The NSMB Podcast
From the team behind NSMB.com, The NSMB podcast will go behind the scenes with the makers, breakers, and risk-takers of our favourite sport. Interviews, news, and other important topics will all be on the menu.
The NSMB Podcast
From Cult To Singletrack
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What if the trail that scares you most is the one that finally sets you free? We sit down with illustrator and writer Cy Whitling to chart a life that moved from a Christian nationalist upbringing in northern Idaho to the loamy corners of Bellingham, where bikes, art, and community remapped everything. Cy shares how a humble hardtail, a generous shop mentor, and a dog-eared Kona catalog cracked open a worldview built on fear. College layered in skiing, search and rescue, and daily contact with people whose empathy outshone dogma, leading to the hard choice to cut ties and build a chosen family.
From there, the conversation digs into identity and inclusion. Cy explains why he came out as bi while releasing a Pride poster, the backlash that followed, and the deeper connections that made it worth it. We explore queerness in mountain biking—how pronouns and representation signal safety, why bisexuality is often misunderstood, and where the industry quietly leads with real people doing real work. His art choices are purpose-built: animal characters to widen identification, a notes-app pipeline to capture trailhead truths, and weekly comics that make riders feel seen. We talk creative process, deadlines, and how to balance integrity with sustainability without turning art into merch purgatory.
Finally, we ride west. A solo road trip to Seattle and Bellingham becomes a revelation: steep loam, rock rolls, and a birthday party reached by bike, not car. Cy’s skills jump by necessity, pulled forward by friends who ride the impossible and a community that makes fast feel safe. He contrasts mountain biking’s professionalism with skiing’s precarity, reflects on avalanche fatalities that changed his risk tolerance, and shares why he’s still hungry to make work that gives more than it takes. Hit play for a story about leaving control, choosing compassion, and finding home on two wheels.
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So for the first 16 years of my life, I was in this pretty tight environment where we believed a lot of things that I that I don't believe now. Um and I was told a lot of things about the outside world uh being scary and evil and a bunch of people out to hurt me, basically. Um, and mountain biking was a big way for me to experience that outside world and realize that that wasn't an accurate representation of it.
SPEAKER_00:If you know the name Cy Whitling, you're probably aware that he's fast becoming mountain biking's illustrator, narrator, and general visual entertainer. You may, however, not know about his upbringing in what he describes as a Christian nationalist cult, or how mountain biking and skiing saved him from that life. Those days seem worlds away now for Sy, who now has a new family of mountain bikers and like-minded folk who've helped him to become fully expressed as a mountain biker, an artist, and as a human being. We get into what inspired his artwork and his comics, and how a trip to Seattle and Bellingham made a big move west irresistible. But there's a lot more to chew on as we delve into the fascinating world of Cy Whitling. All right. Well, I'd like to welcome Cy Whitling to the NSMB podcast. And this is a treat for me because uh while I've uh seen Cy in our content meetings uh and spoken in that situation, I in person we haven't really had a chance to talk, sort of like glancing blows at crankworks and things like that. So this this is great. I'm looking forward to getting to know you better. Thank you very much for joining us.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I'm stoked to be here. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_00:Sweet. So um in case everyone doesn't know, Sai has been working with us for some time now. It when you first did your enduro um, I can't remember what you titled it, but you painted your coverage of an enduro race that you rode in for us. When was that?
SPEAKER_02:Um, I think that was spring 2021, although it might have been 22. Don't hold me to that. Um yeah, that was the North American Enduro Cup in Kellogg, Idaho.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so that was that was a great introduction to what you do. And then now you've been working with us weekly for two years? It's over a year.
SPEAKER_02:Um, I think I'm actually just coming up on a year of like consistent every week for you all. Um I've had some stints and some one-offs, and now it's like every week I do something for another.
SPEAKER_00:Solid. Awesome. So now we'd like to hear about where you've come from and how you got here. So um can you tell me about where you grew up, maybe how you first got into mountain biking, what your what your life was like when you were um a we lad?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. Um, I grew up in northern Idaho in Moscow. Um, and we can get into the maybe maybe this will this will be the mountain biking um bio. And if we want to get into the the other more personal stuff, we can. Um, but the the mountain biking bios, uh, grew up in Moscow. Um my dad had been into road biking and like some mountain biking a long time ago. Um, so like I knew it was a thing, um, and I used a bike to like get to school, go to the gym, get to the pool. Um, and then in sixth grade, I bought my first like hardtail mountain bike at this local shop, um, Harrow. And from there, like I was still like a means of transportation, but that bike kind of opened up like trying to find things to ride around me. Um, like I'd be going to play basketball at the gym and I'd try to find stuff to jump off of. Um, and through the process of buying that bike, I I also started a relationship with my local shop, um, Paradise Creek Bikes. And like that would have been 2006. And I remember they had like a Kona catalog. Um, back when the Kona catalog was was better than a lot of print magazines are now, um, where it had stories and art, and it like really captured my imagination. And and that like truly that Kona catalog was something that made me want to be part of mountain biking. Um, because this that's where I learned you could be a professional mountain biker or a mechanic or whoever graphic designed and illustrated this catalog or a photographer. Um, all of those things kind of opened up. Um, Moscow had kind of a weird scene at that time. We had um a small group, um, mostly one guy, Jim LaFortune, LaFortune, um, who were building trails on um Timberland, like Lumberland on Moscow Mountain. And then we also had another group of mostly college students who um built a free ride trail and a downhill trail on Moscow Mountain. And this was, you know, pre-trail forks, pre-mountain biking, really being on the internet. Um, and I got my dad to drive me up to Moscow Mountain. We found a couple of trails, and I found this huge step up off the side of one of the obvious trails, hit it, cased it, fell back into the trail, came back a couple months later, did the same thing. Like, had had this process of like never making it to the landing, um, and thought it was this one-off feature, and then finally made it to the landing. And this is like maybe a funny seminal moment for me as a mountain biker, but like made it to the landing, realized there was a whole trail after this, and this was the smallest, chillest feature. And there is like a baby blue transition bottle rocket sitting on the lip of the next jump um with white cables, uh, and realized that there's this group of guys digging on this trail, hitting these jumps, doing tricks, racing downhill, and that was like, oh, this is who I want to be. This is what I am going to do. Um, yeah, so that that got me into it. I raced a little bit of cyclocross in Moscow.
SPEAKER_00:Um did you connect with those guys right away? Did you go up and say, here's who I am?
SPEAKER_02:I was scared. I was like significantly younger. Um, they were, I think they're engineering students at U of I. Um, and I was like a a weird little shy kid. So I like realized they were doing something cool, and it took me several years to find people to ride with um and kind of get a cohort that would introduce me to the people who were digging and riding and um being part of the scene.
SPEAKER_00:And then you were on your way.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah, on my way just crashing a lot, like watching every mountain bike video I could. I remember just like searching Moscow, Idaho mountain biking on every searchable, like every platform you could on the internet, and like finding like a some some guys jumped off a um a balcony at a fraternity on U of I campus, and like just being like, I'm gonna go find that fraternity and see if I can ride off that balcony. Oh, there's like a single dirt jump behind the Nazarene church posted four years ago in potato quality video that like I can, you know, like geographical landmarks are showing me where it is. I'm gonna go find that and dig the weeds off of it and hit that jump. Like knowing there is this thing and really wanting to be part of it, but not like having it at home.
