0:31

One of my favorite memories of Don

0:34

is my

0:37

family was friends with him and the shop

0:39

, and he gave me a ride

0:41

to a bike race because I couldn't drive

0:43

. I was 15 . I went to Mammoth

0:46

Mountain for I think they

0:48

called it the World Championships , maybe it was just the

0:50

National Championships . It was 1989

0:53

, and I was 14 or 15 . And

0:56

on the drive down there in his Audi , I

0:58

remember him telling me we

1:00

were talking about this and that and I was

1:03

all excited to race , you know . And

1:05

he said to me yeah

1:07

, you're excited about bikes now , but

1:09

next year you're going to turn 16 and

1:12

you're going to get a car and you're never

1:14

going to ride your bike again just like

1:16

everybody else

1:19

. I was like , oh my God , he's

1:21

probably right . That's terrible . I

1:24

hope that . I still like riding bikes when I get

1:26

a car . And here

1:28

I am , all these years later , still proof

1:31

of them wrong and proud to be doing it . I'm

1:33

Carl Decker and I am a professional

1:35

mountain bike racer , 48

1:38

years old now but grew up

1:40

in Bend and am a

1:42

product of growing up in Bend and

1:44

the bike culture . Here I

1:48

like to say I'm not really anything

1:50

special , but I kind of grew up in a special

1:52

circumstance , growing with Bend and the bike

1:54

community and the trails and the

1:56

racing . Here I'm still

1:58

riding and still making

2:01

a living doing what I love .

2:12

It's been a wild ride were hard and things

2:14

were bad . There's a silver lining

2:17

behind every cloud

2:19

. Just four people , that's

2:21

all we were trying to make a living

2:23

out of Blackland dirt . We grew

2:25

together in a family circle , singing

2:28

loud .

2:30

On episode 51 of Ben Magazine's

2:32

the Circling Podcast , I have the

2:34

privilege of sitting down with longtime

2:36

Central Oregon resident and lifetime

2:38

contributor to the sport of cycling

2:40

, mr Don Leap . Don

2:43

shares his story of moving to Bend in the

2:45

early 70s and his own involvement

2:47

during the early days of mountain biking

2:49

as the co-owner of one of

2:51

Bend's oldest bike shops in town , sunnyside

2:54

Sports , don has witnessed the

2:56

evolution and trends in cycling

2:58

over the last 45 years that

3:00

allow us to have a great conversation

3:02

. Don and I discuss the unique

3:05

time the cycling industry finds itself

3:07

in after the pandemic , the comparisons

3:10

between the growing trends in gravel cycling

3:12

in the early days of mountain biking , why

3:15

mountain biking and mountain bike trail building

3:17

is unique in Central Oregon and

3:19

much more . An accomplished

3:21

bike racer , don was one of the founders

3:24

and the original race director of the Cascade

3:26

Cycling Classic , the longest

3:28

running elite road bike stage race in

3:30

the country that ran from 1980

3:32

to 2019 , attracting

3:35

some of the best men and women cyclists

3:37

from around the world . It

3:39

should go without saying that there are many in our

3:41

community who deserve credit for fostering

3:44

the growth of cycling in all

3:46

of its forms , and it should also

3:48

go without saying that Don Leak is

3:50

one of those individuals . I

3:52

appreciated this one , don . Thanks

3:55

for your time , old friend . The

3:57

Circling Podcast can be found on Patreon

4:00

. Visit our page and learn how a

4:02

percentage of your financial support will

4:05

support local nonprofits and the continued

4:07

growth of local community podcasting

4:10

. Become a member and learn about

4:12

this unique opportunity at patreoncom

4:15

. Forward slash the circling podcast or

4:18

see the link in the show notes . Lastly

4:21

, remember to stay tuned after the

4:23

show credits to hear from don as

4:25

he contributes to our blank canvas community

4:28

art project that explores the magic

4:30

found in art embedded with me . I

4:35

still ride around on my Ripley

4:37

that you built . Awesome , that bike's 10

4:40

years old , 11 years old now yeah , no

4:42

. The fur .

4:43

Now that we got the bottom bracket fixed . Finally , after

4:46

the first five years .

4:48

Well , those first models , I think it had

4:50

a press fit bottom bracket and then it went

4:52

threaded . But I mean that bike still rides

4:54

. I mean other than limitations

4:56

on tire sizes . There's no need

4:58

for me to get another one . It rides great

5:01

. It's a little squeaky in the bottom bracket , but

5:03

you know I'm a big guy , I

5:05

put a lot of torque on the cranks man

5:07

. Yeah , put on some music . Oh , I

5:09

do . I got these new

5:12

bone conduction headphones .

5:14

Have you seen these ?

5:14

Yeah , these new bone conduction headphones . Have you seen these ? Yeah , for riding and

5:16

running . No , I know what they are , it's incredible .

5:18

But you see , I have these $5,000

5:21

things , oh yeah , you

5:25

can just do those dial right in your phone and your . Well , I find it ironic . I have these

5:27

expensive things so I can hear you .

5:30

Yeah .

5:30

And then you have these expensive things , so

5:32

you don't hear . Of course the bone

5:34

ones are much better . I mean , there's

5:37

nothing worse than on a

5:39

mountain bike catching someone , and then they're

5:41

just scared out of their wits .

5:42

Oh yeah , Totally , and it's like what

5:45

do you expect ? Yeah .

5:46

You're wearing these earphones ? Yeah , do

5:48

you get scared like 25 times a day and

5:50

then act like it ? Never

5:53

happened .

5:53

I don't know . Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah .

5:54

Act like it never happened . I don't know . Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , but

5:56

what you have is a good deal .

5:57

Yeah , they're cool man the bone conduction

5:59

. I remember really learning the difference between

6:02

bone and air conduction and

6:04

hearing . That's why I like

6:06

wearing headphones during podcast

6:08

recording because , unlike air

6:10

conduction , which is how you hear

6:12

yourself , and then people hear themselves on

6:14

a voicemail and they go oh , that's what

6:16

I sound like when you listen to yourself

6:19

talking with headphones on , you're getting air

6:21

conduction , which is your

6:23

voice resonating through the airwaves , not

6:26

your voice resonating through your

6:28

skeletal structure which is why it sounds

6:30

different .

6:31

So yeah , that's interesting .

6:35

Well , where should we begin ?

6:36

Don

6:39

Lee , the fact that I'm retired and I get

6:41

to ride my bike more , yeah , I

6:43

don't know . Yeah .

6:45

Partially retired .

6:46

Yeah , I'm retired . I'm

6:49

retired to the point where I'm only working because I

6:51

like it . Yeah , and you

6:54

know , unfortunately , as Mike at

6:56

the store says , it's still work . But

6:58

you know , I just if

7:01

they need something extra , I'll work more . Yeah

7:03

, but I usually don't , and it's quite

7:05

fun .

7:06

Where do you think your passion for cycling

7:08

came from ?

7:11

It started young , yeah , maybe

7:14

through my dad . Okay , it started young , yeah , maybe through my dad . Okay

7:17

, you know my dad rode

7:19

a bike when he was a kid

7:21

. So they moved from Kentucky

7:23

to Montana just before World War II Wow

7:25

, and you know it

7:28

was after the—it

7:30

was still during the Depression and

7:33

he was too young to go into the war

7:35

. So

7:38

he had these like a couple of free

7:41

years and they lived like east of Glacier National

7:43

Park and he had this

7:46

coaster break

7:48

bike and you have two

7:50

gears , you have two cogs , you know

7:52

. So he had those easy gear going

7:54

up to Glacier and when he got there he'd

7:57

stop , take the cog off , but

7:59

on the higher gear and ride home . And

8:02

then later , you know , he after

8:04

the war and stuff , you know , and

8:07

he his 50s quite a bit , and

8:18

I think just growing up a

8:21

bike was something that he just expected . He

8:24

never made us ride or anything , but it was just something

8:26

that he just knew . And

8:28

he didn't really even ride with us because he was gone

8:30

all the time , but we just knew

8:32

that he liked to ride and we liked to ride . And you

8:35

know , I did this big trip when I was

8:37

14 , from I live in

8:39

the Bay Area and we rode across

8:41

California to Yosemite and

8:44

then Yosemite to

8:46

Reno , to Tahoe and back

8:49

. I

8:51

don't think 14-year-olds would be doing that kind of stuff

8:53

today .

8:54

No , not at all .

8:55

Yeah , it's a different no cell

8:57

phones .

8:58

Yeah .

8:58

You know , I'd call my mom every . She wanted

9:01

me to call her once a week . So I

9:03

called you know and she was worried

9:05

, you know .

9:06

So were you born in California or

9:08

were you born in Montana , montana , okay .

9:11

I'm actually , my mom's , canadian . My

9:13

dad was

9:15

an American citizen . So I'm a dual

9:17

citizen , but we

9:20

moved to California when

9:22

I was in first grade , okay , and I

9:24

lived there 12 years , yeah

9:27

.

9:27

And then , as

9:29

soon as you moved from California

9:31

, you moved to Bend .

9:33

No , I went to school at Humboldt

9:35

State in Alicata , california , and

9:40

my parents moved from California up to Wenatchee , of all places

9:42

, okay , and from there they moved to

9:44

the Methow Valley , to Winthrop , before

9:47

there was cross-country skiing , believe it or not

9:50

, up there . And

9:55

so I left the Bay Area

9:57

when I was , when I was 17 , and

9:59

I really have barely ever been back . Yeah

10:01

, and then , when I went

10:03

to Humboldt , I was a forestry major , until

10:06

I realized what that was all

10:08

about was cutting trees . But I worked

10:10

for the Forest Service . So I moved to Bend to work for the US Forest

10:12

Service In 1969 ? No , well , in 1969

10:15

, I moved .

10:15

I to work for the US Forest Service In 1969? .

10:17

No , well , in 1969 , I moved

10:19

, I was in Palina , okay

10:21

. So actually there's a ranger

10:23

station out there called Rager Ranger

10:25

Station . It's about 20 miles

10:28

northeast of

10:30

the town of Palina , okay , you

10:32

know , about 80 miles from Prineville , and

10:34

I worked there . Then I worked in Chiloquan

10:37

, I worked a season in California

10:40

, near , you know , north of Yosemite , and

10:43

then I moved to Bend , right

10:45

after that 74 .

10:47

And that in 1974 . So I

10:49

think , from what I've learned , preparing

10:51

and learning about this , just

10:53

the history of mountain biking , you know , I mean

10:55

I thought I knew it until I really started

10:57

studying it , this these last couple of weeks

10:59

, and you know , so , mid seventies

11:02

, people were experimenting , is

11:04

what comes to mind . I mean putting bigger tires

11:06

on old frames and , you

11:08

know , uh , riding different types of

11:10

terrain that hadn't historically been

11:13

ridden with normal bikes . Um , I mean and correct me if I'm wrong if you have a different

11:15

recollection that hadn't historically been ridden with normal bikes . I mean , and correct

11:17

me if I'm wrong if you have a different recollection

11:19

no , you know it's so

11:22

.

