Author: Carlton Reid

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.

The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast (VIDEO SPECIAL)

EPISODE 252: Let’s Not Be Stupid With Snot Rockets

Monday 3rd August 2020

SPONSOR: Jenson USA

HOSTS: Carlton Reid & David Bernstein

GUEST: Jim Moss

TOPICS: We talk about Strade Bianche, the bike boom, all things Covid-19, the likelihood of the Tour de France being staged. And this show is also available as a video on YouTube.

MACHINE TRANSCRIPT

Carlton Reid 0:13
Welcome to episode 252 of the Spokesmen Cycling Podcast. This show was engineered on Monday 3rd August 2020

David Bernstein 0:24
The Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Jenson USA, where you’ll always find a great selection of products at amazing prices with unparalleled customer service. For more information, just go to Jensonusa.com/thespokesmen. Hey everybody, it’s David from the 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
Hi there I’m Carlton Reid and for today’s special episode with my co-host David Bernstein and show regular attorney Jim Moss we recorded with our webcams. You’re getting the audio only version of the show but if you want to see us in the flesh then the full episode is on Youtube. Search for it in the Youtube app or check out the embed on the-spokesmen.com We had a few issues with Jim’s audio, which I have fixed as best I can. For the next video session he’s gonna upgrade his microphone set-up. And you could be on the show too because the service we’re using — Riverside.fm — allows for video call-ins from show listeners or, in this case, show watchers. Notification of when we’re going to be throwing open the show to anybody we like the look of will be on our Twitter pages so for me that’s carltonreid all one word Naturally, you’ll have to have a Zoom-style set-up with a webcam, external mic and headphones. Come on the show, ask us questions, give us your points of view, we’d love to have you on board. It’s bound to be a tech nightmare but so long as you’re fully clothed and don’t have too many dogs barking in the background we’ll work through that. OK, let’s get into today’s episode show. We talk about Strade Bianche, the bike boom, all things Covid-19, the likelihood of the Tour de France being staged.

Carlton Reid 3:00
And welcome to Episode 242, no 252 of the spokesmen cycling podcast and it’s actually the spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast or triangular podcast anyway, because I have got two guests with me two regular guests with me today and I’m looking at the camera here, but down on my monitor here, I can see them. So I can see David Bernstein and I can see Jim moss. Hi, guys.

David Bernstein 3:34
Hello, how’s it going, Carlton?

Carlton Reid 3:37
It’s going, it’s going good. Now for people who are going to be getting this in the normal way as in via iTunes, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts and you’re getting the audio, then doing this with vision, but we’re not doing this with zoo. We’re doing it with a programme called Riverside. so new to everybody would be great. Having an internet of vision it’s been it’s been a nightmare so far to tell the truth. Looking at we’re gonna persevere we’re gonna we’re gonna first of all, we’re going to talk about what we haven’t talked together have we? We haven’t talked together together for some months so we haven’t talked about the amazingly horrible pandemic and what it’s done to our our lives. So So David, I’ll start with you because I can actually see you because Jim’s actually disappeared. Even I’m sure he’s there. What what, how are you? What are you doing? Are you have you been at home even shielding? What do you mean? What’s happening?

Carlton Reid 4:40
Yeah, so I think much like everybody out Well, first of all, knock on wood. We’ve all been safe and healthy and nobody here has gotten the dreaded so we’re happy about that. And I I know it’s been the same for you despite, you know, people in the medical profession in your life, so So it’s been it’s been interesting, but now I’ve got, Wow, my adult kids are back home working from home full time. I’m working from home. My wife is working from home. And as everybody as everybody knows, I normally travel on multiple planes a week. I haven’t seen I haven’t seen an aeroplane up close since March the second.

Carlton Reid 5:21
And Is that good? Is that good? Have you enjoyed yes and no.

Carlton Reid 5:25
Yes, and no, I mean, you know, my business requires for the most part that I visit with my clients. And so it’s difficult not to be on site with my clients. So I’m doing a lot remotely. I’m doing a lot of webinars and seminars and zoom calls sitting right here, not wearing a cycling t shirt usually but you know, for during the week, but this is I’m kind of planted here. Otherwise, you know, I think like the rest of the world doing more cycling, which has been great. My younger daughter, who some of the Fred cast listeners may remember from you And years ago, when we wrote across California together, she bought herself a new road bike, and she’s become a cyclist. So that’s cool. And I would say that as far as cycling, I would say my wife and I are in the best cycling shape we’ve we’ve been in in years. So yeah, so that’s great. And I know that it’s been really good for the bike industry. And maybe we’ll talk about that. I’m sure Jim may have some comments about that. But yeah, overall, we’re doing fine. And I think like the rest of the world looking forward to a vaccine so that we can all go back to our normal lives. But otherwise, yeah, all as well.

Carlton Reid 6:39
Jim, are you in the best cycling shape of your life?

Jim Moss 6:44
I mean, not like when I was 20 years younger, but yeah, getting good mountain. Not as good. I’m not climbing well this year, but I’m also trying a lot harder stuff. Now that Think about it. I mean, I did a mountain bike run a couple weeks ago that was like 14 Square swear words per every 10 foot of distance so they they brought in concrete caissons to keep the trail from disappearing from road I’m happy I’m happy on the road I’m climbing a lot more which was something you have to learn how to do in Colorado or you don’t right at all. Life is good where Dale and I are both healthy. The dogs are demanding more time since we’re both here constantly got one here in the studio

Jim Moss 7:35
checking for security breaches.

Jim Moss 7:39
But life is good. I’ve been working from home for 18 years so there’s nothing new here for me. But the it’s it’s exciting. I’m getting a little batty you know, just having no real outside contact. And zoom is not outside contact and mostly because you know, I’ve so many education courses I’m taking I’m just like Listening a lot to conversations where I’m not important. And so, I set that on one computer, I keep working on my other. But life is good. You know, we’re, I got all of most of my clients to close their summer camps. I’ve not had any summer camp disasters, which in the United States are going to, it’s going to be the litigation nightmare. Whenever season closed, of course, that became a monster. You spend $120,000 to go climb a mountain and then the country closes and you lose your money.

Jim Moss 8:38
And then the bike industry bike industry is just going nuts.

Jim Moss 8:42
To the point that not only can you not find bicycles to sell, but you can’t find tires. 2018 tires? Yeah, yeah. 26 inch tires have disappeared. Everybody is bringing everything out of the market. I’ve got one guy who A cycle shop is driving around Saturdays to garage sales, to learn for bikes that they can buy and refurbish and sell in the shop. The storerooms have all the shops I visited or empty or they’re filled with bikes that need repaired because there’s no more room in the back to store the repaired bikes. So the cycling industry is just in habit and you’re seeing people everywhere. I mean, it’s it’s almost as bad as skiing nowadays on our on our bike passes. It’s I call skiing, slalom skiing, because you’re, you know, you’re going around the beginners all the time. And that’s what’s what Cycling is. At one day, last week, I saw six African Americans cycling, which is fantastic. I mean, normally in the past, if you saw one a week, it was amazing.

Jim Moss 9:49
And electric bikes are now everywhere.

Jim Moss 9:54
It did a ride, a mountain bike ride, and I just had one section going uphill kick my butt. popping up 18 inches and then manoeuvre the handlebars between two trees. And by the time we got done the bikes like one place I’m laying wrapped around a tree, you know and get up and get organised and two older guys came flying through there and I was like

Jim Moss 10:18
and then I noticed that electric bikes so I laughed so

Carlton Reid 10:22
that you know that the problem of not being able to find bikes is one I mean, the mainstream media has caught on to I’ve seen it in a number of, of major newspapers in the last two weeks. I even called my local mobile bike repair guy just wanted a couple of tuneups, and he’s like damn six weeks out

David Bernstein 10:45
September

Carlton Reid 10:46
Yeah, I’m Yeah, it was. It was crazy, Carlton, how are you guys doing?

Carlton Reid 10:53
We’re doing okay. I mean, I’d like to say that I’ve I’m doing a more cycling than I have been but I I’m not really I’m doing some cycling, but roughly the same as I was probably doing before. I haven’t haven’t decreased it and I haven’t increased it, but we’re all healthy. And there’s five of us like you, David. There’s now five of us. Our full house here, including the dogs at six. So wet, wet, wet, wet, hot, hearty, hail and healthy. So we’re fine. Thank you. So

Carlton Reid 11:26
if anybody’s if anybody’s followed your social media, they know that you’ve had the opportunity to do something that we haven’t. You travelled.

Carlton Reid 11:37
You can’t go so Yes, I have. David, thank you. I have been to Switzerland, where the World Championships are going to be held in theory touchwood there’s no one around here but touchwood the World Championship UCI road World Championships will be held in September so I was able to take a train from my home in Newcastle and it was is eight o’clock in the morning and I got to VBA in Switzerland just before midnight. So it’s a long, you know, many, many connections, but I got that I didn’t have to fly, you know, because flying at the moment, I wouldn’t be very uncomfortable I would be not comfortable with train, you know, on in the UK at least. And in the Euro star train, your The seats are blocked off. So nobody can sit next to you. You’ve got your mask on yet that’s obligatory, but nobody can sit anywhere near you. Which is bad for the train companies because they can’t sell all their tickets. But it’s good for the passengers in that all of a sudden you’ve got first class rail service, you’ve got as much room as you could possibly want. So I went to Switzerland for that. Fantastic three days of riding. So I guess I am doing a bit more writing when I get to go to Switzerland. But normally No, no, I’m not doing as much as I would be. Well, it’s it’s about privileged that we are able to get out but that that might change because our our our number is creeping back up again. So we might come back into into lockdown completely. So you’re right, everybody that the bike industries appears to be booming and I’m saying appears to be because the stats aren’t in. We haven’t got all the stats, all we’ve got so far is anecdotes and bike shops selling out of stock as I tell journalists who when they bring me up and asked me these sorts of things, I’d say look, it’s fantastic that appears, we’re booming. But you actually look at the actual figures of say major stores like hallford they’re not doing that fantastic. They’re doing like maybe one 2% up it’s not like doubling of a market. It’s we need to see the figures is what I’m trying to say is we need to find out what has actually happened because if everybody sold out of bikes that’s almost And that’s just because the bike trade isn’t very good at the moment. It’s been eight nine years of being in the doldrums. So that biker hasn’t been ordering bikes for a long time. So we’ve been going very low stock levels for a long time and bike shops, no longer stock bikes, all these different factors would say, Well, of course we’ll sell a bikes instantly, because there’s no bikes in shops. Anyway. So we need to work out. Has this actually been a genuine boom, and my book, which is very pleasantly called bike boom, wrote that a few years ago that’s sold out. You can’t buy that anywhere at the moment. So clearly, people have been searching for bike boom and actually found the this book, but of course, that was the 1970s bike boom, which was a genuine bike because that lasted for four years. And they were genuinely they you know, they went from, you know, like 7 million in the US per year selling bikes. To 14 million bikes per year so that was a genuine doubling of the market and I would hazard a guess that we’re not actually in that kind of zone with the bike industry at the moment it’s just a lot of it is just artificial in that there’s just not that much stock there. Anyway, let’s get away from the bike boom and and, and and talk about racing is back. David, did you watch it yesterday? There’s got to be funky. It’s not even a classic in many respects. It’s quite a new race. But did you watch and what did you think about it?

Carlton Reid 15:36
I didn’t watch it. I was writing it’s very hot here right now. So I got it either. Right early in the morning or late late late late late in the afternoon. So no, I was out doing a 30 some odd mile ride yesterday but it was fun. Here’s what was the fun thing. It was fun watching Twitter. And and, and, and it was it was it was as if the cycling fans came out of hibernation. And you know, spring had arrived and the sun was shining, and the clouds had parted and they were finally able to chase after whatever live feeds that they could find before the live feeds got shut down to go to the next one. But I read accounts have it and from what I know it’s a it’s a I was gonna say a bad word. It’s a really hard race. And have

Carlton Reid 16:24
you gone on record somewhere, David? store DDL? No. It’s a real shame because it was a it was a beautiful race. It was really really scenically. I mean, I can imagine if because I’ll just paint a picture here is very, very dusty. Obviously the starday road Yankee White is the white roads of this area, near Sienna, and it was very, very dusty. So the motorbikes which were actually kicking up all the dust, the photographers on the back of those will that hatch to have some amazing shots of basically riders in pure dust. You can see that from the TV shot so the print magazines are gonna have some amazing shots of this race Jim Did you did you watch it? Did you see pictures of it?

Jim Moss 17:08
No. No So

Carlton Reid 17:12
what is this cycling podcast and what make a video again let’s let’s let’s talk about the races Did you watch it? No

Carlton Reid 17:26
You weren’t you know you were you were talking about the photographer’s having some great shots and I know Brian, you know our friend from Velo Images. He Yeah, he’s got this he had this series It was like before and after the peloton. It was like, This is what the guys look like when they go sign in. And then it was this is what they look like when they finish the race. And I can imagine if he did that yesterday, the photos that he would have taken and I’ve seen some of the shots it looks it looks amazing. But to see you know, what was it a large percentage of the peloton not finishing the race because it’s the It’s that difficult. And I and I do know that it’s a hilly area. I mean, cn is known as a hill town. So it’s it’s just a gorgeous place to ride through. I was interested to see this is where we’ve all become public health officials. I was interested from, you know, sort of a health perspective. How do you get because I’m, when I’m cycling, I’m cycling with my family. But like yesterday, I saw a whole team go by. There were probably eight of them in a paceline. And of course, this is in the United States where we have these crazy surges. And I thought to myself, well that that considering our new focus on hygiene, I thought, well, that doesn’t look safe. And then I start to think about the pro peloton and I am and you know, Carlton, we’ve got a lot of American sports repeat re beginning restarting here baseballs got problems where you know they’ve got several teams who basically have said well we can’t play because we’ve had too many positives soccer had issues thankfully basketball knock on wood because of the way that they’ve they’ve put everybody into this bubble they’re not but there’s no bubbles in professional cycling and if i think i think Israel What do they call that Israel startup nation had had an issue with it with a positive test. And and so I just get concerned about all these guys in this tight group breathing heavily being close together and I love cycling, but it also at the moment, I look at it and sort of gives me the willies.

Carlton Reid 19:48
I was riding in in the pack. So there’s there’s about eight riders out in Switzerland. And there was this, what you call across there in America, the snot rockets.

David Bernstein 20:01
Okay, we call it that do

Carlton Reid 20:03
you call it that Okay, so that’s not right and I’m thinking I I you should be like 20 miles ahead of me to do us not rocket at the moment that is just not on but it’s just it’s just natural for people to do that sort of thing without thinking he actually did it a few times that’s that was really annoying touchwood I haven’t come down with anything so he didn’t have anything but those sort of things are gonna be coming up in in if people going out like with your friends you can say something but if you’re racing with somebody, you’re not going to be able to say anything said these sort of you know, you pass bodily fluids when when you’re riding along at 30 miles an hour. People might not know this, but you pass bodily fluids so

Carlton Reid 20:46
disgusting. To use your term does this not rocket become an offensive tactic? Where in in the peloton and you do that so that you maybe you can get a little bit of distance and gain an advantage?

Carlton Reid 20:59
You would definitely gain advantage, you can do that and then sprint away

Jim Moss 21:03
until they take it in. It’d be an advantage until they catch and beat the living crap out of you.

Carlton Reid 21:10
Or fine you, you know, 100 Swiss francs or something. Yeah.

Carlton Reid 21:15
So that brings me on to then if we do we think the Tour de France is going to go on. Oh,

Carlton Reid 21:21
wow, he was just right there. Why, Jim?

Jim Moss 21:25
Because that’s all I’ve been doing now for three months is studying this disease. And if you believe that you can run an event and not kill somebody, or permanently, permanently cause damage to thousands of people. You’re an idiot. In Colorado, we found out that if you catch COVID-19 and you are between the ages of 20 and 40, you have a 20% higher chance of having a stroke. Wow, okay. Yes, there’s all sorts of these numbers that are coming out on these limits. Various studies that have been reported yet that I’m, you know, finding all the time. There’s another study that shows that it causes permanent damage in most people, not only to their lungs, but to the hearts, their brains, their livers and kidneys. The autopsies that they are doing on some of the deceased are showing massive clotting problems throughout their entire bodies. Gail has a new job, she’s selling PvP, everyone needs a truckload of mass or, or whatever, let me know. And in fact, a couple friends of mine from the cycling industry, of course own Chinese companies just switched him over and they’re you know, she’s going great guns with them, but the it’s just scary. My sister, this is even scaring my sister runs 29 nursing homes. She had two instances of the disease in our nursing homes one that a medical emergency they sent the patient to the hospital. The patient at the hospital got the disease but she was notified by the hospital on the way back and they were to quarantine that patient. She survived. She my sister immediately locks down the nursing homes. When somebody comes in therapist doctor employee, their temperature was taken medical history was checked that a therapists come in medical was okay. temperature was normal at 8am. At 2pm. The therapist says I’m not feeling well. temperature was one on one and climbing. She had worked with five patients. She had talked to six people all 11 got the disease to die.

Jim Moss 23:38
It is not something to play around with.

Carlton Reid 23:41
But is is it? Are you is your concern for the peloton or is your concern for potential

Carlton Reid 23:51
for both, it doesn’t matter.

Jim Moss 23:55
We, you know, obviously when I cycle I breathe hard. In fact, it’s very Number one thing on my resume that I do well and so you’re close to the race you cannot think about if you’re doing snot rockets when you ride Are you not going to get close to the riders of spectator? The whole concept of bicycle racing is you know, rear wheel, the front wheel, your breathing whatever the guy xx alien in front of you no matter what. One person in the peloton is going to pass it to everybody else. One spectator on the side of the road to pass it to the peloton.

Carlton Reid 24:35
But Jim, they think they run a race yesterday. Apparently successfully. So might that not be a test and I you just thinking because it’s bigger, the Tour de France then that’s the reason it can’t go on.

Jim Moss 24:51
I think that in two or three days we’ll find out of that race was successful.

Carlton Reid 24:56
Yeah, true, now,

Jim Moss 24:58
in one in two we made No Was there any spectators at that race? You know,

Carlton Reid 25:04
that when a huge number they would definitely stay away.

Jim Moss 25:07
So we may not know for ever maybe if a spectator got sick from it we and you could you can pass the disease and not have the symptoms you can you can carry the virus and not be sick. So we may never know it’s in and the issue is, is we don’t know enough about it to make that decision. We don’t know if you’re going to live or die. I was talking to a doctor, an ER doc in New York City. He says yeah, one of the things that you’re saying diabetics, and if you’re overweight, this is one of the things that we’re not announcing but is finding out is true if you’re an alcoholic. If you intake too much alcohol your chances of dying of this disease are greatly increased.

Carlton Reid 25:52
But, but we have to think right that the peloton, alcoholics that they

Jim Moss 25:59
spectator Are you? Yeah, sure.

Carlton Reid 26:09
Look, I think here’s the here’s, here’s, here’s the thing, and it’s the same again pick a sport. Sport is big business. Sport means billions of pounds, dollars, euros, whatever it is. And I think that if you are whether whether you’re ASO, the producers of the Tour de France, or you are an owner of an NFL franchise, or you are the manager of a football team, that’s football as in soccer. You’re watching your business suffer as as so many people are and and these are huge businesses. And I my opinion is that we that the Tour de France will start I don’t know whether or not the Tour de France will finish. And that’s that’s a concern. And what’s what’s, let’s look at it from a cycling fans perspective. Forget the business for a moment. As we saw yesterday, I told you there was like a reawakening on Twitter, which was cool. Cycling fans are hungry to watch cycling and we can talk and I’d love to about these virtual races, but cycling fans want the Tour de France to happen and they miss it. I think that if if I think French cycling fans want to see the Tour de France and so yeah, I think it’s going to start I just don’t know whether or not it will finish and I don’t know, I haven’t. I don’t know how they do either of you know, they released their protocols for what their plans are for keeping the peloton and the spectator say, I haven’t

David Bernstein 27:55
seen them.

Carlton Reid 27:57
I haven’t seen any. I mean, I’m in like registered media so I’ve been getting emails, so they have been talking about how journalists can can lessen their impact. And of course, they they cancelled the attap. Right? You know, which would have been, what 30 50,000 riders coming in from all over the world. That’s not that’s so they’ve cancelled, like the major international event where people are coming in from from every corner of the world. But I guess their thinking will we can closely monitor from now. The riders and the teams, so they’re this slightly bubble eyes, you know, it’s not as much of a bubble as basketball, but they can they can monitor them, you know, they’re testing and a great deal, etc, etc. So I assume that’s what they’re thinking is, we can monitor these guys. We can’t monitor 50,000 people coming in. But we can monitor a relatively small number of teams right? And and support staff. But that begs the question, of course, if you can do them, but what about the spectators? You’ve got no idea how many spectators they’re going to be and whether they’re gonna associate distance, but I think

Carlton Reid 29:12
I think it’s going to depend sorry to him, but I think I think it’s gonna depend on what happens because they’re still doing the donate the criterium du Dauphine. And I think that it depends on what happens there. To me, it’s like the dolphy. Ne is the rehearsal. And it always is right for the Tour de France. But this year, I think it’s not just for the race itself, but for whatever the safety and protective measures that they’re going to put in place for the fans and for the cyclists, and I think that they may learn a lot from the dopey name, and then apply that eventually to the tour. Sorry, Jim. I interrupted. No,

Jim Moss 29:46
I understand. I just First of all, I don’t even think it’s professional sports teams that are bubbling with the new term or not, you know, interacting with anybody or succeeding at that. I mean, the Marlins in baseball Excellent proof for the 21 of their players now tested positive. The basketball players in their bubbles in their hotels in Orlando are still getting together at night. You know, and partying and having a good time. The there’s a trade association here in the United States for camps that created this bubble philosophy, keep the kids in small groups, it’s going to work. All these camps are financially on the edge said we’re going to open up. We got an example here in Colorado where three days after the staff came in, they close the Camp 50 of the staff members were put up in individual hotel rooms in a hotel for two weeks. There’s a camp in Georgia just got reported by the CDC 500 kids in Camp 250 cases of the disease in one week. You know, and and, and then we go spread it and so you get back from camp and Grandmother hugs, grand son, granddaughter, whatever it is. That’s no difference in cycling, we leave the side of the road. You know where we’ve cheer was there for three hours, you’re not going to talk to the person six foot away. And when you talk to somebody long enough, do you notice you’re getting closer? So one of the things that I’ve constantly had to think about is I’m always stepping backwards because the conversations were coming together. Okay, and I’m okay, step back, step back, step back. I mean, I’m constantly stepping backwards is one of the notice that is so side of the road, it’s just going to spread like wildfire. wildfire weather jumps across the barrier to the peloton, or from the peloton back to the spectators. Who knows. Now,

Carlton Reid 31:47
so Jim, can I just be different questions? So it’s not whether you think it’ll go on? I was gonna put it on it. Do you think they ought to put it on?

Jim Moss 31:58
No. Okay. We know

Carlton Reid 32:02
That’s that sounds that where you’re coming from, you’re getting all the negatives. So clearly you think they shouldn’t put it on?

Jim Moss 32:08
Yeah, I miss it. I mean,

Jim Moss 32:11
some theories, one of the big theories a couple of the lung specialists are looking at is that exercise may keep you from getting the virus using your lungs to the maximum capacity, which is the excuse I’m using to go out and put myself at risk. And Gail, you know, is that by cycling, I’m using my lungs. And I have yet to see any cyclists that I know of, or people who are serious exercise fanatics get the disease. Unfortunately, I know an attorney in Salt Lake City, who is very serious runner, and he got the disease in March, I think in April. And actually, he says that he at even I think it was April and now here we are August. He says he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to do the kind of running in the kind of distance that he used to do so. So I think I think, you know, I don’t want to I don’t want people to think that just because you’re cyclists, you’re not going to get it. Any of it. I didn’t get it right like that at all. Yeah, right. Right. You’re not giving out a medical advice here. We’re Oh God. Oh, bad.

Carlton Reid 33:23
Yeah, we give out bad cycling advice. So you know,

Jim Moss 33:29
screw up.

Carlton Reid 33:30
Yeah, Carlton. I’m like, I’m like, Jim. I don’t think that they, I mean, I want to see the tour thoughts. But I don’t think that they should. I want to say that, at least from my perspective, and I think I’m speaking for for you guys, too, you know, Look, dear listeners, this is these aren’t. From my perspective, these aren’t political statements that we’re making and unfortunately, You know this, this becomes political on either side. The politicisation of a pandemic is just a very strange thing to me. So I just want you to know, these aren’t these are our These are our feelings about sport, and these are our feelings about health, and the health and welfare of the people that we like to follow those athletes, and also the people like us, you know, we’ve all stood at those barriers, watching races, whether that’s in the UK, or in Colorado, or Utah or France or wherever or Israel. And, and, you know, you stand at those barriers and you are very close to other people. And, and these are the kinds of situations in which any kind of an illness can be passed. And when we’re talking about a serious illness that can have that can result in death or can have lifelong issues. It’s not a political conversation, then it’s it’s one about caring for fellow

Carlton Reid 34:58
humans. So one thing so yeah, forget, forget the spectators, if you can have. So it’s like almost like the soccer thing with football where you’ve got stadiums without any spectators. And so if you could organise it, that you had the Tour de France or you have any of these major races, but you had either no or very few spectators. So the question is, I’m rephrasing the question or asking the question again, would you then be happy with the race to be on? Or is it? Is it still no, it’ll still be back to the athletes?

Carlton Reid 35:34
I don’t think they’re there. I don’t think the plan is to put the cyclists in a bubble. The plan is, you know, to put in extra protocols at their hotels and those kinds of things, but they’re not putting them in a bubble in as we’ve seen elsewhere, without a bubble. The possibility goes up, the probability goes up. And so and so and seriously, how are you going to keep French fans off the roads? You know, gendarme there’s not enough gendarmes in France to keep the fans off the roads. So so we’ve got the fan problem. We’ve got the peloton problem. So do your question. Do I think they should do I think from a safety? No, they shouldn’t. Even even with your hypothetical.

Jim Moss 36:17
The reason why I get media badges is so I can get closer.

David Bernstein 36:22
Yeah, right, right.

Jim Moss 36:25
I don’t want to be on the one side of the fence. I want to be on the inside. I want to see the spokes go by, you know. Mm hmm. You know, that’s what makes bicycle racing. So phenomenal. Crap. If you get eight people together in Denver, and they’re riding together, there’s three people standing on the sidelines cheering it’s a bicycle race. Right? You get four friends together. There’s always a race to the top of the hill, and or the county sign or whatever, right? Yeah, exactly. There’s always a race and we know where they are. pillar to post Lookout Mountain here in Gold, right? You leave the pillar and you stop the timer at the post. And and I’m still trying to get mine so it measures in minutes rather than hours. But it’s what we do. It’s what cycle would put cycle racing so far add up, in my opinion, all the other sports because the people can reach out and touch and get in trouble and they do. The cyclists. You can’t do I mean, maybe la you can get that close to the sweat falls on you in a basketball game but not in baseball, not in football, only in cycling other others fans right next to the cyclists when they’re playing.

Carlton Reid 37:42
Hmm, this is why I thought when I went on this trip to Switzerland, I think they’ve been very optimistic and thinking that this this race will go ahead. I mean, they showed us all the protocols that are taking, gonna be taking place all the safety measures or the barriers that they’re gonna be putting on where Normally, there wouldn’t be barriers for the spectators on the hill sections, etc, etc. But it really won’t take that many people coming down with it before before the world championships to happen for it to collapse a world championship. So at the turn of France or the dolphin a, I mean, well, how many how many riders will it take 110 support staff? How many will it take for them think right? No, no all races and in that how good Switzerland has prepared and Switzerland is very, very low. Our numbers low it’s the best place in the world. Big Data has shown that Switzerland is actually the best place in the world. However, if the tour of France is cancelled, then I can’t see that race going on in Switzerland no matter how many measures they put in place, and no matter how many, or how low the our rate is in Switzerland right now. It’s gonna be a cascading effect, isn’t it? So they’re very optimistic to get me and other journalists across there. They want to rescue their, their tourist season they want people to come I just think that is so optimistic to expect this these events to carry on so I’m torn on with the should carry them on so I’m not with you, David or Jim. They shouldn’t carry them on. I am torn on whether they will go on so when when I was invited to the attap and you know, many, many months ago that got cancelled. I put it up my mind. I was then about 10 days ago, I was invited to the tap again. I did not think Rob better get some training in here. I’m going to be a tap. I’m still thinking, no, I don’t think the hotel will will be on and lo and behold what is now about four days ago. You know, they’ve agreed that it’s Not gonna go on. So yeah, I don’t think it’s gonna happen. But I’d love to ask Jim I said I’d love to see it happen. It’s gonna happen.

David Bernstein 40:08
And you have the foresight of having medical knowledge in your household. Right? You’re getting better information than 99% of the world is when you made that decision. You’re trying to interpret

David Bernstein 40:22
what’s going on?

Carlton Reid 40:24
Well, my doctor wife actually was quite worried about me going to Switzerland. And it was only when I was there, and you’re on the ground and you see all the measures and you see how normal it is in Switzerland. You know, you’re wearing a mask on public transport, but restaurants, everything is open, everything is fine. And there is no massive cases in Switzerland. It’s it’s almost back to normal. And they had days early. So the guy I was riding with the guide. He had it he said 70% of verbiage. Residents probably had it. And then what they did is they they tackled it hard, very, very early and almost eradicated it. Whereas most other countries and I’m including US and the UK in this, were far more lackadaisical, didn’t stamp on it hard. And we are now suffering the repercussions from that. Now,

Jim Moss 41:24
I have a friend in New Zealand who has been sending me and posting things about skiing in New Zealand, New Zealand did the same thing they stamped on the heart and the ski resorts are full. And everyone’s having a good time. When you they’re going to eventually close the ports and close the airports because that’s where the disease is coming from.

Carlton Reid 41:43
Yeah, so let me let me ask you guys a question. I brought it up before and that is these virtual races. You know, the ones for the pros are doing races on Zwift and things like that. Did you guys want, Carlton’s making a face? Did you guys watch?

Carlton Reid 41:57
No Gotta be hardcore. Really, really hardcore to get a kick out of that? No. Yeah, the answer is no. And you David,

Carlton Reid 42:10
no. But listen, listen, there’s people No, no, no not at all. And I’m not a fan of swift we can talk about that another time but but you know, there are people who watch others play just regular video games, you know, whether it’s Call of Duty or, or whatever. So, it’s the same thing, right? It’s like watching somebody play a video game except they’re in their basement sweating away trying to, you know, beat the other guy to the volcano in the swift Island or something. People

Jim Moss 42:35
always ask me why I don’t go watching professional sports. I mean, Denver has every professional sports team that there is and more than any other city in the United States and I’ve seen the Broncos once, the Rockies once and the nuggets once and I’m done. You know, once a decade, I guess these professional sports and people ask me that because everyone wears orange and blue and everyone wears Whatever I said was just like sex. I’d rather participate personally, there’s

Carlton Reid 43:07
there’s so many good show titles in this show, Carlton, I don’t know how you’re gonna choose but okay.

Carlton Reid 43:13
Now I’m just visualising it and

Jim Moss 43:16
I need it.

Carlton Reid 43:20
So it’s okay. You’re in the best shape of your life. Yeah, fine.

Carlton Reid 43:24
Bad. You know, you know on those lines I mean, we were talking about about bikes. You know, who has done incredibly well during this pandemic with their bikes? peloton.

Carlton Reid 43:38
Oh, yeah, so

Carlton Reid 43:40
they’re completely sold out. Yeah. And, and, you know, I poopoo that I say, Oh, that’s not real cycling. You know, I took my real my real bike up to a trainer. But you know, they’ve done very, very well. And that’s, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s a little bit like swift and Some ways, but they’ve done yeah. Wouldn’t you like?

Carlton Reid 44:04
Yeah, they kind of benefited from people ridiculing it something wrong a few months before the pandemic started. So it’s almost like perfect PR for them. It ramped up the awareness of this thing. pandemic starts lockdown starts boom. That’s all you can do. It’s amazing. He couldn’t have planned it better in fact, forget China virus it’s pretty peloton by manufacture this in our lab.

Jim Moss 44:34
No, it was manufactured by dogs.

Jim Moss 44:38
Dogs created the virus think about Oh, yeah.

Carlton Reid 44:44
So my dog has never had so many walks in his life.

