December 20, 2024 • 46 mins
Hi there! Feel free to drop us a text if you enjoy the episode.
In this episode of the New England Endurance Podcast, we learn about one of largest cycling clubs in the Boston area: the Charles River Wheelmen (CRW). My guest today is Randolph Williams, the President of CRW, an accomplished endurance athlete, and a passionate advocate for inclusivity in cycling.
Randolph shares how growing up in a family steeped in social activism shaped his journey, culminating in his impactful essay, Biking While Black. This powerful piece not only highlighted inequalities in the sport but also inspired tangible changes, such as the Wheels of Change Strava Art project.
We’ll uncover the rich history and mission of CRW, founded over 50 years ago by Dr. Ralph Galen, and explore what makes the club such a cornerstone of the Boston cycling scene. From their inclusive approach and legendary rides to their commitment to promoting camaraderie and belonging, CRW truly embodies the joy of shared cycling adventures.
Join us as Randolph talks about his epic solo rides—like Boston to Montreal—as well as how he’s helping shape the future of CRW. We’ll also discuss CRW’s structure, favorite routes, signature events like the Cranberry Century, and the club’s role in advocating for better cycling infrastructure in New England.
Whether you’re a casual cyclist looking for a welcoming community or a seasoned rider chasing epic routes, this club and this episode has something for everyone. Don’t miss Randolph’s inspiring stories and insights about the power of cycling to build community and create lasting change.
Be sure to follow us on Instagram @newenglandendurance for updates and tags from today’s episode.
Art & Eric embark on a journey to showcase and celebrate the endurance sports community in New England.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, welcome to the New England Endurance Podcast.
I am Art Tripotsis, and todayI'm thrilled to have one of the
largest and oldest cycling clubsin New England, the Charles
River Wheelers, otherwise knownas CRW and my guest today is
Randolph Williams, president ofCRW and an accomplished cyclist
(00:26):
and advocate himself, andsomeone who, I think you'll come
to realize, embodies the spiritof CRW, which we're going to
learn more about today.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Welcome, randolph, thank you so much Art for having
me on the show.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Yes, and I just discovered that Randolph is a
fellow jumbo, so shout out toTufts Excellent.
Let me set the stage here alittle bit with this episode and
tell you a little more aboutRandolph.
So he grew up in a familysteeped in social activism and
turned his personal experiencesinto a powerful voice for change
with his essay Biking WhileBlack piece not only shed light
(01:01):
on some inequalities in cycling,but also inspired things like
the Wheels of Change Strava ArtProject, which I did the S on
that, I believe, and also theNew England Cycling Coalition
for Diversity.
I really look forward tohearing about these pieces of
your story and how this sort ofweaves into your leadership with
CRW.
You're an endurance athleteyourself.
(01:22):
When I was reading your bio,you've done some Boston mar CRW.
You're an endurance athleteyourself.
When I was reading your bio,you've done some Boston
marathons.
You've ridden from Boston toMontreal or vice versa.
So how did you get intoendurance sports?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
When I was a child I had asthma, so I know that I
remember going out, my dad wouldhead me out and I went to a
track meet.
Going out, my dad would head meout.
And I went to a track meet and,uh, and probably was eight or
some, some, some age, um, youknow, some young child, and I
did my running race.
I was in the first quarter lap,I was ahead of everyone and
(01:56):
then I was at the end, startedheaving, started heaving Exactly
, exactly, but but, um, I think,when I went through all of my,
uh, college years and got outinto the, into the real world,
you know, I did computer scienceand so I was one of those
people that, like you know, likecomputer is a good friend
because I could turn it off whenit annoys me, yep and uh.
(02:20):
And my dad just said, uh, oneday after I got into the
workforce, he's like oh, you'regetting getting soft, a little
fat, you need to go do someexercise.
That's kind of how it started.
And my dad, effectively, Iguess, goaded me into and I'd
say, well, let me.
And I got swept up into thewhole.
I got hooked into the cyclingworld and I started, you know,
(02:44):
with the bike, bike racing lancearmstrong the whole nine yards.
I'm like, oh, I could do thatlet's go.
Let's go do some things, and Ium I loved cycling.
I had some challengespersonally just being able to do
long events.
Um, I didn't actually figure itall out until maybe in the last
10 years I mean five to yearsand it kind of started going hog
(03:05):
wild on, like I did sometesting for salt and different
kinds of yeah, checking yourmetabolism and your what's the
word?
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Nutrients and salt intake, did you just curious?
What team did you ride or racefor when you were kind of coming
up in New England?
Brc was one boston road clubyep, shout out, that's me and
eric back in the you know late90s, early 2000s, yeah dream
bikes was another one yep and uh, those were the two primary.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Uh, it wasn't with nebc for a year or two as was I.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Yeah, it seems like everyone kind of came through ne
NEBC at one point back in the90s.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah, there was one race I was, so I did the Green
Mountain stage race.
I mean just to give you an ideaof where my perspective was I
was so far behind Dick Ring.
He called out my name and I'mlike why is he calling my name?
They thought I was ahead of thepack because I was so far
behind.
So just to give you aperspective on my cycling
prowess at that point, just togive you a perspective on my
(04:05):
cycling prowess at that point.
But again, I figured out youknow I'll lose a lot of salt and
I finally figured this out likefour or five years ago Dialed
that in.
Dialed it in.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
What's the trick?
Just curious.
You get some noon tablets.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
It was more than noon .
Tablets Most people lose like1,500 milligrams of sodium in a
day.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
That seems like a lot .
Speaker 2 (04:29):
That was 2,600 per hour of exercise.
Wow, so I would come in.
My wife would see me all cakedin salt.
It's just like, oh, it's been anormal ride, so I have to put
in a lot of salt.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
What are you taking in?
Some sort of liquid?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
I actually started mixing my own concoction with
how much salt I need, becauseonce you do the sweat test, you
can figure out how much youactually need.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Where can folks do a sweat test?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
You can go to I think it's sweatrxcom.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
They send it home to you.
They send it home.
And then actually now I have adigital device that I wear on my
heart strap that can tell mealso how much salt I'm losing at
that well, this is reallyinteresting because I'm uh, I'm
sort of a, you know, a nerd whenit comes to, you know,
performance and performanceimprovements, um, but you did a
couple of solar rides fromboston and montreal yeah, I
wouldn't have done it without mefiguring this stuff out
(05:21):
honestly.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Honestly because uh, you know, I started like oh,
okay, and the days of racing, Ihad a child and I'm just like
that's done.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Yeah, same here.
How many miles is Boston andMontreal?
330.
And how many days that take you.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Uh, I was.
It's three days typically, uh,for me, or I've done it in two,
so the two day, uh way how itkind of operates.
I figured out with my.
The pattern with my wife, therest of my family, life and
child is they'll go to a hotelyeah like.
So, coming back from montreal,they would uh go in a hotel in
uh colchester vermont.
(05:59):
That would be okay, so I'mgonna make it there to
colchester, it's like 100 milesaway yeah, it's.
uh.
Yeah, that was 100 miles, notbad, but then the next part is
the 200 miles coming back home.
It's easier coming home than itis to go up, because it's
downhill.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
And so Colchester, I said I'm going to go to Dunkin'
Donuts when they open up, I'llbe there, and then I'm going to
ride home and then hopefully Imake it and if you have to pick
me up, you pick me up, becauseI'll hopefully be closer to home
than that.
But I've used that patternwhere my wife and child are
staying in a hotel somewhere.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Actually I did ithaca to uh boston as well.
Oh man, so that was awesome.
That sounds like fun, yeah, 440.
So yeah, so, um, so getting ona crw here.
Just so our listeners know, crCRW is Charles River.
Okay, so we're talking about,you know, charles River, the
great Charles River.
That runs through Boston andpoints West Um, so this is a
Boston based club.
How did the club start Like?
(06:56):
What's the history?
I understand that it's over 50years old.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Yes, uh, it is uh.
We're going up on our 50th.
Well, we're coming.
The 60th anniversary is comingup in in uh 2026.
Uh it was started by a doctor,dr Ralph Galen.
Ralph Galen started it and, uh,he actually went on to uh help
co-found the league of Americanbicyclists as well.
So there's a whole story there.
(07:20):
Um, and he uh started the club.
And it's funny.
You go back and look at the oldpictures of people that were
cycling.
It's back then.
It's diverse.
They got women, black people,like it's.
You see these old pictures andyou're like oh wow, this is very
interesting.
Uh, so that was how it started.
(07:41):
Uh, I think he he passed awayin 2000 and uh, right before
covid, if I remember correctlyyeah I never got a chance to
talk to him, but some peopletalk.
You know, I hear some old timestories from folks um well, he
started a great thing.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
I'm curious like what his mission was when he first
started this thing.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Do you have any sense for that, or I don't have a
really great sense of that and,um, this is where I wish I had
some historians to give you moreperspective than than I can
give you.
But I can tell you, at leastfrom my perspective, how I
started in crw was right afterschool and I said, oh, I like
this biking thing.
And, uh, you and I both went totufts and so that was in
(08:24):
medford area and and, uh, andthey, they had a ride.
That worked better for mebecause it was like 10 o'clock
in the morning and not sixo'clock in the morning because
I'm a student, right.
So I'm like this is great, Ican bike to wherever these
things are.
I went on, uh, they had some uhtrips that people organized
(08:44):
Like, let's see, they had a tourof New England, so they hit
five states.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Oh, they did that yes .
I'm kidding.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Self-organized, and then they had a Boston to Quebec
ride, so we, effectively, webiked.
I think it was over the courseof eight days, probably the
whole trip was eight days.
Probably the whole trip waseight days where we uh did
different legs, uh going,working our way up to Wolfsboro.
You know, just every day we'restaying in the air, not Airbnb,
(09:16):
but breakfast yeah, and then andthen we would uh, stayed in
Quebec City for a couple daysand then everyone came in the
van back, but that was less thana thousand dollars, including,
you know, for one meal lodginglodging and and uh, transport
back, and it was allself-organized by this club that
(09:36):
people just seem like they'rehaving a good time and uh
putting things together and andthat was perfect for me.
Uh, and, and that was perfectfor me.
Actually, there was really onefun trip.
We were, uh, they had a vermonttrip where we basically went to
a bed and breakfast in vermontand they had different rides per
day.
