Tom Butler: 0:04

This is the Cycling Over 60 podcast, season three, episode nine. It's about community, with Lewis Rudd, and I'm your host, tom Butler. The interview this week is with someone I really respect and I'm excited to share our conversation. Before that, here is a brief update. As you know, I'm focused this season on a journey to understand what is going on with my body and have interventions for my metabolic dysfunction that are precisely tailored to my unique physiology and function. Related to that journey, I recently finished the book titled the Body Keeps the Score. I found it to be a difficult read because there are so many stories of terrible trauma presented. I'm thankful that I was never subjected to severe abuse or a traumatic event. If you have been, my heart goes out to you and I hope that you've found a place that is a resource for processing your experience. It's impossible to go through this book without being reminded of the connection between physical and emotional health. So, as part of my health journey this season, I'm going to be doing some psychotherapy. I will be somewhat transparent about this process here, but I won't be sharing everything. I will share with you that I had my cognitive function tested. I actually didn't know this was going to happen. I knew I was going to have a testing session before starting therapy, but I thought it was only going to be looking at depression and anxiety. Looking back, I'm glad I didn't know, because I would have been very nervous about it. To be honest, I have been concerned with my cognitive function, but I'm happy to report that I'm not showing any signs of a cognitive problem at this time. A more precise way to say this is that I'm functioning normally compared to people of my age group. I'm not 100% sure what that means, but I guess if I'm slipping everybody else, my age is slipping, so we're all in it together at least. Now that I've had the testing, it's time to move into some therapy sessions. It would be a surprise to me if I end up finding that some emotional issue is impacting my physical health, but I know that I definitely can't reject it as a possibility.

Tom Butler: 2:18

A couple of weekends ago, I had a really fun day at the MFG Woodland Park Grand Prix. I'm going to get sidetracked here for a moment. I am hoping that someone could help me out here. Please send me an email or an Instagram message if you know the answer to this. Mfg spelled Grand Prix, g-r-a-n-p-r-i-x.

Tom Butler: 2:39

I learned that Grand Prix means big prize, and I think one of the reasons for calling this event a Grand Prix is that the winners were also the 2024 Washington State Bicycle Racing Association winners, which included very cool champion jerseys. By the way, in all the promotion, mfg leaves off the D at the end of Grand, so it is Grand Prix, not Grand Prix. I can't find a justification for this anywhere. Maybe it's just their way of being unique. I would think it was just a typo, but it's everywhere on the website. If you have an idea why they did this, I would love to know.

Tom Butler: 3:17

Anyhow, the Woodland Park Grand Prix was billed as the world's largest cyclocross event. It earns that designation by the number of riders, not spectators. However, there were plenty of spectators and it was easily one of the best cycling community experiences I have had. Garin left everything on the course and thoroughly loved the event. We stayed around to watch the category one two racers and we were treated to an awesome battle between two teenagers. For the win, 17-year-old Erin Connolly beat 16-year-old Amos Scott Burrus by two seconds with a sprint to the line In the top female category, national championship-bound Paula Gil Etravera dominated the field with a gap of three minutes and 20 seconds at the finish. That all was certainly entertaining, but only slightly more entertaining than the first and second grade riders. It was really fun watching these little cyclists navigate the barriers. I'm looking forward to watching the National Championship Cyclocross race next month. I will pick up a Flowbike subscription to do so and I'll be interested to see what other races I will find to watch that are also on Flowbikes.

Tom Butler: 4:24

I did the first Swift group ride this week. No one joined me, which is probably a good thing, because I didn't start it right, and actually someone did reach out and said they tried to join, but they couldn't. It didn't seem very intuitive to me about how to start the ride, so I pulled up a video later to see how to do it. I think I have it now, but I wish the developers would have made it a little more self-explanatory. I'm sure that there is a team of game developers working on a list of features for Zwift. If you know any of them, I have an idea for riding with zombies that I would love them to work on.

Tom Butler: 4:59

I like the Zwift route that I chose. It's called Flatland Loop. It has a nice flat section that is about a third of the route, then there's a section of a little elevation and finally it ends with a downhill section. I was looking to make the ride relatively easy for now. I'm not using the rubber banding function for these rides, if you know what that is, but if that's a better way to go I can enable it in the future. So I'm going to try the same route again this Wednesday at 8 30 am pacific time. I will put a link to the show notes, to the group ride and also to zoom chat that I will start up along with the ride. Even if you aren't joining the ride, feel free to jump into the zoom and say hello.

Tom Butler: 5:46

I first heard about Lewis Rudd during a Cascade Cycling Club event. He is known there as one of the most dynamic advocates for cycling in our area. After that I found out that he was one of the founders of Ezell's Famous Chicken and I got connected to some of the interviews he has done on the growth of his business. Ezell's is a local favorite in the Seattle area and I really appreciate the humble way that Lewis credits the community with the success of Ezell's. Lee Lambert from Cascade recommended that I invite Lewis on the podcast and I'm so glad that Lewis agreed to spend some time with me. Here's our conversation. I am joined today by someone who I see as a local cycling legend.