Carlton Reid 44:48
Oh, yeah. Well, this is just as crazy as demon sperm, isn’t it? So come on. This is just

Jim Moss 44:54
as easy as bad. There’s so study of the day that estimated 60% of all gyms. fitness facilities will not reopen. Not because they’re not going to survive but because people have switched their training to in home, and they all bought weights, they all bought whatever they need. When you see the new gym that’s a mirror, you put it on your wall and it’s like, peloton but you lift weights with other people that saw this unfold. I saw on Forbes. Yeah. And that’s the next thing that the studies are showing up as who’s not going to open up to this. How many retail stores 40% of nonprofits are going to go under. You know, we’re going to have a major economic repercussion worldwide is going to last for decades.

Carlton Reid 45:42
Oh yeah, this is 10, 20, 30 years of impact.

Jim Moss 45:46
Honestly, I don’t care if ASO has a bad year. I care about whether or not my neighbours Do you know, yeah, in that case, let’s not be stupid.

Carlton Reid 45:59
There’s your Show title. Let’s not be stupid.

Jim Moss 46:04
Well, what about the sale of Buffs? I got my mask on back to writing got my

Carlton Reid 46:09
mask. That’s what I do now. Actually, I got one so I got one of those. Yet when I did the what’s the granfondo in Italy?

David Bernstein 46:21
Hang on,

Carlton Reid 46:23
though right now the Maratona. Okay. Yeah, when I did the Maratona they that’s so stupid. I do look at my jersey on the wall. They gave me a great Buff, and yeah, I wear that when I ride. And then if I need to, I just pull it up over my face. It’s great. And by the way, if it’s cold morning, it keeps your neck warm. It’s excellent.

Carlton Reid 46:41
Which is when I was working that race yesterday. There was a few teams Trek Segafredo had a team mask. And then lots of the other teams Didn’t they were just wearing surgical mask and you thinking these guys are paid to play logos on jerseys cap Everything and they haven’t done team masks Are they crazy? You just go to the interview afterwards and you put on your mask and and and why are they having said all team fans should be sporting their favourite teams masks if you’re a football fan if you’re a cycling fan, you should be getting your, your your team’s fit mask and there just doesn’t seem that many available and I’m very surprised at last.

Carlton Reid 47:30
Yeah, I agree with you.

Carlton Reid 47:33
David are talking about commercial things. Can you can you give us an an an ad break at this point, David? Absolutely. Well,

Carlton Reid 47:41
and it’s I mean, to me it’s not even an ad it’s more like a like a tribute. It’s a tribute. No, everyone knows that our our longtime loyal and devoted and we really appreciate sponsor is Jenson USA and go to Jensonusa.com/thespokesmen whenever you need anything you know you you can’t find things in your local store Jim said it. And while when Jim said that I immediately went to JensonUSA.com/thespokesmen and I looked to see what they have and they’ve got a good selection of items in stock. If you’re looking for tires, you’re looking for tubes if you’re looking for components or tools because you know, your mobile bike repair guys six weeks out is mine is I looked you can find that stuff on Jenson USA right now they are open. They have free shipping over $60 and I mean, they even complete bikes. So Jim said for instance, you know, you can’t find a complete bike, you know, I look just Orbea, a Colnago, Rocky Mountain, you name it. The brands, you know, and I say this all the time, but amazing selection, great prices, and unparalleled customer service. What do I mean by that? When you call on the phone, you’re going to get a gear advisor. Now gear advisor isn’t just some person you know in a phone call This is somebody like you like me who rides, they ride to work, they ride home or they go on the trails at lunchtime, and they’re just like you and they’ve written the stuff that you’re asking about so they can give you expert advice. So check them out. It’s Jensonusa.com/thespokesmen. And we do ask that you use that URL, because then they know that you heard about them right here on the Spokesmen. So we appreciate you supporting them. We really appreciate them supporting us. Make sure you use that URL at Jenson USA. It’s www.Jensonusa.com/thespokesmen. Now back to you, Carlton.

Carlton Reid 49:39
Thank you, David. I’m assuming I haven’t checked this but I’m assuming they Jenson USA that is they, like many companies are working remotely. So those gear advisors I’m assuming are not gonna be in. In the normal depot. They’re going to be at home doing give advice. Do you know that Why, David? Does it send a website?

Carlton Reid 50:02
I haven’t it. It doesn’t say on their website. It does say that, for instance, they’re doing curbside pickup for those of you in Southern California, if you don’t want to wait for shipping, you can go and, you know, it’s just like when you get your to go items and they bring it up to your car. But I’m gonna guess that you’re right. And it’s, you know, these days, it’s easy to work from home.

Jim Moss 50:22
I also think one of the other things that I’ve noticed, especially in the cycling industry is what European companies are no longer here in the US. Where I think we’re losing a lot of companies, I mean, not just from the attrition of competitiveness in the cycling industry, but because the communication is just easier to close down an operation than it is to try and keep it open during this period of time. I’ve been tracking down several companies that seem to have just, I don’t know if that’s this or because of lack of interbike slash trade show. downloading and that’s a whole nother spokesmen we talked about sea otter trade show that type stuff or other marketing issues or the virus but several companies have just sort of faded away

Carlton Reid 51:14
at interbike with claps anyway it wasn’t it that wasn’t going on Coronavirus

Jim Moss 51:21
Yeah, exactly. It already died. It was

Carlton Reid 51:23
so we’re already remodelling our society in many ways even before the virus So David, saying he’s doing remote things you’re probably doing some more remote things previously. Yeah.

Carlton Reid 51:36
Yeah, yeah. Some but but again, still putting my button in an aeroplane seat most of the time and going to go into see people. It’s interesting. You know, there was supposed to be another a new outdoor industry trade show. There’s going to be this summer right here in Salt Lake City. And actually, we know the person who was putting it on because he’s put on press camp. And of course before that he was at interbike. But of course it was postponed until next year as well. But it’s funny, Jim, you’re talking about European companies that it reminded me a friend emailed me recently. A I think it was a velonews article about something, some press release that FSA had put out. And they, they, they referred to them to them as an Italian company. And he, he, he emailed me and said, When did they become an Italian company? Because I think you were there at the beginning of that company, then Italian office, but they’re not Italian.

Carlton Reid 52:35
Well, I’ve just ordered a headset from my Giant bike and it’s an FSA. So, David, yeah.

Carlton Reid 52:43
I have in this drawer, I think I still have the original trademark, or copyright.

Carlton Reid 52:52
People who let’s let’s go through that bet that history day because a lot of people who’ve listened to this show before might know but tell us Tell us again about your your your your start in the industry FSA, even knowing people like Josh Hon and stuff at school.

Carlton Reid 53:10
Well, Josh, that’s a different story. Josh and I met in high school. And if you don’t know, Josh is a for those of you who may not know, originally was working with his father at Dahon, the folding bike company, and of course now, running Tern the folding bike company with a bike company, I think is probably the better way to say it. No, no, I met Josh in high school. No, my start in the industry was in 1989 when I was working for the parent company of Tioga, the mountain bike company and BMX component company and of course, we own Shogun and we also did, we were it was a Japanese trading company. So we dealt with there at one point, we touched 70% of the Shimano product that moved around the world. So that was a big And then from there, I started my own marketing company in the bike business. And one of the brands that I helped start was FSA. So and I and it’s, it’s I love seeing that logo on people’s jerseys at the Tour de France or, you know, on almost every bike out there, you said you’re ordering a headset for your giant and it’s an FSA. Anyways, oh, yeah, I did a lot of marketing and PR and sales in the bike industry all around the world that was a tonne of fun. And then I left the bike industry and instead started podcasting. And how long have we been doing this Carlton

Carlton Reid 54:32
2006 — 14 years

Carlton Reid 54:37
In podcast terms, it said so long time. Let’s find out where people can can find each other at the moment on social media, which might be a bit different to before so I’ll start with David David, where can we where can we find you and what are you doing on social media right now?

Carlton Reid 54:58
So it’s funny i was i was just opened up my phone to see to make sure I had my, my Instagram name right, which is Fredcast and that’s probably where you can find me I am a an infrequent poster. And when I post it’s usually bikes or dog. So when

Carlton Reid 55:16
you’re cycling through an oil painting yesterday, I want

Carlton Reid 55:20
to paint a painting. Yeah, it was a gorgeous ride. And that that picture was taken. I mean, as the crow flies, probably three miles from my house was just beautiful

Carlton Reid 55:28
filters. So you are you boosting some of that or was that literally you were riding through that. That’s

Carlton Reid 55:33
what it looked like. Yeah, that was pretty awesome. Okay, and then if you look, here are some pictures from from last week when I rode to Evanston, Wyoming, which was a lot of fun, too. And, and it’s funny because if you look at each of them, you’re looking at a gravel road or a dirt road. And of course, I’m on my road bike. But you know, sometimes you can’t avoid that here. No, so you find me on Instagram. I am Fred cast. And it’s funny. I would have to go back to Twitter and see when the last time was I tweeted, it’s probably Been a couple of years. I just don’t tend to a wheel.

Carlton Reid 56:05
I know you got me into this.

David Bernstein 56:07
Yeah, you’re prolific.

Carlton Reid 56:08
Yeah, yeah, you got me into this I blame you definitely.

Carlton Reid 56:12
But while Jim is telling us where we can find him I’ll look up and I’ll let you know when the last time.

Carlton Reid 56:17
So Jim,

Jim Moss 56:19
recreationlaw, I post continuously on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook, and I never go to those sites. I use a service I posted it puts the stuff out at the right time. I see Facebook as a never ending black hole of information, which 30% of it makes me furious and the other 70% agree with so best way to find me is just to email me at recreation dot law gmail. com or go to my website, recreation dash lawn calm.

Carlton Reid 56:57
Not much is done. And and you can Email me too. I’m the Fred cast @ gmail . com. Last time I tweeted was 125 days ago when we did a lockdown edition of the spokesmen with Calton, Donna, Tim, Jim and, and Richard Masoner from Cyclelicious.

Carlton Reid 57:17
Yeah. As a good show 125 That’s a long time ago. Yeah, I’m talking 125 seconds probably. Maybe maybe minutes, maybe minutes. Yeah, yeah. Perfect.

Jim Moss 57:32
I would call read column on TweetDeck.

Carlton Reid 57:39
Well, I recommend that to everybody, you know, definitely get a column with me. And so yeah, I’m as as you can kind of like, bad preview there. I’m definitely prolific on Twitter. I agree with you, Jim. About the black hole. That is Facebook. I will post on Facebook. Don’t expect an answer. People send me like stuff on messenger. And I’ll answer it maybe three months later, when I open messenger up. You know if it was our we’re trying to reach you urgently and it’s like, are you still trying to reach me urgently? When you, you know, eight months ago. So Twitter Carlton Reid is where I’m definitely at Instagram, his dogs, and of course, Forbes. So forbes.com

Carlton Reid 58:27
Thanks to my co-host David Bernstein and show regular Jim Moss. Don’t forget, as well as listening to today’s show you can also see us come alive in our home studios because we recorded moving images with our webcams. The moving is mainly waving our hands about and some surreptitious keyboard action so don’t go expecting any visuals of us on our bikes or anything. You can watch this episode on YouTube at the-spokesmen.com which is also where you can find a show transcript and links and stuff. And as I mentioned in the intro, YOU could be on the next show … meanwhile, get out there and ride.

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. NOTE: Show 250 did not get uploaded to Apple Podcasts — this glitch has now been fixed..

The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 250: In conversation with the rock star of parking, Donald Shoup

Saturday 18th July 2020

SPONSOR: Jenson USA

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUEST: Donald Shoup, distinguished research professor of urban planning at University of California at Los Angeles, and author of the groundbreaking 2005 booking The High Cost of Free Parking.

MACHINE TRANSCRIPT

Carlton Reid 0:12
Welcome to Episode 250 of the spokesmen cycling podcast. This show was engineered on Saturday 18th of July 2020.

David Bernstein 0:24
The spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Jenson USA, where you’ll always find a great selection of products at amazing prices with unparalleled customer service. For more information, just go to Jensonusa.com/spokesmen. 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
For this, our 250th episode, the spokesmen cycling podcast becomes the spokesmen parking podcast. As you’ll soon here, the storage of cars has much more impact on our lives, including our cycling lives. And most folks imagine. I’m Carlton Reid, and on today’s show, I’m talking to a bottom feeding Yoda who rode through the 1970s American bike boom without knowing it was even happening. Donald Shoup is the distinguished research professor of urban planning at UCLA and author of the groundbreaking 2005 book the high cost of free parking. Now, studying parking may sound a bit dry. But as Donald has shown with his groundbreaking city shaping research, the space we devote to storing big lumps of metal is simply staggering, and often, deeply unfair financially, spatially, and socially. Donald’s many fans — they call themselves the Shoupistas — does know that he isn’t your normal, everyday academic. He’s retired, but he’s still teaching his personal website, his shoupdogg.com. And the connection to rapper Snoop Dogg isn’t just a play on words, both hail from Long Beach, California. And there can’t be many academics that have starred in an animated cartoon, which is how Donald appeared on the Adam Ruins Everything TV series and then America. I spoke with Donald yesterday. Now I didn’t know this beforehand, but he knew all about my home city of Newcastle upon Tyne. He used to live here in the 1960s, working for C.A. Parsons, then one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of turbine generators, which were invented in Newcastle. It’s a long, but fascinating show. So buckle up. Donald, you began your academic career at the University of California at Los Angeles, UCLA in 1968. And that’s a year or two before the bike boom, started. So were you ahead of the curve because you were already cycling to campus, weren’t you?

Donald Shoup 3:50
Yes, I think, you know, most people in universities are used to bicycling and I was intrigued by your your comments on the bike boom, and I really don’t remember all of it.

Donald Shoup 4:10
I guess I’d always been bicycling and I had a bicycle or more than one so no, I I don’t remember the bicycle move at all.

Carlton Reid 4:20
Wow. It passed you by. So I lots of photographs I’ve seen of you. You’ve actually had a bicycle with you. So you’ve code on bicycling by the look of it.

Donald Shoup 4:30
Yes, it was the first bike I remember buying was a Humber. If you remember those. I bought it as a kit. I bought it also one for my fiance. And I put that together. I guess it was one time. That would have been around 1965 I guess. And then later on. I guess it’s 75 Maybe that was during the bike boom. I bought a I bought a Schwinn bicycle. No, no, it was a Raleigh. That’s right. I bought a Raleigh which was a fairly high end one for that day that I remember going to the bike store. They’re very athletic young guy who was selling the things he was showing the rally catalogue and there was a racy buying silver have kickstands for fenders or even brakes for aleinu because that would add too much to the weight. But he kept showing me these bikes that I wasn’t interested in I saw while I said it was flat and he said oh are you to walk out that’s an old bands bike. And it was a Carl that that was a look at it. I think it had a Carlton frame fairly high out but it had the kickstand that generated generator oil for for light. I still have the bike and I still Use it as a bit of antique, I suppose. And I’ve had students looking at it. They didn’t they’d never seen a generator or bicycle wheel. Oh,

Carlton Reid 6:14
you’ve kept on riding. That’s good.

Donald Shoup 6:17
Yes, I think I want more than right now that I always rode my bike to work

because I’m in a hurry. And I retired a night in 2015 but I still go to campus every day. Like I still teach clubs. I’m not as hurried so I walk partly because the exercise is you as you know, bicycling is so efficient your per per mile and you don’t expend much energy because you get there fairly fast, but walking is huge. uses more calories than biking does.

Carlton Reid 7:05
So you’ve spent your your long career linking the parking of cars with congestion, pollution, affordability, even sprawl. And now climate change, of course, and the Wall Street Journal I read, as described you, as I’m quoting here, a parking rock star and the Yoda of urban planning. So how do you turn parking into a rock star topic?

Donald Shoup 7:32
Well, I realised that for a rock star is not the same thing as a real rock star, but I might change my name to shoot dog. And I was certainly flattered that I heard I was the Yoda of urban planning until I remember from Star Wars that yoga was 800 years old. was the lowest status thing you could study the local government that would be parking. So I’ve been a bottom feeder for about 40 years. years. But there was a lot of food down there that people just had been neglecting parking even though it’s the single biggest use of land in almost any city. And it’s essential if you’re going to own a car, you have to have not just one parking space, but quite a few available to you at home at work at school, grocery stores, so many more parking spaces than cars, and, and I’ve estimated the value of all the parking spaces greatly outside exceeds the value of all the cars and maybe even the value of all the roads. But nobody has really been studying. Everybody follows a personal issue and knowledge of an academic or intellectual issue. So it was really pretty easy to make, you know, important discoveries.

Carlton Reid 8:54
So in your research and if to get those important discoveries you found that in some American Cities, the average construction cost not not what it’s worth, but the actual construction cost for an above ground parking space, and I’m gonna put this in English pounds, but it’s about 18,000 pounds. So what’s that 24,000, nearly, nearly nearly getting on for $30,000. And yet, but, but that you’ve also pointed out that that is that is several times the average net worth of an African American family. So what does that say about our society’s

priorities?

Donald Shoup 9:34
Well, that’s a great question. I haven’t heard it phrased exactly that way before but I think I think Yes, certainly the the the cost of one structured parking space and underground parking costs much more. is is you know, maybe maybe 18 2030 And dollars for constructing the structure and then there’s the land as well

as the cities.

Not so much in Britain, but certainly the United States and many other countries require parking spaces for any new development. If you’re going to build a new apartment building in the US, it has to have two off street parking spaces per dwelling unit. Well, that raises the cost of all housing and then when you’re thinking of all the parking requirements, shopping centres, grocery stores, movie theatres, nobody knows how many parking spaces there are, but there are at least at very least three or four parking spaces for every car. So that might be about you know, $100,000 for the park per car, am I That is a huge amount of money. The especially now that we’re so focused on the the economic problems, low income people save the average net wealth, which means the all your assets minus your liabilities for Black household all over the United States is brown $17,000, which is less than the cost of one parking space. And yeah, planners have been recommended several parking spaces for free car for every family. And I think this cost has been shifted into the higher prices for everything that whenever you go to a store or if you park in their parking lot, just a little bit of everything you spend gets syphoned off to pay for the park and it’s a it’s hidden. That’s right. It’s a very hidden costs and most people think that well Parker couldn’t call must provide because you usually pay nothing for it. And even in Britain I think so they just can’t imagine that parking could be that expensive, but we won’t let anything happen to the states unless it comes with all the required parking and that required parking is often greater than as you pointed out the net wealth of a low income family say the median net wealth yes a half above and half below for black families is about seven feet or $80,000. So to think of the the parking spaces are more than the entire net wealth of half of all black and young whenever they they go they want to park for you just like I do, and you do and everybody you know last depart free. So it seems like we’ve we’ve I think by mistake created the fool’s paradise is in the city wherever money happily pays for everybody else’s free parking. We’re just concealing and huge costs that we’ve imposed on ourselves. And I think since the car owners pay for the parking indirectly through higher prices for housing, groceries and everything else they buy the the car owners are paying for the parking, but they just don’t know it. And it really is that these parking requirements are a subsidy not for car owners, but for cars. So we have we have greatly subsidised cars. And of course that’s led to over use of them. Cars are wonderful, but we way over use them.

Carlton Reid 13:59
You mentioned They’re about it’s the motorist is paying. But then not everybody is a motorist. So there are plenty of people who are going to those stores you’re talking about buying their goods and still paying for the parking,

even though they didn’t they’re not parking.

Donald Shoup 14:14
Exactly. That’s one of the most offensive parts about it is the even people who are either too poor to own a car, or they have chosen not to have a car that doesn’t produce their payments for Park still pay in any way even though they don’t have a car so obviously it’s totally wildly inefficient. It’s it’s hugely unfair. It’s really indirect tax on everybody including low income people

to subsidise people who

who have a car and need a parking space. And many people think that you know, the park is almost like oxygen You can’t charge for parking that that’s absolutely necessary is necessary for cars errors for human. And the car owners obviously think that way. I think that the changes that I think London was the head of most cities, it used to have rather high parking requirements. Even though the famous British planner, column Buchanan, and he wrote the 1960s yield committee wrote that was called the Buchanan report that has had a big impact on urban planners, but he was one of the first people who said that minimum parking requirements shifts the cost of parking away from where it belongs. the right person to pay for parking is the is the driver. And he pointed out a long time ago that this was a bad idea, but It’s taken

64 how long

56 years that it’s finally coming around and London’s shifted from having minimum parking requirements to maximum parking limits in the early 90s, the leader I guess, in the 90s or 2000s, that, that they shifted to maximum parking limits with the new limits lower than the previous requirements, you know, can you think of a bigger admission of a huge mistake that you think that oh, well, we know how much there should be. And suddenly, instead of requiring, we prohibit it, and so there have been studies about the effects we’re after London, shifted from minimum parking reformer up to a maximum parking limit that almost nothing None of the new developers ever provided as much as the maximum allowed. They thought the limit was important. But what was important was getting rid of the minimum. And it showed that when the new developers had about half of the amount of parking that was previously required, so that means about half of all the parking that was previously required was was just not worth it. You know, the developers would not have put it in unless the government had forced them to do it. So I think we, as we all know, we’ve been in our personal lives and our collective life made a lot of mistakes. And I think that parking is one of these mistakes, and I know that you’re a great bicyclists, but it certainly has harmed bicycling more than just about anything else because bicycles. They conserve a road of space so they certainly can conserve on parking space. So I think we’ve we’ve we’ve systematically diverted people away from every off their own two feet into cars. And now I think that the people are picking up on this. And cities around the world are. I hope we’re getting to remove Wall Street Parker Brothers just last week, Edmonton in Calgary, Canada, removed all its parking, repurpose it. It’s such an easy thing to do. You know, so many cities say oh, well cut it in half for low income housing or something like that. They make a big fuss over one little change, but just maybe one big change, but you don’t have to decide what the new partner require, but it is or the new maximum is you just get rid of it entirely.

Carlton Reid 18:47
The rationale presumably was because if you make this parking requirement, you’ve got the building, you’re going to have to have people in their cars to get there. But if you don’t have the minimum, people, then don’t They call us to that building because well, they just know where to park so they’ll get there in other

Donald Shoup 19:04
way. Well, I think that’s a bit extreme way of saying it just because there isn’t enough of a parquet floor doesn’t mean there won’t be parking. The most developers will not build a shopping centre without any parking. But the government shouldn’t tell them how much to provide. And I think that the developers will provide some, I hope it will be paid for that. The drivers should should pay for the parking. And just the way we expect to pay for everything else, the gasoline and the tires and everything else about the cars, individual pay for the insurance, repairs, all those things is only parking that is is is a big part of the cost, but it’s been shifted elsewhere in the economy. So I think that there will still be parking for a long time because there’s already This huge overhang of unneeded parking. So I think what some cities are doing is once the parking requirement is gone that they they can now have infill development all the all the former on the parking lots, the new urbanists, they’re called, we’re trying to reclaim some of the better parts of old urbanism. They talked about having lighter buildings in the parking lot. So I’m a big fan of that, that once you get rid of the parking requirements, you can build a housing or anything else on the perimeter of the parking lot. So when you walk down the sidewalk, it looks like a real Street. But inside is a parking lot and then the the office building or whatever it was, it’s rather like I’m sure you’ve been to New Town and Edinburgh or that you look up walk around and looks like they’re sort of mansions. Great big houses, of course they’re condominiums. But inside it was all when they were built. It was all gardens. And you from the air down using Google Earth down to Edinburgh, you see to all of these interior guards have been converted to parking lots. And so I say the city’s to get rid of Park blots, pirates, will allow the developers to create a new kind of city right or on the periphery of their existing parking lots

Carlton Reid 21:42
in my home city of Newcastle which is not too far from Edinburgh about 100 miles from Edinburgh. The my old University Newcastle University, they had lots of parking lots for this, the academic staff and and their students and then they just Had this light bulb moment. Very often it came from plein air proposals. They got rid of the parking, and then they suddenly were able to build some very nice buildings where previously they’d been parking. And now you go to Newcastle University, and this is wonderful new build buildings. And previously that was just flat space was doing nothing, encouraging people to park and now they just say, Well, no, the academics have got to get to the university a different way and they just removed all the parking just overnight. And it’s radically made that transform that that university it’s a much nicer campus. Yes,

Donald Shoup 22:39
I can remember I was a exchange student in when I was an undergraduate as an electrical engineer, and I went to Newcastle work for C.A. Parsons. I could remember the city very well. I loved it. I saw a really encouraging thing recently on is the famous curving street that in Newcastle that goes down the hill Grey Street

Carlton Reid 23:07
Grey Street, yes

Donald Shoup 23:09
that’s right and it was like any other street in the old days it was very grand street historically wonderful buildings on it. But it was heavy traffic and parking on both sides of the street and now they have wonderful a proposal for Grey Street to get rid of all the on street parking and some of the I think the traffic lights and make it a really handsome street that is matches the handsome most of the buildings all on each side.

Carlton Reid 23:40
Donold, I’m very pleased to be able to tell you I wrote that article. So that article on Newcastle on grey street went viral on Forbes.com

and and I wrote that

article so I’m very pleased that it it got through to you because yes, they’ve removed parking space or they’re going to it hasn’t actually happened yet. It’s it’s happening. In about two weeks time, but that will transform a beautiful, beautiful street into a beautiful street again because it’s quite ugly now because you’ve got a huge proportion of it is taken over by

car parking.

Donald Shoup 24:13
And I would say it will be a beacon to other cities or other parts of Newcastle’s here’s what can be done and the United States is, is unfortunately that has that is the cause of all these reforms but the pandemic has caused us to be so socially distance from each other when we’re going to restaurants or anything else. And so many cities of the United States have temporarily removed the off street parking requirements for restaurants so they could now have outdoor restaurants in their parking lots say it was absolutely prohibited in the past because the department was required for that. indoor restaurant and you couldn’t use it for anything else because it was required. And when they relaxed stuff, they discovered how much better it is. And they’ve also removed on the street partner, many streets and turn that into outdoor cafes and some whole streets are vacated for cars, they’re all outdoor restaurants. So I think that we need more good examples like grey streets of Newcastle. And I think of course not every street we’ll look as good as grape street well when we perform the parking, but I think even even lesser streets can greatly benefit

Carlton Reid 25:48
when even if it’s just to eat as you say, never mind just making it look good. Just actually having space to to eat it’s got to be a good thing to do. Yes, I especially just

Donald Shoup 25:57
sick of the economics of it. Many people will Would previous they say, Oh, well, that will remove all our custody or the nobody will come here. There’s no curb parking. But of course, when they do studies and say, Well, where do your customers come from only a tiny percentage of that can come from the partial car parking space in front of the restaurant. It’s observed to say that that’s an important thing for the restaurant. So I think that when they get rid of the often free parking and say, well, we’re going to have outdoor restaurants or there that will employ many more people and pay much more in taxes and satisfy many more people. The one stored car, one empty car, how we felt that empty cars are much more important than people in the past, but I think that that will be changing and of course it has huge impacts further on how much free will we can To men, how many people are killed in automobile accidents, all the way up to global warming, that there are so many benefits of these reforms. There’s so much more competition for the curve now than there was. In the past we have Uber and Lyft want to have loading zones and delivery. vans want loading so on so some people want bicycle lanes and the curb lane. Some people want bus lanes. There’s so many alternatives that storing empty cars. Of course there can be restaurants as well or little parks. So I think that there’s a lot of competition for the curb plane now and is extremely valuable land you think and how valuable the land is on race street on shore or in any city. That to think that that’s his main uses his story. Empty cars for free. And we’ve made a huge mistake. I think New York is the city that makes the biggest mistake that they estimate that there are 3 million curb spaces in New York City. It’s about the size of London has about the same number of spaces are about 3 million in new york city that only 3% of them are retired. So 97% of them are free. So that makes parking a nightmare, because they’re always cruising. You know, you. You don’t want to, you don’t want to drive if you have a carpark space, you don’t want to leave it because you won’t get it when you come back.

Carlton Reid 28:46
So you’ve you’ve you’ve worked out that about 30% of the traffic in Manhattan is basically people cruising for parking.

Donald Shoup 28:55
Well in some areas, I’m sure it’s 100% and in many areas Probably zero percent. I mean that 30% as a meme. The it’s the Some people think that 30% of all traffic is cruising for parking because I found that as the result of a number of studies, but when we study cruising worth happening, most of the areas those not happening at all, but I estimate the New York City if they charge, just $5 and 50 cents a day for all the street parking, which is the price of a roundtrip on the subway for 550 a day in New York, some of the most valuable land on earth just 550 a day for a parking space, that would be $6 billion a year. And that is equal to the total fare payments are all public transit of New York does include a subsidy for cars is equal to everything that all the transit riders pay. So I think that if we if we begin to realise that the current space has many alternatives, other than storing empty cars Well, the world won’t be looking more like but I hope ratio will start looking like that will raise street looks like now.

Carlton Reid 30:26
So get keeping on that kind of topic of the pressure on the curb. The modern Ford Mustang is 61% larger than the original Ford Mustang. It’s the same for the Mini Cooper the Range Rover cars are getting longer and longer, fatter and fatter. Will there come a time do you think when some cars and I’m especially thinking about SUVs here, just get too big to park in cities or where you’re going to have to just expand these, you know the markings for for where people can park you After you make them bigger because the modern car is just getting massive,

Donald Shoup 31:04
well, that’s happened over slowly over a long time. And as you say that the weather parking works not just the number of spaces you have and how wide they have to be and how long they have to be. And the sizes of the parking spaces have been growing. So they’re still all free. So I mean, this usual thing is if you’re gaining weight that you buy a bigger pounds, but the cities have said they’re just forcing the everybody to provide a bigger wardrobe for all of these cars that the drivers pay nothing on extra parking, except it does happen in some places, I think certainly above them and some places in Switzerland is that the measuring the length of the car as it comes in there with laser beams the measure the length of the car then tell you direct you to the space that’s appropriate for the size of your car. You know if your car is very long that follow these these lines and if you’re a small car fall in love on the big cars people so I think it is only sensible for bigger cars to pay for higher prices because they’re usually more land. So that’s the kind of technology that is now available. That you know why should a

tiny car

pay as much as as one with the example I used and you can do this for curb parking as well. The the length of your car determines how much you will pay for parking at the curb.

Carlton Reid 32:57
It makes sense because when you buy more food in the shop, you’re paying more money. So anything that you can see more of you obviously always pay more. So if you’re consuming more space, then of course you should pay more.

Donald Shoup 33:12
Yes, yeah. And that will encourage you to to buy a shorter car

length is very strongly correlated with

Carlton Reid 33:24
width. So it’s just kind of like the window the window tax of like the 18th century and that’s why people break their windows up because what they do pay less tax so if you charge people more money for that parking, they will do what you’ve just said they will get a smaller car, I think so

Donald Shoup 33:41
much more fuel efficient car because I think there’s this extra long Rolls Royce going eight miles to the gallon. Elvis smart car got 50 miles to the gallon or something like that. And, of course then the emissions are also Related to that as well. So I think it has I think we have short circuited the price system when it comes to Parker, you know, we expect to pay for just about everything that we buy it seems so natural, but it also seems natural to park fruit, you know, because we’ve been doing your personal wall and therefore is it’s hard to figure out how would you create political support for these charges and I think one way to do it is to have these discounts for city city residents after all the city residents are already paying taxes to the city. And I think that it will, yes, it will encourage people to shopping closer to home.

People in Newcastle, they’re shopping Newcastle.

I think that

the reason why I think I so I’m in a bottom feeder Because we do so many things so wrong about parking, it’s very easy to think of new ideas and get them implemented. I mean, a lot of reforms are happening around the world that many cities are performing. So Mexico City recently went from minimum parking requirements to maximum parking limits. With an interesting, Chris that if you anything above half of the maximum that you provide, you have to pay a fee to the city to pay to subsidise public transit. So it so it’s a soft maximum up to 50% of the maximum you’d you could build up above 50% of the maximum you have to pay a fee and then when you get to the maximum you can’t

Carlton Reid 35:49
provide any more. Well, you mentioned money there and how expensive things are so talking about money at this podcast is paid for by a show sponsor. So I’d now like to go across it David, my colleague and he’ll give us a short commercial interlude.

David Bernstein 36:04
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 Jensen 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 their unbelievable support. When you call and you’ve got a question about something, you’ll end up talking to one of their gear advisors and these are cyclists. I’ve been there I’ve seen it. These are folks who who ride their bikes to and from work. These are folks who ride at lunch who go out on group rides after work because they just enjoy cycling so much. And and so you know that When you call, you’ll be talking to somebody who has knowledge of the products that you’re calling about. If you’re looking for a new bike, whether it’s a mountain bike, a road bike, a gravel bike, a fat bike, what are you looking for? Go ahead and check them out. 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 37:31
So thanks, David, and we’re back with Episode 250. It’s a special episode Episode 250 of the spokesmen podcast, and I’m talking with the legendary urban economist, Donald Shoup, Donald and we’ve been talking about minimums that cities have been imposing down the years. Now famously Walmart, car parks. I don’t know if it’s in the UK, but certainly in the US, they’re built to accommodate the parking that’ll occur on say, Thanksgiving or Christmas Eve, and then never meant to be that for the rest of the year. It’s just on those peak periods. So is that something that tweaking planning codes those parking minimums Can Can Can that be fixed by sent by local government?

