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Show #667 – April 10, 2025

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Guest: Levi Leipheimer

I wanted to get this episode out right away as it is time sensitive. 

It isn’t always my great good fortune to be able speak with one of the iconic American pro riders who is still “in the bike world,” but today is one of those days.

Retired pro racer Levi Leipheimer’s career goes back to the mid-90’s, and throughout that decade and beyond he racked up some impressive stats including an Olympic medal, the U.S. championship, and winning three tours of California – the list is very long.

When he was 13, he saw his first Tour de France.  That started the dream of being a TdF rider and he told himself… one day that will be me.

And from that dream, Levi went from amateur to pro, becoming a rider for the Rabobank team in 2002.  Over the next few years, he didn’t fulfill his Tour de France team just once, he fulfilled it 10 times, completing the event 8. (Unfortunately, he crashed out of two of them!)

As you will hear in our conversation, what he saw as he traveled the world racing his bike, was how fortunate he was and that led him to his desire to “pay if forward.”

And, according to him, one of his greatest successes is the Levi Gran Fondo.

A Gran Fondo is defined as a type of long-distance road cycling ride, originating in Italy in 1970, and roughly translates into English as “Big Ride”. Officially, the event should be at least 120 kilometres (75 mi) long, and the riders are individually chip-timed (start to finish) with prizes for the fastest riders.

Now in its 16h iteration – losing a couple of events to the pandemic, – Levi’s Gran Fondo has become one of the most recognized and popular in the U.S.

It ‘s coming up quickly – April 19th and here is my conversation with Levi as we roll up toward the start line.

  You can find out all about Levi’s Gran Fondo, including the Growler Pro Roster, how to sign up, show up, or watch it live from wherever you are starting at 11am Pacific Time on April 19th via YouTube at levisgranfondo.com.

It sounds like a great event!

There is expanded content on my Substack page.  Please consider subscribing to both.  Follow us on FB, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube.

Transcript_April 10

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Show #666 – April 7, 2025

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Guest: Alison Tetrick

She really wanted to wear skirts and get her nails done, but Alison Tetrick, while remaining ever the fashionable girl, is a feisty competitor – in all sorts of ways.

Starting out as a tennis player in high school, she played in college on a full ride where she studied biochemistry.  She worked in drug discovery research for Amgen, and then….with all her energy and competitive urges, was egged on to bike racing by her grandfather Paul Tetrick, who found his passion for bike racing in his 60’s and raced well into his 80’s.  (scroll down to see Paul & Ali’s info)

Alison’s trajectory toward success on the bike was almost instantaneous as you will hear in our conversation. But it wasn’t all unicorns and roses.

As strong and capable as Alison is, she tells us about some of the things that will take a person down – physically, mentally, and emotionally – and learning to deal with them – asking for help, realizing you can’t always do everything on your own, will shape you in new and perhaps much better ways.

Our conversation runs the gamut from her early successes on the bike to the work she is doing now to get more young girls into the sport. And her honesty, humility, and frankness are refreshing!

You can follow Alison and her journey @amtetrick on social media. Check out her bandanas  to help and support more girls and women on bikes.

Here is the link to Gloria Liu’s article, Cycling’s Silent Epidemic.

And if you find yourself at either Unbound or Sea Otter, look her up!  She’ll be there.

I’d like to let you know that there is now expanded content for most episodes on my brand new Substack page.

Next time on the show, I’ll be speaking with Sarah Barnes, another podcaster and  journalist who specializes in micromobility – especially autonomous vehicles – and urban geography.  We’ll explain that too. 

Ex-pro racer Levi Leipheimer will also be joining me to talk about his Gran Fondo as well as his ideas about how to reboot road riding here in the U.S.  I’m ALL ears on that one!

Transcript_April 7

 

 

 

 

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Show #665 – April 2, 2025

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Guest: Joe Lindsey

I love talking about bike racing with Escape Collective’s Joe Lindsey because he has such a superb grasp of the sport – for both men and women.

