Cycling Over Sixty

Greater Eugene Area Riders

• Tom Butler • Season 3 • Episode 36

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Join host Tom Butler as he shares a minor challenge of organizing the first-ever Cycling Over Sixty annual event, set for September 14th. Tom explains how this year will be a laid-back event.

Fresh off his third Cascade Bicycle Club Seattle to Portland ride, Tom reflects on the personal goals he set for this cycling challenge and shares how he measured up against his expectations. Tom’s assessment offers insights into goal achievement after picking up cycling later in life.

The episode features an engaging conversation with Bob Lewis, a ride leader from GEARs (Greater Eugene Area Riders). After Tom's recent positive experience riding with the group, he sits down with Bob to get more information about GEARS. They dive into the club's culture, the unique aspects of cycling in Eugene, and the crucial but often overlooked role of ride leaders in creating safe, welcoming group experiences.

This episode captures how local cycling clubs and group rides form the backbone of bike culture, providing community, mentorship, and camaraderie that keeps cyclists of all ages motivated and connected. Whether you're already part of a cycling community or looking to find your tribe on two wheels, this conversation highlights why group riding remains such an essential part of the cycling experience.

Thanks for Joining Me!

Consider becoming a member of the Cycling Over Sixty Strava Club! www.strava.com/clubs/CyclingOverSixty

Cycling Over Sixty is also on Zwift. Look for our Zwift club!

Please send comments, questions and especially content suggestions to me at tom.butler@teleiomedia.com

Follow and comment on Cycling Over Sixty on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cyclingoversixty/

Show music is "Come On Out" by Dan Lebowitz. Find him here : lebomusic.com

Tom Butler:

This is the Cycling Over 60 podcast, season three, episode 36, the Greater Eugene Area Riders, and I'm your host, tom Butler. I want to start out with a plug for the first Cycling Over 60 annual ride on Sunday, september 14th. You can find all the information about it at cyclingover60.com. Look for the annual event section there. Even if you don't come do the ride, please take a look at the event page. I'd love to have feedback on how to make the page better.

Tom Butler:

This first event is not going to be anything fancy. It's mostly self-supported, but there are plenty of great stops along the route. This year is just a laid-back opportunity to get out and ride together. Plus, it starts what I hope will become an annual celebration of cycling as a way to be active later in life. I'm taking a bit of a risk, so I'll need people to be prepared to be flexible. I've been told by Pierce County that they have targeted the middle of September to have a bridge called the Spiked and Ditched Bridge completed. So having a route on September 14th that goes over the bridge is a bit of a risk. With a week to go, if the bridge isn't going to be opened, I'll have to change a couple of routes. It doesn't change the starting point either way. I figure why not go for it, even if there might be a bit of a change? I've always seen taking a bit of a risk as like a fun challenge. If you can make it on September 14th, please, please, go to the event page and fill out the registration. I need to have an idea about how many people are going to join us and if you're willing to pitch in to help with the ride, please email me. You can find my email in the show notes. There are several small tasks that you could help with and still ride. I'm going to be working out some details, probably all the way up to September 14th, but I will communicate along the way with everyone who registers. A big shout out to Tacoma Washington Bicycle Club for embracing this event and providing support. A listener named Steve in Corvallis, oregon, sent a message asking for information about the cruise bike that we had a motor put on. I just want to remind people that the text link on the podcast doesn't give me your contact information. So, steve, I need you to email me so I can respond, and again, you can find my email in the show notes.

Tom Butler:

My Cycling Over 60 journey started by training for the Cascade Bicycle Club two-day 207-mile ride from Seattle to Portland. In July I did the ride for the third time. Last year we did a 14.3 mile-per-hour average pace. This year we did a 14.3 mile per hour average pace. This year we had a goal of doing 15 miles per hour average. One of the biggest threats to be able to do that could have been the heat on day two. It was around 100 degrees with the heat coming off the pavement. But we actually did 15.9 miles per hour on average for day one and 16.7 miles per hour on day two. I know this might be strange to some, but to others you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. That 15.9 miles per hour average killed me. We were so close to 16 miles per hour. In fact, as we were approaching the end for that first day, I thought we had more miles than we did and I thought for sure we were going to make the 16 miles per hour average. And when I found out we only had a little way, I just picked up the pace as fast as I could. We actually ended up at 15.94 miles per hour. But, man, I wish I would have known earlier that we were getting close to the finish.

Tom Butler:

I'm certainly thrilled with that result and there were a lot of things happening that made that possible. But the biggest thing was this is the first year that Garen was able to ride at a pace that was somewhat of a challenge for him. At one point he turned to me and said that his legs hurt. I was like welcome to the club. It also was the least he had prepared for the STP, so that was part of it. But he was able to ride faster than he had the other two years and I spent a lot of time drafting behind him. I did pull some, but I really benefited from him pushing the pace. Cool thing is, on the first STP we did, I asked him a lot of times to slow down.

Tom Butler:

This year I only needed to back off when climbing hills. That was a huge indicator of my increased power. At one point we were going 19 miles per hour average over a segment that is about 13 miles long. I realize that isn't a huge deal to many serious cyclists but it is a real improvement for me. I think it is reasonable that my focus on functional threshold power, or FTP, after I got the Swift set up last winter improved my ability to stay on Garen's wheel longer. Ftp will again become a focus this winter on the trainer.

Tom Butler:

Thanks to a listener named Jim from Texas, I now have a set of power pedals. I'm going to be talking more about them in another episode. For now I will say that I love them. Thank you, jim. I think there is still a possibility to improve my STP performance and I still want to consider doing the STP in one day, but I would need to see a big improvement to get there. Between the two days we were on the road, both moving and at rest stops, for a total of 17 hours. So that is too long to make it in one day. Next year we will not attempt one for sure, so I have a couple of years to see if I can improve enough to consider it.

Tom Butler:

I should mention that our second day had about 30 miles that were assisted by a great tailwind. That was awesome, except that it created a situation where the heat impacted us more. We spent that time with virtually no headwind and we could really feel the 100 degree temperature that my bike computer measured for that segment. If STP isn't moved to earlier in the summer, heat is going to be a consistent issue. It is not getting cooler around here. So all in all, I was really pleased with the STP this year. We had a friend, chris, join us and we really enjoyed his company. Despite the fact that Chris mostly rides a mountain bike and he prepared for like two weeks, maybe even less, on an older trek he borrowed from me Chris seemed to have no problem with the ride. It should be interesting to see what Chris could do if he was on a bike of his own and he put in some serious training time for STP. As I said over and over again, my cycling journey and STP is a big part of that said over and over again. My cycling journey and SDP is a big part of that really shows what is possible when you get out there and you become active.

