One day in the fall of 2022 I woke up and told my wife that I was going to start a podcast.

From my perspective this declaration came completely out of the blue. But, I was surrounded by inspiration. My amazing wife is an incredible Naturopathic Doctor who has spent incalculable hours developing her Thrive Menopause business. This has included becoming adept at social media, web design, course development, and for a time a podcast.

Ignoring the tremendous wealth of resources she had accrued, painstakingly developed and become at an expert at, I decided that a podcast couldn’t be too hard and that I could probably start right away. So, that day, or maybe the next, I began telling people I was going to start a mountain bike podcast.

I had no idea how to do it. I knew no one in the industry. I had no discernible skillset or reason for thinking I could pull it off. Well, there was one thing. I had what I, and my younger sister Karen, refer to as Half an Idea. I usually share my Half an Idea with smarter, more capable friends to get a sense from them as to whether it’s worth exploring. Remarkably, these friends, knowing I had no skill set at all, agreed that it was an idea worth exploring. So, then I broadened my scope and began telling people in the Mountain Biking World that I was going to start a podcast. They all seemed interested too. Paul from Elevation MTB even asked if I had a card. Dang, this was getting serious. Maybe too serious.

Let’s get some stickers made. Stickers aren’t serious, they’re fun.

Then I built a website. Another thing I’d never done. You’ve got to have social media, so I started an Instagram account for the first time ever. Then, rather than focus on 1, 2 or 3 things I had no knowledge of, I also started a YouTube channel. Notice I haven’t mentioned the podcast in a while. Turns out Podcasts are hard. Let’s put a pin in that.

Somewhere along the way I remembered that I have three other skillsets that lend themselves to this project. One, I don’t mind putting in the work. Two, I often have lots of time on my hands. Three, I’m generally affable and capable of carrying on a conversation. What do you do with that skill set? What you do is travel around the province talking to people on camera about their life on two wheels. The rest will sort itself out.

And it kind of is sorting itself out. Maybe I tried a Pro Line when I should have stuck to the Green Runs a couple of times, but those mistakes are what makes a good story. So every misstep and reposted video is a part of the on-going story of ONtrail.

I hope you like this Half and Idea.

Check out the ONtrail Interviews and Hot Laps on our website ontrail.ca.

Oh, and I’ve got half an idea to turn the videos into a podcast.