Shared Ground
Shared Ground is a podcast that explores resilience & grit, generosity & kindness. We start with true stories of kindness and support during and after the 2025 LA wildfires.
Shared Ground
Episode 6: Cycling Through Crisis with Tara Kriese
From the tenth floor of her Marina del Rey apartment, Tara watched as a small puff of smoke appeared in the Palisades hills. Within hours, this wisp would transform into a devastating wildfire, forcing thousands to evacuate. What happened next reveals the extraordinary resilience hidden within Los Angeles communities.
Drawing from her experiences during 9/11 (when she lived across from the Pentagon) and a previous home disaster, Tara leaned into her role as a central hub for information sharing and resource coordination. Through cycling club WhatsApp groups, she connected those in need with those who could help—creating a real-time support network that proved crucial during the chaos.
Her simple philosophy, "This is what we do," encapsulates a profound approach to community responsibility that transcends any expectation of reciprocity.
The conversation explores how communities built around shared interests, such as cycling, developed bonds of trust that proved invaluable during crisis. As Tara explains, "When you ride in a Peloton at 25 miles an hour down PCH, you're putting your life in the hands of the people around you." This foundation of trust enabled an immediate, coordinated response that helped countless displaced residents.
Beyond emergency response, we discover how Tara's intentional community-building through women's cycling groups demonstrates principles that create resilience before disaster strikes. By creating inclusive spaces where "no one gets dropped" and everyone feels supported, these communities foster connections that become lifelines during crisis.
How do we maintain this sense of community without requiring tragedy to activate it? What role should technology play in enabling rather than replacing genuine human connection? Join us for this powerful exploration of how adversity reveals our true capacity for compassion and collective action.
Shared Ground is produced by Sean Knierim and Allan Marks. Thanks to Cory Grabow, Kara Poltor, Corey Walles (from The Recording Studio) for your support in launching this effort.
For more stories of resilience & rebuilding, kindness & generosity: visit shared-ground.com and subscribe to Sean's substack. We invite you to share your own stories of resilience at the Shared Ground website - whether in response to the January fires in LA or other situations.
Follow us at seanknierim.substack.com, Instagram, or wherever you listen to podcasts (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc).
Today we have a special guest, someone that's become really important in my life and the life of a lot of people around the LA community Tara. Tara, thanks for joining us today. We have come to know each other in the last year, but really got to know each other in the last few months. So yeah, as we're starting a lot of these episodes, these began with the fires that came through the Palisades fire, the Eden fire here in the Los Angeles region and we're just curious to talk to people we've come to know like. What was it like as you think, back to January 6th, january 7th, january 8th? Can you take us through what your experience was like during those days, tara?
Tara Kriese:Absolutely so. As you mentioned, we've gotten to know each other a lot over the last few months, but it started last fall because we ride bikes. We're in a cycling club together and it was a bright blue Tuesday morning and I live in the marina in big glass towers, and my view I'm very fortunate goes from the far western edge of Malibu all the way down to the marina, looking right at the Palisades, and I can see all the way back to Mandeville.
Sean Knierim:Which floor are you?
Allan Marks:on. I'm on the 10th floor you have a ringside seat.
Tara Kriese:And a whole glass wall, so I effectively have, you know, the biggest flat screen ever of the area. And I usually actually do a ride on Tuesday mornings. But I had some work meetings that I could not skip and ride my bike. And so I'm sitting at my desk and it is between 10 and 11. And I'm thinking, oh, they should be getting back pretty soon. And I look up, there's just this little poof of smoke starting to come up, and I know one of the climbs is really close to that. And so I messaged a few of the riders and I'm like hey, are you guys anywhere near Amalfi? And I learned they're just down and they start sending me photos of being underneath it. And I start texting a few people around going guys, this looks like Palisades is on fire. And I text our good friend Drew and I say, hey, drew, it looks like there's a fire in the Palisades. And I get a text back about 20 minutes later and Drew goes yeah, we're getting out.
Sean Knierim:And Drew lives about five blocks from where my house was. He lives about a block from the high school where my daughter went to school.
