Tom Butler: 0:04

This is the Cycling Over 60 podcast, season three, episode 21,. Inspiration from Diane and Paul, and I'm your host, tom Butler. First off, thank you, ian from Edmonton, for the encouraging message. Go Canada. Ian reached out through the text me link that you see on the top of the podcast description. I want to clarify something about what happens if you send me a text message. I can't text back, but if I get sent a question now, I'm going to respond in a post on Strava in the Cycling Over 60 Club. Hopefully the podcast management company I use will provide a better way to respond to messages in the future. In the meantime, consider joining the Strava Cycling Over 60 Club.

Tom Butler: 0:55

Last week I mentioned the Great American Ride to benefit Rails to Trails. The ride is a virtual team event. I put a link to Team Huffing and Puffing, which is the team I'm going to be riding with, but I forgot to include a password. So I'm including the link again this week and the password in the show notes. Sorry about any confusion that that caused and thank you, carolyn, for pointing out the mistake. I'm really excited about the potential of the Thursday Zoom call. I want to make it a place to interact with listeners who I don't get an opportunity to meet in person.

Tom Butler: 1:28

Here are seven topics that I want to explore during the Zoom calls. One share your personal journey. I love hearing what cycling challenges others are taking on. Also, what are the overall lessons you've learned as you attempt to get and stay fit? Two what are your thoughts on longevity? What do you believe are the? Are your thoughts on longevity? What do you believe are the important lifestyle choices for longevity? Three talk about your cycling gear and equipment. If you found something that you really like, I would love to hear about it. Four give some information on your favorite cycling routes and impactful experiences that you've had on the bike. Five what are you learning about cycling training and techniques, especially as it relates to cycling longer in life? Six give your thoughts on cyclists coming together as a community. Have you found a club or other group that enhances your cycling experiences? And number seven of course, I would love to talk about ideas for making the podcast more relevant and more entertaining. This list isn't meant to be limiting. I know there are things that are not included here. I'm a very curious person and I would love to hear about you and your story, so join me on thursdays for the open zoom chat. It's 3 pm pacific time now. I'll be riding the indoor trainer at the time, but I'm sure you understand the Zoom connection information is in the Cycling Over 60 Strava Club or you can find my email in the show notes. Send me a request by email for the Zoom link Now. There is a Cycling Over 60 Zwift Thursday ride that goes on at that time. But whether or not you join that ride, I would love to see you and talk to you on Zoom.

Tom Butler: 3:05

I decided to try a race on Zwift. I find competition to be a strong motivator for me. While competing against myself is a primary way that I have satisfied my competitive urges, I wanted to see what competing against others would do. There is no way that I'm going to do a road race in real life. I see it as way too dangerous for me. I mentioned in the episode on November 9th last year called Cycle Crossover 60 that I will do some training and maybe do a cyclocross race next fall. Honestly, I feel like I'm a long way from actually doing a race. My training would have to give me way more comfort than I currently have with my bike handling skills. But the Zwift race is obviously safe, although I recently almost crashed the trainer reaching for a towel but I think it's likely that I can stay upright during the race.

Tom Butler: 3:53

Before I started the race, I felt like I wouldn't do very well based on my previous Zwift performance. There are five categories and I started in the lowest category. The race route was 13.2 miles of a somewhat longer London Uprising route. I was happy with the effort I put in during the race, even though my result wasn't spectacular. I ended up 17 out of 46 riders in that lowest group. Now here's the thing I set a personal best power for 8 minutes, which was 226 watts average, 20 minutes, which was 214 watts average, and also 30 minutes, with 197 watt average. My average for 53 minutes was 186. That compares to my current 60 minute average power best of 153. I'm quite confident that I would have set a new hour power average had the event gone that long.

Tom Butler: 4:50

Now, as I talked about last week, my previous best power for 20 minutes was 194. My FTP 20-minute test result was 191. 191 to 214 is a significant difference. I think the only way to look at this is that racing is going to be the best way for me to push myself to get stronger. I'm going to get a better look at my FTP by doing a race rather than the FTP test. The results suggest that I will be able to move into a higher category without much improvement. Another way to look at the intensity was that my average heart rate was 157 beats per minute with a high of 172. That is about as high as I would want to be. However, I could push it up to 160 beats per minute average and not be too worried about it. But the real hope is that I'll be able to bring my heart rate down and still increase the power output. If I do end up moving up one category, I don't think I'll be able to move up any further. To be near the top of that next category up would be a huge step for me. I didn't feel totally wiped out by the race, but it did push me. Given everything, I will definitely be racing again.

Tom Butler: 6:08

The main reason I'm focused on building more community connections with Cycling Over 60 is that the cycling community is just so fun. An example of this is the lobbying event I attended a while ago in Olympia that was organized by Washington Bikes. It was a room full of great people. Two of those people I immediately knew that I wanted to introduce to listeners of the podcast. They are Diane and Paul from Bremerton, washington, and I'm so glad they agreed to come on. Here is our conversation. Since I started doing the podcast, I've traveled to more cycling events and done more cycling-related things, and that gives me an opportunity to meet a lot of really great people, and I have two of those people with me here today. Thank you, paul Dutke and Diane Iverson, for joining me.

Paul Dutky: 6:53

Thanks for inviting us, Tom.

Dianne Iverson: 6:55

We're excited and we're not too far from you. We live north of you up in Bremerton.

Tom Butler: 7:00

Yeah, yeah, a great area. We met at a event in our state capital, olympia, where we were looking to have an influence to advocate for cycling infrastructure and safe streets and things like that, and I just really appreciated hearing from you guys and your experience and I wanted to get that out there to the podcast audience too. So we'll get into that and let you guys kind of share your cycling experience and we'll start with if each of you could share, like, your earliest memory of the bicycle.

Dianne Iverson: 7:41

Yeah, I'm gonna let Paul start with that one. Yeah, so I don't know if a tricycle.

Paul Dutky: 7:43

Yeah, I'm going to let Paul start with that one. Yeah, so I don't know if a tricycle counts. It was pretty early, so my earliest memory is being living on a hillside and being on a trike. I was probably around four and I started going down the hill and the pedal started moving faster than my feet, so I had to take my feet off and I was pointed down the hill, which was terrifying. I was picking up speed and I don't remember any more than that.

Dianne Iverson: 8:10

But he obviously lived, because he's still with us. That was in San Diego, california, right.

