Dec 13, 2022
In this week's episode, cycling journalist and formerCyclingTips Editor-in-Chief Caley Fretz joins Randall to discusscycling’s changing media landscape, the economic headwinds facingprofessional journalists, emerging models for supporting qualityreporting and story-telling, and how the meaning of cycling changesas one pedals through life. Also: press-fit bottom brackets,hookless road rims, and too-stiff components and frames.
Episode sponsors: ThesisBike and LogosComponents
Join TheRidership
Links to Caley's work:
The Road to Nairo’s House:https://cyclingtips.com/2018/01/the-road-to-nairos-house/
The Teaching Toe Strap:https://www.velonews.com/news/road/the-toe-strap/
Tales From The Tour: The Rest Day Pose:https://cyclingtips.com/2018/07/tales-from-the-tour-the-rest-day-pose/
Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos:
[00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello and welcome tothe gravel ride podcast. I'm your host Craig Dalton. This week onthe show, I'm handing the microphone off to my co-host RandallJacobs. Who's got veteran cycling journalists, Kaylee frets on thepod.
To discuss some of the challenges and opportunities facingcycling journalism. You may know Kaylee from his work as editor inchief, over at cycling tips. And prior to that over at Velo news,both publications have undergone some downsizing of late.
The economic headwinds facing professional journalists. Ourstrong, particularly in the cycling world. If we want to havequality reporting and storytelling. A new model needs to emerge. Idon't know where this is all gonna end up, but
I was super excited that Kaylee agreed to join Randall on thepodcast. To just get his perspective and to get into some good oldfashioned by geekery. Before we jump in we need to thank this weeksponsors from thesis and logos components
As many of you know, I'm a long time it's thesis. OB one riderfor a limited time thesis is offering $500 off a thesis, OB onewith access custom wireless shifting, and your choice of high-endcarbon wheels.
It's a bike that I can personally attest, stands up to everyother carbon bike out there on the market at a really great price.One of the things that I've always appreciated about thesis is thatthey allow. A unique level of customization. So if you want sizeappropriate cranks down to, I think 160 or 165 millimeters, you cando that. You can get your stem size, you can customizeeverything.
Based on a free one-on-one consult. So go check out thesis.bike,or contact. Hello at thesis stoplight to get started. I also wantto give a shout out to logos components. Logos just receive hugerecognition from bike packing.com and was awarded the gear of theyear award for the wheelset category in 2022.
You might recall an episode. We did a while back on how tochoose a gravel wheel set, where Randall went through detail bydetail on the design considerations When constructing a carbonwheelset I encourage you to listen to that as it provided a lot ofriders with reflection on what they were looking for and what allthe different things were, all logos wheels are built on provenopen standards with non-proprietary components and with amanufacturing precision. That rivals anybody in the industry, thewheels are backed by Logus is five-year warranty, lifetime at-costincident protection. And a US-based warehouse and support team tokeep you rolling for many years to come.
So head on over to logos components.com and use the codecommunity free shipping all one word to take advantage of a freeshipping offer. With that business behind us I'm going to pass themicrophone back over to randall and his conversation with kayleefrets
[00:03:06] Randall R. Jacobs: It's been quite abit. I think I last saw you at Sea Otter. How have you been? What'sgoing on in your world?
[00:03:11] Caley Fretz: Well, I'm unemployed asof November 15th. I mean, yeah, let's just, we can get that oneright outta the way. Right. I was part of the layoffs at OutsideInc. To be somewhat differentiated from Outside Magazine foranybody out there. I mean, outside Inc. Does own outside magazine,but it also owns lots and lots of other things.
Yeah, myself the editor-in-Chief of Venu as well and two of theCT staff, two really core CT staff. Matt, our managing editor, andDave Rome, one of our tech editors and, and kinda a legend inspace. We're all let go on the same day on November 15th. So I amcurrently super fun employed and I think after we chat today, I'mprobably gonna go skiing cuz it's snowing up in the mountains rightnow.
And so I'm, I'm somewhat enjoying myself. But, you know, funemployment brings with it some level of stress as well, . Sothat's, that's how I'm doing right now. Yeah.
[00:03:59] Randall R. Jacobs: Well, and Iappreciate you sharing. I think last we rode together. You werestill living in Boulder and you've since moved to beautifulDurango. When was that move?
[00:04:07] Caley Fretz: That was shortly afterwe had our, our first child. My wife grew up here and, and we havegrandparents here to help with childcare and all the rest. And wejust wanted to get off the front range. No offense to the frontrange. There's too many people and there's fewer people here. And Ican go skiing 18 minutes from here, from my door, and I can'treally complain about that.
[00:04:27] Randall R. Jacobs: Housing costs areprobably a little bit less bonkers out that way as well. I was inDenver and particularly Boulderer lately, and it is nuts.
[00:04:34] Caley Fretz: it's a little bitbetter here, although not as, Not as good as it was four or fiveyears ago. It, it, it's a zoom town, right? So in the last coupleyears it has, it's gone up like 28% or something ridiculous in, in2021. We love it here. It's amazing. Durango, the bike communityhere is, is unbelievable.
The mountain biking is unbelievable. And there's nobody that,you have not as many people to share all the trails with. So I, welike that bit of it as well.
[00:04:59] Randall R. Jacobs: Very, very cool.And so let's just dive into, cuz, cuz I've been curious share a bitabout your background. So I, I've only known you as, you know, inyour role as, as a journalist and editor at Cycling Tips. But howdo you end up on this path?
[00:05:13] Caley Fretz: Oh I mean, how far backdo you want to go? I, I, I started racing mountain bikes at 12 or13 years old. My dad was a cyclist. My dad was, I think one of thefounding members of the Penn State cycling team, collegiate cyclingteam back in the day. So I grew up around bikes and I grew uparound bike racing and watching the tour and all these things.
And yeah, started racing when my family moved to Burlington,Vermont back in the day at Catamount Family Centers. Anybody who,yep. Very, very northeast connection. That's where I, that was allmy youth. Yeah. Any, any any new
[00:05:45] Randall R. Jacobs: and, and your dadis still in Vermont, if I recall
[00:05:48] Caley Fretz: Yeah, yeah. He heactually just retired, but he, he used to run a small like sort ofchildren's museum aquarium thing called Echo on the, on thewaterfront in Burlington.
And yeah so, so grew up, grew up racing, grew up around bikes,and went to school out here in Colorado. Mostly to ride by bike to,to ma major in bike racing, pre primarily . Much to my parentschagrin, I would say. And let's see what it, what would've beenlike junior year, summer in between junior and senior year of, ofcollege.
Shout out to a friend of mine, Brian Holcomb, who's still in, inthe bike world basically came to me and was like, Hey, you should,you should be an intern at Be News. And so I did that and I, and I,I became an intern at Bean News and worked the summer there. AndBen Delaney was the editor-in-chief at the time, and Ben was, Benwas kind enough to bring me on in a, in a kind of part-timecapacity that fall.
and then it kind of just went from there. So, so yeah, a couplefolks who were still floating around the bike world, I, I owe a lotto at this point. Ben and, and Brian and Zach Vest, who was sort ofone of my first mentors and has been a, a marketing manager atNiner and a other, a Scott and a couple other places recently.
Math yeah, and just kinda worked from there. So I was a techeditor at sort of tech writer at Be News for a couple years, techeditor at Be News for a couple years. And then kinda worked my wayinto bigger and broader beats basically, and, and kind of steppedinto the racing space a little bit more.
