Murphology Podcast

On this episode meet Erin Trautmann. This summer, Erin, a teacher, biked the entire East Coast Greenway in just 47 days! The East Coast Greenway connects 15 states, 450 cities and towns, and has over 3,000 miles of people-powered trails plus low traffic roads. The East Coast Greenway spans from the Canadian border of Maine all the way to Key West, Florida — and it is considered the country’s longe...

On the show meet Maggie. Maggie is a long distance endurance cyclist who recently placed first in the single speed women’s category in the Gravel Worlds Long Voyage, which is a 300 mile gravel race. Maggie completed this event in just under 26 hours and placed third female overall in this distance! Earlier this year she decided she wanted to try out long distance endurance events on a single speed...

On this episode meet Kim who recently completed an epic solo bikepacking adventure by completing the Katy Trail on her bike after being inspired by a female colleague who did the same adventure while back. At nearly 240 miles long, the crushed limestone Katy Trail spans nearly the full width of Missouri and is the country’s longest continuous rail-trail, intersecting with rural farmland, scenic sm...

On the show today meet Sherry Ott from ottsworld.com. She is on today to tell us about a cool quest to finish what her father started, to visit every capitol building in the US, and she is doing it via bicycle! She describes herself as a corporate cube dweller turned nomad traveler. A travel expert who has traveled all over the world, her website is FULL of tips, tricks and beautiful photography....

On this episode meet 1984 Silver Medalist in the Summer Olympics, Nelson Vails. AKA Nelly and the Cheetah. Nelly is the 1st African American to medal in cycling. He has also been 2005 inducted into the Lehigh Valley Velodrome Cycling Hall of Fame as well as the US Bicycle Hall of Fame. He was back in Iowa for another RAGBRAI and I was lucky to get to spend some time with Nelly throughout the week....

RAGBRAI 2022 is history, and what a ride it was! This was like my 25th or 26th RAGBRAI and I may have to call this year my favorite. The weather was beautiful and not only did I get to ride my bike all week, I was also lucky enough to be part of the RAGBRAI social media crew. It gave me a new and fun perspective on the ride that I thoroughly enjoyed. And the highlight of the week was meeting a fam...

On the show today is Larry Walsh. Larry is the author of Suit to Saddle and Forty to Finish. Both of these books highlight Larry’s epic adventures of cycling across the United States at age 56, and then racing across the US a few years later. In this interview he tells us about his journey of self discovery, and how these adventures came to be. Check out his website at larry-walsh.com. Welcome to...

On the show today you will meet Ben Gibbs. He is a musician and podcaster who I met while biking the Katy Trail. That was basically Ben’s first crack at bikepacking and he was hooked! He upgraded his gear and bike and went on an epic 6 week bicycle tour, exploring the C&O Towpath, the GAP trail, and the Empire State Trail. He traveled over 1,100 miles by bike and describes his experience along wit...

A few weeks ago I was in Colorado as part of the Ride the Rockies crew. Ride the Rockies is a 6 day Colorado bicycle tour that started way back in the mid eighties. This year riders tackled 8 mountain passes on their bicycles, almost 30,000 feet of elevation gain and not one but two days of over 100 miles of pedaling. I caught up with Jason Carolan from Flexential to get a recap on his week of bik...

Well listeners, I did it! I rode my bicycle all the way across the United States! I biked with Team Biking to Remember. We started March 12 in San Diego, California and we made our way across 8 states using the Adventure Cycling Southern Tier maps. It took us 64 days and 3,080 miles to pedal from coast to coast and we reached the Atlantic Ocean on May 14th. Along the way we met up with Alzheimer’s...

I sat down with Jenny Lorenz to talk about our adventure in progress, biking across the United States. Jenny had a vision many years ago to bike across America after she retired. She also wanted to somehow give back and so she married her passion for biking with her interest in raising money for the Alzheimer’s Association. Jenny’s mom has been suffering with Alzheimer’s for over a decade. She rec...

On the show this week I take some time to talk to the new interim ride director for Ride the Rockies. Bill Plock is a Colorado native and long time cyclist who is pretty pumped to take Ride the Rockies to the next level. Ride the Rockies is a multi day challenging event in Colorado that has been going on for 25 years! With 5 Continental Divide crossings and over 26,000 feet of climb, this year the...

