Latest / Life According to Brian and Jason / #42 - Tour de France Unpacked: Teams, Tactics, and Thrills
Transcript
- 0:10All right, friends. Welcome to another episode of Life According to Brian. And Jason.
- 0:16Jason, we're back. What do you know? Dude, the Tour de France just ended,
- 0:21and I don't know anything about it. I don't even know.
- 0:24I know nothing. Can you help me? Totally. I'm your guy. I've been watching it for a long time.
- 0:29And yeah, most people view cycling about the same as golf. Like,
- 0:34how could you watch it? It looks so boring.
- 0:36They turn the TV on, and there's just cyclists in a group.
- 0:40Know and they're just pedaling it's like how is this exciting well it is if
- 0:44you know a few things jason so dude
- 0:47and here's another thing i'm kind of a sports guy i i don't mind that i didn't
- 0:51even know what was going on like it was i don't know if it's because of the
- 0:54world cup that was happening all right but
- 0:57i'm not it's not in my channels my feed nothing i was it like like what what
- 1:02streaming service is it on like
- 1:04how would how would i know from from after this episode you Who will,
- 1:09just like you, convince me to watch soccer. I will convince you to watch cycling.
- 1:13Right now, the Tour de France Femmes, so it's the women's tours going on right now,
- 1:19And that's NBC Peacock, so the Peacock streaming. They do a great job.
- 1:23The men's is longer, 21-day race, versus the fems is nine-day race.
- 1:29But overall, they do a great job, and they've been doing it year after year.
- 1:33But, you know, cycling in America has a bad taste. You know,
- 1:36Lance Armstrong kind of brought it up to fame, and then he was dirty.
- 1:41And so since then, any kind of major road racing, road cycling in America is
- 1:47really, really not there.
- 1:49Even though there's some great young stars, I'll talk about them later in the cast.
- 1:53But, you know, it's really a worldwide sport, kind of like soccer,
- 1:58and it has to rebuild its salto.
- 2:01But the first thing you need to understand, it is a team sport,
- 2:04even though cycling seems like it would be a totally individual sport.
- 2:08And some cycling sports are, but this one's a team sport.
- 2:11They're big teams, they have big sponsors. And the reason why is that a team
- 2:16sport is there's actually some science and physics involved here.
- 2:20When you ride as a group, and have you ever followed someone,
- 2:23Jason, like on a bike ride, like behind them, like drafted them?
- 2:27Yes, you, you, yes. Well, no.
- 2:31Well, there's actually some science that is used here.
- 2:35Physics applies, and it's called they break the wind, right?
- 2:39So you have less drag. It's called drafting. It's just like in auto racing or
- 2:43anything, you're trying to get the wind to be less.
- 2:47So you stick your riders who are probably at the end, who save their legs,
- 2:52so to speak, and your team rotates people in front of you to break the wind,
- 2:57you know, And then you draft them, saving yourself for the end.
- 3:01And now these are long races. So 150K kilometers, that's about 90 some miles
- 3:07in our world. And you're talking for three to four hours in the saddle at high
- 3:12speed, day after day after day.
- 3:15You can understand why doping's involved because they're asking you to basically,
- 3:20more than a marathon, run more than that every day for three weeks straight.
- 3:25So it is a super concentrated sport as far as team tactic. You know,
- 3:30who to save, put out front, how do you draft, cross wins, who's going to block
- 3:35for that, things like that. So it's a team sport.
- 3:38So once you know the team, just look up a few teams like, okay, who's the money here?
- 3:43Trek Bicycles in the United States is a major sponsor over there.
- 3:47So that's our one-link as Americans to a team.
- 3:50And next is like soccer. at the end is what you're waiting for,
- 3:55right? You're just waiting for that last goal to go in right at the end.
- 3:59The intensity ramps up. Same thing in cycling. So that.
- 4:0390 plus miles they've been sitting there grinding away the last miles came you
- 4:08know what's going to happen now
- 4:10some stages will end in a sprint sprint is where
- 4:14massive amounts of energy is put in all the teams are trying to get their front
- 4:18guys up front right then you have what are called lead out riders and those
- 4:23riders are super strong themselves are breaking the air and then you have your
- 4:26sprinters come on by and you have to time it right it's usually somewhere around
- 4:31quarter mile from the end,
- 4:32eighth mile from the end is a pullout sprint.
