Transcript exported from the video version of this episode - Note that it has not been copyedited

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:16:24
John Simmerman
And, you know, I spend enough time in the Netherlands that I can I can tell you definitively they are in plenty of space. You know, there are plenty of facilities that are shared facilities with bikes and pads. And what are they? They're wider. If you go into Avondale Park, it's hugely wide and wide. Lots of people.

00:00:17:04 - 00:00:39:29
Brandon Lust
Yeah. And let's go to Finland. Why? There's all why do they have such an amazing maintenance program? Because it's wide. They can drive a big tractor through there multiple times every hour. Simple done. Don't have to buy these. Be small little. Oh, yeah. We bought this many snowplow. No, forget that. Just use the use the maintenance equipment. You already have.

00:00:40:23 - 00:00:45:28
Brandon Lust
That saves money. Right. But just make your bike and pad facilities quieter.

00:00:46:07 - 00:01:11:22
John Simmerman
Hey, everyone, welcome to the Active Towns Channel. I'm John Simmerman and that, of course, is my friend Brandon loves American feature out on Twitter. Wonderful having him back on the podcast for the third time. Thank you so much Brandon, for doing that. Hey, it's a good one, folks, and it's a long one, so let's get right to it with Brandon last, Brandon last.

00:01:11:22 - 00:01:14:00
Speaker 3
Welcome back. Hey John.

00:01:15:15 - 00:01:16:12
John Simmerman
Good to see you, buddy.

00:01:17:05 - 00:01:17:28
Brandon Lust
To you too.

00:01:18:09 - 00:01:19:07
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah.

00:01:19:07 - 00:01:19:28
John Simmerman
What you been up to?

00:01:20:19 - 00:01:29:26
Brandon Lust
What have I been up to? 15. Walking on my features and. Yeah, that's about it. Yeah, yeah.

00:01:30:08 - 00:01:32:21
John Simmerman
Yeah. And I understand you're passionate these days right now.

00:01:33:12 - 00:01:45:20
Brandon Lust
Yep. My wife's in India for the next month. Were India and Singapore. And then she'll. She'll get home the middle the end of May and go to Canada. So just men and cats sitting around.

00:01:46:10 - 00:01:47:25
John Simmerman
You and the cats sitting around.

00:01:47:26 - 00:01:48:05
Brandon Lust
Cats.

00:01:50:19 - 00:02:02:12
John Simmerman
That's so funny. So you actually did post something just recently, you know, from Tatyana, because like you said, she's she's over there in India and. Yeah, what does she do?

00:02:02:12 - 00:02:05:22
Speaker 3
She just set us up.

00:02:05:22 - 00:02:07:28
John Simmerman
What is what is why did she send you this photo.

00:02:08:15 - 00:02:34:15
Brandon Lust
As just stepping out on her hotel balcony and looking out and seeing parked cars in a highway and multilevel parked cars and just commenting that, oh, there's lots of car and car infrastructure. I'm like, Oh, you know, I I'm a broken record. Everywhere we go. It's me commenting, Oh, jeez, cars on the road. And after a few years, I guess that rubs off on other people.

00:02:34:15 - 00:02:34:26
Brandon Lust
So.

00:02:34:28 - 00:02:35:11
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:02:36:25 - 00:02:45:19
Brandon Lust
So you can fly. I don't know where she got like 17 hours total and flying to get there and go to the other side of the world and bam. Cars.

00:02:46:02 - 00:03:16:10
John Simmerman
Yeah. Cars. Boom. Yeah. Well, we're joking a little bit about, you know, about the fact that touching on a Yeah, yeah. Send you the photos just like aspiration cars. But I mean, the wonderful thing is that she's been on the podcast before for those that may not be aware of this and we talked about her story, a very, very inspiring story actually about bikes and how that really kind of changed her life about that just a little bit.

00:03:17:03 - 00:03:39:13
Brandon Lust
Yeah. You know, something that does spring to mind, which I think is going to resonate with a lot of people, but probably people who start to get their children to ride bikes with them. You know, we don't have kids, but I got Tatiana on a on a bike as an adult and got her on an e-bike and she rides more and go places.

00:03:39:23 - 00:04:08:22
Brandon Lust
But I've noticed that something that kind of ruins things for me now is that any time we go somewhere together, I'm I'm almost really too preoccupied with her safety, not not for how she can handle herself on a bike because she's gotten really good at her skills and everything like that. But I'm worried about other people in cars primarily, of course, not looking out for her.

00:04:08:22 - 00:04:29:18
Brandon Lust
So I spend most of my time anxious and blood pressure spiked because I'm looking behind me and looking over here and just trying to make sure, okay, I crossed this roundabout. Did I block traffic enough or get people's attention so that they're going to see her, too? And I've just noticed that that's gotten worse with me over time.

00:04:29:18 - 00:04:53:03
Brandon Lust
The more that she does go places with me, I, I worry and I'm sure that people that ride with their children and other and maybe even their spouses or their partner or whatever, even their friends who aren't so confident on bikes, sure, they have the same issues. And it's just another thing of, you know, I don't know, here I am going off on a tangent already, but electric cars aren't the answer.

00:04:53:03 - 00:05:09:17
Brandon Lust
Cars are cars, and cars will always be the problem. I don't get smashed by a fossil fuel car over a and it is the same thing to me. And having them all be threats. It's it's the same thing. Getting off my soapbox too early. Okay. Next.

00:05:10:05 - 00:05:11:02
John Simmerman
Well, I.

00:05:11:02 - 00:05:11:29
Speaker 3
Suppose we should.

00:05:11:29 - 00:05:44:11
John Simmerman
We should actually pause just a little bit to give you a proper introduction in the sense that, you know, you are the American feature. And so, you know, we didn't even mention that. And that makes mentioning because, you know, that's that's how we met is, you know, our on Twitter and, you know that's that's really your primary presence out out on the interwebs is you know this particular identity and and I can't remember where you were at during her last interview for the podcast.

00:05:44:27 - 00:05:49:01
John Simmerman
Is it does it make sense that it was around 10,000 subscribers?

00:05:49:01 - 00:05:53:27
Brandon Lust
Yeah, it was. It was just about ready to take over on 10,000. And what was that last year?

00:05:54:17 - 00:06:00:02
John Simmerman
Yeah, it may have been longer than last year. Yeah. I mean it may have been a little more than a year, but.

00:06:00:12 - 00:06:22:19
Brandon Lust
I think it was last year because the first one in our first interview was 2021, next one was 2022 and now 28. Yeah. So we went from 10,000 over 30 really fast, which blows my mind. And I know that sometimes I forget that, you know, not everybody knows the story of how my advocacy and I came about in this whole space.

00:06:22:28 - 00:06:23:05
Brandon Lust
Yeah.

00:06:24:10 - 00:06:53:09
John Simmerman
Well, because I you take the 30 seconds and, you know, do it. I mean. Well, we'll encourage people, obviously, you know, please go, go watch the first one, you know, of Brandon giving the real back story. And you were still living in Minnesota at that point in time. And then, yeah, the second one, when we really honed in on Carmel, Indiana, which is where you moved to, but then we really shifted gears and talked about other influences online that you were very, very interested in.

00:06:53:15 - 00:07:01:10
John Simmerman
But yeah, take like 30 seconds and just give a little background to to yourself and this identity. Yeah, your alias. Yeah.

00:07:01:10 - 00:07:25:07
Brandon Lust
So first of all, the first one was audio only we had radio yet, so that's true. So my, my whole thing start, I, you know, my background's in farming agriculture, I still hold a CDL, a commercial driver's license, I can drive semis. I've spent most of my life and combines and tractors and big trucks and diesels and everything like that.

00:07:25:07 - 00:07:48:17
Brandon Lust
Driving, driving, driving. In 2017, got on an airplane to go to the Netherlands for the first time because my wife had to go there for work and her career's just paying off. And I wasn't really that excited, to be honest. I just thought, Well, let's go see what this is about. And that was my life changing moment. I got off the plane, got on a train.

00:07:48:23 - 00:08:08:08
Brandon Lust
I never set foot in a car, and the whole time there I never thought about cars. And this is the first time in my life I had ever had my mind shifted to, Oh my, well, you can walk places, you can ride bikes, places, you can take trams and trains, and that actually works. That's not just some hippie garbage, you know.

