Salty Dogs Cycling

We sit down with Brent and Jonathan to trace how two fresh racers launched The Salty Dogs, built a real team structure, raced across the country, and started giving back to get more kids on bikes. Mindset, tactics, and community sit at the center, with plenty of laughs in between.

• founding story of the salty dogs
• mindset shifts from survival to strategy
• racing upgrades, team roles and finishes
• tactics for crit positioning and energy budget
• kit design, branding and a club line
• community work with kids, helmets and bikes
• national travel, ambassadorship and culture
• gear favorites, dream routes and classics
• selection philosophy for future teammates

Instagram @saltydogscycling

Chapters

• 0:00 Cold Open, Sponsors, And Purpose
• 2:37 Meet The Salty Dogs
• 4:53 Jonathan’s One-Month-To-Gibraltar Start
• 12:45 Brent’s Journey From Cars To Crits
• 20:10 Why Start A Team Now
• 26:30 Culture, Inclusion, And Racing Philosophy
• 35:12 Mindset, Upgrades, And Cat Three Reality
• 44:20 Team Tactics And Learning To Finish
• 53:15 Branding, Kits, And Club Vision
• 1:00:00 Giving Back: Kids, Helmets, And Bikes
• 1:06:40 Travel, Ambassadorship, And Community Impact
• 1:15:25 Crashes, Pace Cars, And Keeping It Upright
• 1:24:10 Gear Talk, Routes, And Dream Races
• 1:33:30 Building Roster, Standards, And Fit
• 1:41:20 Why More Teams Matter In OKC

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

What is up, Cycling Oklahoma? Thank you so much for tuning in for another wild episode. This one, it comes at you from all angles. It's super fun. I had a great time sitting down with Brent Jonathan, uh, the salty dogs racing, and we had a good time. I learned a lot about how they got started, kind of what their vision is, what their plans are for the future. And man, do these guys like to race bicycles. They race maybe more than anybody I know. So uh it's good. There's a lot of mom jokes, and so if your mom is the one that gets offended by this, or you are offended because your mom is attacked by this episode, please let me know.

SPEAKER_01: 0:38

We can arrange some revenge for the amount of times that someone's mom is brought up in this episode. But I hope you enjoy it. It was fun. We laughed a lot, we had a good time, and uh, they're two great guys who really just love bikes and just want to race and have fun and grow the sport. So, you know, if you see them out there, say hi.

SPEAKER_00: 0:59

They have some good-looking kits, they are doing things for the right reasons and just really enjoying life.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04

So um, I hope you can follow along with their journey, and they have some fun things planned for like kind of a club side and some race team side and stuff like that. So follow along on Instagram. I'll put the their link in the show notes, and they have a lot of a lot of cool stuff going. So enjoy this one. And of course, you know who brought you this episode. It's rideomba.org. They do all the amazing things for our trails here, uh, especially on Oklahoma City Metro. They take care of other trails around our wonderful state. And uh, you know, it's$50 a year, people.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34

Sign up$50 a year. You spend$50 at lunch. So go sign up, support RideOMBA. That helps fund our trails. You know, dedicate some time this winter to keep trails clean. Uh, and I know they're always building new things. So um please go check them out, help them out, rideomba.org.

SPEAKER_01: 1:50

And of course, more overhead doors.

SPEAKER_00: 1:52

You know, you setting up your pain cave in your garage this winter, and it sucks because it's so cold and your garage doors aren't insulated, give more overhead door a call. Let them check it out, come put you in a new garage door, and uh your pain cave won't be quite as miserable.

SPEAKER_01: 2:06

So thank you guys so much for rideomba.org and more overhead door for supporting this adventure. And we have a lot of good episodes lined up to be recorded within the next two to three weeks. And if the last episode with me and Drummond and how we might get canceled, if that spurred some conversation in your head, if you agreed with it, wonderful. If you didn't agree with it, even better. Send me messages on Instagram. You can send them to me personally, send them on Cycling Oklahoma because we have some recording, we're recording some episodes coming up with some race directors and some other things. So hopefully we can get some questions answered. We can give some constructive feedback, like true feedback, instead of saying, I don't like this. That doesn't help anybody. But if you say, I don't like this, and here's an idea or a suggestion, that would be much better. So uh stay tuned for more fun episodes of trying to shake things up and really more than anything, just trying to organize things in our amazing state. We have great races, we have incredible riders in our state, and we have a lot to show off to the world. And we really would like to see Oklahoma cycling put their best foot forward.

SPEAKER_00: 3:09

So we're trying to help that, trying to encourage that, and we're trying to just be in the middle to facilitate whatever we can to help uh cycling in Oklahoma be better.

SPEAKER_01: 3:16

So thank you so much for tuning in. Uh, if you'd like to support the podcast, get in touch with me. We'll figure something out. Uh, or you know what, if just worst case scenario, I want you to share an episode with a friend and uh let them listen because the more downloads we get, the more leverage we have to talk to folks about some sponsorship and we put those dollars right back into our cycling community.

SPEAKER_00: 3:35

They do not go into my pocket. So thank you guys so much for listening. Enjoy this one, it's fun, and uh, you know what, just love each other, go ride bikes, go play, and I hope everyone has a wonderful, wonderful week.

SPEAKER_01: 3:57

If your lips aren't touching it, we have the recordings of the perfect intro. Something in this moment. You might be excited to hear this. So already it's man, we're starting to get all hot. We are 10 seconds in. So welcome to the podcast. 10 seconds, two beers. That's true. That's true. Uh I don't know how this is gonna go now. So we'll see. It's gonna be great. It's gonna be great. Keeping you on edge. Uh we're here with the salty dogs. I don't know. I don't know the story, which so I'm excited. I mean, we've talked roughly here and there at crits and when you guys were kind of getting going and cooking hot dogs and all that kind of stuff. So I'm excited to hear the story. Uh, I don't know, I don't I don't know what you guys have planned. Yeah, I don't think you guys really know what you have planned. Yeah. We're gonna hope to figure it out over the next two hours. So you guys introduce yourselves and let's jump off from there. Well, my name's Jonathan Gardner and uh started riding bikes in May of 2023. Oh, you're super new. Yeah, okay. What'd you do before that? I just went to the gym and worked out. I was kind of a gym rat, you know. He missed his opportunity, man. Just trying to get huge and realized that that was just swole and it just not happened for me. Yeah, you know. Wow. So only a couple oh wait, you've only been in this for like two and a half, two years, roughly. Yeah. Wow. Okay, it's good for you. No kidding. What made you choose a bike? You know, I just decided that I needed to make a change in my life, you know, and go after something that you know seemed hard, seemed difficult. You chose the right thing again. Something that was totally different, you know, something I didn't know anything about, that I had to face like all of the cultural indoctrinations, if you will. There are plenty. And it was just something that I thought, you know, this is gonna be hard. But I went to a bike shop, I just literally pointed at a bike that I thought looked cool. I didn't know anything about mechanical or electronic shifting, and I just picked a bike and just started riding it. Man, so did you have any like friends that did it or anything like that that even like sparked this idea? I knew nobody. And it was just out of all the things you could have picked in endurance sports or any other sport, did you like there what was there, there was no connection between the two? So full disclosure, you know, I thought what I was gonna do that was hard that I needed this transition point for, I thought, you know, I'm gonna do triathlons. Yeah, that's so suckered in. I thought, well, the first thing I should do is get a bicycle and I'll start riding a bicycle, and then in six weeks or so I'll jump off and I'll start running. And I did that for a little bit, and then it was time for me to go swim. So bad that was second or third week of riding bikes, Jonathan. How many miles did you ride? That second or third week. I was probably I was in the hundreds for sure. Like second or third week? Yeah, how bad did you have saddle sores? Honestly, though that didn't happen until did you have later on? But did you were you like bruised? No, I was so terrible over here. Yeah, I just know Ryan's so concerned because I just know how miserable that could be. Actually, I'm still nursing one from mid-May. No, it was just something that I thought I'm gonna jump on the bike, then I'll start running, and then I'll start swimming, and we'll just go through this progression and see how it goes. And I realized when it was time for me to go swimming that this isn't gonna work very well. Like it was just not something that I felt comfortable doing, and then I was doing it. That's about whenever I met Brent and Brendan at my group ride, and it was one of the bike lab routes, and I just it was the closest shop to my house, and so I rode down there one day and caught up with those guys, and I thought, you know, you guys just ride, you know, don't slow down for me. If I get dropped, it is what it is. But I just want to I just want to partake in what it is that you guys are graving. And it was so fun, like they were so gracious, you know, and just kind of like dropped, but in a hot zone, but like he was there, yeah. Like, how long you've been living, man? Like oh like two weeks. Like what wow, okay. So you're just out of knack for it from the get-go. It was just something I had no idea that you know the endurance thing was inevitably in my genes. Like, I never did cardio at the gym, like it just wasn't fun. I didn't want to waist high. Yeah, you've been all max like 70 or something. I don't know. Yeah, just one of those people that just like it's just natural. Oh I hate people like you. Or yeah, start at the bottom and I'm still like just above the bottom, and I work real hard at it. Just ride more, right? That's what they say. Uh-huh. But then there's people like this. Well, uh-huh. Good for you. That's awesome. So you just fell in love with a bike. Truly, yeah. Truly so, yeah. Like it was just something that getting out there, and I'm one of those guys, like, even to this day, like, I've never worn earphones, I've never listened to music. Like, and I was telling my wife about that the other day, you know, how guys have these little shocked earbuds and stuff like this. And she's like, You riding all these hours and you listen to nothing? Uh-huh. I'm like, Yeah, I've got plenty of stuff going on in my head that I can parse my room. Yeah. But it's so great. Like, it was just a nice outlet just for mental health, just to push myself physically. It was an area that I've never experienced that before. Did you grow up playing other sports? I did some recreational stuff. I played baseball whenever I was in middle school and nothing really past high school. It's kind of whenever I got into music and things like that. And so it just sports kind of like took away uh a back seat, you know, around 10th grade, and I just the only activity that I really did was, you know, just going in the gym. Where did you grow up at? I graduated from Choctaw High School.

SPEAKER_00: 10:21

You said music. So were you in, did you have a band? Were you into I know you do music or audio stuff now?

