Today on THE ROCK FIGHT (an outdoor podcast that aims for the head) Colin & Justin run through a slate of headlines, their top 5 all time coolest looking sports and have a special conversation with Bryce Covert who has been covering efforts by REI employees to form a union.
Here is the full rundown with time codes!
What is Justin doing this weekend? Apparently it involved quantum mechanics. (03:33)
Our top 5 coolest sports; outdoor or otherwise. (07:44)
Thomas Robison posts his obituary on YouTube. (21:40)
Zombie Kona rises from the grave! Kona bikes is back! (24:47)
Everest news rundown! And a quick game of which thing would be harder? (27:17)
Conversation with Journalist Bryce Covert about the efforts to form a union at REI stores including an update on what happened last week at REI's Cleveland location. (32:05)
Enjoy this action packed episode of THE ROCK FIGHT!
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Episode Transcript
Colin (00:08):
Welcome to the Rock Bite where we speak our truth, slay sacred cows, and sometimes agree to disagree. This is an outdoor podcast that aims for the head. I'm Colin True and joining me today, he just filed the paperwork to form the first rock fight employee union. It's Justin Haman. That's right. You son of a bitch. You're the man and I'm the oppressed. I'm the man. I am kind of the man. No, that way. Not that way. No, that's what you said. You know exactly what I mean. You know exactly what I mean. What are the benefits you're trying to win? Not I'm going to lick your boots. Hey,
Justin (00:42):
Respect. That's a little much. Now come on. All right. I feel like you deserve this. Feel to be compensated for your time. I feel like I deserve it. Frankly. We're going to talk, we're going to have some kind of a union conversation. Can you have a union of one or are you by default a union of one? If you are only one as an independent journalist? Union obviously is at least two things coming together. That's the definition of the word at this basic level. But could you have a labor union of just one? Well, by the definition of the word, you would think no. You know what? Let's ask Bryce Covert business reporter, Bryce Covert, who will be on later today to talk about re's union busting efforts. So before we get to that though, today we are going to run through some of the more notable or exciting headlines that come out of the outdoor industry and community.
(01:30):
But before we get to even that, we got a few housekeeping items. So everyone listening, please follow and rate the rock fight wherever you're listening, whether that's on Apple Podcast or Spotify or any other podcast app. If you are an Apple Podcast listener, however, please leave us a written review. Something simple. You can say, Hey, I can tell that Justin has a master of arts by the way he talks about pickleball. That'd be a great review actually. If someone writes out an Apple podcast, what do we do for them that would, can I give reviews about reviews? Because that'd be a five star review right there. That would be a five star review. And actually to entice you even more from now until the end of June, if you leave a written review and you take a screenshot and send it to my rock fight@gmail.com as proof, we'll send you a rock fight or a gear and beer sticker.
(02:16):
So I'm bribing you with stickers for written reviews, please. They're cool stickers. They're cool stickers. And hey, can they see these stickers on the website that I'm about to talk about? Not yet. That seems like once we get through our unionization efforts, maybe we'll get, we'll have our web developers do that for us. But speaking of the website, Justin, how can our listeners follow along or reach out to us? Well, they can email us, which is, that's sort for electronic mail at my rock fight@gmail.com. We are on the socials. Our Instagram handle is rock fight.co. And why don't you head over to rock fight.co and then click on join on our newsletter. We'll mail you some fun stuff once a week. That comes out on what? Sundays? Sundays. Sundays. Yeah. Sign up for that newsletter though. Click join the mailing list at Rock Fight dot go.
(03:02):
We think you'd like it. You won't regret it. Also tag us and if you see funny stuff online that you think we should talk about or whatever, just give us a tag. We'll bring it up. We'll talk about it on the show. Yeah, and then like Justin mentioned, coming up later this episode, we'll be sitting down with journalist Bryce Covert, who has cover the unionization efforts amongst employees at REI for Adventure Journal. And she's going to chat with us about the latest news coming out of those efforts from the past week, as well as give us some context about what this all means for this notable outdoor retailer. So make sure you stick around for that. But if you're listening to this, it's probably Monday, May 27th, and we recorded this on Friday, May 24th, which means in between we had ourselves a weekend. That means it's time for America's favorite podcast segment. What is Justin doing this weekend? Presented by Long Weekend Coffee.
(03:52):
So Justin, what are you up to this weekend? I mean, dude, it is a long weekend. It is literally a long weekend. It's literally a long weekend. I'm just mainlining long weekend coffee all weekend. Here's my theory. Okay? If I go into tomorrow morning and I inject my body with, or that's a weird way of saying get an IV going. There you go. And I'm just on a full long weekend coffee drip. Is it possible that there will be some kind of quantum thing where my weekend never ends? You're saying just because something's called long weekend and it is a long weekend, you're going to, do you know anything about quantum mechanics? Colin? I saw end game. I mean, it's wild. It's wild out there. It seems to be, I encourage everybody to go watch Dark Matter on Apple plus. I'm really enjoying that right now.
(04:43):
And talk about a mind F, we don't like to swear on this. You never swear on the show. Wait, so it's on your mind. Basically, quantum mechanics is on your mind lately. Is that? Well, when isn't it super position you love a master? That's amazing. I do, yes. Anyway, what we're kind of realizing at this point is if you kind of think about anything, you affect the outcome of whatever you're thinking about. I mean, that seems to be a weird basic rule of quantum physics these days. So if I am just mainlining coffee, that's called long weekend. On a long weekend, it's possible that just that much long weekend will affect my reality to the point where I perpetuate weekend am living in a long weekend, a perpetual weekend would, which is really all we're trying for. Would you want to be on a perpetual weekend? Yes. Yes, Colin, I would really, you wouldn't. I dunno if you would. Why does time freeze in this? Like your kids stop aging. Do you stop aging? Are you just now this is it. God, I hope so.
(05:41):
They're so cute. I don't want 'em to get any older. What if they don't get to pick the moment and it's at a moment where someone's throwing a tantrum and now you're stuck in that moment. Oh my God, that's a terrible, that's terrible. Wow. So maybe we shouldn't fuck with fuck quantum mechanics, right? As the drip goes in, it's like all of a, my 2-year-old falls and I want the do put the face open. God, it'd be like that locked in syndrome where you're conscious, but you physically incapacity you can't move. Yeah, you're just stuck there listening to it and I'm, oh no, you can't even drink the coffee because you're just locked. Just trying to communicate. Turn it off.