Became, I think it was like think it was senior editor orwhatever the title was at the end of my, my Bella News tenure whichwas 2017 which is when Wade Wallace got in touch from cycling tipsand he was actually just looking for a person to fill a somewhatsimilar role, kind of like a features writer do a bit of everythingkind of writer.
And I loved the idea. I loved cycling tips. I loved the brand. Iloved everything that stood for, I loved the fact that it was kindaan up and comer and I had been at Villa News long enough that I wasjust was looking for a change basically. And so I, I jumped shipfrom one to the other, from Helen News to ct.
Remained really good friends with lots of folks at, at vnparticularly guys like Andrew Hood who had done a bunch of Tour deFrance with and things like that. It's like no hard feelings inthat, in that jump. Just wanted something new. And within about ayear of that for a number of different reasons Wade had promoted meto editor-in-chief at ct.
So that was around 20, mid middle of 2018. And it was aninteresting time kind of from a business perspective cuz it wasnear the end of a period when, when CT was owned by bike Exchangein Australia and we were about to be purchased by Pink Bike. Andwith all of that happening and then in particular with the purchasefrom Pink Bike we got a bunch more resource and really could expandinto what I think most people probably know, cycline tips as now ormaybe we'll say six months ago what they knew it as up, up untilquite recently.
And yeah. I'm trying to think this, there's not my time. My mytime as EIC of, of CIP is, is obviously I think what most listenersout there would probably know, if not of me, then you at least knowCIP and you know what we were trying to do there.
[00:08:52] Randall R. Jacobs: I know how muchgrief there is out there for, that core team having been broken up.A lot of people, myself included, who value the perspective thatyou bring to the industry. It's not simply you know, flipping pressreleases which, you know, there's a place for like, there's, youknow, some people that's, they wanna see what the press releasesare but doing really interesting journalism.
One of your colleagues Ian tralo, he's done some interestingpieces on Central Asian despots in their role in cycling and on theAfghan women's cycling team. And the controversy with how the UCIwas prioritizing getting certain members of that team and theorganization out of Afghanistan when the US was backing out.
Like, this is not your standard bike industry journalism. Andthat's an angle that I think is going to be very much missed in thevacuum that's created by your departure and the departure of othersfrom that team.
[00:09:42] Caley Fretz: Yeah. It's a sad thing.I think the overwhelming emotion for a lot of us is, is justsadness because we spend a lot of time building this thing and alot of time and energy and effort and, and yeah. No blood, butprobably some sweat and tears in there. And yeah, and it feelsthat's just sad. You know, I. I enjoyed my time there tremendously.I enjoyed working with people like Ian, with James Huang, withDave, who got laid off alongside me. It was just a really, I can'tsay it was massively surprising giving a number of things that Ican't actually talk about. But I I, oh, I am still very saddened byit.
Yeah, I mean, it's not gonna be what it was because a bunch ofthe people are gone like that, that, that I can say . Yeah.
[00:10:28] Randall R. Jacobs: Yeah. Now, remindme, when did James join the team? Because he, he's someone I'veadmired for years
[00:10:33] Caley Fretz: yeah. He, he joined a,I think about 18 months before I did. So when, when bike exchange,when, when Wade first sold a, a large portion of cycling tips tobike exchange that was sort of the first. Let's say capitalinfusion that, that the company got. And a lot of that was used topick up kind of high profile folks, particularly in the UnitedStates which is what's sort of their next, the next market that,that Wade wanted to go after.
So that was, they picked up James and they picked up Neil Rogersin the us as well as some other folks like, like Shane Stokes inthe uk or Ireland, I believe he is right now. Yeah, so, so that wasall a little bit before I got there. And part of my, sort of whatthey asked me to do, what Wade asked me to do when, when I becameeditor in chief was to figure out exactly how to best use peoplelike James, who do phenomenal work.
I mean, I, I, I maintain to this day that the three-person team,the three-person tech team that, that we had at Zeman Tips over thelast year which would be James and Dave Rome and Ronan McLaughlinin Ireland as well. Was the best anywhere in cycling media? There'sno, there's no question in my mind about that.
And so basically trying to figure out how to steer that talentwas one of the big things that I was tasked with doing over thelast three, four years.
[00:11:44] Randall R. Jacobs: Well, and youknow, when you read a review from any of those team members thatyou're, you're getting it straight you know, for better or forworse for the brands that are at the mercy of, of that team. Buthonestly, it keeps the industry honest. And I recall early in mycareer in the bike particularly James' writing be being somethingthat I referenced constantly.
And in fact, when I was at one of the big players, if I neededto make an argument, I would oftentimes grab an article fromsomeone like him to bring to the argument like, no press fit is notacceptable. And we're gonna spend the extra money and add theweight, and we're gonna tell a story about how a two piece threadtogether is a better solution.
And honestly, it's a solution to fix what was broken when youwent, you know, but that's, that's a, that's a, a hobby horse thatI think we've all been riding for some time.
[00:12:29] Caley Fretz: love hearing thatthough. I, I genuinely love hearing that because I mean, oh, firstof all, James would also love hearing that. He'd be very proud ofthat fact. I think and yeah, like we, we know that that was thecase, right? I mean, we, we the three of us have been making a, apodcast called Nerd Alert for, for, for the last year and a half ortwo years or whatever.
And I got a fair number of, of Less than pleased emails off theback of, of that podcast. Cause we were quite honest in ourassessment of what we thought was happening in the industry. And inparticular, like I haven't been a tech editor for. Eight, nineyears. I'm just a cyclist at this point. But Dave and James are sodeep inside it and think they spend so much of their lives thinkingabout that stuff that yeah.
You, you can't ignore their opinions, right? You absolutelycan't ignore their opinions. And I think that's, that's a testamentto one, the fact that they do their research. And two the fact thatthey've been right a number of times. And like over the years, Iwould say that CT is, was known as the anti press fit media outlet,right?
Which is like, there are worse things to be associated with, Ithink, than hating on creaky bottom brackets. Like, who, whowouldn't wanna hate 'em? Creaky bottom brackets. That makes perfectsense to me.
[00:13:33] Randall R. Jacobs: Well, and it, andit's deeper than just a creaky bottom bracket. It's detracting fromthis experience that we are all so passionate about. And so, Ithink that having someone out there who has influence saying no,this is not the way it should be. Hear the arguments and, and, youknow, let a case be made.
Hey, you know, come on the podcast and talk about why you thinkpress fit is, is the best way to go about it if you really wannamake that case. But yeah, it's an approach that I, you know, I,I'll take you up on it, but I, I'd probably be on the same sidewith you on more or less every issue with the exception of maybe afew nuances here and there.
But yeah, actually let's have some fun with this. Other stuffother than press fit bottom brackets that would be your hill to dieon.
[00:14:15] Caley Fretz: well. So actually DaveRo and I so reminder, Dave Ro and I were both just recently laidoff. And so our free, we, we are free to do whatever we want. Idon't have a non-compete or anything like that. Right. So, we'vekicked, we've kicked off a little podcast and.
[00:14:28] Randall R. Jacobs: What is itcalled?
[00:14:29] Caley Fretz: It's called,
[00:14:29] Randall R. Jacobs: do people findit?
[00:14:30] Caley Fretz: well at the moment it'scalled the redundant placeholders because we have no idea what tocall it.
So if you search it, I think any of the, any of the podcastplatforms, if you search redundant placeholders, able to find it,you can also find it on, on any of my social channels. I'm at KFretz on everything cause I'm the only person on the planet with myname. So that's very handy. Anyway David and I were talking aboutlike, okay, so if we were actually literally talking about thisyesterday, which is why it's funny that you bring up bottombrackets.