- 4:35And these are pros. These guys are going with natural ability,
- 4:40going 40, 50 miles an hour on a flat, flat out sprint.
- 4:43I mean, it is high speed. And then there's guys hitting the deck,
- 4:46hitting the walls, bikes flying into the crowd.
- 4:49I mean, it's high drama on these sprints. Other ending to races are in the mountain.
- 4:55They just climbed 8,000 vertical feet and it's who's got the strongest legs
- 4:59at the top of that peak and they do a great job of filming it and then
- 5:03you know so there's two different types of you know conditions roads so to speak
- 5:08you got your sprint outs and then you got your mountain so yeah and then you got to know
- 5:13you got to know the jerseys dude so uh you know you've probably heard of the yellow jersey.
- 5:18Tour de france with lance he had seven of them got all seven strips well yellow
- 5:23has nothing fancy about it it really comes from a hundred years ago the sponsor
- 5:29of the The Tour de France was a newspaper company
- 5:32and they printed their paper on yellow. So they made the shirt yellow.
- 5:38And the polka dotted jersey is based on a candy bar or something like that.
- 5:44And then the green jersey, I don't know, but that that's like that is a sprint category.
- 5:51The polka dotted jersey is king in the mountains. That means you the person
- 5:55that climbs to a certain point in each of the mountain stages are on point. So it's a point system.
- 6:00And then a white jersey is the best young rider.
- 6:04And what they do is they take cumulative times. So from beginning to end of
- 6:10each race, they calculate your time.
- 6:12And then they add that to day two, day three, all the way through 21 days.
- 6:16And that comes out with the yellow jersey winners called General Classification in GC.
- 6:21And that's the highly coveted one.
- 6:24And, you know, that's the one Lance lost. And no one replaced him.
- 6:27Why because even second and third place are dirty in those days.
- 6:32So there's no winners and so they do testing i have to say they've cleaned up
- 6:37the sport they do middle of the night testing random testing and
- 6:42they're trying to prevent hyperdosing in the sport somehow the kids are faster
- 6:46these days than even when,
- 6:48the athletes were doping it's pretty wild the technology with the bikes and
- 6:52stuff and i noticed but those jerseys are stages like for the films today it's
- 6:57hilly right uh the other day it was flat right.
- 7:02And then there's time trials yep they got that that's you against the clock
- 7:07and then that's added into your,
- 7:09cumulative time and then into the teens you know category as well so what's
- 7:16nice about road cycling is it's international there's people from everywhere around the world.
- 7:21It used to be primarily Europe.
- 7:24Well, now we're a global society and you have riders from Ecuador,
- 7:29Chile, you know, everywhere around the world. Africa is actually getting some riders in.
- 7:34You know, there are some great sprinters that come out of Africa.
- 7:37Yeah, is that Transburg, do you think? Yeah, uh-huh. Yeah, Gourmet,
- 7:41I'm botching his name, but he's a fun one to watch on the sprints. He's a great cyclist.
- 7:47I think Africa is going to really come on in the next 10 years because they're
- 7:52biking culture there. That's how they get around. And so that would translate.
- 7:56They're just getting more organized. United States, who I'm watching,
- 8:00there's two kids out of Durango.
- 8:02Shouldn't call them kids. They're like mid-20s.
- 8:04But Quinn Simmons, he's out of Durango.
- 8:07He wears pork chop. He's got a pork chop beard, long hair. Looks like a 70s
- 8:12rock star, right? Nice. And his job is to run point on certain days and break the wind.
- 8:19And he's out front running. He almost won a stage this year and last year, but he is the U.S.
- 8:26National champion in road cycling. So watch for Quinn Simmons.
- 8:29Great family story there. And then Sepp, he almost won one this year.
- 8:34He crashed twice. Everyone, he dusted everyone. Something happened.
- 8:38He found himself out front. I think he kind of panicked.
- 8:41Fell down twice on a descent, high speed both times, and he lost it.
- 8:47But Sepp's a great guy, great attitude. Brandon McNulty is another American
- 8:51kid to watch. And there's a bunch more. They're coming. So we're coming back
- 8:55as a nation. And that's exciting.
- 8:58So here's the bonus, Jason. Here's the reason to watch. The crowd. Somehow, yeah.