Rebroadcast of a great episode. This week meet Henry Gold. Henry tells the frightening story of how he came face to face with an angry elephant while cycling, and lived to tell about it. He is also Founder and Director at TDA Global Cycling, an adventure cycling tour company with some epic bucket list expeditions available. Many years ago Henry had a crazy vision to create Tour d’Afrique. A test o...

As of today I am taking a much needed rest day in Austin, Tx enjoying the luxury of a real bed while I stay with my brother and his family. Tomorrow we will be back at it, starting day 35 of 63 days. We are using the Adventure Cycling Southern Tier route and going west to east. We started in San Diego and have pedaled across California, Arizona, New Mexico and now we are about halfway through Texa...

Well you could say I am currently on the adventure of a lifetime, riding my bike across the United States. As of today I am getting ready to start day 21 of 63 days. We are using the Adventure Cycling Southern Tier route and going west to east. We started in San Diego and have pedaled across California, Arizona and New Mexico. Just yesterday we crossed into Texas and we will be riding across this...

If you didn't listen to this the first time, it's great info on an amazing place to ride. On the show today we have the Trail Manager for the Mickelson Trail, located in South Dakota, which has been a bucket list trail for me for quite a while. This Rails to Trail crushed limestone trail spans over 100 miles through the heart of the Black Hills. With 4 rock tunnels and over 100 bridges, this trail...

An inspiring episode with a very inspiring person! This week meet Kymberly Byers, a cyclist, a bikepacker and a photographer who found purpose riding a bike and sharing the experiences with others. Kymberly pedaled into 26 states in 2020, was able to bikepack 100 consecutive days and shares some memories of this great adventure. We discuss bikepacking how-to and expert tips on how to bikepack in t...

This week meet Jason Sumner. You probably already know that I am a co-host on another podcast called Just GO Bike. Recently Andrea and I caught up with Jason who is from the Ride the Rockies team. He is a long time cyclist and a Colorado Native living in Crested Butte. He is also a journalist and has authored the book: 75 Classic Rides Colorado. Ride the Rockies, a multi day tour that explores com...

Meet Darren Alff. As one of the world’s most experienced bicycle travelers, the author of four popular cycling books, and the founder of BicycleTouringPro.com, Darren Alff has helped thousands of people plan, prepare for, and execute their own bicycle tours all around the world. He is the Bicycle Touring Pro and he started bicycle touring at just 17 years old and never really stopped! He currently...

On the show today is J.D. Shaeffer. J.D. is an endurance junkie who has done ultra runs and even hiked the entire Appalachian Trail. Last summer he was able to save up money and get some time off work. The plan was to hike the PCT but an injury caused him to have to pivot from hiking to something else. Since he still had the time off, in a matter of a few weeks he found an old bike and decided to...

This was one of my favorite episodes from a while back! Today you are going to be listening to my interview with Reese Ruland who is a gravel racer living in Fort Collins, Co. She has a love for endurance racing that began as an ultra runner. Along the way she has had great opportunities to connect with inspirational guys like Allen at Scratch Labs and work with bicycle companies like Specialized...

On the show today is Kathy Browning. She lives in a small town in Wyoming and is a big fan of fat biking. She started writing a blog about her experiences and as it grew in popularity, it turned into a website called FatBikeGirl.com that is a great resource for everything bike related including fat bike events, product reviews, and inspiration. And of course all of Kathy’s blog posts! Now in addit...

Today I celebrate episode 100! I wanted to take a moment to thank YOU for being a Murphology Podcast listener. It means so much to me. I absolutely love the opportunity to talk with bike-minded people and share their stories with you. To celebrate 100 episodes, I asked Andrea Parrott to come on the show and she put me in the hot seat. Andrea and I are co-hosts on another podcast called Just Go Bik...

I randomly ran into these two last summer (July, 2021) while biking and they are as amazing in real life as they are in their book!  So cool to meet them both. Ward and Jacky Budweg are on the show this week. They published a book called The World at 10mph. This book is the result of a 3 year worldwide bicycle journey Ward and Jacky went on that started with a clever pre-nup, involved 7 years of p...

Anna Abrams is on the show today to chat about riding a bike tour solo, but not alone. Self described as sporty but not outdoorsy, in 2021 Anna tackled RAGBRAI, a 7 day bicycle tour (and camping event) where cyclists pedal across the state of Iowa in the heat and humidity summer brings. She wanted insight on what exactly she had signed up for, so she created a Facebook group called RAGBRAI Newbies...