The Sprocket Podcast

  Bike Angels Exist, Burn All Evidence! BAE BAE is a mostly-female bike club in Portland, OR. We speak to Holly & Laurel about fun, on-time departures and rain, amongst other things. They describe their group this way: “We are building the bike scene we want to be part of – one that is fun, challenging, and exciting while also being safe and supportive. We tolerate exactly zero sexist bul...

Lillian Karabaic is a good friend of the show, and has been on many times in the past, but today she brings something new: “purr-sonal” finance!  Her new project, Get Your Money Together , aims to knock down the difficulties standing between the average person’s goals of savings and affording the things they need in their lives.  She also fills us in on a recent train journey across Europe & A...

Nathan Jones hasn’t been on the show in a while, and that’s because he’s been busy riding 18,000 miles around the planet.  This weekend he gave a presentation at Bike Gallery’s Westmoreland location about the whole trip, including passage through monastery-filled eastern Europe, assembling a bike alone at 4am in an Indian airport, viewing a piece of Skylab at a truck stop i...

It’s coming, you guys!   Freak Bike Fall 2017 !  Be there, or ride square wheels!

In the studio today we have Robert Weaver who rode his recumbent bike across the land.  He gives us the lowdown on being closer to the ground, and what he learned as he crossed the continent!  We’re glad he got in touch on his way to the west coast.  Follow Robert at  whatifitspossiblenow.com As always, Thank you to our drink sponsor The Beer Mongers for providing libations and to all of our Patre...

Tim Mooney of The Pedalshift Project returns to help us light up another episode of the however-many-timers’ club, chat a bit about his upcoming coastal bike tour, and provoke us to maximum jackassery.  And apparently he was a child actor?!?!   Also: It’s Brock’s last show, and he passes a literal four foot torch to new cohost Guthrie Straw; Guthrie wears a face mask while driving and gets away fr...

Kevin Prentice has joined us before – he’s one of the geniuses at Ride With GPS, an indispensable tool for planning and having active adventures.  He brings his friend Donnie Kolb from oregonbikepacking.com onto the show to talk about adventures in dirt and how to get into some fun trouble in the woods or the desert.  Some of you might remember Donnie from the Oregon Outback route or his for...

Our friend and work travel correspondent Eric Iverson dropped in on the Salt Lake City version of the Thursday Night Ride phenomenon, known locally as The 9.9.9 , and caught some great conversation with various participants!  He also recaps a visit to the great state of Alaska where he met listener Phil, who notoriously wears a live bear on his back to keep warm.  We’re grateful to have a fr...

Emee has been on the show before , and after a recent conversation we decided to do an episode about what she likes about music on bikes!  While we’ve talked about major scale sound systems like our friend PJ’s , how does the average music fan get into a mobile setup?  What do you listen to on your rides?  And how does one approach the dreaded multi-system cacophony of too many sound systems in on...

Brock delivers a special announcement with Aaron’s help. An atypical oversight caused this recording to have some fuzzy qualities.  Please forgive us!

Trevor Spangle organized a new event in Lebanon, Oregon this year, the Swift Summit 200/100 , one that he described as “part brevet, part gran fondo, part self-supported endurance road race.”  We host a speed-dating-styled roundup of 7 participants on their experiences with the event, including hills, gravel, climbing, heat exhaustion, vomit, and, of course, successful completion.  Man...

Galen Mook & Jess “DJ Hot Mic”  are hosts on Cambridge’s BikeTalk 88.1 , a live radio show broadcasting every other Wednesday at 8pm EST on FM & web.  They’ve been visiting Oregon’s prime locations including Bend, Hood River, & Portland.  Small catch: it’s been really smoky here due to some cataclysmic wildfires – they haven’t seen any mo...

Eric Iverson & Ross Putnam  rode the famed Oregon Outback route to view the 2017 total eclipse.  We love getting audio from peoples’ adventures, and they were kind enough to send voice memos specifically for us while on the trip.  They also posted quite a few #trailtips on the @graveneutral Instagram account !  So we stitched them into a neat little documentary of their trip for your lis...