(06:20):
Before we move off, do you want to, I was going to create a sound little thing like tadpole watch 2024. Oh, that's a good idea. Yeah, let's check in on what's going on with tadpole, the tad poles. Well, so I'm glad you asked. So there's two of them in there and one of 'em has full on frog legs now, which is pretty sick and it will use 'em to push off. And I spent a lot of time looking at 'em and I keep thinking, is it shocked that it has legs? It's not like it knew that was going to happen, frog. It's just like, holy fuck, I have legs. That's such a weird thing to me. And so it just kind of chills on the bottom sitting on the rest of it. Everything forward to that just looks like standard tadpole, but it has these big frog feet on the back.
(07:00):
Now the other one is way of a late bloomer. It's just got some little nubs, but they're not eating the bass. The bass are in there growing and they're eating the fish flakes. They're loving the fish food. This is all working out great. So what Justin is doing this weekend is presented by Long Weekend Coffee where we are taking suggestions for the future editions of Justin's weekend. If you want to send them over my rock fight@gmail.com, when you send the proof that you reviewed the show and you're going to get your sticker, you can also send a suggestion for what Justin should do on the weekend. But if you want to start off your days adventures and all of your long weekends, because just wrapping up a long weekend, if you're listening to this on Monday, head over to Long Weekend Coffee, load up on a batch of beans and then a checkout.
(07:36):
Enter the promo code Rock 10 to get 10% off of your first order. Long weekend coffee. More weekend and coffee please. Alright, so Hey Justin, did you hear I started playing ice hockey again? Did you hear that? No, no, I haven't heard that because I ignore all the text messages that you sent bragging about it. No, it was covered in outdoor podcasters daily. I think it was an art. It was a headline. Yeah. Oh, it was. Was it? Okay. No, but we talked about, you and I talked before about what a cool sport it is from a gear perspective, A gear perspective. So I thought we could do a little segment where we discussed what is the coolest sport definitively your top five coolest sports. And I think the only real, you mean in terms of how they look, right? Like their uniform and the whole kick, right.
(08:18):
It's basically, when I say the name of a sport, what's the image that pops in your head and your knee jerk reaction of like, that's fucking cool. Or eh, we can do some work, right? Yeah. So did you come up with five? I did, I did. But how do you want to do this? Want to bounce? Do you want to just go one to one or do you want to give all five and then I give my five Wish should go five through one. We take turns. Okay. Well, I couldn't rank 'em. I couldn't rank them. We got to rank 'em. Okay, fine. I'll rank them. Well then here you give yours and I'll rank mine while you're giving yours. Okay. Okay. I've met number five. I have rugby. I mean it's a fucking collar shirt and shorts. They look awesome though. You ever watch clips?
(08:54):
They're huge dudes and women, they just look cool as hell. Anyway. Yeah, yeah, you're right. I guess there's a point. That's what I'm saying. I follow some. The basis for that one was if I'm scrolling Instagram and for whatever reason, I think that one showing up in the algorithm because the All Blacks equivalent I guess, I dunno if it's the female All Blacks, but the New Zealand female rugby team, for whatever reason, it's been showing up on my Instagram feed a ton. They're doing their haka and they're out there just running over people and they look badass and I love the simplicity of it. It's like, yeah, it's just shorts and the shirt and they're literally running over people trying to get to the goal line. I don't understand rugby the rules, but I think they look awesome. That was my number five. Yeah, I don't really understand it either.
(09:36):
I don't understand it, but yeah, that's a good one. What do you got? Well, I thought you were going to go through you me, go through all of them. Okay. Yeah, well I can do my five. I know which one's going to be bottom and we joked about this the other day, but I literally mean it. I have a well put together backpacker at number five on my list. There's something it could just be, because that's something I do a lot and it makes me excited just to see somebody getting ready. But there's two options here. I dunno if that's cheating, but somebody who is just geared up and they're maybe a fast packer, they have cool stuff on, they got bright even though I don't wear the Bright Trail runners on or they just look like they mean business. I think it looks cool.
(10:17):
I like being kited out like that. I think it's, I don't know why. I just think it's nice. When I briefly flirted with ultralight packing and stuff, I was always like, this looks cool. So I like that a lot. But I also more than that, love it when you encounter old prospector on the trail from Saturday Night Live, some ancient person with an external frame pack and oil lamps dangling from it. Maybe they have an eye patch like an ancient dog and they're just badass backpacking pirate. That to me is the coolest thing in the world, especially if you're that fast packer person. You have your $700 Hyperlight backpack and your $1,200 hyperlight tent and your whole kit weighs what a Kleenex does. And here comes an 80-year-old person with 75 pounds on their pack. They don't even know where they are or where they're going and they're going to be just fine. Nothing that I've been out here since 1972 in the entire world. Yeah, totally. They've been lost for 30 years and they're fine. They don't even realize years you don't want to hike anymore. Can you please tell me where the town is? Is President Nixon still?
(11:21):
So yeah, I think backpacker's a weird one. I think you're right. It might be the most divisive one. There's a lot of iterations of the backpacker. Yeah, I mean you could also look like, you could look terrible, but there's a very dorky version of the backpacker. There's also a very dorky version of a rugby player, I'm sure. I don't know. That's just more based on your own physical attributes then because the same kit, I think you can make some bad choices and be a bad, because you're right. When you see the people in the Sierra or in Pennsylvania on the at, they're clearly well into their journey and they just look dialed. And that's when you start flirting with those like, oh, I could do that. Well also, I guess because I'm an extremely vain person, some of the moments where I'm like, God, I looked good.
(12:01):
We're coming off a trail after two weeks and I'm just super tan and filthy and have about your level of facial hair and kind of just slightly hardened from walking 20 miles a day. And I'm always like, I look pretty good. So yeah, that's probably part of it too. I got you. So my number four, and this is going to surprise some people, but I think, look, I got to be objective here. I had freestyle skier because I think as much as I'm not a ski person and resort skiing just more and more continues to piss me off. But just when you see the person in just a dialed kit, whatever, like a fly low style kit with the skis, the helmet, the goggles, and they look clean, but also they're going to go do some rad shit today. I'm like, it's a good look.
(12:46):
I got to admit it's a good look. Now if we were doing a bottom five lift list, number one for me would probably be the downhill racer skier, the Olympics who were in the spandex onesie with the helmet on. Just not a good look. Especially when they're like the German guy who has a huge beer belly, but he's really fast, right? Yes. Yeah, it's, I'm not judging the sport. I mean they're going literally a hundred miles an hour on skis. No, no, no. All respect. But you don't look that great. Versus the park skier in the perfect sort of outdoorsy Gore-Tex kick. That looks pretty good. What about bobsledders? They look pretty badass. Giant and they have that coolest as hell helmet. I'd rather be a bobsledder than a loser too. Bobsled to me is honestly, to me bobsled is, besides hockey, by far the coolest winter Olympic sport.