00:08:08:08 - 00:08:32:00
Brandon Lust
No, it works. And ever since then, I just dove down a rabbit hole. I had no Twitter following. I didn't do anything on Twitter, to be quite honest. Drove down a rabbit hole and just learned and learned and learned about the Netherlands. I was I was watching on YouTube. Moby Conn. Y'all should look those up and learning about infrastructure design because they they taught me everything.

00:08:32:00 - 00:09:02:08
Brandon Lust
I know that. And like bicycle Dutch and other people like that. And so I gained all my education and inspiration through there and ran with it. And even in 2019, when I went back to the Netherlands to go meet up with Bicycle Dutch, my Twitter had like 200 followers and didn't do much. And so from 2019 to today ticked over 30,000 because apparently I know some things and I'm able to inspire some people, teach them lessons.

00:09:02:16 - 00:09:25:27
Brandon Lust
And also I try to keep things fun too. I'm not I'm not Mister serious. And I'm also, I don't know, and a little salty, but I try to keep advocacy fun. But where people are learning and people are being inspired and it's resonating with people, obviously. Otherwise I would have quit by now. So yeah, yeah, here we are.

00:09:25:27 - 00:09:27:14
Brandon Lust
And that's America. And the.

00:09:28:07 - 00:09:29:11
Speaker 3
Beats are. Yeah, yeah.

00:09:30:02 - 00:09:32:23
John Simmerman
Why don't you go ahead and explain the name?

00:09:34:16 - 00:10:03:00
Brandon Lust
I am Visa. Well, I'm not a cyclist. I don't even particularly like bikes that much, but I like what they do and how they do it. I do have a particular interest now in cargo bikes and electric cargo bikes and e-bikes, But yeah, I'm a fighter, not a cyclist. And that's that's hard for me to to point out the difference here on demand.

00:10:03:00 - 00:10:04:00
John Simmerman
Well, I mean, it's.

00:10:04:06 - 00:10:19:18
John Simmerman
I mean the reason and the base of of that you know kind of points to the Dutch. The Dutch have two different words for a cyclist, you know, somebody who rides a bike. You know, the feature is just somebody who's on a bike doing everyday things and it's.

00:10:19:18 - 00:10:20:15
Speaker 3
Built a goal.

00:10:20:29 - 00:10:42:04
John Simmerman
Yeah. In a to being a vehicle runner, which is or wheel runner, which means you're you're a sport cyclist. You're somebody who's doing it for recreation or for sport. And and by the way the Dutch are amazing at racing. I mean they, you know, have a very, very rich history of winning big time races all over the world.

00:10:42:04 - 00:10:48:17
John Simmerman
And so that's that's kind of the difference. Fetzer is just somebody who gets around. Yeah, I didn't even think about it.

00:10:48:22 - 00:10:50:17
Speaker 3
Yeah, exactly that people.

00:10:50:17 - 00:11:13:04
Brandon Lust
Yeah, it's all up here. It's just that sometimes when I, when my mouth starts running, my brain has a hard time catching up, so. Thanks, John. You illustrated, you put that out there just perfectly. Yes. Yeah. So on the feature and I see bikes are tools, they're utilitarian. They help me get from A to B and accomplish everyday life tasks that you do with a car.

00:11:13:04 - 00:11:41:12
Brandon Lust
But I can do it with electric cargo bikes. That's my enabler. Not a not a road bike, not a mountain bike. Those do nothing for me, but an electric cargo bike makes it so that my car sits in the garage and collects dust because we're still car light. And then I throw American in front of it because, well, as much as I hate labeling myself to the to this country, sometimes I live in the US.

00:11:41:12 - 00:12:01:02
John Simmerman
So for those who follow you, they know they can relate. Now you are a bit exasperated from time to time. Well, you mentioned you try to keep things fun, so we do have a few questions that came in from the audience ahead of time for recording this. So I'm going to put a fun one up right away here.

00:12:01:02 - 00:12:19:07
John Simmerman
So I'm going to pop it in and and actually bring it down out of our faces here. And this is this is kind of fun, you know, So. Yeah, So jeez, So. So what is your favorite type of cheese and and why is it Gouda when.

00:12:20:04 - 00:12:21:10
Brandon Lust
It's not good?

00:12:21:11 - 00:12:24:15
John Simmerman
It's exactly I think that's part of the joke.

00:12:26:00 - 00:12:50:13
Brandon Lust
No, Gruyere. Yes, always Gruyere. There you go. That was that was actually my gateway cheese, because, you know, back in the day before I was more cultured and experienced, I just I knew all the Kraft garbage that they have in the American grocery stores of Cheddar and Wool Fiesta and whatever else. They label that crap. And then then I think I had fondue one time and I was like, What is this cheese?

00:12:50:13 - 00:12:59:14
Brandon Lust
And they said, Oh, it's emmental. Which if that's how you say it, I don't know. And, and Gruyere. And so that's Gruyere is my go to sorry, I know how to.

00:13:00:00 - 00:13:29:08
John Simmerman
Yeah. You know, know how to. Yes. So we did get a few few other fun questions coming in and I think you know probably this this kind of you know relates back to to your wife Tatiana, as well in the sense of when she started to to write her bike more frequently and for everyday purposes. You know, suddenly it was, you know, the weather didn't really matter as much.

00:13:29:08 - 00:13:49:21
John Simmerman
You know, it's like she would be riding when it was raining. You're writing when it's raining. If it's cold, you're doing that. And so that's, you know, one of the questions that came in was what are some of the tips that you have for riding in cold climates? And we'll talk a little bit more in detail about that.

00:13:49:28 - 00:13:57:23
John Simmerman
But just in general right now, before we get into any specifics, some cold weather, you know, climates of tips that you have.

00:13:58:12 - 00:14:25:11
Brandon Lust
Yeah, let's talk about that, because I had to learn that on the trial and error basis, living in Minnesota, where it's cold, I mean, real cold, not not down here like in Indiana, where it's, you know, slightly below freezing and everyone's losing their mind. Now up there, it's really cold. So the first winter I actually gave things a go with my work cycles freight and there's snow on the ground and it's freezing outside.

00:14:26:00 - 00:14:49:19
Brandon Lust
I was struggling with hands, so I was ordering cheese. I was, you know, ordered a $15 pair of gloves, failed. I ordered $150 pair of gloves failed. And that was actually one of my scariest times. I had these fancy gloves. I thought, okay, I'm good. I got about, you know, five, six kilometers away from home. And I couldn't feel my fingers anymore.

00:14:50:04 - 00:15:12:06
Brandon Lust
And I was I was scared to death. I was riding back as quickly as I could without falling down. And I just it was creeping up my hands. I couldn't feel my fingers and scared me to death. And I just realized gloves aren't going to do it. So I had to start looking for more alternatives and started talking to people that live in cold climates and came up with the solution.

00:15:12:06 - 00:15:28:29
Brandon Lust
And you can kind of see some of them now. So these are called feeds. Marfan I think in Dutch, but in German as well. I think what do we, what do we call them here? The Hoagies.

00:15:29:01 - 00:15:29:28
John Simmerman
Toby's Hoagies.

00:15:30:10 - 00:15:30:22
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:15:30:23 - 00:15:31:01
Brandon Lust
Yeah.

00:15:32:01 - 00:15:34:16
John Simmerman
So that you're after a guy in Texas.

00:15:36:17 - 00:15:58:27
Brandon Lust
Those right there, John, those are the ones that Tatiana has. We got her. Yeah. I mean, yeah, yeah, like that. So all cozy inside. These are from weather. These are called the weather goods, and they're from Sweden. And good luck. Anybody trying to order those? Because it's impossible unless you have somebody over there to. Yeah. Ship them to you.

00:15:59:17 - 00:16:07:06
Brandon Lust
But my go to feeds muffin bogeys, whatever you want to call them our jobs. Okay. And you can kind of see them right there.

