%20Building%20Community%20Through%20Cycling%20(3).png)
New England Endurance
Celebrating New England's thriving endurance sports culture.
Our mission is to passionately showcase and celebrate the vibrant endurance sports culture thriving in New England. Through engaging conversations, local endurance athletes (Art Trapotsis and Eric Schenker) embark on a journey to uncover the essence of the region's clubs, group rides, cherished routes, legendary races, and the devoted community of athletes who proudly call New England home.
From the exhilarating realms of road cycling to the rugged trails of mountain biking, from triathlons to ultramarathons, from open-water swimming to collegiate rowing, this podcast is a tribute to the challenges, victories, and compelling narratives that shape the endurance sports landscape in this distinctive part of the United States.
With a commitment to fostering connections, providing valuable insights, and igniting inspiration, we strive to unite, inform, and empower the New England endurance community.
New England Endurance
Charles River Wheelers (CRW): Building Community Through Cycling
In this episode of the New England Endurance Podcast, we learn about one of largest cycling clubs in the Boston area: the Charles River Wheelmen (CRW). My guest today is Randolph Williams, the President of CRW, an accomplished endurance athlete, and a passionate advocate for inclusivity in cycling.
Randolph shares how growing up in a family steeped in social activism shaped his journey, culminating in his impactful essay, Biking While Black. This powerful piece not only highlighted inequalities in the sport but also inspired tangible changes, such as the Wheels of Change Strava Art project.
We’ll uncover the rich history and mission of CRW, founded over 50 years ago by Dr. Ralph Galen, and explore what makes the club such a cornerstone of the Boston cycling scene. From their inclusive approach and legendary rides to their commitment to promoting camaraderie and belonging, CRW truly embodies the joy of shared cycling adventures.
Join us as Randolph talks about his epic solo rides—like Boston to Montreal—as well as how he’s helping shape the future of CRW. We’ll also discuss CRW’s structure, favorite routes, signature events like the Cranberry Century, and the club’s role in advocating for better cycling infrastructure in New England.
Whether you’re a casual cyclist looking for a welcoming community or a seasoned rider chasing epic routes, this club and this episode has something for everyone. Don’t miss Randolph’s inspiring stories and insights about the power of cycling to build community and create lasting change.
Be sure to follow us on Instagram @newenglandendurance for updates and tags from today’s episode.
Art & Eric embark on a journey to showcase and celebrate the endurance sports community in New England.
Hey, welcome to the New England Endurance Podcast. I am Art Tripotsis, and today I'm thrilled to have one of the largest and oldest cycling clubs in New England, the Charles River Wheelers, otherwise known as CRW and my guest today is Randolph Williams, president of CRW and an accomplished cyclist and advocate himself, and someone who, I think you'll come to realize, embodies the spirit of CRW, which we're going to learn more about today.
Speaker 2:Welcome, randolph, thank you so much Art for having me on the show.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I just discovered that Randolph is a fellow jumbo, so shout out to Tufts Excellent. Let me set the stage here a little bit with this episode and tell you a little more about Randolph. So he grew up in a family steeped in social activism and turned his personal experiences into a powerful voice for change with his essay Biking While Black piece not only shed light on some inequalities in cycling, but also inspired things like the Wheels of Change Strava Art Project, which I did the S on that, I believe, and also the New England Cycling Coalition for Diversity. I really look forward to hearing about these pieces of your story and how this sort of weaves into your leadership with CRW. You're an endurance athlete yourself. When I was reading your bio, you've done some Boston mar CRW. You're an endurance athlete yourself. When I was reading your bio, you've done some Boston marathons. You've ridden from Boston to Montreal or vice versa. So how did you get into endurance sports?
Speaker 2:When I was a child I had asthma, so I know that I remember going out, my dad would head me out and I went to a track meet. Going out, my dad would head me out. And I went to a track meet and, uh, and probably was eight or some, some, some age, um, you know, some young child, and I did my running race. I was in the first quarter lap, I was ahead of everyone and then I was at the end, started heaving, started heaving Exactly, exactly, but but, um, I think, when I went through all of my, uh, college years and got out into the, into the real world, you know, I did computer science and so I was one of those people that, like you know, like computer is a good friend because I could turn it off when it annoys me, yep and uh.
Speaker 2:And my dad just said, uh, one day after I got into the workforce, he's like oh, you're getting getting soft, a little fat, you need to go do some exercise. That's kind of how it started. And my dad, effectively, I guess, goaded me into and I'd say, well, let me. And I got swept up into the whole. I got hooked into the cycling world and I started, you know, with the bike, bike racing lance armstrong the whole nine yards.
Speaker 2:I'm like, oh, I could do that let's go. Let's go do some things, and I um I loved cycling. I had some challenges personally just being able to do long events. Um, I didn't actually figure it all out until maybe in the last 10 years I mean five to years and it kind of started going hog wild on, like I did some testing for salt and different kinds of yeah, checking your metabolism and your what's the word?
