Thereabouts Reprise #2

[Music] the pointlessness is the beauty of it we're not training we're not racing we're not not doing anything that hasn't been done before we're not [ __ ] making a million dollars we're just riding our bikes you can go harder when you're not really doing it for a reason you're just out there laying it on the line for the sake of doing it because you enjoy doing that so you just want to push yourself even harder and it doesn't matter if you blow up you're not going to be at the house of a bike [Music] race in 2013 my brother laand and I rode halfway across Australia in search of Adventure that trip led me to pursue a life in cycling again after years of running away from it and almost did the opposite for lin 18 months later and we're doing it all again this time we've traded the Red Dirt of Australia's Outback for the Jagger Cliffs of America's Rocky Mountains as we ride from Boulder Colorado to Moab Utah fascinated by the characters in cycling and the fact that we know more about an athlete sunglasses than their personality we've decided to bring along a couple of mates in camworth and Taylor finy the routes tentative because we've had a bit of of snow um we didn't forecast for it's 5 days to Moab it's ambitious but definitely an achievable route Colorado has amazing roads this is my favorite place to ride a bike in the world and the Finish point in Moab it's Rich Mountain Bike history it's an amazing place in the desert it's just cool the first thereabouts was Australian Outback it's hot it's dry it's isolated and it's it's dead flat a complete contrast to the Rocky Mountains it's snowing it's raining it's only just above freezing you're climbing elevations up to 4,000 M whilst it's no more grueling than the Australian Outback it's it's a complete antithesis and so it requires a whole different skill set and you have to approach it a whole different way the start of last year I did a a big ride with mate Richie port on his birthday we just set out in the morning came back 403 km later and just like was the most amazing day on the bike and then just made me realize you know the the beauty of just riding and I'd never had the luxury of doing that started the sport quite late was rushed into it and so the opportunity to do something like this it's really exciting I mean that for me cycling is the world's greatest leveler you know you just people riding a push bike you know everything else goes away and so you know Adventures like this are yeah just Priceless so can't wait to get into it when I was maybe 11 uh in the winters I wasn't playing soccer all I wanted to do was be a free that was sort of early ages of free skiing with guys like Shane makoni um Johnny Mosley Chris Davenport and they were they were doing stuff on skis that had never been done before you know they were going backwards and they were doing uh you know multiple back flips so what I see with thereabouts is this sort of cycling equivalent to this lifestyle that I wanted when I was a kid which was just to be able to create things that Inspire young kids to ride bikes and and to ride bikes in a different way than you know Chris F winning the tud to France as we're set to depart cam who arrived in the early hours of this morning hastily throws his new bike together in order to make the start of the ride could be interesting so I just literally literally pulled that out of the bag when you saw me pull it out of the bag it was the first time I'd seen it so I did a quick I don't know probably about 30 50 m up the hilling back to make sure the position was right so I'm assuming it's good it's not like anyone else is really written one either so we have no idea what the bike will do out there either which is quite fitting for this adventure because we have no idea what's going to happen to any of us I think this is the grander part we're going from here to Breen today start it's pretty cold it's pretty wet it's about 90 Mi distance and it will probably take us about 7 hours or something everyone's in pretty good spirits cam got in like 2 in the morning and it's uh substantially well he came from sea level so and we're at altitude here and we're going to a really high altitude so he's positive now but I think he's going to be hurting a little bit later in the day so I'll take pleasure in that it all rightwe [Music] bre [Music] I always played soccer when I was a kid uh I played soccer until I was like 15 and my parents were cyclists my my dad won a a bronze medal in the Olympics won a couple stages of the tour to France and my mom won an Olympic gold medal and she actually retired the next day after that which I always thought was the coolest thing so I always had bikes around in my life but I never thought that I should race them we moved to Italy when I was 12 and and I started playing soccer there and I kind of realized that I wasn't going to be raldo and then I started riding my bike in in the summer in 2004 2005 and I also went to the tour to France with my dad and he had this press pass so we got to go inside and meet all the Riders and you know got to meet Lance got to meet Axel MKS Robbie mchan these big heroes uh of cycling back back at that time and I was like w this is a cool this is a cool thing this isn't just like this stupid sport that my parents did it's like something that I could do too so I I started riding a lot and and and decided when we moved back to America that I wanted to race and so I just started to race and started to win and and from that point forward you know it was pretty clear that that was what I wanted to do that was fun I take it you guys came down fast yeah it's just the right amount of money it's a whole different animal with these things man I know dude you can go so fast that sh waiting for cam waiting for the Wild Card Wild Card man when I was going down the I was like just don't feel like I'm in the center of the road here yeah something feels a bit off yeah it's only about half C are exactly mechanical [Laughter] guys I didn't even do out the front break what you about to say like I didn't even do out my skewer that's cool I was going to that's product testing for you right there boys last year in May in 2014 I was racing at the national championships in in Chattanooga I was doing the road race we've gone down this hill and I was going a bit too fast but there was there some other things happened there was a motorcycle commere Moto that wasn't paying attention and I just ended up having to divert around this motorcycle but it was at a really inopportune time and I couldn't take this corner leftand