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Colin Strickland: From Then To Now · Zone2Speak Podcast

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Every single aspect of my life was completely changed and deconstructed and
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psychologically required, just cutting everything loose,
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everything pretty much that was associated with it, which was pretty much my
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whole, you know, most of my life, most aspects of my life were associated with
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bike racing and that scene and then resulting in that tragedy.
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Music.
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Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Zone to Speak podcast. I'm your host, Juliana.
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Now, let's get into the episode.
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Welcome back to Zone to Speak. Today, I'm joined by a rider who once redefined
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what he meant to race gravel.
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A man known for solo breakaways, unmatched endurance, and our fiercely independent
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style, Colin Strickland.
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From his Red Hook crit dominance to his iconic Unbound victory in 2019,
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Colin helped shape the face of gravel racing.
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His career has been marked by bold choices, impressive victories,
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and a genuine love for the bike.
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For years, he inspired a generation of riders to race on their own terms.
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But as with many stories worth telling, his path has not been linear.
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Today, we talk about the rise, the silence that followed, and what it means to start again.
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This episode is not about headlines. It's about the human behind the handlebars.
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It's about navigating pressure, grief, and identity.
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It's about healing, reflection, and whatever comes next. Colin,
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welcome to Zone to Speak.
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Thank you, Juliana. So good to have you here. So you were winning everything at the fixed gear scene.
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Who were you before that? And how did you get into cycling?
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What drew you into it? Moving into bicycle racing was just a natural shift in
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my life as I felt in my early life, in my late teens and early adulthood,
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I felt like rejecting the car
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culture that is so dominant in america that it's
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just all-consuming it's really the there's virtually
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no affected public transportation in the city in of austin and texas that i
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grew up in so it was really the car was really presented as the only option
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and it was not only you know the large financial investment but it's just you're
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compelled to just sit in traffic and just all these ridiculous.
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Compulsive obligations regarding surrounding car
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culture so the bicycle was just a means to escape that
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kind of just that that just entrenched
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sludge waste of life so when i was at the university of texas it just became
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my natural mode of transport and obviously it's very affordable to get your
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foot in the door with the bicycle and and then as we all know it becomes quickly
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becomes just this addictive freedom.
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And it gives back just as much as you give, if not more.
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So that's how I initially got into cycling was a way to opt out of the American car culture.
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As I, in hindsight, that's really
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what it was, as well as the financial obligations associated with it.
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And the fitness that resulted was just kind of a side effect.
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I was totally unplanned.
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Racing was never on my radar.
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So it just was a natural progression by opting out of cars. Wow. Yeah.
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I think a lot of us have been there. I went to school in Seattle,
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so didn't have money for the car.
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And it was, you know, I think it's a big car culture everywhere in the U.S.
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So I really fell in love with the bike more in the U.S.
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I mean, as a kid, I always loved the bike, but I was just copying my brothers,
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following them around the neighborhood.
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And you really made a name for yourself dominating
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the fixed gear crit scene red hook especially
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where your style and power stood out
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then you made the jump into gravel which is
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such a different beast in terms of terrain pacing and
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even culture what was that transition like
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for you both physically and mentally did
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you feel like a natural evolution or was it
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a tough shift for me it felt quite natural um it
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was yeah it was it was a yeah it
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did feel quite natural it just felt like a natural the the fixed gear criterium
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to as a as a as a outlet as a professional racing format was i could tell had
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kind of hit its hit its its peak and the wave was kind of cresting.
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And yeah, at the same time, gravel racing was, I just enjoyed,
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not only is it, is it really charming when it's at the time in about 2017,
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when I started participating, the races were really charming because they were so grassroots.
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They were just, it was, it was, it was almost non-bike racers.
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It was more like what you'd imagine Randon or riders.
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And yes, it was a race, but it was just really community oriented and community focused.
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So at the time I could just tell
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that that was a that's a formula a participatory formula
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that was not only is it really fun and charming but just
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as you know I was trying to make a career out of bike racing
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so obviously I enjoyed the the long
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endurance efforts but it became very clear that this is a format
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that's going to be very successful because it's just so
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fun and so I was gonna say it's so pure but it was at the time it was just people
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there who were just trying to have a good experience and not really looking
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at it as a as something to to dominate or to pull a result out of or they were
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all just kind of there to there for the for the grind.
