): So I love those dad [00:01:23] - ():  Craig Dalton: incentives. I feel like I had one of those similar ones from my dad to run cross country one year. And it was like, that works for me. It doesn't have to be a big incentive. Just a little one works as a high schooler. [00:01:34] - ():  Andy Lydic: Yeah, just something. So from there, I did the Sunshine Hill climb. I actually thought I was wearing a kit for the first time. **** - (): And I think I was wearing tennis shoes on my mom's road bike. And I was like, you know, it's kind of strange, you know, you're wearing tight clothes biking out in public. But then I thought about it and I was wearing short shorts running. So it's not all that different from there. I decided I wanted to do the high school mountain biking team. **** - (): So I told the cross country coach that I was going to stop running cross country and go to the high school mountain biking team. And from there, I've had a bunch of my core friends who are still a bunch of friends. Now, some of them are really high level racers, mountain bike and road just across the country and across the world. **** - (): So they got me into mountain biking for the first season. I was borrowing bikes from people from, I don't think of the five races in the Nike league, I use the same bike twice my first year, just because I was borrowing bikes from people. And from there, I progressed into, I joined the Boulder junior cycling team and had a pretty good time there. **** - (): I did. Like three races of a cyclocross season, my senior year of high school. And then also did high school mountain biking again that summer following, I was like, yeah, I'm going to get into road too. I'd been training on the road a bit and done a couple of road races with the Boulder junior cycling team and decided from there, like. **** - (): Yeah, let's see what I can do with this bike racing thing, but was still pretty focused on going to college. It was COVID when I chose where I went to school. So I ended up going to CU Boulder. I was debating between a couple schools in California and a couple schools other places in the country and mid COVID I was like, you know what? **** - (): I'm just gonna start here at CU. See how I like it. It'll give me the chance to keep riding and see how much I like riding and from there my freshman year of college. My dream of being a professional cyclist kind of really took off. And from there on, I was like, that's what I'm going to do. I want to be a professional cyclist. **** - (): I want to race on the road. And I want to see how high of a level I can get to at this store. [00:03:28] - ():  Craig Dalton: Interesting. So going back to those Boulder junior cycling days, is that the type of program that is, you know, giving you guidance and really trying to create elite level athletes? I think of sort of the NICA program as like, Great jumping off point, obviously a lot of infrastructure to bring people into the sport and create good vibes around mountain bike racing. **** - (): Was Boulder Junior Cycling kind of a next level of that, which is a little bit more intentional to create elite level cyclists? [00:03:57] - ():  Andy Lydic: Yeah, I think it's a bit of a step up. It's not like what you would see with the old team that used to exist, Lux, or what you'd see with Hot Tubes or something like that. But there was definitely like a lot of really talented guys from Boulder or the front range area who went through the program, guys and girls who went through the program and have stepped up to pro road level racing and pro mountain bike level racing. **** - (): You see a couple of those guys and girls are over racing in Europe now on professional teams. A couple are gravel privateers now. So I don't think the team's intention is to create elite athletes. But I think the Boulder community and some of the mentors like Joe Lewis was my first coach there and he was a pro for quite a long time and had a lot of really cool experiences that he was able to share along with us. **** - (): And it provided the platform of inspiration so that riders like myself and riders like like Bjorn Reilly or Mattie Monroe or Riley Sheehan, all those guys came through Boulder Junior Cycling and now they're racing at the top level of the sport across the world. So it's a bit of the team and I think also just a bit of the Boulder community, pretty high achieving people here. [00:05:03] - ():  Craig Dalton: Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. I remember moving out to Boulder from the East Coast and immediately being knocked down a peg because there's got such a great scene and such great riding out there. You mentioned starting CU Boulder during COVID. Was the CU Boulder cycling program able to be active during that first year? [00:05:24] - ():  Andy Lydic: They weren't. I don't think or not at least that I was involved with because we started in 2020 fall and then 2021 spring there wasn't really road racing here in Colorado and at that point I was also racing with a club team, the cinch elite club team here in Colorado so I was just racing with them. I was a cat three and then upgraded to cat two my freshman year in college that spring. **** - (): So I don't think the CU team did a whole lot that year, or at least I wasn't super involved with it if they did. And then the fall of my sophomore year before I ended up moving to Europe to start racing, I did collegiate mountain biking. I did like two races just because it was a way to keep me motivated and have fun and been doing mountain bike racing in high school. **** - (): So I was like, I want to keep doing this. It's fun racing on the dirt. I like it. [00:06:13] - ():  Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, it sounds like that experience racing kind of with, with the cinch program and you're moving up through the categories at least said, Hey, I've got some, I've got some potential here taking that potential and then saying, I'm going to move to Europe is a little bit of a leap. **** - (): So can you just talk through like what that looked like and did you just move and then try to figure it out or do you, is there a way that you contacted some programs over to Europe to help you at least have a focus point? [00:06:43] - ():  Andy Lydic: Yeah, I sophomore fall was sitting in my dorm room and I was like, I want to go move to Europe and be a professional cyclist. **** - (): Like that's what I want to do. I don't want to go to school this spring. I want to be a pro cyclist. So I went on the databases of email contacts for all the teams in Spain, all the teams in France and all the teams in Italy. And I think I sent like 400 emails to every amateur team I could possibly get the contact to saying, Hey, what's up? **** - (): I'm 19 years old. These are my power numbers, I'm looking to move to Europe, I want to start racing, what can I do? And I think of the three or four hundred emails that I sent, I got like 16 total responses, and of 16 total responses, maybe like five of them weren't immediate no's. And from the non immediate no's, I had like a couple people entertain the conversation. **** - (): They're like, yeah, we might be looking for an American writer. I was like looking at France. I was looking at Italy. I was looking at Spain. I kind of knew I wanted to go to Spain because I speak a bit of Spanish just from high school. And so I was like, yeah, that might be easy. And then I connected with an agent who works with a bunch of the amateur teams in Spain. **** - (): And he got me placed on a team and he was like, yeah, man, like you fly out in February and this team's got housing for you. They'll take you to a bunch of really high level Spanish cup races and stage races across Spain. Like all you got to do is just be ready come February. And it was kind of, it was pretty uncomfortable at first cause I'm sending all these emails to a bunch of people. **** - (): I have no idea who they are, no idea what language they speak. And I'm just the silly American sending English emails saying, what's up? Here's my power file. I don't actually know how relatively good it is, but I'd really like to come race in Europe for you guys. Because that's the dream, isn't it? Like go racing for a European team. **** - (): So then from there, I ended up moving to Northern Spain and racing for an amateur team. And unfortunately that amateur team folded in March, which would be kind of set a precedent for how my amateur racing experience in Spain went on. So I raced with that team from. End of January, beginning of February, until the end of March, they folded. **** - (): I moved from northern Spain to Girona. Started racing with another team and got a really cool experience to go race in Denmark at some UCI races, and also do some other cool Spanish races with that team. And then they folded in July, sitting in Girona, just not sure what to do. And that's kind of what led to the whole gravel idea. [00:09:16] - ():  Craig Dalton: And was that July, 2022, just to try to timestamp it? Yeah, July, 2022. Okay. So you're sitting in, you know, the, the road aspirations are having some, some, uh, detours and some challenges along the way. You're sitting in Girona in July. Um, yeah, talk us through, how did you spend your time the rest of that year? **** - (): Yeah. So. [00:09:38] - ():  Andy Lydic: In the midst of the teams falling apart, I'd moved from the team house in Northern Spain to a friend's apartment in Girona. I was connected with a couple of different people who lived in Girona or spent time there just through Boulder, the Boulder community. A bunch of pro cyclists come and spend time here in Toronto Altitude while they're in the U. **** - (): S. And then one of my friends, Sean, was at CU Boulder and he had an apartment in Girona. So when this team folded, I was like, Hey man, can I come crash with you for a couple of weeks? And in that time, I was just training, hanging out in Toronto, get to meet a whole bunch of pro cyclists, which is really cool. **** - (): And at that time you're enamored because you're like, wow, like everybody here is a pro cyclist. Everybody here knows what's going on. And you found out after a couple months that all factor wears off and you're like, wow, like I'm, I'm just living here. This is pretty sweet. So from that time after the team folded, I came back. **** - (): Or after the second team folded in July, I came back to the US and I knew I had a prospect with a team that was hopefully gonna be starting in the fall of 2022 and gonna be officially a UCI team in the spring of 2023. And so I had that idea in my back pocket, came back to the US when I was back in Boulder for, I think it was like a month and a half total of 2022. **** - (): I raced Steamboat Gravel. I did a pretty decent ride there and that was my second time doing Steamboat Gravel and at that point I was convinced I was racing with this team that was going to be a Conti team. I had a good ride there, went back over to Europe, moved into another apartment in Toronto where I was living with some of the guys that were going to be on that team. **** - (): And we're supposed to be going to university in Girona, and the whole premise of the team was like, you're part of the team, you're going to university, and you got to learn how to become a professional athlete and somebody off the bike as well, which is super cool idea, super cool concept, and I think there's definitely space for a program like that in the sport. **** - (): This one just. Didn't end up working out. So they then fell apart in the fall. And while that was all happening, we were, me and the other guys who were supposed to be routing for the team were kind of like, okay, well we're gonna have to figure out what's next. And some of these guys were like, oh, just gonna go back to the us. **** - (): Other guys were holding on seeing if they could race with other Spanish teams. Spanish amateur teams. 'cause we were all in Spain already. So it just makes sense too. Yeah. And I was like, you know what? I've done gravel a couple times. I've done Steamboat gravel twice, and I did a local race here in Colorado. **** - (): That's pretty fun. And those races are really hard. So I want to see, you know, there's privateers popping up in the U S and there's a booming scene in the U S and there's a couple of races in Europe. What can I do to make, make that an actual thing? So then in the fall of 2022, I got a pretty good result at one of the UCI qualifiers and was able to go to the first ever UCI gravel world championships in Italy. **** - (): And that was a super cool experience because, you know, it was my first ever world championships, my first time ever seeing a bike race at that high of a level. And I was able to ride for the elite team because there hadn't been a whole lot of people who were super interested. Everyone, all the American riders were like, Oh, this is a test event. **** - (): We're going to see where this goes. And I had qualified and I was like, I want to see if I can race for the elite team. So sent some emails back and forth with you and say, cycling, they made that a pretty easy process, but it wasn't really team oriented that year. So we all just showed up, got our own accommodations, our own hotels. **** - (): I traveled with some of the friends I was living with in Toronto and yeah, just had a blast. Like, yeah. What an amazing experience. That whole trip. That race was super cool. And it was my first time getting to race against guys that were that high of a level you got to race against. Yeah. Like Matthew Vanderpool and wow. **** - (): Then our, and Greg Van Avermaet were all there. And then I'm at the back of the field. I didn't know how sick I was, but I had COVID it ended up and I was super sick, ended up DNFing the race. But I look back at that experience and I was like, that was. One of the coolest races I've ever done like standing at the start line, looking at my superheroes. **** - (): That's [00:13:43] - ():  Craig Dalton: pretty sweet. Yeah, it sounds amazing. So it sounds like, you know, you had, it's the end of the season. I think October 2022 would be the timeframe of that UCI world gravel championships. So then you're looking at 2023. Your road program has dissolved at that point. What were your plans for 2023? [00:14:05] - ():  Andy Lydic: Uh, I think it was officially December 15th or December 12th or something like that, that we were told the road program wasn't going to go on, wasn't going to exist. **** - (): So then we were all kind of scrambling and I was, the UCF just announced they're going to do this European gravel series. And I was just kind of stubborn, told my parents multiple times, I was calling them every day, like, I don't know what I'm going to do. And like, well, like you can talk to other teams, start racing for amateur teams again. **** - (): And I was like, no, I'm going to another team that's going to hold again. Like. That's just not something I wanted to keep doing because it while the racing is really cool The life off the bike when you're racing for these amateur teams is it's pretty tough and it can be really isolating and lonely Just you know, you're sitting in a team house Don't have a whole lot of access to a social life a social experience and I knew I was having a really good time in Girona, so I was like I'm gonna stay here in Girona and chase these gravel races So from that point, I was like, okay, well to race gravel, I have to have a bike to do it and I have to have sponsors to support me and I have to have a mission and a vision for what I'm going to do. **** - (): And at that point, I had just started working with a new coach and my new coach at that point was like, yeah, man, like I think there's definitely an opportunity to get to a really high level if you're racing gravel. It's the first time there's like a full UCI series, but. Check it out. Let's see, let's see where you can go. **** - (): Let's see what you can do from it. So I had a lot of really good support from my coach. I had good support from my parents. Um, the first people I started working with were BMC, who I just met in Toronto from just being in Toronto. It's, it's such a funny, small place because. So many people in the bike industry and the professional racing industry live there. **** - (): So being there and that one of the guys who works in marketing, I was able to get a deal with BMC to ride their bikes for the 2023 season. Just having that kind of gave me the confidence that, you know, I'm worth something. I'm able to go out and build my own program and build my own sponsors. And I've been learning how to make sponsor decks from my friends, from my parents. **** - (): I've gotten really good mentorship and how to put together. Like a pitch to a sponsor and say, Hey, this is who I am. This is my mission. This is how I think I can add value. This is what I want to do. And this is who I want to be. Will you help me tell that story? And from there, then I started working with on a roadway safety organization from here in Boulder, who was my title sponsor for last year. **** - (): They're called, it could be me. And they work on. Improving the relationship between roadway users, cyclists, runners, and drivers, and improving safety protocols, local legislation, and stuff like that. And I had those two in my pocket, and they were my biggest supporters through last year, and then I added a couple other sponsors to the line and was able to put together a season that, at first, I was really, really nervous about and really hesitant about. **** - (): And now, I look back on it with a lot of pride, being like, wow, like, It was December 20th, and I had no idea what I was doing. And then by the end of January, I had my first sponsor. And by the end of February, I had two more sponsors. And then the beginning of March, I actually went and raced with an amateur team, some UCI road races in Greece. **** - (): And then flew back to Girona from there, and here the gravel season is. Yeah. [00:17:27] - ():  Craig Dalton: Amazing. I mean, kudos to you for pulling that together after such a tumultuous year. I know how tough it can be for American riders living abroad and especially when you're the team you're trying to ride for, in this case, multiple teams folds right underneath you and you're sort of left with, you know, are the gods telling me something? **** - (): Should I be quitting the sport? Is there no future? So yeah, huge kudos for kind of pushing through that. I'm curious about, you know, awesome that in 2023, you kind of, you know, built this plan and you got some sponsors together. And I know you're going to be pursuing gravel pretty hardcore in 2024 and we'll get into it. **** - (): Is your mindset that You know, there will be multiple pathways for you in the future. Like there's still this idea that you could go race professionally on the road. [00:18:14] - ():  Andy Lydic: Yeah, I think that's the big story that I want to tell right now. I think right now gravel is a lot of guys exiting the world tour exiting pro teams, whether it's for mountain biking or cyclocross or other pro road teams. **** - (): And they use it as like a stepping stone out of their careers that gives. gravel a lot of validity in the fact that there's a lot of really high level, really talented riders that are doing these races. Like I'm getting to race against Val Verde and I'm getting to race against, um, riders on plenty of world tour teams from Israel to, uh, Alpes and Phoenix. **** - (): Like all these pro world tour teams are sending riders to these gravel races as one off expose. And then you see that at the world champs this year. And so the whole story now that I want to tell, and I knew this since last year as well, like I want to use gravel as my pathway to pro, but now that's kind of the big story I'm trying to push. **** - (): And I've been using this hashtag future of gravel that I've kind of coined and I've got a personal email address, Andy at future of gravel. com. So I'm trying to write the story of what is the future of gravel. And what I believe that to be is because the racing is at such a high level, you get. A really high level physical performance out of a gravel race. **** - (): You know, you're racing for three, four, five, six, seven hours full gas. Like it's a spring classic, but you're also on tricky technical terrain where the requirements, not just that you're a strong bike rider, but that you're. A capable bike rider as well that you're technically skilled and technically talented. **** - (): And I think there's definitely I don't know of anyone who's used gravel to get into a professional cycling organization yet, but I definitely think there's room for it. And if the directors of pro road teams are the directors of pro mountain bike teams. Are taking a look at what is really required to win these races. **** - (): They'll see the power numbers required to do these races is equal to and or greater than that of some of these really high level road races, as well as the fact that. You're getting a really good router if you pull a gravel rider out of the gravel along the road. [00:20:21] - ():  Craig Dalton: Yeah, I think it's a super interesting discussion, Andy. **** - (): I think, you know, for, for listeners who maybe aren't familiar with the road scene, there used to be this tried and true pathway that involved a lot of development programs. And then maybe you get on the development team of a big pro tour team. And then maybe in your mid to late twenties, you were given a shot on the elite level team. **** - (): And the last number of years, obviously on the roadside, we've seen a lot of young athletes just kind of come out of nowhere, whether it's a Pogacar or Tom Pickock, all these riders who they clearly didn't come out of nowhere, but they didn't go through that traditional pathway. So I do think it's fascinating for you to kind of hold up your hand and say, like, I'm going to I'm going to go all in on this gravel in a world where data files can be readily shared with coaches and would be agents and teams. **** - (): They're going to see the amount of power that you can put out there. And to your point, the technical nature of a lot of these gravel races is going to showcase, yeah, you may not be racing, uh, you know, in a one day classic, but you're. On varied terrain with various technical challenges in a big group and a lot of undulation, a lot of technicality, clearly it's showing your professionalism as a, a by Candler. [00:21:37] - ():  Andy Lydic: Yeah, totally. And I think also as an American writer, especially it's, it's incredibly valuable opportunity right now because the U S only really has two development teams, two under 23 development teams for young American guys to get the chance to go over race in Europe. And. You know, as cool as it is to race crits, I'm A, not built to race crits and B, that's not the kind of racing I really want to do. **** - (): And that's really the only professional level of racing that you can do in the U. S. The U. S. is so crit centric that these development teams, which only have a certain number of spots for riders, can only send so many people over to Europe. So, You know, as an American rider, the pathways to getting too professional in Europe, which is where, you know, the money in the sport is the visibility and the sport is the fame and the sport is. **** - (): The pathway to that is pretty limited just because, you know, each team has 10, 12, 15 riders, and there's only two of them. There's one that's purely American and one that's got four or five American riders, but that's it. So I think having gravel as an opportunity to progress to professional could be a really unique, a really unique pathway that won't end up being that unheard of in the future. **** - (): I think if one rider can do it, I'll set a precedent. And then once the precedent's set. You'll see guys who went from high school mountain biking to gravel racing to pro teams more and more because the level of riders in America is really incredible. There's just not a whole lot of road races and there's not a whole lot of opportunity for those riders to get to the European road races where there is the opportunity. **** - (): Yeah, [00:23:15] - ():  Craig Dalton: yeah, yeah. That's super exciting. Continuing on your 2023 campaign, you got selected for the United States World Championship team once again. So you got to attend your. Second world championships, you mentioned in that first one, which I recall, there wasn't a lot of team camaraderie, um, or alignment with the people participating, but it sounds like from talking to a few of the, of the other athletes in 2023, there was much more of an alignment. **** - (): So can you talk about what it was like racing with that crew and how the day unfolded for you? [00:23:48] - ():  Andy Lydic: Yeah, it was a super cool experience having USA Cycling step up and say we want to go to this race and we know we have riders who can perform really highly in this race. So the US National Championships for gravel was an auto qualifier for the top three positions at that race to get to be on the Elite World Championships team. **** - (): And then everything else was a petition process and going into the petition process, I knew that I had raced more of the UCI gravel races than any other American had. So I thought I had a leg up there, but it ended up being a pretty tough process. And I think it was a tough selection process from USA cycling, because there was definitely a bunch of really deserving guys who applied to be on that elite team and who wanted to go to the world championships that applied for it, but didn't get selected because you know, the team only gets a certain amount of slots. **** - (): And so it was definitely. Definitely fortunate that I was able to get that spot on the elite team again. I think, I think I had earned it just because I had done so many of the UCI races and I had gotten pretty good results at some of them. So from there, the USA team put together an email list and we're all on the same page of Okay, we're going to this race and we want the USA to show up and show up. **** - (): And we knew we had Keegan. He's one of the most talented and one of the strongest riders in the world, just bar none. So we all showed up and USA Cycling had organized a hotel, so a bunch of the riders stayed at the hotel and, you know, they had food and everything for us. We had soigneurs, we had mechanics, and they did a really good job just organizing, putting together. **** - (): Look, we want to perform. This is what it takes to perform. So it was almost like being in a professional team for a week because, you know, staying at the hotel with the guys on the team, that was super inspiring getting to hang out with guys you've raced against, but don't really know was super fun. And then going into the race, we had a plan to ride for Keegan, which everybody was on board with. **** - (): Cause everyone's like, you know, Keegan can podium or if Keegan can win, that means a lot more than. A whole bunch of us getting 30th place. So yeah, it didn't end up working out incredibly well to ride for him. Just because in gravel, I think the nature of the sport is, you know, it is more of an individual race. **** - (): It's more of an individual sport, but we went into it all knowing, like, we're going to try and get our best rider as high up as possible. And that result, Deacon had a really great ride. He finished fifth on the day. And then the other American boys had a really good ride and I had a ride. I'm super proud of. **** - (): I call myself the unofficial under 23 world champion in gravel because I was the first under 23 rider in the elite field to cross the line. So while it's not something UCI gives a Jersey for yet, uh, I'm hoping they're going to give an under 23 world champs Jersey next year, I'll still be eligible for that, but I had, I had the ride of my life too. **** - (): There was a point in the race where I'm riding next to. Wout van Aert and Matej Mohoric, and I stick both my elbows out to see if I could touch both of them at the same time and just because it was such a surreal experience that I was riding elbow to elbow with Matej Aert, I was like, this is crazy. I had a really good ride there that I was super proud of. **** - (): And I think the course designers did an awesome job of making a course that actually really was a feeling of a gravel race course. Like we have hard gravel climbs, hard farm roads. There was flats, there was climbs. There was two river crossings in the race. Like, it definitely wasn't just a one day classic disguised as a world championship. **** - (): It was a true gravel race, and I think it spoke a lot to the riders and gave a lot of validity to the sport beyond the fact that Some of the world's best riders were racing [00:27:26] - ():  Craig Dalton: it. Yeah, I agree. I think, you know, they continue to improve the format. Obviously, they're melding what we think of gravel in the United States with what Europeans think of gravel and UCI has their own perspective on how long events should be And what they should look and feel like, but clearly like in 2023, it did capture the attention of both male and female elite level gravel racers in the United States. **** - (): And there was this dramatic shift in desire to actually go attend the worlds, which I, for one, I hope continues on. I do think it's important for us to have enthusiasm for the world championships. Cause I want nothing more than to have the rainbow stripes on an American at some point in the gravel [00:28:09] - ():  Andy Lydic: discipline. **** - (): Yeah, totally. And I think, you know, to speak to the validity of the race in the Europeans mind, like I think there was 50 plus pros in the race of including pro Conti and world tour riders. And then you add in continental riders and that's another 30 And then you have pro mountain bikers and pro cyclocross racers on top teams in the world. **** - (): Like the field was. Completely stacked. And it was really cool to see all these super high level riders there, as well as the U S putting in a really good result. Like I know Keegan was hoping to win it and I really believe he was capable of it, but you know, it's a race races don't always play out how you expect. **** - (): And I think it won't be too far in the future when we see an American wearing. I [00:28:57] - ():  Craig Dalton: love it. 2024. [00:29:02] - ():  Andy Lydic: Yeah. So I started the race season two weeks ago at one of the, at the Low Gap Grasshopper race in Northern California. Had a pretty fun ride there. It was for being a, one of the smaller season opener races. **** - (): There was a pretty strong field. We had Chris Blevins and Pete Stetna. Uh, Brent Wurtz and John, no, not him, but a bunch of really high level riders, super cool. So started the season there, got 7th place after a silly little crash, 4k from the line, but then Looking forwards in two weeks, I'm going to fly over to Greece and start my racing season in Greece, actually racing on the road. **** - (): So I'll do a stage race in a one day in Rhodes, Greece. And then from there, I start with the UCI Gravel World Series race. So I'll be hitting, I think, six races in Europe over a seven week period. I'll do a UCI gravel race in Austria, a three day gravel stage race in Spain. A one day UCI gravel race in southern Spain and then up to Netherlands for a one day back to Spain for Traco, which is one of the biggest gravel races in the world now, but it's, I'd compare it to like, it is the, it's the unbound of Europe and then I'll finish the season off in Scotland at the UCI gravel race there. [00:30:22] - ():  Craig Dalton: Amazing. And then will you be dipping your toe back in the United States throughout the season? Or are you mainly focused on the UCI gravel events internationally? [00:30:31] - ():  Andy Lydic: Yeah, after that race block, I'll come back to the U. S. in mid May and kind of refocus as the American season gets going. I think the American gravel season. **** - (): Gets going slowly. And then through the summer, it picks up quite a bit. So I won't be doing some of the big American stuff. I won't be doing Unbound, which I'm pretty happy to not be doing, but then I'll do Crusher and the Tusher. I'll do Steamboat. I'll do a couple of marathon mountain bike races. I'm hoping to go to. **** - (): Marathon mountain bike, national champs. I think that'd be a super fun experience. And then some local races here in Colorado and then the rest of the lifetime Grand Prix races after unbound. [00:31:11] - ():  Craig Dalton: Okay. Yeah. It's interesting to me, you know, I remember sort of historically speaking, they would often try to keep younger riders away from the super massive distance races, like an unbound 200. **** - (): And that's what was curious, you know, in the UCI vision of what gravel distances should be, they're not, they're not going 200 miles. They don't want it to be sort of an ultra endurance fest. They're, they're looking for it to be more active racing. How do you feel about, like, it sounds like. Not doing a 200 mile gravel race sits okay with you for this next season. **** - (): But do you think about it like that? Do you feel like 200 miles is too much for you as a younger professional? [00:31:53] - ():  Andy Lydic: I think it's hard as such a young guy to compete with the likes of Keegan or the likes of the other world tour pros coming from Europe to the U S to do onbound because These guys have lifetime miles, which gives them a level of durability that it's really hard to have as a young rider. **** - (): And so beyond the fact that it's just a long day in the saddle, I think it's hard for young riders to really perform there and you know, it's well doing as a career changing result. But that said. I really like the UCI format of the shorter races. I like racing for four hours. I like the four hours to be really hard. **** - (): I like it to be really tactical and it feels like a road race that's more technical because you've got the gravel and you've got the, you know, whether it's a tricky descent or a river crossing or something like that. It's still a hard gravel race, but you're not out there for seven or eight or 10 hours. **** - (): Yeah, like you would find in some of the longer American races. So it's nice. It's nice to get the speed from the European races and hopefully I can get the speed from the shorter races and then take it into the endurance that the longer American races later in the season will [00:33:02] - ():  Craig Dalton: require. Yeah, I think it's fascinating. **** - (): I mean, look, there's, my opinion is there's room for all these types of events on the calendar. But it is interesting. And after talking to the UCI about like their perspective on the format, I have to acknowledge that like the dynamic racing element of a four to five hour race is just higher than a, a 10 [00:33:23] - ():  Andy Lydic: hour race. **** - (): Yeah, totally. And it's not, not that the racing in the U S is like not tactical because I think it's completely tactical, but it's just a different way. Whereas, you know, if the race, if you know, the race is 130 K or it's only going to be a four and a half hour race on the gravel guys are going to take much bigger poles, have much bigger attacks and yeah, it's going to play out more like a race that you'd want to watch on TV. **** - (): Whereas, I didn't really think it'd be super interesting to follow unbound for all 200 miles of it, just because, you know, things happen a lot slower because it's a much longer race. Riders have to think a lot more about conserving. Riders have to think a lot more about whether it's their fuel strategy, their nutrition strategy. **** - (): I think, you know, that's still equally important in the shorter races. How good your pit crew is doesn't determine your result in a UCI race, because you don't have a, that's not a thing that doesn't exist. It's you go out there, you race full gas for four hours, and then when you're done The race is over and, you know, some guys are wearing hydro packs. **** - (): Some guys are not, but it's not so much a war of attrition as much as it is like a proper race. Yeah. [00:34:32] - ():  Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Um, how are you supporting your 2024 campaign? Do you have a set of sponsors that are carrying over from 23? [00:34:42] - ():  Andy Lydic: Yeah. So I'm working with quite a few of my sponsors from 2023 continuing into next year. **** - (): And I've added a couple other sponsors as well. I think this year has been definitely tricky to get sponsors and to work with sponsors because it's so such a difficult bike market right now. You know, I've heard all across the industry, like, Oh, 2023 was a really tough year and that really impacts marketing budgets. **** - (): And marketing budgets is where, you know, privateers and writers like me get the finances to do the season. So it's actually not a complete process for me right now, figuring out how I'm going to pay for the entire season and pay for my living and everything. That's an ongoing process. And I think looking outside of the industry is something I've been doing recently as to how can I get some money and how can I share my story and how can I provide value to brands inside or outside of the industry? **** - (): While it's this late. The other hard thing for me was, you know, my best result, the unofficial under 23 world champion wasn't until October when a lot of people have already signed their contracts for next year. So my best results did come late. Moving into next year, I anticipate I'm continuing to work with BMC. **** - (): I'm continuing to work with It Could Be Me. I'm now working with Morton as a nutrition sponsor, which is really exciting and that's honestly a grail sponsor to me because I've been using their products. Been buying them for two years now and it's really exciting to get to work with the brand now. And I work with Northwave for shoes and Getting helmets from them. **** - (): So it's really cool that the product support I'm getting is really strong and fairly well covered when it comes to product, but definitely still trying to tie up some ends when it comes to financing the whole season. Yeah. Yeah. [00:36:19] - ():  Craig Dalton: Got it. Well, I love that you're forging your own way and you know, you've got a unique racing calendar that should appeal to some sponsors and wish you best of luck and certainly hope you're wearing the stars and stripes Jersey for us in the world championships again, [00:36:35] - ():  Andy Lydic: in 2024. **** - (): Yeah, that's the goal. I'd love to go back and double love it if the UCI offers up a jersey for the under 23. And even if they don't, I'm going to go and see how good I can do in that elite race. So that's the goal. [00:36:49] - ():  Craig Dalton: Amazing. Thanks for the time today, Andy. Great to get to know you. [00:36:53] - ():  Andy Lydic: Yeah. Thanks so much, Craig. **** - (): Have a good one.    

