The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast
EPISODE 238: Meet the Bicycle Mayor of Coventry, Britain’s “Motor City”
Monday 10th February 2020
SPONSOR: Jenson USA
HOSTS: Carlton Reid & Laura Laker
GUESTS:
Adam Tranter of Fusion Media, the new Bicycle Mayor of Coventry.
Maud de Vries, Bicycle Mayors programme, BYCS, Amsterdam.
Satya Sankaran, Bicycle Mayor of Bengalaru, India.
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Forbes.com article has lots of background on Coventry’s motoring and cycling history.
MACHINE TRANSCRIPT
Carlton Reid 0:13
Welcome to Episode 238 of the Spokesmen cycling podcast. The show was published Monday the 10th of February 2020.
David Bernstein 0:24
The Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Jenson USA, where you’ll always find a great selection of products at amazing prices with unparalleled customer service. For more information, just go to Jensonusa.com/thespokesmen. Hey everybody, it’s David from the Fred cast cycling podcast at www.theFredcast.com. I’m one of the hosts and producers of the spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast. For show notes, links and all sorts of other information please visit our website at www.the-spokesmen.com. And now, here are the spokesmen.
Carlton Reid 1:09
Don’t worry, the Spokesmen cycling podcast is not now a daily show. It’s just that I’ve been recording audio from lots of interesting people recently and some of those interviews including Today’s a time sensitive and need to be published, like well now rather than on this show is more normal twice a month schedule. I’m Carlton Reid. And on today’s show, I’m talking with comms expert, Adam Tranter, who has just become the UK his first bicycle mer. He’s a cove kid, and we’ll be aiming to make Coventry a lot more bicycle friendly. The bicycle mare programme is an initiative of bikes of the Netherlands. And after the ad break, you can hear Laura Laker interviewing Maud de Vries of BYCS alongside the bicycle mayor of Bengaluru, the first he is Adam. So Adam, I do want to talk to you about the bicycle Mayor programme. Absolutely. But first of all, I want to talk about you. So tell us about your business and and the brands you represent. You can absolutely go wax lyrical about all the clients you represent. So so so when did you start your PR business? Who are you representing? Let’s Let’s have a thumbnail sketch of of your PR company.
Adam Tranter 2:35
Okay, so I set up future media in 2008. And that came from a large repertoire of knowledge related to cycling, which, at the time, didn’t have much usefulness in the wider world. But cycling having been a kind of racing cyclist and briefly a kind of freelance cycling journalist cycling was became quite popular in Britain in 2008, from a sporting perspective with the Beijing Olympics, and we’ve been lucky, I think, since the cycling stayed on the agenda through various different things that have happened such as the Tour de France in Yorkshire and the London Olympics and bike higher schemes, all of which kind of generally cycling on the on the map. So we’re doing this since 2008, kind of PR communications and now sort of full service marketing agency and it’s really grown organically. In the same sort of cases, cycling’s interest as a as an industry to where we are now in 2020. We have around 1212 staff and we look after mixture brands across what we described as like active lifestyle, active people. And that’s really cycling, running and actually, you know, cycling as a means of transport which we’re kind of treating separately. We look after brands like Brompton Who very much fit in the category of advocacy and trying to do do better and make cities better for people and by making more people centric to brands like Shimano working on their e bike programme, Evan cycles, which obviously has a very bored potential audience. But we do also still work with the kind of core road cycling audience if you like, last year, we worked for the first year on the Tour de France for PR and social media with with ASO and also working with brands like likkle and wahoo. And so I’m ready. So yeah, I get to like like yourself, potentially get to make a career out of something I’m very passionate about. And gladly that’s kind of moved into a world where it’s about getting more people on bikes and making cycling more normal, which is which is the kind of main focus With me at the moment
Carlton Reid 5:00
sit on that topic. Tell me about the school bus that you you organised last year.
Adam Tranter 5:08
Yeah, so So, I’m a bike nerd and I bought a cargo bike. Which, you know, which really transformed my getting about an I took my kids to school, I’ve got twin boys then it is nearly six, six cents a month. And I started to teach in school, but I can’t provide constant my my wife and I was hurt and on the school and, and people predictably, you know, stopped us and said Wow, what’s that and of course, they’d never seen this type of bike before. Which if you’ve, you know, not visited places like the Netherlands or or Denmark, Copenhagen, etc. You You might not have you know, quite rightly might have seen a cargo bike before. So once we’ve got that out of the way it really what it boils down to is I would love to ride to school with my child I know taking the car for a short journey as well. But I just don’t feel safe. I don’t feel like it’s safe enough or that is something I can do. And that that extended to when I was in like games, my labour Cafe by bike people will go, I’ve got a bike. But I don’t you know, I don’t really use it. And that to me was just so depressing. And the kind of state that we’re we’re in so I’ve seen on Twitter like Macy’s things that people in Galway and in Ireland and in Oxford, and up in I think Glasgow, they’ve created school cycle buses which, which are great. They’re brilliant. They they show what’s possible and they show the desire for children to cycle and they do it in the safest possible way by practically you know, having an adult to child ratio that allows an adult to almost create a new Cycling for children and so they can safely get to school with a lack of safe cycling infrastructure. So my wife and I created what was was first we live in a town called cannibalism or lecture near to near to Coventry. And we created our first and back in October we have 20 kids, accompanied by 20 adults and we created this, you know, massive visual spectacle and peloton, going to school and everybody loved it. And we had a lot of resistance initially from the council and even the police when I’d asked them if they wanted to support us in any way with kind of, you know, mild threats of risk assessments and whether the children would be trained or wearing helmets and everything you could possibly imagine to try and make this more difficult than it needed to be. But we went ahead and did it and now we do it each each Friday. And we’ve got you know, a solid group of 10 or 15 Kids each week really aged between five and nine years. So young kids who normally wouldn’t be able to cycle to school now can
Carlton Reid 8:10
is that a PR thing in that you’re doing it as a bicycle bus now but what you’re actually genuinely like is for the kids to cycle themselves on safe cycling infrastructure, but by highlighting the fact that the current currently because it’s all adults have it to be with them. So that’s what you want eventually.