Speaker 1:Nutrients and salt intake, did you just curious? What team did you ride or race for when you were kind of coming up in New England? Brc was one boston road club yep, shout out, that's me and eric back in the you know late 90s, early 2000s, yeah dream bikes was another one yep and uh, those were the two primary.
Speaker 2:Uh, it wasn't with nebc for a year or two as was I.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it seems like everyone kind of came through ne NEBC at one point back in the 90s.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was one race I was, so I did the Green Mountain stage race. I mean just to give you an idea of where my perspective was I was so far behind Dick Ring.
Speaker 2:He called out my name and I'm like why is he calling my name? They thought I was ahead of the pack because I was so far behind. So just to give you a perspective on my cycling prowess at that point, just to give you a perspective on my cycling prowess at that point. But again, I figured out you know I'll lose a lot of salt and I finally figured this out like four or five years ago Dialed that in. Dialed it in.
Speaker 1:What's the trick? Just curious. You get some noon tablets.
Speaker 2:It was more than noon. Tablets Most people lose like 1,500 milligrams of sodium in a day.
Speaker 1:That seems like a lot.
Speaker 2:That was 2,600 per hour of exercise. Wow, so I would come in. My wife would see me all caked in salt. It's just like, oh, it's been a normal ride, so I have to put in a lot of salt.
Speaker 1:What are you taking in? Some sort of liquid?
Speaker 2:I actually started mixing my own concoction with how much salt I need, because once you do the sweat test, you can figure out how much you actually need.
Speaker 1:Where can folks do a sweat test?
Speaker 2:You can go to I think it's sweatrxcom.
Speaker 1:They send it home to you. They send it home. And then actually now I have a digital device that I wear on my heart strap that can tell me also how much salt I'm losing at that well, this is really interesting because I'm uh, I'm sort of a, you know, a nerd when it comes to, you know, performance and performance improvements, um, but you did a couple of solar rides from boston and montreal yeah, I wouldn't have done it without me figuring this stuff out honestly.
Speaker 2:Honestly because uh, you know, I started like oh, okay, and the days of racing, I had a child and I'm just like that's done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, same here. How many miles is Boston and Montreal? 330. And how many days that take you.
Speaker 2:Uh, I was. It's three days typically, uh, for me, or I've done it in two, so the two day, uh way how it kind of operates. I figured out with my. The pattern with my wife, the rest of my family, life and child is they'll go to a hotel yeah like. So, coming back from montreal, they would uh go in a hotel in uh colchester vermont. That would be okay, so I'm gonna make it there to colchester, it's like 100 miles away yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:uh. Yeah, that was 100 miles, not bad, but then the next part is the 200 miles coming back home. It's easier coming home than it is to go up, because it's downhill.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so Colchester, I said I'm going to go to Dunkin' Donuts when they open up, I'll be there, and then I'm going to ride home and then hopefully I make it and if you have to pick me up, you pick me up, because I'll hopefully be closer to home than that. But I've used that pattern where my wife and child are staying in a hotel somewhere.
Speaker 1:Actually I did ithaca to uh boston as well. Oh man, so that was awesome. That sounds like fun, yeah, 440. So yeah, so, um, so getting on a crw here. Just so our listeners know, cr CRW is Charles River. Okay, so we're talking about, you know, charles River, the great Charles River. That runs through Boston and points West Um, so this is a Boston based club. How did the club start Like? What's the history? I understand that it's over 50 years old.
Speaker 2:Yes, uh, it is uh. We're going up on our 50th. Well, we're coming. The 60th anniversary is coming up in in uh 2026.
Speaker 2:Uh it was started by a doctor, dr Ralph Galen. Ralph Galen started it and, uh, he actually went on to uh help co-found the league of American bicyclists as well. So there's a whole story there. Um, and he uh started the club. And it's funny. You go back and look at the old pictures of people that were cycling. It's back then. It's diverse. They got women, black people, like it's. You see these old pictures and you're like oh wow, this is very interesting.
Speaker 2:Uh, so that was how it started. Uh, I think he he passed away in 2000 and uh, right before covid, if I remember correctly yeah I never got a chance to talk to him, but some people talk. You know, I hear some old time stories from folks um well, he started a great thing.
Speaker 1:I'm curious like what his mission was when he first started this thing.
Speaker 2:Do you have any sense for that, or I don't have a really great sense of that and, um, this is where I wish I had some historians to give you more perspective than than I can give you. But I can tell you, at least from my perspective, how I started in crw was right after school and I said, oh, I like this biking thing. And, uh, you and I both went to tufts and so that was in medford area and and, uh, and they, they had a ride. That worked better for me because it was like 10 o'clock in the morning and not six o'clock in the morning because I'm a student, right. So I'm like this is great, I can bike to wherever these things are. I went on, uh, they had some uh trips that people organized Like, let's see, they had a tour of New England, so they hit five states.
Speaker 1:Oh, they did that yes. I'm kidding.
Speaker 2:Self-organized, and then they had a Boston to Quebec ride, so we, effectively, we biked. I think it was over the course of eight days, probably the whole trip was eight days. Probably the whole trip was eight days where we uh did different legs, uh going, working our way up to Wolfsboro.
