Cycling Maven - His next project

Tommy: Wait a minute! Crossface!

Mark: The Daily Talk Show. A conversation sometimes worth recording with Josh Janson and Tommy Jackett.

Josh: It's The Daily Talk Show. We've got Mark Ferguson, also known as Cycling Maven.

Tommy: To be honest, I thought it was your real name. I thought Cycling Maven, you changed your name to that.

Mark: I get called Maven a lot, so I'm thinking about changing my name by default to Maven, just Maven.

Josh: How did you come up with Cycling Maven?

Mark: Well, back in the day I was thinking, okay, how can I get online and do this, share some thoughts on cycling? And a maven is an expert in a particular field who seeks to pass on knowledge to others.

Tommy: Really?

Mark: Okay, that's Yiddish. I'm not Jewish, but Yeah, just thought I'd do that.

Tommy: It's pretty straightforward. You're talking about cycling. You've got your YouTube channel.

Mark: Yeah.

Tommy: Is that where it started? Is that the platform you chose?

Mark: It's actually— I actually started in the late 2000s, and I started up a blog, and then I realised I was a really crap writer.

Josh: There's so many shit writers. I've got a mate of mine, great designer, shit writer, had a blog, and it was just like, it looked so nice. He had the best designed website. It would make me really upset when you actually read the stuff because it wouldn't make sense. You did a bit of that.

Mark: I had people just emailing me about spelling mistakes and just people just froth on telling you that you've done something.

Josh: Good engagement. Yeah.

Mark: So that was it. So that's that. So that died a miserable death. And in fact, that went for about— that went well for about 6 months, and then I got a real job.

Josh: Wait, so, so you were— you doing it as an actual thing? That was your job?

Mark: Yeah. Well, I moved from Perth, right, to Melbourne in the global financial crisis right at 2008. And I had no job to come to and I wanted to move to Melbourne, right? So I thought, okay, I'm going to get a job when I'm here.

Josh: Why did you want to move to Melbourne?

Mark: Just because I was single. It's just cool. They have really good coffee.

Josh: Is that really the thing? So like if you're single, Melbourne is good?

Mark: Yeah, well, back then, yeah.

Josh: And I think it still is.

Mark: I mean, I'm not single anymore, so I wouldn't know.

Tommy: Well, you moved here, you had some success. Just to reset a bit, we are in a little, almost like a bungalow-esque of a cafe.

Mark: Yeah, we've got some background music.

Tommy: Yeah, so if you're hearing those funky vibes. What was it you thought it was called?

Josh: Lost on Chapel.

Mark: I thought it was called Lost on Chapel, and I've been here 5,000 times. It's actually called Found on Chapel.

Josh: Found on Chapel.

Mark: So come down, cheque it out if you live in Melbourne.

Josh: Yeah, uh, great coffee. Enjoying a flat white.

Tommy: It's a cool little place in South Melbourne. It's not South Melbourne, South Yarra. South Yarra. And so you're now living in Melbourne, you've got your, um, you've got your YouTube channel boasting 45k subs. Do you sweep down?

Josh: Tommy's a sub counter, if you haven't heard. Every—

Tommy: well, do you, is there, okay, do you count your subs?

Mark: I mean, I did back in the day, back at, back like pre-1000. Yeah, like I'd set notifications up and like, did you— Bill Jones just subscribed to your channel and I'd be like, sick, click on Bill, cheque him out, see if he's got anything going.

Josh: And wait, so the, the blog, so sorry I interrupted you, you were, you moved from Perth to Melbourne because of coffee and you were single?

Mark: Yeah, yeah. And just to, just to get a better life really, because Perth's great, don't get me wrong. Anyone from Perth listening, love you. Yeah, but great weather. Yeah, right. But job prospects and stuff like that, it's just way better for what I do.

Josh: So you grew up in WA and then grew up in WA? Okay.

Mark: Yeah, cycling, started cycling over there. Anyway, moved to Melbourne, did the blog for 6 months in cycling, so commentating on cycling and then realize, you know what, you've actually got to pay the bills.

Tommy: And I can't spell.

Mark: And I can't spell to save my life. And I didn't finish high school, so.

Josh: Oh, Tommy and you have another thing in common.

Tommy: We're similar, but I don't cycle.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And I don't have 45,000 subs. I've got 943.

Josh: Don't be so hard on yourself. So you discovered, did you build a community? Did you already have a community at that point or no?

Mark: Sort of through the blog I actually did build bit of a community, but, um, but got a job and then just let it go. Got back into the surgical device world, and you know, the reality of just slogging it out and focusing on that, it just went by the wayside.

Josh: So you said you got back into it. So did you— what did you, what did you do when you finished school? So you, you dropped out?

Mark: Yes, I dropped out year 10 actually. I wagged so many days of year 10 that my dad said, you've got to join the Navy or the Army. Or the Air Force.

Josh: And so I said, not even just like, uh, because some people like Tommy became a landscaper, there was other options.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Josh: But so, so you joined the Navy?

Mark: Joined the Navy. I was just almost 16.

Josh: Did you ever get motion sick before then? Like, that wasn't an issue?

Mark: Okay, well, see, this is an interesting question because I'd surfed for like 4 years before I went to the Navy, so you'd think I'd be a chewing. But as it turned out, I got hella sick.

Josh: Really?

Mark: Oh mate, I had days like— I'm not joking, seasickness is the worst feeling. I don't know if you boys—

Josh: I vomited all the way to Tasmania once. Yeah, and that's having a shit. Yeah. And they said, um, and I was 17, and mum said, well, I think you just need some food. So for some reason we thought it was a good idea to eat a cheese Kransky. I just vomited the whole time.

Tommy: They've got the buffet on the Spirit of Tasmania.

Josh: Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. So you, you You started off by vomiting on the Navy.

Mark: Yeah, so we went on this, you know, I went on a few ships, right? But they're quite narrow, the ships. They're not like the Spirit of Tasmania, it's a big fat lunker, you know, chunk of hunk in the ocean. Yeah, we've got these narrow sort of Navy ships and they're long, so they roll. Anyway, first few sessions out, like the first day is the worst, right? And you've got to work. Like I'm there to work and sort of paint things and fix things and stuff. Like, you can't when you've got seasickness. You're just lying down on the ground just throwing up. And that, that goes on when you go to sea, like out in the ocean for 2 weeks, 3 weeks at a time, for days. So think about that for 4 days.

Josh: I felt horrendous coming here because I tried to watch your YouTube videos while Tommy was driving and nearly vomited. I'm still feeling— I've still got that throat feeling.

Tommy: And you just, you've smashed your coffee.

Josh: Yeah, I did. Is that a bad idea? Well, if you're feeling dairy, and I normally drink almond milk, but I didn't want to sort of, because of the friction of already recording, I didn't want to rock up late, get a specific room, and ask for almond milk. The almond milk felt like it was too much.

Mark: It was just too much to compute, wasn't it?

Josh: So now I'm going to shit my pants before the end of the episode, but it'll be worth it.

Tommy: So you mentioned you work in the surgical instruments sales, is that what you said?

Mark: Yeah, yeah, surgical devices.

Tommy: And so you have your YouTube channel, and I see everyone out there, everyone's trying to go, uh, I want that to be my job, I want the YouTube. And I think some people look from the outside and look at your channel, 45K subs, oh, there's your job, this is what's going to pay the bills, he's a bloody billionaire.

Mark: You know, it's, it's funny, the perception. So a lot of people think that, you know, I bloody made it, you know, I've got 45K subs Well, you have, you're on the Daily Talk Show.

Josh: You've arrived, you've arrived.

Mark: But yeah, no, you know, people think, oh God, you're doing so well. But the truth is on YouTube, and you've got a YouTube channel yourself, Tommy, but it's a slog. And if you've monetized, you don't make much money. You know, like I reckon, and I don't mind sharing this. I made a billion dollars. I make about $300 a month.

Josh: Well, from the, from the advertising, it's not even paying for your Gassman, uh, my Gassman t-shirt.

Mark: I'm just rocking this Gassman t-shirt now. The boys are taking the mickey out of me.

Josh: No, well, you were just talking before that you spent up big, you spent, uh, big on Gassman.

Tommy: The bloke without a kid is taking the mickey out of you. I saw it and thought, that's fashion. No, it is really, as a dad, it looks really nice.

Josh: It almost looks like the, um, sort of dry wicking sort of the stuff that Tim Ferriss is always pushing, you know, the things that you don't have to ever wash and put it under the sink and then wring it out in your hotel room. Yeah, that's that type of thing.

Tommy: Or you can just be a normal human.

Josh: So you're trying to tell us that you can't be, uh, you're not rich from YouTube?

Mark: You're just, you just don't make a living. And I tried to do that. I mean, I had quit in, uh, quit my day job in March 2017, went and did the, the IndiePack, which I'm gonna tell you a little bit about later. But it's a race basically across from Perth to Sydney by bike as fast as you can.

Tommy: Through the center?

Mark: Through the center, yeah. Well, from Perth, you're across the Nullarbor, down through Melbourne, up through there, the Victorian Alps. And you've got to carry all your own stuff on your bike. But anyway, long story, but made it most of the way. And then, then went overseas and really tried to make a have a crack at this YouTube channel thing. It's just a tough gig to make money because you've got to, you've got to touch up brands and stuff to get any sort of income.

