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20th June 2021

The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 276: From San Fran Bike Courier to BBC Journalist Via the Great North Road

SPONSOR: Jenson USA

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUEST: Steve Silk

TOPICS: The Great North Road. Coaching inns. Spitfires and warm beer. Wherries. Brexit. BBC impartiality. Beaming about Beamish. Forgetting about being a San Francisco bike courier. Chamois cream. Bonking. Norfolk Broads. Being a bloke on a bike but not being Alan Partridge. Cycling to work versus cycling for leisure.

LINKS:

“THE GREAT NORTH ROAD London to Edinburgh – 11 Days, 2 Wheels and 1 Ancient Highway”

Greatnorthroad.info

TRANSCRIPT:

Carlton Reid 0:14
Welcome to Episode 276 of the spokesmen cycling podcast. This show was recorded on Sunday 20th of June 2021.

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 Fredcast cycling podcast at www.Fredcast.com. I’m one of the hosts and producers of the Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast. For shownotes links and all sorts of other information please visit our website at www.the- spokesmen.com. And now, here are the spokesmen.

Carlton Reid 1:08
Steve Silk was a San Francisco bike courier in the late 1980s which, if you don’t mind me saying so is the absolute epitome of cool, but then he forgot all about cycling as he forged a career as a BBC regional journalist. I’m Carlton Reid and it turns out I’ve got lots in common with Steve, including starting at the same university in the same year, also living and canoeing in Norfolk, and having an abiding interest in history. And it’s our shared interest in the history of that most iconic of ancient highways — the Great North Road — that brought us together for today’s episode, sponsored by Jenson USA. Steve has written a travelogue about a bicycle journey along this road, and on today’s show we discuss the book and wax lyrical about sleepy coaching inns. As he’s a BBC journalist I also asked him about the corporation’s recent forays into anti-cycling rhetoric. That was unfair of me because there are new rules on impartiality and social media that I know BBC employees have to follow but check out how Steve handled my unsubtle prods.

Carlton Reid 2:34
Steve, can we get the Alan Partridge bit out of the way immediately, because you must get this I mean, any journalist in involved in either radio or TV in Norfolk and especially Norwich is going to get that. So how do you cope with the Alan Partridge question?

Steve Silk 2:53
Oh, God, I cope with it by having had it so many times. I’ve forgotten about it. I’ve genuinely forgotten the link. And I’m actually surprised when people mention it. So yes, I guess shrugged off with a bit of a laugh. People that I’m not from Norfolk, which I think perhaps helps here. I think occasionally, some people in Norfolk, perhaps in the old days used to get a little bit offended by that. Whereas of course, the what we should actually do is is champion Alan Partridge and make the most of it and enjoy the fact that there’s a whacking great picture of him talking about our sanctuary in the Norwich Waterstones and just take him to our heart. That’s the spirit, I think

Carlton Reid 3:38
So you’ve landed in Nowich because you were from Maidenhead originally, yes?

Steve Silk 3:42
Yes. A long time ago. Yes. Yes. I landed in Norwich very accidentally. I’m a journalist. And I was working in the northeast. And suddenly a job came up in the on the evening news an awfully long time ago. And I thought that will that will get me halfway to London, which was my plan then. And so I arrived here in the mid 90s and have come and gone since. But yes, Norwich is is very much an adopted home rather than me having any proper roots here.

Carlton Reid 4:13
So we have gone in slightly different directions here in that. I went to Norwich, from Newcastle. I really kind of see you because you went to university in Newcastle and I after reading your book, I discovered you joined the University at exactly the same. Yeah, so we both landed in Newcastle University in 1986. So what did you read?

Steve Silk 4:40
I read history at Newcastle and I really enjoyed doing that. But my passion when I was at Newcastle was the student newspaper so I probably spent about twice as much time on the newspaper career as I did during my studies. And I think that was actually whilst I still obviously love history, which I hope comes across in the book. I used uni as a really good foundation for for the career that I’ve had since and I absolutely thoroughly enjoyed being my own style of cub reporter making goodness knows the most basic mistakes but doing them with from the comfort and the safety net of a student newspaper rather than a real one. But I wanted to go to Newcastle from Maidenhead. I mean, they they’re very different places, you know, Thames Valley, South, I really wanted to go up north to escaped. The minute I went to Newcastle for the first time I absolutely fell in love with the place. My daughter is a student there now. And I don’t need any excuse to go up and, you know, buy her a meal or walk on Hadrian’s Wall as we were doing this time last weekend. I still love the city and love the surrounding area. So yes, going through Newcastle and Northumberland was an undoubted highlight of my trip.

Carlton Reid 6:03
So we’ve absolutely got tonnes in common here. It’s always amazing that we haven’t probably met and we haven’t come across each other a huge amount previously. Because at the history angle is absolutely right up my street. So I did enjoy your book with from that, that the many historical angles in there. And also, I’ve got to say the coaching it in angle I love because that’s what I love about the Great North Road is these fantastic coaching and so you didn’t stay in the ballot Stilton, which I did recently. But you did stay in the George at Stanford, is that right?

Steve Silk 6:41
No, I didn’t stay at the George at Stanford. I I, what did I do that I think I had a coffee there. I’ve been I’ve been to all these places several times. But no, I didn’t stay. I mean, one thing actually, is just the cost of them. They’re all gorgeous ends, aren’t they? And they’re, they’re probably going to cost you if you I couldn’t tell you a figure for the George but you’re probably talking a good 100 150 quid a night, and a times 10 that was slightly within the budget that had been agreed with Mr. Silk in advance. So I was taking the cheapo view that, you know, nice to pound at flat white from all of these places was wasn’t more cost effective of way of experiencing the ambience without necessarily staying the night. But one day, you know, if I did this again, and I don’t rule out during the whole bike ride again, that would be the way to go. The Golden Lion at northallerton was the one pocket coaching in that I stayed the night in and that was because I just pitched up there at lunchtime with Oh my god, this is just great. I can’t be bothered to cycle anymore. It was a Sunday there was a nice Sunday roast going. Change of plan. stay the night there. And I’m very glad I did that.

Carlton Reid 7:54
Huh. And then you mentioned again, this is the spooky yet that kind of things that we’re crossing. But I was at Beamish, just recently, the Northeast cultural museum. And I was also very much taken by the concept of the recreation of a 17th 18th century coaching in on site, which hasn’t happened. But and in your book, you mentioned this, and it’s like, Yeah, I thought that also piqued my interest that that’d be a fabulous place to stay, because you can’t stay at Beamish currently, but just to be able to go into a really yield. coaching, it would be fabulous.

Steve Silk 8:33
It really would. And the idea, because I did have a chat with one of the senior guys there, he was talking about how they would try to recreate the beer from the past and the meals in the past and they’d be somewhere in the corner. On the Northumbrian pipes. It does just it just does sound magnificent, doesn’t it? As I understand it, it’s all on hold. I’m not entirely sure what the latest situation is there. But I do think that at some point that that vision has to be created. And of course, they’ve had loads of problems, as lots of companies in museums have as far as COVID is concerned. So hopefully it’s just a case of that plan being on hold rather than being abandoned forever. I mean, Beamish let’s just say is a magnificent Museum in its own right already, isn’t it? It’s got so much it, I just love their approach to things when I was hanging around waiting to speak to someone there, which I you know, turned up with my notepad as a as a writer so to speak, rather than as a paying punter. On that occasion. There were people wringing their, you know, grandma’s old record player, or whatever it was in and their attitude is, we will take everything. We’re not going to be sniffy about what’s out there and what we decide is history and what we decide is an artefact or not. If you think it’s worth it, we’ll have it. That’s such a refreshing approach, isn’t it? I’ve got all the time in the world for Beamish. I think they’re doing a super job, I love the place.

Carlton Reid 10:02
So coaching in Great North Road, it almost has a flavour of like, kind of like a pre bit Brexit fantasy of, as I said before, like the olde England. So is there a danger that we’re kind of recreating a past that perhaps never actually existed? You know, like Spitfires, warm beer. How much of the of the writing of your book do you think is, is kind of going into that for kind of of Englishness that perhaps isn’t really true?

Steve Silk 10:40
Well, I’d argue with Englishness because this is a book that covers England and Scotland. So you’ve got to have that in mind as well. So it can be it’s a I guess it’s a British book rather than an English book. When it comes to Brexit, I’m a serving BBC journalist, so I will stay absolutely on the fence when it comes to that big and controversial issue of our times. But yes, I am. I am probably guilty of romanticising the past to some extent. And you know what I’ve got form for that a previous book that I’ve written looks at the worries of which is an ancient cargo boat of the Norfolk broads. And I can’t, myself perhaps from talking about how these guys operated in the past and perhaps having some rose tinted spectacles on there. Whereas the reality was, they were probably the HGV drivers of their day. As we’re coaching. Coach drivers. To a certain extent life was tough. safety standards were probably non existent all the rest of it. So yes, pretty much guilty as charged, Carlton.

Carlton Reid 12:00
And Charles Harper, I mean, many people on here won’t have heard of him. But he’s important to me. He’s clearly important to you because of what he did. Back when he did it, as you say, there’s no biographies. You can’t find out exactly his life story. But he was a cyclist, or he became you almost became like you in that he was he became a cyclist later in life. And he did it for utilitarian reasons, because he was researching all his great road books. He didn’t just do the writing was really did all sorts of the great highways of Britain, we did from a bicycle saddle. But then of course, his books came out in later editions when murdering had taken over. So tell us a little bit about what you have gone at about this cycle. touristy became a motoring tourist.

Steve Silk 12:49
So Charles Harper is a Londoner who started as an illustrator but quickly developed a taste for writing books as well and started off by writing histories or travel logs of the shorter coaching routes out of London, mostly to the south coast. So London to Brighton, London, to Hastings, London to Portsmouth. And for that he could walk because the distances weren’t too involved. If you think I’m bad at romanticising the past, Mr. Harper really goes for it. And the interesting thing about him and I think it’s an era that we forget about now is that there was this great coaching era that lasted till 1830 1830s. And then you’ve got the the motorcar doesn’t really come along until after the First World War, in terms of becoming a mass means of transport. And in that intervening best part of a century, roads go become unfashionable, the railways takeover. So as far as Harper was concerned, he was writing a history of these roads that were in inevitable decline. And that shapes how he writes about things. And I think is why he’s so fascinating for us now, because at least in those first editions, he in no way predicted that all of these coaching ins were going to get a second wind, for example, they were saved by the motorcar a lot weren’t saved, but many were so that by the time his second edition came along, he was actually able to report that various inns had reopened. So he is, I find him fascinating. He’s very old. He’s very of his time. He’s, you can’t call him old fashioned, but he’s, he’s probably slightly curmudgeonly old so and so. He was certainly very conservative in his views, but he writes beautifully and descriptively about what he saw along that road, but Pretty much a southern English view of the world. Once he gets past about Grantham, you can feel him starting to become a bit uncomfortable. He was very critical stroke snobby have anything to do with coal mines for example.

Carlton Reid 15:17
Yes, he didn’t like coal mines did he?

Steve Silk 15:18
He really didn’t like anything that wasn’t a majestic old highway of old, anything industrial and of course, the road was still being used and certainly went through many a pit village along the way. You could almost you can almost see him recoil in horror at some of the cottages that people were living in, etc, etc. But he is a very good eye witness of that time at the start of the last century. And as well as being an eyewitness in terms of what he says his illustrations, albeit perhaps, slightly sanitised are also really valuable. And they are used now by heritage England as a resource to sort of illustrate what Britain looked like before development around town centres before bypasses, and as such, I think he’s quite an important eyewitness to history of that period of England and Scotland, basically.

Carlton Reid 16:22
Hmm. Now, in your book, you do say in in in the press release, it says that this is a route that other people could follow. But we actually if you look at the maps that this is, this is a tough route, because you have got long stretches, where it is the A1(M) is the original route, it has been built over the old Great North Road. So it would be quite difficult to follow an exact route. So even you’ve had to, you’ve had to meander haven’t you, can’t follow the whole thing from from St. Paul’s Cathedral all the way to Edinburgh, you’re life is too valuable.

Steve Silk 17:04
Yes, you cannot go on the A1(M) by law, you would not want to go on the a one not m out of choice. You are able to go through town centres and the approaches in and out of lots of town centres that were the Great North Road in the old days. And there are plenty of other short segments that if your dog good enough with your research, you can find. But in another way, I wouldn’t describe it as a difficult route. In that I find that when these new cycling, projects, trails, etc, are set up quite often, they’re really challenging in terms of gradient. What I’ve done, I am not a hardcore cyclist. I am a cyclist who likes to go from A to B to C to D rather than round in a circle. Because I just like the sense of adventure. But I don’t necessarily want to do 3000 feet of ascent a day, I want to have a coffee, I want to have a nice lunch in the market square. And if there’s a stuffy old museum that no one else is in in the afternoon, I’ll stop off there for an afternoon for an hour as well. So I’m the sort of guy that doesn’t want things to be really tough in terms of the cycling, I just want to see see a bit of this country. So there’s different senses of what difficult means aren’t there? I do in my mind’s eye. I do wonder if we really could create a great North road cycling route that would roughly do what I did. ironing out some of the mistakes. But I guess that’s probably pie in the sky at the moment. There’s one there’s one place where this really got me as I was cycling off on the approach to Stilton in Cambridgeshire, Stilton has a high street that is now marooned from the a one m next to it so that you have to approach Stilton from the north then go south to go down. It’s magnificent High Street. With the bell, that’s one of my certainly in my top five great coaching into the entire route. I would love instead that on that approach right from the south, they just put a bridge across the a one there, and then we as cyclists could enjoy that as it was meant to be. And I’m sure that would be a massive use to local people as well. So yes, I’m asking for the moon and I’m wanting the government to invest in a bridge here or an underpass there. I guess it’s not gonna happen is it but I think that it would be I think there is so much enjoyment to be had from whipping through this 400 mile stretch of England and Scotland without having To be a hard core, lycra clad cyclist, you could just do it relatively gently, with a bit of help.

Carlton Reid 20:08
Because it’s the opposite a very, very historic journey and yet most cycleways, most kind of like guided cycle routes in the UK do tend to be honest, I’m generalising massively here but do tend to be East West West East rather than, you know, north south. There’s very little that actually does follow. See, you couldn’t get the Sustrans Great North Road route, in effect. So you’re saying that could potentially be something that could help?

Steve Silk 20:37
I Yes, I think so. Because I loved it. And I, I quite liked the idea of connecting up various unfashionable parts of the country, as well. And I think I was coming at it from the point of view of i’d recently done 100 mile bike ride around Norfolk the first time I’d done one of those. And I was thinking, right, what’s next, but I would never do Land’s End to john o’Groats, that just that the whole or around that just just isn’t me. Whereas the idea of doing London to Edinburgh is sort of nicely pitched in the middle there with the added advantage of two great cities at either end. So I just think it’s got something going for it. Yeah, I would love to see that happen. Even if it didn’t even if it took 20 years. Certainly what was happening and I could see in front of my very eyes was that I think even if I’d done this trip 10 years ago, there would have been fewer psychopaths. I was to some extent I planned it by I never need an excuse to buy maps. So I’d planned what I could, but to another to other other parts. I was having to make it up as I went along. And quite often there was a what looked like quite a recent psychopath in quite a useful place. So Britain is undoubtedly getting more bike friendly. year by year, almost month by month, isn’t it?

Carlton Reid 21:59
Well, on the on the Barnet bypass, which is, you know, South Mimms, basically the service station there. There’s a stretch of the old day one as the Barnet bypass, did take over there. And that’s a stretch of road that has been as you say marooned it’s no longer part of the motorway at all, obviously. And that’s the 1930s cycleway right next to it. And this is your big passion, isn’t it? Right I haven’t seen that. Yeah, fantastic. Yeah. So I’ve just got I’ve now discovered that just literally just about a month ago and went to have a look when I went and did my migraine over and then I so you took a bicycle I actually took a car which is which is crazy thing for me to do, which is cheating. Face it exactly. As you don’t even know the hills are there because you’ve got a sports car to do it. But I took I asked Morgan to supply me a car and wonderfully they did so I put a Brompton in a passenger seat and took a Morgan and didn’t much of the same journey as you but obviously had a much, much easier time of it. But then when I was driving along the a one where it’s not a one end, there’s lots of bits that I’m looking at. I know that I kind of probably see cycleways 1930 cycleways, where they perhaps don’t even exist. But I did see lots of bits that looked in a period. So they they did put an awful lot of cycleways down next to the a one. So I don’t think anybody would want to cycle on those bits. But technically, there are lots of bits of the road which you could probably connect up and you could create a route and then it’d be a historic route and it wouldn’t be Land’s End to john o’Groats. You’re right. It’ll be this historic north, south or South North route, which which is, clearly the reason you’ve written the book is because that’s incredibly historic. And we’re ignoring that by doing these routes that are meandering, but not quite as important. Absolutely.

Steve Silk 24:01
But what I’d add to that is that if they’re if the alternative to doing a mile two miles directly alongside but safely alongside the current a one if the alternative to that was a massive meander that took you 10 miles out of your way, because there simply isn’t an alternative, then I’d be happy to do that. And and indeed, I did do that on one or two parts during the book. So I think as a means of just connecting somewhere safe to somewhere else safe, that where there was some sort of separation between you and the traffic, I think that would work perfectly well. So and of course, your 1930s cycleways are them, which I haven’t heard of until you brought them to my attention are themselves historic, aren’t they? So you could argue that’s, that’s actually adding to the history of the Great North Road. It’s it’s a 1930 slice of history. They’re just waiting to be rediscovered.

Carlton Reid 24:54
Hmm, there’s a slice up in Durham which I know you. I’m reckoning you must have diverged. away from the road at this point, cuz you in your book you went actually went into Durham where of course, yes, the Great North Road, obviously the a one of the 1920s didn’t go there. But there’s one stretch, which is actually the original 1930 cycleway that though I first discovered and first realised was what was going on here. And that just outside at Durham, and there’s a beautiful one mile stretch of former a worn it used to be a service station. They’re called Cock of the north. Yes, I know. Exactly. Yes. They’re talking the North pub there either anymore. And that was just a housing estate now. That’s right. Yeah. I haven’t got a copy of the North housing estate. But that would net that that cycle way that was put in on the Great North Road back in 1937. probably didn’t get a great deal of use back then. But we’ll get used now because it’s it has it anyway, where we’re diverting away from your book a bit here. So the book is out in in July July the eighth is that writes correctly. Summersdale is the publishing house. I’ve got a pre publication, uncorrected book proof here in front of me so I read it all yesterday. And I’ll tell you why I read it yesterday, I had my second job. Yesterday, I had other things to do I was going to be doing. But I was feeling a bit under the weather. And I just sat down in the kitchen with my dog and just read the whole thing from from from start to finish so so in one sitting so I immensely enjoyed your book and people who get to see it get to read it in on July the eighth will will enjoy it to that end the book. I think you’ve come across, either deliberately, or, or maybe not deliberately as somebody who’s almost a beginner cyclist because you’re making like rookie mistakes like you’re like you’re not eating correctly. So you’re talking about the cyclists bonk, you’re talking about going into a bike shop at one point, and having to get emergency Shammi cream, for instance, again, like another rookie mistake, yet, as you said, You’ve done 100 mile rides in Norfolk. And now I want you to tell away from the book, I would now want you to tell me about your your student days when you were in effect a hardcore cyclist because you were on Mission and Sixth in San Francisco. Delivering packages as a bicycle messenger in the most romantic place. You could possibly be a bike messenger in the 1980s and pop maybe London or New York and San Francisco just a wonderful place to do it. So you are hardcore cyclist?

Steve Silk 27:46
Well, you say that and It does sound really cool now doesn’t it? But I didn’t. I genuinely didn’t see it like that at the time. And I didn’t see that I was going there to be a cyclist. It was a couple of other mates from Newcastle uni we we ditched in the day job that was at some sort of summer camp, we’d got our visas and we thought right sorted. Let’s take a car across America. So we were just being classic students with us with three or four months of summer in front of us. And we did one of those driveway things where you drive a car from east to west for someone who’s moving. And then we just all three of us pitched up in San Francisco. And by complete luck, not because I was this hardcore bike geezer at all. I ended up as a cyclist as a cycle messenger, delivering what we would now call JPEGs, or emails. And it was it was fantastic. And I’ve never been fitter in all my life. But I see what you’re saying. You’re saying, well, how’s this guy who had this seemingly really cool job knows all about cycling? How’s he making rookie errors all these years later? Well, one, it was just one hell of a summer summer. Two, I then forgot about cycling. I can’t explain or justify this for about 20 years, until picking up a bike again. I don’t know how old I was 45 or something. And it’s only in the last 10 years that I’ve just started messing about on a bike again. And even when you do that, and I go out we religiously four or five, six of us go out on a Saturday morning here in my village in Norfolk. Even then we’re only just having a laugh. I’m not someone who’s ever been part of a of a cycling club. Yes, there’s a bit of lycra now because you end up with it, don’t you but I’ve never done anything more serious. So those rookie errors aren’t Let me tell you absolutely genuine there is no there is no there is no way that I’ve exaggerated that all these things happen because I was just Learning as I went

Carlton Reid 30:02
and that bike shop very kindly to to smother it upstairs. It was a room that was just basically an open room. It didn’t sound as though they said go to the toilet or just upstairs in this bike shop.

Steve Silk 30:19
Oh, do we have to do this bit but yes, it’s a very small lovely lovely bike shop in in a one in a yard in Darlington upstairs will sort of have more of the area sort of semi storeroom feel to it. And yes, I, I applied my new purchase up there. And I instantly benefited please let’s move on before there’s any more detail about that for your poor listeners.

Carlton Reid 30:49
Well, it’s gonna be cute because if people are gonna be buying this book aren’t gonna be hardcore sign because I’m assuming it’s more of a travelogue. That general interest is going to people you don’t have to be a cyclist to buy this book is what I’m trying to say. And

Steve Silk 31:04
coming at it. Yeah, the bike just happens to be the best method of exploring this road.

Carlton Reid 31:11
Yes. So people are going to find that they’re gonna find this incredibly funny, because this is an alien world. To most people like me reading this book about you put what and you put it where I didn’t know this. So those are kind of anecdotes that jumped out at me, because I find this completely normal, but other people are going to go. What? I’ve never heard of this stuff before.

Steve Silk 31:39
I guess so I guess and the other thing you just mentioned on is the word bonking which we must explain to non cyclists means when you absolutely run out of energy and you almost collapse on the roadside, which is what happened to me just north of Grantham. That’s the other one where I it wasn’t that I hadn’t heard of that I heard had heard of it as a concept that cyclists run out of fuel. It’s just that I was learning as I went on exactly how much fuel I need to keep going. And I use the word fuel advisedly, it doesn’t become food anymore, does it? I have just come back three mates and myself from doing three gruelling days in Mid Wales on the trans Cambrian way on a guided route with a group called MTB, whales who are magnificent By the way, and I’ve learned my lesson from from the Great North Road. And all the time going up these ridiculously steep mountains and hillsides in Wales, I was just eating flapjack I didn’t want to eat flapjack I wasn’t even hungry. But I knew that if I didn’t eat stuff now, I was really going to suffer in an hour and a half’s time. So from that point of view, I have I have learned since but yes, that’s something that you do need to know about, don’t you but I guess even if you’ve heard of the concept, you don’t know exactly how much fuel you as an individual will need. If it’s day four, when you’ve done 55 miles the previous day, and decent manages the previous two as well.

Carlton Reid 33:15
Hmm. Now I noted before that when we mentioned the nasty B word, or maybe the lovely B word depending on your your point of view, it didn’t really get into politics because of your, your your BBC employment. But if you don’t mind and and then let’s see how far we how far I can push you here. The BBC does get a lot of stick at the moment for introducing what in effect are anti cycling topics and that can be local, and it can be national, it can be on, you know, mainstream, you know, radio programmes where they’ve mentioned stuff, which does tend to buy into the concept of you know, Britain not being that much of a a positive cycling nation. So what kind of feedback have you had from your colleagues about the fact that you are I’m using air quotes here, a MAMIL?

Steve Silk 34:18
I would say that my colleagues just know that Steve’s a cyclist they know that if he’s come back off a week away it’ll be a good thing to say. Where have you been on your bike then Steve that that’s that’s the level of it there’s no opposition to it. There’s nothing that’s particularly pro it’s just a thing they know that that this this I do. I still think that steering clear the BBC as ice will consistently throughout this interview. I still think that Britain is getting better. I live on the outskirts of Norwich. Norwich has introduced a lot of wew cycling paraphernalia just over the recent two or three years or so, I think we’re definitely moving in the right direction. But I am gonna because it is the day job and because I have to be really, really careful when it comes to any of the politics around that I’m afraid you’re not going to tempt me at all.

Carlton Reid 35:17
I understand that I’m going to carry on, I’m going to try on, I’m going to I’m going to poke you. And it’s not because at the end, this is what I want to talk about this and not your book. But just It is interesting, because the whole cultural woke agenda, or anti woke agenda does very often use cycling as as a as a as something to really, really go out because it does go some people. So you in lycra, benign. Me in Lycra, benign. A granny on a bike, benign. And yet the mainstream media does seem to recognise that by mentioning the word cyclist, it does. You know, it does touch a lot of buttons. And that’s not a BBC thing. That’s a mainstream media thing. So what can you do, if anything to combat that, if you even want to combat that?

Steve Silk 36:14
I do agree with you that many’s the time when I’ve had conversations, even with my relatives, and they’re bemoaning the fact that they’ve been delayed by all of 20 seconds, because there was a group of four cyclists in front of them on the B road, and I’m saying yes, well, that could have been me. And for goodness sake, you know, I’m Scott just as much right to the road as anyone else. So you’re dead, right, that there’s still a lot of opposition, I within the last two or three months, I’ve had a situation where I gently with my right hand, just said, with an up and down movement asked someone to slow down as they sped past me. And the response was absolute foul mouth abuse by a driver who got out reverse came back looking for trouble. And that can be absolutely terrifying. And completely over the top. So you’re dead, right? It’s still absolutely out there, isn’t it? what we do as a group with the with the guys that I go out with every Saturday is we’re obsequiously pleasant, and thankful to every single motorist who even gives us the time of day. And we shout and we smile to every single passing dog walker, and we try to be personal ambassadors for it. I mean, we shouldn’t have to, should we but that’s the stage I think we’re at that I go out of my way every stage to look. Motorists in the eye smile, be humans show that I am a human being and I’m just having a nice time on my bike. That’s my personal approach. And that I have to say works quite well. On the on the streets of Norfolk. It’s probably slightly more tricky in a big city.

Carlton Reid 38:09
And do you think that this book which doesn’t mention cycling in the title, it doesn’t really even make it big style into the into the subhead, it’s just as two wheels? Do you think that potentially has a mollifying effect, in that it’s a travelogue? You just happen to be on a bicycle? And people might just devis a slightly just think it’s a bike, it’s a normal thing to do? Or do you think it’s, it’s still seen as a quite a bizarre thing to be doing?

Steve Silk 38:38
I hadn’t thought of that at all. So what that’s really interesting, and the one thing I’d say about the cover of the book is that it features a bloke who is me on a bike, it’s an artist’s impression. So it is clear that it’s a cycling book from the, the, it might not be in the actual words, but it’s clearly there in the in the cover. I hadn’t seen it as playing any kind of ambassadorial role, perhaps because I’m not quite so feel myself on the on the front line of changing opinions and any kind of culture war that’s out there against cyclists which I I think you’re much more aware of than I am but if it did, well magnificent and I suppose I can see the logic of your point of view in that I am I am far from being hardcore in anything i’m i’m open about my limitations out as a cyclist and open about the mistakes that I make. So yes, from that point of view, perhaps I don’t feel like I’m from a from a different planet, which I think is sometimes the impression that you get certainly the the guy on this Norfolk street that was effing and blinding me a few weeks ago and just made it clear that he thought we were all just a completely alien. He was a considerably less articulate in his use of words than that. But yes, it can have a small impact. Fantastic.

Carlton Reid 40:08
See hidden Riverside Norwich to go back to one of your other books where were you where you’re in effect you’re a canoeist. You’re an “ist” there there’s no conflict there. Because if you’re you’ve got a canoe you’re not gonna be holding up anybody apart from maybe, Oh, I didn’t know you could

Steve Silk 40:29
you could be conflict with anglers land landowners can be very, very fussy about it. And my view on that is that if you’re on the water you you You’re okay that I don’t think is the precise legal position everywhere and and I always do my best to to obey the laws of trespass although it can be complicated and difficult and you can stray into unintentionally into difficult areas. So no, they can always can get some can get some grief too.

