But like it's crazy how many people get like seriously hurt and you really can't like you can't let it get you
Not that many guys go visit people in the hospital when they hurt like when you're racing and I have one teammate
I mean, I'm in this neck place now, but I had a teammate that broke his C1 C2
Like like should have been paralyzed. You know, he was in a halo drilled into his skull
Shoulder supports the whole thing and like I remember going to the hospital and I was the only guy on my team
They did to go visit him afterwards and it was kind of like it was terrifying all aspects is brought to you by aspect
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Okay, what's up guys good morning. We have Will fish corn here with us on the pod today will is a
X pro cyclist
To use our first tour to France
A rider which to me I mean for a podcast of this this like magnitude
I'm surprised we haven't had a tour to France guy yet to be fair right I mean come on and
You are also a entrepreneur you you and your wife live here in Crested butte
You do a fair amount of backcountry skiing you're teaching your kids about backcountry skiing
I think you guys have a really cool story and we're really excited to have you guys on
Well, you are of course not here
And then for for people who are not watching this
Well, you're in a neck brace right now. Do you want to run us through that real quick?
You know short long I highly recommend if you were ever thinking about a 12 foot reverse swan dive
Have water underneath you for the landing zone not a hardwood floor in a first ball table
Yeah, it was that
They say ladders are dangerous and ladders are dangerous kids
If you're thinking of carrying like an 80 pound mattress up a ladder with one hand hopping rung to rung
Just don't do it. Just say no get some help. But yeah, I found stuff this thing two weeks ago
landed on my back 12 feet down
Cracked the C6 C7 T1 T2 T3 vertebrae all
So I got pretty good thing but unbelievably lucky, you know, I can still email and drive
I'm where you know, there's a good chance otherwise. I would not have been able to do so
Yeah, the outcomes could have been could have been burly. So
That's risk. You should not take ladders one hand
But now I feel you'll also lucky to be on here today, man. Well, damn dude, I'm glad you're okay. That's that's super scary. Yeah
Well, let's just let's just jump right in here, man
Can I just like ask you right off the bat because I've always been curious about this?
You know, you you watch like the unchained or the Tour de France show on Netflix or whatever
There's all the guys in the Peloton
And they're like within, you know, centimeters of each other
Are you guys all talking shit to each other or you just like kind of chatting about your day? What's going on in there?
There's a lot of chatting about your day. There's a lot of like you're either suffering so hard
There's no conversation or you're actually kind of on chill mode where like the brakes up the road everything's stable
You know, and you're you're having good conversation
Yeah, I might not be like like super fluid. They might be some pauses. You might be breathing a lot of normal
But but no cycling is a wonderfully social sport. Actually, it's it's kind of fun in that way
And even you know, there are days when you're racing, you know full gas six hours, you know, there's not a word said
I don't get the fuck out of way. Now we're going
yakking your radio to your team
But there are other days where it is. It's lovely and you go it's essentially like going for a big long ride with a bunch of buddies
Yeah, until the end and then it's game on just a casual 200 kilometer bike ride with the boys to be in the draft
I mean, you're just sucking a wheel all day long. It's it's easy
No, it's it's kind of funny actually now. I constantly, you know, after I retired it's been 15 years or so now
You know, I did not ride a bunch for a couple of years
Started business had kids. I mean there was like four or five years where I rode four or five times
But I got stupid to trail running and and that was definitely like how it burned a lot of a lot of that
Pense up energy that needs to get out every morning
And you get back on a bike and even when you're like relatively fit doing something else
Yeah, I go out and I'd ride and be like, I have no idea how I used to be able to do that
Like I could actually go fast. That was good. I'm not anymore now. It's like, you know old ladies and kids are blasting by me
But it's
So well
I gotta ask you a little bit about your
Your your
Dr. Jekyll and mr. Hyde nature because I think anyone who knows you is like wow will is a remarkably positive
upbeat person just puts out great energy into the world
but then there's this like alter ego the shadow side that we all have and
I got a little glimpse of that when we were out for a ski and you were like, oh, yeah, that's so wild
Yeah, I put that guy in a ditch in it. It wasn't even a race. It was just like a
local race
Was it doing something in
It was a local race and he was doing something that didn't mesh with the etiquette of what should have been happening and the
Violating the unwritten rules and you took on the enforcer role and I was asking you there was a ditch available
I turned to her and I was like he could have like wrecked this guy like broken collarbone or worse
And she's like, oh, yeah, it will totally psycho when you got him on a bike
It's just like what the guy you know now doesn't exist. So how do you hold those two things like?
upstanding citizen
Loving father and and husband and then enforcer when you're on the bike
You know, it's kind of like a persistence lab avalanche right most of the time
You don't want to do anything mean just kind of hiding our feet down there
You'd be a nice so letting people ski the pal
But then every once in a while you you got to get it done
And and whatever it is you just got to do it and if it messes someone up it messes someone up
But you know, hopefully it doesn't too badly
Did you just like run him off the road or you know, were you like like what's at it?
He's kind of like to give a little pump
You just kind of like make make room go away
And if someone's coming and they're shooting for room and that room is gone
You know their options are kind of limited typically they choose the option of not running into someone from behind and you know
thinking they might be able to ride it out in the grass
But in this case opportunity ditch was there and served its purpose
That checks out
Wow world
Well, I mean kind of on that that note of running into ditches on a bike
You know like the races that you did are these
You know these tours of the whole countries, right? So you guys are doing, you know, two to three weeks
Riding every day, right? I mean like how first I like how I mean
How do you guys kind of go through that managing your risk? I mean, there's so much risk there
There's physical risk of crashing
Fatigue like that kind of stuff also like health risk of just like dehydration and like are you eating enough?
Like how are you getting enough calories going for like what you're burning?
Like can you kind of just walk us through what what's like generally talked about?
You know like when you guys are on the bus or like in your pre pre-race meeting or that kind of stuff
You know, I think I think big picture there is so much risk in a lot of sports
And when you start out when you're young you're getting going you kind of just have to pretend it's not there
You know, I think there's a huge element among
And speaking specifically to cyclists, but I have to assume it's it's similar other sports where you know, it is
It's your dream as a kid
So you're you know, you're young you bounce off stuff you get hurt you get you get better quick
You know as a kid you don't necessarily have a great ability to judge risk or make make critical choices
You just you go with it, especially when it's something like you know for this for me when I was like 16 years
I started racing bikes had pretty good
Success pretty quickly and it was like, okay, this is what I'm gonna do
And almost anything that's in the way of that you have to tune out whether it's you know, honestly, it's becoming like quite selfish
You know handful years later. I looked back was like wow
I was you know, still a very nice person I tried to be but that was pretty selfish like every athlete for those years
Because you have to that's pour everything into it
And then anything that is that is in your way that often has a risk element to it
You just play off-stretch. You'll put your head in the sand and pretend it's not there
And honestly through my career through the ten plus years that I was racing professionally. I think one of the most telling things is
Is when someone gets hurt like seriously hurt
you know in the middle of a race like you see it happen and
You barely pause like you watch a friend
You know go flying off the side of the road and smash into a tree and you're like they're definitely going on ambulance
You pause for like two seconds and then you're back on it and you're going
You know, I think in the time that I was racing there were three or four races that were stopped
And that's one of those things where you're like whoa, but like it's crazy how many people get like seriously hurt
And you really can't like you can't let it get you
Not that many guys go visit people in the hospital when they hurt like when you're racing and I have one teammate
I mean, I'm in this neck place now, but I had a teammate that broke his C1 C2
Like like should have been paralyzed. You know, he was in a halo drilled into a skull
Shoulder supports the whole thing and like I remember going to the hospital and I was the only guy on my team
They did to go visit him afterwards
And I was kind of like it was terrifying because it's accepting they're like, oh, yeah, this is what could happen
And then as you get older you start understanding like okay, this is part of it
And how do you how do you try not to be an idiot?
