Category: Blog

4th November 2022

The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 312: Good Move: How Bicycles Could End the Occupation of Cars in the EU capital of Brussels

SPONSOR: Tern Bicycles

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUESTS: Elke Van den Brandt, mobility minister for Brussels; Luxembourg councillor and EU Committee of the Regions rapporteur for mobility Linda Gaasch; Alison Abrahams from the Casual Cycling Club; Philip Amaral, policy directer of the European Cyclists’ Federation; Kim Smouter of the European Network Against Racism; and Philipp Cerny, author of the European Mobility Atlas.

TOPICS: The burgeoning of bicycling in Brussels

TRANSCRIPT:

Carlton Reid 0:13
Welcome to Episode 312 of the Spokesmen cycling podcast. This show was engineered on 4th November 2022.

David Bernstein 0:27
The Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Tern bicycles. The good people at Tern are committed to building bikes that are useful enough to ride every day, and dependable enough to carry the people you love. In other words, they make the kind of bikes that they want to ride. Tern has e bikes for every type of rider. Whether you’re commuting, taking your kids to school, or even caring another adult, visit www.tern bicycles.com. That’s t e r n bicycles.com to learn more.vav

Carlton Reid 1:02
The UK might no longer be in the EU but this Brit recently went to Brussels to talk bikes. I’m Carlton Reid and for today’s episode I’m bringing you a bunch of interwoven interviews with Brussels-based bike advocates and Green politicians. You’ll be hearing from Elke Van den Brandt, the region-city’s mobility minister for Brussels, and I have an interview with Luxembourg councillor Linda Gaasch who successfully pitched an active mobility position paper to the EU’s Committee of the Regions. Alison Abrahams from the Casual Cycling Club explains how she’s getting more women on bikes in Brussels and Philip Amaral of the European Cyclists’ Federation puts the city’s Good Move circulation plan into a wider political persepective. Philip talks about some of the violence that greeted the introduction of this circulation plan, and I meet Kim Smouter who was up close and personal with some of that violence. But first I chat with Philip Cerny, author of the European Mobility Atlas, on the rather busy Rue de la Loi. This is a multi-lane highway from the outskirts into the centre and it has recently been reconfigured a little, with a lane each side taken away from motorists and given to cyclists and e-scooter riders. Naturally, motorists have claimed this reallocation of road space is the reason for the road’s current traffic jams.

If you can hear us above the bothersome road noise here I am with Philip Cerny.

So for what outside all the different EU EU buildings here, and we have

what what is this road? First of all, do you know what the road is?

Philipp Cerny 3:15
It’s Rue de la Loi the main road through the heading through the European headquarters.

Carlton Reid 3:24
And they basically taken where we’re standing amongst all this motor traffic and they have taken lanes away on each each side of the road.

They’ve taken away some space from from motorists and giving it a bit more to pedestrians and to scooter users and to cyclists.

Philipp Cerny 3:40
Exactly. And that’s that’s really helpful because the commission is also

a commission the other institutions are really promoting to, to use the bicycle. They’ve been some

challenges that

in between the commission and department had built too many parking spaces, they weren’t allowed to have so many parking spaces because they expected everybody to take their car to work. But people were actually voting with their feet or with their bicycles to say so because more and more people just notice them. It’s simply possible to get to work by bike.

Carlton Reid 4:21
Now you’ve been working in this this city for a number of years. So this traffic congestion here now isn’t caused by the bike lanes. That’s always been this has always been in a congested Street. Yes?

Philipp Cerny 4:36
It hasn’t changed a bit. It doesn’t.

There’s

better infrastructure for cyclists and pedestrians now. But the car traffic essentially is still the same.

Carlton Reid 4:48
So the the basic accusation from from many people in many cities is when you put the bike infrastructure in, all of a sudden that’s what’s causing the congestion and all you got to do is

Basically just on Google Maps, probably and Google Streetview, where you can actually know that congestion was there there before. So this street was congested before they’ve taken away

car lanes, but it’s still congested.

Philipp Cerny 5:14
And in my opinion, I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon. It’s

unless the city of Brussels is really going to enforce some stricter access regulations. People will, on one level or another continue to drive into the city.

Carlton Reid 5:37
The mobility Minister Brussels says cars will always have a place in the city and region, but they should no longer rule. Green politician Elke Van den Brandt spearheads the city’s Good Move circulation plan. Here’s the European cyclists Federation’s policy officer, Philip Amaral, to explain more.

Philip Amaral 5:58
Good Move is is a is a mobility plan, like we’ve seen in many other cities. And its main objectives are to

adjust traffic circulation with the aims of reducing the volumes of cars.

Sort of ensuring that some neighbourhoods within the city have lower car speeds lower volumes are more protective of people walking and cycling,

decrease pollution

Elke Van den Brandt 6:35
The goal of this mobility plan. It’s not about transport. It’s not about transporting people from place A to B or transporting goods. It is actually about quality of life and the quality of public space in Brussels.

Carlton Reid 6:52
That’s mobility minister Elke Van der Brandt speaking, we talked in her office on the 13th floor of the Botanic Tower, an office block overlooking not just the city’s Botanical Gardens, but most of the rest of Brussels.

Elke Van den Brandt 7:08
And if you want to do something about quality of life in Brussels, and making the city more attractive for visitors and people living here and people working here, that we need to change our mobility habits, because we have about 70% of public space that’s taken up by cars in a parking space or car lanes, if you want to have more place for children to play, for elderly people to just sit on a bench, for maybe putting some trees because climate change is real is here. If we want our cafes to have better terraces, if we just want to have quality of life, in a public space, we need to talk about the occupation about cars. And we need to change that. And so we need to change the habits of mobility of mobility. So if people start moving around differently, we can gain a lot of space. And that’s the main idea of this mobility plan is one How can we make sure that we get people out of the car into onto a bike on their foots, on public transport, in shared mobility, all the other alternatives exist. How can we make this model shift to gain space and to make Brussels more attractive.

Carlton Reid 8:13
Good move was started by Elke’s predecessor. And of course, it went out to public consultation.

Elke Van den Brandt 8:21
A public inquiry and about 80% of the people participated agreed on the goals and also the because all the communes in Brussels is very complicated. We have a region and commune. So we have a lot of political levels who need to agree on something before you can put steps. And so we have 19 communes and they all agreed on this plan. So the plan is approved every political party or has on some political level agreed on the plan. And that’s an important element. Good Move is the big mobility plans, you have 50 measurements is about

Philip Amaral 6:27
and encourage more people to take public transport to bike, you know, to replace their car journeys. And you know, cycling is part of the mix of that. And walking is part of the mix of that.

Elke Van den Brandt 8:55
transport of goods, it’s about bicycle lanes, it’s about low traffic neighbourhoods, it’s about a lot of things. But then you have also the low traffic neighbourhoods, which are also called Good Move. And there’s, we should think about it, this confusion about it. And so these are for large

it forces you to to negotiate and to find solutions. So it is really sometimes difficult, but it is the way Brussels works. We should change that. But as long as we haven’t changed our institutional organisation, it’s where you need to work. So the note low neighbourhoods, low traffic neighbourhoods are also called Good Moves. So we divided Brussels in 30

areas and in each area we want to have a circulation plan without goal. That’s the loop

All traffic can still go in and out. But the transit is put on the structure, the main axis. So that’s the basic idea so that everybody can still get home or go out. Sometimes you will need to do a little detour. But to do encourage all the people just passing through because they want to gain one or two minutes, they want to avoid traffic lights, now we really wants to make sure that the traffic, the main traffic is put on the main roads who are conceived for it, who can support it. And so in the neighbourhoods, we want low traffic, slow traffic, and a lot of place for other things in cars.

Carlton Reid 10:35
And what about that common accusation that bike lanes and other parts of a circulation plan, increase, perhaps even create, congestion? Well, Elke gives that very short shrift.

Elke Van den Brandt 10:47
Brussel’s has been the most congested city for decades. And it’s true that people tend to forget that even before we start taking measurements, you had traffic jams, they’re not new. And we do calculate them, they have been quite stable for over the years. So if you do nothing, they will stay there. So it is it is changing habits. And there’s a lot of people

who took that somehow for granted, even people who don’t drive their cars. And that’s a mentality shift that changed about 10 years ago or 15 years ago with the historical centre of Brussels, there was this reclaim the street action [in 2012] where people were picnicking on the streets, and the idea of picnicking on the street was so gentle action. It’s nice and a Sunday between the middle of a road in the middle of the roads. But it was in the middle of the historical heart of Brussels. So who is wondering who you could pose the question. It’s really strong action, lots of people came families, children, and it became such an important signal that politics had to follow. It was a non political action in politics had to follow. So they made those roads were at the heart of the centre, they said, We’re going to make them car free. And then it became for now it’s the biggest pedestrian area, I think of Europe even so it’s a huge pedestrian area. And nobody wants to go back. And that’s that’s the first time that people didn’t take for granted the fact that our city seems to be organised to host cars to come here to work and to get out in the evening. So they realise that we can make the city for people who live here who work in want to stay off to work who want to come and visit us. So that’s an important mind shift.

But still, the congestion if now that’s the heart of it was the same debate was 10 years ago, same debate. And now we have the same debates like yes, but you’re increasing traffic, we have the data, it’s not true. The traffic is caused by cars, not by bicycles. I often say that if, for example, on the Rue de la Loi, which is very emblematic roads before the European institutions, you had four car lanes, we just took one which is not so radical, and gave it to the cyclists because they had to share the space with pedestrian before and there’s a lot of conflict between pedestrians and bicycles. So we took one we gave it to be cyclist. And the main communication was, these are your allies, because everybody who is on that cycling is not in with you in the traffic jam, they’re not picking your parking spot, when you arrive there, they’re your best ally. So give them some space, and it will help you also you will have more fluid traffic. And we took the we were following the measurements. And yes, there’s still congestion will Allah and it will be still there after everything’s gone. But the time loss is not significant. Although there’s a lot of bicycle increase on the bicycle lane. It’s even too small for the moment. So data shows that whenever he puts infrastructure in place, alternatives in place, they’re being used. But it’s the perception, of course, it’s you’re talking about mobility, and then they notice these incredible traffic jam that used to be there, but then they make one on one. And that’s

And it was the same as the pedestrian area and beginning is difficult. But now nobody wants to go back. And I’m sure that once the circulation plan is well installed, once we’ve been able to do the infrastructure works to make it permanent and people will really feel the benefit and there won’t be a call to go back but so you need to go to this phase where you rip people adapt it you need to be I think patient and grateful to people to do this efforts, but then afterwards, you can show the results.

Carlton Reid 14:58
But not everybody cares to be patient.

And there have been protests against Good Move. Here’s Philip Amaral again.

Philip Amaral 15:05
In some parts of Brussels I think notably, in the commune of Anderlecht, there has been really violent opposition at some local council meetings lately. And where people have used violent language, physical abuse, from a minority of people have to say I mean, it doesn’t look like to be a popular uprising and under like, but it’s a very vocal minority.

Kim Smouter 15:27
So I’m Kim Smouter I live in Cureghem. And I also on a day to day job, so if I get my rent, I pay I work for the European Network Against Racism.

Carlton Reid 15:36
Kim is also a bicycle advocate. And he witnessed Anderlecht’s bikelash up close.

Kim Smouter 15:44
I think there were fists

they were fists exchanged at the last town council. Yeah,

I guess we’re having in Anderlecht, I guess, the very, very symbolic fight. In the symbolic flight between kind of cars versus other forms of transportation. There was a circulation plan, which was implemented, which is a regional plan, actually. So the whole of Brussels, the whole of Good move. And essentially Cureghem, which is a neighbourhood which is known for being quite a poor neighbourhood, with a very difficult history, with local authority in particular,

And this summer is gone, this is gone. And essentially, it involves the implementation of the plan involves changing a lot of streets as direction. So some directions, some streets, which have always been one direction went the other direction. Some streets, which were very common through fairs or bypass fairs, were suddenly blocked with cement blocks and those types of things. In Cureghem, they’ve actually dropped the plans. So basically, the entire circulation plan was removed with, with essentially the commitment from the green socialist majority that they’re going to re, they’re going to go back to zero, they’re going to reconcile the entire neighbourhood, and they’re going to put a new circulation plan in place instead, whatever that looks like. That’s a big question mark.

Carlton Reid 17:19
So that was successful. And so so people shouting and maybe throwing fists. Yeah. Was that worked?

Kim Smouter 17:25
That worked, yeah. And bullying inside the town council. So like, even even I, I had an interpretation, which is kind of a concept within the local authority, where you can go to the council and say, your piece, in essence, I didn’t have a formal response from either the majority or the opposition. And even during my statement, I had people who were against kind of literally coming up to me, and interrupting my speech and asking me how long I’m going to take and those types of things. And the council members were just happy to say well, please don’t do that, it’s not very respectful. That was it. So, so yeah, so you’re really in a situation where actually yeah, bullying works, the more you shout works, and that enables you to remove an entire plan and now we have no idea where we’re going. So, yeah.

Carlton Reid 18:08
That bullying appears to work worries the mobility minister.

Elke Van den Brandt 18:12
it was it was not a happy moment this so it did it does feel doesn’t feel good. It’s in so we had a lot of discussions to learn about this episode. And it’s true that it never got the chance to be really tested. It’s from day one. There was people demolishing the the road signs. There were some furniture made some nice banks to close on the routes they will demolish so we had to put in place concrete blocks which are not so sexy, but because everything else was demolished. So from day one, it was sabotaged, and I think it was it is a problem that police didn’t defence, the measurements so it is

of control. If you put something in place you need to control the town’s housing, so it was not enforced. That’s the first step so the plan itself never really got tested. We had a difficult time the moment was implemented the first week a lot of protests but in the end people do see the advantages and do realise that we have done data so we we tackle everything with data so we can show that travel time has not augmented so the time you get from one place to another mountain because instead of going up to 50 and then going back to zero to get at a red light you know go to 30 says the curves a little bit slower but your travel time does not increase which is an important element because the biggest critic like taxi men and taxi women say we will have lose half of our clients because we can’t travel and the the fire people will get too late all those things. So we monitor, takes, there’s no loss in time.

Carlton Reid 19:53
In the nearby city of Ghent, the deputy mayor, another green, got death threats when

he introduced the city circulation plan. So does Elke Van den Brandt inspire the same sort of ill will?

Elke Van den Brandt 20:10
We do have the same thing as death threats and the aggressive Facebook groups and we can play the bingo we we’ve been in Paris ever the same it’s it is

But these are also neighbourhoods where people have questions about security, there’s direct traffic in front of see they’re afraid that their children will get in contact with the drug dealer. There’s housing problems, there’s work issues, there’s employment issues. So if you talk to those people are saying, yes, okay, we can we can perhaps hear what you want to do with mobility. But we have all these other issues. And whereas the government’s on that. And so the fact that the last decades, there’s been an underinvestment, and there has not been adequate answers also made it really difficult to go and talk about mobility because it was only about mobility. And that’s also been a frustrating I seem to my colleagues, you all need to step up now. Because I cannot work in a context where, where it’s only about mobility, we need to make sure that we have better housing programmes that we have better employment programmes that police doing the job that we tackle direct, direct traffic. So all these things need to be tackled, because otherwise people do feel abandoned.

Carlton Reid 23:47
And I don’t want you to feel I’m abandoning you but we’ll be right back after this message from my colleague, David, about our sponsor.

David Bernstein 23:54
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Carlton Reid 28:29
Thanks, David. And now it’s back to Brussels. The City and the region’s mobility Minister Elke Van den Brandt is at the sharp end of reshaping urban mobility. But decisions made in a different part of Brussels can have huge implications across the EU. Brussels is the capital of the European Union home to the European Commission and the most important part of the European Parliament. In a moment, I’ll introduce the Committee of the Regions, which is the EU’s assembly of regional and local representatives also based in Brussels, but first, here’s Philip Ameral again, explaining a potentially big move on cycling earlier this year by the European Commission.

Philip Amaral 29:21
What happened at the end of June in Copenhagen just at the start of the Tour de France was a few things one is the Executive Vice President of the Commission Frans Timmermans gave a speech where he endorsed an initiative by French MEP Karima Delli to have a European cycling declaration, inter institutional declaration of some sort of like that something to show how important cycling is for Europe. Something to help it grow from a policy perspective and provide support from an industry perspective. as well, just before that speech think the day before Karima Delli was at an event in Lyon, France, called Connecting Europe days, which was about the trans Europe transport network TEN-T. And she sort of teased this announcement already. And then I think at that event in Copenhagen, she also joined via video link to endorse this as well. So that caused the big to do in the cycling advocacy mobility community.

Carlton Reid 30:32
Because it was a surprise or when it was a surprise?

Philip Amaral 30:36
Yeah, it’s well, a bit of a surprise and a bit of not, and I say a bit not, because I mean, we’ve seen good progress from the side of the commission towards cycling over the years. I mean, the way we look at it is that in the EU’s, smart and sustainable mobility strategy from 2021, they included cycling in there as part of that mix. rather low part compared with other modes of transport, it’s there. And then we see the urban mobility frameworks use Urban Policy come out in December last year, and much stronger knots, walking and cycling and train trips. And the idea is to, you know, require cities in Europe to create mobility plans where they feature cycling, so all of that was quite good. And even some of the legislative proposals for the tendency regulation or for bicycle parking, and other policies seemed good. So we started to notice this positive trend, and which was different from 2016, or 2017, when ECF, before I joined, was lobbying hard with many others for a new cycling strategy, where ECF had produced, you know, really thick one. And that didn’t go nowhere. And I think times are really quite different. And the reality has changed on the ground. Now, people are buying bikes, they’re riding them all around Europe, cities are just building infrastructure, not waiting for the EU. Paris is the obvious example. But I mean, in Brussels as well and elsewhere. So in that sense, it’s not a surprise, the commission is moving in that direction. But I think what continues to surprise us as the sort of the strategic ambition, at least the what’s being voiced and in speeches at events. Now, what’s important is that the speeches are backed by hard policy moves stuff we see on paper. So since then, we’ve been in touch with Delli’s office too, discuss a potential cycling resolution that might come out in the parliament later this year. And we’re in talks with the Commission to see well, what can we make of this good announcement. And Frans Timmermans. You know, his his rhetoric has been on cycling has been quite good at the Velo-city conference in Lisbon, for example, he gave a really good video talk, where he said a lot of the same things. I mean, he’s a supporter of cycling. So I think from his position, he’s trying to see how we can grow cycling Europe from a policy perspective. Of course, you know, the Commission is an uneasy institution to move in any one direction. So I would, I would say, we’re all quite optimistic about what could happen. But, you know, like, anything you level requires quite a grind.