- 9:03The Tour de France crowd. Like, soccer crowds are crazy. They've got their songs.
- 9:08They go nuts. The cycling fans, they turn it up to 11. Okay?
- 9:12They're out there in costume.
- 9:15They're out there waving flags. They're running next to cyclists. Yeah, they're close.
- 9:20The world reigning champion, Tadi Pagacar, he's out of Slovenia.
- 9:26He won it five times. He will, when he's doing those mountain stages,
- 9:30no one can touch him in the mountain stages.
- 9:32He's just out by himself, the crowd. He literally is riding in a tunnel that's
- 9:37two feet wide. And most of the time in front of him, he can't even see the road.
- 9:41Because of people? Yeah, people.
- 9:43They just come in and they swarm him.
- 9:46On the sprint stages in the cities, they have barriers, right?
- 9:49So the crowds are behind the barrier, but it's phenomenal. I mean,
- 9:53the chants, the singing, the costumes, it's just over the top and
- 9:59There's one thing that they do that brings the crowds, and it is all the sponsors
- 10:04of the tour, you know, whether they're a candy bar company, swag company, whatever.
- 10:09They do what's called a publicity caravan a couple hours before the start of
- 10:13the race. So their afternoon starts. So here in the States, you get up at 7,
- 10:178 in the morning, the tour is on. It's lovely.
- 10:20Any race in Europe is on here early in the morning. So you can see a time difference.
- 10:24But there, a caravan of cars is throwing free hats, candy bars, schwag of any type.
- 10:32They say, according to the articles I've read, in the crowd,
- 10:35you have a 50% chance every day of walking away with free schwag. What about that, Jason?
- 10:43Pretty good. I like schwag. Yeah, you like schwag. So imagine the amount of
- 10:47schwag you'd have to have to cover a 90-plus mile race course.
- 10:51Oh, make it where it's good. make it work wow i got something you know
- 10:56there there's sections there's nobody standing but every little town there's
- 11:01people collect and then yeah then there's like pinch points and people really
- 11:05watch but yeah the crowd is crazy and right now there's the tour of poland going on
- 11:11uh the tour of denmark just ended it's really from
- 11:15spring to fall is by crazy so those are smaller races It's people who didn't
- 11:19get in the Tour de France except the big.
- 11:22Mama. Or they're up and coming.
- 11:24But yeah, there's what's called the Grand Tours. They're three-week-stage races.
- 11:28So that's Tour de France, Euro de Italy, and the Velta Espana.
- 11:32And so you got France, Italy, and Spain.
- 11:36They're the kings of bike racing right there. So now there's people who are
- 11:40in those races. They want to go to the Tour. They're doing that.
- 11:43They do get it. Hey, you're on our team. You're the Tour. But actually,
- 11:46you're the guy who's going to be my splinter, and you're helping. Yeah.
- 11:49You're helping George over here win. Right. I'm going to win. It's crazy.
- 11:53And you're just waiting your turn. What if you're the stronger rider and you
- 11:56can do it? Do they ever like disobey and like just bust it and win?
- 12:00Yep. And you're like, what? Yeah, it happens every race. There's what's called a breakaway.
- 12:06And some of it's intentional, but some of it's also like, ah,
- 12:10this might be my day. And all of a sudden, someone just takes off.
- 12:13And then usually three, four other riders try to follow. And they'll just get out front.
- 12:18Well, again, physics is at play. When you put a group of 100-plus riders together,
- 12:25you have this energy momentum. The group can ride faster than an individual, right?
- 12:30So you have all this momentum. And so they try to do these breakaways with at least four guys or more.
- 12:37Maybe in a mountain stage, that's a great equalizer, is it's hard for the group
- 12:41to gain energy up a mountain when everyone's suffering.
- 12:45And so usually individual guys can take off in the mountains.
- 12:48Yeah, you see it all the time. I mean, that's what's fun is you just never know
- 12:51when it's going to happen. Do they get busted?
- 12:53Well, it's not told from the team or is it planned? Well, some are planned.
- 12:58Some are kind of individual.
- 13:00Like, yeah, I didn't listen to team orders today. You'll hear them in the post
- 13:03interviews. I saw my shot. I took it.
- 13:07But most of it's planned. Most of it's planned. But even like Quinn.
- 13:11Quinn Simmons out of Durango.