00:16:08:02 - 00:16:08:10
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:16:08:24 - 00:16:36:08
Brandon Lust
And as soon as it as soon as it gets into single digit Celsius, these things go on my handlebars. I got them for each bike. They kill the wind, they stop any precipitation from reaching your hands. And without them, I couldn't ride in winter there. But they are essential enablers. And you're going to spend about 30, $40 to get a pair and probably another 30 $40 for shipping because you can only get them in the Netherlands.

00:16:37:01 - 00:16:56:26
Brandon Lust
But there's a website called Holland Bike Shop dot com, and that is the only site that I know of that you can order them from. Shipping's expensive. So find some friends that want to order things as well. But they have everything. They have all the goodies over the need that the EU has that nobody here in North America has to sell you.

00:16:58:17 - 00:17:25:25
Brandon Lust
So yeah, wads w will be obese and that stands for warm on bikes. They're actually made out of 100% recycled materials. Don't quote me on this, but I think it's an all women run company, but really their best for your swept back bars and not really your straight bars they work on turn as well kind of they're their bars which aren't really swept but aren't straight.

00:17:27:02 - 00:17:53:03
Brandon Lust
Yeah there you go. Absolute enablers. So get you some of those. They will they will. They will keep your hands, your fingers safe. And then the other thing is, Oh, yeah, this. Yeah. Order yourself a big box of hot hands. Take these things. If you're if it's a particularly cold day, do what I do. I take to shove one in each boot and I take another two and shove one in each glove.

00:17:53:14 - 00:18:23:14
Brandon Lust
And it can be just absolutely freezing outside. And that helps keep my core temperature up and in going. And the other thing, which is just kind of a luxury, but people always love to ask me about this. Oh, yes. A wall seat cover. Right. And I don't know that it keeps you any warmer, but I don't know, sitting on a a saddle with a wall cover on it in the middle of winter just feels better than sitting on a regular saddle.

00:18:23:14 - 00:18:25:09
John Simmerman
Sometimes perception is everything.

00:18:26:04 - 00:18:36:26
Brandon Lust
Yeah. So we have one of those for each bike too. And again, that's something else that you can get from that whole and bike shop. Okay. Yeah. So those are my enablers. Now, if we want to talk a little bit more.

00:18:36:26 - 00:18:37:26
John Simmerman
About how to.

00:18:37:26 - 00:18:38:14
Brandon Lust
Dress.

00:18:39:05 - 00:18:42:09
John Simmerman
There's there's that. There you can see that. Nice.

00:18:42:10 - 00:18:42:23
Brandon Lust
You go.

00:18:43:02 - 00:18:43:21
John Simmerman
Saddle there.

00:18:43:21 - 00:19:01:03
Brandon Lust
Yeah. And one question I get is, oh, how hard is it to take your hands in and out or you're riding you Do you lose? You know, I don't know. Some people think that oh it's hard to get your grip back on the bar and the brake lever and everything and No. Yeah, you get used to really quick.

00:19:01:18 - 00:19:23:04
Brandon Lust
And the other thing I want to talk about too is just dressing. You don't need you don't need big puffy gear. You don't need to look like that little kid on Christmas story who gets all wrapped up in the morning scarf and everything like that. Just just get yourself some wool socks, a good pair of boots. I have two types of long underwear, one that's thick and one that's thinner.

00:19:23:04 - 00:19:48:00
Brandon Lust
So I kind of rotate those depending on the temperature, but put on some long underwear, pair pants, a hoodie, and then scarf gloves and hat, all the essential things and sunglasses and sunglasses and then clear ones whenever it's super cold. If the wind is hitting your eyes, they will just water and water and water. Yeah, you got to have something to block that wind in the cold.

00:19:48:00 - 00:19:59:01
Brandon Lust
So some sort of glasses and that's it. Otherwise I look like a regular person. I don't. I don't look like I'm dressed up for winter biking. Right. Yeah. So yeah, it's, it's a lot easier than people would think.

00:19:59:12 - 00:20:29:05
John Simmerman
Yeah. And, and just to give an acknowledgment to J.S. who, you know, posed that question, Thank you so much, Jacey, for getting that out. What are key tips for year round cycling? We appreciate that. And Jacey also had a question about how well does Carmel do when it comes to actually managing and dealing with, you know, those types of snowy conditions and icy conditions?

00:20:29:05 - 00:20:50:18
John Simmerman
Because that's another aspect of all of this is, you know, if if the city is not doing a good job of making it, you know, very feasible for you and your wife and, you know, the children in the neighborhood to be able to get around by bike. And it's and it's a treacherous environment. And that's that's a problem.

00:20:50:26 - 00:21:08:03
John Simmerman
So, a how well does Carmel do in in helping facilitate this in terms of management and in if you can think of any other good examples, because I know you have the experience of of riding up in Minneapolis too. So you do have an ability to do some compare and contrast.

00:21:08:20 - 00:21:49:05
Brandon Lust
Yeah, well, just a quick summarization in our back story. I moved to Carmel. Carmel, Indiana. Anybody wants to Google that. I moved here in 2021 to live a car light lifestyle. It's the roundabout capital of the US. I got like 150 some odd roundabouts and keep building more every day to eliminate intersections and a a very good office off street network there for bikes there's there might be a few stragglers but there's no on street bike lanes in this town, city town, whatever you want to call it, 100,000 people.

00:21:51:12 - 00:22:24:13
Brandon Lust
So they do a pretty good job. But again, don't forget, this is Indiana, so we're not getting a lot of snow. But when we do, yeah, they hit the things like the moon on trail really hard and really fast. I got to give them that. They do a great job of getting out and getting on that. But when it comes to the overall network that goes throughout the city of multi-use paths, there, okay, I know that they try, but they could do better.

00:22:24:13 - 00:22:54:01
Brandon Lust
But they're they're only okay. They get some main things cleared, but then they miss a lot. And and then they do make the one mistake that every city in the US makes that has winter. It's they might clear path once like a multi-use path, but then they'll clear the street again. And you know how it makes that ice and snow blocking in there so that nobody comes back and clears it by hand.

00:22:54:01 - 00:23:24:13
Brandon Lust
It's like if they if they if they can't clear it with their gaiter and their plow on there or not getting done, nobody's going to get out with a shovel because apparently this country doesn't do manual labor anymore. But yeah, that's that's that's the one mistake that they make. But it's I mean, it's not just limited to everybody that gets, you know, in North America, these cities, they just don't know how to clean the conflict areas where bike path or pedestrian path meets car infrastructure.

00:23:24:28 - 00:23:31:05
Brandon Lust
Yeah, but otherwise they're trying. They do pretty good. They can do better, but they're doing all right.

00:23:31:05 - 00:23:32:23
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:23:33:13 - 00:23:43:15
John Simmerman
Well, it's. Let's have some fun. Let's see you. You posted something out on Twitter the other day that made me chuckle. It's like this. What's the back story on this?

00:23:43:15 - 00:23:45:03
Speaker 3
A Yeah, I don't know.

00:23:45:03 - 00:24:12:23
Brandon Lust
I, I find a lot of fun tidbits through my pre bed ritual, Like I'm laying in bed and I'm scrolling Reddit or some other similar things. And this one was on the Amsterdam subreddit. Somebody had had posted a photo of this. I just thought it was funny. And I think it's put up by swap feeds. Yeah, yeah. But I thought, Ah, okay, here, let me take this photo.

00:24:12:23 - 00:24:24:03
Brandon Lust
I'm going to crop it down just to the sign posted and maybe some of the people that follow me in Amsterdam or whatever. Well, the one a nice little Easter egg to go hunt down.

00:24:24:04 - 00:24:24:27
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:24:24:27 - 00:24:45:07
Brandon Lust
And I don't know if anybody did it, but I thought it'd be fun and it's a fun thing. That's. That's so cool. Yeah, those are, those are kind of the things that we can look forward to here in North America if we get our act together and, and have more of an active transportation infrastructure, we could have these and these small little things that make things fun, you know?

00:24:45:17 - 00:24:46:09
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah.

00:24:46:27 - 00:25:08:07
John Simmerman
And the inside joke, you know, to this obviously with hammer time, you know dating back I don't know how many decades in terms of music but then you mentioned swap meets the inside joke that is the the front wheel is is blew in the tires blew my cheeks. Why don't you explain that for folks that may not be aware of swap these.