Tom Butler: 6:26

Thank you, Lewis Rudd, for taking the time to speak with me.

Lewis Rudd: 6:30

You're very welcome and thank you for the opportunity. Legend maybe I don't know.

Tom Butler: 6:37

I'm not surprised that you would resist that term a little bit, but I think as we go through here, people will agree with me that you're a legend. So now you're well known to many people because of the success of Ezell's Chicken and people can't see this, but you're wearing a pretty nice jersey there. You know that is Ezell's Chicken jersey.

Lewis Rudd: 7:01

Exactly.

Tom Butler: 7:03

So I love it.

Lewis Rudd: 7:04

I'm very passionate about both cycling and Eazels, and for a lot of years most of the years that we've been in business over 40 years I'm generally wearing something that's branded Eazels, whether it's a cap, shirt, both sweats, but it's branded Eazels both sweats but it's branded as else nice, nice, so we'll have to talk a little more about that.

Tom Butler: 7:29

Okay, and we aren't here to talk much about your business success today, um, and I would encourage people to take some time to search out some of your talks on building a successful business, because I think they're we have to say there is awesome. I want you to come on because I see you as an extremely positive force in the cycling community. So, first off, thanks for your willingness to give your time to promote cycling.

Lewis Rudd: 7:58

Oh, you're very welcome and it's a passion of mine and I love the sport, really enjoy it. I enjoy the people that I meet. My wife was an avid cyclist. For many years we did an 18-cell Portland bike ride together before she stopped and then she started doing the dance and triathlon and now it's more or less the peloton bike and spin classes. Yeah, cycling, I just love cycling, love cycling.

Tom Butler: 8:28

Well, let's start out here. What is your first memory of the bike?

Lewis Rudd: 8:32

Wow, a little Schwinn. When I was, I think, five, six years old, five years old I got a Schwinn bike for Christmas and nice blue, with the fenders, training wheels, and I can still remember hitting those little flat spots or whatever when the wheel would just spin, when the training wheels would have it up and couldn't wait to get the training wheels off. And it was a two speed and the way you change the gear was hit the brake and when you matched the brake it would shift it to a different gear higher, easier or harder gear.

Lewis Rudd: 9:13

But yeah, that's my first memory of really getting into cycling or riding and having a great time on a bike.

Tom Butler: 9:21

Wow, that is interesting. I don't remember that functionality of a Schwinn. A Schwinn was like many people I think with my first bike as well, but it'd be fun to it, wouldn't be awesome to like have that bike as a collector's item?

Lewis Rudd: 9:38

you know man that would be nice.

Tom Butler: 9:43

Now, did you grow up in an active family?

Lewis Rudd: 9:47

I grew up in a rural area in East Texas, a little small town outside of Marshall Texas called Scottsville, which is 168 miles east of Dallas. We were active and always outside doing stuff when the weather was nice playing, running, picking berries, hunting, fishing, playing football, baseball but it was always outdoor activities, whether it was working hard or playing hard.

Tom Butler: 10:22

Now, as a young adult, were you cycling?

Lewis Rudd: 10:29

hard or playing hard. Now, as a young adult, were you cycling? No, actually I didn't really pick up cycling until after I got out of the military and moved to Seattle and I got my first bike. It's a nice red and white red with white lettering, a Pook Cavalier that I picked up and started riding it and met a good friend, alan Brown, who really got my wife and I into cycling. I was just riding around the neighborhood and find a trail here and there and met Alan Brown and he was actually really into cycling and he was also selling bike apparel he was getting I think it was called Gonzo. Back then it was a brand called Gonzo, european brand. He would stop by the restaurant and I start chatting with him and from there I had the restaurant and I start chatting with him and from there I did my first half century through the tulip fields up north of Seattle 50 mile ride and my legs was cramping, beating them up.

Lewis Rudd: 11:36

But he was very serious about cycling and would. Eventually my wife would get a bike and he would take us out riding and we'd be watching the wheels and looking down. He would always say, no, look up, look up, see all of the beauty out there, these nice routes that we would take, and going outside to Seattle, to Flamingozzer National Park, was one of the routes that he would take us on consistently. It was one of the routes that he would take us on consistently. And then the pedaling techniques. He would talk about efficiency and drafting and he would get my wife and I behind him and he was 6'2", 6'3" wide body and he said just get behind me and let me block the wind for you, just draft, draft.

Lewis Rudd: 12:27

And it was really fun riding with him. He made it fun. We would meet sometime at his place and it was always you got to stretch first, get the body relaxed, make sure you're eating and drinking along the routes. But yeah, it was great connecting with him drinking along the routes. But yeah, it was great, you know, connecting with him. And I think this might have been 83, 84, somewhere in there. I just really took to the sport, enjoyed it and just kept it going Nice.

Tom Butler: 12:58

Well, that's a great person to ride with. Anybody that says hey, get behind me.

Lewis Rudd: 13:03

I'll make it a little easier for you, so that's so you really fell in love with cycling.

