Welcome and kit giveaway intro
On today's podcast, I'm going to be giving away Cycling Kit. Let's cue that intro! The big question is this. How do we use Cycling as a tool to improve our health, our happiness and our long changes? That is the question, this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Walsh, and welcome to the Rowman Podcast. Rowman, welcome back. Thank you for joining me for another Roman cycling podcast. It's Monday and today I have a little bit of a treat. I'm going to give away a bunch of cycling kit. I'm going to tell you why in a moment. I'm bringing you this podcast from Fresh Podcast and Equipment, really enjoying it, being able to end the intros, like on the fly and all one foil. It doesn't mean much to you if you're just listening to the podcast, but it really makes my life a lot easier. I can tell you so a big shout out to all our patreon's who made this evolution that a podcast possible. If you're one of the OGs who have been with us from the start, really I tipped the cap and when I'm out in a bout now the restrictions have lifted. If I see you, I'll be buying you a point not the other way around. But if you want to continue to support the podcast or if you haven't supported the podcast already and want to get behind this evolution because it's I've got such amazing things planned for the common months. If you want to help support that and help keep this show on the road. Head on over to patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore watch. You can buy me the price of a beer once a month and you're going to get access to the secret podcast. Last week we dropped a podcast called why you so mentally drained and strategies around avoiding that mental drained feeling. I was going to say drainedness. Strainedness is not a word, not a word that I know about anyway, but this week I would be dropping the podcast, the secret podcast on Wednesday, so stay tuned for that one to the Patreons. So there was a story in the media. It was widely published and I suppose it's worth covering this briefly again, or let me tell you a brief story. There was a 63 year old Scottish roider out training in Gran Canaria and he managed to double puncture, use Buddhist tubes and then puncture again for a third time. And he was left stranded on the side of the road and a group of cyclists came past and one cyclist in particular stopped to help change the puncture forum and that was one of the goats three-time world champion Peter Sagan and the cyclist in question ended up getting a cool picture. He's Sagan changing his puncture forum and it just got me thinking it's such a heartwarming and amazing part of our sport and you know I'm so big on traditions. I'm so big on respecting the process and this is why I'm very conflicted about his with and his with role in the sport. Not that we can't iterate and improve as we go, but I'm not sure that's a forward step. It seems to me like quite a selfish backward step. But nevertheless, cycling is built on those traditions. And one of those time honored traditions is if you see a cyclist on the side of the road in trouble, you say to him, are you okay? Can I do anything for you? So my pledge to you today is our my request from you guys today is to Bring back that tradition and really honor it if you're listening to this podcast and you see somebody out in the belt on the Soil of the road you see them in a bit of strife you see them in problems even if you're in a hurry Please take that time to say are you okay? because I promise you cameras a bitch and you'll be on the soil of the road someday you'll be stuck up the mountains and and you won't have the tool you need to fix your bike.
From Aldi gear to overflowing wardrobe
You won't have the tube you need to get home. And you don't know the consequences for somebody not getting home like that. So yeah, maybe you'll be a couple of minutes late for a meeting, but the world's gonna still keep spinning. Like we talked about on Friday, Montmarti, eventually you will die. It's a really nice tradition. And I got me thinking about this idea of pain forward. And I remember when I was getting started in cycle, I really had very, very little kit and Aldi was just kind of coming to prominence in Ireland around that time. It was other Aldi or little and I saved up for weeks and I went to Aldi and I bought this shitty like equality that only Aldi could deliver. This basic, I didn't know my biceps could get cold on the bike until I wore this jacket. The wind just blew straight through it. I think it was crane sports, a shocking piece of construction. It was like wrapping yourself in a sheet going out trying to, but it was all I had. And I put that true. I must have put, I don't know, I've probably put a hundred thousand kilometers on those bib tights and that jacket. I absolutely wore them, tread bare. And again, when I got my next piece of kit, probably not much better, I wore a tread bare. And through the years, I've obviously accumulated a lot of kit and I've taken it for granted in the last few years. And especially Lassie's, and I had a brand deal, which I didn't show her a screen about Velocio, which I've recently just pulled a pin on. and to focus on the roadman brand. But I have a lot of kit. I have, and I'm not saying this to Bragg, I am gone somewhere with this. I have a shit ton of kit. I've, you know, GLA is