SPEAKER_01: 10:27

What's what's the music background? Yeah, so whenever I was about 15, 16 years old, uh, played in a band and our parents took us to the recording studio. And I got in there and you know, we had written a couple original songs and we started recording. And I remember the engineer looking over at me and my guitar rig, and he was like, You gonna play that? Kind of like giving me this little side eye about my rig. And I was like, Well, yeah, you know, it's just a cheap guitar, solid state amplifier, you know, nothing sexy when it comes to tone. But he was a tone guy, okay. And so he hands me a Paul Reid Smith, a rat distortion pedal, a Vox AC30 tube amplifier, and man, it felt amazing. And we recorded our songs, but it was in that process that I realized, man, what he's doing behind the glass on the soundboard, it just it sparked uh innate interest in me that I wanted to pursue. That's cool. And so from about 16 years old on, I was just pursuing high fidelity sound, how to capture signal flow, how to optimize everything from home audio to professional audio studio recordings and things like that. So you just got hooked. It was very similar to the addiction of cycling. Yeah, no. Once you find once you get that little like you're like all in. I just get locked in. Yeah. I have no like moderation bone in my body. It's either all or nothing. Sounds like someone in endurance sports. Yeah, makes sense. Yeah, yeah. I like it. So let's hear your background. Yeah, uh Brent Wilson here. Um, been cycling since oh man, when was that 21 or so? And you guys are so like such fresh phrase. Yeah, we have no idea what we're doing. Hey, good for you. He's kind of what we that's coming to back. You have no scars. Yeah, well, we do have scars road ride, kind of scars, no mental scars, yeah, wrist, broken wrists, whatever. Um, it's been a fun journey. Um, no, so uh kind of you know, kind of covet covet cyclist a little bit from a buddy of mine, Matt, who was like, Hey, let's do this doathlon. I was like, Well, I kind of run, I kind of have this mountain bike, I never ride, and found a road bike to borrow and and went out and did the martial car to me. Yeah, looking back at those pictures is quite funny. But uh yeah, every once in a while I get to see my first. So my very first triathlon was in El Reno, which is where I'm from. And if you're from a small town and you've ever been decent at sports in a small town, like if you do a sport again in a small town, you're like, hey, we're gonna put you on the front page of so the front page of the El Reno Tribune is my picture for my very first triathlon. Oh boy, that picture is does not is not it's not pretty, it's not pretty big baggy jersey. I wore cycling shorts and jersey. I did have a jersey, had like a gym workout shirt. They were probably the same size, they probably fit the exact same because that's exactly how mine. Yeah, yeah, it's not good, it's not pretty. I loved it. Uh, and then so I started riding this road bike around, and I was like, man, this is this is fun, kind of like the wind in your face, and it really reminded me of racing cars, you know, taking corners and like the kind of technique and everything that you know riding your bike's pretty technical. Um, just kind of fell in love with it from there, kind of rode casually in 21, and then in the winter time, um, because it gets dark at five o'clock, I started getting on YouTube and found Northhouse cycling. And um, I was like, You can race your bike, what is going on here? Like taking corners and car background, racing background, like that's what I want to do. So kind of ramped up that effort and and kind of got into it. Um, got addicted. There's so much to be said about having that competitive spirit and like being able to do that. I think as adults, it's very hard to find for sure outlet. Yeah, um, you know, you're like everybody played baseball or football or some type of sport um growing up, and you kind of lose that as you get older. Yeah. Um, and then you re-find it and you're just like this scratch the scene. You're like, man, this is so fun. It is. That's the addictive part. Yeah. And I just kind of uh whipped balls the wall a little bit after that first year and 22 riding. So I must have met you shortly after you started. Yeah, I think I got a fit from you. Like, you have to go to this zealous guy. I'm like, okay, who's this dude and shuts down his business? And he's like, I don't like doing this anymore. So I wish. Yeah, yeah. Uh yeah. Um, yeah. So we haven't been doing it long, but man, kind of like Jonathan's kind of got you're all in, you know, you're not guaranteed anything. So go and enjoy it and have fun while where'd you grow up at? I grew up in Enid. Okay. Uh went to OSU. Um, I've been in Oklahoma City 11 years, and not for much longer. Yes. I know. Making fun of you about that. Yeah. So big transition. You're off to uh Colorado. You know, just uh really the focus is to get the high offset training, and that's all I'm doing that for. You love climbing so much. I love climbing. My body type is meant for pure climber. When I see you, I'm like, man, this guy, he's like a goat. Yeah, yeah. He's climbing. That's what everybody says. Some muscle lean into it. Just following your calling. Oh, there you go. Nah, just what's the what's the car racing thing? Man, I I've been doing that since you know, uh illegal street racing in high school and stuff with a little Honda Civic, okay, souping it up. But I've always been mechanically inclined and um I've done some stuff at Hallett, Wheel of Wheel Racing, like the road racing kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah. Built a car in my garage. Did you ever run into Raw when you guys were out there? You know, I think we may have up at Stroud, but we didn't know each other. Yeah, I had like a little RX8. I don't know what he had at the time. But uh I know he had he was a BMW guy, I think. Yeah, a snooty guy who drives BMWs. How many BMWs? Yeah, well, I race BMWs. Yeah, yeah, I've had a few. Um, but I know Todd Swain from Tulsa. He that I met him racing cars. That's fine. Yeah, he had a civic day. Yeah. Um, does you see the correlation between the two? Do you bring those across at all? Oh, yeah. Like like positioning and like where to exert, and like it's really a mental battle of what I do impacts the person behind me, or like you can let off the gas quicker, like tap your brakes, and they have to react to that. Um, a little bit different because the fuel tank's a little bit different scale. Like, I can only go so hard. So, but the strategy's still there, you know. Positioning is really important. That's probably kind of cool that you get to like have that same feeling, but not you don't have to have the car and all the expenses and all the crap that goes along with that. The expenses, that's kind of where I kind of fell out of it. Was it was so expensive to do that, then I got really expensive doing what I do now with because I mean yeah, what we do is not cheat. No, so that's true story. Yeah, so well, I guess what leads us here is salty dogs and how in the world that came about and like the story of salty dogs and all that kind of stuff. Because when I saw you guys for the first time, it's kind of when all things were going, you know, through the ringer or whatever you things were changing. Let's say things were changing. Yeah, and is that when you were bad at us because we didn't have vegan hot dogs when we were handing wheeler? Yeah, pretty much they weren't all beef. Yeah, yeah, they they were almost vegan, because you know, the hot dog isn't just shy of being vegan, but yeah, so like and I saw you guys all show up and you guys have this new kit because you know the shop it the shop had changed and the team had changed and all those kinds of things. So I didn't know what would happen with that team because you guys all race together at Bike Lab, right? Correct. Yeah, so we we did a lot of racing last year. Uh me and Jonathan, Brendan, we were very similar schedule what we did this year of racing um and going around and all that was through Bike Lab. That was through OK. Yeah, they supported us really well. You know, Tony, you know, kind of showed me a lot of ropes from the beginning when I started watching YouTube videos back in 22 and 21. Um, so like having that support was quite amazing, and and you know, last year was great. Um, unfortunately, you know, times kind of changed. And I think me and Jonathan, we we were uh chatting a little bit, like, hey, you know, like we see some opportunities here. Um, we like kind of how much more control can we have over this? So we kind of talked about, you know, just for fun on long road trips a little bit last year. Um, nothing more, just to pass the time where you don't listen to music while driving for some reason. We're insane. That's my fault. Yeah. So um, especially from a an audio guy. So strange just wanted to be quiet. Yeah, like but yeah, what so we we end of last year, kind of we heard some rumblings and maybe maybe nothing was gonna happen. And we're like, this seems like the time to do it. And the people we talked to were like, yeah, you probably should not start a cycling team. It's a bad avenue. So um just depends on what your what your uh version of success is. Yeah, and I think with me and Jonathan's background of of being a little bit different than normal of uh in the community and cycling is you know, business and engineering as fun as that can be, is uh yeah, let's see what we can do. And we stood up pretty quick. I think like two to three weeks, we got uh you know, website build, LLC, kind of all the bylaws of like an actual business of what it would be looking like, but then also like a kit and like branding of of getting those relationships built up. Um you guys came at this as like a from a to a bit as a business side, like that's how you came at it like from the beginning. Yeah, which is definitely way different than it just seemed like the right way to approach it. Like I love organization, I love things being above board, being clear, defined roles and responsibilities. And so with Brent's background, engineering, project manager, like we just really jive in that regard. And so it just, you know, I was like, I don't really need another LLC, but if we're gonna do this, like let's just do it right, right? Let's let's not just do anything happily, yeah. And so that was kind of the push was you know, kind of seeing the writing on the wall, but also going, hey, maybe if we have a little bit of control, we can kind of funnel this in a way that can be something that we want it to be. We kind of saw a need, and it was it just seemed like the right time. Did you guys what was the from the at the beginning? Um because you guys are still in the early, early stages of this whole adventure. Absolutely. Um, when you guys were daydreaming on that car ride, what was the like, man, this would be cool if what was what was that grand picture? What was the what was some of the daydreaming possibilities that you guys were looking at? The ones that you want to share. Sure. Because I know you probably still have plans that you don't want to share yet, because who knows? But uh, what are the things that you guys are like, man, this is kind of what we want to do and how we want to do it? I think for me, like being able to have a bit of control in what we stand for, what the image is, like how we conduct ourselves, and really the message that we want to share with the cycling community. Like the cycling community to me, being a new guy, like it's been really pretty amazing, you know, to uh jump on a group ride and the next thing you know, you're talking with these guys in the group and learning a little bit about them, and they're very, very successful businessmen. Yeah, usually or Jimmy Joe over here, right? Or they just started, and it's just so I think it's pretty beautiful, honestly. Like the dichotomy of what creates the Peloton so eclectic, and it's just so different, and it can be guys like me that just started that don't know that your sunglasses go on the outside of your strap. Depends. Or like no, no, it depends. Uh-huh. It depends. Unless you're a triathlete, okay, and then they go under the strap. Oh, see, I didn't perceive the triathlete in this situation. No why if you take your helmet off, they go they go underneath. If you take leave your helmet on, they go over. That's how it had to explain to me one time because I just put them on and where they end up is where they end up. And then I had it explained to me. I was like, noted, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 23:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 23:11