Josh: Yeah. Did you— wait, you said you went overseas?

Mark: Yeah, so a bit of a storey here. Had a, um, did a Kickstarter. So after the IndyPack, I got back and thought, okay, what can we do now?

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: And as we know in cycling, the big races are the Tour de France, the Giro d'Italia, which is the Italian version, and then you've got the Vuelta a España, which is the Spanish version. And I said to my followers on YouTube, I said, look, I'll do a, I'll do a Kickstarter, you guys pay, and I'll go over and do a series of vlogs from these Grand Tours and tell you guys how awesome they are and where to go and where to stay. And to my surprise, I put up like 10 grand as the thing that I thought I was going to hit. Yeah, 50 grand in 3 days they chipped in. Over 3 days? Well, within 3 or 4 days we had something like $40,000, and then over the next— the course of the next 60 days, I think you leave a Kickstarter open for— um, got me up to $50,000.

Tommy: And so you're a billionaire, pretty much.

Josh: No, no, the funny thing, like, because it was their insecurities of doing it, because you see the people who are like, you know, um, can't afford a honeymoon, so here's a GoFundMe page so we can, we can go on a nice holiday.

Tommy: You get people who are pretty Well, are you saying they're gross self-indulgent ones and then there's other ones that actually have more value?

Josh: People who have no self-awareness at all and don't realise what it was. So what were the— how did you reconcile it in your mind to feel like you weren't just taking the piss?

Mark: This is a really good question, and this was something that came back to bite me, right? Because what I did was I offered a certain amount of things, you know, caps, t-shirts, which we all fulfilled, and It was, I will bring you guys a video every day from the grand tours, you know, of our vlog. It's just a vlog plus a few other bits and pieces. I can't remember, you know, as I said, hats and t-shirts and stuff like that. Yeah, so it was about adding value. And really, at the end of the day, if you don't want to put money in towards a Kickstarter, don't do it. You're not going to pull your wallet out. Yeah, yeah. So if you're frothing on what I'm doing, you're going to put some money in.

Josh: So you may be over— you over-engineered it. You gave too much.

Mark: I gave too much. Well, we, we did over-engineer, so it's that balance, right? So people that are seasoned vets— I know you spoke to Rob Ward a few, few sessions ago and podcasts ago, and he's— he did a great Kickstarter for his business. But yeah, you can underdo it like these, these people that you were saying, and you can overdo it. Yeah, by offering too much stuff, because when you get back, you've got to fulfil all these orders, and it's hard yards, man.

Josh: So what was that like? What was the, uh, what was the storey behind that? What's the learning?

Mark: Well, the learning was that we went over there and a lot of the crew that were watching my channel— and we had a whole bunch because SBS don't cover the Giro d'Italia, that was the first race we went to, yeah, the Italian version, yeah, and SBS weren't covering it. So we had all these people coming to my channel to watch the race. Well, it turns out that you need media rights, it costs thousands of dollars for media rights.

Tommy: Yeah, of course, you can't just vlog it.

Mark: You can't just vlog. I can't point a camera at the riders. Yeah, this is sweet, let's just So I had to film myself and Hannah and us just hanging out. Just—

Tommy: he's a reenactment.

Josh: This is the equivalent of like not Optus, not live streaming, but then it's like Optus streaming the World Cup, but instead of having the game, they've just got a couple of guys just sitting there. It turns into Gogglebox, just talking about—

Mark: it was Gogglebox. This is exactly what it was. So we had a lot of flak in the first few vlogs, like a lot of kickback. From our followers, and not so much even my followers. My followers were like, we know what you do, bro, it's cool. Yeah, but these douchebags coming in, yeah, thinking that they're going to watch the Giro d'Italia because SBS aren't televising it.

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: And so that just threw me into a flat spin, right? It rattled me hard. You know, we had such troll comments, like, I don't even know if I can say some of the comments on here.

Tommy: You can, just say a good one.

Mark: Well, one of the comments was, Hannah needs a cock in her ass. And that was the top voted comment. Now for those of you don't know, Anna's my partner.

Tommy: Now wife?

Josh: Now baby mama?

Mark: One day. She's my mama.

Tommy: Oh, she's the baby mama.

Mark: Yeah, she's my baby mama. Yeah, I've got a 3, 4-month-old little boy.

Josh: So, right. And so, I mean, that tells you a lot about the community that you're creating there.

Mark: Well, it was the top voted comment.

Josh: That's a great thing. Well, that's what I was saying.

Mark: I deleted it.

Josh: I was saying to Tommy, I was saying the The thing that I like about what we're doing is we're not trying— we don't want to go too far out of our frequency. We don't want to go to those people, like, because those people are there. So I guess the more viral you go, the more sort of open you are to people criticising you. Is that— have you found that you've got that core community, and do you avoid— like, do you see the negative side of going viral or going too big?

Mark: I think viral— I'm not going to say it doesn't work, for a starter, but just talking about viral, yeah, I think, you know, you can have a viral video and pick up no extra subscribers.

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: So, so I don't think aiming to be viral is, is the main thing, but it's organic growth. Exactly what you're doing, exactly what I've done. Um, yes, as you grow, you, you cop more criticism, and you're really opening yourself up to criticism. And I think in video particularly on YouTube, because we know YouTube's a place where trolls can sort of open up any account under any name. And you can, you can open up an account under my name and start trolling other people and pretend as though you're me. Don't do it.

Josh: Yeah, but I do like that.

Tommy: Yeah, interesting.

Mark: You've been doing that for ages.

Tommy: That's me. I was the one saying the thing in the bum. Wow. I don't even want to say that comment again.

Josh: I mean, it's annoying because I think what it points out too is that it is that sort of, uh, the sexism of it, which is like pointing out Hannah, like making it about her when she's just like sort of this small part of the, the whole piece. Do you find that? Do you find that bringing in certain people into your world that they get criticised more than even you do?

Mark: Uh, not, not really. I mean, Hannah's been pretty— Hannah's pretty well liked on the channel. We both are, obviously, but I think with the Kickstarter, as soon as you bring money into it, and as soon as people can see that you're, you're hitting your straps and you're having success, then that's when a lot of jealousy comes in.

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: And so then people get feisty, man.

Tommy: I think you can almost bring more value when it's not— when you're not being paid for it, because— and you, because you can also, you can almost try in different areas that that are a bit dangerous and you might win. So you might be a bit more creative.

Josh: But then how do you do it? That's the conundrum, right?

Tommy: Yeah, but then the conundrum is you're not getting paid for it.

Josh: So it's not a, it's hard to make a living. And then the other side of it is it's like, you sort of fucked either way because you either, you do that, you ask people for money and then they feel like a real ownership or you go to brands and try and convince them that whatever tone of voice that you wanna do or the way that you wanna, you know, Showcase their product is the right way.

Mark: That's, that's exactly right. And that were the two options. I mean, we really didn't have a lot of time after the IndyPAC. So the IndyPAC took me, uh, was supposed to take, you know, 4 to 6 weeks, and we had headwinds pretty much every day in the first few days, so it put us behind schedule. So we only had 3 weeks to sort of muster up some money to go to the Giro d'Italia. And so I didn't have a lot of time to approach brands, so I thought the best way to do this is the Kickstarter. In retrospect, it wasn't the best way to do it. I would advise anyone thinking about doing this to go to brands, um, because as you just said, the people think that they've got ownership of the vlog. And so once you're a Kickstarter contributor, you have, you know, production rights to, you know, we want to see more of this. And so we found that people were doing that more and more. But the worst thing was, is because we were making these videos on YouTube from the Kickstarter funding, there were people that hadn't contributed to the Kickstarter who were also saying, we want this, this, this, and this.

Josh: Yeah, it's so dope.

Tommy: I mean, I'm a video guy, so is Josh.

Mark: We—

Tommy: that's our craft.

Josh: Are you—

Tommy: what do you—

Mark: I mean, good question, man. I don't even know what I'm doing. I've done—

Tommy: no, but I mean, yes, yeah, you have any video?

Mark: No, I've done 600 videos now, but I, I always just had a bit of a thing for video. I just I never knew anything and I got on lynda.com and this was in 2014. I got on lynda.com and I did a Premiere Pro CC course.

Josh: Great, you need to do that one too. Tommy's gonna be transitioning from Final Cut Pro to Premiere.

Tommy: I'm a cowboy self-taught Premiere Pro.

Josh: Lynda.com is great.

Mark: It's fantastic, I highly recommend. This is not an advertisement.

Josh: Yeah, it fucking should be.

Mark: It should be though, we're gonna get in touch with them.

Josh: So you did that whole lynda.com, learnt Premiere.

Mark: Learnt Premiere. Taught myself.

Josh: What was your first video?

Mark: I started doing GoPro. So the whole premise behind going from the blog was knowing that I couldn't write. I wasn't a good writer. So then I went into making videos, and I thought, I've got a bit of a creative flair, I'll start making videos. I found Casey Neistat. I don't know if anyone knows, but he's a, he's a vlogger, vlogger on YouTube. I don't know what's a vlogger.

Tommy: It depends if you're asking grandpa or your cousin.

Josh: Funny thing, like, I've heard vlog twice in the last 2 days.

Mark: I call it vlogger.

Josh: Yeah, it's a vlogger.

Mark: Yeah, but they sound like a flogger.

Tommy: Yeah, well, it's not be log.

