Latest / Adventure Sports Podcast / Ep. 1167: Mountain Biking in Pakistan - Greg Robidoux Revisited

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Ep. 1167: Mountain Biking in Pakistan - Greg Robidoux Revisited · Adventure Sports Podcast

0:06
[SPEAKER_00]: your listening to the Adventure Sports podcast.
0:09
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk with adventures from around the globe to give you the inspiration you need to get started in the outdoors or keep moving if you're already there.
0:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Adventure Sports Podcast.
0:23
[SPEAKER_01]: This is Caleb.
0:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I am pleased to announce that as of today, that is January 13th, my dad Kurt has successfully landed in Tanzania and will, I believe tomorrow, begin the long track, the expedition, to climb Mount Kilimanjaro as part of the fundraiser for We See Hope.
0:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, he's gone.
0:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll be stepping in a little bit more to do a few of the other episodes in addition to the Friday Revisited episodes.
0:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And as I hear news, I will of course keep you all updated.
0:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Let you know what he's up to.
1:00
[SPEAKER_01]: In today's Revisited episode, Mason Interviews, Greg Robado.
1:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is a short but really powerful and impactful episode with lots of great stories about Robado, Mountain Bike Racing, and Pakistan in the Himalayas, from food poisoning to terrorist hideouts.
1:24
[SPEAKER_01]: This episode has a little bit of everything.
1:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope you enjoy it.
1:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's Mason.
1:31
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, folks, today, very interesting episode.
1:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Something I'm excited here about.
1:37
[SPEAKER_03]: I hear there's some good stories in here as well.
1:40
[SPEAKER_03]: We're going to be talking about cycling, cycling and packaging and cycling and the Himalayas, just cycling in these different places and some cool stories associated with it.
1:52
[SPEAKER_03]: Greg Robode, welcome to the show.
1:55
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
1:55
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you very much for having me.
1:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
1:57
[SPEAKER_03]: So I always ask this first.
1:59
[SPEAKER_03]: Where are you coming from?
2:01
[SPEAKER_03]: And is that home?
2:02
[SPEAKER_03]: And if not, where's home?
2:04
[SPEAKER_04]: So born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts.
2:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Somehow I've avoided the Boston accent for the most part.
2:11
[SPEAKER_03]: I was going to say, you're born and raised.
2:13
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't realize that.
2:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, what did you grow up doing?
2:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Being there, folks heard in the intro, you do physical training now.
2:22
[SPEAKER_03]: So some physical therapy, some cycling world.
2:25
[SPEAKER_03]: But what did you grow up doing?
2:27
[SPEAKER_03]: Did you play sports?
2:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Did you go outside a lot as a family?
2:30
[SPEAKER_04]: And how did you do it?
2:31
[SPEAKER_04]: We were, I had kind of a unique childhood.
2:35
[SPEAKER_04]: My unfortunately, my mother was very sick when I was young.
2:41
[SPEAKER_04]: breast cancer for eight years and died in 1986.
2:47
[SPEAKER_04]: I was the age of 11 at that point.
2:51
[SPEAKER_04]: And my dad raised myself from my sister.
2:55
[SPEAKER_04]: He really instilled upon us a good athletic background.
2:58
[SPEAKER_04]: My sister was a very accomplished dancer.
3:02
[SPEAKER_04]: My self, I was soccer or basketball baseball.
3:05
[SPEAKER_04]: In high school, I played division one soccer
3:09
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I didn't, I found cycling kind of late actually in comparison to a lot of people that, you know, cycle competitively, I was in my early 20s, I had gotten out of school was doing some some running some some marathon running, you know, as a physical therapist, I realized that I was kind of beating myself up a little bit and decided to find, you know, some cross training and found a bicycle and got on that bicycle and never look back.
3:36
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, that was, that was it for me, you know, race competitively through kind of early to mid 20s into my mid to late 30s, you know, and then did by house raise a family, you know, all that kind of stuff.
3:48
[SPEAKER_04]: And the ironic thing about a lot of this is that, you know, working in the cycling industry and working treating cyclists, somehow, oftentimes it happens you, you know, the deeper you get into.
4:01
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, the industry, the less time you have to ride, you know, it's still, it's still right.
4:06
[SPEAKER_03]: I can't tell you how many times we've heard that here.
4:08
[SPEAKER_03]: It's so true.