Uh-huh. Okay. On that same front, this is totally off subject. Uh, leg warmers, socks underneath or over the top? I can't figure that out. Well, but socks. What do you mean socks and leg warmers? They shouldn't touch. Leg warmers? Oh, all full leg warmers. Full-length leg warmers. So you wear warmers. Three three quarters. Three quarters. Okay. He does that. Indoors. He does indoors if it's under 40. Yeah. Well, my toe, it's not my knee knees that are cold, it's the toes and fingers. A lot of trainer rights in his feature. Okay. I need gloves. Sorry to straight. Okay, go ahead. But just being able to like have the have a bit of say in what do we represent? You know, how do we want to do this? And again, we don't know anything about a starting a cycling team. It's just something that we love doing. And you get like-minded people together, and you think about how people sort of influenced you or talked to you that was like, I really appreciate how that person gave me this little bit of insight. You know, whether it's like figuring out how to clip in, you know, at the start line, which sometimes I still can't figure out to just like hold the wheel, you know, or like how to think about slingshotting down a a hill to get momentum for a climb, just all these little technical elements, like it just seems like there's so many bits that you can like piece together that's constantly learning. Are you guys wanting to continue to clearly to expand your knowledge because you guys are still young and new into this world and bring people along? Or are you guys focused on like, hey, we have our group of guys and we're just gonna continue to see how far we can go as a group and continue as people pop in, then they pop in. But like what's kind of the goal there? Yeah, I Jonathan and I have been discussing this quite a bit uh recently, and we have, you know, what's nice about having this ownership of this is we can be flexible and maneuverable and and and do what we want to do on a pivot whenever we want. Um, we definitely see value in the community aspect. We want to be able to give back as much as we can and be a place to, you know, kind of the unwritten rules and like bring people into the realm of we love racing, we love traveling, we we want more people to do that. So um we do see ourselves as kind of like um stepping stone into that in in the sense of we're racing and people enjoy us and like they see our values and what we stand for, like riding hard, racing hard, but like at the end of the day, we're as old men and lycra, sweaty and like smelly, and yeah, but let's go have a beer and hang out acting like it it's not all seriousness as long as you never forget that part. Yeah, it's definitely something that's the part with cycling, and you guys being new in it, you're gonna have seen it the way that I because I mean I've been in a long time at this point, but I still come into a fresh eyes because I remember the scars that I got coming into it new because I didn't grow up in this world and how snobby they can be, how big of just jerks they can be, and like just so clickish, so high school. Like it's it can be it, especially especially the world that you guys are living in right now, the crit racing road world, like it can be really just we've seen that. I mean, with us traveling nationally and everything, we've seen that, and and I think you know, we have our race team for sure, and like we are gonna be exclusive and like have a set group, and it's not gonna be all welcoming, but uh not to say that like you come up talk to us and like we're gonna shoot the crap with you and and have a good time and like help you out, like well, I I I remember you're talking about like what got us started in this and the ownership of the fact, like what we're doing is I think it's quite unique in the sense of you know we're going all around nationally doing all these racing, like as like these middle-aged cat three guys, like it's kind of it it we understand it's ridiculous. Like, yeah, it's not lost on us, that's that's a fact. But embrace it, fair. I love it. But like the people we meet, like in the middle of the race, one of my good friends, uh Robin, uh, he loves up in Washington and like uh Seattle, and like I met him through all this stuff, and like how did I meet him? Because I was yelling at him not to come up underneath me in the middle of a corner. And he's like, I was like, get behind me and I'll show you kind of like flow through this corner so we're not killing ourselves coming out because we're just tailgunning, which is my favorite thing to do, and like coach hates it, but uh you know, like kind of the ownership of that is kind of what I want to see. Like, we're kind of doing something a little bit unique doing all these things, but um getting back to what you asked is uh like you want to be more than just a cycling team that travels to races around the country, yeah, yeah. We will we want to stand for something and like we're gonna race hard, but we're gonna have a good time doing it and not take a seriously compute community involvement for sure and and grow people that are fresh into the sport as well, yeah. Yeah, I mean it it's so far reaching, like it's hard to see kind of impact and it surprises. We were talking about this the other day, like man, we got hit up on Instagram by somebody from California moving to Oklahoma. Hey, what's going on? Like, we see you guys out here. I wanna I wanna do all this stuff, and like Ryan, that was crazy. Like, how did you find us? Like, well, we just saw you, like, and it looked cool, and I think that's the great like touch points that you guys are gonna have going out, and something you have to remember, you know, like right, especially long term as you guys get better and better and better and bigger and bigger. Like, well, some of you guys will get better. Yeah, um, so but like that you're ambassadors not only for your team and salty dogs and your each other, but like for the state, be for kind of for what you guys have a mission to do. Yeah. Um, and so you will run into random people. You guys are going to Chicago and going to Wisconsin and going to these places and racing. Well, that represents our scene here, you know, of how you guys act and behave and talk and you know, in just like that. Maybe somebody's moving here, has family here or something, and they look you guys up. And so it's kind of I hope that that is a long-term legacy that you guys leave because I know there's a lot of people that maybe have that and things change as they gain success or just or just get into their own niche. You know, some people don't do it on purpose, they just get into their own niche and they get into their own tunnel and it just happens. You don't mean for it to happen. Right. So having something like that that it amazes you, yeah. I hope this continues in five and ten years from now, it's still the exact same excitement of like this is so cool. Yeah. Yeah. We want this to be long term. We don't want this to be, you know, what is the long term for this? Oh, I mean, do we have to answer? No. Well, but like right now, what do you think? Like you just want to have a race team and just continue to uh see what happens, or do you or do you haven't really gone all the way through that? I think we kind of talked about that a little bit. We've kind of taken it day by day. Yeah, I mean, it's like the respect for the sport, like you were saying, Ryan, to be an ambassador of not only our city, right, as we represent, like the representation thing is is very humbling to think about because you're like these guys from Oklahoma City, you know, and you're on these national races and there's people that are that are watching. And I think that I kind of forget that sometimes because I'm like, man, I just I just kind of started this. Like, yeah, I'm not trying to take myself too seriously, but I'm trying to get better. I want to push and I want to grow because I feel like there's always gonna be this margin for improvement. And so thinking about that and thinking about long term, like there's things that I want to accomplish for myself personally, goals um as far as cycling goes. And I think that there's also like some goals that we want to establish as far as what does this salty dogs team represent long term, and part of that for me has to do with being active in all the established group rides for one, and maybe even starting a new one. Oh gosh, doing some being a part of some of the other ones. Shout out to the get F. Uh, that is amazing. I don't it's is this y'all's your no, I I don't know who started it, but I believe Paul and Demzi and Heather put this thing together Sundays overholster bolt house. Okay. Um no ride, no route, excuse me. Um just show up at the skit pitted. It is a how long do you guys go? What don't look at me when you're asking this question because we did I'm off season. We did about four hours last year or last month, and last Sunday. Last Sunday. Gosh, that's how bad it was. The week before that was it's it's about a four-hour ride, but and hard full guests. Tiffany Paul, like dude, really strong. Evan showed up, Dang Z, like Emerson, like it's so funny story. I don't show up, so it could be time. I was like, I got a message on Instagram. Hey, we're gonna do this ride. And I feel like Paul usually rides his gravel bike, and so I thought, perhaps I should show up on a gravel bike, perhaps I should show up with two water bottles, a use way, perhaps I should be ready for anything. And I did, and they were all on their road bikes. Oh no, and it was about four hours of me trying to just dude. Your power must have been off the charts. Oh, it was it was pretty insane. Like wear as much air as possible, like it is okay. So let's take a step back. I want to hear I want to hear these three stories real quick. You started cycling in 2011, yeah. And now you said you're a cat three. Yes, okay. From when time you started racing to cating up to a three, what was that journey like and how how long did that take? Um, it was a little oh that reminds me. Um, started getting into wheeler and that journey from as a cat five, like how to hold a wheel, like that was a learning process, but uh something I um don't recommend doing when you are cycling or doing any endurance sport is to give blood and then try to race like the next six weeks because a bad idea. Yeah, so I was like, why can't I hold any wheels? Like, this is I know what I should be doing. I've watched all these YouTube videos, like yeah. So um I started racing a little bit more in the summer, and you know, stayed cat five and Tulsa Tough was like so scary for me because that's like I don't even want to do it, but cat five, Tulsa Tough could that there's not many things on the planet in endurance sports scarier than that situation. I think I think that's chaos. Any county where Tulsa is scary, throwing a bunch of people that don't know what they're doing. Yeah, yeah. So there um that first year kind of just was like kind of uh you're sandbagging a little bit, and Chris Stevens would give me crap about it. And then that fall and uh Wheeler I started doing a little bit better, so I I counted up that next year, and um that was uh what 23, I think it was. Yeah, I think so like last year was whenever I saw some major progress. And I even said stuff to you like, yeah, the hell what what happened here? You came out of nowhere in my DMs at night at mid Sunday, I was stalking. No, that that that was the first year I kind of like took it real serious as a cat of nowhere. I went up to Chicago, I won intelligentsia uh Omnium as cat four. Dang, um, that was what was the change? Was it just like in training, in focus, and just skill set, just more time? Racing here, it's everybody kind of gets to a level where they're kind of the same. It's a mentality, like racing is like 50 to 70 percent mental, and it's it's hard, but that that year I was just locked in of you know, this is me, this is what I'm gonna do, and nobody can meet me or whatever. And I deserve this, like it's such a total mind shit. You're just all in, all in. And you're in training and with nutrition, with everything. Uh yeah, I quit drinking for a cat four, you were as much as you could be. Yeah, yeah, and and focus on that. But it was a lot of I didn't, I was just doing myself. And I think I think the big shift was just the mental of I'm gonna go for it. There's so many, no, just like as you're in the Peloton, it's so easy that mindset, and I have a bad problem about this of like sitting in the back of toe gun and you're like, okay, this is fine. I don't want to go use energy, I don't go. And I heard something there, it hurts out there, yeah. But you know, you ride so much, your mentality is like, I deserve to be here, and uh, I mean, that's what we were talking about. Mark at the beginning of uh the year, he cat up from cat four to cat three. It's like Mark, you deserve to be here. That's such a thing. Like, it's easier, like, oh, I'm cat three, I'm so scared. But um, yeah, that was a big leap. And then I messed around last year, I went it was 25, so 24. I was a cat three. I got close to having to upgrade, probably racing so much, more so than yeah, how good I was. But um I think cat two is just a little that's when it gets real. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's when it becomes a job and not so much. 19-year-old kids or whatever that they're they're on their way up to try to be professional, yeah. And that's a little bit different. Yeah, I mean, just from the outside, I've never knew I've done a handful of crits and I've learned my lesson of like it's a matter of when, not if, and I don't like that situation. I don't enjoy any of that. And this year's been good to us because except for Mark. But uh, but so but the thing is, I watch all my buddies and all of a sudden they're like, Oh, I just want to cat up, I want to keep going, I keep going. And I see the threes is like where everybody like really has a lot of fun, like it's really hard, but you can still have a life, but you can like race really hard, competition's really good, you're still going fast, doing all this stuff. Then you go to cat too. And it's like, yeah, if you're not putting in like 15, 20 hours a week and you're not ready to like go suffer for really long days and be really miserable, you're not gonna have success. Yeah, I don't know about that, but push back on that then. What how do you see that different? I I think if you're targeted in your training, we race for less than an hour. So why do you have cat two? Yeah. Cat two, you're not racing less than an hour. Less than an hour? No, yeah, no, you're gonna be doing P12 races. You're one hour long, an hour long. Okay, maybe say you say you're an hour and ten minutes, right? Say you're an hour, but that hour is sure significantly different than a cat three race. So for your training significantly during our races, the shorter races are typically harder than the longer races because it's chaotic, it's full gas. So I mean, I've not racing I've racing a I've racing a one couple of one, two, threes. Um, and when I don't get dropped, it's it's uh it's uh it kind of as long as you're not following moves and trying to be active and trying to like but that's fun. Right. That's why I tend to gut yourself to hold onto the back is not as fun as gutting yourself and being there at the end. It lols. It it's definitely like I can sit in this pack, I'm not over the limit of any sense, but for me to follow that move and try to do a breakaway, those people are serious about this. I'm not at that level, so I can't go ride with that. But I can ride in this group and we'll go chase