From the Tour de Trump to the Tour de France via Arkansas

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The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 254: From the Tour de Trump to the Tour de France via Arkansas

Monday 24th August 2020

SPONSOR: Jenson USA

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUESTS: David Bernstein and Jim Moss.

LINKS:

Forbes.com article on Donald Trump, the Tour de Trump and Joe Biden

Guardian article on Tour de France Covid protocols.

Bentonville, Arkansas: “Mountain bike capital of the world”

MACHINE TRANSCRIPT:

Carlton Reid 0:13
Welcome to Episode 254 of the spokesman cycling podcast. This show was engineered on Monday 24th of August 2020.

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

Carlton Reid 1:08
Hi there. I’m Carlton Reid and after the last audio comm video episode with Josh Horton of turn, Hi there I’m Carlton Reid and after the last audio-cum-video episode with Josh Hon unveiling the new GSD we’re back with our usual suspects, my co-host David Bernstein and attorney Jim Moss. We talk about the Tour de Trump, Joe Biden’s bicycling technique, the Tour de France, airstream bike touring, mountain biking in Arkansas and other stuff. We’ve got a whole bunch of topics to talk about. I would like to start and we kind of like preempted this beforehand. And of course, David’s been in this industry for so long. Of course he was around at this point, but I’ve got a story on forbes.com and It’s actually going quite viral at the moment. It’s quite funny I put on last night because it’s President Trump, of course and his use of bicycling. And I smuggled in because I’ve been around the trade also for an awfully long time. I smuggled in, in this story, even though it’s a current story about his views about bicycling now and Joe Biden, I smuggled in the fact that Well, actually, Trump does have a bicycle connection. And this is a lot of people don’t know, this is the Tour de Trump in in the late 1980s. And then I asked David, I said, David, what do you know about where you still have any costs? David, you said you were so let’s get talking about President Trump’s views of bicycling right now. But let’s just go into to to Trump kind of memories and I’ll bring Jim in in a second. So David, what were you doing in the industry at this point?

David Bernstein 2:53
Yeah. So in those days, I was working for the parent company. Well, the parent company of a number of different Bike related brands, but I think the one that most people know the best is Tioga Tioga was a popular mountain bike and BMX brand. I mean, my goodness, I still see tires on BMX bikes that look a whole lot like the comp threes we used to make back in the 80s. And see you guys you guys remember these? And, you know, we were we were we were sponsoring john Tomek at the time. JOHN John’s, john was a great guy a great, he would do anything we wanted when it came to print ads, and we put him in some silly ads. And we were sponsoring Tinker Juarez and then of course, Johnny became a roadie as well as some of you may remember. And, yeah, so we were I was in I was in that business at the time. And certainly we had product in the Tour de Trump and the tour du Pont and which

Carlton Reid 3:57
is the race that came after So, to the drum was two years, DuPont was involved with the first two years but then took on the title sponsor. And then it faded because this was a Tour de France or meant to be the Tour de France. It was going to be eastern seaboard to begin with, but it was meant to then go the whole of the US, wasn’t it? That was the idea. Yeah. Tell David, tell me. What was the idea about this raised originally it was going to be bigger than the Tour de France.

David Bernstein 4:23
Well, well, you know, everything Trump does is supposed to be you know, a superlative. Right? And, and it was it was intended to be America’s Tour de France. Although you could say the same thing about something like the Colorado classic, and some of the other road races from the time. It is, and it was, of course, as again, a lot of things with the Trump organisation it was it was it was really intended to get that name out there. And to be an advertisement for, you know, the Trump casinos in Atlantic City and things Like that, if you remember, Jim will remember this at the time. There was an East Coast interbike in Atlantic City. That’s right. Remember that? Yeah, I forgot

Unknown Speaker 5:11
about that.

David Bernstein 5:13
And it’s funny, I was thinking this morning, this is like the time of year, not when we’re not normally talking about the Tour de France’s I’m sure that we will, when we’re usually talking about things that eurobike in interbike. So it’s kind of depressing that we’re talking about the Tour de France and August and September. To know that, yeah, the Tour de France, the tour to Trump and the tour du Pont, were popular among diehard cycling fans. But at the time, there were far fewer diehard road racing cycling fans than we have today. And I think at the end of the day, and of course, you know, there was no internet and there were and these and there weren’t, you know, 50 million channels on our televisions. Because of those,

Unknown Speaker 5:55
I’m strong.

David Bernstein 5:57
I don’t want to talk about Armstrong because of all of the things. I just don’t think that it was. I think it was bound for failure because of all

Carlton Reid 6:05
this the Armstrong came in. He was in the Tour de Pont. He wasn’t in the tour to Trump. But it wasn’t the to the Ponce. It just came into that era. Right. And that’s when the era bill I know Jim might not want to talk about Lance Armstrong, but you cannot escape the fact that he built industry.

Jim Moss 6:22
Oh, yeah. No, I I like talking about Lance. Um, I, I mean, I don’t I have no idea why, but I have a very different opinion from most of the regular spokesman podcasters nobody is wearing the yellow jerseys from his seven wins in the Tour de France is just, you know, they can’t find anyone to give them to. He was the best among the developers and everybody was doping. So granted, it was illegal. It was wrong. It was dangerous. It was deadly. But it still was it he was still the best of the best and The argument is, if nobody was doping would he have still won? And, and I, you know, my knowledge is minimal on those issues, but I still think he would have been so he made a lot of money and he created a bike industry in the United States.

Carlton Reid 7:15
So let’s, let’s bring it back to to the Trump. So did you end to watching Pro Cycling in 1990?

Jim Moss 7:24
I want you to remember Trump, I don’t I remember watching the Tour de Trump, but I couldn’t hang in there. The way I hang it on the Tour de France. I would I would watch it for 20 to 30 minutes, and then I fade in something else at back then I was into being a mountain climbing guide, whitewater rafting guide that type of stuff wasn’t into cycling as much. Second thing is what you did to recover from your knee injuries back then

Carlton Reid 7:50
said that the story that I did on this wasn’t about the type of jump but it’s kind of like brought some of that in, but it was the I don’t know if you saw this a couple of weeks ago is by Comes past a fox news reporter who shouted him. He’s on a bicycle. And he comes past the reports I’ve read him he’s How old is he? 77. And he comes past him fast and is able to, you know, mentally say stuff to the reporter as they’re coming past but he comes past really quite fast. So he’s clearly in my piece. I say he’s clearly varial agile and pretty fit for or very fit for a 77 year old. And then what the story is, then Trump yesterday, day before yesterday, says I’m never going to ride a bicycle and we kind of know that because you kind of just look at him. And you probably know that he doesn’t ride a bicycle. Are you?