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The collective suffering yeah so
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that was really charming as an event and i could
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i had a sense that that was going to be a format
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that would probably be successful in the near future well
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you're right yeah it's
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a big boom now certainly and for
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good reason it's it gives it gives people a
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lot more than you know a road you know a road
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rate a depressing road race with a lot of angst and
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stress it offers it's a better it's a better
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product as a participation offering so
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yeah it became clear to me that that was going to
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be a field that would really be growing in the
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near future so i i wouldn't say i invested in it but i
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just started attending more races and balancing my
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my racing calendar from american crits with
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uh balancing between american crits and more american
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gravel races in 2017 and certainly it was the right decision in terms of positioning
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for you know there aren't many jobs as a professional cyclist in america there
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never were and there's still probably 10 to 20 positions that 10 to 20 athletes that make a.
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Decent living as full-time bicycle racers so you certainly it pays to be perceptive
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and analytical in where you're putting your efforts and what you expect to do
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to get anybody to care about what you about you riding your bicycle in circles
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yeah absolutely like the wise decision Yeah,
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I think it's something that I talked about the podcast in a few episodes. It's great that.
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A lot of racers can own their own career now and have their own exposure and
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be privateers and have brands support them.
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But it's also so risky because you don't know if contracts are going to keep
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going and if you have an injury.
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But good on you for having that vision and getting into gravel.
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And then you're talking about 2017, managing both fixed gear criteriums and
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jumping into gravel. And then in 2019, Unbound, you had the truly legendary win.
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You took on, you know, this grueling race and you broke away solo with 100 miles to go.
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Left behind some of the strongest riders in the sport.
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It was a defining moment, not just for a career, but in gravel racing history.
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What do you remember most about that day? Let's see. I remember I didn't get
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any sleep the night before because I was just very excited, which was torturous at the time.
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I thought my whole day was honestly fucked from that alone.
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But let's see. Yeah, it was just a beautiful day.
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I had analyzed the wind, which at the time, I don't think many riders were really
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studying climactic variables. No, we're studying everything.
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It's insane. A little too much.
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Oh, I guess I've been pretty tuned out for about four years.
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I honestly don't have my finger on the pulse.
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I don't know what exactly the strategic trends are. But to me, it was very apparent.
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I came from a background of environmental consulting. So I studied maps and
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weather patterns and that stuff. That was a no-brainer.
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So I had that knowledge going into it that day. So I'm trying to remember what I recall.
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Do you remember what was going through your mind during that breakaway?
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Sure. Yeah. I knew I had a good day. I was on a good day. I had good legs.
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By hour three or four, you start to kind of get a good sensation of where you're at that day.
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Yeah. I initially just started feeling like we were in a group of about 12 of
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the elite riders going through Little Egypt, which is essentially the hardest defining section.
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If you're not in the front group at that point, especially back then when there
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was about 15 to 20 potential winners, not 50 to 100.
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If you got through Little Egypt, you were in the move.
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So after that, I started throwing some, lobbing a couple of attacks, hoping that I could get.
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A rider to come with me specifically, an EF rider would have been great because
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they had two of the strongest riders and they had two in the move.
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So I would have liked to get one of them, either Lachlan or Alex House, to come with me.
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They didn't know who I was, so they were not interested.
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So they just let me ride away.
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Well, who knew? They let me ride away.
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And as soon as I got a gap, I made a big effort to get out of sight because
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I know how that works, psychology of.
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Chasing a rabbit or just you know
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not not seeing the rabbit it's harder to chase so
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yeah so I had good sensations and the initial part
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of the breakaway was the hardest because it was a headwind of about two
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and a half hours three hours of strong headwind but I
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knew if I got through that I could have a ripping tailwind for
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most of the return 70 miles or so so anyway yeah
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as the day progressed I just didn't really feel the
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fading that I would have worried about
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from that long of an effort yeah and just i focus on
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the minutiae you know you don't yeah you you
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just just don't taking the best line constantly is
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really a good way to occupy your mind if you're
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in a position where you could get anxious that you did the
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wrong thing yeah just zeroing in on the on the
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minutiae of the process and staying efficient staying aerodynamic
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and at the time we were allowed to use aero bars which
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was a much more relaxed position to be
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in for that period time so yeah it was
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a good it was a beautiful day on the bike and honestly i
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i crossed the line i was i didn't feel the
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same i had trained for the heat obviously texas is
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it was especially hot years i had done many days
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in extreme heat and i don't think any other of
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the other top five had done time a
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lot of people struggle with the heat there yeah it's it's
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it's a it's a beast and if you don't acclimate
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to that specifically there's no substitute in my opinion and it will it will.
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Crack you to some extent but anyway that day i was prepared for that so yeah.
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I was able to just keep keep pushing on the pedals what a great day and i don't
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know if you was on that race,
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or when it was that you built your own frame bag and you had that bladder inside for your hydration.