Tom Butler: 8:18

Okay. Well, it's interesting, Like I think there's a lot of lessons about gravity that happen when you're first learning to bike. That sounds like one of those.

Dianne Iverson: 8:30

Yeah, I'm not sure he's learned that lesson yet, though.

Dianne Iverson: 8:34

Maybe he has I love going downhill so I can't remember exactly. I remember starting with the tricycle, then going to a scooter and then all of a sudden I had a bike and that was part of my life and I had a Schwinn and our whole neighborhood was closed off from the rest of the world because it was just kind of a dead end road and that was part of our activity 12 months a year with all the neighborhood kids play, tag on your bicycle and throw a Zori at somebody. So I love bikes.

Tom Butler: 9:08

I loved it then and I still love them and I was just talking to someone yesterday who is is in his 70s and he's talking about he still gets kind of that aspect of freedom that comes back to him, like when he goes out for a ride, just gets on and takes off and kind of explores the world on his bike. It's that, you know, that experience of freedom that we feel when we're, when we've got our bike in the neighborhood and we're able to take off with with friends, it just seems like that's something that lingers on.

Dianne Iverson: 10:01

It lingers on and it also puts you in the space of a happy zone on. And it also puts you in the space of a happy zone that, because when you're a child and you're on a bike you are so happy you return there even as I'm 74 years old and the only bike I rode on for 30 years was a recumbent bike at the gym because of health reasons, and at age 55 I got a cancerous tumor on my foot and had to have an amputation. Well, that began the journey of good health, and the first thing I did after I learned to walk around the track of my neighborhood high school was to go buy a bike. I was living in Portland and that track became the spot that I taught myself how to ride a bike again. I was by myself at that time. Paul and I just met nine years ago, so this was 20 years ago. So what you were?

Paul Dutky: 10:52

saying about the joy you know, remembering what it was like as a kid, in the spirit of adventure, when Diane and I started riding together. She was able, she used to tour with her friends and then she spent 35 years in a wheelchair. So that joy when we started, you know, on our tandem, and she got her trike and she started riding independently and and we started going on tours again, that joy is evident in diane when she gets on the bike she's back to where she was 25 and, you know, doing a tour in europe.

Dianne Iverson: 11:27

You know, yeah, back when I was biking by myself, my distance was 20 miles at the most and it would be in neighborhood roads from polesbow out to kingston, you know. And now we're doing trips over the cascade and 500 mile trips and um. So because of paul and his assistance in helping me figure out how I can do it, I understand the health reasons. It's a mental health improvement and a physical health improvement as biking I just love it.

Tom Butler: 12:00

So you're talking about an issue here which is a big part of your cycling, and that's that you spent time in a wheelchair and I'm wondering if you could explain that. You can explain, like the accommodations that you have and why you have accommodations.

Dianne Iverson: 12:18

Back when I was 18, I was out fishing up by so call me falls, and I got a rock in my shoe and that began the journey of an infection in my bone. I was born spina bifidus, I only had partial feeling in my feet and I did not know that my foot was wounded, and for the next, until I was 55, I had to deal with that issue, and the reason that I went to a wheelchair was I had to teach. I had a job and the only way I could work was to not be exhausted at the end of the day, and pain was part of my everyday life. So once I got a health issue so dramatic that I had to make a decision, I found that that decision was the right one to put me on a path of good health. So is that the?

Paul Dutky: 13:11

decision being having your legs Right.

Dianne Iverson: 13:14

So 20 years ago I had my left leg amputated below the knee and 10 years ago I had my right leg amputated below the knee and I have no pain. I'm not as strong as I'd like to be, but that's a journey that just is part of my journey right now.

Tom Butler: 13:32

It's really fascinating to me what you're saying, if I'm hearing you right, and so maybe you can clarify for this to me but there's like this mindset change or there's this making different choices that, when you're 55, put you on a path to better health. But it's like there was like a pretty dramatic medical procedure I don't know the right way to say that and definitely a decision for you to make about whether or not to have this procedure that a lot of people would not want to face that decision. And yet, when you're talking about it, what I'm hearing you say is it actually enabled you to make better health choices? It was a reawakening.

Dianne Iverson: 14:22

Yeah, that's part of it, but let me tell you, in my 20s my doctors wanted to do it. Back then, the infection in my bones and both legs was awful and there was no way I could deal with that issue, and so I chose the path of trying to avoid the pain as much as possible by being in a wheelchair. I worked out in my wheelchair, I went to the pool, I did weightlifting, I got on a bicycle at the gym, but it was all inside of a gym or a swimming pool.

Paul Dutky: 14:53

Not all, I mean, she also taught herself to kayak, we'd go out.

Dianne Iverson: 14:59

That is true. I used to roll my wheelchair to the bus and go downtown Portland and I rented a spot for my kayak and so that I wouldn't have to do. You know I was single, so I wouldn't, have to take the kayak on and off the car, which keeps you from doing that sort of stuff.

Paul Dutky: 15:15

And so, yeah, I did she's an excellent kayaker and she's strong and when she's in the kayak she's just like you know every other kayaker it may be better.

Dianne Iverson: 15:25

So at 55, I'm older, I'm wiser I'm sick and tired of the pain, and the pain was so excruciating that I said yes, to get rid of the pain. When they told me we're going to teach you how to walk again, I didn't believe them. I said I will be a good patient, but I don't believe you. I've got to get rid of this pain. I be a good patient, but I don't believe you. I've got to get rid of this pain. I was a good patient and within a year, I'm riding my bike around the high school tracks, away from people and away from cars, because bicycle riding was the first thing I wanted to do, and I wanted to do it outside, not in the gym.

Tom Butler: 16:02

Do you think you're able to capture that for other people, just like the freedom that you were experiencing, that point going from you know being limited as far as mobility, and in pain, and then experiencing like, hey, I'm able to move on this bike and experience cycling on this bike and experience cycling. Do you think there's words that can capture kind of what that freedom felt like, what that joy felt like?

Dianne Iverson: 16:34

I experienced the joy in other people when they see Paul and I out on our tandem or me out on the trike. It just, it, just the face tells it all. I'm not sure. I guess I've never asked anybody, so that's when people usually react, is when they see us out there riding a bike and our bike club members. So I don't really know the answer to that question.