Adam Tranter 8:32
Yeah, I think there’s a short term need to do the best you can within the environment you have and that was, you know, the community saying I’d quite like to cycle to school and I know I shouldn’t take my car and being a kind of fit and brave 2% of, you know, to set mobile cyclist I was able to do that with my wife is also you know, fairly confident out there mixing it with with traffic, but Really, it’s a really wide appoint and you know, the first one we had and we still get counsellor support. It was a case of showing people the kind of practical difficulties there are cycling to school and the fact that the system has just made it’s just make difficult for people so it really unless you live a stone’s throw, and you can schools or cycle the pavement, you have no chance of upcycled School, which I don’t think and I think lots of other people don’t think is is right. So really demonstrating what was possible. I always think it’s best to show what good can look like to you know, and remind people that this is actually a normal thing and actually the most kind of ridiculous thing was really, you know, the meat you know that local media and some some national media and hopefully covered in falls, international media showed that really cycling school should not be a news story. It should not be a national news story. And that’s the kind of ridiculousness that I want to kind of get across and push public. These are people do think outside their comfort zone and actually take a moment and look at, you know, how, how we got to this stage where people can’t have children can’t cycle to school, which, you know, I think is probably one of the fundamental things you can look at to see how our society is, is doing, like how are they How are the kids doing? And the answer that one is, you know, these kids are being fed in, in in large four by fours. That’s making everyone’s communities a bit worse. So I think, you know, that’s something that that allows allows us to make a point as you as you say,
Carlton Reid 10:42
and how far is Kenilworth from Coventry?
Adam Tranter 10:48
as the crow flies about four miles, so historically, can’t give you the historically, Coventry was always part of what picture as a As a county and then split on its own authority, but you know, you only have to go to the end of my road turn right and right again and kind of in the Coventry Coventry boundary. So so yeah the closest the closest city and somewhere that I spend a lot of time.
Carlton Reid 11:18
So let’s get on to your, your role and this does seem as at least looking at the press release is MB, at least a part of the role quite obviously, is using your comms experience. So getting the bicycle man of Coventry into the media so you you’re going to be using your calm skills to talk about cycling using this as a as a way of, of getting into the media. Yeah,
Adam Tranter 11:51
yeah, I think I think one of the things that sometimes lacked a local kind of level, all around the country is is accountability.
You know, there’s there’s
a reduction in I think local media is really important and local media have been really supportive of what I’m doing, which has really helped. But there’s also, you know, gap because the climate emergency is very much on the national agenda, and over 60% of councils in the UK have declared a climate emergency. Yeah, there’s not really a sensible, informed conversation happening around how that might be achievable. So, you know, when giving examples that you know, when flubby had to be bailed out by the government, there was, you know, radio for one of the spokes people said that flying was decarbonizing, and that went totally, totally unchecked and sort of passed off as as as kind of accepted fact And I think this is, you know, it’s a really difficult I’m by no means a climate change or air quality expert, but do you know that frequently the bicycle is a is a good way of solving some rather complex issues. So, I think one of my job in in the role of bicycle method Coventry is to is to communicate what is and isn’t happening in relating to cycling and you know, walking and just generally, you know, after travel and having more livable streets, to to try and build a conversation around the immediacy of the climate emergency, which is providing a good, you know, a good catalyst for potential change. And I really feel that it’s, it’s really now or never in many ways, but now is the opportunity to get cycling properly talked about in an informed way and properly funded. So yeah, I hope to use my Comes expertise to be able to a political stuff in a in a, you know, hopefully easy to digest manner because I’m not, you know, hopefully can do my job properly. I’m not preaching to the converted, I’m getting new people to think differently about the bicycle and the solutions that can provide. And also yeah holding power to account using the media to highlight both Yeah, action and inaction and hopefully it will be action but as we know, as a lot of strain on the government’s and the traditional approaches to spend more money on road projects, and that that can’t happen. I’ve just been at a bicycle summit, which was really, really really interesting and visited a life of province, who, whose transport expert you know, openly saying, one of our policies is not to make any more bad decisions. So any anything that’s been slated that isn’t compatible with the climate emergency and our goals like can’t possibly can’t possibly be passed through. And that’s an approach that I think is really sensible but an approach that, you know, isn’t happening necessarily in Coventry or other places on the UK were very big, big expensive road projects are still getting built, which isn’t, which isn’t good for anyone long term.
Carlton Reid 15:33
And Coventry is pretty much the poster child for road schemes. You’ve got that awful ring road that pretty much as a motor. I mean, technically, you could go on a bike on there’s not a motorway, but it is a motorway.
Adam Tranter 15:48
Yeah, people are they’re proud of it as well. People are proud of it. It’s I don’t know whether that how much they’re taking the Mickey but they you know people are fairly
Carlton Reid 15:58
passionate about the ring road to come country is known and it is known as the Motor City not just because of that ring road but also because the history of motoring in the city and of course, that came from from from bicycling. So, the reason the automotive factories started in Coventry was the fact that there was these major bicycle factories in Coventry first and the first person to have written about this and a whole book, of course, the first person to bring the Coventry motor industry within the 18 late 1890s was the guy who had a bunch of bicycle companies there first so Henry Lawson. So Coventry has got this amazing history of being about first of all a bicycle city, but then absolutely a Motor City. So it’s kind of ironic yet not ironic that the first bicycle mare is in Coventry.