Tom Butler:

I believe that the local bike club is truly an essential component to a community's bike culture. I've become really interested in how clubs can stay vibrant. Recently I did a couple of group rides with the Greater Eugene Area Riders known as GEARS. As the name indicates, it's a club in Eugene, oregon. I see GEARS as doing a lot of things right. Bob Lewis was a ride leader on one of the rides. I did, and he did a great job. So I asked Bob to come on the podcast and talk about his cycling and gears. I also wanted Bob to talk about the role of ride leader as well. Ride leaders provide a really valuable service, in my opinion. Here's our conversation. I want to welcome Bob Lewis from the Greater Eugene Area Riders, also known as Gears to the podcast. Thank you, bob, for joining me.

Bob Lewis:

Glad to be here.

Tom Butler:

I want to ask a bunch of questions about Gears and the role of a ride leader, but first off, what is your earliest memory of the bicycle Riding around my neighborhood in Kentucky, indian Hills?

Bob Lewis:

I had a lot of rollers. I thought they were real big hills at the time. I didn't move to Oregon until 2019, so I did some riding on the hills and Indian Hills. I always lived on that side of town and, yeah, they didn't seem so big to me. I had a used swim bike and I think I left it out in the driveway and my father ran over it. That was kind of a traumatic experience, but he got me another one and I took better care of it, okay.

Tom Butler:

Yeah, that's one of those things. That's a learning experience for sure.

Bob Lewis:

Yeah.

Tom Butler:

Now did you have a bunch of kids you could ride with? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bob Lewis:

I had a friend, Jimmy Swain, a year younger than me, just lived right across. I could see his house from my house. He was the first guy when we moved into the neighborhood. It was a fairly new neighborhood when we moved in. I met him the first day I moved in, I guess.

Tom Butler:

I think that's some of the funnest memories is just being out as friends on a bike and the freedom that it gives and everything.

Bob Lewis:

Yeah, we were able to ride around. You know they're building. Neighborhood got expanding, you know, over the years and we were able to get some, get some materials and build tree houses. And you know scrap, yard scraps in front of the houses and whatnot, the houses that are being built, you know that kind of thing that's awesome, for Were you pretty consistent with cycling throughout your life, not?

Bob Lewis:

really Well. I got a bike when I was in college, a 10-speed, and I rode it to and from class. During the summer I'd ride it around town in Frankfurt, and then one weekend I decided to ride up to a little town called Midway, which is midway between Frankfurt and Lexington, on the railroad track I guess, and anyway. And then I got on the newly finished interstate I-64 there from midway to Frankfurt, and rode the bike on the interstate, you know, with no traffic, because you know they'd finished paving it but they hadn't opened it to traffic yet. You can really fly on a bike on the interstate. That's awesome. I just, you know that section between Midway and Frankfurt. Just, you know, slight rollers.

Tom Butler:

Now, how far would that have been?

Bob Lewis:

It was probably 10 miles. It's about 10 miles from Midway to Lexington or to Frankfurt.

Tom Butler:

And so after college, did you stay on a bike?

Bob Lewis:

I still had that bike. I carried that bike all the way through, I guess I finally and the I had a. It turned into a five speed because they told me they couldn't find a part for you know, it was before the internet and all that and they said they couldn't find a part for the front derailleur. So I just had a five speed for a while and I'd rode it around. You know, I grew up, I drove right up to Amsterdam, just around the neighborhood and then when I retired the first time in 2006,. And they bought me a giant Cypress.

Bob Lewis:

So it's a fairly heavy bike but it's got three gears on the front, six on the back, handlebar shifters, sitting up. And so my youngest daughter and I she was in between going from college, she just graduated from college and then was going to grad school and I had just retired and so we rode around. She got the book about horse farms around Lexington, Kentucky, so we did a lot of those and did some rides around Frankfurt and whatnot. So that's kind of got me back on the bike. And then I joined the Bluegrass Cycling Club out of Lexington, but they had a ride every Monday in Frankfurt. So you know that worked out well for me. And then they also had one in Midway, which was, you know, about 10 miles from my house.

Tom Butler:

So I just loaded it in the car and rode there and then the rest was history, I guess at that point it sounds like you kind of discovered that you really liked spending more time on the bike yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bob Lewis:

And you know in frankfurt area, per sales, midway lexington, you know they all got a lot of rollers there's, could they river goes through there, so there's some hills if you want them. You know, from from my neighborhood I can kind of like here in in Eugene I could be out on a country road and you know a couple of three miles farm roads, you know, not a whole lot of traffic.

Tom Butler:

So now is that a place where you're shut down in the winter time, or?

Bob Lewis:

Yeah, yeah, in Kentucky, the club there they don't track any. They don't have a lot of scheduled rides. Between the end of October and the first of March they have some rides. I mean there's days you can ride and you know I rode a fair amount with the weather's good, but yeah, you get a lot of ice. There's a lot more ice and snow than we do here in Eugene Gotcha. So you know I don't want to invite your snows.

Tom Butler:

So when you look back at your cycling, do you have some special memories.

Bob Lewis:

Oh, yeah, yeah, you know there's a road, shedrick Ferry Road and you know anytime it's got a ferry in it that means there's a hill. So you know you got to go down to the ferry and you're going to go back up a hill. In Frankfort there was that road. It was always kind of daunting when you first did it, the first time you did it, and then after that, oh it's just a hill.

Bob Lewis:

You know they have a Horsie 100 that the Bluegrass Cycling Club sponsors every year Memorial Day weekend. They start in Georgetown, kentucky, which is just north of Lexington, and they'll either go east toward Bourbon County or west toward Frankfurt. And you know it's got a lot of. You know a century or half 5,000 feet and you know I usually did it to measure it 100, you know 62 miles, 63 miles. Now they have like 1,500 riders that come from all over the country to ride in a Horse Speed 100. But those rides were, you know, very memorable. Certainly they had some lady that was a racer. She did a lot of racing but she sponsored hill rides. I still show them on Facebook from Bluegrass Lightning Club.

Bob Lewis:

They do a hill ride on Mondays. They go down to the ferry roads and go back up, they go up to the hills. You've got the distilleries. There's a section called Glens Creek road that goes along where oak row, well, green down the stories are. There's a they've got a new place called castle and key distillery that took over one of those old distilleries and, you know, spruced it up and made it look pretty. You know you're riding along those smell all the bourbon, you know, and that know in the warehouses in my mind.

Tom Butler:

I'm picturing rolling green hills that you're riding through and white fences yeah, yes, yeah, a lot of horses and a lot of cows.

Bob Lewis:

You know there's a lot of agriculture. You know used to be a lot of tobacco. You know not so much of that anymore but uh, you know there's still a fair amount of. You know, obviously around lexington, bourbon county, uh, for sale there's a lot of horse farms. You know still out there.

