Ep. 1167: Mountain Biking in Pakistan - Greg Robidoux Revisited

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You're listening to the Adventure Sports Podcast.

We talk with adventures from around the globe to give you the inspiration you need to get

started in the outdoors or keep moving if you're already there.

Hello everyone and welcome to the Adventure Sports Podcast.

This is Caleb.

I'm pleased to announce that as of today, that is January 13th, my dad Kurt has successfully

landed in Tanzania and will, I believe tomorrow, begin the long trek, the expedition to climb

Mount Kilimanjaro as part of the fundraiser for We See Hope.

Well he's gone, I'll be stepping in a little bit more to do a few of the other episodes

in addition to the Friday Revisited episodes.

And as I hear news, I will of course, keep you all updated and let you know what he's

up to.

In today's Revisited episode, Mason interviews Greg Robido.

This is a short but really powerful and impactful episode with lots of great stories about

Robido mountain bike racing in Pakistan in the Himalayas from food poisoning to terrorist

hideouts.

This episode has a little bit of everything.

I hope you enjoy it.

Here's Mason.

All right folks, today, very interesting episode, something I'm excited here about.

I hear there's some good stories in here as well.

We're going to be talking about cycling, cycling in Pakistan, cycling in the Himalayas,

just cycling in these different places and some cool stories associated with it.

Greg Robido, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for having me.

Yeah, yeah.

So I always ask this first, where are you coming from and is that home and if not, where's

home?

So born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, somehow I've avoided the Boston accent for

the most part.

I was going to say, you're born and raised.

I didn't realize that.

Well, what did you grow up doing, you know, being there, you know, folks heard in the

intro, you do, you know, physical, you know, some training now, some physical therapy,

some, you're in the cycling world.

But what did you grow up doing?

Did you play sports?

Did you go outside a lot as a family and how did you do it?

We were, we had, I had kind of a unique childhood, you know, my, unfortunately, my mother was

very sick when I was young.

She fought breast cancer for eight years and died in 1986.

I was the age of 11 at that point.

And my dad raised myself, my sister, you know, he really instilled upon us a good athletic

background.

My sister was a very accomplished dancer myself.

I was soccer or basketball baseball in high school.

I played division one soccer in college and then I didn't, I found cycling kind of late

actually in comparison to a lot of people that, you know, cycle competitively.

I was in my early 20s.

I had gotten out of school.

I was doing some, some running, some, some marathon running, you know, as a physical

therapist, I, I realized that I was kind of beating myself up a little bit.

And decided to find, you know, some cross-training and I found a bicycle and got on that bicycle

and never looked back.

You know, that was, that was it for me.

You know, race competitively through kind of early to mid 20s into my mid to late 30s.

You know, and then did by house raise a family, you know, all that kind of stuff.

And the ironic thing about a lot of this is that, you know, working in the cycling industry

and working, treating cyclists, somehow, oftentimes, it happens, you know, the deeper you get

into the industry, the less time you have to ride, you know, it's still, still rock.

Oh my gosh, man.

I can't tell you how many times we've heard that here.

It's so true.

It's like, oh, people are like, oh, you do adventures all the time.

You host the show.

Yeah, you think I'm in a closet half the time that listening to folks talk about adventures,

which I'm happy to do.

But yes, continue.

Sorry.

No, it's, that's, that's all right.

And so I, I, I get a lot of enjoyment out of, out of helping cyclists, you know, still

love riding is still love, maybe being competitive with myself at this point.

And my kids are getting older, you know, I hope to someday get back to doing some master's

racing.

But, you know, at this point, it's, it's more just riding for fun, riding with the kids.

My, my five year old learned to ride at four years old last summer.

We were up in Vermont for the summer ride mountain bikes every day.

And she went from a combination of balanced bike and training wheels to hit the jump track

on her little pink specialized within like a week, fearless.

She's a fierce little lady.

How cool was it to see that?

It was phenomenally cool.

I mean, my, my son is, is getting to be quite the rider himself.

And so, you know, he's, he, he chases his mom around, who's, it was a very accomplished

mountain bikeer for self.

You know, I'm steep, my, my wife is, is a better mountain bikeer than I am.

I, I always historically brought good road fitness and that, you know, got me through mountain

biking.

But I tend to bash and crash my way through the, uh, through the woods with a big grin

on my face.

Right.

But that's my style.

I'm not, I don't think I have a lot of mountain bike finesse.

Let's put it that way.