4:10
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like, L people are like, all you do adventures all the time.
4:12
[SPEAKER_03]: You host the show.
4:13
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you'd think I'm in a closet half the time listening to folks talk about adventures, which I'm happy to do.
4:18
[SPEAKER_03]: But yes, continue.
4:20
[SPEAKER_03]: Sorry.
4:20
[SPEAKER_04]: No, it's, it's, that's all right.
4:22
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I, I get a lot of enjoyment out of, out of helping cyclists, you know,
4:31
[SPEAKER_04]: My kids are getting older, you know, I hope there's some day get back to doing some masters racing, but, you know, at this point, it's it's more just riding for fun riding with the kids my my five year old learn to ride at four years old last summer we were up in Vermont for the summer ride mountain bikes every day and she went from a combination of balance bike and training wheels.
4:56
[SPEAKER_04]: to hit the jump track on her little pink specialized within like a week, fearless.
5:03
[SPEAKER_04]: She's a fierce little lady.
5:04
[SPEAKER_03]: How cool was it to see that?
5:06
[SPEAKER_04]: It was phenomenally cool.
5:07
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, my son is getting to be quite the writer himself.
5:11
[SPEAKER_04]: And so he chases his mom around, who was a very accomplished mountain biker herself.
5:19
[SPEAKER_04]: In all honesty, my wife is a better mountain biker than I am.
5:27
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, got me through mountain biking, but I tend to bash and crash my way through the through the woods with a big grin on my face, but that's my style.
5:37
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not.
5:37
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't think I have a lot of mountain bike finesse.
5:40
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's put it that way.
5:41
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I see people riding and they're just flowing through the woods and I can't agree more man.
5:47
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like I just crashed through the woods and I fall a lot and I get out the other side and I beat up, I feel accomplished, but I wouldn't want to see video of it, you know what I'm saying?
5:58
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I make it look hard.
6:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I don't know.
6:04
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't get better over time.
6:06
[SPEAKER_03]: That's for sure.
6:07
[SPEAKER_03]: That's hilarious though.
6:08
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, that's really cool that your whole family is kind of into it.
6:11
[SPEAKER_03]: Does it it sounds like y'all are primarily mountain bikers or is it a mixture of a road and biker?
6:17
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, it's a mixture of everything.
6:19
[SPEAKER_04]: I was primarily a roadie and when I met my wife, we met doing cycle cross.
6:25
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's kind of in between, right?
6:28
[SPEAKER_04]: We've got she was a primarily
6:31
[SPEAKER_04]: uh, racing on the mountain bike circuit, and uh, I was primarily a Rudy, and we met doing cycle cross.
6:37
[SPEAKER_04]: She's actually the one that dragged me off to Pakistan.
6:42
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, I was going to say cycling is taking you to some pretty incredible places.
6:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Tell us about this experience.
6:49
[SPEAKER_04]: So this this experience was was a lot of fun.
6:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, so this is early around, uh, I hit met
6:55
[SPEAKER_04]: my wife Ross, a spectacular woman, and she basically said, you know, like, if you're going to hang with me, you're going to, you got a ride mountain bike, none of this road bike.
7:03
[SPEAKER_04]: And so, so I got, I got my got a mountain bike and started riding with her and, you know, did relatively well in the competitive realm, just because I brought good road fitness.
7:13
[SPEAKER_04]: I was a good time trialist, that was really my specialty.
7:16
[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, in many cross country races aren't super technical, so I was able to just
7:24
[SPEAKER_04]: She came across this opportunity to go race in Pakistan.
7:29
[SPEAKER_04]: And they were looking for an American team, a five people, you had to submit a race resume.
7:36
[SPEAKER_04]: And so we've seen this and she's like, all right, you've got to start doing as many races as you can because we're going to put our hat in the ring for this.
7:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Long story short is that I did a bunch of races.
7:46
[SPEAKER_04]: I had some success and we sent our resumes off.
7:52
[SPEAKER_04]: uh we put a team of five together so it was three three men two women uh my wife included and they said yeah we'd love to have it so it was I can't remember who's eight or 12 different countries represented and uh this was this was the tour of the Himalayas essentially a benefit race because of the earthquake in Pakistan in 2005 there was a massive earthquake there like 8.2 or something like that and unfortunately in the Kagan Valley
8:19
[SPEAKER_04]: There was a school that was there and I believe that earthquake hit it like just past nine in the morning and all the kids were in the school and none of them survived and so some some prominent business people in the area had put together this race and and did it as a fundraising event for this school to create a school which is which is still there and still going strong, by the way, Kagan Valley Memorial Trust.