Josh: No, what's— yeah, as a vlog. No, but I did have someone say, Josh, when you're traveling, you should vlog, you should do a vlog. And, um, it was hard for me not— because she was being super, super nice, but I wanted to like laugh in that moment because it's quite a— yeah, maybe I will do a vlog. But anyway, so you, uh, you, you did the whole GoPro thing, you bought it, you That's a classic thing. I've, you know, I remember going to Fiji a few years ago and GoPros seem to be the gateway drug in a lot of ways to content creation.

Mark: Yeah, well, GoPros back when I started were huge, right? So any GoPro footage was just off the, off the chart. And especially to put it on a bike and race, and I was pretty fit back then, right? So I won a couple of races with the GoPro on the front of my bike, and so I was pretty pretty stoked to cut this up and put it on YouTube. So I thought, okay, how can I put this on YouTube without looking like a total wanker? Because I'd won the race. So I thought, okay, I'll do a tutorial and I'll narrate the footage and I make it a how-to, right? So I made this how-to video on how to win a race, right? And I didn't even know what I was talking about, but I was just talking. And anyway, it had like 16,000 views. Yeah, this is this video, this GoPro video. And I thought, I'm really starting to enjoy this YouTube stuff, you know.

Josh: I'm super naive when it comes to cycling, but I've seen Icarus. So I can't help but think that anyone that's winning a race is obviously like, you've got a full medical team working on you and stuff like that. Is that the reality within an, like what level were you playing in?

Mark: Oh, well, I was only racing local club crits. So, you know, like a criterium for those that don't know, it's just a, it's a lap. You go for like a 1-kilometer circuit, usually a flat course. And you do it about 50 times and you race for 50 minutes and then they ring the bell with 3 laps to go and you're sort of— everyone sort of starts to race, right? Yeah. But something like Icarus is— he's going over massive mountains. Yeah. So, you know, a lot of those guys are, you know, you're at your threshold. So it's going over these mountains.

Josh: Did you say it's called a crit?

Mark: Criterium.

Josh: Okay.

Tommy: Your races, were they first across the line wins, not time?

Mark: Yeah, first across. So you line up with, say, you start the race, the critérium with, you know, say 60, 100 blokes, 100 people, and then you race around. And I'm a natural born sprinter, so sprinting is my thing. So basically what I do is I wait to the end of the race, they ring the bell with 3 laps to go, and then I go to the front.

Tommy: See you suckers!

Josh: Yeah, great.

Mark: That's— so that's my thing, right? But, um, but there's a lot of guys who are time trialists or hill climbers, and they're quite light, so they're like 60 kilos and and they can just go. So those guys leave me for dead.

Tommy: Fire. A few name drops here. Grew up going to primary school and high school. Mark French, a cyclist, Australian guy.

Mark: Yeah, very good sprinter.

Tommy: Yeah, very good. His thighs are twice the size of your head, Josh.

Josh: Really?

Tommy: And you've got a big one.

Josh: I don't want to name drop. I'm on Strava. I've got Strava. You're on Strava?

Mark: I'm on Strava.

Josh: This is a sponsored ad. No, this isn't a sponsored ad, but I actually got— it was the saddest thing of, you know, the Strava review, the year in review. It's normally pretty exciting. Mine had, I think it was like 14 kilometres as my year in review. But the big lesson with Strava and what I've since learned, I actually bought Hamish Blake, who I've had on the podcast, he had a spare bike and I bought the bike off him. It was a cyclocross. And I was just going for, it was either me getting a Reid bike, right? Or Hamish is like, mate, don't do that here, buy this one. So anyway, I bought a cyclocross and I started using Strava and he texted me and said that I shouldn't be putting up my one, 'cause I was going riding to work, which was I think 1.2 kilometers. And so that's what I was putting on Strava. But what I learned was, Haym was explaining that there's all these rules. He noticed that all these people were looking at things and that they, they're looking at your socks, they're looking at like, there's all these, this is a whole culture around what you wear.

Mark: Oh look, road cyclists are bloody wankers really. No, I'm only kidding, I'm joking.

Josh: He's calling himself one. So are you a road cyclist?

Mark: Like, yeah, I would say I'm a road cyclist.

Josh: Do you identify as a road cyclist?

Mark: I identify as a road cyclist, but you know, I like all types of cycling really, and that's the premise of my channel. I've done a bit of mountain biking, crashed every time I went out mountain biking, mind you. Did a little bit of cyclocross. I haven't raced cyclocross though. I want to try that out. That's pretty cool. It's in the mud.

Josh: I saw, I saw a video that you'd done where I think people were like going over hay bales or like they were just sort of carrying out— it was, it seemed pretty slow.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, it looks slow, but you know what, on like when you're rolling on the road, it's happy days. You can just, you know, push the pedals a little bit and you're rolling. On the grass you've got to push down 220 watts just to get anywhere.

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: So, you know, you're pushing hard. So it's a lot harder. And this is the funny thing about cycling, right? Anyone who's watched a cycling race online, you know, you look at the dudes and you're like Chris Froome and all those guys, and they're like, fuck, I could smash these guys, right? But the truth is they are pushing 500, 600 watts. They— the whole premise behind them not pulling, you know, wretched heads, you know, exercise heads is they're trying to look fresh for their opponents.

Tommy: So it's part of the strategy.

Mark: It's part of the strategy.

Josh: Yeah, you—

Tommy: yeah, it's a world, the cycling world. What's the appeal?

Mark: I mean, it's the Lycra.

Tommy: It is, yeah.

Mark: And shaven legs.

Tommy: I can't see your legs.

Mark: They love shaving. They're not shaving. I haven't ridden a bike for a bit.

Tommy: But what is the appeal? What's the— I guess that holds the community together?

Mark: And just, it's a— it In all seriousness, it's a great exercise. As we know, it's a great mental health thing, right? So, and cycling is, you know, riding side by side next to a couple of mates. And, you know, it's not that— for example, you and I are sitting here face to face at the moment. It's harder to sort of open up over a coffee, whereas on the bike, you see, you're next to your mate, you can talk about anything.

Josh: Yeah, we should start doing the podcast off a bike. I just don't know how it Bit weird. A bit of an odd go. Yeah. So when it comes to the whole fashion type of thing, I fell into the trap of, I'm like, okay, well, if I've got the bike, I need the gear. So I went and did like a raffle purchase and bought sort of—

Mark: Went raffle?

Josh: Went raffle. And so—

Tommy: How many times have we heard this? The guy who gets the bike and goes and buys everything and then doesn't use it.

Josh: Hey, we haven't heard the end of the storey yet. Maybe I'm— maybe I rode it.

Tommy: Spoiler alert, he doesn't ride. But he did an Instagram post of him in his Lycra.

Mark: Critical. If you're in the kit, you gotta do at least one Instagram post.

Tommy: Did you get a sense, Josh, of that, oh, I can see the appeal here?

Josh: Absolutely. I thought that I was getting into the community. I just didn't, all the haters were saying, Josh, this isn't gonna last. This is, you're just buying shit like you normally do. You're not gonna do this thing. But I went on a couple of rides and I was living in Abbotsford on the water. So it was like perfect.

Mark: Great location.

Josh: Great location for cycling. But I just don't— it's not that I don't trust cars and stuff, I don't trust myself. Like when I would turn my head, I'd turn the whole bike and stuff like that. So it was from a safety point of view, I was just—

Tommy: So that's what squashed it for you?

Josh: Yeah, I just felt like, 'cause the appeal with Rapha was it was like they've got all these guarantees where it's like, you know, if you lose weight, you can get like a new pair for like half the price or, if you crash, they'll like, they'll replace the, uh, what is it? Yeah, exactly. It still— I couldn't bring myself to chuck it out, and because I'd worn it once, it feels like one of those selling underwear you can't sell.

Mark: You can't, especially after wearing the Knicks. Come on. I mean, who would even buy a second pair?

Josh: I'm sure there's a market for it on Gumtree.

Mark: I would imagine there would be.

Josh: So can you go— the one thing that I was discovering with myself through this whole journey was that I couldn't, um, I didn't feel comfortable just wearing normal general public clothes on a bike. I felt like if I was going to go on a short bike, I had to— short ride, I had to kit up, wear the kit.

Mark: Yeah.

Josh: Do you have to do that, or is it— is there—

Mark: no.

Josh: Okay.

Mark: No, you don't, you don't. Um, you know, there's a big shift at the moment with a lot of cyclists who wear kit traditionally moving towards a more traditional style of clothing. There's a few brands actually starting up, one in Melbourne, I just can't remember the name of it right now. But so, so what I'm saying is there's a lot of people starting to ride around in casual clothes, right? Now the kit's great if you're going to be racing or you're going to be doing long rides and stuff like that, but you know, let's face it, it doesn't look great, especially with a guy, you know, like I'm 44 now. Yeah, I don't look good in kit, but fucking horrendous for 40.

Josh: Did you say you're 44?

Mark: I'm 44.

Josh: Yeah, it upsets me so much with the rig that I have at 27.

Tommy: Oh, you've still got a few years, mate.

Josh: So how much of it is— so you were talking before we started on CrossFit. Is that a thing that you do?

Mark: Yeah, CrossFit. CrossFit for me was just a bit of a rest from cycling, you know. I think in the 2010— I've been cycling all my life. My dad was a cyclist. He was a, he was a good, you know, he was a hitter. And so, you know, I sort of transitioned from cycling from my dad, but I've been doing it so many years, I needed something else. And so I started lifting heavy things, throwing weight around, you know, doing the CrossFit thing.

