KEY TAKEAWAYS
John Lally is a former racer, son of one of Ireland's most famous ever bike riders & host of The Real Talk Show Podcast
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“I need adversity and discomfort in my life. I need that. Do you know what I mean? I don't need to be sitting on the couch and like as men are as humans we need to embrace that adversity that getting in the cold water. Why do you get in the cold water? Because I can. Because I don't want it. So I need to get in there because I don't want it.”
“There's a great study I was reading recently, and it's nicknamed the toughening study, and it's out of Harvard. And they looked at two groups, they looked at one control group, one sample group, and the sample group that they were looking at, they were examining people who has overcome difficult things in their lives. They didn't have habitual difficulty. It's not like they had a partner who was boxing them around the house every day, but they had one or two things, maybe per year. They were very stressful, traumatic life events, and they had overcome them and kept moving forward with their life.”
“I need to do something hard to justify something easy. When I get into cold water or when I ride up the side of a mountain foregas, I can't think of anything else. Only that moment. I'm never thinking about, Oh shit, that I paid a scoibail or that I emailed that client. It's only about being in that moment and just embracing that cold.”
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On today's Roadman Cycling Podcast, I'm going to speak with John Lally. 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 longevity? That is the question, this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Walsh, and welcome to the Roadman Podcast. Roadman welcome back to the roadman cycling podcast you're going to love today's interview I'm super excited about today's interview because it's the first time how long waiting on the podcast over a year anyway we're on our episode three hundred and seventy-eight I think but it's the first time I've ever spoken to another dope so if you're not from I'm Arlen, if you're not from Dublin, you will allow me this indulgence and a time to time myself and John do slip into Dublin colloquialisms, but it's a totally enjoyable chat with one of the really good guys. John Lally is the son of one of Ireland's most renowned cyclists. He's a podcast host on the Real Talk Show, which is one of only five podcasts that I actually listen to over and over. absolutely brilliant, highly recommended. He's a super interesting character, he's an advocate for all things, health, fitness, and he has a motto which you're going to get to love today called hard to kill. Before I jump into today's podcast, I'm going to try something a little bit new starting this week. I'm saying to you, we have some big things coming this year, and we've just massively updated our equipment, which is going to be common role now in the next month, building a new set at a moment with new lighting, camera, moving the video podcast, new audio, invested heavily in all this. I've been talking about that we are going to start prioritizing Patreon and give more of a push towards Patreon. So starting this week, one episode per week, we're going to have for Patreons only. So this week's topic is why you always feel mentally drained. I'm going to dive in and I'm going to dissect that only in a Patreon only podcast this week. If you want to access that episode, head on over to patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore watch. All that's going to cost you is the price of a point of beer once a month. That for me is to keep the show on the road, help cover costs and keep this podcast grown. Let's dive in. You're going to absolutely love this episode. Let me welcome to the roadman cycling podcast. Mr John Lally. No, but thanks for having me. How are you? How are you? Oh, good man. I'm good. It's funny to name you a podcast, the roadman podcast, you know. I've done tons of different stuff, you know what I mean? Like from running to you name, but I always consider myself a roadie. And people say, are you a cyclist? I haven't I've been cycle in years. Yeah. I always still can all the stuff I've done. I still can think or address myself as a cyclist. It's almost like it's not what you do. It's who you are. Yeah. It's like I still love looking at the Belgian classics and I love looking at bike races. I still do it all the time. Like, you know, my wife is looking at me. How can you sit there for a couple of hours? Fucking easy. I love it, you know what I mean? But I just don't do it anymore, but I love looking at it still, you know. But we don't rebrand the bell. It's probably nearly two years ago this year, a year and a half anyway. So I set up the culture company initially when I was trying to make it as a pro-soyclist. And I set it up for, honestly, I set it up to start as a social welfare scam. There was this grant they were giving out on the social welfare to start a new company and you didn't have to come home to collect the door. You could be abroad and do it. and I was living in the States and I was like they're going to transfer money into me bank account all I need to do is come up with the name of a company. So I literally pulled open a yellow page and the first thing was like A1 hot sauce or something. So I was like boom A1 coach and filled out the application and the coaching company was born and at some point I was like Jesus I have the company set up and I'm basically starting to do a bit of coaching and I stayed with that until last year and we were looking to do a rebrand where I was like you know what I'm gonna step this up and this is Naomi Coleman the career and I was like, I wanted something that people could sort of self-identify with and the iron-mounting is taking on so well and like that I always would have identified as a roadie so we just married the two of them and it's you know, roadman, ironman sort of it was born. Savage, now now Savage it's there. I really enjoy it. Let's do a good view of your podcast and really they won't you. Like my podcasts, like the variety would be mental, you know what I mean? But I do listen to you when I do like it, you know. If you're on podcast, Real Talk Show, which you know, equally were blonde smoke, who put you at his hole here, but also a listener, you're a podcast. But how did that go about? I do know what it's a mad-out story. I tried, I should have called it the ADH Day podcast, but that's someone has that name already. How it came about was, and I had the guy interviewed to line up and everything. I just wasn't technical enough at the time. You know what I mean? I just wasn't. And I had a guy lined up. I'm like, and I don't a bit of walk from for years. And I was like, this guy is gonna be me forest guest. And I hadn't seen him in a while and then knocked down to his house to try and get him on the podcast and he's after fucking dying.
