This week on the Be Epic podcast Matt sits down with Brendan Quirk, CEO and President of USA Cycling, for a very special episode on all things cycling leading into the Cyclocross World Cup, which will be hosted October 14-16, 2022 in Fayetteville, Arkansas. They begin their discussion with Brendan recapping how his passion for cycling started at the age of 15, which led to him to open a small retail bike shop in Little Rock, Arkansas. The bike shop soon expanded thanks to their early foray into e-commerce and eventually it became the largest e-commerce cycling company in North America. The company was eventually acquired by backcountry.com. Following his experience in selling bikes, Brendan moved to the cycling apparel industry as the President of Rapha North America. He then transitioned to cycling program director at Runway Group to build the mountain biking trail and cycling ecosystem that we have in place in Northwest Arkansas today. Finally, he served as interim CEO of Allied Cycleworks on the cycling manufacturing side and then to his current role as Chief Executive Officer and President of USA Cycling, the non-profit governing body of the sport of bike racing in the United States.
Episode Transcript
Brendan Quirk 0:01
But where we are now in 2022 is we can take what we have in Northwest Arkansas, from
the mountain biking infrastructure standpoint, and from a mountain bike culture standpoint,
and we can put it up against anybody's in the world. It's it is absolutely transformative
what happens.
Matt Waller 0:17
Excellence, professionalism, innovation and collegiality. These are the values the
Sam M. Walton College of Business explores in education, business and the lives of
people we meet every day, I'm Mat Waller, Dean of the Walton College and welcome to
the Be Epic Podcast. I have with me today, Brendan Quirk, who is Chief Executive Officer
of USA Cycling. But he has a long history of leadership and entrepreneurship in sports,
the sports industry in cycling in particular. Thank you so much, Brendan, for taking
time to meet with me. I really appreciate it.
Brendan Quirk 0:57
My pleasure.
Matt Waller 0:59
So, Brendan, you, you know, people often say, follow your passion to some degree.
I actually don't say that a lot. Because if you're like me, you never know what your
passion is for sure. But clearly, you've done that. It seems like to me, am I right
about that?
Brendan Quirk 1:22
Oh, for sure. Yeah. To a fault. I followed my passion. And thankfully, it it worked
out. I guess I was lucky. You know, you go back to the stone ages of media. The first
time I ever saw a bike race was in 1986, a long time ago. That's back it certainly
pre internet, it was even pre cable TV. And I was 15 years old, flipping channels,
which back then was flipping through four channels, I think. It was on a Saturday
afternoon, and I stumbled across television coverage of the Tour de France. Never
had seen it. Never thought of that. You know, I was living in Little Rock. And I've
never even seen a big mountain before. Yeah, I've never been to Colorado, I've never,
never, never seen anything like that. And I came across the day of the big Alpine
state one of the days of the big Alpine stages of the Tour de France. And it's so
happens and you look back in history. 1986 is one of the most dramatic races that
the tour ever had. And I came across it. And it just hit me like a lightning bolt.
And it was like a religious experience. It's like, oh, man, this is the most beautiful,
amazing thing I've ever seen in my life. I need to figure this sport out. And I just
got obsessed with it starting back then when I was 15, then the obsession has never
stopped. And I'm so grateful. I was flipping the channels that afternoon.
Matt Waller 2:50
No kidding. You never know what you're gonna come across in life that that really
trips your trigger, so to speak. Back in Little Rock, back in 1999, you started a
retail bike shop. What you did too as you got into the e-commerce area of being a
bicycle retailer, which back in the early days was really unusual. Would you mind
talking about that a little bit?
Brendan Quirk 3:26
Yeah, we started a retail bike shop in the Hillcrest neighborhood of Little Rock.
I mean, this thing was the size of a shoebox, it was tiny. And, you know what, what
pure, like a lot of small business owners it was a function of my passion for, you
know, for this business for this industry. What what's interesting about having been
in Little Rock is that the bike market was not big at that point, you know what really
caused an explosion and cycling in America was Lance Armstrong becoming a phenomenon.