Speaker 2:You know, just every day we're staying in the air, not Airbnb, but breakfast yeah, and then and then we would uh, stayed in Quebec City for a couple days and then everyone came in the van back, but that was less than a thousand dollars, including, you know, for one meal lodging lodging and and uh, transport back, and it was all self-organized by this club that people just seem like they're having a good time and uh putting things together and and that was perfect for me.
Speaker 2:Uh, and, and that was perfect for me. Actually, there was really one fun trip. We were, uh, they had a vermont trip where we basically went to a bed and breakfast in vermont and they had different rides per day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so it's like a mini training camp almost exactly exactly, I left my shoes at home oh no yeah, but someone you know helped get me into a bike shop and I switched to a different speed plays actually and you know I was actually shop and I switched to different speed plays actually I was actually having knee problems and I put on speed plays and I was like, hey, this is great, I'll never have to do this ever again.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, crw always was welcoming and it was economical for someone just starting out from school and that was part of my story of how I got involved with CRW back in late 90s or in the 90s, just starting out cycling, before I started doing racing or anything else. So it was a good gateway for me in terms of getting involved with the club.
Speaker 1:So what would you say is the mission of the club today?
Speaker 2:The mission of the club today is we. Mission of the club today is uh, we have an educational angle, as well as understanding that, uh, you know, we want to have be supportive of writers of all different kinds and different types. Uh, we have a gravel program. We have an exciting program called devo, which is really around personal development of your own. So you set up goals and you decide and you make your own goals.
Speaker 2:So it's not racing, because we're not a race club uh, but that's a way for people to get uh so how does that work? Is it?
Speaker 1:is it a training plan?
Speaker 2:so it is a uh I think it's self-declared internal like they. They have their own right now. It's along the lines of people just wanting to better themselves. So you know, whether it's via swift, in setting targets, we have like, uh, climbing everesting, like so, people that want to do like goals like that are you putting your goals out there for other club members to see? That's one of the things that we want to do as an upgrade, or I want to do as an upgrade yeah because I actually do.
Speaker 2:I'm very excited to think about how we'd surveyed our members last year and we wanted to understand uh we have about, uh just shy of 2 000 members just so 2,000, 2,000?
Speaker 2:yes, uh, it's a big club. It's a big club, uh, but we asked our members how many of them? What kind of training do they do? What? What? Uh, you know a lot of them are involved with charity rides, uh, pms challenge being the biggest one for sure. Uh, this is all the responses we got and you know part of it I I have some ideas this year, maybe next year, I'm not sure. You know, depends on volunteer volunteer run organization. Part of it is how do we have the volunteers to do this? These kinds of things. I'd love to actually structure training programs that you know you've done running before yes, yes.
Speaker 2:So you go on websites.
Speaker 1:They have couch to 5k in a month or whatever Exactly.
Speaker 2:So we, I feel like that's one of the things that we could be doing as a club, right? So if you think about how many people want to do a charity ride, never done one before, right? So how do I go from couch to a hundred mile charity ride, century over the course?
Speaker 1:of the season, sort of some pre-planned training plans. I'd like to be able to do 100 miles by July.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:You know here's some general hours per week you could do, and I mean listen training peaks. You know you can buy a $100 training plan, you know, for as specific as a 40 plus year old athlete. You know they have all these very specific descriptors. You know 40 plus year old mountain. You know they have all these very specific um descriptors. Yes, 40 plus year old mountain bike 50 mile race.
Speaker 1:Here's the training plan yes, but what those don't give you is riding with people yeah, that's true around safety you know you're going to do these intervals on tuesday and thursday and, yes, you know, group ride on wednesday. Um so, speaking of crw, with regards to the membership you mentioned, there's 2000,. You know everybody that I've met through CRW and and I was introduced through it, um, something called climb to the clouds, which used to start in Concord I think. Now it starts in Sudbury and it basically goes to the top of Wachusett and back for a hundred miles. Met a lot of great people there. How is the organization structured, you know, is there a board of great people there? How is the organization structured? You, you know, is there a board of directors? You're the president, you know. Are there ride leaders? Are there captains? Is there a team like a race team, like? I'm just curious how the whole thing is sort of set up sure there is.
Speaker 2:There's the board. We have nine uh directors. Part of the board. Uh, we have a. We have some standing committees. So we have a ride and safety committee. We also have an integrated operations committee so that that person kind of make sure the trains are running, keep the trains running, and we've got in that ride committee. Let me just come back into the ride committee. We have different coordinators that are leads different programs. So we have different coordinators that leads different programs. So we have century coordinators. We have uh folks that work in a demo program, gravel ride so we have basically people that are passionate about a particular topic and they agree to step up and and help lead that across.
Speaker 2:Um, you know working with volunteers to get these things done is there a race team? No, race team no race team. Okay, the closest thing we have is I mean, actually you mentioned one of our main events, the Century that we had Climbing the Clouds yeah, which is actually a Devo-sponsored program. So I talked about the Devo and I rode with them part of the Cranberry Century, which is one of our marquee events.