00:25:08:25 - 00:25:35:05
Brandon Lust
Oh yeah. Swap feeds is is a bicycle subscription service in the Netherlands but I think they have expanded to Germany and might be working their way into London. I don't know. The front tires, always blue. You can rent or subscribe to whatever an acoustic bike, which, you know, just a regular bicycle you get to pedal or they have e-bikes as well.

00:25:35:17 - 00:25:57:17
Brandon Lust
And if the if it ever breaks down or if it ever gets stolen or something like that, you just I think on their app, he can just report things or say, Oh, my tires flat and where's your bike and see where it is and say while you're at work or whatever, they'll come by and either fix it for you or swap out your bike for you and you'll be good to go and you just pay a subscription fee every month.

00:25:57:28 - 00:26:04:07
Brandon Lust
So and you can always recognize them by the blue tire up front, the blue. I think it's pretty cool.

00:26:04:25 - 00:26:26:14
John Simmerman
Yeah. Are you kidding? I think it's I always when I'm over there, I just get a chuckle every time I see the swap bikes out there and especially when I do see them servicing them too. And they because that's the whole point of name is if, if you've got sort of a catastrophic situation and it needs repair, they will literally just come and swap.

00:26:26:16 - 00:26:28:12
John Simmerman
Swap. That's the swap. That fee.

00:26:28:22 - 00:26:30:28
Speaker 3
Is it's it's.

00:26:30:28 - 00:26:53:11
John Simmerman
Pretty, pretty, pretty darn cool. So we, we, we had another question come in that I thought was is a little bit more personal in the sense that somebody wants to know about your recent trip to Brazil and wanted to know how that all went. So oh, I totally forgot to go.

00:26:53:14 - 00:26:54:04
Speaker 3
Oh yeah.

00:26:54:15 - 00:26:56:07
Brandon Lust
I didn't see that. Yeah.

00:26:56:16 - 00:26:57:25
John Simmerman
So yeah, Oh yeah.

00:26:57:29 - 00:27:01:21
Speaker 3
They're one again. Okay.

00:27:02:25 - 00:27:13:20
Brandon Lust
Oh, we're really well, the fun thing now. Well, my wife is Brazilian, so. Yeah, all the in-laws and everybody's over. Oh.

00:27:13:29 - 00:27:15:20
John Simmerman
You're visiting family? Yeah. Yeah.

00:27:15:21 - 00:27:29:17
Brandon Lust
In Brazil. Yeah, We were down there visiting family. Yeah, I thought it was good. It was nice to get down there and visit everybody and love the food and everything. And of course, now I go down there and I look at everything through my.

00:27:30:15 - 00:27:31:23
John Simmerman
Eyes and evaluating.

00:27:31:23 - 00:27:41:09
Brandon Lust
Eyes. Yeah. And transportation. And, you know, you go to Brazil, you're in a car. Yeah. What you do. So and it's, it's, it's frustrating. It's.

00:27:41:18 - 00:27:43:00
Speaker 3
It's horrible. Oh.

00:27:44:05 - 00:28:12:07
Brandon Lust
It's no different here. But yeah, yeah, no. And I start to pay more attention to the occasional bike infrastructure and people on bikes and stuff like that. It's fine. I see a lot of I see a lot of people using bikes out of necessity, mostly men. And it looks extremely dangerous. There's a lot of there's a lot of cargo ish looking bikes, not not like the same ones we see around here.

00:28:12:07 - 00:28:37:19
Brandon Lust
That market hasn't really developed down there, but they have their own, you know, at Iraq or whatever. And a lot of people do stuff like that. You go to if you go to Rio or Sao Paolo, there's actually a lot of cargo bikes for business that you'll see down there. So, yeah, Brazil's fun. I don't know. It's it's probably not some people's cup of tea there, probably more than I want to go to Paris type.

00:28:38:09 - 00:28:47:17
Brandon Lust
But, uh, South America is pretty cool. It's a little more rugged, but it's. I'm happy to be connected to it and involved with it, so. Yeah.

00:28:47:29 - 00:29:08:27
John Simmerman
Good stuff. Good stuff. Well, hey, we've got another one here. We'll pull this one down out of our faces again. I need to figure out how to make that not go up there. But I'm not going to be able to do that in the fly here. But this question also from J.C. wants to know if you could snap your fingers and make one or two instant magic changes to Kamal, what would they be?

00:29:09:14 - 00:29:55:00
Brandon Lust
I have two of them ready to go. Okay. Number one, they need to knock it off of the double lane roundabouts. Shoot. You can probably watch episode number two with you. And I were I ran about double lane roundabouts. Double lane roundabouts have their time and place, but Kamal puts a lot of them too much towards the city center where they they shouldn't be there because that just works for level of service for motors in and any time you bring it up they they love to they love to just regurgitate their statistics and say oh but you know we we have one of the lowest incident rates of any city or whatever because of a

00:29:55:00 - 00:30:29:25
Brandon Lust
roundabouts and that might be but there's nobody measuring lived experience of trying to cross double lane around roundabouts on foot or on bike. It's it's bad. It's really bad. So snap my fingers. Double lane roundabouts within a kilometer and a half of city center gone. So that's what I would change, number one. Number two, Carmel's big on building parking garages and trying to eliminate big things.

00:30:29:25 - 00:30:58:17
Brandon Lust
Have paved parking lots, which is good. However, whenever they build these big parking garages, they're not eliminating a proportion of street parking. So I just I see it all the time. There's a big parking garage over here, but these motorists, they'll just circle the block a few times until they can go find a street parking spot and they'll just park there rather than using the parking garage.

00:30:58:25 - 00:31:22:14
Brandon Lust
So I think another thing I'd snap my fingers. It would be every time you build a parking garage within a certain vicinity of that, you have to eliminate X number of street parking spots and only dedicate those to, say, handicapped parking or loading and unloading zones. You know, we need to force people into these parking garages that we're paying for, Right.

00:31:22:23 - 00:31:31:00
Brandon Lust
And make them use them and get these cars off our streets and get the circling lazy people off our streets and their wank Panzers as they went.

00:31:31:00 - 00:31:34:03
Speaker 3
Panzer I know.

00:31:37:09 - 00:32:11:07
John Simmerman
So yeah, that's a good good point with the two lane roundabouts. I mean, the problem I have with roundabouts is just that is that in North America the dimensions are typically built for primarily for moving motor vehicles at speed through there. And so the dimensions are off. The second thing is exactly what you're saying is that they have been addicted to doing two lane roundabouts, which made them incredibly difficult to become safe environments for people walking and biking.

00:32:11:27 - 00:32:32:01
John Simmerman
Yeah. You have the off street network of of trails that you have. It's incredibly frustrating when you get to those crossings. And you and I, you know, sat at one of those crossings not far from your house and looked at the behavior, the driver behavior, because it all speaks speed. You know, the lanes are wide, there's multiple lanes.

00:32:32:01 - 00:32:43:29
John Simmerman
And so they're coming at the roundabout at a much higher rate of speed. And so the design of the roundabouts is the problem. It's not only the two lanes, it's like they're there, but.

00:32:44:07 - 00:33:11:13
Brandon Lust
The design is very much a problem. And and I'm not I'm not an engineer. So but I still have enough knowledge that I can look at these and I know exactly what the engineer here in the US was going for. And it's just malpractice, in my opinion, that that they're there again, they're putting in roundabouts with designs that emphasize level service and speed in downtowns.

00:33:11:18 - 00:33:47:07
Brandon Lust
You can see it in in how the the approach lane comes up and then as you turn into it or if you're going to go off to the next area, it's so wide that it's almost kind of slip lane, if you know what I mean. There's there's no there's no tightening to direct and control and calm behavior. And then the other problem I noticed is let's say, you know, I'm over here, but the car comes up and they're only looking left because they want to see, okay, who's coming so that I can zoom in here and they're not looking for anybody crossing from the other side.

00:33:47:13 - 00:34:20:10
Brandon Lust
So there's so much just left looking motorists. They're never paying attention to somebody trying to cross. And it all comes down to design. We if we designed it right and didn't have, you know, professionally bankrupt traffic engineers doing these things like we do here in Carmel and every other city in the US, we would get it right and we would get safety for everybody, not just your crash statistics of cars, which they love to pull out, but it would be safety for everyone and we need to change that.