Josh: You have to sort of, um, cycling, CrossFit, you know, it's sort of in line with veganism and stuff like that. Is it?

Mark: I was vegan for 2 years.

Josh: Really?

Mark: Yeah.

Josh: How did, how did that go for you?

Mark: Um, it was good. Now vegan, being vegan, let's not say vegan because vegan encompasses a lot of things, right?

Tommy: I'm always trying to convince Dad to eat lollies.

Mark: Yeah, I did. I mean, I was, I was, you're a vegan, but I was a cheegan.

Tommy: Okay, cheegan.

Mark: And I can honestly say I was a cheating vegan. Yeah, but, um, lollies, when you say lollies, that's the gelatin. Yeah, that's the gelatin, like the Jelly Babies.

Tommy: Animal products.

Mark: You can't eat them. But, but the thing is with veganism is it comes with a lot of things, you know. You get rid of your leather shoes and your leather car seats and stuff like that. Like, I didn't worry about that shit, right?

Tommy: Yeah.

Mark: All I cared about was just eating plant-based food.

Josh: So it was health-driven?

Mark: Yeah, it was health-driven, just to feel good about it, right? But I'm not joking, I was riding 70Ks in the morning, doing 70Ks at night, every day for like months.

Tommy: What's that in an hour? So how long does it take to do 70Ks?

Mark: 70Ks, it's a long time. It's, you know, 2 and a half hours, 2 and a half, 3 hours.

Tommy: Nearly 5 or 6 hours a day.

Mark: Yeah, I was going hardcore, plus working a full-time job, and I felt friggin' amazing. I felt absolutely amazing on a plant-based diet. But the thing is with a plant-based diet is you've got to eat a lot of food. So when you get— decide to go plant-based, you've got to eat massive amounts of fruit and vegetables.

Tommy: I saw one of your videos, you're on a bike for 5 and a half hours and you said you ate 5 dates. That's all you ate for the day. Ah, could have eaten a bit more, but geez, those 5 dates.

Mark: Yeah, I mean, you can, you could get through like on 5, like a date an hour. That's fine if you're just pedalling cruisy.

Josh: Sounds so sad.

Mark: It is pretty sad, but I wasn't deliberately doing that. I think I just only had 5 dates that I picked up that morning and that was it. I just grabbed a handful of dates. I was running late.

Tommy: One of your other videos was about, I think it's one of your most viewed and everyone loves a good road rage incident or something going on. It happened in Brighton out the front of the Brighton Baths.

Josh: Yeah, did it involve Shane Warne? Isn't he big on the—

Tommy: Yeah, he hates cyclists.

Josh: Yeah, he's Beach Road. I think he's famous for—

Tommy: Well, if you play devil's advocate, and which Tommy loves to do, by the way, just so you know, I'm fine with cyclists. My wife, on the other hand. But you know, what's the thinking around— is there us versus them? Do you think that's really prominent?

Josh: This is what I was saying. Can I jump in first? To preface Tommy's question so he just doesn't sound like a bit of a dickhead. Playing devil's advocate, I can say what I want. Tommy's in a four-wheel drive, you've got someone who's on something that's way lighter, way smaller. It feels like there's a— there's already on the roads, there's a power imbalance. I don't think there's ever going to be an issue where the cyclists are somehow going to be endangering You can't say that, it's like saying drivers will never be at fault.

Tommy: I don't think drivers will ever be at fault.

Josh: I don't think it's at fault, but I think that there is that level of empathy that you have to have.

Tommy: There will be a large majority in Australia, in the world, that fucking can't stand cyclists. And what is this, from being, I'm not inside the cycling world, what's the thoughts of inside the cycling world looking out to those people? And I'm not saying I'm one of them, playing devil's advocate over here.

Mark: There's a stigma between The starting off, it's the lycra and the shaving of the legs thing. So there's a lot of people there that sort of cracks people, that puts people on the back foot straight away. And I think that's partially why we're seeing a lot of people sort of move into casual clothing. And I enjoy riding down, I've ridden down here in casual clothes, so I'm not in my lycra right now.

Josh: Yeah, got your Gazman.

Mark: Got my Gazman t-shirt.

Josh: Gazman or Gazman? Gazman. Gazman, sorry.

Mark: So, you know, I think that's the number one thing, right? And then you see there's this perception that cyclists take over the road. When you see, you know, a whole bunch of cyclists on the road, it's hard to pass them and stuff like that. But there's this arrogance that, you know, drivers, I suppose, look at a group like that as a collective group of people and they're all arrogant. The truth is, if I see some dickhead crash his car on the news, I don't sit there and go, look at all these dickhead drivers, all of them, all of you, all drivers are dickheads. Because the truth is I'm a driver and my mum's a driver, right? And I think the problem with cycling is that some dickhead goes through a red light and every cyclist gets labelled a dickhead based on that.

Josh: Well, it's a minority thing, right? Like, I think if you go to the Netherlands, it's probably a different sort of—

Tommy: yeah, kettle of fish. The person in that video that I'm talking about, the girl in it said something like, oh, where's your red, Joe? Which was the silly—

Josh: what does it mean?

Tommy: Where's your rego for your bike?

Josh: Oh, rego.

Tommy: Okay, do you remember?

Josh: Do you remember?

Mark: Yeah, yeah. So Tommy's talking about one of my videos. It was, well, a couple of years ago now. It's got one of the archives. Yeah, one of my most viewed videos though.

Tommy: But because everyone loves a good road rage, I said we came—

Mark: we had a car come past really close past us and just carry on like a bit of a dickhead. Anyway, he was a 21-year-old and his missus was 19. They pulled over and it was almost a full-on punch-on. But the chick was just throwing out some of the most wretched calls, like, "Where's your reg?" Like she was a full bogan.

Josh: It was just horrendous.

Mark: And so I caught the whole thing on video. I was just loving it, right? And it turns out it was one of my most viewed videos. Yeah, happy days.

Josh: Did you ever hear from them?

Tommy: No. Well, the guy was on the phone to the cops, which, if— I mean, the power was in the driver's hands because all you need to do is turn left and run them over.

Mark: Yeah.

Tommy: You can't do that with a car. You'll bounce off if you're the cyclist.

Mark: That's right.

Tommy: So there is, you know, there's duty of care from the, from the cars as well.

Mark: Look, it's this, that sort of thing. Although that's my one video that's had most of the hits. If I, if I— there's not a day that goes by where I don't have some dickhead cutting me off or coming too close or something. But I think at the end of the day, as a cyclist, you've just gotta brush it off. It's just no biggie. I mean, you know, classic example is one of my videos where I broke my wrist we had a Korean driver driving down the opposite side of the road towards us, and we're doing 50k an hour towards him. We were lining up for the sprint, so we're doing 50, 55k an hour, almost 60k an hour. And everyone went, what the fuck? It was like nighttime. We saw these headlights coming towards us.

Josh: That's scary because you'd think, like, you don't think Korean driver, you think someone absolutely off their face, off their face on ice or something.

Mark: So the whole bunch— there was 50 of us in this bunch— just went left, right, fucking wherever just to save their ass. Anyway, we obviously— we end up clipping wheels and things like that, and people went down. I broke my wrist, got carted off to hospital. And, uh, you know, this sort of thing, I suppose, is— it's dangerous out there on the road. You know, I understand when people buy bikes and they don't use them. Yeah, you know, it's, it's, it's a dangerous environment. But again, it comes back to, you know, newbies newbies. Like, there's so many bunters out there. Yeah, so many bunters out there. And, and so part of my videos is I want to educate these crew in how to ride properly and how to stay upright and how to look after yourself.

Tommy: In all kind of subcultures, it can breed, you know, a certain mindset. Is being in the subculture, is there any kind of negative, um, I guess, vibes flowing around? Is there I get maybe protection. Say newbie comes on, I want to start riding, I want to try and ride down Beach Road, the main cycling road in Melbourne. Is there any—

Josh: is it like surfing?

Tommy: Are there sort of like protection? You can't come in our pack?

Mark: Yeah, yeah, I mean obviously there is. So Beach Road's a classic for this, right? So newbie rider rocks up strong as an ox. So let's say you, for example, Josh, you're strong, strong, right?

Josh: I'm a sprinter, I'm a sprinter, right?

Mark: So, you know, Beach Road's a sprinting territory, right?

Tommy: Watermelon glutes.

Mark: So you rock up to the bunch ride and you start rolling turns. Yeah, with, with a group that have got all their kit, they're wearing the same kit.

Tommy: What does that mean, rolling turns?

Mark: So rolling turns, going around a corner? No, no, rolling. This is for granted that you guys know this stuff, right? So rolling turns is coming to the front, right? So you get on the front of the bunch into the wind and everyone sits on your wheel. Okay, so you're, you're doing 30% more than everyone else. You're the truck.

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: And then you pull off. You just wanted me to say you're the big truck.

Tommy: Yeah.

Mark: And then So you pull off and you go to the back and you have a rest.

Josh: Okay, right.

Mark: It's 30% easier and then you come back to the front. That's rolling turns, right? Yeah. So you rock up rolling turns, but there's this whole thing on Beach Road that if you rock up to these groups rolling turns, they're gonna, mate, they're gonna tell you to piss off.

