Podcasts about Surly

On "The Lead" - Deena Winter from the Star Tribune on some red flags in Minneapolis' violence interrupter program. And why Rep. Nolan West wants video surveillance at child care centers. On "Page 2" - why is Surly moving to NoDak?

Buried in an eighth-century Latin letter from a monk who keeps his name a secret is a two-line maybe heroic nugget of juicy maybe heroic wisdom. We read it.

Thrilled to have Robert Stanley a.k.a. Newfie Country Boy Outdoors to chat about his canoeing adventures, hunting and living free in the great outdoors. Robert is a life-long adventure seeker and documents his excursions on YouTube and across all social media platforms. Also joining me is my good buddy, you know him, you love him, Surly Dan of the Widowmaker podcast. Dan is an avid hunter and shares his knowledge for tracking and harvesting as well as the importance of finding solitude in the woods.

Send us a textIn the latest episode of Tell Me About Your Bike, Host Wesley Cheney takes a ride into the unknown on his new bike.Support the show

Finding period-correct tires has become next to impossible or prohibitively expensive when restoring vintage mountain bikes. Bike industry veteran and vintage bike enthusiast, Wakeman Massie, recognized this void and founded House of Looptail to fill it. Wakeman has painstakingly recreated some of the most iconic tires in mountain bike and BMX history.In today's Bikes and Big Ideas conversation, Wakeman talks about some of the other well-known products he designed before getting into vintage tires, like the Travel Agent, Tooth Fairy, 1x1 Blowerdrive, Surly Singleator, and the legendary Surly 1x1 frame. Wakeman and Simon discuss the challenges of recreating tires when the drawings and molds no longer exist, why the new tires are better than the old ones, why vintage mountain bikes deserve to be ridden and not thrown in the landfill, and a whole lot more. RELATED LINKS:BLISTER+ MembershipThis Week's Gear GiveawayHouse of LooptailTOPICS & TIMES:Starting out in Bike Shops (2:31)Industrial Design Degree and Working for QBP (4:11)Earning Trust with the Travel Agent (8:52)Designing the Surly 1x1 (11:18)Starting House of Looptail (23:53)The Snake Belly Tire (30:53)Working with Panaracer (34:40)The New Tires are Better (37:56)The Ritchey Megabite Z-Max (45:04)How to Remake a Tire with No Drawings or Molds (48:53)What's Next (52:24)What Wakeman is Riding (55:33)CHECK OUT OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Blister CinematicOff The CouchGEAR:30Blister PodcastCRAFTED Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy and Boss furlough their managers, hire pigeons as extras, go on heavy dates, and wander into a wampa's cave as they discuss Doris Wishman's Bad Girls Go to Hell.

As the war in Ukraine continues with no resolution in sight, pressure is mounting on all sides. After meeting with Trump and J.D. Vance, Zelensky reaffirmed that the conflict remains far from over. But with billions in U.S. aid already spent and no clear path to victory, is Ukraine's strategy backfiring?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Josh Lemke of Surly Brewing & I have a conversation about his 1st beers, becoming a metalhead, being an artist, working at Surly, Darkness Day, Pizza and so much more. Throughout this chat Josh drank Surly Brewing x Trve Brewing 's "Deathwestern" the 4.8% Dark Czech Lager while I enjoyed Surly Brewing's "Octoberfest" the 6% Märzen Lager. Make sure to check out Vox&Hops' Brewtal Awakenings Playlist which has been curated by the Metal Architect Jerry Monk himself on either Spotify or Apple Music. This playlist is packed with all the freshest, sickest & most extreme albums each week! Photo Credit: Surly Brewing Episode Links: Website: https://www.voxandhops.com/ Join The Vox&Hops Mailing List: http://eepurl.com/hpu9F1 Join The Vox&Hops Thirsty Thursday Gang: https://www.facebook.com/groups/162615188480022 Surly Brewing: https://surlybrewing.com/ Vox&Hops Brewtal Awakenings Playlist: https://www.voxandhops.com/p/brewtal-awakenings-metal-playlist/ Season of Mist: https://www.season-of-mist.com/ Sound Talent Media: https://soundtalentmedia.com/ Evergreen Podcasts: https://evergreenpodcasts.com/ SUPPORT THE PODCAST: Vox&Hops Metal Podcast Merchandise: https://www.indiemerchstore.com/collections/vendors?q=Vox%26Hops Use the Promo Code: VOXHOPS10 to save 10% off your entire purchase. Pitch Black North: https://www.pitchblacknorth.com/ Use the Promo Code: VOXHOPS15 to save 15% off your entire purchase. Heartbeat Hot Sauce: https://www.heartbeathotsauce.com/ Use the Promo Code: VOXHOPS15 to save 15% off your entire purchase.

Reach out and touch us: shfitlesslive@gmail.com In this solo episode of Shiftless, Kevin discusses the latest in the world of gravel cycling, including the success of the 2025 Texas Chain Ring Massacre and the inaugural Privateer Invitational Gravel Grinder, which saw over 550 participants and a $5,000 cash payout. Kevin also touches on industry news such as QBP's recent layoffs and the release of new bikes from Surly and State. He emphasizes the importance of local bike shops and the challenges facing the cycling industry. Kevin highlights the value of Club Spinistry memberships, collaborative efforts with other events, and thanks to corporate supporters like Mad Duck Cyclery, Pickle Juice, and Kantu Cycling Wheels. He concludes with a call for Jim Cummins' induction into the Gravel Cycling Hall of Fame, stressing his significant impact on the sport. 00:00 Introduction and Show Setup 01:32 Texas Chain Ring Massacre Recap 04:18 QBP Layoffs and Industry Concerns 07:58 Surly vs. State Bicycles 11:30 Supporting Local Bike Shops 16:35 Collaborating with Other Events 20:49 Gravel Camp and Rattlesnake Gravel Grind Collaboration 22:07 Vermejo Charcoal Burner Event Details 23:55 Building the Cycling Community 24:18 Club Spinistry Membership Benefits 32:39 Corporate Supporters and Collaborations 40:20 Gravel Cycling Hall of Fame Commentary 43:22 Conclusion and Future Plans

BLUE LUG BIKE SHOP 3店長による自転車ラヂオ

BLUE LUG BIKE SHOP 3店長による自転車ラヂオ

Voicemail: 951-292-4377;  Colors on the craps table;  Surly gamblers;  Fontainebleau blackjack: Dealer stands on soft 17;  Actual odds of hitting All/Small/Tall;  Pontoon;  Waterfront Cebu City Hotel Casino, Philippines

Surly dragon, sexy showgirl, and cute puppies. If I told you the best magic show in Vegas right now is starring a short, unkempt, surly Englishman in a poorly-fitting sequined dragon costume, you would probably question my opinion.  But Piff the Magic Dragon is hands-down the most entertaining magic show I've seen in Vegas, and that includes all the celeb-magicians. Caesars Entertainment snatched up a contract with Piff in 2015 after he appeared on America's Got Talent. He was no stranger to Vegas, having worked in the Cosmopolitan's Rose.Rabbit.Lie and Spiegelworlds's Vegas Nocturne in 2014. He also toured as a supporting act for Mumford & Sons during their 2012 tour and is on their album cover for “Babel.” I first saw Piff in 2020, shortly after he was moved from the tiny Bugsy's Cabaret (the same place you can currently see Wayne Newton and X-Burlesque) to the 700 seat Flamingo Showroom due to social distancing requirements. Mrs. Jaydubs describes Piff as “that surly uncle who comes to the party, and you don't want your kids around him because you don't know what he's going to say. But he tells the best stories.” This is pretty accurate. I brought the whole family to see him during spring break and tried not to mentally cringe as he dropped S-bombs during the show, but 1) they're already hearing it at school and 2) they were so captivated by Piff's bombastic magnetism that much of it flew past them without registering. Plus: Mr. Piffles. Piff's chihuahua in a little dragon costume is definitely a gimmick, but Mr. Piffles is so adorable that the gimmick is forgiven. When we last saw Piff, Mr. Piffles was so tired that he fell asleep onstage during his bit. I fear the tiny pup is not long for this world. Piff's greatest strength is his mis-direction. His biggest trick starts at the beginning of the show, but he doesn't bring it home until the end. He slowly revisits the trick, building on it and adding layers of complexity. You start to wonder where he's going with all this seemingly random stuff until it all comes together at the end in a very impressive way. If you've ever wanted to see a dog in a dragon costume driving a car, have I got a show for you... Part of Piff's schtick is his surly, rude demeanor. And it's mostly schtick, as he is a super nice guy. He heads out into the Flamingo gaming floor after the show to take pictures with any and all audience members. If you want to get a taste of his act, check out his full special “Reptile Dysfunction” which is free on YouTube. But don't watch it all until you've seen him live so you don't spoil any of his tricks. Then come back and watch the whole thing after you've seen him live and watch the whole thing, because it's fucking hilarious. Piff is my answer for the best magic show in Las Vegas right now. He may not have the best tricks - I don't really know enough about magic to say what the best tricks are - but he is by far the most entertained I've ever been at a magic show in Vegas, and he's the only magician I've gone back to see more than once. Piff works well in the Flamingo Showroom Audience fuckery factor: So there's definitely some audience participation in this show. Frankly, I haven't seen a magic show that didn't have volunteers or some type of audience involvement. There's several instances in which Piff asks for volunteers for the audience, but none that I can recall in which people were chosen at random. The showroom itself is gorgeous and reminds me of old Vegas. Seating is comfortable and available at a variety of price points. Seat styles range from “chairs in a row” to table and booth seating. There is drink service during the show, but Mrs. Jaydubs got terribly sick from one of their specialty cocktails, so maybe best to stick with bottles and cans. Shows are currently nightly at 7, dark on Fridays. Tickets start at around $50.      

Show #270 - Seeley Dave joins JK and Sven via the Call-In Studio Call-in line to introduce his Cadaero frame bag for his Omnium Cargo, discuss Jerry Wright and the Memorial for him on October 12th in Hayward, WI, marvel at the new Surly Moonlander V2 and other Northwoods rambling. Check out our YouTube channel! – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxsQsEHbg-wIPaXLw3Hqy1A The Milwaukee Minute (or 5) Tour de Towner Steel is Real Planning Full Cut of the Riverwest 24 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3bQE9PHAQE  Steel is Real September 21st - https://www.facebook.com/events/542465624799570 Tour de Towner Surly Moonlander V2 - 24 x 6.2 wheels/tires! Talkin' Schmack New Surly Moonlander w/24x6.2 tires! - https://surlybikes.com/bikes/moonlander-v2  Fat Bike Birkie - March 8th, 2025 - https://www.birkie.com/bike/events/fat-bike-birkie/  State Bicycles Marley Klunker - https://www.statebicycle.com/collections/state-bicycle-co-x-bob-marley/products/state-bicycle-co-x-bob-marley-klunker-hemp-bag-combo-27-5  Pebble Bee setup and hidden on my Xtra AirTag - order direct and get initials engraved Distant Eye Song after the show - Chris Daisy's new band Distant Eye - https://distanteye.bandcamp.com/album/luck-is-real  Show Guest - Dave Schlabowske  Jerry Wright Memorial - October 12th - Hayward, WI Cedaero Custom Bags - https://cedaero.com Cedaero Omnium Cargo Bag Show Beer - Raised Grain Shrinkage  https://untappd.com/b/raised-grain-brewing-company-shrinkage/5739849   Stuff for sale on Facebook Marketplace Call-in to 717-727-2453 and leave us a message about how cycling is making your life better! Omnium Mini Max and Xtracycle Nite Owl Drive In Shit Worth Doin' Saturday, Sep 21st - Milwaukee, WI - Steel is Real Sep 20 thru Sep 22 – Levis Mounds, WI – Gnomefest 2024/Single Speed Wisconsin – https://www.facebook.com/events/312308458159975  Oct 11th-13th - Single Speed USA - Salida, CO March 5th, 2025 - Fat Bike Birkie - Cable, WI Bikes! Omnium Electric Mini Max - Medium - Blurple Large Schlick Cycles APe for aggressive fatbiking - Purple. Possibly the last APe! Definitely the last Teesdale-built APe! Large Schlick Cycles 29+ Custom Build - Black Medium Schlick Cycles 29+ Custom Build - Orange Large Schlick Cycles Tatanka, Orange. Schlick Fatbikes A bunch of Schlick Growler (Zen Bicycle Fabrications AR 45) frames for custom builds. 29+ Schlick Cycles frames for custom builds Contact info@everydaycycles.com Call-in to 717-727-2453 and leave us a message about how cycling is making your life better! Disclosure: Some of the links on this page may be affiliate links. Clicking these and making a purchase will directly support Full Spectrum Cycling. Thanks!

Zero and Wiz RECOMMEND Gran Turismo I gotta give Gran Turismo credit: this might be the most interesting of all the video game movie adaptations when it comes to the concept and the story. Instead of it being a straight interpretation of the game, this movie is about a young man who played "Gran Turismo" so well that he enrolled into a contest that led him to be a professional race car driver. The story of Jann Mardenborough is definitely a fascinating one on paper. But if you were to watch Gran Turismo the movie, you are led to believe his story is pretty much like any other underdog to champion, outsider to professional sports player that have been made countless times before. Let's hit the checklist: Well meaning parental figure who's telling him to get his head out of the clouds and find meaning in live even though he wants to follow his dreams who then realizes...with pride of course...that his son could do it after all and shows his love and support? Check. Once in a lifetime opportunity that brings him face-to-face with his dreams? Yep. Surly, but well meaning coach who has no faith in him but then comes around and realizes he truly belongs? Oh yeah. Opponents he has to defeat are egotistical, arrogant and just all around jerks to him while others around him are the nicest, sweetest people who "just wants to see him succeed"? You got it. If this is truly how his whole story turned out, then God is truly a screenwriter. But what makes this different from those films? Well...it is based on a video game, right? The film really...and I mean REALLY...hammers home that he is a gamer at heart. The film tries to emphatically demonstrate that he is as talented as he is because of video games. And how they do that is by showing you everything in "gamer vision". What's "gamer vision"? Basically, when Jann does something exceptional, the movie mimics a UI of a video game. The vast majority of time it's with the actual Gran Turismo game, which at times can be a nice touch. The only problem is that they use it way too much. It would have been a lot better if they used it sparingly, like in key sequences in the movie. Instead, they seem to really want to show that "this is from a video game!". Also, it felt really corny how everyone just insulted him as a sim racer by calling him a "gamer" or a "noob". It was eyerollingly bad when an old man insulted him by calling him a noob. Notice how I didn't say any of this was bad. Well, honestly, it isn't exactly good. But it's pretty...competent? The actors do a fine enough job on the film, though David Harbour is the one that carried the film with his quips and heart throughout. And the racing on screen is good...but the over reliance on camera angles and UI evoking Gran Turismo becomes tiresome. But honestly, if you like sports movies and you have no previous experience with Gran Turismo, the over reliance on gaming iconography will not bother you quite as much (if at all). It's a perfectly enjoyable, competent sports movie.

