Who wants to ride in North Carolina with me?? Today meet Chip Hofler from North Carolina Amateur Sports and Cycle North Carolina. What started in the early 80’s as an organization bringing the Olympic festival to the area, it is now host to some pretty cool rides including a mountain ride and a coastal ride. I am planning to do an epic tour with them in early October that combines both. It is called Cycle North Carolina Mountains to Coast Ride. It is a 7 day fully supported ride with an average ...
Apr 11, 2025•33 min
Registration is open for the 2025 Colorado’s Ride! Use code MURPH to get $100 off your registration fee. Occurring in mid August, Colorado’s Ride is an epic cycling adventure that immerses you into stunning landscapes of Colorado, and charming towns like Durango and Pagosa Springs. I completed this ride in 2024 and invited ride director Bill Plock to be on the podcast to talk more about this bike tour. This multi day tour features an ascent up almost 11,000 feet on Molas Pass through the San Jua...
Feb 07, 2025•32 min
On this episode meet Amaiya Bearpaw. As a proud member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, she was chosen to pedal about 950 miles in 2023 as part of the Remember the Removal Bike Ride, also known as RTR. The ride spans from Georgia to Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma over nearly three weeks. The Remember the Removal Bike Ride was started by the Cherokee Nation in 1984 with the intent for Cherokee youth to retrace the Trail of Tears and get a glimpse of the hardship...
Dec 06, 2024•37 min
There are many ways to enjoy a bicycle tour whether you join an event, pay someone to provide logistics, or you do all the planning yourself. On this episode meet Zach Ostrander from Summit Cycle Solutions. He started this all encompassing logistics company back in 2016 when he noticed a strong need for logistics specific to cycling. Summit Cycle Solutions does everything from full service, like ordering port of pots, filing permits, securing venues and hotels or camping for events, or they will...
Nov 01, 2024•38 min
On this episode meet Meaghan Hackinen. She is an ultra endurance cyclist who recently completed the Tour Divide which is over 2,700 miles of self supported bike racing that follows the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, from Banff Canada down to the US/Mexico border. Not only did Meaghan finish this grueling race 7th overall with a time of 15 days and 23 hours, she nailed first place in the women's division! Meaghan is tells us a bit about how she embraced the grittiness of the race by staying wh...
Oct 04, 2024•51 min
Ever thought about riding your bike in Mexico? How about with a top notch bicycle tour company? BRAG is a non profit that provides quality bike tours including their signature tour called by the same name. BRAG stands for Bicycle Ride Across Georgia and that is a multi day bike tour across Georgia that has been going on since 1980! In addition to BRAG they offer other bike tours around Georgia. They also take bikers internationally on adventures to Croatia, the Netherlands, France, and finally t...
Sep 13, 2024•40 min
The Be Good Foundation was founded by Rebecca Rusch who among many things is an ultra endurance athlete, adventure cyclist, a world champion multiple times and the star in a film called Blood Road. At the Be Good Foundation, the bike is the center of their work as a catalyst for healing, empowerment, and evolution. They provide grant support to a number of organizations that use the bike in just this fashion. One such recipient is today’s guest, Megan LaBeth. Megan is currently on an epic bikepa...
Aug 02, 2024•48 min
Experience Plus! is a premium bicycle tour company with a great past. Back in the late 60’s a foreign exchange student from Italy met a high schooler in Oregon. They parted ways but reunited, fell in love and married. They chose to live in the US but wanted to travel. To make ends meet they put up posters to get people to join them on a bike trip to Italy, and it was a huge success. Throughout the years they continued doing tours and eventually decided to make a business of it. Today Experience ...
Jun 28, 2024•43 min
What the heck is DFL? Well, keeping it PG, it stands for Dead Freaking Last and at Mid South Gravel there is a celebration for the last rider to finish the 100 mile gravel course, a high energy celebration that I have never experienced before. Hundreds of people line up at the finish line and this year as Beth McBride crossed that finish line, people were cheering, the champagne was spraying and the band was playing. It was epic! Bobby Wintle is the Race Director and he goes out of his way to ma...
May 04, 2024•36 min
Have you heard of the Florida 500? This is an ultra endurance bike race that starts in Jacksonville FL and Finishes in Key West, giving riders over 530 miles of some of the fastest and flattest stretches of roads in the world. You can race as a solo unsupported rider, a solo supported rider, or as a Team Relay with 2, 4 or 8 riders. Today on the podcast meet cyclist Dan Swenson. Dan is an ultra endurance racer who lives in the high mountains of Colorado where he balances his professional time co...