Speaker 1:Love that one, yeah, favorites.
Speaker 2:So I said let me join up for the 22 mile hour plus group. And I lasted, for it was really cold that day. And my fingers were like we don't like this. I didn't last very long but they were going 22 plus. So I'm like for people that you know sometimes people think of CRw it's. It's very interesting because we have some people are like crw is too slow some people say crw is too fast and you know we're looking for that goldilocks zone, so well, you know the rides I've done.
Speaker 1:There's always been, you know, the, the 12 mile, the 14 mile per hour group 16, 18, 20, 22. There's always a group for somebody. That's at least been my experience.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's what we strive to do, that yeah and uh, it always just takes for somebody that's at least been my experience. Yes, that's what we strive to do, that yeah and uh, it always just takes making sure that we wrestle or arm wrestle, to get someone like we need someone to lead this yeah, to do this at this particular pace how do you guys communicate with your members?
Speaker 1:um, is there a newsletter? Is there a slack channel like the winchester rippers have an awesome structure with the group me channels like how do you guys communicate?
Speaker 2:yes, we have a platform, so a website, where members can see what's happening. We also do email blast. We do have uh slack at folks.
Speaker 1:Also leverage and use and can you post a ride to the slack channel and other folks might join you for the ride, or um, we have that happening informally, but from our formal rides.
Speaker 2:Uh, we want to make sure they're covered by insurance.
Speaker 1:So there's some, some things we have to deal differently than the rippers. I'm a ripper too, so okay, yeah, but so you know what I'm talking about the group channel. That it's very convenient to say hey, I'm riding on riding on Sunday mornings at 10 o'clock from this gas station, so CRW doesn't quite have that.
Speaker 2:We do not, not today, so how would?
Speaker 1:if someone wanted to ride just informally with other CRW members, how would they communicate with?
Speaker 2:If it's informal, you could do it in Slack. That's probably the best way to do that.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:You know, for our formal rides, we want to make sure there's, we want to make sure there's a safety talk. We, you know, because we we for our rides, who's coming?
Speaker 2:we don't know who's coming right so in 2000 members we have a wide spectrum of abilities so we want to have some consistency around the experience and making sure that people that um show up up are assured and know some certain things. So the Rippers, I think, is they're they're actually gotten kind of big, but not as big as the CRW, and I just say that with love and affection, I understand.
Speaker 1:No, but I think that's part. That's. One of the things that makes CRW unique to me is that when you do show up to a ride, there's always a safety talk. You typically, if you're not a member, have to sign some sort of waiver or go online and do that. You know what else makes crw a unique club in your mind I think the the size of it.
Speaker 2:I think our our marquee of uh, events like those centuries, um, and there are a lot of people I was one of them for many years All they do is they sign up for those centuries because they'll use it as training for other events. Right, so that happens and we acknowledge that. But we are trying to do a lot of work to try to build up more community. We have one of our ride leaders. She's very dedicated, she's actually on the board. She has a ride. She's very dedicated, she's actually on the board. She has a ride she does. In Arlington we did our ride leader award ceremony. She's not eligible for an award. She should have gotten an award if she wasn't on board. Effectively, she led a ride every, I think, I don't know. It feels like it's four days out of the week over the course of the year.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Right, that's pretty incredible yeah.
Speaker 1:People show up.
Speaker 2:Yes, people show up.
Speaker 1:So okay. So let me ask you is there. We've interviewed running clubs and cycling clubs on this podcast and and a lot of the great clubs have, like you know, two or three um training rides or runs each week. Does CRw have like a go-to training ride every week that folks should know about?
Speaker 2:uh, we have more than one, and that's part of what I'm trying to, the part of the things I'm trying to do, I'm calling something called neighborhood ride. So we have um in lexington. There's a battle. We we have yes, we have uh wednesday wheelers. We have uh bike thursday, that uh, these are very popular rides uh, and then we have a number of them on the weekends.
Speaker 1:So and you can find all these on the website on our website and on our ride calendar, we call it, so we have.
Speaker 2:Uh, I think last year, if we looked in totality, we had almost, you know, 300 plus 300 plus events.
Speaker 1:That's incredible. So that's a combination of training rides plus these centuries we've been talking about.
Speaker 2:Yes, correct. So we basically have something going, almost all you know, almost every day. If you look at the calendar, in the summer we might have three or four rides going on at the same time. Right, so it's just. But on average, you know, we look at it and it's like wow, that's a lot of events we've put on this past year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so let's talk about you know you've been president for about the last year or so. This, this podcast, is being recorded in December of 2024. You know, how has your experience and sort of unique perspective to this sport help you, um, become a leader in the club and sort of shape where you want to, where you want the club and sort of shape where you want to, where you want the club to go.
Speaker 2:So I think that, uh, there's, there's a rich history with crw. You know 60 years of 60 years of rides and experience with the members. I think one of the things that we got an email from someone who moved to washington dc or I don't know if they're washington dc but to say, hey, you guys want to join us on a panel at the National Bike Summit Because there's something happening with aging population, where a lot of bike clubs are seeing aging membership, and I'm going to bring in another perspective. So put that in one, put a pin in that.
