Bikes Save Lives

Tom Butler: 0:04

This is the Cycling Over 60 Podcast, season 2, episode 18, Bikes Save Lives. I'm your host, Tom Butler. I'm continuing my focus on biking as a way of getting healthy and taking on another challenge this season to keep myself motivated. I wanted to recap my journey here a bit. I got back on the bike a little over a year ago because I wanted to do something about my high blood pressure and my weight. My blood glucose level wasn't great, but at the time I didn't see it as my biggest issue. I trained to ride Cascade Bicycle Club's Seattle Portland event. Even with months of training for that ride, I didn't see much change in my weight. I was surprised by that and I decided in October to start wearing a continuous glucose monitor to see what I could learn from that data.

Tom Butler: 0:58

Bearing the CGM has become a real pivot point in my journey. I have been studying lots of information to help me understand my high glucose readings. That first led me to switching my focus from blood glucose to insulin resistance, but pretty quickly I became to believe that insulin resistance is actually downstream from where my real health challenges lie. So I have now shifted my focus again to finding strategies to reduce fat in my liver. I currently weigh 209 pounds and I believe that one indicator of successful reduction of liver fat would be for me to be below 200 pounds somewhere around 190, I'm guessing. I also have a waist circumference of 40 and a quarter inches. I would like to see that under 38 inches for an immediate goal. Belly fat is seen as a predictor of liver fat. Once I hit these goals, I'm going to consider investing in an MRI to get a picture of my liver fat stores. However, that would be quite an investment. Until I see some data that indicates my liver fat stores are healthy, all my eating and activity will be centered on creating the conditions that push my body to convert the fat in my liver for energy. If you want to get some information behind my current focus, check out what Robert Listig has to say. I will put a link to one of his videos in the show notes.

Tom Butler: 2:10

Listener Mitch from Battle Creek Michigan also recommended Gabe Merkin, MD and Peter Atia, MD as good sources of information, particularly for my health challenges. I found both of them to provide great insights. I feel like I have learned enough about my eating from the CGM and my last two weeks of wearing it will be spent trying to get a complete picture of my blood glucose response to cycling. I expect to see some really interesting data. As I modify intensity and distance on rides, I'm more convinced than ever that the bike offers such a valuable tool for getting fit and in my case, I see it as a perfect liver fat burning machine. As always, I will keep you updated on what I learned Since starting the podcast. One of the biggest benefits is that I have been able to connect with some really awesome people.

Tom Butler: 3:01

For this week's interview. I am talking to one of them, Judson Scott. If you have listened to the podcast for a while, you've heard some of Justin's feedback to me. He wanted to learn more about Judson's health journey and also ask him a question specifically tailored to his expertise. Here is our discussion. I am joined today by someone that I feel is a special guest because we've had several fun interactions from really almost the beginning of the podcast. Judson Scott, thanks for coming on the podcast.

Judson Scott: 3:28

Oh, it's my pleasure, tom, it's my pleasure.

Tom Butler: 3:31

I'm going to start with my typical opening question what is your earliest memory of a bicycle?

Judson Scott: 3:38

I don't know if it's my earliest, but my strongest early memory is the big crash I had where I chipped my two front teeth. They're still chipped, you can see right there. I was coming down a hill fast because I didn't want to have to pedal up the other side. I don't know, I was probably eight or 10 and broke those two front teeth. I really remember my Schwinn banana seed five-speed cruising around the neighborhood going down to the creeks and it was the way to get around and not get away from the parents and all that.

Tom Butler: 4:10

That was a big deal. A Schwinn five-speed, that was a big deal I had a stingray.

Judson Scott: 4:17

I felt like I had scored there with the stingray.

Tom Butler: 4:22

One thing that we've talked about is the fact that we have some similar health goals. I'm wondering if you can give some background on your fitness journey.

Judson Scott: 4:31

Sure, when you started the podcast, you didn't mention diabetes in the beginning, but I was like I bet you, he and I are fighting the same demons. You talked about it enough that it was like, yeah, okay, I was diagnosed with arthritis when I was 30. At that point the doctor just said, oh yeah, just take more Ibuprofen. I said, well, really, he said, yeah, oh no, you can take more. He had me up to like 3,600 milligrams a day, which I'm sure did nasty stuff to some of my internal organs, but that's what they had. It really got to the point where I was just sitting in a chair and then using alcohol to pick up where the Ibuprofen left off.

Tom Butler: 5:12

Wow.

Judson Scott: 5:14

Then my GP introduced me to a rheumatologist and she was like oh well, here, try this. It totally changed my life. I had been very sedentary, got up to around 240 pounds. That really brought my life back to me. The arthritis decline was long and slow, so it's not like I spent 30 years that way, but that's kind of where it had gotten to.