Carlton Reid 8:46
Are you with me there? Do you think? Do you

David Bernstein 8:48
think he rides a bicycle interesting. here’s here’s the interesting thing about that. And that is if you remember the president when Biden was vice president was Barack Obama. And he, he, he was sort of famous for riding a bicycle for a different reason. If you remember, he was raked over the coals because he was wearing quote unquote mom jeans. Do you guys remember this? And, and, and, and here is his Biden. And he’s like you said, He’s going and he’s 77 years old and he’s going by on his bicycle. He was, you know, people are shouting questions at him. And he’s, he’s giving answers back, which was, which was cool, not wearing mom jeans. And of course, you know, part of Trump’s thing I’m never gonna ride a bicycle is because he’s worried about getting injured. And then of course, he has to bring up john kerry again. Who is an actual roadie. So Ron’s has remembered. Yeah, I remember john kerry had had an accident, and he hurt himself. But you know, haven’t we all? Hold on? Yeah, well, I can show you scars from surgeries and things.

David Bernstein 9:57
I want anyone else No,

David Bernstein 9:57
I don’t. I don’t see Donald Trump getting out of it. anytime soon,

Jim Moss 10:00
I rode off a cliff on my mountain bike Friday and to make sure I protected the bike. I made sure it landed on me both times I rolled down the cliff that was protected by.

Carlton Reid 10:13
See, I think you mentioned there David, you mentioned Barack Obama. I definitely think Biden looks better than Barack Obama on a bicycle looks more natural on a bicycle. Yeah, of course, if we go backwards, we’ve got bush on a bicycle. Absolutely. If john kerry ever had become president, then you’d have had an absolute roadie in the White House, Bush was of course, a mountain biker more than a roadie but Biden Biden looks pretty good on a bike. We don’t really see him on a bike that often but when we saw him he looked good.

David Bernstein 10:48
Of course, you know, he’s neither a roadie nor a mountain biker. You know, he’s sort of on a

Unknown Speaker 10:51
get around the farm bike if you

David Bernstein 10:55
if you I don’t

Jim Moss 10:56
I don’t think it has anything at all. to do with cycling, I think it’s that if, if Biden would said I like chocolate ice cream, Trump would say I’m never eating chocolate ice cream, I only eat white ice cream. And I use that analogy that way for a specific purpose. I think if David you should have caught that by now you should have been grinning. And it doesn’t matter what it was. It was you know, I Biden loves pancakes and eats and I hop and Trump would never go into an eye hop is nothing to do with the realities of cycling which is sad. Maybe if he got on a bicycle and and use these got blood flowing to what little brain there it to his brain. Um, you know, things could be better. I better shut up.

Carlton Reid 11:54
Well, we kind of know that that that that Trump isn’t it isn’t a bicycle for all sorts of different reasons. Now Jimmy, you mentioned there that you’re watching the tour. Did Trump say it was on television back then? Yes.

Jim Moss 12:08
That was one of the big things is that the money that Trump tour to Trump and DuPont, the sponsors had that brought them in was they got time on TV. Now, I don’t ever recall watching the entire race on TV, but I can’t remember if that’s because I didn’t watch the entire race or you couldn’t see the entire race. But it also was on newscasts. Every once while in the evening, you know, the final hundred yards type of deal. What we

Carlton Reid 12:38
saw, I don’t know the history of, of what was on TV or what people could see bicycle races back in the day. But was that kind of in your recollection was that kind of early for seeing Pro Cycling? So this was quite newsworthy from a from a cyclist point of view that all of a sudden you’re getting all of these European guys coming across and you’re seeing them in the US Was that early to see cycle? Yeah, on TV? The first

Carlton Reid 13:02
time I ever remember cycling on TV?

Carlton Reid 13:06
Hmm. Do you remember anything earlier?

Carlton Reid 13:12
David, what were you what was what was it around? Was that kind of some of the earliest? So was that good from a sponsors point of view you were thinking that we’re on TV here.

David Bernstein 13:22
You know, it’s funny I I don’t remember watching that race. But now, you know, I’m sort of casting my mind back to because I was more involved in the mountain biking scene at the time with mountain racing and things like mountain bike racing. And any of the mountain bike coverage that was on TV was all pre recorded, edited. And a lot of it as a sponsor of major mountain biking events at the time, a lot of it was edited and packaged for sponsors. So for instance, we used to sponsor the Famous Kamikaze downhill in Mammoth, which was at the time, huge race, and we part of our contract was to make sure that our name was seen on the racecourse at the finish line in the in the announcements on TV. And so at the time, you know, obviously we weren’t getting the kind of live coverage that we get now, which is almost ubiquitous. It was all prepackaged pre recorded and quite frankly a bit hokey I mean, it just it was it was it wasn’t great coverage. It’s just a very fast

Carlton Reid 14:38
downhill and it’s not not nothing really heavily technical about the chemicals. And it was miles rock right? Wasn’t it? It was like the top guy at the time. He was the guy to be miles Rockwell

David Bernstein 14:48
tomac was so Mac as well was was huge at the time. By the way. Here’s a piece of trivia. JOHN tobac son, today is one of the top motocross riders in the world figures, Eli tomac. And that’s that’s cool anyway, no at the time it was it was guys like, like net overend and john tomac even though they were known for and and Tinker Juarez and people like that, because oh and Greg herbold Oh, there’s forgot asked. Yeah. And and, and at the time even though they were also known for cross country, because as you rightfully said, the Kamikaze and at the time most downhill at the time, was on very wide fire roads. It was only later that they added jumps and chicanes and things like that to downhill, which I never Sorry, I’m an old guy. I never really liked that. And I actually had a friend a guy that I actually sponsored, who died on one of those races. bylaws, I believe, have all of the the sort of features that they put into the race. And so I, I lament the loss of those super fast downhills that just are no longer there because now it’s all about jumps in and doing cool tricks but

Carlton Reid 16:12
and that was back in the day when they didn’t have I mean not that would have made a huge amount of difference if you hit something at 50 miles an hour anyway, but they didn’t have armour back then. They were racing in spandex and a helmet. They had a hell down but they weren’t. They weren’t in like full on downhill gear.

