George Hincapie: Tour de France, The Olympics & Doping | On The Homefront With Jeff Dudan #100

Welcome everybody to the home front. This is Jeff Duden and I am excited today to have George Hincapi on with us. George is a Tour de France stage winner, three time national road race champion and has represented the United States in five consecutive Olympic Games from 1992 to 2008 and has really been a fixture in the cycling world since his teenage years, way back in the day through today. Welcome George Hincapi.

Appreciate it. Happy to be on.

Yeah. I have to tell you man, I was very, I was familiar with you throughout your career but I've spent the time preparing to talk to you today, read your book the Loyal Lieutenant which has really been great and just can kind of consuming your content. So fascinating story. You have done so much.

Thank you. Yeah, it's a long, long road from growing up in Queens in New York to making it to the Tour de France and the Olympics and just was, I feel blessed to have that life and never took, took it for granted and still to this day love riding my bike. Went for a bike ride before this show. So still very much part of my life.

Yeah. Fantastic. So you grew up in, in Queens. Your dad was an immigrant from Columbia I believe and he, he worked, he worked for United Airlines, but he was also a cycler and he got you interested in cycling at a very young age. But you were living in Queens. H. How, how was that even possible? Were you riding in, riding in the park?

Central Park? I grew up racing in Central park and Prospect park and a lot of people don't know realize this, but even to this day there's a quite a big cycling culture in New York. I mean there's, you know, people from Europe, from South America, from all over the world that go to New York for different reasons. Reasons, various reasons. But a lot of them bring their cycling passion with them and they, you know, they have this, this really hardcore racing circuit on the weekends in Central park and it didn't matter if you were a 12 year old kid racing against these guys, they wanted to win no matter what. So for me it was actually quite the experience growing up racing against adults and people that had cycling in, in, in their sort of in their, in their childhood and they, that's all they knew. So I learned a lot growing up in New York City. So much so that by the time I got to Europe racing, I, I, I never felt overwhelmed. I'm like, hey man, I rode my bike in New York City racing. It's people from all over the world. This is like what I grew up doing. So it Wasn't a big deal.

Yeah. So my daughter goes to school in New York. I've been visiting her on the weekends. And what I've learned when we go to walk in Central park is look both ways.

Yeah.

People are flying.

Yeah. Well, that's another thing, that part of what makes the cyclist successful is like, awareness inside the peloton. And in Europe, as you know, there's lots of small roads and a lots of things going on that it really helps differentiate the best cyclist from an average cyclist is how aware they are inside of a peloton and how quickly they can react to certain situations. And growing up riding my bike in Central park, as you said, you have to look around. Your head has to be on a swivel at all points. Really helped my. My cycling abilities once I got to Europe.

Yeah. Your brother was a cycler also, and you had a sister. Is a cute story in the book about you jumping on her bike and taking off, but your family really sacrificed so that you could pursue the sport. Did you play any other sports growing up, or were you just focused on cycling?

Just focused on cycling. I played basketball in high school, just with friends, the. The preschool league, but never. Never as part of the team or anything like that. I just did it for fun. But cycling was pretty much all I did.

Talk to us a little bit about when you first met Lance Armstrong, when I think you were 15 and maybe he was 17 years old.

What.

What was that like? And. And, you know, that was. Was that a transformational opportunity for you to go out and really join that team and train?

Yeah, I mean, well, we were young. I mean, like you said, I was 15, he was 17. He was from Austin, Texas. He was this sort of hotshot triathlete that basically won every race he entered and then decided to try out cycling and went to the Olympic Training center in Colorado Springs. And here I am, this New York kid that also had a reputation of winning pretty much everything I did. And, you know, at first it was like, oh, this. A bit of competition going on. But we quickly became really close friends. And I guess him being two. Two years older than me, we sort of took on that role of, like, older brother, younger brother, and, you know, this. The story went on from there. We became professionals together. And. And, well, he turned pro, And I think 90. And I turned pro in 93 or 94. No, he turned pro 91. I turned pro in 94 or 92. Sorry. He turned pro at the Olympics in Barcelona, and I turned Pro 94. And we turned. We. I Wrote for the same team he did Team Motorola. And then obviously, everybody knows the story, he got sick. And then we. He came back and wrote for us Post service and won seven Tour de France's and a lot of drama afterwards as well. But it was, it was quite, quite a. A crazy story and really interesting to be part of it all.