Speaker 1:Put a pin in that. Put a pin in that.
Speaker 2:And then I was doing a thing for one of my other organizations, Naked New England Cycling Coalition for Diversity, where we were asking and interviewing, talking to people at an event on the Minuteman this past summer, Nice, and you know we're starting to ask people what's your experience with working with bike clubs? Are you a part of bike clubs? Some people, young people, coming up to me saying why would I join a bike?
Speaker 2:club. We've got the perspective of do we have an aging population that seeks camaraderie and wants to build up a community? And we've got, on the other hand, we've got some younger people that are like, what's the benefit of having a bike club? You know, if you actually think about the pandemic, it was another dimension, right. A lot of people, just like a lot of people, got out on bikes.
Speaker 1:Oh, tons of people.
Speaker 2:Tons of new people, tons of new riders. Are they part of a bike club? Do they understand that? And I think you and I just talked about this? Right, you can get these plans that could make you the the best, uh, strongest biker, but you may not be a good cyclist yeah, those are two different things yeah, yeah, you need some pack skills. Yes, exactly uh, to make this work. Um we so?
Speaker 2:I guess you asked your initial question was just about the presidency yeah so I think I think one of the things that's different about me is that I was bringing in a perspective of I'm a, I still have a day job, and a lot of times we've had people that were retirees or something along those lines. So like, how can we make this, how can we structure the club to work for people that aren't 100% dedicated to this, and can we do this in scale?
Speaker 1:So I think the folks that I would say the way you're describing those folks is the folks that really have a hard time or really need to balance work, family and fitness yes right, you got the working folk. You got to go home and deal with the family, and also I'd love to ride my bike as much as I can, but balancing all that.
Speaker 2:So you bring that perspective I'm trying to bring that perspective into the organization. And the other, the other thing. I would say that, uh, my background is, uh, information systems and IT and things along those lines, and so we really wanted to bring the club into the 21st century, I would say, just because it was a volunteer organization. You know how CRW started. I mean, one of the things they used to do is people would call a number hey, we're going to have a ride on Saturday. So they used to use a phone and that's the way people found out where the rides were right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have a website. Things have gotten a little more mature. We had a website before and it served its purpose, but we wanted to have mobile apps and other things, so we brought in. We have now mobile apps. People will do mobile check-in.
Speaker 1:There's a CRW app.
Speaker 2:Yes, well, we, uh, we use a platform called wild apricot and it comes with an app so you can check in, you can see the rides, you can register. All these kinds of things are.
Speaker 1:Wow, all right, all right, listen I.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's a member app. Yes, so, yes, that was one of the things I wanted to make sure we had, you know, the ability to do things remotely.
Speaker 1:So then, what's so good? So in your presidency, like, what's, what are some of your top priorities you'd like to see happen, or change or develop?
Speaker 2:And I think the priorities were operationally getting us in a better place so we could scale, because you know we're still there's growing pains. It's not always, you know you could do it overnight, but, um, you know part of it was getting us on the website, getting us with the mobile app. So, check, check, those things have been done. Nice. Now how do we get the uh volunteers to get them more engaged with the, with our platform and how we do things.
Speaker 2:We have a wide spectrum of computer abilities too, right, so that's something we just have to think about. How do we move the whole population?
Speaker 1:I mean, do you guys use like SignUpGenius to get you know that's a program.
Speaker 2:I know SignUpGenius yes.
Speaker 1:To get volunteers to sign up for events. I'm just curious what you guys use for that.
Speaker 2:Well, so for our centuries we end up using, we partner with groups that are local to the area and they'll handle the table or when we have, you know.
Speaker 1:So a local community group Like a church or Boys and Girls Club.
Speaker 2:People that are usually affiliated with outdoor events will help us with. You know at a place that something you know like. So we have organizations that we'll work with. That's one way that we get volunteers. But I guess we actually the other day we put out an email to everybody saying here are some volunteer opportunities that you can have within the club. We got a response from a woman and we looked her up and she's like she hasn't done a lot of rides with us but she's like I was a member in the 90s or 2000s but I really want to get involved. And she said what I love about this is the community. And I was like, oh, this is very interesting, said you know, uh, so you know.
Speaker 1:So if we put out the call, people will respond you just, you just need to make sure you put the call out there so actually I had a community question do you guys collaborate with other organizations like mass biker, nemba, yes or yeah, what do we do?
Speaker 2:um, we well, we have a grant program, so we, as part of our mission so we're a 501c3 organization um, so part of that is education and making sure that we bolster biking infrastructure. You know some things that we don't really yeah focus in on so advocacy in terms of like how my mass bike does it, we don't do that. Uh, they received one of our grants this past year who did uh mass bike?
Speaker 2:oh, okay, nice and so yeah, so we, you know people have an opportunity to apply for a grant and we can give them out, and we have done things where we've asked the memberships, our membership, where do you want our grant money to go this year? So, like we've done, you know, bike, not bombs, has been another one of our uh frequent, uh, oh, nice um people that we give money to. So these things have uh. So I guess your initial question was just how do we partner? So we, if it's about cycling, it helps with education. We think there's member benefits.