Judson Scott: 5:37

I was quite out of shape. I went back to swimming, which is what I had done through a lot of my adult life, still pretty out of shape, but I think it was probably the summer of 2018 somewhere around there. I just started losing weight and I should not have been. Not the way I was moving and not the way I was eating. Losing weight was not what I was supposed to be doing. I thought, okay, I better go to a doctor. I probably got some cancer, I'm probably going to be dead in six months or whatever Turned out to be diabetes. I just took that wake-up call. I started swimming five days a week or six and I completely cut out all sugar, all carbs, all alcohol, just cold turkey done. The combination got me down to 200, which was great. Then the pandemic hit and all the pools closed. Finally, I'm back up 20 pounds. It's like, okay, I got to find something to do.

Judson Scott: 6:29

There was a bike in my garage that I had used to commute to UW for a couple of years. I pulled it out. I think I started with maybe three miles. I think that was that wiped me out. I was like, oh my gosh, this is really hard. I just did it every day. Now for me, a 20-mile ride is my daily average. This year I crossed 7,000 miles for the year. It'll be a push to get it up to eight by the end of December. In the back of my head, that's a new goal. I had set seven as the goal for the year. Anyway, the bike really saved my life actually.

Tom Butler: 7:08

That's fantastic. Your diabetes was at the place where you're losing weight. That's a pretty serious condition.

Judson Scott: 7:15

Yeah, no, a1c is supposed to be like what? 5.6 or something.

Tom Butler: 7:20

Yeah.

Judson Scott: 7:23

My A1C had gotten up to 10. My body was doing anything it could to get rid of sugar out of my body because it couldn't handle it. I was constantly having to go urinate because it was just purging the diet and exercise got me down to six.

Tom Butler: 7:42

That's awesome.

Judson Scott: 7:43

Yeah, no, it was a huge drop. The last doctor's appointment I had bumped up to seven because I haven't been as good lately, I'm going to have to grab onto the diet again because I haven't cycled less. I've just been not as careful.

Tom Butler: 7:57

The good news, it sounds like, for you is that you did not have to take insulin. Nope, did not. That's a fantastic thing, because that then opens up another layer of difficulties. You talked about going three miles and feeling pretty wiped out after three miles. There's an element of having to stick with it. I think for me there's this thing of the memory you were biking when you went to UW, the memory about what it felt like to bike at 20 or whatever you were at that time. In comparison, it felt to me. It still does somewhat feel that way to me. It's really discouraging to have that contrast.

Judson Scott: 8:42

Right, I've been through that and of course there have been a few times when I've not been able to bike for a week because of snow on the roads or whatever. Even just after a week my legs feel heavy, having taken a big gap. Well, and of course I did take a big gap from when I was commuting to recently, but I think that gun to my head of diabetes was a big motivator.

Tom Butler: 9:07

Yeah, and I'm learning a lot more about it and I think I'm shifting to more of a focus on metabolic function and even a way. I started out looking at blood sugar, got the CGM and that was for me, a big woke up call because my A1C hadn't gotten to 10 at one point for a brief period of time. I was at seven when I started seeing what was happening with the CGM. It's like, okay, this is a problem. It seems like a lot of pressure to maintain unhealthy activities. We're coming into a season of unhealthy diets galore. And what was that like for you? What was your thought process? What were some of your experiences of making a drastic change like that?

Judson Scott: 9:58

So for me and this is just me a black line is easier to follow than a gray area, because the gray area just keeps getting pushed, and so that's why I went with the black line. It was like I'm not eating that anymore. It's not an option. I'll go get something else, but I'm not going to eat the cookies, the rice, pasta, everything gone. And it took some education on what I could eat and then stocking the house with that stuff One thing that helped me. Well, in the beginning I thought, okay, I'm just never going to have a dish of ice cream again, I guess. But once it all dropped and I realized I could get to a point of management rather than having to continue the drop, then diet can relax a little. Again. That doesn't work so well for me, because you give me one cookie and I want a second one.

Judson Scott: 10:53

So for me, drawing the black line was actually very helpful, because I just sort of remove it from my thoughts rather than trying to regulate.

Tom Butler: 11:02

Did you find that difficult in social situations going out to eat with people, things like that kind of explaining you know I'm not going to have dessert or going to yeah, yeah, yeah.

Judson Scott: 11:16

Well, and I'm a musician, I'm a trumpet player and, like, the classic thing is you play a concert and then you go out for a beer afterwards, right? So I was sitting there with a glass of water, which I mean I would have happily had a beer, but not at that time.

Tom Butler: 11:29

Right.

Judson Scott: 11:31

So definitely, the whole social thing was definitely harder. And again, I guess I've realized that it doesn't have to be forever and that that actually can be a way of I only have to get through a year or whatever. Whatever timeframe brings things under control and then, depending on the person, maybe you can introduce again some things Harder for me. I want another one, yeah.

Tom Butler: 11:58

I think that same kind of personality where it's like really tough to set boundaries, and I think that my brain is wired in a way that, you know, for some reason it's like, yeah, one cookie, you know, just like fires up my brain. It's like, okay, we're eating cookies, now let's go. One of the things I'm looking forward to learning is what are those things that I do need to not do forever. You know, I think there are some. Like, for example, I would say I'm probably never going to drink a soda.

