One of the ways you can tell if you’re not living your life right is if you have stopped going to see live performances of music. Today we’re going to talk about some of the best shows we’ve ever seen and also heard.

#94: The Greatest Shows on Earth

Paceline Tandem Julian

Society is organized around the idea that people’s brains work a certain way, even though we all know some extremely large percentage of people have brains that different ways work sometimes. It’s like your dungeon master only likes clerics and doesn’t care at all about bards or druids. I mean c’mon! What kind of quest is that even going to be?

#188: The Nine Ball Chronicles

This week, Patrick and Lori welcome Drew Medlock, the CEO of Allied Cycle Works in Bentonville, Arkansas. The international nature of the bike business has been thrown into turmoil by government tariffs and we wanted to talk to Drew as Allied has experience manufacturing both in Arkansas and overseas. He lays out the rationale for their business model. 

#434: Interview with Drew Medlock of Allied Cycle Works

It's fall and for some riders that means a time to back off the miles, recover some and begin the slow process of getting ready for the next season. Patrick draws Lori out about what fall riding used to be for her and how that has changed.

#435: Fall Riding and Recovery

In our wildest dreams, which include bank robberies, alien abductions and making out with our third grade teacher, we never imagined recording 200 podcasts. Is that a failure of imagination, hope or executive function? Hard to say. But to celebrate we’re going to spend a whole hour answering listener questions. The listeners, without whom we’d just be another pair of yutzes arguing over a can of Pringles.

#200: Two-Hundred of Anything is Probably Too Many

This week Lori and Patrick discuss on-the-bike technology and what they use. Patrick takes a little tour of past devices he lived by and lends a perspective on what a great time in history it is to be a cyclist. 

#436: On-the-Bike Technology

We express a lot of opinions on this show, and opinions are like smart phones. Everyone has one and they all destroy your brain. Even if we’re right that Foo Fighters make terrible music, how do we hold real and genuine space in our minds and hearts for people who think otherwise? How do we take our own opinions much, much less seriously?

#201: Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific. I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.

This week Patrick and Lori talk head injuries. Patrick fell—off the bike—and was surprised to discover the symptoms of a lingering head injury weeks later. They talk falls, heads and, most importantly, the signs to look for and the ingredients of a proper recovery. 

#437: Falls and Head Injuries

The common consensus is that the male population of Earth is experiencing an epidemic of loneliness, which leads to climbing rates of depression and suicide. We both have lots of friends, including being friends with each other, so today we’re going to explain how to be friends with other men, how to properly hug a man, and how to, when they’re least expecting it, knock the phone out of their hand, and then, when they scramble after their phone, to knock their hat off.

#202: Something. Something. Male Friendships. Discuss.

This week Lori and Patrick welcome special guest Adam Potter, founder and owner of Planetary Cycles in Houston, Texas. Planetary Cycles has been around for 32 years and has marked a number of changes in the industry and in their own evolution as a bike shop.

#438: A Chat With Retailer Adam Potter of Planetary Cycles

You’re a grown ass person with decades of life experience and refined tastes, and yet, somewhere in your mental closet you’ve got an array of awkward nostalgic loves for people, places and things that no longer fit your view of yourself as a person, like when you smoked weed and thought the Dead were good, or when you wore a Catholic school girl uniform to the office potluck because Britney, bitch.

#203: Putting Baby in the Corner

This week, Lori and Patrick consider how cycling functions as a community and how that has informed their lives and social networks. 

#439: Cycling as Community

Whether you’re a street junky or not, you spend a lot of your day looking for the next little bump of dopamine. Whole oligarchies have grown up around the business of selling you small doses of your own brain chemicals. You hate that, but keep scrolling, because ultimately we’re all addicted to that buzz. Of course, there are good ways and less good ways to get what we need, and today we’re going to talk about some of them.

#204: Good Dope, Bad Dope

This week Lori and Patrick welcome Rahsaan Bahati to the show. Best known as a former National Criterium Champion and pro cyclist, Bahati formed the Bahati Foundation 15 years ago to engage youth through cycling, music and other outreach programs. 