You're like I can attack on the descent. It's like no I can I can go fast on the descent
But like maybe that's not the spot to like like try to stretch out a couple seconds
And that's you know, I had a moment
I got it was springtime or racing in Belgium. It's nasty. I mean you talk about getting sick
There's like cowshipped flying up in your face
You're drinking it all day long because it's just raining and it's so gross and and you're constantly getting sick
And it's like that element is it's uncontrollable, you know, but in the stand of like three weeks
I think I broke three bikes in these races and there was one in Torfland
I broke two bikes in the race, you know, these just like
Unbelievably huge catastrophic pile ups that like you could do nothing about
Like you might be trying to control your risk
But like when 50 people crash in front of you and you're going 35 miles an hour and it's wet like you just crash
You just you go center punch it and just go like
Fingers crossed in the air
I actually had a pretty solid issue for a while after that like seeing our sports site
If you worked with our team and I was kind of in the like is this worth it anymore like this is dumb
And
Interestingly, it was a couple of years before I ended up stopping racing. I was dying. It was 26 27 that spring
You guys 28 I did the door finance 29 I was on the team and I got sick right before it and and
When I got I mean I got super sick
You know, I was a reserve for the team didn't do it and you know
We were just chilling out in Spain and that's that chunk of July
And kind of had to like realization of
Ha this was this was a really cool chapter
But for a whole whole number of reasons ready to start the next one
And and one element of that was definitely like getting hurt
I feel like I managed to skate through my racing career and never in one of these neck braces
that's you know, putting away the a laundry did to me the other day and
And that was pretty cool. You know, I broke I broke little bones ribs arms, you know stuff that heals quick
But I had teammates that got you know, it's just like wicked beat down and I realized, huh?
That didn't happen and I still love riding my bike. What if I do something else? I can now I can still go out and love
around my bike. It's pretty cool
Yeah, I definitely I feel that like the
Well, it's funny you said like when you're 26, I feel like 25 is when you realize your mortal like that's like the age
Yeah, man, and and and what you're saying like I'm like it when I was 25
I had kind of the realization of like dude, I really want to be able to ski for the rest of my life
Yeah, because like this is this thing that I love and I was starting to kind of feel like I was pushing it on the edge of like
I don't know if if the tricks were doing if you know, like if I'm gonna be built for that, you know, like
Going forward and so I totally resonate with what I'm saying there. Yeah
I need to jump in and provide some context for the audience here
So people don't know this about either of you but Dave competed in the X games for many years
And park and pipe and do it never never compete in the X games, but thanks. Oh really?
Oh my bad. All right pro skier and like, you know, 100 foot gap jumps stuff like that and like, you know, facing your mortality on a very
regular basis and will like you are so close like you
You know
You'll never cough this up
But with a little slew thing I found out that you know, you missed winning a stage in the tour by a wheel it came in second
And so like that's like the pinnacle of anyone's career
How did you navigate that transition and say, you know what that chapter is over?
Here's what I'm gonna do for this next chapter. It was a big big decision and honestly like I feel like my cycling career was bookended by two really hard
really hard but
wholeheartedly like enthusiastically grab and go with them decisions
But that both were kind of risky. I mean the first was when I was
16, 16 years old
I was on a very academic track. I was at prep school up in New England
You know, it's like channel to the IVs everyone's you know, everyone's very boring in there in New York now making a bunch of money
Investment banking and stuff and I was like, huh, this bike is really cool. And
You know, it's we had a cycling team there schoolboys racing and my coach was awesome
But like super super cool and inspiring, you know, mentor figure
He'd race professionally lived in the town of Jason to where the school was and he would take us out on rides and expo's and come and ride with us
I was like, huh? Like amazing and he really encouraged me to chase cycling
But that quickly led to the point where it was like I was not gonna be able to stay on this academic track
I was not gonna be able to stay at the school. I got invited to move to the training center if you live in the training center down in Colorado Springs
My mom took the took the letter the invitation letter and red lines the 37 grammatical and spelling errors in this one page invitation letter
She's like, um, honey, I don't know if this is a good idea
Don't know if this is a good idea. I was like, oh, come on. This is awesome. You know, but they're bikers
Yeah, they're not supposed to be smart. Come on mom. Like we're burning brain cells all day long out there
And uh, but it was a huge thing. It was like, okay. I'm stepping out of a very traditional path
Um, with a very traditional, you know, likely outcome to like like hopefully this friggin works
Um, and Dave, you know, I mean, it's like it's really challenging for kids
That are on that or at that level in sport where you have to make the decision of like, do I go all in and sacrifice
Almost everything else for it. Um
You know, is that the right decision and you know with a dream and with you know, blinders on you just go for it
You know, but it was it was a hugely risky thing. I meant to for go college
You know, I I didn't go to college. I never never got a higher education. Um, I've been traveling around the world around my bike pretty fast
And I am eternally grateful for that education. It was like the coolest one I could ever have
But that was that conversation with my parents. It was a big one. I was like, yeah, I'm not I've got a pro contract in my hand for next year
You know, I'm also applying to college at the same time
Are you guys okay with me making this choice? Like not
You know school will be there later, hopefully and they're like, yeah school will be there later and looking back
I can't believe that they were as supportive as they were. I mean, it was so cool. Um
I would struggle with that with my kids right now. I mean my my 10 year old
I don't want to go to college because you didn't and if I go to college, I gotta leave mom and uh
I'm like
Solid both, you know, I love mom too. She's cool and you know, I did not go to college and life worked out
but college is cool, um
So that was a huge decision and and you know
Looking back so risky, you know in terms of life trajectory and I just got lucky it worked
Um, you know, so many of my teammates as 18 19 year olds
You know within two years after that we're no longer racing and that transition out of sport when you've given it everything at that point in life
And it's not your choice is really hard. Like yeah really hard
Dude, it's your whole it's your whole identity. Like you don't even know it's like you're like it's almost like a part of you died
It's crazy
And I watched that happen to some of these guys
I mean it was just like tragic and then the number that fell off the wagon and like
In ways you would never want to and it's fun now like actually seeing some of them like
You know 20 years on you're like reconnecting like oh, whoa like like you found it eventually, but it was it was hard for five years
Um and a lot of guys have that same thing at the conclusion of their career. So like when I stopped I was 29
Um, my wife and I
Girlfriend at the time we were living in Spain
um, most of what I was doing was over in Europe and we had that moment like
It's just kind of realization of like let's do the next thing
Um and I ended up having a super soft transition which was great and that my team
Was like hey work for us on the on the marketing side the management side
Um, so I ended up for a year working for the team
Kind of feeling out like would this be an interesting direction?
