Cycling Over Sixty

More Than a Bike Shop

• Tom Butler • Season 4 • Episode 5

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In this episode, host Tom Butler reflects on three transformative years and shares the fitness strategy he plans to follow for the rest of his life. Then, Tom sits down with Seattle cycling legend Kathleen Emry, co-founder of Free Range Cycles in Fremont. Kathleen didn't just build a bike shop—she created a community hub that proved the bicycle can be a powerful connector, bringing people together around something greater than themselves. Whether you're a cyclist or simply believe in the power of community, this conversation will inspire you to see how two wheels can change lives. 

LINKS

WA Scenic Bikeway Nominee: teleiomedia.com/crossstatetrailsouth.html

Kathleen's Instagram: instagram.com/kathleenjemry

Swift Industries Campouts: builtbyswift.com/pages/swiftcampout

Ligo 10X Info: ebikes.ca/shop/electric-bicycle-parts/batteries/ligo10x-battery.html

Here is your invitation to join a great launch party for the summer cycling season.  Join the Cycling Over Sixty Tour de Cure PNW team.  Whether you are local or come out to experience cycling in the great Northwest, I would love to have you help make this a ride with a purpose.  And to send a message that the joy of cycling is here for everyone, regardless of age. Go to tour.diabetes.org/teams/CO60

I know it is early but we are looking to get the Cycling Over Sixty Tour de Cure team together as soon as possible. You can find all the info at tour.diabetes.org/teams/CO60

Thank you Konvergent Wealth for sponsoring CO60 Jerseys for the Tour de Cure!

Become a member of the Cycling Over Sixty Strava Club! www.strava.com/clubs/CyclingOverSixty

Cycling Over Sixty is also on Zwift. Look for our Zwift club!

Please send comments, questions and especially content suggestions to me at info@cyclingoversixty.com

Follow and comment on Cycling Over Sixty on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cyclingoversixty/

Show music is "Come On Out" by Dan Lebowitz. Find him here : lebomusic.com

Tom Butler:

