1 00:00:13,640 --> 00:00:22,010 I've been keen to quiz Dphil student Petter Charlesworth on his cycling adventures since we first met through Wilson's green team sometime in 2022. 2 00:00:22,820 --> 00:00:28,160 If you've seen the Pre-loved bike scheme ox bikes here at the college or elsewhere around Oxford, 3 00:00:28,160 --> 00:00:32,780 which aims to tackle the city's high demand and discard of bikes on a timely basis, 4 00:00:33,110 --> 00:00:36,530 then you'll be pleased to learn that Petr is one of the brains behind the operation. 5 00:00:38,030 --> 00:00:40,370 Pedro, thank you so much for joining us on Pivot Points. 6 00:00:40,790 --> 00:00:47,440 So it's a really interesting moment to have you on the podcast because as you know, we've worked together a lot with you on the green team. 7 00:00:48,560 --> 00:00:52,520 We're really increasing our initiatives around sustainable transport. 8 00:00:52,820 --> 00:00:56,959 So you're you're here for your research, obviously, but somehow alongside that, 9 00:00:56,960 --> 00:01:00,830 you found the time and the space to found your own Pre-loved bike initiative. 10 00:01:01,340 --> 00:01:05,780 So let's start that. Tell me about that. Yeah. Well, first, thank you for having me on the podcast. 11 00:01:05,780 --> 00:01:08,900 It's great to be here. I really like the set up of this. 12 00:01:09,350 --> 00:01:17,300 So yeah, I mean, I guess an introduction to me in Oxford and what I'm doing here is I am meant to be doing a Ph.D. in some point, 13 00:01:17,960 --> 00:01:20,810 and I'm looking at the specific materials like ceramic materials. 14 00:01:20,810 --> 00:01:24,860 So I tell people I'm kind of a glorified potter, but without anything pretty to show. 15 00:01:25,430 --> 00:01:28,459 And I look at these materials for like nuclear fusion applications. 16 00:01:28,460 --> 00:01:34,490 So the overarching theme is kind of this brainchild of physics to produce clean energy and renewable, clean energy. 17 00:01:34,490 --> 00:01:36,380 So that's kind of what I what I do. 18 00:01:36,710 --> 00:01:44,180 So job as a job here, I guess in most of my research and my third of four years studying, not now, but lately, like you said, 19 00:01:44,180 --> 00:01:48,469 I've kind of got involved with initially the and green team and what they do 20 00:01:48,470 --> 00:01:53,090 here and helping with making some maps and just general providing my thoughts 21 00:01:53,090 --> 00:01:59,720 and ideas and trying to try to make wolves and more of a community that's based on sort of these green principles of which it was founded as well. 22 00:02:00,140 --> 00:02:05,360 And and like you said, yes, kind of got spun out from that and from just being in the ecosystem. 23 00:02:05,380 --> 00:02:12,020 Oxford is found someone that had just started up a very small bike company which is selling second-hand bikes. 24 00:02:12,770 --> 00:02:17,989 And so she got in right at the beginning with that and it's expanded over this sort of year and a half that 25 00:02:17,990 --> 00:02:23,209 it's been going from from now having its own website where you can essentially rent bicycles in Oxford. 26 00:02:23,210 --> 00:02:27,500 It's the largest bike rental company in Oxford in terms of numbers of bikes and the traffic through that. 27 00:02:28,130 --> 00:02:32,180 And the idea is that, yeah, it provides love for bikes to sort of get thrown away. 28 00:02:32,180 --> 00:02:36,799 And in Oxford, you know, everyone travels by bicycle and there is this sort of asymmetry. 29 00:02:36,800 --> 00:02:41,540 And when people want to buy and when they want to sell them and you have this constant throughput of students, 30 00:02:41,540 --> 00:02:43,820 thousands of students are coming here, often international. 31 00:02:44,030 --> 00:02:51,980 They realise they want a bike and then buy it all in September or October and start Michaelmas and then they all just leave them in June. 32 00:02:52,340 --> 00:02:58,430 So and I often genuinely do leave them now was a party last week and someone described when they were in Oxford that when 33 00:02:58,430 --> 00:03:04,340 they finished their masters what they did is rode that bike to the ride cam and just let it free and just left it there, 34 00:03:04,430 --> 00:03:06,350 just knowing that someone is going to take it. 35 00:03:06,620 --> 00:03:12,799 And it's very much this ethos of like, you know, students do really care about their pennies, but also when it's done, 36 00:03:12,800 --> 00:03:18,380 a lot of people just leave and on and I don't know what they want to do with their bicycle and I really have time to think about it. 37 00:03:18,770 --> 00:03:23,209 So there was this sort of asymmetry that we saw. And then you have this idea of like, where do you get a bicycle from? 38 00:03:23,210 --> 00:03:26,360 It's quite a personal thing, or everyone's trying to buy at the same time. 39 00:03:26,360 --> 00:03:32,270 So you often buy them from sources, but you often maybe feel a little bit pressured to buy a bicycle when some 40 00:03:32,420 --> 00:03:36,649 older person has come in from Witney and driven for 20 minutes or something, 41 00:03:36,650 --> 00:03:41,930 and you just stood there in the centre of Oxford not knowing anything about bicycle going, Yeah, I think it's okay, I'll take it. 42 00:03:41,930 --> 00:03:43,759 And we hope a lot of this. 43 00:03:43,760 --> 00:03:50,120 So it's kind of come from this ethos of originally it was just you buy bikes from the website and it's just a list of bikes and you don't, 44 00:03:50,420 --> 00:03:55,370 you don't bid for them and there's no messaging. It's just, okay, you pay for that. It's not evolved into having this rental system. 45 00:03:55,370 --> 00:03:58,249 And we've now got this the website is completely automated in that sense. 46 00:03:58,250 --> 00:04:05,540 But to add to that, we're now looking at helping the colleges call their bikes, how we can do that in a sustainable way that we could. 47 00:04:05,540 --> 00:04:11,060 We use some of them and pay them so the students can get hold of them again and kind of complete this bike cycle basically. 48 00:04:11,810 --> 00:04:15,889 And yeah, it's been it's been a bit of fun journey. I'd say it takes up quite a bit of time, 49 00:04:15,890 --> 00:04:20,450 but so far it has been really rewarding and it's nice to see when you do get lots 50 00:04:20,450 --> 00:04:24,080 of people happy with how they how they're doing and how they're finding that bike. 51 00:04:24,100 --> 00:04:27,950 So yeah, it's been a little bit of journey, but hopefully there's a long way to go. Yeah, I can imagine. 52 00:04:28,160 --> 00:04:33,290 And I think that leads us quite nicely into all three of your pivot points really, which centred around bikes. 53 00:04:34,310 --> 00:04:38,570 So I'm curious as to basically where does that love of bikes begin? 54 00:04:39,080 --> 00:04:42,290 Honestly, it's something that's only happened in the last part of my life. 55 00:04:42,440 --> 00:04:49,669 I grew up not that far away. So between riding in London, I was just playing football like everyone in my school did. 56 00:04:49,670 --> 00:04:55,159 And then I ditched the football to go skateboarding and did that intensely till I was about 18. 