One Bike to Do it All? All Road Vs Gravel bike, Adventure Cycling and Bike Tech with Fara Cycling

Can one bike truly do it all? In this episode of the Buzzalong Cycling Podcast we dive into the All Road vs Gravel debate and what is the difference between an All Road and an Endurance bike. If you are Curious about the perfect bike for bikepacking and ultra cycling don’t miss this episode as we uncover the latest tech innovations with Jeff Webb, Founder of Fara Cycling.

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⏰ Timecodes ⏰

00:00 Introduction
00:39 Origins of Fara Bicycles
02:17 The Oslo Project and Fara’s DNA
03:50 Can You Make One Bike Do It All?
05:22 Difference between All Road, Road & Gravel Bikes
06:17 Comfort and Bike Geometry
07:44 Endurance Bikes
09:57 What is the Best Bike for Ultra Cycling & Bikepacking?
12:20 Bike Tech and Releases
15:23 Ultra Races
16:21 Tour Divide and Badlands Bike Setup
18:29 Can You Use a All Road Bike for Gravel Races?
20:08 All Road Vs Gravel Bike
23:09 The Ideal Bike Setup
25:50 What is the Difference Between All Road and Endurance Bikes?
27:37 Which Bike isThe Best for Riding Long Distances?
29:59 Changing Trends in Cycling
33:59 Inspiring Others and Personal Journeys
38:31 Outro

#bikes #biketech #cyclingpodcast

This is basalone cycling the podcast that brings you on thrilling adventures in the world of cycling Ultra cycling and by packing I’m your host Sherry today’s episode is brought to you by Balon coffee check out the coffee in the link in the description and bio today is

All about bikes is there a bike to rule them all what’s the optimal geometry can you have one bike instead of three to help me answer all these questions is joining me today Jeff Webb founder of far bicycles welcome to the show Jeff thank you thank you for having me thank

You Jeff I’m really curious uh I think a lot of the audience uh wonder you know uh which bike to choose and there is uh this talk now about endurance versus Allroad bikes and I think that’s uh something that uh far really focus on adventure bikes so can you tell us a bit

More how did you started uh far how where is the idea coming from sure yeah so I mean uh originally cyclist basically I think the people involved are kind of embrace all the different types of cycling so I wouldn’t say we’re specifically one type of cyclist or

Another but um when uh we got to so the history little also there’s a move involved like we move from one place of Norway to Oslo and when we arrived in Oslo we we saw I saw like there was a type of writing that that goes on there

And has a bit to do with the geography around the around the city like we have this big Forest that’s in close to the city and uh we saw was that you know people were were combining rotting in the forest on these really nice gravel roads and together with uh Road riding

Basically so I mean they weren’t really like going for a gravel ride per se they were like they were just going for a ride and that ride would involve both like Road riding and and these Forest roads and you have in Norway like a lot

Of um roads will be asphalt for a while and then they’ll just turn to gravel and keep going and so either you have to turn around and go home or or you you have the right equipment so that was really like the inspiration for us for

What we called the oso project back in 2000 we wanted to to create a bike that was like perfectly sort of designed for this type of combination thing different types of thoses exactly so would you say uh that’s uh kind of the DNA of far this uh

Kind of the Oslo project to to have this versatility to have an adventure no matter where you go and not be limited but what your buik can do yeah I think that that’s pretty well said like we um you know as I said we we’re a bunch of people that embrace all

Different types of cycling and and not necessarily sort of pigeon hold into one category or another and so we like our bikes to be versatile so that they can you know they work for different types of riding in different types of situations and and that you know also

Means that you don’t have to have three or four bikes in your closet like you can you can get away with one bike that will serve you for many different purpos exactly I think there’s been a quite some discussion about like uh I mean you are a professional cyclist yourself in

The 80s so I wonder you see all the pros they have different bike like Road time trial gravel uh but most people I think uh are thinking okay maybe is there a bike to do it all like uh what’s your thoughts on this I I guess it goes also

I noticed with endurance or Old Rad people might think about okay maybe I can have one bike and then switch tires or what’s your thoughts on it I think there’s um first of all like there’s there you know back if you look back uh five or 10 years like everybody