Carlton Reid 33:35
Quite a grind, and not always joined up, partly because cycling infrastructure isn’t considered to be internationally significant. It’s devolved down to regions and cities, rather than always being considered of strategic importance. Phillip Ameral, again.

Philip Amaral 33:55
It goes both ways. At the same point, the EU would say, Well, you know, one of the main principles that we operate on is the principle of subsidiarity. So you know, what doesn’t fall within our competence, you know, falls, and then competence of national governments and municipalities and the rest of it. And, and I think up until recently, that’s been the overriding argument, when it’s come to cycling at that level, it’s like, well, you know, we have our EU funds, which goes to national governments then which they disperse and, you know, benefit cities in a way and if cities are wanting to build infrastructure for cycling, that’s great. Do it. And, and, you know, we’ll clap our hands. I think that’s changing a little bit. I think the Commission’s urban mobility framework, were their original framework from 2013 just didn’t get anywhere, didn’t really achieve any of the objectives in lower pollution and improve safety and prove congestion levels and cities didn’t really improve mobility at all, because it’s just a voluntary thing and Now, for at least the 400 Plus cities that they designate as urban nodes, so cities that have more than 100,000 people. And they will have to develop these sustainable urban mobility plans. And these plans need to have a number of things. One of them is to improve active travel, cycling, walking, and they need to be able to benchmark that, and that’s going to be linked to EU funding. So there’s some partial conditionality there. So this is for us a signal, you know that the EU is seeing this more from its continental EU perspective. But I think you’re right, the more cities show up and just start acting, that’s an indication to the EU that it needs to get aboard that, that train that bicycle bus. At the same time, though, we wouldn’t want the EU to say as well, this is great that’s happening in cities. And we’ll just continue like we’re doing and more power to you. The problem that we see throughout Europe is there are lots of great things. But then there are just lots of things that aren’t so great. There’s infrastructure that’s being built, that’s not great, you know, not an efficient way to use public money. There are cities that are going the other way, and not focusing on active travellers that on car travel, there are cycling strategies and mobility strategies that are written differently different benchmarks. So it’s really hard to compare what’s happening and to have a common benchmark set of benchmarks, because in the end, the EU will need to cut road transport emissions by 90%. If it’s going to meet European Green new goals. And obviously, more cycling in cities is one good way to do that. But in order to really use that potential, the EU is going to need a way of saying great, you know, we’re going to need X amount of infrastructure built all across Europe, it’s going to need to be you know, two 300 400 or more kilometres of infrastructure, we’re going to make 3 billion available for that and the special fund are these what existing funds for that. And here’s how you should be building that cycling infrastructure we’ve created some guidance with the Commission is actually supposed to do and and here’s how you evaluate how good that is, you know how your local mobility plan should evaluate how it’s reducing emissions, improving road safety. So then you have this comparable data and that the Commission can use then decide how much more policy support do we give? How is it achieving our Green Deal goals, etc. So this is why we Europe on a European scale, we need a common strategy, we need that policy drive and not just leave it to subsidiarity and that the cities do it because then it will just be you know, a handful or more of good initiatives, but sporadic and aren’t really achieving, collectively what’s needed. Now, it’d be a shame for the EU to miss that one.

Carlton Reid 38:07
And here’s where the Committee of the Regions comes in.

Philip Amaral 38:11
The Committee of the Regions is important because it gives a voice to that group, which is quite politically influential. Although it’s, it’s in Brussels, it’s in the same neighbourhood as all the EU institutions, but it’s a bit apart. So you know, they’re not producing legislation that has a very direct impact on things that involve us. You know, for example, the TEN-T regulation, Energy Performance of Buildings Directive about bike parking, you know, and all that. And they’re not involved in the same way as the European Commission, funding streams and all of that. But if we want more cycling to happen at a city or regional level, I mean, they’re really important to have they’re the ones who decide to spend the EU funds or even they’re the ones who should know that such funds exist and that you can be taking advantage.

Carlton Reid 39:05
I was in Brussels talk to people like Philip, Elke and Kim to report on a mobility focussed position paper drafted by Linda Gaasch, a green politician from Luxembourg. This paper, it is known as an opinion, was formally adopted by the EU’s Committee of the Regions. Gaasch was chosen to be a Committee of the Region’s rapporteur for mobility at the beginning of the year. A rapporteur is an appointee tasked with reporting on a specialist subject. Her opinion called for improved cycling networks and for the EU to develop emission free and affordable urban transport systems. I met her in one of the EU buildings the day after the successful adoption of her opinion

Linda Gaasch 39:59
First so I’m really happy that it passed. And I’m really happy of the we got a lot of good language through because it really shows that cities and regions are ready for the mobility transition. The I would say 95% of it is exactly what I wanted, there are a few minor things where the wording that was adopted wouldn’t be exactly the one I would have preferred. But it’s also not damaging the report as a whole. And it’s not questioning the main message of the report, the report was adopted, and it sends a clear message. So this is a really good step. But it’s also just the beginning, because cities and regions, of course want to be instrumental in shaping the mobility of tomorrow, mobility is made in cities for citizens. So the report now will be sent back to the different institutions. And then my job is also to make them aware, what is written in the report. So I will make sure to meet different representatives of different institutions, and also really promote the message written in the report. Because in a way, with the adoption of the report, the members have also given me a clear mandate to promote this position of cities and regions. Transport is an area that that is super interesting for grants, as it has a lot of potential to decarbonize. And there is also if we talk about transport and cities, there is also really something that has to do with the vision of how the city of tomorrow should look like the that it should be a livable city, that it should be a city where you have space to work to, to I don’t know, let your kids play the so yeah, it’s it’s, of course, very much also, I would say in the green identity to to, to be wanting to do this shift in the transport sector. The politicians, not even only mayors and local elected, but generally green politicians that I follow who have worked a lot on transport. I think their key of success is mainly to really try to involve all the actors, because what you said about like, the green stereotype of transport, and then of course, they will do a lot of things for the bicycles. It’s very real, I say, but the same time greens generally are also really trying to get the consensus and have different actors involved. So the places where drastic changes in mobility patterns of cities have worked? Well, it’s usually because all the actors were consulted. Of course, not all of them were happy at first, humans are quite resistant to change. And if you think that somebody takes something away from you, it’s, it’s your first turn to oppose it. But mainly, it has worked. And if it works for people, if, for example, you take cars out of a city centre, and all the shops that are there, we’re telling you, we’re afraid that we won’t have clients anymore, we want to have customers anymore. And then you take the cars out of the city centre and the shop owner see that people who come to their shop, the number of people who come to their shop has actually increased because people who walk are slower, and they pass by the shop, and they look at the window and they get interested. So then they see the positive change that it makes. And then, of course, their opposition is is not existing anymore. So I think this is unit politicians that can do bold decisions, but at the same time tried to get everyone on board. And then if people see on the ground, what the positive effect is, I think they don’t want to go back.

Alison Abrahams 44:11
My name is Alison Abrahams, and I’m one of the cofounders of Casual Cycling Club, which is a women’s cycling club in Brussels, which encourages women and trans, non-binary people to cycle. So we started Casual Cycling Club to attract women who didn’t cycling. So we thought it would just be for people who really, maybe had a bike in their garage or in, you know, in their cellar, and they didn’t really use it. We wanted to introduce them to cycling. What we’ve since discovered is that actually, so many more women than that want to cycle in a club setting. And we get women who are very experienced we get women who have been cycling every day for years to get to and from work, but they don’t cycle for fun. And I’ve had that long had the impression cycling for fun seems to be a male preserve, you get you go out into the countryside on a weekend for rides, and you only really see men cycling in groups together. And that sort of thing is such a shame because I love cycling, for fun for health, in chatting to my friends. And so we wanted to encourage more women to do that. And so while we started out with this one small group of women who only had city bikes or big, you know, heavy bikes, now we have three different speeds of women who join our different groups on different days of the week. So yeah, it’s been it’s been a really big success. And I think we’re really proud of it. I mean, I came for work originally, and just loved it. I really, I really love living in this city. I think it’s great. And it’s a real, it’s a small enough city, that if I cannot get somewhere within half an hour by bike, I consider if it’s worth going on. Like, I look at my friends in London, and I think, No, I couldn’t do that. Brussels is just small and manageable. And there’s a great, like I said, it’s an incredibly international cities, lots of interesting things happening. We are in Parc Cinquantenaire, which is one of the many parks in Brussels. And we’re in the middle of the running track, actually with people when they got around us. And a man doing keepy-uppies

Carlton Reid 46:32
And also it seems to be surrounded by some pretty nice cycleways. So Avenue. Renaissance is just to our left here and that look like a nice cycleway. Does that continue? Where does that go to is that famous for being a nice and the rest isn’t nice.

Alison Abrahams 46:47
Like much of Brussels in the last few years, this has been quite transformed. So in the last few years, suddenly, bike parking spots popped up all over this park. And I remember coming in and saying to the park keepers, what are these doing here? I’ve wondered this for years, they said, Yeah, we’ve had a request in with the administration for years. And we finally just got them approved. And now you know, you can see they’re really well used. And the bike lanes all around here. So this we’re in the EU Quarter of Brussels. And this is quite a sort of it. You could almost say like sort of site. It’s not officially one, but it’s almost like a cycle superhighway like people go from here, out to the suburbs of Brussels. So towards Overijse, Hoeilaart, Leuven. And there’s a kind of direct line from here that goes all the way out of the city. There are a few, you might say loose links on the way. And just up here. There’s a crossing that’s not ideal, and there’s a part of pavement that’s shared us with pedestrians. But in general, this is it’s nothing like it used to be it’s way better.

Carlton Reid 48:01
So given the fact that you are trying to bring new people into cycling with with your Casual Cycling Club, do you recognise that absolutely puts people off if you get one little part of a chain isn’t linked up that will make the whole of the rest of network null and void for people who are maybe you’re trying to attract?

Alison Abrahams 48:21
Absolutely. You know, something that we do with Casual Cycling Club is that we say to women who have never joined us before, we can come and literally pick you up from your house and bring you to the start of the ride. Because for some people that is absolutely a barrier to them cycling in the city. And I think I heard alcova anabranch is the Minister for mobility in the region. said recently, you know, cycle infrastructure is only as strong as its weakest link. And I couldn’t agree more that for me, I have a lovely bike lane to get to work. But to get onto that bike lane, I have to use the kind of defensive cycling that you spoke about, I have to cycle in a street, which is one way for cars, but bi directional for bikes. And I’m coming up against these enormous vehicles who are, you know, driving well beyond the speed limit? And yeah, I feel fine. I feel completely safe. And I feel absolutely confident to do that. But I’ve been cycling here for over 10 years. And that’s not the case for everybody. Elke Van den Brandt has done really an excellent job. I have to give her full credit for that. She’s working in what is sometimes a very hostile environment to cycling in their political parties in Brussels, who bemused me in their

opposition to what should be very common.

Carlton Reid 49:45
Left and right?

Alison Abrahams 49:46
Like that, yes. What the Liberals really who kind of set up their stall on this sort of anti mobility agenda. But I think that one thing that everybody knows is is missing. is the kind of it’s the smallest streets so well, you know, the big axis, you go them the Grand Axis, you know, that cut through and across and around the city cycling infrastructure on those has vastly improved. But there are areas which often very residential, where the small streets, nothing has changed, really. And I think that’s kind of the next step in order to really get people onto their bikes.

Carlton Reid 50:26
Elke Van den Brandt wants Good Move to transform how people get around Brussels, but, I asked Philip Amaral, will be the city, the city home to the EU, ever become as bicycle friendly as Amsterdam?

Philip Amaral 50:45
I don’t know if it will be Amsterdam, but I do think it will be really close. I think the momentum is there. I think what we’re seeing now is, you know, the, the inevitable conflicts that arise when you know something new is coming on new plan. But as long as the political leaders here stick with the plan. And as long as they’re able to convince people from other political parties to support the plan, and then the things get built, because that’s really important is get the money build it. People adapt when they see things on the street. Nice infrastructure, nice cycling path, wide sidewalks, good public transport service. And then it will just be you know, the past will be something that you think about like …

Carlton Reid 51:46
Thanks to all of those who took the time to talk to me in Brussels and thanks to you for listening to episode 312 of the Spokesmen Cycling podcast. Show 313 is audio from LeBlanq Ibizaa and will be with you real soon but meanwhile, get out there and ride.

27th October 2022

The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 310: Cycling legends roundtable with Mark Cavendish, Oscar Freire, Adam Blythe, Johan Museeuw & Matt Stephens

SPONSOR: Tern Bicycles

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUESTS: Mark Cavendish, Oscar Freire, Adam Blythe, Johan Museeuw & Matt Stephens

TOPIC: This roundtable discussion was recorded at LeBlanq’s Joyride in Ibiza

LINKS: LeBlanq

6th October 2022

The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 308: In conversation with Legion’s Justin Williams

SPONSOR: Tern Bicycles

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUEST: Justin Williams

TOPICS: On today’s show, six days into Black History Month, Carlton talks about the inspirational 19th century black American professional cycle racer Major Taylor with his modern equivalent, Justin Williams. Like Major Taylor, Justin raced in Europe but unlike Major Taylor he’s entreuprenial, using his Los-Angeles-based Legion racing team, which he founded with his equally fast brother Cory, to increase the diversity of cycling. In this 45-minute chat they talk about Justin’s cycling mad dad and the crazy popular cycling scene of Belize.

LINKS:

https://www.ternbicycles.com

https://www.instagram.com/juswilliamz/?hl=en

https://www.instagram.com/l39ion.la/

https://www.l39ionla.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_Taylor

http://majortaylorassociation.org

https://www.cyclekids.org

https://www.instagram.com/nationsnumber1beast/

https://www.rapha.cc/gb/en/stories/legion-of-los-angeles

https://www.instagram.com/ayesuppose/?hl=en

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hook_Crit

https://www.therabody.com

TRANSCRIPT

Carlton Reid 0:13
Welcome to Episode 308 of the Spokesmen cycling podcast. This show was engineered on Thursday sixth of October 2022.

David Bernstein 0:27
The Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Tern bicycles. The good people at Tern are committed to building bikes that are useful enough to ride every day, and dependable enough to carry the people you love. In other words, they make the kind of bikes that they want to ride. Tern has e bikes for every type of rider. Whether you’re commuting, taking your kids to school, or even caring another adult, visit www.tern bicycles.com. That’s t e r n bicycles.com to learn more..

Carlton Reid 1:02
On today’s show, six days into Black History Month, I talk about the inspirational 19th century Black American professional cycle racer Major Taylor with his modern equivalent, Justin Williams. Like major Taylor, Justin raced in Europe, but unlike Major Taylor, he’s entrepreneurial using his Los-Angeles-based Legion racing team, which he founded with his equally fast brother Cort to increase the diversity of cycling. I’m Carlton Reid, and also in this 45 minute chat, we talk about Justin’s cycling mad dad and the crazy popular cycling scene of Belize. Oh, and there’s a short bonus video clip of Justin on the-spokesmen.com because he set up his camera for this chat, even though I didn’t. Okay, first of all, thank you ever so much for for coming on the show and we’re being completely different time zones here so you are 9am Justin, is that right?

Justin Williams 2:12
Yeah 9am

Carlton Reid 2:13
Okay, is that early for you? Is that good or bad?

Justin Williams 2:17
That’s usually right time for me. So I’m typically I typically have breakfast I’m out the door. I’ll try to get out the door at nine. I live in the valley so it gets a little bit hot especially and winding down end of summer so still we still have some pretty intense days

Carlton Reid 2:33
when you think getting out the door that’s for training or that what is that?

Justin Williams 2:36
Yeah, yeah, that’s for training. That’s that’s usually that’s usually right time.

Carlton Reid 2:40
Yeah, that kind of makes sense – for here where we are it’s raining all the time. So that wouldn’t apply. You kind of go out in the rain showers in England, Northern England even worse than just being

Justin Williams 2:54
Yeah, that’s that’s rough man. I was in London maybe three weeks ago and it was amazing.

Carlton Reid 2:59
Well, talking about London and talking about the UK you’ve got the Legion kit is done by Rapha. So that’s that’s a London a UK a British brand had that deal, because it looks fabulous y the way, how did that deal with Raphaa come about?

Justin Williams 3:12
Now that’s a great question. The deal with Raphaa came about because I have a friend named Mark Alfred, who works for them. He’s the Marketing Manager for the Santa Monica store. And I went to a premiere with Gus and Morton’s we’re about there abouts. And we had this conversation after after, after the premiere had happened and I had talked to Mark and I said, Hey, man, like, I love this is really dope. And he had been trying to corner me because I was riding another brand. He was like, dude, you gotta come to Rapha. You know, the way we market things, the way we tell stories. It’s really in line with kind of what you’re trying to do and how you’re trying to tell stories. And me and him just chat. It was a couple other really cool people that I had loved from the brand and had good relationships with so I really considered it but really, you know, my friend Mark and an understanding of how Rapha operates and functions as a storytelling brand really, is what drove me to go go in that direction. Obviously, the clothing the clothing is amazing. And so that was a factor also. But the big factor was like the storytelling that the brand

Carlton Reid 4:32
Because that they’re obviously known for having very expensive, very slick, very, very nice kit. But yet that storytelling, you had mentioned that because they are doing an awful lot more for diversity in cycling, which is what you’re you’re absolutely about too?

Justin Williams 4:45
Right. And so the mission is aligned there, right. They wanted to they wanted to give more into that. And that’s obviously like most of what we’re trying to accomplish is creating diversity and inclusion within the space and giving people an opportunity to be the most authentic version of themselves. And so that alignment was very important. And they gave us that platform to tell that story on a bigger level.