Donald Shoup 38:23
Yes, it can be fixed. My stop shooting yourself in the foot is the cities that are basing these require us most most? Walmart’s things like that they provide what the city requires. And if the city stopped requiring that Walmart could could expand their, their, their their buildings if they want, or they could provide, what they what they sometimes do is they have auxiliary things on the periphery of the law because that’s where nobody wants to park and we’re the longest walk from the From the from your car to the, to the to the Walmart or anything like the Walmart if they allow them to have restaurants around the periphery or housing around the periphery or something else. Now they cannot do that it’s not Walmart’s fault. It’s the city’s fault. They’re the ones who say you cannot open a store in this town unless you have five spaces per thousand square feet. That’s the typical requirement for something like a Walmart which means that the parking lot is bigger than the Walmart

Carlton Reid 39:36
because quite apart from the fact that it encourages motoring when you you have lots of free parking just the very fact there’s all this massive square footage of asphalt is bad for runoff that for all sorts of different things. So all of this there’s so much asphalt around is bad for the planet.

Donald Shoup 39:59
Yeah, for Requirements make parking better, but they make everything else worse. There’s no good that comes from parking requirements other than the fact that people can park free all the day before Christmas, or they’re in the week before Christmas. And say, say speaking about churches, you don’t build your church for Easter Sunday. That would be just so absurd to think that what we have to have space where everybody wants to come on Easter Sunday, you shouldn’t know your parking lots that way either. Except that cities now require no parking for any church and you cannot open a church unless you have them. Oh, required parking. You can’t do anything without the requirement for it. You know, one way to say it is that the the first the developer has to build the parking and then they say let’s build something to finance The park used to be an architecture they say that form follows function or Form follows. Fashion or Form follows finance really Form follows parking requirements. If they so twisted the city’s out of any reasonable shape that will be getting rid of the parking requirements will do a lot of work. And it’s been very controversial in parts of Britain as well, but certainly the United States. I mean, it is half like safe, I think. Let’s see if I get the the chronology right at the high cost of free parking was published in 2005. It was the introduced by the American Planning Association at their annual conference in San Francisco. They had a big event for

and at that time

you have supplied a professional Time is crazy. And the other half though I was daydreaming because I said I have these three ideas. One is charge the right price for on street parking to produce one or two open spaces on every block so that nobody could say there’s a shortage of parking let’s say she charges the lowest price they could charge and still have one or two open spaces because that’s what drivers want to see is your policy space waiting for you. And then if you do that, you can remove the Osprey parking requirements just nobody could say there’s a shortage of parking because they see open spaces wherever they go. And to make that politically popular you should spend the money on public services on the metre districts so the some service will they have started charging for parking like put up sighs all the meteor say Yo your Meteor Money makes a difference or charging small phase into big changes it goes for for sidewalks, street trees and so things things you could see that people To know that the parking metres are paying for cleaning the sidewalks every night repair I remember getting rid of graffiti overnight to the park Monday can easily pay for that. So those are the three things that I recommended. And this seemed kind of, you know, utopian to them. But the American Planning Association went back to San Francisco last year. This is what I guess. 14 years later. They have their convention they also have another event for the high cost for free parking. During those 14 years San Francisco have totally removed all parking requirements. It has started charging market price price for curb parking variable by time of day and from Wall Street to deal there was it seemed crazier utopia in 2005 was already being done in 2019. And nobody really noticed I think that the it is it won’t lead to a big change right away. That, I think but it will lead to a huge change over time. If cities adopt these three policies

Carlton Reid 44:15
Wasn’t Pasadena, one of the first cities to take up one of your ideas and then charge for parking? And then yeah, and then made there’s their city that the old part of the city much nicer?

Donald Shoup 44:27
Yes, I think is the poster child parking benefit district where should they buy gave to charging for parking? Yes, spending the money of the neighbourhoods to the there was a

Pasadena was a very

upscale fashionable town in the 19th century and early 20th century that people came from all over the country to join the climate there. I’ve built a lot of Buys Houses. So it was a beautiful downtown. But then The depression came. And then World War Two had nothing had been built that after the World War Two that the people can buy cars and old Pasadena which was a beautiful downtown was not fashionable because it didn’t have enough parking. There were there were stores on all the lots, very little parking. And it really became you know, really, it was in the depths for a city. People thought we would never recover. But they has ambitious visionary people said well, this is well rounded like grey street in Newcastle that the this the street could be wonderful, but we don’t have the money for it. They want to rebuild all of the sidewalks. They want to convert all of the alleys in To pedestrian ways and kind of street trees that have historic street furniture and streetlights and things like that. They really knew what they wanted. And they have wonderful buildings in terrible condition. And they didn’t have any way to pay for them made the case that if we put in parking metres, that it’ll pay for all the things that you want, but rebuild all of your sidewalks, clean all of the alleys and plant street trees and put the wires underground. And it transformed the area from a commercial slum into one of the most popular places in Southern California. 200,000 people just come on a weekend we’re walking around to enjoy a place that nobody would go to 30 or 40 years ago. So when I say the you know, these three reforms taken together is that allowing restaurants to Without any Parker, charger, right prices occur but spending the money wisely can improve many cities, many cities, but I think that if you put the meagre money into the general fund, it just goes straight to the city. Nobody. That’s like sending them money to Mars, or paying for the war in Afghanistan. You know, nobody will say, Oh, I see Park parking metres are good. Because it won’t make a difference on the street except it will reduce the cruising air pollution and things like that. But I think I don’t think that these three ideas taken together are appealing to people that I mean, here. I’m being interviewed by somebody from Newcastle. Here I am in Los Angeles. And I think if it if these ideas weren’t catching on, I don’t think you’d be

Carlton Reid 48:00
Because

that what I know about Pasadena and I’ve written about it before, even though I’m from Newcastle, you’re from Los Angeles is, I don’t know if you’ve seen this before, but the California cycleway. So the the elevated wooden cycleway that was built in Pasadena was meant to go from Pasadena, down through the Arroyo Seco to Los Angeles. And they only build one part of it, and it didn’t really go anywhere. So eventually it was just brought down and just made into a trolley line and then eventually into the Arroyo Seco Parkway took over that particular route, but that was when Pasadena was a very popular place to go and be and then obviously, it’s had a long time where it’s not such a nice place, but then by making your reform parking reforms, they’ve made it into a nice place.

Donald Shoup 48:51
Again, not just a nice place, but a spectacular place. Of course, not every not every neighbourhood could do this because they have one villains that were early 20th century. And I think what I have recommended what I would recommend for that part of the world I think maybe it would help it along the parts of older parts of Newcastle, other English cities is to have a permanent Park, I’m sure you’d like to have in London, but a different kind of from the moment is that you would only sell purpose equal to the number of spaces available, very strict and you would charge the market price for them. So that and you would spend that money to fix up the neighbourhood that you would improve the the the old road behind the houses and would provide a lot of money and I think it’s fair that what we do now, of course, London is famous for its perfect parking. I will try to take pictures of all the Bentley’s Rolls Royces and the Jaguars with purpose on them. And so you’re giving some of the most valuable land on earth in London to people who have permits. So they paid like maybe 100 pounds a year is next to nothing. For what it’s really worth, so I think that if you bother or other big cities, they say, Well, yes, I’d like this idea of a permit system. But we have to allocate it. Not just administratively, not through a waiting list or not through if there’s a waiting list. Some people are always going to get pull your political support and they’ll get to the head of the queue. said if you just said that, that will charge the market price so that anybody who wants a permit can buy one but that money has to improve the neighbourhood. I’ve estimated For San Francisco, that you could give every resident of the neighbourhood a free transit pass if you charge market prices for the curb parking spaces. So I think if it city were a downtown area where there are a lot of people and not that many curb spaces, charging for the curb spaces could pay for a free transit pass for everybody in the neighbourhood, and that would that would be a different thing to offer residents, you say would you like to have this? And if a majority of people don’t have a car, I think they will say I like that. The minority of people who have a car with some of them would like it because it would guarantee that MySpace and some of them wouldn’t want to pay. But if the if you could give something to the majority and show them that this is what will happen if we charge market prices recur wherever this is what your neighbourhood will have, then I think people would chase. People who don’t think about parking at all will say, well, this, this is a good idea. In fact, I remember I was speaking once in Boston that they have a day long conventional Park again, I spoke in the morning, and they they have a luncheon speaker who this smart politician, but she didn’t know anything about parking. And she’s very astute things. She said, if you want to have parking reforms, don’t mention Park. Just ask people what they would like to have. And then say, Well, here’s a way to pay for it. It’s up to you. And so when they do that, I think it’s happened in Pittsburgh is you find out what people want. And they say, Well, here’s a way to pay for so and then it also changed with the historic fabric. I mean, think of Jerome or well as Newcastle. The number of curved spaces is so tiny compared to of the number of people who live there. It would be like taxing the rich in a sense to pay for an equal public service for everybody subsidies give free Wi Fi to everybody in the neighbourhood. If you if in the rest of the world, free Wi Fi, the parking metres were identified with free Wi Fi. I’m sure that a lots of India or Nigeria that people will say Hmm.

Carlton Reid 53:29
Newcastle we’ve actually got some parts of Newcastle car ownership or people who don’t have cars is running to like 50% of the population in some places. So you know, not everybody has got a car. So not everybody

Donald Shoup 53:46
is many people do have car have off street parking. So when you when you look at the number of parking spaces in a neighbourhood, it couldn’t possibly serve most of the people in your neighbourhood. at a very low density, the streets are so wide, that we have minimum street widths now so that you could have cars marked on both sides. There’s plenty of parking. So it wouldn’t work there. But older areas for high density, narrower streets, that the the you really have to charge for parking to allocate it properly.

Carlton Reid 54:24
So the concept of you mentioned there about, you know, the revenues from parking being used for a public good, that that’s basically Georgian. That’s a Georgian concept. So that’s a basically the ideas of Henry George and his flat tax ideas. So tell us a little bit about that and how you’re a Georgian?

Donald Shoup 54:47
Well, I think Henry George was a 19th century economist, reformer early 20th century columns these are all taxes should be on land because Land is not going to move away to tax the land rents are really not earned income. And I think it appeals to a lot of economists because it’s better than other taxes. It doesn’t discourage enterprise.

And it encourages people to

develop empty lab. You wouldn’t leave sites empty if you were paying high taxes on it. And if you build a building on your taxes wouldn’t go off. So he thought that they would really completely alive in the economy because the landowners that he and other people said who were rich have their sleep would within Stan think, well, how can I make better use of my land Can I remember this from our gas from a gas station into an apartment building or a parking lot into apartment building? But he his idea so I’ve never really succeeded that politically. So, what what is difference between my idea of full bore Henri Georges is that he thought that all the money should go to the the general government, it really disappeared and be in general the government the paper education, the public transportation and things like that, but it really would disappear from the neighbourhood. So, I think that if you say that we charge for the land and make it very clear to the residents, if you adopt this policy or charging for the land you will get more for your neighbourhood. So, try to appeal to individuals self interest that they they could see that our neighbourhood can be better we can all get free Wi Fi, we all get free transit passes or we can get one wider sidewalks or whatever we bought, it shouldn’t come from top down, it should come from bottom up, you should ask them what what does the neighbourhood walk? So I think that would be the land would be producing revenue and that’s it wouldn’t be all land obviously. But the curb lane in the United States is about oh 8% of all the land inside the block. If you look at if you look at a block before science that typically that the curb the land in the in the curb lane is about 8% of the land either side of the block. So it would be putting you’re putting your toe into the ocean of Henri Georges. I’m just saying, well, let’s try and see how I’m charging for parking work. It’s not a tax. Henry George recommended the tax all the value of well, if you’ve charged a driver for borrowing that stuff, attached. That’s a user fee just like if you if you eat in a restaurant, the bill you get in the restaurant is not a tax. It’s a user fee. So I think that the difference people I’m proposing but Henry Jones, North proposed that he wants to tax all land and he wanted the money to go to the general government. So I say, well, let’s start with the tax or the most easily observed land and it’s it’s so easy to set the right price. It’s hard to assess land value, but it’s very easy to say, Well, what is the right price for parking? There’s parking operators do that all the time and private parking operators, they know how to charge the right price for parking. And I think yes, that is not the easiest thing in the world to do is to charge market price for parking. But it’s a lot easier than assessing land values or assessing property taxes or income tax. taxes have been just like how much evasion there is with most taxes with income taxes and specifically, there wouldn’t be much way to evade parking fees

Carlton Reid 59:13
that work at employers in the city of Nottingham. In England, they certainly can’t avoid it because they play. I know you said it’s not attack. It’s more of a user fee, but they pay what’s called and I’m sure you know about the workplace parking Levy, and that’s paid for general goods. So that’s paid for cycleways that pays for street trolleys. So that’s pretty Georgian? Pretty Shoupian, yeah. Nottingham doing it right?

Donald Shoup 59:39
Yes, it is certainly better than nothing, but I think there’s some I recommend something better. I think the nawic have charged it’s called parking cash out is a porter paid parking in the United States is the most common fringe benefit for that employers give to their employees as a tax exempt. fringe benefit. So if you give the employee a free parking space at work, it doesn’t count those as as income for taxation. So it makes it almost inevitable that employers will say, Well, yes, we’ll give you free parking at work, because it’s it’s cheaper than giving them higher wages because the people will have to pay income tax on the higher wages and the employers have to pay employment taxes, Social Security, taxes and things like that. So you avoid a lot of taxes if you pay somebody with a parking space, then with income. So when I proposed that became law in California, now, Washington DC, is if an employer rents parking spaces from a third party to offer free to an employee and this is a common way of doing it. And so this because employers and office buildings or shops and things like that they don’t own the parking, they rent for the employee and they They pay the rent to the parking owner and give it free for the employee. That’s very common. So as the law says, Now, if you offer an employee free parking, you have to offer the employee the option to take the cash value. If you don’t take the Parker, it’s very fair because it means if you’re given for parking, it goes only to people who drive to work. And people who walk to work or bike to work, they get nothing. So the most employers say, I’ll offer you free parking or nothing. They don’t say that. But they say oh, a few free parking. So now they by law, they have to say, and if you don’t take the parking, you could have the cash. So I studied firms that did this. And it led to something like a 17% decrease in so we’re driving just by broadening the offer, saying that we’re not going to employ to subside, just parking. We’re going to subsidise if you take the bus to work or ice skate to work or whatever you want, however you want to get here. And of course, reduce vehicle miles travelled, air pollution and all the rest. Plus, all the employees said, Well, this is great sort of the people who drove to work lost nothing. And the people who who didn’t drive to work nowadays they have extra income to spend, and the employers themselves that it was a great idea because they use it as a recruiting tool so that if you if you work there, it will give you a new partner or if you don’t, we’ll give you cash. And I interviewed a number of firms. They said the employees felt better about an employer, even if they drove to work because they thought the employer was trying to be part of the solution rather than just part of the problem. They’re most most of us would say we’re environmentalist, and many of them are really our dedicated environmentalist. The environmentalist Especially if they didn’t drive to work. They thought it was a great idea. So they pour salt.

This is a very

fair way to treat our employees.

Carlton Reid 1:03:13
It’s an annual thing or could you do that? Like if you if you didn’t drive in for say three months of the year, we’ll give you you know this amount of money or is it something that has to be an annual thing?

Donald Shoup 1:03:27
Well, I think I looked at one firm in England. They did it every day. I think that when you came to work, I think you paid

you were charged two pounds. For Parking.

Habit every people had to use their ID card to get into the builder. So every time you went into the building in the morning, on the day you work there, you got a payment of two pounds, so that you break free If you drove it to work, or you pay two pounds for parking, and you got two pounds for being there, but if you didn’t drive to work, you get two pounds. So it’s a daily choice. So every day, when you roll out of bed you have to say, well, should I bike to work or should I don’t feel well today? Maybe I’ll drive or have to be there earlier I blade or something like that every day people have this choice. Do I want to have cash or do I want to have free pumpkin? And I think it’s a very sensible, said I don’t think the Nottingham chars has those effects. It’s a fixed annual fees just attacks on the employer and the employer can still give free parking to the employee without the cash option. So So I think it’s not a tax on the employer. The employer saves on parking when somebody doesn’t Park Hmm.

Carlton Reid 1:04:59
So hearing the UK we’ve got all political parties, arguing that NHS staff should get free parking at hospitals. Yet there’s no demand that NHS staff should be given money to spend on bus fares, or to be gifted with free bicycles. So why do you think parking at your place of work is almost seen as a human? Right? It’s something that you’ve got to be given as it’s just the human right?

Donald Shoup 1:05:28
Well is more foreign policies are based on a more emotional facts or, or theories. So I would say that if we’re going to give free parked people, anywhere, but especially NHS, as you can say, yes, you could have free parking, but if you don’t take it, we’ll give you the cash value. And that will treat everybody who works for the NHS equally. One of the things that happened With the with the, this would probably happen at any chance. So what happened was firms who had to abate with obey the law. They had to offer people. The law just says if I employ if I’m an employer and I pay you with a park, I give you a free parking space it cost me $100 I have to offer you $100 if you don’t take it and if I don’t offer you the free parking, I don’t worry or anything. But it turns out in many firms, especially law firm survery, higher Oracle’s that they would have, the executive officers would have parking in the garage underground, and it would be dedicated to their name and the lower wage employers would park outside the block away in the parking lot and then the lowest beta pours we get nothing when it came and that’s that’s the parking cash out. Oh, With the fact that you can still go the best spaces to the to the highest paid people if you wanted to, but when it was when the subsidy became expressed in cash, they realised it was not fair to give a lot of money to the highest paid person and nothing to the lowest paid person, so they switched to a uniform fee for cash out for everybody that everybody got the same amount of money as the high income people if they wanted to buy more exclusive parking space they didn’t have to pay for it just was elementary is what’s fair. And so I think in the NHS if they offered everybody free parking or or the cash value that nom the nada HS employees would have to pay see because if if an NHS employee takes a space it’s not available for a visitor The that you have to offer them the cash value that that space water. And I’m sure you would find huge differences in the, in the value of spaces giving to the top people at the hospital until the lowest paid people at the hospital. I think what I suspect

Carlton Reid 1:08:21
now so what they think they found in Scotland where they had free parking for NHS was the carpark would just fill up with people who weren’t actually NHS. So we’re just using it for shopping because it’s free all of a sudden. So it’s fantastic. So it wasn’t actually going to the people it’s meant to benefit anyway.

Donald Shoup 1:08:39
Oh, yes. If it’s just free for everybody. That’s ridiculous. But it could be free just to the employees. Or but I think it would be fair if it was a you could have the cash value and I suspect I suspect that those hospitals in Scotland, the top executives have reserved spaces for themselves. They didn’t they probably do. didn’t have to compete with everybody else for a space in an oversubscribed blob. It’s just natural. The the higher paid people get the best parking spaces. But when Canada I think when they I think the Canadian government used to give free parking to everybody. And then they switched to a policy of making everybody pay for 70 I think it was 70% of the market cost of the parking space and then after that more women began driving to work now why do you think more women they would begin driving to work in a government office if they started charging for parking? Hmm?

No.

Well is because there wasn’t enough parking available for everybody. So naturally, the best parking spaces when Down the hierarchy, all the top people began to say, well, maybe I don’t need to pay, you know, $100 a month, maybe I could get to work some other way. And those phases then became available to women who were willing to pay. When it’s given away free, it has to be administered. And if you administer it, it is normal for the top civil service to get the best spaces. Well, if you if you say, but anybody can happen if they’re willing to pay for some of these top civil servants who live you know, a few blocks away would say, Well, I’d rather take the cash. And in Canada, two male boys began I escaped into work. I think that administrative distribution of support always favours the the well heeled, the well position and the lowest paid people get the short end of the stick. So I think that if NHS is wanting to do free parking, it ought to be on a parking cash out basis that they can they can that the people who don’t drive would be treated just as well as the people who do drive and that will some of the people would say, Well, yes, I’d rather carpool I’d rather bicycle now we have electric bicycles that they’re

there. Have you written an electric bicycle?

Carlton Reid 1:11:31
Yes. My wife. My wife is a doctor and she drives cycles to, to hospital on her electric bike. So

Donald Shoup 1:11:39
well, that’s right. I think a lot. I think electric bikes are terrific. I would if I had liked to do over again. I would have been riding an electric bike. They’re the ones I’ve written. They’re they’re really good bikes. I say, normally, I was like, No, I’m gonna risk my life on a bike. I want to get some exercise, but if I’m thinking But as a as a as a commuter strategy, I think electric bikes are, are really a way to reduce our demand for for parking, especially if you have to pay for. So I say I hope that the NHS would give free parking to everybody, not just the doctors and the nurses but also the people who emptied the bedpans and if they don’t take it they should get

Carlton Reid 1:12:34
cash. I think the problem with NHS parking is because it’s this thing called the public finance initiative where they actually sold the hospitals don’t own the parking lots. The parking lots are owned by private companies who are just make money. So hospitals and the government even can’t demand hospitals make their their, their car box for free because they don’t own them, you know, they long ago they sold them off to the highest bidder. You just can’t actually physically do anything with most car parks because they’re not owned.

Donald Shoup 1:13:10
Well, that that makes parking cash out even easier because if they have to pay a third party for every Park, they know exactly how much the subsidy goes. They know exactly how much they should offer to that person. If they don’t take the park.

Carlton Reid 1:13:28
Yeah, good point. I say retailers I’m gonna get into retail now. And this is one of my final question. So retailers the world over. always complain when parking spaces outside their shops are taken away for whatever reasons, and they assume that most of their custom comes from motorists. I know you’ve touched upon this in an earlier part of the show, but it’s often not the case. So what can what can livability advocates, what can they say to those shop owners that’ll help allay their fears.

Donald Shoup 1:14:05
Well, if they were a planner, they would point to all the surveys that shows the most of their customers do not park on the street. I mean, just physically look at it. Most people could not possibly Park all the street for all the people that are in the restaurants in the stores and things like that that many more people come on foot. But I would say that rather than make it free and I know that there’s you know, there are people in Britain say that the that it should be free on the name is free. I say well, what it should be is the rough price of Mara the lowest prices that it can charge at one or two open spaces. So nobody could say that. Oh, I never go to a shop in Newcastle because there’s no place to park that if they set the price so that there are one or two open spaces Wherever you bought, nobody would say, I won’t go there. That’s right. And I think I was making this argument in a town in northern California. Lovely is a small town Santa Santa Rosa, that was it that

it was like

I’m travelling around the world giving same talk about what we’re talking about now. And I gave my talk I had dinner with the mayor and city council beforehand and I thought they were all in favour what I was going to say, and I had a big adios of an amphitheatre, like city halls, rake seats.

I gave my talk and I thought more very well a little

guy as soon as of the guy on the top row jumped up. He’s shot out of a seat. I don’t think of a foam coming out of his mouth, but certainly Spit some people recording programme. He said, If this city because running the parking metres in the evening, I will never eat in a restaurant downtown again. There was no class settle the question, you know that that’s there’s nothing more to say. And the city council member couldn’t exactly tell her Shut up. But I told him I said, Well, if you will come down to home, somebody who isn’t willing to pay for parking will come down for a shot if they can easily find the parking space. And who do you think will leave a bigger tip in a restaurant, somebody won’t come downtown. Unless they could drive around for 20 minutes holding for an empty space or somebody who’s willing to pay for parking if they can park right in front of on the block of the restaurant. And if you don’t want to come downtown, maybe you’d be better off of the food core of a shopping mall in the suburbs and the whole audio begins sharing Cuz they were the green show though. Usually the greens are the ones who invited me. And I will say that the politicians are so envious. I can do that. I mean, there’s really insult the guy and make fun of it. But I think that if you were getting back to your question, if you were a merchant downtown, who do you think would be a better customer, somebody would come downtown to Main Street only if they could park free after they drove around for 10 minutes hunting for some space being vacated, or somebody was willing to pay for parking if they could easily Park though, that downtown who’s going to pay spend more in your shop, and actually, you wouldn’t be losing many parts of cars because you’re gonna have to wander to open spaces on every block. So wouldn’t reduce the amount of parked cars by more than one or two cars. And but it was make your your your main street available to anybody. is really to pay for parking. If if you’re three or four people in a car going to a restaurant, you know the cost of parking is negligible per person.

Carlton Reid 1:18:10
But isn’t this isn’t this? Isn’t this just you know, again, you’re you’re helping rich people because rich people don’t have to worry about parking. It’s, it’s it’s poor people who won’t be able to afford the parking. So Aren’t you discriminating against them?

Donald Shoup 1:18:25
Well, let’s suppose that I disagree with that. But suppose it were true. And you were advising the merchants on what’s good for them? What would you say them?

Carlton Reid 1:18:39
Personally, I would say to them, get rid of the parking places completely and make them a

little bit just a choice, just a choice or free or market price, which would be better for the merchants.

Donald Shoup 1:18:50
Well, the merchants would say free because then we get everybody to come whereas if we make people come

Well, not

the I think it’s what was if you were in the Stockholm Syndrome room, the kidnapping syndrome, some Stockholm Syndrome as a bank in Stockholm, is that you begin to sympathise with your oppressor. And I think that when people start saying, well, we can’t charge for parking because it hurts the poor, you’re sympathising with the oppressor. The really poor people don’t have cars. If you’re talking about people who are really poor, they don’t know a car. And richer people, obviously own cars and more than one that I see if you were going to be an effective advocate for low income people. I don’t think free parking is the right way to do it because most of the parking will be taken all the parking ticket like car owners. A lot of levels, car owners are not poor. So you’re saying let’s have a bankfoot for everybody. A few poor people will get the Chrome’s I think that arguing for free parking on Main Street is a way to help poor people is ridiculous. And as a way to help merchants is also ridiculous. If you think the alternative is one or two open spaces and the prices needed for that, because it won’t get rid of all apartment it’d be two cars on a block. And that’s that that isn’t going to greatly reduce the number of cars that are parked and they’ll probably park for shorter times if they if you have to pay by the minute you’ll you’ll you you’re probably leave when you’re finished your business. If it’s free, people can park all day long, or they can park as long as there’s a time limit is though I don’t think the idea of free parking on Main Street helps the merchant was able to get help or helps the customers because the customers Either they won’t come because they, every time they pride them on the street, they see no empty spaces. And often this is what happened in Pasadena. The the they did

have time limits

to our time limit, but the employees would go out and move their car every two hours just to evade the time limit. The merchants knew that they just told their employees not to park in front of my store. But I think that having a pre is an invitation to miss yours.

Carlton Reid 1:21:42
Donald, that’s all been fascinating and you’ve certainly your your long career as the good the Yoda of planning has proven this. You’ve opened lots of people’s eyes to the craziness of free parking and parking. In general so thank you ever so much for for being on the show and it does sound like you need to get you an electric bike.

Donald Shoup 1:22:07
Well

thanks for finding the good fight. Keep me posted.

Carlton Reid 1:22:14
Thanks to Donald Shoup for being on today’s show, the 250th episode. Thanks also to you for listening. Now please make sure to subscribe and tell your friends and colleagues about this spokesmen parking, the spokesmen cycling podcast. Show notes and more can be found on the-spokesmen.com. I’m off to Switzerland tomorrow to check out the parcours for the UCI Road World Championships due to be staged — COVID flare up willing — in September. Now I may grab some audio there and make a show out of it. But meanwhile, get out there and ride…

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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.

Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 248: Speed

Tuesday 30th June 2020

SPONSOR: Jenson USA

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUESTS: Professor Rachel Aldred, Superintendent Andy Cox and — as you’ve never heard him before — Chris Boardman.

MACHINE TRANSCRIPT:

Daniel 0:13
Welcome to Episode 248 of the spokesmen cycling podcast.

This show was engineered on Tuesday, June the 30th 2020.

David Bernstein 0:24
The spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Jenson USA, where you’ll always find a great selection of products at amazing prices with unparalleled customer service. For more information, just go to Jenson usa.com/the spokesmen. 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 show notes, links and all sorts of other information please visit our website at

www.the-spokesmen.com. And now, here are the spokesmen.

Carlton Reid 1:08
Hi there. I’m Carlton Reid. And I’m real, and so is David. But the slightly tinny voice at the top of this show, well, that was Daniel. And he’s not real. He’s a computer simulated voice, and I’m using him for a reason. And we while ago, I recorded a group chat with Superintendent Andy Cox, Professor Rachel Aldred and Chris Boardman. Sadly, Chris’s audio didn’t record properly, so I replaced him with Daniel. And yes, I tried to find a soft Scouse voice simulator, but didn’t find one.

All of Chris’s words as spoken by Daniel were the words that Chris actually used. I was able to transcribe them, but the audio was too faint to

use on this show. So, here we go. And remember, the mystery voice is reading out what Chris Boardman actually said.

On today’s show, I’ve got three fabulous guests to whom people will be very familiar with. And that’s Rachel Rachel Aldred. Hi there, Rachel. Hi, Carlton. Hi there. And the second person who, whenever you introduce him, you always say, and I’ve seen this done before, he needs no introduction. And that is Chris Boardman. Hello, Chris. Good afternoon. And my third guest today is if you don’t mind me saying this, Andy. And don’t take this the wrong way. But you’re a bit of a cult figure at the moment with people on social media because you’re doing some amazing stuff. So Andy, tell us, tell us what are missing about your title. So tell us your your job description and

What you do for a living and then people will go Oh, that, Andy.

Andy Cox 3:03
Well, good afternoon, Carlton. Thank you for that introduction. Well, my name’s Andy Cox, I’m a detective superintendent. I lead our vision zero programme across London for the Metropolitan Police Vision Zero is our stated ambition of eradicating death and serious injury on our roads linked to collisions by 2041.

Carlton Reid 3:25
And before I get into bring Chris and and to Rachel, I’d like to basically explore road policing and how that impacts potentially on

on people not in motor cars. But I just like to talk to you first, Andy, just about

that role you have and the role you’ve carved out how new is that?

Andy Cox 3:47
I suppose it’s a little awkward talking about oneself, but here goes so just I’ve been in placement for just over 20 years. I’ve initially worked in Surrey before moving to Northamptonshire, and then joining the Metropolitan Police

In 2016, for most of my career being a detective, I’ve worked in a variety of different roles, had a very diverse career working on on lead a murder investigation on kidnap, and lead and child abuse investigations as well.

I’ve been a superintendent for eight years. And actually the first post I had was to head up rose placing in Northamptonshire.

And I do look back to that role, and with great pride and satisfaction, I really, really enjoyed it. So I’d always wanted to go back into that field. So when the opportunity came to lead, Vision Zero it starts 2019 in London, I jumped at it. I really think the role has huge opportunity to save life and to tackle crime. And I think having the detective in charge of it is very different is unusual, but it means perhaps I bring a different perspective. I really do. See linked to save in life. I know that work that we’ve

done in the past, and currently I believe is having that impact. And obviously, that’s hugely satisfying. But I think the link to tackling criminality is a really important one it’s so often missed. Even if we take just the simple not wearing a seatbelt.

There’s a significant risk, actually, in terms of road safety, but also, it’s an indicator of somebody that’s prepared to essentially ignore the law. So what else are they prepared to do? And I think, by taking that mindset, you can often draw a link between other crime and traffic, offence crime,

and it is a crime. And that’s often missed as well. But I think having that perspective of looking at it in a slightly different way, allows opportunity to really get into who the driver is, what else they might be doing, you know, and is there anything else that we should know about from a police perspective, and fundamentally that supports the law for rodeos and that’s something I’ve been really keen to take forward in this role and in the past

Support for lawful, law abiding citizens. And I think so often the very vast majority of lawful road users are exposed to additional risk and people committing crimes, which puts them at risk and is just unacceptable. So that’s a bit about me. I suppose that’s a bit about why I so enjoy vision zero role and what Yeah, my passion for it relates to

Carlton Reid 6:25
and you’re using social media to great effect to get that message across. Basically, this is what we’re doing?