57 00:04:55,160 --> 00:05:01,580 It was all I cared about. I then went to university where I kind of just was a jack of all trades and tried everything I was in, 58 00:05:01,580 --> 00:05:06,200 did a bit the cricket and I did a tiny bit of cycling. And you're at Bristol for your undergrad? 59 00:05:06,200 --> 00:05:12,620 Yes, studying chemistry. And it was mostly into electronic music and really enjoyed DJing in Bristol. 60 00:05:12,620 --> 00:05:17,449 So that didn't really bode well. We tried to be in a cycling team because I'd often be out playing on Friday 61 00:05:17,450 --> 00:05:20,750 and then come Saturday morning I was just hanging on the back of the bunch. 62 00:05:21,680 --> 00:05:26,059 So what I would say is the love of bikes came later like it was. 63 00:05:26,060 --> 00:05:34,490 I bought my first bike Second-hand actually from eBay when I had a job video conferences in London. 64 00:05:34,490 --> 00:05:40,590 And this is just going before I went to Bristol and I. Any way I could get to London quick enough was I had to. 65 00:05:41,100 --> 00:05:46,589 I took the bike because I could beat the train there because it took so long for my line to get to another station. 66 00:05:46,590 --> 00:05:49,470 And then I could get into London on time to be able to film these conferences. 67 00:05:49,800 --> 00:05:54,390 So that's why I bought my first road bike, and then I would just use it to explore the chilterns and things like that. 68 00:05:54,390 --> 00:05:57,990 But honestly, my biggest ever ride was like 30 miles or something like that. 69 00:05:58,260 --> 00:06:04,170 It didn't really come about easily. I did one session with a cycling team my first year and then started doing a few my final year. 70 00:06:04,470 --> 00:06:08,350 But what really sparked the interest was between those two points. 71 00:06:09,240 --> 00:06:10,670 In my first year, 72 00:06:10,680 --> 00:06:16,739 I was on a bus in Bristol and I overheard some people talking behind me and they're both students and they didn't really knew of each other, 73 00:06:16,740 --> 00:06:21,510 but they didn't know each other well. But it was kind of the conversation where I went, Hey, John, like, what did you do? 74 00:06:21,510 --> 00:06:23,159 I heard you did something really cool last summer. 75 00:06:23,160 --> 00:06:29,620 You're in Galway, and he was like, Yeah, yeah, I, I ride a bike for ten days in Norway and it's great because the roads are awesome. 76 00:06:29,640 --> 00:06:34,820 The people speak better English than I do, and you can camp anywhere because there's a lot of Scandinavia generally, 77 00:06:34,920 --> 00:06:40,230 generally that you can just company with some private property. And that sparked something for me and I thought, wow, this is this is cool. 78 00:06:40,260 --> 00:06:48,510 I like this idea of something adventurous like that. But I thought, okay, if Norway sounds very hilly, I'm not a keen cyclist necessarily. 79 00:06:48,510 --> 00:06:52,950 I'll go to Sweden. So I booked a ticket to Gothenburg with me and my little rally bike that used 80 00:06:52,950 --> 00:06:57,270 to ride to these conferences and had absolutely no idea what I was doing. 81 00:06:57,720 --> 00:07:01,320 I turned up, I firstly, I brought my bike and bubble wrap. 82 00:07:01,680 --> 00:07:05,300 She's not your mate, apparently. No, no. Say I will. 83 00:07:05,310 --> 00:07:08,790 You know, they can see it's a bike to look after it. So I get to go Thunberg and the airport. 84 00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:11,400 I'm not actually in the city. It's in in the forest. 85 00:07:11,730 --> 00:07:16,770 And I found that the my bike was broken and I couldn't change gear and I didn't really know how to fix it or anything. 86 00:07:17,010 --> 00:07:26,130 I genuinely turned up with a paper map and stuff. I was 18 and I got the bike to the hostel and then found a bicycle shop to get it fixed. 87 00:07:26,820 --> 00:07:31,830 And also in the hostel I'll speak speaking some of the people that I just, you know, what are they doing in Gothenburg and whatnot? 88 00:07:32,130 --> 00:07:37,020 And one guy told me, Oh, there's another group of cyclists here. So I said, Please, can you take me to their room? 89 00:07:37,290 --> 00:07:42,419 Because I was so terrified about what I was going to embark on that I wanted some just knowledge of whatever. 90 00:07:42,420 --> 00:07:46,200 So I went to that room, literally knocked on it and just said, Hey guys, you know, what are you doing? 91 00:07:46,200 --> 00:07:48,029 And I said, Oh, we're cycling from Stockholm to Paris. 92 00:07:48,030 --> 00:07:53,900 There were four American students that had just finished their master's degrees and were going off to jobs, and it was kind of a last hurrah. 93 00:07:54,300 --> 00:07:58,500 So I asked if I could cycle with them from Gothenburg to where my paper map 94 00:07:58,500 --> 00:08:01,650 actually started because BLEEP and I've got the bike wasn't actually on the map. 95 00:08:01,980 --> 00:08:05,250 So I said, okay, can I come with you then? I said, No worries. 96 00:08:05,250 --> 00:08:07,860 So what was meant to be three days became three and a half weeks, 97 00:08:07,860 --> 00:08:12,179 and then we became really good friends and they taught me how to how to camp in my places, 98 00:08:12,180 --> 00:08:16,970 how to couch and took me to all these different parties of friends that they knew in the cities. 99 00:08:17,020 --> 00:08:20,999 We saw Germany win the World Cup in Hamburg and things like that. They just stayed with me ever since. 100 00:08:21,000 --> 00:08:24,810 And CouchSurfing experiences from them really enlightened something in me. 101 00:08:25,350 --> 00:08:31,650 So the next year I did the same again. I worked in a pub for the rest of the summer and then flew to Helsinki and cycled from Helsinki to Berlin. 102 00:08:31,800 --> 00:08:36,170 And that was probably one of the loneliest weeks of my life down the on the east coast of Sweden. 103 00:08:36,170 --> 00:08:37,110 It's just pine forests. 104 00:08:37,110 --> 00:08:44,579 And it just wasn't really much that I didn't have this experience of meeting lots of people in that area naturally, and just found that quite hard. 105 00:08:44,580 --> 00:08:48,450 But I got to Berlin and had a lovely time in again into the hostel, 106 00:08:48,450 --> 00:08:53,459 then managed to catch up with some people in the area coming in and some of those people are now 107 00:08:53,460 --> 00:08:57,720 still some of my best friends and one of the girls is coming to visit from Switzerland next week, 108 00:08:58,590 --> 00:09:03,600 so that's really cool. And not just organised this idea of cycling and why it was interesting. 109 00:09:03,600 --> 00:09:05,790 It was more of a vector to travel and to meet people. 110 00:09:05,940 --> 00:09:12,390 And what happened on that trip is I read this book, which is one of the points I talk to you about, which is the future joys valleys of Humphreys. 