Carlton Reid 5:11
Now my son, who is currently he did the Transcontinental race across Europe just recently, he’s riding back from that. And he rang just before we came on to record this. And I said, look, I gotta go, son, because I’m going to be interviewing you. And he said, he’s really cool. And I said, why? Why is Justin really cool? And then he gave me your life story. So clearly, I did not prime him on this. I did not say, you know, he just knew everything about you told me all the podcasts he’s listened to where you’ve been on, hopefully and he’ll listen to this one. And he knows about your, your brother and your background, all that kind of stuff. And then he made this really interesting point. And if this makes a Forbes story, then this kind of comes to the fore here in that he said — do you know that a guy called Mark Beaumont, have you heard of that guy? No, he’s a he’s a long distance cyclist. He is the guy who’s ridden around the world the fastest in a number of different ways. He’s that kind of guy. But my son said, Justin is like Mark Beaumont because they’re both business minded. So Mark has kind of like made a business out of his his prowess in in cycling, and you are also very, you know, founding or co founding a team. It’s that kind of ethos, as well. So tell me about your business acumen. And how it developed.

Justin Williams 6:42
Yeah, honestly, it’s come, it’s come very natural. To me, I have such an entrepreneurial mindset. And that’s something that’s always been just a part of who I am, I’ve always thought about how things work and why people buy things and what connects people to products and why I love Nike, and not you know, any other brand. And so that was always fascinating to me, I think it started with kind of like this fascination with marketing. And then, and then the stubbornness to want to do things my own way. I’m very much of the mindset that just because people have done it one way doesn’t mean that it doesn’t, it can’t be done another way. And I think that finding your why, and the truth of what drives you and then getting people on board to help you with that vision is something that’s very important to, to that understanding of, of having, but to my understanding of having a successful business. So yeah, I think it started in marketing, and then everything else is just learning and knowledge. I’m just really thirsty for learning and understanding of how things work in business. I love kind of the game that’s played with, you know, everything from you know, pitching to, you know, negotiations and, and trying to get the best outcome for for kind of whatever your goals are. So that that’s, that’s always been something that in being an athlete, I love riding my bike, I love travelling, that’s still a big love and passion of mine. But as I look to my future, it’s definitely something that I’m very, very interested in. So I figured why not get started a bit early and start taking the steps toward and learning kind of the different ways businesses run, how CEOs operate, looking at some really successful businesses, looking at some businesses that have failed, and kind of like really picking apart and understanding like why those things happen. So yeah,

Carlton Reid 8:55
You’re a bit old for me to nominate you for the Forbes 30 under 30.

Justin Williams 9:00
That was a dream of mine. That was honestly when I was growing up. It was it was definitely I missed it. I’m 33 now I missed it but that was definitely on my list of things to do, with 30 under 30.

Carlton Reid 9:13
Well, I couldn’t nominate you because you’re American anyway, because I’ve got to nominate European guys I did nominate a cycling entrepreneur to become one of the 30 under 30 and thankfully he actually he got that so he was super pleased with that they they kind of said they take pro clothing from from all the pro teams and then sell it to everybody else you know once the pros have used it. Let’s go back to your your pro kit and your Rapha kit. And and and and the graphics that you’ve unpacked your T shirt that you’re wearing there now, so the Legion logo has the 39 in it. So I’ve read where the 39 has come from I’ve listened to the fact that but for the for the sake of everybody who hasn’t heard of that This is a street. Obviously, we’re in Los Angeles, but it’s almost kind of like a district and it’s an area and neighbourhood. So tell me about that neighbourhood and why 39

Justin Williams 10:12
Yeah, it’s, it’s in South Central, actually, it’s 39th Street is in South Central LA. And it’s such a great contrast because USC is literally maybe a mile away from where I grew up. And I didn’t grow up in the most fancy of neighbourhoods, it was it was unpredictable, and it was rough. And it was you had to be really cautious. And my parents did a really good job of keeping us away from a lot of things without taking away like quality of life. And, yeah, the area’s just you know, it’s, there’s movies about it, there’s, it’s, it’s, it is very much or was very much I think that it’s, it’s getting a bit better now, it was very much kind of like, the Wild West, like, I’ve called the police before, and like no one showed up. Like, that’s the kind of area it was. And with, even with having all of that it’s such a great place. And it was such a great place. For me growing up, my family was all very close to me, we splay we had this really cool space, that was an alley that they have, like, blocked off at both ends. And then the wasn’t there was only one side of the alley was gated, the other side had led to our apartment. And so we had this like, it was probably like, a 50 metre alley, and we used to play football and basketball and, and that’s where I really fell in love with sports was in that alley, just playing sports every day, man every day with like, I have a lot of cousins with all of my cousins, like there’s, you know, upwards of like, 10 of us at a time playing sports in. And that’s where I learned to be really tough because my cousins were very, if you cry, you don’t play. Growing up in that environment where we had that little bit of protection of that ally and a hat and I didn’t have to go make friends because I had my whole family. It was it was you know, that was the that was a the blessing of it. You know,

Carlton Reid 12:13
And your dad kind of gave you a very similar experience I’ve read of putting you on a long bike ride when you’re 13. And then kind of leaving that ride.

Justin Williams 12:25
Trial by fire. I like long story. Here’s the long version of it. My dad bought me this Bianchi, it was this Celeste and orange Bianchi and it had Shimano on it. And I remember like it was yesterday. And I was riding his bike around, it was my size. And I was really young. I think it was maybe 10, 9 or 10. And I’m riding it around this alley. And it’s long I can ride it. It’s like a full effort, dude. And I remember my mom making me let my younger brother CJ ride the bike. And then my dad comes out Oh, my dad’s working in this like little corner because he’s fixed cars. But like he still fixes cars, but you still like fixed cars, and then like so on. And he stops working. And he looks out and I’m not riding the bike that he got me and this is like a serious thing because it’s like a foreign race bike. And he goes and he takes it away. And he goes, you’re not serious. Like you’re done. Like you’re not serious. You don’t want to do this, like the bike is a serious thing. It’s really hard. And so I like never, he never bought me that bike. And then so it took me like another two or three years to like, convince him and I convinced him by riding his trainer, he had his trainer already had his bike on the trainer. And one day I just like randomly started riding it. It was winter, and I wasn’t doing anything I was playing football wasn’t played basketball. I don’t know if it was raining outside. Maybe it was wet outside, but there’s no reason to be outside. But I had so much energy as a kid, I needed to do something. And and so I started riding his bike and my dad at this point is probably like five inches taller than me. So like it doesn’t fit. And he comes inside, he looks at me and I expect that I’m getting screamed at like I’m about to go toe the toe to read a book or do anything else. Like it was very known that you don’t touch my dad my father’s bike. And he just looks at me and he pauses and then he goes into the kitchen, he gets whatever he wants. And then he leaves and I think I ride the bike for like 30 minutes that day. And then I ride the next day. And then the day after that he like puts the seat down. And then the day after that he like makes the cockpit a bit shorter. And then he’s like, okay, and then slowly but surely, he gets me all of these new things. He got me like shoes and like the pedals to work with the bike. And before I knew it, I was riding this bike. It was way too big for me when I was riding and I had to ride it for a month before he would even consider taking me outside. So then or sorry, two months, so then two months go by. He’s like alright, great. We’re gonna go for we’re gonna go for a ride. And so we’re riding and I haven’t done any I have this before, I don’t know how much I need to drink. I don’t know how much I need to eat. I don’t even know that I need to eat. I’m thinking we’re stopping at McDonald’s or something. And we’re doing this right. And we just keep getting further and further and further and I kid you not like, at the point where we turned around, I was done. Like, I was done and and we had to turn around and I was like, oh my god, we’re going home. And at this point, I’m like, starting to bonk, which is, you know, when your body doesn’t have enough sugar in it to function properly. And yeah, and I’m just like struggling through this, right? And he’s like, pushing me up some of the climbs and I can tell he’s getting irritated with me. And we’re doing sting. And we get to this point, that’s right. At the beginning of Malibu, it’s like, we’re Malibu. It’s like when Malibu starts and when Santa Monica starts. And I’m just done. I’m like cramping, and I’m just, I’m ready to go. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to do it anymore. I’m done with the sport at this point, and he’s just like, trying to massage this cramp out of my leg. And I have shorts. I have box I was uncomfortable with the warning just the tight so I have boxers under under my like cycling shorts. And he’s like, I literally he’s like I told you not to wait, you don’t wear short cycling shorts under your you don’t wear boxers under your cycling shorts. What are you doing? And I was like, at this point, dude, I don’t care. I mean, just like, do your worst that. You just like, stay here. And I’m just on on Santa Monica. He’s just like, stay here. And I’m like, alright, cool. And I think he’s going to get help. And he’s gonna come back. And turns out he was just he was going to catch up with the ride that we were the group that we were what they were riding with. And, and I’m just sitting there for maybe five or 10 minutes. And I’m just, I’m a kid. I know better, right? Because I had gone. I’ve gone places I hadn’t known better. I just stayed there. And like 10 minutes later, my aunt pulls up and picks me up. And he was just gone. I didn’t see him until he got back until I got back to the house. So that was my introduction to cycling.

Carlton Reid 17:11
That’s a helluva introduction, surprised you ever got on a bike again.

Justin Williams 17:16
yeah, no, it was uh, at least the weather was nice. And my aunt took me to get food like immediately. So it was like it ended up being a really cool day. She’s one of my favourite aunts. So we got to hang out. And she was basically like a sag vehicle. So she’s basically just following us. Which I didn’t know, because I was so busy trying to like stay with the ride, right? And so hyper focused on trying to stay with the ride. But yeah, it was it was quite the introduction.

Carlton Reid 17:40
So my son overtook me as a fit cyclist at about the age of 15. So how long did it take before you know that that that incredible. And you described there? How long before you beat your dad anyway?

Justin Williams 17:55
Oh, that’s a great question. I was so lucky. So my dad raced the category threes when I was growing up, and he would do some one, two races. But for the most part, he just was very comfortable in threes in California when I was growing up the category threes are like the everyday man’s group. So it’s like very, it was super, super competitive. It had a lot of debt to it. But it was for the people that didn’t have the time to put in, you know, 25 or 30 hours of training, but they had the experience of being very good bike racers. And so when I was about, I would say 15. I started racing with my dad every once in a while. And that was really cool. And then when I was 16, I spent the whole season like having my dad as a lead out man. And I think I won like almost every big race in in California at that point. And it was really cool. I was second in the state championship which broke, which which broke my heart but but I had won some of the biggest races in California. My dad was my lead out guy. And so I think at the end of 16 is when I started. I think we’re pretty equal at the end of 16. But I think 17 is definitely when I was I was better I could like take him out on a ride and like smack him.

Carlton Reid 19:08
And does he still ride?

Justin Williams 19:10
Yeah, he rides every once in a while. I tried to shame him into riding because he has such a nice equipment now.

Carlton Reid 19:16
Because you has your handdowns? ,

Justin Williams 19:19
exactly. I’m like no one has a Legion bike and you have a Legion bike.

Carlton Reid 19:22
I get my son’s handdowns so he’s a Giant sponsored athlete. I get his — it used to be he used to get my bikes, now I get his hand me downs.

Justin Williams 19:32
I used to get my dad’s part I didn’t get a new bike. I didn’t get anything new until I turned pro. So I turned pro when I was 17. And my dad always gave me either his hand me downs or my uncle’s would have hand me downs or like Hassan would have hand me downs. Like those. We had a really, really incredible community. In LA actually of black cyclists Steve Pulliam this guy Orlando there’s there’s a there was a major motion named after Major Taylor, a cycling club. And it was this really amazing group of people. So like, there’s so many people that either gave me their old stuff on top of my dad gave me his old stuff, but it was. And I look back at that now and think it’s incredible that like, as a kid, I was so excited to get anything that was, you know, a higher quality of what I had, it didn’t matter if it was hand me down or not. And then it made it so much more special when I got my first fully pro, new bike

Carlton Reid 20:33
As a black athlete, aspiring cyclist when would you first hear about Major Taylor? Is it he’s somebody that, you know, does he transcend cycling as a black man? Or is that something you had to be a cyclist to have heard of him?

Justin Williams 20:48
No, I think that that moment is coming. I think that moment is coming. I think that there’s places where he transcends cycling, but I don’t think enough people know how incredible his story was. So you know, he’s a first American World Champion, I believe,

Carlton Reid 21:02
But he suffered an awful lot of racism when he was racing in Europe, a tonne of racism,

Justin Williams 21:08
again, an incredible amount, an incredible amount he like had to race a lot of races from the front just because of sabotage from other riders, because they just didn’t want to see him win, which, which is, which is funny and ironic.

Carlton Reid 21:22
He also made a lot of money.

Justin Williams 21:23
He, he also made an incredible amount of money. But like what happens with athletes, especially nowadays, he didn’t know how to invest it, or he didn’t know how to make it work for him. And so he I think he ended up dying with nothing.

Carlton Reid 21:37
Yeah, that’s a kind of common story. So let’s, let’s go back back to LA and Cycle Kids. So quite apart from you know, Legion, you know, with with, you know, that kind of level of cycling, you’re also trying to reach kids who you know, your seven year old, your 10 year old. So tell me a bit about Cycle Kids.

Justin Williams 21:57
Cycle Kids is amazing. It’s an amazing organisation. And it just gives us a platform, a platform to create, to start this process of pipeline, right. The thing about cycling that isn’t the same about other sports is that in America, in particular, there is no pathway to get from being a kid to the pros. And so something that we’re focusing on and partnering with someone like cycle kids is, let’s get bikes in schools as early as possible. Let’s get kids learning about bikes and having an understanding of about about bikes as early as possible. And then use that to them, like enriching the junior ranks, and then the collegiate ranks. And then you know, after that the category, that you have the categories that you have to climb on your way to pro. So we just have such a great relationship with them. It’s so fun just getting to interact and communicate with kids and stick them out on bikes. Everyone learns, mostly everybody learns how to ride a bike when they’re a kid. And somewhere along the line, they forget that journey. But that is step one, right? It’s getting kids a richer understanding of, of how bikes work. So in case, you know, you get a flat or something’s wrong with your bike, and your parents can’t fix it, it doesn’t get like parked in the garage, you they can go after it. And there’s a curriculum that’s like kids provides a school that they can get after and they can learn how to ride their bikes. It’s a really, really cool programme. And we’re really proud to be involved with them. Because it is like, like I said, it is step one, where we get to interact with these kids at a at a level where they’re just starting to understand things. And so teaching them how to work on a bike has been really cool. We’ve had a couple of stops already where we get to be Santa Claus, I say, we get to go and then and they do all the hard work. And we get to come in and just build the bikes with the kids and kind of answer any of their questions and get them stoked on everything from like how fast we go to all the junk food we get to eat on the road, which is a massive hit with kids. And yeah, and then just you know, teach them teach some of them how to ride a bike, some of them don’t know how to ride a bike and it’s funny watching my whole team run after these like tiny little kids as they try to like balance on this brand new bike. So that’s really fulfilling and very much in line with again, creating a pipeline to the top of the sport which is Legion.

Carlton Reid 24:24
You Ciclovias in LA but exactly have you noticed a difference in the that years you’ve been riding? Have you noticed a difference in cycling in in Los Angeles and hopefully you’re gonna say it’s getting better? Or is it

Justin Williams 24:42
almost hard around the world? Honestly, the difference that there’s been in like diversity in LA like, I was lucky enough to grow up in a we used to do a ride out of the Merc Park, which is like a very like central place for black culture and I like it And so I was lucky to see that at home. Now when I went to like different places like, you know, the valley, Orange County, yeah, there was there wasn’t a tonne of diversity and a lot of black people were racing at that point. But we had some, but when I travelled around the country, there was no black people. Like it was no, there was no people, barely any people of colour. And now that we travel, I kid you not, it is amazing to watch it be like a almost a 5050 split of like, you know, Asian people and black people and Spanish people and, and it’s incredible to watch this all happen in kind of in my time, I’d say. And then even around the world, when I, I did a project, it was like a panel in London last year at Rapha. And it was to celebrate a lot of talent and Black talent in cycling. And I’ll never forget how proud I was to see this room full of people of colour in London. And up until that point, I hadn’t realised a lot of the things that were happening, because I was so focused on building the team trying to change a sport, you know, redefining, like the relationship that like the general public has with cycling, I was trying to do all these things. And I was so focused in like, in a tunnel, that I didn’t notice it. And that really took me aback when I got into that room and heard the applause of all these people of colour that felt like they had something that they could be a part of, and connect to. That was probably one of my proudest moments thus far, in doing what we’re trying to accomplish.

Carlton Reid 26:46
You kind of I’ve read that you’ve one of your heroes back in the day, he’s not that much older than you anyway. But it was was was Rahsaan Bahati of the Rock Racing team. And cool, very cool strips they had the, the jerseys they had,

Justin Williams 27:08
I was lucky enough to be a part of that team. Rahsaan actually brought me on

Carlton Reid 27:12
So so he’s another famous black rider, then you’ve got Ayesha McGowan, who’s been on on this show a few times, starting in 2016, she’s she started getting much more visibility, you know, back then, as well as the only at that time the only black road cyclist in you know, getting sponsored and stuff. So are you definitely seeing a change, you know, these people that were just mentioned that, you know, including yourself are, are making a change. But do you see that carrying forward?

Justin Williams 27:45
Yeah, no, I think that as obviously, as we get more opportunity, we give more opportunity. And obviously, because we understand the landscape and kind of how some of these teams function and operates, we know that there’s people that deserve chances that aren’t getting them. And so I even last this year, this year at Tulsa tough, which is one of the biggest criterium series in the country. We took a picture with the Caribbean riders that were at the race because me and my brother race for Belize now. And there was like 10 of us. And before I remember there being like Amile Abraham, which was like one guy from Trinidad, like that was that was it. And it was like 10 of us it was like Bermuda and Barbados and Trinidad and Belize. And it was, it was incredible. That was so so so cool. To kind of see that change happening. And then obviously with everything that we’re trying to build, the more of those opportunities that we can give out to bring some of these talented athletes.

Carlton Reid 28:49
What’s cycling when your parents were in Belize? And is that how your dad was into cycling back then was the cycling culture in Belize?