Andy Cox 6:32
Well, I think social media is a tool which gets the message out there really quickly to a large audience. My follow ins is growing, which is helpful and that is now covered by a number of journalists. So say for instance, I have in the past, tweeted a message which is in a very short space of time, then scrolling along the screen on Sky News that can reach them, a particularly large audience. I think what I’ve tried to do with it

is have a mindset for who I’m communicating the message to, I think, very often police accounts can be quite corporate, they can be quite pleased to police based. So I’ve tried to avoid the sort of internal communication as such within Twitter and communicate a clear message to, you know, is it the dangerous driver? Is it the lawful road user? Is it the broader citizen? Is it you know, the cyclists, pedestrians and so on? So essentially having a really clear message for what I want and who I want to target with it, I think, using data so if I go back to the early stages of starting to tweet on this issue, I did get some difficult communications from people who were saying things like traffic officers or simply revenue raising. Why don’t you go and tackle a criminal and so on, so I found there was a need to educate the public

My view around what we actually do and why we do it. So very much reinforcing this is about saving life. This is about tackling crime. And it’s about responding to local community concerns. So have you use data to help with that I’ve been able to talk about how much killed and serious injury collisions there are on within London and elsewhere, I’ve been able to talk about, for instance, a link to uninsured drivers. And we sees about 50 uninsured vehicles a day on average in London. And I think that’s really hit home with the public and then by explaining those people six to seven times more likely to have a fatal collision, they’re more likely to fail to stop having impact significantly on those left injured behind. And actually two thirds are more likely to be criminally active in other crime within the last two years. And that sort of messages really had a resonance, I think, with the public before Oh, wow. You know, that’s that’s, that was surprising. I think they were shocked at the sort of statistics that backed it up. And likewise, not being able to talk about speeding

Other fatal four activities and rows that we target and so on has had a very significant impact. And I think, for example, the a 10, which is one road, which had had about five years worth of really embedded issues, both from a raid safety perspective and antisocial behaviour, perspective as well and just general local community concerns.

We started an operation in May 2019. And part of that plan was to is to communicate very extensively around what we what we’re doing, why we’re doing when we’re there, what tactics were using, etc, etc. And I think the public and I noticed in the combat scene were initially sceptical and now overwhelmingly supportive that’s had an impact because killed and serious injury collisions have dropped. collisions overall have dropped on the road, looks and feels safer, and is the feedback we’re getting. We’ve also influenced partners

Through proactively communicating and brought them into the problem solving plan as well. So I think it’s had a, there is a place essentially for open and transparent communication. And I think Twitter is so easy to use in the sense that it’s short. It’s almost like the headlines, and it can stimulate debate as part of that pilot plan.

Carlton Reid 10:24
Can I go to Chris then and just ask cos because Andy is very much talking about this being crime, and that often grates with people because they think Well, I’ve already been crime. You know, I’m just going over the little bit of the speed limit that’s on a crime in your experience and your point of view with your your, maybe your current role as, as cycling and walking Commissioner for Greater Manchester, is the fact that speeding or road and if any road infractions is not viewed as a criminal offence by many people does that

Make it

is a big issue.

Chris Boardman 11:03
Well, I think what Andy’s done and what attracted me to his social media is depressingly refreshing. He simply spoken to the facts. He’s been very careful. His position his evidence, response opinion. So we’re not seeking to deal with crime in an equal way. It’s actually looking at what causes the most harm. We focus resources to get the biggest return for the public. It’s drivers who tend to do the most harm. When I say depressingly refreshing it’s because that ought to be standard, but it isn’t. It’s a very, very positive position with the public and coming from somebody who in inverted commas is not a cyclist is so important. All our messages right now need to come from all authority figures and those authority figures should be giving the message that’s absolutely grounded in evidence. We’ve got mountains of the stuff. So it’s quite impressive and something to get behind. Because it just makes sense.

road crime is a real crime. And I think that’s something that desperately needs to be addressed. It could change our roads and give people a genuine choice to not have to drive.

Carlton Reid 12:10
So Rachel, let’s bring you in on that roughly the same question, but coming at it from a, a non motorised user’s point of view, which is, which is your, your academic schtick? So is this is Andy’s approach is, is making this public perception of this, this is a crime, will that feed through into safer streets?

Rachel Aldred 12:34
I think it’s about changing a culture, as well as the specific enforcement activities. I think it’s about changing the expectations that people have of behaviour on the roads. And this was what got me interested in this topic, the whole topic of transport and active travel to start off with was the way in which behaviours on the roads which are a public space, you know, were really quite different from behaviours that were seen as acceptable in other contexts. And part of that as Chris was alluding to, as well.

is around risk to others that somehow we don’t see risk to others on the roads in the same ways we may be doing other contexts. And one example of that is the way in which traditionally, risk is measured in relation to transport that, you know, while might say walking is dangerous, or cycling is dangerous, and that’s because of the risk people experience. But it’s not the walking or cycling, that’s dangerous. It’s actually the motor vehicle use because four out of five cyclist fatalities involve the motor vehicle, it’s not cycling itself that is dangerous. And that is an important part of the cultural shift. I think that needs to happen.

Carlton Reid 13:34
And is Andy, part of that cultural shift, Rachel?

Rachel Aldred 13:37
Very much so. And I think it’s really important to see the activities of police services around this and related issues. So another example is around close past policing and the way in which that has become quite widespread. And that is really important because that is around subjective safety and the way that non motorised users are treated on the road. So it’s a range of different issues, but I think seeing this

It is important seeing this as a priority. Seeing road crime is something that matters that kills an interest people is really crucial.

Carlton Reid 14:06
Yes. So Andy, tell us about the actual there’s a new team, and a crime is in the title, which I know shocked have quite a few people on social media. So tell us about that, that crime team and why it’s important to have that word in there.

Andy Cox 14:22
Yes, we created and launched the road crime team. It’s a highly professional team. It’s got the full range of skill sets a traffic officer would want. So it’s got the ability to pursue those that fail to stop. It’s got all the sort of ability to stop vehicles. They’ve been handpicked for the role, and the role crime team. The name is really important as you’ve highlighted, I think it’s important that we use the word crime. So often, traffic offences are not considered crimes. We found it’s important to use that terminology to show the impact. Actually low crime has

On lawful road users, but also the sub often links between traffic offences and other criminality. It’s not unusual for us to stop a vehicle to then find drugs to find weapons to find subjects wanted for serious offences.

And I think if we just reflect for a minute those that are prepared to breach traffic, offence law, maybe that’s a

mindset to breach other criminality as well. So we’ve introduced a road crime team. It’s a relatively small amount of officers so far, but we do plan to extend that in the next month or two.

It was built on the concept of targeting property people property places and property themes. And by that I mean really, intelligence led absolutely work on the right roads at the right time. So those raised most sites have killed in serious injury or and collision data to back that up. Looking at very high hammer

vendors, those products have multiple disqualifications, those with a history of bad driving, those currently disqualified and so on, I’m really targeting in on on them.

And also looking at what we’d say is our fatal four that is essentially speeding is absolutely our priority within that. But other fatal four offences as well. So drink and drug drive using the foam balls distracted and not wearing your seatbelt. And essentially focusing in therefore the most risky issues and most risky themes and people.

It builds on the success of an operation we ran and travelled in the summer last year well for three months. We deployed on 50 occasions.

And we targeted along those mindsets that we’ve applied the road crime team. And in just 50 deployments, we made over 100 arrests, we seized over 75 vehicles, we found drugs weapons, wanted people confiscated cash. Yeah, it was a really significant option.

opportunity I feel to support a normal road user to tackle the criminal who uses their car. And one of the phrases I often use is,

of course, not every driver is a criminal, but those that have reached ages 17 and a criminal, also use a car or use a vehicle. So I think when you have the mindset of actually criminals are likely to be looking to use a car or vehicle to go about their their criminality, you can see why we might introduce a road crime team to tackle those individuals deny them use the roads. And actually sometimes the penalties for driving offences can be more severe than others. And it gives us an opportunity to tackle so much criminality, just through tackling their, their driving issues as well. So that’s the purpose of the team. And I’m delighted with the inroads it’s made already, just in the very first day arrested people drink driving, arrested.

People that had weapons in their car. It found people that were wanted so very successful the first day and that has been built over a few weeks and it’s been operating now. Andy and cyclists infractions is that part of the the road teams remit to the road crime team was essentially born out of tackling issues proportionate the to their risk so often on social media, I find criticism of the police for not enforcing cyclists who commit offences. Firstly, that’s wrong. We do enforce cyclists for example, those that breach a red light. And we do very much trying to educate those office around the risks that they pose themselves through breaching a red light as an example. However, we have to be proportionate. And therefore we enforce a compared to all enforcement of traffic offences and crime is a very, very small percentage of our work because we target

resource to match the risk that is presented. While. cyclists, of course, isn’t theirs, there is risk attached to cyclists harming another individual or themselves. It is very, very low in comparison to a vehicle harming another vehicle user, another surface or a pedestrian or just as simply a road user. So

my point is we focus results on risk. And what the road crime team has done is focus our resources on the greatest risk. But I do want to address the fact that we’re there we look to support the vulnerable road users and we target resources specifically in locations where we know vulnerable road users are likely to be and because they’re there, the driving is so important, because a legal drive in high speeds, whatever it may be, presents such a risk to cyclists and pedestrians that we’re right to target those issues because

That’s where our risk is to assign I was also called

Carlton Reid 20:04
so there has been some social police social media accounts would have had that that exact message. So West Midlands are very good at that. Other forces aren’t so good, do we as a country as a whole, do we suffer from not having all police forces in effect talking from this not singing from the same hymn sheet handy?

Andy Cox 20:26
So I think there is scope for some improvement on national coordination around roads policing. As an example if we take dashcam

there is an element of postcode lottery around that. So some areas are not using it, some are using it to an extent and some are using it fully. I know for instance, some members of the public contact me to say look, we’d really like this footage used, but we are not having any

scope to do so within the area that they

Live. And I think, to support that we introduced a national Working Group involved all at the police forces that were able to attend. And we’re looking at how we might take for the piece of work that makes it consistent. Clearly for us, London drivers drive elsewhere, and people that drive outside London drive in London. So I think it’s in everybody’s interest to have a consistent approach around dashcam. And of course, that goes for every issue, I suppose there will be some local variances, of course, based on the environment or the, you know, the support locally for, for activities. But I think if we take the approach that we’ve used as Vision Zero around targeting the most risky people, places and themes, I think that’s an approach that can be used anywhere successfully. We do have national meetings now with colleagues I chair one around collision investigation, I tend to number one around those places in general.

And they are actively attended by forces around the country, we do share good practice ideas,

and so on. So we share, for example, the work we’ve done on the A10, around tackling, that sort of anti social behaviour, high speed driving, and the success That’s hard. And we’ve listened to other examples from around the country as well, which we take on board. And there’s also the Department for Transport roads policing review is undertaken at the moment. And that review is looking at,

you know, all those policing aspects and technology to computer systems to you know, how we do our activities day to day on the street.

So that’s a great opportunity to coordinate it in a little, you know, in a smooth, more joined up fashion. And there’s also the HMRC review that’s been undertaken recently. I think that’s due to report imminently. So that would present again, an opportunity to look at how

We nationally perform in terms of roads policing, and how that’s coordinated. I really like the idea of this coordination hub that looks at identifying through analysis that the most dangerous roads based on killing serious injury collisions and some other data over the long term. identifies then has some responsibility for making resources target those areas, looks at most high AI high harm offenders make sure they’re for example, an AI MPR database.

And really hones activities around are fatal for I think that coordination hub could help put it all together nationally and pull loads of good work together. So it’s not done in isolation. But at least I can absolutely confidence say there are good discussions taking place and I do share my ideas and vice versa with with national colleagues.

Carlton Reid 23:48
Rachel, would you welcome that something like nationally national guidelines for all police forces. So not just West Midlands being an exemplar not just people like Andy being an exemplar should we have something that

You know, national guidelines that everyone every police force should adhere to?

Rachel Aldred 24:06
I mean, obviously, it would depend on the guidelines, but I f&e say we’re helping with them, then I would like to think that this would be something that would be would be useful. I mean, there’s there’s a range of issues. And one issue that I’ve been thinking about lately is around language and how collisions are described, which can be quite important because it’s reproduced in local media and then can reinforce or challenge perceptions about around responsibility on the road so that there’s a range of things that would be better to have more standardisation on I guess,

Carlton Reid 24:36
collision not accident. You’re going on?

Rachel Aldred 24:39
Yeah, yeah. For instance, in around how the interaction and how sort of how blame is potentially attributed or not so yeah.

Carlton Reid 24:48
And Chris, can I ask What’s your relationship like with with police in your area and and how do they view that the conversation we’re having now with Andy do they view it and

Same way, things are changing.

Chris Boardman 25:02
Now, there’s not a lot I can add to the comment about data. And it’s not surprising that I agree wholeheartedly about the evidence based approach. For the last several years, whenever I have been asked about cyclists running red lights, the response has always been absolutely anybody should be prosecuted. But where you’ve got to have resources concentrated, it makes sense to find the most harm and work backwards, which is essentially a version of what Andy was saying. And the point I’d like to add, which touches on Rachel’s mentioned of closed passes is what we didn’t do is we don’t look at the wider implications of crime and the knock on effects. So for example, not wearing a helmet. I remember when I started on the government advice body, I remember it was in about 2000. And that’s brought forward a private member’s bill on helmets, which I thought made sense and we were tasked with going away and looking at the implications of doing that. So I was forced to personally go look at the wider issue.

indications of that and I realised it will effectively kill more people than it saved. If you take into account people stopped doing a beneficial activity and saw it as dangerous, and so on and so forth. So I think people are seeing speeding is not a crime until it causes an accident, then you can see it’s a crime. I think that’s better storytelling. If you like to get the message across that this person just drove 10 miles over the speed limit didn’t hurt anybody. What’s the problem? And tell that story about the past and the implications. Do you know what just jump in the car and drive a kilometre to school? That is what’s happening with kids and why they don’t go on to the street. in Greater Manchester. We have 250 million car journeys every single year that are less than a kilometre for predominantly that reason. So it’s not just about road crime, but how you talk about it. We need to make sure people understand what the implications are of just speeding.

Carlton Reid 26:58
So Andy, I’m looking outside in

To a beautiful blue sky, it’s a beautiful day out there. It’s not too far away that I can actually I can probably hear normally a dual carriageway that isn’t too far away from me, in which at the moment, it’s pretty much empty. There are speed cameras on there, but people are basically speeding on it fairly frequently. So you’ve come to the fore during lockdown by posting lockdown speeding offences where people really really go way over the limit because they can now so so what’s your experience been during lockdown of of those motorists who use a minority but who are really going way beyond? You know just what Chris was saying like 510 miles an hour over the limit.

Andy Cox 27:51
Since lockdown commenced, we have seen significant rise in speeds we know less congestion on the road.

We think that

Somewhere between 40 and 50% less volume on the roads that of course has created an opportunity for the environment for people to speed. But it’s unlawful to do so of course, the limit is unchanged. But in zones 2040 and 60, we’re actually seeing on average, the speeds are above the limit sets on average, imagine what the upper end of those are in every speed zone from 20 to 70. Data shows speeds have increased.

And we’ve seen a rise in extreme speed as well. Now extreme speed is allows drivers who can only be dealt with by way of going to court there’s no chance to for example, go on a speed awareness workshop or get a fixed penalty notice your speeds are so excess that there’s only the court will hear the case. So for example, we have seen 151 mile an hour in a 70. We have seen 140 to 140 we’ve seen 134 in a 40

seen as 73 and a 20. And that’s extremely concerning when you consider those lower speed zones 20s 30s and 40s. What we are seeing significant speeds are where your key workers are likely to be commuting to work using cycles and pedestrians going across London and particularly vulnerable road users so deeply, deeply concerning. We have tried really robustly try to draw a link to a the consequences to you but the risk of speed so

I of course personally seeing this devastation of families but by speeding they risk a fatal serious injury collision

and, and risks obviously much greater.

So they might devastate their life, somebody else’s life and their family’s life and so on. I’ve drawn a link to the NHS because of course, who’s going to deal with those people seriously injured or fatally injured? It’ll be the NHS where they’re going to go to hospital when they come

Dealing with the NHS COVID-19

sort of abstracted and didn’t the COVID-19 patients loads that get seriously injured, we know about the underlying health issues linked to COVID-19. And how that makes you more vulnerable, where you’re going to have an underlying health issue, and you’re going to go to hospital where COVID-19 is being treated. So there’s huge impact and risk to them to the NHS and of course of providing services. But I’ve also drawn a link to

the whole issue around the consequences to them and their licence. So, you know, by being enforced, a lot of these will lose their licence because extreme speeds are going to have consequences to

their family circumstance to finance potentially a job, and so a whole host of problems for them. And I’ve tried to stand back and say if we look at as an example, drunk driving is rightly being socially unacceptable for about the last 2530 years, speeding these become socially unacceptable. How many people would challenge a drink drive

Listen to your show, we challenge your drunk driver. But don’t judge a speeding driver for speeding driving is the thing that creates the most risk at the moment for us. So I asked those people to reflect on that and actually make speaking socially acceptable challenge your friends, your family, yourself, your colleagues not to speed if you’re in a car somebody has been asked him not to, and basically make a significant difference. Surely the purpose of any journey is to go from A to B safely, not being subject to police enforcement, not injuring anybody, keeping everything you know,

sensible in terms of getting to your destination. And actually, I always try and point out how many times you see somebody perhaps do an overtake on you that puts them at risk anybody else at risk? But actually they’re stuck at the traffic lights a short distance down the road anyway. So how much time does it actually save you by speeding and then you factor in the risk that you pose yourself others the risk to the NHS to restaurants or services, the risk to your financial

And your circumstances and your mobility for just those maybe two, three minutes that saves off your journey. So don’t be complacent complacency is undoubtedly our biggest issue here. It can and does happen to people who didn’t think it would and I’ve met them their families they are devastated their life has changed for good and and in a really dramatically bad way. So don’t be complacent focus into purpose, your journey going from A to B

make it socially unacceptable, and by doing so, have the greatest chance to stay safe.

Carlton Reid 32:35
Rachel, a lot of Andy’s team has enforcement are on for one of a better expression fast roads. So like the a 10, where where cyclists and pedestrians aren’t really, you know, going on those roads. So is it really that much of a problem to have people speeding on those roads just so long as they don’t speed on the you know, the 20 mile an hour roads? Or there’s somebody who do you think

speeding on that road is naturally going to speed on every road?

Rachel Aldred 33:05
I mean, I think Yeah, I would tend to agree with the latter that if people are willing to speed on those roads they’re probably going to be behaving badly on other roads but I don’t think those roads are free of cyclists and pedestrians either I mean the a 10 It depends what part of the town you’re talking about, but there are certainly quite a lot of cyclists on some parts of it there are people who have to cross the road as pedestrians or have to walk along it so you know, particularly in in a London context, you some of those, some of those roads have multiple functions and you will get fast moving both traffic alongside pedestrians and potentially cyclists as well.

Carlton Reid 33:36
And Chris, on the pandemic front, do you see after we are back it is possible if it is possible to become normal again. Do you think things will have changed on the roads, on getting people on bikes, pedestrians, the things that you’ve been talking about for many, many years do you think you’re gonna have an easier time

After a lockdown has finished or do you think we’ll just go back to business as usual?

Chris Boardman 34:06
The thing about lockdown is that it’s finite. It’s a short period diverted into our lives. But I think what we now define as important is not what we would have done some months ago. Now we have a choice. I try very hard not to use the word opportunity. People are dying. However, you can’t ignore the good that has also happened. We discovered what quiet roads are like, I can’t imagine any other circumstances where the world the whole world has stopped driving. Many of our key workers now use bikes. Our stats told us that all the journeys went down, but cycling, which was on two and a half percent mode shared is now up significantly. And if you ask anyone, which do you prefer in terms of transport, then you wouldn’t be surprised by the answer. Having said that, we have got a very small window to implement measures that both aids recovery and allows you to keep travelling

safe distance apart and give the opportunity now to get back into cars. I am scared, we will lose the chance to redefine normal. It’s an opportunity there. I have used the word. It’s an opportunity to make a new normal. We should do everything in our power to make that happen.

Carlton Reid 35:18
And at this point, I just like to remind everybody, of course, that isn’t the real Chris Boardman that a computer simulation. But I would now like to go across to the real David for a short ad break.

David Bernstein 35:31
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 JensonUSA at Jensonusa.com/the spokesmen. 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 their unbelievable support. When you call and you’ve got a question about something, you’ll end up talking to one of their gear advisors and these are cyclists. I’ve been there I’ve seen it. These are folks who who ride their bikes to and from work. These are folks who ride at lunch who go out on group rides after work because they just enjoy cycling so much. And, and so you know that when you call, you’ll be talking to somebody who has knowledge of the products that you’re calling about. If you’re looking for a new bike, whether it’s a mountain bike, a road bike, a gravel bike, a fat bike, what are you looking for? Go ahead and check them out. JensonUSA, 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 JensonUSA All right, Carlton, let’s get back to the show.

Carlton Reid 36:57
Thanks to the not-at-all-simulated

David, and let’s get back to the show with me asking a question of Andy.

I’d like to ask the same question. You know, is this as Chris says, Is this a pivot point? Can this change? I’d like to ask both Rachel and Andy, that question but first, Andy, I just like to ask you because a point came up in there from from what Chris was saying, is it on your radar? That after this lockdown finishes potentially motoring could could double overnight? Is that something that you are looking at as a force? Is it something that you’ll deal with that later if it ever happens? I Are you are you predicting forward basically.

Andy Cox 37:44
So we do use an analysis of data to work out what the traffic volumes are, what the demands are, where they rises in speed, what roads are the most problematic? And I think of course post lockdown, we are likely to see a significant upset upturn in

in traffic volume, however, I think with the change that that’s been forced upon people, I think it will create a different culture as well. So I do expect to see perhaps more working from home, perhaps people looking to walk or cycle more than they previously did. So I think we will have to be cognizant of that we’ll have to make sure our 2030 and 40 mile an hour zones are really appropriately supported that vulnerable road users who are exposed to more risk because of obviously that the nature of their travel.

And we just need to make sure that you know, we’re in the right time right place. So the strategy essentially does stay the same. It is targeting the most risky people the most risky roads and the most risky themes. Our comp strategy will be more the same but reinforced. We will look to obviously utilise our cycle safety team, our highly visible patrols, things like the community Roadblock, schemes, again. Really

reinforcing the visible presence where it matters most, but recognising a change in volume of traffic, and of course, maybe a style of change as well, in terms of the mode of transport, people are choosing to use post lockdown and post all the learning that’s come from this enforced period and changing in working culture and going to you with that, is this going to be a pivot? I know this is not data driven. This is something that’s going to be more gut driven. Do you and do you think things will change? After locked down? Do you think driving culture will have changed? But I absolutely. Do you think it’s a pivotal moment for road safety? Obviously, London and elsewhere, I think we’ve got this captive audience at home. And so our strategy using social media and communications on television and newspapers and on radio

is more effective than it would otherwise be because people are actually in a position to heal a message. I think we have successfully drawn a link to

The risk of speeding to serious injury collisions and fatal collisions and the devastation that causes the impacts of their licence and the consequences to them. But also, because of the COVID-19 challenge for the NHS, I think by journaling to the emergency services and in particularly the NHS and the impact it has on Lowe’s that so busy dealing with such a significant issue, I’m hoping it really does influence a change in driving culture. And I think we’ve really got to take this opportunity, and not rollback from it really consistently reinforce that I think we need hard hitting campaigns nationally, I think we need to use a collection of agencies. So involving nurses and doctors as part of the message is really important, involving families affected is really important, and really making that change. But also then, as a pivotal moment looking at our whole strategy around vulnerable road users, the infrastructure, you know, to use of the vehicle, how we might create a better, safer place.

For all forms of travel, I think is really, really important. And looking at the legislation, obviously, I’m a police officer. So I work with whatever legislation I’m given. But actually I do have a voice in the subject and I think we could look at for instance, some the deterrents that we use. So I just draw a very quick comparison. This day somebody driving 150 miles an hour, the devastation that person could cause is so vast and significant if they get charged with speeding only because the sentences tend to get strict once a collision happens and somebody left in it you know, somebody unfortunately dies was left in a permanent disabled state.

You know, then of course then sentences are But before that, so they get caught for speeding the sentences can be less severe and I sometimes do a comparison with if somebody was to take a knife onto the street, not harm anybody would expect the sentences to be really severe for actually and quite rightly so. The carrying a weapon but if you’re driving 150 miles

An hour, or you’re driving to extreme speed, you know, set the 74 into 20 the devastation you can cause is equally severe. So I think we just need to look at our whole sentencing and criminal justice plan.

And really look at it from a deterrence perspective and supporting lawful road users. I work with whatever legislation I can. But I think, you know, sometimes we just need to recognise the risks posed by these people. I think we’ve got that opportunity at the moment because we have a captive audience. We have people that recognise the impacts it has on our NHS, we have people that recognise the impact it has on all of our services. I’m ever really, really good opportunity to make our roads a safer place for all.

Carlton Reid 42:41
okay, and Rachel said that I’ve gotten back to you the same question but I’ll just frame it in a slightly different way in that I’m absolutely sure you will be very familiar with all of the the academic research which shows that that the likeliest time to make somebody

switch their travel behaviour is when for instance, they move home, or they make other big life changes. So you couldn’t get much bigger a life change for most people than what we are currently living through. So do you see this as not just an opportunity, not just a pivot point, but something that will actually genuinely change things?

Rachel Aldred 43:24
Yes, I mean, I think the the impact of disruption on travel behaviour is quite well studied. And unfortunately, often it happens in a negative way. So people have children, they start driving more, for instance, but also in a positive way in terms of shifts to more sustainable modes, really, it’s the chance that people get to think rather than acting out of habit and to reevaluate what they do and often in quite difficult circumstances, like, like at the moment, and some people are travelling more actively than they have before. So key workers taking up cycling for instance, at the same time as people who might be habitual cycle commuters, and now working from home

By myself. So there is an opportunity to change. We’ve seen

the increased use of cycling at the weekends in particular. And we’ve seen in the UK as well the explicit discussion of the right and need to take daily exercise which can be by walking or cycling. So, yeah, I think there is the potential for people’s behaviour to change longer term. And particularly if you know, there isn’t going to be a simple end to lockdown, there will be a series of different stages that you know, some of them might involve more commuting trips returning some of them might involve more leisure trips returning, and this needs to be planned for the support needs to be in place because, you know, things could end up in a very negative direction. So if people are nervous about why walking on the foot way because there isn’t enough space to safely pass all the people in terms of infection, then that could put people off walking. On the other hand, if we can be allocate road space to walking, that creates more incentive to walk that means that people are more likely to walk it discourages car, use.

We could have a virtuous circle from that. But there will be a lot of choices, policy choices that need to be made now, and in the near future to ensure that we get some of the benefits.

Carlton Reid 45:10
Mm hmm. I did a story. I’ll come to Chris with this one first. But I did a story on the World Health Organisation who were being lobbied behind the scenes by lots of different people to make a recommendation that in this this this lockdown in this pandemic, who could make a recommendation to national governments around the world to reduce speed limits.

So Chris, is with that have been something that you would have liked to see, would that make any difference at all?

Chris Boardman 45:45
Yes, reducing speed limits is a positive thing. We have to think hard about what we can do quickly, and then what needs to be done longer term. We’ve just heard discussion from Andy about consequences. That’s what it boils down.

down to, like the majority of human beings, we react to consequences. What’s the easiest thing? what’s acceptable, what’s not acceptable? That’s part of a longer term fix. But there are measures that we can do that aren’t just down to the police. We can slow people down without spending much. We can reshape roads. There’s a lot we can do with infrastructure. It’s not just about speed enforcement. We have some temporary powers given to us. We need to see what can be done quickly. And that isn’t too scary for politicians to actually want to do something with it. possibly the biggest opportunity for us right now is that it’s very scary at a political level, not to be doing something. It’s very scary as a politician not to be doing something when it’s clear that attitudes are changing. We need to take action to reduce speed and increase the number of people travelling without cars.

Carlton Reid 46:54
Mmm, now Rachel when when I did that WHO story and it was

was a very high up individual in who who, who did want it to happen, but didn’t want to be seen actually to use this as an inverted commas an opportunity so they didn’t want to be seen to be using the pandemic as as something to do their their favourite thing because they’ve always wanted to get who to, to to lobby for this but they thought it was politically expedient to do so. However, a few days later, who issued

a missive to national governments to restrict the sale of alcohol. So here we’re doing something that’s quite, you know, contentious, you know, take away alcohol from people and yet they were perfectly willing to do that yet they weren’t willing to ask people to slow down. So do you think this there’s there’s just because the driving culture is so embedded, it’s so hard to

Get something like an organisation like WHO to actually move on something that could save lots of lives. Just as you know, the the if you do better at in the pandemic that saves lives, but reducing speed also saves lives.

Rachel Aldred 48:14
Yeah, I mean, I don’t know the details of those specific, you know, though the negotiations that went on over those specific issues, but I do think it challenging car culture is always hard. It doesn’t get easier. It’s hard in Copenhagen taking space away from car parking to allocate to other uses. You know, it’s hard everywhere. But, you know, it’s clear that for something like speeding and speed limits, the evidence is really clear. And I yeah, I would have liked to have seen them making a recommendation on that because I think the case is so strong, particularly in the pandemic when national health services are under such a lot of strain.

Carlton Reid 48:49
Now, Andy, I did come to you when I was doing this who story and you gave me a point of view that was understandably added

and understandably politically correct and that you couldn’t be seen, to be asking for speed limits to be, you know, recommended by who? Well, is there anything you can add to that topic to what maybe Chris has said or what Rachel said?

Andy Cox 49:16
I think the speed limit debates an interesting one. I recently ran a poll on Twitter, again, there was support to reduce the speed limit. I gained as I mentioned, just now I work with the legislation I’m unable to work within, but I do recognise the risk of speed.

The Isle of Man, for instance, introduced legislation very quickly into this lockdown period that had a national speed limit reduction. But I really think that it is a question. Unfortunately for the legislators all I would say from a policing perspective of speed is our biggest challenge. We know during the lockdown period, it’s our biggest challenge. We are seeing exceptional speeds.

But even a 73 to 20 I sometimes wonder whatever speed limit was in place that person

Won’t be driving at 73. You know, and it’s deeply frustrating.

And that’s why I look at could we take a different approach around, you know, a more robust justice system that recognises the risk that people pose sufficiently and supports lawful road users prior to that serious life changing or fatal collision taken place?

Carlton Reid 50:22
Okay, last question. And then I’ll let you get on with your your busy days. So this might not be a question for Andy unless he wants to pitch in because it’s more of a

general issue on car culture as a whole, really, but this is a bit of a scoop today that I did a story on that the basic of the Heathrow

legal team that successfully challenged the government to stop Heathrow expansion, has now today going to be doing the exact same legal challenge, but for the 28 billion pound road building programme in the UK.

I’ve got that story online right now, it will get bigger, I’m sure when other media outlets pick up on it too, and when they get their crowdfunding, but coming to Chris first, one of the points, or one of the things that they want to stress is that 28 billion pounds which are currently pledged by Rishi Sunak ought to be spent on public transport, cycling and walking instead, will that challenge work?

Chris Boardman 51:29
Maybe the message hasn’t changed in the last year? Do we want more cars filling up the roads, because that’s what happens. We see evidence of it from all around the world. So it’s crazy. Now might be the best opportunity we will get to not spend on things we don’t really need. I know in Greater Manchester that the tram network cost a lot of money and it was paying for itself but now the revenues dried up, but it’s not dissimilar to other urban authorities around the country that have got bills that need to be paid.

forms of transport that are more desirable. So to divert that cash seems absolutely logical when you can’t afford to pay all your bills, pay the one that’s most pressing. So it’s an opportunity to rethink transport spend full stop, we’ve got a scenario not to give cash to the mode of doing harm and spend it elsewhere.

Carlton Reid 52:21
And Rachel,

Rachel’s kind of same question to you, but given the fact that governments around the world but certainly the UK government is going to have to be spending billions upon billions that is our cash I suppose, but still spending billions upon billions to dig us out of this this pandemic Hole In fact, they’ve got to pay people who are being furloughed and all these different funds that are gonna have to be found from somewhere, given the fact that the government in the future is not going to have huge amounts of cash to splash around. Do you think the road building programme that took

728 billion pounds. Do you think that is the right first of all government departments to that’s easy to chop? let’s just let’s just cross that that road building programme?