8:45
[SPEAKER_04]: I remember, you know, I traveled a bit but just like really, you know, the usual suspects, right, you know, you're up in, you know, going to France and things like that.
8:53
[SPEAKER_04]: I hadn't really done any, what I would term to be adventurous travel at that point in time.
8:59
[SPEAKER_04]: And I remember getting the, you know, the acceptance that we were going to go and having all the arrangements made and then breaking it to my father who didn't travel a lot and saying, well, I'm going to be going to do in this tour of the Himalayas thing.
9:13
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like, wow, that's really cool, that's great.
9:15
[SPEAKER_04]: It's great.
9:16
[SPEAKER_04]: A couple days goes by and he goes, where in the Himalayas?
9:19
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, oh, you know, in the Himalayas mountains, like near K2, that kind of area.
9:25
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like, okay, okay.
9:27
[SPEAKER_04]: And then another couple days go by and he must have gotten his glow about or something.
9:31
[SPEAKER_04]: And he's like, where exactly are you going?
9:34
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, well, I'm going to Pakistan and he like lost his mind.
9:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Why are you doing this?
9:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Great.
9:39
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, it wasn't the most
9:41
[SPEAKER_04]: stable place in the world at that point in time.
9:43
[SPEAKER_04]: There was a lot of Taliban, you know, that was more on the Afghan border, and we were going to be northeast of, so we, you know, essentially flew into a slum-about and went north and east towards, you know, towards the border of China, really, you know, trying to Nepal.
9:58
[SPEAKER_04]: So we weren't really near that stuff, or at least, you know, we thought at the time it was quite the adventure.
10:03
[SPEAKER_04]: We, we had made a trip out of it, so we went to, we stayed about a week or two and
10:10
[SPEAKER_04]: crazy adventures in Dubai, and then off to Pakistan.
10:15
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I remember that moment coming off the plane, and at that point in time we were really considered, you know, professional athletes, and we were treated as such, so they had, you know, some ambassador type folks at Metas at the, you know, walking off the plane, and they, you know, sweeped us through customs and all that kind of stuff.
10:33
[SPEAKER_04]: One of the crazy things that had happened
10:35
[SPEAKER_04]: in all of that travel was that somebody had run over my bicycle with a vehicle of some sort, and completely tacoed my rear wheel, I was riding a Gary Fisher Paragon, which is one of the first 29ers.
10:52
[SPEAKER_04]: And you know, didn't have great access to mountain bikes much less to 29 inch wheel for mountain bike in Pakistan.
10:59
[SPEAKER_04]: They did have some like donated BMCs that
11:06
[SPEAKER_04]: We all off of one of those.
11:07
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I did the whole race in what's called a 69er.
11:10
[SPEAKER_04]: So I had a 29 inch wheel on the front and a 26 inch wheel on the back, which made climbing a little bit difficult because the bike was, we already tilted up hill every time I was on the side.
11:21
[SPEAKER_04]: And the whole race was primarily climbing grass.
11:24
[SPEAKER_04]: So the race itself was in, started in a little town called Naron, which was in the Kagan Valley.
11:31
[SPEAKER_04]: The first day was the biggest stage.
11:36
[SPEAKER_04]: uh, first day was 80k's up over the Babasura pass, which, which was up, you know, 14, 15,000 feet elevation, and we started in the valley that day at about 9,000 feet.
11:50
[SPEAKER_04]: This is where one of the more entertaining stories,
11:53
[SPEAKER_04]: from this trip happened.
11:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, man.
11:55
[SPEAKER_03]: Can I ask you before you get into that?
11:57
[SPEAKER_03]: Can I ask this?
11:58
[SPEAKER_03]: How frustrating was it that your wheel got smashed?
12:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, that's a huge deal before a, I mean, that could really have just devastated you in the sense of I've got to ride this wonky-looking bike.
12:11
[SPEAKER_03]: What were your spirits about that going to, were you pretty positive or?
12:15
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I was, you know, in all honesty, I was really excited to be there and to have the opportunity to race with some,
12:22
[SPEAKER_04]: quite frankly, some folks that were way better than myself, but the reality was that my options were to ride this BMC, which although it was a very nice offer, it was a complete piece of junk in comparison to what I was riding.