Tom Butler: 13:10

But there's another thing that it seems like you also really enjoy, or or love, and that's roller skating. Talk to me about roller skating oh man, I love roller skating.

Lewis Rudd: 13:23

In fact I went roller skating last night for a little bit. Cycling I mean roller skating I was doing as a teenager back in Marshall. We had a roller skating rink there and when I was in the military station at Fort Hood they had a nice roller skating rink there. I would go and skate. And then eventually, when I got to Seattle at the University of Washington, they had skating on Friday and Saturday nights inside of their gym it's called the IMA. Out there we would go Friday, saturday nights and skate and I met a really good friend of mine we're still friends today Back in like 78, 79, going out there to the University of Washington, howard Jenkins and Howard very, very much into skating.

Lewis Rudd: 14:12

He taught skate lessons, he used to build skates, his kids skated, his wife skated and eventually I think it was around 81, 82, somewhere in there. He did a roller fashion show at a local rink in downtown Seattle and I participated in it and that's where I met my wife, jackie, back there roller skating. She also roller skated and she was not roller skating that night. But in this roller fashion show I would do my little backwards, turn, going in the corner and look up and we make eye contact. It was nonsense, but yeah, I really, really do enjoy skating.

Lewis Rudd: 14:55

This year we're hosting or putting on a national skate. We call it a national skate party, but we'll have over 300, 350 skaters coming in from around the country, from the East Coast, down south Texas, cleveland, the Midwest We'll have a few skaters. California will have skaters coming up and it'll be a weekend event coming up and it'll be a weekend event and we started over 15 years ago doing this. This will be our 15th annual coming up in August, where Friday, saturday, sunday night we go from 10 to 2 am in the morning and bringing in good DJs from around the country. It's a festive event.

Lewis Rudd: 15:42

And then the Seafair weekend here in Seattle. We'll be outdoor skating as well, have a nice picnic. But yeah, I love skating, love roller skating. We're also one of the largest events here in the Seattle area in August the Torchlight Parade. We have a downtown parade that's put on by the Seafair organization here in Seattle. This year we had about 54 skaters skating, roller skating, down through town in Seattle and we have the music set up and they're dancing in the streets and getting down going through town. But yeah, I love roller skating. Good exercise, good fun, that's awesome.

Tom Butler: 16:23

I mean anything that brings you your wife. You know that is something to stick with. It seems like with roller skating there's more flexibility to kind of express your personality than on a bicycle. Is that fair to say?

Lewis Rudd: 16:39

That's very much fair to say. Yes, yes, I mean, there's just so many skate styles and for me, in the early years I was more into the rhythm dance skating, and now, my later years, it's more for exercise. It keeps my lungs pumping, my heart pumping and, yeah, good exercise. So when I get on my bike, get out and ride 60, 100 miles, it just keeps me in tune. But no, it's a fun, festive thing, family affair. A lot of families come out and skate, meet good people, always good vibes and great energy. Just love it.

Tom Butler: 17:17

So I'm curious about what led you into the restaurant industry. It isn't easy to have sustained success with a restaurant right.

Lewis Rudd: 17:27

No, it's not. In fact, you know, we were told in the beginning years that it's not one of the most popular or most highly successful ventures that people want to take. And the restaurants have a failure rate around 90 plus percent. 90 percent of them fail the first year and then after that 90 percent of the ones that survive fail by the year three and so. But growing up in East Texas, the town called Marshall Texas, following my childhood friend around, he's L Stevens.

Lewis Rudd: 18:09

The dream began with him when we worked at a place called Brown's Fried Chicken in Marshall Texas. Mr Brown would open up a couple of restaurants and he would take Ezell over to manage one or to teach a manager how to operate. And in that meeting, before we left to go back so it was one in Marshall Texas he opened up one in Atlanta Texas. Atlanta Texas is where he took his L over to train a team and a manager on how to operate the restaurant and that's where the seed was planted. The dream began to one day have his own chicken place and I bought into the dream and he would go into the Coast Guard and get out of the Coast Guard here in Seattle.

Lewis Rudd: 18:52

I was in the military at the time he went back to Texas, married my sister, faye, his childhood sweetheart, and started the migration to Seattle. And when I left Germany, got out of the Army, I came to Seattle. By then I had two of my other siblings were here my brother, wayne Meba, and then Samuel Ezell's brother would come out In 77, ezell and Faye secured the spot for the restaurant. It took five years to get the financing. It was a real struggle but he finally got the financing to get the restaurant open in February of 1984. And here we are 40 years later still living the dream.

Tom Butler: 19:37

It's such a great entrepreneurial story really, you know, and the perseverance and everything is just really to me, you know, like I said, you know, take some time, go out and listen to some things that Lewis has said about that journey, because I think there's just a lot there about you know, even with life.