corner the way that I wanted to take it so I came into it way too fast and I ended up sliding out and hitting a guard rail I have the SRM file and I looked at it it's like 97 km an hour so I went from 97 km an hour to a dead stop and uh broke my tibia in half I broke my patella um severed my patella tendon I also ruptured my PCL uh which which is like your ACL but not quite as important you know did I just end my career am I going to have you know immediately your mind starts race and like do I am I going to have to go back to school like am I ever going to be able to walk again I knew that I really mess myself up you know I was just kind of like buckle up buddy like this is going to be a long ride and the first couple weeks were really tough but beyond that like I thought I was going to be back racing in September of that year and uh I had no idea that it was going to be like a year a year and a [Applause] half are you with the bicyclist I'm with this gentleman here what do you want to talk about are you guys all together or yeah hey the reason I st you guys is it looked to me like he was trying to pass you but clearly he's with you guys a right so you're doing 40 and a 40 below the speed limit you're in the lane of travel when you should be on the shoulder in that sense so how the law works out here is if you're on the Cy let's go on the speed limit right a car shouldn't pass you but you weren't no that's we got to go faster CL that's that's a good training motivation for us we need to just ride a bit quicker is that the law so if we can go the same speed as a car that means we can just sit in the lane with the car let's justen not black and white like that that's how some look at it others don't look at it that way okay but that's how I interpret it hasn't it hasn't been tested in court so we just got pulled over thankfully thankfully Sergeant is a legend he's not chat booking us or anything first B of drama about 80k uh verbal warnings only today okay and then I got to get you logged in so if everybody can stand by at least you two and then we'll get you guys out of here in about 5 minutes maybe less Dodge the law Central City has this strange law you're not actually allowed to ride a bike in the town so it's a stretch you have to walk and we just had a brush with the law so I don't want to piss him off anymore so we're like walking bikes like scaled kids the walk we get time to look at the map make sure we make it on the oh my God road down Idaho Springs the weather's looking a little gnarly but we knew that was going to happen this just saw the sign for a little bit that was a surprise the last year has been a pretty wild ride it's been pretty eye opening uh I had to kind of remove mov myself completely from the cycling world you know I took my rehab and everything really seriously I put everything that I'd learned as a cyclist I took that and I put that into my recovery um that's something that you hear a lot of athletes say uh so maybe I'm just regurgitating some some [ __ ] that I heard in a in an interview [Music] on the pedals all day oh sweet sweet um so you're on the pedals all day you know that you got this big [ __ ] clim [Applause] upu already Ming there and it's going to be [ __ ] cold up there too yeah Lu yeah like I'm going not going to say it can't [Applause] well we we failed to exercise the the one thing that we should have which is common sense when we came across some snow about 3 km back we didn't realize it was a sign of what's to come although we were continually to climbing elevation so we only have ourselves to blame as we now are attempting to trudge through about a meter of snow whilst carrying bicycles and we have no idea how far it is to the [Laughter] end this is too long way which way are we going to go though River along the river yeah and what's that going to do okay M nearing 101 when there's more than 2 m of snow always resort to your backside for more s this area and less chance of sinking in an avalanche especially when pushing a bicycle oh yeah that's a really good feeling on my T so I think we got to cross these Creeks get the highway snow is fun for a little [Applause] bit my team said Taylor you can do this trip as long as you don't do anything stupid I was like guys you trust me I got this you know what I got it made it across the creek took my shoes off like a real Pro okay now we got to walk up that Steep Hill look lucky [ __ ] that climb Sol it's a solid clim poor old Taylor he was you see just about had enough we had to do a creek crossing and he was just like done with this so get that we got to go down it the weather's coming in there's another climb it's now D going to go Tryon star for The Descent as much as I resent the way that what they do to long socks kind of think today it might be a good option so just going to pull the longin on and uh show triathletes what long socks really should be worn for climbing to the top of a snow covered Mountain Pass and then pulling them up for the for the Descent to keep the Cal muscles a little bit warm on the way down so how bad was the creek oh it was pretty chilly you know when the every drop of the water comes from uh the snow it's pretty chilly but on the bright side my shoes were quite dirty so it was a good way to give them a bit of a clean mid ride you don't often get that opportunity when you're out training so you know saved a little bit of work for after the ride so whether there's a negative there's always always a positive having 5 hours sleep and then like arriving at altitude you cannot feel any worse so it doesn't matter if you're lying in bed or on the bike so to be honest out there with you guys I completely forgot about how horrible I felt the one thing I did notice is I found it more difficult to talk as the elevation increased like you're climbing your you know like an absolute wh biscuit of a climb and then like an absolute Harry Harlot of a descent you know with twisty dirty turns and then bike with loose bolts so you know you got a few issues there and and then you bombed down into a tent you know you get pulled over by the police so that was that was quite amazing I mean I got my first business card from a policeman and other a unique experience hey I'm pretty Pride a day in Touching for a while wasn't show we were going to make it off tasing today via um Leadville which is pretty cool I like Leadville easy living at 10 half th000 ft yeah it runs in pretty good spirits we were all bit buckled last night pretty tired but this morning everyone seems to be pretty motivated even though it snowed a shitload outside