Just watched the T to France and they thought like well that’s the bike I need and now you know people are starting to realize more and more that that’s actually not the case and this there seems to be more of a separation between what the pros are doing and what the

Normal people are doing and we really design our bikes for normal people like you know we don’t we’re not involved in high level you don’t really you don’t have any kind of aims towards that so um we our bikes are designed for regular ordinary people who you know to fix the

Bike themselves want to pay to get it fixed which is even worse so you want things that work are very simple and and very pragmatic exactly mhm uh and I noticed for example yeah what you mentioned like a bike created uh for people but uh what was your

Thought uh when you behind uh the bikes like the old road when you design it the geometry uh can you explain a bit more like I’m really confused sometimes between what is the difference of an endurance bike an Allroad a gravel in terms of geometry maybe stiffness why is uh the

As like kind of comfortable and design like you know uh to to be used uh for long periods of time or can you explain a bit the the concept how you came up with these designs sure so um basically yeah I mean a road bike that’s meant for performance you know high performance

There’s no real um concession or compromise when it comes to comfort right like the pros are are you know highly trained they’re very flexible and they race for you relatively short periods of time if it’s you know maybe five six hours at the most and so they

Can handle like a high degree of of discomfort uh but for the rest of us and then you know even Mike Ste included is it’s like Comfort is actually something that will very directly result in you having a good day on the bike you know like kind of that’s what we’re all

Looking for right it’s like we just want to go and have have a nice ride and have a good time and yeah we want to go fast and we want to have fun we certainly don’t want to you know compromise like on the the the comfort factor because it’s just going

To make things not fun so when we designed the F the Allroad you know that Comfort was like one of the biggest factors we took into consideration we did this by there’s two ways to to achieve it first of all there’s three ways actually one of them is the tire

Tire clearance so when you have bigger tires lower tire pressure to B have more com Fort that’s pretty easy second one is the the structural design of the frame so we use a curv seat stay we drop the seat stays on the rear so that gives more leverage

For the seat tube and that will um you know allow the seat tube to flex more so there’s sort of some structural things that are put into play there and then the last one is the carbon fiber the The Weave the carbon fiber layups that are used so it’s engineered

There sort of a deflection that’s engineered into the so those three factors together will basically determine the of your frame and I want to say one more thing because you know what there’s kind of like a stigma around this uh you know the the endurance uh category right

It’s almost like the ew like you know and a lot of people relate that to kind of boring bikes and you sitting up like like a granny and stuff and of course nobody want you want to look good on the bike and you want you know should

Most of all should be responsive and and it should be fun to ride and and that was like I think that’s kind of where we really hate the is like it has the Comfort will go long distances but it’s also really really fun it’s actually

It’s a bike I every every day it’s it’s my favorite bike of our collection and and um just we want to make sure that we kept it kept the fun factor in that bike for sure yeah exactly that’s actually something I noticed when I try all road

For the first time it was like actually fun to write and it was very easy to set up you know normally you have to really tweak a lot of things to make it work for you but it was like I just got it I

I sat on it and it was like kind of ready to write and it was fun and comfortable to write I think uh the geometry also is quite forgiving so sometimes like a yeah if a bike is like a road racing a bike is less forgiving so if you really have to adjust

Everything to make it work for you but uh we recently went on a trip in in Taiwan and a lot of people use the far or road rental and most of them they didn’t have to adjust much and they said wow I could ride on this bike for like H

Seven days so I think yeah I think uh that’s something like uh that really impressed me um would you say you took um some learnings I know you are a Ultra cyclist from your Ultra cycling career and um put it into the design of the

Bikes I mean one of the things I noticed uh when I found out about far I was like wow the integrated by packing bags is something that I really uh was looking for and um the fact that you can take the bags easily in and out is really

Useful for Ultra races would you say that is inspired by your Races by your experience yeah actually well yeah I mean I would say yeah before when we were designing developing the bike I was actually doing more bike packing than than racing so um I think there’s you know there’s been some