Apr 19, 2024•39 min
The Iowa Gravel Series started in 2020 after Chris McQueen put on the Glenwood Gravel Grinder and decided to expand. Seven races now make up the Iowa Gravel Series, and it is a full season of events all over Iowa that take place from May to September. Races include the Glenwood Superbloom which is a unique and first of a kind women’s gravel race in Iowa and takes place in late September. In this episode Ian Breitlow, the Marketing Director with the Iowa Gravel Series, is on to tell us more about...
Apr 05, 2024•35 min
On this episode I chat with Jonathan Cain from TREE Fund. TREE Fund, which stands for Tree Research and Education Endowment Fund, is a national nonprofit that among many tree related things, distributes scholarships to college students who are going into the tree care industry. Their biggest fundraiser is the Tour des Trees. Each year they host this fully supported multi day bike tour for about 100 riders. This year in late September riders will pedal about 425 miles in the Southern New England ...
Mar 22, 2024•34 min
TRIGGER WARNING: SUICIDE DISCUSSION. On this episode Dan Hurd, AKA Lt. Dan joins me, and we talk a considerable amount about the sensitive topic of suicide so please be aware. Dan himself has attempted suicide several times and lucky for him, and all of us, he found the bicycle and it changed his life for the better. He had only been on a few rides when he decided to join a friend for a long ride. As we all do at times, as the miles ticked away, the complaining started and Dan’s friend came back...
Mar 01, 2024•57 min
Frankie Holt wasn’t really into cycling when she had a life changing experience while on a bike trip with her sister. She was in her 40’s and that bicycle trip gave her new energy, new confidence and the realization that freedom came with cycling. She also realized she couldn’t find a cycling bag that was quite right for what she needed, so she went about creating her own and her company, Fierce Hazel, was born! At Fierce Hazel, Frankie sells products that are unique, eco-friendly, and sustainab...
Feb 10, 2024•49 min
I recently spent a week riding my bike in Florida with the Rum Runner Tour and asked the tour hosts to join me on the podcast. Pat Mayben and Bill Plock both have a ton of experience as event organizers, and run this successful bicycle tour that leads riders through the Florida Everglades and down to Key West. The Rum Runner Tour will introduce you to really cool places that you might not find on your own. Plus they take care of all the logistics so all you have to do is bike and enjoy. Their ne...
Dec 22, 2023•46 min
Today meet an extremely inspiring person, Jeremy Raeszler. Jeremy had a motocross accident back in 2008 that left him with a spinal injury and paralyzed from the waist down. He was now a paraplegic and told he would never walk again and that was a pretty hard pill to swallow for Jeremy. Time passed and somehow the idea of riding a bicycle got into his head and he was determined to figure out how he could learn to ride. You will hear from Jeremy himself how he accomplished what seemed to be an im...
Nov 17, 2023•49 min
Joy Ride: A Bike Odyssey from Alaska to Argentina written by Kristen Jokinen, is a new book available now! On the show today meet WORLD TRAVELERS, Ville and author Kristen, who are currently on a book tour zigzagging across the country promoting the book. They are on to talk about their 2 year, 18,000 mile journey from Alaska to Argentina on bikes! After hiking the entire Pacific Crest Trail they had the itch to do something equally epic, and the plan to bike from Alaska to Argentina was born. A...
Sep 15, 2023•49 min
Today meet Jamie from Canada! He is a self proclaimed bagger who got deep into bike touring a few years back and hasn’t looked back. Last year he loaded all his gear onto his Surly Long Haul Trucker and took about 6 weeks to bike across Canada. This year his big adventure plan was to bike across Iowa as part of RAGBRAI. He decided to make it an even bigger adventure by riding his bike from Canada, through Minnesota and then to the start of RAGBRAI in Sioux City, Iowa. He is on to tell us about h...
Sep 01, 2023•37 min
Grassroots Gravel is a new entity and new event coming to Pueblo, Colorado this fall and Adam Davidson is back to talk about it. You can be part of this first year event and get 15% off! 15% off Grassroots Gravel entry for Murphology Listeners Registration Link: https://register.chronotrack.com/r/74848 Use code: MURPHOLOGY Adam was on episode 41 to talk about singletrack biking, trail building and the Southern Colorado Trail Builders group in Pueblo. This time he is back to promote a gravel even...
Aug 18, 2023•43 min
On this episode meet Sam Westby. Recently Sam and his dad loaded up their bikes and rode across the country. Sam started bike touring with the family at the age of 9 and riding across the country with his dad was a bucket list vision for many years. This year the stars aligned with both of their schedules so they put a plan and a route together and away they went. Sam was on a bit of a time crunch so with fully loaded touring bikes, they launched from Oregon with a goal to end in New Jersey. The...