Carlton Reid 41:01
I did I did even when I said that I thought I shouldn’t have said that because I before I became a cyclist and I am that is very much that is. I was a canoeist. So I actually sold to get my first bike which I bought in Norwich in a bike shop was no longer there. I sold my canoe so I did an awful lot of canoeing on the Norfolk broads as many whitewater rapids as I could get in Norfolk, which wasn’t that much. So I started as a canoe is doing an awful lot of this stuff that you’ve probably done in your in your book, sort of like a hidden river seidner it’s I’ve done tonnes of canoeing in Norwich, it is a wonderful place to do it, but yes, you’re right. I’ve never forgotten it. I’ve now blanked out all of that conflict that was there I was I was it was almost like a full history that I’ve created for myself on the the blissful canoeing when there was an enormous amount of conflict and you’re right there’s tonnes of trespass conflict with canoeing twos, and it wasn’t a very good analogy at all I do apologise but

Steve Silk 41:56
but look, you’re you’re it’s really interesting because you you are defining yourself as an investor. Again, I hadn’t seen that before. I don’t think I’ve ever seen myself as either a canoeist or a cyclist I am just a bloke who does those things rather than defining myself as them so there’s a subtle difference there isn’t there this weekend I’m I want to go out my canoe because that’s the nice way to get out and explore the countryside and switch off from work next week. It might be a bike the following week, it might be a you know 12 mile walk or something so yes, I guess I’m not pigeon holing myself if that’s the right term labelling myself quite as you say it but I hadn’t even seen the difference till you described it like

Carlton Reid 42:40
the I’m very guilty obviously in my line of work I’ve pigeon holed myself, but then other people will will absolutely pigeonhole me which is probably one of the reasons why I did the Great North Road not on a bicycle like you did it, but in a Morgan so that when I do get attacked, I do get attacked on social media from from, from motorists who are like hardcore, then I can say, Well, look, you know that I’m not this this this pigeonhole person on a bicycle only, I also use the form of transport you love to. So that kind of, you know, trying to not get pigeonholed is probably a good thing.

Steve Silk 43:26
And, and did it work with the Morgan?

Carlton Reid 43:29
so far on social media, I haven’t really been attacked. But I was dallying in actually changing my profile on Twitter and all sorts to just me and a Morgan just to see if it confuses people. Because obviously, I am known as being ultra, ultra ultra cycle ist. And I am I can’t get away from that fact. But that doesn’t mean to say, I can’t enjoy other forms of transport, too. And that is that we do get pigeonholed. And people make assumptions about people that aren’t always correct.

Steve Silk 44:09
Yes, absolutely. And it’s only you know, a part of your life. You’re on this one was transport and that form of transport. No, I quite agree. I have to say I, I only dabble in the the paddling pool, end of, of Twitter. But I’ve never had any bad experiences, which is, I guess, given that I’ve got a little cycling emoji there. And I all I talk about is great North Road and a bit of cycling. I have to say I’ve been mercifully free of that, and long may that continue. Hmm.

Carlton Reid 44:41
So let me just say that. So say, we know you’ve been to San Francisco, which is hardcore. But we know that you went to a bike shop to put on chamois cream when you should have been having a rotten beginning. So that’s a rookie error. So we know there’s these two very different aspects of your cyclist life. But do you do use a bicycle in any other part of your life apart from going touring? So for instance, you live in about 12 miles out of Norwich would you cycle to work for instance?

Steve Silk 45:18
I have cycled to work, but I don’t do it routinely and I probably should do. I think if I lived well,

Carlton Reid 45:27
not too bad, Steve. Sorry. 12 miles is not too bad. It’s you know, it’s

Steve Silk 45:34
no, it’s not it’s perfectly doable. It’s perfectly doable. I think what I probably am moving towards is cycling to sorry, driving towards the outskirts of Norwich and then having some kind of fold up bike that I would then do the last two or three miles on I everyone’s got an excuse haven’t laid but I quite often don’t finish my working day till half past seven at night. So for much of the year that means coming home 12 miles in the dark, which I don’t quite fancy every day but hey, look, maybe that’s a pathetic excuse. I haven’t I normally as you say I am a leisure cyclist but with chucking in the odd cycle to work journey in there as well. Hmm.

Carlton Reid 46:20
We’ll see. But it’s been absolutely fascinating talking to you. I’m sure we could reminisce about our Norfolk and Newcastle backgrounds until the cows came home. But let’s find out a bit more about your book. So if you can give us a website for the book give us your Twitter handle and and your publisher’s details. So let’s let’s get all that stuff on on tape.

Steve Silk 46:45
Yes, so the best thing as far as the book is concerned is to go via the summerdale website or at some as Dale on Twitter. I have a personal website that is great North Road dot info. But Twitter is the best way to keep in touch with what I’m about. And my handle for that is @greatnorthroad2. The book comes out with Summersdale on July the eighth and it will be available in a lot of the book shops up and down the 400 mile length a one as well as all the other usual places.

Carlton Reid 47:25
Thank you very much and can I ask who was @greatnorthroad1 or who was @greatNorthRoad on Twitter?

Steve Silk 47:30
Someone who’s who’s 15 followers and has only posted about twice and it’s very frustrating that that’s I haven’t got it off him or her maybe I should try harder and do a do a deal there maybe often a couple of copies of the book and maybe I could we could swap handles

Carlton Reid 47:48
Thanks to Steve Silk there and thanks to you for listening to the Spokesmen Cycling Podcast. Show notes and more can be found on the-spokesmen.com. It’s the start of the Tour de France next week and you’ll soon hear some Grand Boucle Bonne mottes from the Spokesmen regulars but meanwhile get out there and ride.

If your podcast catcher not showing in links above (black circle with three dots)? Loads more on PodLink. Show is also on Spotify. and Google Podcasts.

9th May 2021

The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 274: Curbing cars with Chris and Melissa Bruntlett

SPONSOR: Jenson USA

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUESTS: Chris and Melissa Bruntlett

TOPICS: A 65-minute chat with Chris and Melissa Bruntlett, authors of “Curbing Traffic” from Island Press and published at the end of June.

LINKS:

Book promo codes

Island Press

Dutch Cycling Embassy

Mobycon

TRANSCRIPT:

Carlton Reid 0:13
Welcome to episode 274 of the Spokesmen cycling Podcast. This show was uploaded on Sunday 9th May 2021.

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 Fredcast cycling podcast at www.Fredcast.com. I’m one of the hosts and producers of the Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast. For shownotes links and all sorts of other information please visit our website at www.the- spokesmen.com. And now, here are the spokesmen.

Carlton Reid 1:07
In 2019 Chris and Melissa Bruntlett moved from Vancouver — often billed as one of the world’s most attractive cities to live — to make a new life in the Netherlands. They’ve just bought a house in Delft and, as you’ll soon hear, it sounds like this famous urbanist couple will be staying in cycling paradise. I’m Carlton Reid and in this one-hour show I asked Chris and Melissa to describe the premise of their great new book, chapter by chapter. I was hounded to learn that I was one of the first to get a hold of a PDF of the book, which doesn’t come out until the end of next month so this is fantastic sneak preview for you, and listen on because there’s also a promo code where you can save a chunk of cash of Curbing Traffic, which will be published by Island Press on June 29th.

Carlton Reid 2:03
Chris, Melissa, fantastic. And thank you ever so much for coming back on on the show, because you have been on the spokesman podcast numerous times. Probably previous books, you have got this, this this, this new book, curbing traffic now that will be excellent for the people who listen to this. Because it’s not just about bikes, because your previous book we can talk about that was about bikes. And this is just the basic of getting rid of cars. Now I don’t know how we want to do this. Are you going to be because you’re in separate rooms in your in your in your fairytale house in Delft. But how are we because previously you’ve been like sharing a laptop, but you’re actually in different rooms. And you can come in here. So what do you want? What should I say, Melissa? Chris? Or you’re just gonna we’re gonna do this freeform? How do I do? How do you answer the questions?

Melissa Bruntlett 2:58
I think we’re both pretty good at figuring out who wants to say what or jovially interrupting each other? So if there’s any, I think I think if it’s a specific question for one of us, that probably you know, if you want to direct it, that makes sense. But yeah, I don’t think we’ll leave you with any too much dead air. Right, Chris?

Chris Bruntlett 3:21
No, exactly. And I think usually one of us will start answering a question and the other one will finish it. So whoever gets in first gets the lead. And we usually both are on the same wavelength, even if we’re not in the same room. So I don’t have any concerns.

Carlton Reid 3:37
Let’s in that case, let’s kick off with a question that links to that. And just how do you physically write books together as a married couple, and be just as somebody writing one sentence, and then somebody completes the other one? What is your writing method as a couple?

Melissa Bruntlett 3:56
That’s actually an excellent question that we get a lot. Because a lot of people will say it’s impossible to work with your partner, let alone write a book with them. I think for Chris and I, with the first book, we took a very pragmatic approach, we because we had been writing blogs for so long, individually, we approached each chapter as for individual blogs, and we each selected which section of that we were going to focus on, and then basically married them together. And both reading over making sure that the styles flow because I obviously will write a little bit differently than Chris does. But for this book, we sort of approached it because each contain each chapter contains a story of part of our experience in the first two years living in Delft. We basically took ownership of each of those stories. And so if it was something that I experienced more prevalently than Chris, for example, with the feminist city chapter, then I would leave the writing of that chapter or for Chris, the experience of the sound difference in the sound quality and delve has had a much stronger impact on him. And not that it hasn’t on me as well. So that was one that he took ownership of. And then yeah, at the end of the day, we we go through the chapters, at our little pieces here and there to make it flow to make sure that it has the emotion along with the hard facts with with that and with the data. And overall come up with what what we’re always quite proud of, I think.

Chris Bruntlett 5:30
Yeah, I think you’ve, you’ve said it, well, most of you bring the emotion and a lot of cases and I bring the the wanke the policy focus. And so yeah, and so we not only do we complement each other, well, we bring each other’s writing back to the middle, I think. So Melissa will write a segment and I’ll go in and kind of polish it up. And vice versa, I’ll write something and she’ll dewonkify it, you know, make it less technical and more approachable. So it’s, it’s kind of divide, as Melissa said, dividing the chapter up into pieces, each taking a piece, but then going back and rewriting each other sentences and putting your ego aside and just trusting each other to kind of make make the pros better. And eventually, you know, the whole the finished book has probably been read over and revise the dozen times. But we’re finally reached a point where we’re ready to let it go with and that it’s happy. It’s suitable for a while not just an urbanism audience but a mainstream mainstream audience. We’re always writing for the the casual reader if you will.

Carlton Reid 6:37
So let’s let’s get into into the book a little bit more. So it’s it’s Curbing Traffic. And it’s another Island Press book. So that’s that’s the disclaimer here that that’s also my publisher, who did buy my couple of books and you’ve now got a couple of books with them. Quickly, when is it out? If I got like an advance copy? Or is it physically going to be out?

Chris Bruntlett 7:01
Yeah, the official release date is June 29. So it’s still a couple months from when we’re speaking but the the pre orders should start shipping late May early June because the the publication date natural physical manufacturing date is about a month before the release date. But you have most definitely have a early review copy Carlton, one of the first people to see it in its final form.

Carlton Reid 7:26
In which case, I’m very honoured. Thank you very much. And ite’s an excellent, excellent book and it’s it’s just packed and packed and packed with both the emotional part and the statistical but the the wonky the kind of the transport professional part, when you both transport professional anyway, but that it’s just full of meat is what I’m trying to say. So it has been a fantastic reading. I’ve really, really enjoyed it. And one of my questions is gonna be before actually physically read the book was going to be and we’ll get into your biographical details and when you moved to the Netherlands and a second, but it was gonna be you know, is this a stage of your life that you’re going through? And eventually you’ll go back to Canada. And then I read that the last few paragraphs in the book and the photograph of you on the stoop on the on your outside of your your wonderful 130 year old canalside house. And when you’ve bought a house there, and you’re pretty much saying you’re living here for the rest of your lives, that’s your fairy tale. So would that be you you put that in the book? Had you thought about that? Or do you did you talked about that before? putting that in the book? Or was it something that the book has crystallised for you?

Melissa Bruntlett 8:43
I think from the moment we made the decision to move to the Netherlands, I think we both approached it as this could possibly be a very permanent move for us. As we say in the introduction, you know, we we reached sort of a moment in Vancouver where we absolutely loved the city. We love living in British Columbia and being surrounded by all the natural beauty and the city itself is such a wonderful place to live and to raise kids. But we really needed to downsize, we’d reached I guess, that proverbial point in your lives when you’re at your late 30s, early 40s. And you want to settle down a little. And we found ourselves prior to making the decision to move to the Netherlands, struggling to find a city that we could enjoy the quality of life that we did in Vancouver. Being car free, in terms of our living circumstance, and being able to walk in cycle and enjoy the city without having, you know, to rely on cars to get us around. It was really hard to find a place that could mimic that in and around where we were living in Vancouver or even returning back to Ontario in more central Eastern Canada where our parents and siblings live and so we knowing we were coming to a country where we were going to be able to enjoy a similar quality of life in terms of how we moved, we sort of knew that this is likely going to be a rather permanent move for us. And yes, that was solidified a, you know, when we decided to buy a house here and really set some roots down. But I think even before we got here, we knew that this could end very well might be a permanent stay for us.

Chris Bruntlett 10:29
Well, the very last chapter of the book is about the idea of ageing in place and building Age Friendly cities. And I think that the very end of the writing process helped us understand that we wanted to live in a city that allowed us to age in place that didn’t force us as our, perhaps our parents and other relatives, to either become reliant on other people for our transportation, or move elsewhere in the city so that we’re more conveniently located to the services that we need. We knew we had everything we needed in Delft within a 10 minute walk. And as Melissa said, just purchasing this home on a canal, the five minute walk from the city centres is crystallised everything we’ve been thinking about. And we really see ourselves getting old and living forever in this house, because it’s perfectly located perfect size. And we don’t see ourselves in the future. You know, having to be necessarily moving to as if we’re looking for proximity, mobility, or other compromise to make other compromises in terms of the location. Delft is a city where people from young to old can can exist quite comfortably.

Carlton Reid 11:53
The book is a love story, then it absolutely you as a couple, of course, and then just you falling in love with Delft that that’s absolutely there, of course, and getting rid of cars, which is a lovely concept. But the book is about getting rid of cars, but might you just the book actually be you should move to that Delft if you want to live the lifestyle that you’re describing in Delft, this lovely story, shouldn’t you just move to Delft?

Chris Bruntlett 12:21
I wouldn’t say that. No, I mean, not everyone has the privilege, the ability, the means the and in terms of physical space, it’s impossible to everybody to move to the Netherlands. And it’s certainly not what we’re advocating, we’re quite open in the book that we do have this who have had this privilege to move here. But there’s little do we know when we decided to move to Delft that it was really kind of this this place in the 1970s, that tried a lot of different policies, from the corner to the traffic circulation plan, to the low car city centre. These are policies that can be implemented virtually at anywhere, and they are starting to be implemented in places of the world like Barcelona and Auckland. So our intention was not to say, you know, everybody come here to experience this quality of life, it’s to build this quality of life into your own city simply by treating cars as guests, rather than as we have in the last 40 to 50 years treating them as the guest of honour in our urban fabric.

Melissa Bruntlett 13:26
Yeah, I think, I think what’s I think what I really wanted, and what Chris and I think both really wanted to sort of challenge is that it shouldn’t involve or shouldn’t be a prerequisite that you have this privilege to be able to move to a city like this, which it shouldn’t be that you have to leave where you are to experience a higher quality of life. And so you know, both of us in our day jobs, were so focused on exporting a lot of this knowledge to international cities to really help everywhere start to realise the benefits and also start working towards creating these more human focus cities. So we understand that, you know, for example, the suburb of Ontario and Kitchener Waterloo that we grew up in, is never going to be exactly emulating Delft, for example. But there are a lot of things that can be done to help lower car usage, provide people with other options, connect them with their community in a better way, that, you know, they don’t have to move across the Atlantic to a Dutch city to be able to enjoy a better quality of life. These ideas should and can and are being applied in order to make sure that for those that don’t have the ability to pack up their family and move to another country, another city, that their city can start to enjoy some of these same benefits that we’ve come to enjoy having lived here.

Carlton Reid 14:50
Hmm. Melissa, you mentioned your careers there. So that’s a good time to introduce the fact that you’re working for Mobycon. And then Chris, you’re working for the Dutch Cycling Embassy. So, Melissa first, tell me what Mobycon is. And you kind of briefly touched upon it there. But just tell us again. And then Chris, you follow that up by telling us a bit more about the Dutch Cycling Embassy?

Melissa Bruntlett 15:15
Yeah, sure. So Mobycon is a Dutch North American consultancy, that focuses on sustainable mobility. So here in the Netherlands, there’s a lot of focus on all aspects, whether that’s walking placemaking cycling, or public transport, how do they move to more sustainable choices, obviously, there is a lot of sustainable sustainable mobility here in the Netherlands. But that doesn’t mean there’s not room for improvement. But for my part, I work with our international team in exporting a lot of that knowledge largely focused around cycling, but also placemaking. And walking, both elsewhere in Europe, so across the continent, but we’ve also done some work in the UK. And then we have offices in Canada and the US where we are taking a lot of the ideas that Chris and I presented, for example, in the first book in building the cycling city, and applying them in context, through design through planning through policy in cities and towns throughout Canada in the US.

Chris Bruntlett 16:15
Yeah, so I find myself in the very strange position that I am a Canadian, advocating for the Netherlands as the world’s leading cycling nation. But the the, the fact of the matter is, as a Dutch Cycling Embassy, it’s a organisation that public private partnership that the national government here in the Netherlands started, basically to export the knowledge and expertise that exists here in this country, and it’s been built over the last 50 years or so. So, we have about 80 different organisations within our network. They are private consultants such as mobicom. They are bicycle manufacturers, like Gazelle. They are the various municipal governments, universities and bike parking manufacturers, all looking to work overseas and help cities and regions become more bicycle friendly. So we bring teams around the world to host workshops, webinars, training. And then inversely, we also do a lot of study tours and welcome groups from elsewhere in the world and take them for tours and classroom sessions to learn from the the amazing conditions here. And so yeah, as I said, I’m marketing and communication manager selling Dutch cycling as as this foreigners is international outside voice but I think it just speaks volumes to how normalised and mundane cycling has become here that that most people who live here don’t think it’s it’s special or recognise it as something that’s should be spread or or exported around the world.

Carlton Reid 17:52
In your book, you mentioned it on that point that you know, when you go you have been abroad. And then you come back you kind of hear the birdsong. You hear the quietude of Delft, of course, a lot of people have roughly the same thing. Even in the most busy, you know, urban cities with with COVID-19 Coronavirus, where people in cities heard that song again. So we kind of all had that that brief glimpse of what you’re getting on a daily basis. Do you think that COVID-19 might actually help urbanist people interested in getting rid of cars to actually get rid of cars?

Melissa Bruntlett 18:37
Right, think for Chris and I that’s certainly the hope. And we found ourselves in this interesting position. We were writing the book. So we had pitched it to Ireland press hadn’t had everything approved. And it started the initial writing process before the pandemic hit. And we actually had several moments that when we’re writing the first few chapters where we’re like, is this even going to be relevant anymore what we’re writing because everyone is experiencing exactly what we’re trying to promote. But I think and Chris would probably agree that I think the challenge now is to not return to the status quo, which we have seen happen in a few cities, as things start to open up again, that this return to car use, or for busier cities, it losing some of that quality that a lot of people experienced. And so we really hope that with that knowledge with that experience, plus what we’ve written in the book, it helps to really solidify why it’s really important because yeah, that that birdsong we have we remember Clarence Eckerson in New York, commenting us in the heart of Manhattan, Manhattan hearing birds. And you know, who wouldn’t want that on a much more regular basis in New York City to be able to hear the natural world around you and so yeah, I guess the challenge now is to record Notice how important that experience was and should be continued. But yeah, I I remain pessimistically optimistic. Maybe Chris feels a little bit differently. But yeah, I, I was amazing that that was all happening as we were writing this. And I really hope it helps to reinforce what we were saying.

Chris Bruntlett 20:20
Well, I think you know, historically much is made of the Netherlands, experiencing the OPEC oil crisis in the 1970s, in the six weeks where they suddenly had a gasoline shortage and the sale of bicycles doubled. It was kind of this lightbulb moment as a society when they realised they had to build a more resilient transport system and, and look at their streets a little bit differently, both in terms of the politicians, but also in terms of the general population. We’re seeing sparks of that light bulb moment now in cities around the world. We always joked beforehand that to make these changes, people would need to come to the Netherlands to experience them firsthand. But they really experienced them on their front porch and on their front doorstep. For albeit, you know, a short period of time, but suddenly, they were out on their street, sometimes playing tennis, interacting with their neighbours for the first time, breathing the air, smelling the ocean, if they lived by the sea, hearing the birds seeing what their city looked like with fewer cars. zooming around, and now as Moses hinted is, is capturing that momentum, supporting elected officials that are going to implement some of the puppet changes that have been made, whether it’s puppet bike infrastructure, or pop up dining terraces, but making sure that this moment turns into a movement for cities that are prioritise the people that live in them, rather than the vehicles, the motor vehicles that they drive.

Carlton Reid 21:51
Now, Island Press is, of course, a climate change specialist publisher. So it must have been a relatively easy pitch. I mean, it’s never an easy pitch ever, but it must have been relatively easy pitch to say to a climate change publisher, we want to write a book about getting rid of cars. Was that something that just went? Oh, yes, we absolutely need a book like that. How was that that publication? process? How did that go for you?

Chris Bruntlett 22:21
Actually, it was quite difficult to be honest, I don’t think we always package this as our personal story. That would include some of the anecdotes of us moving here. And I don’t think I’ve impressive really published a book like that before. I think they’re very kind of policy nonfiction. technical stuff. Exactly. Exactly. So we had some convincing to do to be honest, to get them on board and you know, ultimately, we didn’t know well, we didn’t want to write building the cycling city to we didn’t want to just you know tell the same story or or slightly different story. We wanted to make this project personal we wanted to make it emotive use our engaging the reader user help them to experience what we’ve experienced here bring them along for a journey that also includes some some technical facts and figures to backup our case. But yeah, it was a bit of a pitch to get them to come along for the ride Not to mention you know, we were promotion for this book is going to look a lot different than the first book with us both working day jobs and having relocated to Europe. There was not going to be any kind of multi week tour of America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand as it was the first time around. So a lot has changed since since we wrote our first book and so we’re having to adapt and also bring Island press along for the ride but we hope their their faith in us will be rewarded again.

Carlton Reid 23:54
It’s tough to say that this is one of my favourites because it’s certainly my favourites Of course in in your book, it’s it’s wonderful. But I found especially cute, the the bits of Dutch that you put into the book, and I’m very pleased that you’ve put those bits of Dutch into the book because it really adds a lot of flavour. Yes, you’re learning the language, of course, but you’re also learning in a really cute part of the language, you know, these kind of, you know, aphorisms and and words and phrases that are just so wonderful. Now one of them I picked out was and of course you’re gonna be able to pronounce as much better than me. Uitwaaien is wind bath?

Melissa Bruntlett 24:35
Yes.

Carlton Reid 24:36
So describe what a wind bath concept what a wind bath is and please correct my pronunciation.

Melissa Bruntlett 24:44
Yeah, so that would be uitwaaien. Which, funnily enough, Chris and I seem to be experiencing everyday. It’s been a very windy April and May or, you know, year here in the Netherlands. But essentially, that’s the content of going out and getting fresh air or frisse neus. You know, having the wind in your face sort of washing away any of the stresses of the day or the week or the month. And, you know, it’s, you know, in Canada, we would talk about going out to get a breath of fresh air. Similarly, but in this case, you have quite heavy winds in your face. And it’s, it’s a, it’s, it’s an experience to have the first few times, but I understand why that now having lived here for as long as we have, why it’s important for people because it’s just this like removal of Yeah, just the stress that most of us experience, you know, being whether you will have a family or you’re working full time or however you might experience stress. It’s just a way to wash that all the way in what is a very prevalent force of nature here in the country. And I think in the book and I like Chris. Yes, exactly. No hills, lots of wind.

Chris Bruntlett 26:01
Yeah, I just realised, though, that you use the term frisse neus without actually translating it. So we Oh, yeah. brilliant, brilliant, turn a phrase from the Dutch, which literally means “fresh nose.” So when they say that they’re going to get fresh air, it’s actually kind of, they’re going to get a fresh nose. But yeah, I mean, it just comes back to this connection with nature that the Dutch have in their cities because they haven’t paved over every square inch of it. So by having fewer room for cars, fewer lanes, more roundabouts that are vegetated, they’ve got room for more trees, more grass more. And then the compact cities allow for a greater proximity to the surrounding polders and forests and nature. But you’re never very far from greenery or water. And this acts as a therapeutic sensation that improves people’s mental health and overall well being. And again, I think it’s something that we we often neglect when we talk about city living, we assume that it has to be stressful and, and, and bleak, and Asheville everywhere when we can, if we simply reallocate the space on our cities create greenery that’s inter woven with the the streets and intersections and the public spaces.

Carlton Reid 27:21
I’m gonna pick out another phrase and you can give me the Dutch I’ll give you just the English because I absolutely guarantee I’ll murder the Dutch but the phrase is “we’re not the same, but we’re worth the same.” So what’s the what if you can remember what’s that in Dutch? And then just describe roughly was talking about? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 27:38
I don’t, don’t remember the exact that’s turn of phrase because it’s slightly different. But this is in the, in the context of a really egalitarian society. So we make this point that the streets are accessible to everybody, whether they have a, you know, a 50,000 Euro Mercedes Benz or a 50 Euro bicycle, and it’s really ingrained in the culture here that there’s a real sense of equity. And so there’s not this class spaced, reinforced class reinforced system that permeates all levels of society, not the least of which are there their streets and cycle tracks and public spaces. So welcome coming

Carlton Reid 28:27
So did you find the phrase Melissa?

Melissa Bruntlett 28:28
I’m now I’m googling it, because now I can’t remember it. I’m even searching in the manuscripts. And of course, it’s not finding it for me. And I know the phrase, yeah, it’s this. But yeah, forget that, carry on.

Carlton Reid 28:39
No, that was very cruel of me to throw not just one word, but like a whole phrase. But where I guess where I was coming at it from and the reason why I picked it that was so that’s, that’s a cultural norm in the Netherlands. So my question is, you know, to curb traffic to get rid of motorcars, yeah. You need certain things you need cultural changes, not just physical, you know, concrete and curbs and, and Lane width, all those colour changes, you need a cultural switch as well. So, is that not the most difficult thing to actually fix? You can fix engineering, but can you really fix how people and nation a group actually think about mobility, about priority on the streets? And isn’t just not the fact that well, the Netherlands have got this dialled in, and you ain’t gonna be able to translate that fully anywhere else. Yeah,

Melissa Bruntlett 29:48
I would. I would say that it’s absolutely possible. And I think one of the benefits I think we have of having lived in a city like Vancouver, is that we watched as things changed. So as that infrastructure started to be built, and more and more people started to experience getting around the city more on bicycle on foot or, or a combination thereof with public transport, we saw a cultural shift. And it’s but the thing is, it’s not going to be fast. And this is one thing that Chris and I say all the time is we’re talking about change, cultural change, overgenerous a generation, which, for a lot of us working in mobility and an urban ism can be quite frustrating, because we can see we know what the benefits are, we’ve seen it in action and in various places, but it’s to not see it immediately, or have that immediate gratification and in our own cities can be very challenging. But I see it as possible. And, you know, as you were speaking, Carlton, it made me think of when we were interviewing one of our friends in the US who was talking about women in cycling, and how, you know, oftentimes when they build new cycle tracks, in cities, if if they don’t see anyone using it, or they only see it used once in a while, then it’s deemed a failure. But for her, she says that, you know, if you see one woman cycling on that cycle track with a child, that is a success, that’s proof that this is something people want, and it’s just going to take time to build. And, you know, we saw that in Vancouver, where, when we first moved there, cycling was definitely something nice, something for the fit and the brave. And then over the course of the 11 years that we lived there, we saw more and more families cycling more and more people of various ages and abilities and races cycling. So I think it’s absolutely possible. And I don’t think you necessarily have to have that pragmatic culture that we have. We see people have here in the Netherlands, it can be done. It takes patience, unfortunately. But I think it’s absolutely possible. And AI just takes showing people what is what is possible when we start building safer streets with space for fewer cars and more space for public life.