Tom Butler: 16:58

I guess I would say and maybe you could describe a bit like how that works. How do you interface with prosthetics to the bicycle after the amputations?

Paul Dutky: 17:10

So maybe I can answer that a little better.

Dianne Iverson: 17:13

Also retired ER doctors.

Paul Dutky: 17:15

So when we got together, it was obvious that Diane wanted to bike, but she couldn't keep her right foot on the pedal and okay. So, if I can abbreviate this, the answer was to give her foot clips. So she snapped in, but then she couldn't. If she was on her own bike, she couldn't get out of the clips. Okay, in fact she still has to use her hands to twist her foot out of the clips. Okay, but on a single bike on two wheels, she's unstable and unable to do that. So we got her a trike so that she's totally stable, she can put the emergency brake on and then she can clip in and clip out with the bike staying in one place. So the ability to use clips to hold her foot on the pedal was sort of the magical solution for that. And then we got our tandem bike and then just another issue the problem is is that if I pedal too fast, okay, I'm actually pulling her legs off.

Dianne Iverson: 18:20

And he's been known to do that.

Paul Dutky: 18:22

It took him about three months to finally figure out he was doing that and she went to the gym and learned how to spin faster so she could move her legs faster. And the other thing is that on our new tandem she doesn't have to pedal. She adds power when she matches my cadence. So if I'm going too fast then she just stops. I'm basically spinning faster than she is and I'm not affecting her feet. So her trike and our tandem, as they're currently set up, basically gives her complete freedom to be on the bike and her feet are stable in the pedals.

Dianne Iverson: 19:04

Yes, it's a recumbent trike. What do they call them?

Paul Dutky: 19:06

Tadpoles Is that it yeah. Two wheels in front and one back. A tadpole trike.

Dianne Iverson: 19:11

And you bet I'm clipped in Absolutely I have to be, and it keeps my legs in the correct position and it keeps my feet in the correct position.

Tom Butler: 19:20

Do you feel that understanding and maybe this is something that you don't have a lot of experience with, but do you think that understanding about how to connect to a bicycle is pretty advanced, or is that something that you advice that you have to seek out? Is that something that enough people are dealing with that they really know how to effectively make that happen, or is that knowledge not as widespread as it maybe could be?

Paul Dutky: 19:50

I don't think it's widespread, and we had to try numerous different things to see what worked. I think we've got a winning combination now, but I don't think this is intuitive. For somebody with similar problems, it's not obvious how to get to a happy place on your bicycle.

Dianne Iverson: 20:10

It requires an attitude that I have, but Paul has it even stronger, which is if it doesn't work for you, let's figure out another way to see if it can work for you. He's very persistent about that, whether it's in my. I had two kayaks when I met him and he's improved those kayaks so that I could use them more efficiently. He does the same thing on a bike, so we spent three months on my bike that I had a Trek and a folding electric bike trying to see what we needed to keep my right the weakest leg on the pedal, and as long as I went uphill it would always fall off the pedal. So it's the attitude of persistence that, okay, this didn't work, but why and he never gives up on that, on his own body and his aches and pains, and he's teaching me to even be stronger at it.

Paul Dutky: 21:04

Think how difficult it would be, if you have no feeling in your feet and you don't when you have a prosthetic foot to feel pedal pressure to keep your foot on the pedal. So the only real answer is to clip in.

Tom Butler: 21:29

And for people that haven't listened before, that's Seattle to Portland, a 206-mile ride. That happens over a couple days. There's one hill called the Puyallup Hill that people talk about and I was pretty nervous about that Puyallup Hill and when I got there I rode up the hill quite slowly which I will do again this year when I ride up that hill but I was passed by a woman who had a prosthesis on her right leg and as she was passing me I got to see it briefly as she kind of flew by me. But it was really to me interesting to think about. I don't think I have that ability to fully understand, like, what's going on there when you're connected to your bike and rotating the pedal in that way, but it is to me a really interesting thing about, kind of the mechanical aspect of that kind of interface between your leg and the bike.

Dianne Iverson: 22:31

We've learned a lot about that also in this process. I had my amputations in Portland Oregon and I wanted to find a prosthetic expert here close to us and I interviewed somebody and I really liked him and thought he really was good. But I said, paul, you got to go interview him with me too. And we found a guy that if you want to raise the bar on what you are able to do, he helps you get there. So he and Paul designed what I need for my legs in a kayak we take off the lower part.

Paul Dutky: 23:04

And then Paulul helped design the polka tat my dry suit so we got we got a dry suit that'll zip over her leg, and but instead of having the leg on there, we put a a half inch thick rubber, uh disc. So her legs were really short. But what we? And then we move the bulkhead forward so she can press her feet straight into a bulkhead. That's closer. She kayaks without her prosthetic legs on.

Dianne Iverson: 23:36

Well, they're on, but the lower part's not on.

Paul Dutky: 23:38

Yeah, the lower part's not on but now she has much better control of the boat because she can press with her legs. Before she was just sitting in a seat without any ability to have that power transfer.

Dianne Iverson: 23:52

So when I first started biking with Paul, about every 45 minutes we would have to stop and I'd have to take my legs off and elevate them because they'd swell up. And if I did that every hour and for about 10 minutes then I could continue going. My new prosthetic guy said oh, we just need to get you a different kind of prosthetics. And so he did, and he worked with Paul and there's, at the end of the day, my legs are less swollen not more.

Paul Dutky: 24:21

So the circulation is not impaired. The swelling actually goes down with exercise now.

Dianne Iverson: 24:25

So having the right medical professional help you to get stronger when you ask for it is essential, and my prosthetic guy in Silverdale has videos of five people five of his clients young to I think I'm probably the oldest and he interviewed us and has us on there so that when people go to his office they see that this isn't the end of their life, this is a new chapter in their life and you can get healthier even with prosthetics. I love that attitude.

Tom Butler: 24:57

I'm wondering if you are aware of the film 1,500 Miles. I'm not it is a film, a woman. I think it's Nicole and I think it's Ver-Kulin. I'm probably saying that wrong, but it's V-E-R-K-U-I-L-E-N. 16 years after the amputation of her left leg, she challenged herself to complete a 1,500 mile triathlon from Seattle to San Diego.

Paul Dutky: 25:29

A triathlon, tom or a triathlon where she's swimming and yeah, yeah, 1500 miles 1500 miles.