- 13:13He's an outspoken kind of writer. And he's typical American.
- 13:18And he said in the media, he goes, yeah, he goes,
- 13:23It's not in our team tactics for me to win a stage. My job is to do this.
- 13:27So in so many words, he said, I'm not going to go out for a stage win because
- 13:33I'm playing sick and fiddle. And so, you know, I'm sure the media,
- 13:37I'm sure he got in trouble for saying what he said.
- 13:40But what he's saying is I might be your guy coming up here in a year to be the
- 13:45number one or the number two on a team.
- 13:48So it's kind of like paying your dues. Yeah.
- 13:51So now you've got to show you're fast. See, if you're going to be number one,
- 13:55you're going to have to take the calculated risk as a cyclist to show how good
- 13:59you are, that maybe the team's not allowing you.
- 14:02So there's the unwritten part of the sport. There's the team tactics.
- 14:07And then there's the individual wish of this is my dream. I'm here.
- 14:12I'm going for it today, you know, and you never know when that's going to happen.
- 14:15So that's kind of the magic of what you're watching.
- 14:19Who's going to be the breakout star today?
- 14:21So that's why I enjoy it is. And if you've ever been on a long bike ride and
- 14:25it's hot and you're trying to go full steam.
- 14:29Yeah. They call it suffering and you have to enjoy the suffering and cycle because
- 14:34there's no other way around it. How could you physically be at that level of
- 14:38stamina and not be suffering?
- 14:43Now, I know our past listeners, and please, if you like what you're hearing,
- 14:47click subscribe to our content here as we go here.
- 14:52How did you get into this? I know you've had an interest in bikes,
- 14:56and you've done some stuff with it, but how did you get into the road part of
- 14:59it? Because you have other interests.
- 15:02Right. Yeah, well, I started BMX Racer, and then Dad came home one day and bought
- 15:08some kind of road bike from somebody. And after work, he'd go out on these rides.
- 15:12I'm like... Your dad would?
- 15:14Yeah, he would go out and ride and come back.
- 15:17This was back in the 80s, you know, where I don't think people even wore helmets back then, you know.
- 15:23So I'm like, what is that? You know, I didn't think much of it.
- 15:26And then I worked in a bike shop in late high school or early college.
- 15:30Mainly we sold skateboards, freestyle bikes, BMX bikes.
- 15:34But at that time, Greg LeMond, that American, he was winning.
- 15:39And so I'm working in a bike shop. And so the talk is, hey, Greg LeMond.
- 15:44And so I ordered a Ironman Centurion road bike through the bike shop.
- 15:50With your discount. With my discount.
- 15:53Put it together and realized real quick, man, in the Phoenix heat, that is the raw.
- 15:58I'm like, I like my bike race. I like the sprint stuff better than let me go
- 16:02grind 20, 50 miles out heat, you know?
- 16:06And yeah. So I quickly sold that and...
- 16:10It never left me that that's hard stuff. I learned very quickly how hard it was to go do that.
- 16:16And I've always liked bikes and, you know, Tannis and I ride a lot.
- 16:21We like to ride the greenways. We'll find good trails. Go ride 10,
- 16:2550 miles out each direction.
- 16:27Turn around, come back. So if you're, if you like to ride a bike or cycle,
- 16:30why not watch a, watch a tour once in a while?
- 16:33And if you don't have the dedication to watch the whole thing, go to YouTube.
- 16:37They they'll condense a four hour race in four minutes right.
- 16:41Yeah just google that up just youtube it up and you know there's not too much
- 16:46out there but i remember being in high school i think for me i had i live in
- 16:50carl Springs a lot of hills like it was brutal,
- 16:54i had a bike but riding even to my school was just a whoa rather just walk but
- 17:00there was a movie starting Kevin Costner,
- 17:03I loved he was a young Kevin Costner,
- 17:06american flyers great movie it kind of teaches you a little bit about the team
- 17:11aspect and everything else it's a good very light intro,
- 17:15to right you remember seeing that were you young did you see it older when did you
- 17:19see that show well that i think that came out in like the mid to yeah mid 80s
- 17:24maybe 86 87 and that was about the time i bought my road bike i'm not saying
- 17:30that movie didn't influence me,
- 17:32you know but because back then that was cool looking see back Then Coors Beer
- 17:38actually sponsored American Road Raid around here.