(13:29):
Nothing even can touch it to me. I'll watch every bobsled run. Two person, four person. Love it all. Alright, that was four. What your number four? Number four. Number four for me is going to be, I think I'm going to go with a, I think I'm going to go with a fly angler, fly fisher person. I'm really uncomfortable with the term fly fisherman, but there's not good gender neutral one fisher these days fisherman. I think fishermen actually is becoming that, but with bitch and waiters and a really cool sun shirt over a cap and got, if you have a cool pack, I love that kit too. I love putting on my fly fishing stuff. I absolutely love putting on my waiters. I think it's the coolest thing I do, which is fun. I used to feel out the way about wetsuits when I would surf.
(14:14):
I felt like a superhero sometimes putting on a wetsuit and a hood and booties and all that sort of stuff. But no, there's something about fly fishing. It just looks, I dunno what it is. It looks so cool to me. I really like it. It can also look very uncool, but if you have the right kit, that's pretty neat. Yeah, there's some kind of cool means business. I don't know if you go back and watch the patio sucks. At the one where he's fly fishing, the guy he's fly fishing with looks great. I think I really like getting kitted up for fly fishing. So that's my number four. You're not going to like my number three, but it's rock climber. What kind? Well, good point. This is where I may, I talk myself in and out of it because when I picture a rock climber, that kneejerk thing, it is more the boulderer just wearing either shorts or Capri pants or pants, Capri pants, potentially Capri, no, usually pants that have been rolled up that's counts as capri pants with the chalk bag.
(15:09):
But then the problem with both alpinists mountaineering and rock climbing, they have the dorkiest helmets of all the helmet sports, terrible helmets. You look terrible. They do look kind of dorky. They're just round and they sit really high up on top, which I get it right? It's a thing. Rocks coming down on top of the head. That's what you want. It's kind of the same thing I was saying about kayakers, but I think the kayak helmet, actually, they have a silly helmet too. Those kind of baseball style kayak helmets. I think those can look really cool. No, they're not on my list. I'm not saying they're that cool, but I'm just saying I would prefer to wear one of those than a rock helmet. Well, alright, so that's your number three. Yeah. So I guess I'll put 'em at number three too. I actually have rock climbers on the list, but I have very specific rock climbers, which are seventies rock climbers who were climbing in jorts with no helmets.
(15:52):
So you have Jim Bridwell on your list. Exactly. That's pretty badass wearing pumas. It seems like maybe not even climbing shoes, just ripping darts. He's got one behind his ear, just like so freaking strong. I love that. There's nothing cooler to me than on the footage of the men and women climbing in Yosemite in the seventies. That's as cool as outdoor people have ever looked and ever will think for other people who get tired of me maybe lamenting the state of outdoor media or the decline and what happened to outside or whatever. I forget if it was outside or was backpacker or what magazine it was in, but there was an outdoor magazine probably in the early nineties profiling Jim Bridwell and he just talk about how, nah, man, smoking makes your lungs stronger for high alpine stuff and everything. There's no one been cooler in the world than Jim Bridwell.
(16:34):
He was great. I mean, yeah, yeah, that whole, I mean, valley Uprising is one of my favorite documentaries of all time, and it's rare, I would say Valley, I don't even climb was going to say Valley Valley Uprising and Endless Summer are the two movies where if I could snap my fingers and transport myself into that world, I would do it and I would leave everything behind because it just looks that cool. Right? Yeah. But that's number three. I have two others above it, but that's number three for, well, just what you described is how I feel about my number two, which is River Guide slash River Rat. Because when you see people on the boat, I'm not usually a plaid shirt and the outdoors guy, but it works there. It's got bedrocks or Chacos with Patagonia baggies and the plaid shirts unbuttoned like weight too far, maybe a little too far down can of shit, scraggly hair dirty, but also just looking great and all the just feeling wonderful.
(17:28):
Has there ever been a bad picture taken of a river guide? I doubt it. I hadn't thought about that, but that's a good one. That's a really good, when I see someone that says I want to go throw it all away and go live outside and just do outdoor stuff for the rest of my life, it's usually that. So my number two is very similar to my number three, except they still exist. And this is the, are you familiar with the really good Instagram account bike packing sucks. No going to be though. He's this Australian guy. He's Australian. Funny. Yeah, it's terrific. And he rides in, I don't think they're bedrocks, but he wears nothing but cool sandals and short shorts and he's a phenomenal rider. He'll take these weird seventies steel bikes on bike parks and jump 'em and stuff. He's also just weird. He makes really weird content, but I don't have a better word for it other than the kind of hipster retro cycling thing. And I'm not talking about wax mustache, like early two thousands fixie riders. I'm talking about jz, jorts war. Sandal war, really, really capable, burly, badass bike packer people.
(18:35):
Alexandra Houchin, is that her last, you know who I'm talking about? She rides a single speed and wins all these giant mountain bikes. Oh, I do know who you're talking about. But she rides in Boots and jorts. So badass to me. That's extremely cool. That's it. That's your number two. That's almost my number one. But I have romantic nostalgic number one. I just went ice hockey. Sorry, I'm in the mood right now. I'm in the spot. I'm starting to play it again. The Gear Playoffs, the Gear Freaking Rules. It's really, it's a really boring final Four. It's not really, I've sort of checked out after the Bruins got bounced, which they weren't even really in that series anyway. And I still like, eh, so I might see the final. I watched a little bit of the Rangers Panthers game and it was just like, I just don't care.
(19:15):
I'm kind of pulling from McDavid. I'd like to see the Oilers I met, even though they knocked the kings out every year. I always liked the Oilers I loved, that's Gretzky. When they basically transported Gretzky and Curry to the kings, the Oilers became my second favorite team. Well, mine is also a mainstream sport and it's baseball, but a particular baseball, which is the baseball players who still wear short pants and stirrups, stirrups, or does it have to be stirrups or can it be just the, it needs to be stirrups. It has to be the stirs specifically needs to be stirs. I don't understand why that went out of fashion. It truly baffles me. Nothing is cooler in the world than, and especially there's multiple kinds of stirs with the kinds that have solid color up the top and then they narrow. Not the ones that's just a straight line all the way down the whole way, but the ones that at the calf have, your whole calf is there and then it gets narrow.
