Geoff & Gerry had a great conversation with Dr. Tim Erwin recording our podcast episode 13.
Tim started racing his bike on Tuesday and Thursday like training series on it's called River Road in Baton Rouge. from the a Baton Rouge Bicycle Club, Tim moved on to the LSU Cycling club. you didn't have to go to LSU to be a part of the cycling club. We talk about his time as an exchange student spending time in France in 1993 where he also raced and got to experience what it’s like riding in Europe.
When Tim returned to the US, he started racing for a team called Tokyo Joe's. Tim talks about how it was riding for this team "essentially the Bad News Bears of us Pro Cycling" and the races he competed in.
Geoff and Tim call up memories how it was racing in the US back in those days, competing with Jittery Joe and riding against Gord Fraser, Chris Tilton and others.
At the end of 2000 Tim forced himself to take a real hard look at what’s next for him and his cycling career, we talk about his considerations and his decision to go back to school.
There's a great exchange talking about the character you build with cycling and how you deal with adversity and what it takes and requires to be a cyclist. The mental toughness you develop with cycling competitively sets you up for success in life. How cycling teaches you resilience and your return of investment. We even touch upon how cycling relates to Brazilian jiu jitsu!
Tim still cycles today using it to maintain his overall fitness which support his BJJ. He enjoys cycling on his trainer using Zwift and talks about how technology has evolved over the years.
Tim is a DR and works as a radiologist, we talk about his experience with Covid-19 as a frontline worker and the long-term impact it can have on athletes when diagnosed with the virus. Tim also goes deeper into taking precautions and impact it can have riding in groups when someone is carrying the virus with him/her. Why social distancing, what is the reproduction rate and the importance of wearing masks and washing your hands.
We then have a conversation about racism in cycling and how Tim experienced this himself as a black cyclist. The fact that there are so few black cyclists in the US when you look at the size of the nation and the opportunity to become a cycling powerhouse when you look at the talent pool available.
We talk about why Tim always brings his receipts with him to the bicycle shop, because people will question how he got the bike, and if it’s not stolen.
There’s a need for more conversation, more black people in leadership positions and black cycling role models for black kids to look up to. We might not yield results for 5 or 10 years and realize that we won’t change overnight because of how deeply engrained racism is America. Getting to the point where we cannot accept this anymore and it has to be called out, just not letting little things slide anymore.
We talk about role models like Celine del carmen Alvarado, Justin and Cory Williams and Rashaan Bahati who are doing an amazing job promoting racial diversity in the peloton.
(Jittery Joe's was a UCI Continental team consisting of professional and amateur riders that compete primarily in USA Cycling Professional Tour and UCI America Tour road bicycle racing events. Its sponsor was the American coffeehouse chain, Jittery Joe's.)