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Cycling Oklahoma
Skydiving, Cycling, and the Spirit of Adventure with Ray Heck
Join us for an exhilarating journey as we welcome Ray Heck, a truly captivating guest whose life story is a tapestry of unique experiences. From his entrepreneurial beginnings in Ohio to cycling adventures in the scenic landscapes of Georgia, Ray's tale is one of transformation and exploration. We share his exciting foray into skydiving, including his participation in the US Parachute Nationals, offering listeners a peek into the world of competitive parachuting and the camaraderie that defines it.
Ray's passion doesn't stop at skydiving; his love for classic cars and engineering shines through as he recounts his transition to engineering, and his involvement in the car culture. Whether it's tales of adrenaline-fueled cycling escapades involving deer collisions or participating in the grueling Leadville 100 race, Ray's stories are filled with both humor and inspiration. We explore how endurance sports like cycling demand not only physical stamina but also incredible mental resilience.
As we wrap up our conversation, we delve into the impactful community work Ray is involved in, particularly with the Red Bud Charity Ride. His experiences illustrate how endurance sports can foster a deep sense of community and purpose. From supporting local nonprofits to inspiring others through his adventures, Ray's story is a testament to the power of passion and perseverance, leaving listeners with a sense of motivation and community engagement.
What is up? Cycling Oklahoma? Thank you so much for tuning in for another episode. I'm going to do a sponsor shout outs and stuff a little bit different, so this intro is going to be short, but I just want to say thank you so much. It's been another great episode and this one took a long time to finally make happen, but I think you're going to enjoy listening to Ray Heck.
Speaker 1:This guy is the most interesting man in the world. His stories are crazy. There's definitely gonna have to be an episode two at some point in the future. Uh, because I think we just barely scraped the tip of the iceberg. The stories are crazy and his wife clearly may be more awesome than ray once you hear some of these stories. So I hope you enjoy this one. Um, it's, it's, it's really, really good, and Ray is an absolute standup ridiculous human. So just an absolute great guy, fast and done some cool stuff on the bike, but, more importantly, an absolute amazing man who gives back to our community. So I really hope you enjoy this episode. Uh, please do not forget to check out, uh.
Speaker 1:Cycling oklahomacom. Download your gravel routes there. It is gravel and mountain bike season here in Oklahoma, so get out and enjoy the dirt. But if you want to read some blogs, if you want to download some routes, check out cyclingoklahomacom. We got more videos coming soon. I hope to get a couple of those recorded in the next couple of months. So if you have ideas of people that want to be on the podcast, if you have some new routes that you'd like, send them over to me so we can upload them and other people can get out and enjoy them.
Speaker 1:But I'm going to say thank you so much to our sponsors. Sponsor first. First and foremost is more overhead door. They've been with us since the beginning, so I'm super pumped to still have them on board. Um, if you have any garage door needs this winter, you need a new one. You have maintenance issues through the cold, crappy winters in here in Oklahoma. Reach out to more overhead door. They're local, they're in our cycling community and they can take care of you. Just more overhead doorcom. Or 4 0, 5, 7, 9, 9, 9, 2, 1, 4. I hope you enjoy this amazing episode with Ray and, again, cycling Oklahomacom. Check it out. Thank you so much for listening. Leave a review, tell your friends and we'll see you next time. All right, ray, I'm super excited about this. We've talked about this Well since we did your last episode at red bud which was red bud Gosh was that last two summers ago, two summers ago, two summers ago.
Speaker 1:We've talked about doing, doing it and, uh, billy, sweet, sweet billy has always been like you should get ray on here. I'm like, I agree, I should get ray on here. So, um, and that may be where a lot of these highlights came from, so to ask you so that's fine, he's your target.
Speaker 1:All right, when this is over with billy's, your target, um. But I don't even know where to start with you because I have so many random questions to ask you. I think where do we start is just like where, where did you grow up? Introduce yourself, where did you grow up, and then let's kind of see where this crazy conversation goes from there.
Speaker 2:Perfect, my name is Ray Heck. I grew up, was born in Ohio, outside of Cleveland, spent about 31 years there from Ohio. I was running a business that got acquired by a local company here, md building products. Okay, so did you build? Were you a builder or that we were making um caulks and spackles.
Speaker 2:Oh, interesting Painting uh, stuff for painting, okay and um, md building products, which is a local company that's a hundred year old plus company here in the city. They bought it. It ended up moving our equipment down to Florida. So we ended up moving to Daytona Beach area, set up our factory there and another existing factory, and then that went along until about 2000,. And we were acquired by GE. When GE bought us we ended up moving up to North Carolina, to Mooresville, just outside of Charlotte, by Lake Norman, fantastic area, great, another great cycling community. So we were in North Carolina for about five, six years and I had never really worked in the big corporate world. I used to just laugh my butt off at looking at Dilbert cartoons.
Speaker 2:And I thought there's no way this could possibly ever happen anywhere. Well, ge is like must be where he used to go get everything for Dilbert cartoons, cause it was. It just was amazing. And so when I had had my fill of the GE thing, I ended up coming back to work for Mecklenburg-Duncan here, and they had a facility in Georgia that extruded aluminum, and so we made pipes for the aluminum pipe that would be used to make like the ski arches for boats and the giant tuna towers, and we make door thresholds. We make all different kinds of stuff, and so I started running that business for these guys. About a year after that, after GE had bought our business, there was a five-year non-compete and that got over. We opened up a new plant.
Speaker 2:So that's where ever since 2006,. That's what I've been doing, and so we were. When I left GE, we ended up moving to Georgia. We were in North Georgia, in this little town called Dahlonega which was an old Civil War town, fascinating, it's really.
Speaker 2:It's where the Appalachian Trail begins or ends, depending on which way you're going on it. My wife and I were fortunate. We hooked up with a guy and we became part owners of a bike shop which was a. That was another whole. That's interesting. Um, now I know why bike shop owners are like the way they are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it takes a special breed Right, and that's why I can get along with Schlegel pretty well. So yeah, yeah, you gotta. You gotta have something a little wrong with you if you want to have a bike shop. I've learned the hard way, Exactly.
Speaker 2:A lot wrong, and so we were there in North Georgia until about 2010, 2011. And then we ended up moving here the guy that owns the business. He thought it would be better for us to come here. So my wife and I we moved, bought a house in Arcadia, so we're about five miles north of Pops, and you know, here I am.
Speaker 1:So you're still, still working.
Speaker 2:I still work. I've been working on finding some backfill for guys to come in and start taking it over and been really fortunate, found a few pieces so that I don't really know what I would do if I retire, I mean like one morning I woke up and it's like I looked in the mirror and I'm like, I'm going to be 68 in March and it's like how did that happen? It's like you think that there's all this time to do stuff and then one morning you wake up and you're old, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no-transcript. Actually like wisdom, but when you're young you clearly just like how this old guy doesn't have, doesn't know what he's talking about you know, but I feel like now I sometimes I feel like I'm the old guy when I tell people stuff or say something. But yeah, I think the older you get, the more you realize that, like man, that's quick, really quick.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Then you start looking back on life experience and everything else and every place that you go and again, like I said, I've traveled a little bit. I've only worked for a handful of people in my whole life but every place that I've gone I've been so fortunate to either get mentored or find somebody to seek somebody out that was just like left me with some gifts that helped like shape my life.
Speaker 1:So, okay, let's, that's. This is a random topic, but I'm going to be selfish here and try to gain some knowledge from you. So when you found those mentors, was it you worked with them? Was it pure luck? Was it like you just made a friendship with someone and it came, you went to them for advice? Like, how did that happen? I mean, because finding a good mentor is not easy, it's not easy.
Speaker 2:One of the things that cycling, one of the gifts that cycling gave me, is that when I started running this business up in Ohio back in the, it would have been like a long time ago 1985 or something.
Speaker 2:It was called the Flood Company and the owner of the company and I happened to become friends and Pete Flood was his name and we would go out on bike rides and we would talk and he would be like, how's it going? And I said, well, you know certain things that I was struggling with, things that I was having a hard time getting past, you know. It's like one time, um, we were talking about people and he's like he, I was frustrated because somebody wasn't working as quick as I needed them to be. And, uh, he said, well, are you better off today with them or without them? And he's like that's the only question you have to ask yourself. And it's like, if you're better off with them, then figure out you know, deal with whatever that is, move on from it and don't spend a lot of time focusing on it. And that that was a key, that was a trait. That is like everybody that I've ever had the good fortune of being able to sit down and have those kinds of conversations with they. They share that thing. Don't get stuck in the ditch. I mean, it's so easy. There's so much stuff that goes on, especially today. How much stuff comes at you so fast media, everything else. There's only so many things you can be in control of. And when you start shedding off some of that stuff and don't like try to, you know, dig into that most minute detail which you probably have no control over anyway, right, it just opens up the door and life changes and you get to move on.
Speaker 2:You know, and it's, I think, that the guy that owns the business here, he and I became friends when they, when they did the acquisition of our business and I mean he has always helped me, like he can see when I'm struggling and it's kind of like even like when you're on a bike ride and you're struggling, everybody kind of knows around you're struggling, you'll have certain people that will come up to you and they see this and if you're open to it and listen to what they have to say, they will give you a piece of wisdom that you can take with you to help change that dynamic. For whatever that short second is and you know those kind of things for me again, because I've been around maybe too long they start to become this, what I built myself off of, and like how I look at the world and like when I sit down with somebody and you know, if I have a young person that comes to work for me, we'll have discussions about it. It's like I want to know how you feel, I want to know, and it's like being a good listener and being able to like process that and not always trying to fix it. But again, like I say, I've been super fortunate.
Speaker 2:There's like two things in my life that really changed me dramatically. One of them was learn how to skydive. You know, that was something that when I was a kid I never, ever would have thought that I would have ever taken the step off the edge of a plane Right. And you know, I did it. The first time I did it, it was unbelievable. What right? And you know, I did it.
Speaker 1:The first time I did it, it was unbelievable what made you want to do it for the first time? Because I've always talked about like I have no interest in bungee jumping. I can't see myself ever doing like a base jump situation any of that kind of stuff. Right, skydiving is the one thing that I'm like. I have to check that off. I have to.
Speaker 2:There was a guy so, like when I was again, this goes like this was the skydiving era was the 80s for me and I used to. This is another crazy thing. I taught an aerobics class when we lived in Ohio and one of the guys had just come back from Hawaii and he taught this class called sports conditioning and and so I did it. His name is Sean. He's like, hey, my brother's a skydiver, he's going to put together this first jump class out at this, the parachute center up in Ohio, in a place called Parkman, and I'm like, okay, I'm signing up. So you know, we have this first group gets out there and there's like 20 of us or whatever, and we're all sweating bullets nervous as hell, right.
Speaker 2:You know, just sitting there going through all. The only thing they teach you in like skydiving classes is how to save yourself. So everything's about emergencies. It's like, okay, the parachute doesn't come out. Well, that would be an emergency.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's step number one, Right and so we would.
Speaker 2:You know, it's just like this whole day of training goes through, and I still remember to this day of climbing in this Cessna 185. There's five of us in there and the pilot, and we're sitting there and this is like getting into a Volkswagen Beetle that they've torn all the interior out of except for the driver's seat. And so we're going around and get to altitude and, uh, the first guy the pilot looks bobby's the pilot and he looks the first guy's like okay, time to open the door. So this guy opens the door, like winds blowing in and the noise and stuff. He's like, okay, get out. And so the guy gets out and he's like he looks looks. He's like, okay, jump. And so the guy's and we're on static line. So you're hooked to the plane and when you jump away, the static line opens your parachute for you.
Speaker 1:So your first jump was solo.
Speaker 2:Yeah, solo, but it's static line, so you know it's, but you still have to control like landing and everything. You have to control it right and landing and everything. Yeah right, how many?
Speaker 1:days of training did you have before?
Speaker 2:you won like oh my gosh, that's four hours.
Speaker 1:Four hours yeah and they're like fall from the sky, like shit. Workout, you'll be good, you should be.
Speaker 2:I get to my turn, you know, and I'm the last one to go, so now I've had to watch all these I've had to watch these, like four other bodies fall away from this airplane.
Speaker 2:so I get up there and bobby's looking out and he's spot, and he's looking out the window of the plane on the left side, and so he says, okay, open the door. And I'm like open the door. He's like open the door. So I touched this door handle and the door goes flying open on the. It hits the bottom of the wing on the Cessna and they've got this little like door strut you put in to keep it from banging. So he's looking out and he's like, uh, need to check it to make sure. So I'm yanking on. He's like it's hooked up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm going to double check, yeah.
Speaker 2:So then he's like, okay, get out. I'm like, get out now. He's like, yeah, get out now. And so like I climb out onto this. There's a step over top of the landing wheel and then the strut from the, trailing a leg in the, in the wind, oh my gosh, I about 80 miles an hour. And then you know he's looking out spotting and they finally he's like, okay, go. And I'm like, go now. He's like yeah. And so all of a sudden it's like you, let go. And you arch back and you look up and you see the, the lines all start to come out of the, the bag where the parachutes at and everything. And then all of a sudden we learned how to jump on the old military surplus stuff, so those big green ones you see in the movies. So that's what we learned, that's called a T-10. And that thing opened up and it's just like it was. You know, like at that time my brain is still trying to like wrap its head around. You just got out of an airplane.