Judson Scott: 12:32

Right, I was never a soda drinker, so that one was easy for me.

Tom Butler: 12:35

Yeah, yeah, and I.

Judson Scott: 12:36

Some people would be very hard.

Tom Butler: 12:37

I agree with that. Maybe I am highlighting something that is easy for me and I'm not going to be consuming things with high fructose corn syrup. The other day I was looking at cranberry jelly like the typical Thanksgiving jelly. I was curious about it this, and then the next ingredient is high fructose corn syrup and then the next ingredient is corn syrup. So, wow, I'm probably not consuming any cranberry jelly, right? Moving forward Right.

Judson Scott: 13:15

Well, you just have to make that cranberry sauce at home.

Tom Butler: 13:17

Yeah, that's right, you know, and I think, learning that and also I have been really you know I'm wondering your experience with this. I really feel like my taste has transformed, and so I do find things to be too sweet.

Judson Scott: 13:32

Yes, and when I originally just drew the black line after about two weeks, I honestly didn't miss the sweet things like I thought I would anymore. You know it was. It took a couple of weeks for my I don't know my body, my brain, my something to recalibrate, and then it wasn't such a big deal anymore.

Tom Butler: 13:53

Yeah, and that gives a lot of hope too for me. Yeah, you mentioned the arthritis. Did you find you know which is an element of inflammation?

Judson Scott: 14:03

which.

Tom Butler: 14:03

I'm thinking there could have been insulin resistance and high glucose levels in your blood and everything that was contributing to joint inflammation. Did you find that to improve a lot? Is that something you still battle?

Judson Scott: 14:15

Well, losing 50 pounds definitely made my arthritis better. Gotcha, I know just about it. Now, why is it that the joints are less inflamed? Is it that I'm just not carrying around as much weight? I don't really know the specifics of why, but losing the weight has definitely improved my arthritis to the point where I was on two medications and it's backed off to one. Yeah, losing the weight has been huge for me in other ways.

Tom Butler: 14:44

That seems like that can be really transformational. For sure, absolutely. I'm constantly dealing with that level of pain.

Judson Scott: 14:50

The new drugs for my arthritis. I have psoriatic arthritis. Not all arthritises are equally well treated these days, but mine. I happen to get lucky and some of the drugs were really quite effective or are really quite effective. But you know that stuff you put in your body it all comes with warning labels. So less is better.

Tom Butler: 15:11

Right. You mentioned COVID kind of being the motivating factor to jump on a bike and I'm wondering have you always found biking to be enjoyable? It was something that you kind of developed, the enjoyment of biking after you got back on. I think I'd like to talk about that transition.

Judson Scott: 15:30

So I am really a COVID cyclist. The mythical bike boom that's an. For me it's stock. I grew up riding bikes. A bike was stolen from my Boston apartment. I commuted to UW on a bike. Didn't really enjoy it because I was already pretty overweight, but parking at UW is tough, so that was the lesser of two evils. So I really hadn't biked for probably 15 years. And then when COVID struck and all the pools closed and I started putting weight back on, I had to do something, and I will say that just being able to walk out to the garage and now I'm on my bike and I'm doing the activity that's part of why I've stuck with it and not gone back to swimming is that you know, in the winter you gotta like get dressed, drive to the pool, take a shower, be cold, jump in the water, be cold, warm up, get out, take a shower, drive home. It's like it's just a big process as opposed to walk out to my garage, and now I'm doing it.

Tom Butler: 16:33

Right, yeah, I get that.

Judson Scott: 16:34

And it's been a great way to get to no Seattle. It's a great pace, you cover more ground than walking, but you can actually see stuff instead of driving by in a car, and it's been a great way to get to no Seattle.

Tom Butler: 16:46

You talked about having a bike in your garage at that time, and is that the same bike that you're riding now?

Judson Scott: 16:53

Oh no, no, I mean it was. The bike in the garage was a, you know a Kokomo something or other. You know one of the upright hybrid bikes you know heavy, very heavy, and whatever it worked, it was fine for commuting. But so after that let's see the next bike. So I rode that for a while and early on there was a bike shop I used to go to all the time. Unfortunately they just closed counterbalance cycles. So Chris was the guy I would talk to there and I said so what do you think Could I ride STP on this bike? And he kind of looked at it and said, well, and you've ridden STP. You know people ride anything. I mean you could do, but it would have been a lot of work.

Judson Scott: 17:36

So I bought my first carbon bike used, realized I had looked at the wrong number and it was too big for me. So then I bought a used cyclocross bike from a friend of mine, blake. I mean he wasn't a friend until I bought the bike from him, but it was aluminum, but it's a very light aluminum bike and that was great. And then the next summer I sold the first carbon bike and picked up a real nice used S-Works. I mean it's the bike Tom Boonen was riding in 2008. So it's old but it's really light and it's got great components. He wasn't riding this specific one. I wouldn't want that one because it would have been abused at all. Creation right To have a professional rider. Anyway, I just bought this last summer a titanium bike to ride in the winter Cause I was riding enough miles that I was burning through wheel rims about every year because the rim breaking in the winter with the stuff on the ground would just like sandpaper on my rims.