Aug 11, 2023•37 min
Have you heard of the nonprofit called Orchard Place? They provide mental health treatment and expertise to kids in Iowa. Today meet Brandie Broadhead, the director of volunteers and special events with Orchard Place. Orchard Place is the oldest locally based charity in Des Moines, they have been around 130 years, providing both inpatient and outpatient services to kids as young as 2 years old. Their biggest fundraiser is an annual bicycle ride called the Moonlight Classic, which attracts up to ...
Jun 23, 2023•29 min
Today you are going to hear what it was like to live through a Derecho, and what it has to do with bikes and trees. A derecho is kind of like a hurricane that occurs on land, and lasts much longer than a normal thunderstorm. It was August of 2020 when I learned what a derecho was, because it came through and destroyed my community. Seeing over half of our tree canopy lost on that day was a terrible loss. How can you replace so many trees? And who can? A fellow cyclist who is also an arborist int...
May 19, 2023•15 min
On this episode meet Johnathan Olson. He got a Peloton as a gift a few years ago and like most people he started out doing a couple of workouts a week. If you haven’t heard of Peloton, it is a brand of stationary bike that has built in features that allow you to join live cycling events so you can ride your bike alone in your home, but with thousands of other Peloton riders at the same time. This strong community is what got Johnathan hooked! He rides every single day, sometimes multiple times a...
Apr 28, 2023•54 min
Amy Boelter is on this week’s episode to tell us her journey to reclaim her health via the bicycle. Several years back Amy experienced a tough journey to have a baby. Once her daughter was born, she fought some unexplained health issues that doctors couldn’t give her answers for a quick fix. Add to this the pandemic and some mental health issues along with postpartum depression, Amy didn’t like the way things were going. So she decided to reclaim her life and take control of her own health. It s...
Apr 14, 2023•33 min
On this episode I am going to tell you all about Emory Pass. Emory Pass is a high mountain pass located in the southern part of New Mexico, USA, in the Black Range Mountains. It is in the Gila National Forest and Emory Pass rises to an elevation of 8,228 feet above sea level. Bicycling Magazine once listed it as one of the greatest climbs in the country! In March of 2022 I biked up and over with a few of my friends while we were on a mission to bike across the U.S. www.murphologypodcast.com http...
Mar 31, 2023•26 min
On this episode Cathy Niebauer is on to tell us about her experience bikepacking in a multi day event called the Huracan300. The Huracan 300 Challenge is the ultimate off-road endurance experience in the state of Florida. The route features over 100 miles of singletrack, many remote miles of double-track forest roads and abandoned paths, and a few miles of pavement here and there. And as Cathy will tell us, this part of Florida is definitely not flat. Cathy and her team completed this event in a...
Mar 03, 2023•37 min
Meet Fabian Serralta, who founded a popular gravel event called Gravel Locos after he discovered his love of gravel biking and the spirit associated with it. He wanted to share with others his experiences riding gravel roads, while raising money for the local volunteer fire station in Hico, Texas. Gravel Locos has attracted over 1,600 gravel enthusiasts, from newbies to pros, and successfully put the small town of Hico on the map. This event takes place in May, and Gravel Locos has expanded to a...
Feb 24, 2023•43 min
I recently caught up with a few of my cycling friends and asked them about their favorite ride, or maybe a bucket list ride they want to make. So in this episode I will cover 4 great places worth checking out. From the Paul Bunyan Trail in Northern Minnesota, to Missouri and the Katy Trail, down to Florida to ride from Miami to Key West, and all the way to New Zealand! Thanks Kim, Tyler, Chris and Tommy for telling us about your favorites! Here are links to more info: Paul Bunyan Recap: https://...
Feb 03, 2023•19 min
Back in July of 2001, Michael experienced what he calls his ‘last bad day’, when he was hit head on by a motorist while riding his bike. This day changed his life, his outlook, and his identity. The road to recovery was a long one and there was a point when Michael realized he had to heal his mind if he wanted to get his body healed. That’s when he made the decision to call that terrible day back in July 2001 his last bad day. He has continued to live his life with this decision and today he is ...
Jan 27, 2023•56 min
This week meet the founder of Girls in Gear. Gabrielle Rossi is the executive director of Girls in Gear which is a nonprofit organization that teaches young girls life skills through bike skills. Starting as young as 5 years old, Gabrielle and her team of coaches offer both one day clinics to learn to ride a bicycle as well as 8 week programs that combine the physical benefits of biking with the social and emotional learning that help build confidence in each of these youth. The program has expa...
Jan 20, 2023•35 min