Covino & Rich fill-in for the great Dan Patrick! We're fresh off of the Olympics with Mr. Bulge & Raygun "floor roller!" Is being bad actually good? The fellas debate! LeBron had a bad moment with a young fan in Paris. 'SHOWTIME MAHOMES NFL TRIVIA,' sees a great run through the FSR studios! Plus, you become the man of the house when you finally beat your dad in sports. #crshowSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Filling equipment within a brewery is ironically one of the best places for microbial growth to thrive. There are nooks, crannies, and blind spots that beer can sneak into, which are also challenging to clean. Beer filling equipment is also constructed using a variety of different materials that require specifically tailored cleaning chemicals to prevent corrosion while working effectively to remove soil. Every brewery has a different filling operation including equipment, surrounding space, and utilities, therefore different needs for chemicals and cleaning practices. As a brewery optimizes its filler cleaning practices and chemicals, it is also essential to validate that the chemicals and method of cleaning are both working effectively. To avoid having every brewery reinvent the wheel with filler cleaning practices and save the time and money it takes to trial new processes, this presentation will share one brewery's story of developing a robust cleaning program on both of its canning lines. We will discuss how we worked directly with our chemical supplier and equipment manufacturers to find the best compatible chemicals for effective cleaning on both of our lines. We will also discuss the microbiological and chemical quality checks that were put in place to validate filler cleaning process and chemicals to ensure product integrity, and share the improvements that were made from a quality management lens to empower employees to make informed quality decisions. Special Guests: Levi Bainum and Riley Seitz.

0:00 - The High Five highlights the topic of the day and that's the Javonte Williams weight loss. Also, can Sean Payton avoid being "stressed out" by finding the right QB? 16:11 - If Bo Nix is the guy, how does the locker room handle their desires to want a vet like Jarrett Stidham? Andy and Mike discuss what does Sean think about Jarrett as the best chance to win Week 1.33:08 - Andy ends the show by giving a story about how not to ask Sean Payton a question! 

Surly, this isn't the same STARMAN as the 1984 John Carpenter movie? No, it's the short-lived television sequel starring AIRPLANE'S Robert Hays. And don't call me Shirley.

Pat Sajack is a good American! Tattoo Dave is a Good American with a surly attitude!

Mike brought an IPA from Evil Genius, Sour from Surly and a dessert stout from Confluxcity Brewing to the table for this episode's tastings. Dave is BACK and ready to contribute to to the pod. After the Shows You Should Be Watching segment and the Sports segment, Dave had a fantastic Play or Pass segment lined up. Mike has a classic F.U. to finish out the podcast. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/david-dawson7/support

As it turns out, Juliette is a professor. But she's more than that, she's also a total asshole. She treats the new Visiting Assistant Professor -- or Vizassprof -- horribly, all for our entertainment! Because what's more fun than evergreen jokes about the upper echelons of academia? Nothing, if you ask ol' Brooke Mac-El-Dee. Here we get a solid ten-strip run of nothing but professorial hilarity, as a Vizassprof named Britneigh (spelled that way for literally no reason), comes to Juliette for advice? We can only guess that's what originally compelled her. Of course, Juliette is immediately a cunt to her, but then also has no physical boundaries with her and definitely crosses some professional lines. She touches her chin lightly, she grabs her by the shoulder and pulls her super close, she hugs her unexpectedly, and then brings up ear nibbling out of nowhere. Were this a male-female dynamic, no one would doubt that the professor was trying to viz this prof's ass. Zing! Good one, Jeff & Brooke! Mr. Mac-El-Dee has a lot, we mean A LOT, of thoughts about the underwear worn by female professors. But of course it's hard to tell whether his understanding of women's underthings is any more advanced than the understanding of a nine-year-old boy. After all, he uses the phrase "two-piece tiger thong," which is, in itself, nonsensical. But that's just par for the course here, guys. Just more of his typical bullshit. The Chickweed strips we discuss this episode: You can find all of the strips either on Twitter by clicking here (https://x.com/9chickweedRAGE/status/1798521840144707874), or on Instagram by clicking here (https://www.instagram.com/p/C72uylPPawp/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==). This episode, which exists in an alternative reality, includes: High school reunion Glass straws Diet Coke Sneezing Chicken N Pickle (https://chickennpickle.com/) Running in hot weather "Pegging the red" "Rocket Man" by Elton John France / Speaking French Turtlenecks! The end of 2001: A Space Odyssey (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGQ6B0RNSG4) Septic tanks Underwire bras Crab-claw hands Red Lobster Smocks Automats McEldowney ellipsis Jungle Animal Underwear Turtlenecks Kung Fu (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7YDcLP2DeY) starring David Carradine Talk to Us! Having trouble understanding what's going on in a 9 Chickweed Lane strip you just read? Send it our way! We'll take a shot at interpreting it for you! Or maybe you just want someone to talk to? We're on Twitter: @9ChickweedRAGE (https://twitter.com/9chickweedRAGE). And we're on Instagram: @9ChickweedRage (https://www.instagram.com/9chickweedrage/).

Which American IPA is best? A while back the Hazy IPA hit a level of popularity which pressured Nick into bringing it as the first IPA on this podcast.  Now a year or so later, we find ourselves missing the good old fashion IPAs we originally fell for.  Today we are taking a strangely nostalgic trip through some of the American Style IPAs that used to be our go to (and only) option.  The contenders are Goose Island IPA, New Belgium Voodoo Ranger, Sierra Nevada Torpedo, and Surly Furious.  Please like and subscribe and if you have any suggestions, let us know by tweeting us @tastetestdummies or email us at nickandjohnpodcast@gmail.com.      SPOILER!  Below is a list of which beer corresponds to which numbered glass it was in: 1. New Belgium 2. Surly 3. Goose Island 4. Sierra Nevada

It's episode 16 of the 2024 FTN Fantasy Baseball podcast! Vlad Sedler (@RotoGut) spends the first part of the show with calm, cool and collected FTN writer Todd Whitestone (@telestar7) and the rest of it with one of his favorite, unpredictable guests, Dan Prepas (@surlyattorney). Vlad and Todd discuss Main Event FAAB spending trends and dig into some money-saving discipline-fueled strategies. They don't go off the rails as they usually do when Prepas the Surly joins the show, but Vlad and Dan discuss a variety of topics ranging from Brent Rooker's rest-of-season value to overrated fantasy hitters and the state of the Angels franchise.Players and Topics Discussed:The Luis Matos and Luke Raley heatersIs Willie Calhoun the next Kevin Pillar?Todd's column and alligator arms of high stakes players in 2024Carlos Estevez's replacementLuis Ren-hee-fo, All-Star to-beJulio Rodriguez already a bust?Morel is overratedA shrine to Alec BohmMiguel Vargas SZN is hereSign up for the best fantasy baseball roster construction, market and player analysis in the industry at www.FTNfantasy.com. Incredible content from our group of top-notch analysts along with industry-best projections (powered by FTN Data), Trust the Gut FAAB, Drops & Disasters, weekly rankings and a whole slew of useful tools. The FTN team will help you crush your leagues!Popular Links on https://ftnfantasy.comNFL Rankings Page: https://ftnfantasy.com/fantasy/nfl/rankingsProjections: https://ftnfantasy.com/nfl/projectionsADP tool: https://ftnfantasy.com/fantasy/nfl/adp-explorationUnderdog ADP Tool: https://ftnfantasy.com/fantasy/nfl/underdog-adpNFL Dynasty Fantasy Football: https://ftnfantasy.com/fantasy/nfl/nfl-dynastyMLB Homepage: https://ftnfantasy.com/mlbNFL Homepage: https://ftnfantasy.com/nflPGA Homepage: https://ftnfantasy.com/pgaNBA Homepage: https://ftnfantasy.com/nbaPrizepicks Tool: https://ftnfantasy.com/dfs/nba/prizepicks-predictions-toolDFS Optimizer: https://ftnfantasy.com/dfs/nfl/optimizerTools Page: https://ftnfantasy.com/tools/Prop Shop: https://ftnfantasy.com/bets/prop-shop

Well Clark makes it to the Final Four and keeps on breaking records. Now they are hers that she is breaking. LSU gets knocked out and we examine our own feelings. Yep, Spurs talk as we wind down the season and then Wally and Bob go off on the eclipse. Yep. They got mad at the sun.

Hello Truthful Listeners! Welcome back! Your Canadian girlies are here with full recaps of our fave Bravo Shows!    Today we are recapping:    Summer House Season 8, Episode 4 Runaway Bride  Summer House   Carl opens up to Kyle about Lindsay's reaction to his idea about a sober sports bar and how he feels she isn't listening to what is important to him; West and Ciara go on a date and they smooch; they all go to a group dinner where Lindsay makes the cringiest toast; the ladies warn Jesse to not hit on Paige anymore; Carl and Lindsay Fight 2.0 - according to Carl, Lindsay accused him of being “on something” for the second weekend in a row; Lindsay confides in Amanda that Carl is Jekyll and Hyde and only she sees it; Jesse tells Carl that he knew what he signed up for; Lindsay tells Amanda she is pissed at Carl for questioning how many drinks she has; Carl tries to talk to Lindsay but it does not go well; Lindsay tries to get Kyle to see her dude, but he doesn't, and it appears no one else in the house does either; back at the house, Carl apologizes, but Lindsay takes off from the house and almost gets stuck in the gate.  Please follow us on TikTok, Instagram and Twitter at HopelessNotTruthlessPod.   A 5-star review where you listen to your podcasts is a free way to help us out   Make sure to follow us wherever you get you pods, so you don't miss a recap!    ❤ Thank you so much to our listeners for being here with us! You guys are definitely Truthful and not at all Hopeless❤️   Love, Narelle & Sarah

This week Luke and Janine return to Enies Lobby, already in progress, as the fights heat up, get horny, and more as the Straw Hats face the agents of CP9! Covering episodes 293 through 300! Luke's Simpsons article is here. Cover art by Mike Patten Links! Itunes – https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dohmance-dawn/id1620557454… Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/show/0iOBMkRGKTz04wJB2kitx7… RSS – https://pinecast.com/feed/dohmance-dawn… Bluesky – https://bsky.app/profile/dohmancedawn.bsky.social