Tom Butler:

You know big cars and horse farms also don't think of a ferry ride in kentucky. I'm pretty familiar with the ferries up here in the seattle area.

Bob Lewis:

Well they've got a, they've got an active ferry there that you go to Fayette County, which is Lexington, kentucky, and it goes across the Kentucky River and you end up in Madison County, richmond, kentucky. So there is an active ferry there and I think there's another one down that goes over the Cumberland River down at Southern Kentucky. That's, you know, operational. So there are a couple of ferries there.

Bob Lewis:

And there's also one that goes over Mississippi River and far western Kentucky. Kentucky's got a very, very terrain. You get on far western, it's pretty flat and you get up in the mountains and you get some pretty good. You know about the size of the Cascades, or maybe a little less. But I guess there's another memorable ride from Kentucky is there's the. You know they've got an old rails trail road. You know you go going through a couple of tunnels. Uh, you know they're hauling lumber, I think, out of the, out of the holla.

Tom Butler:

So do you know of like a cross Kentucky ride, because it does seem like that would be.

Bob Lewis:

Well, I don't know. If you know a map, it's pretty far. Yeah, you know it's. I think it's like 400 miles across the whole state. There is a, the trans am, I think, goes through kentucky transamerica route.

Tom Butler:

There's some roads that it, you know, goes, one, you know, north, south and I think there is a east west route through through kentucky I mean, that sounds like a a fun adventure to take, a, you know, to take a while, and again because you're gonna experience a lot of different terrain from western to eastern Kentucky.

Bob Lewis:

Well, like I say, around central Kentucky, you've got the Kentucky River there, but then there's also a lot of distilleries. They've got tours. You can go through Shaker Town, the Shaker Village there in Mercer County it's right there near On the River Place to visit.

Tom Butler:

So at some point you decided to transition to the West.

Bob Lewis:

Yeah, I've got two daughters that transitioned before I did. My oldest daughter came out here for graduate school, never left, got two kids, and then my youngest daughter got a job in 2013 teaching at the university. My wife retired before I did and then I retired for good in 2015. I retired in 2006. That's when I got the first bike and then I uh, went back to work. After my, they called me up and said you want to come back to work? And I said my daughter gone to graduate school by the end so I didn't have anybody ride bikes with at the time. So I took them up on that and stayed for another nine years wow.

Tom Butler:

So when you say they bought you a bike when you retired the first time, who was the? They? My daughters. Okay, okay, nice good kids.

Bob Lewis:

I knew I had a. That bike I had was a five speed, and then they figured I needed something to do when I was retired. And they were right.

Tom Butler:

What are you riding now?

Bob Lewis:

I've got a specialized diverge. Okay, my daughter and I bought a used Trek back I don't know, it was about maybe 2010. She wanted to have a bike when she came to visit to ride and so we bought it. It was a trek road bike and you know, I just had to jack the seat up a little bit when I rode it, but I ended up riding it a lot more because it was a lot lighter than that that uh, uh giant that I had. So I ended up making that my road bike. And then I had a. I hit a pothole one day and I didn't think anything about it and I took it into the shop to get them. You know to work on it, do a little maintenance on it, and they said you know you had a cracked bracket, lower bracket. I said no, that's when I bought the new bike in 2018.

Tom Butler:

Are you happy with it?

Bob Lewis:

Yeah, my son-in-law had got a new bike and he said do you want a new set of rims? You can put some, uh, lighter tire Cause you know I can get up to 42, 43 inch tires on it. So I, uh, I've got a wheel set that you know I can put gravel tires. I got gravel tires.

Tom Butler:

On 42 inch tires I usually run 31 on the one I've got on the road, but I can also run gravel. So when you moved out, did you? Were you looking pretty quick for a club to ride with? Well?

Bob Lewis:

we moved in 2020. So I was looking for I was riding myself by myself, right, you know, covid, because that was the beginning. You know, right at the beginning of God. I don't know if the bike club I don't even know I'd ridden with them. We bought the house in 2019, and we came out here and spent a month and a half and I rode I don't know four or five rides with them in 2019, with the club. So I knew, you know, and I think I went ahead and joined too. And then, you know, when COVID hit, I did riding by myself for probably six months and then they started to have some group rides. You know, you kept far away from each other and all that. So, you know, when it became a little safer to ride out, you know, when they figured out that outdoors was probably okay, you know, and I started riding with Gears.

Tom Butler:

Would you say that Gears is pretty similar to the club into Kentucky or?

Bob Lewis:

Well, I think the club in Kentucky has more members. It's kind of similar to Gears. You know, we would like to think we have a lot of people from the surrounding cities. We certainly Springfield and Eugene, both contribute to our club and we've got a couple from Junction City and a couple from Cottage Grove. I don't know if they have anybody from Crestwell or not, but in Lexington they have a ride out of Frankfurt every week. They have one out of Midway every week. They have one out of Midway every week. They have one out of Nicholsville every week. They have one out of Richmond. So they you know a lot bigger organization, gotcha. But as far as you know the group rides, you know they're very similar.

Bob Lewis:

I did a lot more Pace Line I wrote. You know they do letters on their rides. You know they got C-R line I rode. You know they do letters on their rides. You know they got C ride is, you know, fairly slow, 10 to 12 and then B and then AB and then A and then EF. I think was extra fast. I don't know. I never didn't know what it exactly was. I never didn't do. I usually did at B or A D pace. You know we do some 60, but we did double pace line. You know we'd have 15, 20 people and we'd do double pace lines on roads and then single up when a car comes.

Tom Butler:

Yeah, so you were moving pretty good, I imagine.

Bob Lewis:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know when you do pace line it helps. You know you've got the synergy from that group and you know you just stay on the front as long as you can. You know you rotate over and you just got to. You know it's a little more concentration Right, a single PaceLine, but certainly because you got somebody on your right, somebody in front of you and somebody.

Bob Lewis:

I understand that your executive director at Gears. It's a paid position. Yeah, I don't know what his title is, but yeah, mike Cantrell, he runs the website, updates the sign-up. We use Sign-Up Genius for signing up for rides, so he updates that. He kind of keeps a rolling calendar on Sign-Up Genius Seven days. We post a PDF of the rides monthly and then we also add some rides during the month but we try to give people an idea what's coming up it seems like having the consistency of that paid position would make a big difference for a club yeah, yeah, I mean you know he's got he's been a ride leader, he, you know been with the club for a while and uh, he's still, you know, he still leads rides.