Our team director was a good friend of mine
That culture the support network of the team that you're familiar with community. Oh interesting. Wow. That's so comfortable
And it was great. I mean I essentially got a year to one make some unbelievable connections in the industry
I worked with all of our sponsors. I got to put together a hospitality program
So, you know, you give a million bucks the team from your company you come hang out the tour de france get the flyer on a helicopter and wash
Stuff
I mean super fun
But I also realized okay, this is not it's not where I want to go long term
And at the time my wife and I we were we were spinning on some business ideas and
And we had fallen in love with
Like the small markets of your
Food wine community or like it's our foundation
And there are all these like epic little markets over there
I mean every street corner has one and there's one in Girona, Spain
Or we live called the rego that if you were in Girona like riding a bike around you see this little corner thing
And you've been to our store in Boulder that we started you know couple years afterwards you're like that was that was it
Um, and we just took this huge flyer. I mean this is the next like big
You know idiotic like risky decision we took was like we're gonna step out of like what's pretty comfortable and pretty awesome
And we're gonna try to start a retail food business
As two young people that have never worked in retail food
Um, and never really done much other than like ride bikes and my life, you know, she was a graphic designer
like we're just we're gonna go for it and
And so like compounded we ended up starting it in a building we took on a lease with another couple
So we had two couples running businesses in a building and my dad he was a business consultant was like, huh?
You know all the stuff that we've like done over the years like I kind of thought you you were a little smarter than that
like
But but go for it kids have fun
He's like cool man. First it was not going to college and cycling now you're like
He's like are you just gonna choose the hard route and everything you do like what it's like a potential 4% margin, huh?
That does not seem like a good business idea. I was like, but come on
Then and again, we got lucky. It was awesome. We started this business called cured in Boulder
Um, you know specialty food cheese was the heartbeat, you know, but it was charcuterie wine
olive oil or like all the all the stuff we loved to even drink and and having around the house
Um, and we 10 12 years in we ended up getting super lucky
It had developed into a pretty real little business at the time with a great team
You know 30 folks working for us and catering and gifting and you know all the stuff around food
but covet prompted so the the next ripcord which was uh
It was just too much, you know, we have kids they're 8 and 10 now
and
You know last year christmas or two years ago christmas eve my wife's like, huh?
This is the first christmas eve. We've all been home as a family
Like this is pretty cool
You know this this business was so all-consuming. Um, that we know we needed we knew we needed to change
Um, and we found a great buyer for it, you know great at the time and uh, but it got us out
It gave us the flexibility to just full on a ripcord life where we sold our business our cars our house
Everything put like, you know, most of the stuff we got rid of, you know 10 by 20 foot storage container
Put what was left in there and we took a year and traveled and did a full group of the world with kids home school on them
And just like bucket list trips things that we could never have done, you know previously with with time
So it was pretty cool. I mean landed here in cb and trying to figure out what's next now
Yeah, it was travel was amazing
Well, I gotta I gotta admit something to you man. I'm totally embarrassed by this because we've you know, we've like hung out we've talked
I had no idea that you guys started cured like
That was that was our baby our first baby no one has ever said that to me like you never said you guys were like
Yeah, we started this like cheese shop blah blah like
I was just like
Looking it up and I was like, oh my god, dude. I've been to cure this place is great. Wait, it's like a hero
Dude, I think I got did you guys have like a brunch pizza or something there?
We had we had so much fun with food. I mean it was it was pretty epic over the years
I think I went to like a brunch there and I was like dude that place rocks. So anyway, oh, that's embarrassing
We miss it. So awesome
well, you're more than welcome to
Uh, reprise the cured experience for your friends and neighbors here in Crested B
We're happy to come over and and give you that opportunity to experience that fun all over again
We will make it happen here at home
No, we actually so we are
We still have a handful of personal belongings scattered around the world and one of the coolest things that I need to go
Snagged back at some point. We have a uh when we sold the shop
We had a couple of these like beautiful italian handmade mechanical, uh, prosciutto slicers
Oh, yeah, and one is actually sitting at a friend's house in Boulder right now and it's
Put the leg on there and crank this thing. It's this perfect paper thin prosciutto comes off
So it'll it'll be living on the county here soon. We'll have we'll let you know
That's that's like some nice hardware too. Those things ain't cheap. That's like no, it's pretty cool. Yeah
One of my favorite things is going over to will's house and he cranks up his fancy espresso machine
And I know it's going to be the best coffee of my week and I'm just like, oh, I can't wait surprise me
Makes it happen
Yeah
Uh, damn dude. Well, you just went through like everything just like knocked it all out
Oh
That was that was wild
But let me uh, let me loop back to something else. Uh, you you mentioned when you're talking about
watching your buddies
Like crash and that kind of thing and how you had to deal with
Um, kind of like some mental stuff
Like post either you crashing or seeing your buddies crash and like I think anyone who's
And I'm jeff. I'm sure you can relate to this too like anyone who's dealt with
Where like, you know
You're doing something dangerous, right? Like and it's part of I think your programming is a human, right?
Like you you don't have bandwidth for that. So you just like turn it off
Like that's just nothing you think about and then it's almost more shocking
than when one of your friends or colleagues or competitors like has a big blowout because it's like
all of a sudden you're faced with the reality of this
Of the you know the consequences of the potential consequences. Yeah, and
Like I wonder
for you
You know racing at that high of a level
Do you think it was harder when you like like which was harder like when you personally had a crash
Or like when you'd see things that were out of your control happen around you because I know it was out of control for sure
Yeah, no, it's you know, if you make the mistake. It's like, yeah, you fucked up you
You went off the road. You pushed it too hard. It was like theoretically there was an element of control that you had
Um, and you and you made a bad judgment. Um, yeah, I think the thing that was hardest for me in cycling and and
Probably quickly most folks is is just a complete lack of control
um, and it is it's I mean, it's
It's like
It's like it is that we're like you're cruising along and you're going
30 40 50 60 miles an hour down the hill and like if the dude ahead of you hits this little crack on the road and goes down
Like there was no control. I mean, that's just shit luck
Um, and that happens and that's you know, most of the really bad accidents. It's it's that
Um, you know one of these ones in Flanders where like, you know 50 of us went down, you know bike just destroyed
You know these belgian cement roads have these little gaps between the
The uh, you know where the the compression gaps in the concrete, you know over the years they spread
You know they fill with water because it's raining and nasty. Now you drop a tire down into this thing
Bike just stops flips goes, you know and all of a sudden, you know, all these dudes are on the ground and there was nothing they could do
Um, and I think that's what that adapted at the hardest part
And and coming to grips with that and I know at a certain point as you said you
You have that like moment where mortality comes in and self-preservation instinct comes up and you go, huh?
Like is that
Is that worth it?
Um
And you try to do what you can to control it and you try to work through it and you try to like put your head back in the sand
Um, and some guys are better that than others and and also you figure out what you can do to control it
I mean if you look at controlling and uncontrollables like you look at like Lance Armstrong, for example, who?