This week James and Will talk to Daniel Troia, who cycled coast-to-coast across America (and back) with no food or money, then made a film about it: We Are All In This Together.With only basic camping gear and his trusty Surly tourer, Daniel begged and borrowed his way across the States in the hope of answering the question of the age: as a society, how divided are we? Along the way he met some extraordinary characters, made extraordinary connections and undertook some extraordinary feats, from sleeping in toilets to riding through deserts to living out of dustbins. It's an incredible tale, and one we know you'll love too.Interview begins at 5.26We Are All In This Together is available to stream now on Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video and Google Play.Follow all Daniel's adventures on Instagram @the_travelin_dude--This episode is brought to you by JOIN, the training platform that sets you up with training plans that adapt on the go. Listeners of the podcast can get a 6 month subscription for the price of 4. At a monthly price of £8.49 GBP you now pay £33.96. So head to https://join.cc/promo/cyclist-magazine-podcast/ and start training with JOIN's adaptive and flexible training plans now. ---Did you know Cyclist is also stunning monthly magazine? Subscribe now at store.cyclist.co.uk/cycpod and get every issue for less than in the shops, delivered straight to your door. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In today's episode, we interview Tony Karklins, the owner of Time Bicycles. We discuss Tony's journey in the bike industry, from working in a bike shop to becoming a distributor and eventually acquiring Time Bicycles. Tony shares insights into the evolution of the bike industry, particularly the impact of carbon fiber technology. He also talks about the acquisition of Time Bicycles and the company's focus on manufacturing and innovation. The conversation then shifts to the new gravel models introduced by Time Bicycles for 2024 and the unique features that set them apart. Tony explains the importance of staying true to the Time brand while catering to the evolving needs of the market. He also discusses the future plans for Time Bicycles, including expanding manufacturing in the United States. Time Bicycles Episode Sponsor: Pillar Performance (use code Craig for 15% off)  Support the Podcast Join The Ridership  Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: About the Guest: Tony Karklins is the owner of Time Bicycles, a storied brand in the cycling industry. With over 40 years of experience in the bike industry, Tony has a deep understanding of the market and has played a significant role in the growth and development of various bike brands. He started his career in a neighborhood bike shop in the early 1980s and went on to become a bike shop owner. Tony then ventured into distribution and agent deals with European bike brands before joining Orbea as the managing director of the Americas. After his time with Orbea, Tony acquired the Guru Bicycle Factory and later acquired Time Bicycles from the Rossignol group. He is now focused on expanding Time Bicycles and bringing manufacturing back to the United States. Key Takeaways: Tony Karklins has over 40 years of experience in the bike industry and has played a significant role in the growth and development of various bike brands. Time Bicycles is a storied brand in the cycling industry, known for its high-performance carbon fiber bikes. The acquisition of Time Bicycles by Tony Karklins was driven by the desire to acquire the company's manufacturing capabilities and continue the legacy of the brand. Time Bicycles is focused on innovation and manufacturing, with a particular emphasis on resin transfer molding technology. The introduction of new gravel models for 2024 reflects Time Bicycles' commitment to meeting the evolving needs of the market while staying true to the brand's identity Transcript: [TRANSCRIPT] **** - (): time_bicycles _ jan 19, 2024 001_riverside [00:00:00] - (): Craig Dalton: Tony, welcome to the show. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Thank you very much. Thanks for inviting me. Uh, **** - (): Craig Dalton: as, as a fan of the sport and someone who's been around the sport from my bike shop days in college till now, I'm excited to talk about Time Bicycles. It's such a storied brand in the industry. And having spoken to you a little bit offline, your journey to get there, I think is going to be fascinating for the listener to learn about. **** - (): Craig Dalton: And ultimately we want to talk about the new gravel models you've got for 2024. Sounds great. Where do you want to start? Let's start off just by a little bit of your background. Where are you located and how'd you get into the sport of cycling and what led to you working in the bike industry? All **** - (): Tony Karklins: right. **** - (): Tony Karklins: I, uh, I live in Little Rock, Arkansas. You know, Arkansas is the new hotbed of cycling globally now. So, uh, I've been in the bike industry here for about 40 years. I started to work in the neighborhood bike shop in the early eighties. Became a bike shop owner in the mid 80s, and I ran 2 retail stores here until 99, 2000. [00:01:00] - (): Tony Karklins: It's almost made it 20 years in bike retail here, and I decided that I wanted to stay in the bike industry, but I was kind of done with retail. I'd taken my turn there, and so I started traveling to the European trade shows. Looking for bike brands that were established in Europe that maybe needed help in the United States. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Um, and did a few small distribution and agent deals with some, you know, really neat, small artists and Italian brands and kind of 1 deal led to the next. And then, uh, late 99 or early 2000. I was introduced to this brand that I had never heard of. And no 1 in America had at that time was called. And it was a tiny little, uh, BASC company that was moving out of kind of mass production bikes, and they wanted to get into high performance, and they wanted to get their brand on the Tour de France, and they wanted to see if they could produce, you know, a leading global brand, and started as a distributor for them for a couple of years. [00:02:00] - (): Tony Karklins: It went really well, uh, and then we built it into a joint venture, and I ran that joint venture as the managing director of the Americas until 2014. So, uh, yeah. And we built Orbea in that time to, you know, leading European brand selling in the United States and a true global player. And it was a really interesting time in the bike industry because I started in it right before the carbon fiber boom happened. **** - (): Tony Karklins: When I went to work for Orbea, premium bikes were made out of really lightweight steel. Uh, or, uh, even and we advance in a really lightweight aluminum, like Columbus Starship and some of the really cool 2 pound aluminum frames and they were light and they were fast, but they wrote like crap because they were so stiff. [00:03:00] - (): Tony Karklins: Right? Yeah, I mean, carbon fiber comes into the forks and all of a sudden it made the aluminum bikes ride a lot better. And so, uh, watch, watch carbon fiber hit the bike industry, and it really took the industry by storm in around 2003, 2004. There was this moment where all the best bikes in the Tour de France were aluminum or titanium. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And within 12 months, it all went carbon fiber. And really changed the bike industry a lot because the bike industry and the bike brands, all this history brands that you know of, they were born as metal shops, right? They can cut and weld and bend, but when carbon hit, everybody was like. What is this stuff? **** - (): Tony Karklins: Where do I get it and how do I do it fast? And so I lived in this moment where I saw all that bike production all through the United States and Europe come down in the premium categories and get shipped to Asia because they could make carbon fiber. Yeah. **** - (): Craig Dalton: I was going to ask you from an Orbea perspective, like how did they solve that problem? **** - (): Craig Dalton: They knew they had to get into carbon fiber, the same **** - (): Tony Karklins: thing at the same time. You know, Orbea was Orbea is they take fast, smart decisions quick. So we were right there at the very start of carbon fiber. I remember there was this moment in America where we had a warehouse full of carbon fiber before it was really. [00:04:00] - (): Tony Karklins: Hot, like a couple of months before it was hot and then Cannondale went into bankruptcy and then something happened at light speed, but spike the cost of titanium raw material. And then like a month of fearing. I would never be able to sell this inventory for a bicycling magazine being sold out for 2 years. **** - (): Tony Karklins: That was some of the magic that happened during that time. A lot of, uh, when carbon hit, it just, it hit hard and it changed the industry and it changed where and how bikes were made. Um, and it was a, it was a boom moment for us at Orbea, for sure. We, we, we, we went through the roof, you know, because we were there. **** - (): Tony Karklins: One of the very first real product and real availability. Yeah. So I had a great run with, with Orbea. Um, they acquired the rest of the company from us in 2014. And then I decided that, um, I wanted to get into manufacturing because I noticed at that moment in 2014, 15 and 16, that everybody was sort of cooking in the same kitchen, you know? [00:05:00] - (): Tony Karklins: It was, everything started to look alike again, and there was just different colors and graphics and marketing campaigns. So I said, okay, if I'm gonna stay in the bike industry, I wanna get into manufacturing. **** - (): Craig Dalton: That seems like a big leap, right? So you a big **** - (): Tony Karklins: leap. But you know, I, I, I, I'd been in the industry a long time, been in a lot of the factories. **** - (): Tony Karklins: I mean, I saw it, you know? Yeah. I'm not an engineer. Um, now I almost am. But um, at that point, I just, I knew that, I knew that there was very little chance of success if you just went to Asia and did the same thing again. Yeah, I've seen too many people try to start their own brand, um, based on just desire of having a brand and no real tech or no real, you know, capabilities and, and they all kind of petered out the same way. **** - (): Craig Dalton: And did you see the opportunity being, Hey, if I stand up a manufacturing facility, I've got enough connection in the industry that some brand may want to come to me for manufacturing. I'm thinking back to like. Frank the welder shop and you'd have, **** - (): Tony Karklins: you know, interested in OEM business because you know, you, you do all the work and you get none of the room. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Yeah. [00:06:00] - (): Craig Dalton: Can't explain to anybody what you do for a living because you can't point to anything. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Yeah. I was more interested in. Okay. I think the way that this can really work is if you take it from raw material all the way through to the sand. Right. Okay. Do you want all of that? Because, you know, when you have a bike made in Asia, you have it made in a carbon fiber factory and then they send it to a paint factory and then they send it to an assembly factory and then they put it into a box and they ship it into the United States. **** - (): Tony Karklins: So you pay duties and freight and tariff and all that stuff. And then it's sold to a distributor and then it's sold to a retailer and then it's sold to the consumer. And, you know, you have this, You know, no one has any real piece of the pie, you know, the only people making the money here are the shipping companies and the government, you know, let's break that. [00:07:00] - (): Tony Karklins: Let's see if we can take it from raw material all the way, you know, through selling it to a dealer. Okay. And so, uh, after my time with Orbea, I went to work with a group in California that was attempting to do this, uh, with golf technology, a lot of golf production in the San Diego area. And I learned, you know, during that year that. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Very difficult to do manufacturing in Southern California. It was, it was a great, great learning moment for it. Um, and so did not work there, but after I departed, I was able to acquire the Guru Bicycle Factory. In Montreal. Gotcha. Okay. We located in Arkansas, got some government grants and brought in some investors for this. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And we, uh, the project there, we created this company called HIE Villa, which was going to be, you know, mass production of prepreg carbon fiber bicycles, you know, made the same way that the best bike brands were making them in Asia, but making them here. **** - (): Craig Dalton: And when you, did you not acquire the Guru brand, you just acquired the means of manufacturing at that point? **** - (): Craig Dalton: I just acquired the manufacturing assets. Yeah. And was that just, uh, tooling, machinery, et cetera, or were you getting [00:08:00] - (): Tony Karklins: Messiness, cutting tables, it was everything you needed to do. Gotcha. I mean, everything, you know, and so it gave us a great, it was a great start. Uh, it was a beautiful project. We launched, you know, six Cycleworks brand, and that hit hard. **** - (): Tony Karklins: You know, it resonated just perfectly at that moment because it truly made an America product. Um, we, we did it right. We did it well, um, beautiful project and that company got acquired by the Walton family. In one of their groups, uh, that owns, uh, the Rafa **** - (): Craig Dalton: cycling brand and then was that acquiring the brand and the manufacturing **** - (): Tony Karklins: facility? **** - (): Tony Karklins: They took it all and they did that a little rock and they put it in Northwest Arkansas. And now it's part of the, uh, the cycling empire that they're building. Sure. And so I stayed here in Little Rock after that and looking for my next opportunity. And during the early stages of the pandemic, I learned that the Rossignol group who had recently acquired time was looking for a new owner for it. [00:09:00] - (): Tony Karklins: And I'm like, wow, I really want that because I want, I want their factory. Cause I knew that they had the oldest and the largest scale carbon fiber bike **** - (): Craig Dalton: factory in Europe. Can we, can we pause for a second, Tony, and just explain the history very briefly of the time brand? Cause it's not lost on me, like how important that had been over the last 30 years, but I'd just love to hear your words and understanding of like how time fit into the bike industry. [00:10:00] - (): Tony Karklins: Yeah. So time, uh, was established in France in 1987 and Roland Catan was the founder of it. And Roland Catan married a woman whose father was the inventor of the modern ski bike. And he owned a company called Look. Yep. Sure. And Look had just introduced a bicycle pedal that was clipless. And Roland was around this and he was kind of part of the company. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And I guess at some point there was some family dispute that happened, because Roland believed that a clip in bicycle pedal needed to have some kind of rotation. Because if you were locked into one place, You would have ankle, knee, some kind of problems. And so, I guess the father in law didn't like that. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And Roland left look, went across the street and opened time. Amazing. With a clipless pedal that had rotation. **** - (): Craig Dalton: This is filling in so many gaps for me. As I mentioned offline, I had a friend who was like a die hard time pedal fan. And like the ski binding technology, I'm now all visualizing it in my head. [00:11:00] - (): Tony Karklins: And so I don't know how, I don't know how Roland's wife made this all work with the family. They split and they made it together. Um, and you know, Time, you know, was a very fast moving brand globally the second he did it. It was styled perfectly. Everybody believed in the rotation. They were off to the races. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Um, then somewhere in the late eighties to maybe 92, 93, Roland became friends with some of the people that had started TVT carbon fiber and TVT was, you know, uh, French company. That had done some of the very first, you know, carbon tube, aluminum lug bikes, they were briefly in the tour, but the technology wasn't really stable enough yet to really have true tour riders on it. **** - (): Tony Karklins: But you, I think you saw maybe some of the Greg Lamont years, he might be on a special carbon fiber bike with some sponsors name on it. That was a TVT thing. So the time people got involved with him. Um, and they opened up a project to make a carbon fiber fork because they saw the problem in the bike industry of all these lightweight aluminum bikes using steel forks, or sometimes even aluminum forks, which were super jarring. [00:12:00] - (): Tony Karklins: Yeah. And they believed that they could, they could make a better riding aluminum bike by doing a carbon fork. So Mario Cipollini, Marco Pantani, anybody of who's who in that, you know, in that era, whatever bike brand they were riding, it had a Time fork on it, and from what I've been told, uh, they were making about 100, 000 carbon fiber forks here. [00:13:00] - (): Tony Karklins: I mean, they, they were, they were the player there. Then, of course, Look got into the fork business as well. Those 2 really kind of hit it, you know. So time then moved into bicycle manufacturing in the late 90s. They want to do a full carbon fiber bike. Um, and then in the early 2000s, they signed with this little team called Quickstep and we had writers like Tom Boonen and Paolo Bettini, uh, you know, and they won the Olympics and they won the world championships and they won Paris Roubaix and they were just, they were killing it in 2004, five and six, I mean, they were, they were the, you know, pinnacle of technology really being made in Europe when everybody else had just left for China, they were killing it. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Um, and then. I guess from what I've been told, the Pro Tour got really expensive when the big American brands came in. You know, when you saw Specialized come in and take over Quickstep, and Cannondale was in there first, I think, Giant got in there, uh, Trek obviously got in there, and so Time became a brand that, you know, truly couldn't afford the Tour de France anymore. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And so, uh, they Kept developing products, they believed in their resin transfer molding technology. They believe in European manufacturing, but, you know, they started to kind of hit harder times, maybe in 2012, 13, 14, and then Roland passed away on a bike ride. In 2000, late 2015, early 2016. Oh, man. [00:14:00] - (): Craig Dalton: And did they ever, did they ever diversify into mountain bike products or did they always stay focused on the road sport? **** - (): Craig Dalton: No, **** - (): Tony Karklins: there's, you know, we, we have all the historical stuff and, you know, they did a couple little things and they made their own wheels for one model, but they didn't really ever get in the wheel business. I've got a few time carbon fiber handlebars. I don't believe that a real mountain bike frame was ever truly produced by them, but he was pretty true to the cause. **** - (): Tony Karklins: I mean, he, he was a road cyclist. He was a drop bar cyclist. He, um, he, he, he protected his brand really well. Yeah. Yeah. He, he didn't, he didn't go with, you know, the, the, the trend of the week, like some of the bike companies do. **** - (): Craig Dalton: And then did the Rossignol group, uh, purchase it after his passing **** - (): Tony Karklins: then? They purchased it, you know, so he passed away. [00:15:00] - (): Tony Karklins: Company was in shambles because he was the race car driver of the company. Right. Yeah. And, and so big problems there, but Rossignol stepped in. Um, they. They did an acquisition of everything, they reinvested in the company, um, they built out both the France factory and the sub factory that's in Slovakia. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Um, and they were really building it for big growth. And I, I believe their plan was to, to put, um, they, they bought a few other bike brands as well and to inject those brands into their ski dealerships for summer business in Europe. I think it was their master plan. **** - (): Craig Dalton: The plan that many a bike shop owner, many a bike brand has theorized over the years will work perfectly. **** - (): Tony Karklins: It makes sense. But at the end of the day, you know, a consumer purchasing a 10, 000 bike doesn't want to buy from the ski shop. Yeah. I know. Yeah, nothing against the ski shops, but he wants, he wants to buy it from a passionate, you know, cycling store. So that didn't work so well. And then the pandemic hit, and when the pandemic hit, that's when we were told, Hey, good time. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Rosalind was looking for a new owner from time. And I [00:16:00] - (): Craig Dalton: interrupted you right when you were saying what really attracted you to the opportunity was the fact that there was a factory involved. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And that's how we got it from Roil because we were the people that wanted the factory. I think there were a lot of people that wanted the time brand, right? **** - (): Tony Karklins: Sure. Because there's a playbook. You take a great brand like that, a Halo European brand, you go to Asia, you build a new bike line, boom, you're done. And Ros, I don't think, wanted that to happen. You know, it's proud French brand. There are a lot of people working in factories. Um, they wanted, they wanted somebody to come in and take over the factory. **** - (): Tony Karklins: I had just come through this project at Allied and lived in a prepreg factory. So I'm like, I want that factory, you know? Yeah. **** - (): Craig Dalton: And you were mentioning offline, some of the nuances in the approach prepreg versus another way of manufacturing that attracted you to the **** - (): Tony Karklins: time process. I knew what their tech was, but I had never been in their building previously. [00:17:00] - (): Tony Karklins: And, and I knew the quality that was coming out of that. And so when, when we were able to acquire that, you know, at the same time, SRAM bought the pedal and shoe business. So we actually broke time. Into two pieces. Okay. So that was a perfect fit for SRAM to take that and then we didn't have to be in the pedal business. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Did **** - (): Craig Dalton: that just sort of happen to work out timing wise that I imagine they wanted to sell the whole thing in one fell swoop. **** - (): Tony Karklins: I think they wanted to sell the whole thing in one fell swoop, but it's hard to do that because those two businesses are totally different, totally different factory, totally different customers, totally different rules. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And so when SRAM stepped in with interest in that, it was perfect. And that's when it all kind of came together. And, uh, you know, it was a strange time because when we bought it in the pandemic, we couldn't even go to the factory for a visit. Because this is what Americans travel into Europe. We were on lockdown. [00:18:00] - (): Tony Karklins: Yeah. So a lot of faith in there. And luckily we got a good investment group behind this that also believed in, in us, in the vision of what we wanted to do with time. Uh, and we pulled it off. So we bought it because we wanted that factory. We wanted that technology. You know, what, what Roland spent, you know, 25 years developing in that factory is resin transfer molding and lost wax cores. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And that is the way that aerospace and automotive carbon fiber products are made. You know, the bike industry is prepreg. Prepreg is a very interesting way to make products. And there's some neat things you can do with prepreg. But automotive and aerospace would never use prepreg. Because resin transfer molding gives you complete control of the structure. [00:19:00] - (): Tony Karklins: You end up with a, with a structure that has zero voids in it. It's cosmetically perfect. And that you can blend whatever you want to into the carbon fiber sleeves because they're not impregnated. And so, this one factory that they had built in Slovakia initially as a fork factory had built its way up to being the largest carbon fiber bike factory in Europe. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And with the technology that Was above and beyond what anybody else in the world was doing. When **** - (): Craig Dalton: you talk about that, and I'm sure it's difficult to express it in layman's terms, but when you think about the different design opportunities and possibilities with prepreg versus this type of carbon manufacturing, what type of opportunities for performance, as it translates to riders, does this technology lend itself to? **** - (): Tony Karklins: You know, the biggest difference in resin transfer molding, Is it's not, it's not bladder mold. There's no internal pressure there that is squeezing all those layers of carbon fiber into one structure. So, in resin transfer molding, we start with the wax core. It is, you know, an exact interior core to the structure. [00:20:00] - (): Tony Karklins: And then we wrap the carbon fiber sleeves over those doors. We set them in the tools. When, and when we close the tool, you have steel surface on the outside, hard wax surface on the inside. So two hard surfaces, and then you inject the resin and the hardener through the tool at the same time under high pressure. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And when you do that, the resin fills 100 percent of all available space between the two hard surfaces. So you can't have any leaks. That's why airplane wings are resin transfer molded, because you can't have a void in an airplane wing. Because a **** - (): Craig Dalton: void is a, is a weaker part of the part, if a **** - (): Tony Karklins: void exists. A void is a bubble, it's a fold, it's a wrinkle, it's a drip. [00:21:00] - (): Tony Karklins: It's, you know, because when you're dealing with prepreg, you have this hard tool on the outside. You have, A bladder on the inside, and then you have all these sticky layers, somebody's hand put together, kind of like, almost like paper mache in some ways, right? And each one of those is a sticky, challenging layer. **** - (): Tony Karklins: These will go on just right, right? And then you put that into the tool, and you blast this pressure on the inside, and it just squeezes the heck out of everything. And that's the structure you're left with. But resin transfer molding, hard tool on the inside, hard on the outside, and a flow through of the resin that makes it a perfect structure. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And so when you have that, you have a product that is a stronger and more durable product for sure. Less chance of anything happening to the structure for sure. Also cosmetically perfect. So now you can actually show fibers, which you don't see on carbon fiber bikes anymore, because prepreg structures are ugly. [00:22:00] - (): Tony Karklins: So you have to paint them, make them look nice. But on this, it comes out perfect. And even the inside of the structure, the inside of our bikes is as cosmetically perfect as the outside because it can only be that. Yeah. And then in these braids, you know, a lot of these things have 244 different, you know, threads through we can. **** - (): Tony Karklins: blend in any modulus that we want. We can mix in fibers like Dyneema. We can mix in Vectran fibers. We, we have unlimited recipe of what we could do for the actual sleeves **** - (): Craig Dalton: themselves. And what, what are those additional elements? What are the benefits of those additional **** - (): Tony Karklins: elements? Everybody's familiar with the different moduluses, right? **** - (): Tony Karklins: You can take out weight, you can add stiffness. You know, the one that we've had the most fun with the last two years is bringing Dyneema into it. Dyneema has got kind of a wonder material that really came out of the sailing industry. It's a polypropylene fiber that's lighter than carbon fiber, which you can't destroy. [00:23:00] - (): Tony Karklins: So we can weave this into critical areas where there could be catastrophic failure. And this will keep that structure from ever breaking. And so we brought that in a lot on our 1st gravel bike. We introduced that indoor **** - (): Craig Dalton: structure. Yeah, I was going to say that seems like a natural **** - (): Tony Karklins: thing. We're using more and more and more with it. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And you can't use too much with it because if you use. Two, if your ratio of Dyneema to the carbon fiber is too high, the bike doesn't ride right. Dyneema doesn't have the riding characteristics of a high modulus carbon fiber. But when you put it in small doses in strategic places, you've made a stronger and safer problem. **** - (): Craig Dalton: Got it. Now, I appreciate this detour into the tech because we were going to come back around to it in the gravel bike, but I think it sets the stage really nicely. So if we're going back chronologically. 2020, 2021, it seems like you've acquired the, the, the brand, the facility were models continuing to be pushed out at that point. **** - (): Craig Dalton: And then how, when did you sort of reintroduce what I imagine to be your new vision for time bicycles out there in the world? [00:24:00] - (): Tony Karklins: You know, it, it played out differently than we thought because when we bought the company, our plan was we were going to take it to ground and we were going to redo everything and we were going to relaunch it perfectly and we bought it in that moment in the pandemic where we were all going to die, you know, there was this moment. **** - (): Tony Karklins: It was doom and gloom. And then a couple of months later, everybody decided to go buy a bike. Yeah. **** - (): Craig Dalton: We're not, we're not dead. So we might as well go ride a bike. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Yeah, we're not dead. So let's go buy a new bike. And so our plan was kind of spoiled because we were one of the only operational factories in Europe. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Everybody needed everything from us. And I'm like, no, we're going to be redoing all this stuff. They're like, no, we need bikes now. So we turned it on hard. You know, we turned that factory on harder than it had ever **** - (): been **** - (): Craig Dalton: turned on. And were you kicking out road bikes at that point, **** - (): Tony Karklins: presumably? We were kicking out road bikes like crazy. [00:25:00] - (): Tony Karklins: We were trying to get to gravel, but we had just tons and tons and tons of orders for road bikes because, you know, you couldn't get them. They were stuck in Asia. People were sold out. Yeah. You know, and you know, we're a factory that we make them every single day, you know? So the first 18 months of us owning this company, it was like we were trying to repair the plane mid flight. **** - (): Tony Karklins: You know, we were just going crazy. You know, we're trying to get to new. Because Rossignol didn't really push new because they were in the selling phase. Right. So you're not going to invest in products like that. And so we had slightly dated product and we needed as much of it as possible right now for sales while we're redeveloping. **** - (): Tony Karklins: So just now, you know, in 2024, we're back to our plan of, of key new model introductions, **** - (): Craig Dalton: you know. Yeah. You know, during that timeframe with everything running so fast, it sounds like you wouldn't have even had time to rethink market positioning the brand. It was more people love time. It's a storied brand as we've just talked about, and people are going to buy the product. **** - (): Craig Dalton: The [00:26:00] - (): Tony Karklins: second we bought it, man, the love just kind of flowed in through emails, you know, everybody's like, Oh God, thank God, you know, cycling people have the time brand, you know, and, and yeah, the love for the time brand is amazing. I can't tell you how many people have sent an email with a picture of their Time VRX, VXRS, Paolo Bettini edition to say, I own a hundred bikes and this is my all time favorite. **** - (): Tony Karklins: You know, people love it. I mean, Roland did a great job building a really beautiful, he really, he, he always. Did the right thing. Yeah. Always took the high road. You know, not a lot of people in the bike industry can really say that. **** - (): Craig Dalton: For sure. You mentioned Roland's love of the sport of road cycling, and it doesn't sound like prior to you much, if any, emphasis was put on the gravel market. **** - (): Craig Dalton: When you decided to move in, or correct me if I'm wrong, certainly. [00:27:00] - (): Tony Karklins: Well, there were some weird things in there. Like one of the things, when we did the acquisition and we got the trademark, Roland owns the global trademark for all. Okay, we were looking at that. Oh, my God. What was he going to do with that? **** - (): Tony Karklins: You know, he saw something, you know, maybe he was maybe had a pedal plan for it. But, you know, he, you know, he was pretty deep in the Belgian site. Okay. And so he, he was, he was working on something for sure. **** - (): Craig Dalton: Gotcha. You weren't handed any gravel models, so it took you, took you to what, 2022 to introduce the first, uh, ADHX? **** - (): Tony Karklins: Yeah, we did. We introduced that, um, midway through 2022. **** - (): Craig Dalton: Now I'm curious, like obviously you had your imprints on that model with you alongside your designers. How did you envision the gravel market at that point? Times the, the time, the people who are appreciating the time brands vision for what a time gravel bike would look like. [00:28:00] - (): Tony Karklins: Well, that was our first rule with the ADHX is we wanted to make a bike that would appeal to time. Right. We weren't going to go out and make some bike that had frays on forks everywhere and for camping on it. That's not time, right? You need to go buy a Surly if you're going to do that. We wanted to do an all road bike. **** - (): Tony Karklins: For a time and we wanted to also make sure that it worked with all road drive trains. Because we want to be a multi surface road bike. Gotcha. We call it fast gravel. Um, and and we introduced that before a lot of these wide drive train 1 by systems really became legitimized and, you know, our requirement is let's get biggest tire possible in here. **** - (): Tony Karklins: It will still take 52 chain ring. You know? Yeah. And we'll not have an obscenely long chainstay. So we'll ride like a road bike, but we'll allow you to do multi surface. Yeah. [00:29:00] - (): Craig Dalton: I've had this conversation before where it's very interesting when you talk about constraints and what you're able to do. And as you're articulating the desire to have a 50 tooth chainring in there and ride a two by drivetrain and a road specific drivetrain, it's understandable where you end up spec wise. **** - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah. I **** - (): Tony Karklins: mean, so that, that's, those are the limitations we put on it. And so then we launched it into the market. You know, and at that moment, anything, anybody launched into the market was going to do well because the market was just consuming all by itself. But quickly, we learned that nobody wanted our ADHX with a one by drive train. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Everybody who was buying, because we made, we, we took an assumption that 50, 50, one by two by, you know, and it was 99 percent and 1 percent was the reality of after six months of this. So everybody, they were buying pure road groups and they were running. You know, 35, maybe 38 C tires. **** - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah. It's interesting when you think about that 2022 timeframe, because I do think the, the consumer base had started to really. [00:30:00] - (): Craig Dalton: Sort of pick a camp if you will. And they were picking either I want a fast gravel bike or I want something more on the adventure side. And there were distinct camps starting to emerge even back then. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Yeah, there were. And, uh, you know, so we got a lot of feedback maybe nine months after launch, but we can't get this 42 tire and everybody racing on unbound this year is running a 42. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And then, you know, we were also at that moment where the interior rim widths were changing like crazy. Yeah, so even if you were putting a 38 seat tire on there, but this new wheel coming out from head has a 26 internal measurement. It was measuring a 42, you know, so we ran into that fun, but everybody else ran into that fun at the same time. [00:31:00] - (): Tony Karklins: Yeah. So we decided that we would open the next project to do a wider. You know, tire version of the ADHX, um, because we thought that was truly where the market was moving to. And what we learned in all of that is it all just comes down to the drivetrain. And the second we launched the ADHX45 and we explained it was built for wide drivetrains and it was built for, you know, it won't take Ultegra, Dura Ace, Campagnolo drivetrains on there. **** - (): Tony Karklins: That we had this boom of sales in our existing ADHX because all of a sudden people really understood. Yeah, this is this is as much of a multi surface bike as I can have and it'd be a road bike. This is really a pure gravel, right? And so for now, it's crystal clear. We didn't really expect that to happen. **** - (): Tony Karklins: We assume the 45 was what everybody was going to want, but now it's crystallized for us where there are three for us. There's pure road. There is multi surface pass. Yeah. And there is. You know, I don't want to call it pure gravel, but wider tire [00:32:00] - (): Craig Dalton: gravel. Yeah, it's a, it's a really interesting force and forcing function. **** - (): Craig Dalton: Cause I think a lot of consumers develop a love and appreciation for a particular brand. And then, so they're in the time family, they're in the time world, and then they're looking at your two models and they're asking themselves, what type of gravel rider am I? Where, where do I live? What type of terrain am I on? **** - (): Craig Dalton: And which one of these two models fits their riding style and ambitions. **** - (): Tony Karklins: What I think we've learned is. It's more important around the drivetrain than it really is around three or four millimeter width change on the top. That's what the customer seems to really care about. **** - (): Craig Dalton: Interesting. So on the, on the, the ADHX45, will that still run a 2x? [00:33:00] - (): Tony Karklins: Yeah, it'll run a 2x, but you have to use a wide version of it. Okay. Yeah. So you're using these, these gear ratios that true road cyclists Don't really, they still want their 52 ring on there, right? Yeah. And when you move into the a H 45, you gotta deal with all, all the new systems from Shram and the new ones from the G Rx system. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And it, it does, it does really seem to be that the 45 falls more to the MTB crowd and the A DHX falls more to the road cyclist. It just wants to do a little bit of ground. Yeah. As you and then, and then in Europe they use the A DHX. As the fat road tire. Okay. **** - (): Craig Dalton: And what do you, does it ride sort of as if it say you have road tires on their 32s or 35s? **** - (): Craig Dalton: Is it ride like an endurance road bike? Would you, would you suggest? That's **** - (): Tony Karklins: where a lot of people have kind of put it. Yeah. You know, cause you can, you can build out, you know, with those Victoria 34 C tires and nice carbon wheels, you can have a, you know, 14 and a half pound 34 seat tire road bike. It's just super fun to ride. [00:34:00] - (): Craig Dalton: Super fun to ride. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was just out with a buddy I hadn't seen in a while. And so he was like hardcore roadie and saw him rolled up on some 38 Cs, nice carbon wheels. And he was like, man, this bike is, he's like, it's a revelation. He's like, I've never been happier road riding than I have been on these 38 Cs. **** - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah, I love it. Super interesting. As you, you know, you had the the 80 HX out there in the market. Obviously, you were getting some feedback from riders that led to the tire and drive train decisions on the 45. Were there any other elements of the frame design that taking the opportunity to think? Hey, we're now getting 45s in there. **** - (): Craig Dalton: People are going to take this on gnarlier terrain. Do we need to do anything different? Or was it really about upsizing and, you know, configuring the drive **** - (): Tony Karklins: train? You know, when there were some people that were pushing us for adventure bikes and stuff, but it's just, we're, we're doing our best to stay true to time. [00:35:00] - (): Tony Karklins: We're not an adventure bike company, we're a high performance carbon fiber bike company. We want to, we want to keep it that way. So I think, I think the 45, at least. What we see of today's gravel market is as far as we need to go, you know, because there are other things at the time brand needs to do. We know we have to get back into the aero road bike development and we have to get back into endurance road development. **** - (): Tony Karklins: We've got other projects there. So I think that, you know, while we'll continue to evolve the ADA checks family, I think we sort of have our two models **** - (): Craig Dalton: in there. Yeah. When you think about it, you mentioned sort of unbound. When you think about a competitive race bike, is there anything that The ADH X45 has that doesn't put it as a gravel race bike, other than the choice of drivetrain that you're, you have to **** - (): Tony Karklins: make because it was, it was really built for that type of application. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Yeah, it a go fast. You know, wide tire ground. Yeah. You know, it's, it's a race bike. I mean, we, we, we did some really tight tolerances on there. The things we had to do to get the chain stays, you know, in the seat too. And just, just to the point where they'd be right on the edge of giving the proper amount of clearance. [00:36:00] - (): Tony Karklins: And, and, and truly be a high performance ride. We, we couldn't have done it any tighter than we did. Yeah. **** - (): Craig Dalton: Yeah. And when you think about the ideal rider for these types of bikes, um, are you, you know, are the head tubes taller or are they, or are they still sort of real Euro race style **** - (): Tony Karklins: geometry? We are upper middle there on this particular family when we, well, when we bought time, there was no integrated front ends at all. **** - (): Tony Karklins: So we had to, the first project we did was to do, to bring integration in when we did that to all of our existing product line, we increased that head to height just a bit more for the, for the mature American market. **** - (): Craig Dalton: And when, with integration, you're talking about **** - (): Tony Karklins: specialized Roubaix, we didn't, we didn't go there, but we brought it to a point because I, I hate premium bikes with three or four spacers in there. [00:37:00] - (): Tony Karklins: Or, or an upstem. Yeah. So we built it, you know, we engineered it to sell and be looked at. **** - (): Craig Dalton: Okay. And with that integration, you're referring to putting the cables inside the bar and through the headset and all that stuff. We got a moment to **** - (): Tony Karklins: tweak all the hit tube heights when we did that. Yeah. And so we, we, we took, we took benefit. **** - (): Tony Karklins: We cleaned that. Got it. Because, you know, traditionally time Short head to bike. I mean, it was the, a lot of the design was led by the racers who all want these head tubes that are this tall. Yeah. You know, nobody who's actually buying a bike and ever ride, you know, **** - (): Craig Dalton: exactly. Um, what, what's sort of next for time and gravel this year? **** - (): Craig Dalton: I imagine, you know, there's still a lot of people who haven't gotten in front of a time. Gravel bike. How do people find **** - (): Tony Karklins: them for time right now is, um, our expansion into manufacturing in the United States. Okay. That's our next thing. So we announced, uh, middle of last year that we acquired a facility in South Carolina and it's in Spartanburg County. **** - (): Craig Dalton: Was it outside the bike industry? Something doing carbon fiber in another field? [00:38:00] - (): Tony Karklins: No. Um, but it is inside the bubble that BMW built in North America and BM W's carbon fiber technology is exactly the same as times. Got it. So it's resin transfer molding. So in this one little region of South Carolina, they have the entire global supply chain specific to exactly what time does. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Amazing. So we acquired a factory there in this little town called Landrum. It's 140, 000 square foot facility on 30 acres, right at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Really cool area. Uh, about, about 30, 45 minutes from Nashville, North Carolina. And we are. Um, throughout 2024, moving process by process over, so we'll have a second factory here to support the United States. [00:39:00] - (): Tony Karklins: And at the same time, as we're installing our processes into that factory, we're getting a lot of assistance from, um, the state of South Carolina and the University of Clemson, and a lot of the, um, automotive, Development tools that were put into place inside of BMW. They do things with resin transfer molding that were light years beyond what Roland ever thought about when he was building his factories in France and Slovakia. **** - (): Tony Karklins: And so we've been for the last six months doing proof of concept manufacturing there about, um, high pressure resin transfer molding. We're similar technology to what we do in our factories now. But under three to five times pressure, and that has the potential to really, uh, has the potential to revolutionize bicycle manufacturing, but certainly advance our product to a point where beyond what we ever thought possible. [00:40:00] - (): Tony Karklins: When you, when you are able to do resin transfer molding at 35, 45, 50 bar, that is incredibly high pressure. It's going to make a A structure that is thinner, lighter, and stronger, and also more beautiful than anybody's ever been able to pull out of a carbon fiber tool. So we are fully focused on that development and deploying that technology in our new South Carolina factory. **** - (): Tony Karklins: By the end of **** - (): Craig Dalton: this year, that's so exciting to bring back more manufacturing in the United States. And as we heard, **** - (): Tony Karklins: that's the real thing, you know, because the automobile industry invested a lot in resin transfer from BMW, McLaren, Aston Martin, Lexus. Audi, I mean, resin transfer molding used in all those brands significantly. [00:41:00] - (): Tony Karklins: Polestar, Volvo. And to take benefit of what they've done there and apply it to bike under the Time brand name and being true to, you know, what Roland Katana actually wanted to build out of Time. That's, that's our special project that we're really excited about. I think that I'm a few months away from inviting people such as yourself into the kitchen over there so you can see firsthand what what's actually about that. **** - (): Craig Dalton: I love it. Book me a date. Maybe in July. My sister just moved to Asheville. So I'm planning a trip over there at some point **** - (): Tony Karklins: 3045. I **** - (): Craig Dalton: love it. I love it. I love this journey. You've taken us on in this conversation. Love the time brand. The story very much lands with me. Just the sort of. Race perspective of the bicycles and the expansion of the ADHX to the ADX45 just to give riders kind of what they're looking for in terms of the versatility. **** - (): Craig Dalton: In the time models. So, um, yeah, super appreciate it. And for customers looking to get in touch with the brand or get, get a foot over one of these, what's the best way for riders to get in front of a time bicycle? You know, [00:42:00] - (): Tony Karklins: we, our website and the team that we have supporting all lines of communication through that social media. **** - (): Tony Karklins: We're very easy. Okay. I mean, ping us ping us on Facebook, Instagram, through our website, we have a team here ready to help. And **** - (): Craig Dalton: are you selling direct to consumer at this **** - (): Tony Karklins: point? We sell every way possible. We sell direct to consumer and we've got around 150 retailers in the United States. Uh, we've got distributors in 18 countries around the world. **** - (): Tony Karklins: Um, so yeah, we're, we're pretty much available in all key markets. **** - (): Craig Dalton: Amazing. Thanks again for the time, Tony. **** - (): Tony Karklins: My pleasure.  

