Episode 42
“Once I won national, she’s [my coach] like, “You’re not retiring, are you?” And I was like, “No, not yet.“
You may recall this week’s guest from a pod way earlier in the year discussing her goals for the summer 21 season at T-Town– Elspeth Huyett is back on the pod this week with Joan to discuss her fantastic season, her job at BikeCo, and moving out to the State College area.
Thanks to B Braun Medical Inc. for sponsoring the Talk of the T-Town Podcast. BBraun is a global leader in infusion therapy and pain management, B Braun develops, manufactures and markets innovative medical products to the healthcare community. They are also strong believers in supporting the quality of life in the communities where their employees work and live.
Transcript
Joan Hanscom:
Welcome to the Talk of the T-Town podcast, where we discuss all things, track cycling. Broadcasting from the valley preferred cycling center. I’m your host and executive director. Joan Hanscomb.
Joan Hanscom:
Welcome to the Talk of the T-Town podcast. I’m your host, Joan Hanscom. And I am joined this week by our very first repeat returning guest Elspeth Huyett. Those of you who’ve been listening to the pod for a while, may recall. We had Elspeth on early days in the pod, and we thought this was going to be an excellent opportunity to revisit all the stuff that she talked about. The first time she was on the pod. Now that the season has concluded, Elspeth is the brand and content specialist for BikeCo LLC, which means she does a lot of really cool things, promoting a lot of really great bike brands. And she is a lifelong T-Town participant, bike racer extraordinaire, and we are thrilled to welcome you back to the podcast Elspeth.
Elspeth Huyett:
Aw, thanks so much for having me back. I’m super excited and honored to be back on and talk about the past year.
Joan Hanscom:
So when we had you on the last time to refresh listeners’ memories, we talked about how you’ve done all the jobs here at the track, which was fun, starting with intern and you were in the community programs. And then we also talked about how 2021 was potentially going to be your last really dedicated season racing bikes here. And you had set some big audacious goals for yourself, goals from 2020 that had been postponed due to COVID and rolled forward into 2021. And we thought it would be super cool to circle back around with you. And hear what happened, everybody drum roll, please. What happened with Elspeth season after she said out loud, her big goals for the year, let’s talk about how it went. How was your season? What happened? Tell us in your own words, Elspeth.
Elspeth Huyett:
Yeah, I don’t even know where to start really. It was almost my perfect season. It was very close to being my perfect season, but winning nationals at T-Town in the scratch race was pretty much like the highlight of my life to be fair. It’s something that I’ve always wanted and, I knew it was possible, but at the same time, it always didn’t really seem that way. I was like, so and so was so good and I’m not good at this. And I think I finally put all the pieces together for the scratch race and it was amazing to win at home. My parents were there, my mom started crying and like almost fell off the bleachers.
Joan Hanscom:
Were crying. We were all crying. We were all so happy for you.
Elspeth Huyett:
Yeah, it was so great. And when I was waiting to get my Jersey and, after the medals, seeing all these people who have played such a big part in my career, from Jim Alvord, who was the PeeWee Pedallers coach when I started, then Bob Vice and all these kids that I coached who got to see it, it was really so special. I still think about it a lot and I can’t believe it happened and I need to like pinch myself sometimes. It was the perfect moment for me.
Joan Hanscom:
So first let me say again, congratulations, because in sports, it is not always the case that you say out loud, this is my big audacious goal and you get to achieve it, especially, you don’t get to necessarily achieve it the way you did. So congratulations again. I mean that’s a triumph, right? And I have so much respect for people who say out loud, this is what I’m going to do, this is what I’m shooting for. And then go out and do it. I mean, that’s just massive, but also I was obviously there because you know, working, and I’ve told this to you before, but it’s just fun from my perspective, I could see you on it in turn three. Because I was sitting up high and the judges stand and I saw you moving. And I remember looking at Bill Elston going, “Holy shit, she’s going to do it, she’s got it.”
