We Love Biking #001

a richer, more robust life. Yeah, we're not coupon clippers, but we're all about saving money and living a better life. And we don't think it takes money to live the life necessarily live in the life we want to live to just yeah, absolutely, we want to live a life where if we won the lottery, it wouldn't change our lives all that much, right, I don't know about you.

That's like, that's the way I think that if I won ten million dollars tomorrow, it changes It would change the little bit, but a little bit, but like my I wouldn't overall all my life, it wouldn't be all that different. Like money is not what makes the difference. That's totally true. Travel more, that's for sure, Yes, no doubt anyway, Stop, we gotta we gotta drink in that vein. We like to drink in beer's. Yeah. So, I mean, craft beer may not be your thing, but we really

like it. And so we thought, you know, what, might not be a bad idea to have a beer while we're talking about life life stuff. All right, Matt, So what's the beer that we're drinking today? Every episode we're gonna drink a different beer and it's gonna be freaking super tasty, and we'll drink it while we're talking about the subject at hand, which today, like we said, is biking. We're gonna talking about biking and how biking changes their life,

saves you money. It's pretty much all around awesome. But tell them abut the beer we're drinking, Matt, Yeah, thanks for bringing this over. Uh yeah, we're drinking beer by Founders. It's called backwards Bastard. It is dirty bastard aged in oak bourbon barrels. Remember the first time I had this a few years ago. It's more than a few years ago, it's probably been like five years or something like that now. But just tasting that woody oakness, it's such a good

winter beer. It's like welcoming the win, like the colder months, like it is now. It's perfect. Yeah, and I'm really excited. At the end of the podcast will kind of give you guys our tasting notes, like what we think about Backwoods Bastard in this particular year of it. But this, truly, I gotta tell you, is one of my all time paper beers, and especially it's not too hard to get and it's a little expensive. I think it was fourteen bucks for a four pack, but for four super freaking

tasty in an age as well. So we're drinking one now. Lay one of these down for next year too. Cheers, man, cheers, thanks for bringing this over alright, So onto the subject hand biking and Matt, I'll confess that my life has changed. I feel like you actually got me into biking, and it's something I've kind of forgotten for a while, and I'm so glad that I'm back into it. Wait, so you used to bike, but now but you said you

forgot about it. Yeah, man, I think like it just seemed normal to get into my car to go everywhere, and for a while he didn't have a good bike, and then one of my wife's best friends. Her dad gave me his old bike, his old road bike, and I started like doing that a little bit, but it needed some work done to it, and I was like, I don't know, do I know how to work on bikes? Um? That's when we started bik into the Braves games, right, Yeah, yeah, I remember that, and you're like, oh, I got a

bike somewhere. Yeah, I'd get a little work done to it, but it was um. But then I started riding. I'm like, oh, this is really fun. But I was like too nervous to take the plunge to like do it more. I don't know why it's not. Yeah, I hear you, man, I keep kicking the pants, you know. I think a lot of people feel that way, right. There's just a lot of different kind of bikes out there. It's like my, am I doing it right? Or am I get the right one? Or how do I where do I park it?

Or do I lock it up or something. There's just a lot of sort of things that folks aren't used to doing. Like when you're a kid, you just get on your bike, you ride around, have a good time, right over to your friend's house. There's none of the other stuff associated with it. Yeah, it's it, but when you live in the city like we do, you gotta take other things into account and uh, I don't know. It can be intimidating for folks, but it doesn't need to be. Well we can talk more about that later on,

but it's still fun, all right. So speaking fun, what's your favorite bike memory? Kate and I my wife Kate, we went with some friends to visit some other friends that were living in d C. And they've got this share program and it's the first time we've ever done that. It's called Capital Bike Share. I don't know. You join and then you get to right out around for like the week, weekend sort of thing. But anyway, when you're in d C, it's an awesome way to get around