Aaron & Anna  took an end-of-summer bike camping trip, and recorded a little audio! Check out the pictures at instagram.com/sprocketpodcast   Thanks to our generous sponsor The Beer Mongers and our Patreon donors that keep us going! Fine Print Produced at STREAM PDX thanks to Open Signal music: Ryan J. Lane (intro & outro) & Hurtbird (headlines) graphic design: Marcus Norman web:...

Brad Wade is a cross-country bicycle tourist from Newfoundland, and he is unique in his physiology: his heart is located in a different part of his body than most people’s, and only has one functional lung.  That hasn’t stopped him from adventuring!  We chat with him near the end of his trip about his experiences, health, food access, and (of course) his gear.  Aaron Green, author of W...

Emily & Jessica are involved in Bike Loud!  The organization coordinates the concerns of their members & those of their surrounding community with direct actions that make needs evident – like blocking a lane of traffic with hay bales to emphasise the need for fewer lanes on a busy street where people have been hurt or killed.  What’s the best response to adversity?  Absurdity.  Chec...

Wayne Norman is a long-time donor to our show with a road trip happening now and an incredible story of recovering from a health scare to keep on moving from Adventure To Adventure ! Maria Schur is a friend who has been on our show several other times.  We invited her in to describe her involvement in the Swift Summit 200/100 and how she wants to approach the event. Annalisa took a cross country b...

#spy30 #document the streetcar’s not the only thing in motion pic.twitter.com/Pifaa3gqka — Nagisa Day (@nuggit) July 8, 2017 Aaron & Anna joined Team Lime for our friend Lily’s 30th birthday party, which happened to be a transit-system-based adventure scavenger hunt event all over Portland!   Jesse , also a member of Team Lime, also comes into the studio so that they can all relive...

Lizzy took a huge bike tour over 6 months covering all 48 contiguous states, with a pet rat, Beefy, in tow, and ate a vegan diet the whole time.  She tells us some tales from the road.  Did we mention she’s a friend of Superfan Aqua ?  Check out her adventures from multiple tours at withinbikingdistance.com Brock took a huge ride and saw a giant salamander , and Aaron is finally gonna go bike camp...

Back in 2016 in the fall, Team Japan came to Portland to participate in the Disaster Relief Trials .  Their ringleader Tad, a professor from a university in Japan, organized the Rice Cooker Ride with the help of DRT organizer Mike Cobb, and they demonstrated a resilient method for preparing simple food during a potential disaster scenario, a traditional wood-burning stove used to prepare rice that...

David Barstow Robinson (known better to his friends as DBR) completed another long distance endurance bicycle race you might have heard of – 2017’s Trans-Am Bike Race , an unsupported cross-continent contest of strength and persistence you might remember from our interview with Nathan Jones or the documentary Inspired To Ride .  We ask him about his experiences, statistics, strategies, and e...

Rob Sadowsky worked in Portland bicycle advocacy for a long time; long enough to have some questions about how life works in this town.  We talk about change, will & apathy, the new bike tax (of course), nonprofits & government, and what it’s like to be be unemployed/underemployed.  Questions can find answers! Also: Brock had some adventures around town and Guthrie made unexpected bicycle...

Brock & Adele took a 3 week trip to the Rocky Mountains to hike on segments of the Colorado Trail.  Here’s periodic audio journals from the trip!

Peter Koonce manages the City of Portland Bureau of Transportation’s Signals, Street Lighting, & ITS Division. Today, however, he regales us with tales of biking in every Cyclist-American’s go-to country for arguing infrastructure. Yes, that’s right, we talk about biking in the Netherlands. Specifically, Delpht, NOT Amsterdam. damn! I forgot to get a photo. And as always thanks to...

Guthrie and Aaron talk with Matthew, the man behind Chain Reaction (singular) and Give Them Bikes!  “What are those?” Listen and find out. Also, Aaron passes on a call from his middle niece, but calls her back because Aaron is weirdly committed to the things he says on twitter. As always, thank you to The Beer Mongers on SE Division and 12th. It’s Craft Beer Month so celebrate by...