He won the Tour de France seven years in row and it started in 1998. We opened this
bike shop in the late 90s right around the time that that happened. And I would say
the cultural the broad cultural impact of Lance Armstrong a popular popularizing cycling
hadn't really happened yet in 1999. So the bike market was still small in Little Rock.
But because I was racing bikes, I was very passionate for high end bikes, exotic bikes,
exotic bike equipment, that kind of stuff you're not going to sell a lot of in Little
Rock. And so the guy who I started the bike shop with who is actually a U of A graduate,
his name is Craig Zediker. We we turned to the internet very early, that era of the
internet, you know, there was no such thing as a checkout path. No such thing as encrypted
credit cards. You literally could not do commerce on the internet at that point. Rather
what you had is the internet was kind of like Reddit, if you imagine Reddit with no
photos and no videos, these are listserv groups and you snap forums and this sort
of prehistoric social media. That's how we connected with people across America who
are passionate about cycling. And we started selling some high end bike goods off
your through these forums and through these groups. And what that gave me a lens into
is Matt, the national Bike market is pretty big for high end bike stuff. It's something
I really didn't have a view into through Little Rock. And so we we really started
to focus on that. And when you go into 2000 2001, when the first movement in e-commerce,
and this is ecommerce 1.0, when that started happening, you most of the national scale
bike retail that was being done was still through catalogs at that point. We're like,
you know what, there's a real opportunity here, we didn't use the phrase, first mover
advantage, but that's what we did. And we went all in on the internet. And we found
some great design firms, some great technology consultants, and we poured our heart
and soul into building a business called competitive cyclist. You fast forward from
2000 2001. When we started that, to 2011, what we ended up doing in Central Arkansas,
is building the largest e-commerce cycling company in North America. And it was one
of the three or four biggest in the world. And it was just the most improbable, incredible
journey. But we poured our heart and soul into it. We followed our passion and it
worked.
Matt Waller 6:26
Yeah, I love that story. Of course, I've I've known it for a while since I've known
you. But it is such a neat story. And to think that it happened right here. And then
of course, you sold the company to backcountry.com. That was a big deal. I mean, there
weren't a lot of e-commerce companies being sold in Arkansas.
Brendan Quirk 6:56
Yeah, no, I agree there were not and it was. So you know, it's so just full disclosure.
So I was a English major in college. And I do have a master's degree, but it's in
creative writing, not in business administration. And then Craig Zediker, who was
my co-founder of Competitive Cyclist, his degree from the U of A was in communications.
So you know, the amount of business know how that we had was not great. You know,
wherre we were really fortunate is that we had an incredible board of advisors from
across America that had the expertise that we didn't have that helped us, you know,
when we got to a point, if you remember, 2008 2009, the great American mortgage crisis,
you know, that that was a real wake up call for our business. It's like, okay, what,
you know, we are definitely selling discretionary goods here. And how do we ride the
wave of the economy? How do we manage this, because we never took outside capital
into the business, we relied on a great relationship with our bank, we relied on vendor
credit, as we became a kind of, as we become a bigger and bigger part of our vendors
lives, we could lean on them harder for better terms, that's really, we kind of cash
flowed and used debt to grow the business, never took outside capital. And we got
to a point when we got through 2008 2009, what we recognized, even during the mortgage
crisis, is that our customers are so passionate about cycling, that no matter what
else is going on in the economy, they were going to spend money on the thing that
they had the greatest passion for, which was their bikes. So we went into the mortgage
crisis saying, oh, man, are we in big trouble? And we actually got through it in pretty
good condition. But at that point, it was such a scare we recognized okay, you know,
we are basically personally guaranteeing everything having to do with this business,
We have no outside capital. We were growing so rapidly, that we weren't going to be
able to continue to cash flow and use debt to grow the business, we were going to
have to find a different means of growing. So as we and our board of advisors really
began to explore what those potential options were, backcountry.com came to us because
they were very successful in all sorts of outdoor verticals, especially skiing, because
they're based in Park City, you know, camping and hiking and trail running and all
these other, you know, rock climbing all these other verticals, they were very successful
at, but they really struggled in cycling. And they spent a lot of money and spent
several years trying to crack the code on it and they just couldn't do it. And so
I think they finally they, they became our biggest competitor. And I think it's the
classic, you know, build it or buy a conundrum for them and they decided to buy it.