to all the different museums and sites. And I've never been to d C, so we had an awesome time. And if you parked it back into another station within like fifteen minutes, it was free. So you pay for the membership and then if you get it from zero to fifteen minutes is free. Beyond that it's super cheap. But you're like Hallin asked so that you can get for free. Yeah. So there's six of us and we're like,

all right, is everybody ready to go and go? And we you know, jump on, hop on jeff on our bikes and peddle stopping for happy hour and going out to eat and going to see stuff and stopping at food trucks during the day. And it was during the spring too, so we're like riding around the what is it the lake and by the Jefferson Memorial. Yeah, but the blossoms. All that was happening at Cherry Blossoms. It was beautiful. So I think because that, I'm like, dude,

bike share is the bomb. Yeah. We recently got a lot of bike share stuff going on in Atlanta where we live too, and it's kind of cool to see those around town. And ye, they're expanding like crazy. You see him like lock two random trees because someone's inside. Like although, I will say, when you see someone on one of those bike share bikes, usually they're like a PI poor biker and so you're a little bit like, Okay, avoid those people like to play because they don't how

to bike. I remember people saying that with the city bikes in DC are New York. Remember when this first came out like people. There's a lot of jokes going around about the bikers on like Times Square. Yeah, it's a sing. So my favorite biking memory was when Emily and I were in Amsterdam and as you know that that in Copenhagen, right are probably the top two biking

towns and hags up there. Yeah, and biking around there was so cool because bikes are way more important than cars there and at every intersection, cars are the ones that are like sweating and fear, like the furrowed brow that are like I don't know, can I go yet? Because all these bikes are here and it's the total

opposite everywhere else in this world, but yeah, especially the US. Yeah, but biking in Amsterdam and then also like to come out of the train station and see literally like a sea of bikes, thousands of bikes, and its insane to cross over the ferry on bikes. I don't know, just to see the whole town that way was a blast.

And also just think about childhood and it made me think about Stranger Things, the show Stranger Things, and I was trying to I really liked the show, but I was trying to think why I like the show, so much, And I think my favorite season one episode one. They start off, I mean they're on their bikes, right, It's like yeah, and I'm like, it's a it's a great show. It's got a lot of good things going for it.

The acting is great, the storytelling is great. But I think more than anything, I resonate with like the kids on their bikes doing their thing. It brings you back to childhood in that way and getting places doing what they want to do. So those are my favorite bike memories.

And it's different to being at home and biking. Right, It's not like we're on vick because both the things we just mentioned were us traveling, um, But in daily life it's still fun, right, Like I think about a bunch of us got together and rode up to see a Line United play. Yeah, it's about what four and a half mile trek each way. Yeah, I mean it's like minutes or something like that from where we live.

But then they've got the bike valet there and so he gets to ride up, like he gets literally pulled straight up to the stadium like a like a stud right across from the thirty five dollar part. Yes, oh my gosh, that how good? Does that? Make you feel when you see like the escalades or whatever, like pull pulling down into the garage and it makes you feel so good. I think it's twenty five. It's not like, no, it's thirty five. I swear to you it's thirty five.

That's insane, it's I mean, it's outrageous right across from the free bike. But then yeah, then you go to the Atlanta Bike Collision bike valet when it's free, and the dudes are awesome, and you know the folks that are running that are great. It's just fun, right, and then you're just kind of hanging out there at the bike valet, uh before before going into the game. So doing a little bit of tailgating, I think, I think, uh, that's that's definitely one of my favorite memories, like the

memories that we've made biking the games together. And then the other thing that we love to do. So Matt and I both have cargo bikes which have like this hard tail on the back and we can slap our kids on there. So Matt's got three girls, I've got two girls, and girls. Man, nothing with girls. Lots of

chicks in our lives. One of the most fun things I think is is putting them on the bike and going for rides, and we just had such a blast both us, you know, taking rise together with the girls are separately Like when like my girls are just on a Saturday, they want to hop on the bike and they want to go to the playground. And that's for me, that's the most fun because I don't have to walk to the playground a half mile or half of my stupid car to go there. We get to like work