SPEAKER_00:And to begin with, jumping was your your favorite thing, like that's what you really were drawn toward.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean, it's embarrassing because I didn't ever get good at it. Um, but like the the the free ride, um like one-off features, stuff that made for cool photos, stuff that was really scary was definitely what I wanted to do. Um, and then we had a a yearly downhill race that I participated in a couple of times um that would come through. Like it was funny, it was like pretty underground and pretty scrappy, but like one of the guys managed to have get an inflatable Red Bull arch, so it felt really, really cool. Cool um you'd finish the race through the Red Bull Arch.
SPEAKER_00:Free advertising.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, for you know, there's no Red Bull at the event. Like everybody's just slamming right near, but but we felt legit.
SPEAKER_00:And you're it sounds like your childhood was quite unique. You're the oldest of seven, or do you have seven siblings?
SPEAKER_02:I'm the oldest of seven. Yeah, so the the subtext of all of that um is I grew up in uh ultra-conservative um Christian nationalist. You can call it a church. I would argue that it fits the cult definition pretty well, but like um by their nature, cults are hard to define. Um it's like pornography, it's hard to define, but you know it when you see it, or you know it when you leave it in the um with cults. Um yeah, so I grew up in a a pretty interesting environment. It didn't feel like that at the time. It felt like this is what's normal. But um, yeah, I was the oldest of seven, and my dad was uh elder in the church and uh principal of a church-affiliated school. Um, there's a K through 12 school that I went to, um, and as well as a college in town and a bunch of businesses, some of which I worked at. Um so the for the first 16 years of my life, I was in this pretty tight environment um where we believed a lot of things that I that I don't believe now. Um, and I was told a lot of things about the outside world uh being scary and evil and a bunch of people out to hurt me, basically. Um, and mountain biking was a big way for me to experience that outside world and realize that that wasn't an accurate representation of it. Um the guy who sold me that first mountain bike, um, John Lamarrow, had uh been excommunicated from this church, and like his his uh his name was in the weekly bulletin as someone who'd fallen away and we should be praying for, and like praying for was like a pretty judgment. Like it's it's the subtext for like he is in big trouble and we are reminding you by name every Sunday. Um, and he was like such a great guy. He set me up with this bike, he hooked me up with all of the all of the stuff I needed to ride. He really was like that that mentor figure who's like, you can be a mountain biker, I'm going to set you on this path. And I I was this sketchy grom who'd just come to the bike shop and like sit around reading the Kona catalog and like squeeze the brakes on every bike and be like, you know, well, how how do you set up a derailer like show me for free? And I'm not like I'm not really spending any money at your shop, and I'm like I like I am I am taking from the situation and not knowing any better. Um and he and he was this great window to like man, you can be a this guy's not scary. He's not he's not a bad guy. Um, he's a lot kinder than a lot of people who are in authority over me in this in this network.
SPEAKER_00:Do you think the the narrative that you should be scared of these people on the outside, was it something that the people around you really believed, or was it a means of control?
SPEAKER_02:I mean, I think it's both, right? That's why it's an effective means of control. Um Because like there's this narrative that um there's no moral authority, or like anybody who doesn't have a pretty rigid Christian morality has no morality and is out to like basically play late-stage capitalism as as evilly as possible on you. Um and and realizing that a lot of people who didn't share my um my belief system were significant significantly more compassionate and kind and um empathetic than those within it made me realize that like maybe the system isn't necessary to to be a good person.
SPEAKER_00:And so d that that obviously was a slow process for you to I mean, at least to eventually break free from that. How how was how did that evolve?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean it's well over a decade, right? I get this bike in sixth grade, um realize that some of these people are cool, and I'm kind of I'm kind of exposed to to folks outside of um outside of my church, outside of the cult through mountain biking, but also like I wasn't an important part of that scene just because I wasn't allowed to hang out with these people. I didn't have that kind of freedom. I couldn't race on Sundays, like all of this, uh all these things that kind of kept it as like this seems pretty cool, but also I'm not really experiencing it. Um so graduated high school, um got decided not to go to the affiliated college. Um, not for any like cool reasons, just because I it is a liberal art liberal arts college um with a with a big focus on the classics, which is also what I'd done in um like we were very focused on the classics and like the trivium and um all of that through high school. And I didn't want to do more of the same. I wanted to um be a mechanical engineer, and I was also um falling in love with photography as I graduated high school and videography. Um so I went to the University of Idaho in town, stayed in the same church, lived with my parents in my freshman year, but went to a secular school. And that's kind of where these floodgates opened of being around decent people every day who believe none of what I believe. Um and who think what I believe is pretty whack and have pretty compelling arguments for that. Um, and not in like an intentional, they're out to they're out to pervert me or steal my faith or anything. Like everybody I I knew was really respectful and and never bullied me or tried to be like, not stupid, you believe that. Um, but just kind of lived their lives in a really compelling way. Um, some of that was through mountain biking, but also through in college, I was getting more into skiing. Um, I had job opportunities in skiing, um, taking photos and writing. Um and you know, skiers and mountain bikers are often the same people. Um, so it's just like people who were good, people who were empathetic, um, who cared about me, and who cared about me not just based on what I believe or what I said I believed, but who I was as a person.
SPEAKER_00:Now, you were going to a secular school, you're hanging out with all these mountain bikers, and were you was your family aware that you were starting to pull away?
SPEAKER_02:I mean, at that point, I wasn't even pulling away as much as just starting to respect alternatives. I was still very set and like, this is what I'm gonna do. Um, there's this, there's this pretty easy trajectory for my life of like I'm gonna um I'm gonna go to the school, I'm gonna graduate, I'm probably gonna get a job working for someone in the church. Like I worked for people in the church all through um high school doing construction and then in college doing um video work. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna go to the school, I'm gonna graduate, and then I'm gonna marry a nice Christian girl and settle down and work for somebody in the church. And like long before that, I'd realized that I maybe or definitely wasn't just straight. Um, but like I was straight enough that I could that I could see this dream of like marry the nice Christian girl, settle down, live the trajectory that I was set on. Um, and that was by far the path of least resistance. Like it was laid out for me.
SPEAKER_00:So when did it happen that did did you start to break away or did your parents start to know something first?
SPEAKER_02:Um honestly, I didn't intentionally break away for a long time. Um, I moved for career reasons um to Driggs, Idaho, which is the same state, but uh people from Canada will relate to the fact that like living in the same province does not mean you live anywhere close to um you know it's it's seven hours away from where I grew up. Um and joined a church there, was still doing the thing, but was also skiing a lot, um, living with folks who weren't Christian or were Christian and weren't the flavor of Christian that I was, which is like I said, Christian nationalist, um, white supremacist undertones much more aggressive than than anything like people think like, oh, Christian, follower of Jesus' teachings. Um, and it's a spectrum, and I was on very hard on one end of that spectrum.
SPEAKER_00:Um so did did the people you know actually espouse racist beliefs?
SPEAKER_02:Um there's they're smart. Uh it's hard, it's hard. Like now they're smart enough to be a little bit sneaky about it. Um, but like I grew up being told very clearly that like the Civil War was about states' rights, and we sympathized with the South, and we wish the South had won, and the things the South stood for um were correct and the Union was wrong. And like, you know, I I had a friend who was named after um Nathan Bedford Forrest, ostensibly because he was uh a great uh general in the Civil War for the Confederates, but like you know, he did also like help found the KKK. You don't you don't get to name your kid after that without some underpinnings. Um, but like it wasn't necessarily explicit, um but it's there. And now like a lot of folks there are are starting to be braver in their beliefs, and like kinism is this they think it's biblically justifiable next step between like being a good person and being a racist. Um, and like they're starting to push kinist beliefs publicly, which um is just a real dog whistle for um pretty classic American racism.