Tara Kriese:That's right.
Sean Knierim:So Temescal.
Tara Kriese:Kenya.
Sean Knierim:He lives just below Polly, right off Temescal yeah.
Tara Kriese:And, hey, what do you need? I've got a Land Rover. Like, do you need me to come over and throw stuff in the bag? Like, what do you need? And over the course of the next couple of hours I end up becoming this central point for our cycling communities. I'm in two cycling communities here in LA. I'm in Lagrange, the one that Sean knows me from, and Grandmasters GMC and both clubs have a WhatsApp community and pretty quickly the WatchDuty app comes to surface. Really early on A friend texted to me and I end up putting it into the communities and what I later learned was that a whole bunch of friends of ours who live in the Palisades were able to get out or direct spouses, children on where to go because we were able to disseminate that app really quickly across many hundreds of people Over the ensuing days. You know, obviously I'm texting Sean, finding out whether or not he is getting out and different friends, and I start to learn just how many in our community are either displaced or losing their home in real time.
Sean Knierim:We were talking in a prior conversation, alan, about. For me and some others, I'm curious how this hit you, that there was such this overwhelming number of different emotions that were hitting me, and I found that just staying in action was really important to me, even if I didn't know what the hell I was doing. In that action, you acted really quick. You became an organizing force. You started helping my family, all of these other families. Can you talk us through a bit about how you were feeling and how you responded to it?
Tara Kriese:Two things informed that for me. The first is I lived across the street from the Pentagon on 9-11. Yeah, directly across the street, my front window. Here's the window theme again. Yeah, watch out where I live.
Allan Marks:I don't want to be anywhere near my view.
Tara Kriese:I do my window. I looked at 495 and on the other side of 495, so I was on Army Navy Drive and on the other side was the Pentagon and the side of the building they got hit.
Tara Kriese:The plane went right over me and my father-in-law lost many friends that day. He was government and he was defense intelligence and I remember the feelings of helplessness in that moment because there literally was absolutely nothing we could do in that moment. And then fast forward to 2012. I had a very similar.
Tara Kriese:It wasn't a fire, it was a reverse um furnace event, an oil furnace that, uh, in order to protect the furnace from blowing up, actually forced all the oil through all of the air vents in my house. But they treat it like a fire because it's the same soot that's in a fire that goes all over everything. And it was Christmas Eve when it happened and we were displaced and we lost a lot of possessions and all of my daughter's toys. My daughter was very young at the time and I remember the feeling of losing home, losing place, losing safety, losing connection, losing neighbors, losing all of those things, and we ended up having to move because the air quality in the home was such that my daughter couldn't because of other health concerns couldn't breathe it. So I know what it felt like and I had a fraction of what you guys were going through.
Allan Marks:Can I take a moment? I want to tease that apart, if that's OK with you, because in 9-11, when you're across the Pentagon and it's struck by a passenger jet, no one. When you're across the Pentagon as it's struck by a passenger jet, no one knew. I mean, you knew what happened because you saw a plane hit a building, but that was in a finite box. Between that and what was happening in New York, there was a lot of confusion about who was behind it, what was going on. Most importantly, I think, if I remember that day, what would happen next? Yeah, where? What other cities?
Allan Marks:There's this fear that was pervasive, a lot of which had to do with just not really knowing. When people are venting an oil burner into your home, you know what's happening. You do actually have information, as tragic as the loss still may be. For you personally, when you're looking at the fire in the Palisades from the marina and you have a role to play as kind of the central communications hub for people, that agency, the urgency of what you're doing probably does change the experience somewhat.
Tara Kriese:The other thing that was very familiar from that day to what was going on with the Palisades that day and then Altadena, was this feeling of like there's another shoe to drop, there's another shoe to drop, there's another shoe, like it just kept coming. You kept learning, and it was this kind of constant piling on, of impact, of gosh, what what's next feels pink, as the pilots would say, with the flame retardant.