Lewis Rudd: 19:59

there's a lot there about perseverance and everything overcoming all kinds of hurdles and barriers and dealing with redlining, dealing with recessions, dealing with systemic racism, dealing with lack of funding, dealing with people problems. I mean it's not easy but you know, when you are dedicated, committed and have the right mindset Dedicated, committed and have the right mindset level of discipline that's necessary to get from day to day, it can happen and it happened for us and again we give a lot of credit to the community and communities that we serve and have. The restaurants in. The community has always rallied around us and been good community partners and, for example, our 25th anniversary, instead of us throwing a big party and celebrating us, we celebrated the community and we had a theme as it takes a village to raise a kid, it takes a community to raise a business, and we gave out pillar awards to different ones and individuals, entities within the community that have been there for us over those 25 years.

Tom Butler: 21:31

I think we gave out 25, the way that you have recognized. You know, as you say, it takes a village to raise a business or a community to raise a business.

Lewis Rudd: 21:42

Yeah.

Tom Butler: 21:43

And I think it's just an awesome you've just said an awesome example of embracing community as part of your success.

Lewis Rudd: 21:54

Oh yeah, without community there's no ease else. I mean and we have a value statement three words honesty, loyalty and relationships. And no relationship can survive without open and honest communication and great loyalty. And we've been very loyal partners with the community and they've been very loyal to us and that's why we're here for 40 years. I mean just open and honest communication, lots of love. You know, you got to love people.

Tom Butler: 22:26

Nice, I like that so much. Now, you talked a little bit about cycling as you've gotten older. Can you talk about that? What is the role of cycling in your life as you've?

Lewis Rudd: 22:39

aged space to be in business in general, but especially in the restaurant business. Cycling for me is a way to release tension, remove myself from that energy that creates stress, and I can just kind of get lost in myself on a nice long ride. Out here We've got Lake Washington, that there's a 60 mile loop around the lake and that's one of my go-tos and I can do a 25 mile. And there's two bridges that cross Lake Washington I-90 bridge and the 520 bridge. And I live on the south end of the lake. So if I take the I-90 bridge I can get a 24, 26 mile ride in that way and it's a quick two and a half three hours done. Or I can go up and cross the 520 bridge and get a 33 mile ride in and it's a beautiful route, nice route.

Lewis Rudd: 23:43

Just riding around the lake and then going all the way up north to Bothell area can get in a 60 mile loop and come back around. And then there's just so many trails. In fact I used to ride my bike to work back and forth and so one restaurant was 12 and a half miles, so I could get 20 mile ride in in the morning and then come back, check in at the job site and go to work. The other one was about eight miles, a little climbing in there.

Lewis Rudd: 24:12

But yeah, cycling is just a way to release and also meeting people. I meet great people out while I'm riding, strike up good conversations, ridden with different teams. The University of Washington has a cycling team that we've sponsored or co-sponsored over the years and every once in a while I may have on the kit that they wear and it's branded E-Zells and we get a nice ride in along the way. I mean, cycling is just a good way to meet good people, a good way to relieve stress, tension, and it's good for the heart, good for lungs, good for the mind.

Tom Butler: 24:52

It's just cycling is very good all around now you decided at some point to do seattle to portland, and what was it like that first time that you decided to do that?

Lewis Rudd: 25:07

man. So it was. It was a blast and my wife and I trained together the first year that we did it and it was a two-day ride. We trained to do 100 miles the first day, on a Saturday, and then a second 100 on that Sunday, and back then it was in June, so June would be iffy in terms of the weather, it may, all of the nice gear and everything. And I still remember riding the first hundred miles and camping out overnight in a park, slept actually in a tent, and get up the next morning and ride on in to Portland on that Sunday, and it was a blast.

Lewis Rudd: 26:05

It was so much fun that we decided to do it again a second year and then a third year, and then by the fourth year we were brave enough and bold enough and felt that we were ready to do it again a second year and then a third year, and then by the fourth year, we were brave enough and bold enough and felt that we were ready to do a one-day ride and our goal was to finish in 12 hours and we did. And so for the next, I guess, 12 years we did one-day rides.

Tom Butler: 26:28

Just so everybody knows. So that's like 206 miles in one day.

Lewis Rudd: 26:34

In one day. Yeah, and our goal was always in the early years to do a 12 hour ride, which meant we had to average somewhere around 17, 17, five on the ride and, uh, you know, what was really cool about it also was when we started out during the rides there were so many families riding together out there We'd see the mom, the dad, two or three kids, all with nice kits matching together, and every once in a while we'd see a family where they even got the same bikes that they had painted Like the one. It was two tandems. The mom was on a tandem, dad on a tandem. Each tandem got a kid on the back, and then there were two kids, like seven and eight, riding along on single bikes the family, I mean, it was just cool watching that.

Tom Butler: 27:31

That's so fun yeah.

Lewis Rudd: 27:33

Yeah, and once we start doing the two day, the one day ride, in the early years when we started out, the two day riders would start on Saturday. The one day riders would leave on Sunday. So on Saturday we lived along the route where the cyclists would pass About eight miles from the starting line. They'd pass our house and we'd sit and watch and then we would get in the car and we'd drive 50 miles out to the first major rest stop, which was in Puyallup. After they get to Puyallup Hill and we'd start pointing out ones that we think we can catch on the second day. So we leave here on Sunday and they sleep Saturday night, get up at the halfway point in Centralia and along the way and it would give us these little tags. I think I have one here. They give us these little tags that say one day riders on there, right Little ribbon. So when we get to Centralia they give us those to put on our jersey or whatever. So when you're passing up to two-day riders and we would look for the ones that along the way we would point out.

