These are special times, challenging times, and this is a special edition of Fast Talk. And I say that not because we discuss COVID-19 in this episode, but because this is the last episode of Fast Talk to be co-released on the VeloNews channel. For those of you who have already made the switch to the Fast Talk channel, thank you. To those just coming over, welcome. For all of you, please help us spread the word that all future episodes of Fast Talk will be released on this channel exclusively. Use your social media connections, and when they return, your group rides, to help us migrate everyone here. Send your friends to their favorite podcast app, have them search for the Fast Talk podcast, and subscribe. The success of Fast Talk depends on everyone joining us here. In the episode today, as a way to say goodbye to our good friends at VeloNews, we invited editor-in-chief Fred Dreier to join us on the show to interview both Trevor and me, about Fast Talk—where we’ve been, where we’re going, and to discuss some of the highlights from our long history together.
Primary Guest Fred Dreier: Editor-In-Chief, VeloNews
Episode Transcript
00:00
Welcome to Fast Talk, the Velonews podcast and everything you need to know to ride like a pro.
Chris Case 00:09
Hello, and welcome to Fast Talk, Episode 103. I’m your host Chris Case. These are special times, challenging times. And this is a special edition of Fast Talk. And I say that not because we discuss COVID-19 in this episode, but because this is the last episode of Fast Talk to be co-released on the Velonews channel. For those of you who have already made the switch to the Fast Talk channel, thank you. To those just coming over, welcome. For all of you, please help us spread the word that all future episodes of Fast Talk will be released on this channel exclusively. Use your social media connections and when they return your group rides to help us migrate everyone here. Send your friends to your favorite podcast app, have them search for the Fast Talk podcast and subscribe. Success of Fast Talk depends on everyone joining us here. In the episode today, as a way to say goodbye to our good friends at Velonews, we invited editor in chief Fred Dreier to join us on the show to interview both Trevor and me about Fast Talk. Where we’ve been where we’re going, and to discuss some of the highlights from our long history together. And with that, I’ll do something I’m not sure I’ve ever done before. Turn the show over to Fred Dreier.
Fred Dreier 01:35
Welcome to Fast Talk. This is not Chris Case. And this is not Trevor Connor. This is Fred Dreier. I’m the editor in chief of Velonews. And I am going to be one of the hosts on this very special episode 103 of Fast Talk. This is a historic episode of Fast Talk because it is going to be the final episode of Fast Talk that airs on the Velonews podcast channel, and that is produced under the umbrella of Velonews. There’s some big news going on with Fast Talk. Fast talk is spreading its wings, and it is going to fly off alongside the Fast Talk Labs company to create its own podcast network, podcast channel, podcast, Empire, dare I say.
Chris Case 02:28
Yes, empire like it.
Fred Dreier 02:30
In today’s episode of Fast Talk. I’m going to be talking with Chris and Trevor all about the future plans of Fast Talk as well as we’re going to look back we’re gonna get back in the wayback machine and talk about the origins of Fast Talk how it has progressed over these last four years. And we’re just gonna we’re gonna get personal.
Fred Dreier 02:57
We’re going to we’re going to talk stories, we’re going to talk about emotion and feelings. Of course, I have to intro my two guests on Fast Talk today. Chris Case, and Trevor Connor. Chris, we’re going to start with you. We are recording this remotely. We are in very much in the era of coronavirus, COVID-19. Therefore, we are not in the same room. Chris, give us a little sense of what what your life is like these days?
How Chris Case is dealing with Corona Virus
Chris Case 03:28
Well, yeah, it’s very interesting times, I’d say in a lot of ways, very challenging times. We’re making the best of it. In the Case, family. We live in a quiet little town outside of Boulder. So we’re we’re spending more time inside than we’d like perhaps but getting out on trails. Our young daughter is getting pretty antsy. She’s out of school, and, you know, being a little bit of a terror now and again, but we’re we’re managing it well and keeping abreast of the news. I think, in a lot of ways. We’re very fortunate. Things are not particularly bad in our neck of the woods. But you know, watching from afar, the places that are really struggling, it’s it’s hard. It’s a difficult time.
Fred Dreier 04:18
And you Trevor, everybody, happy and healthy?
How Trevor Connor is Dealing with Corona Virus
Trevor Connor 04:21
Look, in terms of the social isolation thing. I have been preparing for this for years. So the sad thing is, we just opened our new office and nobody is here. And we’re kind of on on hold, which is a little sad, because we were all excited about this, but doing fine. And thankfully, this is all stuff that we can do remotely that we will keep putting out podcasts, we’ll keep putting something up to keep people entertained through this time.
Fred Dreier 04:49
So Trevor, you’re one of those people when the definition of quarantine, all of a sudden got to be very popular and very top of mind you looked at it and you’re like wait, that’s that’s like my daily life.
Trevor Connor 05:00
Pretty much. It was like so. So what’s changing here? Yeah. I yeah, I kind of go from being socially isolated at my apartment to being socially isolated at my office.
Fred Dreier 05:13
Socially isolated on the bike rides to Trevor, a couple weeks ago, I was out running and I saw you.
Trevor Connor 05:18
Yeah
Fred Dreier 05:19
Riding and you’re like, yeah, I’m going on this like massive six hour ride riding up into the mountains where it’s snowing and then all by myself, and I was just like, Oh, my gosh. Oh, Trevor.
Trevor Connor 05:28
This is this is what I mean, like that. I have an excuse to be me. Like, I’m going up into the mountains by myself. I’m like is that to get away from the whole virus? I’m like, sure. Yeah, that’s why I’m doing it.