00:34:20:10 - 00:34:45:03
Brandon Lust
And fortunately, the good thing is we've over engineered these things so we can we can fix that really easily by taking away space. It's harder whenever you need more space to make proper changes. Well, we've used too much space, so we can just take that back if we want to make those decisions. But they don't make those decisions yet and they think I'm overly critical about it.

00:34:45:16 - 00:35:05:23
Brandon Lust
But that's a good thing. I don't work for the city, I don't work for anybody. So I can just come along and I use the infrastructure. So I'm not I don't have I don't have any interest to come along, be critical. I just want to be safe and be alive and not have to worry about my wife or anybody else out there using it, you know?

00:35:06:05 - 00:35:26:12
John Simmerman
Yeah. So the next question from Jordan is, is actually just saying, you know, what are some things that need to be to encourage more people to be able to ride bikes to work and for errands in Carmel. In Carmel, yeah. And I guess something different other than the roundabouts.

00:35:27:02 - 00:35:28:20
Speaker 3
So you just talked.

00:35:28:20 - 00:35:29:04
John Simmerman
About that.

00:35:30:04 - 00:35:32:10
Brandon Lust
Shoot. That's a really good question.

00:35:32:27 - 00:35:34:15
Speaker 3
Mm hmm.

00:35:35:09 - 00:35:59:11
Brandon Lust
Well, I know that I noticed that even even with all this infrastructure, we still have a we still have a riding a bike is recreation. Riding a bike is a sport mindset here in Carmel, just like here in the U.S., just like here in North American. On and on. Yeah. Jeez.

00:36:00:04 - 00:36:02:15
Speaker 3
Oh, we.

00:36:02:15 - 00:36:28:13
Brandon Lust
Just need more people doing it. I don't know. I mean, Carmel does a pretty good job of putting them bike parking. They do an excellent job with putting in bike parking. I'm going to I'm going to give them that. And they're working to expand our network, even where we have a few breaks in our Multi-Use Path network. They are working on it and they know we need to do that, but we just need more people to come here and move here.

00:36:28:13 - 00:36:48:24
Brandon Lust
And by the way, anybody who's thinking about it, come on, I've already got I've already had two people move here because of what they've seen of my media. And I've got another person coming this year who's moving to Carmel, but we just need more bikes as transportation people to move here and you can do it. That's why I moved here.

00:36:48:24 - 00:37:16:28
Brandon Lust
You can move here and be car light. Some people I know our car for me, but we just need more people doing it and it'll catch on. So my answer I think is just more people doing that rather than going out for the the sun recreation ride, you know, must be real. So yeah, but there's there's cargo, there's cargo ish bikes here, there's cargo bikes here and people are using them.

00:37:16:28 - 00:37:31:05
Brandon Lust
And even people with those, those gazelle e-bikes, the new nice new ones that just have like a rear rack or they're putting panniers on there and they're using them. So yeah, we just need more people. Come on, come on over.

00:37:31:25 - 00:37:43:03
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it is a very, very comfortable environment to ride when you're on that off street network, which is a good part of the reason why you see so many people doing it.

00:37:43:15 - 00:37:44:12
Brandon Lust
I love that photo.

00:37:44:24 - 00:37:58:11
John Simmerman
Yeah. And so speaking of, you know, you know, encouraging more people to come and more people to get out on bikes more often. Yeah, This is a beautiful photo you just posted this recently, talked a little bit about what prompted you to get these out.

00:37:59:24 - 00:38:28:21
Brandon Lust
Yeah, what is it, April now? So I spend most of the colder months as the Lone Ranger out there, you know, going and getting groceries or wherever I'm going by bike. And a lot of people can empathize with this, especially North America. As soon as it gets a little bit chilly, you're the only one out there, you know, because everybody else who's, you know, thinks of bikes as just recreation and stuff like that.

00:38:30:06 - 00:38:51:02
Brandon Lust
They hang their bikes up upside down in their garage and they're done until it gets warm again. So you're by yourself. And it it really starts to get you down. I mean, when you're out there alone just thinking, what am I doing? I'm I'm the only one out here. And it's not fun having more people on bikes makes things fun.

00:38:51:09 - 00:39:13:26
Brandon Lust
So anyway, what was going on here was just the other day I was riding across town because I was going to pick up a car that I was going to borrow for for a few days, and there were tons of people out. And I just instantly felt better about my choice of riding a bike to go places rather than drive.

00:39:15:28 - 00:39:36:05
Brandon Lust
Yeah, it's just so nice to see. And we have we have the infrastructure and people use it. It it'd be great if they got offered this main moon on trail and explored more places and actually went and did life errands. But yeah, this is the gateway for I guess. Yeah, there are tons of people out. It just felt really good to see more people on bikes.

00:39:38:02 - 00:39:39:22
Brandon Lust
Yeah. So you're not alone anymore?

00:39:40:06 - 00:40:02:25
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's what's interesting too, is and maybe this is, you know, related to, to Jordan's question too, in terms of what are some things that the city can do to try to encourage more people to to be able to do more utilitarian trips is leaning into the strength of like a facility like this the moon on trail.

00:40:02:25 - 00:40:32:13
John Simmerman
Because ultimately much of your utilitarian trips that you you know, use you you lean on this because it's a key spine to the rest of the network. And so being able to use a multidimensional multi-functional trail such as this and that's the wonderful thing about multi-use pathways and trails is that they're not they don't have to be just recreation or just, you know, utilitarian.

00:40:32:14 - 00:40:58:18
John Simmerman
They're both and, you know, they serve both quite well. And so when see images like this of people out and getting, you know, getting some fresh air and some exercise and maybe they are leaning towards just recreation right now, but that doesn't matter because this gateway drug, it's it's basically getting them prepped for understanding and maybe that's where the city can help out is.

00:40:58:26 - 00:41:06:22
John Simmerman
And your content helps out, too, because you point out that this actually does connect to meaningful destinations.

00:41:06:27 - 00:41:27:21
Brandon Lust
For example, right here in this photo, that guy, as I was busy trying to get some photos, but I caught him out of the corner of my eye. He seemed easy smile and he seemed happy to see me or intrigued about maybe my bike. I don't know. Sure that was cool. He he wasn't just like some people who just blank stare and keep going.

00:41:27:21 - 00:41:48:28
Brandon Lust
He he was used. I don't know. Is some mental engaged with whatever I was doing. But anyway, when I'm using this bike or if I'm using the feeds, the urban arrow and the one thing that I'm doing just by living by bike is what I love is say, coming back from the grocery store and I'll have the urban arrow filled up with grocery bags.

00:41:49:11 - 00:42:24:04
Brandon Lust
And then when I meet these people on the trail who are out doing recreation, they see me, right? And so when they pass me, they have to be thinking, you know, they just saw this bike and they saw everything in it. The guy had a bunch of groceries. They have to be thinking about that. So I'm doing I'm doing advocacy just by existing and doing my everyday life and exposing them to possibilities that maybe they didn't know before, which is afforded to me by cargo bike design.

00:42:24:05 - 00:42:55:12
Brandon Lust
You know? Yeah, So there's that. And then to compliment Carmel. So the moon on trail is absolutely essential for me is my artery. It helps me get places down south. Places up north. I mean, it connects cities, right? But what's great is that where some cities fall flat on these rails to trails, they just have that artery. But then when you got to get off of it, you have nothing or you have a crappy sidewalk or something.

00:42:55:21 - 00:43:20:11
Brandon Lust
No. Carmel made sure to put the little tentacles that come off of the moon on trails. So, you know, almost anywhere you go you can exit it and you've got multi-use paths to go east, west or, you know, wherever you're going next to keep your network up. So the network is essential. You can have a great rails to trails, but it's not going to serve as transportation, really.

00:43:20:11 - 00:43:41:17
Brandon Lust
If as soon as you get off of it, you're dumped on to a Stroud. Yeah, well, I don't have that problem here because they, they are working on that multi-use path network, which is, which is a great tactic for North America. Multi-Use path. Eventually you reach this critical mass of where they don't work anymore, you know, but they can work here.

00:43:41:17 - 00:43:46:09
Brandon Lust
So basically they're just glorified sidewalks, but they're enabling.