And so, as we were beginning to explore how we were going to continue to get the capital
we needed to grow the business at the rate we were growing back country came to us.
And you know, as the classic story goes, they made us an offer we couldn't refuse,
and we sold the company. The thing that's fascinating about it is that at that time
back country was owned by Liberty Media, and Liberty Media, for those of you who are
fans of American capitalism, who I'm sure most of your podcast listeners are fans
of American capitalism. Liberty Media was founded by a guy named John Malone, who's
one of the most incredible modern day industrialists and investors, and in all of
America, and what was fascinating for me, imagine if you will, here I was knuckleheaded
kid, bike racer, liked modernist poetry in Little Rock, Arkansas, you go back to 2001,
when we started the business, fast forward to 2011 2012. When we sold the company,
I ended up serving on the executive team at backcountry.com, our board meetings were
held at Liberty Media, and at those board meetings was John Malone. And it's just
like mind blowing this journey that we went on, to be able to spend time and learn
from and be very intimidated by people like John Malone. It was an incredible journey,
and incredible crash course in business. And yeah, very, very grateful for it.
Matt Waller 11:10
You know, one thing, there's a lot of interesting things that you said, but one earlier
was, you know, you surrounded yourself, good leaders surround themselves with great
people, and you knew where your weaknesses were, and you surrounded yourself with
people that could really help you. And that, it takes a little bit of humility to
do that. You know, because none of us no matter even if you had an undergraduate degree
and an MBA, you still wouldn't be able to know everything you need to know about business
and doing, growing competitive cyclist and then selling it to back county just, there's
so many parts to that. It's pretty complicated.
Brendan Quirk 11:55
There's no sdoubt about it, one of my dearest friends, and the greatest business mentor
I ever had is a guy named Scott Kerslake, founder of a company called Athleta, which
I'm sure you've heard of, it's now the Gap. He was also the CEO of Prana, the yoga,
the yoga clothing company, it's very, very successful and had a lot of other business
success in his life. He is one of the most incredible, brilliant, amazing human beings
I've ever met. And I will tell you that the greatest stroke of luck that I had in
my business career was when I was introduced to him. And he was a cyclist. And he
just we hit it off. And he took an interest in this project that we have competitive
cyclist because I think he saw a lot of himself in a previous point in his life when
he was trying to grow Athleta, the interest that he took in me, and mentoring me and
really being a cornerstone of our board of advisors changed my life. And I still stay
in very close touch with him. And the the importance of mentorship, and you're right
humility, and being willing to listen to people who have stood in the shoes that you're
in right now to listen to them. And their lessons learned. Because everybody makes
mistakes. Everybody wishes they could go back in time and do things a little bit differently,
to be able to talk to those people and learn from them. And to get mentorship from
them is, if you can figure that out, I absolutely believe pretty much anything is
possible. And we were really the I was really the beneficiary of that. And our company
was as well.
Matt Waller 13:27
So you have surrounded yourself with some pretty amazing people. And earlier you mentioned
John Malone. He used to be known as the cable cowboy, I believe, is that right?
Brendan Quirk 13:39
That's correct.
Matt Waller 13:41
And you're right. He he was someone that really I don't know what he's doing now I've
but he was someone that really understood your point earlier the power of business
to make a huge difference positively for everybody. People think of the robber barons.
Brendan Quirk 14:07
Yeah.
Matt Waller 14:09
And that's really a false term. You know, there's actually a book called the myth
of the robber barons. If you really look at what these people did, it's pretty remarkable.
And we wouldn't be doing what we're doing today without them. But But yeah, John Malone
was clearly so you actually got to spend time with him.