Chris Case 05:43
The New World Order built for Trevor Connor.
The New Era of Fast Talk
Fred Dreier 05:47
Well, guys, let’s get into this new world order of Fast Talk. So as I mentioned at the top of the show, this is the final episode, that Fast Talk will be recorded under the umbrella of Velonews. What is the new era of Fast Talk, the podcast going to look like? What are the big hopes and dreams here?
Chris Case 06:05
It’s an interesting time to be launching a new business. And as we’ve mentioned on the show, before, we had plans for not only the podcasts themselves, but these performance experience, these training camps and of course, those are on hold now. People aren’t traveling wouldn’t be prudent for us to bring together a group of people in this time. So we’re in a little bit of a state of flux. But the the hope, when things get back to normal is that, yeah, the Fast Talk Labs is not only a podcast network with Fast Talk as a sort of its flagship show, and new shows off course with Grent Halili. Another great coach who’s bringing on personalities for his show, as well as Colby Pierce, who I’m sure our listeners are familiar with that name. Great coach, fitting guru, excellent rider and time trialist and our record holder. He’s going to have his show cycling in alignment coming soon. But the the camps, yeah, they’re on hold for the time being. And we’ll just have to see when we can relaunch them, the hopefully in the near future.
Fred Dreier 07:21
But the fact that Fast Talk will be one of multiple different podcasts about training and performance part of a larger podcast family, I think that’s really exciting. And I think that’s really important. Because, you know, when I look back at the history of Fast Talk, and the history of the podcast with Velonews, it was always something that, you know, you guys had talked about, which was, boy, we have so many ideas, and we have, you know, we’d like to have growth, and we’d like to expand from what we’re doing. And we at Velonews, we just didn’t quite have the resources, or the manpower, or the bandwidth to really expand. And so I’m really excited for you guys to be able to go out and do this, because I think that’s something that you know, just from listening to episodes of Fast Talk, and doing my own podcast, you start to see that, once you really dip to get the creative juices flowing around a podcast and talk to interesting people, you start to realize the limitless potential for content around even just a topic like training and performance. Like start with training and performance and then drill down from there and you start to realize, oh my gosh, there’s an endless amount of topics to hit and explore reporting to do and interesting people to talk to. And that’s what I’m really excited about with what you guys are doing.
Trevor Connor 08:40
That’s actually what I’m also, thanks for bringing that up. I’m really excited about that as well. You know, Chris, and I definitely fill a niche. But as you said, there’s it’s just unlimited what you can talk about. There’s so many other niches to fill. And we’re really excited to bring in other hosts who can talk about things that maybe aren’t the best things for Chris and I to talk about. Like I love the fact, we’ve gotten a ton of feedback and Colby’s been on the show that people love his holistic approach. That that’s not me. That, I’m never gonna be able to do that. So now we can have Colby do a show that has much more of a different focus a different tone to it that I think is going to give a lot of our listeners something that like I said Chris and I couldn’t do. The other thing we’re really excited about is this also justifies now setting up a more professional studio as opposed to my trying to edit on the computer. We have Jana who we absolutely adore who has come on as our producer who’s bringing up the whole quality of the of all the shows. It’s kind of the whole inside joke for a while there your show and our show were edited by my nephew’s, Cam and Mac. And as I understand it, the joke at Velonews is was they were actually one person?
Fred Dreier 10:02
Well Mac spelled backwards is Cam.
Trevor Connor 10:04
Yes. Which was actually intentional.
Chris Case 10:07
The palindrome brothers.
Where Fast Talk All Started
Fred Dreier 10:10
My podcast is still edited by Cam/Mac, Mac Cam, Cam Mac. And they do they do a great job. But yeah know, having a producer in house to be able to work on these things is going to be a huge step for for you guys. Well, guys, let’s get back in the wayback machine. I want to talk about the origins of Fast Talk, because I still remember it quite well. It was the Summer of 2016, I had just come back to Velonews. I started my career abilities in 2004. I was there through 2009. And then came back in the Spring of 2016. And Trevor, we had not met. I had read your stuff, your training content in Velonews Magazine, and I had heard a lot about you. I’d heard most I’d heard about you from Neil Rogers, as you know, when there was some year where like, Neil was really trying to get fit and get fast. And he was like, I have Trevor. He’s coaching me, and I’m gonna, like, you know, break all the Strava records or something like that. And I went this guy, this guy must really know his stuff.
Trevor Connor 11:13
It was gonna say, I stand by everything Neil told you was wrong. Anything he said about me? Don’t believe it.
Fred Dreier 11:20
And then I met you in the Velonews offices. And I remember it was after a couple of weeks, you approached me and you said, you know, hey, we have this idea. Me and, Kaylee, and we want to do a podcast and I have the hardware and I have the ideas. And, you know, it was it was a simpler time, Trevor. It was the Summer 2016. We’re in the final months of the Obama administration. Batman vs. Superman had just come out, giving us lots of things to make fun of, namely, the movie Batman vs. Superman. I’m trying to think how else I was single and childless.
Chris Case 11:59
Wow, a lot has changed since then.
Trevor Connor 12:00
Were you single then? I thought you were you’re already married. Wow.
Fred Dreier 12:04
Yeah I wasn’t married. Yeah well I- you know, we were together. But I wasn’t married.
Chris Case 12:07
He calls himself single hope your wife doesn’t listen to this episode.