them and I can take a pull up front. Um but that's not why you do it. No, that's why I race cat three. Right. But that's what I'm saying. That's why cat three, I think, is such a good sweet spot for guys who like to race and like to have a life. I do you do road races? I I I I do them. Well, I guess see, I guess we don't want to have anything around here. Yeah, we do the Texas one, like we we've kind of targeted that one at uh what's it called? Pace Bend. Oh, yeah, yeah. Um a lot of fun. It's always early in the season, so I cramp out. That's tough. Yeah, that's a tough one. Yeah, Jonathan almost won that last year on Sunday. Yeah, that was well. Let's hear your journey from start to threes. Because clearly it was like in a blink of an eye. Yeah, it was it was exciting. I mean, just I think having that drive, you know, we we say all the time, like you gotta have that dog in you. And it just it feels like something that I feel not to be this dog that sleeping right now, yeah, grew over here, but just that that fight, you know, like to what Brent was saying about having this idea that you're supposed to be there, you know. And we had a conversation with a friend of ours from Brooklyn, Claudio. Shout out to Claudio, yeah, and this this just happened. It was beautiful to watch, and this is what I feel like is part of I don't want to say our calling, but it I feel like it might be. Okay, he was he does all these races, he trains hard, like he shows up for a lot of national races. And he's like us in the sense of like the way he travels, yeah, it's crazy. Like we see him all the time, and it's a long drive, you know. He shows up and uh he was just having this issue with like he would race hard, and uh he would finish like 30th, 40th, you know, and so we're up in uh Chicago, Chicago, and he comes over and we're just going over videos, we're talking, you know, watching all of our our GoPro footage and like what do we do here? What should we have done? And I was like, Claudio, you you just gotta know that you're supposed to be here. Like it's in you, man. Like you've got the training, you've got the experience, you're supposed to be right where you're at. And he he said, honestly, guys, like I feel like sometimes I'm not like supposed to be here. I was like, Man, switch that mindset. Literally the next day. It was so quick, it was amazing. It was like a light switch. I was like, damn it, now I have to risk it plug. This ninja is going at it, and it was just like it was so fulfilling. Like, that was honestly, that was a really special moment to be in the next day race and get beat by literally. I think I had a problem clipping in and I was like chasing Claudio for a bit. It's like, oh my gosh. But the transition for me, like um from cat five to cat two now. I don't know if I told you this. What? But uh breaking news. Yeah, should do the sound effects. Okay, yeah, man. JG's a cat five now. Um I'm sorry, started as a cat five. Now you're a cat two. Oh we could talk about this. You may be off team. We're we're all cat three guys on the team. Uh-huh. Sounds like he's racing solids. You gotta change the bylaws. You know, it was something that I it was a goal that I had once I started activating a coach. And you know, he's drilling me. He's like, what do you want to do? Like, what are your what are your goals? Yeah, that's why you don't have that's why you don't hire a coach. They just make you better. I know so much. It is. They push, they yell at you. Oh, but he calls me out. Like, and it the great thing that I like about that is that what I love is that accountability, yeah, right? To go, man, today I'm struggling, like getting motivated. And he's like, you know, I understand you have a lot going on, you have a busy work life, you have a busy family life, but you said that these are your goals, yeah. And so you need to get out there and ride. And some days he's like, you know what? Yeah, you've had enough, like your TSS is fine for the week, but just take the day off. And so my transition has just been learning to race, you know, learning how to race. Um, I had to learn the hard way, and I'm still learning, but you know, I don't need to be active all the time. It is not a statement of pride. It shouldn't be to have the highest normalized power at the end of the race. So that's the worst thing. Yeah, the highest normalized power very most often does not win. What's so fun? I'm gonna take over here real quick, is me and Jonathan, we've been racing so much this year, and like we've been racing as if and we we don't really know what we're doing. So we've kind of like, oh, let's like we know in our mind, and like there's been so many times in the middle of the race, like we activate and we act as a team with no plan. Like it works out so well. But as a year has progressed, like we started like, let's look at our powers and like, whoa, mine's way lower than yours. Like, what happened here? But I finished better, you know. Um, but there's so much dichotomy. Jonathan is a way different type of writer than I am, similar with Mark. Like, they're like he goes as those get F rides that's four hours long. I'm like, you know, that's that's a little bit too much. Let's sweep the sprint, you know. Yeah, um, but through the course of that is learning each other, and like I think through the course of the years, like we've raced so much better as a team. Like, what's the one down in in Texas? We did oh, that flower mound crit flower mount crit. That was a blast. The way me and him, although the results were very similar the both days, we activated and like let's strategize how to do this. Like, let's be active. And and the guy was just so strong and like we knew not to let him go. But we played off each other so well. Of there's so much to but team dynamics are massive, yeah. But not as cat threes, but also learning well. Well, we I mean, I got second both days, and John I got, I think, fourth both days or something, and but just learning like your own individual like capability, right? Right, what your strengths are for me, there was there was a handful of races that it seemed like the last 90 seconds of the race, or the last two last was just like I am just so close, you know, and it was like it, you know, to your point, Brent, like it kind of started like in St. Louis of man, we were active, we were chasing down attacks, we were pulling stuff back, we were sending our own racing at the front, like that's what we were supposed to race and not just racing, and yeah, we're we're in the top eight wheels the whole race up the hill, 50 minutes or something, yeah. And it was like that for a lot of a series, and there was that moment, you know. I got an absolute stellar leado, you know. This man just like buries it, and we get up the hill, and I literally have two left-hand turns in a straightaway. He's third wheel, third wheel at the time going into the second to the last corner. Yeah, and it was just like, oh my gosh, like I just lost it. The tank went from like fumes to nothing in just an instant, and I was like, okay, I gotta, I need to dial this in. Yeah, I need to work on this because I found myself doing so much extra work in the earlier part of the race, and I thought, you know what? I need to I need to save a little bit. So I started thinking about this idea of I've only got so much cash. Yeah, right. I gotta go grocery shopping, right? And I can't overspend, I can't overspend myself in the first 15 minutes of a 45-minute race. So I'm budgeting. Right, I'm budgeting. I'm budgeting my efforts, and you know, you gotta kind of take that mentality of just thinking about everything in race, but also nothing at the same time. Yeah. And that's really been a fun uh thing to learn because you know, I'm very analytical, I'm very type A, I've gotta have things in a certain way. And so, like I I really kind of figured out like I just need to not think so much about this race. I need to be able to react, I need to be able to be there when I need to be, but I also just need to race. I think that comes with just experience, then where it becomes like a natural, like it just happens naturally instead of overthinking it. Yeah, which comes from experience. Like you can't you can't do that if you don't know what to do, and then it just becomes a like you said, a reaction and it becomes like instinct. Because you're thinking, you know, I'm up here top five wheels, like if an attack goes, like, am I the first to follow that? Or do I want to watch two or three guys follow it? Then let's say that we shoot to get a breakaway, you know. Like, is it too early for this break? Is it something that I should have maybe waited? So I found myself like in a two, three-man break that gets pulled back because there's no cooperation. Obviously, it's kind of just go with three main dynamic, you know. Yeah, there's there's and that's the I think that's the beauty. That's the hard part of cycling for people that are in the sport. So when you watch like the Tour de France, you watch it and you're just like, oh, it's just a bunch of guys riding around countryside in a group group. But what she and that's how I feel when I started watching it because I didn't know how all this stuff worked, but then once you get into it and you start watching, you're like like the chess game that happens inside of a race is so cool. And then like to watch how it all plays out and like the strategy that each rider has or each team has and how they're deploying it, and how the everybody's like counteracting that, like that's the fun stuff to watch. And once you get into the races and can do that, then that's when it becomes like not just an endurance event, it becomes like a full body event. And you know what's great about that is like you have these pros and stuff that are doing it, and and we're going to we're we're on the same course as them, right? So we see them race later in the day, but as a cat five, you can still do similar strategies, right? And and it's the same, it's just level competition, right? Which is as a sport, is probably quite unique, yeah, super cool. Um, I mean baseball fields, whatever, but yeah, um you're not doing the same thing as the pros, which is yeah, you just do it as at your level instead of at their level. That's something I always ask drum, and we talk about that. I talked to the fast guys because I'm like, we're mountain biking, we're doing all this stuff and doing and I was like, okay, what was your heart? You know, like what was like talking about that because there's no way I can't compare power, like that doesn't equate. But when I look at it, I'm like, you know, a lot of times, so take it to mountain biking, the cat threes that win and the cat twos that win, like they're pegged a lot longer and a lot more than the other guy, than the cat ones. Some of it's inefficiency, right? But some of it is also like they're riding as hard as they can. Their heart is just not as hard, right? But they're riding really hard. And so it's very interesting to see that in a sport, especially like in crit racing and stuff. You see, like the cat threes. If you went back and looked at the heart rate and and their FTP percentage and all that kind of stuff, the cat fours, cat threes, like those guys are racing probably closer to their limit than the one-twos are. One, because it's longer and it's more of an endurance event than a short sprint event, but also like it's just the way that it sets up, right? A little bit. But I think that's so cool that when you look at it as a spectator, you're watching, you're like, oh, these guys are just not going very fast. And those guys are going real fast. But those dudes are pegging themselves, like they are drilling as hard as they can and just trying as hard as they can. It just may not look like it as a bystander because the speed's not the same. Oh, the look on their faces, but internally it's the same more. Yeah, for sure. Which is such what makes that sport so cool. But it's hard to understand that as a spectator and as someone who's not ever done that. Right. Like how many opportunities do you get to experience what a professional does as you can go do the same thing on the same course. And you suffer the same day, yeah, right. And and they just suffer fashion. It is pretty cool. Yeah, it is pretty cool. Um, well, let's get into a couple of things here. Um we'll say just getting started. Yeah, we'll save Brennan's mom for later. Oh, um that's a lot to talk about. But have her. It's usually so I guess one first thing I'll so I guess one thing that I do want to know is where did Salty Dog name come from? Oh boy. You know, we just I don't know if it's like our uh age demographic or whatever, but like calling each other dog has just been something I kind of grew up doing. It's not dog, you know, just like saying the dog are you? I'm 44. Okay, yeah. Uh how old am I? 37 now? You're way too young to be forgetting your age, sir. No, it doesn't count anymore until you hit 40. You know, 21 masters, 25 for insurance. Yeah, you're gonna be able to do that. Maybe masters, okay. Maybe masters from National Champs next year. So where did the salty dog name come from? Just from I don't know. Like, really, I I think we just um had a group chat and I think we labeled it as salty dogs, like it's just like super random. Simple as that. Like, you know, we call each other dogs, like you know, and and you know, the euphemism of being a dog is like gritted out, like kind of kind of reminds you of cycling of like you gotta be in the paint, can't even like you just you gotta have that dog in you eating. You can be like a weiler dog, or you can be like a waiter dog, yeah, you know, or you can be like this guy whose arms go all different directions, eyes go different directions, one ear works, one ear doesn't, you know. But he's a dog. Yeah, like he'll keep running as hard as long as he can. That's it, he will if he's chasing a squirrel for sure. And I I think that's uh I think I really like the name because it can be kind of serious, but it's also playful of you know, I think that sums us up quite well is we we try to do we're serious about what we do, we're all organized because of who we are, and uh but at the end of the day, we're just out here having a good time and having fun. And like also, I mean, I think it's kind of I don't know if it clearly it may just have worked out in chance, but it lends itself to good like branding. That's really why we did it. We were such four speakers, we knew exactly what we're doing. We're so good at social media and marketing, yeah. Yeah, it leaves you some good for like branding and like your image of stuff that you can do and merchandising and those kinds of things, yeah. Which I know that's something that you guys are kind of interested in. Yeah, um come here. I mean, I'll tell a quick story and then I'll let you get into it, Jonathan, a little bit about the future. Is we've been across the country and like you know, the first first design of our kits is like very let's get this out here. We have weeks to do this before we get down the pace bin to have some organizations. The blue and gold ones, yeah. They were simple, clean, simple, classical showed all the salt. Yeah, it was great. So yeah, we did not know that was gonna happen, but um you know, it's very classical look, it's clean, but we recognize in the Peloton, like you you can't see each other at all. So we're like we need a little something more. Um, and and with our relationship with you know, Velostar locally and getting connected with all that stuff with William and any Italian brand basically is uh kind of got with Giordano. Giordano cut over, we'll try to that.