Allan Marks:I remember when the fire broke out in runyon canyon in hollywood yeah, you know, there's a couple days later, closer to where our family lives, and because the winds were not as extreme at that point, the fire department was able to squash that fire immediately and save what would otherwise would have been, you know, a similar conflagration in that part of the city. Yeah, um, the palisades was in a uniquely unfortunate position, as was altadena, with the eden canyon fire of the fires breaking out in an urban area at exactly the same time as the windstorm was was happening. So it was. It was extraordinarily tragic and nothing really anybody could have done about it yeah.
Tara Kriese:But to answer your question like what, what?
Tara Kriese:What I drew on in that moment to get to the point of wanting to act is.
Tara Kriese:It's been a central theme for me across what I do, whether it's career, whether it's parenting, whether it's friendship One of my personal values is just doing what I would want others to do for me, whether or not they actually doing what I would want others to do.
Tara Kriese:It's how I've parented my child and in that moment when people don't even know what they need like they can't even verbalize what they need, sometimes they just need someone to say I'm doing this for you, I'm taking control and taking this off your plate, or I'm here and I'm ready to do it. If just knowing that someone's there and ready to do it and that people are around because it can be such a lonely, scary like I am, in loss I am, I don't have words, I don't know how to respond, I don't know how to react, and knowing that someone else is there at the ready to be a shoulder, to hang on and to grab, like that, is that that that gets you through the next five seconds or five minutes, and that idea for me of wanting to do for others what I would hope and pray somebody would do for me. That's, that's how I acted in that moment and that's how I always I tried.
Sean Knierim:So I want to come back to that idea of a conduit in a minute, because I'd love to hear about some of the things you saw flowing through the conduit that you and others were acting on. But there was something. Each time I tried to thank you for about three months, you would say the same line every single time of this is what we do, and it was. We talked in a with Nina in the very first one of these about how many people we said thank you to. That said it's nothing, it's right, this is the least I could do, but this is what we do is really stuck with me. Why, why is this what we do? Is it because of those old experiences, because of where you came from? Like what is there a commonality of other people you've seen that would just say this is what we do.
Tara Kriese:I coined it. The idea was always there, but it got coined between me and a dear friend. Jared Duby Got this self-serving agenda folks in there and Jared and I we've always had this mantra of if you can help someone, if you can bring others along, if you can pull others up, you just do it because it also means you got great people around you. And those environments aren't necessarily right for kind of pulling people for culturally for the right reasons. They're much more about the bottom line and making sure the bottom line happens. And do I look great?
Tara Kriese:But Jarrett and I always were ones to make sure that we took care of folks, that we recommended folks, that we made sure great people got great opportunities. And when he and I were both going through some particularly rough times, we stepped in for each other without asking and we started coining this. It's just what we do. And then we had a dear friend of ours who lost a spouse who we just anchored around and didn't even give them a choice. We kind of swooped in and like you're going to let us help you here, you're going to let us step in.
Tara Kriese:And it was Steve. You don't have a choice, it's what we do, it's what we do, and so this idea of it's what we do is really it's a way of behaving, it's a way of existing, because you can tell me all day, stop and don't help, and I will. I'll stop if you'd like me to stop, but I'm going to come in and I'm going to help you because I'd hope that somebody who has clearer mind when I am at loss, would step in and say I'm taking this off your plate.
Sean Knierim:So, as we think back to that conduit that you were acting as during that time, what are the things that were flowing through that conduit, tara, like? What were the things that people needed, that people offered? What will you remember looking back?
Tara Kriese:The first thing I'll remember is the cycling community is one where we have a very unique uniting silver thread that goes, or golden thread that goes, between all of us and that when you ride in a Peloton in places like PCH at 25 miles an hour, you know, and riding off people's wheels at six inches off their wheel in traffic, you're putting your life in the hands of the people in front of you and beside you and behind you and you do build an unsaid sense of trust and you don't realize, I think, at the time, how far those bonds go and in that then becomes this community that can and does wrap around when people are in need. And so the kind of things that I saw were everything from just basic information and like what's up, what's down, what's going on where, how and when to. I left with the shirt on my back. I need clothes, or I don't know. I haven't eaten in two days because I'm too busy, you know, doing this and I can't even think about it.