When did you first get to travel internationally?

I started traveling internationally when I was 15 years old, going over Europe with the US national team. I was lucky growing up because cycling is very expensive sport and we didn't have much money growing up. But I had support early on from teams in New York City, from individuals in New York City that just love cycling and they just wanted to help promote cycling in the United States and help young kids make it. And then the national team picked me up when I was 15, 16 years old as well, and getting me plane tickets to go to Europe and put me up while I was in Europe and getting me that experience that I needed and made the Olympic team when I was 18 years old and kind of never looked back. So I just had a. I was lucky in the sense that I got not only incredible support from my family, but also support from, you know, the national government bodies as well.

Yeah. I was unaware that there's different roles inside of a cycling team and inside of a peloton. And I'm interested to hear from you how the decisions are made about who does what, who's intended to win and what the various support roles are. Maybe some of the strategy and planning around, you know, approaching a race to win it.

Yeah, I mean, like a race like the Tour de France has eight riders. Some of the riders are mountain climbers. They can go uphill really fast. Some of them are just really fast on the flats. Some of them are just really good overall riders. Some are just good at positioning, like sort of the road captains. So you go into a race like the Tour de France in our teams with, with Lance, for instance, we, we. We knew he was the guy that can do pretty much everything really well, and he was the guy that had the most. The best recovery skills, and we would back him. And my role would be to kind of keep him out of trouble, to keep him in the front of the peloton. You know, those little things is everything in cycling, where it's always about everybody. Once you, once you get to the level of Tour de France, everybody is so good. I mean, they're the best in the world, they're best in the world. And it's just the little differences that end up ultimately make the difference at the end of the day. What does that mean? That means like saving energy throughout the day, like a six hour day. Who can save the energy the most? Who's got the most teammates that'll keep them out of the window, keep them away from crashes. Just be who's got, who's got the teammates that can read the race the best, Keeping them away from riders that they think are dangerous. I mean, there's just a lot of little things that go on that are really important at the end of the day because they all add up at the end of a six hour day.

Do all eight riders ride in each stage?

Yes, all eight riders ride each stage. And if you don't finish one day, you cannot start the next.

Okay, so you would not finish because of a crash.

Crash or illness or injury. Injury can't hang on. It's too hard. I mean, it's a brutally hard race and.

Right.

Yeah, some guys just, you know, after a week they're just exhausted and they just can't continue.

Yeah. So then talk about the wind drafting. Is it a huge disadvantage to be in front versus being behind somebody?

It depends. If it's a downhill, super twisty, pouring rain, then being in the front might not be a bad idea because you can choose your lines.

Okay.

You're going downhill. So if you, you know the draft, you're not expending as much energy. But if it's a flat road and the wind is right in your face, then certainly major disadvantage to be in the front because the guys behind you are saving 20 to 30% just being behind behind you and you're kind of blocking the wind for them. So it really depends on the situation. But generally speaking, yeah, it's a disadvantage to be at the front.

So strategy in finishing a race. I just saw who, who was it? We had a woman cyclist just win the gold. She actually trained. She actually started riding. Yeah, she started riding six years ago in New York City.

Yeah, yeah. Pretty amazing story. I mean, she went to Harvard. She joined the Venture Capital world in New York City and just decided, you know what? This is not really for me. Started riding bikes in Central park and won two gold medals in the Olympics. And she's racing the Tour de France femme right now. Going on right now, currently, yeah.

That's incredible. But she finished all kind of alone. So when you're finishing a race, is it you, you know, who's going to break out? So let's say Lance is going to break out near the end. Is your job, then to maybe get in front of some of the other riders to give him a little bit of an opportunity or like, how does that work at the finish? Because typically you see one person out front.