Adam Tranter 16:56
Yeah, it’s one of my is one of my motivations, actually. Because I’ve, I’m immensely proud of being brought up in being born and brought up in Coventry. And I’ll tell anyone who will listen about its rich bicycle heritage and you know, all the illustrious things that the commentary cycle pioneers did. And, you know, the same pioneers or the companies that these biters founded have also, you know, very swiftly moved into motorcycles and cars as as you know, better than anybody else. And I think I think that’s an interesting metaphor, if you like for what I’m trying to explain to people that we are a country that is totally car dominant country is a city that is almost entirely built around the motor car, of course, it was rebuilt after the Second World War. And as part of that, you know, Kind of peak, getting towards peak car dominance, much of the city’s infrastructure kind of reflects that. But it’s also, you know, it’s got a lot going for itself. It’s an incredibly walkable and bikable City. It’s compact, it’s flat. And it’s also it’s, it’s a city that has changed many, many times, you know, and reinvented itself. And you can. One thing that I think everybody is is agreed on is it can’t keep operating in the same way as we are now. So actually having this bicycle heritage to fall back on and something to talk about and an era of old nostalgia can potentially I think, be helpful, but it is also, you know, the same history just a few years later is also a potential hindrance because we still have a fairly dominant not nowhere near what it was. Still a fairly dominant car manufacturing industry in Coventry you know jankier Landrover, still manufacturer. They have a plant In Whitley in Coventry and the London taxi company makes the new or at least assembles that new electric taxes here so we you know it’s a very important industry both politically and economically but currently there’s no voice for cycling and that’s why I want to be able to to change
Carlton Reid 19:33
to you mentioned rover there take you a Land Rover and of course rover just to bring people up to speed I know you know, but just to bring other people up to speed and and it wasn’t just the fact that Coventry had a few you know, random bicycle factories, the British bicycle boom that happened. It happened because of Coventry so and the American bicycle boom that came you know, very shortly after it came because of commentary. So this guy called more brought In fact a bone shaker across from from Paris. It excited the locals in Coventry they started making them and then you’ve got the first high wheel bicycle eventually came from commentaries of the penny farthing. starly is the father of the wheels bicycle industry was from he was from Coventry, but he certainly settled in commentary and then his his nephew jk starly. Also Coventry then gave us the bicycle we know and love today, which is the safety bicycle the two equal sized parts of the frame that to equal size wheels, all that kind of stuff, the diamond frame so Coventry is absolutely essential to the world of bicycling. So this is this is the kind of the role you’re taking on is a city that’s incredibly known for motoring by most people. Yeah, underneath is as absolutely stellar bicycle History
ada 21:01
Yes, there’s definitely there’s definitely something there and I want to kind of capitalise on I was in the Netherlands last week on a the European bicycle mass summit and did all the great things that you get to do when you in the Netherlands including riding a bike absolutely everywhere and you know I was kind of identify their emotions just live it but seeing because of course in the UK we’ve typically you know we’ve still got the safety bike kind of design and parameters but we we’ve you know, we’re very keen on as an industry drop handlebar bikes and kind of, you know, changing the way bicycles have looked over the years battery the rover safety bicycle is pretty much what you know you would describe as a Dutch bicycle now which the majority of people on bikes and the Netherlands used to get around everywhere, so to sort of be stood there in the middle amounts. Now I’m looking at every bike to see that actually this this culture that have been developed outside, you know, former consequences of safe cycling infrastructure. The fact that normal children as young as eight can go and ride on the roads, potentially even on their own sort of 10 or 11, as all, you know, had so much linked to the kind of innovation that Coventry had, and, you know, obviously arrived back in Coventry. And, you know, this morning, Monday morning and I was in the city for a meeting and, you know, right next to ring road, and you know, it couldn’t be further from what I now have experience in the Netherlands but obviously very similar to what they went through and, you know, what, what Amsterdam and what other areas and others have looked like in 1970s a lot like Coventry now. So it gives me hope that if they were able to change it, we’re able to, to change something as well. But it does require, you know, a lot of people to forget everything I know about transport and think yeah.
Carlton Reid 23:08
So that that bicycle mayor’s conference, there’s like 100 members around the world now is that right?
Adam Tranter 23:14
There’s just over Yeah, just over 100 bicycle mares around the world. There’s a lot in both in India and then some spread over Africa as well. This one was just for the European network and I think there’s about 20 of us, including seven new mass which two are also in the Netherlands. So, one from the Hague and one from mine hoeber which I also think is interesting because, you know, the, the, their challenges are also very real in making sure that cycling to school is safe in Eindhoven for example and it would be a place that you typically they go there and go Wow, this is amazing what you complaining about but actually, you know, looking at stats, car uses goes is going up and sort of cycling is decreasing depending on where you are in the Netherlands. So I think that was really interesting obviously to learn from best practices and then also some, some crazy challenges in cities like a stumble, you know, obviously, totally different to Coventry in almost every way and a huge population. So the great thing about the the bicycle matters network is that all of us can now share best practice ideas. You know, I was able to put the Amsterdam bicycle Mayor who’s pretty famous in Amsterdam, you know, deals the city government all the time and as a real ambassador for cycling, about how she’s been able to, you know, approach the role and and what she’s been able to achieve. And that’s been really helpful to be able to share this network of, of expertise, which is where I think the faster it grows, the more valuable it becomes. To the global kind of cycling advocacy community because we are able to take best practices from all over the world and apply them to to different different cities who all have largely the same, the same goal which is to increase modal share and and and get proper funding the cycling and decrease car dominance.
Carlton Reid 25:22
So the bicycle mare programme is an initiative of bikes which is b y Cs and no that that doesn’t stand for anything. It just is just just just bikes. So I will add at the end of after after I finished with you, Adam. I’m going to be playing an interview that Laura Laika actually had with more degrees, who is the founder of bikes and who is the founder of this programme, so I’ll get more from her. But just coming back to to you and in your role. What do you think apart from the comms bit which we discussed, what else can you do in Coventry apart from the prs Go.
Adam 26:01
Yeah, so I think being able to being able to engage collaboratively with the kind of base with the, you know, contacts that I have already working in the cycling industry, but also my experience in hopefully being collaborative and building bridges with people and as I said to you before, there’s there’s no one really championing, cycling’s cause cause in commentary or even the West Midlands more broadly, except for, you know, the, the council’s themselves, which they’re doing with limited resource and potentially in some cases, limited political will. So being able to engage them and bring ideas together from the likes of, you know, British cycling and cycling UK who I have a good relationship with, and also connecting local businesses as well. So like my Experiencing in the area, but also more nationally, will hopefully show that there is widespread support for cycling. And therefore, you know, it needs to be taken way more seriously in terms of both, you know, output and the funding to create that that output. And I also think that as an a sort of Ambassador role, it’s important to try and, you know, make small but impactful changes, like I’ve done with the school cycle bus. So one of the, you know, one of the first campaigns I want to run is, is a campaign that that really gets people to rethink their use of of the car for very short journeys under a mile or one and a half miles. And, you know, 24% of car journeys in the UK under one mile, which is just total madness, and I think we’re on a path for, for this for driving very short distances as well. to school to be, you know, in feature as socially unacceptable as you know, smoking and other things because it’s just a total unnecessary use of the car. And if I can potentially, you know, one things I’m looking at is creating a campaign to really get people to think about that and do do less and cycle to cycle to school, which them there’s no infrastructure at the moment, really. So I’m working to talk talking to police at the moment about, you know, whether they’ll publicly state that they wouldn’t prosecute children Riding School, which sounds you know, obviously they wouldn’t, but it’s not that obvious actually, in a lot of people are put off by by, you know, the fear of in how to go out by police or, or other people in the community and that’s putting a lot of people off. So, having to, you know, try and put together some smaller but impactful campaigns that can make a little difference and commentary as well. is going to be a priority
Carlton Reid 28:59
and if people are listening This and reading the stories that we’re going to be seeing because you’re a PR man says we love stories. And they’re inspired to, to think, well I could do that in my city or my talent, it’d be great. So how do people actually become bicycle mares of their localities? If there isn’t already a bicycle man so that America is global, there’s there’s this thing so how do they How do they actually become mares? And how did you become the man?
