The Paceline Cycling Podcast

My guest this week is frame builder Mike Desalvo of Desalvo Custom Cycles. Desalvo is part of what I refer to as the second generation of American builders, those craftsmen who got their start as builders in the 1990s. Many of these builders learned their craft in part or in whole from the builders who were working in the 1970s and ‘80s. Desalvo stepped into that tradition of builders teaching bui...

Selene is about to ride clear across Pennsylvania in the PPRAC: The Pennsylvania Perimeter Ride Against Cancer. This is the 18th edition of the ride and Selene, along with her husband Dave, have done the last nine editions of the semiannual event. This year's ride is nearing it's goal to raise $300,000, all of which go to the charities that benefit from the event; they don't pull out a single doll...

My guest this week is painter Rudi Jung of Black Magic Paint. Jung caught my eye in 2017 with a frame he painted for Chris Bishop. It was a mostly black frame and fork, but had a red-orange-yellow fade through a design that had the look of wood grain. It’s was eye-catching in the extreme. Making the bike even more notable was the fact that the Bishop down tube logo featured gold leaf. I’d only see...

This week Selene takes on coaching and the difference in interacting with an actual human coach vs. an AI one like with VeloPro, which Patrick just reviewed this week. It turns out, Selene does better with a real human. Patrick finally caught up with Dirty Kanza's Chief Gravel Officer, Jim Cummins to talk about his experience at the race and the way the event is evolving. 

My guest this week is frame builder Frank Wadleton, better known in the industry as Frank the Welder. Wadleton, or FTW as he was often referred to, was a household name to mountain bike action readers back in the late 1980s and into the 1990s. Wadleton made his name initially with Yeti where he helped design an ultra-light aluminum frame, the ARC, that’s A R C, that was ridden to a number of stars...

It's summer in Pennsylvania! This week we tackle a Paceline-style PSA in the form of CPR training. Selene has quite the story. Riding eMTBs on singletrack is an activity that can elicit some strong opinions. Patrick takes on the use of these bikes on singletrack in the various kinds of parks (state, regional, city) found in California and how the bike industry is or is not helping their acceptance...

My guest this week is someone that you likely haven’t heard of before. His name is Ryan Johnson, but his resume is arguably one of the most interesting I’ve come across in the bike industry. For anyone who wants to know how the bike industry works, Johnson is someone who has seen almost every nook and cranny of the bike industry, save maybe finance. From working on bikes to writing marketing copy...

Say you're going on vacation, because it's summer, and say you're taking your bike, because duh bikes. And say you're going someplace mountainous. Also, say you live at sea level. Will the altitude ruin your riding? Selene talked to some experts to see just how much the reduced oxygen will hurt your performance. There are, however, things you can do to take care of yourself and limit the effects o...

This week our show is an appreciation of frame builder Bruce Gordon who passed away June 7th at the age of 71. Gordon was one of the most experienced and talented frame builders ever to pick up a torch. He learned the craft from Albert Eisentraut in the first frame building class he taught after moving to Oakland from Chicago. He went on to invest in Eisentraut’s business and became production man...

We begin with a reader question about how to rescue a day that doesn't seem to be going according to plan. You're not as fast as you thought, don't have the power you anticipated, your gut rots or maybe you're just bonking. What do you do? Selene sets off for vacation in a couple of days. By her reckoning, it has been a fair number of years since she last took a trip in which she wasn't either wor...

First up, thanks for enduring this several-week break due to my travels. I would have loved to get an episode squeezed in there somehow, but today’s show required a fair bit of tending to create; it wasn’t the simple conversation that so many of these interviews are. So this week’s show is part two of my long-awaited follow up to my interview with Paul Sadoff. As happens from time to time, I’ll ge...

Selene is tough. We all knew that. But last weekend, she went to Oklahoma for an event known as Tulsa Tough. The question of the day? Which is tougher: Tulsa, or Selene? Patrick's idea of a hard ride has been downgraded since Dirty Kanza. He's still in serious recovery mode more than 10 days after the event. He's contemplating new recovery strategies like vampirism and caffeine drips.  We also jus...

This week we begin with a reader question regarding max heart rate. Will that "220 minus your age" formula accurately predict your max? And if not, does it matter? And if it matters and it's not accurate, what should you be using instead? Selene talks max heart rate and the value of heart rate monitors. Patrick is back from Emporia, Kansas, and talks about his experience there, including not achie...