Interesting dude amazing like unbelievable successful inspiring all this stuff
But like he I think the most impressive thing he did was managed to make it through his seven tours
Without like a horrible crash
Um, and they managed that by literally like putting their team on the front
And just like he would never be more than 10 days back. Um, he'd always be right up there and you know
You go into a finish and you get swamped but like you have to have a
A number of things aligned to make that possible
Um, you know the furdler you are back in the group the more people ahead of you could theoretically have an accident
You know you control that in a way you can um pretty impressive
There's that crazy video where he I don't know what year this was but he goes off the road and just rides like
Just over the grassy field. Yeah for like 100 meters on a freaking road bike and then just hop back on and like keeps
Back on the other side goes
Yeah, he didn't even jump off. He just rides it like no that was that was his one that could have been bad and worked out
Right, so he's like he's like he's like he's like he's like he's like he's like he's like he's like he's like
Right where you're like, you know, that's that's crazy
Dude, I can't ride a road bike on my dirt road like
Gravel bikes you can get one of those things get rid of the road bikes now
I don't even have one anymore
No, we really got rid of road bikes and just just rolled gravel and mountain bikes especially here in crested view like
You know mountain biking is so good
totally
Well, let's made me think of uh when we're talking about risk and randomness and what's within our control and what's out of our control
Maybe think there's this really fascinating cognitive bias that's been
Super well documented and that is when good things happen to me
I ascribe them to my brilliance my hard work
Of course because i'm in control of my destiny. It's for your day. I think it happens to me
That was some serious bad luck
I
Always
And so much of it is you know, Dave
Always laughs because I always say like hey, we're going to put ourselves in a position to get lucky
we're going to work really hard and
Leverage our knowledge and experience and set ourselves up for success
but ultimately there's going to be some luck and randomness involved and you know, particularly
When we're dealing in the natural world, there's a lot of chaotic events and it's kind of a bell-shaped curve
of
Random possible outcomes and we can influence it
but that feeling of control when we're in the back country and like oh, we slayed this big line
We have our finger on the pulse. We knew exactly what was going on
You know, that's that cognitive bias kick it in where i'm like fluffing my own feathers being like oh, we're so clever
We're riding steep stuff on a considerable day with pwl
We've outsmarted the problem and it's like well, we can do that for a while and eventually our luck runs out
And then uh, you know if something bad happens to her like, I don't know what happened. Oh my god
You know, we've been doing it like this for so long. I can't believe this just happened. That was some bad luck. You're like
Yeah, biggest challenges for the avalanche world, right? It's like you don't have negative feedback until it's real negative
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's like a catastrophic negative. It's like the hardest thing is you're just like
okay
With this one particular risk fact like I don't know risk category
It's not like other things. We're like, okay, like you can have a little crash here and you learn from that or like you like
Oh, you blow a tire and you learn from that like it's like
Everything's fine and then maybe potentially
Everyone hope you're joined the pod so far
I just wanted to take a quick break to tell you about one of the most unique features of aspect app
Which is the forecast update the forecast update tool allows you to input real-time feedback about snow conditions and stability
Into the app as you're touring. So say we're out touring in this area
It's a moderate day, but all of a sudden we experience signs of instability
We come up to the corner and we click this little button right here
Brings up the forecast update tool and we can go in and let's say we got whomps and we got
Shooting cracks we click done
Your map is going to be updated to considerable avidanger and we'll now have the updated high and low risk areas painted onto the map
In that forecast zone this works even offline
Which is super badass if you want to try out the forecast update tool for yourself
Head on over to the app store and download aspect abbey for free on ios
Okay back to the show
Yeah, great. No, so we got we got two kids
We have an eight year old and ten year old and it's fun because living here, you know snow is snow's life
It's why we came here. We love playing and stuff, you know, honestly like the whole time I was raised in likes
I couldn't ski there's dangerous activities clause and almost every, you know, pressure athletes contract
You know, it's you essentially don't do anything fun
You will get in trouble and not get paid if you get hurt doing something that is fun
Some of the reasons why I was like I'm kind of excited when I stopped racing
I mean the first thing I did was like coral. Guess what we're getting for Christmas
We're getting some touring gear and we were living, you know
45 minutes from the photos of the Pyrenees. So we were like like instantly like cool. Let's go out and play
You know and her parents who were both, um, you know big in the alpine
mountaineering and dining world for a bunch of years way back in the day, you know, they were like
Well, perfect. We know we're getting you for Christmas. You have your level on course
Which was awesome. I mean it's looking backwards. There's the first course we took and it was right when we were getting into it
I feel so lucky for that
You know, but I was just like stoked to be able to get back on skis. I grew up skiing
You know until I got really serious about bike racing. I was ski racing, you know, just fun
You know, it's definitely not any good
But but having fun up in New England and was just so stoked to get back out and be able to play and now we've got two kids
Eight and ten were here, you know last winter were you know, Coral and I every day there at school
We're speaking on skiing and they're like, hey, can we do this? My ten-year-old especially he's got like that suffer mindset
You know eight year olds kind of like, huh, I could also have a hot chocolate and go ski to lifts and like it's pretty fun
Ten year olds like yeah, let's let's go out there and I love working really hard
But thinking about how you communicate risk and like distill it
In the back country to kids
Which I think is a whole other deal and honestly last year was super cool one of our ten-year-olds good buddies
His mom was like kids a little bit of an idiot and he risk is like he doesn't process it
She actually got this little group of kiddos a little one-day like as he course
With the buddy of theirs who's a guy like coolest thing ever, you know, it's five little kids went out and
I'm done pits found a found a backpack hiding that down there and you know learned how to do all the stuff
And it was fun in that like Holman. I our ten-year-old we'd already been starting down that road and he took a ton out of this day
And but it is really challenging trying to be like, okay, dude like you're you're ten you're getting to where you can actually get out there physically
You know, how can you do this for your whole life?
um, and it's
it's how do you how do you be calculated in your choices and
And you know, do you want to push it hard? We got this killer ski area just down the road
But if you want to go out and ski some power and get good workout and have a good time in nature like this is the way to do it
But let's be really clear with our choices of you know this yes this no and
Actually Jeff it was fun last year like you know, I showed him the app and our kiddos we keep pretty far away from technology
Everybody's like, okay. I get this like, you know, it's it's very intuitive
um
And that's that's awesome
And it's it's a it is a great, you know, assistance in the teaching process of you know, ideally setting up some little kids for success for a long time
You know and not uh, not taking risks that are that are unjustified
in an environment that
It can be terminal
How did you and coral uh, what was your
journey like for
getting backcountry savvy and uh, learning about
Snow and avalanches. What was that process like?
Oh great question. So like we you know instantly I stopped racing when we get touring together. We're getting out playing and
And realize mountains are big, you know, and she grew up her parents were both ice climbers out climbers
mountain guides and and both of them has they've they both pulled people out of snow um that weren't breathing and
And they were awesome in that just like fundamental like hey guys
We love what you're doing like it was our life
They live in mexico now where it's just warm and sunny because they got cold a lot of times over the years
um, but they're like
Like take it seriously learn about it
You know
And really think about what you're doing. Um, and I think that was that was an incredible foundation
You know the adi course they gave us for christmas the first year we were playing
um that set us in
You know essentially did what abby one does scares you like okay like this is really serious
It's like we're not confused as you know that we did a rescue. Oh, yeah, it's like whoa, uh,
like like 20 degree powder does that work?