Today, our conversation covers a little bit of the Spring Classics – Paris-Nice, Milan San-Remo – both men’s and women’s editions – as well as looking ahead to Paris-Roubaix and on into the upcoming Big Tours.

Having failed at Milan-San Remo five times, Tadej won’t be satisfied until he wins that as well as any other Monument he has in his sights.

We muse about how Tadej will do at Paris Roubaix next week, being the first to attempt it AND the Tour de France as defending champion in the same season since Greg LeMond in 1991.

I always learn so much from Joe.  As he reminds us, this coming weekend, the 268.9-kilometre for men and 148 km  Tour of Flanders for women pushes off on Sunday, April 6th from Brugge, Belgium with a who’s who of illustrious riders.

You can watch the race via FloBikes, but unfortunately there won’t be any other coverage in the U.S.

Of course, we talk about how bike racing is – or maybe more accurately – isn’t – covered by the media, especially here in the States, and why we haven’t re-embraced track racing as the perfect American spectator sport.

Next time on TOC, we speak with super start Alison Tetrick.  We talk about her TBI recovery as well as the surgery she opted for to keep riding her bike when sitting on a saddle became unbearable.

Transcript_April 2

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Show #664 – March 13, 2025

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Guests: Professor Alex Karner; Maria Elena Price

I believe many areas of our lives are going to be impacted as funding for programs as well as the institutions that disseminate that funding is pulled by the executive branch.

One of the areas of concern is transportation – especially as it pertains to safety, equity – ooops there’s that hot word – and access. Vulnerable road users and those who rely on transportation other than a car will be negatively impacted and some of the hard work that has been going into remedying past damage done to neighborhoods by wrong thinking on the part of planners is being interrupted or stopped all together.

My guest today is Professor Alex Karner from the U. of Texas in Austin. 

I learned about Alex and his work in an article by David Zipper written  for Bloomberg News on February 26th.  He stated: “Alex Karner got an email from the Transportation Research Board ordering him to stop work on his research project studying equitable access to goods and services.”

Professor Alex Karner was one year into a two-year grant when he received the email from the Transportation Research Board ordering him to stop all work on the project he was overseeing into equitable access to goods and services.

Focusing on accessibility, civil rights and environmental justice, travel demand modeling, and community engagement, Alex brings his background in civil engineering, transportation planning, and history together to look for solutions.

You can follow Alex and his work on his website, alexkarner.com as well as read some of his recent work.  There is also the list of the cancelled transportation research projects as of the conversation he and I had.

My second guest today is Maria Elena Price; she and her sister Monica are co-owners of Experience Plus Bicycle Tours.

Many years ago, Maria Elena’s Dad, Rick Price the founder of Experience Plus, visited my store in downtown Cleveland along with several of tour company owners for a weekend Touring Open House.

Each tour director gave a short presentation about the company s/he represented and what I remember most about Experience Plus was the emphasis on the language and culture of the tours they offered.

When this new generation took up the reigns, that emphasis didn’t change, and today’s tours are as interesting, varied, and immersive as they were then.

As she said in our conversation, check out ExperiencePlus.com and see some of the information she characterized as over-sharing! 

After our conversation, I checked back with Maria Elena to see how the imminent tariffs might affect her company and bicycle tour travel.  Here was her response: “I think the exchange rate volatility is going to be the biggest concern for a company like us. As well as major volatility in the market of course. So anything to do with the economy being bouncy is always concerning! In general though I think some people’s appetite for travel abroad may also increase, so we’ll see.

She added that she is hearing fewer people might want to travel TO the U.S. because of the volatility and tariffs.

Transcript_March 13

 

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Show #663 – February 25, 2025

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Guests: John Surico; Paul Swift

My guests today are NYC’s Professor John Surico and the bike fitter’s bike fitter, Paul Swift.

John is one of my favorite repeat guests as those of you who are regular listeners know.   When I want to know what is happening in the Big Apple about sustainability, bike crashes, open streets, and anything else that has to do with urban life, Professor John Surico is my guy.  His substack blog “Streetbeat” is one of my favorite reads each month.