through the streets, like get the wind blowing through our hair. Yeah. And what's great about that too, is just that they want to do something that we want to do. Yeah. Yeah, it's like we've got kids that are one through four, and there's not many things that we do that we

enjoy doing that they also like doing. And said it has something like that where to drink beer with us on occasion Yeah, just yeah, only on the weekend, right, Yeah, but yeah, something about that where you're just like connecting with them. I think that's that's a big Obviously, we love to do anything that they love to do, like if it, you know, makes them happy, but something that also aligns with our values. It's like there's some there's

something beautiful about that. Where Yeah, it just makes me happy,

i know, bringing them into your world. Yes, yeah, it's really fun for me to go down into theirs and you know, drop pictures whatever, but for to bring them up into ours and for them to get to be a part of something that we enjoy so much, and start teaching them, like early on, to like the things that we enjoy, and start you know, explaining to them why we like biking so much, which is why you know, while we're talking today too, right, Yeah, so we think

biking makes a huge difference in your life. It contributes to a richness of life, and that's why we love it. But also so we care a lot about Matt saving money and we think bikes really hit the nail on the head when it comes to saving money too. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean it goes without saying, right, a bike is cheaper than than well, yeah, there's some bikes out there

that are expensive, but in general, bikes are affordable. I think if folks are concerned about how much of bike costs, like, they can hop on Craigslist or ask around and you know there's gonna be somebody selling a bike. But there's websites and stuff other two that are there are selling bikes for for pretty cheap without huge markups and and things like that. Like I said, I got my first adult bike for free from your yeah excess dad, from

my from my wife's best friend's dad. Yeah, I thought you said no. So we're still connected, we're still friends. But yeah, it was I mean making sure he doesn't want his bike back. I mean super kind. He's a big biker, and he he bought another one and it's a nice bike, that trek. Yeah, it's really nice, and so I mean you might not get a free one, but there's all sorts of ways to get a free or cheap decent bike. You don't have to spend all

that much. They're not that expensive. And on top of that is how freaking cheap they are to repair and to and to ride every mile as opposed to a car. Yeah, repair costs. There's no comparison going to like your local bike shop, and we were there today. Yeah, uh Lesnets over there in Grand Pire. Those guys are awesome. Um, but yeah, I mean there's no comparison. And like taking your bike in to get completely overhaul it as opposed

to even like an oil change. Yeah, like on a on a traditional vehicle, bikes are so much more affordable when it comes to maintenance, and plus you can look up on YouTube and how to videos and you can save say sixty bucks right there instead of having to go in. You just like have a screw driver and know what to turn. And it's not like the most complicated thing. It's just most folks have never done it. Sure. Yeah, And the most money you can save is if you

can possibly commute to work on your bike. Whatch you do. So I'm doing that for the most part now. Um, and that's been Man, it's been so enjoyable and it's been a money saver to you know, we're at the point where I'm considering getting down to being a one car family because you know, my wife has a car and I have a car, and so close, man, I'm close, and I'm like, can we hit that point? Can we

hit that point? But we've already been able to kind of cut down our insurance costs because if you if you drive the cars under like usually miles of years, kind of this point for insurance companies, you have the tracker that does the mileage or yeah, we've got trackers track so you don't even have to do that. You can usually just tell them and every year they'll uh, they'll do They'll like ask you, well, how many miles around the vehicle now, and if you're under seventy miles

a year, they'll give you a discount for that. But you can do the trackers too, and with a lot of these major insurance companies, and you can save even more by putting a tracker on your vehicle and letting them kind of see how much you drive and how you drive. You can save like on your insurance costs if you're driving it less and running your bike instead. Right, totally. I don't know how many times I said this to folks.