(20:00):
Oh my God, that's cool. What function does the stir up serve? So it used to be, if I remember correctly, it actually used to be a really, really, really long time ago, players would put those on to, because you would get spiked a lot and you would bleed. And so if you were playing second base, a guy would slide and spike you and your ankles would bleed. So it had something to do with trying to keep the blood off of stuff, if I remember correctly. That's kind of cool. Or I think they all were be red at first. It was like, oh, I'm going to get all bloody anyway. And then it just kind of stuck. But I mean, very few people wear them anymore. Little leaguers even. I don't really understand. I don't know why that, I mean maybe when I played, everybody wore stripes, so it's probably more comfortable without them, I'll admit.
(20:40):
But nothing looks cooler. I said this to you before. I do take issue with the fact that they're just wearing leather belts and I'm like, how do you be athletic when you're wearing something that you bought at the mall is an integral part of your kit. Why do they still wear a belt buckle? I wear with a pair of jeans? Because it looks rad. Does it? It look rad. I think it looks out of place, dude, it looks so badass. I love a baseball. I love how well hockey used to be like this. They didn't wear helmets. But one of the things I love so much about a baseball uniform is there's, I guess you could say the same thing about rugby. There's nothing else. It's just clothes. And it's always cool to see, wow, that person's kind of small and they're just in regular clothes and then they're just the best short up you've ever seen in your life. There's something really neat about that. And it's also, it's summer. I'm going to my first game tomorrow. I just fricking love baseball so much. And a cool glove, cool hat, cool colors and stirrups.
(21:39):
Alright man, let's get into some headlines. Alright. Alright. So we're just going to start off today with a quick update to the conversation we had last week here on the Rock Fight with Pad Lee magazine's Joe Poto check regarding the death of Tomas Robeson in the Grand Canyon. Not long before we released that episode of this show, a pre-scheduled video appeared on Tomas YouTube channel and the title of that video, it was Self Obituary. I don't need to get into the details. I think the title sort of says it all. It definitely appears that Temas did not intend to return from his trip down the canyon. And we've talked a lot about this story and I'm not trying to belabor it. And anyone who missed last week's episode, I would encourage you to go back and listen to that, our conversation with Joe. I think it was a really good one, but I do think now this is going to become one of those tales that it's referenced or written about in our community for some time.
(22:27):
Don't think it's sort of reaching that level maybe. Yeah, I mean it's interesting because that has to happen all the time. I mean, that was both of our first thoughts. This was it. He went out, didn't plan on that. He did not intend to come back was our first. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and I got to think that happens a lot. I mean, we talked about, I forget his name now, but the guy that just sat down in the mountain. Guy Waterman. Yeah, guy Waterman. God, that's a good name. That's a good name. Yeah, I guess I mentioned this to Joe. There is something romantic to me about that. I know Edward Abbey didn't die in the wilderness, but how I feel like it's such an inspiring, awesome thing that he had his friends bury him in his favorite place in the desert illegally and nobody knows where it is except for maybe one person.
(23:08):
Now at this point, and this isn't Ed Abbey wrote it is probably in Desert Solitaire, but he has this one of his short stories where he must've been working as a ranger. I don't think he stumbled on the guy. I think he was looking for the guy. But he finds a dead guy and he's sitting under, is leaning up against a Joshua tree or he's probably not in Joshua Tree, I don't know where he is. He's got to be in Utah. So he's in Arches now to think about it. So he's sitting under some kind of tree or a cactus or I don't remember. He's leaning up against it for whatever meager shade there is. The body is. Anyway, when Abby stumbles across it, and I think the guy had a little bit of water with him or something, and Abby at first was like, oh, that must've been a horrific way to go.
(23:44):
But then he starts kind of waxing poetic about, at least look at what his last view was. This is pretty cool. And I think he's trying to provide some dignity to a very horrifying place for this person to be in. But that always struck me as really romantic too. And so I think there is something, I mean, it sucks that other people have to deal with it. Someone has to go recover the body at some point. And I wouldn't watch the video. I didn't want to watch the video. I didn't want to get sad or feel weird about it. So I don't know much about whether the guy had a family or people who didn't want that to happen. But if it's kind of your own terms, I think it's, there's anything wrong with that. I think it's kind of neat. At least the part of me does.
(24:24):
I don't know. I guess I would like to have the opportunity if my life ever ended up in a point where it was like, I've got nothing else going on where I can just walk out into the forest and that's it. I'd rather do that than a lot of other things. Well anyway, I dunno. I do think though this will be, when we're kind of talking, I think, I imagine there's going to be a book about this. There'll be a little videos about this people are going to will get, we will hear about Tomas Robison again, Robinson again. I really feel, yeah, probably.
(24:48):
Alright, next story is another follow up from a story we covered here on the rock fight following the very public demise of the brand at last month. Sea out a classic. It was announced this week that Kona is back baby. I'm weirdly and really excited about it and I want to get into that. I don't really know why I am, but the story goes that original founders and owners, Jake Heel hen, I would guess, I guess, and Dan Gerhard released a statement this week with the news that they had purchased back the brand. They started in 1988, but then sold to Kent Outdoors in 2021. Yeah, no, you covered the story for aj. So happy ending for a brand that people seem to love, I guess. I don't know. I am pumped about it too. I don't even think you need to care about bikes or Kona to be happy about something like this.
(25:33):
I mean, the bummer part is theoretically they use whatever money they made from Kent. I mean they probably made money on the deal. I don't know what they sold it to Kent for, but presumably the value is pretty low. So it's probably an opportunity they could have passed by. But I mean the bummer would be if nothing changes and it's just the same, but that's not going to be the case. I guarantee they'll strip their inventory way back, way back, kind of concentrate on a few classics or whatever. But they're not going to do direct to consumer for a while and if at all that they're saying. And so they really want to strengthen their relationship with independent shops, which is fantastic. I mean, who doesn't love hearing that? Well, I guess people who hate going into stores and communicating human being, that's a good way to go.
(26:15):
But it's awesome. And more bike brands should do it. And it's great that they cared enough that they didn't want to just let it wither and die or get bought by some other, I mean, Kona was probably very close to being bought by some other non bike entity and just pumping out Walmart bikes that could have easily happened. Oh, for sure. So I'm stoked. I mean, I love my unit X. If they built the entire brand around that bike wouldn't be a bad idea. So yeah, I'm stoked for these guys. I think it's great. It kind of makes me want to look at them for my next bike for sure. Now I'm even way more interested in it, which I never really would would've thought of before. I mean, I wouldn't have thought of it even five or six years ago. I mean maybe I would've, but it wouldn't have been now.