Tom Butler: 18:38

That's interesting. What do you think is the biggest factor that has driven the bikes that you've chosen?

Judson Scott: 18:44

Until the Linsky, it was all I was buying on the used market and so, you know, whatever popped up that looked like it would fit in. You know, and coming from the hybrid bike, I wanted like the lightest bike I could possibly find. Okay, after schlepping that thing around, I was really wanting light and so that's why I went the carbon road bike and it's definitely a harsher ride. That's what I've ridden on the STP the last couple of years, but it's a little harsher, but you can really move on those things. So then the cyclocross bike was intended to be my winter bike and then I realized that the rimbikes were. I was just going to be going through rims, like you know, every year, and that's expensive. So my next bike I didn't want to reproduce either of the bikes I already had, so it's more of a touring bike and it's got disc brakes.

Tom Butler: 19:36

Have you ever done a bike fitting?

Judson Scott: 19:38

Yes, best $300 I've ever spent on bikes. I was having some hand pain and some shoulder pain and some knee pain and I thought I had set the bike up pretty well and Peter at Counterbalance, you know he got me in there, asked me some questions about my history and started watching me pedal. And I mean one thing the big thing that he realized was that one of my legs is shorter than the other and so there was not going to be a proper seat height until that was taken into account right, and so some shims on one of my legs and that problem was completely solved, like the next day. It was very noticeable difference. You know, by getting the seat the right distance from the handlebars, all my hand pain disappeared because I wasn't leaning so much weight on my hands. So it was yeah, no, the bike fit was huge.

Tom Butler: 20:31

Can you talk about your favorite rides? Do you have some specific rides that you really like to do? You talked about, you know, being at a pace that you get to see Seattle a different way. Are there some types of rides that you like to do more than others? How would you talk about that?

Judson Scott: 20:49

In Strava. Sometimes I'll label a ride RTLBW, meaning ride time limited by work, and so I've got some rides that it's like, okay, I've got an hour, I know I can do this in an hour and that's what I'm gonna do today, and so I've got a few of those that I pull out of my pocket way too often. There's a Magnolia loop that I do once a week so I can maintain my local legend status on Strava. A favorite ride actually is to ride out to West Seattle and there's a nice breakfast place there. They have a really good burrito, breakfast burrito, so that's gonna be kind of low carb, you know, and so that's about a 35-ish mile trip for me, depending on quite how I do it. So a lot of my rides are based on either where can I stop and get breakfast or is it the right mileage for today?

Judson Scott: 21:44

One of the things I really love is in the spring, cascade has the winter training series. It starts in January and it ramps up. I think it starts with 35 miles and then works up to a century. You know, every Saturday it's, you know they go a little further, a little more elevation and that's just a great series. I'm a musician so I don't always have Saturdays available so I usually only can get in maybe half of those rides. But that's a great series for, you know, preparing for summer riding. You know big STP length trips and it's, and because somebody else is making the choice, I get to see areas I wouldn't have chosen. You know, and mostly, mostly, I've been pretty happy with the routes. Every once in a while, you know, it's a two-lane highway with not quite as much shoulders I think it should have and I'm. You know I'm not quite as happy then, but usually those are more rare, that that's part of the ride.

Tom Butler: 22:39

You have something that you're looking at. That's kind of a goal that you would like to do, or have you accomplished all the things you've set out to do? What? From that perspective, what are you looking at?

Judson Scott: 22:49

So STP has a wall of fame. If you do it five times you can put your name up there. So I'm I've got two downs, so I'm definitely planning on doing five and that's just such a fun ride. I would love to ride the Palouse Trail across Washington Currently. You know some of it is I've been told. I've never been on it. Some of what I've been told is the gravel is so big you really can't ride it, and so it's not functional yet as a bike route, unless you've got really specific equipment. So I would love to do that. Not quite there yet. Well, I'm kind of waiting for the trail to catch up, or I suppose you can map some ways around.

Judson Scott: 23:31

So that's a ride I'd love to do my STP buddy who lives in Boise. He used to come and he'd spend the night before STP here, because I live very close to the start line and I just thought he was nuts Like you got to be kidding me. You're going to go ride 200 miles, are you crazy? It just seemed you know when he'd come back and he'd just be completely spent right, are you crazy? But you know it turns out it is actually a lot of fun. One of the things that I'd love to do is go to Boise and ride through the Sawtooth Mountains. I hear it's supposed to be spectacularly beautiful and that would be a fun trip.

Tom Butler: 24:07

I really would love to have a recording of when you called your Boise friend and said hey, I'm thinking about doing the STP. Yeah, that was to find quite the conversation.

Judson Scott: 24:21

Well, yes, although he knew I had been writing, I probably started writing in June or July when COVID started and then I wrote STP didn't in 2223. So I had. I had a year or so of writing that he'd heard about, so it wasn't quite the surprise, it would have seemed.