Speaker 1:You know, you just fell out of an airplane.
Speaker 2:You know, like you just fell out of an airplane yeah, we need to maybe pause for some antagonizing reappraisal here. So on the ground there's a guy who has a radio and he talks to you so he's like, hey, you're looking good up there and he tells you how to steer, okay, and so you steer and um, there's a uh, every parachute center has a like a drop zone target and there's pea gravel around it and so that's where you aim to try to get to the peas and stuff. And so he got me close to the ground and you get down and land and roll and it was just like I got up and it was the most exhilarating thing that I had ever done in my life. Yeah, I can imagine, and I was just. That was like all of a sudden life. Yeah, I can imagine, and I was just that was like all of a sudden. It was like the light turned on and I'm like skydiving is a thing.
Speaker 1:So had you done any like adventure stuff or any like death-defying or like been an adrenaline junkie before that?
Speaker 2:Nothing really to that. I mean, it was cars for me. My dad was a car guy, okay, and so he would go to the drag strip and he would take me, my sister, and we would sit on this, you know, on the stands and watch the cars go, and so it was the car culture guy for a really long time, okay, um, but nothing to that, nothing like that, yeah, um. So the next weekend I went back to the drop zone and made two jumps made 100 the first year. That's a lot of jobs. I made 300 the next year. Oh, my gosh, started competing. We went to the US Nationals. My first trip ever to Oklahoma was to Muskogee for the US Parachute Nationals.
Speaker 1:I didn't know. There was like competitions.
Speaker 2:There's like for everything.
Speaker 2:Everything's got a competition, of course, and so the thing that we did was called relative work. Everything, everything's got a competition, of course, and so the thing that we did was called relative work. And so a couple people, a minimum of four and all the way up to you know like 40, 80, a hundred ways now, but they get out, they fly together and then you do these random maneuvers, they pick these out, they choreograph them and they give them to you and you have to go and you have to continue to keep repeating them and stuff.
Speaker 1:they tell you like the, each competition has a set like choreographed routine that you have to. You don't know till you get there, right okay hold.
Speaker 2:Uh, you pull that out and then they give you maybe anywhere from like six to ten maneuvers and once you get to the end of it, then you repeat it. Okay, I mean there's some there. There are people that are just they're so good at it. What just so good at it? What makes you good at it? Being able to fly, I mean the thing that's so funny.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like cycling in a peloton. Sometimes you see at the tour you see 80 guys and you see that guy in the middle. It's like how we always say how could you be in there and be comfortable with it? So flying your body is kind of similar to that. You have to learn how to fall flat, straight down and then you can control. You have all these air surfaces. Like you know, when Waddell talks about flying an airplane, it's the same kind of thing. You can get a little bit of lift, but most of the time it's just going down Left. You really can't. You can get a little bit of lift, but most of the time it's just going down Right, left, right up down. I mean it's phenomenal, just body control. Yep, it's kind of like if you've ever been on a motorcycle and you feel that wind hit you. That's similar to you're falling 100 miles an hour or so 120 miles an hour down. When you get out of a plane you really don't feel like you're falling because the plane's going forward.
Speaker 1:And as you get out you transition to down.
Speaker 2:So it's 80 to a hundred, whatever it is, and then you start falling straight down.
Speaker 1:Interesting, yeah. So do you think, are people like naturally better at it?
Speaker 2:Yes, Some people are just like they're predisposed. Their body is just designed for to be able to fall straight.
Speaker 1:Is there a body type that's better, like big people, small people like? Is there? I mean, big people fall fast, small people fall slow? Okay, so you have to like match up right and so you wear a different.
Speaker 2:Um, there are different suits that you wear, just kind of like you see the squirrel suits today on some of the videos. So it's similar to that and and so you'll have like a smaller person will have a really tight suit, and like I'd have a bigger suit so that I would have more drag as I'm falling.
Speaker 2:And so then we you know a lot of it is we'll practice on falling relative to each other and learning how to turn, and some people again have turns that are built in like they may have had a shoulder surgery or a knee surgery, and so they'll have legs that aren't straight. It'll build a turn in, so you have to learn how to fly straight.
Speaker 1:Huh, wow, I had no clue. There was so much to it. So through these competitions you traveled all over the country. Do they win money, or is it just for fun? It's just like a thing mostly. It's like what is it?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean there's. I mean, the only people that made money in it was, um, people that were making gear. Okay, um, we taught, um, I got my license to teach, uh, accelerated free fall aff class and um, it was, that was again. That was another life.
Speaker 2:Epiphany for me was when we were at a drop zone in Florida, at Zephyr Hills, over Thanksgiving one year, and it's called the Turkey Boogie. And so Elaine, my wife she wasn't my wife at the time, but we were down there for this meet and we were doing what they call 10-way speed. And so 10 of us would jump out of a DC-3, and you have to make a circle in the fastest time possible, okay, and so you jump out with a cameraman. He's over top of you and you just go out and fly. And so we would compete against all these guys, and we always competed against Golden Knights. And so the big thing was to knock the golden knights off would be a big deal, right. And so this one year, you know we're gonna, we're gonna knock off the golden knights. And so, you know, somehow or another, we ended up knocking off the golden which was gonna be super rare.
Speaker 2:Oh, it was super rare, yeah, but it was so cool and we're all like this is all going on, so there's obviously there's a lot of happiness at the end, right that we're all drinking and stuff. And I remember getting out of the we were sleeping in a van in this beautiful.
Speaker 2:You get out and like there's this whole circle of like it's a chuck wagon circle so there's an old school bus, guys living in that, and vans, pickups, station wagons, all this other stuff yeah, like the like the rock climbing dirtbag world, exactly okay and ski bums and surf bums and all that other thing. Okay, so I'm standing there drinking a cup of coffee and there's like another half a dozen guys out there drinking coffee and like, at that time I'm still like my mid-30s, I think I'm 35 or something like that and there's guys out there that are standing out by their mans they're my age not that I am now.
Speaker 2:You know, you know and it's like it's totally and I'm like you can keep jumping, but I think I'm going to go and get a real job.
Speaker 1:So at this point you were just traveling around, doing this all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were jumping all over the place. I mean, she was traveling. Elaine, my wife, was part of a female allemale demonstration team called the Misty Blues and they would jump at air shows. They would go around the world. She jumped into the Super Bowl at halftime.
Speaker 1:Oh, she's the one that jumped in. Yeah, you didn't, I didn't. She jumped into the Super Bowl. That's crazy, yep. So did they get paid to do that stuff? Yeah?
Speaker 2:She was working for Disney. Disney had the contract Contract for the halftime show for the 95 Super Bowl at Joe Robbie Stadium. Amazing yeah.
Speaker 1:Wow, so when they would go around to these air shows and stuff, they just pay them to come in and do it? Yeah, they would get paid. I mean, she jumped through the arch in St Louis.
Speaker 2:What Through the arch?
Speaker 1:yeah, Maybe we should have her on for a podcast episode. She was a way better skydiver than I was. That's amazing yeah amazing, yeah, huh yeah. So you finally decided, like I've had enough of this right, like have you always been that way where, like when you find like a hobby or find a thing, you're just like all in, absolutely, yeah, yeah just that same personality so when was the last time you skydived?
Speaker 1:it probably would have been this episode, along with our amazing video that you can find on Instagram at Cycling Oklahoma or YouTube at Cycling Oklahoma, is brought to you by Ethan Hume of Thrivent Financial. Ethan has stepped up and become a great sponsor of the podcast and a great sponsor of all things cycling in Oklahoma. He really has stepped up and puts his money behind his passion of cycling sponsoring races, sponsoring this podcast, sponsoring our amazing video. If you have any financial needs whatsoever, ethan is the man. He is such a great human. He stands behind all of us in the cycling community with his money and his advertising and making our events better. And Ethan's a super fast dude. He won the cat to tour to dirt series this year.
Speaker 1:So please reach out to Ethan If you have any financial needs whatsoever. Ethan can help you with so many things with life insurance, mutual funds, retirement accounts, just basic financial guidance, cause you don't know what's going on in these times of need. Reach out to Ethan If you have any questions whatsoever financial. You can find him online at thrivecom. You can reach out to Ethan directly. He's here in Oklahoma city or in Edmond at 4 0, 5, 3, 5, 9, 7, 2, 8. 3. 4 0, 5, 3, 5, 9, 7, 2, 8, 3. Reach out to me and I will put you in connection with.
Speaker 2:It was before we moved here, okay, so it would have been the late, like um late 90s or okay.
Speaker 1:So it's been a while and she doesn't. She hasn't jumped anymore either.
Speaker 2:She's in horses now, which sometimes I wish she was back to skydive. Yeah, skydive a lot cheaper than horses.
Speaker 1:Um gosh I don't even know where to start with all these things, because I have a feeling it's gonna go so crazy. Well, I guess, to keep it somewhat on a timeline, I was told to ask about college and maybe like why you went to college or what you went to college for.
Speaker 2:Well, I thought that I wanted to be a cop. Oh, grew up in my dad, was friends with the chief of police and started doing police dispatching, doing the whole thing, which was kind of see a whole nother side of life. That, yeah, I wasn't really prepared to see like the worst of yeah yeah, which was kind of like okay, interesting, but um I ended up going to youngstown uh for criminal justice oh okay and um, spent some time.
Speaker 2:Oh okay. It was kind of strange. I mean we were in Youngstown and it was during the—like. The mob was really tough there. It was when steel was kind of falling apart in Youngstown, so it was just really strange. Tough time, tough time, really tough time. Ended up being able to like switch over to engineering and ended up doing work for a buddy of my dad's that was building power washing equipment and so got into that and again, that's what really got me into the car culture a lot, because this guy was he was a maniac that owned this company called Sparkle Wash. He decided it would be a really good idea to build and buy a jet power dragster.
Speaker 1:Of course, that's a good idea.
Speaker 2:There was this guy named Art Arfons who's got. You know, he ends up buying a car from him. He calls it the Master Blaster. It's got a J-46 Westinghouse jet engine on the back of it. Oh my word. And you know, somehow he never killed himself with it.
Speaker 1:Did you ever get to ride in?
Speaker 2:it. I just went out and crewed for him oh my gosh it was like the cockpit in, it was like for a bumpus size guy, so it was teeny, tiny, yeah, but oh my gosh yeah, but that was fun, it was just, it was interesting.
Speaker 1:It was definitely insane. So, with being into cars, were you ever? Did you ever have cars?
Speaker 2:yeah, I had a, had a? Um built a 23 ford roadster from the ground up and that was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:Um, a, uh, a replica cobra did that had some chevelles and stuff yeah, that's what my dad has, someone I grew up in the car world and I've always loved it's kind of always been me and my dad's thing and uh, but he's a muscle car guy, you know he's. So he's a few years older than you and that was, you know, his high school years and all of his cars that he had, he was, he was that grease monkey growing up and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:And you know, like him and my mom, like when he they got married he had a 69 camaro and he just like still you know, was heartbroken that he doesn't have that car anymore and all the things you, you know, so, uh, so, growing up in that car culture, um is resonates very much, cause we, we went to SEMA one year. We got all the auctions. Oh, it's so cool, so cool Um but yeah he's, he's got a Chevelle now yeah.
Speaker 2:That's great. I love it yeah.
Speaker 1:It's so cool so you do have any cars anymore.
Speaker 2:Nothing right now. I mean every once in a while I like I'll get the itch to do it and then I'll talk to one of my buddies. It's got one that they're like you don't want to get back into it, yep.
Speaker 1:It's the same for him, it's the hunt that he enjoys way more than owning. Because now he owns it and he's like well, I think I'm going to do this to it and I'm like, why are you going to do that? I don't make that gauge anymore, I can't really find one, it's paying. But you could do this gauge like an electronic gauge, because his isn't like um, it's not complete matching numbers, like original, everything so. But it's not a true resto mod either, it's kind of that middle ground. And so the guy's, like you know, just put these digital gauges in them, like it's so much better, it's so much simpler, just get in. Well, then they start that process and then they rip it all out. You know, and it's a car from like 1970 so the wires are.
Speaker 1:It's a gazillion wires and none of them match. And they're all everywhere and he's like, oh god, what did I get myself into? I wish I would just found the gauge I'm like, well, it's too late now, because you got the whole dash torn apart, yeah, and you don't know where any of the wires go anymore. So yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 2:I know the struggles or I hear about the struggles I don't do the struggles anymore, so but I get it um.
Speaker 1:What was your favorite car you ever owned?