(26:57):
I might seek them out when I go looking for another bike. Exactly. 100%. The guys seem cool as hell. Their story is great, and they started working together a really long time ago and just kind of gradually built up their relationship and decided to start a bike brand. But it's a good story and it's something you want to support and I'm all about it. I guess we'll keep the theme going with things we've talked about a lot this summer. There was a shit ton of news coming out of Everest over the last week. All of this is from Explorer's Web. I mean obviously it's the time we're in the weather window where people are trying to summit. But the other day there was a cornice accident where literally a cornice broke off and it was one of those days when there's 500 people standing in a line on knife edge.
(27:37):
Good call. Yeah, six climbers have died including six. Is that more than normal at this point, do you think? I think it's trending that way. I feel like it was around wasn't 12, the 96 disaster. Right. And they've beaten that. Yeah, but that was all at once, wasn't it? Right. But my point is six. Sounds like a lot. Seven. There was another camper who died at camp three out of the climber who died at Camp three, but he was Why did that counts? Well was Oh, he was going up lots, right? He was going to zi. There's two more that are missing. But then we also had a Sherpa who set our summit record. He's summited like 31 times. There's a woman going for an FKT or achieved an FKT for the female speed record. Oh really? I didn't even see that. And then there was another team that summited from the north side, and in that article it was all like, there's no one up there.
(28:19):
They got the summit to themselves. They didn't see anyone out there. And I know the north side is the more technical side, but if you and I were seriously debating should we go climb Everest, I would only consider the north side. I don't want to go stand in line with all of these people. So crazy times over at Mount Everest. Yeah. I don't know when, I feel like it was either last week, last Friday, or maybe it was a couple of days ago where they were saying the coming weekend is going to be hell basically up there. I think it might've been this week weekend coming up maybe because it's just going to be a huge crush to try to get to the top. When you and I spoke about, was it Amy who did the big swim out to the far on islands? And I was kind of making the point of you see that in the paper and you think like, oh, well she swam a long way to an island.
(29:00):
You don't really understand how difficult that was until you really kind of learn about it. And I think Everest is rapidly reaching that point, right? Where it's like, oh, you climb Mount Everest, good for you. You climb mount. That's been done. But then you see some of these images and how gnarly the terrain is on Mount Everest. I understand K two is harder. That doesn't mean that it makes Everest easy. It's these images of these very thin edges and ledges and face cliff faces these people are clinging to and there's 500 of them. It would be impressive. It was one person. The fact they're all just standing around there. I'm trying to decide if it's harder to swim to the fair lot physically. It's physically, it's harder to swim to the fair lawns. I mean you have to train for that for a really long time.
(29:46):
And apparently Everest, as long as you're reasonably fit, they can drag you to the top and you're willing to suffer. You might die, but you can make it. There's no chance I could swim to the fair lawn. This is actually a agree question, but she's with and yeah, it's also a death zone. I mean, she's in water that it's amazing. These people don't get hypothermia. I mean, she's not wearing a wetsuit and obviously you stop swimming and you will drown. You can't stop. But they have support boats. It's not like you're out there on your own. I do think there has been a guy who did that who swam from the fair lawns to San Francisco to Mount ever Mount exactly. His name was Goran Crop.
(30:30):
He swam toward San Francisco, drifted north and ended up coming ashore in Belinas. But I don't think he had any support. I think he was just doing it. He's just out there. So I am not sure that everybody that's made the swim has had support boats. But physically it's got to be way more demanding to swim out to the fair lawns. Isn't that crazy? If you said put a gun to my head, you have to do one of these two things. I'd probably choose climbing Everest. I climbed mountains before and feel like I would choose to swim as long as I, but that's it. Because even the swim, which would be harder. I think physically you're still more likely to die on Everest because there's more ways you can get. Exactly. As long as the boat is going to be able to pick me up.
(31:11):
Right. If I run into trouble, yeah, I'm going to choose the Faron. Yeah, I think I would too. Neither one sounds great. No, I don't want to do either one at all. I would literally empty my entire savings account to not have to do either one. You have a savings account. Nice. Nice work. Well, that's a really interesting comp though. Which one would you do? It is, yeah. Yeah. Maybe that should be the next segment we do is find two horrible things that neither of us would ever do and then debate which one we choose doing. Actually we just did that. Well, I know. Let's pick some other things. Yeah, we'll do that again. Okay. That could be a recurring one. Yeah. We don't want to keep talking about Mount Everest, but it's like Jesus man. It's just like dominating. Well, you know what? We probably won't starting next week. That's a good point. Everyone's going to be done. We we'll find we. They just pack it up and they roll it away. They put it into storage. They deflate the whole mountain. Yep. That just goes. That'd be incredible. All right. Good season everybody.
(32:07):
Alright, well we're joined now by journalist Bryce Covert. Is that covert? Did I say that correctly? Yes. Covert. Like covert ops. Is that your real last name? Oh, that's so cool. It is my real last name. Cool. Very cool. You get to say like covert ops, that's badass. So who recently wrote a story for Adventure Journal covering the unionization efforts of REI employees at nine of their 181 locations, specifically covering some of the efforts of employees at Re's Soho location in New York City. Earlier this week, sporting goods business reported that on May 18th, unionized employees at the REI in Chicago walked off the job to protest a lack of engagement from REI management with their efforts there and forcing the store to close in the process for the day. And then just yesterday, just saw this while I was writing our outline for this conversation on May 23rd, union members at the store you covered for AJ and soho staged a protest rally in front of their store claiming that REI has not been bargaining in good faith. So first of all, welcome to the show, Bryce. Really thank you for joining us.
Bryce (33:05):
Thank you so much for having me on.
Colin (33:07):
So to start, have you been keeping tabs on the REI situation since covering it for aj? Is there anything you can add to what went down in Chicago and yesterday and New York?
Bryce (33:15):
Yeah, so one other action that they held in recent weeks was on May 20th, some local elected officials in Cleveland, Ohio went to the Beachwood store, the REI store and hand delivered both a letter to management demanding that the company bargaining good faith and reached a contract this year. And also took an unusual step of hand delivering some unfair labor practice charges to the company, which is notable I think, because one of the things that keeps coming up with REI workers and other retail workers when they're unionizing is how are they going to force these companies to come to the table to agree to some terms? They're probably not going to be able to do it on their own. So having some firepower behind you of local elected officials, politicians, the public, you need someone on your side. So it's interesting to see that happen in Cleveland recently. And I think workers are really trying to take advantage of the annual sale that I believe is going on right now at REI.