Tara Kriese:Or someone needs to find a way to get up there to get my dog to more kind of longstanding. How do we start to help finding people places, extra bedrooms, extra homes, vacation homes for people to settle. It kind of spanned the gamut of life and some of it was the mundane and the simple or seemingly overly simple to getting bikes for people, because a lot of the way that cyclists process things is when they're on the bike, either alone or in. A lot of the way that cyclists process things is when they're on the bike, either alone or in a group, or the way that they let go is when they're back in a group.
Tara Kriese:Two more complicated things, like we've got a lot of architects and we've got a lot of folks that do real estate, real estate development, like questions starting to get at what do I need to be thinking about? So being that central point of being able to use this kind of communication platform that we had across the two groups and then that wide community spanning like every kind of facet, using that to move these people faster towards solutions or help. That was the kind of underlying thread of it all.
Sean Knierim:And something important here is, like you, with Lagrange, had set up a WhatsApp channel for the club to be able to communicate more effectively, even before that became an important thing. I'm laughing because right now, I'm about to take a drink of water out of a water bottle. I did not think about which one I was going to bring, but this is my favorite water bottle. Tara connected a lot of us just to get water bottles and kit to be able to ride with, because we didn't have this stuff coming out of the houses. My son is an aspiring professional road cyclist and you have been incredibly instrumental in supporting, in pushing the club to support these young riders and supporting my son in general.
Sean Knierim:One thing I explored this before. Like things, this is a water bottle. This is a little plastic thing. It's my. This is what I have next to my bed today and it's something that's important to me. I needed a water bottle on the on the bike. I needed something to drink water in anyway, but it also has a lot of other meaning, right? So, as you helped people either get back on bikes or get kits, anything you can think, have you observed other folks that have strangely emotional connections to water bottles like this, like I have, like. What have you seen as people have received, not just necessarily yours, but we've seen Pedal Mafia, rafa, all of these other bike shops showed up for the community, at least here on the West side, have you seen connections forming between people and things?
Tara Kriese:Yeah, I have. We have a good friend, drew, finding that lost his home and his you know his bike. He didn't, he didn't grab any of it.
Tara Kriese:Funny enough you know, two days later he's at Helen's buying a bike and that was the top priority. It's the way cyclists behave but you got to get back out there. But you know, you realize when you have a hobby like that or there's a thing you do, there are certain things you gravitate to or that you wear, that you like, and one of Drew's favorite brands is this brand Ostroy. Alex Ostroy is the founder of Ostroy. He is cycling royalty here in LA.
Tara Kriese:His grandfather was part of the original Lagrange racing team. His parents are still here in their 80s and 90s and they both ride and he makes stunningly beautiful, super artistic, and drew had a bunch of his stuff and I know that was the thing that drew was like sure I've. You know pedals been great and robson and he's. He's so overly gracious about making sure he's grateful for those things. But I got to ride with alex a couple weeks ago and tell alex about drew and alex made sure this amazing care package showed up, pulled up a shopify thing and he saw just how much drew really loved this brand. And drew now is attached to these pair of bibs that they're black bibs but they have an espresso machine on the rear, which is when you're riding, you're looking at somebody's butt the whole time.
Allan Marks:You're right, and they are unless you're wearing the yellow shirt unless you're riding. You're looking at somebody's butt the whole time you ride, Unless you're wearing the yellow shirt. Unless you're yes, If you're wearing the yellow shirt, he's in the front.
Tara Kriese:You're in the front, but everybody else does. I stare at Drew's butt because he's always in front of me.
Sean Knierim:It is hard to get in front of Drew on rides. This guy is a much stronger rider than I will ever be.