You know, I see people riding and it's, they're just flowing through the woods and I can't

agree more, man.

I feel like I just crashed through the woods and, and I, and I fall a lot and I get out

the other side and I beat up, I feel accomplished, but I wouldn't want to see video of it, you

know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

I make it look hard.

I'm, I'm, yeah, I don't know what I, I, I don't get better over time.

That's for sure.

Um, that's hilarious though.

Well, that's really cool.

Your whole family is kind of into it.

It does, it, it sounds like y'all are primarily mountain bikers or is it a mixture of road

and biker?

Well, it's a mixture, mixture of everything.

I, I was primarily a roadie and when I met my wife, we met doing cycle cross.

So that's kind of in between, right?

We've got, she was a primarily, primarily mountain biker racing on the mountain bike

circuit and I was primarily a roadie and we met doing cycle cross.

She's actually the one that dragged me off to Pakistan.

So yeah, I was going to say cycling's taken you to some pretty incredible places.

Tell us, tell us about this experience.

So this, this experience was, was a lot of fun.

Um, so this is earlier on, uh, I had met my wife Ross, a spectacular woman and she basically

said, you know, like, if you're going to hang with me, you got to, you got to ride a mountain

bike, none of this road bike.

And so, so I got, I got my, uh, got a mountain bike and started riding with her and, you know,

it did, did relatively well in, in the competitive realm just because I brought good road fitness.

I was a good time trialist.

That was really my specialty.

So, you know, in, in many cross country races, aren't super technical.

So I was able to just kind of put my head down and drag race through a lot of them.

And so she came across this opportunity to go race in Pakistan and they, they were looking

for an American team, a team of five people, uh, you had to submit a race resume.

And so she, you know, we've seen this and she's like, all right, you've got to start doing

as many races you can because we're going to put our hat in the ring for them.

So, I think that's what we're going to do with this.

Long story short is that I did a bunch of races.

I, I had some, some success and, um, we sent our resumes off.

Uh, we put a team of five together.

So it was three, three men, two women, uh, my wife included and they said, yeah, we'd

love to have you.

So it was, I can't remember it was eight or 12 different countries represented.

And, uh, this was, this was the tour of the Himalayas, essentially a benefit race, um,

because of the earthquake in Pakistan in 2005.

There was a massive earthquake there, like 8.2 or something like that.

And unfortunately in the Kagan Valley, there was a school that was there.

And I believe the earthquake hit it like just past nine in the morning and all the kids

were in the school and none of them survived.

And so, uh, some, some prominent business people in the area had put together this race and

did it as a fundraising event for this school to create a school, which is, which is still

there and still going strong, by the way, Kagan Valley Memorial Trust.

I remember, you know, I traveled a bit, but just like really, you know, the usual suspects,

right?

You know, you're up and, you know, gone to France and things like that.

I hadn't really done any, what I would turn to be adventurous travel at that point in

time.

And I remember getting the, you know, the acceptance that we were going to go and having

all the arrangements made and then breaking it to my father who didn't travel a lot

and saying, well, I'm going to be going doing this tour of the Himalayas thing.

It's like, wow, that's, that's really cool.

That's great.

It's great.

A couple days goes by and he goes, where in the Himalayas?

I'm like, oh, you know, in the Himalayan mountains, like near, you know, near K2, that kind

of area.

It's like, oh, okay, okay.

And then another couple days go by and he must have gotten his glow about or something.

And he's like, where exactly are you going?

I'm like, well, I'm going to Pakistan.

Any like lost his mind.

What are you doing?

It's great.

You know, you know, it wasn't the most stable place in the world at that point in time.

There was a lot of Taliban, you know, that was more on the Afghan border and we were going

to be northeast of, so we, you know, essentially flew into Islamabad and went north and east

towards, you know, towards a border of China, really, you know, China and Nepal.

So we weren't really near that stuff or at least, you know, we thought at the time, it

was quite the adventure.

We had made a trip out of it.

So we went to, we stayed about a week or two in Dubai, did some riding there, had some

pretty crazy adventures in Dubai and then off to Pakistan.

You know, I remember that that moment coming off the plane and at that point in time, we

were really considered, you know, professional athletes and we were treated as such.

So they had, you know, some ambassador type folks that met us at the, you know, at walking

off the plane and they, you know, sweeped us through customs and all that kind of stuff.

One of the crazy things that had happened in all of that travel was that somebody had

run over my bicycle with a vehicle of some sort and completely tacoed my rear wheel.