Tom Butler: 24:40

But was he putting it in your mind? You know, hey, you're spending more time on the bike. Maybe you should consider this, or had you been thinking about it?

Judson Scott: 24:48

His example certainly put it in my mind. Not that he necessarily. He was supposed to write it with me this last summer and we were going to try to do it in one day, which he has done, but instead he walked the Camino with his wife. I can't believe he wanted to spend time with his wife instead of with me on a bike, but you know the choices some people make.

Tom Butler: 25:12

I want to pull in your profession here for a moment. You've mentioned your music musician. Can you talk a little bit more about what you do?

Judson Scott: 25:20

I'm a trumpet player and I teach at the University of Puget Sound and then play in some local orchestras Tacoma Symphony, north Corner Chamber Orchestra, few others and Northwest Infantietta Northwest Infantietta. So it's my schedule, is in some ways it's great because usually I can keep my mornings free and I, so I hit the bike first thing, and that's great. The other times it creates like this weekend I have a rehearsal, a concert, and then a different concert, and so like there's not going to be any bike that day. That's that's just not going to fit. So it usually it's a plus, sometimes it's a minus. You know, with my schedule.

Tom Butler: 26:00

When we were setting this discussion up, you talked about December being a really busy month for you, and so what is that like? What's what's December about that makes it so busy?

Judson Scott: 26:10

Starting this weekend I'm going to have 16 concerts in 14 days and so, and then all those concerts have rehearsals and so for a few weeks it's going to really take over my life. You know, as a trumpet player I can't play six hours a day and not hurt myself, so I have to be very careful about like well I have to get the practicing done early so that when the show is coming up I can stop practicing or minimize practicing so that my muscles are ready for the concert. You know, just like STP, commonly people take a day off or maybe two or something before the big ride because you want your muscles to be at their best, right. So it's a very similar kind of, you know, parallel thing.

Tom Butler: 26:53

If people are in the Puget Sound area or some of the concerts you're doing, are they open to the public? Is, is it something?

Judson Scott: 26:59

Yeah, I mean they're all. They're all open to the public. I don't know when you're going to post this. This coming weekend it's Valhalla brass and Federal Way Symphony and then Auburn Symphony on the Monday after that and then North Corcoran Chamber Orchestra and Seattle Coral Company and a Messiah at Blessed Sacrament Parish in the U district, and so yeah, and they're all open to the public. You know they all should be pretty good. I'm also conducting a brass band Tuesday the 12th. Okay.

Tom Butler: 27:31

Okay, well, I will have to post information in the show notes about it again if people are in the area then, where they can check those performances out. Also some some recordings that you're on. I think that would be great if people want to check that out.

Judson Scott: 27:45

Great.

Tom Butler: 27:46

So it's going to be difficult for you to fit in rides in December. Is it something that you'll? It's kind of like you have to take December off, or do you still find ways to work in rides?

Judson Scott: 27:56

Oh, I will definitely find ways to work in rides. I mean, I at this point I feel like if I don't ride I'm putting me back into diabetes risk. That's a serious motivator for me, and so it's. It is rare that I take a day off, I mean out of a month. Maybe I take two or four days off because of scheduling things usually. And so December I mean again, most of my mornings I can make work. You know my mileage well, except I have a big mileage goal for the month. I may I may just be doing a few bigger, longer ones. I've crossed 7000. I would love to get to eight. That would be sort of beyond my wildest dreams, and I probably have to do 700 miles in December, seven or eight to get there. I think I've probably done that in the summer when it's beautiful. I don't know if I can do that in the rain and the cold. And so we'll see.

Tom Butler: 28:46

I kind of see exercise is like I'm making a choice to not do dialysis.

Judson Scott: 28:51

You know, yeah, yeah.

Tom Butler: 28:53

You know I've not been on the bike as much lately I'm. I feel like I'm really ready to get back on. I've got a pretty busy couple of weeks here with some holiday stuff, but I need to get back on and do some longer rides and it's to me the thought of doing like dialysis versus being on a bike cruising through the countryside I mean there's just no comparison. But it's that mindset of something that is that essential for me.

Judson Scott: 29:21

Right, no, absolutely. And I used to live in Boston and one summer I was teaching in music camp and there were two trumpet teachers me and Steve Jones and Steve used to get up every morning at six and warm up for an hour before he had to start teaching and I would like roll out of bed and grab a cup of coffee and go you right. After about two weeks of that he still sounded awesome and I kind of sucked because I was not, like I was not approaching you know it professionally. And so from that experience I learned that whatever is most important to you, you should do it the very first thing in the day. And so for me at this point it's riding the bike, because that's going to keep me healthy.

Judson Scott: 30:02

And actually something I didn't say was, before I knew it was diabetes, my plane started suffering because I and I didn't quite understand it, but I was dehydrated, and so my embouchure, my lips, weren't responding the way they always had because they were dehydrated and it didn't matter what you know chapstick or lip balm or whatever, because it was like that internal dehydration and I didn't even really know how to talk to doctors about it, like they would say, yeah, we'll try this. You know topical bloody blah and none of it worked. But it was when my body wasn't trying to purge so completely. I really regained my best playing.