Joan Hanscom:
And it was just this amazing thing where we could see what was happening or your momentum, or you could see you making the move and we could just see she’s going to do it. And it was so cool to see it. Having had that conversation with you earlier in the year where you were again saying loud, your big audacious goal. And then to see it actually coming true was sort of magic for all of us too. That’s why we were all balling too. And Bill of course he’s known you forever and just everybody was so excited for you. So talk us through that race. Talk us through how you won the bike race that you said you were going to win.
Elspeth Huyett:
Yeah. It was interesting because I had written the elimination earlier that day, so there’s a standalone elimination race and it hadn’t gone poorly, but it hadn’t been great. And you know, what’s funny is Tammy Corley had posted something about her 500 the day before, how it wasn’t bad, but she qualified for the final and she knew she could do better. And she came back and she really put all of her energy into having the best ride that she could. And I was like, I need to take this mindset and bring it into the scratch race. I’ve always been a really good [inaudible 00:05:37] racer. And I knew that I had a good shot at the scratch race to win, but like I said before, it seemed possible. And what my coach said, she’s like, “You’re definitely going to be on the podium”, but she’s like, “To win it just needs to all come together, I’m not going to tell you, you’re going to win.”
Elspeth Huyett:
And so I knew that I had potential and the scratch race, it can go a bunch of different ways. And the women’s race that year there were a couple people who tried to go. I was just sitting at the back, the week before I had won my first Friday night race, the five mile final. And I had been really patient in that too. I might have been being too patient though at nationals because my coach was like, “You need to move, what are you doing?” I was like, “Oh, okay.” So I moved up to the front and I was like, “Well I’ll just stay here.” And then the field all dropped down with four to go. And I was on the second wheel and I kept waiting for the rider in of me to swing up.
Elspeth Huyett:
But they decided to keep pulling through and I was like, “Well this is great, I’m getting motor paste.” And I was like, “If I just stay here, I know I can get a medal.” And so with one to go, Kaia Schmid, who ended up winning a junior world championship later, which was awesome and flying over the top and the rider in front of me accelerated and I was like, “Okay, cool, I think I can get third.” And then we’re coming down the [inaudible 00:07:04], and I was like, “I think I can pass her.”
Elspeth Huyett:
And I passed her and I was gaining on Kaia and I was like, “Oh my gosh, am I going to pass Kaia too? Am I going to win.” And when we came around, turn four, I knew I had executed it perfectly. I was still afraid someone was going to come like flying over the top with me and crush my moment. But no one did and yeah, and I won and there was this video after I won where I came by and all my friends were in turn three and I gave them all high fives and it’s just literally the coolest thing.
Joan Hanscom:
It was amazing. That was such a good, fun and race to watch. And like I said, I could see that you had it in turn three. Like I knew I could just see it. So it was super cool to just watch it all unfold. And it was such a great hometown moment too. And we had a lot of great hometown moments, but I think everybody probably, I don’t know, celebrated yours the most, which just again, because you’ve done all the things here, but you mentioned something that I also wanted to touch on was you got your first Friday night win right before. And that had to give you confidence going into nationals. You just had to know you’re on a run of really good form, that you were in a good place, that everything was starting to fire just the way you wanted right in time. So what did that Friday night win mean to you?
Elspeth Huyett:
Yeah. So I’ve always wanted to win a Friday night. I can’t believe I made it to this point without winning one. And I’ve been close a bunch of times. Right. I’m always right in there. So that night of the five mile final that I won, I knew it was a good night for me. There was a motor pace scratch race that I had won on the Tuesday night. So I knew how to do the race. And then there was the five mile scratch and the motor pace scratch didn’t really play out the way I wanted it to. So I was like, I need to make this happen. This is my second win. I want to win a race before nationals.
Elspeth Huyett:
And Rider of the Year was really starting to heat up between Kim and I, so it was important for me to get those 10 points with the win. And again, I tried to be really patient and not get antsy, be conservative with my energy. Once again, I left it very, very late with one ago I was like five back. My parents were like, “Oh, she can’t do it.” And then, Honestly I was motivated to do it. And I think that’s the one thing I’ve had in my favor this season, is I’m not super used to winning. So every win means a lot to me and I’m extra motivated to make it happen. So I had to do some threading the needle to get to the front on that last lap of the five mile final, but then I made it happen. And then once knew I could win a sprint like that, going into nationals I felt much more confident. And then that confidence from the scratch race carried through the rest of nationals as well. So, that was great.