This is the Cycling Your 60 Podcast. This is season 4, Episode 5, More Than a Bike Shot, and I'm your host, Tom Butler. I want to ask you to please consider donating to the Cycling Over 60 Tour de Cure team for Giving Tuesday, which is December the 2nd. That is, of course, if you aren't going to ride with us. I sincerely want as many of you as possible to join us on the ride on May 2nd. As I've been saying, it might seem early to be looking at a ride in May, but I've got a lot to prepare for and I need to know as soon as possible how many riders will join us. And remember, the first 50 riders to qualify for the ride get a free cycling over 60 tour decure jersey. It's now been three years since I decided to get serious about cycling. My understanding of cycling has changed dramatically over that time. My understanding of my physical condition has been the biggest change of all. As you know, cycling is currently a huge focus of my life. I'm expecting not to learn as many new things next year as I have in the past three. However, I might be surprised. I kind of hope so. It'd be great to keep expanding my knowledge of cycling and my health and everything associated with it at a high rate. One thing that I feel like I'm starting to really dial in is my workout program. I think I'm onto something now that could be the program for the rest of my life. Distilling down what I've been learning, it results in this. I want to make sure and put in 10 hours a week of serious activity. And as I've noted before, I believe I need to act like an athlete. We are coming up on the Winter Olympics and we're going to get stories about athletes and their time commitment. For this phase of life, I want to have that kind of commitment to activity and see where it takes me. I didn't start out this journey three years ago as someone who had been athletic over like the last 30 years. I know that does describe some of you. I hope my story is inspiring from the perspective of what turnaround can happen if fitness is taken seriously after 55 years old, in my case after 59 years old. I've come to believe that that can only happen with a really serious focus on being fit. So 10 hours a week and also six days a week of activity. In the past three months I've had a lot of demands on my time, and it's been difficult to get in six days of activity in a week. But I believe I just simply need to change that. I just simply need to find the ways to create different habits so I'm more consistent. I just had an important experience on Thanksgiving. I find it to be tough to excuse myself after a Thanksgiving meal and go exercise for 30 minutes. And this year I just didn't do that. And the result was that my blood glucose stayed elevated for about an hour. That feedback from my continuous glucose monitor was a kick in the butt. So I blew it. Now, if I didn't have a blood glucose problem, I should still have done activity. At my age, in my early 60s, it's important no matter what's going on medically that I am active. I believe that I have to fight now for standing health in my 80s. And that means that I need to do things like announce to people at the Thanksgiving table that, hey all, I'm going to be gone for the next 30 minutes. So in a month from now, I'll be able to practice this again at the Family Christmas. I plan to do better. I've been saying that two of the six days of activity that I do each week need to be weightlifting. But I don't think I can get 10 hours in a week of some serious cardio work unless I also do something on those lifting days. So I need to figure that out. I need to figure out what riding looks like on days that I do heavy lifting. So that's the framework of a program that again I think I can do for life. Ten hours a week, six days a week, and two of those days do some lifting. Armed with that, I think I'm ready to schedule an appointment and talk everything over with the pros at Physician Coach. And I look forward to sharing those discussions with all of you. I mentioned Cranksgiving last episode, but I want to revisit it. If you go to cranksgiving.org, you'll see what is happening across North America with this unique celebration of the power of cycling. There are a couple things that are making me want to see Cranksgiving 2026 be absolutely massive. First, I think it's very possible that November 2026 could see an abnormally high number of people be food insecure for the holidays. In my mind, there are some really disturbing economic forces that could mean real hardship for a bunch of people. The other factor is that 2026 is likely going to be a year of attack on the bike as a form of transportation. Bike lane grants are being labeled as hostile to cars. The fight to bring some perspective to road infrastructure should be pretty active next November. I think it would be perfect for there to be about a million social media images of people on bikes helping to feed their neighbors. So this is my call to have some conversations this holiday season and recruit some family and friends to participate in Cranksgiving next year. In my state, there is a deadline coming to nominate a route as a Washington State Scenic Bikeway. The designation means that the route will get special attention from Washington State Parks. Our scenic bikeways program is set in law and funds are designated for state parks to promote the route and for the placement of signs designating the route as a scenic bikeway. My company is helping to put together the application. If you're curious about it, you can find information on our route at tellumedia.com forward slash crossstate trailsouth.html. I'll put that in the show notes. The route has been identified over the years by Bob Meyrick, president of the Tacoma Washington Bicycle Club. Bob has been a champion for bike infrastructure and earlier this year received a lifetime recognition award acknowledging decades of advocacy. If you go check out the route, I'd be interested in any comments you might have on it. There's a wonderful bike shop in Seattle called Free Range Cycles. I would describe them as practical. Here is how they describe the bikes that they carry. Quote, when it comes to bikes, we favor a utilitarian approach. We sell bikes that we like to ride, bikes that can carry you through all sorts of terrain and shenanigans. Our bikes will last for decades, look lovely, perform well in the Pacific Northwest's very terrain, and carry things with ease. End quote. The ethos of free range cycles was set by founder and longtime owner Kathleen Emery. I see Kathleen as a legendary figure, someone who made free range cycles a place that transcends bikes and truly was a light to the community. In today's world, we need a lot more Kathleen's. Here's my conversation with her. I'm being joined today by someone I see as a legend. Thank you, Kathleen Emery, for joining me.

Kathleen Emry:

Thank you for having me, Tom.

Tom Butler:

So you opened free range cycles in the Fremont area in Seattle in 1997. And you operated it for like 20 years. Am I right about that? Almost 22 years, yes. Okay. And we're going to get into some of the reasons why I see you as a legend. But first, what do you remember as your earliest meaningful experience on a bike?

Kathleen Emry:

I would say that I grew up in eastern Washington in a small town called Othello. And I my most meaningful was just getting a bike, having a bike, I can remember around seven, eight, riding up to go to swimming lessons through a field field on a western flyer.

Tom Butler:

Nice. Yeah, and some big fields in Othello.

Kathleen Emry:

Yeah.

Tom Butler:

So were you active as you grew up, pretty much?

Kathleen Emry:

Yes, I was very active as a child. I played a lot of team sports: basketball, volleyball, baseball. Yeah. I was always wanting one of my sisters to join me throwing the ball outside. And Othello was a very flat town, so you could ride your bike around town easily.

Tom Butler:

Before you opened free-range cycles, how would you describe your relationship with bikes? Were they transportation? Were they recreation? Were they something else?

Kathleen Emry:

I had moved to California after graduating from high school. And primarily bikes were a form of recreation. But when I moved back to Seattle in 1984, I just saw the opportunity to use a bike around town as transportation. And I went to Greg's Green Lake and bought a specialized hard rock to commute on.

Tom Butler:

And streets were a lot different then. Also, the whole bicycle was different then, I think is right to say. And at some point you got interested in working in a bike shop. Can you talk about that?