jacked, some stuff in the box, some stuff are in the plastic, some stuff lightly worn. So what I wanna do today is I wanna give it all away. I wanna give away all my residual kit because I know some of that kit can be the catalyst somebody needs to get started. Now here's what you need to do to get the kit. Follow me over on Instagram, roadman.soyclan. This isn't about me just increasing my Instagram followers. Follow me so you can send me a direct message. If you don't follow me, your message is gonna go into my order folder and that's like the nether region. It's like down the back of the sofa for the remote control. Follow me there, ping me a message. And, but I want to give the kit to worthy people. I want to, especially junior, not just juniors, but young people getting into the sport. Ideally, if you're under the age of 25, getting into the sport, don't have much money or if your son or brother or something like that getting into the sport doesn't have much money or a friend. It doesn't matter. As long as it's somebody, it's going to a good home. If you're rocking a full carbon specialized SL7 setup and you're 16 years old, don't hit me up for this kit because it's not a worthy home. So please, I'm not going to check this. I'm not going to use your best discretion and some worthy people that this will make a difference for out there. So let them have the kit. Yeah, so that was the real trust of today's podcast folks, it was just, I had been thinking about the on that for a while and Sagans just active generosity with his time just prompted me to remember, you know, we're, we're all in a position now because of the tradition and the, you know, the educational nature of Saigland by that I mean, you know, I learned how to group right because somebody took the time to teach me how to group right. I learned how to fix a puncture because somebody took the time to teach me how to fix the puncture.
Reviving cycling's hand-me-down culture
It's a great community and there's a great sense of collegiality and cycling. And I do feel in the last few years, especially it's been lost and there's more focus on hitting numbers, there's more focus on performance, there's more focus on training with a small subset of your friends instead of passing what you've learned down to the next generation. And you know, my first bike was a hand-me-down and this is, you know, we're in this culture now of when you get a bike and you're getting a new one, the old boy goes up on adverts. What happened to the hand me down culture? And this is what I want to bring back to Saiklyn is that hand me down culture. So I'm going to give away my kit. But if you're listening to this and you're not somebody who needs kit right now, but you're somebody who has a lot of kit, I'd encourage you also to hit me with a DM and say, look, I have a bunch of kit that I don't use either. So if you have willing, you know, participants in this little scheme, I can facilitate you passing the kit on to them, etc, etc. I'm kind of hoping I get a manageable amount of DMs on this. I'm not 500 DMs But do hit me up if you need kit or do hit me up if you have kit that you want to give away And we're gonna start a little kit exchange program a little pay it forward program well, man I think this is an important podcast Please share that round to whoever needs to hear this message and we can start to pull people up again And it's what's beautiful about our culture and insight learned that it transcends Soak's you economic backgrounds a group ride on a Saturday morning like a great turn out again this Saturday the Roman group ride But it's brilliant because there's some people on the group ride who've been unemployed for 10 years and there's other people on the group ride That are just absolutely Traiving in every aspect of their personal and professional life and they all come together Everyone breaks bread at the coffee stop together and it's brilliant. So let's do that in a larger Roadman community sense through this kit initiative If you have a better name than the kit initiative hit me with it I might even make up some graphics and share it around Roadman, I did say to you I need to start this so annoying I have to ask this stuff But you know I sent you we got a podcast consultant in and this stuff apparently is just so important So if wherever you're listening to the podcast, please head on over to Apple like the podcast over there rate the podcast over there, leave a little comment for it and subscribe to it over there. Apparently it matters enough a lot. Roadman, thank you for listening to my somewhat incoherent ramblings, but hopefully the central message wasn't lost today. Much love and I'm going to see you in the road and I'm going to chat to you tomorrow. Before you rush off, I want to mention something completely new. We've recently just formed the new Roadman Cycling Club. So there's two elements to this club. it's a virtual club you can join it anywhere in the world and two it's an in-person club based in Ireland so if you're racing cyclists in Ireland then you're looking for a team to race in the colors of next season if you're looking to hang out with some amazing people and do group rides on the weekend go and check it out it's roadmancycling.com forward slash roadmancc the link is in the the show notes. Hope you can join us as part of the new Roadman Cycling Club.