David Bernstein 16:26
Yeah, we all had because I raced downhill. I was crappy, but I raced downhill at the time. And I had a full face helmet. I think I had some, some some, maybe some elbow pads and maybe some knee pads. Maybe she had I don’t remember, but it was all sort of billion that came from the soccer industry or something

David Bernstein 16:43
like that.

David Bernstein 16:45
I think I think it came from BMX at the time. So I think people were wearing that for BMX, and of course, where did the BMX gear come from? It came from the motorcycle industry. So I remember at the time there were a lot of manufacturers of BMX and mountain biking. That started in the motorcycle industry, which kind of at the time made sense. I’m sorry, we were like you somebody said, we’re just a bunch of old guys here, john.

Carlton Reid 17:11
Well, we aren’t diverting from from the TV aspect of this because I was doing a segue here for you, David, which was gonna be how we’re going to watch the Tour de France. So, you’ve raised the point of owning, I’ll just tell you mine point of view. So from here, it’s not really a huge issue. We have a terrestrial TV station, we watch it via that or we have Europe sports, we’ve got two options. For instance, in the UK, and then of course, the internet. If you want to watch on your on your on your computer, you can go and get various streams and what have you. But the way you’re mentioning it as though it might be kind of problematical for you so how do you watch it in the US

David Bernstein 17:54
So for the most So for most people, depending on their cable package, and I’m I’m cord cutters so I have no cable package and because of where I live, I can’t get anything with an antenna. If you’ve got a cable package that has NBC sn which is the NBC Sports Network, then you can watch the Phil Liggett Bob roll circus yen’s vocht circus. Yeah. general thing. I I’ve grown tired of it primarily because of the number of commercials and the repetitive nature of the commercials. So for folks in the US, the option is if you want completely commercial free, is to buy the NBC Sports gold package, which is actually quite reasonable. It gives you like a year for something like $55 and then it’s completely commercial free. And I’m telling you that the commercials are repetitive. You see the same

Jim Moss 18:54
commercials, every thank heavens, we’re watching those commercials because without them The majority of Americans would not see professional bicycle racing. And not know I mean, I get up early in the morning. Yeah, MSNBC is about the only way I watch I get up early in the morning and watch the the podcasts or the shoot that’s like an hour late with all the mistakes and because I think it’s hilarious, you know, it’s 430 or five o’clock in the morning and I don’t get up. I’m not an early morning person. And I’m just rolling around on the couch laughing my butt off because then you’d go in and watch it later in the day with it cleaned up but to correct spelling mistakes and stuff. Then you go he’s gonna say Oh, they clean that one up. He got that one right the second time around. I think it’s hilarious. I told you guys that bell sports up in Boulder the the below press. They have a big whiteboard where they put all the announcers names and they track who makes what mistakes and how many each day and then have a running total for the whole tour. It’s hilarious.

David Bernstein 20:00
So when I get tired of fill, and that’s usually after that stage to look, here’s the problem filling it is, is is I mean, he’s, he’s probably Encyclopaedia of cycling knowledge. But what I find is that they tend he and his and the gang tend to dumb it down a little bit for the non cycling audience. And so every day, it’s like, we need to tell you what a sprint is, we need to tell you what a KLM is we need and and quite frankly, I don’t think there’s a whole lot of non cycling, you know, endemic cycling folks that are watching all the time, so I wish that they wouldn’t do that. So if and when I get tired, then I crank up my VPN. And I will watch SPS from Australia, which is pretty good coverage. I can usually figure out a way to watch Eurosport in the same way And then if I just want to watch and maybe turn the, you know, turn the volume, sometimes I’ll watch Fred’s TV, again, using a VPN so that, you know, I’m, I’m getting around the geo restrictions look and and disclaimer, this may or may not be ethical or legal. I leave that up to you. But I think this year, I’m probably just gonna pay for the NBC Sports gold just because it’s, it’s simpler, I can just turn on my TV and it’s, you know, on my Roku or on my Apple TV, and I can just not have to worry about screwing around with VPNs and figuring out where all the feeds are. So that’s my plan this year, the best place I’ve found to find where all of this is available, is steep. hill.tv steepen hill.tv. I think he does an amazing job of telling you all of the places where you can find the coverage. So

Carlton Reid 21:52
can I ask David just just as a bit of a left field stuff here because because Jim raised this as you know, this is what actually pays figuring this coverage Do you have an ad blocker on your your Mac when you’re on your browsers so you don’t see any ads? Or do you see all the ads?

David Bernstein 22:12
I have an ad blocker and when I go to read your stuff, I have to turn it off because Forbes makes me turn it off.

Carlton Reid 22:21
Forbes has got a lot of ads Yes, it makes a lot of money but

David Bernstein 22:24
but no Forbes literally so I’m happy to pay your salary. But no Forbes says Oh, you’ve got an ad blocker if you want to see this content, you have to turn it off. So yeah, I have an ad blocker cuz Di Di Di

Carlton Reid 22:38
Di ng is how I know it. I know it’s annoying, but I’m kind of with with with Jim here and that I’m kind of I know the content annoying sometimes. But I don’t turn it off. So I don’t have an ad blocker. Jim. I’m assuming you don’t have an ad. No,

Jim Moss 22:51
I actually have an ad blocker but I do turn it off for some things, man and but but I’m also bugged by The idea that, look, the only success we’re going to have in cycling and professional bicycle racing in the United States is if we educate more people, it is an extremely difficult sport to understand. For the majority of Americans, I mean, the Colorado classic, when it would be 100 TV or in the news in the evening here in Colorado, the sports announcers would screw it up every time. And that one great one actually said, and his boss and I are friends, you know, why do they have teams you know, they don’t block for each other. They don’t you know, lay their bikes down and you know, I mean he is he can compare it with football. And so yes, when someone goes into why a sprint or that type of stuff, it just gives me more time to go to the kitchen or go to the bathroom. But but it’s necessary to get the new people Because 99% of the people that were getting into the sport, have no idea how to ride at 21 miles an hour or faster and to get into paceline. It would scare the daylights out of them and to draft them, you know, they understand drafting from NASCAR, you know, and that’s 100 miles an hour. They don’t understand drafting at 24 miles an hour. We have to explain that we’re going to get the future Dale sits down and she watches for a little bit. And she asked me questions and I try to be patient and answer him. But it’s not an easy sport to understand here in the US because it’s so completely different from everything we do here that we call it sport.