Speaker 2:hmm, probably my 68 chevelle ss 396 yeah, that's a nice ride yeah I was still in high school then, um, and so I had a bench seat speed. Yeah, you gotta have a bench seat for your girl sit next to you that was the whole thing, but duh, that's why I had a bench seat in my pickup growing up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it could be buckets, yes, but no, yeah no, yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:That was a great car.
Speaker 1:It was a lot of fun what was the last one you had?
Speaker 2:um, let's see, the last one I had was a. It was, uh, one of the thunderbird super coupes, and so that was. I mean, that goes back a while. That was probably it was before we moved here.
Speaker 1:Okay, it was a nice car yeah it was a lot of fun yeah, you ever see yourself getting back into them yeah, every once in a while.
Speaker 2:I mean I would like I would. I wouldn't mind having something an some kind of a convertible open Corvettes. I had a 65 Corvette convertible. I used to really enjoy and that would be something that would be fun to be back in an older style vet, Although the new vets are really crazy cool.
Speaker 1:They are cool. I've always been a big vet. We're a Chevy family, yeah, always been a big bet. I mean we're a chevy family, yeah, and always have been. But man, the new vets, I and people are like that's such a old man, like midlife crisis, car I'm like cool, sign me up for that midlife crisis because I love them, yeah like they're great they're great. New ones are just superpowers. They're monsters. Yeah, they're super cars that are affordable.
Speaker 2:Ish, I mean like really in reality if you're spending big money, yeah, for sure, you can spend 250 or one you know and get spending big money.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure, you can spend 250 or one you know and get essentially the same card, just doesn't have the fancy badge on it. Yep, so um, if you could own any, what would you have?
Speaker 2:my dad had um 67 1967 gt 500 shelby mustang and wow it was the favorite thing that we ever had in my world, even as a kid. It was lime green black leather interior. And I would die to have one of those things again. That was the bomb.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's a salt. That's a good ride. Yep Gosh, where do we go after? So you got out of being a cop and decided to go to engineering. Is that what got you into your business? Was the engineering?
Speaker 1:This episode is made possible by another one of our amazing sponsors, pope and Edgar attorneys at law. Uh, you know, wayne has has been in the cycling community for a really long time and uh stands behind this podcast as well as so many different things. Pope and Edgar are licensed in Oklahoma and Texas. You can have them help you with estate planning and probate. I know a lot of us have family members who are starting to need to deal with that. We need to deal with that ourselves. If you have any business or corporate law issues real estate, family law, native American law, firearms that's always a crazy topic around here but if you need any help whatsoever, please reach out to Pope and Edgar attorneys at law. They can help you out. They are really, really easy to get ahold of. They operate in Oklahoma and in Texas, in Norman. They are at 405-360-7555, 405-360-7555. Reach out to them or go online popeandedgarlawfirmcom. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I ended up while I was in Ohio, ended up actually doing a project for the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority, so that was Cleveland's HUD. Oh, okay, and so I was around when lead-based paint abatement was starting to happen and so I ended up getting a job with them and becoming a consultant for them on abatement. I mean, we had like 17,000 residential facilities that potentially had lead paint in them, and so the government came down with this set of guidelines. They needed somebody to take that and put together a plan for their housing and so started doing that. They entrusted me with a machine that had a piece of cobalt uranium in it. You would shoot into paint and it would scatter back waves that would tell you if you had lead in it or not, or the potential of having lead in it or not.
Speaker 2:We were, I did that for I don't know. It was about a year into it and we were getting pretty far along in the process, and so this one day we're down in one of these units in the Cleveland Flats and it was a tough area. I mean, this is, you know, low-income housing.
Speaker 1:HUD.
Speaker 2:And all of a sudden these pops start going off and there's a drug deal going bad in the courtyard. And I go back and I talk to my supervisors the guy that I was working for, his name was Charlie, and I'm like, hey, charlie, I'm like I don't think this is for me. I said there's a gun going off out there, drug deal going bad. And he's like well, I don't see any blood on you.
Speaker 1:He's like you should be okay and it was just like I don't want to find out until there is blood on me. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:So it's like I got done with that and then I ended up going to work for the company called the Flood Company, and they're the ones that ended up being sold to MD here locally Gotcha. So that's how.
Speaker 1:So you just went in to work for that company and worked your way up and just kind of stayed in that world.
Speaker 2:Yep All the way through.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's see. Well, we kind of talked about when you came to Oklahoma. I want to get back to that in a little bit, but I would say the other one was Our final. Sponsor for this podcast is an absolutely incredible group of people at RideOMBAorg. Oklahoma Mountain Bike Association takes care of so many trails across our entire state.
Speaker 1:Without this group of amazing people, mountain biking in Oklahoma would be completely dead. They take care of the trails. It's a nonprofit. They do all of this by donating their time and they need your support. You can go to rideombaorg, join the organization. It's $50 a year. That's's it. You can donate more if you want. They are always needing some title sponsors to help care of trails, to maintain trails. They're currently building new trails in our communities. So please check out rideombaorg, go check them out, donate to their cause, show up for trail building days. Without these people and people that want to help them out, we don't get to ride these amazing trails. So please get involved with this group, please donate your time, donate your resources, show up to the race uh, this weekend, december 6th, at Arcadia. The damn trails that they are putting on and that money goes back to the trail system at Arcadia. They have done an incredible job on the trails in Arcadia and they're currently wanting to build more. So come do the race, damn Trails, december 6th.
Speaker 1:Go to RideOMBAorg. Sign up Just $50 a year. $50 a year. Now is the time. It's tax-free donation. Please hit them up. Please support this cause. Without this group, mountain biking in Oklahoma doesn't exist. Well, we talked about the Georgia thing. You crashed into a deer in Georgia.
Speaker 2:Yes, so when we got to Georgia, did the bike shop thing, and so this guy, john he had had a ride with Bianchi for a while and so he did solo 24-hour events on Bianchi Hardtail. And so I ended up meeting John like the first. Again, first weekend I get somewhere with a bike, seek somebody out, right. And so John is trying to put together a bike shop or whatever and he's like, hey, let's go for a ride. So I don't know the area very well, so he decides he's going to drag me out on this thing called three gap. So I don't know anything about it. So all of a sudden I'm on a ride. It's 50 mile, it's 5 000 feet of climbing, and we're going up this thing called neil's gap and he's talking to me like we're having this conversation right now. I mean, you know what I look like and everybody that's listening to this knows how big I am. This is not the body of a climber right.
Speaker 2:And so we're going up this thing. It's like a six-mile climb, oh my gosh. And it's relentless. And he's like yakking on, yakking on. And I look at him and I'm like dude, I'm like when I'm suffering, it has to be in a silent, quiet, purgatory. I'm like, so feel free just to pedal on. He's like oh no, this is great man, I enjoy it.
Speaker 1:I enjoy it so, anyway, you're enjoying it, I am not. I am not, yeah, yeah and so I got.
Speaker 2:I learned how to love. You know climbing and suffering and you know, it's uh, it's something that I figured out that I was really good at doing, so that all went on, got into the bike shop and we used to do guides for some of this, because it was North Georgia is where the Tour de Georgia would do their mountain stages at.
Speaker 2:Fantastic roads, beautiful scenery yeah, I mean just phenomenal. Yeah, I mean just phenomenal. And um, one time this and getting close to an anniversary day but on a wednesday before thanksgiving, we have a group take them out and we're going down, um, this one road, um went down a million times when I lived there, and so it'll be a little bit of a climb and it would make this big sweeper to the right. And so I'm flying down this hill and there's I don't know eight or ten on my wheel and we're all trucking along and I see a flash of a brown from my left and I'm like oh, no, dog. And in a second, all of a sudden, there's a buck standing in front of me with horns.
Speaker 2:And all I can think of is like I'm gonna hit this fucking deer and I'm gonna get impaled, yeah, I mean I'm in the drops and everything, so there's nothing I can do. I even getting to the brakes, I'm doing 30 something, yeah, and all of a sudden it's like he moved forward enough, as he was coming across the road, that I hit him in the shoulder, like I guess we were supposed to shoot it to kill it Right, I've never gone hunting, so I hit this deer.
Speaker 2:I'm driving him across the road and he hits a road reflector with his left rear hoof and so he goes down. I catapult over him and come skittering to a stop on the side of the road. Everybody behind me is just like scattering. Nobody goes down, nobody, just me. Shocking, shocking, way shocking. And you know it's like I'm laying face down in this gravel and everybody comes running up like are you alive?
Speaker 1:Are you alive?
Speaker 2:And it's like the deer took the majority of the impact right. It was like hitting a soft wall.
Speaker 1:If you're in a nice car, okay.
Speaker 2:So it was just like he took he. We bled all that speed off and, uh, you know I'm on the ground. They call the um. One of the people that lived in a house across the street witnesses this whole thing. Because she's out, yeah, doing gardening or whatever, and she's you just hit a deer. You're like, yeah, so they call 911. The ambulance squad comes out and they load me up in it and we get going and the tech and the squads, he calls the hospital and he's like I got a 50-year-old male hit a deer on his bike and she's like is he conscious? He's like, yeah, he's conscious. She goes, is his helmet busted? And he's looking at my helmet. He's like, no, it looks pretty good. She goes, how much damage did he do to the motorcycle? And he goes no, it was a bicycle. And there's this long pause in silence. She said a bicycle. He goes, goes. He's kind of chuckling.
Speaker 2:He's like yeah we get to the er and there's like 50 people waiting to see this, yeah, there's 50 people waiting to see the guy that you know hit the deer and uh, it's so funny. It's like I still have the garmin file somewhere, because it's like it's like 30 and then it stops and it's flatlined for like 30 minutes and then it's 65 because I'm wearing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm in the back of the ambulance. That's a great file to have, oh man. So do you have any injuries?
Speaker 2:you know what, like I like scratched my knee up a little bit um when I came off the bike, not even road rash, but like I had strained my adductor a little bit because I he went down and I flopped over him and stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're just flopping everywhere, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I was on. I had a Serrata built in 1997, a custom-tyed Serrata, and that's what I was on, and the only thing that happened to that bike was I bent the handlebars like they look like um, um, a paper clip when I was done and they had like deer fur stuck in them and the shifters, which was awesome and it cracked um the dropouts, the aluminum dropouts for the front, and that's the only that bike was. That frame stayed true.
Speaker 1:Oh, my gosh, I built a set of call them and tell them oh, yeah, yeah because they're like you, what they're like, this is a story for you guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, testimonial I had velocity rims with chris king hubs on them and those things were still true. I mean, that front wheel was still true after whacking that deer, I don't know that's amazing.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's a good one. So it makes me think of, like the video, the youtube video with the guy and it was at cape epic stage um, who's going across like the savannah that gets, yes, plowed by that, yeah oh that is brutal dude, that's what it was like, I remember, because I remembered that you had put that up it's so funny, oh my god. And it's like it brought. I mean, it wasn't funny for him, it's funny for everybody else.
Speaker 2:I saw that and I was having p PTSD. The whole thing was like it flashed back.
Speaker 1:If somebody just had a GoPro, you would be a legend. Oh God, so did it kill the deer? Everybody asked me that.
Speaker 2:And I said you know, women will always ask me that.
Speaker 1:Did the deer die?
Speaker 2:And I said if I could have got up I would have gone over and broke its neck, I would have grabbed it by the antlers yeah, just twisted, but they broke I had a brand new set of tofosi. Um had just given us a bunch of jittery joe sunglasses.
Speaker 2:So jittery joe was a local team in atlanta coffee shop and they're, you know, semi pro team, and so I had this brand, they had rims on them and all this, and all I could imagine is that freaking deer is running through the woods with my sunglasses hanging on the antlers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so he's still out there kicking me like you're never gonna believe us, I got hit by a cyclist, that's what he went told us, buddies are like a motorcycle. No, yeah, he had the same story of amazement how long did you have the bike shop?
Speaker 2:um, pretty much the whole time we were there okay, I mean, when we left in 2010 um, we ended up. I ended up parting ways with John, which he got hurt. We were doing. There was a in Georgia by Camp Frank Merrill. It's an Army Ranger training camp and that's where we used to go mountain biking. There was this one winding stair. It was called Winding Stair. It was a climb, descent, kind of like what it is down by Talhina the winding stair, but this was all on gravel and dirt. We were on it in December probably not recommended when it was all icy. He came off the bike and I see him sliding past me on the ground and he was sliding so hard on the ice that his long tights were just smoldering. He burst spandex into his back oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:And then, unfortunately, he got hooked on Oxycontins and he thought that online gambling would be a good thing to do. As many do, yeah, and so we ended up the bike shop ended up getting lost in all the things.
Speaker 1:Wow, what a wild story that is.
Speaker 2:We would see the most random things out there, though the Army Rangers would be out there. It's funny. It's like cycling there's a lot of guys that we cycle with that went through Army Ranger training at Camp Frank Merrill Interesting and you'd be like there was a couple of these mountain bike trails that we would take and you'd be rolling through them and all of a sudden these guys would pop up.
Speaker 1:Scare the crap out of you.