Bob Lewis:

He leads a lot of 10 to 12 rides now. But yeah, he's got that institutional knowledge and you know it just kind of helps the board rotate over. Well, the president's been there I think three years now, but you know we do have a kind of a turnover on the board, so this kind of helps continuity of that. We kind of tell them, oh, this is is why we have done things in the past. And then you know he's, you know he'll listen to. You know there's always new ideas coming up. So he's you know pretty good about helping us out there too I had a great experience riding with y'all there.

Tom Butler:

It was really fun and I plan on doing it again. I'm looking forward to having an experience of throwing my bike on a train and bringing the train down and going for a ride. I think that'd be kind of a fun thing to experience.

Bob Lewis:

We had a couple of riders from the club that rode the train up to well, I think they met, they got trained in Portland and did the Seattle to Portland ride a couple weeks ago and they did it all in one day, though it was, you know, 200 miles all in one day. You know that's not anything I would be doing anytime soon, but, yeah, the training makes it nice to you know, and there's some people that you know they'll ride up to Portland and ride down, you know, back down this way here, portland and ride down down this way here.

Tom Butler:

Yeah, my son-in-law was trying to talk me into doing STPN one day. If we were going to do that at my pace, we'd be on the road for like 17 hours. It started at 5 am yeah, the president.

Bob Lewis:

She said they had a 145-minute break. Wow, okay, try to keep going, future president. But she said they they had a 145 minute break. So, wow, okay, try to yeah, keep going, yeah nice, wow.

Tom Butler:

Well, I really appreciate you volunteering as a leader, as a ride leader now. It just makes a huge difference. I felt like that ride that I went on with y'all and I actually went on two rides I I went on Saturday and I felt like they were both really well coordinated and so thanks for being a ride leader.

Bob Lewis:

Yeah Well, yeah, I did. I started to be a ride. I was a ride leader in Kentucky, uh, before I moved out here. And then I, you know, I didn't, I didn't tell anybody I was a ride leader for I don't know the year or something. And then literally diffy, I got to get talking and then he kind of learned that I'd been a ride leader before.

Tom Butler:

So he, he recruited me I think that's the nature of a local bike club is to kind of be on the lookout for people to recruit.

Bob Lewis:

Well, I mean, you know, that's, you know, we can't have rides if we don't have leaders. Insurance kind of requires us to have a leader, so yeah, it's a kind of an ongoing dilemma making sure you got enough riders.

Tom Butler:

So what originally drew you to it? Did you, did you feel like your background?

Bob Lewis:

You know I kind of got comfortable with in Kentucky and also here, kind of got comfortable with the rides. You know the roads that we're going. You know the turns you make. You know I just recently got a Wahoo, so I never had a smart computer that gave me turn by turn. I used, you know, cue sheets. I have a clip that hangs on the front of my bike. I can do cue sheets. But you know, having that Wahoo makes it a lot better for for leading a ride. Now, you know, just knowing the ride, knowing the routes and and the training. Uh, I think you know you can't very well expect a brand new rider to a location, to I mean, some people can do it, but you know they have a good sense of direction. But right, I don't want to get too many people lost.

Tom Butler:

Right, how does that process go with Gears? Do you do same time every week?

Bob Lewis:

I'm the ride coordinator Okay, ride leader coordinator. So I've got a sales spreadsheet. It's a calendar basically, and in the middle of the month for the next month I'll just look at our local rides. You know, rides we've done in the past. You know, from what I can remember we've done what people you know somebody will say, well, I want to go to, I wouldn't mind leading a ride to Deerhorn sometime. You know they'll give me some input on you know where we're riding or so, well, this was a really good ride, yeah.

Bob Lewis:

And then the way our local on our website we've got them divided up, like the hundreds are north and then we've got some to the west. We've got, you know, got hundreds 200, 300, and 400. And it depends on you know what quadrant you're in. So I try to spread it around, you know. So we're not going to. I'm going to the north every time. Don't go to Coburg every time. You know we spread it out. You know you want to go to Coburg, you want to go to Creswell, you want to go to Bonita. You know you want to just go different directions. You know, go, spread it around.

Bob Lewis:

That being said, we do do McKenzie View a lot, but that's just kind of a go-to ride. But you know we've got slow-mo money so we've got a group of, that's a set group of rides that that uh, gary swanson, who's kind of used to, has led that in the past. He had all these these four rides he wanted to do, and I finally convinced him on a on the fifth month. Why don't we put a different ride in there just to mix it up a little bit? So, because he was just doing a rowing, every four they come up a different spot in the month. But anyway, he agreed to that, fortunately.

Bob Lewis:

And then on Tuesday we have the free front, Fox Hollow. We just ride up to Hendricks Park, then up Fox Hollow and back down and that's like 26 miles and 1,900 feet elevation and that's a 10 to 12, you know, kind of a fairly slow pace. You know it's up a hill, so it's, you know you can't go real fast up, you can go fast down it. And then, uh, we have uh, another 12 to 14 pace. It's called hill ride and the leader of that gets to pick how hilly they want it to be. Some days we'll do I think it's listed as 25 to 50 miles and usually they're somewhere around 2,500 to 3,500 feet elevation. You can go to the west and get hills galore. So the leader just tries to pick a route to get the most feet and the least amount of miles. Gotcha, it seems like they do that sometimes. Sometimes they'll give you a little break and let you go a little on flat ground every now and then.

Bob Lewis:

And then on Thursdays and Saturdays we have, you know, 10 to 12, and sometimes they'll give you a little break and let you go a little on flat ground every now and then. And then on Thursdays and Saturdays we have 10 to 12, 13 to 15, and 16 plus. Hopefully I have trouble getting enough leaders to ride those sometimes, but then that's where we try to spread it out among the four quadrants for those two days. And then our gravel rides. A leader will just say, hey, I want to do a gravel ride, and tell us where they want to go, where he wants to go. And then we also do some longer rides. Some riders will come up with a long ride. They want to say they want to go to uh, cottage grove or go to brownsville somewhere, and you know we'll throw those in on the schedule, uh, either friday or saturday or sunday generally.

Tom Butler:

So that's kind of what are you seeing with gravel rides? Are you seeing popularity increasing with gravel rides?

Bob Lewis:

yeah, we, you know a lot of people. You know, like I have a wheel set, I can switch it, switch out to do gravel. You know a lot of people you know, like I have a wheel set, I can switch it, switch out to do gravel rides and a lot of people have bought, you know, specific bikes for gravel and uh, yeah, it seems to be. Uh, uh, you know we'll get. You know, depends on there. There again, you got to watch the fire season and all that, but it's it. Uh, you know there's a niche there. You know, for for a rider. I know we had sunday week ago. Sunday we had I don't know seven or eight that went out. Uh, did a gravel ride that day. So you know we have maybe two to three a month. So it's worked out pretty well.