Yeah, and so it's like a minitraining camp almost exactly
(09:56):
exactly, I left my shoes at homeoh no yeah, but someone you
know helped get me into a bikeshop and I switched to a
different speed plays actuallyand you know I was actually shop
and I switched to differentspeed plays actually I was
actually having knee problemsand I put on speed plays and I
was like, hey, this is great,I'll never have to do this ever
again.
So, yeah, crw always waswelcoming and it was economical
(10:18):
for someone just starting outfrom school and that was part of
my story of how I got involvedwith CRW back in late 90s or in
the 90s, just starting outcycling, before I started doing
racing or anything else.
So it was a good gateway for mein terms of getting involved
with the club.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
So what would you say is the mission of the club
today?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
The mission of the club today is we.
Mission of the club today is uh, we have an educational angle,
as well as understanding that,uh, you know, we want to have be
supportive of writers of alldifferent kinds and different
types.
Uh, we have a gravel program.
We have an exciting programcalled devo, which is really
(11:04):
around personal development ofyour own.
So you set up goals and youdecide and you make your own
goals.
So it's not racing, becausewe're not a race club uh, but
that's a way for people to getuh so how does that work?
Is it?
Speaker 1 (11:19):
is it a training plan ?
Speaker 2 (11:20):
so it is a uh I think it's self-declared internal
like they.
They have their own right now.
It's along the lines of peoplejust wanting to better
themselves.
So you know, whether it's viaswift, in setting targets, we
have like, uh, climbingeveresting, like so, people that
want to do like goals like thatare you putting your goals out
(11:43):
there for other club members tosee?
That's one of the things thatwe want to do as an upgrade, or
I want to do as an upgrade yeahbecause I actually do.
I'm very excited to think abouthow we'd surveyed our members
last year and we wanted tounderstand uh we have about, uh
just shy of 2 000 members justso 2,000, 2,000?
yes, uh, it's a big club.
(12:06):
It's a big club, uh, but weasked our members how many of
them?
What kind of training do theydo?
What?
What?
Uh, you know a lot of them areinvolved with charity rides, uh,
pms challenge being the biggestone for sure.
Uh, this is all the responseswe got and you know part of it I
I have some ideas this year,maybe next year, I'm not sure.
(12:27):
You know, depends on volunteervolunteer run organization.
Part of it is how do we havethe volunteers to do this?
These kinds of things.
I'd love to actually structuretraining programs that you know
you've done running before yes,yes.
So you go on websites.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
They have couch to 5k in a month or whatever Exactly.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
So we, I feel like that's one of the things that we
could be doing as a club, right?
So if you think about how manypeople want to do a charity ride
, never done one before, right?
So how do I go from couch to ahundred mile charity ride,
century over the course?
Speaker 1 (13:04):
of the season, sort of some pre-planned training
plans.
I'd like to be able to do 100miles by July.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
You know here's some general hours per week you could
do, and I mean listen trainingpeaks.
You know you can buy a $100training plan, you know, for as
specific as a 40 plus year oldathlete.
You know they have all thesevery specific descriptors.
You know 40 plus year oldmountain.
You know they have all thesevery specific um descriptors.
Yes, 40 plus year old mountainbike 50 mile race.
Here's the training plan yes,but what those don't give you is
(13:31):
riding with people yeah, that'strue around safety you know
you're going to do theseintervals on tuesday and
thursday and, yes, you know,group ride on wednesday.
Um so, speaking of crw, withregards to the membership you
mentioned, there's 2000,.
You know everybody that I'vemet through CRW and and I was
introduced through it, um,something called climb to the
(13:52):
clouds, which used to start inConcord I think.
Now it starts in Sudbury and itbasically goes to the top of
Wachusett and back for a hundredmiles.
Met a lot of great people there.
How is the organizationstructured, you know, is there a
board of great people there?
How is the organizationstructured?
You, you know, is there a boardof directors?
You're the president, you know.
Are there ride leaders?
Are there captains?
Is there a team like a raceteam, like?
(14:13):
I'm just curious how the wholething is sort of set up sure
there is.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
There's the board.
We have nine uh directors.
Part of the board.
Uh, we have a.
We have some standingcommittees.
So we have a ride and safetycommittee.
We also have an integratedoperations committee so that
that person kind of make surethe trains are running, keep the
trains running, and we've gotin that ride committee.
(14:40):
Let me just come back into theride committee.
We have different coordinatorsthat are leads different
programs.
So we have differentcoordinators that leads
different programs.
So we have century coordinators.
We have uh folks that work in ademo program, gravel ride so we
have basically people that arepassionate about a particular
topic and they agree to step upand and help lead that across.
Um, you know working withvolunteers to get these things
(15:03):
done is there a race team?
No, race team no race team.
Okay, the closest thing we haveis I mean, actually you
mentioned one of our main events, the Century that we had
Climbing the Clouds yeah, whichis actually a Devo-sponsored
program.
So I talked about the Devo andI rode with them part of the
Cranberry Century, which is oneof our marquee events.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Love that one, yeah, favorites.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
So I said let me join up for the 22 mile hour plus
group.
And I lasted, for it was reallycold that day.
And my fingers were like wedon't like this.
I didn't last very long butthey were going 22 plus.
So I'm like for people that youknow sometimes people think of
CRw it's.
It's very interesting becausewe have some people are like crw
is too slow some people say crwis too fast and you know we're
(15:48):
looking for that goldilocks zone, so well, you know the rides
I've done.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
There's always been, you know, the, the 12 mile, the
14 mile per hour group 16, 18,20, 22.
There's always a group forsomebody.
That's at least been myexperience.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Yes, that's what we strive to do, that yeah and uh,
it always just takes forsomebody that's at least been my
experience.
Yes, that's what we strive todo, that yeah and uh, it always
just takes making sure that wewrestle or arm wrestle, to get
someone like we need someone tolead this yeah, to do this at
this particular pace how do youguys communicate with your
members?
Speaker 1 (16:18):
um, is there a newsletter?
Is there a slack channel likethe winchester rippers have an
awesome structure with the groupme channels like how do you
guys communicate?
Speaker 2 (16:27):
yes, we have a platform, so a website, where
members can see what's happening.
We also do email blast.
We do have uh slack at folks.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Also leverage and use and can you post a ride to the
slack channel and other folksmight join you for the ride, or
um, we have that happeninginformally, but from our formal
rides.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Uh, we want to make sure they're covered by
insurance.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
So there's some, some things we have to deal
differently than the rippers.
I'm a ripper too, so okay, yeah, but so you know what I'm
talking about the group channel.
That it's very convenient tosay hey, I'm riding on riding on
Sunday mornings at 10 o'clockfrom this gas station, so CRW
doesn't quite have that.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
We do not, not today, so how would?
Speaker 1 (17:11):
if someone wanted to ride just informally with other
CRW members, how would theycommunicate with?
Speaker 2 (17:16):
If it's informal, you could do it in Slack.
That's probably the best way todo that.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
You know, for our formal rides, we want to make
sure there's, we want to makesure there's a safety talk.
We, you know, because we we forour rides, who's coming?
we don't know who's coming rightso in 2000 members we have a
wide spectrum of abilities so wewant to have some consistency
around the experience and makingsure that people that um show
(17:42):
up up are assured and know somecertain things.
So the Rippers, I think, isthey're they're actually gotten
kind of big, but not as big asthe CRW, and I just say that
with love and affection, Iunderstand.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
No, but I think that's part.
That's.
One of the things that makesCRW unique to me is that when
you do show up to a ride,there's always a safety talk.
You typically, if you're not amember, have to sign some sort
of waiver or go online and dothat.
You know what else makes crw aunique club in your mind I think
the the size of it.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
I think our our marquee of uh, events like those
centuries, um, and there are alot of people I was one of them
for many years All they do isthey sign up for those centuries
because they'll use it astraining for other events.
Right, so that happens and weacknowledge that.
But we are trying to do a lotof work to try to build up more
(18:38):
community.
We have one of our ride leaders.
She's very dedicated, she'sactually on the board.
She has a ride.
She's very dedicated, she'sactually on the board.
She has a ride she does.
In Arlington we did our rideleader award ceremony.
She's not eligible for an award.
She should have gotten an awardif she wasn't on board.
Effectively, she led a rideevery, I think, I don't know.
(19:03):
It feels like it's four daysout of the week over the course
of the year.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Right, that's pretty incredible yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
People show up.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yes, people show up.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
So okay.
So let me ask you is there.
We've interviewed running clubsand cycling clubs on this
podcast and and a lot of thegreat clubs have, like you know,
two or three um training ridesor runs each week.
Does CRw have like a go-totraining ride every week that
folks should know about?
Speaker 2 (19:31):
uh, we have more than one, and that's part of what
I'm trying to, the part of thethings I'm trying to do, I'm
calling something calledneighborhood ride.
So we have um in lexington.
There's a battle.
We we have yes, we have uhwednesday wheelers.
We have uh bike thursday, thatuh, these are very popular rides
uh, and then we have a numberof them on the weekends.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
So and you can find all these on the website on our
website and on our ride calendar, we call it, so we have.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Uh, I think last year , if we looked in totality, we
had almost, you know, 300 plus300 plus events.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
That's incredible.
So that's a combination oftraining rides plus these
centuries we've been talkingabout.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yes, correct.
So we basically have somethinggoing, almost all you know,
almost every day.
If you look at the calendar, inthe summer we might have three
or four rides going on at thesame time.
Right, so it's just.
But on average, you know, welook at it and it's like wow,
that's a lot of events we've puton this past year.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Yeah, so let's talk about you know you've been
president for about the lastyear or so.
This, this podcast, is beingrecorded in December of 2024.
You know, how has yourexperience and sort of unique
perspective to this sport helpyou, um, become a leader in the
club and sort of shape where youwant to, where you want the
club and sort of shape where youwant to, where you want the
club to go.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
So I think that, uh, there's, there's a rich history
with crw.
You know 60 years of 60 yearsof rides and experience with the
members.
I think one of the things thatwe got an email from someone who
moved to washington dc or Idon't know if they're washington
dc but to say, hey, you guyswant to join us on a panel at
(21:12):
the National Bike Summit Becausethere's something happening
with aging population, where alot of bike clubs are seeing
aging membership, and I'm goingto bring in another perspective.
So put that in one, put a pinin that.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Put a pin in that.