SPEAKER_00:So kinist meaning people who are related to you, people who look like you, it but without saying they can't be from another race.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean it's just like it gets really in the weeds and and honestly dorky. Um a lot of the stuff these people believe is dorky, but um, yeah, kin being like your people, um, and having these um like radiated layers of like how you care about different people based on their proximity to you, be that through faith or we're not gonna say race, but it's definitely race.
SPEAKER_00:And at the same time, this wasn't obviously wasn't uh a violent group, it wasn't like Proud Boys, it was um more familial and mundane in that sense.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean I I think like it again, it's this it's a spectrum that it's hard to draw a like clean delineations on, but um, you know, a lot of people in my pretty like we were encouraged to carry guns. Um, I have done a fair amount of like firearm training with my family. There were definitely groups within the church that were like doing combat shooting drills ready for the apocalypse. There's definitely a lot of prominent people in the church who think it's really fun to take um long guns to Starbucks and intimidate people. Um and then that's like they try to divorce it, um, but there's also this like very consistent rhetoric of we want America to be a Christian nation and by extension the the world to be a Christian world. And explicitly, like that will mean enforcement of biblical laws on everything from fornication to homosexuality to abortion to um you name it, but um with with punishments for those sins, you know, ranging from imprisonment to execution. Um and that and that that wasn't like sneaky, that was something that they uh that they've said out loud for decades.
SPEAKER_00:So uh when when uh did there come a point where uh you knew that you couldn't continue living in this I mean society is practically it seems like it was pretty all inclusive.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, no, it definitely was. Um and I had been moved away for a couple years and kind of phone phoning it in and being like, yeah, I go to church pretty often, a church that kind of believes the same things but nowhere near as aggressively. Um I'm still somewhat part of this, and then um met a girl who was not part of any of that, uh, was kind of the opposite. Um started like fell for her, started dating, um, and and realized that I'd like needed to tell my family that what I was doing. Um and that blew things up. And that was like I didn't yeah, I I didn't come out, I didn't say, also, I'm queer. Also, I don't believe that abortion is a is a thing that you should get executed for. Also, also, also, I was just like, hey, I'm dating this girl who's not a Christian. Um, and it was Like pretty cataclysmic. Um, and I made a little bit of an effort to try to like figure out a middle ground, reconcile that with them. Um, and that was happening uh like 2016. Um, so a time when like this divide was uh very very public. Um and you know, I went I went back and visited um and um over Christmas and a teacher at the school that I'd gone to had just gotten not fired, but resigned, weird whatever, um, for grooming an underage student over the course of a year or two. Um and uh and I went back and spent time with my family and and had tried to have some of these conversations um and realized that just like the baseline level of discourse, the the like the moral compass um was was so aggressively pointing in a different direction. Um just listening to them like justified this teacher's behavior, victim blaming his victim, um listening to that like ooze into their read on the national discourse, onto like a coach on U of I campus' discourse, like just realizing that like I fundamentally didn't see the world like they did, um and and like didn't see women like they did, didn't see power dynamics like they did. Um tried to make that visit work and drove home and um ended up cutting ties.
SPEAKER_00:So and what how did cutting ties actually happen?
SPEAKER_02:Um I mean this is I was I was not classy, I just stopped responding.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, you you ghosted your ghosted your family.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's that's a that's a way to put it. Um yeah, and I've seen a fair number of other folks try to have a relationship with their family um in a similar situation, usually not quite as extreme. Um and I've I've seen how unproductive it's been for been for both sides. Um where it I don't I don't think it's helping either either side, and it's just bringing a lot of pain and a lot of hardship. Um and like I have a and I had at that time and I still have like a very strong chosen family of people who care about me for who I am and not for what I believe. Um and and like you know, it's just a seven-hour drive home. And on that drive, it was a it was a pretty easy decision of like I have very little in common with these people. They are going to spend every ounce of communication with me trying to change my mind, trying to make me straight, trying to make me hate my now wife, trying to make me change everything about myself, um, and also trying to make this this place we live in so much worse for most people. Um, or I can and I can I can either like spend all of my energy trying to fight that and feeling beat up and end up ending up a victim in my own narrative, or I can go home, lean into my community, lean into people I love and people I trust, and work to make the world I want to live in.
SPEAKER_00:How how do you have any communication with your younger siblings?
SPEAKER_02:No, um not in like six years.
SPEAKER_00:They're probably not allowed to talk to you.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I don't know. Um they're probably not listening to the NSMB podcast, but if they are and they're like questioning the the um the belief system that they're part of, they're welcome to reach out if they're here to guilt me about how I'm going to hell or um how much they miss me because I should be going to church. I am sorry, not interested in that conversation.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Have you ever felt like you wanted to rescue them?
SPEAKER_02:Um I think like I think the the way these organizations work is that um you can't you can't rescue somebody who wants who doesn't want to be rescued. And I'm not even sure that like rescuing is the is the correct verb. Um I don't think anybody rescued me uh from this situation. I think or that I rescued myself. I think that like people lived well and that rubbed off on me.
SPEAKER_00:So that now you you touched on this um and uh you've uh written about on the side as well, but um there came a time when you realized that you maybe didn't fit into the actual cisgendered um way that North Americans are supposed to live as well. How did how did that occur?
SPEAKER_02:Um I mean, I I am um super cisgendered. Um I am I'm very very he him trained. Um I don't code switch well, but uh definitely don't fall into the heteronormative um world we that like is kind of the norm. Um and I I realized that pretty early on, like before and during puberty, um, that like I was not just attracted to women, I was attracted to people that I was attracted to, regardless of gender. Um and like uh um sorry, I'm totally spacing on the uh yeah, so uh so and like funnily enough, one of the people that I first saw that kind of fit that fit fit a different mold was um Dennis Rodman. Um I was a big Chicago Bulls fan. Uh obviously not lifting him up as like an example of who we all want to be when we grow up, but um I remember being like, wait, this dude kind of doesn't care. He just sleeps with who he wants to sleep with. And as long as they're down with it, and it like that resonated with me um at a pretty young age, like in middle school. Um, but also I'm super privileged in that like um I am attracted to women. I'm very a stereotypical cis white dude with a beard who like doesn't read as a feminist. Um and because of my background, like I'm I'm very good at conforming to to societal gender norms. Um, and so it took a it took a long time for me to come out to beyond my uh my partner now wife. Um because there's a lot of it was like, well, what's the point? Um what what does this actually do? Um like who I who I am attracted to and who I sleep with is is my business and my partner's business, but but not Instagram's business. Um But there came a point, I think in 2020, um, I believe it was summer 2020, um, where I was coaching a mountain bike program and thinking about my own like backstory at that time and and how I'd gotten to where I was got where I was and and things that I regretted or things that were hard. And a big thing I saw in my past was like a lack of queer people to look up to, or or not even to look up to, but to but to say that's a that's a person living a living a different um situation than than I was told is the only one I can do. Um, and especially in mountain biking and in outdoor sports in general, we're we're pretty short on representation. Um and I'm definitely not like a perfect advocate or um representation, but I realized that I had this opportunity to um to just say, yeah, by the way, this is who I've been, this is who I'm gonna continue to be. And if you feel like this and also ride bikes or also ski or also draw or whatever else, whatever other thing you have in common with me, um it's not weird that you're not just attracted to women.