Like if, if the bottom bracket the anti press fit bandwagon wasthe one that we were leading before, what's our, what's our newthing that we get to hate on? And we've actually decided that oneof the things that we're most interested in pushing, and if youlisten to the episode from this week, you would, you would hearthis is bikes that are too stiff and just stuff that's toostiff.
So specifically Dave, this, this week brought up the topic of ofhandlebars that are just like, Way too stiff. Right? Just, justridiculously stiff. We were talking about the, the 35 mill trend onin mountain bikes, which I hate. And like, I've got a, you know,I've got a giant, I've got a giant trail bike with 170 Mill fork,and then I wanna stick like a, just a two by four in my hands.
I don't really understand why I want to do that. And I've endedup with like, like more sort of hand cramp and hand pain on thisbike than I've ever had previously. And it's got more travel thanany bike that I've, I've had previously. So that, those two thingsdon't really line up in, in my head, right?
And, and so Dave and I were basically talking about pushing,pushing back on this need for for stiffer and stiffer and stifferand stiffer all the time. And the fact that a lot of us don't needthat, or really don't want it either. Not only do we not need it,we really don't want it because it makes the broad experienceworse.
I told a little story about how one of the best bikes I've everridden was a not particularly expensive mazzi steel frame, steelfork, steel frame. Then I put a pair of zip 3 0 3 carbon wheels on,so nice, nice light stiff wheel set with a somewhat flexi bike,flexi fork, flexi flexi frame. But it rode like an absolute dream,you know, 27 2 post it might have even had, it might have even nothad oversized bars.
I can't remember. This is, this is like eight, nine years agonow. And I loved it. I absolutely loved this bike. It, it, it gotup and went when I asked it to, and I think the wheel set made ahuge difference in, in that. But then it, it cornered like anabsolute dream and it was comfortable and it was, it was justbeautiful.
And it was a, a not particularly expensive steel mozzie, right?Like . So that's, that's, that's the that's the high horse uponwhich we find ourselves now. The fight for less stiff. Bicycles, Ithink is what we're gonna go after next.
[00:17:06] Randall R. Jacobs: Well, and you cankind of take that a step further, talking about steel frames, forexample. If you get a steel frame, even a, a pretty decent steelframe at say o e m cost is going to be quite a bit less than amonocot carbon frame. And you don't have all the tooling costs andeverything else, and you can change the geometry if you need towithout having to retool.
And those bikes are gonna be inherently more affordable at thesame time. And unless you're an elite racer who's having to sprintoff the line or so on, you know, you either spend less money for anequivalent bike that suits your needs well and is comfortable, oryou spend the same money and you put it into say, betterwheels.
You don't get the cheap out wheels with the three Paul hubs thatfall apart and in a year and what have you. Yeah, that's one I'lljoin you on.
[00:17:46] Caley Fretz: So that, so
[00:17:47] Randall R. Jacobs: right. So I'mjoining the battalion. What?
[00:17:50] Caley Fretz: That's what we'repushing from
[00:17:51] Randall R. Jacobs: I've got anotherone for you. And, and this, this one I don't think you'll disagreewith cuz we talked about sea otter hooks, bead hooks. So bead beadhooks on any real wheels that are marketed for use with roadtubeless.
[00:18:05] Caley Fretz: I, yeah. I, I don'tfeel like I am, I, I like having this conversation with James orDave around because they know the actual technical reasons. You,yourself probably in the same boat. You know, the actual techtechnical reasons why this is, this is a, a terrible idea or a goodidea, I guess if, if you're talking other direction.
I just know that as a, essentially, like I am kind of just aconsumer these days, right? Like I said, I, I, I have not been atech editor. It has not been my job to follow. Bicycle technologyfor close to a decade now. So I'm basically just a, a, a heavilyinvested consumer who pays, you know, quite close attention,right?
And as a heavily invested consumer, I cannot figure out if mywheels and tires are going to kill me at the moment. And I thinkthat that is not really an acceptable way forward. I don't , Idon't think that that should be allowed in the cycling space. AndI, and I, every single time I say that, I get a bunch of hook listaficionados coming back at me saying that, oh, it's quite easy.
This works with this and this. I'm like, yeah, but I, I, as aperson who does not want to go through a bunch of like charts tofigure out what tire to run, I don't want that. Just put hooks backon my rims. I don't care about the 40 grams or whatever. It's, Ijust don't care.
[00:19:14] Randall R. Jacobs: Well, would youlike some more ammo for those arguments when they come up?
[00:19:17] Caley Fretz: give me more. Am.
[00:19:18] Randall R. Jacobs: All right. So, sofirst off the, it used to be the case that it was a substantial,you know, a reasonable weight penalty and higher cost that issubstantially mitigated by new forming techniques for the beadhooks and mini hooks that you can create that have the same impactresistance as hook list, add about five, maybe 10 grams per rim atthe high end.
And cost, yeah, the cost is a little bit higher, but, you know,insurance premiums aren't cheap either. And if you have a singleincident, that's gonna be a problem. So, you know, it was anobvious investment when we made that choice for any wheel thatwe're marketing for use with anything, say smaller than a 34.
Plus you get the compatibility with non tules as you well know.But the other part is you think about the fact that there arecompatibility charts that exist, right?
[00:20:05] Caley Fretz: I don't want
[00:20:06] Randall R. Jacobs: that
[00:20:06] Caley Fretz: in charts.
[00:20:08] Randall R. Jacobs: yeah. It, it'slike if that is the case, then maybe the tolerances are too tightand it, it's actually, I'll tell you from the inside, it, it'sactually worse than that because any good company is going to checkevery single rim for its bead seat circumference, right?
So those are pretty easy to get within spec. And then the tires,the tires are not all checked. To my knowledge. They're kind ofrandomly checked. So, okay, now you, now you could have avariation. You only need one. That's not to tolerance, but let'ssay both of those are in are intolerance. Well, now you havethe.
and if the tape is too thick or too thin, or someone puts twolayers on, they replace the tape or whatever. Maybe it wasintolerance initially, but, and then you change it and you know,you do two layers. Now the bead is too tight, it wants to drop intothe channel and then pop over the edge of the, of the hook.
And so it's just not good. It's just all sorts of not good
[00:21:03] Caley Fretz: I hate it so much. It'sjust, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I always, I was cognizant when,back in, when we were making the Nerd Alert podcast that, you know,we didn't just want to complain about things. Right? Like, wedidn't just want to tell the industry that it was, it was doingthings wrong. Cuz most of the time this industry does great thingsand they build lots of amazing bikes that I love to ride.
There's just a couple things like this that are like, what, whatare we doing? Like, is, is this, is this the beam counters? Is itthe gram counters? What counters are, are causing ? Thisparticular, it must be the bean counters at this point. But I hateit either
[00:21:42] Randall R. Jacobs: Bean counter. Andthen, then also the, the marketing hypers. Right? So there's a newthing. Hopeless is a new thing. Car, car wheels don't have hooks.Why do bicycle school wheels have hooks? Well, you know, becauseit's 110 p s i that people are sometimes putting in there. That'swhy
[00:21:57] Caley Fretz: car wheels have 33 Psi. Yeah. It's like a mountain bike tire. Yes. Well, I, we agree onthat point. And I, I think that that is one that we will continueto complain about. And I will just continue to be annoyed that I,that I can't feel confident in what I'm writing without doing abunch of, of searching and Google searching, and I don't want tohave to do that.