Lewis Rudd: 28:42

On Saturday, yeah, we'll catch you somewhere around Longview. Yeah, we'll get you by Castle Rock. Oh, no, we'll catch you before you cross the bridge and a lot of times it was just looking at guys with blue jeans, tennis shoes and riding a mountain bike with big knobby tires. You're not going to be averaging 20 miles an hour with that kid, but you know, it was just fun. It was all in fun and it kept us motivated. It incentivized us to ride faster, ride harder and it was fun. But it kept us doing it for the next 15 years. One-day rides and getting over the bridge the Longview Bridge it's probably the most elevation along the route. Nice little climb. It's long and we'd always try to get there by two o'clock in the afternoon. Get over the bridge and then we got another two and a half three hours into Portland before six.

Tom Butler: 29:42

Well, I'm afraid to say you might have pointed to me to catch, you know, if you were still doing that. But but you know, I I would have to say that would be incredibly motivating for me if you're like, hey, I'm gonna catch you. Yeah, too, I'd be like okay I do not want to see lewis and his crew coming up on me, so yeah, that's awesome.

Lewis Rudd: 30:09

you know the most well I shouldn't say the most fun, because it's been so many rides. That was a blast. But one that stands out was, um, one of the years that jackie didn't ride. I think it was the year that our daughter was born, marissa and um, there was a group of about 25 cyclists riding along and I trailed them about three, five bike lengths behind them and they were rotating counterclockwise and it's like 30 seconds up front and they slide over to the left and come back and then the next one would do the same thing and then the next one would do the same thing.

Lewis Rudd: 30:53

And there was a gentleman on the back of the group that was not rotating. He was just riding to make sure that other cyclists was not getting in the mix and he saw me still there about four or five miles into the ride. He says can you ride in a group? I said yeah. He said, well, come on, join us. I averaged 20 miles per hour that year. That was a blast. That's awesome. Yeah, 10 hours on the bike. I was in Portland, 200 miles, wow.

Tom Butler: 31:21

That is awesome.

Lewis Rudd: 31:23

Yeah.

Tom Butler: 31:23

So now you've put in what 32?

Lewis Rudd: 31:27

33 now 33.

Tom Butler: 31:29

Okay yeah.

Lewis Rudd: 31:30

I think I'm up to 33.

Tom Butler: 31:32

Okay, and so what are your goals for the SDP in the future?

Lewis Rudd: 31:37

You know I want to just keep riding. Next year I'll turn 70. I want to try to get a group of maybe 20, 24 riders again to do the ride and see if we can do a 12-hour ride down there and I envision being at least in the top three all-time finishers. I think that's possible. If I just keep riding for the next maybe four or five years I'm already, I think, in the top six, top seven of all-time finishers. That's registered and they have what they call the STP Hall of Fame. You go on and you just post a number of rides.

Lewis Rudd: 32:22

I don't think that they have the technology today to go back 45 years to see how many people actually registered and ride. But anyway, that's a goal and I've been on the ride where we'd have a slide show at the end of the ride. This was the early years. They don't do that now At the hotel, the host hotel, for the cyclists afterwards, and they would show the oldest rider and the youngest rider. And I can still remember one of the years the oldest rider was like 82 years old. The youngest kid that finished on a single bike was six. That pedaled the whole way down there. And so you know, turning 70, I think I still got quite a few good years left that I can spend down there, who knows, but I enjoy it. It's just a great, great fun ride for me. I love it.

Tom Butler: 33:15

Well, I've been going to some cyclocross events lately and there's, I know there's one gentleman who's 81 years old and still kind of finishing in the middle of the pack for people over 60. So you know, there's some great examples out there of people that have kept it going, and I certainly hope to be one of those. That's what cycling over 60 is all about for me is how to cycle as long as I can as late as I can.

Lewis Rudd: 33:46

The group that I ride with now on a consistent basis. Most of them are retired and 60 and older and Bill, the oldest cyclist out there now that ride in the group. Bill turned 84 this year. We're going to go out and do a 34, 35 mile ride and he's right there. A little climbing in there and big. Oh, oliver, he doesn't like to be called the ride leader, he's ride coordinator. He'll help coordinate the rides and he'll get on us a little bit about trying to take it easy on Bill. Bill's. Fine, leave Bill alone. Bill can get up and you know we've had different ones join the group and you know they're new to riding and they see Bill and just get inspired, just like myself. You know, and I'm watching Bill out there and we'll take off and sprint hills and stop and wait and it's just like a minute, two minutes and there he is. It's not like a big gap that we're dropping him and leaving him 15, 20 minutes behind. No, he's right there.

Tom Butler: 34:57

That is, that is inspiring for sure it is very inspiring.