11:22

When I worked for the Forest Service , I was a

11:24

firefighter . Okay , so the first year I worked here

11:26

. I just want to put this

11:28

in perspective . I

11:30

worked 77 days in a row , so

11:32

I didn't have time for anything other

11:34

than putting out forest fires , and

11:37

maybe I put out too many . Maybe if

11:39

we had a few more burn , we wouldn't have all

11:42

the fuel that's left in the forest

11:44

. So I wasn't really involved

11:46

in cycling that first

11:49

year or two because they

11:51

didn't have these rules that you could only

11:53

work so many days . And

11:56

then it wasn't just eight hours a day , it was like 77

11:58

days , 10 hours a day , and

12:01

I was able to buy a house with a down

12:03

payment , even though you know , that

12:05

being said , the

12:08

way I look at old mountain biking , or

12:10

original mountain biking , is there's the novelty

12:12

people who actually had nothing to do

12:14

with the development of the sport . And

12:16

then there was the people who actually thought , oh

12:19

, this could be a sport , this

12:21

could be new . I

12:23

don't know if you see the difference , but some people just said , well

12:25

, I'll just take my bike here and

12:27

say I rode it . And then they didn't

12:29

do anything to make they

12:33

didn't . What they did wasn't fun . What

12:35

they did didn't do anything to develop the sport

12:38

. They took photos , and

12:42

that was what I call novelty writing . And

12:44

then you have people who

12:46

did maybe a similar thing

12:49

and then rode down and thought this is hilarious

12:52

, maybe we could figure this out , and

12:55

they started kind of building bikes . You

12:57

know , the big limitation

12:59

back then was equipment

13:02

. Right , you know , the only reason

13:04

they made 26-inch mountain bikes is

13:06

because they didn't have fat tires

13:08

for bigger wheels it

13:11

had nothing to do with . And

13:13

you know , some small Gary Fisher

13:15

guy isn't going to go to some big

13:17

tire manufacturer and say I need 100

13:19

road-sized fat tires

13:21

. Right , you know , and I don't

13:23

know if you know , but Bontrager made one of the first

13:26

aluminum mountain bike lightweight

13:28

mountain bike rims . He took a 700C

13:31

or a road-size , cut it and

13:34

welded it together to smaller

13:36

size , only because that's

13:38

when they could get the bigger tires . So

13:42

to me it's a differentiation .

13:44

No , I would agree . I think I observed

13:47

that as well , and I think that's a really

13:49

good way to classify it in terms

13:51

of novelty and then people who saw

13:54

the potential for innovation and acted

13:56

on it .

13:58

I mean the people you

14:00

know there's more than a couple , but

14:02

you know the ones you think of are really

14:04

in Marin County and in Colorado

14:07

, like Crested Butte , and it was

14:09

two different kind of groups

14:11

.

14:11

Yeah .

14:12

And , but it

14:14

developed fast . Fortunately

14:16

you know like in , but

14:20

you know the thing to remember . So

14:22

when I was a kid riding my bike in the Bay Area

14:24

, you know I had an old Peugeot

14:27

10-speed but we

14:29

used to ride on the dirt all the time . You

14:32

know it wasn't like so

14:35

when someone had the idea of riding on dirt

14:37

we weren't like going wow

14:39

, that's crazy . It was more like oh cool

14:41

. That would actually work better . So

14:44

it wasn't . So you had the people that developed

14:46

. I'm not going to say I was one of them , but

14:49

I will say I was one of the ones that when you

14:51

started seeing it , you didn't just shake your head and say

14:53

this is dumb . You actually go

14:55

oh man , I wish I would have thought of that . Yeah

14:58

, but so and . I think

15:00

that's one of the reasons it developed so fast yeah

15:02

, Because you know , when we used to ride our bikes , it

15:05

wasn't , you know , there was less pavement and you

15:07

, we liked riding on

15:09

dirt . It was quite fun . Yeah , and it was part

15:12

of the part of the bike riding Absolutely

15:14

Well .

15:15

I mean , you lived and been during

15:17

a time similar to Marin County , similar

15:20

to areas in Colorado where

15:22

there was this kind of grassroots , and

15:24

it's always fascinating to me because I feel like

15:26

there's other sports where this has happened , snowboarding

15:29

being one of them . You know , there's always

15:31

some degree of debate on where snowboarding

15:34

really originated , right , and who was the first

15:36

one . And I almost

15:38

get that similar type experience

15:41

or feeling

15:43

when you start reading about the early

15:45

days of mountain biking in terms of people

15:48

starting to build frames specific

15:50

to this style of writing you

15:52

have , like the Joe Breeze and the Tom

15:55

Richies and you know , in Marin

15:57

County , and then there was a host of people in Central

15:59

Oregon frame builders that I had never even heard

16:01

of that started building frames . And

16:03

you know , granted , it's all within like

16:06

what it seems like a four to five

16:08

year window kind of you know , when things

16:10

were progressing

16:13

and evolving slower than what we're used

16:15

to in 2024 , because there wasn't

16:17

this , you know , worldwide communication

16:20

pipeline in your pocket where you knew what

16:22

other people were doing the same day . You

16:24

know things happen slower and

16:26

the progress it seems like Well

16:28

, you know .

16:29

I would actually say you know . So

16:31

you take the gravel bike phenomenon Okay

16:33

, and which I

16:35

find interesting because basically

16:37

it's mountain

16:40

bike over , mountain

16:42

bikes start over , because it's

16:44

exactly the same . You know

16:46

, you've got bigger tires , you've got suspension . But

16:50

if you think about the development of

16:54

gravel bikes , I would say mountain

16:56

bikes were faster . Yeah , you

16:58

know , it was one . So

17:01

I had a friend who

17:03

moved to Bend in 1981

17:06

, who was

17:09

the Trek regional rep , and

17:12

his area was Washington

17:14

, oregon and Northern california

17:17

. So why not live in bend , right ? Yeah , um

17:20

, and then he got a job as

17:22

a product manager for trek in 1983

17:25

and

17:28

before that he gave

17:30

me trek's prototype mountain

17:33

bike . So I I

17:35

rode Trek's first mountain

17:37

bike they ever built and they gave

17:39

it to him because he lived in Oregon

17:41

. Do you really need a mountain bike in Wisconsin

17:43

? Well , you know . So they

17:45

thought , well , okay , we'll test this out . So I rode

17:47

that bike for a few years and

17:51

that to me is fast . Um , that to me

17:53

is fast . I mean

17:55

, if you think about no

17:59

mountain bikes in 1980

18:01

. Yeah , trek makes a mountain bike in 1983

18:05

. Yeah , and then in 84

18:08

, we're selling . This basically

18:10

came from nowhere . Yeah

18:12

, you think about gravel bikes First

18:14

of all . We've had cyclocross bikes forever .

18:16

Right .

18:17

So what's the difference between a cyclocross bike and a ? Well

18:19

, there is no difference . Okay

18:22

, I mean , if you look at Ibis , their

18:24

gravel bike , is their cyclocross bike and

18:27

it really doesn't make sense

18:29

. I think Specialized is the same way

18:31

. You know some

18:39

companies make both . But so the gravel bike thing I think actually kind of just takes

18:42

. You know it's actually taken

18:44

longer to figure out what people want

18:46

. The mountain bike thing , you

18:49

know if you take you know there's a lot

18:51

of development after it came out . But

18:54

the truth is you know you

18:56

could ride the same trails a day on

18:59

some of those original mountain bikes . Oh

19:01

yeah , so I thought it was . I

19:03

think it was actually pretty fast .

19:06

I would agree . I mean , you

19:08

bring up an interesting point , which is , you

19:11

know , nothing's

19:13

really that new . It's like this . It

19:15

almost feels like it's the same story being

19:17

retold , with with the sprinkling

19:20

in of new technology that makes things

19:22

more comfortable and easier

19:24

to do . But you know , the same

19:26

experience people were having on a mountain bike

19:28

riding logging road trails

19:30

around here before the network , the trail

19:33

network , is the same experience

19:35

people have nowadays , for the most part riding

19:37

a gravel bike on the same logging roads . And

19:40

when people can , you know , manipulate an

19:42

industry to start diversifying

19:45

, how you can profit from it ? I mean , then you

19:47

can start to see how the marketing

19:49

and growth and evolution of an industry

19:51

is born . You know , I mean no

19:54

exactly .

19:56

And I think when you look at the gravel bike

19:58

, what I see about the gravel

20:00

bike is really cool road

20:02

bikes that you can put fat tires on

20:05

yeah , and they're not

20:07

mountain bikes . But

20:10

when Phil and I get together , we just shake

20:12

our heads . So why are these people

20:14

riding the roads that we didn't want to ride

20:16

on , that we built trails for

20:18

the last 40 years

20:21

? I don't understand

20:23

actually . So

20:26

for me , as you know but maybe

20:28

the listeners don't I own Sunnyside Sports

20:30

for 40 years . I know the bike industry , but

20:33

I still shake my head because

20:36

I don't quite get what

20:39

. You know , I have a friend oh yeah , we rode

20:41

up the 370

20:43

road and over to Sisters and I said

20:45

, yeah , and then we built a trail

20:47

so I wouldn't have to do that anymore . And

20:51

you think that's fun , I mean , but

20:53

it is fun for them and

20:55

I understand that , but

20:58

it is a recycle .

21:00

It's the adventure , you know , and the ability

21:02

, like there's something about riding

21:04

a bike that is just so

21:06

fundamentally simple . It's

21:08

speed , it's you know where

21:13

we live , it's access to nature

21:15

, it's

21:17

community building , it's you know , and

21:19

and yeah , I mean it's

21:21

it's an

21:23

, it's not overly complicated , you know

21:26

. We're talking about bicycles , you know

21:28

.

21:29

You know you're right . At the end of the day

21:31

, you're right , and you know I have friends that like to

21:33

ride gravel bikes , so I have to have a bike that

21:35

I can ride with them . But it's basically

21:37

a very lightweight mountain bike with skinny

21:39

tires , because I like suspension , yeah

21:42

. But you know you're right , I

21:44

think the bike is an amazing

21:46

thing . Yeah , you

21:48

know , and it's fun to see all these

21:50

people ride . I agree , it's fun to see all these people

21:52

ride . I agree

21:55

.

21:55

Lev Stryker , who owns

21:58

and operates Cogwild yeah

22:00

, I got in touch with him and I wanted to

22:02

share .

22:13

He just had some thoughts on the people that came before him in this community

22:15

. The

22:17

way I think about it as far as those guys like the forefathers of the sport and Ben's is like they

22:19

were kind of original and groundbreaking and trying

22:21

a new thing , and probably really

22:23

good athletes , you know , and that drove them

22:25

to try this stuff that no one else was

22:28

trying before and they were building

22:30

trails in ways that no one else had

22:32

you know , no one had tried . They were experimenting

22:34

along the way . They were pioneers in this way and

22:37

doing it underground in a lot of ways too , right Like

22:40

under the not really

22:42

sure if they had permission or not or whatever it was

22:44

. And over the years what

22:46

their efforts have turned into is

22:49

like one of the most accessible and

22:52

complex

22:54

trail networks anywhere , you know , and you have

22:57

trail access right from town and

22:59

complex trail networks anywhere you have trail

23:01

access right from town . People

23:03

ride right to and from their houses who live in bends . The

23:38

shuttle network is vast . You can do something really direct

23:41

and easy that anyone can ride . Who

23:45

calls themselves a mountain biker ? Or you can

23:47

diverge a little bit and you're on those tough

23:49

black diamond trails that uh

23:52

have developed over the years , you know , seeing

23:54

that whole progression of it

23:57

was just some dudes in the woods kind of scratching

23:59

around trying to find a new sport , you

24:01

know , but not even knowing

24:03

sure what they're doing half the time to

24:05

like one of the most renowned accessible

24:08

networks anywhere , you know .

24:11

I , I hear and this

24:13

is something I love so much , because it seems

24:15

like everybody was just having a lot of fun

24:17

doing stuff . And you

24:20

know , that's the theme I get when I

24:22

talk to all the different people

24:24

that have contributed to mountain

24:26

biking in our community over the years is originally

24:29

no one had any big goal , it just

24:31

seemed like it was defining itself and it

24:33

was fun . You got outside

24:35

with your friends , it was a way to you

24:38

know , I mean even trail building . I

24:40

mean you know why do you

24:42

think mountain biking's done so well

24:45

in Central Oregon ? What about Central Oregon

24:47

made it pop ? I

24:49

mean , I have my ideas , but Well

24:52

, so you know

24:54

.