Fred Dreier 12:11
I was going by my tax form, my tax filing.
Chris Case 12:14
Here we go. Yes. The official status on your taxes.
Trevor Connor 12:17
Yeah, I forgot that you came in. I saw I had been living in Colorado. I moved back to Toronto in the Spring of 2015. And that’s right when you came in, that’s right around when you took over, I’d forgotten about that.
Fred Dreier 12:31
And I just remember you talking about this idea. And, you know, I never asked you at the time where the origins of the Fast Talk podcast idea had come from. Because when you talked to me about it, it seemed like it was fairly, fully formed. But where did you get the idea.
Trevor Connor 12:48
So, I was trying to basically find my place. Established myself as a coach up in Toronto. I had to get a whole new clientele. And so one of the things I did in the Winter of 2016 was I signed up to help run a morning trainer class, this was a class it was every day of the week. I took two of the mornings, which meant I had to get up at 4:30, go to this trainer studio, open it up, get everything set up so that the clientele could come in at 5:15 and do their morning workout. The workouts were all pre-programmed. So all I had to do was set it up and then basically stand there for two hours while they did their routine, which was kind of boring. It was early morning. So I was looking for something to do. And one of the classes I was just like, anybody got some training questions? And they started asking me questions, I started answering and then that became the routine, they would do their workout and the whole time they just be like, you know, right before an interval, they’d hit me with a question. And while they were doing their interval, I tried to give them an answer. And everybody seemed to kind of like it, it helped me pass the time. And finally after like a month or two of that a couple of them said to me, You should do a podcast. And I just thought about it for a minute went that sounds kind of cool. Like literally there’s like you should just bring in a recorder and record these sessions. And thought about it and went back to you and just said look I’m doing this every morning kind of informally. Let’s let’s actually record this let’s do something with it. So I’m glad I fooled you into thinking this was heavily planned and I had all the gear because that’s really all it all it was.
Fred Dreier 14:41
Now were you a big podcast junkie at the time? I mean, were you like cranking through episodes of the Joe Rogan experience and like Mark Maron and you know working on your like drivetime radio voice? Hey, Trevor here, we’re gonna check in with booger and Steve. How’s traffic? Or was Is this a completely new medium for you?
Trevor Connor 15:02
I had listened to a few. But no, this was a completely new medium. So yeah, I wasn’t basing it on any show that I heard. Actually, it was a combination of taking what I was doing in those classes. Which was just, they would hit me with a topic about training. And I would just discuss it and and try to answer they’re question- like so they’d hit me with an initial topic, I kind of give my overview. And then they they would ask me follow up questions. And that’s kind of the way the class went. So tried to structure show around that. And then it was also looking at my articles and going well, I always do interviews in my articles. And those interviews are really important. And what I had learned writing for Velonews, was the training pieces shouldn’t be just Trevor giving his opinion. I but I did that with my first couple articles, and I can’t, Chris might very well have been you said, you really need to have interviews, it really shouldn’t just be you. And when I started doing interviews, and seeing how much better that made my articles I just went, I’ll never go back. So when we did the podcast, it was the same thing. I’m like, I don’t want it to be the one thing I don’t want it to be like the classes is me just sitting there spewing my opinion. So that’s where we came up the idea of not only bringing in guests, but let’s do side interviews. And fortunately, I’ve been writing for Velonews, for what, five years at that point. And I recorded every one of my interviews. So I had all these recordings so that I could toss in.
Fred Dreier 16:40
Well, I just remember that it hit. It had hit at a really important time, I thought for felonies I had just come on as executive editor. And one of the things that I had wanted to do was completely revamp the publication’s digital side. I thought the magazine was in really good shape. But that from a digital perspective, Velonews was still sort of operating in how it had operated, sort of in 2011-2012, with primarily race reports and some feature stories. But you know, it was there wasn’t any real blogging going on. There wasn’t podcast, there wasn’t video and I looked at some of these other successful media entities in the sports space and said, you know, there’s definitely opportunity to do podcasts and to do video and to do like opinion blogs and column writing. But there needs to be sort of a push in that direction. And so I was putting together thoughts of how to push the staff in that direction from a writing perspective. And then when you came to me with this idea of doing podcasts, it was like, okay, well, this is great, because, you know, launching podcast is something that I’ve wanted to do. I was actually I was jealous, Trevor, because I wanted-
Trevor Connor 17:52
I remember that
Fred Dreier 17:53
-my own podcast.
Trevor Connor 17:54
The first thing you said- yeah, the first thing you said to me when I propose it to you is like, I’ve been thinking about a Velonews podcast, I really want to do it. But I’m too focused on the magazine right now. And I could sense you’re like, damn it, you’re beating me to the punch.
Fred Dreier 18:08
Or beating me to the punch, who is this Canadian with his friendly and polite ways? And so you guys, you and Kaylee did it and you launched it in sort of late Summer 2016. What do you remember about this? Some of those first shows, and what I remember was just like, you know, Trevor, coming to the office taking over the conference room. Lots of wires, and microphones, and like, doodads that I didn’t know the electronic doodads and I didn’t really know what they were and then stealing Kaylee for hours at a time when I wish he was actually doing work on the magazine and then recording these podcasts. What are your memories from that time?