Carlton Reid 24:50
So we could just watch breaking away on loop just make up a watch that as like, you know, here’s your prep, watch breaking away.

David Bernstein 24:58
You know What you said, Jim, I think is is is is right. And I think that we’re getting better at educating the general public about cycling. And I’ll give you an example. I’m on the phone with my mom the other day and my mom’s in her 80s. And she said, You know, I read that the top guy isn’t gonna be in the Tour de France this year now. Okay, just stop there for a second you the two of you know who I’m talking about. Okay. But I thought it was cool that my mom who isn’t reading cycling press and isn’t falling cycling somewhere in some newspaper that she’s reading during her, you know, lockdown or quarantine, she found out that team in iOS said that Chris Froome wasn’t going to be in the Tour de France. So explain to her why that was. And the fact that, you know, he had a horrific crash last year, he’s lucky to be alive, and he’s just not quite ready, but they’re going to give it to burn all and he’s gonna be the standard bearer, and I thought it was cool. That moment. I read about this and if my mom’s reading about it, Jim, and I think the general public is getting more information these days. Oh, coverage.

David Bernstein 26:07
Yeah. But yeah.

Jim Moss 26:10
Look, if you if you go to the you walk out the street, across the street to your neighbour, and you say, bicycle racing, the only name they know is Phil Liggett nowadays. I mean, it’s sad that

Carlton Reid 26:26
there is the aspect of it. People want to know more about it, they the internet, you can find out about it now. It must have been that people don’t want to know about it. It’s not a case of we have to educate people. This case of people don’t want to be educated. They don’t want to watch bicycle racing. It’s not because they don’t understand it.

Jim Moss 26:43
They just don’t watch it on my blog. There’s all sorts of flags up front. There’s one guy that’s got a Wisconsin flag. There’s one guy that’s got an ohio state flag. And everything else is a bronco flag. Right? I mean 12 other houses all have Bronco flags. You know, this, we have a guy that has a 1960 fire truck that’s painted Bronco colours. We, I mean, there is a blue beautiful statute at our airport, you know, with these blazing red eyes and if you look at it as the sculpture it is it’s just stunning. And people bitch all the time because it’s not white to represent the Broncos.

Carlton Reid 27:28
You know?

Carlton Reid 27:30
We This is

Carlton Reid 27:31
American football. Oh,

David Bernstein 27:32
yeah, sorry. I

David Bernstein 27:34
need to educate me here. And for reference cards in the Broncos colours aren’t orange and blue.

David Bernstein 27:41
Yeah. So you’ll see a firetruck.

David Bernstein 27:43
This is why I’m a Rams fan because because because blue and gold looks much better.

Jim Moss 27:50
Yeah, orange. I mean, you can’t miss them. Well, I walked into my bank a couple years ago on a Friday where it is okay. Now. No matter what your profession to wear an orange and blue Bronco jersey, and the assistant vice president says How come you’re not wearing your Bronco shirt? And my response was because I don’t have one and I never wear anybody’s name on my back. I’ll put my name on my back, but you gotta pay me to wear your name. You know?

Jim Moss 28:23
me my banker talk about

David Bernstein 28:25
talking about talking about rabbit holes yeah

Carlton Reid 28:29
well it can be that already streams of course we could. We could go.

David Bernstein 28:33
Don’t get us started. Just

Carlton Reid 28:35
tell people like 15 minutes before we had if you went on a holiday day

David Bernstein 28:40
you got it explained air stream.

Carlton Reid 28:44
Do you take a bicycle? Yes. Do you take two bicycles? Please?

Carlton Reid 28:49
So it’s a it’s a bicycle story. Yeah. If two bicycles in your Airstream you can you can mention on the show.

David Bernstein 28:55
We went to Grand Teton National Park. We rented an Airstream. We had an amazing time. Part of the what made it amazing and this is actually this is a bicycle story. A lot of times when I go to national parks I mean I take my we take our bikes everywhere but a lot of times when we go to national parks, I’m scared to death of riding on their main roads. And the reason is because you get people who are first time renters of Airstream. They’re not paying attention when they drive. But here’s the thing. Grand Teton National Park has some amazing distance and variety of off the road bike paths, which were great for road riding. We had some great rides through some beautiful scenery. And we were off the road but we were on pavement it was and there were a lot of roadies, actually, especially on Saturday and Sunday. So I’ve written in Yellowstone I’ve written in in the Grand Canyon. I’ve written a lot of national parks. But I’m going to tell you Grand Teton National Park had some great facilities for cyclists. She didn’t need a mountain bike didn’t need a gravel bike. No, you just know

David Bernstein 30:10
about biking. Yeah,

Jim Moss 30:12
we got it. Yeah. And and we got to explain the airstream thing my parents started their retirement 30 years ago, by getting an Airstream and taking off and living in it for a month. And then the next year, two months and eventually six months until finally, for a couple years they lived in airstreams full time. They then found a place in Florida where they bought a house where you had to own an Airstream to buy a house in this community. And they travelled my parents have been to Alaska with that Airstream. They’ve been all over the United States. And so the my mom’s Airstream numbers three to three, she was the international recording secretary for the club or something I don’t know. And so when he brought up Eric I’m not getting that. Oh, you got to you will. The cult is coming for you. They have their own clothing. They have a song book, they have a pledge to the cult is coming

Carlton Reid 31:14
off to this was we had before the show started we had you to waxing lyrical about espin. And are you now going to get an Airstream or you think

Carlton Reid 31:28
now I’m thinking about actually you demoed

Carlton Reid 31:30
my stick blender.