I mean that's I think that's the goal right it's it's makes you really think about what you do and like understand the
implications are legit
Um, and then after that we ended up, you know one just studying a bunch and reading
I mean there's so much great literature out there and the internet opens it up even further
We spent a bunch of time in the back country and every year we could we were
You know there were years where where work prevented, you know more than 20 30 40 days
But I mean a couple years ago. We probably got 100 days of touring which is
Awesome
Yeah, right after we sold the business and we would drop off our kids in school every day
You know and those five days a week we'd go ski and you know get four or five hours in and and then on the weekend
We take the kids. Um, I mean it was like it was the best thing so good
But a lot of time out there and a lot of time the two of us as partners
Um, trying to really check each other, you know, I think everyone we all know that
You know, maybe the ladies make better choices than we do
Um, and and it's awesome to have that balance and I think the other thing for us that this killer is that as a couple
You know, you drop your kids at school and you go ski like you definitely want to pick up your kids at school
Um, there's there's no question there and that's like the worst-case scenario is
I'm imagining that situation
Um, so we ended up over the years as well doing a number of additional courses
You know, we did formal one two
Rescue the things that are there, but then also just hiring some guides when we were in cool places
To take us out and like yeah, let's ski but like when you
When you also essentially do this is a little fresher
Um, which I think was awesome because in the field time, especially once you kind of have the background of
of you know the
You want to read? Yeah put it to work in the field and to be able to see that
um
And be able to see that in different places as well
It's like you ski in one place all the time and get super comfy there
But like you know, we're up in Jackson one year and had had this like awesome experience like epic tours
But like with a lot of stopping and going
Why like show us why we're making these these decisions
Jeff last year at one point you because before course I was doing you were like, hey when you go to when you go
Do this just constantly keep asking why and it's so resonated because it's like yeah
You want to understand it? I don't want to just go do it. I want to I want to know that I can go do it myself as well
And maybe I won't push it quite as far
because I like doing that out a little more buffer but uh
But I understand it which is huge
yeah
Do you guys have a sense of how?
You managed risk in the past to now has evolved. I think we self-preservation instinct as you age continues to rise
um
You still want to go get your yas yas out every once in a while you you realize that that's pushing you a little harder than you should
um
But I mean technology now and I mean obviously the app is a huge thing
um, but but over the years, you know, we just really you plan a little bit better before you go out
um, you make some like
Just clear yes knows and kind of like people talk about like guides, you know setting a run list for the day
It's just like no matter what we're not going to go over there. Like that's just a no-go zone
You know, we were skiing on berth at a bunch of we're in the front range
And the current creek zone was like a favorite, you know, like russia would be really fun today
You know, there's this awesome one in most
It's fake they'd be super fun
But like that's a no and you watch a couple of you know idiots going up there and skiing at certain days and you're like
Wow, that was fun for them. That's terrifying
You know, I just figured a little thing remote over here. That's that was on like a rollover. They got lucky
um, but but yeah being more critical about setting
Yeah, setting boundaries. I think is one of the things it's it's changed the most for us
Um, and then also just going out on certain days and not having any ambition to do
You know to do something big but just go yeah, let's just go
Get a bunch of vert and a bunch of powder. It's really fun
Yeah, there's a zone Jeff you took us last year that you know conies which is not not far from town here
It's you can access on skis. You don't need sled you get in there
You know, there's there are areas in it where there's potential risk, but there's one little zone
That's the pretty darn safe and like I mean, I bet we did 20 days in that zone last year because there was some sketchy days here
Um, and you're like as long as we so long. Yeah a lot
But you're like we've skied this, you know three days a week
You know, we get you get a really good feel for it and you're like, we'll just stick there because
Because that works and it's still a blast
Um and and understanding that we're like it's not objective driven. It's not mission based. It's like let's just go have fun
Get tired come home and be happy
Yeah, hey will I want to correct you on one thing the first time we went skiing?
I didn't take you guys you guys took me
You set us up for success. No, so the first time we ski with Jeff
Would you see Jeff put you in a position to get lucky?
He put us in a position to get lucky that was the goal
No, it was awesome. We met at seesaw last year, you know, whatever just just over a year ago
Um and and we came back home and a couple days later. He's like, dude, there's there's this early season storm
They hit you want to go ski? Let's go test the app
You know, I've just been just a mind of the rod and
And we got some we both downloaded we got on the phones. We had to trailhead
You know, you pretty quickly out of sale your offline mode
And and we started out in this area and he's like, okay, you guys you take the reins
Did that freak you out because you probably thought oh we're going with a
IFMGA guide we're gonna get guided this will be great and then it's like no no no
You guys are gonna guide me with the app. Good luck
Well, cool thing. I mean, I think you look at it and you're just like you're like, this is the zone where we're gonna go play
Show us you'll show me where to go safely
And and the app made it very just intuitive right and you look at it. You're like, cool. This is this is go. This is no go
Um that go zone looks really fun. Sweet. Let's go play over there
Um and even as you're like on the slopes certain areas were like, you're like, okay
Do we need to throw a kick turn in here like head back the other direction?
Are we starting to get there? It's like, oh, yeah, cool. There's red. Boom
It was really
Yeah, it was inspiring that way and I mean, you know, but we got home, you know, coiling afterwards
We've been contemplating investing in the company and and helping it
Helping the mission be realized and and we had home the next day was like, yeah, we have you a part of this
This is this is it's too good to make happen
people people need it
We were so we were sold pretty quick. It's it's cool hearing kind of the
uh, you know, I've heard you guys investor story for us with Davy several times, but
You know kind of having this conversation leading into it with a little more insight into how much you are playing in the back country with your kids
And like how much like it really does help put that whole picture together like man, you know, when you're just talking a second ago
I was like, man
It's must be a really hard thing because you don't want to discourage
Kids from being super stoked, right? Like like they have that
Just don't make a little go around
Happiness. Yeah, like and you want to inspire that and like and and and honestly like feed off of it, right? You're like, fuck. Yeah
It's nothing ever. How do you also then balance?
Like hey, I want you to be stoked and I want you to have that unlimited mindset, but like
What we're doing right now is deadly
You know and then like so the fact that then
This tool comes along that you guys see like it makes so much more sense of that mindset you guys were in like, well, okay
Wow, this is maybe the next step or kind of the future of where we're headed with this whole thing
You know, I think if you look at it from a kid's perspective, too
You like you show them Gaia and and I I have like all the apps
I love just digging out on all that stuff and show them the you know Gaia on X
You know count topo and you're digging in you're like, you know, there's so much information available there
Which is fantastic. It's part of root planning. It's part, you know, all of that
But you show that to a 10 year old and they're kind of like, uh
Whatever. Yeah, I understand that sure. But if you you show them something that's just like
Yay, nay, like and this is why there's this magic number
Um
They they get that and that's that's what's so cool about it and and that also is one of the things
I mean, it's like the Steve Jobs story of taking an iPhone to like Africa and give it to like a three-year-old there
That's never seen tech and instantly they're like swiping and figure out how it works just intuitively
Like that was his like aha moment where it's like, oh, this is going to be big
good choice
Um, you know, it's kind of the same thing. It's how do you take a bunch of information and distill it?
Um and make it easy to use
And that that I think for us and especially when you start looking at kids that are using it like
Like yeah, I can get my kid Gaia what?