24:56

So we get

24:58

these mountain bikes and we do a few races

25:01

. It's like Whiskey Town

25:03

downhill . That's this big race down by Redding and

25:06

they race in Ashland , called

25:08

Revenge of the Siskiyous . And

25:11

it was interesting . But I

25:14

was talking to Carl Decker

25:16

a year or so ago and we were just laughing

25:18

about Revenge of the Siskiest . It was like

25:20

this 40-mile race with

25:23

100 yards of single track , 100

25:27

yards , 100 yards . 40-mile

25:30

race , 40-mile race 100 yards and basically

25:33

you started in the town of Ashland , you

25:35

went up through the watershed

25:38

, you got

25:41

to the ski area , you went

25:43

on some back forest roads

25:45

and then they had to connect

25:47

these two forest roads because you

25:50

wanted to get to this mining road . So

25:52

they built this 100 yards of single track

25:54

and then that

25:57

was mountain biking and

25:59

so in

26:01

Bend we just

26:03

thought the single track was

26:06

more fun . I

26:09

would say and

26:11

I know , if you talk to Phil , what he would say

26:13

, but what

26:16

you know , I still am a

26:18

big volunteer with COTA . I clear

26:20

trails and stuff . I've been doing it since 1984

26:23

. And people say oh Don

26:25

, you're awesome and it's like the

26:27

only reason I do this is because I like to ride my mountain

26:29

bike and I don't like walking over logs and

26:32

if you get to enjoy it , too awesome

26:34

. I mean , I'm not . I

26:37

realize that I'm a go-getter

26:39

and I like to do stuff and I like

26:41

people to appreciate me . But the

26:43

truth of the matter is , if I was the only person

26:45

that rode a mountain bike , I'd still do it , and

26:55

Phil always was worried that he was going to get too old to

26:57

ride and there wouldn't be enough trails to ride and so

26:59

we were more thinking , not . And

27:01

the Forest Service , we figured , wouldn't think that mountain

27:03

bikes were a thing forever

27:06

. So the

27:09

deal with bikes in the woods back

27:11

then is you could ride your bike anywhere you

27:13

wanted . There was no rules . I

27:15

mean even the wilderness . At first , in

27:19

fact , phil and I rode around the Three

27:21

Sisters twice when it was

27:23

legal , or maybe

27:25

not quite legal , but they

27:28

hadn't really defined it . They hadn't defined it

27:30

. Because we did see

27:32

Forest Service people when we did it and no one said anything

27:34

. But basically

27:36

, if you think about the original trails that we built

27:38

, if you look at Phil's trail

27:41

, especially the original part

27:43

, what you get is someone

27:46

who is riding through the woods around

27:48

downed trees because we didn't actually want

27:50

to carry chainsaws and stuff . And

27:53

then that's

27:56

how those trails were developed . And it's

27:59

like Lev said did

28:02

we get permission ? No , but

28:04

were we against the rules ? No . And

28:07

the truth is , if you find a

28:09

bandit trail , even today , as

28:11

long as it's not in the wilderness and there's no

28:14

sign that says no bicycles , there's

28:16

nothing that says a person cannot

28:18

ride on a bandit

28:21

trail I'm not encouraging people to build bandit

28:23

trails . I'm not encouraging people

28:25

to ride them , but it is

28:27

this gray area

28:30

that allowed us to

28:32

build trails without actually

28:34

having someone stop us .

28:36

Yeah .

28:37

Because we weren't really doing damage . Yeah

28:39

, and we

28:41

knew very well that

28:43

this was the funnest thing in the world , yeah , and

28:46

it would catch on . Yeah , and

28:49

it did . But the Forest Service still

28:51

so . When they started

28:53

making

28:56

our trails official , I remember going out with

28:58

a Forest Service person and

29:01

we were actually going up Phil's

29:03

, so just the section above

29:06

the 300 road , and he

29:08

was telling me oh , this is never going to work

29:10

. I don't know if you know that trail , but it

29:13

goes uphill it does a switchback

29:15

. Oh , this is going to wash out because

29:18

we used some log . That trail's never washed out

29:20

there . It's still exactly

29:22

the way we built it , and

29:24

the funny trail

29:26

to me is South Fork . Yeah

29:28

, so the Forest Service built South

29:30

Fork , it's the first trail the

29:32

Forest Service built with

29:35

the idea that maybe

29:37

mountain bikes might use it sometimes

29:39

. Okay , and

29:45

if you look at it as a hiking

29:47

trail , which they wanted , it's

29:50

a total failure . The Forest Service

29:52

built a horrible trail

29:54

for hiking

29:57

if mountain bikes were going to ride it . Us

30:00

on mountain bikes , we love it because we just get more

30:02

travel and the more the routes , the more rowdy

30:04

it is , the more fun it is . But

30:06

if you actually look at the trails that we built

30:09

, you actually could run and hike on them

30:11

Because

30:13

we actually kind of had a better idea

30:15

of the terrain that

30:18

mountain bikes could handle .

30:31

I think the topography of

30:33

kind of some of the foothill

30:35

terrain in Central Oregon lends itself

30:38

very well to cross-country

30:40

style mountain biking . Compared

30:42

to where I grew up I grew up in North Idaho it

30:44

was like flat and then straight up and

30:48

then you'd find some old motorcycle

30:50

trail to descend , I think

30:52

. And then the people the people

30:55

here seem unique in terms of

30:57

the trail systems were built by the

30:59

users and there were people

31:01

who were mentoring and educating

31:04

and teaching how to trail build

31:06

from very early on .

31:09

Well , I think you

31:11

hit the nail on the head . When I moved to Bend

31:13

. One of the

31:15

reasons I liked it is that it's not

31:17

. It's a very beautiful

31:19

, awesome place to live . It's not

31:22

like spectacular , like where

31:24

I'm from in Montana . It's not

31:26

like Glacier National Park

31:28

. But

31:31

not only is it user-friendly for

31:33

mountain bikes , it's cross-country skiing

31:35

. If you go to Meisner

31:38

, the terrain at Meisner is

31:40

super user-friendly . If

31:43

you think about someone alpine skiing , you

31:45

know people complain about Bachelor because it's too

31:47

flat . That's what makes it so popular for

31:49

families , and so , in

31:52

a sense , what we have here is this

31:54

heaven for user-friendly

31:56

. You know you talk to some rowdy people

31:58

that want downhill mountain bike trails . You

32:01

know it's hard . You know

32:03

there's a couple spots that

32:06

you can do that in .

32:08

It's not Post Canyon and Hood River .

32:10

No .

32:10

Right , like it's just different terrain .

32:12

It is so it's really great terrain

32:15

for normal people to

32:17

ride the bikes and , like Lev

32:19

said in that little , what he was

32:21

talking about is I'm

32:24

going to guess that I've driven my car to

32:26

Phil's Trailhead less than 10 times

32:28

. You know , I do

32:30

drive to ride , but not if

32:33

I'm going to ride that area , I just ride from home

32:35

, and there's

32:38

not that many places in the

32:40

world where you can ride your mountain bike from

32:42

home and that to me , that makes

32:45

it real special .

32:46

Yeah , and something that's easy

32:49

I can easily take for granted

32:51

. You know , I mean , I think most of

32:53

us can , when it becomes your norm every day

32:55

and you're just . And you know , I mean I think most

32:57

of us can , when it becomes your norm every day and

33:00

you're just , you know

33:02

it's easy , but it is so true , I mean there's , there's . Yeah , I

33:08

often tell people to going back . You know , I think it's unique and

33:10

been that , you know , we , we , we don't live in the mountains . We go to

33:12

the mountains where you live somewhere . You grow up . Somewhere like North Idaho or Montana

33:14

, you're in the mountains . It's different . Up

33:17

somewhere like north idowa or montana , you're in the mountains , it's , it's different . So

33:19

, yeah , I , I think the uh , the access to some of the foothill

33:21

terrain in our , in our region , is , is unique

33:23

and and lends itself really well to

33:25

all the things that you see

33:28

trail running , cycling

33:30

, you know , cross-country skiing , um

33:33

yeah , yeah know , and people

33:35

aren't looking .

33:36

You know I get people in the store that

33:38

come from BC , avid

33:41

mountain bikers , yeah , and they come in like October

33:43

and you say , well , you live

33:45

in like mountain bike . You know everybody wants

33:48

to go to BC . You know Whistler and North

33:50

Shore and all that stuff and they go , yeah

33:52

. But you know , sometimes you just want to ride on dirt

33:54

, yeah , and they go , yeah . But you know , sometimes you just want to ride on

33:56

dirt , yeah , and you don't want to ride on roots and

33:59

rocks , yeah , and it's more relaxing

34:01

, yeah . And so you

34:03

know we have our own little positive

34:06

, but it does make it super

34:09

user-friendly , yeah . And actually

34:11

the other thing I don't

34:13

know if people have ever been to Sandy

34:15

Ridge or Alcee Falls . Those

34:22

are two big areas , you know , one by Sandy and one in the Corvallis area . They're

34:24

on BLM property . Millions of dollars were put

34:26

into those trails to build so

34:28

that they would be all weather , because

34:31

that's what you need over there , and

34:41

our trails were built by a guy walking around moving logs , and so

34:43

we can . I'm not saying that there's certain things

34:45

that we don't need to do . There's some rock gardens that

34:47

we have problems with

34:51

. Building a trail in central Oregon

34:53

. It's not this huge

34:55

, expensive production that

34:58

it would take to build a trail

35:00

in a different weather

35:02

, etc .

35:04

What have you seen people get wrong

35:06

with trail building over here over the years .

35:09

I think so . You may or

35:11

may not know , but the Horse Ridge is going to

35:13

be developed officially finally

35:16

. It

35:22

has the best terrain . In my mind that should

35:24

have been developed years ago but

35:26

they didn't ask me again . But

35:29

what I worry about when they build trails there

35:31

is the rocks

35:34

around here become eroded . So

35:41

I think the best example that I can tell people is the trail

35:44

Tiddlywinks from the Steve Larson parking

35:46

lot from over

35:48

to Kiwa

35:51

and the downhill trails

35:53

. So

35:55

when that

36:21

trail was built you could ride that easily . It

36:23

was so easy that I remember doing a 24-hour

36:25

race riding it at night easily

36:29

. I

36:31

mean , I can't even think about riding that section . And

36:33

the reason is that

36:35

our dirt erodes around

36:38

the rocks , and so when you build

36:40

a trail and you decide to go through some rocks

36:42

that look pretty fun , you know

36:44

, in 10 years those

36:46

rocks become obstacles that become

36:48

very difficult . Yeah , and you have to Makes

36:50

a lot of sense you have to fix

36:53

that beforehand , you have to armor

36:56

that kind of trail beforehand

36:58

. I know that the trail builders at COTA

37:00

are fully aware of what I'm talking

37:02

about . So I'm not like and if you

37:05

get a Paul Thomas Berg building a trail

37:07

, he's way aware of that

37:09

.

37:09

Yeah , but just the average person you know the

37:11

average person that maybe has moved

37:14

to Bend , has become passionate

37:16

about mountain biking , wants to get involved

37:18

, wants to get you know . Start volunteering

37:21

with COTA . You know what are some of

37:23

the fundamentals that they need to know ?