Josh: Wait, so no one's allowed to roll turns?

Mark: Well, no, if you're inexperienced and they don't know you, they want you to piss off and sit on the back.

Josh: Are you a rolling turns kind of guy?

Mark: Obviously. Negative, Ghost Rider. No, I'm definitely not. I'm a sit on the back sort of guy, and then when the sprint comes up come to the front.

Tommy: But the interesting—

Josh: so, but the being on the back's the easy bit.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: So it's more of an ego thing if you want to go up front. You're only doing that because you want to show that you're a big truck.

Mark: It's, it's a bit of an ego thing, but it's also a fitness thing. So you might rock up and, you know, that's your training sessions. You might want to sit on the front, drive it, and just pull the boys along for, you know, 5 minutes.

Josh: Yeah, yeah.

Mark: Into like headwind, just show off a bit. It's a show-off thing.

Tommy: And come on, it leads the pack though, so it's Setting the direction, if they stuffed up, are they giving the signals to, car coming up, or—

Mark: Yeah, so this is a good point, right? So you're pulling turns, you're starting to fatigue. What happens if you start to fatigue and you sort of clip, you know, you pull off and you take down the rest of the bunch, you know? So that's the, that's the thing.

Josh: Take down and they all fall.

Mark: They all fall. Yeah, and then that happens, man, happens all the time, especially on beach road.

Josh: Tommy actually has a good surfing story. He was, uh, he had a drone What was it, the Mavic Pro? Mavic Pro, you're known as quite the drone.

Mark: Love a Mavic Pro.

Josh: And so Tommy was, where were you?

Tommy: I shouldn't say, 'cause that's why I got in trouble. I was flying it down towards the Great Ocean Road.

Josh: So it was in Victoria.

Tommy: In Victoria.

Josh: Got the drone out, got some great footage of a swell. Is that what you guys call it, a swell?

Tommy: Epic set rolling through, ginormous.

Josh: Anyway, post the video on Facebook with the location and all that sort of thing. And before you know it, Tommy's got death threats.

Tommy: Yeah, hounded. You fucked up, this is a form of suicide, you don't know what you've done, locals gonna tell you.

Mark: Let me tell you something, I went to the exact same spot because I love a drone. Yeah, flew the drone down there. I had a guy come out of the water face to face, almost full-on punch on. Shit. Was like, you fucking flying drones, you give away our surf spot. Spots, like no death threats, but was going to try and kick my ass. And he was much bigger than me, and I was like, I'm out of here.

Josh: Well, Tommy, uh, Tommy did leverage as much as he could, as he always does, and he created a, uh— can we talk about this?

Tommy: Yeah, he hasn't gone through.

Josh: Yeah, he created a, um, a trailer called, uh, Surfy Leaks, which is all— which was, uh, a series that he wanted to create which was, was it a 6-part series? What were you pitching?

Tommy: 6-part series.

Josh: 6-part series.

Tommy: Anyone out there wants it, get involved.

Josh: Surfyleaks is what it was called. But you had some success. Tommy ended up with a letter from the ABC offering a couple hundred thousand dollars if he could get another backer on board.

Tommy: More funding. The process of getting a TV show up, but it's all around that. See, there's so many of these.

Mark: Surfing leaks, what was the subject?

Tommy: Specifically for, yeah, the subculture of surfing and that aggression that's within it and why is it happening, where is it happening.

Mark: Do you know, it's funny you say that because there is, going back to the cycling again, there is so much aggression in cycling. So this whole Beach Road, the thing that I was telling you about, even in racing, and I've been privy to it as well because you've got that adrenaline pumping, you're in the race, you know, people are touching wheels and it's a high anxiety situation. And so you're constantly telling people to fuck off and get fucked and piss off and And so this is, this is this culture within cycling, same sort of thing with surfing.

Tommy: Yeah, I think what I sort of— because I thought about this a lot and I was thinking about, you know, where they're at and what they're thinking, and it's beyond the surf location. I was thinking the feelings that they get from being in the water, maybe it's the clarity they get, it's cathartic for them. Is there that sense from cycling? Is it therapeutic?

Mark: Absolutely fucking painful. No, I mean, it's, it's, you know, cycling— I think there's a big movement of people who are doing these adventure rides and stuff. And so getting out in the wilderness, you know, really challenging. I mean, you think about the race, the IndyPac, that I did, for example, right? You leave Perth, you have no support whatsoever. Everything you take is on that bike. You're allowed to pull into shops on the way and get food, obviously, but that's about it. You're not allowed to even take a Mars bar from someone standing on the side of the road.

Josh: Do you have a support? Like, no support, no drivers or anything? Because that's actually— because it sounds like a great trip, but I wouldn't be— I would have to be— I would be a support vehicle if they needed it, like a four-wheel drive just sort of running ahead and stuff.

Tommy: It's the Nullarbor, it's barren.

Mark: It's a barren, scary thing. So you're out there, you've done 3, 4 days, you've got saddle sores, you've What's the scary bit?

Josh: The Nullarbor, it's like, uh, it's just that there's nothing there.

Mark: Well, it's just that there's nothing there, but it's also— I remember at nighttime, because it's good to ride at night because there's less wind, right? So I did a lot of night riding, cooler. And I remember my light shining from my helmet on the side of the road, and there was all these mounds on the side of the road. And I was thinking it's just dirt mounds, you know, dirt. It was snakes. They come to the side of the road to keep warm. There was thousands of them. I'm not joking, man. There were so many mounds on the side of the road.

Josh: Where can you go from that? Like, you were just— because you, you're riding right near there.

Mark: You're riding on the side of the road, so they're a metre away, right? So I remember just seeing these snakes, just thinking, fuck, this is scary, man. And I'm telling you, you get a buildup of anxiety. I remember being on the Nullarbor at one stage, coming across the Nullarbor. I've been out there for, you know, 2 weeks by this stage. On my own, you know, catching up with people here and there. But you know, you're out in the Nullarbor, I fucking pulled over, had a sleep, and I remember getting up, waking up, it was 3 in the morning, pacing around in circles, pacing, and I didn't know what it was at the time. I was having a panic attack. Oh wow. I had a full panic attack and I was like, I'm out in the fucking middle of nowhere, I want my mummy. It doesn't help that you've drained all of your energy and probably You're exhausted by that stage. By the time you hit the Nullarbor, you're absolutely cooked. You've got saddle sores, your knees hurt. And so you've taken— I've taken a heap of drugs for Nurofen and stuff for my swollen knees. And, and we're racing. We're not riding across Australia here, we're racing. So we're doing 300k a day.

Josh: One thing that's interesting, so you've, you've done— you've gone sort of— you've had the Navy thing, which I want to know more about, but you've done CrossFit, you've done cycling. One thing I always talk to Tommy with is I've never had like heaps of guy friends. I've never been like, Tommy could say, "I'm gonna have a night out with the boys." If I say I have a night out with the boys, I don't know who I'd call type of thing. Now I could potentially borrow some of Tommy's mates.

Mark: You go for a girls' night out.

Josh: Exactly, just a sort of casual.

Tommy: No, what about that night, Josh? You had that night at your house watching Victoria's Secret with the girls.

Josh: Yeah, that's true. I did have that sort of the Sex and the City type of thing. Type of stuff.

Tommy: No, but what's the—

Josh: do you think there is an appeal to those sort of, you know, guy communities? Like, what— tell me what it's like in the cycling world. Just in general, like, because what I'm saying is the pattern of, like, you've got the Navy, you've got CrossFit, you've got cycling. Like, you are probably the bloke-iest bloke I've ever met.

Mark: You go that far? But I mean, look, I was doing a one-arm push-up as he said that.

Josh: Bloke-iest bloke I've ever met with shaved legs. Because Derek is pretty much like that.

Mark: I reckon you've had maybe a couple of more blokeier blokes on your show, I reckon. There's a couple of fitness dudes that—

Josh: Oh yeah, actually Jeff Jowett that we had on.

Mark: Jeff Jowett was definitely manly.

Tommy: I almost connect. I want to have a stab at answering this. There's a push, and I watched a psychologist talk about this, where women are known to be talkers. They talk through their emotions with their girlfriends. And it's almost like a bit of therapy for them. And there's a push for men to talk more, and while I think there's definitely room for men to be talking more, he was saying that it's primitive to, like back in the day, the men would go out hunting and it would be their time spent together that is this cathartic release. And I even feel like for me going to the gym, I've got my mate that I go to the gym with, we talk we exert energy and I do feel—

Josh: Just hunting on Beach Road.

Tommy: Yeah, we're hunting on Beach Road. But coming together with a pack of blokes and doing something active.

Josh: That was the time I could say woof woof. I've got a catchcry of the Daily Talk Show which is woof woof.

Tommy: It's the equivalent of going out hunting back in the day and exerting the energy.

Mark: Yeah, and I think it's a high achieving thing too. So, you know, the cycling thing, you're always, you know, you're using your mates to push to that next level of fitness, you know, and without your mates you don't really have motivation to kick someone's ass, right?

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: And the same goes with CrossFit. You know, if you go to CrossFit class and there's some dude lifting 110 kilos and you're deadlifting 100, it's like, fuck this, I'm gonna fucking lift 110 kilos next week.

Tommy: Yeah.