Rachel Aldred 53:12
Well, it would certainly go a long way in terms of building active travel infrastructure, which is not cheap. But it’s value for money. So, yes, and I think now, you know, we are seeing the government stepping in in a whole range of ways that seemed impossible to imagine not that long ago. So I think potentially with support for businesses support from employment and so on, can come some thinking, some public debate about, you know, the best use of resources, for instance, around freight and deliveries and so on, and what we actually want to see this money used for and yes, I would agree that that that that amount of money allocated to a road building budget should definitely be up for grabs in terms of sustainable transport. We’ll need it.

Daniel 53:54
Thank you to my guests, Chris Boardman, Superintendent Andy Cox and Professor Rachel …

Carlton Reid 53:59
Yes, thanks.

Computer voice I’ll take over from here. So anyway, yes, it’s thanks to Professor Rachel Aldred, Superintendent Andy Cox and Chris Boardman. This has been Episode 248 of the spokesmen cycling podcast. Sorry it has taken me so long to get this audio to you, but Chris’s recording really was quite unusable. Thankfully everybody else had pristine audio, so I was able to resurrect the group chat. Now I hope you enjoyed listening to Chris, played by a computer simulation. The next show will be out real soon and is a conversation I had last week with the deputy leader of Waltham Forest Council, Clyde Loakes, he showed me the now world famous Orford Road Mini-Holland scheme, but we also cycled elsewhere in the borough to see how it is being transformed and it is

being transformed, and very much for the better. Significantly, Clyde was voted in again, on an increased majority, showing that politicians need not be afraid of putting people first and taming car use.

Daniel 55:16
It’s a great episode. Meanwhile, get out there and ride

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.

Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 246: “The bike world has never seen anything like this”: Jay Townley on Bike Boom 2020 vs Bike Boom 1970-4

Sunday 7th June 2020

SPONSOR: Jenson USA

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUEST: Jay Townley

LINKS

Bicycling Booms During Lockdown—But There’s A Warning From History — Forbes.com

MACHINE TRANSCRIPT

Carlton Reid 0:13
Welcome to Episode 246 of the spokesmen cycling podcast. This show was engineered Sunday, June the seventh 2020.

David Bernstein 0:24
The spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Jenson USA, where you’ll always find a great selection of products at amazing prices with unparalleled customer service. For more information, just go to Jenson usa.com/thespokesmen. Hey everybody, it’s David from the Fred cast cycling podcast at www.theFredcast.com. I’m one of the hosts and producers of the spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast. For show notes, links and all sorts of other information please visit our website at

www.the-spokesmen.com. And now, here are the spokesmen.

Jay Townley 1:08
“These are unprecedented times.

As long as I’ve lived i’ve never seen anything like this,

As long as you live, you’ve never seen it like this. The bike industry the bike world has seen nothing like this.”

Carlton Reid 1:23
That’s bike industry veteran Jay Townley talking about bike boom 2020. I’m Carlton Reid welcoming you to another long lockdown special of the Spokesmen Cycling Podcast. Jay Townley’s perspective is second to none because, for a start, he’s a data freak — still crunching numbers after 63 years in the industry — and he was also up close and personal with the market-dominating American bike company during the 1970s bike boom, the annual sales figures for which have never been bettered, not even during the mountain bike years. Jay worked for the Schwinn Bicycle Company for 24 years — he was the youngest vice president who wasn’t a member of the Schwinn family. Over the years he went on to hold many other positions and is still the go-to-guy for divining trends from bicycle-shaped spreadsheets so I was glad to be able to pick his brains about both bike booms. Many sectors of the economy have been badly affected by lockdowns, social distancing and quarantines but after like five or more years of poor bikes sales — what Jay calls a “funk of flatness” — April and May this year just exploded, with widespread reports of bikes selling out, well, like toilet paper as some media outlets would have it. Shimano’s stock price hit a record high at the end of May with bike part sales from this bellwhether brand going through the roof. It’s now a market-leading behemoth but Shimano was once a minnow. The Japanese company started its steady rise to domination in the 1970s when Kozo Shimano visited Schwinn on a speculative sales trip, hoping to sell derailleurs to an America that was only really starting to ride with these European devices. You can hear the inside skinny on that scoping sales trip on today’s show because Jay was there, front and centre.

So hi, I’ve got Jay Townley with me today. Jay has been on the show.

A number of times before so anybody who’s listened to Jay will know that we go through his long history in the bike industry for people who are new to the show. Let’s let’s go through that history. So first of all, Jay, is it terribly rude of me to ask you your age? How old are you, Jay?

Jay Townley 4:18
It’s not rude at all. I’m 76 years old.

Carlton Reid 4:22
And you are. I’m a veteran of the bike industry. So what does that make you? I mean, is there a super veteran class? Why? How long have you been working in the industry, Jay?

Jay Townley 4:33
I started in a bike shop in 1957.

went to work for Hazel Park, bicycle and skate exchange in St. Paul, Minnesota.

And worked there actually a part time full time on the east side of St. Paul.

Throughout through a couple of years of college and I got

Mary did that process and ended up going to work for Schwinn in 1966. So my relationship with that shop was over a long period of time.

And the two owners were I would consider brilliant because and I don’t need to go into the detail other than to tell you that they ended up founding The Park Tool Company.

Um, they were starting to make a limited, actually they’re making hooks to hang bicycles in 1964 65. But they they ran them together.

Building a very large building.

on the same street, we were located on white bear Avenue on the east side of St. Paul, but out toward where the new expressway was going on.

And so they built a large facility that had room in the back a very

large manufacturing area in the back where they continued the building out The Park Tool Company while they ran Hazel Park cycle centre which on the retail side became two stores. And at one point was schwinns largest dealer.

And so they they were very good at the retail business. But then as The Park Tool business grew,

they sold the retail stores to two employees, two different employees.

Carlton Reid 6:32
It’s still existing or it’s long gone?

Jay Townley 6:38
Know the buyer the retail the retail stores are gone.

The last one closed. Oh my must be over 20 years ago.

However Park Tool thrives and is owned and operated by Eric Hawkins who you may have met at.

He comes to England once a year. For the

A large gathering of one of the large one of the distributors

in the UK but their distributor obviously for Park Tool but Eric Hawkins is the son of one of the phones

Carlton Reid 7:12
that was because I want to talk to you today about the bike boom. So Hazel Park was clearly before the bike but when you’re working for them and Park Tool was was a wee bit before the bike boom too. So that was quite prescient to make a bicycle Tool Company before the bike boom hits flack for years beforehand. So they must have like been written you know, all

all boats rise up with the rising tide. So all bike companies that point kind of did good.

Jay Townley 7:45
Yes, yes, absolutely.

Carlton Reid 7:49
So tell me about the boom then. So because you when the boom actually hit you are a Schwinn executive.

Jay Townley 7:58
Well, I started

As I said in 1966

I well remember 1971 because if you go back a few years 1968 was a record year for the industry at about 7.5 million units total.

Schwinn held its first national convention of authorised Schwinn dealers in Chicago, at the Conrad Hilton Hotel and 1968, which I have vivid memories of.

But it was the first time that Schwinn had gathered all of its dealers in

in one place with one big show that lasted three or four days.

And I was at the time I was sales promotion manager. I was very much involved in the process of producing the show that at the time featured Bob Kishan who you probably don’t know is Captain

kangaroo,

the from CBS fame but he was he was the personality that Schwinn advertised with on television for many years.

And so, the bike boom, was kind of a big surprise. We had done this 1968 the industry’s spiked at 7.4 million. Then if you look at the charts, it went down to about 7 million in 69. We were trying to figure out what was going on in 1970 was about 6.8 million.

And we were starting to get worried what was happening out in the market and then came 1971. And Schwinn was sold up by May of that year and the the industry in 1971 sold 8.8 million units.

You know, well in excess of the 68 record of 7.5 million.

And we were scrambling we honestly the industry when we weren’t sure

What was going on?

But

at the time, the Schwinn bicycle company was a domestic house that was a make to order house.

So we ran this big factory for the day, by the way, is considered small now but it was a big factory in the time at the time and every dealer order that came in was scheduled for production and shipped to a dealer within two weeks.

So I’m sure this is the way Raleigh operated at the time and Nottingham received dealer orders and it built bicycles to the order the dealer

loaded them up mostly in trucks, because there were very few dealers are big enough you could put them into in the rail cars. But we ran this, you know, build to order operation. So when they came in, in 1971, the big surprise

The Schwinn sales department jack Smith was the sales manager came up with a plan. He and his staff

that the then vice president marketing Ray Birch or longtime Schwinn marketing VP, Ray Birch, who was the boss of the marketing division

agreed to an allocation plan.

So in 1971, when this all hit, we were trying to figure out what was going on and we were sold out in May.

The The plan was based on algorithms of the day, and it was a the dealer sales of the previous year

were the factor that was went into the formula so that the dealer would receive that percentage share of schwinns production at capacity for the year.

The dealer didn’t have to take that

they could

refused portions of it but

every quarter jack Smith’s department sent out to the authorised dealers after Of course May. So we’re into the last half of the year but this continued on through 1974. Every quarter the dealer received their allocation

and their shipping schedule and they would adjust it if they wanted less, and in most years, they didn’t, they took everything that was available. And so we also were able to adjust the mix

which is the you know, the,

the mix between the low price of the high priced bikes. In the in the way we sorted through and ran the numbers for the allocation.

Some of this was also based on the popularity because what was selling were in our line where the 27 inch wheel, your rail you’re equipped 10 speed lightweights

are vital.

He’s our Continentals and our Superiors. And so that’s what was in demand. That’s what dealers wanted. That’s what consumers wanted. And so we would make sure jack would make sure that he did what he could to adjust. And then that all went downstream to the to the production planning people and to the purchasing department. So you can imagine this operation

that was

relatively used to the way things were going, had been surprised in 1968. That was the first year Schwinn made and sold a million bicycles.

And so you had two years of down market and then 1971 comes out of nowhere

exceeds market expectations by a good margin. We’re sold out by May. And so we’ve got this allocation system that we’re operating on. And Schwinn then moved to expand.

Carlton Reid 14:00
Today it’s a three month turnaround because at least because you’ve got to get the orders in and Asia, it’s going to take three months to get them back on the water to get them here but but at that time could Schwinn have a much shorter timeframe because you are making the bikes we we were making the bikes Carlton and we also were purchasing worldwide. So

Jay Townley 14:26
we in order to make the Varsity and the Continental that I described and the Superior which were 10 speed derailleur equipped, lightweight bicycles 27 one and a quarter inch tires and appropriate wheels we

had to buy on the world market because the domestic suppliers while they could support the middleweight bicycles that had come into vogue after World War Two. And we’re the bicycle

Bicycle industries answered to the English lightweight.

With all due respect

the chief competitors in the in the period after world war two were the 26th.

One an eighth inch American sizing, obviously, but one of the 26 inch lightweights that you were used to in England

that were primarily made by Raleigh, and were imported into the US under the Marshall Plan or the successors to it.

And so, they were coming in at very low duties to the US market. And the answer that the American industry had

when when we the war ended, the industry was making balloon tired bikes to an eighth inch

tired. They’re called balloon tyred bikes and

as a

kid that’s what I got my first bike was a Schwinn Phantom, which was one of these you know, big balloon tyre bicycles.

Carlton Reid 16:07
The paper boy bike.

Jay Townley 16:09
Thank you the paper boy bike, the black Phantom, you know the, so they were up against the English lightweight.

And the answer the industry came up with was Frank w Schwinn, literally who was a great engineer. Second generation was running the operation at the time, literally designed the middleweight the one and three quarter 1.75

compromise between the lightweight and the balloon

and he gave all the patents and designs for the middleweight

bicycle to the industry for free because he wanted to combat the the influx of English lightweights. So, I’m the middleweight was born.

So my second bike was a Schwinn speedster bought from the bike shop. I ended up working for my father, my father traded in our digital ad. He had the balloon tire bike, and he said it was time for the middleweight which I begged him to get.

So

over the evolution in the period from 63 to 67, probably after I arrived at Schwinn

Al Fritz, and Frank Brilando, down in the engineering department, and you’ve heard Al Fritz’s name before I’m sure you’ve done some interviews around l.

Al Fritz and Frank Brilando came up with this with the state with this thing, right.

Um, and so that became from the middleweight that became the next big thing in the market.

And that quickly led to Frank Brilando convincing Al and Frank

W Schwinn and eventually Frank leash when his son to do a line of lightweight by extrude driller equip lightweights, the varsity, the Continental 26 and 27 inch lightweights, equipped with 10 speed derailleurs.

and Frank was a former Frank’s passed away a couple of years ago. Frank was a former Olympic cyclist,

or a professional cyclist, and also a very brilliant degreed engineer.

And Brilando laid out for Al Fritz, in about 1962 63. This idea for a an American made derailleur equipped, true lightweight at 27. Hide 27 inch real high pressure with a drill here. And a lot of people didn’t know what trailers were.

They weren’t made here. You couldn’t get the hubs you needed here. You couldn’t get the gangs or the cogs you couldn’t get anything.

The base components.

But Frank because he rode on the last Olympic team, beef before World War Two, and the first Olympic team after World War Two, Frank was that good. And he when he served in the war, he served in the Pacific Theatre in the engineering Corps.

Frank was such an athlete that he made both Olympic games before and after the war. So he stuff and he was a road racer as well as a track racer. So l then went to schwinn’s purchasing division that was buying mostly domestic stuff. And in 64,65, they started to bring in large quantities of derailleurs from Huret, who is no longer in business, but a French firm, Maillard cogs and hubs, Weinnman for brakes out of Switzerland in Germany. And at the time, the Japanese were just starting to ramp up

The bike business and a fellow named Kozo Shimano showed up in, in the Schwinn purchasing waiting room.

And closer before he passed, told many stories about with his broken English trying to sell his drill user as hubs. But Schwinn was right at the point where it started to import.

First modest then very large quantities of these components required for these sophisticated lightweights and they were just at the right time, because they were bicycles that were not for 1213 year old kids. If you were big, you could write them but it was a multi frame your choices of 1921 24 to 2527 inch frame 27 inch high pressure wheeled drill your equip lightweights and as this bike boom took off,

It was adult bikes

primarily, and Schwinn through Brilando. This brilliant engineer

made a determination that we would use our design derailleur,

our design cog, our hubs, etc. They were Schwinn approved. So we didn’t just put a here a derailleur on or a simplex derailleur or a Shimano derailleur. As the bike boom ramped up, you were getting dealers in the market. We’re getting Schwinn varsity with a driller that was at the time, a Schwinn design that could have been made by hurray in France, by Shimano or by Sun tour,

with brakes that could have been made by Weinnman because again, they were going to prove design Weinman in Europe, Shimano or Dia Compe, and so on.

We were doing so much volume that what Frank did was

engineers designed the componentry and approved it and then we were able to get multiple services around the world high quality services

to make the same componentry.

So,

to your scenario, yes, we went in the course of this bike boom from the period starting in 19. Well, prior to this, we were we were bringing in and making these varieties in 6968 69. But when the bike boom hit, Schwinn purchasing was able to branch out and use all available services on a global basis to bring in the component tree and you’re correct, then we were dealing with the

long lead time scenarios of getting this component tree from Europe, Japan, into the US market into this factory, because we were still making bicycles to order for dealers.

Carlton Reid 23:01
Now this point, I guess I want to point out for people but there’s no Specialized, there’s no Trek. There’s no Cannondale. There’s none of these brands that we now associate with with the American bike market and that it absolutely took over the world when mountain bikes came along. So Schwinn was in at this period was in such a dominant position and not a monolith, you could say.

Jay Townley 23:27
That is a correct way to describe it. We,

in the 50s, when I was working in the bike shop rainberge, had been hired by Fw Schwinn in the 50s.

from a company called Wizzer in Detroit, and Frank w brought Ray in specifically to clean ups when distribution

and what Ray did was taking something that he was aware of that was new. He developed a franchise so

Before franchising was popular, there was before McDonald’s. There was in the marketing world,

in academia, the the development of the idea of the franchise. So Reebok brought franchising to Schwinn. And when I worked for Hazel Park and after I came to work for Schwinn in Chicago,

bicycle shops that carried Schwinn product were franchise dealers.

So there were requirements you had to meet. There were you had to be of high quality you had to give service you had to stock parts. And Schwinn went through a process of winnowing out

the

well, it’s been written this way and again in these times I hate to use the term at the funeral parlours.

Which by the way back in the day, funeral parlours were also intended to be for sale, housing, household furniture sellers,

but

When I think when I came to work there, they had 15,000 dealers on the books. And they’d started a winnowing down.

And the bike boom accelerated that process. But

what we had was a core of authorised dealers. So there was a semblance in order to the process, there was service training, there was sales training. There was store design assistance, which again is a long story unto itself, but this was all evolving, just prior to this bike boom, and then during the boom years, and

this is all because Ray Birch again another brilliant guy.

I would say certifiable genius, raid, developed franchising. And then he also was the architect of the Schwinn distribution system, which evolved again, just prior to the bike boom, but was primarily a product

Have something else that we cover in another call which is the Schwinn antitrust case.

Because at the time overlapping all of this

from the period 1958 to 1968. Schwinn went through the law at the time the longest antitrust suit with the federal government on record, and ended up in 68 winning in the Supreme Court. And the end result of that was the twin was able to keep its

franchise dealers called authorised dealers at the time, but keep its franchise dealers because the whole legal dispute was over schwinns legal right to put a dealer on or take them off. And in turn Schwinn also was encouraged by the Supreme Court to integrate forward IE own its wholesale distribution.

And so that was in full process when this boom hits

So Schwinn had the beginnings of the modern distribution system we know today in the bike business, that every one of these other names you mentioned and adopted, has adopted up to this point. And that’s simply brands manufacturers owning wholesale distribution centres around the country around the market. And then a system where you have authorised dealers now, that they’re the product of what re developed as the franchise dealers. Again, there’s a long history as to how that occurred. But you’re quite correct. The the Schwinn bicycle company had all these pieces together and was the premier brand, if you will, the more than the luxury. It was the premier brand in the US bicycle market. And going in we probably had a 25% market share.

So the competition that evolved during the bike boom

is one of the key changes to the to the American bicycle business because of the who they were the competitors to Schwinn that evolved during the bike boom.

Carlton Reid 28:03
and with the competitors before, Specialized, Trek, Cannondale, who are the main people in say the late 60s, early 70s?

Jay Townley 28:25
The primary competitor domestically was Ross.

And then you had there were nine domestic manufacturers. In addition to Schwinn, there was a group that sold the mass versions of the Huffy, Murray, Ohio. There were a group including Columbia, and Ross that were selling to the bike. The bike trade as it was called the bike shops competing with Schwinn.

And then there were private label manufacturers. I don’t remember all the names, but there were there were at least nine domestic houses

Import was only at the top.

You know, it was the Peugeot the, if you will today it would have been the Pinarello. Those

those those brands that came in when the boom started

were for the aficionados for the for the few racers there were in the country, the Peugeot’s course rally.

And the import was a very small piece of the market. The primary competitors that Schwinn had were the Colombia’s the Ross’s and, quite frankly, their systems were not as sophisticated. They didn’t have the authorised dealer networks or the franchise dealers, they didn’t have the distribution.

They did not have the product development. So they didn’t have their el Fritz’s Frank Brilando’s repurchases and later john Nielsen, who developed

The parts and accessories programme for Schwinn.

So they didn’t have the talent and certainly didn’t have the product to compete with what Schwinn was, had developed up through the 1970 period. And was there ready to take on the bike boom starting in 1971 now it’s during the boom that all changed as to who those foreign competitors were.

Carlton Reid 30:28
So do you think the boom is in effect given us the industry we have today in that the Trek, Specialized, Cannondale all those those those brands, they all come up roughly post boom, I mean, but have come up because of the boom. So you’ve got Sinyard Mike Sinyard Specialized, you know, he gets in the industry at the end of the bike, boom, like 74, 75. And same for Trek. So it was the boom that changed the industry?

Jay Townley 30:58
I would agree

Mike is a good example Mike Sinyard

you know you’ve heard his story he went and figured out how he could bring in foreign componentry and had this wonderful VW bus he travelled around southern and northern California selling out of his bus camping Nola and you know and other high end componentry

Trek actually got its start here right during this period but trek got it started as a retailer

trek trek did not manufacturer till oh I think after the boom but Dick Burke was partnered with bevel hog

and one other guy, French Tom French and they started a they imported bikes lug frame lightweight bikes and started a chain of bike shops that ran from Wisconsin all the way down into southern Illinois, all the way down to Urbana.

A guy that knows the history of all this is of course john Burke because his father Dick was the the architect. But also Ray keener

worked for the retail store down in Urbana and so he knows the history but yeah trek got it started in the bike business as a bike shop owner and importer. And then that evolved to just toward the money in the financial piece

came out of the bike boom but led to very shortly thereafter the bike boom led to the the bicycle manufacturing process, and the Trek name. So you’re correct. Your your analogy, or your you’re looking at the bike boom as the incubator

for what became schwinns competitors in the bike brand standing today, along

With what came after the the mountain bike you know the evolution of the mountain bike and so on but yeah Trek, specialized their origins the seeds in the beginnings were out of the bike boom

Carlton Reid 33:13
so today Schwinn still exists you know it it’s gone through multiple owners multiple bankruptcies

no longer makes in this country apart from like one bike they’ve got now made by Detroit bikes coming up being sold through Walmart but the other companies that you were mentioning that you know don’t exist I mean, I think huffy was making basketball stuff, wasn’t it and then Ross say doesn’t exist as a mainstream brand anymore. So these new upstart companies came in, how come Schwinn couldn’t just survive

through through till now, as a as a you know, in effect a Schwinn owned company what happened to the family

What happened to the brand that that that made it fall by the wayside?

Jay Townley 34:05
Well, that’s a long story.

Carlton Reid 34:07
Sorry, it is a long story. I apologise. Can you somehow condense it without going into into the various machinations around the failures at the top of the company?

Jay Townley 34:18
Yeah, I think I can. The it starts with Frank v. Schwinn third generation was the head of the company.

For the development years his father passed in 64. Frank W. Schwinn passed away from cancer in 1964.

Frank v took over the company. Now, Frank Francis Valentine Schwinn has been sure cheated by a lot of people.

Because it was Frank v that had the insight

to

not only guide the company forward

But he was a he was a master at making or creating a situation where rainberge Now remember, I’m saying these guys are certifiable geniuses. And I think that’s true, I can back it up. I worked for Ray and then later work for Al Fritz, who became executive vice president of the company.

Frank v. Schwinn, not only figured out how to get rate and elder work together, but he also

took a third really dynamic, smart guy, john Nielsen, who, who had brought into the company to develop parts and accessories,

which goes with the wholesale business.

And john was a very unique personality came from Denmark from a bike manufacturing family. Without going into the background, he’s very imposing man. He was almost seven foot tall

and

was at a really interesting personality. But f Frank, Frank v was able to get

all three of these guys to work together plus some other geniuses he had floated around the manufacturing side.

And he kept him going in the same direction in harness,

not not fighting and stalling out the company. So when Frank had is down the road when Frank had his heart attack and had to retire,

that genius for collaboration in our corporate structure just never came back again. not to that extent. I mean, I watched Frankie work for many years, and I served on the executive committee

for long enough to know what you know how he was able to make his executives work together and how he called dissent and dealt with it and he did it with a gentle hand is a very smart man.

So it starts with the generational change and the fact that that Frank v Schwinn was very much

involved in keeping the company stable and moving in a direction taking the best ideas from these guys.

The

simple fact is that,

at the end of the bike boom, Schwinn went through trouve. Two very traumatic periods, it survived one and didn’t survive the other.

And during the bike boom, one of the things we did was imported about a quarter of a million bikes sold under the Schwinn approved label.

We bought those bikes from national Panasonic and from Bridgestone in Japan. But because of the parts division, we were very much aware of a guy called Tony low, or named Tony, Tony lo and his wife, his first wife.

started a company called specs, which was a Taiwanese

trading house for parts and accessories.

And john Nielsen in developing the Schwinn parts and accessories programme,

immediately found Tony and he introduced Tony Lo to Alfred’s

and this was prior to King Liu coming on the scene and Tony and King getting together. So in other words, we had connections remember, we were importing from every major brand, including capital for our Paramount lines

in the world in order to produce bicycles during the bike boom. So we had our feelers out our connections out, we were we were viable. We were a big deal, because we were a big buyer.

Schwinn overbuilt during the bike boom.

the manufacturing group, rightly so said

We need more capacity, we built a third plant in Chicago to make just frames and forks or just frames primarily. And you might recall that one of schwinns great attributes and then one of the problems that it had after the bike boom is the frame it made.

It was heavy. It was heavy because it was a unique flash welding process, the only manufacturer to use it in North America.

And it required the use of a 1008 carbon steel.

So it was 18 gauge. Now what I’m planning about probably in about here is it was heavy.

Because of the process, you couldn’t you could not make a lug frame bike out of it. I suppose you could, but it would be extremely difficult.

We knew how to make lug frame bikes because we made pyramids. You know, we made top of the top of the line bicycles for the Olympic teams and for professional athletes.

additive racers, but they were hand built. They were one offs. They were built, their custom bikes were built to order.

So we know how to do it. We just didn’t know how to mass produce it.

At the end of the bike boom. And when you look at your charts

in 1975, the market dropped from 14.1 million total units important domestic. Last year, the bike boom 74, 75, the market was 7.3 million. It sheared 50%.

And it stayed down in 76,77, 78.

We didn’t need the capacity, we were running three shifts. We had over 3000 workers in Chicago, and we had three plants.

So the mindset at the time was in Frankie fought this

He basically said you guys got to get real about this but the the drivers in the the vice presidents and the guys in the company said it’s going to come back it’s going to come back. And so when the suggestion was made, let’s get rid of the plug the third plant, let’s bring free manufacturing back into the original to plant operation, etc, etc.

It was ignored. The manufacturing guys had a lot of sway. God bless them. They were fine people. But what they were advocating was no no wait, wait, it’ll come back.

Well, it never came back.

So we we did some of the right things. One was we immediately started to

a manufacturing programme to develop lug frame lightweight bicycles to lightweights.

You might remember the Le Tour line

and that was done properly. You know, to make

Good luck frame by Frank Ryan. Those people worked on this we actually had developed robotics.

We we had developed robots to do the manufacturing of blood frame bicycles and they were superb.

I saw them up front and personal they were they were great, but didn’t come in time.

And we got pushed in the late 70s because again manufacturing kept saying no, no, no

to the to the the rest of the arguments from the rest of the executive committee to downsize and get real about the market.

And

we

came within a hair’s breadth of a chapter seven.

If you know the difference in US law between bankruptcy chapter 11 and chapter seven is liquidation.

Carlton Reid 42:52
Hmm, Chapter 11. You can be rescued and you can do stuff with it. But chapter seven, you can’t be

you can’t

Jay Townley 42:59
So this was about the pushing this this was the late 70s.

We had no choice and at the at the time the management had changed. I’m leaving a lot out because a fascinating story is the one occurred in between but

is fascinating Is it is it boiled down to

the company needed to find a way to survive. We had at that time new leadership, Frank had had a heart attack was sidelined. His son Edward, his son, his nephew, Edward R, Jr. His brother Edward son, was president of the company because that’s the way the company was organised.

The Schwinn trust legally required that the President be a male heir. So, and it was young but good.

He tried some modern stuff.

We did get to the downsizing too late.

In the process the company

went from make to order to make to stock.

So in other words we produced from the plant and shipped to warehouses. We didn’t no longer made

Product to Ship the dealers that led to a whole series of other problems that replaced the problem of the of the over expansion of manufacturing. And bottom line was we were going to come back

Carlton Reid 44:31
before we kind of get on to that just go back with a bit because you you mentioned something about that’s, that’s fascinating.

It almost is the same problem that happened to Raleigh in many respects as well. And that is and you just mentioned it there is that had to be a male heir. I mean, to me, that’s just phenomenally incredible. If you’re going to run a business, then you have the best people in to run that business. But what you’ve just said there was what

In fact, any old fool could come in. So do you think I’m not saying that anybody was a fool here but do you think that was one of the reasons Schwinn failed in that it was basically had a monarchy it didn’t have it wasn’t you get the best people in it was you had to get a Schwinn person in

Jay Townley 45:21
well it to an extent that’s correct.

I’m sure

that Richard Schwinn Edwards brother who’s still in the business,

he might or might not agree. I don’t know Edwards retired now, but

I’m not sure if they would agree. But yeah, you had a Schwinn trust. That was written by very, very good lawyers at the turn of the century.

And it was still legal

in, you know, the decade of the 70s and 80s. So

from the standpoint of

have, you know that been the Genesis? Yeah, it means like a monarchy, that each of the generations he should the successive generations has got to be pretty good in some way, shape or form. And Schwinn had been really good for three generations.

In different degrees, Frank v was not an engineer, his father Fw was,

and so on. But brilliant in different ways, but but also this ability to bring in talented people and make them work together.

Rather than, you know, the the revolving door thing. So yeah, there’s a great burden, in this case type of hierarchy. I don’t know today, obviously, I’m not aware. I don’t know today, if you could still do this kind of trust. But at the time, it was still legal. And yeah, that you probably would look at that as one data point of several things that eventually led to what we have today.

Which is a Schwinn in name only.

That’s all by its owned by Dorel. It’s a division of Pacific. It’s still a good bike, but it’s manufactured again, it’s not the same company, it’s four times removed.

The, what occurred when we were faced with the chapter seven situation because of this, you know what we were, um, we were sitting on a million square feet of manufacturing, and at the time, about 1800 employees.

And the then leader of the management side was a guy named john Barker,

who is a whole story himself. He was Chief Financial Officer, became executive vice president was brought in, in the latter part of the 70s along with Bill Austin, a name who you’ll remember

But they the two of them convinced Edward over and above the objections of his his brother in law, Peter Davis who was in the company at the time, in charge of strategic planning.

He convinced him that we had to shut down domestic immediately cut the bleeding, and we had to go offshore and import our products. We had to find people to make our bikes.

I was in the room when Barker

had a meeting with the banks.

And the big bank for decades it sat on the Schwinn board for years,

was the Northern Trust in Chicago.

And I remember vividly sitting behind john as he as he leaned across the table and explained to them what he was going to do if they didn’t hold off for six months, and that was he was going to declare chapter seven and they’d be out

All the investments they’ve made.

They backed off, they gave us six months.

Then he turned to me and he said come up with a plan to do it. So without going into the detail, I was the corporate officer who shut down Chicago and moved the product.

And at the time, you will remember the Airdyne

the exercise product, I assume you do the airdyne out of Chicago The airdyne was a loss at the margin line of $50 a unit

a loss at the margin line means that you could make more and still lose money. Hmm. We took it to Taiwan along with all our bikes not all of our bikes didn’t go to Taiwan but the bulk of them did.

We We We resourced in six months, giant built a plant dedicated to just making our fitness equipment

When we started to bring air diamonds in from giant slash Taiwan into our system,

the $50 loss at the margin line

was totally reversed and it was a $50 profit

for the house. Now remember, we sold it to a sales company. This goes back to the brilliance of that plan. We sold it to a sales company for a profit, who sold it to a dealer for a profit.

So

going off shore and turning our whole bike line and fitness line into breakeven to profitability, then fed a system

that was just a moneymakers. The best way to say it, it was you know, we then all of a sudden flip the switch.

And we were making money on the bikes. We were bringing in good high quality Schwinn products.

imported from a giant to our wholesale distribution system, who bought them from us on the books, who sold them to authorised dealers who bought them from the wholesale houses who we owned. So, you know, it was like triple dipping to this. This is our boom, this is like getting to this.

Carlton Reid 51:21
So, let me ask you a question. Were you making money during the boom?

Jay Townley 51:28
Yes, yes, but it wasn’t as

it wasn’t as powerful. It wasn’t as much money as we made.

After we shut down the plant, because during the boom, to run three shifts with 3000 people

and make bikes on this allocation system.

We were importing

Just in huge quantities,

there was a lot of waste in other words in the manufacturing system still is profitable. The reason I know is that in the six months I was given to shut down Chicago. Part of what I did after letting go 1800 UAW employees

is I rain maintain a crew that every morning I would meet with and they would go into the plant and they collected everything we could find. And we categorised it because we had to, we had to sell it. And what we found were shipping crates, air freight shipping crates,

full of componentry from these various people that we were buying stuff from to make bikes that have never been opened.

And so, we in in hindsight,

we were as we we made order out of this, you know, chaos

that was cleaning out this, you know, sector

Anything if you’ve ever experienced cleaning out a closet, just imagine cleaning out a million square feet of manufacturing and finding all this stuff in storage.