Lewis Rudd: 35:01

And then there's William, at 75 now, and he rides strong. We went out to do a ride on one of the islands here. There's a lot of elevation. I think it's like 4,500 feet of elevation and William's right there. Just it out.

Tom Butler: 35:20

Cool, I love it that, yeah, for sure, and you had someone that really inspired you early on, uh, with your cycling and and talked to you about, uh, how to pedal and and all kinds things, and I think you're that person to a lot of people. Now I understand that you've done coaching with with cyclists.

Lewis Rudd: 35:43

Yeah, I tend to when I'm out there, you know, if I see someone that I think you know is receptive to some coaching. I've been called coach red, I've been called Coach Rudd, and one year they canceled the Seattle Pull and Ride due to COVID and I wanted to get my 30th ride in that year. So I recruited 16, 17 cyclists to do the ride and some of them were in the group that we were already riding together, but we were not riding as a group, it was just a group of cyclists riding. And so we started in April and that's when I picked up the name Coach Rudd, because it was important, if we were going to do this ride together, that we ride together and each of the cyclists were comfortable riding each other's wheel, drafting and giving signals and understanding that we could ride further, faster as a unit than we can individuals, and so it was fun.

Lewis Rudd: 37:01

There's at least four or five of the cyclists that rode in that group that have commented on the efficiency and how they've been able to do better averages, even when they're riding along. But it was just me reflecting on Vic Al when he was coaching me and it was like we used to ride and he would say, ok, take your left foot out, clip and just pedal with your right foot. So now you get the full stroke. You're pushing and you're pulling. And now you do 10 strokes with the left. You're pushing and you're pushing. And just the efficiency and how you're sitting on the bike and even gears. And just the efficiency and how you're sitting on the bike and even gears.

Lewis Rudd: 37:46

You know some of the cyclists in the group. They're riding in that big gear and they're grinding and trying to catch up. It's just like in a car. We give them the analogy of driving a stick shift in a car. You don't start out in fourth gear, you put it in first and then you pick up speed. I mean, you stall it and there were cyclists that were strong enough to do it. But I say, why not be as fast as you are strong? But anyway. Also, I've been one of the chaperones along the sale of Portland Ride SCP when they would have the major Taylor group. They sponsor these young kids. It's been as many as 30, 40 of them in the group and they'll have a slow group, medium, fast, fast and super fast. I've been one of the chaperones along the way and coaching them and teaching them how to use their gears efficiently, the pedal style and all that. So yeah, if I can assist someone in having a more efficient ride, a more fun ride, I'm all about that.

Tom Butler: 38:50

Talk a little bit more about that work with the Major Taylor Project. Why do you think that?

Lewis Rudd: 38:55

that's an important program. Well, for one, I think that Major Taylor himself was an iconic figure and what he was able to accomplish in those days as an African-American, a Black cyclist, should be acknowledged and identified with. And you know, in the cycling community it's a great sport, but especially here in the Northwest and many other parts of the country as well, you don't see as many black cyclists, people of color on bikes, and I think promoting that is something that's a good thing. I think seeing more of our young people taking up cycling is really a good thing, and keeping the Major Taylor brand alive and present and informing people about who he was and what he accomplished is important. So I support that and I applaud Cascade Bicycle Club and others around the country that promote the Major Taylor Project and getting more people of color involved in cycling. I just think that's a great thing to do.

Tom Butler: 40:13

Cascade has what they call STP Affinity Bike Club Partnerships. Are you familiar with that effort?

Lewis Rudd: 40:31

Kind of Kind of Not in total and I help them in promoting and publicizing cycling and, through the business we sponsor, co-sponsor, participate in promoting cycling, so I'm a fan of that for sure.

Tom Butler: 40:48

You have been active in efforts to give fair access to minority communities in a number of ways in business yes, access to minority communities in a number of ways in business, and I'm wondering what your thoughts are right now concerning economic justice.

Lewis Rudd: 41:05

You know, that means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, and I've had many conversations with friends of mine who are not from the African-American community a minority community in business and have their businesses. And well, let me say it like this the George Floyd murder brought the attention to social injustices, racism, redlining, systemic racism, a lot of barriers that Blacks, african-americans, people of color, had to overcome and are still overcoming. So I found myself in spaces and places as the business owner where I can have conversations openly and talk about some of the experiences that I've had. In the beginning, access to capital to get the restaurant open it took five years to get the finance and turned down so many times and, as it turned out after the fact, we understand redlining had a lot to do with that and a lot of people don't understand what that means. Well, in its basic term it's just there's certain zip codes where it's deemed high risk to lenders if they loan money because there's no intent, as long as the people that are in the community are there, for any development to take place. It's not until after the displacement of the Black people in that community will funds be available to developers to come in and develop it, and that happened in the Central District where we opened the first restaurant. Now there's much development there. There's a displacement.