Chris Bruntlett 32:04
It’s sorry, so I found the expression and I’m going to try and pronounce it. It’s so it’s “niet gelijk, maar wel
gelijkwaardig” we’re not the same, but we’re worth the same. And it I think you framed it one way, Carlton, is it does there need to be a cultural change to facilitate a structural change, but maybe we can we can look at it the other way and and looking here in the Netherlands, were the structural changes that were made to the streets in the 1970s. Did they influence the cultural changes that we’re seeing today, and this is what we explore in the chapter about the trusting city is how more people on foot and bicycle making eye contact, having to collaborate with one another to negotiate intersections and share space, how that builds, and we’re a trusting society, of people that are accepting of other people’s differences and cultures. And it’s really interesting to think how our transport systems and our mobility systems may make our society more egalitarian. Rather than sitting back and saying, well, only eat out there in societies could undergo these changes the chicken and egg and hopefully we can, we can pick a place to start and rather than pointing at external factors as reasons why we can’t integrate these, these important measures.

Carlton Reid 33:30
Lots that’s very good to hear. If that’s the case, so we can change. I’d like to now cut to an ad break. But after the ad, I would like to go through your book chapter by chapter because you mentioned the trusting city there. And there are there are 10 chapters and the conclusions. I want you to describe each chapter we need to give like a short precis of each chapter, I’m going to give one to Melissa and wanted to create as your forewarning. That’s why I’m going to ask him for next. But right now let’s go to an ad break with David.

David Bernstein 33:59
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Carlton Reid 35:24
Thanks, David. And we are back with Chris and Melissa Bruntlett. And they’re in their fairytale house in in the in the fairytale city of Delft in the Netherlands. And they’ve been telling us why they moved there, how much they’re loving it. And before we get on to going through and getting a precis of each each chapter in the book, I want to talk about their kids. Because that’s absolutely a key component. We’re not doing any privacy issues here because Chris and Melissa your kids are mentioned throughout the book and their experiences are mentioned throughout the book, which which is which is very, very inspiring and heartening, but let’s just talk about Coralie and Etienne now, I’m assuming that the ages of 12 and 10 so Coralie 12, Etienne 10. That was when you moved in 2019, so they’re now older?

Melissa Bruntlett 36:15
Yeah. Coralie is now 14 and a half and Etienne is 12. And yeah, we’ve got well, Coralie started right in high school, we’ve got another child about to join them in high school as well. So yeah, it’s it, they’re doing well, as far as, as far as they tell us anyways, you know, having a teenager and a preteen, they certainly start to keep a few things from their parents now and then. But yeah, it’s been an interesting experience for them. I won’t lie and say that it was rosy from the start, we had, you know, a bit of melancholy when we first moved here, they certainly miss their peers that they had built relationships with back in Vancouver. But we did actually do a check in we were on holiday last week, because we’re currently on there, may vacation for two weeks, and we went away and asked, you know, it’s been two years, how are you feeling? Do you still hate us? Did we make the worst decision of our life is taking you guys here? And they both said emphatically that they’re happy that we’re here. They of course, still miss their friends. But they, they’ve come to appreciate living here, which is good. We’ll see if that continues. You know, we’ve still got a few more years before they’re adults and fully appreciate where we’re at in life.

Melissa Bruntlett 37:31
But

Melissa Bruntlett 37:33
yeah, I think I think they’re doing okay, as much as they tell us anyways.

Chris Bruntlett 37:37
Yeah, I think Melissa and I both did similar moves as children of around 10 years age. I’ve actually moved from the UK to Canada, she moved from Eastern Canada, French Canada to Ontario. So we’re kind of familiar with the circumstances. And we were quite careful about giving them the time and space they needed to adjust and integrate. They went straight into a Dutch language school in the middle of the school year in February, and which couldn’t have been easy but they really I think surprised us with how resilient they were how quickly they made friends how quickly they learned the city. And of course as we write in the first chapter, the the traffic concentrates and the the cycle tracks really just gave them this freedom that we anticipated, but never really understood how quickly or how amazing it would be that to give them suddenly this this autonomy and independence of getting around a to be without mom and dad at your side.

Carlton Reid 38:43
Because you you quote Lenore Skenazy in the book, and she’s famous for the free range kids, you know, no helicopter, parenting approach, and you’ve basically taken that concept. And you’ve you’ve, I’d like to say ran with it, but you’ve cycled with it, you’ve given your kids the freedom the kind of freedom that kids in the US kids in the in Canada, kids in the UK do not have.

Chris Bruntlett 39:08
We actually flirted with that freedom in Vancouver, you know, we would, within reason allow them to walk to the corner store or to their school or to the community centre. But the problem was the built environment would not support that. That freedom and so we found ourselves worrying about faded crosswalks that drivers would ignore about footpaths that would disappear every time they cross the side street about six lanes of traffic that was cutting through our neighbourhood that they would have to cross and that made giving them that freedom and independence a very difficult choice. And, and more often than not, we found ourselves supervising them for short trips, when we really wanted them to let them spread their wings and, and get around independently. So we’re I think, are quite relieved that we now live in a place a built environment that supports That freedom and it speaks volumes to how the prevalence of car traffic really has robbed children of their freedom, and forced them to be constantly under supervision and rely on their parents for their transportation needs.

Carlton Reid 40:17
So that was chapter one in effect in your book. So the child friendly city is chapter number one after the introduction, of course. So if I can ask you, in turn to describe the other chapters now, I’ll mention which chapter obviously will go chronologically. If you could just take it in turn to tell us what that chapter is about, you’d have to like, give the whole game away. But just you know, briefly, what that that that chapters about so chapter number two is the connected city what’s what’s, what’s the thing going on there? And I’m gonna, I’m gonna give this to Chris.

Chris Bruntlett 40:49
Yeah. So I mean, unbeknownst to us when we moved to Delft, this was a city where the runner was invented the living Street, this concept of reclaiming the space outside your front door for play social activity, gathering and interaction with your neighbours. And for a long time, we’ve been aware of the Donald Appleyard and his really groundbreaking research in the 1970s, about how the volume and speed of traffic outside your front door really limits your connections on your street, your friends, acquaintances with your neighbours and the time you spend on your street and the sense of ownership that you spend on your street. So we really want to explore how prioritising the speed and volume of cars, outside our front door impacts our social relationships with our friends and neighbours. And we interject with some personal experiences, unexpected encounters with people living on our street to that kind of reinforces this research, and makes the case that that perhaps we should be looking at, well, what they’re implementing in London is low traffic neighbourhoods. But this idea of not banning cars altogether, but treating them as guests on, particularly on our residential streets.

Carlton Reid 42:10
Okay, Melissa, chapter three, the trusting city.

Melissa Bruntlett 42:14
Yeah, this this chapter, I think it’s it’s really about it takes the concepts of the first or the last chapter of the connected city and extrapolate that to the broader society. So the way in which people move around their city, if it’s a much more human scale way of living around whether that’s walking, cycling, or some other form of human mobility, it forces you to start connecting with the people you’re moving around the city with, and really creates a social trust. Because here, especially here in the Netherlands, traffic lights are often removed, there’s no traffic signage, and so you’re forced to interact with the people that you’re moving around the city with. And that does include cars, you know, having an what the design of the street really forces people to make eye contact to acknowledge each other. And that leads to a much more interactive experience, but also much more trusting. You know, if you look at someone if you’re forced to make eye contact, that how they react to you that they acknowledge you being in that space will ultimately affect how you navigate around each other in the space in which you’re moving. We interviewed Marco te Brömmelstroet for that, for this chapter, who talks a lot about how speed really impacts our ability to be able to approach our society and the way and our interactions in the city in a much more calm and trusting way. And so when we’re moving in fast cars, whenever things racing bias, we become very insular, it’s about our trip and our journey and anything that gets in the way becomes a very negative, whereas when you start to slow the way we move down, you’re forced to interact with people you’re forced to suddenly acknowledge the existence of the people around you and it just creates much more trusting environment and we obviously get much more into what that means in terms of the city itself and and society at a larger scale because of these forced moments of interaction with our fellow human beings.

Carlton Reid 44:22
And I should just say that Marco there is @CyclingProfessor (@fietsprofessor) so people on Twitter who follow Chris and Melissa on Twitter, I’m sure they also follow Marco the cycling professor. Chris, the feminist city, Chapter Four.

Chris Bruntlett 44:37
I think I’m gonna defer to Melissa because this is a her, er …

Carlton Reid 44:42
No, I constructed the way we started the child friendly city. I knew I actually can’t get Chris to do chapter four. So no, no, no, no, you can’t. You’ve got to tell us about it, Chris.

Chris Bruntlett 44:54
Okay, sure. Yeah, no, I think the way that we have built our Our urban fabric or our cities, our transportation networks up to this point has been very male centric, and men tend to disproportionately drive motor vehicles, they take longer distance, single purpose trips. And inversely, that leaves women out of the equation and doesn’t take their travel patterns in into consideration, which are often more sustainable foot bicycle or public transport. They’re usually shorter distance trips, they’re usually Multi Purpose trips, because they are still doing predominantly that the care work. And so we delve into this idea of care trips, and which are again, disproportionately made by women, and how we can build transportation networks that facilitate those care trips. And as you can imagine, it comes down to fine grain cycling, that works, that comes down to great walking conditions, it comes down to giving children the freedom so that their their moms don’t have to necessarily take them pick them up to drop them off at school. So a city that doesn’t just accommodate the the single purpose one way commute for a predominantly male driver. And that’s largely historically been done, because the people in the decision making chambers are affluent men, that, that we’ve, we can look at building more equity in terms of gender equity, by simply building more walking and cycling and better, faster, more frequent public transportation to support those trips that they’re already making and make their lives a lot easier.

Carlton Reid 46:46
Okay, nice summary, chapter five, Melissa, that will be the hearing city. And I guess we’re gonna have some birdsong here?

Melissa Bruntlett 46:53
Yes. Well, I mean, I think we’ve talked a lot about the benefit of you know, when we remove excessive numbers of cars in our city, and we really reduce the sounds that they contribute to in the city, you start to hear a lot more of the natural world. But one of the things that I think is really important in this chapter is not just the ability to hear the beautiful bird songs, but also the impact that has on us as individuals on our mental state and our overall stress by reducing the amount of ambient noise that we experience. And I think it’s actually funny because I was just watching, pretended to city on Netflix with Fran Lebowitz. And she refers to the the noise of New York City. And that’s just a part of it, you know, we don’t want to escape the noise. This is our noise. But I think there’s not that recognition that goes along with that of the stress of that noise creates, in terms of just us as individuals, if you’re constantly in this hyper noisy environment, you’re always on alert, you’re always at attention, you’re always in that fight or flight kind of mode. And so what this chapter, what I love that it delves into is that when we create these calmer ambient environments with lower decibels of noise, what that means for the citizens in general, not just the ability to hear the nature or hear the bricks, as people cycled by or hear people enjoying a beer on a patio, but overall in you know, really increasing that enjoyment of the city itself, and a sense of calm for us as individuals. And so I love that, you know, birdsong is so much a part of that or just the natural sounds of of the city. But you know, what that means to us as individuals, I think is an important conversation and emerging conversation, and we delve into that in this chapter.

Carlton Reid 48:47
Okay, Chris, you’re up next, because you are going to have to talk about the therapeutic city.

Chris Bruntlett 48:52
Yeah, so building on this idea of calming environments, we do a bit of a dive with our friend Robin Mazumder, who recently completed his PhD on this exact topic, mental health in the urban environment. And look at the way that car dominated environments really diminish minister mental health as a source of stress as a source of noise. And really well as we were talking about earlier, reduce the amount of green space we have access to, and really have these subtle ways that they are testing us as human beings, for lack of a better way to put it. And this was a chapter we wrote, just after lockdown started, where again, I think everyone in the world suddenly gained a newfound appreciation for the ability to just get outside, move their body, have some kind of a social distance, social interaction make, talk to people from a distance. And this was a key way that they kept their sanity, if you will, under some very stressful conditions, and otherwise they were locked down in their home. So I think we, like everyone gained a newfound appreciation for especially in Delft here, being able to get outside for a bike ride or walk into the city centre, a meandering, pedal through the polders all of them have a means to unwind. And de stress from, you know, we were still working jobs, we were still trying to make ends meet internally, but those little breaks that we have, it is possible to build them into our cities, to give people that opportunity to, to de stress and re energise and, well, it’s a form of therapy, as we said, The this, this wind bath or variety of cultures have their own versions of it. But at the end of the day, it’s about a means of improving your mental health.

Carlton Reid 51:09
This next chapter, chapter seven is the world’s shortest chapter, the world’s most obvious chapter, because it’s the accessible city.

Melissa Bruntlett 51:18
Excellent point. But I think, you know, one of the things with this chapter, there’s two parts of this, in that being mostly able bodied, most of the time, I had a brief stint recently with a broken leg that reduced my ability to move around. But we really felt compelled to speak to somebody who has experienced a Dutch city as someone with limited mobility. So we interviewed a wonderful woman named Maya [Maya van der Does-Levi], who shared her story of living with multiple multiple sclerosis, and getting around in the Netherlands. And, you know, in talking to her, there are things that we didn’t realise, including the fact that, you know, we enjoy traffic, calm streets, and we enjoy walking around on the street once in a while. And it’s a bit of, for us liberation, and not having grown up in North America where there’s no way you would remove walking in the middle of the street in the middle of the day. But she points out that that actually enables her to be more independently mobile. And that’s something we also delve into more with Dr. Bridget, for debt from New Zealand who, who really talks about this idea of when we’re thinking about people with disabilities, and how they move through the city, there’s so much focus on making sure that we have roads in order to allow them to be able to transport more freely in cars or in public transport, when in fact, that is the adverse of what a lot of these individuals want. They don’t want to be dependent on somebody to move around, they want to be independent, for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which is to have ownership of your own mobility is to have a sense of freedom and joy in terms of how you get around. And so this chapter, I totally agree, it could be simple and say yes, make your cities accessible, period, end of story. But understanding why it’s so important. And you know, how cars do limit how people with various disabilities, whether that’s mobility disabilities, or sight, hearing any of these things, by reducing the ability or the possibility of conflict with motor vehicles and enabling more independent mobility, we are inherently telling these people you are not other, you are not separate from society, you are a part of it. And we want to facilitate you owning your ability to be a part of society.

Carlton Reid 53:39
And as a guidedog puppy trainer, I am absolutely anti car on that particular aspect, because so many cars are parked on sidewalks on pavements. And it’s only when you really you get a guide dog and you have to walk around that you really realise that this is so selfish, so entire door. And so blocking for anybody that doesn’t have, you know, feet to walk and an eyes to see because it’s make cities incredibly difficult to navigate. If you’ve got these big four wheel vehicles parked from the infrastructure that’s actually meant for pedestrians, which I’m guessing you don’t get that much of in the Netherlands, they kind of design that out. We do get that

Melissa Bruntlett 54:25
I you know, we have our own set of challenges. I think your historic cities have had mind boggling mind bogglingly narrow sidewalks and footpaths. And so yeah, that’s one of the things that my actually says is I don’t I never use the footpath. It’s too hard for me. There’s either assign a sandwich boards on it or they’re too narrow or they’re old and a bit crumbly. And so the road infrastructure is is how she gets around. She uses the cycletrack she uses the traffic calm streets, and not just for getting around Delft, but forgetting even further outside of the city. So, yeah, hearing her story and and hearing how motor vehicles through the rest of the chapter are really helping to not to enable these people but really hinder their mobility is is an important topic that anyone working in mobility and urban design needs to hear or read, I guess, in this case, in terms of changing their thinking.

Chris Bruntlett 55:23
And I unfortunately, I think it has become a bit of a counterpoint when you start talking about restricting car traffic, removing car parking, and that you’ve seen it, especially with the low traffic neighbourhoods. In London, the first thing people say is what about the disabled is if you are restricting the mobility of everyone with a disability that they rely solely on a private automobile to get from A to B, when the statistics that you pulled out prove actually the exact opposite, I think 60% of the people with physical disability in the UK do not have access to their own motor vehicle. But the physical disability has been used as this as an excuse to build in more car dependence, unfortunately, when the facts and figures Don’t, don’t prove that out, and it’s usually able bodied people that are using the disabled as a bit of a trope, unfortunately, to argue that cities should not limit their automobility

Carlton Reid 56:29
if we’re going to build back better. And your thesis is that what to do that you curb cars, you’re going to get a richer city. So chapter eight is the prosperous cities how we’re going to get more prosperous cities, Chris?

Chris Bruntlett 56:43
Yeah, this was a, again, a chapter that we had proposed before refer to the pandemic. But for us, it really came down to access to opportunity, I think, coming from Canada, and also, you know, spending a lot of time in the United States, we saw how codependency was really robbing people of their access to opportunity, or their society required the the expense of a private automobile, which is now 20 or $12,000 per year when you take all expenses into consideration. And that’s really inequitable and unfair burden to expect for people, especially low income, and so but that’s only because the options, the alternatives, the more economic alternatives do not exist. And so we look at the kind of public transportation system that exists here in the Netherlands, in combination with the Cycling Network, how the two really reinforce each other, support each other to provide a broader cross section of the population with access to affordable housing, to steady employment, to education, to healthcare, to all of their daily needs, without necessarily the the financial burden of their own private automobile. And so we can speak to this ourselves, okay, where, you know, not in a low income bracket, but without the expense of a car, we suddenly have more money to spend in our community on small businesses. And, and I think, yeah, yeah, exactly. And we are actually, you know, we’re in this very privileged position, actually to walk work four days per week instead of the traditional five day workweek, which is something more Dutch companies are doing, but we probably couldn’t do without the, if we were paying the monthly car payments and parking in gasoline and

Carlton Reid 58:43
Okay, Melissa, chapter nine, the resilient city,

Melissa Bruntlett 58:46
what does it mean to create a resilient city, and we interviewed Dr. Judith Yang for the herb Wang sorry for this chapter. And she really helped to change our thinking a little bit, because when we look at a resilient city, we think, Okay, this is a city that can sustain itself long term despite potential natural disturbances or unnatural or manmade disturbances. But what she argues in this chapter, and what helps to open our eyes a little bit is that there’s two ways for a city to be resilient. One is that you’ve designed it in a way that even if you have impact be that something as small as construction or something much larger, like a natural disaster, the city can easily returned back to you at status quo. But one of the things that we need to look at really when we’re talking about resiliency is can we adapt? Can we change? And can we flip that regime to be stable or resilient in a different way? So that’s the way we sort of reflect that is looking back at this OPEC oil crisis, and how here in the Netherlands, it wasn’t a matter of when that oil reserve became available. Again, they just went back to the status quo, but rather found A different way of thinking flipped the way that they were designing their cities the way that they were managing them to a different stability regime to allow for much more human centred travel. And so it presents these opportunities and really reflects on the idea that As humans, we evolve, we adapt, our cities evolve and adapt with us. And so resiliency is not about making sure that your city can stay the same, but that you can adapt in a way that leads to arguably a higher quality of life and a better city overall, for its citizens

Carlton Reid 1:00:35
Tell me more about the ageing city.

Chris Bruntlett 1:00:37
Yeah, I think, as I hinted at earlier, we’ve watched our parents and our grandparents get old in fairly car dependent places. And in some instances, they’ve really been trapped in their houses, for lack of a better way to put it completely dependent on when there, there is a period of our lives inevitably when we cannot drive safely. The American automobile says it’s on average 10 years for a US senior citizen where they outlive their ability to drive safely. And in that 10 year period, we’re left with very few options, we’re either relying on a public transportation system that that’s infrequent and unreliable, or we’re forced to rely on our children, our adult children or neighbours for transportation, or we are trapped in our homes in in our neighbourhoods or we are institutionalised in a care home. And I think there’s a lot to be said about neighbourhoods, cities, largely, you know, low car places that actually allow people to age in place comfortably without being reliant on others, external forces for their mobility. And so we tell the story of Pater, one of our neighbours here in Delft that has been born and raised his entire life on the street. He was born there. And now in his 70s, he’s retired, they’re living in his own house without a car, able to get around by foot or bicycle everywhere he needs to grocery store, the community centre, the schools, that he volunteers that to stay active in the community. And that’s all supported, again, by the the infrastructure and the policy decisions that were made many years ago to build a city that’s not car dependent, and car dominant. So when we look ahead at this baby boom generation, that’s retiring and ageing very quickly, we suddenly find ourselves with an entire generation that’s going to be tracked in the neighbourhoods that they built, the car dependent places they’ve built. And I think it’s very urgent to to start looking at that as a challenge in this kind of emergency that it is, and giving them means of mobility. And, of course, we talked about Cycling is, is one route, but it is not an option for everybody. But there’s a lot to be said for the fact that the age group of 65 and above cycles more than any other adult Group here in the Netherlands. So it’s Cycling is a means of participating in society. It’s a means of staying healthy, active, and, and part of society. And we often elsewhere in the world, perhaps think of cycling as a young, able bodied activity, but in a lot of sense, it benefits the ageing population much more and gives them an alternative drive when they can no longer drive.

Carlton Reid 1:03:39
Hmm, I will thank you ever so much for going through those 10 chapters with us. And I know people are going to be absolutely now busting a gut to want to get this when it comes out in in June. So to wrap up this show, if you wouldn’t mind, Chris, if you could tell us about all your social media, because you have got quite a few. So all your social media hats where people can actually get in touch with you. But then, but first, Melissa, if you could tell people where people are going to be able to get the book from, tell us again the exact publication date, give us the price, give us how many pages but give us give us that kind of information.

Melissa Bruntlett 1:04:19
Price? That’s a great one. I don’t know. It’s a affordable book. That’s what I know. But you can buy it directly from our publisher Island press from Ireland press.org I believe Chris, correct me if I’m wrong.

Chris Bruntlett 1:04:34
Listeners in the UK, we actually have a pre sale promo code set up with Marston books, which are the US so the UK distributor of Ireland press. So if you go to their website Marston.co.uk. And site the promo code ISCT you can get 30% off of a copy of Curbing Traffic and 30% off of our first book Building the Cycling City, which is significant savings to say the least.

Carlton Reid 1:05:06
Cool, I will actually put that in the, in the show notes if you if you send me the absolute perfect link, so I get that. And also we’re gonna put in the show notes are all your social media handles. So tell us about that, Chris.

Chris Bruntlett 1:05:17
Yes. As you hinted, we are quite prolific on social media.

Carlton Reid 1:05:23
This is the next half an hour of the show …

Chris Bruntlett 1:05:28
We have a shared account @modacitylife on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. I am doing the social media for the Dutch Cycling Embassy these days at cycling_embassy again on all four of those platforms. And likewise, Melissa is doing social media for Mobycon at Mobycon. Oh, and and, yeah, you can get your daily dose of such inspiration from all three of those accounts.

Carlton Reid 1:06:07
Thanks to Chris and Melissa Bruntlett there. And thanks to you for listening to the Spokesmen cycling podcast, show notes and more can be found on the-spokesmen.com Meanwhile, get out there and ride …

If your podcast catcher not showing in links above (black circle with three dots)? Loads more on PodLink. Show is also on Spotify. and Google Podcasts.

20th April 2021

The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 272: Revolutions: How women changed the world on two wheels

SPONSOR: Jenson USA

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUEST: Hannah Ross

TOPICS: A one-hour chat with Hannah Ross, author of “Revolutions,” a new book which explores how the world was changed by women riding bicycles, and how it’s still being changed. For the better.

LINKS:

Revolutions: How women changed the world on two wheels

Mama Agatha

TRANSCRIPT:

Carlton Reid 0:14
Welcome to episode 272 of the Spokesmen cycling Podcast. This show was uploaded on Tuesday 20th April 2021.

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 Fredcast cycling podcast at www.Fredcast.com. I’m one of the hosts and producers of the Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast. For shownotes 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
How women change the world on two wheels. That’s the premise of a new book called “Revolutions.” I’m Carlton Reid and on today’s show, which is a little under an hour long I talk history and modern day radicalism with Revolutions author Hannah Ross. We discuss some of the larger than life characters from her book such as Annie Londonderry, Jacquie Phelan, Lady Harberton and pioneering mountain biking photographer Wende Cragg. Naturally, we recorded over the internet and what I thought was a PC fan or computer fan, it turned out to be, I found out afterwards, turned out to be a heater in Hannah’s spare room. Now it turns on three or four times during the show, but Hannah was in such full flow that I really didn’t like to stop her to complain, but it won’t marr your enjoyment.

Carlton Reid 2:12
And on today’s show, I’ve got Hannah Ross, who has written an excellent book called “Revolutions” and the subhead of that is how women change the world on two wheels. So is a history book. There’s tonnes and tonnes of stuff in there on my speciality like 19th, late 1880s 1890s when when bicycle absolutely was revolutionary, but then there’s tonnes of stuff that bang up to date. You got Ayesha McGowan in there, you’ve got like Wende Cragg from the mountain biking days, in the in the

Carlton Reid 2:51
late 70s, early 1980s.

Carlton Reid 2:55
You’ve got your interviewed Dervla Murphy, Hannah. Yeah, it’s just fascinating, but with loads and loads of brilliant people, an awful lot of them are actually not What does anymore because the history book, but tell us about you, Hannah. So who is Hannah Ross? What do you do when you’re not writing great books?

Hannah Ross 3:14
Right, very difficult question to answer. I am or my professional job is I work in publishing, not the publisher who published my book, but another publisher. I’m currently on maternity leave and have a nine month old baby.

Carlton Reid 3:30
Is that Cleo?

Hannah Ross 3:31
Yes, that’s Cleo. So I had a lockdown, baby. And so that’s all been very strange. But obviously, I am a very keen cyclist, I probably wouldn’t have written this book.

Carlton Reid 3:41
And so the reason why I know your baby’s name sorry, sorry, Hannah is I’m guessing there was because you’ve dedicated the book to Cleo. And then you say to Cleo and I hope you grow up to be a cyclist in effect, which is very sweet.

Hannah Ross 3:52
Yes. What actually the book was meant to come out last year. But because the pandemic it got moved on, last year the dedication was to the bump.

Hannah Ross 4:01
Changed that now. Now that we know who she is

Carlton Reid 4:05
Well, let’s talk about the bump and and the the Cleo-shaped non-bump now. So you cycled because in the book, it talks about this a little bit because it talks about you cycling when pregnant because you moved to France to do the book.

Carlton Reid 4:20
and

Hannah Ross 4:21
I moved to France yes in I was very, very lucky that my work granted me a sabbatical for eight months. And I thought well, let’s take this off and let’s go live in France, and obviously one of the best countries in the world for cycling. So whilst I was doing a lot of writing, I was in quite a lot of cycling.

Hannah Ross 4:40
And in the foothills of the Pyranees, very, very nice.

Hannah Ross 4:44
So, yes, happy time.

Carlton Reid 4:48
So you moved there and you were doing some cycling and then you were cycling up to term?

Carlton Reid 4:55
pregnancy and cycling, cycling and pregnancy basically.

Hannah Ross 4:59
So

Hannah Ross 5:00
My intention was to carry on as much as they felt comfortable inside. And so I my life normally when I met anyone are in London consists of cycling to work every day but also doing rides that weekend.

Hannah Ross 5:16
I didn’t know. And I wanted to continue with that. If if it felt right, all the time, I have no idea. It’s my is my first pregnancy. So I just thought, okay, let’s just see how it goes. I’ve seen people like cyclo-cross

Hannah Ross 5:32
champion Helen Wyman who I interviewed in the book. She had her baby a few months before me. She’d been cyclingup until the baby was born. I thought, okay, yeah, I’ll do that too.

Hannah Ross 5:43
And so I had been going out a bit doing long rides, I’ve been getting a bit slower, and actually taking it quite easy really thinking, Oh, well, I’m pregnant. It’s more about the cafe stops.

Hannah Ross 5:56
Then can happen. And my rides became rides around Regent’s Park. Not really my type of cycling, but it was still good to get get out and get some exercise and just pottering around London more, but also actually became, really,

Hannah Ross 6:17
it was actually very useful that I cycled everywhere because I could get hospital appointments, I didn’t have to pay public transport. I was still one of the only people I think I ever thought in the maternity unit with a bicycle helmet.

Carlton Reid 6:29
Tell us about Marfan syndrome.

Hannah Ross 6:31
Marfan syndrome, I was diagnosed as a child. And it’s, it’s quite a complex syndrome, which kind of affect and affect various

Hannah Ross 6:44
different parts of your body. But essentially, it’s a problem with your ligaments, or they become very stretched. And ligaments are sort of in lots of parts of your body, your eyes, your heart.

