The "FIED-ler" Zone

Jon and Jim return with episode 2 of The 5:40 Podcast! Spring is springing, daylight savings is saving (what exactly we don't know), and the weather is warming one day and freezing the next. 

Join us this episode as we swerve into the past to learn more about the history of our beloved GRANTS TRAIL Greenway with this this Episode's feature guest.  None other than David Feidler, our all-around good friend, adventure cyclist, author and historian.  He has prepared a very interesting history lesson of how the Grants Trail came to be.  We will also reflect on the Greenway's vital importance to our community at large and what it means to us as cyclists who use the trail as a "river of cycling life" and ponder what would we be without it?   Jon will also challenge David with a speed quiz of German cycling history .. will David win the prize?  You can practice your German.. but at your own risk!  

The regular menu is on tap too!  We will announce the winner of last week's cycling puzzler and share the new one.  Coach Victor Van Diesel is back to offer drivetrain tips and offers some rather harsh feedback to Jon about how his power numbers are stacking up.  Get in the know with 5:40 NEWS update - World UCI rankings, and review the top 10 ranked American pro cyclists you should be following. Local Cycling Scene ; Recaps of Tour of St. Louis and the Dirty South Roubaix gravel events.  Corrections Corner and a few other nuggets to boot.

Sponsored and Caffeinated by TELEO COFFEE - LOVE your Neighbor!                     www.TELEOCOFFEE.com 

The Isle Of Fudge - Isle of Wight UK - (20+) Facebook

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:33

Welcome to the 540 Podcast, the podcast by and for all cyclists and adventure-minded enthusiasts, but focused mainly on the St. Louis County cycling group called the 540 Riders. Thank you for joining us, and we are really pleased that our listenership has unexpectedly expanded beyond St. Louis, Missouri. Globally. Hope you are enjoying our banterings. Actually, globally. For the non-initiated of you, the 540 Cycling Club is a close-knit group of friends and about 20 to 30 recreational semi-competitive cyclists, their families, and their friends. And we live within three to four miles of the start point, formed spontaneously in the early 2000s when Joel and Don met by chance at the Grants Trail, which had just been built. And then a start time of 540 was agreed to, Monday through Friday, and it hasn't changed since. And neither has the traditional 21-mile out and back route. What has changed is that the group has grown and evolved ever since. Word of mouth and chance encounters of all kinds have brought us together. All are welcome. We hope you join us soon. If you're ever in St. Louis, and if you're in St. Louis, give us a call. We're happy to have you join. Now let's get on with today's episode, hosted by John Schmidt and myself, Jim Giles. And today, John Schmidt is going to tell us about our sponsor.

SPEAKER_05 2:00

Well, Jim, every 540 podcast is uh sponsored by our title sponsor, Toledo Coffee, Kirkwood, Missouri, whose motto is Love Your Neighbor. But today we've got a special treat. Tell us, John. Today's sponsor has a product that I'm sure is would help all of us through some of the most difficult times we have as cyclists. So, hey Jim, have you ever had a long ride interrupted by saddle sores? Or ended with a not so fresh feeling? Well, you're not alone. Time trial specialist and former cycling pro David Zabrisky had it all. He had bottom bracket destroying legs, generating enough wattage to power a house. But underneath it all, chafing and saddles compromised his performance. In an effort to improve his situation and increase the comfort of riders everywhere, his namesake DZ Laboratories formulated a new chamois cream called D's Nuts, with the dream of equality and maintenance for all. D's Nuts spectral blend of sandalwood extract, tea tree oil, licorice root, and menthol, just so you know it's working, helps eliminate chafing, soes irritated skin, helps heal existing saddle stores, and the antifungal and antibacterial properties reduce the chance of infection. Go to dznuts.com and save 10% on your first order. Trust the brand that cares and keeps you clean downstairs. Trust your butts to D's nuts. Trust your butts to D's nuts.

SPEAKER_03 3:43

All right, guys. I you thanks, John. I I'm kind of speechless. I don't know how to really process that other than it was hilarious. Was uh great. So how did you come up with that um sponsor? I mean, you make that connection. We're live now, it sounds like uh let's see.

SPEAKER_05 4:00

Well, uh you don't know who Dave Zabrisky is, do you? Not yet. Uh I do not, but I don't know. I was following uh cyclists uh cycling way back in the tour era of like the 2000s, and uh Dave Zabrisky was kind of a quirky guy, and he came up with this product. And what better name than D's nuts? So there you go.

SPEAKER_03 4:18

I I almost thought you were making it up.

SPEAKER_05 4:20

No, it's like a like an onion, like an onion ad. Dz-nuts.com.

SPEAKER_03 4:25

Okay, I I will definitely think about that.

SPEAKER_05 4:28

Mom, if you're listening, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_03 4:30

Yeah. And you're living up to that nomenclature that that nickname they gave you last time, the the wrapping viking. That's right. That's right. You're doing good. I shouldn't be surprised.

unknown 4:40

That's great.

SPEAKER_03 4:41

That was a surprise for me, by the way. That we knew that there was a new sponsor, but you know, nothing better than just letting it rip and let us know what's going on. Jim, you're welcome. Okay. I can't wait to get that 10% off. So great. Um, we still have a sponsor coming later in the show, but we appreciate our sponsors and we appreciate John and his great sense of humor. So, next we got um a show for you, right, John?

SPEAKER_05 5:08

Man, we have got we've got like our format is starting to gel. That's what I'm excited about, Jim. After uh exactly. Uh well, when was our first the first time we tried this was back in October.

SPEAKER_03 5:19

Yeah, that was the the um recording in a car on the way home from a bike race.

SPEAKER_05 5:25

Yeah. But I mean an iPhone. Yeah, we're off and running. We got a format, we're all set. What's on tap today, Jim? So yeah, we welcome all everybody um here.

SPEAKER_03 5:33

Thanks for joining us. And um, so you know, spring is here, you know, the peepers are coming up, the birds are singing, the jonquils have come up, and now they've they've frozen and now they wilted because it was 95 last week. So tell us about the weather, John.

SPEAKER_05 5:47

Oh, well, today it was only plus one kelsh, but over the weekend I saw 39 kelsh, which uh for those of you who don't know the kelch scale, 50 is zero, 50 Fahrenheit is zero, and anything above that is uh is a plus number. So uh supposed to be warmer this week. I hear maybe Wednesday, 75 kelch, potential gravel riding weather. We'll see.

SPEAKER_03 6:10

Yeah, and the most important thing for everybody to know, and in my heart and yours, is that we can soon get out onto the 540 trail at 540 in the morning, and you know, we can get our sub-kelsch riders to join us, and and we can actually get some a good proper paceline going, get ready for summer.

SPEAKER_05 6:28

I can't wait. I hear Pat is back and he ate too much ice cream, so maybe that means he'll be a little bit slower.

SPEAKER_03 6:34

Yeah, and we've hoping that Mike Kelch somehow, some cow gets a bike. Oh, did you see his new bike? Mike Kelch has a new bike? Yeah. You didn't tell me that.

SPEAKER_05 6:42

Uh you want to see it?

SPEAKER_03 6:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 6:44

Close your eyes. That's what it looks like.

SPEAKER_03 6:47

Oh my gosh, it's not happened, Jenny. Why am I not surprised? I know he's looking. I I I went at a bike store that I told him to go. I told him to go to the hub. Yes. And I was over there, I don't know, cruising over. I thought I stopped over to get some water and I told him that that my my buddy Mike was going to be coming by, and they said, and I described them, and they go, Oh, he was in earlier today. So he was actually in a he was seen and spotted in a bike store.

SPEAKER_05 7:11

Well, if we were to pick for Mike, what do you think we'd do? Like, so the hub is a giant store, is that correct?

SPEAKER_03 7:18

No, it's okay. It's just a it's a good LDS local bike shop, nothing fancy.

SPEAKER_05 7:22

Right, but they have giant.

SPEAKER_03 7:23

Do they have anything else? They've got felt and scott.

SPEAKER_05 7:25

Okay, so Felt. Felt, okay. But if Mike were a mainliner, he'd be giant, right?

SPEAKER_03 7:30

At uh No, I I was wrong. Just Scott.

SPEAKER_05 7:32

Do you just have Scott?

SPEAKER_03 7:33

And giant.

SPEAKER_05 7:34

What about Sunset Cyclery? They're specialized. They're special. He goes there a lot.

SPEAKER_03 7:38

Yeah. He could get a Rubay. Well, we've well we're gonna table this conversation, otherwise, but we all know. Mike knows now, right? We're watching him. So he does? So today, today we're gonna talk about um we got the thinking after our last show that there's people who aren't listening, who are listening who who've never listened before and they might not know about our about our habitat. So we're gonna talk, we're gonna go to the basics. And before we get into the origin of our story of the the writers, I mean, the most important thing to go over is the the Grants Trail itself. So we're gonna have a special guest talk to us about the history of Grants Trail and and the what we really enjoy. We're gonna have um we're gonna have a little um conversation with David Feedler, who's our guest today. And then uh we might have a quick corrections corners from last week. We have the puzzler results and uh a new puzzler that John's gonna share with us. Bring your A game, everyone. And um and we get the announce the winner, of course. That's the the big thing we're looking for. Then um we've we've got a call into Victor Van Diesel, who's our performance uh sportif.

SPEAKER_05 8:45

I'm still making up my mind about that guy.

SPEAKER_03 8:47

Yeah, I know. He's he's a little controversial, it seems like. You know, it's like any air coach, and you're gonna have guys who love them and people who don't like them, but he's contracted at least for another month. We can we can pull the plug on if you if if we have a vote. And then we're gonna have a little uh news, so we're gonna do uh UCI news update. Um, and then we're gonna have a local news update. We've got uh adding a few bells and whistles on that. Also, we have a puzzler for our guest, Dave Feeler. He doesn't know that. Um and then after that, what do we have, John?