Speaker 2:So I mean again, you know we always make poor decisions about when to ride, you know, and doing all this other crazy stuff, and I mean they would be out there and they would laugh at you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because, they probably think it's hilarious. They saw you coming like yeah, all right, line them up boys, yeah, yeah um, we're going to get into a lot more of your cycling stuff, but I want to get through some of these fun stories that I was told to ask you about. So, um, let's do. Um, a rusty bullet hole, rusty bullet hole. I love that. I just have to say a couple.
Speaker 2:Rusty bullet hole goes back to the skydiving world. Okay, so when we there was a lot of, like it, really inappropriate things went on, some of these skydiving meets and we would I mean it was, we always would find something to laugh about and all this other stuff. So we're at this meet in Chambersburg, pennsylvania, and my buddy Jay has a new girlfriend named Karen. She was a skydiver, but she was not really. She wasn't at the same kind of humor level that our group was.
Speaker 1:She wasn't the same humor level as a bunch of 12-year-old boys Exactly.
Speaker 2:Like always blazing saddles. That was the whole time. Um, so this guy, brian, walks up to her and they're talking and my buddy jay's sitting on a picnic table and karen is sitting between his legs on the on the bench, and so they're sitting there talking and and brian says to karen he's like, he goes, uh, did I ever show you my rusty bullet hole? Oh gosh. He's like. She's like what are you talking about? He's like, yeah, he's like he goes.
Speaker 1:Did I ever show you my?
Speaker 2:rusty bullet hole. She's like what are you talking about? He's like yeah, he's like. When I was in NAMM I got shot with a rusty bullet and she goes that's a bunch of crap. She goes I know that's bull. And Brian's like no, it's real. So she's like well, let me see it. As soon as she said that he had his shorts down, pulled his butt cheeks apart and he's pointing, he's like there it is. Oh my God.
Speaker 1:I mean, I know we already mentioned Schlegel, but that's a Schlegel joke Totally. Wow, that's a good one. That's a great setup.
Speaker 2:He was brutal. Oh my gosh Poor girl.
Speaker 2:By the end of the weekend. She was such a mess. We were driving back to Ohio from Chambersburg, PA and I don't even remember if we probably even I'm sure we had a horrible meet because we were probably hungover or something. But on the way back, Jay and Karen.
Speaker 2:Jay gets on the turnpike and we're supposed to go west back to Ohio because we're in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and so Jay gets on and he goes east oh gosh, and then he's got to go forever to be able to get to a turnpike thing, to be able to get back going the other way. So we see this and all the way back all we do is screw with him. So it's like we get to a spot and a spot and we stop, and so me and elaine, we put uh overcoats on, we jump out of the van, we set up like uh picnic table chairs on the side of the turnpike, they go by and we're just sitting there we got beer cans we're just bringing away and everybody's like jeez, it was like just a like traveling frat party always without a doubt, sounds amazing.
Speaker 1:It was the great way to spend your early part of your life it was there, I would never, ever change a thing about it.
Speaker 2:It was so much fun. And again it's like the in cycling, the relationships I still have, um, a handful of friends from skydiving that you know we continue to. You know we talk every month and that's awesome, everybody goes through their own things where was your favorite place?
Speaker 1:you ever skydive?
Speaker 2:at probably, I mean Zephyr Hills was just really fun. It was just set up for it. It was always a really eclectic group of people would come there. It was a lot of fun. Our, the parachute Center, our drop zone in Parkland Ohio was, I mean it holds a always a special place because that's where I made most of my jumps from elaine and I did um, but it was again it's. It's interesting because, like you can go anywhere, like I was. I drove a van out to colorado for um the company I was working for when I was doing the uh engineering thing, and I ended up.
Speaker 2:I had my um accelerated free fall license then and get to fort collins, colorado, go to the drop zone and end up, you know, teaching skydiving there for um four or five days oh my gosh, you know hanging out and uh so just it's that thing, it's like it's just, and it was always a mobile circus and people would take you to their house and, uh, so just it's that thing, it's like it's this, and it was always a mobile circus and people would take you to their house and you could stay with them and they'd feed you and it does.
Speaker 1:It sounds like the dirtbag community.
Speaker 2:It's amazing yep totally.
Speaker 1:That's. What I love is, and I think about it a lot is like there's so many like subcultures around us that are living and having and doing, and you have no idea that they're there and existing, and this is a perfect example of one. You have no clue and it's just a whole group of people just traveling around, living their life, doing their thing and you don't even like I don't know one person that lives in that world. Yeah, interesting. Did you ever have a close call?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had one day. It's the only time my mom and dad ever came to watch me Gosh. It's the only time my mom and dad ever came to watch me jump. Oh gosh, poor mom and I ended up just missing power lines by maybe that much and then I broke my back at a jump going into Elaine and I and another couple of people were jumping in on the 4th of July into this fair that her uncle ran and I came in and there was a covered like stadium where the landing area was and the roof on it was shaped kind of like the roof is on pops over the gas pumps, and so the wind came off like really weird, and so the ground wind was coming from one direction. This canopy set the wind in a different direction. I hit it and collapsed the canopy.
Speaker 2:I ended up hitting the ground from about 30 feet oh my gosh, and you know I bounced like a stone on dirt and did a compression fracture, a c4 and or l4 rather, and um that was.
Speaker 1:I mean that hurt for a while I made, I think, two or three more jumps that day and with after that yeah, oh, my gosh, I didn't know that it was broken until I ran out of painkillers and my gosh, did your wife ever have any issue like any close calls or any? She?
Speaker 2:had a couple malfunctions. I mean she jumped in um. She had a couple really hard landings that um like took the toll on her back for a while. She was jumping into doing an opening for an Andy Warhol Marilyn Monroe exhibit that was going to be in Pittsburgh at the Museum of Art there, and so they had her jump onto a barge in the middle of three rivers in Pittsburgh, and so when she was coming in to land, you know they want to show her from the ground. So what do they do is they put searchlights up on her and blinds her so she can't see the ground. And so she had a couple of tough landings like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and she's done some. She's like jumped in some wild places. Oh yeah, like super cool, yep. Yeah, like jumped in some wild places, oh yeah, like super cool.
Speaker 2:Yep, yeah, like I say way better than me she was. It's incredible, she was just, she was awesome, always awesome at it, wow that's amazing.
Speaker 1:Um, all right, let's get into some boring bicycle stuff. Um, well, okay, how did you let's start with the beginning how did you get into riding and actually like riding outside of, just like I have a bicycle? Like when did cycling really integrate itself into your life?
Speaker 2:so I was dating at the time there was this woman named jacqueline and, um, we were, we were always doing stuff at the gym. Um, all of a sudden, it's just like she ended up moving to preskyle erie, pennsylvania okay, and I was in cleveland. We're going back and forth for a while. All of a sudden, it's just like she ended up moving to Presque Isle Erie, pennsylvania. Okay, and I was in Cleveland. We were going back and forth for a while, but she had this amazing it was kind of like being out of Draper with all the bike path now. So they had this out there and I had never been exposed to anything like that, and so I was amazed by it.
Speaker 2:So I go, I buy a bike. I bought a Cannondale Hybrid from Eddie's Bike Shop in Stowe, ohio, and started riding. That Would take it up there. I mean, she was like Rob and Alex on rollerblades. I mean she was fast and she tried to get me to understand how to rollerblade and it was not happening. Yeah, and she buys me these things, so I put them on and the wind starts to blow a little bit.
Speaker 2:Not like our wind and I'm moving forward.
Speaker 1:I'm like uh-uh yeah.
Speaker 2:So I'm like, I like the bike and let's stick with the bike. And so we went. One year at Christmastime we decided that we were going to go to Nanathahela and ride mountain bikes for a week. So we bought each other Cannondale Delta V 500 mountain bikes. So that had the head shock in it, that had that much suspension.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you got like 20 mil travel, exactly.
Speaker 2:So we went and it was amazing. I mean, it was a week of like this unbelievable thing being on a mountain bike, being in nature, nantahala if you've ever been there, there's four trails Mouse and Thompson, left and right, and it's probably even changed by now, but it was amazing, it was phenomenal. It wasn't technical, it was just rolling, but again, it was just this amazing thing. So I'm like I am all in on this thing. We're driving back um to ohio and I'm reading this story. This is in. This was in december of 1994 and so there was a mountain bike magazine.
Speaker 1:I'm buying everything because, again, I'm obsessive, compulsive.
Speaker 2:So I'm gonna make sure I know everything about it, right? So I buy this magazine and I'm reading these stories to her while we're driving back to ohio and there's this story this guy wrote about doing leadville. So leadville, the first, uh, 100 mile mountain bike race was in 1994, august 1994. And so I'm reading this to her and she's like that sounds really ridiculous. And I go I'm going to do it. And she's like no, you're not. And I'm like I am going to do it. And so that year I'm running. That year I was like I was like only 165 pounds or whatever. I did a marathon. I did um, um, Cleveland had um CBS Revco marathon that I think it was called, but anyways, I did a 335 marathon, gosh yeah and um.
Speaker 2:It's just like I had unbolted myself. I mean it was crazy, but I started um on the bike and got signed up, got accepted to leadville in 1995.
Speaker 1:Wow and that had been such a small group, I mean, there was nobody even knew about it.
Speaker 2:I think um, my bib number may have been 250 and I think there was like 257, yeah, riders, and so I was fortunate that it was an old, like 26er, and just it was that.
Speaker 1:Delta v500, it was that by.
Speaker 2:It was green, it was. It was horrible. Oh my gosh. I mean, like we had I camelback was about it there was no gels at the time.
Speaker 1:No, there was power bars, and they were the ones that were like they're like uh bendy, yes, yeah, like you had to chew on them for like 20 minutes to get it. It was horrible those chocolate ones, though tasted good, but they were in your teeth for like a month for a month, yeah, but if it was cold out you were doing no, they were like concrete.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were like, yeah, you're gonna snap them apart like bricks, yeah. But but I was, do they even still make those? I don't think Power bars still make stuff, but I don't think they make those.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't think they make those shitty bars.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the ones you can use for like a pad somewhere. But the cool thing was is that in, like my past life in the engineering side, I met a guy that bought some of our equipment. His son had done the race in 94.
Speaker 1:I had no idea. What are the chances of that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was such a random thing. And so I had some friends in Denver and I went to Colorado. It was Cinco de Mayo Day and I'm like, hey, let's drive up to Leadville, because I'm going to do this race up there. And we get up to Leadville and it March and there's like snow a thousand feet. I'm like, oh, my God. So I seek out the Leadville office and meet Ken Klober and Merrilee O'Neill. Oh my gosh All those guys, you know, hey, I'm coming out to your race, and they're like oh okay.
Speaker 2:Have a good time, and so you know I get into this. I don't know how to train for it. You know I'm like I'm riding the, my Cannondale hybrid all over the place when I get back, but Mike ends up hooking me up with this guy, dean and Bob in Evergreen Colorado, which we're still lifelong friends.
Speaker 1:Oh, how fun and what an amazing place that is.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's incredible, incredible. So I get to evergreen and I get connected with Bob and Bob says this is, I'm at, I'm in evergreen two weeks before the race. And so that Saturday, so two Saturdays before the race is going to happen, bob says he calls me. He's like hey, I'm going to do this ride tomorrow, why don't you meet me at Keys on the Green? So that's a golf course in Evergreen. So he's like I get to the parking lot and he says see that thing up there. I go, yeah, he goes, that's the top of Mount Evans, that's where we're going. Oh gosh, so I had no idea what Mount Evans was. You found out real quick, quick. You know we're pulling through like maybe 13 000 feet, 13, 5, whatever it was, and I'm, I'm, I feel like a goldfish, that's outside the bowl.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm like dying, yeah, dying, so he comes.
Speaker 2:You know he that's when he like overtakes me because I'm in front of him all the way up to that point and we get that far and he gets up to the top, he ends up turning around, coming back down. He's like you can turn around, you want to.
Speaker 2:I'm like screw you, I'm going to the top man you come this far, yeah, I get to the top, come down and there's a um, a little shop there, um, a little store at uh, at the lake, at the, at the base of mount evans. He's in there eating this nasty hamburger, I'm like. So we get back to his house and stuff. But that was my. That was my first ride at altitude ever. That's a tough introduction. I was just like, and then I'm out there for the rest of the week.
Speaker 2:And so I went and I hiked it a couple of times while we were still out there and then Bob ended up having this friend that worked for him. He was a builder, a house builder, and so he had had this guy come onto a job site and he hired him. So Bob called him walk-on. His name was Keith, but he just called him walk-on. So the night before Leadville we ended up standing in walk-on's house and stuff and I remember Ken banging the gun off at 6.30 and off we go, and it was just like off at 6 30 and off we go, and it was just like we had driven the course the night before in bob's jeep and that that was so long ago. In 95 there were no ruts in the power line descent that's what I was going to ask.