Trevor’s Memories From his First Few Podcasts
Trevor Connor 18:48
I do apologize about that. Yeah, because I was in Toronto for years it was I would fly to Boulder for two weeks. And we would record like eight episodes all at once. You know, just pound amount. So yeah, I would basically initially I was stealing Kaylee and then I was stealing Chris and for those two weeks. That’s all we did. And that’s all I focused on. And even though we launched I think it was September or late August 2016. We recorded our first set of episodes in April. That’s how long it took us and I love that you say we have the gear because after we pitched it to you, Kaylee and I are like how do we record this? And Kaylee looked up an article and saw reference to what’s called an H4N which is a podcast recorder, so we ordered one. And then we went to the place where I was staying which had horrible acoustics. Put this H4N in the middle of the table used its built in mics which you should never do. You should hook up proper mics and tried recording a few episodes. And I then went home found recording software called Audacity and tried to edit these and discovered just how bad a job we had done. And I actually spent a month trying to find something that could take the reverb like it sounded like we recorded in a cathedral. And it took me a month to find a filter that took enough of the reverb out that you could actually listen to that first episode. Then as I was editing the episode, I treated it like writing, I tried to cut out individual words, I tried to piece sentences together. I literally tried to edit it the way you would edit writing.
Fred Dreier 20:36
Anyone who has done a podcast or dipped their toe in podcast is no doubt familiar with the H4N in the middle of the room podcast. That’s how I tried to record my first podcast interview. Poor Danny Pate. I had him for like an hour telling old foot like goofy stories. And it was completely unusable and terrible audio and I apologize again, Danny Pate for wasting your time on that. I remember that timber quite well, yeah, you would, you would travel into Boulder, and record all these podcasts. And I always felt really bad because I saw how much time was going into it. And also how much you know, you would tell me like each episode, these like half hour to 40 minute episodes, I’m spending, you know, five to 10 hours editing them. And I thought wow, podcasting is the least efficient medium we have for getting content across. It’s so fun to listen to. But oh my gosh, like this is like, bordering on writing a 3,000 word magazine feature story in terms of time.
Trevor Connor 21:41
But that is I am also obsessive compulsive. And obsessive compulsive people probably shouldn’t be podcast editors because I can’t hear and and not take it out.
The Early Guests on Fast Talk
Fred Dreier 21:54
Who were some of those early guests, you had some of the people that helped you guys refine your style and gain momentum.
Trevor Connor 22:02
I’ve tried to think the first actual true guests that we have, because initially, some of the early ideas, I love looking back and just going, wow was that actually what we were planning. When Kaylee and I talked about it, we actually had this whole idea that we were going to play characters. So I was going to really, you know, they were a version of ourselves. So I was going to be this super incredibly nerdy scientist who could only talk science, and this is the point where all our listeners are going. So you’re still doing that right? Then we were like, there has to be themes to every article. So we need to do Mythbusters, we need to do Race Series, there, there was going to be the types of episodes and every one of our episodes was going to fit into one of those types. And that lasted a little bit, but very quickly just went nah, it’s really about the topic. But I would say our first 10-15 episodes were just Kaylee and I recording. And then we would throw inside interviews from from past article interviews that I did, I’m trying to think of when was the first time we actually brought in a guest. But it was, it would have been much later. It might have been the episode 13, Picking a Power Meter. I know we had a guest for that. I’m trying to remember who it was.
Fred Dreier 23:26
Well, to me the secret sauce for what Fast Talk would become and the really, really fascinating part was that you started to get feedback pretty early on from listeners and people writing in with questions or concerns. And that to me is always a sign that something is good when people are engaging with it with your the content you’re putting out whether it’s a magazine. Whether it’s someone writing in a letter to webletters@velonews.com calling me a moron for the feature story. Or tweeting mean things, because they thought that the Hot Take I put out on Twitter or on on the website was completely wrong. When you start to get feedback, that’s always a good sign because it means people are A) like consuming your content and B) it is resonating with them for whatever reason that they want to reach out. Um, when did you start to see the emails and the letters and the feedback starting to come in?
How Feedback From Listeners Has Helped Fast Talk Grow
Trevor Connor 24:26
That’s a good question, because we didn’t really have an email or any sort of social feed for Fast Talk, initially. So it was really kind of coming through you and you were sending them on to me and my guess is we got a whole bunch of negative feedback that you were kind enough to spare me from. I was getting feedback from other riders when I was going to races that’s where I first got it from and actually it was because this tended to be friends. It tended to be very positive feedback. I still remember, it was funny, we were really concerned about keeping the episodes short. So if you look at our first few, they were 20-30 minutes long. And the first bit of feedback I ever got was at a race and a friend of mine said, “Why are you only doing 20 minutes? Like, I don’t have time to get into the episode before it’s done?” And that shocked me. I thought we were going too long. After that, yeah, you started filtering emails to me, but more of what we got were follow up questions. Could you explain this? Can you help me with this? I’m doing this with my training, what would you suggest? I think that’s been more of our feedback.
When Fast Talk Brought on Chris Case as a Second Host
Fred Dreier 25:43
And now, Chris, at a certain point, you know, Kaylee had left velonews. And we were trying to decide what to do with Fast Talk. And Trevor was adamant that he wanted to stay with Velonews. And you had developed a pretty good friendship and working relationship with Trevor, and, you know, ultimately, you did come on as the second host, but what, where were you at with your own content creation and your own interest around training and sports science, when the opportunity to come on board with Fast Talk was open to you?