Colin (34:11):
Right, the anniversary sale. Yeah.
Bryce (34:13):
And then also the shareholder meeting, I believe recently happened and they sort of staged some stuff around that as well. So they're trying to take advantage of any, I think public facing moments to put their cause out there and get customers to pay attention.
Colin (34:27):
Have you seen that anywhere else? I mean Cleveland feels like a, well I assume that you're interested in labor practices generally speaking, right? This wasn't just an REI thing. So I'm guessing that you have some expertise in this, but I feel like Cleveland is a labor town, or at least was that doesn't surprise me that there might be a union sort of element running through the kind of philosophy of some local leaders. But are you seeing that anywhere else where local leaders are standing with the REI employees? I don't
Bryce (34:54):
Think I've seen it yet. I think they may correct me because I may not have seen everything, but it's still kind of early days for them. This is the first that I saw something like that where it really grabbed my attention that elected officials were part of it. And again, I think that actually is a very powerful tool to put some political pressure on a company. They'll probably be eager to move up the food chain and go to maybe senators or some more statewide or federal positions than just local officials. But anytime you can put that kind of spotlight on them, put that kind of pressure on them, helps them try to get the company to the
Colin (35:32):
Table. Well, so anybody listening, I'm pretty sure we still have copies of Adventure Journal 32. That's the current issue. We're printing 33 is being printed and sent out pretty soon, but you should still be able to get it on our website, which is the article that Bryce wrote for us. It's a fantastic piece and that's kind of what spurred this interview. But Bryce, for people who haven't read it, can you just kind of walk through really quickly what's going on with REI, what's going on with the unionization efforts and what you've seen from the company in the response? Just really brief kind of the 30,000 foot view.
Bryce (36:08):
Sure. So essentially coming out of the pandemic, I think REI employees were like many retail employees asked to essentially put their lives on the line to keep these companies going. REI in particular was deluged with interest from people who were desperate to get outside. Some of their stores even opened before other kinds of stores when things were starting to reopen. So these workers were in there when we didn't have vaccines, when we didn't know much about the virus, it was pretty scary. They feel like they really gave a lot to the company. They are part of this wave, I think, of retail employees saying, okay, we gave you a lot. So what do we get now that the crisis has passed? And I think that's where a lot of these union campaigns came from. And it's certainly the case at RAI. So they had safety concerns specifically around covid, but as they start talking to each other, they start realizing there are other issues like pay training that they want addressed and they decide that a union is the way to go.
(37:04):
The REI Soho stores the first to vote, like you said, there's now been nine that have voted in favor of unionization. There's one store that's still kind of being litigated and hasn't had a decision yet. And the company has, from what I've heard from workers at many different stores, taken in a very typical aggressive anti-union stance. I think the workers possibly thought that it would take a different tactic with them given the way RAI presents itself and talks about its values all the time, that is not the case. They hired Morgan Lewis, which is the law firm advising Amazon and its anti-Union Crusade. They sent managers in from headquarters and other places to stores that were thinking about unionizing to try to hold these meetings and say, you shouldn't do it. They've just really used every tool in the toolbox that employers tend to rely on. And employees, again, were taken a little bit of back, but I think have now regrouped and are trying to work on a strategy to push back on that.
Colin (38:08):
So putting myself in the shoes and the employees. I worked out to a retail, I've worked for some big chains and I worked for brands as well. And not saying anything's fair or unfair, just what do you think? On the surface there's better wages and these sort of things. But I mean ultimately they have a choice in themselves. They can go, you can find a job somewhere else, you can go work at another retailer. There are options for them there. What is really the larger, is it to bring attention to these things happen on a larger, to use the bad PR for a brand like REI and say, Hey, these people hold themselves up and they're not really doing as good a job as they say that they're doing. Is it more of a statement or they're actually, is there an outcome that they say, oh my God, we got these things and boy, what a wonderful place this is to work now?
Bryce (38:52):
I think a lot of things are happening at RAI. Again, there's this wave of retail unionization going on right now, and one of the challenges there is, like you said, people often just go get a different job when things are getting crappy at the one they're at, which in retail they often are, retail is not a well paid high benefits line of work. So people cycle through and that makes unionizing and organizing really tough. You'll convince some coworkers that they should stick with you and band together and then a bunch of them will either decide to leave or maybe they'll get laid off. I mean, there's just a lot of cycling through and that makes it really hard. But I think what these employees at REI and other places like Starbucks at Apple at Trader Joe's are trying to say is first of all, maybe this job could be one that has more longevity.
(39:41):
If we invested in it, it's somewhere I want to be able to stay here maybe and actually build a career. Particularly I think at REI, these aren't typically people, just anyone off the street. You're supposed to, in theory at least have some expertise, be able to talk to customers. I mean, I'm an REI customer and I love that I go in and feel like someone can tell me which rock climbing shoes are the best ones to get. So there's more attachment I think, to this job potentially. But they're also saying no matter where you work and how transitory it is, and even if you're only there for a couple of months, you still deserve a baseline of good treatment, of decent pay and good treatment. And this is how we're trying to secure it. So I think there are people involved in the REI campaign who said to me, I would love to stay here.
(40:31):
I want to stay here, and this is part of how I want to bring about that change. They also are, I think, trying to hold REI both to its own values. I mean it has all these values. It has really laid out in detail to the public and to the employees. And they're also trying to say, we want it to be what it was. A lot of the workers talk to me about a big shift that they've felt a little bit before, during and now after the pandemic that people became more disposable. They didn't get the kind of training they used to get to become those experts. Schedules weren't as reliable. They're saying, I want to hold onto what made this a good place to work and really enshrine it in a union contract.
Colin (41:14):
Is there something that correlates with that change? I mean, I feel like they've had a new CEO in recent years, but
Bryce (41:20):
Yeah, I think it probably lines up pretty well. I mean on the shop floor, I'm not sure they were really able to point to exactly where this change was coming from, but my guess is that it comes from the top like that. Yeah,
Colin (41:32):
From the REI perspective, I am curious if you've talked to anybody internally at REI, but it is sometimes if you pull it to the most basic things, I mean, it's just math, right? I mean, in last year they took a $300 million loss. The company's not doing particularly well in their last 12 to 18 months. So when it comes to meeting worker demands, and some of that is financially driven, some of that is more just working environment understood. But at some point, this just feels like a PR disaster on their side that they could probably largely avoid by just saying a few really positive things or at least even kick the can down the road. So have you had a chance to talk to anybody at REI or what's, what's your view of what's coming out of Kent, Washington right now?
