On today's show, I speak with John Dorn. 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, and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Welch and welcome to the Roadman Podcast. Roadman, welcome back to another Roadman Cycling Podcast. It's interview day and we're chatting with John Dorn. Sometimes in Roadman I get these kind of weird pinch me moments and when I look at how far we've come, obviously I've had amazing cycling guests on but that's really my niche. I know cyclists, I know cycling. So you can put a lot of them down to maybe favors from friends. But when I get a guest of the statue of John on, it really gives me that moment. Okay, this is really coming forward. John is the VP and general manager for Outside Magazine. And now to put this into context, Outside Magazine drew all its platforms which John kind of oversees the 70 million monthly act of outdoor enthusiasts and like the brands that he oversees in the cycling industry alone because outside magazine might be super familiar to you as a cycling fan. But the brands that are underneath that, it's VeloNews, it's Cycling Tips, it's like the Bobby and Yen's podcast which I've only started listening to the last couple of days is absolutely brilliant from VeloNews. You've got triathletes, you've got Peloton, like There's piles and piles of brands sitting underneath. Under the pink bike, all these just sitting underneath his umbrella. That's just the cyclones. He has the runner ones, trail runner, backpacker live outside, the outside podcast, out and back, ridiculous, ridiculous number of brands. On top of that, John is just really a super interesting dude. It was great to sit down and chat with him. He's a multiple Ironman finisher. He's an outdoor enthusiast, everything from camping in the wilderness to fighting grislies. He's a brilliant advocate for what we do, an act of outdoor lifestyle. It's my pleasure to welcome John Dorn to the Role Man Cycling Podcast. Thank you for having me. Man, I'm excited about this. You're looking pretty chilled out for a man in your position. Well, I've just come back from a beautiful early morning run here in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I'm in our office. So got up before dawn and got half dozen miles in. So that's always a great way to start today. So for listeners who aren't super familiar with outside, you guys have 70 million monthly active outdoor enthusiasts. Is that right? That's correct. And we as a company have grown quite significantly in the last year outside Interactive Inc is the new name of our company. We rebranded after the acquisition of Outside Magazine, which is the leading publication for Adventure and Lifestyle Enthusiasts in North America. Also in our company are a range of endurance, cycling, and outdoor titles that include Peloton Magazine, Vellow News, Cycling Tips, Pinkbike, Trail Forks, Gaia GPS, Yes. You got it right. Yeah. We've got quite the collection of titles for all the sports that I've always loved to play. So you're sitting above this and you're trying to quarterback this crazy mix of different media outlets. So how much of a challenge is that? kind of reimagining how content is delivered. And by that, I mean, like I'm a real romantic and I love the written word, but it seems like we're in an era where the written word is just less and less valuable and you need to keep reimagining new ways to get content into an audience's hands, head, ears. There are challenges on several levels and it's a really fabulous and interesting, intellectually challenging place to be right now. One of the challenges, of course, is how do you take all of these titles that have a unique voice and a new position in the market and do different things for their audiences and make them work together, right? All of those cycling titles, for instance. Another challenge is how do you, sort of, what one of the things that we're trying to do is redefine the media model from one that is, for decades, been really dependent on advertising revenue. Frankly, that's what's made it go. And there's been always sort of a bit of tailwagging dog involved in that. One of our premises, if not our leading premise, is that we want to transform the way we think about this business to be more consumer focused and consumer revenue driven and oriented. And so with that, we have created a membership as opposed to a subscription.