Tom Butler: 25:39

So if you go to forest stump F O R R E S T S T U M P, forestumporg, then you can find a link to the film. The group of people that I saw cycling on STP was affiliated in some way with Forest Stump. So I think it's maybe a movement of people, maybe a movement of people and I think a big focus that they have is saying that activity is so vital to human well-being that prosthetics that are sufficiently made for athletic endeavors should be considered essential medical devices and covered by insurance. I think it's, you know, one of the things that they advocate for, and so I'm wondering if you could talk a bit about that. You are like you said. You're out there, you're being active, you're in your 70s. I see it in myself and the evidence is there that you being active is really vital to your well-being, and I'm wondering if you could comment on that a bit, about removing barriers for people to be able to be active as kind of an essential thing.

Dianne Iverson: 27:12

Your timing is really good on that question. I'm a retired public employee from the state of Oregon and I worked at the school district, the county and the state and it's all part of the same retirement system and it has good health care and I had the option of keeping that health care option in retirement. Um, even if I moved to another state, which is so, I have very good health care coverage that covers my prosthetic legs a hundred percent. Otherwise, if I had to cover the 20%, it could easily be $2,000 a year per leg. That's a lot of money for most people and so good healthcare coverage is extremely important to me and I'm very thankful that I got it.

Paul Dutky: 28:05

Wasn't there an initiative, though, about adding sports prostheses to insurance?

Dianne Iverson: 28:10

Yes.

Dianne Iverson: 28:11

So you know, when we saw you last week, we met with the 26th representative, michelle Caldier, and we met with her about bike stuff, but she brought up the issue of policy before the legislature concerning kids had just come in and testified that they would like to have a second set of legs that's covered by insurance that allows them to be more mobile, and, from what I could tell, she was in favor of that, and so there are rules as to how often I can get new legs, and I have to prove that my previous legs aren't working anymore.

Dianne Iverson: 29:00

I now have legs that are waterproof and kayak friendly, because we went to Hawaii and kayaked, but I couldn't have done it if it hadn't been that five-year period. I had to wait for new legs, and so there are barriers in the insurance industry that you know. If a kid needs to have another set of legs to do physical activity, that's one of the most healthiest things you can do for that kid. I mean, they're incredibly resilient and happy to be more mobile because that's what they want to do mobile because that's what they want to do.

Tom Butler: 29:37

I think that that's a key observation I think you're in a position to really speak to. That is that, you know, I think it can be transformational when you enable someone to be active and when you, you know, take away the messages that I'm sorry, you can't participate, you know, and enable them to participate. I just think that's so powerful.

Dianne Iverson: 29:56

I agree.

Tom Butler: 29:57

And I also want to just say thank you for being a public servant. I have a lot of respect for public servants and this is a time that I just want to take that moment to say yay to people that are serving the public. Yay to people that are serving the public.

Dianne Iverson: 30:15

Yeah, I'm very glad I'm retired right now, but I would not want to be a federal employee right now.

Tom Butler: 30:25

Yeah, and it's a shame. Talk about your current setup. You've alluded to it a few times, but can you speak more to how you discovered it, the manufacturer and those things, and what makes it unique for you?

Paul Dutky: 30:38

Well, one of the things is we had a standard tandem where Diane was sitting behind me and really couldn't see much, but what happened is there's a lot of pressure on her butt sitting and that really caused some problems, and so we switched to a recumbent seat when we got the trike. But that worked so well that we wanted a tandem that had a recumbent seat. So our current tandem has a recumbent seat in front and a standard seat in back for me. So the advantages of that are we're both looking at the road, our heads are right next to each other, so we can speak without using intercoms and Diane can have hands-free to do photography, navigate, navigate. So we were looking for a bike that did that. So Haas, as a German bike company, has built a Pino, which is which is this bike. So we, we bought the bike, but it doesn't. Because of the way the handlebars are designed, I can't stand up easily on the bike to pedal, which is what I always did before.

Dianne Iverson: 31:48

Right, when we went up a steep hill.

Paul Dutky: 31:50

It was the extra power, we'd go up in four miles an hour. I'd be standing and move up the hill Right. So I can't even get this bike moving easily because of where the handlebars are. So we added electricity to the tandem so that I can get the bike started moving with electricity and then clip in as we're rolling. So those are all modifications. And then again the bike doesn't. I can't overdrive Diane and and I because she has a slip gear for the front. So this particular arrangement is really sort of a miraculous solution. Now it's a. It's a fairly big and heavy bike, so it's not as nimble and quick as a standard tandem. And it's light. It's heavier. So there's compromises, right, but for the two of us this is the ideal arrangement.

Dianne Iverson: 32:46

There's a Facebook page called Halfs Pino Owners. I belong to it and people help each other navigate how to make adjustments on their bike. What's amazing about this particular German bike is it's an adaptive bike for all sorts of disabilities. So parents with children with different disabilities buy this bike for that purpose and you can buy the parts to help you put your kid in the correct position. So if your kid can move their legs but needs some connection to making sure the legs are right, they can make that brace. If your kid can't use their legs at all, the kid can still be on the bike. If an adult is a hand cranker, they adapt it to hand cranking and then for the average person, we take our granddaughter out on it when she was shorter. We haven't taken her lately, but it's adaptable. Put kids on, you, just move the boom. So it's. I think it's one of the most incredible bikes out there.

Tom Butler: 33:49

Well, I've seen and I'm really attracted to them. You know, I think one of the things is being closer together. So my wife you know I wanted to get a tandem, thinking it would be a way for us to cycle together, and she's like, well, if we do that, then what I get to experience is your back, is your back.

Dianne Iverson: 34:12

That's a lot of those photographs. Paul's back His shoulder, his right shoulder, his left shoulder.

Tom Butler: 34:20

Right, and so I just love. The different seating allows for a different experience.

Paul Dutky: 34:29

It is a different experience. There is a significant downside. When Diane was behind me right and she couldn't see the road, then she wasn't commenting on being too close or being out of the lane or rocks or this. And now that she's in front, there's this non, no, slow down, do this, do that, I'm getting this. Anyway, that didn't happen before, so it's a significant change. He's adapted, so it's a significant change. I love it.

Tom Butler: 34:55

He's adapted Well, it sounds like maybe some of that is good observation too, though.

Dianne Iverson: 35:05

I think so, but it's all up to you to ask. We actually if you'd like to do a test ride sometime, you're welcome to come to our house, since we're not very far from you, and do a test ride, and do it with your wife, if you like. We actually have two of these now.