it's pretty cold it's like 90 M 95 mil it'll be long be long but staying at someone Cam's lined us up with one of his friends so we're staying at their house tonight which is pretty sweet um and what else that's it we need to find some we need to find some uh breakfast breakfast I think we were all struggling last night man I was struggling last night I was feeling fine actually when I you know I think it was just him you were falling asleep I could eat the crutch out of a low flying duck so let's go yesterday was pretty pretty big time and uh no today we got some up we got some down yesterday it seemed like we only had up climbing up to Loveland I I kind of stopped forming memories I was like I was just so tired from the whole day lean the charge through the snow we got to Loveland and I was just like I had nothing I couldn't go harder or slower than than what I was than what I was doing and then like my dad was driving and uh we got to like the last switch back on on on Loveland which is still a waste a little bit of a waste to the top and he had stopped on the side and I was going so slow that he if he can't run really because of his Parkinson like he can't really run very well he could he he put his hand on my back and he pushed me for like 20 M man and I just like he put his hand like I was like no like in my mind I was like don't do that man like it's not race like it's I'm just riding up love and pass like I'm so tired but then it's the same thing like at the same time you're like oh man I [ __ ] love you D yeah Taylor has always been a and very interesting and interested in things kind of a kid I would say that he wasn't predestined to be a bike racer but in a sense he had all the qualities that predisposed him for being really good but his mentality has always been to be very playful and and not take things on the surface too seriously but deep down he's he he definitely invests himself in whatever he's doing Taylor has has a different sort of Talent on the bicycle than I have but but what I would say is that compared to me there's interesting parallels um when I was I I spent a half a year out of the sport from an injury in my knee and grew my hair long and this was on the heels of having plowed my face through a wind screen in in this race in Belgium le feston le and so so I I definitely went through [Music] a not not a not a wild period but just a self evaluation and why I was doing what I was doing and what I wanted out of my life and I think that that's in some sense what he's been forced to reckon with over the last year part I think it's a it's a great adventure that he that he's going on and I think it fits well with with his mind frame right now and and so to have an adventure with some good guys and find out maybe a little bit more about yourself and your passion for life for cycling what not there's you know I mean I have a lot of respect for that for that [Music] Journey can't stop camping Kim never never tires never gets into the bar ask if he could chop some wood they say no he chops wood anyway so we're just fine we Don need any wood chop I've been here all my life so probably I going to say 65 years I've been in here as a child heck yeah you know the family's been here forever since 198 I mean 1872 really oh yeah my grandparents came over from Austria I used to start anywhere from 8:30 to 9:00 in the morning when it gets busy and stuff we're open till 2: every morning morning really yep I'd rather go back to the 70s and ' 80s anytime yeah is it fun you darn right compared to now you bet you this part right here is all original except how old this I built this about 10 years ago but the rest is all original it started up in 1878 I have it up for sale now my wife passed away two months ago so you know I've pretty well had it want to do something else with the rest of my life I want to travel yeah get back to traveling everywhere I can go yep probably stay in the United States more than likely I'm not too much in riding bikes and stuff I'd rather walk see these dolls on the roof yeah that's for a Super Bowl party once a year we take it down and have a big Super Bowl party was a Super Bowl party last year defens is there unes are there it's always great yeah yeah absolutely is that your school bus there about that years ago I used it for storing stuff yeah it still runs and everything run I was going to make a big camper out of it but didn't have time so yeah rowing was one sport I hadn't tried so of course I wanted to try it loved it and then I 15 16 went to watch a Sydney Olympics of course got the bug wanted to go to the Olympics so Rome was the sport that I was best at that was an Olympic sport so committed to that went to the Olympics did that but I never really I mean I I didn't really have a huge passion in rowing I just wanted to go to the Olympics I wanted to do well sort of like a means to an end and I had tendon ntis in my wrist and spent a bit of time my bike when I was in Europe that season rowing and uh seem to enjoy that more I guess the grass is always greeny on the other side of the fence and so I thought buget I'll give it a go and at the time it was more of an arrogant thing I thought I'll just show that I can do another sport as well as I could do rowing but yeah I got hooked on it and uh that was that because I was at the top level in one sport I didn't want to start another one and not be at the same spot so I had a real drive and hunger that year to make it into the national team that was my Big Goal you know so I won Oceania then I came here to America America did a couple of races and felt I was good and a mate Josh Wilson and Richie Port said I'll come and race sandwiches in Italy so I went there and then when I got there I went to Shane banon and I said you know what do I have to do to get my world spot and he laughed at me he said get your head out of the clouds and I said I'm serious I really want to do the worlds he said I bet you do but you you know you're miles Off the Mark and I said okay well what do I have to do anyway he called me a few days later and told me had to win a time trial krono shampion and he'd put me in the world's team so righto Beauty won the race by8 of a second and um that was it I made the worlds team that was pretty crazy like in 12 months like 12 months before I'd done the rowing worlds and then 12 months later I'd done cycling and so although I wanted to do that it all happened so fast all of a sudden I didn't really have a choice I had to you know continue in cycling and I remember it was funny seeing Taylor today had His Garment on his back of his