Accomplishing the Impossible with Jeremiah Bishop

Accomplishing the Impossible with Jeremiah Bishop

Tue, 11/16

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, route, ride, bike, impossible, trails, retailers, events, race, shops, cyclists, cycling, bike shop, strava, fun, gravel, canyon, big, community, bicycle

SPEAKERS

Heather Mason, NBDA , Jeremiah Bishop

NBDA   00:10

You are listening to bicycle retail radio brought to you by the National bicycle Dealers Association.

Heather Mason  00:17

Welcome to another episode of bicycle retail radio brought to you by the National bicycle Dealers Association. This is President Heather Mason. If you’re a first time listener, check out our previous episodes. Do us a favor leave a review it helps members of our industry find our podcast. Alright, today’s guest is Jeremiah Bishop. As a professional cross country mountain bike racer, he won gold medals and national championship titles before venturing into ultra endurance racing where his talent was unleashed. When mountain bike stage racing took off in the US Jeremiah dominated with an unmatched streak of wins and all the major events, he went on to establish a multi surface GranFondo event that preceded what would become an explosive gravel cycling movement is a cycling coach events consultant and athlete ambassador for Canyon bicycles. He loves mapping new routes interpretating the data and testing the limits his most recent venture, a founding member of the impossible routes team, he is the mastermind behind the routes, the technical details, equipment and Expedition logistics. And the impossible route documentary series is all about capturing the story and the adventure of cyclists trying to accomplish what might be considered impossible. listen in as we reflect on this past year, and how retailers can provide value and keep the stock level ultra high. A personal ultra endurance cyclist myself, I’m really excited about this one. So I welcome Jeremiah to bicycle, retail radio. How are you?

Jeremiah Bishop  01:45

I’m doing great, Heather, thanks so much for having me on board. I don’t know about all this stuff he just said, but I just like bikes. And I like sharing the excitement for riding. And I think that’s what’s kind of kept me going and kept me doing new things. You know, it’s definitely just a passion for me. And I really just love it. You know, anything with two wheels, that’s commuting? You know, if it’s getting groceries, or riding to the top of a mountain. I mean, if it’s got two wheels, I like getting involved with it.

Heather Mason  02:18

I’m I’m yeah, I’m super resonating with this impossible routes, that you I can’t wait to talk about it. Because I’m the person who like loves the map collection and love just like pointing to a spot and saying I want to do this, having no idea if it is possible. And I want to get into that. I want to talk about your sponsorships. And I really want to just kick it off with a big, maybe leading question. How are you feeling? Man? How are you feeling about the state of the industry? The bike boom, the past like year, 18 months? Where are you at with that?

Jeremiah Bishop  02:52

I can’t tell you how awesome it is. And I say this because we really see it in the comments for the impossible routes. We see it on social, there are people asking us very basic questions, and getting in to sport getting excited about riding trying their first winter ride. You know, those, those are the things that really make me smile. And you know, whenever whenever you do something new, you kind of put yourself out in a limb. And there’s some people, you know, a lot of people love the impossible routes. But there’s some people in the industry they’re like, Yeah, but you know, what I think are real gauges, how many people outside of cycling, love it. And that is really part of that whole storytelling piece and really trying to kind of reach farther than our like normal circle. So it’s really a neat time to be in cycling. You know, I think it’s the second golden age of cycling. And we have to really, as a collective have like experienced cyclists, we have to really make it more welcoming. We have to welcome people in, we have to give them the tools and resources they need to continue learning about the sport to stay engaged in this sport, you know, because these things they don’t always last. And so, you know, they they come up and hopefully this one will retain a lot of the people who have just joined us. And you know, a lot of that comes from being welcoming. A lot of that comes from inspiring, and, you know, I think that’s the real I guess gravitas with this whole possible rouse thing is it’s really been neat to hear people say hey, I just started writing again. You know, this is awesome. I love what you guys are doing. So

Heather Mason  04:40

Oh no, you’re this is the conversation that we’re having with retailers. We have this we have this amazing opportunity right now to take all these new cyclists like traditionally the people walking into the bicycle shop are those familiar with spandex or maybe they have a friend who rides right but now we have people who have maybe walked in because their gym was closed or they just We’re so stressed out, they needed a new outlet or they just read an article that bikes were the thing and they needed they wanted to go buy one. And we’re reminding retailers less add value less excite people, let’s let’s tempt people. I think that’s what’s so cool about the impossible routes project. So I know the first one was on the website and possible route.com. And the first one was in 2020. And I think there’s been three episodes in 2021. Tell me more, tell us more.