Justin Williams 28:56
Oh my God, that’s like a big story cycle cycling in Belize is like cycling in Colombia, like the country loves loves loves cycling. We do a race every year. It’s called the Holy Saturday cross country race. And the whole when I say the whole country is on the side of the road cheering for this race. I mean like there’s 1000s and 1000s of people lining the road it’s an out and back so you get to see the race twice. And it’s like it is a national holiday. But like this This race is so important to the country that if it Belizian wins then everyone goes out and they celebrate for the rest of the week and it’s amazing and if a Belizian doesn’t win, it gets a foreign winner it’s it’s painful. It’s like everyone’s like talking about feeling disappointment come off from people. It’s a really big deal. So I think in Belize, soccer, cycling and track and field are like the sports but cycling is a really special one.

So your Belizian heritage has been important in and getting into you into cycling?

Oh, incredibly important. I remember being a kid and go into my uncle’s barber shop, and having these massive trophies. They’re like the same height as me at the time. And I remember these trophies and they’re all dusty and old. And I was like, why does this guy still have these like trophies? Like they look like they’re falling apart. And he had won this this race cross country. And so even for as long as I can remember, I didn’t know what it meant. But those trophies in that race was like so present in my life. And now I have a bunch of those massive trophies. Oh, my my mom has them, she doesn’t let me touch them.

Carlton Reid 30:44
So from Belize to Belgium, tell us about your time, your time in Europe.

Justin Williams 30:50
Yeah, my time in Europe, like when it was it was an exciting thing. I was on the US track national team when I was 17, 18. And a part of the programme was going over and racing road in Belgium to get ready for them, like the Mad at the six day season, the Madison season. And it was the best thing for me because the it was hard. I was a sprinter or I wanted to be a classics guy. And I was a sprinter. And I was really fast. And there was no real development in the US for that I didn’t even get a coach until I was 20. So I didn’t really know exactly what I was doing or exactly how to channel my energy and my training to get the best outcome. And then, like I said, the only thing I had was were Rahsaan as I had Rahsaan as a mentor on how to sprint but not in the systems or the direction that was going to take to get to being a sprinter on the highest level. And so when I got over to Belgium, cut, it was like so much change, you know, I had literally gone from, you know, not doing I don’t think I was doing anything the year before, because the team that I was on had folded halfway through the year. And so I was doing these races and I was getting, I was getting good results. I was doing this. And it was I definitely could see myself doing the racing, but I just wasn’t mature enough yet. And I didn’t have the kind of support and there was there was a few key things missing or what you will need to survive over in Europe didn’t speak the language didn’t understand how to function as an adult in the space where you’re on your own. And so ultimately is as cool as the experience was because my whole thing was I got to do under to be under 23 Paris Roubaix. And that was like the only thing that kept me going. And once I did that I was pretty much done because after that was gone, everything that I that was my Northstar. And then when I came home after that, everything that I had dealt with over there had really been prominent in the front of my brain. And I just it just wasn’t for me. It just wasn’t for me, I didn’t feel like I belonged. I didn’t feel like I had the support, I needed to be there. I definitely didn’t have the money to be there. I was constantly running out of money. So it just it was just too much for a kid at that point to be over in another country coming from South Central LA and trying to like become all of these things with all of these handicaps. And yeah, I just decided that the like the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze, like what it was going to take for me to be over there. I was like no, I would rather be home and you know, I love criterium racing I would rather like try to make a life out of that. And at that point, like were Rahsaan was making decent money. So I figured like, Okay, well I can be I can be a criterium sprinter and like that’s, that’s good enough for me. So that was that was kind of my experience over there. But I go back now and it’s I still think it’s pretty incredible. I’ve been lucky enough to go to Worlds in Harrogate and then the worlds in Belgium. And those were both, like some of the coolest experiences I’ve ever had.

Carlton Reid 34:10
So you’re sprinter, you’re a crit rider. Do you? Are you like an all-bike guy as well? So you’ve got a mountain bike, you ride fixies What are you just a complete bike guy or you really on your your your track bike only?

Justin Williams 34:24
No, I’m an everything guy. Everything except for gravel. Except for except for gravel. I just I just don’t get it. But mountain bike, mountain biking. I love a good mountain bike ride. My problem with mountain biking is that I keep going out riding with my pro mountain bike friends, and they think that I’m as good as I am in criterium racing and mountain biking and I’m just not like I love mountain biking but again, I think it’s so fun but I’m not trying to follow like my pro mountain bikers like I’m not trying to ride down descents with like Lance Lance Heydrich or Christopher Blevins like I don’t want to do that to myself. But I do really love and enjoy it. Road bike always track bike love the track. It’s my it’s a secret weapon like if you want to build speed get on a track it makes you incredibly fast. Yeah, like BMX like oh hang out and riding BMX every once a while I’m not gonna do any jumping, but it feels like being a kid isn’t the style J and riding a BMX bike.

Carlton Reid 35:27
Fixie?

Justin Williams 35:29
Love fixie

Carlton Reid 35:31
Not a track bike as in like an urban fixie?

Justin Williams 35:34
Yeah, I’ll do fixie, I’ll do fixie, I was actually a part of I got to, you know, I was lucky enough to be a part of Red Hook, when that was kind of this big deal. And honestly, you want to talk about this crazy influx of culture and people from every walk of life being a part of this like really tight knit group Red Hook was this incredible space where everything that cycling needs to be Red Hook was and that’s that’s fixed cure races. I was second in 2018. And in the red, the Harlem or not the Harlem Red Hook, New York race, which was really cool. And then before that had gone to Barcelona on vacation, like my vacation from cycling was a cycling event. And it was it was a Red Hook Barcelona. So I do a little bit everything like even cyclo cross, I love in cyclocross and gravel to me are different

Carlton Reid 36:33
You’re cyclo cross is usty cyclocross.

Justin Williams 36:37
we’ve know Yeah, we know, our cyclocross is like a crit on dirt. Yeah. Which is awesome.

Carlton Reid 36:43
To us. Yeah.

Justin Williams 36:44
Exactly. It’s a crit on dirt. But it’s dope because it’s like, you have the display your understanding and like skill in handling of the bike, and what’s going to happen and it’s it’s so fun watching people kind of flail on on gravel. Like it’s so many people are going to gravel because they’re like, oh, it’s safer than road riding. And I’m like, Yeah, but have you been down like a, like a super dirty, dusty descent before like the ground moves under you on gravel. The ground has moved on to you on the road. But yeah, that’s how it is.

Carlton Reid 37:18
At this point Justin I’d like to quit for an ad break, and my colleague David will take over.

David Bernstein 37:24
Hey everyone, this is David from the Fred cast and the spokesmen and I’m here once again, to tell you about our amazing sponsor Tern Bicycles at www.ternbicycles.com t e r n bicycles.com Tern are committed to building bikes that are useful enough to ride every day and dependable enough to carry the people you love. Speaking of being able to ride every day as a spokesmen listener, I’m going to bet that you are the go-to consultant for your friends who want to ride but are an enthusiast and need some advice on what to buy. In that case, you may have people in your life for whom you just haven’t been able to recommend just the right bike considering their stature, age mobility issues or just plain hesitant to get back on a bike. Finally, those family members and friends can experience a new bike day with the all new Turn NBD new bike day Nbd. Okay, the NBDd has been specifically designed to be confidently easy to handle and easy to ride even. Even for those folks who might be as Josh Hon, team captain of Tern Bicycle says are smaller in size and have a hard time finding a bike that fits or older riders who might not have ridden a bike in a while or riders who might have balance or physical issues or riders who are just intimidated by the sheer size and weight of the average ebike. As Josh goes on to say the NBD will be refreshingly easy to hop aboard and ride. Now how can Josh be so confident in that? Well, it’s simple. The NBD has the lowest longest step through opening of any premium ebike. So if you know someone with a knee or a hip injury or or somebody who just can’t lift their leg over the top tube of a regular bike, this alone could make all the difference plus the NBD is designed with an ultra low centre of gravity and a longer wheelbase. And what does that mean? Well, it means that it makes it easy to balance and handle. And with a lowered bottom bracket and motor the NBD is stable for all riders and particularly inspires confidence for shorter cyclists because they can easily get their feet on the ground when they come to a stop. But the NBD isn’t just for shorter riders. As a matter of fact, it adjusts in seconds. Without tools by the way to fit riders from four foot 10 to six foot three or 147 to 190 centimetres. The NBD is also super comfortable with its upright riding position, swept handlebar suspension seatpost and wide 20 inch balloon tires need to load the NBD into a car. No problem, it folds flat in seconds. How about getting into it into a smaller living space? No sweat. The NBD includes Tern’s vertical parking features, you can roll the bike into a small elevator and park it in a corner of your apartment. Now with a max gross vehicle weight of 140 kilos that’s 308 pounds, the NBD can easily carry an extra passenger and plenty of cargo with up to 27 kilos on the rear rack and up to 20 kilos on the front rack. And in fact, it works with a wide range of Tern accessories and with most child seats, as I’ve said before, and this is important to me really important safety is a core value at turn. And that’s why the NBD frame and fork have been rigorously tested by one of Europe’s leading bike test labs. That’s also why turn chooses to use the Bosch motor and battery system. It’s one of the few systems on the market that meets and passes the UL standard for battery and electronics safety read the news and you know how important that is. Now the NBD comes in two models with prices starting at $3,899 or 3999 euros and bikes are going to start arriving in stores in Q1 of 2023. For more information about the NBD or any of Turn’s wide range of bikes, just head on over to ternbicycles.com Again, t e r n bicycles.com. We thank Tern for their sponsorship of the spokesmen podcast and we thank you for your support of Tern. Once again, thanks for allowing me this brief introduction everybody. And now let’s get back to Carlton and the spokesmen.

Carlton Reid 42:00
Thanks, David. We are back with Justin Williams. And we’ve been talking about his Belizian background. We’re talking about now Black History Month we’ve been talking about Major Taylor. One question we have kind of skirted around, we’ve we’ve looked at it a little bit, but I would like to like just dig into it. So you’ve got you’ve got riders, riders like Kevin Reza, who’s been in the Tour de France. But you know, we really have got, you know, the digits of one hand can very easily accommodate the number of black riders have been in the Tour de France. So do you think we’re going to get more black riders coming in the Tour de France in the next 5, 10 years? And this is like African riders? Or do you think we’re going to see black American guys coming through? What’s where do you see it coming from in the future?

Justin Williams 42:48
Honestly, I don’t care where it comes from, as long as it comes. Honestly, I think that there’s talented or I think there’s talented writers everywhere. There’s a there’s a load of Caribbean talented, right, it’s I think it’s more about building a system in which they can like start that development process a bit earlier, in racing in Europe is completely different from racing anywhere else. And I think you have to be exposed to that. To really be competitive and understand kind of what the ebbs and flows are. But I think they’ll come from everywhere. It’s really cool that African riders have been integrated into European cycling in such a way I can only hope that the same thing happens with Caribbean riders. And there’s also writers from the Netherlands. I know Celin Alvarado’s brothers super talented, he’s he’s a cross guy. You know, he’s he’s coming up, I know, there’s a, there’s a kid in a kid right out of London, or he’s in England, he’s super talented riders. So I think that they’re everywhere. And I end up hoping that there’s more opportunities for that. And I think and I hope that there’s a bit more patience when it comes to incorporating them into these teams, because that’s kind of what I felt, I felt like there was a we’re giving you a chance and you’re lucky to be here. But as soon as you don’t fit into that narrative in a way that they want you to which is not specific to black people, I think that’s like just the way cycling is then you’re out the door, and you don’t really get a chance to develop. So I’m hoping that with the rise of African riders in showcasing their talent on the highest level that that will continue to open up doors for for other people, ther black people.

Carlton Reid 44:45
I looked on your Instagram before we came on here. And there’s a fair few of your you kind of the brands who sponsor you. So let’s talk about a few of them. Okay, so there’s one of those back four or five posts back you’re doing a recovery with a product. So what’s that product,

Justin Williams 45:05
Therabody. They’re such an incredible company, they do so many different, so many different things really well. And some one of my favourite things that they have is they make these these boots, these recovery boots. And they’re the best. So like, my favourite thing is, I’ll jump in them, if I hit buy, like I work a lot. So if I don’t have time to ride, but I have a big ride the next day, jump in the boots, kind of get my legs like ready and prepared. If I have a big ride and I’m wrecked and I’m trying to like get ready for the next day, I’ll jump in the boots on my computer, get some work done to kill two birds with one stone really flush out that kind of, you know, flush out that blood and get some fresh blood in there. And then when I’m travelling, they have this like Theragun Mini that I just take with me everywhere. And it’s just the best for everything. Like if my neck is tight from sitting on a plane, and if my legs are tight from sitting on a plane, it’s like, I just have something to kind of break things up.

Carlton Reid 46:05
So a massage gun?

Justin Williams 46:07
It’s a massage gun. Yeah. Yeah,

Exactly.

Carlton Reid 46:11
You might get funny looks on a plane if you get one of them out.

Justin Williams 46:16
I’ll wait until after. Honestly, it’s pretty discreet. I got I don’t know, if you would I think somebody might ask you to use it. They might be like, hey, when you’re done with that, feel free to pass it over here.

Carlton Reid 46:30
I think we’re drifting into a different kind of conversation. So other sponsors, because I’ve seen a fantastic and it’s just the last, it’s just dropped the last couple of days with Red Bull, which you’ve been in and there was a fantastic film that Rapha you were in so you’re you’re kind of like building up your your your brands who are supporting you, brands who are sponsoring you. So is that is that something that has come to you are you having to work at that?

Justin Williams 47:00
Yeah, that’s that’s what makes it a good partnership. A good partnership is someone that you can help build and tell your story through and like, obviously, discreetly promote their products and like who they are and what they believe in. But you can also do that for yourself, or you can tell your story. And so for us, we tend to lean toward partners that really understand the vision. And I want to tell it in an authentic way we don’t want to have, we don’t want to put out content that isn’t true to like who we are. We don’t want to put out content that’s like heavily, like overly branded, we want to just put out stuff that is very true to who we are and what the partnership is supposed to represent. And so we just been lucky enough, and I guess selective enough to have really great partners who want to tell the story, you want to have fun and want to change the sport and want to change lives and inspire people. And so that’s what we get to go out and do with a brand like Red Bull was a dream sponsor of mine. That’s what we get to go out and do with the brand like Rapha, who’s like, you know, their company identity is based in storytelling, that’s what we get to do. And even with companies like like Therabody, like there is a company that is very much invested in what the story is, and what the team is and what the identity that we created is and they just want to enhance, they want to make it better. And so that’s that’s a perfect partnership

Carlton Reid 48:34
On that kind of note because I did say to your people, that this would be like a 45 minute chat. So we are coming up to the end of those 45 minutes and I’m really appreciative of you taking your time and I’m sure you’ve you may have even done your ride but just to wrap this up, can you just give us all of your social media stuff so so anybody who’s listening to this, unlike my son who will know all of your social media channels, of course, but for everybody else who who anybody else who doesn’t know your social media channels, where can people find out about you, Justin?

Justin Williams 49:12
Shout out to your son, man. That’s That’s amazing. I’m really really excited about that. Yeah, most of my most of my social media handles are at juswilliamz. And then you can find you know, find a lot of me at Legion Los Angeles, L three, nine on Instagram on tiktok on YouTube, all the good ones.

Carlton Reid 49:41
TThanks to Justin Williams there and thanks also to you for listening to Episode 308 of the Spokesmen cycling podcast. Show notes and more can be found as always on the-spokesman.com. The next episode will be a report from Brussels as I cover urban mobility at the sounds-boring-but-is-really-very-important 151st plenary session of the EU’s Committee of the Regions. That show will be out in the middle of the month but meanwhile, get out there and ride …

22nd September 2022

The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 306: Eco Adventure on Proposed Sail-powered Bike and Foot Ferry From Dover to Boulogne

SPONSOR: Tern Bicycles

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUESTS: Andrew Simons, Brandt Williamson, Robert Tickner, Tom Treasure, Caroline Tyndall, Wayne Godfrey

TOPIC: A pioneering wind-powered cross-channel ferry for cyclists and pedestrians from Dover to Boulogne operated by startup SailLink had a series of test runs earlier in September, and Carlton Reid was on the first crossing to northern France. SailLink plans to commission a bespoke craft for its 12-passenger service, but the demonstration crossings used a smaller vessel, the Mago Merlino, a 12-metre catamaran certified to carry six paying passengers and two bicycles.

LINKS:

SailLink

Tres Hombres

Guardian article

TRANSCRIPT

Carlton Reid 0:13
Welcome to Episode 306 of the Spokesmen cycling podcast. This show was published on Thursday 22nd of September 2022.

David Bernstein 0:23
The Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Tern bicycles. The good people at Tern are committed to building bikes that are useful enough to ride every day, and dependable enough to carry the people you love. In other words, they make the kind of bikes that they want to ride. Tern has e bikes for every type of rider. Whether you’re commuting, taking your kids to school, or even caring another adult, visit www.tern bicycles.com. That’s t e r n bicycles.com to learn more.

Carlton Reid 1:06
That’s the unmistakable roar of a Merlin engine

of a Spitfire, and that was coming from Biggin Hill, taking people on £3000 jollies over the White Cliffs of Dover. And that’s exactly what I’m looking at right now. I’m looking at Dover castle. I’m looking at the White Cliffs of Dover. And I’m looking at some ferries.

And I’m going to be going on a ferry very shortly from Dover Marina.

But not P&O, not DFDS. I’m going on a new ferry company, SailLink

And SailLink is taking cyclists and pedestrians across the channel from here in Dover Marina to Bolougne, in France, but not using big old boats.

The roll on roll off motorcar ferries, this is only for cyclists and only for pedestrians. And it’s a sailboat ferry. So it’s going to be the eco way of getting across the channel. And I’m waiting in the marina here for Andrew, who is taking his boat out.

For a bit of a test. He’s going to come back into the marina, very shortly. I’m gonna be getting on and I’ll be putting my Tern S8i onto the ferry. I’m guessing other guests is going to be joining us. And we’re going to be going across to France.

Andrew Simons 2:56
This is

Toby the Skipper.

Okay, you can pull up your head and lines on the floor.

Toby Duerden 3:08
Yeah. Right. So wear life jackets the whole time we’ve gotten just behind you that

Andrew Simons 3:15
I am Andrew Benjamin Simons Stolz.

