 bike, bike, bike, bike, bike, bike, bike, bike, boobs, bike, bike, bike, bike, wait I forgot, more boobs. So I've gotten many requests over the years to show off all of my bicycles, kind of like going into Jay Leno's garage and checking out all of his cool cars. So finally I'm making it happen. And yeah, I realize my hair is a little nutty right now. It is crazy hair day, didn't you get the memo? So this one right behind me here is a Trek 8000 mountain bike. And I bought this bicycle when I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras. I met a random guy that worked at an NGO at a bar and he said he was selling this bike for $500 and I was like I need that bike, I'm gonna buy that bike. So I called my mom and had her wire me $500 so I could buy this bike. And it was one of the best purchases I've ever made. I used this bicycle when I lived there for those two years. I lived in a small village called La Espananza and I used this bike to get around, to go grocery shopping, to do all my work. A lot of the schools that I worked at with the children were way up in the mountains and I would take this bike hours away to do my job. It does have a bit of a flashy paint job. Big Trek 8000 letters across it that just scream steal me. And I remember going to a small shop in Honduras and buying black electrical tape and covering the entire bike up to make it look a little junky. Most of that tape has fallen off now but you can tell there's still quite a bit left. This is Ryan's view of the bike. Oh yeah, a little bit bouncy. Yes, this is the bike that I rode home from Honduras 4,000 miles to Boulder, Colorado. I had never been on a bike tour in my life. I had no idea really what I was doing but I was excited and that goes a long way. So this is what it all looks like. Oh and it's, there's just too much, too much stuff. And I will never forget the day I left my little village. My last morning in Las Verandas and it is beautiful and misty and beautiful, baby. I had lived there for over two years. I had become part of the community. I saw these people every single day. I worked with their kids. It was very emotional even though I was definitely looking forward to the adventure ahead and I was full of excitement. I was also very sad because I knew that a big part of my life was over. I was never going to be a Peace Corps volunteer again and these kids that I had worked with for so long, you know, I didn't know if I would see them again. Tell them I'm a crime or I'm a little puppy. Yeah, it happens, I'm a big baby. Big baby. So I'm going to have 11 days time to start the ride. That morning I was leaving. All the kids from the neighborhood came up to my house to say their final goodbye. And I was a complete mess. I was crying like crazy. It hurt my heart to be leaving this community. Oh man, it's crazy thinking about it again. Here I am getting ready to leave. Even Esperanza heading down. I gave away most of my belongings to all of my neighbors and I only had one little Bob trailer full of my camping equipment and I was hoping that it was going to be all I needed for the next three months and it was. That ride turned out to be the catalyst for a lifetime of bike adventures. I loved every minute of that ride and I had some tough moments where I was riding through the tail end of a hurricane. This is what it looks like in this direction. Wow man. And up and down mountains all over Mexico and through the deserts and when I got home in December it was freezing cold. Deep freeze. Oh man, we're in for it. Ha. And this bike right here got me through all of it. And when I got home this bike became my primary bike. I used it to get groceries to ride around town, to go mountain biking. This bike was everything. And then I rode it from Maine to Key West. I rode it from Vancouver to Cabo San Lucas and then I rode it from San Diego to Florida. I've been called the tree hugger before but I just can't help it when you see this. Look at it. You just have to touch it and hug it. Hug it. Hug that tree. Hug it. Make out with it. Good reason why it's hanging up. This thing has treated me well over the years that I had it. It was definitely worth those $500. And do you want to know why I don't use this bike anymore? Well, it died in 2016. You see that? It just broke in half. It completely snapped. This is an aluminum frame. You can't re-weld it. That boy died a warrior's death. So I'm riding my bike up 9th Street near Mapleton charging up on the bike and all of a sudden... Look at what happened. The bike is done. They can't fix that. It's kaput. It's taken me all over the world this beautiful bike but I think that was the last rotation of those pedals. I feel bad but now I've got to walk home. Now this bike is my new Belgium 3-speed cruiser bike. And I rode this one across the country in 2009. That was actually the first time I ever went across the United States was on this bike. And everybody