And go figure, this conversation was recorded exactly one day before the President put the kabosh on congestion pricing in NYC.

John and I had spoken last May about the project and how it was on again and off again and how he was looking forward to what it might do for NYC. The cameras went online in January and the immediate effects were pretty amazing.

Early in January, the long-awaited program to help ease traffic in NYC went into effect.  The cameras went on and lo and behold – traffic eased, Broadway saw a 20% increase in ticket sales, and crashes were down a whopping 30% – and that was in just two winter months.

But along with many other programs, the president decided he didn’t like congestion pricing and in the stroke of his marker, had the cameras turned off.  The legal wrangling that is going on is yet to be decided, but the day I spoke with John, things were looking pretty rosy.

Follow his substack journal, Streetbeat.  It publishes at the beginning of every month and is always an interesting and wide-ranging look at the urban world.

My second guest is Paul Swift – the bike fitter’s fitter and developer of many cycling related products that facilitate a better experience on the bike – whether on the ground or in the gym. 

Paul’s philosophy stems from observation, as well it should in my opinion.  He recognizes that sizing is not fitting, and that it takes many years and thousands of fits to see what you are actually looking at and before making the changes necessary to accomplish a comfortable and efficient position with great results.

Paul Swift has been developing his fitting techniques for decades.  He also sees things IN those fits that have led to a plethora of products from the wedges fitters might use under your cycling cleats to his line of saddles.

As he mentioned, you can find him on social media @askthefitter.  Check out his line of saddles at 90K.com or go to his website thecyclepoint.com and watch how he does what he does.

 

September 25_Transcript

 

 

 

 

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Show #662 – February 13, 2025

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Guests: Steve Frothingham; Steve Salinas

A Short Tribute To Greg Priddy

It is a tough day for the Outspoken Cyclist Podcast as well as the many shows and most of the staff of WJCU – the radio station at John Carroll University that hosts my show. 

Back in 2010, when TOC first went on the air – and we were a radio broadcast as well as a podcast for many years – my co-host, engineer, and mentor was a gentleman named Greg Priddy. 

He spent endless hours editing our show for podcast and taught me ins and outs of the studio sound board, how to edit, mix, and upload my shows, and would fill in for me when I had that occasional cold or lost my voice.

For those of you who have been listening to the show from the beginning, you will remember Greg.  He could be funny, but he was more likely to be the Abbott to my Costello, offering a serious note on many topics.

So, it is with a deep sadness that I report Greg lost his long battle with cancer this week.  Back in August of 2017, Greg asked if he could offer his thoughts about the disease and especially what he believed you might do to make sure you stay healthy.  I’ve added a link to that episode on our website if you’d like to hear it – or maybe replay it if you heard it back them as a reminder of what you can do for you and your family to ensure you detect any problems in a timely way.

Our best deepest condolences go out to Greg’s wife Jean, and we hope that Greg’s last days were peaceful.  There is a short tribute, with photos, on the WJCU website.

 

We have two great guests on the show today to talk about two timely topics – tariffs and the fires in California.

First up, I’ve invited Steve Frothingham, the editor-in-chief of Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, to weigh in on not only the tariffs but the bicycle industry in general, as it struggles with everything from inventory issues to where our bikes are being manufactured and sold.

When one of my listeners suggested we look into tariffs and how they might affect the bike industry, I knew just who to call – BR&IN’s editor-in-chief, Steve Frothingham.  His immediate response was – tariffs?  I’m your guy.  Steve has been immersed in the issue of tariffs since the first Trump administration and can speak about them in depth.  However, it isn’t all about tariffs that are plaguing the bike business. 

 

In the second half of the show, we meet another Steve – yep it’s Steve squared today. 

We all watched in horror as unrelenting fire, fueled by massive Santa Ana winds, ripped through Altadena, California – leaving devastation in its wake.