So now he died. It's not fucking but it's a story. And it kind of, instead of me kicking the car down the road, I was like, okay, it's going to be shit, but I'm just going to get guests. And I just, I think I've got a guest on the next week, you know, but it's it's brilliant. Like it's something I throw on when I don't have a specific topic in my head. I want to hear about I stuck a sauna into the house sounds extravagant board. It's about half the price of a road bike. There's this stuck us on into the apartments about six months ago. I fucking love it like. But I listen to some noise in there. That's where my podcast is on. I'd be just in there baking away 58 degrees listening to your voice echoing around the song. Savage, nah, it's clear. I get it. I get like, I get from MMA fighters on. I get like people that have been through serious adversity, life experience, like it covers everything. It's real talk, like it covers a bit of everything. Now I do like getting sports people on but I also like some of the best people that have got on. When I asked them to come on, like I want to have a conversation with these but they've just been holding us and I wasn't expecting them to be. You know what I mean? And then so many get on and you're expecting it to be a really good podcast, then it turns out to be not so great. But it's just, it's the way it goes, you know. I do love the unit, it's good fun, you know. I don't like the way it goes. It's my experience as well, exactly. I think with the audience loves, or at least anecdotally, you know, I've chatted to people who listen to the podcast, people love this idea of they're nearly air wagging on myself and yourself having a, you know, going out for a point again, as they're listening in on on our conversation, when it fails forced, when it feels like, like I've no questions written down on the page today, this is just, you know, me and you were talking, but some days you're talking that I find it especially approach cyclists if they're early in their career and they're putting out these key messages around brands and stuff, they're expecting me to be a cycling journalist and I'm not a cycling journalist. So they're expecting me to follow these questions out of, you know, what's your hopes and aims for the 2022 season? And they throw out the party line the audience don't get this sense of earwig and our eavesdrop on a real conversation. They're like, ah, should I suppress conference? Yes, yes. Now I've got a few other people in that will be in the public eye and stuff like that. And they can't really go places. Their hands are toyed. You know what I mean? With regard to the conversation and what it's echo and what you're saying there about a cyclist. He can't really say some stuff because he has the total party line, you know? I had Alex Delcetroiden for Israel's startup nation. He's won the best time trial list for the last decade. But I had him on the podcast there, a recent podcast, and I finished the podcast saying to him, have you ever completed the Ross? And he said to me, know what you have in 1998. Yeah, yeah, 1998, but on the Ross, yeah. What's that like? I suppose for context, your dad, Sean Lalicein here is, you know, everybody's dad is their hero, but grown up, did you have an awareness or an understanding of just how big a deal your dad is in the context of cycling in Ireland? I did, I kind of did, and I did like it, but there's a competitive edge too with two. Do you know what I mean? Even though me dad was, again, I was coming through cycling me dad was like well past this heyday, you know what I mean? I think he was second or toward in the national champs when he was 43. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, so so when I came along he was like 50 when I started cycling he was 51 52 do you know what I mean? so so There was always I always respected among stuff, but yet We were kind of competitive if you know what I mean this girl because he rides with us We've a Saturday group right now. Yes your dad and your brother come out on the Saturday group right And your dad still comes off in the fucking fast group in the Saturday group, but we split up and these are You know just that's you know from 20 years of age up who are trying to make their way in Soitlin and they split off to you know They're doing their true and often the harder section and everyone this you know self-selects walk group They want to go away and your fucking dad rolls up the sleeves and goes as a fast group and he's is he 80? he's 80 he's 80 If you look at him from the waist down, he looks like he's 16. Yeah, no. Do you know what one thing about him? Like, if you ever sit down, you can get him on a podcast because whatever, and he'd never blow smoke up his own arse, he'd say to you, I wasn't the most talented. But the man is so technically aware of situations in boy graces that he'd boy and sell you. You're not a man, not now, but in this day. You're not a man. But even like a bed of the edge to him, like I came to cycle like a lot later knew, I came probably 2010, I was starting off and the local club like that was sorts. So they had their tours day, Saturday, Sunday, run. But I actually was only saying this to your dad on a spin a few weeks ago, because he probably didn't connect the two. But we used to come home from the span and I'm living in Clontaaraff and I think he was living in Rehania at the time. So we'd roll it home, basically the same route.