bike and I don't know why but that world they started me 11th from the end and I started in front of David Miller I had a flat Tire on the first lap and when we changed it Miller was coming after me and so as he he sort of caught me just as I flatted so I had to wait for him to pass the car I got the got the wheel got back on the bike and I was angry so I chased him you I could see him I chased him as I pulled up alongside I remember seeing his power meter monitor under his seat so he didn't want to watch it no I I I was look at it was like 403 WS I was like Fu I can do 410 just gassed it past him and then uh you know then he passed me on every descent then every time we went flatted past him again so I spent the whole second lap you know match racing him I met cadell at the Nationals the next year and he was funny like the first thing he said to me he said who set you up on your bike I said I've never what do you mean I did so he said well when you come back to Europe I want to take you to the mapay center so he took me along there and we did a bike fit and and then he got me to do a V2 test and when I was there outo sassy came into the room to check out what was going on and anyway I didn't even see him did the test that was it about 3 days later I got an email from him saying that he you know saw me do the test and thought you know that I've got something you know knew my background and asked to work with me and then during that Peri that that time basso was sering Ivan basso was serving his his band his drug ban so he was there training with Aldo he wanted to come back clean and all that and was doing it with Aldo and so Aldo decided thought it would be great if basso and I train together and so that's you know what we did through his ban and so so forth and I spent a couple more years in the amateurs and then you know finally was time to go into a world to a team and and and you know Aldo basically felt that it was best I went with basso because uh we got along really well and thought I'd learn a lot from him and and that was that and I remember speaking to cadel and he said to me that because I'd also spoken to BMC and and saxo bank and at the time and cadel said it was better I went to liquid gas because Italians if you're knew and you're good they talk about it and especially if you're a decent person if you're bad and you suck and you're an idiot yeah they'll talk about that too but I think you should go to liquid gas so it was his roundabout way I hope of giving me a compliment that already didn't want to be my teammate that was a bit messy there yeah we got snow on pretty hard down the bottom you hit this last section which is really steep or like steeper that switch packing when the sun came out man it's like it's unreal it's been an awesome [Music] day we head down to Colorado um heard the rides really nice um yeah it might rain later in the afternoon but should be predominantly downhill but I mean we'll see that's in theory it should be downhill um so yeah it' be nice I think we got a few um locals who decided to come and roll out with this for a while which would be fun um so yeah it's going to be good so it's obvious today I'm you know going a bit more Vogue catching trying to fit in with the guys a little bit more I've had we've had the two more racy days a bit more serious sort of you know dress myself more for the thing so with the Vogue I decided you know I want to make sure I not only look great like look really good but also smell exceptional you know a bit there too just to really really top all this off make it a real complete package so you know bit of bit of Polo you know I don't think you get much more V than that hey dude what did you get like Lance wasn't in town so I thought the only way to remind him that we were here was to steal something steal the golf class I know how much Lance loves his golf so I'm hoping it's his favorite golf bag that's just going to break that man the defining moment in us will be beating Lance at golf while using his golf B that's the next challenge I think you kind of burn that yeah yeah we might want to get our asses to Hodge [Music] [Music] kiss so these These are steer that are um raised for a specific person and then slaughtered and they all have their stakes and their tender lines and everything in their freezer now and the reason that we know this is because it has a bullet hole in in the uh skull so this steer was loved dearly until his dying day we got two huge sour to the L strong golf bag and a steer skull I didn't mean to but just by fault I've come up completely through the Italian system and um which was great but you know I it mean it meant again that I was really winging it a lot you know I didn't really understand the language the whole time you know Miss a lot of things and um and uh as great great as it is being in the country like it it eventually it just became tiring you know like everything was just that little bit more difficult and then you realize now like you said the Anglo pars and everything else it doesn't need to be difficult the most important thing is that when you turn up to race you're at your best and you race well you don't have to be a hero by doing it the hard way I've seen you know quite a few guys that have been quite successful and uh and come either to the end of their career or still getting towards the end of it and not wanting to let go and you and they've got nothing else it's been their whole life it's really sad to see that that the sport can take away basically the best years of a lot of people's lives and they can be great years for them but they can also have some really tough ones and it's all great when everything goes well it's awesome but if it's the only thing you've got and then things get tough it can be really challenging and uh it's not easy for people to deal with those things okay my name's Sally and you're in Hotchkins I've been ten and bar since 1976 really do you like tending bars well I must I fed three kids and got them through school and they never went without shoes or groceries I've been here probably 11 12 years sometimes it's fun and sometimes it's not I like people yeah did you get to meet a little of people here oh yeah oh I had Joe coer come in really I had the Dave Matthew bands come come in I had Marshall Tucker ban come in uh I've had I've seen a few if I could go back to back when I would go to school to be in public relations because of the Vibes that I feel and The Vibes I know I can keep your noses clean stay away from the drugs just be the nice boys that you are now and you'll be all right