thought I was a little bit crazy to be riding this type of bike across the country. Riding a mountain bike is one thing but at least I had plenty of gears. This bike only had three. So going up big mountains was difficult to say the least. And New Belgium Brewery, if you don't know what it is, it's based here in Fort Collins, Colorado. They make that famous fat tire beer. Every year they come out with a limited edition cruiser bicycle. And in 2008 this was the one. And I had been to their big tour to fat bike parades and made some videos for them. And they said hey we want to give you one of our bikes and I was psyched and I was joking when they gave it to me. I said you know what, I'm going to ride this across the country. We need to start leaving our cars behind, we need to ride our bikes more, we need to be more green, right? So I'm riding with Team Wonderbike in New Belgium trying to promote people to ride their bikes more and save our beautiful world. And the whole premise behind this ride was to show people that you don't need the latest and greatest gear to do something big. And it also was an example that hey if I can ride this bike all the way across the country more people can maybe ride their bikes to the grocery store or to work. You know I've been a big bicycle advocate all my life. I love getting people out and riding their bikes again and this trip across the country was a big part of that mission. I did put SPD clipless pedals on it. I had a Brooks saddle on it as well and I pulled a burly Nomad trailer for carrying all of my stuff. I did add front brakes for safety. This bike normally is only a coaster brake and I figured coming down some of those huge mountains in California I might want a little bit more than a coaster brake and that was a good call for sure. The first day you know how California works. It's ocean and then it's BAM big mountains and I was struggling so hard. That first day I only went 30 miles and I camped in a strawberry patch and I'll never forget calling my mom freaking out being like mom I don't know if I can do this. I'm going so slow my odometer doesn't even know what to do. It's like you're not going zero miles per hour but you're not going much faster than zero. This is going to be interesting because this bike, the gearing on it, the granny gear ain't granny. It's hard. Luckily you know I got the hang of it and this bike and I became real good friends and it was solid as a rock all the way until about 50 miles away from Washington DC my final destination. I was riding on the C&O canal trail and my crank arm snapped in half. It broke in half and that does not happen to cranks. It was crazy. I am holding the crank arm from my bicycle. In a way it's kind of funny but mostly it just sucks really bad and I'm sure all you are laughing at me right now but I'm not laughing because I have to deal with this now but gotta keep smiling right. You know this bike brand new might only cost you know three or four hundred dollars it's not you know an expensive bike by any means and yeah that crank just snapped in half and I remember riding for 11 miles one-legged. Luckily I had clipless so I could you know clip in and have some power. I rode that bike 11 miles one-legged to a bike shop and got a new crank and rode it triumphantly into Washington DC. One leg resting on the bottle carrier the other one doing all the work. My left leg is going to be gigantic after this. I'll get there. I am pedaling all the way to DC. Right. I'm in Washington DC can you believe it? Now let's talk about the bikes that I currently use. This bad boy or bad girl is my priority coast cruiser. It's probably one of the nicest cruiser bikes you can buy. It's all aluminum it's rust proof and it has a Gates carbon belt drive. How many cruiser bikes have you ever ridden that have a Gates carbon belt drive? It's pretty rare and it is solid. I mainly use this bike on Thursday nights in Boulder we have a thing called the Thursday cruiser ride and that's what this bike is for. It's got some style you've got some you know lights plugged in here let's see right there bam. At night time I look really cool and it has a very very comfortable seat. I do not get saddle sores on that bad boy. It has these stylish grips three speeds it's actually the same shifting system as my new Belgium cruiser and of course every cruiser has to have a bell. This right here is the newest bike in my collection. This is called the Rebe Squib and this is my mountain bike. This is what I take when I want to go rip up the trails. This is not a bike packing bike maybe you could put a little bit of gear on this bike but it's mainly a very high end mountain bike full suspension fat tires. It's made in America it's actually made right down the street in Lyons, Colorado. These shocks MRP this is a Colorado brand. The wheels are made in the USA industry 9 same with the hubs it's just a sweet work of