Today I want to talk to you about what it means to be a roadman
Today I want to talk to you about what it means to be a roadman. 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-chevages? That is the question, this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Welch and welcome to the roadman podcast. Roman! Welcome back to another Roman Cycling Podcast. It's another Monday, it's another week. They tick, tick, tick past us. The sands of time wait for no man. The weather forecast here in Dublin for the week is...Glamen Glamen on the news, but we're outside of that. The weather forecast is also Dume and Glamen. Men to be snow hitting us this week and spend bit of time living in Toronto and Canada is a country that's equipped for the snow. When the snow hits a fleet of guys come out salt in the streets, play on the roads and they can deal with serious amounts of snow and it's possible like I've seen buddies that say they ride into work every single day of the week in Toronto, 3.64 of all year round. Dublin, we get a little bit of snow hitting us, the game is over, it shuts down. So let's see where this week takes us. What I want to talk about today is what does it mean to be a roadman? And in a lot of ways, this is a very long overdue podcast, but it was prompted by my mind just wondering about about just the origins of society and the tribal gatherings that people built themselves into. And the modern manifestation of these tribal gatherings is the groups we are in on Facebook, the groups that we hang out on in Twitter, the podcasts we listen to, the cycling clubs we go out with, these are our modern tribes and this is how we get our social connection. So I started thinking about roadman and what are the values that are common among our tribal members? And that's what I want to talk about today because I had some interesting introspection as I was going on this one. Before I jump into that roadman, be a roadman and support the roadman podcast because that's what roadman do. They're They're honorable. We're going to get on to the trades in a minute. Roadmen are honorable and they support their fellow community members. So please head on over to patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore Walsh, boy me the price of a point of beer once a month to say thanks for the roadman podcast, thanks for the insights, thanks for the laugh, thanks for the education and do the honorable thing. Be a roadman. The link is in the boil to make that small little donation to keep the show on the road, folks. So where does roadman come from? It's actually a good little story. It was 2017 and I was racing the Ross here in Ireland. Ross is just Irish language for a race. And it's our big race. It's our showpiece event. It's an eight day UCI 2.2. And actually the first time I rode it was back in college in 2010. I'm aging myself here, lads. 2010 was the first Ross I rode and That at that time I deferred my college exams thinking this could be my only shot ever to ride the Ross might never happen again and then fast forward eight editions later and 2017 I was riding this for aqua blue And it was my Twitter for Ross with aqua blue great bunch of lads there a great bunch of teammates and friends But on this particular stage seven, we had one really fast sprinter on the team and we felt he had a chance for the stage today and JLT had the jersey from JLT Condor, formerly Rafa Condor, had the jersey.
They wanted to control the race to hold the jersey
So they wanted to control the race to hold the jersey. We wanted to control the race for a bunch of sprints. So stage seven, we decided to have a mutual understanding. We put a man up on the front of the race. put them on there to help control a breakaway of five men that was there. So I went to work in the way on the front of the bunch taking three-minute turns with a pylon mine, Robbie John McCarty, and the two of us were trading off in the rain for what seemed like hours three minutes on, three minutes off, three minutes on, three minutes off. And this went on until, you know, from a 160k stage or so on the rain, it went on for a hundred odd-kay of just pretty much misery. And we weren't talking even though our buddies, we weren't talking a whole pod because, you know, we were riding the herd on the front, and it was pouring rain, a typical miserable Irish day to rain going sideways. And at one particularly bad downpour, we were sort of riding past each other on that change of our point, and he just looked across, I mean, he said, just a pair of roadmen in it. And I told him I didn't really think much of it. And then Robbie moved over here and we became trying to partners and I often told that story to him and kind of reflecting back on it as to what was a roadman or what is a roadman and why did I take that name and name the podcast after that roadman. Because roadman for me, it has a series of values and that's why in that simple moment, I think that's what he was trying to convey. It's like a mutual respect, a mutual appreciation for the hard work each person had put in to get there, a mutual respecter as the French would say, Le Métier, dedication to the craft, their application to the grind. And when I look at roadman, I think about, suppose it, firstly I think about habits and good habits and roadmen just have a series of good habits. like you look after your bike, you maintain your equipment. You clean your kit as soon as you come in from training, your kit goes off and it just goes into the washing machine. Your tires are inflated before every spin. You don't go out on a spin without tubes, looking for handouts from other people. These are just basic roadman habits. And then we have kind of our traditions that, they're so essential to everything we are a cyclist, but they're being so diluted in a very poor value system cross cycling at the moment from our wifts to our stravists, to our trainer road, none of them are fostering any sort of environment of handing down these values and traditions, which have been handed down for a decade after decade after decade from one group of cyclists to the next. They're not bound by geographic borders, they're not bound by language colour, race, these are just traditions that we hold sacred. It's the reason in 2012 I was able to go from riding in Ireland to fitting into a group in France where I didn't speak the language at all, but I understood the language is cycling, I understood this intricate system of hand gestures we have of just moving the hand up to motion, you understand and flick at a wrist to right to indicate whole, just the way you shift your weight around the corner. This value system is something that roadmen take seriously and it's something we appreciate and we look to pass down, like we value the group ride, but also we value our place within the group ride. We realized that at one point we were the beginner and as we journey through the group ride we don't get to start casting dispersions down on people who are now beginners and look at them and think no I don't want to train with them anymore.
Only want to train with a subset of my cool friends and I want to…
I only want to train with a subset of my cool friends and I want to stick to my power zones. That's not what Rob Men do. We realized that we have an ever-changing place within that group ride that we go from beginner and very much from a student to a teacher and when somebody else comes into the group ride, we now have a duty to indoctrinate them into the customs of that group ride. Roadmen also, we're not about showboating, we're about hard work, it's not about going out every day the week and posting stuff on Strava to show people how strong you are and gloating how much stronger you are than someone else. Shown, you know, my time versus your time on a Strava segment. That output isn't important, it's the process of getting out on your bike regardless of your fitness levels. It's non-judgmental, it's inclusive, encouraging everyone to go out regardless of their ability and help other people along. I go out on training spins all the time with vastly different levels of people from guys who have been pro to guys who have never raced all in the same training group. And roadmen, their students, they constantly have that beginner's mind because they realize no matter what sort of perceived status they've achieved in the sport, there's always somebody who knows more, there's always somebody who's faster, there's always somebody who's stronger, there's always somebody who's more experienced. So they hold themselves confidently but humbly and they give a hand to lift others up to them. They don't climb up the ladder and then pull up the ladder after themselves and say, that's it, I've made it, I'm pulling up the ladder, no one else is going to make it. When roadmen make it up there, they put a hand down and they pull other people up because roadmen were all on this journey together. And if you're listening to this podcast, you are a roadman. So I thank you for that. And that podcast was long overdue because yeah, it wasn't even it was unspoken up to this point as to what a roadman is. But there we go. We have our, our forced roadman manifesto, our roadman credo. It's definitely let me know what you think it is. So if you're enjoying this podcast, screen capture this and tag me over on Instagram because I love to know just who's listening and what you think of it. And if you think the podcast is valuable and other people should listen, you know, tag me on it and tag them on it as well. Roadman, thanks for listening and I'm going to be back again 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. 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 you faster and making you the leaner. I've created this challenge to take the guess walk 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 roadmancycling.com forward slash 14 day or check out the link in the bio that roadmancycling.com slash 14 day.