Kathleen Emry:

Yeah, I think it was 1987. I had uh finished a master's in ministry to Seattle U. Being queer, I decided that I could not work within the Catholic Church. So I sort of one day I took my girlfriend's bike to Wright Brothers and noticed they had a repair class. So I took the repair class and then I was like astounded by how much satisfaction there was in working with my hands. There was always an endpoint to it. You got to make something better. And so I got a job at Wright Brothers and started collecting tools. Started early on having a dream about owning a bike shop. It took 10 years, and I met another mechanic at Wright Brothers who had the same dream. And so we put it together.

Tom Butler:

It sounds like you hadn't ever really considered a mechanical career or something like that before that discovery. Is that right?

Kathleen Emry:

That's very true.

Tom Butler:

I think Wright Brothers still exists.

Kathleen Emry:

Yes, it does.

Tom Butler:

And I it's today you kind of can see decades and decades of stuff at White Wright Brothers. It must have been a little bit different back then.

Kathleen Emry:

It it was different, and he was alternative even back then. He was sort of the champion of uh Campanola and Italian parts. I mean, if that's where you went to find any part, and it was a workshop. People could come in and they still can. They'd buy a membership for $25, lifetime membership. And you could come in and work on your bikes anytime you the shop was open. And it also had a repair aspect to it. We did repair bikes, but they they didn't sell bikes there.

Tom Butler:

That's an interesting model of having people being able to come in. I'm guessing that that's kind of the first place where you really started becoming a member of the bike community. Is that fair to say?

Kathleen Emry:

It's fair to say that I was a part of the bike community, but I moved to Vashon Island in 1990. So that sort of limited my ability to be a part of the Seattle bike community, except for during work hours.

Tom Butler:

You talked about the owner of Wright Brothers, and I'm forgetting his name. Charles. Charles. You got uh mentoring from Charles at Wright Brothers. Was there other training that you did? Were you seeking other places to build your craft?

Kathleen Emry:

No, it was there I learned to build wheels. I mean, we saw everything that came in the door at Wright Brothers. It was at such a variety of bikes, especially older bikes, square tapered bottom bracket bikes. But those were very common at that time in history.

Tom Butler:

And then you make this leap to owning your own shop. And I'm really curious about that. It's some it's one of those things that I'm always interested in, is kind of the entrepreneurship behind things. And so you decided to launch out in open free range. Uh, what was that decision-making process like?

Kathleen Emry:

Kind of gathered a committee of the um Mitchell Mead, who opened it with me, and um Jim Hoff, and there was another guy, Tom, and we started just meeting and gathering ideas about what it would be like and where we should open a shop, what our budget might be. I happened to have a degree in business. At first, we're looking on Capitol Hill. We didn't want to pay more than $1,000 a month. We couldn't find any place that we liked. Then one day we were just riding our bikes by the current location of free range cycles, and there was a for rent sign on the door. And so we inquired, and it was $750 a month. It was in our budget. And it was a quirky little space, but we thought we could make it work. And we started off very slowly by uh paying ourselves $10 an hour. I think we put in each put in $3,000 in credit card debt, and we started buying used bikes and doing repair. And that very first year we were successful.

Tom Butler:

Now, free range is a to me a special name. The first time I heard it, it's like that sounds like a good place to be. Can you talk a bit about that name?

Kathleen Emry:

Sure. My recollection of it is that I wanted a coyote on a bike, and Mitch said, not too eastern Washington. One day our friend Jim Hoff came back from PCC with a free range sandwich, and Mitch said, I've got it. And he was an artist, and so he went home and built the free range chicken with dreadlocks out of a piece of steel, and that became our name. And people always brought us chickens. That's awesome.

Tom Butler:

Did you have a chicken for bike swap program at all?

Kathleen Emry:

No, we did not have any live chickens, no live chickens.

Tom Butler:

That's awesome.

Kathleen Emry:

We have an array of t-shirts through the years of the free range chicken on 20, you know, like five years on the road on a touring bike and on a racing bike. And it was a very fun logo to go with.

Tom Butler:

I love it. You were successful that first year. It seems like there's always some nervousness about it. Was it a tough year, or how did you find it to be?

Kathleen Emry:

I don't remember it being tough. Mitch left after two and a half years. I bought him out after two and a half years that he was gonna ride his bike around the world. That was a a bit tough for me because I was wondering how, you know, how am I gonna do this alone? In the bike industry, you you really have to learn to trust because one day you can make two dollars and then the next day you can make five thousand dollars. So it's like it's just practicing it, practicing trusting, I think. So each year it got easier to believe that it was gonna work the next year.