Hannah Ross 6:58
And it can cause in very rare circumstances, it can cause quite significant problems with your heart. And some, if you’re affected quite significantly, would provide the key exercise to it to a minimum. Luckily, my

Hannah Ross 7:19
I have the conditioning quite mildly. And my family been very supportive. But carrying on the

Carlton Reid 7:26
Cycling helped?

Hannah Ross 7:27
It’s likely helped that in a sense it in the way that being active and keeping your heart healthy help, but pushing yourself to a team. So not this has ever been my plan. But had I wanted to be a competitive cyclist, that would be completely out of the question.

Hannah Ross 7:47
So anyone in professional sport, who who has a diagnosis of Marfan syndrome, probably wouldn’t be allowed to compete on a on a team. And the condition can make you very tall. So in the past, a lot of basketball players

Hannah Ross 8:06
later found out that they’ve had Marfan syndrome and then have to retire early.

Hannah Ross 8:11
But yes, it has it, it it generally take things reasonably easy. Don’t push myself too hard. But also don’t let it stop me cycling up the Pyranees. So

Hannah Ross 8:23
I have yeah, just live with it and keep doing what I’m doing.

Carlton Reid 8:30
And why did you write “Revolutions?” Why did you write a bicycle history book? Shouldn’t say history book was because there’s lots of modern stuff in there. Why did you write a book about women cycling and changing the world?

Hannah Ross 8:45
Because it hadn’t really been done before.

Hannah Ross 8:48
So I sort of had the kind of look around as I’ve gone there, because of the stories. The story about one of the you know, local offices, he said, you know a lot about the the kind of the story of women taking out cycling 30s ethically, in the 1890s is extraordinary. But following on from that the whole story of

Hannah Ross 9:12
the 20th century 21st. Just in all aspects of sight thing that’s really kind of incredible stories. A lot of them a lot of it is about overcoming obstacles and adversity and prejudice. And I just felt that those stories hadn’t been hadn’t had the focus that the perhaps they should have done.

Hannah Ross 9:36
And I wanted to make it a book that wasn’t about writing as a sport.

Carlton Reid 9:42
Because there is a lot there is a lot of

Carlton Reid 9:45
books about professional women cycling, but much less that kind of tries to cover all aspects of all different types of cyclists. I think it was quite ambitious, actually.

Hannah Ross 9:59
As I was writing, I was thinking, gosh, book’s getting long, longer is I’m trying to fit everything in. And if they’re meant that I couldn’t cover every story that I wanted to, which was a shame, but but I just wanted to, in some way show the kind of breadth of of cyclists and all the time kind of relate that back to how it’s been with the house how kind of fighting has been in feminist history from the Victorian times to now.

Carlton Reid 10:34
But let’s let’s go to that first because you mentioned that the world of cycling of racing is relatively well covered. There’s Beryl Burton, you know, there’s there’s books on Beryl Burton already. Clearly there’s, there’s some of the modern women superstars have got books out so that’s, that’s, that’s a given as well. But these other names, perhaps people aren’t quite so familiar apart from maybe Susan B. Anthony, because that’s obviously the quote that virtually every you couldn’t yeah, avoid that quote. Could you that is just you know, that’s that’s gold plated, it wrote on your kind of book, that’s just gonna be but so what is the quote? Let’s hear the quote and give us a bit of background on on because she was quite old at the time. Susan B. Anthony, she wasn’t a cyclist herself. She’s looking at other people.

Hannah Ross 11:19
No, she wasn’t a cyclist.

Hannah Ross 11:23
And now you’re testing me. Oh, my goodness. What is it?

Carlton Reid 11:27
Bicycling has done more to emancipate women basically. That is the gist of the quote, and

Hannah Ross 11:33
she calls it the freedom machine. Yes. Which is what are you have repeatedly as a kind of as a, as an image or freedom within? Yes, she was. He was completely by being able to never getting on a bicycle herself, she was absolutely identified that this was a revolutionary thing for women’s lives and represented this pinpoint, which is where feminism was at that point in time, and that the bicycle could be part of that and possibly symbolise some of that as well.

Carlton Reid 12:15
So why, why is it so important? Because you can get away from chaperones. It was independent did, why did Susan B. Anthony and many other feminists of the period, why did they latch on to bicycles?

Hannah Ross 12:27
Because Yeah, well, from what you’ve just said, it’s about getting away or not necessarily getting away, but just having freedom of movement. When women’s lives at this time or work, generally, I would say, defined by that containment, so they have no political rights, they have no economic rights, they’re little, and generally, this is not absolutely This is not everyone, but generally they I mean, obviously, you know, they didn’t have the right to vote at this point. But I mean their lives were fairly controlled. It even come to the close that they will, or were expected to wear full skirts, huge petticoats, miles of fabric, all of that it’s this idea of stopping them having the freedom of movement, bicycle comes along, it’s revolutionary for absolutely everyone. At this time. I mean, it’s hard for us now to kind of really imagine what that must have felt like, for anyone being put on this machine and beyond just travel somewhere with relatively little effort, places that they might never might never fasted before. They just couldn’t, before women in particular with ideas with their bodies moving through space, under their own power, to be able to decide where they want to go on their own terms. And as anyone who gets on a bicycle now today with say, what they love about cycling, it feels freeing, I feel like the kind of the language that follows us distinct like, like flying it’s you know, I just love that feeling of the wind on my face. So you can imagine that that you know, that bracket back then those things would have been even more precious.

Carlton Reid 14:30
And you mentioned clothing and right and that the volumes of clothing women were wearing back then and of course cycling. But bloomers didn’t originate with cycling. They It was a form of grass that came from outside, but it’s popularised very much. So yeah, by cycling and then this is called rational dress in effect trousers for women. So tell us about Lady Harberton. And because this is a famous case, that of course the Cyclists Tourist Club of the day took on so what did Lady Harberton do and and tell us about that?

Hannah Ross 15:05
Lady Harberton was a keen cyclist. And she was also very keen on not wearing and she was like things that she was an adopter of retinal dresses. You said the bloomers or Knickerbocker knickerbockers, the knee. And she was also. But it was it her it sort of ran into the night, it wasn’t just about that it was a practical outfit to be wearing on a bicycle, you know that we’re going to be caught up in a train, it wasn’t going to be dangerous. For her wearing rational dress was the sensible thing to be doing whatever you were doing. And t felt very, very strongly about that. And when on out on a bicycle ride in 1898, I think it was she was riding in Surreyi and wanted to stop and coffee at a hotel called te Hautboy. And she was barred from entering the coffee lounge. what was then called the coffee down on account dress or the lack of trust that they would have seen it. They were horrified that this woman wearing bloomers knickerbockers wanted to come into their their lounge and sit down with the other ladies. Just drink her drink her coffee, and they barred her. And instead they said you could sit in the bar. Which Lady Harberton I don’t think would have been not a fan of going to the bar at this point.

Carlton Reid 16:49
This was a cause celebre of the time this is this is a major news story. At the time. This wasn’t just like some little anecdote we’re dragging out. This is like a major story of the time of you know, a bolshie woman in effect, trying to get her own way in these these clothes. Now she lost the case. So she took the the landlady of the Hautboy at Ockham they would Cyclists Touring Club took that took her to court, or they took her lady Harberton took them to court, but they lost.

Hannah Ross 17:18
Yeah, on account of the fact that they did offer her somewhere which wasn’t acceptable. That it wasn’t it was unacceptable. She wanted to make a point to the fact that she should have been allowed to wear what she wanted to wear in especially wanted to be and like you say it was it you know, this isn’t a minor to fighting for Bori This is it is a really significant story that it’s really it’s not really about cycling, it’s about freedom to choose, you know how they draft and how they conduct their lives. And do you want to make the point of that and you know is extraordinary.

Carlton Reid 18:04
And the last time I was down there they were converting the Hautboy to apartments so I believe you can now live in this coffee lounge. It could be part of your your living room I’m sure because Ockham where it is is all that also Ockham’s Razor comes from, so 14th century whatever, mediaeval scholar he’s from the same Surrey village as as the Hautboy made just as famous in in the late 19th century. So women were pushing back where we’re asking you to wear which we think totally unshocking which is saying that we would quite like to wear comfortable clothes please while we ride ride our bicycles. But they’re also doing these amazing journeys which again, we we we hear many of the stories of like the male derring do you know the the male, you know going around the world but then you had this amazing woman Annie she’s has Polish?

Hannah Ross 19:11
Latvian.

Carlton Reid 19:12
Yeah. Londonderry was was uh, her name she like her pen name.

Hannah Ross 19:17
She adopted yeah a sponsored name. Yes.

Carlton Reid 19:20
And she basically she went round the world in 1890s writing about it as well and amazing woman and amazing journey.

Hannah Ross 19:27
Really extraordinary. I

Hannah Ross 19:28
mean, it is and how there’s not been a film made about this is it’s really quite baffling. So Latvian immigrant living in Boston. It’s a little bit hazy of the details of exactly why she got to the point of cycling around the world but but the story goes that human made a wager that a woman will one of them bet that the woman could have around the world in a certain amount of time and then the other one that they could choose decided to take Get on prove them prove that she could have never been on a bicycle before. It was her that took this on and why she felt that he was the one to do. I don’t think anyone quite worked out. But actually what followed maybe it proved why she did because this story is extraordinary. And what what Annie did is become first debaters drop off opposites for her epic voyage. And I think is fine, I thought for pointing this out, but she didn’t quite cycle around the world for quite a lot of boats and trains involved. Because it was never fully stipulated that you had the cycle. Everywhere that, that that dictated liberal use of public transport with was involved. However, there was an awful lot of cycling involved as well. So when she the first cyclists across the fabric of America came one way and then coming back and realise that if he couldn’t get as in mountains to California to take the boat East because those committees won’t get over. So she ended up going back to New York. And taking a bit from and when you set out in France, by the time you got to France to you was international celebrity and everywhere she went every crowd coming out, see her friends absolutely adored her. And all along the way she picked up like we mentioned, the sponsor by by Londonderry water, but many other folks as well and who to introduce it, fellas. Storytelling got quite an awful say. And there was a fair bit of embroidery about some of the answers or the painting she got involved in where he claimed, for instance, such she got a prisoner of war. That is happening internment camp that many of these things weren’t true. However, I think, as I said before, I think what is just still so amazing that this woman who left her husband and children go out on this journey would keep your life going and keeping me interested in what he was doing during she became a understandably a huge fan of rational progress. He set out on a lady’s drop frame critical to realise that that was an awful lot of effort. And someone gave her an amount bicycle locked into the man’s bicycle then and she never get back, that she was quite a good outlet as well for progressive women’s dress. And also just women going out in the world and being at ordinary things. I mean, this was a time of the Victorian Event Frame where people are going out and trying to push around the world and the number of days of talk of Nellie Bly, who was a journalist in New York who had marched around the world using every different form of transport. record

Carlton Reid 23:32
And isn’t Nellie Bly the one that’s the Susan B. Anthony is from in effect, it was at Nellie Bly was interviewing.

Hannah Ross 23:40
Yes, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

Carlton Reid 23:49
Yeah, the record after I’ve just gone to the back of your book, and Annie Londonderry, her real name was Annie Kopchovsky. Yeah, that’s a cracking name. Annie Londonderry Kopchovsky. And I didn’t know the water bit, but that’s she’s sponsored by a water company and that’s why she picked that up.

Hannah Ross 24:09
Aside from her bicycle, I believe it’s kind of been great when you’re cycling long distances.

Carlton Reid 24:15
That’s great idea, though to change your name in effect. Yeah, no, cause Yeah, that’s that’s quite sweet. Now, you can’t really talk about the Susan B. Anthony, we’ve talked about emancipation, but you can’t really leave that particular subject without of course, think — suffragettes were big into bikes, weren’t they?.

Hannah Ross 24:37
Yeah, that was really lovely to discover and read about. It was Sylvia [Pankhurst’s] memoir. She talks about how Christabel became obsessed by cycling as a teenager and absolutely paid for their father for bicycles when they were still living in Manchester. And he first thought it was dangerous, but when first 16 for her birthday, he was given an up the bicycle. No expense spared, apparently. And then Sylvia was taught to accompany her sister given a not fancy bicycle. And they joined the Clarion cycling club, in both, and then at weekends and, and I think most of their spare time pedalling around the countryside lanes around Manchester, picking parting up camps and summer holiday camps and to return pair a newspaper, but generally just having a lovely time on bicycles. And, as far as I can, I mean, I don’t know. But I think when they moved to London and founded the WSPU, which is the women’s social and political union, which is suffragettes, they probably didn’t find too much time to fight thing. However, what is really nice is that cycling was still part of their movement was very influenced their movement. So they, their members, use their bicycle to recruit other members and spread the word about fit to women. Because that way, the most effective way of getting to the next place the next round, they reach those people, times before people come they had cars and planes weren’t going to take you everywhere.

Carlton Reid 26:32
Have you seen the illustration of the two suffragettes stopping Churchill’s car?

Hannah Ross 26:38
yes, yes.

Hannah Ross 26:40
And then bicycle halter became when the when the movement became much more militant. So when they were postbox is like houses bicycle s became getaway vehicle. quite quite amusing. There’s a story of two which I mentioned, they set light to an empty mansion. One evening, they get stopped by a policeman, not because he thinks that they are arsonists, but because they didn’t have the lights on their bicycles. But they were apprehended not long after

Hannah Ross 27:21
when the police put two and two together.

Unknown Speaker 27:27
But yes, they stored their arson equipment in their bicycle baskets.

Carlton Reid 27:35
So it’s quite radical in many, many different ways. So when you think of wearing trousers is radical, well, here, they are like firebombing stuff. So we’ve got some quite interesting bits of radicalization. And I guess the late Victorians were like pretty much mixing it all together. And you know, wanting a woman wearing to wear trousers, and and getting in front of you know, Churchill’s car and firebombing stuff was all pretty much the same thing as radical as as each other.

Hannah Ross 28:03
Yes. Although it’s, it’s also worth saying that, you know, for a lot of a lot of women who think outside time, it wasn’t, it was quietly radical, in the sense of, they were riding bicycles, but they didn’t necessarily see it. It’s such a visceral way in what they’re involved in. Kind of this will move over time. And they will probably less, you know, there are many that were less I need a bit more clear, they might have wanted to change them for us. They might have thought it was a good idea for trousers, but they weren’t quite ready for that. There’s, there’s interesting details in the history about how women sort of like, rushing to wear cleavers, they adapted that skirt, they still look like they looked like Victorian women’s skirts, but they have ever adaptions to make them safer for bicycling. So they got quite creative as well at this time. But yes, and obviously there were bicycles just covered. Thank god to me, I can’t pay for a few times to where it all starts if that’s if that’s where you felt comfortable.

Carlton Reid 29:22
Let’s let’s try let’s link those two subjects together using two women who are very much still with us. And that’s Sheila Hanlon. So is the the expert on suffragettes and bicycles and then Kat Jungnickel, who makes makes the events clothing which you’ve talked about there so so I assume you talk to both Sheila and Kat for your book.

Hannah Ross 29:45
I haven’t. I have read their books and read Sheila’s papers in the British library and credit the morning the book but yesterday, I mean, I have met Kat as well. But yes, they all Usually important women, historians and had a big influence on on where I went from my research as well.

Carlton Reid 30:09
So tell me about Kat because you haven’t met where you met her but you haven’t interviewed for the book as such. But just tell me a bit about what she said I’ve never had her on the show, I don’t think but just tell me what what her her clothing and what she does with it because it’s pretty clever

Hannah Ross 30:25
Kats says she’s researched in who painted the pattern that Victorian women were registering at this time for innovative cycling clothing, that wasn’t rational.

Hannah Ross 30:42
So

Hannah Ross 30:47
she has examples of women who were there’s one woman who made a skirt with a kind of pulley system. So within the layers of fabric, there were there was the ability to kind of pull call a lot of things in very well but the poor parts up so you could lift skirt up much shorter skirt when you’re on the bicycle. And then you could drop it right back down again. When you will suit. As soon as you’re off the bicycle for you. We’re back to being a Victorian woman in traditional Victorian fashion, you weren’t going to be upsetting anyone or losing an arm. And there were women who sewed weight in the bottom of the gut so that they didn’t fly up and reveal shocking amount of life. Yeah, cats don’t really extraordinary research in se women who actually went as far as registering patents. And it is very interesting at this time I have been through countless magazine cycling magazine from the 1890s. And they are full if you do one more purchase, or women have adverts for tailors, who will make these dresses or companies like Yaeger, who, at the time are very involved in making woolen cycling clothing, all save, inspired and informed by many of the women that who really kind of radicalised women’s cycling clothing, often in quite quiet and subtle ways.

Carlton Reid 32:45
People know about suffragettes, of course. But then you have in this period, you have the New Woman in an all in the first letters there in caps, very much an American phenomenon, but it’s not radical. As such, it was seen as semi radical back then. But what’s the kind of distinction between the New Woman mmovement and and suffragettes obviously, that there’s a there’s a voting element there, but could they be the same women or were they different movements?

Hannah Ross 33:19
New women preceded the suffragette movement, they preceded the WSPU, which was suffragette, but they were very much still wanting vote for women, but it was a WSPU that made that formal organisation. New Women that the term was coined in the 1890s and the suffragette organisation started in the early 1900s so it would have been exactly that market. Same demographic sorry, huh. Women who want to vote but also you know, often in education the right to have more freedoms and economic and political rights

Carlton Reid 34:18
so that’s that’s that was often a middle class Yes. to be doing that. But then you’ve got things like the Mowbray House Cycling Association which is which very much a thing that you could you could almost run today with like immigrant communities where you want women to get onto onto bikes from like Bangladeshi communities, for instance, because they would basically this particular organisation was set up by or funded by a rich journalist was basically trying to get working women on bikes because at this period that this wasn’t a working women’s form of transport, was it?

Hannah Ross 34:56
not, not in the early days, no bicycles. was fairly expensive in the first part, or the first half day tonight, so they got progressively more affordable. But yes and, and cycling was in its absolute peak of the 1890s was very much a society, women occupation. And they liked the fact that by

Carlton Reid 35:23
Lady Harberton gives you, that sort of thing doesn’t it’s like it’s posh people.

Hannah Ross 35:28
It really was and there’s actually that a film. I’m sure you’ve seen it Carlton, from 1896 of Hyde Park in the really, really only film. And it’s very interesting not to film in general, where you can see the society, people of London came around on a maybe a Sunday afternoon, in Hyde Park and all that in all their finery, what you can make out from it. It’s a very short clip, but it’s really amazing to have it. But yes, I talk in the book about various ladies. aristocrat to would would meet at Battersea. They tell half a huge breakfast or with 50 of their closest friends, and then all bets like playing or have players, where they would all then cycle through the streets of London afterwards. I mean, it was just such a fashionable thing.

Carlton Reid 36:26
So it wasn’t ladies that lunch, it was, you know, ladies who pedal.

Hannah Ross 36:30
The aristocracy finally moved on pretty quickly. But that’s, you know, they have, in a way helped stigmatise the idea of women on bicycles, which was which was which was useful. And the popularity method mass production was ramped up such that bicycles can keep keep up. And I believe that there were lots of methods of purchasing bicycles as well in kind of through two instalments. And by the leather secondhand market started ramping up as time progressed. So more and more women could afford it. But yes, the Mowbray House Cycling Association is really interesting. This is Sheila’s and she’s written a really interesting paper about it. And it was a way of making making work and women’s lives easier by by by giving them the ability to cycle to work and also be able to think they own careers a caravan and a holiday cottage for people that are members could actually go on holiday and get some time away from work and in London, which is a little bit the same as the Clarion cycling club was doing. Yes, and yeah, you mentioned the connection now with the various initiatives wonderful. I was involved in the boat project, which help refugees and asylum seekers learn to ride bicycles, and they have a programme specifically for women for pedal power. Which syndrome dried at the end of the quarter? They get given a bicycle. Which Yeah, it’s not it’s not a million miles and what was happening, it may vary.

Carlton Reid 36:54
There’s a there’s a film on I’m trying to think what it’s called Mama, something. Have you seen that film? It’s a Dutch film about Dutch woman who gets immigrant women on on bicycles. And it’s by the name, but I’ll put it in the show notes. Fantastic. It’s a fantastic film Mama something I did a whole story on it, and that now I can’t think what the second part of it is, but it’ll be Yeah, I’ll definitely send you a link for it afterwards.

Hannah Ross 38:59
I thought I knew every women’s cycling film, but obviously not.

Carlton Reid 39:02
Well, it this is this is a modern one. But it’s really really it’s really heartwarming stuff. So I’ll put in the show notes. I’ll send you so sticking, we’ll go back onto posh people actually. So because I’m pretty sure I’ve read this book online. I didn’t get this. I didn’t need to go and get this physically. I think you can get it on like archive.org. And that is Maria Ward’s Bicycling for Ladies, which is so wonderful.

Carlton Reid 39:27
love I love that book. It’s Yeah,

Carlton Reid 39:31
it is posh. It’s a posh book, but just tell us a little bit about that. Yeah.

Hannah Ross 39:36
Maria Ward, lived in on Staten Island. And she was a member of the Staten Island cycling club to Staten Island in New York. And she decided to use up cycling and she decided that she would write a book to encourage and inspire and help other women who are interested in learning to ride a bicycle You’re cycling, which, which seems a slightly strange thing now because you think you’re learning to ride a bike, you would get on a bicycle and be taught by this doctor. And but for a lot of people this time, that wasn’t a wasn’t a possibility, although I should have been called at the time when he strengthened but they wouldn’t have been accessible to everyone. And she felt obviously felt that women needed extra encouragement and specialist information. So in it, she will talk about what she wore on a bicycle, whereas on a bicycle, and what appropriate, but there’s pages and pages of how you actually go about cycling. And one of the really interesting things that I talked about in the book is how much time she spends on on mechanics and fixing bicycles. And she is really, really, and she talks about having a bicycle workshop of her own, and then how joyous It is to be able to just pick a bicycle apart completely and flip back together again. And she’s she sort of, she thinks that all women should be poor, or learn the how to fix their own bicycles. So they’re not they can go out fighting on their own, which you really encouraged as well, even though she was passionate. Remember, he also felt that women should be going out and taking rides alone. That that was something that that thing, too, and they should do. And if they got a punture, when they were out that they would go for

Carlton Reid 41:50
It is a great book. I mean, she’s basically Jenny Gwiazdowski, I’m murdering that name. Of Bike Kitchen. Yes. In that book that has a modern resonance. You could get in Jenny’s book because Jenny’s written a book on how to build your own bike and all that kind of stuff. So so so as much as Jenny is a is an absolute barnstormer today, there were people like her doing that way back then.

Hannah Ross 42:17
And there’s quite a few of them and a surprising number of them doing this, which again, shows how popular how popular cycling was at the time that there was this market for it. But also that it felt that women needed there were women who needed a bit of extra encouragement and education to go have the courage to get up and get good.

Carlton Reid 42:45
So in your book, you do talk about participation numbers, and and how that has absolutely fluctuated through time. So what what are those numbers? Are we talking about it? Because it’s very often said, you know, if, if you have a cycling culture that welcomes, you know, you have lots of women’s cycling base, you must have a fantastic cycling culture. It’s that kind of thing.

Hannah Ross 43:10
Yes. And so very much depends on what country you’re talking about, as we all know, and then, and I’ve learned to mark have extremely high numbers of women’s acclaim. And in the UK and North America, it’s around a third of cyclists are women, which is the same as it was back in the 1890s. So it’s, it’s a bit of a shame that we haven’t really progressed since then, to equalise more. But yes, the and also cycling has has folded in and out of fashion. Again, depending on on where you’re talking about, but certainly in Europe, North America, you know, it’s, it’s almost unimaginable now to to how popular it was in the boom time of the 1890s. But by the 50s it was really, really declining. I mean, it already had to climb very significantly from the beginning of the 20th century onwards, but sort of 50s, 60s it was it was really really falling out of favour

Hannah Ross 44:25
and

Hannah Ross 44:28
it became you know, Carlton, stigmatises you typically you couldn’t afford a car but you it was it was on the rise at this point. So either is it depending on where you are in the world, it’s a very different story. And I don’t know I’m trying to have the same thing. It’s going out of fashion again, well, whilst it’s come back and fashion in Europe, North America. So it’s sort of up and down trajectory.

Carlton Reid 45:00
Well on that slightly depressing,

Carlton Reid 45:04
becoming more and more,

Carlton Reid 45:08
I’d like to cut to an break now, if you don’t mind, but i would i do want to come back and talk more. But right at this second of time, let’s go to David for that ad break.

David Bernstein 45:18
Hey, Carlton, thanks so much. And it’s it’s always my pleasure to talk about our advertiser. This is a longtime loyal advertiser, you all know who I’m talking about. It’s Jenson USA at Jensonusa.com/thespokesmen. I’ve been telling you for years now years, that Jenson is the place where you can get a great selection of 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 they’re on believable 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. Jenson 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. All right, Carlton, let’s get back to the show.

Carlton Reid 46:44
Thanks, David. And we are back with Hannah Ross. And we are talking about “Revolutions,” her new book that was out just earlier this month in April. Hannah was it women when it come out? Yes, that’s right.

Hannah Ross 46:57
Yes. First of April. All right. Okay.

Carlton Reid 47:00
And who’s your publisher, who should people go to?

Hannah Ross 47:04
Weidenfed & Nicolson.

Carlton Reid 47:10
Obviously, it’s a it’s a it’s a long and detailed books, we’ve just skimmed it a few names from from from the historical part of your book. But in the second half of the show, let’s let’s try and bring it a bit more up to date. But still still saying kind of like philosophy or this would still be ancient history. But let’s start with mountain biking, because Gary Fisher gets lots of credit. Lots of those those early guys get get lots of credit yet Wende Cragg very rarely gets talked about. Yeah, all those photographs, virtually all those photographs, which you see in Gary’s book, which you see, you know, the early days of the Klunkers as they were virtually all of them was shot by by Wende and you talked to her, didn’t you in your book?,

Hannah Ross 47:55
I did talk to her. yeah, she is still living in Mount Tamalpais, which is, which is where it’s kind of, I mean, it’s contested, but it’s sort of mountain biking, and when there was there for all of that, and they were her and her riding buddies. And yet, as you say she was she was the main photographer, but she was also doing the what was doing the kind of latent scene of downhill mountain biking, only fire roads and footpaths. And she was pretty much the only woman there. And yeah, I found this really, really fascinating, interesting part of the story of mountain cycling and mountain biking.

Hannah Ross 48:52
You know, mountain biking, I think seen as this kind of was back then this is very kind of male dominated, rugged,

Hannah Ross 49:01
rugged sport that sort of came out of this sort of alternative cycling theme where the other people who started I tear of mouth like I mean they invented new people inventing mountain bikes, they were sort of in our own bikes in order to handle these this rough terrain because they found they had been very many of them have been road cyclists and they found out that maybe a little bit stayed in rules driven and they thought Well, we know we have fun to cycling around on the mountain. Let’s make this a thing. let’s let’s let’s start racing down all these tracks.

Carlton Reid 49:46
Does she still ride?

Hannah Ross 49:47
I think she doest. I mean, she does a little bit. She still enjoys

Hannah Ross 49:56
going out on a bicycle.

Carlton Reid 49:58
Now, we talked before about Annie Londonderry Chopkowsky being a fascinating woman and this this next woman is guarantee is fascinating because she’s absolutely crackers. And I love here to bits. So that’s Jacquie Phelan. So Jacquie Phelan is again is another one of these amazing characters.

Hannah Ross 50:17
I think

Carlton Reid 50:19
yes, well, Missy Giove obviously but but but Jackie, I mean, did you talk to Jacquie?

Hannah Ross 50:25
A little bit

Hannah Ross 50:28
and she is, again, like when does she was definitely pretty much not quite to the very beginning is one of the very, very early on. And this was back when women that it was much less professional but less commercialised than it is now mountain biking, and they the women will compete on same course and then far less of them. But you had to be I think you probably did have to be quite a character to kind of go with the sort of it’s dangerous stuff that they’re doing. And it was sort of a lot of it was sort of made up as they went along. But he was involved for many years and she the she was there as a sport, the game started turning on much more professional and much more commercialised and there was much more money in it. But do one do one numerous record records and held many records. And she was also always, you could always note see that Jacquie was in a race because of her various outfits. I think he had a flux that she attached to her for bicycle helmets. And she her partner was a another very key mountain biker. And he was also a really extraordinary mechanic as well. So he was kind of inventing mountain bikes she was racing on and they were kind of really known as being bikes like that and they were really kind of revolutionary on the scene as well and kind of influence what mountain bikes became down a mountain bikes. She’s really extraordinary and she went on to form this kind of organisation which encouraged more women into mountain biking this time When, when, when it very few women still were getting involved because the image of it interested, I guess, for a lot of women’s it’s about over in.