Bryce (42:13):
They did not let me get on the phone with anybody. They did answer the questions I had in pretty good detail. I mean, essentially the spokesperson I was in touch with kept saying over and over, we are not against unions. We are not anti-union. However, we don't think a union should exist in our stores, which is
(42:32):
Make of that what you will. I suppose I put those things back to back in the story. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me to say we love unions, but we don't think one should exist here. I mean, that just for me, those are two conflicting statements, but that's sort of the line that they kept taking. Again, they have taken a very aggressive but very typical anti-union approach to this. They are throwing resources at trying to stymie these campaigns. They're dragging their feet on contract negotiations. This is what corporate America tends to do. And from what I've heard from experts, it's actually a particularly American thing that they dig in against unions, that they take it as sort of a almost personal upfront, and it's not. It often even breaches from a financial decision to an emotional one where they may be losing money on fighting a campaign like Starbucks for example, shut down all of its locations in Ithaca because they were unionizing.
(43:31):
Now they don't make any money in Ithaca. That doesn't seem like a great financial decision, but that is the kind of decision making that comes because I think a lot of it is about power and not so much about finances. You have to share power with workers when there's a union contract involved. You can't do things as unilaterally as you used to be able to. But that said, what baffles me a little bit about REI stance and others is you don't have to agree to anything in a union contract. You can sit down at the table and just say, no, no, no. I mean, you do have to bargain in good faith. But that's a pretty loose rule. Like you said, if they're not doing financially very well, they can say that and say, we just can't afford higher wages. And then it's up to the workers to see if they can push back on that.
(44:19):
So what I don't understand is particularly with a company like REI that has made so much of its selling point to its customer base, these are our values. We let workers go the day after Thanksgiving every day. We are a shareholder led or not shareholder led. What do they call the co-op members, co-op member led? We're not beholden to financial shareholders. All these things. Why not just say yes to the union and then see how bargaining goes? I really do think it's a mix of feeling, sort of personally affronted that workers would want to share power with you and also just all the people who advise corporate America say the same things over and over again. Just get rid of the union at any cost. You don't want one in there.
Colin (45:09):
I was just going to say, it sounds like, I mean, I don't know a ton about this, but it sounds like they're probably just being tightlipped and acting on behalf or just doing whatever their attorneys say. Yeah. Like you open any door, and I don't know. I agree. It's baffling it. It's really baffling. I'm wondering if they've had any issues with hiring because of this. I don't know if this is the kind of thing that would preclude someone from going and trying to get a job at REI, but do you know anything about that?
Bryce (45:35):
I don't. And it's tough to say too, because they have been laying people off and it's hard to say what keeps people away is that, is it. The other thing, one of the tough things for workers, and this is again not just true at REI, is that one of the tactics that American employers have is dragging their feet on contract negotiation. And the longer that goes on, the harder it is for the union to say, isn't this worth it? Aren't you so glad you stuck your neck out and did this with us and put all this effort into it? If you can't then say, here's what we achieved on the other end. I mean REI workers, it's been, I believe two years, maybe more since they unionize it at the soho location and they have nothing written in stone to prove for it. They have no improvements on paper. That's really tough to keep people engaged and excited and show momentum to other stores to get involved. And I think that's quite deliberate. I mean, there is essentially no rule forcing them to do it any faster. And then you sort of hope that you can just sort of set momentum and let turnover take its toll and maybe everything sort of filled it out.
Colin (46:45):
It is just a boner of a move. I just don't get mean. Even when they started hearing that they might be unions, I feel like REI, given the history and to your point, the reason people work at this brand is because they want to work there. They could go work at the gap or whatever they want to, they choose to work at REI and it's just there's so much they could have done to avoid even being put in the position that they're in. And can you think of another example of a consumer brand that's sort of known a little bit for its altruistic reputation faced any kind of labor challenges or scrutiny in this way. Is this a one of one?
Bryce (47:17):
Oh no, this is very common. This is very common in the story I mentioned briefly Columbia Sportswear, which did this whole thing about A CEO taking a pay cut at the start of the
Colin (47:28):
Oh and outside as well.
Bryce (47:29):
Outside magazine. I mean neither one ended up actually unionizing. I think probably because they were met with a really aggressive anti-union campaign. But even Starbucks I think kind of built this reputation of we give our workers college benefits and we treat you well and you get to wear fun colors in your hair and I think it really did try to build a progressive reputation and then it has been scorched earth from that company. I think it's recently they've actually started sitting down with the workers, but for the first year or two of the campaign just scorched earth anti-union tactics and I actually think that damaged the brand and the company because it was so public.
Colin (48:14):
Yeah, you never think about them the same. I mean you just don't. I also go there, but I don't think about them the same. I mean same thing with REI. Colin and I talk all the time about how if the shit hits the fan, we we'll go get retail jobs and REI would kind of be the first place I would go, but I don't know anymore. I don't know. It's tough to say. It's really hard to come back from that again, the hierarchy of if you have a specialty, like a really good specialty outdoor retailer in your town, you usually default to that first over at REI. But now, but it also be like, oh well I need some camp fuel. I know they'll have it at REI, I'll just go there kind of thing. Now it's like, no, I'm going to go out of my way to not go to REI. Our community is very passionate and earnest about these things. The longer this goes on and the more the reputation goes south, it will have an impact. And I know they're trying to open more stores, but,
Bryce (49:02):
Well, and if workers are smart, what they really need to be thinking hard about is how do they harness that customer loyalty because I do think it's a particular kind of loyalty among REI customers, not just because it might be a more progressive crowd, but also because it is a very specialized loyalty. You can get coffee anywhere. You might like Starbucks best, but there's a lot of places to get coffee. Like you're saying REI has a particular thing to sell and at least again, as REI customer felt like you could walk in and you knew that someone would be able to tell you what it was that you were looking for if you had no idea, which was me. Most of the time they have a lot to risk here, so the workers need to figure out how to use that. I think as a pressure point against the company and I know that they are thinking hard about that and trying to figure that out.