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And i know this is something that a lot of brands still don't do a lot of brands are still testing,
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still a lot of people carrying the hydration pack on your back i mean that's
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so visionary of you like how did you do that how did you have the idea how did
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you create your own frame bag,
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it's to me that was actually i crafted that device for the next race which was
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actually 2021 because 2020 was canceled for the COVID-19. Yeah.
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And at that point, honestly, I had kind of lost my fire. I had slacked on training.
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I just, yeah, 2020 for me had kind of extinguished my flame for the hunger and
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just like, you know, the tenacity you need to be at that level.
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So I knew I was coming into the race.
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I'd averaged, I think, 10 hours
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a week of training that for the last six months. So I was not prepared.
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So I was looking for all the advantages and it seemed like a no brainer to move.
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So two liters of water is approximately five pounds of weight.
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And if you consider carrying that on your back in a narrow position over 10
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hours, well, now eight and a half hours, it's really, that's a serious fatigue point.
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So it seemed like a no question if you could integrate that into your chassis
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where you don't carry the weight physically.
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Your bike, your rolling chassis is carrying the weight.
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And you subtract that fatigue from your core muscles, from your back, from your arms.
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Seems like absolute unquestionable advantage in the fatigue department,
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which unbound is as much about just general physical fatigue as it is about light fatigue.
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So I started thinking about different designs and I decided on using a polypropylene
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kind of a cutting mat material that's really tough that's designed to be scored by cutting blades.
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And specifically designed it for my
17:13
frame because to save weight and material i
17:16
had obviously there's there's touring frame bags but they're just
17:19
relatively heavy they're clunky they bulge they
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they're not very aerodynamic they're just not highly specialized
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they're not designed for a single frame as far as i know there's probably a
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few but so i designed more of kind of a imagine like a taco shell that tucks
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up into the upper part i ride a size 58 so i have plenty of room which is another
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anyone could do it but you'd have to adjust your bottle size and cage location.
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So yeah it was it was really just a kind of a cupped shell
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that fit up into your triangle and was
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zip tied into place and was nice and rigid so even
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with two liters of water it stayed relatively didn't bulge and
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rub your knees anyhow so yeah that five pounds
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of water was transferred to my the chassis of my bike i
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had a snafu which envy wheels would
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be delivered so they didn't get there till the night before
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so i ended up staying up till about 10 p.m the day before the
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race because i decided which bike to ride i
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based on conditions and getting the right wheels so
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it was it was kind of a ridiculous shit show but you know
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very on brand and stayed up too late made this
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amazing thing that i would attribute the only way that i would have gotten top
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five in that with that poor preparation was with some kind of an advantage which
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i think was that hydration pack yeah so yeah i'm still i proposed it to many
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brands including ass savers and pretty much all of my sponsors i proposed i
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was just telling them look this is a massive,
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could be a mass it's cheap to make you just have to the way i envisioned it
18:50
would be get a cat design of all the frames you want to target in the different sizes and you.
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Make a CAD drawing, cut the thing out of flat stock, ship it with zip ties and
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sew a big long zipper into it to access.
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Yeah, I didn't find any takers. I still don't understand why because it's so
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cheap to make and so effective, but...
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Yeah, that's shocking because there is a huge need for it.
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I don't love that it would be... It's not disposable. It would probably last,
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you know, three or four months, But it's really a race-oriented device.
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I guess not, because that cutting mat can be very durable.
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But yeah, I saw it as an obvious innovation.
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But I know a couple of riders have kind of mimicked it and made their own version, which is cool.
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Yeah, that was the story of that little contraption. It worked incredibly well for me for one race.
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Yeah, I was impressed. I'm still impressed with this date. And I,
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again, can't believe no brand took you on that because I think you would be a successful product.
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I come from triathlon and in triathlon, there is a lot of gadgets for that,
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for you to carry your water.
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Of course, this is probably less water because distance a little bit shorter,
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especially like on long distance gravel or ultra distance, you need maybe more.
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But it's very quick to change because I made a really long zipper so you could
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just pull the entire bladder up, pop a new one in.
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And yeah, see, it worked extremely well, even without testing the pit stop until
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day of the race, the first time in the morning.
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But it went really well. And you can freeze the thing, so it goes in cold and
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then melts. Oh, that's really good.
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Well, maybe someday. I never patented it, so anyone will have it at this point.
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You talked about your training, and for what I noticed, don't know if it's accurate,
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it seems like you trained solo and stayed independent.