Carlton Reid 52:52
That’s WOMBATS isn’t it?

Hannah Ross 52:53
Yes. And

Carlton Reid 52:54
Yeah, Women’s Mountain Bike and Tea society. I’ve got she gave me the as well as she gave me some patches to sew on to stuff with WOMBAT stuff on and she was at your to mention racing there. And she was beating men. You know, she was yes, there was there was certain women who she was very much competing with at the time, but she could be you know, men back then, you know now that’s not that’s not so surprising. But back then it was quite surprising that a woman was was was beating men in these mountain bike races. So she’s a wonderful so there’s so many characters in your book, which are absolutely larger than life. So so it’s great that you’re, you’re you’re you’re talking about all of these people accept the Annie Londonderry’s of this world. And you know, through to Jacquie Phelan. And then Ayesha McGowan is in your book. So he has been on on the show. So a black woman cyclists trying to break into the to the pro ranks. So she’s got a fantastic story as well. Did you talk to Ayesha?

Hannah Ross 54:02
I met her when she she came to London. Do an event. And I met her we have but yeah, she she’s in the last chapter where I I sort of try and as much as possible summarise what’s happening on the riding scene now across Well, great cycling, cyclocross and mountain biking and just the kind of push for more diversity. The women like I share, who is who’s been really kind of high profile and campaigning, and it’s really

Carlton Reid 54:48
diverse. So we have the suffragettes who were the radicals of their day, but then you’ve got like the Ovarian Psychos Bicycle Brigade. Now I’m assuming they’re Californian, would that be right?

Hannah Ross 55:00
They are LA based Yes. And they, their their thing is about reclaiming the street. For I mean, they’re, they’re extremely political. They’re very involved in anti gentrification movement in LA. They are a group of Latina women. dominant

Hannah Ross 55:26
in how to justify

Hannah Ross 55:29
location now, but when they started, they started these bike rides called the Lunar rides, which were there, but their monthly ride where they would ride around the streets of La together as a group of women. They felt that alone, they weren’t safe, or they felt that there was there was certain prejudice about them, as well, is just coming from different different places that some people felt they felt that some people felt that they shouldn’t be fighting. Because there are women that other communities felt that they fit the mould of cyclists that they weren’t white, middle class boards, expensive bike, that sort of, it’s really interesting that that kind of really captured a lot of prejudices and preconceived ideas about women is like it across many different levels. But yeah, for them, it’s, it’s, it’s about togetherness and empowerment, which, you know, we’ve talked about goes way back, its way back to the beginning of cycling. And they are still doing these Lunar rides, which is amazing. And they invite any woman or anyone identifying as a woman. And as this kind of movement of owning that street and enjoying cycling, having a good time.

Carlton Reid 57:17
And crazy though, that’s still a political statement. I mean, this is this is both male and female. Riding a bicycle You know, this in the 1890s was very often a political statement, just as today it can be just getting on a bicycle can be a political statement, which is which

Carlton Reid 57:31
is crackers.

Hannah Ross 57:34
Yeah. It is because I mean, more. So I’ve talked about in countries like Afghanistan and Iran, Saudi Arabia, where I’ve interviewed people, women, that are really, really very, very politically charged issue. And with with so many of the arguments about why women shouldn’t cycle that, so Okay, what was happening here and the 1890s and it is similar kind of cheers and the language isn’t, isn’t a million miles from, from what people were saying that as well. It’s saying, but but there are extraordinary women who are who are fighting all that now as well. And establishing something that women can do.

Carlton Reid 58:24
Well, Hannah, that’s been absolutely fascinating. Thank you ever so much for taking some time away from Cleo to be with us on today’s show. So to end would you mind telling us how we can get hold of your book and any social media things we should be aware of to get in touch with you?

Unknown Speaker 58:45
Yes, well, thank you so much for having me, Carlton. I’ve had a really enjoyable time speaking here. And should anyone wants to buy my book, it’s available from all the usual outlets and I am on Twitter, @HannahVRoss.

Carlton Reid 59:00
Brilliant. Thank you very much. And by the way, it was Mama Agatha. I did a quick search on that. So I did a story on forbes.com on it was 2019 because they did a few teasers a couple years before that. Then they released the whole movie I think it’s probably on Netflix and stuff. So Mama Agatha. Absolutely right up your street, Hanna.

Unknown Speaker 59:23
Fantastic, I’m going to search it out.

Carlton Reid 59:27
Thanks to Hannah Ross, and thanks to you for listening to the Spokesmen cycling podcast, show notes and more can be found on the-spokesmen.com But meanwhile, get out there and ride …

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21st March 2021

The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 270: Streets for kids

SPONSOR: Jenson USA

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUESTS: Alison Stenning and Sally Watson

TOPICS: Play streets, cycling and the pop-up protected cycleway on the NE England coast, the Sunrise Cycleway

LINKS:
New Cycling

Play Meet Street

TRANSCRIPT:

Carlton Reid 0:14
Welcome to Episode 270 of the spokesmen cycling podcast. This show was uploaded on 21st Of March 2021.

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 Fredcast cycling podcast at www.Fredcast.com. I’m one of the hosts and producers of the Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast. For shownotes links and all sorts of other information please visit our website at www.the-spokesmen.com. And now, here are the spokesmen.

Carlton Reid 1:08
On the last show I talked with author and child’s play expert Tim Gill. I’m Carlton Reid. And today’s hour long episode, I’m continuing the child’s play theme, as I talk with academics and campaigners, Alison Stenning and Sally Watson. Now it just so happens both live close to me in Newcastle. But while we talk about the northeast of England, the main theme is universal. And that’s designing our streets so children can get about under their own steam. It’s on today’s show, the previous show, hopefully, you’ve listened to was with Tim Gill, who’s a play expert. And I’ve now got other play experts on here, but from a different, a different angle. And I did preview them in the previous show. So I’d like to welcome to the show Sally Watson. Hi, Sally.

Sally Watson 2:04
Hi, Carlton.

Carlton Reid 2:06
And Alison Stenning.

Carlton Reid 2:09
Now you’re both incredibly local to me. So it’s like, it’s crazy that we’re even doing this over over Skype, because, you know, I could go in and meet you at any time. I mean, Allison, you’re about five miles from me, Sally, you’re probably less than two. So welcome to a very, very local episode of an international show. First of all, I’d like to come to both you and ask about your current work, cuz that’s why I’ve got you on. So let’s let’s, let’s go to Alison. First, Alison, tell us about the work you’ve been doing on play streets in the northeast. But what that also says about play Streets and play in general for the whole of the UK.

Alison Stenning 2:56
Okay, so I mean, I have two hats on here. And I’ll predominantly talk about kind of my first heart, which is, I suppose, my academic hat. And I’ve been researching play Streets, and particularly focusing on the playing out movement, which was launched just over 10 years ago, originally in Bristol. And I’ve been trying to explore what it what happens on streets when people play on them effectively. So what does it do to the street? What does it do to the life of the street? How does it change residents experience of their street, if they get a chance to play on it, both adults, and children. And I was due to be researching that over the last year, year and a half to really be focusing on that. And clearly things have changed in the last year, year and a half. So I haven’t been able to do that in quite the way I wanted. I’ve picked up that research in different ways. I’ve tried to do it in different ways at a distance, and looking at kind of previous historical periods as well as the contemporary period. But I’ve also then been able to pick up some stuff around what’s been happening in terms of playfulness on streets. During the pandemic, we all saw kind of a big outburst of play during the first lockdown in particular. So being trying to kind of use that as a way of kind of opening up debates about what else might happen on streets. How else might we enable play to happen on streets? And what might that do?

Carlton Reid 4:15
See, I was just assuming you know that this is for children, but you’ve said adults as well. So what do you mean adults playing on streets?

Alison Stenning 4:22
lWell,

Alison Stenning 4:22
what we find I mean, they’re playing out model is a very particular model, which closes streets temporarily for play, usually on a monthly basis, sometimes weekly, and fortnightly. And it’s very much a child lead kind of model. You know, we don’t organise games for children. But we do assume that parents will be around and responsible for their children and for maintaining safety on the street. So what often happens is that was the children are playing and running up and down and the adults are trying to kind of stand back was the kids play and get on with whatever else they want to do. We see adults just hanging out chatting, laughing getting to know each other. You know, adults don’t often play in the same ways that children do but that kind of play Equal space and the kind of playful atmosphere that’s created on the street, when a bunch of kids are playing on it can be very kind of liberating and very kind of positive, I guess, in terms of, you know, the sorts of potential connections and relationships that can be made between adults as well. And we do. Yeah, of course, we see adults getting involved, too. You know, we see adults talking with the adults playing football, we see adults getting involved in some of the children’s play, too.

Carlton Reid 5:22
You talked about connections that is it. Is it Appleyard? Is that the study? A famous study? I think it is in New York. I’m trying to remember here what this study is. But it’s basically a study which shows that, you know, with lines across the road, you know, the proximity people or the haggle across the road is very different when there’s a bunch of cars around, compared to when there’s not a bunch of cars around.

Alison Stenning 5:46
Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, that’s the density and the kind of the number of cars flowing down the street. And obviously, what happens on a street plate close for players that there are, well, residents can drive to their, their front doors, if we allow them to, but generally, there’s no traffic so people can cross the street, people can move up and down the street. But often what we’ve seen is that for the first time, when streets close for play, people realise quite how many children there are living on the street, and they meet neighbours that they’ve, you know, maybe seen at a distance, but never spoken to. And we’ve had numerous examples of that. An example on the street In Whitley Bay, for example, where after their first place street session, there were people in their 70s, who’d lived on the street for over 30 years, meeting neighbours for the first time.

Carlton Reid 6:28
Wow. And, and Sally, welcome to the show. And, Sally, tell us a bit about your academic credentials at the moment, the kind of study that you’re doing. And and because you are, you’re you, you come on to the video, show ideas, with beers where you discuss this. So tell us a bit about what you’re doing in this in this realm.

Sally Watson 6:56
Yeah, so I’m a postgraduate researcher at Newcastle University, and my background is in Architecture and Planning. And I’m really interested in the decisions that are made about how we design our cities that that afford children, you know, more or less freedom to play and to move around. And, and for me, the mobility, and play are very much intertwined. And so I started out sort of looking at that we have this story about loss and decline of play over the over the course of the second half of the 20th century. And actually, it’s sort of a bit more lumpy than that. And there are moments where we are trying to with the efforts are made to design better environments for children. But not that aren’t just playgrounds, it’s you know, it is actually streets. And, and but these are moments and also these, this kind of increase in motor traffic and car traffic and parking that we see isn’t doesn’t isn’t something that just happens, you know, smoothly is contested. And so I was quite interested in looking at the point in the 1970s, where, where many new housing estates were designed, which separated children’s sort of pedestrian play space from from car design space, and how these become quite stigmatised for many reasons, including probably predominantly political reasons, in the 80s 90s. And, and how, but how Actually, there was also sort of a retrofitting of streets and what happened, what happened in those places where, you know, who, who wanted this to happen, who didn’t want this to happen? Why does it end? And it seems that there’s a point there where we could have some really made, you know, we were really interested as a country, it’s sort of in the UK and other places, you know, developed differently. But we were quite interested in tackling this issue of, of enabling children to play on streets. It’s just something that that we, I think, you know, there is a there’s a movement to push for this now, but it is, it’s still quite a small voice, you know, kind of wanting change.

Carlton Reid 9:04
So what hope do you see for the future, because it’s often said that touching for a politician, for instance, to touch car parking, it’s like touching the third rail, you know, it’s something you just you just don’t do if you ever want to succeed in politics. So given that’s the case, what what do you think is the future for your particular research and whether it could be changed in the real world?

Sally Watson 9:31
Now? Well, I think actually, actually, parking is something that is we don’t talk about enough. We’ve talked a lot about movements of traffic and how that sort of dangerous and deters children. But um, parking, you know, at this point that I’m looking at in the 60s 70s parking, and children are literally, you know, on the same page, when policy is being written about, you know, there is this idea that you can have it all that we can provide parking and we can also make space for children. And this idea that you can have these huge sort of, kind of you know, all main roads become really quite this urban motorways and and then residential streets or become sort of kind of a Radburn is this trying to kind of have your cake and eat it really, it’s not really tackling the issue of how you kind of ensure that people are able to travel in other ways other than other than using the private car. So sort of to go a long way around as a question. I think one of the things that if we’re really serious about making it safer and easier and more acceptable for children to play on the street, we do have to tackle, you know, the amount of driving, and the way we do that is through making safe streets safer for walking, cycling, but also we’re doing really need to improve public transport, we need to think about planning where we’re planning new housing, all of these things. It’s not an easy thing to fix.

Carlton Reid 10:47
So did you say Radburn? So like the cul de sac movement? 1920s? Is that what you mean?

Sally Watson 10:53
Yeah, Robin is it kind of is, it seems to mean many things to many people. It’s, it’s, it’s, it can be something that’s very high density, it can be as we now think of it as being because of huge sprawl and cul de sacs, the original intention was that they were more connected, there was more connectivity. For walking, then then actually, we often get in some of the sort of more 80s 90s sort of American style cul de sac estates. It’s not necessarily the solution. That’s not what I’m proposing. It’s just that at this time, when in the 60s and 70s, when we were designing radburn, or, or something like it quite widely. That was one of that was the kind of the one of the main aims was to make a safe space for children in housing areas.

Carlton Reid 11:38
So Alison, I’ve seen some of your your tweets where you’re discussing. I mean, if Sally is talking about the 70s, there where you’ve discussed previous eras, where play streets were, were being created, placements are then being uncreated. So So can you give us a bit of a history of, of, of play Streets in the UK?

Alison Stenning 12:03
lYeah, I mean, this is something very much something that kind of Sally and I have been working on in parallel through kind of WhatsApp conversations late at night, as we’ve rediscovered the history of place rates in in in the northeast, particularly in Newcastle, and what was then time at Borough Council. So in 1938, the street playgrounds act enabled local authorities to close streets for play. And Sally can add to this story for sure. But it was largely driven by the absence of play spaces in particular neighbourhoods. So these often and poor more disadvantaged neighbourhoods, they were some quite regularly through the 1940s and 50s. And beyond ones that were at risk of redevelopment as well. They tended to be places with high populations of children, and that with very few safe spaces for play, and there was, I guess, already, the kind of rising concern that numbers of motor vehicles were increasing on residential streets, often not private vehicles, but delivery vehicles, milk vans, coal, lorries, that kind of thing. And that they were threatening children that children were increasingly at risk on the play spaces that had been historically kind of their ordinary everyday spaces for play just on their doorsteps and in their back lines on their streets around the corners. And so the 1938 Street playgrounds act set out to enable local authorities to restrict traffic on those streets for certain times of the day, it was usually 8am to sunset or sunrise to sunset, when the streets were first established. This arose from a movement that started in Salford and learning from experience in New York, prior to that have been streets in London that had tried this before the 1938 Act. But after the 1938 Act, we saw a number of local authorities picking this up. And in fact, timeout Borough Council was one of the first to pick it up. And it was certainly the first in the northeast to pick it up. And originally rejecting the idea and but quite quickly, within about so four or five years of, of the acts being passed time after accounts or identifying streets to designate as placed rates, and those were almost all in North shields, and almost all in parts of North shields that kind of, I guess overlook the time overlook the shipyards, as it was then. So, Tyneside flats, narrow streets with terraced housing, and very little green space rail open space. And most of this happened then just after the war. So there were some bomb plots that had been turned into impromptu playgrounds, but there wasn’t a lot of space for play. So these were the ones that were designated.

Carlton Reid 14:43
So Sally, Where have they gone? Where do they go?

Sally Watson 14:46
Well, some of them are still there. Actually, we have found at lists in both in Newcastle and in North Tyneside, of some of places, which are still there. Many of them have been demolished because they then went on to be, they were well, they They were probably already down as being slum clearance areas. And, and then some of them, you know many of them later on the traffic there is just too much traffic. So we still have quite a few and Heaton. But, you know, the demographics of people who are living in those houses change for various reasons related to sort of to housing housing policy. And also there is just too much traffic. So just the sign on its own isn’t enough. I think what it’s, it’s made me think a lot about the work that Allison does in North Tyneside, and that, you know, the place street just closing the streets, in and of itself isn’t necessarily enough, and that there is also this, this kind of really important role, perhaps even if you, you know, even if you live on a dead end street, perhaps there is this also this important role of community organising for play that actually brings something, something else some other than just sufficient physical infrastructure.

Carlton Reid 15:51
We’re talking about play here. And this is a question to both you I guess. But it’s not just about, you know, getting out there playing hopscotch, doing all these fantastic things talking on the road. It’s also about mobility, and children, having the ability to actually move about the places where they live, you know, forget play, it’s just how to physically get from your house to school to see your friends or whatever. So, Alison, how does how does that aspect fit in actually getting people to use their own form of transport without relying on parent or taxis?

Alison Stenning 16:27
Well, I think I mean, you know, the playing out movement would very much see themselves as part of this. And I think, often, this debate within the playing out movement rests on idea of timber gills, that that the street is the first step in independent mobility that every child feels at home on their own Street and feels like they can move around their own street safely, whether that’s because they’ve learned how to manage traffic, and just to be aware of traffic and to feel that the street is theirs, and that they have a right to walk up and down it, then that can lead and build towards a much greater sense of independent mobility. And we also have a lot of evidence, for example of children learning to ride their bikes on streets that are close for play. So there is this kind of sense in which giving children the space, but also a sense that this is their street, and they belong on it, then that that can build and create kind of other spaces and extended journeys that we all started, you know, by developing our kind of spatial mobility and our independent mobility from our doorsteps. And but that’s been increasingly kind of restricted over the years. And I think there’s this sense in which of you, if you give children space to play, if you give children space to explore abuse, give children space to connect to their streets, and then they’re more they’re, I guess, they’re keener to kind of extend their roaming distance beyond the street. But then obviously, you come up against the barriers to that, which, you know, we keep coming back to the question of traffic and cars. And I think, you know, things like school streets, for example, connect to these debates, creating what is effectively a place to eat outside of school, which not only changes the atmosphere outside the school, but also for many will start to be a part of the jigsaw or in a safe journey to school. And we hope I suppose that, you know, by giving some children the space to see what is possible without cars, and what’s opened up, when we reduce the number of cars on a street or maybe dentistry, that there’s also a kind of cultural change. And I think, you know, this sense in which there’s a kind of, there’s a numbers game, I guess, going on that, you know, play workers often say that kind of the child’s favourite loose part is another child, that what they want to play with is another child more than anything. And I think that’s also true for questions of kind of independent mobility. That’s much easier for children, if they’ve met each other hanging out on the street playing together on the street to move around and beyond the streets together. And so there’s a sense that if more children are out on the streets, if more children are feeling confident on the streets, then that will generate, I guess, shifts in parenting shifts in parenting cultures, which have to go alongside the reduction of cars and car traffic.

Carlton Reid 19:06
With with it with Tim, I didn’t talk to him about like stranger danger. So you know, that’s one component. It’s not just traffic danger. People aren’t afraid of it stranger danger, too. But so I’d like to come to you and ask about because I don’t want to hyper localise it too much. Because this is this isn’t a Jesmond show, but you had issues with the school in Jesmond being able to basically get your kids to school in safety.

Sally Watson 19:38
Yeah, I suppose. I mean, just going back to Allison was saying about the street. And I think just going back to mobility, I think we can think tend to think in very adult terms about mobility and you think about what’s a toddler’s mobility? Well, you know, we know that very young children much prefer to to play very close to their homes. We think about that. You know that child knocking on a neighbour’s door to us or don’t they? Is mobility but equally, that child moving around that street and playing, you know, that’s, that’s partly that is also mobility for them and you know, and equally then to then talk about the school run a bit i think you know, mobility is is not we talk a lot about independent mobility but actually children are also travel or move with with family with friends and we need to sort of think a bit more widely about about that. So you know, that our school run is is probably many people would think is not too bad until the point that you get to school and that environment outside school is kind of what I would just call traffic chaos. And you come up against, you know, many other people trying to use that street for many different purposes. And I think it’s as good then, you know, it goes back to that the street, what, what is the purpose of that street at that time of day? And whose movement movement? Should it be facilitating? And really, you know, given you have a huge number of children trying to travel through there, it isn’t, again, I think it isn’t just about travel, as Allison said that this idea of school streets, you know, the atmosphere of arriving at a school where there is no traffic right outside kind of completely, I think transforms the experience for those children arriving at school and those families.

Carlton Reid 21:18
So if you were the Newcastle transport planner, how would you change that particular street? And how would that link into maybe other streets, other schools elsewhere in the UK, perhaps even elsewhere in the world?

Sally Watson 21:31
I think I mean, and I think actually, others have started to talk more about secondary as well, but I think there are there are differences between primary schools and secondary schools, there are differences, you know, in the types of streets that that schools are on, I think schools that aren’t on aren’t on a kind of main road, really serious main road, bus route, whatever, there’s, there isn’t really any reason why you can’t create a school street or even a network of streets that are accessed only at school drop off and pickup times. These are just decisions that you know, that we, as adults, adults in positions of power can make. Yeah, they can be controversial, but I think, if framed in the right way. And I think that they are sort of broadly acceptable compared to most people, and but then you have a different issue when it comes to older children travelling to school, the some recent research that that’s actually in Newcastle talking to children, about about their worries about pandemic and one of the things that come out of that is, is how they feel using public transport. And so sort of, again, thinking about mobility, you know, older children might be walking, might be cycling, might be using public transport to get around the city. And we’re not really kind of thinking about any of our transport planning with their needs in mind. So it’s sort of a, you know, it’s a bigger thing than the street, but it does definitely kind of start with those those streets.

Carlton Reid 22:54
Alison, that say, mentioned the pandemic there. Do you think I don’t want to touch on the sunrise cycle ages? Yeah, what am I gonna leave that for a moment? But do you think what’s happened during the pandemic, either gone organically from just people being, you know, in effect close to home, or from the government’s point of view, where they’ve, they’ve actually done stuff or tried to do stuff to increase active mobility? Do you think the pandemic will lead to societal changes in the long term?

Alison Stenning 23:34
I suppose that’s the kind of million dollar question, isn’t it? And I think, you know, I think lots of us who are kind of very excited by what we’d seen, as you say, both happening in an organic manner, during the first lockdown, but also, the announcement of the active travel funds. Last year, we’re quite excited that this might mark a shift, both in terms of people’s experience of their streets, and what they hoped for on their streets, and, but also government and local government or responses. And I suppose I’m increasingly less positive about what’s been achieved and what might be maintained. And I think, you know, we need to look back at kind of some of the biggest structural issues around, you know, cars and car parking and those different kinds of mobility. And as Sally suggested, the alternative forms of mobility, which might, which might kind of take up some of the slack, particularly kind of public transport. I think, you know, people did enjoy and recognise the value of low traffic streets, which is what we effectively had in the first lockdown. And that wasn’t true for everyone. People were still having to travel for work, and there was some essential travel going on. I think for the most part, in most parts of the UK, we saw a dramatic decline in in traffic, we did also see an increase in speeding. And that’s an interesting connection to think about, in terms of making streets safe for children for others, too. I think, you know, all of the debates that we’ve seen about low traffic neighbours Particularly in London, the controversies there, but also the controversies clearly in in Newcastle, you know, suggest that there’s still a very big kind of Hill to be climbed around this. And and I don’t really have the answers to that. But I do think yeah, I think it’s perhaps not I’m not as optimistic as I was. I suppose this time. We’re not this time last year, but over the summer.

Carlton Reid 25:23
Sally. And the same question to you. Are you as pessimisticvqs Alison, are you optimistic on that there will be societal changes will come after after the pandemic?

Sally Watson 25:35
Yeah, I probably like, Alison, I think I think that I’m optimistic about some, you know, that there have been some shifts, I’m less optimistic about where we go more broadly, because I can see that there is, you know, there isn’t in enough infrastructure being built to support other other modes other than driving fast enough. The, the, you know, the difficulty, in terms of pushback is is huge. In I mean, it is and bigger and something like that, I think London has seen a bigger backlash than I’ve seen anywhere else in the UK, but there has been a backlash out everywhere else. But also, I just can see that, you know, people are going getting in their cars, and people aren’t using public transport, and that’s a really worrying thing. And we start seeing, you know, drive thru cinemas advertised and everything’s, you know, all us, you know, cuz everything’s gonna be a drive thru. And that really worries me that we were end up ending up going to kind of actually kind of support more driving rather than discouraging it through that. But I mean, I think you know, for for politicians, there is opportunity here, and you know, the features still to be decided written, really, they do have opportunity, we see even where we live huge numbers of people cycling, one of my concerns about how we plan to support, you know, this kind of activity in the future is that we’re not measuring any of this. And we know that through, if we don’t have that sort of data to support change, it can be more difficult to make those changes.

Carlton Reid 27:11
So I said, I’m gonna come straight back to you on on the bridges, because there’s been a Newcastle has closed off to my address, not to pedestrians, not to cyclists, not to, to scooter users, etc, but close off to motorists, five bridges. And then there’s an awful lot of controversy, as they always are on these kind of things. But it does seem that touchwood that Newcastle is holding its nerve, and is not reacting to the incredibly loud voices and including some potentially fraudulent voices in this particular semi consultation. So So what’s happening with the bridges? And are you hopeful that those particular bridges will remain open to pedestrians and cyclists but close to motorists?

Sally Watson 28:01
Yeah, I think we are hopeful. I mean, we really we don’t know what the decision is going to be at. But the reason I think we’re hopeful is that they’ve they’ve kind of so far done everything that they said they would they kind of come up with a report quite quickly after the after the sort of end of the consultation and there’s a decision, I think that’s gonna be made in the summer, but they’re talking about it looking kind of looking quite carefully about how people respond to the consultation, and but also looking at other sort of other data, you know, in terms of traffic, but traffic on main roads and air pollution, what have you. So I think it is, it is important. And and also actually, I think, you know, recognising that while I think we had quite a good response to the consultation, it’s probably not representative of the people who live in these bases. And to go back to children. This is an, you know, big issue that we have, I think when we look at how many children are responding or being or even able to take part in these consultations, it’s very, very tiny numbers. So, you know, if we make the decision based on what you know, and the or your kind of, I think a recent, a recent transport policy consultation in the northeast, has just announced its findings. And you know, the majority are not the majority, but by far the biggest group of people who had responded were white men who were around some in their 50s. And, and it’s really important that we make sure that we’re we’re kind of thinking about transport, we’re thinking much more widely than, than that.

Carlton Reid 29:34
That’s a good point. So listen to children a bit more. Yeah. As children physically ask them. Yeah,

Sally Watson 29:40
And that that’s difficult. And obviously, it’s even been been more difficult in the pandemic, but in I say, it’s difficult in that, you know, we know how do you access that? How do you access that this is always the kind of question about how do you engage what what are kind of generally known as hard to reach groups but but I think you know, there are ways of doing that. And I think that we probably don’t spend make enough effort to do that.

Carlton Reid 30:06
So Alison let’s let’s talk about the Sunrise Cycleway and potentially permanent changes might result. So give us a brief rundown of the changes that were made in your neck of the woods this particular cycle way whether it was well used and and then it was dismantled. So tell us about the dismantling of it and and what happened there, but then also maybe discuss the potential for a permanent cycle way to come out of this.