Put a pin in that.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
And then I was doing a thing for one of my other
organizations, Naked New EnglandCycling Coalition for Diversity
, where we were asking andinterviewing, talking to people
at an event on the Minutemanthis past summer, Nice, and you
know we're starting to askpeople what's your experience
(21:53):
with working with bike clubs?
Are you a part of bike clubs?
Some people, young people,coming up to me saying why would
I join a bike?
club.
We've got the perspective of dowe have an aging population
that seeks camaraderie and wantsto build up a community?
And we've got, on the otherhand, we've got some younger
(22:16):
people that are like, what's thebenefit of having a bike club?
You know, if you actually thinkabout the pandemic, it was
another dimension, right.
A lot of people, just like alot of people, got out on bikes.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Oh, tons of people.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Tons of new people, tons of new riders.
Are they part of a bike club?
Do they understand that?
And I think you and I justtalked about this?
Right, you can get these plansthat could make you the the best
, uh, strongest biker, but youmay not be a good cyclist yeah,
those are two different thingsyeah, yeah, you need some pack
skills.
Yes, exactly uh, to make thiswork.
(22:48):
Um we so?
I guess you asked your initialquestion was just about the
presidency yeah so I think Ithink one of the things that's
different about me is that I wasbringing in a perspective of
I'm a, I still have a day job,and a lot of times we've had
people that were retirees orsomething along those lines.
(23:08):
So like, how can we make this,how can we structure the club to
work for people that aren't100% dedicated to this, and can
we do this in scale?
Speaker 1 (23:19):
So I think the folks that I would say the way you're
describing those folks is thefolks that really have a hard
time or really need to balancework, family and fitness yes
right, you got the working folk.
You got to go home and dealwith the family, and also I'd
love to ride my bike as much asI can, but balancing all that.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
So you bring that perspective I'm trying to bring
that perspective into theorganization.
And the other, the other thing.
I would say that, uh, mybackground is, uh, information
systems and IT and things alongthose lines, and so we really
wanted to bring the club intothe 21st century, I would say,
(23:58):
just because it was a volunteerorganization.
You know how CRW started.
I mean, one of the things theyused to do is people would call
a number hey, we're going tohave a ride on Saturday.
So they used to use a phone andthat's the way people found out
where the rides were right.
Yeah, we have a website.
Things have gotten a littlemore mature.
(24:19):
We had a website before and itserved its purpose, but we
wanted to have mobile apps andother things, so we brought in.
We have now mobile apps.
People will do mobile check-in.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
There's a CRW app.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Yes, well, we, uh, we use a platform called wild
apricot and it comes with an appso you can check in, you can
see the rides, you can register.
All these kinds of things are.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Wow, all right, all right, listen I.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Yes, it's a member app.
Yes, so, yes, that was one ofthe things I wanted to make sure
we had, you know, the abilityto do things remotely.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
So then, what's so good?
So in your presidency, like,what's, what are some of your
top priorities you'd like to seehappen, or change or develop?
Speaker 2 (25:10):
And I think the priorities were operationally
getting us in a better place sowe could scale, because you know
we're still there's growingpains.
It's not always, you know youcould do it overnight, but, um,
you know part of it was gettingus on the website, getting us
with the mobile app.
So, check, check, those thingshave been done.
Nice.
Now how do we get the uhvolunteers to get them more
engaged with the, with ourplatform and how we do things.
We have a wide spectrum ofcomputer abilities too, right,
(25:33):
so that's something we just haveto think about.
How do we move the wholepopulation?
Speaker 1 (25:39):
I mean, do you guys use like SignUpGenius to get you
know that's a program.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
I know SignUpGenius yes.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
To get volunteers to sign up for events.
I'm just curious what you guysuse for that.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Well, so for our centuries we end up using, we
partner with groups that arelocal to the area and they'll
handle the table or when we have, you know.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
So a local community group Like a church or Boys and
Girls Club.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
People that are usually affiliated with outdoor
events will help us with.
You know at a place thatsomething you know like.
So we have organizations thatwe'll work with.
That's one way that we getvolunteers.
But I guess we actually theother day we put out an email to
(26:29):
everybody saying here are somevolunteer opportunities that you
can have within the club.
We got a response from a womanand we looked her up and she's
like she hasn't done a lot ofrides with us but she's like I
was a member in the 90s or 2000sbut I really want to get
involved.
And she said what I love aboutthis is the community.
And I was like, oh, this isvery interesting, said you know,
(26:51):
uh, so you know.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
So if we put out the call, people will respond you
just, you just need to make sureyou put the call out there so
actually I had a communityquestion do you guys collaborate
with other organizations likemass biker, nemba, yes or yeah,
what do we do?
Speaker 2 (27:07):
um, we well, we have a grant program, so we, as part
of our mission so we're a 501c3organization um, so part of that
is education and making surethat we bolster biking
infrastructure.
You know some things that wedon't really yeah focus in on so
(27:27):
advocacy in terms of like howmy mass bike does it, we don't
do that.
Uh, they received one of ourgrants this past year who did uh
mass bike?
oh, okay, nice and so yeah, sowe, you know people have an
opportunity to apply for a grantand we can give them out, and
we have done things where we'veasked the memberships, our
(27:47):
membership, where do you wantour grant money to go this year?
So, like we've done, you know,bike, not bombs, has been
another one of our uh frequent,uh, oh, nice um people that we
give money to.
So these things have uh.
So I guess your initialquestion was just how do we
partner?
So we, if it's about cycling,it helps with education.
(28:08):
We think there's memberbenefits.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
We're open to it yeah , so you're in an indirect way,
you're supporting sort of thecycling infrastructure and
around the boston area.
Um, I see all these new youknow bike lanes popping up and
it sounds like you guys playsort of a small part in that.
Back to some of your signatureevents.
Uh, if you could list off, youknow, maybe your top three or
five.
We mentioned climb to theclouds, which I think still
(28:31):
exists yes, it went away for awhile and now it's back.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
We have some folks that that we're gonna roll up
our sleeves and we're gonna getthis done.
I think putting on a century isnot as simple as, like you know
.
Hey, we're just gonna have abunch of people go out for a
hundred mile ride, right, mean,there's a lot of logistics to it
.
You've got to permit workingwith the towns to make sure that
they get their whateverrequirements they put in front
(28:56):
of you.
Those requirements evolve andchange, like this past year.
So the Cranberry Century is oneof the ones that we do this
year.
An official said hey, I thinkyou guys need to have an
ambulance at the beginning ofthe ride.
So we had to pay for anambulance at the beginning of
the ride.
We were just like this doesn'tmake sense.
I think you may need anambulance at the end for some of
the people, but not at thebeginning of the ride.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Oh, interesting.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Wow I think I remember seeing the ambulance
there actually yes, and as thepresident, I'm looking at this
and like dollars just goingtweet, tweet, tweet, oh boy.
But you know so, towns havetheir demands.
You have the permitting processis longer than you think it's
going to take.
And then you put you know,coordinating all the volunteers,
(29:41):
making sure you have supportvehicles, All that stuff is just
logistics, right.
So we have uh three main eventsthat uh three centuries that
we've put on.
That.
I would say that the marqueeevents that we're known for they
have the north to new hampshirecentury.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
That's usually in may otherwise known as the spring
crw century, yes, spring centuryexactly and and is it also a
shorter event if anybody'slistening out there and they
don't want to do 100 miles?
What else for routes?
Speaker 2 (30:10):
So all the routes have on these we typically will
support.
We've gone down to 35 miles.
Actually in the cranberrycentury we went down.
We had a 30 mile route thisyear 30 and a metric century 30,
metric 50, I think, and thenalso 100.
There were four routes, Ibelieve so.
But, you know.
Part of it is just making surethat you know we, we coordinate
(30:32):
the stops and make sure thatthere's not too many.
You know all the stops.
We we want to leverage them.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
So, yeah, you want some overlaps.
Yeah, very exactly.
Um, so, so we've got the springcentury, yep, that's in May.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
And then then then we have the uh climb to the clouds
, which is we've done it usuallyin June or July and this year
we pushed it out to August.
So that was an experiment.
We may pull that one back toJuly again.
We competed against MountWashington.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
We realized when we first did it and then we're like
, okay, we need to change to adifferent date and et cetera.
Well, and then the day afterMount Washington, there's a
local Tour de Cure event.
Yes, which doesn't get manyMount Washington folks, but
Presumably, presumably, yes.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
And then we have our Cranberry Century, which is
usually what we call.
We use that to close out theseason primarily.
Those are our three main events.
That doesn't mean that we don'thave centuries at other points
of the time I did a few yearsago I did a major Taylor Century
(31:38):
ride, so effectively a roadfrom Winchester out to Worcester
.
Watched people go do the GeorgeStreet hill climb race and then
we came back.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Oh, that's nice.
So you did that sort of moreinformally with CRW members.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
With CRW.
It was on the ride calendar.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Oh, okay, it was an actual event.
You know, I let some people outthere, but you guys stopped for
your own drinks on your own.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Yes, exactly yes, not supported, you know, on your
own, supported ride.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
I think that the Cranberry Century is a hidden
gem in New England.
It starts in Milestandish StatePark.
It's super well organized, theroute is just fantastic.
It's sort of rolly, not toohilly, and it's just endless
miles of beautiful pavementaround these cranberry bogs.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Yes, I agree 100%.
I've set my best cranberry.
Cranberry Century is where I'vedone my best times in terms of
centuries.
Set your PR there, huh yestwice century is where I've done
my best times in terms of setyour pr there.
Huh, yes, twice, and you knowthat's funny.
You know everyone.
There's the flattest ride, acentury of the new england.
I think we're lower than thatactually the flattest ride is in
(32:45):
.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Is it in rhode island ?
Rhode island, yeah, that's itright, but that's still pretty
hilly.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Yeah, it's pretty hell exactly I think we're about
to look at the elevation gainand see what the story is there.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
What does CRW do to encourage new riders to get
involved in cycling,particularly new riders that
might be intimidated by doing agroup ride?
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Well, we do the things that we approach that you
just talked about, where we saythat we are going to be
intentional about declaring whatspeeds you guys are at Part of
the data set that now we have.
When people register, we askthem how fast are you intending
to ride this ride?
At right, so that helps theride leader.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
I have no idea what if they have.
You know, I'm not sure I'm newto this.
You know where do I go.
What do I show up?