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What did the autonomy give you as an athlete what was that purposeful well it allowed me to,
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for better or worse allocate a lot of time to other pursuits such
20:55
as you know house renovation and different car projects and let's see so that
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autonomy allowed me to yeah ride on the schedule I ended up riding the heat
21:04
of the day a lot which a lot of other riders wanted to dodge the heat of the
21:07
day but to me I saw it as an advantage and just kind of a natural arc I enjoyed
21:13
for especially for long endurance rides.
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I kind of liked ending my rides later in the evening so that it would be just
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a natural end of the day, eat, go to sleep versus riding in the morning.
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And then you finish your ride around in the early afternoon and you'd just be
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fatigued and exhausted and relatively useless for the rest of the day.
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And you'd have to kind of nap or sleep anyway. And it would be,
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That would be your day. Whereas otherwise, if you rode later in the day,
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I could get some things done in the morning and then spend most of the day out on the bike.
21:45
And then it would be this natural winding down with eating and going to sleep.
21:51
Yeah, it makes sense. I ride out alone a lot as well just because my days are
21:56
usually hectic and I don't want to make plans and then flake on someone because I will.
22:02
But I always have a hard time training later in the day with my nutrition.
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I feel like, oh, now I have lunch and I'm still full or something.
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So for me, the mornings, I like it more because of the nutrition.
22:13
Yeah, that's the only thing.
22:16
Anyways, at one point, you were the face of gravel. How did you handle this visibility?
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I don't think I felt too affected by it.
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I didn't live in a real... The community in Austin, I'd been racing bikes there
22:30
for 10 years at that point. So I was already well entrenched.
22:34
Everybody knew me. it wasn't really there was
22:37
no real fanfare there i would still do the weekly crit race
22:40
pretty much every week the driveway series i didn't
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live in a town like boulder or a place that was real i
22:47
don't know sceny i guess i i didn't feel it
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day yeah i did not feel it day to
22:53
day and also it's you know it's you so you can pedal a
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bike longer than anybody else it doesn't or not anybody
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but like anybody who's at a particular event it's just i don't know it doesn't
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seem so it's like such a you're not that special it's just yeah it's nice that
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your environment kept you grounded you were not impacted by that there's always
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so many there's infinite faster people.
23:17
Who could do what you do so much better. They just never discovered the bicycle.
23:21
You know, you were just fortunate enough that you found a bike and you started
23:25
riding it a lot, but you're not. Yeah, I don't know.
23:27
There's always faster humans or stronger humans.
23:31
So to let it go to your head that you were fortunate enough,
23:35
I don't know. It just never seemed like a, it's, yeah, I don't know.
23:38
Not a true defining superlative.
23:42
It's cool. I appreciated it all, but it didn't, I don't know.
23:47
It's always seemed like it's not
23:50
that relevant I get it you're doing for fun and kind
23:53
of your job as well since you're monetizing it
23:56
to live your life but it's your lifestyle it's
23:59
not something that you took for I certainly tried not to I mean
24:02
it just didn't seem I don't know if you're a
24:06
natural then you're a natural and you don't have it's not I don't
24:10
know everybody else at the race is doing just as if not
24:12
harder of an effort than you because they didn't
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they have another job and they didn't yeah so anyway
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i guess that's how i dealt with it i just rationalized it
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as yeah this is i'm just
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i was just trying to serve as an inspiration to get other people out to
24:28
ride their bicycle more which really is i i waited often against you know my
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previous career in environmental consulting where i worked on highway projects
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and things that i just don't believe in as the future of humanity i mean i I
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know they're a utility that we all use, but it just didn't seem like the legacy I wanted to.
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I would have been proud of. So when I had the opportunity to just ride a bicycle
24:50
and race, I saw my job was then to inspire other people to get out and ride their bicycle,
24:56
which I saw as a positive for humanity as a whole, which is challenging to find
25:01
a way to make money and still have something you believe in. Yeah.
25:05
But I think you accomplished that. I hope so.
25:09
At least, you know, in my end, I told you before, you know, my husband used to race crits as well.
25:15
And so he knew who you were and then he went into gravel he went into gravel
25:19
that's how I also started graveling so here we are today,
25:23
here we are we talked a little bit about Unbound how
25:27
rude it was I don't know if you still follow any of the gravel races these days
25:32
just curious to see if you are following and what do you think gravel racing
25:36
has changed as it's become more mainstream honestly I don't really follow I
25:41
watched a little bit of Unbound this last week actually I have a good friend.
25:45
I was really unplugged from the sport completely for about three years.
25:49
I live in a little small town of about 12,000 humans, just about 20 miles south of Austin now.
25:56
So I've kind of moved on to other things. But I have a good friend here who's
26:00
named Miha, Miha Barat, who is from Slovenia, and he is cycling obsessed.