Adam Tranter 29:27
Yeah, so if you’re, if you’re thinking about it, you you should absolutely explore further because it is really a great initiative and you feel like you’re part of something is really, really special. So it’s, it’s, you know, the information out there and bikes who administers schema very, very friendly and really passionate about what they what they’re doing. So you’ll get, you know, a really good response in terms of the practicalities. There are, you know, a couple of weeks in, in certain countries I keep trying not to talk about the Netherlands all the time. But the you know, in certain countries that the local government has actually, the city government have supported a bicycle mass games, they practically said we want this in our, in our city, and therefore, you know, we’ll either partner with bikes or Well, you know, put a call out for interested parties to come forward and they might run some form of informal election amongst a group of people or or whatever might be if there are multiple candidates. In the case of commentary, well, I am and also, you know, a lot of other places where they, you know, there are passionate people, but maybe not passionate people clamouring over each other to do this voluntary role. It’s a case of securing the support of your local community in the forms of written endorsements, which, you know, I was very fortunate to have lots of local support and also some national support as well, from organisations and individuals that cetera. So putting together a case that shows that the, you know, the community wants this and will be supportive in this. And really, you know, there’s a small part of the application process and creating your vision, amongst other things, and obviously lots of hard work that goes into the background of that. But ultimately, that’s, that’s where it gets to the case of making sure you’ve got local support and doing it. It doesn’t necessarily mean you need, you know, support from government officials. So, I’m developing my relationship with Coventry City Council and kind of other stakeholders. It’s not a case I need to be approved by the city and actually one of the really important roles that the bicycle mayor has is to be, you know, independent and also, as I keep saying sort of hold power to account so you know, they were very different to kind of being a spokesperson for cycling on behalf of the Council. My job is to kind of bring all stakeholders together and work collaboratively to the best outcomes. And that’s that’s what I’ll, what I’ll be aiming to do.
Carlton Reid 32:15
Now. I’ve interviewed the the Amsterdam bicycle mayor, the first one then a number of years ago at eurobike. And she was telling me that the idea for the this is before I’d spoke to more about the idea for this came from Amsterdam’s night mauor, as in night, and then m a y o r, rather than nightmare, and maybe it doesn’t sounds quite good in English. It sounds very much different in Dutch. But that’s where it came from. And the nightmare in the Netherlands and the nightmare and for instance, in London, I think is on this huge salary. It’s like hundred and 70,000 pounds a year if you’re the nightmare of of London. So this role that you’ve been God is not something that you’re getting paid oodles of cash for this is a volunteer role.
Adam Tranter 33:06
Yeah, I’m being paid about 170,000 pounds less than that. So it’s very much it’s very much a volunteer role. And it’s very much you know, important grassroots movement. So, you know, I hope that one day bicycle mass around the country and around the world will be you know, seen by city officials as real great resources and you know, there might be opportunity for funding and feature I’m particularly lucky the you know, I work in work in an industry that’s very closely linked with this so and I also have a you know, an element of flexibility in my, my job running the company so I’m able to, you know, devote time to it in and out of normal working hours of course, and we evenings and, and, and we can so it does require us and outlook and, you know, some of the bicycle matters. hired Richard Ingram, who’s the bicycle mayor of Cumbria, so not for city, but an actual entire region. He was the first in the UK. He’s a retired transport planner, for example. So he his kind of semi retirement has allowed him to dedicate enough time to make a meaningful impact, also having the skills and experience so it is at the moment, it is something that you have to have a certain amount of flexibility to be able to do but of course, anyone who’s into cycling advocacy, you know, already dedicates quite a significant portion of time to it. I feel like this is a meaningful channel to be able to kind of do that and hopefully make more of an impact than I would do if it was just me sort of, you know, shouting and being a bit annoyed at the lack of infrastructure. I feel like this could be more impactful.
Carlton Reid 34:49
What about if you get shouted at yourself by say, local councillors who’s to say conflict of interest in that you represent Bunch of brands, might you be using this as a way of promoting those brands in the local media? So what would you say to the conflict of interest? Cannot?
Adam Tranter 35:12
Yeah. So, you know, none of this is is drived and brands and increasing fans, you know, media space majority of the, I actually think that the majority of the cycling industry needs to do more in the space of kind of advocacy because it is the future of where the, you know, where the potential customers are coming from if you can get 2% of modal chatter 6%, for example, that’s going to make a potentially massive, massive dent in in the cycling industry is collective experience at the moment in the kind of current economic climate. But it all of its fairly board so so no one’s pushing individually. products or you know all yes you must be riding this bike as bicycle mouth of whatever or this is a particularly You know, this is a sponsorship
deal
this is purely purely coming from the angle of getting more people on bikes which is good for good for everybody. So, you know, I’m taking this you know, from a personal point of view, I can care less what bikes they’re riding I you know, prefer if they weren’t new bikes from you know, Evan cycles or something I would prefer if people just got on the bike, you know, second hand bike viral charity or the you know, Berman has a bike library or something like that, that that gives people the opportunity to really, really explore the joys of cycling and then potentially, you know, bring them into the bring them into the kind of economic environment of the industry but in terms of my position is bicycle man, I’m not you know, I’m not being funded or Supported or need the blessing or have to account be accountable to certain industry bodies. I’m purely an individual with an interest again, more people on more people on bikes. And it’s, it’s, you know, it’s good for everybody. So hopefully, hopefully that will be a fairly straightforward conversation to have.
Carlton Reid 37:22
That was Adam Trent of fusion media, the new bicycle mer of Coventry. Before we go over to learn more from the program’s founder, here’s my co host, David, with a word from our sponsor.