Carlton Reid 3:19
we’re in the we’re not quite in the middle. Where are we in?

Andrew Simons 3:21
We’re not in the middle of the channel about where we are just coming in to the southwest bound shipping lane of the traffic separation scheme of the Dover streets.

Carlton Reid 3:35
Is that a dangerous place for us to be

Andrew Simons 3:38
Potentially, but there are very clear clear rules and for what we’re doing, and we all have a lot of equipment on board to avoid collisions. So there’s a lot going on. I don’t disagree. This is a really intense area if you look on a website like marine traffic and then focus in on the Dover Strait, all you will see is dots of ships. But that is not those those those markers on the website and not in real size, but it makes it look like there’s no way through it. But you can look around here. There’s lots of space, there are ships coming at us. But we can avoid those quite happily what we’re doing is perfectly permissible.

And we’ve followed the rules for doing what we’re doing. And there is plenty of space for this.

Carlton Reid 4:28
Toby has knocked the engine off now it’s the engine was ticking over to charge charge the engine basically

Andrew Simons 4:34
That was to charge the batteries we had some issue earlier. Yeah, that somehow for some reason the batteries not the engine battery, but the battery we have for things on board had drained quite a lot. So we were just charging up again. But now we have a hydro generator running in the water behind us because

Carlton Reid 4:51
you’ve got solar power,

Andrew Simons 4:52
we’ve got solar and now because we’re going along at a good speed there’s a good wind, we can drop this hydro generator in the water behind

us it’s not going to impact on our speed at all. And it’s going to charge the batteries using all using the wind.

Carlton Reid 5:06
And the wind is powering the sail.

Andrew Simons 5:08
Exactly. So we have a, we have an engine now above us in the form of the sails. And we have a fuel in the form of the wind that is blowing onto those. And it’s, it’s readily available for us and for the next person to use.

Carlton Reid 5:24
So Brandt there is walking. Yes. From here. Yeah, I’m cycling to and from here. So we’re green, the power that you’re generating from the solar and from the, from the hydro generator

And obviously the sails

Andrew Simons 5:41
Yes. Also, yeah.

Carlton Reid 5:42
Is that basically your schtick? You are taking people across who are pedestrians and cyclists using a green method. Is that is that that is at your sales pitch?

Andrew Simons 5:54
It isn’t actually no, it isn’t because we have to be careful of economies of scale. And if we would really do the calculation, you know, you’ve heard as we’ve on this vessel, we have one diesel engine and one electric engine, but the diesel one is more powerful. We use that to get in and out of the entrances to the to the ports where there’s tide running and things. So, you know, if we would boil it down and look at the co2, for example, or greenhouse gas emissions per passenger kilometre, we’re demanding, depending on how you’re doing, we might not be any better than a ferry. But it all depends how you make that calculation. And actually, I’ve worked in that field. So I know how complex and often misleading those calculations can be. So and the other reason I don’t sell it primarily on that basis is because we all have to go in the direction of being environmentally friendly, and reducing our impacts, also the big ferries. So if I, if that is my sales pitch in a few years, I hope I will lose my sales pitch, if that is it.

So I have to have other ones to keep my business unique and to keep that competitive advantage. And I believe that that that sales pitch is based on the experience,

but also provide in

connection with not only with the culturally with the places we’re going to and from, but also with the ocean we crossing we have in a completely different experience of the ocean, of the winds, you’ve already learned, I think just in this short time, an incredible amount about how a boat works and what we need to look out for. And what we’re using in order to get across. You’ve heard about tides, about winds, we’re using those natural prevailing conditions to get ourselves across. Yes, we have to use a little bit of fuel. But in the future, we’re also going to reduce that hopefully down to purely electric and be able to charge some of that onboard or recharge overnight at the the pontoon. And hopefully their sources of electricity are also going to be quite green.

Carlton Reid 8:14
So, how many people can you fit on here because this is not going to be the eventual boat?

Andrew Simons 8:18
This is yeah, this is this is

an interim boat. Yeah, this is purely for the pilot phase. And also I’ve used this boat in the past in the last couple of years with its skipper-owner, to explore the possibilities here and to to do the crossings and to yeah, really just run the feasibility on it.

Carlton Reid 8:41
Feasibility of it with the next boat is how many passengers?

Andrew Simons 8:46
12, 12 People 12 passengers is a reg is an international maritime limit. Which means we’re actually if we stay with a maximum of 12 We’re not actually a passenger vessel, we’re not classed as a passenger vessel. And that means that we can use in theory any port we like we don’t need to go to a big ferry terminal in order to put our passengers through the passenger cross border procedures with a limit of 12 of course you are still a passenger on board. But we are permitted then to use a marina a harbour. And with good collaboration the border authorities, the agents come to us

or if it’s not possible we send out and they need. For example if a UK passenger is going to France now they must get stamped into France. And if the border authorities don’t come to meet us in France, then the passenger needs to go to

Calais to the port authorities and get their passport stamped in your case. You’re doing a very quick turnaround. It doesn’t matter it’s

it’s quite fine for us to arrive or a person to drive on

on this boat

on late in the evening, like we’re doing today and say, I’m going to go tomorrow, that’s alright. You don’t need to get your Passport, passport some immediately as you step off the boat. It’s just not practical. And they are very, they’re very pragmatic about it. But you do need to pretty much go straight there as soon as you can.

Carlton Reid 10:19
Now this this, this crossing isn’t the choppiest in the world.

But it still to me chopp to me compared to when I’m on one of those big boats.

Andrew Simons 10:28
Okay, yeah. Yeah, there’s some movement.

Carlton Reid 10:31
And that’s giving me a fresh appreciation of these these refugees in their tiny inflatables who are getting even worse bobbed

around the sea than than we are. So

what? How are you viewed by both border authorities? And secondly,

if you see

them coming across, did they come this way? What do you have to do?

Andrew Simons 10:59
Okay. Yeah. So to the first question, I had exactly the same sort of

anxiety about posing this concept, this very concept to the border agents thinking, they were just telling me, please, we have enough on our plates don’t come with this kind of thing. But I absolutely got completely the contrary, they greeted me with

welcome and enthusiasm for what I’m doing. And because I really, I spent the time of COVID really following up

on the regulations and making those connections and finding out how can we design this according to, to stay within the regulations we need. If we’re to operate the ferry day in day out, we have no other option but to work within those boundaries. And it’s only going to make our lives more easier if we, if we really cooperate, and if we can get them on our side and they cooperate with us. So I put a lot of effort into that before I really went to the public on this.

So actually, yes, you say, I actually, I did get a very warm welcome. And we’ve had a lot of exchanges and we found a way to do it. We’ve had them on the boat for discussion. I’ve been to the port to Police aux Frontiers offices in Calais now at least twice, to discuss with them. And they’re very, all very pragmatic and obliging.

And then to the to the, to the migrant issue, it is a very, very, very sad situation. It’s a very

personally, I feel a very, very sad reflection on on the UK

using its castle,

not only its castle status, but that castle.

fact that it is surrounded by this moat of the English Channel and they require

by not having an asylum procedure on the French coast, they they make these people have to cross the channel in order to claim asylum on French or English shores. But yes, they do not know what they’re getting themselves into, really, they launching themselves out into the channel into conditions that I really doubt they understand fully tides with the currents, the weather, the distance, where they’re going, how are they going to get there?

And yeah, the Dover straits is not a friendly place for the wheel now is this this is absolutely yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. But that now they’re apparently they’re departing from quite a long stretch along the French coast are no longer focused on Calais

So that could be going southwest, passable on it could be going east, east, past to Dunkirk, you know, so, and then with the tides taken them back and forth, they could be they can find themselves anywhere within quite a large area and thereby a long way from shore if they’re not really on that Calais to Dover stretch, they can be a long way from shore.

Carlton Reid 14:18
And then what do you have to do if you spot them?

Andrew Simons 14:20
We are under obligation every ship passing the Dover straits operating in the Dover straits is under obligation to report to Dover Coast Guard, or to Cap Gris Nez on the French side, sightings of small boats.

There’s a little bit of

interpretation there because you know, anybody is allowed to be out at sea. And just because you say to small boat doesn’t mean you have to get reported. I mean, people do go around the world and all sorts of tiny things, but they don’t need to be reported as doing something wrong, you know. So these people are putting themselves out to sea in. What they are doing is something

are unsafe for themselves.

And so anyway, the first thing is, are they in danger.

So we spot one a little way off, we have the obligation to report it,

we might see people on it, we might not see people, any people on it depends how far away we are from it. And it can also be the case that the people have already been collected by the border agents, and the boat has actually been left in the water.

And I’ve had that now a couple of times that we’ve gone to investigate, and there’s been nobody on board, it’s just a drifting boat, no sign of anybody, they’ve probably been picked up. And actually, then if they if that is the case, then the border agents, mark the vessel, the votes were the number and

and that’s it, if there are people on board, then we have to think of our own safety first, were also quite a small vessel. And depending on how many they are, they can endanger our boat, if we somehow go to their rescue, and

we, you know, we can’t take an unlimited number of people on board, and that would endanger our own seaworthiness.

So we have to assess the situation, if there are people in the water, that’s a different issue, then, you know, everybody is obliged, under maritime law to go to the aid of people in distress. And that’s just what we have to do, regardless of who they are.

But we do have to be careful of our own safety, if there’s 50 people on board, we just cannot take all those people in the water, we can’t take them all on board. So but the you know, we’re in a very small, relatively small area of water. So if we report it, the the Coast Guard’s are going to be here, probably even almost just as quick as if we go to them. So we would stand by and make sure nobody is really suffering, and wait for them to arrive. And then we carry on. Okay.

And just to add to that, I don’t want to also in this whole SailLink thing I don’t want to,

I don’t want to make too much of it is it is a sorry, situation. And I would like to help their plight wherever I can

legally within what we’re permitted to do and

within the tolerance of the ports and the authorities that we’re working with. But

I also don’t want to make some sort of migrant safari out of this sailing issue that people come on board and are thinking they’re going to see migrants and have a look at it. It’s a big thing in the news. And

you know, we hear is reporting to hundreds of people arriving every day on attempting the crossing. What we don’t know is how many do set off?

Carlton Reid 17:45
And how long does it take you to get across with passengers? How long is this trip going to take?

Andrew Simons 17:52
Yeah, well, it depends on the winds today, we have good winds, we set off a little late for the title window that we have, but we should be fine. Now. We can always adjust our course to suit that.

So I think yeah, today we’re easily going to manage that five hour crossing

always takes a little time to leave the ports and to get into the other end. So between harbours Yeah, I think we have a for our Crossing, it’s at maximum, it’s going to be a nice, really nice crossing today. This is, as we’ve said, this boat that we’re using, now it’s a good boat, it’s commercially coated. On paper, it’s ideal, it’s all legal. For doing this in the future we need we need a bit of a faster boat, this has got a accommodation, you know, quite nice accommodation on board, all the facilities, we don’t need that.

We need a larger boat to get 12 people on and potentially their bikes, and to go faster.

A longer boat means going faster.

Carlton Reid 18:54
And then I mean those those big boats over there, they’re year round, you’re gonna be nowhere I can imagine at the moment doing something like from April to October, so Easter to sometime in the autumn.

Andrew Simons 19:09
Because, yeah, in winter, it’s when the big storms arrive. I don’t think many people are going to be wanting to come, we’re going to be setting off in dark in the darkness arriving in darkness.

It’s going to be a bit miserable, the boat will take a lot of beating. You know, it’ll take a lot of wear and tear in the winter. And I don’t think we’ll get much return for that and we need a time off. It’s going to be for the crew quite a demanding job. I hope it’s going to be really really rewarding and good job. But they need a time off in the winter. We need time to just get the boat back in shape for the next season. Make any improvements so no

additions, changes, all that sort of thing.

Carlton Reid 19:52
And how much is it gonna cost?

Andrew Simons 19:55
I don’t know. The moment we’ve got the prices that we’ve published.

And that’s simply based on

me putting that into my calculations, and together with sort of ideas on average passenger numbers and the number of days that we will be sailing, which are based on historical weather data.

But that can all be improved, with a better boat to have a better boat that can handle the conditions that meet, that we can go out in stronger conditions, but the cost the passengers remain comfortable and confident, then we can continue sailing longer, we’ll have clear cut off conditions where we simply say we can’t go out in that. But you know, with modern

today’s weather forecasting, we know about that at least two days in advance, so we can give our passengers prior warning and, and then the contingency plan is, if it’s still not too severe, then they can go on the normal ferry.

Or they can choose to alter the

travel and travel with us another time or they this is the thing I think with people travelling by bikes, and like brand is doing is pilgrimage. I think if people are already on this, they’re already out for some adventure, they have some flexibility with their bikes, I hope we can accommodate we can both work together to to, to build in this flexibility if needed,

without too much

discomfort to people’s plans.

So I think, you know, this sailing isn’t for everybody. I understand that fully. We don’t want everybody we have 12 places.

And but the people I think the people who will be appealing to

may be willing to also accept a little bit of flexibility. You’ve had to wait a little while on the quay till we got there today.

Yeah, but I think I think at the moment, that sort of special nature of the type of travel that it is, is, is okay. Yeah, we’re using natural conditions working with that. And I think I hope the passengers can accept that and tolerate that as well. And it’s also something novel for them, you know, not just to leave, according to a time a timetable

made according to I don’t know what, what, but we have our timetable is designed according to the tides, and that we can plan a year in advance, you know, the tides we know already next year, I don’t know if maybe we’re all

somewhere they’re known already many years in advance, but

so we can plan a year’s schedule. And then if we need to, we vary that a couple of days in advance. At the beginning or for the last year, let’s say we were thinking maybe we need to use have some different ports in mind. For example, on the French side, we have Calais, of course,

on the UK side we there’s not many honestly the either side of of Dover without going up to Ramsgate. There’s rye, which is not very usable for us. But maybe that could be our flexibility that we say okay, the winds are not very good that day, we’re gonna go to rye or we’re gonna go to Cali.

But I think now, it seems to be that by playing with the tides, we can actually

alter our course within this within the same overall course of trying to go between Milan and Dover for example that don’t belong we can we can alter our course

and tack and sail

and use the tides and the winds to still maintain that without I think that there’s more discomfort caused by a complete alteration the same we’re leaving from a different town or we’re going to a different town.

I want to try to avoid that if possible.

Carlton Reid 23:56
What’s your background? Andrew? Where do you come from? Why Why have you done this?

Andrew Simons 24:00
Yeah, well, this is sailing is the answer to my own.

Preferences to travel. I grew up in Yorkshire.

But for the last

quite a few years, I’ve lived in Switzerland.

Now I have a lovely family and home in Switzerland. So for several years now I’ve been travelling between Switzerland and the UK. And obviously, in the early years, I used the plane and I stopped doing that and use the Eurostar

done the ferries. My background is that I was I started off as a wooden boat builder,

working in various places, also went to Switzerland doing boat building actually, funnily enough with the opportunity to work in Bern in this capital city. I’d always worked on the peripheries of the coast. So that was quite an opportunity and then stayed in Switzerland and then I

Yeah,

I went retrained, studied environmental science and worked in the field of lifecycle assessment of transport and energy systems.

And so I guess what I’ve done is to combine all those sorts of things and the awareness through lifecycle assessment, and environmental impacts, human health impacts, all that sort of thing. And my own needs to get back and forth.

What I’ve also done in the last few years, is to revive my boatbuilding.

And to use that to help

cargo sailing

enterprises, there’s now been a resurgence that say of transporting products across the oceans, using sailing vessels. And that’s mainly Fairtrade organic, you know, nicely produced products such as coffee, cacao and rum.

And then selling in the markets in Europe. And they these ships, particularly the Tres Hombres, run by fairtransport, that goes back to Holland every year, after it’s done, its circuits. And then it has a big refit, like a renovation every year. And I go and help with that, because that has a wooden, they have wooden planks on steel frames. So I go and we there’s always a lot of work being done there. Lots of planks being done. So I go from Switzerland to Holland,

put in a load new planks and then go home again. And that’s my involvement there. And I’ve had the opportunity to sail with them. But it’s also inspired me to think, well, if this can work for cargo, then what about passengers.

So I’ve brought all of that together, the living in Switzerland, the being from the UK, the travelling experiences, the lifecycle assessment, all of that. Also, of course, I love sailing. And it actually started in the idea site in 2019. I went with my teenage daughter, from Cherbourg, in France, to Poole in Dorset to do a little bit of the southwest coast path. And so we were out for exactly for that for that a little bit of adventure. And we were thinking well, I was wondering, well, maybe one of the sail cargo ships just happens to be passing and they can take us across. And of course, they weren’t at that time. So we had to go with the big ferry.

And we arrived in Cherbourg by train. And then we walked to the ferry terminal. And in doing that, we passed the harbour with the yachts and small boats in two minutes down the road from the train station. And then we continue to walk for another hour and a half to get to the ferry terminal. And of course, in that time, we thought, Well, why do we need to go out to the ferry terminal? Sure, we can go on one of these boats. And that sparked the whole thing. And I started looking into it. And the thing is, I was thinking then to start up some sort of platform whereby all these boats that align in all these harbours can get used to take people across. But as soon as you start getting into commercial

exchanges,

then you need commercial certification of the vessel. The skipper needs to be commercially certified, and 99% of the boats out there do not have that. So

unless you’re having some sort of other exchange

is not permissible.

So that’s led it down this part of a boat specifically for this purpose with a professional crew

and operating on a very tight for shedule.

Carlton Reid 28:50
Can I ask about your wife?

Andrew Simons 28:53
my wife? Yeah.

Carlton Reid 28:54
Because your wife does bicycle infrastructure.

Getting people on bikes basically. Yeah, in a town or city in Switzerland.

Andrew Simons 29:06
That’s right. My wife runs the

is she’s she’s the head of the planning department for foot and for pedestrian and bicycle

planning for the city of Bern in Switzerland.

We were also very keen cyclists; we cycle as everyday cyclists.

But she does that professionally. Yeah. And of course in sailing, she’s a absolutely vital part of

this whole thing. I can’t do it without her, you know, she goes off to work.

And I get the the the possibility to develop this business.

And then from a professional point of view, yeah, she she’s

already involved in that and

I

very much helps to encourage and inform

the whole cycle the whole side of it with passengers with bicycles, yep.