Joan Hanscom:
And it also had to carry through into the rest of the season because you and Kim Zubris were just knocking each other down to get those points for Rider of the Year. I mean, all of a sudden you were like, “Hey, I’m a Keirin rider now.” So, Rider of the Year was a super interesting competition this year. It was right down to the last night. Talk about Rider of the Year and how that all went down for you, because that was a competition worth following all summer.
Elspeth Huyett:
Well thank you. Well, I’m glad I made it interesting. It was something that I really wanted this year. It was a great opportunity since we were going to be at home all year with limited traveling opportunities and the season started and I remember the first Rider of the Year race on opening night, I didn’t do that great. And I was kind of like, “Well, maybe it won’t happen, maybe it will.” And, and my coach Taylor was like, “It’s a really long season. Like you need to be patient it’s. This is about consistency. Not that you’re going to win everything.” And with that in mind, like I started moving forwards in that competition. And after internationals, it was weird because I did have a lot of confidence, but that also manifested itself in a lot of pressure that I put on myself.
Elspeth Huyett:
I don’t think anyone expected me to walk out of nationals and then win a UCI Omnium. But for some reason, I thought I could do that. And I thought that’s what people expected of me. Honestly, the UCI block of racing we have right after nationals was actually probably one of my least favorite times racing. I put so much pressure on myself and after accomplishing this big life goal, there’s this high and then I wasn’t really ready for the other side of it. It was really hard, I just thought all these people who wanted all these things of me, and no one wanted that. The UCI block of racinG wasn’t my best block. There were some highlights like, making the Keirin final and things like that.
Elspeth Huyett:
But for me, it was really hard to get through that block. And I was glad to see it end, but I’ve said this before on social media, but the women that I think we had at the track this year is the best group of women I’ve ever raced with. I felt like we all really motivated each other, especially Kim, when I won my first Friday night, Kim was the first person to come say, congratulations. She came up and hugged me after nationals when we had our first grass race on a Friday. And I got to where my Jersey, she came up and said how excited she was for me. And that positivity, this competition literally came down to the last race on the last night. I lost by one point, which I’m not going to lie, it hurt really bad, but I was really happy for Kim and I am really happy for Kim. She works really hard and the rest of the women’s field was so supportive and positive that made losing not as bad because I’m equally happy for everyone around me.
Joan Hanscom:
So obviously that’s delightful for me to hear because of our 50:50 initiative and trying so hard to make women’s racing great here at T-Town and really with such an emphasis that we’ve put on it with Kim Geist and with Kim Zubris and The Women Wednesdays Program, it matters to me to hear that, that’s what you’re actually feeling there in the infield, that there was just this really high quality women’s experience racing. I mean, from a racing perspective, a level of competition, but then also just from the sense of community, I mean, that makes me feel like my season was a success, which is great. Or our organizational experience was a success. It’s really important that we keep that momentum moving forward, I think for the sport. So, that’s terrific. You worked your ass off all summer though. Tell us a little bit about your training, tell us how you approached it. Because when we last spoke, we were talking about training in COVID and you were out chasing QOMS and that was your motivation to get through 2020. How did that change as you went into 2021?
Elspeth Huyett:
Yeah, totally. For me, a lot of, even early 2021 was about balance. I went to my coach in January and I was like, “I don’t want to do long rides both days on the weekend. It’s not fun for me right now. I don’t want to do it.” I was dating my boyfriend long distance at the time. So I only got to see him every other weekend. I didn’t want to spend both days freezing on the bike and I’m in grad school too. I was like, “I don’t want to do that.” So we changed my training schedule. I was putting quality over quantity. So making sure that when I was on the bike, those efforts really counted and spreading them out in a way that kind of kept me mentally fresh.