David Bernstein 37:37
Hey, Carlton, thanks so much. And it’s it’s always my pleasure to talk about our advertiser. This is a long time loyal advertiser. You all know what I’m talking about. It’s Jenson USA at Jensonusa.com/thespokesmen. I’ve been telling you for years now yours, that Jensen is the place where you can get a great selection Every kind of product that you need for your cycling lifestyle at amazing prices and what really sets them apart, because of course, there’s lots of online retailers out there. But what really sets them apart is their unbelievable support. When you call and you’ve got a question about something, you’ll end up talking to one of their gear advisors and these are cyclists. I’ve been there I’ve seen it. These are folks who who ride their bikes to and from work. These are folks who ride at lunch who go out on group rides after work because they just enjoy cycling so much. And, and so you know that when you call, you’ll be talking to somebody who has knowledge of the products that you’re calling about. If you’re looking for a new bike, whether it’s a mountain bike, a road bike, a gravel bike, a fat bike, what are you looking for? Go ahead and check them out. Jensen, USA, they are the place where you will find everything you need for your cycling lifestyle. It’s Jensonusa.com/thespokesmen. We thank them so much for their support and we thank you for supporting Jenson, USA. Alright Carlton, let’s get back to the show.
Carlton Reid 39:04
Thanks David and we’re back on bicycle mares last year at velocity in Dublin. My colleague Laura Laker interviewed more devries, founder of the bicycle mauors programme. And also, she talked to Satya San Qur’an, bicycle mer of Bengaluru. And that’s the official name of Bangalore, in India.
Laura Laker
I’m here in Dublin with Maud de Vries who is the leader of the Bicycle Mayors, which is an international global programme to introduce mayors to different cities around the world. Am I correct, Maud? Please tell me about …
Maud de Vries
Almost. So I’m one of the founders of BYCS, which is a social enterprise. And amongst others, we have the bicycle mayor programme, which it’s a network actually all over the globe. So tonight, we’re going to announce that we’re going to have the fifth bicycle mayor in the world. And that’s really, really cool. That’s fantastic. Yeah. Looking forward to that. So what the bicycle mayor’s do i think is they are the real change makers, our mission, the mission of bikes is 50 by 30. We want to get half of all trips by bike in 2030. Because we believe the bicycle transform cities and cities transform the world. So that’s what drives us. And that’s why we think it’s important for us to have as many bicycle mayors as possible.
Laura Laker
So you say you started, you founded the bicycle mayors programme, and how did you do it?
Maud de Vries
Well, we started with one in 2016 to be precise. That was Ana and the bicycle mayor of Amsterdam. Yeah, if you remember. And then after Ana, quickly, we had some other ones. And then we thought, you know, we need to pull this because it’s really important. What we saw was bicycle mauors that felt really alone in the cities, you know, because they were working on getting cycling in,
Laura Laker
They already existed in different cities in a different guises?
Maud de Vries
Yeah, they were already active as change makers and related to cycling or in different areas. So there were people like they saw the transformative effect of the cycle of the bicycle. And they really wanted to put effort into that and belong to this global network, I think as well
Laura Laker
Were they tended to be appointed by the council’s by the local government, or were they sort of self appointed campaigners?
Maud de Vries
Yeah, so we have a two ways – so in Amsterdam, we have a big competition. And that really helps as well because we have so many cyclists already many people think maybe it’s good that I become the mayor because different mayor’s of course have different work plans. But in many cities, we also appoint them and then they need to send in a lot of endorsements, make a work plan, make a video as a big process that goes before that. And of course, we check if this is the right person. And then in the end, we often get help from the Dutch embassies, because they are abroad as well promoting cycling for more sustainable worlds, which is great. So such here for example, you are inaugurated by the by the ambassador of Bengaluru, which was really the I have to say the gen and the Consulur General of Bengaluru.
Laura Laker
So for listeners we have with us Satya Sankaran. And if I pronounced your name correctly, you are the bicycle mayor of Bengaluru?
Satya Sankaran
Yes, I am. So Bangalore is this nice, big city in the south of India. And it’s got the same problem that many urban centres have, right. It’s got a lot of [congestion]. It’s got a lot of pollution. And it’s from a developing nation which believes that cars are the future. So it’s a very interesting time to be a bicycle mayor in Bangalore.
Laura Laker
Yeah. How did you become a bicycle mayor of Bangalore?
Satya Sankaran
Maud made me a bicycle mayor in Bangalore. Interestingly, I’ve been doing a bunch of things like she says.
Satya Sankaran
The past 10 years I’ve been looking at sustainable transportation and being an activist and campaigning and advocacy in all of those things. But just before the bicycle Mayor programme came in for about two to three years, we’ve been doing a lot of bicycle related related advocacy programmes, popularising bicycle less and more. And then came along this programme. And it kind of amplifies my voice there. You’re doing a bunch of things. And then there’s this whole bicycle Mayor with tips, big network of people and enablement by the organisation.
Laura Laker
And what does that enable you to do? You’ve got support of the government?
Satya Sankaran
It does well, so it gives lots of support.
Bikes themselves have a lot of support structures in place in terms of how you can craft campaigns, and what are the tools available to do a bunch of things. And the bicycle mayors themselves also come up with a lot of campaigns, you know, they have ideas about how to implement andbikes just pushes that along as well.
Laura Laker
Yeah and BYCS is BYCS. Which stands for it stands for … nothing really
Just bikes but a different way. Just in case people are wondering, you’re referring to bikes, not bikes with magical powers, but bikes.org the organisation BYCS which is what you call your bicycle mayor programme.
Maud de Vries
So yeah.
Laura Laker
So how long have you been bicycle mayor?
Satya Sankaran
One year now. Last May, I guess, this May, I finished one year, June, July, 14 months now. Yeah.
Laura Laker
And then what you’ve been doing in that time?
Satya Sankaran
Lots of things. And one of the biggest things that I’m here for is the cycle to work programme that I launched. So I realised that while on one side, you need a lot of disincentives, which is very important, and the power of disincentives live with the government. And they are empowered to do that. Yeah. So they need to drive a lot of that what is in citizens hands, it is the incentives that you can give. So I looked at how do you enable incentives. So I identified that a large problem large part of the people who create the problem are in the tech industry in Bangalore, especially. And a lot of the upwardly mobile who buy cars are tech savvy. So I narrowed down on a technology platform, which kind of is a leaderboard. A leaderboard is one of the simplest ways of incentivizing …
Laura Laker
Oh, it’s like a competition?
leaderboard. So three companies. Within companies?