He's not going to get anything out of that other than like, well, this looks really cool. Look at all these colors
And like like this is beautiful. Um, but you can give them something like that like avi
And and they can they could go and drive it
Um and and make it work, which is just huge
Um, you think you're gonna have your oldest son put the skin track in and and have him uh lead you on a tour
Dude heck. Yeah
Now he's uh, he's little beast as you're recovering
This from the neck injury might be like, all right out in front. Here you go. You're breaking trail, dude
That's your training
Yep, get back slowly build up to where I can chase him down
No, they're already at that point where you're like, oh man, they're gonna be fitted and we aren't fast
And we are at all this real soon. It's terrifying
brutal so well, I think I think you come from a background of
Of folks investing. I know your your sister's in the startup world and I think you're your family as well
um
How do you approach risk when you're you're looking at as an angel investor?
as you're looking at opportunities because uh,
If there if there's no risk, there's there's very
You know, there's very little it's not worth it
Exactly. So you got to balance that
Uh, how do you approach that when you're investing in companies?
Well, there's this app out there that you just put all the company info into and they tell you a yes or no and
I mean wouldn't that be cool? There's the idea
apply this
No, uh, you know, it's it's a tricky one because obviously yeah without risk, you know, are you gonna outperform?
No, you got to you got to take some risk. Um, and I think for companies like this, you know, it's
A lot of it hangs on the the head of the demand behind it the woman behind at the people that are making it happen
You know, you can look at all the numbers that have been conjured up out of thin air and
Is this you know, could this work? Is this going to be the biggest thing ever in the world? Yeah, it sure is on this piece of paper, but
What's reality? Um, so you try to make a judgment call. It's just like playing outside, right?
You try to go, you know, I here's all the information that I have, you know, you're checking read your, you know
Ideally you do your due diligence and you find, you know, people that have worked with them over the years
You look at potential competitors even in a space like this where it's, you know, aspect of you is kind of an outlier
Yeah, they're they're competitors. What's what's the what's the moat, right?
Do kind of all the classic risk analysis things and viability is a business and
And then you just kind of go hot as this feel, right?
And hopefully this feel, you know
Hopefully the feel is right. I mean every once in a while, it's not
No, you know, fortunately, it's not like it's not and then the avalanche takes you out
It's just like, oh, you lost that money. So you got to make that call of how much money you're comfortable putting at risk
Um, you know, is it enough to be impactful for the company?
Um, but also is it a number that if if this one were to just disappear?
You're gonna be okay
And that's that's kind of our calculus for it
But it's especially for for really early stage stuff. It's
There's a lot of gut to it. Um
Which you don't want to apply that in a back country in quite the same way. Um, but you know, we don't have a great tool for this yet
Describe as our intuition or subconscious processing. How did you develop that?
subconscious that skill set that
Autonomic processing if you will
How did you develop that especially transitioning from cycling?
Were you angel investing while you were still cycling?
So I was I was super fortunate and my father had been in the vc world for a long time. Um
And
You know from early on I mean when when I made the decision not to go to college
It was like, okay, how am I going to continue my personal education and go in a way that after
Cycling ideally, you know, there's there's something there where the brain hasn't completely at your feet and burned away
Um over the years, so I was able to see you know, see and be a part of a number of decisions
Do that chapter and watch the choices that he made and understood those choices and what he was doing
And and be involved with some of those as well, which was was great. Um
And then see the ones that didn't work out. Um, I think that's a really important part of it
You're no one's successful 100 of the time. Um, yeah, you know, ideally no one's successful 50 percent of the time
And if you look at it from an investor perspective, you know, if you're if you're lucky 30 percent of the time
You're actually doing really well and ideally those 30, you know, wipe away the pain from the other 70
um
So I got to see that over the years be a part of that over the years and have that sort of practical education, which was great
But but I don't think anybody ever hones it. You know, you hone it when you're done
What are you guys going in the background there? Well
Oh, apologies. My my wife just just running through here. Just trying to pick up all the pieces of my life that I can't help with right now. It's brutal. Wow
Yeah, it's it's a lot. You know this spring. I actually broke both of my hands
I've been trying to maximize my health insurance dollars this year
I've gone like 10 years without a claim and and this year is an opportunity to really crush anthem and
Take all the money we paid them over the last decade back
But but coral has picked up a whole lot as I've been uh
You know not quite at full capacity for a number of months now. Yeah, yeah, dude
I feel like every time there was like multiple times where I've run into you and you have like a new cast on or something
And I was just like
Will like what the heck?
Oh, yeah, no two hands at the same time is not to be advised
I uh, if you're gonna break hands do them one let that one heal then do the next and space it out a little bit
All right, I went and I actually did that right after coral tore her ACL in February
Yeah, you guys were she was down with ACL and I was out two hands. We're like like oh, we're like a clown here
um, I want to loop back to uh, your family uh, up rigging
um, so it sounds like
You know, you just kind of probably sponged up like most kids of like hey
This is just kind of our family tradition much like, you know, we have our holiday
traditions at Thanksgiving or Halloween or the hot or the winter holidays
And so tell me what that was like to just like sponge up and have conversations with your dad or just like
overhearing him on the phone for work and
And uh, how did you take an interest in that afterwards?
You know, I was I was super fortunate and he thought
Like financial literacy and education was was really important. Um, and even his kids like he would get us going
Super really to understand it. It is and most people it doesn't happen. Um, which is
Like we grew up in a way where like money was very transparent. Um, we had conversations around it as a family early on
You know, like 10 years old. I was put, you know, as a kid you go and yeah, here's your allowance couple bucks
We're doing this but like they actually put me on like a hardcore
That's 10 11 years old like like fairly substantial allowance, but it's like you're buying everything you have to learn how to actually budget
Like I wanted a snowboard at one point. I was you know, I was having fun with that and I didn't have enough saved up and parents like
Well, I'm not gonna buy you one if you want snowboard you gotta figure out how to do it and like
He looking back at trying to find it funny because you like he caught up with buddy
He was president of the bank was like, hey, I'm gonna bring my kid in and you're gonna like sit down with him
Teach him about a loan but you know, so I go in and sit sit down with my friend in his office
Then I'm like, sir. I would like to make you a loan to get a snowboard
And uh, okay, you know, how are you gonna pay this back?