Sailing, we’ve talked about the experiences of the sea and, and this is also a real a really serious sailing experience you’re sailing across international waters

on the open sea on a very tidally titled stretch of water. And you only really get to do this if you have connections with people with boats or you’re part of a club, it’s quite an exclusive thing. And so sailing is really a key part of it is to offer that just by buying a ticket for I think not that much

and gain that opportunity.

Also for children for groups for in the future also for people with wheelchairs, we want to be able to get bikes on and off easily but also people and people in wheelchairs. So

you know really open it up to to whoever wants to come.

Carlton Reid 31:04
And we’re arriving into Bolougne, fantastic voyage across, with the orange Harvest Moon. But now I’m going to hand over to David for a short break.

David Bernstein 31:16
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Carlton Reid 35:51
Thanks, David. And we are back and I’m back on the boat the ferry across and we’re leaving Boulogne now. And we are going to be about four or five hours before we’re in Dover. But we have a new passengers on board who are going to go all the way across to the UK.

Brandt Williamson 36:12
I am Brandt Williamson from Virginia in the United States.

Small town called Delaplane.

hadn’t been overseas in quite some time and very, very excited about this experience. So it’s already been quite an experience.

Carlton Reid 36:29
And what do you do when you’re in America? What do you do for a living for a profession?

Brandt Williamson 36:32
I’m a physician. I’m an emergency room doc.

Carlton Reid 36:35
And then if you hadn’t gone across the channel in a sailboat because the sail has now gone up a massive sail above our heads.

If you weren’t taking a sailboat across the channel, how would you have got across?

Brandt Williamson 36:47
Well, actually, this whole trip, my whole trip has kind of evolved. Originally, I was going to take the Chunnel across and then I realised well like that’s not going to be the most efficient way to do this. If I’m going to be going down to Dover walking,

because I don’t think you can get on to the channel there need to go back track to where you came from. So then I was just looking at going on one of these massive ferries that takes people across. But when I found out this was available, that was not that was not even a consideration anymore.

Carlton Reid 37:22
So eco we’re not burning any fuel here to get across is that was that part of the consideration?

Brandt Williamson 37:30
I think it’s part of the consideration. It’s also just the adventure of it all. This is just more adventurous than jumping on a car ferry.

Robert Tickner 37:39
I am Robert Tickner.

Carlton Reid 37:41
And Robert, what are you doing today? Why are you going across the channel in this eco friendly way? Or have I just preempted the question?

Robert Tickner 37:50
You have to a certain extent, yes. It’s it’s kind of a bucket list item.

You know,

I’ve always been looking for an opportunity to sell across the channel. And then I saw this this come up. I thought okay, that’s quite interesting.

Carlton Reid 38:06
How do you say where do you say it actually came up?

Robert Tickner 38:09
In a different publication with the independent Simon Calder. He’s he mentioned it and said that this was going to start, and I follow him on a regular basis. And I thought, yeah, that sounds great. Let’s do that.

Carlton Reid 38:21
And you’ve never been on a boat as small as this before always, maybe not across such a channel as La Manche?

Robert Tickner 38:30
Yeah, exactly. I mean, I’ve been on even smaller boats than this, but sitting not on a seagoing basis. So yeah, this is a bit of a new experience.

Carlton Reid 38:39
And what do you do for a living? Your Brussels based?

Robert Tickner 38:42
Yeah, I’m Brussels based. Yeah, indeed. So actually, I’m the head of PR for Toyota in Europe. So the other aspects of this is the sustainability angle, which, which has, you know, to Earth is very interested in that kind of activity. So looking at what’s happening here, I think aligns well with what I do on a daily basis.

Carlton Reid 39:01
And this has got some electric onboard

power certainly out of the harbour. Is that an interest of yours with Toyota?

Robert Tickner 39:12
Yes, indeed, we have a hydrogen fuel cell technology which

is also used for electric power. And we do have some, some prototype electric boats using hydrogen fuel cells

working on a on a transatlantic Trans Pacific bases. So I think it’s definitely something of the future and allied with sail. I think it can be a real boon.

Carlton Reid 39:38
So you’ve come across

from Brussels on the train. I presume?

Robert Tickner 39:43
I drove from Brussels to Calais.

Carlton Reid 39:45
You work for Toyota, of course you’ll drive, what a silly question? Okay, so,

okay, yes, a bit. Yeah. And you’ve parked up and you’ve you’ve got to here. What are you doing across there in Dover?

Robert Tickner 39:58
So I’m back I’m gonna get off this

Uh, I’m going to hop for it to the ferry terminal and go straight back to how you’re doing the full the full treatment and excursion. Yeah, I need to get back in, in Brussels for tomorrow morning.

Carlton Reid 40:12
What time is that? What time do you have to get to Dover?

Robert Tickner 40:17
Well, the ferry’s due leave at 10 to seven.

As well as a passenger, I need to be there about an hour and a half beforehand,

Carlton Reid 40:25
you should be fine. So because you were tracking the journey when you enter in vesselfinder last night.

Robert Tickner 40:30
I tracked it yesterday. And it took me six hours to get across. But I think if it’s six hours today, or less than I should be fine. You don’t have to run too fast to get to the ferry termina. It’s the hour and a half I have to be there beforehand, which is problematic.

Carlton Reid 40:48
And not every ferry company that goes from Dover will would accept you as a pedestrian or if you had a bike. So you basically they’re favouring car passengers,

Robert Tickner 40:58
They are there at the moment, which is a bit of a shame. I mean,

Unknown Speaker 41:00
the P&O are doing this, they’re not doing it for all of their crossings, just just a few . But the one that I’m targeting is the last one. So if I don’t make it then it’s gonna be a B&B in Dover.

Tom Treasure 41:15
I’m Tom treasure.

Caroline Tyndall 41:17
I am Caroline Tyndall.

Carlton Reid 41:19
Okay, and welcome on board. Why, why are you doing today’s trip?

Caroline Tyndall 41:25
Well, I saw the information about SailLink in a local newspaper.

Carlton Reid 41:35
French, expats or French, fully French.

Okay.

Caroline Tyndall 41:42
And I said to Tom, that sounds really interesting. And I’ve always wanted to sail across the channel. And as Boulogne is just down the coast from where we live, it couldn’t have been more convenient. And so we looked at the website and managed to secure two places for sailing today, which we’re very grateful.

Very easy for us to live we just drove down to Boulogne and parked very near the port. And the plan is to stay tonight in Dover.

and then come back to Calais tomorrow on P&O ferry, which is now allowing passengers after a long time.

So it’s a bit of a round trip.

Very enjoyable.

Carlton Reid 42:37
Yeah, well you’ve got some good weather. I was lucky yesterday.

Caroline Tyndall 42:41
A couple of days ago that was

sa y in French “souffle tempête”

Carlton Reid 42:48
That means a storm? Okay.

Caroline Tyndall 42:52
So Tom is a retired doctor

a rofessor cardiac surgery and so he’s still writing

papers for

medical journals.

Carlton Reid 43:09
So obviously this trip is attracting doctors

Tom Treasure 43:13
Yes, well

sailors

a lot of doctors go sailing it’s a favourite thing you know you have a boat keep boats on the channel Coast if any of my friends had boats but they might sell two weeks a year you know, but very busy. Yeah, and the channel is often inhospitable for the fun sailor.

But today it’s

always slightly envious but never really wanted to commit to a boat myself anymore because it doesn’t have to pass so she did have their time

Carlton Reid 43:51
and money

Tom Treasure 44:01
shred them under a shower.

Carlton Reid 44:02
That’s so this is this is poor man’s version of that so you’re you’re you’re going on a boat, but you’re not actually owning the boat and people are having to keep it exactly. You’re fostering this this ferry?

Tom Treasure 44:15
Yeah, well, it’s a very nice idea because crossing the Channel simply without having to take a car every time.

It’s something we lost for a while. I could do it again.

Wayne Godfrey 44:28
I am Wayne Godfrey.

Carlton Reid 44:29
Why are you doing this?

Wayne Godfrey 44:31
Making making the most of my time on the planet. I sort of read it in a local newspaper

and thought what a fab thing to do, combined with the opportunity to ride my bike, simple pleasures.

Carlton Reid 44:45
Wayne, what do you do for a living?

Wayne Godfrey 44:47
I am a removals man, which I find very enjoyable. It’s very physic, physical, physically active, physical when you’re part of people’s journey.

make people happy to bring calm to a situation.

Carlton Reid 45:03
So Wayne tell me your journey what when did you start and what have you been doing?

Wayne Godfrey 45:08
Started Friday morning, got the 9.15 ferry across in, arrived in Calais just before lunch, pedalled my bike down to Boulogne. Just do a record of where the sailing was from on Sunday.

Spent a pleasant evening in Boulogne. And then headed out

Saturday morning down past le Touquet into Berck. Again, some fantastic beaches, some fantastic cyclin. I can recommend France to everyone. And yeah, had a nice evening. Not too much to do there. But again, it’s what you make it and then headed out this morning bright and early. Watched the sunrise which again, I’d recommend everyone done now and again to make the most of every day. And yeah, cycled consistently 40 kilometres from Birck to Boulogne. Yeah, French road drivers are very considerare. And I had a wonderful time I’ve been on bike paths even on roads we’ve been on all mix yet.

The even in France, they accommodate bikes very well along. Most routes have a bike path. Again, it’s a road cycling again, the roadss in France are much more cycle friendly than in Britain. And yeah, the weather has been absolutely phenomenal. But again, it’s what you make it

as long as you’ve got warm clothing on top you

can generally tolerate most weathers. And I haven’t not worn shorts for five years because my skin is waterproof.

Yeah, I got soaked when I headed out from Margate on 6.30 Friday morning, but once I was when I was wet and I wasn’t cold. So yeah.

It was a very pleasant cycle as well.

Carlton Reid 47:06
So is this the kind of journey you would do

frequently?

Wayne Godfrey 47:11
It’s just I would say this

journey again and again. And again. Because it’s therapeutic. It’s environmentally friendly.

To spend your time, I find it’s always good to take time out for yourself, and do what makes you happy if something doesn’t make you happy.

Carlton Reid 47:30
Now when we get to the other side, how far you got to ride, what are you doing?

Wayne Godfrey 47:39
From Dover to my house is three hours cycling and it’s quite hilly and it’s about pushing yourself but there’s also within and making it enjoyable as well. So I’ll shift cycle to the train station and to get home and

Carlton Reid 47:58
where’s that where’s home?

Wayne Godfrey 47:59
home is sunny Margate, which I’ve been here for about 10 years now. And I used to live in the inner city. And it’s something so therapeutic about seeing the sea every day. And just being peaceful really.

The older I get, the more I try and deliver myself places under my own steam. Because I don’t find for most people it’s about the destination whereas myself, it’s part of the journey and the destination. I go to the Lake District, by train and by bicycle and a few times to come off the mountain. And I think I would like my car but once I start pedalling I’m free and I love it.

Carlton Reid 48:46
Thanks to Andrew Simons and SailLink’s first passengers for talking to me on what was a wonderful crossing between Dover and Boulogne and back again. Thanks also to you for listening to Episode 306 of the Spokesmen cycling podcast. Show notes and more can be found as always on the-spokesman.com. The next episode is a chat with Cat who is a local organiser of a Kiddical Mass ride. That show will be out in a day or two. But meanwhile, get out there and ride …

10th August 2022

The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 304: In conversation with e-bike guru Ed Benjamin

SPONSOR: Tern Bicycles

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUEST: Ed Benjamin

TOPICS: The growth of electric bikes since the 1990s and their future, with e-bike guru Ed Benjamin.

TRANSCRIPT

Carlton Reid 0:12
Welcome to Episode 304 of The Spokesmen cycling podcast. This show was published on Wednesday 10th of August 2022..

David Bernstein 0:23
The Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Tern bicycles. The good people at Tern are committed to building bikes that are useful enough to ride every day, and dependable enough to carry the people you love. In other words, they make the kind of bikes that they want to ride. Tern has e bikes for every type of rider. Whether you’re commuting, taking your kids to school, or even caring another adult, visit www.tern bicycles.com. That’s t e r n bicycles.com to learn more.

Carlton Reid 1:03
Hey there I’m Carlton Reid and on today’s show I’m glad to welcome back e-bike guru Ed Benjamin. Veteran e-bike guru Ed Benjamin, the go-to guy for e-bike growth stats and also the go-to guy for bike industry folks who want to figure out a complex sourcing challenge. And I said “welcome back” because Ed has been on the show before, but not since 2009 and I can’t link to that episode because it was recorded at the Interbike trade show in Las Vegas and was streamed live to a TV audience of … well, a TV audience. We talked for a little under an hour and you’ll soon hear why I call him a guru.

You were basically

telling the global bike industry, there was an E bike boom coming back in the days even of lead acid batteries. So 2025, perhaps even more years ago. So are we at that future? That you said back then we should expect? No, I think we are the My understanding is that

Ed Benjamin 2:22
No, I think we are. My understanding is that Europe, European European market is going to be about 5 million units this year. The American market is not far from a million units. I’m predicting it at 700,000 for this year, 880,000 for last year, but things are cooled off a little bit here. The Chinese market is more than 30 million. And

hey, we’re there. This is we are a significant and important part of the transportation mix for most of the world.

Carlton Reid 2:54
So you were saying that before? Well, people are saying you’re crazy. When you were saying that 25 years ago? Probably I was saying you were crazy as well, Ed. And I have known you for an awfully long time. And you were saying those things and people were going yeah, that’s not going to happen. And absolutely, as you’ve just said that it’s absolutely happened in China. First, it absolutely happened in Europe. I mean, America has been a slower burn, hasn’t it?

Ed Benjamin 3:19
You know, adoption was very quick in Asia, partly because the vehicle was perfect for the dense Lee inhabited coastal cities of Asia. And because there was strong government encouragement that the Chinese governments in particular, recognise that the small vehicle was what their people were going to use and the small vehicles were emitting a lot of pollution and they’d better do something. And so they basically provided as they put it, strong encouragement for the electric bicycle by discouraging two stroke engines by discouraging mopeds, gasoline assisted bicycles, etc.

So they were fast, you know, from the time that the technologies that enable electric bicycles to be a commercial success were available, which I’ll suggest that they were available at the correct price starting in 1994.

From 1994 to the time the Chinese were reacting was two years to the time that the Chinese electric bicycle was all over the place in many hundreds of 1000s less than 10 years. And today, there’s probably more than or something very close to 300 million electric bikes used in China, everything that acid may still lead acid mainly. Well, yeah, lead acid is still a major, major energy storage device. There’s a lot of the wire lithium is the primary battery metallurgy for the Western market. Lead Acid is still the

Primary metallurgy for most of the Asian markets with lithium making some grounds make gaining ground I should say. So yeah, and that’s been an issue, you know, lead acid batteries, they for heavy daily use, they typically last about a year, and now they need to be recycled. And, and most of the cities of Asia now have vigorous lead acid recycling,

where in the West, we are using a lot of lithium batteries. And we don’t really have a way of dealing with the old lithium batteries yet. Because in the EU that just brought in a new rule that you’re going to have to recycle those. So you say manufacturers and suppliers are going to have to do something with their then EMI and batteries.

Well, and they would say we are doing something.

And maybe a more honest thing would be for them to say, we’re in the process of figuring out what’s the best thing to do with it. An awful lot of lithium battery recycling today is shred it and put it in a landfill. But I’d like to personally, I believe that it won’t be very much longer before some of these outfits will succeed in commercially viable recovery of the lithium materials, which have a significant value.

Carlton Reid 6:19
We got somebody but you got companies like Redwood materials who are doing it for cars. So that was that was a former

executive from Tesla who realised that this is gonna be a big thing. So presumably of if Tesla can do it for a company that sprang from Tesla can do it for for cars, bikes can surely do it?

Ed Benjamin 6:38
Oh, yeah. And I think that we’re in the process of getting there. Keep in mind that the battery package for car which can be 1000s of cells, and the battery package for bike, which might be 40, maybe 60 cells, different, different size of scale. But if we look at lead acid battery recycling, which is something the western economies do very well, if I have a lead acid battery, whether it comes from a car or an electric bike, I think there are four or five places that will accept it for recycling within one mile of my home. And we’ll see the same thing happen with lithium. In the end, we’ll see the lithium recaptured lithium metal, the lithium salts have a value that are going to have more and more value as we build more and more electric vehicles that use lithium for energy storage. So we’ll get there and there’s probably some lithium guy that will be listening to this and going hey, wait a minute my company’s blah blah, blah. Yeah, we’re making progress.

Carlton Reid 7:43
Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe you’re speaking to us here from Fort Myers in Florida from Fort Myers, Florida that’s in the news at the moment is Florida I know you’re about 125 miles away from completely opposite from from the building that’s in the news at the moment but you’re in your you’re in Florida.

Ed Benjamin 8:01
I’m in Florida and we are often in the news.

Carlton Reid 8:04
Now the reason I bring up Florida because it’s I’ve never been there in the in that have never been ever but I know that in the summer. It’s meant to be incredibly brutal to live in Florida. Now. Know what correct is that?

Ed Benjamin 8:20
Oh, no. I’ve been reading about the temperatures in the UK recently. You guys have a tougher than we do. We have a lot of air conditioning you don’t.

So you know, yeah. It’s warm here in the summertime.

Carlton Reid 8:34
And that’s a different sound. Where I was going with that was just is that not just somewhere perfect for an ebike because you don’t want to sweat you don’t want to you know go on your your standard bike and ride around but you might within a bike is that well, it’s a good place for e-bikes.

Ed Benjamin 8:52
There’s a couple of markets that really stand out for the electric bike. One of the markets is the older person who wants to ride his electric bike around often in the evening, often staying in the neighbourhood and chatting with his neighbours or her neighbours. Often couples riding together and we have a lot of that in Florida we have a lot of retirees that live in areas that are quite pleasant to go for a casual ride. And they’re finding that electric bike is something that they enjoy riding, it’s easier to ride and it’s something to talk about when they when they visit with their neighbours. I look at my new electric bike. So there’s been a lot of that that market is very strong in Florida. Another. Market builders very strong is dense urban environments, cities where parking your car is a major expense or a major inconvenience. places like Boston, San Francisco, New York City, South Miami. These are all places where they have owning a car is just a pain in the butt. And in Florida we do have

have year round cycling weather, although we also have some very serious rains that visit us most afternoons in the summertime.