SPEAKER_00: 55:30

Yeah, fifth, we'll I'll put it in if I can.

SPEAKER_01: 55:32

And we started to get a little bit creative as we had some time to play around with kits. Um, and and I think we did a really good job. Uh, I did a really good job. I'm gonna oh jeez. Oh, there we go. I'm kidding. Okay, fluff is ego. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks. But you know, it's it's kind of fun, it's a fun kit, and and people recognize that. And we've we've talked to kind of two edges of the spectrum is the name salty dogs. Like how the people are like, is that the navy? Are you guys from the navy? Like if you guess is a seaman term of you know being on a ship or something, yeah. We're like, no, like, and then there's an alcoholic drink named after the salty dogs. I don't remember what it is, but maybe we need to investigate. That's what we should say. I mean, that should be your team break. One of my favorite stories is in St. Louis was uh we were just being active. Let's race at the front, and uh after the hill, uh, I was doing a cooldown lap and I started talking guys like oh you you want our margarita pre. I'm like, man, I I'm like dead tired. I did the sleet out for Jonathan, like I got light, whatever. And um, so we actually saw him the next day at the last race, and we went over there and we started talking to these star yelling, salty dogs, salty dogs. Like we just start talking, we got a hangout with them. They're from Tulsa, they're just cycling fans. Okay, and you know, they in Tulsa, Tulsa Tough, and they're like, we want Gateway to be the same thing. And we we stayed way too late because we had to drive back to Oklahoma. Then oh, it was also because they were serving lunchboxes. Yeah, oh yeah. It was they're like, we need these after racing for an hour. Um they're like, no, we we loved you guys, we love the kit, like we loved your name, like we're all about it. Can we buy some stuff from you? And we're like, not yet. Give us a few weeks, yeah, yeah. And a few months later, here we are. So if if you wanna Yeah, so it kind of ties into that idea of having that community representation, and so we're gonna have a club kit that's a little different than the race kit, uh, still with that same salty dog logo and branding. Persona. Yeah, and and still be fun, still be recognizable. But the idea is that you know, we can have something available for those that maybe they're not on the race team, maybe they just they ride their bikes. And so we want to have an opportunity for them to be a part of that, support us as a team in our endeavors to support other community outreach events. And so that money will just go right back into the fund, and that money will be put out to whatever you guys are supporting your adventures plus other community involvement adventures that you guys are involved in. Absolutely. And on that topic, yeah, because we have some connections with folks that already have really great infrastructure and community connections. There's an organization that's called Kids Action, and they're based out of Shawnee, uh, Pottawanomy County, and they send out 12,000 applications to students all over the county. And the county or the state. All over, I think it's all over. Pottawanomy County. Okay. And so it's applications that go to middle school, elementary school kids. And uh it's basically an application to receive a bike. Oh, okay. And so Kids Action has spun off of a bikes for kids outreach. And personally, like I'm connected to the guy, Travis Hearst, who started it. Okay. And so I've been supporting him through my businesses, just giving them a little bit of funds to kind of help purchase the bikes. And I got a call from him this year, and he was telling us about this Petalpalooza event. Yeah. I was like, well, this sounds like a lot of fun. How can we help? What are your needs? What are some things that would be beneficial? Right. Because we could do, I start thinking about all these opportunities, and I don't want to overwhelm or I just want to do what is necessary. And he was like, Well, we need helmets. We need iclocks, some bottles are great. And so we just reached out to Eric with Velostar, and he came through, brought a truckload of helmets. Awesome. Super deal, awesome connection. And that's really like what I love about that opportunity is just being able to be that middle guy that goes, Hey, you know what? You need something. I know somebody that has something. That's the best. That's the best. And I want to connect you guys with that. That's the best. Connecting is the best. And it was so great. We had such a blast. We did this, it was like a six-mile ride with these kids. Thank you for it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:23

It was amazing. I was like, you guys lost.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:26

But it was fun. There was snow cones and face painting and all these things. But we were fixing bikes and like, and then we went and rode like some mountain bike course cross four seconds. That's fun. That's fun. It was so fun seeing the kids out there and like crashing all the time. Like, oh no, yeah, get up here. You know, they just keep going on. That's awesome. But they had a great showing. They did a great job of marketing it. They had a good turnout. And later this year, like in mid-December, they're gonna give away about four to five hundred bicycles. Wow, that's amazing. And it's fantastic to just know that there's somebody that's got a heart for that. And it's like, how can I come over and like do a little super bounce? You know, and just kind of like help propel what you guys already have going. And I think that's really special. Like it's a good opportunity for us to engage with something that's already going. We don't have to that's the thing. You don't want to reinvent the wheel, you might just support the things that are already. Absolutely. Yeah, we we talked about a little bit like how can we do this? What can we do for the community? And we're small, like how can we support something you know, super balance other than that? I've never heard of that before. I like that. That's pretty good. It's the trampoline, yeah, yeah. That's good. And and how can we lend an effort to you know support what's going on in the community and not just with that, but other things as well. But I love that. And that's part of what you guys, your merch and stuff like that, the and the funds that you guys raise, doing whatever you guys do, that's what that is helping support. Yeah, it's not just going back into the mostly kids stuff, yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. I love that. Yeah, that's a I mean, as far as a mission for a group and for a team, I mean, it's hard to to beat that, you know. Yeah, to be better than that. Oh, oh, thanks, right? I mean, really, I mean the thing is like, I mean, I don't know. I feel like in my life, like everything revolves around serving others, everything, everything should revolve around serving others. My day job is I we have a mission to like that we have to do to like keep the lights on for you know the overall company, but that's not our mission. Our mission is something else in our local community that we do, and we do that through second chance employment. So the BBB is the tool that we use, but that's not our mission, is not BBB. Our mission is second chance employment, and that's how we can directly affect our community locally, and we do that, and we like to support that and we like to be evangelists for that, and we do that. I would say, gosh, probably half of our staff is second chance employment at this point. And if I, you know, that's probably not good to say on the podcast, HR-wise. I almost only hire people from second chance employment. And if I have my choice, I would rather only hire some somebody from second chance employment. And that's just in my department, but our office is similar. Um, but you know, I think once you find your mission, you know, and then stuff that you talked about, you know, smoke, the guy that yeah, the guy that's paddle board, you know, his mission has become helping different ability athletes cross a finish line that they would never get to cross by themselves. Yeah, and that became his mission. And so it's that's you know what's funny about that is I listened to that podcast, it's quite amazing. Like when a stand-up guy finished Kona with carp. Oh so huge. He pivoted, right? Like having that, like he didn't know what he's gonna do, right? And like kind of with what we're doing here with Salty Dogs is kind of an idea, and and Joth and I are both like able to go with the flow in the sense of like say where it takes where can we make an impact?