David Bernstein 31:32
Well, yes. No, our plan is this art. It’s It’s, it’s, it’s it’s a way of going to some amazing places for both road riding and mountain biking and not having to worry about things like hotels and tents and things like that. And we had a great time. So we will probably Yeah,

Jim Moss 31:51
it is the most phenomenal and safest way to haul bicycle. You got $100,000 of aluminium around your bike.

David Bernstein 32:02
I’m not spending that kind of money. So I don’t want anybody thinking that next subject, Carlton,

Carlton Reid 32:08
Arkansas.

Carlton Reid 32:10
Yeah. So Jim

Carlton Reid 32:11
this is this is your cue for talking about Bentonville and talking about

Carlton Reid 32:18
that the heirs to a certain fortune.

Jim Moss 32:21
I am on all these press lists, obviously. And one of them I got in May during the pit Well, during pandemic, which we’re still doing with it announced that Bentonville Arkansas was the mountain bike capital of the world. And if you go to the Bentonville, Arkansas, you know, tourism page, it’s the number one thing on the page. And the reason is the last time I actually looked at the number I know that the grandsons great grandsons, the heirs of the Walmart fortune, had put 30 some million dollars in to Arkansas mountain biking they have the longest mountain bike trail there’s a 500 mile mountain bike trail I guess they own what’s the clothing company they just bought the other day starts with a p

Jim Moss 33:16
but you know because of their

Carlton Reid 33:18
longtime investors then Rapha

Unknown Speaker 33:20
they

Carlton Reid 33:21
so they Rapha

Jim Moss 33:24
Rapha they’re now sole owners of Walmart’s now the sole owner of rapha. And it’s it’s big. I mean, they they hosted the world races mountain bike and cross races there for years now. I mean they’re supporting mountain biking and living here in Denver where I’ve been riding at least in Colorado once a week and not repeated a trail sits, you know and writing areas were on a trail You’ll see every 10 miles for trails take off and go different directions from their main trail. You know, I mean mountain biking, just, you just go for days here. It just cracks me up to see that Bentonville is the mountain bike capital of the world. I mean, I’m glad to put the money into it. So I’ve been bills realised

Carlton Reid 34:19
I’ve never been there either. I’ve been to Colorado, so I know you and I’ve certainly been to Park City Of course, Deer Valley, David, but is Bentonville, Arkansas? Is it is it ski? Is there skiing there in the winter and they’ve just extended out or is it they’ve just made a mountain bike community out there? So they haven’t got that infrastructure of it being a ski resort. The highest

Jim Moss 34:45
point in Arkansas is 2753 foot.

David Bernstein 34:53
I don’t it’s not my understanding that Arkansas

David Bernstein 34:57
is a ski No, they haven’t But no, I never heard They have a ski area as as,

David Bernstein 35:03
as a resident of Park City, Utah, which is a gold actually the first gold level mountain biking destination. According to imba, I need to know the Bentonville is only a silver level and we were the first gold level. And that here we have 450 miles of trails. And of course, we do have actual mountains. And yeah, we do have the infrastructure for skiing. And don’t forget, we’re also a resort community, which means we have lots of restaurants and bars and nightclubs and things like that when the pandemic is over. So I just need to defend a real mountain biking destination. Which is

Carlton Reid 35:40
Yeah, it’s an interesting claim. And it’s like all of these you can you can claim what you like nobody’s gonna stop you. Apart from other resorts. I’ll go well hang on one. And then there’s like a bidding war game.

Jim Moss 35:51
One of my riding buddies has gone to the area twice for the World Championships and really sort of scaling The racing because the writing was so phenomenal. He says the trails are immaculate, he says the perfect and they just rode on the whole time and then we get back in time to watch the vintage. But you know, it’s what 12 hours driving versus eight minutes.

Carlton Reid 36:21
OK, I can see, you’ve sent me some links here. So I’ll put them in in the show notes. Thank you.

David Bernstein 36:27
I have a cynical question for Michael forgave ignorance. But yeah, I didn’t. I didn’t realise that first of all, that they that they bought a majority stake in Rapha. I looked that up while you guys were chatting there. And of course, Walmart does sell bicycles, not that I would necessarily take them on trails. I get mad a lot or so. So the cynical question. Yeah. So the cynical question is this. Is this just sort of a marketing effort to sell more bikes and more

David Bernstein 36:59
clothes? No. Great

Carlton Reid 37:02
they just got lots of money the grand sons like now Yeah,

Jim Moss 37:06
they love Stuart Walton. Yeah,

Carlton Reid 37:09
stick with it dispel this stupid funny it’s kind of it’s not the normal way of spelling so I think he’s one of the key ones Okay, so hey they just got a tonne of cash so they’ve spent on their their prediction which is mountain biking and they certainly wouldn’t have made any money from from Rafa because Radford was losing lots of money so again, it was almost a vanity pile they got to buy this iconic brand Rafa but they they do have a pro really apologise here. I’m not going to search for this. I’m trying to think of it in my head. It begins with a V, but they’ve got a pro mountain bike brand, which was

Jim Moss 37:51
one of these handmade bikes, but they’ve declared bankruptcy twice.

Carlton Reid 37:57
No, no, it’s not that one. It’s a different one. I’ll search it up later on but it’s a V and I’ve done stories on it so I should know this. So they own Viathon that’s Walmart owns that I do apologise it’s Walmart owns that not the Walton grandson’s. That’s different. This is where it becomes confusing. Yes, yes, thank you. That’s the one. So Walmart owns that. But of course the Walton grandsons here, they’re on the Walmart board, but their businesses are totally different from Walmart. So they’re not trying to you know, get more business into into entry level Walmart bikes at all because they’re totally separate businesses,

David Bernstein 38:37
but that would be like me

David Bernstein 38:38
and well these viith on bikes are not going to be sold and

David Bernstein 38:42
it would be like me opening eliminate

Carlton Reid 38:44
the plan was eventually to maybe but yeah, it was it was a standalone thing.

Jim Moss 38:48
Yeah, that’s like, that’s to me opening a lemonade stand to support my income as an attorney.