But there was one section up by the airport the drugs for about 400 meters. And the prick used to drop me there every single, sorry, and he wouldn't wait for me. I don't know if he'd be a young lad getting started, he'd get the big one in, and I'd see him next week. And he did a fucking same thing to me again the next week. This went out for months. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, come here. Even when I used to go out with him, you know what I mean? If there was no, like, when you look at it, there's two ways of, you know what I mean? You can babysit people number one, or you can make them get better. And my experience with sport is, yeah, you can encourage people and stuff like that, but cycling, MMA, running, whatever you do, it's a ruthless sport. And you either get all in, or you just run away with your tail between your legs and your own. Do you know what I'm saying to you? So he would have that kind of mentality and it served them well. did serve them well, like with Ollie got out himself, you know? Because he was dropped. So we have three generations of Yulales on the Saturday Spain. We have the youngest Connor, which is your dad's grandson out on the Spain. So your dad comes in the fast group last Saturday. The lad's start here and strips out of each other on these little sort of 300 meter rollers. We get over the top of one of them. And I'm at the back with young Connor, Lally, and I look back at your dad's not there. And I say to Connor, let's go back and see where your die is. Connor's looking at me and Connor's if he didn't hear me and like, Connor, come on, we go back and see where your die is. Then he's like to me. He fucking surely knows his way at this stage. He's like, this is ruthless in the lollies. There's no mess on them. Sean, so Sean and my uncle Tony were probably the two most successful there on the whole them. Tony went to the Moscow Olympics in 1980. He was very good. He won. I think they had a selection race. Medale, correct me on this day, the selection race, he just came out of the juniors and they did senior selection race, which was the national championships I think the next year. So he was just out of junior ranks from Montreal. And so he would have been 18 plus, if you know what I mean, 18, 19 years of age, I think he was. And the force five across the line were going to Montreal. He won the race. And because he was so young, they didn't send them. I know he won the National Championships that year. And they didn't send them. So they sent second toward 45th and sixth. So he was kind of him and Sean would of written their books exactly like when you listen to the stories, they gave each other Northam day, you encouraged each other and their nickname getting around to it was, their nickname was the ruthless brothers. So they were called. Yeah, Charlotte, Tony, they don't have been on the books domestically. I've heard these stories from your dad out in Spain, I'm holding the Yellow Jersey and the Ross and I can't remember how many Rossy wrote off hand, I thought it was a big wig. I think I've ate them. I love what they say, eight cups and seven medals. So I crashed out once. But you're that is some crazy number, 24 over 26 or so on, stupid. But for you coming along with all this family history, trying to make your way in Soitlin, is it hard to step out with a shadow for something like a 1998 Ross? Are you always Sean, Lally Sohn or can you find your own path in Saiklin? I never really, you can kind of find your own path because like if you get hung up on trying to match someone or whatever, you're never going to do it. I was never going to do that. You know what I mean? But I really, I did for the period of time I was in Saiklin, I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it. Then when my partner was having a baby, I kind of knocked it on the head then because I wanted to sign up and make a good job of that if you're not a man. But I really, I look back on all the races. I go out to Connemara and I go up north and I remember every single race from the Tour of Connect or the Tour of Ulster or the Tour of the North and now all the roads. You know what I mean? So, like probably some cyclists listening to this, your career is quite short, but it's so much fun. You know, and you're carrying their memories like, I have the two kids, well they're not kids now, but I have them in the back of the car and I was like, I was out the back here and he struggled and they're like, yeah, that, whatever. But they're memories. They were great times like when you were younger and gone off on the Russell's nine days, the year I wrote it, you know what I mean? A nine day race like I was getting a bit of time off walk, great times like I really and I was an average cyclist like I was average you know what I mean? I was probably a half decent A, you know what I mean? Yeah. Got a negative few results here and there but I fucking loved it. I loved the gear, I loved the bike, I love training, I loved everything about it you know, I really did, you know. What still gets me out the door and I'm, you know, I've become a little bit more introspective in the last few years and I like to rise in diary a lot, not for anyone else, only for myself and trying to figure out shit out and, you know, some people go to therapy and stuff I just like to write. But I've really noticed that contrast works well for me.
And by that I mean, if it's the last Saturday morning, it pissed around, it was miserable, it was about four degrees and I was pretty miserable for the entire three and a half hours been. When I came back inside, I had a hot shower, I had a bowl of soup, I sat on the couch with the duvet on, and I watched this dope sick documentary that I'm watching, I watched an episode of a friend there, and I was as happy as a piggy-shaped watch in that episode. But if I had a good up that morning, I had me full Irish breakfast, and sat on the couch and watched dope sick. It would have been like, oh hello, darkness, my old friends. Yeah, now I get that, I get that, yeah, you'd be fuming. But I just, I need to do something hard to justify something easy. And, you know, it's, I follow you on Instagram a lot. And it's definitely something we share, you know, I was down in our local beach, Dolly Mount Stair earlier on shivering, we balls off in the cold water and people are looking at me and what is he doing getting into the water on a January day and it's about four degrees. But it's, it's that contrast between getting into that water. And from, you know, for me, I've tried to meditate a lot and I do meditate still every day, but I always struggle to totally clear my mind of thoughts. And when I get into cold water or when I ride up the side of a mountain foregas, I can't think of anything else. Only that moment. I'm never thinking about, Oh shit, that I paid a scoibail or, you know, that I emailed that client. It's only about being in that moment and just embracing that cold. What's your, your relationship with the cold water? What did you get into with boys that still such an important part of your life? I always, like, I'm from Betty Glenn and Rohini there, so we always went down to Dahlia, always, like, not as frequent as I go now, you know what I mean? I try and go now. So there's a group of us meet out in Palmer and every Friday morning at about seven o'clock in the morning and then I'll go out there on a Sunday as well. But the reason why I do it is because exactly for the reasons you do it and exactly for the reasons you enjoyed Dope-Sick and your ball of soup because I need adversity and discomfort in my life. I need that. Do you know what I mean? I don't need to be sitting on the couch and like as as men are as humans we need to embrace that adversity that getting in the cold water. Why do you get in the cold water? Because I can. Because I don't want it. So I need to get in there because I don't want it. That's the main reason I do. But I dip with barristers, solicitors, lads on the dowel, MMA foighters. You name it. You name it, ex-professional footballers, everyone does it like, you know, and it's a mixed bunch, but they're interesting folks, you know. There's a great study I was reading recently, and it's, I don't know what the actual toy for is, but it's nicknamed the toughening study, and it's out of Harvard. And they looked at two groups, they looked at one control group, one sample group, and the sample group that they were looking at, they were examining people who has overcome difficult things in their lives. They didn't have habitual difficulty. It's not like they had a partner who was boxing them around the house every day, but they had one or two things, maybe per year. They were very stressful, traumatic life events, and they had overcome them and kept moving forward with their life, despised that hard stuff. The other group, the control group, had nothing hard ever happened to them. They were very sheltered, upbring, and they were not handed that everything but no adversity. And they put the two groups through a course of difficult tasks. And so an example of a difficult task might be just dipping your hand into ice cold water and seeing how long you could hold it there. Overwhelmingly, the group that had overcome some adversity in their life were able to perform better at all these difficult tasks. They reasoned because they have benchmarks. So they can go, OK, this really sucks. this water is really cold and it feels like I'm dealing permanent damage to me and her, but it's not as bad as the time I'd be dark, I mean, drunk and beepy around the house. So they had that benchmark to go, it's bad, but it's not that bad. And it's really interesting. I was reflecting and think of back on the cold water stuff. And I do I try and film a day with so much stuff that I don't want to do like today as the cold water and a sauna and I did an aerology and stuff. I didn't want to do any of that. But it's when I do that stuff, it just creates this momentum in the rest of your day to overcome it because you're like, okay, I don't really want to make this call either. But you benchmark it against the cold water and go, let's not going to be as bad as last few minutes down in Dolly Mountain, minus four degrees. Yeah, yeah, 100%. 100%. I really, like it's something I always do. I really enjoy it, you know, it's tough when you're down it, but it's like, It's like a good hard spin when there's like four dainies going out and probably eight finish to spin, a good solid three, four-hour spin, hard spin and it's just the end of it and it's just the end of it and the end of it. That's what I do for. You know what I mean? And you're having a chat and you know, you're having a chat at the end of it or you're talking about all sorts. That's what I do. You know, I need to. I think it was this other guy I follow on Instagram. Um, his, uh, name is Jay Allerton. I think it's his name.