Tom Butler: 30:41

Seems like you're breathing and everything. As you lost the weight, you would have seen improvement. Is that right?

Judson Scott: 30:46

Yeah, I mean I've been a professional breather my whole life, so so maybe not quite so much the breathing, but it definitely. You know the whole approach to life is so much easier, 50 pounds lighter, that you know I'm less grumpy. I show up to rehearsals happy to be there. You know cause. Cause it is sort of like I've regained. You know I have a second shot. Almost it's not. That's maybe going a little far, but you know where it's like okay, got the body thing a little more under control and I can perform the way that I want to.

Tom Butler: 31:20

I love the fact that you brought a bugle on the Kitsap color classic. I thought that was awesome and I don't know if I mentioned this to you at all, but I got to hear you do a charge I don't know what that is actually called, but at one of the stops and I just that was fantastic. I'm just wondering what kind of response you got to to bringing your bugle on the ride.

Judson Scott: 31:44

Well, I think I've taken it on a few rides. I've taken it on STP that was annoying to carry for 200 miles, I'll tell you. And I've taken it on. Let's see the Kitsap Color Classic and Ride the Hurricane. I took it on that. It always gets a good response because it's so unexpected. I try not to be too annoying about it, usually just as I'm leaving, one of the stops and bugles are pretty limited. There's not a whole lot you can do with them. So it's usually just one of the two versions of charge and that's usually about it. To be honest, I'm considering buying a plastic trumpet that I could sling over my back. It's a little more versatile.

Tom Butler: 32:23

Okay.

Judson Scott: 32:24

So we'll see. Maybe on STP this summer, if you're riding it, then you'll hear a little more.

Tom Butler: 32:29

Well, that was certainly been a motivation to track you down at STP. Did you play it at the beginning of STP when you were leaving at the start?

Judson Scott: 32:40

I did Okay, okay.

Tom Butler: 32:43

So have the organizers kind of recognized you after doing it a few times.

Judson Scott: 32:48

Yeah, Lee, director of Cascade, he tracked me down.

Tom Butler: 32:53

Lee Lambert.

Judson Scott: 32:54

Lee Lambert right, so Lee has spotted me with the bugle and I think he likes the fact that there's I mean especially on the STP, where people are wearing costumes and stuff. It really fits right into that ride.

Tom Butler: 33:08

Right, that's excellent. Okay, so here is a question that you are uniquely qualified to answer in my mind, and that is what are the trumpet pieces that speak to you as a cyclist? What are some of the things that get you amped up to go out for a hard ride, or things like that?

Judson Scott: 33:27

You know, to be honest, there aren't any. I, when I go riding, I listen to cycling after 60 or the slow ride podcast, or accidental tech podcast, or, you know, since I do music all the time, I almost never go to a concert, cause if I have a night off I just want to be home, cause it's not always, you know, I don't get to pick my schedule. That is a downside of being a musician. You just have to work whenever there's a concert. You know there's some. I guess let's see the holes, the planets. Oh, actually, you know, there is a movement from Schubert's ninth symphony, da yam ba dum ba, da de ba dum ba, and I use that to pace my cadence. Nice, you know, it's slightly above the great cycle cadence, which just kind of moves me on, you know. So that's actually, which is really not what you were thinking about when you were asking that question.

Tom Butler: 34:32

But no, I think that's a perfect response. I love that. Now, and how about things that come to mind as far as a peaceful jaunt through the countryside?

Judson Scott: 34:44

Well, I'm a big fan of Sibelius symphonies, brookner symphonies, and those are really big, spacious, like especially Sibelius. He's in his music, literally or not. He's really like projecting you know the frozen north, you know just vast landscapes which, and so his music unfolds in a long spacious, and so I will occasionally throw on a Sibelius or Brookner symphony, because they're both so spacious and just, you know, a big, long ride out in the country or downhill skiing. That would be another option for them.

Tom Butler: 35:18

Okay, okay, I like that. I'm going to check it out. Returning back to the bike, have you had any injuries or close calls while biking?

Judson Scott: 35:29

Well, there was the tooth accident when I was 10.

Tom Butler: 35:32

Right.

Judson Scott: 35:32

That's the biggest one. Actually, just yesterday or no, saturday, I was out on a 60-mile ride and cutting through from one road to another on a dirt path that had a little tiny metal divider from the path to the ground. You know it was kind of wet and my wheel got on there and scooted out from under me. So I got a little bruise on my lip, on my side and a skin knee, but nothing that's really as serious. I mean I've gotten a little road rash, but nothing serious. I've been lucky.

Tom Butler: 36:06

Do you feel like the routes that you're riding in Seattle are pretty good for cyclists? Do you think they're doing a good job?