Carlton Reid 38:56
Hmm, yeah, yeah, it’s pinprick stuff for sure. So while we’re talking about product, and we’re talking about where you can get bicycles from David, do we know any, any retailers of bicycles? Who might have gear advisors? Do we know any we have any stories we can tell about a such a brand, David,

David Bernstein 39:24
as a matter of fact, we do. What What a great question, Carlton. I am so glad you asked. You know, there is a site, there’s a site on the internet that you can go to where you can find your advisors. It’s called Jensen usa.com. slash the spokesman. Make sure you use that URL. Jensen USA is our longtime oil and wonderful sponsor. And and it is a place where you can call when you have questions before you make a purchase. And I’m going to give you an example. So we we were just talking about airstreams I rented one. I’m gonna come around to a point here. And in order to do that I needed I needed to buy a bunch of products for the trailer hitch on my car. And there is a website that you go to. And they say that you can talk to them and ask them questions I did that. I called, I asked them questions. I bought a bunch of products and it turned out not they weren’t, it wasn’t the greatest advice. The point of the story is this. A lot of times when you’re dealing with internet retailers, when you call, you may not necessarily be getting somebody on the phone, who has the kind of intimate knowledge of the products that you’re looking for. But when I’ve called the gear advisors at Jensen, USA, what I have found is that they know their stuff, and the advice that they give you is really good and the reason for that is simple. They’re cyclists. They’re riding to work to in front. They’re riding on the trails around Jensen, USA. At lunch or on the roads, and so they know the products that they’re selling. So if you’re looking for advice to on buying a product, best thing you can do is go to Jensen usa.com, get their phone number and give a call to one of their gear advisors. And while you’re there, here’s what you’re going to find. You’re going to find a great selection of products at really competitive at excellent prices. And of course, those gear advisors to give you some great customer support, we I would recommend them even if they weren’t a sponsor, but because they’re a sponsor, it makes it that much easy, easier. But in order to show them that you’re heard about them, on the spokesman, do us a favour and go to that URL. It’s Jensen usa.com slash the spokesman. And if you’ll go there, they put some products up there every once in a while that change that are some good suggestions, some things that we like and some things that they like, but go to that URL to let them know that you heard about them here on the spokesman that’s Jensen usa.com. We thank them a tonne for their support, and we thank you for importing Jenson USA. I’m so glad you asked that question.

Carlton Reid 42:06
It seems to come up every show.

Jim Moss 42:08
It’s not. I don’t know why. Yeah.

Jim Moss 42:13
topics.

David Bernstein 42:16
One of those perennial topics. It was funny, though, because you started, you started asking the question, I thought to myself, where’s he going with this?

Carlton Reid 42:27
Now, we were talking before about the Tour de France, but we can we can segue back to the turn of France. And I know, I know, David, I know both of you were saying we shouldn’t really talk about a certain pandemic issue. It is pretty much unavoidable at the moment, however, and we talked the last time we were together about whether the Tour de France is going to go on it right now. It does seem as though it’s going to go on and one of the ways they they are making sure it goes on is having this rule, which I think velonews broke the story. Two or three days ago, where the protocol they’re going to use the ASO that organises them tour France is two strikes and you’re out in effect. So if you have two riders who test positive, the whole team is out of the Tour de France

David Bernstein 43:23
riders. It wasn’t somebody sorry. Yes. They were upset. Yeah. I mean, it could be a bus driver. Yes. One year. It could be.

Carlton Reid 43:32
Anybody. anybody involved with the team? Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. So do you think that’s gonna I mean, this three week has an awful long time and especially when you look at the cases in France are going up. They’re going up quite fast. And so the closer we get to the sort of rounds that that’s gonna be and we also know that you know that the world championships are already off. So France is putting on there and Massive a massive event with these protocols. Are they enough David to do you think the show will last the whole three weeks the show that is the greatest annual sporting event.

David Bernstein 44:13
I am neither a doctor neuroscientist.

David Bernstein 44:18
But

David Bernstein 44:20
But I have done a lot of reading. And I have been following this very, very closely. And if you and so a couple of things, number one, you’re right. The case case numbers in Europe, unfortunately, over the last couple of days and weeks have been increasing. And people are getting very concerned about a second search happening. And so that that’s that’s an issue. A number of teams have already had positives throughout the last few weeks. And so that’s a concern. They’re putting the teams in sort of mini bubbles, which is sort of a silly thing when you think about the fact that okay, but then they’re out on the roads of France and they’re all drafting and in a peloton. So I just I have doubts about that. And then you think about think about this, I was, again, because my mother asked me about Chris Froome. And so she was asking me the same question you asked about you, will they actually be able to pull this off? Let’s talk about a climb and the top of a climb and what it looks like during a normal race. And does that seem a bit dangerous to you, from a, a, an infection prevention standpoint. So my hope because I’m looking forward to watching the race. My hope is that it will go off weeks, and I pray that nobody gets sick. But the realist in me is very concerned about whether or not this will happen now, I’m very curious to hear what justice moss has to say.

Jim Moss 46:20
Well, I think you’ll be one of the most effective virus

Jim Moss 46:25
movement centres in the world.

Jim Moss 46:28
How many colleges and universities had these great plans, spent the summer disinfecting, and then tried to tell 20 year olds not to get close to each other and failed miserably and now are all you know I mean, we think up to a dozen that had students on campus and now the students have been sent home and said you’re going to learn virtually this year. I mean, I love the Tour de France. I love everything about it. I you know, it’s just the one have the greatest spectacles that we see each year. And spectacles meaning a good word for the first time, but you’ve got people screaming bloody murder on the sidelines, and you know that they’re spewing particles all the way across the road. And these writers are going to be writing through that. If you got a two strike rule you better at quarantine your entire staff and bus drivers a week and a half ago so that you got at least 14 days going in. I don’t care how much testing they do the the the testing is good for an hour, you know, and then you can be sick and spewing. You know, the study just came out that kids don’t get the disease but they all spread it. In fact, I mean, some some astronomical numbers above 50% of the kids in some areas have had the disease but if show no symptoms, and yet they are still able to spread the disease. I mean, it’s just, you know, you’re gonna have to put barriers up the entire hundred and 80 mile route sometimes 120 mile routes to be able to keep people away. And then you got people in the peloton. I mean I know going uphill that I ride breathing slowly through my nose when my mouth closed. Okay, people climb back into chairs after falling out.