Alison Stenning 30:38
Yeah, I mean, I think you know, what we saw last summer was, yeah, the creation of a three mile five kilometre cycle along the seafront, from time mouth to Whitney Bay, running through cullercoats all along the seafront, effectively removing one lane of traffic, the southbound lane, which was replaced by a two way cycle cycle lane, and there was a bit of shifting and changing kind of in the process to accommodate particularly the needs of both fishing boats, but also the volunteer life Brigade, who need access needed access kind of along the coast. So there was a bit of shifting and changing to create access points. And but largely what we had from July through to October here, I’ve got my dates, right, was a traffic free cycle way right along the seafront, it was extremely well used. And I can’t remember off the top of my head, the figures, but it was 1000s of people daily peaking, obviously, weekends and and in the summer months. And it was used by all sorts of different people, but particularly it was used by children, by families and by people on non standard bikes, as well as people who were on road bikes, but perhaps would have travelled up and down the coast anyway, this bit of road forms part of the National Cycle network route one, which is in ordinary times shared path right along the seafront. It’s quite a wide path at times, but it’s often quite narrow. And in the context of both the summer and the pandemic, we’d see huge numbers of people trying to kind of make their way up and down the coast. And I guess what we’re beginning to see after the cycleway was pulled out in October on the basis, apparently of falling fingers, but also tricky negotiations with other coastal users. And you know, the argument all along was that there would be far fewer people using this, but what we’ve seen is a consistent flow of people trying to walk and cycle along the coast, and that that’s picked up really dramatically in the last kind of month or so that it’s really quite difficult to cycle down what is now a shared path on the pavement. So we’ve been actively kind of pushing for and trying to kind of, you know, encourage the council to to move towards both kind of, I suppose, a short term solution and a longer term solution and the Council have committed to a longer term solution along the seafront. We’re not sure how that will work and living streets, North Tyneside have put forward a plan for what they think might work. And we’re not sure what the council is looking at what the council’s ideas are, but a way of accommodating different forms of traffic down the coast and creating space for walking and cycling. But we say that there’s quite an urgent need for that, in the short term as well, I have no idea what it’s going to be like on the summer during the summer on the seafront. It’s already heaving at weekends with very, very difficult kind of to walk, let alone to walk and cycle on the on the path. And there have been quite a lot of tweets and other kind of posts on social media over the last few months about the number of close passes that happen on the seafront road on the road now that most cyclists are back on the road. And of course, that excludes cyclists who aren’t confident excludes children and excludes family cycling with their children. So we’ve seen a real shift in in in the opportunities to cycle through the bar. And I think you know, obviously there was a lot of focus on this being a kind of sort of leisure route, but it often it also provided a really safe route between our our town centres between Whitley Bay, cullercoats and time mouth that say travelling for shopping, having to see friends and family and when that’s been possible, and that LinkedIn then to these closures on northfields fish key and on Park view In Whitley Bay. So these places became if you like kind of destinations for people kind of shopping and eating and drinking. And they were connected by a cycleway which made moving between these places much easier.

Carlton Reid 34:45
Now an awful lot of the chatter on social media was basically saying those places which you just mentioned, that they’re losing all their business. And that was obviously because of the pandemic. It was just that why people aren’t going To shops? And yeah, that was the evidence that was very often cited. Would you say there was there was some people would say the opposite to that? Yeah. I

Alison Stenning 35:09
mean, I think that there’s different pictures, I’d say on the fish key and park view, my understanding is that almost all of the businesses, that’s to say, kind of the food and retail businesses on the fish key were in favour of the closure and are pushing, as far as I understand for another closure this summer. And the on Park view, it was slightly more complicated, I think. But I think, you know, what we haven’t seen is the evidence that the council gathered, you know, they did record and report both traffic on the seafront, but also footfall and all sorts of other data from Park view and from the fish game, we don’t have that data. And it hasn’t been reported publicly. And so we don’t really know what numbers were like. I mean, we can rely on anecdotal evidence, obviously. But what we also don’t know there’s been no, no systematic and clear kind of survey, as far as as far as we understand of the businesses on Parkview. We hear stories of people, you know, feeling kind of at risk and losing business, but we also hear stories of people for whom it was an amazing boon in terms of their sales. That that was food shops, and some of the clothes shops and some of the bars and cafes down there. So we don’t know is the answer. And we don’t have the evidence at the moment to make those decisions. And I think, you know, in contrast to Newcastle, where there was a very widespread consultation, and we’ve already seen the initial results from that, we don’t really have that information in North Tyneside

Carlton Reid 36:34
yet. So Sally, again, we’re going to be hyperlocal here. But in our particular leafy suburb, there has just recently appeared some protection for cyclists on some stretches of, of, of, of road, so I’m assuming you welcome those kind of bits of infrastructure been installed. But do you think and he kind of mentioned this before? And you said, it’s not coming quick enough. But how quickly did that do with Newcastle City Council have to go to actually make these interventions actually physically work?

Sally Watson 37:13
Yeah, I think that it’s been really great to see the temporary stuff. I think the difficulty with it is we know this that when you when you’re talking about temporary cycling’s, you can’t really deal with the junctions. And so I can understand the reluctance to, to put in huge amounts of temporary stuff without a plan to make to do something about the junctions. But I think that, to some extent, you know, there are people who are such nervous cyclists that they will get off and cross the road junctions and still use the production. So I think there’s probably a case for more temporary, you know, we know that there are streets that are wide that are, you know, in fact, I have personally suggested to the council that, you know, shortly after this all started that they might want to think about focusing on on secondary schools looking at secondary schools, which are main roads which have space and putting in pop up cycle lanes there because even even if they can’t deal with the junctions, you have huge numbers of kids spilling out of schools onto quite narrow pavements and they’re already sort of jostling and people you know, kids who are cycling can end up on the road so you know, thinking about it in those terms then with a plan to make this permanent in the future is probably you know, those are quite good places to start. And so that we’ve been led to believe they have funding to make the some of the pop up stuff here permanent don’t know about some of the other stuff that’s wasted waiting to see what we have a high straight street here which has some cycling some pedestrian I think many of us feel that you know, who cycle feel it would be really it’s really important that that that temporary pedestrian space, kind of getting the common cycling space in the future. But I think that not that I don’t think that’s necessarily a plan that the Council have. So these things were always kind of, I suppose pushing pushing for more with the sort of recognition that if you want people to come and use high streets, you do need to make this space for cycling we’re seeing many many more people cycling if you want them to come and stop at shops you know, it’s just it’s not like when you come in the car and you bring your kids and you can get out of buggy your if you’ve brought your kids on your bike you you know how do you then tell if you have a baby and a toddler and has been huge and shopping How do you manage that so he’s we’re seeing many more different types of 500 cycle now being used to with children. And so we you know, we do need to think about infrastructure for sort of cycling and a much more broader sense it needs to really get to right to the two destinations you need psychopath from all this, all this other stuff. So it’s a big leap on from thinking about your commuter routes.

Carlton Reid 39:59
And Allison, if you asked a five year old, if you asked a 15 year old, if you asked a 16 year old, you know, what would they want from their streets? You’d get, I’m assuming a certain answer. If you then asked a 17 year old and that’s the age, of course, in the UK, where you get your driving licence, that and I’ll consider the United Nations consider to hold on to I think 18, isn’t it? So I’m a child of 17. He’s got a driving licence, we’re all of a sudden have a very different view of what should perhaps I’m assuming here of the transport priorities. So how do you make either that connection or that disconnection from as soon as you get your driving licence, your perspectives on this change completely?

Alison Stenning 40:51
Well, I suppose there’s two things is one is that having a driving licence, you know, doesn’t mean you can afford to take lessons pass test by a car. So there’s still enormous inequalities, which exist, even after 17 that is a relatively small number of children and young people who would be able to buy a car and use that as their primary mode of transport. And there are huge costs associated with driving and unless those can be absorbed by you or your family, then you’re still it’s still not going to be your primary mode of transport for quite some time. And the other thing is, I suppose that you know, that that kind of rite of passage of kind of passing your test and getting a car when you turn 70, and or kind of as soon as you possibly can afterwards, is a result of the the way in which we hold the car up in, in popular culture, if, you know, if we can make changes now, which mean that actually children see, you know, young children now see that, you know, bikes or feet, give them more freedom to move around their local communities safely with their friends, you know, okay, you can give your friends a lift in a car. But you know, getting around hanging around them, you know, I guess this is the thing about asking children and young people. And like Sally said, you know, there are now numerous ways in which people have tried and tested talking to children and young people about what they want, from their streets, what they want from their cities, what they want from their public transport systems. It’s not, you know, there’s just dozens and dozens of studies that have done this now. And it’s not beyond the realms of possibility for councils like Newcastle or North Tyneside to actually consult children and young people and to ask them, and yeah, there will be much the needs of an 11 year old will be very different to the needs of a 17 year old. And there’s been a lot of stuff recently, about how how little, for example, teenage girls are accounted for in public space, and how they might move about public space. And how they might, you know, choose to travel, choose to meet their friends, and so on. So I think it is about asking children and young people, asking them what might make a difference to them making choices to buy a car or to take driving lessons, or in fact, just to have a bike. And you know, you see, I see, I see young people, I don’t know, 15, 16, 17 year olds, cycling all over North Tyneside, they’re often cycling on the pavement, because it’s the only place that they can safely cycle. But it’s clearly how young people do get around. That’s how I got around to the young person. And it’s one of those, you know, taking your test at 17. Buying a car is one route, but it’s not the only route. And it’s a privileged route.

Carlton Reid 43:21
Well, thank you, both of you for taking the time today to chat with me to end Could you please tell everybody how they can find you on social media and perhaps any links to your academic or any other hats? You like to put that I know Sally might give a cycling campaign hat there. So first of all, Alison, give us your social media and any other links.

Alison Stenning 43:49
So I’m on Twitter as @Alisonstenning, quite easy to find there. And, and in terms of my academic role, it’s very easy to search for me at Newcastle University. I’m in geography at the university and you’ll find me if you if you search for me, and I also have you kind of I guess to activist hats, I run playmate Street, North Tyneside here coordinate street closures play in North Tyneside, again, that’s at play meet street on Twitter. And you can find us by searching. We’re on Facebook, as well as we have a basic website. And I’m also involved in living streets in North Tyneside, and off the top of my head. I can’t remember what their Twitter handle is. But again, if you search for that, you’ll find both a website and twitter twitter handle and the Facebook page. Thank you

Carlton Reid 44:41
And Sally?

Sally Watson 44:42
So yeah, I’m also on Twitter @SalaWatson. I can be also found in Newcastle University in the School of Architecture, planning and landscape. I additionally I chair the Newcastle cycling campaign, we have a Twitter which is @Newcycling We also have you can find too that we have a Facebook website as well

Carlton Reid 45:07
Thanks to Alison Stanning and Sally Watson there and thanks to you for listening to the spokesmen cycling podcast. Show notes and more can be found on the-spokesmen.com but as always

Carlton Reid 45:23
get out there and ride!

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Sunday 28th February 2021

The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 268: Bike Freak: Being Gary Fisher

SPONSOR: Jenson USA

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUEST: Gary Fisher

TOPICS: I walk Gary backyards through his life, starting now and ending in 1950, the year he was born.

LINKS:

“Being Gary Fisher,” Bluetrain Publishing.

TRANSCRIPT:

Carlton Reid 0:13
Welcome to episode 268 of the Spokesmen Cycling Podcast. This show was published on Sunday 28th February 2021

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 Fredcast cycling podcast at www.Fredcast.com. I’m one of the hosts and producers of the Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast. For shownotes links and all sorts of other information please visit our website at www.the-spokesmen.com. And now, here are the spokesmen..

Carlton Reid 1:08
Mountain bike icon. Gary Fisher has a book out. It’s a great book. No, no, it’s a fantastic book. It’s eclectic. It’s lively. It’s full of fabulous photographs. And I loved it. I’m Carlton Reid. And on today’s very, very long Show. I’m talking to Hollywood, Grateful Dead and transportation cycling with the eponymous larger than life subject of being Gary Fisher. You might think you know, Gary’s story, the mountain bike years, of course, and perhaps also his psychedelia phase. I’m not too sure he’s out of that phase yet, actually. But there’s plenty in our chat that’s fresh. And it’s fascinating to hear Gary reminiscing, as I walk him backwards through his life, starting now. And ending in 1950, the year Gary was born.

Carlton Reid 2:11
So Gary, this this book, it’s hard to put into words how good it is actually, it is just fabulous. I mean, the cover alone,

Carlton Reid 2:23
obviously, is an absolute knockout, just a wonderful, wonderful illustration of well, instantly recognisable mountain bike, bicycle, Guru icon, whatever you want to be called, or whatever we want to call you. It’s just fantastic. Then you turn it over, and there’s the back of your head. So it’s a wonderful gag. And then even even the spine is brilliant. So the spine

Carlton Reid 2:50
is just an open spot. It’s difficult to describe as it’s an open spine. It’s not like on a book you’d normally see. And then the contents inside are also not it’s like a graphic novel. Right? So tell me first of all, because this is guy Kesteven is the guy who has interviewed you. Is this like a British production? Mostly? Yeah. Tell me tell me about the production values here.

Gary Fisher 3:15
Okay, and Guy Andrews. Also, yes, you see, you know, he’s the guy that

Gary Fisher 3:22
really was the main guy behind Rouleur back in a day. Yep. You know, and I met those guys a long time ago. And they were, you know, really impressed me as they knew what they were doing. And guy’s wife, Taz Darling, she knows paper printing, you know, putting these things together, and it’s the

Gary Fisher 3:45
finish, let let the kids loose. You know,

Gary Fisher 3:49
basically,

Gary Fisher 3:52
I wanted to have a book that has a beginning, middle and end call to action, all these different things. And that’s was the important part. It wasn’t, I just didn’t want to do another dry autobiography, you know, and I, I’ve always believed in you try to find the very best people possible to work with. And then you set them free go out,

Carlton Reid 4:22
actually, I would, I would stop you that I would just say the text in this book is it would be standalone you wouldn’t need you actually wouldn’t need all the fantastic illustrations that are in there, even though they are absolutely fantastic. Because you have

Carlton Reid 4:36
as you know, you have had an amazing, amazing life and and hopefully we’ll we’ll get on to that. As we carry on and we we kind of go into your, your your background before you became this this bicycling icon. But what I’d like to do is just anybody I’m sure there’s nobody on here who’s listening to this. It doesn’t know

Carlton Reid 5:00
You are, but let me just read out what’s the first paragraph on the back cover. So that kind of sets the scene. And then I’m going to do something that hopefully you’ll agree to. But anyway, let’s just let’s read out the the cover blurb. “Meet Gary Fisher, the maverick kid bike racer, who cycles straight into the acid test seen and lit up the Grateful Dead gigs. The relentless tinkerer who transformed an industry and sold mountain biking to the world, and the visionary who still working flat out every day to prove that bikes are the answer to a healthier, happier future. for everyone.” Now, I know you are going on lots of podcasts, Gary, and and they’re very, very podcast. So you’ve been on the war on cars. And then you can talk about like your modern activism. And I’m sure you could go on a, you know, an acid trip, kind of podcast and talk about that background.

Carlton Reid 5:58
So you’ve had just an amazing life. Now, in the book.

Carlton Reid 6:06
It’s chronological. So roughly, it goes from, well, kind of before you’re born, so it talks about your, your, your two or three generations ancestors, and then it comes right the way up to the present. So with your permission, Gary, yes. I’d like to go through your book backwards. Okay. So there’s like, this is your life, but backwards. And I’ve just picked out. So I’ve read the whole book, I think it’s fantastic. So I’ve picked out some stuff I’d like to talk about. And and I’d like you to tell me stuff.

Carlton Reid 6:41
Some of which is is in it. Other interviews people will have heard before, you know, you got some famous anecdotes, and I’m sure we’ll touch on those. But there’s tonnes in this book that I didn’t know, which is fantastic to be able to get like a fuller story. So because it’s chronological, and because it, it ends in in 2019, even though it talks about COVID, about four or five times it’s bang up to date, in many respects.

Carlton Reid 7:10
But it’s it finishes the chronology finishes, roughly roughly now. So I’d like to take you backwards. So first of all, tell me about your Alex, your wife, your wife, and your your young children then now so we might hear them in the background. So let’s just, let’s just talk about them. So

Carlton Reid 7:29
tell me about your family background where you are in your house right now.

Gary Fisher 7:33
Right now. It’s just the four of us. So I’ve got a

Gary Fisher 7:38
two and a half year old girl, a six year old boy, and my wife and myself, my wife’s a doctor. And, you know, she’s a regular MD family doctor, and she’s been doing a lot of telemedicine. And normally, you know, I work she works, I still work full time for trek bikes. But the last month and a half we had and normally we have an Au Pair living with us. And for the last month and a half no pair so we take care of the kids ourselves, which is in incredibly sweet. I got a it’s a lot of work. And I get I totally get it. I mean, a mother’s job, you know, is never ending.

Gary Fisher 8:23
You know, and I’ve been a mother, I’ve been caretaker I’ve been a, you know, I bring in food and cook. I didn’t I never, if you told me 10 years ago, I was going to be cooking every day.

Gary Fisher 8:37
Really, wow, you know, what I’m doing, and all the domestic work. And it’s been? Well, some people would say humbling, but I’ve always believed in that type of work is really good for the mind and the body. That simple, humble stuff. It’s been really, really sweet. And that being said, we’ve got a new au pair that’s come up from Mexico and she wants to learn interior design. Oh my god, it’s so perfect. She’s so great. And she’s been in quarantine. She’s gonna come out on Thursday, and we’ll have a family of five again, that’ll be great. So it’s little things like that, you know, little this little pod and my I’ve got other kids and we’ve all been in touch via you know, Skype and other good like that, you know, nobody’s been physically touching each other or getting close simply because we got too many scientists in the family and doctors

Gary Fisher 9:42
don’t fool around.

Carlton Reid 9:45
So let’s let’s place you geographically. So my son Josh has been out to you and you kind of took him for a bike ride around your neighbourhood I believe it was. So what is that neighbourhood? So we’re roughly you don’t have to tell me exactly where your house is. But where’s your neighbourhood?

Gary Fisher 10:00
We’re just across the bay from San Francisco. And I mean, we’re literally on the bay. So we get the view of the Golden Gate Bridge of the city. It’s spectacular.

Carlton Reid 10:12
And it’s all the yacht a yacht club, isn’t it?

Gary Fisher 10:14
It is very close to the club. And all that, you know, this is the original Yacht Club of San Francisco, San Francisco Yacht Club, is located across the bay and Belvedere. And Belvedere has got a weird story to it, you know, they used to, they claimed it was an island, and therefore not subject of all the local laws, and they had their own laws.

Gary Fisher 10:38
And it’s really a charming little place. And my parents moved here when I was a teenager, and I hated it. And I couldn’t wait to get away, and I did. Now I’ve come back. And it’s like,

Gary Fisher 10:52
it’s, it’s amazing. It’s a totally change neighbourhood. It used to be old white people, and now it’s people that make money from all parts of the world, you hear all the different languages on our streets these days, it’s great, you know, I want to teach my kids four different languages, you know, we can do that the kids will, will absorb it, and it creates a more nimble mind, we know this.

Gary Fisher 11:20
It’s this, like, I guess, you know, I’m in that stage of life where I’m like, really, where people tend to, to get dedicate themselves to their kids. And part of that is, you know, this insane traffic system that we have here in the United States, that we’re relying on this grand experiment with the automobile that has never delivered on promise.

Carlton Reid 11:47
Now, Gary, I can date you very accurately because the chronology finishes in a certain year, but and you kind of brought it up there. But how old are you?

Gary Fisher 11:55
I’m 70. Born in 1950, right now.

Carlton Reid 11:58
Yep. So 1950 is when I want to end. So we’ve got a lot to get through. We’re not going to go for every single year, I’m going to pick out the highlights, but some of them are below lights in that. So the first one I’m going to go to is actually when the Gary Fisher name disappeared off bikes. So we are talking 2011. So we can go into the history of Trek when we when we get there in the the chronology, but just tell me about what you thought about the name disappearing. And you’re like the Gary Fisher collection, and not, you know, decal on the side of a bike. So what were you thinking then?

Gary Fisher 12:36
It was funny, because it was actually a part of saying, Yeah, this is a good idea. In that day, the company we’re producing, you know, my bikes and track bikes and wares are sort of cannibalising each other and sort of like, competing with each other. And a were obliged to make, you know, a completely different bike line. And that was crazy. You know, and, and that didn’t make sense. And at the same time, trek wasn’t all that powerful, and marketing of their known names. And we could go through that history, we had quite a few different names over the years. And a lot of them failed simply because they weren’t really good at getting out there. And getting in front and marketing, any of them, even the track name. And fortunately, that’s changed quite a bit in the last few years. You know, it brought in a number of new people, you know, younger people with good visions, and everything, good marketing people, and that’s, that’s changed. And it’s, you know, it’s sort of crushed me that I still had a great following, and yet

Gary Fisher 13:50
they wanted to take you know, my name was on the bike. I was fine with that. Even though trek was on a head badge. For a while I’ve disappeared completely, but lately, they they’ve been bringing me back and they use it a lot more of my names, you know, and it’s like,

Gary Fisher 14:07
the bike I’ve gotten behind the Marlin with simple bike, okay, that’s the whole idea of it. You know, it’s made of parts we know work of dimensions, or that you can there are available around the world, you know, fully supported. That bike, my baby sells more mountain bikes than any other mountain bike on Earth. You know what? So I don’t care what anybody thinks. I’m happy.

Gary Fisher 14:34
This is what I wanted to always do is cover the earth with bikes. You know.

Gary Fisher 14:39
I love high end bikes. I love Exotica. I love new dimensions, new standards. You know, the heck of it, let’s just go for it. I love that whole thing. But there is a place for the simple humble, repairable bicycle, you know, and that’s something we don’t make

Gary Fisher 15:00
fake bikes, you know, like, like, in the United States, we get this phenomena of what we call a bike shaped object, you know. And it’s really funny, it sort of comes in under the category of a toy. And it is truly unrepairable. Because it’s all soft steel, you know, soft material and everything. And we won’t make a bike like that, you know, we we, you know, I tend to think our cheapest bike is the world’s cheapest bike, dollar per mile sort of thing. And that’s where that Marlin hits it, you know that it’s a good simple, cheap bike with incredible colours.

Carlton Reid 15:37
So Trek isn’t, isn’t using your name on the bikes, but they’re using you. On what you’re, you’re a globe, obviously, now you’re not travelling anywhere, but prior to the pandemic, you are a global ambassador. Yeah, well cycling in general, but of course, Trek in particular, what’s on your business card? What What does it say on your business card?

Carlton Reid 15:59
What’s your job title?

Gary Fisher 16:00
Well, technically, you know, I’m a Product executive. But I’m also a brand ambassador. So those those two things, you know, is what I do. But then I’m, then I get this other title. I’m Gary.

Gary Fisher 16:15
You know, I can come in and comment on anything, and people will listen.

Gary Fisher 16:20
But that’s because I listen a lot. You know, I listen, a lot of always listen to my customers. And, you know, it’s the key people need to be heard. Or, you’re never going to win, any type of respect is never going to get anywhere with them. So you got to spend your time listening, you know, and why there’s new things you learn, you know, all the time. And that’s my goal. I want to learn something every single day of my life.

Carlton Reid 16:48
And I’m saying you’re learning stuff from your book, Gary. So let’s let go 1996. Now, so we’re, we’re skimming through the years here. There’s tonnes of fascinating stuff in between, of course, but we can’t talk about everything. So I’m going to talk about the kind of the riders you’ve been involved with over the years and and the what the first one that comes up in your, in the book or that sorry, going backwards in the book Paola Pezzo.

Gary Fisher 17:14
Oh, yeah.

Carlton Reid 17:15
Who won Olympic gold. medal, winning mountain biker looked fantastic, was a marketable personality in here own right. So I’ve got that down as 1996 when you started working with it all set when she won the gold, isn’t it? So in Atlanta, and she won that?

Gary Fisher 17:34
Well, that was a Yeah, in Atlanta, you know, but you’d already been riding for a couple a few years. And, oh, boy, that was crazy. But, you know, the whole situation we had in Italy, we had crazy distributor, you know, and, and she came through that, and it was, like, she and I is so funny. It’s like the coincidence thing. There’s stuff that we’ve, we marked it, oh, we have all these stuff in common. She was our writer for 12 years, you know, and,

Gary Fisher 18:07
you know, she would win the podium every time, you know, she had the timings the looks, you know, she could wear the fashions correctly and everything, that whole thing.

Gary Fisher 18:19
And at the same time, you know, choose dedicated, you know, completely dedicated, serious writer and everything.

Gary Fisher 18:27
This, we’ve been lucky, you know, we had some good riders, but everybody, they get into that realm of, you know, sponsorship and everything. And,

Gary Fisher 18:37
well, there’s people that are well known. I mean, you look at the stats, I mean, Lance Armstrong is still the best known cyclist in the world at this moment. But what are you known for, you know, is the that other thing and she sent a fantastic message, you know, look good, ride a bike, be strong. I mean, she’s strong and powerful. And, you know, I’m looking forward to the pandemic and ending and going there and bringing my family with me and

Gary Fisher 19:09
hanging out with the group. You know, this the good life, huh?

Carlton Reid 19:14
Yeah. Okay, let’s, let’s skim backwards. And we are now going to skim backwards to 1992. And that’s when you you basically sold to Trek.

Gary Fisher 19:27
Well, that’s that like, and that’s a simplification because my brother and I sold to another company before that, you know, and when and that was crazy. And my brother told me, I should listen to my brother. My brother said, I don’t trust these guys. He was over right.

Carlton Reid 19:45
So they were a Taiwanese company. Who made those BSOs who made those? They were they were churning out some pretty poor bike for you. Yeah?

Gary Fisher 19:54
well, they treated us as a cash cow. You know, I would. It was crazy. I got these pricings

Gary Fisher 20:00
From this is crazy, this pricing, I immediately, you know, jump on a plane and go to Taiwan I go around a different competiting competitor companies and I get prices that are 20% lower, you treat me as a cash cow and then a dumping ground. I mean, like, we get last year’s equipment.

Gary Fisher 20:19
You know, we get like bikes where the head tube was cracked and then painted over, you know, this her own mother company, you know,

Gary Fisher 20:27
I can laugh now. Well in it in the in the book that there’s there’s an illustration of a two pager a double page illustration of you being a detective, in effect with anlin. So how come you you’re having to find out what was happening with this company and you’re being shafted? And then you must have then tried to get out? And that’s when track came? Yeah, well, a lot of different offers were coming along because the name was had been tarnished within the dealerships, but not out in the general public. So a lot of you know, and that was a time when everybody was trying to get into the business, they wanted to have a name. So we hadn’t really good name. And they wanted and trek came along. And I knew that this is the company, you know, and and I was between a rock and a hard place because at that moment I had, you know, my

Gary Fisher 21:26
major financier, you know, installed a liquidator basically good old Howie, Howie Cohen, which we turned out to be friends. But

Carlton Reid 21:37
he was a historian, wasn’t he? Because I know how Howie Cohen, we’ve actually emailed together because he he was a, as well as being a major figure in the bike industry. He liked his history. So he liked his 1890s stuff. He was a collector of bicycle memorabilia and bicycles of all kinds, wasn’t he?

Gary Fisher 21:55
Well, he also was a guy that he made a killing off of ET the movie, he’s he would had the official bike of everything. He was a smart marketer, smart guy. I like how he, you know, and he was, you know, brought to fight against me.

Gary Fisher 22:13
Anyway, I turned out to be a really good corporate fighter.

Gary Fisher 22:20
Which is crazy, you know, but it’s all about people, isn’t it? Really.

Carlton Reid 22:28
So, the people at track, of course, are the Burke family. Yes. The Burke family came along, and you described them in their book. You’re quite frank, and you’re saying that the brand wasn’t that sexy? At the time? Yeah, this is obviously pre Lance Armstrong,

Carlton Reid 22:43
pre any of that stuff. So they were like, a solid, you know, good business, but didn’t have any pizaazz said, Would it be fair to say you brought some pzazz to Trek?

Gary Fisher 22:54
Literally, I mean, Paola Pezzo? Oh, my goodness. I mean, trek didn’t have a single sponsored rider. When I first came there. 1993 there were two people in marketing. And guess what they did the colours for the bikes as well. And the graphics and everything. That was it, you know, is a famous story. Dick Burke, I love I loved sitting with Dick Burke, you know, like talking with him, it was the best.

Gary Fisher 23:23
You know, and he had this famous story where he got

Gary Fisher 23:28
profiled by Forbes magazine, okay, in the United States. And they sent a photographer out from New York City, to Wisconsin. And dick said to the photographer, I’ll give you three shots. ographers goes Click, click, click, and Dick turns around, and he’s out of there. Because dick didn’t believe in hype in LA. And that was, you know, and he was the leader. And the ethos of trek was no, we’re not going to sponsor you as a racer, or we’re not going to sponsor your team, and I can respond to these people, anybody?

Gary Fisher 24:07
Do you want the bikes to be more expensive? That’s how they’d put it. You know, people say, Oh, no, no. And so they wouldn’t sponsor anybody. And that changed.

Gary Fisher 24:18
And that’s it, you know, you look for things, you know, they could really use me, and I worked with the gang, you know, and it wasn’t always easy. But hey, when I got a saying, if it was easy, everybody do it. Right.