Andy Chasteen, co-director of the Rule of Three gravel event in Bentonville, Arkansas, joins host Craig Dalton to discuss the vibrant gravel cycling community in Northwest Arkansas. They delve into the importance of connectivity and safe infrastructure for cyclists, the origins of the Rule of Three event, and the unique experience it offers with a combination of pavement, gravel, and singletrack. Andy also shares his perspective on event organization and the value of creating a memorable and enjoyable experience for participants. Don't miss this engaging conversation about the growth and excitement surrounding gravel cycling in Bentonville. Rule of Three Website Episode sponsor: Pillar Performance (use code CRAIG for 15% off) Support the Podcast Join The Ridership  About the Guest(s): Andy Chasteen is an avid cyclist and the co-founder of Rule of Three, a unique gravel cycling event held in Bentonville, Arkansas. He has a background in rock climbing and ultra marathoning, which led him to discover his passion for cycling. Andy is also a consultant in the outdoor industry and has worked with brands like Allied Cycle Works. He is dedicated to creating a vibrant cycling community in Northwest Arkansas and promoting the gravel riding experience. Episode Summary: In this episode, Craig Dalton interviews Andy Chasteen, co-founder of Rule of Three, about the vibrant gravel cycling community in Northwest Arkansas and the unique gravel event they organize. They discuss the growth of Bentonville as a cycling destination, the importance of connectivity and safe infrastructure, and the origins of Rule of Three. Andy shares his journey from rock climbing to cycling and his passion for creating events that offer a challenging yet enjoyable experience for participants. He also emphasizes the value of different types of gravel events and the need for inclusivity in the cycling community. Key Takeaways: Bentonville, Arkansas, has become a thriving cycling destination with a strong focus on connectivity and safe infrastructure. Rule of Three is a gravel cycling event that combines pavement, gravel, and single track sections to create a challenging and engaging experience. The event aims to provide a unique and fun atmosphere for participants, with a focus on community building and inclusivity. Andy Chasteen believes that gravel cycling offers a more accessible and enjoyable experience for riders of all skill levels. Rule of Three is committed to delivering a high-quality event and prioritizes participant experience over profit. Notable Quotes: "We're building gravel connectors that are not used by cars. They're just for cyclists to get from the center of Bentonville out into these rural areas." - Andy Chasteen "Gravel riding resonated with my culture and personality. It felt like home." - Andy Chasteen "Our goal is to put on the best event possible for the people that show up." - Andy Chasteen Automated Transcription.  Please excuse the typos: [TRANSCRIPT] [00:00:00] - ():  Craig Dalton: Andy welcome to the show. [00:00:03] - ():  Andy Chasteen: Thank you. It's an honor to be here. I've been listening to you for a long time. [00:00:08] - ():  Craig Dalton: That's amazing [00:00:09] - ():  Andy Chasteen: to hear Andy. Well, sometimes it's just weird to be on a podcast that you've been listening to and you're talking to the person that you listen to all the time. So it's. It can be awkward, but it's great. **** - (): It's an honor to be here. Thank you. [00:00:20] - ():  Craig Dalton: Yeah, a hundred percent. And I feel like I've been observing your antics from afar for a while. So I feel like I know you a little bit, but it's the first time I think that we've actually got a chance to chat. [00:00:30] - ():  Andy Chasteen: Yeah. Yeah. I'm S I'm super stoked to talk to you. So sweet, [00:00:34] - ():  Craig Dalton: well, a lot of people will have heard of rule of three, and I definitely want to get into that event. **** - (): Super excited to talk to you about that and, um, gravel cycling in Northwest Arkansas as well. Just as a general topic, because I know as we were talking about offline, that community that you're part of cultivating and a member of is just. So vibrant that, uh, you know, I just love to hear stories from the ground and how other communities can mimic what you're doing and the passion that the community seems to have for gravel riding. [00:01:04] - ():  Andy Chasteen: Yeah. It's, uh, you know, as we were, as we were talking a few minutes ago, there's a lot going on here and, uh, it's quite exciting. And as we like to stay around here, we're, uh, we're just on first base, which is kind of, which is kind of exciting to, to even say, yeah. [00:01:19] - ():  Craig Dalton: And for those of us who have been to Bentonville to. **** - (): To, to hear you describe it as first base is insane because you've got great infrastructure. You can get around town on bike paths, but that's just the tip tip tip of the iceberg. There's a couple of substantial mountain bike areas and obviously miles and miles and miles of great gravel as demonstrated in the big sugar gravel event every [00:01:41] - ():  Andy Chasteen: year. **** - (): That's right. And, uh, you know, we're working on, you know, like you said, connectivity, and I don't mean to jump straight into this, but like a lot of what we are working on in the Bentonville area is connectivity. How can we connect neighborhoods, uh, you know, business centers and just life in general to trail and gravel road and safe connectors to get out into these rural area, like. **** - (): That's a, that's a thing that's been on our mind for, you know, well, for, for a while, but what we've really focused on in the past year is, is really making, it's connecting, uh, Bentonville or the Northwest Arkansas area to the ride experience, which has been a fun, a fun time for [00:02:24] - ():  Craig Dalton: sure. Yeah, I bet. You know, that, that safe connector thread, I think is so important because a lot of areas are great for cycling, but you have to get there and many of us want to ride there. **** - (): And if riding there is dangerous, that's just going to prevent people from enjoying the sport in the way we want them to. [00:02:42] - ():  Andy Chasteen: Yeah, uh, the lens with which we've been looking at, uh, let's, let's just stay on the gravel side for now, but like the lens with which we've been looking at the gravel side of the, you know, the experience in Northwest Arkansas is, has been heavily towards, okay. **** - (): This area is growing. This area is growing very, very fast. And there's, there are some things that we cannot control and we can't control growth. You know, we, we, we don't, you know, we want the Bentonville Northwest Arkansas area to grow and be prosperous. And, you know, but we also have to make sure that that experience for the rider is You know, safe, it's enjoyable. **** - (): Um, it's, uh, it's approachable for someone who might be brand new. So that's kind of the lens with which we've been looking at the gravel experience. And quite honestly, we're building gravel connectors that are not used by cars. They're just for cyclists to get from. Say, let's just say for right now, uh, the center of Bentonville out into these rural areas. **** - (): So as Bentonville grows and the footprint expands, those will be protected in perpetuity for their gravel experience, which is really cool. And I'm maybe there's other, you know, communities doing that. But if, if they are, I'm not aware of it. And it really is this amazing foresight, uh, to where 20 years from now, we hope that the gravel experience is protected and enhanced and, uh, and it's still what it currently is. **** - (): So. [00:04:11] - ():  Craig Dalton: Yeah, it's probably worth, you know, I've, I've spoken about Bentonville a couple of times on the podcast before, but it's probably worth noting that the sort of. And correct me if I'm wrong, but the major employer in Bentonville is Walmart and then entities that are related to Walmart. And it's just, it's been there for many, many years. **** - (): Sure. The Walmart family has had a commitment to investing in cycling infrastructure. So that when they're thinking about their new campus from the ground up, they're always thinking about how can people ride bikes in and it seems from an outsider's perspective that that's infused across the entire town. **** - (): Just this idea that bikes are going to be part of this community and to your recent point, we're going to build in infrastructure from the onset of planning, not try to slap it on after we've built a subdivision or grown the community in [00:05:02] - ():  Andy Chasteen: some way. That's right. There has to be some foresight and you're right there. **** - (): That's the, that's the, that's the focus for sure. And it can't be done. Like you said, behind the ball, we have to be ahead of the ball on that. You know, for example, the walmart's building a new, uh, ginormous, uh, home office campus and on that campus will be single track and there's initiatives within the, within the home office, you know, To, to have a certain percentage of people commuting there, you know, to, to work on, you know, on a weekly basis. **** - (): And so there is a lot of foresight within, you know, cycling and riding a bike is not only healthy, but it makes, you know, it's just, it's better for a community as well. So, yeah, absolutely. [00:05:44] - ():  Craig Dalton: Yeah. And as an off road cyclist, I remember going from my Airbnb to an event that the people, people for bikes conference people were having at the, that great museum you have there. **** - (): And I remember Bridges. Yeah, Crystal Bridges. Yeah. And I remember having the opportunity to ride single track just on the way there to get from point A to point B. And I was like, this is fantastic. [00:06:07] - ():  Andy Chasteen: Yeah. There's kids, you know, kids ride single track to school every day, which I mean, yeah, I'm a little jealous cause I wish I would have had that experience, but yeah, it's, it's a, it's a, it's, we got a lot going on here. **** - (): There's it's. I like to use the word bonkers. There's a lot of bonkers things going on here. It's busy. It's bustling and it's great. If you're a bike rider, it's hard for me to think there's a better place to be. That's for sure. [00:06:32] - ():  Craig Dalton: Yeah, no, I agree. It's definitely someplace everybody needs to visit at some point. **** - (): You know, Northwest Arkansas 10 years ago might not have been on people's radar as a cyclist as a place to go. And now I think unequivocally for anybody who's set foot in that town of Bentonville in that area, it's an emphatic yes, go visit. [00:06:51] - ():  Andy Chasteen: That's right. Yeah, for sure. For [00:06:52] - ():  Craig Dalton: sure. You were talking about sort of childhood and the ability to ride to school, etc. **** - (): Yeah. Let's, let's roll back a second and just kind of learn a little bit more about where you grew up, Andy. And how'd you find the bike originally? [00:07:05] - ():  Andy Chasteen: Well, man, that's a long story, but I'll try to, I'll try to keep it short. Uh, I grew up in Southern Missouri, kind of right across the border, actually from Northwest Arkansas. **** - (): It's a really small town. Went off to college. Um, I played, I actually played basketball in college and, uh, you know, in, into team sports, basically, you know, my entire childhood and into, you know, probably 21, 22 years old. And then after I graduated college, I, I got obsessed with rock climbing for some weird reason and, uh, and got really into rock climbing, ultra marathoning. **** - (): Um, and like I said, like a very long story made very short, maybe not very short, but short, um, I was running the, I was running ultra marathons and in order to train for ultra marathons, I'm like a big guy by like 200 and I knew that I couldn't run a lot of miles to train for these ultras. And so what I would do is I would go out for like, you know, maybe like a 10 mile trail run and then I would jump on a bicycle. **** - (): I wasn't a cyclist, but I would jump on a bicycle. To take that, you know, pressure off of my joints and like keep injury free. And so I, I would go out and jump on a bicycle for four hours and I just got hooked, completely hooked and really the rest is history, been on a bike ever since. Um, and you know. I still love to do all these. **** - (): I love outdoor endeavor, outdoor rec, anything outdoor rec, paddling, you know, climbing trail. I like all that, but my obsession is certainly with the bike. So, um, that's the, that's the short story and we [00:08:39] - ():  Craig Dalton: did you discover yourself as a, as a mountain biker in those early days or what, what was your niche of choice? [00:08:46] - ():  Andy Chasteen: Uh, at the time I was actually living in, in Oklahoma city and which, which is, you know, It's there's, there's not a lot of what I would consider like great bike riding there, but the community is amazing. It's a very tight knit, not a big community, very tight knit, but it's very road centric. Um, so I started off kind of on the road bike and, uh, you know, I raced, I did road racing and crate racing and all that. **** - (): And, uh, I, I was, I was certainly into mountain biking at the time, but that wasn't what I spent most of my days doing. So it kind of started on the road. [00:09:17] - ():  Craig Dalton: Gotcha. Since we're going to get into the rule of three event that you're putting on there in Bentonville, I think it's going to be interesting to just talk about your journey and experience as an event organizer. **** - (): And I know from your bio that a rock, a big rock climbing event happened sometime. In that period. So why don't you walk us through like that event? Cause I think it is for those of you who haven't heard of Horseshoe hell, go look it up. I think I S I want to say I saw, uh, some stuff on Red Bull TV about it, but I've read about it now outside magazine over the years. **** - (): So it's a really amazing event, but I'd love to just hear how it got started because I think it's part of your origin story as someone who stuck up their hand and said, I can put on an [00:10:00] - ():  Andy Chasteen: event. Yeah, for sure. So like, you know, rewind back when I was in this very obsessive rock climbing phase and, uh, you know, there's a, there's this beautiful, beautiful canyon out in, uh, in Arkansas called, uh, Horseshoe Canyon Ranch, and they have, you know, 600, uh, you know, sport routes. **** - (): Um, so single pitch technical, you know, sport route, rock climbing. And I would spend a lot of time there in kind of the early years of my climbing. And we just, me and some buddies, when we can get this crazy idea, it's, it's kind of an outdoor climbing gym. You got a route here, you can climb this route, you take, you know, 10 steps to your right and you got another one, you know what I mean? **** - (): It's like route on route on right on route. And they're all really good routes. And so I, we got this wild idea to put on an event that was like a 24 hour rock climbing competition, which seems. Idiotic. Yeah. Had anybody [00:10:54] - ():  Craig Dalton: done that in the past? No, no, no. Yeah, we have like on the mountain bike side, there's 24 hour mountain bike racing, but sounds like it was a totally foreign concept. [00:11:03] - ():  Andy Chasteen: Very foreign. Of course, very, very foreign. Um, and so, and all my buddies thought it was a great idea, but nobody really wanted to like I kind of take the reins. So I took the reins and, uh, and, uh, you know, I, it's a private, it's a private property. So I, you know, I went and asked the owner and he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. **** - (): You can do that. And just, and thus started this beautiful relationship. This is 2006. And, uh, this, this beautiful relationship with this, with this great, amazing place. And we built this. really cool experience where it started off as a 24 hour rock climbing competition, but now it's a five day festival, right? **** - (): And so, uh, outside climbing or I'm sorry, outside magazine calls it the burning man of rock climbing. So you got people in costumes and it's a five day love fest party, right? Like, It's I like to say, you know, you can come here and be anybody you want to be for five days as long as you're respectful to, you know, to your fellow, you know, people there. **** - (): So, um, and the rest is history. It still happens. We're still, we're still doing it. And, uh, even though I'm not like a huge climber is into it as I used to be, um, it's still, it's still a raging, we can, we can only allow 500 competitors, um, so that people can like. Accomplish their goals that they set out, you know, for that 24 hours, we can only let 500 people in, but it the amount of spectators that come and the people who just want to kind of party for the weekend is way beyond that. **** - (): So, yeah, it's really cool. And oddly enough, I'd never put on a bit before that. I had never even been to a rock climbing competition before I put that on. And sometimes I think that that is actually the golden ticket. Like, yeah. It's almost better to not know how things are done or they're supposed to be done when you're trying to do something that way you can be creative and kind of do, you know, something a little different. **** - (): So anyways, that was kind of the origins of my first event. And I don't consider myself. I still don't consider myself an event promoter because I have always just done them for fun. I've always had a real job. And, uh, but these have always been for fun and we've cultivated beautiful communities behind them. **** - (): And that's, that's what I'm proud of, um, in these events. [00:13:15] - ():  Craig Dalton: Yeah. Amazing. I'll make sure to link to Horseshoe Howell. Cause I just, I think it's a fascinating story and the pictures that come out every year. Yeah, [00:13:22] - ():  Andy Chasteen: it looks awesome. It's a real wild time. It's a real wild. [00:13:26] - ():  Craig Dalton: Is it a two person team for 24 hours or is it solo? **** - (): That's [00:13:30] - ():  Andy Chasteen: it's a two person team. Cause you have to have a belayer obviously. So the whole idea is like, but there are categories just like any other event. Like, you know, there's categories for the most amount of routes climbed by a team or an individual or the F the most amount of, uh, Uh, routes climb that are certain, you know, difficulty level or whatever the case may be. **** - (): So you, there's all these just like, um, like kind of like the Tour de France. There's a race, there's lots of races within the race. There's lots of categories within this bit, this one event that you can actually go after, which is kind of cool. [00:14:02] - ():  Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah. So much fun. So much fun. When did you find yourself actually moving to Bentonville and what, what attracted you to, to that area? **** - (): Uh, [00:14:12] - ():  Andy Chasteen: I'm trying to think of how many years ago that was that I, that I moved to Bentonville. I, I originally, I originally, uh, became involved in the Bentonville area through, um, I'm self employed. I'm a consultant in basically really what I I've always considered like the biker outdoor industry. And so I really started coming to Bentonville years ago, um, as a consultant for different brands in the industry. **** - (): So I, you know, I had go to Bentonville and, uh, in my sprinter van and, uh, and spend, you know, you know, Half of a month there at a time. I spent half my time there, uh, just kind of living out of the van and working for clients and doing work that way. And, uh, eventually I moved full time. Uh, we're full time in Bentonville now, but my wife and I, but, um, it started off as kind of like I was kind of, I hate to use the word squatting in Bentonville, but I was kind of squatting in my Sprinter van in Bentonville for work. **** - (): Yeah. Which is wild. Obviously [00:15:06] - ():  Craig Dalton: you started to discover some of the riding throughout the area. Yeah. Okay. Was there a certain point in time when you sort of got under, got your first gravel bike underneath you? [00:15:17] - ():  Andy Chasteen: Uh, I had been, I had been dabbling in gravel bike, you know, before I started going to Bentonville. **** - (): I was super into the gravel scene early on, um, for a lot of different reasons. Um, I, I grew up in the outdoors. Um, you know, hunting, fishing, things like that. And it just felt like gravel was more all in line with like my personality and where I came from. I, I grew up in a rural area. So even today, when I ride my gravel bike in rural areas, it feels like I'm home. **** - (): And so, um, I was, I was into the gravel scene pretty early, I guess, if you will, but not because I thought it was the next big thing is just because it kind of resonated with my culture. Yeah. Personality or my soul a little bit more. Yeah. [00:15:58] - ():  Craig Dalton: Did that, did that lead you to testing the water or some of those early [00:16:02] - ():  Andy Chasteen: events? **** - (): Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I had a lot of, you know, I wrote an article many years ago. I'm trying to remember when, when that was, but I wrote this crazy article. I have to look it up on the date, but the, and it was just for like my personal website. It wasn't to like, you know, I wasn't a journalist or anything like that, but I wrote this article and this is when, you know, mid South was, was called, you know, the land run 100. **** - (): And the article was, was titled. Oh yeah. Um, and it just gave all the, I gave all these reasons because it was a bill. It was, it was for everyone. It was for everyone who wanted to ride a bike, no matter who you were and the, the community, the community building and like. So I, I just, it resonated with me early, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. [00:16:48] - ():  Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah. And imagine, you know, at that time, obviously being familiar with Mid South and all the events that were going on at that time, over the subsequent years, we started to see, I mean, for lack of a better word, a professionalization of some subset of races. Sure. Lots of community based races. I mean, still to this day, I think event organizers have to kind of navigate their lane and understand like what type of they're putting on. **** - (): But as we come to the rule of three, I'm just curious of your mindset of. Was there something missing? Was it more, Hey, Bentonville is awesome. And I know my way around and I want to show people a great day out there. Talk us through the mindset of the origin of that event. [00:17:33] - ():  Andy Chasteen: Yeah. Um, I think, I think there's probably a combination of, of, of maybe all of those, um, The origin came, I have to say, you know, allied cycle works has been one of my clients for quite a few years. **** - (): And, uh, a guy named Sam Pickman, he's the director of product over there. He designs all, you know, all the bikes and everything. I'm a podcast guest over here. Oh, no way. Okay. That's awesome. Yeah. Sam is a super good buddy of mine. I adore him. And, uh, there's actually a connection with that too, because Sam's wife, Lauren is my co director for rule of three. **** - (): So anyways, I want to back up. Uh, we were, you know, when the Abel came out, Allied's first, first gravel bike, um, we, we were on, Sam and I were riding around, um, on the, on prototypes in Bentonville one time, and we were hopping on single track and popping in and out of single track trail and then back onto gravel and things like that, and we got this one day, boom, all this crazy idea, why don't we put on an event that is equal amounts pavement, uh, Gravel and single track, and we kind of like threw it around a little bit. **** - (): We thought it was a really cool idea. And that honestly is the origin of rule of three. And really, we sat on that idea for probably 2 or 3 years or I did the Sam's busy. He doesn't want that. He didn't want it. That's not Sam's lane, right? Sam is a brain. He's a brain guy. Um, so that was where the origin of the idea came from is riding our gravel bikes on the single track in Bentonville. **** - (): And so we sat on this idea for quite some time. Right. And this would have been early 2021. I remember specific, the specific time when I decided it was go time for rule of three, um, uh, Mid South, uh, uh, uh, Mid South again, I love you, Bobby, Mid South had just canceled, uh, their event because of COVID. And the reasoning behind is we can't bring people from all over the country here. **** - (): Um. Because, because of COVID and I thought to myself, well, you know what I could do? I could put on an event in Bentonville where it's just locals, no one has to travel and we let, you know, we have maybe 150 people show up and that is our, like dipping our toes into the event scene, right? This is my time. **** - (): This is my time. And so I like started this free Instagram account and just kind of started marketing the idea behind rule of three. Um, next thing, you know, we sold out 700 spots in the first year. I didn't, wasn't expecting that, but, um. That's the origins of Rule of Three. And quite honestly, I'd never put an event on. **** - (): I've been to a lot of them, obviously, um, and I didn't do it out of, out of a desire to do something. I didn't think it was necessarily something that was lacking in the scene. I just was like, you know what? I want to put on an event and I want to do it my way. You know what I mean? Um, and we'll do it different than everyone else. **** - (): Um, because I personally speaking, I find value in all of these different ways that gravel events are put on. I think they're all valuable. I think they're all great. Right. Whether you're putting on this beautiful, UCI feel, you know, SBT gravel, that's a polished and beautiful, or you've got unbound. That's this really long ginormous event, right? **** - (): That's like the worldwide, or you've got rule of three, which we put it on in a freaking field. We're dirty. We're grimy. We're different, right? I find value in all of those. And I think that, I think that, you know, uh, There's, there's enough of an audience now to where, uh, to where all of these different ways of putting on an event find value with, they resonate with, you know, a certain audience. **** - (): And I, so that's, that was really the reason behind it. Yeah. A [00:21:13] - ():  Craig Dalton: hundred percent. I remember when I first read about rule of three, I was like, this is my jam because I often say like my favorite events. You're going to hate your bike at least once during the event. Event organizer did it right. And when you guys kind of came out with rule of three, I was like, this is awesome. **** - (): Like it's really putting a fine point on like. You better pick your poison and I very much enjoyed hearing stories about it and hearing some of the racers talk about it because they were going through these thought processes in their head. Like I remember Ian Boswell talking about it and he's like, you know, I know I'm not going to rip single track. **** - (): So if I'm going to be competitive in this race, I need to do something on the road section and on the gravel section that's going to meaningfully displace some of the more skilled mountaineers [00:22:02] - ():  Andy Chasteen: in the bunch. And he did, he did that year, you know, he put the hammer down and dropped almost everyone on a, on a really long kind of gravel pavement sector, you know. **** - (): Um, which, you know, the routes really hard, you know, you know, it's historically speaking, we've, it's been a hundred mile route with about 10, 000 feet of climbing and about 20 miles of singer track, you know, it's, and he don't do all that single track at once. Like you're kind of in and out of stuff all day. **** - (): Right. And that's the whole idea. You gotta be on, there is no zoning out at rule of three, you zone out, that's when you're in trouble. You know, and so the whole idea was to do something that was really, really difficult. Um, but keeps you on and honest all day long. Right. Yeah. And so, um, that was kind of the idea behind it. **** - (): We throw a huge finish line party. Um, and that's one other thing that we do differently. We're in a field, right? We're in this big wide open field and you're, the finish line is basically a two track road. Last year we built a cyclocross curl course for you for the finish line. Um, and so, and what we do, what I do on purpose or what Lauren and I do, I, I should give Lauren the, Lauren does most of the work. **** - (): She's the brains behind the operation. What we do is we, we build the finish line. And this is a, this is a very important part for, for the, the brand of Rula3. Our finish line, you cross that finish line in the finish line shoot, and you are in the party. We don't shoo you out of the shoot. You, you, as you come in to cross the finish line, you're in the party. **** - (): We don't move you, you're there. You can stay there as long as you want to. We put a bag over your shoulder, and in that bag is a burrito, a beer, a coke, and a muffin. So that, so you don't have to go somewhere and pull your wallet out to find food. It's right there. We expect you to stay and have a good time with all your friends and tell stories and whatever, right? **** - (): But in order to do that, there, it also has to be safe, right? So what we, what we did is we put the last corner, um, on the course, about 10 feet from the finish line. So no one, there are no sprints across the finish. The sprint is before you get to the finish. And so that keeps it like nobody's getting ran over by a bike going too fast. **** - (): So there's, there's thought behind that because I want people to feel like when they cross that finish line, they can stay right there. And so all these little things that like doing things differently, I think sets us apart and all sets all these other events, but not just us, but everyone who does all these different things with their events that sets them apart. **** - (): I think that's cool. [00:24:35] - ():  Craig Dalton: Yeah, that's awesome. Since I want the listener to definitely walk away with a real. Understanding of the rule of three course, you know, you talked about these three elements of single track kind of gravel roads and road, you know, as you, as you talk through people who are coming to the event about the type of equipment they would use, I mean, is the single track entirely, or is it. **** - (): You know, it's rideable on, you know, a four C tire. I'm just curious about that. [00:25:03] - ():  Andy Chasteen: We keep it, I like to keep it as, as not gnarly as possible. That way, that way, because I don't, I don't want to limit our audience to people who are really good mountain bikers. I don't think that's fair. And so we try to keep most of the single track, uh, in, in like a, like the green blue. **** - (): Yeah, you know, realm, right? And there'll be some technical sections, but they're not long. If you need to hop off your bike for a second, that's okay. It's not that big a deal, right? We do suggest, um, nothing smaller than a 45 on tire width. Yeah. Um, and, and 50 is your go to quite honestly, just because really. **** - (): The standards kind of moving that direction anyways, but, um, you're going to have a much more pleasant day on a, on a 50 than you would say, uh, even a 45, but, um, but the course is hard, you know, you know, in, in Bentonville, we don't have these, we don't have these big long climbs like you do out, out where you're at. **** - (): So we call it death by a thousand cuts, you know, 10, 000 feet of climbing and a hundred miles when you don't have a climb longer than, you know, half a mile at the most. You know, uh, that's, that's a lot of steep, punchy climbing, you know, it's really, it wears you down over the day and like death by a thousand cuts is, is, is the name of the game. [00:26:20] - ():  Craig Dalton: It's so interesting coming from the Bay area where, you know, we have to do an 800 foot climb or 1200 foot climb. Just we go up and then we go down. There's not a lot of flat rule stuff. I personally, I have a really hard time transitioning to the Bentonville type hills because as you said, they just. You might push over the first one and the second one, and then they start to add up, add up, add up. **** - (): And it hits me a lot differently as a cyclist than the long climbs that I'm used to out [00:26:48] - ():  Andy Chasteen: here. Yeah. It's interesting. Uh, it's an interesting, uh, difference. Like I don't, I don't adjust well to the climbs that you do because of where I live too, you know, so I'm used to, I'm used to 20 seconds at, you know, whatever. **** - (): 500 Watts or like something above threshold or something. Right. So I guess it's just kind of, you're used to where you're at. Right. So, um, but yeah, it's a, it's a very unique course and we've, we've certainly started out at a, a lot of kind of B road sections, um, which can be in general, even more technical than some of the single track too. **** - (): Yeah. So we, we changed the course every year, every single year. It's different. I [00:27:27] - ():  Craig Dalton: think that, that underscores how much terrain you have access to, to, which is exciting. [00:27:32] - ():  Andy Chasteen: Yeah. I mean, we change it up. Uh, Drastically every year. It feels completely different every year, which is cool. And you're like, you said the, the, you know, our, uh, our canvas is big. **** - (): So it's, it's not hard to do that, which is a huge blessing for us. For sure. [00:27:49] - ():  Craig Dalton: The other incredibly unique thing about this event is the entry fee. Can you talk about that? Yeah. [00:27:56] - ():  Andy Chasteen: Yeah. Um. This is just kind of another part of the, of our ethos is our brand. Like we, and it's not just the entropy and it also, it goes back to what I said, uh, you know, a few minutes ago, I don't do this for my job. **** - (): This is not my day job. I'm doing this. I do this cause I want to, cause it's fun. Lauren and I both do it because it's important to us to put on our, our goal is, uh, not to make money on this. I mean, I know that sounds counterintuitive, but our goal is to put on the best event. Possible for the people that come up that show. **** - (): And so, um, our entry fee's, 85 bucks, um, and I believe we began, I think our first year it was 65 and now it's 85. And we'll never go over the amount of miles that the event is, is what, is basically That's the goal. Yeah. I think what, what I've committed to, and I, and I like to commit that in public 'cause it keeps me accountable. **** - (): One other, one other thing that we do is we do not. Take or accept cash from sponsors. We want a sponsor to come to our event and take that cash that they would have given us and use it to add value to the participants, right? The people that are there. Um, I, I'm a fallible human. And so if you were to give me just, I'm just saying personally, me, if you're a sponsor, you're going to give me, let's say whatever, 10, 000 bucks to be a sponsor of rule of three, guess what I'm do probably going to pocket 5, 000 of that and then put 5, 000, the rest other 5, 000 into making the event better for the people. **** - (): So. What I do to hold myself accountable is I just don't take cash at all. I just say, if you want to sponsor the event, then you're going to have to, you're going to have to come and add some sort of value to the event. And, and it's, and we don't make rules in this, which, which is cool. Like someone came last year and cooked. **** - (): Bacon the out at an aid station the whole day. Um, so there's all these crazy ideas that we encourage the sponsors to come and do, uh, aid stations, uh, parties at the finish line. Somebody's making margaritas in one of their tents or whatever. Specialized comes and they give they do post finish. They do finish line photos when you're all 30 and gross. **** - (): And yeah, and those are free. You get those for free. We don't charge. There's no charge for those. Um, and we have. Yeah. What I like to call the best swag bag in the, in the biz, like, um, we give every competitor to not one water bottle too, because everybody likes a matching water bottle. Right? So that's right. **** - (): We do. Yeah, we do water bottles. We, you know, you get a tea, you get a bandana, you get a, uh, you get an ass saver, you get, you know, you get a stainless steel pint last year. Uh, mirror gave everybody's, uh, insulated, uh, Bottles that were logoed and like, so we, I like, I like to have two or $300 worth of cool stuff that people will actually use Yeah. **** - (): In the bag that they, that they get at pack and pickup. So for us it's really about creating value and creating a real good time of the at, you know, at, at the event. And, uh, and that's what we're committed to doing. So that's, I guess, a few of the ways that we like to kind of do things different. Right. And I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm lucky I'm blessed that, um, I don't. **** - (): I don't put this event on for my living if I'm just being honest. [00:31:15] - ():  Craig Dalton: Yeah. It changes the dynamic entirely, I think, because I mean, it's such a, it's such a difficult business to be in the event business. It [00:31:23] - ():  Andy Chasteen: is. It is. That's right. I can make every decision I make is. Is not attached to the bottom line. And I, I, I know that other events aren't like that and I, I applaud them. **** - (): I think every other event out there, I've been to almost, not all of them, but a lot of them. And almost all of them. And I will go to them this year too. 'cause I think they're amazing, but we just wanna do things different at rule three. Yeah. Yeah. [00:31:47] - ():  Craig Dalton: And as you said, there's room quite simple. There's room for it all. **** - (): A [00:31:51] - ():  Andy Chasteen: thousand percent room for it [00:31:52] - ():  Craig Dalton: all. Yeah. I think you mentioned this, but I wanted to make sure the listener, uh, has this as a takeaway that the it's a hundred mile event, but it's, I think you have a, uh, additional distance this year. Is that right? [00:32:04] - ():  Andy Chasteen: Yeah, we actually, we, we also offer a 50 mile event. Um, so that's something that like we like to, we like to say, if you, if you don't think that you can finish the, well, you know, this isn't your typical gravel race, it takes or gravel event. **** - (): I'll hate calling it a race for some reason that doesn't sit well for me. Um, if. You know, this is not 100 mile gravel event. This will take you a lot longer than you would. It would normally take you to do a gravel event because of that 20 miles a single track. Yeah, you don't think that you can finish something like that and say 10 to 12 hours. **** - (): We always we like, just we respectfully say you should dip your toes in the 50 miler. And then once you've got that under your belt, hit that next one, right? And so we've got the 50, we've got the 100, and this year we're actually adding the 200. Um, which will be such, it's going to be a sick route. And we're only opening it to a hundred people. **** - (): Because it's, you know, you know, my, my thoughts are ultra distance. If it's not already here, it's the future. People, you know, I'm thinking of, I'm thinking of myself. I've done how many hundred mile events. And. Where I, while I still love them, sometimes I think to myself, well, what's next? Right. I think people are thinking in, I think a lot of people are thinking, what's next for me? **** - (): I've done 10 hundred mile gravel events. What's my next step? Well, a 200 mile is probably your next step. And I know that unbound is a 200 miler, but. This isn't unbound. This is, you know, this is 200 miles with 30 plus miles of single track at, you know, and you're circumnavigating this ginormous lake out east of Bentonville. **** - (): There's a lot of climbing and it's way out in the middle of nowhere. It's an adventure. Yeah. So we're adding that on this year. Yeah. [00:33:45] - ():  Craig Dalton: Given, given the, obviously the duration it takes to ride the single track about 100 and the added single track in the 200, how long of an event are you thinking that's going to be for, I mean, I don't know how to put it in perspective for people from the first to last, but what's the window of time you're thinking? [00:34:03] - ():  Andy Chasteen: Well, we're going to, we'll start the event the day before. So we'll start, we'll start the 200 miler on Friday afternoon, and it'll start from where packet pickup is basically. Um, in town and we're, we're, we're making a 30 hour cutoff and you'll have to wear a spot tracker on your, just like you would any other ultra distance event. **** - (): Right? So yeah, it really is. It's, it's unsupported. It's fully self supported. We ain't coming to pick you up. So it's, it's a different adventure, but I, I do, I personally believe if it's not already here, it is the future of, of, uh, you know, the gravel experience, at least part of the future. Yeah. [00:34:40] - ():  Craig Dalton: I mean, I think to your point, just about the different flavors of events that exist, even in that like a narrow hundred mile mindset. **** - (): Now you're seeing it go both directions, which is pretty natural. I mean, I think again, like sometimes. Riding 100 is not enough should be for most people. Sometimes [00:34:58] - ():  Andy Chasteen: it's not. Yeah. And we, we, I had a question. I had someone asked me the other day. Are you ever considered making doing like a 20 miler because your events not that approachable for maybe a newer person. **** - (): And I was just honest. And I said, no, we're not going to. But what we do, what we do offer is we offer training rides. Um, yeah. In Bentonville, for no charge, they're free. We just did what we call the Rule of 399 last weekend, which we offered a 22 miler route. For people who wanted to see what it's like, you get to practice on the single track. **** - (): You get to see that, wow, this is a lot harder than a 22 mile gravel ride, right? It takes a lot longer. It's harder to do. It takes a little bit more technical skill. So we, we are, we're trying to train up newer people to at least have the opportunity to maybe hit that 50 miler one day. I don't think that we'll ever have a, a distance that's shorter than that, but we do that outside of our rule of three events, like our rule of three and nine, we do training events and things like that to give people that approach approachable mindset of maybe I can do the 50, you know what I mean? [00:36:02] - ():  Craig Dalton: Yeah. Super interesting. And that goes back to where we were talking about, which is that great community of cyclists and cycling events that's growing up and around Bentonville. It sounds like there's plenty of opportunity and exposure. For people to all these great events that are going on and as they sort of start to put a toe in the water, you're not the only person who's told me there's, you know, great group ride events quite regularly out in Bentonville for people to get a understanding what gravel cycling [00:36:30] - ():  Andy Chasteen: is all about. **** - (): There are, there's a lot of great events that happen in Bentonville. It, it seems like they're, they're nonstop actually. But, um, and they're amazing. I love to go to all of them. Um, you know, Big Sugar's a big deal, you know? Um, and so, you know, and there's, there's many more that's not, they're not the only one, but there's the, the opportunity, opportunities are endless. **** - (): You know, in our neck of the woods, [00:36:54] - ():  Craig Dalton: if you will, when does rule of three happen each year? [00:36:59] - ():  Andy Chasteen: Uh, we have we're on the same weekend every year. So, uh, I like to You know, it happens on may 18th, but I like to say that I think that's may 18th saturday might be the I think it's 18th. Um, but I like to say that rule of three is like May 16th through the 19th because we got to shake out rides. **** - (): We've got, you know, uh, we got, uh, breakfast on Sunday morning. Uh, you know, uh, after the event, we've got all kinds of things going on all weekend. So I hate to like, pin it down. Like, I'm like, come early, stay late, bring your mountain bike to, you know, let's party, you know? So, uh, but yeah, it's on the 18th this year. **** - (): Yeah. And we like, let's, I mean, yeah. I'm gonna, I'm gonna shout out to like, I think Gravel Locos is that weekend. I think, uh, I think Pete's Pizza Pater is that weekend. And, you know, I've talked to, I've talked to all those guys and I'm like, they're, you know, everybody's kind of like, are you guys, are we, are we okay with all this? **** - (): And I'm like. We're all in different parts of the country. The audience is humongous. Who cares? You're going to fill up, you're going to fill up, we're going to fill up. Let's all be okay with this. There's no problem with us overlapping dates. I've had zero problems with that. Yeah, [00:38:15] - ():  Craig Dalton: I'm sure. How much writer capacity do you have for this year? [00:38:20] - ():  Andy Chasteen: We, we, uh, we limited at 1600 people, and there's a reason behind that. I think we could probably sell 3, 000 spots, but I don't want to. I want someone who crosses that finish line to look over our after party, right? And feel like they know everyone there. They don't have to know everyone there, but I want them to feel like they do. **** - (): And so, um, I'm not interested in, uh, you know, having it. Be bigger than that. So that's kind of, that's what we've been at for, this will be our third year that we've been at, at 15, 1600 people. And I like that number. It's, it's nice for us. Um, it helps, it helps our logistics and it just helps people have a better experience too. **** - (): And so that's probably what we'll stick at. [00:39:04] - ():  Craig Dalton: Yeah. It's funny. I was having a totally unrelated conversation in my day job, just about a business I used to run and this opportunity we had to basically double the business. But I recognize that doubling the business was going to ruin my life. It was going to be miserable. **** - (): You know, we'd have to run two shifts in a factory. No one would be happy. I couldn't imagine it being the same thing. And so it's great for you. It's great to hear it from your words as well. Just like, this is a great size for us where you're confident that we can deliver an exceptional experience to 1600 people and why deliver a subpar experience to 3000 people. [00:39:45] - ():  Andy Chasteen: Yeah. And part of that is because this isn't my real job, you know, um, you know, you let three, 4, 000 people in that becomes your real job and I don't want it to be, I like my real job. [00:39:59] - ():  Craig Dalton: Um, when does anyone's registration open? [00:40:03] - ():  Andy Chasteen: Registration opens, uh, February 5th. So what is that like a few days from now? Yeah. **** - (): Um, and that's okay. If that's okay. If you're like, if, if this is coming out after that, it's not a big deal. I, we have always sold out in like a minute or two anyway. So it's, it's, I just love getting on here. And if, if, if I'm being completely honest. The legacy that I would love to leave behind with Rule of Three is not the event. **** - (): The, the legacy I would like to leave behind is that everyone goes out and rides these types of, does these types of rides where they live, no matter where they live. Yeah. I, I call 'em rule of three rides. You know what I mean? That's a legacy I wanna leave. Like I think that this is the funnest form of riding a bike that I've ever experienced, even just bar none. **** - (): And, uh, and I would, I would be happy over the moon if everyone, uh, out there rode, did these kind of rides where they lived. So, yeah, that's a legacy we really wanna leave behind. So, [00:41:04] - ():  Craig Dalton: I, I love it, Andy. I'm just going to shut up. If you had a microphone, I would have just allowed you to drop it and we would have cut the cut the show right there. **** - (): But I do want to just conclude by saying thank you for the energy you're putting into the sport, your energy into the community there. We'll definitely put, you know, links to rule of three because whether it's this year or next year, love for more people to go and get exposed to that great Bentonville riding and the experience you just described to us. [00:41:33] - ():  Andy Chasteen: Thank you. It was, it's, I've, I'm serious. I've listened to your podcast for a long time. How long, how long have you been doing this now? God, I think it's [00:41:39] - ():  Craig Dalton: five years. [00:41:41] - ():  Andy Chasteen: I was going to say, I didn't want to speak out and say, like, I've been listening to you for three years and you've only been around for two, but cause I, I did, I, you know, you lose track of time. **** - (): Yeah. I'm, I'm almost positive. I've been listening to you since the beginning. So, uh, very well done. I love listening to your stuff. It's, I like the variety, like you're always speaking to interesting people about all these different interests topics. So keep it up. It's awesome. Thank you. I appreciate [00:42:05] - ():  Craig Dalton: that Andy. **** - (): Right on. Thanks for spending some time with us, man. [00:42:09] - ():  Andy Chasteen: Thanks man. Thank you.      