SPEAKER_00:Um how is it how has it felt to you being open like that? Has it uh been I imagine it's been a really positive experience?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, um initially there was a lot of negativity. Um the the initial response, um like the pe like there are a lot of people that I knew were gonna be fine with it or that knew already. Um but uh because because I was commissioned to do a poster for Pride, for local pride in Idaho, um, and I wasn't publicly out, I had to, or I I wanted to, had to come out when I when we announced that poster, because uh you're not gonna have a straight dude do your poster for pride. Um and so that ended up being a bit of a thing of like people on the internet um found out I wasn't straight. And that was when I found out how many people from my past were still following me or still still thought they had something they could say to me. Um and how many other just like randos on the internet think slurs are super fun. Um and yeah, that was like a rough couple days, but it it ended up being fine, and I think that the payout has been so worth it, um, just in terms of conversations I've had with other queer folks, um, connections we've been able to make, things I've been able to give to the community, because for me, I think a lot of a lot of the reason I came out was because I wanted to be contributing to the queer community, because I I was part of it, and like that is how I respect my community is I try to give back to it. And um, if I was if I was being sneaky about my identity, then I then I couldn't give back in the ways that I am best at. Um, and so coming out allowed me to participate and and hopefully help that community, um, which has been super satisfying and is kind of the point, I think.
SPEAKER_00:And the mount aside from obviously that initial um wave of um assholes, um I I I feel like the reception probably has been pretty positive in in the mountain bike world. And I mean like mountain biking and skiing, like what have your experiences been in both the industry and community?
SPEAKER_02:I think the industry, um, there have been enough people, strong people who have come before me. It seems like mostly queer women um or like female identifying folks um have been in this industry for a long time, right? Like the first time I saw two women kiss was at a downhill race. Like um mountain biking and and cycling in general, I think, has for a long time been been pretty queer in counterculture. And there's always an element that tries to erase that. Um, but look you like you look at the number of trails built by trans people and and like queer folks at companies, maybe not in public-facing roles, maybe not as athletes, maybe not as ambassadors as much as they should be, but like people actually doing the work in the industry. There's so many wonderful queer people who just are there. Um and I think most of the industry is pretty primed to be chill with it. And like I totally understand it causing some like, oh, what does that mean? Oh, I have questions, or oh, and you're married to a woman, whoa, what? Um, and I'm like, I'm super happy to address that stuff. Um, because I I get that it's confusing, and I think like beyond just being a queer person, I think bisexuality is an identity that's pretty easy to to not understand or to to gloss over. Um, and so I'm happy to do my best on that front.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, it seems to me that it shouldn't be that difficult, really. It's instead of one or the other, you appreciate both. That it I I mean, maybe I'm oversimplifying people's confusion, but uh if you can understand straight and you can understand gay, I don't know why you can't understand why. What what what do you think confuses them?
SPEAKER_02:Um I think like there's a there's a pretty classic, like both sides try to either alienate or claim by people, right? And like um the the gay community will will posit that you are on your way to just being gay and you haven't fully committed yet. Um and the straight community will posit that it's just a phrase. Um this is something that like there's a lot more um by women out publicly in the outdoor world, at least. Like, you know, there's a is a whole genre of like by women dating straight dudes. Um and and like like uh super hetero seeming relationships. And I I get the confusion around that because it it looks normal, and there's this there's this narrative that you're seeking attention or that you're trying to seem special. Um and statistically, like if you do the math, if you're attracted to to um and and to be clear, like this is um bisexuality in a non-trans erasive situation. I know that like there's a whole discourse about this that boy mountain bikers are definitely gonna think this podcast is weird. Um, but there's like a um there's there's this statistically, as a bi did, say the dating pool uh is 50% presenting as men, 50% present presenting as women. That means I have a 50% chance of ending up with either in a long-term relationship. And then you throw together like the heteronormative standards of the world and like all of the all of the little bumps that make it so much easier to date someone of the opposite gender identity as you. Um that like I think statistically a lot of bi people are just gonna be in straight um heteronormative looking relationships or straight seeming relationships. And um that means that there's less representation because they're not visibly bi um and people will have more questions or more confusion.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I guess, yeah, so and yeah, you can't talk to somebody necessarily and uh identify them as by the way you might be able to talk to somebody and identify them as gay by subtle cues or how they dress, or I mean there are lots of things that obviously not that's a stereotype that isn't um doesn't translate to everyone, but if you're by then you can kind of be anyone.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I mean it like I I get it. If looking from the outside, it's like, oh, you're bi. Um I should be worried, like what are your partner's pronouns? Or um and that and that's super fair. And and I think like everybody has a different relationship with that. And like for me, I'm married to a woman, occasionally I sleep with men, I'm attracted to folks of all gender identities. Um, like that that's different for every person, but I totally understand people being like, whoa, what's size deal? Um, and so I'm comfortable saying that's size deal.
SPEAKER_00:Good for you. And it's interesting that you say that you've had uh you've met many people who uh identify as uh uh queer or at least not uh not gender normative uh in the mountain biking world because uh I have to say I haven't. I don't know, for example, many gay men in mountain biking, or at least I don't know if they are gay men. And uh I think I think it's uh a shame and maybe a little bit of a stain on our culture that people are not comfortable being gay in the mountain biking world.
SPEAKER_02:Oh yeah, for sure. Um and like yeah, I think like gay men are often the least visible in numbers at least. Like we'll often have like one or two famous ones. Like you look at skiing, you've got Gus Kenworthy who's famous outside of skiing, right? And then you but then you look at like a more grassroots level, and it's much harder to find um find examples.
SPEAKER_00:So they're hiding out, hiding out like they might in the NFL or the NHL or any big sports league.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, contrary to popular opinion, like there's not a huge incentive to come out if you don't have to.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, no question. Yeah. Um so what does mountain biking need to do to make us more friendly to others?
SPEAKER_02:Um, I think like a lot of mountain biking is is on a good trajectory and uh has been headed a good direction. Um I I'm I don't think this is a problem that just mountain biking can fix, right? It's a it's a broader cultural problem. Um and I I think like at the grassroots level, like you we can all make a difference by how we talk about queerness, how we like calling bad things gay. Hey, maybe don't maybe tell your friends not to do that. Um but I also think this is a this is something that for me at least I see mountain biking doing reasonably well compared to the broader world. Like there are there's not enough, but like there is a move towards inclusive queer events. Um like generally people I work with professionally in mountain biking um are really cool about like having pronounces, like this is a this is a tiny thing that doesn't seem like it matters, but having pronouns in your bio on social media or in the signature of your email is a dog whistle that you are comfortable with um with folks who don't fit inside um our our traditional gender roles, and like I I know this is like a silly tiny thing that maybe doesn't matter in the broader world, but when when somebody doesn't assume your pronouns or when somebody lists their pronouns, um it is a indication that this is a safe space. And if if you're someone who is is trans or non-binary and is used to code switching, which like there are plenty of people in mountain biking who just get misgendered all the time and are like, fuck it, we ball, it's not worth explaining this. And like caring about people's pronouns is a is a great um great like hey, this is this is a conversation we can have. I'm not gonna make a big deal about it, but like I don't just assume you're a dude because you look like this or sound like this or whatever. Um and then yeah, like mountain biking can't like and then you look at like mountain biking on the internet and what the you know mountain biking on the internet is mostly men. I think it skews more conservative, more heteronormative, um, and and more shitty than uh mountain biking in real life does. And so you can find plenty of homophobic douchebags on the internet.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I would I would agree with that. I I I've never heard that explanation for why you should include your pronouns um when you feel like your pronouns are already well known. And that is a really good explanation that I it hadn't occurred to me.