Elspeth Huyett:
But when the weather did start to break, I started getting back out on the road. I missed those things like the training crit that we’ve had in the past and even just crit racing in general, wasn’t really present. But I was really lucky to have my boyfriend to train with. And once the Carlos Espinoza came in from California, we trained together pretty much every track workout I had. I was with Skylar, which was great. We were really able to push ourselves and I had the opportunity to do a lot of motor pacing and Tuesday night racing. I think the one thing that I did that was my favorite thing is, I [inaudible 00:15:50] on Saturdays in the 35 plus category, this year my race age age was 30 so I can raise five years up. So I was able to jump in with them and it was so fun.
Elspeth Huyett:
It was hard, but it was like a really great change of pace, race with a new field. They were all really supportive and it was just nice. It reminded when I was a junior and those people were guiding me through the beginning of my cycling career. Being able to reconnect with them at Saturday racing was great. And it also really prepped me for nationals where you have hard days back to back. We don’t get that very often, so racing Friday night and then getting up really early and coming back to Saturday racing, I think was really good for me.
Joan Hanscom:
Yeah. You were not the only one who did that. Christine D’Ercole also did a fair number of Fridays into Saturdays and you’re on the same team somewhat. So, was that a team decision or was that just you both decided that this was a good thing to do?
Elspeth Huyett:
It wasn’t really a team decision, but it was great to have her there and there’s a couple other, I am, I can, and I will, I do master’s racers that I got to race with and connect through racing on Saturdays that I wouldn’t have otherwise. So it ended up being like a good team thing as well.
Joan Hanscom:
It was really nice to see all the women out on Saturdays. I thought that Saturdays had a nice vibe this summer too. Well actually, Tuesdays were my favorite this year. I don’t know, once we got Tom Mains on the microphone and Andrew got here pedoski, I just thought Tuesdays had such a good vibe. It was like fun, but chill, but good racing. I thought Tuesdays were super fun, but yeah, this season felt really nice after the weirdness of just TT’s in 2020 and people came out and raced and it was pretty great to see. And then obviously we could see who did the work in the off season, people such as yourself, who took that time to really dig in deep, but now you are not living in the Lehigh Valley. You have moved, how’s life in your new location.
Elspeth Huyett:
I moved literally the weekend of Keirin Cup. So racing ended and I was out of the Lehigh valley for the first time ever. So I moved up to State College, my boyfriend [Wyat 00:18:09]. So I’ve been here for a couple months now and it’s great. I definitely miss like the group rides and some of the stuff at home, but there’s a whole new area to explore up here with lots of hills. So that will be interesting to see how that factors into my training. I’m not really much of a hill climber if you can imagine, but yeah, it’s been good. It was a hard decision to decide to leave the Lehigh Valley. And I think when summer rolls around, it will feel like a little sad, but I think I’ve talked about this before too, is its important to me to be a well rounded person, as well as an athlete. So pursuing this relationship that makes me really happy is just as important as pursuing my racing.
Joan Hanscom:
Yeah absolutely. But you did talk about training and diversifying your training because now you’re living in State College. Does that mean you’re going to keep racing bikes or are you done?
Elspeth Huyett:
Yeah, I’m not done. My coach, even from the get go was kind of like, “You’re not going to do this” and then once I won national, she’s like, “You’re not retiring, are you?” And I was like, “No, not yet.” Yeah, I’m not done. I don’t think I’ll be in T-Town like every Friday. So I’ve said I’m not going to try ride or the year again, but once again, that’s probably one of those things I’m going to say now and you talk to me in July and it’ll be totally different, but I want to pick a couple big Friday nights and really focus on adding a couple more wins to my account that I finally opened and doing some of those travel races. I’ve been off the calendar for the past year or two. So getting out to Marymoor and Seattle and racing, going to Indiana, Atlanta kind of see a couple different things.
Elspeth Huyett:
I do think that there’s only a couple years left where I think I really want to do it at this level. So I want to make the most of time where I’m still committed to it and I’m carrying the fitness over.
Joan Hanscom:
Yeah. That’s awesome to hear. I’m glad you’re not hanging the wheels up just yet. You had too much of a good season last year.
Elspeth Huyett:
I have to wear the Jersey.
