Tag: Steve Frothingham

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Show #535 – January 2, 2021

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Guests: Steven Frothingham; Charles Pelkey & Patrick “Mad Dog” O’Grady

HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope you had a great holiday – not too much carousing and all!

With SO much anticipation for a better year, I’m hopeful that will be the case.

Today, I thought we’d begin with a wrap-up of the 2020 bicycling season with Steve Frothingham, the editor in chief of Bicycle Retailer and Industry News,.

To say it’s been a stressful year would be a gross understatement and I knew Steve would be able to put a lot of it in perspective.

I’m not sure what your experience was with bike shops or bike related products in 2020, but it was uber-challenging to say the least.

Once we figured out that bicycle retailers were “essential workers” and that going outside was a safe and in fact very important piece of the pandemic puzzle, the bicycle was suddenly on center stage under huge spotlights.

What happened next and as a result of some unanticipated twists of fate if you will, left the industry overwhelmed with demand, absent of adequate product, and scrambling to figure out how to solve what are still difficult and exasperating problems.

Steven and I talk about the winners, the losers, and what we might expect in 2021.

After our break, we loop in Charles Pelkey and Patrick O’Grady – AKA the Live Update Guys.

Even though they no longer do their wildly popular LUG gig, Charles called me last week to talk about the loss of one of their “regular” posters to the daily commentary that followed along with the major races each year.

Monsignor Richard Soseman – known as just Mons when he chimed in to the sessions, was originally at St. Peter’s in Rome and recently had transferred back to the U.S.

On December 6th at the age of 57, he died from COVID and Charles wanted to offer up a fond tribute as well as his heartfelt homage to a sweet and special man. It’s a lovely story.

Along with Live Update Guy Patrick “Mad Dog” O’Grady, here is my conversation with Charles about the Monsignor.

Click the link to read the Monsignor’s “essay” from stage 8 of the 2014 Giro

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Show #472 – September 28, 2019

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Guests: Steve Frothingham; Jeff Speck

Steve Frothingham, editor of Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, talks with me about the tariffs and the effects they have had and are having on the bicycle business.

Then, I speak with Jeff Speck. He is one of the most influential city planners working today. Formerly the Director of Design at the National Endowment for the Arts, his company Speck and Associates is a planning firm that serves both municipal and private clients.

Jeff walks the walk, talks the talk, and give us a fascinating “civic” lesson in when and how communities thrive, how the environment is either supported or undermined, and where we find inequity in society.

Oddly enough, we have a fairly deep discussion of parking and how it affects how cities thrive – and, in fact, cities are NOT thriving! Making them more bikeable and walkable though?

Yes – bicycles, walking, and public transit play a HUGE role in all of it.

We talk about some practical ideas that even cities in dire financial straits can do to make walking and biking safer as well as controlling traffic more intentionally and successfully.

So, while his book, Walkable City Rules, 101 Steps to Making Better Places, might be a manual for professionals, I believe hearing the ideas and successes puts them into a place where you can see yourself perhaps getting involved and helping to make lasting change. You can attend council and planning meetings and, taking some of Jeff’s simple “rules” show your city there just might be room for protected bikes infrastructure.

One more thought here… many of us have abandoned the roads because of safety concerns. Instituting some of the “rules” in Jeff’s book might just put us back ON the roads – where bicycle belong!

I don’t usually air the small talk that takes place as we begin to roll for recording the show; but, Jeff sort of surprised me by asking ME questions and the interview just began to unfold – without any formal. introduction.

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Show #461 – July 13, 2019

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Guests: Steve Frothingham; Rob Sulaski

First up is a conversation about the safety of three helmets from three different manufacturers.

I’m not sure how much I faith I put in Consumer Reports, but I do know that a lot of people look to the organization for assurance that they are making a good choice about a purchase.

So, when an article titled, “Who should you trust? Helmet makers dispute Consumer Reports findings” I get curious.
Three helmets were called out for alleged safety problems and issued “do not buy” warnings.

Steve Frothingham, editor in chief of Bicycle Retailer and Industry News as well as BicycleRetailer.com wrote that article and offers us a deeper look into how these helmets failed CR’s testing, what the makers of these helmets had to say, and what we might want to do if we have one.