This week on the podcast we welcome Thomas English from Trek Travel to discuss the Provence to Girona gravel tour. Thomas shares his personal experience growing up in the Camargue National Park and how he discovered his love for cycling. He discusses the inspiration behind the Provence to Girona tour and the unique landscapes and cultural experiences that participants can expect. Thomas provides a detailed overview of the nine-day trip, highlighting the diverse terrain, cultural differences, and the sense of adventure that comes with gravel cycling. He emphasizes the importance of local expertise and the immersive experience that Trek Travel provides for its guests. Trek Gravel Trips  Support the Podcast Join The Ridership  About the Guest(s): Thomas English is a guide for Trek Travel, a company that specializes in guided cycling trips. Based in Lyon, France, Thomas grew up in the Camargue National Park and developed a love for cycling at a young age. He has a background in field medical engineering but decided to pursue his passion for cycling and guiding. Thomas has been working for Trek Travel since 2019 and has guided numerous trips, including the Provence to Girona gravel tour. Episode Summary: In this episode, Craig Dalton interviews Thomas English from Trek Travel about the Provence to Girona gravel tour. Thomas shares his personal experience growing up in the Camargue National Park and how he discovered his love for cycling. He discusses the inspiration behind the Provence to Girona tour and the unique landscapes and cultural experiences that participants can expect. Thomas provides a detailed overview of the nine-day trip, highlighting the diverse terrain, cultural differences, and the sense of adventure that comes with gravel cycling. He emphasizes the importance of local expertise and the immersive experience that Trek Travel provides for its guests. Key Takeaways: The Provence to Girona gravel tour is a nine-day point-to-point cycling adventure that takes participants from the south of France to Catalonia, Spain. The trip offers a diverse range of terrain, including salt flats, vineyards, pine forests, and limestone rock formations. Participants will experience the cultural differences between the French and Catalan regions, including language, cuisine, and architecture. The tour provides an immersive and authentic experience, with opportunities to interact with locals, visit historic sites, and enjoy the natural beauty of the landscapes. Trek Travel focuses on building relationships with local partners and creating a supportive and enjoyable experience for guests. Notable Quotes: "Gravel in many ways has an adventurous spirit. It takes you off the road and allows you to explore quieter and more remote areas." - Thomas English "Cycling is a universal language, but the culture and use of bikes can vary between regions. Gravel cycling allows you to experience the local culture and landscapes in a unique way." - Thomas English Automated Transcription: [TRANSCRIPT] [00:00:00] - ():  Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport **** - (): I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist. **** - (): Yeah. This week on the podcast, we welcome Thomas English from Trek, travel to the show. To talk to us about a new gravel tour they're doing from Two Jarana. The trip looks absolutely amazing. So super excited. To dig in with it and learn more about it and how it came to be. Truck travel since our last conversation with them on the podcast. Has really gone deep on gravel travel, building out several new trips this year, including one in the black Hills of South Dakota. An ACIAR ago to the Dolomites trip in Italy, as well as this To Jerome and a trip that we're going to be digging into today. **** - (): I had a great experience. In 2022 on my truck travel trip to Jarana and was doing everything I could to join this trip in April. I don't think this particular one's going to happen. Because of some other commitments, **** - (): . But I'm pleased to have this conversation with Thomas. So you can learn more about it. **** - (): before we jump in, I do need to thank this week sponsor. **** - (): A G one. The last few weeks, I've been talking a little bit more about my sleep routine, but today I want to talk about age one and my morning routine. Taking care of your health, isn't easy, but it should at least be simple. That's why for the last 10 years I've been drinking AIG one every day. No exceptions. **** - (): It's just one scoop mixed with water. My personal preference is through a few ice cubes in there. Once a day, every day and it makes me feel energized and ready to take on the day. That's because each serving of AIG. Delivers a daily dose of vitamins, minerals, pre and probiotics and more. It's a powerful, healthy habit. **** - (): That's also powerfully simple. For me, that simplicity is really what came into play. When I first started using ag. I really wanted to make sure that my nutritional bases were covered by high-quality nutrition. In a way that was simple to integrate in my daily habits. I couldn't bear the idea of taking a dozen pills and supplements to cover the same. Basic areas that AIG one covers in one scoop of powder. If there's one product that had to recommend elevate your health it's ag one. That's why I've partnered with them. For so long as part of this podcast. So, if you want to take ownership of your health, start with Tri AIG one and get a free one year supply of vitamin D plus K2 and five free AIG. Travel packs with your first purchase. **** - (): Exclusively at drink. aig.com/the gravel ride. That's drink. dot com slash the gravel ride. Check it out today. Would that behind us, let's jump right into my conversation with Thomas. **** - (): Thomas, welcome to the show. [00:03:17] - ():  Thomas English: Hi, Greg. Thank you for hosting me. [00:03:19] - ():  Craig Dalton: We're dealing with the challenges of international video conversations today with you in France and me in California. [00:03:28] - ():  Thomas English: Absolutely. Long distances. [00:03:32] - ():  Craig Dalton: Um, I'm excited to get into this conversation with you. Uh, I've been a big fan of Trek's commitment and enthusiasm around gravel travel. **** - (): And when my buddy Rich hit me up and told me about this Provence to Girona trip, I was like, I got to talk to someone about this. This sounds awesome. [00:03:52] - ():  Thomas English: It's epic. So the, the idea of the trip came in about two years ago now. Uh, I was involved in the design because my roommate is actually a trip design coordinator, if you want the truth. **** - (): So the two of us got this whole thing running and it's going to be an epic journey. [00:04:11] - ():  Craig Dalton: I love it. I can't wait to talk more about it, but to set the stage, I just want to learn a little bit more about you. We established that you're currently living in France. But where did you grow up and how did you initially find the bike? [00:04:24] - ():  Thomas English: So long story short, uh, I'm actually based in Lyon, France right now. So closer to the French Alps, about two and a half hours away from the sea. I actually grew up in the Camargue National Park, which is where the The Rome River creates a delta. It's famous for mosquitos, flamingos, and, uh, bulls, if you want the whole truth. **** - (): And it's very flat, so cycling wise, it gets pretty boring pretty quickly. But the scenery is worth it. And if you're beginning with gravel, it's definitely a good spot to start. [00:04:58] - ():  Craig Dalton: And, you know, obviously gravel, we can argue about how long gravel has been around, but did you initially start as a road rider [00:05:05] - ():  Thomas English: or a mountain biker? **** - (): That's a very tricky question, because I think when, when you start cycling for me, it was, it was, you know, the first key to freedom my parents gave me. I was fortunate enough as a kid to grow up on a boat. So I think I grew this lack of, uh, you know, freedom for a little while being being like. On a boat with with parents. **** - (): It sounds very spoiled, but we were adventuring in a different way. It's more swimming and and canoeing out to places. And so as soon as we got back to lands, the bike was this this real weapon of freedom and this tool to go adventure and come back in late and get told by my mom. But I think, yeah, it was one bike does it all and I think I, I mainly did mountain biking as a teenager because it was a thing, you know, it was the era of downhill and free rides as they used to call it. **** - (): It's taken a whole new shape nowadays and gravel came naturally because we, we can do it in many ways. And especially as a company, I think it's, it's a trend and it's very much growing at the moment and it's the perfect. You know, where to explore a new region and mainly you can just get off the roads and go to, you know, access quieter places and places you, you'd wish to go on foot, but you can actually do it with the bike and it hasn't got to be too much of a distance on the road. **** - (): Yeah, 100%. [00:06:23] - ():  Craig Dalton: It sounds like you grew up with quite an adventurous spirit. How did you find your way into guiding for Trek? [00:06:29] - ():  Thomas English: I started working for Trek for in, in 2019. So this is my sixth season, which I travel and. It's an, it's an amazing place to, to work, uh, good people, you know, the, the support and logistics from A to Z, uh, whatever you get on the guest experience, when you call up the office or the guest services, uh, we feel on, on in the field and feeling that supports from, from, you know, a guide in the field, you don't really find that anywhere else. **** - (): So that's one, one thing to mention. Uh, but I, I, I kind of fell into it because I have a friend that was a guide a year before me. That was the one of the first reasons. Um, but mainly because I was working as a field medical engineer, uh, in the previous life. And there is a moment where you want to follow your dream. **** - (): And I was out there adventuring in the mountains every weekend. So I realized I could do it for a living and take people with me, which is what I care for. [00:07:31] - ():  Craig Dalton: Amazing. I feel like. It might be interesting to hear, what is the life of a guide like? Do you, do you ride all year round and guide all over the place? **** - (): Or are you located in France and you only ride trips in [00:07:46] - ():  Thomas English: France? So that's a fascinating question that we often get from people on the trips, from people outside the trips, from friends and family, or from the first newcomer that you, you, you meet in a, in a party in an evening, for instance. I, I think the life of a guide is is very much full on. **** - (): It's a season is very long in cycling and it's getting longer. Uh, it's some people would rather do it as a very seasonal thing, like riding through the nice period in the, when it's warm and you can ride in shorts and then there'll be a ski instructor in the winter. So. Each guide kind of have their, their own algorithm to, to go about it. **** - (): Uh, for me, it's, it's a full time commitment and then I get a bit of time off, uh, in the winter months to go travel and discover new places. And it kind of sticks to my, my character and my way of doing things. I like to go work hard, play hard in many ways, even though that sounds, uh, Very, very general, it's full season and then a bit of time off to, to go and relax and recover and adventure some more, but it is, it is a lifestyle more than a career. [00:08:56] - ():  Craig Dalton: Yeah. What does that look like for you, Thomas? So are you guiding road trips into Spain one week and then gravel trips in, in France? How does, how does the year end up playing out? So [00:09:07] - ():  Thomas English: at the end of the year, when -you've already guided a little bit, which I travel, you submit a survey to the favorite regions or your favorite regions, your top five. **** - (): I think it is, um, places you'd rather you'd like to go guide. And if you're lucky, you're going to get a few of those pics. Um, but for the, for the main part, you're, you're assigned to a region for a duration of time. It can go from, um, A couple of trips to a whole bunch of different trips in that region. **** - (): We have regions that also cover multiple trips. If I take Provence, for instance, we're actually running three trips out of there and nearly a fourth with the gravel, which will be leaving Provence and going all the way to Spain and sorry, Catalonia and Girona. And so. That's, that's more or less how it operates. **** - (): You're assigned and then you, you'll guide multiple weeks in a row. We try and we try and do maybe three weeks in one week off as a rhythm. [00:10:04] - ():  Craig Dalton: Got it. Yeah. And my, my experience with the team in Girona was that, that between the two guides, they would switch off between time in the van. And time riding. It wasn't lost on me that you've got it as a guide. **** - (): You've got to be motivated and enthusiastic every day. You're out there on the bike with guests as a guest. If we're tired, if we're grumpy, we can suffer and let you know it. But I imagine as a guide, you're really there to elevate the spirit and never share if you're down. Are there days on the bike when you're guiding that you're just tired? [00:10:41] - ():  Thomas English: Oh, yes, absolutely. And, but you don't show it. I think it comes from, from an inner part of you, it's, that's what I said by it's a lifestyle more than a career. It's, um, we always swap with, uh, our co guides. Uh, so one of us is going to be in the support van, one of us is going to be on the bike. It takes different shifts, uh, depending on the trips and the parameters. **** - (): Uh, but yes, you, you're always on, we're always on top of things. And. You know, a lot of people on the outside of the job think that we are the fittest cyclists out there and you've got to be an absolute athlete. You, you get the training for sure. And, and some guys are more into cycling than others. Uh, but the, the real, the reality behind it is we take care of people no matter what. **** - (): Yeah. [00:11:24] - ():  Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah. I imagine that's, you know, I see this. All over the place, right? You have people who are innately just skilled at being good spirited, being uplifting and having had that experience with truck travel and that Girona gravel tour definitely saw that like it was more about the experience. **** - (): None of the riders were trying to show how strong they were as athletes, although clearly they were, they were really there to just make sure we were having a great time. And that's what I think is so great about traveling on bike as a guest and gravel travel in particular. You just have a team around you whose sole job it is to not only find the best rides and routes for you, find the best cafes, create the best overall experience. **** - (): And it is, you know, it's obviously an investment taking one of these trips, but there is a pretty massive return when all you need to do as a guest is ride your bike all day. [00:12:25] - ():  Thomas English: Yes, and I'll double up, I'll double up on that in a way that I think you come on a holiday to be on a holiday and There is nothing more relaxing entertaining Fulfilling as when you sign up and you just let go of everything and you just have to enjoy it That's that's the main part is we take care of all the rest the you know, the logistics It's not that you're not necessarily capable of Of it, you know, I've, I've caught myself going on multiple guided trips, whether it's hiking or other activities, um, other than cycling and you, you, you appreciate having the, the local expertise, you know, it, it might not be something that's, that's in the itinerary, you know, but, but your guides might know so much about the geology, the plants, or even just the best cafe, because that's where they cycle past every morning and that's their local, their local terrain or their backyard. **** - (): And that's where it makes the whole, the whole world of difference. You. Okay. The impact of, of that vacation or of that experience on your life is so different when you actually witness it with someone local and you share it with friends. Yeah, a [00:13:32] - ():  Craig Dalton: hundred percent. I want to jump into the Provence to Girona gravel bike tour. **** - (): This is very much a tour because it's point to point the experience I had with track out of Girona. We stayed in a single hotel and we explored routes in every single direction, which was fantastic. But as I've said before on this podcast, there's something about point to point travel or touring or what have you that is incredibly special. **** - (): So how did the idea for the Provence to Girona gravel route come up? And then we can dig into some of [00:14:08] - ():  Thomas English: the details. Okay, so that also refers to a question you previously asked on what does the life of a guide look like? Well, to be quite frank if I'm not guiding a trip with people on board I'm usually bikepacking and I've got the packs all set up on the gravel bike and I'm sleeping outside Which sounds ridiculous to a lot of people in on this planet But it's actually one of the most freeing experiences you you can get out there for yourself. **** - (): It doesn't have to be far It's sometimes just right out right out your front door and you just roll to a place you haven't checked out or you haven't seen and It is the most it is the most freeing thing and you're also you feel very Self sufficient it teaches you a lot of different things and skills where you have to approach people and places Uh, but the main idea behind this trip from Provence to Girona, and we named it that way because there, there are two places that actually ring, uh, or resonate to cyclists, uh, whether they're roadies or already very much accomplished gravel riders. **** - (): Uh, it was the first point to point that we, we were thinking of putting in the book. It's based on a race called, a race route called La Poco Loco that came together, I think in 2019. And it's very tracks since then, but that's what really inspired me initially, and I had written portions of it in a, in a few bits and pieces and on different holiday times. **** - (): And this was the perfect, this was a perfect opportunity to actually start from one point, go all the way and see if we can actually make it work with hotels and accommodations and places to check out. It [00:15:46] - ():  Craig Dalton: sounds super special. What is, I imagine over the course of that Provence to Girona, the terrain is going to vary quite wildly. **** - (): Can you talk through a little bit and if it's helpful to talk through the various nine days, just what is gravel like in Provence and how does it change over the course of those nine days? [00:16:09] - ():  Thomas English: So I can give you a global overview of of the trip if you want not to go into too much detail because nine days is It's quite epic and and you do see a lot But I do want to say that I grew up in in the area where we begin the trip in so, you know I remember I remember being in in my youth in my young age and teenager and adventuring here and there at the weekends And putting all these things together in the culture of the South, because it's, it's a very strong culture in the South of France. **** - (): And this, the, the, the landscape had me stop and take many pictures. Of a place that I've, you know, I've grow, I've, I grew up in. You, you get accustomed to seeing these things on a regular basis. And coming back to it a few years later, it stops you. You're, you're blown away by the beauty of summer's scenery. **** - (): And when I say that, it's on the first day, for instance, We will start the trip and we'll greet everybody, uh, right by the, a bit of a, it's a, it's a swampland where it's famous for ornithology for birdwatching, uh, just south of Montpellier. So imagine a huge city, all buzzling and whistling and noisy and, you know, just the heart of a big city and you just escape, we greet you in this, you know, you just come off the train or come out of the airport and we greet you in this really quiet bird sanctuary. **** - (): With a nice French buffet, you know, proper Provence, there might be some rosé involved for those who, who want to start with that, um, giving you a few, a few bits and knots about the culture and the area you're in and throughout those first 60Ks, which is quite a, quite a bit for a first day, you get to see everything, so much variety from, from the sea, the sea, the salt flats to. The hills, a bit. Of vineyards here and there and the, and the pine forests. **** - (): I mean, you, you, I can't wait to see the smiles on people's faces when we reached the hotel after the first day. Sounds [00:18:05] - ():  Craig Dalton: like an amazing start. [00:18:06] - ():  Thomas English: It is. It is true. So as I was saying, we, we did the Reese, we did the research with my roommates. Who's a, who's a true design coordinator and she's not from the region, but both of us were like kids. **** - (): And you know, it's, it's the joy and the accomplishments of bringing something together that actually works out. And to see the, the, the versatile, the, how versatile the, the. The bike actually is on different terrains. You, you ride a bit of, you know, open forest road to single track, um, and all this on the, under the blue Provence skies, because, you know, it is subject to a bit of wind from the north, um, let her mountain or the missile for the East as you go. **** - (): It's, it's, it's a superb. It's just an area of France that is very underestimated because it's. It's usually some some somewhere between a place you just drive through to get to Spain or you just go to Montpellier or like a few places on the coast, but people don't really stop on these on these areas. **** - (): So. We've got these beautiful barren landscapes in, in some part of the trips that are just untouched, not no cyclists. You just, it's just epic adventure. [00:19:15] - ():  Craig Dalton: Yeah, I think that's, what's mind boggling to me when I think about this trip is just the, the versatility of the gravel bike, that's easy to maybe to conceive of a point to point ride on a road bike. **** - (): And you're sort of following a map, but traveling onto these single track trails and just kind of getting off the beaten path just adds this additional layer of. Intrigue and joy. I think on each day's ride. And I [00:19:40] - ():  Thomas English: think we we call, you know, the inner child in our in ourselves. Um, I think a lot of cyclists will refer to that. **** - (): But I think gravel in many ways has a bit of an adventurous spirit. And you might agree with me on that one. But, you know, it kind of takes you out there. You're not on a on a on the road. You might be leaving civilization for a little bit. We've designed this trip so we can always access you. The route in many points, but for the most part, you know, the whole stress of having traffic and cars around you that you might have on on on the road or uncertain of our road trips, even though we do take very quiet roads there. **** - (): It's it's in existence. You won't have, you know. Any vehicles on most of our itineraries because we're, we're mainly on, on gravel and yes, like from, from one place to the next, you'll, you'll see us, uh, a part of the landscape that not many people get to witness or get to see because it is completely different experience from sitting in the car or riding on the road than being on those single tracks. **** - (): Yeah, [00:20:48] - ():  Craig Dalton: absolutely. What are the next handful of days have in store for riders? [00:20:53] - ():  Thomas English: So yes, I, I touched base on the, on the first one. Sorry, I was, I was kind of selling that first day because. It blew our minds. So I think I like I said, I can't wait to see people smiles as we roll into the first hotel. It is a point to point. **** - (): So we are going to be changing hotel every day apart from our fifth day where we'll have a proper rest day. Um, but the first day we, we leave Montpellier where, where it's, it will be more of a greeting point. Beautiful scenery on those first 60 K's through like what I've said before, the difference. Uh, see. **** - (): Salt flats, single track, into the forest, up in the hills, back in through into vineyards. And we, we have a hotel a little bit on the outskirts of the city. Where the French rugby team has actually been hosted for the trainings, if you, if you want a little, the little hints there. But so, no rugby match on that first evening. **** - (): The next day we kind of sneak out through a secret passage that follows a river out of the city. And we're heading to one of my favorite places in France, which is called Le Lac de Salagout. Uh, the Salago Lake famous spot for kite surfers and for geologists because the soil is a bit of an ochre red. It very much has the color of grapes, so not to bring it to too close to wine, but that's my French side. **** - (): Um, you cross the hills and you arrive on this beautiful blue emerald lake with this, this red kind of, you know, tar looking gravel. It makes a mess of the bikes and it makes them look very adventurous all of a sudden because they get covered in this little red, red dust. Uh, but it's an epic scene to arrive and we're staying in the village. **** - (): That's a little bit the outskirt of it in the national park called Moore's and it's very famous for its, um, Dolom, Dolomitic, uh, rock formations where erosion is just left. These huge limestone columns, uh, beautiful maze of, that was just shaped by nature, uh, and our hotel is, is nestled into that, into that rock face. **** - (): And there'll be a nice little pool to, to relax after, after a big day on the bike. So, like I said, we go a little bit further up north after the first day where we were actually stationed by the sea. On the third day, we leave that beautiful area in the quiet morning, and we hit the hills. There'll be a bit of climbing in the morning. **** - (): And for those who have got an idea of what Provence looks like, or the whispers you've heard of the adventures down there, we're going to be going through a few stone villages. Very, very French. You might come across a You know, to a dish vu like these iconic French cars or markets. Or we can stop and have CA coffee and a cafe, uh, to cross the plains from these hilly villages or hilly, hilly based villages all the way to a bigger town, again called busier. **** - (): Which is famous for multiple reasons, but we're, we'll have a nice sit down lunch in a very retro French cafe where people are playing Pétanque just outside, uh, in front of a lock, you know, we sat there and all the locals were coming around to chat us up. So, you know, it might take a bit longer than scheduled. **** - (): Don't be in a rush there. It is a big day. Uh, but that's, that's kind of the idea, um, is to actually enjoy the ambience and the culture as you're, you're crossing these landscapes, not just whizzing past. [00:24:23] - ():  Craig Dalton: Yeah. Taking an opportunity to enjoy the riding as well as the culture seems like the reason you'd be there for sure. [00:24:32] - ():  Thomas English: A hundred percent. And so that brings me on to the fourth day. So Béziers is a bit, a bigger, a bigger town. We, we have lunch on the outskirts of it, by that lock, as I, as I presented. And there, there are famous pieces of architecture, if, if this is what you enjoy in, in the French history. We are going to go past some very impressive monuments that I can state later. **** - (): Um, and we follow what we call Le Canal du Midi. Which is a, a French icon. A lot of people, a lot of French people would actually go down there on holiday, uh, either rent a boat or kayak up and down this canal. Um, it is, it is a beautiful piece of French architecture and the waterways in France are famous in the history of, of the country for transporting goods, you know, the different wars and battles, why was it separated here or there, uh, the historical borders as well. **** - (): But this, this third day finishes. Back back on the coast again after following this famous canal and we'll be heading we'll be heading the next day. And getting closer to the, to the Pyrenees to go to a place called Billister after crossing a few national parks and famous birdwatching areas again, um, we'll, we'll be climbing a little bit more than the previous days. **** - (): The third day and the fourth day are quite, quite. Big days on the bike. So it's not for the faint hearted, but we'll support everybody, you know Croissant takes you a long way as they say and there's one thing in France for sure is you can't you can't go hungry Because once you've done this little, you know section of gravel you come across this little village and there'll be a bakery and for sure You know the smell of it everything just kind of entices you to get down there and grab something to go So we'll make sure you try the good ones And there are some specialties of the South that are proper to the South, um, that you can only find in the bakeries down there and we'll make sure you try them. **** - (): Um, and you know, that fuels the climb up to this little village of Belista, which used to be one of the main points of interest in, in this area for, uh, white wine growing. Um, they, they still do. It used to be a massive cooperative and we are staying in a, in a hotel called Le Riberac. It is. It is something out of this world. **** - (): We were astonished by what they've done with this eco lodge. You might be sleeping in a wine tank. Yes, we are sleeping in a wine tank. Um, there are spa and, you know, different treatments you can do all around the grape over there. It is one of a kind. It is a place that was designed by two amazing architects. **** - (): The owners is an amazing couple that we got to meet and had the pleasure to have a nice glass and a sit down conversation with. And they really have, you know, an ambience about this, this whole environment that they created, the team that they put together. They still have a part of, um, the cellar that is functional, that, uh, gathers most of, uh, the winemakers of the area as a cooperative. **** - (): And the wine, the wine is delicious down there. The, the riding up will maybe annoy a few, maybe. make others enjoy the adventure twice as much. Um, you know, we all come at a different, at a different place when it comes to climbing on a bike, but that's a good place to finish day four solid before a rest day. **** - (): And we are, we are entering what we call peak at that, which was the scene of multiple combats between, uh, what used to be the Spanish empire and France at a time. And, you know, these perched castles up on the hills, this limestone rock face and this little tower up top with a, with a, with a Catalan flag and the border changed so many times in the past, you know, hundreds of years or decades that it's, it's just very interesting to see the cultural changes throughout the trip because you go from a very Provence, French, uh, south, south of France part with all its influences and its culture. **** - (): And the food evolves as you go down the coast, getting closer to Spanish influence and, you know, the way people talk and behave and, oh, it's just, it's just superb. You get to see that even with a foreign eye, I think. Yeah, it's so [00:28:54] - ():  Craig Dalton: interesting to see and hear that not only will the terrain change, but you'll get these subtle changes in culture across the nine days, uh, changing from the south of France culture to the Catalan culture at the end. [00:29:11] - ():  Thomas English: Absolutely. And if, and if you've been to Gerona, as I've heard you, you've experienced that, that part of the culture and, and, you know, cycling. Cycling is international. It's, it is a universal language. Um, uh, there is a bike in every country you go to, and that's, that's not a lie, that's the truth. But the, the culture that a com, you know, comes with it. **** - (): Maybe the French and the Spanish or the French and the Catalan don't necessarily see the bike. In the same way, you know, maybe the French will use it as a commuter to go get their fresh baguettes from the bakers in the morning, whereas Catalan people will use it to go from, you know, place to place or there's always a different use for it. **** - (): But this, this, this area we're going to is not famous for, you know, holiday and it's not overcrowded. We're really taking you. On, on the unpaved. Uh, this is a proper adventure. Um, we're taking all these, these detours to get to Ballista, um, which is definitely, definitely one of my, one of my crushes for, um, for this trip, because we'll have a rest day in that little village. **** - (): We'll probably have, Awesome activities to go enjoy off the bike for those who want to. You also have the opportunity to, you know, relax because we do come, we do cover between 350 kilometers and 400 kilometers over the first four days. It is a pretty. High level trip, we, we classify as avid. So not to be intimidated by it. **** - (): It does require quite a bit of, you know, physical preparation and a good level of, of writing, uh, but the, but the, the technicity of the gravel stays stays very accessible in many ways. And it's all about how, if you're okay with adventuring the whole day on the bike, you'll, you'll enjoy this trip very much the same as we did my roommates. **** - (): Um. Uh, actually used, uh, the money plus, which is the assist version of our gravel bike and she absolutely loved it. And, you know, we have very different levels of cycling, the 2 of us, but we kept it together and, you know, it's, it's just very complimentary. You get to enjoy the adventure together. So a big rest day on day 5, uh, to recover from, you know, 4 days of adventuring already. **** - (): Uh, there's a pool at the hotel. It's an eco lodge. So they have all these amazing green certifications. We, we do a great job at Trek Travel at building relationships with the people we work with, because I don't see us as a big tour operator where we just walk in, you know, give our standards and, and then, you know, move on to the next season or go somewhere else next season. **** - (): We do build these relationships, and I think you feel it on trip with us. If you've traveled with us before you, you get to appreciate. All the little details that we look into, we always try and better, um, the experience, you know, when you, when you arrive in Bethesda, I can tell you already, uh, Raquel, who's, uh, actually from Madrid originally, who's just fallen in love. With. That region. [00:32:18] - ():  Craig Dalton: Yeah, that's so special as you were mentioning before. I mean, one of the really. Exciting parts of getting a guided tour is having these locals who can show you the ins and outs of the local area and the hotspots and the great riding. Phenomenal. **** - (): So it sounds like at this point, you're up for arrest day. [00:32:39] - ():  Thomas English: A hundred percent. Yes, it's, it's just, it's, it's going to be, it's going to be, uh, you know, not a resurrection, but it will be, it will be one of those that you actually need to push on for sure. **** - (): And, and we'll see if people are up for activities, but I'm, I'm already guaranteeing a lot of people will stay back and say, we need a day to just relax and recover and prepare for the next four. But we, on the fifth day, we, we start tackling the Pyrenees. , we'll be going through what we call the, this, this, the circus. It's, um, it's this beautiful, uh, ochre lime, um, formation, rock formation facing Canigou, which is one of the highest peaks, uh, in this part of the Pyrenees. So you can, you can see this, this dark mountain in the background, uh, slowly getting closer. **** - (): And you got all these different rock formations that we're snaking through to and getting closer and closer to the mountain will be staying in in an old, um, spa and treatment, um, uh, facility area on on the night of day six, uh, to tackle called Dallas on day seven. So. If you, if you, if you, if you've had too much gravel over the, the first six days, don't, don't worry, we've got you covered with a bit of pavement just to, just to rest, uh, a little bit from gravel on, on day seven, because Col d'Arès is, is definitely a stinger, as we call it in, in, in the area, um, it is a bit of a steep one for 13, 13 kilometers, and we do have a section of gravel for those who, who want to keep the trend going, uh, it is, the base of it is this beautiful medieval town where, uh, We'll offer a bit of a treat and, you know, a bit of a quick snack if people want to start tackling the climb on a, on a, a bit of a light bite. **** - (): And once you reach the top, it can be, it can be two, two rooms, two ambiance, as we say in French. Um, it can either be beautiful and sunny or, uh, as it was when we were up there, uh, last fall, quite miserable and windy. Uh, but the views on the Pyrenees that you get from up there no matter what, are just. **** - (): Absolutely stunning. And you descend all the way to this Catalan village after crossing the border, um, called Camprodon, famous for its beautiful stone arch bridge. And from there we are in Catalonia. And the following day, day eight, takes us along the Vies Verdes, uh, which is an old rail to trail, uh, all reconverted. **** - (): Um, it is part of the Pyrenees, if you've heard and followed some of the racing across the Pyrenees. So we are going to be, like, using some of these tracks. And it's beautiful, what we call Catalan gravel. It's very nice, you know, small compact limestone. It takes you all the way back into the Mecca of cycling today, Girona. **** - (): And you will definitely feel the Catalan countryside. If you've been on the Girona gravel trip, you know what I'm referring to, but you will, you will smell, you will, we say you will taste, because usually you have a bit of stuff on your water bottle, and we have the tips for you there, um, but it's, it's, you, you, you get a second country on, on this trip and it hits you like, like a, like a day ride. **** - (): I don't know how to, how to say it in any other way. You cross this border and, um, You're, you're, you're in Catalonia and on these gravel paths, just, um, you know, flying along, along the Via Verde, you, you enter Girona from, from the back, the back door, and we are, we will be staying at Hotel Nord, which I think you say that on our, on our trip there, um, which is the perfect, you know, little nest in, into the city. **** - (): And, yeah, I think it's a good, it's a good way to, to go from, from the South of France, Provence, specific architectural types, all the way into a completely different culture, a completely different, you know, language, accents, influence, uh, but you, you'll, you'll get to, you'll get to feel the connection between the two countries, between that border that's been distorted over the years and the centuries. **** - (): Um, you'll, you'll definitely get that cultural aspect of the trip because we, we felt it as we were, as we were prepping it and we have a, a, a, a nice last day ride, uh, just to, to spend the legs more, more or less, um, before we say farewell. And that's a, a good way to, um, a good way to then spend a bit of time in Girona if you want to stay in Girona or head towards Barcelona, which is another great city to explore after Montpellier in France. **** - (): Um, this, yeah, this trip kind of starts and finishes in, in two really cool points of interest as well, which is another good reason to, to come and join this adventure. [00:37:26] - ():  Craig Dalton: Amazing. Anything else you'd like to add about the trip before we go? [00:37:30] - ():  Thomas English: you know, you create some pretty special bonds over nine days. Uh, sometimes it is over the rest day. Sometimes it's straight off the first day. Um, we are going to be riding these amazing checkpoints as it are seven top, top end, uh, gravel bike. Um, 45 seat tires, which is very comfortable, but after, after eight days of proper riding, you'll probably be in need of a good rest and maybe sometime off the bike. [00:37:56] - ():  Craig Dalton: What an amazing journey and adventure. Thanks so much for coming on and telling us about this trip. It sounds fantastic. I have a love for these point to point adventures. And everything you've described from the terrain to the cultural changes that you're going to experience over the nine days makes this track travel trip. **** - (): Sound amazing. **** - (): Thank you for spending some time with us this evening. And I look forward to seeing you in France at some point. [00:38:24] - ():  Thomas English: Thanks a lot. [00:38:25] - ():  Craig Dalton: That's going to do it for this week's edition of the gravel ride podcast. I hope you enjoyed learning more about that. to Gerona adventure that Trek travel has in store for us. They've got some slots this year, I think starting at the end of April. **** - (): So head on over to track travel.com and check out some of the photos to go with. Thomas's great. Narration of the trip. **** - (): I hope everyone's 20, 24 is filled with many, a gravel adventure. **** - (): Until next time here's to finding some dirt onto your wheels.    