[00:22:15] Randall R. Jacobs: Nor should youraverage rider need to rely on that in order to be safe like that.That's the part that I find kind of, kind of bonkers.
[00:22:23] Caley Fretz: Average rider doesn'teven know to do that. That's the problem.
[00:22:26] Randall R. Jacobs: yeah. True. Andthe la the last part of that is why do the tire pressurerecommendation charts kind of go to 70 proportional with the weightand then they just kind of taper off. You know, that that also kindof tells you something about the confidence in this you know,particular combination of tire and rim and, and pressure and soon.
But all right. Should we, well, I guess we hop off this highhorse then. That was good fun. I could do this all day. So youmentioned Ben Delaney, and he's an interesting person to bring upbecause he's a, a mutual acquaintance. Also somebody who's writing,I've been reading since my early days in the industry and alsosomebody who has been trying to figure out how to navigate thechanging landscape in cycling media, which the business model for,for media in general has undergone a dramatic shift. And in hiscase, he's has his new YouTube channel and is doing freelance workfor certain publications and is making a go of it that way.
But how would you describe the industry dynamics as havingchanged during your time in the media side?
[00:23:29] Caley Fretz: Oh, I mean, I would sayI was relatively insulated from it personally for a long time. Anduntil I kind of reached a, a, a level of management, so to speak,that it became my problem , I didn't spend a whole lot of timethinking about it. Yeah, Ben was unfortunately the, the, the, thevictim of a, an outside layoff a, a while ago.
So he's been making a solo go of it since I think May or Juneof, of, of last year. Or this year, 2022. And yeah, like his, hishe's experimenting and, and it's, it's good to, I like watching himtrying to figure this out, right, because I feel like he's kind ofdoing it for all of us at the moment and, and trying to figure outexactly, you know, various ways to, to make this thing work and. Heis, got his, his YouTube channel's. Great. I mean, I watch it allthe time. I'm actually gonna be on it sometime soon. I just, justrecorded a thing with him picking our favorite products of theyear. I think I went in a slight, I think I went in a slightlydifferent direction than, than probably most of his guests.
Cause my favorite product was bar Mitz for my cargo bike. Soslightly different place than, than probably a lot of folks he'stalking to. But the, the media as a whole, I mean, it's rough outthere. It's rough out there, right? Like I have spent an inordinateamount of time thinking about this and trying to figure this outover the last couple years as has like weighed my former boss at CT E before he left over the summer.
As is everybody, I mean, frankly, like as is Robin Thurston theCEO of outside, right? Like he is genuinely trying to make thisthing work. And at the moment as layoffs kind of. It's hard, right?It's really, really hard to, to get people to pay for somethingthat they haven't had to pay for historically, you're, you'retrying to put the genie back in the bottle, right?
That's what we are trying to do. And it's really, really, reallydifficult. And then, frankly, it's one of the things we were mostproud of at Cycline Tips is that we did have this core, hyperengaged audience that was willing to pay us for, for what we did.And not only just pay us for like, the content that they had accessto, but pay us for the whole community that we had built.
Right. I mean there, there's a, there's a Velo Club, which isthe, the sort of membership program. Atip, there's a Slack groupfor Velo Club which I, which I'm concerned about right now. Butthat group of people, couple thousand people not, it's not theentirety of the membership. It's, it's like sort of the mosthardcore of the membership, I would say.
And it's a couple thousand people. It's sort of like its ownlittle private forum, right? And, and they support each other andthey ask each other questions, and they ask us questions asked,past tense, asked us questions. You know, when, when, when they hada tech question, they, they, they ping James and they had a racingquestion.
They, they would, they would ping me or they would ping Matt eor something like that. And they would also just answer eachother's questions. And they've built this, this incrediblecommunity there. That for me, underpins any successful,particularly sort of niche media or, or, or, or vertical mediabusiness.
Because those are the people that not only are they giving youmoney to, to keep lights on, but they're, they're your, they'reyour biggest advocates, right? They're your, your most importantadvocates in the space. They're the people that, that tell theirfriends. They're the people that get other people signed up.
They are, they're more important than any marketing spend youcould, you could ever possibly utilize. Right? So that, that wasone of the things we were really proud of the last couple years.And I think that that is a model in some ways for, for, for goingforward. So, you know, like I said, I'm, I don't have anon-compete.
I can start anything I want right now and, and I, and to be, tobe very blunt, like I fully plan to I think that,
[00:26:54] Randall R. Jacobs: think youabsolutely should at this. You clearly have an audience that thatmisses your voice and that values what you brought to thetable.
[00:27:00] Caley Fretz: Yeah. And, and I wouldsay it like, honestly, it's, it's even, it's less my voice and it'smore like Dave Rome and Matt and like the rest of the crew becauseI, I, I do like to put, you know, put the folks that that werewriting day, day in, day out for ct, like, well ahead of anythingthat I was doing. But I, I did spend more time than they didthinking about how to, how to build a media business.
And so, yeah, I, you know, we wanna, we wanna, we wanna dosomething here. That there's it's only been a couple weeks since wewere, we were. Let go. So we're still figuring out what the detailsare. But like I said, you know, we've already kicked off a littlepodcast. We know that there's a lot of people out there that arekind of waiting for this.
And we will, we will just try to give them what they want, Iguess. I mean, my, in my mind, the, ideal sort of media entity ofthe future and I, I've used this term a couple times with, withDave in, in talking about these things is, is essentially anaggregation of niches or niches if, depending on whichpronunciation you prefer.
So rather than try to go really broad and talk about a littlebit of everything, which, which tends to be kind of the modelacross most of cycling media, I prefer a concept where you, youessentially allow editors to. To dive into their, their interestsand their strengths. Right? You know, you take, you take Dave Romeand you say, Dave, you love tools.
You're real weirdo about it. But we appreciate your weirdnessand we, we, we embrace it and, and do it. Like, tell me everythingyou can possibly tell me about tools, because I'm pretty surethere's an audience there. And even if it's not that big, even ifit's a couple thousand people, if they are hyper engaged with you,a couple thousand people in a recurring membership model, recurringrevenue model is enough to pay Dave plus some, right?
And then you sort of, you take that concept and you, and youexpand it out. And yeah, it's, it's, it becomes the basis by whichyou can build a, a, a media entity. That I think is, issustainable. Not none, nothing I'm saying here is wholly original,right? Like this is the broadly the direction that a lot ofdifferent media entities are going.
Anybody sort of follows that world. There's, there's like,there's a new politics site called S four that is essentially thesame rough concept, right? You, you dive headlong into, intoparticular beats. You provide a ton of depth in those beats. Youhit the, the audience, people who, who really care about thatparticular topic, and you pull that group in and then you do thesame thing over here and you pull that group in, you do the samething over here, and you pull that group in.
And there's for sure people that care about more than oneobviously. But you really, like, you focus really deep on each oneof these things. And that's the, that's the, if I could buildsomething and, and I, you know, like I said, I, I intend to try,that's the concept. I think that that makes the most sense to mefrom a. from a business perspective, from an editorial perspective,from from every perspective I can, I can think of, basically.
[00:29:59] Randall R. Jacobs: Yeah, so I've hadfolks like Russ Roca from PathLessPedaled. On the pod. He has aYouTube channel you may or may not be familiar with, but that'sbecome his livelihood, right. And he has sustainers throughPatreon. He doesn't do endorsements and things like that.
I don't think he's doing any sort of sponsored episodes oranything of that sort. And he's been able to make a living. Andthere are obviously plenty of YouTuber influencer types who mayhave less scruples about promoting things and things of thatsort.