37:26

Well , I

37:29

think the first thing is they should go

37:31

on a don't fix

37:33

people's , other people's trails . I

37:35

think the biggest fundamental is get

37:38

in a group , a COTA building

37:40

, trail building group . Those people are well

37:42

trained , they're trying to fix the

37:44

mistakes and , again , you

37:47

know the mistakes that we made earlier

37:50

are pretty simple . You

37:52

know radiuses of curves , seeing

37:55

how fast people are going to go down certain

37:57

things , so you know the curves become

37:59

if they're wrong . You end up

38:01

with washboards , brake

38:03

bumps and all that kind of stuff . So

38:06

to me I

38:08

think we're beyond having

38:10

people . It really is irritating

38:13

when you have someone go out there and

38:15

fix a trail that

38:18

they have no business fixing

38:20

. But

38:23

the biggest mistakes that are made

38:25

around here still are people build

38:27

trails through rocks and

38:29

they don't anticipate what's going to

38:31

happen in the future . And

38:34

at Horse Ridge that's

38:36

the biggest issue . And then people complain

38:39

. It's like , well , those

38:41

rocks are unrideable now . So basically

38:43

and they're not official trails so

38:46

who you know , you got to make a real

38:48

trail and you got to make it correct and

38:50

then people will

38:53

obey the protocols

38:55

. You know , one of the things

38:58

I noticed around here . So

39:00

I have friends who basically did the same

39:02

thing in Scotland that we've done they started

39:04

building trails . I have a friend who's

39:07

the first mountain bike ranger in Scotland . I

39:10

have a friend who was the first paid

39:13

trail builder in Scotland . But

39:16

when they come and visit , when

39:19

they look at trails and they see , like someone

39:22

, there's a mud spot and people ride

39:24

around it , they blame the trail

39:26

builder . They don't blame

39:29

the rider . Here people tend to

39:31

blame the rider for

39:33

avoiding a mud hole

39:35

or not going through rocks . And

39:38

there they want to build a trail so

39:40

good that people ride through it . And

39:44

if you leave a spot that's a mud

39:46

hole , fix it , don't just say

39:48

don't . Put a sign up and say don't ride . And

39:52

so I do find that

39:54

a little interesting , where

39:56

a well-built trail will be

39:58

ridden properly and a trail

40:01

that is built not so

40:03

well will get you

40:05

know you'll have detours and stuff .

40:07

Yeah yeah , you've

40:09

had a long history of racing mountain

40:11

bikes Well , racing bikes in general but

40:14

I mean you were a road racer before you started

40:16

racing mountain bikes .

40:17

Yeah yeah I think I decided I raced

40:20

50 years . Yeah , I think I decided

40:22

I raced 50 years . I think I was 14 when

40:24

I did my first race and I think I was

40:26

64 when I decided that

40:29

I had enough . How ?

40:30

old are you now ? 73 . 73

40:33

. So it's been nine years since you raced a

40:35

bike . I remember getting passed

40:37

by you on the second lap

40:39

at Pickett's Charge one of the last years

40:41

it went . It's

40:43

going damn .

40:45

Well , I think I remember seeing

40:48

you and I was thinking well , god , he's faster than me on the

40:50

downhill but maybe I'll catch him on this climb

40:52

, maybe , man , I've

40:54

always been a Clydesdale Clydesdales go

40:56

slow uphill .

40:58

You did okay for yourself . Oh yeah , you

41:01

know , I mean I mountain biking , I

41:03

have a funny relationship with it

41:05

because , you know , my first mountain

41:07

bike was an old Schwinn that I got

41:09

in Idaho and and I

41:12

, I one one

41:14

summer and this was probably in the late

41:16

eighties . So you know , thinking back as a

41:18

kid , I , you know , in my mind mountain biking

41:20

had just always existed . But in reality it was

41:22

, you know what , 10 , 15

41:25

years old at most . And I

41:27

remember descending this old motorcycle

41:30

trail and it had rained the night before

41:32

and my front tire got caught in a

41:34

, in a , uh , in

41:37

a rut , and I wrecked pretty hard into

41:39

a tree and and I was pretty

41:41

in a rut , and I

41:43

wrecked pretty hard into a tree and and I was pretty , I was pretty timid

41:45

about riding bikes downhill fast anymore around trees

41:47

. Um , you know , fast forward , whatever 15

41:49

years , when I bought that you know that

41:52

bike from you at Sunnyside and

41:54

man I , I mean I

41:56

had lived in Ben since 98 , but I had

41:58

never tapped into the trails here

42:00

until you know , the early tooth at

42:02

like 2004 , 2005

42:05

. Um , and then

42:07

, yeah , I mean it's , it's , uh

42:09

. It

42:12

quickly became a passion , you know

42:14

. I mean um , and so was road

42:16

biking . I remember I remember buying my first

42:18

road bike from from uh century

42:21

cycle and it

42:23

was probably just a couple years before they went out of

42:25

business and I moved here to

42:27

pursue snowboarding . I

42:29

did not know very many pro

42:31

snowboarders or skateboarders that wore

42:34

cycling kits .

42:47

And I remember the first time going on a road ride , riding my bike past the snowboard

42:49

shop that I hung out all the time and being terrified that my buddies were

42:51

going to see me in a kit .

42:57

But man .

42:57

I mean , there's nothing you know . Your first time in Lycra is , you know , it's a spiritual

43:00

experience . Yeah , I think that's some truth to some truth to that , but

43:02

you know , one of the best snowboarders in the U

43:04

? S was an avid road rider . Who's

43:06

it which ?

43:06

one , oh yeah .

43:08

Yeah .

43:08

So you know , I think , yeah , it's well

43:11

, that's why I got into it . I mean it's not , it

43:22

doesn't you know ? And even back then you know , I mean it's not . It doesn't take a genius to to connect the dots between your vocational

43:24

sport has a lot to do with lower body strength . And what does cycling provide , right

43:26

? I mean it's fitness , it's

43:29

experience , it's speed , it's adventure

43:31

, it's all the things .

43:33

Well , you know , the New York Times just

43:35

did this survey about people

43:37

exercising . Yeah , and one of the main things that they tell

43:39

people is your exercise better be fun . Yeah , and one of the main things that they tell people

43:41

is your exercise better be fun

43:43

, yes . And so think

43:46

about this you can go for a

43:48

run or

43:50

you can go for a bike ride . Yeah , and don't

43:53

get me wrong , people love running , but

43:55

it's not fun like a bike like a mountain bike ride

43:57

.

43:57

It's not even close , it's you know

43:59

it's super

44:02

fun .

44:03

Keith at the store says if mountain biking

44:05

made you really fat , I'd still do it and

44:07

I'd be really fat . Yeah , you know , we don't

44:09

do it for the exercise , we do it because how

44:12

fun it is , right , and the exercise is

44:15

there , yeah , so it's kind of a bonus

44:17

. Well

44:25

, I tell you , what I really like is I go

44:27

to the Green Gate and I go for a ride and you get to

44:29

the bottom and four women come down

44:31

after riding and they're

44:33

smiling , they're laughing

44:36

, they're high-fiving each other , high-fiving each

44:38

other . Yeah , and you

44:41

know , in my generation there

44:45

might not be four women that ride mountain bikes

44:47

. I know a few . But

44:49

the joy that you see

44:51

with groups of whoever

44:54

on mountain bikes is

44:57

not the same as when you see

44:59

someone finishing a road

45:01

ride or a run . You

45:03

know they might be happy , they

45:05

might be satisfied , but

45:07

they're not high-fiving , they're not laughing . There's

45:11

not this whole sense of joy

45:13

, not just from being outdoors

45:15

but just doing the funnest thing they've

45:17

ever done . And

45:19

I just find that so amazing

45:22

that that's why the

45:24

sport rocks .

45:25

Yeah . So you

45:28

know you kind of jumping back

45:30

to your story , you know you

45:32

got , you were here in the early eighties

45:34

and you became kind of a

45:36

part of the Sunnyside community . I

45:38

mean that bike shop was formed in

45:40

the early 70s . From what I read

45:42

and I think you

45:44

purchased it in the early 80s .

45:47

Yeah , yeah . So Sunnyside started in 1972

45:50

.

45:50

Right .

45:50

By two guys from Corvallis , gary

45:52

Fowles and Jim DeSchmidt , and

45:55

they were just college

45:57

kids , graduating , and you know

45:59

their wives were involved , joyce and

46:01

Patty . You

46:05

know Gary sold it to Jim

46:08

and then Jim sold it to this kind of conglomerate

46:11

of professionals who

46:13

wanted to keep

46:15

Sunnyside local because

46:17

there was a guy from Southern California who

46:20

actually lives in town still who

46:22

wanted to buy it

46:25

. Unfortunately

46:27

, they

46:30

were talked into borrowing some money to

46:32

buy it and then they owed this money and interest

46:34

rates were really high . So

46:37

anyway , I became the manager in 1980

46:40

. And

46:45

, to keep the story short , I became the owner in 1983

46:48

. And

46:52

you know it was a joy

46:54

but it was also really hard work . You

46:57

know I had my friend Gary Boniker help

47:00

me out and it was without him I'm not sure

47:02

I would have stayed in the business but

47:04

there was a few other people , I don't want

47:06

to name all the names , but it

47:09

just became a passion

47:11

and I was going to make this thing

47:13

work , no matter what . Yeah , and

47:16

I did . We were able to buy

47:18

a building in 1990

47:20

. People said , oh , you're crazy moving

47:22

from downtown . You know , we were basically

47:25

where the foot zone is and

47:27

oh no , you should never move over there . The

47:30

bank who loaned me the money told

47:32

me that I gave them the best presentation

47:35

ever , and this was to relocate

47:38

to Newport , yes , 1990 . You

47:41

know , and I had statistics of how Newport

47:43

at the time was the second busiest street

47:45

in Bend , third Street was the busiest . Newport

47:48

was the second . I said , and this is where

47:51

people are going to build all those fancy houses

47:53

. You know , this is before it happened . And

47:56

you know , fortunately , they loaned me

47:58

the money . Bank of the Cascades , yeah

48:01

, bank of the Cascades , you know , fortunately they loaned me the money .

48:02

Bank of the Cascades , yeah , bank of the Cascades , you know . Now they're called First Interstate , yeah .

48:03

But you know the local directors

48:06

, I knew some of them but they

48:08

trusted in me . Yeah , and

48:10

you know . So you

48:12

know we moved to Newport Avenue

48:15

and that was the smartest thing we ever did . Yeah

48:18

, so you

48:20

know it's and mountain bikes

48:22

became a

48:24

huge important part . Yeah , you

48:26

know , I think I did my first race in 1983

48:29

, you

48:34

know , and we got in totally behind the whole mountain bike scene as

48:36

fast as we could . Yeah , you

48:39

know , and

48:41

that you know . That's kind of the

48:43

history , you know , yeah .

48:46

And then just kind of , you know , small innovations

48:48

over years . I mean , you mentioned

48:50

and I was going to bring up and I wanted

48:52

you to talk about your friend Gary Boniker , because

48:56

you know I mean his contribution to mountain

48:58

biking from what I read , not to mention I remember

49:00

the tour to Chutes when it was going

49:03

on and just that time frame

49:05

. You know , for people who don't

49:07

know , tell who Gary

49:10

was to you and his story .

49:11

Gary was a huge . You know

49:14

he loved cycling , he

49:16

loved fixing bikes , he

49:18

loved people fixing

49:26

bikes , he loved people and having him . You know he I was a sole owner from

49:28

1983 until

49:30

1994 . And then Susan and

49:32

Gary became my partners . Yeah , and he was an important part of of

49:35

what he did . Yeah , um , and you know , unfortunately he was diagnosed with

49:37

cancer . And you know , unfortunately he was diagnosed with

49:39

cancer , lived

49:42

20 good years with the

49:45

cancer . You know , started the tour de chutes

49:47

, which was a huge thing in

49:49

our town and

49:51

unfortunately it's

49:53

hard to put on a road event anymore

49:55

, you know . So people kind

49:59

of lost interest , basically

50:01

just because of the hard work getting permits and

50:03

stuff .

50:04

Yeah , road cycling in our area

50:06

has changed , even in

50:13

the distracted

50:19

people , in automobiles , you know , on

50:21

trail systems and different

50:23

types of bikes , you know gravel

50:25

bikes providing kind of a similar road

50:28

bike experience , but in

50:31

more diverse terrain . So you

50:34

know , but you're , you know like , even you look

50:36

back at the Cascade , the

50:39

classic Cascade

50:41

, Classic Cascade . Why am

50:43

I mispronouncing it ? Cascade Cycling , Classic

50:46

, Cascade Cycling Classic went on for what

50:48

? From the early 80s all the way up until like

50:50

five , six years ago .