In this episode, host Craig Dalton interviews Stefan Barth, author of the book "Ultra Cycling and Bikepacking: All You Need to Know." Stefan shares his journey into ultra cycling and bikepacking, discussing the challenges and unique aspects of these long-distance events. He highlights the importance of sleep, nutrition, and positioning in preparing for and competing in ultra cycling races. Stefan also emphasizes the need for a strong physical foundation and the role of mindset in overcoming obstacles during these demanding events. Ultra Cycling and Bike Packing. All you need to know (Amazon link) ISBN: 978-3-910501-03-4 Episode Sponsor: Pillar Performance (use code: CRAIG for 15% off) Support the Podcast Join The Ridership  About the Guest(s): Stefan Barth is an author and coach specializing in ultra cycling and bikepacking. Based in Frankfurt, Germany, Stefan has a passion for long-distance cycling events and has participated in races such as the Race Across America and the Transcontinental. With a background in medical fitness coaching, Stefan combines his knowledge of training, nutrition, and mindset to help athletes prepare for and succeed in ultra cycling events. Episode Summary: In this episode, host Craig Dalton interviews Stefan Barth, author of the book "Ultra Cycling and Bikepacking: All You Need to Know." Stefan shares his journey into ultra cycling and bikepacking, discussing the challenges and unique aspects of these long-distance events. He highlights the importance of sleep, nutrition, and positioning in preparing for and competing in ultra cycling races. Stefan also emphasizes the need for a strong physical foundation and the role of mindset in overcoming obstacles during these demanding events. Key Takeaways: Ultra cycling and bikepacking require a different approach to training compared to shorter races. Factors such as sleep, nutrition, and positioning become crucial in ensuring success. Sleep strategies vary depending on the duration of the event. While shorter races may not require sleep, longer races necessitate planned sleep breaks to maintain physical and mental well-being. Nutrition plays a vital role in sustaining energy levels during ultra cycling events. Experimenting with different foods and finding what works best for individual digestion is essential. Positioning on the bike is crucial for efficiency and energy conservation. An aggressive position, combined with flexibility and mobility training, can improve performance and reduce energy expenditure. Building endurance for ultra cycling involves training at or just below threshold levels for extended periods. Long intervals of 20-30 minutes at high intensity can help increase the ability to sustain effort near threshold. Notable Quotes: "Just because it's possible to push through doesn't mean it's fun. Cutting off sleep is a sure way to get rid of the fun." - Stefan Barth "Your base or your fundamentals are always a good physical condition. That's what you really need to finish those events." - Stefan Barth Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos:  [TRANSCRIPT] **** - (): . [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've got the great pleasure of welcoming author and coach Stefan Barth. He's the author of a book called ultra cycling and bike packing. All you need to know that was recently translated from German to English. It's a very deep technical book. About ultra cycling and these long distance events. Highlighting how different the training. Preparation and otherwise competing successfully the events. Needs to occur. **** - (): Stefan noted that in his preparation for ultrasonic. Recycling events. While he could cobble together a number of resources, podcasts, videos, et cetera. There was no singular location. That highlighted insights and philosophies and training methodologies. That he could find. So he sat on a journey to create the, this book. They look forward to jumping into the conversation with Stefan. **** - (): Okay. Before we jump in, I do need to thank pillar performance for their support of this episode. Pillars of sports, micro nutrition company. Who's developed products that intersect between pharmaceutical intervention and sports supplements for athletes. As I mentioned previously, I'm really thinking about my overall health and wellbeing this year. **** - (): Trying to make some changes from a lackluster 2023. **** - (): My nighttime routine and sleep has become a crucial part of being able to perform my best pillars. Triple magnesium is informed by leading heart rate variability researcher, Dr. Dan Pluse and used by many high performing athletes. Pillar has recently signed on as the official micronutrition partner of Israel, premier tech. It has been integral to my end of the day routine. 30 minutes before sleep. **** - (): I mix in one scoop of pillar's triple magnesium powder into a glass of water to help guarantee my body spends as much time. In REM and deep sleep as possible. Pillar uses a high dose of glycinate magnesium. Activating the parasympathetic nervous system. And ensuring you fall asleep. And stay in that restorative sleep phase longer and longer. I've been tracking my HRV data each morning and it speaks volumes as to what pillar triple magnesium is doing for my recovery, higher HRV and more closely linked REM and deep sleep cycles on top of that. I feel better. More rested and recovered. If you'd like to try pillar today, head on over to pillar performance.shop. For us listeners, you can head to the feed.com/pillar and enter the code Craig for 15% off. That's Craig C R a I G for 15% off all first-time purchases. Would that behind us, let's jump right in to my conversation with Stefan. [00:03:22] - ():  Stefan Barth: Stephane, welcome to the show. Hi, Greg. [00:03:25] - ():  Craig Dalton: I'm excited to get you, to know you a little bit better and learn more about the book you wrote Ultra Cycling and Bikepacking, All You Need to Know. As we were talking about offline, I think it's a very interesting journey where many of us honor are on as cyclists from starting to do gravel events, starting to do longer gravel events, getting interested in bikepacking. **** - (): And I think as the sports evolve and the science of training evolves, it's super interesting to have a discussion with someone like you has thought a lot about. Ultra cycling, how to train for it. You've thought so much about it that you've written a book [00:04:03] - ():  Stefan Barth: about it. Yeah. And glad that it got translated into English. **** - (): So more and more people are able to read it now. So I'm really looking forward to our chat. [00:04:15] - ():  Craig Dalton: Yeah, it's so maybe that's a good point to let's, let's set the stage where you located and maybe follow that on by where did you grow up and how did you discover cycling in the [00:04:25] - ():  Stefan Barth: first place? Okay. Yes, I'm from, from Germany and I'm located in Frankfurt here. **** - (): And yeah, so the book is about ultra cycling and bike packing. And that actually is where I started my cycling career. So it was like always. I was, I was driven to the, to the longer, longer events. And even when I started cycling as a teenager, it was always, okay, I want to go the, for the 100 kilometers to the town that is a little bit farther away. **** - (): Uh, most of my friends, they were not able to reach these towns even by the bus. And I was feeling very, very cool just to be able to go there by bike. And somehow this, this got my addiction to long distance cycling starting and yeah, it developed from that. So. I'm probably a young starter, so I think it was like with 14 years that I did my first free day ride and yeah, then it escalated quickly. [00:05:29] - ():  Craig Dalton: And did you ever get drawn into kind of more traditional bike racing or was touring and long distance riding always your true love? Yeah, only [00:05:38] - ():  Stefan Barth: for a short time. I had like a triathlon time. So I had a couple of years when I was more doing Ironman distance triathlon races. And that was the time when I got more professional in cycling as well, because I got more, yeah, I focused more on competitive cycling. **** - (): And during that time I did a couple of criterium races, but it never really catched me, so it's not, yeah, it was not to my taste to, to ride in a, in a bunch and to always, uh, have this fear of, of, of a crash and I'm not the, the guy made for speed, but rather for, for long stretches and to, to feel like the, the exhaustion creep into your legs. **** - (): But. Because of the duration and not because of the intensity. [00:06:29] - ():  Craig Dalton: Got it. And where did your sort of professional life and, uh, and cycling start to intersect? [00:06:37] - ():  Stefan Barth: A couple of years ago, it was like really the time when I, when I did those Ironman distance races that was like the beginning of putting more thought into how should I prepare my body, how should I prepare my mind what do I need to do with nutrition to get better on those races and yeah, that's probably where I started to think, okay, I could or this is my passion and I, Will, well, I want to do something in my professional career in this area in the long term, and soon afterwards I started to go part-time as a coach. **** - (): And I did like, in Germany it's called medical fitness coaching. So I studied in an area where you put a lot of weight into how to. coach athletes, but at the same time, how to do rehab and prehab. Yes. And this I did some years in part time and I had a full time job in the finance sector. **** - (): And when I published the book or the German edition of the book, ultra cycling and bike packing at that time. I had to make a decision because both careers would have been, one career would compromise the other one. And then I decided, or it was pretty easy for me actually to decide that I want to, to have a job that is my passion at the same time. **** - (): And so I decided to go all in, in coaching and writing about coaching. [00:08:02] - ():  Craig Dalton: That's super interesting. And it makes sense given some of the very technical elements of the book. Around physiology that you lean into that we can talk a little bit about later. And it also makes sense that Ironman journey, which you and I share, I feel like as athletes, Ironman, it's one of those disciplines that highlights your deficiency of preparation very quickly, both physically nutrition and all kinds of things. **** - (): So I'm curious, you know, building off upon that, when did you start getting drawn into the more ultra distance cycling events? [00:08:40] - ():  Stefan Barth: Soon, soon after my first Ironman actually. And at that time I did like big bike packing trips as like base my training for Ironmans as well. So I, I always try to have one vacation in summer. **** - (): And be like three or four weeks with my bicycle and ride as many miles as possible to build a strong or a strong foundation for the Ironman training. And during that time, I noticed that there's a crazy race in America called the Race Across America. I think it was some time about 2013, probably, something like that. **** - (): When I heard the first time about this race across America and that there's an Austrian guy called Christoph Strasser, who's not living too far away from, from here who is really good at it. And I was like, okay, he's crossing the whole continent in 10 days. This is crazy. And that's what I want to do. **** - (): And yeah, that's, that's how I. Got drawn into this long distance cycling. And I think that actually kicked off here in Europe, quite a, uh, fascination for this sport in general, especially in Germany and Austria. And there popped up a little more and more 24 hour cycling events. And that was the beginning for me. **** - (): Then I started to, uh, to participate at these 24 hour events and yeah, just looked how, how much can I do or how long can I go in 24 hours? And then this evolved into supported races. So I did. A couple of races, ultra cycling races where I had my own support crew which is quite expensive and at the same time, more and more bike pack, bike packing events popped up here in Europe, like transcontinental and more and more smaller ones. **** - (): And yeah, then I switched. [00:10:36] - ():  Craig Dalton: You were talking about the transcontinental and some of these other. Ultra endurance road cycling events. How many days were those events taking? [00:10:46] - ():  Stefan Barth: Yeah, I think that the first, when I, when I started the smaller ones were two or three day rides. And my longest one was, uh, nine, nine days, one hour. **** - (): So this is a bit more than three and a half thousand kilometers. It's [00:11:04] - ():  Craig Dalton: always super interesting to me when you kind of transcend that single day racing format to multi day format, to just understand the mentality. And I know some of this is included in the book, but I think it's great background before we get there. **** - (): How do you handle kind of sleep along the way [00:11:22] - ():  Stefan Barth: in those events? Yeah. It's, it differs between like ultra cycling is not ultra cycling, but it's important to make this this to distinguish between how long, or is it a multi day race or is it just 24 hours? Because I think in, in a 24 hours, uh, race, at least for me, there's no difficulty and uh, no sleep at all. **** - (): So if you're doing a 24 hour race. it's okay to have a stop time about 15 to 20 minutes only. And in a 48 hour race, it's still works for me without sleep, but just if you are practiced at it and everything beyond 48 hours is where it gets really tough and where I think you just have to sleep. probably can go with a napping strategy. **** - (): It's way more fun if you sleep. And that's something I think that some people underestimate the first time just because it's possible to push through doesn't mean it's fun. And to cut off the sleeping time is a sure way to get rid of the fun. That's for sure. [00:12:32] - ():  Craig Dalton: As you were, as you were pursuing these new and different style races, were you able to find the resources you needed to understand how to train and prepare for them, or was it more trial and error along [00:12:45] - ():  Stefan Barth: the way? **** - (): It was a lot trial and error and yes, there was, I think nowadays it's easier 10, 10 years later, there's a lot of more content on the internet and you have podcasts that go into different topics of ultra cycling and you have bloggers that post a lot but still there's not too much scientific background of it and when I started, I tried a lot shit. **** - (): By trial and error, and I also tried to find people obviously who have done it before, uh, try to talk with them, connect with them on social media, and at the events, use the time to, to have a couple of words with them. But it was a very. Uh, sometimes frustrating way because you have to invest a lot of time and you could not be sure that you, yeah, you get a return on your investment because yeah, then you, you tried something out, uh, for example, nutrition and I had like one huge mistake I made. **** - (): When I tried to copy the nutrition, nutrition strategy of Christoph Strasser from his race cross America. And he had like some, I don't know if it's sponsored product, but like some fluid nutrition and he was always telling, okay, he drinks like 200 milliliters of this. Uh, fluid per hour and that works fine for him and I was, okay, if it works for him, I should try it as well. **** - (): And I did it during a race and this was probably really one of my biggest mistakes because I totally underestimated that he's. probably something like 40 pounds heavier than me because I'm quite short and he puts in a lot of more power. And I totally underestimated how this power and this body weight factor correspond on your nutrition needs. **** - (): And I drank way too much and I consumed way too much energy which ended. in me at the roadside feeling very, very sick. And yeah, I had to do a complete restart. So I, I did finish the race, but after lying in the ditch for, for, I don't know, 30, 40 minutes I had to, to To build in a period drinking only water, don't eating anything, and just have a complete reset for my body and my mind, and then I could start again. **** - (): But yeah, that's, that's the mistakes that I made on the road. And that's what the book is about, that not everybody has to lie in this ditch and make the same mistakes all over again. [00:15:31] - ():  Craig Dalton: You sort of alluded to this in your answer there, but if we go back to sort of what inspired you to write a book, I'm just curious how you would answer that question. [00:15:41] - ():  Stefan Barth: Yeah, it's at the beginning I was not planning on writing a book. So probably this is the most important part because when I started it was more like, okay. I. Okay. I had a lot of conversations and I have tried a lot of things and I wanted to write it down for myself first. So it was, was not planned to, to make a book out of it, but rather a compendium for myself for future events. **** - (): And also when I thought about starting a coaching business, business, this was like a blueprint for my clients. And then I started to talk to other athletes about what I had until that moment, and they were really, really interested in this whole topic and to have a compendium for how to best prepare for ultra cycling events. **** - (): And yeah, then I started thinking, okay, maybe I should look up into more and more papers and maybe I should add some, some new chapters to it. And at that time I started with the interview. So the book incorporates a couple of. Of interviewees or a couple of interviews I did with other athletes and I started with those who are my friends, obviously. **** - (): And we just sat at a table for, I think with Mati Koester, I sat for almost eight hours and we talked the whole day about what are topics that he's interested in. And then I used these, yeah, guideline or these topics that we discussed that day to go to other athletes, also to some, yeah, some very renowned athletes, and just to ask them about their, their experiences to in these topics. **** - (): And somehow the interest was. Yeah. Overwhelming. Because when I started, I started with people I know and at the end I talked to Lael Wilcox and at the beginning I would not, would not have thought that I will be talking to someone like Lael Wilcox about her racing experiences and be able to incorporate them into, into my book. **** - (): So yeah, it was a process and it almost took four years from the beginning of. When I started to write down the first sentences until I finished the book in German, it's almost four years. So it was probably a way longer than normal, normally an author would take to write one book. [00:18:11] - ():  Craig Dalton: Got it. Super interesting. **** - (): Obviously there's a lot of information about. Cycling training out there when you talk about maybe road racing or traditional mountain bike racing. And as we've mentioned, there hasn't been a lot documented about training for ultra cycling and bike packing. If there were a couple areas that you would highlight that are dramatically different from shorter races to longer races. [00:18:35] - ():  Stefan Barth: Yeah, we talked about one, which is like sleep, something that is completely unimportant for normal sports, or which is only important when you talk about recovery, but there's No need to cut sleep during doing races. And of course, nutrition is a big, big part because nutrition becomes even more important, the longer the races, also the whole part efficiency and how you sit on your bike, how it gets way more important because. **** - (): You develop more problems with your neck, with your shoulders, with your lower back than if you are just riding your bike for five or six hours. And also the training aspect is different. So it's not just about pushing your lactate threshold or your, your, or getting more power to the pedal because at the end, it's not necessarily the efflet. **** - (): With the most power or the best power to weight ratio that wins the races, but it's the one that has the best overall ability to ride the bike as long as possible. And with as few breaks as possible. So many questions are coming to mind on this. Oh, okay. So let's go give it a shot [00:19:53] - ():  Craig Dalton: to some of those a little bit one by one. **** - (): So we talked a little bit about sleep. Obviously. Most of us, we try to get eight hours of sleep a night when we're at home, try to do rides well rested every time in order to compete in some of these events. And in order to even maybe just do them, you need to be able to sleep outside. You need to be able to sleep on the go when you, maybe it's easiest if we talk about a four day long event, for example, what is a sleep strategy that Maybe someone newer to the sport could, could realize and approach. [00:20:30] - ():  Stefan Barth: Yeah. Yeah. At the beginning, I would always recommend to have like a longer sleeping break every night, something like maybe three hours or three hours sleeping time, which will translate into something like four or four and a half hours stopping time. And the important thing is to sleep cycles, you know, because your, your body or your mind, your brain goes through different sleep stages during the course of the night. **** - (): And I think a lot of people already heard this that it's. It's easier to wake up if your total sleeping time can be divided by 90 minutes. And this reflects those sleep cycles. It's easier to, or you have one, you have four, four sleep stages. And one of them is where you are sleeping really, really deep. **** - (): And if you wake up or if you get woken by your alarm clock or friends, whatever during this really deep sleep this will be very confusing and you can actually, if, if it is combined with the physical exhaustion it can happen that you wake up and you're feeling disoriented and you don't really know where am I, am I racing or what's going on? **** - (): So it's good to know your own. sleep cycles because they differ from this 90 minutes a little bit and they get like they get each time you go through them during the night they get a little bit longer so if you are trying to sleep three hours around three hours the for most people it's better to sleep for example three hours and 10 minutes which reduces already the risk of waking up from this deep sleep stage. **** - (): And then I would always recommend to have routines if you're going for four or five day ride. It's way easier to go to bed around the same time every evening and to wake up around the same time every morning. It's a little bit like in your everyday life. If you're working on shifts and Yeah, you have to, uh, some day you are waking up at 6am, sometimes you have to wake up at 10am, then it gets really, really hard to to be fit in the morning. **** - (): And during the event, it's the same, it's way easier to have a routine and also transfer this routine as or as much as possible to the whole cycling event. For example, also, it's a good idea to have your lunch break around the same time each, each day which makes life way easier, especially for [00:23:06] - ():  Craig Dalton: beginners. **** - (): I imagine so. One of the things I wanted to highlight, which I thought was interesting, you mentioned, you know, if you're intending for a three hour sleep, you probably need a four hour window of time. And as someone with a limited amount of bike packing experience, I can, I understand that because you need to get off the bike, you need to cool down. **** - (): You may need to change to get comfortable. You have to lay out your sleep gear, and then you have to do all that in reverse to get yourself back going. So it's interesting. To hear you highlight that, which makes sense as you've [00:23:38] - ():  Stefan Barth: said it. Yes. And that's also one, uh, very, very good advice. Which I learned from, from one of my interviewees because a lot of us, we are quite organized and we like, like it's structured. **** - (): And so a lot of people when they do their first bikepacking experiences and they have this sleep break. They like, they, uh, arranged their whole equipment so that after their sleep break, they can be moving as fast or, yeah, yeah, as fast as possible. So like you're already putting out the gear that you're needing after your sleep break and that oftentimes is a huge mistake actually, because if you push your, your, your limits a little bit, then you are already a bit sleep deprived, maybe, and you're a physical, like, physically completely exhausted when you have been writing for maybe 15 hours this day. **** - (): And then you are trying to make decisions before you go to sleep. And oftentimes you need way longer to make decisions. And then those decisions are Not always the best ones because after you wake up, you notice, ah, it's way colder than I expected, or I feel way colder because just my yeah, my, my heart rate is really, really slow after, after sleeping but I already packed my, my warm clothes. **** - (): at the complete, uh, yeah, the most down, downward, uh, in my, in my bike packing bags. And so it's a good, good advice to just grab your sleeping bag, grab your mattress or whatever you use, your BB bag, and just close your eyes. Try to fall asleep immediately. Don't forget to put your alarm clock, but, uh, do the whole equipment thing and arrangements. **** - (): You can do this all after you have slept and you will notice that you are way more alert, you are awake and you will make better decisions. The second [00:25:40] - ():  Craig Dalton: thing you mentioned to drill into was nutrition. And again, many of us have done gravel events, a hundred mile, maybe 200 mile. And we sort of know, Oh, we could get by with. **** - (): Sports nutrition all day long, how do, how do we need to think about it differently if we're extending to that example, four day event? [00:25:58] - ():  Stefan Barth: Also there's yeah, there's some parts are for nutrition. Some parts are the same like in normal cycling, especially. during training. So it's you have the same amounts of carbs per hour that you try to get in during your training rides, for example, so that you get the best physical adaptions. **** - (): But at the same time you need to plan ahead and think about what can you get during a bikepacking trip, because you are limited oftentimes to gas station food or. Uh, if you're doing races in remote places, like the Silk Road Mountain Race or the Atlas Mountain Race, uh, well, you have to eat what you can get there. **** - (): So it's always good advice to experiment a lot with nutrition so that you know, uh, which kind of food can I take down, which kind of food can I stomach. And what do I like probably because yeah, if you are used to going with sports nutrition or with sweets I don't know if you ever tried to, to survive on those sports nutrition gills and, uh, bars for, for eight hours. [00:27:07] - ():  Craig Dalton: Yeah, it does add up and you do get quite sick of them by the end of the day. [00:27:12] - ():  Stefan Barth: Yeah. And I think you get a feeling in your mouth that's like sticky and doesn't feel, feel very nice. So, yeah, it's good to know this in advance. And to experiment with other foods also with solid foods that you can buy like cheese or like sandwiches and like, uh, like rice and stuff like this if just to try it out and to learn, can you digest it? **** - (): Does it taste good for you during writing? So this, this would be like the first step to, to get a bit more experience with different kinds of foods. And then another part is like proteins. You need proteins on a longer ride, uh, even though you don't need them. During short rides, because your body is not, or it's, it's easier for your body to, to transform carbs into energy. **** - (): But during a four day ride, you also need proteins for your recovery periods, especially if you plan on sleeping three hours every night, because then your body actually has the time to recover a little bit [00:28:19] - ():  Craig Dalton: from day to day. Where, in your opinion, where is the cutoff point for needing protein? In your cycling nutrition in terms of hours, would you need it in a, in a, in a 15 hour day or does it not come into play until you're 24 hours? [00:28:34] - ():  Stefan Barth: That's a difficult question and I'm not sure if there's like scientific proof for when it gets beneficial. But I would always already included. If you go beyond those recommended durations for cycling, because like, if your ride is longer than five, six hours, this is already almost a little bit too long to build up endurance. **** - (): And if you stretch these, these timeframes, I think it's beneficial to add up some, some proteins as well. And definitely if you go beyond. beyond those 15 hours. And it's individual, you will probably notice it. For example, when I eat too, or when I limit myself to two carbs during a right, at some point, I will get a headache, I need some fats or some protein. **** - (): Otherwise, my body tells me, okay, this is this is just too restricted to carbohydrates. So if you notice something like this. it can be the solution to eat something with fats and proteins. And then there's also, especially with proteins, a huge difference between male and female athletes, because there's, yeah, like males are way more or it's It's, they are way more dependent on carbohydrates, on carbs during, during activity. **** - (): And female athletes, they are more dependent on carbs after the activity for recovery purposes. So female athletes, they also need a little bit more protein already during their [00:30:14] - ():  Craig Dalton: rides. And then on to the next subject of positioning, interesting that you highlight that as a key area of consideration. Can you talk through sort of some of the differences one might want to consider in their position as they go longer and longer in [00:30:29] - ():  Stefan Barth: duration? **** - (): Yes, because the longer the duration gets, the more efficient you need to be. Because if you can save only 10 Watts or every day for a writing time of maybe 16 hours each day you really save a lot and you really gain a lot of speed. And at the same time, you reduce your energy expenditure and energy expenditure is like one of the. **** - (): Key limiters in ultra cycling because it's simply it's, it's really, really difficult to get in enough energy for what you are burning. And so if you can. reach the same speed with less energy expenditure, this already is a huge, huge benefit. And so it's a good thing to have an aggressive position on your bike, actually in ultra cycling and not being too focused on comfort, because this is something many beginners Doing because bike fitters also are promoting this. **** - (): If you are going for longer rides, try to get your position on the bike, more comfortable. And my approach is a little bit different. Because I think you can you can have an aggressive position on your bike, which is at the same time, comfortable if you are putting the energy or the. Uh, time into your own flexibility, mobility and strength training, because most of the time the limiter and not the bike. **** - (): And so this is what I call efficiency in the book. Like the, the position on your bike is, is detrimental for your efficiency and you can gain a lot of efficiency by optimizing your. Own your own, uh, flexibility, mobility, and strength. [00:32:22] - ():  Craig Dalton: Yeah. I know you, you go into sort of great technical detail on how to improve your strength and flexibility and mobility. **** - (): And I would agree that those are critical elements for any cyclist, whether you're trying to get a more aggressive position or not, I can only speak to my own limitations, which are definitely hindered by the lack of mobility. And I spend a lot of energy these days, trying to increase my mobility to. **** - (): Have that all day long comfort because I, I don't currently have that right now in my Cycling. You know, as I go longer and longer, eventually my lower back's gonna start to hurt and it becomes quite a limiting factor in my own personal case. [00:33:01] - ():  Stefan Barth: Yeah, and I think cycling is like a limiting sports or a limiting type of sports because we have, we don't have a lot of different movements. **** - (): We only have one type of movement because the, the bike completely determines how your body moves. And so the body is limited to, to there's no rotational movement. There's no sideways movement. There's nothing more dimensional. This is only happening in one in one plane. And that triggers a lot of adaptations in our body that are not that good. **** - (): And in combination with a lot of jobs where we are sitting like eight hours in front of a desk. And then we go home and then we sit two hours on the roller or on the bike and actually we are only sitting. So there is a reason why cyclists chose a sports where you are sitting because we don't like to move too much. **** - (): So [00:34:00] - ():  Craig Dalton: is there any, is there any sort of silver bullet in terms of Mobility exercises that are your favorite go tos. [00:34:08] - ():  Stefan Barth: Yes, definitely. Because like the, the disadvantage of the bike giving you or limiting your, your mobility and your, your range of motion during, during riding is also kind of an advantage, at least from my coaching perspective, because you can be pretty sure that almost every cyclist has the same problems. **** - (): Because we all have exactly the same movement. If you compare this to other sports, like, like football or ice hockey or something like this, like there's a lot of potential. injuries and sources of injuries and because every athlete is moving in a different different way but cyclists they are all moving in the same way so we are having the same trouble and one of those troubles is that we are losing the flexibility in our posterior chain so like the the pedal stroke is highly dependent on your quads So this is where the power comes from. **** - (): So you get really, really strong, strong quads and your body, uh, needs to compensate this because the quads, they are, they are pulling at your, at your hips and at your pelvis. So you need the same amount of force at the back of, of your body at the posterior chain. And since we don't have strong backs of the legs, because this is just pulling up the pedal again, and this is like the recovery phase of the pedal stroke what your body does is it tightens the hamstrings. **** - (): Because tight is like the compromise you, if you, if you don't have, muscles, you get tight muscles just to have like this counterbalance to the very strong quads. So it's always the first part of a mobility flexibility training for cyclists is always. Gaining more flexibility in the, in the hamstrings, in the backs of the legs and afterwards strengthening these body parts that you have a counterbalance to, to the quads. **** - (): Interesting. [00:36:15] - ():  Craig Dalton: That's helpful. The final area you touched on, and I'm going to add an additional component to it. You, you talking about training and you were talking about how simple power to weight ratio, which may be the sort of the predominant metric in road cycling, Is not necessarily going to make or break your success as a ultra endurance cyclist. **** - (): So if you could talk a little bit about that, and then I would add on just a question around mindset. [00:36:45] - ():  Stefan Barth: Yes. So, I think a long distance cycling, it's more important to, to increase the capability to cycle at, or just a little bit below your threshold. So if you, if you started with. Maybe you can ride four hours at 50 percent of your threshold, then it would be a very, very good or a huge benefit. If you increase this, this, uh, capability to 60 or 65 percent of your threshold and your threshold can actually stay the same the whole season. **** - (): It does not necessarily need to, to go up all the time, but it's, it's very important that you, that you can sustain, uh, huge amounts of time. Near your threshold or that you that you can gain. Yeah, that you can push up those, those percentages. So this is what I tried to with my coaches most of the time in training to, to increase their ability to, to get to those 60 or 70 percent in a, in a 24 hour race. [00:37:50] - ():  Craig Dalton: And what kind of, uh, training efforts help to that end? [00:37:57] - ():  Stefan Barth: It's a lot of steady state writing. So a lot of writing a little bit below your threshold. But doing this for, for longer periods of time, for example, if you are looking in the typical, uh, training plans generated by Strava or by Swift, you will see a lot of, a lot of efforts, a lot of intervals that are lasting only a couple of minutes. **** - (): And I also, I'm a big fan of having those long intervals of training. 20 minutes sometimes, or even 25 minutes almost at your threshold. And that's a very good way to get better at, at riding near your threshold. Because your body gets very, very good at. Eliminating the lactate from your blood while pushing hard. **** - (): So you, you reduce the, the level of lactate that is building up in the, in the intervals. [00:38:54] - ():  Craig Dalton: Gotcha. So if you were out on a, on a training day for one of your athletes, would it be something like, you know, two or three 20 minute intervals at 65 percent of threshold with 10 minute break in between something like that? **** - (): Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yes, [00:39:10] - ():  Stefan Barth: but way more than 65 percent of threshold. It's more like 90 percent of threshold for 20 minutes then. Okay. So it's like, but it's a slow buildup. If you start with this kind of training and you are going maybe with eight minutes in each interval and do this three or four times, then you are, this is a good start. **** - (): And if you do this a couple of weeks. At some point this will, it will make, it will make, uh, like you put a, put, put a switch on and it will be, you will be able to go for 20 or 30 minute intervals. Yeah. [00:39:43] - ():  Craig Dalton: As you're thinking about for your athletes, these longer events and selfishly, I'm thinking about my own 200 mile or 360 kilometer aspirations this year, obviously in a lot of the training plans you might see, you might have a six hour training ride or an eight hour training ride. **** - (): These events are going to last longer than that. You know, it might be a 15 hour day for me and certainly for a 24 hour, four day event, you're talking about thousands of kilometers. How do you in training kind of build up to that capacity to continue on for these distances? [00:40:21] - ():  Stefan Barth: Yeah, you need to stretch the traditional cycling distances from time to time. **** - (): Because I like to I or I call this challenges. Because you you need to know how your body reacts to those long rides. They are not very efficient in building up endurance. Like I said earlier, there's like Five to six hours. If you are already a very good cyclist, maybe you even benefit from a seven hour endurance ride, but everything that is longer than that, just yeah, just you need more recovery time afterwards, but you don't get the physical adaptation or not more physical adaptation than from a four or five hour ride. **** - (): But in ultra cycling, we're also in what you are doing on the gravel bike, you need. Sometimes a ride that lasts 10 or 12 hours, just so that you know, okay, how will I feel when I'm really exhausted and how will I cope with nutrition? Will I be able to eat at the end? Because I think that's something probably, you know, it from your triathlon time eating gets difficult the longer you are, you're active. **** - (): So you really need to know. Okay, does the food that I can stomach after five hours, can I still stomach it after 10 hours? And how, how does my butt hurt after 10 hours? Because this will hurt different than after five hours. And it's good to know how this feels and how you can cope with it. And then you can, you can think about a strategy. **** - (): How you will, how you will tackle this problems during unbound. So yes, I incorporate rights that are longer than 10 hours from time to time, but limited. Not, it's not, it's no good if you do this every weekend. [00:42:14] - ():  Craig Dalton: A couple questions that came up after your last comment, Stefan, around training. So I remember from marathon training, like we'd only run 22 miles and we'd never run that full distance thinking you'll be able to get there on race day. **** - (): The second thing for my ultra marathon training was we would often do a long day on Saturday and then follow it up by a medium day on Sunday. And my understanding of that philosophy was, Hey, we can't beat you guys up and we can't have you running 35 mile days. Quite regularly, but we can do a 22 mile day on Saturday and a 15 mile day on Sunday to try to kind of make the body feel like it's done. **** - (): This long event. Does any of that track with the type of training that makes sense for ultra ultra cycling? [00:43:03] - ():  Stefan Barth: Yeah. [00:43:04] - ():  Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And the final thing I want to touch on it. I mentioned it a bit earlier. It was just Sort of mindset. And I thought about this a lot as we were talking about sleeping and waking up from a three hour sleep, having to get your gear ready and get going again. I could just see in myself struggling to kind of. **** - (): Put, put pedal in front of pedal after, you know, just sleeping for three hours. So can you talk about the importance of mindset and maybe if there are any tips and tricks that one can learn to keep, keep pedaling forward? [00:43:40] - ():  Stefan Barth: Yes, definitely. Because you, you need to find like a sweet spot between recovery. And exhaustion during training. So, I also like to do those back to back sessions. For example, also with those long interval sessions we spoke of earlier, that I am doing, like, maybe on Friday, some really long and hard intervals, followed by a long ride on Saturday, followed by a short ride on Sunday, to build up this exhaustion over the weekend. **** - (): But still without compromising your recovery completely. So yeah, that's, that's a good way for, for those working athletes. [00:44:27] - ():  Craig Dalton: Interesting. I mean, it sounds like with all this, you know, preparation and doing the work leading up to your event is key. It's probably a trite thing to say, but I think that work for ultra cycling clearly is a lot longer than it is for shorter events. **** - (): Because I do think you need to prepare yourself mentally for All the intricacies around your sleep system and getting up and preparing the different types of nutritional needs, as you've, you've outlined and the, just a different mindset you need to go going into these events. [00:45:01] - ():  Stefan Barth: Yes, there's, there's a couple of, of little hacks that I, I like to include or that I included in the book. **** - (): Because when it comes to mindset. I have a little bit a different opinion than a lot of people out there, I think, because from my point of view, the mindset is a little bit overestimated when it comes to ultra cycling or some ultra adventures, whatever you call it. Because in the general public, it always comes down too much to the mindset. **** - (): And from my point of view, your base or your Your fundamentals are always a good physical condition and that's what you really need to finish those events. And of course you can finish an ultra cycling event or a bikepacking event just by mindset and by iron willpower. But this will mean that you will do sacrifices and maybe even sacrifice your health in. **** - (): in some situations. And I don't like that too much about this sports. And I don't like that in the general public people focus so much on this. So from my point of view, it's always more important to build up your physical capacity. And then mindset is important, of course, because like you said, you go out there and you will. **** - (): Have uncomfortable situations but then it's more, uh, willpower what you need. You need to like, you need small life hacks that will, that will keep you going. And I like to, to dig a little bit into how our brain works in these parts, because our brain is like still the same brain that we had thousands of years ago. **** - (): And it's divided into parts that are. focused on emotional fee or on emotions, on feelings. And you have parts in your brain that are focused on the rational thinking. There was a couple of tricks to better get those rational thinking parts in your brain working. And this will help you a lot in ultra cycling events because yeah, you will trigger a lot of those, those those feelings that are very ancient in, in humans and your brain will correspond. **** - (): With reactions that are also very ancient and those are oftentimes not the best, the best, uh, reactions. So it's important to, to keep rational and to keep your thinking going. So one life hack, for example, is very, very easy. And that's the, the stop button. You can visualize a stop button. Uh, once you notice that your thoughts are dysfunctional and this stop button or the sign like on the road sides on the highways, I'm not sure how they are looking in the US, but here in Europe, it's like a big red sign where in white there's written stop on it and just by visualizing this sign, which is a very, very easy picture to visualize. **** - (): You can, you can stop those emotional parts in your brain from taking over completely. And you gain a few seconds. And this is oftentimes enough to start rational thinking. And once you start rational thinking, you will notice that you, you are way better, you are better able to keep your willpower because you keep yourself in control. **** - (): Yeah. And it's, it's a difference between motivation and willpower. So like motivation is the thing that, uh, gets you going in the preparation and which is probably the, the reason why you signed up for the event and which is the reason why you are willing to put in all those training hours and then during the event itself, you need to Willpower, that's the thing that will bring you to the finish line. [00:49:00] - ():  Craig Dalton: Yeah, a hundred percent. I think Stefan, that's a good place to end it. I appreciate the time this evening calling in from Germany. Appreciate you taking the time and effort to document everything in this very thorough book on ultra cycling and bike packing. I think you did a great service to that community and the world. **** - (): We'll certainly put links to how to find the US version of the book in the show notes of this podcast. [00:49:25] - ():  Stefan Barth: Yeah, that's great. Thanks for your invitation, Craig. Cheers. [00:49:30] - ():  Craig Dalton: That's going to do it for this week's edition of the gravel ride podcast. Big, thanks to Stefan for joining the show. That's going to do it for this week's edition of the gravel ride podcast. Big, thanks to Stefan for joining the show. It's so fascinating for me to think about these ultra cycling events and the differences it would require in order to be successful there. **** - (): If you're interested and able to support the show. Ratings and reviews are hugely appreciated. Or if you want to contribute financially, please visit buy me a coffee.com/the gravel ride. Until next time here's to finding some dirt under your wheels.  