Gary Fisher 24:33
Yeah. But they had this thing. They, you know, no one would point fingers when something went wrong. They just all pitch in and take care of it. You know, nobody go home until the last customer is taken care of. And

Gary Fisher 24:49
that’s a really good quality, you know, that sort of thing. And I sort of fell in love with that whole Midwest. You know, I like to say, well, the Midwest is where the American Dream

Gary Fisher 25:01
actually works. And people actually work really hard on it. On the other hand, my father, you know, the architect, he would talk about the Midwest. So yeah, they got this big meeting a whole bunch of people at around table, and they go around and around, and around and around until it’s oatmeal.

Gary Fisher 25:20
You know, and that’s the truth. I mean, East Coast, West Coast, we can come up with crazy ideas, and people go, Yeah, and it’s boom, that’s it, everybody’s on board. And we had, you know, especially in those days, you had a much harder time, you know, of charging people up, but everything’s changed. You know, I mean, now, everybody sees it, you know, within seconds, right? Because that’s how we communicate in a totally different way. And then we travel, people travel all the time. Now, people didn’t travel, you know, as much 30 years ago. No way, you know, and now, you know, you see things will pop up and, and roll around the globe rather quickly. You know, it’s a totally a different atmosphere from 30 years ago.

Carlton Reid 26:08
Well, that that’s a good segue for me actually into a different date. So we’re now going into we’ll skip the early 1990s. And we’ll go straight to the middle of the 1980s. And we’re going to stick on a travel theme because Anlin was Taiwanese, but before that, you were Japan. So in 1985, it says in your book, you helped Shimano of Japan, with what everybody now anybody who’s born after that date, doesn’t realise how bad gears used to be. You have a negative feel where they were Shimano with your help brought out SIS indexed gears so Shimano Indexing System so the Click Click Click System. Everybody now uses but even even the BSOs have got fantastic click click gear systems. Back then it literally was you. You feel the gears and it was almost a religion in like, yeah, where the gears and stuff.

Gary Fisher 27:06
Yeah. Noise abatement system. Yeah. So

Gary Fisher 27:11
how did you help Shimano? with that? How was how was? How was that going down with Shimano? Well, it was a tradition for me, and how I handled my vendors, especially the Japanese vendors is that I give them everything, you know, I, I’m going to tell you everything I possibly can. So you can make the best price possible product. And, yeah, I know, you’re going to help my competitors. But this is as well as me. But this is going to make everything work. And then I’d also ask, you know, what’s the best price I want? You know, the first delivery, and I want terms, and I wound up getting a loan from the Japanese government back in the day,

Carlton Reid 27:52
but these $80,000 It says here, yeah, the government loan. That’s, that’s, that’s a lot.

Gary Fisher 28:00
Well, I was enough for a couple of containers of bikes, you know, and, and I just, you know, I got a fantastic cooperation. That was the SIS, they sent engineer Shinpei Okajima, he was also a really hot road racer. And he wrote with my riders for like, four months, you know, and just, you know, Joe Murray, that kid, he’s a kid then, man, he, it was good. And he landed himself a lifetime job as a skunk tester with Shimano, for good reason, you know,

Gary Fisher 28:34
it’s just bringing together good people that can work together, you know, that’s the thing. And then, you know, giving feedback, all the time really honest feedback about how it’s going to go together. And that’s the, you know, from

Gary Fisher 28:49
the point of view, I mean, I was a mechanic for a long time, I still am still working on my own darn bikes. But, you know, how’s this thing go together? You know, how’s it come out of the package? How’s it attached to the bike, you know, everything, you know, all the way through, you know, see how it’s gonna work. And then hopefully have a good life. Good, long wife, you know, and those guys, I mean, Shimano, and then all the other the other side, too, which was suntour sugino. You know, and then the tubing makers Ishiwata, Tange.

Gary Fisher 29:26
I taught them and man, they taught me how stuff was made, you know,

Carlton Reid 29:32
that says you visited Japan 1981 in the first and we’ll get them away when we go backwards in a little bit, but first of all, tell me more about because you are working with Shimano on Deore XT which is the first right you know, full group set is still with us. Of course, you are working on that group set with them.

Gary Fisher 29:50
Yeah, yeah. You know, that in the centre, you know, had their group set and that was like, along with their whole, you know, group of different makers.

Gary Fisher 30:00
And it didn’t all look the same, you know what I’m saying? The Shimano stuff, graphically, you know, and just design wise and everything, it was like completely integrated, that that was a real breakthrough, you know, to have a whole group for a mountain bike that it looked like it was really made for a mountain bike. So, and I guess we want to fill in two people here because we obviously know everybody’s just accept Shimano as a, you know, as the global BMR you know, market maker back then it wasn’t you mentioned centre there, you know, centre was the leading Maker of the component makeup of of the day. Certainly the Japanese anyway, and then you gotta come back. No, no, of course, and Shimano was, was in effect, you know, it’s been going since the 1920s. been, you know, taking along for a long time, but it really became big in the 1980s. So there’s like a huge breakthrough. So you helping them with Dr. x, t, and si s, it’s part of the reason that they are now this mammoth mammoth company. I’m really happy when people like that are successful. I’m really happy. You know, and, you know, I like, I don’t mind having competitors. It’s like, Mike Sinyard of Specialized. Man, he’s a tough competitor, he, you know, uses his tricks and walls and all that stuff, but I don’t care. I like Mike. You know, I like him. He’s, he’s alright, by me. And he’s pushed the whole thing. And I, I point out to my competitors, you know, like Tony Lo [of Giant], well, he’s retired kids are in a giant finally loaded giant. So keep that guy takes the he’s taken the high road. I mean, those guys could have killed us with price. I mean, those guys are the very best buyers of parts in the world, you know, they get a better price and better delivery than you do, buddy. for good reason. They’re on the case suit on everything. And they work with their suppliers, you know, and they work together and everything. And that’s, that’s really evident. You see it now. It’s like, the whole business is sort of started to turn a corner, I feel like we finally started to grow up, you know, and not fight each other so much as to think big and, and go boldly and everything and make it a bigger market for us. And, of course, make people happy and make people healthy.

Carlton Reid 32:22
Since 1981, was when you went to Japan for the first time, and an awful lot of the bike industry went to Japan at that point. But what what why Japan because you know, now we know of Taiwan. Why? Apart from Shimano Why? Or maybe it was just Shimano? Why Japan?

Gary Fisher 32:39
Well, they were

Gary Fisher 32:42
they were a huge manufacturing powers, you know, period, you know, I mean, it their automotive industry was, was really pushing the US and everything. And it was evident there was quality there. But I’ll tell you, for myself, it came down to one particular event. And that was in 81.

Gary Fisher 33:03
At the New York bike show, at the bequest of Bicycling magazine, it did a presentation on the mountain bike, and all the bigwigs showed up, you know, from the industry, and the Japanese, it blew their mind. And then they just started to come out and visit me all the time. And we had like, hundreds of Japanese visitors, handfuls of European visitors, and one from the United States. That’s it, you know, and it was who’s interested who wants to do things, and

Gary Fisher 33:38
it was just they wanted to go, let’s go, let’s make new things. Let’s do things. And you know, I talked to a member talking to Reynolds 531 tubing. And to get a pair of fork plates, like the Unicron style. I wanted to do that. You know, that was like, that was my idea. Real. I mean, it was basically putting two different ideas together was no, it wasn’t rocket science. But I named it the Unicrown. Right?

Gary Fisher 34:07
Yeah. And I had to deal with Tange tubing, you know, for all those Unicrown forks. And then my trademark attorney said, Hey, this guy.

Gary Fisher 34:17
I don’t think you can use that name. You know, because there’s a guy that owns Crown bicycle, that I met my neighbours next door neighbour to my parents house. And the guy there the next door neighbour says crown, crown, hat’s my father’s company. You could have used that name.

Gary Fisher 34:35
I blew off that that deal with Tange. But that was that was gonna be a good deal. But anyway, you know, ups and downs, rounds and rounds. The other stuff, you know,

Gary Fisher 34:46
but I had to do it all again.

Gary Fisher 34:49
But I do have different of course, but

Gary Fisher 34:53
no, it was amazing. Those guys were completely on the gas. You know, and I hate culture shock when I came

Gary Fisher 34:59
back, because people there were so attentive and on it. And it’s like, it came back. I came from laid back myrin you know, and come back here and it’s like,

Gary Fisher 35:14
you don’t understand the people outside this country going into a completely different speed and we are

Carlton Reid 35:20
you describing like getting onto trains or bullet train or getting to the next meeting within two minutes of spare and then, you know, just going off again and being basically industrious, very, very industrious.

Gary Fisher 35:30
Oh, yeah, you know, and incredibly efficient. You know,

Gary Fisher 35:33
I mean, go to that first visit, I went to Shimano, they showed me their automatic warehouse, right? No humans there at Oh, and then the room that makes making a tremendous amount of noise. And you walk in, they flip it all the lights while they’re making derailleurs A robotically. This is like a 1981, my friend, you know. So it’s like, oh, you know, you really understand

Gary Fisher 35:59
what type of competition the United State was getting to half. Then we went in the 50s. I mean, we had no competition, you know, all of our industrialised competition had been literally flattened, right. So, it’s, it’s, it just it really drove home, you know, that

Gary Fisher 36:20
things are changing fast. So Japan was a really good partner, because he needed to have

Gary Fisher 36:28
this whole thing was growing. And if I didn’t do it, other people would do we’d go to Japan, it was obvious, you know, and, and, you know, Mike went there, Mike Sinyard. You know, he did a lot of work over there. And his people have, you know, really good in their supply chain going.

Carlton Reid 36:44
I’ve got Mike down for 1980. Don’t worry, we’re gonna get

Carlton Reid 36:49
another character. Yeah. And this is the the disadvantage, of course of going backwards through chronology. Yeah, we kind of meet characters at the end of their, their time with you rather than the beginning. So we’re gonna talk about Charlie Kelly now.

Carlton Reid 37:03
So Charlie Kelly, this is the reason I’m talking about now is 1982, Charlie Kelly leaves mountain bikes. And again, the weakness of going backwards is, you know, what is mountain bikes? mountain bikes, of course, you know, is a generic term. It was also the term that you came up with for your first company with Charlie. Yeah, yeah, essentially.

Carlton Reid 37:25
But before we get to that, because we’re gonna, we’re gonna come on to the founding of the company, but Charlie Kelly leaving? What was what was it? Because you said it was a sad, sad day.

Gary Fisher 37:36

1983. And Previous to that.

Gary Fisher 37:43
People were asking me because I was looking for money. Well, what’s Charlie do?

Gary Fisher 37:50
We build two wheels, you know, it’s a good wheel builder. And he would just sort of leave the room when we ever got into financial stuff. I mean, the first guy ever hired was a bookkeeper. Because I knew you got to keep stuff straight. Or you just you don’t know where you are, you know, you’re not going to have a chance. And so I was having a, and we weren’t doing well, right, then, you know, we were in debt, you know. And so I said to Charlie,

Gary Fisher 38:21
you know, I was having a hard time, nobody had loaned us money, they’d loan me money, they wouldn’t loan him money. And it was getting a real a real problem. And

Gary Fisher 38:32
they’d say, What’s he do? He owns half the company, what’s he do? So I take the walk around the block, and I say with him and say, you know, and by California law, you can dissolve a partnership.

Gary Fisher 38:44
I want to dissolve this partnership, you know.

Gary Fisher 38:47
And I gave him a forgiveness of debt. We are $80,000 in debt. So he got off the hook for 40 grand, he got a computer, he got a bike. And I think that was about it. And he

Gary Fisher 39:00
agreed to that signed off on it. And

Gary Fisher 39:03
our attorney Clay Green wrote the papers Clay Green still around, you know. And, you know, a few months later, Charlie wasn’t too happy that he left the business because I wound up making a bunch of money that year. Hmm, yeah.

Carlton Reid 39:16
So, Charlie, Charlie Kelly, Otis Guy, Joe breeze has a whole bunch of characters that are famous in in this the story of mountain biking. Do you get on with them at all still, because they’re all roughly, you know, in the Bay Area?

Gary Fisher 39:33
I’m not really, you know, it’s like, I just, I didn’t you know, Charlie, you know, we separated that was it. I didn’t insist that a non compete because I knew he was never gonna compete with me.

Gary Fisher 39:46
You know, and the rest of them, you know, it’s the same deal. They just, like live on their own planet and they just don’t, they don’t understand me.

Gary Fisher 39:55
You know, it’s like, I Charlie’s written about me. He’s never interviewed.

Gary Fisher 40:00
Never, you know, he keeps writing the same old story over and over again. And it’s like, you know, I named the company Mountain Bikes. I thought about that my own little head. You know?

Gary Fisher 40:13
We blew it. You know, as far as a trademark goes, it went generic and everything I know a lot more about trademarks than I did then. You know, I don’t, I don’t

Gary Fisher 40:22
you know, listen, those guys don’t slow me down at all. And it’s a you know, Joe’s a sweetheart, I love Joe, you know, but he doesn’t understand what happened so much though.

Gary Fisher 40:36
The forces, you know, it’s like, none of this stuff is truly original. I mean, 120 years ago, everybody rode off road, come on, then you go back in history, and you can like even the first guy that ever loaned me money, John Findley Scott, UC Davis, Professor 1953, he made what he called a woodsy bike. And, you know, is a Schwinn varsity frame where the frame had been, you know, widened a bit so he could fit 26 by 175 tires had a sturmey Archer three speed hub on a rear with a drum brake on the side, and a three speed cog set. So as a nine speed bike, you know, and

Gary Fisher 41:19
oh, what a calliper brake. And you know, you could argue back and forth. That was this that was that, you know, then Joe breeze found these guys in France, I think it was in 40s, late 40s. And some pretty cool looking bikes, you know, and then, of course, there’s Geoff Apps, you know, from the UK, he was completely independent of us. And then Victor Vincente, right around the same time, you know, came along and had his whole thing going and everything. And it’s all great, you know, and, and I’m not

Gary Fisher 41:51
I’m not saying that I invented anything. I mean, the bikes we made were just sort of heavy duty road bikes, you know, there was no suspension or anything, you know, it’s sort of funny, wasn’t rocket science, you know, I don’t think the thing that’s the magic is marketing, and providing the product, you know, and making a really nice product, you know, in that’s what a lot of these original guys don’t they have no clue. You know, what Mike Sinyard does? He knows exactly. And then there was a john Kirkpatrick from Ross bicycles. And he passed away died of cancer, you know, in the 80s. But that guy, he understood exactly what he was doing, you know, and then, oh, what? Oh, gt Gary, Gary Turner. Uh huh. Ah, well, he, he was killed in a motorcycle wreck. I mean, that guy. He could have changed everything. You know, there’s like all these great people to like, get people excited about doing something and say, here it is. Let’s go. And then the next part is making more places that people can go right. And what was fantastic about off road was like, Wow, there was just endless opportunity, you know, out there, and especially in those days in, you know, in the 70s, late 70s, early 80s. I mean, very few people were going out into the woods, and this was such a fun way to get out in the woods.

Carlton Reid 41:53
So, what we’re going to get onto that, but I do like, let’s get to that point mention the Larkspur Canyon gangs, theor which was “no cars, no cops, no concrete.” So you’re getting away from from everything.

Gary Fisher 43:38
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And those that was like, those are my friends. Some of my friends in high school at Redwood high school that I met and how we met was more through the drum circle thing.

Carlton Reid 43:54
Gary, we will get there I promise.

Gary Fisher 43:56
I’m jumping around.

Carlton Reid 43:58
No, no, it’s fine. It’s a weird way of going through this one. I recognise that? So you’ve mentioned him a few times. We can now now now bring him into the story officially. So 1980 you’ve introduced bull moose handlebars, Shimano free hubs and bear trap pedals onto mountain bikes, machines and your machines to set the scene are about $1500 at this point,

Carlton Reid 44:25
and then Mike Sinyard who went now introducing of Specialized gets one of your bikes, buys one of your bikes, whatever. And then the Specialized Stumpjumper is roughly your bike but $750

Gary Fisher 44:41
Well, actually, we had a bike at that moment that he came out with one for $995 there was a cheaper bike that was equipped, almost identical, but it was a domestic made frame. You know, so yeah, it killed my sales for about a month and then he ran out of bikes.

Gary Fisher 44:59
My bike sold even better, because he marketed his bikes really well. And when you’re an orphan out there all by yourself, people go, I don’t know, when you got five other hot competitors that are going for it. Everybody’s going like this is it, man? This is it, you know? So Mike did help open up the whole thing, you know? And

Gary Fisher 45:21
some of our guys were like, oh, how can he ever do that? You know, it’s like, come on, how could he not, you know, he bought four bikes from me. And he enjoyed it a lot. He liked it. You know? He said, Yeah, and this is gonna work and he’s not stupid. You know? I mean, it wasn’t a real stretch to see that this thing was gonna work.

Carlton Reid 45:43
So this Stumpjumper is generally considered by most people to be like the first in inverted commas commercial, man, like not not like me, you had a commercial bike, not us selling them. But the first one done by like a manufacturer.

Gary Fisher 45:57
Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, we can get into all these nitpicking

Gary Fisher 46:03
things, you know, who did this? Who did that? And everything. It’s nitpicking. A lot of it, you know, it’s like, oh, it’s like, who made the first, you know, frame from scratch in our neighbourhood? Was Craig Mitchell. Craig made the first one. And that’s why you say, That’s why Joseph is the first successful because Charlie Kelly wrote Craig’s for about a week to a couple of weeks didn’t like it. I don’t know why, you know, I think the geometry was different. And he just didn’t like it. So he took it apart and put together a different one. So that was a successful blahdy blah. I like Craig, he was an amazingly clever guy, you know. And had, I learned a lot from Craig, I learned a lot from Doug white, white industries, he was around in the 70s. Oh, man, clever, you know, and another guy, Paul Brown, Paul Brown, still around, he’s like, more like a collector knows, knows all the old equipment and all that stuff. And those were the three guys in the bike shop horizon working.

Gary Fisher 47:07
Sunshine bike works. In fact,

Gary Fisher 47:10
Ed Christensen, the owner, you know, and that great little crucible, I mean, you think that’s good. Look at this, it was sort of that attitude all the time. And at the time, I was a road tester for Bicycling magazine. Haha. And I would bring in, you know, like, the coolest things, you know, I mean, I get a new bike every month. And I knew more and more people in industry, you know, and

Gary Fisher 47:35
so I knew what was going on. I mean, that helped a lot, you know, and that was my trajectory. You know, I mean, the other guy’s in Marin didn’t work for Bicycling. And that that meant a lot, because I had an audience in front of like, all these manufacturers and everything. They, they were looking for me to look at their stuff all the time.

Carlton Reid 47:59
It was a lot. So we’ve now reached the 1970s, when of 1979. And that’s when you set up MountainBikes. So is the company name is MountainBikes, all one word? Yeah, you set that up with Charlie Kelly. And you may need Well, how many bikes did you make in that first year?

Gary Fisher 48:16
The first year is about 160 bikes.

Carlton Reid 48:19
And they were selling pretty much locally, or were you selling internationally already?

Gary Fisher 48:24
We sold all over, all over, you know, all over the place, because we had, we had a mail order catalogue, computer, and the computer, you know, it would take about three hours to sort about the 6000 names. by zip. It was like, just, but it worked. You’d I mean, all this stuff. We had a telex machine. Oh, do you remember those things?

Gary Fisher 48:48
But no, we were definitely I tried to go as far and wide as I possibly could. Because the strategy was, is to become a name, you know, to start and become a name. And it worked.

Gary Fisher 49:01
Problem was was the wrong name.

Gary Fisher 49:04
But you know, I didn’t nail it down. You know, that real big problem. But

Carlton Reid 49:10
well, it helps if it’s generic in that, man.

Gary Fisher 49:15
That’s true. I mean, it’s better to have a generic name than nothing at all.

Gary Fisher 49:19
You got to have a handle on a thing. You know, that used to be a classic thing that Trek would do they develop something and they say, Well, what do you call this?

Gary Fisher 49:29
We get out there to do the presentation. I say, oh, what do you call this and have some sort of like, cryptic description, you know? No, no, no, no. It’s like when you conceive of the product, you better start with a name. Right then, you know, get the whole thing rolling because this is it’s almost as important as the thing itself. It’s just amazing.

Carlton Reid 49:54
So 1977 Yes, Gary. You placed fifth at the cyclocross.

Carlton Reid 50:00
nationals so we’re going to talk about your your progress as a racer in a second as we get earlier into your, your your life story.

Carlton Reid 50:09
But perhaps have more renown to most people who, who who know your story is you set the fastest time in the Repack. So what is the Repack.

Gary Fisher 50:20
The repack, race is about two mile long downhill. And it was a pretty big deal for a while, you know, locally, people would talk about it a lot, and and so is the first sort of dirt time trial, you know, and I managed to win the thing a few times, and then set the record on it, you know, and it was a scary thing for me. But

Gary Fisher 50:47
I learned a lot of bike handling by riding a mountain bike because and you do because you get all these opportunities for the wheels to lose traction in a road bike that only happens once every six months. And when it happens, it’s like if you don’t know what to do, you fall down, boom, you know, boom, go down. mountain bike, you know, and you go out on a slippery day, and you’ll get 1000 opportunities for the wheels to slip. So you’ll learn how to deal with how the wheel slip. It’s a beautiful thing.

Carlton Reid 51:16
so these are just two miles. Yeah, down a fire road down.

Carlton Reid 51:22
Mount Tamalpais is right? in Marin County.

Gary Fisher 51:25
Yes.

Carlton Reid 51:26
And there’s a how many how many people are taking part in when it ended when you got the final one, how many people were riding at that point?

Gary Fisher 51:33
will be about 50, 70. People would show up and actually write it. It’d be another, you know, 150 spectators. But that race got into a segment of evening magazine. And evening magazine did an eight minute long segment on it. And they showed it nationwide. And that won an award for him for the year. It was hot, you know, and it was just this, like, you know, the mountain bikers, this combination of like, this is insane. Oh, no, you’re not supposed to ride bikes off road, people thought this is crazy. And then the reality was, it was extremely practical. Because there’s this heavy duty bike, you know, where the tire stay inflated, where it had a practical,

Gary Fisher 52:18
more or less upright position with the shifters right there at your fingertips with a relatively wide saddle and everything. And that was, you know, a golden combination, because anybody could ride this thing. And anybody could dream about you know, riding over a mountain. And that was, you know, it was perfect that way.

Carlton Reid 52:38
So how come you have the fastest time? Because it stopped? And why did it stop? You can no longer ride it in effect?

Carlton Reid 52:48
Sso what why is that?

Gary Fisher 52:50
Now you can ride it on Strava and a beaten record.

Gary Fisher 52:56
Officially, you can ride that fire, that that trail, go check it out on Strava is there and I think somebody like got me by about 20 seconds. Uh huh. No, but we practice like crazy. That’s why the wait time was good. Go out and do it again. And again, and again. And again. And again.

Carlton Reid 53:15
This is in jeans and woodsmen shirt. And and yeah,

Gary Fisher 53:19
and what loves this is not like, you know,

Gary Fisher 53:22
you know, on armour here, you’re not wearing a helmet and you’re not wearing it didn’t exist. Like, it still exists. And lycra was like, was uncool. I mean, if I was like or barely existed, it was a woolly jersey, you know, you know, what’s the difference between that, you know, but I did, I would switch out the steel toed boots for a, you know, a pair of Nike trainers, you know, for the race and everything. And I did on a couple occasions, I put a double chainring setup on the front. Well, while the cyclocross guard thing, you know, we take two chain rings that you take all the teeth off of, and you sandwich a single chain ring, the old school classic cyclocross setup, because that worked really well to keep the chain on.

Gary Fisher 54:09
I use that I set that up a few times for the race and everything, but it was I did a faster time, simply because that day had a tailwind and the, the dirt was in the right condition, you know,

Carlton Reid 54:23
And then what Joe Breeze would be your main competitor?

Gary Fisher 54:27
Joe would be you know, real close to me. Joe is really good. He’s still a good downhiller. You know,

Carlton Reid 54:35
I’ve done that many times. With with Joe so yes, I do know he’s, he’s very good on the bike.

Gary Fisher 54:41
Yeah, he’s good, you know, but they’re, I mean, come on. I mean, today, these guys, these downhillers

Gary Fisher 54:49
there’s a whole nother world is so good, it’s amazing. I love to watch Danny Hart, you know, he created this whole technique of you know, when you have no traction, how to

Gary Fisher 55:00
To get traction, oh, amazing. And there’s a number of other kids that can do it now, like Danny, and, you know, you look at the different techniques are amazing, you know, and how, how they can go and that mean the Frenchman Luke Bruni, and, you know, Lauren Villa and Aaron gwin, and all this, you know, I love watching the modern stuff, you know, but the bikes are on a completely different level. I mean, the type of suspensions that are out there now, are incredible. I mean, I know this, I mean, I ride, I ride suspension, a ride suspension B, and like, wow, there’s a huge difference, you know, between they look the same, but, and this thing, like, this is a miracle when I ride this bike, you know, and, and then the trail builders, you know, it’s, it’s amazing, you know, they’re using algorithms now

Gary Fisher 55:52
to, you know, figure out, you know, how this thing launches, how I can go through here, where I landed everything, it’s amazing. And that’s what I see is, I want to bring that technology more to the urban landscape. And, for two reasons, for one, is it we’d have less dangerous bike routes, bike paths, because some of those bypass are just awful. I mean, they get designed in two dimensions, and the people designing them have very little idea of how a bicycle actually functions, you know, that the worst of bike path.

Gary Fisher 56:32
So to really bring up the quality of bike path, and then secondly, to be able to have fun,

Gary Fisher 56:39
which is something that needs to be imported into the cities. And, you know, we can have a Safe Routes to School commuter routes, but also, you know, features and go routes, you know, because kids, humans need to stress themselves in that, you know, it’s the old thing, you either use it or lose it, you know, if you don’t use a bodily function, and it’ll deteriorate.

Carlton Reid 57:04
So it’s not chronological, but it’s elsewhere in the book, where you actually talk about, like, the pump tracks, in Fruita, where they’re basically the, on the bike paths on the route to school. So the kids are on the pump tracks, but it’s actually getting them to school at the same time.

Gary Fisher 57:21
And they’re pretty cool, having fun with the school, they’re more focused. And we now have the studies to say, this is for real, you know, we used to be, you know, thinking, I have these gut feelings. I know, this is right, I know this is right. And now we’ve got all these peer reviewed medical papers that say, guess what, you were right.

Gary Fisher 57:41
So it’s a, I feel really good about being, you know, that just a huge campaigner. And what I really like is my bosses go, you know, that’s what I like you doing, you know, like you campaigning about this. And that’s a see right now, there’s some really intense times, you know, we can, especially in states and the UK, psyche, you know, you can give it up to the car guys again, or we can make some real change, and it’s a watch the struggles you’re going through. And that’s the the biggest is once you change the matter, between the ears, the grey matter, everything else is easy. And you are in that battle. And I I really admire what you’re doing, you know, and and all the others that we have that are fighting this intellectual battle, to like, tell the Emperor that he’s wearing no clothes to say you know, that the automobile does not work for cities.

Carlton Reid 58:41
Well, you do have a Transportation Secretary now that that’s it talking that language anywhere like Mayor Pete is talking about that kind of stuff. So we’ll see where that goes. But I want to stick to history. Okay, so we’re now back to 1976. And you’ve already mentioned that you are working for Bicycling magazine, but this is when you start working for Bicycling magazine. So that’s absolutely a big deal. Yeah. As you said, you know, you’re getting kit, you are getting recognition. So how’d you get the deal with Bicycling? Because that that’s that’s it is a big deal. Well,

Gary Fisher 59:11
Well, Bill Fields, walks into the shop is working out and he says, hey, I’ve we’ve heard that you’re a really good bike racer, we want you can you write an article for, you know, Bicycling magazine through the road test? And I said, Yes. And let me tell you, I was not a rider. Boy, I agonised over the first few months and everything, but it worked out, you know, and I just really wanted to do it. I just really wanted to do it, you know, period.

Carlton Reid 59:41
And at this point, you were, as you said, you are you’re a racer. So you are

Carlton Reid 59:47
like, You’re like a you’re an up and coming.

Carlton Reid 59:52
road racer. There’s a track just been built, I believe you say in your book. So you’re basically a roadie.

Gary Fisher 59:58
Yeah. Well, I love by

Gary Fisher 1:00:00
I mean, I wanted to do nothing more than riding a bike. I mean, to me, I mean, it was like, the greatest sport there ever was. And I still feel it. You know, I still like tell the guys, you know, racing, I say, look, you doing the most fun thing in the world? You know? Yeah, it’s intense. Yeah, it’s hard sometimes. But you know what, this is the most incredible thing in the world. And I, I still feel that way. You know, it’s a

Gary Fisher 1:00:27
it’s a fantastic sport, you know, involves a lot of science, a lot of strategy and a lot of physicality.

