1.Roadman, today I want to let you in on a little project that I'm…

Roadman, today I want to let you in on a little project that I'm working on. Let's cure 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 Welch, and welcome to the Roadman Podcast. Welcome back to another roadman cycling podcast, hopefully yesterday's podcast on training through events and Eddie Merck's sample training week was some food for Todd on your training ride this morning or yesterday. Today, I'm going to dive into with a little project that I'm working on at the moment. It involves a bike and involves some kick-ass podcast coming your way, but before I dive into that. I just want to take one second as always to remind you about Patreon. Guys, this isn't one of these promos you hear at the start of a podcast when somebody's like banging an ad down your throat and honestly you don't give a shit about that ad. This is actually a sincere plea because the podcast entirely depends on this section of the podcast. So although if you're maybe you're a subscriber on Patreon already, you're thinking, oh, you know, he's banging this this Patreon down our neck every day. That's not the intention, the intention is so I can keep bringing you this podcast day after day after day. And the reason I'm able to do that is because of Patreon, it's because of the small donations, the price of a beer once a month, and it keeps this podcast common. So look, if you can afford it, please do. If you're getting some value out of this podcast, if you're learning something, if you're getting the odd laugh, if you're getting a quirky idea here or there, and it's worth a beer once a month, heading over to Patreon and buying me that beer once a month because it keeps the show on the road And honestly every time I get a Patreon, it sticks a smile on my face for the entire day. You can ask any of my training partners, I'd be dancing around. I'm like, woohoo, Patreon! Get in the nest! Like, I could have sold anything online, you know, for a couple of thousand euro that day. Whatever training plans or video courses. But for some reason, the Patreon, it's such an intimate connection and I love it. So down below, there's a link to subscribe on Patreon. So please take a second and visit that at patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore watch. Right guys, it's a project and I'm actually gonna need your help on this project. So head on over to my Instagram page, roadman.side, and follow me over there. And start sending me shit on this project because I wanna convert a van into like a little mobile podcast studio slash mobile, like obviously it's mobile, it's a fucking car, it's a van. So unless I was gonna get it with no wheels, I didn't need to add the word mobile in there. for Transport and the Boyk and I want to use it for a podcast. So what I'm kind of thinking is and I know Van Leu, Van Culturist, big on YouTube and Pinterest and trust me I'm going down the rabbit hole bar on them. If there's any particular van builds you see on YouTube that are really cool definitely send them on to me. So far with the progress I've made I have myself a Honda Step Wagon Van similar to a VW transporter type size.

2.I'm not going with the huge sprinter, I want to be able to just nip…

So I'm not going with the huge sprinter, I want to be able to just nip it around town and use it as sort of an everyday car as well rather than this mammoth of a thing. So the idea is to go with the smaller VW size van, it's the Honda step wagon I have. It doesn't have a pop-up roof at the moment, so I'm going to show a pop-up roof into it which I'll host a bed. Other requirements I have, I want to have a little outdoor shower so when I get back from a trying ride I can just pop on the shower and go to go. In the boot section the boot on the Honda Step Wagon swings up so I'm going to put a tray in there and the bike's going in sideways so I'll pull the bikes out on sort of a tray back there as well I want to stick a power washer in for the bikes and a compressor. I'm obviously going to have a bed in the van I'm going to have that in the pop up roof but I also want to have a second bed. Is the second bad a good idea. My kind of theory on this is I want to have a second bed, almost like a rock and roll style bed that I can pull out downstairs. So if I'm stealth camp and this is like a phrase I've only heard in the YouTube van life videos. Stealth camp and as apparently like if I go into like I'm living in Dublin but if I drive down to Cork and I'm sleeping in the city you don't necessarily want to have the pop up roof up because it looks you know full-gassed fat Americans on holidays and you just attract unwanted attention so you can block out the windows, have the roof down and sleep inside and it just looks like a van parked on the street even though you're sleeping inside. So I want to have that little bit of stealth mode about it as well. So I'm going for the bed on the pop-up roof, brilliant for a amount of the mountains or something, but I'll tell it then I want to have the bed inside. I said power washer compressor already, I want to have a cooker, I want to have a fridge, nothing too crazy, I don't need countertops or like I need a bit of countertop but I don't I'm visiting myself making a four course meal in here. It's more just bit of food after a ride or heat up some stuff. So I'm not gonna go too crazy on that. And really the goal with this van is that something I've taught about for a long time and it's why I've pulled the trigger on it now is, look, the COVID situation is very uncertain with how much we'll be able to travel. And it seems like a sweet way to do domestic touring, but also then I've had this goal for a while to get across to the Tour de France and to follow the iconic key stages in the Tour de France and bring the podcast to you live from those stages. So I wanted something mobile where it can be at the stage but also in a second bounce back to the van record the podcast and get it out. So I'm going to have to have some sort of cool satellite wifi stuff so I'm not struggling to get these uploads. I done the tour two years ago with I done the tour like my lot I went to fucking law school like in my grammars like I done the tour.

3.Done the tour I did. So I done the tour a couple of years ago and I…

I done the tour I did. So I done the tour a couple of years ago and I was camping on the side of the road for a stage. Just camping at the top of up to where is camping around about the night before up to where is and it's absolutely brilliant fun but you're busted like you are busted the next day. It's like you didn't sleep. So you're not really ready to go riding for the day and then come home and watch the stage of the tour and then podcast. It's more that you're accepting that you're busted during in camp and mode. So I need there to be a degree of comfort to this van while at the same time quite stealthy. So it's like a mobile bike, yeah I am again my mobile. It's like a bike transport center with my tools and my home comforts of a small studio apartment and a podcasting studio all built into one. I can roll up on tour stages, I can roll up at the bottom of an iconic climb. Like sometimes I haven't ridden like, you know, of big ones in Angrulou, I'd love to ride it like I'd love to drive across Angrulou. Just stop the van near the bottom camp out there for the night and then boom up the Angrulou the next day and come back and podcast on that the following day and tell you it's all about how I suffered all the way up the Angrulou in inhumane levels of pain. So that's the goal. The project has just kicked off. I've got the Honda Step Wagon van. That's in starting to get fixed up, make sure the passes are in CT, which are our national car tests to show it's roadwardy. It goes throughout the moment, then I'm going to start picking out bits like the awning, working on the bike storage, rack at the bottom, trying to figure out electrics and do I need a rooftop box or a box on the back and all those bits and pieces. I've got to be a massive learning core of if anyone has done it before, I already have links to cool videos, definitely pop them on. I'm going to keep you posted on the journey how it's going and over on Instagram, follow me, because I'm gonna start posting step by step by step the progress on this roadman van. Roadman, chat to you tomorrow. Hey everybody, it's Anthony again. Really quick, I want to invite you to join arguably the best thing I've ever put out inside the roadman community. It's a challenge. It's a challenge called a 14-day Kickstarter challenge. So regardless of where your fitness is at right now, this is going to be the catalyst for making it faster and making it leaner. I've created this challenge to take the guesswork out of everything. It's 14 days of training plans regardless of what your level is. There's the master's beginner advanced, there's meal plans shopping list and even a video course holding your hand and talking you true at all. So what I recommend you do right now is just stop everything, press pause on this audio and go to roadmansoycling.com forward slash 14 day or check out the link in the bio. roadmancycling.com slash 14 day.