But who I'm curious, either within bike or, or outside a bikewhat projects do you see succeeding in the model that you couldimagine emulating or building upon? Because I've seen a bunch ofattempts at it and it's, it's a really tough nut to
[00:30:43] Caley Fretz: it's a tough not tocrack. I, I would say that the biggest and most obvious is theathletic, which was just purchased by the New York Times forsomething like, I think it was 425 million. Now, so the sort ofcaveat around that is that that's probably less than they wereactually hoping for. This is a, a VC funded media entity that, thatprimarily covers ball sports.
And their whole thing was you take, you, you, you essentiallyapply the beat reporter model of like a local newspaper. You know,you, you, the, the, the Denver Post for example, will have aBroncos beat reporter. Then all they do is talk about the Broncos,right? And, and they're even allowed to kind of be fans of theBroncos a little bit.
They take that and they apply it to every single ball sport. Soboth types of football, you know, baseball, basketball, all therest. And they apply a beat reporter to every major team. Andsometimes more than one beat reporter to, to really big teams. Youknow, like if we're talking English, English Premier League youknow, Manchester United has a couple different writers on it.
Aston Villa has probably won, right? So, but, but, but even so,if you're a massive Aston Villa fan and you just want your AstonVilla News, you can go, you know that the athletics gonna have itcuz they have a person who is dedicated to your team and nothingelse but your team. So you can also get like, okay, well I wantsome broader, I want World Cup news, I want, I want the ManchesterUnited news.
I want the Ronaldo news, but I really want my Aston Villa guy,right. That is essentially the same model that I'm talking aboutwhere like, I believe that people really want Dave Rome's tool.They probably also care about lots of other things that, that wewill write about. But they really want Dave room's tool stuff.
And that's probably the thing that's actually gonna get themacross the line from a, from a membership perspective, right? Isthat deep, deep, deep love of this one thing that a content creatorthey like is talking about. That's the kind of thing that, that,that moves the needle in. So yeah, the athletic is, is kind of thebiggest, most obvious example of this kind of working.
They made I think some strategic areas early on in the way thatthey pulled staff together that made it quite an expensiveorganization to run. And I think that's part, probably part of thereason why they didn't get quite as much cash for it as theythought. But still building a media a media entity from nothing inthe last, I think it started five years ago or so.
I remember sitting at a Tor de France press buffet with some ofthe. The British. So at the time it was, you know, sky Era. A lotof big name British sport writers, sports writers were coming overthe tour, and a couple of those guys were talking about job offersfrom the athletic and actually like how insanely well paid theywere going to be
So I think
[00:33:13] Randall R. Jacobs: And the, theseare full, full-time positions. We're not
[00:33:15] Caley Fretz: oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:33:16] Randall R. Jacobs: Just shiftingeverything to freelance. Like so
[00:33:18] Caley Fretz: No, no, no. These are,yeah,
[00:33:20] Randall R. Jacobs: models Do.
[00:33:21] Caley Fretz: no, I mean, I don't, Imean, perhaps they're contractors or something, but like, you know,the, the, these individuals are writing a, a story a day most ofthe time about the particular beat that they're talking about. Astory every other day, depending on the, on the, on the writerprobably.
But anyway, yeah, about about five years ago. So you see, youknow, you've got a media entity that's only about five years oldand just sold to the New York Times for half a million or whateverit was, or sorry, half a billion.
[00:33:43] Randall R. Jacobs: Yeah.
[00:33:43] Caley Fretz: a pretty, that's asuccess story in my mind. And shows that the. The model can work, Ithink. There's no guarantees and that's a scale that I don't reallyhave any need, want, or desire to come anywhere near. But I dothink that the core essentially value proposition of membershipthat they, that they showed worked, can work elsewhere. It can workin cycling, can work across endurance media, I think.
[00:34:12] Randall R. Jacobs: Well, and again,with my kind of very cursory understanding of the space, they wererequired by the New York Times, which itself went through its owneconomic model crisis and had to make the switch to a paywall. Andthe quality of the content was sufficient that they're, they'remaking such large acquisitions, so they must be doing somethingright. They're, they're not the failing New York Times. As somefolks called them a few years ago. I think there's also somethingto be said for consolidating quality and having the interaction ofthe sort that you did at at cycling tips, not just through VeloClub but also just the comments section. It, it was a very uniquespace and your team was in there.
Interacting and the, the nature of the communication that I saw,the way that your readers were engaging there, it didn't seemhierarchical at all. It was a conversation with, with you and yourteam and that that was very, very cool to see. And that wassomething quite special that I think is more a consequence of thepeople involved than of the particular platform as special ascycling tips was.
And I was one of the early readers that was, those are my racingdays when it was literally just the blog and it was pointers on howto train. It was the cool thing at the time. And. Actual cyclingtips. Yeah. That name was, was a direct, directly correlated withthe contents. But I don't know if I've shared this with you, but inaddition to the podcast, which is founded by Craig Dalton we alsostarted this Slack community called the Ridership, which also isbit over a couple thousand members, and also has these like healthydynamics. We call it a, a community of Rogers Helping Riders. Andthat was directly inspired by what you guys do at Velo. like sawwhat you were doing over there was just something that wanted toemulate, found inspiring saw a place for.
And I'd be curious one of the things that Craig and I havetalked about, is some form of shared platform that's somehowdemocratically governed. Where content creators and those who areengaging with their content who wanna support them and so on, canall meet and having that be something centralized in the sense thatit's all meeting in the same place, but decentralized in terms ofthe governance structure, and then maybe even set up as anon-profit. I'm curious if you've had any thoughts around that sortof thing.
[00:36:35] Caley Fretz: Yeah, I've actuallysort of played around with similar ideas. We, yeah. In this, well,and again, in the sort of couple weeks that I've been thinkingabout, really thinking about this now we thought through, so, soironically, one of the things that. There's been a fair number ofcomplaints around with outside was was essentially like web threeand, and NFT stuff.
However some of that technology would actually make somethinglike what you're talking about potentially work quite a bit better.Again, I haven't spent, we, we didn't go too far down this, this,this rabbit hole cause we feel like getting something off theground relatively quickly is, is, is a priority.
But I agree that, that something platforms work, right? Likethat's essentially, that, that's all YouTube is, is just a platformfor other people to, to, to put content on. They monetize it overtop. They give you a cut, they take most of it. That's a, it's apretty good business actually. So like could you do that forendurance sports, perhaps? Probably. Are there enough? Are thereenough really high quality individual content creators out there tomake that work? Probably, maybe like, are, are there enough BenDelaney's, who would love to probably work with a platform that,that increased their visibility?
But, you know, in, in exchange for a cut of whatever he'smaking, probably. I mean, that's essentially the, the deal thathe's made with YouTube, right? Like we were saying. I think there'ssomething there. I don't, I think it'd, I think it'd be incrediblydifficult to, to get off the ground and would almost have to bequite organic and you'd have to be kind of willing to, to sit on itand let it grow for quite some time or, or sit on a bunch ofinvestment money and, and do it that way.
Which I don't necessarily have the time for at this point intime, but I like the idea. I really, I like, I genuinely, you know,I've, I've had a lot of conversations with other people in, in bikemedia over the last couple weeks because for obvious reasons,people giving me a ring. They're saying a lot of 'em are sayingbasically like, Hey, I'm sorry just checking in on you.
Stuff like that. And we, and we get to talking about this sortof thing. And one of the things that keeps coming up is this desireto stop competing so directly with each other as bike media, right?Like the space is too small. We all do our own thing. We talk tomaybe the same audience in general, but we talk to them in verydifferent ways.