Satya Sankaran
Between companies. So I came up with that, and we had a platform where people track their rides to work. And then you make you make a leaderboard of companies, not of individuals of companies. So you drive collective action. If you incentivize individually, only incentivize them along. That’s also part of it. But the biggest thing is how do you collectively increase the number of riders on the road, so you incentivize as a collective. So you put companies on the leaderboard, and the individual strive to make that a competitive thing, the gamified it, the gamified that, so that’s what it is. So we did a nice gamification programme using the leaderboard. And it’s making a huge mark. Now we have lots of users, we’ve completed around 20,000 trips in the last 10 months.
Satya Sankaran
We are adding three new riders every day, for the past eight months, on to the leaderboard, and we want to be hitting 200,000 kilometres this month. And that’s a massive thing. And this is only the ones we are tracking. There are lots of them, we haven’t yet begun to track.
Laura Laker
Some people were cycling already, because I guess people are aware that Cycling is healthy for them.
Satya Sankaran
Sure, but what but what the leaderboard does is it incentivizes the non riders to also ride because they the riders go and influence them just to make sure that their company comes up on the leaderboard. So it’s a very useful tool for incentivize, a simple gamification.
Laura Laker
That sounds really innovative. And so more Is this the kind of stuff that different bicycle makers are coming up with by themselves and then, or I guess, as a collective, and then of course, you can share these ideas, because I mean, I love gamification, I totally buy into all of that. So that’s a fantastic idea, which I guess can spread.
Maud de Vries
I think it is a great example, Satya and I met also in October, during the bicycle mayor summit in Mexico City. And then together with Areli Carreon, she’s the bicycle mayor of Mexico City. The three of us signed up and will you because we really believe that work, a memorandum of understanding. It’s an official way of saying, Let’s collaborate. And that’s what we’re doing. So we’re collaborating on this idea of creating this leaderboard, which, Satya is creating, we are testing it in Amsterdam, and Areli will be using it as well. So and then, if we if we think it’s good enough, we can scale it, you know, that is one of the examples of a bicycle Mayor coming up with an idea. And sometimes we come up with an idea or product, and then we can share it. That’s the way forward we think.
Laura Laker
Yes it sounds great. So you have this mission? How are you going to achieve it, I guess you’ve got all these different kinds of programmes around the world, and you got a sort of collective push that you’re doing something specific,
Maud de Vries
We have a we have a bikes eco impact system. So basically, what we do is we have all these ideas to inspire. So for example, the Bicycle Architecture Biennale or to grow or to be a leader, we have all examples of products or programmes or like things like to be another that we have. And then we channel that a little bit. And then we have a bikes lab, like we have here in Dublin during Velo-city, we’re going to extend that for another three months at Trinity College. And this year, because we want to, we want to have more labs in Europe as well and abroad. And we’re collaborating with the Dutch embassies a lot, you know, to just make sure that the bicycle mayor’s have a place where they can meet people where they can create, like, interesting ideas around insights that they already have, where they can then then test and pilot things in collaboration with their city. And then if it’s helpful, they can scan it.
Laura Laker
Yeah. So tell me about the Bicycle Architecture Biennale, which you’ve just had last week, they come straight from one to the other. licencing .
Maud de Vries
Yeah, that’s crazy. So it’s and the second Bicycle Architecture Biennale, we launched the first one two years ago. And we’ve had so much attention around it. Because, you know, I think it’s, it’s a time when people don’t want to only talk about climate change, or air pollution and stuff, but also want to see things happen. And you know, why not invest in stuff that is really good, looks really good. You know, so we thought, let’s give some inspiration to cities and what we now see cities calling us and asking, you know, that bridge that you’re showing, maybe I want to have something similar my city because it connects like this part where we cannot build because people cannot go to the other side of the river, let’s say, you know, if they start developing in there, make sure that people can go by bicycle to the other side of the river where the city is, that’s massive, you know, so that unlocks massive economic, health and social. Yeah, possible. Yeah.
Laura Laker
And so what are you hoping to get out of Velo-city? You’ve set up your own kind of side conference almost having you and you’ve invited loads of bicycle mayors over? And how many bicycle mayors have you got? What you going to do?
Maud de Vries
Well, I think in total, there will be six, seven, so not that much. But of course, flying as sometimes is a is a thing. We just talked about the flight from Bangalore to Dublin, which is the thing as well, we believe, you know, that we can only do that if if our impact is bigger than then the CO2 from the flight, let’s say, you know, so I think such a story needs to be shared about cycle to work, because that’s a big, impactful way of getting more people on the bike. I just got a message from friend that Facebook year, you know, so think about it stuck here all day in Dublin. And we really want to change that only ways getting out the class, you know,
Laura Laker
Maybe the traffic in Dublin is really bad, isn’t it? It’s one of the worst in Europe for congestion. And
Maud de Vries
You’re totally right, it’s the second slowest in Europe.
Laura Laker
And so Satya, you’re here to share your message. That’s why you’ve come to Dublin to share with the other bicycle mayors
Satya Sankaran
So one of the things is to look at programmes which can incentivize people to get on the bike and work with the government to see how we can make such programmes to success and share the cycle to work story one of the things that we want to do is to take it global, the platform is already global of the block.
Laura Laker
So you set up your own platform, this is a kind of rebuilt it.
Satya Sankaran
Yeah, just build it. So we have tech partners that I’m working with. in Bangalore. Map Unity’s are delivering the technology.
It’s called cycle to work, but we’re going to rebrand it as bikes to work pretty soon, and we’ll launch it in many more cities, we have to discuss the modalities of which city is ready for deployment. And we would encourage more people to pick it up and run with it. One of the things is to make this, these kind of tech platforms encourage people to get on the bike and commute.
So let’s see how that goes. There’s a lot of stuff, there’s a lot of ground to cover. But we made a very good start. And it’s already seeing the impact. It’s made a lot of impact in the city of Bangalore. And it’s already making waves in other places.
Laura Laker
And I guess these tech companies, maybe there’s parallels with Dublin, because in Dublin, a lot of tech companies have their European headquarters here. Facebook, LinkedIn, Groupon, Google, of course, the big one. So but these companies have a huge amount of a voice actually, don’t they? Because they bring a lot of money. They have a lot of employees. So if employees of these companies start cycling, and then maybe find the roads aren’t quite fit for purpose, then perhaps there’s a there’s a push from companies, local governments say what are you doing?