111 00:09:12,870 --> 00:09:16,999 And whilst I was doing that trip, obviously this is just it was just three week cycles. 112 00:09:17,000 --> 00:09:20,549 There's nothing big compared to what other people have done. 113 00:09:20,550 --> 00:09:25,800 And this this guy, Alister from Yorkshire writes a book about how he cycled around the world four and a half years. 114 00:09:25,800 --> 00:09:34,500 And he never takes a plane. He always sails across and goes to some crazy situations like Siberia in the winter and all sorts of things like that. 115 00:09:34,740 --> 00:09:39,450 And that kind of ignited this idea of maybe there was people would do bigger things and it was a community out there. 116 00:09:39,750 --> 00:09:43,110 And these three week trips that kind of just nudged me in that direction sort 117 00:09:43,110 --> 00:09:48,060 of started the snowball going that when it came time to finish university, 118 00:09:48,420 --> 00:09:54,569 I didn't know whether or not I wanted to do a PhD and hadn't found anything that I was incredibly passionate about in chemistry at that time. 119 00:09:54,570 --> 00:09:59,670 I felt that maybe I'd just be walking into a Ph.D. without sort of thoughts or direction, 120 00:09:59,940 --> 00:10:05,700 and the direction just seemed naturally to be pulling me to go and try to explore. 121 00:10:05,700 --> 00:10:14,220 So I'd spent the third year of my degree working and doing lectures in the mornings and evenings are just part of this like special course I was on. 122 00:10:14,640 --> 00:10:19,080 And that meant I left university with enough money to potentially go travelling for a little while. 123 00:10:19,530 --> 00:10:25,620 I wanted to with friends, but didn't have anyone that really wanted to ride a bicycle definitely for a period of time, which is fair enough. 124 00:10:26,670 --> 00:10:33,210 And then yeah, so that's kind of where we're ended in terms of, you know, that's how the bicycle sort of came into my life really. 125 00:10:33,330 --> 00:10:36,810 And then I decided and it was literally five. 126 00:10:36,880 --> 00:10:39,930 Years ago, if you'd like. A few days ago? Yeah. 127 00:10:39,940 --> 00:10:47,460 On the 18th of January 2018 is when I decided I was going to try and ride a bicycle originally to India and then Sydney and then it kind of, 128 00:10:48,250 --> 00:10:54,580 I don't know when a little bit crazy I guess. And I think COVID got in the way of that trip as well, right? 129 00:10:54,790 --> 00:11:02,559 It did. But I count myself incredibly fortunate because my idea was to try to ride a bike from from London to Sydney and do that in 12 months. 130 00:11:02,560 --> 00:11:09,850 And I was very much locked in that. Okay. I was working in 12 month periods because my my thing was that I'd done one year 131 00:11:09,850 --> 00:11:14,110 working and I'd done got a four year degree essentially with one year's working. 132 00:11:14,110 --> 00:11:21,299 And at times if I took a year off, I would be at the same place, I guess, as everyone else, which is looking back at it now. 133 00:11:21,300 --> 00:11:24,370 It kind of maybe just epitomises how my thought process was. 134 00:11:24,410 --> 00:11:30,700 Everything was kind of blocked and planned out and but basically when I got about six months into that trip. 135 00:11:31,670 --> 00:11:36,650 And I was cycling along what is the ancient Silk Road, I guess through through the stones in Central Asia. 136 00:11:36,950 --> 00:11:43,040 Just a few things happened there that really sort of changed my mindset to why I was doing this, what was important, 137 00:11:43,250 --> 00:11:48,880 and then why did I have to come home at this time and why they planned everything out to such an extent. 138 00:11:48,890 --> 00:11:57,050 I guess I know people that involved in that that really sort of helped shape, I guess, what I wanted to do beyond just cycling. 139 00:11:57,140 --> 00:12:01,219 Yeah. Yeah. And it also really strikes me as you talk through that journey, 140 00:12:01,220 --> 00:12:08,480 how kind of how how much of a student experience some of those moments are because especially as an undergrad, 141 00:12:08,480 --> 00:12:14,480 you have long periods of holiday and the workload is a lot less intense than it is as a postgraduate. 142 00:12:15,020 --> 00:12:21,200 So I'm curious about how cycling shaped your experience then compared to how it shapes or 143 00:12:21,200 --> 00:12:26,540 how it's involved in your student and academic experience now as your lifestyle changes? 144 00:12:27,020 --> 00:12:32,719 Yeah, I think that's that's an interesting question. But for me, undergrad was so packed full of things. 145 00:12:32,720 --> 00:12:39,440 I would say that cycling was just kind of a quick release and then it was something that really gave me headspace and it 146 00:12:39,440 --> 00:12:47,540 always has given me headspace when I used to play music and do my undergraduate the Sunday morning going out with the club, 147 00:12:47,780 --> 00:12:53,239 even though I was not anywhere near the team desiring back, I was just hanging at the back. 148 00:12:53,240 --> 00:12:56,690 I was having a great time because I just I just cleared myself out of the city. 149 00:12:56,990 --> 00:13:01,010 And I do love I love being in cities, but I do need to have my headspace at some point. 150 00:13:01,250 --> 00:13:05,540 So it was always been kind of this release for me in every sense. 151 00:13:05,930 --> 00:13:11,180 So from from then and then taking it through the trip and then honestly became this, 152 00:13:11,180 --> 00:13:16,159 this sort of promise I gave myself was when I came back after it was I ended up being 153 00:13:16,160 --> 00:13:20,470 over two years that I wanted to keep cycling ingrained in my life in some way, 154 00:13:20,480 --> 00:13:21,650 in some way, shape or form. 155 00:13:22,040 --> 00:13:28,279 And I was passionate about potentially energy and the two things sort of fused together and some of the interests I have now. 156 00:13:28,280 --> 00:13:32,080 But I would say there was no real direction involved in pre meditating. 157 00:13:32,300 --> 00:13:33,800 This definitely the ox bikes thing, 158 00:13:33,800 --> 00:13:41,060 but I decided I'd join the cycling team here at Oxford because I knew that having cycling almost every day for two years, 159 00:13:41,240 --> 00:13:46,790 those are the happiest two years of my life. And I genuinely felt that being outside helped that. 160 00:13:47,000 --> 00:13:50,959 And I think it's important to sort of paint a picture of what it looks like 161 00:13:50,960 --> 00:13:55,580 maybe cycling around the world and that there are these incredible times that 162 00:13:55,580 --> 00:14:02,810 you never forget the for the rest of your life and the people and the landscapes that just genuinely take your breath away and sort of inspire you. 163 00:14:03,170 --> 00:14:08,059 But there's also a lot of industrial estates and there are lots of camping next to border towns and truckies. 