Tom Butler:

How would you characterize the importance of making rides friendly to new people? Is that something that you specifically think about?

Bob Lewis:

Oh, yeah, yeah, and that's a challenge. You know we want them to sign up on the Sign Up Genius. You know, because they click that they've read the waiver and you know liability and all that stuff. But you know, a lot of times you'll get a new member that just shows up at the ride and then you've got to hit them with a paper copy of the waiver and you know it can be a little intimidating for you know if it's a new rider. And then I think the deal is the first time they ride they're covered, but after that, you know, they're not going to be covered on their insurance.

Bob Lewis:

So we just want, you know, want to tell them that. And then they, you know, want to explain to them about the pace groups. And you know, are they in the right? You know, did they sign up for the? A good one for their speed? Because it's it's uh, you know we've discussed maybe we ought to have a, a test track. That you know. You, if you can do a certain speed on this stretch of road, then you know you're good to go 13 to 15 pace. Or, you know, because some people, you know ride by themselves, you know they may not even have a, you know, cycle might not know how fast they go. You know that trying to match them up with the right pace group is, you know, a trap. You know you want to make sure you, you know that that's that's going to be key for them too.

Bob Lewis:

And you know we recently uh, discussed, we're going to next month, we're going to try to have some on Saturday, some 13 to 15, but but not very long. You know, 20, 20 mile rise, cause you know a lot of people with families they can't commit to a two-and-a-half, three-hour ride. You know maybe they have an hour and a half they can spend on a bike. So trying to see if that will help you know people out, we're going to add a. We're going to try to add some Monday evening rides, trying to. You know people that are working. You know we've got some Thursday night rides, tuesday night rides. Now we're going to try Monday night rides too. So just to give people that option to try to help. You know those are our people at work that can't do our Thursday morning rides or our Tuesday morning rides or Monday morning. You can't meet everybody's needs but you try to do the best you can.

Tom Butler:

It seems like the composition would be quite different between, like, a Thursday morning and a Monday evening.

Bob Lewis:

Oh yeah, Well, age is a little different too. You've got a lot of retired folk on the morning rides and then the evening rides are more. You get some of the younger people in there and then you've got a mixed cross-section of people on those 13-hour rides especially.

Tom Butler:

Do you feel like you're seeing younger people, people in their 20s, being active with the?

Bob Lewis:

club. We're getting some 30s. We've got one kid that's a freshman. I guess he'll be a sophomore at Oregon. He started riding with us when he was in high school. I think that's a challenge, trying to hit that demographic. And you know, try to hit those that demographic.

Tom Butler:

Now, what are you thinking about when it comes to making rides safe? Do you? Are there some specific things that come to mind?

Bob Lewis:

Ride leaders. You know we try to give a moment for safety. You know, on our rides we try to remind them. You know we had one of the ride leaders commented that you know, when we said car back and nobody, you know they stayed. You know nobody singled up. You know, and we try to reinforce the fact that. Oh, by the way, when we say car back, you know, especially if there's cars coming from the other direction, you know cars, you know, do a pretty good job of giving us three feet, but if there's a car coming in the other direction, it's. You know, on these narrow roads it's hard to do that. So we, we just need to be cognizant, you know, try to. We try to remind our riders of that. You know we try to hope everybody has a mirror.

Bob Lewis:

You know I recently got a, a bike radar. It's actually called. It's from trek, it's called car back, it's from Trek, it's called Carbac. Somebody said what's your radar? I said Carbac. He said where? Anyway, there's other ones out there too. I think Garmin has one, but it works pretty good If you've got riders behind you. It's not quite as it doesn't that kind of blocks your view of a car as approaching. But if you're in the very back, it works real, real good.

Tom Butler:

So what's the signal when you've got a car behind you from that?

Bob Lewis:

I've got it set up where it beeps at me. It's also on my Wahoo. It's got a line on the side. It's green. If nobody's behind me, it turns orange. If somebody's behind me, it's got a little. It shows the car as it approaches. Okay, and it's. You know, it's pretty, it's pretty slick.

Tom Butler:

Did you buy that with your computer or?

Bob Lewis:

No, I bought. Well, I bought. I just bought the Wahoo earlier this year. Well, last week, when did I get the Wahoo? I've had it maybe less than a year, and then I bought the car back. Uh, a little bit I think I might have. Yeah, I got the the radar before I got the wow okay but it, but it syncs, it syncs up to it. It's a trek brand but it, you know it. It'll syncs up with the water, just fine well, I'll have to check that out.

Tom Butler:

I've not seen that. I'm kind of in the market for a new bike computer.

Bob Lewis:

I've got some Wahoo element. It's pretty small but you know the screen is. You know you can make the screen, you know you can put any variables you want on there. I've got it where it's got the temperature on there and elevation, gain, gradient, speed, distance. So you know it's kind of a full screen but it's kind of nice to know some of those things.

Tom Butler:

Now I think you're saying that the like, the element of riding on rural roads is pretty much the same or very similar, at least between Kentucky and the Eugene area. Did I hear that right? Yeah, some of the roads here have better shoulders than ones in Kentucky, at least between Kentucky and the Eugene area.

Bob Lewis:

Did I hear that right? Yeah, some of the roads here have better shelters than ones in Kentucky.

Tom Butler:

Okay.

Bob Lewis:

There's a road called Crow Road here that doesn't have a lot of traffic on it, but it does have, maybe a two-and-a-half-foot shelter on it. I've got to watch where it's broken in spots, but other than that it's, you know, not fairly good. It's kind of nice to be able to, you know, get away from traffic do you find the drivers to be courteous?

Bob Lewis:

yeah, yeah, here they're they're, you know you still get some yahoos that honk at you and, you know, scare you to death because you know you're, you're all over as far as you can get and they still honk at you. But sometimes they honk at us when we're in the way and that's understandable. But you know, sometimes they just honk at us. But you know, usually the you know, in Kentucky too, we, you know, had a few yahoos.

Tom Butler:

But by and large they.

Bob Lewis:

We were there and kind of tried to give it space.

Tom Butler:

I was in eastern Oregon, in Enterprise Oregon. I don't know if you're familiar with that area, but I had a unique experience which was there was a cow that had gotten loose and they were trying to corral it off the side of the road. So it was pretty much trying to get away from being corralled and so I stopped my bike ride and helped kind of corral a cow. So I felt that was a unique Oregon experience.

Bob Lewis:

Well, you can probably get that anywhere. You know, anywhere there's cows, yeah, I guess so.

Tom Butler:

How do you handle mechanical issues on a ride?