- 17:42And they used to do it there in Grand Junction called Tour of the Moon.
- 17:46And it's even in that movie. They go up over the National Monument there and back down.
- 17:51And it's very classic, classic scene in that movie. And we just don't do big
- 17:56cycling races here in America.
- 17:58And here's the reason why, Jason, everyone in America, If you imagine shutting
- 18:02down a major road for a cycling event here in the United States.
- 18:08Yeah, what kind of fallout would that be, right? Well, on a related note,
- 18:12that movie was 85, by the way.
- 18:15The Littleton, where I live, they do something Criterion. That is finally no
- 18:21longer going to be here because the businesses were. We have no one coming to
- 18:25our business. And it's a one-day race for three hours.
- 18:32Of course, I don't own a business in downtown Littleton, so,
- 18:35you know, whatever. Well, Criterion races basically are a lap-type race,
- 18:41and so they'll go through a downtown, some kind of circuit, right, that comes back around.
- 18:47You might need five or 10 laps depending on how long the circuit is.
- 18:50And the last leg of the Tour de France was basically kind of a crit race,
- 18:55they call it, towards the end where they lap a few times.
- 18:59Watch this last year's one. It is phenomenal, by the way.
- 19:02And the drama of it's fantastic. But really, see, that's it in a nutshell in America.
- 19:08You can't take a downtown for four hours, run a race without some kind of complaint
- 19:14that shuts down the race forever and a day. And so in America,
- 19:19what has replaced cycling on pavement? It's called gravel race. Why?
- 19:24Because there's less traffic on gravel. So, yeah, we have the whole gravel culture
- 19:28here. And there's a huge one up in Emporia, Kansas. That is like one of the
- 19:33elite gravel races in the world.
- 19:36Can I see that? Well, it's actually hilly. Oh, is it?
- 19:39It's hilly. They do big mileage. It's full of drama.
- 19:43And so America, we have turned to gravel racing.
- 19:46So you're taking a road bike with fatter tires, basically.
- 19:50So they make these versions of a road bike, but gravel bike.
- 19:55You know, you own one, Jason. And yeah, that's the love in America now because
- 20:01we can't shut down public roads, city centers, anything anymore.
- 20:05Or without, there's some kind of outcry.
- 20:07And so for bike racers in the United States, they had to shift gears.
- 20:11So we're mountain bike racers, which is cross country, mountains,
- 20:14and heli-terrain or gravel racing. Race on old school gravel,
- 20:19like they used to do 100 years ago. It's funny. Funny. We Americans,
- 20:23the land of the free, but you can't run a race.
- 20:26No. But it is, well, it is unfortunate. Lance Thompson. Right.
- 20:30I had the yellow thing around my wrist. I believed in it all. Oh, yeah.
- 20:37Yeah, I know. But we as a society just aren't patient anymore.
- 20:41We're full gas in our cars. Does anyone drive the speed limit anymore? See?
- 20:46You just can't shut down a public road. Everyone's in a hurry and everyone has
- 20:50social media and they're going to complain.
- 20:52So it's hard on forks and promoters to do this kind of work.
- 20:56And that's why we're doing this podcast. I'm trying to turn more Americans into,
- 21:02enjoying cycling, cycle, you know, bike rate. That's the goal of this.
- 21:06What do you think, Jason?
- 21:07Well, I kind of already like sports, like my bike. I've done some bike rides,
- 21:13road bike rides. So I'm interested. My thought was like, wow,
- 21:17I had some serious disconnect, though. I didn't even know what was going on.
- 21:22I know there's other races. I'm not even tapped in at all. I was very curious
- 21:25about the Poland thing. Was it Tour de Poland? Right. I mean, that's cool.
- 21:30I didn't know they even existed. I didn't know about the shirts, about how you had a hill.
- 21:35See, that's like games within the game. Right. So there's action going on.
- 21:39I didn't even know that, man. Right.
- 21:41Now, what's funny, listeners, is Jason, you know, this was like,
- 21:47I don't know, what, 10 years ago or something?
- 21:48Like, Jason, you know, I'm riding my road bike. I'm living on the western slope.
- 21:52I'm riding some mountains on that side. Jason, over in Castle Rocks,
- 21:57this day ride called what?