Recycling I'm collecting I sell some daffodils in the spring
You know five bucks a gallon and you know, I think I'll get this 150 bucks back in about a year
drew up a little document for me and got my snowboard and paid it back you know monthly over the year and
Like these awesome things you're a little kid
You got to gotta make it happen
Gotta make it cool because
Right, you know, it's understanding it early and then being attuned to it over the years
I'm really
I think it's is what set the foundation for me and and even with with all the step that my my dad can involve in over the years
You know, I'm sharing it all. It's not like oh, yeah, this is some stuff was worth some stuff was like, hey, this is
This is something cool. It's an education opportunity for kids
um
And that was such a gift
totally
That's actually funny you said that I'm like my I had kind of the same experience growing up with my dad like he was very
Big emphasis on financial literacy
You know like the allowance the chores, you know, essentially like you get paid your allowance for doing the chores kind of thing like
But uh, but dude, it makes a huge impact because once you get down the line
Like there's there's subtle things that you don't even realize that are kind of instilled in you that that other people just
aren't familiar with at all
um, and it's
Kind of shocking especially when you get to it. Oh, it really is and
And being able to take it all the way up where I look back at certain stuff where you're like, oh, you wouldn't have learned this in school
Even you know, unless you're in like MBA program
um
But to be able to be able to get that practical. It's just huge
And one of the things that we talk about with our kids is like, how do we how do we instill those the same foundations?
you know and
in their education and
Then as they grow up to teach them about it all because it's
It's hard takes work
hell, yeah
Why do you know one of our kids last night? We were renting a VRBO something for Thanksgiving. He's like wait what?
like
$270
Like that's so much money like how do grown-ups do it? That's a year of chores
There's like I've been saving money, but like I couldn't pay for that whole week
Like that's it's it's a lot to be a grown-up grown-up. It sucks
I uh
You know, I've figured about the parallels there of having mentorship is so key
Because there's plenty of book knowledge that you can get access to if you're so inclined
But you know someone has to kind of plant the seed and that curiosity in you
And then you get exposed to it
But to have a coach like every world-class athlete or high performer has a coach
And it's pretty crazy that most people when they're in riding an avalanche train don't have a coach
This is the riskiest thing they're ever going to do in their life and they don't have a coach
and
When you're talking about how to manage risk you can tap into that
Uh experienced hand and all the the crazy stuff they've seen
Over the years that's beyond our experience envelope
And you can sponge that up and we we stand on the shoulders of the people who came ahead of us
And uh, that's pretty amazing that you had that right from an early age
Uh, yeah that that resonated with you and now it's passed down to your kids
No, it's it's important. I mean and what you touch on there for the back country. I think is is huge, right?
I mean mentorship is how so many people how you take it from like
Book knowledge and theory to like truly applying it in the field and applying it properly in the field
Yeah, I remember I remember going out like the first time you know, you're like poking fingers and snow snow pits and you're like
How hard do you poke?
I'm like until you're doing it like with somebody. It's like, yeah, you know, yeah, exactly
It's right. But like how hard is that you're like, look at it. My finger just going the same depth. Is this dude?
He's really experienced. Ah, okay. That's actually right
What's the mass of his finger compared to my finger like what?
All right, just analyze all that you're doing some calculations in the field and you go, okay same glove will go same glove
But no it is it's so critical in everything in life
I feel like there's a funny
Uh, and will this is jeff you're like you're on the other side of this but will maybe you can
Feel this like or tell me how you feel. I felt like
Like every time
Over the years like when I started getting into backcountry skiing or got back into backcountry skiing
There's almost this sort of vibe
Of like hey, here's the rules
but
But like good luck
Yeah, and it wasn't really till I started hanging out with jeff and where where it was more of this conversation
It was meant to it is mentorship like I learned so much from jeff every time we go skiing like
It wasn't till I had that relationship where it was more like I could just ask stupid questions that I realized like how much I didn't
Understand like I thought I understood
But I had misunderstood like I'd learned it wrong
And to me that was like the most startling thing I learned through this
Through this whole like process of working with asper dabby and doing all this stuff is like, oh dude. I I essentially did like
A view level one way back in the day when I was like 18 and I touched the backcountry for years because I had friends who died and like all that
Cuz stuff and I just didn't trust myself
I didn't think I had a handle on and then it came back and started skiing with jeff and we kind of did like a
Refresher and all that kind of stuff and it wasn't it is even till now that I'm like, oh now I'm starting to feel like I have a
grass but before it just seemed like
People are getting like thrown to the walls like it's not
Not not for any sinister reason. It's almost just sort of like the way the architecture
Like did you kind of have an experience?
Completely, you know, I think we were lucky in general in life, right the best way to like
Get better and anything is do it with people a little better than you
And get out there with someone that's that's fast if you want to bike and follow him down a hill
You know, it's it applies across the board and that's that's how you learn best
But also as you just said there, you've got to be able to ask dumb questions
You know, especially in this in the skiing side, it's not just following them. It's like why like why did you make that decision?
And and you have to be able to feel a little bit uncomfortable with with where you are yourself to be able to ask that
And if you can't if you just nod, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like you're never gonna learn it
So I think it's you know for everybody. It's finding those people you can go out with that you're comfortable with
Um
They're willing to push you just a little bit
Or will not to push you but tell you why we're not pushing
And and assess
Um
Yeah, that's it's probably one of the biggest challenges in the sport. Isn't it?
I think that's that's one of the things that I mean, I was talking to somebody about aspect of the other day actually and
You know, like well, let's just go ski, you know, find a good mentor. That's like well, not everybody can find a good mentor
Um, you know, where do you do that? Even then like we still make bad decisions?
You know people do like we know it
um
If there's something
I think one of the most powerful things that this app does is it prompts thought
Um, it gives you yes knows right, but it also like you know, there are a lot of people out there who are going to disregard that
um
And that's personal choices, right? It's like it's what's personal talents for risk
But if you're going to disregard it, it made you think one more time
Like hey, you're making a bad choice
Um, or you're making a very risky choice. Um, is it worth it?
and that's
Yeah, you can't have a digital mentor, but you can have a digital digital gut check
Um, and that can be a digital gut check
Well, and it's also good to like have something visualized of like
Going back to what we mentioned before of you know, something's dangerous, but it's totally theoretical. It's really easy to push away
It's like it's it's easy to be in denial about it. But then having a tool that's like oh shit
This thing is literally showing us what we're doing is the base jumping like the red is yep
Oops, man. It's way harder to like have that
That
Disco the cognitive disconnect I guess when you have this thing. It's so easy. You know the base
Yeah, we're we're all so good at rationalizing anything at everything in life
Um, when there is a hard line that's that's there for you kind of kills your ability to like
Rule it out through rationalization. Yeah, it's funny. It's even worse. I can't bully people with my uh
knowledge and like guys because they're like, hey Jeff
Yeah, dude, you made this thing. Yeah. Yeah. This is a high risk move and we're just not down for that and be like
Yeah, yeah, I was getting a little
I was getting a little
Yeah, that doesn't really make that doesn't really hold up in court. Does it I felt I felt really good about it
Yeah, it's funny. I was until that moment
I was talking to someone I was telling someone about Aspa Davi like a couple months ago and they're like like
Very experienced backcountry skier
Um, and I was showing them, you know, I think right now we just have a random forecast on there from yeah
Yeah, something to play with yeah, yeah, and I was showing them that and they're like, oh well
I ski that stuff all the time and I was like, well
Yeah, this is not like
I was like, oh, that's interesting because
We're not like telling you what you can and can't ski. We're just showing you how dangerous what you want to ski is
you know, and it's like
so
We're not saying like you're a bad person if you go ski that
This is just an aid for you to be like, but just think about this dangerous right now
The answer is yes. Yeah, you know, I was thinking what an interesting analogy would be uh, like I'm a I'm a bad driver
like I
I'm a rally car
Like finished rally car driver mika hockey in and get the hockey polita studded tires on the sous vide and like
You know, I so bad it would be hilarious instead of a speedometer
It has a riskometer
And you know the risk isn't linear it goes up logarithmic curve
So be hilarious instead of a speedo to have
You know the the risk go
And it's like doesn't state farm have that little black box. They keep trying to put your car and they're like, oh, yeah
We'll give you good rates. You're like, I don't want that thing in the car. Hell no, like it's not a chance
So like we see you've been going to talk about a lot this week. What's what's up with that?