Which ride should I show up toRandolph?
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Tell me, tell me, we actually we do get people that
inquire and ask those kinds ofquestions and we will, we will
front the kind of question andsay like here's some rides we
recommend.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
That's a good idea for us to think about.
How is there one like that justoff top of your head like hey,
there's a great saturday rideout of xyz parking lot.
That, a newbie, I'm just sayingon this podcast.
If there's anything you couldannounce about that, is there a
particular?
Speaker 2 (34:06):
well, I love the lexington uh battle road series
is is good, and when?
Speaker 1 (34:11):
and when is that?
It's on the weekends what time?
Speaker 2 (34:14):
uh, it varies, that's the okay.
So you have to tap into thecalendar.
You do need to tap into, andit's what is it 20 miles or so,
or is it?
Uh, 30, 30, okay, yep, and wehave.
Uh, thank god it's friday ridethat goes out of bedford um as
well, that's every.
That's every um right afterwork after work okay, six
(34:34):
o'clock.
You know, it depends on the sun.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
You know, because they want to make sure they get
back before dark yeah, so theseare rides that happen sort of
after daylight savings kicks inyes, correct, yes I know
personally of someone who gotinto cycling out of boston um.
They joined the ride I think isout in the haunt park near
wells ave.
Is that how you pronounce it?
Speaker 2 (34:57):
yes, uh, that series went on for a very, very long
time.
Actually participated in anumber of those rides does it
still occur?
No, it doesn't.
But uh, they had at one pointuh like many, many weeks of
continuity.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
I can't like three or four hundred weeks, probably
years.
Yes, yeah, they went over foryears.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Yes, exactly, and I think it fell apart, uh, when
some nor'easter or something, Ican't remember exactly oh no
yeah, the streak ended, but youknow that's.
That is part of the appeal whatyou just asked for is part of
the reason why I'm saying likewe need to have these.
Neighborhood rides areconsistent and people understand
and know it, because I knowthat there are still cyclists
showing up at the park.
I heard there's a ride herethat I can go and join, Right,
(35:43):
Exactly.
And and someone just told methe other day like hey, isn't
there a ride from the park thatyou guys are like, well, it's
kind of dead.
But so the idea of havingconsistency, because one of the
things that I would say as apresident, it also changed.
I didn't like the fact that.
you know, we talked about thedemographics of the club being
(36:04):
different and people are youngerpeople, one of the things that
I guess it was tapped into.
I looked at CRW as a place Idon't want to call it, this is
not the best way to characterizeit, but it was like where's the
ride from crw this week?
So people look at the calendar.
They say like, oh, I don't wantto go to hoppington today, like
because we'd have a ride inhoppington, we'd have another
(36:25):
ride and you know it could be insomerville, yeah, and then we
could have another ride in, uh,you know, on the south shore.
So like we had rides, like wehad rides, yeah, we had rides,
but they were all over the place, and so that would mean you
either bike to the start, someof us are fine with doing that
or drive or drive.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Most people drive.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
And and I don't just like this isn't a way to build
up more community, cause youkind of want to need to have
people that you know, that youride with all the time to
actually build up that communityand that's one of the things I
would say that Rippers doesreally well.
So that's one of the things I'mtrying to get more to happen.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
This person I was talking about, you know.
So they were a newbie cyclistand they showed up to this
weekly Saturday ride andbasically CRW helped them go
from a very novice cyclist tosomeone who's doing, you know,
7,000, 8,000 miles a year and Ijust thought that was cool and
and and uh, crw played a bigpart in that.
So if someone is listening andwanted to get involved with CRW,
how do we go about doing that?
Speaker 2 (37:24):
The best way to do that is go to our website,
crworg.
We have a calendar that'savailable, um, with all of the
events that you can participateand join up for.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Do I have to pay anything?
Speaker 2 (37:37):
You can ride with us two times a year without any.
No fees, With no fees.
But our membership is veryreasonable $20.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
20 bucks 20 bucks.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Oh, come on, everybody should sign up.
And then there's our contact usform on there that, if you want
to talk about volunteering oryou want to get more involved
with anything, we've got, uh,partnerships.
Uh, that we've we.
We have revamped it recently,so I think that, uh, that's a
good way to reach out that'scool, all right, 20 bucks, sign
(38:11):
up for crw.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Um, so we'd like to ask folks a couple of questions
to close out the podcast.
Okay, so you've.
You personally, it sounds likeyou've raced and ridden all over
new england crw ride, or not,is.
Are there any hidden gem eventsor roots that you can share
with our podcast listeners?
Um, that might not know about?
I mentioned that my hidden gemis the CRW Cranberry Century in
(38:36):
the fall, so you can't take myanswer, but do you have any
events or routes or anythingthat you've run into?
Speaker 2 (38:44):
You stole one of the better ones from us.
Thank you very much.
I guess, when I think about myrides to Montreal, there are
definitely some areas.
And now you're going to ask melike Route 100, because actually
people do Route 100.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
I know there's a like organized rides on route yeah,
there's the 200 on 100, which is200 miles from the border of
canada down to the border of newhampshire and massachusetts.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Yeah, that one that's on my bucket list yeah, and and
recently I'd say that I didthis is also.
This was also a great ride.
I mean, I did the it, theIthaca to Boston route, just on
my own.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
I mean, what is this like five days?
Speaker 2 (39:23):
It was three.
I was trying to do it in two.
It ended up being three.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
So it's over 300 miles.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Oh, it's 400, 400 plus miles, so I won't go into
the whole story, but the trailthat opened up I wanted to do
the empire trail, so I went, uh,from ithaca up to the empire
trail I don't you know.
You said yeah, well, it's not,it goes um, it's on the river um
, and it went from troy toalbany effectively.
(39:50):
That's what I was on, so it wasvery fascinating, different
experience to be basically onlike the Minuteman for 80 miles
or 60 miles, whatever I was onit, but it was really.
It had really nice stops onthere and I can see how a family
can turn this.
I actually did this.
There was a New York Timesseries that someone was like I'm
(40:11):
not really that much of acyclist, but I'm going to do the
whole thing, and so her and herhusband, he would drive her to
a section and she would do likethe section and write about her
experience on that, and so thatbecame a series.
So I actually really enjoyed it,even though it was relentless,
because I was doing it for 80miles, but it was really
interesting to do that kind ofthat was.
(40:33):
I thought that was good.
I don't know if that's hiddenthough.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
That's cool.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
Well, that is outside of New England so I have to
delete that from this episode.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
But no, that's no, no , that's cool, I think.
I think that's a hidden gem,what's it called again?
Speaker 2 (40:44):
It was the Empire Trail.
The Empire Trail.
All right, I'll have to lookthat one up.
And a follow-up question is whydo you agree that Newland is
the greatest endurance region inthe us, if not the world?
I think that we have lots ofseasons.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
We are hardy, we're ready for anything because we've
seen everything right.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
I mentioned before, I think, that, uh, I started my
one of my cycling early, earlycycling experiences was doing
the aids ride with hurricanefloyd.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
I remember going into Wheelworks, the bike shop, and
getting my girlfriend at thetime, now my wife.
I was like, okay, I'm going togo in and get a new rain gear
for this ride.
And and uh, you know.
So I went and everyone'sgetting this gear.
We had Mayor Menino sat upthere and we're like we're going
(41:37):
to go and we're going to go.
And then they said I'm sorry,we're not going to let you go,
you're going to get in a bus,everyone's boo.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Well, yeah, I mean any other part of the country
they probably would havecanceled it the day before, but
now you have all these cyclists.
They still canceled it, itsounds like, but they canceled
that.
It sounded like, but they did.
But the point is that, like,those hardy new englanders were
ready to tackle it.
That's right, you know, andactually just a quick story
about that, we had the tour decure um in 2024 in august and it
(42:05):
was torrential downpour at thestart there were still, you know
, 300 riders that showed up and,basically, you know, did the 60
or 100 mile version.
So, um, is there anything elseyou'd like to plug or mention
today with regards to crw thatmaybe we didn't cover?
Speaker 2 (42:19):
crw is a welcoming organization.
However, you know, I would saythat we are doing some work to
make sure that it's even morewelcoming, meaning that we've
had we know that there's someexperiences where people show up
they say that, uh, and they getdropped, and so how do we
manage that?
So we were trying to figurethat out.
(42:39):
How do we make that a betterexperience for people, and so
that's one thing.
I just want to acknowledge thatwe've heard the voices of
people and we want to try tofigure out how we can make that
better.
But come out, join us for aride or two or a few, and I
think it gets, and you'll findthat, uh, there there are a lot
(43:00):
of people that are passionateabout cycling and, and you can
have fun as well.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
And do folks?
You know the folks that show up, are they?
What's the sort of demographicslike?
Or we've talked about agingpopulation, but you know what's
the breakdown in CRW, I guess of, by age group.
Yeah, I'm just curious Is 25%,you know, under the age of 30?
Speaker 2 (43:19):
It's hard for me.
We do capture the information.
I haven't done it that way.
I know we have a youngcontingent, because what ends up
happening is people come herefor college, they join the club.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
That's an important point.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Yes, and so they join the club, they do rides with us
, and then they graduate and gosomewhere else.
So then you know, so weactually the amount of turnover
for our club this last year.
So we have 25% new coming in.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Wow, so it's pretty you know it's very high.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Well, you know, 70%, 75%, stable, and we know we have
a lot of people that sign upsometimes for those century
events and then then we don'tsee a bit more exactly.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
How do we make that how?
Speaker 2 (44:01):
do we make that?
Make it stick yeah, make itstick exactly.
So that's one of the challengeswe're trying to work on and you
know what else.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
I'll just mention closing out here.
You know you and I mentionedthe rippers.
You know we're both members ofcrw.
We're meant we're members, theRippers.
I have my own cycling teamcalled Keep it Tight, like it's
okay to be part of multiplecycling and running groups you
know, just for listeners outthere, and it's cool.
You can hop into rides andevents with each group and New
(44:29):
England's a very small communityand you'll discover that not
only are we in different clubsbut we also do different sports
that are.
I joined Somerville RoadRunners, for example.
I'm not really a big runningperson, but on occasion I hope
to show up to some of thoserides and then we do some uphill
skiing.
There's a big uphill skicommunity and we're all sort of
(44:51):
trying to get our cardioendorphin rush with whatever way
we can during the winter.