We were able to, to our amazement, determined that, you know, they were air freighting purchasing was doing his job. It was airfreighted and stuff we needed to make bikes. But then in turn, the production control system was broken, was not automated.

It wasn’t your MRP systems up today. It was manual work. And the stuff got lost in warehouse and so you were paying all these premium prices to get stuff in, that ended up sitting on the books. And we didn’t discover all that until we really had to shut down the operation and clean things up. So

there were great inefficiencies during the boom that restricted the quality of the of the profit. There was a lot of money made but there could have been more when we got to the system that was developed after the shutdown manufacturing

It was much more transparent. And it was easier for us to if you will manage the process. And so we made more money after them than during.

Carlton Reid 54:16
Hmm. So anybody who’s been paying attention to the dates here, will realise that it was 69, 70,71. That’s where it’s ramping up.

It was gone by 74, 75. And we’ve missed out a year there. So we’ve missed that 1973. And of course, 1973 is the year that everybody assumes created the boom, and that was the oil crisis. But of course me and you know, it wasn’t the oil crisis that created the boom. So you tell me, I know this because I’ve written a book about it. But you tell me in your words, where you think the boom came from, and then why did it disappear?

Jay Townley 55:00
Well, it came from different catalysts different

things in the economy. So the original boom started in 71. And came out of a number of factors. The industry, going back into the early 60s had really gotten together on I remember he had internet and domestic manufacturers plus a bunch of wholesalers. They were all in a group called the bicycle menu. I’m sorry, the bicycle Manufacturers Association because they were part of it.

Be a bicycle Industry Association.

And each of the groups BMA, bicycle manufacturers, bicycle wholesalers, retailers, all are contributing monies into the bicycle Institute.

As a domestic bike manufacturer, those nine manufacturers were contributing a dime a bike

and that money was being

Well spent, because during the Eisenhower years, there were several things that occurred and that was promotional bikeways and bike paths. There were at least two full time bike advocates paid by the industry, Keith King Bay, and I cannot remember what the other one was out there, we were getting headlines. And as circumstances, you know, evolve, I can’t a heart attack.

And, you know, you may not remember Dwight David Eisenhower, but, of course, he was a great hero in World War Two. He was a great hero to the American people. So when he had this heart attack, it was a big deal and he had a cardiologist, Dr. White.

And Dr. White was an avid cyclist. So now all of a sudden, you’ve got Dr. White Tony Knight, who is a golfer to get on his bike. Well guess what kind of bike he got.

I mean, he got a Schwinn bike, obviously

It was the leading bike. But meanwhile, Ike gets better. And, and the country’s applauding, and Dr. White is now pictured for months, riding his bicycle to the hospital writing it and Dr. White was of advanced years them.

So it was it was kind of an Einstein effect.

It was this

older

MD, who had in the eyes of the public, saved our beloved president who was by Eisenhower, he was beloved

and gave him this new lifestyle. At the same time bikeways bike paths are being promoted, that the industry is getting a lot of visibility.

And there’s a lot of interest in physical fitness and health enhancement which is part and parcel

All of that along with the demographics. A whole new generation was coming a lot. We call them baby boomers today. But this is the younger lead of the baby boom generation. And so in 71, as I describe it, you remember 68 was a blip, went up to 7.5 million. Then the market went down and 69 went down and 70, 71 was the start of the bike boom.

And the market went to almost 9 million – 8.8 – was a huge increase. And that I do believe in hindsight was driven by the market factors of health enhancement enjoyment. The bicycle was getting popular among the older Baby, I’m sorry, the not older, younger, baby boomer, you’re talking 17 18, 19 year old

and you had that driving the market

as you get into the 72

73 period Now, keep in mind that

Eisenhower, you know, eventually is is termed out term limited. And we end up with a pretty chaotic situation in the in the economy that moves into the 7273 period and the oil embargo, when the industry actually hit 15.3 million. And these are all 20 inch wheels and larger By the way, all these numbers that I’m quoting, this doesn’t include it. Kids bikes because the industry didn’t count them in those days. They only call it 20 inch wheels and larger so these numbers are all 20 inch wheel The larger the 15 point 2.8 million in 1973, Carlton, it has never been achieved. Again, by the US industry. We’ve never come close

now exactly how 2020

When it comes out, we haven’t seen numbers. But you got to look at the whole year.

Up to this point 73 has never been exceeded before.

What happened in 73 was an oil embargo and lines.

cars were lined up at gas stations, gas stations put out red flags, when they were out of gas white flags when they had gas. Many states like California, it was every other day based on your licence plate. The odd numbers were you know, one day the even numbers were another day. So you had another factor in 70 and the 72 and 73 that drove this. Keep in mind also in 7273, you had wage and price control. Something that this country’s hadn’t seen since this was under Nixon,

wage and price controls simple.

Nobody could raise prices, nobody could pay more money to labour

Prices couldn’t change all the way through retail wholesale to retail manufacturing, you just could not increase the price couldn’t lower it couldn’t increase it you had to keep it frozen

and wages were frozen.

So you also had in the mix as you get into the 72, 73 period 74

bicycles today in the US you’ll see these these news articles that say bicycles or like toilet paper. Back in the 72, 73, 74 period, it was bicycles are like gas cans.

Because people are really having a problem they were going to the gas station getting a can of gas. So the bicycle became like a gas can and that’s the way the press looked at it.

mixed in with this, these these economic issues of wage and price control.

Bicycles just became, you know, not only it was an affordability issue became more viable like they are today is for transfer.

So it started out as

a demographic shift, and a response to advertising and promotion of bicycles as good for you. And a lot of fun to bicycles being an alternate and a means an alternative to the car. And something you could do to conserve gas and use if your automobile was on a gas, you could get some rubies.

Carlton Reid 1:02:32
You’ve got all these amazing factors, many of which are still applicable today. And you’ve also got the like the environmental factors, select the Earth Day factors which were coming in at that point in time as well. So you’ve got all these amazing factors and then you have the the accelerant of the the Arab Israeli oil embargo. How on earth did the bike boom fizzle out? You had all these amazing things going for the end of the industry. What

But what happened? Yeah?

Jay Townley 1:03:03
Well, if you look at the charting again 1974 at 14.1 million 20 inch wheel and larger 1975 7.3 million,

a 50% 49.9% shearing of the market.

What economists will tell you when they look at that, and the years that succeeded is saturation.

Go that’s the that’s the first thing that that you’ll look at with something that’s this large that in the boom years, from 71 to 74. We pumped the market full

with large numbers in the market. We didn’t have the population you have today. So the per thousand penetration was pretty high.

And you got to a point where several things occurred. One is saturation.

But also the pressures of

the wage and price control, the artificial restrictions on the market, the oil embargo, the fear of war, the fear of losing the the flow of oil all disappeared.

So whatever drove it in the beginning

and drove it in the middle. In the end, all those factors changed. When we got to 1975, probably aided and abetted, or maybe driven by the fact that we simply have saturated.

We just saw only bikes per thousand that people were going to buy anymore. It took a while. And if you look at the market, from 75 forward, it is a slow build.

You know, it’s an increase, but there’s nothing like we experienced in the boom. And as I said, 73 has never been repeated by the American industry and maybe

Something in the in the quarter from April, May, June. Maybe not. Again, you gotta look at it as a whole year.

I tend to think no

2020 will not exceed

the spike in 73 and 20 inch wheels and larger. It’ll be awesome, but it just is just not gonna it’s just not good. It’s no I What I’m saying is it’s not another bike boom.

Carlton Reid 1:05:27
Jay, I definitely want to pick you up on that. But right now we’re gonna go for an ad an advert break. So take it away, David.

David Bernstein 1:05:36
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

You need for your cycling lifestyle at amazing prices and what really sets them apart. Because of course, there’s lots of online retailers out there. But what really sets them apart? Is their unbelievable support. When you call and you’ve got a question about something, you’ll end up talking to one of their gear advisors and these are cyclists. I’ve been there I’ve seen it. These are folks who who ride their bikes to and from work. These are folks who ride at lunch who go out on group rides after work because they just enjoy cycling so much. And and so you know that when you call, you’ll be talking to somebody who has knowledge of the products that you’re calling about. If you’re looking for a new bike, whether it’s a mountain bike, a road bike, a gravel bike, a fat bike, what are you looking for? Go ahead and check them out. 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.

OK, Carlton let’s get back to the show.

Carlton Reid 1:07:02
Thanks David and we’re still here with with with Jay Townley, Jay is absolutely the man to go to to talk about the 1970s bike boom because he was absolutely there. He was one of the architects of the boom he was seen as sitting in the boardrooms with with sales projections going off, left right and centre being exceeded and then of course the bike boom, then collapse as Jay was talking before the break. And then Jay then talked about the today’s buy boom. So that’s where I want to start off Jay. So you were saying there when I rudely cut you off was you don’t think this will be anywhere near and I kind of agree with you there because we have only got well shortly coming up one quarters figures and we need at least in effect four years of the boom to get it near because the bike boom back then was a multi year thing. But where do you Where do you see the boom fitting into the industry now because

Again, it comes to pretty much of a surprise.

Jay Townley 1:08:03
Yeah, it came as a surprise, but I guess it It shouldn’t have

in retrospect, and that’s unfortunately, what a lot of looking at the numbers is, is, is looking back. I’m the,

you know, the demand for bicycles in the unfortunately the era of COVID-19

is totally different than anything we we experienced in the 70s.

And it starts with social distancing.

And the ability of folks to get from point A to point B without getting on a means of transportation that’s got a crowded environment.

So that’s part of this in the cities, whether it’s London or New York, or Minneapolis or Chicago.

You’ve got a situation where folks

are really aware that

social distance seed means you got to maintain six foot distances. And that hasn’t changed in all the discussion. And you can’t do that on a crowded bus or a crowded subway train. So what’s the alternative? And the automobile was not an alternative for a lot of reasons. So the bicycle became an alternative, particularly if walking was was not what could be used on a frequent basis. So that’s a different piece than we’ve had in the past. I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad piece, but it’s a different piece. You also had a quarantines that you know, extended into 11, 12 some of them are still going 14, 15 weeks.

People in stir crazy, particularly again in the dense pop

related areas. So getting out and walking is good. But getting on a bicycle and enjoying the front of a bike, social distancing while you’re getting some exercise, being able to do that with the family certainly became very attractive.

And the other piece that goes with what you and I have seen in our markets of new bikes being just you know, sold out.

I was talking to Brad who’s one of my partners on California yesterday, and he said that the targets and Walmart’s are still

there’s no bikes in the bike sections. I’ve seen the same thing here in the Midwest. Mike frets are other partners seeing the same thing in the Chicago area market, so it’s low to high. Bradley’s working right now at a giant store and a trek store

and enjoying the dickens out of it but he said that you know, mid to low priced and kids

bikes, there’s nothing and and then you get to the other issue of the shortage which we can discuss if you’d like as a separate, separate topic, but

this doesn’t have the makings

of a sustainable bike boom because of the components, the the drivers. And when we get to the end when we get to the light at the end of the tunnel,

the good news is beginning to mount so I think it’s going to be a better market.

If you aren’t aware of it, the US House of Representatives Transportation Committee just passed out its bill

on the five year transportation bill. The Senate did its version of this

some time ago, and the League of American Bicyclists has done an excellent overview of what the bike

World got what the advocates in the bike world got in essentially on the House side

with the leadership now in the two committees involved with Earl Blumenauer, Representative Blumenauer, who has been a great bike advocate now being a committee chair,

the bike world got just about everything that wanted to ask for, including more money. That doesn’t mean it’s gonna get it. But that’s when it got in the bill.

Surprisingly, the Senate version that came out months ago

is a very well funded generous effort to the transportation community, including just about everything the bicycling world was looking for.

How that will end up we don’t know. But what I’m saying is that the members of Congress at least in these very convoluted, disruptive times, both chambers

have looked favourably upon what it’s going to provide if it can for funding for bicycling going forward and also for the features of that funding, how it’s used.

So I take that as great news in a very sad time. So that the the government is maybe arguing about a lot of other stuff, but at least there’s agreement

in our representative side in providing more money, more services, more detail on how you use those services, what you do to improve the the whole of the cycling walking world

Carlton Reid 1:13:39
none of that was to do with COVID of it none of that was this is all

No, just come about, quite separate to that.

Jay Townley 1:13:46
Correct. So, whether it was influenced or not, it could have been, but no, it came about separately. So now you back up to the influences of the COVID 19. End

Society in the market today on top of that, and I think we’ll end up with a more viable and larger market.

A electric bike certainly will play a bigger role in the US, as they have in Europe, they haven’t yet in the US, but they will. Because the word coming back, you know, as to what consumers are saying, You got a lot of a lot of older US consumers that have not ridden bikes before, or we call them late and cyclists they have ridden in years, that are getting back on bikes, and they’re finding the electric bike is a neat way to get back into the active cycling world. and not have to be in the greatest of shape. You can work your way up to it. I mean, there’s all sorts of pluses electric bikes are fun, face it. There’s fun as a regular bike to the people that that are

not used to riding or haven’t ridden in years. So I think you’ve got multiple factors.

in society, in the demographics, and now in the the advocacy and governmental support side, that will all end up with a net gain when we come out of the the current crisis

Carlton Reid 1:15:19
just let’s just step back a bit first, and that I asked you about just your two or three word description of say the previous five to 10 years. So, it was a it was a big shock to the industry. That you know, the industry is one of the few industries that actually prosper during Coronavirus crisis. But it wasn’t surprised it was April when it hit. So as far as I can tell people were not reporting fantastic sales in January February March, April it picked up and then may it went ballistic. We know

That’s when people just start selling out of everything. And as far as we can tell, it’s been a fantastic June as well. But go go before that. So how would you describe the industry in health terms in the previous five years?

Jay Townley 1:16:15
Alright, um, in the previous five years flat

Carlton Reid 1:16:20
2019 I would say depressed.

Jay Townley 1:16:22
But yeah, it’s depressed flat. The period through 2018 going back five years was flat, no growth 2019 was down.

And that’s not that’s not been talked about a lot. But imports are down 25%

in units by 18%. In dollars. The US market was down 19 to 20%.

So what hasn’t been talked about is the devastating effect of punitive tariffs on the American bike industry and

2019

So, what we saw after March 15

going forward, and particularly as you say, April, May, was all of this response to social distancing to getting later in April going in go I’m sure I’ve made getting into June. The reaction to the quarantines or the lockdowns

all came in 70 days,

came out of a market where

in 2019

was a bad year. It was a bad year, brought about by as I said the only factor

that impacted the market in 2019. That could have brought about these severe drops were the punitive tariffs.

I don’t know if you follow the numbers but

Import and this again goes to the simple fact that in round numbers 95 to 96% of all American bicycles in this market are imported

90% of imports came from China

from the PRC

so no matter what the mechanics are of how you deal with that, look at Yeah, there was there were low numbers from Vietnam, negligible numbers from Cambodia, Thailand, and still negligible numbers from the European community.

So, we had up we had a market that was the is dependent on import.

Domestic is 5% or less, including the domestically made e bikes, or assembled, they’re not manufactured here but

assembled. So the market

Prior to the march 18, March 15 event going through the that quarter was down prior to that it was flat

with no growth.

Sad to say. So that’s the facts.

Carlton Reid 1:19:18
Not not completed, agree. I mean, it was a depressed market and it has been for a good number of years. So this has come as a complete shock, a complete bolt out of the blue, but something that is absolutely necessary for the health of the industry because it’s had a number of years. And the perception out there is that the industry has been booming for many, many years. And the reality is very, very different. So now we actually genuinely have an actual

genuine boom.

Jay Townley 1:19:50
Yeah, it’s it’s a different boom than the 70s. But it Yes, I mean, did you look at it for what it is

It’s a genuine boom. Um, one of the factors, most interestingly to me is bicycles that have not been written for years

are being taken into bike shops from they’re being dug out of garages. They’re being taken out of basements, brought down from attics, taken into bike shops and the owners are saying, Please fix these tires make this bike work, I want to write it.

So the American consumer is not just buying new bikes from any source they can give them. But they’ve got bikes and they’re taking them into bike shops and wanting them repaired. If you quickly check with shops that you know, in the United States, I think you’ll find the bulk of them are no longer taking service work because they’re extended out so far that they just have to stop for a while and catch up.

Carlton Reid 1:20:52
Yeah, come back in September.

Jay Townley 1:20:56
Well, I I’m sure I’m sure it’s extended

I don’t know if it’s September or not. But yeah, it is a long time. I mean, again, Brad, who’s one of my partners, says one of the shops he works for is doing just that. They just are refusing

to take any more work and telling people you know, call us or email us. And we’ll let you know when our service queue opens up and we’re able to take more service but right now we can’t take service work. So clearly that the impetus we know absolutely the you know that the 70s by boom was multifactorial, came out of nowhere. This one, we absolutely know what why it’s come about it’s a it’s a virus. It’s an absolutely one factor that has led to this. But because of that, if if family, I’m saying this as an episode, it’s a bad thing. But if the economy comes back, if cars get back on the road, if we survive this crisis, of course, we all want to do that.

Carlton Reid 1:22:00
But that does that not mean that the bike industry goes back to how it was in the depressed state of 2019?

Jay Townley 1:22:10
it answered your question. That’s where I come up with the no I think it’ll be a net gain in that I agree with you 100% that cyclists that are out there now and we get to the end of the light at the end of the tunnel, and that you know, that is to me the the Coronavirus is contained. There is treatment and there’s a cure. So people be can be confident in knowing that they can they can get a vaccine.

And

cars get back on the road, just as they have we’ve seen this occur in China. That’s going to scare some of the cyclists that have gotten out and enjoyed the low vehicular traffic are going to get scared off the road.

They’re going to be scared

for their kids

as car traffic builds up, but and karma, but some of the communities like Seattle that have already

made it clear that Yeah, we get back to a new reset. And we’ve got society back up and operating in the economy operating again. We are we are already dedicating more road space more miles to pedestrian and non vehicular to human powered transportation. This is where this is where the pop ups are coming up so the pop up cycleways are getting put in in many cities around the world not just America but around the world. And so you think that is going to be that’s a that’s a highly positive thing because some of those may stay they may become permanent. That’s Yeah, that’s by right now looking at the the cities that have said they are permanent.

net gain.

There will be cities where they exist today as pop ups the New York as an example. I can’t see them keeping all the miles they’ve opened up. But Mayor de Blasio is going to keep some of it. He may. But if he doesn’t Seattle has lost it Angeles is making

is having discussions about keeping some of it. I think what you’ll see is a net gain across the board. And it’s a net gain in use a net gain in

the embracing of the style, the lifestyle, and the buying habit and the use habit. Now, it’s not going to be what I don’t think it’s going to be what it is today.

It’s going to be some lower number, but that will be a net gain plus the fact that much to my surprise, the Congress of the United States is currently showing support

And I sat through the LAB webinar

that Karen Whittaker, their vice president Governmental Affairs ran yesterday, explaining the House bill that just came out Monday.

That’s going to the floor. Now there’s again, there’s a lot of things that could change. It’s Washington. It’s the Congress. It’s the legislative process, but it’s the most aggressive financially. And from the standpoint of cycling and walking communities, getting what they’ve asked for, it’s the most aggressive legislation she’s ever seen. And Carol’s Karen’s been around a long time. So why

it’s more money. It’s more emphasis. It’s more logical approaches to making this work at the state level. It’s correcting errors. And this with the fact that the Senate did this surprising piece of legislation

Some months ago,

I mean, everybody was astounded that follows this at what the Senate did. And then it’s very quietly SAT.

As they say, no matter what comes out of the political picture, if these two chambers keep moving in the same direction, and we end up with a net improvement in the amounts of federal monies available and how that money is spent, that adds to the net gain theory that we’re going to see a net improvement in the bike market. Now, Carlton, you and I both know that we’ve studied this, you know how flat the market spend in the last five to 10 years. In the US.

The E bike was on the verge of changing pieces of that when the tariffs yet

and they’re not off by the way, the the E bike in the US was on the exceptions list. But now we’re in the midst of all of the the ramifications of this

Supply Chain issues,

which, again, the industry faces going forward. But when that all settles in,

you’ve got the potential here for a net gain, not a boom, but a net gain. and that in turn would contribute to a projection for the future that’s more hopeful and, and from a practical standpoint, more improvement in use of the bicycle, more bicycle riding participation, then we had prior to, you know, the pandemic.

Carlton Reid 1:27:38
So just to put this into perspective, and into into percentage terms, the 1970s bike boom, which is roughly four years, so 45 million bikes were sold over that period in time it basically doubled the market,

year on year.

Were talking to you your prediction for this year.

This bike boom is perhaps I’m going to put words into your mouth here. But we’re going to see a doubling of the market maybe for two to three months, but then it’ll settle down after that. Whereas the 70s by boom, was a year on year doubling, which, which is a hugely different factor.

Jay Townley 1:28:19
Yeah, I think essentially,

with a qualification that you know, what we’ll be, I’ll need to see some more numbers. But based on what’s occurred up to this point, I will accept what you’ve said as a good summary of, you know, what I laid out at this point. So yes, the, the short term for the bike business could be a doubling.

I tend to think it’s going to be a little less than that, but it’s going to be an uptick and improvement, statistically when we get to the end of 2020

In the 2021 going forward is going to have some growth to it so that we can work our way slowly out of this

funk of flatness that the business has been in, historically over the last decade.

Carlton Reid 1:29:18
So in in my book, Bike Boom, when I interviewed you for that you talked about or I was asking you about the cycleway, the bikeway

ethos that was growing in the US at that time. And you said that, in effect, if the US had two years more of the same kind of growth, so 50 million bike sales per year, for another couple of years, then all of that incredibly impressive, you know, hundred thousand mile of bikeways through the whole us. All of that would have then come to fruition. You’d have seen a completely different United States of America. If you’d had another couple of years.

of the bike boom going forward. So can you put that into perspective for today is is there an equivalent that we need to see a certain number of weeks months number of bikeways put in to make sure that we actually consolidate the growth that we lost in the 1970s by a boom when it just you know, halved overnight?

Jay Townley 1:30:23
Yeah, I I think that

we’re we look back at it’s a it’s it’s easy to theorise about what happened in the past. But

going forward, as I say, net gain.

I think that’s more probable at this point than not.

And

there are more factors, including something we have not discussed.

Some very smart folks have made it very clear that while we may have ignorant

Science during the Coronavirus. We can’t afford to do that relative to the sustainability or the climate crisis.

It’s becoming more

the climate crisis is coming back as being talked about in we see it more discussion now, relative to what it will what role it will play relative to the pandemic and the end of the pandemic.

I think that’s a factor that will play into

the net gain.

In bicycle usage, I think that metric to look at Carl in the US going forward is bicycle riding participation.

Um, it’s not bikeways and bike paths or the mileage of same.

Um, I think that again, I could be wrong, but I think what we need to focus on is bicycle riding participation.

Which last according to the National sporting goods Association, who

you can argue about whether their, their, their panels or the the methodology they’re using is absolutely the right one. I like their numbers because they got 30 years of history using the same methodology. So you got good trend lines, good solid trending.

bicycle riding participation, according to the SGA. In 2019 was up marginally. It was up like one and a 1.8%.

It was up the previous year about the same.

So you’ve had writing participation creeping up in a flat period. Then we have this decline in 2019 driven by I think by tariffs going to the tariffs, but the bottom line is market was off. 20 to 25%.

And bicycle riding participation scooched up a little bit.

That game. So that’s the metric that gives me hope that all of the economic and social factors, the the factors that that are being driven by demographics

are going to move forward and create a net gain for the bike business. I would watch that metric because I think it’s also indicative of these people. The good citizens digging bikes out of basements and getting repaired right now. Because bicycle riding participation is agnostic as to where you buy it, or you get it. It’s just that you got it. You’re riding the bike is more it’s more butts on bikes.

And I think that is the number we should be looking at. And it also by the way, includes rideshare.

It doesn’t care if you own it, just rode it. So all

That’s the number and I think we’re going to see all these factors marginally increasing, not just because of the factors coming out of the Coronavirus, ie social distancing concern about writing in cheek to jowl with mass transportation.

But you’ve got a younger generation of Americans in particular, who are absolutely dedicated

to seeing this the climate crisis met and defeated

and they’re becoming a political voice as well in this country.

So, they are folks that will be able to vote with pocketbooks.

I hate to say this, but but they also if you look carefully are a large percentage of who are participating in the protests.

There’s a change there’s a change in the demographics of this country that we’ve been told to pay attention to and

Those demographics are, I believe, going to help with the net gain. And I’m sorry for this long convoluted explanation, but I think they’re going to contribute to this next gain net gain in bicycling and bicycle use human transportation use. And I think the metric we look at is but his bicycle riding participation. And in a bad year in 2019, it was up 1.8%

Which to me says, Yeah, it’s there. Now Coronavirus, all of the issues of this very sad and disruptive series of events. But I think the metric who watch at the end of 20 2020 as we get to 2021 is what’s bicycle riding participation during the year. How does it How does it look relative to the trend, the 30 year trend that you could you could use the nsca data for so.

Carlton Reid 1:35:59
We’ve been around a long time, Jay, you, you definitely longer than me. But we both probably weren’t I we definitely weren’t expecting this to happen. So we were both incredibly astounded and and gratified that it has. So to round out today’s conversation ID and to fill people in really on where you’ve got all this fascinating information from because we heard about your your shooting background and your bike shop background. But tell us to end the display show about what the company that you run today are you have been running for a number of years. So you’re I described it in in my book as a data freak. So you’re providing statistics to the industry. So tell us about that and where people can find out the information. So give us your website address.

Jay Townley 1:36:50
Okay, well, today, I am a partner in Human Powered Solutions.

and my official

working title is Resident Futurist.

But my, my, I like that, yeah, my responsibility is data and stats.

And to use that employ that to the extent I can to really have the conversation we just had to to look at what does the future look like?

Unknown Speaker 1:37:20
Our website is www.humanpoweredsolutions.com.

Jay Townley 1:37:28
And we are at this point in the midst of working on and promoting a consumer survey, a primary consumer survey, a syndicated survey product

where we’re working with the industry to get subscribers to a multi wave survey that will go out at minimum three times in the next 12 months to survey a big enough bloc of consumers

That we’ve got a 2% accuracy, or reliability in the survey work. And what we’re trying to define are really asking consumers,

you know, have they bought a bike? How do they use it? Where do they get it? Is it used, you know all the questions of how they acquired it? And then what’s their intention going forward? And then react that in about six months?

And then react them in 12 months?

Carlton Reid 1:38:29
And you answer that that’d be fascinating at any anytime. But now it’s going to be doubly doubly fascinating because we’ve got this huge influx of new people in and it’ll be fascinating to see how many of the people that you you managed to grab who are brand new, and how many will still got in six months time that’ll be incredibly useful to know.

Jay Townley 1:38:52
Exactly. And that’s the reason we’re doing it is. These are unprecedented times.

As long as I’ve lived in ever seen anything

thing like this.

As long as you’ve lived, you’ve never seen anything like this. The bike industry, the bike world has seen nothing like this. And we as folks that like stats and data, we’re used to looking at the past. And what we’d like to do is talk to consumers about not just the immediate past, but intention for the future.

But measure that and compare it over six month timeframes through the first half of 2021. And for exactly the reasons, Carlton, that, you know, you perceive that this is this is the only way we’re going to get a real handle on a lot of the dynamics that are occurring, including the difference between, you know, the economy, in the economy and the economic influence of factors, the environmental factors, the age factors of the demographic drives in the United States, and how

planners in our business can really begin to think about what the consumer is intending to do and react to consumer intention.

Carlton Reid 1:40:11
today that has been absolutely fascinating. Thank you. This is gonna be a longer than normal normal show, but then again, we’ve discussed the 1970s we’ve discussed Coronavirus coming up to date now and and I just love that quote before were you saying you’ve never seen anything in your lifetime, like this? And that’s that’s saying something because you were right there at the epicentre of the 1970s bike. Boom. So, Jay, thank you ever so much for being on today’s show.

Jay Townley 1:40:37
You’re more than welcome.

Carlton Reid 1:40:39
Thanks to Jay Townley there and this has been another longer lockdown special of the spokesmen cycling podcast brought to you in association with Jenson USA. As always show notes and more can be found at www.the-spokesmen.com. Thank you for listening to today’s

Show. The episode I promised with Chris Boardman, Superintenddnt Andy Cox and Professor Rachel Aldred — minus Chris Boardman — will be along just as soon as I figure out a way to engineer it.

Meanwhile, get out there and ride.

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.

Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 244: Cycling Is Left Wing—You’ll Never See Donald Trump On a Bicycle

Monday 11th May 2020

SPONSOR: Jenson USA

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUEST:
Jack Thurston, author of “Lost Lanes” series of cycle touring books and owner of The Bike Show podcast.

TOPIC: All about Jack, including his background and his views on whether cycling is a left wing thing.

LINKS:

1970s bike boom article on Forbes.com

“Wild Swimming” and other books from Wild Things Publishing.

Framebuilder Richard Hallett.

(Cycling is left wing? Read right-winger P.J. O’Rourke’s famous polemic on the subject.

MACHINE TRANSCRIPT (there will be typos):

Carlton Reid 0:13
Welcome to Episode 243 [WRONG! it’s 244] of the Spokesmen cycling podcast. This episode was engineered on Monday 11th of May 2020. 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.

David Bernstein: Hey everybody, it’s David from the Fred cast cycling podcast at www.Fred cast.com. I’m one of the hosts and producers of the Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast. For show notes, links and all sorts of other information please visit our website at www.the-spokesmen.com. And now, here are the spokesmen.

Hi there. I’m Carlton Reid and this is another long show. Now, I’m okay with the lockdown extended episodes and I hope you are too. Today’s show is a chat with podcaster Jack Thurston, author of the Lost lanes series of books. Now until doing the background research for this show, I hadn’t realised Jack has a political background and you can hear us discussing/arguing/discussing/discussing whether cycling is a left wing thing or not.

So I have got Jack Thurston and with me today, so this is like an inside baseball kind of show so we’re both podcasters jack is hi jack. How long have you been doing the bike show?

Jack Thurston 1:59
Well, the bike show started in 2004, as a radio show on resonance FM in London, and then it lit, I got an email from a listener in 2005 saying, Can you make your radio programme into a podcast? And I kind of look, I didn’t know what podcast was. And so I looked at looked it up, and it looked incredibly geeky, and I thought, Oh, well, this is this this sound but this sounds good. This means that people can listen, you know, even if they live more than five kilometres from our radio antenna, which is where, you know where we were in London. I thought this is great. And I instead of speaking to a tiny corner of southeast London, I could speak to the world. So yeah, 2005 I think was was May 2005, which is kind of around about the birth of podcasting.

Carlton Reid 2:49
So it was a radio show in London. The Resonance FM is what

Jack Thurston 2:59
ResonanceFM is officially a community FM station, which is is this kind of, sort of so amateur stations have access to this quite low powered FM signal that they can use. But resonance is kind of I think it’s a cut above your typical community radio station. It describes itself as an art radio station or a radio art station. And it’s it’s got a lot of things that you wouldn’t hear anywhere else. And strange stuff like 12 hours, rock climbing up some rocky face in the mountains that just recorded everything and just played it out as the guy climbed up the mountain, or unusual music, interesting cultural discussions, sound art, all kinds of stuff. It’s really good. It’s really good. And I think they thought that there was an interesting interconnection between cycling and bicycles and creativity and ingenuity and The arts and I kind of made a pitch and and there it was. Yeah. So I had a half an hour a week on that. But when I moved down to Wales in 2013, it was very difficult to just keep supplying them because I didn’t have access to the studio. So the podcasts dwindled, somewhat as my listeners will be very much aware. I imagine there are quite a few people listening to your podcast who also listen to mine. So but for those that don’t, it’s not it’s become a little less regular. Over the years since since leaving London really just because you haven’t got a radio station cracking the whip saying, you know, 630 Yeah, there you are in the studio, you got to do something. It’s like, oh, should I do a podcast this week? Oh, no, I’ve got a, you know, weed the garden or mine, the kids or writer, travel guidebook or whatever other things that you have to do in life, other than podcasts.