164 00:14:08,060 --> 00:14:10,610 And I have great times in truckers, but, you know, 165 00:14:10,820 --> 00:14:20,630 being woken up by some stinky camels truck I mean you go is back is not the most fun place to be and you do see the warts and all of everywhere, 166 00:14:20,870 --> 00:14:25,520 which I think gives you a really good and fair representation of of what you're seeing. 167 00:14:25,730 --> 00:14:29,570 The bicycle is a really humble way to get around. People interact with you differently because of it. 168 00:14:29,840 --> 00:14:34,159 And I just think that is a vehicle to sort of shows you sort of what it is this. 169 00:14:34,160 --> 00:14:37,700 But I was still happy. There were lots of times that were tough. They don't get me wrong. 170 00:14:37,760 --> 00:14:44,329 And and some lonely stretches like hugely lonely stretches especially honestly, though I never felt was lonely as that first trip. 171 00:14:44,330 --> 00:14:47,660 That second trip. Yeah. But but they were point was not because it was new or. 172 00:14:48,230 --> 00:14:56,930 I think so. Yeah, I think so. And also being in an environment where you're so overstimulated to really strip that back to to just a road in some, 173 00:14:56,930 --> 00:15:00,200 some pine forests is, is quite difficult. 174 00:15:00,200 --> 00:15:05,600 And I found the same when crossing some of the deserts, especially through through Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. 175 00:15:05,840 --> 00:15:08,389 You just go for days the sort of sensory deprivation, 176 00:15:08,390 --> 00:15:15,350 just not really seeing anything other than sand and camels and in Australia in the outback was maybe less so like that. 177 00:15:15,350 --> 00:15:21,140 But you know, it was just you chocolatey food on your bike and it's 300 miles to the next petrol station kind of thing. 178 00:15:21,680 --> 00:15:25,370 But, but what we wanted to say is that, you know, during all those times, 179 00:15:25,370 --> 00:15:28,849 even when it was tough, I still really was happy with where I was and what I was doing. 180 00:15:28,850 --> 00:15:32,600 I just felt like I was really doing whatever it was I needed to be doing in my life right now. 181 00:15:32,900 --> 00:15:38,120 And I think that it was just more the outlook of those places that you get from being on a bike 182 00:15:38,120 --> 00:15:42,379 and having given yourself this arbitrary goal of having to try and ride a bike to Sydney, 183 00:15:42,380 --> 00:15:48,890 which actually doesn't matter at all right there. What matters is I feel like I'm engaged in what's going on and the bike gave 184 00:15:48,890 --> 00:15:53,510 me that so that even when your days in industrial estates are still finished, they feeling happy and content. 185 00:15:53,510 --> 00:16:01,700 And I knew that if I had more of that in my life, I would still be able to look at the grey January days, hopefully with a little slice of sun. 186 00:16:01,910 --> 00:16:08,160 When I was doing something that was potentially less adventurous or adventurous in a different way, which could be a job or not my day. 187 00:16:08,510 --> 00:16:14,629 So that was really important for me to to bring the bike into my life. And it has become in some ways slightly an identity. 188 00:16:14,630 --> 00:16:22,520 I think I can see that. But but I think it's important to just sort of say that it was not something I grew up with or I'm, 189 00:16:22,550 --> 00:16:30,750 you know, I write for the team folks who my race for them. But I was not doing this when I was seven years old or was incredibly good when I was six. 190 00:16:30,960 --> 00:16:37,770 You. He just wasn't doing it at all. And it's just something has come about a new your mode of cycling is very much an endurance sport. 191 00:16:37,930 --> 00:16:41,370 It takes a lot of perseverance and kind of long distance thinking. 192 00:16:41,790 --> 00:16:46,650 And that also really just reminds me of how people approach kids and academic research. 193 00:16:47,040 --> 00:16:54,510 Do you find anything useful in in that type of thinking that helps you push through in your academic work, for example? 194 00:16:54,960 --> 00:17:00,840 Yeah, I think that I think that's a good point. Definitely. I think there's so many parallels and in many ways I feel that I have self doubt, 195 00:17:00,840 --> 00:17:06,930 one mode or project for another one in that this is just as an overarching thing. 196 00:17:07,170 --> 00:17:14,249 And yeah, I think, I think planning definitely in what I was doing, especially at the beginning, trying to work out things like that. 197 00:17:14,250 --> 00:17:18,240 But it's more just kind of having a yardstick to compare other things to. 198 00:17:18,570 --> 00:17:25,860 And I think that's just so refreshing that, okay, things are going bad if my materials or I don't know what I'm doing with it, 199 00:17:25,860 --> 00:17:29,190 but just kind of having some sort of yardstick of one, 200 00:17:29,550 --> 00:17:33,090 a comparison to what people's lives are actually like, you know, 201 00:17:33,150 --> 00:17:43,340 and understanding of how privileged that even I'm too cool to university and be here and kind of just see what other people have been going through. 202 00:17:43,350 --> 00:17:48,720 If you just do a small sort of lens of cycling through and talking to people, I think that perspective is massive. 203 00:17:49,530 --> 00:17:56,970 That's motivation for just trying to appreciate what's going on and take that most that walk around Oxford and go, Actually, life's pretty good. 204 00:17:57,210 --> 00:18:02,490 My material was just not working. But that's just that, right? It's not my it's not everything for me. 205 00:18:02,820 --> 00:18:04,110 I think that perspective is great. 206 00:18:04,290 --> 00:18:09,180 And then there are, I guess, sort of more personal qualities in terms of just trying to be a bit more patient with things. 207 00:18:10,200 --> 00:18:13,440 My golden rule in life at the moment is to try not to break things. 208 00:18:14,760 --> 00:18:17,960 When you write, when you rush things, you you can break things. 209 00:18:17,970 --> 00:18:21,050 That's a lot worse than taking your time over something. Yeah. 210 00:18:22,050 --> 00:18:27,780 So I guess there's a little bit of that in there as well. Yeah. I mean, you can talk about mental toughness and all those kind of things, 211 00:18:27,780 --> 00:18:34,769 but I think just the perspective on this isn't everything in my life and I'll be okay without it. 212 00:18:34,770 --> 00:18:39,330 And if it all goes horribly wrong, you'll find me somewhere in the Andes or the tent. 213 00:18:40,200 --> 00:18:42,149 Well, speaking of remote places, 214 00:18:42,150 --> 00:18:50,670 tell me about this moment where you found yourself in Montana and you met some young kid who somehow had a very big impact on your life. 215 00:18:50,700 --> 00:18:55,769 Yeah. So Jake. So Jake was from Montana and it was all part of that Silk Road experience. 216 00:18:55,770 --> 00:19:01,710 So I was actually in Kyrgyzstan, in Tajikistan, and it was England playing in the World Cup. 217 00:19:01,950 --> 00:19:03,750 And this kid from Montana, Jake, came around. 