12:38
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I had this light, you know, hard-tailed race bike, you know, this thing that they were, you know, going to give to me was something like a 35-pound
12:50
[SPEAKER_04]: you know, really base model mountain bike with, you know, crummy suspension and all that kind of stuff.
12:55
[SPEAKER_04]: And you know, it's like, all right, well, I'll just, I'll just suck it up.
12:58
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, like, I'm here.
13:00
[SPEAKER_04]: It's an adventure.
13:00
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's just, you know, it's just one more later, the adventure, right?
13:03
[SPEAKER_03]: It makes a heck of a story, you know, 15 years later.
13:07
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, it's worth it.
13:08
[SPEAKER_04]: So yeah, it was definitely worth it.
13:11
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know if I would have said that in some of the climbing
13:19
[SPEAKER_04]: What we, so we had been there for several days prior to the start of the race, just kind of acclimatizing and doing some, you know, some light rides and some, some media stuff and things like that.
13:31
[SPEAKER_04]: The typical day was something like, you know, you get up, you have spicy beans and rice and maybe some chicken or goat or something like that.
13:39
[SPEAKER_04]: That was kind of what was on the menu and it was delicious.
13:42
[SPEAKER_04]: But that was pretty much the meal at every meal time.
13:46
[SPEAKER_04]: And then the night before the race, they had set up a banquet for us and they changed up the menu.
13:51
[SPEAKER_04]: They had done this kind of like general gauze, chicken, kind of a thing.
13:56
[SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, so pretty much everybody that ate it, except for the vegetarians there, got violently ill. Like we all started the race the next day with severe food poisoning.
14:09
[SPEAKER_04]: So the race, what, you know, we're all, you know, they bring us to where the start of the race is gonna be.
14:15
[SPEAKER_04]: And there's like one little shack that has a toilet in it and we're all in a giant line waiting to get into the toilet and try to just like get everything not pretty at all right and work so the the upside is everybody except the vegetarians were suffering and they were Yuck in it up because they were like see you see this is why we do that right but anyway we all get our business done we get to the starting line and then you know
14:43
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, race day just kicks in, right?
14:45
[SPEAKER_04]: And so we all take off and it's just a climb out of the gate.
14:50
[SPEAKER_04]: So we're just climbing from about 9,000 up to a little over 14,000 feet.
14:55
[SPEAKER_04]: It's all, it's not hard, it's like Jeep track and go track.
14:59
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's not super technical riding, but it's hard riding.
15:03
[SPEAKER_03]: And look pretty rocky.
15:05
[SPEAKER_04]: It's, yes, it's very rocky.
15:07
[SPEAKER_04]: And a lot of like sheer cliffs, so that all those some of these tracks
15:12
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, relatively well established, there's like a thousand-foot drop-off on the side.
15:17
[SPEAKER_04]: And so, you know, you'd be riding along and then somebody pull off and, you know, be getting sick and then, you know, they'd have to try to jump back in the pack and keep going.
15:26
[SPEAKER_04]: And so that you'd see somebody pop off every now and then, you knew that their belly had just gone south, right?
15:32
[SPEAKER_04]: I made it all the way to the top of the climb.
15:34
[SPEAKER_04]: They had brought some porters up there and they were giving us like newspaper and stuff to kind of shove into our jerseys
15:41
[SPEAKER_04]: for the descent because we climbed for, you know, over an hour hour, you know, and then the descent was like epic.
15:49
[SPEAKER_04]: There was a lot of lot of sheer drops off the edge and you just didn't really look, but you were going like 40 miles an hour on your mountain bike.
15:57
[SPEAKER_04]: And you're like, just don't look at the edge just, you know, well, so it was the newspaper for padding or was it to keep you warm put it under your jersey just to keep it's almost like a windbreaker, right?
16:08
[SPEAKER_04]: So that you're not because when we left the valley,
16:11
[SPEAKER_04]: to start, it was probably like 68 degrees.
16:14
[SPEAKER_04]: It was snowing when we got to the top of the climb.
16:17
[SPEAKER_04]: It was pretty chilly for the first 20 minutes of that descent.
16:22
[SPEAKER_04]: And I had gotten over the top.
16:24
[SPEAKER_04]: I had been suffering a little bit, but felt like things were leveling off, and I was just finding my groove.