Frozen fingers and you know when you get there where you’re going it’s dark and all this stuff so this kind of like Simplicity and things should be really easy to use and and nobody likes drps and on their frame so basically when when we I was I was

Bike packing and did a couple of races when we were during the development and the the bike was for sure meant for that purpose you like it was we built this bike for bike packing and Ultra racing and um the uh it was basically the first

Time you know that I know of that where a bik company was like where we developed the bags and the bike at the same time and developed them to be a system and so the bags fit perfectly into the frame and there’s as you’re saying like there’s a there’s a snapin

System that that allows you to remove and put the bike the bags in simply so um and all this was like we did all this at the same time so I think that was like a pretty exciting opportunity to uh to really have like a well thought

Through design and then we have some ideas like we’re going we places where we want to take it to next so it’s uh yeah we’ll we’ll see where we go with that yeah that sounds exciting and any exciting projects for this year uh yeah what we can expect from Far

Yeah some some things I can’t talk about of course but uh the biggest one that right now that I think is that a lot of people have seen and you’ve been riding yourself is the like that’s um we designed an integrated cockpit that has some features that are are very unique

Compared to uh everything else on the market so um once again it’s like a little bit like the F like the Allroad like we you know it’s it’s a little bit outside of what a lot of people are doing and and I think people are it’s

Going to be raise some eyebrows for sure and then and then when people understand like you know what the features are and the functionality like I think people are really going to love it and it’s really really nice to so lots of great feedback so we’re looking forward to

Getting that live it’s actually not very far away it’s a few weeks away now to going live and and then yeah from there we we got some more things cooking but I I can’t talk too much about everything oh so I’m interesting inside so you know stay tuned for the new developments huh

Actually uh some of you of my viewers might have spotted the cockpit I got a lot of questions about it so yeah keep an eye to to see what’s next and I’m wondering so you do ultra races yourself and You’ seen a bit how the scen uh the

Scene has changed there’s more and more people getting into by packing Ultra endurance cycling Adventure cycling and uh what’s the events you are more looking forward to or that you think uh yeah you would like to do like in the coming years or this year any exciting

Plans for the season yeah yeah so um first of all I would like to say like you know as I mentioned before like we Embrace and I personally embrace all kinds of cycling and that’s one of the things I love about the the bike packing Community is you have like um it’s such

A diverse group of people you know to even if you go to a race like it’s you know the the guy who comes first and the person who comes in last just have like completely different experiences uh but we’re all on two wheels and we’re all

Having fun and and uh I think it’s it’s important that you know we don’t get too hung up in the competition of all this because you know that the spirit of bike packing is really just about exploring the world on on your bike and and going to new places and experiencing new

Things having Adventures so that’s really important that we preserve that and um at the same time yeah the the racing side of it is is really exciting and um I I’ve sort of gotten more and more G down the RO I think the last few years and

It’s become I enjoy the fact that it’s it’s a it’s a challenge on several different levels you have obviously your physical ability you have to manage your body and fueling and you the stuff you have all your equipment like if you know if something on your equipment fails

There’s a good chance that you’re not going to achieve your objectives you know if it’s a light or a battery or something other and you’re not prepared then you’re done basically um and then there’s the mental part of it too which I find really interesting and I’ve been

Sort of diving deeper into just sort of what what at least I’m capable of and what what what you can do and a little sleep you can function on and things that I two years ago or three years ago I thought it was never possible you done

And I think that’s pretty cool like it’s it’s it’s a fun you know as you get older through life you have to challenge yourself in different ways and I can’t go fast anymore so I just have to keep going slow and keep going basically that’s about all I can

Do no it’s good and I uh I have have to say that um after doing Badlands now twice and itally divide done three times and enjoy the some more of the off-road stuff so like more gravel style and even some trail riding so um I’ve got my site

Set on riding the tour divide this year which is oh wow kind of the granddaddy in over in North Amer America and our yeah current gravel bike might be a little bit under respect for that so we’ll see what I pull out of the bag to to ride over there and then

Badlands is you that’s my favorite event so I’m looking forward to going back there and I was maybe a little bit spoiled this year because uh the first day at Badlands was uh you cold by Spanish standards which means it was like 20 degrees which was perfect