Carlton Reid 4:55
I did go to your studio, because I was on your show a number of years ago. I think it was Jonathan Stevenson was on the show and we were talking about was it has been a bike boom has not been a bike, you know now that’s a very pertinent question because yes there is even though at the time I was saying actually No there isn’t john and this is the argument of my book, but now we do have a bike boom so all of that cultural significance, art the all of these things that were coming into twined in your show then and now coming in just a blooming now jack is there

Jack Thurston 5:30
is there data on that, Carlton? I’m presume you’re talking about Coronavirus, locked down bike boom. So very quite recent, really because we’re only what are we six eight weeks into Coronavirus era. And is there data on this kind of stuff because the data you and I tend to look at is sort of travel surveys, annual cap traffic counts and things like that. But well, what are your indicators that there is a bike boom

Carlton Reid 5:57
there are traffic jams. counters that are picking up, a rise like 200% rise in various boroughs of London also there’s those kind of stuff but where I’m getting most of my and it’s anecdotal. But where I’m getting most of my stuff from is trade only websites that bike shops plug into. And they are saying almost identical things that bike shops in the 1970s American bike boom were saying which was we can’t get bikes for love no money. People are travelling from all over the country because we’ve got a bike and virtually all the bike shops that are open, have have had the last two weeks I’ve been their best ever trading in in, you know, 30, 40 years of being in business is what I’m hearing. Not all bike shops are Oh, that’s fascinating.

Yeah, and it’s exactly the same in the US. You know us are exactly the same. So when I did a story on Forbes of the day about the 1970s bike boom, that’s gaining traction in the US like you wouldn’t believe. Because people didn’t realise a lot of people didn’t realise like millennials didn’t realise that we’ve been here before. There was, in fact, a much, much bigger boom, than the mountain bike boom, for instance, was happening in the 1970s. And when you go and look at the 1970s anecdotes from bike shops, talking about how they can’t get stock, it’s exactly the same now, but that bike boom took four years. This one’s taken two weeks, it really has ripped through the bike industry.

Jack Thurston 7:38
So my question for you is what because what I found very interesting from your description of the American bike boom in the 1970s, in your book, is that it was basically a leisure oriented bike boom. It wasn’t anything to do with the oil crisis. It came before the old price it was it was to do with manufacturing. Have 10 speed, you know, racing bikes and a kind of certain amount of fashion and baby boomers and that kind of kind of conjunction of phenomena, but and with everyone working from home or shut out shut out of their workplaces apart from, you know, a handful of key workers, or not a handful, but you know, a relatively small part of the population. Is this current bike boom.

leisure based as well.

Carlton Reid 8:27
Cos it’s literally two weeks, we don’t know. But

Jack Thurston 8:30
yeah, I mean it people are buying bikes because they’re cooped up in their houses. The government has said you can go for a walk around or a cycle. There’s no traffic on the roads. I mean, I’ve certainly noticed it in Africa or anywhere I live which the small town in the UK in Wales, in not far from the English border, which you know, has got a good sort of road club and cycling community but nobody really rides bikes here. You know, you wave and say hi to people, if you see someone else on a bike, here. Which is a remarkable coming from London in 2013. But I definitely have noticed more families out people, you know, couples out not wearing helmets, you know, your typical sort of people who are just like oh, Cycling is a nice way just to poke around the hedgerows and get a bit of exercise and I can do it safely. Because there’s no traffic.

Carlton Reid 9:19
Exactly. That’s that’s absolutely what’s happening around the country certainly in urban areas that mean I I live in a, like a country lane, but in a big city. And it’s just it’s just family after family after family coming past, some of them clearly kidneys, and you know that the whole family’s probably been bursting to get out. But then there are lots of families who like I bet this is the first time they’ve been out as a family on a bike on a public road. Pretty much ever. Yeah. And you’re right so it’s an awful lot of it is is recreational, some of that will rub off to transport Cycling eventually. But anyway, I’m asking the questions, jack. This is very naughty of you. Yeah, I was wondering, I was wondering how long it would take before you start asking me questions. But let’s go back. Let’s get back to the bike boom later. Let’s go into Abergavenny and let’s go into 2013 that life change. So why did you move in 2013? Who did you move with? And why Abergavenny?

Jack Thurston 10:29
Well, I will. The answer to that is is basically my wife.

She is original her family’s originally from here. She her business is gardens, plants, gardening, she’s garden designer and landscape designer. And we were living in a small flat in central London with no garden, and she had an opportunity to look after the garden that had belonged to her grandmother. Which is really nice. And we were expecting a baby. And we just thought, Well I just thought I’m totally up for this she wants to move because the garden and you know being in a more so natural setting, and all her family connections down here and I thought you know what? time just is passing too quickly. In London. I’ve been lived in London for Well, all my life really I had a couple of years away in California when I did my master’s degree and then I was away for undergraduate. Basically, I was a Londoner, and years, we’re just going past I don’t know, as you get older, you feel like the years just just whizzed by, and you don’t remember exactly what there’s difference between what was happening in 2000 to 2007 2009. They just kind of repeated themselves almost. And so I was ready for change. And I just thought, Yeah, let’s do it. And it was really it was really exciting. And I mean, it’s great for cycling down here. The town sort of promotes itself as the Welsh capital of cycling, which is Maybe a little bit optimistic. But you know we have got there is good cycling in every direction and there’s a decent cycling community as it were very much on the sports side, good youth club for kids learning, cyclocross, mountain biking and stuff like that. So yeah, it’s been I haven’t looked back really. I mean, I still love London when I go but I haven’t been when I went last went up to London, just before the lockdown and been for two years before that, so you know, it’s there in my mind. But to be honest, I’ve I’ve doing what I do with writing cycling travel books. I it’s been other parts of the country that I’ve been going to since since we began so

Carlton Reid 12:41
jack, this is why I’ve got you on the show. We are going to talk about that. Of course we’re going to talk about it at great length. I want to talk about the history of cycle touring and and where you fit into that with your cloth badges for you know, cutting duck panniers or wherever people are putting their their cloth badges. And I do want to get into that. But I’m interested in 2013. Because 2013 is obviously a key year because you moved, but it’s also when you first started doing lost lanes. So was that move and lost lanes? are they connected?

Jack Thurston 13:20
Well, it takes a little bit of time to write a book, as I think you’re more than a way and Colton. They don’t just pop out the publication date is sometimes misleading as to the genesis of a book. And now I mean, I like to say that, and that is the way I feel about it is that there’s the writing loss lanes in 2012, which is when I did the bulk of the research, and the actual photography and the writing was a kind of farewell tour of all my favourite cycling haunts, within, you know, half an hour. You know, train ride from London, basically. The places that I’ve been cycling for the last 20 years, either riding down to Kent, and hopping on the train bit further afield or riding out to Essex. So a few London rides as well in the book, and it was basically my chance to do all these rides with some friends if I could rope them in and produce a book about it. I mean, the, the the actual, the actual story that should give you the true story is that my friend Daniel Starr, who I have known since I was 1213, we were at school together and we started a cycling club at school in the sick form, because we didn’t want to do like the boring games where you have to run around you know, muddy pitches and get kind of ritually humiliated by horrible PE teachers and kind of sporty children. We started this cycling club which is basically a cycle touring club, you know, we went get the train out to Hartford cheer with a pack lunch. For a few hours and then come back cycle maybe you’re dead like 25 miles, or something like that. So he, he had written a very successful book about swimming in in nature called Wild swimming which is all about swimming in lakes and waterfalls and in the state of them

Carlton Reid 15:18
because there’s a coast one as well. Isn’t that I bought both of them out. Yeah, the time so yeah,

Jack Thurston 15:22
that great book. There’s a coast one. So we were cycling down the Northumberland coast towards where you live, actually, we’ve got the train up to barrack upon tweed. And we were heading down to Newcastle on a basically a research trip for him. Looking at wild swimming spots along the Northumberland coast for that very book you’ve got and it was me, him another guy, Karen and his dog in the trailer, in and out of a trailer, kind of just wild camping on the way and trying to take nice pictures of swimming spots and find interesting places to swim. And we were just chatting to you know, as you do In the evening about things and he was wanting to sort of set out on his own in the publishing enterprise and not be published by somebody else. But he was desperate to have a Haney in order to so it’s a little bit tedious. But basically, in order to set up as a publisher and not be like a vanity press, kind of self publishing type of thing, you need to have like a list of books that aren’t just your own. So he said that just Can you do a cycling book? And I’ve never written a book before. And he said, Well, you don’t actually maybe you don’t even need to write it. But as long as we can just put it in the catalogue, then I can take the catalogue around the distributors, and then I’ll look like a legitimate publishing house and they will therefore stock my wild swimming books. And you know, they will take all my words to me. And so that’s where kind of Lost Lanes came from really was dreaming up an idea for for a book and we went through loads of different kind of ideas of what might work I just, I mean, ultimately lost lanes is, is very much a kind of my interpretation of well, not my interpretation, my reinterpretation of a book that’s been around for ages, you know, but I think I’ve got a book from 1899 accord, short spins around London during the boom of the 1890s it’s just someone sharing their favourite rides of roots, giving a little bit of description and colour and a few tips on on places to go and stop off along the way and get some food and drink and, and that kind of thing. And, you know, obviously taking advantage of you know, what you can do with a book now and how you can make a book with lots of beautiful colour photographs that you couldn’t do in the 1890s.

Carlton Reid 17:46
Well, they had lots of line illustrations. Then they had an evocative Patterson type, you know, that’s the 1930s of course, but

Jack Thurston 17:57
yeah, pre passes, but

Carlton Reid 17:58
there were there weren’t before that It was tougher. So that’s that’s very much you’re you’re in the historic eight guys there because cycle touring books back then and today, they’ve got to evoke stuff, they’ve got to look pretty, they can’t just be you know, fantastic text. And I’ve got to say the photography in your book that you’ve you’ve taken a wonderful so that’s that’s probably for me impressed more than 50% of the book and your words are good I love your introduction in the in the latest one which we’ll talk about in a minute, but it’s the photographer you can just flick through that and then I’m going for a ride them. And then I don’t know how many people actually read every single word but it’s the photographs that get you out there. Would you agree that it’s the photographs are probably more important than the words?

Jack Thurston 18:49
Yeah, and that was advice that Daniel my publisher gave me on the basis of his wild swimming books that that you know his wild Subarus are full of beautiful pictures of people jumping in to waterfalls and driving off bridges and that kind of thing. And it really does make you want to be there. That’s what that’s what my criterion is for, whether I include a photograph in the book or whether I present it in a, you know, big in the book, because I do all the photo layout as well. And it’s about making people think I really want to be there. And that’s, you know, that’s, I do sometimes look at landscape photographers who, who, who, you know, have a lot of kids have a lot of time plan their shoots really carefully and they produce incredible, beautiful, amazing results. And I feel a bit insecure when I compare my stuff to their stuff but but my stuff is sort of slightly doing a different job. It’s because this these are actually photographs that I take while I’m out wrecking the rides. And so they are there at the moment I don’t have I can’t wait for the light to be a certain way at a certain place. I just have to take the photograph and just be lucky. I suppose. But it’s about Yeah, it’s about, yeah, the photography and digital photography. I mean, it’s made it possible for me as a relatively amateur photographer, I would not have been able to afford to have all the film and processing that you would have had to done if you wanted to take a trip like this in the 90s. And where and when I look back at the books that I used to use it, this sort of this kind of vein, I think of the cotton books, so you probably know Nick cotton, I don’t I

Carlton Reid 20:31
published one of his books, the our family cycling guide,

Jack Thurston 20:35
we got all sorts. Yeah.

I mean, his books are great, the rides are great. There was a useful information in them very practical, but they didn’t really make you want to go and do them. If they if you knew what they were and you think okay, well, I can use this book as a tool. So I used to try and get my friends to come cycling with me my house. Nate’s been living in the house sharing in Waterloo, and I was much more keen on cycling than than any, some of them were. And so I just I realised that you could just tell people, oh, we’re gonna go out to Kent and ride 40 miles. Like that was not appealing to people, or, or people’s partners, you know, their friends bring along their partners or new new people who hadn’t done much cycling, kind of, we’re just gonna go to Kenton cycle 40 miles, if you say, we’re gonna go out to Kent, it’s just the right time for the blossom in the in all the fruit fields. We’re going to visit six different kinds of windmill. And then we’re going to stop at this pub where they do a really good, like, certain kind of pie and we’re going to sit in the garden and have beer which is brewed just down the road. And then we’re going to the end we’re going to swing by this place where we can all have a jump in the river. If it’s warm. You know, that is a whole different proposition. Then you’re actually basically saying, Do you want to come and have a day in the countryside, and it happens to be by bike. Rather than, like we’re going to go out and cycle 40 miles. So the books, the books in a way of trying to kind of do that with the text, because I try and give the the rides a theme or a story or some kind of connection that the people can make with it. But then also with the photographs, you know, I’m able to do that. I’m able to show show what it what it will feel like what it might feel like but then again, it might not feel like that because I was there in April. And you might be writing in October every bike ride is different and in a way, I hope people don’t feel disappointed if they don’t see what is in the books but then I hope they will also be thrilled if they see something that’s different from what’s in the books but equally amazing and I I feel confident that that is exactly what will happen because Cycling is just such a wonderful way to see a place. So check I’ve got

Carlton Reid 22:51
I’ve got two books in front of me. So I’ve got your new one, the last lanes North which clearly I know an awful lot of the roads you were you were doing them And it’s it can be a bleak landscape. And then also your your photographs there have captured that really well. You know, the kind of the, the, the loneliness of the countryside, where you don’t maybe get those pies in a pub, because you’re probably about two hours from a pub that’s going to have anything when you’re in Northumberland, but then I’ve got your first book or the 2013 book, which was in 36, glorious bike rides in southern England. And then I flick through and then you see a woman in a flowery dress, riding a bike. So this is not like hardcore, there are photographs of you where you look a bit more hardcore. You look bit more touring cyclicity but then you’ve got photographs of people who are clearly not and you’re really out with them at the same time. So you’re deliberately trying to, which is what I used to deliberately do with on your bike magazine, which was not take people photograph People in lycra basically try and spread it around.

Jack Thurston 24:06
Yeah, I mean, I’m not pathologically against lycra I if I go out for a sort of energetic blast around my local area, I will sometimes wear a pair of lycra shorts and if it’s hot and it kind of has a cooling effect on the body, and it’s comfortable, but if you’re, if you’re if I’m out for a whole day, and I’m stopping for lunch, and maybe having a cream tea or something like that, actually, I feel a bit. I don’t really like to wear that kind of tight fitting clothing all day. I just like to wear normal clothes or sort of normal hiking, walking clothes that people would wear. I just feel that that’s, that’s practical, and people should wear what they what they feel comfortable in. Ultimately, that that picture I think the one you’re thinking of, is is my wife Sarah, and she just was wearing that dress. I think because it was a hot day. And yeah, I, I think I think it can be off putting. I mean, we you know, you know this more than I do, you were doing this long before I even started doing anything to do with cycling in the media. It presenting cycling as an activity for which you have to get topped up in a particular way via which you have to get topped up in a particular not that you can get topped up in a particular way. But the the activity the bicycle requires you to dawn, a certain kind of uniform. And I think that’s obviously going to be off putting, that’s obviously going to be off putting in particularly when it’s not true. You know, obviously, if you’re going to go rock climbing, then yes, there are probably some practical, got things that you need, or maybe they’re not, maybe that’s a bad example, I guess if you’re going to go scuba diving, you probably do want to wear a wetsuit, if you’re going to go to a cold place go scuba diving, it’s probably a good idea to have a wetsuit, but I don’t think that lycra is the sort of cycling equivalent of a way suit for scuba diving you don’t have to wear it you can wear it if you like it, but we people who are comfortable wearing it should not underestimate the degree to which it alienates cycling as an activity from the sort of mental sense of possibility in the average person in the population.

Carlton Reid 26:24
So in the from the press release that I’ve got here, which is about lost lanes North it’s all about how how successful you’ve been so well done. You’ve actually made and it’s not easy to make a book sale. I mean, bestsellers can be you know, 5000 copies sometimes so to make a bicycle book, sell well, is good going. So have you done that? Have you have you? Have you plugged into something?

Jack Thurston 26:55
I think the firt I mean, the first, the first one, the last day in southern England. Sold really well, I think somewhere around 30,000 copies, I don’t know what they say the press release something like that. And the subsequent ones, Wales and West have sold a fraction fractions of that. So, you know, more like 10,000 or 6000 stuff that kind of that kind of range. So it’s a big difference. I think the first one did well, partly because there are a lot of people cycling in London, even back in 2013. It went in the non bike boom, or whatever it was, there simply are a lot of people who cycled to work. And I think I was tapping into the idea that Hey, you got this bike that you started to work every day or some days. How about using it to go and have a nice day in the countryside, and also the fact that every ride was pretty much accessible from Central London on a train journey. Whereas you know, if you live were you doing in Newcastle and you want to do a ride in Lancashire. You know that That’s a long way away. It’s a it’s not inevitably with the rail network and transport links being the way they are a book based around the kind of hub of London as a as a public transport hub with this incredible network of or not a network just spokes that go out into the greenbelt of London is appealing because it means that if you live in London, you can basically do all the rides and there are 8 million people who live in London quite a lot of them ride bikes. And it also got picked up I think by a few gift shops. They have these gift shops at railway stations Oliver bonus. And I think the gifting market for cycling stuff, you can is good because it’s a bit like gardening or golf or recipe book. I don’t know what else.

Carlton Reid 28:47
It’s kind of a recipe for where maybe, maybe?

Jack Thurston 28:50
Yeah, it’s that thing of like, oh, what do I get that person? Oh, they’re really into in, you know, insert the word could be cycling, could be gardening, could be golf. So you could pick up some sort of silly knickknacks, like a tea towel with a bicycle logo on it or a notebook with a bicycle logo on it and, or mug. And yeah, we’ve all received these gifts, I’m sure you have Christmases and birthdays and things like that. And you’re like, your heart kind of sinks in you just because it’s got a bicycle logo does doesn’t mean I’m gonna just love this, this note pad or these paper clips or whatever they are. But I think but i think you know, a nice chunky book with attractive cover. And I mean, I should pay tribute to the guy who did the illustration Andrew profit he’s done. He’s really evoked sort of the classic iconography of cycle touring in the golden age of the 30s 40s 50s and travel, you know, travel brochures of that era, but I think is taking it forward into his own style. And I think people just immediately pick up the book because it’s got a kind of zingy cover, and then open it up and go, Oh, there’s lots of nice pictures. I would like to be there. And, and this will be great for my friend who’s really into cycling or by relative or my son or my So the gifting market as publishers call it has been good to us with with with lost lanes, but I have to say the first one is the one that has kept me doing them in terms of Finance. So thank you to everyone who’s bought lost lanes, Southern England and to everyone who hasn’t bought a west or a Wales for North.

Come on, come on. So let’s talk about

if that’s not too much of a holiday,

Carlton Reid 30:25
well, I’m gonna I’m gonna I’m definitely we’re gonna segue we’re gonna we’re gonna slip it in and out of different themes out cuz you mentioned income. I would like now to go into to your income and talk about you as what you do as a day job. So when I do my research here, you know, find out what jack Burson does is like, hang on, co founder of farm subsidy. I didn’t know anything about this special advisor to the Newcastle MP Nick Brown, who I’ve had a few run ins with before and I didn’t know any of this transatlantic Fellow of the German Marshall fund of the United States. Wow. I didn’t know any of this. So jack, tell us about jack.

Jack Thurston 31:09
Well,

the mask is lifted. No, I mean, I, I think I think the 2013 was a sort of pivotal year because that was the kind of year when I I stopped doing a lot of that work on actually quite happily, I felt a little bit burnt out by what I had been doing for the previous 10 years and what I had been doing for the previous 10 or 15 years is working in, in politics, Public Policy Research. That kind of area I started working as a researcher for for Nick brown just after immediately after leaving University as like, I mean researcher is glorified way of putting it I was, I was you know, I did photocopying, I made cups of tea, open the post, you know, bank area, that kind of thing. And in a small Office of an MP. And the nice thing about working in the small office of an MP is that they do get to see you. And if you can do something, you know more than just opening the post and making the tea, then then you know, that will get noticed. And you can then you know, accrue more work because they’ve ultimately, none of them have got enough especially in in opposition when it’s just them. And they’re there. They’re small, two or three members of staff, you there’s more work to be done than they have got staff to do it. So there’s always opportunities if you want to, if you want to kind of get you know, get on as it were. It’s just getting that foot in the door really. And weirdly, actually, what I asked him after was Why did you give me that job? Like, why did you you get you know, get MPs get letters every week or more than that, you know, saying from young, pushy politics graduates saying Can I have a job in your office sort of thing. And it was weird that he looked he looked, he looked through it. And there were two things that’s stuck out on my CV. It has nothing to do with my, you know, academic qualifications or anything like that. One of them was that I’d done some work at university on HIV and AIDS like awareness, which I think he thought was, was good. And and also I cycled across Romania with in with a friend exactly my friend Daniel who published my books with we saved up money from working and got a little travel bursary from our universities and flew across to Romania and spent six weeks cycling around I think he thought that was a bit different from what he normally got. So to all if there’s any I don’t know if there’s any young people listen to this podcast there’s that there’s no young people listen to my podcast, Carlton, but you know, it the things that you did

the things that you do outside, you know, your cycling, you know,

it shows you got an independent spirit and, and a sense of can do so anyway. started working for Nick and just carried on with him for for a while, and then ended up as a special advisor, the Ministry of Agriculture when he was the agriculture minister. So I still write helping writing speeches and research and carrying and all the rest of it. And during that time, I kind of got to see how screwed up. agricultural policy was pretty much everywhere around the world, but particularly bad. It felt like in Europe, paying money, loads of money to the wrong kind of people for doing the wrong kind of things with their land. And I thought, having stopped doing that work. And having left Nick and kind of was on my own thinking that if people knew where this money went, if people just knew how much money was going to the queen, the Duke of Westminster, Eton College, all these big companies, they would surely say there’s got to be a better way. So I then saw I started working on a kind of freedom of information campaign in Britain working bit with a Guardian newspaper, and some journalists there who specialised in that, too, because because I knew because I’d worked on the inside, and I knew where all the information was in the government department, we could kind of target those requests quite specifically, and make it hard for them to refuse. And, and eventually, we won, or I won, and with the Information Commissioner ruled in my favour, and we’ve got all this data on who gets what the level of the individual farmer so you know, you could say you could say, you can look up the queen, you could look up all these rich people and see how much tax money they were getting. And then and then I took for the next few years taking that model around Europe and getting other activists and journalists doing the same thing in different European countries. And then we ran a website, massive data site like big data, big data before big data was a thing where you could actually search all this stuff and And you could search by your postcode and find out who the big recipients of farm subsidies were in your area. And I hoped that it would, you know, drive a sort of reform of the of the whole system, and we’d end up with a much better system. But you know, that that didn’t really work out for lots of different reasons. And I felt so I felt a bit, you know, you work at something for 10 years. And, and you kind of feel like you’re in a worse position than you were when you started. And you just kind of, it’s difficult not to feel a little bit disillusioned, like you could just carry on for another 10 years and another 10 years, and then you’d be like, 70, and you’d be the guy who campaigned for reform of the Common Agricultural Policy and didn’t achieve it. And that would be that with your life, and I just thought, that’s not really what I want. I’ve tried hard with this, and it’s time to pass the baton on to other people. So that sounds a bit a bit underwhelming description of my career journey, isn’t it? But then I remember also someone said to me once when I was you A student or something that you should have like a different career every 10 years, and you should just kind of change. So I guess that’s what I’ve what I’ve been doing.

Carlton Reid 37:08
So what are you now? Are you an author? When somebody says, What do you do for a living? And you don’t know them, Madam, what do you say?

Jack Thurston 37:18
I hate that question. I really hate that question.

Because it presupposes that sort of what you do is who you are. And it also pretty supposes that the work that you do for money is the work that defines who you are. And I don’t feel like that. I mean, partly because I earned very much money. So I mean, I’ve worked part time, because I’ve got two young kids who are four and six, and my wife is much more successful in what she does, than I am in what I do. So you know, she has a kind of sense of preeminent role in a way in terms of time allocation, and neither of us make a huge amount of money of what we do. But we live in a rural area you know we have quite low outgoings I grow a lot of vegetables. So sort of get by and yeah, I’d say I write I write cycling books I also write for for magazines and newspapers and that kind of thing about cycling and try and keep a podcast on its feet. But that doesn’t bring in anyone that actually cost money to do so. I don’t know yet stay home dad slash guide book author, slash journalist. Is that all travel writer? I don’t know is that right? That’s all I’m asking

Carlton Reid 38:32
you if that but then again, I didn’t know anything about your background. So that’s good for me to white. Why didn’t I know these things about you? I just know you as jack bike show. And you ask the questions. Now because I’m asking you the questions. We’re gonna find out a bit more about I was jack who is doing farm subsidies. So that’s kind of lefty when you’re working with Nick brown and Because it’s kind of lefty ish. So I know you’ve done a show on this. But just your opinions that is cycling. Left wing, is it right wing? Because I know you had differing opinions from different political spectrums there because you had Guido Fawkes on who was saying, No, no, actually, it’s libertarian, you know, freedom to go anywhere and stuff. So where do you see cycling in the political sphere?

Jack Thurston 39:29
I tend to think it’s naturally on the left, because it’s democratic, because it’s accessible because it’s sort of non non violent non dominating of others.

And it’s quite a levelling type of thing.

I can see the arguments for freedom and and for liberty. But I also think that those arguments lead you quite quickly towards auto domination, and a kind of A world in which you just have cars, or you’re poor and you ride the bus or walk. And and I don’t, I think that’s much more of a right wing kind of view. But the you know, the left, right split, I mean, where is the left right split in the in society today? It does feel like it’s fracturing in all kinds of different

Carlton Reid 40:21
around Brexit split, rather than

Jack Thurston 40:24
Well, I mean, it’s not just not just even talking about Brexit in Britain. I mean,

you know, I, yeah, I think I think traditionally it has been off the left. And if you look at someone like Kuklos, Fitzwater Wray, who’s a hero of mine from the golden age of cycling. He was a pacifist, a socialist, the Clarion cycling club, you know, he was involved with them. I think it has got, I don’t think the Primrose league with the Primrose league on bikes because they’re the sort of right wing counterpoint to the Clarion Clarion cycling club aren’t they? No, I think I think I think you can put different interpretations on it. And I think I think self reliance, independence, liberty, those are all things which appeal to a certain strand of, of thinking on the right. But I think overall the bicycle, you know, I mean, I’d like to think that a bicycle has appeal for everybody. I think I think there’s I was listening to a podcast of the day about liberty and the idea of positive liberty and negative liberty and, you know, your liberty to do something versus whether someone is stopping you from doing something. And I do feel I mean, that you and I agree on this. I think carton, you know, the cars. The cars is just the root of the problem. I mean, bicycles are sort of it’s they’re almost like a side issue. It’s crazy for me to say that as someone who basically works, it’s like he loves cycling, but they are a side issue in the whole thing about car dominated societies. Is that going too far?

Carlton Reid 42:11
No, but they are coming to a bit more prominence. Now we know with with.

Jack Thurston 42:15
I’m not saying I’m not saying they’re not prominent, what I meant, what I meant to say is that, that, you know, you tackle the reason why I’m so passionate and about Cycling is it’s because it’s a way of travelling, that that doesn’t impose so much horror on other people. You’re part of that

Carlton Reid 42:32
you’re also talking about a pleasure to talk about your kind of cycling but you can just as easily get a dentist earning turn and 250,000 pounds a year who’s got a fleet of Porsches, who goes out on his road bike can also be be cycling and absolutely would not be on the left. You can get people like sir Alan sugar who are out there and saying some pretty awful things at the moment on social media. They’re out there cycling and then you Get people who are travelling to trail centres, you know, in their big SUVs, getting their mountain bikes off the side, probably to 3000 pound mountain bikes, probably more, and then going away again. So they’re not of that ilk. So are you not just self describing yourself here, when you when you’re when you’re talking about cycling? This is this is where you see it. But it’s actually there’s many, many prisms, you can you can see cycling through many kinds of cyclists out there, but it’s probably one of its actual strengths.

Jack Thurston 43:30
That’s true. No, and I do agree with you. And I’m going to rollback from my position. I think, you know, yeah, anyone can enjoy the thrill of turning a pedal and the pleasure of the wind in your hair and the exhilaration you get from being on a bicycle that is a setting that appeals beyond anything to do with politics. But I do think that once you start thinking about why cycling is so marginal, In certain societies, and so prominent in other societies, there is a political dimension to that, which is based around. Well, it’s obvious to me that it comes down to infrastructure, doesn’t it as we both agree. And culture perhaps, and those are all expressions or causation factors in politics. And I think the sort of social democratic politics of, of Denmark of the Netherlands of scan, you know, Germany, those are the places where there is good cycling infrastructure where Cycling is is much more widespread than it is in our sort of Anglo Saxon countries. You know, that there there is there is a link there to do with politics. I don’t know. I mean, you’re the expert on this. I don’t you feel like you’re I feel like I’m being quizzed by someone who knows all the answers. And, and and like, you’re gonna I feel like this would be like a tutorial. Well, when you You’re my You’re my, you’re my professor.

Carlton Reid 45:05
I’ve mentioned the Netherlands there. I’m not Confucius here at all. I’m not gonna. Absolutely I can learn from anybody. So the Netherlands, you ask the same question in the Netherlands, it would be like, what would you mean? It’s a left wing or it’s a right? No, it’s just Cycling is everything. You can have rabid right wingers cycling just as much as left wing. So that does seem to be the reason I asked the question is probably very much a British thing to do on Anglo Saxon thing to do in your terms, in that in other countries, it’s not politically charged, yet we meet you, perhaps others. When we self described this, we do make it politically charged. But you’ve then got things like David Cameron cycling Prime Minister, I mean, they couldn’t do when there were Prime Ministers But still, the current prime minister exactly is famous. For being on a bike name, you know how many labour prime ministers have been famous for their their bicycling credentials? Well, I can’t think of any.

So is it really that …

Jack Thurston 46:10
Jeremy Corbyn

come from it? You’re not private? No.

It was great. It was a great election, wasn’t it? We are to two people who who ride bikes against each other Corbyn and and Johnson. Yeah, I mean, I don’t know I i think i think there are I think there are different levels at which you can talk about that issue. And clearly you don’t have to be of the left or have the right to enjoy cycling.

But I do think that cycling does.

Especially cycling in a country like ours where you are really, you know, the scum of the earth basically on the roads. That’s how you’re treated by most people hold on a lot of people. And that does that is that does that is that there is a kind of humbling thing about that and it’s not not pleasant. thing, but it does it does show you how vulnerable you are. And that I think is the consciousness from which to deeper care for others and empathy for others who are less invulnerable or in vulnerable positions can spring from. So I do think that the bicycle can make you a better person. I just I don’t see Ilan musk on a bicycle. I don’t see Donald Trump on a bicycle. I don’t see all these sort of selfish grasping hucksters that seemed to define 21st century Sir Alan Sugar on bicycles.

Carlton Reid 47:38
I mean, he’s The Apprentice.

Jack Thurston 47:42
Yeah, Alan Sugar’s a funny one, isn’t he? Because he is actually he was a Labour Party supporter wasn’t familiar. He’s flip until Corbyn came along. He was a New Labour Tony Blair. So he does come from a left a left working class tradition. And I don’t know what he’s wearing. where he is now? But then, you know, I think you need to. Yeah, I mean, there’s anecdotes and individual data points and they could be confounding effects and clearly, racing, cycling, mountain biking, you know, you know, in a controlled environment is, you know, is one thing. I do know, I do feel that in my experience of meeting people who are eminent in the cycling world as I’ve done over the podcast, I do feel that they do tend to be on more on on the left I just as kind of my experience. Chris Boardman, Graeme Obree, those sorts of people. I mean,

Carlton Reid 48:47
it’s just sort of where they are where they’re at. I don’t know. So in the all the President’s Men, which is the Woodward and Bernstein book about the Watergate scandal, you’ve got Carl Bernstein, who was a self described 1970 Bike boom. Bike freak was very upset when he discovered that there was a bike freak, actually in the White House working for creep. The Committee for the re election of the president Macgruder so Macruder would cycle to the White House he was the almost certainly within the high command of of the Watergate scandal basically. I think he certainly went to prison for it. And so it that shocked curb Carl Bernstein he was incredibly shocked when he was researching all of this Watergate stuff that he assumed that second was left wing. And here the was a rabid right winger was cycling. Now we stick with that probably still shocks actually that anecdote still shocks because yes, I think most people I’m touching word here, most people would assume Cycling is leftist, greenish, eco ish. And when you get right wingers on it’s like, well, that’s stat that stands out. But what? politically what stops you getting on a bike? Nothing stops you getting on a bike politically?

Jack Thurston 50:10
Now, I think there are I mean, what didn’t Margaret Thatcher say something about? You have to worry about a man in his 20s who rides the bus or something like that?