thank you so much thank you so much pleasure it's it's been my pleasure I'm from New York city so this is like a new world to me yeah that's when he I when I met him he took me fishing I showed up in stto I'm used to I'm used to fishing on a yacht or a pier you know now here I am so how long you've been here now 15 years everybody is friendly everybody kind of knows everybody which is nice you go to the grocery store they say hi Carrie how are you you know they know each other if you're in the city you don't get that warmth you know so you have that warmth out here and like okay give you an example one day I I had we call water to get water I don't know how to haul up my I can't hook the trailer up okay oh okay so and we were out of water I came down in the bar and asked I said is there somebody here that can help me hook up my trailer I had several guys hop in my car drive down hook up my trailer for me so that I could H water you don't get that in the city cuz cam gave us the wrong info for his flight um we got to change the rout probably going to be a bit longer in total but we got to go through Grand Junction so we can drop him off for his flight in the morning so um yeah we're going to ride across there I think it's going to be about 90 Mi again um and Taylor's just sassing out the rout but it looks pretty epic we roll into this bar this this little Dive Bar in town in harase and there all these dollar bills stapled to the wall and this really nice old lady you know and drinks for everybody and and Lan comes up to me and he's like hey man there's a guy who used to hang out with your dad back there and I was like what you know we're in this tiny weird little bar kind of in the middle of nowhere this town is sort of shutting down you know there's all these restaurants and businesses up for sale and and so this guy came over and he and he told me this story about how my dad and him uh and their friend rented a place in Jackson Hall for the winter and told me how my dad got drunk one night and and puked all over his VW bus and my dad had actually told me that story when I was 15 the first time I the first time I ever really embarrassed myself in front of in front of my dad you know from drinking and he kind of to console me told me that story about how we how we threw up in the middle of winter on this on this guy's car and and they woke up the next day and it was all iced over on the side and and so I I met that guy I met that guy whose car it was that my dad threw up on in 1978 when he was 19 years [Music] old I think back to 2007 when I was trying to qualify for the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008 I was still in high school uh I was racing domestically um I had done you know media here and there like at races you know every time I got a write up in cycling news I'd be like really excited but that year because I was so young and because I was you know pretty good at at the individual Pursuit um I gained all this interest from us news media so I went through like really intensive media training at the age of 17 and I'm doing these like NBC Nightly News interviews where I'm just like up and it's like here's the best me and you kind of you know what people want to hear and you know what's going to be a good answer you know kind of it's to me it's like what is the most mediocre but like good answer it's got to be like kind of boring but then you got to have a smile this light bulb went off in my brain that I've basically been trained to say a lot of the things that I've said in the media over the course of my entire career you know and you learn how to present yourself and you learn what people want to hear from you and it can be something that kind of like sucks the real feel you outside of who you are you know like you had said express your voice in a in a way that is not like jumping into interview mode which is something that I caught myself doing the first day you know before we left was like you were asking me about my leg and rehab and like the last year and stuff and I have this like I have so many answers in my head just like programmed you know like what I'm going to say to who I'm going to say it to and doesn't really change much it'll change every time a little bit Yeah but I was just like [ __ ] like that's not what this is about man like break out of that like break out of that and you kind of wish that you could break out of it all the time but you sit down and you go to these press conferences in Belgium before tour of Flanders for Peru Bay and it's same [ __ ] question that you got last year and it's like you know how is the form how is the fitness how are the legs and like what the [ __ ] you can see like every year I'm just going to tell you that like yeah I'm the lightest I've ever been I'm the fittest I've ever been I have so much experience more experience than last year so I'm going to go into this race with all of that and then we'll just see what happens you know but you can't like they don't ask any questions that are going to prompt any answer that's any different than that so this past year I spent just a lot of time you know completely on the opposite end of of that spectrum of like presenting myself because I had that time and I had that space from the media and from my team and from the sport to where I could just do whatever I wanted as a 24 year- old and think back to what I really wanted and what I love to do when I was a kid before it was like okay you're really good at this like and go for it and boom and then you Flash Forward like 9 years later and then here's that same kid but he's in this whole different body and this brain that like knows how to present himself in this certain way but the the kid still in there you know absolutely man hey y you you be of a b man yourself what's that no no actually I just found this in a thrift it all yeah thanks you appreciate that awes isn't that crazy man but yeah absolutely dude this is rat so a lot of times yeah they're just they're literally just growing they grow like St kind you look at the dead ones that are kind of from last year and it's like oh y they're right there turn up they're always there man W it's just incredible hey guys have a freaking chat out on this [ __ ] yeah come on over giving free handouts come on over guys unable we just all this guys at the bar last night there was a lady there telling us about how she loves going walking and peeking asparagus and we're like What the yeah seriously to be asparagus exactly and then was TR see me yeah exactly so where you guys headed today huh stealing Jun oh damn