Lewis Rudd: 43:05

It used to be 84% African-Americans lived in that community. Now it's less than 14% after the gentrification took place, and redlining is a part of that. But also I, along with my family, experienced it firsthand where we were denied access to capital loans. And banker right out said it If you stay in the Black community, I'll loan you money, but if you're going North, well, what's that got to do with it? Well, there's no black people there. I mean, it came out of his mouth, he actually said it to me. But growing up down south, I grew up in segregated communities where they had the signs no ends allowed and colored around back, couldn't walk in the front door. There are people that now, especially after the George Floyd murder, were open to hearing those conversations and how that impacted my life, my dad's life and generations of people that grew up without access to capital, to capital. The playing field was not equal, and so I've used my platform, if you want to call it that, to lend a voice to those in the community that would want to hear it, and I think, for the most part, people have trusted me to be honest and open about it and it's not a blame game. I'm not blaming the people that I meet today for something that took place 100 years ago, but I am saying here's an opportunity for us to understand how we can work together to make it better for those that didn't have the opportunities and still don't.

Lewis Rudd: 44:55

For example, during the time when the pandemic hit, there were a lot of Black business owners who did not get access to the grant money and the PPP money and all of the funds that was made available to other businesses In the Black business community. I became aware of so many entrepreneurs and Black business owners that were going to lose their businesses, go out of business because they didn't have funding and they couldn't do business because of the ban to shut down business. So we started an initiative called the Rudge Rub Initiative. It's an initiative focused on Black-owned businesses unapologetically, and DoorDash wanted to do a promotional entrepreneurs and business owners that needed it more so than these others, because we were doing fine at the time. We had a to-go concept already in place, we didn't have to shut our business down and we were partnering with DoorDash and had a huge following on their platform, so that was working well for us, and had a huge following on their platform, so that was working well for us. And through that process of creating the initiative, we accepted applications, got other vendor partners and a couple of banks to donate funds as well. We raised over $110,000 to give our grants in the community and through that application process where we thought we may get 80 to 100 applicants, we had over 520 applicants file for those grants and we were giving out 20 grants at the time. Also, we found out through that process that as much as it's important to have access to capital, access to information for business owners is also important.

Lewis Rudd: 46:59

So we started the Black Business Leadership Conference which we host at the University of Washington. And well, the University of Washington hosts the event to talk about everything from types of business structures to risk management, lending practices, taxes I mean anything business related. And one of the things that led to that also was I would go to conferences. I just left one in Vegas, the Restaurant Finance Development Conference, and more times than not, when I'm there, I'm one of maybe 10 other Black business owners in the room, out of hundreds and over a thousand people there sometimes. So there's a lot of information that's being shared that we don't have access to or we don't get as Black business owners, entrepreneurs and then you hear people talk about closing the wealth gap. We'll never close the wealth gap through working by the hour, working a job. So entrepreneurship in the Black community is really important to helping to create and generate wealth generational wealth and so there's a great focus on that and I'm just happy that there are more people willing to have that conversation about the barriers and the hurdles that included systemic racism and racial barriers and prejudices along.

Lewis Rudd: 48:25

The RUSS Rub Initiative and the acronym for RUSS is Raising Up Black Businesses. When we were kids, like I said, we grew up in a village, basically right, no matter which end of town you were on, you either got a whooping or you got fed whichever one you needed most, but you know that village mentality. But if that was something you know, you fall hurt something they just start rubbing. The elders would rub Kim, let me rub that for you, and just a touch of the hand would start to relieve that pain. So we wanted to put some rub in the Black community.

Tom Butler: 49:08

Well again, yeah, I talked about you being a legend and I think that's like a legendary program and I love it. Now I just really want to be clear about my position here, and that's that what you're doing in the black community is not just for the black community, because we everybody benefits from diversity. I think anybody who's intellectually honest realizes that everybody benefits from diversity, you know. But it's not just the kind of diversity where it's like, okay, you can show up. It's the kind of diversity where what you're doing impacts what I'm doing by increasing the strength of black businesses, no matter where you are. That is going to bring innovation and ideas and diverse backgrounds, diverse perspectives that are going to lift up everybody. So I just, you know, it's not those. I just feel like it's important to say those aren't just efforts for the black community, those are efforts that improve the entire area, because you then have more voices that can affect how everybody's doing things.

Lewis Rudd: 50:29

That is so absolutely accurate and correct, and you know, it's one of the things that keeps me motivated and proud and prideful when I'm doing it. It's not a selfish thing and it's not just about benefiting black people. Everyone wins. You know, they say a high tide rises all boats kind of approach, but having someone that truly understands the needs of Black people, that can communicate and reciprocate, it's just important, and I feel like you know there's that saying to him that much is given, much more is required, and I'm just, you know, being a good steward in this role, and we had a group of students at Pacific Lutheran University do a study, and I asked them to give me some data to support just what you're saying this reverse racism. You know you're having a conference that's just focused on Black people. No, it's not exclusively Black only. The focus is on specific needs for Black entrepreneurs, though, but anyone's welcome to come.

Lewis Rudd: 51:54

But at the same time, I first was going to ignore this person, but then I said, no, let me engage, but not on social media platforms. So we were able to have a conversation off the platform, where and this is, you know, just one example that I like to put out there If there were more Black businesses that were hiring more Black kids, there would be less crime in the Black community and communities outside the Black community. There would be, to your point, more scholars that are bringing a different perspective to the workplace, to the community, because you have kids that are more productive and contributors as opposed to not. And so he and I had this conversation and he became an advocate because he could see it from a different perspective. No, it's not reverse racism, it's reversing what racism has done to a group of people.