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:04

Um, like we love this, but like overall, it's like we want to be beneficial to the cycling community here or anywhere, really. And we just love it so much, and we want to keep it going, yeah. And I think you keep it going by finding a mission outside of you. And yeah, and I think everything keeps going if you find a mission outside of you, you know, like whatever that looks like, you know, like your business, you support these other organizations around the community to help them get that ounce, you know, that double bounce that they need. That's super bounce. That's it, that's super bounce. But that's what helps fuel you, and you're like, man, this is a really shitty day at work. But then you get to go contribute some of the funds that you've made to an organization, you can see these kids be so happy and get their first bike, and you're like, it's worth the grind, you know, but not outside of like you're taking care of yourself and your family. Like, I think if more people would just take their passions that they love and that whatever it is that makes them so happy and figure out a way to serve others with that, man, everything's better. Everything is better. I need Ryan to follow me around and be a hype man. Like it's true. That's a great point. I mean, that's exactly what I was sitting here thinking was like the idea that we have this passion for this recreational thing that we take a little seriously, but not too seriously. Yeah, you should take it seriously. It's a hobby, but it's an expensive, competitive hobby needs to be serious when it's serious, uh when it's ridiculous when it is, right, and a good time a hundred percent. And for that thing to be able to be something that you can use as an avenue, it's this conduit to be able to provide this other opportunity to see, you know, this is a thing that I do that I love doing, that I commit a lot of time and effort to. But there's also this other element to it that I I can bring uh somebody else into this cycling adventure. Or just yeah, and you know, whether it's a young child, you know, to just show them, hey, you know, riding bikes can be fun. You can do a lot more than just ride around your neighborhood. You can just do you guys know Alyssa Lutz? Yeah. So, like with Bike Club, she's told some great stories about similar ideas and similar things. Where she's like, you know, we give this kid a bike. He gets they go through their program through the school year, and then they show up at the end of the year to get their bike, and the family comes and they're like, you know, we all ended up getting bikes, and so now we all go out as families and we ride together as a family for you know evening activities. That's beautiful, and all that started with this little kid getting a bike at school, you know, or that kid has now like got friends because they were like that kind of outside kid in class and stuff like that. But when they go to this, everybody's there riding bicycles together. So you never know the impact you could have. No, and and the bicycle to me, and we talked about it on Smokes Podcast, like the bicycle has at this point in my life, right now today, has given me most of the things that are important to me in my life, which is very strange and weird because I didn't even that's weird, right? Own a bicycle, like you know, until I started to do the craft. I think even people outside looking into it, like how intense we can be sometimes. There's so many benefits the mental health side of it, you know, the physical health side of it, but the community aspect of it like it gets slapped on so hard that it it's it's it's hard to see. Yeah, but there's so much benefit from it. So much.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:31

I have my few like my I have my high school teammates that I'm still in touch with, but we're like texting buddies, you know, we see each other. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:40