16:30
[SPEAKER_04]: And at this point in time, I'm like mid-pack.
16:33
[SPEAKER_04]: uh, at best.
16:34
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I was kind of happy to be there at that point in time.
16:37
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, I've been suffering.
16:38
[SPEAKER_04]: My belly was not feeling good.
16:39
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, all right.
16:40
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, this isn't adventure.
16:42
[SPEAKER_04]: This is just, you know, I'm having fun.
16:43
[SPEAKER_04]: I had a big smile on my face for the most of it for the most part.
16:46
[SPEAKER_04]: I remember my girlfriend, my wife now.
16:49
[SPEAKER_04]: She had been so sick that she didn't, she actually did not start.
16:53
[SPEAKER_04]: But what she did is that she went reverse on the, on the course to try to meet some of the
17:00
[SPEAKER_04]: you know some of us coming in from the other side.
17:03
[SPEAKER_04]: So I've gotten around.
17:04
[SPEAKER_04]: We've gotten back down into the valley.
17:06
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm racing towards the finish line and I see her off from the distance and you know she meets and she's kind of like riding me in towards the finish.
17:16
[SPEAKER_04]: All of a sudden all of a sudden my stomach went completely sideways.
17:21
[SPEAKER_04]: I'll set the stage for you like I dismounted my bike like I was coming up at a cycle across barrier.
17:26
[SPEAKER_04]: This was urgent like very urgent.
17:29
[SPEAKER_04]: And they had given us these jerseys that we were wearing that weren't full zip jerseys.
17:33
[SPEAKER_04]: They were like three-quarters zip jerseys.
17:36
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm tearing it the jersey trying to get it off.
17:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Like throwing my helmet and my camel back and all that kind of stuff and just trying to get my clothes off.
17:45
[SPEAKER_04]: So I can get what's in me out of me.
17:47
[SPEAKER_04]: And I stop, I'm doing my business, my wife is there.
17:51
[SPEAKER_04]: And she's like, hey, she had kind of taken a look around and said, yeah, did you notice that there's a village right there?
17:57
[SPEAKER_04]: And there's a whole bunch of people,
17:59
[SPEAKER_04]: Walk in this way and I'm like I can't even hear what she's saying because it's just like coming out of me, right?
18:05
[SPEAKER_04]: She's like, oh, yep, nope, they're all they're coming.
18:08
[SPEAKER_04]: They're all walking this way.
18:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Can you finish up?
18:11
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, I'm doing the best I can.
18:13
[SPEAKER_04]: I know I have a lot of control right now.
18:16
[SPEAKER_04]: The group of them stop about 50 yards from where I'm sitting or squatting.
18:22
[SPEAKER_04]: And this one woman keeps walking and she stops
18:27
[SPEAKER_04]: uncomfortably close to where I am now mind mind you I am a skinny cyclist with like the cyclist stripes at this point time like super dark tan arms but now I've ripped my shirt off I've got my bids around my ankles and I'm just evacuating all over her front yard essentially.
18:47
[SPEAKER_04]: And she literally stops and I've got like, I can't, I'm not looking over my shoulder because she's sort of behind me.
18:53
[SPEAKER_04]: My wife is kind of like, you need to finish up because I think you're pooping in the front yard.
18:59
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, man, what is so I do my business.
19:03
[SPEAKER_04]: I get, you know, back on the bike is fast as I can and we get out of there, but I swear to God that I'm sure they still that village still talks about the alien that landed in the front yard and pooped in the front yard.
19:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I bet it didn't go too well for their opinion on a traveler's yeah.
19:22
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21:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh my gosh, but I mean, I made it, I made it to the end of the race.
21:09
[SPEAKER_04]: I wasn't last and that was that was how we started.
21:11
[SPEAKER_04]: That was our first stage.
21:13
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh my, at least everyone else was kind of going through it, too.
21:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Other than the vegetarians, but that is rough.
21:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it was something that we all laughed about quite a bit after after the fact, you know, mostly at my expense, but that was totally fun.
21:29
[SPEAKER_03]: That's another one of those stories you need a good decade in between when I happened and looking back to to really think of it as a fun memory.
21:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
21:40
[SPEAKER_03]: You also went by some some other pretty interesting places, too.
21:44
[SPEAKER_03]: You sent me a picture
21:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, so that was, that was actually on our way to neuron.