- 21:59Elephant Rock. Elephant. Let's go do Elephant Rock. I don't have a road bike.
- 22:04All this kind of whining pretty soon. All of a sudden, Jason has a road bike
- 22:09somehow. Someone gave you a road bike? I don't know. They did. They did.
- 22:13So we'd go out there, and you did it, and then I conned you a second year to do it.
- 22:20That time you did it on a gravel bike, even though we were on pavement the whole
- 22:24time. But you just, I don't know, you just, you didn't fall in love with it,
- 22:28did you? The pain. I didn't have a pain. No. It was just, it took me forever.
- 22:33I will tell you this. I did not love, you know, they don't really block off the roads here, man.
- 22:38And so I'm like, cards, cars with no, you know, shoulder at all.
- 22:43Right. Not restful or fun.
- 22:46They did a great job. Alphand Rock, Castle Rock did a great job.
- 22:49Very good. Right. No, I can't say that I was like, you know what?
- 22:52It's hard to train for. You're right. That is the problem in the United States
- 22:57is, you know, what do we have? Like 335 million people.
- 23:01It's hard to find a road that some car is not going to run you off the road
- 23:04on. Right. Like, I go see Barry, Larkspur, and there's a beautiful road heading down Hamlet.
- 23:11Uh-huh. People ride their bikes all the time. Right. And, you know,
- 23:15some people aren't as nice grabbing trucks.
- 23:17But really, it was more when I was in the race doing it. I don't mind practicing
- 23:22and other bike riding to get to that point. But, no, it did not capture me. Right. I can't see.
- 23:29I have to say from a safety perspective, I've switched to gravel riding because
- 23:33I have gravel near my house and I'll go off for a two hour ride C3 vehicle,
- 23:38you know, versus if I do a road ride in my community,
- 23:42I'm lucky to come back alive.
- 23:44Let's just say that because there's no shoulder. People are distracted drivers
- 23:48and everybody's on the gas. Everybody's 10 over in our society.
- 23:53Why does everyone drive 10 over? You can hear them. You're on the bike. You're vulnerable.
- 23:58You know you're wearing spandex it's not a good look you know and you just you
- 24:03know it's just you're a target for some kind of.
- 24:06I hate cyclist dude gonna take you out with their big side mirrors on their
- 24:11f3 fix now so yeah i'm done i'm done with the road riding just because of the
- 24:15road rage do you think you're done done yeah it's just too dangerous it's uh
- 24:20the juice is not worth the squeeze in our world yeah
- 24:24okay which makes it hard for the sport to grow is what i want to 100% 100%,
- 24:30like where where are you gonna train where are you gonna ride right and funny
- 24:34how you either have to be in a really remote area that has remote roads durango colorado right.
- 24:41Or a lot of the americans they go to europe and they just ride back roads in
- 24:45europe that are paid and they'll get away from the traffic and they can train that,
- 24:49it is hard i think that's always going to be an obstacle in this sport in the
- 24:53united states either you got to go gravel and train hard on gravel and then
- 24:57switch over the road or who knows.
- 25:00I'm a big gravel fan. We'll talk about that in a future episode.
- 25:04We actually have our own cycling events.
- 25:07You know, it's actually a tour here in the United States on gravel and that
- 25:11kind of surface. Is that based out of Arkansas?
- 25:14No. No, there's some great races here that are part of the national tour of
- 25:18that. So, but yeah, that's kind of it in a nutshell.
- 25:22It's an exciting sport. Well, here, real quick, what bike would you recommend?
- 25:27You're kind of a bike dude.
- 25:28Dude what bike would you if someone's like you know what i don't care i'm gonna
- 25:31brave trucks and cars brian you've inspired me what's grand a bike and what
- 25:37should they be looking for if they go into the bike shop they go into their local used bike shop.
- 25:43What would they what are the words they would say well i think these days you want to go in and say hey
- 25:49i want a road bike and a gravel bike together and what that means is you can
- 25:55run different tire sizes on that same bike So let me back up.
- 25:59Giant's a great brand. You own Giant Bike.
- 26:02I just sold Facebook Marketplace, my 2014 Giant Road Bike. And the reason why
- 26:09I got rid of it is the largest tire...