(49:52):
I will point out that boycotts should only come when workers ask for them. I think these workers have not called for that and it isn't a tactic that they can use sometimes. But up until that point, if you want to be in solidarity with these workers, don't change your business habits. Follow their lead and if you want to support them, I know they have petitions and again, they may have some other demands coming. I think they would be smart if they did, but they haven't really quite gotten public about those or had those coalesced yet.
Colin (50:20):
That's a good point. I mean we're on worker side generally speaking, but we also are on record of saying we really like REI, so it's tough for us to a certain degree and not everybody has the time to really dig into these issues. I'm just so curious hearing you talk about it. I was going to ask about if you had the chance to talk to any other corporations that are actively engaging in anti-union efforts. If it was a personal thing. Because the more I'm hearing you talk about it, the more I'm realizing it's got to just be these sounds very personal. These boardrooms are just, you hear a union and you don't want to soften, you don't want to seem like a communist or whatever it is that these people are so afraid of. It just seems like it has to be personal at this point.
Bryce (51:03):
Well, unfortunately, I don't know that anyone has actually talked to me. I would would absolutely love to actually talk to these executives and have an honest conversation. I think that's never going to happen. I
Colin (51:15):
Think all of America would, generally speaking, for every executive in any position, we would all like to sit them down for a little while, just talk, what the hell is going on?
Bryce (51:23):
What are you up to? What are you thinking? One thing, and this I actually think is not i's situation, but one thing that's been pointed out to me is it particularly seems to be personal when the founder of the company is involved. So a Howard Schultz or a Jeff
Colin (51:39):
Base. Yeah, totally. Yep.
Bryce (51:40):
They take it very personally when workers unionize. And that's I think when it frequently goes into where they start putting the company in the red just to fight the union because it's not about money. It's about how dare you. They're
Colin (51:53):
Betrayed.
Bryce (51:54):
How dare you? First of all, how dare you say that I'm not the best employer ever, but also how dare you say you deserve to share power with me. This is my company, this is my baby. And actually it was after Howard Schultz got out of the way essentially that the company announced that it would sit down with the workers and actually bargain. I don't know how those sessions are going, so who knows what's happening at the table. But that was a big breakthrough and it happened without him. So I think it's just clear that there are some people in corporate America who feel very emotional about this.
Colin (52:29):
The problem I have with that is we could sit down with those people and I would imagine actually we would learn a lot as well, and frankly some of their perspective might win over some of how we feel. Maybe. Yeah, maybe. But it's the just tone deaf response to your exact point. These retail places, these places where consumer engagement is important and you can have your reputation be damaged. I mean, REI is the best example of it. Everything we've talked about, it's the community, it's the outdoors, it's the earnest response. People love that. They love going and you didn't think once, well okay, this is going to suck. We really don't want to have them form a union, so what do we do? So that doesn't happen, but that we still come off. Well, it's crazy to me, you could have made a very cynical move there that still didn't make 'em look bad. Right.
Bryce (53:15):
The other thing I think that's happened, and it's been really fast, so I think corporate America maybe hasn't caught up, is that there's been a huge sea change in this country about how people see unions and also how the power that unions have. Two things happen. One is that public sentiment among Americans has just totally shifted toward unions in a way that it was not, I mean five, 10 years ago, that's been a really big shift and that makes a huge difference. I mean, it used to be you could get away with cracking down on union campaign and who cares? The public doesn't care. Customers don't care.
Colin (53:47):
I grew up in Reagan in the eighties. Right. It is like, oh, union's bad. Exactly. We don't like unions around here.
Bryce (53:52):
The other thing that's particular to this moment right now is that we have a national labor relations board, which is the federal agency that essentially arbitrates workers' power in the workplace and their rights in the workplace is very pro worker and willing to essentially help these campaigns along as much as within their power. And that has not been true basically up until the Biden administration. So it's a particular moment where workers really have the wind at their backs legally as well. I mean, US labor law is incredibly weak, even with an aggressive NL rrb, but if you are going to unionize this as a great moment to do it. So I think workers are also taking advantage of that particular
Colin (54:35):
At the moment.
Bryce (54:36):
Yeah,
Colin (54:36):
That's probably a good place to end, don't you think? She has. Yeah, I just was going to say, I know you got to wrap up there. Just to kind put a bow on it mean, what's your take on how this resolves mean, do you think? Does REI come to the table? Do you have a gut on how this plays out?
Bryce (54:51):
REI eventually has to come to the table. I think it's a question of how long does it take them and under what circumstances do they come and what is inflicted to either side in the interim for workers to get RAI to the table and also to make strong demands that are met at the table. As I said before, that requires figuring out how to leverage power. Who can you get on your side? What actions can you take? And I know workers are thinking about this, but it's a really tough undertaking. Unionizing in some ways. The vote itself is almost the easy step and it's a really hard step, but it's kind of the easy part. Getting a contract is so much harder. So I do think there will be one eventually. It's just, I don't know when that's going to happen and how much they'll be able to get from it.
Colin (55:36):
Alright, well thank you so much for coming on, spending some time with us. This is just fascinating to kind of get into
Bryce (55:40):
Really piece, you can tell I got a whole soapbox about unions and workers' rights. Well,
Colin (55:45):
We keep it. Where can people read your stuff?
Bryce (55:48):
You can check me out@brycecovert.com. I'm still on Twitter so you can check me out there. And I'm also on Blue Sky, which I wish more people were on.
Colin (55:56):
Well you can also, if you're intrigued by the story, go to adventure journal.com and check out AJ issue 32. It's easily worth the price of the whole issue just for the story. It's a great piece. That's a wonderful piece. Thank you so much. Thanks for doing that for us. Bryce Price if anything comes up. But we'll keep an eye on SGB. If anything pops up, maybe we'll have you back on to see what else is going on with REI. That sounds
Bryce (56:16):
Great.
Colin (56:17):
Thanks Bryce.
Bryce (56:18):
Thanks.
Colin (56:20):
Alright man, well we can wrap it up there. The rock fight, a production of rock Fight LLC. Thank you to Bryce Cobert for coming on and chatting with us And for Justin Hausman, I'm Colin True. Thanks for listening here to take us out. It's Krista Makes, he's going to sing the rock fight fight song right now and we'll see you next time. Rock fighters, rock fight,
Chris DeMakes (56:37):
Rock fight, fight. Rock bike, rock bike, rock, bike. We go into the rock bike where we speak our truth, say sacred cows, and sometimes agree to disagree. We talk about human power, outdoor activities and bites about topics that we find interesting like culture, music, the latest movie reviews, ideas in for the head. This is where we speak our truth. This is where we speak our truth. Rock through the rock. Bye.