And you know, like I I I, I, I've been on the phone with editorin chiefs of, of, of a couple different major bike outlets in thelast week and all have said something along those lines. And Ithink that some sort of collective would, would hit the same. Yeah,it would hit, it would hit the same. there, right?
Of a, of a desire to provide a space for everybody to justcreate really good work that they actually get paid for. Cuz that'sthe hard thing again, you're still talking about putting the genieback in the bottle. You're still talking about trying to get peopleto pay for, for something that they historically haven't paid for,or you're running an advertising based model, which is incrediblydifficult.
And in part, and this particular moment is very, very difficult.I mean, you know, Robin, the CEO of outside mentioned thatspecifically in the letter that came along with with these layoffsis like the advertising world out there right now, particularly inendemic media, like cycling is bad. It is bad news.
You know, they're, they're looking into 2023 and seeing andseeing steep drop-offs in the amount that that is being spent. Soyou've run up against kind of similar problems, I think with thatmodel. But it is certainly something that is The incentives to mefeel like they're lined up for creators in a, in a model like that,right?
Because they, if done right, they would directly benefit fromtheir, their work. Whereas, you know, something that's always kindof frustrated me in this space is like, the value of myself and,and, and editorial teams have increased the value of entitiestremendously o over my career. And then they get sold and I seenone of it
And so like that, that the incentive,
[00:40:24] Randall R. Jacobs: and
[00:40:25] Caley Fretz: structure is not, isnot great within most of bike media
[00:40:29] Randall R. Jacobs: Yeah. It's badenough in the tech space where there are stock options, butgenerally to the founder goes most of the spoils. Even though and Isay this as a founder, I don't create most of the value, right?Nothing that, that I could do would get off the ground without allthe other people who make it happen. And so, it's only right thatthere be a distribution of ownership and a sharing of the rewardsif there's success, which in turn incentivizes success. In the caseof cycling tips, in reading the comments it's very clear that thereadership knows it. They're not there for cycling tips. Cyclingtips is the bander under which all the people whose perspectivesthey valued. It's where those people are.
And so, your standalone brand and that of your colleagues, hasvalue and has value in particular, if it's brought in a singleplace where people can interact with you as, as they had in thepast it's a terrible thing to lose.
And you know, whatever the reasons for it, obviously there areeconomic headwinds. But it's, it's unfortunate. But there's asaying that I, I live by that seems to apply, which is changehappens when the fear of change is less than the pain of stayingthe same.
[00:41:36] Caley Fretz: Hmm.
[00:41:37] Randall R. Jacobs: And there'snothing quite like a radically changing economic model or layoffsor things like that that make staying the same, really painful. Andso whether the fear has changed or not, time to take the leap andpeople like yourself and Ben and others have been making that leap.I wonder you mentioned that some sort of platform would have to.Either be funded by a bunch of VC money, which honestly I don't, ifyou wanna end up with a small fortune, start with a big one.Throwing VC money at things is a really good way to end up withJuicero. I don't know if you recall that
[00:42:10] Caley Fretz: Oh, yes.
[00:42:11] Randall R. Jacobs: 130 or 160million of Sandhill Road money lit on fire for a a glorifiedelectric press for
If anyone's curious, look this up. It is. It'll, it'll make youfeel that yeah, it, it'll make you question the judgment of, ofSilicon Valley in a way that I have learned too from the insideover the years. But the organic piece let's, let's unpack that cuzI, I have a couple of ideas that I'd like to bounce off of you.
So platforms like YouTube, I suspect it's gonna be very hard forsomebody who has an audience on YouTube or who wants to build anaudience to leave YouTube. But having a platform that isessentially an a.
So if you're a content creator, wherever your content is, thisis the one place where you can find all of it along with,categorized content from other players. So you want to learn abouttools you have, Dave Romes YouTube videos about tools. You have hispodcast about tools. You have other content creators contentthere.
And then it becomes kind of platform agnostic like you can beanywhere, but this is the place where you go to find it. And thisis the place where you go to interact. Cuz the YouTube comments,that's not an interaction space that's largely a trolling space or,or it's a largely one directional sorts of conversationhappening.
Even, even the healthiest version of it is still not aconversation. But if you have a YouTube video embedded in a acommunity,
[00:43:27] Caley Fretz: Mm-hmm.
[00:43:28] Randall R. Jacobs: Now all of asudden people are in digital community together and not just oversay Dave and his tool-based content or his tool focusedcontent.
Not to say that's all he does, but using that as an example, butalso Dave in community, in his local chapter, right. In his localriding community. And in the context of a place where people arealso going for, James' bike reviews and you know, your Twitter deFrance coverage and, and things like this that's one model thatI've wondered, like if there was such a platform.
[00:43:59] Caley Fretz: how, how, how do youmonetize it? Is it, is it pay? Walled,
[00:44:03] Randall R. Jacobs: That's a bigquestion, right?
[00:44:04] Caley Fretz: Well, so, so, thereason I ask is because I, I, like, I would see a couple differentoptions, right? And, and we're getting into real sort of mediatheory here, but ,
[00:44:11] Randall R. Jacobs: This, this wasactually part of the conversation I wanted to have with you longbefore all these changes. And it's something we've discussed on thepod before as well with other content creators.
[00:44:19] Caley Fretz: I, I think So I, I'llsay that first and foremost that I'm, I'm not anti paywall. I knowsome of the, some others are in, in the media space, but Ifundamentally believe that if done properly you're essentially onlytargeting. So, so, so I'm, I'm a big advocate of what, what we callmeter paywall, which is basically you get a couple free stories ina given amount of time whatever the number is, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10,whatever you want.
And then at some point you, you pay right? Now, the nice thingabout that is that you know, if we, if we take a, let's take ahypothetical cycling media outlet with somewhere in, you know, we,we'll call it, we'll call it 2 million unique users a month, right?You've got 2 million people showing up at a website everymonth.
The number of people who are actually gonna get to the paywallthat are gonna go to enough stories to get to that paywall isprobably something in the neighborhood of like, Less than 5% ofthose people. It's a tiny, tiny, tiny number because a huge numberof those people are coming in from Google.
They're, they're, they're seo, they're coming into SEO stories,they're coming into, you know, how to bet in my disc brakes. Andthey're, they're in and they find out how to do that and they'reout. Right? And that's the only interaction you have with them. Andthey're useful from a page view perspective if you're monetizingthat.
But they're not particularly useful from a membershipperspective cuz who's gonna pay to get one story, right. That,that's, that doesn't make any sense. So you're really only tryingto monetize your super users. So your super users are that 5%, thepeople that actually end up hitting paywall. And part of the reasonwhy I'm not anti paywall is because those people that, that, thatsmall group of people that is coming back day after day after dayafter day, they value you. And if they truly value you, they shouldpay for you. , like, I don't have any problem with, you know, weput a ton of time and energy and effort into this and it is ourjobs. And we need to get paid. And if people, if people appreciatewhat we're doing enough to come back every single day and they'renot willing to pay for that, then as far as I'm concerned, theyneed to look at themselves and, and, and ask why.
Right? Like, all I'm asking for is, is, you know, eight bucks amonth or whatever to continue doing so that, so that you can dosomething that you do every single day that you enjoy, that you,that you gain information and entertainment from inspiration fromeven. I think that that's a pretty reasonable trade off.