Well, so let's back up. Kristen Falconer winning the Olympics alone, obviously, she was out front, but she took it. She took advantage of a very difficult moment in the race. It was coming up to a. The end of a very difficult race. I think There was maybe 10 miles to go, and there's only four girls left, all of which are the best girls in the entire world. Three of them were the best girls in, in the world, and she was relatively unknown compared to them. So in this case, in this circumstance, for her to get off the front and, and they perhaps hesitated for a second, give her a little gap, then she's on her own and it's three against one. But those three girls aren't going to really work together that well because they want to try to podium or try to win where she's got nothing to lose. Like, she can go all out on herself. So in that situation, yes, that's an advantage because it's her against herself at that moment. Like, if she's going to go as hard as she can, she's not really worried about the tactics. Like one girl sitting on a wheel, one girl's gonna sprint around her. She's like, I'm on my own. I have a gap. I have nothing to lose. And she did it. I mean, it was incredibly exciting race to watch.

It was. I saw the finish of it, and she, you know, the three that were following dropped behind, and it seemed like they were just jockeying with each other to figure out who was going to break out. So it's almost like they said, all right, she's going to get the gold. And then now we're competing for silver. So I found that to be strategically fascinating.

Yeah. And also she was pulled into the race last minute. There was one girl that fell down a couple times in the time trial, and she was also doing the triathlon Olympics and said, you know what? I'm going to give you my spot. She wasn't even selected to do the. The road race, got pulled in last minute and ended up winning the gold. Incredible story.

You know, we're not going to go down the road of politics right now, but, like, there's, there's, you know, we're so much more aware and we've got so much more access to information through the Internet, through social media. All, you know, we're all, we're all pulled into these political echo chambers and stuff that we do. But, man, when you sit back and you look at the Olympics and you've entire world basically putting athletes together, I think it's, I think it's even more important now than maybe it ever has been, just in terms of, of reminding, reminding us like, there's a whole nother world out there. There's. There's other countries, there's other cultures. These are people just like us that are competing and, and doing their thing. I, I found it to be pretty refreshing, actually. Maybe I'm just in that place right now in an election year, but I found it to be, like, very cool.

No, I agree. I mean, that's what made, that's what makes the Olympics so special, is just bringing people from all over the world. And, you know, when we were, when, when I was participating in the Olympics, obviously I was doing the Tour de France beforehand, which in our sport is arguably maybe even bigger than the Olympics, just because it's more important for cycling. But that's right. Still, you get to the Olympics and you just see athletes from all over the world that have dedicated their lives to be at the, you know, the top of their game. And you just have that camaraderie with people. It doesn't matter what, you know, where they're from, the differences in culture, it's like, okay, we know, we all know we busted our asses as hard as possible and we sacrificed pretty much our whole life to be here. So there's just that mutual respect amongst athletes from all over the world. And it's just this, there's nothing like it once you get to the Olympics. That atmosphere, and I tell a lot of people that, you know, go to their first Olympics, it's like, hey, man, just stick around after your rent, stick around and try to have some fun and absorb that atmosphere, because there's really nothing like it. And it's super special.

Yeah, that was my question. Did you lock it down and there. Or did you, did you embrace the experience and have a good time?

No, see, I, that, that's one of my biggest regrets. That's why I advise people, like, stay as long as you can. I would stay for like a day or two. Then, you know, we were on the road back then all the time, so it was like just, it was just another race and it would be like, okay, I'm at the Olympus, it's cool. But I haven't been home in like two months. I need to get home. But now looking back, you know, I wish I would have stayed a couple more days or really experience more of the Olympics.

Yeah, yeah. You know, obviously you're always asked about performance enhancing drugs and the doping and cycling. I, you know, I find it interesting that cycling was so singled out in terms of this. And then I was a college athlete. I was a college football player in the 80s and the 90s. I mean, well, just walking around the locker room, you know, you could tell who was, who was on stuff, who wasn't on stuff. A lot of people were. I, I just find it interesting that cycling really is so. It was so public and I really don't understand why. What's your view on that?