00:43:46:23 - 00:44:04:26
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. So and that relates to a question that Billy posed and we'll pop this over here and resize it and basically, you know, B is saying, you know, what about some of the other neighboring cities? Are they starting to expand the network?

00:44:05:22 - 00:44:36:08
Brandon Lust
Yeah, So I'm pretty lazy. I don't like to go I don't go exploring too often. I don't go to another city unless I or town unless they have an errand that I'm running. Right. Right. I don't just go exploring because I don't care to. Recreational cycle. But yes, cities like Fishers, Indiana, Westfield, Indiana and other local closely connected towns, they see the roundabouts.

00:44:36:08 - 00:45:10:21
Brandon Lust
So they're building roundabouts. They see the the multi-use path that people are using. So they're putting in more of those and quite a few handfuls of towns you could get to in from Carmel via, you know, certain things that are similar to the moon on or multi-use path network. Yeah, you can absolutely go to Noblesville, Indiana or Fishers Indiana or I've I ride to Westfield, Indiana to pick up things at this garden center and never touch a street other than crossing one you know.

00:45:11:04 - 00:45:30:11
Brandon Lust
Yeah. Yeah. So when one city really takes off and does something and does it well, other cities notice nearby and then they start to emulate that in their own infrastructure decisions as long as they can, you know, get some support and some money to make it happen.

00:45:31:02 - 00:45:54:19
John Simmerman
Yeah. And, and I'll point out that, you know, the day that I rode up to to visit you, I rode the 15 miles from downtown Indiana, paperless on the moon on all the way up there. And so that's also very feasible. And actually it was quite fun and didn't really seem that far because there was so many interesting things to see along the way.

00:45:54:28 - 00:45:55:27
John Simmerman
And you did one.

00:45:55:29 - 00:45:56:17
Brandon Lust
Brompton.

00:45:56:22 - 00:46:17:00
John Simmerman
And I did it on my Brompton. Yeah, I mean, that's just cake on a Brompton. It's not not any big deal. But, you know, there was like really cool stuff happening. There were ice cream shops along the way. There were, you know, there's a couple of really challenging crossings over roads and pedaling. I've talked about that deadly ones.

00:46:17:00 - 00:46:29:27
John Simmerman
Yeah, But yeah, it's very possible and it's very encouraging. Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you want to cover? I mean, we've been addressing questions from the audience, but anything that you want talk about.

00:46:30:28 - 00:46:31:24
Speaker 3
Hmm.

00:46:33:00 - 00:46:57:18
Brandon Lust
Well, I do know that in 2022, I came as close as I've ever come to shutting down what I do as far as the American feature platform and advocacy. And I just reached this low where I just would wake up and be, I don't know, no passion for it. I wasn't I wasn't into it. And I would say that I still kind of I've kind of lost a little bit of it.

00:46:57:18 - 00:47:31:19
Brandon Lust
And I think that's I think that's indicative of being a fixer, even even when you talk to Chris Brantley. I remember one time he said, you know, the whole the honeymoon of the Netherlands, more or less kind of wore off on him and he found himself being that fish in the fishbowl. And sometimes, you know, no longer like, oh, look at everybody cycling, look at all this infrastructure, just being like, I'm on a bike and I'm trying to get somewhere and was let's go and and I'm I'm just finding that I'm kind of settling into the whole.

00:47:32:14 - 00:47:52:29
Brandon Lust
Yeah. You know, I use a bike as transportation. I like cargo bikes, but I do get burnt out on thinking about it all the time and talking about it all the time. And maybe I've lost a little bit of my passion, but I did notice that I can't really give it up because even when I thought I was going to shut everything down, I would.

00:47:53:12 - 00:48:18:18
Brandon Lust
I'd be on my bike, going to the grocery store and I just thought, Oh my God, I got to take pictures of this. I got to share it with people because it's just something in me that that I've been doing for so long that seems to work in advocacy. Yeah, it's crazy how just taking some photos of of your bike loaded up with groceries and then posted it online with, you know, string a few decent words together or whatever.

00:48:19:09 - 00:48:38:16
Brandon Lust
How much that resonates with people and motivates people and inspires them. And, and and I get, I get DMS or e mails or replies of people saying, you know, after seeing you do this for so long, I started doing it or we sold our car or we moved to this place or we bought a cargo bike or well, I'm a law.

00:48:39:07 - 00:48:46:27
Brandon Lust
And that just kept me going. And it just made me think maybe I'm making a difference.

00:48:47:05 - 00:48:48:09
Speaker 3
And yeah.

00:48:48:29 - 00:49:19:22
Brandon Lust
If, if I can do that by just living my life and, you know, gathering media and sharing it. And occasionally I think I'm somewhat gifted at putting some words together on teaching an infrastructure lesson about something or or just telling people how to accomplish something, and it helps them. I guess I'll keep going. And I also I see people when they like something or when they commentors on something, and even if I don't get back to them or whatever, I know that they're there.

00:49:19:28 - 00:49:42:29
Brandon Lust
And and I kind of thought, well, I'd miss interacting with a lot of these people on a day to day basis. Yeah. And fortunately that got me through my low time. And I'm still, you know, I've settled into this whole advocacy thing so that I'm not all gung ho like I used to be a few years ago. But I keep it going and it's yeah.

00:49:43:06 - 00:49:43:13
Speaker 3
I don't.

00:49:43:13 - 00:50:01:00
Brandon Lust
Know. It's kind of kind of like autopilot is said. I know what to do. I know how to say things. I know you know how to present things. And I just keep doing it because I think it's making difference and it's got to get more people out of cars. So if I can do that passively, I'll keep doing that.

00:50:02:08 - 00:50:26:24
John Simmerman
So I put a post up a few days ago and you, you read this particular post and the reason why this actual at this post actually even before I put it out, it reminded me of you. And the reason why it reminded me of you is because about a month or so ago, you started dabbling with with some AI types of images and pulling some things together.

00:50:27:05 - 00:50:49:05
John Simmerman
Talk a little bit about that experience. What was that like? You know, jumping in and playing around with that and what was that? What was a, from your perspective, how satisfying it was to play with it? And then what was the response like from your audience and whether you thought it was positive, worthwhile, etc.?

00:50:49:22 - 00:50:59:11
Brandon Lust
Mm hmm. Well, before I comment about the I was what I loved about this was that your photo here, your rendering, I guess.

00:50:59:26 - 00:51:04:23
John Simmerman
Yeah. I think it's I think it's a similar type of, of platform program. Yeah.

00:51:04:24 - 00:51:28:23
Brandon Lust
Like it just has so many key design aspects in it. The is a teachable moment. If you talk about it and you break it down for people and you do need some education to understand how to do that. But and that's where like people like you and me and some others can do that for people and say, okay, look at this and this is why this is good and this is why this works.

00:51:29:04 - 00:51:53:15
Brandon Lust
I just loved this rendering. It looked really neat. And there's again, there's key design principles right here that should be studied and spread. Beautiful. Anyway. Yeah. No playing around with those eight things. That was just that was just peak boredom. And I bought some credits on mid Journey and I thought it was just it was just fun to plug in some keywords and some cities and see what it would come up with.

00:51:53:15 - 00:52:40:20
Brandon Lust
Because as humans we have a hard time visualizing some things of the way we see them now, which is why I never cared about any of this stuff till I went to the Netherlands and I got to see all right. But I think one of them I played around with was like Lakeshore Drive in Chicago, where I took out all the cars and turn some trams and trees and people and it did a decent enough job that you could recognize that it was Lakeshore Drive in Chicago and I don't know, I thought it was just fun because while it's not photorealistic or anything, especially with my amateur, the word input it was still enough that

00:52:40:20 - 00:53:03:18
Brandon Lust
it could make you think like if you're familiar with Lakeshore Drive and the traffic sewer, that that thing is you might have a hard time re-envisioning it. But if you could if you could just see what that I came up with, it really makes you think, wow, that could be something spectacular. I can kind of see it here.

00:53:04:01 - 00:53:31:17
Brandon Lust
And and I thought that was good. I thought that was a good tool for helping with with visualizations. Now, when it comes to air or art or whatever you want to call it, boy, some people don't like it. Oh, my goodness. They get irrationally mad about these things. And and I disagree with them and and that's fine. Just don't use it for bad purposes.

