Category Archives: Interviews

Firefly’s Kevin Wolfson: Carving a Place in Boston Bike Builder History

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Firefly founders (L-R) Kevin Wolfson, Jamie Medeiros, and Tyler Evans. Photo from Firefly Bicycles flickr.

When Firefly Bicycles came onto the scene in 2011, the cycling world quickly took notice of their colorful anodizes graphics and clean titanium welds. The three founders, Jamie Medeiros, Tyler Evans, and Kevin Wolfson launched Firefly after jumping ship from Independent Fabrications when the company announced plans to move its operations to New Hampshire. In the years since launching, Firefly has established itself among the upper tiers of custom frame builders. I spoke to Kevin about the company and their frame building philosophies, their backgrounds with I.F. and beyond, American frame building’s deep roots in New England, and more.

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Repost: Ellee Thalheimer, Oregon’s Bike Touring Authority


Ellee on tour. Photo via author’s website.

This interview with guidebook author Ellee Thalheimer was originally published in July 2012. I am reposting it to celebrate the release of her new Washington state bike touring guidebook Cycling Sojourner: A Guide to the Best Multi-day Tours in Washington! Click here to purchase your own copy of this awesome book.

Portland, OR’s Ellee Thalheimer is an author, freelance travel writer, and avid bike tourist. Her newest book, Cycling Sojourner, is a guide to multi-day, self-supported touring in Oregon, the only one of its kind for the state. I reviewed the book last month then finally got a chance to talk to Ellee as she wrapped up her book tour and some exploratory bike touring for another potential touring guide. We spoke about her past experiences touring nationally and abroad, her background in writing, her process for Cycling Sojourner, and more.

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Cosmo Catalano: the Snarky, Outsider Voice of Professional Racing

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Cosmo on the set of The Week In Bike, AKA his home office. Screengrab from YouTube.

As with any industry, cycling media is often defined by its relationships to advertisers. Punches are pulled, criticisms dulled, and praise amplified resulting in the maintenance of the status quo. Cyclocosm’s Cosmo Catalano stands among the notable exceptions. An industry outsider, he’s emerged as a sharp race analyst and unabashed critic of the problems he sees in professional racing. His weekly video series How The Race Was Won breaks down the intricacies of major professional road races. The Week In Bike examines and critiques the goings on of professional teams, the UCI, smaller races and more. Both are done with a trademark snarky humor. I spoke with Cosmo about his work with Cyclocosm over the past nine years, his evolution as a race analyst, his own forays into bike racing, the ongoing problems in pro cycling, and much more.

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Sarai Snyder: Connecting the Pieces to Get More Women on Bikes

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Photo by Michele Zebrowitz.

Cycling in the United States has a pervasive gender gap. Solid numbers are hard to come by, but some studies suggest that there as many as two or three men riding for every one woman on a bike. A search of “cycling’s gender gap” brings up a slew of articles theorizing the root cause, from gear to safety issues to infrastructure to socioeconomics. In the last few years, the conversation on why there’s a gap and how to address it has been elevated–if not to the mainstream, then certainly a lot closer to it. Accompanying efforts are popping up around the country to help get more women on bikes. National, state, and local advocacy groups are launching women’s initiatives. A new documentary called Half the Road examines the current state of women’s professional cycling and their struggles for equality. This year’s Tour de France feature’s a one-day women’s circuit race on the Champs-Elysées (admittedly a baby step towards an equal Tour de France for women, but a step nonetheless).

Sarai Snyder is an active and prominent voice among these women’s cycling efforts. She is the founder of Girl Bike Love, an online publication dedicated to all aspects of women’s cycling, and Cyclofemme, an annual, global cycling event celebrating women and bikes. I spoke to Snyder about her work with Girl Bike Love and Cyclofemme, the opportunities and challenges she sees for advancing her cause, the potential power of unifying cycling’s separated voices, and much more.

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Donnie Kolb: Bikepacking the Oregon Backcountry with VeloDirt

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Donnie Kolb at the Cowboy Dinner Tree, a restaurant along the Oregon Outback route with 30oz steaks. Photo by Gabriel Amadeus. 

Simply stated, bikepacking is backpacking on a bike. Rather than using touring bikes with panniers, bikepackers use mountain bikes with frame and seat bags that allow them to maintain agility on singletrack trails. And though people have been using bikes to explore trails and dirt roads for about as long as bikes have existed, bikepacking’s popularity has skyrocketed in the past several years with new races and events popping up all over the country and long running events seeing record participation. In Oregon, Donnie Kolb is a central figure in the bikepacking world. In his own words he is, “spreading the gospel of dirt and gravel riding throughout the Pacific Northwest.” His website VeloDirt serves as a resource for bikepacking and gravel road routes throughout Oregon, a travel journal for Kolb’s adventure stories, and a hub for loosely-organized, semi-official bike events. In May, VeloDirt is putting on their largest ride yet, the Oregon Outback. It is a wild, 360-mile route tracing most of the distance of the state south to north. I spoke to Kolb about the history of VeloDirt, his love for bikepacking adventures, the unexpected popularity of the Oregon Outback, and the future of bikepacking in Oregon and beyond.

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