Jeremiah Bishop  05:30

Well, it all started with the pilot episode, which was the impossible route up Monica, and Alex candle Aereo, who is a guide on the Big Island, he runs Big Island tours, said, Hey, you know, I know you guys want to do this traditional route. But you guys should do the impossible route. And told me about how it’s this gravel approach, obviously, gravels trending, so I knew to kind of be a double, like, hit there. And yeah, soon as I heard the name impossible, I’m like, Okay, wait a second. So do you think someone could do it? He’s like, Yeah, yeah, I think someone could do it. But every time they run out of water, or it’s just too long, talking about a route with 17,000, vertical feet of gain, in one shot, tops out, nearly 14,000 feet starts at the ocean. So that was our first episode. And, you know, I thought it was gonna kill Tyler, the vegan cyclist, you know, very popular YouTuber, stoke maker for the sport. But yeah, it didn’t kill him. And he actually really showed a lot of like, growth and personal development. And, you know, that’s, that’s a lot of what I love about doing long, tough rides is how getting yourself into like trouble, can sometimes be the most memorable and amazing stuff. It can also be transformative, and restorative. And, you know, I think that’s why a lot of people got into cycling during the pandemic, you know, it’s like, I need to get out of here. This is just claustrophobic. This is just, you know, a lot of stress or a lot of like family stress. I’ll tell you what, you get down on the bike path, you know, just a couple minutes, and it’s all gone. Or if you’re blasting down a trail, it’s just out of sight, out of mind. And so we decided to go back and try to say, hey, let’s do another episode. And a friend of mine said, Hey, why don’t you do a series instead of just an episode? I’m like, All right. I like that. I like that. And so we got the sponsors together, pulled together a bunch of great sponsors, including Canyon, IRC. We have flow formulas, DT Swiss. Yeah, I mean, some of these are very familiar brands. Some of my classic sponsors, like argon, some Tyler sponsors, jumped in like Eliel. And it’s really just been neat. We even got the support of Strava. And whoop, so really need to see people get into this whole, like concept. And, you know, it started out as like one episode has now become a four episode series. So the third episode, just launched glacier to Teton, we did a premiere at sea otter classic, it was super fun. And then the next episode that’s coming up already in the can, so to speak, getting edited is called Telluride Hill ride. So I’m not gonna spoil it too much. But we joined forces with Ryan Petri, who is a Colorado, local, he’s a mountain goat, as it were really good at high altitude. And we took on this insane ride with 20,000 feet of climbing through the high jeep road passes of the San Juan mountain range. It’s a really dumb idea, but you just have to watch it to see how it came out.

Heather Mason  08:48

Oh, man, that sounds that sounds awesome. Yeah, you know, we need to have these things that inspire us, you know, hear like the iron cowboy. We hear of these, these people chasing their dreams, doing what we are thinking is impossible. And it makes us want to say okay, what do we, what can we go after? And for some people, it might be just finishing a mile, you know, like, on my Facebook, someone posted, you know, last year, it was 25 miles this year. It’s 49 miles. That’s my goal. I think we could really build a community around this. Is that what you’re seeing? Is that what you’re feeling?

Jeremiah Bishop  09:21

Absolutely, you know, some of the best messages are those where everyone has their own impossible, you know, recovering from injury. Friend of mine is a really accomplished rider. If Kaufman had knee surgery, you know, and so he was working to try to get up to 30 minutes of riding before he had knee pain. You know what, but it’s freedom. It’s it’s fresh air. It’s the outside. And anything better than yesterday is awesome improvement, a great goal and something worth smiling about and being proud of and I think that’s what we’re saying the only thing we’re really, I think saying, and this I didn’t realize this message was ingrained in the impossible routes is that it is okay to fail. It is and it’s okay. Yeah, it is. Okay. The Impossible route Death Valley, I knew was a bit overboard. So I said to Tyler Hey, how about we do like a shorter route, you know, four days, we’ll go from Vegas to Bishop, California or Lone Pine, and we’ll ride like sort of the part that I know is rideable. And he’s like, Well, what’s the other option? And I was like, well, we can try to ride the entire California backcountry discovery motorcycle route. I mean, he’s people were on like 700, CC, dual sport, motorcycles with giant tires weren’t just throttle, and, you know, try to stay on their itinerary. But I think that’s impossible. And he’s like, which one’s harder? And I was like, Well, definitely that. So that’s what we did. And we definitely got our teeth kicked in. We didn’t make it, you know, we were 40 Miles shy of making the entire route. And I was really not upset. But I was, you know, I had plenty of time to process the actual personal, like, incomplete, like we had for hours until we saw the song crew and we could like drop, jump, crawl, dehydrated and hungry inside the back of the truck and beg for a granola bar. So we had a lot of time to process that emotionally like with ourselves. But what we didn’t know was are people gonna think the episodes crap, you know, is it gonna be like, Oh, well, I didn’t make it, click, you know. But we turn the leaf we kept on writing has certain to having fun, we started seeing the places we were in. We took some time to see some of these, like historic sites, we found this old like, abandoned mine like museum, we visited Sara Gordo, Brent, with the famous youtuber from Ghost Town Living and like he toured us through the, you know, mind building, and we got to see like, human bones that he found in there and like minerals and weird. It was awesome. So I mean, it just became about sharing the story at that point and having fun. And I was like, Well, wait a second, you know, some of these documentaries, they don’t make the documentary. And it’s all sad. And everybody’s like, upset. We’re like, let’s party, you know, completely different, you know, angle, we’re doing things different. And we’re showing that it’s okay, you know, just set out do something awesome. That’s stretching your limits. And you know, you’re going to be good or great. Yeah, it’s okay.

Heather Mason  12:39

We, we can celebrate the victories but we also can celebrate the loss or the change victory, let’s say the change like,

Jeremiah Bishop  12:47

right, right, coming up short is still way more than I’ve ever done in a week, right? Yeah. So like, I exceeded like, 12 of my prs. I mean, longest day on the saddle, longest week on the bike most miles in one week, a new route that no one’s ever done before. I mean, okay. If we missed 40 miles of the route, whatever, you know, you step out, you train for it. Training made me better, fitter. And that’s the message we’re trying to share. Get out there. It’s a

Heather Mason  13:18

hard thing to process when you’re out there, though, right? You’re out there. You’re doing it and you’re thinking about it. And if you don’t finish, I mean, I’m a little bit of a freak myself. But so I have to ask you. I mean, do you want to go back and finish that? Like, is that?