Mark: And so, you know, it's that constantly pushing you to the next level. And I think if you're that sort of person, you always want to surround yourself with people who are doing great things. And, and hence why I've sort of always sort of hung out with better riders than me in cycling. And I've always sort of gone to the good CrossFit gym where I can learn.

Josh: And so how much of your motivation is internally driven versus externally driven, and has it changed as you've gotten older? So how much is it trying to beat your personal best versus the guy next to you?

Mark: I think when I was single, so 10 years ago, it was all externally driven, right? You know, it was like all about having the good rig and so I can pick up the chicks and stuff. Now it's more internally driven, you know, where I just I just want to do well and I just want to sort of hit the next PB. That's all come to a bit of a halt though with the recent birth of our little boy Jack. You know, sort of, he's been the focus.

Tommy: Shakes shit up, doesn't it?

Mark: And that's interesting. It's— that's an interesting concept because that change, yeah, from, you know, look at me for example, you know, Navy, cycling, CrossFit, YouTube, trying to get a big YouTube channel. I mean, I've always sort of strived to do something and now I've got this, you know, this little dependent, this this little human that I'm looking after, everything's gone by the wayside.

Tommy: What's the biggest change for you?

Mark: Well, I think, you know, particularly for me, the focus on Jack rather than myself, which has been tough, to be honest with you. Been tough. I'm one of the 10 that gets postnatal depression and anxiety. So 1 in 10 men have post— is it postpartum?

Josh: Post— yeah.

Tommy: And so, and how—

Mark: I'm one of them. What does that look like?

Josh: Yeah, what is it?

Mark: So for the last 8 weeks, I've had like severe anxiety and a little bit of depression. I haven't felt depressed, but definitely severe anxiety coming and going, and it's been diagnosed as postpartum.

Tommy: I think I said to you, Josh, it's the closest I've felt to being depressed was after I had the baby.

Josh: What's a big shift?

Mark: That's a massive shift. And I think what we put it down to, the doctor said, you know, with YouTube, I was focusing on YouTube, I was, you know, doing the best that I could do with YouTube, putting out videos almost daily, uh, cycling and, you know, all these other things. And all of a sudden, bang, none of that. Yeah, getting fat because I've put on like 15 kilos. And, uh, since, since my cycling days.

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: And now I'm looking after little Bubba and sort of at his beck and call all through the night.

Josh: What's the actual what's the internal monologue that you're having in your head about it all?

Mark: Uh, look, you have to say, especially going through this, you know, as I say, there's a lot of people that really struggle after having a baby. And I think what you've got to remind yourself constantly is this is the next awesome thing.

Tommy: Yeah.

Mark: Having this little human and being a good example. And, you know, like, I can always show Jack and we can reflect back on what I've done on YouTube and some of that. And I'm not bloody PewDiePie with 56 million bloody subscribers, but I've done something pretty awesome that I can be proud of. And, but I think you've got to always remind yourself that, you know, your little man or your little, little bubba is the next cool little project.

Tommy: Well, almost the internal— for me, internal dialogue goes because survival mode kicks in, because that's essentially what's happening. Yeah, this is thrust into a life that wasn't what you previously knew and into this world of— like, did you feel a shift internally, like a primitively, like a switch turn to look after a baby? Like, was it just automatically?

Mark: Look, for me, the first few weeks, it was a traumatic birth with Hannah. So she went 26 hours at Royal Women's, and they were fantastic, Royal Women's, but 26 hours. The baby was sort of on his side and he had his head turned So they had to do a cesarean, emergency caesarean at 1 in the morning. And that for me was one of the most traumatic things I've ever gone through in my life. And so I think there's a few things that sort of stem, they build up, but over the 8 weeks of looking after Jack, I was stoked. And then all of a sudden I started feeling tingling in my left arm and my left leg, and I was like, oh, this is weird. So I Googled the symptoms and multiple sclerosis came up. Oh no, MS. And I thought I had MS.

Josh: I went into panic.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, I went into this full panic about that.

Tommy: Dr. Google.

Mark: Dr. Google, man. Listen, my best advice to you guys, stay away from Dr. Google if you feel tingling and shit, right?

Josh: Yeah, not ideal.

Mark: At the end of the day, anxiety and stuff sort of builds up over time, and, and the doctor said, look, this is all just anxiety. I got checked out and everything was fine, but he said, you know, anxiety and stuff, and this is very, very common after you have a baby.

Josh: Have you, uh, you were telling us before that you've, uh, gone from having how many coffees a day?

Mark: Oh, now this is, this is an interesting thing I was saying to the boys. They rocked up and I was having a chamomile tea, and I used to have 5 strong lattes minimum a day. Like, I spent so much money on— I could have bloody bought a house.

Josh: Yeah, well, I mean, that's— you're living the Melbourne dream, weren't you? This is what we, we had to offer, and you're taking full advantage of it.

Tommy: 5 coffees a day, so bloody good coffee. Yeah.

Josh: And so did you, um, was the— you getting off coffee and this new anxiety, was it linked at all? Did you decide to give it away because of that?

Mark: Yeah, I think my anxiety was there and it sort of bubbled over. Um, and, and anyone who's experienced anxiety and panic attacks, it's the worst thing in the world. I was talking about seasickness earlier, it's much, much worse than seasickness. And so, um, I stopped having the coffees and I stopped drinking alcohol. So I haven't had a beer or a coffee in 6 weeks.

Tommy: Good on you.

Mark: Just so that I can try to get over this anxiety and sort of feel normal again. I haven't done drugs yet, I haven't gone on to like Zoloft or anything like that yet, but, um, but for the most part I'm starting to feel better.

Tommy: Have you kept up your cycling?

Mark: I've really picked up on the cycling and CrossFit, so I've been back in the gym, CrossFit for 4 weeks now, socializing, back with the crew, trying to get the gut off, a little bit of cycling. It's harder with cycling because it's winter in Melbourne.

Tommy: Oh, it's freezing.

Mark: It's horrendous. Like I got up this morning to go for a ride, it was 4 degrees, I went straight back to bed.

Josh: Even just driving that, like, in the morning at 4 degrees is hard, let alone like getting outside of the car.

Mark: Just walking to the car in 4 degrees is horrendous. It's horrendous because then you've got to wait 5 minutes for the heater to heat up.

Josh: Yeah, no, it's, it's gross. And so do you— give us a description of a panic attack from your end. What does it, what does it feel like?

Mark: Okay, so how, as I said, it started because I thought I had MS. Right? So I thought I had some neurological disease. And, and what happens is you think about your baby and think, okay, who's going to bloody pay the bills? So this is where the anxiety starts, right? And apparently this is very common because women who— a lot of women who get postnatal, they think about a disease and they think, I can't look after my baby if I die. And I say, they panic, right? And they go— but an anxiety, a panic attack is essentially a buildup in your body. It's very hard to describe, but you become completely foggy and you start thinking negative thoughts. Like, I was Googling, you know, Anthony Bourdain suicide and suicide things and just interest, and I found that really interesting at the time. Not that I would do it, yeah, but I was thinking these really negative thoughts and I was Googling the Holocaust and, and it was bizarre. It was the most bizarre thing. Like, now I feel fine and I'm like looking back at that and thing, and that's weird. Yeah, but that's what happens with anxiety. It's a terrible, terrible thing, and people get down and they get foggy and they lose clarity.

Josh: Can you see before the fog now? Have you gotten to that point of identifying when it's about to happen and change that loop?

Mark: Yes. So I'm at a stage now where when I, when I get a panic attack— like, I had a bad day yesterday for no reason whatsoever.

Tommy: I hope it wasn't because you knew you're coming on the show today.

Mark: No, it wasn't. No, but I had a bad day yesterday where I felt really anxious. And, and so, you know, you start your breathing techniques and things like that just to calm yourself down. But it's basically a feeling of sense of doom is the best way to describe. You feel as though everything's coming to an end. And so now you've just got to breathe, take a few deep breaths in, sort of get— you know, it's a— you know, it's— there's a lot of information online if anyone is experiencing this.

Josh: So they should Google or they shouldn't Google?

Mark: No, no, don't Google symptoms of MS. Because then you just get crazy. But because it's a very, very rare disease, MS, particularly in men. Yeah, but, um, but definitely Google if you, you know, if you've got anxiety and stuff. It can't hurt you. Anxiety at the end of the day can't hurt you.

Josh: Yeah, but you can hurt you through anxiety, right? Yeah. So you probably need to be thinking about— I think that the interesting thing is, have you been much of a self-help book reader? Do you get into self-help books or anything like that?

Mark: Along with the writing, I can't really read No, I'm not bad. I don't mind a good read actually, but I prefer a YouTube video. It's just so much easier.

Josh: No, absolutely.

Tommy: Um, creativity for you, is it— have you been flexing that muscle? Do you think that's had any contributing factors to feeling this way?

Mark: Definitely. I think the fact that I've backed off on the YouTube channel— I mean, I was banging out videos every day or every second day, and I think that creative— excuse me— that creativity Die-off has been a big problem. And, you know, lack of training. I've got all this weight around my gut now. I've got, you know, I got diagnosed with a bit of fatty liver, which is easy. Fatty liver is just something you just get back on the training bag and you get rid of it.

Josh: How do they diagnose fatty liver?

Mark: Oh, they do a blood test.

Josh: Okay.