I romantic science like the nine to five because being self employed, like I am own of my own business, like it's just always on your mind, right, And so sometimes I think, like, oh man, like a nine to five where you just go in work, come home, you know, you check out, and you thought thinking about it, that's appealing. But I also amanticize the commute because I think that, like,

oh man, that would be so nice. I could just hop on my bike if I work somewhere that I could get see like on the belt line or you know, just right into nice neighborhoods. How nice and how cool would that be to be able to get some fresh air and pop on your bike. And but then I'm like, well, I can just sit at home and work in my office, which is nice to hop on your slippers, the scuffle right in, not changing out of my sweaties. What do you what would you say? The folks that live a

good distance from where they work. So for instance, like my bike commutes about seven and a half miles each way, so fifteen miles round trip, and that's pretty far, man, it's far. But we've got some good rap say that because I think that's pretty I feel like a lot of folks probably are within that. I don't know, look at up folks, and there's certainly like a good like

a good percentage if you do it. The drive for their work or uh, you know, like sales folks where they're running around totally that's not gonna work for this wouldn't work for them. But so I would say this, there's a certain ways, like there's a couple of things you can do. One thing, you can move closer to where you work. If you don't have a job like that like a salesperson where you're all over the place. That's again obviously not something you can do easily or

lightly if you have a mortgage. But we think personally, lifestyle wise, living close to your work is a good thing. Oh yeah, we would say that. Man, we could talk a whole another podcast about Yeah, I live live in local living close to the things that you want to do, right, we're all about that goes without saying, but absolutely commuting, taking my leg into account is definitely something to consider

when if you're going to consider biking to work. And one of the other main things that you can tell people is that half of car trips are under three miles. Yeah, I've heard that. So, like when you run to the grocery store, it's what like a mile and a half to get to the grocery shore, Dude, is not even I don't even know if it's that far. We yeah, I ride to the grocery store. Folks will poopoo it, but we love aldi. It's so that man, man, it's it's so I don't even I don't even know why

I said poop poo. That's like, that's not something I say, but it's weird. That's weird for people think like all these weird or lame or something like that. But dude, it is so stinking affordable. So people would hop in their car. Well, yeah, we did too, I mean, and

here's the thing. It's not like we don't take those shorter trips like sometimes we do, you know, like if it's pouring, like if it's raining or something like that too, But a lot of times, like it's pretty awesome to be able to hop on I hop on the bike and you know, throw on a backpack or I've got I've got a pineer now on the side of my bike, and to be able to ride up to the grocery store and just grab that and throw groceries in there,

and the girls like it. Actually know what the girls like is going to the bank, they get the suckers, Yeah, the dumb dumbs because I yeah, I've got a business accounting So I'm just gonna go on a tangent like banks need to get on it. Like there aren't very many business checking accounts out there that allow you to there's limits on stuff, and so because that we have to go into the physical branch, which is it's fine, it's right next to all day. So I love it.

It's you know, it's a nice one too. That's old school, though it is old school, have to wait in line, it's kind of lame anyway. Girls love it though, because their suckers. Man, I go to go to the grocery store, go to the bank, you know, all the time running errands. When you're thinking about how a bike fits into your life, think about those quick trips that you take, the one

to maybe three mile trips somewhere. Usually you hop in your car, car, turn the ignition and waste a lot of gas and uh it just I think the change small, change your lifestyle. Start out like make your one mile trips, make your trip to the bank, make your trip to the grocery store. Try to do it on a bike, you know, and use bring their reusable bags or whatever.

And I'm not a hippie, I don't care all that much about them, but like, bring your reusable bags and put them on the handlebars and uh and get your get your groceries that way. Just start small with the bike in your life and kind of see, you know, how it changes your lifestyle and if you find it enjoyable.