- 26:12I could run on it was somewhere between a 25 and 28
- 26:17millimeter tire on and you're pumping those babies up to about 100 110 psi so
- 26:22that means every pothole you hit it hurts right those tires are so thin they
- 26:27don't work in gravel here in Arkansas I'd pop them and so
- 26:31I sold it found someone who's willing to ride the greenway the big long trail
- 26:35here all paved that's great dude how long did you Yeah.
- 26:39I think I bought it in like 14 or 15.
- 26:42So over 10 plus years. So yeah, I finally got rid of it.
- 26:45Someone was beginning cycling, going to ride with their mom.
- 26:48Some girl, she won the entry level.
- 26:50And I'm like, this is a pretty nice entry level bike. I just want to get into
- 26:53it. So that's another thing is maybe don't go to a bike shop.
- 26:57Just find something on Facebook marketplace, a couple hundred bucks.
- 27:00Give it a try. Because if you like it, you can always upgrade.
- 27:04What you don't want to do is go into a bike shop, get sold by the salesman,
- 27:082,500 bucks go do your first ride and go that was terrible.
- 27:15That was terrible that was terrible that was not worth the money that was a
- 27:192,500 ride and yeah you got to find
- 27:23the bikes that are built to handle different size tires and now what that does
- 27:27is it allows not only comfort but now you bought a bike that can be used on
- 27:32hard surface or gravel surface now it's dual purpose right more bang for the bike.
- 27:37So you're, yeah, that's good too. I didn't really know about that too,
- 27:41the dual bike. Yeah. So like your gravel bike I just saw in your garage,
- 27:46you could put a pair of slicks on that.
- 27:47Yeah. So, so get like a 700 by 42
- 27:51slick put on it oh dude i'm i'm already ahead of you already i know for my fat
- 27:56bike yeah yeah just go put a pair of yeah just go put a pair of slicks on it
- 28:01and you go ride road all day long oh yeah it's great.
- 28:05Yep so that's what i did i bought if you were folks if you want to go cheap
- 28:08there's some online stores i went with an online store called poseidon bike and you can get a great
- 28:15road slash gravel bike for a thousand bucks and they ride nice and it's a great
- 28:21way to hop into the sport and spend low dollar,
- 28:25new bike too it comes to you new fantastic,
- 28:27so i didn't really answer your question on the bike shop but if you go in yeah
- 28:31just say i need a dual purpose road gravel bike and where's your base level
- 28:36and work your way up from that whatever your budget is yeah there you go yeah
- 28:41and trek trek and giant go with them you know Because the bike industry has
- 28:46gone on hard times since COVID.
- 28:48COVID, it went up like a rocket. Everyone wanted a bike.
- 28:51Why? Because, you know, we all couldn't go to the gym and everyone was doing hikes and biking.
- 28:57And then all these companies scaled themselves and overproduced bikes.
- 29:01And then when the world opened up again, no one wanted to ride bikes anymore.
- 29:05And yeah, bike brands went tumbling. Some closed permanently.
- 29:11Others had to back off on manufacturing. and so Trek and Giant have survived
- 29:16so is it Trek and Giant that's in the US what are the big I don't even know
- 29:20if you know this I'm pretty on the spot what's the big bike brands that,
- 29:24the italians and the french right are they trek.
- 29:29International yeah treks international you got canyon bikes out of europe oh,
- 29:34i don't know i i don't really not prepared for all that but yeah,
- 29:38you know these these italian bikes they're very nice but when you're watching
- 29:43the tour you're watching bikes that range from ten thousand dollars oh yeah
- 29:48that are specialized yeah they're all They're all carbon fiber and right.
- 29:53Yeah. Different level. I know. It's not that we're going out,
- 29:55but I think Italian bike. Right.
- 29:59But yeah, no. Yeah. Just stay away from anything built in Italy or France unless you got a huge budget.
- 30:07Because yeah, the minute you're wanting to get like BMC bike or specialized,
- 30:13you know, they're expensive.
- 30:15Canyons are pretty affordable. Bianchi, you know.
- 30:19Yeah, you get it. You know what I'm saying. You know what I'm saying.
- 30:22But no, man, I hope this helps because you convinced me in soccer.
- 30:26So I hope this helps you watch some cycling. Dude, well, it's the game,
- 30:29but then the game that I did not know.
- 30:32And I would. So real quick. So the tour is off. Right about the other tours.