But that’s manageable. So yeah, so the electric bicycle in the cities of Florida, it’s a natural, but the electric bicycle in the cities of the world is unnatural. If we look at where our electric bicycles used most, the most, I would say it’s flat coastal cities all over the world.

Carlton Reid 10:27
You mentioned the oldest demographic. And of course, that’s that’s what the industry was very frightened of promoting to, and they very much wanted younger people to get into into E bikes, it took an awfully long time of marketing to that demographic. Do you think the bike industry has succeeded? Is the bike a young person’s product?

Ed Benjamin 10:47
Well, one aspect of it is yes.

There are two things that have happened. One of them is the young people, I’m talking about the United States. But I think there’s a lot of overlap here with Western Europe. The young people of America are broke, they’ve got school debt, they’ve got challenging in income issues for most of them. And owning a car is expensive. So riding a bicycle. And remember, these are young folks are still perfectly capable of riding a bicycle. But the electric bicycle means they can go farther, they can live farther away from the work or farther away from the metro station. It means that they get to work without being without perspiring without needing a shower. So we have young people turning to this as a mode of transportation that suits today’s reality. We also have them turning to it for recreation in the United States of bicycles have been sport, fitness and recreation, that we even though there’s always been a relatively small percentage of our bicycle riders that have used them for transportation, we don’t think of them as transportation now and in Asia, the first thought you have is that’s a way to get to work or that’s a way to get to the metro station or the store. And you almost see that attitude. You see it in some Western European cultures to a greater or lesser extent of bicycles transportation, of course, in America that there’s no of course, a bicycle sport, fitness and recreation but but but but but mountain bikes, ah, mountain bikes, we love go mountain biking, we love to ride off the road, and somebody has been turning gravity up every year of my life. And as they turn gravity up, I find an electric bicycle allows me to continue riding in the mountains that allows me to continue having a totally enjoyable afternoon and rather than the embarrassment of walking up the hill, the so the electric mountain bike fit very neatly into American ideas about what the bicycle should be. It’s fun. It’s it’s fitness is recreation. And it was like somebody threw opened a couple of huge doors into the electric mountain bike world and said, Come on in here. It’s fun. And I think I’m quoting Gary Fisher correctly, Gary Fisher, of course, is a an institution, a legend in the mountain bike world. And Gary said at one of the trade shows that the electric mountain bike adds 15 years to your mountain biking season.

Carlton Reid 13:21
So that worked out there. Also, there was friction there with with with getting it on to certain mountains and in certain

national year properties where the Rangers didn’t want mountain bikes to be electrified. And they didn’t even like mountain bikes if if truth be told. So there was not much in there to

know there.

Ed Benjamin 13:43
Yes, there’s, of course there’s friction there. And

but I would suggest it’s really more from other users. A few years ago, actually, a couple of decades ago, I was doing an internship in Boulder, Colorado, and I was fascinated. They have a wonderful bicycle path that goes up the mountain stream. And I was fascinated by all of the friction, I guess would be the way to put it. The dog walkers hated everybody. The roller skaters hated everybody the bicycle riders are going this is our bike path. You dog walkers and rollerbladers need to get out of our way. And then there’s the skateboarders. And then there’s mom with us baby stroller. And all of these groups were trying to share the same piece of asphalt and none of them were happy with the presence of the others. What this taught me was people are a messy bunch. I don’t care what it is how far from the road it is, or how sensible it is. Somebody is going to bitch about it. And by the way, let’s not forget the horseback riders on the mountain trails in the back country. They don’t like bicycle riders, they also don’t like walkers. So are human beings going to just instantly say, Hey, this is great. Let’s share

not my experience. So I don’t you know Yes, I observed that there is this kind of conflict I observed that P

Pull for bikes and some of the other organisations have done an awful lot of good work to try to formalise the where you can and where you shouldn’t and to negotiate peaceful coexistence as best they can. I’m really impressed with the work they’ve done. But human beings are a messy bunch. They’re gonna grow up in each other.

Carlton Reid 15:21
Tell me how you got into the bike industry. And that’s before the ebike stuff. And before you owned a bunch of bike shops in Florida, so how did you originally get into bikes?

Ed Benjamin 15:34
Alright, my first bicycle shop job was in 1969. But before that, I was working at a McDonald’s as a teenager. And there was this nutcase guy there that had this incredibly expensive bicycle, I think he paid more than $200 for it back in back in the 1960s $200, paid for a bicycle was mind bending. And this guy was a big, strong, good looking guy. He was also working in McDonald’s. And I was fascinated by his bicycle. And I said, What is this all about? This is this is a racing bicycle. It’s a real racing bicycle. And I thought that was just the coolest thing. I just was absolutely fascinated with the bike, I was fascinated with the idea of racing bicycles. And I got started racing bicycles as a result of Bob Easton and his Raleigh professional that he rode, rode to McDonald’s as his way to get to work. So I followed along behind Bob Easton, learned to be a bicycle racer, won a few races last a lot of races, wound up working in bicycle shops, as many bicycle racers do. And so I was a skinny teenager on a crappy bicycle, who rode so much that he won races and that allowed him to buy a better bicycle. And that’s how I got started.

Carlton Reid 16:48
So that was your archetypal bike, boom. 70s bike boom person in 1969, you know, 70

That’s, that’s when the, you know, the National Geographic is covering it and saying there’s a boom in bikes happening. So you’re that guy?

Ed Benjamin 17:04
Well, if you look at the movie, Breaking Away, some of the people that were extras in that movie were the people that I rode with, and, and that movie resonated with us. That was us.

Even down to the very ugly shorts that caused every girl that saw us and them to go, ooh.

Carlton Reid 17:25
Okay, and you’ve segued from that into owning bike shops. How did that happen?

Ed Benjamin 17:33
Oh, I Well, I worked at bicycle shops assembling bicycles. I later wound up managing bike shops. And then, you know, I went to the University learn to went and got a degree that would not allow me to make a living, got out of the university and said, Well, one thing I do know how to do is work in a bicycle shop. And my father and I identified Fort Myers, Florida as a promising market. We bought a bicycle shop that existed in Fort Myers and we started operating that store and we kept we expanded it into four stores. And then to, to, to beat you to the next question in the in the 1990s. My father passed away from cancer my, what my chief financial officer who was my wife, decided she didn’t want to be married to me. So she became an ex wife, my store manager, my brother got hit and killed in a car bicycle accident, and I’m going I don’t want to be in the bicycle shop anymore.

I’d been good at it, but I didn’t want to do it anymore. But I was totally fascinated with this new thing called electric bicycles. And that’s how I got interested in started chasing electric bicycles

Carlton Reid 18:45
that kind of Lee Iacocca kind of period?

Ed Benjamin 18:52
Lee Iacocca was talking about electric bicycles very close to the same time. And I frankly, I found his vision or the things that he said I found him inspiring,

Carlton Reid 19:03
describe, describe who he is, an executive from the motor trade basically?

Ed Benjamin 19:09
Yeah, here’s an executive who had had been involved at the Ford Motor Company and and Chrysler Motor Company, highly articulate, very good crews, charismatic.

You know, and here was a guy who was famous for bringing the Ford Mustang into existence. He had been involved in every aspect of the automobile industry, and he was an icon of the automobile industry in a very, very big deal. And here, he was fooling around with electric bicycles, really. And but what that gave me was validation. Not only was he articulate and and charismatic, and he was saying things that really resonated with me. But here he was making this stepping from the automobile industry, which in American minds is the main event, stepping from the automobile industry into the electric bike business.

Now it turns out that Lee was not very good at the electric bike business. But he definitely shaped a lot of my early interest. And unfortunately, Time magazine asked me, I think it was a 1997. Time magazine asked me for a quote about how do you think Lee Iacocca is going to do and I said, Well, he’s not going to sell 50,000 bikes in his first year. And leave parently took personal offence to that, and my chances of becoming least buddy died in that statement.

Carlton Reid 20:36
But did he? Did he not sell that? Were you right?

Yeah, no, his his his business success with EV global motors. There wasn’t any business success.

Ed Benjamin 20:45
You know, it was inspirational. But he, the market was not ready to buy an EV until he wasn’t ready to buy electric bikes, the United States and it wasn’t ready to buy the global motors bike. And Lee, who apparently was quite brilliant in the world of automobile companies appeared to be not very good at a small company, small startup company.

Carlton Reid 21:12
That wasn’t a pedal assist bike that was almost a electric motorbike.

Ed Benjamin 21:16
Yeah, yeah, that’s what we call a class two bike.

Carlton Reid 21:19
Now it was controlled by a throttle, but they did open a lot of people’s eyes, including yours by the sound of it to their sector. And then other people came along and started doing stuff. So what what were you doing in E bikes at this time? What are you physically? How are you connected to the industry?

Ed Benjamin 21:34
Well, in 1996, I decided that I was going to focus my attention on the electric bicycle world or electric bicycle industry. Now keep in mind that electric bicycle had really become a commercial success starting in 1994 in Japan, and there was we were in 1996, we’re reading about oil to Europe, the Chinese government is banning mopeds and encouraging electric bikes and so on. And, and I was

had, we had a customer in the bike shop, a guy named Dr. Frank Jamison, and Dr. Jamison had been investigating and researching the electric bicycle business since 1993 94. And Dr. Jamison got to know him because he’d bring these electric bikes in and he would need them fixed. Most of the problems were bicycle problems, by the way. So we took his bikes for him. And I got to know Dr. Jamison, and then Dr. Jamison, who was not a young man asked me to go to China for him and visit a trade show. And, of course, I was strongly interested in doing that. Although I was a boy from Kentucky who had never travelled, I’d never been out of the country, I’d never certainly never been to Asia. And here Dr. Jamison was sending me on this this fact finding or information gathering mission. And wow, that was such an eye opening thing is a result of Dr. Jamison’s introductions, I wound up going to a trade show in Germany, and then to a trade show in Shanghai. And by the time by 1997, 98, I was convinced that electric bicycles were going to be the main event for the bicycle industry, they were higher price they were they used up their battery, they they were going to be written more, they’re going to need more service.

This was going to be the moneymaker. I was absolutely convinced starting in 96, 97, that this is going to be the main moneymaker for the bicycle industry. While most the bicycle industry thought that was absurd. And I was reasonably well known in American bicycle industry, because I operated these bicycle shops and had operated them successfully. And I’d been around for a long time. And I had people telling me that you’re going to be broke forever, you’re never going to make this consulting company work. And, and there was a lot of doubt in my own mind. But

that relationship with Dr. Jamison, he is encouraging me to go out into Europe and Asia, and learn about it and, and make friends. And one of the things that happened quite a lot at that time was I would go to a factory, for example, TN di or Small Antelope in in Suzhou. And I would go to the factory to visit the factory and the people in the factory would say, what are you here to to buy? And I’m not here to buy anything. What are you here to sell? I’m not here to sell anything. Why are you here? I want to make friends. And that turned out to be a really good thing to really good approach to this. So I spent five or six years basically travelling around to the electric bike events and electric bike factories, electric bike component makers, battery makers, motor makers, etc. And my only intention was simply to develop a network to make friends to get to learn from these folks. And that worked. And the result was that I was early in and and

got around a bit. And that created the the foundation for a future consulting business and the foundation for what would become the Light Electric Vehicle Association.

Carlton Reid 25:11
Lever. Lava. How would you pronounce that?

Ed Benjamin 25:14
Well, I usually say l e v a. But we have other folks that say laver. Yeah, you know, I think doesn’t matter. Because

Carlton Reid 25:23
obviously, so that’s vehicle. So that’s not just, you know, e bikes. So what classify what that what that encompasses?

Ed Benjamin 25:34
Well, a vehicle, there’s a device that carries somebody from A to B. And, you know, we could say that, automobiles, buses, trains, aeroplanes, skateboards, the list is a long of the devices that human beings used to get from A to B. And when we, when we named the Electric Vehicle Association, we had thought about calling it the electric cycle Association. But the problem was that, or the challenge that we saw was that we were going to see a lot of, of categories of electric powered micro mobility vehicles that have that are not electric bicycles. They were going to be, we didn’t know exactly what they were going to be. But we could see these electric mini scooters that people stand up on, we could see

a lot of innovative electric vehicles coming out of Europe, such as the trike.

And since then, we’ve seen continued to see a very interesting innovation in micro mobility vehicles. So is the electric bicycle, the ultimate ultimate micro mobility vehicle. It’s a very good one, and it’s working really well and it’s selling really well. But isn’t the ultimate one. I don’t know. I kind of doubt it. I suspect that we’re kind of, you know, if you think about the automobile industry in its early days, 1906 1910. They call them horseless carriages. And we if we saw horseless carriage today, we would chuckle and say, Boy, they’ve certainly evolved. I think we’re going to see similar evolvement from the electric bicycle. My grandkids may be looking at electric bicycle and chuckling and saying, Well, that’s not what we use today.

Carlton Reid 27:19
Is your dog okay by the way, is it like panting to see you or?

Ed Benjamin 27:24
No, there’s some landscapers that have arrived. And even with the door closed, she feels that she has a secure security duty to inform the landscapers that she’s got her eye on them. I apologise.

Carlton Reid 27:37
What kind of dog have you got there, Ed?

Ed Benjamin 27:39
She’s a Labrador.

Carlton Reid 27:41
Okay. Labradors are not normally that barky. I was thinking of a different breed to that, but okay.

Ed Benjamin 27:47
Now she’s a four year old Labrador who takes if if we let her outside, she would run up to each one landscapers and greet them enthusiastically, and then come back inside and be quiet.

Carlton Reid 27:59
Yeah. No, I’m with you there. So going back to

vehicles, electric vehicles. I do see I did a story a while ago, two years ago now. Time flies, but on the the Canyon kind of electric car. So

you know, the Canyon than the mountain bike and the road bike people clearly think there’s a potential future there for an electric vehicle,

basically, but they were very adamant that they were in fact, when I mentioned the Sinclair C5 to them, they kind of knew exactly what I meant. And they knew that’s what they had to not do. Does that Sinclair C5, you know, not hold that category back?

Ed Benjamin 28:46
You know, I have to confess that I don’t pay a lot of attention to

anything more than three wheels. And so I would suggest that

the human race is going to by are going to start using a wide variety of vehicles that

have many sizes and many characteristics, but

I have reasonably informed opinions about ones that have two or maybe three wheels, and anything more than that. I can say I see it coming. But I don’t pay that much attention to it.

Carlton Reid 29:19
So your ltva Could one of the categories. There are the one of the kinds of . It’s not four wheels.

Ed Benjamin 29:27
Yeah.

I’m sorry, I must have missed something there. Maybe I am not familiar with the Canyon vehicle.

Carlton Reid 29:36
I think the Canyon is a trike it I’m pretty sure. I think on it certainly smart it was small enough to fit into, into into a bike lane. That’s where they that they’re, they’re pitching it.

Ed Benjamin 29:47
Alright, how are we spelling this?

Carlton Reid 29:52
Canyon, like the bicycle company, the bicycle company, it’s basically they’re doing a light electric vehicle as a concept vehicle

Yeah, which they did, basically electric, you know, they would they would have it was actually before they started doing electric bikes, but they knew they were gonna be doing this electric in effect small car. It’s not commercial yet, but just the fact that they were looking at this space, you know, for Canyon to do that was really interesting.

Ed Benjamin 30:18
Yeah, it’s been I found it it’s been around for about a year

the

this you know,

this kind of light electric car, I see it as a no brainer for

the dense urban environment that human beings are moving into more and more often.

Carlton Reid 30:38
But it’s also and we could probably build it using mostly electric bicycle monitoring. And I think that’s their idea. So this could be quite light, quite inexpensive and quite functional. But I’ve not been paying attention to this category. Because we do. I mean, if you go to the Netherlands and you go to Amsterdam, you see these kind of vehicles already dotting around that, you know that the bike paths of Amsterdam, you know this

Yeah, since at least 20 years they’ve been tottering around, but they haven’t taken off massively. So I’m just wondering what would it take to make them take off probably access to safe roadways, and of course the Dutch ride those things on the bicycle path.

Ed Benjamin 31:23
But again, it’s a simply a category that I have not been paying much attention to I recognise that exists. I probably would own one myself. If I were riding through the rainy days of Amsterdam, but I’m afraid that not my not my area of knowledge.

Carlton Reid 31:42
Okay, so um, wasn’t gonna go, I won’t go into like the villages type, you know, golf cart, electric car. That’s kind of not your territory. It’s got to go shape thing.

Ed Benjamin 31:54
The Villages using an electric golf cart. If they could buy one that had a diesel exhausted put up black smoke, that’s the one they would like better.

case you don’t know what the villages are a hotbed of everything that’s stupid about the baby boomer generation of which I’m a member. Yes, yes. But the villages are a concentration of conservative, upside down right wing. We don’t like anything that’s good for anybody else thinking. I’m sure somebody will hear this and say something nasty about me. Because that’s what they do in the villages.

Carlton Reid 32:30
I’ve done a few stories on it. So it’s an interesting place. So mid motor, hub motor, bolt on accessory to make your wheel go round. Do any of these things matter? Is it just the fact that you should be getting an electric bike? Or do you think there should be a form of technology here? That’s that’s better than the others?

Ed Benjamin 32:50
Well, they’re they’re different. They have different strengths. They have motor bike, the motor is inexpensive, it works really well. It’s almost absurdly reliable. It uses a space in the bike that nothing else does, you can bolt it into an ordinary bicycle frame. Wow, lots of advantages. Disadvantages, well, if you can’t use the bicycle, Trent, you can’t run the power of the motor through the bicycle transmission. And it’s, that’s what the great advantage of the mid motor bike where you’ve got the high torque motor of the human being, somebody called it the meat motor one time or the muscle motor, that’s a very high torque motor, and you add to it and an electric motor, and then you run it through the sophisticated and broad range of a bicycle transmission. And we have one impressive vehicle, we can climb mountains, we can go fast we can do we can wow, this is a great combo. The downside is that it’s more expensive, partly because there’s a lot more machined parts in there. And partly because it’s a generally speaking, it’s a more sophisticated and tightly integrated system. But the performance advantage is significant.