Tom Butler: 35:18

Fantastic. Well, we might take you up on that. That would be wonderful. I would like you to talk a little bit about writing tandems together, and you've already alluded to that.

Paul Dutky: 35:32

there's a partnership there, and you've already alluded to that there's a partnership there, you know, and that partnership changed a little bit, with Diane being able to see things out in front. Is that something that you have to get used to, Do you think everybody kind of has to get used to? That friend who's ridden a tandem with his wife for years, and he said and this is really good advice he said, Paul, he said now you're riding with Diane, you need to remember that you are the captain of the bike. You're the captain, but she is the admiral. And I went oh, I think you're right.

Dianne Iverson: 36:13

This is a retired police officer.

Paul Dutky: 36:17

So that is good to keep in mind because I mean she has to be become either place, she has to be be comfortable and we have to make joint decisions. So, on the bright side of this, when you're navigating and you're trying to find your way through the world or you're you're trying to find where you are in a later, in a different country, or you're trying to find where you are on a lane or you're in a different country, I mean having two eyes on the road, with different opinions. There are some disagreements, but by far there's an advantage in having a better understanding and being able to navigate the world better with two eyes on the road than just one. That's awesome.

Dianne Iverson: 36:49

So for example, our first overseas trip on our old Cannondale, where I was in back. We had the first five days before we were going on a bike and barge trip in Paris. So we just entered the city from the suburbs and got to know the city. Well, paris is made up of a bunch of roundabouts and when you're on Google Maps and you're listening to the directions, they't quite pronounce the uh names too well on the streets and you may have eight roads coming out of an intersection and I'm supposed to tell paul which road we're going to take. I generally did it, uh, oftentimes too late. He doesn't hear very well, so so anyway, well, it was difficult.

Paul Dutky: 37:31

The internet connection was slow, that's true. So what would happen? We would invariably go two turns past where we needed to be continuously. So when she's in front, she can actually see. If you're using like driving with GPS, you can see the intersection and you might be slow. Where you are might be slow, but you understand. It's the third turn to the right, right, and so now that we're in front, we're navigating better, much better. Where you are might be slow, but you understand.

Dianne Iverson: 37:59

It's the third turn to the right, and so now they're in front. We're navigating better, much better, but when you're in a brand new place like a city like that, it really helps to have two sets of eyes.

Paul Dutky: 38:07

A lot of people say we just absolutely can't be together on a tandem. There's too much arguments. But if you join a tandem club you've got a pre-selection process, you've got all these people that do get along well with each other and that makes it a delightful club to belong to, because there's a lot of I don't know what do you call it Positive harmony in a group like that.

Dianne Iverson: 38:28

We are members of the Evergreen Tandem Club that most of the members are out of the Seattle area. It took us a couple of years. We went down to Tacoma and started a ride with about 11 bikes and as we were setting up, I realized we were the only couple that didn't have headsets. Everybody else had headsets and were talking to each other. Well, that's one of the biggest frustrations is you can't hear each other very well on a standard tandem and headsets are like the answer, so just doing it with other people that are more experienced than you. We went and got a headset and now we love the headset when I'm on my recumbent trike and he's on a separate bike, Because if he makes a right turn and I don't see it, I can talk to him and say I don't know where you are.

Paul Dutky: 39:13

Yeah, or if I go through the intersection and she decides to stop, she can say oh, I didn't make the intersection, but practice and forgiveness are extremely important.

Tom Butler: 39:27

I love it. Can you talk a bit about how you started writing together, just that process? When did you notice each other and you know how did?

Dianne Iverson: 39:41

that come about? Jealousy, jealousy. So in 2015, I had my second amputation in March and by August 21st I had ants in my pants and I needed to get out of town. So I went and got my ferry ticket out of Port Townsend to Friday Harbor. That includes four hours of whale watching, along with having a trip to Friday Harbor and lunch with friends and coming back the same day. Who's on this boat? The bike club, and they're going out for four days of camping on San Juan Island, and they all got their outfits on and they all got their bikes. And I'm just saying to myself I can't do that. I wish I could do that. And because you're on a boat for seven hours, or at least the first four hours we got to know each other on the boat and we saw whales that day too. That's when we found out that we both loved kayaking and that we both loved bicycle riding, and so we had a date a month later, and that's how it began.

Paul Dutky: 40:52

So if we're going to do stuff together, it becomes rather clear what the limitations are and the problems. And so then it's just and I like solving problems like that he does so. So it's just a. Now you're embarking on a process where we just incrementally just improve things. So so here's something. So when we got the trike, so Diane, was independent.

Paul Dutky: 41:16

You know I'd go out riding and you know I mean she wouldn't be able to keep up on her other bike at all. I mean it would be impossible when we got the trike it's an electric trike, right? So she'd then go out with me. The first time we used it, she would just scream by me wait for me at the top of the hill. The first time we used it, she would just scream by me wait for me at the top of the hill, I mean.

Paul Dutky: 41:38

so she could just keep up as a partner on a ride and I could go as fast as I wanted and she had no problem keeping up with me.

Tom Butler: 41:47

That was a nice solution. Decide first to do tandem riding together, or did you decide first to do the trike together, for her to use the trike and ride?

Dianne Iverson: 42:00

that's a good question. First week I had two single bikes that I had bought uh one. When I moved. I retired from portland and came to polesville uh, 20 miles away from here and I had two single bikes that I could ride to the neighborhood. I can ride to Kingston carefully, and that's kind of what I did on my own. So when he met me, our goal was to try to get me to be able to handle 40 mile days with the bike club. So we took my single bike down to the foothills trail and parked the car and did a practice run trying to figure out how to keep me from losing my right foot off the off the pedal. We tried different versions of shoes, of pedals, and obviously I wasn't going to be able to use clip-ons because I just knew I'd go into fear mode. So we first started off with trying to get me to do a single bike and try to solve those problems and finally, Did we do the tandem, the standard tandem, before?

Paul Dutky: 43:05

we got the trike A long time before, so we were riding before and we decided tandem riding was the solution.

Dianne Iverson: 43:13

One of our friends they're both retired. She got diagnosed with parkinson's disease and so they bought a canondale tandem and they asked us to come to their house and get on their tandem in their living room on training wheels to see if that was something that would work for us, and I, I think about a week later we bought the tandem, just like theirs, clips With clips on it. She could clip in her feet and then we went down to California and did our first bike ride on it.