Temperature for a lot of us uh Northerners so um maybe if I go back and it’s uh 40 degrees again we’ll see fun I think that was wow yeah sounds interesting well I’m preparing for Badland will be the first time uh doing the Race so I’m curious to

Hear have you thought about your setup can you run us a bit uh through the setup you use or that you’re planning to use this year sure so well the bike obviously it’s a gravel bike it’s a gravel race for a gravel bike so I think

It’s pretty kiding last year I rode the The Rock shocks uh I can’t remember the name is it Judy I can’t remember suspension Fork yeah unfortunately can’t I wrote The Rock TR Fork uh I I like that a lot actually released a lot of the pressure on my

Hands I do struggle with uh you know getting numb fingers and stuff so so the shock really helped a lot it’s a it’s like a kilo of extra weight on your bike so that’s a big sacrifice there but obviously I’m not the lightest person anyway so I don’t know if you less or

More makes a difference but um so that yeah that was pretty much you know standard gravel bike with with the with the shock and then um the the the equipment that you’re going to carry is always like it’s 100% dependent on the weather if you know it’s going to be

Warm also warm in the nights you know you don’t really need to carry that much like I think probably 90% of what I was carrying last year was just food and then I had a very minimal setup of like pets and stuff so um the year before I did the

Same race and I had a baby with me with you know super light baby setup but this year I didn’t bother bringing it I was just like figured out sleep outside if I need to so but then you know do Italy don’t to go in May in or end of April in

In Italy and temperatures can be anywhere from 5 degrees to to 15 kind of thing so then it’s like a completely different setup when it comes to clothing and then you’re you then you have to the back the saddle p and clothing so if I I’m a little bit soft

In my old age so I do get cold and feel like I need to carry some clothes with me so yeah to keep for B you using the the far grael but um could you use the far or road I mean it has a clearance

For 35 38 mm tires I seen a lot of people actually using uh uh endurance or Allroad bikes uh for trouble races what’s your thoughts on that yeah I think I mean knowing the course the Badlands course I would say no way like if I mean everything’s possible you

Could ride on a road back probably you’d be walking I mean you know it’s like if you have a choice I would say that you know the just the the the head angle so the steering angle is is steeper the extra TI cleans is not GNA

You know the comfort and and just the stability and the downhills and stuff there’s a lot of long fast ground downhills and some of them are you know chunky and rotted out and stuff so I I don’t think that’s a place for you know for all Road still like was you know

Under 40 mm in fact I would be going the other way I’m not sure oh yeah ra Britain this year we out one so that was that’s kind of Maximum so 40 or something but the year before the guy was rri no yeah I think you know yeah

So I think that’s it’s one of the rougher courses with with Chum here conditions that you need to to have a bigger bik for um would you say uh the biggest difference between let’s say an Allroad bike and a gravel bike is the tire clearance or it goes more in terms

Of the geometry why somebody will buy let’s say uh half two bikes you know like also a gravel bike or can somebody get away just with having an Allroad bike and switching around the tires that’s something that I I a lot of people ask

Me yeah so I think if you kind of work backwards from the terrain that you’re ride if you’re you know what what do your what do your what does your normal ring look like or the that you want to do is it chunky gravel uh know Trails

Possibly areed out and all that kind of stuff then you really need to have like a 45 mm plus Tire anything below that and it’s going to be you know the bike’s going to be squirly and it’s not you have to have a lot of tire pressure to

Not destroy your tires and it’s just it’s not going to be fun so and then when you start with like a certain Tire Dimension that puts a lot of the requirements on the frame geometry automatically because there’s only so close together you can put your tire right you have to have your crank

And everything else in between your two tires um you also don’t want to have toe overlap right so when your when your front toe hits the tire nobody likes to have that so um as soon as you determine your tire dimensions then the rest of the geometry kind of falls into place

After that so that’s where like for us the difference we have three bikes in our lineup we have a road and all Road and a gravel and those three bikes are really it’s like the tire Dimensions that are ideal for that bik that that determine how the bike is is designed so