I was riding a Gary Fisher Paragon, which is one of the first 29ers and, you know, didn't

have great access to mountain bikes, much less than 29 inch wheel for a mountain bike in

Pakistan.

They did have some like donated BMCs that, and what I ended up doing was I ended up pulling

a wheel off of one of those.

And so I did the whole race in what's called a 69er.

So I had a 29 inch wheel on the front and a 26 inch wheel on the back, which made climbing

a little bit difficult because the bike was, it was already tilted uphill every time

I was on.

And the whole race was, was primarily a climbing race.

So the race itself was in, started in a little town called Naran, which was in the Kegand

Valley.

The first day was the biggest stage.

So it was a three stage race.

The first day was 80 Ks up over the Babasura Pass, which was up, you know, 14, 15,000 feet

elevation.

And we started in the valley that day at about 9,000 feet.

This is where one of the more entertaining stories from this trip happened.

Oh, man.

Well, can I ask you, before you get into that, can I ask this?

How frustrating was it that your wheel got smashed?

Like, that's a huge deal before a, I mean, that is, that could really have just devastated

you in the sense of, I got to ride this wonky look and bike.

What were your spirits about that going to, were you pretty positive or?

You know, I was, you know, in all honesty, I was, I was really excited to be there and,

and to have the opportunity to race with some, you know, quite frankly, some folks that

were way better than myself.

But the, the reality was that my options were to ride this BMC, which, you know, although

it was a very nice offer, it was, it was a complete piece of junk in comparison to what

I was riding.

You know, I had this light, you know, hardtail race bike, you know, this thing that they

were, you know, going to give to me was something like a 35 pound, you know, really base model

mountain bike with, you know, crummy suspension and all that kind of stuff.

And, you know, I was like, all right, well, I'll just, I'll just suck it up.

You know, like, I'm here.

It's an adventure.

Let's just, you know, it's just one more layer of the adventure, right?

It makes a heck of a story, you know, 15 years later.

Yeah, it's worth it.

So, yeah, it was, it was definitely worth it.

I don't know if I would have said that in some of the climbing stretches that I, you

need a good decade for it to be worth it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What we, so we had been there for several days prior to the start of the race, just kind

of acclimatizing and, and doing some, you know, some light rides and, and some, some

media stuff and things like that.

The typical day was something like, you know, you get up, you have spicy beans and rice

and maybe some chicken or goat or something like that.

That was kind of what was on the menu and it was delicious.

But that was pretty much the meal at every meal time.

And then the night before the race, they had set up a banquet for us and they changed

up the menu.

They had done this kind of like general gauze chicken kind of a thing.

And yeah, so pretty much everybody that ate it except for the vegetarians there got violently

ill.

But we all started the race the next day with severe food poisoning.

So the race, what, you know, we, we're all, you know, we, they bring us to where the

start of the race is going to be and there's like one little shack that has a toilet in

it.

And we're all in a giant line waiting to get into the toilet and try to just like get

everything.

Not pretty at all, right?

And it worked.

So the, the upside is it, everybody except for the vegetarians were suffering and they

were yucking it up because they were like, you see, you see, this is why we do that.

Right.

But anyway, we all get our business done.

We get to the starting line and then, you know, you know, race day just kicks in, right?

And so we all take off and it's just a climb out of the gate.

So we're just climbing from about 9,000 up to a little over 14,000 feet.

It's all, it's not hard.

It's like Jeep track and go track.

So it's not super technical riding, but it's, it's hard riding and it looked pretty rocky.

It's, yes, is very, very rocky.

And a lot of like sheer cliffs so that although some of these tracks were, you know, relatively

well established, there's like a thousand foot drop off on the side.

And so, you know, you'd be riding along and then somebody pull off and, you know, be

getting sick and then, you know, they'd have to try to jump back in the pack and keep

going.

So that you'd see somebody pop off every now and then you knew that their belly had just

gone south, right?

I made it all the way to the top of the climb.

They had brought, like, they had brought some porters up there and they were giving us,

like, newspaper and stuff to kind of shove into our jerseys for the, for the descent.

Because we climbed for, you know, over an hour, our, you know, and then the descent was

like epic.

There was a lot of, a lot of sheer drops off the edge and you just didn't really look,

you were going like 40 miles an hour on your mountain bike and, you know, like, just

don't look at the edge just, you know, wow.

So it was the newspaper for padding or was it to keep you warm?