26:04
He did Unbound last year. So he's kind of inspired me to start following or
26:09
just watching the sport from time to time again. And it's using,
26:12
you know, feeding off of his enthusiasm is fun. So, yeah.
26:16
So, I've just barely been touching in. So, honestly, I don't have much perspective
26:21
currently on what the scene is.
26:23
I know it's gotten hyper-competitive as people smell the success and they smell an opportunity.
26:31
So, therefore, Stronger Riders Come obviously becomes more competitive with
26:36
that as people see the ability to do what we did, you know.
26:41
But they're, yeah, it's far more challenging to do that now.
26:45
Timing is really important in most things, especially cycling.
26:50
But yeah, so I couldn't speak to exactly the changes. I mean,
26:53
besides the horsepower is just incredible.
26:56
Cycling is a very aggregate sport. So I'm curious how the same riders would
27:01
do in a group of 15 competitive versus 100 competitive.
27:06
It's interesting if the times would still be crazy fast or if they would be
27:08
less fast. But the horsepower of the group is now, it's more like a proper professional peloton.
27:15
So they're moving with a lot of power and watts and power.
27:19
Yeah, it's a much deeper field. So people are, people are attacking earlier
27:23
to, to essentially to separate, to separate yourself and to even have an impact in the race.
27:27
You, so many riders now you don't even hear of any impact just because they
27:31
just weren't in the position, much like, you know, world tour where it's hard
27:37
to make any impact in the race when it's that dense of a deep of a field.
27:41
So that's the main change that I see is like riders that I know are pushing
27:46
300 watts for 10 hours you never you never nine hours you never even see their name in the top 10.
27:53
Yeah the feud is crazy i
27:57
was talking to another girl that she did like track
28:00
her a few years ago and was on the top five i
28:04
think and then she was commenting like nowadays she
28:07
would not even make top 50 it's incredible
28:11
how fast the field
28:14
is it's really crazy so for me i'm just looking now
28:17
at the roots more small town races because i
28:20
can't do these races anymore well yeah
28:23
there's the the there's always the next generation who's
28:26
hungry the hunger is is so important in cycling you
28:29
just have to be hungry you have to have that mindset
28:32
you have to be focused yeah what
28:35
you could get away with a little lack of focus when i was doing it
28:38
just because of the the field wasn't as dense
28:41
and there wasn't as much focused individuals so you
28:44
could have a few other pursuits in life and not just live
28:47
like a monk yeah yeah you could still pull it
28:49
off if you had the talent so yeah so i can't speak exactly to what's changed
28:55
but maybe i'll maybe i'll start following again we'll see yeah i'll talk about
29:00
that a little bit later so we all know that in 2022 your life changed dramatically
29:06
when you were thrust into the spotlight,
29:09
not for athletic achievements, unfortunately,
29:13
but because of the tragic and widely publicized murder case involving someone
29:18
you weren't connected to.
29:20
And I want to acknowledge the weight of that moment in your life and the immense
29:25
scrutiny you faced and want to know what it was like to experience the level
29:32
of public attention and scrutiny almost overnight.
29:36
It was a very surreal experience, obviously.
29:42
And yeah, it was one of the most horrific moments.
29:48
Passages to go through I could have ever imagined psychologically
29:52
and emotionally and in every way I mean I
29:55
cannot imagine a more perfect thing to be to be connected to and to be paired
29:59
with and to be a part of it's just words still escape me on just how just I
30:05
mean on every level it was just crushing soul crushing and yeah because you
30:10
also it was a loss for you as well,
30:13
yeah it's just the most it was just the most compounded,
30:18
explosion imaginable just everything in your life just
30:21
burns and everything you kind of held as
30:24
as kind of defining for yourself
30:27
and for the world and for people around you it
30:30
all just kind of it all just burned in one overnight definitely everything and
30:36
you just left with i don't know just shell-shocked and without any idea what's
30:41
going on and what means anything And then the aftermath was just another,
30:50
yeah, it was all just, I cannot describe how horrific these are.
30:55
Yeah, so it just changed. I mean, every single aspect of my life was completely
31:00
changed and deconstructed and, yeah, required a complete, just to survive,
31:07
psychologically required, just cutting everything loose, everything pretty much.
31:13
That was associated with it, which was pretty much my whole,
31:16
you know, most of my life, most aspects of my life were associated with bike
31:20
racing and that scene and then resulting in that tragedy. So yeah.
31:25
It's just survival required, distancing myself from everything.
31:29
Can you try to put into words how did that time affect your mental and emotional well-being? Sure.
31:37
Again, it was just the most soul-crushing torture I could imagine.