In today's episode, we interview Tony Karklins, the owner of Time Bicycles. We discuss Tony's journey in the bike industry, from working in a bike shop to becoming a distributor and eventually acquiring Time Bicycles. Tony shares insights into the evolution of the bike industry, particularly the impact of carbon fiber technology. He also talks about the acquisition of Time Bicycles and the company's focus on manufacturing and innovation. The conversation then shifts to the new gravel models introduced by Time Bicycles for 2024 and the unique features that set them apart. Tony explains the importance of staying true to the Time brand while catering to the evolving needs of the market. He also discusses the future plans for Time Bicycles, including expanding manufacturing in the United States. Time Bicycles Episode Sponsor: Pillar Performance (use code Craig for 15% off)  Support the Podcast Join The Ridership  Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: About the Guest: Tony Karklins is the owner of Time Bicycles, a storied brand in the cycling industry. With over 40 years of experience in the bike industry, Tony has a deep understanding of the market and has played a significant role in the growth and development of various bike brands. He started his career in a neighborhood bike shop in the early 1980s and went on to become a bike shop owner. Tony then ventured into distribution and agent deals with European bike brands before joining Orbea as the managing director of the Americas. After his time with Orbea, Tony acquired the Guru Bicycle Factory and later acquired Time Bicycles from the Rossignol group. He is now focused on expanding Time Bicycles and bringing manufacturing back to the United States. Key Takeaways: Tony Karklins has over 40 years of experience in the bike industry and has played a significant role in the growth and development of various bike brands. Time Bicycles is a storied brand in the cycling industry, known for its high-performance carbon fiber bikes. The acquisition of Time Bicycles by Tony Karklins was driven by the desire to acquire the company's manufacturing capabilities and continue the legacy of the brand. Time Bicycles is focused on innovation and manufacturing, with a particular emphasis on resin transfer molding technology. The introduction of new gravel models for 2024 reflects Time Bicycles' commitment to meeting the evolving needs of the market while staying true to the brand's identity Transcript: [TRANSCRIPT] **** - (): time_bicycles _ jan 19, 2024 001_riverside [00:00:00] - (): Craig Dalton: Tony, welcome to the show. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Thank you very much. Thanks for inviting me. Uh, **** - (): Craig Dalton: as, as a fan of the sport and someone who's been around the sport from my bike shop days in college till now, I'm excited to talk about Time Bicycles. It's such a storied brand in the industry. And having spoken to you a little bit offline, your journey to get there, I think is going to be fascinating for the listener to learn about. **** - (): Craig Dalton: And ultimately we want to talk about the new gravel models you've got for 2024. Sounds great. Where do you want to start? Let's start off just by a little bit of your background. Where are you located and how'd you get into the sport of cycling and what led to you working in the bike industry? All **** - (): Tony Karklins: right. **** - (): Tony Karklins: I, uh, I live in Little Rock, Arkansas. You know, Arkansas is the new hotbed of cycling globally now. So, uh, I've been in the bike industry here for about 40 years. I started to work in the neighborhood bike shop in the early eighties. Became a bike shop owner in the mid 80s, and I ran 2 retail stores here until 99, 2000. [00:01:00] - (): Tony Karklins: It's almost made it 20 years in bike retail here, and I decided that I wanted to stay in the bike industry, but I was kind of done with retail. I'd taken my turn there, and so I started traveling to the European trade shows. Looking for bike brands that were established in Europe that maybe needed help in the United States. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Um, and did a few small distribution and agent deals with some, you know, really neat, small artists and Italian brands and kind of 1 deal led to the next. And then, uh, late 99 or early 2000. I was introduced to this brand that I had never heard of. And no 1 in America had at that time was called. And it was a tiny little, uh, BASC company that was moving out of kind of mass production bikes, and they wanted to get into high performance, and they wanted to get their brand on the Tour de France, and they wanted to see if they could produce, you know, a leading global brand, and started as a distributor for them for a couple of years. [00:02:00] - (): Tony Karklins: It went really well, uh, and then we built it into a joint venture, and I ran that joint venture as the managing director of the Americas until 2014. So, uh, yeah. And we built Orbea in that time to, you know, leading European brand selling in the United States and a true global player. And it was a really interesting time in the bike industry because I started in it right before the carbon fiber boom happened. **** - (): Tony Karklins: When I went to work for Orbea, premium bikes were made out of really lightweight steel. Uh, or, uh, even and we advance in a really lightweight aluminum, like Columbus Starship and some of the really cool 2 pound aluminum frames and they were light and they were fast, but they wrote like crap because they were so stiff. [00:03:00] - (): Tony Karklins: Right? Yeah, I mean, carbon fiber comes into the forks and all of a sudden it made the aluminum bikes ride a lot better. And so, uh, watch, watch carbon fiber hit the bike industry, and it really took the industry by storm in around 2003, 2004. There was this moment where all the best bikes in the Tour de France were aluminum or titanium. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And within 12 months, it all went carbon fiber. And really changed the bike industry a lot because the bike industry and the bike brands, all this history brands that you know of, they were born as metal shops, right? They can cut and weld and bend, but when carbon hit, everybody was like. What is this stuff? **** - (): Tony Karklins: Where do I get it and how do I do it fast? And so I lived in this moment where I saw all that bike production all through the United States and Europe come down in the premium categories and get shipped to Asia because they could make carbon fiber. Yeah. **** - (): Craig Dalton: I was going to ask you from an Orbea perspective, like how did they solve that problem? **** - (): Craig Dalton: They knew they had to get into carbon fiber, the same **** - (): Tony Karklins: thing at the same time. You know, Orbea was Orbea is they take fast, smart decisions quick. So we were right there at the very start of carbon fiber. I remember there was this moment in America where we had a warehouse full of carbon fiber before it was really. [00:04:00] - (): Tony Karklins: Hot, like a couple of months before it was hot and then Cannondale went into bankruptcy and then something happened at light speed, but spike the cost of titanium raw material. And then like a month of fearing. I would never be able to sell this inventory for a bicycling magazine being sold out for 2 years. **** - (): Tony Karklins: That was some of the magic that happened during that time. A lot of, uh, when carbon hit, it just, it hit hard and it changed the industry and it changed where and how bikes were made. Um, and it was a, it was a boom moment for us at Orbea, for sure. We, we, we, we went through the roof, you know, because we were there. **** - (): Tony Karklins: One of the very first real product and real availability. Yeah. So I had a great run with, with Orbea. Um, they acquired the rest of the company from us in 2014. And then I decided that, um, I wanted to get into manufacturing because I noticed at that moment in 2014, 15 and 16, that everybody was sort of cooking in the same kitchen, you know? [00:05:00] - (): Tony Karklins: It was, everything started to look alike again, and there was just different colors and graphics and marketing campaigns. So I said, okay, if I'm gonna stay in the bike industry, I wanna get into manufacturing. **** - (): Craig Dalton: That seems like a big leap, right? So you a big **** - (): Tony Karklins: leap. But you know, I, I, I, I'd been in the industry a long time, been in a lot of the factories. **** - (): Tony Karklins: I mean, I saw it, you know? Yeah. I'm not an engineer. Um, now I almost am. But um, at that point, I just, I knew that, I knew that there was very little chance of success if you just went to Asia and did the same thing again. Yeah, I've seen too many people try to start their own brand, um, based on just desire of having a brand and no real tech or no real, you know, capabilities and, and they all kind of petered out the same way. **** - (): Craig Dalton: And did you see the opportunity being, Hey, if I stand up a manufacturing facility, I've got enough connection in the industry that some brand may want to come to me for manufacturing. I'm thinking back to like. Frank the welder shop and you'd have, **** - (): Tony Karklins: you know, interested in OEM business because you know, you, you do all the work and you get none of the room. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Yeah. [00:06:00] - (): Craig Dalton: Can't explain to anybody what you do for a living because you can't point to anything. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Yeah. I was more interested in. Okay. I think the way that this can really work is if you take it from raw material all the way through to the sand. Right. Okay. Do you want all of that? Because, you know, when you have a bike made in Asia, you have it made in a carbon fiber factory and then they send it to a paint factory and then they send it to an assembly factory and then they put it into a box and they ship it into the United States. **** - (): Tony Karklins: So you pay duties and freight and tariff and all that stuff. And then it's sold to a distributor and then it's sold to a retailer and then it's sold to the consumer. And, you know, you have this, You know, no one has any real piece of the pie, you know, the only people making the money here are the shipping companies and the government, you know, let's break that. [00:07:00] - (): Tony Karklins: Let's see if we can take it from raw material all the way, you know, through selling it to a dealer. Okay. And so, uh, after my time with Orbea, I went to work with a group in California that was attempting to do this, uh, with golf technology, a lot of golf production in the San Diego area. And I learned, you know, during that year that. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Very difficult to do manufacturing in Southern California. It was, it was a great, great learning moment for it. Um, and so did not work there, but after I departed, I was able to acquire the Guru Bicycle Factory. In Montreal. Gotcha. Okay. We located in Arkansas, got some government grants and brought in some investors for this. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And we, uh, the project there, we created this company called HIE Villa, which was going to be, you know, mass production of prepreg carbon fiber bicycles, you know, made the same way that the best bike brands were making them in Asia, but making them here. **** - (): Craig Dalton: And when you, did you not acquire the Guru brand, you just acquired the means of manufacturing at that point? **** - (): Craig Dalton: I just acquired the manufacturing assets. Yeah. And was that just, uh, tooling, machinery, et cetera, or were you getting [00:08:00] - (): Tony Karklins: Messiness, cutting tables, it was everything you needed to do. Gotcha. I mean, everything, you know, and so it gave us a great, it was a great start. Uh, it was a beautiful project. We launched, you know, six Cycleworks brand, and that hit hard. **** - (): Tony Karklins: You know, it resonated just perfectly at that moment because it truly made an America product. Um, we, we did it right. We did it well, um, beautiful project and that company got acquired by the Walton family. In one of their groups, uh, that owns, uh, the Rafa **** - (): Craig Dalton: cycling brand and then was that acquiring the brand and the manufacturing **** - (): Tony Karklins: facility? **** - (): Tony Karklins: They took it all and they did that a little rock and they put it in Northwest Arkansas. And now it's part of the, uh, the cycling empire that they're building. Sure. And so I stayed here in Little Rock after that and looking for my next opportunity. And during the early stages of the pandemic, I learned that the Rossignol group who had recently acquired time was looking for a new owner for it. [00:09:00] - (): Tony Karklins: And I'm like, wow, I really want that because I want, I want their factory. Cause I knew that they had the oldest and the largest scale carbon fiber bike **** - (): Craig Dalton: factory in Europe. Can we, can we pause for a second, Tony, and just explain the history very briefly of the time brand? Cause it's not lost on me, like how important that had been over the last 30 years, but I'd just love to hear your words and understanding of like how time fit into the bike industry. [00:10:00] - (): Tony Karklins: Yeah. So time, uh, was established in France in 1987 and Roland Catan was the founder of it. And Roland Catan married a woman whose father was the inventor of the modern ski bike. And he owned a company called Look. Yep. Sure. And Look had just introduced a bicycle pedal that was clipless. And Roland was around this and he was kind of part of the company. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And I guess at some point there was some family dispute that happened, because Roland believed that a clip in bicycle pedal needed to have some kind of rotation. Because if you were locked into one place, You would have ankle, knee, some kind of problems. And so, I guess the father in law didn't like that. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And Roland left look, went across the street and opened time. Amazing. With a clipless pedal that had rotation. **** - (): Craig Dalton: This is filling in so many gaps for me. As I mentioned offline, I had a friend who was like a die hard time pedal fan. And like the ski binding technology, I'm now all visualizing it in my head. [00:11:00] - (): Tony Karklins: And so I don't know how, I don't know how Roland's wife made this all work with the family. They split and they made it together. Um, and you know, Time, you know, was a very fast moving brand globally the second he did it. It was styled perfectly. Everybody believed in the rotation. They were off to the races. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Um, then somewhere in the late eighties to maybe 92, 93, Roland became friends with some of the people that had started TVT carbon fiber and TVT was, you know, uh, French company. That had done some of the very first, you know, carbon tube, aluminum lug bikes, they were briefly in the tour, but the technology wasn't really stable enough yet to really have true tour riders on it. **** - (): Tony Karklins: But you, I think you saw maybe some of the Greg Lamont years, he might be on a special carbon fiber bike with some sponsors name on it. That was a TVT thing. So the time people got involved with him. Um, and they opened up a project to make a carbon fiber fork because they saw the problem in the bike industry of all these lightweight aluminum bikes using steel forks, or sometimes even aluminum forks, which were super jarring. [00:12:00] - (): Tony Karklins: Yeah. And they believed that they could, they could make a better riding aluminum bike by doing a carbon fork. So Mario Cipollini, Marco Pantani, anybody of who's who in that, you know, in that era, whatever bike brand they were riding, it had a Time fork on it, and from what I've been told, uh, they were making about 100, 000 carbon fiber forks here. [00:13:00] - (): Tony Karklins: I mean, they, they were, they were the player there. Then, of course, Look got into the fork business as well. Those 2 really kind of hit it, you know. So time then moved into bicycle manufacturing in the late 90s. They want to do a full carbon fiber bike. Um, and then in the early 2000s, they signed with this little team called Quickstep and we had writers like Tom Boonen and Paolo Bettini, uh, you know, and they won the Olympics and they won the world championships and they won Paris Roubaix and they were just, they were killing it in 2004, five and six, I mean, they were, they were the, you know, pinnacle of technology really being made in Europe when everybody else had just left for China, they were killing it. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Um, and then. I guess from what I've been told, the Pro Tour got really expensive when the big American brands came in. You know, when you saw Specialized come in and take over Quickstep, and Cannondale was in there first, I think, Giant got in there, uh, Trek obviously got in there, and so Time became a brand that, you know, truly couldn't afford the Tour de France anymore. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And so, uh, they Kept developing products, they believed in their resin transfer molding technology. They believe in European manufacturing, but, you know, they started to kind of hit harder times, maybe in 2012, 13, 14, and then Roland passed away on a bike ride. In 2000, late 2015, early 2016. Oh, man. [00:14:00] - (): Craig Dalton: And did they ever, did they ever diversify into mountain bike products or did they always stay focused on the road sport? **** - (): Craig Dalton: No, **** - (): Tony Karklins: there's, you know, we, we have all the historical stuff and, you know, they did a couple little things and they made their own wheels for one model, but they didn't really ever get in the wheel business. I've got a few time carbon fiber handlebars. I don't believe that a real mountain bike frame was ever truly produced by them, but he was pretty true to the cause. **** - (): Tony Karklins: I mean, he, he was a road cyclist. He was a drop bar cyclist. He, um, he, he, he protected his brand really well. Yeah. Yeah. He, he didn't, he didn't go with, you know, the, the, the trend of the week, like some of the bike companies do. **** - (): Craig Dalton: And then did the Rossignol group, uh, purchase it after his passing **** - (): Tony Karklins: then? They purchased it, you know, so he passed away. [00:15:00] - (): Tony Karklins: Company was in shambles because he was the race car driver of the company. Right. Yeah. And, and so big problems there, but Rossignol stepped in. Um, they. They did an acquisition of everything, they reinvested in the company, um, they built out both the France factory and the sub factory that's in Slovakia. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Um, and they were really building it for big growth. And I, I believe their plan was to, to put, um, they, they bought a few other bike brands as well and to inject those brands into their ski dealerships for summer business in Europe. I think it was their master plan. **** - (): Craig Dalton: The plan that many a bike shop owner, many a bike brand has theorized over the years will work perfectly. **** - (): Tony Karklins: It makes sense. But at the end of the day, you know, a consumer purchasing a 10, 000 bike doesn't want to buy from the ski shop. Yeah. I know. Yeah, nothing against the ski shops, but he wants, he wants to buy it from a passionate, you know, cycling store. So that didn't work so well. And then the pandemic hit, and when the pandemic hit, that's when we were told, Hey, good time. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Rosalind was looking for a new owner from time. And I [00:16:00] - (): Craig Dalton: interrupted you right when you were saying what really attracted you to the opportunity was the fact that there was a factory involved. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And that's how we got it from Roil because we were the people that wanted the factory. I think there were a lot of people that wanted the time brand, right? **** - (): Tony Karklins: Sure. Because there's a playbook. You take a great brand like that, a Halo European brand, you go to Asia, you build a new bike line, boom, you're done. And Ros, I don't think, wanted that to happen. You know, it's proud French brand. There are a lot of people working in factories. Um, they wanted, they wanted somebody to come in and take over the factory. **** - (): Tony Karklins: I had just come through this project at Allied and lived in a prepreg factory. So I'm like, I want that factory, you know? Yeah. **** - (): Craig Dalton: And you were mentioning offline, some of the nuances in the approach prepreg versus another way of manufacturing that attracted you to the **** - (): Tony Karklins: time process. I knew what their tech was, but I had never been in their building previously. [00:17:00] - (): Tony Karklins: And, and I knew the quality that was coming out of that. And so when, when we were able to acquire that, you know, at the same time, SRAM bought the pedal and shoe business. So we actually broke time. Into two pieces. Okay. So that was a perfect fit for SRAM to take that and then we didn't have to be in the pedal business. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Did **** - (): Craig Dalton: that just sort of happen to work out timing wise that I imagine they wanted to sell the whole thing in one fell swoop. **** - (): Tony Karklins: I think they wanted to sell the whole thing in one fell swoop, but it's hard to do that because those two businesses are totally different, totally different factory, totally different customers, totally different rules. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And so when SRAM stepped in with interest in that, it was perfect. And that's when it all kind of came together. And, uh, you know, it was a strange time because when we bought it in the pandemic, we couldn't even go to the factory for a visit. Because this is what Americans travel into Europe. We were on lockdown. [00:18:00] - (): Tony Karklins: Yeah. So a lot of faith in there. And luckily we got a good investment group behind this that also believed in, in us, in the vision of what we wanted to do with time. Uh, and we pulled it off. So we bought it because we wanted that factory. We wanted that technology. You know, what, what Roland spent, you know, 25 years developing in that factory is resin transfer molding and lost wax cores. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And that is the way that aerospace and automotive carbon fiber products are made. You know, the bike industry is prepreg. Prepreg is a very interesting way to make products. And there's some neat things you can do with prepreg. But automotive and aerospace would never use prepreg. Because resin transfer molding gives you complete control of the structure. [00:19:00] - (): Tony Karklins: You end up with a, with a structure that has zero voids in it. It's cosmetically perfect. And that you can blend whatever you want to into the carbon fiber sleeves because they're not impregnated. And so, this one factory that they had built in Slovakia initially as a fork factory had built its way up to being the largest carbon fiber bike factory in Europe. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And with the technology that Was above and beyond what anybody else in the world was doing. When **** - (): Craig Dalton: you talk about that, and I'm sure it's difficult to express it in layman's terms, but when you think about the different design opportunities and possibilities with prepreg versus this type of carbon manufacturing, what type of opportunities for performance, as it translates to riders, does this technology lend itself to? **** - (): Tony Karklins: You know, the biggest difference in resin transfer molding, Is it's not, it's not bladder mold. There's no internal pressure there that is squeezing all those layers of carbon fiber into one structure. So, in resin transfer molding, we start with the wax core. It is, you know, an exact interior core to the structure. [00:20:00] - (): Tony Karklins: And then we wrap the carbon fiber sleeves over those doors. We set them in the tools. When, and when we close the tool, you have steel surface on the outside, hard wax surface on the inside. So two hard surfaces, and then you inject the resin and the hardener through the tool at the same time under high pressure. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And when you do that, the resin fills 100 percent of all available space between the two hard surfaces. So you can't have any leaks. That's why airplane wings are resin transfer molded, because you can't have a void in an airplane wing. Because a **** - (): Craig Dalton: void is a, is a weaker part of the part, if a **** - (): Tony Karklins: void exists. A void is a bubble, it's a fold, it's a wrinkle, it's a drip. [00:21:00] - (): Tony Karklins: It's, you know, because when you're dealing with prepreg, you have this hard tool on the outside. You have, A bladder on the inside, and then you have all these sticky layers, somebody's hand put together, kind of like, almost like paper mache in some ways, right? And each one of those is a sticky, challenging layer. **** - (): Tony Karklins: These will go on just right, right? And then you put that into the tool, and you blast this pressure on the inside, and it just squeezes the heck out of everything. And that's the structure you're left with. But resin transfer molding, hard tool on the inside, hard on the outside, and a flow through of the resin that makes it a perfect structure. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And so when you have that, you have a product that is a stronger and more durable product for sure. Less chance of anything happening to the structure for sure. Also cosmetically perfect. So now you can actually show fibers, which you don't see on carbon fiber bikes anymore, because prepreg structures are ugly. [00:22:00] - (): Tony Karklins: So you have to paint them, make them look nice. But on this, it comes out perfect. And even the inside of the structure, the inside of our bikes is as cosmetically perfect as the outside because it can only be that. Yeah. And then in these braids, you know, a lot of these things have 244 different, you know, threads through we can. **** - (): Tony Karklins: blend in any modulus that we want. We can mix in fibers like Dyneema. We can mix in Vectran fibers. We, we have unlimited recipe of what we could do for the actual sleeves **** - (): Craig Dalton: themselves. And what, what are those additional elements? What are the benefits of those additional **** - (): Tony Karklins: elements? Everybody's familiar with the different moduluses, right? **** - (): Tony Karklins: You can take out weight, you can add stiffness. You know, the one that we've had the most fun with the last two years is bringing Dyneema into it. Dyneema has got kind of a wonder material that really came out of the sailing industry. It's a polypropylene fiber that's lighter than carbon fiber, which you can't destroy. [00:23:00] - (): Tony Karklins: So we can weave this into critical areas where there could be catastrophic failure. And this will keep that structure from ever breaking. And so we brought that in a lot on our 1st gravel bike. We introduced that indoor **** - (): Craig Dalton: structure. Yeah, I was going to say that seems like a natural **** - (): Tony Karklins: thing. We're using more and more and more with it. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And you can't use too much with it because if you use. Two, if your ratio of Dyneema to the carbon fiber is too high, the bike doesn't ride right. Dyneema doesn't have the riding characteristics of a high modulus carbon fiber. But when you put it in small doses in strategic places, you've made a stronger and safer problem. **** - (): Craig Dalton: Got it. Now, I appreciate this detour into the tech because we were going to come back around to it in the gravel bike, but I think it sets the stage really nicely. So if we're going back chronologically. 2020, 2021, it seems like you've acquired the, the, the brand, the facility were models continuing to be pushed out at that point. **** - (): Craig Dalton: And then how, when did you sort of reintroduce what I imagine to be your new vision for time bicycles out there in the world? [00:24:00] - (): Tony Karklins: You know, it, it played out differently than we thought because when we bought the company, our plan was we were going to take it to ground and we were going to redo everything and we were going to relaunch it perfectly and we bought it in that moment in the pandemic where we were all going to die, you know, there was this moment. **** - (): Tony Karklins: It was doom and gloom. And then a couple of months later, everybody decided to go buy a bike. Yeah. **** - (): Craig Dalton: We're not, we're not dead. So we might as well go ride a bike. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Yeah, we're not dead. So let's go buy a new bike. And so our plan was kind of spoiled because we were one of the only operational factories in Europe. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Everybody needed everything from us. And I'm like, no, we're going to be redoing all this stuff. They're like, no, we need bikes now. So we turned it on hard. You know, we turned that factory on harder than it had ever **** - (): been **** - (): Craig Dalton: turned on. And were you kicking out road bikes at that point, **** - (): Tony Karklins: presumably? We were kicking out road bikes like crazy. [00:25:00] - (): Tony Karklins: We were trying to get to gravel, but we had just tons and tons and tons of orders for road bikes because, you know, you couldn't get them. They were stuck in Asia. People were sold out. Yeah. You know, and you know, we're a factory that we make them every single day, you know? So the first 18 months of us owning this company, it was like we were trying to repair the plane mid flight. **** - (): Tony Karklins: You know, we were just going crazy. You know, we're trying to get to new. Because Rossignol didn't really push new because they were in the selling phase. Right. So you're not going to invest in products like that. And so we had slightly dated product and we needed as much of it as possible right now for sales while we're redeveloping. **** - (): Tony Karklins: So just now, you know, in 2024, we're back to our plan of, of key new model introductions, **** - (): Craig Dalton: you know. Yeah. You know, during that timeframe with everything running so fast, it sounds like you wouldn't have even had time to rethink market positioning the brand. It was more people love time. It's a storied brand as we've just talked about, and people are going to buy the product. **** - (): Craig Dalton: The [00:26:00] - (): Tony Karklins: second we bought it, man, the love just kind of flowed in through emails, you know, everybody's like, Oh God, thank God, you know, cycling people have the time brand, you know, and, and yeah, the love for the time brand is amazing. I can't tell you how many people have sent an email with a picture of their Time VRX, VXRS, Paolo Bettini edition to say, I own a hundred bikes and this is my all time favorite. **** - (): Tony Karklins: You know, people love it. I mean, Roland did a great job building a really beautiful, he really, he, he always. Did the right thing. Yeah. Always took the high road. You know, not a lot of people in the bike industry can really say that. **** - (): Craig Dalton: For sure. You mentioned Roland's love of the sport of road cycling, and it doesn't sound like prior to you much, if any, emphasis was put on the gravel market. **** - (): Craig Dalton: When you decided to move in, or correct me if I'm wrong, certainly. [00:27:00] - (): Tony Karklins: Well, there were some weird things in there. Like one of the things, when we did the acquisition and we got the trademark, Roland owns the global trademark for all. Okay, we were looking at that. Oh, my God. What was he going to do with that? **** - (): Tony Karklins: You know, he saw something, you know, maybe he was maybe had a pedal plan for it. But, you know, he, you know, he was pretty deep in the Belgian site. Okay. And so he, he was, he was working on something for sure. **** - (): Craig Dalton: Gotcha. You weren't handed any gravel models, so it took you, took you to what, 2022 to introduce the first, uh, ADHX? **** - (): Tony Karklins: Yeah, we did. We introduced that, um, midway through 2022. **** - (): Craig Dalton: Now I'm curious, like obviously you had your imprints on that model with you alongside your designers. How did you envision the gravel market at that point? Times the, the time, the people who are appreciating the time brands vision for what a time gravel bike would look like. [00:28:00] - (): Tony Karklins: Well, that was our first rule with the ADHX is we wanted to make a bike that would appeal to time. Right. We weren't going to go out and make some bike that had frays on forks everywhere and for camping on it. That's not time, right? You need to go buy a Surly if you're going to do that. We wanted to do an all road bike. **** - (): Tony Karklins: For a time and we wanted to also make sure that it worked with all road drive trains. Because we want to be a multi surface road bike. Gotcha. We call it fast gravel. Um, and and we introduced that before a lot of these wide drive train 1 by systems really became legitimized and, you know, our requirement is let's get biggest tire possible in here. **** - (): Tony Karklins: It will still take 52 chain ring. You know? Yeah. And we'll not have an obscenely long chainstay. So we'll ride like a road bike, but we'll allow you to do multi surface. Yeah. [00:29:00] - (): Craig Dalton: I've had this conversation before where it's very interesting when you talk about constraints and what you're able to do. And as you're articulating the desire to have a 50 tooth chainring in there and ride a two by drivetrain and a road specific drivetrain, it's understandable where you end up spec wise. **** - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah. I **** - (): Tony Karklins: mean, so that, that's, those are the limitations we put on it. And so then we launched it into the market. You know, and at that moment, anything, anybody launched into the market was going to do well because the market was just consuming all by itself. But quickly, we learned that nobody wanted our ADHX with a one by drive train. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Everybody who was buying, because we made, we, we took an assumption that 50, 50, one by two by, you know, and it was 99 percent and 1 percent was the reality of after six months of this. So everybody, they were buying pure road groups and they were running. You know, 35, maybe 38 C tires. **** - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah. It's interesting when you think about that 2022 timeframe, because I do think the, the consumer base had started to really. [00:30:00] - (): Craig Dalton: Sort of pick a camp if you will. And they were picking either I want a fast gravel bike or I want something more on the adventure side. And there were distinct camps starting to emerge even back then. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Yeah, there were. And, uh, you know, so we got a lot of feedback maybe nine months after launch, but we can't get this 42 tire and everybody racing on unbound this year is running a 42. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And then, you know, we were also at that moment where the interior rim widths were changing like crazy. Yeah, so even if you were putting a 38 seat tire on there, but this new wheel coming out from head has a 26 internal measurement. It was measuring a 42, you know, so we ran into that fun, but everybody else ran into that fun at the same time. [00:31:00] - (): Tony Karklins: Yeah. So we decided that we would open the next project to do a wider. You know, tire version of the ADHX, um, because we thought that was truly where the market was moving to. And what we learned in all of that is it all just comes down to the drivetrain. And the second we launched the ADHX45 and we explained it was built for wide drivetrains and it was built for, you know, it won't take Ultegra, Dura Ace, Campagnolo drivetrains on there. **** - (): Tony Karklins: That we had this boom of sales in our existing ADHX because all of a sudden people really understood. Yeah, this is this is as much of a multi surface bike as I can have and it'd be a road bike. This is really a pure gravel, right? And so for now, it's crystal clear. We didn't really expect that to happen. **** - (): Tony Karklins: We assume the 45 was what everybody was going to want, but now it's crystallized for us where there are three for us. There's pure road. There is multi surface pass. Yeah. And there is. You know, I don't want to call it pure gravel, but wider tire [00:32:00] - (): Craig Dalton: gravel. Yeah, it's a, it's a really interesting force and forcing function. **** - (): Craig Dalton: Cause I think a lot of consumers develop a love and appreciation for a particular brand. And then, so they're in the time family, they're in the time world, and then they're looking at your two models and they're asking themselves, what type of gravel rider am I? Where, where do I live? What type of terrain am I on? **** - (): Craig Dalton: And which one of these two models fits their riding style and ambitions. **** - (): Tony Karklins: What I think we've learned is. It's more important around the drivetrain than it really is around three or four millimeter width change on the top. That's what the customer seems to really care about. **** - (): Craig Dalton: Interesting. So on the, on the, the ADHX45, will that still run a 2x? [00:33:00] - (): Tony Karklins: Yeah, it'll run a 2x, but you have to use a wide version of it. Okay. Yeah. So you're using these, these gear ratios that true road cyclists Don't really, they still want their 52 ring on there, right? Yeah. And when you move into the a H 45, you gotta deal with all, all the new systems from Shram and the new ones from the G Rx system. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And it, it does, it does really seem to be that the 45 falls more to the MTB crowd and the A DHX falls more to the road cyclist. It just wants to do a little bit of ground. Yeah. As you and then, and then in Europe they use the A DHX. As the fat road tire. Okay. **** - (): Craig Dalton: And what do you, does it ride sort of as if it say you have road tires on their 32s or 35s? **** - (): Craig Dalton: Is it ride like an endurance road bike? Would you, would you suggest? That's **** - (): Tony Karklins: where a lot of people have kind of put it. Yeah. You know, cause you can, you can build out, you know, with those Victoria 34 C tires and nice carbon wheels, you can have a, you know, 14 and a half pound 34 seat tire road bike. It's just super fun to ride. [00:34:00] - (): Craig Dalton: Super fun to ride. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was just out with a buddy I hadn't seen in a while. And so he was like hardcore roadie and saw him rolled up on some 38 Cs, nice carbon wheels. And he was like, man, this bike is, he's like, it's a revelation. He's like, I've never been happier road riding than I have been on these 38 Cs. **** - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah, I love it. Super interesting. As you, you know, you had the the 80 HX out there in the market. Obviously, you were getting some feedback from riders that led to the tire and drive train decisions on the 45. Were there any other elements of the frame design that taking the opportunity to think? Hey, we're now getting 45s in there. **** - (): Craig Dalton: People are going to take this on gnarlier terrain. Do we need to do anything different? Or was it really about upsizing and, you know, configuring the drive **** - (): Tony Karklins: train? You know, when there were some people that were pushing us for adventure bikes and stuff, but it's just, we're, we're doing our best to stay true to time. [00:35:00] - (): Tony Karklins: We're not an adventure bike company, we're a high performance carbon fiber bike company. We want to, we want to keep it that way. So I think, I think the 45, at least. What we see of today's gravel market is as far as we need to go, you know, because there are other things at the time brand needs to do. We know we have to get back into the aero road bike development and we have to get back into endurance road development. **** - (): Tony Karklins: We've got other projects there. So I think that, you know, while we'll continue to evolve the ADA checks family, I think we sort of have our two models **** - (): Craig Dalton: in there. Yeah. When you think about it, you mentioned sort of unbound. When you think about a competitive race bike, is there anything that The ADH X45 has that doesn't put it as a gravel race bike, other than the choice of drivetrain that you're, you have to **** - (): Tony Karklins: make because it was, it was really built for that type of application. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Yeah, it a go fast. You know, wide tire ground. Yeah. You know, it's, it's a race bike. I mean, we, we, we did some really tight tolerances on there. The things we had to do to get the chain stays, you know, in the seat too. And just, just to the point where they'd be right on the edge of giving the proper amount of clearance. [00:36:00] - (): Tony Karklins: And, and, and truly be a high performance ride. We, we couldn't have done it any tighter than we did. Yeah. **** - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah. And when you think about the ideal rider for these types of bikes, um, are you, you know, are the head tubes taller or are they, or are they still sort of real Euro race style **** - (): Tony Karklins: geometry? We are upper middle there on this particular family when we, well, when we bought time, there was no integrated front ends at all. **** - (): Tony Karklins: So we had to, the first project we did was to do, to bring integration in when we did that to all of our existing product line, we increased that head to height just a bit more for the, for the mature American market. **** - (): Craig Dalton: And when, with integration, you're talking about **** - (): Tony Karklins: specialized Roubaix, we didn't, we didn't go there, but we brought it to a point because I, I hate premium bikes with three or four spacers in there. [00:37:00] - (): Tony Karklins: Or, or an upstem. Yeah. So we built it, you know, we engineered it to sell and be looked at. **** - (): Craig Dalton: Okay. And with that integration, you're referring to putting the cables inside the bar and through the headset and all that stuff. We got a moment to **** - (): Tony Karklins: tweak all the hit tube heights when we did that. Yeah. And so we, we, we took, we took benefit. **** - (): Tony Karklins: We cleaned that. Got it. Because, you know, traditionally time Short head to bike. I mean, it was the, a lot of the design was led by the racers who all want these head tubes that are this tall. Yeah. You know, nobody who's actually buying a bike and ever ride, you know, **** - (): Craig Dalton: exactly. Um, what, what's sort of next for time and gravel this year? **** - (): Craig Dalton: I imagine, you know, there's still a lot of people who haven't gotten in front of a time. Gravel bike. How do people find **** - (): Tony Karklins: them for time right now is, um, our expansion into manufacturing in the United States. Okay. That's our next thing. So we announced, uh, middle of last year that we acquired a facility in South Carolina and it's in Spartanburg County. **** - (): Craig Dalton: Was it outside the bike industry? Something doing carbon fiber in another field? [00:38:00] - (): Tony Karklins: No. Um, but it is inside the bubble that BMW built in North America and BM W's carbon fiber technology is exactly the same as times. Got it. So it's resin transfer molding. So in this one little region of South Carolina, they have the entire global supply chain specific to exactly what time does. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Amazing. So we acquired a factory there in this little town called Landrum. It's 140, 000 square foot facility on 30 acres, right at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Really cool area. Uh, about, about 30, 45 minutes from Nashville, North Carolina. And we are. Um, throughout 2024, moving process by process over, so we'll have a second factory here to support the United States. [00:39:00] - (): Tony Karklins: And at the same time, as we're installing our processes into that factory, we're getting a lot of assistance from, um, the state of South Carolina and the University of Clemson, and a lot of the, um, automotive, Development tools that were put into place inside of BMW. They do things with resin transfer molding that were light years beyond what Roland ever thought about when he was building his factories in France and Slovakia. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And so we've been for the last six months doing proof of concept manufacturing there about, um, high pressure resin transfer molding. We're similar technology to what we do in our factories now. But under three to five times pressure, and that has the potential to really, uh, has the potential to revolutionize bicycle manufacturing, but certainly advance our product to a point where beyond what we ever thought possible. [00:40:00] - (): Tony Karklins: When you, when you are able to do resin transfer molding at 35, 45, 50 bar, that is incredibly high pressure. It's going to make a A structure that is thinner, lighter, and stronger, and also more beautiful than anybody's ever been able to pull out of a carbon fiber tool. So we are fully focused on that development and deploying that technology in our new South Carolina factory. **** - (): Tony Karklins: By the end of **** - (): Craig Dalton: this year, that's so exciting to bring back more manufacturing in the United States. And as we heard, **** - (): Tony Karklins: that's the real thing, you know, because the automobile industry invested a lot in resin transfer from BMW, McLaren, Aston Martin, Lexus. Audi, I mean, resin transfer molding used in all those brands significantly. [00:41:00] - (): Tony Karklins: Polestar, Volvo. And to take benefit of what they've done there and apply it to bike under the Time brand name and being true to, you know, what Roland Katana actually wanted to build out of Time. That's, that's our special project that we're really excited about. I think that I'm a few months away from inviting people such as yourself into the kitchen over there so you can see firsthand what what's actually about that. **** - (): Craig Dalton: I love it. Book me a date. Maybe in July. My sister just moved to Asheville. So I'm planning a trip over there at some point **** - (): Tony Karklins: 3045. I **** - (): Craig Dalton: love it. I love it. I love this journey. You've taken us on in this conversation. Love the time brand. The story very much lands with me. Just the sort of. Race perspective of the bicycles and the expansion of the ADHX to the ADX45 just to give riders kind of what they're looking for in terms of the versatility. **** - (): Craig Dalton: In the time models. So, um, yeah, super appreciate it. And for customers looking to get in touch with the brand or get, get a foot over one of these, what's the best way for riders to get in front of a time bicycle? You know, [00:42:00] - (): Tony Karklins: we, our website and the team that we have supporting all lines of communication through that social media. **** - (): Tony Karklins: We're very easy. Okay. I mean, ping us ping us on Facebook, Instagram, through our website, we have a team here ready to help. And **** - (): Craig Dalton: are you selling direct to consumer at this **** - (): Tony Karklins: point? We sell every way possible. We sell direct to consumer and we've got around 150 retailers in the United States. Uh, we've got distributors in 18 countries around the world. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Um, so yeah, we're, we're pretty much available in all key markets. **** - (): Craig Dalton: Amazing. Thanks again for the time, Tony. **** - (): Tony Karklins: My pleasure.  