Um you to put that into sort of practical terms if you have gravel tires or even mountain bike tires they have to be further apart the wheels have to be further apart so you have a longer wheelbase longer wheelbase means more stability that’s that’s great but it

Also slows the bikes down so it makes it less fun it’s fine if you’re on gravel because you want more B stability than respons but you know if you know people talk about the one bike well if you put a road you know wheels and tires on a

Gravel bike yeah it’ll it’ll work for sure but it it’s going to feel really sluggish and compared to the road bik on on tarmat right so um that’s where the sort of the Allroad setup that we have kind of fits right in the middle and

Then and you can run a 38 mimet top which will work for smooth gravel really well and then you can run a 28 mm Tire on the road it feels just like a road on that set so that’s actually kind of my trick and Al we have a lot of

Really nice gravel we call it like it’s like champagne gr yeah you’ve been there right so you you got the like our is just like it’s it’s like aut bomb gravel so um I ride my my my summer setup is like I always have two Wheel sets and I

Have a gravel wheel with at 38 and and just if we’re going to go up in the forest I just put those wheels on and oh if we’re going to go Road ring everything just switch them back and forth and takes five minutes so um that’s pretty pretty ideal setup and of

Course if you know yeah that’s that’s that’s kind of what it’s in so the really like start you know if you’re looking at your ideal bike setup it’s like start with where you ride and what type of riding you do and and if you’re you know chunky gravel over here and

Super smooth teric over there and if you if if those are the two things that ride well it’s going to be hard for you to find something that’s ideal for for both of us but if you know the champagne gravel stuff is actually pretty close to

TX so it’s yeah it’s not a yeah makes it EAS yeah I think that’s a that’s a good compromise actually yeah when I wrote in oo it was like a perfect like a smooth gravel it was like nearly like tarmak so I was like okay you know I think the old

Road that’s why it’s called the Oslo project so yeah it’s really ideal for this kind of terrain and I even wrote The Old Road uh with 35 mm tires in uh the UCI grael World Series like the the qualifiers in blavand and um I managed

To finish so actually and I had um there were some sections of tarmac so I managed like a to catch up uh take some time on the other riders in the tarmac section because it was much much faster than um I lost a bit of time of the more

Technical terrain so it was like kind of a you know you win time on one side and maybe it can be more tricky on the other but yeah I think uh what you mentioned depends of the kind of terrain I’m some races like Badlands yeah definitely I

Think you need at least 45 mm tires so that’s what I saw mostly in the setups sorry we we have uh like we have one a rider who rides uh pretty high level races at high level for us and and he went to the UCI World Championships

And he rode our all Road B and 35 M so it’s a capable bike for that type you know those types of sort of non-technical gravel riding but when you get over Into yeah yeah you think it’s because uh it’s also more agile I don’t know the old road you know as you said is agile and fast on tarmac it feels like itat but also like compliant on gravel what I noticed for example before I had that

Voso and I used to switch uh you know road tires and gravel tires and it felt like I was like I don’t know riding a truck on the corners it felt like oh this is like as you said it works but it feels uh slow so I think uh that’s where

Like this kind of all road bikes uh fits very well in this regard and would you say is the same all road than endurance because there’s a bit of confusion between these uh the both terms yeah yeah yeah I mean um I don’t because we you know our world is the

Whole Road World exactly endurance is or what it means by I assum it’s just you know a bike with more comfort and and you know generally it’s related to the the the the riding position as well it has a more upwards higher handle our cockpit position so

Um I you know at the end of the day all that matters is you know what you you the user and what you’re going to use the bike for work for you it doesn’t really matter what it’s called or what category then and um you know we we have

A set of problems that we’re trying to solve and we you know we solved it in the way you know that I explained as far as geometry and and and the structural design of the bike and the carbon fibers that was just our approach and our solution so

But I think if you took two bikes side by side and one’s called endurance and the other one’s called Allroad you know it’s Tire clearance it’s you know the geometry the the head angle the the wheel base sorry yeah you know and then possibly other you you might take into