Other types of electric vehicle or electric bicycle propulsion, they’re very small by comparison, today, we’ve got a lot of motorbikes, they’re by far the unit, the dominant in Unit numbers. Motorbikes by far the dominant in terms of attention, because of their superior performance and higher higher prices. And because the people that saw them have got good marketing skills, the bikes that don’t fall into either those two categories, ones that might have a motor mounted outboard of the rear triangle or a motor that rubs the tire or some other innovative way, but for the most part, they’re really small at this time. Is there something lurking out there that’s just going to take over? Maybe? I don’t, I don’t, I don’t see it right now. Most of the other ideas are find that their useful niche or their commercially viable niche is as a DIY kit or an aftermarket kit, for example.

A unit that rubs the rear tire or uses a rear wheel as its gear reduction

is very inexpensive and very easy to instal. And that makes it a very attractive aftermarket kit, but it doesn’t climb hills worth anything and it you run it through what anything wet road or a puddle and doesn’t work at all. So the, you know, all of these systems have got their pros and their cons, but the dominant ones, the hub motor and the mid motor. Both of them have their particular strength, their particular application where they’re great.

Carlton Reid 35:37
Don’t be accessories, you know, those add ons, which there are, you know, any number on Kickstarter, anyone on Twitter, do you think that just basically shows you the interest in the concept, people might be frightened by the cost, so they kind of attach themselves to these lower cost options, but then eventually, they might buy that equipment and it to attach it to their existing bike. But at the end of the day, it’s been far better for them just to buy it in an electric bike, and then that’s what we end up doing.

Ed Benjamin 36:05
And that’s, that’s often their conclusion. In fact, earlier today, I was reading a interview from the guy that was running, super pedestrian, super pedestrian, commercialised the Copenhagen Wheel, which was an all in one wheel battery motor controller everything inside the rear wheel of the bicycle, very tidy. Got a tremendous amount of media attention got a tremendous amount of excitement. And I’m sorry that I don’t really remember a soft last name but a soft commented that one of the things they had learned as they sold the this all in one wheel was that an awful lot of their customers would come to the to decide that what they wanted was just a complete bike. You know, this business of installing a wheel fiddling with a wheel when you make a conversion like that. There’s no matter how skilled you are, or how good that kid is. There’s always a period of oh, I needed to adjust that or I needed to add this. And what what a soft says in his interview is they’re super peds.

Carlton Reid 37:05
Time challenge. Were the people who said I’m just gonna buy a complete bike. Oh, telling pedestrian, does that come in a bike, I’d buy the bike. I’m not interested in the wheel. Give me the bike.

Ed Benjamin 37:18
I’m sure they heard that a lot. Mm hmm.

Carlton Reid 37:22
At that junction, and I’d like to go across to my co host, David. And we’ll split for, in fact, an electric bike themed ad break.

David Bernstein 37:32
Hey everyone, this is David from the Fred cast and the spokesmen and I’m here once again, to tell you about our amazing sponsor Tern Bicycles at www.ternbicycles.com t e r n bicycles.com Tern are committed to building bikes that are useful enough to ride every day and dependable enough to carry the people you love. Speaking of being able to ride every day as a spokesmen listener, I’m going to bet that you are the go-to consultant for your friends who want to ride but are an enthusiast and need some advice on what to buy. In that case, you may have people in your life for whom you just haven’t been able to recommend just the right bike considering their stature, age mobility issues or just plain hesitant to get back on a bike. Finally, those family members and friends can experience a new bike day with the all new Turn NBD new bike day Nbd. Okay, the NBDd has been specifically designed to be confidently easy to handle and easy to ride even. Even for those folks who might be as Josh Hon, team captain of Tern Bicycle says are smaller in size and have a hard time finding a bike that fits or older riders who might not have ridden a bike in a while or riders who might have balance or physical issues or riders who are just intimidated by the sheer size and weight of the average ebike. As Josh goes on to say the NBD will be refreshingly easy to hop aboard and ride. Now how can Josh be so confident in that? Well, it’s simple. The NBD has the lowest longest step through opening of any premium ebike. So if you know someone with a knee or a hip injury or or somebody who just can’t lift their leg over the top tube of a regular bike, this alone could make all the difference plus the NBD is designed with an ultra low centre of gravity and a longer wheelbase. And what does that mean? Well, it means that it makes it easy to balance and handle. And with a lowered bottom bracket and motor the NBD is stable for all riders and particularly inspires confidence for shorter cyclists because they can easily get their feet on the ground when they come to a stop. But the NBD isn’t just for shorter riders. As a matter of fact, it adjusts in seconds. Without tools by the way to fit riders from four foot 10 to six foot three or 147 to 190 centimetres. The NBD is also super comfortable with its upright riding position, swept handlebar suspension seatpost and wide 20 inch balloon tires need to load the NBD into a car. No problem, it folds flat in seconds. How about getting into it into a smaller living space? No sweat. The NBD includes Tern’s vertical parking features, you can roll the bike into a small elevator and park it in a corner of your apartment. Now with a max gross vehicle weight of 140 kilos that’s 308 pounds, the NBD can easily carry an extra passenger and plenty of cargo with up to 27 kilos on the rear rack and up to 20 kilos on the front rack. And in fact, it works with a wide range of Tern accessories and with most child seats, as I’ve said before, and this is important to me really important safety is a core value at turn. And that’s why the NBD frame and fork have been rigorously tested by one of Europe’s leading bike test labs. That’s also why turn chooses to use the Bosch motor and battery system. It’s one of the few systems on the market that meets and passes the UL standard for battery and electronics safety read the news and you know how important that is. Now the NBD comes in two models with prices starting at $3,899 or 3999 euros and bikes are going to start arriving in stores in Q1 of 2023. For more information about the NBD or any of Turn’s wide range of bikes, just head on over to ternbicycles.com Again, t e r n bicycles.com. We thank Tern for their sponsorship of the spokesmen podcast and we thank you for your support of Tern. Once again, thanks for allowing me this brief introduction everybody. And now let’s get back to Carlton and the spokesmen.

Carlton Reid 42:07
And we are back Thank you, David we are back with with Ed Benjamin. And Ed

is I think it’s pretty safe to say is an ebike guru and is and has been talking about E bikes for longer than 27 years. Most people are 27 years old, Hannes Neupert is probably now harnessed Norbert was doing this since the 90s

Ed Benjamin 42:33
You know,Hannes was also an inspiration to me a young guy full of energy, he’s really smart.

You know, and immersed in the details of the early days of this business. And of course he had his partner

I don’t mean partner in that sense. I mean, his coworker Susanne Bruesch did a was really good at articulating ideas and spreading information. And so we had Hannes Neupert who was absolutely visionary and and Susanne Bruesch, who was absolutely a terrific communicator. And then they had this large group of smart young motivated people that would come and go you know, they would

sitting down to dinner with that group at a trade show was a cross cultural

extravaganza and quite an interesting bunch and and very very influential over the long haul about what happened with electric bikes in Europe.

Carlton Reid 43:38
You went consultancy they went a different way they kind of went into

letting people ride these things so taking them out on the road on like a road show Yes. The extra energy roadshow in effect so that was obviously you know, lots of trade shows would have them but they would go out to other places and just get people on because isn’t that the crux of this is whenever you get somebody on an electric bike it then clicks it’s like you’re gonna grill that’s what it does I like

mm hmm yeah, the kind of the the the tailwind affect you kind of give you a sense maybe not so much with a with a hub but centre where the mid motor it just you feel like Superman or Superwoman you know it’s you know, it’s right

so if that’s the case, why hasn’t it? Why did it take so long to take off in America because you’re talking about you know, America is big into into cars is that just the only reason that the the ebike took so long to?

Ed Benjamin 44:46
I alluded to it a little bit earlier.

The electric bicycle was presented to the entire world by s transportation. The Chinese developed a transportation vehicle and they were the main event for it.

reduction of product, the Germans and the French and the Italians that were involved in the earliest days of electric bicycles also thought of them as transportation and presented them as transportation. Honest. And Susie presented this as transportation. And in America, bicycle is not transportation, a bicycle if a bicycle is being used for transportation, in the 1990s, early 2000s, that’s because you’re poor, it’s because you can’t afford anything else. And bicycles are for sport, fitness and recreation. And the electric bicycle of those days was

not very interesting for Sport, Fitness or recreation. So what happened in America, I think, was a simply a cultural phenomenon. We were shown this interesting transportation vehicle, and he said, No, we used cars for that. And it took a couple decades before the American public woke up to the advantages are the benefits that an electric bicycle could bring to them?

Carlton Reid 45:58
You also like I mean, our Europeans like this as well, of course, but

more power, more torque, and specifically a throttle. So in the US, UK, and in the EU, we generally don’t have the throttle.

Ed Benjamin 46:11
Yes, US has got on one class of bike has got the throttle. What’s the sales differentiation between those which which is bigger in the US? How are those sectors doing? Well, the unit volume is heavily in favour of the throttle. But one of the things that I’ve learned is this, the majority of the people united states don’t ride bicycles, they may have written a bicycle for a while as a child. But they’re not bicycle has not been for most people, like maybe all but one or 2% of our population. A bicycle has not been a major part of their life than one or 2% of our population that has been very interested in bicycles. They’re used to buying nice bicycles at the bicycle shop. And they’re used to controlling the speed of the bicycle with their feet, the harder they push, the faster they go, that’s to them. That makes all kinds of sense. But the vast majority of our population did not grasp that idea. As an intuitive, this is the way a bicycle should be. So they were presented with an electric powered two wheeler, and told this is an electric bicycle. And you have to pedal it for the motor to run and they’re like what, but when they were presented with this, and you said here, twist this throttle, they got that they understood it, it was intuitive, and it’s also easy. So in the United States, the class to bike is the unit volume leader. Now the bicycle industry has a hard time with that because the bicycle industry, the wreath at every level in the United States, is people who like to ride bicycles, or they are maybe often former competitors. So your BMX bike race or your next BMX or x triathlete, I shouldn’t say x, you’re you have this background and you’re working in a bicycle shop. Of course, you think that controlling the bicycle by how hard you pedal is totally the the correct way to do it. But the people that come in to talk to you about buying a bicycle may not see it that way. In fact, the people that come into your the most of the people, most of the American population will not go into a bicycle shop because they that’s not where they buy bicycles, they buy bicycles at Walmart.

And at Walmart, they read the cardboard card that’s hanging on the front of the display, and choose which bike they’re going to buy with very little in the way of expert input. And the that’s our normal American bicycle buyer. And the bicycle industry doesn’t like to confront that because, frankly, it represents a gigantic failure. We have not connected with most of our population. But most of our population does understand what a bicycle can do for them. The United States typically by something in the neighbourhood of 15 million bicycles every year, that’s a lot. And do we ride them a lot? Then? No, most of our bicycles stay in the garage with the been working as a laundry rack.

And if we look where do people use bicycles for transportation? You know, I used to tell people who want to see electric bikes, you go look at the back door of restaurants, the back door of hospitals, the back door, where people are who are working for low wage rate jobs, need to have transportation to get to work and there you will find a cluster of bicycles, or including some electric bikes. So that stigma, I don’t want to people think I’m poor. I’m not going to have a bicycle that I use for transportation. What really helped us with that problem with that with helped us with that cultural disconnect was when the electric mountain bike became a thing. Because when the electric mountain bike became a thing, it became absolutely culturally acceptable for you to be interested in electric bikes and to go out and get one and guess what they’re fun. One of one

No, my good friends is Estelle Gray and Estelle Gray and her partner, Sally? Are they sell the Edward Selia words as a former, I guess, not former, she’s still doing triathlons.

There, she’s a prominent person in the triathlon world, and still is one of the holders of the women’s trans continental tandem record. And I’ve known Estelle for decades, and we have discussed electric bikes off and on over the years. And she was, she would put up she’s a strong, sturdy girl, and she doesn’t need no stinking motor. And then she got an electric bike. And I think she got the electric bike because there was a mountain in between her and work. And she wanted to pull I remember the story, and I may have it wrong. She wanted to pull a trailer with a dog. That was a dog that works with kids. She wanted to pull a trailer with the dog over the mountain. And so she decided to give electric bikes a try. Last time I talked to Estelle, which was a couple of weeks ago, I think she told me that they now had four or five electric bikes, her and Sally. So wow, that’s actually not a bad synopsis of what’s been happening in the bicycle world, with a undercurrent that is really important, and it goes like this, we don’t make much money in the bicycle business, we don’t make much money on bicycles, we’ve managed to create the razor thin margins to the point where it’s almost a waste of time to try to sell a bicycle. And then electric bikes came along. And electric bikes were bigger ticket, a bigger margin, need more service, wow, we can make money with these. And so what we’ve seen in every market is the bicycles, companies and distributors have embraced the idea that with electric bicycle, they can make money. With a normal bicycle. It’s very tough with electric bicycle, not so bad. So all over the world electric bikes are the main moneymaker of the of the bicycle industry. And that means that’s the main attention focus of the bicycle industry.

Carlton Reid 52:03
So Hannes has famously, he’s rowed back from this a bit subsequently, but he famously said, and he said it in in various symposium or what have you in various shows over the years, that the mechanical bicycle is dead, it’s gonna go the way of the mangle

of the mechanical typewriter.

What you’re just saying there was almost going towards that. So is that something that you also see happening that just at some point in the near future, or maybe the far future, the mechanical bicycle is going to be the dodo?

Ed Benjamin 52:40
I think that the typewriter is a good analogy. I’m old enough that I learned to type on a mechanical typewriter, and I used to be able to type on a mechanical typewriter. But the electric typewriter was so much easier. And then the computer came along and we stopped even talking about it.

And I think we’re gonna see the same thing happen to electric bikes, I think we are in the process of seeing

an electric component to the bicycle transmission, we’re going to see that become almost ubiquitous, it’s going to become almost universal. And the result is going to be bicycles are much easier to ride and we might not even be completely aware of why

Carlton Reid 53:18
Is DI2 almost a stealth way of bringing, you know, electrification of the bike into a mechanical bike. So you’ve got the Shimano electronic gears, and you have a battery on on your frame, and you recharge it every every now and again. But it’s still a mechanical bike. But it’s not too much of a leap to think will, you would just have a smaller battery than a slightly bigger bed, but inside the frame, you wouldn’t see it. And that just becomes the form factor for the bicycle.

Ed Benjamin 53:48
Every bicycle will be electrified in some way, shape or form in the future.

Carlton Reid 53:53
Thanks so can you can you hear the gasps of horror? A? That that that that that? Just your acceptance of that, that the gas is horror from the global fan.

Ed Benjamin 54:07
I’ve been hearing it shouted into my ears for as long as I’ve been doing this and and you know what? I’m a bike guy. I grew up working in bicycle shops, I raced bicycles. I’ve competed in triathlons. I rode long distance bike rides, I commuted on a bicycle most most of the time when I’ve gone somewhere in my life. I’ve gone by bicycle more often than any other vehicle. I’m a bike guy. I’ve got big thighs.

And I get it. I understand it. It’s not. It doesn’t fit into our paradigm. And you know what, I also am willing to embrace change. And I understand that most human beings have difficulty with change. It’s not one of our skill sets of embracing change. But guess what? It’s going to happen. Change does happen. It always happens. Doesn’t matter whether you participate or not. So guess

What bike industry bike guys everywhere, electric bikes are coming, I shouldn’t say are coming, they’re here. And we, it’s in one respect, it is a terrific, wonderful, upbeat, bright future that we face. And yeah, if you’re the kind of guy that deliberately types on a manual typewriter, because that’s what you think is cool. You may have difficulty with this.

Carlton Reid 55:30
So you’ve got a consultancy, as you’ve said,

Tell me the name that consultancy, what’s

Ed Benjamin 55:36
Ecycleelectric and we provide research, we monitor imports, mostly to the United States, we were networkers, if if somebody wants to know, just you take out an example, if somebody said, which, which Chinese motor factory is the one that I should be talking to about this requirement, we probably know and we probably know approximately what the price should be. And we can probably introduce that client to the bosses at that factory, save them a lot of time and say and usually save them a lot of money.

And I would say that the that’s basic premise carries over to batteries, controllers, complete vehicles. So we we leverage our connections and our history, to help people that are new to the industry or need this kind of help.

That’s our primary function in the consulting business that and tracking and reporting on the industry now focusing almost exclusively on America, for tracking and reporting. We used to try to cover the entire world, but it’s gotten way too big. And then we have the light Electric Vehicle Association, which is perhaps a more important activity. As my wife put it, she says he’s like electric just makes money. That’s all it does. Light Electric Vehicle Association helps expand the utility of the electric bicycle or electric two wheeler. And that was the electric two wheeler and electric bicycle electric motor scooter, is improving life or offering options to hundreds of millions of people. That’s an important thing. And like Electric Vehicle Association has played a very small part in that. I’d like to point out harnesses played a much bigger part in that, but we’re all going in the same direction.

Carlton Reid 57:23
So my wife, you’re describing my wife there as well, actually, because we’ve got an electric car of hers that sitting on the drive doesn’t doesn’t move much. And she just rides to work. She’s, she’s a hospital doctor, and she she works at the top of the hill. So she goes on her electric bike pretty much every single day. What you’re saying there about, you know, improving people’s lives? Well, I would say if I had to ask her why did you go on your bike? She would say because it’s good for her mental health. It’s certainly good for exercise, because you know, you have got to pedal the bikes in the UK.

She just likes, likes, likes doing it. So this is this is a product that improves her life. Yes.

Ed Benjamin 58:02
Getting out and riding your bicycle, whether it’s an electric bike or a manually powered bike, or just getting out and walking to work or walking to your grocery store, is I think it’s something that resonates inside the human spirit. We get out, we move ourselves under our own power. It’s a glorious thing that we get to do. And bicycles. You know, you and I have had the same experience. bicycles have been a very important part of our lives. And they are an invigorating moment in every day.

Carlton Reid 58:33
Thanks to Ed Benjamin ofecycleelectric there and thanks to you for listening to episode 304 of the Spokesmen cycling podcast. Show notes and more can be found on the-spokesmen.com. The next episode will be out at the end of the month but meanwhile get out there and ride.