Jeremiah Bishop  13:33

Why do you think I shouldn’t have said that in public? But yeah, I want to go back. Now. I want to finish that route. At least the hardest day, the 165 mile Crux day, just because I know, things now that I didn’t know, then. Yeah, so

Heather Mason  13:48

you put it out there, right? Yep.

Jeremiah Bishop  13:50

I put it out there. And, you know, I hope other people do go and ride the routes. You know, I like to see some of the routes, be accomplished by other people that we don’t make. We had a guy from Quebec, Canada finish the impossible route Molokhia. And he’s doing YouTube on it, and can’t wait to see how it goes. And honestly, I thought it would be, you know, I thought people would be doing these routes more. But, you know, kind of back to our previous discussion. One of the things that we’re trying to do is build a community. We’re trying to build resources for people. We have a lot of information on the impossible route comm which is the website, including suggested routes, so we actually have, okay, well, this routes, not really what you want to do. Death Valley. unequivocably, I would say is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy or excuse me, the Mojave, South Mojave section of the route. But what I did is I put together three routes. It took like a day to do this. And I put together suggested routes so hard in the Mojave, unbelievable. Change your life to do this route. It’s so beautiful up there, the Titus Canyon loop and Sarah Gordo loops So those three areas, those the spots to hit, go in the winter, bring lots of water, bring a spa tracker. And if you do any one of those routes, I hope someone sends me a message and says, Man, I was amazing. Thank you, you know, because that’s, that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re actually trying to give people ways in which they can, you know, select the correct Appledore bags for their setup. You know, how do you manage your storage? Where do you put the weight? How do you functionally use the bags out in the field? You know, what things do you want to have on your bento bag? You know, so those are sort of things that we did, we had to kind of show and tell along with our last premiere, which was really fun. We kind of showed some are packing list. You know, things like lip balm, I want to give him 100 bucks for a stick of lip balm and Death Valley. I am not kidding. Every one of these seems to have that in common. Lip Balm is permanently on my bike packing list now.

Heather Mason  15:56

I love it. I’m just thinking, you know, as we’re, as we’re speaking of thinking about, you know, the Ironman and how the Ironman used to be something that was totally impossible right there very well, we remember, you know, crawling across the finish line right back. And now it’s achievable. It’s on a more achievable level. I’m an ultra runner, and we have now 200 mile Ultra runs coming out. It’s crazy. Oh, yeah. So you’re basically giving people like a platform. Here’s another thing you can go after. I’m thinking just logistically new challenges, new adventures, all the mapping and planning. And you mentioned Strava earlier, and I’m not familiar with Strava, Strava routes yet, can you connect roads and trails and places with no trails even?

Jeremiah Bishop  16:42

Absolutely. So there are a couple of things that we do that definitely, I can’t tell people or show people but we have these really cool stickers that we had made up for the impossible route. So we’re giving these out to kids and people who are fans and stuff like that. In fact, anybody who wants to DM me on Instagram, or Facebook, I will send you some impossible route stickers and autographs you know a little postcard just trying to stoke people up for riding. And you know that that’s really what it’s about back to Strava Strava was really integral in our route planning. So we would use a number of platforms, everything from Cal Topo, to ride with GPS to Landsat imagery. ESRI data layers matte box has a bunch of really cool stuff that is used by a lot of websites, commercial and private. And basically anything we can get our hands on and word of mouth actually is one of the more powerful things that you can kind of get from Strava. Because the heatmap. So for Premium members, you have the heatmap, you can look and see if people have actually written through there. And so if it’s a dead end, and another dead end, and completely white between, you have a pretty good idea that a lot of people have tried to get through, but it’s probably not going through for a reason. 1000s of people, you know, in most even remote areas will sort of try different routes, it was challenging with the impossible routes, because we’re literally going for those dark areas on the Strava heatmap. And we’ve actually punched through some really cool connectors and, and pieces that I had a hunch would go through. And now people can go and ride those. And that’s that’s one of the fun things. One of the tips that I have for route building is if you’re curious about a area, you take a look at the heat map or take a look at the segments. And then you type a comment on to that person’s activity. Hey, at least or Hey, at Sam, does this trail go through, and they’ll often comment right back to you. So whereas you don’t have their email or phone number Strava is pretty public. And there’s millions of people on there. And people usually like sharing their activity and they love giving tips. And so I mean, it’s been kind of a good resource for just like, you know, word of mouth route building.

