Monday, January 18, 2016

The Radio Ranch Rides Again

A view from Masie's route
 When thinking about gravel rides in Kansas, the Dirty Kanza 200 comes up right away, and you could be forgiven if you thought that was the only event on gravel in Kansas. Obviously, that is not the case at all. In fact, there are plenty of events in Kansas on gravel that deserve your attention. (For more Kansas gravel events and others besides those across the nation, see RidingGravel.com's event pages.)

One of these events that has always intrigued me is "Gravel Ride For Masie's Pride", which, besides the strange name, is an event that also happens to use the Flint Hills as their playground. I'll spare you all the details here because my partner, Ben, and I just wrapped up and published a great podcast about the event with it's founder and director, "Uncle Dudley". Check that out by clicking HERE.

This post will be more about the getting of this show back up and going again after about seven months of being dormant. It wasn't our intentions to have let things go this far. However; there are a couple of reasons, in my opinion, for why this all happened the way it has.


The first thing is that Ben is the founder and head honcho of Mountain Bike Radio, which is the entity that hosts and produces the Riding Gravel Radio Ranch. Now MBR.com has tons of great podcasts. While Ben doesn't have to shepherd them all, he has a busy time riding herd on the ones that he does have a direct hand in. That takes a lot of time. Secondly, Ben and his family moved during the time we were off, and that interrupted things a bit. Then it got to be Summer, we both got busy with other stuff, and next thing ya know, it is Fall.

I was doing everything I could during the Fall to squeeze in some review work before Winter came. Doing a Radio Ranch show wasn't on my radar then. So, I wasn't really even thinking this would happen again. I mean, maybe someday, it would, but I was not thinking very positively about it. That was until Uncle Dudley got a hold of me and asked if doing a podcast might be possible. So, I'm blaming him for all of this getting cranked up again.

The result was that it did get cranked up again.  I was glad to find out we were getting the generators dusted off, plugging the mics in, and doing sound checks. I happen to enjoy doing these, and I sure hope folks like listening to the podcasts. Hopefully we won't be letting things slip into forgetfulness again, and another Radio Ranch podcast will happen again sooner than later.



6 comments:

Wally said...

Never cared for podcasts. I just have a tough time embracing them. I'm asked all the time to do them since I have the equipment and studio but I just walk away. Not my bag.

Guitar Ted said...

@Wally: Ben tells me it is one of the hottest formats for folks to get web-based content from. Kind of a "talk radio" for millennials, I guess.

Unknown said...

Their popularity depends on who you talk to. One of the video producers here tells me the sam thing in our monthly creative get togethers. I ask for proof, show me numbers and he can't. Just word of mouth.
Podcasts to me are just not a viable news worthy medium. Too "Wayne's World" for me. I'd never consider a podcaster as credentialed. Most of the one's I have heard sound just like a expect too.

Guitar Ted said...

@Wally- Well, while I can't give you any numbers, I know Ben has chatted me up and has given specific figures for how things are growing. He runs Mountain Bike Radio and so he pays pretty close attention to it all.

But it isn't everyone's cup of tea, i get that.

Andy said...

I basically listen to podcasts 12 hours a day. I can do it while I'm at work so I keep my brain entertained during the day. I listen to Radiolab, Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Star Talk Radio, Love+Radio, onBeing, etc etc. Lots of spirit and science stuff. Pod casts are great!

Mac said...

I can say that the first three Riding Gravel podcasts comprise fifty percent of my lifetime podcast listening.