SPEAKER_05 9:15

Oh, let's see. Well, what uh uh uh we've got the uh we've got a cut, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_03 9:22

I I threw that on you, but I that's that's as far as I got on our flow.

SPEAKER_05 9:25

Okay, are we still going? Yeah. Oh, we're still going. Uh so uh we've got uh our trail personality of the week, uh uh, which we'll get to, and uh uh a little bit of our uh historical. Nobody got back to us on the uh uh the fastest Grants Trail party to party uh ever. So we'll get get to that.

SPEAKER_03 9:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 9:44

And uh yeah, a couple other uh treats to throw in at the end.

SPEAKER_03 9:48

Yeah, get some nuggets. And some nuggets at the end. You know, you gotta save the sometimes you gotta save the best for last. So um without any uh further ado, we're just gonna move right into our next section, kind of the main entree. I think we've had a few appetizers here. John brought over some really good pretzel boys, um, little mini pretzel boys.

SPEAKER_05 10:06

Yeah, first time for pretzel boy.

SPEAKER_03 10:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 10:08

I should have brought those. I didn't know you hadn't eaten. I would have brought you one of those Bratwurst things. They were good.

SPEAKER_03 10:13

That would have been good. So, but next time. I'm glad you brought what you brought because I was hungry. So the main entree is we're, you know, we're focusing on like the Grants Trail. And so the Grants Trail, the nuts and bolts of the Grant Trail, you know, it's it's a 10 to 12 mile rails to trail, um, community um trail that goes, it's paved and it goes through residential neighborhoods, and it's an important connector. And um they are this basically it's a it's just a vital recreational and commuter link. Um, it passes through parks, um, wooded areas along streams. There's restrooms, there's it goes right through neighborhoods, it goes past Grants Farm, um, there's Clydesdales and pastures. It's very beautiful. Um, there's also the USS uh Ulysses S. Grant's National Historical Site. It's very important. And you know, I was really we all ride the trail every day, and we take it for granted that we can ride 10, you know, 10, 15 minutes and be on a trail with no cars and um have greenery and scenery all year round, you know. It's just a beautiful luxury that we have, and it's a real blessing. And I it's really draws people to it that need fitness and mental health, and it just brings our community together. It's like John and I were talking, it's like a it's like a crystal clear, pure spring stream that flows right through our community. And just like a crystal clear stream out in the wild in the wilderness attracts animals, it attracts wildlife for sustenance and water, it brings all of us together, the whole community. And it's very we're very blessed to have it. I don't know where we would be. We would not know each other. 100% guarantee, we would not know each other if that trail hadn't been built by um civic leaders and great gate the gateway, greenway folks, and that had to pass a bill. And that's why we thought it would be really important to just delve into that history to so that we can uh appreciate it even further by understanding our history. And that's why our next our guest today is David Fiedler. He's been um riding with us for much longer than I have, and we're gonna talk about that. But he's an extremely um erudite rider. He's got a great background, and he's a big word. Yes, he he's he's the right guy to talk to us and um expound upon and enlighten us about the history of this trail. So I'm gonna let um John Schmidt here do a quick intro for Dave, and then we're gonna see what Dave has to share with us.

SPEAKER_05 12:47

Well, first of all, Jim, you got me uh really emotional about the streams of living water when you told me that like three three weeks ago. I was like, man, you hit it right on the head. But anyway, so yeah, our next guest, uh so Dave Fiedler, author, historian, great personality, former bicycle denison of about.com, uh bicycle vigilante, uh uh Frequent Terrain magazine contributor, Renaissance man, the Mike Rowe of Concord Village, Dave Fiedler.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Welcome, Dave. Thank you. I'm still trying to figure out if I should be mad that he called me erudite. I'm not, I gotta look that up. Oh, this is great. Thanks so much. This will be this will be a lot of fun. Yeah, thank you. You guys are awesome.

SPEAKER_03 13:34

So, you know, when I think about Dave Feedler, um, he's a great rider, he's a great friend to everybody. He knows a lot of people on the trail. He's a South County fixture. And um tell us a little bit about your philosophy on cycling because you you go about it in in such an awesome way. It's inspiring.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

Yeah, well, thank thank you, Jim. That's a good question. Um I, you know, we all I think remember being like nine or ten or twelve and uh finding out that a bike could take us places. We couldn't drive, you know, we were kids, and you know, you can't walk that far, but you get a bike and all of a sudden you can do some things. It's in it is an adventure. Um, and so for me, cycling remains that same feeling of freedom, of exploration, of just sheer fun that I had when I was a kid. And that's what I love. I love our group and you know, the spirit and the energy there. Um, I love that my bike can take me places. Um Jim, you'd mentioned uh sort of adventure and exploration. I love uh putting together sort of cross-country and long distance rides. You know, uh I've organized some for our group. I've done some solo that uh you know people hear about and think it's just uh crazy, but um it's what I like to do. You know, my daughter was in school in Mississippi, Oxford, Mississippi, which is south of St. Louis. Um, you know, it was 400 miles over five days, and I was by myself in the country and just had had a great time. And I I love it. I love bikes, I love riding to work, I love riding with our group, mountain bike, the cross-country thing. Uh it's just it's all fun. And I I just love doing it.

SPEAKER_03 15:18

Yeah, and you you've done some pretty epic rides. And you've you I remember you got me out on a ride, and we went down and explored the St. Louis monuments down south. Oh, yeah. I think was the longest ride at that time I'd ever done. Yeah, for sure. Um we went down to we went right down to the old Limay Ferry. We we went did we go to the bridges?

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Yeah, Frisco Hill um was sort of our destination down there, and those monuments you're talking about, the St. Louis Cycling Club, like a hundred years ago, set up these things that look like almost tombstones, but they were their destination. They would ride out from the city to these far-flung places, and you can still find four of these monuments. Uh, you know, I wrote an article about that for terrain, and uh one of them had been lost to history, but the historians and uh local people, civic boosters in Jefferson County, basically recreated it. And you and I and uh Mark Fitch actually rode out there one day. It was a it was a tough ride, but it was a lot of fun. And again, uh history and discovery and just having a having a great day.

SPEAKER_03 16:19

It's really about having a great day and a good time. It is, you know, there's no trying to go fast. It was about going slow and enjoying the ride and just taking in the scenery and it's like you said, it's a sense of adventure, seeing new places and going far away and it's kind of surprising. I you you s helped me surprise myself to that I could oh, I didn't know I could ever do anything like that. So it's you you do bring that. And not only with cycling, you've done a lot of pretty cool things on kayaking. You're you're the only person I know that has ever kayaked on River de Peir. Yeah, I think Mike. Just those that kind of defines your you know, your sense of adventure and like let's go out and do something that not many people would think about doing, and you actually do it. And you and I over the summer we we uh canoeed and uh kayaked on the Missouri River and we spent the night on the Missouri River and with a group with uh Rob and my son and another one of your friends, and that's we just put in at St. Charles and we just floated and we camped and we pulled out, you know, I can't remember how many, I was like 18 miles. Nobody thinks about floating and camping on the Missouri River, you know? Everyone wants to go to the current river and all that. That was so fun.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

I like I like my friends, you know, the the people in our group and even the people listening, I know, are like this too, with the same sense of imagination and adventure. People who are willing to take a chance and just go out and do some stuff.

SPEAKER_05 17:48

Jim, you want to hear about taking a chance? What if you found yourself standing at Fast Eddies, drinking a beer, wearing spandex, and eating a big owlwood on a stick? That happened at least twice. Dave, you put that ride on for years. Uh and it started at the down at the riverfront, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:07

Yeah, and you know, again, credit to Bill Getz for being a big instigator for that as well. Props, Bill. You know, we'd have people that would show up there, and a 25-mile ride is nothing to sneeze at. It would be 25 miles basically one way to Fast Eddies, and then you're rewarded, like you said, with cold beer and all the food that they have. But John, I think you added a little bit. Not only did you ride downtown 25 miles, but put in the 25 miles to Alton, and then after eating eating and drinking all that, started riding back home. Did you get caught in a thunderstorm?

SPEAKER_05 18:39

Uh, one of the years I did, one of the years I did I ran out of water.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Wow. But just being in what's can oftentimes feel like a biker bar, clip clopping around in your tap dance shoes, uh, and in your yeah, in your lycross. That's bold.

SPEAKER_05 18:57

Yeah, Dave, I'm glad you said that. Well, I thought about bringing soccer shorts, and I'm like, no, it'll be fine. And I was the only one like full kitted out spandex, and like you said, I've got my clip-clop shoes, and I'm thinking, well, it's not that if I get in a fight that I'm worried about, is if I rear back and try to punch somebody and my feet go out from underneath me because my shoes are slippery.

SPEAKER_03 19:18

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was you guys have done some cool things, and and you know, it all started at the Grants Trail where we met. So can you, Dave, tell us a little bit about like the Grants Trail? How did it come to be?