This week Selene admits that she's been taking a fresh approach to some of the events she's doing. And it's not some new training regiment guaranteed to make you kick butt. Instead, she's decided just to wing it. With Dirty Kanza just a few days away, Patrick is in the midst of packing. He takes a walk through of everything he is packing and just how his bike is set up. Every once in a while, it's...

It's been said that predicting a bad future is a way to set a negative intention. Last week Selene suggested she might not be 100 percent ready for the Keystone Offroad. It might not have been her most successful day ever. But clearly, she's had worse days, right? She had to. Right? This week Patrick has some big news, but rather than dwell on the personal, the conversation pivots to lessons that...

My guest this week is Santa Cruz-based builder Paul Sadoff of Rock Lobster Cycles. I first encountered Rock Lobsters in the late 1980s when mountain biking was exploding. It was only later that I learned just how accomplished Sadoff was in building road bikes and especially cyclocross bikes. He is one of those rare builders, like Richard Sachs, who sponsors a team and can be found at cyclocross ra...

Selene isn't ready. In a good quarter of a century she says she's not quite ready for this coming weekend's race. Yeah, we had the same reaction. After all, if Selene isn't ready, who is? But that's her central issue for this week's show: preparation. She delineates between fun suffering and un-fun suffering. But more specifically, she's looking at packing for events. Patrick entertains a reader q...

This week we shake things up a bit and Selene takes the reins of the show. Patrick talks about his longest ever day, mileage-wise, on the bike. Selene recently reported on a new study on personality and exercise. And if you think that cycling is the domain of lone-wolf introverts, you'd be ... wrong. Yep, sports like cycling and cross fit are just as likely to attract extroverts as team sports lik...

This week, I’m devoting the show to frame builder Roland Della Santa who passed away last weekend at the age of 72. Della Santa is most famous for helping to launch Greg LeMond into bike racing; one of the earliest shots of LeMond winning a bike race is of him wearing a Della Santa jersey astride one of the builder’s bikes. Della Santa was a builder at a crucial time of development for cycling in...

Last weekend, Selene rode the Lu Lacka Wyco Hundo, a 100-mile ride in northeaster Pennsylvania with its share of dirt roads, steep hills and, on this day, plenty of cold weather and rain. Let's just say it was an adventure, but the best part was when she met Paceline listener Bill. God bless Bill. Also, God bless grilled cheese sandwiches and hot soup with coffee (though not in the same bowl). Pat...

In the second part of my interview with Tom Kellogg, we begin with a discussion of geometry for track bikes, and while this subject may not seem super-compelling on its face, it brings in a very interesting discussion of position, weight distribution and handling geometry on the bike. As a result, it's an opportunity to hear Kellogg talk about something on which he is an acknowledged master. One o...

Pennsylvania in spring is a good place to be a cyclist. The landscape glows in technicolor and the events can be unusual with equal doses of nutty, fun and camaraderie. Selene shares some of the unusual events that she does, like the 666 Cinder Race Series. For her, these oddball events are part of the lifeblood of her cycling life. Patrick takes on the Superman vs. Batman question of bike equipme...

This week my guest is Tom Kellogg of Spectrum Cycles. Kellogg’s career in the bike industry spans more than 40 years and includes relationships with brands like Merlin, American Bicycle Group and Time. His bikes have won more dozens of national championships and even world championships, which is why you’ll see the rainbow stripes on each frame carrying the Spectrum logo. I first met Tom in the 19...

Patrick is back from the Sea Otter Classic so we are back on our normal schedule. This week he reports on a new gravel bike, one that happens to be fully suspended, to be released later this year. The Niner MCR offers 40mm of travel in the fork and 50mm of travel in the rear. The potential is pretty interesting. Do you stretch before a ride? Do you do yoga? Selene takes on a reader question about...

This week my guest is frame builder Steve Rex. Back in 1997 I moved to Redondo Beach, Calif., and began doing the local group rides. There was a guy on that ride who wasn’t on a Trek, Specialized or any of the other big brands. He was on a Steve Rex and because he threw a draft like a Mac truck, I was fond of sitting on his wheel. It gave me ample time to study the contours of the frame and the mo...