In this episode, we sit down with cinematographer and director Shannon Vandivier to discuss his work on the Life Time Grand Prix series "Call of a Life Time." Shannon shares his journey into the world of filmmaking and storytelling, influenced by his father's career as a photojournalist. He explains how he approaches the editing process as a second director and the importance of having a clear vision for the story. Shannon also delves into the challenges of filming off-road racing events and the strategies his team employs to capture the essence of each race. He highlights the importance of building trust with the athletes and creating a connection that allows for vulnerability and authentic storytelling. Throughout the conversation, Shannon emphasizes the goal of the series: to showcase the dedication and inspiring stories of off-road athletes and to foster a sense of fandom within the community. Episode supported by AG1 Support the Podcast Join The Ridership  About the Guest(s): Shannon Vandivier is a cinematographer, director, and camera operator based in Austin, Texas. With a passion for storytelling and a background in photography, Shannon has honed his skills in capturing powerful imagery and using it to tell compelling stories. He started his own company in 2013 and has since worked with notable clients such as Netflix, BBC, and PBS. Shannon's work can be seen in various projects, including the Lifetime Grand Prix series "Call of a Lifetime." Key Takeaways: Shannon Vandivier's passion for storytelling and capturing powerful imagery stems from his father's career as a photojournalist. The editing process in filmmaking is akin to being a second director, and it requires a clear vision for the story. Filming off-road racing events presents unique challenges, and Shannon's team employs various strategies to capture the essence of each race. Building trust with the athletes is crucial for creating authentic and vulnerable storytelling. The goal of the Lifetime Grand Prix series "Call of a Lifetime" is to showcase the dedication and inspiring stories of off-road athletes and foster a sense of fandom within the community. Notable Quotes: "The power of editing comes with a clear vision. You don't know how your story is changing unless you know what your story is." - Shannon Vandivier "The bike has always been the vehicle to fun. And as I've matured through life, I've continued to stay on the bike." - Shannon Vandivier "The reality is, editing is second directing. The power of editing comes with a clear vision." - Shannon Vandivier Resources: Shannon Vandivier's website: shannonvandivier.com Lifetime Grand Prix series "Call of a Lifetime" on YouTube: youtube.com/lifetime Automated transcription, please excuse the errors: [TRANSCRIPT] [00:00:00] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): Welcome to the show. How you doing, man? [00:00:04] - ():  Shannon Vandivier: Man, I'm glad to be here. I'm glad to be with you. [00:00:07] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): I'm excited to have this conversation. It's probably a, an outlier. If I think back to the catalogs of conversations I have, it's usually athletes, event organizers, and event producers. So you're my first cinematographer, director, camera guy. **** - (): Super excited to have this conversation. Cause I think a lot of us have seen your work in Certainly Lifetime, uh, Call of a Lifetime Season 1, which followed the Lifetime Grand Prix. But after looking at your website, I think there's probably a bunch of other things that we've probably seen of you over [00:00:41] - ():  Shannon Vandivier: the years. **** - (): Thank you. Well, maybe, maybe not. It depends. Uh, it's a big world out there. There's a lot of content, but I certainly am honored, you know, um, to be your first. Uh, camera nerd and a storyteller on your podcast. So for those of you listening who are hoping to learn anything about power numbers or Watts or course design, uh, you will be disappointed. **** - (): Uh, but if you want to learn about storytelling and how incredibly, um, challenging it has been, and at the same time, rewarding, um, to spend a year at this point, two years with all the top off road athletes, um, in North America and now also internationally. You're in the right spot and I will, I will tell all right now. **** - (): I'm [00:01:26] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): excited to get into some of those challenges. Shannon, just to set the stage, where, where are you located and what's your relationship been to the bike? [00:01:36] - ():  Shannon Vandivier: Um, let's see here. Most I'm 36 years old, born in 87 and, um, I was born here in Austin, Texas. I'm currently in Austin, Texas. Um, it's a great base camp and we have good airport hub. **** - (): So I've never found an excuse to leave other than maybe my draw to the mountains. Um, and so, you know, like most nineties kids, like the bike was the vector to get around the neighborhood, and it's always been about. Um, for me, the bike has always just been the vehicle to fun. And as I've kind of matured through life, I've continued to kind of stay on the bike. **** - (): Um, mountain biking to me, um, has become my favorite way to process. Even before this podcast, I went and spent an hour on the bike, just getting into a bit of a flow state and just getting my mind channeled in the right way. I do a lot of my riding, um, believe it or not. Use voice memos for that. But a lot of my thinking and processing on the bike, um, as it specifically rates, relates to call of a lifetime. **** - (): But yeah, I think the bike is certainly a relevant character in my life. Um, and definitely was the reason why I was even interested in, um. Dipping my toe, which, which turned into diving off into the deep end, um, of creating content and storytelling in this space. [00:03:01] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): How did you find your way to a camera in the first place? [00:03:04] - ():  Shannon Vandivier: Ah, now that's a good question. So my dad was a photojournalist, and I grew up in a house that was covered in, um, film negative slides. And slideshow reels, and the smell of rolled film in the freezer as you were like sifting through to go find your toaster strudels or whatever. Um, and so like, I think I was five when my dad stuck his first hand me down in my hands. **** - (): He would like sit me on the curb and as cars drove by, you know, I would earn new rolls of film if I got like cars in focus as I panned with him going by. I remember that specifically as a memory. And yeah, just, you know, my dad is, I've always been against flying, uh, airline travel. We always road tripped everywhere and we were always going somewhere. **** - (): So I spent a lot of time traveling the world. Um, and controversially, I think I was like 12, 13 years old, you know, when my dad was taking me on shoots with him that maybe were like considered conflict zones, like still don't know, but like in, um, in a really unique way, I had a father who just really was passionate about using a lens to tell stories. **** - (): He was a still photographer and, um, from a young age, he was just passionate about teaching me the power of the lens and the power of creating imagery and using that imagery to capture a moment in time that tells an important story. And as a journalist, um, you know, he saw himself as a responsible party and keeping politicians accountable and, um, corporations accountable. **** - (): And he's. He still, to this day, um, heartbreakingly, probably, sees journalism as the means at which we keep society on track, um, and the truth in, in the public square. And so I've always had a value for storytelling in that context. And um, And yeah, and through, through certain life circumstances, I think I've particularly given an empathetic, um, perspective on life. **** - (): Um, and you know, I, we had a tragedy in my family. I, we lost my youngest brother when I was nine and. Um, you know, there were some hard years there, but where, where it landed me was, um, man, life is special, and there are some really important stories to be told, and it's really important, um, and I love the idea, I should say this, I love the idea of a camera, and, um, and a lens being the vector to creating an introspective revelation in somebody, right? **** - (): And it's this really unique thing That camera and storytelling and filmmaking can do, right? It can compress time in a way where we feel like we can learn a life's worth of lessons from somebody else in 90 minutes or 30 minutes. Um, and I, and sometimes that feels like magic to me. Um, of course we don't have the scar tissue of experience to ingrain those life lessons and anchor into our life, but at the same time, they can, they can be seeds. **** - (): That will one day maybe blossom. And so, um, I saw it through my father growing up. I saw how his imagery impacted people. And, you know, I, I always, I always respected that. And I'm really proud that I get to follow. In a sense, my dad never did any filmmaking, but I get to follow in his footsteps. And, um, and so that's kind of what led to me to where I am now. **** - (): I started my company back in 2000 and 13 and started Get to play with real clients in 2016, um, I've been, uh, won some awards and been featured on, you know, yeah, we've got, you can go check out. It's weird talking about yourself, right? And so there's a lot of things we've done out there and I've gotten to work for Netflix and BBC and PBS and, you know, all the big names out there. **** - (): I'm honored to continue to work with them. And, um, I, I just, it's not about the, who I'm working for. It's about the, what I'm creating. And so that's, that's my guiding beacon. That's what pushes me forward is the, what I'm creating. [00:07:15] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): Amazing. Thanks for all that insight into your backstory. I'm curious, you know, your father obviously instilled a love of still photography and while, you know, someone picking up a phone or a camera today. **** - (): Video is the obvious medium. Was there a point in your. Childhood, going into college, what have you, that you decided photography is great, but video will allow me to express some of the storytelling elements that I'm so passionate about? [00:07:45] - ():  Shannon Vandivier: Yeah, it's a great question because no one asks that question. You know, um, I was frustrated with still photography. **** - (): You know, it's what I always had in front of me. And it's, I always, like, my dad used to have this drill with me where he would hand me magazines. This is before the computer, right? So, like, he would hand me magazines, a pair of stickers, and some tape. And I had, I have still to this day, I probably dig them up, I have these spiral binders. **** - (): And he told me, son, you need to train your mind's eye. And he would make me go cut out. Pictures from magazines, stacks of magazines that, um, that I liked to train what, what I liked. And I always remember just, like, flipping through these magazines and cutting these pictures out and pasting them in my, my spiral notebook and training my mind's eye. **** - (): And I always just, like, remember feeling like, man, like, I don't fully understand this image. Like, it's a cruel image. But, like, I want to know everything that happened. Like, it could be a Formula one car, you know, like on two wheels about to flip over. And I'm like, did it flip over? And I just remember thinking and always feeling this wall with still photography. **** - (): Now I'm still a still photographer. I love still photography. It's a wonderful way to capture a moment, but in terms of the completeness of a story, in terms of how technology has advanced, there's no question that filmmaking and story is the ultimate form of storytelling. It's the most. Um, and so, yeah, it's, it's a good question. **** - (): Yeah. Recall anybody asked me that question before. [00:09:25] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): So thinking about the amount of film that I've caught over, you know, over my life, my big problem has been the editing of it and I don't have any skills, Shannon. I'm going to be totally transparent with you on that, but I am curious about like the editing part, because, you know, you're capturing a lot of footage, regardless of what you're doing. **** - (): But the editing is really key to making the storyline come through that you're trying to capture or that did happen out there. I'm curious. So you, you know, obviously you started to build the, the technical skills to shoot with your camera. What was that process like to become an editor that could get that end product that really conveyed? **** - (): The stories either yourself or your clients were looking for. [00:10:10] - ():  Shannon Vandivier: Yeah. I mean, that's a great question. The reality is, is editing is second directing, you know, um, the power of editing comes with a clear vision. Reality is you don't know how your story is changing unless you know what your story is. And so, for me and my process, and like you, I don't have a ton of skill sets in life, but one of the things that is so hard for me to do is to walk into the field with a camera and not have a plan. **** - (): If I don't know the story I'm going into the field to tell, then I don't know how it's changing in front of me. And if I don't know how it's changing in front of me, I don't know where to point the camera. But if I've defined my story and my characters, um, then As it's changing, as things are falling apart, is usually how you can define changing and filmmaking in the moment. **** - (): Um, you can adapt and I think, you know, editing is like baking. If you don't have the right ingredients, you're not going to have a tasty product. You have to do it in the right order and you have to give respect to the ingredients and you have to have good quality ingredients. And so to say that, um, there's any one piece of, of creating a product, a film that is more important than the others. **** - (): It's, it's just like taking a screw out of, um, a mechanical mechanism, like everything will fall apart and nothing will work if you don't have sometimes even the smallest thing. And so, um, our cinematographers, you know, we had up to 14 people in the field this year. We had helicopters, side by sides, motorcycles, um, multiple editors in the field. **** - (): I mean, what we accomplished this year and the sheer manpower that I had to. bring together, unify and disseminate and share a vision with, um, and follow through with that vision on, um, that in itself became the greatest, um, challenge, but it also became the greatest reward. And why I believe when people see season two of Call of a Lifetime, they're going to see, well, if they watch season one, they're going to see a big improvement. **** - (): They're going to see improvement in a few ways. And I'd love to jump into that, but. To be direct to your question, um, that editing process is a dance and I have a principal editor, his name is Blake Campbell. He's been working with me for eight years. I mean, his sole income comes from me and has for many, many years. **** - (): And he is one of my key relationships that I carry within my company because, um, again, I call the editor the second director. I script ahead of time. I take a script after we've shot it, and our AEs will process everything we shot, which is a lot. I mean, I don't want to underestimate under, um, overstate this, but it's a lot of content around a hundred terabytes of footage we curated this season. **** - (): Um, and I take that pre script and I marry it to what the theoretical versus the actual, what we went in to shoot versus what we actually shot. And I reshape a script and I put that in front of my editor. And then somehow he always makes it better. Better than what I envisioned, better than what I direct in the field. **** - (): I mean, the sound design, the secret sauce of, you know, um, uh, trick editing and creating a visceral experience. And, you know, a lot of our style and a lot of the things that I think people will come to see. to know as our fingerprints as a company. Um, a lot of that has to do just with the consistency and you know, the, the, the experience that we have or that my editor has and spending time with me through the years and knowing, you know, kind of what I like. **** - (): And when I shoot something, I shot it specifically to be edited a certain way. And now I don't even have to communicate that to them. So I can't take credit for it. I am a editor on this series, but I am by no means the principal editor. I'm just the guy that comes in and messes his timelines up, and sometimes it's easier to just jump in there and tear up a timeline than it is to actually just write it out on paper and have someone else go in there and try to read your brain. **** - (): So read about it [00:14:32] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): to give the listener a little context for those of them who have not seen call of a lifetime series. One it's available freely on YouTube by the time this is broadcast season two will be available as well. What Shannon's been describing is not just a simple. Race storyline of a singular race, which may be a lot easier to tell. **** - (): We're talking about the entirety of the lifetime Grand Prix season. So whether you're talking about season one or season two, I'm just Shannon, Shannon curious, you've got a bunch of athletes in the lifetime Grand Prix, both on the male and female side, you've got. You know, the, the favorites, you've got the dark horses, but there's plenty of them to choose from. **** - (): How did you or, and or working with the lifetime team decide who to key in on? And you talked about having an idea of what that story arc might look like. How did you approach it at the beginning of the season and how did it evolve? And what were some of those monkey wrenches thrown into the plans? [00:15:36] - ():  Shannon Vandivier: Yeah. **** - (): Great question. Um, yeah, golly, you're gonna make me think. Um, okay. So to, to fully answer that question, season one, I had no idea what I was doing. I mean, It was the classic scenario where Lifetime saw my accolades and experience as a film director, knew that I could execute, signed a contract with me to go in based on a concept that I presented, which was modeled after Drive to Survive, the Formula One series. **** - (): Which really, I just saw as such a fascinating thing, like, blew my mind. I knew nothing about Formula One. I pressed episode one of that thing on Netflix when it first came out, and it instantly made me a fan of Formula One. And as a director, as a storyteller, I was, I had to dissect that. I was like, whoa, how did they brainwash me so quick? **** - (): And I realized that the way they, what they did, and the model that they set forth, which was ingenious, was, we're human beings. We first and foremost relate to other human beings. So before I needed to understand the formula of model, you know, the racing and the point structure and the courses and which events are more important than other events and the key players first, I had to fall in love with character. **** - (): I had to pick who my favorites were and they did such a good job doing that and pulling you into these characters, helping you understand what they're like, you know, what's at stake for them, what their goals are, what they have questions they're asking, you know, um, and that instantly grabbed me. And so I thought that's cool. **** - (): And then I thought bike racing is confusing and, oh my gosh, the Grand Prix, which is what the series is. Built around is an easy to follow series, limited races, invite only, cash prize, easy to follow point structure. Sweet. We have all the right ingredients and most importantly, good characters. Um, and so athletes are always good characters because athletes are passionate and they're driven and focused, you know, um, and they're mental. **** - (): Um, and, um, and so I thought, man, this is so cool. And so. Getting on back, getting back on track with your questions. Season one, I had no idea who to pick. I just started researching, started reading everything I could find. I started just at the advice of, um, Rebecca Sands and Michelle Duffy, um, and Ryan Cross, you know, who all work with Lifetime, um, and Kimo Seymour. **** - (): Um, they started telling me, I just asked a lot of questions. I took the list of all the athletes and I just thought, what's this person about? What's this person about? Who are they from? Where, you know, who are they? Where are they from? What's interesting about them? You know, what have they been through in life? **** - (): How did they get into racing? And so, man, season one was like this crash course in education. Um, and it really took me months to get educated on all of that. And. Somehow, in season one, we made mostly the right picks. I think we were like 7 for 10 out of men and women on who we filmed with and who ended up in the top 10. **** - (): This season, that was a lot because of these relationships. That's one of the coolest parts. What I'm most rewarded in, in creating the series, is It's a trust thing. I mean, to tell a person's story requires time, face to face time. Um, they need to trust me. They need to know they can be vulnerable with me, and I'm not going to betray that trust. **** - (): You know, if something happens, then I'm not going to throw them under the bus, you know? If it deviates from who their normal character is, what their normal persona is, if If they are naturally a bit of an against the grain person, then that's their character. That's journalistic to present them as who they are. **** - (): And if they say it on camera, and that's, and they're not afraid to shy away from that, then I will embrace that, you know? Um, and so I think that that's where interesting storytelling comes, because that's what makes this community unique. And so this year, our character selection was a heck of a lot more Experientially educated because I have relationship with the athletes. **** - (): I knew already who the returning athletes were and how good they were and what their strengths were. And then I really just had a light lift of researching the new athletes that were coming in. And a lot of us were asking the same questions. How's Matt Beers gonna do? You know, like, How is Danny? Who is Danny Shrosby? **** - (): Like, is a UK national champ someone to keep your eye on? Turns out she's really powerful. You know, um, you know, you got Brendan Johnson. I mean, what a cool story. Like, man, he's one of my favorite storylines this year. I had so much fun spending all year long with him and having all these touch points and staying in constant communication and I can say right now, like he's a friend and I love that and I love that. **** - (): I have that relationship with him because I'm rooting for him in many ways. You know, it's weird because I'm rooting for all of them anyways, because all of their stories mean something. It means something to the community that knows them, that surrounds them because there's not one of these athletes that isn't inspiring. **** - (): And that's the coolest part, right? Right. Um, can't go to an NFL game and go jump on the field and hang out with the players and run your own drills. You know, you can't do that in basketball. You can't do that in golf. You can't do that really in anything except for cycling. You know, I mean, maybe I can't say that, right? **** - (): Like maybe there's another one out there that you, this is runs a similar example, but that's the cool part about off road cycling is that these are mass participation events. Everyone gets to line up on the same day together with these athletes and then, um, so yeah, anyways, I think I just like really ramped into my own excited digression from that question you asked, but yeah, that's, that's [00:21:30] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): what we're all about, Shannon, happy, happy to have you. **** - (): I [00:21:33] - ():  Shannon Vandivier: picked the athletes based off of who I thought was a really interesting person who I, when I scrolled through their Instagram, you know, was it just bikes? Was it just all bikes? Was, are they just nerding out in a bike park? Maybe that's the character I'm looking for. It's like, who's the nerdiest bike people? **** - (): But then you got characters like Anna Yamauchi. Like, go scroll her Instagram. She's cool. She surfs. She bikes, you know. She's like always like, you know, in a van somewhere, you know, like, uh, Christopher Blevins, her boyfriend is also just like a really cool guy to follow on Instagram. And so it got me excited. **** - (): I was like, you know, I don't know how she's going to do as a racer, but that doesn't matter. Because she's coming in on the back foot. She's coming in as a total green racer. She has never done a race series before. She's really very new to racing. And so she's got a lot to learn. And I love that perspective. **** - (): I love that perspective of someone coming in that really, you have no idea how they're going to do. They don't have experience. They need to see the series with fresh eyes, which is an important perspective. Again, For those people who don't know much about racing. And so, you know, my selection of characters was strategic and it was about how I want to continue to evolve the story and, you know, who's got a story to tell and who's good on camera, you know, like that's also a thing. **** - (): Like if you're awkward on camera, that doesn't make good storytelling. So, you know, like those are real investments. There's, I can't name any names, but. There's times when you invest time you have your crew get with people and film with them and you walk away thinking like, yeah, I don't think it even does them justice to use. **** - (): Yeah, that's okay. You know, that's okay. You mentioned [00:23:16] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): that that trust that trust required to have a real authentic conversation and representation of the people you're filming. Do you feel like. You know, going into year two, because of the efforts in year one, that it was easier to kind of get embraced by the newer characters and the newer people you were working with. [00:23:35] - ():  Shannon Vandivier: Oh, my gosh. I mean, without a doubt, year one, we were trying to convince people like, Hey, this is gonna be cool. Yeah, we had season one, they already knew it was cool. They all love it, right? Like, maybe not all of them, you know, like, depending on who you are. And I think the reality is, is, Is we didn't have to prove ourselves. **** - (): We didn't coming into walking into season two, people, people realize that this vision that we have with the series is about truly just building fandom. Just honestly, it was just like, what better way to say it? Like we want to make off road racers famous. Like we want people to know how cool they are and what, how much they sacrifice to do this thing that they do and how impressive it is. **** - (): Um, and the world should see that and be inspired by it. And so that was the objective. That was the goal in season one. And we had to have a lot of conversations with athletes. Like literally like Pacey McKelvin was having to text Keegan for me and be like, dude, Shannon's cool, like. I think you're going to like this project like you should just sit down and have an interview with them and you know, and then walking into season two, you know, I'm, I'm calling Keegan. **** - (): I'm like, Hey, man, when can I get on your schedule? And usually he's like, cool. Anytime that's not before the race focus. I respect it. Um, he manages time so well, which again, it's Why he performed so well. And I think that was an interesting learning experience this year is, is really getting to see Keegan's dominance and as a character, see that evolve. **** - (): And then how that pairs to what I'm learning about him behind the scenes. Um, and, and how that's a testament to, you know, how to be successful. And so. Yeah, season two is, I mean, here's a spoiler, average length of these episodes is like 35 minutes. I mean, some episodes are 45 minutes long. Wow. Last year, I think some of the longest ones were like 22, 25 minutes long. **** - (): And that is a testament to people giving us time, to good story. It's also a testament to the hardest nut I've ever had to crack. In filmmaking in my career, hands down is how to film off road racing. That is a challenging thing to do. It takes a lot. I have a [00:25:50] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): bunch of, I have a bunch of questions on that front. **** - (): Yeah. Before we jump into the technical part of filming off road racing, I'm curious, like you, you said you, you go in and you choose a selection of athletes to work with. And I imagine, you know, we don't know when you start filming, you don't know if someone's going to have an injury. Someone's going to drop out of the series or, you know, something unexpected has happened. **** - (): Do you go in with ten athletes knowing you probably only have eight storylines you can tell and certain ones end up on the cutting room floor and don't end up making an appearance in the series? [00:26:28] - ():  Shannon Vandivier: Yeah, no, I mean, it's a good question. No, I don't think anyone spent time with us and did not make the cutting room floor. **** - (): Period. Uh, however, there are certainly investments you make on the front end of a season, hoping someone might do better, but if they're not performing and. They don't necessarily have some compelling aspect of the story that keeps you really interested. Um, then you might see them fall off in the series, you know, [00:26:55] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): that's normal. **** - (): Yeah, conversely, I imagine you might have a character, I keep saying character, but an athlete who starts excelling later in the season. And you didn't really think that you would be following her throughout the year as closely, but it's clear they're doing exceptional things in the [00:27:13] - ():  Shannon Vandivier: series. I mean, last year, Haley Smith, she wasn't on our radar until I think I interviewed her after the race at Crusher and the Tusher last year. **** - (): I mean, that's a long way into the season. I mean, I was like, man, who is Haley? You know, again, I just didn't know what I was doing. She wasn't on my radar. No one put her on my radar, but like when you look at her on paper. I, she should have been on my radar from the get go, but the reality is, is she had a strategy to her season. **** - (): She was gonna, she didn't want to burn herself out too quick. She wanted to be peaking, which is a strategy, right? To be peaking on the back end of such a long season. So, last season, The female champion, right? Of the, the, the number one spot of lifetime Grand Prix. We didn't even know about her until Crusher. **** - (): We didn't even recognize who she was or how, how impressive of an effort she was putting down until then. So, um, this year, I can't say that that happened to us. We got lucky, you know, in that sense. I think I was hopeful. I was hopeful some of my, the dark horses like Matt Beers would have showed up a little bit more. **** - (): Um, honestly, I think that I really wanted, I want to see Keegan lose. Like I do, you know, like I want to see him lose. Not because I don't like Keegan, but because like. Dang, like that dude ran and ran and kept running and just ran away with the series and which in itself Became a really important part of the story this season But I would love to see someone challenge him. **** - (): I would love to see that right dethrone Keegan like dude, that's gonna be a cool storyline when someone actually shows up to do that I think Keegan wants that too, by the way You know, like Sophia as well. Like I think they're there to race and when they actually have something to race for, when they have someone really pushing them to their limits, um, that's when you get stronger and that's when you really understand who you are. **** - (): And so, yeah, I think, um. Yeah, I don't know. I could, I could, you want to keep going. I can keep talking, you know, like, dude, uh, my brain is hit on some of these topics because I mean, I've literally analyzed these writers, these scenarios, these dynamics, every possible way that I feel like I can't. And so coolest and most inspiring part of it, all of it is just simply the fact that, you know, um. **** - (): What's happening in North America is so unique and so special. And yeah, the fact that those international athletes, although I wish they would have performed a little bit better, some of them, you know, some of them performed great and really kind of figured out where they were in the pecking order here. **** - (): And I think it's really cool. All of them are coming back next season. Yeah. [00:29:56] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): I think clearly like a bunch of them figured out what it's like being in the U. S. this long or doing, you know, how to handle coming back and forth to their home country and back to the U. S. So yeah, I'd like to think in 2024, some of them are a little bit better prepared to be super competitive and that'll be exciting for all us fans. [00:30:15] - ():  Shannon Vandivier: Yeah, Matt Beers said it best. We were doing an interview at Big Sugar and he goes, I can't do a South American or South American, South African accent. Um, it'll probably come off as like a leprechaun or Australian, but he says, you know, I've cracked the American code. He's like, I figured it out. I'm coming back next season. **** - (): And the American code is altitude. And he's like, and I'm coming back and people better watch out. So I think he's like, he's, he thinks there's an American code and he's just spent the season sussing it out and figuring it out. And now he's going to come back this next season, um, with a different or better training plan. **** - (): So yeah, I love it. Which is cool. You know, [00:30:55] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): you had mentioned something earlier and it might've been before we started recording just about sort of the challenge of creating a series after we know the results already. How do you think about that? I mean, obviously there's such an infusion of the personal storylines that's a huge bonus that we don't get throughout the year as race fans following these races on social media. **** - (): So how do you think about, you know, the fact that the results are known and you're still, you know, building a story narrative about the season? Hmm. [00:31:29] - ():  Shannon Vandivier: Okay. Um, did you, did you follow any of the racing this year? Mm hmm. Yeah. Do you get a tingly, like overwhelming sensation and a grin on your face when you saw who got first or second, say at Leadville? **** - (): Yeah, a hundred percent. Right. Do you think when I frame this thing up around a story that shows you inside that writer's face, what he's feeling emotionally or what she's feeling emotionally and everything that In the immediate past and also the distant past that she's had to put in to get to that moment, that maybe that tingly sensation and the way you experience that race will be even that much more elevated. [00:32:14] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): Yeah, a 100 percent Shannon and I like [00:32:16] - ():  Shannon Vandivier: that. Right? It's like, I'm thinking about how, like, the reality is, it's like. Man, I, I don't remember. I, I watched Formula One, I guess, but sometimes I've forgotten one. But like, the reality is, is like, the episodes aren't about the race, really. You know, like That's funny, I don't Which I don't think is a [00:32:35] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): vector. **** - (): I love that series as well, and I've never watched A Formula one race in that season. My entire experience is like a year removed because I just watch it during that Netflix series. [00:32:47] - ():  Shannon Vandivier: Totally. Right. And so I think that like, to me, I think there's a cool thing, right? Like if you're a hardcore, like Grand Prix or just off road cycling fan and you follow everything. **** - (): Um, I think you're gonna have watched the race in real time and understood the value, the importance, the significance of who won or, you know, the characters involved, the racers involved, and why it's a big deal that they won. But when you get a chance to watch our series and you get a chance to like really see behind the scenes, you know, like we're in their homes with them, you know, like we are, um, We are showing a layer of vulnerability that you actually haven't ever seen before. **** - (): I mean, there's never been put out there on these particular, you know, people. Um, and so I think how I've approached the creative on this is to not even think about the fact that, you know, the results are out there because it's about the layers. You've seen the one, the layer of them crossing the finish line or the footage of them racing that race. **** - (): But. I've got five more layers to peel back for you, and I'm going to connect some dots for you, and I'm going to show the interpersonal relationships between the women and between the men, you know, and sometimes in some cases between the women and the men, you know, because the men's races often can impact the women's races, you know, that's a challenge. **** - (): That's another way that lifetime is looking to continue to evolve, and they want You know, as this thing that's happening in North America right now, you know, it's, the evolution is going to come at the pressure, the ideas, the sentiment of all of us, you know, or all the, the key components of all the racers, the mass participants, as well as the pointy end of the spear, you know, as well as these athletes who are way out front and who are only making this faster and faster and faster. **** - (): And so the rules will change a little bit. They're already changing a little bit, you know. It's cool to see, you know, how the women feel you heard it when you were watching the race unbound, you heard women have their own start. And maybe you saw an interview too, about a woman saying, Hey, this is really cool. **** - (): We're really excited for this, but I unpacked. The shit out of that, like, like in there, like, I really wanted to understand from the most core credible writers, why is that a big deal? How does that actually change the dynamic dynamic of your race? Like, um, how was it safer? Like, what does that mean to you? **** - (): Like what happened to you last year versus what is going to happen to you this year? You know? I think there's a lot of examples like that. Storylines that just really, I think will, will come to life. And I think you're going to see. What's currently like, I don't know, as an analogy, two dimensional, you're going to see three dimensional, right? **** - (): You're going to see these storylines and these races and what's going on. And, you know, these athletes right now, as we speak are, are already getting in five to eight hour rides. You know, like if you're following them on social media, they're already training, you know, like a month off. Like that was their off season. **** - (): They went to Mexico, had a margarita and now they're like. Already binge eating carbs and like, you know, crushing crazy miles. And all they're thinking about is like Mid South, you know? And then after that, it's BWR. And then it's like, it's just months away. And so, you know, like those are the stories and that's the layer that I'm excited to show is just really. **** - (): The sheer amount of dedication and that goes, yeah, [00:36:20] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): it's been super interesting getting to know some of these athletes through your eyes and through your storytelling. I definitely for myself became more of a fan of certain athletes and less of a fan of others, which was super interesting. I think the other thing not to be discounted, and maybe this is a good segue into the technical challenges of filming these events was, you know, you have the best equipment to film these. **** - (): Racing environments. So if you're looking to see what is the gravel feel like in Bentonville, your camera footage and the equipment you have on in the field gives you that feel, which I love because I'm I've always been about exploring. The different types of gravel in the U. S. and what the experience is like and trying to extract that from race organizers. **** - (): So I definitely appreciate that thread. For the listener to just think about before you answer this question, we're talking about mountain bike racing at Sea Otter on single track. How do you get in there? We're talking about cruising 200 miles across Kansas where Coverage is difficult. The terrain is difficult. **** - (): We're, you know, in Bentonville, we've got all these different locations. Schwamigan, for God's sake, I don't know how you get any footage there. So, talk about, and maybe you can juxtapose Season 1 to Season 2, how do you get out there in the field? How do you get these shots that make us feel like we're part of the race? **** - (): Man, [00:37:47] - ():  Shannon Vandivier: you know, golly, what a question. Here's the thing, man, is like, it's been trial by fire. It's really what it's been. It's been a lot of mistakes made. It's been a lot of hard lessons. It's been a lot of adapting. I mean, the IQ that we've accumulated at this point is extremely valuable to me, to my team. **** - (): You know, like, I don't know, like, I think the reality is, is. Anyone outside of my team probably doesn't even really see it. You can hear my words that I'm about to speak right now, but the reality is, is everything I'm about to say has come at the cost of a lot of brainpower, a lot of thinking. I mean, the softness of the gravel, how much dust. **** - (): That it's composed of, how sharp it is, how far that we're going, how much potential mud is on the course. If it's too dry, what's that going to do to the race and how we cover it. If it's too wet, what's that going to do the race and how we cover it. I mean, compare and contrast big sugar to unbound this year, you know, like moon dust versus the thickest, stickiest mud that you can find. **** - (): I mean, the type of mud that buries you down to your axles and stops if you do it the wrong way. And so. Um, you know, Schwamigan, oh my gosh, Schwamigan, Schwamigan's hard, Schwamigan's scary, Schwamigan's so fast and covering Schwamigan is really tough. So, all right, let me break this down for you. Every race has a characteristic. **** - (): And the first thing I'm asking myself is how much of it is two track versus single track. Single track obviously is the hardest thing to cover. Um, you know. The, the way you cover it has a lot to do with how often and what the shape of the course is. Where can I create cutoff points? How can I leapfrog riders? **** - (): Uh, we're using e bikes a lot at Sea Otter. That's a huge characteristic of Sea Otter is getting out there on e bikes. And so we'll go cover, honestly, 40 miles in a race ourselves on e bikes with. Camera backpacks on, drone strapped to them. And I've got a team of seven people just on e bikes out there mobbing around and doing what they got to do. **** - (): On top of that, we find the access points where I can get a vehicle out there. I can get bounce around. That's another unit. That's another crew. You know, a helicopter is a wonderful tool. And we didn't have that at Sea Otter this year, but certainly is in the conversation right now for this next year. I think helicopter obviously is the best way. **** - (): And I'm so grateful to Lifetime for their continued vision and investment into the tools needed to be successful. And that's been a part of the learning process and, you know, like any wonderful. Client, you always go over budget on these things and they haven't murdered me yet. And so I just can't thank them enough for that. **** - (): Um, and so, you know, the reality is, is it's all in the effort to just produce, produce the highest quality content that you can. Um, but. You can't have one thing if your content is all statics of a rider swiping by, or it's all constant tracking motion, you know, or it's all from a helicopter, then it's one dimensional, you need all of it. **** - (): And that in itself is the inherent challenge to make it cinematic, really particular about the quality of my, if I put my name to it, I want it to be the best, you know, and that's something that cinematography is incredibly important to me. Um. Probably borderline OCD on that. And so I think that that is a huge weight that I put on myself and my team to make sure that we execute. **** - (): And tools of, of the trade, um, help a lot, but again, diversity is key. And so you need a mix of all of it. And so you need to. I mean, our strategy plans probably look pretty similar to like what it looks like for like a Navy SEAL team or Marine team when they're like planning a siege on a city, you know, we've got maps out and I've got, you know, upwards of 15 people in a room sitting there and I'm, I've got code names for the units. **** - (): I'm like, all right, unit a unit B unit. C unit D, here's what you're doing. You're going to leapfrog you unit, um, be here. And then you're going to pivot over to the Eagle's nest. You know, like we've broken down the course into its variable carrier characteristics, especially as we've defined the course. I mean, that's one of the most valuable IQs that I currently hold is like. **** - (): Say another team is to walk in after us and try to execute the same project. I know almost every corner of every turn of every course, you know, like that in itself is an investment of time. It's an IQ and in doing so you can actually, we've got to a point where we understand the dynamics of the race. **** - (): And part of that is the strategy of the racer. I know when, I can predict when someone's going to attack, and it's based on the terrain. It's based on where they're at psychologically, at what point in the race, and how they need to separate, create separations in the field. Yeah, yeah. First 25 percent of the race, you can. **** - (): You can count on selection one happening 100 percent like that's intentional, that's strategic. They need to blow the field up as soon as they can. Once you're, you have your, your lead in your chase group, um, then it becomes, um, then it becomes an interesting dynamic of. Using key features on the course to start weeding guys out. **** - (): So you'll see attacks happen on hills. You'll see Keegan and Finstie try to blow Cole up, you know, and he'll be a cockroach. He'll keep coming back, you know, and they'll keep trying to blow him up. They did that at Sea Otter this year, you know, he kept showing back up. He kept showing back up all the way up until. **** - (): Um, that, that, uh, that final climb and, um, that final climb is certainly, um, where Keegan and Fenstein finally got that separation from them. But until then they were using the landscape and they were strategically using, um, the, the pack dynamics to To create certain scenarios. And so we can use that to our advantage. **** - (): And when we have that IQ and we understand the essence of, of racing and my whole team understands that my whole team has experienced at this point, then you're successful. And that's what we figured out this year. I mean, [00:44:06] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): That's the gold for us fans when we're watching this. If we can actually see that moment where the elastic is stretched to the end and it bursts and see and feel that emotion, like that's the moment that we all want to be in. **** - (): That's so difficult to capture in off road [00:44:21] - ():  Shannon Vandivier: racing. Well, to predict where it's going to happen, right. And I'm not saying I'm a hundred percent, but every race we were there, you know, every race at those moments, you know, when someone drops out of the race, you know, Alexis Skarda, like one of my favorite people, um, in the series, honestly, cause she's so, she's a very intense, like she's a really laid back person, actually, which is funny, but when she races, like she puts her eyes on and like, man, that girl, like, look, I get out of her way. **** - (): She's. She's a killer. Um, and so like seeing that point where she actually had to drop out of Unbound, it was actually a really sad moment for, for those of us who were rooting for her, you know, but to be able to capture that, to be able to tell that part of the story and to see where she, um, she actually had to To fall off of Sophia, um, was, was hard. **** - (): Um, and so, you know, like, capturing that, I think as a fan, I think you're going to really be able to relate to the sheer effort that goes into these things, and the psychological warfare that is going on between riders, but also the hardest person there is to race is yourself. Yeah. So, capturing [00:45:29] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): those moments. **** - (): Having spent Yeah. Having spent so much time thinking about these series the last couple of years and becoming a true fan yourself, is there a single race that you'd call your favorite? [00:45:42] - ():  Shannon Vandivier: Hmm. That's a great question. I like Unbound the most, a hundred percent. I think Unbound is interesting because you just don't know what's going to happen. **** - (): Um, it's a really fun race to film be in the, in the sense that we actually logistically, it's one of our, our, it has the fewest amount of logistics. Um, because it's just 200 miles of gravel road. So our vehicles, we can do a lot of leapfrogging. So our coverage is really good. So our storytelling is really good. **** - (): It's really dialed. And you know, this year I'm looking at the nuance. I'm looking at the nuance of who's pulling and who's not pulling. You know, last year I didn't know about pulling and I didn't know about, you know, like everyone doing their work. And so this season being able to just watch the strategy and on the men's side, it was like so crazy inspirational because you had seven guys. **** - (): That, like, basically, once you got through the mud, worked together, truly together. Nobody, nobody sat on the wheel at all. Everyone worked together, like, it was kind of crazy because it came down to a sprint at the end and it's just, like, didn't seem right. You know, like, Pete Stettin, I think, was seven out of the seven guys. **** - (): But, like, man. You're talking about seconds, you know, you're talking about him putting in so much work. And if you look at the year before he got, I think eight, but it was a way different race, you know, like amount of effort. I don't think his result actually justified the effort that he put into it. But yeah, it's because they all work together that they all got through it. **** - (): And so it was really cool, which might change people's strategy. A guy like Pete next year might be like, forget this. Like I'm a, I'm actually going to be bolder and blow the steel, blow the screw up, you know, and try to actually make a flyer happen or convince three guys to fly off with me sooner so that we know it doesn't come down to seven of us trying to sprint each other, you know, like, so I think Unbound, I think is. **** - (): I like it because there's a lot of strategy involved, you know, single track mountain bike racing is heavily dependent on skillset, which I'm a mountain biker predominantly. And, and I get that and I think that's really cool. I like filming mountain biking a lot because it's really dynamic and fast and windy and like you have the trees and like when you see our cinematography this year at sea otter, I think you'll be really excited. **** - (): We made it pretty, um, it is pretty. And so, um, but. But gravel racing is like this beautiful blend between mountain biking and road racing where you actually have, you don't have teams necessarily, but man, it's so cool to see these pack dynamics form and then to see the respect or disrespect they built for each other. **** - (): And so, um, it's like last season in season one, I believe it was Ivar who, I mean, we. We filmed it. He sat on that wheel a lot. He was the most well rested going into that sprint. There's no question about it. You know, like the thing it was talked about, he won, you know, that's a strategy. It's not how you become popular, but it's certainly a, an opportunity to win. **** - (): And so, you know, that's a strategy and you might, you know, you, you might need to be a bit of the match, you know, like to actually win some of these races. And [00:48:50] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): so, yeah, you can't get away with it too often. But, you know, you got, probably got one big one in you where you can sit in, people don't know you. [00:48:59] - ():  Shannon Vandivier: Yeah. Yeah. How many times do you have to win, uh, Unbound to secure a couple of years worth of sponsorships though? You know? So, [00:49:05] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Thanks for all the time, Shannon. This was super exciting to get the behind the scenes. Clearly, you guys put so much work and effort into it, you and the Lifetime team. **** - (): I'm super excited by the time this airs, I'll probably have binge watched the entire season two and I encourage everybody out to go out on, uh, it's on Lifetime's YouTube channel to find the [00:49:28] - ():  Shannon Vandivier: content. Right? Yeah. You can find it, um, on Lifetime's YouTube channel on their social media pages. You can certainly come follow me at Shannon Vandiver or my company at Code Collaborative. **** - (): Um, and you'll find all sorts of fun stuff there, but. Thank y'all. We really, I really hope you enjoy it. I really hope that you fall in love with the characters. And again, the goal at the end of all of this is just celebrate, um, getting outside and being healthier. And, you know, we want to harbor on just how inspirational these athletes are. **** - (): And so you can expect to be inspired. If you want to get inspired, check out this series, because these athletes have inspired me for sure. [00:50:07] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): Yeah. Fantastic. Thanks, Shannon. Thanks, [00:50:10] - ():  Shannon Vandivier: dude.      