31:42
You just have no escape. You live in your own head.
31:46
And while sure, it's this tragedy that people read about when it's your own
31:50
life and you are a part of something so heartbreaking, and senseless and meaningless destruction,
31:59
it's impossible to escape it.
32:03
So you are living in this horror story 24-7.
32:07
So it just, yeah, it just crushes your spirits or did mine.
32:14
I mean, yeah, there were no moments for a year, for probably over two years
32:19
until well after the trial,
32:20
there was virtually very few moments of the day that my head wasn't just consumed
32:25
by just these cyclical reels of just unanswered questions and just pain and
32:32
just wondering why did this,
32:35
how and why did this happen?
32:38
You know, where it's something so meaningless and there's no answers to these questions really.
32:43
They're just, I guess, a psychotic lapse to be the only thing I have concluded
32:48
to be attributed to, but there's just no answer.
32:50
So, yeah, my mind is kind of overactive in general.
32:54
So, it was just a special kind of, for me personally, it's just constant torture.
33:00
Searching for some kind of an answer, but there just is no answer to how or
33:06
why. So, yeah, it was just...
33:10
Yeah, I could. I don't know if I could have designed a more perfect torture.
33:14
And I don't want to, obviously, there's everybody, there's so many people who
33:17
suffered and so much more than I did.
33:19
I was just collateral. But that was just my personal experience.
33:22
It's just absolute incomprehensible pain and torture of how and why something
33:31
so senseless occurred in my world. It's beyond comprehension, really.
33:37
I can't even start to imagine what you went through and the others impacted.
33:43
What do you think helped you through those moments, through those years? What grounded you?
33:51
This helped a lot. Oh, yes.
33:55
She honestly kind of kept me alive at times.
33:59
Animal therapy is truly healing. Yeah, that's part of it.
34:04
Focusing uh fortunately i had acquired a
34:07
automotive shop so just focusing on using
34:10
my hands and just affecting some
34:14
change on something i could you know i could work on versus my life i could
34:19
not work on was beyond my control at that point so um i stopped riding exercising
34:26
completely which caused other kind of bizarre health issues that i could not
34:31
have comprehended But yeah,
34:33
so what just distancing myself completely from my previous life,
34:38
which was my entire life.
34:40
I moved out to my shop and just, yeah, kind of lived like a bizarre golem hermit for a few years.
34:49
So I could just have some sense of, I don't know, there was no peace,
34:52
honestly, until there were semblances of peace after the trial,
34:58
which was a whole nother traumatic experience.
35:02
But obviously, I don't want to cast myself as a victim here because I'm just collateral.
35:07
But my experience was horrific.
35:11
I just can't really describe it. But I know everyone's far worse for the victim's family.
35:19
And yeah, I can't even really speak to it. It's just still so bizarre and incomprehensible.
35:27
It is incomprehensible. And I mean, some people would disagree with me,
35:30
but I do think you're also a victim.
35:32
I mean you were not part of that directly and you know I'm sure I mean you're
35:38
a good person it's not something that you would ever imagine you would have
35:42
nobody does you know nobody would think that would happen it's bizarre to be
35:48
a catalyst in something so foul,
35:51
yeah which is the real torture whether it was senseless or not but I was still
35:57
this bizarre little connecting catalyst which.
36:01
Does not feel good but yeah i dove into built
36:04
tried to start building and building a new life really that was
36:07
the only the only option the idea of
36:10
going back into bike racing and still is the most i
36:14
will never i cannot imagine having the fire and the you know you you need that
36:21
fire and you need that desire and i am so far from being able to uh can imagine
36:28
myself in that space again it's just not,
36:32
not something it's probably a trigger for some of the memories I mean there
36:38
were so many good and beautiful memories I'm sure you have but just that one,
36:42
I've honestly they've all been kind of distanced I just don't even I can't even,
36:46
I've had to just erase I've almost like erased,
36:50
I haven't but that's kind of the sensation it all just had to go had to be burned.
36:57
Just to be at peace Survival, yeah. Survival mechanism.
37:01
There's no peace when you're in something so awful.
37:05
What would you want people to understand about who you were during that time and who you are now?
37:14
During what time? The time that everything happened in 2022.
37:19
I'm not sure if there's anything I would like people to know.
37:23
It comes down to there's so many. I mean, there was an entire,
37:27
if anybody's interested in this story, there was an entire trial where there
37:31
was all of the information, every single communication, every single lactoid was uncovered.
37:37
And if anyone's interested in exploring it, this horrific story,
37:41
all the information's out there.
37:43
I don't know why you'd want to besides entertainment, but it's all out there.