Judson Scott: 36:14

I do, actually, and so my son is going to school in Portland and so when we dropped him off, I took my bike down there and rode. I've had a few chances to ride down there. They really have a great combination of dedicated bike lanes but also greenways where cars are discouraged and bikes are encouraged, and it's awesome, and I feel like Seattle is doing really well with the bike lanes now the dedicated, especially with the new Pike Pine corridors that are going to open pretty soon. I think that's going to be great and I feel like, in through the pandemic, seattle's a little bit caught up to Portland in the greenway, because there's some, some routes. You know if you're going someplace you've not been. When you see that greenway, it's like OK, I could choose one of these three streets. This is the greenway, and I know I'm not going to be wrestling with cars or as much. So so I feel like Seattle has really stepped up.

Judson Scott: 37:15

I don't know if you've ever read, if you've seen the new book by Tom I don't know how to pronounce his name Foucault Loro Riding Up the Line. That's a great history of biking in Seattle from the beginning. Like the roads, it's about road building. It's not so much about biking.

Tom Butler: 37:32

Yeah, I think he's the Seattle bike blog guy. I think Paul Tomain mentioned him. I'm kind of interested because I see Seattle as doing a lot of things and I also see them as like there's a culture, there's a kind of a whole vibe of Seattle or a whole ethos of Seattle. Whatever you would say, that makes biking a like. It makes sense for the city of Seattle to be very bike friendly. But I'm also interested that you know they're not number one. Like if you look at the for 2023 the people for bikes they have Minneapolis as number one and San Francisco as number two and then Seattle as number three. So I wonder what is it that you know Seattle could be doing better? I haven't really delved into the numbers very much, but I am curious about what Seattle could be doing more to like get into that number one spot.

Judson Scott: 38:36

Well, I do think Seattle has been in the number one spot, but you know, some of the bike infrastructure was clearly designed by somebody who had never been on a bike. You know corners that don't make sense on a bike, you know little narrow ramps, and then some of that's on the east side as well, and so, for example, you know they're putting in a waterfront trail along Alaskan Way, and the original plan was okay, the lanes are going to be on the right. You're going to go a few blocks and then you're going to cross the street to the left and go a few more blocks and then cross back, and it was like two or three times you're going to have to cross the Alaskan Way, which is just makes zero sense for a cyclist, and so, anyway, they've changed it. So it's all going to be on one side, which is great, but that thinking which is even it's better now than it used to be, but it was it just biking was clearly like a couple steps down the thought process.

Judson Scott: 39:30

Right, and I get it. They didn't want the cyclists where people were going to be getting on the ships, didn't want tourists getting run over by cyclists. I get that, you know. On the other hand, putting on the other side where you're going to be crossing intersections all the time, because there's no intersections on one side. So anyway, they came up with a compromise. It's going to be much better, but it's yeah, it's still has a ways to go.

Tom Butler: 39:54

Now, Alaska Way is an interesting example because, you know, for years there was a big roadway, elevated roadway, the Alaska Way viaduct that went along the what is like the shoreline of Seattle, so it's the area that's on the water in Seattle. So they brought that down and then that provided an opportunity for there to be a discussion about what do we want to do with this land.

Judson Scott: 40:21

Right.

Tom Butler: 40:22

And how do we want to make it accessible to the public? It would be interesting to have a discussion with somebody about what are the factors. How does that process go when you start evaluating how to repurpose that area?

Judson Scott: 40:38

Well, I think ultimately money wins. You know, like somebody wants to put in some apartment complexes and you know, or whatever it's money talks. That's the way the world works and it's you know they had originally talked we're going to build this tunnel and we're going to have this big open green space and I think it keeps getting smaller and smaller. But I think it's going to be way better than the elevated highway and I know people like the views from up there. I get it, but you know what. You should have been looking at the road. You know what I mean. Like look at the car in front of you, not the beautiful mountains off to the side. So I understand why people miss that, but I think whatever green space we end up with down there is going to be a huge plus.

Tom Butler: 41:23

So what's the next event that you're going to ride?

Judson Scott: 41:25

Well, it'll probably be the winter training series that Cascade puts on, which isn't really an event. What's the spring one that Cascade puts on?

Tom Butler: 41:35

Well, the first one is Chili Hilly.

Judson Scott: 41:36

Chili Hilly right. Usually I can't do that one because I have a concert or something. It's because it's sort of in my season. It'll depend If I'm available. Chili Hilly will probably be my next. But last summer STP and Ride the Hurricane Kitsap, or rather Tour de Lavender, kitsap Color Classic. Those were all great fun. And actually my sister-in-law, since I'm a bike rider, she's got us to book a cycling trip in Amsterdam, a bike during the day and barge at night. So we'll see how that goes with the two couples.

Tom Butler: 42:10

That sounds awesome. I've heard people talk about that before and that sounds really cool.

Judson Scott: 42:16

I hope so.

Tom Butler: 42:18

So my son-in-law, I think you know, did the STP with me and then he did the RSVP and those seem like two very different rides. His exhaustion level after the first day of RSVP made me think that was too much of a challenge. Have you ever thought about the RSVP?