Chris Case 26:18
Yeah, the, the relationship was already there with Trevor. And so I was working closely with him on his training articles for the magazine, we would occasionally do some, some really in depth feature articles. Maybe that came a little bit later, but they dovetailed with sort of the work that we were doing together. Training specific, physiologic- physiologically, in depth investigations of one topic or another. And, you know, when the opportunity came to me to be the co-host, I think there was both a interest and a nervousness about it. First of all, having a science background and a journalism background, I could combine them those two things into the podcast, and hopefully do it pretty effectively. And that was interesting to me. But, you know, not someone who listened to podcasts at that time, not someone who took any broadcast journalism classes in school. So if you’d go back to those first episodes, where I was on the show, it’s essentially Trevor by himself, because I was so green, I was very shy. I wasn’t really saying much. When I did say things. It was one or two syllables at most. And yeah, it was it was fun, but nerve wracking all at the same time initially.
Fred Dreier 27:52
I mean, I was excited when you wanted to do it, Chris, just because, as you know, someone who had been following your writing and the work that you did, I could see that you had this real passion and interest for sports science. But I also knew that we at the magazine and website just had sort of a limited ability to turn you loose on that because your day job was so heavily involved with the production of the magazine and editing everything and managing the content coming in and out. And I had always been like, add here, this guy has the science background, and he’s really passionate about training stuff. But like, we have Trevor he’s running our training stuff. And he gets to do a couple features a year around it, but like, where’s there going to be an outlet for you to, you know, pursue your inner your inner dork. And so, Fast Talk when Kaylee took off and you were, you know, we’re looking for another Fast Talk host. I mean, to me, I was really excited about it. Trevor, though he pushed back he was like, I can’t work with this guy, Chris. He’s a diva. He demands his own green room. I mean.
Chris Case 28:55
Oh, yeah. Right. Trevor’s the diva.
Trevor Connor 28:58
Yeah well, how’d you do that to me Fred? It’s the Canadian jokes. It’s just it never ends.
Fred Dreier 29:06
Oh, hey, there Fred. I can’t work with this guy.
Trevor Connor 29:09
Actually. So the first right when we sat down to do our first recording ever with Chris, I could see that he was a little nervous because this was his first podcast and he just looked at me and goes, “What do I do if I can’t think of something to say?” And I still I just immediately without even thinking responded.”Oh just make fun of me for being Canadian. You’re good at that.”
Chris Case 29:30
Yep, it stuck. That method has stuck. Sorry. Sorry. Everybody out there. I’m gonna throw in a Canadian apology there for making fun of Trevor. But yeah, he gave me permission long, long ago, and I’ve just he’s never taken that back. So-
Trevor Connor 29:47
There was, I didn’t expect this. There was a change of tone in the episodes after Chris came on board and I think it’s a it’s a really good change of tone. First of all, you as you pointed out with both Kaylee and Chris, they didn’t have a ton of time for this. So one of the reasons it’s the show’s always been more heavy on me. Chris has a science background like I like to point out you you, you are neuroscientist. But really, you mostly just had the time to come and do the recording. That was definitely the case with Kaylee. Kaylee would walk into the recording room go, “Okay, what’s the topic today?” So I was the one who had the time to do the research to do all the preparation. And that’s why I tend to be more the informational side. But when Kaylee was on the show, Kaylee wanted much more to keep it light. He didn’t like the science side as much. So as soon as I would start to geek out, he would just be like, Nope, stop that. Chris gets the science side. As we got further into the show, Chris would start doing preparation for the shows come to them, knowing what he was talking about. So I found after Chris came on board, there was a little more liberty to say, let’s really dig into the science of this. And so from what I have seen that we’ve had a very positive response to that.
Chris Case 31:04
Yeah, I mean, the the number of quick- to get back to the the question about how much feedback we get and how that is an indicator of people’s engagement with the show, you wouldn’t believe how much feedback we get. Whether it’s through Instagram, or Twitter, or Facebook, or our personal email addresses or our general email address or through Strava, or through training peaks. And they reach out via every method with great questions. And it’s actually we have to do a lot of sorry, we we give us some time to get back to you because we’re somewhat inundated with the amount of questions and feedback that we get. So we love that. We have a hard time keeping up with it sometimes and and now we have a Google voicemail system, so people can call us and leave voicemails, and we get a lot of great questions. And that’s awesome to see. Because we all we all know, that is a great sign of very passionate fan base and engaged fan base and inquisitive fan base. And that’s exactly what we want to do.
Fred Dreier 32:16
So this was at the end of this was like Q3 2017, when the switch happened when Chris came on as the co-host. And it actually corresponded with a wild time in the history of Velonews, as well where our parent company that competitor group at the time, had decided to, well, first of all, it had been acquired by Iron Man. And they were really doubling down on being an events company and they looked at the media assets and didn’t really want to own those anymore. So they sold them back to Velonews his previous ownership, a guy named Felix McGowan and his new company pocket outdoor media in the Fall of 2007. And we were really excited and hopeful to have new ownership. You know, it was a different level of I guess, sort of financial strength that we had, there was a lot of interest to grow digital and grow Fast Talk. But there was also just that you know, I won’t bore listeners with the minutiae of what was going on behind the scenes but you know, Trevor there were definitely years there in which this was a complete labor of love and not a big you know, cash producer for you were Fast Talk was very much based off of your passion and not necessarily like the cash cow that everyone seems to think podcasts are. This era I felt like is when that stock really started to hit its stride, you know, 2017 and onward when Chris came on board, but I also know that during this era was not exactly when you were like bringing home the bacon with Fast Talk. What was your vision for what Fast Talk could become during this time? And you know, what did you how did you carry yourself through this era when, like, you know, the checks coming in weren’t particularly large.