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Yeah, what a resource. I mean, um, we are fortunate in this country just that there were a lot of visionary people back in the 80s and 90s, not just in St. Louis, but uh all kinds of places. It's how the Katy Trail came about. There's uh rail trail conversions uh across the country that are similar resources to this, where as uh rail traffic diminished and these lines were abandoned, um, you know, legislation was passed that I think it's called rail banking, where um the lines are held just in case the railroads would become operational again someday, but in the meantime they can be used for recreational purposes, which is exactly how Grant's trail was built. And, you know, just a history of the railroad itself, um, you know, a lot of it it in the St. Louis in the 1800s, huge industrial town, as we know. You know, one of uh with Boston and Philadelphia and New York, one of the three, four major city, most major city in the United States, huge industrial, huge agricultural place, lots of railroad traffic um hauling uh grain, commodities, and things to the river and uh shipping it that way. And the what's now Grants Trail actually came about because there was such railroad congestion on the existing lines going east-west downtown that somebody said, Hey, let's let's put in a little bypass here. Um, and so it was called the Corondolet Kirkwood branch of the Missouri Pacific train line. And um, so you know, Ulysses S. Grant, we mentioned him before, had his property there, Whitehaven, which is now the historic site, Grant's farm, um, was a supporter of it. The rail line, you know, to did and still does run right through that property. And so he granted an easement, actually donated um the material to build a station there. But what it was, it was a bypass to the overcrowded main lines that went through downtown, a way to ship uh stuff to the river more directly, kind of south there. And so it was busy. It that was 1872 when it first operated. Um, it was going strong until the 40s, but then uh railroads sort of um I was gonna say lost steam, but uh that's a that's a clunker of a joke. Um but eventually ran, you know, kind of ran out of uh ran out of business to support it and it slowed. Enough to the point that in the 1980s the train line was abandoned completely and just stood idle. But then as I mentioned, there was the push across the country to take these old trail lines, rain uh rail lines, and turn them into recreational paths. And so Trailnet in 1991 led the charge to develop that. And um at that point, believe it or not, there was a lot of opposition to it. People like, you know, what? We don't want these people tromping through our backyards. It's gonna bring all kinds of riffraff and bad elements. And it was uh to the point where, believe it or not, Grantwood Village sued to block the trail's development. And, you know, I think that's Grantwood Village where uh, you know, we started Party Road and and by Grant's Farm. Um, and it went all the way to the Supreme Court. Uh yeah, it was a landmark case and trail net prevailed. And so uh construction started in uh after that, by the time it was finally resolved in 1994, 95, and then the trail first opened in 1997. And at first the segment was just a six-mile stretch from where we start at Party Road going east to uh the Union Road trailhead where uh Orlando Gardens is. So that was the original six-mile stretch, but a couple extensions added since then. And instead of being a nuisance, right, and something that people dislike and are afraid of, you know, you look at any real estate listing along the along the Grants Trail and they will promote that as a positive aspect of the house.

SPEAKER_03 23:30

Quite the opposite.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Just steps from Grants Trail, and you know, probably uh command a 10% premium. I don't know. But it's certainly seen as an asset by the community, and people choose to live by there for that reason.

SPEAKER_05 23:43

Dave, do you know uh you know Jim Bojanchek?

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Sure.

SPEAKER_05 23:46

Uh, and then somebody named Denise Vote from the same class.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 23:50

I think 1993 we rode on the railbed. The the ties were taken up.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:56

And uh, if you've ever like walked on the ballast for a train, it's not bikeable.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

No.

SPEAKER_05 24:02

Uh so it was about three or four miles of like really hard slogan, but I remember that day really, really well. We threw our bikes, mountain bikes in the back of Jim's Jeep Wrangler, and uh went to the trail.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 24:13

Yeah, pre pre-pavement.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

You guys are pioneers. I think we should credit you for developing it.

SPEAKER_03 24:20

Speaking of pioneers, I I I sometimes thought they have some really good um, I guess you would call them like you know what what they call it is like descriptor uh just kind of the the uh signage, historical signage. Some of it's about the nature, and it some of it's about the the the creek that goes through there is the gravey trail. And I believe that's an obviously a French word for gravel, right? Gravois, like gravel uh creek that goes through there. And that that was apparently when I remember I'm reading one at one point before it was a train, it was actually a road. It was like uh covered wagons would take it to get to Kirkwood. And I think Ulysses Grant had his house there. That's how he got to his house from the river. Um and even before that it was actually, you know, with one of the covered bridges trails, it was an Indian um trail.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

Yeah, creeks like that are for sure natural travel corridors. Yeah. And so for hundreds of years, you know, long before the railroad, of course, people were using that. It was fairly flat in the floodplain of the creek, yeah, and uh a natural place to go.

SPEAKER_03 25:26

Yeah. And it's it's nice, but it you know, it it is in a valley, so it tends to be a little bit cooler in the wintertime, and and uh you don't get as many breezes. And we just we love it. So what else would you like to tell us a little bit about uh the you kind of brought us up to have a really good background? I didn't pay attention in the 90s when it came to vote, and I never knew that it went to the Supreme Court. What was it like to be voting for that at the time? I mean, what do you remember the sentiment uh overall in the community besides Grantwood Village?

SPEAKER_01 25:57

Yeah, so uh there's uh several steps in the development of both the trail and sort of the funding of the whole Greenway system within St. Louis. Trailnet was really a pioneer in uh creating what is Grants Trail itself. And then um St. Louis County, and I I I'm not sure about this. This may be in the corrections for the next time, whether it's St. Louis City and St. Charles, I'm not sure how it much it expands, but yeah, a dedicated sales tax created the Great Rivers Greenway um recreational district, which is responsible for developing this whole network of trails all across the area. And you know, I think people saw what uh Grants Trail what an asset it is, and the use it gets and how it's little kids on bikes and it's old people walking, and runners and cyclists, and people out with their dogs and gosh, commuting for sure. And you go to other places where everybody's out on bikes and and on foot, and like this is awesome, and wow, we can have that here in St. Louis too. So the Great Rivers Greenway, the the sales tax that funded that um actually passed, you know, without a a great deal of opposition, um, because the initial hesitation for uh Grants Trail and you know the Cady Trail faced similar opposition from a lot of the agricultural interest, but I think people see what a what a gem that is for our state as well. Uh and so what Trailnet did to get things started has really um cascaded into a wonderful network of greenways. And and you as you know, Grants Trail connects with now the River to Pear Greenway. Um it's gonna extend into Kirkwood eventually. And you know, our whole community this may take decades before it's finally complete, but you know, um uh the ring that will, you know, you could go pretty much anywhere in the whole metropolitan area on bikes on things like the Grants Trail, protected from traffic and uh with other bikers and walkers and you know, people are out being active and enjoying the community.

SPEAKER_03 27:56

That's great. And would it go all the way to Kirkwood or would it just be signage on the side of roads?

SPEAKER_01 28:02

Right now there's on-road connectors, but there is um uh railroad siding that is expected to be developed that will go um from where the north terminus is now at homes in 44 into downtown Kirkwood by the farmer's market. And it would be but it'd be on a on on a rail trail paved path like Trans Trail.

SPEAKER_03 28:22

But there's I don't would would it would they have to take homes down to do that?

SPEAKER_01 28:26

I don't would it's there's an existing rail line that I think you know what sometimes they'll have two train tracks running side by side. I think there's one train track in place, and then there's another section that's large enough that's got the easement devoted to it, it'll run alongside an existing train line. So the infrastructure's there, they just need to the space is there, they just need to put in the path.

SPEAKER_03 28:46

Would that eventually connect to uh the other trails that like the the what's the new one that they're building that you had uh enlightened me to a couple years ago, the um the Rock Island Trail?

SPEAKER_01 28:59

Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:00

Is that still in development?

SPEAKER_01 29:02

Yes, um that's a Missouri State Park, and um they're working on that in segments. You know, that when connected with the Katy Trail will be a 400-mile car-free loop, you know, basically spanning from um St. Charles County all the way basically to Kansas City, and then the Rock Island uh is a south loop that goes down by the Lake of the Ozarks and um connects at points along the way. I get Windsor. Yeah, connect at Windsor.

SPEAKER_05 29:29

Jim, what if we did that in one day?

SPEAKER_01 29:30

That would be that would be epic. So are you guys gonna talk about this, or did you last week we haven't talked about it? So uh one day end-to-end ride on uh Katy Trail.

SPEAKER_03 29:41

Yeah. Who's interviewing who? I know he's a good guess. He's a good guess. He's reversing us, but that's fine. Yeah, we speaking of these rails to trails, there's a the Katy Trail. It's uh I it's the longest trail rails to trail in the United States. In the country, yeah. In the country, yeah. I believe that's true. It's 241 miles long. And two years ago, was it two years or three years ago?

SPEAKER_05 30:05

Four yeah, it was broken getting old.

SPEAKER_03 30:08

2022 before 2022, John had the idea to organize a group of guys to ride the entire length of the Katie Trail in one single day. And how many miles is that? 241 miles. And we did it. Ride that in one day. He convinced me to do it, and I I signed up, and I couldn't get out of it once I signed that contract. Um, so there were 10 of us that started, and 11 started, and then only nine finished. Two two guys had to bow out. Um, understandably so, they they might have been a little smarter than us. But what was amazing. We started it, we took a van, two vans with our bikes, and we had a SAG crew. We drove all the way out there on Friday night, and we had a nice dinner. We stayed in a Motel 8, a Cinder Brick Hotel right there in Clinton, Missouri. We got up in the morning at what four? We rode.

SPEAKER_05 31:00

Yeah, we were on the trail at 4 30.

SPEAKER_03 31:01

Yeah, and then we drove we rode all the way back to St. Charles, past St. Charles, 12 miles past the Mockins, and we rang the bell. And we did it. How many hours? Twenty hours. Twenty hours. But the riding time was less. Yes. Because I took in case the take in taking out the brakes. Yeah, we did that. Tubeless tires. Yeah, we had a yeah. Next time I will learn about tubeless tires. I that tire was slashed on that bridge. It was like it was slashed.

SPEAKER_05 31:31

Oh, in Boonville.