Tara Kriese:He is a beast but he loves now and they are his thing and I know that it's. It's that little thing. That is just this connection to the before, but brought forward in a new way, with this fun story wrapped around it, and then just also the little things like that. He had gloves because of the kits that we put together and he had a water bottle and could get on a bike and all of those things. So there's something about kind of just getting back to the practice of doing something that is so familiar and it's with the people that you do that, even though everything around you. He would talk about how he'd come out on Saturday mornings and ride with us on whatever ride we were doing, but then he would be jumping right back to six hours of project management, him and his wife just at the table.
Allan Marks:But that return to normalcy in a way way, and it depends on return to community Whether it's the cycling community in that case I want to come back to, because you used to work community a number of times. If I was listening closely enough, I heard you mention trust, the trust of, for example, the riders in the Peloton, which is immense. I heard empathy. It's what we do because we want someone to do it for us. You put yourself in someone else's shoes. You know what that would feel like and what you'd hope to have if you were, in that own sense of, either in peril or loss. The communities that burnt, the physical spaces that we often think of as a community, are dispersed, but in some ways, what you're describing is communities of interest, communities of trust and of empathy among people that rely on each other now more than they did before. Do you think the communities in LA and I use plural on purpose do you think the communities in LA in some ways are actually stronger now because of what so many people have gone through?
Tara Kriese:I do. I think we've far exceeded our own expectations of what is truly here in the form of trust and empathy and commitment and an intentionality behind taking care of those around us. I think people throw all kinds of stones at LA and I get it. I mean Hollywood's here and there's a lot of vapid stuff that goes on, but what I saw. I won't go anywhere else now because, knowing the mindset of the folks that are here, we don't want you to go anywhere else and have another window to look out of.
Sean Knierim:No, no windows. Let's stick with this window for a while. The window's done.
Tara Kriese:But also if I think about coming back to the idea of community and how everyone watching what happened in LA, some total was just amazing. I mean, people wanted, those who were impacted, people wanted for nothing in the immediate moment, like everyone just jumped through and made sure the immediate needs were there. And I have a friend in town this week that's part of our cycling club but she lives on the East Coast and she's members of cycling clubs there. It's part of our cycling club, but she lives on the East Coast and she's members of cycling clubs there. But she commented on how, watching from afar, because she had two daughters here but they're both in their late 20s, early 30s and they both have great jobs here and partners here and because of our WhatsApp community, because of what we were communicating in that WhatsApp community, she was able to manage her daughters.
Tara Kriese:One lived in Santa Monica and got evacuated right and the other one lives in West Hollywood and they were near the Runyon fire, right and being able to triangulate. When your daughters are calling you, screaming, scared, out of their minds, not knowing what to do and not having any other family here, jumping in and saying to Deb, like I'm mama on the West Coast. I got this right let's move them around, let's take care of them. She's like people where I live are not like that, like there's nice people, but I don't see them wrapping around people in the way that. I've watched multiple times now these communities whether it's a personal tragedy, an isolated event or a group and there's something about people here in this community that really wrap around others and that's why I won't go anywhere.
Allan Marks:So let me take that a step further, maybe in a different direction, if I may. So if you look at responses to tragedies, community tragedies you look at the fires here, you look at what happened in Maui, the Lahaina fire. You look at the southeast after hurricanes, you know Asheville and along the Gulf Coast, to say nothing of things overseas Communities respond in certain ways, hopefully with a view to the commonality that everybody has, yeah, and those who can survive it can maybe become closer. How do we create that lasting, like authentic sense of community without a tragedy to spur it on?
Tara Kriese:I think it was here. But there is something about when you live life outside and can be with others outside and you spend so much more time with people. I think because of the unique climate set up here that allows people to spend more time together versus kind of alone in your house in suburbia or alone you know New York, I think. Think people it's a similar thing because the way of life is living out of your box, your teeny tiny shoe box.
Allan Marks:So you see that you're in restaurants, you're in mass transit, you're in public parks, you're in areas where you're getting together with other people yeah, and there's.
Tara Kriese:There was a lot of overtones to what happened here too. I lived in brooklyn heights during covid I. I pick them, let me tell you um. I moved into my apartment on february 20th 2020.