50:51

So I was one of the starters of the Cascade Cycling

50:53

Classic . I

50:57

was a director

50:59

for 10 years and

51:02

at the time , you know , we put it on when

51:06

we had the Criterion downtown bend . The

51:09

stores loved it . Most of the stores were closed . It

51:11

was a Sunday . Back in Bend , people

51:13

closed on Sundays and so

51:15

it was kind of this huge party

51:17

that everyone loved . You

51:20

know , when we first put on

51:22

the race that went around

51:24

San Iampas and McKenzie Pass , you

51:27

know the state police loan . You

51:29

know , a good friend of mine was a state policeman . Another

51:32

good friend of mine was a Deschutes County sheriff

51:34

, and so we had two

51:36

police escorts for

51:38

this race and when

51:41

I went to get the permit the state

51:43

guy said oh , you know , bikes are allowed on the

51:45

roads , Just start early . That

51:48

was it I mean . So

51:51

, you know , when I quit

51:53

being

51:55

the director mainly it was because I just did it

51:57

for so long- it's a lot of hard work , you

52:00

know there's just more people . Hard work , you know there's just more people . Yeah , you

52:03

know , and it's . But

52:06

on the same token , we've

52:10

always been able to ride up Skyliners Okay

52:12

, and then when they redid it they put on a nice shoulder

52:15

and again . So

52:17

what's interesting about the shoulder on

52:19

Skyliners and the shoulder on Century

52:22

Drive is they were going to make both of

52:24

those shoulders narrower , and

52:27

because of people involved

52:30

at the time , so for the

52:32

Century Drive it was the Forest Service

52:34

they made them . A

52:36

guy named Bill Martin was the engineer for

52:39

the Deschutes National Forest and

52:41

that's a combination state highway

52:43

forest project . He

52:46

just said you know , there's going to be lots of cyclists . So

52:49

that wider road , that

52:51

part that goes basically from the end up

52:54

to about Meisner , was

52:57

a narrow road with no shoulder . And

52:59

so in 1980 , they widened . That was

53:01

a narrow road with no shoulder . And so in 1980

53:04

, they widened that and they made that shoulder wider for bikes because one person

53:06

not because it was a policy and

53:09

the same with Skyliner . They were going to make that and

53:12

fortunately the county road guy was

53:14

an avid cyclist and he said

53:16

well , there's actually

53:19

three different ways you can measure a

53:21

shoulder . You can measure it from

53:23

the edge of the road to the inside

53:26

of the white line . You

53:28

can measure it from the center of the road

53:31

to the middle of the white line or

53:33

you can measure it from the edge of the road to the

53:35

outside and they were going to do

53:37

it to the outside . So if you think

53:39

about that , that makes that shoulder

53:42

substantially narrower

53:44

. And he said , no , the

53:47

shoulder's going to be that wide . And

53:49

so my point about Skyliners

53:52

is we could ride that when I moved to Bent . You

53:55

can ride it today , and people do

53:57

, and it's an awesome option

53:59

for people to ride a nice easy road , ride

54:01

little hills into the mountains . On

54:05

the other hand , you can also ride

54:07

your mountain bike on Ben's trail

54:11

and Phil's network and go

54:13

to the same place . So

54:15

if it wasn't for that , you'd

54:17

have three times the people riding their road bikes

54:19

. But nowadays , because there's so many options

54:21

, there's a lot , a lot of

54:23

people that say , well , why , would I want to ride a road bike

54:25

when I could ride a mountain bike

54:28

, for sure I .

54:29

I look at cycling just as a whole and you look

54:31

back over the different decades and there seems to

54:33

be like like there was the 80s bmx

54:36

thing , right , and then there was , like you

54:38

know , the the 80s kind of rode

54:40

by like that . Oh , what's that old movie with Kevin

54:43

Costner , american Flyer ?

54:44

Oh right . You're right , you know in a way yeah

54:46

and like you know there was and then

54:48

.

54:49

And then you kind of transition into

54:51

those early 2000s where where

54:53

cycling kind of became more

54:55

Mainstream

55:00

, I guess in a way with Lance Armstrong

55:02

and his story and you know

55:04

I mean there I mean

55:06

there was pot like people tuned in

55:08

and it seemed like bike . You

55:10

know , cycling was getting more popular in

55:13

ways , and then road cycling kind of

55:15

has seems like died off

55:17

. I walk into most bike shops anymore

55:19

and , like you know , what used to

55:21

be a pretty heavy road

55:23

inventory seems pretty

55:25

limited now . You know and and

55:27

and it just . I guess , more than anything , you

55:30

could say the same about BMX bikes . Where

55:32

where do you find a BMX bike ? Now , you know , but

55:34

people still ride them . You know , and

55:36

I don't know . It's just that now

55:38

we're , now we're kind of transitioning , for

55:40

you know that seems like the last thing was was

55:43

gravel bikes , and now there's , you know , the whole

55:45

e-bike . You know evolution

55:47

and and where's it going , and you know

55:49

there's there's more and more just ways

55:52

that people are using the same concept

55:54

of two wheels and pedals . But is

55:56

it changing from that ? You know as an e-bike

55:59

, still a bike , I don't know . I

56:01

guess sometimes , sometimes it's not .

56:06

You're not going to get me to comment on e-bikes

56:08

?

56:08

Yeah , I am , you

56:11

can comment all you want .

56:14

I'm keeping this a positive podcast

56:16

.

56:17

Talk more about what's going on with the bike

56:19

industry . I don't know .

56:22

It started with the bike industry . I don't

56:25

know it started with . Covid

56:27

yeah .

56:35

And so when .

56:35

COVID started .

56:36

People like you know , like you decide what am I going to do with some spare time ? I start

56:38

a podcast . They start mountain biking . Well , you know something . Who knows

56:40

what's going to ?

56:41

happen . So I

56:44

actually said well

56:46

, you should just lay me off at Sunnyside , because

56:49

we didn't know what was going to happen . Are they going

56:51

to close the stores ? You

56:54

know they closed some stores . Well , bike stores were considered like

56:57

hardware stores , essential

56:59

. So , we didn't know that , like hardware

57:01

stores , essential , so we didn't know that . So I basically

57:03

took a year off work because

57:06

of you know , covid

57:08

. But when I

57:11

went back to work , trek does

57:14

this yearly

57:16

thing called Trek World and

57:25

they were basically talking about this is the new paradigm .

57:26

This is because we were selling every freaking bike we could get .

57:28

Yeah , you know every . You couldn't get enough bikes and we

57:30

I don't know if you would have walked into sunnyside like

57:34

the march after

57:36

covid started . I

57:38

think we had five bikes on them .

57:39

Yeah , well , I bought , well , I bought

57:41

my Huckaloogie

57:44

. What is it ? Right

57:46

In the middle of that , yeah , and

57:48

there was like a three-month wait , right

57:51

, yeah , I built that , yeah , I remember , in my garage

57:54

, of all things .

57:57

And so all these companies bought

58:00

zillions

58:02

of bikes and they

58:04

order . So you pre-order all this stuff

58:06

and there's

58:09

too many bikes on them . So all

58:12

of a sudden , everyone has to put their bikes on sale

58:14

and they're not making money . And

58:17

so it went from this—I

58:20

think Ibis had its best year the year you bought

58:22

your Hawkeye , and

58:24

then

58:26

last year they put their bikes

58:29

on sale and

58:32

you can't afford to sell these bikes

58:34

at the prices . So

58:38

I don't know what's gonna happen , but almost

58:41

everything Every bike

58:43

is on sale in the world . I mean , the

58:45

two biggest online

58:50

retailers in Great Britain went bankrupt

58:52

, wow , and

58:55

they had a huge backing of money . You

58:59

know , shimano had its worst profit

59:01

year in 20 years , or something . So

59:06

, believe me , the e-bike thing , they're just trying to sell something

59:08

, and you know . So , believe me , the e-bike thing is , it's just , they're

59:10

just trying to sell something .

59:11

Yeah , that makes sense , you know

59:13

.

59:13

And it's their industry and

59:16

they have to do the best they can . Yeah , but

59:18

I find it . I find it short-sighted

59:21

.

59:21

Yeah .

59:24

So I commute to

59:26

Sunnyside . Last

59:30

two weeks ago I drove to

59:32

work for the first time in

59:34

40 years where I was working

59:36

a full day . It was a really glowy

59:38

, blizzardy day .

59:40

The first time in 40 years .

59:42

I ride my bike every day .

59:43

Yeah .

59:44

Okay . I have . Now that

59:46

doesn't mean that if I work three hours

59:48

or they need me to come in

59:50

and I'm in the car , yeah , I got

59:52

you . Your first full day of

59:54

work . But if I'm working full day , I

59:57

actually drove because it was a really

59:59

snowy , blizzardy day

1:00:01

and I just

1:00:03

didn't feel like you know , and I

1:00:05

just didn't feel like you know

1:00:08

. That being said , it takes

1:00:10

me eight minutes to drive my bike

1:00:12

to work . If

1:00:17

I got an e-bike it would take me seven minutes and ten seconds . Okay , so

1:00:19

I don't need an e-bike . I admit that , so

1:00:22

you know if I lived out of town my

1:00:26

favorite . Did you ever read anything by the bike snob

1:00:28

? No , he's a New York guy

1:00:30

. Okay . Super funny guy you should look it up . Yeah

1:00:32

, I will , and I think he might even do podcasts

1:00:35

, Probably . Anyway , so the bike snob , he's a

1:00:37

super guy . Someone

1:00:43

asked him .

1:00:43

This is like in the when did we have that last gas

1:00:45

crunch 2007 or 8 or ?

1:00:46

something . So they just said so , bike snob , what

1:00:49

do I do to get my bike ready

1:00:51

to commute to work ? He

1:00:53

goes , ride it to work . It's

1:00:59

that simple . It's simple Ride

1:01:01

your bike to work and it's a commute

1:01:03

bike . And this

1:01:06

is somewhat unrelated , but Norway

1:01:08

probably has the best

1:01:11

promotion

1:01:14

of e-cars of any country in the world

1:01:16

. However

1:01:19

, they totally messed up their

1:01:21

public transportation because

1:01:24

of it . They spent all their money subsidizing

1:01:27

purchases of e-cars and

1:01:29

their public transportation , if you compare it to

1:01:31

Sweden or Finland , has just

1:01:34

gone to the wayside and really

1:01:37

you know

1:01:39

that's not

1:01:41

a success . Public

1:01:44

transportation is the answer

1:01:47

. How often do you snowboard ? Still

1:01:49

?

1:01:51

Regularly .

1:01:52

Right the last three days . Wouldn't it be nice if there was

1:01:54

a train up there ? You just hop

1:01:56

on the train . You don't

1:01:59

get behind the bus that's stuck in the middle of the road

1:02:01

. You don't get stuck behind the pickup

1:02:03

truck , the idiot

1:02:06

driver , you

1:02:15

don't . You know , as I told someone the other day I said look , bachelor

1:02:17

was developed in the early 60s and there was a two-lane road that went

1:02:19

there . 10,000 people lived in town . Now

1:02:21

we have 200,000

1:02:24

people and it's still a two-lane road and public transportation

1:02:26

is the answer . Whether you're driving a Tesla to the

1:02:28

bathroom or not doesn't help anybody

1:02:31

. You're not the

1:02:33

idiot that rides your bike up there . Did

1:02:35

you ever see that guy ?

1:02:37

Yeah , the e-bike guy . Yeah , I

1:02:39

think it's . Maybe you know him , I don't

1:02:42

know him . I think it's an interesting , I think it's just interesting . I think

1:02:44

it's an interesting , I think it's just interesting

1:02:46

. You know , I mean to each their own .