Heather Mason  18:51

I love that I’m going to start using a more historically like Trailforks Why would GPS Google Earth and you got like, all these different apps open? And you’re trying to make sense of it all, but having

Jeremiah Bishop  19:01

nothing better than Yeah, yeah. So like when when you have someone that has actually been through, they’re on a cross bike or gravel bike, and they’re like, No way, whatever to do. Either do not ride your gravel bike through their sand up to the rims. So anyway, that’s some of the stuff you learn. And we’re still learning. Honestly, we’re beginners at filmmaking, Tyler, and I, you know, this type of filmmaking collars are very good YouTubers, no doubt, and I’m a very good bike rider, no doubt. But when it comes to actually like creating movies, we don’t know what we’re doing. I mean, but as part of the brilliance of being able to pivot quickly, you know, I think when we were talking about this concept for the episode, you know, a lot of it’s about being responsive and adaptive. I know with the bike industry in the last two years, there’s been a tremendous amount of change, supply chain shops, you know, having a big push to go online or upside delivery, all this other stuff that seems to have been like, you know, a huge challenge to actually opportunities, I think there are opportunities to learn opportunities, you know, it’d be flexible opportunities to sort of kind of expand our knowledge base. And, you know, that’s good.

Heather Mason  20:21

Yeah, the industry that, you know, crazy, like, boom, as you’re saying, Now, some supply shortages are forcing retailers to be creative, look at different sources of revenue, and encouraged simply encourage cycling growth. I know you’ve spent a lot of time as a sponsored rider and working with retailers at demo events, interacting with cyclists. Is there any areas that come out, like top of mind for you right now that retailers should focus?

Jeremiah Bishop  20:46

Yeah, I mean, our local retailers, they have a lot of really neat things that that I think, are a they really drive community, which keeps people in for the long term, you know, and it’s more thinking long term, everything from like repair bike repair classes, to doing social events, having beer coffee, yeah, it’s really neat to see sort of these other things that have sort of spawned off of their sort of retail location. And that flexibility to Yeah, generating business in different ways. It’s been really neat to see some of the shops that I’ve seen out on the road, and on my travels, do tours, guide guided events, races, and really just being creative with how they interact with their, with their customers. And then, you know, quite often, people will do a bikepacking clinic, they’re like, well, dang, I don’t even have a plug kit, I don’t have, you know, a spare tire and, you know, the spot GPS, or the parts and bits and tools and things that they need to get, you know, out there and do these things. Yeah, I think there’s some, some pretty neat examples of, you know, making lemons into lemonade. To answer your question about my sort of background in the shops, I was service manager, actually, a bike doctor, and Maryland also worked at Princeton sports. Yeah, a bunch of different bike shops, like treat cycles. And yeah, I got to see, you know, a bunch of different whole bunch of different business ideas and, and things that were were cool and things that we would do during downtime and ways in which we could sort of maximize, you know, what, we did have one of the cool things that we did it, for instance, horses while you wait repairs, and okay, well, I mean, obviously, with service right now, and COVID is, it’s kind of crazy, because, you know, some shops are just putting bikes in containers, and have three week wait time, well, sometimes writing up a service ticket that’s legible, that gives good instructions to another person, and then getting the parts together, and then putting it back in storage. And then someone else trying to find it, get it back out, put it back in it, then they pick the bike up, they get back, you know what I mean? Hey, if it’s a wheel true, just knock it out, you know, set like a part of their, you know, part of our like, way in which we build out the schedule was we’ve kind of reserved some of this time for why you ate. And then while you ate, you buy a Garmin, you know, someone gets a new pair of shorts, and more time, they’re like walking around the shop. They’re just like, buying stuff that they didn’t know they needed. Because they’re killing time, or they’re going to, you know, grab another coffee or, you know, grab a map. And so it was kind of interesting, we’d actually have 100% increase in like parts and supplies sales if we during the while you wait repairs.

NBDA   23:50

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Heather Mason  24:26

because people are interacting and you’re, you know, that’s what we’ve been talking a lot about fit recently and so critical, these new riders that we’re setting them up to actually properly enjoy their bike, but the time you spend with someone while you’re fitting them to their bike, you’re talking about shoes, you’re talking about helmet, pedal, stroke, Garmin places to ride. I mean, we go back to what you were saying. It’s about the journey these cyclists are coming in and they’re about to embark on this journey, right and we have an opportunity to really engage them. And before we actually were talking offline, you and I just before this, about the community that you live in, and you were just like raving about how awesome it is. And he that’s what we want. We want people to leave your store raving about cycling and how awesome it is. I love that you’ve worked at shops, and I know you currently ride a canyon, and I’m sure you’re very well much aware of Canyon are retailers like shun the word right DTC is coming. How any thoughts around how you feel about DTC and bicycle retailer and how we can all work in harmony in this big ecosystem

Jeremiah Bishop  25:27

that we have? Totally other? It’s interesting, because I’ve been on both sides. And, you know, I think that one of the things that I like to communicate to shops is that the ones that are really invested in their customers have nothing to fear from DTC, like, it’s, it’s really the ones that don’t look to what their customers need from a community standpoint, service standpoint. And, you know, they might have something to be concerned about. But, you know, right now, we have huge tailwinds in the bike industry, and there’s just so much positive. And, you know, right now, while there’s not really any, like customer Authorized Service Centers, or anything like that going on, you know, the shops around here, they do get a lot of business from Canon owners, and they get tons of service, they get, you know, like I said, when, you know, people come in there, we can service the bikes, you know, Canon doesn’t serve as the bike. So, that’s a big, big part of it. And, you know, there’s a lot of room at the table right now, for sure. And, you know, Ken is always looking for ways to kind of improve their customer service, or customer experience. And, you know, right now they have bike repair.com. And that’s one way they can find servers partners that canyons work with on a frequent basis. So for retailers out there that are open. Yeah, it’s it’s kind of open book. And I think when, when you look at the shops in our area, I mean, they’re hammering away, and, you know, quite adaptable, there’s a local shop, over in call pepper that does fits a name Joe Coppola runs that is called Velo concepts, and they have an awesome cafe, you know, Joe’s, like, hey, why don’t you come over and do a group ride? And, you know, screening impossible routes? I’m like, sure. You know, I mean, it’s, it’s kind of one of those things like the the shops that welcome all their customers are gonna have, you know, a good time with it, and plenty of business. I’m with you. Um, yeah, it was, you know, they’re Kenyan, from a customer standpoint, it’s really trying to ramp up their small parts availability, so we can try to keep people rolling. But yeah, there’s plenty of business to go around. It’s just kind of like, you know, this evolving, kind of evolving space.