That's a great question. I don't know, because we all knew at the time it was unfortunately going on in cycling. Obviously it was going on in cycling, but it was going on in a lot of other places as well. But like you just mentioned that cycling kind of took the brunt of it and became a world media story. I don't know. It was because Lance was too big and he, his story was, was, was too incredible. I mean, even if, if we were doping at the time, what he did was incredible. I mean, he gave. Had a 50 chance to live and, you know, decided to come back and, and try to win the biggest race in the world, and he did. He was a freak of an athlete. He still is. I mean, the guy works out all the time. It was, was the best of the best at the time, but it was, it was, yeah, it was interesting to see how cycling got so singled out, not only because of, of how, how kind of prevalent it was everywhere else, but also because everything that cycling has done since then to clean it up, I mean, we've, I won't say we, because I'm not really into, in the sport as much anymore, but the protocols that the cycling body, government bodies have put in place have been more strenuous than any other governing body. In fact, a lot of them follow the lead of what cycling has put together. Independent testing. A lot of the teams decided to come out on their own and say, you know what? We prefer to have a clean team than to get results right now just to prove that with science, technology and nutrition, we can sort of start mimicking the effects of doping. And I believe that's what you're seeing today is the riders are going faster and faster and it's because the, the bikes are lighter, the bikes are faster. They're all going to altitude camps. They're all. The training is so precise now. The nutrition is so precise. There's no more guessing. Game on. Like, oh, wait, if I ride four hours, you know, should I just have, like, a pizza? And this is like, no, you ride four hours. Like, they eat to fuel now. They don't eat for pleasure. Like, it's so scientific, and you're seeing it by how fast they're going to.

Yeah, I think steroids, in a lot of ways, are just a shortcut for people. And, you know, my experience was, is that there was people on the line or, you know, in the linebacker corps that maybe, probably if without steroids, wouldn't have, wouldn't have been anywhere near the field, but, you know, they were. But I think, you know, cycling is an endurance sport. It's a strength sport. And, you know, are there, are there hacks that are legal that people use? I mean, I don't know, oxygen or, you know, I know there's, there's blood, like, people will sometimes, what, take blood out and run it through a, and, you know, put that stuff back in. Is, are those types of things legal or even necessary? Or do you think just with the, with the, with the advanced training today and the nutrition and look, you can do every, like, we know so much about the body now.

Yeah, well, that's what I was going to say. I mean, there's certainly hacks that, there's certainly a lot of things that are still not legal. But altitude training, for instance, is definitely legal. I mean, you can go up to Colorado or in Europe, go to certain, you know, Tenerife, where anything over 7,8000ft and you go spend 10 days there for certain periods throughout the year. Then you're mimicking the effects of doping. And these guys have got it so dialed in, they'll know the exact effect that 10 days or two weeks at altitude has on their body. Nutrition supplements, testing that they can do. They know exactly. I mean, look at all these longevity places now. They know exactly, like by blood tests, like, oh, well, you're deficient in vitamin D. You don't absorb vitamin D even if you're in the sun all the time. Just, they're starting to figure out all these different things that you can naturally supplement or supplement through products that are legal that will make the body just work pretty much ideally. So there's certainly a lot of hacks out there. I don't know them all, but I know that there's a lot out there.

Yeah. What's your training regimen today?

I, I, I work out in the gym, like, three or four days a week. I bike three or four days a week and I play tennis two days a week. So I pretty much exercise every day. But I try to keep it fun, nothing extreme. Like I don't do the five, six hour rides anymore. I try to, but, you know, I work out anywhere from an hour to three hours a day.

Yeah. And you have a son now that's a cyclist.

Yeah, so that's why I still ride a lot, because I love riding with him. He's 16, he's national champion, and he can drop me on the climbs, but, you know, I can still put it to him in some places and it's just really fun. There's nothing like being a father and watching your son progress from when he was 10 years old to hating the bike, to, you know, making him go out and ride and thinking he was a lazy kid. So now he's just like, he can ride away from me on Paris mountain anytime he wants. So it's just, it's been fun and it's, you know, it's been a real joy for me to watch him progress. And in fact, I'm taking him to Spain on Friday, where he was born in Girona, Spain. And we're going to ride around there for five days and I'm just really looking forward to that.

Yeah, I saw something in the book. I was skimming through the back part of it, and he got sick when he was three weeks old. Was it a blood?