Allan Marks:Yeah tell me where you're moving next. So I can, I will, I will, I will I'm going.
Tara Kriese:Seattle was fine for 10 years, but, um, there was a, there was a similarity in that community. I was so proud to be in new york and live in new york amongst that community, watching, you know, even though we couldn't get near each other, still feeling very, very connected. And so I think it is about how we live and then the opportunity to engage, find common ground, even though we may have different views and different political opinions, different desires, I think getting to socialize and be together. That happens here, and I think people would look at this place and think that we don't, especially at the big mansions in Bel Air, but I think we do so much and I think it's unique to this area because of the way you live.
Sean Knierim:So there's a way that you live that's there, that's inherent to location. But as we think about what we can learn from the experience here and the experience that you've been living through, tara, that could be extended everywhere, something I've learned from you is that there's an intention that can be put into further confirming, supporting, strengthening that trust in that community. I mean, you're doing something right now intentionally to support women in cycling. Can you talk a little bit about the experience of what you're trying to lead with others, but also what we can learn from that in terms of building community anywhere where we inhabit?
Sean Knierim:I don't think I'm doing it To prepare for wherever Tara moves next and looks out a window and we're going to need this resilience.
Tara Kriese:I promise I'll tell you. I don't think it's that complicated. I think it's be what you want to see in the world. You know, I think leadership is actually a very simple idea. I think you both do it very, very well what do you want to see in the world?
Tara Kriese:right. Well, in this case I wanted to see and have a place, a forum for female cyclists that just feels like community and that is so much what that sport tends to be, and to also kind of pull together a lot of the really powerful athletes that I would see. You know, on this ride I'd pass this woman over here she's riding alone, or this person would tell me so-and-so rides and I would hear these stories of women kind of dispersed but not coming together because there was no unifying place for women to do that.
Tara Kriese:And when I came into cycling I rode a bike when I was young, I mean you know we all had our 10 speed and I'd ride it to the pool, into the park, get to the house some kid, a friend's house, you'd throw it on their front lawn. That's how everyone knew where everybody was.
Allan Marks:Playing cards in the spokes. I remember that too.
Tara Kriese:Playing cards in the spokes. A hundred percent. And it was after my banana seat.
Allan Marks:We started with that, with the little plastic things, with the little pom-poms on the side.
Tara Kriese:But it was great. But I hadn't ridden a bike since I was 26 years old and when I was now three years ago, a friend of mine who had been a cyclist forever had introduced me to a club that rides for cancer every year. And they do this insane 500-mile, 40,000 feet of climbing six days to raise money for City of Hope here in LA. To climbing six days to raise money for City of Hope here in LA. And I'm a huge, huge proponent of doing crazy acts of physicality to raise money and get people to give money for cancer, because there's been a lot of cancer in my family.
Tara Kriese:I threw myself into it and in three months went from basically never writing to doing that tour. And there was a lot of hazing involved in getting me ready and it was a very kind of male forward, tough testosterone, you know, shoving me into Pelotons on PCH and scary lots of panic attacks on PCH. And I just thought there's gotta be, there's gotta be a different way to bring people who are interested into the sport and then also to have women feel like it's okay to say, hey, how do I signal that way? Or how does this work? How do you ride off somebody's wheel six inches when you're going 25 miles an hour? Like ask questions?
Tara Kriese:And so I ran for the board of our cycling club. I got onto the board and I even when I was running I made it really clear that I was passionate about women's initiatives and furthering the case for women being in sport and then also the social of it all and bringing community together, because it's what I do. But I started with let's just throw a ride on the calendar. Every Saturday I'm going to stand at this corner and hopefully other people show up. The first time it was five, next time it's seven.
Sean Knierim:How many now? How many last weekend?
Tara Kriese:Last week there was 18 and there were six people who were away. Yeah, but it was 18 of us and you know the ride we took. That was a hard ride. Our deer mountains have been somewhat closed off to us because of the fires. For those who don't know, the PCH is still closed. It's typically three lanes, one way you know, so six lanes across or down.