SPEAKER_02:And it uh something If you're just your pronouns aren't about you, they're about giving other people space to have pronouns.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. I like that. So after you've made um this break from your past, how did how did your how did your life change? What happened? How did you get into mountain biking? What was what was that stage in your life like? Did you feel a bit untethered or did you feel free?
SPEAKER_02:Um, no, because like honestly, at that point, I had already been living the life that I've been living since then, um, in most ways. Um like I had the same partner, the same friends, the same lifestyle um that I have now. Um and and for a minute it was this there's this like, oh, am I am I making a terrible mistake? Am I what am I doing? Um But most of the time life made it very clear that like I should keep doing what I was doing, um, which is you know trying to um be a be a positive part of my community, trying to give back, trying to um make art and tell stories that matters and makes the sports I love and am part of a better place. Um and so it's a pretty easy, like, well, that sucked, but um let's go invest in this community, let's go invest in these people, let's push down this career, marry this girl, get a shitty dog together. Um all of that. Um yeah, and so like um at middle end of college, uh my bike got stolen. Um, so I had a couple of years where I didn't own a mountain bike, where I owned just a dirt jumper, didn't own a a pedal bike. Um, and I you know I rode cyclocross on my dirt jumper, like I rode trails on a dirt jumper, like I I was making terrible mistakes, but I didn't necessarily identify as a mountain biker as much. Um, I was chasing a career in skiing. I would I uh was traveling a lot in the summer to ski. Like I had a couple years of skiing every month, not like on purpose trying to scrap out snow, but because like writing about skiing and and shooting skiing was my was my job. Um and then uh in Teton Valley, I had Uh had an old 26-inch giant rain, was riding that a bit when I got together with my partner now wife. Um, she was getting into bikepacking, so I traded that out for a um a hardtail and rode a year of like mostly bikepacking and very little like traditional trail riding. Like I load rode a lot of single track, but it was all fully loaded um and uh often like multi-day stupidity. Um my partner has a great imagination when it comes to looking at a map and saying that it will be an easy hike a bike from this trail to that trail. Um so I was on that train and then uh realized that I missed mountain biking. Um got it had had kind of built a deal relationship with a local shop, got a deal on a Santa Cruz High Tower LT. Um, which I think in retrospect was a pretty flawed bike, but I was like back on a full suspension, first carbon bike, and I was hyped. I rode a bunch um and and kind of just started identifying as I am a mountain biker, I am a person who hits jumps and wants to ride steep trails, and like this is what I'm doing in the summers again. And then Tidon Valley is like really seasonal. Um, you know, you're seven to eight, six, like six to nine months of no riding or barely any riding, um, because it snows so much. Um, so like still skiing a bunch, riding a bunch in the summers, and then um got laid off from a job and had had seen I'd uh I'd coached a couple like week-long summer mountain bike camps, um, no like coaching experience or training, but I like working with kids. I like mountain biking. It's mostly just like babysitting and keeping their attention. Um, so I'd done that, I knew I liked it, and I had this job and saw that um our local uh organization, Mountain Bike the Tetons, was looking to start a Sprout Kids program and said, man, I'm commuting to Jackson every day for work. I really wish I could do this, but I can't because I'm commuting to Jackson. It's like an hour and change commute. I'd missed, I couldn't do this, and then got laid off. And the next day was the informational meeting for Sprout Kids. And so I walked in and I was the only non-parent at this meeting. Um, and at the end of the meeting, talked to the executive director of Mountain Bike Tetons, uh, Tony Freleci, and was like, Hey dude, are you looking for anybody to help out with Sprout Kids? And he was like, Yeah, I'm looking for somebody to run Sprout Kids, but I can't really pay. Um, and I was like, Well, I don't have a job. I'm gonna try to do the freelance art thing. I really like coaching. I think I can like this is a lot better than sitting around and and like trying to find another job. Um, and so I ended up running that Sprout Kids program. That first year was like 30 kids, I think. Um, and had a great time. Next year it was way bigger. Um, it it ballooned. I think it was 60 kids two nights a week, and then another 30 or 60 kids over on the Jackson side that I didn't have to deal with, but I was kind of helping with. And like that was that was super fun because I got to build curriculum and train other coaches and and ride with these kids at a really impressionable time in their life. At a time when like I wasn't riding bikes, like at the you know, six to eleven, I was barely riding bikes at those ages, and these kids are ripping, and their parents are supporting them, and we're riding cool trails, and it was just like every every ride with Sprout Kids was like, I can't believe I'm getting to do this because these kids, like, these kids are gonna ride bikes forever because of this. This is this is a really exciting time to be part of that. Um, then COVID came, and COVID Sprout Kids was pretty terrible. Um, Tedon Valley is like a weird shade of purple, um, where like it felt like this is this is an exaggeration, but it felt like half of my parents uh of Sprout Kids uh believed that we shouldn't be wearing masks for like super conservative, weird right wing reasons, and the other half of my parents thought that we shouldn't be wearing masks for like super weird left-wing reasons. I am kind of stuck in the middle, and like this is not it. Um, did another did COVID year and did one year after and realized that um that was not necessarily the place for me um anymore, but really enjoyed it. Um, and then went from that to my partner had been um coaching the local Nika team for a bunch of years. Um, so I coached a year with her, um, which was awesome. And at that time, like 2020, I was really trying to transition from just working in the ski world to also working in the mountain bike world. Um, because I I felt like I had kind of gotten to where I was going to be able to get in the ski industry and it and it wasn't a place I wanted to be for the rest of my life. I kind of had that like make your dreams come true and realize that maybe you should have had better dreams um situation in in the ski industry.
SPEAKER_00:What was it about the ski industry that didn't fit?
SPEAKER_02:Um, it's a lot, it's a lot of little things. Um I think culturally, like I didn't grow up skiing. I started skiing um when I was like 17. I I skied like a couple of days, but I like really started skiing when I was 17, 18, 19. Um and being part of the ski industry and realizing that like most other people in the ski industry had um been skiing since they were two and were from the East Coast and had gone to a ski academy and wouldn't stop telling you about it. Um it didn't ever feel like there were a lot of my people um there. You know, there's a lot like worked with a bunch of excellent people, but there weren't a ton of people that was like, oh, I want that job or I want to be like you when I grow up. Um simultaneously, my I have uh my feet are not made for ski boots, they're a terrible shape for ski boots. Um and then I was also volunteering for our local search and rescue, um, Teton County, Idaho search and rescue. Um I I volunteered for them for five years, and the last year or two, I was an advisor, which meant I was like helping run um run the search and rescue team. And in believe it was um December 2020 or I think it was 2020 or 21. Um we had a bad winter for avalanches. I think it was I believe it was 2021 winter, it might have been 21, 22. I'm sorry, I'm not good at dates, but um we just responded to a fair number of avalanche fatalities. Um, like just like the day before Christmas Eve, and we had um two 16-year-olds, neither of whom had Avi gear, and we were um searching for them with dogs hours into the night. Um and I really enjoyed my role on search search and rescue. I I loved helping that team, I loved trying to help the community. But those fatalities really brought home the risks of of backcountry skiing and messed with me mentally to a place where like uh most of the year in Teton Valley, if you're recreating human power, you are backcountry skiing in Avalanche terrain. Um and I and I got to a place where I was not super fun to ski with um because I was really risk averse and and pretty down in the dumps and just just scared. Scared of not not as much scared of dying, but scared of like losing people I really cared about, scared of watching a friend get slid and um not being able to save them or help. Um and so that combined with this like, what am I even trying to do in the ski industry? I'm not really making any money. There's not a job that I want to have. I don't have health insurance, but there's not a job I want to have. I've got my art. Most of the places I would ever want to have my art, and it turns out it's not paying that well, and it's not like opening crazy doors. Um and so through that, I was like, I also really like mountain biking. I do this a lot. Let's try to do the mountain bike industry thing um and make that parallel shift.