Yeah.

What, what, what was that about?

Yeah, he had some weird virus in 2000. He was born in 2008. I had to go to Tour de France a week later. So here he was like eight, nine days old. And, you know, he just got this huge, this really bad fever in this sort of kind of dicey hospital in Spain. So I had to call, like, friends that were doctors be like, hey, can you guys come help? We don't know what's going to happen. The doctors were like, we don't, we don't know what he has. But his fever was just getting worse and worse. And I just remember having like a breakdown. I got back from one of the stages, bawling, crying, and my directors and coaches were like, just go home and be with them. My wife and her mother were there and they're like, you're not coming home, you know, like, there's no way you're quitting the door to France. We got this. And yeah, he ended up obviously recovering and yeah, he's, he's, he's national champion now, so it's been fun.

That's awesome. And then is he an Olympic hopeful and is he going to follow the same path or what is he thinking?

Yeah, I mean, he's 16 right now, so it'd be amazing if he made the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. In fact, I keep putting that in the back of his. His mind that it's a possibility. The way he's progressing every. Every few months, I mean, he just gets stronger and stronger, and, you know, I see no reason why he. He doesn't have a big shot to make the Olympics in four years.

That's awesome. Where are some of the favorite places that you've traveled to or maybe some of the favorite courses that you've run?

I love going to France. I mean, France has got some spectacular mountains, lakes, oceans. I love southern France in between Nice and Monaco. I love Majorca for cycling. It's a island off of the coast of Spain that's just incredible for cycling. A million cyclists a year go there to ride bikes from all over the world. Girona, Spain, where I'm going on Friday, has also become a hot spot for cycling. And I love here at Greenville, South Carolina, just down the road from you and being in Charlotte. In fact, I lived in Charlotte for six years and moved down here because the riding is so good. I mean, we're close to the mountains. We don't have much traffic, although we're getting more and more traffic because a lot of people are starting to find that little hidden gem here in Greenville. But the riding here is truly world class as well.

Now, is that Hotel Domestique?

Yep.

Is that the name of it? And that.

Yeah, that's. That's my hotel up in Travelers Rest. Okay.

In Travelers Rest, South Carolina. I went to the website, man. Very cool. Gotta look like you have a helipad there.

Yeah, we do. It doesn't get used all the time. It gets. I've seen it used once in a while, but I've. I actually used it once. I took my wife there for our 17th anniversary in a helicopter, which I thought was kind of a cool surprise.

That works. That works.

But, yeah, it's just a great spot. It's become quite the wedding venue, anniversary venue, and a cycling venue, too. We have a. A fleet of bicycles so people from all over the country can come and grab a bike and go on. Some of the roads that I trained on are all the roads that I trained on for the Tour de France. And it's a really unique, cool, hip boutique hotel. Yeah. And we have an event there In October, the 13th, third weekend of October, we have the Hink Abbey Grand Fundo, which 3,000 cyclists will come out and ride some of my favorite routes. And that's our 12th, I think our 12th year or 13th year that we've been doing it. And it's become quite a, quite a great event for the community.

How far out of Charlotte?

It's an hour and a half from Charlotte.

Yeah. Okay, so you fly into Charlotte, drop down an hour and a half. Probably fly into Greenville Spartanburg.

Correct.

Want to make that extra little hop and it's probably what, 30 minutes out of there?

Yeah, 30 minutes from Greenville Airport. Yep.

And then, and I looked at it online, man, looks like you got a lot of. How many rooms?

Oh, it's, it's small. It's only 13 rooms. We're on 30 acres. So, you know, you could spread out. We have a great pool, we have a, a good gym and great, great chef. So there's just a lot of. Lot to do there.

Yeah, man, looks like a great spot for a wedding. I've got a wedding coming up, but maybe I'm going to, I'll recommend it to my daughter and her brand new fiance.

She should come check it out.

All right, all right. We can, we can work a deal right there.

Sure. Okay.