And, um, he talks about like, and, and this is what I do in my life. You know, I make myself harder to kill, keep me self strong, keep me self fit and embrace adversity. You know what I mean? I keep myself cardio fit. I keep myself, I do Jiu Jitsu four or four times a week and I dip in the cold water, you know, make myself harder to kill, you know, and like that control group from that Harvard study, Dave, not by choice, but put through with serious adversity and they can cope with a bit of fucking cold water or whatever comes at them, you know. There's one of the happiest people I know. I was teammates with a man out in Canada at a team called Jeff Yule, one of the biggest teams and can that they've actually come over to Ross and had the yellow jersey as well. Because teammates were more over there. I've had them on the podcast. Name's Ed Dio. And chatting to Ed, he has this idea that he calls perpetual readiness. He's like, so I could pick up the phone to add tenoids. And I could ask him, tomorrow, do you want to have a go with the error record? Do you want to run a marathon? Or do you want to go four rounds in a mixed martial arts fight? And he's fucking ready. Whatever it is, he's ready. He's like, if a fellow comes in by a window to a toy in the middle of the night, I'm ready. He's like, I'm just ready for life. So it's interesting. It's nearly the same theory. You're calling it hard to kill. He's calling it perpetual readiness. I love that idea of just being I think we lose that as amateur athletes sometimes because you get like people takes off way too serious beyond the point they're at. You look at people saying, I'm peeking for this event and I'm going to let go of me fitness here. To an extent, you need to do that. But you know, you also need to maintain a base level of fitness. We get conditioned listening to pro-athlete talking about letting go with our fitness, but it's all relative. When they're talking about letting go with our fitness, they're dropping from the 0.001% oil to the 0.05% oil. They're still very, very fake humans. As amateurs, we talk about letting go of our fitness. Lads are talking about a part on 15k lows, the off-says and the drank six nights It's a week. It's not the same. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, now I think that comes with a bit of age as well, that you kind of go, you know, I'm counting down the fucking time here. So I need to enjoy this a little more, you know what I mean? So whatever comes along, you're ready to go, you know? I had a mate who was just jumping on boards, you know? I had a mate who was 50 last week, and we actually had a birthday cake out on Saturday in the group spin for him. And I was like, what's 50 like? He gave the time trial analogy of like, well, a 50 you're at the torn around, you're on the way home. I'm walking right because no one really, not many people lived till the 100. Sorry, I'm going to your decent bit into the second turnaround. Yeah. But what I love with all that stuff we're talking about, you know, hard to kill, you know, the cold water, the misery been out on a group right. It's almost an anecdote to a very, what I say, a sick and broken society at the moment. Like I say in this, I'm not sure if it was you, Porto, or someone had a look on Instagram today. A kid from the 90s says, Sticks and Stones, I break my bones, but names have never hurt me. And a kid from this year's like, words are violence. Yeah, I forgot. Yeah. Yeah. No, I was so thrilled. I look at these. Like, I don't want to sound like me out for you. You know what I mean? I'm fucking soft. But I look at these people. Like, and I mean, from a fitness point of view, I actually shared a study. It was from 2017, but I was listening to an oil mine, Professor Nile Moiner. And he was talking about them. how 60% of our adolescents in Ireland at the moment, he did this controlled study, you know, from dash skills to middle class skills to everywhere. And like 60% of them didn't make the basic fitness grade, you know. And then he was talking about things like press ups for like 30 year olds, 40 year olds, 50 year olds, if 50 year old to do 12 press ups. Well, That's awesome. I was like, oh, folks take, it's this as bad as it's gonna get, like, and you can even look at the pandemic, you know what I mean? People like, just like letting go with our fitness, and it's all about whatever. If you wanted to get vaccinated, if you didn't want to get vaccinated, be hard to kill, you know what I mean? Being good shape, whether it's dealing with a fast 4uk training in the gym, cycling, swimming, whatever you do, but just get into it. I look at all these fucking slobs around the place and I'm just like, we are fucked. We are fucked. Well, it touched on the pandemic there. I think lockdown for a lot of people. I've seen it as like a magnifying glass. It shone light on whatever type of person you were. If you were a person that was into fitness you came out fitter if you're a person that was into feeling sorry for yourself you came out sadder if you're a person that was into eat you came out fatter it really revealed a lot of people's characters. Yeah yeah now no i agree with you you know and a lot of people are mentally weak later it just goes to show you how much of a threat they were hanging on. before the pandemic, you know what I mean? I'm reading a book at the moment called The Comfort Crisis. And it's this idea that we've evolved over millions of years into this creature that should be out-hunting, should be out-fought, and should be out-fucking, that should be doing hard stuff all the time.