1:02:48

I get it , but

1:02:52

I also I don't get when he's riding on the wrong side

1:02:54

of the road . Yeah , going up

1:02:56

in a blizzard . I

1:02:59

just I go up early and

1:03:01

I'm driving up and I'm following like this sprinter

1:03:03

van right and

1:03:05

after the sprinter van goes by this big

1:03:08

cloud of smoke and then I see this weird thing on

1:03:10

the side and it's this guy on a bike and

1:03:12

he has a little blinking light and

1:03:15

it's like you

1:03:17

know you're not safe what if I

1:03:19

hit you ? yeah , who would actually feel

1:03:21

worse ? You'd be dead and I'd be devastated

1:03:23

. Yeah , you know . Anyway

1:03:26

, I find the whole commute

1:03:29

thing it's

1:03:34

like just make

1:03:36

it cheap . You know , you don't

1:03:38

. You know , when I worked for the Forest Service

1:03:40

I rode this $25 single

1:03:44

speed to work Totally , and

1:03:46

now I have a lot of

1:03:48

bikes . I just

1:03:50

ride one of the bikes I own . Yeah , and

1:03:52

I don't see that I need a $6,000

1:03:55

electric bike .

1:03:58

Yeah , I mean the cost of materials

1:04:02

and manufacturing must be really high

1:04:04

for the price tag on some of these bikes

1:04:07

. Man , I mean

1:04:09

you referenced that first . So

1:04:11

what do you think ? That first Trek

1:04:13

retailed for Under $1,000

1:04:15

, huh , oh , you mean

1:04:17

like that first Trek ?

1:04:18

mountain bike that I had .

1:04:20

Yeah .

1:04:21

So they made their first Trek

1:04:24

mountain bike was called a Trek 850 . And

1:04:26

I think they were

1:04:28

about 400 . Yeah and um

1:04:31

trek at that time

1:04:33

were all made in the united states , so

1:04:36

it was a little more . You know , we had pujos

1:04:38

at the time . They were made in taiwan

1:04:42

or whatever and they were

1:04:44

under , I think , 299

1:04:46

or something like that , um

1:04:49

you know and and you

1:04:51

know . You

1:04:53

know . What's interesting , though , is if you buy , if

1:04:56

I buy the , if I could buy the cheapest

1:04:58

trek , that I sell mountain bike and

1:05:02

give it . To go back in time

1:05:04

and give it to myself in 1990

1:05:07

and say , don , you're going to race

1:05:09

world's on this bike , I

1:05:12

would think I had the coolest bike ever . And

1:05:15

those bikes aren't

1:05:17

that expensive compared to

1:05:19

what we rode back then

1:05:22

and what they have , you know , hydraulic

1:05:24

disc brakes , dropper seat posts

1:05:26

, I mean just better sized wheels

1:05:29

. You know , so it is if

1:05:31

you actually are looking at not

1:05:33

just technology

1:05:37

and the best . If you're just

1:05:39

looking at the same level

1:05:42

of bike , I mean they shift better

1:05:44

.

1:05:45

Totally the fork .

1:05:46

I didn't even have a fork in my oh , I got a RockShox

1:05:49

from the RockShox guy at World's . But

1:05:52

the fork on a

1:05:54

Marlin 5 is a better fork than

1:05:56

that original RockShox . So

1:06:02

in a sense you don't need to buy

1:06:04

a real expensive bike to have a better bike than

1:06:06

what we rode . Absolutely , I think about

1:06:08

that all the time , you know . I mean I'm glad I have

1:06:10

a better bike , but on the other hand

1:06:12

it's pretty amazing

1:06:15

what you can actually buy , yeah and

1:06:17

stuff .

1:06:18

But anyway , I don't know what

1:06:22

does mountain biking in Central

1:06:24

Oregon look like in 20 years .

1:06:28

I'll be 93 . Yeah

1:06:30

, I'll probably be walking more

1:06:33

than riding .

1:06:35

Or you'll be riding a new e-bike . Never

1:06:38

, never say never

1:06:40

, bro . Yes , I can .

1:06:43

Okay , so I'm an avid cross-country skier

1:06:45

, right ? Okay so I'm

1:06:48

an avid cross-country skier , right , and

1:06:53

way more elderly people cross-country ski than mountain bike . I mean , there's no—if

1:06:56

I showed you photos , videos of some

1:06:58

of the people I see every day skiing

1:07:00

, you would go

1:07:02

whoa , that's impressive , and

1:07:08

I'll guarantee you not one

1:07:11

of them would ever say they want some kind of assistance .

1:07:13

Yeah yeah , I don't disagree with you , I don't even think I can say

1:07:15

never .

1:07:16

Yeah , I know .

1:07:17

I don't even think that the argument

1:07:20

of , hey , e-bikes

1:07:22

allow people to get out there more , I don't

1:07:24

think that's true .

1:07:25

I think Well we had that argument in the 60s , when we made

1:07:27

wilderness . Yeah , when . I was 14

1:07:29

years old , I used to go to hearings

1:07:31

, for basically

1:07:34

, we wanted to have the Wilderness Act , and

1:07:36

the biggest argument against the

1:07:38

Wilderness Act was for old people

1:07:41

to have access . And

1:07:43

so by not allowing motorcycles

1:07:45

to go up to Green Lakes so that some old

1:07:48

guy like me could look at

1:07:50

the lake , well , when I can't get to Green Lakes , I'll

1:07:53

walk around Muir Pond . I mean , I

1:07:55

don't—just

1:07:58

because the technology's there doesn't mean that

1:08:00

it's real yeah , just because you can

1:08:02

doesn't mean you should , and I think , fortunately

1:08:05

, you know , when you see all these cross-country skiers , I

1:08:09

just know there's also a component , like me , of

1:08:11

people who this will never happen

1:08:13

, you know , and

1:08:17

so we'll stick together and maybe we'll be

1:08:19

the minority , but we'll know we'll

1:08:21

be happy with what we're doing . I would say

1:08:23

in 20 years I'm

1:08:26

going to say there will be trails that are allowed

1:08:28

for e-bikes . I know that I

1:08:31

think there may

1:08:33

have been an evolution of where some

1:08:36

of the e-bike trails they

1:08:40

reduce the number because

1:08:43

I think there'll be issues . I

1:08:45

think , as

1:08:50

some of us , when we go riding

1:08:52

you just see other people sharing our trails

1:08:54

. I think with e-bikes

1:08:57

that will become less possible

1:09:00

. You know the horse

1:09:02

people , the equestrians

1:09:04

, they're not necessarily against e-bikes

1:09:07

but they just say well , what's going to happen

1:09:09

on the Metolius-Wendigo Trail and stuff

1:09:12

like that . So

1:09:19

I

1:09:22

think things will settle down to

1:09:25

where see as many new trails in the

1:09:27

Bend area , because I think the

1:09:29

Forest Service recognizes that

1:09:31

trails affect wildlife and

1:09:35

all of a sudden there's no wildlife

1:09:37

corridors left . You know , if you just

1:09:39

keep building trail after trail after

1:09:41

trail and

1:09:43

mountain bikes are fast

1:09:46

and they're

1:09:49

not really wildlife friendly . So

1:09:51

I don't really see

1:09:53

how there could be a

1:09:58

lot more trails in the Bend

1:10:00

area . I think Horse Ridge will have been

1:10:02

developed . I think

1:10:04

people will finally

1:10:07

start using some of the trails that I ride that

1:10:09

are outlying trails . There's some really

1:10:12

fun trails that aren't

1:10:14

that far away , that

1:10:17

you know , the Ochocos down

1:10:20

by Maiden Peak , the

1:10:23

Cascadia trails will

1:10:27

probably be more used for good

1:10:29

or for bad , but

1:10:33

I don't

1:10:35

see huge , huge

1:10:38

changes in terms of trails

1:10:40

, just

1:10:42

some of the areas developed

1:10:44

a little more .

1:10:46

Do you guys have more customers coming in the

1:10:48

store that want bikes

1:10:50

specific for Bachelor , like downhill

1:10:52

, more enduro type stuff ?

1:10:59

I think when Bachelor first opened , there

1:11:01

was this sense that we were going

1:11:03

to sell downhill bikes and downhill helmets , and

1:11:06

I don't think that ever really happened . I

1:11:11

think what's interesting is

1:11:13

, first of all , there's

1:11:16

really only one trail at Bachelor that you

1:11:18

probably should have a downhill bike on . And

1:11:21

even that trail , Mike and stuff

1:11:23

ride with their big travel

1:11:25

enduro bikes . Yeah , mike , and stuff , ride with

1:11:27

their you know their big travel enduro

1:11:30

bikes . So I don't think , I don't know if that's going to happen

1:11:32

at . Bachelor if they're really going to get more

1:11:35

. You know more technical trails

1:11:37

. You

1:11:40

know . The first time I went to Bachelor

1:11:42

I showed up on my Trek 29er Remedy

1:11:44

and I was a little nervous

1:11:47

. And this guy comes oh

1:11:49

no , you're going to need a downhill bike . So

1:11:52

I rode the trail that they had and I'm thinking

1:11:54

these are just like a long

1:11:56

version of Titor's Traverse

1:11:58

. Yeah , you know yeah . I mean it's

1:12:00

like I

1:12:03

think , did you ride up there ? I

1:12:05

never . I'm not interested in it for some reason . There's some fun trails up there . I never did you

1:12:07

ride up there .

1:12:07

I never . I'm not interested in it for some reason .

1:12:09

There's some fun trails up there . I never yeah , and

1:12:12

I

1:12:15

just I've had . They give me a really

1:12:17

good deal on a season pass . I had a season pass

1:12:19

a couple years . It's kind

1:12:21

of fun . What I

1:12:24

tell people about

1:12:26

Bachelor is if

1:12:29

you could do Tyler's Traverse like five

1:12:31

times , you'd get pretty

1:12:33

good at it . Yeah , and you'd kind of get the feel

1:12:36

for it . Yeah , you

1:12:39

snowboard , you know if you had to walk

1:12:41

up , oh , I get it , I

1:12:43

get the draw .

1:12:44

I mean you get the reps and the you

1:12:47

know , but I've , I it's , it's kind of like at this

1:12:49

point in my life , like I , there's

1:12:52

more to it than just the descent

1:12:55

. Like I , I find as much enjoyment

1:12:58

and value in the

1:13:01

challenge of of the climb climb

1:13:03

. No , I totally agree . And I don't know if that's

1:13:05

just my personality or , but you

1:13:07

know , I

1:13:12

just . I mean , it's like I was never that into shuttling Like I don't really

1:13:14

want to shuttle whoops .

1:13:15

you know I'm just , you know , I'd rather ride up there . Well , there's a couple of dumb

1:13:17

shuttles . I could go on there , but basically

1:13:20

, but there's not everybody

1:13:22

as good as you are descending

1:13:24

. Well , I understand that . So if I had

1:13:27

someone who was kind of good but just

1:13:29

wanted to get a little better , they

1:13:31

should go to Bachelor and just learn

1:13:33

how to do it without being wasted . And

1:13:36

then , because if you could do the law , there's

1:13:38

a trail called Lava Run , which is basically

1:13:41

Tizer's Traverse , only

1:13:43

four miles long

1:13:45

, and you can do it like four times . And

1:13:48

so by the time you've done it four times , you

1:13:51

actually know how to ride a bike . And

1:13:53

so to me that's the positive

1:13:56

part Makes sense . But

1:13:58

you know again , if

1:14:01

you could imagine trying to learn , I mean

1:14:03

teaching someone how

1:14:05

to snowboard , but they couldn't take

1:14:07

a lift .

1:14:08

Yeah .

1:14:08

How long would it ? Would

1:14:11

it take you like five years to teach ?

1:14:12

them . Yeah , I mean .