And in our membership, which we call outside plus, it includes not just content, but also services and utilities and access to events and special experiences with our editors. So it's more of a lifestyle bundle, if you will, that we're trying to create to bring, to sort of inspire and facilitate participation first and foremost. But sorry. Are you trying to move away a little bit more from the advertising model? I ask is the advertising model, I think, especially in podcast land, it's something I haven't taken on a show sponsor, you know, and our download figures are getting, you know, pretty significant in terms of there's not there's a lot of cycling podcasts, but there's not that many that really got any traction. And you know, I'm sure you'll see the numbers from some of your publications, and it is difficult to get that sort of traction in the cycling market. But I find that if you're a podcaster specifically and I start telling my audience that my protein is the greatest protein supplement out there. Take my protein, go to visitmyprotein.com for 20%. Hold on, he's clearly lying about this. If he's lying about this, what else is he lying about? Has he done the research when I'm talking about contrasting two different types of training or I'm contrasting, you know, recovery methods between saunas and coal therapy. Am I a trustworthy source of information now that I've basically prostitute myself out? Or is the audience, you know, discerning enough to say on one hand, the podcast needs to make revenue. So he's allowed to be a little bit disingenuous on this topic, but we believe him to be sincere on this topic. I mean, you're, you're hitting at the heart of it, right? which is authenticity and credibility. And I believe that there are ways to integrate advertising and advertising messages into almost any media, but if it's what you're describing, where it's so plainly just to pay to play, you're absolutely right. The advertiser is not gonna see that it click through, the audience is not gonna believe in it. There are ways that we work with advertisers that I think are really genuine, that where we see good engagement, a lot of those are in where we work with people to create content together, where there's an athlete who's doing something really special, and a brand can come together with a media property to create a video, for instance, or some kind of experience that is not first and foremost about shilling for a product. But in the long run, The way that advertisers are spending in the market is changing, and it has been changing for a decade. And so this is both opportunity and a necessity for us to come up with a different way to fund our business. And we're following models that have been proven by other media and tech companies so far. It must be such an exciting space to be in because I love observation. And why I started the podcast was I remember just I have buddies in the advertising space they talk about the budgets that companies are spending on TV advertising still. But that didn't line up my just pure observation when I observed myself, my friends, my family watching TV. Most of it was on demand, Salab Shum, where they skipped the ad. If they didn't skip the ad, if it was a live event, like a sporting event, as soon as the ads came on, like the mobile phone came out straight away, they were scrolling on that. Or else they were often the kitchen making tea, talking with friends, but nobody was paying attention to the actual TV and the advertisers who were paying huge money there. So it's like, well, this is a broken medium. And for me, podcasting, just it's just so beautifully positioned for what we love doing, being outside, being active, because it's so intimate, it's in your ear, and it's so passive. I still get to enjoy the bike, the role and the trail. Absolutely. And I'm my way down here to Santa Fe, which is about a six hour drive from Boulder, where I live. I caught up on five or six of my favorite podcasts. It's, you know, it's, and the time went by, you know, like that, listening to good storytelling. Although one of the episodes that I listened to of the, from a recent outside podcast was a story of a guy who got bit by a rattlesnake in Yosemite. And the inside of his leg turned to jelly essentially because he had a very adverse reaction. And so now I'm terrified of going back to Yosemite because I've always been terrified of snakes.
It seems like these are two polls, Poland in opposite directions. It's a tip or strategy you'd give to somebody who's ambitious into career, but is also trying to build this kick-ass lifestyle. There are a couple, Anthony. I've always believed, and I think I can bear this added practice, that being active every day is critical to my business success. And it's as simple as, If I take a lunch ride, I know that I'm going to be fresher and sharper and happier in the afternoon. So I function better in the office and in meetings. Tip wise, I schedule time on my calendar. My colleagues know not to violate that by putting that meetings on top of it. So I actually have part of my business calendar is workout time. That's great. And I'm also the owner of our LunchRide Slack channel at work. I am very self-consciously building a culture in the company that getting out and being active is part of the lifestyle that we want to create in our business. You can almost call it the end of that word, instead of culture, I'm building a cult within work. Well, there is that too. I mean, it can be a little bit intimidating to be a first-timer in this group when you roll out and see a handful of folks from Villanuez and outside. Pretty fit crew that we roll with here. You know what? I still think the winner in cycling is the company who bridges the gap between health enthusiasts and your sort of weekend warriors. There's too big of a hurdle. I look my girlfriend's just recently got into cycling and she's coming out on rides and you know the first problem, they're massively male-dominated. But the second problem, you've got this specific uniform, this specific vocabulary around that you need to dress a certain way and as you move up the ranks, you know, you're fucking helping in your shoes, you need to be the same color, everything needs to be pristine. What oil that makes us feel quite safe and part of the group when we're in that community, it's also quite exclusionary for somebody who isn't in that community and trying to just step into it. And I feel like the company that bridges that gap, Peloton is the best effort out of, I think, the company that bridges that gap, I think is going going to be a huge winner. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And I think that exists to my eye more in cycling than in say hiking or running, in part because of the uniform, in part because of the equipment. And it's something that we're grappling with right now in the moment of trying to figure out how we want to produce content for and facilitate participation in e-bike, right? Because this is This is a category that is aligned with cycling because of the equipment, but in many ways, demographically, is not at all like the core cycling community. And if we approach it, you know, sort of with our core cycling hat on, I think we'll miss the mark because, you know, because my mom's buying an e-bike and she needs to know how to maintain it and how to ride it and what the safety protocols are and so on. But getting advice from a guy once he was so indecipherable that he had his kit professionally tailored. He was not a pro, he was not even a pro. Was he a super fat dude? No, he also had a number of funny habits. that's, you know, she wouldn't get very far if that's who is delivering, you know, content to her, right? So, so I think you make a really good point about finding a way to speak to all levels. But even the e-bike, I haven't figured it. I love the idea. I think this outdoor act of community is so small that I really am disappointed when I see people trying to sub-divide and then go, okay, we're the cool part of it. And this is the non-cool part of it and try and discriminate against it. I think eBikes is brilliant. Anything that can, you know, onboard more people into this little cult that we all love is brilliant. But I just don't, I haven't figured out how eBikes fit into the weekend group ride, you know, because the hierarchy on a Saturday chain gang spin is predicated on who's fitter and they're sitting at the top of the a hierarchy. And you can you show your fitter and you show you've made better lifestyle choices by being forced up the hills, forced to the coffee shop. But now you show somebody into the mix who hasn't trained his heart isn't as strict with diet.
And now they're forced to the coffee shop. It fucks with the hierarchy. It does for sure. And I'll let you solve that problem with because I've never been first to a coffee shop. So that's, I'm kind of at the back with the guy who, here's the way I look at it. I'm at the back having a great time trying to keep up, happy to keep up with the younger fitter lighter guys. With the guy who has not been on a bike for 10 years, used to ride a lot, loves the experience, has been missing it like crazy and for whom an e-bike is the way to get back into it. Yeah. I see like a handicap and golf. Yeah, he can't keep up otherwise. So he is finding his way back to fitness by virtue of this new technology that is closing a gap that would have kept him out of the sport otherwise. Yeah, it's brilliant. I know you've spent a lot of time backpacking, climbing, camping. have you explored much or have you looked through your publications at gravel cycling? This is an area I've increasingly interested in this year and I used to do quite a bit of climbing and I see climbing and gravel cycling as very similar to sort of countercultural aspect about them. Yeah, I'm in Rapture. As you noted, my background really, I started in will of just travel with pretty deep woods way into the mountains, bushwhacking in Alaska kind of backpacking. And that led me to adventure racing, which led me to endurance and expedition mountain biking. And so I've always been partial to sort of going to the more wild, more remote places. And to me, for me personally, sort of the beauty of gravel cycling is the evolution of the technology to enable more comfortable, more long distance riding. Many years ago, Road on my mountain bike pulling a Bob trailer, the Demster Highway up in the Yukon. dirt road that runs the length of the Yukon. And I want to go back, do that again, except this time on a gravel bike and head over to Fairbanks and then ride south through Alaska. That's a long hell dream. I have it and I think with the way gravel bikes are going, not just the bike itself but the related equipment is going to make that a far easier, more pleasant trip. I'm in fact, having a, I'm 6 foot 6. So I have a hard time sort of shopping off the rack. I'm having a custom gravel bike built right now. No, it's not for you. It's a firefly. It's a boutique shop out of Boston, Massachusetts that does titanium and titanium carbon blend builds. Awesome. Do you know who's Fantofte? Yeah, sure. You should check out, I had spent often the podcast a couple of months ago, but the sort of rides you're talking about these crazy off-peace rides town trailers. Like he's the king of this stuff. Yeah, you should check out some of the things he's done. And now because he's retired from the world tour, he's doing some awesome rides at the moment. And every time I flick onto his Instagram, it just lights that spark of adventure in me. So you've sort of spent a lot of time in nature through the years and what I kind of love about when I get to spend time in nature, it really helps me understand what humans as creatures, what we're designed for. And then when I come step back into the real world, I kind of get this new lens to interpret my life through. And by that, I mean, if I can understand that we're designed to be outdoors, we're designed to forage for food. We're designed to go long periods without eating. I just have so much more perspective when I come back inside and I'm like, well, I'm spending like 80% of my day looking at a screen indoors in a warm, heated house with as much food as I want five meters from me. I know you're a huge advocate of sort of reconnecting with nature. How important is that for you? and when did all that start? It's absolutely nint into my life. It's a degree that I almost don't think about it as something separate from, you know, it's who I am and it's part of how I stay healthy. And there may be two ways that I think about this to share with you. One is I've commuted by bike to work for almost 20 years, every single day, rain or shine. When there's been too much snow I got at the cross-country skis And I've always been fortunate to live you know less than 10 miles from the office So I my day my regular workday starts with 20 to 25 minutes on the bike And it ends in the same fashion and I joke with my wife that it saved me hundreds of thousands of dollars in therapeutic You know counseling 100% right and it's I I see the sunrise over the flatarines in the morning as I'm riding to work and it's a form of meditation for me that helps me move into the day in a productive and positive fashion.