That's the creature we've evolved in. It's taken us millions of years to get there. Well, tech has evolved so fast in the last 15 to 20 years that now this body we're living in is totally maladapted for the environment. Like we're not as going to sit around on Zoom calls all day posting on Instagram, hanging ourselves on the number of likes we get. But yet that's the reality for so many people. Yeah, now it's like, I don't get this. I talk to somebody younger people, you know, and like, you listen, yeah, it's fucking freaked like she left me on scene and I'm like I had to ask him what that meant. You know what I mean? What does that mean? It's like she never fucking replied to me. This cunt was crushed because he was left on scene. I'd just be like wow we're completely fucked if this is the next generation on the trail. You know, so fucking what? You know, So what, people are just so easily hoored and so easily offended and the gist of our conversation here, they're easy to kill. Yeah, but they're so easily offended thing is saying it was a comedian. I'm not sure if it's Ricky Gervais, but he's talking about how arrogant is it to think that you have a right never to be offended? Yeah. some level of self importance attached to it, that you can go through life and no one's ever going to offend you. Like, there's one lad that's messaged me on the podcast, five or six times saying, when you talked about this, I found the defense. If we need to talk about this, found it offensive. I sent up a message call, don't fucking listen. It's an easy system here. You just your download my podcast. Fuck it, don't listen. I don't need to download. I don't care. That's that's real noise because I just tell them to go folk themselves It's like it's like choosing to step in dog shape walking up the road, you know, so what I've offended so what? I don't care, you know fuck off and I mean Yeah, mother they're there they need to finish up They need to finish up some of them for me the pandemic It's shown a noise on this rare type of person as well and it was a friend of a friend I was talking about two weeks ago and I just thought, you know, whether you're, I feel with MOC's people on the vaccine debate, whether you get a vaccine, you don't get a vaccine, most people are just doing what they think is best for them, and best for their family. It's coming from a place of love. So, you know, we can't let media and interest groups avoid us against each other. It's, you know, everyone's coming from a place of love. But it's this idea that you can neglect almost every aspect of your health, you know, you know, you can be overweight, you can drink, you can smoke, you can not focus on sleep, hydration, all the stuff that I literally talk about in the podcast for you days a week, you can not focus on any of that, and then you can get an injection, and then you get the virtue signal about health. I was like, you know, you don't get to do that, you don't get to talk to me about health. I weighed my fucking oatmeal this morning, you don't get to talk to me about health. Now I feel the same way, like I've, I came off Facebook at the very start of the pandemic, I was just like, it was like something was being revealed to me, like a mist was lifting and I'm gone. What the fuck? And it was like these serial people I know in my life, they're like serial losers of 10k, 10 kilos. They're always trying to lose 10 kilos in their whole lives. They never do it. But they're always losing 20 kilos. 20 kilos. Kilograms would have been the same for a kilos. I was looking 10 years and I remember seeing them celebrating at the pandemic. Remember they opened up McDonald's. These cones were celebrating that they were opening up the drive through. I haven't had a McDonald's since about 1996. That's the last one I fucking had to stuff. You know what I mean? It's fucking garbage. I wouldn't eat it. But anyway, these people were celebrating and I was just the mist lifting on, oh, we are proper fucked. You know what I mean? If these people think and then these same people I got the vaccine and call me an anti-vaxxer and Like I'm feeling healthy. I'm young. I don't need but my parents got it. I didn't tell anyone not to get it I wouldn't be getting it myself. But like what you say, it's because you get this injection It's not like you're healthy Let's just shoot that one straight down, you know Well, it was almost as well. I think people understood that there was an element of risk to get in the vaccine. And so when they got through that element of risk, you know, we could debate how large the risk was, but there was risk that was greater than zero of getting the vaccine. So I feel like when they took that risk and they got through without any adverse side effect, that if there was anyone who was unwilling to take that risk, regardless of how reasonable that was, they were just attacked. And God forbid you tried to stimulate like my background before I got into cycling, it's went through law school, qualified as a barrister. So for me, academia is still something that, you know, course my veins. And I love academia. And the cornerstone of academic debate, democratic debate or scientific debate is having a viewpoint and robustly challenging that viewpoint from every single different angle. But yeah, Anybody who tried to fucking do it like you couldn't say to somebody like if it made a mind came along and said to me I'd say to my house things and he's like cool. Yeah, I got a smallpox vaccine. I'd be like cool Seeing him four months later. How do you get none? I got another smallpox vaccine. I'd be like cool Seeing him three months later.