Joan Hanscom:
Exactly. Like you can’t win the Jersey and then just peace out. So this makes me happy that all the fans in T-Town will get to see you racing in your Jersey again, that’s good news for us. So we touched briefly on your job because you don’t just play bikes on the weekends. You actually work in the industry as well. How is that going for you now, that you’re in State College and the offices in Philly? Are you traveling? Are you all remote? What are you doing?
Elspeth Huyett:
Yeah, it’s great. So I was pretty remote already because the office was in Philly. I was in the office once or twice a week pre-COVID. COVID we were remote full time. And I’m really lucky that my supervisor at BikeCo, really encourages me to follow my passions and to live like a well rounded life. So essentially the plan right now is, I come into the office once or twice a month, which is great, cause I can come home and I stay with my parents and I get sunrise in the Lehigh Valley. So I’m back in the Lehigh Valley once or twice a month. And it’s not a terrible drive from State College to be fair. It’s only like two and a half, three hours. So it’s a drive, but is very doable.
Joan Hanscom:
Nice. And you were just out at the Sea Otter Classic, the fall version of the Sea Otter Classic. How was that? Give us the state of the industry from your perspective based on Sea Otter.
Elspeth Huyett:
Yeah, so we were really unsure what it was going to look like. It was my first Sea Otter with I was representing Fuji and Breezer while we were out there and all in all, I think it was a little smaller than it’s been in years past, but I don’t think that took away from the impact of it. We were able to connect with press and customers a lot more easily than in the past because there weren’t as many other brands there for people to visit and there weren’t as many consumers coming in everyday so I feel like that made it a little bit easier to have some of those catch up conversations that we needed to have after a two year hiatus from seeing the industry/.
Elspeth Huyett:
With that being said, I heard that the race numbers for Sea Otter were really good and Saturday, which is generally the most busy day at the show was very busy. I saw a lot of people walking around, so I think, I think we’re going to be good. I’m looking forward to doing Sea Otter in April where the weather is maybe a little more seasonal. There were a couple very cold days. I’m not really used to double puffy jackets at Sea Otter. So just, just a
Joan Hanscom:
Just a single puffy, at Sea Otter in April, just a single.
Elspeth Huyett:
Exactly. At least that I know. Cause we were like, what is going to happen every day, but it was really great to like reconnect through the industry, cause it really felt like it had been a long time.
Joan Hanscom:
Yeah, I’m sure. And I think I’m going to ask the controversial question now you may not know you may not have insights into it, but Sea Otter was purchased by lifetime, which meant for the first time, in a very long time, it was not USA cycling sanctioned racing. And that of course is an interesting topic all in its own. What were your impressions of that? Did it change things? Did people even know? Did they realize that it wasn’t a USA cycling event? What was your take on all of that?
Elspeth Huyett:
Yeah, I would say it doesn’t seem like it made a huge impact at this point. I think people are really hungry for racing in any way, shape or form they can get it. And Sea Otter is also really mountain bike heavy, which tends to often operate outside of the USA cycling umbrella. So I feel for those groups of people, it’s not as big of a deal, the Pro Women’s Field was a little small, but that’s pretty common for Sea Otter` to be fair.
Joan Hanscom:
Particularly this part of the year, right? Like road season strong.
Elspeth Huyett:
Time doesn’t help. time of year in the location, it’s not really close to a bunch of other stuff. And then I didn’t even realize it wasn’t USA cycling sanctioned until we went and watched Edwin Bull, is one of our product managers. And he raced the circuit race and we all went to cheer them on. And I was like, “Oh, I’m like there are officials here.” And then I put it all together. So I don’t think it really impacts the people who attend Sea Otter, I do think there’s like a lot of Fondo riders and Gravel Fondo riders there. And for them it doesn’t affect them at all. But I think April will be a more telling scenario for that.
Joan Hanscom:
So from walking around at Sea Otter for our listeners, I talked to folks that were at Eurobike and we know what everything was at Euroibike, was e-bikes and gravel bikes and cargo bikes were the things from Eurobike. What were the things at Sea Otter that the bike trends that we should be paying attention to?