Heather Mason  27:49

Yeah, I’m so with you. And this and that, we tell retailers, you know, you have lots of opportunity, there’s service, there’s fit, there’s getting people in, and then all the other accessories that are needed. And, you know, just because someone might get a bike online doesn’t mean that they don’t need their local retailer to help them keep them engaged and running or running smoothly. I was going to ask you, you know, if you if you think that retailers should talk about these events that are happening, talk about, but I love the idea, you just said do a film screening, how that’s amazing, what a great idea.

Jeremiah Bishop  28:23

Hey, it’s, you know, it’s all, it’s all out there. You know, people just need to Yeah, you know, grab on to it, latch onto it, and make it theirs. And, you know, we’re trying to inspire people to ride. And I think that’s, that’s the cool thing with the impossible routes. And, you know, I think if it’s a gravel ride, or you know, weekly clinic series or other fun things, you know, those are just great, great ways to just really kind of help build that community. And, you know, of course, when you’re trying to find revenue, like, you can’t beat a fit. I mean, that’s, if you’re good at it. And my friend Joe, is very good at it. And yeah, it’s something people need, they will drive very far from where they live to get to it. And yeah, it’s it’s great business model plus it, you know, they’re gonna need a different saddle and different grabs and different desks and different STEM. And, you know, there’s there’s a lot of ancillary sales that go on there.

Heather Mason  29:23

I’m just remembering back and I had a store for a period of time and we were very active with organizing events, but we also did local trail maintenance days, which got people out, you know, not on the bike, but just taking care of the trails and bettering the community. And I did a little research on you and I know that you also co founded Is it love Trails is that?

Jeremiah Bishop  29:45

Yeah, it’s Luv tra ILS. And really the idea came from, you know, when you’re out there riding, especially traveling, you know, we do a lot of adventure travel. So, mountain bikers, you know, it’s tough to tip the trails. We don’t even know who built the trails or who maintains the trails. I met our yoursel, who’s the founder in South Africa, he now lives in Colorado full time, they came up with this really cool solution, which is a geo fenced app that allows you to kind of know where you are on sort of trail crews, sort of territory if it were, and allows you to donate to those groups. So there are hundreds of groups across the country, awesome groups, like fast in Northwest Arkansas, or mid atlantic offered dizziest. You know, all these local trail angels that do all this work, they bust their tail, they do all this fundraising, just to keep the trails in good shape for you and me, if you’re traveling, make sure to check it out. You can also attach it to your Strava, which is super cool. Because of the way that geo fences you can just make automatic donation, let’s say 25 cents per mile. Oh, really. And then at the end of the week, it says, Do you want to confirm this donation on your email, you click yes. And, you know, money goes to local trail organization. And so it’s really kind of neat. But it’s also cool for bike shops, and retailers and coffee shops and things like that to engage with the people who are coming into town to ride. So you might be you know, Kingdom trails, or riding a Santos or the Pacific Northwest riding. But then never go into a shop. But then you see an ad that says, hey, thanks for donating. Would you like a $10? gift certificate for bike? Plus? Sure, you know, what would you like a free pint of beer on us at The Fat Tire brewing? You know, it’s, it’s really kind of neat, because, you know, that’s, that’s sort of the potential that it brings. I mean, the whole idea, the whole thing came from just not being able to figure out who in the heck runs the local trail crews. And, you know, I was like, Man, this would be really neat. So that’s the idea behind it. You know, it’s just one of those things that I continually get involved with. And I realize it’s a lot more work than I thought it was in the beginning. But all this stuff I do, because I love it, you know, so you

Heather Mason  32:08

can tell your passion for the sport is just there. And you know, be I think you’re like, Yeah, you just start if you’re anything like me, you know, I was an endurance biker, as well, you’re just like, you want to just take on all these projects, and just keep adding because it makes you feel good. They’re good things and it gets gets people involved. I didn’t ask you about your past cycling career. I mean, I don’t know if our listeners know, you know, can you give us a little bit about, you know, some of the things you’ve done?