Consideration things like the the drivve trains or the gearing that the bike would but yeah you and if those two are the same on both bikes well they’re kind of the same bike right matter what the compan is call it yeah yeah exactly and for example uh do you think uh I notice

Uh yeah for most writers um I think um yeah more relaxed geometry tends to be better unless you’re doing like something like creit races or like you know really high speeed short races as you mentioned if you’re looking to do like a go on adventure cycling by

Packing touring or maybe a Ultra race yeah might be better to start with with a bike with a more relaxed geometry know because uh I felt like a lot of issues I had in my first Ultra race I was using a super St Aero road bike and then I got a

Sherman’s sake numbness in my hands and after switching yeah to to the Old Rad bike I I don’t have any of these issues anymore I of course did a bike fit but uh still like I went on a bike with and they were like oh that rad bike is like

We cannot make it work for you really because I had to put a a tower of spacers to get the position a bit more upright and then it was super Steve I felt every vibration from the road what’s your take on that yeah I think it comes back to what

I was saying before like Comfort equals fun right and and you know unless you’re professional you’re making a living out of racing your bike we’re all here like we just want to go out and have a night good day in the bike right that’s all you want

You want to come home home and say like wow that was you know that was a fun ride and I think when when you take you we’re we’re the the industry or the the market let’s say are starting to realize that yeah when you you take some of

These features that have been designed into the Allroad category it kind of makes a lot of sense for almost everybody like you know that and that’s that’s my theory is like if you know unless you have a number on your back like there’s no need to be riding a race

Bik and yeah you’re going to have more fun on you know a more like you call it relaxed like a more bike that’s a little bit tuned down from from these world tour pro bikes because it’s not really you know it’s like if you you and got a

Formula One card and went down to get groceries and went to the cafe in it like yeah you’re GNA get down there and you’re gonna get there but it’s not going to be it’s gonna be bouncing all over the place you know so it’s like uh it’s a pretty similar type of theory

Yeah exactly and uh I mean you’ve been in the in the bike industry for a while uh how how you see it’s changing uh would you say like uh people are going more into like the adventure side of thing or more towards the performance side like uh looking for

Marginal gains I don’t know I mean you see in the pro teams like now they are getting first was like okay having really like skinny tires and now it’s like they’re riding like 30 mm going one by so all these changes uh have you seen like a you know uh what’s your thoughts

On how the market is changing how cycling is changing I think in particularly after covid when a lot of new cyclist um kind of started uh in the sport yeah I think it’s it’s um as I mentioned like you know before it was used to be that we watched the through

To France and that was what inspired us and everybody kind want to be like them and I wouldn’t say to know why but it it for sure seems like people are are you know the the things that motivate people are different now and and than they were

Five or 10 years ago people are it’s like an in inner sort of motivation and desire to explore new things and new places and um people want to connect with you know nature and and Landscapes and um and yeah as you said too like you know new cyclists that come in during Co

I’m not sure exactly what the percentage is new and old but those people don’t have that history and they don’t have the connection with you know pros and Pro Racing and stuff so so they look at cycling in a completely different way you know than maybe somebody who’s been

Around for 15 or 20 years does and I think um I wouldn’t say that uh you know one category or another is taking over but I just think people are more interested and getting experiencing things in a different way and generally speaking you know there’s a say there’s a movement

Wouldn’t call a trend you know towards just kind of real adventures and real experiences where you know being on a bike is I could talk about that for for hours but because it’s like I dedicated my whole life to as far as just just Recycling and bikes but I mean being on

A bike because it always feels like the perfect way to experience something like your the speed is like if it’s you know it’s not to so slow that you get bored and it’s not too fast that it’s you know to kind of Whizz and by stuff it’s like

You have just the right amount of time to take in you know your surroundings and especially when you go to new places like you know you and I were fortunate enough to share a a trip and Adventure here in Taiwan and it’s all new stuff and all new

Places and you just get get to see things at the right pace you know and and you can hear the birds chirping and you can um you know you can smell the smells and it’s like you’re really you’re your versed in your surroundings I think that’s something that really