How do you get none? I got a smallpox booster seeing him two months later And that's like how we get nine. He's like I got the fucking smallpox There's something wrong with your smallpox prevention protocol here that I think you got do drugs man. Yeah, you got jokes. But you couldn't point that obvious. Common sense thing out to somebody when you're talking out with a smallpox perspective and you put it into the because then the narrative changed to, oh, well, I might get a sick if I got it. It's like, well, hold on, the vaccine was meant to protect you from getting it. When you got it, that's vaccine failure. The idea of you might get a sick. There was 100 things you could have done to prevent it yourself getting sick, the largest one being get to your optimal body weight. Yeah. Yeah. Now it's crazy. Like I knew one person that went in the hospital with COVID, one person. Now this person was after having a long removed from smoking was morbidly obese, had to go into I see you for a time. And I remember saying if this person can survive, we're our grand, for grand, because they did survive and they're out to the other side of it. Do you know what I mean? Like, I would be of the same opinion. Like if you take any type of medication, if I've taken ibuprofen, I really think about it. Like you know what I mean? I just don't take medication really nearly. any medication you take, there's a risk attached, the small risk. So it's like cycling a bike, there's a gap there, there's a risk and there's a calculated risk. The calculated risk is you're gonna go through the gap, or the risk is you're gonna fall. So it's up to you to make that decision, not the decision being forced on you that you have to do this. I don't really wanna fucking do it, you know? That was my whole issue with it, you know? And then I think the second part of it that I definitely had an issue was there's the idea of your get vaccine or you don't. And I think, you know, like we were saying, it's all love, get it if you want to get it, don't get it, if you don't want to get it. But then it's this mandate and lockdowns, mandate and certain behaviors, saying to one person, your business is essential and saying to the next person, your business is an essential. But if me and you sat down on the podcast today and decided if we were going to close the soy eat, like the basic stuff that anyone would have a brain would want to know is, okay, what's the health implication? You know, you've your scientists gone off and figuring that out, neph it or whatever, they're figuring that out. But politicians job is to come back and go, what's the business implication? What's the mental health implication? What's the addiction implication? We haven't seen robust academic debate on any of this. And I don't know anybody that's the way to cope with it. But unfortunately, I know four people that have killed themselves since the start of the whole thing. Nobody wants to talk about? No, no. And I was listening to, what's his name, the economist column, he went to Joe is in Fairview. He's a chief economist in Ireland column, I can't even say a second name. He was talking about the IMF. So the IMF had their top brains all based outside Washington on this whole pandemic. And the IMF decided that the world policy was this public health policy. So even our government or our politicians, the way they kind of make it look like they decided to do this, they get told what to do. So the IMF decided that the whole world was gonna pursue this policy which they pursued. And we actually made a few Bob the country last year, but they don't care about your logo coffee shop. They don't care about pubs, restaurants. All they care about is loan and money and getting paid money. So I was looking at listening to him as gone. We are proper fucked every time some flu comes along or something like this comes along again, because you have basically accountants making decisions on numbers. And human connection, what you spoke about there, love, any of that, that doesn't matter to accountants. The bottom line only matters. So that's where they were coming from, you know? It's in column macarity, the economists column macarity. That's who it is, yeah. It's interesting. We talked about one of the things being addiction and say, well, so I don't know, my girlfriend was walking for Johnson and Johnson and she quit about six months ago. But the biggest factor in her quitting was Johnson and Johnson's role in the opioid crisis. And it was something that was just laying so heavy on her conscience, even though she was in an entirely different division. She's just like, I can't be a part of the company that has such, it's like the local drug dealer who's pillaging a local community, but he's, you know, donates a few quitted a boxing club. You don't get to pick and choose which part of that company that you work for. It just, it laid so heavy with her. But you know, you look at, I'm not sure if you've seen the documentary Dope Sick, yeah, but it's brilliant about the opioids. I've seen her watch the whole thing on Portou Farm. It's very good. Yeah, really enjoyed it. And so it's the same company. It's Johnson & Johnson again. It's Foyzer. These are objectively big data, some of the least trustworthy companies in history. And now they're the people that are saying, no, no, look, trust these lads that paid 4.4 billion in Foynes. Not all of a sudden that was Dan. They're trustworthy now. It's like yeah, fill me once shame on you. Fill me twice shame on me Yeah, but even the force left down right I I was off work for 10 days That's for the whole pandemic and miss 10 days work So as the company was walking for it They were deemed essential but I was open Microsoft for a while up there in Condok Those lads up there They on top of their weekly walk, right?
They were doing all boards to 120 hours over time This was in the forced lockdown and I'm looking down who who decides these guys here are essential for all these other essential local services like like People meeting in the pool bar for a boy to eat that probably that's the highlight of their day who decides that now that's not essential but this is, you know what I mean? That was the bit that really graded on me. It's like we've given our power away how we live our daily lives to these people to decide what's best for us. Man, really, we didn't have to really, if you're being totally honest with yourself and you look back at the whole lockdown, it wasn't really necessary. You know, it's like wearing a mask around the place. If you're wearing a mask around the place with 20 other mask wears all over you, like, have you changed the mask today? Did you win the last time you changed it? Like you could be infecting each other. We don't know. Do you know what I mean? Like in a mask, wearing a mask into Tesco, you know what I mean? It's like, how do you know that these other people aren't affected? How do you know it's not a sterile environment, I could understand wearing a mask for a doctor in a sterile environment. Tesco or Yuri, the Pope down the yacht, is not a sterile environment. So why bother? That would be my opinion on it, you know? Well, I know there's debate about, you know, particle noises and stuff and I'm not assuming this and I'm not sure the efficacy of masks or, you know, different quality grades, masks, M9 versus normal cloth masks. And I know there's different catches splatter rates and stuff like that. But there's some stuff that just blain me. It's a pantomime. Who are we filming here? I flew to Colombia with my girlfriend that started last lockdown. And we were flying over there and we had to kick back flatbed seats. So she was asleep. The airhouse desk comes around and wakes her up when she's asleep and says, oh, you need to have your mask on your face when you're asleep. And it's and it slipped down and she's kind of like waking up in a bit of a, oh, Jesus, what's going on here? And she's like, oh, sorry, sorry. I didn't realize it slipped off. So she puts her back on and heads back asleep. Five minutes later, same air hostess comes around. Would you like to eat? Take your mask off for the next hour and a half and have as much food and drink as you want. It's like, what is going on with this pantomoid? It's like you can understand people, say doctors, right, in a hospital. You can understand they know the etiquette of the mask wearing, the washing their hands, it's over their nose, blah blah blah. You get 20 wear-as down the Tesco. You know what I mean? The roomage and the rounder phones, the pulling at their nose. This thing is null and void now. That was my whole aspect to it. These fucking clowns don't know how to wear the mask. How long have