This is the Endurance Podcast.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
Yes, Right, so you know.
Endurance can be in many formsof pain.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
So okay.
So, Randolph, it was awesome tohave you on the New England
Endurance Podcast.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
Oh, absolutely.
And sharing your story with usand the CRW story as well.
Like I mentioned, I'm a proudmember.
If you want to check out CRW,look it up on crworg.
They also have an Instagram andFacebook page as well.
I will tag them on ourInstagram page, which is at New
(45:33):
England Endurance.
So thank you, Randolph.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Thank you so much for having me and good luck with
this podcast.
It looks, it sounds like it's.
I've seen the people you'veinterviewed and I'm like, oh,
that's a great list.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Awesome.
So until next time let's getout there rain, snow or shine
and explore the beautifulterrain of New England.
You.
Hey, welcome to the New England Endurance Podcast.
I am Art Tripotsis, and todayI'm thrilled to have one of the
largest and oldest cycling clubsin New England, the Charles
River Wheelers, otherwise knownas CRW and my guest today is
Randolph Williams, president ofCRW and an accomplished cyclist
(00:26):
and advocate himself, andsomeone who, I think you'll come
to realize, embodies the spiritof CRW, which we're going to
learn more about today.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Welcome, randolph, thank you so much Art for having
me on the show.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Yes, and I just discovered that Randolph is a
fellow jumbo, so shout out toTufts Excellent.
Let me set the stage here alittle bit with this episode and
tell you a little more aboutRandolph.
So he grew up in a familysteeped in social activism and
turned his personal experiencesinto a powerful voice for change
with his essay Biking WhileBlack piece not only shed light
(01:01):
on some inequalities in cycling,but also inspired things like
the Wheels of Change Strava ArtProject, which I did the S on
that, I believe, and also theNew England Cycling Coalition
for Diversity.
I really look forward tohearing about these pieces of
your story and how this sort ofweaves into your leadership with
CRW.
You're an endurance athleteyourself.
(01:22):
When I was reading your bio,you've done some Boston mar CRW.
You're an endurance athleteyourself.
When I was reading your bio,you've done some Boston
marathons.
You've ridden from Boston toMontreal or vice versa.
So how did you get intoendurance sports?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
When I was a child I had asthma, so I know that I
remember going out, my dad wouldhead me out and I went to a
track meet.
Going out, my dad would head meout.
And I went to a track meet and,uh, and probably was eight or
some, some, some age, um, youknow, some young child, and I
did my running race.
I was in the first quarter lap,I was ahead of everyone and
(01:56):
then I was at the end, startedheaving, started heaving Exactly
, exactly, but but, um, I think,when I went through all of my,
uh, college years and got outinto the, into the real world,
you know, I did computer scienceand so I was one of those
people that, like you know, likecomputer is a good friend
because I could turn it off whenit annoys me, yep and uh.
(02:20):
And my dad just said, uh, oneday after I got into the
workforce, he's like oh, you'regetting getting soft, a little
fat, you need to go do someexercise.
That's kind of how it started.
And my dad, effectively, Iguess, goaded me into and I'd
say, well, let me.
And I got swept up into thewhole.
I got hooked into the cyclingworld and I started, you know,
(02:44):
with the bike, bike racing lancearmstrong the whole nine yards.
I'm like, oh, I could do thatlet's go.
Let's go do some things, and Ium I loved cycling.
I had some challengespersonally just being able to do
long events.
Um, I didn't actually figure itall out until maybe in the last
10 years I mean five to yearsand it kind of started going hog
(03:05):
wild on, like I did sometesting for salt and different
kinds of yeah, checking yourmetabolism and your what's the
word?
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Nutrients and salt intake, did you just curious?
What team did you ride or racefor when you were kind of coming
up in New England?
Brc was one boston road clubyep, shout out, that's me and
eric back in the you know late90s, early 2000s, yeah dream
bikes was another one yep and uh, those were the two primary.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Uh, it wasn't with nebc for a year or two as was I.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Yeah, it seems like everyone kind of came through ne
NEBC at one point back in the90s.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah, there was one race I was, so I did the Green
Mountain stage race.
I mean just to give you an ideaof where my perspective was I
was so far behind Dick Ring.
He called out my name and I'mlike why is he calling my name?
They thought I was ahead of thepack because I was so far
behind.
So just to give you aperspective on my cycling
prowess at that point, just togive you a perspective on my
(04:05):
cycling prowess at that point.
But again, I figured out youknow I'll lose a lot of salt and
I finally figured this out likefour or five years ago Dialed
that in.
Dialed it in.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
What's the trick?
Just curious.
You get some noon tablets.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
It was more than noon .
Tablets Most people lose like1,500 milligrams of sodium in a
day.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
That seems like a lot .
Speaker 2 (04:29):
That was 2,600 per hour of exercise.
Wow, so I would come in.
My wife would see me all cakedin salt.
It's just like, oh, it's been anormal ride, so I have to put
in a lot of salt.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
What are you taking in?
Some sort of liquid?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
I actually started mixing my own concoction with
how much salt I need, becauseonce you do the sweat test, you
can figure out how much youactually need.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Where can folks do a sweat test?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
You can go to I think it's sweatrxcom.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
They send it home to you.
They send it home.
And then actually now I have adigital device that I wear on my
heart strap that can tell mealso how much salt I'm losing at
that well, this is reallyinteresting because I'm uh, I'm
sort of a, you know, a nerd whenit comes to, you know,
performance and performanceimprovements, um, but you did a
couple of solar rides fromboston and montreal yeah, I
wouldn't have done it without mefiguring this stuff out
(05:21):
honestly.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Honestly because uh, you know, I started like oh,
okay, and the days of racing, Ihad a child and I'm just like
that's done.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Yeah, same here.
How many miles is Boston andMontreal?
330.
And how many days that take you.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Uh, I was.
It's three days typically, uh,for me, or I've done it in two,
so the two day, uh way how itkind of operates.
I figured out with my.
The pattern with my wife, therest of my family, life and
child is they'll go to a hotelyeah like.
So, coming back from montreal,they would uh go in a hotel in
uh colchester vermont.
(05:59):
That would be okay, so I'mgonna make it there to
colchester, it's like 100 milesaway yeah, it's.
uh.
Yeah, that was 100 miles, notbad, but then the next part is
the 200 miles coming back home.
It's easier coming home than itis to go up, because it's
downhill.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
And so Colchester, I said I'm going to go to Dunkin'
Donuts when they open up, I'llbe there, and then I'm going to
ride home and then hopefully Imake it and if you have to pick
me up, you pick me up, becauseI'll hopefully be closer to home
than that.
But I've used that patternwhere my wife and child are
staying in a hotel somewhere.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Actually I did ithaca to uh boston as well.
Oh man, so that was awesome.
That sounds like fun, yeah, 440.
So yeah, so, um, so getting ona crw here.
Just so our listeners know, crCRW is Charles River.
Okay, so we're talking about,you know, charles River, the
great Charles River.
That runs through Boston andpoints West Um, so this is a
Boston based club.
How did the club start Like?
(06:56):
What's the history?
I understand that it's over 50years old.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Yes, uh, it is uh.
We're going up on our 50th.
Well, we're coming.
The 60th anniversary is comingup in in uh 2026.
Uh it was started by a doctor,dr Ralph Galen.
Ralph Galen started it and, uh,he actually went on to uh help
co-found the league of Americanbicyclists as well.
So there's a whole story there.
(07:20):
Um, and he uh started the club.
And it's funny.
You go back and look at the oldpictures of people that were
cycling.
It's back then.
It's diverse.
They got women, black people,like it's.
You see these old pictures andyou're like oh wow, this is very
interesting.
Uh, so that was how it started.
(07:41):
Uh, I think he he passed awayin 2000 and uh, right before
covid, if I remember correctlyyeah I never got a chance to
talk to him, but some peopletalk.
You know, I hear some old timestories from folks um well, he
started a great thing.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
I'm curious like what his mission was when he first
started this thing.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Do you have any sense for that, or I don't have a
really great sense of that and,um, this is where I wish I had
some historians to give you moreperspective than than I can
give you.
But I can tell you, at leastfrom my perspective, how I
started in crw was right afterschool and I said, oh, I like
this biking thing.
And, uh, you and I both went totufts and so that was in
(08:24):
medford area and and, uh, andthey, they had a ride.
That worked better for mebecause it was like 10 o'clock
in the morning and not sixo'clock in the morning because
I'm a student, right.
So I'm like this is great, Ican bike to wherever these
things are.
I went on, uh, they had some uhtrips that people organized
(08:44):
Like, let's see, they had a tourof New England, so they hit
five states.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Oh, they did that yes .
I'm kidding.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Self-organized, and then they had a Boston to Quebec
ride, so we, effectively, webiked.
I think it was over the courseof eight days, probably the
whole trip was eight days.
Probably the whole trip waseight days where we uh did
different legs, uh going,working our way up to Wolfsboro.
You know, just every day we'restaying in the air, not Airbnb,
(09:16):
but breakfast yeah, and then andthen we would uh, stayed in
Quebec City for a couple daysand then everyone came in the
van back, but that was less thana thousand dollars, including,
you know, for one meal lodginglodging and and uh, transport
back, and it was allself-organized by this club that
(09:36):
people just seem like they'rehaving a good time and uh
putting things together and andthat was perfect for me.
Uh, and, and that was perfectfor me.
Actually, there was really onefun trip.
We were, uh, they had a vermonttrip where we basically went to
a bed and breakfast in vermontand they had different rides per
day.
Yeah, and so it's like a minitraining camp almost exactly
(09:56):
exactly, I left my shoes at homeoh no yeah, but someone you
know helped get me into a bikeshop and I switched to a
different speed plays actuallyand you know I was actually shop
and I switched to differentspeed plays actually I was
actually having knee problemsand I put on speed plays and I
was like, hey, this is great,I'll never have to do this ever
again.
So, yeah, crw always waswelcoming and it was economical
(10:18):
for someone just starting outfrom school and that was part of
my story of how I got involvedwith CRW back in late 90s or in
the 90s, just starting outcycling, before I started doing
racing or anything else.
So it was a good gateway for mein terms of getting involved
with the club.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
So what would you say is the mission of the club
today?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
The mission of the club today is we.
Mission of the club today is uh, we have an educational angle,
as well as understanding that,uh, you know, we want to have be
supportive of writers of alldifferent kinds and different
types.