21:55
[SPEAKER_04]: So we flew into Islamabad, and we had to take this in the Karakurum highway up to neuron.
22:04
[SPEAKER_04]: And this basically is a one way in, one way out road.
22:09
[SPEAKER_04]: We were in these big vans, and they were transporting us, and it was like, you know, like, I don't know, like an hour, nine hour drive.
22:18
[SPEAKER_04]: because if you've ever seen some of these images of cars kind of basically dangling off the side of a cliff while they're trying to pass each other, that's this highway.
22:32
[SPEAKER_04]: This landslide's all the time and so that it's possible to be trying to get somewhere have a landslide and then just be stuck there for a week while they clear out the landslide.
22:43
[SPEAKER_04]: But on our way, we stopped,
22:46
[SPEAKER_04]: to stretch our legs in a suburb of Islamabad, called Abadabad.
22:52
[SPEAKER_04]: We just happened to pull over, there was a little roadside stand, they were selling like roasted corn, and we were all like, yeah, let's go grab some of that.
22:59
[SPEAKER_04]: And I pretty much had my camera attached to my hip at that point, I'm just snapping pictures all over the place.
23:05
[SPEAKER_04]: And we had pulled over and I looked over to my right and there was this huge, like,
23:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Russian era jet on a pedestal with a couple of guys sitting underneath it and, you know, using it for shade and I was like, holy cow, that's cool.
23:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Look at that jet.
23:19
[SPEAKER_04]: So I cooked the picture of it.
23:21
[SPEAKER_04]: And then quite honestly, I'd more or less forgot about the picture.
23:25
[SPEAKER_04]: And some years later, they had released the information about Osama bin Laden being, you know, captured, killed by the
23:39
[SPEAKER_04]: And they said, well, you know, he was hiding in plain sight in a lot of odd.
23:43
[SPEAKER_04]: It was like, whoa, a lot of odd.
23:45
[SPEAKER_04]: And I looked at the timeline and I was like, oh, let's see, I was there in 2007.
23:48
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's he.
23:50
[SPEAKER_04]: Wow, that's crazy.
23:51
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I got on to Google Earth and it was like, wonder what, when did that jet is still there?
23:57
[SPEAKER_04]: So I started looking at Google Earth and seeing where I find that jet in a a lot of odd and sure enough, the corner that I took that picture on was about less
24:09
[SPEAKER_04]: So it was right on the corner the reason the jet was theirs because it was a military academy and his compound was was like right down the street from there, you know, so that you know, few years later all my friends were teasing me that I had the biggest bounty fail ever because it was like a multi million dollar
24:41
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know sure that would have gone well for me, but uh, okay, yeah, no kid.
24:45
[SPEAKER_03]: And that is a wild, that's a wild story.
24:47
[SPEAKER_03]: What did that feel like?
24:49
[SPEAKER_03]: Did you, I mean, was there any sort of understanding that he might be around or is that just totally out of the blue for you?
24:55
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, you know, I mean, so that, you know, I talked about my, my father having fears about me traveling there.
24:59
[SPEAKER_04]: And so that there was, there were active things going on there and actually, um, what was scarier than that was that we had a banquet,
25:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Pakistan.
25:11
[SPEAKER_04]: And we had gone to what was kind of the American hotel there and they had a well-known Thai food restaurant.
25:20
[SPEAKER_04]: If you ever watched the movie Zero Dark 30, the protagonist, the female protagonist in that movie, she's having food in that exact restaurant and the restaurant blows up.
25:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Almost a year to the day that we had had our final banquet meal there that was blown up by a
25:41
[SPEAKER_04]: blew up the whole front of that hotel.
25:43
[SPEAKER_04]: So that was relatively disturbing, knowing that I had sat in that spot where that bomb had gone off was just, was crazy to me.
25:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that can definitely feel unsettling.
25:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, gosh, how unfortunate.
25:59
[SPEAKER_03]: So that, that's some some of the crazy stuff in the trip.
26:01
[SPEAKER_03]: We did the rest of the trip, feel that intense or was it, you know, you're either dealing with sickness or with, you know, military operations.
26:09
[SPEAKER_03]: What what
26:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Once all of our bellies settled down and we just kind of settled into the race, it was like any other race.
26:16
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, it was epic with regards to the terrain and the getting there and all the sights and smells and the people.