Put it under your jersey just to keep, it's almost like a windbreaker, right?

So that you're not, because when we left the valley to start, it was probably like 68

degrees.

It was snowing when we got to the top of the climb.

It was pretty chilly for the first, you know, 20 minutes of that descent.

And I had, I'd gotten over the top.

I had been suffering a little bit, but, but felt like things were leveling off and, and

I was just finding my groove.

And at this point in time, I'm, I'm like mid back at best.

You know, I was kind of happy to be there at that point in time, like I, like, I've been

suffering.

My belly was not feeling good.

I'm like, all right.

You know, this is an adventure.

This is just, you know, I'm having fun.

I had a big smile on my face for the most of it, for the most part.

I remember my girlfriend, my wife now, she had been so sick that she didn't, she actually

did not start.

But what she did is that she went reverse on the, on the course to try to meet some of

the American, you know, some of us coming in from the other side.

So I've gotten around, we've gotten back down into the valley.

I'm, I'm racing towards the finish line.

And I see her off in the distance.

And, you know, she meets and she's kind of like riding the in towards the finish.

All of a sudden, all of a sudden, my stomach went completely sideways.

I'll, I'll set the stage for you like, I dismounted my bike like I, like I was coming

up at a cycle cross barrier.

This was urgent, like very urgent.

And they had given us these jerseys that we were wearing that weren't full zip jerseys.

They were like three quarters of jerseys.

And I'm tearing it, the jerseys trying to get it off, like throwing my, you know, helmet

and my, my camel back and all that kind of stuff and just trying to get my clothes off.

So I can get what's in me out of me.

And I stop, I'm doing my business, my wife is there and she's like, hey, she's kind

of taking a look around and said, yeah, did you notice that there's, there's a village

right there and there's a whole bunch of people walking this way.

And I'm like, I can't even hear what she's saying because it's just like coming out of

me, right?

She's like, oh, yep, nope, they're all, they're, they're coming.

They're all walking this way.

Can you finish up?

I'm like, I'm doing the best I can.

I'm like, I don't have a lot of control right now.

The group of them stop about 50 yards from where I'm sitting or squatting and this

one woman keeps walking and she, she stops uncomfortably close to where I am.

Now mind, mind you, I am a skinny cyclist with like the, the cyclist stripes at this

point in time, like super dark tan arms, but now I've ripped my shirt off.

I've got my bibs around my ankles and I'm just evacuating all over her front yard.

Essentially, and she literally stops and I've got like, I can't, I'm not looking over

my shoulder because she's sort of behind me.

My wife is kind of like, you need to finish up because I think you're pooping in the front

yard.

Oh, man, what a, so I, I do my business.

I get, you know, back on the bike as fast as I can and we get out of there.

But I swear to God that I'm sure they still, that village still talks about the alien

that landed in their front yard and pooped in their front yard.

Yeah, I bet, I bet it didn't go too well for their opinion on a, travelers.

Yeah.

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Oh my gosh.

I made it.

I made it to the end of the race.

I wasn't last.

And that was that that was how we started.

That was our first stage.

Oh my.

At least everyone else was kind of going through it to other than the vegetarians.

But that is rough.

Yeah, it was.

It was something that we all laughed about quite a bit after after the fact.

You know, mostly at my expense, but that was totally fine.

That's another one of those stories.

You need a good decade in between when it happened and looking back to really think of it as a fun memory.

Yeah.

You also went by some some other pretty interesting places too.

You sent me a picture before the interview about being being really close to like a hideout.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that was that was actually on our way to neuron.

So we flew into Islamabad.

And we had to take this caracurum highway up to neuron and this is this basically is a one way in one way out road.

We were in these big vans and they were transporting us and it was like.

You know, like I don't know like an hour, nine hour drive because you know if you've ever seen some of these images of cars kind of basically dangling off the side of a cliff.

While they're trying to pass each other, that's that's this highway is landslides all the time.

And so that it's possible to, you know, be trying to get somewhere, have a landslide and then just be stuck there for a week while they clear out the landslide.

But on our way, we stopped to stretch our legs in a suburb of Islamabad called a bada bada.

We just happened to pull over.

There was a little roadside stand.

They were selling like roasted corn and we were all like, yeah, let's go grab some of that.

And I pretty much had my camera attached to my hip at that point.

I'm just snapping pictures all over the place.

And we had pulled over and I looked over to my right and there was this huge like Russian era jet on a pedestal with a couple of guys sitting underneath it.