218 00:19:04,740 --> 00:19:12,210 And what's really interesting is that Charlie Boorman and Ewan McGregor did this motorbike series with a motorbike across the world to Mongolia, 219 00:19:12,480 --> 00:19:16,650 and it inspired generations of overland, as they call themselves, people. 220 00:19:16,650 --> 00:19:21,240 They drive cars, motorbike cycle to some extent, and they all do this trip. 221 00:19:21,240 --> 00:19:25,140 And it's kind of for a lot of people, and understandably so. It is a once in a lifetime thing. 222 00:19:25,380 --> 00:19:28,430 They save up loads of money for it for often, you know, 223 00:19:28,500 --> 00:19:32,459 decades and then decide to do this trip and they spend ages choosing their right 224 00:19:32,460 --> 00:19:38,160 bike and go off with a partner or a couple of friends and they ride these roads. 225 00:19:38,160 --> 00:19:42,569 And if you go into Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, it's extremely mountainous regions. 226 00:19:42,570 --> 00:19:47,280 It's something like 96% mountain in six months. They really struggle to grow like agricultural crops. 227 00:19:48,030 --> 00:19:51,080 But the mountains are incredible and you've got these plateaus at 4000 metres, 228 00:19:51,300 --> 00:19:56,220 you can sort of look down to the south across the Punch River and see the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan. 229 00:19:56,400 --> 00:20:01,500 And then you've got the Karakoram Mountains in Pakistan, and it's a really some really crazy regions around that. 230 00:20:01,920 --> 00:20:07,590 But they also revolve around this record, the Pamir Highway. And the mayor is the name they give to the mountains. 231 00:20:07,620 --> 00:20:13,140 The mountains. And it's sort of this journey that people do to Mongolia on on motorbikes. 232 00:20:13,350 --> 00:20:20,520 So they come in, you know, if we're going to stereotype, having done all of this research and have just got everything mapped out to the nth degree, 233 00:20:20,970 --> 00:20:26,850 and even though I talked about planning there, I very much kind of just drew three roads that I wanted to ride. 234 00:20:26,850 --> 00:20:30,059 The premier highway was one of them. The one is the Karakoram Highway through Pakistan. 235 00:20:30,060 --> 00:20:32,250 And then it's been all L.A. Highway in India, in the Himalayas. 236 00:20:32,250 --> 00:20:36,540 And I said, I just want to ride these three roads and then whatever else would just make sense from that. 237 00:20:36,540 --> 00:20:42,480 And what seems interesting. But these people come along with all this equipment and I've I've really planned this out properly. 238 00:20:42,600 --> 00:20:50,370 They really know what they're doing. And I met this kid, Jake, in a hostel who had been motor biking around this area for about six weeks. 239 00:20:50,370 --> 00:20:55,620 What do you say, kid? How old is he? He was 17 and he had he was there on his own, on his own. 240 00:20:55,680 --> 00:21:01,120 And he had flown from Montana, having worked on his parent's farm to Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, 241 00:21:01,170 --> 00:21:07,590 had gone into a market and bought a motorbike for 1000 US of a Scottish guy and had said he'd 242 00:21:07,590 --> 00:21:12,000 only written a motorbike three times and had written some of the gnarliest roads around. 243 00:21:12,360 --> 00:21:16,319 And not only that, he'd gone back and forth through these remote valleys. 244 00:21:16,320 --> 00:21:22,380 So often people would just ride one of them because it doesn't make sense to zigzag, but he just decided to ride all of them. 245 00:21:22,740 --> 00:21:28,710 And it just it just really took a step back for me because he he didn't know how to fix most bye at all. 246 00:21:28,950 --> 00:21:32,590 And I said, well. What happens if something goes wrong? 247 00:21:32,980 --> 00:21:36,710 You had one spanner with it. Show me the Spanish. It wasn't even adjusted. 248 00:21:36,740 --> 00:21:41,110 Justin Bag. Or is it a rucksack? Rucksack? A little rucksack, not a leather jacket. 249 00:21:41,110 --> 00:21:47,409 There was no biker, so he was just this kid and he had this motorbike people for a thousand us and a spanner and that was it. 250 00:21:47,410 --> 00:21:53,530 And he'd done all of the most remote valleys in the premier highway basically that all these people were talking about and you know, 251 00:21:53,530 --> 00:21:58,780 saying in hushed tones about how scary nervous they were with their crazy nice bikes and whatever. 252 00:21:59,080 --> 00:22:02,139 And I just love that mentality of he was just saying, Well, I'm going to work it out. 253 00:22:02,140 --> 00:22:07,390 If it goes wrong. I'll just wait until someone eventually comes. And I'm sure I would just just survive. 254 00:22:08,020 --> 00:22:10,990 I think he had a tent, but he was he was mainly just trying to go to hostels. 255 00:22:11,020 --> 00:22:16,750 But I just love that, that he was just saying, no, no, I'm just going to put myself there and I'm going to work it out. 256 00:22:16,960 --> 00:22:23,110 And I had done some of the craziest trips of anyone I'd heard or talked to in this valley, and he was 17. 257 00:22:23,110 --> 00:22:31,150 And it was just such a mentality that he had that revitalised my sort of whole revitalised me to try and not plan as much and just, 258 00:22:31,660 --> 00:22:36,100 okay, I don't need to be here, there and everywhere. And it was a combination of meeting him. 259 00:22:36,700 --> 00:22:41,889 It was two of the things that happened there actually. One was actually quite tragic, but the other was this. 260 00:22:41,890 --> 00:22:45,700 I met these Swiss bankers in again the hostel just on from the want to make Jack. 261 00:22:46,060 --> 00:22:48,850 And they were just saying, well, we know what are you doing? 262 00:22:48,850 --> 00:22:54,850 And I explained my trip and, you know, I was going to go home and study this great scheme potentially. 263 00:22:55,390 --> 00:22:57,640 And they just asked me why I why did I want to do that? 264 00:22:57,670 --> 00:23:02,530 And he said, look, I'm with where they were pretty like 40, 30 years older than me at the time. 265 00:23:02,530 --> 00:23:07,090 They said, you know, we've worked all our lives to be able to afford to do this and take this time off work. 266 00:23:07,360 --> 00:23:12,580 If I was you, I would just keep going until you can't beg, borrow or steal any more money to keep to keep doing this. 267 00:23:12,790 --> 00:23:14,770 And those two things really changed things for me. 268 00:23:14,920 --> 00:23:20,260 I ended up not taking the route I pre-planned and ended up just doing a massive loop around Southeast Asia. 269 00:23:20,620 --> 00:23:26,319 When I got to Sydney, I decided I didn't want to end the trip there and just carried on and ended up cycling through New Zealand in South America, 270 00:23:26,320 --> 00:23:29,770 which is where I had some of the most enjoyable parts of my life. 271 00:23:30,160 --> 00:23:34,059 And I just think that sort of idea that you work out is really important. 