okay man how's the weather been holding up for you guys going to go over Grand mes nice that's going to be [ __ ] gorgeous guys really oh dude it's a it's a beautiful beautiful drive right there it's it's it's kind of insane snowing and shitty up there at the moment yeah you know it might be probably I I find that it's it's becoming harder and harder as cycling as a sport continues to develop and more money gets thrown into a sport as you get up to a higher and higher level like so many things are controlled for you everything about my professional life is sponsored and you know like those are the people that pay you and that's why you race your bike is so that you can get paid but it doesn't it takes away that freedom to kind of Express Yourself genuinely as a human by being able to choose how you present yourself because we have restrictions on Twitter Instagram you know EV pretty much everybody in the world tour has some sort of restriction on like what you can say in the media and like I've always gotten in trouble you know with my team over the over the years because I've had a really difficult time like fully giving up all of the control that I have over like all of these little things and it's such a delicate thing to talk about to where I don't know if we can even put what I just said in the movie that's probably the hardest thing for me I think about it like the races that I want to do the biggest things that I want to achieve and win you can't do without the controlling aspect of being a a world tour bike rider um we kind of picked this road didn't really know what it was about it's pretty soft with mud here so it's a bit bit of a slog um Everybody clogged up yeah yeah there just did your bik jam yeah just like the bike's totally clog how bad where kaked up fully Caked Up like like this impossible to move yeah man we'll send you guys back around to Delta okay what's going on there Gus they didn't have didn't get enough time in the river the other day no we didn't we just came down this a little and um it was all like a really loose PL wet PL her bik are just completely GED out shoes shes don't work I guess the funny thing is there's a good there's a good chance that when you go 100 m further down the same thing will happen to your bike again yeah yeah probably better lock how you how's the how's the temperature of this River compared to uh the first day chilly bit chilly same snow what's up man good pretty annoying we're on the clay Trail we're in clamation we're making a clamation movie see them boots we all got them Bo them boots are made for walking pretty [ __ ] hard yeah we went about 2 km in probably 45 minutes yeah but looks like we threw the west of it down there's Delta that one or that one I don't know get to one of those then we can uh take stock Sean that was awesome I'm so glad we went that way what flat number is this cam well technically it's the first one we actually gone down we've had a lot of false alarm Flats so stands that's standed by me so well thus far on the trip finally [ __ ] let me down I know so I was going to buy shares in the company they can go and get [ __ ] now yeah t taking the front here can't break the seal tubes there but there's no yeah what this [ __ ] yeah got a [ __ ] single on there yeah you know you get to that point in a race where you like off the bike feel terrible tired Champion make prob is that you get some [ __ ] muscle into it to get I thought R had strong hands man no rhym in Tommy stands by me oh you didn't stands by me stands you got a rim it mate yeah just to increase the challenge it's time we Haven do you parking in your ass that was probably the most epic T I've ever done holy [ __ ] it's it called the bad lands here bad lands in the spot on like it's bad in there there's nothing good that comes out of there we're only 15 miles from like where we started 20 miles we start like there towns right here Bo dud is like in the middle of [ __ ] nowh there's always that little time where you go into like Sportsman interview mode and you're like yeah like yeah well the tires worked perfectly until they didn't but that was my fault never the product the product is perfect except his bike's the only one that broke so you know like today we had no idea what we were getting in for and then all of a sudden like you way over your head and like you just have to improvise and like work it out you know like all of a sudden you sort of tap into a part of yourself that you just you don't otherwise and the thing is that there's no one making you do it I think that's why like you're so determined to do it you know because you're like it would have been so easy just to turn around there would have been like 5K back the other way but you just like I just want to do it so if someone had told me I had to ride through that section of the race like [ __ ] that you know because we decided to do it we just made it happen when you put guys in this situation you see a totally different side of them um and it brings you closer for sure um but yeah we are like very much a group now you know like it's very we're just pushing on together I don't think any one of us we wouldn't have maybe even if it was three of us we went but there's four of us the group of guys we got there was never one thought of turning back all right let's get this on camera Cam's out of there about hop in the car go down to the town well I'll go down to the town lunch and go to a bike shop yeah like you're not going to do the whole thing anyway so so can's we just can't get it right um the che we pin flatted it and it's cuz it's got the special wheels on it so anyway he's just going to ride it flat into town and see if he can't find a bike shop that can fix it mate just don't understand why this [ __ ] bead in it is so tight piece of [ __ ] you just get to that point where you only feel good when you're riding your bike but you don't really want to ride your bike marginal losses man marginal losses any luck no because you can't take out this valve it's not a removable valve he's just going to quickly check he threw that other one in the bin if it's got a removable valve and J that well try to it doesn't I was right test out how strong these rims are 60k I think I mean ideally you just have a freaking tire that you can take off put a tube inside and put the tire back on and then pump up to that's like pretty standard we kind of rers ahead on that stretch I don't really know I think it's going to be pretty boring pretty FL potentially headwind pretty tough um I don't think we're looking forward to it but we got to get it done