Speaker 1:We're open to it yeah, so you're in an indirect way, you're supporting sort of the cycling infrastructure and around the boston area. Um, I see all these new you know bike lanes popping up and it sounds like you guys play sort of a small part in that. Back to some of your signature events. Uh, if you could list off, you know, maybe your top three or five. We mentioned climb to the clouds, which I think still exists yes, it went away for a while and now it's back.
Speaker 2:We have some folks that that we're gonna roll up our sleeves and we're gonna get this done. I think putting on a century is not as simple as, like you know. Hey, we're just gonna have a bunch of people go out for a hundred mile ride, right, mean, there's a lot of logistics to it. You've got to permit working with the towns to make sure that they get their whatever requirements they put in front of you. Those requirements evolve and change, like this past year. So the Cranberry Century is one of the ones that we do this year. An official said hey, I think you guys need to have an ambulance at the beginning of the ride. So we had to pay for an ambulance at the beginning of the ride. We were just like this doesn't make sense. I think you may need an ambulance at the end for some of the people, but not at the beginning of the ride.
Speaker 1:Oh, interesting.
Speaker 2:Wow I think I remember seeing the ambulance there actually yes, and as the president, I'm looking at this and like dollars just going tweet, tweet, tweet, oh boy.
Speaker 2:But you know so, towns have their demands. You have the permitting process is longer than you think it's going to take. And then you put you know, coordinating all the volunteers, making sure you have support vehicles, All that stuff is just logistics, right. So we have uh three main events that uh three centuries that we've put on. That. I would say that the marquee events that we're known for they have the north to new hampshire century.
Speaker 1:That's usually in may otherwise known as the spring crw century, yes, spring century exactly and and is it also a shorter event if anybody's listening out there and they don't want to do 100 miles? What else for routes?
Speaker 2:So all the routes have on these we typically will support. We've gone down to 35 miles. Actually in the cranberry century we went down. We had a 30 mile route this year 30 and a metric century 30, metric 50, I think, and then also 100. There were four routes, I believe so. But, you know. Part of it is just making sure that you know we, we coordinate the stops and make sure that there's not too many. You know all the stops. We we want to leverage them.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, you want some overlaps. Yeah, very exactly. Um, so, so we've got the spring century, yep, that's in May.
Speaker 2:And then then then we have the uh climb to the clouds, which is we've done it usually in June or July and this year we pushed it out to August. So that was an experiment. We may pull that one back to July again. We competed against Mount Washington.
Speaker 1:We realized when we first did it and then we're like, okay, we need to change to a different date and et cetera. Well, and then the day after Mount Washington, there's a local Tour de Cure event. Yes, which doesn't get many Mount Washington folks, but Presumably, presumably, yes.
Speaker 2:And then we have our Cranberry Century, which is usually what we call. We use that to close out the season primarily. Those are our three main events. That doesn't mean that we don't have centuries at other points of the time I did a few years ago I did a major Taylor Century ride, so effectively a road from Winchester out to Worcester. Watched people go do the George Street hill climb race and then we came back.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's nice. So you did that sort of more informally with CRW members.
Speaker 2:With CRW. It was on the ride calendar.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, it was an actual event. You know, I let some people out there, but you guys stopped for your own drinks on your own.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly yes, not supported, you know, on your own, supported ride.
Speaker 1:I think that the Cranberry Century is a hidden gem in New England. It starts in Milestandish State Park. It's super well organized, the route is just fantastic. It's sort of rolly, not too hilly, and it's just endless miles of beautiful pavement around these cranberry bogs.
Speaker 2:Yes, I agree 100%. I've set my best cranberry. Cranberry Century is where I've done my best times in terms of centuries. Set your PR there, huh yes twice century is where I've done my best times in terms of set your pr there. Huh, yes, twice, and you know that's funny. You know everyone. There's the flattest ride, a century of the new england. I think we're lower than that actually the flattest ride is in.
Speaker 1:Is it in rhode island? Rhode island, yeah, that's it right, but that's still pretty hilly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's pretty hell exactly I think we're about to look at the elevation gain and see what the story is there.
Speaker 1:What does CRW do to encourage new riders to get involved in cycling, particularly new riders that might be intimidated by doing a group ride?
Speaker 2:Well, we do the things that we approach that you just talked about, where we say that we are going to be intentional about declaring what speeds you guys are at Part of the data set that now we have. When people register, we ask them how fast are you intending to ride this ride? At right, so that helps the ride leader.
Speaker 1:I have no idea what if they have. You know, I'm not sure I'm new to this. You know where do I go. What do I show up? Which ride should I show up to Randolph?
Speaker 2:Tell me, tell me, we actually we do get people that inquire and ask those kinds of questions and we will, we will front the kind of question and say like here's some rides we recommend.
Speaker 1:That's a good idea for us to think about. How is there one like that just off top of your head like hey, there's a great saturday ride out of xyz parking lot. That, a newbie, I'm just saying on this podcast. If there's anything you could announce about that, is there a particular?