Paul Dutky: 43:42

So what happens is I straddle the bike, I hold the bike steady and she climbs on and clips in, and then, when we stop, I stop the bike, stabilize the bike and then she can clip out Gotcha.

Dianne Iverson: 43:56

So in 2017, we went to France and did our Paris-Debrouze bike and barge trip. 2018, we went to Italy, and that's when it was a seven-week trip that my butt just couldn't handle it anymore. So we came home and we bought the tandem, the Class. Piano, Tandem and the trike all in the same summer actually.

Tom Butler: 44:20

You mentioned a cycling club and I think you guys are active with the West Sound Cycling Club. Is that correct? I wonder if you could talk about for you what do you think a good club provides cyclists?

Paul Dutky: 44:37

Well, it's a social connection and I think, what you know, it's tricky. I mean you could. When we had a larger club about 10 years ago, there was all kinds of different. You could call them clicks, right, people are going different speeds, people are more relaxed, people are pushing faster, and we try to accommodate those different elements and it's sort of what happens is you end up sort of over time. What's happened is we we have a core group of people that enjoy touring together and we try to also do weekday rides for local people in the club, but there's a core group that will go out on 10, 12 day rides.

Dianne Iverson: 45:20

They did a month ride in.

Paul Dutky: 45:22

Canada. We're compatible with one another, so everybody has a good attitude about how to move day to day or over a week or more.

Dianne Iverson: 45:31

So this club has been around a lot longer than I've been involved with it, and most people were working and so now most of the members are in their 60s and 70s and some 80s, um. So they used to have rides weekly on saturdays because people worked monday through friday. So during the summertime it's very frequent that there are rides tuesday, thursdays and Saturdays that different people take the lead on taking people on, and they'll have anywhere between 5 to 18 people on a ride. But if you know that there's going to be a ride each week and it gets posted the previous week, then people join you. So that's been a very important part, especially now we're actually growing again. The 60-year-olds are retiring and wanting to get back on a bike and they don't have the experience and they like to go with people that know where to go. So they just need to learn how to ride a bike again and be comfortable.

Paul Dutky: 46:25

For 35 years this was a racing club. It's really evolved over time.

Tom Butler: 46:29

Okay, it Okay. That's very interesting. It doesn't sound like you're seeing younger people coming to the club as much as older people.

Paul Dutky: 46:42

That would be true.

Dianne Iverson: 46:59

That's true. We have a different arm on the club, an advocacy arm that Paul chairs, and right now I'm vice president of the West Sound Cycling Club. But Paul chairs the advocacy group and because we've been advocating for safer streets in Bremerton now for nine years and it was happening before I showed up the younger people reached out to us and wanted to help us on advocacy. So did they join our club? No, but we joined a partnership and they started a Facebook page of communication.

Dianne Iverson: 47:16

They live a lifestyle that is not two cars, they live a lifestyle that is sometimes only a bike, but sometimes a car and a bike. They want their kids to be able to ride around the community and so that younger group they don't have time to be gone Tuesday, thursday, saturday on a bike ride with us. They are living their life and want safer streets and that's where our connection is. So a year and a half ago we started they started and we're partnerships on a Facebook page called Street Spark Bremerton and we have 450 people on it now and those are local residents who want to make the streets safer for biking, walking and rolling in a wheelchair. So that's where our connection has been with the younger generation.

Paul Dutky: 48:02

That's blurred the distinction of what's the club right and what's just a community of people that want to make bicycling safer and easier and more connected. That's a much bigger group now than just our club.

Tom Butler: 48:16

Well, I love that and I love that focus on active transportation and active recreation, and to me that sounds like something every bicycle club should really think about is that there is this broader community that thinks of bicycles in maybe different ways than like a racing club would think about the bicycle and one of those young men who reached out to us a few years ago.

Dianne Iverson: 48:43

He was down in olympia. He was at our table I had he's the one with the ponytail and he's he's been a wonderful asset in the discussion. And so it's not just paul and diane and the bike club, it's these young people with kids going to the elementary school and, uh, it's amazing. So we can get 30 people at a meeting to testify on a particular issue and we had kids at the last time we did this, we had kids as part of the testimony.

Paul Dutky: 49:07

So we're making an impact with, with the city, because now we're. Some refer to us as the bike mafia. Okay, fair enough, because we have a lot of people on board now and they feel like they're being pushed and they are.

Dianne Iverson: 49:27

And we're educating ourselves. So you will see on our Street Smart Remington Facebook page that part of the purpose is educating more people, ourselves included, as to what are the possibilities. I'll post photos of going to Victoria. We ride to medical appointments at the University of Washington, so from downtown Seattle to there. So it's an educational tool for us and we've learned a lot. I I feel like I have a doctorate in how to design roads. Now, yeah, for bikes.

Paul Dutky: 50:03

We were asked by the city of palestine to give a presentation to their engineering department with respect to our trip to the netherlands, and so we really emphasize traffic calming and how the whole attitude and approach is different in the Netherlands and when we were done we got the feeling that we had given them some options that they were really excited about on how to improve the streets and connectivity in Palsbo. So I mean we had good feelings about it.

Dianne Iverson: 50:31

And that was just last Friday.

Paul Dutky: 50:33

Having an impact.

Tom Butler: 50:34

Yeah, nice, that's amazing, now you know. So obviously you're involved locally with advocacy and we met at an event that was more about statewide advocacy. Are there other ways? Are you active on a national level at all as far as advocacy is concerned?

Dianne Iverson: 50:53

Not at all, no Other than we helped our state senator become a congresswoman and we took her on a bike ride. We took her on two bike rides actually.

Paul Dutky: 51:06

We've taken our county commissioners on bike rides and what we now have is a bunch of elected officials that appear to be pro-bicycle and understand that basically our county is well behind surrounding counties in bike infrastructure. So we feel like we've got a little bit of a political momentum going here, I hope.