Steve Salinas, who has lived and worked in Altadena for more than 40 years, couldn’t save his store.  He did help many others save their homes and got his own family and their beloved horse to safety.  And he just keeps on helping. I think you’ll appreciate his story.

You can help Steve rebuild his shop and continue his work giving bikes to those in his community who lost everything by donating to his gofundme account and follow him on Facebook.  

 

 

 

Episode 662 Transcript

 

 

 

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Show #661- December 18, 2024

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Guests: Leah Missbach Day; Bill McGann

The holidays are literally around the corner and today, I wanted to offer up one of my favorite year-end opportunities for giving.

Leah Missbach Day is one of the founders of WBR, and World Bicycle Relief is about to turn 20.

In the years since its inception, it has grown from aiding 20,351 people in Sri Lanka after the 2004 Tsunami to 850,000 bicycles on the ground in 7 African countries and in Colombia, South America.

Calling it “50 kilograms of love,” Leah Missbach Day joins me to talk about World Bicycle Relief and the bicycle that is changing lives all over the African continent and beyond.

With some new components innovations as well as an independent study that showed incredible results, WBR lives up to its motto of Empowering individuals to access education, healthcare and economic opportunities through life-changing bicycles.

These bicycles have helped girls to go to school, health workers to deliver life saving aid, and farmers to get their goods to market. 

The Buffalo bike provides a sturdy, reliable machine that offers not only transportation but safety to the thousands of people who ride them.

The S2 Drivetrain
The Impact Study

 

 

 

In the second half of the show, I’m joined by Bill McGann.

Bill started out as a bicycle retailer in a 750 square foot shop in California back in 1974 with a $3,000 bank loan and a lot of chutzpah.

In his new book, Why Your Bike Is Made in Asia: My career in bicycles as I watched two continents squander an industry, takes us from early bicycle history through the 10-speed craze and on into the industry’s move to Asia as a result of some wrong-thinking on the part of American and European manufacturers.

It’s an interesting look at the bike industry from a very different perspective.

In the many conversations I’ve had with bicycle historians over the years, no one has mentioned the single tube bicycle patents OR how Asian-made bicycles came to overtake the European and potential American markets back in the 70’s and 80’s.

Bill McGann lived that transition, and he tells us all about it in his new book, Why Your Bike Is Made In Asia, My Career in Bicycles as I watched two continents squander an industry.

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Transcript_December 18

 

 

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Show #660 – December 7, 2024

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Guests: Tom & Deb Gardner; Jenn Dice

Yes, it’s been a minute – well, maybe a bit longer – since the last episode, but I’m back and today’s show is the first in our year-end series highlighting gift-giving opportunities.

That’s not all though.  My first guests are husband and wife Deb and Tom Gardner.  They live in Indianapolis and have such a great story to tell.

Both are now retired and the accomplishments they have under their belts are mind blowing.  Before they became heavily involved with long-distance cycling, they decided to run a marathon in every state.  Done.  Then it was on to some pretty spectacular bicycling.

I’ve always wondered what drives some people to aim for and achieve such amazing objectives such as running a marathon in every state or riding across country.  In the case of Tom and Deb Gardner, I think it’s just the way some people are wired – but what is so cool about this couple is that they seem to be wired exactly the same! 

My thanks to Tom & Deb Gardner for allowing ME to be the first to broadcast their newest adventure! Their blog site, “Keep Calm and Pedal On,” is full of great information as well as some preliminary details of their upcoming New Zealand trip.

After a break, we catch up with the president and CEO of People for Bikes, Jenn Dice.  People tell me I’m “so enthusiastic!”  But, next to Jenn, I feel pretty laid back!

And, her enthusiasm for the work she does is contagious!   Running PFB, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary – thank you very much –  is a big deal and from the city ratings program to eBike battery recycling, Jenn can recite chapter and verse on all the many spokes in the PFB hub.

Jenn is a bicycling powerhouse..  She was named “one of the 50 most influential people in American cycling” in 2023 by Escape Collective .