00:53:31:17 - 00:53:32:18
John Simmerman
But yeah.

00:53:32:27 - 00:53:58:07
Brandon Lust
But I saw it as a tool if used in the right way, especially when it comes to infrastructure design. And yeah, I think I think it was nice, especially if you're somebody who takes the time to put in the proper word inputs and and really refine things, you can make some neat things that can help sway minds or the way people might see something.

00:53:58:08 - 00:54:09:11
Brandon Lust
You know, it's hard to see past the sterilized. GRAY Yeah. To visualize something different. So it's a fun tool and it could be it can be used for something.

00:54:10:02 - 00:54:14:12
John Simmerman
Do you think you go back to it and play around with it some more that one of the times.

00:54:15:05 - 00:54:16:13
Speaker 3
Okay. No, no.

00:54:16:13 - 00:54:30:13
Brandon Lust
It was just it was just fun. And I had no interest in spending more of my own cash on that. Okay. Okay. But for somebody, I mean, they, you know, somebody else out there who's more capable than myself could could make something that.

00:54:31:18 - 00:54:53:29
John Simmerman
Yeah, well, I mean, and and we, you know, we actually interviewed the Better Street's A.I., Mr. Katz and he was on and and that was one of the and you know, that was the whole kind of cornerstone of of you know, and it was the early stages of A.I. because that was like almost a year ago now. So.

00:54:53:29 - 00:55:09:11
John Simmerman
Yeah, Yeah. So it sounds like you're, you're still more along the lines of I'm out and about, I've got my camera, I'm going to snap something or pulling together funny witty means.

00:55:10:03 - 00:55:37:19
Brandon Lust
Yeah, yeah. And I encourage it and I think I think I said this on the first podcast or the second podcast. If you use a bike for transportation and you have a social media platform and have a have a cell phone, I don't care if you're picking up groceries, dropping your kid off at school or taking your dog for a ride, take pictures and share it with people because they just don't know that you can do these things.

00:55:37:19 - 00:55:44:07
Brandon Lust
They don't know that certain bike types exist. And it's the easiest advocacy you can do. Just take pictures, share it.

00:55:45:00 - 00:55:45:08
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:55:45:20 - 00:55:49:18
John Simmerman
And like this one, this is you're like, what, Christmas in April?

00:55:50:08 - 00:56:15:07
Brandon Lust
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We we got, we got this new bridge here, and then there's one as you head towards India, but still in the Carmel, you know, jurisdiction and, and they had to replace these bridges that go over culverts or small streams or whatever and it took a year they had us on to do to do is for a year which I won't, I won't complain about that but.

00:56:15:07 - 00:56:15:18
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah.

00:56:15:18 - 00:56:15:26
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:56:16:14 - 00:56:27:18
Brandon Lust
Yeah. They just got opened up and so this was my first time going across that now it's nice, nice and wide and not not constricted. They're beautiful, good infrastructure.

00:56:28:09 - 00:56:47:29
John Simmerman
And I think that's a good thing to, to mention too, because you sort of alluded to it earlier when you were referring to the sidewalks that you know are basically a little bit wider. And so they are serving as multi-use paths, you know, in the rest of the neighborhood off of the main drag of the mon on in.

00:56:48:19 - 00:57:13:20
John Simmerman
That is something that we we have to think about from a North American perspective for cities is that if you're going to be mixing different modes wider, just think wider. We do need to have more space. I mean, it is completely unacceptable to to just rely on eight feet, you know, ten feet, I mean, wider, you know, whenever anybody asks me, you know, and they say, you know how wide?

00:57:13:20 - 00:57:15:04
John Simmerman
And I'm like, yeah, wider.

00:57:15:17 - 00:57:44:17
Brandon Lust
That solves the maintenance issue too, because, well, why don't why don't sidewalk get plowed as snow? Because it requires special equipment. Okay. Well, just make the sidewalks into multi-use path or whatever big and wide, wide enough to accommodate some some municipal worker in his pickup truck with a big plow on the front. Well, then we don't have an excuse anymore because he can just come on through and his F-350 and plow the stupid thing and then it's done.

00:57:44:24 - 00:57:59:27
Brandon Lust
There's no saying, Well, you know, we've got we've got this bike gutter and then we've got these little delineations over here, and it's this really constricted area. We can't get we can't get equipment in there. Okay, then make it wider so you can get in there. It's that.

00:57:59:27 - 00:58:01:04
Speaker 3
Simple space.

00:58:01:10 - 00:58:17:13
Brandon Lust
But space is always there. The money's always there, but the space is normally buried under cars. So just look under the cars and if the money's not there, well, that's because you're spending too much money in cars. So take some money away from their money. And space is not is not an issue. It never is.

00:58:17:22 - 00:58:35:28
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I spend enough time in the Netherlands that I can I can tell you definitively they own plenty of space. You know, they have plenty of facilities that are shared facilities with bikes and PEDs. And what are they? They're whiter. If you go into Avondale Park, it's hugely wide and wide. Lots of people.

00:58:36:07 - 00:58:59:03
Brandon Lust
Yeah. And let's go to Finland. Why? There's oh, why do they have such an amazing maintenance program? Because it's wide. They can drive a big tractor through there multiple times every hour. Simple done. Don't have to buy these these small little. Oh, yeah. We bought this many snowplow. No, forget that. Just use the use the maintenance equipment you already have.

00:58:59:21 - 00:59:05:01
Brandon Lust
Oh, that saves money. Right, Right. Just make your bike and pad facilities wider.

00:59:05:11 - 00:59:07:04
John Simmerman
Wider. One word wider.

00:59:07:17 - 00:59:07:25
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:59:08:21 - 00:59:29:27
John Simmerman
I pulled this. I wanted to pull this photo up because you had talked to that. You mentioned that the city does a really good job on parking. You just recently posted this particular tweeted this one out, and your point that you making is just don't overthink bike parking. The simple upside staple. I don't even know the official name of those.

00:59:30:11 - 00:59:53:21
John Simmerman
Sheffield There you go. Sheffield Just keep it simple. If anything, start to think about spacing and whether there's enough room for some of our larger format cargo bikes like the Urban Arrow and some of the other bikes that are you're starting to see. So be mindful of those sorts of things. But they don't have to be, you know, super fancy.

00:59:54:06 - 01:00:14:10
John Simmerman
The Sheffield upside down staple is all that's really needed. Make sure it's anchored well, make sure it's a well-lit area, Make sure that there's other aspects of of, you know, just normal security and safety concerns. But this is a wonderful location and a great example. So I'm glad you posted this. I think.

01:00:14:15 - 01:00:37:04
Brandon Lust
Yeah, yesterday and this was this was early in the morning on a weekday on a site that is generally a recreational weekend area for people to come. So if this would have been for Friday night, you know, during the summer, there wouldn't have been space to park another bike in there. I mean.

01:00:37:05 - 01:00:50:18
John Simmerman
Yeah, it's just clear when you're seeing recreational. If I zoom in on this, this is the whole party area back here. I mean, this is on a weekend night. I mean, this is just absolutely chock full of people whose bike racks are.

01:00:50:18 - 01:00:58:22
Brandon Lust
Full and their bikes everywhere. Of course, that big building in the background, there's a multi-story parking garage for cars.

01:00:59:16 - 01:01:08:21
John Simmerman
But but in on the first layer here, we know that there's also an indoor bike storage facility as well as a repair station. Right.

01:01:08:21 - 01:01:10:13
Brandon Lust
Which nobody ever uses. Yeah.

01:01:10:23 - 01:01:12:09
John Simmerman
Yeah. Which nobody ever uses.

01:01:12:10 - 01:01:13:08
Brandon Lust
Because in my mind.

01:01:13:22 - 01:01:18:13
John Simmerman
Okay, Brandon, it's been such a joy catching up with you, my friend. Hey.

01:01:18:28 - 01:01:19:16
Speaker 3
Yeah.