Dianne Iverson: 51:27

But it's a good question. I'm vice chair of Leafline Trails Coalition, which is a four-county collaboration between the four county governments parks mostly and then they have a few of us who are not county employees and we have been going through a transition and we're now located within Cascade Bicycle Club as our fiscal agent and a staff person that staffs the. We just have a part-time staff person that staffs the board. We're just starting, I think next week, with a policy committee and we have the WSDOT will be presenting next week at our board meeting on the latest policy issues that are going on in the state legislature. But much of what goes on in the state legislature is federal funding, so part of this policy discussion through Leafline Trails Coalition will be bringing people that are involved in different efforts around the region and different organizations to come together and keep each other informed as to what are the federal policies and state policies. Right now it's about are you going to get your money?

Paul Dutky: 52:30

We're interested in changing Bremerton state and county policy and state policy, you know, I mean because some of the policy decisions are different. What do you call it? Barriers? They're barriers to proving safety and connectivity. So this is sort of a different issue. But basically, the traffic calming in the Netherlands is what's provided an 80% reduction in fatalities and injuries in their bicycle infrastructure, in their bicycle infrastructure and in the United States and the county specifically, what they've done is they've tried to make sure that cars can move as quickly and efficiently as possible, whereas in the Netherlands they understand that you slow cars in areas where there's high populations so that if there is an accident it's not lethal. But the two policies these are policies. The two policies are contradictory and we're trying to move the local policy to where you slow the vehicles, you slow the turns, you make it safer for people that exist here, and so that's where significant policy changes at the state and regional level are important and we're working on that.

Dianne Iverson: 53:52

It's a good question concerning the feds. Right now Our county, along with several other jurisdictions, want to raise grant, which is federal funds, to the tune of $16 million to design the gaps for the paved trail from the Bainbridge Island Ferry to Polesville, up to Port Gamble and all the way to the coast, and that was a collaborative effort with Port Angeles being the lead. They have to spend that money in 10 years to design where the gaps are. The biggest gap is our county and then in other parts in Jefferson County and Clallam County you'll have a stretch and then you have a little gap. So they have 90 miles completed. It will be a total of 140 miles from point A to B and then there'll be another 100 miles of connectors to that. That's all federally funded through the Graves grant and we think as of this week they're going to get the money.

Paul Dutky: 54:44

So with this, in perspective, they're 90 miles to our one right. There's one mile of safe bike facility on that route right now, and it's that county, wow.

Dianne Iverson: 54:55

Is that the Bainbridge Ferry terminal?

Tom Butler: 54:58

Well, you know to me that Olympic discovery trail you know and you're you're talking about a connector. I think it's would be considered part of that trail.

Dianne Iverson: 55:11

It is the trail. They are the leaders in this state.

Tom Butler: 55:16

Yeah.

Dianne Iverson: 55:17

And it's part of the national trail.

Tom Butler: 55:19

And I'm anxious to spend more time. I haven't spent much time on the Olympic Discovery Trail in this season. I you know I want to do more of that because to me it is a national treasure the northwest tandem rally two years ago was located in swim, and that's uh.

Dianne Iverson: 55:37

I think we had 600 people at the tandem rally this year. Uh, last year was a year. A year ago, a year and a half ago, we told people you got to come because the rides that you will go on for the two to four days, depending on how many days you're going to stay there, are exquisite. You have the mountains, you have the sea, you have the forest, you've got it all. It's one of the most beautiful places in the state to ride a bike and it's safe and it has the most paved trails of mileage.

Tom Butler: 56:10

That is even close to us, so we love it can you talk about how your backgrounds have fueled your interest in advocacy?

Paul Dutky: 56:24

so that's, that's a good question.

Dianne Iverson: 56:27

That's how we got a second date, Paul.

Paul Dutky: 56:32

At the time we met I was extremely frustrated because I was chair of the Kitsap County Non-Motorized Committee and I'd offered some really good proposals, really good ideas, and they were going nowhere. And when I met Diane so this is a problem with bureaucrats, with government right and when I met Diane she was an expert in government and bureaucrats. So let me help you understand this she said for one thing, she said do you have any personal relationship with the county commissioners? And I went no, that's a problem. So we've worked. So Diane is the personal relationship person and I'm sort of the idea person that you know the facts on the ground and designing things and making sure they all fit if you're going to propose something. So the two of us together are sort of a unique combination and it seems to be a winning combination.

Dianne Iverson: 57:29

The last 10 years of my life I worked for an elected official Actually, I worked for three and I used to be an elected official in my 30s in a small rural town in Oregon. So I've been the bridge between the employee and the elected official. And how do you take policy and make it happen? And got to facilitate some of that in Multnomah County. It had nothing to do with transportation For me it's education and helping kids that aren't succeeding but the fact that I know elected officials, I respect elected officials, I honor the fact that they're a part they need to lead the way. And so my first question to him was this is a great plan and who's championing this non-motorized plan at the county level? And Paul goes what?

Tom Butler: 58:13

do you mean? I said well, you have three county commissioners.

Dianne Iverson: 58:16

It's got to be somebody's passion, even though this plan is pretty old. And he didn't know and I went oh yeah, that's a problem. You need to know what the county commissioners want, Because what we found out is they really weren't leading the way and we needed to educate them. And that's what we're doing now and figuring out. What does that look like?

Tom Butler: 58:36

I'm wondering, Paul, if you have had a specific perspective about public safety as a emergency room physician.

Paul Dutky: 58:48

I can't say that my background in emergency medicine it's more my background as a cyclist.

Paul Dutky: 58:56

I empathize, if you will, with people that just want to have a more direct and safe way to get someplace, a pleasant way of getting around. They ought to be able to get, for instance, from Port Orchard to Bremerton on a bicycle, and there is no way. You ought to be able to get across town in Bremerton safely, and there is no way. And so, from a cyclist perspective, I try to provide the city, through public works and its elected officials, a vision of north, south and east west corridors. That's feasible and possible, and we've been working on that for eight years, and much of it is now in place, but I don't know that emergency medicine per se is part of that.

Dianne Iverson: 59:42

So, within the bike clubs, some people have been killed on the roads of Kitsap County and I myself. In 2019, paul was been killed on the roads of Kitsap County and I myself in 2019, paul was out hiking on the Olympic Peninsula and I was out on my trike by myself on what I thought was probably the safest road around which probably is and I got hit. I got hit at the intersection of Clear Creek and Mountain View and it was just two vehicles me going through this intersection and a car hitting me.

Paul Dutky: 1:00:07

She ended up in the ER. She had a significant concussion For six months. When I showed up in the emergency department I looked at her foot, her shoe on her foot. There was a hole right through her foot which was a prosthetic foot, luckily.