Carlton Reid 50:22
I’m afraid but yes, you shouldn’t be. You shouldn’t be on public transport. It’s apocryphal, but it kind of fed into her mentality for sure.

Jack Thurston 50:32
Yeah, I think there is a there is a sense in which a car is a status symbol, and is indicative of success in the kind of capitalist economy and society and having a nice car and driving everywhere. Is is kind of how you show that you’ve made it according to those criteria. Jackie, can

Carlton Reid 50:55
you have a nice car and a nice bike? jack?

Jack Thurston 50:58
Yeah, but you wouldn’t you do. Just you. You’ll use the

Yeah. So maybe you can go into Yeah, go for a bike race or a bike ride. I don’t know. You can have both, that’s for sure. You can have both.

Carlton Reid 51:12
We’ve talked over many, many years about the history of cycle touring. So you’re fascinated. We’ve talked about Lawrence of Arabia, and his, you know, where he, he came a cropper, of course, on his motorbike without, trying to kill two cyclists. But then he did do lots of cycle tours before that. So you’re very interested in the history of cycles. So you’re not just writing about this. And then doing a brief mention in your book you are you are really interested in the in the whole era of classic cycle touring.

Jack Thurston 51:48
I think I’m just interested in travelling by bicycle. And when you’re interested in something, you want to kind of find out how long it’s been going on for and clearly it It’s only been going on for as long as there have been bicycles. So that’s not that it’s mostly recorded history, you know that? Well, it’s all recorded history, obviously, we’re going back to the 1860s, I suppose. So it’s, it’s, it’s, you know, and it’s very well documented. Because cyclists love to write about their endeavours and take pictures of them or draw line drawings about them.

And I just, I don’t know, I find it

very alluring to, to feel a connection with somebody who lived 100 years ago who’s doing something similar to what I’m doing now. And feeling the same kind of things and experiencing them in a similar sort of way. I just, it’s you get a little historical shiver down your spine, don’t you? It’s always I mean, it’s a bit like stepping into a into a mediaeval castle, and thinking you know, closing your eyes and thinking like, what would it have been like? But you don’t really know do you? You really don’t know what in a ruined castle what would it have been like? What would life be like? In a castle? Yeah, it’s beyond almost what we can imagine 500 600 700 years back, but I could definitely imagine 100 years back. And, and the things were sufficiently different back then to be interesting to me. And in what in terms of what’s changed, but it’s sufficiently close in terms of experience that I can kind of touch it and really, really have a feel for it feel for the texture of it. So it’s the appeal of history, isn’t it? And I find history appealing in lots of different ways. Industrial history. Yeah, I think but I think history history is most powerful. When it I, I don’t know I’m gonna qualify myself here because if you go to someone like Stonehenge, and you kind of touch those stones, and now we’re talking about pre history, and you have no idea who the people were who’d made that place and why they did it and it almost haven how they did it. It can be totally or inspiring, and just knock you for six. And so clearly you don’t need to be proximate to the people you’re having this sort of historical connection with, but there is a certain kind of feeling of proximity that does, that does. I don’t know, give it a bit more texture and a bit more liveliness, it’s a different kind of thing isn’t it isn’t a different kind of thing. But I do love chancing upon old photographs of places that I know, that 100 years ago, and seeing them so I don’t know. Do you feel the same year into history? Absolutely. I don’t think I’m a learner

Carlton Reid 54:34
at all. So 1890s which is that that first bike boom when people are getting out there on their, that their bikes, and you’ve got people and I know we’ve often I’m pretty sure we have a conversation on Twitter about this at the time, but when I’ve posted images of 1890 cycle tourists, for instance, going to Stonehenge, which you’ve just mentioned, you know, they were on what’s now the the 115 3103 or 103? what’s the what’s the road is anyway? 83303 Thank you. The major road that’s going to the West Country, your West, you’ve know this better than me because of your your, your book. Yes, but the 303 that’s like so those cyclist of the 1890s were on the main roads of the day, because there was no cars at the time. So they were riding, they weren’t riding on last lanes back then they were riding in effect on the Turnpike’s the major roads of the day. So when you’re when you evoke that historical residents, well, those guys weren’t riding on your last lanes. They were riding on the motorways of the day. There’s just there’s no cars they were Yeah, they were

Jack Thurston 55:48
and but actually pretty quickly, towards in the 1910s or 1900s and 1910s. You start to come across so you start to come up with People saying oh that roads too busy now or with we don’t like that road anymore if you go through the, in the 1920s and 30s. And and there is a sort of that’s the era in which the car starts to dominate, and cyclists head off to find other roads. And I think that’s a process that has continued to this day. And I think that’s what gravel biking is all about. And I love gravel, gravel bikes, they are perfect machines for cycling on loss lanes and more. And I think that, that, I don’t know whether I would say the 1890s is my golden age of cycle touring. I think it’s freestyle, if you look at the kind of people who were doing it. It was a one particular It was a fairly well to do not exclusively, but fairly well to do I think the golden era of of cycling, in terms of my view of it is probably The 30s when you start getting outdoors moving all the youth hostels cropping up and people having a bit of time and a bit opportunity to go out there, bicycles a bit more accessible, lightweight machines are available. And then the 40s and 50s with the rough stuff. And so York rally and all those kinds of things that are the beacons of, of cycling in our country, and then in the 60s, I think it starts to become a bit more marginal again, although I should say because I looking at, I look at the bike images of the bike Centennial in America, which was in 76, wasn’t it? And there are some beautiful photographs of that. And I have to say I look at those photographs with exactly the same free sort of history. As I look at the photographs, photographs from the 1930s I just feel like that was a real amazing time and a place to be, to be around to be cycling across America. And I’d love too, I’d love to learn more about it, actually. So I think you could look at all these different eras. And you can look at images from the early London to Brighton in the early 1980s. And see, you know, handmade Friends of the Earth stickers, or posters or posters, banners and badges and things like that. It’s just it’s sort of making a connection with like minded people across the barrier of time. And and I think that’s interesting. I don’t really mind whether I’m envious of the fact that the cyclists of the 1890s were able to just barrel down the best flattest roads to get places and cover big distances. I’m incredibly envious of them. But I don’t feel that that I have to, in any way interested in reproducing their journeys in terms of the actual roads they went on. I think I’m more interested in in drawing on a wellspring of bicycle travel through a century or more and and China interpreting it For our times, and what’s available now,

Carlton Reid 59:03
jack, and we’re going to, we’re going to close for a break now. We’ll come back in a minute, and I’m going to talk to you about I want to hear about what other tours that you’ve done. And you’ve just said you did remain here, but actual tours, rather than just going out for a ride. So that’s what we’re going to talk about when we come back. So we’ll go for a break. So David, take it away.

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.

Thanks, David. And we are here with Jack Thurston, who will as he said before, he is not an author. He is he’s Lots of different things he wouldn’t even have ever a very long business card. I asked before the ad break I wanted to find out what touring so so jack has is talking about his the golden eras and there’s been many golden years including that those wonderful rise across the US in the 1976 and do go and search for photographs of those that some fantastic National Geographic if you go into their archive of some of those photographs,

but jack what what kind of touring Have you done apart from where you’re talking about Romania? So what what have you done elsewhere in the world?

Jack Thurston 1:01:36
So I haven’t done a huge amount of worldwide touring. I feel a bit

of an underachiever

Carlton Reid 1:01:43
fraud, you’re a fraud.

Jack Thurston 1:01:46
Yeah, I have cycled I mean, I thought I did a big ride around France in 2008 for about six weeks, so I rode the crest of the Pyrenees from the Atlantic coast to the Midwest. radian like with full panniers and all that stuff. This is before Kindles had come along and my entire front left pannier was full of paperbacks maps. So, yeah, that was a that was an early adopter of the top. on that trip. I did have a top. I’d seen them. When I was walking the john Muir Trail in California, I’d seen a guy sleeping under a tarp, and it looked a lot better than my little mini tent. So I did that. That was a top trip. And I have done some little, you know, three or four day tours around northern France, kind of accessible from Britain. I’ve done a lot of cycling in, in England and Wales. I would say that was the most of it. I mean, I’ve done some, I don’t know I’m sure they’re big tourist hotspots of cycling holidays in the Alps, and the Pyrenees. Kind of just more like out doing day rides, but most of my cycle touring has been in In England and Wales, so cycling down I used to cycle every summer down to Cornwall from London. My friends had used to rent the same cottage on the beach at Constantine Bay in new Padstow. And so they would, they would go on the train, and I would set up a couple of days earlier and give them a bag with my clothes and things like that and wetsuit and stuff to carry down with with them and then inside cycle down, and then then take the train with them back at the end of the holiday and cycling around Wales. Yeah, just different parts of parts of England really. I did a I did a very disastrous looking back and it feels like disastrous lightning tour in New England. Because the friends of mine were getting married in Vermont and I wanted to go to their wedding but I thought it was pretty irresponsible to like fly across the Atlantic to just go to a wedding. So I thought okay, I’ll make this a build my summer holiday around this wedding. And so I cycled from Montreal to New York with the wedding at the halfway point. And then towards the end in New York had a bad crash and ended up in hospital having my teeth fixed

Carlton Reid 1:04:10
a crash that you have to that other day. Nobody else was involved or what was

Jack Thurston 1:04:16
no Yeah, it was. It was, it was on one of those, you get some bridges in America that are made out of like about made out of metal, like a kind of grid structure of metal. I don’t want the right word for that is but they’re quite good. They get very slick in the wet. And I came down a descent with too much speed and applied the brakes and lost the back wheel and hit the deck and hit my face into the metal grille of this bridge. Yeah, that was a very nice but and yeah, I didn’t find in the wild camping in Vermont. I mean And, and, and upstate New York. I mean, the mosquitoes were just appalling. And also, I felt like wild camping was really was really not on. Like, there were signs everywhere and lots of barbed wire kind of saying, you know, you can’t come in here, stay away, intruders stay away. And so it was quite hard to find really nice places to wild camp. I just didn’t feel comfortable with the kind of culture of whether it was acceptable just to pitch your tent anywhere. And I still don’t really know the answer to that. And also, it was quite difficult getting food, like, you’d end up shopping in like petrol stations and things and then things would come in very large packets. So you’d have to buy like two pounds of bacon or something and you couldn’t eat it all and it would go off and you couldn’t just you know, you could just get a small amount to keep going from day to day you had to supply these bulk loads of stuff until you’re at war or weighed down by all so I didn’t I kind of failed at cycle touring in America. Maybe one day I would like to come back. But I mean, I’d love to do another big trip I’d love to cycle across Europe. I’d love to cycle to Istanbul or something like that. I did a tour for three days for The Guardian travel section last year as the guest of the vom de office to tour. The Tourist Board over there who showed me around the Atlantic cycleway south of the mouth of the river la from the basically from the mouth of the revenue are to La Rochelle. And I did that on a Brompton which is fun. So I’d like to do Yeah, I’d like to do some more touring in France with my kids. I’d like to go to the Netherlands with my kids, because I think that’d be the place to take them for cycle touring because that’s, that’s that’s the limiting factor these days is when I’m not doing a book and basically with the children and They can’t really do psycho touring in Britain, because it’s a rotary not safe for it. With the exception of a few rides that I’ve done like bit on the Northumberland coast with the kids really nice. And the Devon coast to coast is a good child friendly one. We were supposed to bring up to the Peak District in Derbyshire, at the end of May to do some cycling with the kids on the old railway lines. But I don’t know if we were going to be able to do that with Corona. So yeah, so I don’t know I I really look at these people who do like your son who does that is amazing. Riding back from China, and I feel like now is not the time. I should have done that. I should have done that already. I should have done that in my 20s or 30s. I don’t know why I didn’t. But I just didn’t. I was too busy in politics, I suppose. And I guess it’s something that probably have to wait until I’m a bit less encumbered with family life. Yeah.

Carlton Reid 1:07:57
I know I know what you mean.

about them and I was certainly I’ve been looking at Joshua’s trip and that brought back all the memories of when I did those kind of trips. And I’m kind of thinking, when can I do them again not not Corona stopping me but because it is gonna be a couple of years before I can do this, but just Yeah, I’d like to do some mammoth trips again, I’ve just heading out pointing the bike in there a direction you don’t know where you’re going to be doing away again with that night. I’m looking forward to doing those kinds of trips again. Actually, not not just no planning. Nope, no, just heading out and because that’s what I did. I just went out and just just cycled off and didn’t know where I was gonna go. And

Jack Thurston 1:08:41
months on end, or how long are you going?

Carlton Reid 1:08:43
I went for two years. So I started in before university I was gonna do I was gonna do politics, in fact, jack and then I did a year of cycling around the Middle East and thought I’m not going to politics. And I spend another year of cycle touring again rounded bit, the Middle East bit of America did an awful lot of touring for two years, basically, just just pointing the bike and just just going, which was fantastic. And I’ve always harked after that doing that, again of not having any, any worries. But like you, I’ve got kids, but unlike you, my kids are quite a bit older. So I am I’m probably not too many years away of being able to do that kind of cycle touring again, if I can interest my wife

Jack Thurston 1:09:34
into it. Yeah. Well, that’s the thing would you do would you just leave her on her own or would you go with her or she would go with you?

Carlton Reid 1:09:40
Well, she’s before we were married. I took her to Iceland. And we did an incredible trip into the interior of Iceland, in which it was perpetual daylight you had to get from campsite to campsite, you couldn’t just do the wild camping. You were saying that before you had to get to an official camp. So you were having to cycle for 1921 hours a day to cycle through Europe’s only desert. Which was why, you know, the older Sandy rose in Iceland. And that could have actually finished our relationship there. And then, but I discovered that she was incredibly tough and she was able to do these amazing bike rides that I was making her do. So she’s a keeper. So I would say I would, I would do those bike rides with with her at some point, but she’s a doctor. So it’s kind of difficult for her to, to take long career breaks.

Jack Thurston 1:10:37
Yeah, I mean, I think there’s an interesting thing about how you can and maybe it’s a little bit like Alistair Humphries and his idea of micro adventures. Can you get a certain amount of what you get out of a big trip in a shorter trip? And how do you go about doing that? And I think for me, I’ve been thinking I’ve flown a lot on aeroplanes for work and I feel like I don’t really want to be flying

for my leisure

you know, I just thought it’s a personal decision and I’m not preaching to anybody else. I just don’t feel like that’s what I want to be where I want to be at. So I’m I’m kind of feeling like okay, so it’s gonna if I’m gonna fly around the world I’m really good at cyclorama after wonder wonder wonder about the Atlantic and the Pacific but I’m pretty much sort of committed to cycling from where I can get to by train or boat. But that gives me a huge amount of scope. I mean, Europe is Europe is is continental Europe, Ireland. I’d love to go there Scotland. There’s a lot of places I like to go and I do feel like I get a lot of the benefits from from even like a week or two weeks. trip I think so I’m so I’m more thinking of I’d love to cycle across France you know just from Cali or salmon Oh to the Mediterranean coast you know that would just be a nice thing I love nice thing to do so

Carlton Reid 1:12:14
let’s get into the future. I don’t get into the future are you gonna be doing sort of interrupting their day but are you going to be doing lost lanes from a reading loss lanes Ireland lost lanes Scotland. What’s a I’m not going to give too much away. But what is your future in guidebook, Mike?

Jack Thurston 1:12:29
Well, no. I’m happy to happy to say I mean I should be out now. This is the prime time of year May and June the countryside looking at its best, nice long days. I should be out doing loss lane central England, which is the next book. But I am which, you know takes in the Cotswolds takes in the Peak District by my definition, I drew a fairly high line for what is the North. I know it’s a topic of endless debate. Where does the North start, but I wanted to have this much great cycling in northern England that the further south you draw the line that, you know, the less there is to go around it or the less rides to go out or whatever, I’m not expecting that myself clearly, you know, the rides are gonna be even more sparse than they already are. And they’re, you know, the great regret I get with any of these books is that I didn’t do a right there. I didn’t do it right that I didn’t do a ride from Durham, up in to the north Penn lines that that should have been in there but then I would have had to lose one of the rides, you know, so I wanted to draw the line up there. So I’d have I could have a really good chunk for mid the Midlands, central England, whatever you want to call it, that we’re taking the Cotswolds. We’re taking the Peak District and the taking them off and hills sort of the border right up to Wales. I’m not quite sure where the eastern line will be drawn and whether it would last lanes east

or not, whether there’s a mileage and

Carlton Reid 1:13:55
you’ve still got a fair bit more theory goes got a fair bit in England in effect together. Before you even need to get to friend,

Jack Thurston 1:14:02
yeah, and then I think you’ll be Scotland will be will be next. And I don’t know how you divide up Scotland because I think it would be ridiculous. I mean, I’m creating a hostage to fortune here on time, I think it would be very difficult to do like one book on the whole of Scotland, unless it was maybe a bigger book with like 50 rights rather than

Carlton Reid 1:14:22
just just the borders, you could do some amazing amazing book just orders nevermind Scotland as a whole.

Jack Thurston 1:14:28
But the problem is, the more specific a book gets in terms of geography, that the less sales there are really, and you know, I sales is what makes it a question of whether it’s viable or not. And I feel like I lost lanes France would be, I mean, you know, you couldn’t do the whole country. I mean, you’d need multiple books to do France. And then, and actually, my publishers do have a really nice book about cycling in France called frazzle fellow which is basically about one route from from some hello to nice I think. And they are there they’re actually the couple who wrote that rather tour company called Saddle Skedaddle, I think and they they I think they’re up nearby nearby you actually about a mile a

Carlton Reid 1:15:21
About a mile and a half from where I am. And I saw the other day in lockdown. I even saw them in lockdown. Yes.

Jack Thurston 1:15:28
So yeah, they they have a well established touring routes that they guide and they thought they would make a book about it. I think the sales of that have been okay. I don’t think they’ve been quite up to last Lane’s levels. So it’s really trying to come up with a book that would, you know, meet the test of sales, and it’s do and it’s doable, really. I mean, I’m very interested in the whole off roading sort of research it’s in, in sort of light mountain biking, I can call it that Which is what crap gravel biking is. I mean, on the one hand, I’m slightly irritated that this whole new idea of gravel biking has come along because it’s basically just riding on on sort of rough tracks and we’ve been doing that forever or forever they’ve been bicycles, but I do love gravel bikes and I think that gravel bikes are the bikes that most people you know, going for a day out should be riding as opposed to a as a road bike because it just gives you so much more safety on the road. And and it gives you so much more potential to ride different kinds of flexibility. I’m, yeah, I mean, I’m writing I’m writing a bike with 38 one bike, it’s got 38 mil tires and one bikes got 47 606 50 B 47. And I’m mostly riding it on the road. And it feels so safe. You just feel like you’re never did. You’re never gonna lose grip. You’re never gonna fall off. And I know I’m probably not gonna fall off anyway because I’m quite experienced cyclist but I think lots of people do have little pranks and and things don’t nades and lose lose grip on the road. So the idea that recreational cyclists should be riding the same kind of bikes that Tour de France people are riding it’s just madness is just the yes madness and so gravel bikes give an alternative to the touring bike for people who don’t want to be carrying lots of stuff, but still want to do a lot of varied cycling There you go. You’ve got gravel bike, any carton,

Carlton Reid 1:17:32
I have a Specialized Diverge that Specialized very kindly lent it to me for a variety of projects before the lockdown and then because the lockdown here they said, I’ll call it and we can actually collect it, keep it for the duration of the lockdown, just like fantastic. I’ve got this bike for months and months. So yes, I’ve got a gravel bike that I’m using. Yeah, I’m with you on that jack in that I am using That far more than I’d use a road bike, certainly in lockdown, because you can get Oh, you know, you can do lots more different flexibility. So I do a lot of railway paths, and then I come off the rails. And then if I if there’s too many people on there because there are a lot of people walking on this very present moment, and I go, Well, this will go on the road. You know, I’ll just do this stretch, you know, on what was formerly an incredibly busy dual carriageway. Well, I can now ride on that because there’s no cars, and then it just gives you that flexibility of doing the dirt track and the dual carriageway with the same bike. And that’s Yeah,

Jack Thurston 1:18:36
yeah, really obviously, you could you could you could ride your mountain bike on a dual carriageway, but it just wouldn’t have the same sense of a lamb and spirit toward it. You know, going along with knobblies I mean we do this is another thing we were talking at the beginning wherever you about light crew and stuff. And then once once we start geeking out about different kinds of bikes, and what bike you need to do this and what bike you need to do that. You’re amazing. putting off your general public who basically just go into a bike shop and like pick a bike up and go, I want the lightest one. And like I said, just kind of that that whole mentality is just is so pernicious, isn’t it? You see, so I meet so many people and in fact readers or readers of my books, who have taken up cycling and have bought rode bikes because they’re light and maybe because the bike shop had a lot of road bikes in and then they let they let their on a little section like a two mile section of bridleway on my on the route that I’ve given them in the book. And they’re like, Oh, it was muddy, and oh, our tires got stuck and we’ve got mud in the brakes and all that. And I I try to be sympathetic. And I don’t say I wish you hadn’t bought that bike but I do wish they hadn’t bought that bike. I wish they bought a gravel bike or you know, touring bike,

Carlton Reid 1:19:53
old fashioned touring bike is what they are really in many respects. You’ve got the clearance. You’ve got the mud guard islets you equip them with all of the racks even though that’s not the standard thing now you got to be bike packing not not rack riding now, but they are very much of that 1950s rough stuff fellowship I yeah, I mean touring is in terms of

Jack Thurston 1:20:16
what, in terms of what you can do, yes, but they are a lot lighter in terms of slinging them over your shoulder, I think the the feeling of riding them and this is what I like about the bike that I’m I’m writing is that it’s got a sort of tour touring bike wheels or even bigger than touring bike wheels and tires rather, and but the kind of riding position and feel of a liveliness of a of a road bike. It’s that sort of, it’s the best of both worlds in a way because a touring bike when it’s unladen can feel like unnecessarily, sort of lead and people do like that excitement. I have

have a little bit of a twist a little bit of twitch in the bike.

Carlton Reid 1:21:04
So do you have a bike that you research your books with? Or a you? You have a quiver as they say a quiver of bikes, and you’ll just choose that one for the that particular route.

Jack Thurston 1:21:17
Well, I I’ve written a succession of basically steel audax type touring bikes. None of them have been quite right for me, for one reason or another, but they’ve always been like secondhand bikes that I’ve sort of built up myself or whatever. I had a little flirtation with Moulton’s, but that was a while ago. But no, the new bike is a bike built by my friend Richard Hallett who is a former cycling journalist and I’m sure you’ve heard him work with technical editor of Cycling Weekly who lives in West Wales. So not too far from me. And it’s a frame builder first learned to build build frames and building some lovely bikes and so he’s built me a version of him. His model, which is called the 650. b adventure. So it’s a quite, it’s quite traditional in the sense that it’s got rim brakes. And it’s got, it’s got low gears, it’s steel. It’s got a front handlebar bag, like a traditional French style. It’s kind of like a French randonneur type bike.

Yeah, but I’ve also got a bike, like more of a, like

a, you know, a, that’s a hand built

bicycle, which, you know, cost cost me a fair bit. And so I don’t like to just sort of thrash that around all winter. And so I do have a bike which is a disc brake bike, with chunky big tires that I ride in the winter. So yeah, but I’ve got a lot of I’ve got too many bikes, Carlton.

Carlton Reid 1:22:55
No, Jack, there’s no such thing please, please. disabuse yourself of that notion. There is no such thing as too many bikess. So where can people buy the book? So let’s let’s plug where people can buy the book, Jack?

Jack Thurston 1:23:12
They can buy it from me.

I’m selling it directly and this response has been amazing. So I will sign it for you with with my autograph or dedicate it to you, if you’d like that, or if you want to give it to someone else. I’ll dedicate it to them. You can there’s a way of letting me know about that on the website. So the web shop is at last lanes.co.uk but it’s also available on on the online. I mean, this is a terrible time to be launching a new book because all the book shops are shut because of the lockdown. So I’m having to do a real push on direct sales. But Amazon have it Waterstones I think have it on their online store. You can get it as a Kindle book, and it’s half price. I think it’s like 7.99 on Kindle and it’s 16 pounds 99 The for the real the actual flesh and blood book or whatever, and I think I was gonna have it a bit of a bit of a bit of a discount as they usually do. And and and same with I’ve got all the all the other books are also available in all those sort of sources. If your independent bookshop is selling, it’s doing deliveries or whatever then

that they may have it they may have it or maybe I do get it in.

Yeah, I think people have really enjoyed looking at it and I thought this is gonna be terrible. How am I going to launch a book when there’s no press coverage has no, no travel features, they’re going to be about it. I’m not going to extract anything to the magazines and stuff. But I think it’s early days, but I think that people have really enjoyed in lockdown the chance to dream yet. The 300 that the rides that they’ll do when lockdown eases and And I think that you’re planning a bike ride is a great it’s a it’s a wonderful thing to do, isn’t it? It’s a wonderful it’s a wonderful thing to pull out in the maps and start researching things and with the internet you can do so much research at home you don’t have to go to the library anything.

I think planning i mean i i’d love to

Yeah, I’d love to hear what everyone is whatever whatever is planning. It’d be a great a great thing to know the kind of rides that people are wanting to do because when it’s only when something gets taken away from you, that you really value in in a in a new way isn’t it

Carlton Reid 1:25:38
so many years I wrote a guidebook and it was done by the from the saddle of a bike but it wasn’t a bike book and it was a guidebook to Lebanon and this is just straight after the the Civil War ended and I wrote went in there as a cycle tours rode around published a book and you never know who’s gonna be buying this you as soon as can be independent travellers, but when we actually She looked at the sales, most of them were to x pack Lebanese. And they were they were buying this guidebook to the country that they were born in. Because they hadn’t been back for many, many years. And because I took colour photography, they were using it as a way of of dreaming about their homeland, and how they would revisit one day. So I’m assuming your books certainly now right now, I mean, normally it might be something different, but now it’s gonna be Yeah, that that dreaming angle that I want to do this in the future and and and living vicariously through the pages of your book for their future. Yeah, I hope so.

Jack Thurston 1:26:48
I think it’s gonna be really interesting how Travel and Leisure travel is different in the age of Corona, and whether people won’t be able to fly long distances. Because it’s gonna be so much hassle, you know, the quarantine requirements of international travel are gonna make it very difficult. So people are going to have to be thinking about doorstep adventures, and what they could do in their backyard. And actually, one thing that I should I should sort of say about, about the books is that, sure, you can ride the routes that are in, in the books that I’ve done for you. And I’ve gotten, you’ve got the GPS files and the route sheets and all that that you can use to do exactly those routes. But what I’m trying to communicate through the books is a sort of way in which a way of thinking about cycling that will empower people to do their own planning and dream up their own roots do their own explorations and become their own sort of guide book writer in a way and and I think that is that is from what I can tell that has happened and I’ve done some talks. I did a talk at Stanford’s the map shop in London about the planning the perfect bike ride and how, how to get to grips with that sort of thing, because, you know, some some people it. Again, it’s one of these issues that for hardened, experienced cycle tourists such as you know, yourself and me, I suppose to a certain extent, it’s second nature to us as what we do we just get out the map and we go for it. And I think if you if you if you’ve grown up with maps, that the only maps you’ve ever really seen are Google Maps on your phone, then you really have no idea of like, how to plan satisfying, enjoyable and safe cycle tour. And so I think that there is a lot of discovery that people can do, particularly people who have been again, so digital natives who’ve been weaned on on Google Maps. There’s so much information that doesn’t contain there. It’s it’s not it’s not just about mapping but I love the idea. Have people adapting my routes or, or just coming up with their own rides in that style where it’s not about kings of the mountains. And it’s not about, you know, threshold blood values or whatever the whatever the sport people are into. It’s about exploration, that stopping and looking and feeling.

Carlton Reid 1:29:23
But to be fair here, and I’m not not knocking you here, but you’ve got Simon Warren there, who is talking to his guidebooks in there. In fact, guidebooks are talking about, you know, hill climbs, and people will cycle many, many miles to get to, you know, his 100 climbs. And people are just getting out there for that reason, so it’s still actually it’s touring. It’s just, it’s on a svelte road bike, but it’s still touring.

Jack Thurston 1:29:52
Yeah, it’s funny. I had a conversation with Simon Mottram, the founder and owner of or co owner, I don’t worry How much of a notes anymore of Rapha, a while ago and he said yeah that Jack basically what we all do is touring we just can’t call it that

Carlton Reid 1:30:12
it’s a good point

Jack Thurston 1:30:14
but they’re not they’re not how many people wearing Rapha are actually in bike races

you know where there’s a prize for the winner?

Carlton Reid 1:30:25
Yes if I if I’m saying I’m going out for a ride if I’m in my Lycra or I’ll say I’m going for a training ride is what I say but i’m not i’m actually going exploring and I’m going riding on a tour so yeah, it’s good point i’m not i’m not actually training because I’m not training for a race. I’m just using a bike to tour

Jack Thurston 1:30:44
Yeah, and no one want me to it’s funny because the Tour de France okay tour in the in the word in the phrase Tour de France is great. It’s a Tour de France. It sounds appealing and exciting, but nobody wants to be a tourist. Do they tourists, tourists yucky nasty. people you know having vegan chips and and fizzy warm lager on the Costa Brava No, wants to be a tourist. We want to be adventurous. We want to be explorers, we want to be travellers. And so, you know, I think by cycle touring, unfortunately, it’s not it’s not it’s not got the the touring is not the tour of the Tour de France as in as in a journey. It’s the tour of the tourist, the tourism and and that’s a negative association. But I do I do worry sometimes that the what gets the media attention is people pushing themselves to the limit. And I don’t know that you necessarily always need to push yourself to the limit. I don’t know saying that. It’s wrong to push yourself to the limit, but it does seem as though that is the dominating way in which Cycling is presented. It’s either either sporting limits like tournament Racing that kind of thing, or it’s adventure limits. It’s like how, how many days? Can you ride without sleeping? Like, what hardships Can you endure on the crossing this desert? On a bicycle.

Carlton Reid 1:32:12
Isn’t that your previous show? Because you’ve just had Mr. Walker on, haven’t you? You’ve had Ian on there talking about his his long distance rides in which he is not getting any sleep.

Jack Thurston 1:32:28
And I did quiz him a bit about that about about, I mean, probably not as much as I should have done. I think he did. He did. He did give a good explanation of what the appeal is, and that he feels it’s really nice to have like a project and a kind of an event that he’s working towards, that gives him a sense of direction and a mission and an idea of, of going further than he can ever go before. But I think the people who do that sort of thing are are not the most not the majority of us. They are exceptional people, and we celebrate them and load them and crown them with laurels and, and all that kind of stuff and we admire them and we enjoy reading their exploits. But it’s, it’s, it doesn’t need to be that way. But yet that is what dominates. Because if you want to get attention for a bicycle ride in the media, it has to be something extreme. It has to be something that’s never been done before a first or it has to be you know, you’ve got caught by a attacked by a bear or, or some sort of hardship. And I don’t, I think you can just use the bicycle as a way of travelling. That is just the best way of travelling that there is. And I think that’s as simple as that. If that doesn’t sell newspapers unfortunately, and doesn’t get people you know, with massive Instagram followings or whatever, I don’t know. It doesn’t have to be extreme.

Carlton Reid 1:33:58
jack,

thank you. This in our heart of hearts.

I was gonna wrap the show up actually.

Jack Thurston 1:34:06
Yeah, no, no, no, go go grab the shirt without me blathering. No,

Carlton Reid 1:34:09
no, no, it’s fine. You’re a professional blatherer. That’s what you that’s what you do. Maybe you actually talked more about yourself on this show then then you’ve talked in previous shows. So if I’ve introduced people to your history, in politics and with farm subsidies in the EU, then then I’m very happy to have broadened people’s knowledge into jack. Thanks to Jack Thurston for a diverting couple of hours. His books really are sumptuous and inspiring, and I heartily recommend them. Don’t go listening to his podcast though. It’s awful. Yeh yeh I’m kidding — The Bike Show is great, really really catholic, in the non-religious sense, and I’m glad Jack is back in the game even if its only sporadic at the moment. This has been episode 243 [244 actually!!] of the Spokesmen Cycycling Podcast. It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was bigging up the 200th episode of the show, and now we’re closing in on 250 episodes. Show notes and more can be found at the-spokesmen.com The next episode — I hope — is with academic Rachel Aldred, the Metropolitan police’s Andy Cox and Greater Manchester’s cycling and walking commissioner Chris Boardman. We had an issue with gremlins, and I’m waiting on a bit of audio repair from Chris. If that happens, I’ll get the show out to you as soon as possible. Meanwhile, get out there and ride.