I don't really have any problem asking the super user to dothat. I think that there are other paywall versions of a paywallthat, that I, that I don't agree with, sort of philosophically, Idon't agree with paywall in a hundred percent of content. I alsothink that that just ruins your discoverability and it, it, itdoesn't allow anybody
[00:46:49] Randall R. Jacobs: was, I was gonnasay, is
[00:46:50] Caley Fretz: Yeah.
Then nobody,
[00:46:53] Randall R. Jacobs: thing or is itmore just practically like, you're, you're gonna cut off all thechannels for discovery?
[00:46:58] Caley Fretz: Both. Yeah. I, I, it,it realistically, yeah. Like I said, your discoverability goes tozero. People can't tell that you make good content. I have kind ofa similar issue with the, the like premium content model. So you,you know, you give away your, your crappy stuff for free and thereally good stuff you gotta pay for, like, I don't like thateither.
Cause why then anybody's strolling around your website, it'sgonna be like, well, it's the only thing is I can read are crap. Sowhy would I pay for the, i, I don't know that
[00:47:23] Randall R. Jacobs: poor, it's a poorpitch.
[00:47:24] Caley Fretz: It's a bad pitch. So,so I have issues with that. I also just like philosophically, youknow, the, the sort of fully hard pay wall that you can't readanything without paying beyond the discovery of discoverabilityproblems.
I just kinda have issues with that because like if we do writea, how to bet in your disc brake so they don't make noise story.Like, I want people to be able to access that, right? Like, then Idon't have to listen up. people's loud disc breaks. You know, likepeople, I, I have no problem sort of providing that much content tosomebody for free.
And I think that the fully pay well in that is, is, is isn'tgreat. But again, I I'm not against paywalls in general. Meterpaywalls I think work quite well. They yeah, we know that they'reeffective. They can be incredibly effective, particularly if youhave this sort of requisite essentially story volume to make themwork and, and sort of audience size to make them work.
So given that like the, the sort of concept that you are talkingabout, paywall seems like a, like a, a, a good way forward becauseagain, you're sort of avoiding the avoiding the need to, to chaseadvertising dollars constantly. And this is, this is gonna besomewhat a reflection of what I'm thinking for, for.
For myself going forward, obviously you're avoiding, you're,you're avoiding chasing advertising dollars incessantly, which, youknow, I'm not against advertising either. I think the rightadvertising partners can be, can be crucial, right? They providelots of actually value to an audience at some point, right.
You know, the fact that you get bikes to test the fact that youhave a good relationship there. Those, those are all valuablethings. So not, not anti advertising either. I'm just more anti,constantly chasing every single cent you can possibly get out ofadvertising. And the, and the sort of the, the, the extra resourcethat, that very concept requires.
And so yeah, some sort of like membership driven thing lines upwith the sort of ethos of what you're talking about, which is verycommunity driven. We know communities are willing to invest intheir own space where they can be a community. And so that wouldmake sense as well. And if you start to do things like add too muchadvertising to something like that, then you do the incentivesstart to shift.
Cuz you start working for the advertisers instead of working forthe community. And that I think goes against the whole ethos thatyou're talking about of the sort of communal thing. So that wouldbe my, that would be my 2 cents on, on, on how to build somethinglike that. Like I said, it is a concept that, that we played aroundwith and I've played around with in my head for, for some timeactually.
I personally, again, it's more of a, more of a time issue for methan anything. Not that I don't think it could be cool and don'tthink it could work. I just think that the, to build that communitywould take quite a bit of time. And also figuring out the precisemethod of paying. So the other roadblock that I, that I came acrosswhen I was thinking through this was the precise method of payingcontent creators in that scenario, it's quite complicated.
Cause are you paying them? Are you paying them by page view? Areyou paying them? Is there a tip jar? Is there some sort of, of, youknow, rank voting system when people sign up, like, I like thesethree creators and I don't like these three, and so the top threeget, get my money. And the, and the other three don't.
That starts to create some perverse incentives toward badcontent as well, right? And, and essentially that's the, that isthe YouTube problem. The YouTube problem is that YouTube isincentivized for clickbait. It's incentivized for garbage content,, because that's, that's the stuff that gets picked up.
And think about, think about your average, like YouTube headlineor YouTube sort of, title card. Versus what you would find on a, asite like cycling tips these days. Right. It's a dramaticdifference. Like we, we would have to change headlines depending onwhether it was going on YouTube or going on on the site back in theday.
Cuz YouTube is incentivized to be like all caps and exclamationpoints and somebody crashing in the title card and all these thingsthat we kind of hate because that's what you end
[00:51:25] Randall R. Jacobs: Kaylee, Fritzdestroys X, Y,
[00:51:27] Caley Fretz: Exactly. So after themonetization question, how do you actually split up that money withthe content creators?
It's a, it's a, again, I like, I love the, the idea, I love theconcept, but the sort of those particular decisions. Be crucial tosuccess and crucial to it actually working for the people that,that you, that you know, that you want, want, would want it to workfor. And it'd be hard. It'd be really hard. I I don't have thesolution to those questions, which is why I, again, thought througha lot of this and, and thought through a similar concept, not, notidentical but a similar concept and, and basically came to theconclusion that in the near term, a a slightly more traditionalmodel is not the worst thing in the world, right?
Like, build really good content, pay people for it make peoplepay for it. , that's essentially the, that's the, the, the threepart business plan of most membership driven media entities thesedays. Does that all make sense? I feel like I went in a bit of rantthere.
[00:52:31] Randall R. Jacobs: Not at all. Notat all. And in fact, it's a conversation I'd like to continue cuz Ihave a few ideas that probably we, we don't want to dedicate awhole episode to just this conversation. But certainly appreciateyou pulling back a curtain on the sorts of questions that you as aneditor in the space and an editor for one of the most respectedpublications in the space and for good reason, providing thatperspective in the sorts of things that you are thinking about fromthis new Vantage point is very much appreciative.
So thank you for that. I wanna go in a completely differentdirection. What are the pieces that you've written that you mostenjoyed or found most challenging, or that were most meaningful foryou as a writer?
[00:53:08] Caley Fretz: Hmm. Internally atcycling tips. We called them riddles. It was a, it was a coin, aterm that I intro coined for his little, the little essays. Right.There's a couple of those that I, that I really enjoyed writingand, and liked writing. It's just sort of the pure act of, of, ofsort of language, basically like playing with language.
Which is still fundamentally like why I started doing this tobegin with is cause I really enjoyed doing that. And the lastcouple years have stepped away from writing almost entirely. Notentirely, but almost entirely. And, and so when I did get a chanceto write, it was always, it was always meaningful and I, and Iliked it.
That tended to be at things like the Tor de Frances where, youknow, I would essentially send to myself cuz I, I wanted to gocover the to Frances again. I had plenty, plenty, plenty of, plentyof talented, talented writers that, that reporters that could havegone instead of me. But at some point you pull the boss card andI'm like, I'm gonna the tour
So, so yeah, there's a couple pieces on that front. Actually oneof the first pieces I ever wrote for segment tips it's, it wascalled The Road to Niro's House. And it was about a trip that mywife and I and two friends took to Columbia. And it, it, like halfthe photos are broken on it now. It's, it's, it's from like 2017like 6,500 words of a trip around Columbia and all the sort ofthings that, that riding in Columbia.
Particularly in 2017 meant sort of keeping in mind that that,you know, a relatively large and disastrous war there only kind ofwrapped up around the 2010 mark depending on who you ask . So I, I,I really enjoyed that piece. And then, yeah, like these, theselittle riddles, you know, there's a couple that I've written overmy career that I that you tend to write them in 20 minutes,right?