1:14:14

But you can see what I'm talking about . I absolutely

1:14:17

can , on the other hand . So you think about shuttling

1:14:19

. So you

1:14:21

know , you go to the bottom of Tyler's and you see people

1:14:23

who shuttle Tyler's and

1:14:27

I can actually ride tilers up and down

1:14:29

and it takes me probably 10

1:14:31

minutes longer than the shuttlers

1:14:33

. So what's the point ? The

1:14:37

whoops is the same thing . It

1:14:39

takes 45 minutes to ride

1:14:41

from the Green Gate to the top of the

1:14:43

Fun Whoops . You don't have to go all the way

1:14:45

to the parking

1:14:47

lot . Why would you ? So

1:14:49

you just go up to

1:14:52

where it crosses that road and

1:14:54

you get to do those little rock gardens and shit . Maybe

1:14:58

it takes 50 minutes . How

1:15:00

long does it take to shuttle ? I

1:15:05

mean you

1:15:08

know , lev's a pretty good friend of mine and you talked to Lev

1:15:10

about the shuttle thing and

1:15:12

he's pretty sure that they do

1:15:14

about 10% of the shuttling and

1:15:17

the rest is self-shuttled . Yeah , and

1:15:19

I

1:15:22

mean I've shuttled with Lev

1:15:24

and it's kind of fun . You know I've shuttled

1:15:26

with Lev and it's kind

1:15:29

of fun . You know he'll take me up to you

1:15:31

know Bachelor and you ride down

1:15:33

and it's a good . You get to do some

1:15:35

long and it's not easy

1:15:37

you know , yeah even

1:15:39

descents in Central Oregon have

1:15:42

climbing .

1:15:44

It is you know .

1:15:45

But you know self-shutt-shuttling

1:15:47

it's like , okay , I drive up there , someone

1:15:51

drives me up there , and

1:15:53

then I got . You know , it just becomes as complicated

1:15:55

it's mckinsey river trail . I could

1:15:57

shuttling years ago . I just ride down

1:16:00

to the fun part and turn around and ride back and

1:16:02

don't ride the last section

1:16:04

, which which is kind of whatever , and

1:16:07

it takes five minutes longer

1:16:09

to ride back up than it does to ride down .

1:16:11

Yeah .

1:16:12

Because it's not much

1:16:14

of an ascent , so I'm with you on the shuttle

1:16:16

, yeah .

1:16:19

Any thoughts for people who are new

1:16:21

to Central Oregon , new

1:16:25

to Central

1:16:27

Oregon , newer to mountain biking in central

1:16:29

oregon , uh , any kind

1:16:32

of words of encouragement , references

1:16:35

other than coda ? You know I

1:16:37

mean always , I

1:16:39

always encourage people to either become

1:16:42

, at the very least become a member if you , if

1:16:44

you utilize the trails

1:16:46

. But you know , I mean I , when

1:16:48

I got together with immy a while

1:16:51

back , you know it was like basic etiquette

1:16:53

. You know I mean it's surprising how many people

1:16:55

you know on the trails don't realize

1:16:58

that climbers have the right away right

1:17:00

I mean , and

1:17:03

then when you go cross-country skier downhillers

1:17:05

have the right-of-way . And so it's confusing

1:17:07

. It is confusing .

1:17:07

Because I do both sports . I

1:17:10

know you'd think I'd know , but it is

1:17:12

for me this weird thing

1:17:14

. Wait a minute . I'm cross-country skiing

1:17:16

. I'm going downhill , I have the right-of-way

1:17:18

. I give the right-of-way

1:17:21

to everybody , yeah that's true . Because

1:17:23

I'm fairly skilled . If I'm

1:17:25

going downhill , if I'm so out of control

1:17:27

that someone has to

1:17:29

get out of my way , I'm out of control . That's

1:17:31

not right . So you

1:17:35

know , as I told someone back in

1:17:37

the day when we first started riding , who

1:17:42

cared about the right-of-way If you saw someone

1:17:44

, you knew them , and you stopped and talked . You

1:17:46

know , oh , hey , Paul , I haven't seen you for a year how

1:17:48

you doing . You know , nowadays it's like people

1:17:51

by having this right-of-way thing , it's

1:17:53

a full . It's my right . That's

1:17:56

true , and I really find that a

1:17:59

little disquieting . I mean , when

1:18:02

was that incident where that guy hit

1:18:04

this woman on South Fork

1:18:06

? Do you remember that A ?

1:18:07

couple years ago .

1:18:08

Yeah , yeah , I do remember this Well there's a sign

1:18:10

at the bottom of South Fork that basically says

1:18:12

if you ride up this , you're an idiot

1:18:14

, even though you have

1:18:16

the right-of-way . You have the right-of-way but

1:18:18

you're still an idiot , yeah

1:18:20

, and I mean I ride South

1:18:22

Fork a lot because I do this weird little

1:18:24

workout thing where I go up to

1:18:27

Tumalo Ridge and I do that little secret the

1:18:30

hard one , yeah , and then I ride . You know

1:18:32

it's like , again , it's

1:18:34

a hard workout and I get to ride South

1:18:36

Fork . What could be better

1:18:38

? Yeah . And the trail's so steep that

1:18:40

if you're pedaling you're going

1:18:43

hard , right , so you don't even have

1:18:45

to think about going hard . So

1:18:47

but I ride South Fork all the time . How

1:18:49

many times have I seen people going up ? Maybe

1:18:55

if I ride it 20 times a year once . So

1:18:59

why should I give right away ? I find

1:19:01

the whole thing , it's this weird

1:19:03

. American thing that

1:19:07

people have to think that someone

1:19:09

has . I always get the right

1:19:11

of way . I don't care if I'm going up or down

1:19:13

. I'm wearing a Sunnyside sports jersey . I

1:19:17

don't want someone to think I'm a hole

1:19:19

. I just want you know I get out of the way . If I'm going

1:19:22

up , I get out of the way . Oh

1:19:24

. I'm resting , Whatever

1:19:26

you know . So

1:19:31

I do appreciate the etiquette . What I would tell

1:19:33

someone who moved to Central Oregon and wants

1:19:35

to ride a mountain bike is one don't

1:19:38

get over your head . I

1:19:40

think that find

1:19:43

the trails that you're comfortable with , and

1:19:47

find the trails that you're comfortable

1:19:49

with . Don't

1:19:52

take our trail descriptions

1:19:54

. If you're in Idaho or Canada

1:19:57

and it says Phil's a black

1:19:59

diamond , no , that's 10

1:20:01

feet of Phil's . They don't mean that Phil's

1:20:03

is a black diamond . The guy that made

1:20:06

the map decided that that little

1:20:08

rock thing is a black diamond and

1:20:10

the rest of the trail is blue . I

1:20:13

think that's what people get . I've seen people

1:20:15

who are going the wrong way because

1:20:18

they wanted to bypass the black

1:20:20

diamond and it's like well , it's not

1:20:22

a black diamond . To

1:20:26

me that's beginning

1:20:29

over your head is probably . You

1:20:32

know , if you're a beginner

1:20:34

, do some of the shorter loops

1:20:36

, you know . I would totally tell

1:20:38

people get over the . Carry

1:20:41

a map , go buy yourself a map . The trail fork

1:20:43

thing isn't going to help you unless you know the trails

1:20:45

. You know . I mean , I

1:20:47

have trail forks , I use it all the time . But

1:20:50

a map is

1:20:53

helpful If

1:20:55

you're an experienced rider and you love

1:20:57

riding steep stuff

1:20:59

. Get out of the bend area . It's

1:21:03

about an hour drive to

1:21:05

ride Crescent Mountain , one

1:21:08

of the best descents around . It's

1:21:11

an hour 20 to the Ochicos

1:21:13

. So try

1:21:15

some of those trails . They're

1:21:21

super fun , not that far and

1:21:24

believe me , they're never crowded .

1:21:26

Yeah , I want to spend more time in the

1:21:28

Ochoa Coast . Man , I

1:21:30

haven't had the chance of getting out there and

1:21:33

riding . I

1:21:35

wanted to play just because I have

1:21:37

it and Mike Ripley is a big

1:21:40

fan of yours .

1:21:44

Well same thing with Don Leet . Don Leet unapologetically

1:21:48

told me how much he hated the mudslinger

1:21:50

mountain bike race literally

1:21:53

hated it . Shiny ass , wet trails

1:21:55

, ben , people don't like that , you know . But

1:21:57

he swore he would only come over until he

1:21:59

won the damn thing . And

1:22:02

that's what he did . And then he never came back , and

1:22:04

that's what he did .

1:22:06

And then he never came back .

1:22:08

Let's talk a little bit about Don's

1:22:10

history with mountain biking . Oh

1:22:12

dude , it's like extensive .

1:22:13

I mean no one knows about

1:22:16

the resort to resort rates for

1:22:18

mountain biking Don

1:22:25

does because he lived it like Sun River to Bend , you

1:22:29

know . So I mean Dave Campbell is the one in the state that has all the results and has all the

1:22:31

classic clippings . I keep on sending him more stuff too . He's on instagram his clips and

1:22:33

straps it's like clips , understore

1:22:35

straps , it's like a dave

1:22:38

with . Dave campbell is mostly a road cyclist

1:22:40

but you know journal , you

1:22:42

know just journaling , and he does my now super

1:22:45

high cascades , and so he knows

1:22:47

a lot of the overlap and

1:22:49

some of the really strong historical

1:22:51

riders that you know laced up their

1:22:54

um , you know shoes to go and throw

1:22:56

down , uh , competitively

1:22:58

. So you know . So

1:23:00

there's a lot of history with a lot of these people

1:23:03

either coming to mudslinger back in the day

1:23:05

or , like for don's case

1:23:07

, all the races that were

1:23:09

in mudslinger was 87 , so the

1:23:11

racing that started in the early 80s

1:23:14

, that would be cool just to

1:23:16

document the names

1:23:18

of those events that happened , say you

1:23:20

know , in the 80s time frame when mountain biking

1:23:23

was first starting . Yeah

1:23:25

, especially , especially in central Oregon

1:23:27

, because you know , most people aren't

1:23:29

aware of anything beyond . You

1:23:32

know what's searchable by Google

1:23:34

.

1:23:35

Right .

1:23:36

Really , that's the truth , right , unless you actually

1:23:38

yeah . And I've always told

1:23:40

the honor , told an

1:23:42

Oregon cycling . A Wikipedia cycling

1:23:45

page for Wikipedia would be kind of cool . You

1:23:47

know what ? What do you exclude , though

1:23:49

? You know what do you put in ?

1:23:50

Yeah , it's always a challenge

1:23:52

. I just Mike

1:23:55

has always such a good perspective

1:23:57

on stuff . I think , um

1:23:59

, he's , uh , I love his

1:24:01

banter , I love his approach to

1:24:03

stuff . Um , he's

1:24:07

got he we . I did an episode with him a while back which

1:24:10

is getting to hear his story , because

1:24:12

, man , it's a funny one , but yeah

1:24:14

.

1:24:16

Did he tell you when he lived in Bend ? Briefly

1:24:18

, yeah , he managed the pizza

1:24:21

place .

1:24:22

I think they tore it down and put a car wash

1:24:24

by Freddy's , because that's what he did over

1:24:27

in the valley in Eugene and then he

1:24:29

moved back .

1:24:30

I think his wife got a job back

1:24:32

over there . So he moved back

1:24:35

over there . But

1:24:37

no . Mike's been a huge plus

1:24:40

for us

1:24:43

, you know , for racers

1:24:45

, but even more because you

1:24:49

know , sometimes , when

1:24:51

you put a race on those

1:24:54

areas , the

1:24:56

trails actually become , you

1:24:58

know , rideable , so you

1:25:01

know . So racing is related

1:25:04

to having

1:25:06

better trails . And

1:25:09

have you heard of the resort to resort ?