Speaker 2:well, I love the lexington uh battle road series is is good, and when?
Speaker 1:and when is that? It's on the weekends what time?
Speaker 2:uh, it varies, that's the okay. So you have to tap into the calendar. You do need to tap into, and it's what is it 20 miles or so, or is it? Uh, 30, 30, okay, yep, and we have. Uh, thank god it's friday ride that goes out of bedford um as well, that's every. That's every um right after work after work okay, six o'clock. You know, it depends on the sun.
Speaker 1:You know, because they want to make sure they get back before dark yeah, so these are rides that happen sort of after daylight savings kicks in yes, correct, yes I know personally of someone who got into cycling out of boston um. They joined the ride I think is out in the haunt park near wells ave. Is that how you pronounce it?
Speaker 2:yes, uh, that series went on for a very, very long time. Actually participated in a number of those rides does it still occur? No, it doesn't. But uh, they had at one point uh like many, many weeks of continuity.
Speaker 1:I can't like three or four hundred weeks, probably years. Yes, yeah, they went over for years.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly, and I think it fell apart, uh, when some nor'easter or something, I can't remember exactly oh no yeah, the streak ended, but you know that's.
Speaker 2:That is part of the appeal what you just asked for is part of the reason why I'm saying like we need to have these. Neighborhood rides are consistent and people understand and know it, because I know that there are still cyclists showing up at the park. I heard there's a ride here that I can go and join, Right, Exactly. And and someone just told me the other day like hey, isn't there a ride from the park that you guys are like, well, it's kind of dead. But so the idea of having consistency, because one of the things that I would say as a president, it also changed. I didn't like the fact that.
Speaker 2:you know, we talked about the demographics of the club being different and people are younger people, one of the things that I guess it was tapped into. I looked at CRW as a place I don't want to call it, this is not the best way to characterize it, but it was like where's the ride from crw this week? So people look at the calendar. They say like, oh, I don't want to go to hoppington today, like because we'd have a ride in hoppington, we'd have another ride and you know it could be in somerville, yeah, and then we could have another ride in, uh, you know, on the south shore. So like we had rides, like we had rides, yeah, we had rides, but they were all over the place, and so that would mean you either bike to the start, some of us are fine with doing that or drive or drive.
Speaker 1:Most people drive.
Speaker 2:And and I don't just like this isn't a way to build up more community, cause you kind of want to need to have people that you know, that you ride with all the time to actually build up that community and that's one of the things I would say that Rippers does really well. So that's one of the things I'm trying to get more to happen.
Speaker 1:This person I was talking about, you know. So they were a newbie cyclist and they showed up to this weekly Saturday ride and basically CRW helped them go from a very novice cyclist to someone who's doing, you know, 7,000, 8,000 miles a year and I just thought that was cool and and and uh, crw played a big part in that. So if someone is listening and wanted to get involved with CRW, how do we go about doing that?
Speaker 2:The best way to do that is go to our website, crworg. We have a calendar that's available, um, with all of the events that you can participate and join up for.
Speaker 1:Do I have to pay anything?
Speaker 2:You can ride with us two times a year without any. No fees, With no fees. But our membership is very reasonable $20.
Speaker 1:20 bucks 20 bucks.
Speaker 2:Oh, come on, everybody should sign up. And then there's our contact us form on there that, if you want to talk about volunteering or you want to get more involved with anything, we've got, uh, partnerships. Uh, that we've we. We have revamped it recently, so I think that, uh, that's a good way to reach out that's cool, all right, 20 bucks, sign up for crw.
Speaker 1:Um, so we'd like to ask folks a couple of questions to close out the podcast. Okay, so you've. You personally, it sounds like you've raced and ridden all over new england crw ride, or not, is. Are there any hidden gem events or roots that you can share with our podcast listeners? Um, that might not know about? I mentioned that my hidden gem is the CRW Cranberry Century in the fall, so you can't take my answer, but do you have any events or routes or anything that you've run into?
Speaker 2:You stole one of the better ones from us. Thank you very much. I guess, when I think about my rides to Montreal, there are definitely some areas. And now you're going to ask me like Route 100, because actually people do Route 100.
Speaker 1:I know there's a like organized rides on route yeah, there's the 200 on 100, which is 200 miles from the border of canada down to the border of new hampshire and massachusetts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that one that's on my bucket list yeah, and and recently I'd say that I did this is also. This was also a great ride. I mean, I did the it, the Ithaca to Boston route, just on my own.
Speaker 1:I mean, what is this like five days?
Speaker 2:It was three. I was trying to do it in two. It ended up being three.
Speaker 1:So it's over 300 miles.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's 400, 400 plus miles, so I won't go into the whole story, but the trail that opened up I wanted to do the empire trail, so I went, uh, from ithaca up to the empire trail I don't you know. You said yeah, well, it's not, it goes um, it's on the river um, and it went from troy to albany effectively. That's what I was on, so it was very fascinating, different experience to be basically on like the Minuteman for 80 miles or 60 miles, whatever I was on it, but it was really.