26:27
[SPEAKER_04]: And I have to say, I mean, the Pakistani people were amazing.
26:32
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I think you hear this so many, so many times over, but you know, you go to a place
26:40
[SPEAKER_04]: all these folks that have next to nothing, and they're willing to share everything that they have with you.
26:46
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, it's really remarkable.
26:49
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's a humbling experience and one that stuck with me to this day.
26:58
[SPEAKER_04]: Being able to experience that, being able to see people that were still displaced in 2007 from the 2005 earthquake.
27:05
[SPEAKER_04]: And those folks,
27:07
[SPEAKER_04]: We're saying, can we give you some food?
27:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Can we take care of you?
27:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Can we share what we have with you?
27:13
[SPEAKER_04]: That's remarkable.
27:14
[SPEAKER_04]: That's humbling.
27:17
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's a, you know, I feel like it's a real privilege to have experienced that.
27:22
[SPEAKER_04]: Not just experienced it for the sake of experiencing it, but experiencing it for the sake of understanding life a little bit better.
27:31
[SPEAKER_04]: And what's really important in those connections,
27:36
[SPEAKER_04]: to the different people that you meet and the experiences that you have with something like that event.
27:41
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I still talk to some of the folks that we raised with back in 2007.
27:46
[SPEAKER_04]: They're all really good people and we had such a good experience and it really brings me joy to know that what we did had an impact that still lasting today and there's a school that we were able to help build with the money that we raised and that school is still educating children.
28:04
[SPEAKER_04]: and children are benefiting from that today.
28:06
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a big deal, and that races are fun.
28:11
[SPEAKER_04]: We all get into the competition of that stuff.
28:13
[SPEAKER_04]: But when something when event like that has a deeper meaning, has the potential to not only change your life because of something that you love doing and erase that you get to be a part of, and get to compete in, and all that's very exciting.
28:28
[SPEAKER_04]: But to know that that had a deeper impact
28:33
[SPEAKER_04]: to present day is pretty remarkable and I think that's one of the things that has always stayed with me.
28:42
[SPEAKER_03]: That's amazing.
28:43
[SPEAKER_03]: The combination of adventure with purpose through fundraising efforts if some sort of purpose like that, I think it's one of the greatest combinations in the world.
28:55
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like peanut butter and chocolate.
28:56
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just it is so for our lives and how modern and civilized they are and how frankly, survival is not an issue anymore.
29:08
[SPEAKER_03]: We can
29:08
[SPEAKER_03]: do these purpose-driven things.
29:11
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that combination is amazing.
29:14
[SPEAKER_03]: And to hear someone else say that, it reiterate that as is awesome.
29:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Is anything else you'd like to share about the experience or what you've done after?
29:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so I remember as far as that racist concern, I mean, the first day was probably was pretty epic with regards to how massive it was.
29:33
[SPEAKER_04]: It was just like 80K's on a mountain bike.
29:36
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, all over the place we're all sick, you're all struggling, but the second day, essentially what amounted to like a circuit race around this big, glacial lake.
29:45
[SPEAKER_04]: And I just never seen or even raced in a environment like that.
29:52
[SPEAKER_04]: And the images from that, you know, I still see in my head.
29:56
[SPEAKER_04]: And just, you know, I remember kind of being on my bike and just pinching myself saying like, wow,
30:06
[SPEAKER_04]: This is a real epic adventure.
30:07
[SPEAKER_04]: And then the last day of racing, I really struggled, I just really suffered.
30:16
[SPEAKER_04]: The last day was essentially an uphill time trial.
30:20
[SPEAKER_04]: If you remember, I had a 69er so that my bike was, I had a bigger front tire to small rear tire, which basically made it feel like I was going uphill already.
30:30
[SPEAKER_04]: But there were sections of this climb that were super steep,
30:34
[SPEAKER_04]: To the point where you had to like almost be laying on your, your handlebars in order to keep the bike from tipping backwards and my bike just wanted to go pop a wheelie every time I got on it because the geometry of the bike wasn't suited to have the rear wheel smaller than the front wheel dead the downhill is though, hey.
31:02
[SPEAKER_04]: has always been my Achilles heel.
31:04
[SPEAKER_04]: So...
31:05
[SPEAKER_04]: I suffered that day, suffered a lot.
31:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Again, I don't think I was the last one, but I was close to the back of the pack on that day.