Uh, we have a gravel program.
We have an exciting programcalled devo, which is really
(11:04):
around personal development ofyour own.
So you set up goals and youdecide and you make your own
goals.
So it's not racing, becausewe're not a race club uh, but
that's a way for people to getuh so how does that work?
Is it?
Speaker 1 (11:19):
is it a training plan ?
Speaker 2 (11:20):
so it is a uh I think it's self-declared internal
like they.
They have their own right now.
It's along the lines of peoplejust wanting to better
themselves.
So you know, whether it's viaswift, in setting targets, we
have like, uh, climbingeveresting, like so, people that
want to do like goals like thatare you putting your goals out
(11:43):
there for other club members tosee?
That's one of the things thatwe want to do as an upgrade, or
I want to do as an upgrade yeahbecause I actually do.
I'm very excited to think abouthow we'd surveyed our members
last year and we wanted tounderstand uh we have about, uh
just shy of 2 000 members justso 2,000, 2,000?
yes, uh, it's a big club.
(12:06):
It's a big club, uh, but weasked our members how many of
them?
What kind of training do theydo?
What?
What?
Uh, you know a lot of them areinvolved with charity rides, uh,
pms challenge being the biggestone for sure.
Uh, this is all the responseswe got and you know part of it I
I have some ideas this year,maybe next year, I'm not sure.
(12:27):
You know, depends on volunteervolunteer run organization.
Part of it is how do we havethe volunteers to do this?
These kinds of things.
I'd love to actually structuretraining programs that you know
you've done running before yes,yes.
So you go on websites.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
They have couch to 5k in a month or whatever Exactly.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
So we, I feel like that's one of the things that we
could be doing as a club, right?
So if you think about how manypeople want to do a charity ride
, never done one before, right?
So how do I go from couch to ahundred mile charity ride,
century over the course?
Speaker 1 (13:04):
of the season, sort of some pre-planned training
plans.
I'd like to be able to do 100miles by July.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
You know here's some general hours per week you could
do, and I mean listen trainingpeaks.
You know you can buy a $100training plan, you know, for as
specific as a 40 plus year oldathlete.
You know they have all thesevery specific descriptors.
You know 40 plus year oldmountain.
You know they have all thesevery specific um descriptors.
Yes, 40 plus year old mountainbike 50 mile race.
Here's the training plan yes,but what those don't give you is
(13:31):
riding with people yeah, that'strue around safety you know
you're going to do theseintervals on tuesday and
thursday and, yes, you know,group ride on wednesday.
Um so, speaking of crw, withregards to the membership you
mentioned, there's 2000,.
You know everybody that I'vemet through CRW and and I was
introduced through it, um,something called climb to the
(13:52):
clouds, which used to start inConcord I think.
Now it starts in Sudbury and itbasically goes to the top of
Wachusett and back for a hundredmiles.
Met a lot of great people there.
How is the organizationstructured, you know, is there a
board of great people there?
How is the organizationstructured?
You, you know, is there a boardof directors?
You're the president, you know.
Are there ride leaders?
Are there captains?
Is there a team like a raceteam, like?
(14:13):
I'm just curious how the wholething is sort of set up sure
there is.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
There's the board.
We have nine uh directors.
Part of the board.
Uh, we have a.
We have some standingcommittees.
So we have a ride and safetycommittee.
We also have an integratedoperations committee so that
that person kind of make surethe trains are running, keep the
trains running, and we've gotin that ride committee.
(14:40):
Let me just come back into theride committee.
We have different coordinatorsthat are leads different
programs.
So we have differentcoordinators that leads
different programs.
So we have century coordinators.
We have uh folks that work in ademo program, gravel ride so we
have basically people that arepassionate about a particular
topic and they agree to step upand and help lead that across.
Um, you know working withvolunteers to get these things
(15:03):
done is there a race team?
No, race team no race team.
Okay, the closest thing we haveis I mean, actually you
mentioned one of our main events, the Century that we had
Climbing the Clouds yeah, whichis actually a Devo-sponsored
program.
So I talked about the Devo andI rode with them part of the
Cranberry Century, which is oneof our marquee events.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Love that one, yeah, favorites.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
So I said let me join up for the 22 mile hour plus
group.
And I lasted, for it was reallycold that day.
And my fingers were like wedon't like this.
I didn't last very long butthey were going 22 plus.
So I'm like for people that youknow sometimes people think of
CRw it's.
It's very interesting becausewe have some people are like crw
is too slow some people say crwis too fast and you know we're
(15:48):
looking for that goldilocks zone, so well, you know the rides
I've done.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
There's always been, you know, the, the 12 mile, the
14 mile per hour group 16, 18,20, 22.
There's always a group forsomebody.
That's at least been myexperience.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Yes, that's what we strive to do, that yeah and uh,
it always just takes forsomebody that's at least been my
experience.
Yes, that's what we strive todo, that yeah and uh, it always
just takes making sure that wewrestle or arm wrestle, to get
someone like we need someone tolead this yeah, to do this at
this particular pace how do youguys communicate with your
members?
Speaker 1 (16:18):
um, is there a newsletter?
Is there a slack channel likethe winchester rippers have an
awesome structure with the groupme channels like how do you
guys communicate?
Speaker 2 (16:27):
yes, we have a platform, so a website, where
members can see what's happening.
We also do email blast.
We do have uh slack at folks.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Also leverage and use and can you post a ride to the
slack channel and other folksmight join you for the ride, or
um, we have that happeninginformally, but from our formal
rides.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Uh, we want to make sure they're covered by
insurance.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
So there's some, some things we have to deal
differently than the rippers.
I'm a ripper too, so okay, yeah, but so you know what I'm
talking about the group channel.
That it's very convenient tosay hey, I'm riding on riding on
Sunday mornings at 10 o'clockfrom this gas station, so CRW
doesn't quite have that.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
We do not, not today, so how would?
Speaker 1 (17:11):
if someone wanted to ride just informally with other
CRW members, how would theycommunicate with?
Speaker 2 (17:16):
If it's informal, you could do it in Slack.
That's probably the best way todo that.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
You know, for our formal rides, we want to make
sure there's, we want to makesure there's a safety talk.
We, you know, because we we forour rides, who's coming?
we don't know who's coming rightso in 2000 members we have a
wide spectrum of abilities so wewant to have some consistency
around the experience and makingsure that people that um show
(17:42):
up up are assured and know somecertain things.
So the Rippers, I think, isthey're they're actually gotten
kind of big, but not as big asthe CRW, and I just say that
with love and affection, Iunderstand.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
No, but I think that's part.
That's.
One of the things that makesCRW unique to me is that when
you do show up to a ride,there's always a safety talk.
You typically, if you're not amember, have to sign some sort
of waiver or go online and dothat.
You know what else makes crw aunique club in your mind I think
the the size of it.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
I think our our marquee of uh, events like those
centuries, um, and there are alot of people I was one of them
for many years All they do isthey sign up for those centuries
because they'll use it astraining for other events.
Right, so that happens and weacknowledge that.
But we are trying to do a lotof work to try to build up more
(18:38):
community.
We have one of our ride leaders.
She's very dedicated, she'sactually on the board.
She has a ride.
She's very dedicated, she'sactually on the board.
She has a ride she does.
In Arlington we did our rideleader award ceremony.
She's not eligible for an award.
She should have gotten an awardif she wasn't on board.
Effectively, she led a rideevery, I think, I don't know.
(19:03):
It feels like it's four daysout of the week over the course
of the year.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Right, that's pretty incredible yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
People show up.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yes, people show up.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
So okay.
So let me ask you is there.
We've interviewed running clubsand cycling clubs on this
podcast and and a lot of thegreat clubs have, like you know,
two or three um training ridesor runs each week.
Does CRw have like a go-totraining ride every week that
folks should know about?
Speaker 2 (19:31):
uh, we have more than one, and that's part of what
I'm trying to, the part of thethings I'm trying to do, I'm
calling something calledneighborhood ride.
So we have um in lexington.
There's a battle.
We we have yes, we have uhwednesday wheelers.
We have uh bike thursday, thatuh, these are very popular rides
uh, and then we have a numberof them on the weekends.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
So and you can find all these on the website on our
website and on our ride calendar, we call it, so we have.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Uh, I think last year , if we looked in totality, we
had almost, you know, 300 plus300 plus events.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
That's incredible.
So that's a combination oftraining rides plus these
centuries we've been talkingabout.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yes, correct.
So we basically have somethinggoing, almost all you know,
almost every day.
If you look at the calendar, inthe summer we might have three
or four rides going on at thesame time.
Right, so it's just.
But on average, you know, welook at it and it's like wow,
that's a lot of events we've puton this past year.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Yeah, so let's talk about you know you've been
president for about the lastyear or so.
This, this podcast, is beingrecorded in December of 2024.
You know, how has yourexperience and sort of unique
perspective to this sport helpyou, um, become a leader in the
club and sort of shape where youwant to, where you want the
club and sort of shape where youwant to, where you want the
club to go.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
So I think that, uh, there's, there's a rich history
with crw.
You know 60 years of 60 yearsof rides and experience with the
members.
I think one of the things thatwe got an email from someone who
moved to washington dc or Idon't know if they're washington
dc but to say, hey, you guyswant to join us on a panel at
(21:12):
the National Bike Summit Becausethere's something happening
with aging population, where alot of bike clubs are seeing
aging membership, and I'm goingto bring in another perspective.
So put that in one, put a pinin that.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Put a pin in that.
Put a pin in that.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
And then I was doing a thing for one of my other
organizations, Naked New EnglandCycling Coalition for Diversity
, where we were asking andinterviewing, talking to people
at an event on the Minutemanthis past summer, Nice, and you
know we're starting to askpeople what's your experience
(21:53):
with working with bike clubs?
Are you a part of bike clubs?
Some people, young people,coming up to me saying why would
I join a bike?
club.
We've got the perspective of dowe have an aging population
that seeks camaraderie and wantsto build up a community?
And we've got, on the otherhand, we've got some younger
(22:16):
people that are like, what's thebenefit of having a bike club?
You know, if you actually thinkabout the pandemic, it was
another dimension, right.
A lot of people, just like alot of people, got out on bikes.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Oh, tons of people.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Tons of new people, tons of new riders.
Are they part of a bike club?