Elspeth Huyett:
Yeah, I would definitely say gravel. Gravel is huge and being away from things for so long, I don’t think I realized exactly how much it has taken over. You saw very few road bikes, which, like I said, Seattle’s mountain bike focused, but still used to see more road bikes. I feel like it was pretty much elusively gravel, canyon, not canyon, specialized chose that moment to launch their new Crux. Gravel was really the big key event there. But I saw a lot of long travel mountain bikes, things like that. I do think in general, the world is moving more towards gravel and mountain, which I think is great. I did see one track bike, [inaudible 00:25:49] had their track bike out. So [inaudible 00:25:51] at Sea Otter, definitely way more gravel and stuff like that. We even brought our electric gravel bike out for the first time in the US. And people seemed really interested in that, which is really a collision of two really popular trends right now. So, that’s exciting and yeah, I think I might need to get a gravel bike. It seems like.
Joan Hanscom:
I just did on pave last weekend and it was in horrific weather, right. It was terrible, but it was so fun, and I am not one that typically has as fun when it’s wet and muddy because I don’t like being cold and wet, but it wasn’t cold enough for it to be complete misery, though I did spend a bit of time at rest stop number one, shivering next to the fire, but it was just so fun and the stoke was so high and it was really fun to see so many people having fun on bikes, which I think if there’s one really great thing is that people are racing aside, right? The sanctioned racing aside, whatever people are having fun on bikes.
Joan Hanscom:
And to me, that’s really what matters, and the people who want to race will find it as long as they’re having fun. And then the people who don’t want to race will still be having fun on bikes. And I do think that, that was something that came across like really clearly at unpaid, that people were just stoked. And it was a great day, despite everybody being coated in a really fine layer of mud and dust.
Elspeth Huyett:
I worked on paved in 2019, doing social media and stuff for them. And I said to Dave Pryor who organized it, I was like, “These people are having so much fun.” I was like, “This is the most fun I’ve ever had. Everyone here is stoked. Everyone wants to be here. It’s a really great vibe. And it’s something that I think, cycling really needs is that laid back fun race, if you want to don’t if you don’t and just enjoy the day.”
Joan Hanscom:
Yeah. And that came through loud and clear. And so hopefully that’s all part of this big gravel trend, right. Is that it’s just not dead serious bike racing all the time. It’s just doing what we did when we were kids, which was, have fun on our bikes. And the more people have fun on our bikes. I think the more you have things like bike infrastructure and all that good stuff that comes along with it, if more people just have fun. So yeah. Right on, well, thanks for your perspective on the Sea Otter. It’s weird because I’ve gone to Sea Otter for so many bazillions of years and it’s always in April, invariably it was always on my birthday. So I’ve spent many a birthday at Sea Otter with my bike friends, and I felt weird not being there. I was like, “Oh, Sea Otter’s happening and I’m not there, and it feels really weird”, but it’s not my birthday. So I guess I can’t complain.
Elspeth Huyett:
It was my birthday this year for it.
Joan Hanscom:
That’s so funny. Yeah. That’s hilarious. Yeah. It’s fun to have your birthday at Sea Otter. I always found it to be like a really fun thing because I’d see like all my friends from all the various different places I’ve lived and then got to have a party with all of them. So, I’ll have to go back. Is there anything else within this update for our listeners that you want to share forward?
Elspeth Huyett:
I did kind of want to talk about the 24 hour record attempt if you don’t mind.
Joan Hanscom:
Absolutely. And that was on my list and I spaced. But yes. Tell everybody what we did here, because it was cool.
Elspeth Huyett:
Yeah. So my day job at BikeCo, I work with Fuji and we have an ambassador, Joe Lawhorn, who’s a professional alter endurance athlete. So, he does all kinds of crazy, riding across Indiana, riding across America, he rides across everything essentially. And he had done a 24 hour record attempt at the Cleveland Velodrome in 2020 and he wanted to do other tracks. And I was like, “Oh, I have just the place.” So I was lucky enough to work with Joe, to make that happen at our track. So Joe came up at the end of August or the beginning of September and book on the 24 hour record attempt. And he raised money for the community programs at the track and also the Philadelphia Bicycle Coalition Youth Programs, which are like in the backyard of BikeCo, so those are really important to us at work. And the air products programs are very important to me. So he suffered so much, the last hour was so painful for him. I can’t imagine when he was done, we had to put him on like the little rollie cart.