SPEAKER_03 31:32

In Boonville, yeah. That was amazing. And so yeah, so it can be done. And uh but I will never do it again, personally. Some people Matt Bull was saying he wanted to do it again. I'm like, Matt, I'm out. I want to ride somewhere else 240 miles. Yeah, I've done that twice, so I'm done. Yeah. Um, but getting pulling us back to St. Louis, there was a vote last year um about the South Broadway connector. Can you I didn't you fill me in?

SPEAKER_01 32:01

Yeah, so Great Rivers Greenway and uh the city of St. Louis and all these partners um you know continue to develop uh trails, both dedicated um bike lanes and separated bike paths and all kinds of um variations of uh bikeways in the city. And uh South Broadway is a main connector for us and all cyclists who you know are in South County and want to end up downtown. And so there's a big project underway to rebuild South Broadway, dedicated bike lanes, traffic calming measures. Um it, you know, it's passable, but you know, I know that you, Jim, don't love riding through there because the pavement's so rough. This should be uh a real enhancement to the cycling in St. Louis.

SPEAKER_03 32:47

Yeah, I will do it if it's up on a gravel bike. There's a lot of debris, glass, scrapyards are there. There's a lot of there's a lot of traffic and screws and lumber yards. And it's it's a very industrial, heavy industrial place. So you're gonna get a lot of debris. Fantastic. Well, thanks for telling us about that history of Grants Trail. Um that I think we're kind of that I feel good and complete with that, given that we have a limited amount of time to talk in general for our podcast, but that was great.

SPEAKER_01 33:13

Well, one more mention is that you know the extensions that have been added to take it up into Kirkwood. Um, you know, there's two miles that was an earlier one, and then what we've just enjoyed since 2020 is the additional, I don't know, three or four miles that go from Orlando Gardens all the way to the River to Bear and tie in with that greenway and give us a great loop like we rode the other morning. So it's it continues to be a great place for us to ride.

SPEAKER_03 33:38

Yeah, because even when you get all the way up into Webster, Shrewsbury, and Maplewood, it's it's pretty easy to connect to Forest Park. It's very easy to swing over to Webster, and there's some very good connectors, a Deer Creek connector, and it's it's amazing what they keep doing. So thanks for filling us in.

SPEAKER_02 33:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:52

Great. Um, we're gonna switch gears, and I I appreciate it, David. And um, there's some questions that we have for you um because you're a special guest. We want to let you off without a few surprises, right? So, John, tell us what you got for our guest.

SPEAKER_05 34:08

Oh my goodness. Well, uh, those who know Dave and his German heritage and uh German language skills and his author uh authoring about German POWs in St. Louis, what a compendium. Uh, if I could use that. I read the whole thing start to finish and uh have shared a little bit about German POWs and the places that I've been uh in the history. But anyway, so uh Dave, for you, uh the lightning round of 10 questions tonight is a German cycling trivia.

SPEAKER_03 34:39

Okay, I'm I'm ready.

SPEAKER_05 34:40

And uh, Jim, are you ready?

SPEAKER_03 34:41

I'm ready. I've got a few sound effects to try to um enhance the experience. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_05 34:47

You get about five seconds to answer each of these questions. Are you ready? Yes.

SPEAKER_03 34:51

No, you're gonna, if it's right or wrong, I'm not gonna know the answer.

SPEAKER_05 34:53

Well, a thumbs up for right, thumbs down for wrong. Yeah, we never did the protocol, did we?

SPEAKER_03 34:58

No, we do not.

SPEAKER_05 34:59

Okay, you ready? This is a softball. What nickname was given to time trial specialist Tony Martin? They're Panzerwagen. Yeah. Which German sprinter do you most resemble?

SPEAKER_01 35:13

Which one do I most closely resemble? Living or dead? Oh, I know.

SPEAKER_05 35:17

No, he's living.

SPEAKER_01 35:18

Yeah, he was he was strong about eight years ago. And uh just a beautiful guy, and I'm not gonna come up with his name.

SPEAKER_05 35:29

Marcel Kittle! Yeah, I used to call him Marcia Kitten. All right. Which Tour de France winner was Lance Armstrong's rival for a good part of his career? Which German Tour de France winner? Five, four, three, rusty here too, too. Jan Holrick.

SPEAKER_01 35:49

Okay, good ready. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 35:51

Okay, which German sprinter was nicknamed the gorilla?

SPEAKER_01 35:55

I'm I'm uh you know what? I'm I'm rough on this.

SPEAKER_05 35:58

We gotta we gotta buzz him here. Oh, did we I didn't tell him he's playing for a breakfast sandwich at Toledo?

SPEAKER_01 36:04

Oh.

SPEAKER_05 36:05

But he's gotta get at least five right.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

Okay, well he's I may have missed out on it already.

SPEAKER_05 36:10

Yeah. We got okay. Uh let's see. Next one is uh who was the uh oh no, this is uh which German cyclist coined the term shut up legs?

SPEAKER_01 36:19

Oh, that's Jens Void.

SPEAKER_05 36:20

Absolutely, the Yen Z. Which uh who was the German national road race champion from 1942 through 1945? I do not know that one. Through from 1942 No one give it to him, give it to him.

SPEAKER_03 36:37

That was good. Hold on, does does he get any passes? Like he did he get a couple passes? Who's who's making the rules here?

SPEAKER_05 36:44

No, he gets no passes. Okay, right. Okay, sorry for him over here. Uh which uh uh which German uh uh uh major corporation uh in pink sponsored uh uh the German cycling team for many years.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Oh, that's T-Mobile.

SPEAKER_05 36:59

There you go, perfect. Uh okay, translate translate this German phrase.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

Rod Weltmeisterschaften. That's the cycling world champion.

SPEAKER_05 37:11

Yes, absolutely. And uh uh Nazi Germany hosted that in 1936. Berlin to Berlin de Zurich. Okay, so we got more? Oh, we got two more! Okay, okay, okay, okay. Okay. I'm feeling better now. What was the name of the uh uh Eastern Bloc race that was like a tour de France for basically Iron Curtain uh uh in the Czech Republic and uh East Germany? I don't know that, Jim. Yes, it was the peace race. That sounds familiar. Okay, and then finally in the movie Animal House, yeah. What was the name of Sergeant at Arms of uh Omega Theta Pi?

SPEAKER_01 37:50

Uh I don't know that one either.

SPEAKER_05 37:52

Douglas C. Niedermeyer. I got an easy one for you.

SPEAKER_03 37:58

Okay. I got a harder one for you. This is very local though. All right. So on Grant, this is multiple choice, so you you get a chance. Okay, I'm ready. Okay, so on the when we're doing our route, how many um losing the word of it, but um how many Bigfoot Sasquatch signage do we pass? Is it one, two, three, or none?

SPEAKER_01 38:26

None.

SPEAKER_03 38:29

Oh man. There are there are two. There are two Sasquatch little, you know, those cutout metal things. Um I'll I'm not gonna tell anybody where they are, but they're one is very prominent. The other one's a little harder to find, but I'll point them out one morning with the sun glistening off of them.

SPEAKER_05 38:46

Okay, okay. Jim, you're a little trigger happy with that buzzer thing. I love it. I love it. Well, Dave, you uh you don't get a Chileo breakfast sandwich, though. Because he did, he got five, didn't he? What's that? He got five. Hey, who's making the rules here? Well, okay, I'll get him a sandwich. Fine. Okay. Okay, but what you do get is uh saying from my father's youth, schmeißt du über mit dein Orsch, was du mit den Hand ausfeld. All right. And we're not going to translate.

SPEAKER_03 39:15

Well, let our our our audience do their best. What if this makes it to Germany? I think I just cursed. I think we could we could expand, just keep expanding. We're we're playing to the international crowd now.

SPEAKER_05 39:27

How about a big hand for Dave? Hey, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 39:31

That was boy, that was tough. I uh had to dig back to the recesses of my mind for a couple of them, and there were plenty that I stumpers. Yeah, that was great.

SPEAKER_03 39:41

Well, we're gonna hit pause real quick and we'll be right back. And we're back. And now it's to time for uh John to tell us about the puzzler.

SPEAKER_05 39:48

Yeah, so Jim, uh uh in our inaugural episode, I uh uh posited, if I can use that word. Sure, I followed. Um fantastic. Um, a problem where uh I if I was shifting from uh uh an easier gear to a harder gear in the back, so that's a big sprocket in the back going to a small sprocket in the back, and it wouldn't shift right away, and it would sometimes kind of click and eventually would actually downshift. So that was the puzzler. Now we had uh several people call in. I mean, I love the enthusiasm of these people. Uh uh the wrong answer, so Keith from Sunset Hills, I don't know who this Keith is, but Keith said, I think the answer to the puzzler is the rear shifter cable is too tight or the lower sprocket on the derailer is too tight, if you were talking about the very last gear on your cassette. Joel from Crestwood answered, the podcast is phenomenal! Funny! The three of you were quite entertaining. By the way, when the chain doesn't want to drop down, it's what's called an upgrade light. My favorite. Finally, Doug from Festus says you turn your lower limit screw to the right, and then you check your tire pressure. That's a Colorado Doug inside joke, by the way. He also reminded us that 540 is like fight club. The first rule of 540 is you don't talk about 540. So unfortunately, uh those were incorrect answers, but they did win something. They won the licensing rights to our 530 540 t-shirt, which means that they get to go to the store with their own money, buy a regulation white Hanes t-shirt and a Sharpie and write 5,4-0. And if you do that, Keith, Joel, and Doug, you'll be all set. We did have one winner though, Brian Rages. All right, Brian Rages. Yeah, so Brian wrote in and said it's a friction problem. He said, you know, your cable uh probably has a bunch of gunk in it, and the cable and housing need to be replaced. You replace that, you're good to go. And that's that's exactly the right answer. Brian wins at Toledo Coffee. Yeah. Brian. Now, what's crazy is we could have made good on that on on uh Saturday, but Dave actually bought coffee for everybody. Okay. Well, not you. You were late. Yeah, I was late.