Tom Butler:

Gotcha. A woman operating a bike shop that seems to me to be like working in a male-dominated industry at that time. Is that a correct assumption?

Kathleen Emry:

That is a correct assumption. There were so many people that would tell me that everyone had a dream to have a bike shop, you know, insinuating that it would fail. I don't know. It was for me, it was it was not about a head decision, it was more about a heart decision, about trusting that my vision would manifest.

Tom Butler:

This is one of those things that I see as legendary about you. You know, you you see this thing. Again, I think if I put some of the pieces of the story together, you've got in your mind something you're gonna do with your life, and then that becomes something that you see as unsustainable, the ministry. And so you then start working with your hands and discover I think passion for it or uh connection to it as being really strong. And then you take that and you move into an area where you can apply that and you can benefit from that and you can structure that the way that you want to. It's a it's a brave move, I think, and it's also an inspirational move.

Kathleen Emry:

Well, thank you. I found also that there was a lot of ministry in the bike shop.

Tom Butler:

I can see that, and I I'd like to talk a little bit more about that in a bit. I'm wondering, you know, if you can kind of encapsulate how you would navigate difficult conversations with people that maybe questioned whether or not you belonged in that space.

Kathleen Emry:

I think I've been pretty open and upfront most of my life about just listening to people. Now I'm a spiritual director, so that's that is something that I probably was all my life, but I'm officially I'm a spiritual director now. You know, people would tell me what to carry, what I needed to carry in the bike shop. There was a lot of mansplaining to me. You know, I took it with a grain of salt. I mean, I had to do what I needed to do for myself. It was I wasn't doing something for someone else.

Tom Butler:

Or because you were trying to do something for your ego. It doesn't sound like that was part of it either.

Kathleen Emry:

No, I don't think so.

Tom Butler:

Yeah.

Kathleen Emry:

It was feeding a passion for me.

Tom Butler:

And again, I think that's a it's a wonderful place to be in. And I think that's an inspiration for other people that want to pursue that to be in a place every day that you can be passionate about. I think that's wonderful. So I'm wondering about running a business in Fremont. Can you talk a little bit about Fremont? Do you do you see it as having this community identity? If so, how did that community identity shape the culture and your customer base?

Kathleen Emry:

Well, Fremont changed a lot. When we first, when I worked there in the 80s and early 90s, it was there were a lot of drugs and um it was a hub for drug use and unhoused folks. I cultivated my love for the unhoused population early on in that process. We often had marginal people coming in looking for money, and I would find work for them. And people knew they that they were welcome there. And to this day, some of my most treasured memories are of the marginalized people that taught me about my own white privilege and actually hoping to write a memoir about that.

Tom Butler:

I love it. Please, please do, and please let me know about that. I would love to do whatever I can to promote that. What a wonderful thing when you think about having a bike shop. I look at biking as you know, a tool for anyone to use, to have that kind of be a bit of a community hub for different things, you know, the bike, and then also if you're if you're like you say, kind of ministering to people, I think I see that as wonderful.

Kathleen Emry:

There were other bike shops in the Fremont area. Right Brothers was, of course, just around the corner. And second use, I think it was called, or was it second bounce, was down the street. And I I always thought of that it was not so much competition to have other bike shops in the neighborhood neighborhood, but that they could feed off of one another. Because biking is so specific to each individual. Some people want it for transportation, other people want it for recreation. Each shop can serve a different person.

Tom Butler:

You talked about Fremont being different back then. Can you kind of lay out some of that transition that happened in Fremont?

Kathleen Emry:

Uh yeah. I remember that Halloweens in Fremont were very unusual and freaky, lighting lawnmowers on fire and pushing them around. Then it became gentrified, as a lot of places in Seattle. Adobe moved in, Tableau, Google, a lot of tech industry moved moved into the neighborhood, which was actually quite good for business. In fact, Adobe bought, I think, six bikes from me to have their employees use for commuting, as did Children's Hospital. So yeah, the flavor of Fremont changed a lot. There was just new restaurants and it just became a more hip place to come.

Tom Butler:

It has a bit of a re reputation of being kind of a quirky artistic place.

Kathleen Emry:

Yeah.

Tom Butler:

Did you experience that? Do you see it as being that way still?