Jeremiah Bishop  32:35

Well, I mean, I started racing my my teens, you know, in Maryland, and then moved out to Harrisonburg, 25 years ago, to pursue this board and, you know, move out to the mountains and finally started to make it click, I learned quite a bit about coaching, I own a coaching company called Bishop training as well. So I don’t know, I guess I’m kind of becoming a serial entrepreneur. Anyway, it’s really been fun. It’s been fun, because I’ve been able to well exceed my expectations, you know, I thought maybe I’d be able to ride the pro level and make a living for a few years racing, the norba national circuit and to do this stuff, but I’ve gotten into a lot of really cool other things. Yeah, winning some of these, you know, endurance races came later. But when I really got into it early on, I was racing cross country, mountain biking, which is, you know, sort of the Red Bull format that you see. And those events are an hour and a half long, technical, explosive, really high paced, a lot of action, a lot of traffic crashes. And, you know, this super exciting format of racing. And so cross country mountain bike racing, I did for quite a long time, a race with my first team, a small team based out of Florida actually came to New Sun, but then I found some really good success got on the trek, Volkswagen East Coast Regional team. Then in 2004, I was like, Well, you know, getting pretty fast. I’m gonna try to do a couple international races and friend of mine said, Hey, you should try for the Olympics. And I’m like, No way. No way. I’m nowhere near good enough. I almost made the team and it was a subject of a really cool film called off road to Athens. And so that may be perked. Some of my film interest is kind of some involvement in some of these early documentary productions. Yeah, I didn’t go to the Olympics, but I did win the Pan American Games on the way. I also won several norba nationals. And then yeah, I just kept going and got on some other teams including Cannondale Factory Racing motor, the cannondale, and then, you know, I was on show air Cannondale for a while, and it was just a wild ride. It’s really, really need, but I always had to have something different to keep motivated. Because if you do the same old thing, the same old way for long enough and you kind of lose motivation. So I was always kind of curious about the long distance races, I would do some of the 100 mile national Series events here and there, sort of picked some of those off. And it was awesome, really fun. And then I started to do some of these stage races. And instantly it really worked well for me. So we raced trans out, pool cheese. I mean, I think that was maybe 2007 And a really propelled by form. So Chris, he taught myself with trek Volkswagen race, the Trans out that year, we got our teeth kicked in the first couple stages, but the last stage and two legged Agharta, the race goes between Germany and Italy, across the Alps, hence the name. We won the stage, you know, beating Carl Platt and his teammate, and yeah, it was eye opening. I really love that the format and then got onto Canyon sponsored team about nine years ago, called Toby Gurgaon. And so I was actually riding Canyon bikes well, before they were available in the US. Yeah, it was really, really neat evolution. So race for two Canyon teams. And now I’m just doing sort of my privateer Canyon program, as well as doing the documentary series, the impossible routes.

Heather Mason  36:13

So so many things think I’m thinking about right now. I’m thinking back to normal and I’m thinking about Mount snow and the naked ride. And I don’t know if you’ve ever joined in one of those when that was lag. And then stage racing, I can totally you know, BC bike race Breck epic. And earlier, you and I were talking about pista Have you had some hand in organizing and setting up some of these events?

Jeremiah Bishop  36:35

Well, I consulted with Transylvania epic early on. And it was really fun just to sort of take some of my experience having raised kid Cape epic five times trans out seven times, yeah, to contribute a bit to, you know, the length of the stages, ideas on stages. Yeah, and it’s been really fun to see those races grow and, you know, become a staple of us bike racing, really think it’s fun to be involved on the promotional side, also founded the Alpine live GranFondo for local charity cycling event, sort of mix, surface gravel, and road and everything. So like I said, I like bikes, we had a really cool race called tour of Virginia, in our area, for several years, raised for a bunch of years. And then it, you know, went belly up, I guess they were spending more than they were taking in. And, you know, it was kind of a big bummer, because I loved having the big show here. And all the racers coming here and the team cars and it was super fun. And, you know, came up with the idea to run a GranFondo format, which is an all race you know, as part party part race, but it was another chance to bring people to Harrisonburg is really great for local business, the restaurants kill it, the bike shops are loving it. And also it’s a chance to, you know, kind of share my excitement for this sport. And so, yeah, I’ve been involved with event consulting, and yeah, a bunch of fun things in cycling, thinking about

Heather Mason  38:11

you know, events last year events being canceled, postponed. And you know, raised promoters, Assam, I feel like barely holding on, you know, because there’s you can make it you can make a profit, or you can just get the race basically out the door, challenging time, many people even looking to sign up for races, but they’re just closing out so quickly. I mean, there might be, there might be some, some benefits, or retailers, even if they can, if they have the insurance to or work with someone to set up something in their local community, like you said, it’s great for business, right?

Jeremiah Bishop  38:42

It is. And really, when you when you look at, like one of the things that, especially in the space for smaller events, it’s one of the things a big company can’t do well, like, Lifetime Fitness is not going to come to your small local town, and spend $30,000 to host an event that takes in $13,000, you know, they’re just not going to do that. But if you are already there, and you know, the routes, you know, the place, you know, it’s pretty easy, comparatively to host an event is also, you know, a great community thing. I think it makes a lot of sense. And you look at like the very big events, they’ve been able to ride out COVID You know, just sort of talking about that industry itself, you kind of look on bike ridge, and you look at the number of events that have gone under it’s definitely been a lot of those middle size events have just struggled, you know, the ones that actually need to make, make some money have really struggled. So I definitely feel that it was a tough year, two years and you know, just for us to host the event and just to be able to have that for the community and for the cancer community. We support cancer journeys. So make sure to check out cancer journeys and prostate cancer awareness project for you men out there over 40 Make sure to Get your PSA checked. There’s a free prostate tracker there. Super cool, very, very treatable cancer, if it’s detected early, if you let it slide, you might not be so lucky. But yeah, really, really cool community effort that we have, we’re lucky that we’ve been able to keep it going and kind of made it out of the backside of this thing. Yeah, it’s been really interesting is it’s been an opportunity, I think, when we look at Lifetime Fitness, you look at some of these other big, big, well funded, you know, event promoters, they’ve been able to, you know, snap up big properties, like sea otter classic, you know, sort of expand in the gravel space, like Michael Marks VW R, and you look at the, you know, SPT, gravel, you know, they’ve got the resources to ride out a bad year, but a lot of the local promoters are like, you know, we’re really, really hammered. And a lot of them couldn’t qualify for, you know, the, I guess they had like, small business assistance. So, yeah, really big challenges. But yeah, I mean, I think coming out of the backside of it now, there’s actually a lack of events, and a lot of people who are really interested in whether they stay in cycling, I think is gonna depend on how much fun they’re having.