Brendan Quirk 14:30
I, you know, it's, it's, I would say brief moments of time with I would say there
are two figures that I spent a little bit of time with that I remember vividly. One
is John Malone. And then one is the CEO of Liberty Media, a gentleman named Greg McBay,
who's another you know, titan of American industry, and it was brief the extended
time I spent was with their teams, but to get you know, just to talk business with
these guys, for even just a couple of minutes. They're so successful. They're such
big personalities that makes a big impression on you. And you're just to be part of
that, even at arm's length, that Liberty Media ecosystem. And the other companies
they owned, for me was a crash course, in was a crash course in e-dcommerce. Because
if you go back to that time that I'm talking about 2011 and 2012, the bet that Liberty
Media was making and a lot of other companies were making their own similar bets,
was what Amazon was trying to do what amazon.com was trying to do, which is being
all things to all people, and winning over, all, having their hands in every American's
wallet, through price, through convenience and through selection, that that wasn't
necessarily guaranteed to be the winning formula for Amazon back then. And what Liberty's
thesis was and why they had acquired back country and why we became part of that country
was a belief that specialty retail ultimately would win, expertise, and curated selection,
all of those things means more than price, selection and convenience. And I would
say now, 10 years later, what the market has determined is actually price, selection
and convenience wins. And specialty retail is secondary. And companies like Amazon
and their greatest competitor Walmart, they can deliver a specialty retail experience,
specialty retail insights through other means. But it was it was fascinating. You
go back to 2010 to 2011, Amazon was losing loads of money, they were still struggling
to acquire customers. And it was just a fascinating time to see e-commerce at that
era when so much change was going on. And for a lot of people now who look at Amazon
and just reflexively you know, it's prime buying this buying that or Walmart plus
buying this buying that you go back to 2010 2011 it was still the wild wild west of
e-commerce and lots of people had lots of ideas about what would win and so to be
within arm's length of that was just amazing to witness.
Matt Waller 17:21
Yes, indeed. So, you went from you were at back country as an executive for several
years and then you went to Rapha and became Rapha Racing Limited and became president
of Rapha North America. And this is like one of the great cycling apparel brands in
the world. How did
Brendan Quirk 17:48
the great
Matt Waller 17:49
the greatest. How did you how did you make that transition?
Brendan Quirk 17:55
So be a competitive cyclist we started selling Rapha back in 2005. And 2005 2006.
The first time Rapha was literally ever shown in the United States was a trunk show
in New York City. And the founder of the company, a guy named Simon Mottram, he and
I had a good friendship. And that trunk show in New York City was a group of people
who were friends of Simon because Rapha is based in London. And so it was a group
of Simon's friends in New York City. And then Simon asked me to invite some of our
best customers from New York City, some of our best competitive cyclists customers
to have this trunk show and we did. And it was, it was a real success. And that really
started the business relationship. There was a long period where competitive cyclist
was selling more Rapha in the United States than Rapha was and we grew and grew and
grew as Rapha kind of exploded in growth and as competitive cyclist group was just
a great relationship where we both really thrived together and increased our profile
as brands in the US cycling market. And I just always had a great relationship with
Simon, and go to the time when he and I started, I left back country in 2014, I had
a non compete, so I just spent a year goofing off. And which is not as much fun as
you would think, by the way, it's but it's a different conversation for for another
time, kind of goofed off for a year. And Simon got in touch and said, look, he said,
you know, we are kind of an overdrive in terms of growing, we feel like there's a
real opportunity over the next three years to really drive value in this business.
And then we think, you know, there's probably an opportunity for us to, you know,
take some chips off the table. So but one of the great one of the great challenges
we currently have in the businesses we want, we believe we are a global brand we want
to sell the company eventually when we sell it at is a global brand. But to sell it
as a global brand, we need to do more in the US, the US is not our sales aren't strong
enough, it's not a big enough percentage of our global business. And if you want to
sell, we want to sell this as a global business, we'd have to be just crushing it
in the US. So we need somebody to lead that that process of figuring out how we can
do more in the US. So that's why I was hired. The I would say the punchline of that
story, was that, I think what we thought at the beginning is there will be a lot of
US specific initiatives that would drive growth, drive brand awareness drive growth
in this market. I think what we learned very quickly was it actually was going to
be initiatives that drove the global business that would disproportionately impact
the US business. And the mostly, they were technology initiatives having to do with
the direct to consumer e-commerce experience in the US. And so that's really what
we worked on, we did two things, you know, we really invested in e-commerce experience.