SPEAKER_03 42:00

But it next time. Next time. Fantastic, fantastic. So congratulations to Brian. Yeah, way to go, Friday. Thanks to all our participants uh in seriousness. Uh we appreciate your your enthusiasm.

SPEAKER_05 42:10

Okay, you ready for this week's puzzler? It's a quick one.

SPEAKER_03 42:13

Laid on us.

SPEAKER_05 42:14

Fantastic. Back in 2012, I was in Tahoe on a borrowed road bike. It was a look 797 or 220, 221, I'm not sure which. But uh we had some uh pretty wicked fast descents. I was out there with my sister Bianca. So we're I'm going like 50 miles an hour on this borrowed road bike.

SPEAKER_03 42:31

50 miles an hour.

SPEAKER_05 42:32

I'm sure.

SPEAKER_03 42:34

She's in the mountains. It's not on the 540 Grand Street.

SPEAKER_05 42:36

Yeah, and I hit the brakes and the bike got this crazy speed wobble in the front. Well, I knew for my motorcycle days if you clamp your knees around the top tube, or if it's a motorcycle, a tank, it'll actually dampen out and attenuate that. So I did, and uh when I got back and uh was able to look at the bike, I diagnosed the problem. Jim, what do you think I found? I don't know, but you have long long knees. I do have long knees. I I put them on the top tube, not the stem.

SPEAKER_03 43:03

Oh, I thought you said the stem. Well, maybe I did say the stem.

SPEAKER_05 43:07

That would be that's pretty impressive to do. So um I have no clue. Well, let's see if our listeners have a clue. Okay. And if you have the answer, don't forget to text Jim and John for your chance to win a Toledo coffee of your choice.

SPEAKER_03 43:20

That's up to them. Okay. So the question is it might enhance your chance of winning if you do that. How to fix the wobble or what's causing the wobble?

SPEAKER_05 43:27

The question is, what caused the wobble, the speed wobble on this look 220 or 221? And uh there's only one correct answer. What here was the bike? I found it was a 20, probably a 2011, but I was writing in 2012.

SPEAKER_01 43:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 43:42

Oh, is that significant to the answer?

SPEAKER_03 43:45

Um, it can be if you'd like. All right, we won't get into that. That is a great puzzle. I can't wait to hear what we uh come up with uh for our winners for next year. Next next next year. I think we're gonna do one before next year.

SPEAKER_05 43:56

Vote early, vote often.

SPEAKER_03 43:58

Yeah. Mail in has affected. Um, very cool. Well, that's our puzzle. Is there um do you want to do our quick um trail personality real quick?

SPEAKER_05 44:08

Oh, absolutely. So just like we are the moving soundtrack to the lives of the people that we pass by on Grant's trail, so are they to us, Jim and Dave. And today, last time, who did we highlight? I'm trying to remember. Was it Denny? I think it was Denny. Okay, this time, and we don't know his name, but I want to I want to give a shout out, even if he's if he's listening, to the mega tall e-bike guy. So he's riding an e-bike with big tires. He wears an NBA jersey every year, and he looks like a dead ringer for Maverick, former Maverick, Dallas Mavericks coach, Greg Popovich.

SPEAKER_06 44:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 44:44

So Popo, if you're out there, props to you, my friend. Thanks for being part of our scenery.

SPEAKER_03 44:49

Yeah, he is very tall. I mean, his bike has got to be a custom build. I mean, his his head tube is about 10 inches tall.

SPEAKER_01 44:59

He's got like a Greg Oti.

SPEAKER_03 45:01

Yeah, yeah. And he wears a bike jersey. He wears the um NBA jersey.

SPEAKER_05 45:05

I've seen him in a Jazz jersey. Uh, collection goes. Oh, yeah. Okay. Oddly enough, I've never seen him in a Dallas Mavericks jersey. Really? Oddly enough. Maybe he's being ironic. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 45:16

All right. Cool. Well, that was our personality. And now I think it is time to make a phone call. I think it's time for our weekly coaching check-in with uh Victor Van Diesel. I I did get a hold of him ahead of time. I told him to exp we're going a little bit beyond schedule, so I hope that he's still that he's, you know, up. He's expressed. What time is it there? It's at least three when there are seven hours ahead of us, so it'll be.

SPEAKER_05 45:42

Yeah.

unknown 45:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:43

3 a.m.

SPEAKER_05 45:44

I hope he didn't stay up drinking last night. He might be getting his music ready and you know. All right, let me get him on the whatever thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:52

Okay, let me get him on the phone. Okay. Um Victor. Yeah.

unknown 46:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:10

I'm gonna put John with John and Jim. Um that's me, right? It's been a while. Hope you're doing good. All right. Uh Pop Pop John. Okay. Um this is John.

SPEAKER_05 46:20

Hey, hey, Victor! Yeah. How are you doing? Yeah, yeah. Hey, John, how are you doing? You know, Victor, I couldn't be better. Um, I'm so glad to hear this. Uh it's great to have you back on.

SPEAKER_03 46:34

Oh, you don't know how excited I am to see everybody talk to people again. I I told my friends about everything that we we talk about, and I don't know if they tuned in. But uh, we will I'm so excited to be on again. That's I I cannot stop saying that, huh?

SPEAKER_05 46:50

I'm so excited. You you may know that there's a global following to this podcast, and especially we want to mention all the send-ups you gave for uh I think uh Brian uh Humry House. Yeah, you did a wonderful job pronouncing his name. Well, it's easy for me, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Brian Rages, I think you mentioned. Yeah. And uh this is right, yeah. Anyway, I've not heard if Mike Kelch has uh uh listened to the podcast actually. Okay. Uh and uh, you know, if he's had any opinion about this uh sub-50-degree cycling. But it is wonderful to have you back. And uh what have you been up been up to, Victor?

SPEAKER_03 47:27

Well, you know, been busy training with the boys. We go out riding and I try to keep them stronger. And you know, we have plans, we have plans for the the Tour de Flanders coming up. We got a development team, uh, we've got the cobbled classics coming up. So much, much action. We are doing lots of training. And I hope that you are doing training too, John. I want to hear about it. I've heard, I see some numbers on Strava, yeah. But um tell me, tell me, how can I help the team this episode?

SPEAKER_05 47:59

Well, Victor, uh, thank you for asking about uh rides. Just this last week.

SPEAKER_03 48:03

Hold on, I gotta light a cigarette. Hold on. Okay, good. Yeah, I still smoke, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 48:09

Victor, just this last weekend, I was on a ride with uh special guest Dave.

SPEAKER_03 48:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 48:14

Uh and several other people, and I just am proud to report uh my number. So you're ready? Yeah, lay it on me, man. 21 miles. Yes. And uh average heart rate of 108, 108. So what do you think of that? Am I uh Well, how fast were you going? Um You don't use Strava, I don't see. I was uh well I I don't I'm I'm kind of a private guy to be honest with you. 14 and a half miles an hour was our was our average pace. So I I'm I'm wondering, am I ready for the pro ranks, Victor?

SPEAKER_03 48:46

You put me in a difficult position. I did not expect this kind of um this kind of put me on the spot thing, you know. Um John, I think I think anybody who gets to be the ages of us, we are not going to be on the tour. So I think it's so good that you are riding your bike and you pay attention to the numbers and you just keep doing the best you can ride to ride, you know. And it it's you you cannot nobody expect to there's so few riders who get that to that level. You're fine, John. You know, Victor, it's I don't think so.

SPEAKER_05 49:21

That's what my answer is, but we can it sounds like a participation trip. Uh Victor, I want to know if you watched uh Milano Sanremo.

SPEAKER_03 49:30

Oh man, this was incredible, absolutely incredible rice. I think edge of the seat, excitement from the poji and from the peacock. Man, what do you think? I like these drones, this drone video. I mean, I can see how dangerous it is.

SPEAKER_05 49:51

It added a new element, just like the in the Olympics with ski jumping, even speed skating, right? Just so cool. So uh let's see, the Chipresa, right? And uh especially the Poggio, uh amazing attacks, and uh so uh uh it and what's incredible is uh uh uh uh Primos, no, not Primo's, sorry, uh Tade, right? Yeah, so Tade hits the deck. Yeah, he went down. He many, many of the big key riders that go down. And Wilde hit the deck. He got he mangled his finger. Did you see that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tough guy. So hey, I've got some numbers here, and then I've got some of my own numbers, and I want to know uh what you're if we can make a comparison. So I don't know if you saw the numbers of uh uh uh Tade's sprint against uh Tom Pitcock. So are you ready? Yeah, uh average power. No, so this is a sprint for remember uh Pitcock made him uh made him lead out.

SPEAKER_03 50:51

Yeah, they get to Via Roma, and then they are like close and they are playing the game cat and mouse back and forth. And meanwhile, the Peloton was coming right back.

SPEAKER_05 51:01

They were right there, and Walt was right there, right? Yeah, Walt was pulling. Yeah, so uh an average power of uh 1,060 watts for 14 seconds. That's like one and a half horsepower, just so you know. Uh, and then a max power of 1250 watts. Uh, first of all, are those numbers believable? Do you think they're uh the team's actually sharing real data?

SPEAKER_03 51:24

When it comes to this guy, Taddy Pukachar, he is like no other rider we know. He's incredible. You know, they say he is not from this planet, they say he's from Slovenia. I say he is a Slovelian. I think he is alien from Slovenian. I mean, he's incredible. I mean, what you say, he's the best.