- 30:38Like, how would I watch? So it'd be on Peacock. These other tours are Tor Poland, Tor. Mm-hmm. Yep.
- 30:44Yeah, some are on Peacock. Other on others. But, you know, just YouTube it if
- 30:49you don't have those type.
- 30:51You know, if you've got HBO Max, you can catch a few. So, yeah.
- 30:55What's nice, anything in Europe, you can see in the morning and watch it there.
- 30:59But, you know, it's like soccer.
- 31:01Pick a few people to follow, right? Just Google, like, okay,
- 31:06who are the top stars in the Tour of Poland?
- 31:08And say, who are the top stars from America in the Tour of Poland?
- 31:12And just watch for that. See if you can find out. Every one of those races has
- 31:17a website. You can go to and say, okay, what were the standings right now?
- 31:23What was the list of winners for today? And you can find out how your person
- 31:27did. Oh, my guy I'm following was 41st out of 140 today.
- 31:32So that's what makes it, like you said, it's the sport inside the sport.
- 31:36And I do still have peacock from my soccer days.
- 31:42So some of our listeners might as well. Right, right. Well, Jason,
- 31:46do you have any other weird sports news?
- 31:49Let's see. weird sports news no other than just good news for bronco fans you
- 31:55know training camp has started and bo nicks quarterback is moving and running well
- 32:00oh so with us it was like oh he's ankle problems and he broke his ankle before
- 32:04super bowl or playoff right into the super bowl and then pate sean payton said
- 32:09well he has an issue or he has issues and then shot or bo's like no i don't and a little
- 32:14controversy there in the denver area but been in training camp and he's looking good and smooth, so,
- 32:20it's good news for Bronco fans. Well, there you go.
- 32:23Yeah, the only real piece that struck me this week was the top pitcher from
- 32:28the Detroit Tigers. It's at Scoble,
- 32:32Got traded to the Dodgers. So now they have a fully stacked pitching for the
- 32:38postseason. I'm like, really?
- 32:40The best pitcher on the Tigers, who I'm like. Just traded their best guy for
- 32:44three guys in return. I'm like, I don't know if that was.
- 32:46I'm not the GM. I'm not working in the front office. But basically what it says
- 32:52is we're not building a team around this ace pitcher.
- 32:55And I wonder why. Anyway. Yeah.
- 32:57But dude, anyone can beat them. Look at the Rays. Sorry, Rays are doing good.
- 33:02You never know. It's just a seven-game series. But go ahead.
- 33:06You were saying the Dodgers, what?
- 33:07No, they're just stacked. So it's like, ah. But, you know, hey,
- 33:11at least Rockies are duking it out for not being the last place team this year.
- 33:16So there we go. There's some hope.
- 33:19There's some hope. Oh, and just an extra thing. Personal news is our last few
- 33:24seconds here. I am going to my first Savannah banana game. What?
- 33:28I'm going in two weeks. My cousin has an extra ticket. And I'm going.
- 33:34All right. We need a full report.
- 33:37You beat me to the point. That was a funny episode we did because I was not
- 33:42on the fence with that. And somehow you convinced me.
- 33:45And I've dabbled online, but I just live in an area.
- 33:49There's no games close enough about a three, four-hour drive in any direction. They take over Coors.
- 33:56So it kind of quickly fell off my radar there, fans. Well, I was coming back.
- 34:01Well man i expect a full report so well guess what man we are we're out of time and,
- 34:09and hey friends if you like this content uh hey we're on ko-fi so
- 34:15since youtube doesn't monetize us and you want to throw us some bones
- 34:19give us give us five bucks on ko-fi so we appreciate it it helps pay the bills
- 34:23as we try to produce free content out there so thanks again friends for joining
- 34:28us for For this episode of Life According to Brian.
- 34:31And Jason. Until next time. We'll see ya.
- 34:36Hey friends, if you like this original content, please buy us a coffee.
- 34:40You can donate by clicking the link in our YouTube page under Life According
- 34:45to Brian and Jason, or in each episode, there also is a link.
- 34:51It'll take you to ko-fi.com.
- 34:54That is ko-fi.com, and we have an account there. It's all legitimate,
- 35:00and they take all major forms of payment.
- 35:03We appreciate your support. And again, we are not a monetized podcast.
- 35:08And your little love will go a long way keeping the production going. Thank you.