Satya Sankaran
Absolutely. I think one of the key drivers of this is not the government, it is the businesses. So we are incentivizing companies so they can give benefits to employees. So in Bangalore, what’s happening is there are lots of companies which are coming forward and saying, Hey, I didn’t know so many of my people are by biking now. And now I can see them they used to be able to see. So Google and Facebook, for example. There are lots of employees in all over the world who already bike but quantifying them and making sure they count towards the larger good of the city. How do they compete, a lot of back to our programmes are companies specific. And for example, company x does a microloan programme, the people there do not know how many others are doing this.
Satya Sankaran
They are not aware of how many others in the cities are doing that. So one of the thing is to create that visibility, saying that you are not alone. There are right now 183 companies on on that leaderboard. And most of them are from Bangalore. But once you scale, you will see thousands of companies where employees are riding. And it’s just that you can now measure the percentage of your employees who are actually coming by bike and the company can give incentives to transform. So this is kind of a traffic problem is caused by
the economics of the city, right? You have an economy and there are people travelling to work and back. So the problem can be solved by transforming that it’s a negative externality of that company, which can be solved by the company themselves saying that, hey, I’d like you to at least shift 20% or 50% off to the bike.
Laura Laker
Yeah. Yeah. Because it’s great for the company as well, because people do who cycle take fewer days sick leave …
Satya Sankaran
They weren’t making any conscious effort to say how you commute, they provision whatever the employee already does. So if an employee buys lots of cars, they go in and encourage more parking spots. So now all they need to do is if a lot of people are coming by bike, he won’t put more bike parking. So you just shift the paradigm a little bit and say, how can how can people commute differently, and you start providing incentives for that. Like in Bangalore, for example, people actually companies give you loans and allowances to buy cars and fill petrol on them.
You get an allowance for fuel. You don’t need to do that. Yeah, so you don’t need to do that you could say, when you come in here, so joining-bonus, take a bike
Satya Sankaran
Or you know, give the money instead, give them a bike instead,
You can opt out of it, but you can still and it’s it’s less expensive to give them a bike and probably they will choose their place of residence based on what you give them. It’s it’s harder to commute short distances using a cab, because it’s physically not possible. So if you give them a bike, they’re probably settled down closer within a five kilometre radius. And the build form shapes itself to accommodate that. Because there are a lot of [opposition?] people who is like that there are a lot of immigrants coming into work, right? You got to the same in your country as well. So when they come in, they’re new, and they’re looking to buy a car. So give them a bike instead, they’ll live differently, and they will commute differently and the new, you change. From day one, when they join the company, you change the pattern of community. That’s incentivization.
Laura Laker
Fantastic. It’s really interesting idea.
Maud de Vries
In the Netherlands, it’s the other way around. So the government really lead takes care of all the people that work at the government level, you know, so they give them to incentivize them to help the companies do it. So the companies became bit lazy, I think, you know, so they should get out of their chairs and say, hey, I want healthier and happier employees, you know, let’s get them go get them on the bike. But here in Dublin, that’s amazing as well, the Dublin cycling campaign, what they do, and lots of other people like such a you know, they just go to the companies and ask them, please help us you know, we need to get more people on the bike. And they do. They sponsor they help and have a great cycling to work campaign here in Dublin. I think that’s amazing. Work really big.
Laura Laker
Wow. Thank you. Is there anything else you want to say about the bicycle mayor programme or plans for the future me and
Maud de Vries
Maybe what would be good to mention is that we also have a junior bicycle mayor. And that that was really good. It was later and she was a announced a year ago. In the Netherlands. Now we’re going to have the second one. On the fourth of July. Tomorrow morning at eight to 830. We’re going to have a junior bicycle Mayor for Dublin, which is easy.
Maud de Vries
Yeah. It’s so exciting. She’s really amazing. And she has a nice yellow bike, and she wrote a poem about it. So besides from the fact that she will be inaugurated to share her phone, at the lab? Yeah, that’s really good. That’s fantastic.
Laura Laker
Yeah. And I think there’s a lot of power in in children saying this is what we want.
Maud de Vries
I think that’s amazing. And all the bicycle mayor’s picked that up as well. So in October, yeah, we agreed on starting a campaign called Cities Fit for Children. Because we believe that cities are fit for children, they are fit for everyone, you know. So let’s create cities fit for children. That is what we call out, go out for so we started that on the, on the Children’s Day from the United Nations.
Maud de Vries
And everybody now is really looking into how to get children on bikes as well. And Satya just reached out to me, in the Netherlans, we have this sort of bicycle bus. And he said, you know, we should have that in Bangalore as well, because of course, it makes kids more safe on the road as well. You know, do you know the bicycle bus?
Laura Laker
When you have a group of children riding together, and they’re kind of chaperoned front and back? They do? Yeah, I do. Because it’s a separate machine. It’s not separate bicycles. It’s one machine,
Maud de Vries
One machine, but then they all have individual pedals.
Laura Laker
I know like you see on the stag, the hen-dos travelling around town, and children.
Maud de Vries
It reminds me a bit of that. But you know, I think it is great, because right now, it’s really hard. Also, I just heard about an eight year old girl that was killed in traffic here, by bicycle. And these things are just horrible to me, I think we should think about where Amsterdam was 50 years ago, and 10,000 people went on to the streets and say stop killing our children. And that’s really that was a turning point for our city. And hopefully, many more cities will see that if they invest in making Cities Fit for Children. And that would be really good. First step.
Laura Laker
Is that Did you see that? Working in India and Bangalore?
Satya Sankaran
Yes, of course. So we’ve had a lot of success in getting children to understand and talk to their parents about this. Because when they, when they are convinced they are they have a lot of power in convincing the adults as well. If you tell an adult what to do, they generally don’t like it. What if their kids tell them what to do, they will kind of be a little embarrassed and actually do it. So but nevertheless, it’s more important for the kids to understand what is the future they are inhabiting, and how they need to start looking at all the things we have come to gotten us to car as the symbol of development fuel vehicle as the aspirational goal, these are all things that are in the past.
Satya Sankaran
Global warming is a reality, and it’s going to hit them. And they need to understand what they are inheriting. And it’s important for them to start getting used to it right now. And I think we need to tell them and they are going to be the focus. And it’s for them that we are having to do all of these things. It’s it’s what we have done in the past, we have to start undoing now. And they need to realise that they need to step up and not go back to what we have done. The more successful we are in doing that, the better it is.