As you say, starting small, but like, at the same time, it's still just as hard to hop in your bike and do a one mile trip for folks as it is to hop on your bike and maybe do like a five mile trip or something like that if you're commuting to work. And I mean it's honestly, something I like about biking is that the mental toughness you're challenging yourself mentally to have to get on the bike as opposed to getting in the car. Like it's not easy, right,

because it's really easy to get in the car. I hit the button as I'm walking out to it, so I don't even have to like unlock the dang door, and then I get in and get to drive off where I want to go. It's already like a favorite favorite tunes coming out. Dude. Yeah, with bluetooth, it just

starts playing playing my jams. If you're like really comfy, obviously a one mile trip is going to be easier than a four or five mile trip, but like, yeah, start there, but just know that, you know, it's just as hard to kind of go on a one mile trip mentally as it is, uh, say, maybe a five five mile ride. I think the biggest thing for me was the first ride or two and just just doing it, just doing it, man, because like I talked about it

for so long, don't know if you remember. I was like, yeah, dude, I was trying to get you to I'm gonna b to work. I'm gonna do it. And then I didn't do it. Let's see it and I didn't do it, and finally I did it. And not that big of a deal, is it. It's not a big deal. So practically speaking, like we kind of already talked about commuting a little bit. But did you do like a dry run. Did you go during the day or something like that.

I feel like I was like, just go during like on a Saturday, you'll know exactly where to go when it comes Monday morning. That way, I think what we did was we took remember talking about that, to the park in Midtown and yeah, and so it was like, which is like real close to my work, and uh, and I think we did that and that was I was like, oh, this is five percent of the way. I mean, I can do it, you know. I mean, like if I can on the way here on a Saturday,

that wasn't that bad. Yeah, But that's I mean, that's a that's a great way just for folks to try it out there, right, I'm like, figure out your route, like if you know, specifically, if you're looking to to do this on a to commute to work, do it when there's not when you don't have to be in it at exact an exact time. Yeah, it goes sometimes when you've got plenty time to to try it out. Do it on a Friday when some of your coworkers are working working from home or something like that, like

Friday or Saturday. Just take it easy to go for a ride and yeah, like Joel, you'll probably find that yeah, you mean the right, Like you found that it wasn't even that big of a deal. You're like, wait a minute, I'm like already here. Well, the interesting thing for me, honestly, the biggest change was I wanted to like beat my head against some windshield in traffic. And now when you

went back to driving, yeah, oh man. Every time after when I would when I would drive after starting to bike on a regular basis, it was, I mean, it was mind numbing. Um and I just get tired of the traffic really quickly. I I it just frustrated me more than it ever had before, even you're used to just cruising along and living the good life. Yeah, And the interesting thing, I think people will think a couple

of things. People will think that it's dangerous in traffic, which depending on your route and where you're going on your bike, it can be a little nerve wracking. You gotta watch out, you gotta be careful, you gotta watch out, have all your safety basis covered. Wear a helmet, Always

wear a helmet. People like, that's yeah, wear helmet. I think even if you're going on like a one mile bike ride in a neighborhood where your helmet, like there's dummies out there, so you can hit a big rock or something on the street and you know, not be paying attention and flip over where a helmet. But I think people, yeah, we'll we'll think it's unsafe and they'll also one of the other big reasons that they won't

bike is over using their cars. They think their car gets in there a lot faster, even if they're stuck in traffic, they think their car gets there them there faster. And some of the statistics bear out that really, especially in urban areas where where you're getting there in the same amount of time, And I think they say that the average speed of a car in like downtown traffic is like eighteen miles an hour and the average beat

of a bikes like thirteen miles an hour or something. Again, so really it's like it's a small it's a small difference in the amount of time. And I've found, truly after logging it, that my bike commutes have been faster than my car commutes. Nice. How long does it take you to get to work? Yeah, it's about twenty five minutes minutes, that's pretty awesome. Yeah, and so in my car, my car commute sometimes on the way end, uh, it's

it's always less. On the way end would be close to that, maybe about twenty two to twenty five minutes, but on the way home it would be anywhere from thirty minutes to forty minutes that afternoon traffic. And just to know that when I leave that I'll be home in twenty five minutes no matter what, is so nice. I don't have to like, Okay, what's what are things

gonna be? Like? I don't have to deal with the interstate in this stoplights, Well, you still have stop flights when you're riding home, but yeah, but in like this god forsaken mess of a city, what are things gonna look like traffic wise? Son, I wanted to worry about that. So I'm gonna assume that folks were thinking, Yeah, I can't do that because I'm not in shape. You're gonna share the folks like you don't have a normal bike, right,