they got that mask? Has the kid worn the mask? You know what I mean? Where is this mask being? It's just like, it's like this virtue, I'm a good person because I'm wearing a mask, but it's fucking mine, kiddoity. You're not wearing it right. You know what I mean? I just, and mainly if you wanna look at it, it's hard to look at data and stuff like that. But how on the ground ripped through the country, November, December, January, the masks kind of walked out the day, don't think so. But you know what, it's, and again, I thought, hold the media just so holly accountable for how poorly they've facilitated debate in the last two years because, you know, I talked about them not facilitating the academic debate around the efficacy of lockdowns, but there's been no robust debate around the mask wearing, and the result of that is there's a load of knobs out there who wear the virtue signal, but there's also a load of, you know, I've seen someone in my local shop, I was wearing a mask and there was a guy in there not wearing a mask. And there was an old lady in there and she was noticeably shook because he wasn't wearing a mask. And she's been so conditioned by watching the news every single night and getting fucking joining his drip torture of number of deaths, number of sick, a melt of people vaccinated. She's terrified. That's horrible to see. Yeah. Yeah. They are really in the bad. My mum and dad, I think they stopped looking at the news there after a while because they just couldn't deal with it anymore. Some of their friends were like people that aren't vaccinated, should be fucking transported down to Spike Oil and then that just goes to show you how the news is having an effect on their friends. I don't really look at the news how La Porte, it kind of affected the older generation and I'm not going to mention his name on this, but there's a certain presenter who used to do the late, late year on, now he's on news talk, that going is to hang his head in shame because all he's been like a fucking second hand car salesman for a farm the past year and half and he cannot have debate, you know, with regard to he can't listen to anyone else's point of view on a lockdown or did this go right or wrong. And journalists, my interpretation is journalists says that everyone's supposed to be asking the questions, not telling the party line. Yeah, there was a time when journalism was a respected, proud tradition and a necessary check and balance on power. But it's not that anymore. Increasingly, it's independent. People blogging on sub-stack podcasters, they're increasingly the independent voice that are challenged and stuff. There's a cohort out there that was showing you as pejorative terms, anti-vax for anyone who choice to bring up. The brilliant example is Dr. Robert Malone is the creator of the RNA vaccine. Even him as the creator and founder of this technology, the vehicle that's used to deliver the vaccine to Spike Proton.
If he airs any grievances around how it's been used, he's deemed an anti-vaxxer, even though he's invented the vaccine. And he's vaccinated. Yeah. So I'm actually, I'm hoping he's provisionally agreed to get a, I'm sure if you've heard a Dr. Peter McCulloch. Yes. So he's provisionally agreed to come on the podcast for trying to nail down a date at a moment. But it's savage. One of the most published authors in, you know, the last decade in medical history. And he's been de-platformed. Like a medical doctor debating medical issues has been de-platform because he said his opinion is not relevant. Who's opinion is relevant? If a medical doctor debate medicine isn't relevant. Yeah, but it's it's it's so divisive. It's social media. It's media. It's it's like the wet my whole opinion on it is I just want to live me life. If you want to take a vaccine and deadly tapi on the back, I just want to live me life. I don't have to ever go through that, even though I trained loads, really enjoyed it. But I don't go to pubs really. I don't go to nightclubs. So it didn't really affect me. You know what I mean? I went to a couple of restaurants that I now and had outside and stuff like that. So really it didn't affect me. But it's like, I don't want to debate with people. He was right around. I couldn't care less, but I'm living my life and I just not into these restrictions. in order to name. I was listening to news talk today actually and we're talking about the rugby season and your mom was basically saying on news talk. I can't remember his name this morning and he's talking about well he's seen at the last match loads of people not wearing a mask. They were all outdoors you know what I mean? Not wearing a mask and he thinks that there should be fines or punishments put on the teams and the stadium for not enforcing this. It's like some people just love the servitude. They just don't want this to end. They're holding on to relevance. And you see it with doctors that are running these non-elected boards, you see it with media, CNN, RTA, these places are struggling. Their revenue models are broken. Their viewers are disappearing. I'm probably getting more downloads on this podcast and fucking pack in, he's getting on his morning show. They're struggling for revenue and they're really, really fighting to keep sensational headlines, keep people scared, keep coming back, but people are waking up. I think our TAF paid six stars, I think it is, over three years, 10 million. I think it's six and there are six top stars. They're talking about increasing the TV license from 160 up. They're dying. They've been dying even before the pandemic. And my opinion is, like yours, let people listen to podcasts because independent is the way it's gone because mainstream media is dying on its arse when you look at the figures that Joe Algon and getting another podcast and then your media, what you said there is, they're trying to stay relevant, put their mind on their arse. They really are, they're doing on their arse. And tech for as critical as it would be for some aspects of tech, Facebook, Twitter, for erosion of privacy and stuff, advancements in tech have facilitated podcasts. We're normally recording my podcasts, I'm having internet issues at the moment. So I'm around in my parents spare a bedroom on a microphone. That's how easy it is to record a podcast, a high quality and get it out to hundreds of thousands of people who are going to listen to it. It's phenomenal the way to sort of barriers for entry have been eroded. Now it's savage. It's savage. And it's like listening to podcasts. What if you're a gardener, if you're a solid list, the amount of stuff you can learn, you know, you have Harvard Doctors podcasting, do you know what I mean? You can learn and listen to whatever you want on a podcast, you know, without much ads or stuff like that, and learn so much, they're fucking amazing. Yeah, I just want to finish off, John, with the last one I seen, it was a while back you had a quote up on your Instagram and it was, don't go broke trying to look rich. And it was, I remember reading that at the time and I jotted it down on my diary and I start, that's cool because that's definitely, it's something that I'm seeing a lot. And there's another guy I follow you would actually really enjoy him. His name is Zach Hommel, Zach H-O-M-O-L. He's brilliant, but he put a message up earlier on, he said, I don't know who needs to hear this, but it's okay to enjoy the shit old car, it's okay to live in a small house, it's okay to live modestly. Our consumer culture encourages to live beyond our means, makes total sense why so many are unhappy and stressed out. I just have fucked me the two years of hit that nail on the head with those who quote were in a very broken place in history at the moment. Yeah, now do you know who I heard using that comment that he quoted that originally. So that quote was originally Patty Hillin told me that quote. So Patty Hillin the MMA photo in politician? Yeah, to a politician. So Patty fought in the UFC and Patty uses that quote all the time. So that's where I got that quote. But I said, where did you get that quote? And that quote came from Conor McGregor. That's Conor McGregor's quote because originally all the lads when they saw their little pro deals and they get paid their 10 grand for fointment and 10 grand for winning Conor said that to Paddy and it's like keep the tracks on DL air max. Don't be gone bananas, you know, because you don't want to be like gone broke for everyone to think you're rich and I see a lot of them doing it, you know what I mean? the L Rolex and the fucking American the whole lot. It's like, no, don't do that. Just be smart. It's a insecurity to that. It's changing what your flex is.