272 00:23:34,060 --> 00:23:39,280 But if you don't put your name in the ring or put your name in the hat to go in the ring, then you you'll never be that right. 273 00:23:39,490 --> 00:23:41,500 And I just loved that, that he was he was doing that. 274 00:23:41,710 --> 00:23:49,240 And it sat amongst this backdrop of what was quite a crazy emotional time, because riding the Silk Road, there was a lot of sort of desert regions. 275 00:23:49,990 --> 00:23:52,059 There's a lot of really incredibly friendly people. 276 00:23:52,060 --> 00:23:58,900 And I would say to anyone who's travelling in Muslim countries that just the door is always open to them because it's just so, 277 00:23:59,230 --> 00:24:04,300 so friendly and welcoming. But the sad thing to happen to kind of frame this and. 278 00:24:05,360 --> 00:24:10,669 Just in a more poignant way was this road, the premier highway. It borders Afghanistan. 279 00:24:10,670 --> 00:24:16,910 So we generally would cycle along the road ten metres away from Afghanistan, across the Pines River, and you could talk to the people there. 280 00:24:17,030 --> 00:24:20,840 Not that I could really say very much, but it was just this great connection. 281 00:24:21,590 --> 00:24:23,330 But unfortunately, in previous years. 282 00:24:24,300 --> 00:24:31,310 It had been a prime opium smuggling route for the Taliban and people had had warning shots fired at them and those types of things in years gone by. 283 00:24:31,320 --> 00:24:38,760 But there had never been any trouble because generally the people are very nice and there's been a huge crackdown from the Turkish army on the border. 284 00:24:38,760 --> 00:24:45,120 But also this was a time where the UK, the states and other countries were present in Afghanistan, 285 00:24:46,440 --> 00:24:50,430 but there was the rise of ISIS and there were some radicalisation that went on 286 00:24:51,180 --> 00:24:55,980 and unfortunately there is now unfortunately there's a strong cycling community, 287 00:24:56,220 --> 00:25:02,460 but there was a couple called Lauren and Jake who I got to know through Instagram who was cycling in Africa when I was doing my trip, 288 00:25:02,910 --> 00:25:06,150 and we became just sort of friends through that and would write to each other. 289 00:25:06,330 --> 00:25:11,870 And then I found out when I was cycling along the road that whilst I was there I didn't have any internet connection. 290 00:25:12,030 --> 00:25:19,980 They had flown to Kyrgyzstan and started cycling on the road back and we met in this valley on a plateau, having had no idea each other were there. 291 00:25:20,100 --> 00:25:23,150 And it was a very amazing experience to just finally meet them. 292 00:25:23,200 --> 00:25:27,510 And we kept messaging because I'd written the road that they were riding and likewise they'd done the same. 293 00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:32,160 But unfortunately I still getting messages from them about a week or two after this. 294 00:25:32,580 --> 00:25:41,970 And what happened was a tragic event where some young teenagers had been radicalised by ISIS across Afghanistan, one assumes, 295 00:25:42,330 --> 00:25:52,020 and had come and run them all down, including another couple and another guy behind them and had come out with knives and killed them. 296 00:25:52,020 --> 00:25:57,030 And it became this huge story in Tajikistan and something that really rocked the cycling community. 297 00:25:57,240 --> 00:26:00,479 And I had quite a lot of journalists asking me for more details. 298 00:26:00,480 --> 00:26:06,630 I didn't I didn't have. But I ended up reading a lot of the things that Lauren AJ had spoken about and written on their blog. 299 00:26:06,970 --> 00:26:13,790 And I just thought, Oh, really? So give this sort of zest for life that, you know, that I was morbidly thinking, if I'm going to go next. 300 00:26:13,800 --> 00:26:16,620 But but more just like, you know, right here, right now, 301 00:26:16,630 --> 00:26:23,520 I really feel like I'm doing something that for me is makes me really happy and is really important and that they probably, 302 00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:27,089 if there's any way to go, is doing something like that for them. 303 00:26:27,090 --> 00:26:32,340 And I think that combined with this that these as in from Jake's just with his Spanish going off and writing 304 00:26:32,340 --> 00:26:37,350 after and the last episode of Jake was him going into Afghanistan on his bike to ride up to some like, 305 00:26:37,350 --> 00:26:38,610 you know, it was just incredible. 306 00:26:38,610 --> 00:26:43,770 And then and then these bankers that kind of gave that sort of elderly perspective on everything and that combination was so great, 307 00:26:43,980 --> 00:26:48,660 genuinely did change, I think me and my perspective on what I wanted to do and, 308 00:26:48,870 --> 00:26:55,230 and to try and just just live a little bit more and you know, you come back to the UK and you appreciate so many things, 309 00:26:55,530 --> 00:27:04,439 but you also have perspective on maybe sort of social structures that are in place and where they often push you to do things in this. 310 00:27:04,440 --> 00:27:11,459 BLOCK Yeah, grand scheme kind of thinking. I'm not saying I've broken the mould I definitely fall straight back into when I'm here, 311 00:27:11,460 --> 00:27:15,330 but hopefully have some perspective in those three events in that place, 312 00:27:15,330 --> 00:27:19,620 combined with just the incredible friendliness from people where, you know, for instance, 313 00:27:19,620 --> 00:27:22,439 I was sick and stayed in someone's garden for three days, you know, like I. 314 00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:27,210 Can you imagine someone doing that here and knocking on your door in southern Oxfordshire where I am anyway, 315 00:27:27,270 --> 00:27:31,079 and saying, Hey there, or if I can be in your garden and I just like that is incredible. 316 00:27:31,080 --> 00:27:36,050 And I genuinely happen many times and I think that whole sort of melting pot of 317 00:27:36,090 --> 00:27:39,870 riding the Silk Road was just this incredible point of perspective for me that yeah, 318 00:27:39,870 --> 00:27:42,810 I can hopefully I can draw on hopefully in the future. Yeah. 319 00:27:43,080 --> 00:27:49,380 I find it so interesting that we do live in such a well, well-structured and comparatively safe community. 320 00:27:49,650 --> 00:27:54,270 But the amount of fear that we have between strangers is like incomparable. 321 00:27:54,510 --> 00:27:56,159 And then if you think of an experience like that, 322 00:27:56,160 --> 00:28:02,250 the fact that you can come away with it and you don't feel deterred from having these kind of out of the box experiences is great. 323 00:28:02,730 --> 00:28:07,500 Yeah, I totally agree. I think what we do. 324 00:28:08,590 --> 00:28:13,629 Really well, always we adjust to our surroundings and I think there is this sort of level of 325 00:28:13,630 --> 00:28:18,010 background fear that people have and it would just be applied to something else. 326 00:28:18,490 --> 00:28:23,200 Well, we have this this this thing of, you know, what is suffering is the wrong word necessarily. 