Bob Lewis:

Well, I think you know we tell riders that they're responsible for their flat tires and mechanical. But, that being said, you know I've never seen a situation where you know we've got members that are pretty good bike mechanics and they'll stop and help and uh, you know, one guy works, works at a bike store and he, he'll change it. He'll just get in your way and change your tire for him because you know he does it so much faster than anybody else could possibly do it. You know you got the hands. But but yeah, and you, you know, if somebody does that on the channel, somebody who just stays back with them, and you know make sure if they can't get it going, you know they've got got to. You know make a call, make sure that they can get a cell signal and you know, get, get a sag support from their house or something. But uh, yeah, it's been. You know it's real.

Bob Lewis:

The club is real good about, you know, helping out and trying to. I know they, we were riding, riding here recently somebody had a flat tire and I guess it's one of those tires that you can't get off right or on and you know it took him a while, said, uh, I guess he had a his uh inner tube that had one of those short stems and it was hard to get the pump on it, and a guy that helped me commented. He said I'm going to always make sure I got the long stems from now on. Apparently they had a heck of a time getting him going. He finally showed up and then we've had some incidents where I think on that ride you went on down at Cottage Grove, one guy was going out. He wanted to go on an 80-mile ride I think he made it 20 miles and had a flat and he didn't have an inner tube and his patch kit didn't work because the glue was all dried up.

Bob Lewis:

Okay yeah, yeah. Last thing on our newsletter I put out and said hey, uh, folks, make sure you got a good inner tube and you want to make sure. I think we had another incident where a guy had inner tube but it was so old that he, when he unwound, that it was, you know, a mess. So I think one guy they said he he had his inner tube, that he got out and had seven patches on it or something, I think you know. So you know you know, invest in a new inner tube. You know you're out on the road.

Tom Butler:

I could definitely see, you know, myself getting in a situation where I've just not thought about my patch kit, you know?

Bob Lewis:

Oh yeah, that's why I kind of said, said well, maybe I'll just put that in the newsletter yeah, my article would put a newsletter and said you know you might not check your glue and you know, make sure you got a good entertainer, but make sure you know how to take the tire off yourself. You know that's that can be an adorning task if you got a. Well, some of those tires we just you know size such that they're hard to get off those rims, oh yeah.

Tom Butler:

Now do you see Eugene as a kind of unique area when it comes to cycling? There's the university there, yeah it's a university.

Bob Lewis:

You know we got the multi-use path, you know, granted, there's a lot of walkers and and e-bike on it, but it's, you know, it's pretty iconic. You can ride along the river, you know, for 15 miles or so, I think, around trip, uh, you got that. And then you know we've got the Fern Ridge trail that you know goes out, goes out away from town, and then, uh, just, you know the, you know you got Fox. You know you got fox holly. You got lorraine highway. You got gimple to get out of town going to the to the west, and then you got more hills after that.

Bob Lewis:

So, you know it's, it's got some, you know, and we go south. You can go to, uh, pleasant hill. You know we go there a lot. Uh, you know, go down to Creswell, got a nice bakery at Creswell. That's always a highlight of the trip is going to the and then riding back on the 99 is no treat. But you know you may as well just try to get the heck off that road, isn't it right? And then I said a lot of personal best on that road trying to get off of it. You know we've said a lot of personal bests on that road trying to get off of it.

Bob Lewis:

You know we've got a lot going on between you know, the build and then I got the mill race path over in Springfield that you know goes out to Clearwater Park.

Tom Butler:

It seems like Eugene has kind of a reputation. I mean kind of in my head. I think of Eugene as being a bit of a fitness town, you know.

Bob Lewis:

Yeah, with the track and field and you know, yeah, they, they got a lot of runners here and you know there's a fair amount. You know there's a lot of uh, different bike over. You know the doors have some rides. Uh, I know Clink's has a ride on Wednesday night, I think, two, two Wednesday first and third Wednesday nights. And then there's a group called Velo that's I don't know if they're a club, I don't know what they're doing. They have a ride usually on Saturdays.

Bob Lewis:

And then there's the time trials. They have a group that does time trials in the spring, different roads. So I think I've heard there's a cycle cross group. You know that. I think it started in the fall. So there's a lot going on as far as different opportunities. And then there's the mountain bike. You know that we are I don't think our insurance allows us to have group rides, mountain bike rides, but you know there's certainly a lot of mountain bike. You know got trails here in Eugene and you know there's certainly a lot of mountain biking. You know got trails here in Eugene. And then my son-in-law goes down to Oak Ridge.

Tom Butler:

He really likes the mountain biking down there. Now Eugene, I think, is maybe 50 miles from the coast or something like that, but it didn't sound to me like there was options that were really bike friendly to go from Eugene to the coast.

Bob Lewis:

Do you know if that's the case or not. Yeah, the 126, you know, goes to Florence. That's probably the most direct route to get to the coast but it's, you know, curvy and windy. You got a tunnel you got to go through. You know narrow road, not much shoulder, so it's not conducive to that. When you go up to Corvallis, I guess you can go to Palomath and then go US-20. It's not too bad, but it gets a little narrow when you get closer to Newport. Of course then you got to get up there from here. So, yeah, it's a little narrow when you get closer to Newport and of course then you got to get up to get up there from here. So, yeah, it's, it's, uh, uh, I think the Corvallis Club is going to do a ride, coast-to-coast ride there. They ride to the coast and back, I think on a weekend or something.

Tom Butler:

And you're climbing up out of the valley to get over to the coast. I imagine there's a bit of elevation Got to go over the coast range.

Bob Lewis:

I think it's 1,000 feet elevation or 300.

Tom Butler:

So you've got all that to deal with but I bet that'd be a fun ride to do the uh texas 4000.

Bob Lewis:

I don't know if you've heard of that group. It's out of the university of texas and they raise money for cancer and they go from austin texas all the way to alaska and they come through eugene every year and so they have different routes. They go on. I think they've got one called the rockies and they got one, the the one that comes through here. They came up the coast and cut across from florence and they rode on 126 as a group. There's like 25 of them that rode on 126 all the way from florence to eugene. But you know they're young and they had SAG support, Right. They go from town to town. They either stay in campgrounds or they spend the night at the Y here. When they stayed in Eugene, we fed them on Tuesday night and then we rode with them toward Coburg. They were going north toward. They were going to spend the night in Albany or Salem maybe, but anyway we rode with them for a little while on the way out of town.

Tom Butler:

That's pretty cool. I'll have to check them out.

Bob Lewis:

Some of them were graduate, you know, getting ready to go to graduate school. Some of them, you know, were still in college. It was kind of interesting talking to them. And then one of the guys I've been following him on Strava, you know they'll do 80 miles a day. You know, one day they did 100. I think one day he did 200. You know he's young, okay, ultimately he's got 4,000. You know they take turns doing sag and that kind of thing, so they're riding every day. Okay, that right, you know they take turns doing sag and that kind of thing. So they, you know that riding every day. Okay, you know they take some days off too. I think it's like they take 60 days to do it. So but uh, anyway, yeah, they've got about 20. I think they can come up in fairbanks well, they must come up.