Mark: They do a blood test and yeah, I've got a little bit of fatty liver, which is, controls, your liver controls a lot of your hormones. So this could all be linked. Fatty liver and, and depression and anxiety. And, um, and so, you know, it's just a case of getting back on the bike and, and, you know, making my videos again, getting back on the bike, getting into the gym, and which is what I'm doing.

Tommy: We've got you. If people think that, uh, you know, people would look at your success on YouTube, you know, it's, it's not as big as PewDiePie's, you mentioned, but it's still very amazing that you've been able to achieve that. And they'd think, oh, that is where I want to get to. But then you see everything's relative as you're sort of climbing. What do you look to as the next thing for you in terms of YouTube? Or—

Mark: well, I want to start a big podcast. No, no, I'm kidding. But I'm not. I watch you guys, uh, I've actually listened to the podcast, your podcast, a while now, and I love it. And I think podcasting is a great medium, um, because it's more advertiser-friendly YouTube, I'm enjoying YouTube, but I just don't think that's where it's going to be, particularly in the niche of cycling. So, you know, for example, if you pick a niche, if you're, if you're a coffee YouTuber, for example, you're only ever going to have X audience. Yeah, you know what I mean? Whereas if you do something more generic, a more generic channel, you know, you can grow to 5 million. You know, gaming, for example, you can grow to 5 million subscribers subscribers, you know. But the thing is, with cycling, I don't ever think there's going to be that depth there. So I think doing a more generic, for me, a podcast or something like that where it's— I can talk about anything. That's really where I'm looking at the moment.

Tommy: Josh, maybe we say that the, um, the radio people are wanting to be YouTubers and YouTubers wanting to be on TV. Maybe the thing is now the YouTubers are wanting to be podcasters.

Josh: Well, I think that like the top YouTubers are creating podcasts because they recognise that they can have a level of ownership of that, uh, listener base. They can— they're not sort of— they're not having to worry about an algorithm, and they're able to sort of create their own path.

Tommy: What about wiping aside anything to do with money or brand deals or anything? Do you contribute the success you've had with your channel to being really authentic in, I just want to create and share?

Mark: Yeah, I think you've nailed it. I mean One thing with my YouTube channel is I've always been just myself. I've never tried to be someone— I watch YouTubers who aren't themselves and I just think, dude, just be yourself, man, because you can't do 1,000 videos and just pretend to be someone else.

Tommy: Well, my wife said from watching some of your videos together, she said, he seems like a lovely guy.

Mark: Oh, did she? So there's a bit of feedback from the wife.

Josh: That's awesome. Beats the Kickstarter comments.

Mark: Yeah, beats the Kickstarter comments.

Tommy: But she slagged off your wife. That was her in the comments.

Mark: Nah, I'm joking.

Josh: Yeah, so the, um, from here with the, with the, you know, with YouTube, do you feel like you need to be feeding, feeding it constantly? Is it like another— is it like a kid? Do you have to worry about it?

Mark: It is. I mean, at the end of the day, I've started this thing, I've grown it to here, I've put a lot of work into— I mean, 600 videos is, let's say, 4 to 6 hours per video. That's, that's bloody 1,000.

Tommy: That's—

Mark: I don't know, I didn't do well at maths either, but That's a lot of hours, right?

Tommy: Fuckload.

Mark: And so you think, I don't want to fucking just let this go and die, right? So my mindset right now is, okay, do I stay with the cycling? Do I stay with the cycling, or do I change it to the Maven? And then I can have you guys on and we can just talk shit about anything.

Tommy: Yeah, I will put cycling clothes on if you want us on anyway.

Josh: I'm happy to start riding again, but again, it's probably a bit—

Tommy: you know, because Josh and I sew in the, uh, video and strategy field for clients and all of this stuff. And it's nice to hear someone who isn't leading with, I'm a production expert.

Josh: Yeah, it's a different perspective.

Tommy: This different perspective is to see what you think about the landscape of YouTube.

Josh: And I think the other interesting thing with what you're doing is what it reminds me of when I was— when I've been watching all your videos is it has the, the awesome bits of what Community TV had like 15 years ago with higher production value where it's like you can have— I remember I used to work on a show called Rodder's Life back about 15 years ago, and it was, you know, car people, and you would go to hot rod events and stuff like that, and the host would be recognised by everyone. He was sort of like this, um, you know, big figure within that local space. Is the community that community element, has that sort of happened in an organic way? Has it been something that you've been deliberate in trying to create? What are the things that you do to try and to cement that?

Mark: Yeah, I mean, that is, uh, that's an interesting point because definitely when you're in the niche, I mean, there's positive— as I said earlier, there's positives and negatives to being in a niche. So, you know, 45,000, 50,000, 70,000 subscribers is really where it's at for, for what I'm doing. You're never going to get 3 million subs, right? But in terms of the community stuff, I rock up, you know, if I rock up to the, uh, the Tour Down Under and I go to Willunga Hill, and we're talking me here, right? I'm like, I'm just a regular Joe walking down the street. Yeah, I've got people queuing up to take photos with me.

Tommy: Isn't that funny?

Mark: It's the most bizarre thing ever. I ride up the hill at Willunga and there's thousands of cyclists there and they're all, Mayvan, Mayvan, Mayvan, you know, taking photos, running after me, stuff like this. And I feel like an absolute rock star. And then I come back to Melbourne and then I'm just, just a general punter, you know, the general part. It's actually quite— it's been quite an interesting journey. And I think the key to maintaining your audience in, in that situation is to, is to keep that community thing going. For example, I've got a Strava group, so occasionally I'll do a video where I'll go, oh, Joe Bloggs is kicking ass on the Strava group. So really, maybe I could—

Josh: maybe one of my goals could be to be in the Strava group and maybe get a shout. What would I have to do?

Mark: You've actually got to do Ks, bro.

Josh: Yeah, I'm happy to do some Ks. I've only got a few days before I go away. Maybe I'll take the bike to Italy and do one of those big hills or whatever they're all talking about.

Mark: Good idea. Or run. We'll start with some running and I'll start up a little running group.

Josh: Yeah, I like to, I started off doing the pro. How often do you, here's a bit of Strava etiquette. When do you put something on private versus public?

Mark: If your boss, so if you're in a job where you're not supposed to be riding during the day, Put it on private.

Josh: It's a private job.

Mark: That's a private. It's, um, Strava is one of those things where they know that people are going to be riding during, you know, work hours. So that's a, that's a great feature. And I used to use that feature a little bit, but I got to the stage where I was like, fuck it, you know, I do enough work for this company. Yeah, if I'm going to ride during work hours, then so be it. I'll do the night, I'll do some night hours.

Josh: So what is your, what is your job now? You do something with surgery?

Mark: And so I've gone back to work. So as I said, I did the YouTube channel for a year. And then I went and I thought, what's the easiest way? Because it was hard way to make money on YouTube, right?

Josh: What sort of, like, what sort of revenue can you do? Like, because obviously you've got the $300 a month or whatever, but is it sort of— how do you break it down? Is it, you know, can you get $5,000 from a, from a Quad Lock or something like that to sponsor you to do a thing? What do you mean?

Mark: This whole area, and even what you guys are doing with the podcast, if you ever wanted to get brand deals, yeah, it is a It's a, it's a such a new area that not a lot of people know what to do.

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: And you could talk to people about it, not a lot of people know. But I'll give an example, like I was doing, um, you know, I might go to an event where I'll go to the, uh, the Lake Taupo cycle event and they'll pay me hypothetically, um, you know, 5 to 10 grand for me to be there, make say 3 videos. So you can make good chunks of money.

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: Um, as an influencer. All right, and then so you're influencing obviously people to come and do the event next year, okay, through your videos. Or you could do something where you're an approach— you're approaching a brand and you say, look, if you sponsor me for 3 months at $2,000 a month, I will have your product in my videos. Yeah, every day or every second day. I'll use your product every second day.

Tommy: Yeah, so you're going to them saying that?

Josh: Yeah, yeah, I think it's a good deal. I think that's like a— I think that makes a lot of sense. Even with what Tommy and I are doing going into business together, there's going to be that that element of we, we can make a good chunk of coin just being a production company. So how can we— and I guess that's the whole thing is you're selling a skill as well. People need video content. So it's that whole thing of like, well, if they just pay for the content, it just so happens that you have an audience and there's that sort of residual audience I think is potentially exciting as well.

Tommy: How, how— what's the, the numbers game if you were to throw it out there? Like you ask 10 brands, you might get One or 100?

Mark: Well, just about every brand. See, this is the thing that I struggle with. I'm a salesman in my surgical device role and always have sort of been. And then when I went into selling myself to these brands, I found that really hard.

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: And so you almost need to employ someone to do it for you because I found it very hard to talk about me and how awesome I was to get money out of you. You know, it's hard.

Tommy: I'm making a video at the moment about how I'm shit at selling myself. Yeah. And I look at the power in Josh and I and our partnership where I can sell Josh. Yeah. Which is essentially selling us, which is what you're going to do. He can sell me. Yeah. But there is an Australian thing of not standing up talking about how awesome you are and how much value you can bring because people will be like, sit down, you fucking wanker.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. And I mean, trying to explain to an old-school marketing manager that this is where it's at, this is the future, this is now, but you're somehow stuck in paying 10 grand for ads in magazines, cycling magazines that no one reads.

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: And it's like, you know, you get to the stage where you become fatigued of bringing people up to 2018.