327 00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:27,320 But I think maybe for lack of a better one, it kind of fits in there, too. 328 00:28:28,570 --> 00:28:35,710 But but in terms of fear, I think we always fear things, but the repercussions of which could be vastly different depending on where you grow up. 329 00:28:36,040 --> 00:28:41,409 But the thing is, you will adjust to that so that if you were going somewhere probably now in Tajikistan, 330 00:28:41,410 --> 00:28:47,230 that area probably is going to be a prime opium smuggling route and there probably will be a lot more dangerous for the people that live there. 331 00:28:47,500 --> 00:28:53,500 They may now fear genuine, not being able to afford anything for their children and the welfare of their kids. 332 00:28:53,860 --> 00:28:57,790 And that fear would take up a huge amount of of their time. 333 00:28:58,750 --> 00:29:01,000 And that's, you know, fear with the repercussion is really high. 334 00:29:01,390 --> 00:29:07,990 And then we or, you know, there are probably people here that fear other things, maybe not to that degree, 335 00:29:07,990 --> 00:29:16,809 but to a disproportionately high amount, which may be looking silly in front of a class or, you know, and, you know, you can't legitimise them. 336 00:29:16,810 --> 00:29:22,540 They are if you feel like that, you feel like that. Yeah. I think we just appearance is disproportionate to what the repercussions are. 337 00:29:22,540 --> 00:29:26,140 Right. You know, you know, social structure. I think that's really interesting to see. 338 00:29:26,440 --> 00:29:32,530 And and the same with sort of putting yourself through some sort of hardship and maybe hardships a better way. 339 00:29:33,010 --> 00:29:37,839 And and for me, one of the reasons I really liked cycling was that you could go out for even 340 00:29:37,840 --> 00:29:42,610 here in the winter for two or 3 hours and feel like you're on death's door, 341 00:29:42,610 --> 00:29:49,350 you know, because you're so cold and genuinely disgruntled that when you come back, just a bit of warmth and a cup of tea makes you feel amazing. 342 00:29:49,360 --> 00:29:55,750 Yeah. And I think that is a healthy reset to what is living in the most incredibly privileged place, 343 00:29:55,960 --> 00:29:59,860 studying amongst amazing people and just being safe day to day. 344 00:29:59,950 --> 00:30:03,580 Yeah, it to some extent can help. Yeah, certainly. 345 00:30:04,240 --> 00:30:09,880 And just bringing things kind of close to home again. I can imagine that that that sort of. 346 00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:20,000 Attitudes towards risk and safety also plays into how you might approach your own, you know, your own company, your own initiative like ARX Bikes, 347 00:30:20,360 --> 00:30:22,069 because obviously there are, you know, 348 00:30:22,070 --> 00:30:26,809 there are risks and things involved in that and it's maybe disproportionate if you compare it to something else. 349 00:30:26,810 --> 00:30:33,230 But it's still I can imagine at least that you still have the same attitude of like, well, if I don't try it, then I'm never going to know, right? 350 00:30:33,740 --> 00:30:37,190 Hundred percent. Yeah. And it's now become hugely successful for you guys. 351 00:30:37,550 --> 00:30:43,970 Hopefully it's, it's going in the right direction, but, but for sure and it's putting yourself out there in a different way. 352 00:30:43,970 --> 00:30:50,000 You know, there's generally a fear of it failing. Yeah. And and also just the fear of offering something that's bad. 353 00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:59,209 And every time there is an issue with the bicycle is something that, you know, genuinely makes me sad and I want to try and help and fix that. 354 00:30:59,210 --> 00:31:01,250 And we're trying to make better systems for it. 355 00:31:01,430 --> 00:31:07,370 But for sure, there's, there's definitely this element of of trying and failing or the fate of fear of failure. 356 00:31:07,370 --> 00:31:10,489 But it's almost putting yourself in. Well, kind of. 357 00:31:10,490 --> 00:31:16,010 Why not? This is taking is it was kind of like why not like see why not just put yourself in a situation. 358 00:31:16,100 --> 00:31:21,020 Yeah. So then talk me through your third and final pivot point of being in London. 359 00:31:21,020 --> 00:31:27,470 And you had this moment where all of these messages just started coming into you, and that's when you knew that ox bikes was really onto something. 360 00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:33,259 Yeah, it's maybe not as exotic as the other two points is the crazy story behind it, but. 361 00:31:33,260 --> 00:31:42,380 But essentially, yeah, to put it in context, I got involved in those bikes back in my second year in Michaelmas then, and it was just, 362 00:31:42,590 --> 00:31:47,660 you know, we literally had got some bikes from Trinity College and were kind of just checking them over and then selling them. 363 00:31:48,200 --> 00:31:53,989 And then in June we started to have this website, but it still didn't have any proper code behind it. 364 00:31:53,990 --> 00:31:59,209 And I just scrambled together a piece of code that stopped us selling duplicate bikes because that's a real pain. 365 00:31:59,210 --> 00:32:02,690 And when you sell the same bike five times that it's always one bike is better than the others. 366 00:32:02,930 --> 00:32:06,409 So that's kind of the level we started at was really, really basic. 367 00:32:06,410 --> 00:32:12,229 We just decided and then and then yet we went on to having having, you know, 368 00:32:12,230 --> 00:32:17,900 Hungarian families coming and renting out with these bikes and this fear of like it being, it being a bad product, I guess. 369 00:32:18,140 --> 00:32:26,540 But in the last few months I went and did a a collaboration project up in Lancaster, and at that time it was a crazy period. 370 00:32:26,540 --> 00:32:33,860 The Queen died. And then we got a call from someone saying, Hey, I've seen an advert on Facebook, I'd like to invest in OCS bikes. 371 00:32:34,220 --> 00:32:39,350 And we were just, oh my goodness, really? Like someone wants to invest. And we had a few calls and he gave us some money for it. 372 00:32:40,490 --> 00:32:45,229 And at that point, you know, the goal was to try buy 100 more bicycles, do them, 373 00:32:45,230 --> 00:32:50,660 make sure they're in good functioning order, and then start to sell them and rent them basically. 374 00:32:51,020 --> 00:32:58,190 And this is, you know, tripling our fleet at the time and really going somewhere more professional than we'd ever been before. 375 00:32:58,250 --> 00:33:00,620 And we've managed to get someone from Imperial to help programme stuff. 376 00:33:00,620 --> 00:33:04,969 But what happened on the day of the marathon was I was on the bus and I get notifications. 