as bad as I think it's going to be I know it's going to be worse for can after exhausting his options cam was unable to fix his flat tire but Cam being cam he decided to push [Music] on so what's going on with the tube that's in there it's flat for the first 30k I was trying to push him from behind and then gas and Taylor would would roll in the front we sort of had this little method going but it was still hard going and like trying to push him was like you know such tough work let we go fast on the downhill um camps tube like the the valve is like making it kind of Bounce and go crazy so we're pulling it out I don't think it'll make a difference but it's up to him this had to happen to anybody it's I hate to say it but it's good that to have in the camp he's the only one who can handle it you could just see he was like going to make it you know like he put the hammer down and just started riding as hard as he could and I don't know we just kind of slaughtered him behind him and I started to push him and then Gus came in behind me and started to push me and then Taylor came up when he caught us and he started to push and then all of a sudden we were just doing 45k now I was like I was like why would we do this earlier like this is so much better and then we were just started hauling us like riding as hard as good all pushing consistently we'd kind of go 5 minutes one side and then when you arm would fatigue we we like had a really siiz swap then we kept going and we I think we ended up doing the last 30k in like under I think it was like 45 can hour average and he had a flat tire the thing that got me was was I've really struggled in the sport and and recently realized I've I've really found it hard to find my my spot my hole and the only way for me to try and find that was by taking myself out of it do I fit in do I not F am I good enough am I not good enough what whatever and the fact of the matter is I'm like you guys I I genuinely want to see my teammates see whoever around me do well when I see a even another Rider struggling I I instinctively want to help them and in this sport often that's not that's not rewarded but today being with you guys made me realize there's other guys like that in the group as well that you just have to find them and for the first time ever really felt like I can belong in the sport I can happily be myself be have that mentality and it'll be rewarded at some point so for me the greatest thing was seeing such great athletes uh not think about themselves for for a moment you know there's there's such a a thing of selfishness in uh well particularly in cycling you know and that's something I really struggle with it shows that doesn't matter what level you are you know how how good you are how famous you are or whatever there's a place to just be yourself you don't always have to be that uh that Cutthroat I realize there's a few other guys at least in the group and there's others out there that I'm close to too but particularly you guys that have finally found a spot in a bunch and it really doesn't matter what everyone else thinks because at least I have a few guys that I can relate to that I know will be there for me if I need something I can be there for them and when all of us are successful we'll all enjoy that together so for me personally it's been it's it's made me extremely motivated to get back in the peleton and race it's made me let go it's made me not care at the end of the day if you're performing and doing the right thing by your team and your whoever else that's all that really matters you don't have to play the game or tow the line or try and be someone else because there's a a culture or whatever that says you should you can just happily be yourself and knowing that there's other guys out there in the group that are the same um for me that's been the most that that's been the most amazing the most amazing [Music] thing [ __ ] man you're a lifesaver after only just revealing that he had to leave the country a day before Moab due to his Visa expiring cam slept through several alarms and was now late for his flight yeah May 25 from Grand Junction is now departing at 7:42 you can check flight status so perfect so we' got plenty of time which is a really good lesson that if you're going to go out and have a really big night you know like when you're planning on going somewhere make sure that when you do it the plane is going to be delayed like it's going to you know an extra couple of hours because things can often go wrong which they did today as hard as it can be in the mornings when you walk out to the car and realize that Lance has already got to the car like a game first here unbelievable must have been out of bed at like 4:00 there he is on the roof ready to go classic so we're all good I've made the flight luckily it was delayed um which I planned for I uh I heard I watched a movie Once where flights out of Grand Junction were delayed so I played for that got some extra sleep that's why I feel so great this morning I'm hurting what do you want to know you guys got in like what five like four yeah so we met this guy named David and he was like super nice and super charismatic and like yeah just became our friend and he's like go come with me like we'll go to this house party like that sounds awesome so we walked for like an hour through the through the suburbs of Grand Junction like just walking with this big group of people that we' never met before and ended up at this like tiny little house drinking this weird moonshine like we kind of rolled in there and it was just Loy Cam and I having a chuckle and talking to everyone and they pulled out this big jar had like a chili in it like a pickle in it and then I drink this oh my God it was so brutal and then next thing we know it was like 3:00 in the morning we're like [ __ ] we better get home how do we get home so we Ram the streets for a while and found a hotel and then uh and then yeah so it was 4:00 a.m. and we're brutally hung over this morning like man that moonshine was the worst idea we've had we got like 110 miles to do today across to Moab we go through Fuda um and then yeah hopefully get onto the back roads and cruise in um but yeah still a pretty big day actually so trying to get on the road early after we tied one on a bit last night but all is good how you feeling now I'm not too bad I think Gus is a bit more Dusty I've sort of come good but I think gas has been hurting but we'll see as we start riding it might be a different story I guess the way that I started to think about things um in my recovery when I was