Dianne Iverson: 1:00:26

It was part of the car. Wow, luckily it was part of the car. I was blacked out and the first responders had to deal with it. It took her six months to recover from it.

Tom Butler: 1:00:38

Wow, you mentioned the tandem rally in Sequim and I think the next one is in Spokane at Washington. That's the Northwest Tandem Rally. It's July 4th to 6th. I'm actually going to be in Spokane already at that time, so I'm definitely going to go drop by. I'm probably going to take a recording device and do an episode about the rally. What can I expect to experience at a Northwest Tandem Rally?

Dianne Iverson: 1:01:15

Probably heat in Spokane. My prosthetic legs don't like heat so we probably aren't going to go to that rally because of the heat. But I find tandem rallies to be awesome. The first one I think I ever went to was Klamath Falls, and I used to live in Redmond, oregon, and so Klamath Falls was three hours south of there by car, and on that one it was 700 people and it was over a holiday, so most of the people in Klamath Falls were somewhere else. And then we had a police escort, so you start the morning at the same time and you have a police escort for the next few miles, just taking you into the city, and then you have the option of going 30 miles, 45 miles, 75 miles, and they feed you along the way. So every 15 miles you get some great food, and they actually won me a food award as far as I'm concerned.

Paul Dutky: 1:02:10

But I think, I think what you'll, I think what, from my perspective, what distinguishes tandem rallies is that you have couples which have survived. I mean, you know so, maybe a small, minuscule group of people that actually started tandem riding, and these people have survived and they actually get along with each other. So it's a large group of people that sort of have good relationships with each other, and that is, I think, a remarkable gathering. I think that's fine.

Tom Butler: 1:02:37

That is fantastic.

Dianne Iverson: 1:02:38

I love that perspective old tandem during the Klamath Falls Tandem Rally and we were the last couple coming in. We had done the 65 mile ride and we had told ourselves the only way we're going to be able to do this is pace ourselves, otherwise we're going to be dead at the end of the day. So we were last and they had every boat and all the water and all the food and a van that would check up on us.

Paul Dutky: 1:03:06

Yeah, you're the reason we're here. They said. It was like we really felt supported. It was great.

Dianne Iverson: 1:03:12

But I have a personal story. At the tandem rally there, one of the volunteers was in a pair of shorts, and in a pair of shorts you notice that they have an artificial leg, and so if I see somebody with an artificial leg I go up and join the sisterhood brotherhood and say hi to them. And so I went up and said hi to them and at that point in time I think I had long pants on, so I pulled up my legs and I said look at me, he goes. Wow, I didn't know I could ride a bike. And so he rides a bike and he quit doing it when he got his prosthetic leg, like two years before, and I became his inspiration. I've never met the guy.

Tom Butler: 1:03:54

I don't know what he's doing now, but I have a suspicion he's back on a bike that is such a fantastic story, so do you have some trips planned in the near future here?

Dianne Iverson: 1:04:05

yes, we are well our most, our trip.

Paul Dutky: 1:04:10

We were supposed to be on a trip to california, it's just that the forecast calls for inundation and rain for over a week. So most of our club members said and let's just we're supposed to leave today for the bike ride.

Dianne Iverson: 1:04:23

Driving 13 hours to ride in the rain every day didn't seem smart, but this spring we have a trip planned. Go ahead.

Paul Dutky: 1:04:30

Yeah, so the next ride is we're going to go to Vienna, Austria and Czechoslovakia and ride down to Budapest, Hungary, and spend six weeks.

Dianne Iverson: 1:04:42

One of our good friends is 10 years older than I am. She's 84. She's going with us, 10 years older than I am, she's 84, and she's going with us. And then we hope Paul's sister will be joining us. But she's got a diet health diagnosis that we need to figure out what what that is. But we're all signed up. We're leaving May 1st and Paul and I will be gone six weeks.

Tom Butler: 1:04:59

Well, budapest is one of those places I'd like to go cycling. I don't know much about it, so I'll have to ask you guys after you're back what it was like, but for some reason to me Budapest sounds like a place that would be really neat to experience on a bike. We'll see.

Dianne Iverson: 1:05:18

One of the things we really want to do is you can take a bike and horse trip from Prague to Vienna, to Budapest, but nobody would take our bike and I can't ride a regular tandem or a regular bike. So we really want to take Paul's sister on a bike and barge because it's so cool. There's only like well, depending on the size, the ones we've been on have been 12 passengers and 18. So it's an intimate group. You only unpack once. We did a two week one from.

Dianne Iverson: 1:05:47

Paris to Bruges, that's why we wanted to do this spring but we couldn't do it. So we're doing hotel to hotel. But it's all a path. It's a shared use path, like 99% of the distance.

Paul Dutky: 1:05:58

So you're moving from place Every day. You're packing up and moving.

Dianne Iverson: 1:06:02

And they take your luggage if you want them to.

Tom Butler: 1:06:11

Well, thank you so much for joining me. You are so delightful. I'm so thrilled that I got to meet you at the olympia lobbying event and thanks so much for taking the time to to to share with me today. I am so impressed by you guys. It just in numerous ways, the advocacy that you do, the fact that you are one of those couples that have survived a tan, a tan, a bike together, and just, uh, the way that you are inspiring others to to be active. I think that's all amazing and just really thankful that got to share this conversation with everybody on the podcast. Thank you, john.

Dianne Iverson: 1:06:52

This is our first, so thank you for inviting us.

Tom Butler: 1:06:55

Well, I will say if you have a podcast out there, get Paul and Diane on your podcast, because they're wonderful guests. So hopefully it won't be your last.

Dianne Iverson: 1:07:07

All right, thank you, tom. Yeah, take care now you, tom.

Tom Butler: 1:07:08

Yeah, take care now, bye-bye. Whenever I meet people like Diane and Paul, it is an inspiration to me. It inspires me to get out and ride and to reevaluate excuses that I let hold me back, but I'm also inspired by how active they are in their community. I'm looking forward to finding some time to do some cycling with them and getting to know them even more. I think it's particularly important the work that they are doing to raise awareness about obstacles that can interfere with young people having access to prosthetics that can support interest in athletics. If you have an opportunity to speak on this issue, please do so and watch 1500 Miles. I will put a link in the show notes. I hope that you find ways to inspire those around you and I hope you have plenty of people to inspire you. And remember age is just a gear change.