Heather Mason  41:13

Yeah, I’m just thinking what you’re doing with the impossible routes and using Strava. You could, you know, retailers could almost just in their own local community, make a couple routes and throw them out there to their community, just to try it on any data they want. Right? Be kind of neat way to keep people engaged.

Jeremiah Bishop  41:28

The Great idea. Yeah, I think, you know, it’s, it’s one of those things where, you know, if we can encourage people to be active, and you know, that anytime you like, change someone’s behavior, then in a positive way, that really is memorable and fun. And, you know, getting people out the door. Yeah, that you can’t go wrong with and when you’re selling bikes, tell you what, we were out some bike parts. And where you ride, the better. I’m gonna go a little

Heather Mason  42:00

sideways on you. I haven’t actually watched the videos yet the impossible routes. What I know I suck, right? I said, Is this something you know, I’m thinking inspiration, I’m thinking of people walking into a shop. And if a retailer had the impossible route on the screen, people are gonna be like, Wow, what is this? What is this? How long is each episode? What am I in for when i i Shouldn’t I should have previous that I don’t watch like hardly any TVs.

Jeremiah Bishop  42:29

If you go to the impossible route comm start with the pilot episode, Monica, and make sure you’ve got popcorn in an hour to sit down and check it out. And I think you’ll dig it. A lot of people watch these while they’re riding the trainer. Yeah, so that’s the interesting thing we noticed is, you know, I mean, Swift is cool and all but a lot of people will just like, slide that screen over and play the impossible route because they want to see terrain, and they want to see the action and how it plays out. And, yeah, it could be awesome. I mean, if people play that up on their flat screen TV, give some people ideas on what they want to do. And when they have ideas and goals, they need equipment, they need a bike, they need a group, they need to fit. I mean, it all just sort of is full circle. If you don’t have goals, you don’t need a coach. I mean, and your bike riding is sort of like brushing your teeth is kind of a limited, it can be a limited activity for some people. But I think as we bring them into the fold, and you start to become part of our club or community, then you start to say this is awesome. Now I need to get the cool cycling cap and I need my burrito bag to handlebar and I need to get you know all this other stuff but that comes with sort of that second stage of like being an enthusiast and so I think we’ve got a lot of people on the welcome mat and we need to welcome welcome them in the door and make you know cycling be like much more about that community piece.

Heather Mason  44:09

Yeah, um you know I read this article about people selling their peloton bikes you know, we had this big, this big wave wave of people that get the peloton bike, and now I feel like because we have we’ve gotten them outside now and you know, and I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with the peloton. bike, I think it’s a great thing. But I’m excited that people are outside and they’re looking for that adventure and people are working remotely. They’re they’re valuing their time, they’re taking Monday off to go on an adventure. So we have this awesome opportunity. And I love the idea of retailers playing the impossible route in the store. I love the idea of getting people to think outside of their box and their comfort zone and push themselves a little bit. You know, maybe it’s asking them to share their themselves conquering their impossible route or maybe it’s us. Yeah, right sharing ourselves conquering whatever we think is impossible.

Jeremiah Bishop  45:01

Yep, we have some ideas for our contests. I like your idea, Heather, that is sort of full circle. Because, you know, one of the most engaged posts that we had on social media last year was Tyler was like, hey, well, we did some awesome stuff this year. But what do you think we should do? It blew up. I mean, like, all these ideas, but we really want. And this is the idea with the Strava challengers we did we did 165 miles in two weeks challenge, which is, you know, it’s a goal. For most people, it’s doable, do 165 miles in two weeks. And then in August, we had climbed 30,000 feet in two weeks, that’s a bit harder, you know, especially if you live in North Florida, or, you know, Alabama, anyway. So that’s just encouraging people to step one foot in the door. And then the next thing I think we should do is submit your impossible routes. And then the last thing I want to do is submit your impossible route videos. So I want to have this platform, community platform where people are like, Hey, here’s my route. And like, we’re not even necessarily on it. But it’s almost like a forum. Hey, that route. Super cool. And I try that, where do you think we should eat afterward or whatever, and really kind of create a little bit more longitude to it, if that makes any sense? Because there’s so many routes out there, and we’re never going to ride them all Tyler and I for sure not. We’re going to have some more athletes involved next year, and really open up the platform to some other characters, not to tell you too much about next year, but it’s gonna be really cool. More characters, more stories, more places, more faces. And it’s going to be super fun. But yeah, I like to encourage people to sort of think outside the box or ride something different. You know, that’s your homework, you know, if you’ve never done a fat bike ride, hey, that might be the next thing that might be your next fun thing to go and try. Because I’ll tell you what, you know, if you put something on the calendar, and you and your friends get excited about it, the rest is history. You got to start training, you got to get the gear, get to know how and take on your impossible.