Second episode from the vault drop. Chris has some good beer and amazing brisket at Laughing Sun brewery as he finally makes it to beautiful Montana. Nick and his family adopt kittens that now are probably legally able to drink. He also encounters some home repair issues but luckily it turns out that his roof just wasn't attached. John and Nick got to dry hop the collab brew with Pecan Street and enjoy the brewery with their families. Heads up, we don't have any cans left. John got to take in Lollapalooza…….2022 but had a once in a lifetime experience, in a bad way, before Metallica came on. He also stopped by a long term target brewery in Off Color brewing and even got to chat with one of the owners. Chris enjoyed a wonderful hop bomb from Backslope Brewing in the Crooked Wind IPA. Nick has a slight departure from La Verdad with a coconut sour cream ale from Martin House.  John got to have the tremendous Dino Smores while at Off Color. We talk about the collabs we would like to see. (Surly, Pinthouse, ABW, Victory, and Green Man). John takes you down memory lane and hits you with a dad joke for this week. We discuss music festivals and kids attending them. Then we go into a history of Other Half brewing since they were kind enough to give us a 4-pack of their collaboration with Fiden's brewing out of Albany New York named, Broccoli's Axe. Finally, we taste the beer and let Other Half know how much we love them.

Brock introduces Ben to Monarch while Ben tries for a third time to get Brock to watch Slow Horses.  Then Brock and Ben look to the future with the first casting announcement of Last of Us: Season 2, and a mini recap of the Golden Globes.

Welcome to 2024 and our 40th episode everyone! We're so happy to be talking with Ken Draznik and James Wald from one of our favorite bands of all-time, The Vertebrats from Champaign, IL. We talk about how these guys got together with Matt Brandabur and Roy Axford and helped create a vibrant DIY music scene in Champaign-Urbana. We also talk about how their short 3-year career created a legion of fans that have continued to love them and influenced a generation of C-U bands. In recent times, Kenny and Jimmy have recorded music as The Surly Bells and are looking for an avenue to release their new music.Time stamps:2:25: How did you get into music?7:45: When do the two of you meet?9:40: Jimmy did you see this as an opportunity to get in the band?14: Did playing Mabel's as frequently as you did help increase your musical output?18: Was it always your goal to play original music?22:35: Were there other Champaign bands that you were fans of?25: Why did we stop after 3 years?30: What brings you back together to make music together again?33:40: If you'd gotten a record deal, would that have extended the life of the band?38: Why isn't your music on streaming?44: What are your aspirations for The Surly Bells?54: Thick or thin crust pizza fans?56: Do you have a favorite Chicago venue?61: When you think of a Chicago band, what bands come to mind?63: What is your go to cheap drink?64: Anything you'd like to plug on your way out the door?65: Thoughts on Jeff Evans

The Two Bobs episode 237 for Monday, December 25, 2023: What are The Bobs drinking? Rob enjoyed a Ginger Snap Darkness from Surly. https://surlybrewing.com/beer/2022-ginger-snap-darkness/  Robert nursed a Buddy's Spaghetti Breakfast from Trouvaille Brewing Company. https://untappd.com/b/trouvaille-brewing-company-buddy-s-spaghetti-breakfast/5641270  Follow us on Untapped at @RobFromTTB and @lowercaserobert or we'll charge you for Christmas dinner. This week's CRAZY NEWS has criminal immunity, unlike next year's GOP Presidential candidate. Florida Man® burglarized a home after the homeowner invited him in for a beer. https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/florida-man-burglarizes-house-after-homeowner-lets-him-in-for-a-beer-deputies-say  A man in Ohio got high and then forgot an important word on his demand note while trying to rob a bank. https://abc6onyourside.com/news/local/alleged-richard-hampton-canton-ohio-bank-robber-forgot-write-money-demand-note-teller-high-crack  A woman in Wales charges her family for Christmas dinner. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-67770982  A middle school in Oregon went into lock down after a dog shit bag dispenser was mistaken for a grenade. https://www.koin.com/news/oregon/grenade-like-dog-poop-bag-dispenser-causes-scare-at-mcminnville-middle-school/  Gen Z, the most snowflake of all the currently living generations, faces so many anxieties that they're incapable of handling. Here are 13 of them! https://babylonbee.com/news/menu-anxiety-and-13-other-very-real-anxieties-gen-z-faces  Please share the show with your friends, and don't forget to subscribe! Visit www.thetwobobs.com for our contact information. Thanks for listening! Leave us a message or text us at 530-882-BOBS (530-882-2627) Join us on all the social things: Follow us on Twitter Check out our Instagram Follow Rob on Untappd Follow Robert on Untappd The Two Bobs Podcast is © The Two Bobs.  For more information, see our Who are The Two Bobs? page, or check our Contact page.  Words, views, and opinions are our own and do not represent those of our friends, family, or our employers unless otherwise noted.  Music for The Two Bobs was provided by JewelBeat.  

Bob Hope Podcast 1949-12-06 Guests - Jack Benny and Doris Day - The Surly Santa!

THURSDAY HR 1 Getting into the building surprise! Carlos Birthday!! Cool socks bruh!

Behind Door 5 of the Ghosts of Christmas Advent Calendar - a wintry spectre haunting one of the very first railways stations! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/hypnogoria/message

Behind Door 5 - a wintry spectre haunting one of the very first railways stations! 

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Dicky (Head Brewer) and Britt (Assistant Brewer) who brew the wonderful beers at La Doña Cervecería in Minneapolis, MN. While Dicky is an industry veteran and has brewed at Surly, NorthGate, and Fulton before becoming Head Brewer and part-owner at La Doña, Britt is 6 months into her brewing career. Together, they are a formidable brewing team who feed off of each other's creativity and passion for making craft beer accessible for all. Our conversation is a mix of things from the beers that are flowing at La Doña to how brewers strive to maintain a work/life balance when they have families. It is a great conversation and I hope you enjoy listening as much as I did! Cheers!

Top Ten Console Light Gun Games - (00:00) Gaming Trivia - (2:02:18) Hardware Flashback - (2:02:54) Drax - In Spite Of - (2:38:44) Dinosaur Pie - (2:43:06) Guinness Gaming Records - (4:47:28) Martin Galway - Miami Vice - (4:50:03) Random Questions / Thoughts - (4:52:15) Live News And Listener Views - (4:53:10) URLs And EMails - (7:42:33) See the Shownotes Page. Suggest a future Top Ten Topic here. Watch the unedited Live News Video. Submit your news items to news@retrogamingroundup.com to have them discussed on the show. Chat with us on Discord. Podcatch via the RSS Feeds. Stream the show 24/7 or listen to RGR Radio. Donate to the show or support us on Patreon. Sponsored by MANSCAPED. Get 20% off plus free shipping with our discount code RGROUNDUP here.

On this episode of A Play On Nerds, things get spooky as we honor Exorcist: Beliver releasing in theaters by continuing our Rule of Three series and reviewing Exorcist III! Plus Toxic Avenger, serial killers and mens' grooming!Time Codes---------------Host Banter: 1:34Nerdy News: 4:24Main Segment: 6:06Serial Killer History: 26:08Radical Recommends: 29:45Trailer Reviews: 36:01

Holy carp - too much to do (and apologies for the tardy transmission).  The Gearhead Consultantcy is always on the job, we're just busy.  Hostus Maximus Justin Fort and the Walkin' Dude got back together out in BFE (Black Forest Excellence) for some trail tales - Red Cone, Imogene, Webster Pass, Mt. Herman, Gold Camp, Mt. Baldy - and thoughts on truck bags (gear for a day), mine access, universal keys, lost D-rings, and not ‘froading alone. As always, there's a lot more:  bags on roofs and tents on trucks, too much pressure washing and oil consumption, not enough Eddyline and Coors Banquest, Fred and Rudy (dogs), Cujo (dog name), Capt. Surly and Dani (people), and The Toadies and Presidents of the United States of America (bands).

Holy carp - too much to do (and apologies for the tardy transmission).  The Gearhead Consultantcy is always on the job, we're just busy.  Hostus Maximus Justin Fort and the Walkin' Dude got back together out in BFE (Black Forest Excellence) for some trail tales - Red Cone, Imogene, Webster Pass, Mt. Herman, Gold Camp, Mt. Baldy - and thoughts on truck bags (gear for a day), mine access, universal keys, lost D-rings, and not ‘froading alone. As always, there's a lot more:  bags on roofs and tents on trucks, too much pressure washing and oil consumption, not enough Eddyline and Coors Banquest, Fred and Rudy (dogs), Cujo (dog name), Capt. Surly and Dani (people), and The Toadies and Presidents of the United States of America (bands).

Google Ads Introduces URL Rules for PMax | We Can't (URL) Contain Our Excitement! On this week's episode of Marketing O'Clock, we have Exciting news for advertisers still sURLy about PMax final URL expansion. Plus, SGE rolls out the missing link within answers, a new Reddit tool uses machine learning to AId in keyword research, and Audience participation comes to Microsoft Ads Editor. Visit us at - https://marketingoclock.com/ Join our Discord Community - http://community.marketingoclock.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Intro - 00:00

The Surly Brewing story is the stuff of entrepreneurial legend in Minnesota, but in recent years, founder Omar Ansari has had to contend with an industry wide decline of beer sales, diversification of the adult beverage market, pandemic shutdowns, and changing employee expectations. “Things have changed and we're having to change with it,” Ansari says. Over the summer, Ansari got back to his roots: visiting neighborhood bars that sell Surly, connecting with fans, and telling the story. In this wide ranging conversation, we go back to how it all started, and then talk about how Ansari had had to come around to doing contract brewing and introducing new beverages like hop water and a THC seltzer to stay competitive. “If that's where we're at, that's what will do.” Then we go back to the classroom with the University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship. Assistant professor Casey Frid has conducted research on the craft beer industry and talks about how the market saturation can chip away at a brand's character. “Previously, craft brewing was about independence,” Frid says. “Now you do what have to to survive.”

Vlad Sedler (@RotoGut) is joined by two of his favorite recurring guests, Sammy Reid (@SammyReidFI) and the Surly Attorney, Daniel Prepas, aka Prep (@StudSterkelFan). Prep goes on a surly tirade about the Angels, what a horrible person Rendon is and humanity in general. Sammy talks about his low expectations for his Padres the rest of this season. They then dive into the landscape of fantasy baseball at the 70% mark of the season and ponder whether NFBC players will have SP Amnesia for 2024 draft season. This is a wild ride, enjoy it!