37:47
So, I don't really have, I've never had an urge to like, there is also a lot
37:54
of just a bizarre conclusive people who are just jumping to bizarre conclusions, which is human nature.
38:03
So, I don't really see an urge to like, you can't fight irrational fabrication.
38:09
So, there's no, and it's infinite.
38:11
I don't know if there's anything. I just kind of have this attitude of I don't
38:15
really have anything to, I don't have any energy to share. I think that's good.
38:20
Maybe you're in peace with, you know who you are and you don't have to be trying
38:26
to understand all these fabrications and say something about it. Yeah.
38:30
Fortunately, I had a very nurturing childhood and wonderful young adulthood
38:38
and a lot of success and things.
38:39
So I had a pretty well-formed sense of self because I can't imagine going into
38:44
something like this without a strong knowledge of who you are and what you stand
38:51
for because it was just the most destabilizing experience.
38:55
I mean, obviously, human history has tragedies full of horrific tragedies,
39:03
but most people don't experience them.
39:06
So I'm not going to categorize this as a profound human tragedy.
39:10
But for me, it was very intense, and I cannot imagine going through it without
39:15
having such a, honestly, a blessed background, young, past life to get through it.
39:24
Yeah could grumble absolutely yeah so
39:28
yeah i don't know what i don't really have
39:31
anything to say to anybody just just as
39:34
from a place of i don't know it's really it's it's the
39:37
kind of experience that makes you question every single thing and
39:40
every piece of you know if you build up your self-worth around certain
39:43
things it makes you question everything so at the end of the day
39:46
you conclude i don't really know anything that's just
39:49
the conclusion so i don't anything anything i thought
39:52
i knew any impact i thought i was having on the world i just don't i
39:55
don't know anymore so yeah just.
39:58
Trying to live day by day and try to rediscover allow
40:02
yourself to be find happiness again whereas for
40:05
you know a good three years or
40:07
so you just you can't even let yourself be happy it just
40:10
doesn't feel right to just have any
40:13
kind of enjoyment it's just it's just strong you're just
40:16
in mourning for indefinitely as a
40:19
yeah so that much is uh that
40:22
much is all i can share that that would be interesting to have been experience
40:26
like this just extracts any extract does not allow yourself to feel any happiness
40:31
to appear well i hope that that you know the same time heals i hope you are
40:36
able to allow yourself to feel happiness and joy and.
40:42
How about your relationship with the bike i know
40:45
you said you can't imagine yourself to
40:47
go back to the racing scene but have you healed your relationship with
40:50
the bike are you getting on your bike has this
40:54
improved i have i think i did one
40:56
training ride in the last six months so i ride
40:59
a townie bike around to get around but no
41:02
i do not train i've been doing one ride out to
41:05
west texas a year in november for
41:09
the last two years which is has been
41:12
very beautiful so pretty much almost 500 miles in four
41:14
days i've just jumped on the bike and done it so i
41:18
can still pedal a bike but i'm not
41:21
training per se i have nothing to train for i
41:24
will not be racing a bike anymore so
41:28
the relationship with the bike is an interesting one for me it's i can't really
41:34
say I can't really say I had I had a lot of I had I feel like I had a lot of
41:38
valuable racing knowledge I could share with people but I thought of having
41:42
a podcast around just racing mindset but yeah.
41:47
Yeah, for me personally, I don't know. Maybe I'll, I need to rediscover the balance.
41:53
I've had a few enjoyable group rides, but recently it's just,
41:57
I've been running a bit, which is a nice, it's not nice, but it's something.
42:03
It's good to get the body moving. Yeah, it's essential for me,
42:08
especially going from where your body is just used to that much output for 10 or 15 years to go.
42:14
Cold stop is has all kinds of
42:17
psychological and physiologic side effects that
42:20
people can hopefully no one gets to discover well
42:24
maybe one day if you want you can come back if you don't have your own racing
42:27
mindset podcast we can have an episode on that stuff's fun all the stuff beyond
42:32
the it's really just harnessing this matrix of little small variables and trying
42:38
to fashion them in your favor versus there's just an aware of hyper awareness of everything going on,
42:44
And holding that mindset, not just facing out and going with the flow.
42:49
It's really a constant analytics. The strategy.
42:52
It's a constant checklist you're running through. Where am I?
42:56
What are these variables?
42:57
What's about to happen? And it's harnessing every possible minutiae and turning
43:02
all of these little vectors in your favor versus ignoring them can have an over
43:06
time cumulative, large cumulative effect on.
43:10
So interesting. Anyway, for another episode.