art and I love it. My favorite part of the bike might be this day of the dead stem cap isn't that cool? I think it's pretty cool. This front shock has 160 millimeters of travel. The rear shock has 150 this is way more travel than I've ever had on a mountain bike and I'm loving it. This bike is a lot heavier than my previous Trek fuel mountain bike but it can roll over anything that's a tank. It's got some really nice mud splatters on it right now. I like to leave them there because it makes the bike look tougher. And you all probably remember this bike. This is the Love Cycles Trek Checkpoint. So gravel bikes like this are really very popular right now in the bicycle industry and for good reason. I love them. They're really versatile. I mean if you look at this from far away you think it's just a road bike but up close you can put much fatter tires on it and you know which allows you to go on gravel roads and with a road bike you can really only go on roads and also when you're on a road bike and you're riding on roads what do you have to deal with? Cars! So I am really a big fan of getting off road to stay away from vehicles. Obviously it's impossible to do completely but if you can get off the roads a bit that's always a good thing. I have my favorite bomb proof tires on it. The Schwalbe Marathon Pluses. Nothing gets through these things. If you remember in Love Cycles neither Ally nor I got one flat tire the entire 3,000 mile journey across the country. I've still got the Iowa sticker on it from when we did Rag Bride. Almost all of my bikes have this People for Bikes sticker up front. I love people for bikes. It's a great national bicycle advocacy group that is essentially trying to make bicycling better and safer for everybody in the United States. I barely ever use it anymore mainly because I use my priority 600 as my everything bike. Okay, time to go downstairs. My final bike in the lineup is the bike that I use every single day so that's why it's down here so it's fast and easy to get to. The priority 600. This right here is the epicenter of Awesome. This is the Pinion Gearbox and it's designed after like a car transmission where all of the gears and everything are sealed inside of this. So there's really very, very little maintenance to do on one of these things. And there's a 600% gear ratio from top to bottom which is equal to or greater than most bikes with a whole bunch of cassettes right here. Since we're over here let's talk about this. I love the carbon belt drive. I want all of my bikes someday to have one of these. Very little maintenance. They last three times longer than a chain. You don't need to lube them and they're just nice and quiet. I love them. I recently put on these Surly Moloco bars and what's great about these is it gives your hands different positions when you're bike touring so you're not just in one straight bar fashion. I love this bar. I also love that sticker. This is a great commuter because it has built in lights. They're powered by the hub, the dynamo hubs. We have front lights here. A little red blinky light and what's really cool is that they're always on so you're just always super safe. I still have my Raghbri bike band on here from 2019. I love these WTB tires. They just look styling. I have them set up tubeless. Barely ever get flats on this bad boy. And don't forget you are beautiful. These bike bags are made by a boulder company called Green Guru. They used all recycled products to make them. This bike has been my workhorse for like two years now. I ride it all throughout the year and here in Colorado. Obviously we get a lot of snow and it's great in the snow. Last summer I rode it from my front door right there all the way to the Mississippi River about a thousand miles so it works as a touring bike. I have these rear racks right here and this is how I get my groceries. It's good for carrying lots of stuff and it's just a comfortable, solid ride and there's just really not enough good things I can say about it. It's just, it's one of the best bikes I've ever had in my life. Well I hope you enjoyed this video. It turned out to be a lot longer than I was planning but the Trek 8000 and cruiser really have some history worth telling and I would have a lot more bikes but I keep on giving them away which feels really good. I love paying it forward and I've also had a lot of bikes stolen from me. I should do a video on all the bikes that have been stolen. It's kind of insane and sad. So thank you so much for watching. I really appreciate it and once this whole quarantine thing is over I'm going to take these bikes outside and go on an adventure and share it with you. Please like and subscribe and share this video with all of your friends every single one. Help out this channel to grow. If you have the ability please join my Patreon and I sincerely hope you are all healthy, happy and doing alright during this crazy time.