Kathleen Emry:

Oh, I still see it as being that way. In fact, I met somebody here recently who said, Oh, I'm going to Seattle and we're going to stop and see Linen in Fremont. I said, Well, stop by Free Range Cycles, because he was a cyclist.

Tom Butler:

You'll have to explain a little bit about Linen for people who are listening that are not from the Seattle area.

Kathleen Emry:

You know, I don't know how the Linen got there, but I know that it's a statue in downtown Fremont of Linen.

Tom Butler:

It gets some attention. It's uh a point of expression, I guess would be a way to say it for different people.

Kathleen Emry:

Right. And so, I mean, as does the rocket and the troll. And the bike trail is, you know, a block away from free range. What that was that was quite an asset also.

Tom Butler:

Maybe talk a bit about that. When you, you know, in the late 80s, 90s, what was the mindset around bike infrastructure in Seattle? Was it the same as it would be today, or do you think not so much?

Kathleen Emry:

Oh, I think it's uh the bike infrastructure in Seattle has um changed dramatically since then. There wasn't really one back then. There weren't greenways. The Burt Gilman was there, but there weren't a lot of streets that had bike paths along them. Biking was thought of as you were it was kind of a marginalized if you rode a bike. It was it wasn't mainstream as it is today.

Tom Butler:

I think it's interesting for people that come to Seattle now and see the waterfront without the overpass in the way the feel is so different. It is, and a great place to bike, I think, too. And yeah, and getting more so. I read something that you specifically wanted to have balance in your life, even with demands of running a business. Were you able to accomplish that?

Kathleen Emry:

Yes, I think I was early on the the first year. I remember Mitch saying, Well, we have to be closed on Mondays because I have yoga in the morning. And I was like, Oh, really? Okay. And from there, yeah, I was I it was always a 24-7 business because you know the alarm could go off at any time. But I took time off. I trusted my employees to do what they could do while I was gone. I mean, this shop would still be there when I got back, and so it was really important to me to have a balance. And eventually in 2007, I moved into town because the commute was actually I was committed always to commuting by bike, and and the commute from Vashan meant that I was usually gone 12 hours a day. So in 2007, I decided it was time to move back into town.

Tom Butler:

Again, I applaud you for that focus. And I think that had to go a long way in creating a culture at free range.

Kathleen Emry:

Yeah, it was sort of mentoring in a way that this isn't important to me, and how do you want to make cycling important to you? What you know, what aspects of it. And free range cycles was primarily and still is primarily a commuter shop.

Tom Butler:

I'm sure you witnessed significant changes in the cycling industry over your time. Can you talk about what transitions stand out most to you?

Kathleen Emry:

Well, uh, technology certainly has changed during the time. And as a commuter shop, I think we were sort of known for fixing the older bikes. Speedy Reed's was down the on the Burt Gilman Trail, and I remember them, you know, riding their bikes up to get us to our shop to get a square taper bottom bracket. In the early days, we didn't stock the uh other bottom brackets, so we'd have to ride down there and and get those. But um that was one way it changed. I think in Seattle, the culture just began to grow, you know, with coffee on Fridays or the the bike culture, the the uh campouts, everything just started to grow with the the uh younger community. And having swift industries in in town was really important in making those uh bike camping trips valuable to the community.

Tom Butler:

I'd like to see some of that come back. I'm quite new to the bicycle community. I see that as time to get away together, camp together, as as a need. I don't know that there's a desire for it with younger people. I think that's a wonderful thing. That would it'd be wonderful to see it coming back.

Kathleen Emry:

Well, I think they they have it. Swift Industries has a camp out, which is not only in Seattle, but would as all over the United States. They they used to do before COVID, they would do folks that had gone on tours present on Capitol Hill. And it was a great opportunity to people for people to learn about how to map out a journey.

Tom Butler:

That's awesome.

Kathleen Emry:

And I did three years in a row, I did what was called the Great Escape from Anacortis to Newport, Idaho, and it was an organized ride with associated grocers to raise money. Yeah, it was fabulous. To we camped out and they carried all our gear. It was about a 500-mile route.

Tom Butler:

I tried to do that route last fall, and unfortunately, I had Bursitis in my knee flare up. I just couldn't go very far. I made it over Washington Pass, but uh that's so two days I I made it, but that that was about it. So it's a great route. It is a great route, and I think what I would need to do, it'd be wonderful to go with a group. I was going on my own, and then to leave more time. I I'll have to check out what Swift Industries is doing. They call themselves a bicycle bags and adventure culture. I gotta get connected more to them, it sounds like. Would you say that the bicycle industry's relationship with women cyclists has evolved over the years?