SPEAKER_00:So you move to the massively uh lucrative mountain biking world from the massively lucrative skiing world.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, like my my controversial take is that like the mountain biking world, in my experience at least, has been significantly more professional, better at paying me on time, better at paying me closer to a living wage, um, and just gen generally like more professional than the ski world. Um, I think a lot of people in the ski world have boy, this is maybe a really controversial take. You can come yell at me on Instagram, but I think like a lot more people in the ski industry have the kind of generational wealth that means that their job and their career doesn't matter than in the bike industry. Um, and so I I I was like, how are people surviving? How are people surviving like this? We're not getting paid anything, I don't have a safety net. How like how are you working less than me and own a sick house and all of this? And then realizing that, like, oh well, you have generational wealth. Um and and I was like, whoa, whoa, the people who are who have the lifestyle that I want to have, like there's there's awesome self-made people and there's people who are hustling, but there's also like the mountain bike world has a lot more people who are like, hey, this is a this is a job, I need to be able to support myself, this needs to be sustainable, and skiing has a lot of like I can kind of fuck around. Um, and and it doesn't matter. Um, so like this in terms of job prospects, right? Like everybody has higher expectations in mountain biking than they did in skiing.
SPEAKER_00:I I did not realize that. That's that's interesting. Well, um I'm glad that we lured you away. We as an industry. Uh so uh tell me how you uh took I mean I guess you already had done it in skiing, but when when you first started doing drawings for mountain biking, you you'd had the experience that they were well received in skiing before that, I assume.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yep. I'd been doing a weekly comic um on a skiing website, New Schoolers, for a couple of years. Um I started I started drawing for the ski industry um because we had a really bad winter. I was a ski photographer if we had a really bad winter we didn't have any snow. So I started drawing the photos I wished I was taking. Um, and then realized pretty quickly that like that translates no like there's more artists in the ski industry than the mountain bike industry, but there weren't a bunch, there weren't there wasn't really anybody doing like narrative or there were very few people doing narrative work. Um and I can do this no matter where I live, no matter if it's snowed or not, no matter if I have an ACL or not. Um, and photography, I uh was really dependent on all of those things.
SPEAKER_00:So so you had a pretty good sense that your work would be well received in mountain biking.
SPEAKER_02:I knew it was different. I knew that mountain biking didn't have it, had it less than skiing for sure, um, and that like it was worth a shot. I wasn't sure at all. Like I um with with like my I I had posted um I had done a bunch of mountain biking paintings um during COVID and immediately after, and I posted a couple like two news articles to Pink Bike. Like you can submit a reader-submitted article to Pink Bike and it gets posted and you don't get paid or anything, but you see how people like it, and it seemed like people liked it. Um there's some there's some haters because Pink Bike is good at that. Um, I say that with a lot of love. Um but then um I would knew I was going to ride in the North American Enduro Cup. Race is a strong word for um anything I've ever done on a bike. Um I knew it was a really cool event. I had actually ridden Silver Mountain back in high school. I knew it was this pretty crazy place, like really long uh laps, hard techie trails. Um and so I set myself up to do a bunch of paintings during the race. That means I pre-drew a bunch of stuff and then also like had a kit that I could have in my in my pack and basically just set myself up to be like, okay, if I want to draw, I forget what the goal is, I think it was 20 or 30 paintings during this race. What do I need to do beforehand? What do I need to bring so I can paint during what can I draw? Like all of this stuff. And didn't have a have a clear goal in it. Um, but went and like people were stoked I was painting, and then I think during the race, I just um blind messaged the NSMB Instagram account. Um because I'd been reading NSMB for years. Um I appreciated like I think you could I think NSMB does a good job of having a slightly offbeat take on mountain biking, especially at that time. Like I was like, this is these people are weird, these people are different, maybe they will be into something creative. And I I knew what would happen with other outlets. Like I could have posted another blog post to Pink Bike, maybe it would have gotten live, but like it wasn't gonna be a thing. Um so I DM'd you guys, I forget who responded. I I was like, hey, I just painted this race. Can you post it? And I think like a pretty it was a pretty justifiable, like, uh maybe, sure. Who are you and what are those? Um but put together this race report, wrote it all up, submitted a bunch of paintings, and you all published it. And it seemed like people didn't hate it.
SPEAKER_00:So that that was actually your first aside from your pink bike posts. Uh your first publicly posted anyway, instead of on the back pages of Pink Bike kind of thing. Yeah, cool. Yeah, that's great. So at that point, had you done any other work in the Mountain Bike world? Had you done any product testing or that kind of stuff?
SPEAKER_02:Um, I'd done a little bit of gear review, like a very small amount. Um, I worked for Blister Gear Review. Um, I was a managing editor, and I did a bunch of ski reviews. Like, oh boy, uh my digital footprint is large. I still get DMs from random men asking about skis from 12 years ago. Um and I'd I'd done a few bike reviews um and and enjoyed it, but um hadn't done much bike writing other than that.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:And and now it's uh now it's a regular thing, which is uh which is awesome. Yeah, now it's my job. Yeah. Can you tell me about your your process about um say you've just finished something and you your blank slate, how does it um evolve into a finished piece?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think um the biggest thing is that when I finish a project, I'm actually not starting on a blank slate. I'm starting on a slate that I've scribbled a bunch on and I have a bunch of half-baked ideas on. Um starting from a blank slate is friggin' terrible, right? Um and so like I just have a notes app on my phone that like it is full of things that will never see the light of day or that will get tweaked and become a comic or whatever. Um and like often it'll be something offhand a friend says or something I notice on a ride, and I'll just pull out my phone and just like type in like words that will trigger my memory to come back to whatever it was. Um, so most of the like sometimes sometimes it truly is a blank slate, and that is rough. But most of the time it's like, okay, I've built this comic, it's gonna go live on Wednesday. Next week I need to have another one ready. I've probably already put it on you guys' content calendar, what's what it's gonna be, and like I try to stay a few weeks out, and then it's like, okay, I'm gonna make that. It'll probably take me eight to twelve hours. How can I, you know, I look at my schedule and like, well, am I trying to dig this day? Am I trying to ride this day? Um, do I have to do work at my other job this day? Um yeah.
SPEAKER_00:How did you start working with animals as your characters?