Because something just hits you in the head and, and you just, Imean, you just get it out, but it, because of that, it's, they'revery pure. I think. I wrote one about the toe strap that my dadwould use to attach a sock full of Tube tire, co2, you know, flatfixing implements underneath his saddle.
Right? And he would, he would strap this thing underneath hissaddle with a, with a strap, like a tube sock underneath his saddlewith a, with a, with a tow strap, like a leather tow strap. And,and I, and I wrote this story about how, like, you know, I justremember when I was 12, 13 years old. And you know, my dad isobviously a much stronger cycl cyclist than me at that point.
And just like, you know, trying to stay on his wheel with thislike, toe strap dangling in front of me as like the, you know, I'mjust, I'm just, I just need to stay on the tow strap. Wrote a pieceabout that at some point that I, that I ended up, I, I reallyliked. And it was meaningful to me because of my, my relationshipwith my dad is like very tied into my relationship with cyclingbecause we grew up doing it together and, and still ride togetherwhen we can and things like that.
There was one about eating Castle and Carcassone during a restday, Tor de France that I liked. Again, these, you know,
[00:55:59] Randall R. Jacobs: Castle inPer,
[00:56:01] Caley Fretz: Castle is is likea,
[00:56:03] Randall R. Jacobs: I'm, I'm, I'm notso
[00:56:04] Caley Fretz: is like, is like ameat, like a meaty stew thing you know, white beans and, and, andsome, some meat. And Carcassone is a town in southern France with abig kind of world heritage site castle over top of it.
And it's always hot as hell there. They often have restage thereat the torque. It's always hot as hell. And I have yet to find ahotel or an Airbnb there that has air conditioning. So you'realways just like baking, you know, second rest day of the Tor DeFrance. You know, I, I think I was sitting in a cafe.
And I had a couple roses like you do and, and eating a castle,which is also hot. So I'm like, I'm hot eating a hot castle andjust watching the world kind of go by like the sort of Tor deFrance rest day world go going by and, you know, like Greg Van Amacoming up and, and stopping at a red light. I'm this, I've wrotethe story a while ago and I'm trying to remember what I even talkedabout.
You know, Gregory, he came up and stopped at the red light whilea bunch of amateur cyclists like blew right through it. And he'slike, nah, I'm gonna stop the red light, the proper professionalcyclist. Yeah, just , just, just silly, silly stories like thatthat stick in my mind. And interestingly, like I, I finally, theytend to stick in, in reader's minds when I, when I got laidoff.
Those are the kind of stories that people were sending me beinglike, Hey, I love this when you wrote it. Thanks for everythingyou've done, kinda thing. Which is, yeah, I mean, as, as somebodywho creates things for a living, when you realize that peopleactually read them. And liked them. That's a, that's a prettyspecial thing.
So, yeah, rode in Niro's house
rest day, something at a Tour de France. I can't remember whatthe headline was. And I think it was called the teaching Toe Strap,which was actually Avenu story back in the day. Those are probablythree of my, three of my favorites.
[00:57:42] Randall R. Jacobs: You know, I, Ihave never been much of a writer. I barely got out of undergrad andgrad school, largely because I struggled with the thesis papers foreach. So, writing has always been a challenge for me too much forperfectionists with not enough of a honed mastery of the skill.
But there is something, that I get as a product creator, youknow, there are the things that you create because you have tocreate them. Now there are things that you create because you justhave to, like, you, you have to feel your own reasons. And whenpeople resonate with that it's just immensely gratifying.
And, you know, I've appreciated your work and the work of yourcolleagues at cycling tips during your tenure there. And youdefinitely built something special there. So excited to see whatyou do in this next chapter.
[00:58:22] Caley Fretz: Thank you. Thankyou.
[00:58:24] Randall R. Jacobs: So, you alreadyhinted a little bit at this, but what does the bike mean for you?What role has it played in your life? Why, why do you care so muchabout this, this two-wheeled vehicle?
[00:58:34] Caley Fretz: hmm. I, I mean, it'schanged so many times for me. I think that, that, that's, it'salmost an impossible thing to answer cuz you, you could ask me thatas a 13, 14 year. You know, showing up in spandex to, to highschool and getting lots of weird looks, and it would be in a verydifferent thing to me then as, as it did when I was, you know, 20,21 and, and, and, you know, weighing up a quote unquoteprofessional contract for $3,000 a year and live in a van to, youknow, the middle of my VE era to now where, you know, like the bikethat I rode more than any other bike in 2022 was a cargo bucketbike.
That, that I ride my daughter to her to, to daycare in everysingle day. You know, I I, I, I've rode that thing 2,700 miles inone year, three miles at a time, . So like,
[00:59:31] Randall R. Jacobs: So with yourdaughter in it half, half the
[00:59:34] Caley Fretz: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.So, like, you know, they're, they're, they're, and back every
[00:59:37] Randall R. Jacobs: quality fatherdaughter time.
[00:59:39] Caley Fretz: Totally. They're,they're back every morning.
They're back every afternoon. And, and yeah, quality father,daughter time, and you know, one of the most, sort of enjoyablehalf hour of, of my, of my day. So, so, yeah. It's almost animpossible question for me to, for me to answer at this point otherthan like, it's, they're the, they're the through line foreverything in my life since I was 10.
You know, that it, it's just that's the, the thread that holdsit all together, right? That, that, that it was the thing that mademe weird in high school. It was the thing that, that consumed mein, in college to the point of probably the detriment of my actualgrades. It was the thing that, that, that provided me a, a, a stepinto what has become a very enjoyable career.
And now it's a thing that, that yeah, that I use to, to just getmy daughter around, which is, which is like, Special in its ownsort of indescribable way. So yeah, I guess that's the answer. It'sthe, it's the thread. It's the thing that holds all the otherthings together, basically.
[01:00:40] Randall R. Jacobs: It reminds me ofa quote about marriage, which is , I've been married many times. Itjust so happens to have been to the same person.
[01:00:47] Caley Fretz: Yeah.
[01:00:47] Randall R. Jacobs: this reinvention,this new relationship to ostensibly the same thing. I can very muchrelate to that with the bike as well.
But but yeah, it has been a delight being able to finally sitdown and have this sort of nearly focused quality conversation withyou, Kayleigh, and wish you the best with your future endeavors.And let's absolutely keep in touch. Maybe have you back on when youhave, the next thing that you're talking about.
[01:01:09] Caley Fretz: Yeah, talk to me inJanuary. That's what we're looking
[01:01:13] Randall R. Jacobs: good, amigo. Allright. Take care of my friend.
[01:01:15] Caley Fretz: Thanks.
[01:01:16] Craig Dalton: Big, thanks to Randalland Kaylee for having that conversation. Super fascinating subjectmatter. When you think about the economics of cycling journalism.And how consumers are willing to pay for it. I hope every listenerof the podcast here, values cycling journalists. And find ways tocontribute to their ongoing efforts to cover the sport. Welove.
If you're interested in connecting with myself or Randall orpotentially even Kaylee. Please join the ridership. It'sover@wwwdottheridership.com. That's a free global cycling communitywhere you can connect and talk about all the things you love. Aboutgravel cycling. If you're interested in supporting the podcast,ratings and reviews are hugely appreciated. So if you enjoyed thisepisode, please go to your favorite podcast platform.
And just drop us a quick review. And if you're feelingespecially helpful. Feel free to share this episode with a friend.That's a great way to get new people involved in the gravel ridepodcast. Until next time. Here's to finding some dirt under yourwheels