Kathleen Emry:

Yes, I would say that. So every year, quality bike products, which is the big distributor of parts and bikes, distributed surly and salsa and also bike parts, would have a event in the winter called Frostbike. And I remember going there one year and they were having an event for women, and I thought, oh, I'm gonna go to this. I'd say 80% of the people were there were flannel shirted, bearded men. And so I thought, wow, great. And so I went to the seminar for women, and it was on how you can sell clothing to women. And I was like, oh no, this is not something I want gonna do. And I anyway, I think for them, I I made them understand that bikes were generally made to fit men. And one of the things I got quality to do was to stop cutting their steer tubes so I could put more spacers to effectively shorten the top tube because generally women have longer legs and shorter torsos. It took some time to have get that to happen, but it did finally happen. And it was I I heard someone say that I had grandmothered some things in.

Tom Butler:

Nice. Do you think that uh that was a symptom of being so male dominated in as far as executive positions? Do you think they just weren't getting feedback from women? Uh why would you say that it would take them a long time?

Kathleen Emry:

Well, the bike industry is very male-oriented. It's more men ride bikes than women, especially back in in those days. And you know, men are more willing to spend money on bikes. So I think it's changing the culture with women too, to understand how important it is to have a nice bike. Because if you do, if you have a nice bike, you're more likely to ride it. And if you have a bike that fits, you're more likely to ride it.

Tom Butler:

At some point you made a decision to step away from free range cycles. Talk about that. What what was that like?

Kathleen Emry:

That was interesting. I was in in 19 or in 2017, I was turning 64, I think. And I thought to myself, I was wearing down a bit, my body was wearing down a bit. And I thought, uh, I think I'll go on a pilgrimage on my bike in Italy, ride my bike from St. Bernard Pass to Rome on the Via Francigena. And that's going to excite me. I'll come back and I'll be ready to go another 10 years. Well, I came back and I was like, I'm done. It was another intuitive, like, you know, I'm done. And so then it was it was trying to figure out, you know, the next step on how to. What I should do. I really didn't know what to do. So I put an advertisement on social media and I got about five individuals or groups of people. And Shauna had been a past employee of mine, and she was now working at Bikeworks. And she came to congratulate me and take me out for a beer. And when we were having a beer, all of a sudden I looked at her and I said, Are you interested in buying free range? And she looked up at me and she said, I think I am. And I really wanted to hand it to another woman. And she was the only single woman and the most knowledgeable woman that was interested in the shop. And it really felt right. So I I'm, you know, I made it happen.

Tom Butler:

And so you're talking about Shauna Williams, who is current owner, and she's in there a lot and a wonderful person. I've met her. You talk about her working at Bikeworks, and I I did an episode on Bikeworks, but for people that don't know about Bikeworks, it is a nonprofit organization in Seattle, and they really focus a lot on bike equity or access to bikes. And a great organization. And you know, for me, that's like a great person, uh, a great place to find a person from.

Kathleen Emry:

And she first she had worked at free range. That was her first job was in free range, and then she moved to bike works. And she was leading, she had more of a community focus at bike work. She was taking kids on bike trips, and she's and she's continued that at free range.

Tom Butler:

That's awesome. I love it. It must not be as unique of a thing for her running a bike shop as it was for you, but I might be wrong about that. Is it still the unique thing to have a woman running a bike shop?

Kathleen Emry:

I think it still is a unique thing. I mean, I don't I I just don't think there's that many women-owned bike shops, especially, you know, without partnering up with another person. I can't think of another one in Seattle. There are some women-owned bicycle shops in Seattle that like Mont Lake that's co-owned by a woman, Carolyn.

Tom Butler:

Well, I'm so glad Shauna took that on. Good for her, and I'm glad that that continues on in Fremont.

Kathleen Emry:

Yeah, I was recently there, uh, just about three weeks ago, and of course I stopped and had coffee with her and hung out at the bike shop. And this time I didn't get put put to work. Last time I was there, I I I got a chance to see if I could still build a wheel. That's awesome. I love that.

Tom Butler:

Well, that would be awesome to walk in and find you working in the bike shop.

Kathleen Emry:

I'd love to well, it was funny because uh one of my old customers rode by and he looked over and he was like, Oh my gosh, and he stopped and and then another guy came in while I was there that I had out outfitted on Surly Long Haul Druckers. He and his wife, they were from the Kit Sap County, and it was fun to see him also.