Carlton Reid 1:00:37
So 1972 that’s actually when you met Charlie Kelly. And you says here that you each had the same bike, and the same interests and you became roommates. Right. So that was long before you started a business together. Yeah. So where was that? Where was that actually saying here where that was?

Gary Fisher 1:00:58
Oh, that was in San Anselmo. And it was right above this recording studio. They called the church. And you know, bands like Huey Lewis in the news, they did all their stuff in there. And sons of champion that was a band Charlie worked for, and it was a 21. Humboldt. And there was this perfect little pad right up there. And Charlie was a roadie. And I’ve been hanging out in living with musicians, you know, I was living with a band called new writers of the purple sage and

Gary Fisher 1:01:31
big old house in Canfield in what happens the band becomes really popular. And then everybody goes out and buys her own house gets their own place.

Gary Fisher 1:01:39
So I had to go find my own place. And I was tired of living of rock and rollers, in a way.

Gary Fisher 1:01:48
And Charlie, well, Charlie’s still a rock and roller, but then it was like he was a sort of an athlete. So that was a lot of fun.

Carlton Reid 1:01:55
We’re going to get on to your your rock and roll background or your hippie background or whatever you want to describe it as? And we would absolutely want to talk about that. But I can. I’ve written some notes here, because it says 1971 that’s when you start racing again, right? Because we’re going to go into the there was a hiatus there was a gap in which you you were doing stuff to your body that wasn’t just

Carlton Reid 1:02:17
temple and athletic stuff. But I did my notes here are just saying.

Carlton Reid 1:02:23
Cycling, in effect became your new drug. Your new high. Yeah. So you got back into it. You’re you’re coming from a scene that had soured

Carlton Reid 1:02:35
like a drug. psychedelia.

Gary Fisher 1:02:38
LSD was seen. It was it was, you know, parts of it were

Gary Fisher 1:02:44
incredible. I mean, you know, I hung out with

Gary Fisher 1:02:47
Jack Leary. I mean, Timothy’s son, you know, I used to work for the Mayor, you know, the guy who made more LSD than anybody on the planet, you know, a hork.

Gary Fisher 1:02:57
Ken Kesey, I used to go hang out on his farm. You know, I used to hang out with

Gary Fisher 1:03:03
LSD guys of the time. Yeah, he was an author No One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest unit, you know, that book, and now they’re doing a movie, a new version of the movie, while a TV version of jack nicholson was in the original, but it was, you know, it was a lot about consciousness expansion. And it totally got out of hand, and I watched it, you know, I saw the whole thing, you know, and it was stupid. It went from being something really incredible. I mean, yeah, the temple, taking care of the temple, you know, as to abusing the temple.

Gary Fisher 1:03:41
When, you know, off the hook, you know, I always said, I watched the, the ultimate thing get organised, right, I knew all the organisers, and then we’d hang out in the meetings and stuff. It’s the ultimate was like a, it was gonna be another Woodstock. But it was originally like, we’re going to get the Beatles there. That didn’t work out. We got the second trip the Rolling Stones.

Gary Fisher 1:04:04
And we’re gonna do it in Golden Gate Park. Well, the city of San Francisco wouldn’t allow it. And then it got shifted over to this big Motor Speedway up serious point. But then the owner a serious point, one of the owners found out that the Rolling Stones were gonna film a movie there, you know, and he wanted a piece of the action and everything. And that went to South and then within, you know, one day, they changed the venue to this other place and ultimate. And it was just a frickin like a disaster. And it could have been much worse. I mean, it could have been even worse, you know, I mean, though, the deaths are staggering. And for this, you know, and I mean, Mick Jagger could have lost his life that day. I mean, seriously, you know, it was nuts, you know, and it was like, This is the stupidest ass dream. You know? I’m getting out of here. Yeah, this

Gary Fisher 1:05:00
is a mess, you know. And it’s funny. I mean, cooler heads prevailed. I mean, Bill Graham took over the whole promotion thing. And I knew Bill Graham, I worked for him too. You know, he was a, he had his act together, tough old New Yorker, you know, and they needed to be worked out the way it did. But it was sort of like the dream was over. You know, I mean, literally, after that, that was in December of 1969, thousands of people have left San Francisco and went elsewhere. Because that that didn’t work. You know, it wasn’t working, you know. And I said to myself, I’m going back and doing the bike. The bike never lied to me. biker was always good to me. I love the bike.

Carlton Reid 1:05:43
So you go back and race race the bike again. And

Gary Fisher 1:05:48
that’s all I wanted to do at that moment. So roughly 1968 to 1970.

Carlton Reid 1:05:54
When you part of this alternative scene

Carlton Reid 1:05:58
Roughly, were you still riding a bike during those two years?

Gary Fisher 1:06:01
Not for beans. You know, it was more than it was about four year period, we

Gary Fisher 1:06:08
did the light show thing. And that was pretty heavy duty. And the guy did it with you know, started, he wound up being the father of Visual Basic, he did a big company that he just couldn’t keep up. Yeah.

Carlton Reid 1:06:22
And Alan Cooper is on Twitter, I follow Alan.

Gary Fisher 1:06:25
So yeah, and he’s really used to make stuff. Oh, man, we had a good time making stuff.

Gary Fisher 1:06:32
You know, and I’ll go do some more stuff with him. Again, I get some fantasies, doing some more stuff with Alan.

Carlton Reid 1:06:39
So that the photographs in the book are fabulous. And the most evocative ones for me are of this period, in that, obviously, they’re very colourful. It’s the oils, and it’s the light shows you are putting on. So basically, you were doing light shows for Grateful Dead, and bands like that. So tell me what a light show was, what what exactly was it and how did you do it?

Gary Fisher 1:07:01
Well, it’s changed, the technology’s changed completely. But back in those days it used, we use slide projectors, which were two by two slide projectors. And so you’d have maybe I had eight of those

Gary Fisher 1:07:17
overhead projectors, which is a 10 by 10 inch.

Gary Fisher 1:07:22
You know, you put liquids on those. And those had to be like modified, everything had to be modified. Oh my god, 16 millimetre film projectors, I had the 16 millimetre film projectors, I modified their old Keystone projectors, and I put a separate a different motor on the drive. And then there was a motor for the film gate, the air over the film gate, a fan over the film, gate, and then a fan over the bulb, these things doing 1200 at 1200 watt bulbs, oh my god. And you could run up to 60 frames a second on these because they were you know, 24 frames a second is a standard and everything, but I can run them super fast. Or I could go you know, one at a time down to zero, you know, DC motors. And you turn off the fan and a film gate and you go like one frame at a time and you use black film and a film would burn and go on the screen and go poof poof, poof, another effect was using film loops. And you could do one or two film loops in this one gate, you know, and it’s like, every projector was modified you know and he said, you know, mounts for colour wheels on him the whole ways a colour wheels mean colour wheels, nobody would ever use those anymore. Use electronica to do things. liquids, you know, boy, it was oils based on oil and alcohol based colours and the oil colours, especially we worked really hard on making them super transparent. And you could take a drop of this oil and mix it with clear oil and colourize it but you could look through the whole bottle. It was amazing. And, you know, the clock faces were from real clocks, you know, and you get glass clock faces that matched each other correctly. I’m telling you, there’s so much detail in this. It’s nuts. And there was about 50 different light shows in well, and in the Bay Area. And in New York, where were light shows were and a few in LA or a few out down there. And we had a thing called a light artists guild after a while, you know, because

Gary Fisher 1:09:33
we weren’t getting the kind of money we wanted, you know, that type of thing. And there were 50 members 50 deeper member groups, and I was a big part of that thing in the end. And we struck the family dog and a beach when a Grateful Dead were playing and dead wouldn’t cross the picket line. I ran it a generator and we projected on the outside of the building and no one would go in and

Carlton Reid 1:09:56
18 or 19 at this point?

Gary Fisher 1:09:59
You know, when I was like, 16, you know, 16, 17, 18, 19 you know, I still have a lot of the equipment. And it’s funny, and

Gary Fisher 1:10:11
it was a scene. I learned a lot through that, that business.

Carlton Reid 1:10:15
And you had you had very long hair then. So there’s some photographs in the book. You had long hair. I do. You’re free. I mean, that’s what a freak was. Yeah. Somebody who was buying into that scene had the long hair was doing the LSD.

Gary Fisher 1:10:28
Oh, no, yeah. But there got to be like,

Gary Fisher 1:10:34
people had all this stuff on the outside, could take the drugs in the inside, and still be idiots.

Gary Fisher 1:10:41
You know, it was like it, it was the whole thing went off of the tracks. And I think I talked about it, like cocaine came into the whole scene. And I’ll never forget it. There I am, you know, the hit the dead house. And like, this guy from New York comes with this huge tin of coke. And he says, It’s organic, and it’s not addictive. And people believed him. I couldn’t believe it. And it was, you know, people like owlsley and illyrian. And all these other guys who like, stay away from that stuff, man, that stuff messes up your head, you know, and did it mess people up. It’s not a good drug. And fetta means that drug is not good for the brain at all. It takes brain you know, about a year to heal from that stuff. And right, you know, psychedelics are a different animal, you know, and today they’re doing psychedelics again. But they’ll do 10 micrograms, LSD were like, we were doing 50 to 100. You know, which is too much, you know, it’s excess excess is stupid. You know? And that’s the big lesson out of the whole consciousness expansion, you figure out, hey, excess on all levels is stupid.

Gary Fisher 1:11:54
You know, and here we are today excess. See, you had long hair.

Carlton Reid 1:12:00
But then if we skip back another couple of years to 1966, that’s when you can make a Cat A junior racer, and it says here with regular top five finishes. But then you got banned for racing for having long hair. And I’ve looked at a photograph that wasn’t very long, right?

Gary Fisher 1:12:17
At that point. That was quite a No, in fact, Joe Breeze showed me a photo of myself as the last race. I rode, you know, before I get kicked out, and it was like my hair barely went over my ears. You know?

Carlton Reid 1:12:34
So you’re a Cat A junior racer, and this is on your first kind of custom built bike. And that’s a paragon.

Gary Fisher 1:12:42
Oh, yeah. Paragon. That was Lars Zabrasky. He built those bikes.

Gary Fisher 1:12:48
Really cool guy. I know.

Carlton Reid 1:12:51
And what kind of gears because you had you had Oh, it was a That one’s a weirdo setup that had the simplex, the plastic derailleurs. Remember that as being between the lines that the making trying to make it light.

Carlton Reid 1:13:02
So you were using campagnolotrying to make a light bike. So that’s why using the simplex, I use

Gary Fisher 1:13:08
derailleurs and it used Mayfac cantilever brakes.

Gary Fisher 1:13:14
Those were like that was and a TA crank set. And it was the old ones that they had there. an alloy crank set that was cottered.

Gary Fisher 1:13:23
you remember, and it had sort of a shaped bottom bracket spindle.

Carlton Reid 1:13:32
Okay, we’re skimminh back fast now, so 1962 that’s when you get your first serious racing bike. A Legano but that does have come with Campagnolo.

Gary Fisher 1:13:43
Yeah, yeah. And, oh, man, Distrone cottered crank set, you know, steel crank set.

Gary Fisher 1:13:47
And there was no such thing as Campagnolo brakes at that time? No, it’s just the derailleurs

Gary Fisher 1:13:57
Oh, and I found a good set of wheels. That was something that was a, I was hanging out at the bike shop and had some kid there that says, Hey, I got these wheels. I want to trade for a pair of clinchers. And like, you do okay, boom, boom, you know, it was a set of a high flange Campag hubs.

Gary Fisher 1:14:14
Set a few army Red Label rooms. Let’s go.

Carlton Reid 1:14:18
Describe the racing scene at that point. So we are talking

Carlton Reid 1:14:24
mid 1950s we’re getting towards the end of the 1950s

Gary Fisher 1:14:28
No, no, no, no. Like, I got into it. And like

Carlton Reid 1:14:32
sorry, 63. So I’m going I’m going I’m flipping myself here because you got your first bike in case for sorry. So 63 I mean, and I mean, road racing must have been pretty small.

Gary Fisher 1:14:41
But there were 120 registered riders and all in Northern California. And in those days, if you wrote a bike seriously at all, you would register with trh ABVLA even if you didn’t race. And that’s how few riders were there was like two women. You know, there were seven intermediate state

Gary Fisher 1:15:00
That was my category. You know, you’d see somebody on a road that wasn’t obvious DUI victim or some kid, and you’d stop them and exchange phone numbers. And otherwise you knew who it was for sure.

Gary Fisher 1:15:17
that few people, you know, but it was very chummy, so to speak.

Carlton Reid 1:15:23
And how did you get into racing? So, in 1954, you got your first biker Schwinn Spitfire, but these aren’t, these aren’t racing bikes. So how’d you start actually, racing?

Gary Fisher 1:15:34
Well, I was, I was hanging out at the bike shop and was the San Mateo bike shop, a Schwinn shop. And these guys that show up, and we’re gonna go on a ride, and once these guys were like, 15, 17, 18, and they were looking at me, you can’t come You can’t come. Because I was like, I was 12. I was like, tiny. I was like five foot four. And it was like 89 pounds skinny. And I said, Yeah, I can come and I just started riding with them. And they didn’t get rid of me. And at the end of the ride, they said, Yeah, you can. You can be in a club. You can be a mascot, and I started crying. I didn’t want to be mascot. I want to be a regular member. So okay, okay. We’ll make you a regular member. And, you know, that was a Belmont bike club. So it was the first club I joined.

Carlton Reid 1:16:23
Cuz there’s some Brits there. Yeah. Who, Larry Walpole. There’s a few few Brits like that. We’re like, basically organising this club. Yeah. So you would like brought into the scene by Brits?

Gary Fisher 1:16:33
Well, yeah, I mean, Larry, especially, I mean, he was a

Gary Fisher 1:16:36
he’s from East London. He had that, you know, that accent and he was hilarious. And he was a mechanic for Pan-Am. And he took care of me, you know, we do 80 mile rides, and he makes sure I made it, you know, a whole thing. And then Ray Andrews, Ray Andrews was a racer. He was a Brit, living in the States.

Gary Fisher 1:16:59
But he was a top category racer, you know, good road racer.

Gary Fisher 1:17:05
So, yeah, he taught me how to drink tea.

Gary Fisher 1:17:09
And Larry, Larry, though, and he get British Cycling Weekly, and then Miroir Du Cycliste, you know, the, and that was the window, you know, you got to consider, I mean, there was no such thing as video, you know, so you couldn’t rent a video of some race or something. And, you know, I remember seeing his 16 millimetre film with some World Championships. But that was all I ever saw of a European race until I was in my 20s, and actually went to Europe. And us, you just wouldn’t see how right or road or how pack function or any of those physical things, you know, is really different. And, you know, and writing races in those days was far different. And then you’d have, there’d be 20, guys that could go fast, and then it’d be 15. And then then it just be five, you know, it would just get whittled down so fast and be ridiculous, you know, and, and then later on, when I was racing, and especially you go to the national championships or something, and there’d be 100 really good riders. That was different, you know, and the whole concept of going to something like the Tour de France, where you’ve got 150 riders that are like so incredibly good. No, that was something that was just like a dream. You know?

Carlton Reid 1:18:27
To help me visualise this, I’m just mentioning here Breaking Away. So Breaking Away is a different part of the US. It’s not, it’s not California, but is Breaking Away. Is that a good way of visualising this scene? Is it How accurate is breaking away to that kind of racing era?

Gary Fisher 1:18:43
My mother used to say all the time, “that was a movie about you, Gary.”

Carlton Reid 1:18:49
I met I met Oh, who is the guy? Dennis Christopher. I met him. Nice guy. But

Gary Fisher 1:18:57
I mean, in different scene in it, that was the Midwest and in the Midwest, you know, it’s, there’s a portion of it that is highly organised, you know, and that was the actual event and everything, you know that

Gary Fisher 1:19:09
they did a good job on their event, even though it was like absolutely bizarre, you know, the way that thing the, the Little Indy 500 runs and everything. Whereas in California,

Gary Fisher 1:19:21
Northern Southern California was sort of the where roadracing came back. It had almost died, you know, they hadn’t had a national championships for a number of years. And in 65, they did a, they included it in the nationals in Southern California, a road race for the first time in a long time, because there were enough people doing it and sort of came out of California and it was more

Gary Fisher 1:19:47
more independence in a really different feeling. You know, the Midwest where things were families and well organised and everything. And out here it was some awesome races, but when

Gary Fisher 1:20:00
Wasn’t organised, like, you know, like to do in the Midwest. I mean, the biggest race we had out here was back in those days was tour Nevada city, you know, for Northern California, and Southern Cal had a few big races. And then there are a number of races that would happen, you know, I mean, like mount Hamilton race. When I was 17. I organised race. I was the promoter, because I was in this club Pedali Alpini. And you had I don’t know how old was I? I don’t know if I know I was 20 when I organised that race. But I was it was my turn to organise a race, you know.

Gary Fisher 1:20:39
And that’s how loose it was, you know, everybody had to take a turn in a club of organising the race. Can you imagine? And it wasn’t so bad when there’s only 75 riders in all categories combined. You know, so,

Gary Fisher 1:20:55
but, no, it wasn’t well organised. It wasn’t something. It was tiny, you know, but I loved it. I completely loved it. And

Carlton Reid 1:21:06
1955 you’re five years old? And that’s when you moved to San Francisco, in effect from from?

Gary Fisher 1:21:14
Well, from Oakland, California. Well, yes. And no, I mean,

Gary Fisher 1:21:19
I was not. When I was six months old. We I was born in Oakland. My father was in the Navy. When I was six months old. We took a ship to Guam. My mother said, Yeah, you got seasick.

Gary Fisher 1:21:32
My mother was a singer, my mother was in an entertainer, my mother’s saying in a nightclubs, my mother got the attraction of like one of the islanders, a big guys, you know, like a native guy. And

Gary Fisher 1:21:46
my father got really jealous. My mother said, Forget about it. And she moved back to Beverly Hills took me with her when I was three and a half.

Gary Fisher 1:21:57
And we looked at my grandfather, and my grandfather worked for Warner Brothers. And he was a script or a script supervisor. And he invented that job. And he was actually really well known in Hollywood.

Carlton Reid 1:22:13
That’s some great photographs in the book. I’m now skimming through it here. of him is his horse, the the like, the script table.

Carlton Reid 1:22:20
Yeah. With all these fantastic movie, you know, movie scenes that he’s in, you know, obviously, behind the scenes, but clearly big blockbuster movies going on with some big major stars.

Gary Fisher 1:22:31
He was the guy that told the actors, this is what you’re gonna say, this is how you say it. Right? So I got these photos of him and he’s right in the centre of action. You know, he’s, you know, he’s the director is there, making sure everything’s going right. Doing things but my grandfather’s the guy that’s like, Okay, next slide. Next slide. Next slide. Next slide.

Gary Fisher 1:22:55
And he’s taking me on a set. you’d bring Ronald Reagan, Joan Crawford, Errol Flynn, Dora House,

Gary Fisher 1:23:01
we, we go to this park where the Disney’s were hanging out, and they were, you know, his little rat hole Park, in Hollywood, where all actors bring their kids, Walt Disney and his family show up and he go on about, I’m going to build this park for the family and everything. And he did you know, and we went to opening day and it was crazy and everything. Then later, Mike, my, my best friend around the corner and I we built a Disneyland in his backyard. My mother says, Oh, hey. And my mother, you know, I’m 90 years old last year, she says to me, “Gary, you know, this is about marketing, and how you provide press releases press for

Gary Fisher 1:23:42
media,” she says, Gary, you’re doing their job for them. Okay, let’s go back to LA. You know, she’s she calls up three different newspapers, including the LA Times and says, Hey, I got a story for you. They come out and do us run a story on us. You know, five years old, I’m in the LA Times. Right?

Carlton Reid 1:24:03
Yeah, I mean, in your book, I can actually say it’s where I learned, you know, that’s where I see

Carlton Reid 1:24:10
like good good at PR and presenting yourself so what I haven’t been able to track down in the book I mean, that there’s there’s disparate mentions of it everywhere in the book, but there’s not like one section that I’d like to do your fashion sense because that’s clearly what an awful lot of people will know about you and and especially your with your penchant for suits. Basically, you’re famous for your suit your Paul Smith suits, there was a Paul Smith connection in cycling Of course, because he was he was it is a big time cycle fan. And you’ve had Tom Baker suit, you’ve had all sorts of weird that fashion sense come from when did it generate and

Carlton Reid 1:24:53
the thread seems to be very early from like, you know, like the freak days where you’re you’re you?

Gary Fisher 1:25:00
We’re doing different stuff. No, in fact, while I’m my mother always, you know, in our family always, it was always something, you know, to be appreciated and myself was always, you know,

Gary Fisher 1:25:15
just like, you’d have a lot of fun dressing, you know, and it’s, it’s your way of presenting yourself to the world to

Gary Fisher 1:25:24
what’s funny, though, is like, it’s it ltb all those my big voice, you know, saying I’ll spend money on cars, I spend money on on suits and things is not that much money. When you buy quality. That’s, that’s the amazing thing. The quality stuff lasts a long time. And the looks last a long time, the hardest thing is to staying fit enough to fit things.

Gary Fisher 1:25:46
But it’s, I don’t know, it’s just, I appreciate it. You know, I think that’s what it is, is, if you don’t care about it, it doesn’t work, right.

Carlton Reid 1:25:57
So you do you do have the physique for these fancy suits that that set out. But it’s all a look, I mean, you could be going in a trade show anywhere in the world, and you could spot you from a long way off. So it’s trademark as well.

Gary Fisher 1:26:12
Yeah. No, it’s just, I like to do it, you know, and I know, and I,

Gary Fisher 1:26:19
it said thing to you go to where you need to go to find the very best in the world. And then you get humbled. You know, I will go to London, and hang out with my friends that they they all know so much more than I do. And I learned from them all the time, you know, and,

Gary Fisher 1:26:40
and we just have fun. You know, that’s the big thing. And it’s all about

Gary Fisher 1:26:45
having fun and, and,

Gary Fisher 1:26:48
and, you know, you’re evoking these looks from different places, different ideas and things and having a good time with it.

Gary Fisher 1:26:56
That said, I mean, it’s, I love it, but it’s not like

Gary Fisher 1:27:02
I’m not making my living with it. I you know, it’s not a business, I really want to be in to the fashion business. And I enjoy it and everything but

Gary Fisher 1:27:12
and I know it’s become a become well known for it.

Carlton Reid 1:27:16
But

Carlton Reid 1:27:20
you’ve been sat there on zooms, you know, Skype style chats, Where were your wife, Alex is in a dressing gown, and you’re, you’re in a suit. So this is a this is not a trademark, like, when you come out, you really bought into this, haven’t you?

Gary Fisher 1:27:36
You’ve like, well, it was a long time ago, I said, I’m not gonna wear a T shirt anymore.

Gary Fisher 1:27:41
Because I can’t pull it off. You know, I look right. You know, and

Gary Fisher 1:27:47
I can dress this way. And it’s easy, you know, it’s a lot easier than then you think, you know, it’s not that difficult. You know, when you find things that work a few and everything. It’s a no and and it’s really interesting because I man, I haven’t bought anything in the last year. I mean,

Gary Fisher 1:28:04
I’ve slowed down in the last five years or more, you know?

Carlton Reid 1:28:08
Yeah, it’s what’s it? Do you have a fancy dressing gown then? So when you take your suit off, and you’re getting into something more comfortable and you’re going to bed Are you like Do you also have a snazzy dressing gowns? I’m expecting like a you know, an English smoking jacket or something? What do you what do you

Gary Fisher 1:28:24
actually it’s more cartoonish. You know, it’s like boy, like, is is pretty funny. Because right now, my daughter is dressing me more than anybody. She’s the big cop. She says, Daddy, no, no, you can’t wear that. You gotta wear this. It’s hilarious. She’s, she’s something else. And the kids would just encourage that, you know, we’re just having fun. Here with this. It’s, it’s a

Gary Fisher 1:28:48
no, I don’t think about it too hard. I’m trying to me right now. I will. I mean, I, I’ll tell you, though, before I do, normally, when I go and I travel, and I do things, I think about what am I? What am I trying to present here? Who is my audience, you know, and I’ll address them but by not by too much. It’s not to go too far out there. So I’m definitely calculating. For that.

Carlton Reid 1:29:15
So, the front cover of the book. It draws in a lot of of your history so it’s got the you in the suit, it’s got you and a handlebar moustache and a hat and the shades. And then it’s got the Gary Fisher is picked out in like freak-style, you know, late 1960s

Carlton Reid 1:29:32
typography which is actually fantastic. And then on your suit, there’s a there’s a little bear on a bicycle.

Gary Fisher 1:29:40
And the bicycle is Grateful Dead, Grateful Dead always loved bicycles. They did something. You know, they bought a lot of bikes for me over the years.

Gary Fisher 1:29:49
They, they and they always believed in the whole idea. You know, the whole thing. I love my friend Howard. He’s a sound guy and for the Dead has been

Gary Fisher 1:29:59
forever. And he started a club called the Teamsters. And it used to be, and I love this example of all inclusivity.

Gary Fisher 1:30:09
He’d say, they’d say, Well, look, once you written to the top of Mount Tam, he could become a member. And then they soften the rules. They said, Well, if you say you’re going to ride to the top of Mount Tam, you could become a member. And then they want the ultimate. They said, if you think that right into the top of Mount Tam is a good idea, you can become a member. And that’s the way I want bikes to be, you know, you can be You don’t even have to do it. You just got to think it’s a good idea, then you’re my friend.

Gary Fisher 1:30:42
Right? And that’s the sort of inclusivity that I like to see. And everything is the same thing, Gary? Yeah, sorry.

Carlton Reid 1:30:50
I’m trying to wrap up here.

Carlton Reid 1:30:55
So even Gary Fisher is the name of the book. The subtitle is colour and the bicycling and the bicycle revolution. Sorry.

Carlton Reid 1:31:04
Where can people get this from? I mean, it’s Blue Train is the publisher. I mean, this is this is everywhere. This is it’s $39 99. money well spent. But where can people get it?

Gary Fisher 1:31:13
Well, that’s a story unto itself, too. Haha, we decided we aren’t going with the good old Amazon. No, no, no. And what’s funny is like, Trek is, you know, a very good distributor of bicycles. I mean, we, we sell in 100 countries. And so this is a challenge. Can we become a book distributor? Oh, my goodness. And I’ll tell you,

Gary Fisher 1:31:39
the boss, john Burke, he loves the idea of being able to distribute books. I mean, look, he’s done a few books himself. He had political books, his his philosophy in democratic politics, he would like to be a good book distributor, you know, this is something in our common interest. And like I pointed out before, I mean, it is all about the grey matter between the ears. And you know, that’s part of the job. And that is part of what I brought to Trek is this whole idea that it’s not just the physical object, it is also, you know, the, all the ideas behind that physical object.

Carlton Reid 1:32:18
So this physical object, which I’ve got on my hands now,

Carlton Reid 1:32:22
which isn’t in print, it’s not Kindle. It’s not a Kindle book is you’ve got, it’s like, it’s dripping with wonderful photographs, great typography, great. Design, the whole thing is a great package. So basically, people are gonna buy it from bike shops.

Gary Fisher 1:32:37
Yeah, that’s right. You know, online bike shops are our distribution at the moment is, to be honest. All right. And will we improve it? Absolutely. And it’s a whole process and I’m not worried.

Gary Fisher 1:32:55
I know the books gonna do really well. It’s a lot of fun.

Carlton Reid 1:32:59
It is very, it is fun. It’s I read it

Carlton Reid 1:33:04
filled in a lot of background for me cuz I’ve got I’ve got an awful lot of mountain bike history books, and bicycle history books in general. And and just the photographs are just brilliant. And including, you know, your backstory. So we haven’t really got into your ancestors hear at all, but you’ve got a fantastic bunch of ancestors there that that that built some amazing stuff. So Gary, thank you ever so much for taking the time out today to to talk to me. Absolutely. I can recommend “Being Gary Fisher.” And even better that you’ve got to go to a bike shop to go and get it. So thank you very much, Gary.

Gary Fisher 1:33:39
Thank you.

Carlton Reid 1:33:41
That was the one and only Gary Fisher and this has been Episode 268 of the Spokesmen cycling podcast. Show notes and a full transcript can be found as always at the-spokesmen.com. Now that’s it for this month. There’ll be another couple of episodes in March. Meanwhile, get out there and ride …