And we also rapidly rolled out stores in the US. And we did what we aspire to do,
which was we really caused a spike in in, in the US market. And you know started a
process to sell the business in 2017. And we did so very successfully with a really
strong, strong global business, but really strong US business.
Matt Waller 21:22
Well, I mean, it's really interesting, too, because you had all this experience with
selling bikes, and e-commerce and then you really leveraged your knowledge for something
related to cycling, but different very different than bikes at Rapha. And then all
that knowledge, of course, led into you becoming the cycling program director for
Runway Group. And for those of you listening don't know Runway Group was founded by
Steuart and Tom Walton, which are the two of the four children of Jim and Lynn Walton.
Jim's the son of Sam Walton, but Tom and Steuart were wanting to drive economic development
and quality of life initiatives in in Northwest Arkansas. And they did that through
they are doing that through real estate, hospitality, outdoor recreation and many
others. But they hired you specifically to cultivate cycling in Northwest Arkansas.
Would you mind speaking to that a little bit?
Brendan Quirk 22:37
I think that first and foremost, Tom and Steuart are incredibly passionate cyclists.
I mean, that's what it all comes back to is that they have a love affair with with
bike riding as strong as anyone you'll ever meet. And I think that through their passion
for cycling. And this goes back to 2006 2007. They looked at Northwest Arkansas, and
what they saw was like a blank canvas. You know, they, Steuart had spent a lot of
time in California, Tom had spent a lot of time in New Mexico, they had done a lot
of mountain biking there, I think they would come back home. And they'd be like, Why
don't we have these trails here, what we experience, you know, on the front range,
or Flagstaff, you know, the terrain here is just tailor made for trails. There's a
lot of undeveloped, you know, beautiful land here where we can put trails. And wouldn't
it be amazing to help transform this community if we if we really started to become
known for a destination for mountain biking. And so I think it was the work that they're
doing more than anything else is based out of their personal passion for the sport
and the fact they want to share their passion for the sport with everybody in Arkansas
and Missouri and Texas and anybody else who drive to the trails. I think it's by happy
circumstance, that it has turned into a real cornerstone of the identity of Northwest
Arkansas. And I think that when you talk about the value proposition of why one of
your students in business school would want to remain in Northwest Arkansas for work,
why is someone that Walmart or Tyson or JB Hunt when they're recruiting people why
they would want to move here? I think all of a sudden one of the one of the really
compelling reasons why Northwest Arkansas is is that what's now it's just now it's
world class mountain biking is genuinely world class mountain biking is the caliber
of the trails, it is the quantity of the trails, and it's taken a long time for it
to get there. You know, if you think about the first trail was built back in 2007,
but where we are now in 2022 is we can take what we have in Northwest Arkansas from
a mountain biking infrastructure standpoint, and from a mountain bike culture standpoint,
and we can put it up against anybodies in the world. You could put it up against Durango,
Crested Butte, Park City, anyplace globally, for that matter. It's it is absolutely
transformative what's happened, and it's super improbable. But again, this is what
happens when you're just totally tenacious about chasing your passion. And, yeah,
it was exciting to be part of it. You know, it's not just mountain bike trail development.
You know, clearly they are very invested in cycling companies. When I was at Rapha.
It was RZC investments that's owned by Tom and Steuart. They're the ones who ultimately
bought Rapha. The Rapha North American headquarters is now based in Bentonville, their
investors in Allied, which is this amazing, cycle bike manual carbon fiber bike manufacturing
company that's based in Rogers. And they have other investments. They also were devoted
to a lot of public policy initiatives to make Arkansas as a state at the maximum level
of bike friendliness in terms of, for example, legislation around the legality of
e-bikes, and things like this. So it's really their work is really a three legged
stool. It's what they do philanthropically to build cycling infrastructure and to
support cycling nonprofits. It's what they're doing from a for profit investment standpoint
to really drive the startup culture and innovation culture around cycling in Northwest
Arkansas. And then lastly, is from a public policy standpoint, on which has really
focused on a local level and on a state level to make it so that Arkansas is the most
bike friendly state in America. They're really focused on all three of them, that
three legged stool.