#440: Rahsaan Bahati of the Bahati Foundation

Whether you’re rich or poor, sick or well, lazy or really, really lazy, you have to figure out what to do with your day. That seems like the fundamental conundrum facing humanity, and sure, the less money or health you have maybe the more of those choices get made for you, but it doesn’t alter your relationship with meaning. In other words, everyone has the same shot at finding meaning in their daily life, and that is both a blessing and a curse.

#205: The Day in Front of Us

Patrick and Lori return to the subject of community, this time, taking a look at what it means to give back to your community. Our opening image is of a whale tail ramp, which Lori discusses in the show. 

#441: Giving Back to Your Cycling Community

People have a funny way of plowing their energy into bad ideas, and once they’ve made that initial investment, they keep going just to prove to themselves that the original idea wasn’t a bad one. We do this with jobs, relationships, and religions. The fear of change is one factor. Ego is another. Just think about how much more Candy Crush Saga we could play if we had that time back though.

#206: The Sunk Time Fallacy

Lori and Patrick take a look back on what they feel thankful for and Patrick admits being surprised by something he has to grant a grudging gratitude for.

#442: What We Are Grateful For

Oh, we’ve all had our share of boo-boos, but a few stand out, and today we’re gonna tell our best injury and mishap stories and try to figure out which pain was the most painful pain of them all, besides of course the soul pain inherent in everyday human existence.

#207: It Only Hurts When I Exist

This week Lori and Patrick talk to Bob Radke of Creative Trails. With decades of experience building mountain bike trails Bob shares some of his insights into what goes into great mountain bike trail design. 

#443: Mountain Bike Trail Builder Bob Radke of Creative Trails

Middle-age is a real problem, mainly because it comes with most of the challenges of old age, deteriorating body, addled mind, divorce, asteroids, and existential crisis, but you’ve still got to have a job and pretend you care about stuff. Sadly, also, you lose friends and mentors, and today we’re going to talk about those people. They deserve to be remembered.

#208: In the Shadow of the Valley

This week Patrick and Lori take a look at the things that can get in the way of riding and how that can have downstream consequences for us. 

#444: What Gets in the Way of Riding

We may come off as a little gruff and prone to fits of melancholy and wild perturbation, but really, we’re just sensitive, romantic even. Our nostalgia is a romance for the past, a desperate clinging to things we never fell out of love with, like zines, skateboards, obscure music, artists, etc. Today we cast about for new loves like a child with a butterfly net and a skinned knee.

#209: Transcendental Romanticism

This week Patrick and Lori talk Christmas gift giving, and as usual, it leads to larger themes that extend well beyond cycling. 

#445: Christmas Gift Giving

Occasionally you encounter a piece of art, a book, a song, a painting, maybe even a performance, that moves you to the point that it alters the way you see the world, but then you find out the artist responsible is a terrible human, and it leaves you wondering whether you’ve been manipulated or are yourself possibly a terrible human. What to do? Throw the Guernica out with the bathwater?

#210: Separating the Art from the Artist

This week Patrick and Lori interview Matt Fritzinger, the founder of the Blue-Tailed Skinks and discuss the growth of the kids' cycling program and their plans for the near future, including hiring their first executive director. 

#446: Matt Fritzinger: The Blue-Tailed Skinks

It's Monday morning and we're a little behind schedule because of all the things. We may even be recording as you read these words. Trust us <wink>, and we'll have the new episode up just as soon as we're done saying horrible things to each other.

#211: It's the Holidays, So, Behind

Happy New Year! Patrick and Lori talk resolutions, as in the philosophy of resolutions, what motivates them, or perhaps, what can motivate them. This is more strategy than tactics, as in, what deserves to motivate a resolution for the new year in your riding life?

#447: The Notion of a New Year's Resolution

Patrick and Lori take a moment to acknowledge the passing of two bike industry players, Cannondale's Joe Montgomery and product manager Brad Hughes, before turning their attention to an interview with Kevin Tisue, Pivot Cycles' Head of Engineering. Kevin sheds light on how Pivot conceives and designs new mountain bikes. 

#448: Interview with Kevin Tisue of Pivot Cycles

The Cycling Independent is an independent media company producing the podcasts The Paceline, Revolting, The Pull and Enter the Deuce.

The Cycling Independent

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