Speaker 1:Was the trail or college trail? Was the trail better back then or worse back then? Because it was because it was great. Yeah, it was great, I mean I did see that they like on the coverage. This year they did grade power line.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this year, I mean it got to the point where it was so horrible the rain just like wore it out, wore it thin. Back then, though, when, um, when you would go up, um, you'd go up here or not, hagerman pass, you would go up to Twin Lakes or you would come off of, oh man, there was a descent, and then we used to have to do this Bus Creek single track, and so that was right before you got on Hagerman Pass Road. So you came around Turquoise Lake Road. There was a big descent, and then they would, instead of going and making the right turn to go Hagerman Pass, you would go up this thing called Bus Creek Singletrack, and it was a mile and a half and it was horrible.
Speaker 2:I mean, this is not a singletrack rider ever On the way up like the elites, like Dave Weins and stuff. They're riding it. I mean they're like whatever, but it becomes a conga line for the rest of the world behind us. So that was different. And then they had they used to just run um to twin lakes up through the development at the end there, and you would just like come out where the dam was, and now they've got some of that single track they set up up there that you kind of noodle around through. But I always like that section, the pipeline section though, because it would be a place where you could kind of like get it back together a little bit yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, especially on the way out, because that you know, coming up to the Columbine and making that climb was just uh, you know.
Speaker 1:Did they do the belt buckles back then when it started?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:How, uh, how long did it take you your first time you did it.
Speaker 2:Um, I was 12 hours and 50 minutes.
Speaker 1:How long? What was the longest you'd been on the bike before that day Three?
Speaker 2:hours. How wrecked were you? I was so bad that when I got back in, it started to rain in the afternoon, and so I'm coming back into town. I come back up the boulevard and'm like I am a total wreck. And I get to that point where anybody that does leadville. The thing that, like all of a sudden, happens is like you come off the boulevard, you come back on to main street or whatever, and you see the red carpet out. And so I see the red carpet out and I'm like I'm gonna, I'm gonna make this and, um, I got in there and ended up on iv.
Speaker 1:I dropped 15 pounds during the race that day, that day, oh my gosh, um, which is impressive, cause it's not hot there.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, but I had no idea about like hydration.
Speaker 1:I mean, how would you, though, because there's nowhere to research it, or, like you, just got to like learn it.
Speaker 2:Yep. So that night like I'm sleeping and they would put like a glass under my nose to see if I was still breathing and stuff.
Speaker 1:You couldn't have been the last finisher.
Speaker 2:No, I wasn't, yeah, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Have you gone back? The last one I did. Well, I did 10 consecutive and that was in 2004. I got my thousand mile buckle, wow. And I went back after we moved to Georgia, so I think it was 2007. And I had crashed on the coming back down Woody Gap in Dahlonega and they had given me antibiotics. And I got to altitude at the Columbine at the turnaround and I got down off of it and I'm like I have no idea what I'm doing. And I'm like I no idea what I'm doing. Yeah, I'm like I'm gonna bail here, um. And then I went back in um 2010, 2010, and did number 11.
Speaker 2:Okay I haven't been I haven't raced it since 2011 what was your fastest time you ended up doing? Um 10, um like 28 or something like that. I was always a mid-packer kind of guy. That's getting it though out there, especially coming from flatlands.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah is where you were at in georgia. Is that anywhere near rome, georgia?
Speaker 1:it's kind of close that's down towards athens and all that yeah so it's on that eastern side okay so rome, when I was college, that was we played golf and that was my Berry. College is in Rome and they were like we were always number one or number two, like the two of us always competed and they hosted a tournament, so we would go every time. My absolute favorite golf course in college I ever played hands down, not even close was Rome. Georgia it was so beautiful, the campus was incredible. Georgia it was so beautiful. Oh yeah, um, the campus was incredible. They had an amazing story that martha berry the college named after was henry ford's mistress.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, he had built her this giant palace and that is part of the one of the buildings that's on campus, and then built her an orphanage and then that's like the administration building and all that stuff is how all this started, or how the university started, um, and expanded from. There is like this whole crazy wild story. And now chick-fil-a university is on the back side of their campus. So it's a really wild story. But very, yeah, every time we would go to rome, georgia, it was like the highlight of our year because it's just incredible there and beautiful. Yeah, I loved it, but I've never ridden out there georgia's great I.
Speaker 2:I would like to put together a group to go and you know, ride to Lonega. There's a one that when we had the bike shop and it's an annual ride, I mean we did some sponsorship of it. It's called Six Gap, isn't that?
Speaker 1:a brutal mountain bike race.
Speaker 2:This is road, but it's six passes, it's 10,000 feet. It's 10,000 feet, it's a full day, it's really. But it's spectacular. I mean, it's roads are so like. I mean, our roads here are tough to ride on, right, those roads are so smooth and descents are just so it's like carving downhill.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, what's that brutal mountain bike race that's there. It's days long, like it's a there's. It's kind of like a bike packing event kind of, but it's days long, like it's a there's. It's kind of like a bike packing event kind of, but it's. I think it goes across the North Georgia. Yeah, I can't remember the name of it. There's a documentary about it that I watched. Yeah, I was watching it, and Bobby from district is in the documentary.
Speaker 2:Oh, really I'm watching.
Speaker 1:I'm like what the Ariana. I'm like what the. It looked nasty because those roots and rocks across.
Speaker 2:Georgia mountains, I mean Georgia mountain biking is rocky roody, I mean it's nasty, brutal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I did have Leadville down to ask you about, but clearly we summed that up that's a hell of a trip and hell of a way to get introduced to mountain biking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was awesome, though I mean, leadville holds just a special place in my heart and again, some of the friendships that came from that are, like I say, they're still going on today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's cool. I think that's the best part about cycling. Totally make them everywhere, yep. Do you? Did you do a lot more mountain biking, racing, or did you kind of stick to the road or kind of just do whatever popped up that looked cool.
Speaker 2:I mean, we were living in Florida and so mountain biking in Florida was tough and so we would go to Ocala because there was.
Speaker 1:That's where Ray Hall who's we? Just that's where he got. His start was in Florida, and he talked about going and racing in Ocala, Yep.
Speaker 2:So I did started doing 12 and 24 hour races over there and one of the, I think what year was it? It would have been maybe 96 or 97. Dude, I think, would have been maybe 96 or 97. Dude, I think you and ray were there racing at the same. Could have been yeah I raced with gary fisher was on our team.
Speaker 2:Really yeah, oh my god, tigra res was there, um, but I would. Fisher was on our team because I was part of a shop that had was selling fisher bikes and I had a sugar sugar plus it. I was riding, was riding, he was. That was so fun. He's a, he gets and he is in a world cup or his world championship kit, white stripes and all that. He crashes his brains out, you know, and so he's got the. We're like we have this really nice RV, he's inside smoking a little bit of whatever just to get, just to cut that.
Speaker 1:He's like.
Speaker 2:Hey, he's like like, how about taking my lap for me? And I'm like all right, that's a cool story, that's a great story. So you've always liked the long endurance stuff. Yeah, I mean like I've always been more suited like the time trial thing, the long distance when, um a couple years for leadville again because we were living in florida, it was all just about putting time in. So one of the one of the fortunate things is I got to be friends with Rob Kish who did Ram solo.
Speaker 2:I was going to ask you about Ram, yeah nine times and he was the world record holder for years nine-day crossing and stuff. But he lived close to where Elaine and I lived and so I mean he would just be like I'll ride with you, but do not, do not tear me apart, or, you know, make sure that we got places where we can go for food or water or drink or whatever, because he used to be, you know, he could go for four or five hours without stopping and it was like it was just crazy.
Speaker 2:So when we were down there, I started doing the qualifying rides for ParisBrest-Paris, the Brevets, and so some of these guys would fly down from Ohio that I had done a lot of riding with. And you know, we decide one day that okay, we're going to do the 800-kilometer one, and it was just like that never really hit until, all of a sudden, the morning of get on the bike and like I'm going for 480 miles today, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's insane.
Speaker 2:It was totally insane, and that was back when there was no GPS stuff. Oh my gosh, Our lights were the old Knight Riders that had the battery, water bottle battery things that weighed like six pounds and it was like maybe one candle lot right, yeah, you're like 10 lumen and six pounds.
Speaker 2:We rode through Sebring and there was an orange grove and the fruit flies were so thick that we had to pull our jerseys up over our face so you wouldn't breathe them in. And then we rode for 100 miles in rain I mean just straight rain straight way gosh and then so we would stop at a gas station, ask for a garbage bag to make a rain jacket out of or something, and but, um, the long stuff always was way better. I was always way.
Speaker 1:How did you train for that kind of stuff? Just ride long back-to-back days, or did you just yep, what would like a training, a typical training week look like back then do? Do you really remember I?
Speaker 2:mean even back then it'd be like 250 miles a week, a week, yeah, just always, always yeah. And that was seven days.
Speaker 1:Were you fitting this in around work before work, Just whenever you could get on the bike, you'd get on the bike and go Get on the bike, basically, so you didn't do anything. Those were the longest.
Speaker 2:Was that your longest one? Yeah, that was the longest one. I mean every once in a while.
Speaker 1:Did you guys stop and sleep or you just powered through?
Speaker 2:We stopped at a couple times. We stopped at a gas station when it was dark and we had gone off course probably, maybe six or seven times, and decided to wait for daylight to come, cause we would have to read road signs or you'd have to make sure that, cause we were looking at a physical map and I'm just trying to figure out where we were. So but we never slept, it was just kept rolling. How long did it take? You 30 something, 36. Wow.
Speaker 1:That's a. That's your longest ride, like 36 hours.
Speaker 2:That's, is that?
Speaker 1:that's your longest ride Like 36 hours Mm-hmm. That's, that's brutal. Yeah, how, how wrecked were you after that? Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, it was not. It was bad for maybe a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1:But I mean, I think I rode a day after we were done. Oh my gosh, really. Oh, I don't think I'd want to sit on a bike. I've only done any. I mean nothing close to that, but I had my longest day ever was about. We were like a total day time. We were probably like 15 ish or so hours. Riding time was like I don't like 12 or 13, 13 hours roughly.
Speaker 1:And we did the Katie trail, me and a buddy. We had these grand ambitions of doing like out and back and we took all of our bike packet. We took way too much stuff. We had no idea. Way too big of tires. Like we were way overprepared for the Katy Trail. People have never ridden it.
Speaker 1:And that first day we just kept going. But I want to shower tonight. Like we just have to get to a campground. We're going to take a shower. That was our only goal. Well, then we got caught in no man's land where you're. Well, we missed the last one, but to get to the next one it's going to be a really long time. So we finally decided to go for it. We get there. And then I remember this that next morning, getting upsetting on the bike, I was just like this is awful. It's like the first hour was just misery, because you kind of had some saddle sores. You were just a little tender, you're kind of just like not comfortable. And then you kind of like broke yourself down and where it was like, yeah, it's just, it's fine now, like you kind of like dead in the sensors, I think a little bit.
Speaker 2:But I was like and I may be given such an appreciation for these people that do like the divide and do like Ram and do things like that, where it's like multi days of just all day riding. I'm like I can't fathom like a week of this. I think that you know that the whole thing about RAM, any of that multi-day stuff, the divide, it's mental toughness.
Speaker 2:I mean obviously the physical component is really important, but the mental part is so much more difficult to deal with than any other part of it. We had a guy that when we had the bike shop in Georgia and Dan awesome guy. He's like I want to do RAM and I'm like Dan, you've never ridden a century ever in your life. And he's like, well, I could do it. I'm like, could you do it back to back, to back to back to back?
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm like all right, I'm going to tell you what you ride 100 miles. You let me know how long it takes you, and so it's like it took him maybe a year and a half to get to 100 miles. He's like I get what you're talking about. Yeah it's different, I mean with Kish. Kish was unbelievable. I mean, I don't know, there's these guys that have this mental hardness that it's just like beyond Rob's got mental hardness.
Speaker 2:Kish has got mental hardness. John Samstead, who won Leadville a couple times back-to-back I mean, these guys were just they're different. They're wired differently, you know, and after we moved to North Carolina, I'm sitting on the couch one day watching TV on a Saturday and the doorbell rings. It's Rob couch one day watching tv on a saturday and the doorbell rings, it's rob rode up from kish, rode from his house in in port orange, florida, up to mooresville, north carolina, and he's like, hey, let's go for a ride and so, like you know, we went to, um, I don't know where the hell did we go?
Speaker 2:we went to somewhere in north carolina and just rode for you know, another six, eight hours or something. Then stayed overnight and got back in his van for a couple minutes, got back on the bike, pointed it south and rode back to florida.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that that's not something you can train no, no you can get tougher, but you ain't gonna get there. That's, that's born into you yeah they have. They have a no quit and a complete like shut off valve.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean. Their level to be able to handle constructive suffering is at like such a phenomenal scale. It's so far over my head.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it just it doesn't even compute. It's so odd. Well, and when you came to Oklahoma, what? What was your first thoughts Cause I was one of the things was when you came to Oklahoma. What was your first thoughts Because I was one of the things is when you came to Oklahoma was one of the things. But when you got into Oklahoma, you've been living in these great places, amazing vacation places, as far as from Florida and you know the Carolinas, amazing, beautiful riding, beautiful riding in Georgia, and you end up in the flattest, most simple, plain place. There is the flattest, most simple plain place. There is what was your first thoughts and like of the cycling scene here? And just you're like plugging into, just like, what in the heck did I get myself into?