Tom Butler:

Nice. Do you have a feel for independent bike shop management these days? Is it uh really different from when you started? Uh it is it really difficult? How would you characterize that?

Kathleen Emry:

Well, of course, during COVID, it was extremely difficult. The supply and demand, there was just nothing available at the time. I was lucky I actually got out in the summer of 2018. But now she has been worried about the tariffs on bikes, that they could be as much as 40 to 50 percent. And so, really considering, you know, if that happens, bikes will become too expensive for people to buy. And what might be her opportunity in going into the used bike business again? And that is how free range started was in the used bike business.

Tom Butler:

I we I'll be interested. I'll have to connect with Shauna here.

Kathleen Emry:

I'm sure she could give you some insight into that.

Tom Butler:

So as you look back at your years, and again, I'm advocating for your memoir, but as you look back over the years of the shop, what are you most proud of accomplishing?

Kathleen Emry:

I think I'm most proud of accomplishing uh the welcoming aspect of free range. We welcomed everyone, and that was really important to me. And recently I met a PT who knew I live in Colorado Springs now, and I met a PT in Seattle that knew of free range. And the one thing he said, oh, of course I remember free range. It was a very welcoming place, and it was known around town that it was welcoming, and that would listen. I think a lot of times in bike shops, there's a lot of mansplaining and free range. I think we tried to hear what people wanted and also do a good job with fitting. Um, so yeah, I'm I'm very proud to have had the shop for 22 years.

Tom Butler:

You mentioned to me in an email that you're hoping to bike across Italy soon, I think maybe next year, and you'll be 74. I'm wondering uh if you could talk a bit about that adventure. And then, you know, you you mentioned Italy back uh when you took a break to kind of uh recharge. Is there something special about biking in Italy to you?

Kathleen Emry:

Yes. My grandparents immigrated from Italy to eastern Washington in the early 1900s, and along with my siblings, we grew up in Othello, a small town in eastern Washington with 23 cousins.

Tom Butler:

Wow.

Kathleen Emry:

And so my identity has always rooted me in that side of my family. I actually have my Italian passport. My dream is to ride from where my grandparents were born in a small village in in the Piedmont region of Italy, uh called Gambasca and Saint Front, and to ride to my cousin's pastry shop, which is an hour an hour north of Venice. I thought, what a great reward. I hope she still has it. Italy's always I'm actually headed to Italy this Saturday to visit a few relatives and then do a little vacation in Chinquetera.

Tom Butler:

How fun. That that sounds great, really. I've not spent any time uh cycling in Europe at all. I'm hoping to do that at some point. There's a lot of things that I hope to do, you know. So that's one of them. How has your cycling changed as you've gotten older? If you were talking to someone younger, what what would you say about that?

Kathleen Emry:

Well, my cycling has changed a lot since I've moved to Colorado Springs because I live 18 miles northeast of the Colorado Springs, so I have to drive to cycle. It's just busy roads. So Colorado Springs, though, has a great infrastructure for cycling. They have paved paths throughout the city. And another thing is I have actually switched to not exclusively, but I do have two electric bikes now, a specialized Vado, and I just recently I had a bike in Seattle for the last two years waiting for a Legos electric system to be put on it, which is a on my Velo Orange, which is a system that is like Legos, where you can take the battery apart and travel on an airplane with it. So I'm hoping to take that to Italy next year.

Tom Butler:

Very cool.

Kathleen Emry:

Normally you can't write you can't uh fly with a battery, but these batteries are the size of laptop batteries, so you can carry them in your carry-on.

Tom Butler:

Nice. That that's good to know. And so what's the name of the company?

Kathleen Emry:

Uh well, I had it, I think it's Lagos, but it's Lagos, okay. Um, it was Bike Swift in Seattle that that actually did the conversion.

Tom Butler:

Gotcha. Uh last episode I was talking to someone, and we were talking about mindfulness. Uh, he was talking about how that comes about when he's on long slow low tours. And you're kind of, I think, a unique person that asked this question of do you see a bit of a spiritual connection to cycling?

Kathleen Emry:

Yes, it's definitely a spiritual practice. I mean, I just get on a bike and I I mean, it it comes from being a kid too, you know, feeling that freedom, but also of not being trapped in your mind of sort of being able to experience what is right in front of you and to be present what to be present to what is right in front of you. When I was on the Via Francigena in Italy in 2017, I was with two people for the first two weeks, and they planned every night where we were staying. And the second two weeks I was by myself. It was sort of a metaphor for the bike industry because every day I would get lost. At first, I was had this anxiety about getting lost, and then it was just like I all of a sudden one day I woke up and I said, Oh, I'm lost again. And then I would just head in the direction I thought. And every day I found, you know, where I was going. So yeah, it's this place of freedom of the mind and and uh more an experience of the heart.