No I don't, So yeah, let's talk about that. So the reason my my bike commune is so short too, and I have two bikes, so I've ridden my road bike. Well, so the free bike that you got from your ex's dad or something, my wife's that's fairing of that. That one takes about thirty eight minutes to get in. But I have an electric bike too, So the electric bike is what I ride in on most days. And that's

for a couple of reasons. The main reason is to avoid being sweaty and nasty when I get into work, and the second reason is to cut my commute time down. So it's literally saving me. I think of it as saving me time, and but I still get a workout in. Yeah, but it's not like you're riding like like a car. You're just cruising up hills when normally you'd probably be kind of sweating it out a little bit, right, totally. We're going super slow because like some of these hills.

We live in Atlanta, some of the hills here ridiculous, right, and to go up some of those hills takes quite a while. You're going to super slow pace. So it's really nice to have an electric bike going up those hills. But you still, I mean, you're still peddling toy. So yeah, here's a common misconception about electric bikes is that they're

all They're doing the whole work for you. It's like a scooter or something like that that you just turn the throttle and go, which some electric bikes come with a throttle, like the turbo boost. Yeah. So like the only time Oliver you use the throttle is usually if I'm at like a stoplight and I've got the girls on the back or something like that, and I'm like I quick start just yeah, like kind of helps me

get going. But for the most part, it's runs on the pedal assist and so like the motor is sensing your your revolutions of your foot and it's kind of keeping track with that, and so it it kind of gives you a boost it powers when you work yeah, right, yeah, it's like we're doing this all right, let's go. Yeah.

And so the great thing is like, literally I can I can feel like on that twenty five minute ride like I got in average amount of workout, or I can feel like I beasted it and it went really hard. And usually on the way in, I kind of go for average. On the way home, I go for beast mode because you want to get home. Well, I get home when I can be sweaty when I get home. It's not so. But I think a lot of people think electric bike, Oh, what a loser, You don't do

anything Joel breaking a sweat. I'd like to see that, But you still get you still get a workout. And then for me, that's that's one of the biggest reasons why I like it is that, I mean, I just don't like paying for things that I don't have to pay for. So if I can ride my bike and still get a workout in, that's gonna make me happy. Right Like I don't have to drive into a gym and god forbid sit on a stationary bike like, there's no way I want to do that. When I can

be outside like zipping around the city. Um, so I don't have an e bike, an electric bike, but I just got a regular, regular bike and I've got our cargo bike as well that I can put the girls on, and U joel, we put the girls on there. So for school, yeah, we take Usually I take the girls into school in the morning, I take my daughter and you're both of our oldest daughters. And then you pick them up from k downtown. Um yeah, and then I pick them up you know at like you know, in

the middle of the day when when school's over. But for me, three miles each way. Ah yeah, I think. So I don't even know. Man's I don't even care. Just gets get the ride, you know, hop on the bike and ride. And for me, that's like when I can be fit. I mean, you know, I sit at the computer all day at home working and like I just have this thing where I feel like I'm dying if I'm not like moving, literally my temperature drops and