Speaker 2:I mean, that was it was. It was first learning how to adapt to heat and then it was learning how to adapt to wind, and I haven't got really good with either of those yet, but um, it was. I think that again, it's like seeking out, like people in the cycling community that are wired a little bit like me, um.
Speaker 2:So again, like I said, you know, I find fearless, you know, uh, bumpus, joel hill, peter, um, these guys, ken ste Steins, Ken Murray um, all these guys that are just kind of like like-minded, and then it became more about doing the things than it was about where the things were being done at Gotcha, and um it cause there's, I mean, you have amazing places here to ride and I think that that's you know. My first trip to Talahina was like phenomenal.
Speaker 1:Eye-opening if you've never been to that part of the state.
Speaker 2:Unbelievable. I mean it was like being back in Georgia and it was like being back on Neal's Gap and suffering for you know the six-mile climb, you know, like the winding stair thing, it's like holy crap, just loving every second of it as hard as it is and everything else. And again, finding that core group. It's like you know those Monday night rides from chicken and pickle and stuff, just finding that group. There's that camaraderie there and that's what makes for me, that's what cycling is. It's, you know, it's yeah, there's fitness to it, there's health to it. I mean I'm fortunate, you know things still work in this body and so you know to be able to go out and use it this way is a blessing.
Speaker 2:Every time I think how lucky I am that I throw my leg over a bike. You know talking about, you know, the burn camp thing and these kids that don't have the ability to put their leg over a bike and go for a ride and not be able to enjoy the kind of things that we enjoy. I mean it's not always unicorns and rainbows, right, enjoy the kind of things that we enjoy. I mean, it's not, it's not always unicorns and rainbows, but it's, you know, it's fun and you know, like the whole cycling thing, this is kind of like where my cycling piece matured a lot, from where I started to you know where it is today. You know I got here and you know I mean it was always the competitive part of it. It's like two people on wheels are next to each other. It's a race.
Speaker 2:Somebody's half wheeling somebody right, you know I again, because I was predisposed to be able to ride it like a steady state for a long time. You know, the time trial thing really clicked in for me, and when Fairless introduced me to the time trials out at Overholzer it's like a whole new thing opened up to me. Yeah. And that was so fun, oh my gosh, it was just you know and meet the whole crew that you know gave back to run that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, those were great races. That was, that was a fun, fun series, Fun Fun.
Speaker 2:Awesome yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't know if it would. I don't know if you could bring it back back?
Speaker 2:yeah, it would be hard. It would be hard. I mean, when I got um, when I I wrote for evoke uh, undiscovered, and you know we used to have to put um events on, and so I, you know, with, with the we were evoke, then did a time trial series out at draper and that was so hard.
Speaker 2:I mean that was that was my first exposure to like putting on an event was horrible yeah, for sure it was like people have no idea how terrible it is on the backside it was just, it was all this stuff, but, um, you know, I loved the tt thing and it that I would. You know I went, I was age group state champion, you know, tt for was that down in lawton, or was that? I was in lawton and then in bixby and then in um shoot where it's up by tulsa or by um.
Speaker 1:I can't remember where the last one was I don't even know where the last one was but yeah, I just I liked it. Did you ever go do the trippy time trial?
Speaker 2:no, it was always. I was either out for business or the weather was crappy yeah, that place is miserable.
Speaker 1:I tried, I did it one time. It's like you have to go do it. It's like legendary, it's blah, blah, blah. I'm like, yeah, sure, how hard can it be? And like, well, nobody's ever busted an hour and if you do, you win all this money that's just in this pot that sits there. I'm like that's weird. How's nobody? He's there's some really fast people how's nobody broken an hour and I went and wrote it. I was like this is so miserable this is so hard, so so hard especially on a on a TT bike is brutal.
Speaker 1:Hilly is great riding but not where you want to go, like ride pegged as hard as you can, but that's what I mean.
Speaker 2:out in Bixby that was awesome. Their their 40 K course was it's a they had. Um, my best time was like 54 minutes or something like that, and it was like I got done and Rob was there and and I told him like I don't think I could have gone a second faster. The hardest part was making the turn because it was an out and back and you know, being down in the drops or in the arrow bars and trying to turn those things.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So you got like really competitive and like went all in on your racing. It wasn't just riding for fun and doing cool events.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Did you do other things outside of the time trial? When I was with Evoke, you know, we did a lot of the just road racing stuff for a while. I tried to be like again during Evoke Pro-Am. That's when my crit career ended. I can't remember what year it was, but we were up by Broadway and all that and I'm in the master's group and fit enough to be able to try to make a move up towards the front and we were getting into the bell laps right. So I'm coming up on. We made the turn to come up onto 10th street before we turned onto broadway and there was, I guess, a manhole cover there and my back wheel hit the manhole cover.
Speaker 2:I slid to the left high-sided and woke up in the hospital oh my gosh so um concussion broken nose, three broken ribs and broken collarbone man, you are pieced together yeah, it was like it was.
Speaker 2:that's rough, fearless, was there this guy? There's another guy that we used to ride with. He lives in Tucson now, nick Webster, okay, and so Nick's there with me in in the, in the ER, and so he's telling the ER doc what he thinks that they should be doing with me. So Nick was a forensic pathologist for the FAA. And so the doc says he goes. Well, he's like he said what kind of doctor are you? And Nick tells him forensic pathologist. He's like okay. He's like how about this? How about I got him from here and if he goes I'll give him to you, fair? Nick's like fair enough, yeah, fair.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nick's, like fair enough, yeah, fair enough.
Speaker 2:But that ended my crit racing. I just, you know, it was just like I just couldn't. You know, the older I got, the harder it was for me to put myself in that situation. Yeah, somebody wants to put their handlebars here or their bike here where I am, and I'm like nah. And so I liked the road racing stuff. I liked anything that was going to be longer than probably 40 miles or something like that, because it takes me it was taking me an hour just to get up to right, feeling good about going hard yeah, that's kind of your sweet spot.
Speaker 1:You're more of a diesel yep, yeah, for sure, um, and then once, once you retired from your, from your crit scene, um, and then clearly the time trials have gone away, you've still stayed super involved in the cycling scene, um, with either the group rides and all that kind of stuff, but also red. But I definitely want to touch on that Um and how you got involved in red bud and just kind of talk about how amazing red. But people think of red bud as like just a fun t-shirt ride or whatever you know, and I feel like for every cyclist, especially getting into the sport, there's two things you have to check off. You have to check off red but and you have to check off hotter than hell, like it seems like everybody, that's, that's the top of the list for everybody getting into the sport. So how did you get involved with red? But not only as a cyclist but on the back end of things?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's kind of. It's like the journey there was interesting because it was that thing. It's like I got to Oklahoma and everybody says you got to do Red Bud and so I get signed up, do Red Bud and I'm like, hey, it's really cool, but it was just a ride to me at that point and it kind of like, as it came up, when we ride with some of the guys we ride with they get a little bit jaded. It's like why should I pay to ride on roads? I can ride for free anytime. And just like that whole thing started and I'm like I kind of get that, but there's a charity involved or whatever. But it was hard to get that message across to some of these guys and for me it was like I had gone and done amazing rides all over the place and just thinking like that's pretty cool. After doing the time trial series and knowing how hard it was to put an event on, then it started to like kind of click, Like well, you know there's something there. And for me it set off a light inside me and said it's time to start giving back to the cycling community and to the community at large. Just to you know, because I appreciated those things that they brought and allowed me to be able to do, and it's like I want to continue to keep giving some of that back so that others that come along can have that experience. Maybe we can get them involved.
Speaker 2:You know some of the people that I've been able to drag onto the board of the Red Bud now. They're people that I ride with and it's it just. It makes me smile, it makes me happy. But, um, I was working at down here at MD and a friend of mine was uh at coop, um, sean Mossman. And one day Sean calls me. He's like hey, he's like you guys need to donate to red bud. It's like I need five grand. And so I'm like, okay, he's like, and he's, he goes and I need you to get on the board of directors of Redbud. And I'm like, come on, sean, the money's one thing, but now you're asking me for time.
Speaker 1:But on the phone call.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so you know he, he talked me into it and I got on board and go to the meetings. And when you first get to something like this and I don't know if you've ever served on a board or if you've ever been like a volunteer for something you kind of get there and it's like there's no instruction manual. You really don't know what the hell you're doing.
Speaker 1:Right, everybody's in the same boat. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's just kind of like we're all standing there and it's like I'm kind of figuring this out and whatever, and so it was crazy because I get involved with it. It was crazy because I get involved with it. And then what comes and opens up the door of COVID, right, and so the first event that I'm part of the board for ends up having to go virtual because COVID has happened and it's kind of like I had not been through an event. We were having change with race director. That's when Christian came on board. So again she's walking into it from like nothing. You know, all of us are kind of like trying to figure out what it is that we need to be doing for this thing.
Speaker 2:And so the second year comes along and again, more COVID, you know, and so we do this virtual thing. But I end up being able to get a Saturday ride together for everybody that had registered and you know we're going to go out, did the thing. I stopped everybody in Jones and I'm like, hey, I'm going to offer up a hundred bucks to whoever has the best Strava time on this part of triple X road, and so, of course, go to Rob and Sarah and Sarah, yeah, but it started like it started to click of like now there was some organization to it a little bit and it was starting to feel like things were starting to come together.
Speaker 2:The run stuff was really foreign to me because I had, like really stopped running a long time ago. But I was being exposed to it because of being on the board and everything, so the next year comes along. But I was being exposed to it because of being on the board and everything, so the next year comes along. And now it gets crazy because Sean, who is supposed to be the vice president of the Red Bug board, ends up having this work-related stuff that makes him have to leave. So he's like I think you should take over and I'm like I don't know.
Speaker 1:Sean's a hell of a salesman. He's a hell of a salesman.
Speaker 2:And so all these people are calling me. We think you could do it, she think you'd be great at it, and all that. And it's like you know I'm thinking, oh, what's the worst I can do? Screw up an event that's going on for over 40 years.
Speaker 1:What's the worst thing? Exactly Ruin, an epic event in the city. Totally you know it's like, I'm like sure. I'm in, you're like I'm not from here, yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, I'll just have the car running and I'll be jumping in as soon as it's over on Sunday.
Speaker 2:But you know it's like we started to piece it together and you know we were going to have an actual event and I can't remember who the little gal from Channel 9 was interviewing me and she's talking to me and she's like she goes. It must be something to have the event actually going to happen again this year. I'm like, absolutely she goes. What would have to happen for it not to go on? I said honestly, she goes yeah.
Speaker 2:I go. Jesus would have to come down, knock on my door and I'd open the door up. Jesus would be standing there and he said Ray, you can't do Red Bud she goes. What would you do?
Speaker 1:I go I go, I punch him in the nose. Did she air that yeah?
Speaker 2:that's amazing. So we all laughed about it and stuff and uh, you know, we ended up. The event went down. It was. You know, it's like anytime that you're doing something, an event and anything that you do, it's like you always know where the warts are and the scabs and all the missteps and all this other stuff. But all the feedback's coming back it's like amazing. It's so great to have it back and you know all this stuff and it was just that whole moment that things started to happen. And you know, the next year I was president and we ended up having Wings as our beneficiary and it was just, it was amazing. I mean they were so cool to work with and it was just amazing. I mean they were so cool to work with To be able to build this thing, just doing something nice for somebody, no matter whether it's someone that's coming to do the event, someone that you're being able to donate some money to.
Speaker 2:They give you a smile, they say thank you and that's all you need.
Speaker 2:I mean that is the thing that fills my soul.
Speaker 2:Today is like when somebody, I can do this much, this little bit of something for someone, and it just makes them have appreciation for something. Maybe it's like I can get them to believe that it's okay to spend $50 to sign up for this because it's going to help here. Or it's the first time they're going to, you know, sit on their bike and ride 50 miles, or it's the first time they're going to run a 10 K, or it's the first time that you know it's something that they're going to do, you know, and just being exposed now to 3000 people that come in to do that, it's amazing. And to be able to give back to that, to be able to help to cement its legacy in this community, I think it's awesome. I mean it's really it's a feel-good kind of thing, and I mean it's like I always say, it's not always unicorns and rainbows, because there are tough times and us going out and finding sponsors and getting people to sign up, and I mean you know our community, when do we sign up?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the night before, yeah, you're watching weather and then you're like I guess I'll go, yeah, yeah but just to you know, break through that a little bit, and again, I think that that was a thing that I never really understood about redbud either is like it is about this you know philanthropy and about giving back to these causes that really need help. Well, tell people about that, because I think causes that really need help.