Allan Marks:My dream is it would be opened gradually, when they're able to do so slowly, so that it's cyclists and runners and rollers only for the first week. Even that would be so amazing.
Tara Kriese:We would lose our minds. I mean, we are so, so wanting to get back into those mountains because that's our playground, you know, climbing 3,000 feet to the top of Mul mahalan drive and looking out over the wildflowers, I mean there is it's, it's uh pretty. Yeah, we cyclists hate to drive to rides and there's always a lot of like I don't mind.
Tara Kriese:We, you know, threw bikes on racks and we drove and it, you know, in traffic, it, traffic, it's an hour and a half, but in the morning, when you leave at six o'clock in the morning, it's, you know, only about a half hour. And we drove over to Westlake and we started Westlake. We did a full valley, 20 miles before we started climbing, and we did Potrero up to the Westlake climb, which hits a 20% incline at one point, and then did all of Mulholland, even the park.
Sean Knierim:For listeners that don't know cycling, 20 is a large, big number for trying to climb.
Allan Marks:It's like scaling a cliff.
Sean Knierim:I mean stairways go up 20% climbs, but yeah.
Tara Kriese:Yeah, it's kind of like that.
Allan Marks:I don't know if I can say this on the podcast, but I do remember. This is going back many years ago. I was doing a century in Ojai and there's this climb coming out of Lake Casitas. As you head, it was like a figure eight. So you're heading back towards the coast and you're climbing up. It was really steep. I had a mantra to get the rhythm going. As I was standing, you know, trying to get my pedals to go back and forth, back and forth, and you get a rhythm going, climbing this incredibly steep thing with, you know, my lowest gear, and the two words I kept saying to myself were blank, you blank, you blank you, but I got that rhythm going and I got up there and, yeah, I miss that.
Tara Kriese:Yeah, I have a couple.
Allan Marks:I had younger knees then too.
Tara Kriese:Yeah, I have a few words that I probably shouldn't say on the podcast that my fellow female writers like to say. They know what Tara's favorite words are. But yeah, we got to mahalan, west league of mahalan, at the intersection. It's kind of a notable place for cyclists to regroup and wait, and philip, who was leading the ride, and I get there and we just both start tearing up like it. Just it was such a moment because, first of all, we now can see burn areas, but you can't see burn like nature. Nature's fine, nature's got it covered like nature's.
Allan Marks:We are not so fine, but last week going out there. Now I'll tell you it's also a big fire hazard and an invasive species. But the mustard was all in bloom on the hills going out toward thousand oaks and agora and westlake village and with the oak trees studding these hills, a blaze in yellow and green. It was just, it was absolutely stunning.
Tara Kriese:To that point. When we drove out in the morning, the sun's just coming up, so all of the flowers are closed, so the mountains were green, bright green, looked like fur. But when we drove back in the afternoon, the same mountains glowed yellow. They were bright yellow and just seeing it and getting to ride and then also there's such there's a significantly fewer cars in the mountains right now, just because there's no traffic egress. It was heaven. It was absolute heaven being out there and we had the best time. But more importantly is that we've created this community with this group of women. Now no one gets dropped. It's a safe place. You can talk about anything you need to. You can ask anything you need to. We go as slow as the slowest rider. It is not about watts, it is not about speed, it's about fun. And how different is that?
Sean Knierim:from when you're with the all-women cycling group doing that, when you're with compared to compared to, say, lagrange or other cycling groups that are mixed. I mean, I'll let you speak to that. It depends on the ride and who's involved in the profile of it. There are some rides that it is all out and people are racing and pushing and trying to see what they can do to get their personal bests, to see what they can do to get their personal bests. What I found on a lot of the Lagrange rides and I think this has a lot to do with some of the leadership that are there now is it breaks off and you get options Like some people can push if you're having that kind of good day and you can roll, which I think is really representative of what a lot of these performance communities that are leaning forward are trying to do. You have the opportunity to push if you want to, but it is not only accessible and possible to hold off and have a social pace and be able to talk to friends, but it's actually accepted and supported and that's something that's hard to put in place. And I'll tell you last night I wanted to make sure you heard this Tara Alan and I were talking about this conversation and looking forward to it and saying what are we going to ask and how are we going to work together in this?