We have some news this week, including a sighting of what one journalist is calling the coolest bike at the Tour de France, and then we speak with Rob Sulaski who is working for two companies this summer – Strong Towns, which we know really well from conversations with its founder Chuck Marohn – and Urban3 a geo-analytics company – we’ll tell you what that means when we speak with him.

Rob details the two articles that attracted my attention, one titled “The Lake Effect” which is NOT about snow storms off of Lake Erie; and the other about Palm Bay, a town in Florida that has miles of roads, lots of infrastructure, and almost no residents.

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Show #366 – September 23.2017

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Guests: Steve Frothingham; Don Ferris (encore); Eric Barber (encore)

It’s Interbike 2017 and so, I’ve snagged Steve Frothingham, the online editor for Bicycle Retailer and Industry News to tell us about the show, the product categories that are trending, and the move to Reno for 2018.

Then, since Brian and I are in Boston for the Builder’s Ball, I’ve dipped into the Outspoken Cyclist’s archives to pull out a couple of past conversations.

First one is with Anvil Bike Works‘ Don Ferris. He’s funny, smart, and full of great information. Builders look to him for the finest in tooling as well as his knowledge of his craft.

I also pulled up the conversation with Eric Barber from Copenhagen Wheel. Since they are the “gold” sponsor for the Builder’s Ball I figured it would be a good match for the show tonight.

Next week we have a brand new episode of the show… but, kick back and enjoy this one!

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Show #199 – June 21, 2014

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Guests: Roanoke Times’ columnist Dan Casey; BR&IN web editor Steve Frothingham

Happy Solstice All! Why don’t you stay up late and listen to the show!?

This week saw reports of an almost unprecedented number of bicycle fatalities from coast to coast and from north to south. The admonition “be careful out there” is taking on a whole new meaning in light of these incidents and I decided to go outside my usual purview to look at the Roanoke, Virginia area – which had a triple whammy of fatal bike crashes back in March – from the perspective of an active cyclist who also happens to write for the “Roanoke Times” on these matters.

Dan Casey is the Metro Columnist for the Roanoke Times in Roanoke, VA and a 20+ year veteran cyclist. Dan puts an up-close and human spin to three fatal bike crashes that occurred in March in Roanoke as well as an update on a rider who is recovering from a recent and scary crash while on a long-distance training ride. We’ll also learn how Roanoke is starting to address the car-bike situation with their annual “Rally for Road Safety” events.

I also welcome Bicycle Retailer and Industry News web editor Steve Frothingham back to the show for a chat about how bicycle-media embargoes work and how the timing of new product introductions are handled by the media as well as a frank discussion about the changing environment for bicycle dealers in an ever more competitive environment.

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Show #74 – January 21, 2012

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Seems like we just recovered from our Solar New Year’s hangover, and it’s already time to celebrate the Lunar New Year. What will the Year of the Water Dragon bring for you? Lots of great (and safe) cycling adventures, we hope.

To start the year off right, we’re headed up to Burlington, Vermont to have a chat with Glenn Eames, who owns and operates the Old Spokes Home, a combination bicycle shop and bicycle museum. Glenn sells and wrenches on both modern and vintage machines, but his passion is for classic bikes, and a large number of his customers are local university students.

You may have read about the recent civil court case between Specialized and Volagi. Volagi was started by two former Specialized employees, and as sometimes happens, former employer sued former employees over who did what when, and with what secret knowledge. If you’re confused, don’t be alarmed, our buddy Steve Frothingham from Bicycle Retailer and Industry News joins us in the second half of the show to explain the whole thing in plain English.

And to wrap up on a very happy note, Mark Griffith of the Moab Skinny Tire Festival drops in to talk about his event coming up March 10 – 13 in Moab, Utah. The Skinny Tire Festival is not only a showcase of the best, low traffic riding in Moab for us non-MTBers, it’s also a fundraiser for Cancer Survivorship Programs.

This time of year, we like to think of The Outspoken Cyclist as a “winter survivorship program” for cooped-up cyclists. À votre santé!