The Early Vision of Fast Talk
Trevor Connor 34:17
As I said, I always say to people, this was my evening job and you you hit the nail on the head this was always just a passion. I enjoyed doing this. This was something where I felt if we did this right, if we got the right guests in, if I did my research and came prepared, we could get really good information out to people and to be totally honest with you, for a long time, it was never anything more than that for me. I never saw this as I was gonna make a lot of money as you know, when we talked about it. You didn’t have the budget for it was Velonews was in flux. And we talked about doing the podcast and you said Trevor, we need these but we don’t have, we aren’t being given the budget for these right now. So I can’t offer you anything. And I remember how bad you felt about that. I was like, that’s okay. This, this is my evening job I coach during the day. And that’s what it was for a really long time.
Fred Dreier 35:16
But did you? I mean, at that time, did you have visions for like, hey, this could be a standalone company, this could give you a media company, this could be a platform for anything much larger, or was it very much contained to just, hey, I like doing this I think there’s a real need for it Velo- it really helps Velonews out and so I’m going to continue doing it.
Trevor Connor 35:34
You know, that came later. So you actually you asked me earlier about the the big guests and and kind of big moments. And I was actually kind of looking through old episodes. Where you and Chris were talking there. And I would say actually, one of the the big moments in the show was literally what it looks like it was two episodes after Chris came on board, probably not the second episode recorded. But the second one that we put up with Chris, where we did that is FTP dead episode. So there had been a debate going on. Neil Henderson’s company had said that FTP is dead, they’re making that statement, what they were saying is, it’s more than FTP. We have multiple different variables that show our profile as an athlete, it’s not just one number. So we did an episode, we got a few of the people involved in this debate on the show, and they gave their perspective. And then some of the other people who had been invited but but chose not to come on the show, they contacted us and said, “Wait a minute, we want to come and give our side.” And so we did a follow up episode where they got to give their perspective. And that was the first time with Fast Talk, I felt like we’re actually in this space. This is this is more than just us sitting here in a back room recording a show that we don’t even know how many people are listening to that we’re actually having some sort of an impact. And that’s the moment when I went okay, there could be more to this. This is something that we could grow, and hopefully help out the whole cycling community.
Big Moments on Fast Talk in The Past
Fred Dreier 37:19
Yeah, I think there were a number of highlight shows when I think about the history of Fast Talk, obviously, early on, there was the it was like the budget, like if you had $2,000/$5,000 to spend on a coach on gear, or something else. What would you know, what was your money best spent on?
Trevor Connor 37:40
We had the $2,000 episode, which that was the first one where we got actual feedback. That was episode five.
Fred Dreier 37:48
And there was the FTP debate. Then there was something about I’m looking at my notes here, there was like a Swedish Fish debate that like really broke through the that broke through the news cycle to make everyone stopped in their tracks and say, wait, what?
Chris Case 38:02
Quite possibly the greatest moment in the history of Fast Talk.
Trevor Connor 38:06
The infamous Episode 15.
Chris Case 38:11
He says with a sigh.
Trevor Connor 38:12
It looks so-I used to mark which visit to Boulder we recorded different episodes. So this was August of 2016. We had recorded about seven/eight episodes in and it was a short trip. I was only here for I think eight, nine days. So Kaylee and I were exhausted. We had just finished recording all these. And literally as we finished what we thought was our last episode, Dan walks into the studio, carrying a whole bunch of race food, race drinks, drops them on the table and goes we’re doing an episode.
Chris Case 38:51
And Dan’s the tech editor who would had-had collected all of this stuff.
Trevor Connor 38:55
Yeah, I’m exhausted. I’m grouchy. Kaylee’s kind of in the same mood. We hadn’t prepared for this at all. So is breaking my rule of always preparing for an episode and I don’t know if our guests know this. But even if it’s a topic that I have written about and talked about 100 times, it doesn’t matter before every episode, I go and reread research. I go and try to find new research. This is critical to me that I’m never just phoning it in. I have broken that rule a few times, I’ll admit, but that’s that’s the ideal for me. So here was the first episode were like, yeah, we don’t even have an outline for this one. And I don’t know what possessed me but I just leaned into the grouchiness and we just started pulling these things off the table making fun of them, talking about the ridiculous ingredients in them. And finally, at one point I made the statement of this stuff is no better than candy just by Swedish Fish. That’s what I do. And that has stuck with us ever since.
Fred Dreier 40:00
Do you still eat Swedish Fish on your rides?
Trevor Connor 40:03
I went through a thing where after I said that I’m like, I have to live this now. So then anytime I stopped at a gas station and I needed food, I bought Swedish Fish. And about a year ago, I got really sick of them, so I haven’t bought them since.
Chris Case 40:18
And I can absolutely attest to this. I mean, he would, he would prepare for rides by maybe lubing his chain, but more importantly, going to the store and finding the largest bag of Swedish Fish he could find. And that was what he had shoved in his back pocket.
Trevor Connor 40:34
Look, it was grouchy. There is some truth to this. I have always said that most of these nutrition products are just candy with better marketing. There are good products, there are products that are better than Swedish Fish. But if I’m out for a six hour ride, I’m not going to spend $10 on expensive rice food, I’m gonna buy the $2 bag of candy.
Chris Case 41:01
That’s Trevor in a nutshell.
Fred Dreier 41:03
Now, guys, I know you’ve also, you know, you’ve been able to really deep to dig into the community of coaches out there. Guys like Grant Holicky, Colby Pearce, you mentioned they’re going to be on your episodes. But what was who are some other people that you were able to bring into Fast Talk that you feel really opened your eyes to, you know, some of the bigger storylines going on and training and sports science?