Tom Butler: 52:56

I love that. Yeah, what an awesome thing. I love that. Now, on May 30th, I had Ed Ewing on. Okay, you know Ed. Yeah, he's the executive director of bike works, yeah, and we talked about the bike as a tool for social justice.

Lewis Rudd: 53:31

What do you think about that? The country, throughout this city, throughout this county, where, on the bike, you know, I'm out here riding with different ones. And it's not about color at that point. It's about character, it's about love, it's about fun, it's about exchanging ideas. Where do we have commonalities? How can we support each other's efforts and bridging the gap that divides us as a country, as a people? That's the way I look at it.

Tom Butler: 54:08

Yeah, I love what you're saying there because and it goes back to kind of your focus on community- right Right. I mean, it is a tool that helps build community. I think, you know, whenever you go to a start line for an STP or anything else, I mean you feel that community that comes around the bike. Oh yeah, I love that. Oh, yeah, I love that.

Lewis Rudd: 54:46

You mentioned this a little bit but when you look at sticking with cycling the way that you have, how would you say that that's made a difference as far as your health is concerned? Well, I mean, it's a well-known fact that exercise is important to good health, and cycling is a great form of exercise and it's also good from a mental standpoint. You know, mentally stimulating, and so I just see it as a healthy lifestyle. And you know you keep your legs moving, your heart beating, your lungs breathing, and I just see it as a healthy exercise.

Tom Butler: 55:21

I'm guessing that when you have a medical appointment, that your doctor is excited about how fit you are at your age.

Lewis Rudd: 55:32

That's true, that has been true. And my main doctor that I was seeing for most of my cycling years from the early 80s he retired about four years ago but he would always talk about, yeah, you know, and how I was in better shape, as good a shape as a lot of younger people that he was seeing.

Tom Butler: 55:59

That's a good place to be, I believe so. Do you have any cycling adventures on your schedule in the near future? Sdp or other things?

Lewis Rudd: 56:10

I'm planning to go down and ride tour the Palm at Palm Springs. I went down two years ago years ago maybe to ride that ride and that Wednesday, before the ride on Saturday, I decided to go ride with a friend who lives in what he lives in northern California. We met up at Redmond and we went climbing some mountain up there and on the way down I crashed, left a lot of meat on the street, so I didn't get to do the Tour de Pomme. So I'm planning this year to go back in February to do that one. I also plan to go down to Florida and do some cycling.

Lewis Rudd: 56:55

In Orlando area, lake Mary, there's a group that I've gone down at Christmas time. It's nice down there at Christmas time and do some rides around there, and I mean some flats and we can get up to some good average speeds 20 miles an hour and above and just be flying around. And then maybe, while I'm down there, go down to Fort Lauderdale. There's a couple of groups down there that I love cycling with. I've done that a couple of times Nice flats and get some good speed and tailwinds going one way or the other. And then there's the One Love Century that a group of us are going to ride next year as well. That's on the docket, so I haven't done a lot of us are going to ride next year as well. That's on the docket, so I haven't done a lot of rides out of state, group rides or whatever. But starting next year I want to have more time and more focus in that space, finding maybe some rides out of the country, even going to Spain or somewhere, and get some good rides in.

Tom Butler: 57:56

That's fun. That really sounds great. Thank you so much for joining me today, lewis. It's great to have someone who I see as a real pillar in the community in so many ways, and I just thank you again for everything that you do out there for people.

Lewis Rudd: 58:14

Well, thank you for having me here today, and it's been a pleasure. You made it painless for me. I was a little nervous, you know, when I got the questions and knew I was going to be getting in front of the mic, but you made it very painless. So thank you very much and this was good. Thank you for what you do for the cycling community Awesome.

Tom Butler: 58:35

Well, take care now.

Lewis Rudd: 58:37

All right, Tom, you have a good one.

Tom Butler: 58:47

As I mentioned a couple of times, I see it as so powerful to hear Lewis celebrate the community as a key ingredient to the success of his elves. On top of that, he has embraced the role of mentor and community leader so that his success can enable the success of others. In my opinion, that is what community is like. I see Lewis experiencing the benefits of spending so much time on the bike, but I also believe that his approach to community is also life-giving. We know that being part of a strong community contributes to longevity, and Lewis is a really strong member of his community and a true builder of community resources, and I do see him as a legend.

Tom Butler: 59:25

We have a couple of ways that I'm trying to build community here at Cycling Over 60. First is the Strava Club. I'm always inspired by seeing all the activities being done by club members, and also there is the new Zwift Club for anyone who wants to ride together. Virtually Next year, I will be doing an in-person ride that I hope a bunch of Cycling Over 60 listeners can join in on, and hopefully these events will be a springboard to even more so keep an eye out for things to come and remember age is just a gear change.