Erwin Verveken, former professional cyclocross rider and organizer of the UCI World Gravel Championships, discusses the history and growth of the UCI Gravel Series. He explains how the series was created to provide a more diverse and competitive experience for riders, and how it has quickly gained popularity and attracted top riders from around the world. Erwin also shares insights into the qualification process, the different types of gravel courses, and the future of gravel racing. Episode sponsor: Dynamic Cyclist (TheGravelRide for 15% off) Support the Podcast Join The Ridership  Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: Key Takeaways: The UCI Gravel Series was created to provide a more diverse and competitive experience for riders, with a variety of courses and race formats. The series has quickly grown in popularity, attracting top riders from around the world and expanding to include more events each year. Gravel racing is a unique blend of road racing and off-road riding, with courses that can vary in technicality and terrain. The UCI Gravel World Championships allows both elite riders and amateurs to compete together, creating a unique and inclusive racing experience. The series is constantly evolving, with new events being added each year and plans to expand to more countries in the future. [TRANSCRIPT] [00:00:00] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): Erwin, welcome to the show. [00:00:02] - ():  Erwin Verveken: Thank you. Thank you. It's a pleasure of being here. [00:00:06] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): I'm excited to talk to you and learn more about the UCI World Gravel Championships and a little bit of the history there. But as always, I'd just love to start out with learning a little bit about you. I know you've got a, a strong history in the sport of cycling. So just a quick overview of how you got involved in the sport. **** - (): And then let's talk about how you got involved in. Kind of the event organizing side of the sport with UCI. [00:00:29] - ():  Erwin Verveken: Yeah. So I, I've been a pro rather mainly in cyclocross, uh, from 1995 till 2010. So a 16 year career in cyclocross, uh, uh, from the age of 22 to 38. And then when I retired from cycling in 2010, I started to work as a cyclocross and also a bit of model by coordinator at a lot. So lots of is a Belgian sports marketing company. **** - (): Um, uh, at that time we were, I wouldn't say small, but yeah, it's, it's, it's grown a lot in, in the last, uh, 15 years. Um, and so initially I was only doing. Cyclocross, uh, in winter and mountain bike in summer. And then gradually, uh, I got other projects and in 2011, we started to talk to the, to the UCI to, uh, well, to reform a bit, the, the masters road world championships. **** - (): So, um, yeah, everybody knows Ironman, Ironman, uh, and triathlon. You have to. Qualify somewhere in an arm and worldwide, uh, to get your ticket for the World Championships and, uh, well, the, the, the road Masters World Championships, uh, at the UCI, they were always organized in the same city in, in the same period for, for 20 years in Austria, uh, and there were some complaints of course, because the, the, yeah, always the same course, uh, the same type of riders, um, yeah, World Championships should move, uh, uh, you know, One day it should be a flat and fast race and then a race for climbers or for classical riders. **** - (): So we came with a proposal to reform it like in Ironman with the qualifier series, uh, which, which started in 2011 with seven qualifier events and then a world championships. And well, it moved from seven the next year to 20. And yeah, now for next year, it's. events. It's the biggest series we've ever had. **** - (): 2024. I mean, [00:02:26] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): curious, Erwin, when, when you expanded the qualification, the number of qualification races, did you end up expanding the number of athletes that could actually compete in the world championships for the masters? [00:02:38] - ():  Erwin Verveken: Yeah. Uh, so it has always been 25 percent per age group will qualify for the world championships. And so the results are major made up per age group. Um, and, and, uh, yeah. So from that, uh, point, uh, Uh, yeah. First year I think we had 700 drivers at the world championships. Uh, and then it grew to over a thousand thousands, 500, 2000. **** - (): And in the last few years, we are in between two and a half and 3000, which is still okay. Uh, one year we decided to lower the percentage of qualified rider from 25 to 20 because of safety. Uh, we, we got 3000 riders at the start of, uh. Of one single event on a day, uh, so the Grand Fonda World Championships, but then it was, uh, yeah, 2020, the COVID year, so, and, and, and afterwards, uh, yeah, it took some time for riders to start traveling again. **** - (): So we, we went back to 25%. And in that idea in 2019 at the end of the season in a debriefing with UCI, we proposed also to make up a similar series of gravel events. Gravel is big in the States. I think the first real gravel events date from 2005, 2006 or so. Um, and they, yeah, we saw in Europe and other continents, but mainly Europe, um, gravel has always been Uh, a bit more recreational, um, never competitive. **** - (): Um, and it's only, let's say the last five years that there's really competitive parallel events. Um, so, so yeah, and at the end of 2019, we proposed. A similar setup with the qualifier series, uh, leading up to a yearly world championships. Uh, which then, well, got postponed in 2020, 2021 because of COVID. Uh, so the, the, the first season was 2022 with 11 qualifier events. **** - (): Uh, and this year already 18. And next year 25. So yeah, it's growing very fast and especially the number of participants is growing very very fast. So um And and the big difference is in gravel in the gravel world cheers and also the gravel world championships also elite riders can participate. So Where the, the ground from the world series is mainly for masters and amateurs. **** - (): Uh, the gravel world series and the gravel world championships is, is for everybody. Uh, but still in the same concept where. In front there is a real battle amongst the best elite riders but in the back you as a recreational rider, you can also participate and if you're really fit and Keen and and also for the masters at a later age You can still qualify for the world championships and also right there together with well this year what for not more each? **** - (): Following they were all at the start So yeah, I can imagine if you if you start in the back end and you're just five minutes behind these riders Uh, at the start, uh, that it's an amazing feeling to, to be in the same race with all those top stars. [00:05:47] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): Yeah, yeah, that's I remember speaking to Bruce from the Highland Gravel Classic in Arkansas, who's the the one US gravel race that's part of the UCI series this year and the coming year in 2024. And I remember walking away from that conversation with that same feeling that Despite what some people in the United States may think about, you know, high performance gravel racing, and as it may detour from their vision of a community style gravel race as people who are around the sport and like other aspects of the sport, just being able to line up at a, at a UCI event with the names you just mentioned would be a thrill of a lifetime. [00:06:27] - ():  Erwin Verveken: Yeah. I think so. Um, of course, gravel in the States, uh, is, is, is much older and has much more tradition and, uh, your biggest events are, are still bigger than, than the UCI events. Uh, our biggest event this year was 1700 and probably next year we will go over 2000, but yeah, if you speak about the real classics, uh, unbound and, and, and, and, well, you have several of them. **** - (): They are more than double than our biggest race at the moment, but I think we still have potential to grow. Um, I see that, um, what, what really excites me is that after all these events and especially after the world championships, you all, you hear all these top stars telling, Hey, this was fun, huh? Wout van Aert had big trouble, a flat tire, a crash at the world championships, but he still continued because he liked it so much. **** - (): And he yeah. Enjoyed. Riding a gravel race. So yeah, he is, by the way, my neighbor because he's living in the same city as me even. Well, if you count in miles like you do in the States, it's a bit more than a mile from where I live. And he called me and told, Hey, I want to do a UCI gravel race because I want to do the world championships this year. **** - (): So all of a sudden he was there at the Belgian qualifier event in August and then six weeks later at the world championships and he really enjoyed it. So And that's the good thing. They are pure ambassadors, not only for cycling sports in general, but also for gravel because, uh, they have a lot of fun. **** - (): Um, Valverde was there, Moritz, he said, well, it's my first gravel race I ever did, world championships. I always liked. Going off road, uh, mountain bike, but in gravel there's much more speed, it's much more fun. And, and yeah, I want to do this more next year, especially because of course he's wearing the nice rainbow jersey. [00:08:26] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): That's right. Yeah. I think it's going to be interesting to see how within the European Peloton, if it follows the U S. You know, in, in the early days of gravel as professional athletes started moving over like Ted King, for example, would dabble in it. And then I think he told some of his ex pro tour friends that, Hey, this is fun. **** - (): Plus you started to see them being able to make a career out of it. And obviously the likes of Wout van Aert is not going to leave the pro tour anytime soon, but it is interesting to think about. Riders who are later in their career, who still have power in their legs and enthusiasm in their heart to start seeing European gravel racing as a way to extend their career in a way that maybe gives them a little bit more joy than they had racing in the pro peloton after all those [00:09:16] - ():  Erwin Verveken: Yeah. No, for sure. Um, I think there are two types of writers. You have the real top stars, like Rod van Aert, like Moritz and Demi Vollering. And I'm sure they will probably do one or two events a year when it fits in their program. But their focus will never be on gravel, uh, during the season, but well, the position of the gravel world championships at the end of the road season, uh, is ideal for them to end their season. **** - (): And I'm sure that, uh, one day, uh, probably also, uh, Pogacar will be there. He was already there at the first world championships last year. but wasn't allowed from his team to take part, but he was in the, in the VIP area at the finish line. The day after he won the Tour of Lombardia, so the last classic of the season, it was on Saturday and the gravel world championships were, well, nearby. **** - (): It's only a hundred kilometer away. So, and he really enjoyed it and he said, well, I want to do this race. But, yeah, it's still, um, there's still like the feeling of, okay, this is a dangerous sport, uh, uh, you can crash, you can, yeah, whatever, and it can jeopardize your next season, but as it's at the end of the season, I don't see really a point, uh, you see some, some crashes and, and, um, Yeah, that's, that's probably part of gravel, but it's not like a major crash. **** - (): It's always in small groups. Uh, gravel is, is, is not to be compared with, with mountain bike or cyclocross. It's a, it's, it's an off road discipline, but the type of event is much more road race. Um, and that's what we also also see in the last two years. I'm having my background in cyclocross and cyclocross is very big in Belgium, but the real gravel, I know the real cyclocross specialists, like the ones who do the full season of cyclocross. **** - (): Uh, and not focus on the road. Yeah. They usually, by the end of the race, the last hour, they, they, they lose contact with the, with, with, with the, the road is, um, uh, gravel is much more a road race than it will ever be, a cyclocross or a mountain bike. It's not technical at all. Um, and, and yeah, in my opinion, it's, it's, it's for the pure. **** - (): Road specialists from the, from the spring classic said that the ones who like, uh, party rebel, we're like tour of Flanders, uh, those type of guys. They are the ones who are the real gravel specialists. [00:11:41] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): Yeah. I think that makes sense. I think one thing that we've learned in racing gravel over these years is that anything can happen and it's your ability as a rider to deal with unpredictable situations. And to your point as a cyclocross racer. Every lap, there's an unpredictable situation that you have to deal with and you have to deal with nursing your bike and not being too hard on the equipment. **** - (): And there's certainly no, you know, there's no team car following you very quickly. Although in cyclocross, you can swap [00:12:09] - ():  Erwin Verveken: Yeah. You can switch bikes two times a lap. Um, and, and you can have it cleaned and everything. So, um, no, that's, that's, I think it makes. It's part of the story why it's, it's so popular because, uh, he lost 10 minutes at the world championships, but he still continued. And it's more like the epic, right? **** - (): Like you see in, uh, in Paris, uh, it's, it's kind of a survival race. Um, even though you have a lot of bad luck in the beginning, the race is never over. You can still continue. You can still make up and, and, and, uh, close gaps. And so. That feeling of, of, of, of like a real epic race in, in epic circumstances. At this moment, we, we had to ice the world championships in dry, in dry circumstances, but yeah, one day we'll also have them in, uh, in very wet circumstances, like you had, uh, I think unbound was this year in very muddy conditions. **** - (): So, and that will make it very epic. Uh, but to me it's, it's yeah, if you compare it with European. Cycling it's, it's, it's, it's, it's much more a copy of, uh, what Paris Roubaix is every year. [00:13:24] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): Yeah, yeah, I was going to ask you to the extent in which you, you were there and understand the run up when that first world championships event happened in the qualifiers. How are you thinking about the criteria for the course and course construction? Were there some constraints that the UCI put on the event to make it in the mold of what they were expecting? [00:13:47] - ():  Erwin Verveken: Well, the first year, first of all, um, because of COVID and, and, and yeah. Let's say COVID ended, but, uh, yeah, everybody was still afraid to set up a new event and even the World Championships, uh, beginning of 2022. We had a few candidates, uh, to run the World Championships, but, uh, one after another, they decided, okay, maybe it's too early. **** - (): Let's skip 2022, but we'll focus on 2023 or 2024. Um, So we found an organizer rather late in Italy, so Filippo Pozzato, the ex pro rider. He did a good job because it was like on a short period. He had to prepare the World Championships, but the World Championships were not the typical gravel race. I know from from this doing this series for sure. **** - (): Not the typical gravel race you have in the States. It was like a 50 50 road gravel race and even the gravel was like, yeah, it was flat. It was Um, yeah, to me a bit too much of a road race. Um, um, um, but yeah, it was all last minute. I think that the, uh, the organizer was awarded two months prior to the race. **** - (): Uh, then yeah, the full process of having courses approved, having them checked and then getting the necessary approvals from the different towns. Yeah, it took some time and there was not really. to, to, to, to make an update, um, um, which was done this year, this year. Uh, we had to switch organizer and it was also, uh, only, only two months before the world championships, but the course, which was presented was much better than the first edition, uh, in percentage was more off road, more gravel, but also much more exciting, uh, flats, uh, yeah. **** - (): Paved sections in between, but also a lot of elevation, um, and a very beautiful course, I think very different from what you have in the States. Um, if, if I see the images and the, and the videos from, from Unbound and the American races, yeah, they are. Even more road racing, uh, on gravel roads, um, yeah, in percentage, much more gravel roads, but it's less technical than what we see as gravel events in mainly Europe, which are, um, I wouldn't say they are not more towards mountain bike for sure or not, but they are, um, not wide open big boulevards where you can ride the truck. **** - (): Uh, it's always a smaller, uh, Uh, yeah, forest roads, farm roads. Um, it's, it's more technical. [00:16:38] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think there's a wide diversity of gravel racing in the United States. Obviously, to your point, the Unbound may be on sort of dirt roads [00:16:48] - ():  Erwin Verveken: Yeah. And that's maybe the image we have from, from American gravel racing. [00:16:51] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): Yeah, yeah, no, it's very interesting to hear you say that because if I'm thinking about like what you might see from an unbound or an SVT gravel, that would very much be the takeaway. **** - (): I would have as well that these are, you know, sort of road racing style open, you know, wide roads that give a lot of opportunity for moving around. Um, but if you dig into the gravel cycling world, there are a lot of events that really push The capabilities of the bikes and really create sections that have a huge impact on the race based on one's technical abilities. **** - (): So, you know, they might go into single track, they might go into mud, they might have river crossings, all the types of things that would really push both the rider's skill levels and equipment. [00:17:37] - ():  Erwin Verveken: Well, for, for the UCI, uh, two things, of course, when, when we started up the, the UCI Gravel Series and the Gravel World Championships. Um, one of the first things we decided is, uh, you have a few of, of, of, uh, of very long, uh, endurance races, uh, a month is, uh, 300 kilometers or even more than 200 miles. Um, [00:18:00] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): Yeah. 200 miles. Yeah, [00:18:01] - ():  Erwin Verveken: we decided to, with the UCI gravel world series to have like the typical, um, duration of a road race. **** - (): So five, six hours. Um, racing, not, not like unmount this, I guess, 10, 11 hours of racing. Uh, and that's what we are. We're not aiming for that. That's, that's like, yeah, a very big endurance race. Uh, our goal is to keep it in between 150 and 200 kilometers. Um, depending a bit on the elevation and on what is available. **** - (): Um, and then, uh, a second thing is so like single track. It is possible when there's no alternative, so to connect two sections, uh, with a small single track, uh, towards the end of the race. Yeah, it's not preferred, but if there's no other solution, then we allow it. But the big majority should be on wide open gravel roads where we can also ride a car. **** - (): That's the goal of the UCI Gravel World Series. [00:19:10] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): Yeah. I certainly noticed in the, in the race coverage this past year, and certainly commentary from both the men and women on the U S team that the narrowness of the roads. And you hear this refrain, even when road cyclists go over to Europe, it's just another world when you're trying to pack 200 people into these, through these narrow villages. **** - (): And certainly the other big thing that stood out in some of the video I saw was, Some of the, um, the 180 degree switchbacks on the roads and trails that the riders had to navigate and the, the chaos that ensued around that and how that impact the race. [00:19:47] - ():  Erwin Verveken: Yeah, well, I'm not sure about the 180 degree turns. Uh, you mean now in the last world championships? [00:19:55] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): Yeah. There was one scene that I saw the riders cutting across the, the earliest part of the corner to get around and join the group. [00:20:04] - ():  Erwin Verveken: Yeah, there were some. Uh, well, it's, it's a famous YouTube video from, from the law at the first half an hour of the, of the gravel world championships in the elite category. Yeah. I don't know. I think it's from an American rider who filmed it with his scope. [00:20:18] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): yeah. I think it's from Payson McKelvin. [00:20:21] - ():  Erwin Verveken: Um, yeah, it gives a good idea of the hectic in the start. **** - (): Uh, and of course, well, our, our, our courses are not fence. They are just marked with science and everybody has a GPS device on his bike. Um, so that's, yeah. I presume it's also the same in the States, so you don't have, uh, uh, tape, uh, to, to, to, to prevent riders from cutting corners. So, um, I think that's, that's the spirit of gravel. **** - (): So, um, yeah, it's only in the, in the first. 10, 15 k in, uh, uh, in the course. Uh, but next year, because then we are ourselves, the organized, so the company I'm working for Goot, so is, uh, organizing the, the next world championships in Belgium. Um, yeah, it will hardly be impossible to, to cut corners there, uh, in the, in the first. **** - (): Part of the race and where it's possible. Yeah, we'll probably also try to prevent it Without making too much Yeah It's, it's, it's never the goal to make like a fenced cyclocross or mountain bike course. Um, that's, that's not our goal, but yeah, different type of racing. Uh, I've done, yeah, because I'm, I'm managing the, these, these races. **** - (): And, um, of course also ex pro rider. So I take my bike to a lot of these events and try to ride them. To get a good impression on the different type of events, uh, if I compare our events, um, uh, which are in the series, there's indeed a lot of different events. Uh, next year we will also, uh, organize the, the Belgian Gravel Championships, uh, which are. **** - (): Uh, very typical American style and Bond style, uh, gravel racing, which is very uncommon in Belgium. But yeah, in the north, there's like a section where, where we can have those kind of races. Uh, so. There's a bit of a difference, but, but yeah, uh, the good thing about gravel is that, uh, you can have very technical races, um, uh, but, but the majority are on wide open roads, fast, uh, uh, you don't need to be too technical. **** - (): If you see, um, more rich winning the world championships. Although I think he's very technical as a rider, as a roadie. Uh, but also Jasper Stavun winning the first European Championships. Um, I don't think he's very technical as a roadie. So, uh, yeah, it's, uh, it's something which, which can suit any, any, uh, any road specialist. [00:23:00] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): Gotcha. And when you think about the courses in the men's courses and the women's courses, as I understand it, they differed in distance. Can you talk a little bit about the logic behind that? [00:23:11] - ():  Erwin Verveken: Well, I know that in, in, in, in the States and also let's say in, in, in general in English speaking countries, it's also the same in Britain and in Australia. There's a, there's a big movement to have women and men having the same distance. If you see it cycling, uh, in history, and then I mean, from 50 years back, and even now, all disciplines, uh, being cyclocross, mountain bike, road, uh, women and men have different distances for the World Championships and World Cups. **** - (): Uh, you can be, it's worth a discussion. I know that, uh, in, in. The English speaking countries, there's more, uh, a vote to have them equal, but I don't think there's, well, gender equality doesn't mean that they have to have the, the same distance. I think the media attention should be the same and, and the price money should be the same, but, uh, the, the distance, uh, if you have, uh, the women racing over 260, 270 kilometers, the road world championships. **** - (): It would give a totally different dynamic and it would mean a much more individual race by the end of the race because then it's pure endurance. Well, for the man. Uh, yeah, it's it's another type of race, so I'm not really convinced if they should have, uh, the same distance for men and women. Um, [00:24:42] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): Are you thinking about it in terms of time? Are you shooting for a similar amount of time out there on the bike for [00:24:48] - ():  Erwin Verveken: no, not even time. Um, we did many surveys amongst the participants after the World Championships, uh, both in Gran Fondo and Gravel. And if you ask, uh, women if they prefer to have the same distance as men, probably Americans and, yeah, Australians, they would go for it. Yeah, the same distance, but it depends also a bit on what riders prefer. **** - (): Uh, everybody is, is, if you're somebody who has a great endurance, uh, you will pick the same distance as the man. If you're more explosive and you're more a tactic, uh, uh, yeah, a strong sprinter type of rider. You prefer a shorter course. So, but in general, we see that, uh, if we ask men, women directly, our participants, that the majority still prefers a shorter distance for, uh, for women. **** - (): Um, [00:25:41] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): Yeah. I mean, I think it's an interesting debate and I'm certainly not one to opine too strongly one way or the other, but I do imagine that you have more dynamic racing in the shorter distances [00:25:53] - ():  Erwin Verveken: that's what I'm. [00:25:54] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): people complaining with me about this. [00:25:56] - ():  Erwin Verveken: So I, I don't know, women on the road, for instance, the, uh, the road, World Championships now in Glasgow for women. I don't know, but I think there were 150, 160 and men were 260. In general, they're around that distance. But if you have the women also on the 260, well, it will be a pure endurance race. **** - (): And by the end, they will be, there's a big chance that there will be one. One by one. So, um, and then on the meet, I'm floating can start racing again because she's she's a super strong rider who survives everybody by the end of the race when it's a very hard race. Um, so, yeah, um, it's worth the discussion. **** - (): But if you ask the riders, I think the majority will still prefer to have a shorter distance for women because it's indeed another dynamic. [00:26:51] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): Yeah. When you think about, uh, and I do want to get into the master's element of this cause I think that's fascinating. And for our listeners who are non professional athletes, I think it's a great and interesting opportunity. But one final question at the elite level, how do you determine how many riders an individual country can bring to the event? [00:27:10] - ():  Erwin Verveken: Well, so the basic goal is that everybody should qualify. But, uh, in order to promote the first editions of the World Championships and, uh, yeah, to also have national teams and the federations involved, in 2022 and also this year, the UCI decided to grant 20 wildcards to every national federation. For riders, um, um, so in the past two years, now 2022, 2023, they could be used by any rider. **** - (): Uh, so also the Masters and, and, and, and the Age Group riders. Uh, for 2024, it will only be limited for the Elite category. And gradually, it's our goal to limit the number of wildcards. So riders should be really be encouraged to qualify. But on the other hand, first year we had Peter Sagan, we had Mathieu we had, uh, Greg van Auermaat all participating. **** - (): And without those wildcards, they wouldn't have been there. Uh, Pauline Ferrand Bréveau. This year Vollering, uh, Wout van Aert, uh, well, Wout qualified, but, uh, the other riders, Mohoritch, um, we were really happy with them at the start. So we want to keep a certain amount of, uh, of, of wildcards for the, for the top level riders. **** - (): And yeah, we'll see from year to year, uh, evaluate after every edition of the World Championships, if we have to stick to, uh, I don't know, maybe 10 wildcards, uh, maximum per country, or more wildcards for the bigger countries, uh, less wildcards for the smaller countries. But this year we also had riders from Guinea Bissau and from Barbados and, uh, yeah, like very exotic countries at the start. **** - (): Uh, and they wouldn't have been there without these wildcards, so, um. Yeah, I'm still in favor of having them, but maybe limit them a bit more. So the drivers really are encouraged to have to go to a qualifier. Yeah, [00:29:04] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): And you mentioned that that qualification, it sounds like it's standard across the board. If you finish at a UCI gravel world cup qualifier event in the top 25%, you've punched your tickets to go to the world championships. [00:29:17] - ():  Erwin Verveken: The only change next year is that, um. And the first two years, qualification was always per age group, but then we saw this year Verde. Yeah. He saw, uh, in the meantime, 42 years old. So he, he then had to qualify in the 40 to 44 age category and Okay. The, the two races he did were, were not the biggest one. **** - (): I think the, the one in, uh, the two in Spain, he won, were like five, 600 drivers at the start. So then it's still okay to to, to have him in the front. But well, as these events grow bigger and bigger, uh, we decided to also have the elite category as part of the qualifier series. So before every race, you have to choose, okay, I want to go and qualify for the world championships elite or for my age group. **** - (): Uh, so like a rider being 19 to 34 years old, if he chooses to sign up for the elite category, Of course, with an elite license, then he can only qualify for the elite category at the world championships. If he chooses to qualify or to sign up for the age groups, he can only qualify for his age group. Um, and that's what we decided this year to change. **** - (): Um, so that the elite category can also have older riders, uh, in their 30s, 35, 40 years old, like Valverde, like, uh, yeah, many of them will retire from road racing and like, uh, Jan Baklans, Nicky Terpstra, uh, yeah, probably also a lot of Americans who are over 35, but still want to race elite at a high level. **** - (): So, yeah. they didn't get the opportunity to race elite. [00:30:58] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): you'd, you'd may have mentioned this earlier, but just so I understand on race day are the amateur men lining up behind the elite men and starting kind of alongside them. [00:31:10] - ():  Erwin Verveken: at the qualifier events, uh, well, they're different options and we give a lot of freedom to the different organizers to set up or the setup of the start can either be man elite in front, followed by women elite. And then with a small interval, the age groups, uh, or we can have many leads followed by men age groups. **** - (): Let's say until the age of 50 and then the women elite with all with a small interval, but it depends a bit on the size of the field. And yeah, I think next year our biggest event will be over 2000. So then you have to make some. Rules to, to, to make a fair start and a fair reason. Uh, but we still give the opportunity, um, to riders without a license to qualify for the world championships in their age groups. **** - (): So it's only for the elite category that you need a license. If you want to race, uh, in the age groups, uh, you're 42 years old and you still want to do world championships. So you can go to a qualifier, take part, um, and then qualify for the world championships. And it's only. to sign up for the world championships that you need a year license, so not to qualify. [00:32:20] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. Super exciting. Let's talk about the 2024 Trek UCI gravel world series calendar. You've expanded now to a total, is it a 26 events [00:32:31] - ():  Erwin Verveken: well there's uh in the 25 Qualifying for the 2024 World Championships and one was in October, uh, past the World Championships for the 2025 World Championships. So, uh, but yeah, we have been expanding with, uh, a lot of extra races. So if I look at the list, one extra in Austria, one extra in Italy. Um, I'm running off the list here now on my computer. **** - (): Uh, there's a new race in Kenya. There's a new race, a second year race in Germany, Switzerland, one in Wales in the UK. Um, and then by the end of the season, also a second new one in Spain. Um, and there will most likely be two. Uh, extra ones being added later, uh, which still are struggling with approvals. Uh, so yeah, there's, uh, there's, it's no secret that there's one candidate in Rwanda where the world championships on the road take place next now in 2025. **** - (): Um, and, and a second one in Switzerland, uh, they will most likely be added, uh, yeah, in the next few weeks. [00:33:48] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): when you, what does it take for an event to become part of the series and are these events typically events that have run in the past and then embrace the UCI series and come to you and say, yeah, I'd like to be part of it or are they events that happened from the ground up? With the sole intention of being a UCI qualifier. [00:34:07] - ():  Erwin Verveken: It's it's a mix. Um, we have existing events will have been run as a competitive event before we have, uh, fun events like, uh, leisure events like non competitive events with been switched to a competitive event. We have big organizers who have run professional road racing or Gran Fondo racing, like the race in Switzerland is run by the same team who has the UCI Gran Fondo for many years. **** - (): Um, yeah, so. New events will have all of a sudden started up, um, the second race in, in, uh, Germany, for instance, has run the motorbike marathon world championships five years ago or six years ago, 2017. Uh, so it's a mix. Yeah. Um, [00:34:59] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): And then, you know, obviously there's presumably an application process for the event to become part of the series. Do the events then need to take on that same kind of, uh, men will race by themselves. Women will race by themselves. The distance will be in it within certain parameters. Is that what the, how they have to adopt to the UCI landscape? [00:35:20] - ():  Erwin Verveken: yeah. Well, but as I told, we're not too difficult in these first years. We don't want to, the big criticism we had, uh, especially from, from, uh, from, from the States, uh, in the beginning is, well, you see, I will make it, uh, too much regulations and things like that. Um, well, we decided not to make, uh, any regulation. **** - (): So the bike is free, of course, no e bike, but, uh, If you want to raise a mountain bike, or a gravel bike, or a road bike, whatever bike you like, the perfect bike that fits best for that course is, is, is, is, is free to use. Uh, distance, well, there's a rule now, I think the minimum distance is 75k and the maximum 200. **** - (): Um, but for the rest, uh, there's no Regulation on tire width, uh, starting procedure is also quite flexible. Uh, we discuss it with every organizer, but, uh, yeah, we are pretty flexible in, in allowing things. [00:36:23] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): Gotcha. What are the things that, that struck me when I looked at the 2024 calendar? Was we still only have one event here in the United States? Is that intentional? Is it just [00:36:35] - ():  Erwin Verveken: no, no. Because [00:36:36] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): for events? And [00:36:39] - ():  Erwin Verveken: let's say that we would like to have, um, in the, the, the big traditional cycling countries in Europe, two events, like we have now. Two in Belgium, two in Holland, two in Germany, two in Switzerland, two in Italy, two in Spain, uh, only one in France, two in the uk. And then for the big countries like the, the States, Canada or Australia, uh, we can go up to three events. **** - (): And I've been in very good context with, with potential, uh, uh, yeah. Interested organizers who have started the process of, yeah. Um, yeah, uh, having different online meetings with me, but also of course. On their side, getting the approvals, um, and speaking to their sponsors. And we have been very close with one organizer, um, yeah, to finally become the second qualifier. **** - (): And I'm sure that in 2025, we will have at least two, probably even three events. Uh, and also in Canada, I'm in touch with a second Canadian event, uh, which is likely to sign. And which I had expected to sign already for 2024. But yeah, the, uh, it's also the same in, in, uh, in Grand Fonda racing. Um, It's, it's, it's more challenging for me to convince, uh, an American organizer to, to join, uh, the series. **** - (): Um, a part of it is because, well, they, um, there is like, um, let's say, uh, uh, a general criticism in everything which is related to regulations and to federations within the states. That's what I learned from my different contexts. Uh, people don't like to be. To regulate it, although I think we are quite flexible. **** - (): Um, uh, and, uh, another big thing is in Europe, there is, uh, yeah, for organizing and we're speaking about the financial part of the, of, of, of, of organizing an event is in, in, uh, in the States, there's not such a system of, of government funding. So in Europe, but also in Africa, we have three African events to in Australia, uh, people organizers apply for fundings with the city, the region or an entity from the government, which puts in money to promote events of a high level, but also because they generate a lot of tourism. **** - (): If I see that this year, the European Championships, we organized ourselves, uh, uh, on the 1st of October. Well, we had 1, 700 riders coming from, I don't know exactly 30 or 35 different countries, but they all stay in the hotel for a few nights because they want to do a record right a few days before they stay after they go and have dinner, they buy a souvenir, they rent a car. **** - (): So there's a lot of economic return for the region. And that system doesn't really exist in the, in the States, as far as I know, from, from my country. [00:39:45] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): Yeah. You know, it's true. I've talked about this on a number of occasions with different event organizers and it's, it is super interesting. Like there are some rural regions that are trying to reinvent themselves where you do get some of that interplay with the local city government and great deal of enthusiasm to bring riders in because having them. **** - (): Yeah. A thousand people and their families over a weekend is a great economic boom for those cities. And then in other cases, you have the exact opposite mentality, which is we don't want any more people coming here. We don't need athletes to come into our town. You know, particularly I live in the San Francisco Bay area [00:40:23] - ():  Erwin Verveken: which is really a pity. Um, I think. [00:40:27] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): very much [00:40:27] - ():  Erwin Verveken: Sports, sports in general, especially while I'm living in Belgium, which is probably the cycling country together with Italy and France, we have, uh, every little town has his own club and has at least a competitive rider and this, uh, yeah, uh, you have to drive maximum one hour to do a race on Saturday and Sunday, uh, in every discipline. **** - (): So that's, that's the good thing about, uh, well. living in a traditional cycling country, but also for organizers. Uh, excuse me. Um, so yeah, the, the, the fundings we have are necessary to set up big events and they are live on television. It's part of our culture. They generate, as I told you, a lot of. **** - (): Economic return, but not only economic return, it's also, yeah, promotion for the region if you have like a very nice, um, yeah, uh, area with, with a beautiful nature. It's a good promotion for, for, for the region to, to generate also other type of tourism. The race we now organized on the 1st of October, which will also fit us as a first, no, the next world championships next year in Belgium. **** - (): Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a national park. It's a big forest area. It's being promoted now through these kinds of events and the weeks before, but especially the weeks after. The European Championships we organized there. It was full of people, yeah, uh, hiking, uh, um, riding their bikes. And they also come and then, yeah, uh, it generates tourism and tourism means money for the region. **** - (): And, um, yeah, that's, that's the good thing about, uh, yeah, cycling in, in, in, in Belgium, for instance. [00:42:24] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): Yeah, yeah, if I was to sort of read the tea leaves, so to speak about the U. S. gravel cycling scene sentiment around the U. C. I. gravel world championships and the qualifier events, I would say, I. I'm reading a market change this year after the event, we sent some of our best athletes over there, there was good exposure. **** - (): Obviously we wish that the, the women's race was able to be televised, but I understand what happened there, but seeing the scene and seeing the camaraderie of the U S team, I believe has translated to a sort of a general uplifting of the UCI brand within gravel. And this idea that, you know, the racing is different. **** - (): It's, it's, it's different and unique in its own way. And the experience is quite powerful, you know, to go to a world level event where you're representing your country, whether it's at an elite level or at the master's level, it's just super exciting. And it's a feeling that compares differently to what it feels like to be at Unbound or SBT Gravel. **** - (): It's its own unique and special thing that I think more US riders are now aspiring to. [00:43:38] - ():  Erwin Verveken: No, I'm sure. So I'm not this. Well, uh, the biggest travel event worldwide and a long tradition and it's, it's, but it's still, uh, I guess a 90 or 95 percent based American event. Participants, uh, they come from many different countries, but The big majority is still American. If you're at the World Championships, you're, first of all, dressed in your national kit, which is fairly prestigious, it's very, yeah. **** - (): Riders are proud, and especially Americans are proud to wear their national colors. Uh, they ride in a team, they travel towards an event, uh, and then you're next shoulder to shoulder at the start grid, next to a British rider, an Italian, a Slovenian, a Belgian, uh, which creates a special atmosphere. Um, and yeah, the first year there was a lot of criticism on the course. **** - (): Um, I agree for a part of it. I was, I wasn't the best course. I was not also, also not a hundred percent convinced on the course this year. It was pure promotion for gravel. Uh, and, and The fact that, uh, yeah, also your best gravel rider, Keegan Swanson, was there. Yeah, it was also a good promotion for our world championships. **** - (): But, yeah, in the end, I'm sure that let him develop a bit longer in an international gravel scene. He'll probably, yeah, he can win the world championships for sure. And then he would be a great ambassador, uh, wearing the, the, the, the, the, the, the rainbow jersey also in the state. So, and our biggest goal is to still, because we have been in talks with USA Cycling to bring the, the World Championships, uh, to, to the States. **** - (): And there were some very interested, uh, organizers, uh, we were very close to a deal, uh, in the first year, but unfortunately, well, then, uh, they were a bit hesitating and, and decided to skip. For the next few years, but then given the very big explosion of gravel racing in Europe, all of a sudden, yeah, it was awarded until now, uh, 20, 28. **** - (): Uh, so it's, uh, uh, yeah, they missed an opportunity. Um, Yeah. [00:45:51] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): Have you, so we know that 2024 will be in Belgium. Have you announced where the roadmap goes in the subsequent years? [00:45:59] - ():  Erwin Verveken: 2025 is France, Nice. So the South of France, uh, 2026 is, is, uh, the seven event in Western Australia. Uh, which is now already part of the, of the, of the UCR gravel. We'll see is 2027 is again, the combined world championships of the UCR, which now took place in Glasgow this past August, and they will then also have gravel. **** - (): Which is again in France, so the Haut Savoie region, which is the Alps. It's, uh, if you see the mountain stages of the Tour de France, so that area, there will be a lot of climbing. Um, that's 2027, and then 2028 is Alula in Saudi Arabia. Uh, which is a big sports city, and they have a big and huge budget, uh, to promote cycling, and especially gravel is one of their key. **** - (): So, um, and then 2029, I know there's a lot of interest. Um, um, and, uh, yeah, hopefully one day I'm sure that if we have a very good candidate in the States, uh, the UCI would be very happy to, to, to have the world championships awarded to, to the States, uh, uh, because, well, in the end, the history of gravel racing is, is, is in, in the U S Midwestern. [00:47:18] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Erwin, thank you so much for the time. I appreciate learning more about UCI's approach and everything you're doing to promote the sport. Very much appreciate it. [00:47:28] - ():  Erwin Verveken: Well, it's a pleasure. It's, uh, also it was nice talking to an American audience. Uh, uh, so, uh, yeah, happy to, to explain what we are doing and what our plans are for the future years. [00:47:42] - ():  Craig Dalton (host): Amazing. Thanks again. [00:47:44] - ():  Erwin Verveken: Thank you.    

Billy Sinkford, Vice President of Echos Communications, discusses the genesis of the MADE show and its impact on the handmade bike community. He shares his experience as a former bike messenger and how it led him to work in the urban cycling industry. Billy also highlights the importance of brand representation and storytelling in the cycling industry. He provides insights into the success of the first MADE show and gives a preview of what to expect in the upcoming shows in Portland and Melbourne. Don't miss this exciting conversation about the future of the handmade bike community. Episode Sponsor: AG1 MADE Bicycle Show  Support the Podcast Join The Ridership  Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: [00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist. [00:00:29] Craig Dalton (host): This week on the show. I welcome Billy. Sinford from the maid bicycle show in Portland, Oregon. You may recall if you're a listener from last year that I attended the show. In 2023 and had dozens of interviews with fantastic frame builders from around the country. I super enjoyed the show, the experience, the overall vibe of the show. So I was thrilled to get some communication from echos communications that the show is on. Again for 2024, I wanted to get a little bit of the backstory and inspiration for the show. And learn some secrets about the upcoming show in 2024. Little did I know at the end of this episode, I was going to learn about yet another exciting new development. I'll leave you with that. And we'll wait till the end, until we find out that secret from Billy. But before we get started, I do need to thank this week. Sponsor a G one. Taking care of your health. Isn't always easy, but it should at least be simple. That's why for me, for the last decade, I've been drinking age one every day, no exceptions. It's just one scoop mixed in water once a day, every day. And it makes me feel energized and ready to take on the day. That's because each serving of AIG one delivers my daily dose of vitamins minerals and pre and probiotics and more, it's a powerful, healthy habit that also is powerfully simple. Okay, let me go back a decade and explain why. became an essential part of my daily routine. I come to recognize that nutritionally, I just wasn't covering my bases with my diets. I was often cutting corners and just not getting the nutrients and vitamins I was looking for. I started thinking about taking a multivitamin or multiple multivitamins. And that didn't drive with me as well. I knew I wasn't going to be able to maintain consistency. Without something simple in my life. But with ag one, I discovered that it's a simple powder that's mixed with water. Can do it very quickly. And it has everything and more than I was looking for. So I introduced into my life and I haven't gone back. Over a decade, which is pretty incredible for a product like this. So if there's one product I had to recommend to elevate your health that's ag one. And that's why I've partnered with them for so long. I think they've been part of the show for over three years now. So, if you want to take ownership of your health, start with a G one. Tri AIG one and get a free one-year supply of vitamin D plus K2. And five free AIG one travel packs with your first purchase. Exclusively at drink, AIG one.com/the gravel ride. That's drink AIG one.com/the gravel ride to check it out today. Without behind us, let's jump right into my conversation with Billy. [00:03:24] Craig Dalton (host): Billy, welcome to the show. [00:03:25] Billy Sinkford: Thank you for having me, Craig. It's a pleasure to be here. [00:03:29] Craig Dalton (host): I know it's a busy week for you guys at MADE, so I appreciate you making the time and I'm excited to kind of just talk about the show. I did a bunch of episodes and Certainly had a bunch of conversations with frame builders during my visit to made in 2023. So I'm excited to just talk about the plans for 2024, but to set the stage for the conversation, we always like to kind of roll back a little bit and just understand, how did you develop a passion for the bike? Did you grow up riding? So why don't you start off by just letting us know where you grew up and how you discovered the bike and how that journey ultimately took you to kind of being in the industry as a professional. [00:04:10] Billy Sinkford: Well, first off, thanks for coming to MAID in 2023. It was awesome to have you and love the videos that you put out surrounding it. And we're stoked for 2024. We'll get, we'll get there though. I was a bike messenger in Boston in the late 90s and early 2000s. Uh, that was my first job working on the bike, uh, all day, uh, rain or snow, uh, in Boston, and did that, uh, for quite some time. Eventually ended up moving to San Francisco, uh, where I also was a, a bike messenger after a brief stint, uh, in divinity school, uh, which I decided was not, not for me. And from there, I started working with chrome industries and started working in kind of the urban cycling field of things. And, you know, for lack of a better term, I weaseled and worked my way into a job at chrome and. Um, my, the director of marketing at Chrome, Rob Reedy, who is my business partner at Echos. He's the CEO of Echos and I'm the VP, uh, gave me a chance and gave me a job and we worked together for years over at Chrome and eventually, uh, founded Echos Communications, which is a PR and marketing firm for, Active outdoors, uh, with a huge focus on cycling and I am fortunate enough to be the vice president of that and manage, uh, manage our cycling stuff that echoes communications. So that, that's [00:05:47] Craig Dalton (host): how I got there. I'm curious if, if you go back to those days as a courier, my experience with the courier community there, there were certainly some couriers who were bike racers, bike lovers, lovers of all things, bikes, and they discovered curry being a courier as a vocation that allowed them to, you know, work on their bike and stay fit. I've also heard from many of those same. Bike racer couriers that it's a horrible way to train because it's so hard on your body. So I'm just curious, were you, you know, part of that courier culture and the bike was a work mechanism and you fell in love with that, you know, the fixie kind of culture, or was there another thread of your passion for the bike that was mountain biking or road racing at the time? [00:06:35] Billy Sinkford: When I was in Boston, it was definitely about the culture and community, and the bike was just the tool that allowed for all of that to happen. When I moved out to San Francisco, the company that I worked for, Godspeed Courier, we had a race team. I was partially in charge of all the sponsorships and helped out a lot of the company. Definitely, uh, started wearing spandex and shaving our legs and going and doing local crits. And at that time road races, it was all road, uh, for me back then in the San Francisco Bay area and competed at all kinds of road races, uh, underneath the Godspeed courier banner. But I was, uh, I was a heavy dude. I still am a, I'm a big guy and I never, uh, I went out and just. Beat the crap out of everybody for the first 20 miles and then basically did an 80 mile bike ride by myself after the rest of the race, but I absolutely loved it. And it was a different kind of community and that definitely carried over. And, you know, I certainly by no means of. Kept up with it or pinned a number in a long time. I did last year for a minute, but, uh, definitely still enjoy being sometimes at the pointy end of the spear. Um, but yeah, messengering definitely brought me into that race culture. And then that carried over into my time in the industry, without a doubt. [00:07:55] Craig Dalton (host): Yeah, obviously like Chrome had its parts of his origin from that culture and that vibe, that commuter, worker, the, you know, the well constructed bags and later the shoes and clothing that they brought into the mix as you kind of represented them and were kind of earning your chops on the business side of the bike industry. What were you learning in that time that you kind of took forward about how brands need to be represented to cyclists in order to grow and be relevant? [00:08:28] Billy Sinkford: Working in the urban cycling side of things first was, was really interesting and I think it relates to stuff in the handmade market. I think it relates to cycling as a whole because we, and sometimes think of ourselves as this huge entity, right? In reality, cycling is a niche sport and a niche hobby. Uh, so looking at it through that lens and then knowing that urban cycling was a niche within. That niche, uh, we called it don't Timbuktu it back in the day Timbuktu started stopping selling messenger bags and started selling travel luggage and briefcases for a, for a brief minute. And at Chrome, we just made