And then um, I have my college teammates and we get together once a month for beers, and we're all still really close. But we're close in that way. But everybody else that I'm like close, close with it's from the bicycle. Yeah. Well, there's something special that happens to when you're in Mexico and well we'll talk about one letter. I think, yeah. Is that where because mom comes in? Well, she comes in a lot of places. We're gonna make a serious comment. R I guess. But the idea of putting yourself through physical pain, we're so immature. Yeah. Um but pinning yourself, like whenever you're out there like going for it and just pushing yourself, and you know that you've got a handful of bros that are out there with you, you know, it's like it's a special bond. It's trauma bonds. I was gonna say you've bonded. Yeah, it really is because only so many people understand what that's like in the feelings, right? Yeah, that's a good point because a lot of people that gosh, I mean, I'm 44 years old. You think about like what's what's a day in the life of a normal 44-year-old guy, and this one's trying to ride his bike for two hours, really hard and getting really hot and really miserable and feeling like you're gonna puke, and but you're seeing amazing things going amazing places. Like I'm I can't imagine. I mean, you just you guys both started just a couple years ago, the amount of places that you've seen on a bicycle that you would have never seen in your life in the sense five years ago input that comes from just like even when around in Oklahoma, like the rural roads. There's roads that you would have never seen in your life. Oh my gosh, here forever. Yeah, you're just like wow I didn't know this is the coolest. Yeah, it is so cool. I mean, that's what like we guys did the Lockhart thing, right? Yeah, it was so fascinating. Like, I knew there's a cemetery up there. I need some more of those, yeah. Yeah, it is cool. Yeah, I I mean there's so much history around us and so many things to see. And if you didn't have a bicycle, you never see them anywhere everywhere. It's not just like here, like it's pretty cool. Yeah, I know the bike's a great, it's a great tool. It's a perfect speed to view the world. Oh, look at you. Oh, that's going on our calendar. Oh, we need to do that. Calendar, uh, yeah. Well, we got some good pictures, so Jonathan. Um, I thought this was back to smaller. No, this is yeah, we yeah. Uh I digressed a little bit. Did you pose for some calendar shapes? Well, there might be a story. There might be gosh. There might be a handful of photos that haven't been posted to social media just yet. Well, we hired a photographer when we first got started down in Austin. And it was like, we got a new kit, we need some images, like some good ones. Took some amazing photographs of Jonathan changing in his van. So um we uh are open to fundraising, so be look be on the lookout for that. They those are those photos can be purchased. I mean, sure. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I like it. I mean, Jillian might buy a few and give hang out to the office and you know, some client events, yeah, giveaways, yeah, uh auction it's we're all about you know being creative over here, right? I like it. It's creative marketing, creative marketing. We're open to a click is a click, right? Yeah, the 12 we get is pretty good. You might get 15 now. Yeah, yeah. So we're um so you guys race a ton and you travel everywhere. 25 has come to a close, right? We're done uh for the most part. Yeah, uh 26. I mean, there's probably still another race available. We still got the festive 500. Yeah. So what's 26 look like for you guys? Well, take a step back real quick, and this is off the hit. I probably did 60 some races this year. Oh yeah, you know, multi-day things and like doubling up. Jonathan probably did a little bit more because he's only gonna do masters. And for so for 2026, um I think it's probably gonna be similar. Okay. I think there's a recent shift of me um going to be moving. Um, but you have to look at that as an opportunity, right? Like I'm going to Denver, and that's going to be a we have connections. We had a guest rider from Denver, like just from uh people we've met, like Ryan, when you go race across the country, you keep racing with the same people over and over again, and the connections you make is quite phenomenal. Yeah, it really is. Good friends is quite cool. Um, but maybe a little expansion into there and you know, see what happens. So how many guys you have on the race team right now? Yeah, yeah. There's three guys. There's three guys. Okay. We have a guest rider from California, um, true dog, RJ. Um, but he's he's with a team, but like when we go race together, like he came down to Texas with us in the beginning of last year, did uh intelligentsia. He won a cat too race on intelligentsia, which is pretty simple. Wow. Are you guys looking to expand that roster from three to more? Potentially. Okay. Uh it needs to be a good fit, right? Like that we're gonna be very selective in that sense. You can actually go to our website and or our Instagram, there's a link to it. Um hasn't really been publicized, but uh you can sign up and join. We've had a few people reach out to us. Um, I don't know how they found us, but um yeah, I've shown it's interested. We can reach out to you guys, but it is gonna be like a legit like, man, we're we're gonna be super, super selective, and it has to be perfect all the way around because you're not trying to get numbers, you're trying to get the fit. It and that's part of what we kind of alluded to earlier is that you know racing together is a dynamic, right? And so that hang time is important. Like you've got to have that that trust, you've got to because you're following a wheel, you're real close, and you're like on the edge, and so there's a part of this like kind of friendship, sort of like hang time that really has to be in place. And so to that point, there's been people that we've raced with that have seen that, and they were like, guys, I want to I want to jump in on this, I want to be a part of that. And so yeah, we've had a handful of conversations with different guys from all over, honestly. So potentially different staple, yeah. Yeah, and so that's really fun, and that's definitely something that you know we don't want, it's not gonna just be JG, Brent, and Mark. Yeah, you know, there's gonna be more people to this thing, and that's part of that expansion. But like to Brent's point, like we want to think about it, we want to make good decisions and you know, make this thing be something that's like going to last. And so I think that's why we're going to evaluate, you know, versus rushing into two aspects of it is like you know, we're at our age, what we're doing racing and masters now. Cat two, gosh, Jonathan. Come on, bro, that makes me have to re-evaluate. Um, and then also like, you know, who do we want to race with? How can we do teamwork stuff where we are? But then also we like we want some younger guys on the team to like the exposure to go national of what we do, like we can support you in the sense of we're going to these anyways, let's get you some experience, and it's it's like a cram course, right? Like when you go do 40-50 races a year, like the experience level just yeah, that's for sure. Um, so that aspect of it, but at the same time, we have people who are are our friends and and want to go ride on group rides and stuff together, kind of that's where that salty dog club comes from, of like kind of does the same thing, but maybe not racing, yeah. So very exclusive selective. Um as a qualifier, I would say that if there are cat five guys or gals that want to race and they're serious about it because we were in the same position, you know, and so I think about what would it be like for me if I was a cat five and I experienced salty dogs, right? And I want to create that space where somebody could come in as a five or a four, you know, and feel like they can get not only experience, but like I want to share. I don't know a lot, but like I've learned some, and that's from literally just doing a lot of races. And so if we can share that with some of the newer people that are into the racing scene, like I'd love to do that. So you guys are looking for I mean, if they're the right fit, they're the right fit. It doesn't matter the category racer, it doesn't matter any of that stuff. It's just like we just want the right people, we just want the right people to do the right no. When Lucas uh applied, we're like, we might consider him. So he might be a good fit. He might be a good fit. Maybe not, you know? But you guys are just looking for a fit more than uh a power number. Oh, sure. Yeah, because when you race a crit, you want your power number to be low, right? As we discussed. So do you do you're still trying to find 40 40 NP higher than me and weighs less than totally not right. Yeah. Well, okay. I we this is off topic, but on topic, I guess, is I absolutely love the fact that there's different types, genetics play such a huge part in this, right? Like the slow twitch, fast twitch, the course design. Yeah, and it doesn't matter. Like there's so anybody can win a race on any day. That oh, this is not a breakaway course. Oh, that solo rider because no one chased them down. You know, that must get hit by a car, a pace car. Oh shoot. We have to tell us we'll get to that. Well, I we have so many stories, but Ryan doesn't even know this one, and then we'll tell you so. I I just love the fact like I'm like a spurney boy, like I'm gonna be lazy in the group until it matters, I guess, at the end, and and try to drop some power. And like Jonathan's like a brickway rider, like a long, long burn guy. Or do you have like these climbers like on Tulsa on Sunday? Anyone can win, and it doesn't matter, it's just it depends on the course, it depends on the weather, it depends on all these different factors. Like, but it's not just like a level playing field, it's so dynamic. This this sport is so dynamic, and you you really don't know what's gonna happen because what if someone crashes in front of you and like takes out the group, and like uh yeah, you can get back in, but like there's other factors that play in that, like you just never know what's gonna happen. Anybody can win, huh? Mostly anybody can win, right? It's that mid mindset. Suppose once you get up to the like the three, two, three category, like everybody's like kind of on an even playing field. You in the four fives is not an even playing field because you got guys coming through that just are working their way through, and then guys that are like lifelong cat fours and lifelong cat fives, and they don't want to go up, and that they're cool with that. Yeah, you don't have the ability andor the time andor the care to move up, yeah. But then you have people that should be cat ones and twos, but they got to come through the rings. So, yeah, once you get to the threes, it kind of levels out to become much more like you still get those people, but not as like a big jump. Yeah, you get a deeper group of winners of possibilities. Yeah, so who got ran over by a pace car? So first race of the year at man, you've had such a bad time in Austin. It really has been two years in a row. Maybe I need to stay away from Austin. So we're going to Austin next year. Most people do Austin. Um, I'm gonna ride an aluminum bike. Yeah, you know, Austin Pace Ben, it's you can do four races. They do like a premature, like uh first race of the year at um what's it called? Um, the racetrack down there. Driveways series. If you guys have never been down there, so fun. It's a little carcourse, like super flowy. You have to watch out for possums. I guess shout out to Toli. Yeah, yeah. Such a great vibe. Like it's like we saw that. Like, let's how how can we do this? It's such a good vibe. But uh, so we were racing and I I did well that first day or two, and then road races happen. But um what was that Sunday? Yeah, it was Sunday. It was the no circuit, circuit. Then on Sunday, you had a different result. That's right. So Saturday, we are what 60 some miles or something, and uh just getting after it. And um out of this hard right corner, you're coming kind of down this hill, and you say you're going kind of fast, and there's like a pinch point right turn. If you really don't need to slow down, it's also chaotic because there's multiple races happening. Pace cars, so it's like a six mile six-mile loop, something like that. Yeah, six to eight mile loop around this park. And um, yeah, so there's all different pace cars trying to get around and like they'll haunt their horns and you kind of roll over. They let them out the fast people pass, or we don't pass anybody. But out of this right corner, like this this pace it was up a kicker and it kind of got spread out, whatever. This pace car from some other group came through, and like it was I think was it right at the end of the race, or there's one close. So they took a hard hard right turn, and this pace car was just being an asshole. And uh we're kind of getting strung out a little bit, and they're getting after it. This pace car isn't like 50 miles per hour, but they split up the group with the problem on that right turn. They came in the middle of us in the middle of a turn. Oh no, did the turn with us, so this so we were catching up, and Jonathan got um caught up in that. Go ahead. I got well, so they they created this separation, so there's probably like eight or ten guys that are in our group that basically got away because we had to deal with this car, right? And so there's one other guy that was just in front of me. We make the right turn, but we're kind of yielding to this car, and the car decides after we get through this turn that they're gonna overtake and and go. So I'm like on the shielded side, on the outside of this rider. And I have this idea that, like, man, I could pass this guy, he's shielding me from the wind, but all of a sudden I feel this vroom vroom out of oh gosh, and I just like hesitated, and all of a sudden, this car comes up and clips my left wheel, like it's from my right tire. Hit your back wheel, it clips my pedal. Oh, your pedal and my shoe. Yeah, you on the butt, right? Clipped my backside. Oh my gosh. In a race, like a sanctioned race. Yeah, so I just like veered over to the right, kept it upright, but I was like You kept it upright? Mm-hmm. I was like, this is so lucky. This is wild. That could have ended up so bad. It was pretty it was pretty exhilarating to say the least. There was a discussion at the end of the race with the officials, yeah, yeah. Man, it's not like a Mercedes or something. I don't know. Oh, wow, that sucks. I can't believe you kept it up. Then the next day, like we ended up going the other way, right? So they switched the direction. So classic move by Jonathan. Attacks in the feed zone. And by attack, I mean seated, just set up. You know, the the 400-watt seated attack that just kind of goes away in all the slow, like so five miles out, four or five miles out. But there's a lot of winds. I'm giving it all I got, man. And I'm just like, we're getting close, we're getting close, but it's at that point of the race where it's like the turn's not coming up. Like, I'm wondering if the turn exists, you know, or stretch. Yeah, it's like, man, it's I know that there's gonna be a left-hand ripper, and then we're gonna have another little kicker. And I made that left-hand turn, I look back and I'm like, man, I got a pretty good gap. There was one guy chasing Texas Giant. The Texas Giant. Shout out to him, Turner. Turner. This guy he was he was on form and he came up. We probably had about a mile left, I think, about that that little hill. And he comes over and he's like, Man, easy going, easy going. And so, like, he climbs up and then he just attacks me. And I was like, Man, I I should have dug down and covered that attack, you know, and and rolled in for at least P2. But yeah, man, he got you get swept up by everybody, he got away, and then it was another situation with a yeah, another group and another pace car. Oh my god. And at this point, like I'm in the I'm actually in race at this point. I'm on the button at this and I'll join sure. And I'm like, I I'm just like PTSD from the night before, and it's like just keep it upright. And so the whole road just narrowed at like to one lane because the other group we were passing another group with like what 500 meters to go. Cluster, and then we're catching Jonathan, and then we have this group coming through. What a cluster! It was it was wild. Yes. I got pushed off the road. I was like, you know, but that's the point where over the last couple of years, like that's where a lot of crashes end up happening on that race is that last 500. Yeah, it just gets pretty chaotic, especially when all the groups are finishing at the same time. That's nuts. Yeah, but profs to Jonathan by getting hit by a car and staying up. Good for you. I'll with all the racing this year. You know, we see plenty of crashes. Um the cat three's been pretty good. Good. Yeah, it's a good year. I've been I've seen so many people rub elbows and like people start learning how to handle their bikes. People don't freak out. Yeah. And once you stop nuts, usually don't chill. Yeah, cat one, two, three. You don't see like when you see one, they're usually like they're just like, hey, we we landed down in a corner, we slip for a hundred yards, and it's just bad road rush. That's usually what it is. Yeah, usually clip pedal, yeah. It's something like that. Yeah, it's not like the cat four fives where it's like just complete like explosion. Yeah, when barricades are involved and curbs and trees and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, usually one, two, threes are significantly better. Yeah, yeah, usually. Let's jump into um yard sale. Okay. Well, I I just said this year's been pretty good since we talked about crashes. Yeah. Favorite piece of equipment. No, no, no price on it, but it can't be. Boy, let's John Lingo first on that one. Favorite piece of bike equipment. It can be anything. I actually had a feeling today that you were gonna ask this question. Uh-huh. And thinking about like everything, like learning how to race and being in a fair share of crashes. I honestly think my helmet Oh, okay. Because it's been it's protected my dome. Yeah. Well helmet. Um, I've actually had a handful of one feet. I don't know if that's good or bad. It's a medit helmet, I believe. And no brain damage. Well, my wife might disagree with you on that, but yeah. I thought you were gonna say your Wahoo that tells you you crashed and haven't crashed and you're already halfway to Tulsa. Yeah, that was yeah, a traumatic day. What's the least equipment? Oh boy. Uh, let's see here. Um, I will probably say my Garmin radar. Oh. Yeah, out back. Um, I feel really safe with riding on that on the road. Okay. Um, not really from the fact of like I get notified of when cars are coming or anything. It's more the fact like I know it changes lights, and I know that's from a perception like visibility standpoint, that's really important. Do you see the uh Keo pedals that just came out? No. Yeah, but they have an attachment that goes on the back of the pedal. So it's a light that goes on the back of your pedal. So you can take it off if you like racing and weight matters. It adds like 40 grams, they're rechargeable and they clip on the back of your pedals. I'm like, I mean, that's cool. Yeah, it's I think it's not a bad idea. So my future being an alpinist is I might be interested in that, but I think I have some other um aspects to work on before I start worrying about climbing. Like altitude adjustments. Oh no, that that's that's gonna happen regardless, but um talking about what's your uh favorite place you've ever written a bike? That's uh that's a pretty good one. Um I did my first year of riding, really. I did the copper triangle, yeah, yeah. Um, which is probably like a bucket list for a lot of people and uh went up there and like it was fully supported and and yeah, uh did not know what I was getting myself into a little bit, but I was like, I'm fast, whatever. But um doing the climbs and and everything, just beautiful, and just ripping the downhills. Like I'm pretty good at downhills because you know, not the climber. Um, so that was a lot of fun. Uh I I mean, I just love the mountains. Yeah, so that that definitely uh was was helpful. Um yeah, yeah. What's yours favorite place you're ever riding a bike? Mine was it took place in Santa Barbara. Yeah, okay. And this was in 23. I think I had my bike for maybe two or three months. Um, we were on an anniversary trip, and so we were just out like, and again, kudos to my wife for like, oh, you are riding a bike now and you want to fly with it and take it with it now because everywhere you go. But I guess I had this uh I did some research and I rode from Santa Barbara to Gibraltar Road. Okay. Which is a pretty epic climb. Yeah. You know, and so we were there in June. Okay. So to clarify, I bought a bike in May, and then our anniversary is in June. So this was not a couple months. It was like one month. Yeah. She is very understanding. New to cycling, I ride over to Gibraltar Road. And so I say June because it's June gloom. Oh right in Southern California. So it's cloudy. It's not the kind of weather that you want to just let out. I think of Southern California. It caught us off guard, honestly. It's weird. But wasn't what was amazing about that is I rode out there and I did this climb, and at the top, it was a completely different climate. And it was so different. Like it was cool down below, but at the top it was warm and just like totally different. See the fog, and that'd be cool. It was pretty epic. That would be pretty cool. Yeah, that's a good one. Uh I'm gonna have a follow-up to that, and it's gonna be just those random rides where you go exploring nearby and you you go down a road you've never been down, and you kind of see something kind of cool. You know, I live up near Deer Creek right now, and you can go anywhere up there as long as it's not school time to get hit by a car. But uh all the country roads, all the wildlife, and I think one time I stopped and picked up like five turtles on the road. I saw this massive snapping turtle one time, but just like exploring, yeah, and as simple as that may sound like you never know where the bike's gonna take you. Those are the best rides, yeah. I agree. Uh one place you want to ride doesn't. I mean, and it can be a place that may even ever happen, but if you could one place to ride in the world, what would it be? I've never thought about this. I want to go to Europe where I hear I want to experience riding in the areas where all the hardmen trains. Jonathan's favorite topic is hardmen. So are we still talking about are we talking about Brendan's mom now? I don't know, but just are you what are you talking about? I didn't know where to go with that. Are we so many edits to this podcast? You want to go to the mountains in France, or you want to go through like Belgium and like the rainy, cold, like just muddy cobblestone crazy. I'm here for all of it too. I want to do cycle cross last year with me. I'm not gonna do cyclocross. Well, okay, so he's like Belgium, no way then. Oh, you do on cross? I did it last year. Are you doing it that year? Well, no, it's off season. I've been moving that sounds like a lot of excuses to me. Yeah, it's a lot of excuses. It didn't rain last year for cyclecross. I was all in. And that mud came, I was like, I'm all out. Okay, let's let's rephrase the question. If you could do one professional bike race, what would that be? One I thought about this last night, actually, and I I don't know why I thought of it for myself. I I have I have one I would pick group A. For one, there's no climbing. And I love the like the grit and the all of the things that go with it, and the tradition and the history, and just all of that. I love that one. I love the classics. Classics are my favorites. So, what would be yours? I I you know, like out of those like big ones, I was gonna could be any of them. I I no, but I like the idea of Rubay, and the reason why I think I like it the most is like I I know I would definitely never be able to do that distance and like be anything like that, but I wouldn't want to suffer for that long. Um I love the technical aspect of it, like oh, the cobbles versus the road, what tires, and like that's the engineering of it, yeah. And and like that's a whole side of the cycling community, right? That I gravitate towards. I love that because I think I would do a little bit differently than like you know, did the Dylan Johnson side of things, like go big, you know, rolling resistance and everything. Um, I'd like to see how that would play out. So what would be yours? Take a stage of the tour. Oh, okay. So then tour would be yours. I think something like that, just that level, like that uh historic homage to one of those routes. I think that'd be pretty special.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34:36