Speaker 2:It had really nice stops on there and I can see how a family can turn this. I actually did this. There was a New York Times series that someone was like I'm not really that much of a cyclist, but I'm going to do the whole thing, and so her and her husband, he would drive her to a section and she would do like the section and write about her experience on that, and so that became a series.
Speaker 2:So I actually really enjoyed it, even though it was relentless, because I was doing it for 80 miles, but it was really interesting to do that kind of that was. I thought that was good. I don't know if that's hidden though.
Speaker 1:That's cool.
Speaker 2:Well, that is outside of New England so I have to delete that from this episode.
Speaker 1:But no, that's no, no, that's cool, I think. I think that's a hidden gem, what's it called again?
Speaker 2:It was the Empire Trail. The Empire Trail. All right, I'll have to look that one up. And a follow-up question is why do you agree that Newland is the greatest endurance region in the us, if not the world? I think that we have lots of seasons.
Speaker 1:We are hardy, we're ready for anything because we've seen everything right.
Speaker 2:I mentioned before, I think, that, uh, I started my one of my cycling early, early cycling experiences was doing the aids ride with hurricane floyd.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I remember going into Wheelworks, the bike shop, and getting my girlfriend at the time, now my wife. I was like, okay, I'm going to go in and get a new rain gear for this ride. And and uh, you know. So I went and everyone's getting this gear. We had Mayor Menino sat up there and we're like we're going to go and we're going to go. And then they said I'm sorry, we're not going to let you go, you're going to get in a bus, everyone's boo.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, I mean any other part of the country they probably would have canceled it the day before, but now you have all these cyclists. They still canceled it, it sounds like, but they canceled that. It sounded like, but they did. But the point is that, like, those hardy new englanders were ready to tackle it. That's right, you know, and actually just a quick story about that, we had the tour de cure um in 2024 in august and it was torrential downpour at the start there were still, you know, 300 riders that showed up and, basically, you know, did the 60 or 100 mile version.
Speaker 1:So, um, is there anything else you'd like to plug or mention today with regards to crw that maybe we didn't cover?
Speaker 2:crw is a welcoming organization. However, you know, I would say that we are doing some work to make sure that it's even more welcoming, meaning that we've had we know that there's some experiences where people show up they say that, uh, and they get dropped, and so how do we manage that? So we were trying to figure that out. How do we make that a better experience for people, and so that's one thing. I just want to acknowledge that we've heard the voices of people and we want to try to figure out how we can make that better. But come out, join us for a ride or two or a few, and I think it gets, and you'll find that, uh, there there are a lot of people that are passionate about cycling and, and you can have fun as well.
Speaker 1:And do folks? You know the folks that show up, are they? What's the sort of demographics like? Or we've talked about aging population, but you know what's the breakdown in CRW, I guess of, by age group. Yeah, I'm just curious Is 25%, you know, under the age of 30?
Speaker 2:It's hard for me. We do capture the information. I haven't done it that way. I know we have a young contingent, because what ends up happening is people come here for college, they join the club.
Speaker 1:That's an important point.
Speaker 2:Yes, and so they join the club, they do rides with us, and then they graduate and go somewhere else. So then you know, so we actually the amount of turnover for our club this last year. So we have 25% new coming in.
Speaker 1:Wow, so it's pretty you know it's very high.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, 70%, 75%, stable, and we know we have a lot of people that sign up sometimes for those century events and then then we don't see a bit more exactly.
Speaker 1:How do we make that how?
Speaker 2:do we make that? Make it stick yeah, make it stick exactly. So that's one of the challenges we're trying to work on and you know what else.
Speaker 1:I'll just mention closing out here. You know you and I mentioned the rippers. You know we're both members of crw. We're meant we're members, the Rippers. I have my own cycling team called Keep it Tight, like it's okay to be part of multiple cycling and running groups you know, just for listeners out there, and it's cool.
Speaker 1:You can hop into rides and events with each group and New England's a very small community and you'll discover that not only are we in different clubs but we also do different sports that are. I joined Somerville Road Runners, for example. I'm not really a big running person, but on occasion I hope to show up to some of those rides and then we do some uphill skiing.
Speaker 1:There's a big uphill ski community and we're all sort of trying to get our cardio endorphin rush with whatever way we can during the winter. This is the Endurance Podcast.
Speaker 2:Yes, Right, so you know. Endurance can be in many forms of pain.
Speaker 1:So okay. So, Randolph, it was awesome to have you on the New England Endurance Podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely. And sharing your story with us and the CRW story as well. Like I mentioned, I'm a proud member. If you want to check out CRW, look it up on crworg. They also have an Instagram and Facebook page as well. I will tag them on our Instagram page, which is at New England Endurance. So thank you, Randolph.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me and good luck with this podcast. It looks, it sounds like it's. I've seen the people you've interviewed and I'm like, oh, that's a great list.
Speaker 1:Awesome. So until next time let's get out there rain, snow or shine and explore the beautiful terrain of New England. You.