Tom Butler:

Yeah, as you're talking, what's coming to my mind is kind of a surrender to the journey. I don't know if that makes sense.

Kathleen Emry:

Oh, have you ever seen my my card?

Tom Butler:

I have not. Uh unpredict your journey. That's awesome. I love it.

Kathleen Emry:

So that came from I was at this a conference at Quality Bike Products, and a guy had a bumper sticker of this, not this logo, but um I said, How did you get that? And he said, Well, I was on a rafting trip and he said, at the end of the day, he said, everybody who who didn't it chose to go through rapids didn't have any story to tell. And it's like, you know, unpredicting instead of always trying to follow this straight and narrow path, unpredicting your journey, listening to your intuition, you know, listening to the spirit that's guiding you to experience more of life, to be more alive to life.

Tom Butler:

I love it. That's awesome. And speaking of being more alive to life, I do you see a connection in your life or in other people between cycling and healthy aging? Is that something you you feel like you've definitely benefited from?

Kathleen Emry:

Uh, I have definitely benefited for from it, and I do see a benefit for a lot of people. I mean, just physically, when I go to the doctor and get some tests, um, I'm just like, oh, well, this is from long-term cycling. This, you know, these some of these numbers are, you know, some of the other ones that my back hurting or having to go to the chiropractor are definitely from not stretching enough. But a lot of internal benefits that I found out from just commuting all those years on by bike.

Tom Butler:

Well, I am having to employ all of the habit change things I've been talking about on the podcast to myself when it comes to flexibility, because I'm experiencing problems from it, and I'm afraid they're gonna keep me off the bike if I don't get serious about it. So that's definitely something I can relate to. Is there a way for people to follow you? Do you communicate out there over me?

Kathleen Emry:

Um, I have an instant, I have an Instagram and a mostly um and a Facebook account, but my Instagram is I post more things about bikes and I have more bike followers, and it's just Kathleen J-E-M-R-Y.

Tom Butler:

I will make sure and put a link to that in the show notes for people, because I think following that, I'm sure you'll announce if you if your memoir comes out, I'm sure you'll announce it there. And uh again, reach out to us uh if that happens.

Kathleen Emry:

And now you're motivating me to get busy on that. I did take a writing class and I did uh start writing. So it and and yeah, I I learned a lot from writing, and it was mostly about you know, about my employees, about the culture, and uh about uh the ministry that had really gone on at free range.

Tom Butler:

I think that's a wonderful story. I'd love to read that story.

Kathleen Emry:

I'll send it to you, Tom.

Tom Butler:

I love that. Thank you so much. Kathleen, it has been wonderful having you here and getting to know you. Uh, I wish that I'd gotten to know you when you were here and and uh running the bike shop, but I'm glad I've had this opportunity. It's been delightful. Thanks for joining me.

Kathleen Emry:

Thank you, and happy cycling to you.

Tom Butler:

Thank you. Yes, yes. All right, take care now.

Kathleen Emry:

All right, bye-bye.

Tom Butler:

But there's one thing that I hope just gets wedged in my brain from the interview is the concept of unpredict your journey. It's not the first time the concept has been embraced by a guest on the podcast. And it's always a bit of a confrontation of my nature to want to control everything. Not that I'll throw out all planning, but I'll work to find times that I leave all planning up to some force outside of myself. That sounds a little weirder out loud than it is in my head, but I will keep working on it. I was surprised and really curious to hear about the Swift Industries campouts. I figured I would have heard about these trips already. That sounds like something that needs to have cycling over 60 representation. There is information on all kinds of rides on Swift Industries website. You do have to dig a bit to find it. You go to builtby swift.com forward slash pages forward slash Swift Campout. I'll put a link in the show notes. I'll also put a link to the Lingo 10X batteries Kathleen mentioned. They look like a must for anybody who wants to fly with their e-bike. You can find them at ebikes.ca, which is the site for Grin Technologies. I hope your Thanksgiving was great if you were in the US, and I hope that if you're outside the US, that you are still finding a lot to be thankful for. Maybe like me, you are thankful to be healthy enough to go for a nice long ride. And remember, age is just a gear change.

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Tom Butler

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