You know, I, I know that you, you've got a great relationship with a lot of the people that you rode with. Lance Armstrong and, and many of the others. I've seen you doing podcasts with them and that kind of stuff. I'm interested in the thought process. You're with a tight group of people. Basically you're in the locker room, you're on the team together, and then all of a sudden you've got federal people poking around and putting pressure on people. What was your thought process like? I can't imagine how difficult it was because you're doing what everybody else is doing. You're getting a 3% or maybe a 5% increase just to pull even with the other teams from all over the world.

You're doing.

And now you've got this pressure on you. What, what was that like? And, and you know, how difficult was that for you during that time to navigate?

Oh, it was probably one of, if not the most difficult period of my entire life. It was just really hard. Just kind of learned to. Well, partly because when this all came to, to, to the spotlight, so to speak, um, I had stopped doping 10 years before that and I had taken on a different role in the sport where I was like advocating that we need to all be clean and if we're all clean, then nobody has to dope, and the best are going to win anyway. So that was my role that I took for, you know, almost 10 years, seven, eight years leading up to the investigation. So by the time the investigation come, I was like, this is like an old story, but in most people's minds, it was like it was happening the day before. And I understood that just because, you know, of the. Of the history that. That Lance had and the successes that he had. But it was super tough. And I took a. Took a stance early on where I was like, you know what? I'm gonna just be really open with anybody in my circle, whether it was my family, my friends, my confidants, my advisors. I was like, yep, this happened. And, you know, unfortunately, it happened. This is all true. It happened 10 years ago. And with the media, I was like, I'm here to focus on the race, and I'm still racing my bike. You know, just. I had this sort of this bullshit response to the media that I was like, yeah, I'm not talking about it. I didn't deny it. So I was not gonna. My. My stance was. I was not lying to the media, and I was telling the truth to all of my. My people in my. In my closed circle. So by the time it came out, it was like anybody I cared about already knew and they already understood that, yes, this happened a long time ago, and I was a huge part of the change of the sport. And I was proud to still be racing my bike and still be the best of the best. Like, I was the best helper for guys like Mark Cavendish, who you saw broke. Break the world. The right. The record of Tour de France. I was still his teammate. Those guys would put the hand in the fire for me. They knew that I was not doping at the time, and I was still one of the best of the best. So I was proud that I was still in the sport and still doing what I was doing without doping, and that. That saved me a lot, actually. That kind of helped me stay strong. Go. You know what? The only thing I can do right now, even though I know this story is going to come out and I know I'm going to get so much from people, so much hate, is that I'm just going to keep racing my bike, because I know that that's an old story, and I'm a clean athlete now, and I'm as good as I ever was, if not even better. And I'm more of. More of a. Impact to the teams that I'm racing for, so I need to take pride on that no matter what. All the noise was outside of that and that was helpful and just really, you know, rely on my family, close friends and confidence, like I mentioned, and that helped me get through that time and it made me stronger. I feel like I can pretty much handle any situation that arises now because of that.

You know, it's, it's interesting how our perspective changes over our lifetime. And you know, where, where I am at my age and you were, you know, I'm looking back on it and I'm saying, you know what, across all sports, I'd prefer that they were clean because it'll keep our kids healthier. Yeah, it'll, you know, and, and you know, some people just aren't going to be able to compete and maybe that's just the way it needs to be because it's, you know, it's, it's. In some sports it's probably cheaper and easier for them to take performance enhancing drugs because they don't have access to the nutrition and the weight training and the trainers and things like that. So, you know, there's people that are, that want so badly to compete, they want to be a professional athlete and there's a lot of pressure and there's a lot of money involved too. There's money, there's ego, there's. Sometimes it's just a college education, you know, just getting out of wherever they can get to, you know, but at the end of the day, you know, some of these things are really bad for you long term.

Yeah.

And, you know, so, so I really appreciate what you did and, you know, appreciate your role and kind of, you know, whatever it is and making all athletics cleaner and safer for our young people to participate in.

Yeah, no, it's been a wild ride, no doubt.

Yeah.

And I can say with confidence now that my son is 16, that he will not have to make the decisions that I had to make. And the, the envelope has been pushed so high within terms of, like I mentioned earlier, training, nutrition, tracking your training is just, it's a completely different sport now and, you know, they won't have to make the decisions that we did back in those days.