The Borditas man, that would affect your life insurance rate right with your car. Yeah, I know everything
That's awesome. Hey
Oh, I gotta ask him Dave. Well, if you're an avalanche, what kind of avalanche would you be?
Oh
Oh, that's a that's a I'm gonna have to ask you as well. But uh, I'm like with that persistence lab thing from earlier
I mean, it's like, you know, ideally you're not messing with people too much and letting them have fun
but but every once in a while you just gotta lay the smack down and uh
I would say either that or a slough ideally the slough is it's kind of unthreatening. It's friendly
But like it makes you think just a little bit. You know, like
One is predictable and easy to manage and the other one is wildly
It's impossible possible to manage
So which is keep people on their toes. Keep them on their toes
Paradox, you're a young one
This perfectly loops back into will like the dark side of will
As also like the light side of will, you know, he's like sometimes gotta be light and fluffy and happy
Have a good time
Fucking instant death
Well, the slough is what can send that persistence lab, you know in the worst-case scenario
from
Yep
Jeff, what are you doing?
Yeah, dude. Um, yeah, it'd be really interesting to get the cross check on that. I wonder what my ex-wife would say, but um,
I would say that uh
I'm uh, I'm a storm slap
And when you're often working in a mechanized operation you get a lot of laps in or sometimes if you've been in a ski area
And there's an instability in the storm snow
Where it came in cold and fluffy and then it's a little bit top-heavy
Um, it's very predictable in how it's gonna break and where it's gonna break and often it's like the same
within a
degree or two like 37 38 degrees slope roll over where you can get it to go
but it's
You know oftentimes it's not the biggest consequences
um, and it's uh, it's fun to interact with
And and more predictable than say an old snow problem having said your fun to interact with
Yeah, I mean, you know, that's my self-perception and and and somewhat predictable about what you're gonna get. Um,
You're gonna get someone quirky odd
uh
playful curious
Is my is my self-perception, but uh, yeah, I'd be interested to throw that out to my friends that like oh no, he's deep slap
Take a poll
We should go through all of the investors like what avalanche problem is Jeff in your mind
That's a good profile for the other website
There's gotta be a category on linkedin for that, right?
Yeah, oh, yeah. Yeah, that's next year. They're they're bringing it up
Dave, how would you categorize yourself or characterize?
So that's your scary animal. I think I'm the human factor
I'm uh an avalanche problem. We'll hear me out
Okay, all right. I have a lot of confidence in my skiing ability
And like I know that I can ski a lot of stuff
But if I really want to be oh my light died if I really want to be honest here like that could easily get me into all sorts of problems
Sure. And so, uh
Yeah, I don't know that's kind of the way I feel about that. It could get me into any type of avalanche really
I was hoping you'd come up with a total non sequitur and say something like
I'm a dolphin
I'm a whale
That was the best
Oh man, well, do you guys
Uh, will we've uh, we've taken up a lot of your time man. Thanks for hopping on. This has been really fun
Oh, Dave, I got one more. I got one more. What haven't we asked you that we should have asked you?
What don't we know about you to ask what don't we know enough about you to ask?
That's a good question. Dr. That's my wife that one. She'd have a far better answer
Well, Coral could and if she's in the background
Now what would I say, uh, I think my earbud might just
Died there
Didn't we ask will in the in the interview here in the podcast? What didn't we ask will that we should have asked?
You know, I'm gonna say like what is uh
What's making me happiest these days?
Um, because I think it's one of the most important things in life is what's making you happy
What what is it that you do?
When you're not wearing a neck brace
Um, yeah, that that brings joy
Um, and it's fun after all the years where like that was focused on cycling or was focused on work
Now it's focused on kids. Um, and it kind of ties it back to like teaching these little dudes to be able to go out and play
Um, it's honestly one of the the coolest things being being a dad being a parent being a mom, you know helping
Helping instill your love of the outdoors
um, or a glove of anything
In your kid's psyche and help them understand how to do it
Do it well how to do it safely but also to have just have a blast and there's nothing better than going out
You know skiing with your kids seeing them doing something you love, you know
I think especially at the ages where I'm now eight and ten
If they can do that you can go out and you ride them out like with them. You're like we just went on a real ride
It's not like I need to go on exercise afterwards
It's like we just we just did something awesome and it's the same thing
You know Nordic skiing like both our kids are part of the Nordic program here
You know, you can go out last spring you're like skating up towards paradise
You know with your kids like this is pretty magic
Yeah
I think I think for everybody that that is that is one of the coolest things in life and it's this was making me take these days
Yeah, it's a different type of adventure, right? It sounds like there's this theme that goes through from
early on till now of
Adventure and risk and reward and I like that idea of adventure
It gets really interesting when the outcomes a bit uncertain and we're not quite sure how this adventure is going to play out
It seems like you guys do that a lot with your kids whether it's traveling around the world or starting a new business venture or
Taking them out backcountry skiing. Yeah
It's it's the best it's sharing sharing the stuff you love with the little people that are going to share it with you for
Their whole lives and keep doing it even after you can't do you and coral have like sidebars after you watch your kids
Do stuff where you're like holy shit like it's kind of like they're getting like kind of kind of sick like or should we be concerned?
Constantly
That's awesome
Oh man, well, thank you so much for coming out. It was really fun connected with you. I'm glad you're glad your neck is gonna be okay
That's
Frickin crazy man more of the story here ladders the riskiest thing
You don't play on them always asked for help have someone holding it or handing it up to you and and then you know ideally if you are
Gonna get hurt like this time it for mud season. Hmm great pro tip. I got lucky
late April
Or like kind of October zone
Yeah, but it's working pretty well right now. I should by the time there's good snow. I should be back at it
That's perfect. It'll be great
Well, I gotta put in a shameless plug
Shameless plug if you want to join will and coral and invest in aspect avi and
Help this mission come to fruition of saving lives from avalanches by making the backcountry safer and more fun for everyone
You can look us up at aspect avi and hit the contact us and drops an email and you can
Join us for as little as a hundred bucks on we funder, which is like kickstarter for
invest
Yeah, we'll throw a link in the show notes for we funder for anyone who's interested
It's very highly recommended
Hop on board. Don't make it happen
Become a part of this team the magic. Yeah, I will say that our board meetings are super fun
They often involve face shots and the investor retreat is really something. Yeah, and usually have very good views
Very much so. Oh, yeah
well guys, thank you so much for having me on today and
I look forward to getting out and playing some this winter when when it's possible again
Yeah, I'm looking forward to getting back to her and with you. Well
That's it. That's the show. Thanks so much for listening watching however you're doing your pods these days
If you like what we're doing, please consider subscribing
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For making the all aspects podcast possible
If you want to try out asp dive for yourself head on over to the app store and download it on ios for free
Thanks so much for listening and watching and we'll see you in the next one you
You
I
I like finished rally car driver mika hockey man get the hockey fleet of studded tires on the cd and like
You know so bad it would be hilarious instead of a speedometer. It has a really good speedometer. Thanks. I love you so much. I love you so much. Thanks.