Laura Laker
And we seeing this around climate change with children, Greta Thunberg passing off the school climate strikes and how powerful that is.
Maud de Vries
And I think the same thing for a little later became the first vice mayor, you know, and advantage of what she’s doing. She’s a she has actual tools, you know, so she can do something about it. And that’s really good. And that’s what I see happening all over the globe now as well that children want to step up, but they also want to change something you know, and the bicycle is a really good way of changing cities.
Laura Laker
Yeah, wonderful. Thank you guys so much. And I look forward to seeing more about the bicycle mayors programme.
Maud de Vries
Hopefully and see tonight at the inauguration of Donna Cooney will be the bicycle mayor of Dublin, and she’s going to be the 50th bicycle mayor on the globe. So they’ll be exciting. Yeah,
Laura Laker
Great. We’ve just been talking about your different bicycle mayors around the world. And I thought was so interesting. I wanted to ask you about them again. So you were telling me about your bicycle mayor in Mexico City and your bicycle mayor in Istanbul? Can you just tell our listeners, what you what you’re saying about them, and the impact that they’re having.
Maud de Vries
And the impact that they’re having is grand. And I’m so proud of them. So for example, Areli Carreon, who’s the vice mayor of Mexico City, she’s a great change maker. And for her the bicycle was the reason sort of to feel alive again. She was really at a bad moment in life, and she didn’t have any money, you know. And then by school, she was given a bicycle. And then she started. Yeah, to rehab, she was able to go to work again. And so for her, there was a big, big change maker from, let’s say, depression into a new phase of her life where she really thought this is something that really has a transformative aspect to it. And I really want to dedicate my life to this. Oh, wow.
Laura Laker
So from there, she became an advocate.
Maud de Vries
Exactly. Yeah. And she’s like a really influential advocate. She’s one of the top 10 on Wikipedia of most influential women on Mexico. Wow. She is amazing. Yeah. So and just because of her drive, you know, to constantly work on getting more people on bicycles and making more people aware that you to change the rules, you know that they should make it safer. build roads and stuff like that. It’s really amazing. And so we have bicycle mayor’s like Murat Suyabatmaz in Istanbul, you know, if he rides, he has 10,000 people on bikes, just incredible. The Children’s programmes. He does, you know, impacting like, really, really many children’s lives. It’s really grand.
Laura Laker
10,000 people on a bike ride? How does that work?
Maud de Vries
Yeah, like for him. He has a grant outreach ready, because he has been working in this. He has been working in the cycling field for longer. And he’s also a race champion. So he has a good outreach as well, as a former racer. Yeah, he said he wasn’t racing bike, and he won championships as well. So that that’s why a lot of people in Turkey know him already. And that’s when he thought, you know, he should start and work with this organisation that has this big outreach.
Laura Laker
And I think what you BYCS? What do you mean, your your organisation? You mean? With like our
Maud de Vries
No, yeah, yeah. In total? Yes. You know, so tonight, we’re going to announce the 50th vice mayor. And I think also from such a, you know, the people that we have in the entire organisation right now the bicycle mayor’s the leadership that they show us in, it’s big, they’re impacting the lives of billions, I think, and that’s really, really amazing. And
Laura Laker
how is it funded, do these funded kind of roles these guys come in?
Maud de Vries
So right now the bicycle mayor’s do this?
What to go voluntarily, and our organisation is a social enterprise. So what we do is we are from the Netherlands, and we come up with innovations and programmes in the Netherlands and we get paid for that by the government to do that. And the profits that we make from that work, we reinvest into the bicycle main programme. So that’s how we do it now. But of course, we need to be funds, soon to really get to 50 by 30, to really make change happen, you know. So yes, such a can come up with an exciting cycle to work programme, we can help him build and scale it, you know, but then in the end, of course, we need partners, and we need cities, to be interested in this, this as well, and to really help making the change in cities, organisations. It’s fun, it’s like companies. So we need all the help that we can get to really make this happen.
Laura Laker
And you were saying that here in Dublin, you you have an installation outside of the main conference, which is open to everyone, obviously, their conferences, a paid event. But you’re going to be sticking around after the conference to kind of share some of the knowledge he was saying, and then hopefully pass that on within Dublin.
Maud de Vries
Yeah, so we’re going to be here from September to end of November, at Trinity College, in Dublin, working with the professors and the city of Dublin, to see you know, what insights do we get, you know, how can we use them to come up with pilots and innovation? So Dublin? And how can we change the situation here, because Dublin now is the second slowest city in Europe. And I think we should change that by implementing a bicycle. So I think we already make a really good start tonight by starting with the new bicycle mayor in Dublin, and tomorrow with a new Junior bicycle mayor, because the junior, of course will be impacting the children is here in Dublin. And I think, you know, building this bikes lab, which is in this case, a temporary facility really can make a difference where people can come together, they can collect insights, they can talk, they can do presentations. So it’s open to all people don’t have to pay a fee, or people don’t have anyone who wants to can do a talk over there. And then in the end, you know, we’ll make this part of something bigger. And we really want to make top down innovations and make it available for the city to implement
Laura Laker
While doing the sort of grassroots bottom up stuff from the communities with the mayor’s and selves?
Maud de Vries
Yeah, we’re connected to that. And I think what we are good at is sort of giving them tools like, like, the Bicycle Architecture Bianele, which gives inspiration or the leadership, which is the bicycle mentor network, or, you know, we have lots of other things by bikes to work. And we have the lab where they can then come start me people. And we also have interesting campaigns and stuff, you know, but in the end, it’s like, it’s an idea where we can start this big movement around cycling, with these change makers and all these ideas, and also the tools to really, yeah, make it happen and get the cars out. And the bicycles in.
Carlton Reid
Thanks to today’s guests Adam Tranter, Maud de Vries, and Satya Sankaran, and thanks also to Laura Laker for allowing me to run that audio which she recorded for our podcast Virtual Velo-city, all episodes of which can be found online for free thanks to sponsorship from the Dutch Cycling Embassy.
OK, so this show is like those proverbial buses — you wait ages for one and then three come along at once. The next episode of the Spokesmen Cycling Podcast will be published on our more normal schedule and, unless there’s something else breaking in the meantime, will be an interview with South African cycling activist and academic Njogu Morgan. Meanwhile, get out there and ride.
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