Judson Scott: 42:38

When the border was closed they replaced it with R2-B2, redmond to Bellingham and back, and so I did that ride, which is basically 100 miles up and 100 miles back, so it's basically the same length of STP, but it does all the climbing of STP on both days or nearly. So it was definitely a harder ride, especially the coming south. That way had like 5,000 feet, and the way up, I think, was three or something, I can't remember exactly. That was probably the hardest 100 miles I've done. Still, great fun. So, yeah, no, I have not done RSVP. To be honest, I like to come back to where I started. I don't like. For me, the fact that we end in Portland is a downside of STP, because then you got to get back, you know. So I've been less inclined to pursue RSVP, but I think probably this summer I probably will do it, because it's everybody talks about what a great time it is.

Tom Butler: 43:32

Are you thinking about needing another bike at all?

Judson Scott: 43:36

Oh, it's always N plus one right, or D minus one divorce minus one right. Of course I'm thinking and actually I secretly bought a bike from my wife that she doesn't know yet. Okay, yeah, so I did buy one. It's hard for me to justify such a thing at the moment. You know a tandem bike. I'd love to get one of those. Get my wife out with me. I'm really not a mountain biker. That does not appeal. My road bike is from 2008. So at some point that's going to need to be need to be replaced, right.

Tom Butler: 44:14

Of course. So what do you think? As far as, have you felt pretty happy with, at your age, how able you are to do long rides and to keep up with cycling. Is that been a surprise at all?

Judson Scott: 44:29

Well, certainly with diabetes and arthritis, especially arthritis. I mean, there was a time when I thought I was just going to be sitting in the chair for the rest of my life. So, yes, it's a surprise and of course it just kills me that I didn't start all this 20 years ago. Right, I mean that's you know all the rides that were missed, but I can be happy for the ones I'm doing now. You know, can only look forward, can't change the past.

Tom Butler: 44:52

So yeah, I look at a lot of 40 year olds. You know, 35 year olds, 40 year olds. I think probably my health started turning for the worst at about 35. And it's like, man, if there's anything I could give you would be like the perspective of start this now. It will be such such a big thing.

Judson Scott: 45:15

Yeah, no, I'd say the same thing is true for me actually. I mean, I got married at 35 and my wife is a really good cook, and so so staying home and having some wine and a great dinner was a lot of fun.

Tom Butler: 45:28

But it has been awesome for me to see what has reversed. I feel like I have like set time in a reverse direction in some ways by getting out and being active and now changing my diet, which is not easy. It feels like I've lost some really cherished friends in my dietary change. Right, Goodbye my good friends donuts. Feels good to be able to see strength improving in, cardiovascular potential increasing. You know, I feel like you're stepping back in time a bit.

Judson Scott: 46:06

No, that's really true, really true, I mean certainly for me anyway.

Tom Butler: 46:10

Well, jetson, thanks so much. I've enjoyed this conversation so much and it's had a small time to chat here and there over email. And then one of the rides the kids at Color Cat Classic. We got to chat a little bit, but it's just been such a pleasure to spend more time just getting to know you more and hearing more about your story. Thanks for taking the time of being on.

Judson Scott: 46:34

Oh, my pleasure, and so we have to schedule a ride here one of these days. Yes, yes we don't live that close together, so it's take a little effort, but not you know.

Tom Butler: 46:44

Well, it's so appealing to come up there, you know, to do the Lake Washington loop and we're going to be doing an episode on the East Lake Sammamish Trail at some point. Oh great and so to come up and do some rides around Lake Washington. We do need to do that. I'm feeling more confident that I'm not going to slow everyone down that I'm cycling with, but I'm still pretty slow.

Judson Scott: 47:10

But yeah, we'll do that it would be fun, and I'm going to be hopping on my bike in about half an hour, so if you want to drive up, I'll postpone for a little bit.

Tom Butler: 47:20

I wouldn't even make it there in a half an hour, unfortunately. All right, well, take care, have good luck with the whole season here and the busyness, and hope that it's a fun holiday season for you and your family All right.

Judson Scott: 47:37

Well, thank you, tom, it's been a pleasure.

Tom Butler: 47:39

All right, take care.

Judson Scott: 47:40

Yep Bye-bye.

Tom Butler: 47:41

Bye now. To me, judson represents the potential of making lifestyle choices that aren't really that easy to keep up. However, his cycling, as he put it, probably saved his life. For sure, it rescued him from living with some really limiting conditions. His focus on getting the important task of biking done first thing in the morning doesn't work for everybody. However, it has made it more likely that he will stay with it. Once again, judson is an example of just how resilient our bodies are, even later on in life. Please take some time, like Mitch, and let me know your challenges and also share what information you have found to be helpful. There is a lot of stuff in the show notes this week, as I mentioned. The links to Judson's performances in the Seattle area are there, and also some of his recordings. I hope you all find time in this busy season to get in the bike miles and even discover some new routes this month for the new year. And remember, age is just a gear change.