Matt Waller 26:42
Well, and you're being very humble, you had a huge role to play in creating the vision
for this, and certainly mountain biking is huge. And but, you know, we've got all
these paved trails too, we didn't have any when I first moved here, and now you can
ride from Fayette South Fayetteville to Bella Vista almost to the Missouri border,
Brendan Quirk 27:06
You could ride from Kessler, you can ride from Kessler, basically, into Missouri,
completely away from traffic. I mean, it's incredible what the experience is of riding
the Razorback Greenway. Absolutely.
Matt Waller 27:18
You know, so and, and also, you know, in fact, as you know, I have a gravel bike,
a really nice one from Allied Cycleworks, an Able. And you didn't mention, I don't
think that you were actually the interim CEO of Allied Cycleworks for a couple of
years. And would you mind telling a little bit about that story?
Brendan Quirk 27:45
Sure. No, it was, you know, Allied, it's, it's most anything in the sport, sporting
goods space, that is carbon composite manufacturing, almost all of that, regardless
of the sport. It's golf club shafts, tennis rackets, skis, bicycle frames, by and
large, all of that is going to be Asian manufacturing, which the reason for Asian
manufacturing is obviously to keep costs low. I think there is a you know, there's
always a flip side to keeping costs low. And what you are seeing, at least in the
outdoor industry now is a movement towards onshoring, where the sophisticated manufacturing
is now coming back to the US. A lot of reasons for that costs are getting higher in
Asia, Asia, geopolitical pressure, but I also think there is a quality control. And
when you really look at the lifecycle of manufacturing, there's both quality control,
but also how quickly can you innovate? How quickly can you troubleshoot? It's difficult
when a lot of the decision makers are in North America, but the manufacturing is going
on in Asia. So I think there's a lot of time efficiency when you can, time efficiency
and and real cost efficiency and innovation acceleration when you onshore production.
Allied is one of the first companies that wanted to test this thesis of what happens
when everything is under one roof? What happens to the quality of the product? What
happens the pace of innovation? Can you be competitive on price when you manufacture
in the US? So like a lot of startups that had a little bit of a rocky road, when they
went to raise some money they came to RZC, they came to Tom and Steuart they said
would you be willing to to invest? They were really eager and excited. But they wanted
to you know, they just they really wanted to make sure that they had a very short
connection between where they sat and what was going on in the company. And so they
asked me if I would do an interim spell as CEO to ensure that their investment was,
you know, being stewarded in the best way possible. And so I was glad to do that.
I was interesting for me it was my first experience at a manufacturer environment.
I will tell you especially for your students out there, who are business students
who are unsure of the direction that they want to go in business, manufacturing is
something where you need to I feel certain you have to have a passion for manufacturing,
you have to be that guy who likes to take apart the the radio or the toaster or whatever,
and then put it back together. But manufacturing is something where you have to have
a native curiosity for it. Or else I think it's it's it is it's too hard manufacturing
is so hard. But if you have business students who are like man, I either want to go
to business school or I wanted to be an engineer. Those are the kinds of people that
the manufacturing environment is an amazing environment to be in. And that was a real
lesson for me.
Matt Waller 30:43
So your, your experience with selling bikes, selling cycling apparel, you know, manufacturing
bikes, promoting cultivating entrepreneurship and business activity around cycling.
You have a very broad experience and now your Chief Executive Officer of USA Cycling,
what is USA Cycling?
Brendan Quirk 31:10
USA Cycling is the national governing body of the sport of bike racing in the United
States. So we're like what the national governing bodies are. We've all heard of like
the US Olympic Committee, which is now known as the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee.
What it does is every sport in the Olympic program has a national governing body.
So the US US Golf Association is the national governing body of the sport of golf.
The US Tennis Association, for example, is a national governing body. We've all heard
of USA Track and Field, USA Swimming, USA Cycling is that you know, we are a nonprofit.