I feel like I'm dying. And so hopping on the bike, I just feel alive, gets a gets a blood blood pumping again. And for it's not like I worked out much harder than you do on on a bike, like you still get a workout too, but it's just a way for me to get the blood flow and get some fresh air. And if I were to take the car and to go get the girls and come, you know, come back and drop her off and stuff like that, it's literally a difference of ten minutes, like ten maybe

fifteen minutes. But I mean I can get there within five minutes as if I were to take a vehicle, but so much more satisfying. And yeah, yeah, and most people awesome to go get their work out, they drive ten or fifteen minutes somewhere maybe you know, maybe just maybe just four or five minutes, maybe it's really close by. Still you're in a vehicle, like yeah, but you're driving somewhere to go get your work out. And I know

you're silly to me, you're super against that, right man. Yeah, I hate that, Like when I do something so like if bike just does everything. Bikes are just like this like miracle machine, like it save his money, you stay in shape, um, and it's just better for like the world. It means better for me to be in my bike than you know, my Honda four thousand pound vehicle. Uh, driving around Like there's things that you can do when

you're on a bike as it compared to your vehicle. Right. Yeah, so one of my favorite things too about buying that's really I feel like kind of honestly, I I don't say life changing about like almost anything, but that's kind of changed my life. It's uh, it's really put me in touch with my city. I feel like I know my town better. I see more people than I know, like walking or biking on the on on the paths

or on the streets. I just feel like Atlanta means more to me riding through run through it like that, you know, Like I love it so much more just biking on it through it every day. Yeah, it's not just like the landscape that you have to get through to get to where you're going. It's yeah, part of what you're doing. Yeah. Well, normally I feel like I'm focused on the guy in front of me who's texting and you know, not moving when we're at a red light or no, yeah, when it turns green and then

it's not moving, that's the worst. Or I'm just like wondering why am I going three miles an hour on the Downtown connector like it's and I'm not thinking any of that stuff. On my bike, my eyes are up. I'm looking at all the great things around me, like the weather. I noticed the I don't know, I noticed weather patterns differently and they have to. But yeah, yeah, but it's good. Yeah, you know, it doesn't it make it. It It makes you tough, and it makes you It

puts you in touch with the world. And for me, it puts us in touch with like our neighbors too. Like when I'm in my van. In our van, I'm not stopping and slowing down to like say hey to folks as I see them, like in the yard working or something. But you know what, if I'm on the bike, get a little bell a ring, you know, and like wave to him, and if they stop working, it's like, okay, I'll kind of go in there and talk to him a little bit. Like you can't, you know, you don't

do that in your car. Like in your car, you're in this protected cocoon and point A to point B. The bike just changes the mentality of travel, like it's just all about the stuff around you, Like you said, the weather, the city that you're driving, like they're riding through and it's just better until you experience it, like regularly. I feel like most folks hop on a bike and they pedal really hard and they sweat, and they're like, oh,

this sucks. But once you kind of get into the routine and the rhythms of it, man, it's yeah, it's it's good. I'd tell people too. If you're gonna start biking, which you should, you start keeping track with like an odometer or something like that. You I can download one on your phone. Keep track of the miles that it

takes you to get places over time. So let's say in one month, you know, you you just started, and you bike forty miles that month, you know, because you did a bunch of one to two mile rides to the grocery store. That's cool. Give yourself the i r S Standard rate of mileage of fifty two cents a mile or whatever it is. Now maybe it's a little

bit more. And what is that? That's like what the the I r S says that you it cost per mile to drive a car, a normal car for most people, your car, to operate your car, including gas, wear and tear, all that stuff. That's what they reimburse so or what's

tax right offable? If you can keep track of that and kind of put that money aside into like a side bank account, save up for something really fun or different or interesting that you're you know, traveling somewhere or a weekend get away, or some new gear for your bike. Start putting that money aside. That's a cool way to kind of think about it and start to kind of get into it and give yourself a little challenge, like, all right, this is gonna be my force method to savings.

Every time I ride my bike, I make a little money for the next thing I'm I'm gearing up for. It's like a little bonus. Yeah, totally, It's pretty cool. Did I tell you about um? I met with like recently some clients of mine and we're we got talking and somehow bikes came up, obviously because bikes are awesome. And this past summer he and somebody's road across the country, like but straight up the whole country. Yeah, and which

sounds crazy, but in reality coast to west coast. Yeah, they started in Savannah, I think you said, I mean they're from Atlanta too, but Savannah to San Diego. And he'said, this surprised me, but it took him. It only took him sixty days, like two months. That crazy. How in the world is that possible. It's yeah, it's it's very possible.