JP Finlay and Pete Hailey are here to give you the details from a grumpy Friday session in Ashburn, which included a fight between two linemen and Terry McLaurin going off on the defense. After providing those details, JP poses a question: Is the offense we're seeing these days going to be drastically better by Week 1 or not? Then, Pete says his goodbye to the program that he's loved dearly before the two toss to JP's recent interview with Charles Leno Jr, who touches on how his family is already being better taken care of by new ownership as well as Sam Howell's demeanor in the huddle. If you like podcasts that have the best damn listeners in the world, then this is the show for you. - PeteSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on the podcast we dive into the origin story of Wilde Bicycle Co with founder, Jeffrey Frane. As a child, Jeffrey found the bike and along the way found freedom, adventure, and ultimately, a calling. Jeffrey has spend over twenty years in the bike industry finding himself at QBP managing the All City Brand since its earliest days. His experience and passion has led to the founding of Wilde Bicycle Co. Wilde Bicycle Co. website  Episode Sponsor: Hammerhead Karoo 2 (use THEGRAVELRIDE for free HRM) Support the Podcast Join The Ridership  Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: [00:00:00]Craig Dalton (Host): Hey Jeff, welcome to the show. [00:00:04]Jeff Frane: Uh, hey Craig. It's great to be here. [00:00:06]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah, this is gonna be a lot of fun. I'm excited to learn more about you and more about the Wild Bicycle brand. So let's, let's start off by where, where'd you grow up and how'd you discover the bike? [00:00:16]Jeff Frane: All right, so, uh, for the listeners joining us, uh, my name is Jeffrey Frame and I am from, I grew up in the North Woods of Wisconsin. In a small logging slash milltown called Rhinelander, Wisconsin. A shout out to the Hoda. Um, so I grew up small town Wisconsin and luckily there were a bunch of mountain bikers around and we had, you know, several mountain bike races like twice a year. And, um, all these woods to explore. And got hooked on bikes as a kid because it was the only way I could leave my neighborhood. I lived outside of town where most of my friends lived in town, so I had to get there somehow. And my parents had jobs, so it was ride the bike and I just never stopped. You know, when I was 16, when most people, you know, kind of put down the bike. I was really afraid of killing somebody. I was, I was immature. I'm, you know, I, I, up until like my 40th birthday, I was pretty immature. Um, but I was afraid of hurting somebody with, you know, the power of an automobile scared the crap out of me. So I just like never got my license and I just kept riding. I did eventually get my license, you know, when I was 20 years old, but, so I just never stopped. [00:01:34]Craig Dalton (Host): and was it just sort of pleasure riding back then, or you'd mentioned there was a couple [00:01:37]Jeff Frane: Yeah. [00:01:38]Craig Dalton (Host): Did you get drawn into the race scene at all? [00:01:40]Jeff Frane: did. Um, and it was, it was wonderful. My parents were always incredibly, uh, supportive of my sporting endeavors. And, um, in Wisconsin, we're really blessed to have the Wars series, uh, the Wisconsin Off-Road series, which is one of the largest and longest running, I think, state series in the country. And, uh, they would take me to the races. I started racing in junior high, uh, in the local stuff on my Little Trek eight 30. And, uh, that was wonderful and then kind of progressed. And then in high school we started racing full war circuits and my parents were awesome enough to take the time off of work and to kinda lug me around so that I could get, you know, fifth place in a sport class or whatever. [00:02:20]Craig Dalton (Host): I love it. And was there, was there a high school mountain bike scene back then, or was, were you a little bit of a, an outcast? [00:02:26]Jeff Frane: yeah, I was the only, I had some friends kind of coming up or growing up who raced with me, but once we got to high school, it was largely me. You know, we didn't have Nica or anything like that. In fact, I remember I played hockey as well, that um, I got a local sponsorship from Schwinn and like it was this big kerfuffle cuz like, they didn't know if I was still eligible for hockey and all these people were really upset about it and, you know, whatever. Um, I was, it turned out I was eligible for hockey, but, [00:02:55]Craig Dalton (Host): Some, someone just need to explain to the hockey world that bicycle sponsorship is not exactly making a living. [00:03:00]Jeff Frane: no, and you know, there was no money. But, uh, so, you know, I, I just, I just kept racing and mountain bikes were my first love and it was just a way of exploring, you know, the area around me. And we had a cool local shop, Mel's trading post, and they were super rad to me and put me on the little bike team. And then we got, that team got sponsored by Schwinn and, um, you know, it all, all just kind of held together until I went to the university and. As a poor college student, I really couldn't afford to race, but I was able to still ride my bike all the time. [00:03:32]Craig Dalton (Host): Were you still in Wisconsin at that point? [00:03:34]Jeff Frane: Yeah. I went to the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire, [00:03:37]Craig Dalton (Host): Okay. [00:03:37]Jeff Frane: um, which is like a, a rivertown and, you know, a couple trail systems, but found, started finding like the bigger community, you know, there were a bunch of really fast racers and I learned so much by chasing these people around, you know, eventually got to. I still raced a little bit in college and was able to race expert where I got my butt absolutely handed to me. Um, and then after, after college, I spent a couple years living in my van, uh, 1992 Dodge Caravan. [00:04:05]Craig Dalton (Host): out Dodge Caravan. [00:04:07]Jeff Frane: I was gonna, I was like, I can't shout out too many things, but yeah, the Dodge Caravan was a, was a workhorse. Really good car. Went through transmissions like he wouldn't believe though. Uh, so lived in that for a while. And then, um, I got tired of, of living on people's couches and just being broke and there was a, a person I wanted to date. So I came back here and now I live in Minneapolis. I've been here since 2005. And like that's really kind of when I think things really took off for me in terms of bicycles as a lifestyle. You know, that was the height of the fixed gear. Boom. And, you know, so I, I moved to the, I moved to city, the city with like a single speed Magna Mountain bike that I had cut the bars down. I had like my little Dickies Messenger bag and I was like, oh, you know, like in the big, I'm gonna cut traffic. And cuz I had grown up like seeing bike messengers and like MTV sports and stuff [00:04:57]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah. [00:04:58]Jeff Frane: and uh, you know, got a job at a bike shop, started wrenching. And, um, started my little company Bike Jerks. So if you find me on Instagram, my handle is bike jerks, uh, which was a dumb inside joke at the shop. And it seemed like a real funny thing to call my, my little company, uh, when I was 25. Now I'm 43. Not as funny, but I'm stuck with it. Um, and the reason that started is like I needed a, I always needed a creative outlet and I really wanted to participate in the community. I wanted to organize, I wanted to throw races. So I needed a platform to do that. So I invented this thing, bike Jerks, which was the little, um, you know, platform for me to throw Alley Cats and Bandit Cross and, and other events. [00:05:41]Craig Dalton (Host): gotcha. Yeah, it seems like that Minneapolis bike scene is, has always been so creative and spanned so many different disciplines of the B of the sport, including disciplines that no one knows even exists, like tall bikes and random cobbled together bikes. [00:05:58]Jeff Frane: Yeah, it's, it's weird being here cuz we're a straight flyover country. You know, anything that gets media attention or national renowned is pretty much coastal. Um, so we, it's awesome to hear people say that. And, you know, people know that we're a bike city, but like, nobody comes visits Minneapolis, you know, um, we're kind of forgotten about. But we have this really, really special and unique culture. And, you know, there was Gene Ober, pillar and Hur ever stone. And Paul Ziegel and you know, the surly bikes and there's all these pretty amazing contributions that have been made. You know, single speed mountain biking. It wasn't invented here by any means, but I think it took on like its bigger cultural relevance. There was a huge push for that here, especially with, you know, surly bikes coming on outta the scene. Um, so we're standing on the shoulders of giants. There is an amazing, amazing culture that goes back generations, uh, here in the Twin Cities. [00:06:53]Craig Dalton (Host): And then I'm not sure exactly when quality bike parts came to be, but qbp is this cornerstone sort of backbone of the bicycle industry. Maybe you can describe who they are and what they do. [00:07:05]Jeff Frane: Yeah, so q uh, so the first shop I worked at here in Minneapolis was FreeWheel Bike. It was originally a co-op. By the time I got there, it was no longer a co-op. Uh, but, uh, what Steve Flagg, the owner of qbp, was one of the owners of the co-op, and they were, Essentially frustrated not being able to get small repair parts from Europe. And so he started bringing in repair parts and boom, that's how Quality Bicycles products got started. Him and his wife Mary, and you know, now it's the largest bicycle distributor distribution business in North America. They own Surly, they own Salsa, they own All City. They own whiskey. They own 45 North. Um, you know, it's a, it's a massive, massive operation. [00:07:48]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah. Yeah. Super interesting. I never, I never knew that backstory, but I've, I've certainly known Q BP my entire cycling life, it seems like. And you've ultimately, you've found your way [00:07:58]Jeff Frane: to Q. Yeah. So you know, there Qbp was always like the, you know, like the beacon on the hill kind of thing. It was like all the shop rats were like trying to get to Q and uh, I was lucky enough to get hired there, so I worked like part-time seasonal at FreeWheel bike my first year in Minneapolis. Got laid off for the winter, uh, took a bunch of weird random jobs and eventually, um, QVP was hiring for warehouse people. And so I started there. I think in, it would've been 2006, uh, as part-time seasonal picking, packing, labeling, like literally the bottom rung on the totem pole. You know, it doesn't get much lower. Um, you know, in terms of. I mean, it's a fine job. I don't mean to say that the job was low, but you know, as far as the ranking goes, you're a part-time seasonal employee. [00:08:52]Craig Dalton (Host): it's the entry point. The very [00:08:53]Jeff Frane: Yeah, it's the entry entry point for sure. Um, so I got a job there and you know, by that time I was already kind of getting a reputation as like the fixed gear guy and I was already active in the community here in Minneapolis, organizing events. And they recognized that love and that passion that I had. And so, um, a few years in, I was able to start suggesting some product to Lisa Snyder, um, who was the brand manager of Dimension at the time. So there was the Dimension brand and they had like some track things and you know, kind of the whole thing was I was like, Yo, I'm really into track bikes and you have nothing I wanna buy. Like I'm buying all my stuff from Mary Sales and from these other distributors, Euro, Asia, imports, et cetera. Like, what's going on? Like, you're freaking qbp. Like, y'all need to do better. And so I started suggesting some product to her and she brought them in under the dimension label, and they did well. And then I was able to suggest more products. And then those did well. And eventually, um, I kind of got the, I was talking to Lisa about doing some other stuff. It just didn't go anywhere. And eventually I kind of got the guts up to say, oh, screw it. I'm going right to the top. And I drafted this, like, you know, at the time I thought it was really like rock solid, but it's ridiculously amateurish, like little business proposal for a brand that I was calling All City. Um, and the reason I needed a name change was I was like, I wanna do nicer stuff and people don't wanna buy nice stuff from dimension like that is repair level parts. So, I wanted a track crank, um, because there was a shortage at that time of 1 44 bolt, circle, diameter, you know, track cranks. And um, so I was like, let's call it All City. So All City Championships was the name of my alley cat that I was throwing every year. So the name comes from, uh, graffiti, uh, in New York City. Um, There's a term called being All City. And what that meant was that you had a piece on, on a train in all five boroughs. You were all city. So my race went to every part of the city, so that's why it was the All City Championships. And I just thought that would be a slick name for, you know, an urban track bike brand. And so, [00:11:14]Craig Dalton (Host): such a cool origin story of the name All City. I'd never heard that before. [00:11:20]Jeff Frane: Yeah, well, there's not many people, many. There's no one left to tell the story, like, I'm it, I'm the dinosaur. Um, [00:11:27]Craig Dalton (Host): So you started out All City and and didn't know this also All City started out with a basic concept of more premium track. Track componentry. [00:11:37]Jeff Frane: to make nicer stuff and I didn't think anybody would buy nicer stuff with the dimension label. Um, you know, it was kind of a weird deal cuz I like nice stuff. I've always been in a vintage bicycles and so like we had to kind of Trojan horse some of the ideas in, so like, I was like, okay, cool, now we have these parts. I wanna do a track bike and I wanna do a Minneapolis track bike. And we have winners in Minneapolis, which means, and fixed gears are like, are the best thing for winter commuters because, Maintaining a geared bike is just, that's way too much work. You know, I want the simplest bike I possibly can for these salty, crappy, slushy wind, you know, weather we have. Um, so I want our track bike that's a real track bike with real track geometry, but I wanna be able to fit a bigger tire. And, you know, at that time, like $500 complete fixed gears we're like dominating the market. And so I'm like, yeah, we're gonna do a $500, you know, uh, track bike just to like get the project rolling. Knowing damn well I don't wanna ride a $500 track bike. Like, no way. I wanna, I like nice stuff. Um, so then it was, you know, we kick off the project and I'm like, you know, I've done some market research and I really think that that price point is saturated. Like what we really need to do is do a thousand dollars track bike. Uh, no one's there, like no one's in that market space and we can put all our own parts on it and we don't have to use this cheap stuff. And that's how the big block was born. That's why it's a nice bike. Uh, because I convinced them that the $500 price point, price point, there was too much competition and we could never win that game. So we need to go upmarket. [00:13:10]Craig Dalton (Host): And at that point had QBP acquired or started any other, uh, full bike brand [00:13:15]Jeff Frane: Yeah. So Surly started, um, in like 1999. They changed their name to Surly in 98. So 1998 was when the Surly, or was when the one by one. Which was the precursor name to Surly Rat Ride came out and they had done some parts before that. Uh, sh I'm gonna do another shout out to Wakeman Massey, uh, founder of Surly Bikes. He, um, freaking visionary surly bikes, in my opinion, is the most influential bike brand of the last, you know, 30 years. Um, the steel Renaissance fat tire clearance. Every modern gravel bike is a crosscheck. Like I know they're, they didn't invent that stuff. Um, you know, big tire clearances, blah, blah, blah. But they popularized it and democratized it, and I think brought it to the forefront of the culture. [00:14:03]Craig Dalton (Host): Certainly democratized it. I would, I would double click on that one. And yes, double shout out to Wakeman. He may, he definitely doesn't remember this, but I met him back when I was at Dean Bicycles. I think he rolled in his first, Ever framed that he welded himself at university, a 24 inch dirt jumper that was ratty as hell, but he was super enthusiastic and passionate, and I think we even tried to hire him, but he wanted to go move somewhere else other than Boulder. [00:14:30]Jeff Frane: Yeah. Um, you know, and the fat bikes and 29 ERs and blah, blah, blah. Like surly, you know, they've done some really special things for sure. Um, and you know, QBP had already bought salsa, um, prior to that. So they had salsa and qbp, or I'm sorry, salsa and surly they had Sylvia at that time. Um, [00:14:51]Craig Dalton (Host): had, you started to kind of understand what a supply chain for a full bicycle looked like at that point when you brought the idea of the track bike to them. [00:14:59]Jeff Frane: I mean, kind of, you know, so like I, again, like with it was all baby steps, right? Um, You know, I was at first when All City started in 2008. It was 15 hours a week, and I was the sales and marketing coordinator, and then I made it to 20 hours a week, and then I made it to 30 hours a week. Well, you know, I was still doing warehouse stuff and all this, you know, and eventually it got to be a full-time position for me. Um, with Lisa still, like with Lisa still in charge. Like Lisa was awesome. She was the operations person and she had a really strong product background. [00:15:37]Craig Dalton (Host): yeah. [00:15:38]Jeff Frane: Um, and I was able to contribute, you know, my ideas and passion for the urban, you know, what we used then called urban cycling, um, for that. And, you know, we were a really, really great team. [00:15:50]Craig Dalton (Host): So that was probably the urban cycling angle for all cities, probably where my knowledge intersected with the existence of all cities. I started seeing these steel bikes underneath who were clearly passionate commuters in San Francisco. So how, how quickly did it kind of go from track bike? It's a commuter bike. And when did you start to see, hey, people are using these to ride on dirt? [00:16:14]Jeff Frane: Um, I mean, so right away the big block cleared a 32 seat tire, which in 2009 was like a pretty good sized tire. And you know, we were, before track lacrosse was track lacrosse, we were riding our fixes, you know, in the dirt, uh, doing that kind of stuff. Um, I had gotten interested in cycl lacrosse. We put out the Nature Boy, which is a single speed cross bike. You know, all city's evolution was always, there were always constraints for all city. We had surly on one side of us, we had salsa on the other. And it was like, how are we going to be different and offer something actually unique and not just, um, you know, compete with our sister brand. So, you know, the Nature Boy was a dedicated single speed, which didn't exist in the QBP for portfolio, you know, and when people came up, they're like, oh, that's just a stop and crosscheck like, what are you idiot kids doing? It's like, well, you know, ride the thing like, Um, you know, the nature boy, all the canal cities, I think have, have aged really well and become kind of culty classic bikes. Um, so, you know, I think, I think that came out well. We, we put out a bunch of fixie freestyle bikes if people remember fixed gear freestyle, which were also super fun to ride on dirt cuz they had big tire clearance. Uh, then we did the Nature Boy. Um, I think the bike after that was we went geared with the, with the macho man. And the Mr. Pink and the Space Horse and the Space horse was like the bike that really unlocked all cities potential. And you know, we've always been, I've always been interested in all facets of cycling and, you know, we saw what was happening with the crosscheck and it was like, well let's, if we make a bike like that, we're gonna sell a bunch. And that was the Space Horse, and it was our own spin on things. It was as sporty of a light touring bike as we could possibly make. Um, You know, that was Anna Schwinn's design and she absolutely crushed it with that. And that's the one that like started really opening doors and opening a lot of outside eyes to the brand because it was just a really good looking, functional and practical bike. [00:18:17]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah, yeah. And and clearly quite versatile. I think if you talk to anybody who's been around gravel for a while, as people were getting those first generation gravel bikes, you were seeing people on that bike, on the trails. [00:18:29]Jeff Frane: For sure. [00:18:30]Craig Dalton (Host): I already have the first generation. It's been underneath my legs for a few years. [00:18:34]Jeff Frane: Well, and you know, the Mr. Pink cleared 30 twos, so that was my, uh, I, I raced gravel on that for a number of seasons. You know, um, the, the, the Minnesota gravel at that time was strictly like gravel roads. Like we weren't doing like, necessarily a much of like minimum maintenance stuff or double track. It was gravel, gravel. The El Manzo 100 and you could ride a 28 C in that race. Uh, Mr. Pink Fit 32. So that was my gravel race bike at that time. I eventually moved over to the space horse because it had longer chain stays in a lower bottom bracket, which as you know, our awesome for descending fast on gravel. Um, you just, it's just significantly more stable and more planted in, I think, confidence inspiring. And so then, then the space horse. And my big regret with the space horse is that so many people got them and just put racks and fenders and they became these beasts of burden. But if you build built a light space horse canny, it was a ripper of a gravel racer. Um, it was fast and it was fun, and it really came alive under power. [00:19:41]Craig Dalton (Host): And you know, looking at the other Q BP brands was all city, and I know, I believe Surly is the same way. All City was always focused on steel as the frame material. [00:19:51]Jeff Frane: Yeah, I mean steel was definitely our focus. Uh, we did have an aluminum track bike because aluminum in, in track, velodrome racing is an incredibly relevant material. But yeah, it was always steel. And you know, as I was saying, we were always trying to find that niche and there were all these guardrails. Well, you know, how am I gonna make a steel bike that's different than surly. Well, I love ornateness in bikes. You know, I love those classic details. And so it was, let's design our own fancy pants dropouts. Uh, let's do the reinforcement stars on the bottle bosses. Let's design our own braised on seat collar. And you know, my whole, the whole concept there was if you stripped the frame of all of its paint, could you still tell it wasn't all city and nothing else? And that was what we were going for, was, you know, unique detailers and details and bringing. Back kind of beauty into a production bicycle. Cause like a surly is a pretty utilitarian, stripped down thing. And so we wanted, uh, and, and you know, the salsas were kind of, of that ilk too. And so we wanted a little more embellishments, a little more, um, call out to the, you know, the, the, the frame building, uh, heritage of the sixties and seventies and eighties, you know, internal top tube cable routing. You know, those kind of details became an important signifier of the brand. [00:21:03]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah. Gotcha. I wanted to spend a few minutes on your QBP experience, cuz I just think it goes to underscore how much time you've thought about bikes, bicycle frames. [00:21:14]Jeff Frane: adult life, like this is it. Um, you know, and, um, so I, I became the brand manager and the leader of All City, officially, uh, Lisa was needed elsewhere in the company. And they were like, okay, dude, like, you're ready. I, I wasn't ready, turns out. But they were like, all right, so in 2013, I became the brand manager and kind of started assembling a bigger team because the brand was growing and you know, we put out a lot of bikes that I'm really proud of. Uh, you know, the cosmic stallion I think was a pretty, a pretty special and cool, uh, steel gravel racer, you know, and that was really the first gravel race bike that we, that we put out. You know, prior to that it was, we were using our cross bikes. Um, for these things, and now it was, okay, this is like, this is what a dedicated gravel bike should be. [00:22:07]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah. Yeah. So obviously working within an organization like Q bp, you've gotta advocate, you've gotta create the business case, but they've got the capital to bring an idea to market, and they've got the infrastructure to get it out. You've subsequently left qbp and you decided to go on your own journey and create your own brand in wild. What was, what was that journey like and. Why? Why are you doing wild? [00:22:36]Jeff Frane: Um, so in 2019, I left qbp, um, after being with them for, what, 13, 14 years. And, you know, I, I had a really, really wonderful experience. I, I learned so much at QBP that it was really time for me to move on. I'm kind of a weird dude. And, you know, in a corporate environment, any kind of nonconformity will only be tolerated for a finite period of time. And we were starting to reach that point. And so I left in 2019 and, uh, you know, I never intended to start a bike company again. Um, you know, this is the thing I know how to do. I know how I have, I'm really good at having a vision and driving towards it. Obviously I know how to run a bike company cuz I had been doing it at Q P P for, you know, quite some time. Um, but kind of a random encounter with