sure we didn't Timbuktu it. And we were trying to stay. With the core sponsoring messenger races, making sure that we're not only sponsored them, but we're actively present at the races and engaging with the community and bringing a cool vibe and having a good time. And that I think has carried over into everything that we've done at echoes and hopefully what we've brought to, uh, the cycling community at large. And that's the present. Be there and and be a part of the community. [00:09:42] Craig Dalton (host): Yeah, I think there's so much to obviously the storytelling of these brands that is so critical and how they resonate with fans and consumers of these products [00:09:55] Billy Sinkford: and it's really easy to lose it quite quickly. So, you know, having a good mission statement, understanding what your brand is, and actually standing by that and standing behind it, standing behind the community that you're, you're making products for, and hopefully. An active part of that community. Do those, you're, you're going to be on the side of right. Yeah, you [00:10:17] Craig Dalton (host): mentioned some of the work you do at echoes and just to set the stage for when we later talk about the maid show. Can you talk about some of the clients you've had the privilege of working with over the years? And then we'll get into what was the genesis behind the idea for [00:10:34] Billy Sinkford: made? Sure. We have had the privilege and pleasure and honest. I'd say honor of working with a lot of really amazing brands and folks within those brands. We started definitely on the urban cycling tip, but with that, we also, you know, feedback sports and, and mission workshop where our two first clients as an agency. Uh, we launched and ran the Levi's Commuter Program, uh, for the first three years of doing that and did all of the global or national events rather, uh, bike shops and community building stuff around that. And that was super fun and and rad to, to work along the Levi's, uh, Levi's crew and their team. Blackburn. Uh, we've worked with Greg Lamond. Uh, currently we've got an awesome, I guess, what's most relevant to the handmade community. Mosaic cycles, Argonaut cycles, Lowe, uh, we're currently, uh, and have been for quite some time working with Moots, Paul Components, Paul's a dear friend of mine, and we worked with him for several years, Abby Bike Tools, so everything, uh, we brought together. Bosch to market here in the United States a couple months before Shimano got got into the e bike game here Uh worked with a ton of e bike brands So companies large and small we are just started working with Campagnolo, uh, which is phenomenal and we're really thrilled about that we've had the pleasure of working with over 100 bike brands and i've gotten to Floyd's of Leadville and Floyd Landis, dear friend, and we managed all of the, uh, PR and some of the marketing for all of his CBD stuff and, uh, and his Floyd's 5 cannabis as well. So, gotten to work alongside people that I idolized when I was a messenger and had them become not only business associates, but folks that I call friends. Um, so it's been, it's been a wild journey and, uh, and we're still, we're still, I think, just getting started. [00:12:36] Craig Dalton (host): Amazing. We were talking a little bit offline about the North American Handmade Bike Show, and it sounds like you've had a relationship, understandably so, with the brands you tended to represent with that show for, for many years. Can you just talk about kind of your memories of that show and the place it kind of held in the industry [00:12:56] Billy Sinkford: for you? Oh, I loved nabs. Absolutely loved it. Uh, used to go just as a, you know, marketing and PR guy for the brands that we worked with. Uh, so always had 5 or 6 builders or brands, uh, on the show floor that we were working with. Uh, we did, uh, for a brief period of time for a little under 2 years, actually manage all the PR for the show itself when it was in Salt Lake City. Uh, obviously the show is not around anymore and, uh, Don and I. I've had a tumultuous relationship throughout the last, uh, 15 years for sure. Um, but. What Don did on the North American Handmade Bike Show, I think was phenomenal for the builder community and nothing that we're doing, I think, would be possible without the groundwork that went into that. Both from Don, so kudos to him, and then also the builder community for showing up and being present. You know, being willing to put their energy and effort into something that has turned out to be really, really great or for the builder community. So I think the show was great. It was sad to see it go, but it also gave us the opportunity to start made, which is something that 10. I mean, it's been 10 years plus, since we've been kind of talking about potentially. Helping put together a different version of a handmade bike show, a more modern version of it. And with Navs no longer taking place, the builder community asked us if we would step up to the plate and make it happen. We were fortunate enough to be able to. To, to do that, so it's been, it's been pretty cool. [00:14:39] Craig Dalton (host): Yeah, you know, obviously, like, with NABS going away, there was this pent up demand and enthusiasm for the builders to get together. To your point, NABS was just such a great gathering of such a diverse group of artisan frame builders that was so different than any other bicycle show that was around at the time. When you started to see, like, NABS is not there. We are seeing this opportunity. We're going to take this mantle. It seems like it would be a daunting challenge to go from that idea to actually producing made. What was the decision making process? What did that look like for you? Or did you ask yourself what? If we can just get 20 brands to commit early, I feel like there's enough momentum that we can do this. I'm just curious to get into your, your mind and your colleagues minds about when was the go, no go decision and what was that process like? [00:15:38] Billy Sinkford: Well, COVID, we had wanted to do this before COVID. Luckily, we did not pull the trigger on, uh, any form of trade show prior to that, because that would have definitely changed things. Uh, You know, nobody could travel. Nobody would have been able to show up. Uh, the community support, uh, my partner, Rob and I, uh, spoke to a bunch of builders, spoke to a bunch of brands, uh, brands that support the builder community. So Chris Kang specifically being 1 of them who we also we do, uh, manage their PR and everybody. One after one, people said, yes, please do this. And yes, we'll help support it. And there weren't any nose and we just kept hearing. Yes. So we started looking at it from a logistic standpoint and realize that that we could pull this off and that it could be awesome. Originally, it was supposed to be entirely outside because of the pandemic. And we didn't know. What that was going to look like and we kind of wanted to safeguard the show and there's a very, very brief window in Portland where the weather is fantastic. Uh, and we, we've got it right now or made it was. Wildly unseasonably hot during the, uh, the first year of the show, but, uh, the venue that we found is phenomenal, uh, and old abandoned shipyard, uh, I mean, you, you saw it yourself. It's, it's perfect for the handmade, uh, market probably wouldn't work for. A bike show where track and specialized and giant wanted to show up and do their things. But for those that are actually working with their hands and, you know, making metal more metal, uh, super cool environment, uh, for them to be in and the venue lined up and after that, you know, that's it. I won't say that all the pieces magically fell together. There was a lot of hard work from the entire team that made behind the scenes, but, uh, it came together and it, you know, hard work and then the support of the builder community, uh, really brought it all together and year one was fantastic. I mean, I know you didn't get to go for the consumer days, but we very purposefully had time so that you were able to be there and spend time creating content and talking with builders and the. The builder community hadn't been together in, in years because of the pandemic and the lack of nabs even before that. So we carved out a little bit of extra time for that and that was super fun and got to take 200 builders, media and industry people and my favorite ride through Forest Park, uh, which was phenomenal. So it wasn't just a show itself. I think it was the entire experience of being in Portland together and it was really cool. [00:18:25] Craig Dalton (host): Yeah, absolutely. We got the food trucks in the back parking lot. Everything was just a lot of fun and I totally agree. It was, you know, nobody had to feel awkward about the style of booth they created or what they were bringing because it wasn't this super polished, super dome of convention centers or anything like that that we saw at Interbike. It was really, it felt very native to the handmade bicycle community for [00:18:51] Billy Sinkford: sure. And I think this year, you know, a lot of the, I would say 90 percent of the exhibitors, you know, we made a few videos, we, folks understood what they were walking into, to an extent. But it's one thing to see it online and read about it. It's another thing to actually be in the venue. And now, most of the exhibitors are coming back for, for year two, and they all know what things look like. So I think it'll be really cool to see how people take the space. And make their little, their portion of it their own and work with it. So, I think year one was rad and there were some folks that had some killer, killer booth designs that you would never, ever in your wildest dreams see at Eurobike or Interbike or Sea Otter. Um, and I think it worked out great that we weren't entirely outside because looking at some Consumer facing shows, which are all awesome, but it's a sea of 10 by 10 and 10 by 20 pop up tents, and we encourage people to bring tents so they've got their branding, but some of the cooler booths were, you know, handmade from wood that people brought with them, and it was super neat to see not only the folks showing, It's amazing work that they're doing, uh, but then also, you know, building a booth out that reflects that was, was [00:20:04] Craig Dalton (host): really unique. A hundred percent. It's just sort of, you know, everybody in the handmade community is so creative and just to allow them to have that freedom to develop their own displays. Super cool to see. And super fun for me to see some of the frame builders that I hadn't seen in a while, but also like a whole, probably 30 percent of them I'd never heard of before. And it was just great. Having that opportunity to get their point of view to see their manufacturing techniques to see how, you know, they're taking, you know, in the instance of maybe frameworks taking aerospace tooling and machines that aren't always available to other artisans and using that because they have access to it to create just kind of a unique. Process for creating a bike. Super fascinating to talk to guys like that. There [00:20:53] Billy Sinkford: were, I have been, because we've been extremely deep and the handmade community for a long time, and I'm fortunate to call a lot of these folks, my friends, and prior to putting on made, I really thought that I had a pretty good grasp of what was going on in the handmade community and who was who. And one of the biggest things that we did with the show was offering subsidized space. Making sure that bike flights was helping with discounted shipping, uh, there was not like a large host hotel that people felt they needed to stay at. So the show became really accessible and a lot of the younger builders and builders that did not show up at nabs came and exhibited, uh, made. Also, some of the, the legends, my generation, not, not to totally date myself, but they're not spring chickens anymore. And some of them are hanging up the torch, uh, and, or don't want to stand on their feet for, for three days. Um, they've, they've passed that. So having a lot of the younger builders and new builders at the show and not having the new builder row be In the absolute back of the hall, like it was at NABs, I made sure we were dispersing, you know. That you, a new builder was directly next to an established builder, and unless you're super deep in the industry, there was no way to tell the difference. You walked up to pretty much anybody exhibiting, and you were there to hear their story and not, uh, I don't know. It was really, it was cool. And I had to not, I did not spend a lot of time looking at the bikes during the show, which was really, really hard. I love taking photographs. I spent a lot of time. Documenting bikes in my free time, and I purposefully didn't bring a camera to the show and tried not to ogle the work during the show. Late, late at night after everybody had gone home, that's when I did it. But, uh, it was just phenomenal craftsmanship throughout the entire haul. It was awesome. [00:23:04] Craig Dalton (host): I was there for obviously the media day and partway into the, the consumer day started, I think, around noon on the Friday and I was there till about two. So I just started to get the first wave of consumers. What was that like, you know, midday Saturday or whenever peak traffic was, if you were there as a consumer, [00:23:25] Billy Sinkford: there were a couple of minutes where we were, we were pushing the limits of what that all could do for sure. Uh, we have far more people than we expected. Uh, It was awesome. I mean, just so full, uh, unfortunately, extremely hot, and we had fans running like crazy and, uh, ran out to get every little bit of water that we could. Unfortunately, there were forest fires, uh, in other parts of Oregon and Washington, and all the water trucks and everything that we had kind of helped get together was unavailable. Um, but we made it work. Uh, there were A couple thousand consumers in that hall on Saturday. We had over 5, 000 people come through between when it opened to the public on Friday and when we closed the doors for tear down, uh, on Sunday. So for year one, that was unbelievable, but the energy was super high and people were there. They were talking with builders, looking at bikes. Uh, it was, it was really cool to watch. It was fun to have a quiet moment where. Media industry folks, we all got to kind of hug and high five and, and then it was when we opened the gates on Friday, it was, uh, it's a whole, whole nother, it was almost two shows in one, [00:24:39] Craig Dalton (host): quite frankly. Yeah, certainly a three day grind for those builders to. Talk to everybody and keep their energy high. [00:24:49] Billy Sinkford: And we're, we're actually changing the format of the show this year. So we had a full day and a half that was for media and industry to kind of catch up and we did a poll of all the builders and brands after the show, and it was honestly split about 50 50 as to whether or not people wanted that extra time. Or we would do just a half day of media hours before we opened to the public. For the second year of the show, we're going to. Give it a shot the other way and do, uh, Friday morning will be just media and industry and then again, we'll open to the public and do Saturday and Sunday, but that will make the show shorter and for a lot of these builders, regardless of what size or scale operation they are every day that they're not. At the shop, that's a bike that's not going out to the customer, and this is not a large frame, a large bicycle company, for that matter, where it's happening, no matter whether the director of marketing is on the floor, like you're there talking to the builder, and that person is not making a frame for a customer, so we're trying to be cognizant. Excuse me, cognizant of that and do everything that we're going to do, but keep it a little bit shorter so that they can get back to the shop and make sure that they're doing what they need to do for their customers. [00:26:06] Craig Dalton (host): Yeah. Do you have a sense on the consumer side in terms of where people were traveling in from if they were obviously Portland's host to such a great community? I'm sure there was tons of Portland locals who could drive in and enjoy the show. It was a first year show, but did you get a sense that people were flying in to [00:26:24] Billy Sinkford: experience this? From the moment we announced that we had folks from all over the world that said that they were coming. There were people from Japan, Australia, uh, Europe coming from all over a lot of folks from the East Coast. I think. California, Portland, I mean, we're dominant without a doubt because it's very easy for them to travel or much easier for them to travel to the show. But some of the first emails that we got after announcing the show were from fans of custom bikes and people that own custom bikes that wanted to come and they were going to make this their vacation from Japan, Australia. And it was. Really rad to have this be a global show, not only reflected in the builders that were there because we also had builders from all over the world. This was not just Portland and California builders. We had folks from the east coast and uh, from all over the place. And this year for 2024, uh, the roster of builders and brands that are attending reflects that even more deeply. Folks all coming back and then new folks coming from Australia and we've got folks coming from the west or east coast rather, that came in. Kind of peep the show a little bit to make sure that it was something that they wanted to come to and now, uh, now they're, they're coming out for year two and, and are going to be part of the show. [00:27:42] Craig Dalton (host): That's a good segue into anything you'd want to highlight for year two. Any changes? Are there going to be more, more booths, more people? What, what can we expect in 2024? [00:27:53] Billy Sinkford: Uh, more explosions, more people, hopefully no explosions. Uh, uh, I think we've got certainly more builders, more brands. We had to extend the floor plan. So there's going to be an outdoor area as well as the indoor area this year. More food carts, more coffee. We'll still have the beer garden over there. And we're going to make sure to pop a little shade on top of that so that people can sit out there, even if it is a little bit hot. Uh, but I think there just are gonna be a variety of builders from even farther, uh, across the world. And I'm, the coolest thing that I've seen is we made it a big point to have subsidized space and to invite builders from all over the place and to make sure that if they needed help financially. That we could still have them at the show. We wanted to make sure that the builder community was represented as a whole. And there are builders that showed up and took those subsidized spaces that are now getting 10 by 20s at the show. Uh, that are saying that it was so amazing that they want to come back and have an even larger presence. So that to me was the coolest part is the show and the model works there. You know. That, that really warmed my heart quite a bit to see that happen in several instances. [00:29:12] Craig Dalton (host): Yeah, that says a lot. Tell us the dates of the Portland, Oregon show and where people can find out more information about it. [00:29:20] Billy Sinkford: Uh, yeah. Made. bike is our website. You don't need a dot com. We've got dot bike. So just made. bike and we will. Uh, make a lot of noise when we start selling, uh, consumer facing tickets for the show. Uh, the floor plan is ostensibly sold out and I still have a bit more of the wait list, uh, to work through. So, uh, if you're interested in, uh, being a part of the show, definitely get in touch sooner rather than later so we can see what we can do. Uh, but it'll be this summer, uh, August 23rd through 25th in Portland, Oregon at Zydell Yards, which is right on the Portland waterfront just outside of downtown. Uh, and you can find us on Instagram at made. bike as well. And is [00:30:06] Craig Dalton (host): there a risk that consumer tickets may sell out? Do people need to get on a mailing list or become aware pretty early in your [00:30:13] Billy Sinkford: process? Uh, it certainly can't hurt. Uh, we do have fire marshal limits that we're working within, uh, but I think we can very easily accommodate double the number of, uh, consumers that we have, uh, last year or so. We're hoping that people buy them in advance one because then it's less paper. It's a lot easier and we're able to get people through quicker, but we have not announced when we're going to start selling tickets to the public yet. We'll wait a little bit. Probably as the snow and rains start to start to thaw and stop falling here. We'll start thinking about it. [00:30:47] Craig Dalton (host): That makes sense. Well, everybody go over to made that bike and definitely get it on your radar for next year is a phenomenal fun show. So many beautiful bikes out there. And for those of you in an entirely different part of the world. I think we've got some breaking news. We can talk about now. Billy about another [00:31:05] Billy Sinkford: made show. Yeah, so this year MADE is expanding our footprint a little bit, and we are headed to Australia. Actually, we're headed to Australia before the main MADE show here in the United States. And it's going to be held in Melbourne. We've got a wonderful director of show, Andy White from Fixo, who is a longstanding friend of mine personally and of the agency as a whole. We've worked with him on a number of projects throughout the year, and he is extremely dedicated to documenting and being a part of the handmade culture in Australia. And we've already got commitments from an interest from Bomb Prova, Partington Wheels, the Lost Workshop, Delo Craft, and many, many more. And that is gonna be taking place June 28th and 29th, uh, at, uh, Darin, uh, verum, uh, just outside of Melbourne. And that also is coinciding with, uh, Andy's, uh, LAR. He has a large event called the the Melbourne. Uh, which takes place on the cobblestones, uh, in, in Melbourne, which I've never personally got a chance to, to witness. I've only witnessed it, uh, via the magic of the internet and I'm looking forward to going over and being a part of that event and then, uh, being present, uh, checking out the builder community in Australia. [00:32:33] Craig Dalton (host): Yeah, that's super exciting. I'll be curious to see if it's drawing builders from other parts of Asia, um, into that show and what a fascinating view you'll have to kind of go over and see that community and how it differs and how it's similar to what we have here in North America. [00:32:54] Billy Sinkford: I think there's some things that are universal to a degree, but. Every country is different. Uh, every builder is doing things differently. So, we're really looking forward to going over and hearing all the stories and seeing the work. I do think that there will be a larger draw. I think that. The USA show will always be the largest made show, uh, just because we're able to draw from, I think that we've got an awful lot of media here. We've got a really captive audience, uh, but Australia is quite far away as I am soon to find out on that plane ride. I've heard from people. Uh, so I think there are a lot of, a lot of builders that, you know, having a maid in Australia will give them a chance to get global exposure and connect with media and consumers in a way. Uh, That they haven't before and maybe there are some builders here from the United States that in 2025 decide that they're going to do both or maybe a builder here in the United States has already got great relationships with their customer base and the shops that they work with, uh, here and they want to go dip their toes into another country and see what's going on over there. And I think this will, this will give builders an opportunity to get even more exposure for [00:34:10] Craig Dalton (host): the work that they're doing. Yeah, it's super exciting and congratulations on the launch of that event. I can't wait to hear all about it. I can't wait to see you in Portland again this summer. Definitely one of my favorite shows that I attended as a podcaster and just overall enthusiast. So thanks for all your energy, Billy, you put into the industry as a whole and into the made show. [00:34:33] Billy Sinkford: It is my pleasure. Uh, we're really looking forward to MADE this year, uh, beyond looking forward to it. We're, we're thrilled. So it's hard to, hard to keep the excitement contained some days. I get to talk with so many cool people all the time. And it's going to be a rad year for MADE and a rad year for the handmade world as a whole. And thank you for taking the time to, to chat with me, Craig. Of course. My [00:34:55] Craig Dalton (host): pleasure. Cheers. Cheers. That's going to do it for this week's edition of the gravel ride podcast. Big, thanks to Billy for coming onto the show. Super excited about made 20, 24 in Portland and super excited for those of you down under in Australia. Perhaps my cousin Teebo to enjoy the made Australia experience in 2024. Also big, thanks to our friends at AIG one. Remember, check out, drink Agee. Dot com slash the gravel ride for those free travel packs and free supply of vitamin D plus K2. I hope you're doing well in 2024. And until next time. Here's to finding some dirt under your wheels. ​    

Laura Wisner joins the podcast to discuss Kowtown Gravel, a gravel cycling event that takes place in Kremmling, Colorado. She shares her background in cycling and how she found her way to gravel cycling. Laura talks about her connection to Kremmling and the beautiful gravel roads in the area. She describes the different terrains and challenges that riders can expect on the Kowtown Gravel course. Laura also discusses the spirit of the event and how it is a fundraiser for the community gym in Kremmling. She invites cyclists to come and experience the unique gravel roads and welcoming community of Kowtown Gravel. Key Takeaways: - Kowtown Gravel is a gravel cycling event that takes place in Kremmling, Colorado. - The event offers three course lengths: the Bull (90 miles), the Cow (60 miles), and the Calf (35 miles). - The course features a mix of smooth gravel roads, chunkier sections, and climbs. - Kowtown Gravel is a fundraiser for the community gym floor in Kremmling. - The event welcomes both competitive riders and those who want to enjoy a scenic ride. Kowtown Gravel Website Episode Sponsor: Dynamic Cyclist (code TheGravelRide for 15% off) Support the Podcast Join The Ridership  Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: [00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist. [00:00:26] Craig Dalton (host): This week on the podcast. We welcome Laura Wizner to the show to talk about cow town, gravel Cowtown gravel is a Colorado event happening on July 6th, 2024 in Kremmling, Colorado. Kremmling as a town you might've been through on your way to Steamboat Springs, but it's a town. The race organizers want you to remember as the gravel is fantastic as are the views. Laura's come on to talk to us about all you can expect from Cowtown, gravel, and an interesting story about how she became familiar with crumbling in the first place. I hope you enjoy this episode. Before we jump in, I did need to thank this week. Sponsor, dynamic cyclist. Dynamic cyclist has been producing, cycling, specific stretching and strengthening routines for many years. Now. They've got a vast library of content, both focused on you as a general cyclist, but also many different programs based on specific areas of weakness. It's during this period every year in the winter that I start thinking about how limiting my personal low back problems have made my cycling. So I love to dig into the dynamic cyclist. Low back routine six week program, just focusing on getting those stretches needed, to get deep into everything related to my hip flexors and lower back. It's a great reminder that stretching only takes a short amount of time for having a huge impact. All their videos are no longer than 15 minutes. So none of us has any excuses not to squeeze them into our winter routines to get us prepped for this season. I say that, and I'm not going to lie. I miss a day or two here or there, but it's on my mind, frankly, constantly this idea that stretching is probably one of the most important things I can do to set myself up for success in 2024. So go on over to dynamic cyclists.com. They've got a seven day free trial. So it's easy to see if, if it's something that you would like, they're also offering our listeners a 15% off discount on any of their programs. Which include either monthly or annual billing. So it's pretty flexible. If you're someone who just wants to do some routines in the winter, for example, anyway, head on over to dynamics, cyclists.com. Use the coupon code, the gravel ride, or follow the link in the show notes to get directly over there. With that business behind us, let's jump right into my conversation with Laura. [00:03:01] Craig Dalton: Laura, welcome to the show. [00:03:02] Laura Wisner: I'm so glad that you have me here. Thank you. [00:03:05] Craig Dalton: Where are you sitting today? [00:03:07] Laura Wisner: I am based in Boulder, [00:03:08] Craig Dalton: Colorado. Okay, and I'm excited to get you on to talk about Cowtown Gravel, which is not in Boulder, Colorado. So why don't you just set the stage by telling us where Cowtown Gravel takes place, and why don't you drop the, the month it takes place as well. [00:03:24] Laura Wisner: Okay, so Cowtown Gravel is in Kremling, Colorado. Um, it's going to take place for the second time on July 6, 2024. And Kremling, for those who have been to Steamboat, if you are coming from the Front Range Denver area, and you get a high 70, you go, um, north, we are the crook in the road in between Silverthorne and Steamboat Springs. Um, so Kremling is that, that little town that everybody has to go through, but may not have ever stopped there. [00:04:02] Craig Dalton: Yeah, I think as we discovered offline on my way to steamboat gravel, I definitely went through Kremling. I lived in Boulder, and if you had asked me to point to it on a map prior to this conversation, I wouldn't have been able to do it. But it's clear from my driving through that area, it's absolutely a beautiful part of the state. So we'll get into why and how the event got started. But first, let's just learn a little bit more about you and how you found your way to cycling and gravel cycling specifically. [00:04:31] Laura Wisner: Yeah, well, I mean, old, old school is Anybody who grew up in upper Midwest gravel road when they were kids, because not all roads were, um, paved back then. So, I mean, I started as a kid, just getting on my bike when you're up at our, um, vacation cottage and just take off for hours and hours on a gravel road, you know, no cell phones, parents have no idea where I was, um, no helmet, probably riding in cutoff jeans or something like that. But, um, you know, those are the, the good old days and then as I became an adult and got into, um, riding proper, uh, you know, got into road riding, mountain biking, cyclocross, and, um, the blessing of living in Boulder County is that we have these amazing gravel roads and, you know, people ask, well, why are you riding gravel? And I liken it to, if you live along one of the coasts, You learn to surf because it's right there and you should take advantage of it. So living here in Boulder County, it's crazy not to have a gravel bike or at least, you know, change out your wheels so you can get on our back roads and just go for miles and miles and hours and hours. So [00:05:50] Craig Dalton: yeah, I'm thinking back to which probably my first quote unquote gravel event was Boulder Rue Bay. In the early 90s when I lived in Boulder, and I certainly rode that on 23 C road tires. There's no doubt about it in my mind. Yeah, and [00:06:07] Laura Wisner: with my, my cycling friends and club, you know, we would, you know, even 10 years ago, we, a lot of us were just riding on gravel roads with, you know, road tires, um, and that was okay because they're, they're so smooth around here. And if you got a little chunky, well, I hope you're by handling slower. Up to the challenge, but, you know, this, uh, gravel revolution happened and all of a sudden you have all these options, um, not only in tires, but all of a sudden frames and, you know, it just became this. Um, the celebration of all things gravel. And so now it's just another bike in your quiver. Um, so yeah, we did that too. [00:06:54] Craig Dalton: As gravel started to become popularized and specific bikes started to arrive. Were you someone who found your way to gravel events outside of Boulder County? Yeah, you know, [00:07:05] Laura Wisner: I did the very first, um, seaboat gravel. Um, did that for a couple of years and at that point I was racing cross and so what I would do is use my cross bike and just switch out. Um, the wheels, but, you know, the one by there's some pretty good grades around here. If you head up the mountains straight from Boulder, um, you can go up to Gold Hill or Ward. Um, it's a little hard on a 1 by, you know, that's a pretty good workout in and of itself. And geometry is not quite right, so it. Became a love of mine to the point where, okay. I'm going all in, I'm buying the frame, you know, the specific. Um, gravel bike and got rid of the road frame and. And then got rid of the cross bike and gravel is pretty much it at this [00:08:00] Craig Dalton: point. Nice. And so let's talk about your connection to Kremling, Colorado, and how you became familiar with the area in the first place. [00:08:10] Laura Wisner: Yeah. So Kremling, other being the, other than being the, uh, the bend in the road as you go up the steamboat, it's the, uh, West Grams County area. So people know Winter Park. Winter Park is. East Grand, Kremling is West Grand, and so I've been in Grand County quite a bit, skiing and cycling and things like that, but my husband has a family practice position, and for five years, he was Kremling's town doc, and so we kept our family home base here in Boulder, and he would go up to Kremling midweek, and it's a small community, it's predominantly a ranching community, And he got to know the people and, um, I got to slowly know more of the people and when I would go up to visit him midweek. We would go for gravel rides, and I was just blown away by roads that I didn't know existed. Um, the quality of the gravel was incredible. Um, and I had ridden, you know, boulder roads, I had ridden around steamboats. Um, and, and crumbling is just unsurpassed as far as the quality of its gravel. And the roads that we rode for three hours, and I think one truck passed us. Um, so, um, being part of Cowtown Gravel is just my way of giving back to that community and being able to lend my excitement for what the area has to offer to other folks who love gravel as much as I do. [00:09:51] Craig Dalton: I've gotten many questions about Cowtown Gravel, but I have to take us on a quick detour because I'm curious. I had recently, I'm curious about becoming the town doctor for a community. Is that was your husband sort of offered employment at the city or county level to come and be a physician for that community? And my only point of reference is watching Doc Hollywood recently with my 9 year old son, [00:10:20] Laura Wisner: my husband was a position on the front range for a while and part of the, the bigger system that sometimes is kind of beholden to insurance companies. And he just wanted something different. Um, and in Boulder, a little bit of his frustration was continually patting people on the back thing. You're healthy as a horse, you know, continue that marathon training or, you know, climbing or whatever you're doing. Um, if you wanted something a little bit more challenging, and when you go to a rural community, you get to see a lot more. Um, Kremlin does have an incredible, uh, health system up there. They were the first in Colorado to have a trauma one emergency room, uh, decades ago. And, um, they're, they're top notch, uh, health care up there, but it's hard to find doctors in rural areas. So, um, he, he, his attention was called to this position and he went up there and thought, you know, what? I want to do this, um, and truly the only reason that he came back. To the front range, uh, after five years is because we have a, a kid who's finishing up high school and he wanted to be present for that last year. So, so he made the change, but there is a part of both his and my heart that is still in K Town. [00:11:49] Craig Dalton: Yeah, you had mentioned, obviously part of his journey was getting to know members of the community and de facto with your visits there, you started to get to know. some of the community members and as avid cyclists exploring. It sounds like you found other gravel cyclists who are based out of Cowtown. Can you talk about some of those characters you met? Oh [00:12:10] Laura Wisner: yeah, and, and the biggest character of all is Sean Scholl, who is a co race promoter with, uh, along with Blaine Day. And Sean is Big Shooter of Big Shooter Coffee. And he is this incredibly loud, large character who is just incredible and so full of fun and has a lot of energy. And he, he was a world class athlete. And I would even say still is. Um, so he lives up there and he and Blaine are cycling buddies. And they wanted to create an event. Up in Kremling, welcome the world, come and check it out, check out the back roads. And when I heard through the grapevine that they were going to have this gravel race, I reached out to them and I said, I'm in, I want to help, what can I do? My background is in marketing and so I was able to lend that to them. The organization and so the, the really incredible thing about Blaine and Sean is that they're not trying to create an event that is just, you know, really easy. Come on up and, you know, we'll show you our background roads and we'll just have a great day. They surprised people in our first year with how hot it was. So, the Kremlin gravel, uh, we call it untapped and untamed, which is when you drive into Kremlin, that's the sign as you come into town, welcome to Kremlin, untapped and untamed. And we decided to put that as our gravel moniker. Um, there are roads that you couldn't even tell that's gravel because it almost feels paved. Um, and then you can go a little further in and, you know, get a little bit chunkier, um, a little bit rowdier. Um, and and what these guys are doing is they are creating an experience for, um, all 3 of our porcelain that people are just blown away by. Um, they're blown away by the climbing. They're blown away by, um, sections. Of roads or trails that they didn't even know existed. So we had such good feedback last year that the team had scientists went back to the drawing board. That my ride this year and made it even rowdier. So, really excited to have those people who joined us last year. Come and see what we have in store this year. [00:14:50] Craig Dalton: Yeah, that sounds amazing. So I want to talk a little bit about the gravel. I mean, obviously, if you go a little further up the road, an hour to steamboat, they talk about champagne gravel. You've been describing it a little bit, but it sounds like the team at Cowtown is trying to make sure that both our climbing legs, as well as our technical skills are explored. So what type, you know, if you think about through the course of the, the longer course, Think about the types of terrain and describe some of the different areas, whether it's single track, double track or dirt road that you might find yourself on. [00:15:23] Laura Wisner: Yeah. So, um, right now on calicongravel. com, we have the maps available to folks with the one caveat is that these might change because we're working with the Bureau of Land Management and the PLM. Um, Bill are going to tell us yes or no on some sections. So we put the scenario on that has more paved segments than non paved. I should say. All of our 3 races are predominantly gravel. If the BLM will give us permission, we're going to take off more paved sections and add more gravel for unpaved. So, um, our longest course is called the bull. It's 90 miles and it has 8, 000 feet of climbing. So, as it stands right now, worst case scenario, 76 percent unpaid, which is pretty incredible in and of itself. So, uh, we start right outside of town square. Um, we're going to start the high school, all downtown Kremling. Um, and we're going to start going northeast and if we're starting with paves, it's going to be a pretty fast start. There will be a peloton and, and, um, some people can hang on for dear life and some are just going to, you know, hard charge from the start. From there, we get to a really smooth gravel. It's very similar to Of pavement and you will hardly even tell that it's it's gravel. Um, and it's just a hard pack. It's beautiful. And from there, we go to what we call the whoopie moves and, um, just rolling, um, up and down and that is probably 1 of our chunkier sections, um, you know, a little bit looser, a little bit larger, uh, rock section, but It is something that anybody with, you know, halfway decent bike handling skills is going to be able to accomplish, um, and they're fun. And so we go from there back to a nice hard pack gravel. Um, something that is new this year is we're going up Black Mountain, um, which is about a 1600 foot climb. And both the bull long course and the cow mid length course will go up Black Mountain. Um, and at the top they're going to go down through three miles of private ranch land, which is super cool because, you know, part of the fun of gravel is exploring roads and places you've never been. So this private ranch land is only going to be accessible on race day. So you can't pre ride it. Can't check it out the day before. So that is going to be, um, a really fun first climb and I'll probably set the, the pack apart a bit there. [00:18:30] Craig Dalton: And how about on that, on that descent, is it the type of thing that it's sort of wide open and it's full gas or are there some technical elements to it that you need to be cautious about? Um, [00:18:42] Laura Wisner: it's going to be fine. It's not going to be super technical because we are taking, um. The mid and the long course through it. We wanted to make sure that, you know, we're not, uh, less than anybody going down that. So, um. It's totally rideable, and, and you won't need shocks, and, and you won't need, uh, mountain bike handling skills. But, I mean, those people who are, who want to go fast certainly can let it loose on that. It'll be great. Yeah, [00:19:13] Craig Dalton: yeah, and then it looks like from the course profile that you hit another big climb. Well, [00:19:17] Laura Wisner: here's where the two, uh, courses diverge. So, the bull, will go up again, and they'll go up Grouse Mountain. This was a part of the course from last year that people really enjoyed. Um, so they'll go up, and Grouse Mountain is, um, it's a, it's a paved, not a paved, it's a gravel road for ranchers to access their ranches. So, I mean, it's just a normal road. Once you get up towards the loop, there is going to be a little bit more, um, dirt section versus gravel, um, and. The whole loop has been expanded this year, so people can catch their breath this year. Check out the views, that's our highest point in the race. And, um, it's really beautiful. There's an abandoned cabin up there. There are streams that people often just fill their water bottles with, unfiltered water. Um, and are totally fine. So, we are going back up Grouse Mountain on the long course. Doing a lollipop and then coming back down [00:20:28] Craig Dalton: again. Got it. And I forgot to mention, or ask, what elevation is crumbling to start with? [00:20:34] Laura Wisner: Oh, crumbling is, uh, sorry about that. Crumbling is a little bit lower. I'd have to check that out. [00:20:45] Craig Dalton: Yeah, so a little bit lower than Boulder. So we're, we're not in the stratosphere when we climb up 1600 feet. [00:20:50] Laura Wisner: Um, I'm not going to say it's lower than Boulder, but it's, it's not, um, oh, 73, almost 7400 feet. [00:20:59] Craig Dalton: Okay. So that's no joke for us. Flatlanders. [00:21:02] Laura Wisner: Well, we have to give you some, some elements of the mountains here, but it's not like you're starting up at 11, 000 feet and you're going to feel the altitude a little bit if you're coming from, [00:21:15] Craig Dalton: yeah, that's part of the fun. Okay, so we've gone up and down grass mountain. What, what comes next? [00:21:22] Laura Wisner: Okay, so what we're doing this year is we are reversing course around our reservoir. Williams Fork Reservoir is just beautiful. And last year we started and went around it counterclockwise and so the Peloton was pretty tight through all of that. This portion is paved, um, to get to the, um, Williamsport Reservoir, you just have a little bit on the highway, but then a little climb again, about 500 feet, and then, um, you'll go around the water, um, um, And start heading back towards crumbling. So it's really scenic. Uh, and just really kind of a nice thing to see water, uh, water is a big issue for us here in the West. And so you're going to cross the Colorado on a bridge and then go around and work and see mountains in the background and it's. It's just really spectacular if you can catch your breath and look up once in a while. [00:22:26] Craig Dalton: I forgot to ask this on air, but how do you sort of cast the event in terms of a race versus a ride? And are there, is it a heavily competitive element in the front end? So [00:22:39] Laura Wisner: the spirit of Kowtown Gravel is we wanted to A, welcome people to the Kremling and and have them stop in our earlier than steamboat. Um, Kremling is only an hour and a half, two hours from the front range, depending on where you are. Um, we wanted to invite people to Kremling and check out our gravel. Secondly, it is a fundraiser for the community gym floor. The floor is half pulled out, and the multi generational community just really needs a place to work out that there's, you know, the schools need, um, a place to have the kids sports. The older folk need a place to work out, and so this is a fundraiser for the Middle Park gym, and so we don't have a prize purse at this point. We are trying to raise money. And so we have had some really competitive people come the first year. We had some semi pros and some pros come. And again, this year we are not going to offer a prize purse. Um, because this is a fundraiser, but that said, there were some pretty fast calves who came and raced, but we welcome those who just want to come out for an event and get access to this ranch that they're never going to be able to ride on again. Um, do the short course, which we call the calf course, which is, um, just really a welcoming section of Kremlin gravel. Um, E bikes are welcome on it, families are welcome on it, people who just don't want to commit the time or the distance. This is a 35 mile, just on a 35 mile course. 2200 miles of elevation gain. So, uh, we hope that some, some more pros come out. We're going to, you know, reach out and invite folks. Um, but you're going to, you know, the fun of gravel is you can come race an event or just come out and ride it because you're with, you know, a few hundred of your like minded [00:24:48] Craig Dalton: friends. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You're a great distance away from the front range to kind of come out and experience something unique. And I always love when events are able to negotiate access to land that we wouldn't otherwise get to ride because it just adds a sort of additional special elements to the [00:25:05] Laura Wisner: day. Well, in Special Elements, the, one of the things about Kremling is that it being a ranch community, um, big shooter, Sean, is a fifth generation rancher, and so he goes out and personally talks to the ranchers along the course. And ask them, please don't do your cattle drive a few days before, or this day, because we're going to have a lot of cyclists coming to, um, you know, you imagine a herd of cattle on the road, trying to compete for the road with cyclists. Or if they do their cattle drive a couple of days before, you're going to have a lot of cow pies being flipped up with the gravel. So, it's a unique, um, a unique aspect that Cowtown has. I mean, it really is, uh, true to its name in that aspect. Yeah, [00:25:58] Craig Dalton: that's great. I'm sure that Sean as a local and a cattleman himself is able to get his His peers excited for the option of allowing cyclists to come through town and not get too annoyed that their, their day might be a little bit disrupted by a Peloton at some point. [00:26:16] Laura Wisner: Well, you could get that in an urban setting or anywhere, but, um, the, the community of crumbling was really wonderful. We had. People from the retirement community make breakfast burritos and still those before the race of the fundraiser. Um, we had the high school band come and play at the after party. We had ranchers who were just out on their horses along the course and waving us on and cheering for us and. Um, it's just a really cool, unique [00:26:45] Craig Dalton: event. That's fun. I was going to ask you, like, if someone was interested in coming to the event, are there accommodations in Kremling, or do people typically drive in that day, or are they staying over? You know, [00:26:58] Laura Wisner: it's a mix, because, um, We're about an hour from Winter Park, about an hour from Steamboat, um, less than an hour from Summit County, and so there are a lot of folks in Colorado who have vacation homes, and so they might come up, do the event for the day, and because we're so close to the front range, you know, within two hours, some people might just make it a day event, go up and back. Kremlin does have lodging, we have A little bit of lodging, so if you're going to want a hotel to sleep in a bed, I'll get your lodging early. We do have an RV part. We have, um, camping. There's camping around the reservoir that we're going to ride around so. I would recommend that if people want to come up and we would love to have you, we're going to have a great time afterward. Uh, spend the night before, spend the night after, but make your plans early, especially because it is the 4th of July holiday. Okay. [00:28:02] Craig Dalton: And so what's the experience like once we cross the finish line? What should riders expect at that point? [00:28:09] Laura Wisner: Well, we have expanded our finish line experience this year. Um, and you know, we learn things as every race. Organization does. So this year we're going to have an arch welcoming people in. So it feels like I'm done. Um, we finished at Town Square, which has a brand new pavilion. So there's going to be a lot of shade. Um, we're going to have a band again. We're going to have food for people. There's a beer trailer. Um, kids can run around with their shoes off. It's just a really clean park and people just they hung out. You know, it's the I'll pray experience. You say hello to old friends. You talk to people. You might have met on course and road with for a while. So it was really nice event that it's the kind of thing where people hang out for a few hours and just chat it up and talk about their experience. [00:29:08] Craig Dalton: And prior to prior to this recording, you'd sent me a photo and you told me there was an interesting story. So it's a photo. I'm looking at a wide expanse of beautiful grazing land backdrop of beautiful Colorado mountains. I think that's a mosaic bike, but the writer is wearing what seems to be a bull. Skull on their head. [00:29:33] Laura Wisner: So that writer is Ben Delaney, and he came up in order to check out the course last year and Ben is a cycling journalist journalist who's been around forever. So that was on the top of Grouse Mountain and it took a little stop at the top to look around, take pictures and he points at the ground and says what's that? And of course, Cowtown. It's a cow pelvis bone, and the thing is, is really funny because it just looks like something out of a action hero movie. And so he started wearing it as a mask, wore it as a breastplate, was just hamming it up in front of a camera. But, you know, it's, it's, you know, it's trembling and there's going to be cow bones laying around. So, that, that's the [00:30:21] Craig Dalton: cow pelvis. It's a great, it's a great image and I'll, I'll make sure to put that as part of the part of the episode art so people can check it out. So, what's the best way for people to find out more about cowtown gravel? When are you opening up registration? [00:30:38] Laura Wisner: So, we are opening registration to the public on January 6, 2024. Um, people who sign up for our newsletter get to register a full day early. So we, in our inaugural year last year, we had 350 spots and we sold out and people were begging for a wait list. And so this year, we are going to open up to 700 spots. Um, and we do fully expect to sell out again. So again, go to CowTownGravel. com and put as much information as possible on our website, including a link to register the course maps, descriptions. Um, where do you find lodging? Um, it's all on our website. [00:31:25] Craig Dalton: Great, and definitely give them a follow on Instagram and see some of those great views we've been talking about. It looks like a lot of fun. I definitely love these sort of rural town starts. It's really cool to see another part of Colorado kind of raising their hand and saying, Hey, we've got great riding here too. And it's exciting that Sean and Blaine Kind of took this opportunity to sort of write a gravel love letter to their hometown and invite 700 of their new friends to come join them in 2024. Yeah, [00:31:56] Laura Wisner: we, we promise that it'll be experience that will not soon be forgotten. [00:32:01] Craig Dalton: Awesome. Thanks for the time. [00:32:03] Laura Wisner: Come back out Colorado. We'd [00:32:05] Craig Dalton: love to see you. Yeah, I definitely need another Colorado trip in my life. That's for sure. Thanks for all the [00:32:12] Laura Wisner: time, Laura. All right. Thank you. [00:32:15] Craig Dalton (host): That's going to do it for this week's edition of the gravel ride podcast. Big, thanks to Laura for coming on the show and talking to us about cow town gravel. If you're listening to this in early January. Registration opens up on January 6th. So make sure to head on over to the Cowtown gravel website, which I will link to in the show notes and grab a registration. If this event sounds like your cup of tea. Big, thanks to our friends at dynamic cyclists for sponsoring the show. Remember use the code, the gravel ride for 15% off any of their programs. If you're interested and we're able to support the show, ratings and reviews are hugely appreciated. It really helps in our discoverability. Better yet, send a text message to one of your riding buddies and share the show with them. That's another great way to grow the community. Until next time, I'm wishing you a happy new year and here's to finding some dirt under your wheels.