1:25:11

race no .

1:25:12

So we started it at the

1:25:14

inn . So they started this

1:25:16

running race called resort

1:25:18

to resort and it used

1:25:20

to go from Sun River to the inn

1:25:24

.

1:25:24

The inn at Seventh Mountain .

1:25:25

Yeah , yeah , Inn at Seventh Mountain , and

1:25:27

they didn't even

1:25:29

have that . You know the river trail . So

1:25:31

, yes , you had to follow that

1:25:34

old train road . You know that's closed

1:25:36

now to cars , but that was the

1:25:38

trail . And

1:25:40

then and

1:25:42

I decided , well , it'd be fun to put on a mountain

1:25:44

bike race , so , but

1:25:47

instead of having a point-to-point , we

1:25:50

started at the

1:25:52

end and basically we

1:25:54

went up 41

1:25:57

a little bit and then that

1:26:00

road where you

1:26:02

hit Storm King , you

1:26:05

know , just before the Storm King . So that road , before

1:26:08

we'd take that road , and we'd climb

1:26:10

up to the Kewa Road , which

1:26:12

is close to where the Larson Trail is . And

1:26:15

then , basically , where is

1:26:19

it ? Dynamo Hum , dynamo

1:26:22

Hum . Is that the one that's over

1:26:24

there , right ?

1:26:24

I think so yeah .

1:26:26

Yeah , so that road we'd go back down

1:26:28

, kind of where Royal Flush

1:26:30

goes , and then we'd cross

1:26:32

and there used to be this old . In

1:26:35

fact this trail still exists . It's

1:26:37

a horse trail that the equestrian

1:26:39

used and

1:26:41

it's actually on some maps . The Forest Service vacated

1:26:43

it when they built that roundabout trail . So there's an area where there's no trails on some

1:26:46

maps . The Forest Service vacated it when they built that roundabout trail . So , there's

1:26:48

an area where there's no trails , but anyway

1:26:50

. So we'd cross 41

1:26:52

, hop on that trail and then you'd basically

1:26:55

be . So if you ride roundabout

1:26:57

clockwise

1:27:00

just before you get to

1:27:02

that bridge that crosses over to Sun River

1:27:04

. It looks like it's been there forever , so

1:27:06

that's what we used . We'd cross over to Sun River . It looks like it's been there forever , so that's

1:27:08

what we used . We'd cross over the

1:27:10

bridge there . We'd actually go through Sun

1:27:13

River on some road that we had

1:27:15

permission , and then we'd

1:27:17

follow the railroad grade because they hadn't built that

1:27:20

trail yet from Sun River to Benham , and

1:27:23

then at Benham we

1:27:25

would cross the bridge and then

1:27:27

we'd actually go over Benham Butte and

1:27:30

follow the power line and then

1:27:32

back to the

1:27:36

end . We did that for about five

1:27:38

years , I think . Yeah

1:27:40

, it's interesting

1:27:42

. So one year

1:27:44

. Marcel Rosenberger yeah

1:27:46

, Okay . So Marcelberger yeah , Okay . So Marcel came

1:27:49

to town .

1:27:50

You should share who Marcel is . So . Marcel

1:27:53

came to town to race the Cascade Siding

1:27:55

Classic he was a road racer , because he's a road racer from Europe

1:27:57

, right , right .

1:27:57

And he actually finished fifth at Cyclocross

1:28:01

Worlds 84

1:28:03

or 85 , anyway . So

1:28:08

you know he was fairly proficient . You know race the Tour de France , the Giro

1:28:10

of Volta , you know big time . But he

1:28:12

came to Ben , did some

1:28:15

bike racing and did the Cascade

1:28:17

and then he really liked

1:28:19

Ben so he kind of was hanging out here

1:28:21

and

1:28:23

that year

1:28:25

he was Paul Thomas Bergenhammer racing

1:28:28

and he just followed

1:28:31

Paul the whole time and then beat him in the

1:28:33

sprint . Paul was quite pissed off because

1:28:35

he wasn't really a roadie . Marcel's

1:28:39

story was that he'd never been here before . He didn't

1:28:41

know where the road , he didn't have a clue where

1:28:43

the race was . He just wanted to

1:28:45

follow someone that knew he

1:28:47

didn't have a clue where the race was

1:28:50

. He just wanted to follow someone

1:28:53

that knew .

1:28:53

So it was kind of like your Euro roadie

1:28:55

beating your young buck , mountain bike

1:28:57

dude , yeah , up and comer yeah . But

1:29:00

it was a good time . Do you feel like there's still

1:29:02

the number of races that there used to be

1:29:04

here ?

1:29:04

No . Yeah , I don't either , no of races that there used

1:29:06

to be here . No , yeah , I don't either . No , I mean , basically , there used to

1:29:09

be this rule that to be a bike

1:29:11

club in good what's

1:29:14

the word good

1:29:16

standing , you had to put on a bike

1:29:18

race . So Hutch's put on a race , we

1:29:21

put on a race , century

1:29:26

put on their race . So

1:29:28

every bike store was putting on a bike

1:29:30

race . You

1:29:35

know , when I retired from Sunnyside , I

1:29:37

also retired from putting on bike races . So

1:29:39

, that's why Pickett's Charge stopped

1:29:42

.

1:29:42

Nobody really wanted to do it .

1:29:46

And I'd rather be retired than do

1:29:48

it .

1:29:49

Well , it's a lot of work . It is a lot of work . I

1:29:51

talked to Mike and I mean he just hustles

1:29:53

man , putting on all these events . Oh yeah , but he

1:29:56

does it for a living . Yeah .

1:29:57

And he actually makes a living and I respect

1:29:59

him for that and he puts on phenomenal

1:30:01

events . Yeah , you always enjoy

1:30:03

a Mike . Oh yeah , but

1:30:06

you know there's not . Even

1:30:09

if it wasn't for Mike , I don't

1:30:11

think there'd be an event . I know .

1:30:13

That's how valuable he is , the role he

1:30:15

plays .

1:30:15

Yeah , you know , I think so . I

1:30:19

guess they still have the chain breaker

1:30:21

.

1:30:21

Do they , don't they ? I don't

1:30:23

know . I haven't raced that in five , six years , seven years , maybe not , maybe they don't they

1:30:25

? I don't know . I haven't raced that in five , six years , seven years , maybe not , maybe they

1:30:28

don't have a chain breaker .

1:30:29

Yeah , well , you know . So if there's

1:30:31

a local race , I know they have the Sisters Stampede

1:30:33

. Yeah , that's a fact . Yeah , and

1:30:35

Mike took that over .

1:30:36

Yeah , and that's the only reason it exists

1:30:38

and it's sold out already .

1:30:42

Yeah , then he puts on his

1:30:44

24-hour race and he puts on his 100-mile

1:30:46

race and then he started his 50-mile race

1:30:48

and all the other outside

1:30:51

area gravel races .

1:30:53

Yeah , I mean , I'm talking about Central Oregon , right , right , right .

1:30:55

So basically every race that I know of

1:30:58

in Central Oregon .

1:30:59

A guy from Corvallis puts on , I know , and

1:31:02

he does a hell of a job .

1:31:03

Yeah .

1:31:04

Yeah , anything

1:31:06

, we didn't talk about that you want to talk about

1:31:08

.

1:31:09

You know , I guess the other thing you were asking

1:31:12

about telling people

1:31:14

and you know , joining COTA

1:31:16

is an important thing . So COTA

1:31:18

is Central Oregon Trail Association , but

1:31:21

more important is figuring

1:31:23

out a way to to give

1:31:25

back yourself

1:31:28

to make sure that we have trails

1:31:30

. It's a very unusual

1:31:33

situation in terms of recreation

1:31:35

, in terms of mountain bike , as

1:31:37

opposed to other recreation

1:31:40

opportunities on the Forest

1:31:42

Service . So the Forest Service basically maintains

1:31:45

all the trails that you hike in in

1:31:47

the wilderness . That doesn't mean there aren't volunteer organizations

1:31:50

that help , but it's mainly

1:31:52

a Forest Service-powered

1:31:54

thing . Mountain Bike Trails

1:31:56

are basically built

1:31:58

and maintained by an organization

1:32:00

called COTA and there

1:32:03

are four

1:32:06

or five paid employees of CODA

1:32:08

. I can't keep track . They

1:32:10

got a grant . So , josh , and

1:32:14

anyway , so find

1:32:17

a way that you can , you know help

1:32:19

. You know , my thing is I

1:32:21

clear trails with

1:32:23

my chainsaw and

1:32:28

I find it entertaining and it's

1:32:30

fun , but it's hard

1:32:32

work . So if you ever you

1:32:34

know , a good way to figure out what's happening

1:32:37

is there's a Facebook page called

1:32:39

Bend Trails and to me that's the most informative information

1:32:41

about what's happening and if we need help to clear trails

1:32:43

, we'll actually post a thing on that Bend Trails thing most informative information

1:32:45

about what's happening . And if we

1:32:47

need help to clear trails , we'll

1:32:50

actually post a thing on that Ben Trails thing

1:32:52

. Anybody want to come help . If

1:32:54

you ever see that , just volunteer . It's

1:32:57

quite fun , you'll meet

1:32:59

some new people and you know it's

1:33:02

a way to you

1:33:05

know help

1:33:07

maintain our trails , because if the volunteers weren't there , they wouldn't

1:33:09

be there period .

1:33:13

Well , thanks , don . I mean thanks for doing

1:33:15

this , but also just the 40-plus

1:33:18

years of community involvement and

1:33:22

being a representative

1:33:25

of cycling man .

1:33:26

I mean you know .

1:33:29

It's a lifetime and it's awesome .

1:33:32

It is Thank you , I love it .

1:33:34

I know you do . Thank

1:33:57

you , hey . Thanks for listening

1:33:59

to Ben Magazine's the Circling Podcast

1:34:02

. Make sure to visit benmagazinecom

1:34:05

and learn about all the outdoor adventures

1:34:07

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1:34:14

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1:34:16

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1:34:18

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1:34:20

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1:34:22

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1:34:25

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1:35:00

does help . I'd like to say a special

1:35:02

thank you to all of those who participated

1:35:04

in the making of this episode , as it

1:35:06

wouldn't be the same without your contribution

1:35:09

, and I appreciate your trust . Visit

1:35:12

Don and all the fine folks at Sunnyside

1:35:14

Sports on Newport Avenue for

1:35:16

all your cycling and Nordic skiing

1:35:18

needs . Their doors are open daily

1:35:20

from 9 to 6 . Don't

1:35:23

forget to stay tuned after the show . Credits

1:35:25

for Don's contribution to the Circling

1:35:27

Podcast Community Art Project and

1:35:29

visit markjamnettcom

1:35:32

to learn more about subliminal story art

1:35:34

embedded with meaning . Lastly

1:35:36

, if you know someone who you think would

1:35:39

enjoy today's episode , please

1:35:41

share it with them today . Hey

1:35:43

, thanks for your time . Central Oregon , get

1:35:45

outside . We'll see you out there . And

1:35:47

remember the health of our community

1:35:49

relies on us .

1:35:56

So for us , living in Bend

1:35:58

has not just been taking

1:36:00

but also giving . You

1:36:03

know we feel like

1:36:06

making Bend a better place to live

1:36:08

, a more fun place to live , both

1:36:10

, you know , in terms of bicycling

1:36:14

and outdoor sports . But you

1:36:16

know we were a big supporter when I was the

1:36:18

owner of the Central Oregon Symphony

1:36:20

. the

1:36:28

beauty of bands is that you can do almost anything and feel

1:36:31

like you have art , you have music

1:36:33

, and then you can go skiing

1:36:36

or ride your bike or run or kayak

1:36:38

or whatever . So , yes

1:36:41

, there's too many people , because they

1:36:43

like it as much as I do . What can you say ?