And our mission is twofold. We are responsible for growing the sport of bike racing
on a grassroots level all across America, while at the same time striving for sustained
international success with our national team, and sustained international success.
That means the Olympic Games, we're responsible for maximizing the Olympic medal count
for cycling every year or every four years in the Olympics. We are responsible for
delivering performances in the World Championships across all cycling disciplines.
And so on the one hand, our role is to introduce newcomers to the sport of bike racing.
But on the other hand, our goal is to identify promising talent, develop that promising
talent and then support Olympic medal capable athletes to achieve that international
success. So I have such a deep passion for bike racing, that for me, it's I really
nerd out on this and I get very excited about it. We host about 20 National Championships
every year, and we participate in World Cups and World Championships all across the
globe.
Matt Waller 32:53
We have something coming up later, in the middle of October, October 16 called the
UCI Cyclocross World Cup. Would you mind telling sharing a little bit about that?
Brendan Quirk 33:09
Yes, cyclocross is it used to be this kind of niche, wintertime sport, which is sort
of you can think of it's like a combination of kind of gravel riding and cross country
running is what it's basically the easiest way to describe it. And what has happened
over time is what started as a niche sport that was really popular in Belgium and
the Netherlands has turned into this cult global phenom wintertime phenomenon for
cycling. And it's an amazing sport. What's amazing about it is the races are short,
you know, the races are about 45 minutes to an hour long. You're doing laps, so it's
very friendly for spectators. It's very friendly for television. Historically, it
was the first cycling discipline where gender equity really came to life. In other
words, where the fan base was equally passionate for the women's races as it was for
the men's races. And it's such an exciting discipline that when we had the opportunity
to host the World Championship there in Fayetteville, we jumped on the opportunity
and it was a smash hit, how well it went. If you have the opportunity to go out to
the World Cup race, you'll get a real flavor of what it's like. On top of that, you
get to to get to visit Centennial Park there in Fayetteville. It is one of the foremost
cycling facilities in all of North America in terms of the caliber of the trails,
the caliber of the built infrastructure there. It is beautiful for cyclocross, it's
beautiful for mountain biking, but it's frankly it's also beautiful if you go up on
a you know, Saturday morning with your dog and just go take your dog for the walk.
You get some beautiful views from up there. Seeing all of Fayetteville looking south
towards the mountains. It's just gorgeous.
It is beautiful. I was amazed at the amount of stonework,
yeah.
Matt Waller 35:02
And just, it really is quite amazing. I think if you're listening this and you haven't
been to Centennial Park, it's worth going just to behold, like you say go for a walk,
but the cyclocross championship is so amazing. I had never seen it before. One of
the things that I really thought was interesting about it, Brendan, is that there
were literally people from all over the world, I met a bunch of people from the Netherlands
and Denmark and France, and just, you know, all over the world, it was surprising
that they all came here for this. And they were here for several days, because you'd
see them in restaurants and out and about what a great event. It was. I'm looking
forward to the next one that's coming up in a couple of weeks.
Brendan Quirk 35:57
We're excited to have it.
Matt Waller 35:59
Well, Brendan, thank you so much for taking time to share with us you have a very
unique experience in cycling, you probably are more knowledgeable about cycling than
anyone in the world. And so I appreciate you taking time to visit with me today.
Brendan Quirk 36:20
My pleasure. Well, it's good to see it, go hogs.
Matt Waller 36:24
On behalf of the Sam M. Walton College of Business, I want to thank everyone for spending
time with us for another engaging conversation. You can subscribe by going to your
favorite podcast service and searching be epic, B E E P IC
Matthew A. Waller is dean emeritus of the Sam M. Walton College of Business and professor of supply
chain management. His work as a professor, researcher, and consultant is synergistic,
blending academic research with practical insights from industry experience. This
continuous cycle of learning and application makes his work more effective, relevant,
and impactful.His goals include contributing to academia through high-quality research and publications,
cultivating the next generation of professionals through excellent teaching, and creating
value for the organizations he consults by optimizing their strategy and investments.