Do they understand that?
And I think you and I justtalked about this?
Right, you can get these plansthat could make you the the best
, uh, strongest biker, but youmay not be a good cyclist yeah,
those are two different thingsyeah, yeah, you need some pack
skills.
Yes, exactly uh, to make thiswork.
(22:48):
Um we so?
I guess you asked your initialquestion was just about the
presidency yeah so I think Ithink one of the things that's
different about me is that I wasbringing in a perspective of
I'm a, I still have a day job,and a lot of times we've had
people that were retirees orsomething along those lines.
(23:08):
So like, how can we make this,how can we structure the club to
work for people that aren't100% dedicated to this, and can
we do this in scale?
Speaker 1 (23:19):
So I think the folks that I would say the way you're
describing those folks is thefolks that really have a hard
time or really need to balancework, family and fitness yes
right, you got the working folk.
You got to go home and dealwith the family, and also I'd
love to ride my bike as much asI can, but balancing all that.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
So you bring that perspective I'm trying to bring
that perspective into theorganization.
And the other, the other thing.
I would say that, uh, mybackground is, uh, information
systems and IT and things alongthose lines, and so we really
wanted to bring the club intothe 21st century, I would say,
(23:58):
just because it was a volunteerorganization.
You know how CRW started.
I mean, one of the things theyused to do is people would call
a number hey, we're going tohave a ride on Saturday.
So they used to use a phone andthat's the way people found out
where the rides were right.
Yeah, we have a website.
Things have gotten a littlemore mature.
(24:19):
We had a website before and itserved its purpose, but we
wanted to have mobile apps andother things, so we brought in.
We have now mobile apps.
People will do mobile check-in.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
There's a CRW app.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Yes, well, we, uh, we use a platform called wild
apricot and it comes with an appso you can check in, you can
see the rides, you can register.
All these kinds of things are.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Wow, all right, all right, listen I.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Yes, it's a member app.
Yes, so, yes, that was one ofthe things I wanted to make sure
we had, you know, the abilityto do things remotely.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
So then, what's so good?
So in your presidency, like,what's, what are some of your
top priorities you'd like to seehappen, or change or develop?
Speaker 2 (25:10):
And I think the priorities were operationally
getting us in a better place sowe could scale, because you know
we're still there's growingpains.
It's not always, you know youcould do it overnight, but, um,
you know part of it was gettingus on the website, getting us
with the mobile app.
So, check, check, those thingshave been done.
Nice.
Now how do we get the uhvolunteers to get them more
engaged with the, with ourplatform and how we do things.
We have a wide spectrum ofcomputer abilities too, right,
(25:33):
so that's something we just haveto think about.
How do we move the wholepopulation?
Speaker 1 (25:39):
I mean, do you guys use like SignUpGenius to get you
know that's a program.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
I know SignUpGenius yes.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
To get volunteers to sign up for events.
I'm just curious what you guysuse for that.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Well, so for our centuries we end up using, we
partner with groups that arelocal to the area and they'll
handle the table or when we have, you know.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
So a local community group Like a church or Boys and
Girls Club.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
People that are usually affiliated with outdoor
events will help us with.
You know at a place thatsomething you know like.
So we have organizations thatwe'll work with.
That's one way that we getvolunteers.
But I guess we actually theother day we put out an email to
(26:29):
everybody saying here are somevolunteer opportunities that you
can have within the club.
We got a response from a womanand we looked her up and she's
like she hasn't done a lot ofrides with us but she's like I
was a member in the 90s or 2000sbut I really want to get
involved.
And she said what I love aboutthis is the community.
And I was like, oh, this isvery interesting, said you know,
(26:51):
uh, so you know.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
So if we put out the call, people will respond you
just, you just need to make sureyou put the call out there so
actually I had a communityquestion do you guys collaborate
with other organizations likemass biker, nemba, yes or yeah,
what do we do?
Speaker 2 (27:07):
um, we well, we have a grant program, so we, as part
of our mission so we're a 501c3organization um, so part of that
is education and making surethat we bolster biking
infrastructure.
You know some things that wedon't really yeah focus in on so
(27:27):
advocacy in terms of like howmy mass bike does it, we don't
do that.
Uh, they received one of ourgrants this past year who did uh
mass bike?
oh, okay, nice and so yeah, sowe, you know people have an
opportunity to apply for a grantand we can give them out, and
we have done things where we'veasked the memberships, our
(27:47):
membership, where do you wantour grant money to go this year?
So, like we've done, you know,bike, not bombs, has been
another one of our uh frequent,uh, oh, nice um people that we
give money to.
So these things have uh.
So I guess your initialquestion was just how do we
partner?
So we, if it's about cycling,it helps with education.
(28:08):
We think there's memberbenefits.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
We're open to it yeah , so you're in an indirect way,
you're supporting sort of thecycling infrastructure and
around the boston area.
Um, I see all these new youknow bike lanes popping up and
it sounds like you guys playsort of a small part in that.
Back to some of your signatureevents.
Uh, if you could list off, youknow, maybe your top three or
five.
We mentioned climb to theclouds, which I think still
(28:31):
exists yes, it went away for awhile and now it's back.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
We have some folks that that we're gonna roll up
our sleeves and we're gonna getthis done.
I think putting on a century isnot as simple as, like you know
.
Hey, we're just gonna have abunch of people go out for a
hundred mile ride, right, mean,there's a lot of logistics to it
.
You've got to permit workingwith the towns to make sure that
they get their whateverrequirements they put in front
(28:56):
of you.
Those requirements evolve andchange, like this past year.
So the Cranberry Century is oneof the ones that we do this
year.
An official said hey, I thinkyou guys need to have an
ambulance at the beginning ofthe ride.
So we had to pay for anambulance at the beginning of
the ride.
We were just like this doesn'tmake sense.
I think you may need anambulance at the end for some of
the people, but not at thebeginning of the ride.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Oh, interesting.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Wow I think I remember seeing the ambulance
there actually yes, and as thepresident, I'm looking at this
and like dollars just goingtweet, tweet, tweet, oh boy.
But you know so, towns havetheir demands.
You have the permitting processis longer than you think it's
going to take.
And then you put you know,coordinating all the volunteers,
(29:41):
making sure you have supportvehicles, All that stuff is just
logistics, right.
So we have uh three main eventsthat uh three centuries that
we've put on.
That.
I would say that the marqueeevents that we're known for they
have the north to new hampshirecentury.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
That's usually in may otherwise known as the spring
crw century, yes, spring centuryexactly and and is it also a
shorter event if anybody'slistening out there and they
don't want to do 100 miles?
What else for routes?
Speaker 2 (30:10):
So all the routes have on these we typically will
support.
We've gone down to 35 miles.
Actually in the cranberrycentury we went down.
We had a 30 mile route thisyear 30 and a metric century 30,
metric 50, I think, and thenalso 100.
There were four routes, Ibelieve so.
But, you know.
Part of it is just making surethat you know we, we coordinate
(30:32):
the stops and make sure thatthere's not too many.
You know all the stops.
We we want to leverage them.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
So, yeah, you want some overlaps.
Yeah, very exactly.
Um, so, so we've got the springcentury, yep, that's in May.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
And then then then we have the uh climb to the clouds
, which is we've done it usuallyin June or July and this year
we pushed it out to August.
So that was an experiment.
We may pull that one back toJuly again.
We competed against MountWashington.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
We realized when we first did it and then we're like
, okay, we need to change to adifferent date and et cetera.
Well, and then the day afterMount Washington, there's a
local Tour de Cure event.
Yes, which doesn't get manyMount Washington folks, but
Presumably, presumably, yes.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
And then we have our Cranberry Century, which is
usually what we call.
We use that to close out theseason primarily.
Those are our three main events.
That doesn't mean that we don'thave centuries at other points
of the time I did a few yearsago I did a major Taylor Century
(31:38):
ride, so effectively a roadfrom Winchester out to Worcester
.
Watched people go do the GeorgeStreet hill climb race and then
we came back.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Oh, that's nice.
So you did that sort of moreinformally with CRW members.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
With CRW.
It was on the ride calendar.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Oh, okay, it was an actual event.
You know, I let some people outthere, but you guys stopped for
your own drinks on your own.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Yes, exactly yes, not supported, you know, on your
own, supported ride.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
I think that the Cranberry Century is a hidden
gem in New England.
It starts in Milestandish StatePark.
It's super well organized, theroute is just fantastic.
It's sort of rolly, not toohilly, and it's just endless
miles of beautiful pavementaround these cranberry bogs.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Yes, I agree 100%.
I've set my best cranberry.
Cranberry Century is where I'vedone my best times in terms of
centuries.
Set your PR there, huh yestwice century is where I've done
my best times in terms of setyour pr there.
Huh, yes, twice, and you knowthat's funny.
You know everyone.
There's the flattest ride, acentury of the new england.
I think we're lower than thatactually the flattest ride is in
(32:45):
.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Is it in rhode island ?
Rhode island, yeah, that's itright, but that's still pretty
hilly.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Yeah, it's pretty hell exactly I think we're about
to look at the elevation gainand see what the story is there.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
What does CRW do to encourage new riders to get
involved in cycling,particularly new riders that
might be intimidated by doing agroup ride?
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Well, we do the things that we approach that you
just talked about, where we saythat we are going to be
intentional about declaring whatspeeds you guys are at Part of
the data set that now we have.
When people register, we askthem how fast are you intending
to ride this ride?
At right, so that helps theride leader.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
I have no idea what if they have.
You know, I'm not sure I'm newto this.
You know where do I go.
What do I show up?
Which ride should I show up toRandolph?
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Tell me, tell me, we actually we do get people that
inquire and ask those kinds ofquestions and we will, we will
front the kind of question andsay like here's some rides we
recommend.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
That's a good idea for us to think about.
How is there one like that justoff top of your head like hey,
there's a great saturday rideout of xyz parking lot.
That, a newbie, I'm just sayingon this podcast.
If there's anything you couldannounce about that, is there a
particular?
Speaker 2 (34:06):
well, I love the lexington uh battle road series
is is good, and when?
Speaker 1 (34:11):
and when is that?
It's on the weekends what time?
Speaker 2 (34:14):
uh, it varies, that's the okay.
So you have to tap into thecalendar.
You do need to tap into, andit's what is it 20 miles or so,
or is it?