Because I asked him, I was like, what is that, Like how what were you guys averaging and he said he said they were averaging like thirty something miles a day, when like, I, I, yeah, because I've thought about hike in the a T. I've had friends that hike to a T and it's something like, you know, that's just goes from Georgia up to Maine. I don't know how many months, but it's most like five months or something

like that. And that's if you don't have any hiccups or any problems to ride your bike across the country. I think a super I don't know, two months in the summer. It's like, oh, that's like summer break for if your kids are in school. Obviously I'm not gonna go with like, we're not gonna go with our kids. They had pioneers and they did camped, you know, on the side of the road. Man. Yeah, I was super Yeah, I've never met any way that's done that. And I

was like, I was super impressed. But that was blake. He was just like yeah, we did, like bike across the country. He took us, took a sixty days and they like raise some money and stuff too. But maybe somebody will make that happen. Man, I've always said Winnebago, but maybe we'll do the bikes, which, yeah, I don't know if the girls will be We'll be down with that. Our wives might be like, yeah, that's good. Point might be a boys trip only boys trip come down. But

I don't know. Man, it sounds sounds good at me. So back to the beer man, what do you think about this? Ah, this is a great beer. Back was bastard by founders again is what we're drinking. Um, it's a scotchail aged in oak bourbon barrels. And I think on this beer you get uh, a lot of oak, a lot of vanilla. Yeah, I feel like dark multi what's the A b D on this one? A leven point two. I think that's bigger, you know, not quite wine territory, but maybe twice as big as your standard

PBR dark beer. If you want to try something different, you know you like stouts or darker beers. If you know you don't like I p A s, then this is your beer. Yeah. Yeah, and it's got I'll be honest, it's got a really sweet logo on the front. I love the the old man. Yeah, I love the art with holding the freaking acts with a dope beard and hat on it. That's pretty like a Rip van Winkle or something. Yeah, that's pretty. That's pretty sweet. Beer can

art or beer bottle art. Um. Yeah, this beer is one of my I mean, it's been one of my favorites for a lot of years and didn't disappoint this year. In um, pick yourself up some backwits, bastard, and enjoy it slowly and deliberately on a weekend night, preferably because yeah, man, that's high a B B Saturday, That's that's when we're recording. Yep, it's nice. I don't really work on Saturday nights or you know, Saturdays in general. We'll talk about that maybe

in the future. But yeah, I'm thout you're not working, but we could drink this beer and talk about bikes. Yeah, man, absolutely so, I guess to wrap things up, the reason biking is awesome is it's fun, creates awesome memories and that lasts forever, and when it comes your it comes

your wallet. It's it's affordable though too right, you know, like compared to driving around, and it's a little different than the one are and we can maybe we we'll talk about that in the future too, when once Stiel goes like full on one car family and he's riding to work in the in the middle of winter. I'll keep you updated, dude, are you gonna do it like soon?

You think in the next So I figure, I told myself, I get my off six months, like six months of steady community on, okay, so to get through the actual winter to kind of get it for you get a feel for the seasons and get a feel for you know, doing it over that long period of time and how sustainable is it for me? And so after six months, I'll I think I'm gonna make a call and make the call and win in the spring when it's nice and warm and yeah, I love it every day. It's oh,

it's so great. Yeah. I guess we'll see how brutal the winter is, but I know that, you know, January is gonna be the worst. We'll see how that works. But we'll get there and I'll keep you guys up to speed on that. Thanks so much, everyone, for listening. Our home on the web is how to money dot com. Check it out. We'll have our show notes up there for you. Yeah, and don't forget to hit the subscribe button wherever you're listening to your podcast. We'd really appreciate it.

Our buddy. Until next time, best friends Out, Best Friends Out,