And, you know, using it for shade.

And I was like, holy cow, that's cool. Look at that jet. So I clicked a picture of it.

And then quite honestly, I had more or less forgotten about the picture.

And some years later, they had released the information about Osama bin Laden being, you know, captured killed by the Navy seals.

And they declassified that and that information came out.

And they said, well, you know, he was hiding in plain sight in a bada bada.

And I was like, whoa, a bada bada.

And I looked at the timeline and I was like, oh, see, I was there in 2007.

So was he, wow, that's crazy.

And so I got on to Google Earth and it was like, wonder, wonder if that jet is still there.

So I started looking at Google Earth and seeing where I find that jet in a bada bada.

And sure enough, the corner that I took that picture on was about less than a third of a mile from the bin Laden compound.

So it was right on the corner.

The reason the jet was there is because it was a military academy and his compound was like right down the street from there.

You know, so that, you know, few years later, all my friends were teasing me that I had the biggest bounty fail ever because it was like a multi million dollar price on the guy's head.

As an American, I was within a half, you know, a half or a third of a mile of the guy didn't even know it.

I should have went in and said, hey, I really need to use your bathroom.

I'm not sure that would have gone well for me, but.

Okay.

No, kid, and that is a wild, that's a wild story.

What, what did that feel like?

Did you, I mean, was there any sort of understanding that he might be around or is that just totally out of the blue for you?

Yeah, you know, I mean, so that, you know, I talked about my father having fears about me traveling there.

So that there was, there were active things going on there and actually what was scarier than that was that we had a banquet, the final night in Pakistan.

And we had gone to what was kind of the American hotel there and they had a well known Thai food restaurant.

You ever watched the movie Zero Dark 30, the protagonist, the female protagonist in that movie.

She's having food in that, in that exact restaurant and the restaurant blows up almost a year to the day that we had had our final banquet meal there.

That was blown up by a truck bomb, rode through the gate and exploded.

It blew off the whole front of that hotel.

So that was relatively disturbing, knowing that I had sat in that spot where that bomb had gone off was just was crazy to me.

Yeah, that can, that can definitely feel unsettling.

Oh my gosh, how unfortunate.

So that, that's some, some of the craziest stuff in the show, but did the rest of the trip feel that intense or was it, you know, you, you're either dealing with sickness or with, you know, military operations.

What, what else was going on?

Once all of our bellies settled down and we just kind of settled into the race, it was like any other race.

I mean, it was, it was epic with regards to the terrain and the getting there and, you know, all the sights and smells and the people.

And I have to say, I mean, the Pakistani people were amazing.

I mean, you know, I, I think you hear this so many, so many times over, but, you know, you go to a place and you see.

All these folks that have next to nothing and they're willing to share everything that they have with, with you, you know, it's really remarkable and it's, it's a humbling experience.

And one that, that stuck with me to, to this day, you know, being able to experience that, being able to see people that were still displaced in 2007 from the 2005 earthquake.

Those folks were saying, can we give you some food, can we take care of you?

Can we share what we have with you?

That's remarkable. That's, that's, that's, it's humbling and it's, it's a, you know, I feel like it's a real privilege to have experienced that.

Not just experienced it for the sake of experiencing it, but experiencing it for the sake of understanding life a little bit better.

What's really important in those connections to the different people that you meet and the experiences that you have with something like that event.

You know, I still talk to some of the folks that we raised with back in 2007.

They're all really good people and we had such a good experience and it really brings me joy to know that what we did had an impact that's still lasting today.

And there's a school that we were able to help build with the money that we raised and that school is still educating children and children are benefiting from that today.

That's, that's a big deal. And that, that, you know, races are fun.

We all get into the competition of that stuff.

But when something, when event like that has a deeper meaning, has the potential to not only change your life because of, you know, something that you love doing in a race that, you know, you got to be a part of and got to.

You got to be a part of and got to compete in and all that's very exciting.

But to know that that had a deeper impact and that has a ripple effect even to present day is, is pretty remarkable.

And I think that's one of the things that has always stayed with me.

That's amazing. You know, the combination of adventure with purpose through, you know, fundraising efforts of some sort or some sort of purpose like that.

I think it's one of the greatest combinations in the world.

You know, it's like peanut butter and chocolate. It's just it, it is so for our lives and how modern and civilized they are and how, you know, frankly, you know, survival is not an issue anymore.