Josh: Well, you've gone early in some regards. Like, I think that even I look at the landscape and I was listening to podcasts in 2005, and before it was on iTunes. And so, you can get a bit sort of disenfranchised by the bullshit that is everyone talking about podcasts or YouTube, 'cause you're like, bro, this happened, like this has happened 4 times. Like when Serial came out and everyone was talking about podcasting, and you sort of, your eyes get sore from eye rolling. But I think that there is, there's going to be a shift. It's way longer. What I've discovered is it's like, I remember, you know, 10 years, I've got a photo from 2005 or beginning of 2006 where I built, I was in year 10, I was 16 years old and I did a, built a website on podcasting, I spelled it P-O-D-C-A-S-T-I-N-G, and I was saying like how this was the new thing that was the big thing that was gonna change everything. And it may, it may have that impact, but things take so much longer because there are magazines, there are people who are employed to make sure that the, the same, the oil is being added to that same—

Tommy: what's legacy marketing, right? That's the TV, radio, print.

Josh: But it's going to change it.

Tommy: Yeah.

Mark: And people are, you know, they're, they're stuck, you know, marketing managers for these big companies that have got money they're stuck in this, you know, they just want to come to work every day and then go home at night and see their kids and stuff. So they don't want to sort of understand these new— and it's happening, it's all happening so quick. So I, you know, part of the thing that I was saying earlier, you asked me, um, 1 in 10, I found that most people I spoke to were keen to hand over their money, right, and, and collaborate on some sort of brand deal. However, it was the ones that were stuck, you know, the older crew, the marketing managers that were sort of stuck with the magazines, and they sort of, they still feel that people are buying these magazines, these cycling magazines.

Tommy: Yeah, feelings aren't facts. Numbers from Facebook and online platforms are facts.

Josh: Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, it's interesting that, um, that, that whole shift. And so the— I think that the gen— like, going generic is interesting because it's— I think that what we're trying to do with the daily talk show is it's, um, the niche is us. The niche is our perspective, our lens, and that gives us the opportunity to— it's still a niche in some regards, right? So it's almost like, I think that the biggest thing that Tommy and I have learned is people can do most things that we can do as well. They can, but they can't be us. So it's that thing of like leading with us, and it's even, you know, we were talking about, um, guests' names, right? So when we have a guest on the podcast, do we put their name first or do we put in a subject? Like, what do we put with titles? I'm sure you've had the mindfuckery that is selecting titles for your videos.

Mark: Tags and stuff, yeah.

Tommy: And can you go too far into dissecting the shit out of everything?

Josh: Have you gone analytical?

Mark: Do you know, I'm not huge analytical because I believe that you've gotta have a passion for what you do. So that is, you're doing podcasting, you've gotta love chatting to people. And if you don't love doing this shit, like what you're doing right now, there's no point worrying about the analytics.

Tommy: You couldn't do 100 episodes.

Mark: I mean, I've done, as I said, 600 videos now if I didn't like making videos. And so my thing is, why even bother looking at the stats? I don't give a shit. Yeah. And so I never look at the stats. I never look at the— unless someone from a marketing department asked me. But, you know, in line with what you were saying, um, just then, um, you guys are it. You guys are the reason that you're your listeners download the podcast, right? And so they want to hear your, your take on it all. And so I think who you've got on— we hope you've got on is irrelevant. Yeah, you know, they just hope that it's an interesting podcast.

Josh: Well, I think that's— and that's the distinction, because there's default thinking, which is, okay, people are doing things a certain way, so it's like, uh, people are hashtagging things a certain way, or they're captioning their videos this way, or they're putting the guest first. And the thing is that you have to ask why. And for us, the why is exactly that, which is like, it's not— we're not doing interviews. We're not a Tim Ferriss show. We're not like— if we lead with having Cycling Maven as the number one thing, people are gonna be really fucking disappointed 'cause they're like, you guys spoke about cycling. No, 'cause I think— no, but not only that, but when people, your fans, of you listen, there's going to be a bunch of them that are like, these fuckers don't even know what, uh, that word you use, like the, the corner turning. What's that? Rolling turns. Rolling turns, which was—

Tommy: had nothing to do with the corner.

Josh: It had nothing to do with the corner. But the Cycling Maven audience are going to be fucking spewing at what the shit that I've said.

Tommy: But maybe they won't because we connected with you and you shared some pretty personal shit today.

Mark: I think they know that, you know, you're fucking clueless, right? Because you went to Raphna.

Josh: Is Raphish—

Tommy: is Raphish Rapha's great. If Rapha has money, they're great. But if they're not—

Mark: let's face it, their clothing are the best on the market. There's a stigma with Rapha in that they're a bit pretentious, and so a lot of the people that go by there are dickheads, right? But for the most part, a lot of them are great.

Josh: So if I was to rebrand, if I was to have another crack at this and start getting some Ks on the Strava, join your group, do all that sort of— I need to— is it cleats?

Mark: Yeah, you need cleats, you need to be able to clip in, you need to shave your legs.

Josh: Because I was using just runners, which I think was losing a lot of pace.

Mark: Massive kudos drop there.

Josh: And I also did— Cook of the day.

Mark: You get anti-Strava kudos for the run.

Tommy: You're like a surfer wearing the leg strap on your arm.

Josh: Not only that, but when I first bought the bike from Heim, I didn't know how the gears worked. So I was just riding in this crazy, like the cadence, is that how you say it?

Mark: That's right, yeah.

Josh: Spinning. Spinning. Spinning a lot and not going very fast. Yeah. But slowly gotten—

Mark: You work it out, you work it out over time, you'll get there. Yeah.

Josh: So what's the next thing for you, do you think? Like what's the, a week from now, 2 weeks from now, 3 weeks from now? It seems like this stuff is ever evolving. It's like fucking changing. Because the thing is you talk about the Anthony Bourdain thing, it wasn't that fucking long ago that you're going through all of this shit, right? So it's early days.

Mark: Well, you know, it is early days. For me, it's about getting my mental health back on track. So getting back into the, the cycling and the eating well and all that stuff. But I think, um, yeah, I think also getting creative again, you know, getting back on YouTube, doing my videos. Uh, as I said, I want to move to more of a generic channel so that I can just talk about anything because there's other things that interest me besides cycling.

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: And the other thing is I saw just a little while ago that on Instagram, you know, these platforms, you said everything's— it's, it's evolving and changing so much. There's this new thing on Instagram The IGTV. The IGTV, yeah. And so there's something else that you can do, put my videos in there. And what sort of a platform is this going to be now?

Josh: So it's going to be interesting seeing you. I think, uh, I think I've spoken to you about this, Tommy. I think that transitioning from having a brand and changing is one of the hardest things that you can do because everyone's going to say you are the cycling maven, get fucking back into your spot, do your cycling. I remember I saw a guy who does the art of photography and he decided to— he normally does camera reviews— he decided to do a vlog and it was like the world was ending. It was the big— yeah, it was— he would go— he got slammed. Yeah, I think he had to do an update, an apology video for his— for having the audacity to do a fucking vlog.

Mark: Yeah, and this is the thing with vlogging, you know, like I'm— so for the most part, most of my videos are vlogs. And for those of you that don't know what a vlog is, it's, you know, you hold the camera, you talk a bit of shit to the camera, you have a you tell a storey of your day, essentially. That's what you're trying to do, and you're just trying to keep the audience engaged through for the full 10 minutes of the video, which I roughly aim for 10 minutes. Most people, incidentally, drop out at about 6 minutes.

Josh: Yeah, interesting.

Mark: I do look at some stats. Yeah, um, but, um, but, you know, vlogging, it's a funny thing. So now that I've got the kid, do I show my baby? Do I show my baby's face? You know, when you've got a child, it sort of changes the game a bit. And so I've got this reluctance to continually bring this camera in and show my audience my life.

Tommy: I did see your baby, very cute.

Mark: Very cute baby. Yeah, thanks, bro. Yeah, he's a kitty.

Tommy: But yeah, it's ever evolving. It'd be good to see what you're doing, and that's why we want you to come back on at some point.

Josh: Well, you're the friend of the show now, and I think that's the difference with what we're doing too, is it's not like this isn't this once-off guest type of shtick. It's about like having people on regularly when you've, you know, got your new thing and you've removed cycling from your brand name. It's the new you.

Tommy: You can come on. But until then, we'll have you on as the cycling expert.

Josh: Yeah, exactly.

Tommy: Or whatever you want to call yourself.

Josh: We'll take it. The Gazman. The Gazman.

Mark: Just call me Gaz. That's my new name. Gazmaven. Gazmaven.

Josh: Mark, thanks for coming on. That was awesome. It's the Daily Talk Show, everyone. Send us emails too, especially if you have questions for Maven. We'll just call you fucking Maven now. Hi@thedailytalkshow.com as well. We have stickers too, which we're really excited about. You can put them on your bike. Is that a faux pas? Can you not put stickers on your bike?

Mark: You can put them on your bike.

Josh: Okay, great.

Tommy: Yeah, so I've actually got one for you.

Josh: Yeah, we've got— this is a big deal. I did the math though. They cost us about 10 cents each to make. Look at my jacket, bro. This is a disaster. Anyway, let's— we'll do that off air. It's The Daily Talk Show, everyone.

Tommy: See you guys.

Josh: Have a good one.

Mark: Thanks for having me.