contemplating the idea of never being able to race again um I realized that there's about three people's opinions of me that I really care about and as long as those three people are like happy with me as a person and with what I'm doing nothing else really matters you know like I think a lot of people get caught up in like oh like your team needs you and your fans need you and the sport needs you but it doesn't you know it's going to work out fine if you're not there so I I removed that I was able to kind of remove that and see things a bit more clearly and for sure for sure the idea of walking away from a sport that's treated me really well and continues to treat me really well that's daunting and it's not something you really want to think about but it's there's so much else in life man so that idea of a of a simpler life is for sure pretty cool um I I sort of made a decision that I there's a couple things that I really want to achieve in the sport of cycling and I'm going to spend some time trying to achieve those things I'd love to win Milan San Remo I'd love to win per Ru I'd love to wear the yellow Jersey at the T different friend you know like I still have motivation and a hunger to get back to professional cycling and at the same time I also know that I don't have what it takes to accomplish everything because there's so much that you have to throw away there's so many years of your life that you have to in essence throw away we're about to jump on the cocoa Pell Trail we can also go ahead a little bit of a dirty detour that's what we like should be a nice little Trail when you're young like the reason you play team sports I think is because the the comraderie with your friends or with your teammates you get to achieve like a collective goal like everyone succeeds and then you get to like 12 or 13 and all of a sudden it's like you're playing the local comp local rugby comp and then two of the guys out of the team get picked to go play the next level up and then from that two more get picked and they pull and so it changes from just being about playing together as a team it becomes about well I need to excel in some little individual way in order to get picked to go to the next level and then it's the same when you're working in your job and so when cam got that flat tire yesterday it was the first time in probably like like 15 years and that there was that genuine comraderie that's what I think was a really powerful thing cuz all of a sudden it is possible to do something with no other outcome but just to like get each other to the finish for me it was a genuinely moving thing like I'm going to remember every single meter of those 60k for the rest of my life uh we just passed the town of Cisco which is a ghost town uh we went through the cocelli trail and we lost the car uh with all the water and all the food and lamps um so we're a little bit stranded out here in the desert it's sweet out here it's definitely a wild climate change scenery change from where we started in Boulder honestly I don't really want to go home I kind of want to just stay just pack up a backpack and then just keep riding but I always say things like that and it never actually happens we missed cam we missed the diesel the robot the robot diesel but we made up for him today man we just been just been pushing it just talk to Kevin it's pretty close doesn't have any water has some Coca-Cola Coca-Cola is made with water so be fine you get here we're here oh chips haven't had chips in a while that was awesome man that was one of the big pits of ride I've ridden I think little Trail was really sandy but you could still go really fast there some rocky sections and we were just going flat out like full gas the whole time there was if you're planning on riding into the desert over a 100 miles sorry about the water make sure you right buy some water for yourself being out here in the desert with no water it's still in a way preferable to being comfortable and at home and sitting on the couch it's so vast and makes you feel so small and as a human it's very good to feel small you know we can kind of we can kind of think that we're bigger more powerful than we actually are and so coming out to the desert or being around big mountains you know brings it back down grounds you a little bit about 42 mil or something 40 Mi 50 Mi to be honest I've got an idea that's 40 Mi and we just punch it out we'll do we'll we'll do a dehydration team's time trial warm it's amazing what can happen you know in 24 hours on a bicycle if you just go out and enjoy a ride all we hear about is a crap you know the that and and UCI and Lance and no one sees this sees the fact that the bicycle can just bring good people together you know I've just all my best friends have come from just being two people out there on a bike you know and then this week it was it was four of us and and I think if people can just enjoy the sport for that let go of all that other crap cuz it really doesn't matter it's in the past let's just move forward we've got a beautiful sport don't take it too seriously it's easy still like it's easy to get caught and and forget why riding a bike is is a privilege and why being able to ride bike for a living is an absolute privilege you know um and this is It's just always a nice reminder to get out there and ride for the sake of riding um and meet a bunch of people and and see New Roads and and new places um for me that I don't think that will ever be something I don't enjoy doing um and then to to be able to share that with a new group of people um and see what they got out of it and then have them push me further and I like being taken out of my comfort zone because you know that keeps you it keeps you pushing and and it keeps you fresh I think so having those guys here definitely brought a new new element to it and and it was a positive element I mean I still still out there just just riding our bikes around for for no real reason and and and riding really hard for really long distances for no real reason you kind of got lost in the effort of the writing um because it was so hard and we were pushing so hard every day um that I mean that in was an isolation the idea of the thereabouts it's a personal thing you know so for what what this ride means to me might be different for you know Taylor or Cam and I think it was [Music] 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Channel: thereabouts

Views: 46,546

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Id: QU5OUp2co_8

Length: 73min 0sec (4380 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 15 2024