31:13
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think some of that was the altitude had really gotten to me at that point.
31:18
[SPEAKER_04]: So normally you go and you would climateize for about two weeks before an event like that.
31:23
[SPEAKER_04]: We did it the absolute worst way.
31:24
[SPEAKER_04]: I think we were there three or four days in advance.
31:27
[SPEAKER_04]: You don't want to do that.
31:28
[SPEAKER_04]: That's from a physiological standpoint.
31:30
[SPEAKER_04]: That's like the worst possible time.
31:32
[SPEAKER_04]: But that was just our timing, and that was just how we had to do it.
31:35
[SPEAKER_04]: And so, you know, many of us were suffering from the effects of altitude at that point.
31:40
[SPEAKER_03]: It sounds like a suffer fest in a lot of ways.
31:42
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, but again, it was one of those suffer, suffer fest with a smile on your face.
31:47
[SPEAKER_04]: So it was, it was a wonderful opportunity.
31:50
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, events like that are one of the things that is really fueled me to help cyclists to treat cyclists, to do, you know, do this stuff that I do with regards to, you know, my, my current business, my current passions.
32:02
[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, I, I treat cyclists and triathletes exclusively.
32:06
[SPEAKER_04]: That's my, you know, as as a physical therapist there who I'm treating and then I own a company called the Serrat International Cycling Institute and I teach biomechanics.
32:18
[SPEAKER_04]: of cycling and bicycle fit certification.
32:20
[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, hopefully making more people comfortable on bicycles and performing better and doing all of those things, you know, is a way to give back to the sport that brought me a lot of joy and continues to bring me a lot of joy.
32:33
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, not only through events like that, but even just, you know, simply throw my leg over my bike with my kids and be able to ride down the road and see their enjoyment of the sport.
32:44
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, and we're not pushing them to,
32:45
[SPEAKER_04]: to race, or to do anything like that, it's just beyond two wheels and have the freedom of the wind in your hair and the enjoyment of riding a bicycle.
32:54
[SPEAKER_04]: So that passion has permeated what I do for a living and what I have the opportunity to do in life.
33:03
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's a pretty special thing to be able to have that balance.
33:08
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, what can folks find out more about what you do?
33:12
[SPEAKER_03]: If they're interested in getting in touch,
33:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so like I said, my company is the Serrada International Cycling Institute.
33:21
[SPEAKER_04]: It's the Serrada CyclingInstitute.com.
33:24
[SPEAKER_04]: You can get a hold of me directly through that website.
33:28
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, there's also, I also work for Spalding Rehabilitation Hospital.
33:33
[SPEAKER_04]: And I run the Cycling Medicine Program with my colleague Dana Kotler there.
33:38
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, so that I can be found through the spalding
33:41
[SPEAKER_04]: websites, and that's where I'm doing a lot of my treatment of cyclists.
33:47
[SPEAKER_03]: Greg, I appreciate you coming on and telling just a little bit about that wild, wild adventure.
33:55
[SPEAKER_03]: I was looking up some pictures of the area you were talking about while you were talking and it's just that it just seemed unreal.
34:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Some of the times you were writing it's beautiful.
34:04
[SPEAKER_03]: The Himalayas are just larger than life.
34:06
[SPEAKER_03]: So cool.
34:07
[SPEAKER_03]: And so to have those experiences just sounds like, you know, be able to do it now for a living, too.
34:11
[SPEAKER_04]: I appreciate you.
34:13
[SPEAKER_04]: I enjoy what you do and
34:16
[SPEAKER_04]: these stories to a larger public and inspiring people to create their own adventures is a really powerful thing and you should be commended for that.
34:27
[SPEAKER_04]: So thank you for having me.
34:29
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm honored to be here.
34:30
[SPEAKER_03]: It's my pleasure, Greg.
34:31
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a cool story.
34:33
[SPEAKER_03]: That's for sure.
34:34
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's all it's all about.
34:35
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'll keep you posted when it comes out.
34:37
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll stay in touch about that.
34:39
[SPEAKER_03]: But until they am and take care of yourself and let me know if there's anything I can do for you.
34:46
[SPEAKER_03]: You too, it's okay.
34:50
[SPEAKER_03]: Bye.
34:50
[SPEAKER_03]: First of all, thank you so much for listening, it means the world to us that you choose a lesson of this show.
34:56
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35:03
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35:11
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35:19
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