Yeah, that's a good one. What's uh a stream bike? Do you have one?

SPEAKER_01: 1:34:42

I don't know. Like I tend to try to not have too many preferences on that kind of thing. Like I love my road bike currently, SLR, okay. Um and literally that's the second bike that I've owned. Right. So I had a Trecomanda. I'd consulted with a couple people that I knew that rode bikes, uh, Jason Stolz, uh friend of mine, and he was like, Man, Trecomondo's a good all-rounder, you know. And so that was the first bike, and I loved it, it was great, and still have it and occasionally ride it. And I got this zero SLR and it was a game changer. And so I don't want to think too much about like, oh, if I just had this button, there's there's not one out there that's like, oh, that would be I mean, the new Filante that's pretty sick, uh is pretty sexy, to be honest with you. But to me, I want to stay focused on like the training element of it and think that the bike plays a minimalistic part. I agree. It definitely has like some elements of it, but it's three percent faster. Right. Yeah, but do I have that three percent? No, no is the answer. Do you have a dream bike? Uh, I think I do. Yeah, I don't have a particular brand or anything, but I think I'd like a handmade titanium bike. Um yeah, nice. I love like the uniqueness and like the boutique of like and kind of wild side of things. So it'd be titanium, so no paint job, but yeah, I like the bright, flashy 22. Uh is a number 22 or just 22 and Sage. They're not they're tie bikes, yeah. But the way they they oxidize the tie and do certain things to it, and it is they are beautiful, so beautiful. I think they're out of the northwest, both of them are out of the northwest. Yeah, so it's not even like a performance aspect because carbon is going to be the best for that, right? But it's just like the uniqueness and pretty good. I like that. Yeah, um a couple more favorite beer. Oh boy, I mean cold one beautiful answer. I mean the one the one after hard race, right? Like, and and like it's kind of funny, like we've always been driven towards modellos just because uh me and John started drinking again this year because yeah, before then racing will do that too. Yeah, so um, yeah, it's good. You yeah, you don't have one, okay.

SPEAKER_00: 1:37:10

Um man, I had like three or four of them, I forgot them because we got off topic.

SPEAKER_01: 1:37:13

No, well, maybe it was the modellos, yeah. Um that's that's like the mindset about halfway through the race. Like, what what am I doing here? Didn't we like come up with a uh a couple of code words? You know, we we were talking about like it's your safe word. Well, yeah, Brent and I Brent and I have a safe word that's like when you share that when you're uh when you're working together in a race, right? Like, oh gosh, toward toward the end, like if one of you is coming up and you're together in the race, you have to communicate, right, in the race. It's huge, but you also want to let your every next know what's going on. So we were like, if you're just absolutely if you're there, but you got nothing left and you're just pitted, just say cabo. Yeah, and that way, like it's easy to say, like you know, comes out even if you're just like slobber or whatever. Just uh say cabo and we'll know, like, okay, we'll you're done. You're ready to go on vacation. That's right. We're done here. So we got a few things like that. I like it. To to yeah, I like that. Communicate. What's um is there anything you guys want to finish up with? I I I forgot my questions. I'm trying to think of them and I can't remember what they were. You did not do a bunch of research and like figure this out beforehand, Ryan. Is that what you're saying? This is how every episode goes. It involves a bag of beer and we end up where we end up. Oh, a bag of beer. That's what I was excited about. Yeah. It was the wing it element. That's that's how that's how life rolls over here. I love it. Yeah. And we just get where we get. I love what you guys are doing. I do. I I love that you're doing it the way that you want to do it and not the way that it's been done. We need more cycling teams in Oklahoma City. Yeah. Because when I came into this world, like I mean, we talked about it a little bit beforehand. When I came into it, I came into it from an outsider and I worked at the shop, so I got to see a lot. But at that point, there were so many different cycling teams in Oklahoma City, like a bunch of them. And now there's like none. I mean, really, outside of like, well, I want to say DNA, like who's the other teams? I mean, there's nothing. It's right now, it's a really hard time in the cycling company. Yeah, so cycling everything. Yeah. But I love the fact that somebody else is coming in and not stirring the pot, but like just giving options. Because back then there was like a group, and there was like they were just a blanket on the name of them. Their kits were like lime green and bright blue, and they were fossil, they were just old dudes, like uh old dudes, like everybody was like 50 to 70, but that was their team. And then you had Undiscovered, who was like kind of a church going group, kind of all inclusive, like had some tri athletes, had some ladies on the team, kind of welcoming to everybody, but had also like a real race team, then which that became evoke eventually and stuff like that. And then you had like your shop teams, yeah, and then you had a couple like OKC Velo team. Like, so there were so many options for people coming into sport where they could find the personality that's the team that fit their personality. And right now it's pretty empty. Like when you come to Wheeler, it's it's either like it's you guys, maybe the couple, maybe sprinkles of Tulsa, maybe, and then DNA, but everybody else is kind of solid. Uh you have what uh oh, what's that team Danny rides on? Yeah, um anarchist or something or heretic, heretic racing. Yeah, but that's the thing, it's we need more. Great, yeah. We need more and more. I mean, the only positive about having a huge group of like one team is dominating a race is you can yell at them in the middle of the race of chasing stuff back. But then other than that, like it kind of removes some of the fun. It it it's nice when there's more options for more personalities and more people to find homes for their hobby. It's that's what it is, right? That's true. So when people can find more like-minded people, it just makes everything better. It makes the sport better, it all grows, races are better, people stick in the sport longer, like all of it's better because there's a community, they have their community. You guys have found your community, DNA guys have found their community, but you have all the floaters in the middle, and you see so many of them come and go when you're in the sport long enough. And if they just had a place to plug in and stay, you know. So I I love the fact that a new team has come about, and I I love that you guys are doing it your way, and you're like, Yeah, I don't know if we're doing it right or wrong. We're just doing it. That's all fun. That's yeah, that's all that matters. Who cares? Yeah, because if this goes away, if next year's your last year, I mean, okay, you guys had fun. Absolutely, and you decided we're gonna have quite a large party if that's the case. So in cabo. In cabo. Exactly. Yeah, you know who will be there? Brendan's mom. I feel like that's a beautiful way to end this episode. Cheers to Brendan's mom. I can't wait to see the pictures, is all I gotta say. We can't show those though. Okay, I just want to see them. Special edition calendar. Uh-oh. Yeah. Maybe we'll do a uh paid paid live episode. Yeah, yeah. Go to our website, go sign up. There's gonna be plenty of links out there. Ryan's gonna do the links. We'll do it all. So thanks, guys. I appreciate that. Thanks very much.

SPEAKER_02: 1:42:35

This is awesome. Yeah.