Trevor Connor 41:27
I think, obviously, the ones that I’ve been really excited about are some of the top name physiologists we brought on the show. I mean, the first big name that we brought in was was Dr. Holly, who’s a huge name in sports nutrition. And I was basically the whole time sitting there kind of shocked that we had had a name like that on the show. And we’ve had several really big names in the field. But I think kind of a pivotal one that become a important part of the show was that episode 51 when we brought Dr. Seiler in. Do you remember that? Chris, do you feel the same? That was kind of a?
Chris Case 42:07
Yeah, I mean, absolutely. That that was to me. One of those moments where I actually saw Trevor get giddy, which I don’t you don’t you know, something’s going on. When Trevor gets giddy.
Trevor Connor 42:21
This is a big one for me.
Chris Case 42:23
Yeah, this was, this was equivalent to, you know, the nine year old who has had Eddie Mercs, his posters on his wall, his whole life and then gets to meet the man in person. This was Trevor meeting- he called him Jay-Z on the show. He’s like you are the Jay-Z of exercise physiology. So it was really interesting to sort of, you know, forgive me, but I didn’t really know who Dr. Seiler was. But, I could tell based solely on Trevor’s emotions that day that this was a huge thing. And and since then, obviously, learned a lot more about Dr. Seiler’s the first exercise physiologist to have a TED Talk with lots and lots and lots of views. He has been on our show multiple times, we have had influence in the sports science realm, because of his ideas around polarized training. And the-the he’s used Fast Talk sort of as a tool to get his message out. And it’s been incredible. I mean, that was definitely one of the more pivotal, if not the most pivotal moments in Fast Talk in terms of our influence.
Fast Talk’s Big Progression in the Last Year
Fred Dreier 43:43
So guys, you have launched this company, Fast Talk and Fast Talk Labs. You know, I can only imagine that the last year a lot of work and planning has gone into this, you know, take me through the last year or so. What-What have you guys been thinking about? How did this vision come together? And how did you go about executing it?
Trevor Connor 44:03
I- it’s tough to think of here is a moment where it’s like, yep, we’re doing this. I think it was something that evolved. As a lot of our listeners know, I’m also involved with the Paleo Diet and I actually now own the trademark and the Paleo Diet, I now own that business. So there was a certain point where I personally was starting to look at I’m building a business here. I want to do something in the in the media, where is all this going? Chris had always been great. He and I would get together whenever I was in Boulder and he was being a good adviser to me on the business, how to model the business, how to build the business. We did a whole bunch of kind of fun planning sessions together of what could a business model look like? And I think at some point point, this concept of Fast Talk Labs and Chris was the one who came up with the name Fast Talk Labs got folded into that whole conversation. Is that-is that how you remember it? Chris? It’s it’s, like said, I can’t think of very specific moments or aha moments. That’s kinda I see it.
Chris Case 45:18
Yeah, we were working closely together, I was still fully employed at Velonews full in the midst of being managing editor. But we would have these these weeks, essentially, when you would come down from Toronto. All hands on deck in, so to speak, in terms of Fast Talk production, setting up interviews, recording them back to back to back. But somewhere in there, yeah, we would also carve out a chunk of time and you and I would sit down and we pretend like we were business people.
Trevor Connor 45:55
Still pretending
Chris Case 45:56
Still pretending. Like, we know what the heck we’re doing. And we just start talking and talking and talking. Like, we could do it this way. We could do it this way and writing stuff down and drawing on whiteboards. And, you know, just it was it was a it was a long process in a way because yeah, we neither of us really had the background to say, “Oh, this is the way we should do it.” We kind of had to get there through a lot of talking. So yeah, it was, it was fun. And originally, I think it was more of just a an exercise and experiment, if you will. Which we both like to do. We weren’t I don’t even think we really knew whether we were going to execute on it or not. Or if we were just going to sort of talk about it to learn, because that’s another thing we like to do. But then yeah, low and behold, we just said let’s do this thing. And then we committed and here we are.
Fred Dreier 46:54
Well, I could tell from my perspective, Chris, that that at some point, Fast Talk really did become your passion. I mean, you know, there’s a lot that goes into being a managing editor of Velonews and, you know, Velonews, editors also seem to have sort of a lifespan. You know, five years is usually pretty long. I think you were there seven, almost eight years. And yeah, the last year or so I could tell that like, you know, the, the light bulb was going on in your head when you were talking about Fast Talk and about the podcast and about what to do about it. And it really ignited your passion. So when you came to me at midway through the summer, when I guess it was right after the Tour de France this past year, and let me know that hey, you know, you’re going to be moving on from Velonews. And you’re going to be helping Trevor launch this thing. I was definitely bummed out, because I really enjoyed working with you. And, you know, you’ve brought a ton to Velonews over these last few years. But more and more I thought about it, I was like, yeah, it’s not. It’s not totally surprising. Like, that is where, you know, that was where a lot of energy and passion was already going to. And, you know, the fact that you guys had this, this following and all these people that were listening to the podcast and really into it, it did sort of put the light bulb on in my own head of like, “Wow, there could be a lot more there.” So yeah, I was, I was pleasantly surprised when I heard that you were going to be moving over with Trevor to, to launch this thing. And, you know, from my perspective, guys, I can’t say enough about what Fast Talk has brought to Velonews over the last four years from its very humble origins into the past year. I mean, you guys Fast Talk launched our podcast platform. And I think that the other podcasts that we have, you know, have 100% benefited from the Fast Talk audience people coming every other week to listen to your podcast sticking around and listening to our podcasts. I think that Fast Talk has brought so much of a different dimension to Velonews from a training and sports science perspective over the last few years the fact that we have people who really know the material, have contacts in the industry to get the experts on and then can frame it in a way that’s really interesting. And, and yeah, I I’m bummed to be losing you guys. But I’m also really excited to see what the future holds for you. Because I do think that what you have is is you know, just a tremendously valuable property.