Speaker 1:Well, tell people about that because I think some might have an idea. It was the same with the Redman triathlon. Most people had no clue, and I would say probably the same with Red. But most people have no clue that the money goes to a charity, in the capacity of that money, like how much there is and how that charity is picked and things like that. So you know in a nutshell, how does that work for you and what's the kind of actual impact that that event has on these nonprofits and our community from from the back end, when the events all said and done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, it's every. Every beneficiary that we choose is a nonprofit. Every beneficiary that we choose is a nonprofit and we ask, as soon as the event's over in April we put the packets out for the nonprofits to be able to submit. So they have to fill out an intake form for us. They have to submit their financials, their story, how they would help to cross-promote Redbud being there. We lean on them for volunteers. It takes a lot of. It takes, you know, a big city to put an event on for two days for us and just trying to get all that coordinated. And we want to work with somebody that you know has access to volunteers, but we want to work for somebody that's got like a really good cause. I mean, you know, since I've been around, we've had Care Center, which again, you know they're helping these kids, these abused young kids, and yeah you know we'll never be able to do enough when it comes to kids, and so you know, they ended up being our beneficiary one year.
Speaker 2:We had wings one year, and I mean just their stories and how they come to it and where they need it and they have a hard time. They've been having difficult times on fundraising again because, coming through COVID, you know that kind of a lot of that money has dried up for them. They're, you know, getting some funds from the government and everything else, but we're, you know, we want to help to give back to that, to help these causes. This year we have SISU, which again is helping to make sure that young adults from 15 to 22 have roofs over their heads. The homelessness in this city is getting something that's really out of hand. This group that 15 to 22, when you're 15, it's going to be hard to find a foster home to get in and you have this really small window of time to help somebody, kind of like, find their way to get onto another path. You can't push them there with. You can't make them do something that they don't want. You can't push them there with. You can't make them do something that they don't want, but giving them that option to be able to have a roof over their head, a hot meal, things that we take for granted every day, and I mean it's just like last year.
Speaker 2:We were able to donate. I think the final number was like $25,000 or whatever. It's this much. It's a small little piece, but there's. I mean, they're so moved when you're able to give them this money and you know that will be able to help somebody and you know getting their self up off the street, getting you know into that next level to find that way out of that desperate thing that you don't think there's any escape from.
Speaker 2:So it's just been, you know, for me again, finding out that that's what part of Redbud was, that was like an epiphany of like holy shit. I mean, like this is a lot to take in, you know, and so you know going out and you know, when Bill and Linda Co founded Red Bud the very first one, which will be 43 years ago this coming year, in 26, it's like they went, they got this thing to happen and then that has happened and happened and happened. So more than a million dollars have gone into charities that are here in our backyard. So, like the people that we see when we're riding around here. This is where that money's going, and I mean it just. It makes me feel good, it's so good and then it's.
Speaker 1:It's one of those things with redbud when you really think about it, you get to change lives on both ends of the event. Like you get these people that maybe they just bought a bicycle and this is now their North star, so now they push and they become more fit, they get outside, maybe they get their kids out there, they go or the run. You know they're going and doing these things that are like I never thought I'd run a 5k, I never thought I'd do a 50 mile bike ride. It's like a life-changing experience for them to do the athletic event. But then on the back end you have life-changing experiences by giving all this money away. Like when you really think about on that side of things, it couldn't be a cooler event. It's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just, it's that, it's that feel good stuff.
Speaker 2:And when again, when, like again, if, if I'm right, if I ride up next to you on a ride and I start, you know, doing the sales pitch or whatever it's, because it's made me a different person, the way that I look at it and how I feel about it. And you know, all these charity rides um that occur, they're t-shirt rides but the ones that are charity rides it's just kind of like this is really. This is a worthwhile cause. You know, the entry fee is small, the um but the benefits that come after that for the people that this will have an effect on.
Speaker 1:It's big, it's big, it's huge. Yeah, I love that. I think that's a great place for us to kind of start wrapping this thing up, because I I think that giving back feature is it's so important for a variety of reasons and it's it's great when you finally find your place where you can do something that interests you and excites you. But also you get that piece of it and you know, like I have some of these things and the people that I, you know, that I'm closest to know, that my stories with work and and some of the situations here and with our, with our staff and some of our amazing, amazing teammates here, that it's it becomes selfish. You know, people like that's so cool that you know like for you, like when they come at you, you're like so cool that you're involved and you're on the board and all this stuff, you're like, no, like you have no idea how much I'm I'm getting way more out of this.
Speaker 2:Like.
Speaker 1:I am selfish, I don't want to come off the board, I want to continue to see these things, and it becomes much more about that than, like you, doing X, y and Z, and I think, once you find that happy spot or that spot that you're like, I can't wait to do X, y and Z. To get back to this, it really does give you such a different look and passion for whatever that task is. Yes, which, when? Yeah, it's hard to explain until you've till you experienced it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, the perspective changes a lot, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then it makes you like, yeah, it really changes how you like look at like shitty things in your life.
Speaker 1:You're like you know, there's times I mean I'll talk about. It's really not that big a deal. She's like no, but it's your deal. And I'm like, yeah, but like in the let's be honest, in the grand scheme of things, like the stuff I heard today at work from X, y and Z person, like I need to shut up, like I'm being a baby, well, it's still your problems. I didn't like it is still yeah, so I. It's amazing that the endurance community gives back so much. Yeah, definitely, yeah, Can you can, clearly can continue to do much, much more, but it is awesome that we can take our random activities that we spend so much time and money on and can actually make our community a better spot. Yes, and not just take advantage of the community that we're passing through, I guess.
Speaker 2:And then you know, some of the unintended consequences of that is that now the community sees maybe a cycling or a running event, it's like, well, these guys aren't so bad, you know I mean, maybe I don't hate them for holding me up for four seconds Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's just some of that stuff, and I think that that's we've been fortunate News 9 has done good coverage for us and to be able to get our message out a little bit better. And I think that you know just that. You know taking that outside. And again it's just looking at different, you know. I mean sometimes I think, wow, I wish I would have found this way a little bit sooner. But again it's like it is. I am where I am because that's where I am, and so it's all good. And again I just, I don't know, I like being here, I think it's a great community for it. Um, the, the strength of the community is awesome. And again I just it goes back to voting with your dollars.
Speaker 1:Like you have fancy bicycles and helmets and all the things you know. Spending 50 bucks it's probably not going to change your life, it's not going to change your day. Probably chances are it's not going to um, but in your 50 bucks isn't going to make a big difference to a nonprofit. But if a whole bunch of us get together and get 50 bucks and can make a real impact and a real change in our community, um, and actually like do some real good, yeah, yeah, um. Well, let's jump into if I didn't even bring a list of them cause I didn't know where this conversation was going to go, but let's jump into yard sale and talk about that. First one is outside. I just thought of this when I wrote it down while we were talking outside of riding and skydiving. What's a crazy thing that you've done.
Speaker 2:When I was a kid again, I was telling you, my dad put me in the car culture and so we. I raced midget race cars as a as a young kid, and so I won the central States championship in Lansing, michigan, in 1968.
Speaker 1:That is random.
Speaker 2:That's beyond, and it was just like it was one of those. It was one of those crazy things Like I never imagined myself. You know, I would have been in 68. I would have been 12 been 12?
Speaker 1:yeah, so did you just race cars for one year?
Speaker 2:um, we raced for probably about four years okay um, my, because my, my dad was into it and uh, it was just, it was something that was fun. My sister started racing then, um, but we would, he would drag us around, we would go to these other tracks and stuff. That's awesome, it was fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is fun Favorite place you've ever visited.
Speaker 2:Girona, Spain.
Speaker 1:Why is that?
Speaker 2:We went there last year. I did a Trek travel trip there.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:I took Elaine, my brother-in-law and his daughter. It was Girona gravel Phenomenal. I tell you what the people were incredible. The food was off the charts, the riding was.
Speaker 1:So now you understand why all the pros go there.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, and I mean they were all there. You walk into the city and it's like I have no idea, but there's like 24 bike shops and it's just like here's the EF guys.
Speaker 1:Tyler.
Speaker 2:Finney's, just walking through town, and but the writing was phenomenal. The cost of living there is so inexpensive. It was cheaper to go there for 10 days than it would be to go to Florida for 10 days. Wild, just crazy. Huh, and I would go back in a heartbeat. Interesting. Without a doubt, loved it.
Speaker 1:Loved it, loved it.
Speaker 2:Loved it.
Speaker 1:Loved it, loved it, loved it. Okay, I got to put it on the list then.
Speaker 2:It should be on the list. I mean, there's mountain biking, there's road riding, there's gravel, I mean, and it's phenomenal stuff. The weather is beautiful and, again, like I say, you know, the hotel we stayed at was just the people that own the hotel. You know, they're feeding us, they're like taking you out, they're like the the guys that, um, were our guides, ended up taking us to, you know, a restaurant that we never would have found right and it was like it was so incredible, it was one of the best meals I've ever had that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, where's the worst place you've ever ridden, or? Let's say maybe a place you don't ever want to go back and ride again probably hotter than hell yeah, I can get that.
Speaker 2:I mean, it was just you know, when I first went down and did the, the uh ride, the final ride or whatever, whatever we call it, it was just kind of like, okay, checked off yeah, that's it and then you know, get sucked into going and you know, when we were undiscovered and evoke, we did go down there and do the 100K races and stuff like that and it was just kind of like I don't know man, there's not really much to look at.
Speaker 1:There is nothing to look at. You can see the whole course at any given time. Yes exactly, yeah, I agree, it's like Vegas and New Orleans. Some people love it, and if you do, then okay. Yeah, everybody should experience it once. Yes, but you don't ever need to go back.
Speaker 2:That's how I feel about hotter than hell.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, no Favorite piece of bike equipment, hmm.
Speaker 2:I am like probably a shoe whore.
Speaker 1:I love shoes, so I've seen one hand off the bike Just on the bike, just for the bike Bike shoes are my like um CDs.
Speaker 2:They fit perfect Um. I've always loved them. Uh it's like a box will show up. My wife will be like, do you need more? And I'm like, well, yeah clearly they're here.
Speaker 1:Um, what's a favorite bike you've ever owned?
Speaker 2:Um, what's a favorite bike you've ever owned? Um, I had a trek project, one um domani that I love that thing, I mean it was phenomenal. I mean I still have, I have another domani, now that billy actually painted for me, and I think I've got maybe 18 000 miles on it and but I've, I've been a track guy, yeah, even though that, like when we had our bike shop I had a pinarello, that was.
Speaker 2:I enjoyed a lot the prince, it was really nice bike. Um, but the track, there's something about that thing and that you know, my serrata is always I still have that.
Speaker 1:You do still have that. Oh, you do still have that. Yeah, oh, that's great. Yeah, I love that. Is there an event or place like a bucket list place to ride that you haven't done yet?
Speaker 2:Australia. Definitely want to go ride in Australia. We've talked about it.
Speaker 1:Is there like a route there that you want to ride or just go, just go.
Speaker 2:Okay, I mean, I think that again it's one of those places that it's on the other side of the world, just maybe there or New Zealand, one or the other. I think that everybody that has done something in either one of those places has raved and enjoyed it a lot.
Speaker 1:I did a bike fit one time on a guy. He has a wild story. He lived in Georgia and he was moving to San Francisco for a new job and so he was traveling. He I don't know how he found me, but he was on his way to San Francisco and scheduled a bike fit and so. But he was from New Zealand and we got to talk in about everything and he's like it's the most fabulous riding bubble. He's like, if you ever go, you got it. And he's like I'll make you a route. It's like a six day route across the country. You're going to love it. And he's like it's the greatest writing on the planet.
Speaker 1:He swore he's like. I've been everywhere. He tried he was like a computer guy, an engineer.
Speaker 2:He's like I'd be down for it, because everybody that I talk to that does something. They love it. I think Andy did a New Zealand thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know he did a Greenland. Maybe it was Greenland, iceland, yeah, I know he did an Iceland thing, but it wouldn't surprise me with that guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he, yeah, he's he told me he would do an episode. We haven't made it happen yet, but he told me he would do one. So, uh, we'll find out. Um, are you still involved with red? But yes, Okay, Um, is that an April? April 5th and 6th? April 5th and 6th Okay, Um, gosh, is there anything that we want to talk about that we haven't talked about?
Speaker 2:Just, I mean again the bike. You know I was telling you two things that changed my world. One of them was skydiving, the other one was the bike. That the story about doing Leadville that first year in 94. I came back from that though, Ryan, and it was like I figured out that it really didn't matter what the obstacle was that went up. It's like I had a um, a marathon that year, that leadville that year, and it was just like everything else was easy yeah yeah, that's a well.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think that would be a great. Uh, I guess like ending challenge for people, just to find something that makes you really uncomfortable yeah, yeah try it just once, just once, just once. See what happens. Yep, yeah, um, I felt like I had something else to ask you and and I cannot remember what it was, it's something about the Leadville and the. Oh, we ever skydive one more time.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't mind. It's funny. It's like my wife and I will both have dreams about it and it's just like, every once in a while, be watching something, and it'll be going on. When it happened the last time we were. This is another random story, but we're at Flix for the last Indiana Jones movie, right, and so they're having this. They have, before the movie starts, they have this little trailer about all the Indiana Jones movies and about all the marketing and how they all came about. So back in 1995, when Elaine jumped into the Super Bowl at halftime, it was a Disney. Disney ran it, but it was Indiana Jones theme, and so she was bringing the football in. Another guy was dressed up like Indiana, she was dressed up like Marion. They get to the ground, patti LaBelle's singing. I mean, it's this whole thing going on. So we're sitting in the movie theater and all of a sudden it comes up on the screen Elaine under canopy, no Jumping in. She was on the movie theater screen, she had no idea.