01:01:19:25 - 01:01:42:00
Brandon Lust
Thanks for having me back on. I know we didn't have any, like. Oh, no, you In a lot of really, really smart and accomplished guests on your show, and I'm just some nincompoop running a Twitter account, but so I know I don't have any big projects to talk about. But again, I think that what I do just kind of keeps advocacy fun.

01:01:42:00 - 01:01:43:27
Brandon Lust
And I don't know, I hope people.

01:01:44:16 - 01:02:10:07
John Simmerman
I don't like I don't say don't sell yourself short. I mean, the thing that I love about this type of work that I've been doing now for frickin over 30 years is that, you know, it takes everybody, it takes activists, it takes advocacy organizations, it takes dedicated, hard working city staff to do things. It takes, you know, professionals and consulting firms to do these things.

01:02:10:13 - 01:02:34:11
John Simmerman
It takes leadership. It takes politicians to be able to to, you know, know that this is there. And so, you know, know that, you know, what you are doing matters. And because you have created an amazing audience and just your story alone, your story and touching on a story as a couple too, is so inspiring to so many people.

01:02:34:11 - 01:03:06:23
John Simmerman
And, you know, the fact that you have this falling out there, I'm just glad that you found you made it through the low points in 2022. Yeah. I'm glad that you did. I was worried about you there for a while. And you and I chatted a little bit over WhatsApp about that. Yeah, but it's I'm glad that you found a place where you feel pretty good about it because you're making a difference out there and it doesn't have to look like what anybody else is doing, you know, it doesn't have to be what Jason is doing.

01:03:06:23 - 01:03:28:15
John Simmerman
It doesn't have to be what Mark is doing. It doesn't have to be what I'm doing. Yeah, it's it's what brand and where you find yourself there. And the only thing that that I give you in terms of advice as an elder is just find a way to, to to be joyful and gleeful in it and don't let it impact your health and well-being.

01:03:28:15 - 01:03:39:22
John Simmerman
Because that's the thing as none of this matters enough that that if it if it gets you, gets you down or gives you a feeling, you know, to where it starts compromising your health and well-being, that's it.

01:03:39:22 - 01:03:58:00
Brandon Lust
Yeah. And it's got to be fun. And I will. And I will say something about that. I spend a lot of the time that I was building this account. I spent I spent a lot of time being hard on myself because I thought, Oh my gosh, okay, I need to make this like, modest, that I need to make.

01:03:58:00 - 01:04:28:09
Brandon Lust
I need to try to be more like bicycle Dutch. I need to try to be more like a and and I noticed that caused a lot of friction with me because I kept failing to tried to be like a certain advocacy account that meant a lot to me. Right? Right. Until I finally realized, No, no, no, no. These people are all my inspirations and my and people that teach me and keep me going and then fill my head with stuff that I can pass on to other people.

01:04:28:09 - 01:04:54:27
Brandon Lust
More education or inspiration. And so I am like them, but with my own sprinkle of flavor on everything. So. So I learn from, you know, Chris and Melissa and Mark and basic Dirt and Jason and a bunch and you and a bunch of people that, you know, this guy could go on all day listing names, but I just take everybody else's.

01:04:54:27 - 01:04:59:01
Brandon Lust
That means something to me. Process it through here and then.

01:04:59:28 - 01:05:00:23
Speaker 3
Spend.

01:05:00:23 - 01:05:14:23
Brandon Lust
Spend now on Twitter and it helps people. So I've I finally become comfortable with the fact that, no, I'm my own thing, but I'm also a product of all these other people that that really meant a lot to me along this way.

01:05:15:06 - 01:05:49:15
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. And what I love about you, too, is that you're you're not afraid to, like, dabble and try, you know, you thinking about your YouTube channel and, you know, getting out and getting out on dates and doing that. What's the update on that? I know you wanted to take a little bit of time off and and take some time away from it, but you you did you produce quite a few of them, enough to know whether that's something that you'd like to go back to at some point in time or, you know, pop in and out of it on occasion.

01:05:50:03 - 01:06:17:19
Brandon Lust
Yeah, Yeah. Jason really goosed me with that thing too, because he went and he promoted my first feeds and video and I got like over 2000 subscribers as quickly as you could blink. Thanks, Jason. And so then I felt obligated to, like, make more. I'm like, Oh crap, people are wanting stuff now. I got over that. I still have like 20, 2700 subscribers on.

01:06:17:22 - 01:06:17:25
Brandon Lust
Yeah.

01:06:18:04 - 01:06:28:07
John Simmerman
I've got, I've got it up right here. Yeah. You've, you've got 2700 subscribers, you have a total of 57 videos because you have a bunch of videos from the past as well.

01:06:28:07 - 01:06:53:08
Brandon Lust
Yeah. A lot of them. Yeah. They're kind of crappy but there's something, but the whole setting up the tripod on the back feeds and stuff is, is something I'm going to keep doing and it's fine, but I'm not going to try to become somebody who can make money off of this, and I'm not going to keep doling out videos every two weeks because I noticed the two things I hate editing and my laptop hates editing.

01:06:54:16 - 01:07:20:07
Brandon Lust
So. So the two of us have agreed that editing sucks, but whenever I would make these videos, they're not they're not like not just bikes, videos or other things like that. They're just kind of like me riding around and having a talk show in my own little head and just talking about things and and showing off. Kamal And I like the real time rides more rather than editing because I don't have to edit.

01:07:21:12 - 01:07:42:03
Brandon Lust
But I when I started to get messages from people saying, I really enjoy this, it's just kind of I'm I've had somebody say, Oh, well, I feed my kid breakfast, I've got it playing on the TV or, you know, some people in the Netherlands, there's a lot of surprisingly, a lot of people in the Netherlands who just like to watch them, to see what it's like living in cycling somewhere else.

01:07:42:16 - 01:08:06:10
Brandon Lust
And once I saw that people kind of enjoyed these unedited ride around videos, the work they do, like the first person thing, so they like to see a face. I thought, okay, I can do some more of those. But I took the winter off because winter in the Midwest is ugly and boring. But you know, as soon as we get some more leaves on the trees, all our and more people on the trails, I'll go out and yeah.

01:08:06:16 - 01:08:08:11
Brandon Lust
Capture some more and make some more. Yeah.

01:08:10:08 - 01:08:16:17
John Simmerman
Well, now that we know that, you know, some parents like to just put it on in the background and, and have the kids, you know, parked in front of it.

01:08:17:05 - 01:08:17:13
Speaker 3
Mm hmm.

01:08:18:15 - 01:08:20:13
John Simmerman
You may have to make sure you keep it PG.

01:08:21:04 - 01:08:23:24
Speaker 3
Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's.

01:08:23:24 - 01:08:33:00
Brandon Lust
Hard to do, but I've been doing it. But yeah, I don't know. I still have one grandma, but it's living and she wouldn't like me cursing in front of the camera, so.

01:08:33:12 - 01:08:38:02
Speaker 3
Yeah, Yeah. Try to turn it down. I love it. I love.

01:08:38:02 - 01:08:43:19
John Simmerman
It. Well, again, Brandon, thank you so very much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast. Once again. I appreciate it. Yeah.

01:08:43:29 - 01:08:48:00
Brandon Lust
All right. Thank you, John. Maybe we'll see you again in 2024 if there's something to talk about.

01:08:48:13 - 01:08:49:27
John Simmerman
Absolutely. Let's plan on it.

01:08:50:17 - 01:08:51:01
Speaker 3
All right.

01:08:51:12 - 01:09:07:08
John Simmerman
Hey, you all. So much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Brandon Lust Eat American Pizza. And if you did, please give it a thumbs up. Leave a comment down below and share with a friend. And if you haven't done so already, be honored. They have you subscribed to the channel. Just click on the subscription button down below and ring the notification.

01:09:07:09 - 01:09:35:03
John Simmerman
Fill out ends. If you are enjoying this content, please consider becoming an active town's ambassador by joining or a patron over to the active town store for your own streets or for people swag and yeah, until next time, this is John signing off by wishing you much activity, health and happiness. Cheers And again, a huge thank you to all my active town's ambassadors the channel on patron buy me a coffee YouTube super thanks.

01:09:35:11 - 01:09:46:06
John Simmerman
As well as making contributions to the nonprofit and purchasing things from the active town store, every little bit adds up and it's much appreciated. Thank you all so much.