SPEAKER_05 51:52

Well, while we're on that topic, no one has passed, at least nobody that's got official reserve uh res uh results, no one has passed the five tour mark. And he's on four, right? Yeah. So what do you think about his chances of surpassing Jacques Antile and Bernard Hinault and the others who are five?

SPEAKER_03 52:17

Four de Tour de France. Five de Tour de France.

SPEAKER_05 52:19

Right. Pretty good, man. Yeah, you think so? Yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah, this is that's his target, man. How old is he? I don't remember. He's 27, I think, yeah. Well, no, no, no, 28, yeah. So I've got some numbers of my own that I'd like to share with you. Okay. Okay, and these are uh these are from Cycle Bar. Cycle Bar? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:42

What is this?

SPEAKER_05 52:43

It's you go drinking and cycling? No, no, no. It's a place, it's indoor cycling, and Susie is the instructor, and she does a good job. And uh, so uh my peak watt, my peak wattage was for two seconds and it was 984. And then for 45 minutes it was 255 watts. So, what do you think of my chances are of uh how about just being at the tip of the spear this year at the time time? Yeah, you knew where I was going. Maybe for two seconds. Wow. Wow. Well, you want the honest opinion? I I do. I yeah. I mean, you pay me for these. I I'm still not sure how I'm paying you.

SPEAKER_03 53:28

I think two seconds would be awesome, man. Um you know, that's okay. I cycle bar is one thing. There's no wind, there's no wind, there's no well they have they have fans.

SPEAKER_05 53:38

They have fans, but it's nothing. I think it's time to change the uh I I want to change the subject to something very serious. So so over the years with Chain Lube, there were uh, you know, people were like Boeing T9 or Rock and Roll or You know, Bow Shield, there are other types of like, you know, people are just dying the wool about types of lube, wet lube, dry lube. So now it's waxing. All right. So I have a question. For our 540 listeners, what is your opinion about waxing or other lubes?

SPEAKER_03 54:16

I don't really care what you use, but lube your chains, man. You can't you gotta keep them clean. I had a phone call from anonymous tip from your team. I get a call.

SPEAKER_05 54:30

Sounds like we've got a mole.

SPEAKER_03 54:31

And they were telling me that there are some guys who could improve their watts if they keep their drive chains cleaner.

SPEAKER_05 54:42

So this true uh I hear a lot of squeaks. I'll be honest.

SPEAKER_03 54:47

There should never be the squeaking. Squeaking is is leaking energy over and over. I mean, you gotta have a good friction reduction. So you have to use if it were me, I would definitely be using the uh the waxing eye to keep it clean and it it keeps it cleaner longer. It's a little bit more work, but you guys can do it.

SPEAKER_05 55:09

Folks, you heard it right here from Victor. Squeaking is leaking. Yeah, that's what we say all the time. I just no, you just made that up. How do you know, John? Do you speak Dutch? I do not. I do not. Uh that's all I've got for you. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 55:28

Keep your drive jeans clean and uh no squeaking. And um, I don't know who this mole is, but I'll keep an eye out. Okay, all right, Victor. I'm gonna go back to my day. We're getting ready for a big uh Tour de Flanders and the cobbles, and time to party, man. Time to party. Gotta keep keep pushing.

SPEAKER_05 55:52

Alright, Jim, are we done with uh Victor?

SPEAKER_03 55:57

Hold on, we lost him. He he just hung up.

SPEAKER_05 56:00

No.

SPEAKER_03 56:00

Okay. He didn't even say goodbye this time.

SPEAKER_05 56:03

It's really kind of of an uppity guy, if if you ask my opinion. Oh yeah, he he seems like he's got an opinion. It reminds me of some friends that I have.

SPEAKER_01 56:13

Yeah. We all have friends like that. But he didn't say who the who the chain culprits were. He said it was anonymous. Did they highlight anybody who could use a little uh I don't know, I think chain maintenance?

SPEAKER_03 56:26

I know it could be me. I'm I do my best, but sometimes I squeak. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 56:30

I knowing we were gonna have this podcast, I washed all three of my bikes on Saturday. Okay. All three. Gotta get ready for the spring, I guess. There you go.

SPEAKER_03 56:40

Okay, so we're gonna take a quick break and we're gonna come back with some quick news and recaps. Awesome. And now it's time for the international news from the UCI. This is Jim Giles, and so we're gonna talk a little bit about the uh rankings, about the UCI. Racing is off to a strong start this year. And so, top rankings. Tade Pagacra at number one, Del Toro number two, Jonas Vindigo number three, Renko Evanpol is number four, Mads Patterson is back. He is no longer injured, he's recovered. Um, he is five. We have Matteo Vanderpol at number six, we have um Jao Almeida, seven, Tom Peacock, then Wout Van Art, and then Jay Vine from Australia. Those are the top ten. Amazing.

SPEAKER_05 57:57

Hey Jim, I really like Benecio del Toro and usual suspects. Ah, that's a different no. Oh.

SPEAKER_03 58:03

That's a different Del Toro. He's from Mexico, though. Yeah. So now then we have the uh top-ranked young riders. These are under-23 riders. U23s. U23s. These are the exciting guys. I mean, these are the things that you know, these guys are really pushing, these top guys, and they have lots of upside. Number one, we talked about him last week, last uh episode. He has a bit of a um odd last name. Controversial, I would say. Controversial. It's it's you know, it's his name and PG, Jim. Paul Sexas. Paul Saxas, he is from France. He is the number one um trending. Um, a lot of hype around him. He's from France, and he could be the next Tadi Pagaccio.

SPEAKER_05 58:46

You know, Jim, Jim, just so you know, my cousins that Dave knows, they used to live next to people called the sex hours. So there you go.

SPEAKER_03 58:54

Yeah, it's it's it's it's S-E-I-X-A-S. He's 19 years old. He got second place in the Strade Bianca. He's really strong. And he races for decathlon. Next is your buddy Del Toro. He's 22. He was with he's with UAE. Um, he got first place in the Terreno Adriatico. Is he Kaiser Sose? Yeah. What does that mean?

unknown 59:20

Never mind.

SPEAKER_03 59:22

You're killing me. You're killing me with these presents. Next, we've got Lenny Martinez. No, excuse me, in third place, Oscar only. He's a Brit. He's 22 years old. He races for Ineos, Grenadiers. He's got a lot of upside. He's a really exciting writer to follow. He just signed with the Neos. Um, he came over from Decathlon, I believe, and he made a big signing. Big signing. Um, then we've got Lenny Martinez, he's French, um, 22 years old. He raced for Bayraun Victorious. We've got Matthew Brennan, who I'm actually thinking is going to have a good upside. Matthew Brennan is another Brit. He races for Visma. He's only 20 years old. Yumbo? No, it's just Visma.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:03

Just the Visma. Just Visma.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:04

Visma Lisa Bike. They actually have a new name too. Then we've got Juanayuso, who's 23. Juana Yusso is Spanish. He's with Lidl Trek. He just converted over, he just signed with Lidl Trek. Um, he one Yuso was with UAE. He he he he jumped trick. The next writer that um who's young, exciting, American, Matteo, Matthew Richetello. Matthew Richetello is 23 years old. Um, I'll tell you a little bit more about him. He's a Yank? He's a Yank, yeah. He's really, really good. Yeah. And then we've got Paul Mannier. He's another French guy. He's 21 years old with Soudell Quickstep. He's a very good writer, too. So the French have some good, they are, you know, they haven't won the Tour de France in how many years? They're very excited about these writers.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:49

Jim, my takeaway is if you want to be a great American cyclist, you have to have a name that doesn't sound American. That's like TJ Van Garden.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:57

Yeah. Yeah, he's won. And then you've got your uh, you know, my first writer that you've got a who's number ranked worldwide is Matteo Jorgensen. Now, he's from Boise, Idaho, slash, California. He's 26. His Palmeras are really good. He's ranked number 19 right now, but he've won the Perineese twice. He just got eighth place in the in the in um he got second in the Toreno Adriatico race in in Italy recently. Um he's won many Tour de France stages. He races with Vismo. And he he is also a super domestique along with um with uh Sapkus, another non-American American name. And then we've got um so gotta like Matteo Jorgensen. He's a great personality. Um next we got number 21 is Brandon McNulty, he's with UAE. Brandon McNulty's 27. He's won the tour to Poland a couple times, Volta Valencia and Luxembourg. He is a very strong breakaway type writer for UAE. Keep an eye out for Brandon McNulty. Um 52, Nielsen Paulson. He's 29. Paulus, Nielsen Paulus, he's 29, he's with EF Education. Um, he is a strong breakaway writer. He's won several times on the Tour de France, and he's also good at like you know, break like one day races as well. He's out of California. Next is Quinn Simmons from Durango. And if you've ever seen Quinn Simmons, he's got really long hair, those big chops and that beard. I'm add that's not very arrow. Proposed on the champs and used to do schemo before. Yeah, yeah. He's he's he's so strong. He is a true breakaway artist. He could pull away on a lot of rides. And he is with Little Trek.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:38

Next is that's the guy that looks like he could play a motorhead as well. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:42

He's got he's got like he's got like a goatee slash beard with sideburns and feet. It's awesome. He does. He looks like um like a motorhead guy.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:52

Um next is uh like you just see him throwing down ace of spades while he's off the front. I think that would be awesome.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:58