She is a tireless advocate for cycling at the grass roots level, moving a vast array of cycling projects from start to successful finish.

 You can find all of the projects Jenn and I talked about plus a lot more at peopleforbikes.org.  Join the organization, learn about the many great programs and opportunities available, and find out how your city rates as a great place to ride – or learn how to effect change in your city using PFB’s advice. And, you definitely want to recycle your eBike batteries!

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Next time, we’ll be speaking with World Bicycle Relief’s Leah Misbach Day.  It’s time we caught up with her and learn about the organization’s most recent programs and progress.

We’ll also be speaking with BikeFit expert Paul Swift.  I think we’ll have a lot to talk about!

December 7_Transcript

 

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Show #659 – October 6, 2024

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Guests: Brendan Quirk; Bruce Donald

Brendan Quirk is the CEO of USA Cycling.  Brendan fell in love with bike racing as a teenager and throughout his young adulthood and beyond, has immersed himself in everything from owning his own shop and developing a thriving online business to his present position – imbuing USA Cycling organization with his passion for the sport.

Brendan’s determination for success for the organization, beginning with member ship and working on the Foundation Board, led to his role as CEO.  His commitment to spreading the word about cycling, from local grass roots organizations to our Olympic goals for Los Angeles in 2028, is clear. It’s about supporting local clubs and events and raising money to make certain the sport stays alive and vibrant in the U.S.

  As Brendan suggested, GET INVOLVED! You can find out more at usacycling.org. 

With the fall riding season in full swing, we’re bringing you our last great riding trail review for 2024.  And, I’ve saved a review of the Southern New England area, especially Connecticut, for last.

The East Coast Greenway has come a long way in a few short years and, especially in 2024, the effects of the infrastructure act have pushed quite a few projects along helping to add many segments in the quest complete the 3,000+ mile project.

Our guide to this beautiful area of the Greenway is Bruce Donald and to say he is well-versed in all-things-trail-related in the area is a gross understatement.

In addition to all his advocacy work, acquiring more than $189 million dollars in funding for Greenway projects, Bruce is a lifelong cyclist and alpine skier.

Bruce has such a deep interest in the work that is required to get the Greenway completed – and it shows in his results.  You can find everything you need to know about the ECG Alliance at greenway.org.

October 6_Transcript

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Show #658 September 2, 2024

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Guest: Professor Wes Marshall

This episode of our show was intended to highlight another great riding trail along with a conversation with renowned traffic engineer and planner Professor Wes Marshall at the University of Colorado in Denver.

My conversation with Wes happened the day after the news of the deaths of Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau were announced and when we logged in to talk, we had both been reading the same news summary. 

The horror and disbelief of the tragedy really struck me hard and because so much of the topics Wes and I were to talk about were directly connected to the issues we have with traffic and safety, I decided to let this episode stand alone.

Professor Marshall’s new book, Killed By A Traffic Engineer: Shattering the Delusion that Science Underlies Our Transportation System, offers ideas, data, options, and a broad observation of what we are getting wrong about the way we not only DO transportation and safety, but how we think about it in the first place.

I think you will enjoy our conversation and, in the least instance, get some valuable insight into what traffic engineers are and need to be.

I do highly recommend his book, Killed by a Traffic Engineer, and, as he mentioned, read some of his peer-reviewed papers by searching Google Scholar for a plethora of interesting topics including why higher numbers of cyclists translate into safer cities.

It’s been a rough couple of weeks in our bicycle world with the high-profile deaths of the Gaudreau brothers.  I cannot imagine the pain and sorrow that their families are feeling and, from the outpouring of support and tributes, so many others have been affected too.

The time for a change in the way we think about traffic, safety, urban planning and transportation, and most importantly, the mindset that says it’s okay to drive a car regardless of your sobriety, anger, or distractions, is now.  If you are not already involved in some form of advocacy, perhaps now is the time to join a local organization, sit in on city council meetings, or perhaps take your already-expertise to local schools.

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September 2_Transcript