Joan Hanscom:
Unbelievable. Yeah, that was unreal to watch him being pushed. For our listeners, it’s like one of those orange carts that you get at Home Depot, you know? So to move lumber, we threw blankets on it and he got rolled along, because he couldn’t even walk when he got off his bike.
Elspeth Huyett:
Oh yeah. He was just completely cracked. So he did break the record with maybe like 40 minutes to go or something. And he was like, “I don’t know if I can keep going”, because everything else after that is just bonus. But yeah, he kept pushing through until the very end and we ended up raising enough money to donate about $2,000 to the Philadelphia Bicycle Coalition. And then BikeCo was gracious enough to match that as Fuji and, and donate another $2,000 to the [inaudible 00:31:16] community programs. [crosstalk 00:31:18].
Joan Hanscom:
Very, very appreciative of that.
Elspeth Huyett:
Yeah. It felt really awesome to be able to combine work and also my passion together to be able to do that at the track. And what’s super crazy though, is Joe just went and did another 24 hour record attempt and he rode 400 miles on his track bike on the road in California and he won the World Championships. But yeah, I don’t think you’re going to see any 24 hour record attempts out of me anytime soon. A couple people were confused and thought I was doing the record and not doing the record. We will never do it.
Joan Hanscom:
Honest to God, I was thinking about it, because you all kicked off Friday morning, and then at like 2:00 AM in the morning he was riding the Velodrome. And at some point I think I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom or get a drink of water or something. And I was like, “There is a dude on the track right now.” And I was like, “That’s just madness,” but what an accomplishment and he didn’t just break the record, he smashed it. He smashed it a lot. It was super impressive what he did and just so quietly, right? Like there wasn’t like, there was a big crowd of people there and it wasn’t like when Bradley Wiggins set the hour record to a packed London Velodrome, it was just him there with his support crew and you guys, and it had to be some dark hours in the middle of the night. Like, “Why am I doing this?”
Elspeth Huyett:
I can’t imagine. And you know, Tom Mays did the timing for it. And he was there the entire time, full 24 hours, and typical Tom Mays, Ash, and he came from one event did that, went to another event right away afterwards. But yeah, he stayed there all day and without him and like the timing that he did was so cool. Because like Joe Lawhorn, who was doing the attempt could see where he was, see his lab times, so much information was provided for him. And yeah, Tom did an awesome job, wouldn’t be able to do it without him.
Joan Hanscom:
Yeah. Tom’s awesome. I don’t know how he functions without sleep. But apparently he is superhuman and does not require the same amount of sleep that you and I do, but yeah, Tom is awesome. And I was glad we were given him blankets and pillows. We’re like, “Tom, you might need this in the middle of the night.” So we were fishing out blankets and pillows for him, but happily you had nice weather for that, it was a super cool thing. Yeah. I would never do that either. Maura you going to do the 24 hour record attempt?
Maura Beuttel:
No.
Joan Hanscom:
No, just quietly. No.
Maura Beuttel:
It’s a no for me.
Joan Hanscom:
Definitely not. Well Elspeth, thank you for this. It’s a brief catch up, but I really did want to circle back around with you because in a our conversation we kicked off with, you had set some big goals and I think it’s super cool that you met them and we were able to be part of it. And so congratulations again and thank you again for joining us and we’re going to have to wait and see what you do next year. I am guessing it’s going to be ride of the year, but what do I know?
Elspeth Huyett:
We’ll see.
Joan Hanscom:
Some more wins, but again, thank you. And for everybody listening, this has been the Talk of T-Town Podcast. And if you like, what you hear, please give us the five stars or the thumbs up or the hearts wherever you choose to consume your pods. Thanks so much.
Joan Hanscom:
Thank you for listening. This has been the Talk of the T-Town Podcast. I’m your host, Joan Hanscom, thank you for joining us for this week’s episode. Head over to our website at thevelodrome.com where you can check out the show notes and subscribe so you’ll never miss an episode.