Tom Butler:

If they're going up the west coast, they must come up through this area at some point up through the seattle area.

Bob Lewis:

Yeah, yeah, they went up through yeah area at some point up through the Seattle area. Yeah, they come up through Seattle and then they end up in Canada and then they cut across over to. Alaska.

Tom Butler:

Wow, what a ride. That's an adventure.

Bob Lewis:

And then, like I say, there's another group that rode to Rocky Mountain. One went called the Ozarks. They went up through Arkansas and up that way. So yeah, Texas 4000,000. Okay, yeah, but so it can be. People have ridden 126 to get, you know, from Florence to here. But I wouldn't want to, I'd want to make sure I had a group with me and a car behind me.

Tom Butler:

Yeah, that makes a big difference. For sure. Does the club hear about what is happening with public planning for cycling infrastructure and things like that Biking scene evolving in Eugene?

Bob Lewis:

I don't know if you were on the 13th Street. They made that a bikeway, two-way bikeway, kind of protected, and they did the same thing on High Street. I think they're going to do it on Lincoln Street it's coming up next. So they're you know they've got projects in the hopper. You know, of course, federal funding being what it is, you know I don't know if they're depending on federal funding, it might be a challenge. But I know the city of Eugene. You know they were talking about having to maybe close down Amazon's swimming pool. I think they figured out a way to keep it open. But you know, that's always a challenge. That's a challenge too. But they do have some projects on the calendar.

Bob Lewis:

I think there was a when we ride out north out of town, we kind of go through some neighborhoods out of town and we kind of go through some neighborhoods and there was talk about making a road, uh, a path, a bike path, to kind of skirt along a quarry and get, you know, cut out some of the neighborhood for us. But uh, I think uh, richard hughes said it was probably going to be two, two years now before that gets gets, you know, developed. So things, things got kind of got pushed back a little bit. Now I think there's still you, there's still some things in the works. There's also maintenance they need to do on you know, there's some bumps on the roads it would be nice to get rid of, right.

Tom Butler:

So it seems like there may be a bit of a desire to have good bike bike infrastructure at the city level, and it's just a matter of finding the funds to do it they recently had a survey of where do we need bike racks.

Bob Lewis:

You know so that's. You know they're. They're trying to get some input from that. You know we're we're kind of crowdsourced. You know, asking where's a good place to put a bike rack. You know, of course, hopefully get get the kind. You know I've they've got some out to put a bike rack. You know, of course, hopefully get the kind. You know They've got some out at a bakery that I don't use the bike racks because I've got disc brakes and the way the bike rack is configured, you know you put it right there on your disc brake or on your disc and that's never good. Hopefully they'll. You know they're older set of racks.

Tom Butler:

Do you have a particular route that is like a favorite of yours in the area?

Bob Lewis:

Well, when I was riding by myself when I first got here, when I first moved here in 2020, I started from home and I'd go out. There's a road called Kirk Road. It's just no traffic, hardly any traffic. It's a rollers. You know you've got farmland, so it's kind of nice when you stop it, no traffic, hardly any traffic. It's a rollers. You know you've got farmland, you know, so it's kind of nice. When you stop at Territorial Road which you don't it's kind of a lot of traffic on it. But then you just turn around and I came back home, you know, out and back kind of thing. That was kind of nice. You know the McKenzie G-Ride is, you know we do that a lot. It's very scenic, it's, you know, along the McKenzie River you get glimpses of the river and very well shaded, not a whole lot of traffic, you know it's got the rollers going there too. So, yeah, I don't know, I don't have any, I don't like I guess, Okay, okay.

Tom Butler:

Have you had a chance to do much cycling in different areas?

Bob Lewis:

Well, I mean, you know, in Kentucky, obviously, and here and my daughter teaches a study abroad class from the University of Oregon they start out in Denmark and then they show the students you know the infrastructure in Denmark, which is really good for bikes, and they take them down to the Netherlands and Amsterdam. I think they used to go over Sweden to Malmo, but I don't know if they're doing that this year and then they go down to Amsterdam and then let's start a U-track and then they go to Amsterdam. This year she's going to go to Amsterdam and go to end up in U-track. But I was able to join her in 2019 for the last half of that.

Bob Lewis:

I flew in and got the U-track, got off the airline airport, went of that. I flew in and got to Utrecht, got off the airline airport, went to the train, got on train, got to Utrecht and then she was there waiting for a bike for me and then, you know, she had a place for me to sleep in Utrecht and then I was able to ride with a group along the Amstel River and we got some road bikes for that and rode up to Amsterdam and then got a city bike after that and then I just rode around the town while they were doing their classes or whatever. I just went on a self-guided tour and went to the Royal East Museum, the Heineken Museum, saw a lot of windmills. That was a fun trip. That sounds great. I got to stop and see my niece and they were living in London at the time, so I got to see her coming and going Nice.

Tom Butler:

I'm processing this. Are you saying that your daughter teaches a course where they bicycle around?

Bob Lewis:

They basically are showing the students the biking infrastructure in those locations. I think they also have included in the and then they have a. You know, I think they also have included in the past. They have some professionals. I think some people from the city of Eugene and whatnot have gone, you know, to see because I mean it's pretty amazing what I saw, you know, and I didn't see in Denmark, but I saw some pictures. But you know, in Amsterdam, you know, they got a road, they got a bikeway, that's, you know, red, and then they got a walkway, I mean, and they got these roundabouts. You know it's very clear where everybody needs to go. You know they got a lot of bridges and you go to the train station and there's mostly stacked racks that put your bikes in. I mean, it's just, you know.

Tom Butler:

It's a different environment, that's for sure.

Bob Lewis:

I mean it's just, you know, it's a different environment, that's for sure. Yeah, she told me. She said now, Dad, when you go to Amsterdam you can wear a helmet, but you'll be the only one, probably, you know, riding around town and I did see a few people that were on road bikes, probably going for a road bike ride after Helmets. Park, you know, go around 8, 10 miles an hour Right and street. You know, go around eight, 10 miles an hour Right, it's pretty close.

Tom Butler:

Well, that's quite a gig to uh, you know, be paid to go over and and and bike around.

Bob Lewis:

Got like the last time. She and her husband, uh, did it last time and it was during COVID. You know that was not. She didn't have a real. I mean it was she had a good time. But I think you know there were some people that caught COVID and put them in segregated room and so that was. That was a little daunting.

Tom Butler:

So does she teach urban planning or something that connects her to that?