And this definitely took me. I had a coffee shop in Plantarff. And I ultimately, it's all for many different reasons. But one of the reasons I saw that was this, like people are coming up and going, geez, you have a coffee shop in Clonterev, you're doing well. And I'm just like, you know what, this is not this is not my flex. If I ever do well, I want to do well privately. I don't want this, you know, oh, you're doing well for yourself coffee shop in Clonterev. And it just it got me thinking that it's something that it's, you know, often contemplated. You know, my flex isn't, you know, the fucking rent in the car and paying an extra 800 quid a month on at least my flex has been able to disappear to Spain for three weeks. And don't worry about having to pay a car for 800 good a week. It's not the big job in law anymore. It's been able to pull out a podcast and chat on a microphone talk, this is work, this is hanging out. I couldn't tell you where the line is. It's change on what your definition of a flex is. And there's so many people fucking just stuck in big mortgages, big car leases. And it gives you very little versatility and freedom to make those lifestyle changes to your health, to your happiness, to your longevity. Yeah, now it's like, for instance, my son at the moment, he's an amateur and MMA, he's gone to the World Championships and Abu Dhabi on Friday. But he left school in sixth year, he left school this year. So he wants to pursue this pro career. So he said, okay, son, you can just have a phone bill, you pay your phone bill, He works, but it's like focus just on that. And I have this conversation with him all the time. When cars come along and when bills come along, your things change. You can't be so committed to what you are. You know what I mean? So experiences are what it's all about. So if you're going to, boy the Rolex for six grand. If you're going to boy the Mercedes for six grand, that has to be serviced. That death has to be serviced. Where it's like, no, fuck all that. The experiences of where it's at, getting out on your bike, going for a walk around out, getting in for a dip. That's my flex. That's what, like, I don't need any fucking money for that. Like my Sunday down in Parliament, I could spend the sun day down there dipping, it might cost me a fiver. A coffee for me and a coffee for me mate. And if I fucking stayed in the water long enough, I might get a fucking flapjack out of the brew boys next door. You know what I mean? That's about it. That's, that's all you need. You know what I mean? Like, you know, I was never liked that anyway, really, you know, what any people listening to this, I'd say, like, just keep the own overhead slow, you know, drive the shitty car, like, boy, the smaller house. It doesn't matter. You don't need people to massage your ego going, Jesus, you're doing well. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's it's the next level of confidence to understand and appreciate that, to move past the materialistic that idea of why be happy when insert blank, I'd be happy when I have the car, when I have the house, when I have the hot messes, when like, you can't, like, you need to be happy now. That's not going to make you happy. Yeah, no, no, you need like, there's no end goal to happiness. And I shared a thing today, I don't know if you've seen the Dominic Cruz from the UFC, and he's been interviewed. He's just won the UFC belt. This was a good few years ago. And Ariel Hwan, he's interviewed I'm going, oh my God, you must be so happy. You've just won the belt and dominant crews, like I'd recommend if you're not into MMA, if you're not into Foyn, follow my Instagram. And he goes, um, now I don't need this belt to make me happy. I'm happy anyway. And I just thought it was class like, it's like saying, oh, you must be so happy. You just were the Tour de France. Yeah, I've won the Tour de France, but I was happy before that. this hasn't made me happy. Happy before it, you know, it's it's just he's brilliant, you know, john, I got chatty on like before he head off, give us a show where people check out your podcast where they find you on social all that good stuff. I'm just I've only I came off to Twitter because it's just such a toxic environment. So I'm just on Instagram. It's the real talk show. I've just got one page. I'm not on Facebook. I'm not an ender like that. But check out the real talk show on YouTube and we're on Spotify as well but Instagram is where you get all the links to stuff you know. Awesome John thanks for chatting. Anthony thank you so much man. Really enjoyed it. Bye bye bye. No man 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. one 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 a racing cyclist in Ireland then you're looking for a team to race in the colours 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 roadman CC. The link is in the show notes. Hope you can join us as part of the new Roman cycling club.
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