SPEAKER_02:Um, animals are a cop-out for me. I know that's not like a fun, sexy thing to say, but consistently through my art career, I have struggled with how people want my work to represent everyone. Um people want like representation obviously really matters, but people also um get pretty frustratingly picky with like why why aren't she why isn't XYZ ethnicity listed? Why is why is this why is there not enough women in this comic? Why is there not enough whatever in this comic? And like I I respect that, but I also think um anthropomorph anthropomorphizing characters makes it easier for people to project their own identities onto those characters, even if they don't look like um, whereas with people, it you either look like that person or you don't. Um, and if it's a raccoon, um maybe you think raccoons are super cute. Um, maybe you don't, but it's a lot easier to project yourself on. So for me, it's a it's a really easy way to say, I am trying to create art that as many mountain bikers as possible can identify with, and I'm trying to remove barriers to them identifying with that art.
SPEAKER_00:I I guess you haven't had any comments. There aren't enough straight, straight white men in this comic.
SPEAKER_02:Don't get that one a lot. No, but it's like and like I definitely overthink this, but right, like right now I've got the um the golden chain ring series um running and like jokingly, I've joked with friends, like that series doesn't pass the Bechtel test. Um and it's like, well, does everything need to pass the Bechtal test? Lord of the Rings doesn't pass the Bechtal test, and like obviously it doesn't. Um, you know, the the eponymous creator of that test made it clear that it's not like doesn't not every piece of work needs to needs to pass it. But like that is something I'm thinking about whenever I'm making something for public consumption. Is like, am I doing my best to represent this community um fairly and expansively? Without and I'm not like trying to push an agenda or like be like, oh, everyone, this like it's just like most of the jokes I'm making are pretty niche to mountain biking. And so there's already a pretty limited audience for jokes about like, you know, whatever, buying new parts instead of writing more. Um, and so like I don't need to to tighten the audience for that joke even more by being like, and it's a picture of a dude with a beard making that joke.
SPEAKER_00:So uh I can understand contextually, contextually, what the Bechtal test is, but I actually am not familiar with it.
SPEAKER_02:Oh boy, I'm gonna butcher it. Um Bechtal test is in a piece of narrative work. Um, do two women talk to each other about something other than a man? Um and it's it's a it's it's like a fun arbitrary thing where you can be like some action movies have it because like there'll be like a chance interaction between two women that like isn't quite about a man. It yeah, it's not actually relevant, but it is kind of a fun thing to throw at pieces of media.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I've that that makes a lot of sense. I'm sure there are many, many uh medium media pieces that are guilty of that. Um where where do you see your work evolving in the future? Um oh boy.
SPEAKER_02:Um I like I like what I'm doing right now a lot. I like the freedom that I have to tell the stories that I want to tell. Um I would like to see my work and I am seeing my work in improve in terms of quality, in terms of how I can make things look, how efficient I am as an illustrator, how like how I grow in terms of um visuals and mediums and and creativity. I've got a bunch of ideas for um some super weird paper stuff that you'll probably see later this year that is like even weirder than this current series. Um so like that in terms of like artistically, I'm pretty fulfilled right now. I'm really stoked on what I get to do. I think once a week's a great cadence. Uh and I and I love what I get to do. Um, like career-wise, I am always trying to figure out what I can do to make this more sustainable for me to do forever. Um, like right now, I'm really privileged in that I'm healthy, um, I have stable housing. I, in a lot of ways, I don't have kids, I don't have student debt, um, I don't have medical debt. Um, and so I can afford to um make very little money um and and live pretty small. Um, and that's that's incredible that I get to do this right now, but I am pretty hyper-aware that that could change at any time. And so I'm always trying to figure out um, can I make this more commercially viable without compromising it? Can I partner with brands or events or um whoever else? Um it's obviously like uh I I have I've generally been like a media first creator, um, working for outlets, right? Like NSMB or um new schoolers. And as everybody in the media world knows, uh nobody has any money. And uh I don't yeah, I don't hold that against outlets, but uh, I mean, as you know super well, this is not a a space to get into if you want to buy a Bugatti. Um and so I'm always trying to look at like, okay, I don't love taking money from my audience. I don't love trying to get more money from media outlets that I don't have any money. So is there a way I can provide value to the folks that actually have money?
SPEAKER_00:Awesome. And you've done a bit of that. You ha have some t-shirts that you sell. And um have you been have been selling your most recent book?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I have had a web store on and off. Um I actually got rid of it around the holidays, and I don't think I'll bring it back. Um, because most of what I've done with um selling stuff directly has it's not um it's not lucrative. I don't make much on it. Um and it ends up being a lot of work in terms of um like business stuff, customer service stuff. And like the most of the reason I've done it is because people say they want it on the internet. Like, oh, I would totally buy a t-shirt of this, or you should you need to make books of this. And I really appreciate it when people say that. Um uh historically, the you know, the the funnel of people who actually end up spending money is is significantly tighter than the people who say they will spend money. Um so just like that that cost-benefit analysis hasn't been there. And and honestly, like my goal would be to either be creating shirts or books or whatever that another entity can sell because they're in the business of being a business and they can do the taxes and the shipping and all of that because that's what they do, um, or partnering with um a brand or an event or whoever to make um products available for free. Um at fundamentally, I want to give people art. Um, and whatever I can do to like figure out how to do that is is always the end goal. Um, and if I can get paid to do that, that's also great.
SPEAKER_00:That that's uh that's a noble angle for sure. Tell me about how your mountain biking has evolved. When when did you when did you move to Bellingham? It was not that long ago.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, just under three years ago, like three years in April. Um yeah, growing up, I thought I was a a sick gravity rider because I um I bought a 2005 Rocky Mountain Slayer um and uh hocked it off a bunch of stuff, and then I bought a 2008 giant glory O, like the free ride one with the single crown and two two chain rings, and was like, I don't pedal uphill, I just walk up the downhill trail and then ride back down and session jumps. Um, I never got good. Like it I am an embarrassingly uh poor jumper to this day, but like that that was my identity. Like, dude, the the Kona Moose Man silhouette, I was like, who that's who I wanted to be. Um and then uh moved to Teton Valley and got into the bikepacking thing and was doing big miles on a hard tail and loving it and and riding hard trails and and realized I wasn't a Danglebong Brooks saddle uh uh guy. As much as I love that that activity, I didn't necessarily identify with the culture very much. Um props to folks who do. Uh I don't like coffee and brown liquor as much as somebody who works in the bike industry should. Um and and got back like pendulum swung back. I started, I like became a much more well-rounded rider in Teton Valley, where I was um doing a lot of big pedals and shuttling some and riding Teton Pass, which is um like good free ride, free ride trails like jumps and um bigger moves for the Tetons at least. Um and then I was actually signed up to take a PMBIA PIMBA, whatever the acronym is, um like a mountain bike instructor course, uh spring of 2020 in Whistler, because I was like, I need to take this course and I want to go to Whistler. So I'm gonna sign up for this course in Whistler. I signed up for it like 10 months in advance, and then COVID happened and I did not go to Whistler. Um, and so the next year, 20 spring 2021, um, because I was a first responder, because I was on the search and rescue team, I had access to the COVID vaccine early. Um, got vaccinated, waited until I think like mid-April, and um, I didn't have like a great riding community in Tedon Valley. I had some friends that I rode with, but like nobody who wanted to go on a big bike road trip with me. So I went on a solo road trip to um Seattle and then Bellingham and basically just posted on Instagram, I am coming to these places. Does anybody want to ride bikes? Um and got really lucky. And like I had a friend, uh David, who works at Blister, showed