Jim Moss 48:26
You know your

Jim Moss 48:28
I if I’m wearing a mask, I take it off because I think it’s slowing down oxygen. And I need all that actually I get especially with our fires right now. Um, I just I mean, I hope I pray I want but I don’t think it’s gonna work. I just, there’s just no way.

David Bernstein 48:47
You are you guys. Are you guys writing masks, like wearing them? I didn’t hiding it riding riding. No writing Ronnie.

Jim Moss 48:56
I wear a buff, keep it around my neck and then when I see Somebody’s yeah pull it up. unless somebody’s gotten off the trail a long way so a lot of people are doing that a lot of people used to be people pull the bikes off or step off the side of the trail so you can pass mountain biking, road biking, you know it’s it’s the slalom weed as I say you’re just working your way around people. Few of them are wearing masks, but very few people wear a mask outside here in Denver. Yeah, and most the time I’m not really either. And, and after the first five minutes of writing, it’s wet anyway was sweat.

Carlton Reid 49:38
About two months ago, there was a sounds strange to say that there was a viral posting. I think it was on medium.com of athletes. There was like the graphic of the droplets being breathed out into the outside air, and then how many people it would in fact outside and then A huge controversy over that particular graphic is not as dangerous out there. It was controversial it was it was by Burt Blocken. I know the guy who did it. He’s the aerodynamicist. So he’s the guy who models aerodynamic effects

Carlton Reid 50:18
of cycling.

Carlton Reid 50:18
So he was then out of his comfort zone, I think here and he was doing this particular modelling got shot down in flames very quickly by lots and lots of other experts. But then a lot of that has still is still lingering in that you should be wearing masks even outside and it came from that particular block and modelling, but David, are you saying you are wearing a mask outside and the reasoning behind

David Bernstein 50:46
it is or No, No, I’m not. I’m like Jim, you know with a buff. I can’t imagine climbing you know, a mountain with a with a mask on it. I just think it would be tough, but I’m not around anyone, you know, maybe my wife because we ride together, or my daughter. But the good news is, I’m lucky and fortunate in that I live someplace where even when I’m out for a long ride, I’m usually not seeing anybody and I’m seeing them. You know, I’m passing them really, really quickly. And at least according to like, for instance, the doctors in charge of our Department of Health here in our county, you know, he says, it’s all about viral load. He says, if you’re outside and you’re hiking, and you’re just passing somebody, you’re not getting that load. And again, I’m not a doctor or scientists don’t believe anything I say. But so anyway, no short answer is no, I’m not wearing a mask and I’ve got the buffer

David Bernstein 51:46
in your you’re not passing or seeing anybody when you ride.

David Bernstein 51:53
I choose where I go. So for instance, on the weekends, riding around here in Park City, the roads are are literally clogged with cyclists. I choose not to ride in greater park in the Park City area in this valley. I will drive someplace to go for a ride because a there’s fewer cars and B there’s fewer people and see I can generally I get, you know I get tired of riding in the same place every single day. So during the week number riding in Park City, and on the weekends I go someplace where usually there’s far, far, far fewer people. See, you

Carlton Reid 52:26
know, in the last show, I actually griped about this and this is a crazy and stupid thing to brag about. But the fact that the teams don’t have team masks, and they still don’t. And I’m just I’m sure I am. I am blown away that they haven’t got loaded up masks. That’s just what why not. You can make them medical you can make them you can make them just put some covering over and these are big bits of real estate for putting in front of the TV cameras

Jim Moss 52:56
that you can find a place in around Park City to rock Hi. I went for a mountain bike ride on Friday. Yeah, we started in a well known parking lot. But we rode for four and a half hours. Which I figured out with a keto diet is stupid. I got to switch things because man when you when you bonk on, keto you’re done. There’s just nothing and nothing you can do so, but we probably passed.

Jim Moss 53:29
I’d say 150 cyclists.

Jim Moss 53:33
Well, but you’re talking about even road riding. I

Jim Moss 53:38
I bet you there’s 10 times more cyclists out right now, on the road. Wherever I mean, on the bike trails, they’re just they’re just crowded. I mean, they’re literally crowded. I used to go for a ride at certain times on the bike trails and I wouldn’t see anyone for miles. And I’m seeing I mean, literally 10 times more cyclists. And, and 10 times so even more African American cyclists, which is I is really great. The diversity is awesome right nowadays, but hundreds of cyclists

David Bernstein 54:16
have it you you live you, you’re you’re you your greater metropolitan area has more population than my entire state. And I’ll give you an example. So I’m every year on my birthday, I ride my age in miles plus one to grow on. So this year, I rode from essentially the Park City area to Evanston, Wyoming. Okay. You think we saw any cyclists out there? No.

David Bernstein 54:44
It was the two of us.

David Bernstein 54:46
That was it. And a bunch of cows and antelope drive out.

Jim Moss 54:52
Well, first of all, being in the right now you can ride other than for six miles section from downtown Denver to Utah. bike trails. Okay, we got a six mile section in the canyon where I’m going well, you can’t get there right now because, of course, I 70 through Lynwood canyons close because we’re fires. But saw that I mean there we have cyclists everywhere that there are if you go into the bike shops I thought they had some new bikes on display and I walked around yesterday finally looked at the new bikes, and it was just repair stuff that it had no place else to put. They put it in the stands where they normally have bikes for sale. But there are bikes that I haven’t seen in 20 or 30 years that are being brought out of closets and attics and garages and said here fix this up. I want to write it, including, did you know that Ford made an electric bike 25 years ago, Lee Iacocca invented an electric bike and this bike my bike shop at Mountain Sports had won on the show floor and it was a beautiful bike.

Carlton Reid 56:03
When when he left, he then started the electric bike company.

Jim Moss 56:07
They were so big for dealers and this guy actually gave one. It was amazing. I was stunned about how, how closely it matched what we have today.

David Bernstein 56:21
You know, one of the talking about electric bikes one of the things we’ve talked about on the show for years and years and years and years, is electric bikes. And what I’m finding lately around here is that I’m seeing an explosion of electric bike sales. There’s just it seems to me like there’s electric bikes.

Jim Moss 56:40
The only electric bikes that I can find right now are the extremely high end $6,000 electric bikes in Canada. Other than that, there’s nothing left Ah, and and Friday’s ride four hours of riding we solve for electric bikes, electric mountain bikes.