Sean Knierim:And I mentioned that I really wanted to make sure that we had a chance to hear from you talking about building this group of women writers. My son, he's 20 years old. He's an aspiring writer. He put his hand up and started yelling and he was so excited that you were being interviewed here. Some of the pushing that he's fallen into. But he's seen these women who have supported him, have nurtured him, who are texting him at night and saying show up at six in the morning to ride with us, because we want to be part of this. That's what he was really attracted to. Two weeks ago, one of the women you've mentored and supported for years, aiden had fallen and was coming back to a race and Morgan walked up to him and said no, aiden, get out there and ride.
Tara Kriese:Tough up and go. We're creating a much more vibrant community that now feels like a 20-year-old racer and a 43-year-old woman and an 82-year-old woman could ride the same rides and we're all going to get there and we're all going to have a great experience, or we're going to get help if we're not having a great experience. And it wasn't that hard. It's just a simple like making sure everyone knows. There are multiple ways to do this.
Sean Knierim:Which creates a great environment for everyone that's involved. So, tara, if we back it up, a thesis that Alan and I have been talking about is resilience, the kind of resilience we need in the world in which we inhabit now. Underlying that resilience having kindness and generosity without necessarily an expectation for reciprocity. As you think about that, and as you've lived through this throughout your entire life, what do you think about that idea of kindness, generosity, what kind of? How would you define the resilience that we need to try and inculcate in this world we're living in?
Tara Kriese:I think it's so much more about people than it's ever been, and then it's ever been then it's ever been Okay, and the reason I say that is and I was part of the creating the problem um 20 years in tech, uh, the, the isolation that is what we are living in this time. It's so easy to be isolated. Scott Galloway talks about what's challenging young men right now and how everything from gaming, the algorithms in social media and people aren't leaving their homes, people aren't engaging in community. Now more than ever, I think it is crucial for people to get out the devices way. The devices can enable the meetups, can enable the communities, can enable the information sharing, but they were meant to enable that, not replace. But I think to your point. I think it's about truly listening and feeling like that human or humans are with you.
Allan Marks:Yeah, yeah.
Tara Kriese:Are here in this moment, sharing the moment, and I think that's been lost due to the over-reliance on tech, and what should have been an enabling function has now been a replacing function.
Allan Marks:What makes you the most optimistic or the most hopeful now?
Tara Kriese:I think our kids, more than anything, seeing it's twofold, it's seeing true community do like what we just witnessed small and large acts, but also our kids. I'm watching them even shoulder the chaos that is right now right and they amaze me with their resilience, with their understanding of kind of broader world events. They are, they have a level of self-awareness, I think, at such a younger age, and a propensity to do something about it. I think about your daughter, maria, like I mean blew my mind that she is only a senior in high school, wise beyond her years, and her understanding of inclusiveness and community was so front and center and present. I think about them and their ability to wield themselves in the world that just I have so much hope that they're going to be the breaker of chains, if you will, on some of the things that are holding us back as a broader, a broader society, and I get so excited about that.
Sean Knierim:So, tara, I am grateful for a lot of reasons that you are in my kids' life, helping them get where they're going for the community that you're bringing to this town and what the intent you're bringing in. I hope people who are listening to this come out in nutty clothes and go up mountains with you so that you get a chance to get to know Tara better, as I have. We're also really thankful that, as we close this off, I'm Sean Kinnear. I'm really grateful that you joined us for this episode of Shared Ground.
Allan Marks:Yeah, tara, thank you very much, and for both me and Sean, thank you very much. We appreciate your listening to us and look forward to exploring more themes around resilience and grit and community and generosity and gratitude.
Sean Knierim:This has been another episode of Shared Ground, a podcast about resilience and community.
Allan Marks:Follow us on your favorite platform or learn more at sharedgroundcom.
Sean Knierim:That's shared-ground. com.