Uh, 30, 30, okay, yep, and wehave.
Uh, thank god it's friday ridethat goes out of bedford um as
well, that's every.
That's every um right afterwork after work okay, six
(34:34):
o'clock.
You know, it depends on the sun.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
You know, because they want to make sure they get
back before dark yeah, so theseare rides that happen sort of
after daylight savings kicks inyes, correct, yes I know
personally of someone who gotinto cycling out of boston um.
They joined the ride I think isout in the haunt park near
wells ave.
Is that how you pronounce it?
Speaker 2 (34:57):
yes, uh, that series went on for a very, very long
time.
Actually participated in anumber of those rides does it
still occur?
No, it doesn't.
But uh, they had at one pointuh like many, many weeks of
continuity.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
I can't like three or four hundred weeks, probably
years.
Yes, yeah, they went over foryears.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Yes, exactly, and I think it fell apart, uh, when
some nor'easter or something, Ican't remember exactly oh no
yeah, the streak ended, but youknow that's.
That is part of the appeal whatyou just asked for is part of
the reason why I'm saying likewe need to have these.
Neighborhood rides areconsistent and people understand
and know it, because I knowthat there are still cyclists
showing up at the park.
I heard there's a ride herethat I can go and join, Right,
(35:43):
Exactly.
And and someone just told methe other day like hey, isn't
there a ride from the park thatyou guys are like, well, it's
kind of dead.
But so the idea of havingconsistency, because one of the
things that I would say as apresident, it also changed.
I didn't like the fact that.
you know, we talked about thedemographics of the club being
(36:04):
different and people are youngerpeople, one of the things that
I guess it was tapped into.
I looked at CRW as a place Idon't want to call it, this is
not the best way to characterizeit, but it was like where's the
ride from crw this week?
So people look at the calendar.
They say like, oh, I don't wantto go to hoppington today, like
because we'd have a ride inhoppington, we'd have another
(36:25):
ride and you know it could be insomerville, yeah, and then we
could have another ride in, uh,you know, on the south shore.
So like we had rides, like wehad rides, yeah, we had rides,
but they were all over the place, and so that would mean you
either bike to the start, someof us are fine with doing that
or drive or drive.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Most people drive.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
And and I don't just like this isn't a way to build
up more community, cause youkind of want to need to have
people that you know, that youride with all the time to
actually build up that communityand that's one of the things I
would say that Rippers doesreally well.
So that's one of the things I'mtrying to get more to happen.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
This person I was talking about, you know.
So they were a newbie cyclistand they showed up to this
weekly Saturday ride andbasically CRW helped them go
from a very novice cyclist tosomeone who's doing, you know,
7,000, 8,000 miles a year and Ijust thought that was cool and
and and uh, crw played a bigpart in that.
So if someone is listening andwanted to get involved with CRW,
how do we go about doing that?
Speaker 2 (37:24):
The best way to do that is go to our website,
crworg.
We have a calendar that'savailable, um, with all of the
events that you can participateand join up for.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Do I have to pay anything?
Speaker 2 (37:37):
You can ride with us two times a year without any.
No fees, With no fees.
But our membership is veryreasonable $20.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
20 bucks 20 bucks.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Oh, come on, everybody should sign up.
And then there's our contact usform on there that, if you want
to talk about volunteering oryou want to get more involved
with anything, we've got, uh,partnerships.
Uh, that we've we.
We have revamped it recently,so I think that, uh, that's a
good way to reach out that'scool, all right, 20 bucks, sign
(38:11):
up for crw.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Um, so we'd like to ask folks a couple of questions
to close out the podcast.
Okay, so you've.
You personally, it sounds likeyou've raced and ridden all over
new england crw ride, or not,is.
Are there any hidden gem eventsor roots that you can share
with our podcast listeners?
Um, that might not know about?
I mentioned that my hidden gemis the CRW Cranberry Century in
(38:36):
the fall, so you can't take myanswer, but do you have any
events or routes or anythingthat you've run into?
Speaker 2 (38:44):
You stole one of the better ones from us.
Thank you very much.
I guess, when I think about myrides to Montreal, there are
definitely some areas.
And now you're going to ask melike Route 100, because actually
people do Route 100.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
I know there's a like organized rides on route yeah,
there's the 200 on 100, which is200 miles from the border of
canada down to the border of newhampshire and massachusetts.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Yeah, that one that's on my bucket list yeah, and and
recently I'd say that I didthis is also.
This was also a great ride.
I mean, I did the it, theIthaca to Boston route, just on
my own.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
I mean, what is this like five days?
Speaker 2 (39:23):
It was three.
I was trying to do it in two.
It ended up being three.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
So it's over 300 miles.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Oh, it's 400, 400 plus miles, so I won't go into
the whole story, but the trailthat opened up I wanted to do
the empire trail, so I went, uh,from ithaca up to the empire
trail I don't you know.
You said yeah, well, it's not,it goes um, it's on the river um
, and it went from troy toalbany effectively.
(39:50):
That's what I was on, so it wasvery fascinating, different
experience to be basically onlike the Minuteman for 80 miles
or 60 miles, whatever I was onit, but it was really.
It had really nice stops onthere and I can see how a family
can turn this.
I actually did this.
There was a New York Timesseries that someone was like I'm
(40:11):
not really that much of acyclist, but I'm going to do the
whole thing, and so her and herhusband, he would drive her to
a section and she would do likethe section and write about her
experience on that, and so thatbecame a series.
So I actually really enjoyed it,even though it was relentless,
because I was doing it for 80miles, but it was really
interesting to do that kind ofthat was.
(40:33):
I thought that was good.
I don't know if that's hiddenthough.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
That's cool.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
Well, that is outside of New England so I have to
delete that from this episode.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
But no, that's no, no , that's cool, I think.
I think that's a hidden gem,what's it called again?
Speaker 2 (40:44):
It was the Empire Trail.
The Empire Trail.
All right, I'll have to lookthat one up.
And a follow-up question is whydo you agree that Newland is
the greatest endurance region inthe us, if not the world?
I think that we have lots ofseasons.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
We are hardy, we're ready for anything because we've
seen everything right.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
I mentioned before, I think, that, uh, I started my
one of my cycling early, earlycycling experiences was doing
the aids ride with hurricanefloyd.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
I remember going into Wheelworks, the bike shop, and
getting my girlfriend at thetime, now my wife.
I was like, okay, I'm going togo in and get a new rain gear
for this ride.
And and uh, you know.
So I went and everyone'sgetting this gear.
We had Mayor Menino sat upthere and we're like we're going
(41:37):
to go and we're going to go.
And then they said I'm sorry,we're not going to let you go,
you're going to get in a bus,everyone's boo.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Well, yeah, I mean any other part of the country
they probably would havecanceled it the day before, but
now you have all these cyclists.
They still canceled it, itsounds like, but they canceled
that.
It sounded like, but they did.
But the point is that, like,those hardy new englanders were
ready to tackle it.
That's right, you know, andactually just a quick story
about that, we had the tour decure um in 2024 in august and it
(42:05):
was torrential downpour at thestart there were still, you know
, 300 riders that showed up and,basically, you know, did the 60
or 100 mile version.
So, um, is there anything elseyou'd like to plug or mention
today with regards to crw thatmaybe we didn't cover?
Speaker 2 (42:19):
crw is a welcoming organization.
However, you know, I would saythat we are doing some work to
make sure that it's even morewelcoming, meaning that we've
had we know that there's someexperiences where people show up
they say that, uh, and they getdropped, and so how do we
manage that?
So we were trying to figurethat out.
(42:39):
How do we make that a betterexperience for people, and so
that's one thing.
I just want to acknowledge thatwe've heard the voices of
people and we want to try tofigure out how we can make that
better.
But come out, join us for aride or two or a few, and I
think it gets, and you'll findthat, uh, there there are a lot
(43:00):
of people that are passionateabout cycling and, and you can
have fun as well.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
And do folks?
You know the folks that show up, are they?
What's the sort of demographicslike?
Or we've talked about agingpopulation, but you know what's
the breakdown in CRW, I guess of, by age group.
Yeah, I'm just curious Is 25%,you know, under the age of 30?
Speaker 2 (43:19):
It's hard for me.
We do capture the information.
I haven't done it that way.
I know we have a youngcontingent, because what ends up
happening is people come herefor college, they join the club.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
That's an important point.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Yes, and so they join the club, they do rides with us
, and then they graduate and gosomewhere else.
So then you know, so weactually the amount of turnover
for our club this last year.
So we have 25% new coming in.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Wow, so it's pretty you know it's very high.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Well, you know, 70%, 75%, stable, and we know we have
a lot of people that sign upsometimes for those century
events and then then we don'tsee a bit more exactly.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
How do we make that how?
Speaker 2 (44:01):
do we make that?
Make it stick yeah, make itstick exactly.
So that's one of the challengeswe're trying to work on and you
know what else.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
I'll just mention closing out here.
You know you and I mentionedthe rippers.
You know we're both members ofcrw.
We're meant we're members, theRippers.
I have my own cycling teamcalled Keep it Tight, like it's
okay to be part of multiplecycling and running groups you
know, just for listeners outthere, and it's cool.
You can hop into rides andevents with each group and New
(44:29):
England's a very small communityand you'll discover that not
only are we in different clubsbut we also do different sports
that are.
I joined Somerville RoadRunners, for example.
I'm not really a big runningperson, but on occasion I hope
to show up to some of thoserides and then we do some uphill
skiing.
There's a big uphill skicommunity and we're all sort of
(44:51):
trying to get our cardioendorphin rush with whatever way
we can during the winter.
This is the Endurance Podcast.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
Yes, Right, so you know.
Endurance can be in many formsof pain.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
So okay.
So, Randolph, it was awesome tohave you on the New England
Endurance Podcast.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
Oh, absolutely.
And sharing your story with usand the CRW story as well.
Like I mentioned, I'm a proudmember.
If you want to check out CRW,look it up on crworg.
They also have an Instagram andFacebook page as well.
I will tag them on ourInstagram page, which is at New
(45:33):
England Endurance.
So thank you, Randolph.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Thank you so much for having me and good luck with
this podcast.
It looks, it sounds like it's.
I've seen the people you'veinterviewed and I'm like, oh,
that's a great list.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Awesome.
So until next time let's getout there rain, snow or shine
and explore the beautifulterrain of New England.
You.
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