Carlton Reid 57:00
Do you know what I’m getting next? My next electric bike and it’s from a good friend of yours, David, that we mentioned last show as well. Josh at Tern. So I had a big a big episode with him. The last episode to find out the spokesmen was actually a show with with Joshua. Okay, so they’re sending me one of those bikes. So trial. So it’s the new GSD with all these trick new features on it. So I’m going to have that for a couple of weeks to ride around on and that is an expensive, that’s like $8,000 up isn’t it? That’s the you get all the bells and whistles and you’re talking $12,000 So, but that’s a cool bike and that’s, that’s, that’s that’s a

Jim Moss 57:52
son to soccer practice and his son is on the back of the plate reading you know, I mean What besides that amazing podcast and amazing story about this bike, the fact that was the one thing that I left with was, it’s so comfortable and it’s so easy to ride that your son on the back on the way to soccer practice is reading. Mm hmm. I like it.

Carlton Reid 58:19
Yeah, now that they’ve done well with that particular bicycle, so we could ramble on about airstreams electric bikes to the from the pandemic, we could, we could keep on going. But we can’t we have got to stop at some point. And this is the point we have to stop. It’s that point of the show, where David wouldn’t would use to say the tips but because I’m in charge, we don’t have tips. If people think we ought to have tips again, then absolutely. We’ll, we’ll bring it back.

David Bernstein 58:54
There are a lot of know. I love that part of the show, but that’s okay. It’s your show.

Carlton Reid 59:00
So what we normally do, when we don’t have tips is and tips we can have both of course, is we say where we can actually find each other on on on social media. So, Jim, where can we see you and your grumbling dog on social media, y’all

Jim Moss 59:19
two of them do have

Jim Moss 59:21
talks.

Jim Moss 59:23
One of them’s over in the corner. Easiest way to find me is just to Google recreation law, recreation dot law@gmail.com recreation dash law, calm as my website blog

Jim Moss 59:40
or actually you now Google “Jim Moss” I think I keep popping up.

Jim Moss 59:46
People are working on that getting rid of me.

Jim Moss 59:50
But yeah, and in all honesty, people.

Jim Moss 59:54
I only get contacted like once every, you know, once a year once every six months and no I enjoy comments from readers and a lot of them have have straightened me out and helped me out. And so please do not hesitate to get a hold of me if you have a question. And I’m not, you know, I mean, if it’s a short five minute labour question I answered because it’s quicker to email you then to bill you.

Jim Moss 1:00:18
It takes 20 minutes to do a bill.

Jim Moss 1:00:22
If you’ve got a question or a con, let us know. We like knowing what you like hearing so we can talk about we may not talk about it because you know, we’re, we’re here to talk. We’re gonna follow our script. Anywhere. We end up going but but yeah, get ahold of us recreation. dot law@gmail.com I’d love to hear from you. Really.

Carlton Reid 1:00:49
Okay, and the world’s VPN expert, David, where can we hear

David Bernstein 1:00:55
and I’m not going to tell you which VPN I use because they don’t sponsor the show. Um, yeah, I I think the best place to find me these days is on Instagram. I’m Fred cast on Instagram, but if you want to shoot me an email, my email address has not changed and all my How long has it been Carlton like 15 years of podcasting. Now the Fred cast@gmail.com ba Fred cast@gmail.com, Oregon on instinct Africa

Carlton Reid 1:01:20
ever, ever gonna bring that show back? David ever?

David Bernstein 1:01:24
It’s an excellent question. I have toyed with doing a slightly different show, which I’m not going to explain here someday I will do it the problem. Okay, the problem with the Fred cast is the amount of preparation time that it took. And then of course, you know, if let’s say I did an hour long Fred cast that was probably four hours of recording and editing and, and post producing time. And then to prepare for an hour long Fred cast took me some time, sometimes 678 hours and I just got to the point where It was just too much time.

David Bernstein 1:02:02
A day.

David Bernstein 1:02:04
Yeah, well, it was time that I took throughout the week. And so that took me away from my family and took me away from my job and all of my, my paying job. I miss it. I miss the the interaction with the listeners. I won’t lie, I miss the product tests, and the swag and stuff like that. But the show I’ve been I’ve sort of been noodling about for the last couple of years would not take that kind of preparation. It’s more of a of a one on one interview show. Someday I’ll do it and I would not get

Carlton Reid 1:02:37
your feed will still be there. You just pump in the same feed. So people have got it. You know, I really see how they probably haven’t deleted it. It’s just it’s still gonna come out.

David Bernstein 1:02:48
Yeah. And my thought would be that if I did this new show, I would put I would put the first few episodes into the feed with a little sort of a prelude to say, Hey, you know, podcast listeners. This is what I’m now doing. Blah, blah, blah. But for now, I just I got to focus on, on on business and family and air streams. Right

Carlton Reid 1:03:08
It just remind people that shade. David, that was the because it was such an Early Show. It was the biggest show. So the Fred cast at the time, and for no good number of years was the biggest bicycling. Yeah,

David Bernstein 1:03:22
podcast. Yeah, it had the most listeners. I got, especially during the tour. I got, I mean, the number of downloads per show was was astronomical for a cycling show. It’s interesting, though, around the same time, a number of other cycling podcasts. So there was there were a couple that were around before I started. And then there were a couple that started shortly thereafter. And there are a couple that are still around that are extremely successful, and that are well monetized good for them. So I think he’s

Carlton Reid 1:03:56
talking about David Haye, talking about

David Bernstein 1:03:59
so the two jobs are still around, and they’re still doing their thing. The velocast. Our friends are doing very well and they’re monetized and and and then, you know, there’s there’s some other people I mean, there’s a I go, I can see her face. I’m sorry, I can’t remember her name. She’s such a nice woman. outspoken podcast. We know her. She was at press camp. She’s great. She’s just such a nice person.

Carlton Reid 1:04:29
Thanks to my co host, David Bernstein, and attorney Jim Moss. Links for the stuff we talked about can be found on the-spokesman.com. The next episode could be another product unveil. Watch out for that on September the first and I mean, watch out because it should be another video. It’ll also be available on The audio, of course, but it’ll be on the YouTube channel that I’ve got, which I’ll embed on, of course, the-spokesman.com. Meanwhile, get out there and ride…