Bob Lewis:

Yes, she's smart growth urban planning.

Tom Butler:

Okay.

Bob Lewis:

That's her public policy. She's in the planning, public policy and management section of the school of architecture.

Tom Butler:

Okay, Wow that's awesome.

Bob Lewis:

She's a good professor there. They kind of take turns. There's another her boss. At the time he had been doing a class for a while and then he kind of turned it over to her and I think he did it the last time and so now it's her turn. They do it like every other year, gotcha.

Tom Butler:

That's very cool. What advice would you give to new members who are a bit nervous? Maybe they're even inexperienced? What would you say to them about joining their first group ride?

Bob Lewis:

Well, you know, they kind of start on a slow group. You know, even though you think you're a fast rider, I mean you just, you know you, just because you're fast doesn't mean you have to go fast every ride. I found that out. I've done some. You know, I've led some 10 to 12 rides and it's very pleasant, you know just try to, you know, try to get on the right speed route. You know that's the main thing. But you know, start with a slow one and then you can work your way up. That's no problem.

Bob Lewis:

You know we have what we call slow Mondays, which is, you know, kind of a late back. You know 10 to 12. You know everybody's. You know, and we have a no-drop policy. So you know we, you know, make sure we hurry everybody around, but you know, start with that. You know we have 10 to 12 rides on Thursdays and Saturdays. We try to encourage our ride leaders, you know, to try to be welcoming. And then in the club, you know the other members are good about, you know, introducing themselves and welcoming people. So you know it's just something you got to try to do. You know, even though you're introverted, you know you still need to try to welcome people.

Tom Butler:

Yeah, well, I talked to Erin, one of your club members, and she talked about, you know, getting on a bike and being very inexperienced and just how welcome she felt by the club, and I just thought that that was a great story.

Bob Lewis:

Did she tell you about her India ride this year?

Tom Butler:

Well, that's what I had her on talking about that adventure. So that was a pretty impressive challenge for her to take on.

Bob Lewis:

I kind of followed her blog and it was, yeah, she'd been on, yeah, she was talking about going to Nepal before and you know that kind of fell through.

Tom Butler:

But she and. Jackie did that, that in your ride yeah, well, good for her, you know, and good for the club for for encouraging her when she was starting out that's I uh met her at the end of her ride today and gave her.

Bob Lewis:

We give out uh socks, if you, when you get a thousand miles with the club in a year. And in spite of the fact she went on her India trip she got her 1,000 miles. I guess Saturday is when she got them, but I was on a different ride, so I was over in the air where they started the ride. It was over in Springfield today. I had to go over there and get my car serviced and I swam at the pool over in Springfield. I looked at my wife and said wife, oh, I got my socks with me, I'll see if they're there, and they they showed up by the time I got there. It worked out very well that's fun.

Tom Butler:

I'll have to reach out and tell her congratulations for getting her socks.

Bob Lewis:

Oh yeah, yeah yeah, she pretty proud, pretty happy to get those. That's pretty big. You know, it's a bit.

Tom Butler:

It's like I say, especially when she was gone for four weeks or that was a long trip that she went on now do you talk about as a club, or do you have some thoughts personally about how you can encourage more people in the eugene area to to get on bikes and ride?

Bob Lewis:

yeah, well, you know we're like I say this you know we had a meeting with uh. We were talking about getting uh, uh, intro to gears biking. Get a couple. You know, on Wednesday night we want to try to couple of Wednesday nights. Try to do it last, uh, the 16th of of July, the 16th of July and it was 100 degrees, so we canceled that one.

Bob Lewis:

But just try to put it out there to the community and say, hey, if you're interested in gears, come and we'll just take a ride on the river path and take a slow ride and talk about it and see how you feel. And then, you know, I told you on Wednesday night we're trying to offer a 13 to 15 pace. You know, not too long, not too hilly, but you know I'll try to give an opportunity for that. I mean, that's the challenge is trying to meet people at the right spot. You know, like I say, some people, you know you tell I went on a 25-mile bike ride and they'll say, oh, my gosh, that's so long. You know, right, you know, once you start riding, you know that's a short ride, right, right. So, but you know, for a new rider, you know that's you, bob, I want to thank you for taking the time and talking about your cycling and talking about Gears.

Tom Butler:

I think Gears is just a wonderful example of a bike club that is doing a lot of things right.

Bob Lewis:

We'd like to have some more members because that helps. But you know, I think, what did we count up? We had four rides Saturday. We had 54 people riding Saturday on rides, different areas. You know we had three different pace groups and then plus we had a group that went up. That's the one I was on. We went up Cold Mountain June. It's just a hill close by. I went, I rode 45 miles and it was 3,500 foot elevation and some of them four of them started from Alton Baker Park and they went 71 miles and about 4,000 feet elevation.

Bob Lewis:

So I didn't want to go that far, that that long a distance, but it was still all I had to go up the same mountain, you know.

Bob Lewis:

We still all went up the same mountain as well. They called it Mount June and it was. Yeah, it was. You know, Wahoo's got you have a display showing the gradient, approximate gradient. You know, I don't know how. It's pretty close, but when it gets above 10% it turns red. I glanced down there a couple of times and I saw a lot of red on that hill. Okay, we got, you know, you get up to the top and it kind of flattened out and I saw 4% gray and I felt like I was going downhill.

Tom Butler:

Plays could actually work.

Bob Lewis:

You find out. On those kinds of hills, you can find out. You can go three and a half miles an hour, you know.

Tom Butler:

Yes, that is my experience for sure. Well, again, thanks so much for coming on and talking about it.

Bob Lewis:

Look forward to seeing you on our ride soon.

Tom Butler:

Well, like I said, I'm really wanting to do more rides where I just hop on a train to bring a whole group down and ride together. That'd be pretty fun.

Bob Lewis:

All right, talk to you later, yep, take care now. Bye-bye, bye.

Tom Butler:

Talking to Bob about his cycling experiences and learning more about gears just inspires me more to get a local group together and go down and ride with Gears in Eugene. I think this kind of group ride visitation program could be really fun and it would be an opportunity to cross-pollinate ideas between clubs. I'd love to hear what you think of the idea. I want to thank all of you that volunteer as ride leaders. It's so valuable to be able to show up for a new ride and know that somebody is there to make sure you have some guidance on the route. For example, down in eugene there was one road where the shoulder had a lot of cracks in it that a bike wheel could fit in. Having a heads up about that was reassuring but also potentially avoided a nasty crash. I also want to thank you ride leaders out there for making group rides friendly for inexperienced riders, whether you have an active club nearby or you just get out and explore on your own. I hope that your cycling adventures are exceptional and remember age is just a gear change. Bye.

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Tom Butler

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