Paul Crick, uh, who owns Donkey Label here in Minneapolis. Donkey label's a clothing company. He was starting up a fab shop, uh, for the brand Stomper here. And, um, we ran into each other kind of on the massage table. Um, cuz he has like a fit studio and a sports masseuse and stuff, um, in his building here in Minneapolis. And he was like, oh, you can write work on bikes. Like, I need a mechanic. And so I was like, all right, cool. Um, started with Paul part-time and then he found out about my background and what I could do. And so I started taking over some of the operations, um, here in Minneapolis for Stomper. Um, and it was a pretty casual arrangement. Um, and so this is 2019, right? And so 2020 comes around and I have the opportunity. So my background is in marketing. Um, that was my, um, comparative studies in religion and marketing with a re I got at Eau Claire, which is why I ended up in a bike shop in Minneapolis. Like those things, uh, wasn't super employable at the time, so, Um, marketing came knocking and I had the opportunity to move to Portland to work with, uh, Billy Siford and his team at Echoes Communication. And I was really excited about that. Um, you know, I, I enjoy marketing. I was really excited to work with their portfolio of brands And I [00:24:59]Craig Dalton (Host): is a, echos a marketing PR agency that works with a bunch of different brands in the bike [00:25:05]Jeff Frane: Yeah. And they're the ones doing the maid show, so the maid, hand-built bike show that's happening in Portland this fall. Um, it's an echoes thing, so I had the opportunity to do that and I was like, all right, yeah, of course. Like I'm, I'm there, you know, Billy's been a friend of mine for a long time. He calls, I answer like, no problem. And so I was, uh, I quit my thing at Stomper and I was gonna go be, you know, a marketing dude in Portland, Oregon. Um, pandemic hits. I'm one week away from moving to Oregon and everything just freaking shuts down. So, you know, he is like, you know, don't come dude. Like, I don't know what's gonna happen. And I was like, that sounds really reasonable. I'm not gonna come. No worries my friend. You know? And so I'm here in Minneapolis and while I was working with Paul, working on his operations, um, was one I learned how to paint, which was amazing. Painting bicycles, super fun. Uh, but I had developed an American supply chain and there was nobody really using that supply chain. And some people hit me up when they were like, Sorry, I'm ahead of myself. So while I was working at Stomper, I built what is a, what was the first Earthship? I built this personal bike for me and Paul was in the process of potentially changing the name of the company. There wasn't a solid name and I was like, you should call it wild. Like that's a good name for a bike company. Naming bike companies is hard and I think this is solid. So I painted wild on the side of, of my titanium bike. Um, and then shortly after left, and so I had this bike wild that people were seeing on my Instagram and people started reaching out to me and they're like, yo, I see you got this bike. Like, what's up with that? Can I get one? And I was like, yes, actually, yeah, yes, you can get one. Like, let's, let's, let's freaking go. And so started kind of doing onesie twosies there. Um, building, you know, in Oregon, uh, was simple. And then at Waterford, um, so using a couple different fabricators and started making a few, few bikes on my own. Um, it was going really great. But, [00:27:12]Craig Dalton (Host): And were you just following where the customer was taking you at that point? Like if they wanted a, a gravel bike, you were building a gravel bike. Road bike. A road [00:27:20]Jeff Frane: a absolutely, you know, one of my biggest pleasures is working with a customer to co-create the bike of their dreams. So I don't ever try, I have a vision for these things and I've been riding bikes and testing bikes and evaluating bikes my entire professional career now. Um, so I have a pretty good idea when they describe how they want a bike to handle what we have to do to get it there. And, you know, I have a strong vision, but it's really about facilitating their, what they want. Um, you know, and some people are like, I want this hedge two bangle and this C two bangle. And I'm like, bet. Like that's cool. And then some people are just like, describe a feeling they want or the best bike ride they've ever been on, or tell me about the bikes they've rid the past that they've really liked. Um, so at qbp, I was leading the team, uh, that created these bikes, but I wasn't, I wasn't the engineer. [00:28:12]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah. [00:28:12]Jeff Frane: Um, and I wasn't the product manager. Like I was authoring the briefs and then leading the team of the engineers and the product manager to the, you know, to the finished product. But now, I got to learn all the things. Uh, I got to learn how to do everything. And it, it is been amazing. Um, I consider myself to be pretty darn good at bike geometry now. Um, you know, I'm the one drafting all the bikes. I'm the one doing the mo doing, doing geo. Um, I was doing a lot of the tubing choosing, but I'm finding out that there's significantly more knowledge than I have in that regard. And so I'm always all about turning over those things to the best people, you know, who, who, who will get me the best outcome. And so, you know, we're working with our fabrication partners on that part of it now, but I get to be significantly more involved with product than I ever was at Q, which has been really, really super fun for me. [00:29:08]Craig Dalton (Host): I bet. So it sounds like, you know, people were coming to you, they were interested in the bike that you were riding and, and showing on your Instagram feed, et cetera. Was there, was there a moment that you sort of decided, Hey, I've made six or 10 for people I know I need to really kind of build some infrastructure around this brand, put up a website, get a little bit more structure so I can build a little bit more scale to this business? [00:29:31]Jeff Frane: well, you know, um, building bikes in the US is really challenging. Um, there's capacity issues in terms of how many frames we can get made. You can't really scale up a ton, um, or at least at the level I was at. And more importantly, one of the driving factors for me is working with my friends at the bike shops. So many of my best friends, uh, own shops and. The US stuff is, is awesome, but it's hard for them to make margin on it. And so I knew that I wanted to be in business with my friends and I knew that the best way to secure financial stability for my company was going to be to use my connections in Taiwan to have frames made. And luckily I was able to partner up with, um, Leche International Amazing Trading agent. Um, I could name off a bunch of brands that they work with, but I don't know if that would be polite, cuz I don't know if people want that information out there. Um, and we partnered up with them, right? I knew I wanted to do these Taiwanese frames, but I didn't have the resources to do it and nobody was gonna give me a loan for the money I needed. But luckily, Because I like to work with my friends, I was able to reach out to my buddy Josh at the Angry Catfish, Josh, uh, and Andy Co-Own Angry Catfish, which is a pretty well known bike shop here in Minneapolis. And they were into it, you know, they were having was pandemic time, so they were having all these issues with their supply chain and they wanted to, they, they, they didn't really feel like they could depend on anyone in the bike industry. To supply them. So they were like, hell yeah. What we wanna do is to take more of our future into our own hands as well. And so by owning a bike company, we can make sure that our bike shop has frames to sell, has bikes to sell. And so they were all about it. And that gave me the financial, uh, horsepower to be able to afford to do our first batches of frames in Taiwan. And we partnered up with the Max Way factory. Max Way is one of the best. One of the, one of the best places to make a bike. Um, their knowledge and depth in the industry is, is just incredible. The quality of their bikes are superb. Um, they're not the cheapest by any means, but they are really, really great bicycles. And so now we have this Taiwanese product that we're able to sell to our dealers at a decent margin where they can make a living and partner, partner with us. And I don't know, it's just really cool that our small business. Supports their small business. And it's the same thing when we work with our fabrication partners here in the US and we work with, um, you know, our designers and we work with our bag makers. We try to make as much stuff locally as we possibly can. It's our small business supporting the community, supporting their small business, keeping the money in the wealth in the community, among the culture creators. And that's become really kind of a rai and detra for us is, um, building, building strong community, and. Trying to keep as much of the wealth as we possibly can inside this kind of network of friends. [00:32:36]Craig Dalton (Host): Amazing. So if I'm understanding you correctly, if a customer comes to your website and they're interested in the bike, they've got two paths they can go down. One is kind of working with you on a custom US made frame. Second is either buying from you or from one of your bike shop partners, a production frame that you've designed. [00:32:55]Jeff Frane: Yeah, so we do custom uh, and production here in the us you know, and there's all shapes to that. Like somebody might say, Hey, I like the custom geo, but I want this and this, this paint job. You know? Um, I'm in the business of saying yes. Like, if you wanna do some stuff, you wanna try something And we haven't done it. Like I'm game. Like this is how we ex expand and grow our capability. And so, yeah, pretty much everything's on the table. Yeah, we have the Taiwan stuff. Um, it's cool because I feel like we can serve a customer at all levels of their kind of journey through bikes. Um, where they, where they don't, I mean, they can leave us if they want. Like you can buy whatever you want, but they weren't gonna outgrow us. Cause it's like, okay, you're gonna get in with a $2,300 complete Taiwanese bike. Awesome. And then maybe a few years down the line you're like, you know, I really want, have this idea that I wanna see come to life. And then you order a custom, uh, you know, steel bike from us, uh, that we make here in the USA to your specifications. And maybe a little later you're like, oh, you know, I also need, um, you know, a titanium mountain bike. Like, let's go wild. Like, can you make that? And then the answer is, hell yeah, we can, like nothing would give us the greatest pleasure. So it's cool cause I'm hoping that customers kind of get in. They, they love their bikes and then they continue growing with us. [00:34:14]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah. Gotcha. I love that vision. So on that $2,300 price point, which I think is so amazing, I mean, it's so often that. We get people on the podcast and the, the bicycles they're talking about are just unattainable by the majority of the population and you need to start somewhere. So the reason I was asking the question about kind of custom versus production line, the Taiwan Taiwanese lineup, you had to make some decisions there because it wasn't a customer coming to you saying, I want 50 millimeter tire clearance, or I want this head two bangle. Tell me about the design of that bike. What's, who's the rider that you designed for, and what are some of the attributes of that, of that model? [00:34:56]Jeff Frane: Yeah, so if we're talking about the Rambler, which is our Taiwanese made gravel platform, we sell it in two versions with a carbon fork. We call that the SL super light. And then we have the steel fork version that we just call Rambler. Um, that is kind of based on the earth ship as, um, it kind, it borrows heavily from the earth ship. So in my lineage, as I progressed through the industry, we had the Space Horse, then we had the Cosmic Stallion, and then I created the Earth ship, which was an iter iteration of those works, an evolution of those works. And now we have the Rambler. And so when I, things I like in gravel bikes. I believe that an endurance bike comfortable is fast. Um, I love a tall, I have a bad back, uh, as we talked about before the podcast. Um, so I like Tall Stack and I'm super stoked that the industry trend is going more and more towards tall stacks because, you know, high-end bikes serving elite athletes, professional racers is freaking ridiculous. Um, you know, most of us who ride even. Those of us who ride, you know, 10,000 miles a year, we still don't hold like that riding position for a long period of time. Um, the way a professional can, um, so you know, comfortable is fast. So taller stacks. I like to design our gravel bikes with a relatively quick handling front end. I try to keep the trail number in the low sixties because I want it to be really agile. Um, I like bottom bracket heights. That are just slightly, they're slightly lower than a road bike. Um, you know, traditionally, like a touring bike was an 80 mil bottom bracket drop. Uh, with a space horse, we have that cuz we want it to be sportier at 75. Uh, I think the cosmic stallion is 73 and the Rambler hits at 72 with the carbon fork on it. And I really think that's a good, uh, position for it to be in. Um, for, you know, keeping it stable on those gravel descents, having it be very confident, inspiring. Uh, we spec a big tire and with big tires come longer, chains stays. Our chains stays are 4 38, uh, which I kind of think is a magic number in terms of still being agile, but giving you a little bit of cush from that rear end. Um, kind of interesting with the rambler is that the steel fork and the carbon fork have a little bit different geometry. The steel fork needed to be a little longer to clear that big tire. And I'm actually really excited about the change because it makes the, that version of the bike really slick for gnarlier double tracks. Um, some, you know, single track more, more aggressive off-road terrain as well as it makes it really good for six 50 B conversions. When that conversion, it's, it's designed for it. So a six 50 B set up, [00:37:43]Craig Dalton (Host): And what is, what is for 700 C? What kind of tire clearance were you able to achieve? [00:37:48]Jeff Frane: uh, a 50 in the rear, and then the fork clears a two, one. [00:37:51]Craig Dalton (Host): Okay. [00:37:52]Jeff Frane: You know, I, I mean, to me that's gravel standard now. Like if you're not clearing a 50, like you're off the back. [00:37:57]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah, totally agree. It's been interesting, like the journey over the last, at least for me, the last five years to come to that point and see the industry come along and you know, when I first got into it, it was like you had to have two sets of wheels because. If you wanted to get big tires, you had to go down to six 50 B and now not the case. Right. I can run 700 by 55 on my current bike and that's, that's ample, right? [00:38:21]Jeff Frane: Yeah, absolutely. You know, I love that. Um, like every once in a while, like a, like something that's really popular, like, I'm gonna use the example like blood stones are really popular the last couple years, right. And I just so happen to be amazingly comfortable. Awesome shoes, like gravel bikes are super popular and they're also the most versatile, most practical bike you can freaking buy. Like, it's spectacular when. The really good, smart thing also becomes the popular thing, cuz that's not always the case. [00:38:51]Craig Dalton (Host): Yep. Yeah. The, the idea that we have this one bike in our quiver that can do so many different things and have so many different personalities depending on where we wanna ride, is absolutely what's drawn me to the sport. There's no question about it. [00:39:05]Jeff Frane: Totally. And you know, um, so I designed the Rambler so that it can also flex into bike packing if you want. It'll fit a, a, a two two or 2 3 6 50 B. And, um, like on the Earthship, which is a, a dedicated gravel race product, um, I have just bottle mounts in the main triangle and a bottle mount underneath the down tube. Uh, but on the rambler we have three pack mounts on the top of the bottom of the down tubes. A little more versatility there. I don't have rack mounts on the earth ship because it's a gravel race bike. But the rambler being, because it's a little more of an all arounder, will have your rack mounts. Um, you know, all of our bikes have three-pack mounts on them because I think that's standard internal dynamo routing, you know, um, all the features that I think should, should be on a, on a, on a current modern gravel bike. [00:39:57]Craig Dalton (Host): All great stuff, Jeff. So if people are interested in finding out more about the brand or ultimately purchasing one of these bicycles, how, where are you encouraging them to go? I know you wanna work with local bike shops whenever possible, but what? Yeah. Tell me about your vision for how you interact with customers. [00:40:15]Jeff Frane: well, um, you know, we're working to expand our dealer network. Uh, we're trying to keep it, we were trying to keep it significantly tighter. Um, but now we're ready, now that we have a decent amount of inventory from Taiwan, like we're ready to expand. The reason I wanted to keep it tighter is because I don't wanna be a crappy supplier. I don't wanna open up all these dealers and then not have the product to serve them well. [00:40:37]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah, [00:40:38]Jeff Frane: So we're starting to expand a little bit. It's tough because people are like, oh, I saw this on your Instagram. Is there a place where I can go try it in my area? And for most of the people right now, the answer is no. There, there, there isn't really. Um, you know, I think we have 20 dealers around the country at this point, and then we have some in Canada and Japan as well. So, So it's a little tough, you know, here in Minneapolis, like Angry Catfish has all of our stuff on the floor and that's been a really awesome resource for it. I feel a lot of conversations, uh, you know, of emails and such from, from customers asking about the product, um, it's kind of handy cuz in a lot of cases I can be like, well, do you, can you write a space horse? Is there somewhere you can go check out a space horse or a cosmic stallion? Um, our bike is not the same geometry as that, but if that feels good to you, This was my previous, this was the previous work. Check out the new iteration. I dunno if that sounded like a d Was that a jerky thing to say? I hope not much love to, to all this stuff that, you know, we've done in the past and much love to all city. [00:41:43]Craig Dalton (Host): So are you guys holding inventory? Like if someone came to you today and said, I need a rambler, [00:41:48]Jeff Frane: absolutely, absolutely. Um, you know, the struggle that we're having a little bit is, uh, we're offering complete bikes. Which is important and we're offering complete bike shop bikes to our dealers. Um, cuz you know, it's one thing to sell a frame to a dealer, but chances are that frame's just gonna sit there. Like, people need to, like to need, people need to be able to test ride it and, and see it and touch it. Um, so we're selling our shops complete bikes as well, and it's proving a little bit of challenging to put together kits sometimes, but we're doing, uh, as good of a job as we possibly can. [00:42:20]Craig Dalton (Host): And then on the custom side, if someone came to you and said, Hey, I want you to build this dream bike for me. What does that timeline look like and what's sort of the process they go through? [00:42:27]Jeff Frane: Well, uh, I didn't answer the first part of your question, which is do we have inventory? Oh, yeah. We, we absolutely do. We have ramblers in stock. We have our bike packing bike Super Tramp. I have earth ships, US made gravel racers in stock ready to jam. Um, those are really interesting because it's some of the last stuff to come outta Waterford before Waterford closes its doors. And so if you wanted something from that historic, um, historic place, Um, we've got earth ships for you and every time I kind of sell one I'm like, Ooh, there's one less Waterford, Mike, like, we're getting down to the end. [00:43:00]Craig Dalton (Host): I hope the people who are buying them know that that's where they were fabricated cuz that is a meaningful origin of that bike. [00:43:07]Jeff Frane: absolutely. I mean, Waterford is American cycling to me, uh, Richard and his crew there. It's a legendary place with legendary people. You know, I was fortunate enough to work with his daughter Anna, at All City, uh, who I mentioned earlier. And, um, it's a huge, huge loss culturally to us and to the American bicycle industry, um, that they're closing shop, but at the same time, Richard, that's a freaking well earned retirement and what a legacy he li leaves behind. So many happy riders, so many great bikes. [00:43:40]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah. If you, if for the listener, if you haven't heard of Waterford, just do a little Googling and you'll see what we're talking about. [00:43:46]Jeff Frane: Um, to answer your question about timeline, usually takes us about three to four months for a steel or titanium, uh, frame set for a custom. Uh, some of that, you know, we've got a pretty good handle on production time. Uh, some of the variability comes with finishing. Uh, you know, we use a number of people depending on if you want a saraco or if you want powder coat, or if you want. Or if you want really, really, really fancy ano, like those are all kind of different vendors to get us that. [00:44:16]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah. [00:44:16]Jeff Frane: so there's a little bit of variability, but typically four months, [00:44:20]Craig Dalton (Host): Nice. Nice. Anything else that we didn't cover about the brands that you'd like to share, [00:44:27]Jeff Frane: man, Craig, um, you know, I, I, I couldn't be happier with where we are. Um, I get to continue to contribute to the, to the cycling world in some small way. And, you know, I'm super excited about that. Um, I do have something to say though, um, which is this brother. Um, when I trying to figure out how to, how to like, segue into this with, I'm just gonna say it, um, to all the people listening out there, the thing that. Um, has really changed for me in my career and that has really helped me develop as a human being is this, um, you know, we live in a a, we live in the United States of America. We live in a capitalist society and we all have to work and we all have to hustle, uh, to make, to make life work. And, um, you know, one of the big things that, that, that happened to me, Was that I was so, I loved all city, I loved Q bp. I was so emotionally connect, interconnected with this thing. And you know, I was Jeff from All City. Like, that was my identity. My work, my job was such a huge part of my identity that when it was time to leave, that it was like this huge crushing, I mean, it ended up being the best thing that could have possibly happened to me, um, because I was able to develop, um, into the human being. I am, I am today, which is a much healthier. But I had conflated that my work with my value and my identity, right? And, um, so what I want everyone to just to know and to reiterate, like, you're not your job. You're not your output. You aren't how many freaking widgets you made in a day. Um, you're a beautiful special human being who deserves love. And you know, for me, part of that deserving love is deserving to ride my bike every day. Because that's when I feel at, at most, at peace with the world, at most, at peace with myself. Like, that's what bikes are. Bikes are fucking, bikes are salvation. Pardon of my language. Um, and so I just, I don't know, like this is like the message that I wanna just tell everyone is that, um, you're amazing just the way you are. You don't have to make anything. You don't have to produce anything. You don't have to do anything. Just you being you, um, brings a big, big, big, big, big light into this world and. That I love you so much for everyone out there and, uh, yeah, [00:46:51]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah. Thanks brother. I appreciate the sentiment and I appreciate all the, all the good energy you've put into the world, into the bike community. I mean, I think we all realize this, that, you know, we're, we're. It's a luxury to be able to ride these great bikes that we ride. It's a luxury to have the time. It's a luxury to have the community and the environment to get out there and do what we do. And for people like you who are putting it out there in good energy and creating brands like wild, I wish you all the success in the world. [00:47:19]Jeff Frane: Yeah. Well, and thank you so much again for the opportunity to be here. It's, um, you know, it takes a village. Um, we're a little brand just trying to make our way in the world. You know, the, the biggest thing for us is like, people just, it's not that people aren't willing to choose us. It's like that people don't even know we're an option. And it's really hard to build an audience with, like, the way the algorithms are set up. These days. So, you know, opportunities like this to be on the Gravel Ride podcast are, are freaking huge for us. [00:47:47]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah. Well, awesome. I appreciate the conversation, Jeff, and it was great to get to know you and we'll make sure everybody knows how to get in touch with you guys. [00:47:54]Jeff Frane: Yeah. If, if y'all are looking for, you know, if y'all are looking for bikes, we got 'em. And, uh, I think they're real nice. [00:48:01]Craig Dalton (Host): I love it. Thanks, Jeff. [00:48:03]Jeff Frane: Thank you Craig.    