43:13
Yeah, yeah, that would be fun,
43:17
And outside of racing, I noticed from your social media that you seem to have
43:22
a passion for working with your hands You work fixing up cars,
43:26
and also I think you play the guitar Can you tell me more about those interests,
43:31
how they became part of your life? Certainly.
43:35
Guitar has been a kind of part of my life for about 20 years now, 15 or 20 years.
43:41
It's kind of my, that's my recovery activity.
43:43
I don't really watch television or play video games, but yeah,
43:48
there's no better recovery activity than sitting on a couch and playing guitar.
43:51
It's a nice passive, relaxing, therapeutic activity for me.
43:56
And it's become more, I've put more, I've had more time to put into it,
43:59
which is great to watch that kind of
44:02
that side hobby and you
44:05
know kind of be form become more fully formed additionally i've
44:09
i've opened automotive restoration shop during
44:12
2020 there was no racing so i dove into
44:16
educating myself and initially beginning the studying
44:20
of ironically cars and turbo
44:23
diesel trucks specifically um which came came from
44:27
uh initially from a passion for building a
44:30
like a spartan trailer which is similar to an airstream i
44:33
built my first unit i actually took
44:36
it to unbound 2021 and and used it as my kind of racing headquarters which was
44:43
great this big aluminum travel trailer so that got me into towing trucks turbo
44:48
diesel trucks big powerful trucks that do work trucks really and that got now
44:52
i i focus on importing mercedes these G-wagons,
44:56
old Galanda wagons. Oh, nice.
44:59
G-series and doing engine swaps and transmission swaps and restoring these cars
45:03
and bringing them to market in the US.
45:05
So that's keeping me very busy, as well as renovating an old house.
45:11
But yeah, I have an auto shop. I have an Instagram for that called Willow Works Lockhart.
45:18
If you're interested in automotive, European, you know, SUVs and turbo diesel,
45:24
manual transmission, analog engines and such. Give that a look.
45:29
So yeah, that's how I'm spending my time now and I enjoy getting dirty, getting my.
45:35
I'm filthy every day. I'm filthy at the end of the day. You're smiling.
45:40
So I think that makes you happy.
45:42
Yeah, it certainly does. I like working with my hands. I cannot imagine working
45:46
on a computer. It's just not for me.
45:48
I like the puzzles and the crafting of a variety of things.
45:54
I do a lot of fabrication and welding and engine building and a lot of cleaning and restoring.
46:01
Pretty much I clean up old, useful things, old, useful cars that were made to
46:06
be restored, whereas now plastics and such are just cars are just not built to be restored.
46:12
They're just built to be used and disposed of, deconstructed.
46:15
So, yeah, that's been a passion of mine and I'm turning that into my next career phase.
46:21
So, I own my own shop, run my own shop, and that's my new life.
46:25
Wonderful. So, in this new chapter of life, your focus is on your shop.
46:30
Certainly, yeah. and it's ironic because that was initially what my i didn't
46:35
didn't really develop any.
46:37
Desire to even own a car until that's true
46:40
20s and now it's now it's kind of what i still hate
46:43
american car culture but i but cards are just a fascinating well but you are
46:47
it's sustainable what you're doing you're restoring old things so it's not like
46:51
the industry is now of everything is replaceable should be replaced and disposable
46:56
it's yeah it's a really complex it's a really complex argument to make,
47:02
but I would argue the most sustainable car is one that's already built.
47:06
You don't drive much and you ride your bicycle but you have
47:09
a effective work vehicle that is has been
47:12
around for 40 years and will be around another 40 years not a prius plastic
47:17
thing that you charge off in the u.s in texas you charge for charge it off of
47:22
electricity coming from a coal-fired power plant or natural gas power plant
47:26
and what's the point of driving this plastic car exactly that's That's what I talk about.
47:32
So while it's apparently the environmentally friendly choice,
47:35
it's highly debatable what the most sustainable type of vehicle is.
47:41
Well, it's not actually. It is a bicycle. That's what.
47:44
To ride your bicycle. Yeah, I'm so happy.
47:47
I moved a year and a half ago. I moved to a smaller town and I don't have a
47:51
car. I just ride my bike or walk everywhere and it feels so good.
47:56
I really love it. Well, Colin, thank you so much.
48:00
For being here for your vulnerability and
48:04
sharing your story with such honesty and grace it takes a lot of courage to
48:08
show up and speak up openly and your willingness to reflect to be human and
48:14
to keep moving is very powerful and i thank you for sharing here in the podcast
48:18
certainly thanks for listening sure,
48:24
and that's all for today's episode i want to thank the listeners for tuning
48:29
in your support means everything.
48:31
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider following, leaving a review,
48:35
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48:39
Music.