me around um Seattle. Absolutely whooped my butt at um exit 27. Uh, like Idaho boy, you don't ride in the wet, you don't like there's no sea trails, it's all sanctioned forest service trails. And uh the Raging River exit 27 area was just like the scariest trails I'd ever ridden. It was and like you're coming off a winter of skiing. I hadn't ridden my bike in eight months and just got destroyed. It was atrocious. And then came up to Bellingham and had um some folks responded to me on Instagram, and and some of them now are some of my closest friends, um, but were like, yeah, come ride with us. Um and and went for a ride for the first time with like people that I really was like, oh, you're the kind of people pre- people I want to be. I want to be your friend. And we rode like we rode Galbreth, um, rode back to somebody's house, had like had a birthday party that everybody had ridden their bikes to and nobody had driven to, and it was more people my age who liked mountain biking than I'd ever been in the same room with, and just was like, oh my god, this is incredible. Um, and then next day rode a pretty classic local trail. It's like at the time was like a 3,300 vertical foot loamer, and just was like, my my mind was melted. Um, and I remember calling my partner and and just like, oh, and uh while I was gone, the basement had flooded. She was dealing with that just we went to this birthday party and we made pasta, and all these people were so cool, and like I just want to be friends with them, and it like just kind of lost my shit. Um, like felt like this little kid who'd like seen the light for the first time. And you know, like I owned, I had to specialize in Duro at the time, and I thought I was like riding it like a 170 bike was supposed to be ridden, and then I came out here and like the like Galdrith is gnarlier than anything in Teton Valley. Oh wow, like like yeah, like there's so there's like big jumps on Ton Pass, um, and there's a couple like weird, terrible square edge trails, but like it they just you just can't make trails that steep there that are sanctioned. There's not routes, you don't ever ride in the wet. There's like not big rock rolls or rock rolls really at all. And Goberth was just like blew my mind. I was like, and everybody's like, oh well, this is kind of lame. We don't actually ride here very much. All the better ridings off the map. Why like why do you care so much? I was like, this is like I could just ride SST, and like I drove 14 hours to come out here, and I was like, I could just ride SST for five days and go home, and it would be the best bike trip I've been on. Because like we go on all these bike trips, like spring, you're itching to ride your bike, there's snow on the ground, and we'd go ride salmon and we'd go ride Helena, and we go ride all these places that we'd drive five or six hours, and then the riding would be pretty terrible, and it'd be like four miles of of like loose, sketchy, multi-use trail, and we'd be like, Yeah, that was sick. And then I came out here and like, oh my god. Um, yes, talk to my partner.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, Bellingham was the first really like legit mountain biking destination you rode at, or Seattle and Bellingham.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I'd visited um I'd visited Whistler um once a long time ago. Um, I'd ridden the bike park, and then for my partner's 30th birthday, we'd come out and ridden Whistler and Squamish for like four days. So like I I knew that there was good mountain biking out there as a vacation destination. And my partner's from North Carolina. Um, so I'd gone back and ridden um like Pisgah with her, and those trails are awesome. Um, but it I'd been like, yeah, these are really cool places, and I could go every couple years on vacation. Um, and then came to Bellingham and was like, oh, the riding's insane, but also the community and the lifestyle is is something that I really want. Um it was truly like riding from a friend's house, riding Galbright, and then riding to another friend's house for a birthday party, and not touching a car and riding sick trails and being like, I I could live here and not have to get in the car to ride my bike.
SPEAKER_00:Nice. And now you've explored more. And so you obviously your your skills must have taken big leaps. I I hope so.
SPEAKER_02:It's um yeah, I definitely have had to grow a bunch as a rider just to just to ride here. Um and I've been I've been really lucky. I don't I don't ever love being the strongest rider in a group. Like it'll happen occasionally and that's fine, but I really don't make a habit of it. Um and I was lucky here to like just because this my buddy Jack and uh my friend Sarah like were the first people to message me back on Instagram when I moved here. And um Jack's a proper rider. Um his back is broken right now, so get better, Jack. Um and uh and Sarah's uh partner Finn is is a gnarly trail builder and and rides a bunch of impossible seeming stuff. And so like when I moved here, um I was just incredibly lucky in that I plugged into this community of people who still blow my mind about how they ride a bike. Um and and so I've just been like trafing along in their wake, trying like being like, oh that like let's figure out how to do this. That that move's scary, can I ride it? Um and so it's funny, like most of the time it doesn't feel like I've grown as a writer at all because I'm still just trying to keep up with those guys, which is great. That's how I want it. Like I I'm like always a little bit scared, always like trying to push it, um, which is fun.
SPEAKER_00:What do you like riding up here on the North Shore?
SPEAKER_02:I haven't ridden North Shore as much as I probably should have, based on how close I live. Um I've been stoked on Cambodia. Um, I came up and rode that pretty soon after it got sanctioned. Um if you ride it right now, there's uh there's a sign on it that uh I might have built. We'll see you. Well uh we'll see what comes out around that sign this spring. Uh um and then uh I uh I went up and shuttled Cyprus uh a week or two ago, and that was awesome. That was a crazy experience. Um those trails are so fast and they're not that hard, but they're really committing, and you're just hauling ass the whole time. And it's it like left me this like I drunk too many cups of coffee sensation all day. We're just like um it was awesome and terrifying.
SPEAKER_00:So you're riding like Jersey Shore and Meat Sweats, like the the main D8 shuttle routes.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I know that's probably not the cool thing, but we probably just wrote 14 laps of those two trails and went home and was just like buzzing.
SPEAKER_00:Uh those those are great, and the more you ride them, the faster you get and figure things out. Yeah, I I I like doing that kind of riding, which we uh rarely do. But it's uh it's super fun. Yeah. Well, we'll have to I'll have to show you some more Cypress and other mountains and get you up here to to ride with us. Which Yeah, I need to actually get the tour. Obviously, an open invitation. Well, we're we're we're pushing on uh 80 minutes and and I I feel like uh we could we could keep going for a couple of hours quite easily, but um maybe we should uh think about a uh part two in a couple of months and and and wrap things up, unless there's something you'd like to add or something I didn't ask you about that um is important to you.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, no, sorry, I'm good at talking a lot. Um no, no, I mean you're awesome.
SPEAKER_00:That that's that's what podcasts are about. It's uh but it is do you feel like there's something that um uh we missed that is revealing of your character?
SPEAKER_02:Um I don't think so. Um I will say like I a big part of why I pitched NSMB was the comment section and like seeing the same names pop up consistently and seeing people be pretty engaged. Um and and that's something I still really appreciate is like every every media outlet talks about community, and I think NSMB has a pretty good one. Um and I think I learned things from that community quite a bit, and I and I also really appreciate like I respect the hell out of the other names that are appearing on the site. Um and that's that's something that I really enjoy. It's a it's a funny, funny thing to see my byline up there and be like, it's uh I I publish plenty plenty of work at places that I have been like, I think I'm doing really good work, and this outlet is is maybe not the vibe right now, but I'm still gonna do this work because I care about the work, and it's fun at an SMB to be like, I care about the work. These are people that I want to give good work to. These are the the things appearing next to mine are a quality that I want to live up to. Um so that's it keeps me motivated. Like I I feel like I keep waiting to get burnt out, and I'm so still so frigging hungry. I have so many, so many things I want to make and ideas.
SPEAKER_00:That's great to hear when we're still hungry for your work. So um I'm excited about what the future holds. Well, uh, thank you very much, Cy. Uh um let's uh let's let's do this again when we've got uh some more to talk about. Well, we've already got some more to talk to about, but we've got a few more things we can cover without going to three hours.
SPEAKER_02:Sounds good. Yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks, Cy.