And he is the the U.S. national road champion writer. So he will be wearing the U.S. Okay, it's kind of his Captain America thing going on. Yeah, he looks like Captain America. Yeah. And then um number 61 ranked is that Mateo Richetello, who's he's 24, he's from Tucson. He's a big climber. He's a he's really small. I think he's only weighs like 130 pounds. Um, he he was he placed first in the the Tour of uh Provence this year, and he races with De Cathlon, and he's gonna be in the Vuelta Espana and Basque. The other riders that I just mentioned are all going to be in the Tour de France. So good to watch on them. Next one is Sep Coos. You know, he's 31. He won the Vuelta a couple years ago. He's a super, super demo stick climber. He's out of Durango, Colorado as well. Um, he's won the Vuelta Espana many stages in the Tour de France. This year he's racing the Giro Italia and Tour de France. Next is Luc Lamparti with EF Education. He's 23, he's out of California. He's really focused on one-day races, um, the classics and the cobbles. Um and then honorable mention Roubaix, do you know? I but possibly. I didn't get into that. That would be awesome too. Um, right, and some honorable mention is Riley Sheehan. He races with NSSNSN, which was NSN used to be Israel Primeritech, but they changed their name to NSN. He's at 25 out of Boulder. And then lastly is Magnus Sheffield. Um he's a young guy, he's 22, and he races for Inneos Grenadiers.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:28

Oh, yeah, there's a political reason for changing that name. I remember that. Yes, there was. Yep. All right.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:32

Um, so that's our world news update. Now we're gonna go, um, we're gonna try on a little bit something more local.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:39

540.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:02

And now it's our section for the 540 local news section. What do we got today, Jim? There's lots going on around town, and we're gonna talk about a few of these things um that you need to know about, um, cycling related. So um, we're going to talk first. Um, well, there's a lot of things that we can talk about, but we we talk about the tour to St. Louis that just happened, um, the Dirty South Roubaix, which was the extra, extra dirty version. Um, we also have local rides to touch on that you might want to do besides the 540, you know, and then upcoming events.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:38

So, Jim, kind of in reverse order, you just did a time trial this last weekend. Yeah, it's part of uh Tour of St. Louis. Tell us a little bit about it.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:45

Well, I signed up for it the night before the event because I thought, why not? Some I saw some people were doing this, and I'm like, I've never done a time trial. I'm not gonna win. It's just something new to try to keep my brain young and just try something new. And um so yeah I did it. I signed up and it was an eleven mile, it's it's a traditional time trial. It starts out Central Road in St. Chesterfield area.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:09

So you're on your own on that. You're not racing with uh with a Peloton, any other riders, it is just a solid gym gile sprint.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:16

It's it's an individual individual time trial. Okay. Yeah, so they they put off riders every you you sign up for it and there's different categories. You know, you've got the pros, one, two, you got all the way down to juniors who are 15 and younger. So there's male and female segments, and it's broken out by age and then by categories. So cat one, two pros, cat threes, cat fours, then cat four fives, which are kind of like the the Eddie Merck's group. That's what I did because I've never done it before. And I'm not UCI ranked. I did have to get a Missouri or a USA cycling license. Yeah, one day license. I actually bought the whole thing, they had a discount.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:51

So then um I got on there and then I had to pay you know 40 bucks to race. And so I rate there's also masters. So there's masters 40, masters 50, and uh masters 60. So I raced in the cat 4-5, which is I mean, I raced against uh kids that were 25. I was actually the oldest in the 4-5 race. There were 17 of us. I got eight, I got sixth place. Jim, what'd you learn?

SPEAKER_05 1:07:16

What did you learn out there?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:17

I it was learn how to pace myself, how to ride in a more of an arrow position. Um just watch your heart rate and just do the best you can and not do anything stupid, you know, blow yourself up too early. Pace yourself.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:31

Oh, you rode your new bike.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:33

I did ride a new bike.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:35

That's awesome. Yeah. Does Michelle know, by the way, that you have a new bike? Of course. Okay, very good. I didn't know.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:41

She knows because she was there. She I had to call her to pick me up when my other road bike got crashed. Okay, and then you'd ride home. So very good. I didn't I didn't know if that was yeah. There's no secrets in the Giles house.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:52

Yeah, it's perfect. Marital Bliss, you heard it there. And then uh Dirty South was uh a week and a half ago, right? Two weeks ago. Two weeks ago. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:00

Yeah, there was a lot of people, there were over 200 or 500 to 600 people signed up for it, maybe more. It's a 62-mile um race of basically 100k. It's about 4,500 feet of elevation gain. Um it's an Alto Pass. Um it's happened. This was the 10th riding running of it. So yeah, again, eight different age groups you sign up for. I was in the four 50 to 60 year old guys and did the full, I did the full dirty, and it was quite a day. There were many people signed up to go. I would say half people did not go. The weather was terrible all week, as you know, it rained and rained. I was driving to the event, and everybody I was supposed to ride down with veto, veto canceled. Okay. Um it wasn't his fault, he actually had a headache, he he just wasn't feeling well. But there were many other people who bailed, and rightfully so, they were probably much smarter than anybody of us who went out. The conditions were just biblical. I mean, it was biblical conditions, pouring rain, thundering, lightning all the way down, red cells barreling down on as you're headed to the race. Yeah, I'm riding to the race in the dark, and as the sun comes up off highway three going down, all I see are puddles, uh puddling, lakes, ponds that normally are not there. And it's pouring down rain. There's lightning that's just soaked. I'm like, what the heck are we doing? So I figured I'll just go and see what happens. So I pull in and it's like there was no weather going on. It was pouring down rain, and put on my rain suit, went and got my packet, and they said race is going on. I'm like, are you gonna push it back an hour when the lightning goes away? Nope, we're going for it. So we we got lined up. We're all lined up to for the big start with uh they had a pace car to pull us out of town. It was pretty legit. But it was pouring rain, and there's lightning and thunder over our heads, and I thought this is a little freaking nuts. But we did it.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:58

You did it, you did it, you finished. Uh stream crossings.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:03

Yeah, there were stream crossings big time.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:05

Yeah. I mean, there there were like seven of them, and I would say six of them were about six inches deep. So you know, you come barreling down through these hollows and you gotta go across a creek, and it grabs your wheels, but you can pretty much get through it. And no big deal. But the last one was like two feet deep. And you had to kind of wait across with your legs sideways just waddling because well, I saw a couple guys go do endos and then their bike was almost floated down the stream.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:33

Yeah. Yeah, some of those pictures made uh Facebook.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:36

Yeah, they were awesome.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:38

Yeah, for sure. Um two things. Yeah. First of all, for those that just turned tuned in, if they tuned it at the wrong wrong time, they would have heard you say, I did the full dirty. I just wanted to you know make sure everybody knew that. And then secondly, you mentioned it was 100K. You know about the metric system and the Illuminati, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:10:58

No.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:59

Well, we'll know about I know about both of them, but I don't have them connected.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:03

Well, we'll get into that in the next episode.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:05

Okay, that sounds like a good puzzler. Okay. Are you gonna invite somebody from the Illuminati Illuminati to Illuminate us? I don't know if I know. Maybe the Illuminati or the mole. I don't know. Maybe. Maybe. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:22

What else, John? Uh well, I think we just got a hot take fresh off the press.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:26

Yeah, I got a I got a news um off the wire. This is important. This might be an invasion. As fresh as it gets.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:31

This might be an It's almost like a live show.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:33

I know. I just got a text we were talking about this. It was neat that this might happen. There was no, this might be an invasion of privacy, but but we love Pat Ayers. Pat Ayers, he he's um uh writer with our team, and I just got this text from him quote Hey, I went on a ride yesterday, then got home, took off my shoes, and my feet started cramping like crazy when I was walking around barefoot. Have you ever had this happen to you? It's a hot take.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:04

You heard it first.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:05

Yeah, yeah. So I this is a question for our audience Is this ever happened to you?

SPEAKER_05 1:12:10

Uh I was mountain biking yesterday morning early.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:14

And lofted my front wheel up over a rock, yeah. My foot started making a weird like it hurt.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:20

Uh, because I was RWO. Riding while old.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:25

Yeah. There you go. I don't know what Pat's problem is. He's young and spry.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:28

He is very I think he ate too much ice cream. I think that's his problem. Yeah. I think so. I think he's got that. I I also think maybe he kind of maybe a little bit dehydrated.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:37

Jim, local, uh, just a little local history.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:40

Uh to throw this in there. We had asked a question about the record for party to party, the absolute record. Uh, nobody uh wrote in with any conclusive evidence. You and I looked it up though. I think you had it on Strava. I had it on my my Garmin plot. So this is what I've got. The party road to party road, meaning out and back, that's like 20.07 miles on my Garmin. Maybe it's 21. August 11th, 2020, an average of 21.3 miles an hour. And then my average heart rate, uh, your results may vary. Uh 159, my max was 171. And I looked at my speed plot today, uh, there were only one to two times that my speed plot was actually zero. And think about how hard that is with all the road crossings. Yeah, it was the pandemic, right? So there weren't a lot of people uh out on the road. So once at Teshire, for whatever reason, uh, you know, it's rare that we see people, but like sometimes we do. And then right when we turned around at Orlando Gardens, my speed went down to about one.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:49

So anyway, and then I think you've got a strop a segment on that now. Is that right?

SPEAKER_03 1:13:53

Well, I I yeah, we created it. So I created it on the app. Pat told me how to do it.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:58

Awesome. Just a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:00

Moving forward, we've got a target to hit.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:02

21.3 mile an hour average.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:04

It might not ever happen again. That with the traffic, unless we have somebody go ahead like and close off the traffic for us and block off the route.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:13

Maybe we could have Marcel Marcel Kittle come. What do you think? Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:18

Um cool. Local rides, just to throw about obviously 540. There's the KECC. Um, there's the hub ride on Saturdays. Um, those are all starting back up again. There's the Knucklehead route that starts out uh Clayton out of Big Shark on Sundays. Big Shark, I gotta give them a shout out because they do organize some of the great um events around town, such as Tour de St. Louis, which in addition to the time trial, there was the Corondolicious time trial at Corondolet Park on Saturday afternoon, and then on Sunday was the the the uh criterion on at Force Park.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:55

And a mountain bike race in Corondolet. Did you know that? They they had one there too, Park? Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah, there was a mountain bike race at Corondolet Park.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:01

Have you done that, Loop?