This week all three of us are back and talking Nationals, road conditions and already missing Waterford cycles. Plus, shop ride etiquette, van problems and ebikes in the wild.  Find us, and other fantastic cycling podcasts on the Wide Angle Podium Network, at wideanglepodium.com! Check out the brand new WAP app available in the Apple and Android app stores! You can listen to us in a variety of ways: Find us on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or anywhere great podcasts are found. Give us a review and rating! We'd appreciate it! You can email us at theslowridepodcast@gmail.com Find us on Twitter: The Show (@theslowridepod) Matt (@Matt46292097) Spencer (@spencerhaugh) Tim (@thesuperrookie)

Recorded 2023-05-08 00:00:58 Tracklisting: * Qemist - Helium (Booty Tool) * Nectax - Vale FM * Arcane - The Mire * Eytan Tobin x Hesk x Iyer - Where's The Bass * made2faze - Return * BSN Posse - Never Never (A.Fruit Remix) * Lyndon Jarr - Somebody New * AltBraKz - Boom * Comoc - Handmade Heaven * AltBraKz - Tune Em' Up * MoonDoctoR x Surly x DJ Earl - Higher * Ace-up - Why Don't You Step Into The Circle * Jonny Megabyte - Slum Lord * Philip D Kick - Bleach * HNGVR - 4x4=160 * DJ Earl - Wrk Dat Body * DJ Rashad x DJ Spinn x Taso - She A Go * Sun People - Reconnect (Step by Step) * DJ Rashad x DJ Earl - I'm Too Hi * Earl Grey - Fun With Edits 3 * MoonDoctoR x Surly - Howdy * Nikitch - Juke On This * Mars Kasei - U Be High * A.Fruit - Bright Spot * Lux Familiar - Get2gether * Arcane - Steppa * Qemist x NicoTheGoddess x ISpeakWithAGift - Bouncee * Yunna - Wou * Sonar's Ghost - Uranus VIP * Paul Cronin - Orange * Mantra - Victory Dance * Soeneido - Ninja Empire Supreme * Red Army - Ruka * Ahmad - Scylla Download, Distribute, and Donate!

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