Heather Mason  47:13

Yeah, put it on the calendar, you know, bicycle retailers, many retailers I speak to are just really, they’re tired. You know, they’ve been relentlessly working, you know, extra hours a lot more stress right now trying to, you know, be on that item, watch and grab grab 10 Speed chains when they come up. And you know, there’s so many stressors and everyday it’s, you know, turning the light on and going into the bike shop and then having to tell someone, there’s a delay or, and so I’m like, Okay, let’s just go right, let’s make a commitment. Like, you know, let’s put a date on the calendar and go on a trip, like collectively and retailers to ride because you’re right, once you put something on the calendar, you make a date. Commit to it, you’re in man, you’re just

Jeremiah Bishop  48:00

Yeah, I think we’re, I don’t know if we’re lucky. Or if it’s like just a mutual like truce, but the local shops here, they’ll not step on each other’s toes to be open, like seven days a week. Like they’re just like, Okay, we’re gonna ride on Sundays. And that’s that. And it’s cool. It’s cool. Because, you know, people will find their way to schedule it and work it in their schedule. And then when they had the snowshoe the World Cup, it’s no show. I mean, there were 1000s of people paying the watch. And it was actually worth paying, because it was insane. So much fun. All this stuff going on and music and the downhill races. And they just closed the shop, they basically put aside I’m sorry, we’re gonna be closed on Saturday. See,

Heather Mason  48:50

almost also makes you more human, you know? And even if you actually go ride with your customers. Wow, what about that magic that happens, right?

Jeremiah Bishop  48:59

Yes, I think that’s important. You know, and of course, we’re trying to put food on the table, but like, I think it’s really it’s significant for employee retention, to listen, and to reward, you know, because it’s, it’s not an easy time. It’s very, very stressful, but, you know, just those small gestures and saying thanks, and having that, you know, lunch hour ride, that community aspect where people are encouraged to, you know, stay fit and stay sane is really going to pay off because, you know, trying to train someone higher right now is not really fun. And if you lose people, you lose a lot of knowledge base and there’s tremendous value to everyone out there who’s sharing their experience, everyone out there, it is back there, you know, trying to change cables and and tune a DI two derailleur and try to figure out this next bottom bracket or this next blue To the interface for their flight, whatever it is, was that thing flight attendant, you know, I mean, they have all this technology, and it’s only going to get more complicated. And so we really need to have a huge shout out to the people that are very good at what they do. And make sure they get to ride.

Heather Mason  50:16

Yeah, right. Because I know when I come back from a ride, I’m feeling good. And I’m ready to like, give joy to everyone. Alright, so let’s wrap it back up to the impossible routes. Let’s talk about ways that consumers can interact with you like what is what where should we go to the website first? Impossible. routes.com? Then you’re saying watch the pilot? And then what else? Is there? social feeds?

Jeremiah Bishop  50:39

Yeah, absolutely. We do a lot of posts and videos and content on Instagram for the impossible route, just on there as Jeremiah Bishop. And also we’ve got Tyler pierce the vegan cyclist. So yeah, the impossible route, Instagram is fantastic. And website is the impossible route calm. You’ll also see the episodes on outside TV coming up soon. And so the links will go directly from the website to the YouTube channel. And then outside TV, I’m not sure when we’re going to be able to have those episodes live there. But check it out. Fun stuff.

Heather Mason  51:15

Awesome. Anything else you might lead with, for our retailers, any last thoughts for retailers, listening, staff, employees of retail bike shops, you know, across the US moving forward, any words of wisdom, I’m just throwing that out there.

Jeremiah Bishop  51:29

I just say thanks for keeping all the people rolling. Because you know, and I mean, the how important it is, you know, during this whole last two years to get your headspace right and be outside and to do your thing to get to work, you know, that’s something you can be proud of. There’s a lot to be proud of. And I think when we look at, you know, a lot of the heavy lift, you know, has been overcoming these challenges and keeping people rolling. And that is a piece of mine as important as being, you know, a psychiatrist. It’s like so good for people. So to everybody out there that’s working in the shops. Hopefully it gets some good winter rides, and I’m looking forward to some some adventures myself and yeah, make sure to be in touch and reach out to us. We pretty much answer every single comment or every single, we read every single comment on YouTube and reply to our DMS and really try to interact with folks and I look forward to collaborating

Heather Mason  52:31

well thank you Jeremiah, today’s guest Jeremiah Bishop the impossible routes.com Go ahead check out the website such an inspirational message getting more people to chase their passion, their dream chase their impossible, share it with others. That’s it for today. I invite you to connect with me Come on bicycle, retail radio, share your story with our listeners, lots of love for our industry that NBDA has been around since 1946. That’s 75 years existing to support bicycle retailers in North America. If you’d like to support the MBDA or the show don’t forget, subscribe, share our messages, our podcasts, our webinars on social media. We appreciate you thank you for listening. See you back here soon. And with this we go.

NBDA   53:17

This has been bicycle retail radio by the National bicycle Dealers Association. For more information on membership, and member benefits, join us@nbda.com