Appeals to people now more so than people before yeah I’m a covid cyclist so I can’t relate to that I I mean uh I didn’t know much about cycling but Lance Armstrong maybe so I didn’t have this connection with cycling it’s like okay I only know one cyclist and maybe kintana

A Colombian one but that’s it so for me what enjoy most is like um you know I didn’t aspire to be like a pro like f like for me it was more about that I we starting doing trips uh because it was covid exploring new places and I was

Like wow that’s the perfect way of traveling and really connected as you said with your surroundings it was like uh I was like okay I never want to go back to the conventional way of traveling is much more fun on a bike and it feels more authentic it allows you to

Go to places you wouldn’t go otherwise or like I was really surprised in Taiwan I was like wow I never expected that like a perfect smooth roads everybody was super friendly like even cars were giving you cheering you up instead of like screaming at you for not getting

Out of the way and being able to you know even if we didn’t speak the language locals were so friendly in the small villages and that’s an experience you don’t get when you go to the touristic places where everybody goes so it’s a real like a yeah Adventure so for

Me that’s the reason why I like cycling more than okay I want to be like uh this Pro is like oh no because I want to explore uh new places so yeah I think the co cyc might be more on on that side yeah and I think there’s also like

A real sense of achievement to have um you know you you talk about cycling a distance but it’s also like you know I I’ve I’ve moved moved myself from one place to another completely under my own power and I think that’s that’s really cool too like you know I uh me whatever

It doesn’t matter you but it’s like I rode my bike from Oslo to to Napoli in Italy one time wow like that’s pretty cool like it’s a you know that’s a really long distance and and I got there all on my own like you’ve done you know

You’ve done tcrs like you went from Belgium to Greece you know that’s that’s pretty cool so I think that that sense of achievement is also an interest part of it as well mhm and if you had one advice for somebody getting into longdistance cycling what would it

Be oh yeah I think you need to um kind of work your way into it maybe I’m wrong I don’t know that’s what I had to do I had to break down barriers you know sort of slowly um you know the first time I cycle through the night for example like

You know without sleeping at 24 hours whatever like that was a thing and and it took me years to do that and and like a couple years so it’s you know I think start with some you know smaller events that are that are you can sort of

Break down into smaller segments and not too overwhelming and and work your way into it and it’s it’s really you know it takes four or five years almost to to get into it and to get to you know to a higher level and it doesn’t depend you

Know it doesn’t matter the recyclist you are really like it helps of course because it’s easier for you but there’s a lot of things that you need to you know you need to learn and understand about yourself you know that are that go Way Beyond just so yeah start small and work your

Way in and give yourself you know time to to you know to to like achieve maybe a bigger goal and you know plan a couple of events a year two or three and and you can of course add in some bike packing and some other trips as well

Good I mean there’s a good when you’re doing bike packing and the kind of bike packing I was doing before I started racing was like long days and you know so it was almost like racing anyways like I go and ride to say 200 250 300K a

Day and then like you know eat dinner go to bed wake up in the morning get go one it was like pretty much a race anyways so um I think like you know that the transition from that kind of bike packing to or to racing is is um you

Know pretty pretty short but if you’re you know be realistic as well with your with yourself and your own additions and if you think rotting 150k a day is is is a long ways then you know entering a thousand kilometer race is is maybe not a great idea you might want to start

With something smaller and just work your way into it oh great piece of advice thank you so much Jeff for joining us today I’m looking forward to see what the far will bring in the future yeah yeah thank you and uh yeah I really enjoy all watching all your

Adventures and I think your uh you know your learning curve probably goes against my advice because your learning curve has been pretty steep you’ve gone from uh just being someone who likes riding around to being like a world class Ultra like with in a pretty short time so it was pretty impressive uh

Thank you I think uh what I want is to inspire people to you know like you can go from uh not riding your bike to do things like transcontinental I think that’s the beauty of ultra cycling there’s so much things you can do and uh yeah challenge yourself I think that’s

Uh that’s kind of what DRS me to it well thank you so much and for our viewers stay tuned because there is the Taiwan trip video coming up soon and also some new tech in the channel until the next one