At the end of the day, when I'm riding home, I might see a coyote chasing a rabbit. It takes my mind off of the stress of the day and I arrive home ready to be with my family and to be in a positive mood. I had Anthony D. Clemede on last week. He has a company biohacking secrets. And this was his big frustration. And as we talk more, it was like such a huge frustration as me for me as well. Over the last 24 months, the global media agenda has been dominated with COVID. And you know, whether you're a pro-vax, anti-vax, regardless, what we missed as a collective was an opportunity to put health, fitness, and lifestyle at the very forefront of the national and international agenda. Yeah, absolutely. It really is a first and foremost of mental health benefit for me to do that specific. Of course I ride like crazy, I'm training for an Ironman right now, but those sort of junk miles of the morning of the evening is my therapy. And along the way I'm burning a couple hundred extra calories which is always good because I'm kind of addicted the chocolate chip cookies. So. The other thing I discovered many, many years ago in adventure racing about the experience of being in nature and pushing yourself and going is that at every turn I've discovered that what I think the body is capable of is only the tip of the iceberg. And my first and biggest lesson in that was during a race called Primal Quest, which was you know, a multi-day expedition race. I participated in one in Southern Utah in, I think, 2008. In the summer, it was bloody hot. And we were out as a team for eight and a half days. And somewhere in the middle of that expedition, you know, we were going 21 hours a day, swimming, kayaking, trail running, mountain biking, repelling, climbing, just not a stop. we averaged about three hours of sleep at night. And somewhere in the middle of that, I literally felt my body adapt and change and go from being tired and fatigued from only three hours in night of sleep to being ready to go on three hours a night. And the sleep deprivation curve that I got passed was really incredibly revealing. And the second half of the race, it wasn't officially a negative split because it wasn't that kind of course, but physically I felt like I had a negative split on the last four days of that race because my body at some point said, oh, okay, we're doing something different here. We've got to change the way the metabolism is working right now. And that to me has influenced the way I've approached everything I do outdoors from then on and it felt like there's no threshold or sealing that I can't try to push a little bit more. The body is an amazing machine. And I'm often baffled to it, like some of the long rides that I do. And you're, it's pretty much the same as your car. You just keep sticking fuel into it. It just keeps going. But it's so resilient to good weather, bad weather. You know, a crash, lack of food, lack of water. It'll find ways to keep going. It'll slow up or it'll speed down. but it'll find ways to keep going. And it works so hard getting clients to just push to that place where they think the ceiling is because I promise you, the ceiling's not there. It's an imaginary ceiling. You're gonna push past that and you're gonna go like far, far beyond it. And you've seen, we've seen in recent years with the, you know, my borsten social media, some crazy superhuman feats that people are able to accomplish and massive feats of endurance to David Goggins doing, you got 10,000 pull-ups in a single day or something. I mean, the biggest ceiling is the brain, right? Is that voice in your head that's telling you to stop? And I think one of the things I love most now about sort of the types of endurance sports that I do is getting, sort of recognizing when that voice is gonna start chirping at me and sort of living in that moment of like working through, like how do I get the positive mentality back to keep going another two hours or three hours or four hours? And that mental struggle almost has become more interesting and satisfying to me than the actual physical feet. I heard a cool story a while ago. I often wrestle with this. I love the outdoors and I love being active so much and I wanted to just sort of get my love get buddies who I see in bad health, whether that's physical or mental and drag them in and say, this is the way bro do this and you're going to be so happy.