Yeah. So you've got Hincapi Sportswear with your brother, your brother's been your business partners. How is that business going? Is it still really good?

Yeah, it's still going. We make clothing for teams and organizations and companies all over the country and rides as well. And, you know, we, we continue to try to grow the brand. We've been in the business for 20 years and, you know, we hope to, we hope to continue in business. It's been a tough, tough business. It's a lot of companies out there making clothing, and we just hope that our story sort of differentiates what we do and our quality certainly does. So we're just going to keep plugging away and try to, try to get to the level that we want to be at.

So George's young people out there, like we said, trying to compete, what advice would you have for them in terms of focus? You know, there's, there's this, there's a movement in youth sports to say, hey, by the time you're 12 year old, 12 years old, you need to decide if you're a baseball, basketball or football player or cycler or whatever it is. And, and then there's another school of thought that says, you know, don't specialize early. What is your thought on, on that? What, in terms of giving kids a diversity of sports when they're younger versus, you know, like you did, really focusing in early on the cycling, I liked.

I like the diversity, even though I didn't do that. I was just riding my bike. But my son, for instance, he played soccer, he played tennis, and then he biked as well. And then all of a sudden, when he was ironically 12 years old, he kind of the chip sort of switched on him and he's like, I really like cycling. And, you know, he started doing it more and more on his own. And I feel like the fact that it was a natural sort of choice for him to be like, I don't want to do tennis anymore. I don't want to do soccer. I want to just ride my bike. Even though early on it was early decision. I mean, the, the best cyclist in the world right now. Remco Evanpool, one of the best cyclists in the world, just won two Olympic gold medals. He played soccer till he was like 18 years old and very, at a very, very high level and then decided that he wanted to be a cyclist. I don't think there is a set protocol on the age of when you need to decide. I think it's, I think the best ones are the ones that the kids makes for themselves. And as long as you're having fun and trying not to take it too serious at an early age, I think that's the secret to success is like, you know, this is a pleasure, this is an honor, and I'm grateful to be able to do this. You know, I have support for my family and if they see it like that and there's not a ton of pressure, I think there's, there's a, that's a path to success.

What's on the horizon for you? Any interesting projects or goals that you've set for yourself?

Like I said, I keep trying to grow in Cabbie Sportswear and it's getting harder and harder with all the competition. But we're going to keep plugging away and try to try to do what we can with the company and our events. We have our grand fundo, which I mentioned, our cycling event in October, but we also have a series of events. Our next one is in Bentonville, Arkansas, the home of Walmart, and we have a two day event there September 7th and 8th. And trying to grow our events company as well and get a couple thousand people to each one has been a real sort of joy to watch that, that company grow. We started it when I retired in 2012 as sort of a retirement party for me here in Greenville, and a thousand people showed up. So we're like, why don't we have this every year? And then from there we started doing it. We do one in Merced, California, Chattanooga, Tennessee, Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, now Bentonville, and of course Greenville. So it's kind of our, our series is growing and growing and we want to continue to, to promote that as well.

So these are cycling focused events where people come in from all over the place. And then you have, do you have entertainment? What goes on there other than the rest?

Yeah, we have, we have rest stops throughout the ride where we have great local food and, and, and, and drinks. And of course, of course we have bands playing at our rest stops. And then in the event here in Greenville, we have, we have free food at the hotel and we have just like a real like family friendly atmosphere with jumpy castles for kids. And it's just a, it's a whole day event not only for cyclists, but for their family members as well that do not ride.

Yeah, it's gotta be great. A lot of fun. And not, not bad for the hotel business either.

Yep, sure.

Awesome. All right, George, last question. If you had one sentence to make an impact in somebody's life, what would that be?

Ooh, one sentence. You could have given me like a warning about this.

Well, you take all the time you want. That's the value of editing.

I would say in anything you do. Just keep it fun and, and never stop believing.

Never stop believing. Keep it fun. Never stop believing. Awesome. George, thank you so much for being on.

All right, thank you Jeff.

Yep. This has been. I am Jeff Duden. We have been with George Hincapi and we are on the home front. Thanks for listening out there.