377 00:33:04,970 --> 00:33:07,730 Whenever someone makes it we make it a rental or sale. 378 00:33:08,600 --> 00:33:16,400 And I was only a ten minute bus journey and I think all of the people seem to culminate in one bus and my phone, which is buzzing the whole time, 379 00:33:16,640 --> 00:33:18,440 I just couldn't believe what happened, 380 00:33:18,440 --> 00:33:25,819 that this many people were actually interested in this funky little website that we made that they wanted to sell from us. 381 00:33:25,820 --> 00:33:32,719 And then at that point it was evident, okay, we didn't have a good website and you know, we really weren't advertising it any way. 382 00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:37,970 Marketing was nil. We just had this little website called Ox Bikes. It's called ox bikes because someone took ox bike. 383 00:33:38,600 --> 00:33:41,839 And and it really was like like that. 384 00:33:41,840 --> 00:33:43,819 It was just kind of us pulling things together. 385 00:33:43,820 --> 00:33:50,630 And by the end of that journey, it was we sort of sat down, we got this well, this is now something, you know, because before that point, 386 00:33:50,660 --> 00:33:57,940 talk about taking the risk is I was worried this, you know, initially that this investor was maybe wasting their money in some senses. 387 00:33:57,950 --> 00:34:01,819 You know, why were they coming in and doing this? And I think completely vindicated at that point. 388 00:34:01,820 --> 00:34:05,360 If we could just hold things together, make it work, like we would be able to get somewhere with it. 389 00:34:05,720 --> 00:34:11,250 And hopefully it does help students. And I'm genuinely helped by wastage in Oxford to keep things. 390 00:34:11,270 --> 00:34:14,839 I think it does. So what's next for ox bikes? What's next? 391 00:34:14,840 --> 00:34:16,520 Strokes bikes? Yeah, that's a great question. 392 00:34:17,600 --> 00:34:22,610 Well, actually, when we were initially doing this podcast, I was pitching at the side business school here, 393 00:34:22,610 --> 00:34:27,470 Oxford, for some more funding and there's a few ways you want to go with that. 394 00:34:28,550 --> 00:34:33,320 We're trying to get into more colleges. So at the moment we've we've got quite a few more depots coming, which is great. 395 00:34:33,680 --> 00:34:39,350 And the idea is to go to Cambridge by the by the end of this academic year is we are setting 396 00:34:39,350 --> 00:34:42,500 up at the moment in Cambridge to go because you're going to have to change the name. 397 00:34:42,920 --> 00:34:49,780 Yeah. So the actual overall company now is called bike B Wiki. 398 00:34:49,940 --> 00:34:55,190 Nice. And that's going to so have we have a bike and then owns bikes is going to be part of that. 399 00:34:55,310 --> 00:34:58,549 Yeah. And then we're going to have it equivalent Cambridge bike bikes. 400 00:34:58,550 --> 00:35:02,209 Yeah, exactly. Right. So so yeah. 401 00:35:02,210 --> 00:35:09,200 That's kind of the idea is to do those things. But, but you know, if I was to think and wish in the future is I love this idea of. 402 00:35:10,120 --> 00:35:13,660 Nailing down Oxford and Cambridge and really supplying what is a good service for students, 403 00:35:13,870 --> 00:35:20,590 kind of by students and having it be this ecosystem where people can learn about how to be part of a company and how these small, 404 00:35:20,770 --> 00:35:26,410 small enterprises work and get skills that are not available endemically when also in some money. 405 00:35:27,130 --> 00:35:33,410 But that's so useful because I feel like that's the kind of thing that you just don't learn in an academic setting and there's no way to learn it. 406 00:35:33,430 --> 00:35:36,460 Exactly. Exactly. And just doing it is really nice. 407 00:35:36,470 --> 00:35:41,470 You know, I've just come from the Wolfson workshop at the moment where I got really good 408 00:35:41,470 --> 00:35:46,000 friend and colleague Tom and another person who's just started Tilghman, 409 00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:50,079 and we just talking through these things and they're really excited in the moment helping us check bikes. 410 00:35:50,080 --> 00:35:58,030 And we can hopefully get them doing a bunch of meetings and setting up things like is exciting and that's hopefully going to be the sort of note. 411 00:35:58,030 --> 00:36:01,420 But if I was to to wish for what it could be in the future, 412 00:36:01,660 --> 00:36:08,880 it would be sort of like an Airbnb of bicycles where you're going to a different city and you know, 413 00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:15,400 the classic ones, Amsterdam to Copenhagen or maybe even Barcelona. And you're going there and you want to rent a bike not just for an hour or two. 414 00:36:15,610 --> 00:36:18,130 You want to rent it for a day or a week or something like that. 415 00:36:18,550 --> 00:36:25,930 And anyone who lives in that city can post their spare bikes on this app in a very much same way as Airbnb. 416 00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:29,170 The good people get rewarded with good reviews kind of thing, and you can go there and say, 417 00:36:29,170 --> 00:36:32,890 okay, and they just drop their bike off Iraq with a good lock on it a couple hours before, 418 00:36:32,980 --> 00:36:39,280 and you can pick it up and then bring it back and then kind of have this exchange of I do travel by bicycle in different 419 00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:45,009 cities and not just a city bike where you have to drop off of the depot or you can have your bike touring company, 420 00:36:45,010 --> 00:36:49,719 you've got your bike shop that has rental bikes already, but how even to find them? 421 00:36:49,720 --> 00:36:54,549 Often the websites are clunky and you know, it would be great to connect those people up in that sort of way. 422 00:36:54,550 --> 00:36:58,690 So that's kind of maybe an overarching dream of what it could be. 423 00:36:58,720 --> 00:37:01,840 Yeah, but at the moment we're just trying to provide a good service for students. 424 00:37:02,170 --> 00:37:09,670 I think that's such a great idea. And it's always one of the one of those ideas that's so great and so good that it's like, has nobody done that yet? 425 00:37:10,090 --> 00:37:13,720 Yeah. And I think the main thing is people focus on short term transport. 426 00:37:13,810 --> 00:37:18,700 Yeah. And like drivers and the voice and stuff and that's, that's how they generally will be. 427 00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:22,480 Yeah. So yeah, we will see that at the moment it's just trying to try and somehow get it. 428 00:37:23,290 --> 00:37:28,190 Yes. Keeps keep cycling and yeah. Make sure works place does and how much longer do we have you here. 429 00:37:28,210 --> 00:37:32,890 Awesome. So I'm I will have to finish it right up in October 24. 430 00:37:33,040 --> 00:37:37,590 So I still got quite a bit of time. Yeah. Yeah. So if you need it needing a bike, Femke, we can we can have got. 431 00:37:37,610 --> 00:37:40,900 Perfect. Sounds good. Thank you very much. Better. Thank you very much for having me.