Trevor Connor 49:36
Well Fred, really appreciate that and yeah, it is a there is a certain sadness to this but I am happy that I’m going to keep every month sending you that that Coach’s Corner article for the magazine and the fact of the matter is we’re short bike ride or offices from one another now.
Fred Dreier 49:56
Well once social distancing becomes a thing of the past. Hopefully, sooner rather than later we can we can definitely do that. Maybe we could like get on our trainers and FaceTime or something like that, you know, to simulate it.
Trevor Connor 50:11
Yeah, well, that’s so actually we should mention this for the listeners. Hopefully by the time this episode comes out, this is a reality. Chris and I were talking with Dr. Seiler just a couple days ago about what we could do to help people and I’m gonna reach out to Zwift. But we’re going to try to set up a weekly training ride on Zwift that Chris, Dr. Siler and I will all get on, and just invite everybody come join it. And we’ll we’ll set up discord and you can hit us with your training questions, you can just talk to us about anything physiology nutrition related, and and we’ll all go do a ride together. So we’ll we’ll well, we have to be physically isolated, we can at least virtually spend some some time with all together.
Fred Dreier 51:01
Will this be a no drop ride? Or can I show up and just like, gutter everyone and like, go way too hard?
Trevor Connor 51:08
Well, we’re trying to figure that out. Because right now the fence at Zwift is broken. So we’re hoping to get that fixed. And so anybody who’s new to Swift, they do have a feature where you can set up a fence. So if somebody is on the front hammering, and somebody just wants to ride at whatever the advertised pace was for the ride, this fence grabs you, and basically keeps you very close to the person at the front killing themselves. If the fence is not there, then we’ll say it’s gonna be a no drop ride. But I have yet to see that actually happen on Zwift.
The Future of Fast Talk, Where to Find us Now
Fred Dreier 51:42
So, Chris, going forward, where will listeners be able to find Fast Talk if they’re not going to the Velonews podcast channel?
Chris Case 51:51
We are on pretty much every popular podcast app with our own channel. So you have to just go there, search for Fast Talk and look for our specific channel. And it’s as easy as that. Otherwise, you can also find us online, we have our website, Fastlabs.com. There’s a whole section obviously devoted to Fast Talk, you can see each of the episodes with show notes, references for a lot of the studies that we will bring up in each of the episodes, and an embedded player right on our site so you can listen there.
Fred Dreier 52:32
Well, again, I can speak for the entire Velonews staff and a lot of Velonews podcast listeners and Velonews.com readers when I say thank you guys so much for everything that you’ve done over the last few years. And we’re really excited to see what you get up to next. And I get I imagine it’s gonna be big, big things, not just Canadian jokes.
Chris Case 52:58
I hope so. We need to move on from the Canadian even I’m saying we need to move on from the Canadian jokes we can. I mean, maybe it’s Swedish Fish jokes for a while, maybe it’s I don’t know. But yeah, we’ll get up to something good. Something big. And thank you, Fred and Velonews for all that you’ve done for us in the in the last few years. It is for me, you know, bittersweet in that it was almost eight years of my life that I was a part of that staff and I know we will, we’ll stay in touch we’re all friends will hopefully be able to collaborate and do great things together in the future.
Trevor Connor 53:35
Forever Fred, I got to say a big thanks to you going back to that that start this show. Even when I had the idea for this podcast, it was kind of a well that’s that’s a fun idea. But that’s kind of dumb that’s never gonna happen. And the moment this became a reality was that sitting down with you and saying, we have this idea and you’re saying that’s cool. Let’s do this. Let’s let’s let’s try to make this happen. And that I don’t think this podcast would have happened without that conversation with you. So thank you.
Fred Dreier 54:12
Well, I’m sorry that it led to so much work and late nights editing podcasts over the years. Ayyyee. One last Canadian joke.
Trevor Connor 54:25
Thank you. Appreciate it.
Fred Dreier 54:29
Alright guys, well, I will be seeing you no doubt here in Boulder. And listeners can find you guys at fasttalklabs.com or on the podcast channel of your choice by searching for Fast Talk. My guests on this first Fred Dreier hosted episode of Fast Talk with Trevor Connor Chris Case I will let you guys get back to your day.
Trevor Connor 54:52
Thanks Fred.
Chris Case 54:52
Thank you so much. That was another episode of Fast Talk. And again, the last episode of Fast Talk that will be published on the Velonews channel. So please head on over to your favorite podcast app now and subscribe to Fast Talk. We love your feedback and questions so please keep them coming. Email us at fasttalk@fastlab.com or call 719-800-2112, leave us a voicemail. Also, pull out your phone now check that iTunes App give us a rating and a review that will help others find Fast Talk in the future. Follow us on social media @realfastlabs. The thoughts and opinions expressed on Fast Talk are those of the individual. For Fred Dryer and Trevor Connor, I’m Chris case. Thanks for listening.