Speaker 2:We had no idea. And the movie theater screen, she had no idea, we had no idea. And so we're both trying to get our phones out to get the camera to work. You know that's insane. I know it's like holy crap, wow, but it was like that night. It's like you know, we both dreamt about, you know, skydiving again. I mean, skydiving was just there.
Speaker 2:We used to do a lot of jumps out of dc3s and they would put 40 people in there and it would just go streaming out of it you know here, um, when we were in oklahoma at the us nationals, they had a c-130 that we jumped out of and they would put the ramp down and just jump on the back of that thing. Yeah, that's cool it was awesome.
Speaker 1:You got to do one more, maybe like for your 70th birthday or something you just got to like. It's a good way to like wrap it up there you go, skydiving career yeah I love it we still have the equipment sitting in the house. Yeah, you have to, why not? Why, not she's. You're gonna go home and she's gonna like stop yeah, exactly, does she want to do one more?
Speaker 2:she would, she would. I mean the big thing about it. It's kind of like um, it, it takes precision to a certain degree and it takes like this whole you know, checklist of stuff, and one of the things that we both said is like we didn't want to get to the point where we were going to scare somebody. Yeah, cause we were both as instructors, it's like we put some scary stuff out. Craziest, craziest story ever though. Yeah, let's hear it, I was, we were in in Parkman and we were in a.
Speaker 2:We had a short brother sky van, which would be like jumping out of a mini bus or whatever tailgate goes down. So I'm spotting the load, I put these fun jumpers out and then I'm taking this guy out with me, named Dan. Dan is blind, completely a hundred percent blind, and so he wanted to learn how to skydive. For, whatever the reason was, dan decides he's going to be a skydiver. He's a graduate of Carnegie Mellon, he is an engineer, he works for NASA and he does. He programs shuttle landing data for NASA and he's going to let you know Yahoo's, like me and the rest of my horde, throw him out of an airplane.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, Don't screw this one up.
Speaker 2:So you know, we would do these one-on-one dives with him and Dan was like he was incredible. He like he had a compass built into his brain that because I would tell him I'm like, do a 45-degree turn, stop, hold that, do another one, just step around and he would be like boom, boom, boom. He'd be perfect, insane. And so we go out, we do our jump, we're on the jump, he does his targeted learning objectives, right, tlos, and so when it would become close to pull time, I would fly up.
Speaker 2:He has an audible altimeter in his ear, um, and it would be so we would be going through like 4500 feet or whatever. So I fly up and I tap him on the bottoms of his palms so he knew that I was going to slide back a little bit and wait for him to pull. So I tap, I slide back, dan pulls. His parachute opens faster than any parachute I've ever seen open in my life. I mean, dude, it opens so hard, it's like he stops immediately and he's like I think he's going to end up flipping back up through the court. You know, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:But he settles back down. I'm like oh, my God.
Speaker 2:You know, I I'm like, oh my God, I'm watching this because I'm pulling, I'm down here, and so I get behind him. Mike on the ground is talking to him, and so he sails, flies around and stuff like that, and he gets close flares parachute, so we're jumping the squares then. So you push these levers down your toggles and the parachute kind of stops. So Dan stops, I land pretty close to him and, uh, I walk up behind him, I'm gathering my stuff up, and he's gathering his stuff up, and he hears me walking towards him, so he kind of like turns my way and there's something wrong with him. And I'm looking at him and it's like, um, we wear the goggles like the jockeys wear. So Dan's got a glass eye. The glass eye popped out because he had such a hard opening. It's rolling around inside his goggles.
Speaker 1:My word, You're like I don't know to laugh or be worried.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm like dude, like that was some opening. He's like oh, man, let me tell you I'm like you got to put that back in before we get over to the packing area, because you're gonna gross everybody out. He pops that thing back in. We wander over my word like he was so cool though that's amazing. He's one of those guys you could do. You know, we do all this stupid stuff with him and we did stupid stuff so you know we're drinking one night and it's like we just saw the scent of a woman.
Speaker 2:The movie where then arrow's driving the car and he's blind, whatever so it's like hey, let's dan drive, shut up yeah, we did.
Speaker 1:Dan was a good time. It's like, yeah, I'll go, I'll do it. Oh, my god, I love the dan, just like lived it up so it's like scott from back.
Speaker 2:He's like dan left left, your other left. We end up in a ditch and the only thing everybody's like if a cop came up and the cop would say, what are you some kind of rocket scientist? And dan would be able to go yeah, I am. As a matter of fact, you drive like a blind man well, funny enough bingo.
Speaker 1:That's the problem yeah, oh my gosh, do you still talk to dan? He passed away a couple years ago. Wow, what a life dan lived oh, he was.
Speaker 2:I mean, he was so fun though it's like people, would he like? His acute um smell was like he knew who you were. Like people throw banana peels on the ground, it's like haha, very funny wow, I like dan.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was he was awesome he was so much. That's a that's a good story.
Speaker 2:That's a great story. Billy and McKenzie met. One of my skydiving buddies came into town last a couple months ago, my buddy, dean, who was he's another guy, that another life changing like dude, and so he was an instructor. We jumped competitively on the same team he, my wife, uh, dini and um, but he he worked. He's always been a waiter and he's one of those guys it's like the greatest waiter ever, right. And so he decided one year that he was going to do um when american lung used to do the the ride across america fundraiser. He decides he's going to do it. So he's in the restaurant and um in arizona and phoenix. And um, he's telling he people know about his life and he's going to share with these guys in the high-end restaurant tap a tail point in phoenix. And so dean's like yeah, he's like I'm still working on, you know, fundraising.
Speaker 2:he's like I'm short, I gotta get. You know, gotta figure out how to get another 10 grand together, you know, but I'm going to get there. And so the guy comes to pay, or Dean comes to pick up the guy's bill. The guy puts a $10,000 tip on for him. So he's like here he goes, go ride your bike, get ready to go, you're set no way. So he did the ride across america. Um, but he's, he's such a great guy and he was a tandem instructor for skydiving and I think he retired with about 15 000 jumps or something how many did you end up with?
Speaker 1:uh, right around 2500 that's a lot of jumping out of an airplane elaine ed she's probably over 5 000 insane, insane, yeah. Golly, you know what I mean. We didn't even get to your broken elbow story, which was a funny one.
Speaker 1:Well, probably not funny for you but funny for others, but it's one of those things that I really, truly strive for, and I know it's like a meme and it's a whole saying thing and it's out there. It's like you know, when it's all said and done, your body needs to be completely used up, Like I know there's like a poetic way to say that, but like I think you're like truly the epitome of living that Like you've had wild, fun, random things, met so many random people which have led to fun, crazy stories and adventures.
Speaker 1:Um, and continue to just like break yourself, but continue to like do the adventures.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's's um. I don't know there's it's just. I was wired that way from the very beginning, drove my parents pretty much crazy yeah, um, yeah but it was always that thing.
Speaker 2:It's like looking for that, you know, whatever that was, whether I don't know when, when I figured out the skydiving part. It's like I really like this a lot. The car thing was really cool, enjoyed that a lot. The bike thing kind of like rescued me, though I think in a bigger way, because you know, I've hurt myself on the bike a few times Right.
Speaker 2:But it's just like what the things that's happened along the biking journey, the bike path you know, being an interbike and meeting Mario Cipollini. We're at a Four roses imports um party on the roof of the rio and there's a go-go dancer.
Speaker 2:he's there with his girlfriend, who's like I'm standing next to the hottest woman I've ever stood next to, looking to see if there's a staple in her belly. And so mario is watching this go-go dancer on top of this lexan block where the lights are flashing and it's boom, boom, boom music. And he's just mesmerized by this woman and his girlfriend. She hits me on the shoulder, she's like, she points at her boobs, she's like what's wrong with these?
Speaker 1:And you're like I got no comment. I'm like you know, phil.
Speaker 2:Liggett's there. Phil Liggett's like oh my, you know, phil Liggett's there Phil Liggett's like oh my you know he was. He's like I love Delonica and I'm like I kicked myself so many times that I wish I would have had him done like a thing on my phone to say Ray can't come to the phone right now because he's cracked oh that would have been awesome.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2:How, when we had the bike shop, we went to Interbike and so we did Gita Sports, so that was the Pinarellos, the Mercs, all that stuff, and so they would invite. You know, because that's you know, we had a. Really we had an eclectic group that shopped in our place because we were a destination point.
Speaker 2:So, north of Atlanta, so it kind of opened up the door for that. And John, he had had the ride with Bianchi for a while and stuff, and so it was interesting, though it was a lot of fun. Bob Roll was amazing. We were doing the bike tour of Colorado like fun ride one year and sat and watched the tour, watchedler uh, win a stage with tyler's dad and bop roll. You know roll is commenting about like everything that he's doing he should be doing that, he should be doing this, but it was. It was just fun. I mean, it was always.
Speaker 1:There was always some fun stuff going on yeah, you, the way that you just randomly fall into these random stories and places, yeah, isn't like you kind of have lived like the most interesting man in the world stories, like you just like find yourself like wow, I was just at this event next to cipollini and then I randomly was on a bus with mercs and or who. Who did you say it? Was it uh with uh on the mountain bike? Oh, with gary Gary Fisher.
Speaker 2:Gary Fisher yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just like oh yeah, we just ran it. I mean, the most random places and people that you've stumbled into have been, it's awesome.
Speaker 2:But that's where that, that's the the whole, that's the power of the bike thing. I mean, it's just like it's got such a you know, this universe, the bicycle universe, it's so like diverse and populated with so many. There's people that you'll ride with that will never say a word to you, right, ever, uh-huh. And then there's other people that will ride that you know, talk too much, like me, um, and but you know, and there's everything in between, right, it's just again, like I say, when I've figured out, when I learned a long time ago, it's like stop and listen and you'll get these gifts, and people will be willing. Everybody always wants to help and everybody wants to talk, and so that's made it pretty cool, really cool.
Speaker 1:A lot of fun. Okay, Well, I don't know if you can top the ones that you talked about. Who's the most amazing? Like interesting, famous, amazing person, whatever that you've like met.
Speaker 2:Lance.
Speaker 1:Where'd you meet?
Speaker 2:him at Leadville. Okay, I mean it just again the Lance effect on Leadville. I mean it just, it's really it changed it. It was something that changed everything. It changed Ken Klober in the way that he looked at his race. Yeah, because you know the pro thing started to kind of like wick its way in. Because it's not. It's kind of interesting that Leadville's not had never really been about a purse for a champion. It had been about the status of being the champion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really truly one of those grassroots mountain bike events, those old school grassroots events. It's like, yeah, I mean you kind of see that with some of the gravel things now they're clearly getting turned into paid and big marketing events, kind of thing, you know. But I think when you go back and look at the original unbound stuff, uh, without a doubt the original.
Speaker 1:Like you know, like I mean, I guess mid South is still like that Um, who knows? I mean, hopefully it stays that way, but who knows, Um, but it is that thing. It's like.
Speaker 2:It's like these G threes, you know, it's like, it's like these g3s, you know, it's like and I think that as a promoter or as a organizer, you want to have your event grow um. And then I think that the thing that the thing about this is interesting, about leadville is like it was okay for them to be what they were. Like it was like ken saw his vision for what that race was supposed to be the run and the and the ride and that was okay. I mean it's like you know Dave Weins. I mean he, he was a champion of it and he got rejected on the lottery for the first two or three years that he tried to get in.
Speaker 2:I mean that is insane.
Speaker 1:Insane.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love those grassroots events and I do love seeing expansion and growth and bringing more people in the sport and you know these events blowing up and being what they are, but it's so nice to have the ones like the G3.
Speaker 2:Oh, without I mean yeah, and they've done such an amazing.
Speaker 1:I mean, I enjoyed it this year. Yeah, it's so fun. Yeah, the routes I. There's no better riding in Oklahoma than here. They're on a mountain bike, which is god-awful and brutal but so fun, and the gravel down there is so Phenomenal it's tough to beat anywhere.
Speaker 2:It's got the views and everything else with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not Oklahoma in any way. No, it's beautiful. All right, ray. Thank you so much, I appreciate it, and something tells me we're going to have a round two when to when I hear more of these stories that you haven't told me today, we'll have to sit down and do all this again. So thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Ryan.
Speaker 1:I appreciate it All right.