SPEAKER_05 1:15:02

I haven't ridden it yet.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:03

Yeah, I did on my gravel bike. Oh, yeah, it'd be like David. You guys would like it. It's really cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:07

Well, Mike, a mile and a half, brand new mountain bike trail in Corondolet Park.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:10

Yeah, and that was sponsored by and developed by Tim Kakoris. Kakoris at um Southside Cycler. Heck yeah. It is a very flowy, cool. You can do it on a gravel bike.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:20

Hey, speaking of the shark, happy birthday, Mike Weiss. I just saw that on Facebook. It's today? Uh it was like today or yesterday, I think. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:27

He's he does a lot of good stuff for St. Louis cycling. Next, uh Monday evenings, there's the Road Crew. Uh they meet at the former Road Crew Coffee. It's down um um uh what's the name of the street? Morgan Ford down near uh Tower Grove Park. That's just the fun ride, the community ride. Um, and then there's the Wednesday night, Wednesday night gravel, which John and I um participate with. Um Wednesday night gravel and we meet and we ride the um the loop at the Bush Wildlife.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:57

Bush Wildlife.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:58

So anybody who wants to join that can join.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:01

Boy, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you need to be able to roll uh probably 16, 15, 16 miles. Something like that, yeah, for sure. And have good headlights. Absolutely. Uh what do you think of what did you think of the sunset? That's week it's getting better. It was incredible. Yeah, great sunset over Crowt Run Lake. It was beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:18

I'd gather another big plug for for gravel racing, riding because you get to see amazing things out of nature.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:25

It's great. Remember the owl?

SPEAKER_03 1:16:27

Yeah, the owl.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:28

Yeah, we saw an owl.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:29

Bardo, yeah. Yeah, there were some deer that were crashing around near us. And the the peepers, the frogs, they were really coming out. It was just great to be out of nature. I love that. Then there's the bike surgeon has a Saturday ride. There's the O'Fallon Trek ride on Monday. That's crazy fast up in the flats. Um, and then there's this other um unofficial ride that I get texts from Aaron Kohler from time to time. He loves to ride Columbia Bottoms. Um, that flat route uh where he gets his uh time trial mode going with his aero bar. That is fun to go with him. I've done it once.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:03

Um you could just hang on the wheel. Yeah, those guys will do 25 miles an hour.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:09

Yeah, some of them have time trial bikes as well. So you can hang on the wheel. That is that is a true test. And then, of course, Tuesday Night Worlds at Crondolet Park. They're starting up. Um, they started up right as daylight savings. So that's if you want to go watch those guys race um at Tower Grove Park, uh, excuse me, Crondolette Park, they start around five o'clock. They end around dark.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:31

That'd be funny if people showed up at Tower Grove and want to put a number on because of us and they were in the wrong place.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:36

Now we we already made the correction.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:39

It's at Crondolet Park. There you go. Yeah. There you go.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:41

Um, upcoming events is on April 11th. Is the outlaw?

SPEAKER_05 1:17:46

You forgot a ride. Oh, which one? Justice? No, Justice Ride? Tell me about that. Yeah. Oh, just us. Yeah, it's just us riding. Yeah, just us.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:55

Yeah. There you go. That's not an unsanctioned ride. It's very unsanctioned, absolutely. Um, there's a lot of other mountain bike events, but I'm not tapped into that world.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:08

Yeah. So Outlaw, that's all part of Justin Bowen's outfit, I think, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:18:12

It's replacing the uh St. Genevieve Gravel Classic. Um, again, it's very similar out. Um, April 11th. Um, then there's there's a there's a really cool event that started last year. Um, Route 66 Shakedown is a criterion race. It takes place out at Route 66 uh park off of 44. Um is there a pavement out there? Yeah, grilled a big loop.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:36

Yes, okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:37

It's it's an abandoned that was Times Beach. It was so Times Beach had the dioxin problem, and there were houses there. Yeah. So they they tore all the houses down, but those roads out there are are flat. Um, they're in great shape, they're paved, and so they have a loop around there and they turned it into a criterion race. Nice. And it that starts this Saturday. I think they have like uh one race a month. They've got podiums. I think the guys from Road Crew, um, I can't I believe that they're kind of behind. There's a guy named Matt McReynolds who does the hub ride and he races for axon racing. He he's the mastermind behind it. So and they want to get youth out there to race. So if you want to go out and race and have fun, it's pretty safe. It's not like you're growing winging around a criterion race with curbs. There's no curbs, it's a very wide road. Um, there's not too many sharp turns. And it's if you wanted to try to do a criterion race, um, that's a good one. I know Pat Ayers did it last time.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:36

Oh, yeah. So dun dun dun dun dun. Did you say McReynolds? Matt McReynolds. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:43

Um, yeah, I don't remember. Are are Dean Keaton and Verbal Kent part of that or not? The road crew? Do you know those guys? No.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:53

Okay. No, I don't. I'm probably thinking so. Okay. That's kind of the the local news right now. And we're gonna move on there, uh kind of wrapping up our show. And we if you're still listening, hello. Um, we hope you've enjoyed it so far. We're gonna wrap up with a few of those nuggets um that we talked about. The one is the corrections corner. So this is where we we call ourselves out for mistakes that we've made in the past episode.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:17

Yeah, here we go.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:18

John keeps track of them. I've got them.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:20

I've got them all. Jim, you said something curious about your wheels. You want to correct that one?

SPEAKER_03 1:20:24

Yeah, I was I was I was I was getting a little worked up about how important it is to to wax your your chain. And I I got very excited, as I tend to do when I talk about waxing chains. I I said, Don't forget to you, it's really important to wax your wheels. Do not do that. That was a mistake of mine.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:43

I was um I felt like my wheels were waxed when I cut through the cork ball fields and it was all dewy, and I had rim brakes, and I went down the hill across the road and right up the other side because I got dropped and I was trying to catch you guys on the top track. So don't wax your wheels. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:00

Or or ride with rim brakes and carbon in the rain.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:03

Okay, calling myself out. Uh I started uh the 540 in 2007, not 2006, so I was off a year. Uh Jim, you started when your daughter was in high school, first time not college. Okay, there you go. There you go. And then I'm taking an exception to you saying everybody is three to four miles away. Hmm.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:28

Well, I was wrong about that. That was very most people are three to four miles away. Because John is not he he was at a time, but he's he I was.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:38

I was I actually I was 1.7 miles away, and I knew if I left at 5.32 and a half and really got after it, I could make it and not be chasing. Because what happens at 5.40 in one second?

SPEAKER_01 1:21:50

If what happens, David? Uh wheels turn and there's no waiting. So the ride starts.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:57

You better ride and and hope that the uh the light turns red at the next that is the law and gospel put down by Joel Christensen. Now we will wait for people if you get a flat tire, of course. This is a this is a no-drop ride, but you can't be dropped if you're late. You're late, you're you lose. You snooze, you lose.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:18

I think that's all the corrections we had.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:20

Okay, that's good. Yeah, but we do have writers come from much further on.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:23

I'm still reeling over this foot cramp issue with Pat.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:28

Yeah, I'm so unfortunate that that happened to him. Maybe he's taking too many saunas. It could be.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:34

I'm sure though.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:34

It could be the the thousands of listeners, somebody will have a solution for him.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:39

Yeah.

unknown 1:22:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:40

Too bad we don't know an orthopedic surgeon.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:46

Yeah. Well or a massage therapist. Yeah, there we know some people who could help out. I'm not touching Pat's feet. Yeah. Okay. Well, that was our corrections corner. And um, so we're gonna wrap up with our next episode. John, you want to share what we're what we're what's what we're noodling. Absolutely, Jim.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:04

Well, hey, I mean, as part of my sign-off, number one, it's an honor to be with you and with Dave here. Dave, thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:10

This is great. Thank you.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:11

And uh I've known Dave Fiedler since about 1982.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:16

In Concordia, Missouri, when my cousin got uh uh he got confirmed. Dave was there with his family, his dad's Corvette, and uh Dave's been part of my union. You've been part of my scenery, as I have been yours. So thank you. Uh next time, the Genesis of the 540, uh, the originator of the 540, our friend Joel Christensen will be joining. And uh stay tuned for uh uh as he regales you with uh stories of how the ride started, how we all met, and uh we're gonna read an honor roll of everybody uh that has ridden the 540 with any level of measure. Stay tuned, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:23:53

Even if you were on it for one ride.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:55

Nope, nope, nope, nope. It's gotta be we're gonna have qualifiers. Oh okay. Oh, but uh, yeah, we can't, not one ride. Yeah, okay. This is okay, we can't have anarchy. Okay. But anyway, all right. So uh Sayonara, uh goodbye. Uh and uh thanks, everybody.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:12

Yeah, and I'll just close with, you know, let's go for a ride. It's that time of year. Spring is sprung, right, David?

SPEAKER_01 1:24:19

Spring is sprung.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:20

And so it's just a question of it getting above 50 kelch, and that then there's no excuses. We're all gonna join. 50 kelch is 100 Fahrenheit. It's gotta be it's gotta be something Kelch. Zero Kelch. Above Kelch. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:35

Okay, John, we're gonna sign off here. Do not ride like John. Don't ride like my friend Jim. As long as we ride together, we're all good. All right.