We can do these purpose driven things. I think that combination is amazing.

And to hear someone else say that and reiterate that is awesome.

What is anything else you'd like to share about the experience or what you've done after?

Yeah, so I remember as far as that race is concerned, I mean that the first day was probably was pretty epic with regards to how massive it was.

It was just like, you know, 80 K's on a mountain bike, you know, all over the place.

We're all sick. You were all struggling.

But the second day, essentially what amounted to like a circuit race around this big glacial lake and I just never seen or even raced in a environment like that.

And the images from that, you know, I still see in my head and just, you know, I remember kind of being on my bike and just pinching myself saying like, wow, like this is, this is a real, this is a real epic adventure.

And then the last day of racing, I really struggled. I just really suffered. The last day was essentially an uphill time trial.

If you remember, I had a 69er so that my, my bike was, I had a bigger front tire and a smaller rear tire, which basically made it feel like I was going uphill already.

But there were sections of this climb that were super steep to the point where you had to like almost be laying on your, your handlebars in order to keep the bike from tipping backwards.

And my bike just wanted to go pop a wheelie every time I got on it because the geometry of the bike wasn't suited to have the rear wheel smaller than the front wheel.

Oh, the downhills are great. But that day we didn't have any. So it was just a climb. And I'm good at a lot of things on a bicycle climbing is always been my Achilles heel.

So I suffered that day, suffered a lot. Again, I don't think I was the last one, but I was, I was close to, I was close to the back of the pack on that day.

And I think some of that was that, you know, the altitude had really gotten to me at that point. So normally you go and you acclimatize for about two weeks before an event like that.

We did it the absolute worst way. I think we were there like three or four days in advance. Yeah, you don't want to, you don't want to do that. That's like from a physiological standpoint. That's like the worst possible time.

But that was just our timing. That was just how we had to do it. And so, you know, many of us were suffering from the effects of altitude at that point.

It sounds like a suffer fest in a lot of ways. Yeah, but again, but again, it was, it was one of those suffer, suffer fest with with a smile on your face. So it was, it was a wonderful opportunity.

And, you know, events like that are one of the things that has really fueled me to help cyclists, to treat cyclists, to do, you know, do the stuff that I do with regards to, you know, my, my current business, my current passions.

So, you know, I treat cyclists and triathletes exclusively. That's my, you know, as a physical therapist there, who I'm treating.

And then I own a company called the Serata International Cycling Institute. And I teach biomechanics of cycling and bicycle fit certification.

So, you know, hopefully making more people comfortable on bicycles and performing better and doing all of those things.

You know, is a way to give back to the sport that brought me a lot of joy and continues to bring me a lot of joy.

You know, not only through events like that, but even just, you know, simply throw my leg over my bike with my kids and being able to ride down the road and see their enjoyment of the sport.

You know, and we're not pushing them to race or to do anything like that. It's just be on two wheels and have the freedom of the wind in your hair and, you know, the enjoyment of riding a bicycle.

So, you know, that passion has, you know, pervaded what I do for a living and what I, you know, had the opportunity to do in life.

So, it's, you know, it's a pretty special thing to be able to have that balance.

Or can folks find out more about what you do if they're interested and get in touch?

Yeah. So, like I said, my company is the Serata International Cycling Institute.

It's the Serata Cycling Institute.com. You can get ahold of me directly through that website.

You know, there's also, I also work for Spalding Rehabilitation Hospital.

And I run the Cycling Medicine program with my colleague Dana Kotler there, you know, so that I can be found through the Spalding websites.

And that's where I'm doing a lot of my treatment of cyclists.

Well, Greg, I appreciate you coming on and telling just a little bit about that wild wild adventure.

I was looking up some pictures of the area you were talking about while you were talking.

And it's just, I bet it just seemed unreal.

Some of the times you were riding it's beautiful. The Himalayas are just larger than life.

So cool. And so to have those experiences just sounds like, you know, be able to do it now for a living too.

I appreciate you. I enjoy what you do and bringing these stories to a larger public.

And you know, inspiring people to create their own adventures is a really powerful thing.

And you know, you should be commended for that. So thank you for having me. I'm honored to be here.

It's my pleasure, Greg. It's a cool, some cool stories. That's for sure. And that's all it's all about.

So I'll keep you posted when it comes out. We'll stay in touch about that.

But until they man take care of yourself and let me know if there's anything I can do for you.

All right. Thank you so much. Have a good night.

You too. Take care.

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